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Visionaries
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remain when I often wish them very much to depart, and no effort of the imagination can
call them up. I lately saw a framed portrait of a face which seemed more lovely than any
painting I have ever seen, and again I often see fine landscapes which bear no resemblance
to any scenery I have ever looked upon. I find it difficult to define the difference between a
waking vision and a mental image, although the difference is very apparent to myself. I
think I can do it best in this way. If you go into a theatre and look at a scene—say of a
forest by moonlight—at the back part of the stage you see every object distinctly and
sufficiently illuminated (being thus unlike a mere act of memory), but it is nevertheless
vague and shadowy, and you might have difficulty in telling afterwards all the objects you
have seen. This resembles a mental image in point of clearness. The waking vision is like
what one sees in the open street in broad daylight, when every object is distinctly
impressed on the memory. The two kinds of imagery differ also as regards voluntariness,
the image being entirely subservient to the will, the visions entirely independent of it. They
differ also in point of suddenness, the images being formed comparatively slowly as
memory recalls each detail, and fading slowly as the mental effort to retain them is
relaxed, the visions appearing and vanishing in an instant. The waking visions seem quite
close, filling as it were the whole head, while the mental image seems farther away in
some far-off recess of the mind.”
The number of sane persons who see visions no less distinctly than this
correspondent is much greater than I had any idea of when I began this
inquiry. I have received an interesting sketch of one, prefaced by a
description of it by Mrs. Haweis. She says:
“All my life long I have had one very constantly-recurring vision, a sight which came
whenever it was dark or darkish, in bed or otherwise. It is a flight of pink roses floating in
a mass from left to right, and this cloud or mass of roses is presently effaced by a flight of
‘sparks’ or gold speckles across them. The sparks totter or vibrate from left to right, but
they fly distinctly upwards; they are like tiny blocks, half gold, half black, rather
symmetrically placed behind each other, and they are always in a hurry to efface the roses;
sometimes they have come at my call, sometimes by surprise, but they are always equally
pleasing. What interests me most is that, when a child under nine, the flight of roses was
light, slow, soft, close to my eves, roses so large and brilliant and palpable that I tried to
touch them; the scent was overpowering, the petals perfect, with leaves peeping here and
there, texture and motion all
