Chapter V: Ghosts (1)

"Sunt aliquid manes; letum non omnia finit."

There are few subjects, outside of the vexed questions of Theology, on which eminent men of all nations and ages have held more varied views than so-called ghosts. The very term has been understood differently by almost every great writer who has approached the boundary line of this department of magic. The word which is now commonly used in order to designate any immaterial being, not made of the earth, earthy, or perhaps, in a higher sense, the "body spiritual" of St. Paul, was in the early days of Christianity applied to the visible spirits of deceased persons only. In the Middle Ages again, when everything weird and unnatural was unhesitatingly ascribed to diabolic agency, these phenomena, also, were regarded as nothing else but the Devil's work. Theologians have added in recent days a new subject of controversy to this vexed matter. The divines of the seventeenth and eighteenth century denied, of course, the possibility of a reappearance of the spirits of the departed, as they were in consistency bound to deny the existence of a purgatory, and yet, from purgatory alone were these spirits, according to popular belief, allowed to revisit the earth--heaven and hell being comparatively closed places. As the people insisted upon seeing ghosts, however, there remained nothing but to declare them to be delusions produced for malign purposes by the Evil One himself; and so decided, not many generations ago, the Consistory of Basle in an appeal made by a German mystic author, Jung Stilling. And yet it is evident that a number of eminent thinkers, and not a few of the most skeptic philosophers even, have believed in the occurrence of such visits by inmates of Sheol. Hugo Grotius and Puffendorf, whose far-famed worldly wisdom entitles their views to great respect, Machiavelli and Boccaccio, Thomasius and even Kant, all have repeatedly admitted the existence of what we familiarly call ghosts. The great philosopher of Koenigsberg enters fully into the subject. "Immaterial beings," he says, "including the souls of men and animals, may exist, though they must be considered as not filling space but only acting within the limits of space." He admits the probability that ere long the process will be discovered, by which the human soul, even in this life, is closely connected with the immaterial inmates of the world of spirits, a connection which he states to be operative in both directions, men affecting spirits and spirits acting upon men, though the latter are unconscious of such impressions "as long as all is well." In the same manner in which the physical world is under the control of a law of gravity, he believes the spiritual world to be ruled by a moral law, which causes a distinction between good and evil spirits. The same belief is entertained and fully discussed by French authors of eminence, such as Des Mousseaux, De Mirville, and others. The Catholic church has never absolutely denied the doctrine of ghosts, perhaps considering itself bound by the biblical statement that "the graves were opened and many bodies of the saints which slept, arose and came out of the graves and went into the holy city and appeared unto many." (St. Matt. xxvii. 52.) Tertullian, St. Augustine, and Thomas de Aquinas, all state distinctly, as a dogma, that the souls of the departed can leave their home, though not at will, but only by special permission of the Almighty. St. Augustine mentions saints by whom he was visited, and Thomas de Aquinas speaks even of the return of accursed inmates of hell, for the purpose of terrifying and converting criminals in this world. The "Encyclopedia of Catholic Theology" (iv. p. 489) states that "although the theory of ghosts has never become a dogma of the Holy Church, it has ever maintained itself, and existed in the days of Christ, who did not condemn it, when it was mentioned in his presence." (St. Matt. xiv. 26; St. Luke xxiv. 37.)

Calmet, the well-known Benedictine Abbot of Senon, in Lorraine, who was one of the most renowned theological writers of the eighteenth century, says (i. 17): "Apparitions of ghosts would be more readily understood if spirits had a body; but the Holy Church has decided that angels, devils and the spirits of the departed are pure immaterial spirits. Since this question transcends our mental faculties, we must submit to the judgment of the Church, which cannot err." Another great theologian, the German Bengel, on the contrary, assumed that "probably the apparitions of the departed have a prescribed limit and then cease; they continue probably as long as all the ties between body and soul are not fully dissolved." This question of the nature of our existence during the time immediately following death, is, it is well known, one of the most vexed of our day, for while most divines of the Protestant Church assume an immediate decision of our eternal fate, others admit the probability of an intermediate state, and the Catholic Church has its well-known probationary state in purgatory. It may as well be stated here at once that the whole theory of ghosts is admissible only if we assume that there follows after death a period during which the soul undergoes, not an immediate rupture, but a slow, gradual separation from its body, accompanied by a similar gradual adaptation to its new mode of existence. Whether the spirit, during this time, is still sufficiently akin to earthy substances to be able to clothe itself into some material perceptible to the senses of living men, is of comparatively little importance. The idea of such an "ethereal body" is very old, and has never ceased to be entertained. Thus, in 1306, already Guido de la Tones, who died in Verona, appeared during eight days to his wife, his neighbors, and a number of devout priests, and declared in answer to their questions that the spirits of the departed possessed the power to clothe themselves with air, and thus to become perceptible to living beings. Bayle also, in his article on Spinoza (note 2), advocates the possibility, at least, of physical effects being produced by agents whose presence we are not able to perceive by the use of our ordinary senses. Even so eminently practical a mind as Lessing's was bewildered by the difficulties surrounding this question, and he declared that "here his wits were at an end."

