that coincidences* of the kind here
contemplated?and they
for the most part nothing more?are susceptible of other than a celestial interpretation. On the other hand, there are cases which it would be almost an irreverence to try and dis-
a-e
pose of on any other than a supernatural assumption, but of these we may treat further on, and meanwhile I cannot refuse myself the satisfaction of saying that I believe that many, if not all the
attempts that are made by pious persons, to counterby means of this and other obscure mental states, the prevailing scepticism of the day, are miserable failures. I will go further and say that physiology does not, in iny humble judgment, lend any support to the belief in a separate spiritual entity or existence; it only shovrs the possibility of such a being or condition,f and witli that possibility the humble Christian may act
well be content. To aim at more would be to raise up difficulties he may be unable to solve, if they did not show him that, in this, as in other concerns of life, there are two sides to every question, and that the first one is not, as such,
necessarily right. A middle course which neither arrogantly ignores the existence of the unseen or peevishly follows the more attractive path of scientific, perhaps I ought to call it scoffing, doubt,
It will have the additional merit of open to suggestions from either side, as well as admitting ' thinkers' may think or of freer illustration, and whatever no doubt that, to use Young's say to the contrary, there is illustration, an attack of fever is unfavorable to the cultivation will therefore be the best.
being
" the of atheism, and that mankind have believed in a
DO YOU BELIEVE IjST PRESENTIMENT P
By Surgeon-Major I
Wii. Curran, A.M.D. heard asked at
public table, question lately question I have set myself to answer here. It has been frequently asked in my presence before and as frequently evaded ; and, though I can scarcely pretend to be wiser in respect of it than my neighbours, yet it is a subject that has occasionally engaged my thoughts, and that I intended discussing, some day, in these or other professional pages. It is, at least, one wlrch a medical man may more appropriately take up than an outsider, inasmuch as its due consideration must imply some knowledge of physiology, and yet it is not altogether free from an element of, or rather an association with, the supernatural, which would seem to relegate it to the domain of the theologian or the preacher ? To which of these it more properly belongs, need not be determined at present, but I may be permitted to add that I think it may be accounted for on either hypothesis, without any serious offence to, or violent disruption of, existing beliefs, and 1 heartily agree with Copland* when he says that " the desire of publishing whatever appears singular or anomalous, chiefly from an insufficient recognition of all the phenomena, and often from the neglect of many which are most important, gives rise to an accumulation of false facts which bewilder even when they fail of misleading." Anxious to avoid the error indicated above, as well as to do justice to the subject from my own individual standpoint, I will here reproduce such instances of presentiment only as are vouched for by their narrators, whether verbally or in content and myself with such explanation or inference print, respecting them as a common-sense view of their origin or surroundings may suggest. The phenomena are strange enough in themselves, without being enhanced by exaggeration or tricked up to support a foregone conclusion, and I am among those who think that revelation is able to take care of itself, and Such was the and sucli is the
Dictionary
of
a
Practical Medicine, Vol. II, p. 674.
general thought and conscience of Gk>d, semper et uiique, everywhere and at all times."(J) Anyhow, while avoiding the Scylla of doubt, I will, I hope, be able to steer clear of the Charybdia of enthusiasm, and in this way relate or utter without any to my own individuality, stories or sentiments that may appear incredible or ridiculous. Further, having given
prejudice
and verse for such illustrations as I may employ, I leave the latter to take care of themselves. Neither can
chapter must
I,
under
with
a
these
circumstances,
local habitation and
a
be
fairly
accused of
things unreal and phantoms Which morbid minds spew forth as fumes That circling rise and take on lying forms. *
investing
name.
vain,
"
There is often," says Kaye, "in the simultaneous, the coincidental, and apparent uniformity of tendency which simulates design, but which, so far A History of the as human agency is concerned, is wholly fortuitous coincidences, see Sepoy War, Vol. I, p. 245. For some curious historical Vol. of Ed.) I., p. 508, and Vol. England, (People's Macaulay's History II, p. 763, and the following from the I'ioneer of July 28th, 1877, speaks for itself. It comes through that paper's Loudon correspondent, and runs
as follows: ''The late Sir Benjamin Brodie and the late John G. Perry, Esq., one of H. M.'s Inspectors of Prisons, were two of a party who once sat down to play whist at (I think) the late Dr. Erie's. If my memory serves me right, I hare heard also that Mr. Warren, the author of Ten Thousand a Year, was present on the night in question. At one time I possessed a memorandum of all the party, rather a considerable one, who were in the it. AVhat occurred was this : The four intendroom, but I have long lost ing players approached the card-table and cut for partners. They cut a thing never such ! aces the lour Perhaps happened before, and never on that occasion I feel quite satisfied. may again. That it did happen The rubber was postponed. At the suggestion of one of the party, pens, ink, and paper were sent for, and a statement of ihe occurrence was drawn up and approved. Three other copies were made of this statement, and all four were signed by all four players, each of whom took one. And one of these signed statements I have myself seen and read on three or four occasions at the house of one of these players, when he was relating to his guests the singular occurrence." t Bain's view on this point is, I believe, now generally accepted by phyIt is as follows: " So far as concerns the siologists and entire compass of our feelings and emotions, it is the universal testimony of mankind that these have no independent spiritual subsistence, but are in every case embodied in our fleshly form Mind and Body, by Alexander Bain, p. 8,. To the same effect speaks Mr. Baden Powell, in the "Indian Christian Intelligencer" for June 1877, p. 18, whereat he says, a propos of Bain's views, as above, that '? we see it established, to almost demonstration that all mental processes whatever are connected with the brain and the nerves, find we have absolutely no experience of mind as a separate immaterial existence apart from the body ; that mind is a separate existence, or is immortal and survives the body by itself, there is not the shadow of eviSee also, in the same direction, M. Tullii Ciceronis Tusculanadence rium Disputationum, I. 0., 22, versus finem, and indeed passim. J The Other World; or, Glimpses of the Supernatural. Edited by the Bev. F. G. Lee, D. C. L., Vol. I, p. 5.
metaphysicians.
"
"
DO YOU BELIEVE IN PRE SENTIMENT ??BY W
April 1, 1878.]
