Bogeyman

“ They had expected to see the idiot flee in terror; but instead of so doing, he laughed loudly at the white figure, and then suddenly, as the expression of his face changed to one of intense interest, he shouted, 'Oh, oh! a black one! a black one!' Sure enough, a dark and terrible figure stood in the middle of the road. The mock ghost fled, with his companions at his heels, the real spectre chasing them hotly, and the idiot bringing up the rear, shouting at the top of his voice, 'Run, black devil! ”

“ It was taught to us in the temple that from these eight foci of infection the disease of evil has been spreading throughout the world; from these eight towers have gone forth every year the emissaries of evil—perverted missionaries—to spread the poisonous propaganda, to teach it, to tamper stealthily with the minds of men, dominate them, pervert them, instruct them in the creed of the Assassin of Souls. ”

“ For, indeed, in those days of a wild fear and confusion, when every condition that maketh for reason was set wandering by a devious path, and all men sitting as in a theatre of death looked to see the curtain rise upon God knows what horrors, it was vouchsafed to many to witness sights and sounds beyond the compass of Nature, and that as if the devil and his minions had profited by the anarchy to slip unobserved into the world. ”

“ I even thought that I must have left the hall lamp burning and the groping of this creature proved it a monster of the night. This was foolish and inconsistent with my previous dread of the light, but what would you have? Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated. We know this well, we who have passed into the Realm of Terror, who skulk in eternal dusk among the scenes of our former lives, invisible even to ourselves and one another, yet hiding forlorn in lonely places ”

“ Slowly their dread mastered them; their faces grew grey and then green; one man gave back a step, then another; one by one they tore away their eyes from the dormant horror; glared at one another in the agony of utter fear; turned with one accord, and fled—fled as men flee with the fear of death at their backs, and the devils of the lone Night and the waste on their heels. ”

“ It is the voice of the Count whom I killed! It makes my inmost soul quiver with horror. I hear that horrible sound distinctly, close to my ear, in the thick of the thunder of the heavy siege-guns, and the rattle of musketry, and all the wild despair of madness awakes within me. This very night----' Bogislav paused; and I, as well as he, was seized with the wildest horror; for there came to our hearing a long-sustained, heart-breaking wail of sorrow, as if proceeding from the stair outside. ”

“ Harpies and vampires and werewolves—what are they but magnifications, distortions of the great birds and bats and ferocious dogs that harassed and tortured our ancestors? It is easy enough to arouse fear by such means. It is easy enough to frighten men with the flames at the mouth of hell, because they are hot and shrivel and burn the flesh—and who does not understand and dread a fire? ”

“ Living things!—Grand Dieu! the bats of the living Terror. They peered from holes and alcoves; they mowed and chattered; they shook their sooty locks at us and hailed Gusman in the jargon of the underworld. Thieves and rogues and cowards—here they swarmed in the warrens of despair, the very sacristans of devil-worship, the unclean acolytes of the desecrated rock-chapels, whose books of the Gospel were long since torn for fuel. ”

“ The terrified women and children flee for life, the men huddle them inside a circle, and, on the principle of fighting the devil with fire, they swing blazing firebrands in the air, yell, whoop, and make frantic dashes at the marauding and bloodthirsty devils, so creating a terrific spectacle, and striking great fear into the hearts of the assembled hundreds of women, who are screaming and fainting and clinging to their valorous protectors. ”

“ If, as is assumed, he was fain to kill the Terror by the Terror, to fill up the abyss by dead bodies, and so cross over this bridge of corpses into the promised land of a reorganized society, his plan was the most horrible failure. ”

“ It is not fit that I should describe all that followed, for no man can exactly report all, when all is in turmoil and an unchained madness hurrieth through every mind; madness of defiance and that hideous madness of fear. For if ever man gazed into the very eyes of the spectre of fear, it was I then, whom nameless horror possessed, so that more than once, when the hammering upon the gate shook even the flags with which the hall was paven, I shrunk back to the farthest corner in the dark, biting my knuckles till they bled ”

“ They say that Fear stands on the threshold of the occult world, and as my dream consciousness impinged upon it I experienced abject terror, a terror that creeps through the marrow of the bones and lifts the roots of one’s hair at a thought.
I lay down in my dark room at the Hotel London at Aulie Ata after the fight between landlady and lodger had ceased but whilst the Sart orchestra still blew their horns over the city. ”

“ We do not believe the Enemy has abandoned his old profession: an evil spirit despises a disembodied state; if people are fortified and shielded against his entrance—then the swine. As cold air whistles and roars about every crack and cranny, entering in from all directions, so evil spirits—Devil and demons—press their entrance into the soul. ”

“ If there be something in the nature and designs of the conspiracy, so odious in its means, its character, and its objects, as to enlist against the conspirators sensations of horror, indignation, and contempt, one gains from public feeling very much more by its discovery and exposure, than even by the power of fear over the disaffected, and the elevation of triumph on the part of the well disposed. ”

“ Dimmer and dimmer, as the generations pass away, this tremendous terror, this all-pervading espionage of evil, this active incarnation of motiveless malignity, presents itself to the imagination. The once imposing and solemn rite of exorcism has become obsolete in the Church. Men are no longer, in any quarter of the world, racked or pressed under planks to extort a confession of diabolical alliance. ”

“ And most of all, or with most darkness in its train, comes the sickness of the brain—lunacy—which, visiting nearly one thousand in every million, must, in every populous nation, make many ruins in each particular day. 'Babylon in ruins,' says a great author, 'is not so sad a sight as a human soul overthrown by lunacy.' But there is a sadder even than that,—the sight of a family-ruin wrought by crime is even more appalling. ”

