But I did, almost immediately. Mr. Jennings has a way of looking sidelong upon the carpet, as if his eye followed the movements of something there. This, of course, is not always. It occurs only now and then. But often enough to give a certain oddity, as I have said to his manner, and in this glance travelling along the floor there is something both shy and anxious. A medical philosopher, as you are good enough to call me, elaborating theories by the aid of cases sought out by himself, and by him watched and scrutinised with more time at command, and consequently infinitely more minuteness than the ordinary practitioner can afford, falls insensibly into habits of observation, which accompany him everywhere, and are exercised, as some people would say, impertinently, upon every subject that presents itself with the least likelihood of rewarding inquiry. There was a promise of this kind in the slight, timid, kindly, but reserved gentleman, whom I met for the first time at this agreeable little evening gathering. I observed, of course, more than I here set down; but I reserve all that borders on the technical for a strictly scientific paper. I may remark, that when I here speak of medical science, I do so, as I hope some day to see it more generally understood, in a much more comprehensive sense than its generally material treatment would warrant. I believe the entire natural world is but the ultimate expression of that spiritual world from which, and in which alone, it has its life. I believe that the essential man is a spirit, that the spirit is an organised substance, but as different in point of material from what we ordinarily understand by matter, as light or electricity is; that the material body is, in the most literal sense, a vesture, and death consequently no interruption of the living mans existence, but simply his extrication from the natural bodya process which commences at the moment of what we term death, and the completion of which, at furthest a few days later, is the resurrection in power. The person who weighs the consequences of these positions will probably see their practical bearing upon medical science. This is, however, by no means the proper place for displaying the proofs and discussing the consequences of this too generally unrecognised state of facts. In pursuance of my habit, I was covertly observing Mr. Jennings, with all my cautionI think he perceived itand I saw plainly that he was as cautiously observing me. Lady Mary happening to address me by my name, as Dr. Hesselius, I saw that he glanced at me more sharply, and then became thoughtful for a few minutes. After this, as I conversed with a gentleman at the other end of the room, I saw him look at me more steadily, and with an interest which I thought I understood. I then saw him take an opportunity of chatting with Lady Mary, and was, as one always is, perfectly aware of being the subject of a distant inquiry and answer. This tall clergyman approached me byandby and in a little time we had got into conversation. When two people, who like reading, and know books and places, having travelled, wish to converse, it is very strange if they cant find topics. It was not accident that brought him near me, and led him into conversation. He knew German, and had read my Essays on Metaphysical Medicine which suggest more than they actually say. This courteous man, gentle, shy, plainly a man of thought and reading, who moving and talking among us, was not altogether of us, and whom I already suspected of leading a life whose transactions and alarms were carefully concealed, with an impenetrable reserve from, not only the world, but his best beloved friendswas cautiously weighing in his own mind the idea of taking a certain step with regard to me. I penetrated his thoughts without his being aware of it, and was careful to say nothing which could betray to his sensitive vigilance my suspicions respecting his position, or my surmises about his plans respecting myself. We chatted upon indifferent subjects for a time; but at last he said I was very much interested by some papers of yours, Dr. Hesselius, upon what you term Metaphysical MedicineI read them in German, ten or twelve years agohave they been translated? No, Im sure they have notI should have heard. They would have asked my leave, I think. I asked the publishers here, a few months ago, to get the book for me in the original German; but they tell me it is out of print. So it is, and has been for some years; but it flatters me as an author to find that you have not forgotten my little book, although, I added, laughing, ten or twelve years is a considerable time to have managed without it; but I suppose you have been turning the subject over again in your mind, or something has happened lately to revive your interest in it. At this remark, accompanied by a glance of inquiry, a sudden embarrassment disturbed Mr. Jennings, analogous to that which makes a young lady blush and look foolish. He dropped his eyes, and folded his hands together uneasily, and looked oddly, and you would have said, guiltily for a moment. I helped him out of his awkwardness in the best way, by appearing not to observe it, and going straight on, I said Those revivals of interest in a subject happen to me often; one book suggests another, and often sends me back a wildgoose chase over an interval of twenty years. But if you still care to possess a copy, I shall be only too happy to provide you; I have still got two or three by meand if you allow me to present one I shall be very much honoured. You are very good indeed, he said, quite at his ease again, in a moment I almost despairedI dont know how to thank you. Pray dont say a word; the thing is really so little worth that I am only ashamed of having offered it, and if you thank me any more I shall throw it into the fire in a fit of modesty. Mr. Jennings laughed. He inquired where I was staying in London, and after a little more conversation on a variety of subjects, he took his departure. II The Doctor Questions Lady Mary, and She Answers I like your vicar so much, Lady Mary, said I, so soon as he was gone. He has read, travelled, and thought, and having also suffered, he ought to be an accomplished companion. So he is, and, better still, he is a really good man, said she. His advice is invaluable about my schools, and all my little undertakings at Dawlbridge, and hes so painstaking, he takes so much troubleyou have no ideawherever he thinks he can be of use hes so goodnatured and so sensible. It is pleasant to hear so good an account of his neighbourly virtues. I can only testify to his being an agreeable and gentle companion, and in addition to what you have told me, I think I can tell you two or three things about him, said I. Really! Yes, to begin with, hes unmarried. Yes, thats rightgo on. He has been writing, that is he was, but for two or three years perhaps, he has not gone on with his work, and the book was upon some rather abstract subjectperhaps theology. Well, he was writing a book, as you say; Im not quite sure what it was about, but only that it was nothing that I cared for, very likely you are right, and he certainly did stopyes. And although he only drank a little coffee here tonight, he likes tea, at least, did like it, extravagantly. Yes, thats quite true. He drank green tea, a good deal, didnt he? I pursued. Well, thats very odd! Green tea was a subject on which we used almost to quarrel. But he has quite given that up, said I. So he has. And, now, one more fact. His mother or his father, did you know them? Yes, both; his father is only ten years dead, and their place is near Dawlbridge. We knew them very well, she answered. Well, either his mother or his fatherI should rather think his father, saw a ghost, said I. Well, you really are a conjurer, Dr. Hesselius. Conjurer or no, havent I said right? I answered merrily. You certainly have, and it was his father he was a silent, whimsical man, and he used to bore my father about his dreams, and at last he told him a story about a ghost he had seen and talked with, and a very odd story it was. I remember it particularly, because I was so afraid of him. This story was long before he diedwhen I was quite a childand his ways were so silent and moping, and he used to drop in, sometimes, in the dusk, when I was alone in the drawingroom, and I used to fancy there were ghosts about him. I smiled and nodded. And now having established my character as a conjurer I think I must say good night, said I. But how did you find it out? By the planets of course, as the gipsies do, I answered, and so, gaily, we said good night. Next morning I sent the little book he had been inquiring after, and a note to Mr. Jennings, and on returning late that evening, I found that he had called, at my lodgings, and left his card. He asked whether I was at home, and asked at what hour he would be most likely to find me. Does he intend opening his case, and consulting me professionally, as they say? I hope so. I have already conceived a theory about him. It is supported by Lady Marys answers to my parting questions. I should like much to ascertain from his own lips. But what can I do consistently with good breeding to invite a confession? Nothing. I rather think he meditates one. At all events, my dear Van L., I shant make myself difficult of access; I mean to return his visit tomorrow. It will be only civil in return for his politeness, to ask to see him. Perhaps something may come of it. Whether much, little, or nothing, my dear Van L., you shall hear. III Dr. Hesselius Picks Up Something in Latin Books Well, I have called at Blankstreet. On inquiring at the door, the servant told me that Mr. Jennings was engaged very particularly with a gentleman, a clergyman from Kenlis, his parish in the country. Intending to reserve my privilege and to call again, I merely intimated that I should try another time, and had turned to go, when the servant begged my pardon, and asked me, looking at me a little more attentively than wellbred persons of his order usually do, whether I was Dr. Hesselius; and, on learning that I was, he said, Perhaps then, sir, you would allow me to mention it to Mr. Jennings, for I am sure he wishes to see you. The servant returned in a moment, with a message from Mr. Jennings, asking me to go into his study, which was in effect his back drawingroom, promising to be with me in a very few minutes. This was really a studyalmost a library. The room was lofty, with two tall slender windows, and rich dark curtains. It was much larger than I had expected, and stored with books on every side, from the floor to the ceiling. The upper carpetfor to my tread it felt that there were two or threewas a Turkey carpet. My steps fell noiselessly. The bookcases standing out, placed the windows, particularly narrow ones, in deep recesses. The effect of the room was, although extremely comfortable, and even luxurious, decidedly gloomy, and aided by the silence, almost oppressive. Perhaps, however, I ought to have allowed something for association. My mind had connected peculiar ideas with Mr. Jennings. I stepped into this perfectly silent room, of a very silent house, with a peculiar foreboding; and its darkness, and solemn clothing of books, for except where two narrow lookingglasses were set in the wall, they were everywhere, helped this sombre feeling. While awaiting Mr. Jennings arrival, I amused myself by looking into some of the books with which his shelves were laden. Not among these, but immediately under them, with their backs upward, on the floor, I lighted upon a complete set of Swedenborgs Arcana Clestia, in the original Latin, a very fine folio set, bound in the natty livery which theology affects, pure vellum, namely, gold letters, and carmine edges. There were paper markers in several of these volumes, I raised and placed them, one after the other, upon the table, and opening where these papers were placed, I read in the solemn Latin phraseology, a series of sentences indicated by a pencilled line at the margin. Of these I copy here a few, translating them into English. When mans interior sight is opened, which is that of his spirit, then there appear the things of another life, which cannot possibly be made visible to the bodily sight.  