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.