The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1879-09-15
GHOSTS EsTHETICALLY CONSIDERED.

" We can not" sententiously remarks
Imlac, in DR.. Johnson's pleasant little
tale of Rasselas, "at the same time fill
our cups from the mouth and from the
sources of the Nile. The blessings of this
world are disposed upon either hand, SO
that as we approach the one we recede
from the other" As the age develops
new ideas, new dogmas, new inventions,
new friends come, old ones disap-
pear and pass away. Even the
sober-minded and Orthodox ghosts
of our forefathers are leaving their
habits of grim propriety and cheap
ening their regulations by prac-
tees that would have made the
hair of an old time dealer in ghostly
legends bristle with horror. In the youth
of persons now living no reputable ghost
would have deigned to come out of his
hiding place before the clock struck
y o'clock at night any more than he
would have robbed hen roost, nor would
he have appeared without his long white
robe trailing at respectable and decorous
length behind him as he swept majesti-
cally out of the locked and shuttered
lumber-room of the castle Or sombre house
in the country to startle the cook and
nursery maids just as they were beginning
to nod at the chimney corner; or when
ever the young heir came to sleep for the
first time in the guests chamber where his
great uncle or ninth removed cousin
was mysteriously murdered after nights
spree by his rival long time ago. And
yet your modern ghost will haunt a stuffy,
commonplace house that smells of garlic,
in back street, that has not got single
mysterious chamber full of old portraits
and velvet dominos, nor any dungeon
under it except the coal cellar with some
headless apple barrels in it, where a
ghost could not decently hide when the
'girp comes down after an armful of
kindling; or it will descend to the trifing
frivolity of tipping pine table or writing
a letter to Araminta Jane on slate held
under the said table at half-past 9 in the
evening, while crowd of idiots are sit
ting around in wonderment at the mys-
terious spiritual manifestation. No,
ghosts have degcnerated awfully since
the electric telegraph and sewing machine
were invented, and we'll regulated and
thoroughly educated ghost, who knows
how to come out between 12 and ! O'Clock
at night and shrek, with long, white
robe and a horrid CLASSY stare, is 50
nearly extinct that the more enterprisine
class of ltcrateurs are devotng them
selves rather to snake stories than at
tempting to cultivate their society. Now
we protest against this letting down OF
the standard of ghosts. The competition
between ghosts and snakes is great, we ad
nit. but the latter have been fostered by
menagcrics and sensational newspaper
men who print Sunday editions because
they may be had at smaller outlay ol
brains and capital. You may 60 tc
geological garden and see snake al
8 o'clock in the morning Or 3 p m.; but
genteel ghost, never! These appear al
12 o'clock at night invariably, and for 8
blood-curdling and hair-raising phenom
enon are worth all the snakes and sea
serpents and two-headed calves and nam
moth pumpkins and terrible murders
with butcher-knife or shotgun that
you can find in the country. In the in