human
Is this your laboratory?
gpt
What do you think of it? was the reply.
human
Plenty of space, isn't there? A man could have a score of ghosts here--ghosts of monks, you know--nosing about for their comfortable old quarters.
gpt
Not so very comfortable in their day, Uncle, suggested Una;
human
Are you interested in ghosts, David?
gpt
What do you mean by ghosts?
human
Ah, that's it! This old room--are there ghosts in it, I wonder? The nail marks in the walls, the stains where the lights were hung, the shadowy remains of the altar--can you shake off the feeling that the Brotherhood is still at prayers here, that it still has Stoneleigh for its home?
gpt
The Brotherhood no longer exists.
human
There's a family tradition, anyway, that assures us of its ability to produce some excellent examples of the old-fashioned, conventional ghost. A very great aunt of mine, for instance, once ventured alone into this room and was met by a stalwart being who scowled at her from under his brown hood and waved her majestically out of his presence.
gpt
That's the kind of ghost one likes to hear about and see,
human
It didn't please my aunt particularly. The fright prostrated her for months. Other imaginative ancestors have heard the monks chanting together, and seen spectral lights moving about here at midnight.
gpt
You speak as if you believed it all.
human
I can't be defrauded of my family traditions.
gpt
How queer it is! exclaimed Una, who had been wandering about the room and now rejoined Harold and David before the fireplace.
human
I like it, even if it is dirty. Why have you broken your rule and brought us here, Uncle? And why do you talk as if you believed in the Stoneleigh ghosts? You know you don't.
gpt
Ghosts! he ejaculated.
human
I have been making some experiments recently. I thought you might be interested in them.
gpt
Experiments in ghosts,
human
Yes, said the old man, enjoying his bewilderment.
gpt
My ghosts may be different from those you have in mind. If you have followed the recent developments in psychology you probably know that there are ghosts attached to the living, whatever the case may be in regard to the dead.
human
No, I never heard that.
gpt
Not in those words. 'Ghosts' is not a term used by the scientist. It involves a medieval superstition. But I am interested in things more than in words, and I am not afraid to say that we have been rediscovering ghosts.
human
Uncle, don't talk enigmas--or nonsense,
gpt
I confess, sir, I don't follow you,
human
Did you ever feel that you had lost yourself?
gpt
I don't understand.
human
If you forget a thing, you lose just that much of yourself, don't you? When you sleep, you enter a world of dreams. In that world you think, speak, go through a set of vivid experiences. Awake, you are aware that you have had these vivid experiences--and yet, you can't possibly remember them. You are dimly conscious that you were in another world and that while there you thought, suffered, rejoiced, much in the same way that you do here. At times you have a vague feeling that you have undergone some important crisis in your dream-existence, or you wake up with the sensation of having reached some high peak of happiness. But you cannot recall the details, or even the general outlines, of what has happened. Not a scene of this dreamland, of which you are an occasional inhabitant, can you picture to your waking thought; nor does your waking memory hold the visage, or even the name, of one of your dream-associates.
gpt
All this has to do with dreams, objected David.
human
It is admittedly unreal.