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The Ghost of Doctor Harris by Nathaniel
Hawthorne. I'm afraid this ghost story will

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bear a very faded aspect when transferred
to paper. Whatever effect it had on

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you, whatever charm it retains in
your memory, is perhaps to be attributed

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to the favorable circumstances under which it
was originally told. We were sitting,

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i remember, late in the evening
in your drawing room, where the lights

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of the chandelier were so muffled as
to produce a delicious obscurity through which the

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fire diffused a dim red glow in
this rich twilight. The feelings of the

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party had been properly attuned by some
tales of English superstitioned, and the lady

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of smith Hills Hall had just been
describing that bloody footstep which marks the threshold

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of her old mansion. When your
Yankee guest, zealous for the honor of

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his country and desirous of proving that
his dead compatriots have the same ghostly privileges

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as other dead people if they think
it worth while to use them, began

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a story of something wonderful that long
ago happened to himself. Possibly in the

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verbal narrative, he may have assumed
a little more license than would be allowed

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in a written record, for the
sake of the artistic effect. He may

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then have thrown in here and there
a few slight circumstances which he will not

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think it proper to retain in what
he now puts forth as the sober statement

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of a veritable fact. A good
many years ago, it must be as

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many as fifteen, perhaps more,
and while I was still a bachelor,

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I resided at Boston in the United
States. In that city there is a

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large and long established library styled the
Athenaeum, connected with which is the reading

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room, well supplied with foreign and
American periodicals and newspapers. A splendid edifice

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has since been erected by the proprietors
of the institution, but at the period

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I speak of, it was contained
within a large old mansion, formerly the

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town residence of an imminent citizen of
Boston. The reading room, a spacious

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hall with a group of the LaYaka
on at one end and the Belvidere apollo

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at the other, was frequented by
not a few elderly merchants retired from business,

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by clergymen and lawyers, and by
such literary men as we had amongst

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us. These good people were mostly
old, leisurely and somnolent, and used

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to nod and doze for hours together
with the newspapers before them, ever and

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anon, recovering themselves so far as
to read a word or two of the

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politics of the day, sitting,
as it were, on the boundary of

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the land of dreams, and having
little to do with this world except through

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the newspapers, which they so tenaciously
grasped. One of these worthies whom I

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occasionally saw there was the Reverend doctor
Harris, a Unitarian clergyman of considerable repute

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and eminence. He was very far
advanced in life, no less than eighty

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years old, and probably more,
and he resided, I think, at

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Dorchester, a suburban village in the
immediate vicinity of Boston. I had never

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been personally acquainted with the good old
clergyman, but had heard of him all

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of my life as a noteworthy man, so that when he was first pointed

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out to me, I looked at
him with a certain specialty of attention,

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and always subsequently eyed him with a
degree of interest whenever I happened to see

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him at the Athenaeum or elsewhere.
He was a small, withered and firm

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but brisk old gentleman with snow white
hair, a somewhat stooping figure, but

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yet a remarkable alacrity of movement.
I remember it was in the street when

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I first noticed him. The doctor
was plodding along with a staff, but

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turned smartly about on being addressed by
the gentleman who was with me, and

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responded with a good deal of a
vivacity. Who is he? I inquired,

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as soon as he had passed.
The Reverend Doctor Harris of Dorchester,

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replied, my companion, And from
that time I often saw him and never

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forgot his aspect. His especial haunt
was the Athenaeum. There I used to

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see him daily, and almost always
with the newspaper the Boston Post, which

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was the leading journal of the Democratic
Party in the Northern States. As old

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Doctor Harris had been a noted Democrat
during his more active life, it was

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a very natural thing that he should
still like to read the Boston Post.

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There, his reverend figure was accustomed
to sit day after day in the self

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same chair by the fireside, and
by degrees, seeing him there so constantly

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I began to look towards him as
I entered the reading room, and felt

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that a kind of acquaintance, at
least on my part, was established.

