that are near in blood, there may be the like passage and instincts of
Nature between great friends and great enemies. Some trial also would be
made whether pact or agreement do anything: as, if two friends should
agree, that, such a day in every week, they, being in far distant
places, should pray one for another, or should put on a ring or tablet
one for another's sake, whether, if one of them should break their vow
and promise, the other should have any feeling of it in absence."

This query of Lord Bacon, whether an agreement between two distant
persons to think of each other at a particular time may not produce an
actual nearness between their spirits, is suggestive. People partially
drowned and resuscitated have often described their last moments of
consciousness as flooded with memories, so that they seemed to be
surrounded by the voices and countenances of those they loved. If this
is common when soul and body are approaching dissolution, may not such
concentration of loving thoughts produce an actual nearness, filling the
person thought of with "a feeling as if somebody were in the room"? And
if the feeling thus induced is very powerful, may not the presence thus
felt become objective, or, in other words, a vision?

The feeling of the nearness of spirits to when the thoughts are busily
occupied with them may have led to the almost universal belief among
ancient nations that the souls of the dead came back on the anniversary
of their death to the places where their bodies were deposited. This
belief invested their tombs with peculiar sacredness, and led the
wealthy to great expense in their construction. Egyptians, Greeks, and
Romans built them with upper apartments, more or less spacious. These
chambers were adorned with vases, sculptures, and paintings on the
walls, varying in costliness and style according to the means or taste
of the builder. The tomb of Cestius in Rome contained a chamber much