By the internal sight it has been granted me to see the things that are in the other life, more clearly than I see those that are in the world. From these considerations, it is evident that external vision exists from interior vision, and this from a vision still more interior, and so on.  There are with every man at least two evil spirits.  With wicked genii there is also a fluent speech, but harsh and grating. There is also among them a speech which is not fluent, wherein the dissent of the thoughts is perceived as something secretly creeping along within it.  The evil spirits associated with man are, indeed, from the hells, but when with man they are not then in hell, but are taken out thence. The place where they then are is in the midst between heaven and hell, and is called the world of spiritswhen the evil spirits who are with man, are in that world, they are not in any infernal torment, but in every thought and affection of the man, and so, in all that the man himself enjoys. But when they are remitted into their hell, they return to their former state.  If evil spirits could perceive that they were associated with man, and yet that they were spirits separate from him, and if they could flow in into the things of his body, they would attempt by a thousand means to destroy him; for they hate man with a deadly hatred.  Knowing, therefore, that I was a man in the body, they were continually striving to destroy me, not as to the body only, but especially as to the soul; for to destroy any man or spirit is the very delight of the life of all who are in hell; but I have been continually protected by the Lord. Hence it appears how dangerous it is for man to be in a living consort with spirits, unless he be in the good of faith.  Nothing is more carefully guarded from the knowledge of associate spirits than their being thus conjoint with a man, for if they knew it they would speak to him, with the intention to destroy him.  The delight of hell is to do evil to man, and to hasten his eternal ruin. A long note, written with a very sharp and fine pencil, in Mr. Jennings neat hand, at the foot of the page, caught my eye. Expecting his criticism upon the text, I read a word or two, and stopped, for it was something quite different, and began with these words, Deus misereatur meiMay God compassionate me. Thus warned of its private nature, I averted my eyes, and shut the book, replacing all the volumes as I had found them, except one which interested me, and in which, as men studious and solitary in their habits will do, I grew so absorbed as to take no cognisance of the outer world, nor to remember where I was. I was reading some pages which refer to representatives and correspondents, in the technical language of Swedenborg, and had arrived at a passage, the substance of which is, that evil spirits, when seen by other eyes than those of their infernal associates, present themselves, by correspondence, in the shape of the beast (fera) which represents their particular lust and life, in aspect direful and atrocious. This is a long passage, and particularises a number of those bestial forms. IV Four Eyes Were Reading the Passage I was running the head of my pencilcase along the line as I read it, and something caused me to raise my eyes. Directly before me was one of the mirrors I have mentioned, in which I saw reflected the tall shape of my friend Mr. Jennings leaning over my shoulder, and reading the page at which I was busy, and with a face so dark and wild that I should hardly have known him. I turned and rose. He stood erect also, and with an effort laughed a little, saying I came in and asked you how you did, but without succeeding in awaking you from your book; so I could not restrain my curiosity, and very impertinently, Im afraid, peeped over your shoulder. This is not your first time of looking into those pages. You have looked into Swedenborg, no doubt, long ago? Oh dear, yes! I owe Swedenborg a great deal; you will discover traces of him in the little book on Metaphysical Medicine, which you were so good as to remember. Although my friend affected a gaiety of manner, there was a slight flush in his face, and I could perceive that he was inwardly much perturbed. Im scarcely yet qualified, I know so little of Swedenborg. Ive only had them a fortnight, he answered, and I think they are rather likely to make a solitary man nervousthat is, judging from the very little I have readI dont say that they have made me so, he laughed; and Im so very much obliged for the book. I hope you got my note? I made all proper acknowledgments and modest disclaimers. I never read a book that I go with, so entirely, as that of yours, he continued. I saw at once there is more in it than is quite unfolded. Do you know Dr. Harley? he asked, rather abruptly. In passing, the editor remarks that the physician here named was one of the most eminent who had ever practised in England. I did, having had letters to him, and had experienced from him great courtesy and considerable assistance during my visit to England. I think that man one of the very greatest fools I ever met in my life, said Mr. Jennings. This was the first time I had ever heard him say a sharp thing of anybody, and such a term applied to so high a name a little startled me. Really! and in what way? I asked. In his profession, he answered. I smiled. I mean this, he said he seems to me, one half, blindI mean one half of all he looks at is darkpreternaturally bright and vivid all the rest; and the worst of it is, it seems wilful. I cant get himI mean he wontIve had some experience of him as a physician, but I look on him as, in that sense, no better than a paralytic mind, an intellect half dead, Ill tell youI know I shall some timeall about it, he said, with a little agitation. You stay some months longer in England. If I should be out of town during your stay for a little time, would you allow me to trouble you with a letter? I should be only too happy, I assured him. Very good of you. I am so utterly dissatisfied with Harley. A little leaning to the materialistic school, I said. A mere materialist, he corrected me; you cant think how that sort of thing worries one who knows better. You wont tell anyoneany of my friends you knowthat I am hippish; now, for instance, no one knowsnot even Lady Marythat I have seen Dr. Harley, or any other doctor. So pray dont mention it; and, if I should have any threatening of an attack, youll kindly let me write, or, should I be in town, have a little talk with you. I was full of conjecture, and unconsciously I found I had fixed my eyes gravely on him, for he lowered his for a moment, and he said I see you think I might as well tell you now, or else you are forming a conjecture; but you may as well give it up. If you were guessing all the rest of your life, you will never hit on it. He shook his head smiling, and over that wintry sunshine a black cloud suddenly came down, and he drew his breath in, through his teeth as men do in pain. Sorry, of course, to learn that you apprehend occasion to consult any of us; but, command me when and how you like, and I need not assure you that your confidence is sacred. He then talked of quite other things, and in a comparatively cheerful way and after a little time, I took my leave. V Doctor Hesselius Is Summoned to Richmond We parted cheerfully, but he was not cheerful, nor was I. There are certain expressions of that powerful organ of spiritthe human facewhich, although I have seen them often, and possess a doctors nerve, yet disturb me profoundly. One look of Mr. Jennings haunted me. It had seized my imagination with so dismal a power that I changed my plans for the evening, and went to the opera, feeling that I wanted a change of ideas. I heard nothing of or from him for two or three days, when a note in his hand reached me. It was cheerful, and full of hope. He said that he had been for some little time so much betterquite well, in factthat he was going to make a little experiment, and run down for a month or so to his parish, to try whether a little work might not quite set him up. There was in it a fervent religious expression of gratitude for his restoration, as he now almost hoped he might call it. A day or two later I saw Lady Mary, who repeated what his note had announced, and told me that he was actually in Warwickshire, having resumed his clerical duties at Kenlis; and she added, I begin to think that he is really perfectly well, and that there never was anything the matter, more than nerves and fancy; we are all nervous, but I fancy there is nothing like a little hard work for that kind of weakness, and he has made up his mind to try it. I should not be surprised if he did not come back for a year. Notwithstanding all this confidence, only two days later I had this note, dated from his house off Piccadilly Dear SirI have returned disappointed. If I should feel at all able to see you, I shall write to ask you kindly to call. At present I am too low, and, in fact, simply unable to say all I wish to say. Pray dont mention my name to my friends. I can see no one. Byandby, please God, you shall hear from me. I mean to take a run into Shropshire, where some of my people are. God bless you! May we, on my return, meet more happily than I can now write. About a week after this I saw Lady Mary at her own house, the last person, she said, left in town, and just on the wing for Brighton, for the London season was quite over. She told me that she had heard from Mr. Jennings niece, Martha, in Shropshire. There was nothing to be gathered from her letter, more than that he was low and nervous. In those words, of which healthy people think so lightly, what a world of suffering is sometimes hidden! Nearly five weeks passed without any further news of Mr. Jennings. At the end of that time I received a note from him. He wrote I have been in the country, and have had change of air, change of scene, change of faces, change of everything and in everythingbut myself. I have made up my mind, so far as the most irresolute creature on earth can do it, to tell my case fully to you. If your engagements will permit, pray come to me today, tomorrow, or the next day; but, pray defer as little as possible. You know not how much I need help. I have a quiet house at Richmond, where I now am. Perhaps you can manage to come to dinner, or to luncheon, or even to tea. You shall have no trouble in finding me out. The servant at Blank street, who takes this note, will have a carriage at your door at any hour you please; and I am always to be found. You will say that I ought not to be alone. I have tried everything. Come and see. I called up the servant, and decided on going out the same evening, which accordingly I did. He would have been much better in a lodginghouse, or hotel, I thought, as I drove up through a short double row of sombre elms to a very oldfashioned brick house, darkened by the foliage of these trees, which overtopped, and nearly surrounded it. It was a perverse choice, for nothing could be imagined more triste and silent. The house, I found, belonged to him. He had stayed for a day or two in town, and, finding it for some cause insupportable, had come out here, probably because being furnished and his own, he was relieved of the thought and delay of selection, by coming