The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

"Another of the Christian friends from whom, in his later years, William Hone received so much kindness, has also furnished recollections of him. " . . . Two or three anecdotes which he related are all I can contribute towards a piece of mental history which, if preserved, would have been highly interesting. The first in point of time as to his taste of mind, was a circumstance which shook his confidence in materialism, though it did not lead to his conversion. It was one of those mental phenomena which he saw to be inexplicable by the doctrines he then held. "It was as follows: He was called in the course of business into a part of London quite new to him, and as he walked along the street he noticed to himself that he had never been there; but on being shown into a room in a house where he had to wait some time, he immediately fancied that it was all familiar, that he had seen it before, 'and if so,' said he to himself, 'there is a very peculiar knot in this shutter'. He opened the shutter and found the knot. 'Now then,' thought he, 'here is something I cannot explain on my principles!'" Indeed the occurrence is not very explicable on any principles, as a detail not visible without search was sought and verified, and that by a habitual mocker at anything out of the common way. For example, Hone published a comic explanation, correct or not, of the famous Stockwell mystery.