“ Misery, terror, despair, overwhelmed all within the walls, while the foe without drew back in equal terror, lest the pestilence should leap the walls and assail them in their camps.
Nor have we yet told all. Other evils followed that of the plague. Law was forgotten, morality ignored. ”

“ With hammers and axes they knock people over their heads and cause headache. They bite, and cause swellings. They shoot invisible arrows which stick in the body causing death. The demons tear out pieces of flesh from people, thus [295] causing sores and wounds to form on the body.” The same spirit of fear of the invisible and of the mysterious, fear of evil powers, controlling the fate of man, constitutes the central belief of almost every primitive tribe, semi-civilized, ancient, as well as modern nation. They are all controlled by the fundamental instinct of life—the fear instinct. ”

“ So complicated an event arrested the attention of the world for a long time; and, as additional and more detailed accounts of the extensive effects of this explosion came from every quarter, the minds already aroused by the misfortunes of strangers began to be more and more anxious about themselves and their friends. Perhaps the demon of terror had never so speedily and powerfully diffused his terrors over the earth. ”

“ How could a bogy injure you? When the vital strength is dissipated in anger, and is not renewed, there is a deficiency. When its tendency is in one direction upwards, the result is to incline men to wrath. When its tendency is in one direction downwards, the result is loss of memory. When it remains stagnant, in the middle of the body, the result is disease."
"Very well," said the Duke, "but are there such things as bogies?" ”

“ There is no place in the universe where evil spirits can not penetrate. Every manner of evil and disaster is ascribed to them, from pestilence, fever, and the scorching wind of the desert, down to the trifles of life,—a quarrel, a headache, a broken dish, or a bad dream. They walk the street, slip into the door, get into the food, in short, are everywhere, and the danger from their presence is always imminent.... Corresponding to a widespread belief in demons was a similar belief in witchcraft. ”

“ As if they had previously suspected we were evil demons, and had at length a clear proof of it, they repeated their gesticulations of defiance with tenfold fury, and accompanied the action with demoniac looks, hideous shouts and a war-song, crouching, jumping, spitting, springing with the spear, and throwing dust at us, as they slowly retired. ”

“ I mixed with the mob to hear what they were saying. Every tongue was engaged in loading me with the most opprobrious epithets! One called me a monster of nature; another an incarnate devil; and another a creature made to be cursed in time and eternity. I retired from them and, winded my way southwards, comforting myself with the assurance that so mankind had used and persecuted the greatest fathers and apostles of the Christian Church, and that their vile opprobrium could not alter the counsels of Heaven concerning me. ”

“ But what is the root of this great evil? Where lies the fearful secret? Who understands the disease? A direful pestilence is in the air—it walketh in darkness, and wasteth at noonday. It is slaying the first-born in our houses, and the cry of anguish is swelling on every gale. ”

“ So men entitle them. No doubt it is human to think to put terror out of countenance by miscalling it.”
“How, then?”
He beckoned us to follow; plunged into the very funnel mouth that had vomited the eerie babble; led us swiftly by a winding passage, and stopped.
“Behold!” said he, flashing his torch to and fro over the surface of a roughly piled and cemented wall that seemed to close the entrance to a vast recess.
“Behold!” said he, sweeping the flame to the ground at the wall-foot.
We saw a skull or two; a few scattered bones. An indescribable brassy odour assailed our nostrils. ”

“ Those who had been foolhardy enough to peep through the windows after nightfall, saw within the spectres of the long-departed denizens engaged in their wonted occupations—headless forms danced through the moonlit apartments, and on one occasion a godly minister and two pious elders were scared out of their senses, by the terrible vision of a raw head and blood-dripping arm, which protruded from the wall in this terrible street, and flourished a sword above their heads, and many other terrors which are duly chronicled in that old calender of diablerie, Satan's Invisible World. ”

“ The window was a square of greenly translucent light, as though it were the side of an artificially illuminuated aquarium, and glaring through it at me was William Blake's nightmare vision of the devil.
The eyes burned into mine, the fangs were revealed in a tiger's grin—the whole effect was that of a monster aflame with sadistic appetite measuring its distance for a pounce at my throat.
I'm afraid I fainted. It's a weakness no man likes to admit to, but it does happen. ”

“ Men met the pestilence in various moods: the brave with fortitude, the pious with resignation, the cowardly and turbulent with outbursts of despair and fury. Among the lower classes the wildest rumours gained credence. Some assigned the pestilence to witchcraft, others declared that the waters of the wells and streams had been poisoned. Serious riots occurred in many places, and great numbers of people fell victims to the fury of the mob under the suspicion of being connected in some way with the ravages of the pestilence. ”

“ For the truth shall be spoken; since of old these evil demons, effecting apparitions of themselves, both defiled women and corrupted boys, and showed such fearful sights to men, that those who did not use their reason in judging of the actions that were done, were struck with terror; and being carried away by fear, and not knowing that these were demons, they called them gods, and gave to each the name which each of the demons chose for himself. ”

“ It is not so much that they rush in where angels fear to tread, but rather that they let out what devils intend to do. Some perversion of folly will float about nameless and pervade a whole society; then some lunatic gives it a name, and henceforth it is harmless. With all really evil things, when the danger has appeared the danger is over. ”

“ The fear of the unknown, the mysterious, and the dark, peoples the mind of primitive man with all sorts of terrible spectres, ghosts, spirits, goblins, ghouls, shades, witches, and evil powers, all bent on mischief, destruction and death. Primitive man suffers from chronic demonophobia. Fear states are specially emphasized at night when the “demons” have the full power for evil, and man is helpless on account of darkness and sleep which paralyze him. Hence the terrors of the night, especially when man is alone, and defenseless. ”