here. The sun had already set, and the red reflected light of the western sky illuminated the scene with the peculiar effect with which we are all familiar. The hall seemed very dark, but, getting to the back drawingroom, whose windows command the west, I was again in the same dusky light. I sat down, looking out upon the richlywooded landscape that glowed in the grand and melancholy light which was every moment fading. The corners of the room were already dark; all was growing dim, and the gloom was insensibly toning my mind, already prepared for what was sinister. I was waiting alone for his arrival, which soon took place. The door communicating with the front room opened, and the tall figure of Mr. Jennings, faintly seen in the ruddy twilight, came, with quiet stealthy steps, into the room. We shook hands, and, taking a chair to the window, where there was still light enough to enable us to see each others faces, he sat down beside me, and, placing his hand upon my arm, with scarcely a word of preface began his narrative. VI How Mr. Jennings Met His Companion The faint glow of the west, the pomp of the then lonely woods of Richmond, were before us, behind and about us the darkening room, and on the stony face of the suffererfor the character of his face, though still gentle and sweet, was changedrested that dim, odd glow which seems to descend and produce, where it touches, lights, sudden though faint, which are lost, almost without gradation, in darkness. The silence, too, was utter; not a distant wheel, or bark, or whistle from without; and within the depressing stillness of an invalid bachelors house. I guessed well the nature, though not even vaguely the particulars of the revelations I was about to receive, from that fixed face of suffering that so oddly flushed stood out, like a portrait of Schalkens, before its background of darkness. It began, he said, on the 15th of October, three years and eleven weeks ago, and two daysI keep very accurate count, for every day is torment. If I leave anywhere a chasm in my narrative tell me. About four years ago I began a work, which had cost me very much thought and reading. It was upon the religious metaphysics of the ancients. I know, said I; the actual religion of educated and thinking paganism, quite apart from symbolic worship? A wide and very interesting field. Yes; but not good for the mindthe Christian mind, I mean. Paganism is all bound together in essential unity, and, with evil sympathy, their religion involves their art, and both their manners, and the subject is a degrading fascination and the nemesis sure. God forgive me! I wrote a great deal; I wrote late at night. I was always thinking on the subject, walking about, wherever I was, everywhere. It thoroughly infected me. You are to remember that all the material ideas connected with it were more or less of the beautiful, the subject itself delightfully interesting, and I, then, without a care. He sighed heavily. I believe that everyone who sets about writing in earnest does his work, as a friend of mine phrased it, on somethingtea, or coffee, or tobacco. I suppose there is a material waste that must be hourly supplied in such occupations, or that we should grow too abstracted, and the mind, as it were, pass out of the body, unless it were reminded often of the connection by actual sensation. At all events, I felt the want, and I supplied it. Tea was my companionat first the ordinary black tea, made in the usual way, not too strong but I drank a good deal, and increased its strength as I went on. I never experienced an uncomfortable symptom from it. I began to take a little green tea. I found the effect pleasanter, it cleared and intensified the power of thought so. I had come to take it frequently, but not stronger than one might take it for pleasure. I wrote a great deal out here, it was so quiet, and in this room. I used to sit up very late, and it became a habit with me to sip my teagreen teaevery now and then as my work proceeded. I had a little kettle on my table, that swung over a lamp, and made tea two or three times between eleven oclock and two or three in the morning, my hours of going to bed. I used to go into town every day. I was not a monk, and, although I spent an hour or two in a library, hunting up authorities and looking out lights upon my theme, I was in no morbid state as far as I can judge. I met my friends pretty much as usual, and enjoyed their society, and, on the whole, existence had never been, I think, so pleasant before. I had met with a man who had some odd old books, German editions in medieval Latin, and I was only too happy to be permitted access to them. This obliging persons books were in the city, a very outoftheway part of it. I had rather outstayed my intended hour, and, on coming out, seeing no cab near, I was tempted to get into the omnibus which used to drive past this house. It was darker than this by the time the bus had reached an old house, you may have remarked, with four poplars at each side of the door, and there the last passenger but myself got out. We drove along rather faster. It was twilight now. I leaned back in my corner next the door ruminating pleasantly. The interior of the omnibus was nearly dark. I had observed in the corner opposite to me at the other side, and at the end next the horses, two small circular reflections, as it seemed to me of a reddish light. They were about two inches apart, and about the size of those small brass buttons that yachting men used to put upon their jackets. I began to speculate, as listless men will, upon this trifle, as it seemed. From what centre did that faint but deep red light come, and from whatglass beads, buttons, toy decorationswas it reflected? We were lumbering along gently, having nearly a mile still to go. I had not solved the puzzle, and it became in another minute more odd, for these two luminous points, with a sudden jerk, descended nearer the floor, keeping still their relative distance and horizontal position, and then, as suddenly, they rose to the level of the seat on which I was sitting, and I saw them no more. My curiosity was now really excited, and, before I had time to think, I saw again these two dull lamps, again together near the floor; again they disappeared, and again in their old corner I saw them. So, keeping my eyes upon them, I edged quietly up my own side, towards the end at which I still saw these tiny discs of red. There was very little light in the bus. It was nearly dark. I leaned forward to aid my endeavour to discover what these little circles really were. They shifted their position a little as I did so. I began now to perceive an outline of something black, and I soon saw with tolerable distinctness the outline of a small black monkey, pushing its face forward in mimicry to meet mine; those were its eyes, and I now dimly saw its teeth grinning at me. I drew back, not knowing whether it might not meditate a spring. I fancied that one of the passengers had forgot this ugly pet, and wishing to ascertain something of its temper, though not caring to trust my fingers to it, I poked my umbrella softly towards it. It remained immovableup to itthrough it! For through it, and back and forward, it passed, without the slightest resistance. I cant, in the least, convey to you the kind of horror that I felt. When I had ascertained that the thing was an illusion, as I then supposed, there came a misgiving about myself and a terror that fascinated me in impotence to remove my gaze from the eyes of the brute for some moments. As I looked, it made a little skip back, quite into the corner, and I, in a panic, found myself at the door, having put my head out, drawing deep breaths of the outer air, and staring at the lights and trees we were passing, too glad to reassure myself of reality. I stopped the bus and got out. I perceived the man look oddly at me as I paid him. I daresay there was something unusual in my looks and manner, for I had never felt so strangely before. VII The Journey First Stage When the omnibus drove on, and I was alone upon the road, I looked carefully round to ascertain whether the monkey had followed me. To my indescribable relief I saw it nowhere.


I cant describe easily what a shock I had received, and my sense of genuine gratitude on finding myself, as I supposed, quite rid of it. I had got out a little before we reached this house, two or three hundred steps. A brick wall runs along the footpath, and inside the wall is a hedge of yew or some dark evergreen of that kind, and within that again the row of fine trees which you may have remarked as you came. This brick wall is about as high as my shoulder, and happening to raise my eyes I saw the monkey, with that stooping gait, on all fours, walking or creeping, close beside me on top of the wall. I stopped looking at it with a feeling of loathing and horror. As I stopped so did it. It sat up on the wall with its long hands on its knees looking at me. There was not light enough to see it much more than in outline, nor was it dark enough to bring the peculiar light of its eyes into strong relief. I still saw, however, that red foggy light plainly enough. It did not show its teeth, nor exhibit any sign of irritation, but seemed jaded and sulky, and was observing me steadily. I drew back into the middle of the road. It was an unconscious recoil, and there I stood, still looking at it, it did not move. With an instinctive determination to try somethinganything, I turned about and walked briskly towards town with askance look, all the time, watching the movements of the beast. It crept swiftly along the wall, at exactly my pace. Where the wall ends, near the turn of the road, it came down and with a wiry spring or two brought itself close to my feet, and continued to keep up with me, as I quickened my pace. It was at my left side, so close to my leg that I felt every moment as if I should tread upon it. The road was quite deserted and silent, and it was darker every moment. I stopped dismayed and bewildered, turning as I did so, the other wayI mean, towards this house, away from which I had been walking. When I stood still, the monkey drew back to a distance of, I suppose, about five or six yards, and remained stationary, watching me. I had been more agitated than I have said. I had read, of course, as everyone has, something about spectral illusions, as you physicians term the phenomena of such cases. I considered my situation, and looked my misfortune in the face. These affections, I had read, are sometimes transitory and sometimes obstinate. I had read of cases in which the appearance, at first harmless, had, step by step, degenerated into something direful and insupportable, and ended by wearing its victim out. Still as I stood there, but for my bestial companion, quite alone, I tried to comfort myself by repeating again and again the assurance, the thing is purely disease, a wellknown physical affection, as distinctly as smallpox or neuralgia. Doctors are all agreed on that, philosophy demonstrates it. I must not be a fool. Ive been sitting up too late, and I daresay my digestion is quite wrong, and with Gods help, I shall be all right, and this is but a symptom of nervous dyspepsia. Did I believe all this? Not one word of it, no more than any other miserable being ever did who is once seized and riveted in this satanic captivity. Against my convictions, I might say my knowledge, I was simply bullying myself into a false courage. I now walked homeward. I had only a few hundred yards to go. I had forced myself into a sort of resignation, but I had not got over the sickening shock and the flurry of the first certainty of my misfortune. I made up my mind to pass the night at home. The brute moved close beside me, and I fancied there was the sort of