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Speaker 1: The Ghost of Doctor Harris by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I'm afraid

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this ghost story will bear a very faded aspect when

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transferred to paper. Whatever effect it had on you, whatever

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charm it retains in your memory, is perhaps to be

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attributed to the favorable circumstances under which it was originally told.

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We were sitting, i remember, late in the evening in

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your drawing room, where the lights of the chandelier were

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so muffled as to produce a delicious obscurity through which

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

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The feelings of the party had been properly attuned by

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some tales of English superstitioned, and the lady of smith

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Hills Hall had just been describing that bloody footstep which

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marks the threshold of her old mansion. When your Yankee guest,

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zealous for the honor of his country and desirous of

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proving that his dead compatriots have the same ghostly privileges

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as other dead people if they think it worthwhile to

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use them, began a story of something wonderful that long

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ago happened to himself. Possibly in the verbal narrative, he

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may have assumed a little more license than would be

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allowed in a written record, for the sake of the

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artistic effect. He may then have thrown in here and

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there a few slight circumstances which he will not think

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it proper to retain in what he now puts forth

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as the sober statement of a veritable fact. A good

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many years ago, it must be as many as fifteen,

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perhaps more, and while I was still a bachelor, I

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resided at Boston and the United States. In that city

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there is a large and long established library styled the Athenaeum,

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connected with which is a reading room well supplied with

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foreign and American periodicals and newspapers. A splendid edifice has

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since been erected by the proprietors of the institution, but

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at the period I speak of, it was contained within

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a large old mansion, formerly the town residence of an

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imminent citizen of Boston. The reading room, a spacious hall

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with a group of the leaca on at one end,

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in the Belvidere Apollo at the other, was frequented by

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not a few elderly merchants retired from business, by clergymen

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and lawyers, and by such literary men as we had

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

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and used to nod and doze for hours together with

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the newspapers before them, ever and anon, recovering themselves so

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far as to read a word or two of the

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

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boundary of the land of dreams, and having little to

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do with this world except through the newspapers, which they

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so tenaciously grasped. One of these worthies whom I occasionally

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saw there was the Reverend doctor Harris, a Unitarian clergyman

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of considerable repute and eminence. He was very far advanced

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in life, no less than eighty years old, and probably more,

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and he resided, I think, at Dorchester, a suburban village

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in the immediate vicinity of Boston. I had never been

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personally acquainted with the good old clergyman, but had heard

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of him all my life as a noteworthy man, so

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that when he was first pointed out to me, I

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looked at him with a certain specialty of attention, and

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always subsequently eyed him with a degree of interest. Whenever

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I happened to see him at the Athenaeum or elsewhere.

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He was a small, withered and firm, but brisk old

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

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yet a remarkable alacrity of movement. I remember it was

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in the street when I first noticed him. The doctor

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was plodding along with the staff, but turned smartly about

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on being addressed by the gentleman who was with me,

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and responded with a good deal of vivacity. Who is he?

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I inquired, as soon as he had passed. The Reverend

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Doctor Harris of Dorchester, replied, my companion, And from that

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time I often saw him and never forgot his aspect.

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His especial haunt was the Athenaeum. There I used to

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see him daily, and almost always with the newspaper the

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Boston Post, which was the leading journal of the Democratic

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Party in the Northern States. As old Doctor Harris had

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been a noted Democrat during his more active life, it

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was a very natural thing that he should still like

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to read the Boston Post. There, his reverend figure was

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accustomed to sit day after day in the self same

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chair by the fireside, and by degrees, seeing him there

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so constantly, I began to look towards him as I

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entered the reading room and felt that a kind of acquaintance,

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at least on my part, was established. Not that I

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had any reason, as long as this venerable person remained

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in the body, to suppose that he had ever noticed me.

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But by some subtle connection, the small, white haired and

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firm yet vivacious figure of an old clergyman became associated

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with my idea and recollection of the place. One day,

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

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perfectly certain that I had seen this figure of old

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doctor Harris and taken my customary note of him, although

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I remember nothing in his appearance at all different from

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what I had seen on many previous occasions. But that

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very evening a friend said to me, did you hear

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that old doctor Harris is dead? No, I said, very quietly,

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and it cannot be true, for I saw him at

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

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He is certainly dead, and confirmed the fact with such

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special circumstance that I could no longer doubt it. My

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friend has often since assured me that I seemed much

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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,

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but set down the apparition as a mistake of my own,

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or perhaps the interposition of a familiar idea into the

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place and amid the circumstances with which I had been

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

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the steps of the Athenaeum, I remember thinking within myself, well,

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I never shall see old doctor Harris again. With this

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thought in my mind, as I opened the door of

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the reading room, I glanced towards the spot and chair

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

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sat the gray and firm figure of the deceased doctor,

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reading the newspaper as was his wont his own death

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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,

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nor indeed that I felt any extraordinary emotion whatever, Probably,

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if ghosts were in the habit of coming among us,

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they would coincide with the ordinary train of affairs and

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melt into them so familiarly that we should not be

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shocked at their presence at all events. So it was

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in this instance I looked through the newspapers as usual,

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and turned over the periodically taking about as much interest

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in their contents as at other times. Once or twice,

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no doubt, I may have lifted my eyes from the

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page to look again at the venerable doctor, who ought

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them to have been lying in his coffin, dressed out

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for the grave, but who felt such interest in the

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Boston Post as to come back from the other world

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to read it in the morning after his death. One

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might have supposed that he would have cared more about

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the novelties with a Sphere to which he had just

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been introduced than about the politics he had left behind him.

