The best ghost stories don’t have ghosts in them. At least you don’t see the ghost. Instead you see only the result of his actions. Occasionally you can feel it brushing past you, or you are made aware of its presence by subtle means. For example, the temperature in a room always drops dramatically when a ghost is around. This was scientifically proved by Harry Price in his interesting book The Most Haunted House in England. If a story does permit a ghost to be seen, then he doesn’t look like one. He looks like an ordinary person.
To me, one of the most compelling of all the stories in the book you are now holding was written by a Norwegian, Jonas Lie. It really is a cruel and wonderful tale, though it suffers a good deal in the translation. Jonas Lie, who died in 1908, is a national hero in Norway although he is very little known beyond those shores. I happen to have a fine painting of him by Heyerdal in my living-room. He is wearing a wide-brimmed black hat and a black cloak, and wherever I sit, he is glaring at me through steel-rimmed spectacles with a terrible icy stare. He looks more than anything else like an undertaker who knows he’s going to get you in the end. But he was a splendid writer and I am certain you will be disturbed by this story of his called Elias and the Draug. I hope you will be equally disturbed by all the other stories in this book. They were written with precisely that end in mind.
I think I should mention that since 1958 when I originally did my research into ghost stories, I have continued to read as many new ones as I could lay my hands on. I may have missed one or two, but nothing I have seen that has been published since then has come anywhere near the standard of the select group in this book.
W. S.
by L. P. Hartley
The first postcard came from Forfar.
I thought you might like a picture of Forfar, it began. You have always been so interested in Scotland, and that is one reason why I am interested in you. I have enjoyed all your books, but do you really get to grips with people? I doubt it. Try to think of this as a handshake from your devoted admirer,
W. S.
Like other novelists, Walter Streeter was used to getting communications from strangers. Generally they were friendly but sometimes they were critical. In either case he always answered them, for he was conscientious. But answering them took up the time and energy he needed for his writing, so that he was rather relieved that W. S. had given no address. The photograph of Forfar was uninteresting and he tore it up. His anonymous correspondent’s criticism, however, lingered in his mind. Did he really fail to come to grips with his characters? Perhaps he did. He was aware that in most cases they were either projections of his own personality, or, in different forms, the antitheses of it. The Me and the Not Me. Perhaps W. S. had spotted this. Not for the first time Walter made a vow to be more objective.
About ten days later arrived another postcard, this time from Berwick-on-Tweed. What do you think of Berwick-on-Tweed? it said. Like you, it’s on the Border. I hope this doesn’t sound rude. I don’t mean that you are a border-line case! You know how much I admire your stories. Some people call them other-worldly. I think you should plump for one world or the other. Another warm handshake from
W. S.
Walter Streeter pondered over this and began to wonder about the sender. Was his correspondent a man or a woman? It looked like a man’s handwriting – commercial, unselfconscious, and the criticism was like a man’s. On the other hand, it was like a woman to probe – to want to make him feel at the same time flattered and unsure of himself. He felt the faint stirrings of curiosity but soon dismissed them; he was not a man to experiment with acquaintances. Still, it was odd to think of this unknown person speculating about him, sizing him up. Otherworldly, indeed! He re-read the last two chapters he had written. Perhaps they didn’t have their feet firm on the ground. Perhaps he was too ready to escape, as other novelists were nowadays, into an ambiguous world, a world where the conscious mind did not have things too much its own way. But did that matter? He threw the picture of Berwick-on-Tweed into his November fire and tried to write; but the words came haltingly, as though contending with an extra-strong barrier of self-criticism. And as the days passed, he became uncomfortably aware of self-division, as though someone had taken hold of his personality and was pulling it apart. His work was no longer homogeneous; there were two strains in it, unreconciled and opposing, and it went much slower as he tried to resolve the discord. Never mind, he thought: perhaps I was getting into a groove. These difficulties may be growing pains; I may have tapped a new source of supply. If only I could correlate the two and make their conflict fruitful, as many artists have!
The
