The Unknown Guest

The Unknown Guest is by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. The introduction says an Essay on Death led the writer to make a conscientious enquiry into the present position of the great mystery. The introduction says the work has been divided into two almost equal parts, the first being a brief study of veridical apparitions and hallucinations and haunted houses.

The text says that, however exceptional they may be, these apparitions nevertheless exist and are proved, as far as anything can be proved, by abundant testimony of a very precise character. The text says that as a rule the phantom says nothing, and that its presence, which is always brief, is but a sort of silent warning. By 1884 the Committee on Haunted Houses of the S. P. R. had selected and made an analysis of some sixty-five cases, twenty-eight of which rested upon first-hand and superior evidence. One account says a man accompanied the seconds by motorcar from Naples to Marano, a place which he had never visited nor even heard of.