A Ghost Story and Others

There are certain beliefs as old as the world, that have encountered
more or less scepticism in all ages, and nevertheless endure to-day,--
beliefs based upon observations so excellently authenticated, and so
strongly interresembling, whether made before Christ or in the present
age of rail-roads and electricity, that the admission of their
testimony in the great trial which metaphysical theories are
undergoing in the court of Common Sense, cannot be refused. We refer
especially to the belief in warnings,--premonitions of death,--
wraiths,--doubles,--all those singular superstitions connected with
sudden decease, all those apparitions of inexplicable voices by which
people at vast distances from home are weirdly informed of the loss of
friends, or relatives, to whom they are particularly attached. An
immense number of extraordinary books have been written upon this
subject; and an enormous bulk of modern testimony collected in regard
to it,--so much, indeed, that people have long since become more or
less weary of the theme, the more so because every new statement
obtained bears a tiresome resemblance to others familiar from
childhood. Nevertheless, while we have all read about such things,
very few of us believe in them; and although there are probably few
adult readers of this paper who have not occasionally met with some
one claiming to have had ghostly experience, there are also few who
are willing to place credence in such assertions.

Nor does it matter much how generally trustworthy in other respects
the person who makes the statement may be; in this particular matter
either his veracity is apt to be doubted, or the soundness of his
mental condition called into question. Finally, the numerous
scientific explanations of mental and sensory delusions have been
received with zeal by the public at large, who find in them a ready
apology for summary condemnation of all weird experiences as totally
unworthy of serious attention. It is possible, folks are apt to say,
it is quite possible such things have appeared to certain persons, but
only as musical or visual spectra--the results of diseased conditions
of the nervous system.