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The apparition took no notice of me, nor behaved otherwise

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in any respect than on any previous day. Nobody but

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myself seemed to notice him. And yet the old gentleman

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round about the fire beside his chair were his lifelong acquaintances,

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who were perhaps thinking of his death, and who in

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a day or two would deem it a proper courtesy

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to attend his funeral. I have forgotten how the ghost

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of doctor Harris took its departure from the Athenae on

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this occasion, or in fact, whether the ghost or I

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went first. This equanimity and almost indifference on my part.

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The careless way in which I glanced at so singular

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a mystery and left it aside, is what now surprises

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me as much as anything else in the affair. From

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that time, for a long while thereafter, for weeks at least,

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and I know not, but for months, I used to

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see the figure of doctor Harris quite as frequently as

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before his death. It grew to be so common that

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at length I regarded the venerable defunct no more than

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any other of the old fogies who bassed before the

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fire and dosed over the newspapers. It was but a ghost,

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nothing but thin air, not tangible nor appreciable, nor demanding

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any attention from a man of flesh and blood. I

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cannot recollect any cold shudderings, any awe, any repugnance, any

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emotion whatsoever, such as would be suitable and decorous on

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

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but such is the truth. It appears excessively odd to

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me now that I did not adopt such means as

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I readily might to ascertain whether the appearance had solid

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substance or was merely gaseous in vapory I might have

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brushed against him, have jostled his chair, or have trodden

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accidentally on his poor old toes. I might have snatched

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the Boston Post, unless that were an apparition too out

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of his shadowy hands. I might have tested him in

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a hundred ways, But I did nothing of the kind.

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Perhaps I was loth to destroy the illusion and to

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rob myself so good of a ghost story which might

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

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after all, I had a secret dread of the old phenomenon,

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and therefore kept within my limits with an instinctive caution

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which I mistook for indifference. As it may, here is

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the fact I saw the figure day after day for

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a considerable space of time, and took no pains to

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ascertain whether it was a ghost or no. I never,

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to my knowledge, saw him come into the reading room

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or depart from it. There sat Doctor Harris in his

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customary chair, and I can say little else about him.

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After a certain period, I really know not how long

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I began to notice or to fancy a peculiar regard

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in the old gentleman's aspect towards myself. I sometimes found

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him gazing at me and unless I deceived myself. There

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was a sort of expectancy in his face. His spectacles,

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I think, were shoved up so that his bleared eyes

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might beat my own. Had he been a living man,

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I should have flattered myself that good doctor Harris was,

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for some reason or other interested in me and desirous

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of a personal acquaintance. Being a ghost and amenable to

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ghostly laws, it was natural to conclude that he was

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waiting to be spoken to before delivering whatever message he

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wished to impart. But if so, the ghost had shown

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the bad judgment common among the spiritual brotherhood, both as

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regarded the place of interview and the person whom he

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had selected as the recipient of his communications. In the

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reading room of the Athenaeum, conversation is strictly forbidden, and

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I could not have addressed the apparition without drawing the

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instant notice and indignant frowns of the slumbrous old gentleman

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around me. I myself, too, at that time, was as

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shy as any ghost, and followed the ghost's rule never

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to speak first. And what an absurd figure should I

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have made solemnly and awfully addressing what must have appeared

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in the eyes of all the rest of the company

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an empty chair. Besides, I had never been introduced to

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doctor Harris, dead or alive, and I am not aware

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that social regulations are to be abrogated by the accidental

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fact of one of the part parties having crossed the

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

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If ghosts throw off all conventionalism among themselves, it does

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not therefore follow that it can be safely dispensed with

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by those who are still hampered with flesh and blood.

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For such reasons as these, and reflecting moreover that the

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deceased doctor might burden me with some disagreeable task with

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which I had no business nor wish to be concerned,

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I stubbornly resolved to have nothing to say to him.

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To this determination I adhered, and not a syllable ever

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pass between the ghost of doctor Harris and myself. To

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the best of my recollection, I never observed the old

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gentleman either enter the reading room or depart from it,

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or move from his chair, or lay down the newspaper,

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or exchange a look with any person in the company,

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unless it were myself. He was not by any means

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

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often at the reading room myself I never saw him.

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It was at the brightest noontide that I used to

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behold him, sitting within the most comfortable focus of the

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glowing fire, as real and lifelike as any object, except

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that he was so very old and of an ashen

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complexion as any other in the room. After a long

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while of this strange intercourse, if such it can be called,

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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

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me from beneath his spectacles, a melancholy look of hopelessness, which,

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if my heart had not been as hard as a

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paving stone, I could hardly have withstood. But I did

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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,

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as perfectly as while my own eyes were encountering the

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dim and bleared eyes of the ghost. And whenever I

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recall this strange passage of my life, I see the small, old,

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withered figure of doctor Harris, sitting in his accustomed chair,

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the Boston post in his hand, his spectacles shoved upwards

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and gazing at me as I closed the door of

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the reading room with that wistful, appealing, hopeless, helpless look.

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I have only to add that it was not until

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long after I had ceased to encounter the ghost that

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I became aware how very odd and strange the whole

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affair had been. And even now I am made sensible

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of its strangeness, chiefly by the wonder and incredulity of

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those to whom I tell the story. End of the

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Ghost of Doctor Harris by Nathaniel Hawthorne