When once you begin
to inquire by what process a ghost is produced, it is clear you are
not moved by its character as a spectre merely. Puppets lose their
power to please when the spectators are bent upon detecting the wires
by which they are made to move.
The old melodramatic stage ghost--the spectre of "The Castle Spectre"
school of plays--the phantom in a white sheet with a dab of red paint
upon its breast, that rose from behind a tomb when a blow was struck
upon a gong and a teaspoonful of blue fire was lighted in the wings,
probably found its last home in the travelling theatre long known as
"Richardson's." Expelled from the regular theatre, it became a
wanderer upon the face of the earth, appearing at country fairs, and
bringing to bear upon remote agricultural populations those terrors
that had long since lost all value in the eyes of the townsfolk. It
lived to become a thing of scorn. "Richardson's Ghost" became a byword
for a bankrupt phantom--a preposterous apparition, that was, in fact,
only too thoroughly seen through: not to apply the words too
literally.
Pages:
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356