For today’s reading exercise, I’ve taken an extract from a creepy old horror story by M.R. James. James was an accomplished scholar who wrote ghost stories heavy with real mythological references. He wrote in a “visceral” way, creating strong feelings/reactions, but he did so with very minimal details. Often he did not describe whole things, but just enough to make the reader very frightened!

That is not to say his writing was simple, though. This is a very advanced text, from a time when writing was more extravagant. It comes from the 1894 story “Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook” (which you can read in full here), in which a scholar researching a church is unsettled by strange sounds and a painting, before he has an unusual encounter after removing a book from the church. This passage comes towards the end of the story, when things get rather sinister!

Useful Vocabulary

Here are some words that may be useful to understand the passage:

• Acquisition: something you have obtained
• Coarse: rough
• Conviction: strong feeling/belief
• Crucifix: cross
• Flitted: moved very quickly/lightly
• Incalculable: something that cannot be calculated/understood
• Manifested: brought into being
• Nuisance: something annoying
• Sacristan: a person in charge of a sacristy, the place where important items are stored in a church
• Take in: to observe
• Tendons: flexible tissue that attaches muscle to bone

Reading Exercise: Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook (Extract)

Read the following extract from a short horror story and consider the questions below.

Dinner was over, and Dennistoun was in his bedroom, shut up alone with his acquisition. The landlady had manifested a particular interest in him since he had told her that he had paid a visit to the sacristan and bought an old book from him. He thought, too, that he had heard a hurried dialogue between her and the said sacristan [1] in the passage outside.

All this time, a growing feeling of discomfort had been creeping over him—nervous reaction, perhaps, after the delight of his discovery.[2] Whatever it was, it resulted in a conviction that there was someone behind him, and that he was far more comfortable with his back to the wall. All this, of course, weighed light in the balance as against the obvious value of the collection he had acquired.[3] And now, as I said,[4] he was alone in his bedroom, taking stock of Canon Alberic’s treasures, which in every moment revealed something more charming.

“Bless Canon Alberic!” said Dennistoun, who had a habit of talking to himself. “I wonder where he is now? Dear me! I wish that landlady would learn to laugh in a more cheering manner; it makes one feel as if there was someone dead in the house.[5] I wonder what that crucifix is that the young woman insisted on giving me? Last century, I suppose. Yes, probably. It is rather a nuisance of a thing to have round one’s neck—just too heavy. Most likely her father has been wearing it for years. I think I might give it a clean up before I put it away.”

He had taken the crucifix off, and laid it on the table, when his attention was caught by an object lying on the red cloth just by his left elbow.[6] Two or three ideas of what it might be flitted through his brain with their own incalculable quickness.

“A penwiper? No, no such thing in the house. A rat? No, too black. A large spider? I trust to goodness not—no. Good God! a hand like the hand in that picture!”[7]

In another flash he had taken it in. Pale, dusky skin, covering nothing but bones and tendons of appalling strength; coarse black hairs, longer than ever grew on a human hand; nails rising from the ends of the fingers and curving sharply down and forward, grey, horny and wrinkled.[8]

Discussion Questions

1. What is purpose of “said” in the phrase “the said sacristan”?
2. The description following the dash has no verb. What kind of additional information is this?
3. Can you rewrite (or summarise) this sentence in a simpler form?
4. This clause is in the first person. What does that tell us about the story?
5. This sentence has no logical connection to the one before (likewise the following sentence). Do you know what we call this? Why does the writer do this?
6. Is this sentence active or passive? Why did the writer choose this style?
7. Though this is dialogue, it creates a sense of what is happening. How is this done?
8. This long sentence of descriptions has no main verb. What is the effect created by this?

Answers and Points for Discussion

1. In this case “said” means “previously mentioned”.
2. The additional information redefines what has already been described, expanding on his “feeling of discomfort”.
3. Suggested: “All this (these concerns), of course, was balanced by the collection he had acquired.”
4. The story is being narrated in first person, with someone recounting it. In this case, it can add a sense of creepiness as the writer is suggesting he was personally involved somehow, so it should be more believable.
5. This is a non-sequitur, and it is used here to create what we call a “stream of consciousness”. In this case, the speaker is observing something in the moment, describing action through his reaction, so the writer gives us both activity and a response at once.
6. This is passive; here it helps present the information in the character’s perspective, he observes and then sees the object.
7. As with [5], we get a flow of the character’s consciousness, giving first his ideas of what the object is, then his realisation of the truth, demonstrating his reaction without describing it, or the object.
8. By merely listing the descriptive qualities, with no active verb, we are fully immersed in a description, making the details bolder and the moment of taking this in stronger. The reader is as transfixed as the character by looking at the hand!

If you found this exercise useful or have any further thoughts or questions, let me know in the comments below!

For more detailed tips on improved writing skills, check out my book, Advanced Writing Skills for Students of English.