Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1896-10-08

How? That is a worn out super
stition"
Just as 1 seem about to go to sleep
there comes a knocking on my door"
Does your wife hear it?''
NO"
How do you account for it?"
Doctor, you are q professional man,
and what l tell you now is in conf
dence. The knockiugs that keep me
awake began the night that Placide
died Something strange happened.
It was this: l came down to Warren
that day on private business. and I
stopped over night at the old inn
called Coles Hotel Early in the
morning l was awakened by a knock
ing on my bedroom door There stood
a tall, thin figure in white; it was Pla-
eide. He did not look natural. He
said: 1t is the last time; came into
your life in love and l go out Of it in
love. We have shared life together
for many years. shall never see you
again in the flesh. 1t is the last time
| have been truep He moved back
down the stairs out into the night.
How could it have been Pit was the
very morning that he died! The next
night, just as | seemed to fall into
sleep, crossing the border land as it
were. the knocking returned just as
it sounded the night before But moth
ing was there. | hear it in the very
moment that | am passing into sleep,
and [ can get no sleep at all until |
am exhausted Then | do not sleep-I
wander off in Dreams It is all ter
rible. Did you ever hear of such a case
before? Knockings and no one
there?"
Yes. | have read of like cases.
Insane patients sometimes think that
they hear voices in the moment of
waking. These voices at that time.
when the mind is clear, may tell them
the truth about their condition. For
example, the poet, Cowper, thought
that he was a lost soul; that he had
committed the objectionable sin.
There was in his time a famous lady
who had the same hallucination. One
day she dashed to the floor a glass vase
and said that she was as surely
damned as the glass would be broken.
But the glass did not break. 1t was
taken up whole. One morning Cow
per in the moment of waking heard as
he thought a voice saying, A whole
glass; What ails you is hallucina-
ton
Insane people, did you say doctor?"
Eyes, or those subject to hallucina-
tion?"
What is the cause of hallucina-
tion?"
"An overweight Imagination; often
a disturbed conscience"
81 have always actel on principle |
once lad letter to write that caused
me pang. l hated to do it, | had to
do it. 1t left a darkness in my mind"
you must have rest" | said. There
came back to me the words of Luther,
the undertaken; "and it was night
Rest! what would l give for rest. I
haven't had any gocd rest since |
wrote-well you can't know all-since
Placide died Doctor, what do you
suppose it was that | saw"
Your mind is in a state that is sub
ject to Authorizations. You must have
a change. What you saw that night
might have been Placide himself.
What you hear now is Illusion"
Doctor, could a dying man appear
to another bodily?"
Possibly"
Doctor, you speak OF hallucination.
After [ wrote that letter that moral
principle caused me to write, I was
once passing an open church door,
when these words came flying out
after me from the pulpit: And he
went out and it was nightr [ don't
know where they come from, but they
fly after me in the air Oh, doctor.
wish l could never hear them again.
Who said them? WAC wrote them? /
wish you could get them out of the air,
doctor. | am prosecuted. Why,
doctor, have always acted on princf-
pie. Placides father was insaner'
The last sentence seemed discon-
nected with the subject that had pre-
ceded it,
| stood thinking. He was making
an excuse for some conscious wrong
doing. He was trying to quiet an ac-
cusing voice within. Night had fallen
upon his inward life. He, somehow
felt that he was responsible for the
ruin Of one whose heart had alvey
been true to him.