n the whole, be reckoned.
We have already made acquaintance with Mrs. Veal, who, in her ghostly
condition, talks for an hour and three-quarters with a gossip over a cup
of tea; who, indeed, so far forgets her ghostly condition as to ask for
a cup of the said tea, and only evades the consequences of her blunder
by one of those rather awkward excuses which we all sometimes practise
in society; and who, in short, is the least ethereal spirit that was
ever met with outside a table. De Foe's extraordinary love for
supernatural stories of the gossiping variety found vent in 'A History
of Apparitions,' and his 'System of Magic.' The position which he takes
up is a kind of modified rationalism. He believes that there are genuine
apparitions which personate our dead friends, and give us excellent
pieces of advice on occasion; but he refuses to believe that the spirits
can appear themselves, on account 'of the many strange inconveniences
and ill consequences which would happen if the souls of men and women,
unembodied and departed, were at liberty to visit the earth.' De Foe is
evidently as familiar with the habits of spirits generally as of the
devil. In that case, for example, the feuds of families would never die,
for the injured person would be always coming back to right himself. He
proceeds upon this principle to account for many apparitions, as, for
example, one which appeared in the likeness of a certain J. O. of the
period, and strongly recommended his widow to reduce her expenses. He
won't believe that the Virgin appeared to St. Francis, because all
stories of that kind are mere impostures of the priests; but he thinks
it very likely that he was haunted by the devil, who may have sometimes
taken the Virgin's shape. In the 'History of Witchcraft' De Foe tells us
how, as he was once riding in the country, he met a man on the way to
inquire of a certain wizard. De Foe, according to his account, which may
or may not be intended as authentic, waited the whole of the next day at
a public-house in a country town, in order to hear the result of the
inquiry; and had long conversations, reported in his usual style, with
infinite 'says he's' and 'says I's,' in which he tried to prove that the
wizard was an impostor. This lets us into the secret of many of De Foe's
apparitions. They are the ghosts that frighten villagers as they cross
commons late at night, or that rattle chains and display lights in
haunted houses. Sometimes they ha