GHOST STORIES

Evening Star, Issue 20666, 13 December 1930, Page 4

GHOST STORIES

THEIR PLACE IN LITERATURE THE FASCINATION OF THE UNKNOWN [Written by F.M., for the ‘ Evening Star.’] ■ “ ‘ A grave and dark clad company,’ Cjuoth Goodman Brown.”—Nathaniel Hawthorne. For want of a better name we must call it the ghost story. Its place in literature cannot be ignored, tor ever since the Fall of Man the sons of Adam have probed and dabbled in the hidden things and have endeavoured to hit the veil past which they could not sec. Occasionally a corner of the curtain has been raised and the intrepid inquirer has started back affrighted and awed, to whisper of tin things he saw and whet the curiosity of his eager listeners. There is a chord in the human frame that vibrates so exquisitely to a ghostly touch, and it is this characteristic that has kept alive many a grim legend and has fostered innumerable superstitions that date from the Middle Ages and 'earlier. The modern tendency is to accept any supernatural incident cum grano sails, but deep within us is an ecstatic hope that it might bo true. Truly, from the warmth and comfort of a fireside chair we like to feel our flesh creep as the teller of tales weaves his gruesome yarn, and we draw our chairs closer in a perfect orgy of horror as we fancy that the howling wind outside is really the shriek of the banshee as she glares momentarily through the window pane. Aware of this peculiar trait in human nature, writers of every generation have exploited the unseen, with the knowledge that when the brain grows weary with Macaulay, when talcs of mundane affairs are conducive only to lethargy, when one is moved to handle the 'modern novel with a pair of tongs, and when comedy has a hollow ring, there is to bo found in Poe’s tales, in Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ambrose Bierce, Algernon Blackwood, Lord Lytton, and Brain Stoker that strange unworldliness that carries the imagination into the realms of darkness, borne on the wings of fear.

Is there a better type of story to read aloud than the ghost story ? What wonderful opportunities it offers for vocal inflexion, for elocutionary skill! What a luxurious thrill for the reader as he watches the effect on his listeners! —how they hang on his words, - how they shudder and tremble, how the young lady in the corner, usually so cold and aloof, clutches the -arm of' her devoted admirer, how the devoted admirer pats her hand reassuringly, and how their hands finally remain clasped. Oh, yes, the ghost story serves a very useful purpose, too. The reader, if he has any •skill at all, is a man of power. The talo is his own/ the author a nonentity. The reader knows that, when the grisly climax, is reached, and_ tho book is closed-with a snap, the pictures ho has conjured up will linger in the minds of the company, as they disperse for the night, and the benighted traveller will possibly feel like the man in the ‘ Ancient Mariner ’ who . : . Walks on And turns no more his head, Because lie knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. THE NECESSARY INGREDIENTS. • * ' *0 What is the secret of the ghost story? A careful analysis of the works of the best writers is enlightening. In nearly all cases the author leaves room in his tale for‘a reasonable doubt, a rational explanation, but so slender a one'as .to bo almost impracticable. Briefly, then, it is the suggestion rather than the direct statement that, proves so effective- A well told ghost stopy leaves the. reader with a vague sense that his curiosity has not -been appeased—all that is left is the shudder. Montague R. James, in his introduction to a compilation of these stories under the caption ‘ Ghosts and Marvels,’ says: “Two ingredients most valuable in the concocting of tho ghost story are, to me, the atmosphere and the nicely managed crescendo. I assume, of course, that tho writer will have got his central idea before he undertakes tho story at all. Let us, then, bo introduced to the actors in a placid .way; lot us see them going about their ordinary business, undisturbed by forebodings, pleased with their surroundings; and into this calnv environment let tho ominous thing put out its head, unobtrusively at first, and then more insistently, until it holds the stage. It is not amiss sometimes to leave a loophole for a natural explanation ; but. J would say, let the loophole bo so narrow as not to be quite practicable. . . , For the ghost story a slight haze of distance js desirable. ‘Thirty years ago,’ ‘Not,long before the war’ tiro.very proper openings.”

