Papers from Overlook-House   By: Casper Almore

By Caspar Almore

PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 1866.

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY LETTER 5

CHAPTER I. ARRIVAL AT THE VILLAGE 13

CHAPTER II. THE WELCOME AT OVERLOOK HOUSE 18

CHAPTER III. THE CHRISTMAS LOG IN THE KITCHEN 33

CHAPTER IV. HOW THE OVERLOOK PAPERS CAME TO BE WRITTEN 47

I. DR. BENSON; OR THE LIVING MAN EMBALMED FOR TWENTY YEARS 51

II. THE GHOST AT FORD INN NESHAMONY 75

III. MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT BIOGRAPHY; OR, LITERATURE FOR A FAIR WIDOW 91

IV. KATYDIDS: A NEW CHAPTER IN NATURAL HISTORY 127

V. THE IMAGE MAKER 139

VI. THE CLOUDS 142

VII. THE PROTECTOR DYING 145

VIII. THE INDIAN DREAM CELL 149

IX. WILD FLOWERS GATHERED FOR MY WIFE 178

X. RIVERSDALE 181

XI. DR. SAMUEL STANHOPE SMITH AND THE HAUNTED HOUSE 198

XII. MRS. DIGBY'S ECONOMY 224

XIII. TO MY WIFE 236

XIV. FADING AWAY 237

INTRODUCTORY LETTER.

OVERLOOK HOUSE, October 10, 1864 .

MY DEAR FRIEND: At last, as if borne to you by some scape grace of a messenger, these papers, copied from the time discoloured manuscripts, so carefully preserved in the old book case, which with its dark lustre, its bright brass ornaments, is still the prominent object in our library, are destined to reach the hands into which they should long ago have been placed.

I well remember the evening on which you first heard of them, and listened to my attempt to read them to you; perplexed as I was with the faded lines, traced by fingers which can write no more.

You will not forget our drives, previously, during the day, and late in the afternoon, in consequence of my week day service in the old church. Perhaps the ancient edifice would need the excuse of days of architectural ignorance, but no Cathedral on earth can surpass it, in its claim to occupy a place amid scenes of surpassing beauty and sublimity. There it stands alone, on the slope of an immense hill, with the whole range of the mountains from the water gap to the wind gap full in view glorious walls to sustain the great blue dome of heaven! The great solitude of the road that winds along the grave yard, has often caused me to think of distant friends, and has riveted them to my soul with still more indissoluble bonds. And the Great Friend has been the great relief from oppressive loneliness, as I thus stood in one of the beautiful gates of the Eternal Temple. As to that quiet grave yard itself, the "rhetoric of the dead" is there well spoken, and they whose ashes are here deposited, do not find "second graves" in our short memories.