The Canterville Ghost

Warning! Oscar Wilde is now pretending to write a scientific report, so his language becomes more complicated.

The whole family were now quite interested; Mr. Otis began to suspect that he had been too dogmatic in his denial of the existence of ghosts, Mrs. Otis expressed her intention of joining the Psychical Society, and Washington prepared a long letter to a detective agency on the subject of the Permanence of Sanguineous Stains when connected with Crime. That night all doubts about the objective existence of phantasmata were removed for ever. The day had been warm and sunny; and, in the cool of the evening, the whole family went out of the house. They did not return home till nine o'clock, when they had a light supper.

The conversation in no way turned upon ghosts, so there were not even those primary conditions of receptive expectation which so often precede ghostly appearances. The subjects discussed, as I have since learned from Mr. Otis, were merely such as form the ordinary conversation of cultured Americans of the better class, such as the immense superiority of Miss Fanny Davenport over Sara Bernhardt as an actress; the difficulty of obtaining green corn, buckwheat cakes, and hominy, even in the best English houses; the importance of Boston in the world's spiritual development; the advantages of the baggage check system in railway travelling; and the sweetness of the New York accent as compared to the London drawl.

Vocabulary:

Dogmatic: Certain that something you believe is true.
Psychical: To do with the supernatural.
Sanguineous: To do with blood.
Phantasmata: A long word for 'ghosts'.
Turn upon: Here it means 'to be about'.
Cultured: Educated about art and society.
Receptive expectation: Thinking something is going to happen.
Hominy: A food made from corn.
Drawl: To talk slowly, stretching out the words.