Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/156

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
136
Telepathic Hallucinations

she saw the figure coming up. She recognised it at once and ran away to Lady H., without waiting to see the figure disappear, and told her what she had seen. Lady H. laughed at her, but told her to note it in her diary. This Miss Hervey did. I saw the entry: "Saturday, April 21st, 1888, 6 P.M. Vision of [nickname given] on landing in grey dress." The news of death did not arrive till June. Date of death, April 22, 1888, at 4.30 p.m.

Lady H. writes:

July 30th, 1893.

Dear Sir—Your letter dated April 6th has followed me back to England, and I should have answered it a week or two sooner, but I thought my son from Tasmania might be able to throw some light on your search for a definite corroboration of Miss Hervey's account of an apparition which she tells you she saw when in Tasmania with us in 1888. He, however, can do little more than I can for its confirmation. He recollects that Miss Hervey made such a statement at the time, and I seem to remember something about it, but nothing really definite.

The dress of the nurses at the hospital in question is a check pattern of white and blue with a little red. It has a greyish tone at a distance, but the colour coincidence is not sufficiently striking to carry much weight. The difference of time between Tasmania and Dublin is about ten hours, so that the vision preceded the death by about thirty-two hours.

The great bulk of the cases in our collection are of the same type as the five narratives last quoted: the figure seen is more or less realistic; it is recognised by the person to whom it appears; and the