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Haunted and the Haunters By: Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) |
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TO WHICH IS ADDED, THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS. BY EDWARD BULWER LYTTON ( LORD LYTTON .)
"To doubt and to be astonished is to recognize our ignorance. Hence it
is that the lover of wisdom is in a certain sort a lover of mythi
[Greek: phylomythos pôs], for the subject of mythi is the astonishing
and marvellous." SIR W. HAMILTON (after Aristotle), Lectures on
Metaphysics , vol. i. p. 78.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. 1897. THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS;
OR, THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN. A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to
me one day, as if between jest and earnest, "Fancy! since we last met
I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London." "Really haunted, and by what? ghosts?" "Well, I can't answer that question; all I know is this: six weeks ago
my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment. Passing a quiet
street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, 'Apartments,
Furnished.' The situation suited us; we entered the house, liked the
rooms, engaged them by the week, and left them the third day. No
power on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I
don't wonder at it." "What did you see?" "Excuse me; I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious
dreamer, nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my
affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence
of your own senses. Let me only say this, it was not so much what we
saw or heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupes
of our own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that
drove us away, as it was an undefinable terror which seized both of us
whenever we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in which
we neither saw nor heard anything. And the strangest marvel of all
was, that for once in my life I agreed with my wife, silly woman
though she be, and allowed, after the third night, that it was
impossible to stay a fourth in that house. Accordingly, on the fourth
morning I summoned the woman who kept the house and attended on us,
and told her that the rooms did not quite suit us, and we would not
stay out our week." She said dryly, "I know why; you have stayed
longer than any other lodger. Few ever stayed a second night; none
before you a third. But I take it they have been very kind to you." "'They, who?' I asked, affecting to smile. "'Why, they who haunt the house, whoever they are. I don't mind them.
I remember them many years ago, when I lived in this house, not as a
servant; but I know they will be the death of me some day. I don't
care, I'm old, and must die soon anyhow; and then I shall be with
them, and in this house still.' The woman spoke with so dreary a
calmness that really it was a sort of awe that prevented my conversing
with her further. I paid for my week, and too happy were my wife and I
to get off so cheaply." "You excite my curiosity," said I; "nothing I should like better than
to sleep in a haunted house. Pray give me the address of the one which
you left so ignominiously." My friend gave me the address; and when we parted, I walked straight
towards the house thus indicated. It is situated on the north side of Oxford Street, in a dull but
respectable thoroughfare. I found the house shut up, no bill at the
window, and no response to my knock. As I was turning away, a
beer boy, collecting pewter pots at the neighboring areas, said to me,
"Do you want any one at that house, sir?" "Yes, I heard it was to be let." "Let! why, the woman who kept it is dead, has been dead these three
weeks, and no one can be found to stay there, though Mr. J offered
ever so much. He offered mother, who chars for him, £1 a week just to
open and shut the windows, and she would not." "Would not! and why?" "The house is haunted; and the old woman who kept it was found dead in
her bed, with her eyes wide open... Continue reading book >>
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