according to the asseverations of all the priests and monks of the
neighborhood, she became 'possessed,' and, as it appeared, by a very
learned devil. She continued incessantly talking Latin, Greek and Hebrew
in very pompous tones, and with most distinct enunciation. Sheets full
of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to
consist of sentences coherent and intelligible each for itself but with
little or no connection with each other. Of the Hebrew, a small portion
only could be traced to the Bible; the remainder seemed to be in the
Rabbinical dialect."

[Sidenote: _Remembering the Unperceived_]

The case was investigated by a physician, who learned that the girl had
been a waif and had been taken in charge by a Protestant clergyman when
she was nine years old and brought up as his servant. This clergyman had
for years been in the habit of walking up and down a passage of his
house into which the kitchen door opened and at the same time reading to
himself in a loud voice from his favorite book. A considerable number of
these books were still in the possession of his niece, who told the
physician that her uncle had been a very learned man and an accomplished
student of Hebrew. Among the books were found a collection of Rabbinical
writings, together with several of the Greek and Latin fathers; and the
physician succeeded in identifying so many passages in these books with
those taken down at the bed-side of the young woman that there could be
no doubt as to the true origin of her learned ravings.

Now, the striking feature of all this, it will be observed, is the fact
that the subject was an illiterate servant-girl to whom the Greek, Latin
and Hebrew quotations were _utterly unintelligible,_ that _normally she
had no recollection of them, that she had no idea of their meaning_,