anxious drawing toward the house, which one sees in tired horses or dogs, sometimes as they come toward home. I was afraid to go into town, I was afraid of anyones seeing and recognising me. I was conscious of an irrepressible agitation in my manner. Also, I was afraid of any violent change in my habits, such as going to a place of amusement, or walking from home in order to fatigue myself. At the hall door it waited till I mounted the steps, and when the door was opened entered with me. I drank no tea that night. I got cigars and some brandyandwater. My idea was that I should act upon my material system, and by living for a while in sensation apart from thought, send myself forcibly, as it were, into a new groove. I came up here to this drawingroom. I sat just here. The monkey then got upon a small table that then stood there. It looked dazed and languid. An irrepressible uneasiness as to its movements kept my eyes always upon it. Its eyes were half closed, but I could see them glow. It was looking steadily at me. In all situations, at all hours, it is awake and looking at me. That never changes. I shall not continue in detail my narrative of this particular night. I shall describe, rather, the phenomena of the first year, which never varied, essentially. I shall describe the monkey as it appeared in daylight. In the dark, as you shall presently hear, there are peculiarities. It is a small monkey, perfectly black. It had only one peculiaritya character of malignityunfathomable malignity. During the first year it looked sullen and sick. But this character of intense malice and vigilance was always underlying that surly languor. During all that time it acted as if on a plan of giving me as little trouble as was consistent with watching me. Its eyes were never off me, I have never lost sight of it, except in my sleep, light or dark, day or night, since it came here, excepting when it withdraws for some weeks at a time, unaccountably. In total dark it is visible as in daylight. I do not mean merely its eyes. It is all visible distinctly in a halo that resembles a glow of red embers, and which accompanies it in all its movements. When it leaves me for a time, it is always at night, in the dark, and in the same way. It grows at first uneasy, and then furious, and then advances towards me, grinning and shaking its paws clenched, and, at the same time, there comes the appearance of fire in the grate. I never have any fire. I cant sleep in the room where there is any, and it draws nearer and nearer to the chimney, quivering, it seems, with rage, and when its fury rises to the highest pitch, it springs into the grate, and up the chimney, and I see it no more. When first this happened I thought I was released. I was a new man. A day passeda nightand no return, and a blessed weeka weekanother week. I was always on my knees, Dr. Hesselius, always, thanking God and praying. A whole month passed of liberty, but on a sudden, it was with me again. VIII The Second Stage It was with me, and the malice which before was torpid under a sullen exterior, was now active. It was perfectly unchanged in every other respect. This new energy was apparent in its activity and its looks, and soon in other ways. For a time, you will understand, the change was shown only in an increased vivacity, and an air of menace, as if it was always brooding over some atrocious plan. Its eyes, as before, were never off me. Is it here now? I asked. No, he replied, it has been absent exactly a fortnight and a dayfifteen days. It has sometimes been away so long as nearly two months, once for three. Its absence always exceeds a fortnight, although it may be but by a single day. Fifteen days having past since I saw it last, it may return now at any moment. Is its return, I asked, accompanied by any peculiar manifestation? Nothingno, he said. It is simply with me again. On lifting my eyes from a book, or turning my head, I see it as usual, looking at me, and then it remains, as before, for its appointed time. I have never told so much and so minutely before to anyone. I perceived that he was agitated, and looking like death, and he repeatedly applied his handkerchief to his forehead; I suggested that he might be tired, and told him that I would call, with pleasure, in the morning, but he said No, if you dont mind hearing it all now. I have got so far, and I should prefer making one effort of it. When I spoke to Dr. Harley, I had nothing like so much to tell. You are a philosophic physician. You give spirit its proper rank. If this thing is real He paused, looking at me with agitated inquiry. We can discuss it byandby, and very fully. I will give you all I think, I answered, after an interval. Wellvery well. If it is anything real, I say, it is prevailing, little by little, and drawing me more interiorly into hell. Optic nerves, he talked of. Ah! wellthere are other nerves of communication. May God Almighty help me! You shall hear. Its power of action, I tell you, had increased. Its malice became, in a way aggressive. About two years ago, some questions that were pending between me and the bishop having been settled, I went down to my parish in Warwickshire, anxious to find occupation in my profession. I was not prepared for what happened, although I have since thought I might have apprehended something like it. The reason of my saying so, is this He was beginning to speak with a great deal more effort and reluctance, and sighed often, and seemed at times nearly overcome. But at this time his manner was not agitated. It was more like that of a sinking patient, who has given himself up. Yes, but I will first tell you about Kenlis, my parish. It was with me when I left this place for Dawlbridge. It was my silent travelling companion, and it remained with me at the vicarage. When I entered on the discharge of my duties, another change took place. The thing exhibited an atrocious determination to thwart me. It was with me in the churchin the readingdeskin the pulpitwithin the communion rails. At last, it reached this extremity, that while I was reading to the congregation, it would spring upon the open book and squat there, so that I was unable to see the page. This happened more than once. I left Dawlbridge for a time. I placed myself in Dr. Harleys hands. I did everything he told me. He gave my case a great deal of thought. It interested him, I think. He seemed successful. For nearly three months I was perfectly free from a return. I began to think I was safe. With his full assent I returned to Dawlbridge. I travelled in a chaise. I was in good spirits. I was moreI was happy and grateful. I was returning, as I thought delivered from a dreadful hallucination, to the scene of duties which I longed to enter upon. It was a beautiful sunny evening, everything looked serene and cheerful, and I was delighted. I remember looking out of the window to see the spire of my church at Kenlis among the trees, at the point where one has the earliest view of it. It is exactly where the little stream that bounds the parish passes under the road by a culvert, and where it emerges at the roadside, a stone with an old inscription is placed. As we passed this point, I drew my head in and sat down, and in the corner of the chaise was the monkey. For a moment I felt faint, and then quite wild with despair and horror. I called to the driver, and got out, and sat down at the roadside, and prayed to God silently for mercy. A despairing resignation supervened. My companion was with me as I reentered the vicarage. The same persecution followed. After a short struggle I submitted, and soon I left the place. I told you, he said, that the beast has before this become in certain ways aggressive. I will explain a little. It seemed to be actuated by intense and increasing fury, whenever I said my prayers, or even meditated prayer. It amounted at last to a dreadful interruption. You will ask, how could a silent immaterial phantom effect that? It was thus, whenever I meditated praying; it was always before me, and nearer and nearer. It used to spring on a table, on the back of a chair, on the chimneypiece, and slowly to swing itself from side to side, looking at me all the time. There is in its motion an indefinable power to dissipate thought, and to contract ones attention to that monotony, till the ideas shrink, as it were, to a point, and at last to nothingand unless I had started up, and shook off the catalepsy I have felt as if my mind were on the point of losing itself. There are other ways, he sighed heavily; thus, for instance, while I pray with my eyes closed, it comes closer and closer, and I see it. I know it is not to be accounted for physically, but I do actually see it, though my lids are closed, and so it rocks my mind, as it were, and overpowers me, and I am obliged to rise from my knees. If you had ever yourself known this, you would be acquainted with desperation. IX The Third Stage I see, Dr. Hesselius, that you dont lose one word of my statement. I need not ask you to listen specially to what I am now going to tell you. They talk of the optic nerves, and of spectral illusions, as if the organ of sight was the only point assailable by the influences that have fastened upon meI know better. For two years in my direful case that limitation prevailed. But as food is taken in softly at the lips, and then brought under the teeth, as the tip of the little finger caught in a mill crank will draw in the hand, and the arm, and the whole body, so the miserable mortal who has been once caught firmly by the end of the finest fibre of his nerve, is drawn in and in, by the enormous machinery of hell, until he is as I am. Yes, Doctor, as I am, for while I talk to you, and implore relief, I feel that my prayer is for the impossible, and my pleading with the inexorable. I endeavoured to calm his visibly increasing agitation, and told him that he must not despair. While we talked the night had overtaken us. The filmy moonlight was wide over the scene which the window commanded, and I said Perhaps you would prefer having candles. This light, you know, is odd. I should wish you, as much as possible, under your usual conditions while I make my diagnosis, shall I call itotherwise I dont care. All lights are the same to me, he said except when I read or write, I care not if night were perpetual. I am going to tell you what happened about a year ago. The thing began to speak to me. Speak! How do you meanspeak as a man does, do you mean? Yes; speak in words and consecutive sentences, with perfect coherence and articulation; but there is a peculiarity. It is not like the tone of a human voice. It is not by my ears it reaches meit comes like a singing through my head. This faculty, the power of speaking to me, will be my undoing. It wont let me pray, it interrupts me with dreadful blasphemies. I dare not go on, I could not. Oh! Doctor, can the skill, and thought, and prayers of man avail me nothing! You must promise me, my dear sir, not to trouble yourself with unnecessarily exciting thoughts; confine yourself strictly to the narrative of facts; and recollect, above all, that even if the thing that infests you be as you seem to suppose, a reality with an actual independent life and will, yet it can have no power to hurt you, unless it be given from above its access to your senses depends mainly upon your physical conditionthis is, under God, your comfort and reliance we are all alike environed. It is only that in your case, the paries, the veil of the flesh, the screen, is a little out of repair, and sights and sounds are transmitted. We must enter on a new course, sirbe encouraged. Ill give tonight to the careful consideration of the whole case. You are very good, sir; you think it worth trying, you dont give me quite up; but, sir, you dont know, it