All Men are Ghosts. L. P. Jacks
Panhandle himself. "Can it be," I said aloud, "that Panhandle has taken me for an inquisitive psychologist?"
"Advance," cried my host, who had a keen ear for such undertones. "Advance and fear nothing." A moment later he grasped me warmly by the hand, "Welcome, dearest of friends," he was saying. "You have arrived at an opportune moment. The house is full of guests who are longing to meet you."
"But, Panhandle," I expostulated as we stood on the doorstep, "I understood we were to be alone. I have come for one purpose only, that you might explain your familiarity with—with those people."
I used this expression, rather than one more explicit, because the footman was still present, knowing from long experience how dangerous it is to speak plainly about metaphysical realities in the hearing of the proletariat.
"Those very people are now awaiting you," said Panhandle, as he drew me into the library. "I will be quite frank with you at once. This house is haunted; and if on consideration you find your nerves unequal to an encounter with ghosts, you had better go back at once, for there is no telling how soon the apparitions will begin."
"I have been longing to see a ghost all my life," I answered; "and now that the chance has come at last, I am not going to run away from it. But I confess that with the encounter so near at hand my knees are not as steady as I could wish."
"A turn in the open air will set that right," said he, "and we will take it at once; for I perceive an indication that the first ghost has already entered the room and is only waiting for your nerves to calm before presenting himself to your vision."
I bolted into the garden, and Panhandle, with an irritating smile at the corners of his mouth, followed. As we walked among the lawns and shrubberies we both fell silent: he, for a reason unknown to me; I, because something in his plan of gardening had absorbed my attention and filled me with wonder. Presently I said, "Panhandle, I cannot refrain from asking you a question. I observe that in your style of gardening you have embodied an idea which I have long cherished but never dared to carry out lest people should think me morbid. You have planted cypress at the back of your roses; and the plan is so unusual and yet so entirely in accord with my own mind on the subject that I suspect telepathy between you and me."
He looked at me closely for a few seconds, and then said:
"It may be. I too have often suspected that throughout the whole of my gardening operations I was under the control of an intelligence other than my own. But I would never have guessed that it was yours. Anyhow, this particular idea, no matter what its origin may be, is admirable. No other background will compare with the cypress for bringing out the colour of the roses. See how gorgeous they look at this moment."
"And the cypress too," I said, "are, thanks to the contrast, full of majesty. But, though you and I understand one another so completely at this point, there is another at which I confess you bewilder me." And I indicated the sky-sign, which at that moment had turned its legend—"No Psychologists"—full towards us.
"You will not be surprised to learn," he answered, "that this house, like other haunted houses, has been the scene of a tragedy. The tragedy is the explanation of the sign, and it is essential you should know the story, as the ghosts are certain to refer to it. You remember that I once had a religion?"
"I trust you have one still," I said.
"I prefer to be silent on that point," he answered. "Whatever religion I may have at the present moment I am resolved to protect from the disasters which befell the religion I had long ago. A certain psychologist got wind of it, and I, in my innocence, granted his request to submit my religious consciousness to a scientific investigation. I was highly flattered by the result. The man, having completed his investigation, came to the conclusion that my religion was destined to be the religion of the future, and went up and down the country announcing his prophecy. But the strange thing was that as soon as we all knew that this was going to be the religion of the future it ceased to be the religion of the present. What followed? Why, in a couple of years I and my followers had no religion at all. Incidentally our minds had become a mass of self-complacency and conceit, and the public were coming to regard us as a set of intolerable wind-bags. Such was the tragedy, and ever since its occurrence I have led a haunted life."
"There may be compensations in that," I suggested.
"There are, and I am resolved to maintain them. This house and these grounds are kept as a strict preserve for spirits of every denomination; and you will understand the severity of my measures for their protection when I tell you that the slightest taint of an earth-born psychology in the atmosphere, or the footprint of one of its exponents on the greensward, would instantly cause a general exodus of my ghostly visitors, and thus deprive me of the company which is at once the solace and the inspiration of my declining years. On all such intrusions I decree the penalty of death, being fully determined that no psychology shall pollute this neighbourhood until such time as the ghosts, having completed a psychology of their own, are able to protect themselves. I assure you that my intercourse with the spirits more than makes amends for all that I lost when my former religion was destroyed."
"Which never became the religion of the future after all?" I asked, more sarcastically perhaps than was quite decent.
"Of course not. And the same cause, if suffered to operate, will prevent anything else from becoming the religion of the future. It is one of the signs of decadence in the present age that livelihoods should be procurable by the scientific analysis of religion. Had I the power, I would make it a penal offence to publish the results of such inquiries. As it is, we must protect ourselves. Arm, therefore, my friend—arm yourself with the like of this; and whenever you see one of those marauders, do not hesitate to shoot! The only good psychologist is a dead one."
As Panhandle said this, he drew from his pocket quite the most formidable six-shooting pistol I have ever seen.
I was about to protest against the atrocious obscurantism of this outburst, when my attention was caught by a strange sound of fluttering in the letters of the sky-sign above the house. Looking up, I saw to my amazement that the former legend had disappeared and a new one was gradually forming. "Change the conversation," were the words I read when the swaying letters had settled down into a position of rest. Immediately afterwards the letters fluttered again and the original legend reappeared. "Certainly," I said to myself, "this house is haunted."
Obedient to the mandate of the fluttering letters, I began at once to cast about for an opening that would change the conversation. I could find none, and I was embarrassed by the pause. There was nothing for it but to break out suddenly on a new line. But in the sequel I was astonished to observe with what ease Panhandle, in spite of the violence of the transition, turned the conversation back to its original theme.
"My dear Panhandle," I said, "you are doubtless familiar with the remark of Charles Dickens to the effect that writers of fiction seldom dream of the characters they have created, the reason being that they know those characters to be unreal."
"I am perfectly familiar with the passage," he replied, "but I am astonished to hear it quoted by you. Have you not often insisted, in pursuance, I suppose, of the principles of your philosophy, that characters created by imaginative genius, such as Hamlet or Faust, possess a deeper reality than beings of flesh and blood? Did you not cite instances from Dickens himself and say that Sam Weller and Mr. Micawber were more real to you than Louis XIV or George Washington?"
"I certainly said so, and adhere to the statement."
"Then you will not hesitate to admit that a character who is more real than George Washington is at least as capable of being interested in the problem of his own creation as George Washington could have been."
"You are leading me into a trap," I replied.
"I am only requiring you to be in earnest. Like many persons who express the opinion you have just reiterated, you have never taken the trouble to realise what it implies. But I will now show you its implications. Nor could a better means be found of introducing the revelations I am about to make as to what you may expect in this haunted house. It was your good genius who led you to this