some sculptured form. Even now shadowy and unreal, for the furniture of the room, the pictures on the wall, were showing plainly through its form.
Then slowly the white robes parted, the gleaming veil was lifted from the head. The folded arms flung back their covering and stretched themselves as though to fold us in their grasp. And it stood confessed.
A skeleton!
Were none of us startled then? Did no one in that throng, but now so joyous, thrill with unutterable horrors now? One at least retained his courage. Grasping the first weapon that came to hand, he rushed forward and aimed a fearful blow at the spectre. The blow fell harmless upon the empty air. Again he struck; this time with slower and surer aim, and again the heavy weapon passed harmlessly through the terrible figure. He rushed recklessly forward, and strove to grasp the spectre with his hands! He passed again and again over the very spot where the hideous apparition still waved in triumph its bony arms and grinned horribly with its fleshless lips. It was nothing—a vision—impalpable as the air from which it grew.
“The earth hath bubbles as the water hath:
And this was of them.”
It was gone!
But it had been there. I saw it myself. We all saw it. Here, in this very London, in which I write. Here, at—well, “in point of fact,” as cousin Emma says—at the Polytechnic!
We saw another there too, when, as Professor Pepper read to us the first chapter of Mr. Dickens’s “Haunted Man,” the whole scene, as he described it, passed before us on the little stage, and the “double” of the brooding alchemist glided slowly to his side, and showed him the vision of his dead sister in her bridal robes, and drew him cunningly into the fatal compact, and then vanished once more into kindred darkness. And we saw yet another, and a still better one, at the Britannia Theatre, where our old friend the skeleton played a part in a real drama “of thrilling interest,” with all the “appliances and means to boot” of one of the best appointed stages in London.
And now I will tell you how it is that this very excellent ghost has in nowise altered my previous belief upon the subject. I grant you that he is perfect. Nothing can be more horribly real, and at the same time more horribly unreal, than this “patent” apparition when properly managed. Nothing can be more ingenious than the optical arrangements by which this singular delusion is effected, and which Professor Pepper has kindly permitted me thoroughly to examine. Some day, with his permission, I may explain to my readers the whole apparatus, with diagrams to illustrate its working. They will then see that the machinery is far too costly and too cumbrous for use in churchyards and haunted rooms, and other places where spectres “most do congregate.” You might just as well account the fiery dragons of old as products of the hydrogen microscope.
But as an optical delusion it is perfect, and more than deserves the enormous success it has obtained. Alas! that ever such success should be so grievously alloyed. Poor Professor Pepper![1] Into what a hornet’s nest has he thrust his head in this harmless exercise of his ingenuity for the public amusement. What showers of abuse he undergoes for not at once revealing his innocent secret. What virtuous indignation is hurled at his poor “patent” ghost. What shoals of letters does he receive from half the alphabet, A to O, furious at being able to find out nothing about it, and the other half still more furious because it thinks—poor deluded P to Z—that it has found out all. Poor Professor! Let us hope his troubles will not reduce him to play the part of his own ghost, and raise a new excitement by haunting in propriâ personâ the scene of his triumphs and his woes.
GLIMPSES OF FRENCH VILLAGE LIFE.
Bordeaux possesses the unenviable reputation of being the dearest town in France: we need hardly descant here on her well-known merits and beauties, but ask our reader to accompany us to Arcachon, a village about two hours distant from it by rail, where we lately established ourselves for some months.
Few English, famed though our travelled countrymen are for ubiquity, are acquainted with this pleasant nook in the department of “La Gironde,” with its delicious spring climate, its immense pine-forest, stretching on for forty miles in one unbroken green, and its unsophisticated inhabitants. It has sprung into existence within the last twenty years; twenty years hence it will probably be a fashionable resort in winter and spring. Meanwhile, before it has become spoiled by English visitors, Arcachon is charming. Her picturesque châlets gladden the eye, each generally standing in a garden of its own, which becomes a blaze of glory as spring advances. In April and May she looks strikingly pretty; her pines and acacias scent the air with their rich profusion of blossoms—the “Mediterranean” heath in the forest is a mass of bloom—and pleasant sights and sounds abound on every side.
Arcachon is on the sea. In front she looks out upon the tranquil Bassin d’Arcachon, as the arm of the Bay of Biscay is called, which washes the shores of the village. Behind is the long stretch of unbroken pine forest, the lordly pines towering in all the dignity of their majestic stature above the mazy underwood of arbutus and heaths in several varieties.
The advent of an English party was an event in the annals of Arcachon; and when it became known that we were about to make some stay, and search for a house suitable for our wants amongst the many picturesque villas, great excitement prevailed. We could hardly appear outside our hotel doors without finding ourselves a great object of attraction, and the centre of a group of anxious householders, each of whom had a perfect house—at least in their estimation. One old lady held- ↑ The Ghost Illusion was invented by Mr. H. Dircks, C.E., and has since been improved and patented by Messrs. Dircks and Pepper.
