At a little distance from Sir Roger's house, among the
ruins of an old abbey, there is a long walk of aged elms,
which are shot up so very high that, when one passes
under them, the rooks and crows that rest upon the tops
of them seem to be cawing in another region. I am very (95: 5)
much delighted with this sort of noise, which I consider
as a kind of natural prayer to that Being who supplies
the wants of His whole creation, and who, in the beautiful
language of the Psalms, feedeth the young ravens that
call upon Him. I like this retirement the better, because (10)
of an ill report it lies under of being haunted; for which
reason, as I have been told in the family, no living creature
ever walks in it besides the chaplain. My good
friend the butler desired me, with a very grave face, not
to venture myself in it after sunset, for that one of the (15)
footmen had been almost frighted out of his wits by a
spirit that appeared to him in the shape of a black horse
without an head; to which he added, that about a month
ago one of the maids coming home late that way, with a
pail of milk upon her head, heard such a rustling among (20)
the bushes that she let it fall.
I was taking a walk in this place last night between the
hours of nine and ten, and could not but fancy it one
of the most proper scenes in the world for a ghost to
appear in. The ruins of the abbey are scattered up and
down on every side, and half covered with ivy and elder (96: 5)
bushes, the harbours of several solitary birds which seldom
make their appearance till the dusk of the evening. The
place was formerly a church-yard, and has still several
marks in it of graves and burying-places. There is such
an echo among the old ruins and vaults that, if you stamp (10)
but a little louder than ordinary, you hear the sound repeated.
At the same time the walk of elms, with the
croaking of the ravens which from time to time are heard
from the tops of them, looks exceeding solemn and venerable.
These objects naturally raise seriousness and (15)
attention; and when night heightens the awfulness of the
place, and pours out her supernumerary horrors upon
everything in it, I do not at all wonder that weak minds
fill it with spectres and apparitions.
Mr. Locke, in his chapter of the Association of Ideas, (20)
has very curious remarks to show how, by the prejudice
of education, one idea often introduces into the mind a
whole set that bear no resemblance to one another in the
nature of things.[59] Among several examples of this kind,
he produces the following instance: "The ideas of goblins (25)
and sprites have really no more to do with darkness
than light; yet, let but a foolish maid inculcate these
often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together,
possibly he shall never be able to separate them
again so long as he lives, but darkness shall ever afterwards
bring with it those frightful ideas, and they shall
be so joined that he can no more bear the one than the
other." (97: 5)
[59] Is the thought expressed with precision?
As I was walking in this solitude, where the dusk of
the evening conspired with so many other occasions of
terror, I observed a cow grazing not far from me, which
an imagination that is apt to startle might easily have
construed into a black horse without an head; and I dare (10)
say the poor footman lost his wits upon some such trivial
occasion.
My friend Sir Roger has often told me, with a great
deal of mirth, that at his first coming to his estate, he
found three parts of his house altogether useless: that (15)
the best room in it had the reputation of being haunted,
and by that means was locked up; that noises had been
heard in his long gallery, so that he could not get a servant
to enter it after eight o'clock at night; that the door
of one of his chambers was nailed up, because there went (20)
a story in the family that a butler had formerly hanged
himself in it; and that his mother, who lived to a great
age, had shut up half the rooms in the house, in which
either her husband, a son, or daughter had died. The
knight, seeing his habitation reduced to so small a (25)
compass and himself in a manner shut out of his own
house, upon the death of his mother ordered all the apartments
to be flung open and exorcised by his chaplain,
who lay in every room one after another, and by that
means dissipated the fears which had so long reigned in
the family.
I should not have been thus particular upon these ridiculous
horrors, did not I find them so very much prevail in
all parts of the country. At the same time, I think a person (98: 5)
who is thus terrified with the imagination of ghosts
and spectres much more reasonable than one who, contrary
to the reports of all historians, sacred and profane,
ancient and modern, and to the traditions of all nations,
thinks the appearance of spirits fabulous and groundless. (10)
Could not I give myself up to this general testimony of
mankind, I should to the relations of particular persons
who are now living, and whom I cannot distrust in other
matters of fact. I might here add, that not only the historians,
to whom we may join the poets, but likewise (15)
the philosophers of antiquity have favoured this opinion.
Lucretius himself, though by the course of his philosophy
he was obliged to maintain that the soul did not exist
separate from the body, makes no doubt of the reality of
apparitions, and that men have often appeared after their (20)
death. This I think very remarkable: he was so pressed
with the matter of fact which he could not have the confidence
to deny, that he was forced to account for it by
one of the most absurd unphilosophical notions that was
ever started. He tells us that the surfaces of all bodies (25)
are perpetually flying off from their respective bodies one
after another; and that these surfaces or thin cases that
included each other, whilst they were joined in the body,
like the coats of an onion, are sometimes seen entire when
they are separated from it; by which means we often
behold the shapes and shadows of persons who are either
dead or absent.
I shall dismiss this paper with a story out of Josephus,
not so much for the sake of the story itself as for the (99: 5)
moral reflections with which the author concludes it, and
which I shall here set down in his own words:
"Glaphyra, the daughter of King Archelaus, after the
death of her two first husbands,--being married to a
third, who was brother to her first husband, and so passionately (10)
in love with her that he turned off his former
wife to make room for this marriage,--had a very odd
kind of dream. She fancied that she saw her first husband
coming towards her, and that she embraced him with
great tenderness; when in the midst of the pleasure which (15)
she expressed at the sight of him, he reproached her after
the following manner:
"'Glaphyra,' says he, 'thou hast made good the old
saying that women are not to be trusted. Was not I the
husband of thy virginity? Have I not children by thee? (20)
How couldst thou forget our loves so far as to enter
into a second marriage, and after that into a third?...
However, for the sake of our past loves I shall free
thee from thy present reproach, and make thee mine
for ever.' (25)
"Glaphyra told this dream to several women of her
acquaintance, and died soon after.
"I thought this story might not be impertinent in this
place wherein I speak of those kings. Besides that, the
example deserves to be taken notice of, as it contains a
most certain proof of the immortality of the soul, and of
divine providence. If any man thinks these facts incredible,
let him enjoy his own opinion to himself, but let him
not endeavour to disturb the belief of others, who by (100: 5)
instances of this nature are excited to the study of
virtue." L.