I tell you, kinsman, that the sort of waking dreams which my imagination
spins out, in what your favourite Wordsworth calls 'moods of my own
mind,' are worth all the rest of my more active days. Then, instead
of looking forwards, as I did in youth, and forming for myself fairy
palaces, upon the verge of the grave I turn my eyes backward upon
the days and manners of my better time; and the sad, yet soothing
recollections come so close and interesting, that I almost think it
sacrilege to be wiser or more rational or less prejudiced than those to
whom I looked up in my younger years."

"I think I now understand what you mean," I answered, "and can
comprehend why you should occasionally prefer the twilight of illusion
to the steady light of reason."

"Where there is no task," she rejoined, "to be performed, we may sit in
the dark if we like it; if we go to work, we must ring for candles."

"And amidst such shadowy and doubtful light," continued I, "imagination
frames her enchanted and enchanting visions, and sometimes passes them
upon the senses for reality."

"Yes," said Aunt Margaret, who is a well-read woman, "to those who
resemble the translator of Tasso,--

'Prevailing poet, whose undoubting mind
Believed the magic wonders which he sung.

It is not required for this purpose that you should be sensible of the
painful horrors which an actual belief in such prodigies inflicts.
Such a belief nowadays belongs only to fools and children. It is not
necessary that your ears should tingle and your complexion change, like
that of Theodore at the approach of the spectral huntsman. All that is
indispensable for the enjoyment of the milder feeling of supernatural
awe is, that you should be susceptible of the slight shuddering which
creeps over you when you hear a tale of terror--that well-vouched tale
which the narrator, having first expressed his general disbelief of all
such legendary lore, selects and produces, as having something in it
which he has been always obliged to give up as inexplicable. Another
symptom is a momentary hesitation to look round you, when the interest
of the narrative is at the highest; and the third, a desire to avoid
looking into a mirror when you are alone in your chamber for the
evening. I mean such are signs which indicate the crisis, when a female
imagination is in due temperature to enjoy a ghost story. I do not
pretend to describe those which express the same disposition in a
gentleman