Ghosts and Scholars by Richard Dalby

Author:Richard Dalby [Dalby, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780850306149
Google: 9BqhkgEACAAJ
Goodreads: 9482800
Published: 2022-08-28T08:46:33+00:00

––— GHOST STOllY COMPETITION – - ––-‘–-14=J

story a ‘veridical’ account of an experienct’. et)m1111micated with proper credentials to the S.P.R., it would command the attl’ntion which it fails to rouse as fiction. The benevolent grt·Jt grandmother in Old Chi1111

does not stray out of an ordinary groove.

Two tales remain which I think the best, ‘f‘11t· J-fo11sf-Anty .md Herl’

He Lies, etc. The latter causes me a slight diftinilty: the note .1t tilt’ t·nd appears to indicate th.it the writt’f did not invent the story but had it told to her. lt is a good story and wdl told. and, if this note dm·s not constitute a disqualitication. I should pbcc Hnf /fr Lies tlrst. If it is disqualified, I should give thl’ prizt· to The H()t1st·-l’,my. which has the merits (in my eyt’S) ofa perfrctly ordinary setting, a horrid catastrophe, and a curiosity kgitimatdy excitt·d. and nor s:itistied. in the mind of the reader. Thert· is sympathy, wo. roused ll)r the victim-another good point.

It has been an interestin� and pkasant t·xpl·riencl’ to rt·ad these stories. All of th,•m show somt’ 11nagi11Jtion: frw have any serious faults in expression. The chief t)bstadc to excellence has been, as I said, the limited spare: almost everyone would have been bettn for more elbowwom: but I cannot wonder that a limit was imposed. What might not have been the fate of a preliminary sifter, compelled to read, against time, a hundred stories of 3. 000 words apiece!

M. R. JAMES

‘HERE HE LIES WHERE HE LONGED TO BE’

You won’t believe this story; you’ll say it is all moonshine. I should say so myself. if I did not know it were true. But whenever I think it must have been a dream, I see again that look of deep peace on Lao Ming’s face, and then I fed glad that the old man sleeps with his fathers in the distant Shensi hills and not in the crowded rabbit-warrens of the Shanghai cemeteries.

I met Lao Ming in 1927 when I left the interior because of the Communists. He told me he had been born and bred in Shensi and had held high official positions under the Manchus, but, since the Revolution, he had drifted to Shanghai and lived-goodness knows how-in one room in the native city. During that dreary winter some of my most pleasant hours were spent in that dirty little room. We both loved to talk about Shensi and I found that his dearest wish was to return there to die, although such a journey really seemed impossible for a man of his age. He was a classical scholar, deeply learned in the magics of (corrupt) Buddhism and, one day, he introduced _me to a frien� who, he said, was a wizard of great skill and repute. As I listened to their talk,

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