The Arizona sentinel., 1885-08-08
VISIONS OR THE DARKNESS
The Queer Sights Some People Sas When Their Eyes Arc shass
 tha aax

When Their Eyes Arc shut
 [From ths si James Gaxst.a)
 Some months ago there appeared in ono of the monthly reviews Q paper on "The
 Visions of Sane Persons," contributed
 by Mir. Galton. In this article that dis
 tinguished writer brought forward some cases, which he seemed to think re-
 markable, of persons who, when in the dark, saw strange apparitiOns. Not that these persons imagined that what filled
 then vision existed anywhere out of it.
 But these phantoms had all the appear.
 snce of external objects, and were cer- tainly not produced by any effort of memory or imagination, but quite invoi.
 untarily. One lady told how she used to see in thls way, from time to time. showers of red roses, which presently turned into flight of golden speckles or spangles, the roses being presented to her vision as distinctly as real flowers in broad day might be. (And not only so, but the lady says she used to smell their perfume, too; but there is nothing like that in my own e1perience.) And there were stories of faces seen iu the dark in like manner; not pictures in the mem. ory, but seemingly standing of upon the air for the eye to gaze upon, and coming and going as with . will and purpose of their own.
 What struck me most about all this when 1 read 1t was that MT. Galton should think it strange enough to lay before the world as curiosity. Fer all my life had myself been familiar with phantoms of this kind and without much thought about the matter assumed that many, if not most other people, were equally at home with them. The golden spangles too used to see when was a child; only instead of turning into showers of roses in my vision they were transformed into hocks of sheep running rapidly down hill, as in a distant land. scape. When the sheep got to the bot tom of the hill they faded into the dark ness and then the tiny bright-yellow spangles appeared at the top again, to be again transformed. There was not much in that, however; though dare say, since MT. Galton thinks SO, that as . visual llusionit was curious. But as to the faces that appear to my vision in the dark, that is another matter. After having been haunted by them in civil, quiet way for many years, still find them very interestingi indeed.
 These faces are never seen except when the eyelids are closed, and they have always an apparent distance of four or five feet. Though they seem living enough, and not mere pictures or reflections, they look through the darkness as if traced in chalk on . black ground. Color sometimes they have, but the color is very faint. Notb. ing more than face is ever seen, and. except for fraction of moment, per. haps, not all at one time. Here and there their lines waver, fade and return, as if drawn with a pencil of phosphorus: but there is no phosphoric appearance about them, their general aspect is as if their substance were of pale smoke. The faces in the dark always confront the vision. Only one I have seen in profile; and this, also, was singular in bearing a certain resemblance to some one whom knew in real life. For (to mel the most remarkable thing about these visionary faces is that, while they are always of 8 strikingly- distinctive character, they are like none that can ever remember to have seen in life or in pictures. Passing through the street we see hundreds of people with unfa- miliar faces, of whom yet we could not say that we beheld nobody like them before. But occasionally some very strange or striking, or what may be called original, face meets our view and excites our wonder. Now, my faces in the dark are all of that character. As look at them for there they are, plain to be looked at-and ask myself who was ever like that, find no answer except in fancied resemblance to some historical or myth ological parsonage. Possibly Blake's visions were some such faces as these. presented to his eyes in broad daylight; I am inclined to think it might have been so, because his wonderful and dreadful drawing, "The Ghost of a Flea, is precisely such transcript as I could have made by the score had I pos sessed the artists skill and his memory for transcription. My faces in the dark are much more often of men than of women; they are rarely quite agreeable. But they are all extremely interesting (when they can be endured), because 2 they look like the heet1ng embodiment of some passion or some mood of mind; usually not the best of moods. There { are some very noble faces among these 6 apparitions-I rather mean expressive c of great nobility; but have never seen !, among them the mask of pity or love, or of any tender emotion. Grief the most { 1espairing, scorn, pride, hatred, greed, cunning inquiry, envious or triumphant nockery-if Blake really did see these faces. either in daylight or in darkness. |. le must have had more than his irnag. ! eAtion to draw upon when he depicted l