DANIEL DUNGLAS HOME was born near Edinburgh, March 20, 1833. His parents both came of ancient Scottish families. Through his mother, whose maiden name was McNeill, he was descended from a Highland family in which the traditionary Scottish gift of the "second-sight" had been preserved. Mrs. Home possessed it herself; and while her son was still an infant she had a vision concerning him that found fulfilment more than twenty years later at Fontainebleau.
An aunt, who had no children of her own, adopted Home; and his infancy was passed in her care at Portobello. When he was nine years old, she and her husband emigrated to America, and took with them the boy whose life was destined to be so wonderful. He was a sensitive, delicate child, of a highly nervous temperament, and "of such weak health from his infancy that he had not been expected to live. His frail health, however, no more affected his natural sweetness of temper and gaiety of spirits than did the bitter trials of after years." "I remember him," writes to me a schoolfellow of his, Mr. J. W. Carpenter, Mayor of Norwich, Connecticut, "as one of the most joyous, affectionate, and whole-souled boys among my whole circle of acquaintances, always ready to do a kind act. He was fond of his studies; but when out of the schoolroom spent all his time in the wood and beside the streams, with one or two chosen companions. His nature was very sensitive, and he was easily grieved at any act of unkindness done to others or to himself.
"I never saw anything of Spiritualism," adds Mr. Carpenter, "and am therefore a disbeliever myself; but I know that my old friend was thoroughly honest and sincere in his belief. I know of no one of my many schoolmates whose career I have more carefully followed, and whom I have been more proud to call my friend, than D.D. Home."
Greeneville, Connecticut, where Home received his first impressions of America, has been swallowed up in the growth of the adjoining city of Norwich. Forty years ago, when he lived there with his uncle and aunt, Greeneville existed as a separate village; and close at hand were the woods to which he escaped at every opportunity, spending there hours in that study of nature which always charmed him. Nothing escaped his observation and his prodigious memory. He always looked back on those days as the happiest of his boyhood. His studious and dreamy habits separated him from most other children of his age; but he had a chosen companion in these rambles, a school-fellow a little older than himself, of the name of Edwin. A strong friendship grew up between the two; and they were always together, until Home went with his relatives to live at Troy, in the State of New York, some three hundred miles from Norwich.
A few weeks before this separation, Home was, as usual, with his friend Edwin in the woods. The two boys were both great readers; and when either of them had found anything in a book that interested him, it was sure to be communicated to the other. On this occasion- it was in April, 1845 or 1846- Edwin was full of a ghost-story that he had just read. The event it related to is associated with the history of a noble English family; and I am told that it furnished Sir Walter Scott with the groundwork of one of his ballads. A lady and her lover had mutually agreed that, if there were a life beyond this, the one who died first should appear to the survivor. In pursuance of his vow, the lover, within a few days of his death, presented himself to his mistress. She treated the vision as a delusion of her senses; on which the spirit stretched forth his hand and laid it on hers, leaving there a mark that was ineffaceable. Many years after lie had listened to this legend in the woods of Norwich, Home met in England a member of the family to which it related; and was assured that the history was well authenticated, and that a portrait of its heroine still existed, known in the family as "the lady with the black ribbon," from a covering she had always worn on her wrist, to conceal the mark.
When Edwin's story was told, the two boys set themselves to discuss it, and also the possibility of such apparitions of departed spirits appearing to those whom they had loved on earth. With the romance of their age, they ended by agreeing to bind themselves by the same promise that the two lovers in the legend had taken; and exchanged vows on the spot, in the most solemn manner they could devise. A few weeks later, Home went to live at Troy. He was then about thirteen years of age.
In the month of June following, he had been spending the evening at a friend's house, and on returning to that of his aunt, found that she had already retired to rest. Fearing to be scolded for being late, her nephew hastened to follow her example. It was a lovely summer's night, and the moon, shining through the curtainless window of his room, rendered a candle unnecessary; but at the moment when the boy, having finished his prayers, was slipping into bed, her light was suddenly darkened. Startled by the phenomenon, Home looked up, and beheld a vision that he has described in the opening chapter of his Incidents In My Life, published in the year 1863 by Messrs. Longman:-
"I was about to draw the sheet over me," he writes, "when a sudden darkness seemed to pervade the room. This surprised me, inasmuch as I had not seen a cloud in the sky; and on looking up I saw the moon still shining, but it was on the other side of the darkness, which still grew more dense until through the darkness there seemed to be a gleam of light, which I cannot describe; but it was similar to those which I and many others have since seen when the room has been illuminated by spiritual presence. This light increased; and my attention was drawn to the foot of my bed, where stood my friend Edwin. He appeared as in a cloud of brightness, illuminating his face with a distinctness more than mortal... He looked on me with a smile of ineffable sweetness, then, slowly raising the right arm, he pointed upward; and making with it three circles in the air, the hand began slowly to disappear. Then the arm, and finally the whole body, melted away. The natural light of the room was then again apparent. I was speechless, and could not move, though I retained all my reasoning faculties. As soon as the power of movement was restored I rang the hell, and the family, thinking I was ill, came to my room, when my first words were- 'I have seen Edwin- he died three days ago.'"
A day or two afterwards a letter was received, announcing the death of Edwin after a very short illness.
The second such vision that befell Home was in the year 1850. By this time his aunt had returned to Norwich; and at Waterford, some twelve miles off, were settled his father and mother, who had followed their relatives to America. One day Mrs. Home, when alone with her son, told him that she would leave him in four months' time. "Your little sister Mary," she went on, "came to me in a vision, holding four lilies in her hand; and allowing them to slip through her lingers one after the other, till the last one had fallen, she said- 'And then you will come to me.' I asked her whether the four lilies signified years, months, weeks, or days, and she told me 'months.'"
The death of little Mary had taken place under the saddest of circumstances. The mother went out for a few hours, leaving the child at home. On returning, she had to cross a small stream near the house; and while on the bridge, saw what seemed to be some loose clothes floating in the stream. She ran down the bank, and drew from the water the body of her child.
In the fourth month after her vision, Mrs. Home was called away to visit some persons at a distance; and when her family were expecting her return, they received instead a telegram announcing her serious illness. Her husband started at once on its receipt; her son could not accompany his father, for he was himself confined to bed in the house of his adopted parents by an affection of the lungs. The same evening, his aunt heard the boy calling loudly for her; and on hurrying to his sickroom, found him in the greatest distress and agitation. "Auntie," he said, "mother died to-day at twelve o'clock, because I have seen her, and she told me so."
His aunt, as most persons would have done in her place, thought her nephew delirious. "Nonsense, child," she said, "you are in, and this is the effect of a fevered brain."
It proved to be sad reality. Mrs. Home had died that day at twelve o'clock, without one of her family near her- even as she had predicted to her son four months before.
After the loss of his mother, Home's thoughts occupied themselves more and more with the life beyond this; and he was constant in attending the religious exercises of the body to which he belonged. Much to the displeasure of his aunt, who was a member of the Kirk of Scotland, he had joined the Wesleyan communion; but her opposition to this step was so persistent and violent, that her nephew finally compromised matters by leaving the Wesleyans for the Congregationalists, whom she regarded with less dislike.
One night, on going to bed, he heard three loud blows struck at the head of the bedstead. Thinking some one was hidden there and trying to frighten him, he rose and searched, but found nobody. While he could still hardly realise that he was actually the only person in the room, the three blows sounded again in the same place, and then, after a moment's pause, they came a third time. The listener spent a sleepless night in watching for their recurrence and in repeating to himself that the phenomenon was a something not of earth; but the strange sounds were heard no more by him. In the morning he came down to breakfast...