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Not that I had any reason,
as long as this venerable person remained in

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the body, to suppose that he
had ever noticed me. But by some

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subtle connection, the small, white
haired and firm yet vivacious figure of an

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old clergyman became associated with my idea
and recollection of the place. One day,

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especially about noon, as was generally
his hour, I am perfectly certain

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that I had seen this figure of
old doctor Harris, and taken my customary

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note of him, although I remember
nothing in his appearance at all different from

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what I had seen on many previous
occasions. But that very evening a friend

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said to me, did you hear
that old doctor Harris is dead? No,

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I said, very quietly, and
it cannot be true, for I

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saw him at the atheneum today.
You must be mistaken, rejoined my friend.

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He is certainly dead, and confirmed
the fact with such special circumstance that

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I could no longer doubt it.
My friend has often sense assured me that

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I seemed much startled at the intelligence, But as well as I can recollect,

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I believe that I was very little
disturbed, if at all, but

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set down the apparition as a mistake
of my own, or perhaps the interposition

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of a familiar idea into the place
and amid the circumstances with which I had

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been accustomed to associate it. The
next day, as I ascended the steps

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of the Athenaeum, I remember thinking
within myself, well, I never shall

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see old doctor Harris again. With
this thought in my mind, as I

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opened the door of the reading room, I glanced towards the spot and share

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where doctor Harris usually sat, and
there, to my astonishment, sat the

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gray and firm figure of the deceased
doctor, reading the newspaper as was his

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wont his own death must have been
recorded that very morning in that very newspaper.

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I have no recollection of being greatly
discomposed at the moment, nor indeed

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that I felt any extraordinary emotion whatever. Probably, if ghosts were in the

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habit of coming among us, they
would coincide with the ordinary train of affairs

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and melt into them so familiarly that
we should not be shocked at their presence

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at all events. So it was
in this instance I looked through the newspapers

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as usual, and turned over the
periodical, taking about as much interest in

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their contents as at other times.
Once or twice, no doubt, I

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may have lifted my eyes from the
page to look again at the venerable doctor,

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who ought then to have been lying
in his coffin, dressed out for

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the grave, but who felt such
interest in the Boston Post as to come

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back from the other world to read
it in the morning after his death.

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One might have supposed that he would
have cared more about the novelties with a

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Sphere to which he had just been
introduced than about the politics he had left

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behind him. The apparition took no
notice of me, nor behaved otherwise in

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any respect that on any previous day
nobody but myself seemed to notice him.

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And yet the old gentleman round about
the fire beside his chair were his lifelong

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acquaintances, who were perhaps thinking of
his death, and who in a day

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or two would deem it a proper
courtesy to attend his funeral. I have

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forgotten how the ghost of doctor Harris
took its departure from the Athenae on this

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occasion, or in fact, whether
the ghost or I went first. This

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equanimity and almost indifference on my part. The careless way in which I glanced

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at so singular a mystery and left
it aside is what now surprises me as

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much as anything else in the affair. From that time, for a long

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while thereafter, for weeks at least, and I know not, but for

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months, I used to see the
figure of doctor Harris quite as frequently as

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before his death. It grew to
be so common that at length I regarded

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the venerable defunct no more than any
other of the old fogies who basted before

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the fire and dozed over the newspapers. It was but a ghost, nothing

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but thin air, not tangible nor
appreciable, nor demanding any attention from a

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man of flesh and blood. I
cannot recollect any cold shudderings, any awe,

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any repugnance, any emotion whatsoever,
such as would be suitable and decorous

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on beholding a visit from the spiritual
world. It is very strange. But

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as such is the truth. It
appears excessively odd to me now that I

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did not adopt such means as I
readily might to ascertain whether the appearance had

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solid substance or was merely gaseous.
In vapoury. I might have brushed against

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him, have jostled his chair,
or have trodden accidentally on his poor old

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toes. I might have snatched the
Boston Post, unless that were an apparition

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too out of his shadowy hands.
I might have tested him in a hundred

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ways, But I did nothing of
the kind. Perhaps I was loth to

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destroy the illusion and to rob myself
so good of a ghost story which might

