The Project Gutenberg EBook of Humorous Ghost Stories, by Dorothy Scarborough

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Title: Humorous Ghost Stories

Author: Dorothy Scarborough

Release Date: October 18, 2008 [EBook #26950]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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HUMOROUS GHOST STORIES

HUMOROUS GHOST
STORIES

SELECTED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY

DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH, PH.D.

LECTURER IN ENGLISH, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
AUTHOR OF "THE SUPERNATURAL IN MODERN ENGLISH FICTION,"
"FUGITIVE VERSES," "FROM A SOUTHERN PORCH," ETC.
COMPILER OF "FAMOUS MODERN GHOST STORIES"

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

The Knickerbocker Press

1921

COPYRIGHT, 1921

BY

DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH

_Printed in the United States of America_

To

DR. AND MRS. JOHN T. HARRINGTON

_Life flings miles and years between us,
It is true,--
But brings never to me dearer
Friends than you!_

The Humorous Ghost

INTRODUCTION

The humorous ghost is distinctly a modern character. In early literature
wraiths took themselves very seriously, and insisted on a proper show of
respectful fear on the part of those whom they honored by haunting. A
mortal was expected to rise when a ghost entered the room, and in case
he was slow about it, his spine gave notice of what etiquette demanded.
In the event of outdoor apparition, if a man failed to bare his head in
awe, the roots of his hair reminded him of his remissness. Woman has
always had the advantage over man in such emergency, in that her locks,
being long and pinned up, are less easily moved--which may explain the
fact (if it be a fact!) that in fiction women have shown themselves more
self-possessed in ghostly presence than men. Or possibly a woman knows
that a masculine spook is, after all, only a man, and therefore may be
charmed into helplessness, while the feminine can be seen through by
another woma