A Ghost Story by Lafcadio Hearn — Read

There are certain beliefs as old as the world, that have encountered more or less scepticism in all ages, and nevertheless endure to-day, -- beliefs based upon observations so excellently authenticated, and so strongly interresembling, whether made before Christ or in the present age of rail-roads and electricity, that the admission of their testimony in the great trial which metaphysical theories are undergoing in the court of Common Sense, cannot be refused. We refer especially to the belief in warnings, --premonitions of death, -- wraiths, --doubles, --all those singular superstitions connected with sudden decease, all those apparitions of inexplicable voices by which people at vast distances from home are weirdly informed of the loss of friends, or relatives, to whom they are particularly attached. An immense number of extraordinary books have been written upon this subject; and an enormous bulk of modern testimony collected in regard to it,--so much, indeed, that people have long since become more or less weary of the theme, the more so because every new statement obtained bears a tiresome resemblance to others familiar from childhood. Nevertheless, while we have all read about such things, very few of us believe in them; and although there are probably few adult readers of this paper who have not occasionally met with some one claiming to have had ghostly experience, there are also few who are willing to place credence in such assertions.

Nor does it matter much how generally trustworthy in other respects the person who makes the statement may be; in this particular matter either his veracity is apt to be doubted, or the soundness of his mental condition called into question. Finally, the numerous scientific explanations of mental and sensory delusions have been received with zeal by the public at large, who find in them a ready apology for summary condemnation of all weird experiences as totally unworthy of serious attention. It is possible, folks are apt to say, it is quite possible such things have appeared to certain persons, but only as musical or visual spectra--the results of diseased conditions of the nervous system.