"The first thought that flashed across me as the accident happened was, 'What will W. say?' My ruling idea then was to get home before my husband, so as to save him alarm." The Rev. A. T. Fryer, to whom the incident was originally communicated by the percipient, ascertained independently from the Vicar of Ebbw Vale that the date of Archdeacon Bruce's visit to him was April 19th, 1892. It is worth noting that here, as in case 45, an external object appears to have acted as a _point de repère_, and to have thus aided in the development of the transferred idea. Another instance of a telepathic impulse leading to speech is to be found in the _Annales des Sciences Psychiques_ (vol. i. p. 36). The Lady Superior of a convent was moved during the celebration of a service to pray for the safety of the children of a neighbour--a visitor to the convent--who was somewhat startled by the Superior's abrupt action. It subsequently appeared that at about the time of this prayer the two boys were involved in a carriage accident. The most striking evidence, however, of telepathically induced action is to be found in automatic writing. Some experimental cases of the kind have been quoted in Chapter IV. The spontaneous cases are more numerous. Mr. Myers has recorded several instances in his article on Motor Automatism (_Proc. S.P.R._, vol. ix. pp. 26 _et seq._), and Mr. W. T. Stead has published, in the _Review of Reviews_ and elsewhere, accounts of messages and conversations with friends at a distance written through his hand. Generally speaking, however, where living persons are concerned, it is difficult, without full knowledge of all the circumstances, to feel assured that the facts recorded by this means are not such as might conceivably have been within the knowledge of the writer, or at least within his powers of conjecture. The best evidence, therefore, for spontaneous telepathic automatism is no doubt afforded by those cases in which some altogether unforeseen event, such as the death of the presumed agent, is communicated. Such is the case recorded by M. Aksakof (_Psychische Studien_, February 1889, quoted in _Proc. S.P.R._, vol. v. pp. 434, etc.), in which Mademoiselle Emma Stramm, a Swiss governess at Wilna, on the 15th January 1887 wrote particulars of the death on the same day of a former acquaintance of hers, August Duvanel, in Canton Zurich. A similar instance is recorded by Dr. Liébeault (_Annales des Sciences Psychiques_, vol. i. pp. 25, 26). The automatic writer was in this case at Nancy, and the person whose death was announced was a young English lady resident at Coblentz. Dr. Liébeault was shown the written message within an hour or two of the séance, and some days before news of the death was received. Other cases of the kind are recorded by M. Aksakof and others (_Revue Spirite_, August 1891, April 1892, etc.). FOOTNOTES: