coming into my bedroom in his flannel-gown, with a lighted candle.
He sat upon the side of my bed, and looking at me, said:

'Wilhelm, I have reason to think I have got some strange illness
upon me.'

I then perceived that there was a very unusual expression in his
face.

'Wilhelm,' said he, 'I am not afraid or ashamed to tell you what I
might be afraid or ashamed to tell another man. You come from a
sensible country, where mysterious things are inquired into and are
not settled to have been weighed and measured - or to have been
unweighable and unmeasurable - or in either case to have been
completely disposed of, for all time - ever so many years ago. I
have just now seen the phantom of my brother.'

I confess (said the German courier) that it gave me a little
tingling of the blood to hear it.

'I have just now seen,' Mr. James repeated, looking full at me,
that I might see how collected he was, 'the phantom of my brother
John. I was sitting up in bed, unable to sleep, when it came into
my room, in a white dress, and regarding me earnestly, passed up to
the end of the room, glanced at some papers on my writing-desk,
turned, and, still looking earnestly at me as it passed the bed,
went out at the door. Now, I am not in the least mad, and am not
in the least disposed to invest that phantom with any external
existence out of myself. I think it is a warning to me that I am
ill; and I think I had better be bled.'