Not because there are no spirits, for one case in a million of reported spectral phenomena, may be true, but _all_ are totally unreliable--that is, they lie--and the person who places the least confidence in them in one thousand instances, is sure to be deceived nine hundred and ninety-nine times, and only reach approximate truth and fact in the thousandth. Spiritualism is yet the great _non sequitur_ of the age, so far as the vast majority of mankind is concerned--for while one portion of its phenomena may be really spiritual, the remaining nine hundred and ninety-nine portions are referable to something else than human ghosts. Spiritualism has done no good whatever, save in that it has called attention to new directions, thereby stimulating the spirit of inquiry; but in itself it is yet far from being among the certainties. I here disavow all intention to deride true spirit phenomena, if such there be; nor do I question the transmundane life of man--for the belief in immortality is a part of my very being--but, while ignoring the claims, and deriding the absurd pretensions of the vast majority of modern Eolists and self-styled mediums, I repeat the question: Is there any positive means or ways whereby even a favored few can penetrate the mysterious veil that hangs like an iron pall between the great human multitude and the infinitely greater BEYOND? Is it possible to break through the awful barrier--to glimpse through the Night-Curtain that screens and shrouds us from the Phantom-World?--if such there be. “Deep the gulph that hides the dead-- Long and dark the way they tread.” Can we know it? Can we by any possibility scan its secrets? Nor are we alone in propounding questions such as these; for every intelligent person, at some period or other, puts them to himself and neighbor, but, in the majority of cases, vainly. The writer hereof, like the great mass of people, has often propounded these queries, the result being a confirmed and indurated scepticism--which scepticism was, almost ruthlessly, swept away by the extraordinary series of events about to be recorded in these pages. THE WONDERFUL STORY OF RAVALETTE. BOOK I. CHAPTER I. THE STRANGE MAN. “In the most high and palmy days of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets.” And he sat him down wearily by the side of the road. Wearily, for he had journeyed far that day. He was footsore, and his bodily powers were nearly exhausted by reason of the want and privation he had undergone. His looks were haggard, and a _pathetic_ pall, gloomy and tearful, hung and floated around him, invisible to, but sensibly felt by, all who lingered near, or gazed upon him. A sorrowful man was he.