humanfaculty4 - page 139 of 305

memory the instant I begin to think about anything, and it is curious to me

that they should often be so certainly present and yet be habitually

overlooked. If they were more vivid, the case would be very different, and

it is most easily conceivable that some very slight physiological change,

short of a really morbid character, would enhance their vividness. My own

deficiencies, however, are well supplied by other drawings in my

possession. These are by the Rev. George Henslow, whose visions are far

more vivid than mine. His experiences are not unlike those of Goethe,

who said, in an often-quoted passage, that whenever he bent his head and

closed his eyes and thought of a rose, a sort of rosette made its

appearance, which would not keep its shape steady for a moment, but

unfolded from within, throwing out a succession of petals, mostly red but

sometimes green, and that it continued to do so without change in

brightness and without causing him any fatigue so long as he cared to

watch it. Mr. Henslow, when he shuts his eyes and waits, is sure in a short

time to see before him the clear image of some object or other, but usually

not quite natural in its shape. It then begins to change from one form to

another, in his case also for as long a time as he cares to watch it. Mr.

Henslow has zealously made repeated experiments on himself; and has

drawn what he sees. He has also tried how far he is able to mould the

visions according to his will. In one case, after much effort, he contrived

to bring the imagery back to its starting-point, and thereby to form what

he terms a “visual cycle.” The following account is extracted and

condensed from his very interesting letter, and will explain the

illustrations copied from his drawings that are given in Plate IV.

Fig. 70. The first image that spontaneously presented itself was a

cross-bow (1); this was immediately provided with an arrow (2),

remarkable for its pronounced barb and superabundance of feathering.

Some person, but too indistinct to recognise much more of him than the

hands, appeared to shoot the arrow from the bow. The single arrow was

then accompanied by a flight of arrows from right to left, which

completely occupied the field of vision. These changed into falling stars,

then into flakes of a heavy snowstorm; the ground gradually appeared as a