Before rushing in medias res it may be as well to ask ourselves the question : What is presentiment; and whether belief in it is peculiar to any particular phase of life or condition of society ? To these inquiries I would hesitatingly reply that presentiment is nothing more nor less than a ?vivid, often a painful, anticipation of unforeseen injury or evil, and that it appears to occur, in equal proportion, in all classes of the community. It is more frequently evoked by conditions that imply misgiving or actual danger, than by those of an opposite complexion, but fear or fanaticism has ever been its nursing mother, and it grows apace with ignorance, solitude and superstition.* This, however, is not always so. Some of the wisest and best of our race have been influenced by a belief in its reality, and we not unfrequently find ourselves or hear others use such phrases as "something told me so." '' I had an imprpssion to that effect," or the like, on the occurrence of any sudden calamity, disappointment or other startling or disagreeable event. Neither does this belief always imply a morbid state of the of its affections. On the very contrary, the strongest, as we shall see further on, have, at times, yielded to its spell, and the the worst that can be predicated of its subjects or victims is that they are, generally speaking, persons of a highly nervous, That this morbidlv susceptible, or emotional turn of mind. or tendency is, however, very liable or likely to mind
or
susceptibility
by such accessories or associations as precede or one feels on the eve of a long jouraccompany a battle, or that ney, or other painful separation,f admits of no doubt, and for such doubts the instincts of our common humanity, the danbe intensified
uncertainty of our return, the love of voyage, life, or the fears of kindred, may suggest a sufficient cause. The frequency with which it is said to occur in the evening of gers of
or
our
life, during
that
the
twilight
of the
understanding
in which the
mind's eye takes stock of the past, or looks wistfully towards the uncertain future, would seem to point to an anaemic rather than a normally nourished brain, for its origination. On the other hand, undue vascularity of some portion of its structure may be inferred in cases where joyous excitement or even enthusiasm accompanies the anticipation of death, and in either the greater sensibility or more intuitive apprehensiveness of woman, would naturally point her out as its favourite recicase
or medium. It does not appear, however, that she is more favoured in this respect than her brother, and I am not aware of any examinations that could throw light on the patho-
pient
l?gy
of this
phenomenon.
We may roughly divide cases of presentiment, for purposes of illustration or comparison, into those that point to pleasure or that foreshadow pain, and of these the latter are far the more numerous of the two. They are, indeed, so numerous as virtually to exclude the others ; for, though we will see as we advance that fanaticism or enthusiasm may lend a temporary exaltation to their victims, yet is this feature of the case the exception rather than the rule, and a division into subjective and less open to adverse criticism. To these we may add
is
*
o'rjective a
mixed
"
What Scott says in one of his notes to The heart of Midlothian," of the effects produced by persecution, fanaticism and spiritual excitement or isolation on the Cameronian sect will apply generally to the accessories or con. of preditions noted in the text, and the influence of these on the sentiment is, I think, equally obvious. Anyhow these conditions conduce to it, and with this impression I will leave the text to speak for itself. "The gloomy, dangerous and constant wanderings of the persecuted sect of Cameronians, naturally led to their entertaining with peculiar credulity the belief that they were sometimes persecuted, not only by the wrath of man, but by the secret wiles and open terrors of Satan. In fact a flood could not a horse cast a shoe, or any other the most ordinary interruption thwart a minister's wish to perform service at a particular spot than the accident was imputed to the immediate agency of the fiends. The encounter of Alexander Peden with the Devil in the cave and that of John Semple with the demon in the ford, are given by Peter Walker almost in the language of the text." See the Edinburgh Edition of 1866, P. 415. t "Something tells me," Byron said to I.ady Blessington, as he was about to leave Italy : " I shall never again return from Greece." See the J.ife and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington. By 1*. K. Madden, Vol. I, p. 8ti.
production
happen,
Literary
CURRAN, AM.D.
95
intermediate variety, which partakes of the character of being typically distinctive of either, in which dreams, apparitions, and the so-called Second-Sight* may be included ; and premising that the whole subject is fraught with or
both without
or mystery which it would be folly in me unravel, I will proceed to relate instances in point, and subjoin such explanation as their associations may suggest in passing. Such further comment or criticism as they may suga
degree
to
try
of difficulty
to
can be better dealt with hereafter. The late F. M. Pollockf used, according to his biographer, Mr. Lowe, to tell a story of an artillery officer, named Percival, who fell at the siege of Bhurtpore, under circumstances which clearly indicated that he was at the time, and doubtless in conse-
gest
of this
quence
impression scarcely
morning," the story goes, a strong presentiment of
"
a
free agent.
"
All the
Percival had been
weighed down by approaching fate, and when he
his went down in the course of the afternoon to take his turn of duty in his battery, he told Pollock that he would never return to camp, and left him a valuable gun as a memento of their
friendship. Soon after his mortar battex-y requesting wounded.
sitting which,
on
arrival he sent a soldier into the Pollock to go and see him as he was The latter did as he was desired, and found Percival a gun-carriage, with his hand pressing his head,
he
thought, had been wounded. On examination, his friend found that a round shot had knocked off his bear's skin, but Percival himself was untouched ; though so satisfied was he that he was about to meet his death that he could not, at first, be assured of his mistake. A little later in the afternoon an artillery man came round a second time from Percival's battery, and requested Lieutenant Pollock to come and see his friend. He did so, and found him lying prone on the earth, shot through the head. He was mortally wounded and speechless, and (he) died during the night." Here we see that the very intensity of the impression or belief with which this poor lad was oppressed, actually over shot itself, and betrayed him into a demonstration that might, at any other time, have been mis-
construed to the detriment of his courage or composure. A friend, who was present at the time, and cognizant of all the particulars, lately mentioned to me a case that occurred within of his own personal knowledge at the Cape, and much akin to the above, that I make no excuse for introducing it here. It runs to the effect that, during the Kaffir War, and at a time when medical officers were urgently needed with the troops in the interior, a certain member of the the
sphere
which is
so
department, whose name need not be given, most urgently besought the late Mr. Alexander, at that time P. M. 0. at the Cape, and subsequently Director-General, not to send him to the front as he had a presentiment that if he went he would certainly be killed there. Mr. Alexander, though much pressed for professional aid with the force in front, so far yielded to his entreaties as to keep him on duty at Cape Town, and meanwhile this officer made no secret of the anticipation that preyed upon his mind. But necessity recognises no law either of courtesy or kindred, and, there being no other surgeon available at the received an order to march and obeyed it. That time, Dr. very evening, as the column with which he was proceeding was about to halt, it was fired upon, from an ambuscade, and Dr. was sent for, and meanwhile darkness one man fell. having supervened he very injudiciously, as it would now appear, ordered a light to be brought to enable him to examine * The authoress of the Autobiography of Flora M'Donald defines Second Sight as follows : " It is termed in Gaelic Taibshe, which means a vision or a spectre, and may be considered as a kind of impression made either by tbe mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which means events distant or near ?t hand are seen as if visibly present?" The Autobiography of Flora M'Donald, p. 34. See, also, in the same direction, The Highland Widow (Ed. 1863), p. 337; Johnson's Celebrated Tour to the Hebrides passim, and the Memoirs, Journals, &c.> of Thomas Moore, edited by Lord John Kussell, Vol. V, pp. 283-4 and 286-7. t The i.ife and Correspondence of Field Marshal Sir George Pollock, Bart., by Lowe, pp. 43-4.
THE INDIAN" MEDICAL GAZETTE.
96 hi3 patient. No sooner had this recommenced, and it3 first victim
been was
done than the firing the officer just referred
to.
