Questionable Shapes

Questionable Shapes

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Title: Questionable Shapes
Author: William Dean Howells
Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9458] [This file was first
posted on October 2, 2003]
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QUESTIONABLE SHAPES
BY
W. D. HOWELLS
Author of "Literary Friends And Acquaintance," "Literature And Life,"
"The Kentons," "Their Silver Wedding Journey," Etc., Etc.
Published May, 1903

CONTENTS.
HIS APPARITION
THE ANGEL OF THE LORD
THOUGH ONE ROSE FROM THE DEAD

ILLUSTRATIONS.
"MRS. ALDERLING CAME OUT WITH A BOOK IN HER HAND"
"'I'M AFRAID I'M RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT'"
"'WHY, THERE ISN'T ANY PUNISHMENT SEVERE ENOUGH
FOR A CRIME LIKE THAT'"
"HE BROKE INTO A SOBBING THAT SEEMED TO WRENCH
AND TEAR"

* * * * *

HIS APPARITION.

I.
The incident was of a dignity which the supernatural has by no means
always had, and which has been more than ever lacking in it since the

manifestations of professional spiritualism began to vulgarize it.
Hewson appreciated this as soon as he realized that he had been
confronted with an apparition. He had been very little agitated at the
moment, and it was not till later, when the conflict between sense and
reason concerning the fact itself arose, that he was aware of any
perturbation. Even then, amidst the tumult of his whirling emotions he
had a sort of central calm, in which he noted the particulars of the
occurrence with distinctness and precision. He had always supposed
that if anything of the sort happened to him he would be greatly
frightened, but he had not been at all frightened, so far as he could
make out. His hair had not risen, or his cheek felt a chill; his heart had
not lost or gained a beat in its pulsation; and his prime conclusion was
that if the Mysteries had chosen him an agent in approaching the
material world they had not made a mistake. This becomes grotesque in
being put into words, but the words do not misrepresent, except by their
inevitable excess, the mind in which Hewson rose, and flung open his
shutters to let in the dawn upon the scene of the apparition, which he
now perceived must have been, as it were, self-lighted. The robins were
yelling from the trees and the sparrows bickering under them; catbirds
were calling from the thickets of syringa, and in the nearest woods a
hermit-thrush was ringing its crystal bells. The clear day was
penetrating the east with the subtle light which precedes the sun, and a
summer sweetness rose cool from the garden below, gray with dew.
In the solitude of the hour there was an intimation of privity to the
event which had taken place, an implication of the unity of the natural
and the supernatural, strangely different from that robust gayety of the
plain day which later seemed to disown the affair, and leave the burden
of proof altogether to the human witness. By this time Hewson had
already set about to putting it in such phrases as should carry
conviction to the hearer, and yet should convey to him no suspicion of
the pride which Hewson felt in the incident as a sort of tribute to
himself. He dramatized the scene at breakfast when he should describe
it in plain, matter-of-fact terms, and hold every one spellbound, as he or
she leaned forward over the table to listen, while he related the fact
with studied unconcern for his own part in it, but with a serious regard
for the integrity of the fact itself, which he had no wish to exaggerate as
to its immediate meaning or remoter implications. It did not yet occur

to him that it had none; they were simply