is gaining such an influence over me it orders me about, it is such a tyrant, and Im growing so helpless. May God deliver me! It orders you aboutof course you mean by speech? Yes, yes; it is always urging me to crimes, to injure others, or myself. You see, Doctor, the situation is urgent, it is indeed. When I was in Shropshire, a few weeks ago (Mr. Jennings was speaking rapidly and trembling now, holding my arm with one hand, and looking in my face), I went out one day with a party of friends for a walk my persecutor, I tell you, was with me at the time. I lagged behind the rest the country near the Dee, you know, is beautiful. Our path happened to lie near a coal mine, and at the verge of the wood is a perpendicular shaft, they say, a hundred and fifty feet deep. My niece had remained behind with meshe knows, of course, nothing of the nature of my sufferings. She knew, however, that I had been ill, and was low, and she remained to prevent my being quite alone. As we loitered slowly on together the brute that accompanied me was urging me to throw myself down the shaft. I tell you nowoh, sir, think of it!the one consideration that saved me from that hideous death was the fear lest the shock of witnessing the occurrence should be too much for the poor girl. I asked her to go on and take her walk with her friends, saying that I could go no further. She made excuses, and the more I urged her the firmer she became. She looked doubtful and frightened. I suppose there was something in my looks or manner that alarmed her; but she would not go, and that literally saved me. You had no idea, sir, that a living man could be made so abject a slave of Satan, he said, with a ghastly groan and a shudder. There was a pause here, and I said, You were preserved nevertheless. It was the act of God. You are in his hands and in the power of no other being be therefore confident for the future. X Home I made him have candles lighted, and saw the room looking cheery and inhabited before I left him. I told him that he must regard his illness strictly as one dependent on physical, though subtle physical, causes. I told him that he had evidence of Gods care and love in the deliverance which he had just described, and that I had perceived with pain that he seemed to regard its peculiar features as indicating that he had been delivered over to spiritual reprobation. Than such a conclusion nothing could be, I insisted, less warranted; and not only so, but more contrary to facts, as disclosed in his mysterious deliverance from that murderous influence during his Shropshire excursion. First, his niece had been retained by his side without his intending to keep her near him; and, secondly, there had been infused into his mind an irresistible repugnance to execute the dreadful suggestion in her presence. As I reasoned this point with him, Mr. Jennings wept. He seemed comforted. One promise I exacted, which was that should the monkey at any time return, I should be sent for immediately; and, repeating my assurance that I would give neither time nor thought to any other subject until I had thoroughly investigated his case, and that tomorrow he should hear the result, I took my leave. Before getting into the carriage I told the servant that his master was far from well, and that he should make a point of frequently looking into his room. My own arrangements I made with a view to being quite secure from interruption. I merely called at my lodgings, and with a travellingdesk and carpetbag, set off in a hackneycarriage for an inn about two miles out of town, called The Horns, a very quiet and comfortable house, with good thick walls. And there I resolved, without the possibility of intrusion or distraction, to devote some hours of the night, in my comfortable sittingroom, to Mr. Jennings case, and so much of the morning as it might require. (There occurs here a careful note of Dr. Hesselius opinion upon the case and of the habits, dietary, and medicines which he prescribed. It is curioussome persons would say mystical. But on the whole I doubt whether it would sufficiently interest a reader of the kind I am likely to meet with, to warrant its being here reprinted. The whole letter was plainly written at the inn where he had hid himself for the occasion. The next letter is dated from his town lodgings.) I left town for the inn where I slept last night at halfpast nine, and did not arrive at my room in town until one oclock this afternoon. I found a letter in Mr. Jennings hand upon my table. It had not come by post, and, on inquiry, I learned that Mr. Jennings servant had brought it, and on learning that I was not to return until today, and that no one could tell him my address, he seemed very uncomfortable, and said that his orders from his master were that he was not to return without an answer. I opened the letter, and read Dear Dr. Hesselius.It is here. You had not been an hour gone when it returned. It is speaking. It knows all that has happened. It knows everythingit knows you, and is frantic and atrocious. It reviles. I send you this. It knows every word I have writtenI write. This I promised, and I therefore write, but I fear very confused, very incoherently. I am so interrupted, disturbed. Ever yours, sincerely yours, Robert Lynder Jennings. When did this come? I asked. About eleven last night the man was here again, and has been here three times today. The last time is about an hour since. Thus answered, and with the notes I had made upon his case in my pocket, I was in a few minutes driving towards Richmond, to see Mr. Jennings. I by no means, as you perceive, despaired of Mr. Jennings case. He had himself remembered and applied, though quite in a mistaken way, the principle which I lay down in my Metaphysical Medicine, and which governs all such cases. I was about to apply it in earnest. I was profoundly interested, and very anxious to see and examine him while the enemy was actually present. I drove up to the sombre house, and ran up the steps, and knocked. The door, in a little time, was opened by a tall woman in black silk. She looked ill, and as if she had been crying. She curtseyed, and heard my question, but she did not answer. She turned her face away, extending her hand towards two men who were coming downstairs; and thus having, as it were, tacitly made me over to them, she passed through a sidedoor hastily and shut it. The man who was nearest the hall, I at once accosted, but being now close to him, I was shocked to see that both his hands were covered with blood. I drew back a little, and the man passing downstairs merely said in a low tone, Heres the servant, sir. The servant had stopped on the stairs, confounded and dumb at seeing me. He was rubbing his hands in a handkerchief, and it was steeped in blood. Jones, what is it, what has happened? I asked, while a sickening suspicion overpowered me. The man asked me to come up to the lobby. I was beside him in a moment, and frowning and pallid, with contracted eyes, he told me the horror which I already half guessed. His master had made away with himself. I went upstairs with him to the roomwhat I saw there I wont tell you. He had cut his throat with his razor. It was a frightful gash. The two men had laid him on the bed and composed his limbs. It had happened as the immense pool of blood on the floor declared, at some distance between the bed and the window. There was carpet round his bed, and a carpet under his dressingtable, but none on the rest of the floor, for the man said he did not like a carpet on his bedroom. In this sombre, and now terrible room, one of the great elms that darkened the house was slowly moving the shadow of one of its great boughs upon this dreadful floor. I beckoned to the servant and we went downstairs together. I turned off the hall into an oldfashioned pannelled room, and there standing, I heard all the servant had to tell. It was not a great deal. I concluded, sir, from your words, and looks, sir, as you left last night, that you thought my master seriously ill. I thought it might be that you were afraid of a fit, or something. So I attended very close to your directions. He sat up late, till past three oclock. He was not writing or reading. He was talking a great deal to himself, but that was nothing unusual. At about that hour I assisted him to undress, and left him in his slippers and dressinggown. I went back softly in about half an hour. He was in his bed, quite undressed, and a pair of candles lighted on the table beside his bed. He was leaning on his elbow and looking out at the other side of the bed when I came in. I asked him if he wanted anything, and he said no. I dont know whether it was what you said to me, sir, or something a little unusual about him, but I was uneasy, uncommon uneasy about him last night. In another half hour, or it might be a little more, I went up again. I did not hear him talking as before. I opened the door a little. The candles were both out, which was not usual. I had a bedroom candle, and I let the light in, a little bit, looking softly round. I saw him sitting in that chair beside the dressingtable with his clothes on again. He turned round and looked at me. I thought it strange he should get up and dress, and put out the candles to sit in the dark, that way. But I only asked him again if I could do anything for him. He said, no, rather sharp, I thought. I asked if I might light the candles, and he said, Do as you like, Jones, So I lighted them, and I lingered about the room, and he said, Tell me truth, Jones; why did you come againyou did not hear anyone cursing? No, sir, I said, wondering what he could mean.  No, said he, after me, of course, no; and I said to him, Wouldnt it be well, sir, you went to bed? Its just five oclock; and he said nothing but, Very likely; good night, Jones. So I went, sir, but in less than hour I came again. The door was fast, and he heard me, and called as I thought from the bed to know what I wanted, and he desired me not to disturb him again. I lay down and slept for a little. It must have been between six and seven when I went up again. The door was still fast, and he made no answer, so I did not like to disturb him, and thinking he was asleep, I left him till nine. It was his custom to ring when he wished me to come, and I had no particular hour for calling him. I tapped very gently, and getting no answer, I stayed away a good while, supposing he was getting some rest then. It was not till eleven oclock I grew really uncomfortable about himfor at the latest he was never, that I could remember, later than halfpast ten. I got no answer. I knocked and called, and still no answer. So not being able to force the door, I called Thomas from the stables, and together we forced it, and found him in the shocking way you saw. Jones had no more to tell. Poor Mr. Jennings was very gentle, and very kind. All his people were fond of him. I could see that the servant was very much moved. So, dejected and agitated, I passed from that terrible house, and its dark canopy of elms, and I hope I shall never see it more. While I write to you I feel like a man who has but half waked from a frightful and monotonous dream. My memory rejects the picture with incredulity and horror. Yet I know it is true. It is the story of the process of a poison, a poison which excites the reciprocal action of spirit and nerve, and paralyses the tissue that separates those cognate functions of the senses, the external and the interior. Thus we find strange bedfellows, and the mortal and immortal prematurely make acquaintance. Conclusion A Word for Those Who Suffer My dear Van L., you have suffered from an affection similar to that which I have just described. You twice complained of a return of it. Who, under God, cured you? Your humble servant, Martin