theory. From the diary of the murdered man he picks out the following
which we may treasure as a gem:

"I am not mad. There are colors that we cannot
see. And--God help me!--the Damned Thing is of
such a color!"

This fascination of the ghost story--have I made it clear?

As I write, nearing midnight, the bookcase behind me cracks. I start and
turn. Nothing. There is a creak of a board in the hallway.

I know it is the cool night wind--the uneven contraction of materials
expanded in the heat of the day.

Yet--do I go into the darkness outside otherwise than alert?

It is this evolution of our sense of ghost terror--ages of it--that
fascinates us.

Can we, with a few generations of modernism behind us, throw it off with
all our science? And, if we did, should we not then succeed only in
abolishing the old-fashioned ghost story and creating a new, scientific
ghost story?

Scientific? Yes. But more,--something that has existed since the
beginnings of intelligence in the human race.

Perhaps, you critic, you say that the true ghost story originated in the
age of shadowy candle light and pine knot with their grotesqueries on