Books and Bookmen [13]
these were not the very words, but that was decidedly the
sentiment. Look at the Japanese infants, from the pencil of the
famous Hokusai. Though they are not British, were there ever two
jollier, happier small creatures? Did Leech, or Mr. Du Maurier, or
Andrea della Robbia ever present a more delightful view of innocent,
well-pleased childhood? Well, these Japanese children, if they are
in the least inclined to be timid or nervous, must have an awful
time of it at night in the dark, and when they make that eerie
"northwest passage" bedwards through the darkling house of which Mr.
Stevenson sings the perils and the emotions. All of us who did not
suffer under parents brought up on the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer
have endured, in childhood, a good deal from ghosts. But it is
nothing to what Japanese children bear, for our ghosts are to the
spectres of Japan as moonlight is to sunlight, or as water unto
whisky. Personally I may say that few people have been plagued by
the terror that walketh in darkness more than myself. At the early
age of ten I had the tales of the ingenious Mr. Edgar Poe and of
Charlotte Bronte "put into my hands" by a cousin who had served as a
Bashi Bazouk, and knew not the meaning of fear. But I DID, and
perhaps even Nelson would have found out "what fear was," or the boy
in the Norse tale would have "learned to shiver," if he had been
left alone to peruse 'Jane Eyre,' and the 'Black Cat,' and the 'Fall
of the House of Usher,' as I was. Every night I expected to wake up
in my coffin, having been prematurely buried; or to hear sighs in
the area, followed by light, unsteady footsteps on the stairs, and
then to see a lady all in a white shroud stained with blood and clay
stagger into my room, the victim of too rapid interment. As to the
notion that my respected kinsman had a mad wife concealed on the
premises, and that a lunatic aunt, black in the face with suppressed
mania, would burst into my chamber, it was comparatively a harmless
fancy, and not particularly disturbing. Between these and the
'Yellow Dwarf,' who (though only the invention of the Countess
D'Aulnoy) might frighten a nervous infant into hysterics, I
personally had as bad a time of it in the night watches as any happy
British child has survived. But our ogres are nothing to the bogies
which make not only night but day terrible to the studious infants
of Japan and China.
Chinese ghosts are probably much the same as Japanese ghosts. The
Japanese have borrowed most things, including apparitions and
awesome sprites and grisly fiends, from the Chinese, and then have
improved on the original model. Now we have a very full, complete,
and horror-striking account of Chinese harnts (as the country people
in Tennessee call them) from Mr. Herbert Giles, who has translated
scores of Chinese ghost stories in his 'Strange Tales from a Chinese
Studio' (De la Rue, 1880). Mr. Giles's volumes prove that China is
the place for Messrs. Gurney and Myers, the secretaries of the
Psychical Society.
Ghosts do not live a hole-and-corner life in China, but boldly come
out and take their part in the pleasures and business of life. It
has always been a question with me whether ghosts, in a haunted
house, appear when there is no audience. What does the spectre in
the tapestried chamber do when the house is NOT full, and no guest
is put in the room to bury strangers in, the haunted room? Does the
ghost sulk and complain that there is "no house," and refuse to
rehearse his little performance, in a conscientious and
disinterestedly artistic spirit, when deprived of the artist's true
pleasure, the awakening of sympathetic emotion in the mind of the
spectator? We give too little thought and sympathy to ghosts, who
in our old castles and country houses often find no one to appear to
from year's end to year's-end. Only now and then is a guest placed
in the "haunted room." Then I like to fancy the glee of the lady in
green or the radiant boy, or the headless man, or the old gentleman
in snuff-coloured
sentiment. Look at the Japanese infants, from the pencil of the
famous Hokusai. Though they are not British, were there ever two
jollier, happier small creatures? Did Leech, or Mr. Du Maurier, or
Andrea della Robbia ever present a more delightful view of innocent,
well-pleased childhood? Well, these Japanese children, if they are
in the least inclined to be timid or nervous, must have an awful
time of it at night in the dark, and when they make that eerie
"northwest passage" bedwards through the darkling house of which Mr.
Stevenson sings the perils and the emotions. All of us who did not
suffer under parents brought up on the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer
have endured, in childhood, a good deal from ghosts. But it is
nothing to what Japanese children bear, for our ghosts are to the
spectres of Japan as moonlight is to sunlight, or as water unto
whisky. Personally I may say that few people have been plagued by
the terror that walketh in darkness more than myself. At the early
age of ten I had the tales of the ingenious Mr. Edgar Poe and of
Charlotte Bronte "put into my hands" by a cousin who had served as a
Bashi Bazouk, and knew not the meaning of fear. But I DID, and
perhaps even Nelson would have found out "what fear was," or the boy
in the Norse tale would have "learned to shiver," if he had been
left alone to peruse 'Jane Eyre,' and the 'Black Cat,' and the 'Fall
of the House of Usher,' as I was. Every night I expected to wake up
in my coffin, having been prematurely buried; or to hear sighs in
the area, followed by light, unsteady footsteps on the stairs, and
then to see a lady all in a white shroud stained with blood and clay
stagger into my room, the victim of too rapid interment. As to the
notion that my respected kinsman had a mad wife concealed on the
premises, and that a lunatic aunt, black in the face with suppressed
mania, would burst into my chamber, it was comparatively a harmless
fancy, and not particularly disturbing. Between these and the
'Yellow Dwarf,' who (though only the invention of the Countess
D'Aulnoy) might frighten a nervous infant into hysterics, I
personally had as bad a time of it in the night watches as any happy
British child has survived. But our ogres are nothing to the bogies
which make not only night but day terrible to the studious infants
of Japan and China.
Chinese ghosts are probably much the same as Japanese ghosts. The
Japanese have borrowed most things, including apparitions and
awesome sprites and grisly fiends, from the Chinese, and then have
improved on the original model. Now we have a very full, complete,
and horror-striking account of Chinese harnts (as the country people
in Tennessee call them) from Mr. Herbert Giles, who has translated
scores of Chinese ghost stories in his 'Strange Tales from a Chinese
Studio' (De la Rue, 1880). Mr. Giles's volumes prove that China is
the place for Messrs. Gurney and Myers, the secretaries of the
Psychical Society.
Ghosts do not live a hole-and-corner life in China, but boldly come
out and take their part in the pleasures and business of life. It
has always been a question with me whether ghosts, in a haunted
house, appear when there is no audience. What does the spectre in
the tapestried chamber do when the house is NOT full, and no guest
is put in the room to bury strangers in, the haunted room? Does the
ghost sulk and complain that there is "no house," and refuse to
rehearse his little performance, in a conscientious and
disinterestedly artistic spirit, when deprived of the artist's true
pleasure, the awakening of sympathetic emotion in the mind of the
spectator? We give too little thought and sympathy to ghosts, who
in our old castles and country houses often find no one to appear to
from year's end to year's-end. Only now and then is a guest placed
in the "haunted room." Then I like to fancy the glee of the lady in
green or the radiant boy, or the headless man, or the old gentleman
in snuff-coloured