Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 January 1891 — THE ILLUSIONS OF GREAT MEN. [ARTICLE]

THE ILLUSIONS OF GREAT MEN.

Goethe states that he one day saw theexact counterpart of himself coining toward him. Pope saw an arm apparently comethrough the wall, aud made inquiries. after its owner. Byron often received visits from a specter, but he know it to be a creation of the imagination. Dr. Johnson heard his mother call his. name in a clear voice, though she was at. the time in another city. Bakon Emmanuel Swedenborg believed that he had the privilege of interviewing persons in the spirit world. Descartes was followed by an invisible person whose voiSe he heard urging him to continue his researches after truth. Loyola, lying wounded during thesiege of Pampeluna, saw the Virgin, who encouraged him to prosecute his ■ mission. Sir Joshua Reynolds, leaving his house, thought the lamps were trees, and the men and women bushes agitated by the breeze. Ravaillac, while chanting the “Miserere” and “De Profundis,” fondly believed that the sounds he emitted wereof the nature and had the full effect of a trumpet Oliver Cromwell, lying sleepless on his couch, saw the curtains open and a gigantic woman appear, who told him that he would become the greatest manin England. Ben Jonson spent the watches of thenight an interested spectator of a crowd of Tartars, Turks, and Roman,Catholics,, who rose up and fought round his armchair till sunrise. Bostok, the physiologist, saw figures and faces and there was one human face constantly before him for twenty-four hours, the features and headgear as distinct as those of a living person.