The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-03-22

hShdlcd it badly. I am no hand to give
viva voce narratives. My object is to reach
the point OF the story by the shortest route.
and so have done with it. This is CONTRARY
to wise principle. especially in the case of
ghost stories.
The effectiveness of a good ghost story
lies always in the handling, never in the
issue. The experience is a subjective one;
it is a matter of nerves and obscure sensa-
tions-a state of feeling, not a fact of
knowledge. You must put your auditors in
a ghostly frame of mind; their logic or in
telliRence is the last thing to appeal to.
They must be brought to the condition of
the person described by Coleridee, who
turns no more his head, because he knows
a ~frightful fend doth close behind him
tread" This state is to be enhanced by
intonations Of the voice, by a stern horror
Of the eye, and by ineffable pauses, judi
ciously administered. BY and by there
begins a trucking of cold electricity
down the nerves of the spine, q
perception that the hair has roots, an
oppression of the lungs, a humping o
the heart, a parting of the lips, and a dila-
ton Of the eves-all on the part Of your
audience; and having achieved this the
thing is done. whatever the particular COM
position of the story may be. Whether it
III tuat the long InulstluCG OD1ecG &
from the hook in the wall, where nothing
was before, slowly yet Enthusiastically takes
the outlines Of a human figure, with head
awkwardly bent to one side, and a distor-
ton of the countenance, or whether, as
you stand outside the door of a certain
room that has been locked up for years.
you hear. on the other. side the light patter
of naked feet, and a stealthy breathing,
followed by terrible screams and silence:
or whether, awakening in a strange bed
room in the night, you are nervous of a
queer light which focuses on the wall,
revealing the face of a portrait hanging
there, which you had not noticed when you
went to bed; or whether it be simply the
impression Of a presence squating in the
corner and raging out influences fatal to
life. ...... such details as those, I say, are
unimportant. You have got your nerves
where they will be scared by anything.
Now, to write ia another thing than to
talk. But ghost stories can be conveyed by
writing after a fashion, and, inferior
though it may be, it is better than my
fashion Of talking. Accordingly, not to ap-
pear disobliging, / am here going to recount
my personal exporter 'es in the supernatural
bv means of pen and ink. Should the re-
suit prove unsatisfactory it must be laid to
the entire and unexaggerated truth of the
stories. Indeed, they cannot properly be
called stories. There are more or less
shapeless and anomalous events that have
COIAo uHO0E my ODS6rVRblOu. NO doubt
any one can cap them with as good and bet
ter yarns of his own i need hardly add,
too, that l could greatly increase the i'm
preasiveness of my little assortment by oc-
casional indulgence in fiction, bat that /
shall religiously refrain from doing. These
things happened precisely thus:
Put the shade over the lamp. When l
was a 10y of twelve or thirteen, I used to
sit and watch a hand, holding a pencil,
moving to and fro over a sheet of paper.
The place was suitable for ghosts and all
who were familiar with it declared it to be
1t was an ancient Italian villa,
or castle, perched on a hill of the town
Apennines, overlooking a wide valley, with
a historic river winding through it. There
was a tower at one end of it, in which a
political captive had been imprisoned more
than 200 years before. An owl now occu-
pies tho gloomy chamber in which he used
to anguish; but after sunset it would flap
noiselessly round the battlements of the
tower. emitting its soft, long-drawn cry.
Bats there were also in abundance. And
aloft. watching the great comet that arched
across the horizon of the valley, l have
heard my name called in the air, just over
the parapet. There was a clean drop there
OF seventy feet to the ground.
In the body of the edifice there was a sort
OF cell, or oratory, massively constructed of
stone, with groined ceiling. This was the
special abiding place of the ghost. One
night, my sister, having occasion to go
there, set the candle on the mantle piece.
As she was STOPPING over a chest in the cor
nerI, she noticed her shadow glide along the
wall. Turning, she saw that the candle had
been placed on the table, several yards from
its former position. But no one except
herself was in that part of tho house.