Edited with a Preface by
3To$epf) letote Jfrencft
Stories, 1 "
"Masterpieces of Mystery" etc.
Introduction by
Borotfjp ^carborouglj
Lecturer in English, Columbia University
Author of "The Supernatural in English Literature,"
"From a Southern Porch," etc.
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PEEPAOE
THE case for the "psychic" element in literature
rests on a very old foundation; it reaches back
to the ancient masters, the men who 1 wrote the
Greek tragedies. Remorse will ever seem commonplace
alongside the furies. Ever and always the shadow of
the supernatural invites, pursues us. As the art of lit-
erature has progressed it has grown along with it
To-day there is a whole new school of writers of Ghost-
Stories, and the domain of the invisible is being invaded
by explorers in many paths. We do not believe so much
more, perhaps, that is, we do not so openly express a
belief, but art has finally and frankly claimed the super-
natural for its own. One discerning authority even goes
so far as to assert that the borders of its domain will be
greatly enlarged in the wonderful new field of the
screen.
There is no motive in a story, no image in poetry, that
can give us quite the thrill of a supernatural idea. If
we were formally charged with this we might resent
the imputation, but the evidence has persisted from the
beginning, lives on every hand, and multiplies daily.
What we have been in the habit of calling the "ma-
chinery" of the old Greek drama its supernatural ef-
fects has come finally to be an art cultivated with care
at the present hour, and has given us some wonderful
new writers. In fact, few of the best masters for a
generation now have been able to resist its persistent
VI
PREFACE
and abiding charm. Every writer of true imagination,
almost without exception, including even certain real-
ists, has given us at least one story, long or short, in
which the central motive is purely psychical in the
Greek sense of the word.
The whole subject opens up a virgin field which has
after all only begun to be tilled. Within the coming
generation we may look for great artists to devote their
whole powers to it, as Algernon Blackwood is doing
to-day. A simple underlying reason is enough to account
for it all the new field imposes simply no limit on the
imagination. In addition to all that science has taught
us, there is illimitable store of myth and legend to aid,
to draw from, to work in, to work over, as Lord Dun-
sany has shown us. It is the most significant movement
in literature at the present hour, and whether it is sup-
ported by a special background of interest as at pres-
ent in spiritism or not, the assertion is logical that it
is creating a new body of fictional literature of perma-
nent importance for the first time in the history of lit-
erature. The human comedy seems to have been ex-
ploited to its final limits; as the art of the novel, the
art of the stage, but too sadly prove to-day. We have
turned outward for new thrills to the supernatural and
we are getting them.
It only remains to be added that the present great
interest in spiritualism and allied phenomena has made
necessary the addition of certain material of a ' ' literal ' y
character which we believe will be found quite as inter-
esting by the general reader as the purely literary por-
tion of the book.
JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE Joseph Lewis French . v
INTRODUCTION Dorothy Scarborough . ix
WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG Jack London ... 1
THE RETURN Algernon Blackwood . 24
THE SECOND GENERATION . . Algernon Blackwood . ^j'31
JOSEPH A STORY .... Katherine Rickford . . 41
THE CLAVECIN BRUGES . . George Wharton Edwards 54
LIGEIA Edgar Allan Poe . . 61
THE SYLPH AND THE FATHER Elsa Barker .... 83
A GHOST Lafcadio Hearn ... 88
THE EYES OP THE PANTHER . Ambrose Bierce ... 95
PHOTOGRAPHING INVISIBLE BE-
INGS William T. Stead . .109
THE SIN-EATER Fiona Macleod . . . 126
GHOSTS IN SOLID FORM . . Gambier Bolton . . . 162
THE PHANTOM ARMIES SEEN IN
FRANCE Hereward Carrington . 188
THE PORTAL OF THE UNKNOWN . Andrew Jackson Davis . 195
THE SUPERNORMAL: EXPERI-
ENCES St. John D.Seymour . 202
NATURE-SPIRITS, OR ELEMEN-
TALS Nizida 218
A WITCH'S DEN Helena Blavatsky . . 258
SOME REMARKABLE EXPERI-
ENCES OF FAMOUS PERSONS Dr. Walter F. Prince 280
vii
INTRODUCTION
THE PSYCHIC IN LITERATURE
WAR, that relentless disturber of boundaries and
of traditions in a spiritual as well as a material
sense, has brought a tremendous revival of in-
terest in the life after death and the possibility of com-
munication between the living and the dead. As France
became nearer to millions over here because our sol-
diers lived there for a few months, as French soil will
forever be holy ground because our dead rest there, so
the far country of the soul likewise seems nearer be-
cause of those young adventurers. The conflict which
changed the map of Europe has in the minds of many
effaced the boundaries between this world and the world
beyond. Winifred Kirkland, in her book, The, New
Death, discusses the new concept of death, and the
change in our standards that it is making. "We are
used to speaking of this or that friend's philosophy of
life; the time has now come when every/ one of us who
is to live at peace with his own brain must possess also
a philosophy of death. " This New Death, she says, is
so far mainly an immense yearning receptivity, an un-
precedented humility of brain and of heart toward all
implications of survival. She believes that it is an in-
fluence which is entering the lives of the people as a
whole, not a movement of the intellectuals, nor the re-
ix
y
x INTRODUCTION
suit of psychical research propaganda, but arising from
the simple, elemental emotions of the soul, from human
i love and longing for reassurance of continued life. ^
"If a man die, shall he live again?" has been pro-
pounded ever since Job's agonized inquiry.. Now num-
bers are asking in addition, "Can we have communica-
tion with the dead?" Science, long derisive, is sympa-
thetic to the questioning, and while many believe and
many doubt, the subject is one that interests more
..people than ever before. Professor James Hyslop, Sec-
retary of the American Society for Psychical Research,
believes that the war has had great influence in arous-
ing new interest in psychical subjects and that tremen-
dous spiritual discoveries may come from it.
Literature, always a little ahead of life, or at least
in-ac 1 vance of general thinking, has in the more recent
years been acutely conscious of this new influence.
Poetry, the drama, the novel, the short story, have given
affirmative answer to the question of the soul's survival
after death. No other element has so largely entered
into the tissue of recent literature as has the supernat-
ural, which now we meet in all forms in the writings of
all lands. And no aspect of the ghostly art is more
impressive or more widely used than the introduction
of the spirit of the dead seeking to manifest itself to
the living. No thoughtful person can fail to be inter-
ested in a theme which has so affected literature as has
the ghostly, even though he may disbelieve what the
Psychical Researchers hold to be established.
Man's love for the supernatural, which is one of the
most natural things about him, was never more marked
than now. Man's imagination, ever vaster than his
THE PSYCHIC IN LITERATUKE xi
environment, overleaps the barriers of time and space
and claims all worlds as eminent domain, so that litera-
ture, which he has the power to create, as he cannot cre-
ate his material surroundings, possesses a dramatic in-
tensity and an -epic sweep unknown in actuality. JJiteEr
ature shows what humanity really is and longs to be.
Man, feeling belittled by his petty round of uninspir-
ing days, longs for a larger life. He yearns for traffic
with immortal beings that can augment his wisdom, that
can bring comfort to his soul dismayed and bewildered
by life. He reaches out for a power beyond his puny
strength. Aware how relentlessly time ticks away his lit-
tle hour, he craves companionship with the eternal
spirits. Ignorant of what lies before him in the life
to which he speeds so fast, he would take counsel of
those who know, would ask about the customs oi the
country where presently he will be a citizen. He feels
so terribly alone that he cries out like a child in the
dark for supermortal companionship.
Literature, which is both a cause and an effect of
man's interest in the supernatural as in anything else,
reflects his longings and records his cries. And when
we read the imaginings of the different generations, we
find that the spirit of the dead is represented almost
everywhere. Before poetry and fiction were recorded,
there were singers and story-tellers by the fire to give
to their listeners the thrill that comes from art. And
what thrill is comparable to that which comes from con-
tact with the supermortal? The earliest literature re-
lates the appearance of the spirits of those who have
died as coming back to comfort or to take vengeance on
the living, but always as) sentient, intelligent, and with
xii INTRODUCTION
an interest in the earth they have left. All through
the centuries the wraith has survived in literature, has
flitted pallidly across the pages of poetry, story and play,
with a sad wistfulness, a forlorn dignity.
A double relation exists between the literature and the
records of the Psychical Kesearch Society. Lacy Col-
lison-Morley, in his Greek and Roman Ghost Stories,
speaks of the similarity between ancient tales of spirits
and records of recent instances. " There are in the
Fourth Book of Gregory the Great's Dialogues a
number of stories of the passing of souls which are curi-
ously like some of those collected by the Psychical Re-
search Society/' he says. Possibly human personality
is much the same in all lands and all times.
Conversely, some of the best examples of ghostly lit-
erature have had their inspiration in the records of the
society, Henry James's The Turn of the Screw being
a notable example. Algernon Blackwood, that extraor-
dinary adapter of psychic material to fiction, makes fre-
quent mention of the Psychical Research Society, and
uses many aspects of the psychical in his fiction. In-
numerable stories, novels, plays and poems have been
written to show the nearness of the dead to the living,
and the thinness of the veil that separates the two
worlds. There is deep pathos in the concept of the long-
ing felt by the dead and living alike to speak with each
other, to rend the dividing veil, which adds a poignancy
to literature, even for readers incredulous of the pos-
sibility of such communication. There are many who
are unconvinced of the reality of the messages in Ray-
mond, for instance, yet who could fail to be touched
by the delicate art with which Barrie suggests the dead
THE PSYCHIC IN LITEEATUEE xiii
son's return in his play, The Well-Remembered
Voice ? While one may be repelled by what he feels
is fraud and trickery in some of the psychic records, it
is impossible not to be moved by such an impressive
piece of symbolism as Granville Barker 's Souls on
Fifth, where the lonely, futile spirits of the dead are
represented as hovering near the place they knew the
best, seeking piteously to win some recognition from the
living. The repulsive aspects of spirit manifestations
have been treated many times and with power, as in
Joseph Hergesheimer 's The Meeker Ritual, to give
one very recent example. The subject has interested the
minds of many writers who have dealt with it satirically
or sympathetically, or with a curious mixture of scoffing
and respect, as did Browning in Sludge, the Medium.
Even such pronounced realists as William Dean Howells
and Hamlin Garland have written novels dealing with
attempts at spirit communication.
Any subject that has won so incontestable a place in
our literature as this has, possesses a right to our
thought, whatever be our attitude of acceptance or re-
jection of its claims to actuality. No person wishes to
be ignorant of what the world is thinking with reference
to a matter so important as the spirit. Hence this vol-
ume, The Best Psychic Stories, in presenting these
studies in the occult, will have interest for a wide range
of readers, and Mr. French, the editor, has shown criti-
cal discrimination and extensive knowledge of the sub-
ject. Many who are already interested in psychic) phe-
nomena will be glad to be informed concerning recent
and startling manifestations recounted by special in-
vestigators. The sincerity of a man like W. T. Stead,
xiv INTRODUCTION
well known and respected on both sides of the Atlantic,
cannot be doubted, so that his article on Photograph-
ing Invisible Beings will have unusual weight. Here-
ward Carrington, author of various books on psychic
subjects, and considered an authority in his field, gives
in The Phantom Armies Seen in France a report of
occult phenomena widely believed in during the war.
Helena' Blavatsky, author of A Witch's Den, will
be remembered as the sensational medium who mysti-
fied experimenters in various lands a few years ago.
While most of us can be content not to touch a ghost,
we may find subject for surprise and wonder in Gam-
bier Bolton's Ghosts in Solid Form, describing spir-
its that can be weighed and put to material tests, while
Dr. Walter H. Prince, well known as a psychic investi-
gator, relates remarkable experiments of famous per-
sons, that challenge explanation on purely physical
bases. These accounts show that modern scientific in-
vestigation of spiritual manifestations can be made as
enthralling as fiction or drama. Hamlin Garland re-
marks in a recent article, The Spirit-World on Trial,
"When the medium consented to enter the laboratory
of the physicist, a new era in the study of psychic phe-
nomena began. "
Even those who refuse credence to spirit manifesta-
tions in fact, but who appreciate the art with which
they are shown in literature, should read with interest
the stories given here. The genius of Edgar Allan Poe
was never more impressive than in his studies of the
supernatural, and Ligeia has a dramatic art unsur-
passed even by Poe. The tense economy with which Am-
brose Bierce could evoke a dreadful spirit is evident
THE PSYCHIC IN LITERATURE xv
in The Eyes of the Panther, and the haunting sym-
bolism of Fiona Macleod's The Sin-Eater^ is unfor-
getable. Lafcadio Hearn, author of A Ghost, held the
belief that there was no great artist in any land, and
certainly no Anglo-Saxon writer, who had not distin-
guished himself in his use of the supernatural. ( The
subject of the soul's survival after death and its at-
tempts to reveal itself to those still in the folding flesh
is of interest to every rational person, whether as a mat-
ter of scientific concern or merely as an aspect of liter-
ary art.) And the possibilities for further use of the
psychic in literature are as alluring as they are illimit-
DOEOTHY SCARBOROUGH
New York City
March 29, 1920
Stye Pe*t $0pcfnc Stories!
