The peasantry, who inhabit the wilderness beyond, say that I am mad.
That is because I will have nothing to do with them. I live here alone
with my old sister, who is also my housekeeper. We keep no servants--I
hate them. I have one friend, a dog; yes, I would sooner have old Pepper
than the rest of Creation together. He, at least, understands me--and
has sense enough to leave me alone when I am in my dark moods.
I have decided to start a kind of diary; it may enable me to record
some of the thoughts and feelings that I cannot express to anyone; but,
beyond this, I am anxious to make some record of the strange things that
I have heard and seen, during many years of loneliness, in this weird
old building.
For a couple of centuries, this house has had a reputation, a bad one,
and, until I bought it, for more than eighty years no one had lived
here; consequently, I got the old place at a ridiculously low figure.
I am not superstitious; but I have ceased to deny that things happen
in this old house--things that I cannot explain; and, therefore, I must
needs ease my mind, by writing down an account of them, to the best of
my ability; though, should this, my diary, ever be read when I am gone,
the readers will but shake their heads, and be the more convinced that
I was mad.
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