ASPR Journal, V14 - Iapsop.com

366 Journal of the American Society for Psychical Research.
fact Manso endeavored to convince his guest that the appearance
was, in Dr. Dendy's expression, "an intensive idea".
Tasso defended the reality of his spiritual friend by observing
that he always reappeared in the same form, such a form as he
described in the commencement of his dialogue, " The Ambassador",
which, if he was to have such a visitor, was by no means unwelcome
for him to assume, and certainly more correct than the perpetual
ballet, and pleasanter than the old woman in the red cloak, or the
grinning scull, or the gentleman in brown, or the noisy crowd of
Nicolai, or any other of the numerous spectral intruders, whose
repeated appearance under the same aspect rather invalidates this
argument of Tasso, and exhausted the patience of those who had
to witness them.
Tasso, moreover, maintained that if the sights and voices oi
which he was conscious, were mere fantastic imaginations, they
would not transcend his own knowledge, since the imagination can
only recall the same fantasms, or the same realities, which the
memory has stored away in its cells from actual observation. He,
on the contrary, in the frequent and protracted discourses which he
had held with this spirit, had repeatedly learned from him things
which he had never heard or read or known before; whence he
concludes that these visions were not the mere creations of fancy.
but true and real apparitions of the spirit, which whatever the
reason, chose to show himself visibly."
Thereupon Tasso said he would convince :Manso, " turned
his gaze toward one of the windows, and kept it fixed there a
considerable time", then announced the presence of the spirit and
held a very interesting and profound conversation withit. Tasso
was surprised that his host could not see the spirit as well as
himself, and the biographer concludes from the failure of the
latter to do so, that it W