The Project Gutenberg EBook of Humorous Ghost Stories, by Dorothy Scarborough
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Title: Humorous Ghost Stories
Author: Dorothy Scarborough
Release Date: October 18, 2008 [EBook #26950]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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HUMOROUS GHOST STORIES
HUMOROUS GHOST
STORIES
SELECTED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH, PH.D.
LECTURER IN ENGLISH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF "THE SUPERNATURAL IN MODERN ENGLISH FICTION,"
"FUGITIVE VERSES," "FROM A SOUTHERN PORCH," ETC.
COMPILER OF "FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES"
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
The Knickerbocker Press
1921
COPYRIGHT, 1921
BY
DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH
_Printed in the United States of America_
To
DR. AND MRS. JOHN T. HARRINGTON
_Life flings miles and years between us,
It is true,--
But brings never to me dearer
Friends than you!_
The Humorous Ghost
INTRODUCTION
The humorous ghost is distinctly a modern character. In early literature
wraiths took themselves very seriously, and insisted on a proper show of
respectful fear on the part of those whom they honored by haunting. A
mortal was expected to rise when a ghost entered the room, and in case
he was slow about it, his spine gave notice of what etiquette demanded.
In the event of outdoor apparition, if a man failed to bare his head in
awe, the roots of his hair reminded him of his remissness. Woman has
always had the advantage over man in such emergency, in that her locks,
being long and pinned up, are less easily moved--which may explain the
fact (if it be a fact!) that in fiction women have shown themselves more
self-possessed in ghostly presence than men. Or possibly a woman knows
that a masculine spook is, after all, only a man, and therefore may be
charmed into helplessness, while the feminine can be seen through by
another woma
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