The Book of Dreams and Ghosts

By Lang, Andrew

Excerpt
PREFACE: THE chief purpose of this book is, if fortune helps, to entertain people interested in the kind of narratives here collected. For the sake of orderly arrangement, the stories are classed in different grades, as they advance from the normal and familiar to the undeniably startling. At the same time an account of the current theories of Apparitions is offered, in language as free from technicalities as possible. According to modern opinion every ghost is a hallucination, a false perception, the perception of something which is not present.

Table of Contents
· PREFACE. · CHAPTER I. · ST. AUGUSTINE. · THE DOG FANTI. · DREAMS. · MARK TWAIN'S STORY. · THE BISHOPS'S PIG. · THE PIG IN THE DINING-ROOM. · THE MIGNONETTE. · THE LOST CHEQUE. · LOST. · THE DUCKS' EGGS. · THE LOST KEY. · THE LOST SECURITIES. · SCOTT'S TALE. · THE ARREARS OF TEIND. · MR. RUTHERFORD. · ST. AUGUSTINE. · THE TWO CURMAS. · THE ASSYRIAN PRIEST. · THE ASSYRIAN PRIEST · NIBIB. · DÉJÀ VU. · THE KNOT IN THE SHUTTER. · MR. HONE. · CHAPTER II. · DREAMS. · RICCIO. · QUEEN MARY'S JEWELS. · INVENTORY. · DYING MOTHER. · THE DEATHBED. · PERCEVAL'S MURDER. · TRUE VERSION. · DREAM OF MR. PERCEVAL'S MURDER. · TRUE VERSION. · THE RATTLESNAKE. · THE RED LAMP. · DR. HODSON. · THE SCAR IN THE MOUSTACHE. · THE CORAL SPRIGS. · THE DOCTOR'S CRAVAT. · THE SATIN SLIPPERS. · OLD CLOTHES. · THE DEAD SHOPMAN. · THE SPECTRE'S BOOTS. · CHAPTER III · SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE. · STORY OF THE DIPLOMATIST.1 · CRYSTALS. · UNDER THE LAMP. 2 · UNDER THE LAMP. · THE COW WITH THE BELL. · A SET OF VISIONS. · THE DEATHBED OF LOUIS XIV. · THE DUC D'ORLÉANS. · THE CHILD SEER. · CHAPTER IV.