Of course you don't suppose that I have any foolish superstitions about
the matter,--I, the Professor, who have seen enough to take all that
nonsense out of any man's head! It is not our beliefs that frighten us
half so much as our fancies. A man not only believes, but knows he runs
a risk, whenever he steps into a railroad car; but it does n't worry him
much. On the other hand, carry that man across a pasture a little way
from some dreary country-village, and show him an old house where there
were strange deaths a good many years ago, and there are rumors of ugly
spots on the walls,--the old man hung himself in the garret, that is
certain, and ever since the country-people have called it "the haunted
house,"--the owners have n't been able to let it since the last tenants
left on account of the noises,--so it has fallen into sad decay, and the
moss grows on the rotten shingles of the roof, and the clapboards have
turned black, and the windows rattle like teeth that chatter with fear,
and the walls of the house begin to lean as if its knees were shaking,
--take the man who did n't mind the real risk of the cars to that old
house, on some dreary November evening, and ask him to sleep there
alone,--how do you think he will like it? He doesn't believe one word of
ghosts,--but then he knows, that, whether waking or sleeping, his
imagination will people the haunted chambers with ghostly images.
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