Hesselius. Let me rather adopt the more emphasised piety of a certain good old French surgeon of three hundred years ago I treated, and God cured you. Come, my friend, you are not to be hippish. Let me tell you a fact. I have met with, and treated, as my book shows, fiftyseven cases of this kind of vision, which I term indifferently sublimated, precocious, and interior. There is another class of affections which are truly termedthough commonly confounded with those which I describespectral illusions. These latter I look upon as being no less simply curable than a cold in the head or a trifling dyspepsia. It is those which rank in the first category that test our promptitude of thought. Fiftyseven such cases have I encountered, neither more nor less. And in how many of these have I failed? In no one single instance. There is no one affliction of mortality more easily and certainly reducible, with a little patience, and a rational confidence in the physician. With these simple conditions, I look upon the cure as absolutely certain. You are to remember that I had not even commenced to treat Mr. Jennings case. I have not any doubt that I should have cured him perfectly in eighteen months, or possibly it might have extended to two years. Some cases are very rapidly curable, others extremely tedious. Every intelligent physician who will give thought and diligence to the task, will effect a cure. You know my tract on The Cardinal Functions of the Brain. I there, by the evidence of innumerable facts, prove, as I think, the high probability of a circulation arterial and venous in its mechanism, through the nerves. Of this system, thus considered, the brain is the heart. The fluid, which is propagated hence through one class of nerves, returns in an altered state through another, and the nature of that fluid is spiritual, though not immaterial, any more than, as I before remarked, light or electricity are so. By various abuses, among which the habitual use of such agents as green tea is one, this fluid may be affected as to its quality, but it is more frequently disturbed as to equilibrium. This fluid being that which we have in common with spirits, a congestion found upon the masses of brain or nerve, connected with the interior sense, forms a surface unduly exposed, on which disembodied spirits may operate communication is thus more or less effectually established. Between this brain circulation and the heart circulation there is an intimate sympathy. The seat, or rather the instrument of exterior vision, is the eye. The seat of interior vision is the nervous tissue and brain, immediately about and above the eyebrow. You remember how effectually I dissipated your pictures by the simple application of iced eaudecologne. Few cases, however, can be treated exactly alike with anything like rapid success. Cold acts powerfully as a repellant of the nervous fluid. Long enough continued it will even produce that permanent insensibility which we call numbness, and a little longer, muscular as well as sensational paralysis. I have not, I repeat, the slightest doubt that I should have first dimmed and ultimately sealed that inner eye which Mr. Jennings had inadvertently opened. The same senses are opened in delirium tremens, and entirely shut up again when the overaction of the cerebral heart, and the prodigious nervous congestions that attend it, are terminated by a decided change in the state of the body. It is by acting steadily upon the body, by a simple process, that this result is producedand inevitably producedI have never yet failed. Poor Mr. Jennings made away with himself. But that catastrophe was the result of a totally different malady, which, as it were, projected itself upon that disease which was established. His case was in the distinctive manner a complication, and the complaint under which he really succumbed, was hereditary suicidal mania. Poor Mr. Jennings I cannot call a patient of mine, for I had not even begun to treat his case, and he had not yet given me, I am convinced, his full and unreserved confidence. If the patient do not array himself on the side of the disease, his cure is certain. Imprint This ebook is the product of many hours of hard work by volunteers for Standard Ebooks, and builds on the hard work of other literature lovers made possible by the public domain. This particular ebook is based on transcriptions from Project Gutenberg and on digital scans from Google Books.


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Mr. Justice Harbottle Prologue On this case, Doctor Hesselius has inscribed nothing more than the words, Harmans Report, and a simple reference to his own extraordinary essay on The Interior Sense, and the Conditions of the Opening Thereof. The reference is to Vol. I, Section 317, Note Za. The note to which reference is thus made, simply says There are two accounts of the remarkable case of the Honourable Mr. Justice Harbottle, one furnished to me by Mrs. Trimmer of Tunbridge Wells (June, 1805); the other at a much later date, by Anthony Harman, Esq. I much prefer the former; in the first place, because it is minute and detailed, and written, it seems to me, with more caution and knowledge; and in the next, because the letters from Doctor Hedstone, which are embodied in it, furnish matter of the highest value to a right apprehension of the nature of the case. It was one of the best declared cases of an opening of the interior sense, which I have met with. It was affected, too, by the phenomenon, which occurs so frequently as to indicate a law of these eccentric conditions; that is to say, it exhibited, what I may term, the contagious character of this sort of intrusion of the spiritworld upon the proper domain of matter. So soon as the spiritaction has established itself in the case of one patient, its developed energy begins to radiate, more or less effectually, upon others. The interior vision of the child was opened; as was, also, that of its mother, Mrs. Pyneweck; and both the interior vision and hearing of the scullerymaid, were opened on the same occasion. Afterappearances are the result of the law explained in Vol. II. Section 17 to 49. The common centre of association, simultaneously recalled, unites, or reunites, as the case may be, for a period measured, as we see, in Section 37. The maximum will extend to days, the minimum is little more than a second. We see the operation of this principle perfectly displayed, in certain cases of lunacy, of epilepsy, of catalepsy, and of mania, of a peculiar and painful character, though unattended by incapacity of business. The memorandum of the case of Judge Harbottle, which was written by Mrs. Trimmer of Tunbridge Wells, which Doctor Hesselius thought the better of the two, I have been unable to discover among his papers. I found in his escritoire a note to the effect that he had lent the Report of Judge Harbottles case, written by Mrs. Trimmer to Doctor F. Heyne. To that learned and able gentleman accordingly I wrote, and received from him, in his reply, which was full of alarms and regrets on account of the uncertain safety of that valuable MS., a line written long since by Doctor Hesselius, which completely exonerated him, inasmuch as it acknowledged the safe return of the papers. The narrative of Mr. Harman, is, therefore, the only one available for this collection. The late Dr. Hesselius, in another passage of the note that I have cited, says, As to the facts (nonmedical) of the case, the narrative of Mr. Harman exactly tallies with that furnished by Mrs. Trimmer. The strictly scientific view of the case would scarcely interest the popular reader; and, possibly, for the purposes of this selection, I should, even had I both papers to choose between, have preferred that of Mr. Harman, which is given, in full, in the following pages. I The Judges House Thirty years ago, an elderly man, to whom I paid quarterly a small annuity charged on some property of mine, came on the quarterday to receive it. He was a dry, sad, quiet man, who had known better days, and had always maintained an unexceptionable character. No better authority could be imagined for a ghost story. He told me one, though with a manifest reluctance; he was drawn into the narration by his choosing to explain what I should not have remarked, that he had called two days earlier than that week after the strict day of payment, which he had usually allowed to elapse. His reason was a sudden determination to change his lodgings, and the consequent necessity of paying his rent a little before it was due. He lodged in a dark street in Westminster, in a spacious old house, very warm, being wainscoted from top to bottom, and furnished with no undue abundance of windows, and those fitted with thick sashes and small panes. This house was, as the bills upon the windows testified, offered to be sold or let. But no one seemed to care to look at it. A thin matron, in rusty black silk, very taciturn, with large, steady, alarmed eyes, that seemed to look in your face, to read what you might have seen in the dark rooms and passages through which you had passed, was in charge of it, with a solitary maidofallwork under her command. My poor friend had taken lodgings in this house, on account of their extraordinary cheapness. He had occupied them for nearly a year without the slightest disturbance, and was the only tenant, under rent, in the house. He had two rooms; a sittingroom, and a bedroom with a closet opening from it, in which he kept his books and papers locked up. He had gone to his bed, having also locked the outer door. Unable to sleep, he had lighted a candle, and after having read for a time, had laid the book beside him. He heard the old clock at the stairhead strike one; and very shortly after, to his alarm, he saw the closetdoor, which he thought he had locked, open stealthily, and a slight dark man, particularly sinister, and somewhere about fifty, dressed in mourning of a very antique fashion, such a suit as we see in Hogarth, entered the room on tiptoe. He was followed by an elder man, stout, and blotched with scurvy, and whose features, fixed as a corpses, were stamped with dreadful force with a character of sensuality and villany. This old man wore a floweredsilk dressinggown and ruffles, and he remarked a gold ring on his finger, and on his head a cap of velvet, such as, in the days of perukes, gentlemen wore in undress. This direful old man carried in his ringed and ruffled hand a coil of rope; and these two figures crossed the floor diagonally, passing the foot of his bed, from the closetdoor at the farther end of the room, at the left, near the window, to the door opening upon the lobby, close to the beds head, at his right. He did not attempt to describe his sensations as these figures passed so near him. He merely said, that so far from sleeping in that room again, no consideration the world could offer would induce him so much as to enter it again alone, even in the daylight. He found both doors, that of the closet, and that of the room opening upon the lobby, in the morning fast locked, as he had left them before going to bed. In answer to a question of mine, he said that neither appeared the least conscious of his presence. They did not seem to glide, but walked as living men do, but without any sound, and he felt a vibration on the floor as they crossed it. He so obviously suffered from speaking about the apparitions, that I asked him no more questions. There were in his description, however, certain coincidences so very singular, as to induce me, by that very post, to write to a friend much my senior, then living in a remote part of England, for the information which I knew he could give me. He had himself more than once pointed out that old house to my attention, and told me, though