Page:The Naturalisation of the Supernatural.pdf/241

Rh gone.' All these things I imagined to be the phantasies of a dying person."

On the following day Mrs. Y. died. On the day after, the 14th, Colonel saw in the Time: the notice of the death of Julia X. (Mrs. Webley). From Mr. Webley we learn that she died on the 2nd of February, 1874, and that the last hours of her life were spent in singing.

In the cases so far considered, which occurred within, at furthest, a few weeks after death, no information has been communicated beyond the fact of the death itself, and occasionally the circumstances and manner of the death, or the appearance of the deceased person at the time. But the popular conception of a ghost, a returning spirit, includes more than this. In traditional stories the spirit generally returns to communicate a definite message to the survivors. Sometimes the message consists simply in the fact of the survival of the soul after death; but frequently it is concerned with things left undone in his lifetime by the deceased. In comparatively few of the narratives collected by us do concrete messages of this kind play a part. That fact furnishes in itself, of course, strong proof of the good faith and scrupulousness of our informants. It is clear that they are dealing with matters of their own personal experience, and have not given rein to their imagination. It will be noticed, indeed, by any one who carefully compares a large number of these narratives, that, in the more recent cases at any rate, the waking vision is not often represented as giving a message of particular import. The apparition seen with the eyes open may