THE BEST PSYCHIC
STORIES
WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG*
BY JACK LONDON
HE was a very quiet, self-possessed sort of man,
sitting a moment on top of the wall to sound
the damp darkness for warnings of the dangers
it might conceal. But the plummet of his hearing
brought nothing to him save the moaning of wind
through invisible trees and the rustling of leaves on
swaying branches. A heavy fog drifted and drove be-
fore the wind, and though he could not see this fog, the
wet of it blew upon his face, and the wall on which he
sat was wet.
Without noise he had climbed to the top of the wall
from the outside, and without noise he dropped to the
ground on the inside. From his pocket he drew an elec-
tric night-stick, but he did not use it. Dark as the
way was, he was not anxious for light. Carrying the
night-stick in his hand, his finger on the button, he
* By permission of The Century Co.
1
:! THE BEST PSYCHIC STOEIES
advanced through the darkness. The ground was vel-
vety and springy to his feet, being carpeted with dead
pine-needles and leaves and mold which evidently had
been undisturbed for years. Leaves and branches
brushed against his body, but so dark was it that he
could not avoid them. Soon he walked with his hand
stretched out gropingly before him, and more than once
the hand fetched up against the solid trunks of massive
trees. All about him he knew were these trees; he
sensed the loom of them everywhere ; and he experienced
a strange feeling of microscopic smallness in the midst
of great bulks leaning toward him to crush him. Be-
yond, he knew, was the house, and he expected to find
some trail or winding path that would lead easily to it.
Once, he found himself trapped. On every side he
groped against trees and branches, or blundered into
thickets of underbrush, until there seemed no way out.
Then he turned on his light, circumspectly, directing
its rays to the ground at his feet. Slowly and care-
fully he moved it about him, the white brightness show-
ing in sharp detail all the obstacles to his progress. He
saw an opening between huge-trunked trees, and ad-
vanced through it, putting out the light and treading on
dry footing as yet protected from the drip of the fog by
the dense foliage overhead. His sense of direction was
good, and he knew he was going toward the house.
And then the thing happened the thing unthinkable
and unexpected. His descending foot came down upon
something that was" soft and alive, and that arose with
a snort under the weight of his body. He sprang clear,
and crouched for another spring, anywhere, tense and
expectant, keyed for the onslaught of the unknown. He
WHEN THE WOELD WAS YOUNG 3
waited a moment, wondering what manner of animal
it was that had arisen from under his foot and that
now made no sound nor movement and that must be
crouching and waiting just as tensely and expectantly
as he. The strain became unbearable. Holding the
night-stick before him, he pressed the button, saw, and
screamed aloud in terror. He was prepared for any-
thing, from a frightened calf or fawn to a belligerent
lion, but he was not prepared for what he saw. In that
instant his tiny searchlight, sharp and white, had shown
him what a thousand years would not enable him to for-
get a man, huge and blond, yellow-haired and yellow-
bearded, naked except for soft-tanned moccasins and
what seemed a goat-skin about his middle. Arms and
legs were bare, as were his shoulders and most of his
chest. The skin was smooth and hairless, but browned
by sun and wind, while under it heavy muscles were
knotted like fat snakes.
Still, this alone, unexpected as it well was, was not
what had made the man scream out. What had caused
his terror was the unspeakable ferocity of the face, the
wild-animal glare of the blue eyes scarcely dazzled by
the light, the pine-needles matted and clinging in the
beard and hair, and the whole formidable body crouched
and in the act of springing at him. Practically in the
instant he saw all this, and while his scream still rang,
the thing leaped, he flung his night-stick full at it, and
threw himself to the ground. He felt its feet and shins
strike against his ribs, and he bounded up and away
while the thing itself hurled onward in a heavy crashing
fall into the underbrush.
As the noise of the fall ceased, the man stopped and
4 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
on hands and knees waited. He could hear the thing
moving about, searching for him, and he was afraid to
advertise his location by attempting further flight. He
knew that inevitably he would crackle the underbrush
and be pursued. Once he drew out his revolver, then
changed his mind. He had recovered his composure and
hoped to get away without noise. Several times he
heard the thing beating up the thickets for him, and
there were moments when it, too, remained still and lis-
tened. This gave an idea to the man. One of his
hands was resting on a chunk of dead wood. Carefully,
first feeling about him in the darkness to know that the
full swing of his arm was clear, he raised the chunk of
wood and threw it. It was not a large piece, and it went
far, landing noisily in a bush. He heard the thing
bound into the bush, and at the same time himself
crawled steadily away. And on hands and knees,
slowly and cautiously, he crawled on, till his knees were
wet on the soggy mold. When he listened he heard
naught but the moaning wind and the drip-drip of the
fog from the branches. Never abating his caution, he
stood erect and went on to the stone wall, over which
he climbed and dropped down to the road outside.
Feeling his way in a clump of bushes, he drew out
a bicycle and prepared to mount. He was in the act
of driving the gear around with his foot for the pur-
pose of getting the opposite pedal in position, when he
heard the thud of a heavy body that landed lightly and
evidently on its feet. He did not wait for more, but ran,
with hands on the handles of his bicycle, until he was
able to vault astride the saddle, catch the pedals, and
start a spurt. Behind he could hear the quick thud-
WHEN THE WOELD WAS YOUNG 5
thud of feet on the dust of the road, but he drew away
from it and lost it.
Unfortunately, he had started away from the direc-
tion of town and was heading higher up into the hills.
He knew that on this particular road there were no cross
roads. The only way back was past that terror, and
he could not steel himself to face it. At the end of half
an hour, finding himself on an ever increasing grade, he
dismounted. For still greater safety, leaving the wheel
by the roadside, he climbed through a fence into what
he decided was a hillside pasture, spread a newspaper
on the ground, and sat down.
"Gosh!" he said aloud, mopping the sweat and fog
from his face.
And 1 1 Gosh ! ' ' he said once again, while rolling a cig-
arette and as he pondered the problem of getting back.
But he made no attempt to go back. He was resolved
not to face that road in the dark, and with head bowed
on knees, he dozed, waiting for daylight.
How long afterward he did not know, he was awak-
ened by the yapping bark of a young coyote. As he
looked about and located it on the brow of the hill be-
hind him, he noted the change that had come over the
face of the night. The fog was gone; the stars and
moon were out; even the wind had died down. It had
transformed into a balmy California summer night. He
tried to doze again, but the yap of the coyote disturbed
him. Half asleep, he heard a wild and eery chant.
Looking about him, he noticed that the coyote had ceased
its noise and was running away along the crest of the
hill, and behind it, in full pursuit, no longer chanting,
ran the naked creature he had encountered in the gar-
6 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
den. It was a young coyote, and it was being overtaken
when the chase passed from view. The man trembled
as with a chill as he started to his feet, clambered over
the fence, and mounted his wheel. But it was his
chance and he knew it. The terror was no longer be-
tween him and Mill Valley.
He sped at a breakneck rate down the hill, but in the
turn at the bottom, in the deep shadows, he encountered
a chuck-hole and pitched headlong over the handle bar.
"It's sure not my night," he muttered, as he exam-
ined the broken fork of the machine.
Shouldering the useless wheel, he trudged on. In time
he came to the stone wall, and, half disbelieving his ex-
perience, he sought in the road for tracks, and found
them moccasin tracks, large ones, deep-bitten into the
dust at the toes. It was while bending over them, ex-
amining, that again he heard the eery chant. He had
seen the thing pursue the coyote, and he knew he had
no chance on a straight run. He did not attempt it,
contenting himself with hiding in the shadows on the off
side of the road.
And again he saw the thing that was like a naked
man, running swiftly and lightly and singing as it ran.
Opposite him it paused, and his heart stood still. But
instead of coming toward his hiding-place, it leaped
into the air, caught the branch of a roadside tree, and
swung swiftly upward, from limb to limb, like an ape.
It swung across the wall, and a dozen feet above the
top, into the branches of another tree, and dropped
out of sight to the ground. The man waited a few won-
dering minutes, then started on.
WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG 7
II
Dave Blotter leaned belligerently against the desk that
barred the way to the private office of James Ward, sen-
ior partner of the firm of Ward, Knowles & Co. Dave
was angry. Every one in the outer office had looked him
over suspiciously, and the man who faced him was ex-
cessively suspicious.
"You just tell Mr. Ward it's important/' he urged.
"I tell you he is dictating and cannot be disturbed,"
was the answer. "Come to-morrow."
"To-morrow will be too late. You just trot along
and tell Mr. Ward it's a matter of life and death."
The secretary hesitated and Dave seized the advan-
tage.
"You just tell him I was across the bay in Mill Valley
last night, and that I want to put him wise to some-
thing."
"What name?" was the query.
"Never mind the name. He don't know me."
When Dave was shown into the private office, he was
still in the belligerent frame of mind, but when he saw
a large fair man whirl in a revolving chair from dictat-
ing to a stenographer to face him, Dave's demeanor
abruptly changed. He did not know why it changed,
and he was secretly angry with himself.
"You are Mr. Ward?" Dave asked with a fatuous-
ness that still further irritated him. He had never in-
tended it at all.
"Yes," came the answer. "And who are you?"
"Harry Bancroft," Dave lied. "You don't know
me, and my name don't matter."
8 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
"You sent in word that you were in Mill Valley last
night?''
"You live there, don't you?" Dave countered, look-
ing suspiciously at the stenographer.
"Yes. What do you mean to see me about? I am
very busy."
"I'd like to see you alone, sir."
Mr. Ward gave him a quick, penetrating look, hesi-
tated, then made up his mind.
"That will do for a few minutes, Miss Potter."
The girl arose, gathered her notes together, and passed
out. Dave looked at Mr. James Ward wonderingly, un-
til that gentleman broke his train of inchoate thought.
"Well?"
"I was over in Mill Valley last night," Dave began
confusedly.
"I've heard that before. What do you want?"
And Dave proceeded in the face of a growing convic-
tion that was unbelievable.
"I was at your house, or in the grounds, I mean."
"What were you doing there?"
"I came to break in," Dave answered in all frank-
ness. ' ' I heard you lived all alone with a Chinaman for
cook, and it looked good to me. Only I didn't break in.
Something happened that prevented. That's why I'm
here. I come to warn you. I found a wild man loose
in your grounds a regular devil. He could pull a guy
like me to pieces. He gave me the run of my life. He
don't wear any clothes to speak of, he climbs trees like
a monkey, and he runs like a deer. I saw him chasing
a coyote, and the last I saw of it, by God, he was gaining
on it."
WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG 9
Dave paused and looked for the effect that would fol-
low his words. But no effect came. James Ward was
quietly curious, and that was all.
"Very remarkable, very remarkable," he murmured.
' * A wild man, you say. Why have you come to tell me ? "
"To warn you of your danger. I'm something of a
hard proposition myself, but I don't believe in killing
people . . . that is, unnecessarily. I realized that you was
in danger. I thought I'd warn you. Honest, that's
the game. Of course, if you wanted to give me anything
for my trouble, I 'd take it. That was in my mind, too.
But I don't care whether you give me anything or not.
I've warned you anyway, and done my duty."
Mr. Ward meditated and drummed on the surface of
his desk. Dave noticed that his hands were large, power-
ful, withal well-cared for despite their dark sunburn.
Also, he noted what had already caught his eye before
a tiny strip of flesh-colored courtplaster on the forehead
over one eye. And still the thought that forced itself
into his mind was unbelievable.
Mr. Ward took a wallet from his inside coat pocket,
'drew out a greenback, and passed it to Dave, who noted
as he pocketed it that it was for twenty dollars.
" Thank you," said Mr. Ward, indicating that the
interview was at an end. "I shall have the matter in-
vestigated. A wild man running loose is dangerous."
But so quiet a man was Mr. Ward, that Dave's cour-
age returned. Besides, a new theory had suggested
itself. The wild man was evidently Mr. Ward's brother,
a lunatic privately confined. Dave had heard of such
things. Perhaps Mr. Ward wanted it kept quiet. That
was why he had given him the twenty dollars.
