This lore not only stood him in
good stead when he compiled his _Letters on Demonology and
Witchcraft_ (1830), but served to adorn his poems and novels.
There was nothing unhealthy in his attitude towards the spectral
world. At an inn he slept soundly in one bed of a double room,
while a dead man occupied the other. Twice in his life he
confessed to having felt "eerie"--once at Glamis Castle, which
was said to be haunted by a Presence in a Secret Chamber, and
once when he believed that he saw an apparition on his way home
in the twilight; but he usually jests cheerfully when he speaks
of the supernatural. He was interested in tracing the sources of
terror and in studying the mechanism of ghost stories.
The axioms which he lays down are sound and suggestive:
"Ghosts should not appear too often or become too
chatty. The magician shall evoke no spirits, whom he is
not capable of endowing with manners and language
corresponding to their supernatural character. Perhaps,
to be circumstantial and abundant in minute detail and
in one word ... to be somewhat prosy, is the secret
mode of securing a certain necessary degree of
credulity from the hearers of a ghost story... The
chord which vibrates and sounds at a touch remains in
silent tension under continued pressure.
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