"I was lying in my bed, listless and inert; it 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.
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