10 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
' 'Say/' Dave began, "now I come to think of it that
wild man looked a lot like you "
That was as far as Dave got, for at that moment
he witnessed a transformation and found himself gaz-
ing into the same unspeakably ferocious blue eyes of
the night before, at the same clutching talon-like hands,
and at the same formidable bulk in the act of spring-
ing upon him. But this time Dave had no night-stick
to throw, and he was caught by the biceps of both arms
in a grip so terrific that it made him groan with pain.
He saw the large white teeth exposed, for all the world
as a dog's about to bite. Mr. Ward's beard brushed
his face as the teeth went in for the grip of his throat.
But the bite was not given. Instead, Dave felt the
other's body stiffen as with an iron restraint, and then
he was flung aside, without effort but with such force
that only the wall stopped his momentum and dropped
him gasping to the floor.
"What do you mean by coming here and trying to
blackmail me ? " Mr. Ward was snarling at him. ' ' Here,
give me back that money."
Dave passed the bill back without a word.
"I thought you came here with good intentions. I
know you now. Let me see and hear no more of you,
or I'll put you in prison where you belong. Do you
understand ? ' '
"Yes, sir," Dave gasped.
"Then go."
And Dave went, without further word, both his biceps
aching intolerably from the bruise of that tremendous
grip. As his hand rested on the door knob, he was
stopped.
WHEN THE WOELD WAS YOUNG 11
"You were lucky/' Mr. Ward was saying, and Dave
noted that his face and eyes were cruel and gloating
and proud. "You were lucky. Had I wanted, I could
have torn your muscles out of your arms and thrown
them in the waste basket there."
"Yes, sir," said Dave; and absolute conviction vi-
brated in his voice.
He opened the door and passed out. The secretary
looked at him interrogatively.
"Gosh!" was all Dave vouchsafed, and with this ut-
terance passed out of the offices and the story.
Ill
James G. Ward was forty years of age, a successful
business man, and very unhappy. For forty years he
had vainly tried to solve a problem that was really
himself and that with increasing years became more
and more a woeful affliction. In himself he was two
men, and, chronologically speaking, these men were sev-
eral thousand years or so apart. He had studied the
question of dual personality probably more profoundly
than any half dozen of the leading specialists in that in-
tricate and mysterious psychological field. In himself
he was a different case from any that had been recorded.
Even the most fanciful flights of the fiction-writers had
not quite hit upon him. He was not a Dr. Jekyll and
Mr. Hyde, nor was he like the unfortunate young man
in Kipling's Greatest Story in the World. His two
personalities were so mixed that they were practically
aware of themselves and of each other all the time.
12 THE BEST PSYCHIC STOKIES
His one self was that of a man whose rearing and
education were modern and who had lived through the
latter part of the nineteenth century and well into the
first decade of the twentieth. His other self he had lo-
cated as a savage and a barbarian living under the
primitive conditions of several thousand years before.
But which self was he, and which was the other, he
could never tell. For he was both selves, and both selves
all the time. Very rarely indeed did it happen that
one self did not know what the other was doing. An-
other thing was that he had no visions nor memories of
the past in which that early self had lived. That early
self lived in the present; but while it lived in the pres-
ent, it was under the compulsion to live the way of life
that must have been in that distant past.
In his childhood he had been a problem to his father
and mother, and to the family doctors, though never had
they come within a thousand miles of hitting upon the
clue to his erratic conduct. Thus, they could not under-
stand his excessive somnolence in the forenoon, nor his
excessive activity at night. When they found him wan-
dering along the hallways at night, or climbing over
giddy roofs, or running in the hills, they decided he was
a somnambulist. In reality he was wide-eyed awake
and merely under the night-roaming compulsion of his
early life. Questioned by an obtuse medico, he once told
the truth and suffered the ignominy of having the reve-
lation contemptuously labeled and dismissed as
' ' dreams. "
The point was, that as twilight and evening came on
he became wakeful. The four walls of a room were
an irk and a restraint. He heard a thousand voices
WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG 13
whispering to him through the darkness. The night
called to him, for he was, for that period of the twenty-
four hours, essentially a night-prowler. But nobody
understood, and never again did he attempt to explain.
They classified! him as a sleep-walker and took precau-
tions accordingly precautions that very often were fu-
tile. As his childhood advanced, he grew more cun-
ning, so that the major portion of all his nights were
spent in the open at realizing his other self. As a re-
sult, he slept in the forenoons. Morning studies and
schools were impossible, and it was discovered that only
in the afternoons, under private teachers, could he
be taught anything. Thus was his modern self edu-
cated and developed.
But a problem, as a child, he ever remained. He was
known as a little demon of insensate cruelty and
viciousness. The family medicos privately adjudged
him a mental monstrosity and a degenerate. Such few
boy companions as he had, hailed him as a wonder,
though they were all afraid of him. He could outclimb,
outswim, outrun, outdevil any of them ; while none dared
fight with him. He was too terribly strong, too madly
furious.
When nine years of age he ran away to the hills, where
he flourished, night-prowling, for seven weeks before
he was discovered and brought home. The marvel was
how he had managed to subsist and keep in condition
during that time. They did not know, anol v he never,
told them, of the rabbits he had killed, of the quail,
young and old, he had captured and devoured, of the
farmers' chicken-roosts he had raided, nor of the cave-
lair he had made and carpeted with dry leaves and
14 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
grasses and in which he had slept in warmth and com-
fort through the forenoons of many days.
At college he was notorious for his sleepiness and
stupidity during the morning lectures and for his bril-
liance in the afternoon. By collateral reading and by
borrowing the notebook of his fellow students he man-
aged to scrape through the detestable morning courses,
while his afternoon courses were triumphs. In football
he proved a giant and a terror, and, in almost every
form of track athletics, save for strange Berserker rages
that were sometimes displayed, he could be depended
upon to win. But his fellows were afraid to box with
him, and he signalized his last wrestling bout by sinking
his teeth into the shoulder of his opponent.
After college, his father, in despair, sent him among
the cow-punchers of a Wyoming ranch. Three months
later the doughty cowmen confessed he was too much
for them and telegraphed his father to come and take
the wild man away. Also, when the father arrived to
take him away, the cowmen allowed that they would
vastly prefer chumming with howling cannibals, gib-
bering lunatics, cavorting gorillas, grizzly bears, and
man-eating tigers than with this particular young col-
lege product with hair parted in the middle.
There was one exception to the lack of memory of the
life of his early self, and that was language. By some
quirk of atavism, a certain portion of that early self's
language had come down to him as a racial memory.
In moments of happiness, exaltation, or battle, he was
prone to burst out in wild barbaric songs or chants. It
was by this means that he located in time and space that
strayed half of him who should have been dead and
WHEN THE WOELD WAS YOUNG 15
dust for thousands of years. He sang, once, and de-
liberately, several of the ancient chants in the presence
of Professor Wertz, who gave courses in old Saxon and
who was a philologist of repute and passion. At the
first one, the professor pricked up his ears and de-
manded to know what mongrel tongue or hog-German
it was. When the second chant was rendered, the pro-
fessor was highly excited. James Ward then concluded
the performance by giving a song that always irresis-
tibly rushed to his lips when he was engaged in fierce
struggling or fighting. Then it was that Professor
Wertz proclaimed it no hog-German, but early German,
or early Teuton, of a date that must far precede any-
thing that had ever been discovered and handed down
by the scholars. So early was it that it was beyond
him; yet it was filled with haunting reminiscences of
word-forms he knew and which his trained intuition told
him were true and real. He demanded the source of
the songs, and asked to borrow the previous book that
contained them. Also, he demanded to know why young
Ward had always posed as being profoundly ignorant
of the German language. And Ward could neither ex-
plain his ignorance nor lend the book. Whereupon,
after pleadings and entreaties that extended through
weeks, Professor Wertz took a dislike to the young man,
believed him a liar, and classified him as a man of mon-
strous selfishness for not giving him a glimpse of this
wonderful screed that was older than the oldest any
philologist had ever known or dreamed.
But little good did it do this much-mixed young man
to know that half of him was late American and the
other half early Teuton. Nevertheless, the late Ameri-
16 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
can in him was no weakling, and he (if he were a he and
had a shred of existence outside of these two) com-
pelled an adjustment or compromise between his one self
that was a night-prowling savage that kept his other self
sleepy of mornings, and that other self that was cul-
tured and refined and that wanted to be normal and
love and prosecute business like other people. The aft-
ernoons and early evenings he gave to the one, the nights
to the other ; the forenoons and parts of the nights were
devoted to sleep for the twain. But in the mornings he
slept in bed like a civilized, man. In the night time he
slept like a wild animal, as he had slept the night Dave
Slotter stepped on him in the woods.
Persuading his father to advance the capital, he went
into business, and keen and successful business he made
of it, devoting his afternoons whole-souled to it, while
his partner devoted the mornings. The early evenings
he spent socially, but, as the hour grew to nine or ten,
an irresistible restlessness overcame him and he disap-
peared from the haunts of men until the next after-
noon. Friends and acquaintances thought that he spent
much of his time in sport. And they were right, though
they never would have dreamed of the nature of the
sport, even if they had seen him running coyotes in
night-chases over the hills of Mill Valley. Neither were
the schooner captains believed when they reported see-
ing, on cold winter mornings, a man swimming in the
tide-rips of Raccoon Straits or in the swift currents
between Goat Island and Angel Island miles from
shore.
In the bungalow at Mill Valley he lived alone, save
for Lee Sing, the Chinese cook and factotum, who knew
WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG 17
much about the strangeness of his master, who was paid
well for saying nothing, and who never did -say any-
thing. After the satisfaction of his nights, a morning 's
sleep, and a breakfast of Lee Sing's, James "Ward
crossed the bay to San Francisco on a midday ferryboat
and went to s the club and on to his office, as normal and
conventional a man of business as could be found in the
city. But as the evening lengthened, the night called
to him. There came a quickening of all his perceptions
and a restlessness. His hearing was suddenly acute;
the myriad night-noises told him a luring and familiar
story; and, if alone, he would begin to pace up and
down the narrow room like any caged animal from the
wild.
Once, he ventured to fall in love. He never permit-
ted himself that diversion again. He was afraid. And
for many a day the young lady, scared at least out of
a portion of her young ladyhood, bore on her arms and
shoulders and wrists divers black-and-blue bruises
tokens of caresses which he had bestowed in all fond
gentleness but too late at night. There was the mis-
take. Had he ventured love-making in the afternoon,
all would have been well, for it would have been as the
quiet gentleman that he would have made love but at
night it was the uncouth, wife-stealing savage of the
dark German forests. Out of his wisdom, he decided
that afternoon love-making could be prosecuted success-
fully; but out of the same wisdom he was convinced
that marriage would prove a ghastly failure. He found
it appalling to imagine being married and encountering
his wife after dark.
So he had eschewed all love-making, regulated his dual
18 THE BEST PSYCHIC STOEIES
life, cleaned up a million in business, fought shy of
match-making mamas and bright- and eager-eyed young
ladies of various ages, met Lilian Gersdale and made it
a rigid observance never to see her later than eight
o'clock in the evening, ran of nights after his coyotes,
and slept in forest lairs and through it all had kept his
secret save for Lee Sing . . . and now, Dave Slotter.
It was the latter 's discovery of both his selves that
frightened him. In spite of the counter fright he had
given the burglar, the latter might talk. And even if
he did not, sooner or later he would be found out by
some one else.
Thus it was that James Ward made a fresh and
heroic effort to control the Teutonic barbarian that was
half of him. So well did he make it a point to see Lilian
in the afternoons and early evenings, that the time
came when she accepted him for better or worse, and
when he prayed privily and fervently that it was not
for worse. During this period no prize-fighter ever
trained more harshly and faithfully for a contest than
he trained to subdue the wild savage in him Among
other things, he strove to exhaust himself during the
day, so that sleep would render him deaf to the call of
the night. He took a vacation from the office and went
on long hunting trips, following the deer through the
most inaccessible and rugged country he could find
and always in the daytime. Night found him indoors
and tired. At home he installed a score of exercise
machines, and where other men might go through a par-
ticular movement ten times, he went hundreds. Also,
as a compromise, he built a sleeping porch on the second
story. Here he at least breathed the blessed night air.
WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG 19
Double screens prevented him from escaping into the
woods, and each night Lee Sing locked him in and each
morning let him out.
The time came, in the month of August, when he en-
gaged additional servants to assist Lee Sing and dared
a house party in his Mill Valley bungalow. Lilian, her
mother and brother, and half a dozen mutual friends,
were the guests. For two days and nights all went
well. And on the third night, playing bridge till
eleven o'clock, he had reason to be proud of himself.