General Oglethorpe* told ns," says Boswell, " that Prendergast, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's Army, mentioned to "
many of his friends that he should die on a particular day ; that the French ; that after it upon that day a battle took place with was over and Prendergast was still alive, his brother officers,
they were yet in the field, jestingly asked him where prophecy now. Prendergast gravely answered, I shall
while
was
"
die Soon afterwards their came a shot from a French battery to which the orders for a cessation of I arms had not rtached, and he was killed upon the spot." have been told that the famous Captain Nolan had a presenti-
his
notwithstanding what you see."
ment of hi3 death, so also had a Captain of a F.egiment with which I was connected for several years, who was killed, I believe, in the affair of the quarries in the Crimea, and King-
lakef says that
"
Captain Charteris?fulfilling an incurable presentiment?fell dead at his (Lord Cardigan's) side" in the celebrated charge of ' the six-hundred.' Some people appear to be oppressed with a feeling of this kind from a very early period of their lives, while others take it up suddenly in the very midst of prosperity and health,J and the following is so suggestive of purpose or interposition that I cannot refuse myself the gratification of quoting it at length. It occurs in a book? that has been already referred to and runs as follows : " At the village of Bloxwich, in the diocese of Lichfield, a miner resided, who "one morning in 1872, on his way to the pit's mouth, had a strong presentiment that He returned home, comhe should be killed at his work. municated his impressions to his wife (who expostulated with him for being so fanciful and superstitious), and then insisted on seeing all his children. They were assembled. He took down his Prayer Book and Bible, read a chapter from the latter, and afterwards said
of hi3 accustomed prayers. Then, affectionately greeting wife and children, he went to his work, with the same strange but vivid presentiment of approaching death upon him as his wife testifies. He had not been at work many minutes when he was suddenly crushed to death by the
fall of
a
"Women appear to be than men, and this, not
susceptible of these impressions perhaps from their greater sensibility as from that instinctive, nay almost intuitive impulse, with which they are often rightly guided towards a conclusion. Anyhow, their impressions often appear to be more more
so
much
1878.
enduring than those of the sterner sex, and once a thoroughly mastered the details of an unpleasant event of this kind, 'tia all but impossible to reason her out of it. Many instances in point might be enumerated, but the following must suffice for the present. Catherine de Medicis* was so apprehensive of disaster to her husband, Benry the Second of France, that she did all in her power to dissuade him from taking part in the tournament in which he lost his life through a lance thrust that penetrated his brain through the eye. A writer in a late number of the Cornhill Magazinef eulogizing the conduct of one Robert Arkley, who was, it appears, very daring and successful in his endeavours to rescue shipwrecked sailors, writes as follows : His wife had a strong presentiment that some evil would befall him in the Brigade service, and he always encountered from her the strongest his going out, particularly at night, opposition to vivid and
woman
has
"
has been known to make his escape br the window when she had secured the doors And thus he continued fearless himself and devoted to the duty he had undertaken until his wife's worst fears were terribly verified." lie
Scott, whose tales are, I need scarcely remark, largely fact, gives a very similar account of a case of presentiment on the part of a lady in a note to one of his numerous fictions, and I have often dwelt in connection with this subject on a very pathetic, if 'tis not an actually painful, passage that that 3\Ir. (now Sir) C. G. Duffy occurs in one of the pretty ballads It relates to the has embodied in his interesting collection. tragical fate of three men who were shot, after or during a faction-fight, by the police in Ireland, and represents a child questioning his mother, as follows, about the delay of his Sir Walter
based on
father
:?
Come tell me, dearest mother, what makes my father stay, Or what can be the reason that he's so Ion" away ? " Oh ! hold your tongue, my darling son, your tears do me sore,
I fear he has been murdered in the fair of
some
rock."
[Afeil 1,
grieve
Turloughmore."
And sure enough the poor man in question was killed, under the circumstances noted above, and about the very time that the feeling interview jusfc referred to took place.
Dreams, though for the most part unworthy of serious analysis at the hands of the physiologist, are yet sometimes so vivid, picturesque, and striking as to impress the strongest minds, and that means, perhaps, lead to their own verification. However that may be, their evil auguries are sometimes so fully realized, and that too after a fashion that is as strange as it is startling, that the veriest materialist must pause and ask himself if there be
by
agency over and above him which may apeak in a dream in vision of the night. Anyhow such has ever been the belief, as in Christian times. Visions and among men, as well in pagan if dreams are the very foundation of prophecy, and Cicero
no a
Boswell's Life of Johnson, Routledge's Edition, Vol. II ' pp. 111-12 t The invasion of the Crimea, Vol. IV, pp. 322-3. t For an account of a presentiment with which the Duke de Berry appears to have been haunted all his life, see an Article, "The Child of Miracle," that appeared in Eraser for December 1873,' p 776 and as regards the other phase of the case, Lord Campbell tells us in his Lives of the Chancellors, Vol. I, p. 68, that "it would appear that he (Thomas A Becket) himself, while Chancellor, and a devoted friend and servant of Henry, had a presentiment of his future destiny, and we may believe an earnest desire to avoid it." It would appear that Wolsey was also impressed in the same wa,y, while at the very height of his prosperity, and the same graphic wn er assures us, Ibid, Vol. IV, p. 339. that Lord Jeffrey's father had an early presentment that his son would come to a violent death Mr. Wilson speaks in his Abode of Snow, p 403 of " the subtle barely conscious precognition, which the late Mr. l,e Poer Wynne had of his early doom," and Lord Lindsay, describing the career of one of his : (lhe Lives of the Lindsays, Vol. I. r> 103 1 " ho RPAm< progenitors saysthe prime of life, to have felt a presentiment of approachthough still in have prepared for a longer journey." The same writer to and ing death, records further on, O ol II, p. 121,) an incident of the same kind in connection with a young lady who, finding ihat her husband married her the mort-head and cross bones .... "fainted with a mourning ring, with omen had made such an impression on her mind that away, and the evil she should die within the year, and her preon recovering, she declared truly fulfilled. See also in the same direction sentiment was too Itobertson's History of Charles V., edited bv Prescott, p. 363 Marshman's Life of Havelock, p. 410, and Wood's Ecclesiastical Antiquities of London, &e pp. 274-5. These are, however, less pertinent to the issue in hand than those I have quoted above, and I purposely refrain from burthening the text with details of more recent or private cases as these are either too sacred, or not sufficiently authenticated for publication. Moreover surviving friends may object to such publicity in such a connexion. ? Ur. Lee, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 260-261 *
'
,
has,
I misremember not, deduced, in his Somnium Scipionis, an argument in favor of the spirituality of the soul from their occasional realization.J But this is not the phase of the question with *
f
Old Court Life in France, by Francis Elliott, Vol. I, pp. 80-86. " The Preservation of The article in question was headed, I think,
Life from Shipwreck at Sea." t l?or some curiously illustrative examples of the verification of dreams see All the Year Bound for September 6t>>, 1877, p. 411 ; Scott's Tales of a Grandfather, p. 315; 8outhey's Life of Wesley, Vol. I, p. 359 ; Moore's Journals, &c., as above. Vol. I, pp 131 and 286 ; Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, ut supra, Vol, IV, p. 312 ; and Lee'? Glimpse" of the Super" natural, Vol. I, p. 211, Sc. A writer on Dreams, Visions and Ecstacies," in the St. Paul's Magazine for January 1874, well says that "the profound reality of the events which we spin out of our own consciousness is startling even in health ; in sickness the debate?ble around where the fact and the imagination meet can scarcely be distinguished," and those who are disposed to sne?r at such coincidences?and they may be said to be little more in many cases?should remember that visions, trances and dreams arB frequently recorded in Scripture in connection with the greatest or eravest evnts of our common creation and Christianity. It is in this way, on equally certain that impressions have been made many removal or explanation. persons, which resisted every attempt at Baron Hubner tells us, in his able Life of Sixtus the Fifth, that Piergentile " nourished strange visions arising from a dream that Peretti, his father, his first born child should be a b> y and should become pope" (the Life of Sixtus the Fifth translated by James F. Meline, p. 18) and sure enough he did becom? pope, and several similar stories, relating to other popes may be found in Wiseman's Four Last t*opes, as well as in Maguire's I'onti.
