suggested the inquiry. Still, it may be proper to call
attention to the fact, that persons who have been,
or who have conceived themselves to have been,
the witnesses of so-called supernatural appearances,
are, in recalling the occurrence, never
wholly free from the dominion of that exalted
feeling which accompanied it, and which is ill-
calculated for minute and accurate detail. He,
therefore, who undertakes to relate a ghost story
at second-hand, may have the difficult task of
rendering incoherences in such a manner as shall
not bring down unjust doubt upon what is no
less correct than clear.

To assist analysis, we must compare. To aid
comparison, the least possible reserve should
unite with the closest possible adherence to
facts, so far as facts can be ascertained after
passing through strongly susceptible imaginations.
Even were these extra-natural occurrences
not explicable (which we hold them in
every case to be), there is surely nothing terrible
or revolting in the pursuit. It is, for example,
a simple, touching, and beautiful faith that the
last earthly regards of the liberated spirit should
be fixed upon its best beloved. If such be the
work of a mocking spirit, it wears a wonderfully
heavenly dress. "I am a ghost," says Wolfrau,
in the Fool's Tragedy:
             Tremble not. Fear not me:
The dead are ever good and innocent,
And love the living. They are cheerful creatures—
And quiet as the sunbeams—and most like,
In grace, and patient love, and spotless beauty,
The new-born of mankind.

To proceed at once to illustration, here are
two instances of "intuition," both brief and
true. The first is supplied by a gentleman well
known in French literary circles, whom it
induced to bestow much attention on that and
kindred subjects.

In 1845 he was visiting a lady of his
acquaintance at Rouen. They were engaged in
earnest conversation on the subject of the future
prospects of the lady's children, the youngest
of whom—a girl of eighteen—sat working beside
them. Suddenly, the latter started from her
seat with a loud shriek, and threw herself into
her mother's arms. On being questioned as to
the cause of her agitation, she pointed to a sofa,
and, weeping bitterly, declared she had seen
descend upon it the figure of her elder sister,
Rosalie, then on a visit to some relations at or
near Havre. The countenance of the phantom
was pale and death-stricken. This occurred at
four o'clock in the afternoon of the 17th
September. Two days after, tidings arrived that
Rosalie L———had been unhappily drowned in
a boating excursion at Havre, at (it was affirmed)
the precise moment of the appearance.

As another instance, here is a circumstance
minutely related by Monsieur M———, a retired
French officer, in a letter to a friend:

"Left an orphan at an early age, I was
brought up under the care of a kind-hearted
godmother, who could scarcely have cherished
me more, had I been her own offspring. She
resided at Harfleur, and being in easy circumstances,
refused me nothing that could contribute
to my youthful pleasure, keeping my pockets,
withal, comfortably lined with that material
which rendered my frequent visits to the Sunday
fetes in the neighbourhood doubly agreeable.
On one occasion I had started as usual in
company with a band of young vagabonds like
myself to attend a fête at Quillebœuf, on the
opposite side of the Seine.

"Contrary to my natural habit, I felt uneasy
and depressed. An inexplicable feeling of gloom
hung upon my mind, and neither my own efforts,
nor the raillery of my companions, could drive
it away. I had, indeed, left my good protectress
confined by illness to her bed, but I was not
aware that she was in any danger. However,
the cloud upon my mind, far from dispersing,
momentarily increased. If I joined as usual in
the different sports, I was slow and unskilful;
and, in the war of wit that generally
accompanied our games, had not a word to say for
myself. We had engaged in a match of skittles.
It was my turn to deliver the ball, and I was
standing, half pensively, poising it in my hand,
when I distinctly heard a soft voice pronounce
my name. I started, and turned round, hastily
asking who had spoken.

"'Nobody,' replied those around me.

"I insisted that I had heard a woman's voice
say ' M——,'

"'Bah! you're dreaming. Play away.'

"Hardly had the ball quitted my hand, when,
a second time, I heard my name pronounced in
a soft and plaintive tone; but fainter than the
former. Again I inquired who called me.

"No one present had heard the sound.

"It struck me that some one of the party
was playing a trick upon me, in order to increase
my evident melancholy. Nevertheless, under
the influence of some impression caused by the
plaintive summons, I refused to play any longer,
and presently returned alone to Harfleur. On
reaching my godmother's house, I was shocked
to learn that she had expired during the afternoon,pronouncing my name twice, and breathing
her last sigh at the moment of the second
summons I had heard. These facts are well known
to some twelve or fifteen people at Harfleur
and at Quillebœuf, most of whom are still (in
1854) living, and were I to live fifty years, the
sound and the impression will never depart from
my memory." But, of course, these so-called
"facts" had their common source in the narrator.
Therefore, as a question of evidence, no
corroboration is gained by their being known to the
dozen or fifteen people still living.

The heroine of our next illustration is Mrs.
D———, an English lady.

When, five years ago, Mrs. D———became a
widow, it pleased the brother of her husband to
dispute the dispositions of the latter's will—a
proceeding the more annoying as the provision
made for the widow was already extremely
moderate. Ultimately an appeal was made
to Chancery. The suit lasted three years,
and caused Mrs. D———the utmost vexation
and anxiety, when, at length, the law, finding