His restlessness he successfully hid, but as luck would
have it, Lilian Gersdale was his opponent on his right.
She was a frail delicate flower of a woman, and in his
night-mood her very frailty incensed him. Not that he
loved her less, but that he felt almost irresistibly im-
pelled to reach out and paw and maul her. Especially
was this true when she was engaged in playing a win-
ning hand against him.
He had one of the deer-hounds brought in, and, when
it seemed he must fly to pieces with the tension, a caress-
ing hand laid on the animal brought him relief. These
contacts with the hairy coat gave him instant easement
and enabled him to play out the evening. Nor did any
one guess the terrible struggle their host was making,
the while he laughed so carelessly and played so keenly
and deliberately.
When they separated for the night, he saw to it that
he parted from Lilian in the presence of the others.
Once on his sleeping porch, and safely locked in, he
doubled and tripled and even quadrupled his exercises
until, exhausted, he lay down on the couch to woo sleep
and to ponder two problems that especially troubled
20 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
him. One was this matter of exercise. It was a para-
dox. The more he exercised in this excessive fashion,
the stronger he became. While it was true that he thus
quite tired out his night-running Teutonic self, it
seemed that he was merely setting back the fatal day
when his strength would be too much for him and over-
power him, and then it would be a strength more ter-
rible than he had yet known. The other problem was
that of his marriage and of the stratagems he must em-
ploy in order to avoid his wife after dark. And thus
fruitlessly pondering he fell asleep.
Now, where the huge grizzly bear came from that
night was long a mystery, while the people of the
Springs Brothers' Circus, showing at Sausalito, searched
long and vainly for "Big Ben, the Biggest Grizzly in
Captivity/' But Big Ben escaped, and, out of the
mazes of half a thousand bungalows and country estates,
selected the grounds of James J. "Ward for visitation.
The first Mr. Ward knew was when he found himself on
his feet, quivering and tense, a surge of battle in his
breast and on his lips the old war-chant. From without
came a wild baying and bellowing of the hounds. And
sharp as a knife-thrust through the pandemonium came
the agony of a stricken dog his dog, he knew.
Not stopping for slippers, pajama-clad, he burst
through the door Lee Sing had so carefully locked,- and
sped down the stairs and out into the night. As his
naked feet struck the graveled driveway, he stopped ab-
ruptly, reached under the steps to a hiding-place he
knew well, and pulled forth a huge knotty club his
old companion on many a mad night adventure on the
hills. The frantic hullabaloo of the dogs was coming
WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG 21
nearer, and, swinging the club, he sprang straight into
the thickets to meet it.
The aroused household assembled on the wide ver-
anda. Somebody turned on the electric lights, but they
could see nothing but one another's frightened faces.
Beyond the brightly illuminated driveway the trees
formed a wall of impenetrable blackness. Yet some-
where in that blackness a terrible struggle was going
on. There was an infernal outcry of animals, a great
snarling and growling, the sound of blows being struck,
and a smashing and crashing of underbrush by heavy
bodies.
The tide of battle swept out from among the trees
and upon the driveway just beneath the onlookers.
Then they saw. Mrs. Gersdale cried out and clung
fainting to her son. Lilian, clutching the railing so
spasmodically that a bruising hurt was left in her finger-
ends for days, gazed horror-stricken at a yellow-haired,
wild-eyed giant whom she recognized as the man who
was to be her husband. He was swinging a great club,
and fighting furiously and calmly with a shaggy mon-
ster that was bigger than any bear she had ever seen.
One rip of the beast's claws had dragged away Ward's
pajama-coat and streaked his flesh with blood.
While most of Lilian Gersdale 's fright was for the
man beloved, there was a large portion of it due to the
man himself. Never had she dreamed so formidable and
magnificent a savage lurked under the starched shirt
and conventional garb of her betrothed. And never had
she had any conception of how a man battled. Such a
battle was certainly not modern; nor was she there be-
holding a modern man, though she did not know it.
22 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
For this was not Mr. James J. Ward, the San Francisco
business man, but one unnamed and unknown, a crude,
rude savage creature who, by some freak of chance, lived
again after thrice a thousand years.
The hounds, ever maintaining their mad uproar, cir-
cled about the fight, or dashed in and out, distracting
the bear. "When the animal turned to meet such flank-
ing assaults, the man leaped in and the club came down.
Angered afresh by every such blow, the bear would
rush, and the man, leaping and skipping, avoiding the
dogs, went backwards or circled to one side or the other.
Whereupon the dogs, taking advantage of the opening,
would again spring in and draw the animal's wrath to
them.
The end came suddenly. Whirling, the grizzly caught
a hound with a wide sweeping cuff that sent the brute,
its ribs caved in and its back broken, hurtling twenty
feet. Then the human brute went mad. A foaming
rage flecked the lips that parted with a wild inarticu-
late cry, as it sprang in, swung the club mightily in
both hands, and brought it down full on the head of
the uprearing grizzly. Not even the skull of a grizzly
could withstand the crushing force of such a blow, and
the animal went down to meet the worrying of the
hounds. And through their scurrying leaped the man,
squarely upon the body, where, in the white electric
light, resting on his club, he chanted a triumph in an
unknown tongue a song so ancient that Professor
Wertz would have given ten years of his life for it.
His guests rushed to possess him and acclaim him,
but James Ward, suddenly looking out of the eyes of
the early Teuton, saw the fair frail Twentieth Century
WHEN THE WOELD WAS YOUNG 23
girl he loved, and felt something snap in his brain. He
staggered weakly toward her, dropped the club, and
nearly fell. Something had gone wrong with him. In-
side his brain was an intolerable agony. It seemed as
if the soul of him were flying asunder. Following the
excited gaze of the others, he glanced back and saw the
carcass of the bear. The sight filled him with fear.
He uttered a cry and would have fled, had they not re-
strained him and led him into the bungalow.
James J. "Ward is still at the head of the firm of Ward,
Knowles & Co. But he no longer lives in the country;
nor does he run of nights after the coyotes under the
moon. The early Teuton in him died the night of the
Mill Valley fight with the bear. James J. Ward is now
wholly James J. Ward, and he shares no part of his be-
ing with any vagabond anachronism from the younger
world. And so wholly is James J. Ward modern, that
he knows in all its bitter fullness the curse of civilized
fear. He is now afraid of the dark, and night in the
forest is to him a thing of abysmal terror. His city
house is of the spick and span order, and he evinces a
great interest in burglar-proof devices. His home is a
tangle of electric wires, and after bed-time a guest can
scarcely breathe without setting off an alarm. Also, he
has invented a combination keyless door-lock that trav-
elers may carry in their vest pockets and apply imme-
diately and successfully under all circumstances. But
his wife does not deem him a coward. She knows bet-
ter. And, like any hero, he is content to rest on his
laurels. His bravery is never questioned by those of
his friends who are aware of the Mill Valley episode.
THE RETURN*
BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
IT was curious that sense of dull uneasiness that
came over him so suddenly, so stealthily at first he
scarcely noticed it, but with such marked increase
after a time that he presently got up and left the thea-
ter. His seat was on the gangway of the dress circle,
and he slipped out awkwardly in the middle of what
seemed to be the best and j oiliest song of the piece.
The full house was shaking with laughter ; so infectious
was the gaiety that even strangers turned to one another
as much as to say, "Now, isn't that funny ?"
It was curious, too, the way the feeling first got into
him at all, and in the full swing of laughter, music, light-
heartedness; for it came as a vague suggestion, "I've
forgotten something something I meant to do some-
thing of importance. What in the world was it, now?"
And he thought hard, searching vainly through his
mind; then dismissed it as the danckig caught
his attention. It came back a little later again, during
a passage of long-winded talk that bored him and set his
attention free once more, but came more strongly this
time, insisting on an answer. What could it have been
that he had overlooked, left undone, omitted to see to?
It went on nibbling at the subconscious part of him.
*From Pan's Garden, by Algernon Blackwood Permission
of the Macmillan Company.
24
THE EETUEN 25
Several times this happened, this dismissal and return,
till at last the thing declared itself more plainly and
he felt bothered, troubled, distinctly uneasy.
He was wanted somewhere. There was somewhere
else he ought to be. That describes it best, perhaps.
Some engagement of moment had entirely slipped his
memory .an engagement that involved another person,
too. But where, what, with whom? And, at length,
this vague uneasiness amounted to positive discomfort,
so that he felt unable to enjoy the piece, and left ab-
ruptly. Like a man to whom comes suddenly the hor-
rible idea that the match he lit his cigarette with and
flung into the waste-paper basket on leaving was not
really out a sort of panic distress he jumped into a
taxicab and hurried to his flat to find everything in or-
der, of course ; no smoke, no fire, no smell of burning.
But his evening was spoiled. He sat smoking in his
armchair at home, this business man of forty, practical
in mind, of character some called stolid, cursing himself
for an imaginative fool. It was now too late to go back
to the theater; the club bored him; he spent an hour
with the evening papers, dipping into books, sipping a
long cool drink, doing odds and ends about the flat.
"I'll go to bed early for a change, " he laughed, but
really all the time fighting yes, deliberately fighting
this strange attack of uneasiness that so insidiously grew
upwards, outwards from the buried depths of him that
sought so strenuously to deny it. It never occurred
to him that he was ill. He was not ill. His health was
thuncleringly good. He was as robust as a coal-heaver.
The flat was roomy, high up on the top floor, yet in
a busy part of town, so that the roar of traffic mounted
26 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
round it like a sea. Through the open windows came
the fresh night air of June. He had never noticed be-
fore how sweet the London night air could be, and that
not all the smoke and dust could smother a certain touch
of wild fragrance that tinctured it with perfume yes,
almost perfume as of the country. He swallowed a
draught of it as he stood there, staring out across the
tangled world of roofs and chimney-pots. He saw the
procession of the clouds; he saw the stars; he saw the
moonlight falling in a shower of silver spears upon the
slates and wires and steeples. And something in him
quickened something that had never stirred before.
He turned with a horrid start, for the uneasiness had
of a sudden leaped within him like an animal. There
was some one in the flat.
Instantly, with action even this slight action the
fancy vanished; but, all the same, he switched on the
electric lights 'and made a search. For it seemed to him
that some one had crept up close behind him while he
stood there watching the night some one, whose silent
presence fingered with unerring touch both this new
thing that had quickened in his heart and that sense of
original deep uneasiness. He was amazed at himself
angry indignant that he could be thus foolishly upset
over nothing, yet at the same time profoundly dis-
tressed at this vehement growth of a new thing in his
well-ordered personality. Growth? He dismissed the
word the moment it occurred to him but it had oc-
curred to him. It stayed. While he searched the
empty flat, the long passages, the gloomy bedroom at
the end, the little hall where he kept his overcoats and
golf sticks, it stayed. Growth! It was oddly disquiet-
THE RETURN 27
ing. Growth to him involved, though he neither ac-
knowledged nor recognized the truth perhaps, some kind
of undesirable changeableness, instability, unbalance.
Yet singular as it all was, he realized that the un-
easiness and the sudden appreciation of beauty that was
so new to him had both entered by the same door into
his being. When he came back to the front room he
noticed that he was perspiring. There were little drops
of moisture on his forehead. And down his spine ran
chills, little, faint quivers of cold. He was shivering.
He lit his big meerschaum pipe, and left the lights all
burning. The feeling that there was something he had
overlooked, forgotten, left undone, had vanished. What-
ever the original cause of this absurd uneasiness might
be he called it absurd on purpose because he now real-
ized in the depths of him that it was really more vital
than he cared about it was much nearer to discovery
than before. It dodged about just below the threshold
of discovery. It was as close as that. Any moment he
would know what it was ; he would remember. Yes, he
would remember. Meanwhile, he was in the right place.
No desire to go elsewhere afflicted him, as in the theater.
Here was the place, here in the flat.
And then it was with a kind of sudden burst and rush
it seemed to him the only way to phrase it memory
gave up her dead.
At first he only caught her peeping round the corner
at him, drawing aside a corner of an enormous curtain,
as it were ; striving for more complete entrance as though
the mass of it were difficult to move. But he under-
stood, he knew, he recognized. It was enough for that.
As an entrance into his being heart, mind, soul was
28 THE BEST PSYCHIC STOKIES
being attempted and the entrance because of his stolid
temperament was difficult of accomplishment, there was
effort, strain. Something in him had first to be opened
up, widened, made soft and ready as by an operation,
before full entrance could be effected. This much he
grasped though for the life of him he could not have
put it into words. Also he knew who it was that sought
an entrance. Deliberately from himself he withheld
the name. But he knew as surely as though Straughan
stood in the room and faced him with a knife saying,
"Let me in, let me in. I wish you to know I'm here.
