THE SUPERNATURAL OMNIBUS Read Online Free PDF Page B

pages! In The Spirit of Turrettville two youths are attracted by the sound of mysterious music to a distant room, where they see a veiled figure softly touching the strings of a harp. As they advance, the apparition turns towards them "a grinning mouldering skull." Eventually it is discovered she is the living wife who thus endeavours to frighten the villain into a confession. Even in Vesuvia, where the mysterious incidents are puzzling but hardly supernatural, a very careful and rational explanation is provided.
    None the less, I would hasten to add that there are ghosts who haunt Gothic novels. T.J. Horsley-Curties scorned to tamper with the supernatural. Ancient Records, or, The Abbey of St. Oswyth, which is generally esteemed his best work, has spectres who shriek and moan and threaten the guilty to great effect. In the P reface to Ethelwina; or, The House of Fitz-Auburne he makes confession of his literary creed, and writes: "The Author of this Work . . . in one circumstance . . . has stepped beyond the modern writers of Romance, by introducing a Real Ghost — to many, such a circumstance will not appear unnatural or improbable; but he neither apologises, nor justifies on that ground — he only pleads the example of the immortal Bard of Avon, who found a spectre necessary for his purpose to heighten his story, or to 'harrow up the soul,' but never thought it necessary to account for the 'unreal mockery.'" In The Accusing Spirit a headless and mangled figure glides through the haunted convent, the tortured shade of the sinful Benedicta. The spirit of the old marquis appears in W.C. Proby's The Spirit of the Castle ; in The Priory of St. Clair, or, The Spectre of the Murdered Nun, the dead Julietta is nightly seen. There are literally dozens of romances in which ghosts play a great part. Thus we have Phantoms of the Cloyster; The Vindictive Spirit; The Spectre of Lamnere Abbey; The Spectre Mother; Eleanor, or The Spectre of St. Michel's; The Haunted Tavern; The Haunted Palace; The Haunted Priory; The Haunted Tower; and very many more. In fact, Mrs. Rachel Hunter felt constrained to name one of her novels Letitia: A Castle Without a Spectre , whilst the author of The Ghost and More Ghosts merrily dubbed himself Felix Phantom.
    Again, we have such popular romances as The Midnight Groan; or, The Spectre of the Chapel (1808), which "presents to view . . . a man spectre" and "a perfect skeleton"; The Convent Spectre , published in the same year; The Forest Phantom, or, The Golden Crucifix , in which a ghost in armour stands "visible on the top of a coffin" and exhibits "features blanched by the hand of death"; and Isaac Crookenden's Spectre of the Turret; or, Guolto Castle. There is also an amazing collection, Tales of Terror! or More Ghosts. Forming a Complete Phantasmagoria , which has the appropriate motto:
    Twelve o'clock's the Time of Night
     That the Graves, all gaping wide,
    Quick send forth the airy Sprite
     In the Churchway Path to glide.
    There was even published in 1823 Ghost Stories, Collected with a Particular View to Counteract the Vulgar Belief in Ghost and Apparitions, and to Promote a Rational Estimate of the Nature of Phenomena commonly considered as Supernatural. The book, now very rare, was issued by Ackermann, and the six coloured engravings with which it is embellished possess the greatest charm. In fact, they are far too good for their setting, inasmuch as the stories themselves, The Green Mantle of Venice, The Ghost of Larneville, The Village Apparition , and the rest, are extremely tame. Nothing could be more disappointing, since the titles promise most palatable fare. What could be more tempting than the Haunted Castle, or, The Ghost of Count Walkenried , or The Haunted Inn ? And it all fritters away into accounts of imposture, or somnambulism at the best. I protest this is not playing the game.
    In James Hogg's The Wool-Gatherer a man of vicious life is haunted by the wraiths of those whom he has