The complex of coincidences, however, could not be attributed to chance
selection out of the whole possible field of conjecture. We must remember,
too, that a series of such hits increases, at an enormous rate, the odds
against accidental conjecture. Of such mere luck I may give an example. I
was writing a story of which the hero was George Kelly, one of the 'Seven
Men of Moidart.' A year after composing my tale, I found the Government
description of Mr. Kelly (1736). It exactly tallied with my purely
fanciful sketch, down to eyes, and teeth, and face, except that I made my
hero 'about six feet,' whereas the Government gave him five feet ten. But
I knew beforehand that Mr. Kelly was a clergyman; his curious career
proved him to be a person of great activity and geniality--and he was of
Irish birth. Even a dozen such guesses, equally correct, could not
suggest any powers of 'vision,' when so much was known beforehand about
the person guessed at. I now give cases in the experience of Miss Angus,
as one may call the crystal-gazer. The first occurred the day after she
got the glass ball for the first time. She writes:
'I.--A lady one day asked me to scry out a friend of whom she would
think. Almost immediately I exclaimed "Here is an old, old lady looking
at me with a triumphant smile on her face. She has a prominent nose and
nut-cracker chin. Her face is very much wrinkled, especially at the
sides of her eyes, as if she were always smiling. She is wearing a
little white shawl with a black edge. _But!_ ... she _can't_ be old as
her hair is quite brown! although her face looks so very very old." The
picture then vanished, and the lady said that I had accurately described
her friend's _mother_ instead of himself; that it was a family joke that
the mother must dye her hair, it was so brown and she was eighty-two
years old. The lady asked me if the vision were distinct enough for me
to recognise a likeness in the son's photograph; next day she laid
several photographs before me, and in a moment, without the slightest
hesitation I picked him out from his wonderful likeness to my vision!'
The inquirer verbally corroborated all the facts to me, within a week, but
leaned to a theory of 'electricity.' She has read and confirms this
account.
'II.--One afternoon I was sitting beside a young lady whom I had never
seen or heard of before. She asked if she might look into my crystal,
and while she did so I happened to look over her shoulder and saw a ship
tossing on a very heavy choppy sea, although land was still visible in
the dim distance. That vanished, and, as suddenly, a little house
appeared with five or six (I forget now the exact number I then counted)
steps leading up to the door. On the second step stood an old man
reading a newspaper. In front of the house was a field of thick
stubbly grass where some _lambs_, I was going to say, but they were more
like very small sheep.. were grazing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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