* * * * *

The book is in the Wentworth Collection at Cambridge.  The drawing was photographed and then burnt by Dennistoun on the day when he left Comminges on the occasion of his first visit.

FOOTNOTES: 

[A] We now know that these leaves did contain a considerable fragment of that work, if not of that actual copy of it.

[B] He died that summer; his daughter married, and settled at St. Papoul.  She never understood the circumstances of her father’s “obsession.”

[C] I.e., The Dispute of Solomon with a demon of the night.  Drawn by Alberic de Mauleon. Versicle. O Lord, make haste to help me. Psalm. Whoso dwelleth (xci.).

Saint Bertrand, who puttest devils to flight, pray for me most unhappy.  I saw it first on the night of Dec. 12, 1694:  soon I shall see it for the last time.  I have sinned and suffered, and have more to suffer yet.  Dec. 29, 1701.

The “Gallia Christiana” gives the date of the Canon’s death as December 31, 1701, “in bed, of a sudden seizure.”  Details of this kind are not common in the great work of the Sammarthani.

THE HAUNTED AND THE HAUNTERS

OR,

THE HOUSE AND THE BRAIN

BY EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON

A friend of mine, who is a man of letters and a philosopher, said to me one day, as if between jest and earnest,—­“Fancy! since we last met, I have discovered a haunted house in the midst of London.”

“Really haunted?—­and by what? ghosts?”

“Well, I can’t answer that question:  all I know is this—­six weeks ago my wife and I were in search of a furnished apartment.  Passing a quiet street, we saw on the window of one of the houses a bill, ’Apartments Furnished.’  The situation suited us; we entered the house—­liked the rooms—­engaged them by the week—­and left them the third day.  No power on earth could have reconciled my wife to stay longer; and I don’t wonder at it.”

“What did you see?”

“Excuse me—­I have no desire to be ridiculed as a superstitious dreamer—­nor, on the other hand, could I ask you to accept on my affirmation what you would hold to be incredible without the evidence of your own senses.  Let me only say this, it was not so much what we saw or heard (in which you might fairly suppose that we were the dupes of our own excited fancy, or the victims of imposture in others) that drove us away, as it was an undefinable terror which seized both of us whenever we passed by the door of a certain unfurnished room, in which we neither saw nor heard anything.  And the strangest marvel of all was, that for once in my life I agreed with my wife, silly woman though she be—­and allowed, after the third night, that it was impossible to stay a fourth in that house.  Accordingly, on the fourth morning I summoned the woman who kept the house and attended on us, and told her that the rooms did not quite suit us, and we would not stay out our week.  She said, dryly, ’I know why:  you have stayed longer than any other lodger.  Few ever stayed a second night; none before you a third.  But I take it they have been very kind to you.’