If the foregoing may be taken as a technical foundation oil'which to build a ghost story a review of some of the best-known tales will disclose that W, W. Jacobs’s 'The ‘Monkey’s Paw’ is a remarkable illustration of a story that is true to pattern. Told with a masterly skill, it is also, a singular example of the value _ of simplicity in words. An examination of the texture of the tale reveals a refreshing absence of adjectives, which goes to show that a dramatic effect can bo obtained without resource to this rather overworked part of speech.' Nobody can deny the power of ‘The Monkey’s Paw,’ whicli is recognised as one of the best short stories in the English lan-, guage. Jacobs begins his story with a game of chess between father and son—a placid enough opening not at all suggestive of the subsequent events. Into this domestic atmosphere steps 'ho stranger, a commonplace, ruddy-vis-aged sergeant-major, who has _ seen service in India. The introduction of India brings the conversation round to the mysteries of the East, and the sergeant-major reluctantly displays the monkey’s paw around which a.fakir has woven a curse. “It had a spell put on it by an old fakir,” said the sergeant-major, “ a very holy man. Ho wanted to show that fate ruled people’s lives, and that those who interfered wth it did so to their sorrow. He put a spell on it so that three separate mon could each have three wishes from it. _ . . . The first man had hist throe wishes. I don’t know what the first two wore, but the third was for death. That’s how I got the paw.” In showing how the paw grants the three wishes of the elderly couple the story mounts in an unwavering crescendo to a climaxt-of clammy horror, the more terrible because of the grim inference that concludes the incident. The author pays a subtle compliment to his reader by crediting him with an imagination. Jacobs js, of course, best known for his humorous stories of the London waterfront, so that the sudden appearance in a volume of his characteristic yarns, of a story seething with horror bas rather a breath-taking effect. Persephone must have known the sensation a: millionfold when Pluto and bis sable horses confronted her among tbc glorious yellow daffodils.

Now let us turn to another master of ghost stories —Edgar .Allan Poe. No leavening of humour here! A dark man, this, with a doctrine of hopelessness in his own'life that coloured his whole works. A child of genius, more fitted to give voice to the fantasies that crowded his sombro brain! It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast in character and expression than between Poo and Jacobs. Poo’s tales are highly coloured and fantastic—poetical in their wild flights cf imagination and beautiful in their texture. A true mystic. Jacobs reaches his point by the shortest route—no incursions into the realms of fancy, no indulgence in the music of words. Just a master narrator is here, with a stylo reminiscent of De Maupassant and O. Henry. He is essentially modern. Who lias failed to revel in the horrors of Marion Crawford’s ‘ Uncanny Tales ’ P Who has not shivered at the stark grnesomoness of ‘The Upper Berth ’ and ‘ The Dead Smile ’ ? Certainly such titles like the last and -ike ‘ The Screaming Skid! ' are more likely to raise a smile by their very dreadfulness, but it is a smile that is guaranteed to alter in character before the tale is done. ‘The Upper Berth’ is woven round a concrete reality, a repulsive something that occupies the upper berth in a cabin, which cannot be explained, identified, or classified. ‘The Dead Smile,’ on the other .hand, is based on a malign influence, and lias a gorgeous setting, among vaults, crypts, tombs, and embalmed corpses. ‘DRACULA.’ Mention has already been made of Brain Stoker, the author of ‘Dracula.’ This tale, -written in diary form, is a vivid account of experiences in Europe and England -with a master vampire—one of those legendary creatures that command a prominent place in the superstitions and the folklore of the Central European countries. Here is a tale that is sheer horror. The supernatural element is not suggested only, but is accepted from the beginning, and iii telling of Jonathan Marker's efforts, and those of his wife Mina and of Dr Seward, to stamp out, in face of ghastly .odds, the foul legion of tho undead who prey upon tho living. Stoker has produced a hook that for its descriptive qualifies and its remarkable scenic backgrounds ranks high among the sensational “ghost” stories of the world, ft has been condemned by some critics as a “shocker,” a “ penny .dreadful.” Well who, picking it up, has put it down unread? With every page the render’s admiration for that stalwart little band, so quietly determined to rid the earth of tho terrible Count Dracula, grows. There lingers in the writer’s memory, after many years, the vivid scene where Jonathan Harker, gazing into space from his prison in the great castle, discovers those whirling specks of light which, dancing madly in the rays of the moon, gradually take definite form until there emerge from the nebulae the three ghastly sisters—and Jonathan, terror stricken, flees to tho innermost recesses of the gloomy castle. Far fetched, of course. What ghost story isn’t? And what is the origin of these far-fetched tales? In most cases it is legend, and legends that have grown with a nation are not to be lightly scouted. One of the accepted writers of ghost stories to-day is Algernon Blackwood, whose writing indicates that he has graduated _ through the hard school of workaday journalism. Blackwood is another visionary whose work often betrays wild flights of fancy, but is woven with tho consummate skill of a master. Of elemental and Satanic influences he writes, and his best known work. ‘ John Silence,’ is a good example or his style. John Silence is a psychic Sherlock Holmes—a man who hunts clown and “lays” evil and mischievous spirits and elementals, and even the most hardened sceptic must follpw. his adventures with eager interest, knowing that they are based on profound beliefs. A notable example of Blackwood’s short stories is ‘ The 'Willows,’ a story that admits of no 1 ordeal explanation, and which suggests the proximity cf an outside power of which the word “ ghostly ” is a totally inadequate description. ‘ Ancient Sorceries,’ relating the adventures of a wayfarer who finds himself in a where the populace turn by night into gigantic cats and dance “to the sweet and fearful fantasy of evil,” seems to have a back ground of legend to it. Woven inextricably among the mundane things of man’s life, then, is this woof of mysticism, and the lure of it is irresistible. Charlatans undertake to disclose the secrets of black magic, and they are never lacking in custom. People scoff and laugh at the credulity of their fellows, but what man or woman _ alive is not swayed by ■ some superstition of other? The plain fact is that human nature cannot leave well alone, and must play with fire. Devils are invoked, and, 10, the inquisitive one is in their clutches before he can step hack into his pentacle. It was easy enough, apparently, to fall into the power of tho evil folk. and wizards and alchemists relied on certain cabalistic signs to safeguard them during incantations. The space within a pen* tnelo was supposed to be immune from even the most potent spirit, and there wore other signs of varying degrees of usefulness according to the circumstance. English literature is f«-ll of reference to these formulae exorcising the hosts of evil, and some of these are practised by. John Silence in tho course qf his^ uncanny work. Associated with these is tho partaking of food from tho fairy folk, .which is supposed to place the participant completely under their power. There is tho fair youth in Coleridge’s ‘ Knbla Khan.’ “ . . . weave a circle round him