Another great German writer, Goerres, in his "Christian Mystic" (iii. p. 307), not only admits the existence of ghosts, but explains them as "the higher prototypal form of man freed from the earthy form, the spectrum relieved of its envelope, which can be present wherever it chooses within the prescribed limits of its domain." This view is, however, not supported by the experience of those who believe they have seen ghosts; for the latter appear only occasionally in a higher, purified form, resembling ethereal beings, as a mere whitish vapor or a shape formed of faint light; by far more generally they are seen in the form and even the costume of their earthy existence. The only evidence of really supernatural or magic powers accompanying such phenomena consists in the ineffable dread which is apt to oppress the heart and to cause intense bodily suffering; in the cold chill which invariably precedes the apparition, and in the profound and exquisitely painful emotion which is never again forgotten throughout life.

As yet, the subject has been so little studied by candid inquiries, that there are but a few facts which can be mentioned as fully established. The form and shape under which ghosts appear, are the result of the imagination of the ghost seer only, whether he beholds angels or devils, men or animals. If his receptive power is highly developed, he will see them in their completeness, and discern even the minutest details; weak persons, on the other hand, perceive nothing more than a faint, luminous or whitish appearance, mere fragmentary and embryonic visions. These powers of perception may, however, be improved by practice, and those who see ghosts frequently, are sure to discover one feature after another, until the whole form stands clearly and distinctly before their mind's eye. The ear is generally more susceptible than the eye to the approach of ghosts, and often warns the mind long before the apparition becomes visible. The noises heard are apt to be vague and ill defined, consisting mainly of a low whispering or restless rustling, a strange moving to and fro, or the blowing of cold air in various directions. Many sounds, however, are so peculiar, that they are never heard except in connection with ghosts, and hence, baffle all description. It need not be added, that the great majority of such sounds also exist only in the mind of the hearer, but as the latter is, in his state of excitement, fully persuaded that he hears them, they are to him as real as if they existed outside of his being. Nor are they always confined to the ghost seer. On the contrary, the hearing of such sounds is as contagious as the seeing of such sights; and not only men are thus affected, and see and hear what others experience, but even the higher animals, horses and dogs, share in this susceptibility. When ghosts appear to speak, the voice is almost always engastrimantic, that is, the ghost seer produces the words himself, in a state of ecstatic unconsciousness, and probably by a kind of instinctive ventriloquism. To these phenomena of sight and hearing must be added, thirdly, the occasional violent moving about of heavy substances. Furniture seems to change its place, ponderous objects disappear entirely, or the whole surrounding scene assumes a new order and arrangement. These phenomena, as far as they really exist, must be ascribed to higher, as yet unexplained powers, and suggest the view entertained by many writers on the subject, that disembodied spirits, as they are freed from the mechanical laws of nature, possess also the power to suspend them in everything with which they come in contact. The last feature in ghost-seeing, which is essential, is the cold shudder, the ineffable dread, which falls upon poor mortal man, at the moment when he is brought into contact with an unknown world. Already Job said: "Fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up" (iv. 14, 15). This sense of vague, and yet almost intolerable dread, resembles the agony of the dying man; it is perfectly natural, since the seeing of ghosts, that is, of disembodied spirits, can only become possible by the more or less complete suspension of the ordinary life in the flesh. For a moment, all bodily functions are suspended, the activity of the brain ceases, and consciousness itself is lost as in a fit of fainting. This rarely happens without a brief instinctive struggle, and the final victory of an unseen and unknown power, which deprives the mind of its habitual mastery over the body, is necessarily accompanied by intense pain and overwhelming anguish.

Well-authenticated cases of the appearance of spirits of departed persons are mentioned in the earliest writings. Valerius Maximus relates in graphic words the experience of the poet Simonides, who was about to enter a vessel for the purpose of undertaking a long journey with some of his friends, when he discovered a dead body lying unburied on the sea-shore. Shocked by the impiety of the unknown man's friends, he delayed his departure to give to the corpse a decent funeral. During the following night, the spirit of this man appeared to him and advised him not to sail on the next day. He obeys the warning; his friends leave without him, and perish miserably in a great tempest. Deeply moved by his sad loss, but equally grateful for his own miraculous escape, he erected to the memory of his unknown friend a noble monument in verses, unmatched in beauty and pathos. Phlegon, also, the freedman of the Emperor Hadrian, has left us in his work, _De Mirabilibus_, one of the most touching instances of such ghost-seeing; it is the well-known story of Machates and Philimion, which Goethe reproduced in his "Bride of Corinth." Nor must we forget the numerous examples of visions in dreams, by which the Almighty chose to reveal His will to his beloved among the chosen people--a series of apparitions, which the Church has taken care to continue during the earlier ages, in almost unbroken succession from saint to saint. Pagans were converted by such revelations, martyrs were comforted, the wounded healed, and even an Emperor, Constantine, cured of leprosy, by the appearance of the two apostles, Peter and Paul.

