Ghosts vary in many respects. Some are like the pallid shades of the
past, altogether unlike the living and with an unmistakable spectral
form--or lack of it. They sweep like mist through the air, or flutter
like dead leaves in the gale--a gale always accompanying them as part of
the stock furnishings. On the other hand, some revenants are so
successfully made up that one doesn't believe them when they pridefully
announce that they are wraiths. Some of them are, in fact, so alive that
they don't themselves know they're dead. It's going to be a great shock
to some of them one of these days to wake up and find out they're
demised!

Ghosts are more gregarious than in the past. Formerly a shade slunk off
by himself, as if ashamed of his profession, as if aware of the lack of
cordiality with which he would be received, knowing that mortals shunned
and feared him, and chary even of associating with his fellow-shades. He
wraithed all by himself. The specters of the past--save in scenes of the
lower world,--were usually solitary creatures, driven to haunt mortals
from very lonesomeness. Now we have a chance to study the mob psychology
of ghosts, for they come in madding crowds whenever they like.

Ghosts at present are showing an active interest not only in public
affairs, but in the arts as well. At least, we now have pictures and
writing attributed to them. Perhaps annoyed by some of the inaccuracies
published concerning them--for authors have in the past taken advantage
of the belief that ghosts couldn't write back--they have recently
developed itching pens. They use all manner of utensils for expression
now. There's the magic typewriter that spooks for John Kendrick Bangs,
the boardwalk that Patience Worth executes for Mrs. Curran, and
innumerable other specters that commandeer fountain pens and pencils and
brushes to give their versions of infinity. There's a passion on the