very briefly, the strange story which I now asked him to give me in greater detail. His answer satisfied me; and the following pages convey its substance. Your letter (he wrote) tells me you desire some particulars about the closing years of the life of Mr. Justice Harbottle, one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas. You refer, of course, to the extraordinary occurrences that made that period of his life long after a theme for winter tales and metaphysical speculation. I happen to know perhaps more than any other man living of those mysterious particulars. The old family mansion, when I revisited London, more than thirty years ago, I examined for the last time. During the years that have passed since then, I hear that improvement, with its preliminary demolitions, has been doing wonders for the quarter of Westminster in which it stood. If I were quite certain that the house had been taken down, I should have no difficulty about naming the street in which it stood. As what I have to tell, however, is not likely to improve its letting value, and as I should not care to get into trouble, I prefer being silent on that particular point. How old the house was, I cant tell. People said it was built by Roger Harbottle, a Turkey merchant, in the reign of King James I. I am not a good opinion upon such questions; but having been in it, though in its forlorn and deserted state, I can tell you in a general way what it was like. It was built of darkred brick, and the door and windows were faced with stone that had turned yellow by time. It receded some feet from the line of the other houses in the street; and it had a florid and fanciful rail of iron about the broad steps that invited your ascent to the halldoor, in which were fixed, under a file of lamps, among scrolls and twisted leaves, two immense extinguishers, like the conical caps of fairies, into which, in old times, the footmen used to thrust their flambeaux when their chairs or coaches had set down their great people, in the hall or at the steps, as the case might be. That hall is panelled up to the ceiling, and has a large fireplace. Two or three stately old rooms open from it at each side. The windows of these are tall, with many small panes. Passing through the arch at the back of the hall, you come upon the wide and heavy wellstaircase. There is a back staircase also. The mansion is large, and has not as much light, by any means, in proportion to its extent, as modern houses enjoy. When I saw it, it had long been untenanted, and had the gloomy reputation beside of a haunted house. Cobwebs floated from the ceilings or spanned the corners of the cornices, and dust lay thick over everything. The windows were stained with the dust and rain of fifty years, and darkness had thus grown darker. When I made it my first visit, it was in company with my father, when I was still a boy, in the year 1808. I was about twelve years old, and my imagination impressible, as it always is at that age. I looked about me with great awe. I was here in the very centre and scene of those occurrences which I had heard recounted at the fireside at home, with so delightful a horror. My father was an old bachelor of nearly sixty when he married. He had, when a child, seen Judge Harbottle on the bench in his robes and wig a dozen times at least before his death, which took place in 1748, and his appearance made a powerful and unpleasant impression, not only on his imagination, but upon his nerves. The Judge was at that time a man of some sixtyseven years. He had a great mulberrycoloured face, a big, carbuncled nose, fierce eyes, and a grim and brutal mouth. My father, who was young at the time, thought it the most formidable face he had ever seen; for there were evidences of intellectual power in the formation and lines of the forehead. His voice was loud and harsh, and gave effect to the sarcasm which was his habitual weapon on the bench. This old gentleman had the reputation of being about the wickedest man in England. Even on the bench he now and then showed his scorn of opinion. He had carried cases his own way, it was said, in spite of counsel, authorities, and even of juries, by a sort of cajolery, violence, and bamboozling, that somehow confused and overpowered resistance. He had never actually committed himself; he was too cunning to do that. He had the character of being, however, a dangerous and unscrupulous judge; but his character did not trouble him. The associates he chose for his hours of relaxation cared as little as he did about it. II Mr. Peters One night during the session of 1746 this old Judge went down in his chair to wait in one of the rooms of the House of Lords for the result of a division in which he and his order were interested. This over, he was about to return to his house close by, in his chair; but the night had become so soft and fine that he changed his mind, sent it home empty, and with two footmen, each with a flambeau, set out on foot in preference. Gout had made him rather a slow pedestrian. It took him some time to get through the two or three streets he had to pass before reaching his house. In one of those narrow streets of tall houses, perfectly silent at that hour, he overtook, slowly as he was walking, a very singularlooking old gentleman. He had a bottlegreen coat on, with a cape to it, and large stone buttons, a broadleafed lowcrowned hat, from under which a big powdered wig escaped; he stooped very much, and supported his bending knees with the aid of a crutchhandled cane, and so shuffled and tottered along painfully. I ask your pardon, sir, said this old man in a very quavering voice, as the burly Judge came up with him, and he extended his hand feebly towards his arm. Mr. Justice Harbottle saw that the man was by no means poorly dressed, and his manner that of a gentleman. The Judge stopped short, and said, in his harsh peremptory tones, Well, sir, how can I serve you? Can you direct me to Judge Harbottles house? I have some intelligence of the very last importance to communicate to him. Can you tell it before witnesses? asked the Judge. By no means; it must reach his ear only, quavered the old man earnestly. If that be so, sir, you have only to accompany me a few steps farther to reach my house, and obtain a private audience; for I am Judge Harbottle. With this invitation the infirm gentleman in the white wig complied very readily; and in another minute the stranger stood in what was then termed the front parlour of the Judges house, ttette with that shrewd and dangerous functionary. He had to sit down, being very much exhausted, and unable for a little time to speak; and then he had a fit of coughing, and after that a fit of gasping; and thus two or three minutes passed, during which the Judge dropped his roquelaure on an armchair, and threw his cockedhat over that. The venerable pedestrian in the white wig quickly recovered his voice. With closed doors they remained together for some time. There were guests waiting in the drawingrooms, and the sound of mens voices laughing, and then of a female voice singing to a harpsichord, were heard distinctly in the hall over the stairs; for old Judge Harbottle had arranged one of his dubious jollifications, such as might well make the hair of godly mens heads stand upright, for that night. This old gentleman in the powdered white wig, that rested on his stooped shoulders, must have had something to say that interested the Judge very much; for he would not have parted on easy terms with the ten minutes and upwards which that conference filched from the sort of revelry in which he most delighted, and in which he was the roaring king, and in some sort the tyrant also, of his company. The footman who showed the aged gentleman out observed that the Judges mulberrycoloured face, pimples and all, were bleached to a dingy yellow, and there was the abstraction of agitated thought in his manner, as he bid the stranger good night. The servant saw that the conversation had been of serious import, and that the Judge was frightened. Instead of stumping upstairs forthwith to his scandalous hilarities, his profane company, and his great china bowl of punchthe identical bowl from which a bygone Bishop of London, good easy man, had baptised this Judges grandfather, now clinking round the rim with silver ladles, and hung with scrolls of lemonpeelinstead, I say, of stumping and clambering up the great staircase to the cavern of his Circean enchantment, he stood with his big nose flattened against the windowpane, watching the progress of the feeble old man, who clung stiffly to the iron rail as he got down, step by step, to the pavement. The halldoor had hardly closed, when the old Judge was in the hall bawling hasty orders, with such stimulating expletives as old colonels under excitement sometimes indulge in nowadays, with a stamp or two of his big foot, and a waving of his clenched fist in the air. He commanded the footman to overtake the old gentleman in the white wig, to offer him his protection on his way home, and in no case to show his face again without having ascertained where he lodged, and who he was, and all about him. By , sirrah! if you fail me in this, you doff my livery tonight! Forth bounced the stalwart footman, with his heavy cane under his arm, and skipped down the steps, and looked up and down the street after the singular figure, so easy to recognise. What were his adventures I shall not tell you just now. The old man, in the conference to which he had been admitted in that stately panelled room, had just told the Judge a very strange story. He might be himself a conspirator; he might possibly be crazed; or possibly his whole story was straight and true. The aged gentleman in the bottlegreen coat, on finding himself alone with Mr. Justice Harbottle, had become agitated. He said, There is, perhaps you are not aware, my lord, a prisoner in Shrewsbury jail, charged with having forged a bill of exchange for a hundred and twenty pounds, and his name is Lewis Pyneweck, a grocer of that town. Is there? says the Judge, who knew well that there was. Yes, my lord, says the old man. Then you had better say nothing to affect this case. If you do, by  Ill commit you; for Im to try it, says the Judge, with his terrible look and tone. I am not going to do anything of the kind, my lord; of him or his case I know nothing, and care nothing. But a fact has come to my knowledge which it behoves you to well consider. And what may that fact be? inquired the Judge; Im in haste, sir, and beg you will use dispatch. It has come to my knowledge, my lord, that a secret tribunal is in process of formation, the object of which is to take cognisance of the conduct of the judges; and first, of your conduct, my lord it is a wicked conspiracy. Who are of it? demands the Judge. I know not a single name as yet. I know but the fact, my lord; it is most certainly true. Ill have you before the Privy Council, sir, says the Judge. That is what I most desire; but not for a day or two, my lord. And why so? I have not as yet a single name, as I told your lordship; but I expect to have a list of the most forward men in it, and some other papers connected with the plot, in two or three days. You said one or two just now. About that time, my lord. Is this a Jacobite plot? In the main I think it is, my lord. Why, then, it is political. I have tried no State prisoners, nor am like to try any such. How, then, doth it concern me? From what I can gather, my lord, there are those in it who desire private revenges upon certain judges. What do they call their cabal? The High Court of Appeal, my lord. Who are you sir? What is your name? Hugh Peters, my lord. That should be a Whig name? It is, my lord. Where do you lodge, Mr. Peters? In Thamesstreet, my lord, over against