The Ghosts

Lord Dunsany | published Oct, 1908

added May 26, 2024
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First Date of Publication
Oct, 1908
Original Source
The Sword of Welleran & Other Stories
Medium
Short Story
Original Language
English
Kasman Review
ISFDB
Tags
Summary: How the rationality of Euclid’s geometry prevented a hallucinating brother from murder…

Story Tag Line: I moved towards the door to get the revolver; a hideous exultation arose among the beasts. “But the angle CEA is common, therefore AED equals CEB. In the same way CEA equals DEB. Q.E.D.” (I thought) It was proved. Logic and reason re-established themselves in my mind, there were no dark hounds of sin…

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Reviews

  • Vijay Fafat
    Published on

    The story line is very simple. Two brothers disagree about the existence of ghosts. They have an argument and the brother who clings to rationality wants to put it to test. On a hungry stomach, amidst dark oak and chilly night, he ends up facing a ghostly experience and murderous thoughts. Just as he is about to give in to the whole irrationality of it, he starts thinking out that opposite angles of intersecting straight lines are equal, and its Euclidean proof. By the force of this logical thought, all his hallucinations vanish, reminding one of Charles Dickens’ Scrooge telling the ghost in “The Christmas Carol”

    “You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”