Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-29
THE COWNSM4N
Ghosts

LNNCEPT for the Que experience which has
Il already been communicated to these col
umns, the Gownsman has never seen a ghost
and even then he was not certain. We seem
never to be quite certain about ghosts.
Either you arrive in your investigation at the
haunted house the day after IL ceases ever to
be haunted, or the person on whose unim-
peachable testimony this ghost rests his being
has already gone to join the ghost. 1t is
usually like the man who was related to
Beau Nash his fathers maternal aunt had
once known d lady to whom Beau Nash had
bowed in the famous pump room of Bath
and that man ever after presumed on the
relationship. 81 did not really see this
apparitiou myself, but Jones, who is a man
of The highest responsibility, believes that
Smith is both honest and an intelligent man,
and Smith is of opinion that all that Robin
son says on the subject is credible and to be
accepted as gospel truth Thus it is that
most ghosts, on inquiry, vanish into thin air.
A ND yet there is persiStency in stories
IA of appartiou and supernatural infu
enccs which is remarkable. Take all the
ghosts out Of history and fiction. beginning
with the Witch of Endor and ending with
Edgar Allan Poe. and we should miss them.
And the reCrudescence of the spirtism since
the war is phenomenon to be reckoned with.
1t is easy to be merry about the gross i'm
probabilities of the ghost of the Cock lane
variety or to show up the chicanery and de-
ceptiou of Sludge the Medium and his like
but when we think that this recent resuscta
tion of belief in spirits is largely refcrabIe
to n human ycarniug and love for those who
have been lost in the great and terrible war
an eager hope that somewhere. somehow.
4. l.. E II "a =
possibilities that made this man or that
woman, that, his entity re established, we
may know him and love him again--the thing
takes hold upon our heartstrings and we hope
against hope that Sir Oliver may really know.
TT WE will think of the ghost abstractedly
as we cannot ever find him in the con-
crete-we notice that he has always cor
responded to the intelligence and character of
those who believe in him or create him. When
people feared the dark and dared not go out
o nights, the ghosts at which they sbivered
were goblins, at least malevolcut spirits
and mischevous elves that led the wayfarer
astray and Knocked him. The devout middle
ages invented the demon or ecclesiastical
ghost, which haunted the crypts of monas
terieS and the wind swept aiSles of cathe-
drals; and they fashioned him in stone for
an adornment among saints and protcc
ton. The Greek ghosts are lania, beautiful
women or fauus and dryads and naiads of
the field, the forest the sea- pcrSonfied ma
turc dwelling in the sunshine; though they.
too, had more sinister apparitions that lurked
about tombs and even entered animals, like
the werewolf. There seems always to have
been common belief among the children of
men that the departed spirits of those who
have lived in this world revisit at times the
glmpses of the moon. and that they are re-
stricted in their ability to tell the secrets of
their charnel house.