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303
The Book of Dreams and Ghosts
·
Andrew Lang
180
Of
this
story
the
only
conceivable
natural
explanation
is
that
Mrs.
Claughton,
to
serve
her
private
ends,
paid
secret
preliminary
visits
to
Meresby,
"got
up"
there
a
number
of
minute
facts,
chose
a
haunted
house
at
the
other
end
of
England
as
a
first
scene
in
her
little
drama,
and
made
the
rest
of
the
troublesome
journeys,
not
to
mention
the
uncomfortable
visit
to
a
dark
church
at
midnight,
and
did
all
this
from
a
hysterical
love
of
notoriety.
This
desirable
boon
she
would
probably
never
have
obtained,
even
as
far
as
it
is
consistent
with
a
pseudonym,
if
I
had
not
chanced
to
dine
with
Dr.
Ferrier
while
the
adventure
was
only
beginning.
As
there
seemed
to
be
a
chance
of
taking
a
ghost
"on
the
half
volley,"
I
at
once
communicated
the
first
part
of
the
tale
to
the
Psychical
Society
(using
pseudonyms,
as
here,
throughout),
and
two
years
later
Mrs.
Claughton
consented
to
tell
the
Society
as
much
as
she
thinks
it
fair
to
reveal.
This,
it
will
be
confessed,
is
a
round-about
way
of
obtaining
fame,
and
an
ordinary
person
in
Mrs.
Claughton's
position
would
have
gone
to
the
Psychical
Society
at
once,
as
Mark
Twain
meant
to
do
when
he
saw
the
ghost
which
turned
out
to
be
a
very
ordinary
person.
There
I
leave
these
ghosts,
my
mind
being
in
a
just
balance
of
agnosticism.
If
ghosts
at
all,
they
were
ghosts
with
a
purpose.
The
species
is
now
very
rare.
The
purpose
of
the
ghost
in
the
following
instance
was
trivial,
but
was
successfully
accomplished.
In
place
of
asking
people
to
do
what
it
wanted,
the
ghost
did
the
thing
itself.
Now
the
modern
theory
of
ghosts,
namely,
that
they
are
delusions
of
the
senses
of
the
seers,
caused
somehow
by
the
mental
action
of
dead
or
distant
people,
does
not
seem
to
apply
in
this
case.
The
ghost
produced
an
effect
on
a
material
object.
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