The truth, which lies at the bottom of all such appearances, is probably, that ghostly disturbances are uniformly the acts of men, but of men who have ceased for a time to be free agents, and who have, for reasons to be explained presently, acquired exceptional powers. Thus, a famous jurist, Counselor Hellfeld, in Jena, was one evening on the point of signing the death warrant of a cavalry soldier. The subject had deeply agitated his mind for days, and before seizing his pen, he invoked, as was his custom in such cases, the "aid of the Almighty through His holy spirit." At that moment--it was an hour before midnight--he hears heavy blows fall upon his window, which sound as if the panes were struck with a riding-whip. His clerk also hears the blows distinctly, and begins to tremble violently. This apparent accident induces the judge to delay his action; he devotes the next day to a careful re-perusal of the evidence, and is now led to the conviction that the crime deserves only a minor punishment. Ere the year has closed, another criminal is caught, and volunteers the confession that he was the perpetrator of the crime for which the soldier was punished. In that solemn moment, it was, of course, only the judge's own mind, deeply moved and worn out by painful work, which warned him in a symbolic manner not to be precipitate, and the very fact that the blows sounded as if they had been produced by a whip proved his unconscious association of the noise with the cavalry soldier. And yet he and his clerk believed and solemnly affirmed, that they had heard the mysterious blows! This dualism, which, as it were, divides man into two beings, one of whom follows and watches the other, while both are unconscious of their identity, is the magic element in these phenomena. This unconsciousness, proving--as in dreams--the inactivity of our reason, produces the natural effect, that we fancy all ghostly appearances are foolish, wanton and wicked. The fact is, moreover that they almost always proceed from a more or less diseased or disturbed mind, and acquire importance only in so far as it is our duty here also to eliminate truth from error. Thus only can we hope to counteract their mischievous tendency, and to prevent still stronger delusions from obtaining a mastery over weak minds. This is the purpose of a club formed in London in 1869, the members of which find amusement and useful employment in investigating all cases of haunted houses and other ghostly appearances.

That the belief in ghostly disturbances is not a modern error, we see from St. Augustine, who already mentions the farm of a certain Hasparius as disquieted by loud noises till the prayer of a pious priest restored peace. The Catholic Church has a St. Caesarius, who purified in like manner the house of the physician Elpidius in Ravenna, which was filled with evil spirits and only admitted the owner after he had passed through a shower of stones. Another saint, Hubertus, was himself annoyed by ghosts in his residence at Camens, and never succeeded in obtaining peace till he died, in 958. Wicked or interested men take, of course, but too readily advantage of the credulity of men and employ similar disturbances for personal purposes; such was the case with the ghosts that haunted the Council house in Constance and the palace at Woodstock in Cromwell's time. The case of a scrupulously conscientious Protestant minister in Germany, which created in 1719 a great excitement throughout the empire, is well calculated to show the real nature of a number of such ghostly disturbances. He had been called to the death-bed of a notorious sinner, a woman, who desired at the last moment to receive the comforts of religion. Unfortunately he reached her house too late; she was already unconscious, and died in his presence, as he thought, unreconciled with her God and with himself, whom she had often insulted and cursed in life. Deeply disturbed he returned home, and after having dwelt upon the painful subject with intense anxiety for several days he began to hear footsteps in his house. Gradually they became more frequent; then he distinguished them clearly as a woman's step, and at last they were accompanied by the dragging of a gown. Watches were set, sand was strewn, dogs were kept in the house--but all in vain; no trace of man was found, and still the sounds continued. The unhappy man prayed day and night, and the noise disappeared for a fortnight. When he ceased praying they returned, louder than ever. He sternly bids the ghost desist, and behold! the ghost obeys. When he asks if it is a good angel or a demon, no answer is given; but the question: Art thou the Devil? finds an immediate reply in rapid steps up and down the house--for the poor man's mind was filled with the idea that such things can be done only by the Evil One. At last he summons all his remaining energy and in a tone of command he orders the ghost to depart and never to reappear. From that moment all disturbances cease--and very naturally, for the haunted, disturbed man, had fully recovered the command over himself; the dualism that produced all the spectral phenomena had ceased, and the restored mind accomplished its own cure. As these phenomena are thus produced from within, it appears perfectly natural also that they should be reported as occurring most frequently in the month of November. Religious minds and superstitious dispositions have brought this fact into a quaint connection with the approach of Advent-time, but the cause is probably purely physical; the dark and dismal month with its dense fogs emblematic of coming winter predisposes the mind to gloomy thoughts and renders it less capable of resisting atmospheric influences.

A very general belief ascribes such disturbances, under the name of "haunted houses," to the souls of deceased persons who can find no rest beyond the grave. The series of ghost stories based upon this supposition begins with the account of Suetonius and continues unbroken to our day. Then it was the spirit of Caligula, which could not be quiet so long as his body, which had only been half burned, remained in that disgraceful condition. Night after night his house and his garden were visited by strange apparitions, till the palace was destroyed by fire and the emperor's sisters rendered the last honors to his remains.