A MIRROR OF HOSPITAL PRACTICE.
April 1, 1878.]
which I am most concerned here ; and so leaving others to deal with it in such manner as may seem best to themselves, I proceed to relate a few typical cases in point. For the first of the series I am indebted to the Life of Sir Charles J Napier, * wherein it occurs under the head of what he calls ' Strange Dreams.' It runs as follows: "At the siege of Charleston my father
grenadiers to the trenches observed that his Lieutenant, Alston, a very brave man, was dejected. What is the matter, Alston ? I am going to death! Why say that ? I have been often wounded and always, the night before being so, I have dreamed of hunting deer of a peculiar form. Last night they
leading
his
I shall be killed. Nonsense man! Alston shook dark and the town quiet. The whole night not a shot was fired ; the relief came in the morning, the grenadiers retired, and when at some distance my father said, Alston, false turned
on me :
his head. It
was
is your dream.
No ! true ! I feel it so. At that instant some loose straggling shots came from the town, and Alston struck by four fell dead. No other man was touched, and four was the number of deer he had dreamed of."
Describing
the
butchery
that
was
perpetrated
at
a
place
called
the Gibbet Rath in Kildare, in 1798,f Mr. Fitzpatrick mentions among others the case of a man named Downey, whose wife, filled with
anxiety
3rd of June.
"
fate, remained up the night preceding the Towards morning," so the narrative says, wearied for his
"
and careworn she had been induced to take a brief rest. The most strange event of all then occurred, as afterwards certified by herself and those with whom she at that time resided. About the very time when the massacre took from
a
place on the
97
long day ; what an extraordinary change in Mr. Attorney-General replied, we all saw it before for you, he said with you came in." "While we were waiting his chin down on his breast, Gentlemen, something very extraordinary is going to happen and that very soon." To which the Attorney-General had observed Something good, sir. I hope," I don't know, I when the President answered very gravely, don't know, but it will happen and shortly too." As they were all impressed by his manner the Attorney-General took him up again : Have you received any information, sir, not yet disclosed to us." " No," answered the President, " but I have had a dream, for many
a
Lincoln."
"
The
"
"
"
"
and I have now had the same dream three times. Once on the night preceding the battle of Bull-Kun, once on the night preceding such another (naming a battle also not favourable to the North)." His chin sank on his chest again and he sat reflecting. "Might we ask the nature of this dream, sir," said the Attorney" General." Well," replied the President without lifting his head " or changing his attitude, I am on a great broad rolling river? and I am in a boat?and I drift and I drift. But this is not
business," suddenly raising his face and looking round the table as Mr. Stanton entered, "Let us proceed to business, gentlemen."
Mr. Stanton and the Attorney-General said as they walked on together, it would be curious to notice whether any thing ensued on this, and they agreed to notice. He was shot that night.*
(To be concluded.J
Rath, she started frightful dream or
Gibbet
troubled sleep, during which she had
a
vision of her husband weltering in his blood. Her instant screams drew all the family to her bed-side. In vain did the aged father
represent to her that such a dream was only the result of her disordered fancies, and that better news might soon be expected." She remained inconsolable, and subsequent inquiry verified her worst fears. Mr. DickensJ is
responsible
for the
which is
following story
related by his biographer in connection with
a
visit he
(Mr. D.)
to the "White House at "Washington. Commenting on the " On the appearance and manners of Mr. Lincoln. Dickens says: afternoon of the day on which the President was shot, there
paid
a cabinet council at which he presided. Mr. Stanton, being the time commander-in-chief of the Northern troops, arrived rather late. On his entering the room, the President broke off in
Was at
some
thing
he
was
saying,
business, gentlemen."
and remarked "let
us
proceed
to
Stanton then noticed with great surprise that the President sat with an air of dignity in his chair instead of rolling about it, in the most ungainly attitudes. Calm and quiet, a different man. Mr. Stanton, on ....
leaving
"
Mr.
the council with the
Attorney-General,
said to him:?
That is the most satisfactory cabinet meeting I have attended
ficate of Pius the Ninth. Malcolm tolls ns in bi9 history of Persia, Vol I, " Ardisheer and Nadir Shah were encouraged by dreams pp. 49?51, that to aspire and perhaps att*in to the Empire of Persia," and the following story may be found in an article beaded Les Meditations d'un Pnetre Leberal, that appeared in the Eeveu des deux Mondes for December 1862, p. 683. It must sp-ak for itself. " Le pere Gritry raconte lui-meme que dans sa jeunesse, un soir, il eut un 'eve ou tilutot une reverie. Dans sa meditation nocturne, il Comptait les sucoes qu'il avait obte?us et ceux qu'il pouvait obtenir encore. La vie venait vers lui souriante ayr C. J. Napier, Vol. I, pp 233-4, at which latter there is another similar story which need not, however, be quoted here. t 1 he Sham Squire, p. 316 ? The Life of Charles Dickens, by John Forster, Chap. XVI, pp. 386-7.
