THE SUPERNATURAL OMNIBUS (6 page)

It should be remarked, and I hardly think that the point has been noticed before in this connexion, what gloomy yet intensive delight the mid-Victorians took in funerals, interments, and all the trappings of mortuary woe. How raven-black was the velvet pall, how solemnly nodded the hearse-plumes, how awful stood the train of mutes, how long was the deep crape worn by relicts of the deceased, how fruity was the old port wine, how rich the slabs of cake! Their minds loved to dwell upon sepulture and the charnel. Dickens, in
Martin Chuzzlewit
and other of his novels, has shown how prominent a part was played by the undertakers, Mr. Mould, Mr. Sowerby, Mr. Joram, and the rest. What an event was a funeral from a house! The way to all these sadly sentimental lachrymals had been paved before by the lugubrious cortèges of the time of Anne, the funerals at night with a train of flambeaux, the mourning coaches, and all the rest of the lugubrious paraphernalia. We must not forget, too, those expressions of elegant piety such as Blair's
The Grave
, Young's
The Last Day
, Samuel Boyse's
A Deity
, and
Death
by Bishop Beilby Porteus, which for a century and a half exercised an almost universal influence in the spheres of such theology as loved to ponder upon the skull, the hour-glass, crossbones, hatchments, mournful and sorrowing cherubim.

A typically Victorian writer was Mrs. Riddell, whose
The Haunted River
I have mentioned above, and who published in one volume half a dozen tales under the attractive title
Weird Stories
, 1885. Miss Braddon and Mrs. Henry Wood both wrote some first rate ghost stories.
The Cold Embrace
and
Eveline's Visitant
(which I have included here) by the former lady are particularly good, and, although it does not actually deal with the supernatural, I am constrained to mention as an example of her uncanny power
The Mystery at Fernwood,
where Laurence Wendale is horribly murdered apparently by himself, as through the door of the billiard-room is seen his exact image bending over and slashing at the corpse. The double suddenly mops and grins furiously. It is the dead man's twin brother, an idiot, whose brain was injured owing to an accident in earliest childhood.

A large number of stories of the supernatural may be found in the magazines: in
Tinsley's Magazine, Temple Bar, Belgravia, London Society, Blackwood's, the Argosy, the English Illustrated
, as also in the forgotten
Family Herald Supplement
and
Young Ladies' Journal
. To come to a later date, there was no richer storehouse than the
Pall Mall Magazine
. In this last, in May, June and October, 1893, was published a study by James Mew,
The Black Art
, which is particularly interesting as a young and unknown artist, Aubrey Beardsley, contributed a full-page illustration (June, 1893, p. 177), "Of a Neophyte And How The Black Art Was Revealed Unto Him By The Fiend Asomuel." In July, 1893, of the
Pall Mall Magazine
appeared
The Last of the Flying Dutchman,
by W.L. Alden, which cleverly ended with a query; and
A Kiss of Judas
, a vampire story by X.L., the author of a tale of
Satanism, Aut Diabolus aut Nihil
, and who in the same magazine (September to December, 1898) published
With All the Powders of the Merchant
. In October, 1893, appeared
The Luck of the Devil
; in May, 1894,
A Cry Across the Black Water
, and in August of the same year Howard Pease's
Mine Host the Cardinal
, an excellent ghost story. In January, 1895, was given
The Devil Stone
, by Beatrice Heron Maxwell; in March,
The Hands of Earl Rothes
, by L. M. Hewitt, and also
Huguenin's Wife
, by M.P. Shiel. In December of that year we welcomed one of Dr. M.R. James's best stories,
Lost Hearts
. It is interesting to notice that some four years later, in April, 1899, another of our leading writers of ghost fiction, Algernon Blackwood, was represented by his
The Haunted Island
. June, 1896, has
The Story of a Tusk
, by H.A. Boyden, and
The Stone Chamber of Taverndale Manor House
, this latter a good spooky yarn of the real old Christmassy kind. In March, 1897, a horrible tale of psychic invasion,
The Case of the Rev. Mr. Toomey
, was given, as also
Doctor Armstrong
, which tells how to a leading surgeon was brought for a serious operation a man in feeblest health, who had suffered terribly all his life. In this invalid Doctor Armstrong, who has never known a day's illness, recognises by some uprush from a past life the Grand Inquisitor, who at Toledo centuries before had doomed him to the rack and the screw, to a death of agony by fire. In a moment of time, as it were, he passes through those days and months of excruciating anguish once more and is convulsed in throes of fiercest pain. Revenge, completest revenge, is in his grasp. He takes the steel instruments, and, administering no anæsthetic, in his turn becomes tormentor. He wrenches the muscles, tears the flesh and twists the nerves of the helpless writhing thing before him until the unhappy wretch draws his last moaning breath. But then a voice of infinite pity, yet infinitely just, sounds in the doctor's ear, telling him that by indulging his own bad passions and wreaking vengeance instead of showing mercy so has he forfeited his claim upon the mercy of Heaven.