Thus the disposition of modern inquiries to trace back all popular accounts of great events, all familiar anecdotes and fairy tales, and even proverbs and maxims, to the ancients, has been fully gratified in this case also. They were not only known to antiquity, but formed a staple of popular tales. Thus the younger Pliny tells us one which he had frequently heard related. At Athens there stood a large, comfortable mansion, which, however, was ill-reputed. Night after night, it was said, chains were heard rattling, first at a distance, and then coming nearer, till a pale, haggard shape was seen approaching, wearing beard and hair in long dishevelled locks and clanking the chains it bore on hands and feet. The occupants of the house could not sleep, were terrified, sickened and died. Thus it came about that the fine building stood empty, year after year, and was at last offered for sale at a low price. About that time the philosopher Athenodorus came to Athens and saw the notice; he had his suspicions aroused by the small sum demanded for the house, inquired about the causes and rented the house. For he was a man of courage and meant to fathom the mystery.

On the evening of the first day he dismissed his servants and remained alone in the front room, writing and occupying himself, purposely, with grave and abstract questions, so as to allow no opening for his imagination. As soon as all was quiet around him the clanking and rattling of chains begins; but he pays no heed and continues to write. The noise approaches and enters the room; as he looks up he sees the well-known weird shape before him. It beckons him, but he demands patience and writes on as before; then the ghost shakes his chains over his head and beckons once more imperatively. Now he rises, takes his lamp, and follows his visitor through the passages into a court-yard, where the ghost disappears. The philosopher pulls up some grass on the spot and marks the place. On the following day he appeals to the authorities to cause the place to be dug up; and when this is done, the bones of an old man, loaded with heavy chains, are found. From that time the house was left undisturbed, as if the departed had only desired to induce some intelligent person to bestow upon him the honors of a decent burial, which among the ancients were held all-important. ("Letter to Sera," l. vii. 27.) The story told by Lucian ("Philopseudes," xxx.) is almost identical with that of Pliny. Here, also, a house in Corinth, once belonging to Eubatides, was left unoccupied, for the same reasons, and began to decay, when the Pythagorean, Arignotus, determined to ascertain the reality of these nightly appearances. He goes there after midnight, places his lamp on the floor, lies down and begins to read. Soon a horrible monster appears, black as night, and changes from one disgusting beast into another, till at last it yields to the stern command of the intrepid philosopher and disappears in a corner of the large room. When day breaks, workmen are brought in to take up the floor; a skeleton is found and decently interred, and from that day the house is left to its usual peace and quiet. ("Epist." l. vii. 27.) Plutarch, also, in his "Life of Cimon," states that the baths at Chaeronea were haunted by the ghost of Damon, who had there found his death; the doors were walled up and the place forsaken, but up to his day no relief had been devised, and fearful sights and terrible sounds continued to render the place uninhabitable.

Nor are Eastern lands unacquainted with this popular belief. Egypt has its haunted houses in nearly every village, and in Cairo there are a great number, while in Tunis whole streets were abandoned to ghostly occupants. In Nankin a great mandarin owned a spacious building which he could neither occupy himself nor rent to others, because of its evil reputation. At last the Jesuit Riccius, a missionary, offered to take it for his order; the fathers moved into it, conquered the ghosts by some means best known to themselves, and not only obtained a good house but great prestige with the natives for their triumph over the spirits (C. Hasart. _Hist. Eccles. Sinica_, p. 4, ch. iii.).

The same singular belief is not only met with in every age and among the most enlightened nations, but even in our own century a similar case occurred and is well authenticated. The Duke Charles Alexander of Wuertemberg of unholy memory, died at the town of Ludwigsburg, perhaps by murder. For years afterwards the palace was the scene of most violent disturbances; even the sentinels, powerful and well-armed men, were bodily lifted up and thrown across the parapet of the terrace. At other times the whole building appeared to be filled with people; doors were opened and closed, lights were seen in the apartments and dim figures flitted to and fro. Large detachments of troops under the command of officers, specially selected for the purpose, were ordered to march through the palace more than once, on such occasions, but never discovered a trace of human agency (Kerner. _Bilder._ p. 143). Even the great Frederick of Prussia, a man whose thoroughly skeptical mind might surely be supposed to have been free from all superstition, was once forced to admit his inability to explain by natural causes an occurrence of the kind. A Catholic priest in Silesia lost his cook, who had been specially dear to him; her ghost--as it was called--continued to haunt the house, and, most strange of all, not in order to disturb its peace, but to perform the usual domestic service. The floors were swept, the fires made, and linen washed, all by invisible hands. Frederick, who accidentally heard of the matter, ordered a captain and a lieutenant of his guard to investigate it; they were received by the beating of drums and then allowed to witness the same household performances. When the grim old captain broke out in a fearful curse, he received a severe box on the ears and retreated utterly discomfited. Upon his report to the king the house was pulled down and a new parsonage erected at some distance from the place. The occurrence is mentioned in many historical works and quoted without comment even by the great historian Menzel. Another striking case of a somewhat different character, was fully reported to the Colonial Office in London. The scene was a large vault in the island of Barbadoes, hewn out of the live rock and accessible only through a huge iron door, fastened in the usual way by strong bolts and a lock, the key to which was kept at the Government House. During the year 1819 it was opened four times for purposes of interment, and each time it was observed that all the coffins in the vault had been violently thrown about. The Governor, Lord Combermere, went himself, accompanied by his staff and a number of officers, to examine the place, and found the vault itself in perfect order and without a trace of violence. He ordered the door to be closed with cement and placed his seal upon the latter, an example followed by nearly all the bystanders. Eight months later, the 28th of April, 1820, he had the vault opened in the presence of a large company of friends and within sight of a crowd of several thousands. The cement and the seals were found to be perfect and uninjured; the sand which had been carefully strewn over the floor of the vault showed no footmark or sign whatever, but the coffins were again thrown about in great confusion. One, of such weight that it required eight men to move it, was found standing upright, and a child's coffin had been violently dashed against the wall. A carefully drawn up report with accompanying drawings was sent home, but no explanation has ever been discovered. Scientific men were disposed to ascribe the disturbance to earthquakes, but the annals of the island report none during those years; there remains, however, the possibility that the examination of the vault was after all imperfect, and that the sea might have had access to it through some hidden cleft. In that case an unusually high tide might very well have been the invisible agent.

