The sociable ghost Being the adventures of a reporter who was invited by the sociable ghost to a grand banquet, ball, and convention under the ground of old Trinity churchyard. A true tale of the things he saw and did not see while he was not there.
be made the playthings of an idle hour. Oh, if we could only advise our
earthly sisters! Let us form a union—a strong union—and make our
displeasure felt at this outrageous infidelity. I will be president,”
There were murmurs of various kinds, none of them very distinct, and
then the lady continued;
“All of you who are in favor of the movement hold up your hands.”
One large and still imposing woman ostentatiously folded her hands, and
several of the others followed her lead and kept their hands down. The
would-be president said:
“Madam, may I ask you if you have any personal objection to me?”
“None at all,” was the reply.
“Then I beg that you will reconsider your antagonistic attitude and
raise your hand with the rest. Or, if you have any objection, please
state it.”
“I'll be tail to no one’s kite, and don’t you forget it.”
This blunt reply caused three or four men who had unnoticed gathered
around, to break out into their queer crackling laughter, and this so
incensed the would-be president that she walked away in a most dignified
manner. The young man found that he had unconsciously formed the nucleus
of a group of men, and he felt glad of it, for there were several things
that he felt he must learn before the end of the evening. So as these
men seemed to him to be kindly disposed, he said to one of them:
“I could not help hearing the complaints of those ladies, and it would
give me the liveliest pleasure if I could learn something more of all
this reunion. And, so far as I could judge by my own short experience
and observation, women are quite as apt to remarry as men. I think they
are a little harsh in their judgment.”
“You are right, young man,” said a fine, intellectual-looking ghost,
“but there is something to be said on the other side. Women marry
oftener than men after being widowed. If anything is said they claim a
dozen reasons why it became a necessity. Being left alone and without
support, they have to marry. If they have money they need someone to
take care of it. Now I was married, and I assure you that had she died,
I should have gone to my grave mourning for her. She promised me on my
deathbed that she would not give any man even enough encouragement to
allow him to ask her hand. I died content, and felt sure that some time
we would be united in that better land. I willed her everything I had.
By George! She came to my grave one day with a bunch of flowers and
began to cry and tell me that she was lonely, and that she had seen a man
who could cheer her up, and asked my consent to her marriage with him.
Of course I could not speak to say no, and the artful minx took my
silence as a tacit consent. Then she called me all sorts of a noble and
generous man, and went off. The next day she came back with the silliest
looking chump you ever saw, and she said to me lying there helpless down
below: “Jim, you know that I promised you that I would never let any man
propose to me, so now to show you that I have kept my word, I ask you,
Reginald-Ethelbert, to be my husband.” I was cured of all my infatuation
for her as soon as I saw what kind of a man she thought so noble and so
grand. They are both old now, and if I had wanted revenge, I could have
had it, for they are about as well suited to each other as a cat and
dog. It is better not to ask any promises, for a woman will find some
way to get out of them, and it is still better not to regard wedlock as
an indissoluble tie, for death does dissolve it, and we have been told
that in Heaven there is no marrying or giving in marriage.”
This was a new and comforting idea for the young man, and he began to
feel that after all this life is short, and that it might not be long
before the foreign count would be no more to the girl he loved so
hopelessly than himself. Then he asked the ghost:
“Will you kindly tell me, sir, on what ground men and women meet in the
sphere where you all ultimately go?”
“There are many things which we who are still in this intermediate
existence do not know, but it is the general opinion that we shall meet
upon one platform of spiritual goodness, and be just friends.
"In life, if you think it over, there is nothing so sweet and worthy as
true friendship, and that obtains also in the world of spirits. There
we shall all be friends, true and faithful in the deepest meaning of the
word. We shall find the most exquisite pleasure in working for others,
and as we are devoted and self-sacrificing toward others, so will others
be to us, and in that way the peace and good will will so permeate all
that the whole atmosphere will be charged with the utmost delight.”
“According to that belief there will be no love making, and those who
believed in their love for each other will not feel the same kind of
sentiment in the other world?”
“My young friend, as you now understand it, there is no love. There are
on earth natural selections, or affinities, and there are personal
attractions, and there are other and less noble instincts; vanity,
interest, and a hundred other mental conditions which we bunch together
and call love. All of these, singly or collectively, are disappointing
from beginning to end. They are the cause of more crime and misery than
words can tell. Love, as we call it, is of this world, and is not
perfect. Eliminate the word love and put in its place pure and true
friendship, and we have heaven. Heaven, do you understand?”