August and September of the
Pall Mall Magazine
, 1897, gave
A Tribute of Souls
, by Lord Frederic Hamilton and Robert Hichens, which was afterwards reprinted in the latter writer's
Byways
. October, 1900, had
A Night on the Moor
, by R. Murray Gilchrist, and one of the best vampire stories I know appropriately appeared in December of that year —
The Tomb of Sarah
, by F.G. Loring.

Even just this hasty sketch — and I have omitted a large number of stories of great merit — will serve to show the interest taken in the supernatural by many of the writers prominent before the public in those years.

Stories of the supernatural, many of a rare excellence, have been penned by R.L. Stevenson, W.W. Jacobs, Rudyard Kipling, H.G. Wells, Richard Middleton, Robert Hichens, Lord Dunsany, Walter de la Mare, Edith Wharton, Mrs. Molesworth, Fergus Hume, Barry Pain, John Buchan, Ambrose Bierce, Oliver Onions, Arthur Machen, Mary Heaton Vorse, Elliot O'Donnell, Bram Stoker, M.H. Austin, Hugh Conway, Fred G. Smale, Fitz-James O'Brien, Robert W. Chambers, Arthur Johnson, Clark Russell, Perceval Landon, Conan Doyle, Marjorie Bowen, Howard Pease, Ingulphus (Arthur Gray), Saki, Sir T.G. Jackson, Edward H. Cooper, A.M. Burrage, Grace V. Christmas, H.R. Wakefield, Mrs. Campbell Praed, Evelyn Nesbit, the Rev. E.G. Swain, L.P. Hartley, Mrs. Belloc Lowndes, Elizabeth Bowen, Baring Gould, Katherine Tynan, Vincent O'Sullivan, Vernon Lee, Amyas Northcote, E. and H. Heron, Roger Pater, John Guinan, W.J. Wintle, A.C. Benson, May Sinclair, and many others, the omission of whose names from this list, set down well-nigh at random as I glance at my shelves, must not be taken as any criticism of or judgement upon their quality, but rather because in making a terrier of ghost stories it is well-nigh impossible to aim at anything like a complete and exhaustive survey.

Although his work is widely read, I have always felt that the ghost stories of the late Monsignor Hugh Benson never receive their just meed of appreciation. Yet it would not be easy to find a better symposium than
The Mirror of Shalot
t, and there are few stories more horrible than
My Own Tale
, the house which had no soul. A fine story, too, is
The Traveller
, in
The Light Invisible
, and, in spite of the fact that Monsignor Benson himself declared that this book was written "in moods of great feverishness" and "largely insincere," frankly I would give twenty apocalyptic romances such as
The Lord of the World
and
The Dawn of All
, and fifty novels such as
Initiation
and
Loneliness
, both of which seem to me to trench far too nearly upon a calamitous pessimism, to call it nothing worse, for another
Light Invisible
; although I am very well aware that certain points, and these not the least important, are open to criticism.

It is hardly necessary for me to speak of the most notable living exponents of the ghost story. Mr. E.F. Benson has shown himself a supremely accomplished artist in
Spook Stories
and
The Room in the Tower
.
The Empty House
, by Algernon Blackwood, is worthy of Le Fanu himself, and praise can reach no higher.
Keeping his Promise
and
Smith
are also of a rare quality, whilst there is nobody fascinated by the supernatural who does not wish for further experiences of John Silence. Dr. James uses his vast antiquarian and archæological erudition to create an appropriate atmosphere for his malignant ghosts, and no better setting could be devised. His care for detail is admirable, and tells immensely. In fact, I know only one living writer who can be compared with him in this point. I refer to Vernon Lee (Violet Paget), from whose
Hauntings
I am privileged to give two stories,
Amour Dure
and
Oke of Okehurst
. In the first the old Italian town among the hills, and in the other the English manor house, are drawn with marvellous felicity. No less cleverly done are Venice, Padua, and the Italian podere in
That Wicked Voice
.
Hauntings
is a masterpiece of literature, and even Le Fanu and M.R. James cannot be ranked above the genius of this lady. Unfortunately, Vernon Lee has given us no further ghost stories since 1890, save that she once refashioned a tale or so as was the wont of Sheridan Le Fanu.

