before his time, as after it, precisely similar narratives attracted
the notice of the curious. Glanvill generally tries to get his
stories at first hand and signed by eye-witnesses.

Lady Conway was not behind her guests in personal experiences. Her
ladyship was concerned with a good old-fashioned ghost. We say
'old-fashioned' of set purpose, because while modern tales of
'levitation' and flighty furniture, of flying stones, of rappings,
of spectral hands, of cold psychical winds, are exactly like the
tales of old, a change, an observed change, has come over the ghost
of the nineteenth century. Readers of the Proceedings of the
Psychical Society will see that the modern ghost is a purposeless
creature. He appears nobody knows why; he has no message to
deliver, no secret crime to reveal, no appointment to keep, no
treasure to disclose, no commissions to be executed, and, as an
almost invariable rule, he does not speak, even if you speak to him.
The recent inquirers, notably Mr. Myers, remark with some severity
on this vague and meaningless conduct of apparitions, and draw
speculative conclusions to the effect that the ghost, as the Scotch
say, 'is not all there'. But the ghosts of the seventeenth century
were positively garrulous. One remarkable specimen indeed behaved,
at Valogne, more like a ghost of our time than of his own. {95}
But, as a common rule, the ghosts in whom Lady Conway's friends were
interested had a purpose: some revealed the spot where a skeleton
lay; some urged the payment of a debt, or the performance of a
neglected duty. One modern spectre, reported by Mr. Myers, wandered
disconsolate till a debt of three shillings and tenpence was
defrayed. {96} This is, perhaps, the lowest figure cited as a
pretext for appearing. The ghost vouched for by Lady Conway was
disturbed about a larger sum, twenty-eight shillings. She, an