was broad day, for the
easterly light fell in strongly through the parted curtains. I felt,
all at once, a strong curiosity, blended with an unaccountable dread, to
look upon a small table which stood near the bedside. I felt certain of
seeing something fearful, and yet I knew not what; there was an awe and
a fascination upon me, more dreadful from their very vagueness. I lay
for some time hesitating and actually trembling, until the agony of
suspense became too strong for endurance. I opened my eyes and fixed
them upon the dreaded object. Upon the table lay what seemed to me a
corpse, wrapped about in the wintry habiliments of the grave, the corpse
of my friend.

(William Hone, celebrated for his antiquarian researches, has given
a distinct and highly interesting account of spectral illusion, in
his own experience, in his Every Day Book. The artist Cellini has
made a similar statement.)

"For a moment, the circumstances of time and place were forgotten; and
the spectre seemed to me a natural reality, at which I might sorrow, but
not wonder. The utter fallacy of this idea was speedily detected; and
then I endeavored to consider the present vision, like those which had
preceded it, a mere delusion, a part of the phenomena of opium eating.
I accordingly closed my eyes for an instant, and then looked again in
full expectation that the frightful object would no longer be visible.
It was still there; the body lay upon its side; the countenance turned
full towards me,--calm, quiet, even beautiful, but certainly that of
death:

'Ere yet Decay's effacing fingers
Had swept the lines where Beauty lingers'

and the white brow, and its light shadowy hair, and the cold, still
familiar features lay evident and manifest to the influx of the
strengthening twilight. A cold agony crept over me; I buried my head in
the bed-clothes, in a child-like fear, and when I again ventured to look
up, the spectre had vanished. The event made a strong impression on my
mind; and I can scarcely express the feeling of relief which was
afforded, a few days after, by a letter from the identical friend in
question, informing me of his recovery of health.

"It would be a weary task, and one which you would no doubt thank me for
declining, to detail the circumstances of a hundred similar visitations,
most of which were, in fact, but different combinations of the same
illusion. One striking exc