Particularly happy is Dr. James in his descriptions of those tall, red-brick houses, whose probable date is 1770 or thereabouts, in the eastern counties: such are Wilsthorpe, Castringham (although the Hall was mainly Elizabethan) in Suffolk, Aswarby Hall, Betton Court, Brockstone Court, and the Residence at Whitminster. I, too, like the pillared portico, the hall, the library, the pictures; and I, too, "wish to have one of these houses and enough money to keep it together and entertain my friends in it modestly."

Dr. James tells us, as we might well guess, that for him places are prolific in suggestion.

* * * *

It may be asked in what spirit should the stories in this collection be taken. With the exception of three (and these I will not specify), they are all ostensibly fiction, but I am sure that of the others, too, more than half a dozen could be very closely paralleled by real experience. I can hardly expect, although I might desire, that they should have the same effect upon the readers as
The Castle of Otranto
had upon Gray, who wrote: "It makes some of us cry a little, and all in general afraid to go to bed o' nights."

The best way to appreciate a ghost story is to believe in ghosts. Yet if one cannot, at least imitate the wittily truthful Madame du Deffand, who, when asked, "Do you believe in ghosts?" replied: "No, but I am afraid of them."

MONTAGUE SUMMERS

Note. — Many of the stories in this book are copyright, and may not be reprinted without the permission of the authors and publishers concerned. Whilst the utmost care and great diligence have been exercised to ascertain the owners of the rights so that the necessary permission to include the stories in the present collection should be secured, the editor and publishers desire to offer their apologies in any possible case of accidental infringement.

My best thanks and all acknowledgements are particularly due to the following for generous permissions so courteously accorded: To Miss Violet Paget (Vernon Lee) and Messrs. John Lane for
Amour Dure
and
Oke of Okehurst
; Miss Rosalie Muspratt (Jasper John) and Messrs. Henry Walker for
The Spirit of Stonehenge
and
The Seeker of Souls
; Mr. John Guinan for
The Watcher O' The Dead
; Messrs. Routledge for
The Judge's House
; Messrs. Burns, Oates & Washbourne for
De Profundis, The Astrologer's Legacy
, and
A Porta Inferi
; Messrs. C. Arthur Pearson for
The Story of The Spaniards, Hammersmith, The Story of Konnor Old House, The Story of Yand Manor House
; Messrs. John Lane for
Brickett Bottom
; Messrs. William Heinemann for
Thurnley Abbey
; Messrs. George G. Harrap for
Tousell's Pale Bride.

I am further much indebted to Mr. H. Stuart-Forbes for his invaluable help in the collection of material, as also for his spirited and discerning criticisms of Ghost Stories, suggestions which have gone far to make my task easier and (if possible) more interesting.

M.S.        

from
THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCHYARD

Tinsley, 1863

***

I'm sure she believed every word she related, for old Sally was veracious. But all this was worth just so much as such talk commonly is—marvels, fabulæ, what our ancestors called winter's tales—which gathered details from every narrator, and dilated in the act of narration. Still it was not quite for nothing that the house was held to be haunted. Under all this smoke there smouldered just a little spark of truth—an authenticated mystery, for the solution of which some of my readers may possibly suggest a theory, though I confess I can't.

Miss Rebecca Chattesworth, in a letter dated late in the autumn of 1753, gives a minute and curious relation of occurrences in the Tiled House, which, it is plain, although at starting she protests against all such fooleries, she has heard with a peculiar sort of interest, and relates it certainly with an awful sort of particularity.

I was for printing the entire letter, which is really very singular as well as characteristic. But my publisher meets me with his veto; and I believe he is right. The worthy old lady's letter is, perhaps, too long; and I must rest content with a few hungry notes of its tenor.