_by him_, certainly, and that it had the
implicit belief of the family.

Another similar, double-barreled ghost story I recently had narrated to
me, and was assured it rested on evidence equally good. I have heard of
several others being in existence.

Now, if these stories be true, to suppose the events mere coincidences,
or rather to believe them to be so, would be an immense stretch of
credulity. The chances would be millions to one against two persons,
neither of whom, before or after, experienced sensorial illusions,
becoming the subject of one, and seemingly the same illusion at the same
moment--the two hallucinations coinciding in point of time with an event
which they served, in the mind of one of the parties at least, to
foreshadow. I prefer supposing that the event so communicated really had
to do with, and was the common idea of the sensorial illusion
experienced by both parties. To speak figuratively, my dear Archy--mind,
_figuratively_--I prefer to think, that the death of a human being
throws a sort of gleam through the spiritual world, which may now and
then touch some congenial object with sudden light, _or even two_, when
they happen to be exactly in the proper position; as the twin spires of
a cathedral may be momentarily illuminated by some far-off flash, while
the countless roofs below lie in unbroken gloom.

Pretty well, indeed! I think I hear you say--Very easy, certainly! But,
perhaps, you will be kind enough to give us a trifle more grounds for
admitting your hypothesis than you have yet vouchsafed. Likewise a
little explanation of what you exactly mean might be of use, if you
seriously hope to reconcile us to this most prodigious prance.

I shall be happy to give you every reasonable satisfaction. Then, in the
first place, I propose to establish beyond the possibility of doubt or
question, and at once, that the mind of a living human being, in his
ordinary state, may enter into communication with the mind of another
human being, likewise in his every-day state, through some other channel
than that of the senses, in their understood and ordinary operation, and
as it would seem, _immediately and directly_; so that it becomes _at
once_ intimately acquainted with all the former affections, feelings,
volitions, history of the second mind.

Heinrich Zschokke, I need hardly say, is one of the most eminent
literary men now living in Europe; one, too, whose life has not been
exclusively occupied wi