The case for the "psychic" element in literature rests on a very oldfoundation; it reaches back to the ancient masters,—the men who wrotethe Greek tragedies. Remorse will ever seem commonplace alongside thefuries. Ever and always the shadow of the supernatural invites, pursuesus. As the art of literature has progressed it has grown along with it.To-day there is a whole new school of writers of Ghost-Stories, and thedomain of the invisible is being invaded by explorers in many paths. Wedo not believe so much more, perhaps, that is, we do not so openlyexpress a belief, but art has finally and frankly claimed thesupernatural for its own. One discerning authority even goes so far asto assert that the borders of its domain will be greatly enlarged in thewonderful new field of the screen.
There is no motive in a story, no image in poetry, that can give usquite the thrill of a supernatural idea. If we were formally chargedwith this we might resent the imputation, but the evidence has persistedfrom the beginning, lives on every hand, and multiplies daily. What wehave been in the habit of calling the "machinery" of the old Greekdrama—its supernatural effects—has come finally to be an artcultivated with care at the present hour, and has given us somewonderful new writers. In fact, few of the best masters for a generation[Pg vi]now have been able to resist its persistent and abiding charm. Everywriter of true imagination, almost without exception, including evencertain realists, has given us at least one story, long or short, inwhich the central motive is purely psychical in the Greek sense of theword.
The whole subject opens up a virgin field which has after all only begunto be tilled. Within the coming generation we may look for great artiststo devote their whole powers to it, as Algernon Blackwood is doingto-day. A simple underlying reason is enough to account for it all—thenew field imposes simply no limit on the imagination. In addition toall that science has taught us, there is illimitable store of myth andlegend to aid, to draw from, to work in, to work over, as Lord Dunsanyhas shown us. It is the most significant movement in literature at thepresent hour, and whether it is supported by a special background ofinterest—as at present in spiritism—or not, the assertion is logicalthat it is creating a new body of fictional literature of permanentimportance for the first time in the history of literature. The humancomedy seems to have been exploited to its final limits; as the art ofthe novel, the art of the stage, but too sadly prove to-day. We haveturned outward for new thrills to the supernatural and we are gettingthem.
It only remains to be added that the present great interest inspiritualism and allied phenomena has made necessary the addition ofcertain material of a "literal" character which we believe will be foundquite as interesting by the general reader as the purely literaryportion of the book.
JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH