Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History Bookdgment." "You are right, young man," said a fine, intellectual-looking ghost, "but there is something to be said on the other side. Women marry oftener than men after being widowed. If anything is said they claim a dozen reasons why it became a necessity. Being left alone and without support, they have to marry. If they have money they need someone to take care of it. Now I was married, and I assure you that had she died, I should have gone to my grave mourning for her. She promised me on my deathbed that she would not give any man even enough encouragement to allow him to ask her hand. I died content, and felt sure that some time we would be united in that better land. I willed her everything I had. By George! She came to my grave one day with a bunch of flowers and began to cry and tell me that she was lonely, and that she had seen a man who could cheer her up, and asked my consent to her marriage with him. Of course I could not speak to say no, and the artful minx took my silence as a tacit consent. Then she called me all sorts of a noble and generous man, and went off. The next day she came back with the silliest looking chump you ever saw, and she said to me lying there helpless down below: "Jim, you know that I promised you that I would never let any man propose to me, so now to show you that I have kept my word, I ask you, Reginald-Ethelbert, to be my husband." I was cured of all my infatuation for her as soon as I saw what kind of a man she thought so noble and so grand. They are both old now, and if I had wanted revenge, I could have had it, for they are about as well suited to each other as a cat and dog. It is better not to ask any promises, for a woman will find some way to get out of them, and it is still better not to regard wedlock as an indissoluble tie, for death does dissolve it, and we have been told that in Heaven there is no marrying or giving in marriage." This was a new and comforting idea for the young man, and he began to feel that after all this life is short, and that it might not be long before the foreign count would be no more to the girl he loved so hopelessly than himself. Then he asked the ghost: "Will you kindly tell me, sir, on what ground men and women meet in the sphere where you all ultimately go?" "There are many things which we who are still in this intermediate existence do not know, but it is the general opinion that we shall meet upon one platform of spiritual goodness, and be just friends. "In life, if you think it over, there is nothing so sweet and worthy as true friendship, and that obtains also in the world of spirits. There we shall all be friends, true and faithful in the deepest meaning of the word. We shall find the most exquisite pleasure in working for others, and as we are devoted and self-sacrificing toward others, so will others be to us, and in that way the peace and good will will so permeate all that the whole atmosphere will be charged with the utmost delight." "According to that belief there will be no love making, and those who believed in their love for each other will not feel the same kind of sentiment in the other world?" "My young friend, as you now understand it, there is no love. There are on earth natural selections, or affinities, and there are personal attractions, and there are other and less noble instincts; vanity, interest, and a hundred other mental conditions which we bunch together and call love. All of these, singly or collectively, are disappointing from beginning to end. They are the cause of more crime and misery than words can tell. Love, as we call it, is of this world, and is not perfect. Eliminate the word love and put in its place pure and true friendship, and we have heaven. Heaven, do you understand?" "Some persons would prefer the world and the love that makes it turn around," said the newspaper man rather flippantly, yet at the same moment he felt a great throb of pain as the vision of the beautiful girl he so hopelessly loved flashed through his mind. The ghost, with a gentle bend of his head, said: "You are thinking of Miss _____, and being also of the earth my words fall upon impatient ears, but there will come a day when all earthly desire shall have faded from your mind and heart, you will find that a pure and sweet friendship is far more satisfying than any present love could be. So keep your heart pure and be true to yourself, and your time of probation will be short. She will be there before you, and when your heart is laid bare before her-" "But I said nothing about any young lady," said the young man, half frightened as he suddenly remembered that fact. "I know you did not," replied the ghost, "We do not require that anyone should speak, though we do talk to each other, but that is more from force of habit than necessity. And, especially where the theme is one of deep import, one uplifting in its subject, we simply sense what another would say." "Sir," said the reporter, "I should be glad of any information that you can conscientiously give me about life after death and the future existence." "It is a natural sentiment, but I fear there is little left for you to know. You have been permitted to penetrate to the abode of the dead and to behold all there is to see. You find that men and women can come out of their coffins, walk about and converse, eat and drink, and later you may see them at their penance. You have probably noticed that they are all possessed of a certain resemblance to what they were in life-that is, they have their bony structure still, and something of their personality, and much of their disposition. So long as the bones do not decay they must stay under the conditions as you see them. The decay of the bones seems to be regulated by the character of the owner of them, and the use he made of them in his lifetime. So long as there is any of the material part of the body left the spirit is chained to it, though it may leave it for a time when the spiritual longing is stronger than the material in the bones. When we get our passports the whole dissolves, and we here long for that consummation. Ah, much more than I can tell you." CHAPTER VI. THE GHOSTS TELL STORIES, AND COMPARE NOTES At this moment another ghost came up and joined in the conversation and said impressively: "Young gentleman, you are having the most remarkable experience of your life. You want to see all you can, for probably never before did man come down and see the dead as they really are-before they get their passports. Certainly some live persons do come down occasionally, but they do not count, for they are only those who are buried alive, and they do not get out, as they do not as a rule live long. All these ghosts are dead of body, but are not sufficiently purified in soul to go free from the hindrance of bones. So they all, men and women alike, are burdened with many of their old characteristics, and in many ways they act much as they did during life. Indeed, it ha |