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probably have been explained in some very
commonplace way. Perhaps, after all,

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I had a secret dread of the
old phenomenon, and therefore kept within my

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limits with an instinctive caution which I
mistook for indifference. But as it may,

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here is the fact I saw the
figure day after day for a considerable

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space of time, and took no
pains to ascertain whether it was a ghost

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or no. I never, to
my knowledge, saw him come into the

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reading room or depart from it.
There sat Doctor Harris in his customary chair,

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and I can say little else about
him. After a certain period,

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I really know not how long I
began to notice or to fancy a peculiar

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regard in the old gentleman's aspect towards
myself. I sometimes found him gazing at

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me, and unless I deceived myself, there was a sort of expectancy in

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his face. His spectacles, I
think, were shoved up so that his

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bleared eyes might meet my own.
Had he been a living man, I

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should have flattered myself that good Doctor
Harris was, for some reason or other

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interested in me and desirous of a
personal acquaintance. Being a ghost and amenable

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to ghostly laws, it was natural
to conclude that he was waiting to be

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spoken to before delivering whatever message he
wished to impart. But if so,

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the ghost had shown the bad judgment
common among the spiritual brotherhood, both as

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regarded the place of interview and the
person whom he had selected as the recipient

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of his communications. In the reading
room of the Athenaeum, conversation is strictly

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forbidden, and I could not have
addressed the apparition without drawing the instant notice

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and indignant frowns of the slumbrous old
gentleman around me. I myself, too,

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at that time, was as shy
as any ghost, and followed the

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ghost's rule never to speak first.
And what an absurd figure should I have

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made solemnly and awfully addressing what must
have appeared in the eyes of all the

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rest of the company an empty chair. Besides, I had never been introduced

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to Doctor Harris, dead or alive, and I am not aware that social

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regulations are to be abrogated by the
accidental fact of one of the parties having

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crossed the imperceptible line which separates the
other party from the spiritual world. If

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ghosts throw off all conventionalism among themselves, it does not therefore follow that it

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can be safely dispensed with by those
who are still hampered with flesh and blood.

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For such reasons as these, and
reflecting moreover that the deceased doctor might

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burden me with some disagreeable task with
which I had no business nor wish to

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be concerned, I stubbornly resolved to
have nothing to say to him. To

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this determination I adhered, and not
a syllable ever passed between the ghost and

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Doctor Harris and myself. To the
best of my recollection, I never observed

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the old gentleman either enter the reading
room or depart from it, or move

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from his chair, or lay down
the newspaper, or exchange a look with

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any person in the company, unless
it were myself. He was not by

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any means, invariably in his place
in the evening, for instance, though

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often at the reading room myself never
saw him, it was at the brightest

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noontide that I used to behold him, sitting within the most comfortable focus of

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the glowing fire, as real and
lifelike as any object, except that he

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was so very old and of an
ashen complexion as any other in the room.

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After a long while of this strange
intercourse, if such it can be

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called, I remember once, at
least, and I know not but oftener,

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a sad, wistful, disappointed gaze
which the ghost fixed upon me from

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beneath his spectacles, a melancholy look
of hopelessness, which, if my heart

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had not been as hard as a
paving stone, I could hardly have withstood.

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But I did withstand it. And
I think I saw him no more

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after this last appealing look, which
still dwells in my memory, as perfectly

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as while my own eyes were encountering
the dim and bleared eyes of the ghost.

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And whenever I recall this strange passage
of my life, I see the

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small, old, withered figure of
doctor Harris, sitting in his accustomed chair.

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The Boston Post in his hand,
his spectacles shoved upwards, and gazing

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at me as I closed the door
of the reading room with that wistful,

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appealing, hopeless, helpless look.
I have only to add that it was

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not until long after I had ceased
to encounter the ghost that I became aware

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how very odd and strange the whole
affair had been. And even now I

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am made sensible of its strangeness,
chiefly by the wonder and incredulity of those

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to whom I tell the story.
End of the Ghost of Doctor Harris by Nathaniel Hawthorne