Even the Indian of our far West cherishes the same superstitious belief, and in his lodge on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains, he hears mysterious knockings. To him they are the kindly warning of a spirit, whom he calls the Great Bear, which announces some great calamity.

That certain localities seem to be frequented by ghosts, that is, to be haunted, with special preference, must be ascribed to the contagious nature of such mental affections as generally produce these phenomena. This is, moreover, by no means limited, as is commonly believed, to Northern regions, where frequent fogs and dense mists, short days and long nights, together with sombre surroundings and awe-inspiring sounds in nature, combine to predispose the mind to expect supernatural appearances. Thus, for instance, fair Suabia, one of the most favored portions of Germany, sweet and smiling in its fertile plains, and by no means specially gruesome, even in the most secluded parts of the Black Forest, teems with haunted localities. Dr. Kerner's home, Weinsberg, enjoyed ghostly visits almost in every house; the neighborhood was similarly favored, and even in the open country there are countless peasants' cottages and noblemen's seats, which are frequented by ghosts. One of the most attractive estates in Wuertemberg was purchased in 1815 by a distinguished soldier, whose dauntless courage had caused him to rise rapidly from grade to grade under the eye of the great Napoleon. Soon after his arrival his wife was aroused every night by a variety of mysterious noises, rising from weird, low whinings to terrific explosions. The colonel also heard them, and tried his best to ascertain the cause. Night after night, moreover, the great castle clock, which went perfectly well all day long, struck at wrong hours, and was found all wrong in the morning. The disturbing powers soon became personal; for one night, when the colonel, sitting at the supper table, and hearing the usual sounds, said angrily, "I wish the ghost would make himself known!" a fearful explosion took place, knocking down the speaker and bringing all the inmates of the house to the room. Search was immediately instituted, and the main weight of the great clock was discovered to be missing. A new weight had to be ordered, and only long afterwards the old one was found wedged in between two floors above the clock. Nor were the disturbances confined to the castle: at midnight the horses in the stable became restless and almost wild, tearing themselves loose and sweating till they were covered with white foam. One night the colonel went to the stable, mounted his favorite charger, who had borne him in the din and roar of many a battle, and awaited the striking of midnight. Instantly the poor animal began to tremble, then to rear and kick furiously, until his master, famous as a good horseman, could hold him in no longer, and was carried around the stable by the maddened horse so as to imperil his life. After an hour, the poor creatures began to calm down, but stood trembling in all their limbs; the colonel's own horse succumbed to the trial and died in the morning. A new stable had to be built, which remained free from disturbances.

By far the most remarkable and, strange enough, at the same time the best authenticated of all accounts of disturbances caused by recently departed friends is found in a memoir written by the sufferer herself, and addressed to the famous Baron Grimm under the pseudonym of Mr. Meis. Through the latter the story reached Goethe, who at once appropriated it in all its details, and merely changing the name of the principal to Antonelli, inserted it in his "Conversations of German Emigrants." The same event is fully related in the "Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach" as "a story which at that time created a great sensation in Paris, and excited universal curiosity." But even greater authority yet is given to this account by the fact that it was officially recorded in the police reports of Paris, from which it has been frequently extracted for publication. Mdlle. Hippolyte Clairon makes substantially the following statements: "In the year 1743 my youth and my success on the stage procured for me much attention from young fops and elderly profligates, among whom, however, I found frequently a few better men. One of these, who made a deep impression upon me, was a Mr. S., the son of a merchant from Brittany, about thirty years old, fair of features, well made, and gifted with some talent for poetry. His conversation and his manners showed that he had received a superior education, and that he was accustomed to good society, while his reserve and bashfulness, which prevented him from allowing his attachment to be seen, made him all the dearer to me. When I had ascertained his discretion, I permitted him to visit me, and gave him to understand that he might call himself my friend. He took this patiently, seeing that I was still free and not without tender feelings, and hoping that time might inspire me with a warmer affection. Who knows what might have happened! But I used to question him closely, both from curiosity and from prudence, and his candid answers destroyed his prospects; for he confessed that, dissatisfied with his modest station in life, he had sold his property in order to live in Paris in better society, and I did not like this. Men who are ashamed of themselves are not, it seems to me, calculated to inspire others with respect. Besides, he was of a melancholy and dissatisfied temper, knowing men too well, as he said, not to despise and avoid them. He intended to visit no one but myself, and to induce me also to see no one but him. You may imagine how I disliked such ideas. I might have been held by garlands, but did not wish to be bound with chains. From that moment I saw that I must disappoint his hopes, and gradually withdrew from his society. This caused him a severe illness, during which I showed him all possible attention. But my steady refusal to do more for him only deepened the wound, and at the same time the poor young man had the misfortune of being stripped of nearly all his property by his faithless brother, to whom he had intrusted the sale of all he owned, so that he saw himself compelled to accept small sums from me for the payment of his daily food and the necessary medicines.

