Evening star., 1921-09-04
Translated From the French BY
WILLIAM L. MCPHERSON.

Translated From the French BY
WILLIAM L. MCPHERSON.
n RS. MARGARET ALLEN
MI whose friend 1 have the
honor to be, chides me gent
ly for my disbelief in the
mysteries of the great beyond. MY
incredulity. however. is limited. II
! is a sort of agnosticism. I limit my
self to stating that have never seen
anything or read anything which can
| completely dissipate it. But Mrs
| Margaret Allen. who is an English
| woman, answers me:
THAT isn't astonishing. For ex-
ample, it is impossible for you to
see a ghost. You are Fsenchman!'
protest that nationality has moth
! ing to do with the matter. If ghosts
exist, and If they appear, it seems
to me that have right to be Ia
! yored with their visits, just the same
as any Anglo-Saxon. But she shakes
| her head.
NO" she says. you have too much
imagination"
That sounds paradoxicak
I'm my opinion imagination ought,
on the contrary. to help me to see
what doesn't exist
You deceive yourself.s she replies.
| "Imagination serves. wi en- facing a
fact, to produce explanations, drawn
from experience. from precedents,
from things which We already know.
It helps US to reason. You French al
ways reason. The English don't reason.
sensibiiisy se sfbiI full full play. That IS why il
happens that they see what you don I
see. That is why there are ghosts in
England, but not in France"
.sThen, you have seen ghosts?"
uN1o. I have little sensibility-a
IN sensibility which works poorly
But I believe in forces. I feel forces
about me. 1 have continually the i'm
preston that love. hatred. horror. all
the passions, all the intensest feel
ings create in the places in which
they develop an ambience which re-
mains there. It may be. then. that
| these forces materialtze themselves
But, I repeat, l have never gone be-
yond the point Of feeling them. This
| has happened at least three or four
times in my life. Here is the story OF
one of these experiences. 1 don't
want to bore you with the others.
"I was a young girl then and l went
TO mass the week ends with q friend
of mine who had recently married.
The house was a rented one. In the
suburbs of London. a very agreeable
country house, very large and per-
fectly commonplace, distinguished
only from any other country house
by the cheapness of the rent and by
the possession Of an unusually fine
billiard room. Well. you may not be-
lieve me, but 1t is a fact. this house
was impregnated with haze. ! know
that this seems absurd to you. New
| ertheless, I couldn't describe it any
other way. The house sweated hate
II visited there many times and my
reaction kept growing stronger and
"Yo1 will say that was out Of sorts
or nervous No. At that time I was
in better health than now. I waa
happy|happy, as almost all young
! girls are who know nothing OF life
and who expect everything from 1t
My friends household was gay
charming. much frequented, at least
had always found 1t SO I was al
ways glad to be her guest. But from
the day she established herself tr
that abominable house it was only
with the greatest repugnance that
continued to accept her invitations.
"The billiard room especially made
the chills run down my back.
wouldn't go into 1t for q kingdom
And as for my bedroom-the one they
usually gave me! The lies that / in.
vented to escape passing the nighl
there! You must note that nevei
had the faintest idea that there wal
Iany supernatural phenomenon IN