Page:Angels of Mons second edition.pdf/52

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THE ANGELS OF MONS

colonel were hallucinated, they being, as they both aver, in a state of the profoundest fatigue and exhaustion.

Fourthly, there may have been in these two cases a certain admixture of hallucination with a mistaken judgment as to the actual forms of mists, trees, clouds, and light.

There is one point in both the experiences that we are considering that seems worthy of attention. That is the duration of the apparitions, or whatever they were. The corporal is precise; he saw the shining shapes in the sky for thirty-five minutes exactly. The lieutenant-colonel does not give us so definite a measure; but he and one of his brother officers had watched the ghostly squadrons for more than twenty minutes. Now, it needs the curious learning of the late Andrew Lang to draw conclusions from this circumstance of duration. That

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