Voices

I have just received the enclosed from my niece — the Tempe Raikes of my family story. I think you will find it very satisfactory as to the main facts of the story. I think you will find my dates are more accurate than my niece's ; she has got a little confused as to the hours — perhaps not allowing for the difference of longitude. I distinctly remember Mrs. Ryan's telling me that she was praying between 11 and 12 a.m., and I think I mentioned in my mem. to you that her husband died about 5 o'clock p.m., because my husband wrote that to me from Calcutta. And the singular thing which struck me at the time was that the difference would be exactly that of the longitude. The enclosure was as follows : — 25, Victoria Square, Clifton. September 16th, 1883. About the story of Aunt Hermon [formerly Ryan], the facts, as far as I can recollect, are that she wrote out what had happened one morning at her private prayers, and gave me the sealed letter about it, and said in a few weeks she would either ask me for it to burn it, or to read it out. Six weeks after, when she heard of Uncle Ryan's death, she asked for it and gave it to her mother ; and in it she had written that, while praying for her husband (from whom she had heard nothing for 6 months), a voice came to her ears, ' He is in Eternity.' She went on, thinking it a silly fancy, and again it said, ' It is too late, he is in Eternity.' She was so convinced of its truth she left off, and was sure she would hear something had happened. He had died that very morning at 4 o'clock, for she had dated her letter, and, moreover, she was quite prepared when his death was announced to her. The overland mail in those days took six weeks coming. Tempe S. Bright (nee Raikes). § 8. To return, however, to the details of the phantasmal appearance — the theory which I have advanced as to the projection of the percept has received illustration in cases where all its features could be, and in my view have been, supplied by the percipient's mind. But it must now be added that there is a converse type, where the dress or aspect includes features which equally clearly could not be supplied by the percipient's mind ; and here the former explanation will, of course, not apply. In cases of this type, the actual aspect of the agent, at the time of the occurrence, has included some marked variation from anything that the percipient would naturally picture. If, then, the phantasmal appearance includes this same feature, it must be an element that the impressing mind has contributed, and