"At last he recovered part of his property, but his health was ruined; and as I thought I was rendering him a real service by widening the distance between us, I refused henceforth to receive his letters and his visits.

"Thus matters went on for two years and a half, when he died. He had sent for me, wishing to enjoy the happiness of seeing me once more in his last moments, but my friends would not allow me to go. He had no one near him except his servants and an old lady, who had of late been his only companion. Our lodgings were far apart: his near the Chaussee-d'Antin, where only a few houses had as yet been built, and mine near the Abbey of St. Martin. My daily guests were an agent, who attended to all my professional duties, Mr. Pipelet, well known and beloved by all who knew him, and Rosely, one of my fellow-comedians, a kind young man full of wit and talent. We had modest little suppers, but we were merry and enjoyed ourselves heartily. One evening I had just been singing several pretty airs which seemed to delight my friends, when the clock struck eleven, and at the same moment an extremely sharp cry was heard. Its plaintive sound and long duration amazed everybody; I fainted away and remained for nearly a quarter of an hour unconscious.

"My agent was in love with me and so mad with jealousy that when I recovered, he overwhelmed me with reproaches, and said the signals for my interview were rather loud. I told him that as I had the right to receive when and whom I chose, no signals were needed, and this cry had surely been heart-rending enough to convince him that it announced no sweet moments. My paleness, my tremor, which lasted for some time, my tears flowing silently and almost unconsciously, and my urgent request that somebody would stay up with me during the night, all these signs convinced him of my innocence. My friends remained with me, discussing the fearful cry, and determining finally to station guards around the house.

"Nevertheless the dread sound was repeated night after night; my friends, all the neighbors, and even the policemen who were stationed near us, heard it distinctly; it seemed to be uttered immediately under my window, where nothing could ever be seen. There was no doubt entertained as to the person for whom it was intended, for whenever I supped out, no cry was heard; but frequently after my return, when I entered my room and inquired about it of my mother and my servants, it suddenly pierced the air anew. Once the president of the court, at whose house I had been entertained, proposed to see me home in safety; at the moment when he wished me good-night at the door, the cry was heard right between us, and the poor man had to be lifted into his carriage more dead than alive.

"Another time my young companion, Rosely, a clever, witty man, who believed in nothing in heaven or on earth, was riding with me in my carriage on our way to a friend who lived in a distant part of the city. We were discussing the fearful torment to which I was exposed, and he, laughing at me, at last declared he would never believe it unless he heard it with his own ears, and defied me to summon my lover. I do not know how I came to yield, but instantly the cry was repeated three times, and with overwhelming fierceness. When our carriage reached the house, the servants found us both lying unconscious on the cushions, and had to summon assistance before we recovered. After this I heard nothing for several months, and began to hope that all was over. But I was sadly mistaken.

