An account

I have delayed answering your last communication in the hope of recalling the name of some person still living to whom I had mentioned the vision about which I wrote to you, but I am sorry to say there is no one. I only am left of all the party. You ask when it occurred. As nearly as I can remember it was at the beginning of 1854. My brother left England for Melbourne in September or October, 1852. As nearly as I can remember, I got his first letter at the beginning or middle of May, 1853. We got three or four letters in succession, the last saying that he and his companions were going to Fryers Creek diggings. Then we heard nothing more for eight months. During those eight months it was that I saw him as I have described. I believe it was February, 1854. I have never before or since had any apparition, and that was the reason I wrote you the account of it, because it seemed to me to prove that it was no hallucination,1 but simple fact. I was then young and vigorous ; I had no superstitions, never having experienced any exceptional sorrows : those I had gone through were common enough, and more calculated to develop the matter-of-fact side of my character than to induce a morbid or dreamy imagination. That brother was always said to 1 The word is of course used here in its common sense of purely subjective hallucination. 542 THE DEVELOPMENT OF [chap. be very like me, and it is a singular fact that in matter of health we suffered very much alike. He always leant on me when in any trouble, and his thoughts during that illness might almost unconsciously have wandered to me. Miss Cressy tells me that her recollection of her mother's entry of the date in her pocket-book, and of the reference to this date after her brother's return, is quite distinct ; and it is a confirmation of this that, unprompted by me, she had made a search for the book, which, however, could not be found. She considers that the dress and rapid disappearance of the figure would alone exclude the hypothesis of mistaken identity ; but, in fact, the figure was close to the window ; and had not the recognition been absolute and startling, she would never, she says, have exclaimed as she did, since the importance of not causing any shock to her mother was much on her mind.