4.  A Mr. Harry, in the South of Europe, saw a white female figure glide through his library into his bedroom.  Later, his daughters beheld a similar phenomenon.  Mr. Harry, a gentleman of sturdy common-sense, ’dared his daughters to talk of any such nonsense as ghosts, as they might be sure apparitions were only in the imagination of nervous people’.  He himself saw the phantasm seven or eight times in his bedroom, and twice in the library.  On one occasion it lifted up the mosquito curtains and stared at Mr. Harry.  As in the case of meeting an avalanche, ’a weak-minded man would pray, sir, would pray; a strong-minded man would swear, sir, would swear’.  Mr. Harry was a strong-minded man, and behaved ’in a concatenation accordingly,’ although Petrus Thyraeus says that there is no use in swearing at ghosts.  The phantasm seemed to be about thirty-five, her features were described as ‘rather handsome,’ and (unromantically) as ‘oblong’.  A hallucination, we need hardly say, would not raise the mosquito curtains, this ghost had more heart in it than most.

5.  Various people see ’a column of light vaguely shaped like a woman,’ moving about in a room of a house in Sussex.  One servant, who slept in the room in hopes of a private view, saw ’a ball of light with a sort of halo round it’.  Again, in a very pretty story, the man who looked after an orphan asylum saw a column of light above the bed of one of the children.  Next morning the little boy declared that his mother had come to visit him, probably in a dream.

On this matter of lights {146} Mr. Podmore enters into argument with Mr. Frederick Myers.  Mr. Myers, on the whole, believes that the phenomena of haunted houses are caused by influences of some sort from the minds of the dead.  Mr. Podmore, if we understand him holds that some living person has had some empty hallucination, in a house, and that this is ‘telepathically’ handed on, perhaps to the next tenant, who may know nothing about either the person or the vision.  Thus, a Miss Morris, much vexed by ghostly experiences, left a certain house in December, 1886.  Nearly a year later, in November, 1887, a Mrs. G. came in.  Mrs. G. did not know Miss Morris, nor had she heard of the disturbances.  However sobs, and moans, and heavy thumps, and noises of weighty objects thrown about, and white faces, presently drove Mrs. G. to seek police protection.  This only roused the ghost’s ambition, and he ‘came’ as a man with freckles, also he walked about, shook beds, and exhibited lights.  A figure in black, with a white face, now displayed itself:  barristers and clergymen investigated, but to no purpose.  They saw figures, heard crashes, and the divine did a little Anglican exorcism.  The only story about the house showed that a woman had hanged herself with a skipping rope in the ‘top back bedroom,’ in 1879.  Here are plenty of phenomena, apparitions male and female.  But Miss Morris, in addition to hearing noises, only saw a pale woman in black.