The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-SeersCrowe, Catherine
Religion
The Night-Side of Nature; Or, Ghosts and Ghost-Seers
Crowe, Catherine
Ghosts; Parapsychology
A circumstance of a very singular nature is asserted to have occurred,
not very many years back, in regard to a professor in the college of
A——, who had seduced a girl and married another woman. The girl became
troublesome to him; and being found murdered, after having been last
seen in his company, he was suspected of being some way concerned in the
crime. But the strange thing is, that, from that period, he retired
every evening at a particular hour to a certain room, where he stayed a
great part of the night, and where it was declared that _her_ voice was
distinctly heard in conversation with him: a strange, wild story, which
I give as I have it, without pretending to any explanation of the belief
that seems to have prevailed, that he was obliged to keep this fearful
tryst.
Visitations of this description—which seem to indicate that the
deceased person is still, in some way incomprehensible to us, an
inhabitant of the earth—are more perplexing than any of the stories I
meet with. In the time of Frederick II. of Prussia, the cook of a
catholic priest residing at a village named Quarrey, died, and he took
another in her place; but the poor woman had no peace or rest from the
interference of her predecessor, insomuch that she resigned her
situation, and the minister might almost have done without any servant
at all. The fires were lighted, and the rooms swept and arranged, and
all the needful services performed, by unseen hands. Numbers of people
went to witness the phenomena, till at length the story reached the ears
of the king, who sent a captain and a lieutenant of his guard to
investigate the affair. As they approached the house, they found
themselves preceded by a march, though they could see no musicians; and
when they entered the parlor and witnessed what was going on, the
captain exclaimed: “If that doesn’t beat the devil!” upon which he
received a smart slap on the face, from the invisible hand that was
arranging the furniture.
In consequence of this affair, the house was pulled down, by the king’s
orders, and another residence built for the minister at some distance
from the spot.
Now, to impose on Frederick II. would have been no slight matter, as
regarded the probable consequences; and the officers of his guard would
certainly not have been disposed to make the experiment; and it is not
likely that the king would have ordered the house to be pulled down
without being thoroughly satisfied of the truth of the story.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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