'By this time Miss H. had laid aside her book, and came forward quite
startled, and told me that I had accurately described a scene on a
race-course in Scotland which she had witnessed just a week or two
before--a scene that had very often been in her thoughts, but, as we
were strangers to each other, she had never mentioned. She also said I
had exactly described her own feelings at the time, and had brought it
all back in a most vivid manner.
'The other lady was rather disappointed that, after she had concentrated
her thoughts so hard, I should have been influenced instead by one who
had jeered at the whole affair.'
[This anecdote was also told to me, within a few days of the occurrence,
by Miss Angus. Her version was that she first saw a gentleman rider going
to the post and nodding to his friends. Then she saw him carried on a
stretcher through the crowd. She seemed, she said, to be actually present,
and felt somewhat agitated. The fact of the accident was, later, mentioned
to me in Scotland by another lady, a stranger to all the persons.--A.L.]
VI.--I may briefly add an experiment of December 21, 1897. A gentleman had
recently come from England to the Scottish town where Miss Angus lives. He
dined with her family, and about 10.15 to 10.30 P.M. she proposed to look
in the glass for a scene or person of whom he was to think. He called up a
mental picture of a ball at which he had recently been, and of a young
lady to whom he had there been introduced. The lady's face, however, he
could not clearly visualise, and Miss Angus reported nothing but a view of
an empty ball-room, with polished floor and many lights. The gentleman
made another effort, and remembered his partner with some distinctness.
Miss Angus then described another room, not a ball-room, comfortably
furnished, in which a girl with brown hair drawn back from her forehead,
and attired in a high-necked white blouse, was reading, or writing
letters, under a bright light in an unshaded glass globe. The description
of the features, figure, and height tallied with Mr. ----'s recollection;
but he had never seen this Geraldine of an hour except in ball dress. He
and Miss Angus noted the time by their watches (it was 10.30), and
Mr. ---- said that on the first opportunity he would ask the young lady
how she had been dressed and how employed at that hour on December 21. On
December 22 he met her at another dance, and her reply corroborated the
crystal picture. She had been writing letters, in a high-necked white
blouse, under an incandescent gas lamp with an unshaded glass globe. She
was entirely unknown to Miss Angus, and had only been seen once by
Mr. ----. Mr. ---- and the lady of the crystal picture corroborated all
this in writing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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