I stood at one end of this room, and the ladies and gentlemen entered it
at the other end, crossed it at that end, then came up the long left-hand
side, shook hands with us, said a word or two, and passed on, in the
usual way. My sight is of the telescopic sort, and I presently
recognized a familiar face among the throng of strangers drifting in at
the distant door, and I said to myself, with surprise and high
gratification, “That is Mrs. R.; I had forgotten that she was a
Canadian.” She had been a great friend of mine in Carson City, Nevada,
in the early days. I had not seen her or heard of her for twenty years;
I had not been thinking about her; there was nothing to suggest her to
me, nothing to bring her to my mind; in fact, to me she had long ago
ceased to exist, and had disappeared from my consciousness. But I knew
her instantly; and I saw her so clearly that I was able to note some of
the particulars of her dress, and did note them, and they remained in my
mind. I was impatient for her to come. In the midst of the hand-
shakings I snatched glimpses of her and noted her progress with the slow-
moving file across the end of the room; then I saw her start up the side,
and this gave me a full front view of her face. I saw her last when she
was within twenty-five feet of me. For an hour I kept thinking she must
still be in the room somewhere and would come at last, but I was
disappointed.
When I arrived in the lecture-hall that evening some one said: “Come into
the waiting-room; there’s a friend of yours there who wants to see you.
You’ll not be introduced–you are to do the recognizing without help if
you can.”
I said to myself: “It is Mrs. R.; I shan’t have any trouble.”
There were perhaps ten ladies present, all seated. In the midst of them
was Mrs. R., as I had expected. She was dressed exactly as she was when
I had seen her in the afternoon. I went forward and shook hands with her
and called her by name, and said:
“I knew you the moment you appeared at the reception this afternoon.”
She looked surprised, and said: “But I was not at the reception. I have
just arrived from Quebec, and have not been in town an hour.”
It was my turn to be surprised now. I said: “I can’t help it. I give
you my word of honor that it is as I say. I saw you at the reception,
and you were dressed precisely as you are now. When they told me a
moment ago that I should find a friend in this room, your image rose
before me, dress and all, just as I had seen you at the reception.”
Those are the facts. She was not at the reception at all, or anywhere
near it; but I saw her there nevertheless, and most clearly and
unmistakably. To that I could make oath. How is one to explain this? I
was not thinking of her at the time; had not thought of her for years.
But she had been thinking of me, no doubt; did her thoughts flit through
leagues of air to me, and bring with it that clear and pleasant vision of
herself? I think so. That was and remains my sole experience in the
matter of apparitions–I mean apparitions that come when one is
(ostensibly) awake. I could have been asleep for a moment; the
apparition could have been the creature of a dream. Still, that is
nothing to the point; the feature of interest is the happening of the
thing just at that time, instead of at an earlier or later time, which is
argument that its origin lay in thought-transference.
My next incident will be set aside by most persons as being merely
a “coincidence,” I suppose. Years ago I used to think sometimes of
making a lecturing trip through the antipodes and the borders of the