I 'm clearing a way ! You recall our promise ? J '
He rose from his chair and went to the open window
again, the strange fear slowly passing. The cool air
fanned his cheeks. Beauty till now had scarcely ever
brushed the surface of his soul. He had never troubled
his head about it. It passed him by indifferent; and
he had ever loathed the mouthy prating of it on others'
lips. He was practical; beauty was for dreamers, for
women, for men who had means and leisure. He had
not exactly scorned it; rather it had never touched his
life, to sweeten, to cheer, to uplift. Artists for him
were like monks another sex almost useless beings
who never helped the world go round. He was for
action always, work, activity, achievement as he saw
them. He remembered Straughan vaguely Straughan,
the ever impecunious friend of his youth, always talking
of color and sound mysterious, ineffectual things. He
even forgot what they had quarreled about, if they
had quarreled at all even; or why they had gone apart
all these years ago. And certainly he had forgotten any
promise. Memory as yet only peeped at him round the
THE EETUBN 29
corner of that huge curtain tentatively, suggestively,
yet he was obliged to admit it somewhat winningly.
He was conscious of this gentle, sweet seductiveness that
now replaced his fear.
And as he stood now at the open window peering over
huge London, beauty came close and smote him between
the eyes. She came blindingly, with her train of stars
and clouds and perfumes. Night, mysterious, myriad-
eyed, and flaming across her sea of haunted shadows in-
vaded his heart and shook him with her immemorial
wonder and delight. He found no words of course to
clothe the new unwonted sensations. He only knew
that all his former dread, uneasiness, distress, and with
them this idea of growth that had seemed so repug-
nant to him were merged, swept up, and gathered
magnificently home into a wave of beauty that envel-
oped him. "See it, and understand," ran a secret
inner whisper across his mind. He saw. He under-
stood. . . .
He went back and turned the lights out. Then he
took his place again at that open window, drinking in
the night. He saw a new world; a species of intoxi-
cation held him. He sighed, as his thoughts blundered
for expression among words and sentences that knew
him not. But the delight was there, the wonder, the
mystery. He watched with heart alternately tighten-
ing and expanding the transfiguring play of moon and
shadow w over the sea of buildings. He saw the dance
of the hurrying clouds, the open patches into outer
space, the veiling and unveiling of that ancient silvery
face ; and he caught strange whispers of the hierophan-
tic, sacerdotal power that has echoed down the world
30 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
since Time began and dropped strange magic phrases
into every poet's heart, since first "God dawned on
Chaos" the Beauty of the Night.
A long time passed it may have been one hour, it
may have been three when at length he turned away
and went slowly to his bedroom. A deep peace lay over
him. Something quite new and blessed had crept into
his life and thought. He could not quite understand it
all. He only knew that it uplifted. There was no
longer the least sign of affliction or distress. Even the
inevitable reaction that set in could not destroy that.
And then as he lay in bed nearing the borderland of
sleep, suddenly and without any obvious suggestion to
bring it, he remembered another thing. He remembered
the promise. Memory got past the big curtain for an
instant and showed her face. She looked into his eyes.
It must have been a dozen years ago when Straughan
and he had made that foolish solemn promise, that who-
ever died first should show himself if possible to the
other.
He had utterly forgotten it till now. But Straughan
had not forgotten it. The letter came three weeks later
from India. That very evening Straughan had died
at nine o'clock. And he had come back in the Beauty
that he loved.
THE SECOND GENERATION*
BY ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
SOMETIMES, in a moment of sharp experience,
comes that vivid flash of insight that makes a plati-
tude suddenly seem , revelation its full content
is abruptly realized. ' ' Ten years is a long time, yes, ' ' he
thought, as he walked up the drive to the great Ken-
sington house where she still lived.
Ten years long enough, at any rate, for her to have
married and for her husband to have died. More than
that he had not heard, in the outlandish places where
life had cast him in the interval. He wondered whether
there had been any children. All manner of thoughts
and questions, confused a little, passed across his mind.
He was well-to-do now, though probably his entire cap-
ital did not amount to her income for a single year.
He glanced at the huge, forbidding mansion. Yet that
pride was false which had made of poverty an insuper-
able obstacle. He saw it now. He had learned values
in his long exile.
But he was still ridiculously timid. This confusion
of thought, of mental images rather, was due to a kind
of fear, since worship ever is akin to awe. He was as
nervous as a boy going up for a viva voce; and with
*From Ten-Minute Stories, published by E. P. Dutton & Co.
31
32 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
the excitement was also that unconquerable sinking
that horrid shrinking sensation that excessive shyness
brings. Why in the world had he come? Why had he
telegraphed the very day after his arrival in England?
Why had he not sent a tentative, tactful letter, feeling
his way a little?
Very slowly he walked up the drive, feeling that if a
reasonable chance of escape presented itself he would
almost take it. But all the windows stared so hard at
him that retreat was really impossible now and though
no faces were visible behind the curtains, all had seen
him, possibly she herself his heart beat absurdly at the
extravagant suggestion. Yet it was odd he felt so cer-
tain of being seen, and that someone watched him. He
reached the wide stone steps that were clean as marble,
and shrank from the mark his boots must make upon
their spotlessness. In desperation, then, before he could
change his mind, he touched the bell. But he did not
hear it ring mercifully; that irrevocable sound must
have paralyzed him altogether. If no one came to an-
swer, he might still leave a card in the letter-box and
slip away. Oh, how utterly he despised himself for
such a thought! A man of thirty with such a chicken
heart was not fit to protect a child, much less a woman.
And he recalled with a little stab of pain that the man
she married had been noted for his courage, his deter-
mined action, his inflexible firmness in various public
situations, head and shoulders above lesser men. What
presumption on his own part ever to dream . . . ! He
remembered, too, with no apparent reason in particular,
that this man had a grown-up son already, by a former
marriage.
THE SECOND GENEKATION 33
And still no one came to open that huge, contemptu-
ous door with its so menacing, so hostile air. His back
was to it, as he carelessly twirled his umbrella, but he
felt its sneering expression behind him while it looked
him up and down. It seemed to push him away. The
entire mansion focused its message through that stern
portal : Little timid men are not welcomed here.
How well he remembered the house! How often in
years gone by had he not stood and waited just like
this, trembling with delight and anticipation, yet terri-
fied lest the bell should be answered and the great door
actually swung wide ! Then, as now, he would have run,
had he dared. He was still afraid his worship was so
deep. But in all these years of exile in wild places,
farming, mining, working for the position he had at last
attained, her face and the memory of her gracious pres-
ence had been his comfort and support, his only consola-
tion, though never his actual joy. There was so little
foundation for it all, yet her smile and the words she had
spoken to him from time to time in friendly conversa-
tion had clung, inspired, kept him going for he knew
them all by heart. And more than once in foolish op-
timistic moods, he had imagined, greatly daring, that
she possibly had meant more . . .
He touched the bell a second time with the point of
his umbrella. He meant to go in, carelessly as it were,
saying as lightly as might be, "Oh, I'm back in England
again if you haven't quite forgotten my existence
I could not forego the pleasure of saying 'How-do-you-
do?' and hearing that you are well . . . .," and the
rest; then presently bow himself easily out into the
old loneliness again. But he would at least have seen
34 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
her ; he would have heard her voice, and looked into her
gentle, amber eyes; he would have touched her hand.
She might even ask him to come in another day and see
her! He had rehearsed it all a hundred times, as cer-
tain feeble temperaments do rehearse such scenes. And
he came rather well out of that rehearsal, though always
with an aching heart, the old great yearnings unful-
filled. All the way across the Atlantic he had thought
about it, though with lessening confidence as the time
drew near. The very night of his arrival in London
he wrote, then, tearing up the letter (after sleeping over
it) , he had telegraphed next morning, asking if she would
be in. He signed his surname such a very common
name, alas! but surely she would know and her reply,
" Please call 4:30," struck him as rather oddly worded.
Yet here he was.
There was a rattle of the big door knob, that aggres-
sive, hostile knob that thrust out at him insolently like
a fist of bronze. He started, angry with himself for
doing so. But the door did not open. He became sud-
denly conscious of the wilds he had lived in for so long ;
his clothes were hardly fashionable; his voice probably
had a twang in it, and he used tricks of speech that must
betray the rough life so recently left. What would she
think of him, now? He looked much older, too. And
how brusque it was to have telegraphed like that ! He
felt awkward, gauche, tongue-tied, hot and cold by
turns. The sentences, so carefully rehearsed, fled be-
yond recovery.
Good heavens the door was open ! It had been open
for some minutes. , It moved noiselessly on big hinges.
He acted automatically ; he heard himself asking if her
THE SECOND GENERATION 35
ladyship was at home, though his voice was nearly in-
audible. The next moment he was standing in the
great, dim hall, so poignantly familiar, and the remem-
bered perfume almost made him sway. He did not hear
the door close, but he knew. He was caught. The but-
ler betrayed an instant's surprise or was it over-
wrought imagination again? when he gave his name.
It seemed to him though only later did he grasp the
significance of that curious intuition that the man had
expected another caller instead. The man took his card
respectfully and disappeared. These flunkeys were so
marvellously trained. He was too long accustomed to
straight question and straight answer, but here, in the
Old Country, privacy was jealously guarded with such
careful ritual.
And almost immediately the butler returned, still ex-
pressionless, and showed him into the large drawing-
room on the ground floor that he knew so well. Tea was
on the table tea for one. He felt puzzled. "If you
will have tea first, sir, her ladyship will see you after-
wards," was what he heard. And though his breath
came thickly, he asked the question that forced itself
out. Before he knew what he was saying he asked it,
"Is she ill?" "Oh, no, her ladyship is quite well,
thank you, sir. If you will have tea first, sir, her lady-
ship will see you afterwards." The horrid formula
was repeated, word for word. He sank into an arm-
chair and mechanically poured out his own tea. What
he felt he did not exactly know. It seemed so unusual,
so utterly unexpected, so unnecessary, too. Was it a
special attention, or was it merely casual? That it
could mean anything else did not occur to him. How
36 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
was she busy, occupied not here to give him tea? He
could not understand it. It seemed such a farce having
tea alone like this it was like waiting for an audience,
it was like a doctor's or a dentist's room. He felt be-
wildered, ill at ease, cheap. . . . But after ten years in
primitive lands perhaps London usages had changed in
some extraordinary manner. He recalled his first
amazement at the motor-omnibuses, taxicabs, and elec-
tric tubes. All were new. London was otherwise than
when he left it. Piccadilly and the Marble Arch them-
selves had altered. And, with his reflection, a shade
more confidence stole in. She knew that he was there
and presently she would come in and speak with him,
explaining everything by the mere fact of her delicious
presence. He was ready for the ordeal, he would see
her and drop out again. It was worth all manner of
pain, even of mortification. He was in her house, drink-
ing her tea, sitting in a chair she used herself perhaps.
Only he would never dare to say a word or make a sign
that might betray his changeless secret. He still felt
the boyish worshipper, worshipping in dumbness from a
distance, one of a group of many others like himself.
Their dreams had faded, his had continued, that was
the difference. Memories tore and raced and poured
upon him. How sweet and gentle she had always been
to him! He used to wonder sometimes . . . Once, IIP
remembered, he had rehearsed a declaration, but whilo
rehearsing the big man had come in and captured her,
though he had only read the definite news long after by
chance in an Arizona paper.
He gulped his tea down. His heart alternately leaped
and stood still. A sort of numbness held him most of
THE SECOND GENERATION 37
that dreadful interval, and no clear thought came at all.
Every ten seconds his head turned towards the door
that rattled, seemed to move, yet never opened. But
any moment now it must open, and he would be in her
very presence, breathing the same air with her. He
would see her, charge himself with her beauty once more
to the brim, and then go out again into the wilderness
the wilderness of life without her, and not for a
mere ten years but for always. She was so utterly be-
yond his reach. He felt like a backwoodsman, he was
a backwoodsman.
For one thing only was he duly prepared, though he
thought about it little enough she would, of course,
have changed. The photograph he owned, cut from an
illustrated paper, was not true now. It might even be
a little shock perhaps. He must remember that. Ten
years cannot pass over a woman without
Before he knew it the door was open, and she was
advancing quietly towards him across the thick carpet
that deadened sound. With both hands outstretched
she came, and with the sweetest welcoming smile upon
her parted lips he had seen in any human face. Her
eyes were soft with joy. His whole heart leaped within
him; for the instant he saw her it all flashed clear as
sunlight that she knew and understood. She had al-
ways known, had always understood. Speech came
easily to him in a flood, had he needed it, but he did not
need it. It was all so adorably easy, simple, natural,
and true. He just took her hands those welcoming,
outstretched hands in both of his own, and led her to
the nearest sofa. He was not even surprised at him-
self. Inevitably, out of depths of truth, this meeting
38 THE BEST PSYCHIC STOEIES
came about. And he uttered a little foolish common-
place, because he feared the huge revulsion that his sud-
den glory brought, and loved to taste it slowly :
"So you live here still ?"
