I do not grudge thee; I shall smile, Beloved, in a little while, And glory in thy name; I hold love’s laurel in my hand, But take thou from the grateful land Thy wreath of deathless fame! —_All the Year Round._ THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF GHOST STORIES. BY ANDREW LANG. We seem to need a name for a new branch of the science of Man, the Comparative Study of Ghost Stories. Neither sciology, from σκιά, nor idolology, from εἴδωλον, appears a very convenient term, and as the science is yet in its infancy, perhaps it may go unnamed, for the time, like a colt before it has won its maiden race. But, though nameless, the researches which I wish to introduce are by no means lacking in curious interest. It may be objected that the comparative study of ghost stories is already well known, and practised by two very different sets of inquirers, anthropologists and the Society for Psychical Research; but neither Mr. Tylor and Mr. Herbert Spencer nor “those about” Mr. Gurney and Mr. Myers work, as it seems to me, exactly on the topics and in the manner which I wish to indicate. Mr. Herbert Spencer, as we all know, traces religion to the belief in and worship of the ghosts of ancestors. Mr. Tylor, again, has learnedly examined the probable origin of the belief in ghosts, deriving that belief from the phenomena of dreams, of fainting, of shadows, of visions induced by hunger or by narcotics, and of death. To state Mr. Tylor’s theory briefly, and by way of an example, men reasoned themselves into a theory of ghosts after the manner of Achilles in the _Iliad_ (xxiii. 70-110). The unburied Patroclus appeared to his friend in a dream, and passed away, “And Achilles sprang up marvelling, and smote his hands together, and spake a word of woe: ‘Ay me, there remaineth then even in the house of Hades a spirit and phantom of the dead, albeit the life be not anywise therein; for all night long hath the spirit of hapless Patroclus stood over me, wailing and making moan, and charged me everything that I should do, and wondrous like his living self it seemed.’”