The sociable ghost : $b Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.Harper, Olive
Science
The sociable ghost : $b Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.
Harper, Olive
American fiction -- 20th century; Ghost stories
"You are not the only one to have a rise taken out of you, for I had a
little of that sort of experience myself," said another ghost with a very
long under jaw. "I, too, liked to lay down the law for all my family to
obey. My wife was generally a meek little soul, and never questioned my
right to order even the most trifling things. But, at last she revolted
and one day during protracted meetings when two clergymen and the
vestryman of our church were at my house to dinner and we were all in
the parlor waiting for it to be ready, she opened the door half way and
crept timidly into the parlor, with a meek and browbeaten air, and asked
permission of me to breathe through her mouth as her nose was stopped
up."
Everybody within hearing laughed at this, but the ghost who had told it,
and he glared at the first speaker, but they happened to think of
something else and calmed down. One of them turned to the reporter,
saying: "Is there anything that you would like to know more than we have
told you?"
"Yes; you said that you could float around and see all that is going on.
I should like to know if any one of your friends feels or in any way
recognizes your presence?"
"They do not. We are intangible and invisible, and there is nothing to
show them that we are there, and the most ridiculous side of it is that
every one would be scared nearly to death if he or she knew that there
was a spirit in the room. Then is the time that they need have the least
fear, for there is nothing of us that could do the least possible harm."
"Are there no persons whose natures are so attuned to the spiritual life
that they can see you or feel your presence, and keep silent?"
"If there is one I do not know him or her, and frankly, I do not think
that any one ever saw a spirit. There is nothing to see. As to the return
of disembodied spirits to their old habitations, that is certainly true,
but no one knows it or can know it, and so it does no harm and no special
good."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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