Books and bookmen (1899) (14783809722)

Identifier: booksbookmen00lang (find matches) Title: Books and bookmen .. Year: 1899 (1890s) Authors: Lang, Andrew, 1844-1912 Subjects: Bibliomania Literary forgeries and mystifications Publisher: London, Longmans, Green Contributing Library: University of Connecticut Libraries Digitizing Sponsor: University of Connecticut Libraries

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Text Appearing Before Image: --where. This is the fact that makes life sopuzzling and terrible to a child of a believingand trustful character. These Oriental bogiesdo not appear in the dark alone, or only inhaunted houses, or at cross-roads, or in gloomywoods. They are everywhere : every man hashis own ghost, every place has its peculiar haunt-ing fiend, every natural phenomenon has its in-forming spirit; every quality, as hunger, greed,envy, malice, has an embodied visible shapeprowling about seeking what it may devour.Where our science, for example, sees (or rathersmells) sewer gas, the Japanese behold a slimy,meagre, insatiate wrath, crawling to devour thelives of men. Where we see a storm of snow. Text Appearing After Image: A SNOW BOGIE. 58 BOOKS AND BOOKMEN. their livelier fancy beholds a comic snow-ghost, aqueer, grinning old man under a vast umbrella. The illustrations in this paper are only a fewspecimens chosen out of many volumes ofJapanese bogies. We have not ventured tocopy the very most awful spectres, nor dared tobe as horrid as vve can. These native draw-ings, too, are generally coloured regardless ofexpense, and the colouring is often horriblylurid and satisfactory. This embellishment,fortunately perhaps, we cannot reproduce.Meanwhile, if any child looks into this essay,let him (or her) not be alarmed by the pictureshe beholds. Japanese ghosts do not live in thiscountry; there are none of them even at theJapanese Legation. Just as bears, lions, andrattlesnakes are not to be seriously dreaded inour woods and commons, so the Japaneseghost cannot breathe (any more than a slavecan) in the air of England or America. We donot yet even keep any ghostly zoological gardenin which the bogies of Japanes

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