thrice And dose your eyes with holy dread For he on honoy-dew lias fed And drunk the milk of Paradise.” A LEGACY OF THE AGES.

' It is a singular fact that not one country in tho world has not a definite collection of legends distinctive to itself. Even tho United States, with comparatively few years of history, has its national ghosts. Central Jiurojio has its vampires and were wolves, England its mansion ghosts, its grey ladies and its headless apparitions, and Scotland its fairies who make merry on May Day Eve. Scottish ghost stories are bleak and cold and invested with a frozen horror comparable with tho 'mournful winds that sweep among tho Highlands. Shrouds and all the ghastly cerements of the dead figure prominently in Scottish ballad and folk lore. , Ireland has tho banshee, tho nightmare woman whoso eldritch shriek through the windows on stormy nights conveys a foreboding of doom to those huddled within. With all this rich stock of legend, superstition, and folk loro to draw from—ami this article has but touched tho fringe—it is surprising that “ ghost ” stories are written by those seeking to give expression to dormant memories that aro the legacy of tho ages, tho heirlooms of tho race. At all events, they are read, with avidity hy those who lotig for something Jess matter of ,fact than share market quotations, trade, conventions, League of Nations, and sex novels. Just as the pentacle was the means of keeping at a distance the Powers of Darkness, so can the ghost story defeat the grim spectro of boredom and nausea lhat lurks in tho pages of many a modern novel to-day. Even the works of Shakespeare teem wjtli ghosts and spirits, and if further justification were needed for the ghost story, here it is:—.,

Hermionc: Pray you, sit by us and toll’s a tale. Mamilius- Merry or sad shall’t be? Her.: As meriy as you will. Mam.; A sad tale’s best for winter; I have one of sprites and goblins. Hor. r Let’s have that, good sir. Como on, sit clown; come on, and do your best to fright me with your sprites; you’re powerful at it. Mam.: There was a man— Her.: Nay, come, sit down: then on. Mam.: Dwelt by a churchyard; I will toll it softly;' yond crickets shall not hear it. Her.: Como on; then, and give’t me in mine ear.