*
For other
interesting historical dreams and
the circumstances
attending
them, see the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, by Washington ' Irving, pp. 436 and 523-4; XenophoB,' by Sir A. Grant; Ancient Classics for English Headers, series, pp 33 and 42; and Cicero, by Mr. Collins, in the same series, p 51). Need I add the dream of filate's wife, or refer in the same direction to Millingen's Curiosities of Medical Experience, need not be further pp. 302-3, and the classical or credulous reader reminded of the part they play in Homer, Herodotus and tb? Bible, See further, in the as well as in Flato, Dante, and our own Shakespeare. same direction, Herodotus, by Q-. C. Swayne, pp. 187-8 ; Homer in the same series, p? 7 ; Stanley's Jewish Church, Vol. 1, pp. 195, 226 and 241; and for an instance in which a murder was discovered through a dream, the Book of Remarkable Trials aud Notorious Characters, pp. 45-6,
contemplated?and they
for the most part nothing more?are susceptible of other than a celestial interpretation. On the other hand, there are cases which it would be almost an irreverence to try and dis-
a-e
pose of on any other than a supernatural assumption, but of these we may treat further on, and meanwhile I cannot refuse myself the satisfaction of saying that I believe that many, if not all the
attempts that are made by pious persons, to counterby means of this and other obscure mental states, the prevailing scepticism of the day, are miserable failures. I will go further and say that physiology does not, in iny humble judgment, lend any support to the belief in a separate spiritual entity or existence; it only shovrs the possibility of such a being or condition,f and witli that possibility the humble Christian may act
well be content. To aim at more would be to raise up difficulties he may be unable to solve, if they did not show him that, in this, as in other concerns of life, there are two sides to every question, and that the first one is not, as such,
necessarily right. A middle course which neither arrogantly ignores the existence of the unseen or peevishly follows the more attractive path of scientific, perhaps I ought to call it scoffing, doubt,
It will have the additional merit of open to suggestions from either side, as well as admitting ' thinkers' may think or of freer illustration, and whatever no doubt that, to use Young's say to the contrary, there is illustration, an attack of fever is unfavorable to the cultivation will therefore be the best.
being
" the of atheism, and that mankind have believed in a
DO YOU BELIEVE IjST PRESENTIMENT P
By Surgeon-Major I
Wii. Curran, A.M.D. heard asked at
public table, question lately question I have set myself to answer here. It has been frequently asked in my presence before and as frequently evaded ; and, though I can scarcely pretend to be wiser in respect of it than my neighbours, yet it is a subject that has occasionally engaged my thoughts, and that I intended discussing, some day, in these or other professional pages. It is, at least, one wlrch a medical man may more appropriately take up than an outsider, inasmuch as its due consideration must imply some knowledge of physiology, and yet it is not altogether free from an element of, or rather an association with, the supernatural, which would seem to relegate it to the domain of the theologian or the preacher ? To which of these it more properly belongs, need not be determined at present, but I may be permitted to add that I think it may be accounted for on either hypothesis, without any serious offence to, or violent disruption of, existing beliefs, and 1 heartily agree with Copland* when he says that " the desire of publishing whatever appears singular or anomalous, chiefly from an insufficient recognition of all the phenomena, and often from the neglect of many which are most important, gives rise to an accumulation of false facts which bewilder even when they fail of misleading." Anxious to avoid the error indicated above, as well as to do justice to the subject from my own individual standpoint, I will here reproduce such instances of presentiment only as are vouched for by their narrators, whether verbally or in content and myself with such explanation or inference print, respecting them as a common-sense view of their origin or surroundings may suggest. The phenomena are strange enough in themselves, without being enhanced by exaggeration or tricked up to support a foregone conclusion, and I am among those who think that revelation is able to take care of itself, and Such was the and sucli is the
Dictionary
of
a
Practical Medicine, Vol. II, p. 674.
general thought and conscience of Gk>d, semper et uiique, everywhere and at all times."(J) Anyhow, while avoiding the Scylla of doubt, I will, I hope, be able to steer clear of the Charybdia of enthusiasm, and in this way relate or utter without any to my own individuality, stories or sentiments that may appear incredible or ridiculous. Further, having given
prejudice
and verse for such illustrations as I may employ, I leave the latter to take care of themselves. Neither can
chapter must
I,
under
with
a
these
circumstances,
local habitation and
a
be
fairly
accused of
things unreal and phantoms Which morbid minds spew forth as fumes That circling rise and take on lying forms. *
investing
name.
vain,
"
There is often," says Kaye, "in the simultaneous, the coincidental, and apparent uniformity of tendency which simulates design, but which, so far A History of the as human agency is concerned, is wholly fortuitous coincidences, see Sepoy War, Vol. I, p. 245. For some curious historical Vol. of Ed.) I., p. 508, and Vol. England, (People's Macaulay's History II, p. 763, and the following from the I'ioneer of July 28th, 1877, speaks for itself. It comes through that paper's Loudon correspondent, and runs
as follows: ''The late Sir Benjamin Brodie and the late John G. Perry, Esq., one of H. M.'s Inspectors of Prisons, were two of a party who once sat down to play whist at (I think) the late Dr. Erie's. If my memory serves me right, I hare heard also that Mr. Warren, the author of Ten Thousand a Year, was present on the night in question. At one time I possessed a memorandum of all the party, rather a considerable one, who were in the it. AVhat occurred was this : The four intendroom, but I have long lost ing players approached the card-table and cut for partners. They cut a thing never such ! aces the lour Perhaps happened before, and never on that occasion I feel quite satisfied. may again. That it did happen The rubber was postponed. At the suggestion of one of the party, pens, ink, and paper were sent for, and a statement of ihe occurrence was drawn up and approved. Three other copies were made of this statement, and all four were signed by all four players, each of whom took one. And one of these signed statements I have myself seen and read on three or four occasions at the house of one of these players, when he was relating to his guests the singular occurrence." t Bain's view on this point is, I believe, now generally accepted by phyIt is as follows: " So far as concerns the siologists and entire compass of our feelings and emotions, it is the universal testimony of mankind that these have no independent spiritual subsistence, but are in every case embodied in our fleshly form Mind and Body, by Alexander Bain, p. 8,. To the same effect speaks Mr. Baden Powell, in the "Indian Christian Intelligencer" for June 1877, p. 18, whereat he says, a propos of Bain's views, as above, that '? we see it established, to almost demonstration that all mental processes whatever are connected with the brain and the nerves, find we have absolutely no experience of mind as a separate immaterial existence apart from the body ; that mind is a separate existence, or is immortal and survives the body by itself, there is not the shadow of eviSee also, in the same direction, M. Tullii Ciceronis Tusculanadence rium Disputationum, I. 0., 22, versus finem, and indeed passim. J The Other World; or, Glimpses of the Supernatural. Edited by the Bev. F. G. Lee, D. C. L., Vol. I, p. 5.
metaphysicians.
"
"
DO YOU BELIEVE IN PRE SENTIMENT ??BY W
April 1, 1878.]
