The
ancestral Covenanter within us awakens, and is terrified by his ancient
fears.
Perhaps it may die out in a positive age--this power of learning to
shudder. To us it descends from very long ago, from the far-off
forefathers who dreaded the dark, and who, half starved and all untaught,
saw spirits everywhere, and scarce discerned waking experience from
dreams. When we are all perfect positivist philosophers, when a thousand
generations of nurses that never heard of ghosts have educated the
thousand and first generation of children, then the supernatural may fade
out of fiction. But has it not grown and increased since Wordsworth
wanted the "Ancient Mariner" to have "a profession and a character,"
since Southey called that poem a Dutch piece of work, since Lamb had to
pretend to dislike its "miracles"? Why, as science becomes more cock-
sure, have men and women become more and more fond of old follies, and
more pleased with the stirring of ancient dread within their veins?
As the visible world is measured, mapped, tested, weighed, we seem to
hope more and more that a world of invisible romance may not be far from
us, or, at least, we care more and more to follow fancy into these airy
regions, _et inania regna_. The supernatural has not ceased to tempt
romancers, like Alexandre Dumas, usually to their destruction; more
rarely, as in Mrs. Oliphant's "Beleaguered City," to such success as they
do not find in the world of daily occupation.
Pages:
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267