believe in is damnation. The greatest of purely modern poets summed
up the really modern attitude in that fine Agnostic line--

"There may be Heaven; there must be Hell."

The gloomy view of the universe has been a continuous tradition;
and the new types of spiritual investigation or conjecture all begin
by being gloomy. A little while ago men believed in no spirits.
Now they are beginning rather slowly to believe in rather slow spirits.

. . . . .

Some people objected to spiritualism, table rappings, and such things,
because they were undignified, because the ghosts cracked jokes or
waltzed with dinner-tables. I do not share this objection in the least.
I wish the spirits were more farcical than they are. That they
should make more jokes and better ones, would be my suggestion.
For almost all the spiritualism of our time, in so far as it is new,
is solemn and sad. Some Pagan gods were lawless, and some Christian
saints were a little too serious; but the spirits of modern spiritualism
are both lawless and serious--a disgusting combination. The specially
contemporary spirits are not only devils, they are blue devils.
This is, first and last, the real value of Christmas; in so far
as the mythology remains at all it is a kind of happy mythology.
Personally, of course, I believe in Santa Claus; but it is the season
of forgiveness, and I will forgive others for not doing so.
But if there is anyone who does not comprehend the defect in our
world which I am civilising, I should recommend him, for instance,
to read a story by Mr. Henry James, called "The Turn of the Screw."
It is one of the most powerful things ever written, and it is one