Achieving Prosperity - Ultimate Collection. Thorstein Veblen

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      A very ancient and impressive specimen of a haunted house was the palace of Vauvert, belonging to King Louis IX, of France, who was so pious that he was called Saint Louis. This fine building was so situated as to become very desirable, in the year 1259, to some monks. So there was forthwith horrid shriekings at night-times, red and green lights shone through the windows, and, finally, a large green ghost, with a white beard and a serpent’s tail, came every midnight to a front window, and shook his fist, and howled at those who passed by. Everybody was frightened—King Louis, good simple soul! as well as the rest. Then the bold monks appearing at the nick of time, intimated that if the King would give them the palace, they would do up the ghost in short order. He did it, and was very thankful to them besides. They moved in, and sure enough, the ghost appeared no more. Why should he?

      The ghosts of Woodstock are well known. How they tormented the Puritan Commissioners who came thither in 1649, to break up the place, and dispose of it for the benefit of the Commonwealth! The poor Puritans had a horrid time. A disembodied dog growled under their bed, and bit the bed-clothes; something invisible walked all about; the chairs and tables danced; something threw the dishes about (like the Davenport “spirits;”) put logs for the pillows; flung brickbats up and down, without regard to heads; smashed the windows; threw pebbles in at the frightened commissioners; stuck a lot of pewter platters into their beds; ran away with their breeches; threw dirty water over them in bed; banged them over the head—until, after several weeks, the poor fellows gave it up, and ran away back to London. Many years afterward, it came out that all this was done by their clerk, who was secretly a royalist, though they thought him a furious Puritan, and who knew all the numerous secret passages and contrivances in the old palace. Most people have read Sir Walter Scott’s capital novel of “Woodstock,” founded on this very story.

      The well known “Demon of Tedworth,” that drummed, and scratched, and pounded, and threw things about, in 1661, in Mr. Mompesson’s house turned out to be a gipsy drummer and confederates.

      The still more famous “Ghost in Cock Lane,” in London in 1762, consisted of a Mrs. Parsons and her daughter, a little girl, trained by Mr. Parsons to knock and scratch very much after the fashion of the alphabet talking of the “spirits” of to-day. Parsons got up the whole affair, to revenge himself on a Mr. Kent. The ghost pretended to be that of a deceased sister-in-law of Kent, and to have been poisoned by him. But Parsons and his assistants were found out, and had to smart for their fun, being heavily fined, imprisoned, etc.

      A very able ghost indeed, a Methodist ghost—the spectral property, consequently, of my good friends the Methodists—used to rattle, and clatter, and bang, and communicate, in the house of the Rev. Mr. Wesley, the father of John Wesley, at Epworth, in England. This ghost was very troublesome, and utterly useless. In fact, none of the ghosts that haunt houses are of the least possible use. They plague people, but do no good. They act like the spirits of departed monkeys.

      I must add two or three short anecdotes about ghosts, got up in the devil-manner. They are not new, but illustrate very handsomely the state of mind in which a ghost should be met. One is, that somebody undertook to scare Cuvier, the great naturalist, with a ghost having an ox’s head. Cuvier woke, and found the fearful thing glaring and grinning at his bedside.

      “What do you want?”

      “To devour you!” growled the ghost.

      “Devour me?” quoth the great Frenchman—“Hoofs, horns, graminivorous! You can’t do it—clear out!”

      And he did clear out.

      A pious maiden lady, in one of our New-England villages, was known to possess three peculiarities. First, she was a very religious, honest, matter-of-fact woman. Second, she supposed everybody else was equally honest; hence she was very credulous, always believing everything she heard. And third, having “a conscience void of offense,” she saw no reason to be afraid of anything; consequently, she feared nothing.

      On a dark night, some boys, knowing that she would be returning home alone from prayer-meeting, through an unfrequented street, determined to test two of her peculiarities, viz., her credulity and her courage. One of the boys was sewed up in a huge shaggy bear-skin, and as the old lady’s feet were heard pattering down the street, he threw himself directly in her path and commenced making a terrible noise.

      “Mercy!” exclaimed the old lady. “Who are you?”

      “I am the devil!” was the reply.

      “Well, you are a poor creature!” responded the antiquated virgin, as she stepped aside and passed by the strange animal, probably not for a moment doubting it was his Satanic Majesty, but certainly not dreaming of being afraid of him.

      It is said that a Yankee tin peddler, who had frequently cheated most of the people in the vicinity of a New England village through which he was passing, was induced by some of the acute ones to join them in a drinking bout. He finally became stone drunk; and in that condition these wags carried him to a dark rocky cave near the village, then, dressing themselves in raw-head-and-bloody-bones’ style, awaited his return to consciousness.

      As he began rousing himself, they lighted some huge torches, and also set fire to some bundles of straw, and three or four rolls of brimstone, which they had placed in different parts of the cavern. The peddler rubbed his eyes, and seeing and smelling all these evidences of pandemonium, concluded he had died, and was now partaking of his final doom. But he took it very philosophically, for he complacently remarked to himself.

      “In hell—just as I expected!”

      A story is told of a cool old sea captain, with a virago of a wife, who met one of these artificial devils in a lonely place. As the ghost obstructed his path, the old fellow remarked:

      “If you are not the devil, get out! If you are, come along with me and get supper. I married your sister!”

      CHAPTER XXXVI.

       Table of Contents

      MAGICAL HUMBUGS.—VIRGIL.—A PICKLED SORCERER.—CORNELIUS AGRIPPA.—HIS STUDENTS AND HIS BLACK DOG.—DOCTOR FAUSTUS.—HUMBUGGING HORSE-JOCKEYS.—ZIITO AND HIS LARGE SWALLOW.—SALAMANCA.—DEVIL TAKE THE HINDMOST.

      Magic, sorcery, witchcraft, enchantment, necromancy, conjuring, incantation, soothsaying, divining, the black art, are all one and the same humbug. They show how prone men are to believe in some supernatural power, in some beings wiser and stronger than themselves, but at the same time how they stop short, and find satisfaction in some debasing humbug, instead of looking above and beyond it all to God, the only being that it is really worth while for man to look up to or beseech.

      Magic and witchcraft are believed in by the vast majority of mankind, and by immense numbers even in Christian countries. They have always been believed in, so far as I know. In following up the thread of history, we always find conjuring or witch work of some kind, just as long as the narrative has space enough to include it. Already, in the early dawn of time, the business was a recognized and long established one. And its history is as unbroken from that day down to this, as the history of the race.

      In the narrow space at my command at present, I shall only gather as many of the more interesting stories about these humbugs, as I can make room for. Reasoning about the subject, or full details of it, are at present out of the question. A whole library of books exists about it.

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