CHAPTER IX
ON GHOSTS
All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.
There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.
Longfellow.
Ghosts! There is a charm in the very word. Tales of gruesome apparitions told over a blazing fire at Christmas-time come back to one—tales told long years ago, when, after hearing them, one was almost afraid to go to bed; when one started at every shadow on the stairs and imagined it was some dark denizen of the spirit world come to carry us off; when, being fairly in bed and the light out, we drew the sheets over our heads to shut out the phantoms that appeared in the darkness.
From my earliest childhood I was always a firm believer in ghosts—the good old-fashioned ghost, I mean,—the unhappy lady or gentleman who appears at twelve o'clock at night with wailings and groans, and rattles chains and carries his or her head under his or her arm. That is the sort of ghost I like.
I have a contempt for the feeble ghost of to-day—the spirit that raps on tables and moves chairs, that writes letters backwards that no one can read, and never shows itself or behaves in a rational manner. The modern ghost is very degenerate.