Daily national Democrat., 1860-04-22
Library Ghosts.

The present age of the world is getting to
be very largely devoted to the supernatural.
Ghost see-crs are not uncommon, and the
believers in the appearance of sphits, after
death are neither few nor far between. Our
readers. probably, have noticed the accounts,
in the Atlantic papers, of the silent, staid
and solemn ghost recently seen standing, at
midnight, in the stiffness Of the Astor House
Library. New York, apparently examining
the books. We have never been an especial
believer in ghosts but, we have always
thought, that, if there was any place in the
world whore ghosts might be found-always
excepting graveyards-it would be in Ii
brary; particularly in those vast, dim, and
mysterious libraries, which make one feel, as
he journeys solitariIy through them, asi he
were alone in mighty realm of shadows,
the only real and palpable thing amidst the
shades Of past existencos. In the deep silence
of these rooms, we have often felt, as we
opened the leaves of some musty tome and
pored over their revelations, that the shade
of the long-dea author might be looking
over our shoulder to see what we were read
/ ing. and we have found ourself shuddering at
the very idea of looking around u.s. Strange,
what foolish fancies puzzle the brains OF even
the most practical Of us As we wander
down the long avenues of books, in the sol re-
omn shadows ofthe midnight hour, or even
in the mystic half-twilight Of the day, how
we dread, at every echo Of our own steps, to
turn and look, like the man described by
Coleridge, who walks the lonesome path and
never turns his head"
because he knows frightful fend
Doth close behind him tread
Although We may not expect to behold a
"frghtful fend," or even any other appari-
ton, vet we cannot divest ourselves of the
notion that we mag see sonetEbg-some-
lqing beyond the ordinary. Turning over
the leaves of the History of England, in the
solitude Of the surrounding books. we find
ourselves cursng the internal judicial beast
and monster, Jetfreys. An echo brings us a
whisper from behind and we half imagine
that the old defunct is grinning in our rear,
ard shaking at US his long, bony finger.
Reading Of the glories and the shame Of
Almighty Rome, we heap our impreeations
Caligula, the accursed What, if the dead
Emperors were beside US, with the power to
blast our very souls with their sepulchral
breath ? Is the bloody Robespierre looking
over our shoulder as we read his deeds Of
fiendish barbarity and call down the ven
geance of Heaven upon his his soul, at every
pause and period, hoping that he may be
roasted upon uelps hottest gridron for a
thousand years Think You that Robespierre
the disembodied, would be less yindictive than
Robespierre in the flesh ? Imagination does
not so conceive it. Is the rolicking Charles
H., with his Nell Gwynn by his side, laugh
ing in our very face, as we run over the his
tories of his mad cap court? Or was that
draped figure which we saw, or imagined we
saw glide from the corner as we took down the
volume Of the wondrous and immortal story of
Lost Paradise, indeed the sublime old mas
ter who strung his Tyre in the stern and ma
estic days of the old-time Purtans? What
stately shadow was that, which ilickered
along the walls and vanished, as we read
"Quousque tandem abutere, Catilna, paten
tia nostra? ?" Verify, the air of these ole
books and their dim surroundings is peopled
with imagined forms, if not the realities, ant
scarcely could we wonder if the Immortals
stood before us