"The members of the king's troop of comedians had all been ordered to appear at Versailles, in honor of the dauphin's marriage, and as we were to spend three days there, lodgings had been provided. It so happened, however, that a friend of mine, Mme. Grandval, had been forgotten, and seeing her trouble, I at last offered her, towards three o'clock in the morning, to share my room, in which there were two beds. This forced me to take my maid into my own bed, and as she was in the act of coming, I said to her: 'Here we are at the end of the world, the weather is abominable, and the cry would find it hard to follow us here!' At that moment it resounded close to us; Mme. Grandval jumped up terribly frightened, and ran through the whole house, waking everybody, and keeping us all in such a state of excitement that not an eye was closed the whole night. Seven or eight days later, as I was chatting merrily with a number of friends, at the striking of the hour, a shot was heard, coming apparently through my window. We all heard it and saw the fire, but the pane was not broken. Everybody thought at once of an attempt to murder me, and some friends hastened instantly to the Chief of Police. Men were immediately sent to search the houses opposite, and for several days and nights the street was strictly guarded by a number of soldiers; my own house was searched from roof to cellar, and friends came in large companies to assist in watchings: nevertheless, the shot fell night after night at the same hour, for three months, with unfailing accuracy. No clue was found and no sign was seen save the sound of the shot and the sight of the fire. Daily reports of the occurrence were sent to the headquarters of the police, new measures were continually devised and applied, but the authorities were baffled as well as all who tried to fathom the mystery. I became at last quite accustomed to the disturbance, and was in the habit of speaking of it as the doing of a _bon diable_, because he contented himself so long a time with jugglers' tricks; but one night as I had stepped through the open window out upon a balcony, and was standing there with my agent by my side, the shot suddenly fell again and knocked us both back into the room, where we fell down as if dead. When we recovered our consciousness, we got up, and after some hesitation, confessed to each other that our ears had been severely boxed, his on the right side and mine on the left, whereupon we gave way to hearty laughter. The next night was quiet, but on the following day I was riding with my maid to a friend's house, where I had been invited to meet some acquaintances. As we passed through a certain part of the city, I recognized the houses in the bright moonlight, and said jestingly: 'This looks very much like the part of town where poor S. used to live.' At the same moment a near church clock struck eleven, and instantly a shot was fired at us from one of the buildings, which seemed to pass through our carriage. The coachman thought we had been attacked by robbers, and whipped his horses to escape; I knew what it meant, but still felt thoroughly frightened, and reached the house in a state little suited for social enjoyment. This was, however, the last time my unfortunate friend used a gun.

"In place of the firing there came now a loud clapping of hands, with certain modulations and repetitions. This sound, to which I had become accustomed on the stage by the kindness of my friends, did not disturb me as much as my companions. They would station themselves around my door and under my window; they heard it distinctly, but could not see a trace of any person. I do not remember how long this continued; but it was followed by the singing of a sweet, almost heavenly melody, which began at the upper end of the street and gradually swelled till it reached my house, where it slowly expired. Then the disturbance ceased altogether.

"The only light that was ever thrown upon the mystery came from an old lady who called on me on the pretext of wishing to see my house which I had offered for rent. I was very much struck by her venerable appearance and her evident emotion. I offered her a chair and sat down opposite to her, but was for some time unable to say a word. At last she seemed to gather courage and told me that she had long wished to make my acquaintance, but had not dared to come so long as I was constantly surrounded by hosts of friends and admirers. At last she had happened to see my advertisement and availed herself of the opportunity in order to see me--and to visit my house, which had a deep though melancholy interest in her eyes. I guessed at once that she was the faithful friend who alone remained by the bedside of poor S., when he was prostrated by a fatal disease and refused to see anybody else. For months, she now told me, he had spoken of nothing save of myself, looking upon me now as an angel and now as a demon, but utterly unable to keep his thoughts from dwelling uninterruptedly upon the one subject which filled his mind and his heart alike. I tried to explain to the old lady how I had fully appreciated his good qualities and noble impulses, finding it, however, impossible to fall in with his peculiar views of society and to promise, as he insisted I should do, to forsake all I loved for the purpose of living with him in loneliness and complete retirement. I told her, also, that when he sent for me to see him in his last moments, my friends prevented my going, and that I felt myself that the sight of his death under such circumstances would have been dangerous in the extreme to my peace of mind, besides being utterly useless to the dying man. She admitted the force of my reasoning, but repeated that my refusal had hastened his end and deprived him at the last moment of all self-control. In this state of mind, when a few minutes before eleven, the servant had entered and assured him in answer to his passionate inquiry, that no one had come, he had exclaimed: 'The heartless woman! She shall gain nothing by her cruelty, for I will pursue her after death as I have pursued her during life!' and with these words on his lips he had expired."

The impression produced by this thoroughly authenticated recital is a strong argument in favor of a continued connection after death of the human soul with the world in which we live. There was a man whose whole existence was absorbed by one great and all-pervading passion; it brought ruin to his body and disabled his mind from correcting the vagaries of his fancy. He died in this state, with a sense of grievous wrong and intense thirst of revenge uppermost in his mind. Then follow a number of magic phenomena, witnessed, for several years, by thousands of attached friends and curious observers, defying the vigilance of soldiers and the acuteness of police agents. These disturbances, at first bearing the stamp of willful annoyance, gradually assume a milder form, as if expressive of softening indignation; they become weaker and less frequent, and finally cease altogether, suggestive of the peace which the poor erring soul had at last found, by infinite mercy and goodness, when safely entering the desired haven.

