The Ghost and the Blind Children.
Ghosts are in the air. It is difficult at this moment to avoid talking
of ghosts. The first question you are asked on being introduced this
season is:
"Do you believe in ghosts?"
I would be so glad to believe in ghosts. This world is much too small
for me. Up to a century or two ago the intellectual young man found it
sufficient for his purposes. It still contained the unknown--the
possible--within its boundaries. New continents were still to be
discovered: we dreamt of giants, Liliputians, desert-fenced Utopias. We
set our sail, and Wonderland lay ever just beyond our horizon. To-day
the world is small, the light railway runs through the desert, the
coasting steamer calls at the Islands of the Blessed, the last mystery
has been unveiled, the fairies are dead, the talking birds are silent.
Our baffled curiosity turns for relief outwards. We call upon the dead
to rescue us from our monotony. The first authentic ghost will be
welcomed as the saviour of humanity.
But he must be a living ghost--a ghost we can respect, a ghost we can
listen to. The poor spiritless addle-headed ghost that has hitherto
haunted our blue chambers is of no use to us. I remember a thoughtful
man once remarking during argument that if he believed in ghosts--the
silly, childish spooks about which we had been telling anecdotes--death
would possess for him an added fear: the idea that his next
dwelling-place would be among such a pack of dismal idiots would sadden
his departing hours. What was he to talk to them about? Apparently
their only interest lay in recalling their earthly troubles. The ghost
of the lady unhappily married who had been poisoned, or had her throat
cut, who every night for the last five hundred years had visited the
chamber where it happened for no other purpose than to scream about it!
what a tiresome person she would be to meet! All her conversation during
the long days would be around her earthly wrongs. The other ghosts, in
all probability, would have heard about that husband of hers, what he
said, and what he did, till they were sick of the subject. A newcomer
would be seized upon with avidity.
A lady of repute writes to a magazine that she once occupied for a season
a wainscotted room in an old manor house. On several occasions she awoke
in the night: each time to witness the same ghostly performance. Four
gentlemen sat round a table playing cards. Suddenly one of them sprang
to his feet and plunged a dagger into the back of his partner. The lady
does not say so: one presumes it was his partner. I have, myself, when
playing bridge, seen an expression on my partner's face that said quite
plainly:
"I would like to murder you."
I have not the memory for bridge. I forget who it was that, last trick
but seven, played the two of clubs. I thought it was he, my partner. I
thought it meant that I was to take an early opportunity of forcing
trumps. I don't know why I thought so, I try to explain why I thought
so. It sounds a silly argument even to myself; I feel I have not got it
quite right. Added to which it was not my partner who played the two of
clubs, it was Dummy. If I had only remembered this, and had concluded
from it--as I ought to have done--that my partner had the ace of
diamonds--as otherwise why did he pass my knave?--we might have saved the
odd trick. I have not the head for bridge. It is only an ordinary
head--mine. I have no business to play bridge.
Why not, occasionally, a cheerful Ghost.
But to return to our ghosts. These four gentlemen must now and again,
during their earthly existence, have sat down to a merry game of cards.
There must have been evenings when nobody was stabbed. Why choose an
unpleasant occasion to harp exclusively upon it? Why do ghosts never
give a cheerful show? The lady who was poisoned! there must have been
other evenings in her life. Why does she not show us "The first
meeting": when he gave her the violets and said they were like her eyes?
He wasn't always poisoning her. There must have been a period before he
ever thought of poisoning her. Cannot these ghosts do something
occasionally in what is termed "the lighter vein"? If they haunt a
forest glade, it is to perform a duel to the death, or an assassination.
Why cannot they, for a change, give us an old-time picnic, or "The
hawking party," which, in Elizabethan costume, should make a pretty
picture? Ghostland would appear to be obsessed by the spirit of the
Scandinavian drama: murders, suicides, ruined fortunes, and broken hearts
are the only material made use of. Why is not a dead humorist allowed
now and then to write the sketch? There must be plenty of dead comic
lovers; why are they never allowed to give a performance?
