The Lake County star. [volume] (Chase, Mich.) 1873-current, 1877-03-01
How to Tell a Good Ghost Story.

point too much neglected, is mystery.
People seem to think that details add to
the interest and make the thing more
plausible, whereas judicious mystery
often produces much more pleasurable
feeling of horror. What can be more
simple than the anecdOte of man in
perfect health and easy circumstances
who insisted on passing q night in a
haunted room, and who next morning
was found quite mad, and capable OF
saying nothing but "The Claws The
Claws!" That leaves everything to imagi-
nation, which half uncOnsciously pro-
duces shape of the utmost vague horror
out of two simple words.
Mrs. Grove has quite charming tale
of two lads who wished to play trick
at wake. They secretly took the body
of the dead out of the coffin and hid it
in an clubhouse, while one of them lay
down in the place of the corpse, and was
to arise at signal from his confederate.
The signal was given in due time, and
repeated, with no effect. Then they
found the sham dead man dead in earn
est; but, on looking in the clubhouse,
they never found the real, original
corpse, which is still missing. There is
a horrible blank here, in which the fancy
inserts half-reaiized ideas of terror.
One of the best ghost stories of late
years has an equally unexplained mar
gin of mystery. Two men of the same
regiment, the colonel and a much
younger officer, 60 to stay at the house
Of lately married friend of the elder
warrior. They arrived just before din
ner, and after dressing and going into
the drawing. room find themselves alone
with their host. The lady of the house
sends a message to the effect that she
hopes they will not wait for her, and
they do not wait, but enter the dining
room. A moment after the lady APP
pears, with a white face, and, as soon as
she comes in, the younger guest becomes
as white as herself. After few min
utes he rises, stammers out some incoher-
ent excuse, and makes his way from the
room. AS soon as he can his friend fol-
lows him, finds him standing in the
drive under tree, and naturally asks
for an explanation. 81 saw the figure that
came in with Lady X, answered the
friend. "What figure?' asks the elder
man, thinking his friend had lost his
wits. "The tall figure in the plaid that
stood behind her and pointed at the
knife beside her plate" At this mo-
ment a horses hoof clattered on the
drive, aud the groom, galloping past, has
time to say that Lady X. had cut her
throat with knife. That is the whole.
Whether Lady X. recovered or not, and
what the figure may have been, and
whether she, too, saw it, all that is left
delightfully."- and horribly vague.
Contrast that with one of the marvels
of the spiritualists, the CHASTITY story
where the extraordinary conduct of a
golden-haired little girl who blasphemes
carelessly is explained by a seer who de-
tects the apparition of hideous old wo-
man lurking behind and prompting the
child. The tale is told in one of the
American books of doctrine, and is there
expanded, and worse than spoiled, by q
long account of how it all happened, and
what become of the seer and the ghost
and the little girl, who probably ended
as very precocious pupil-teacher. Ghost
stories ought not to be pressed in this
inartistic way. The little details at the
outset that give an air of reality may be
as minute as you please. Then comes
the moment of suspense and eeriness;"
then, suddenly, your ghost, ga very
fearful wild fowl" not to he described
too precisely. If dog or horse can
see him first and fall into the staggers
or show canine symptoms of supernatural
dread, SO much the better.
1t is an uncommon hard thing to in.
vent new ghost of any merit, and foI
this reason the story-teller will do well
to trust to his memory, not to his imagi.
nation, especially as truth is VIGOROUSLY
stranger than fiction, and as modern
psychological science, as it calls itself, ID
only too easily taken in by bold inven.
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