in the wife's skull in another story is a turn of the screw of her horrid revenge. The revenge ghost in modern fiction is more varied in forms of manifestation, at times more subtle in suggestion and ghostly psychology, than the conventionalized type of the drama and remains one of the most dreadful of the forms of fear. [129] In _His Two Military Executions_. In general, the modern stories show a greater intensity of power in employing the motives that earlier forms had used as well as far greater range of motivation. The earlier ghosts were limited in their impulses, and their psychology was comparatively simple. Not so with the apparitions of to-day. They have a far wider range of motives, are moved by more complex impulses and mixed motivation in many cases difficult to analyze. The Gothic ghost had some conscience about whom he haunted. He had too much reserve to force himself needlessly upon those that had no connection with his past. If he knew someone that deserved punishment for wrong done him or his, he tried to haunt him and let others alone. The modern ghost is not so considerate. He is actuated in many cases by sheer evil that wreaks itself upon anyone in range. Death gives a terrible immortality and access of power to those whose lives have been particularly evil, and the results are dangerous to society. Dark discarnate hate manifests itself to those within reach. Algernon Blackwood would have us believe that all around us are reservoirs of unspeakable horror and that any moment of weakness on our part may bring down the hosts of damnation upon us. This is illustrated in such stories as _With Intent to Steal_, where the spirit of a man who has hanged himself comes back with hypnotic power forcing others to take their lives in the same way, or in another,[130] showing power exerted viciously against human beings in a certain building, or still another[131] where the witchcraft holds the village in thrall, and elsewhere. Ambrose Bierce, Bram Stoker, F. Marion Crawford, and Arthur Machen have written a number of stories bringing out this side of ghostly psychology, showing the bands of outlawed spirits that prey on society. There are spectral bandits and bravos that answer the call of any force hostile to man, or act of their own accord from an impulse of malicious mischief. [130] _The Empty House._ [131] _Secret Worship._