On the other hand--for contrasts meet here as well as elsewhere--these phenomena have been frequently ascribed to purely physical causes, and in a number of cases the final explanation has confirmed this suggestion. A hypochondriac artist, for instance, was nightly disturbed by a low but furious knocking in his bed, which was heard by others as well as by himself. He prayed, he caused priests to come to his bedside, he had masses read in his behalf, but all remained in vain. Then came a plain, sensible friend, who, half in jest and half in earnest, covered his big toe with a brass wire which he dipped into an alkaline solution, and behold, the knockings ceased and never returned! (Dupotel, "Animal Magn.") In another case a somnambulistic woman frightened herself as well as others by most violent knockings whenever she was disappointed or thwarted; her physician, suspecting the cause, finally gave her antispasmodic remedies, and it soon appeared that in her nervous spasms the muscles had been vibrating forcibly enough to produce these disturbances. Since these discoveries it has been found that almost anybody may produce such knockings--which stand in a suspicious relationship to spirit-rappings--by exerting certain muscles of the leg; some men, who have practised this trick for scientific purposes, like Professor Schiff, of Florence, are able to imitate almost all the various knockings generally ascribed to ghosts and spirits. The public performances of Mr. Chauncey Burr, in New York, gave very striking illustrations of this power, and a Mr. Shadrach Barnes rapped with his toes to perfection.

In a large number of cases such phenomena appear in connection with persons who suffer of some nervous disease, and then the knockings are, of course, produced unconsciously, and may be accompanied by evidences of exceptional powers. It need not be added, however, that the two symptoms are not necessarily of the same nature; generally the mechanical knockings precede the development of ecstatic visions. A girl of eleven years, the child of humble Alsatian parents, presented, in 1852, this succession of symptoms very strikingly. The child had a habit of falling asleep at all hours; at once mysterious knockings began to perform a dance or a march, and continued daily for more than an hour. After some time the poor girl began, also, to talk in her sleep, and to converse with the knocking agent. She would order him to beat a tattoo, or to play a quickstep, and immediately it was done. The directions of bystanders, even when not uttered but merely formed earnestly in their mind, were obeyed in like manner. Finally the child, getting no doubt worse and unmercifully excited by the crowds of curious people who thronged the house, began to admonish her audience, and to preach and pray; during these exhortations no knockings were heard, but she became clairvoyant and recognized all the persons present, even with her eyes closed. She fancied that a black man with a red shawl produced the knockings and delivered the speeches. Her clairvoyance became at last so striking that her case excited the deepest interest of persons in high social position, and several physicians examined it with great care. Her disease was declared to be neurosis coeliaca ("Magicon," v. 274).

A very peculiar and utterly inexplicable phenomenon belonging to this class of ghostly appearances is the complete removal of persons by an unseen power. The idea of such occurrences must have been current among the Jews, for when "there appeared a chariot of fire and horses of fire ... and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (II. Kings ii. 11), the sons of the prophets did not at once resign themselves, but sent fifty strong men to seek him, "lest peradventure the Spirit of the Lord hath taken him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley" (v. 16). In the New Testament the same mysterious removal is mentioned in the case of Philip, after his interview with the Ethiopian, whom he baptized. "The Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more," and "Philip was found at Azotus" (Acts viii. 39, 40). What in these cases was done by divine power, is said to be occasionally the work of an unknown and unseen force. Generally, no doubt, men or children lose themselves by accident, either when they are already from illness or other cause in a state of semi-consciousness, or when they become so bewildered and frightened by the accident itself, that they fancy they must have been carried away by a mysterious power. The best authenticated case is reported in Beaumont (p. 65). An Irish steward, crossing a field, saw in it a large company feasting, and was invited to join their meal. One of them, however, warned him in a whisper not to accept anything that should be offered. Upon his refusal to eat, the table vanished and the men were seen dancing to a merry music. He was again invited to join, and when he refused, all disappeared, and he found himself alone. He hurried home thoroughly terrified, and fainted away in his room. During the night he dreamt--or really saw--that one of the mysterious company appeared at his bedside and announced to him that if he dare leave the house on the following day, he would be carried away. He remained at home till the evening, when, thinking himself safe, he stepped across the threshold. Instantly his companions saw him, with a rope around his body, hurried away so fast that they could not follow. At last they meet a horseman whom they request by signs to arrest the unhappy victim; he seizes the rope and receives a smart blow, but rescues the steward. Lord Orrery desired to see the man, and when the latter presented himself before the earl, he reported that another nightly visitor had threatened him as before. He was, thereupon, placed in a large room under the guard of several stout men; a number of distinguished persons, two bishops among them, went constantly in and out. In the afternoon he was suddenly lifted into the air; a famous boxer, Greatrix, who had been specially engaged to guard him, and another powerful man, seized him by the shoulders, but he was dragged from their grasp and for some time carried about high above their heads, till at last he fell into the arms of some of his keepers. During the night the same apparition stood once more by his bed-side, inviting him to drink of a gray porridge, which would cure him of all ills and protect him against further violence. He suffered himself to be persuaded, when the visitor made himself known as a former friend who had to attend those mysterious meetings in punishment of the dissolute life he had led upon earth, and who now wished to save another unhappy fellow-being from a like sad fate. At the same time he reminded him of his neglect to pray, and then disappeared. The steward speedily recovered from his fright, and was no further molested. There can be little doubt that the man was ill at ease in body and in conscience, and that this double burden was too heavy to bear for his mind; his thoughts became disordered, till he felt an apparently external power stronger than his own will, and thus not only imagined strange visions, but actually obeyed erratic impulses of his diseased mind, as if they were acts of violence from without.