The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-04-05
FACES I'm THE DARE.
tSt. James Gazette.l

| tSt James Gazette.
Some months ago there appeared in
one of the monthly reviews a paper on
The Visions of Sane Persons" con-
tributed by Mr. Gallon. In this article
that distinguished writer brought for
ward some cases which he seemed TO
think remarkable, of persons who, when
they were in the dark, saw strange ap-
partitions. Not that these persons i'm
agined that what filed their vision ex-
listed anywhere out of it. But these
phantoms had all the appearance of ex-
ternal objects, and were certainly not
produced by any effort of memory or
imagination, but quite Involuntary.
One lady told how she used to see in
this way, from time to time, showers of
red roses, which presently turned into
| fight 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 per-
fume, too; but there's nothing like that
in my own experience.) And there were
stories of faces seen in the dark in like
manner; not pictures in the memory,
but seemingly standing off 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 / read it was that Mr.. Gallon
should think it strange enough to lay
before the world as a curiosity. For all
my life / had myself been familiar with
phantoms of this kind, and, without
much thought about the matter, as
;umed that many, if not most other peo-
pie, were equally at home with them.
when ] was a child; only instead of
turning into showers of roses, in my
vision they were transformed into fiocks
of sheep running rapidly down HILL as
in distant landscape. When the sheep
got to the bottom of the hill they faded
into the darkness; and then the tiny
bright yellow spangles appeared at the
top again, to be again transformed.
There was not much interest in that,
however; though | dare say, since Mr..
Gallon thinks so, that as visual illu-
sion it 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 a civil, quiet
way for many years, still ind them
very interesting 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 dark.
ness as if traced in chalk on a black
ground. Color sometimes they have,
but the color is very faint. Nothing
more than face is ever seen; and ex-
cept for fraction of a moment, perhaps,
not all the face 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.
These faces in the dark always confront
the vision. OBly one have ever seen
in profile; and this also was singular in
bearing a certain resemblance to some
one whom | know in real life. For Ito
me) the most remarkable thing about
these visionary faces is that while they
are always of strikingly distinctive
character they are like none that / can
ever remember to have seenin life or In
pictures. Ny 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 they look
like the Heeting embodiment of some
passion or some mood of mind; usually