Where are the dead Humorists?
A cheerful person contemplates death with alarm. What is he to do in
this land of ghosts? there is no place for him. Imagine the commonplace
liver of a humdrum existence being received into ghostland. He enters
nervous, shy, feeling again the new boy at school. The old ghosts gather
round him.
"How do you come here--murdered?"
"No, at least, I don't think so."
"Suicide?
"No--can't remember the name of it now. Began with a chill on the liver,
I think."
The ghosts are disappointed. But a happy suggestion is made. Perhaps he
was the murderer; that would be even better. Let him think carefully;
can he recollect ever having committed a murder? He racks his brains in
vain, not a single murder comes to his recollection. He never forged a
will. Doesn't even know where anything is hid. Of what use will he be
in ghostland? One pictures him passing the centuries among a moody crowd
of uninteresting mediocrities, brooding perpetually over their wasted
lives. Only the ghosts of ladies and gentlemen mixed up in crime have
any "show" in ghostland.
The Spirit does not shine as a Conversationalist.
I feel an equal dissatisfaction with the spirits who are supposed to
return to us and communicate with us through the medium of three-legged
tables. I do not deny the possibility that spirits exist. I am even
willing to allow them their three-legged tables. It must be confessed it
is a clumsy method. One cannot help regretting that during all the ages
they have not evolved a more dignified system. One feels that the three-
legged table must hamper them. One can imagine an impatient spirit
getting tired of spelling out a lengthy story on a three-legged table.
But, as I have said, I am willing to assume that, for some spiritual
reason unfathomable to my mere human intelligence, that three-legged
table is essential. I am willing also to accept the human medium. She
is generally an unprepossessing lady running somewhat to bulk. If a
gentleman, he so often has dirty finger-nails, and smells of stale beer.
I think myself it would be so much simpler if the spirit would talk to me
direct; we could get on quicker. But there is that about the medium, I
am told, which appeals to a spirit. Well, it is his affair, not mine,
and I waive the argument. My real stumbling-block is the spirit
himself--the sort of conversation that, when he does talk, he indulges
in. I cannot help feeling that his conversation is not worth the
paraphernalia. I can talk better than that myself.
The late Professor Huxley, who took some trouble over this matter,
attended some half-dozen _seances_, and then determined to attend no
more.
"I have," he said, "for my sins to submit occasionally to the society of
live bores. I refuse to go out of my way to spend an evening in the dark
with dead bores."
The spiritualists themselves admit that their table-rapping spooks are
precious dull dogs; it would be difficult, in face of the communications
recorded, for them to deny it. They explain to us that they have not yet
achieved communication with the higher spiritual Intelligences. The more
intelligent spirits--for some reason that the spiritualists themselves
are unable to explain--do not want to talk to them, appear to have
something else to do. At present--so I am told, and can believe--it is
only the spirits of lower intelligence that care to turn up on these
evenings. The spiritualists argue that, by continuing, the higher-class
spirits will later on be induced to "come in." I fail to follow the
argument. It seems to me that we are frightening them away. Anyhow,
myself I shall wait awhile.
When the spirit comes along that can talk sense, that can tell me
something I don't know, I shall be glad to meet him. The class of spirit
that we are getting just at present does not appeal to me. The thought
of him--the reflection that I shall die and spend the rest of eternity in
his company--does not comfort me.
She is now a Believer.
A lady of my acquaintance tells me it is marvellous how much these
spirits seem to know. On her very first visit, the spirit, through the
voice of the medium--an elderly gentleman residing obscurely in
Clerkenwell--informed her without a moment's hesitation that she
possessed a relative with the Christian name of George. (I am not making
this up--it is real.) This gave her at first the idea that spiritualism
was a fraud. She had no relative named George--at least, so she thought.
