The ghost has held his own with his human fellow in fiction, and his tale has been [Pg viii]told with increasing skill as the art of the writer has developed. To-day the case for the ghost as an element in fiction is an exceedingly strong one. There has indeed sprung into being within a couple of decades a new school of such writers. Nowadays almost every fictionist of account produces one good thriller at least of this sort. The temptation is irresistible for the simple reason that the theme imposes absolutely no limit on the imagination.
oked and awry. She exasperates me. Her very silence and meekness are irritating. Sometimes I feel inclined to throw the inkstand at her, just to bring an expression into her watery eyes and a squeak from those colourless lips. Dear me! What violent expressions I am making use of! How very foolish of me! And yet it almost seems as if the words were not my own, but had been spoken into my ear--I mean, I never make use of such terms naturally.
* * * * *
Oct. 30.--I have been here a month. The place does not agree with me, I think. My headaches are more frequent and violent, and my nerves are a perpetual source of discomfort and annoyance.
I have conceived a great dislike for Mrs. Monson, a feeling I am certain she reciprocates. Somehow, the impression comes frequently to me that there are goings on in this house of which I know nothing, and which she is careful to hide from me.
Last night her son slept in the house, and this morning as I was standing at the window I saw him go out. He
CONTENTS
"The Listener" by Algernon Blackwood
"Number 13" by Montague Rhodes James
"Joseph: A Story" by Katherine Rickford
"The Horla" by Guy de Maupassant
"The Beast with Five Fingers" by William F. Harvey
"Sister Maddelena" by Ralph Adams Cram
"Thrawn Janet" by Robert Louis Stevenson
"The Yellow Cat" by Wilbur Daniel Steele
"Letter to Sura" by Pliny the Younger