Before rushing in medias res it may be as well to ask ourselves the question : What is presentiment; and whether belief in it is peculiar to any particular phase of life or condition of society ? To these inquiries I would hesitatingly reply that presentiment is nothing more nor less than a ?vivid, often a painful, anticipation of unforeseen injury or evil, and that it appears to occur, in equal proportion, in all classes of the community. It is more frequently evoked by conditions that imply misgiving or actual danger, than by those of an opposite complexion, but fear or fanaticism has ever been its nursing mother, and it grows apace with ignorance, solitude and superstition.* This, however, is not always so. Some of the wisest and best of our race have been influenced by a belief in its reality, and we not unfrequently find ourselves or hear others use such phrases as "something told me so." '' I had an imprpssion to that effect," or the like, on the occurrence of any sudden calamity, disappointment or other startling or disagreeable event. Neither does this belief always imply a morbid state of the of its affections. On the very contrary, the strongest, as we shall see further on, have, at times, yielded to its spell, and the the worst that can be predicated of its subjects or victims is that they are, generally speaking, persons of a highly nervous, That this morbidlv susceptible, or emotional turn of mind. or tendency is, however, very liable or likely to mind
or
susceptibility
by such accessories or associations as precede or one feels on the eve of a long jouraccompany a battle, or that ney, or other painful separation,f admits of no doubt, and for such doubts the instincts of our common humanity, the danbe intensified
uncertainty of our return, the love of voyage, life, or the fears of kindred, may suggest a sufficient cause. The frequency with which it is said to occur in the evening of gers of
or
our
life, during
that
the
twilight
of the
understanding
in which the
mind's eye takes stock of the past, or looks wistfully towards the uncertain future, would seem to point to an anaemic rather than a normally nourished brain, for its origination. On the other hand, undue vascularity of some portion of its structure may be inferred in cases where joyous excitement or even enthusiasm accompanies the anticipation of death, and in either the greater sensibility or more intuitive apprehensiveness of woman, would naturally point her out as its favourite recicase
or medium. It does not appear, however, that she is more favoured in this respect than her brother, and I am not aware of any examinations that could throw light on the patho-
pient
l?gy
of this
phenomenon.
We may roughly divide cases of presentiment, for purposes of illustration or comparison, into those that point to pleasure or that foreshadow pain, and of these the latter are far the more numerous of the two. They are, indeed, so numerous as virtually to exclude the others ; for, though we will see as we advance that fanaticism or enthusiasm may lend a temporary exaltation to their victims, yet is this feature of the case the exception rather than the rule, and a division into subjective and less open to adverse criticism. To these we may add
is
*
o'rjective a
mixed
"
What Scott says in one of his notes to The heart of Midlothian," of the effects produced by persecution, fanaticism and spiritual excitement or isolation on the Cameronian sect will apply generally to the accessories or con. of preditions noted in the text, and the influence of these on the sentiment is, I think, equally obvious. Anyhow these conditions conduce to it, and with this impression I will leave the text to speak for itself. "The gloomy, dangerous and constant wanderings of the persecuted sect of Cameronians, naturally led to their entertaining with peculiar credulity the belief that they were sometimes persecuted, not only by the wrath of man, but by the secret wiles and open terrors of Satan. In fact a flood could not a horse cast a shoe, or any other the most ordinary interruption thwart a minister's wish to perform service at a particular spot than the accident was imputed to the immediate agency of the fiends. The encounter of Alexander Peden with the Devil in the cave and that of John Semple with the demon in the ford, are given by Peter Walker almost in the language of the text." See the Edinburgh Edition of 1866, P. 415. t "Something tells me," Byron said to I.ady Blessington, as he was about to leave Italy : " I shall never again return from Greece." See the J.ife and Correspondence of the Countess of Blessington. By 1*. K. Madden, Vol. I, p. 8ti.
production
happen,
Literary
CURRAN, AM.D.
95
intermediate variety, which partakes of the character of being typically distinctive of either, in which dreams, apparitions, and the so-called Second-Sight* may be included ; and premising that the whole subject is fraught with or
both without
or mystery which it would be folly in me unravel, I will proceed to relate instances in point, and subjoin such explanation as their associations may suggest in passing. Such further comment or criticism as they may suga
degree
to
try
of difficulty
to
can be better dealt with hereafter. The late F. M. Pollockf used, according to his biographer, Mr. Lowe, to tell a story of an artillery officer, named Percival, who fell at the siege of Bhurtpore, under circumstances which clearly indicated that he was at the time, and doubtless in conse-
gest
of this
quence
impression scarcely
morning," the story goes, a strong presentiment of
"
a
free agent.
"
All the
Percival had been
weighed down by approaching fate, and when he
his went down in the course of the afternoon to take his turn of duty in his battery, he told Pollock that he would never return to camp, and left him a valuable gun as a memento of their
friendship. Soon after his mortar battex-y requesting wounded.
sitting which,
on
arrival he sent a soldier into the Pollock to go and see him as he was The latter did as he was desired, and found Percival a gun-carriage, with his hand pressing his head,
he
thought, had been wounded. On examination, his friend found that a round shot had knocked off his bear's skin, but Percival himself was untouched ; though so satisfied was he that he was about to meet his death that he could not, at first, be assured of his mistake. A little later in the afternoon an artillery man came round a second time from Percival's battery, and requested Lieutenant Pollock to come and see his friend. He did so, and found him lying prone on the earth, shot through the head. He was mortally wounded and speechless, and (he) died during the night." Here we see that the very intensity of the impression or belief with which this poor lad was oppressed, actually over shot itself, and betrayed him into a demonstration that might, at any other time, have been mis-
construed to the detriment of his courage or composure. A friend, who was present at the time, and cognizant of all the particulars, lately mentioned to me a case that occurred within of his own personal knowledge at the Cape, and much akin to the above, that I make no excuse for introducing it here. It runs to the effect that, during the Kaffir War, and at a time when medical officers were urgently needed with the troops in the interior, a certain member of the the
sphere
which is
so
department, whose name need not be given, most urgently besought the late Mr. Alexander, at that time P. M. 0. at the Cape, and subsequently Director-General, not to send him to the front as he had a presentiment that if he went he would certainly be killed there. Mr. Alexander, though much pressed for professional aid with the force in front, so far yielded to his entreaties as to keep him on duty at Cape Town, and meanwhile this officer made no secret of the anticipation that preyed upon his mind. But necessity recognises no law either of courtesy or kindred, and, there being no other surgeon available at the received an order to march and obeyed it. That time, Dr. very evening, as the column with which he was proceeding was about to halt, it was fired upon, from an ambuscade, and Dr. was sent for, and meanwhile darkness one man fell. having supervened he very injudiciously, as it would now appear, ordered a light to be brought to enable him to examine * The authoress of the Autobiography of Flora M'Donald defines Second Sight as follows : " It is termed in Gaelic Taibshe, which means a vision or a spectre, and may be considered as a kind of impression made either by tbe mind upon the eye, or by the eye upon the mind, by which means events distant or near ?t hand are seen as if visibly present?" The Autobiography of Flora M'Donald, p. 34. See, also, in the same direction, The Highland Widow (Ed. 1863), p. 337; Johnson's Celebrated Tour to the Hebrides passim, and the Memoirs, Journals, &c.> of Thomas Moore, edited by Lord John Kussell, Vol. V, pp. 283-4 and 286-7. t The i.ife and Correspondence of Field Marshal Sir George Pollock, Bart., by Lowe, pp. 43-4.
THE INDIAN" MEDICAL GAZETTE.
96 hi3 patient. No sooner had this recommenced, and it3 first victim
been was
done than the firing the officer just referred
to.
