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 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 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 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 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 bushes, the
harbours of several solitary birds which seldom make their appearance
till the dusk of the evening. The place was formerly a churchyard, 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 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 attention; and when night
heightens the awfulness of the place, and pours out her supernumerary[75]
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, has very
curious[76] remarks to show how, by the prejudice of education[77], one
idea often introduces into the mind a whole set that bear no resemblance
to one another in the nature of things. Among several examples of this
kind, he produces the following instance. "The ideas of goblins 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."
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 was apt to startle
might easily have construed into a black horse without an head: and I
dare say the poor footman lost his wits upon some such trivial occasion.
My friend Sir Roger has often told me with a good deal of mirth, that at
his first coming to his estate he found three parts of his house
altogether useless; that the best room in it had the reputation of being
haunted, and by that means[78] 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 the chambers was nailed
up, because there went 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 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[79] 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 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: 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 the philosophers of antiquity have favoured this opinion.
Lucretius[80] 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 death. This I think very remarkable. He was so
pressed[81] 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 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 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 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 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? How couldst thou forget our loves
so far as to enter into a second marriage, and after that into a third,
nay to take for thy husband a man who has so shamefully crept into the
bed of his brother? However, for the sake of our passed loves, I shall
free thee from thy present reproach, and make thee mine for ever.'
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 instances of this
nature are excited to the study of virtue."