"Here, and here," she answered softly, touching his
heart, and then her own. ' ' I am attached to this house,
too, because you used to come and see me here, and be-
cause it was here I waited so long for you, and still
wait. I shall never leave it unless you change. You
see, we live together here."
He said nothing. He leaned forward to take and hold
her. The abrupt knowledge of it all somehow did not
seem abrupt it was as though he had known it always ;
and the complete disclosure did not seem disclosure
either rather as though she told him something he had
inexplicably left unrealized, yet not forgotten. He felt
absolutely master of himself, yet, in a curious sense,
outside of himself at the same time. His arms were
already open when she gently held her hands up
to prevent. He heard a faint sound outside the
door.
"But you are free," he cried, his great passion break-
ing out and flooding him, yet most oddly well controlled,
"and I"
She interrupted him in the softest, quietest whisper
he had ever heard:
* * You are not free, as I am free not yet. ' '
The sound outside came suddenly closer. It was a
step. There was a faint click on the handle of the door.
In a flash, then, came the dreadful shock that over-
whelmed him the abrupt realization of the truth that
was somehow horrible that Time, all these years, had
THE SECOND GENERATION 39
left no mark upon her and that she had not changed.
Her face was as young as when he saw her last.
With it there came cold and darkness into the great
room. He shivered with cold, but an alien, unaccount-
able cold. Some great shadow dropped upon the entire
earth, and though but a second could have passed before
the handle actually turned, and the other person en-
tered, it seemed to him like several minutes. He heard
her saying this amazing thing that was question, an-
swer, and forgiveness all in one this, at least, he divined
before the ghastly interruption came "But, George
if you had only spoken !"
With ice in his blood he heard the butler saying that
her ladyship would be " pleased" to see him if he had
finished his tea and would be "so good as to bring the
papers and documents upstairs with him." He had
just sufficient control of certain muscles to stand up-
right and murmur that he would come. He rose from
a sofa that held no one but himself. All at once he
staggered. He really did not know exactly what hap-
pened, or how he managed to stammer out the medley
of excuses and semi-explanations that battered their
way through his brain and issued somehow in definite
words from his lips. Somehow or other he accomplished
it. The sudden attack, the faintness, the collapse! . . .
He vaguely remembered afterwards with amazement
too the suavity of the butler as he suggested tele-
phoning for a doctor, and that he just managed to for-
bid it, refusing the offered glass of brandy as well,
remembered contriving to stumble into the taxicab and
give his hotel address with a final explanation that he
would call another day and "bring the papers." It
40 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
was quite clear that his telegram had been attributed to
someone else, someone "with papers" perhaps a solici-
tor or architect. His name was such an ordinary one,
there were so many Smiths. It was also clear that she
whom he had come to see and had seen, no longer lived
here in the flesh . . .
And just as he left the hall he had the vision mere
fleeting glimpse it was of a tall, slim, girlish figure on
the stairs asking if anything was wrong, and realized
vaguely through his atrocious pain that she was, of
course, the wife of the son who had inherited . . .
JOSEPH: A STORY
BY KATHERINE EICKFORD
THEY were sitting round the fire after dinner
not an ordinary fire one of those fires that has
a little room all to itself with seats at each side
of it to hold a couple of people or three.
The big dining room was paneled with oak. At the
far end was a handsome dresser that dated back for
generations. One's imagination ran riot when one pic-
tured the people who must have laid those pewter plates
on the long, narrow, solid table. Massive medieval
chests stood against the walls. Arms and parts of armor
hung against the panelling; but one noticed few of
these things, for there was no light in the room save
what the fire gave.
It was Christmas Eve. Games h#d been played. The
old had vied with the young at snatching raisins from
the burning snapdragon. The children had long since
gone to bed ; it was time their elders followed them, but
they lingered round the fire, taking turns at telling
stories. Nothing very weird had been told; no one
had felt any wish to peep over his shoulder or try to
penetrate the darkness of the far end of the room; the
omission caused a sensation of something wanting. From
each one there this thought went out, and so a sudden
41
42 THE BEST PSYCHIC STOEIES
silence fell upon the party. It was a girl who broke it
a mere child ; she wore her hair up that night for the
first time, and that seemed to give her the right to sit
up so late.
"Mr. Grady is going to tell one," she said.
All eyes were turned to a middle-aged man in a deep
armchair placed straight in front of the fire. He was
short, inclined to be fat, with a bald head and a pointed
beard like the beards that sailors wear. It was plain
that he was deeply conscious of the sudden turning of
so much strained yet forceful thought upon himself.
He was restless in his chair as people are in a room that
is overheated. He blinked his eyes as he looked round
the company. His lips twitched in a nervous manner.
One side of him seemed to be endeavoring to restrain
another side of him from a feverish desire to speak.
"It was this room that made me think of him,'* he
said thoughtfully.
There was a long silence, but it occurred to no one
to prompt him. Every one seemed to understand that
he was going to speak, or rather that something inside
him was going to speak, some force that craved expres-
sion and was using him as a medium.
The little old man's pink face grew strangely calm,
the animation that usually lit it was gone. One would
have said that the girl who had started him already
regretted the impulse, and now wanted to stop him.
She was breathing heavily, and once or twice made as
though she would speak to him, but no words came.
She must have abandoned the idea, for she fell to study-
ing the company. She examined them carefully, one
by one. ''This one," she told herself, "is so-and-so,
JOSEPH: A STORY 43
and that one there just another so-and-so/' She stared
at them, knowing that she could not turn them to her-
self with her stare. They were just bodies kept work-
ing, so to speak, by some subtle sort of sentry left be-
hind by the real selves that streamed out in pent-up
thought to the little old man in the chair in front of
the fire.
"His name was Joseph; at least they Called him
Joseph. He dreamed, you understand dreams. He
was an extraordinary lad in many ways. His mother
I knew her very well had three children in quick suc-
cession, soon after marriage; then ten years went by
and Joseph was born. Quiet and reserved he always was,
a self-contained child whose only friend was his mother.
People said things about him, you know how people
talk. Some said he was not Clara's child at all, but
that she had adopted him ; others, that her husband was
not his father, and these put her change of manner
down to a perpetual struggle to keep her husband com-
fortably in the dark. I always imagined that the boy
was in some way aware of all this gossip, for I noticed
that he took a dislike to the people who spread it most."
The little man rested his elbows on the arms of his
chair and let the tips of his fingers meet in front of
him. A smile played about his mouth. He seemed to
be searching among his reminiscences for the one that
would give the clearest portrait of Joseph.
"Well, anyway," he said at last, "the boy was odd,
there is no gainsaying the fact. I suppose he was eleven
when Clara came down here with her family for Christ-
mas. The Coningtons owned the place then Mrs. Con-
ington was Clara's sister. It was Christmas Eve, as it
44 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
is now, many years ago. We had spent a normal Christ-
mas Eve; a little happier, perhaps, than usual by rea-
son of the family re-union and because of the presence
of so many children. We had eaten and drank, laughed
and played and gone to bed.
1 'I woke in the middle of the night from sheer rest-
lessness. Clara, knowing my weakness, had given me a
fire in my room. I lit a cigarette, played with a book,
and then, purely from curiosity, opened the door and
looked down the passage. From my door I could see
the head of the staircase in the distance; the opposite
wing of the house, or the passage rather beyond the
stairs, was in darkness. The reason I saw the staircase
at all was that the window you pass coming downstairs
allowed the moon to throw an uncertain light upon it,
a weird light because of the stained glass. I was ar-
rested by the curious effect of this patch of light in so
much darkness when suddenly someone came into it,
turned, and went downstairs. It was just like a scene
in a theater ; something was about to happen that I was
going to miss. I ran as I was, barefooted, to the head
of the stairs and looked over the banister. I was ex-
cited, strung up, too strung up to feel the fright that 1
knew must be with me. I remember the sensation per-
fectly. I knew that I was afraid, yet I did not feel
fright.
"On the stairs nothing moved. The little hall down
here was lost in darkness. Looking over the banister I
was facing the stained glass window. You know how
the stairs run around three sides of the hall; well, it
occurred to me that if I went halfway down and stood
under the window I should be able to keep the top of
JOSEPH: A STOEY 45
the stairs in sight and see anything that might happen
in the hall. I crept down very cautiously and waited
under the window. First of all, I saw the suit of empty
armor just outside the door here. You know how a
thing like that, if you stare at it in a poor light, appears
to move; well, it moved sure enough, and the illusion
was enhanced by clouds being blown across the moon.
By the fire like this one can talk of these things ra-
tionally, but in the dead of night it is a different matter,
so I went down a few steps to make sure of that armor,
when suddenly something passed me on the stairs. I
did not hear it, I did not see it, I sensed it in no way,
I just knew that something had passed me on its way
upstairs. I realized that my retreat was cut off, and
with the knowledge fear came upon me.
"I had seen someone come down the stairs; that, at
any rate, was definite; now I wanted to see him again.
Any ghost is bad enough, but a ghost that one can see
is better than one that one can't. I managed to get
past the suit of armor, but then I had to feel my way
to these double doors here."
He indicated the direction of the doors by a curious
wave of his hand. He did not look toward them nor
did any of the party. Both men and women were com-
pletely absorbed in his story; they seemed to be mes-
merized by the earnestness of his manner. Only the
girl was restless; she gave an impression of impatience
with the slowness with which he came to his point. One
would have said that she was apart from her fellows, an
alien among strangers.
"So dense was the darkness that I made sure of find-
ing the first door closed, but it was not, it was wide
46 THE BEST PSYCHIC STOEIES
open, and, standing between them, I could feel that the
other was open, too. I was standing literally in the wall
of the house, and as I peered into the room, trying to
make out some familiar object, thoughts ran through
my mind of people who had been bricked up in walls
and left there to die. For a moment I caught the spirit
of the inside of a thick wall. Then suddenly I felt the
sensation I have often read about but never experienced
before: I knew there was some one in the room. You
are surprised, yes, but wait ! I knew more : I knew that
that some one was conscious of my presence. It occurred
to me that whoever it was might want to get out of the
door. I made room for him to pass. I waited for him,
made sure of him, began to feel giddy, and then a man's
voice, deep and clear:
" * There is some one there; who is it?'
"I answered mechanically, 'George Grady.'
" ' I'm Joseph.'
"A match was drawn across a matchbox, and I saw
the boy bending over a candle waiting for the wick to
catch. For a moment I thought he must be walking in
his sleep, but he turned to me quite naturally and said
in his own boyish voice:
" 'Lost anything?'
"I was amazed at the lad's complete calm. I wanted
to share my fright with some one, instead I had to hide
it from this boy. I was conscious of a curious sense of
shame. I had watched him grow, taught him, praised
him, scolded him, and yet here he was waiting for an
explanation of my presence in the dining room at that
odd hour of the night.
"Soon he repeated the question, 'Lost anything?'
JOSEPH: A STOEY 47
" 'No,' I said, and then I stammered, 'Have yon?'
" 'No/ he said with a little laugh. 'It's that room,
I can't sleep in it.'
" 'Oh,' I said. 'What's the matter with the room?'
" ' It 's the room I was killed in, ' he said quite simply.
"Of course I had heard about his dreams, but I had
had no direct experience of them; when, therefore, he
said that he had been killed in his room I took it for
granted that he had been dreaming again. I was at a
loss to know quite how to tackle him; whether to treat
the whole thing as absurd and laugh it off as such, or
whether to humor him and hear his story. I got him
upstairs to my room, sat him in a big armchair, and
poked the fire into a blaze.
" 'You've been dreaming again,' I said bluntly.
" 'Oh, no I haven't. Don't you run away with that
idea.'
' ' His whole manner was so grown up that it was quite
unthinkable to treat him as the child he really was. In
fact, it was a little uncanny, this man in a child's
frame.
" 'I was killed there,' he said again.
" 'How do you mean, killed?' I asked him.
" 'Why, killed murdered. Of course it was years
and years ago, I can't say when; still I remember the
room. I suppose it was the room that reminded me of
the incident.'
" 'Incident?' I exclaimed.
" 'What else? Being killed is only an incident in the
existence of any one. One makes a fuss about it at the
time, of course, but really when you come to think of
it . .'