General Oglethorpe* told ns," says Boswell, " that Prendergast, an officer in the Duke of Marlborough's Army, mentioned to "
many of his friends that he should die on a particular day ; that the French ; that after it upon that day a battle took place with was over and Prendergast was still alive, his brother officers,
they were yet in the field, jestingly asked him where prophecy now. Prendergast gravely answered, I shall
while
was
"
die Soon afterwards their came a shot from a French battery to which the orders for a cessation of I arms had not rtached, and he was killed upon the spot." have been told that the famous Captain Nolan had a presenti-
his
notwithstanding what you see."
ment of hi3 death, so also had a Captain of a F.egiment with which I was connected for several years, who was killed, I believe, in the affair of the quarries in the Crimea, and King-
lakef says that
"
Captain Charteris?fulfilling an incurable presentiment?fell dead at his (Lord Cardigan's) side" in the celebrated charge of ' the six-hundred.' Some people appear to be oppressed with a feeling of this kind from a very early period of their lives, while others take it up suddenly in the very midst of prosperity and health,J and the following is so suggestive of purpose or interposition that I cannot refuse myself the gratification of quoting it at length. It occurs in a book? that has been already referred to and runs as follows : " At the village of Bloxwich, in the diocese of Lichfield, a miner resided, who "one morning in 1872, on his way to the pit's mouth, had a strong presentiment that He returned home, comhe should be killed at his work. municated his impressions to his wife (who expostulated with him for being so fanciful and superstitious), and then insisted on seeing all his children. They were assembled. He took down his Prayer Book and Bible, read a chapter from the latter, and afterwards said
of hi3 accustomed prayers. Then, affectionately greeting wife and children, he went to his work, with the same strange but vivid presentiment of approaching death upon him as his wife testifies. He had not been at work many minutes when he was suddenly crushed to death by the
fall of
a
"Women appear to be than men, and this, not
susceptible of these impressions perhaps from their greater sensibility as from that instinctive, nay almost intuitive impulse, with which they are often rightly guided towards a conclusion. Anyhow, their impressions often appear to be more more
so
much
1878.
enduring than those of the sterner sex, and once a thoroughly mastered the details of an unpleasant event of this kind, 'tia all but impossible to reason her out of it. Many instances in point might be enumerated, but the following must suffice for the present. Catherine de Medicis* was so apprehensive of disaster to her husband, Benry the Second of France, that she did all in her power to dissuade him from taking part in the tournament in which he lost his life through a lance thrust that penetrated his brain through the eye. A writer in a late number of the Cornhill Magazinef eulogizing the conduct of one Robert Arkley, who was, it appears, very daring and successful in his endeavours to rescue shipwrecked sailors, writes as follows : His wife had a strong presentiment that some evil would befall him in the Brigade service, and he always encountered from her the strongest his going out, particularly at night, opposition to vivid and
woman
has
"
has been known to make his escape br the window when she had secured the doors And thus he continued fearless himself and devoted to the duty he had undertaken until his wife's worst fears were terribly verified." lie
Scott, whose tales are, I need scarcely remark, largely fact, gives a very similar account of a case of presentiment on the part of a lady in a note to one of his numerous fictions, and I have often dwelt in connection with this subject on a very pathetic, if 'tis not an actually painful, passage that that 3\Ir. (now Sir) C. G. Duffy occurs in one of the pretty ballads It relates to the has embodied in his interesting collection. tragical fate of three men who were shot, after or during a faction-fight, by the police in Ireland, and represents a child questioning his mother, as follows, about the delay of his Sir Walter
based on
father
:?
Come tell me, dearest mother, what makes my father stay, Or what can be the reason that he's so Ion" away ? " Oh ! hold your tongue, my darling son, your tears do me sore,
I fear he has been murdered in the fair of
some
rock."
[Afeil 1,
grieve
Turloughmore."
And sure enough the poor man in question was killed, under the circumstances noted above, and about the very time that the feeling interview jusfc referred to took place.
Dreams, though for the most part unworthy of serious analysis at the hands of the physiologist, are yet sometimes so vivid, picturesque, and striking as to impress the strongest minds, and that means, perhaps, lead to their own verification. However that may be, their evil auguries are sometimes so fully realized, and that too after a fashion that is as strange as it is startling, that the veriest materialist must pause and ask himself if there be
by
agency over and above him which may apeak in a dream in vision of the night. Anyhow such has ever been the belief, as in Christian times. Visions and among men, as well in pagan if dreams are the very foundation of prophecy, and Cicero
no a
Boswell's Life of Johnson, Routledge's Edition, Vol. II ' pp. 111-12 t The invasion of the Crimea, Vol. IV, pp. 322-3. t For an account of a presentiment with which the Duke de Berry appears to have been haunted all his life, see an Article, "The Child of Miracle," that appeared in Eraser for December 1873,' p 776 and as regards the other phase of the case, Lord Campbell tells us in his Lives of the Chancellors, Vol. I, p. 68, that "it would appear that he (Thomas A Becket) himself, while Chancellor, and a devoted friend and servant of Henry, had a presentiment of his future destiny, and we may believe an earnest desire to avoid it." It would appear that Wolsey was also impressed in the same wa,y, while at the very height of his prosperity, and the same graphic wn er assures us, Ibid, Vol. IV, p. 339. that Lord Jeffrey's father had an early presentment that his son would come to a violent death Mr. Wilson speaks in his Abode of Snow, p 403 of " the subtle barely conscious precognition, which the late Mr. l,e Poer Wynne had of his early doom," and Lord Lindsay, describing the career of one of his : (lhe Lives of the Lindsays, Vol. I. r> 103 1 " ho RPAm< progenitors saysthe prime of life, to have felt a presentiment of approachthough still in have prepared for a longer journey." The same writer to and ing death, records further on, O ol II, p. 121,) an incident of the same kind in connection with a young lady who, finding ihat her husband married her the mort-head and cross bones .... "fainted with a mourning ring, with omen had made such an impression on her mind that away, and the evil she should die within the year, and her preon recovering, she declared truly fulfilled. See also in the same direction sentiment was too Itobertson's History of Charles V., edited bv Prescott, p. 363 Marshman's Life of Havelock, p. 410, and Wood's Ecclesiastical Antiquities of London, &e pp. 274-5. These are, however, less pertinent to the issue in hand than those I have quoted above, and I purposely refrain from burthening the text with details of more recent or private cases as these are either too sacred, or not sufficiently authenticated for publication. Moreover surviving friends may object to such publicity in such a connexion. ? Ur. Lee, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 260-261 *
'
,
has,
I misremember not, deduced, in his Somnium Scipionis, an argument in favor of the spirituality of the soul from their occasional realization.J But this is not the phase of the question with *
f
Old Court Life in France, by Francis Elliott, Vol. I, pp. 80-86. " The Preservation of The article in question was headed, I think,
Life from Shipwreck at Sea." t l?or some curiously illustrative examples of the verification of dreams see All the Year Bound for September 6t>>, 1877, p. 411 ; Scott's Tales of a Grandfather, p. 315; 8outhey's Life of Wesley, Vol. I, p. 359 ; Moore's Journals, &c., as above. Vol. I, pp 131 and 286 ; Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, ut supra, Vol, IV, p. 312 ; and Lee'? Glimpse" of the Super" natural, Vol. I, p. 211, Sc. A writer on Dreams, Visions and Ecstacies," in the St. Paul's Magazine for January 1874, well says that "the profound reality of the events which we spin out of our own consciousness is startling even in health ; in sickness the debate?ble around where the fact and the imagination meet can scarcely be distinguished," and those who are disposed to sne?r at such coincidences?and they may be said to be little more in many cases?should remember that visions, trances and dreams arB frequently recorded in Scripture in connection with the greatest or eravest evnts of our common creation and Christianity. It is in this way, on equally certain that impressions have been made many removal or explanation. persons, which resisted every attempt at Baron Hubner tells us, in his able Life of Sixtus the Fifth, that Piergentile " nourished strange visions arising from a dream that Peretti, his father, his first born child should be a b> y and should become pope" (the Life of Sixtus the Fifth translated by James F. Meline, p. 18) and sure enough he did becom? pope, and several similar stories, relating to other popes may be found in Wiseman's Four Last t*opes, as well as in Maguire's I'onti.
