“I suddenly caught sight of a large eye”
“And the parson?” I observed.
“I never heard anything more of him,” Mr. Black remarked. “The maid assured me on her honour that she had shown him into the room, but no one saw him leave the house, so he, too, might have been a ghost; but supposing him to have been a living person, his disappearance would not be unnatural. He had doubtless seen the eye and precipitated himself into the street through the open window.
“The following day, my children being badly frightened by something in one of the passages, I decided to leave the house; and, although I afterwards made every possible enquiry, I could never hear of anything particularly tragic that had ever happened there. We were the first tenants, so I was told, that had ever complained of disturbances, and it was suggested that we might have brought the ghosts with us, but as none of us had ever seen a ghost before we entered that house, and we had no old furniture, at least none that we had not always had, and not one of us had ever attended a séance or in any way dabbled with Spiritualism, I do not think that theory at all possible. How do you account for the hauntings?”
“I cannot,” I replied, “nor can anyone else. The sheer complexity of such a case renders any definite conclusion with regard to it extremely difficult, and any positive solution of it utterly out of the question.”
CHAPTER XVI
WAR GHOSTS
Of late years the increase of interest taken in things psychical, particularly among the more educated classes, the classes that were at one time incorrigibly sceptical, has been enormous. I believe this to be mainly due to the fact that people are no longer satisfied with the scriptural declaration of another world. They want proof of it—that is to say, absolutely authentic and corroborative evidence that it exists—and they feel that they can only obtain such evidence by witnessing superphysical manifestations themselves. Psychical Research Societies, perhaps, convince them even less than the Bible. And naturally, for the scientist, even though he be titled, can hardly hope to accomplish in one generation what theologians, of an equal if not superior intelligence, have attempted and failed to accomplish throughout the ages. Hence, I am of the opinion that one can learn more from one spontaneous ghostly manifestation in a haunted house than from a thousand lectures, or a thousand books. Experience is the only medium of conviction, and so long as people are without a personal experience relating to another world, they can never really believe. The boy in rags and tatters may be far more conversant with—may know far more about—a future life than the more learned Professor at the University. But no one can logically claim to be an absolute authority on the Unknown; the most any of us can do—even those of us who have actually seen and heard spirit manifestations—the rest do not count—is to speculate. When we attempt to do more, we label ourselves fools.
Of all the professions, none, I believe, is more interested in this question of another world than the theatrical. I have a great many friends amongst actors and actresses, and I find them not only keenly interested in my work, but always ready—even when working hard themselves—to share my vigils in a haunted house.
Only the other day, at a concert given by the Irish Literary Society in Hanover Square, I was introduced to Miss Odette Goimbault, who recently delighted London audiences by her impersonation of the child “Doris” in “On Trial” at the Lyric Theatre. Odette Goimbault is unquestionably pretty—but there is much in her looks besides mere prettiness. She has eyes that are extraordinarily spiritual, eyes that seem to look right into the soul of things and see things that are not generally seen by ordinary mortals.