48 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
" 'Tell me about it,' I said, lighting a cigarette. He
lit one too, that child, and began.
" 'You know my room is the only modern one in this
old house. Nobody knows why it is modern. The rea-
son is obvious. Of course it was made modern after
I was killed there. The funny thing is that I should
have been put there. I suppose it was. done for a pur-
pose, because I I '
"He looked at me so fixedly I knew he would catch
me if I lied.
"' What ?' I asked.
" 'Dream.'
" 'Yes,' I said, 'that is why you were put there.'
" 'I thought so, and yet of all the rooms but then,
of course, no one knew. Anyhow I did not recognize
the room until after I was in bed. I had been asleep
some time and then I woke suddenly. There is an old
wheel-back chair there the only old thing in the room.
It is standing facing the fire as it must have stood the
night I was killed. The fire was burning brightly, the
pattern of the back of the chair was thrown in shadow
across the ceiling. Now the night I was murdered the
conditions were exactly the same, so directly I saw that
pattern on the ceiling I remembered the whole thing. I
was not dreaming, don 't think it, I was not. What hap-
pened that night was this : I was lying in bed counting
the parts of the back of that chair in shadow on the
ceiling. I probably could not get to sleep, you know the
sort of thing, count up to a thousand and remember
in the morning where you got to. Well, I was counting
those pieces when suddenly they were all obliterated,
the whole back beca^p a shadow, some one was sitting
JOSEPH: A STORY 49
in the chair. Now, surely, you understand that directly
I saw the shadow of that chair on the ceiling to-night
I realized that I had not a moment to lose. At any mo-
ment that same person might come back to that same
chair and escape would be impossible. I slipped from
my bed as quickly as I could and ran downstairs.'
" 'But were you not afraid,' I asked, 'downstairs?'
" 'That she might follow me? It was a woman, you
know. No, I don't think I was. She does not belong
downstairs. Anyhow she didn't.'
"'No,' I said. 'No.'
"My voice must have been out of control, for he
caught me up at once.
" 'You don't mean to say you saw her?' he said ve-
hemently.
" 'Oh, no/
'"You felt her?'
" 'She passed me as I came downstairs,' I said.
" 'What can I have done to her that she follows me
so?' He buried his face in his hands as though search-
ing for an answer to his thought. Suddenly he looked
up and stared at me.
" 'Where had I got to? Oh yes, the murder. I can
remember how startled I was to see that shadow in the
chair startled, you know, but not really frightened.
I leaned up in bed and looked at the chair, and sure
enough a woman was sitting in it a young woman. I
watched her with a profound interest until she began
to turn in her chair, as I felt, to look at me; when she
did that I shrank back in bed. I dared not meet her
eyes. She might not have had eyes, she might not have
had a face. You know the sort of pictures that one sees
50 THE BEST PSYCHIC STOEIES
when one glances back at all one 's soul has ever thought.
" 'I got back in the bed as far as I could and peeped
over the sheets at the shadow on the ceiling. I was
tired; frightened to death; I grew weary of watching.
I must have fallen asleep, for suddenly the fire was al-
most out, the pattern of the chair barely discernible,
the shadow had gone. I raised myself with a sense of
huge relief. Yes, the chair was empty, but, just think
of it, the woman was on the floor, on her hands and
knees, crawling toward the bed.
1 ' ' I fell back stricken with terror.
" 'Very soon I felt a gentle pull at the counterpane.
I thought I was in a nightmare but too lazy or too com-
fortable to try to wake myself from it. I waited in an
agony of suspense, but nothing seemed to be happening,
in fact I had just persuaded myself that the movement
of the counterpane was fancy when a hand brushed
softly over my knee. There was no mistaking it, I could
feel the long, thin fingers. Now was the time to do
something. I tried to rouse myself, but all my efforts
were futile, I was stiff from head to foot.
" 'Although the hand was lost to me, outwardly, it
now came within my range of knowledge, if you know
what I mean. I knew that it was groping its way along
the bed feeling for some other part of me. At any mo-
ment I could have said exactly where it had got to. When
it was hovering just over my chest another hand knocked
lightly against my shoulder. I fancied it lost, and wan-
dering in search of its fellow.
" ' I was lying on my back staring at the ceiling when
the hands met; the weight of their presence brought a
feeling of oppression to my chest. I seemed to be com-
JOSEPH: A STORY 51
pletely cut off from my body; I had no sort of connec-
tion with any part of it, nothing about me would re-
spond to my will to make it move.
" 'There was no sound at all anywhere.
" ' I fell into a state of indifference, a sort of patient
indifference that can wait for an appointed time to come.
How long I waited I cannot say, but when the time
came it found me ready. I was not taken by surprise.
" 'There was a great upward rush of pent-up force
released; it was like a mighty mass of men who have
been lost in prayer rising to their feet. I can't remem-
ber clearly, but I think the woman must have got on to
my bed. I could not follow her distinctly, my whole
attention was concentrated on her hands. At the time
I felt those fingers itching for my throat.
11 'At last they moved; slowly at first, then quicker;
and then a long-drawn swish like the sound of an over-
bold wave that has broken too far up the beach and is
sweeping back to join the sea.'
"The boy was silent for a moment, then he stretched
out his hand for the cigarettes.
" 'You remember nothing else?' I asked him.
" 'No,' he said. 'The next thing I remember clearly
is deliberately breaking the nursery window because it
was raining and mother would not let me go out. ' '
There was a moment's tension, then the strain of lis-
tening passed and every one seemed to be speaking at
once. The Rector was taking the story seriously.
"Tell me, Grady," he said. "How long do you sup-
pose elapsed between the boy's murder and his breaking
the nursery window?"
But a young married woman in the first flush of her
52 THE BEST PSYCHIC STOEIES
happiness broke in between them. She ridiculed the
whole idea. Of course the boy was dreaming. She was
drawing the majority to her way of thinking when,
from the corner where the girl sat, a hollow-sounding
voice :
1 ' And the boy ? Where is he ? ' '
The tone of the girl's voice inspired horror, that fear
that does not know what it is it fears; one could see it
on every face ; on every face, that is, but the face of the
bald-headed little man ; there was no horror on his face ;
he was smiling serenely as he looked the girl straight in
the eyes.
"He's a man now," he said.
"Alive?" she cried.
"Why not?" said the little old man, rubbing his
hands together.
She tried to rise, but her frock had got caught be-
tween the chairs and pulled her to her seat again. The
man next her put out his hand to steady her, but she
dashed it away roughly. She looked round the party
for an instant for all the world like an animal at bay,
then she sprang to her feet and charged blindly. They
crowded round her to prevent her falling; at the touch
of their hands she stopped. She was out of breath as
though she had been running.
"All right," she said, pushing their hands from her.
"All right. I'll come quietly. I did it."
They caught her as she fell and laid her on the sofa
watching the color fade from her face.
The hostess, an old woman with white hair and a kind
face, approached the little old man ; for once in her life
she was roused to anger.
JOSEPH: A STOEY 53
"I can't think how you could be so stupid," she said.
"See what you have done."
"I did it for a purpose," he said.
"For a purpose?"
"I have always thought that girl was the culprit. I
have to thank you for the opportunity you have given
me of making sure."
THE CLAVECIN, BRUGES*
BY GEORGE WHARTON EDWARDS
A SILENT, grass-grown market-place, upon the
uneven stones of which the sabots of a passing
peasant clatter loudly. A group of sleepy-look-
ing soldiers in red trousers lolling about the wide portal
of the Belfry, which rears aloft against the pearly sky
All the height it has
Of ancient stone.
As the chime ceases there lingers for a space a faint
musical hum in the air; the stones seem to carry and
retain the melody ; one is loath to move for fear of losing
some part of the harmony.
I feel an indescribable impulse to climb the four hun-
dred odd steps; incomprehensible, for I detest steeple-
climbing, and have no patience with steeple-climbers.
Before I realize it, I am at the stairs. "Hold, sir!"
from behind me. "It is forbidden." In wretched
French a weazen-faced little soldier explains that repairs
are about to be made in the tower, in consequence of
which visitors are forbidden. A franc removes this mil-
itary obstacle, and I press on.
At the top of the stairs is an old Flemish woman
shelling peas, while over her shoulder peeps a tame mag-
pie. A savory odor of stewing vegetables fills the air.
* By permission of The Century Co.
54
THE CLAVECIN, BRUGES 55
"What do you wish, sir?" Many shrugs, gesticula-
tions, and sighs of objurgation, which are covered by a
shining new five-franc piece, and she produces a bunch
of keys. As the door closes upon me the magpie gives a
hoarse, gleeful squawk.
... A huge, dim room with a vaulted ceiling. Against
the wall lean ancient stone statues, noseless and dis-
figured, crowned and sceptered effigies of forgotten lords
and ladies of Flanders. High up on the wall two slitted
Gothic windows, through which the violet light of day
is streaming. I hear the gentle coo of pigeons. To the
right a low door, some vanishing steps of stone, and a
hanging hand-rope. Before I have taken a dozen steps
upward I am lost in the darkness; the steps are worn
hollow and sloping, the rope is slippery seems to have
been waxed, so smooth has it become by handling. Four
hundred steps and over; I have lost track of the num-
ber, and stumble giddily upward round and round the
slender stone shaft. I am conscious of low openings
from time to time openings to what? I do not know.
A damp smell exhales from them, and the air is cold
upon my face as I pass them. At last a dim light above.
With the next turn a blinding glare of light, a moment 's
blankness, then a vast panorama gradually dawns upon
me. Through the frame of stonework is a vast reach
of grayish green bounded by the horizon, an immense
shield embossed with silvery lines of waterways, and
studded with clustering red-tiled roofs. A rim of pale
yellow appears the sand-dunes that line the coast
and dimly beyond a grayish film, evanescent, flashing
the North Sea.
Something flies through the slit from which I am gaz-
56 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
ing, and following its flight upward, I see a long beam
crossing the gallery, whereon are perched an array of
jackdaws gazing down upon me in wonder.
I am conscious of a rhythmic movement about me
that stirs the air, a mysterious, beating, throbbing sound,
the machinery of the clock, which some one has described
as a "heart of iron beating in a breast of stone."
I lean idly in the narrow slit, gazing at the softened
landscape, the exquisite harmony of the greens, grays,
and browns, the lazily turning arms of far-off mills, re-
minders of Cuyp, Van der Velde, Teniers, shadowy,
mysterious recollections. I am conscious of uttering
aloud some commonplaces of delight. A slight and sud-
den movement behind me, a smothered cough. A little
old man in a black velvet coat stands looking up at me,
twisting" and untwisting his hands. There are ruffles at
his throat and wrists, and an amused smile spreads over
his face, which is cleanly shaven, of the color of wax,
with a tiny network of red lines over the cheek-bones, as
if the blood had been forced there by some excess of
passion and had remained. He has heard my senti-
mental ejaculation. I am conscious of the absurdity of
the situation, and move aside for him to pass. He
makes a courteous gesture with one ruffled hand.
There comes a prodigious rattling and grinding noise
from above then a jangle of bells, some half-dozen
notes in all. At the first stroke the old man closes his
eyes, throws back his head, and follows the rhythm with
his long white hands, as though playing a piano. The
sound dies away; the place becomes painfully silent;
still the regular motion of the old man's hands contin-
ues. A creepy, shivery feeling runs up and down my
THE CLAVECIN, BRUGES 57
spine; a fear of which I am ashamed seizes upon
me.
"Fine pells, sare," says the little old man, suddenly
dropping his hands, and fixing his eyes upon me. ' ' You
sail not hear such pells in your countree. But stay not
here; come wis me, and I will show you the clavecin.
You sail not see the clavecin yet? No?"
I had not, of course, and thanked him.
"You sail see Melchior, Melchior t'e Groote, t'e mag-
nif'."
As he spoke we entered a room quite filled with cu-
rious machinery, a medley of levers, wires, and rope
above; below, two large cylinders studded with shining
brass points.
He sprang among the wires with a spidery sort of
agility, caught one, pulled and hung upon it with all
his weight. There came a r-r-r-r-r-r of fans and wheels,
followed by a shower of dust ; slowly one great cylinder
began to revolve; wires and ropes reaching into the
gloom above began to twitch convulsively ; faintly came
the jangle of far-off bells. Then came a pause, then a
deafening boom that well nigh stunned me. As the
waves of sound came and went, the little old man twisted
and untwisted his hands in delight, and ejaculated,
"Melchior you haf heeard, Melchior t'e Groote t'e
bourdon. ' '
I wanted to examine the machinery, but he impatiently
seized my arm and almost dragged me away saying, "I
will skow you I will skow you. Come wis me."
