an internal image with an external
semblance of reality, but which presents it in the twilight as an
object of uncertain form, either in a room or out of doors. It often
happens, as I and others have experienced from childhood, that a dress
or other object lying by chance on a chair, or on the ground, or hanging
on a piece of furniture or a peg, seen in connection with the other
things near it, is transformed into a person or animal, in a sitting or
standing posture or lying at full length, as if it had been a spectre or
phantasm; somewhat like the figures which we all take pleasure in
tracing in the strange and mobile forms of clouds. The fantastic figure
sometimes appears instantaneously and at the first glance, sometimes it
is only gradually made out; but in both cases, as we shall see, its
genesis is the same. Although in the former case that which in the
latter is gradually developed _appears_ to be developed all at once, yet
in reality it passes through the same stages.

Let us now consider the second mode; and in order to be perfectly
accurate, I will describe one out of many apparitions which I saw so
recently that its gradual formation is retained distinctly in my memory.
On a small three-legged table beside my bed there was a little oval
mirror, on which hung a woman's cap, which fell partly over the glass:
there was also an easy chair, on which I had thrown my shirt before
going to bed, while my shoes were as usual on the floor. I awoke towards
morning, and as I chanced to look round the large room, in the uncertain
light of a night-light which was almost burnt out, my eyes fell upon
the easy chair. Immediately I seemed to see a head above it,
corresponding to the mirror, and a vague and confused image of a person
seated there. As I am accustomed to do in similar cases, I closed my
eyes for a little, and on reopening them I looked at the appearance with
attention and interest; this time the person or phantasm had a less
confused outline, although I did not see the form distinctly, nor the
features, nor its precise position. Yet in this second observation, I
obtained an idea of it as a whole, and in details.

On further examination the face and person stood out more clearly, and
the features became more distinct, the longer I looked. Each accidental
fold or shadow on the cap was transformed into bright eyes, strongly
marked eyebrows, into the nose, mouth, hair, beard, and neck; so that as
I went on I had bef