No one can help being struck by the bald and meagre character of these stories as a whole
- Date of account
- Published 1912
- Source
- Greek and Roman Ghost Stories
- Reference
- Greek and Roman Ghost Stories · selected passage 48
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English discussion of Greek and Latin source traditions
- Translation
- Lacy Collison-Morley citing classical sources in translation
- Record updated
- 2026-08-24
Record summary
No one can help being struck by the bald and meagre character of these stories as a whole
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyNo one can help being struck by the bald and meagre character of these stories as a whole. They possess few of the qualities we expect to find in a good modern ghost story. None of them can equal in pathetic beauty many of those to be found in Myers's _Human Personality_. Take, for example, the story of the lady[98] who was waked in the night by the sound of moaning and sobbing, as of someone in great distress of mind. Finding nothing in her room, she went and looked out of the landing window, "and there, on the grass, was a very beautiful young girl in a kneeling posture before a soldier, in a General's uniform, clasping her hands together and entreating for pardon; but, alas!
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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