Status Updates From Ghosts I Have Seen and Othe...

A medley of Ghosts Tweedale Has Seen™:

• A satyr! Invisibly following a nobleman around Nice.

• A gigantic - wingless - angel hovering beatifically over Lourdes, 'wrapped entirely in cloudy grey'.

• 'An elemental of a malignant type, and of grotesque form,' in a hotel room in Austria: a greyish-green, 'frog-like head' with 'bright yellow eyes'.

• For an encore: a dozen tiny ape-like imps playing leapfrog.

'Again I was confronted by the mirror problem. I had become certain that it must remain covered. If I looked into its surface I knew I would see something horrible. Something kept whispering to me, "Never mind how you look, never mind if your bodice is all awry, or your skirt all askew, or your hair all bulging out on one side. [...] Keep the mirror covered and when you come up to bed keep your back to the wall."'

'What can one do when paying a visit if one is ushered into a bedroom by one's hostess which one instantly knows to be "unhealthful"? [...] "I think you will be comfortable here, my dear," said my kind hostess, and I thanked her with a sinking heart as she went away[.]

'The very first thing I did was to throw a towel over the face of the mirror on the dressing-table. Then I investigated every nook and corner.'

'Chapter XIII: I Commit Murder.'

'There is a wine of happiness in tranquil daybreak[.]'

'Sure enough, about an hour earlier this time, the unknown, unseen visitor began his ascent of my staircase. I cannot describe my feelings during those moments of waiting for 'it' to pass. I can only say they were intensely unpleasant, and I hope I may never again have to confess myself to be a wretched coward. A burglar would at that moment have appeared to me in the guise of a dear friend.'

Another tall tale - this time, not ghostly but merely ghoulish. Our Heroine sits up all night with a dying prostitute, and is alarmed - upon waking from what she believes to be a light doze - to find that not only has the woman died, but a second woman has been murdered next door - by Jack the Ripper:

'Portions of the unfortunate woman were neatly arranged on a deal table. I had heard absolutely nothing.'

'The figure moved softly round the room; it made no sound whatever, and as it came to each sleeper it bent down, as if closely scrutinizing each face. It occurred to me that it was looking for someone. I began to dread the moment when the search was over, and the figure would turn its face towards me.'

'When I was once more alone with Madame Blavatsky[,] I asked her if all she had done was pure trickery.

'"Not all, but most of it," she unblushingly replied, "but now I will give you something lovely and real."

'For a moment or two she was silent, covering her eyes with her hand, then a sound caught my ear. I can only describe what I heard as fairy music, exquisitely dainty and original.'

'The next morning I met Valori, alone[.] After a little trivial conversation I said, "By the way, who is that brown man, dressed like a Satyr, who has been with you lately?"

'I watched Valori's face as I put the question, and as I saw the change that came over it I felt very sorry and ashamed of having spoken. He looked so utterly dejected and miserable.

'"You also?" he muttered, then fell to silence.'

Tall tale from Nice! A certain Prince Valori is constantly followed by a man dressed as a satyr, and only Violet can see him:

'Lowering her voice, she said, "Why, how interesting! Don't you know that is his 'Familiar' who is constantly in attendance upon him. People say they became attached whilst he was attending a 'Sabbath' in the Vosges, and he can't get rid of it[.] The clairvoyantes here all know about it[.]'

Dragging an inert trance medium (size: extra large) into another room proves less of a challenge than one might think:

'This was the only time in my life that I had the opportunity of proving to myself how tremendously a medium loses weight whilst genuine manifestations are in progress. I found it quite easy to lift this woman, who in ordinary circumstances must have weighed at least twelve or thirteen stone.'

In a weird coincidence, Tweedale turns out to be the granddaughter of Robert Chambers - with his brother William, an editor of and contributor to the other Old Book™ I bought this month: Shipwrecks and Tales of the Sea.

'Creak, groan, crash! No mistaking the spot where that deafening sound came from. That was the old mahogany wardrobe being hurled face downwards on the floor, but whilst our eyes were riveted on its statuesque and utter immobility jingle, clank, from the fender, where the fire-irons commenced to jig.'

'Rumpus' consists of the clear sound of the furniture in the room being smashed:

'Rushing collisions, and rappings on the window-panes, thuds on the floor, rattlings and clatterings of crockery, jingling of brass, creakings and groanings of expostulation from the old sofa, clanking of the fireguard, a veritable tornado of noise, enough surely to awaken the dead, yet out of the living it only awakened - us.'

Tweedale's earliest experiences are dubbed 'silk dress' and 'rumpus'. 'Silk dress' is the disembodied sound of footsteps and rustling silk, ascending the stairs:

'Just as we were dropping off to sleep one of us would murmur drowsily, "Here comes silk dress." [...] What interested us enormously was the fact that we never heard "it" descend again. How "it" got down in order to mount once more was a great puzzle.'

these old books take whet feels like forever to get through.