From a pocket he produced a long brass key and un-
locked a door covered with red leather, disclosing an up-
leading flight of steps to which he pushed me. It gave
58 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
upon an octagon-shaped room with a curious floor of
sheet-lead. Around the wall ran a seat under the dia-
mond-paned Gothic windows. From their shape I knew
them to be the highest in the tower. I had seen them
from the square below many times, with the framework
above upon which hung row upon row of bells.
In the middle of the room was a rude sort of key-
board, with pedals below, like those of a large organ.
Fronting this construction sat a long, high-backed
bench. On the rack over the keyboard rested some
sheets of music, which, upon examination, I found to
be of parchment and written by hand. The notes were
curious in shape, consisting of squares of black and dia-
monds of red upon the lines. Across the top of the page
was written, in a straggling hand, "Van den Gheyn*
Nikolaas." I turned to the little old man with the ruf-
fles. "Van den Gheyn!" I said in surprise, pointing to
the parchment. "Why, that is the name of the most
celebrated of carillonneurs, Van den Gheyn of Louvain."
He untwisted his hands and bowed. * ' Eet ees ma name,
mynheer I am the carillonneur."
I fancied that my face showed all too plainly the in-
credulity I felt, for his darkened, and he muttered,
"You not belief, Engelsch? Ah, I skow you; then you
belief, parehap," and with astounding agility seated
himself upon the bench before the clavecin, turned up
the ruffles at his wrists, and literally threw himself upon
the keys. A sound of thunder accompanied by a vivid
flash of lightning filled the air, even as the first notes
of the bells reached my ears. Involuntarily I glancec
out of the diamond-leaded window dark clouds wer
all about us, the housetops and surrounding countr:
THE CLAVECIN, BRUGES 59
were no longer to be seen. A blinding flash of lightning
seemed to fill the room; the arms and legs of the little
old man sought the keys and pedals with inconceivable
rapidity; the music crashed about us with a deafening
din, to the accompaniment of the thunder, which seemed
to sound in unison with the boom of the bourdon. It
was grandly terrible. The face of the little old man
was turned upon me, but his eyes were closed. He
seemed to find the pedals intuitively, and at every peal
of thunder, which shook the tower to its foundations,
he would open his mouth, a toothless cavern, and shout
aloud. I could not hear the sounds for the crashing of
the bells. Finally, with a last deafening crash of iron
rods and thunderbolts, the noise of the bells gradually
died away. Instinctively I had glanced above when the
crash came, half expecting to see the roof torn off.
"I think we had better go down," I said. "This
tower has been struck by lightning several times, and I
imagine that discretion "
I don't know what more I said, for my eyes rested
upon the empty bench, and the bare rack where the
music had been. The clavecin was one mass of twisted
iron rods, tangled wires, and decayed, worm-eaten wood-
work; the little old man had disappeared. I rushed to
the red leather-covered door ; it was fast. I shook it in
a veritable terror; it would not yield. With a bound
I reached the ruined clavecin, seized one of the pedals,
and tore it away from the machine. The end was armed
with an iron point. This I inserted between the lock
and the door. I twisted the lock from the worm-eaten
wood with one turn of the wrist, the door opened, and I
almost fell down the steep steps. The second door at
60 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
the bottom was also closed. I threw my weight against
it once, twice ; it gave, and I half slipped, half ran down
the winding steps in the darkness.
Out at last into the fresh air of the lower passage!
At the noise I made in closing the ponderous door came
forth the old custode.
In my excitement I seized her by the arm, saying,
"Who was the little old man in the black velvet coat with
the ruffles? Where is he?"
She looked at me in a stupid manner. "Who is he,"
I repeated "the little old man who played the clave-
cin?"
"Little old man, sir? I don't know," said the crone.
"There has been no one in the tower to-day but your-
self."
LIGBIA
BY EDGAR ALLAN FOB
"And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the
mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great
will prevading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth
not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only
through the weakness of his feeble will. ' ' JOSEPH GLANVILL.
I CANNOT, for my soul, remember how, when, or
even precisely where, I first became acquainted with
the lady Ligeia. Long years have since elapsed,
and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or,
perhaps, I cannot now bring these points to mind, be-
cause, in truth, the character of my beloved, her rare
learning, her singular yet placid caste of beauty, and
the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low mu-
sical language, made their way into my heart by paces
so steadily and stealthily progressive, that they have
been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I believe that I met
her first and most frequently in some large, old, decay-
ing city near the Rhine. Of her family I have surely
heard her speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date
cannot be doubted. Ligeia ! Ligeia ! Buried in studies
of a nature more than all else adapted to deaden im-
pressions of the outward worl.d, it is by that sweet word
alone by Ligeia that I bring before mine eyes in
fancy the image of her who is no more. And now, while
61
62 THE BEST PSYCHIC STOEIES
I write, a recollection flashes upon me that I have never
kniwn the paternal name of her who was my friend and
my betrothed, and who became the partner of my
studies, and finally the wife of my bosom. Was it a
playful charge on the part of my Ligeia? Or was it a
test of my strength of affection, that I should institute
no inquiries upon this point ? Or was it rather a caprice
of my own a wildly romantic offering on the shrine of
the most passionate devotion? I but indistinctly recall
the fact itself what wonder that I have utterly forgot-
ten the circumstances which originated or attended it?
And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is entitled Ro-
mance if ever she, the wan and the misty-winged Ash-
tophet of idolatrous Egypt presided, as they tell, over
marriages ill-omened, then most surely she presided over
mine.
There is one dear topic, however, on which my mem-
ory fails me not. It is the person of Ligeia. In stature
she was tall, somewhat slender, and, in her latter days,
even emaciated. I would in vain attempt to portray
the majesty, the quiet ease of her demeanor, or the in-
comprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall.
She came and departed as a shadow. I was never
made aware of her entrance into my closed study, save
by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she placed
her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face
no maiden ever equalled her. It was the radiance of
an opium-dream an airy and spirit-lifting vision more
wildly divine than the fantasies which hovered about
the slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet
her features were not of that regular mould which we
have been falsely taught to worship in the classical la-
LIGEIA 63
bors of the heathen. " There is no exquisite beauty, "
says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of all the
forms and genera of beauty, "without some strangeness
in the proportion/' Yet, although I saw that the fea-
tures of Ligeia were not of a classic regularity al-
though I perceived that her loveliness was indeed ex-
quisite and felt that there was much of strangeness
pervading it yet I have tried in vain to detect the
irregularity and to trace home my own perception of
"the strange. " I examined the contour of the lofty
and pale forehead; it was faultless how cold indeed
that word when applied to a majesty so divine the
skin rivalling the purest ivory; the commanding extent
and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above
the temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the
luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses, setting forth
the full force of the Homeric epithet, ' ' hyacinthine " ! I
looked at the delicate outlines of the nose, and nowhere
but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews had I
i beheld a similar perfection. There were the same lux-
urious smoothness of surface, the same scarcely per-
I ceptible tendency to the aquiline, the same harmoniously
I curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded the
it sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all
things heavenly the magnificent turn of the short up-
Iper lip, the soft, voluptuous slumber of the under, the
dimples which sported, and the color which spoke, the
| teeth glancing back, with a brilliancy almost startling,
H every ray of the holy light which fell upon them in her
j< serene and placid, yet most exultingly radiant of all
| smiles. I scrutinized the formation of the chin, and
laere, too, I found the gentleness of breadth, the soft-
64 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
ness and the majesty, the fulness and the spirituality
of the Greek the contour which the god Apollo revealed
but in a dream, to Cleomenes, the son of the Athenian.
And then I peered into the large eyes of Ligeia.
For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique.
It might have been, too, that in these eyes of my be-
loved lay the secret to which Lord Yerulam alludes.
They were, I must believe, far larger than the ordinary
eyes of our own race. They were even fuller than the
fullest of the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of
Nourjahad. Yet it was only at intervals in moments
of intense excitement that this peculiarity became more
than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And at such mo-
ments was her beauty in my heated fancy thus it ap-
peared perhaps the beauty of beings either above or
apart from the earth the beauty of the fabulous Houri
of the Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most bril-
liant of black, and far over them hung jetty lashes of
great length. The brows, slightly irregular in outline,
had the same tint. The lt strangeness," however, which
I found in the eyes, was of a nature distinct from the
formation, or the color, or the brilliancy of the features,
and must, after all, be referred to the expression. Ah,
word of no meaning, behind whose vast latitude of mere
sound we intrench our ignorance of so much of the
spiritual! The expression of the eyes of Ligeia! How
for long hours have I pondered upon it! How have I,
through the whole of a midsummer night, struggled
to fathom it! What was it that something more pro-
found than the well of Democritus which lay far
within the pupils of my beloved? What was it? I
was possessed with a passion to discover. Those eyes,
LIGEIA v 65
those large, those shining, those divine orbs they be-
came to me twin stars of Leda, and I to them devoutest
of astrologers.
There is no point, among the many incomprehensible
anomalies of the science of mind, more thrillingly excit-
ing than the fact never, I believe, noticed in the schools
that in our endeavors to recall to memory something
long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the very
verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end,
to remember. And thus how frequently, in my intense
scrutiny of Ligeia's eyes, have I felt approaching the
full knowledge of their expression felt it approaching,
yet not quite be mine and so at length entirely de-
part! And (strange, oh strangest mystery of all!) I
found in the commonest objects of the universe, a circle
of analogies to that expression. I mean to say that, sub-
sequently to the period when Ligeia's beauty passed
into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived
from many existences in the material world a sentiment
such as I felt always around, within me, by her large
and luminous orbs. Yet not the more could I define
that sentiment, or analyze, or even steadily view it. I
recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in the survey
of a rapidly-growing vine, in the contemplation of a
moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running wa-
ter. I have felt it in the ocean, in the falling of a
meteor. I have felt it in the glances of unusually aged
people. And there are one or two stars in heaven, (one
especially, a star of the sixth magnitude, double and
changeable, to be found near the large star in Lyra) in
a telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware
of the feeling. I have been filled with it by certain
66 THE BEST PSYCHIC STORIES
sounds from stringed instruments, and not unf requently
by passages from books. Among innumerable other in-
stances, I well remember something in a volume of Jo-
seph Glanvill, which (perhaps merely from its quaint-
ness who shall say?) never failed to inspire me with
the sentiment : ' ' And the will therein lieth, which dieth
not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its
vigor ? For God is but a great will pervading all things
by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield him
to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through
the weakness of his feeble will."
Length of years and subsequent reflection have en-
abled me to trace, indeed, some remote connection be-
tween this passage in the English moralist and a portion
of the character of Ligeia. An intensity in thought,
action, or speech was possibly, in her, a result or at least
an index of that gigantic volition which, during our
long intercourse, failed to give other and more imme-
diate evidence of its existence. Of all the women whom
I have ever known, she the outwardly calm, the ever-
placid Ligeia was the most violently a prey to the
tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such
passion I could form no estimate, save by the miraculous
expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted and
appalled me, by the almost magical melody, modulation,
distinctness, and placidity of her very low voice, and by
the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast
with her manner of utterance) of the wild words which
she habitually uttered.
I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia; it was im-
mense, such as I have never known in woman. In the
classical tongues *was she deeply proficient, and as far
LIGEIA 67
as my own acquaintance extended in regard to the mod-
ern dialects of Europe, I have never known her at fault,
Indeed upon any theme of the most admired, because
simply the most abstruse of the boasted eruditioft of the
academy, have I ever found Ligeia at fault? How sin-
gularly, how thrillingly, this one point in the nature of
my wife has forced itself, at this late period only, upon
my attention ! I said her knowledge was such as I have
never known in woman but where breathes the man
who has traversed, and successfully, all the wide areas
of moral, physical, and mathematical science? I saw
not then what I now clearly perceive, that the acquisi-
tions of Ligeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I
was sufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy to resign
myself, with a child-like confidence, to her guidance
through the chaotic world of metaphysical investigation
at which I was most busily occupied during the earlier
years of our marriage. With how vast a triumph, with
how vivid a delight, with how much of all that is ethereal
in hope, did I feel, as she bent over me in studies but lit-
tle sought but less known that delicious vista by slow
degrees expanding before me, down whose long, gor-
geous, and all untrodden path I might at length pass
onward to the goal of a wisdom too divinely precious not
to be forbidden!
How poignant, then, must have been the grief with
which, after some years, I beheld my well-grounded ex-
pectations take wings to themselves and fly away ! With-
out Ligeia I was but as a child groping benighted. Her
presence, her readings alone, rendered vividly luminous
the many mysteries of the transcendentalism in which
we were immersed. Wanting