the sign of the Three Kings. Three Kings? Take care one be not too many for you, Mr. Peters! How come you, an honest Whig, as you say, to be privy to a Jacobite plot? Answer me that. My lord, a person in whom I take an interest has been seduced to take a part in it; and being frightened at the unexpected wickedness of their plans, he is resolved to become an informer for the Crown. He resolves like a wise man, sir. What does he say of the persons? Who are in the plot? Doth he know them? Only two, my lord; but he will be introduced to the club in a few days, and he will then have a list, and more exact information of their plans, and above all of their oaths, and their hours and places of meeting, with which he wishes to be acquainted before they can have any suspicions of his intentions. And being so informed, to whom, think you, my lord, had he best go then? To the kings attorneygeneral straight. But you say this concerns me, sir, in particular? How about this prisoner, Lewis Pyneweck? Is he one of them? I cant tell, my lord; but for some reason, it is thought your lordship will be well advised if you try him not. For if you do, it is feared twill shorten your days. So far as I can learn, Mr. Peters, this business smells pretty strong of blood and treason. The kings attorneygeneral will know how to deal with it. When shall I see you again, sir? If you give me leave, my lord, either before your lordships court sits, or after it rises, tomorrow. I should like to come and tell your lordship what has passed. Do so, Mr. Peters, at nine oclock tomorrow morning. And see you play me no trick, sir, in this matter; if you do, by , sir, Ill lay you by the heels! You need fear no trick from me, my lord; had I not wished to serve you, and acquit my own conscience, I never would have come all this way to talk with your lordship. Im willing to believe you, Mr. Peters; Im willing to believe you, sir. And upon this they parted. He has either painted his face, or he is consumedly sick, thought the old Judge. The light had shone more effectually upon his features as he turned to leave the room with a low bow, and they looked, he fancied, unnaturally chalky. D him! said the judge ungraciously, as he began to scale the stairs he has halfspoiled my supper. But if he had, no one but the Judge himself perceived it, and the evidence was all, as anyone might perceive, the other way. III Lewis Pyneweck In the meantime, the footman dispatched in pursuit of Mr. Peters speedily overtook that feeble gentleman. The old man stopped when he heard the sound of pursuing steps, but any alarms that may have crossed his mind seemed to disappear on his recognising the livery. He very gratefully accepted the proferred assistance, and placed his tremulous arm within the servants for support. They had not gone far, however, when the old man stopped suddenly, saying, Dear me! as I live, I have dropped it. You heard it fall. My eyes, I fear, wont serve me, and Im unable to stoop low enough; but if you will look, you shall have half the find. It is a guinea; I carried it in my glove. The street was silent and deserted. The footman had hardly descended to what he termed his hunkers, and begun to search the pavement about the spot which the old man indicated, when Mr. Peters, who seemed very much exhausted, and breathed with difficulty, struck him a violent blow, from above, over the back of the head with a heavy instrument, and then another; and leaving him bleeding and senseless in the gutter, ran like a lamplighter down a lane to the right, and was gone. When, an hour later, the watchman brought the man in livery home, still stupid and covered with blood, Judge Harbottle cursed his servant roundly, swore he was drunk, threatened him with an indictment for taking bribes to betray his master, and cheered him with a perspective of the broad street leading from the Old Bailey to Tyburn, the carts tail, and the hangmans lash. Notwithstanding this demonstration, the Judge was pleased. It was a disguised affidavit man, or footpad, no doubt, who had been employed to frighten him. The trick had fallen through. A court of appeal, such as the false Hugh Peters had indicated, with assassination for its sanction, would be an uncomfortable institution for a hanging judge like the Honourable Justice Harbottle. That sarcastic and ferocious administrator of the criminal code of England, at that time a rather pharisaical, bloody, and heinous system of justice, had reasons of his own for choosing to try that very Lewis Pyneweck, on whose behalf this audacious trick was devised. Try him he would. No man living should take that morsel out of his mouth. Of Lewis Pyneweck of course, so far as the outer world could see, he knew nothing. He would try him after his fashion, without fear, favour, or affection. But did he not remember a certain thin man, dressed in mourning, in whose house, in Shrewsbury, the Judges lodgings used to be, until a scandal of his illtreating his wife came suddenly to light? A grocer with a demure look, a soft step, and a lean face as dark as mahogany, with a nose sharp and long, standing ever so little awry, and a pair of dark steady brown eyes under thinlytraced black browsa man whose thin lips wore always a faint unpleasant smile. Had not that scoundrel an account to settle with the Judge? had he not been troublesome lately? and was not his name Lewis Pyneweck, some time grocer in Shrewsbury, and now prisoner in the jail of that town? The reader may take it, if he pleases, as a sign that Judge Harbottle was a good Christian, that he suffered nothing ever from remorse. That was undoubtedly true. He had nevertheless done this grocer, forger, what you will, some five or six years before, a grievous wrong; but it was not that, but a possible scandal, and possible complications, that troubled the learned Judge now. Did he not, as a lawyer, know, that to bring a man from his shop to the dock, the chances must be at least ninetynine out of a hundred that he is guilty. A weak man like his learned brother Withershins was not a judge to keep the high roads safe, and make crime tremble. Old Judge Harbottle was the man to make the evildisposed quiver, and to refresh the world with showers of wicked blood, and thus save the innocent, to the refrain of the ancient saw he loved to quote Foolish pity Ruins a city. In hanging that fellow he could not be wrong. The eye of a man accustomed to look upon the dock could not fail to read villain written sharp and clear in his plotting face. Of course he would try him, and no one else should. A saucylooking woman, still handsome, in a mobcap gay with blue ribbons, in a saque of flowered silk, with lace and rings on, much too fine for the Judges housekeeper, which nevertheless she was, peeped into his study next morning, and, seeing the Judge alone, stepped in. Heres another letter from him, come by the post this morning. Cant you do nothing for him? she said wheedlingly, with her arm over his neck, and her delicate finger and thumb fiddling with the lobe of his purple ear. Ill try, said Judge Harbottle, not raising his eyes from the paper he was reading. I knew youd do what I asked you, she said. The Judge clapt his gouty claw over his heart, and made her an ironical bow. What, she asked, will you do? Hang him, said the Judge with a chuckle. You dont mean to; no, you dont, my little man, said she, surveying herself in a mirror on the wall. Im dd but I think youre falling in love with your husband at last! said Judge Harbottle. Im blest but I think youre growing jealous of him, replied the lady with a laugh. But no; he was always a bad one to me; Ive done with him long ago. And he with you, by George! When he took your fortune and your spoons and your earrings, he had all he wanted of you. He drove you from his house; and when he discovered you had made yourself comfortable, and found a good situation, hed have taken your guineas and your silver and your earrings over again, and then allowed you halfadozen years more to make a new harvest for his mill. You dont wish him good; if you say you do, you lie. She laughed a wicked saucy laugh, and gave the terrible Rhadamanthus a playful tap on the chops. He wants me to send him money to fee a counsellor, she said, while her eyes wandered over the pictures on the wall, and back again to the lookingglass; and certainly she did not look as if his jeopardy troubled her very much. Confound his impudence, the scoundrel! thundered the old Judge, throwing himself back in his chair, as he used to do in furore on the bench, and the lines of his mouth looked brutal, and his eyes ready to leap from their sockets. If you answer his letter from my house to please yourself, youll write your next from somebody elses to please me. You understand, my pretty witch, Ill not be pestered. Come, no pouting; whimpering wont do. You dont care a brass farthing for the villain, body or soul. You came here but to make a row. You are one of Mother Careys chickens; and where you come, the storm is up. Get you gone, baggage! get you gone! he repeated with a stamp; for a knock at the halldoor made her instantaneous disappearance indispensable. I need hardly say that the venerable Hugh Peters did not appear again. The Judge never mentioned him. But oddly enough, considering how he laughed to scorn the weak invention which he had blown into dust at the very first puff, his whitewigged visitor and the conference in the dark front parlour was often in his memory. His shrewd eye told him that allowing for change of tints and such disguises as the playhouse affords every night, the features of this false old man, who had turned out too hard for his tall footman, were identical with those of Lewis Pyneweck. Judge Harbottle made his registrar call upon the crown solicitor, and tell him that there was a man in town who bore a wonderful resemblance to a prisoner in Shrewsbury jail named Lewis Pyneweck, and to make inquiry through the post forthwith whether anyone was personating Pyneweck in prison, and whether he had thus or otherwise made his escape. The prisoner was safe, however, and no question as to his identity. IV Interruption in Court In due time Judge Harbottle went circuit; and in due time the judges were in Shrewsbury. News travelled slowly in those days, and newspapers, like the wagons and stagecoaches, took matters easily. Mrs. Pyneweck, in the Judges house, with a diminished householdthe greater part of the Judges servants having gone with him, for he had given up riding circuit, and travelled in his coach in statekept house rather solitarily at home. In spite of quarrels, in spite of mutual injuriessome of them, inflicted by herself, enormousin spite of a married life of spited bickeringsa life in which there seemed no love or liking or forbearance, for yearsnow that Pyneweck stood in near danger of death, something like remorse came suddenly upon her. She knew that in Shrewsbury were transacting the scenes which were to determine his fate. She knew she did not love him; but she could not have supposed, even a fortnight before, that the hour of suspense could have affected her so powerfully. She knew the day on which the trial was expected to take place. She could not get it out of her head for a minute; she felt faint as it drew towards evening. Two or three days passed; and then she knew that the trial must be over by this time. There were floods between London and Shrewsbury, and news was long delayed. She wished the floods would last forever. It was dreadful waiting to hear; dreadful to know that the event was over, and that she could not hear till selfwilled rivers subsided; dreadful to know that they must subside and the news come at last. She had some vague trust in the Judges goodnature, and much in the resources of chance and accident.