Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-08-26
0NOrtester Daily Spp,
From Dickens's "All the Year Round"
A PHYSICIANS GHOSTS.

There is a vast difference between the real
external world and the seeming exterra
world 1t is well Known that there is world
OF internal vision, phantom world within us
which many and very different causes may
invest with apparent substance. The cere-
bral excitement of fever, those Instructions OF
organic changes of the brain which produce
insanity, even less: some fulness of blood
vessels as caused the Berlin bookseller Nicoai
to behold ocular spectra, may, as well as
many other physical states OF being, bring
about apparent extremity of objects, which are
really within the camera obscura of the mind
well remember a late celebrated physician
of Birmingham telling me an anecdote re-
specting himself, which bears upon this point.
He was sitting writing at a late hour in his
study, when, lifting up his eyes, he saw, as he
thought his maid Betty standing close to his
elbow with lighted bedroom candle in her
hand Surprising this to be a hint that Betty
wanted him to go to bed, or rather was her
self sleepy, he said to her, "Betty, you may
set down the candle and go to bed. | don't
want anything more tonight" Absorbed in
writing, DIR. L., conceiving Betty to be gone,
did not look up for some time after this. But
when he again raised his eyes, there stood
Betty with the candle in her hand as before.
The command to set it down and go to bed
was repeated but Betty never stirred. AT
two or three times, the doctor, surprised at
Betty's supposed perversity, and thinking she
must be afflicted with sudden deafness, put
out his hand to push her gently towards the
door, thereby more energeticaly to demon
strate that she was, on this occasion, "Mad-
anne de Trop." Then, said DIR. L., received
an unpleasant shock on discovering that Betty
was but thin air. My hand went through the
phantom; but even this did not dispense her
apparent corporeal presence. felt my pulse.
/ was in a raging fever. l drew out lancet
from my pocket, let myself blood, and as it
flowed from my arm, Betty, till then an obsti-
nate ghost, bent on not going to bed, was laid
in the red sea of the washhand- basin, which l
placed to catch the sanguine stream, and with
her departed the danger had run of having
violent fever
Everybody has not the knowledge and pres
ence of mind of DR.. L. The apparent exter-
nifty both of sounds and sights, where even
but slight bodily ailment can be detected, is,
on some occasions, surprising, and might well
alarm even a moderately instructed mind.
And if, unfortunately, religion, or rather want
of religion, should give fanatic tincture to
ypochondriacsm, the wretched feelings of
the seemingly haunted man will reach their
acme. Every one knows of Luther's wrest-
Ings with the devil, and there exist, doubt
not, many humble Luthers in human life.
Voices, too, out of the air, are apt to torment
the hypochondriac. Cowper, and Mrs Unwin
who caught the contagion from Cowper, lis
tened for audible Communications from the
spirit-world; and heard strange things from
demon regions.
To such selfwrought impressions as these
an accurate observer is disposed to add others
which cannot be sef-wrought. Not taking a
one sided view of the question, he allows dual
'ty in the production of certain phenomena.
lie does not say, where man palpably acts on
man. that the whole thing is automatic nei-
ther does he imagine, where two phenomena
are found in conjunction many times that
they can be explained by mere coincidence.
refer to such cases as are to be found as are
abundantly to be found described and stated
with undeniable evidence in a multitude of
works; cases where apparitions of a distant
friend are beheld by persons at the moment of
authenticated cases, and the great possibility
of their recurrence, is a strong argument with
me in favor of a certain mysterious influence
of human creature on human creature, which
will call thought-impressing.
Here, then, take the two principles in COM
bination namely:
1st Whatever is perceived by us, however
seemingly external, exists to us only in our
consciousness.
ing from mind, and from peculiar states OF
cerebral excitement an influence which may,
occasionally, touch the springs of conscious
ness within anotherS brain.
To prepare my readers mind for the ex-
IRENE case of an apparent vision OF 1rlend
just as he is dying, | throw together a few
familiar instances af common thought-impres-
sing.
Letters from friends arrive soon after we
have had those friends strangely present to
our thoughts, Again, the old proverb OF,
"Talk of the devil and he'll appear, is too
constantly verified by the apparation of our
friends at the wrong moment when, perhaps,
we are mauling them as only dear friends one
another), to be referred to the doctrine Of
coincidence And observe; this phenomena
happens oftenest where we expected our friend
last, nay, sometimes, when the inopportune
friend is supposed to be thousand miles
away.
Again; it happens often, that, as we walk
in the street. we suddenly think we sec well
known face and figure, and We arc about to
bow undoubtingly. But no, the stare OF sur
prise in the person we half salute shows us we
were mistaken. We look more narrowly, and
we perceive it is not our friend; nay, as we
approach nearer, we begin to wonder how we
could have taken the stranger for him. They
are so unlike. But, 10, on proceeding onward
a few hundred yards, we do really encounter
our man in prOpT1d persona. Why should we
have an avant-courier-a double so apropos
and so pertinent to the occasion? hazard
the solution that the mental atmosphere OF our
friend had impressed us previous to his person
al appearance.
But the domain in which thought-impress-
ing may be best studied in each mans own
home. Persons who live together, acquire
nj q
face. The resemblance of married people to
each other which began by unlikeness is pro-
verbal. A sympathetic atmosphere envelops
families, and amongst every domestic circle, If
the attention be once drawn to the subject a
great deal of human influence, and transmits
sion of silent thought, will be everywhere per-
ceived.
Of the merely mental impression will re-
late two instances. The first was told to me
by the late Professor Wilson, Of Edinburgh, to
whom it occurred. The other happend to my
self:
zone thing which impressed me strongly
when was yet in careless bachelorhood, SAID
Professor Wilson, "was the following. was
in Ireland, on visit to charming family,
where the sons were all brave and the daugh-
tiers beautiful. With gay party, in which
the element of youth predominated, went, IN
the course of this visit, on picnic excursion
to some ruins of an ancient castle in the neigh
borhood. We were all dotted picturesquely
about the noss-grown stones that lay strewn
about the inner court of the broken edifice
the turf formed our table, and on this snow.
white cloth decorously presented pies, hams,
chickens, and bottles to our view. The thick
of the dinner being over we still sat, or loled
in that pleasant prolongation of repast which
is the best part of thing of the sort but as
we knew That according to the programme