“Some persons would prefer the world and the love that makes it turn
around,” said the newspaper man rather flippantly, yet at the same
moment he felt a great throb of pain as the vision of the beautiful girl
he so hopelessly loved flashed through his mind. The ghost, with a
gentle bend of his head, said:
“You are thinking of Miss _____, and being also of the earth my words
fall upon impatient ears, but there will come a day when all earthly
desire shall have faded from your mind and heart, you will find that a
pure and sweet friendship is far more satisfying than any present love
could be. So keep your heart pure and be true to yourself, and your time
of probation will be short. She will be there before you, and when your
heart is laid bare before her—”
“But I said nothing about any young lady,” said the young man, half
frightened as he suddenly remembered that fact.
“I know you did not,” replied the ghost, “We do not require that anyone
should speak, though we do talk to each other, but that is more from
force of habit than necessity. And, especially where the theme is one of
deep import, one uplifting in its subject, we simply sense what another
would say.”
“Sir,” said the reporter, “I should be glad of any information that you
can conscientiously give me about life after death and the future
existence.”
“It is a natural sentiment, but I fear there is little left for you to
know. You have been permitted to penetrate to the abode of the dead and
to behold all there is to see. You find that men and women can come out
of their coffins, walk about and converse, eat and drink, and later you
may see them at their penance. You have probably noticed that they are
all possessed of a certain resemblance to what they were in life—that
is, they have their bony structure still, and something of their
personality, and much of their disposition. So long as the bones do not
decay they must stay under the conditions as you see them. The decay of
the bones seems to be regulated by the character of the owner of them,
and the use he made of them in his lifetime. So long as there is any of
the material part of the body left the spirit is chained to it, though
it may leave it for a time when the spiritual longing is stronger than
the material in the bones. When we get our passports the whole
dissolves, and we here long for that consummation. Ah, much more than I
can tell you.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE GHOSTS TELL STORIES, AND COMPARE NOTES
At this moment another ghost came up and joined in the conversation and
said impressively: "Young gentleman, you are having the most remarkable
experience of your life. You want to see all you can, for probably never
before did man come down and see the dead as they really are—before they
get their passports. Certainly some live persons do come down
occasionally, but they do not count, for they are only those who are
buried alive, and they do not get out, as they do not as a rule live
long. All these ghosts are dead of body, but are not sufficiently
purified in soul to go free from the hindrance of bones. So they all,
men and women alike, are burdened with many of their old
characteristics, and in many ways they act much as they did during life.
Indeed, it has seemed to me that it may be quite possible that the
repetition of their least pleasant characteristics here is a sort of
punishment, and—well, all this will doubtless strike you as different
from what you had imagined. It shall be my pleasant task to tell you
anything you may wish to know so far as it lies in my power."
"I should like to know very much whether you ever want to see your
families, and how you manage to see them, and how it is that you seem to
know everything that goes on above ground."
"We lie here in the dark alone, for except for this one night in the year
our bones are imprisoned in our coffins, or wherever we lie, if, as many
of us have no coffins to lie in. That silence and isolation naturally
creates a necessity for thought, concentrated and intense. This thought
is most often connected with those whom we have left, and with whom we
have been the most closely associated in life, and so the thought becomes
desire. Thoughts are things, and they crystallize into a vehicle for our
transportation to wherever we wish to go. We then become in a measure
disassociated from the material part of ourselves, and the freed spirit
can go where it will, and as it retains its ego, it is as a general rule
anything but pleasant to go and hover around places and persons we have
left. Sometimes it has occurred to me that some of our punishment was
thus intended.
"In my life I was one of that kind of men that thought the world could
not go on without me, and I was sure that my death would leave a void
that never could be filled. And, above all, I thought that all my
well-laid plans for the benefit of my family would be allowed to relapse
into confusion. All I ever did for my family was to advise them, and the
only real benefit I ever conferred upon them was by dying, so that they
could collect the insurance I had placed on my life. Well, I have since
been obliged to float around in space, unnoticed and unheard, and
probably unremembered, while things were being done which would have had
no approbation from me, and they came out right after all. I am obliged
to admit that my family and the world at large have gained by my death.
Yet I was a very religious man and was class leader in church, and always
had prayers every morning before breakfast. I am ashamed to tell you the
epitaph they put on my stone, but I must admit in the light of what I
know now I deserved much worse."
"I should like very much to know what it was," said the reporter
eagerly.
"Very well; I will repeat it, leaving out the 'here lies,' etc.: 'He gave
Each day to Almighty God, advice of considerable worth; But his wife Took
in sewing to keep him going, While he superintended the earth.'"
"But it is much when you get to such a point that you see what were your
shortcomings in the upper world." "How much of it is out?" said another
ghost who was standing by interested in this recital.
"Oh, you know that is truth and so is easy."
"I suppose we all have shortcomings against our record when it comes to
count all the things we did and didn’t do to our wives. We seemed to