as in dramatic scene before the eyes of the
seer. It is much as if the seers had access to a camera obscura which
enabled them not only to see that which was occurring at the same moment
in various parts of the world, but in its magic mirror could reflect
events which have not yet been as if they were already existent.

The phenomena of premonition, combined with the faculties of
clairvoyance by which the percipient is able to reproduce the past, make
a great breach in our conceptions of both time and space. To the Deity,
in the familiar line of the hymn, "future things unfolded lie"; but from
time to time future things, sometimes most trivial, sometimes most
important, are unfolded to the eye of mortal man. Why or how one does
not know. All that he can say is that the vision came and went in
obedience to some power over which he had no conscious control. The
faculty of foreseeing, which in its higher forms constitutes no small
part of a prophet's power, is said to exist among certain families, and
to vary according to the locality in which they are living. Men who have
second sight in Skye are said to lose it on the mainland. But residence
in Skye itself is not sufficient to give the Englishman the faculty once
said to be possessed by its natives. In England it is rare, and when it
exists it is often mixed up with curious and somewhat bewildering
superstitions, signs and omens portending death and disaster, which can
hardly be regarded as being more than seventh cousins of the true
faculty.

I can make no claim to the proud prerogative of the seer, but upon
several occasions I have had some extraordinary premonitions of what was
about to happen. I can give no explanation as to how they came, all that
I know is they arrived, and when they arrived I recognised them beyond
all possibility of mistake. I have had three or four very striking and
vivid premonitions in my life which have been fulfilled to the letter. I
have others which await fulfilment. Of the latter I will not speak
here--although I have them duly recorded--for were I to do so I should
be accused of being party to bringing about the fulfilment of my own
predictions. Those which have already been fulfilled, although of no
general importance to any one else, were of considerable importance to
me, as will be seen by the brief outline concerning three of them.

_Leaving Darlington Fore-seen._

The first occasion on which I had an absolutely unmistakable in