THE WAYS OF GHOSTS




My peculiar relation to the writer of the following narratives is
such that I must ask the reader to overlook the absence of
explanation as to how they came into my possession. Withal, my
knowledge of him is so meager that I should rather not undertake to
say if he were himself persuaded of the truth of what he relates;
certainly such inquiries as I have thought it worth while to set
about have not in every instance tended to confirmation of the
statements made. Yet his style, for the most part devoid alike of
artifice and art, almost baldly simple and direct, seems hardly
compatible with the disingenuousness of a merely literary intention;
one would call it the manner of one more concerned for the fruits of
research than for the flowers of expression. In transcribing his
notes and fortifying their claim to attention by giving them
something of an orderly arrangement, I have conscientiously
refrained from embellishing them with such small ornaments of
diction as I may have felt myself able to bestow, which would not
only have been impertinent, even if pleasing, but would have given
me a somewhat closer relation to the work than I should care to have
and to avow.--A. B.



PRESENT AT A HANGING