A MIRROR OF HOSPITAL PRACTICE.
April 1, 1878.]
which I am most concerned here ; and so leaving others to deal with it in such manner as may seem best to themselves, I proceed to relate a few typical cases in point. For the first of the series I am indebted to the Life of Sir Charles J Napier, * wherein it occurs under the head of what he calls ' Strange Dreams.' It runs as follows: "At the siege of Charleston my father
grenadiers to the trenches observed that his Lieutenant, Alston, a very brave man, was dejected. What is the matter, Alston ? I am going to death! Why say that ? I have been often wounded and always, the night before being so, I have dreamed of hunting deer of a peculiar form. Last night they
leading
his
I shall be killed. Nonsense man! Alston shook dark and the town quiet. The whole night not a shot was fired ; the relief came in the morning, the grenadiers retired, and when at some distance my father said, Alston, false turned
on me :
his head. It
was
is your dream.
No ! true ! I feel it so. At that instant some loose straggling shots came from the town, and Alston struck by four fell dead. No other man was touched, and four was the number of deer he had dreamed of."
Describing
the
butchery
that
was
perpetrated
at
a
place
called
the Gibbet Rath in Kildare, in 1798,f Mr. Fitzpatrick mentions among others the case of a man named Downey, whose wife, filled with
anxiety
3rd of June.
"
fate, remained up the night preceding the Towards morning," so the narrative says, wearied for his
"
and careworn she had been induced to take a brief rest. The most strange event of all then occurred, as afterwards certified by herself and those with whom she at that time resided. About the very time when the massacre took from
a
place on the
97
long day ; what an extraordinary change in Mr. Attorney-General replied, we all saw it before for you, he said with you came in." "While we were waiting his chin down on his breast, Gentlemen, something very extraordinary is going to happen and that very soon." To which the Attorney-General had observed Something good, sir. I hope," I don't know, I when the President answered very gravely, don't know, but it will happen and shortly too." As they were all impressed by his manner the Attorney-General took him up again : Have you received any information, sir, not yet disclosed to us." " No," answered the President, " but I have had a dream, for many
a
Lincoln."
"
The
"
"
"
"
and I have now had the same dream three times. Once on the night preceding the battle of Bull-Kun, once on the night preceding such another (naming a battle also not favourable to the North)." His chin sank on his chest again and he sat reflecting. "Might we ask the nature of this dream, sir," said the Attorney" General." Well," replied the President without lifting his head " or changing his attitude, I am on a great broad rolling river? and I am in a boat?and I drift and I drift. But this is not
business," suddenly raising his face and looking round the table as Mr. Stanton entered, "Let us proceed to business, gentlemen."
Mr. Stanton and the Attorney-General said as they walked on together, it would be curious to notice whether any thing ensued on this, and they agreed to notice. He was shot that night.*
(To be concluded.J
Rath, she started frightful dream or
Gibbet
troubled sleep, during which she had
a
vision of her husband weltering in his blood. Her instant screams drew all the family to her bed-side. In vain did the aged father
represent to her that such a dream was only the result of her disordered fancies, and that better news might soon be expected." She remained inconsolable, and subsequent inquiry verified her worst fears. Mr. DickensJ is
responsible
for the
which is
following story
related by his biographer in connection with
a
visit he
(Mr. D.)
to the "White House at "Washington. Commenting on the " On the appearance and manners of Mr. Lincoln. Dickens says: afternoon of the day on which the President was shot, there
paid
a cabinet council at which he presided. Mr. Stanton, being the time commander-in-chief of the Northern troops, arrived rather late. On his entering the room, the President broke off in
Was at
some
thing
he
was
saying,
business, gentlemen."
and remarked "let
us
proceed
to
Stanton then noticed with great surprise that the President sat with an air of dignity in his chair instead of rolling about it, in the most ungainly attitudes. Calm and quiet, a different man. Mr. Stanton, on ....
leaving
"
Mr.
the council with the
Attorney-General,
said to him:?
That is the most satisfactory cabinet meeting I have attended
ficate of Pius the Ninth. Malcolm tolls ns in bi9 history of Persia, Vol I, " Ardisheer and Nadir Shah were encouraged by dreams pp. 49?51, that to aspire and perhaps att*in to the Empire of Persia," and the following story may be found in an article beaded Les Meditations d'un Pnetre Leberal, that appeared in the Eeveu des deux Mondes for December 1862, p. 683. It must sp-ak for itself. " Le pere Gritry raconte lui-meme que dans sa jeunesse, un soir, il eut un 'eve ou tilutot une reverie. Dans sa meditation nocturne, il Comptait les sucoes qu'il avait obte?us et ceux qu'il pouvait obtenir encore. La vie venait vers lui souriante ayr C. J. Napier, Vol. I, pp 233-4, at which latter there is another similar story which need not, however, be quoted here. t 1 he Sham Squire, p. 316 ? The Life of Charles Dickens, by John Forster, Chap. XVI, pp. 386-7.
*
For other
interesting historical dreams and
the circumstances
attending
them, see the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, by Washington ' Irving, pp. 436 and 523-4; XenophoB,' by Sir A. Grant; Ancient Classics for English Headers, series, pp 33 and 42; and Cicero, by Mr. Collins, in the same series, p 51). Need I add the dream of filate's wife, or refer in the same direction to Millingen's Curiosities of Medical Experience, need not be further pp. 302-3, and the classical or credulous reader reminded of the part they play in Homer, Herodotus and tb? Bible, See further, in the as well as in Flato, Dante, and our own Shakespeare. same direction, Herodotus, by Q-. C. Swayne, pp. 187-8 ; Homer in the same series, p? 7 ; Stanley's Jewish Church, Vol. 1, pp. 195, 226 and 241; and for an instance in which a murder was discovered through a dream, the Book of Remarkable Trials aud Notorious Characters, pp. 45-6,