But a morning or two later her husband received a letter from Australia.
"By Jove!" he exclaimed, as he glanced at the last page, "I had forgotten
all about the poor old beggar."
"Whom is it from?" she asked.
"Oh, nobody you know--haven't seen him myself for twenty years--a third
or fourth cousin of mine--George--"
She never heard the surname, she was too excited. The spirit had been
right from the beginning; she _had_ a relative named George. Her faith
in spiritualism is now as a rock.
There are thousands of folk who believe in Old Moore's Almanac. My
difficulty would be not to believe in the old gentleman. I see that for
the month of January last he foretold us that the Government would meet
with determined and persistent opposition. He warned us that there would
be much sickness about, and that rheumatism would discover its old
victims. How does he know these things? Is it that the stars really do
communicate with him, or does he "feel it in his bones," as the saying is
up North?
During February, he mentioned, the weather would be unsettled. He
concluded:
"The word Taxation will have a terrible significance for both Government
and people this month."
Really, it is quite uncanny. In March:
"Theatres will do badly during the month."
There seems to be no keeping anything from Old Moore. In April "much
dissatisfaction will be expressed among Post Office employees." That
sounds probable, on the face of it. In any event, I will answer for our
local postman.
In May "a wealthy magnate is going to die." In June there is going to be
a fire. In July "Old Moore has reason to fear there will be trouble."
I do hope he may be wrong, and yet somehow I feel a conviction that he
won't be. Anyhow, one is glad it has been put off till July.
In August "one in high authority will be in danger of demise." In
September "zeal" on the part of persons mentioned "will outstrip
discretion." In October Old Moore is afraid again. He cannot avoid a
haunting suspicion that "Certain people will be victimized by extensive
fraudulent proceedings."
In November "the public Press will have its columns full of important
news." The weather will be "adverse," and "a death will occur in high
circles." This makes the second in one year. I am glad I do not belong
to the higher circles.
How does he do it?
In December Old Moore again foresees trouble, just when I was hoping it
was all over. "Frauds will come to light, and death will find its
victims."
And all this information is given to us for a penny.
The palmist examines our hand. "You will go a journey," he tells us. It
is marvellous! How could he have known that only the night before we had
been discussing the advisability of taking the children to Margate for
the holidays?
"There is trouble in store for you," he tells us, regretfully, "but you
will get over it." We feel that the future has no secret hidden from
him.
We have "presentiments" that people we love, who are climbing mountains,
who are fond of ballooning, are in danger.
The sister of a friend of mine who went out to the South African War as a
volunteer had three presentiments of his death. He came home safe and
sound, but admitted that on three distinct occasions he had been in
imminent danger. It seemed to the dear lady a proof of everything she
had ever read.
Another friend of mine was waked in the middle of the night by his wife,
who insisted that he should dress himself and walk three miles across a
moor because she had had a dream that something terrible was happening to
a bosom friend of hers. The bosom friend and her husband were rather
indignant at being waked at two o'clock in the morning, but their
indignation was mild compared with that of the dreamer on learning that
nothing was the matter. From that day forward a coldness sprang up
between the two families.
I would give much to believe in ghosts. The interest of life would be
multiplied by its own square power could we communicate with the myriad
dead watching us from their mountain summits. Mr. Zangwill, in a poem
that should live, draws for us a pathetic picture of blind children
playing in a garden, laughing, romping. All their lives they have lived
in darkness; they are content. But, the wonder of it, could their eyes
by some miracle be opened!
Blind Children playing in a World of Darkness.
May not we be but blind children, suggests the poet, living in a world of
darkness--laughing, weeping, loving, dying--knowing nothing of the wonder
round us?
The ghosts about us, with their god-like faces, it might be good to look
at them.
But these poor, pale-faced spooks, these dull-witted, table-thumping
spirits: it would be sad to think that of such was the kingdom of the
Dead.