Sleep event

It is written just as I remember Mrs. Copp and the Captain telling us on their side. Mrs. Dresser's account begins by describing how the friendship between the Copps and Mr. Blake began, through the latter's care of Captain Oopp in a dangerous illness on board ship. In the year 186 — [she is not sure of the date] Mr. B. had not been in Massachusetts for years. One day Mrs. C. was talking cheerfully with her sister about trifling matters, and, while walking across the room, holding a dish with both hands, suddenly the dish and contents were dropped on the floor, and at the same instant she exclaimed, ' Oh, dear ! B. is dead ! ' Her sister, surprised, said, ' What do you mean 1 ' The answer was, ' I don't know.' But again, in the same impulsive way, she cried out, ' Oh, he is dead ! ' She could give no reason why she said this, only that she was raade to do it. This fact impressed her so sadly, and also her husband when he was told of it, although it was inexplicable, that they agreed to write down the date, so that they could refer to it should occasion require. A month afterwards. Captain C. inquired by letter of Mr. B.'s brother what news had been received from California, but gave no reasons for this inquiry. ' Yes,' was the reply, ' we have just heard from there ; and he was in good health.' After this report Captain C. and wife did not trouble themselves about the above incident. It so happened that in that same autumn Mr. B. visited Massachusetts ; and these friends were among the first seen. After a mutual interchange of the news which had occurred, Captain C. happened to remember that curious incident, and inquired at once, ' B., what were you doing one day last — — ? Were you sick at the time 1 ' B. replied, ' No, I was well — nothing was the matter with me.' But after further inquiry about the time, Mrs. C. consulted the record she had made of the exact date when the event happened, and then told him of her peculiar experience, — whereupon Mr. B. narrated his adventure, of which Mrs. Dresser's version agrees with his own description above. 88 FURTHER VISUAL CASES [chap. [It will be seen that the discrepancies between the two accounts are very trifling.] Mr. Blake continues : — In the year 1870 I was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, near Boston, and had an occasional correspondence with Miss S., an American, then residing in Europe. I received a letter from her, dated Miirzzuschlag, August 6th, 1870, in which she says : ' Yesterday I sat alone in my room, arranging my herbarium, till I was very t