Part 4 (1/2)

”Well, he got better for a week and was nearly well, but at the end of six or seven days after this I was called to see him suddenly. He had inflammation of both lungs.

”I called in Sir William Jenner, but in six days he was a dead man. There were two male nurses attending him; one had been taken ill. But when I saw the other the dream of the d.u.c.h.ess was exactly represented. He was standing near a bath over the Earl, and, strange to say, his beard was red. There was the bath with the red lamp over it, it is rather rare to find a bath with a red lamp over it, and this brought the story to my mind.

”The vision seen by the d.u.c.h.ess was told two weeks before the death of Lord L----. It is a most remarkable thing. This account, written in 1888, has been revised by the late Duke of Manchester, father of the d.u.c.h.ess of Hamilton, who heard the vision from his daughter on the morning after she had seen it.

”MARY HAMILTON.

”ALFRED COOPER.”

Mr Myers adds:

”The d.u.c.h.ess only knew Lord L---- by sight, and had not heard that he was ill. She knew she was not asleep, for she opened her eyes to get rid of the vision, and, shutting them, saw the same thing again.

”An independent and concordant account has been given to me (F.

W. H. M.) orally by a gentleman to whom the d.u.c.h.ess related the dream on the morning after its occurrence.”

One of the most interesting and well-authenticated cases of dreams foretelling a death is that of Mr Fred Lane, understudy to that popular actor the late William Terriss. His statement is as follows:--

”Adelphi Theatre,

”December 20th, 1897.

”In the early morning of December 16th, 1897, I dreamt that I saw the late Mr Terriss lying in a state of delirium or unconsciousness on the stairs leading to the dressing-rooms in the Adelphi Theatre. He was surrounded by people engaged at the theatre, amongst whom were Miss Millward and one of the footmen who attend the curtain, both of whom I actually saw a few hours later at the death scene. His chest was bare and clothes torn aside. Everybody who was around him was trying to do something for his good. This dream was in the shape of a picture. I saw it like a tableau on which the curtain would rise and fall. I immediately after dreamt that we did not open at the Adelphi Theatre that evening. I was in my dressing-room in the dream, but this latter part was somewhat incoherent. The next morning, on going down to the theatre for rehearsal, the first member of the company I met was Miss H----, to whom I mentioned this dream. On arriving at the theatre I also mentioned it to several other members of the company including Messrs Creagh Henry, Buxton, Carter Bligh, etc. This dream, though it made such an impression upon me as to cause me to relate it to my fellow-artists, did not give me the idea of any coming disaster. I may state that I have dreamt formerly of deaths of relatives and other matters which have impressed me, but the dreams have never impressed me sufficiently to make me repeat them the following morning, and have never been verified. My dream of the present occasion was the most vivid I have ever experienced; in fact, lifelike, and exactly represented the scene as I saw it at night.”

Three members of the company--Mr Carter Bligh, Mr Creagh Henry, and Miss H---- --made statements that Mr Lane related his dream in their presence on the morning of 16th December. Mr Lane was in the vicinity of the Adelphi Theatre when the murderer, named Prince or Archer, who had been employed as a super at the theatre, stabbed Terriss at the stage entrance to the theatre. The actor was taken to the Charing Cross Hospital, where he died almost immediately. It is interesting to note that it was Lane himself who ran to the hospital for the doctor, and on his return looked in at the stage entrance and saw Terriss lying on the stairs just as he had seen him in the dream.

While I am fully alive to the possibilities of coincidence, there certainly does not seem to be much besides levity in the theory that ”it happened to be Jones's hour to see a hallucination of Thompson when it happened to be Thompson's hour to die,” especially when, as frequently happens, the hallucination occurs more than once to the same percipient.

A Parisian journalist, M. Henri Buisson, sends to ”The Annals of Psychical Science” an account of three premonitory dreams all of which were told to others before they were fulfilled. In the first, which occurred on June 8th, 1887, M. Buisson saw his grandmother ”stretched dead on her bed, with a smile on her face as if she slept.” Above the bed, in a brilliant sun, he read the date, ”June 8th, 1888,” just a year later; and on that day his grandmother died quite suddenly, with her face as calm as he had seen it in his dream.

On another occasion M. Buisson saw his mother, not dead, but very ill, and attended by a doctor, who had died more than a year before, after having been the family physician for thirty years. The next day M.

Buisson received a telegram saying that his mother was ill, and, in fact, she died during the day.

In April 1907, M. Buisson dreamt that he received notice to quit his house on pretence of a message from the Prefect of Police, and that on looking out of the window he saw the Prefect in the street, dressed in a leather jacket, with a soft hat, and a slipper on one foot. He also dreamt that a fire had broken out. On the evening of the next day he heard the fire-engines, and on following them he found the Prefect on the spot, dressed just as in the dream, having hurt one foot, he had to go about in a slipper.

Of still another type is the clairvoyant dream. The following is related by Mr Herbert J. Lewis, of Cardiff:--

”In September 1880 I lost the landing-order of a large steamer containing a cargo of iron ore, which had arrived in the port of Cardiff. She had to commence discharging at six o'clock the next morning. I received the landing-order at four o'clock in the afternoon, and when I arrived at the office at six I found that I had lost it. During all the evening I was doing my utmost to find the officials of the Customs House to get a permit, as the loss was of the greatest importance, preventing the s.h.i.+p from discharging. I came home in a great degree of trouble about the matter, as I feared that I should lose my situation in consequence.

”That night I dreamt that I saw the lost landing-order lying in a crack in the wall under a desk in the Long Room of the Customs House.

”At five the next morning I went down to the Customs House and got the keeper to get up and open it. I went to the spot of which I had dreamt, and found the paper in the very place. The s.h.i.+p was not ready to discharge at her proper time, and I went on board at seven and delivered the landing-order, saving her from all delay.

”I can certify to the truth of the above statement,

”HERBERT J. LEWIS,

”THOMAS LEWIS