A Mirror of Shalott

By Robert Hugh Benson “She said nothing, and her silence was the worst of all…” The contents of A Mirror of Shalott are ghost stories, recounted by a group of priests with varying levels of credence. These stories, as Monsignor Maxwell says on the first evening, deserve a hearing, and responses ought to be given on the basis of rational investigation and faithful adherence to God, who is “Lord of both the dead and the living.” One after the other, in an ever-thickening atmosphere of dread and suspense, the fourteen priests recount their respective tales: mystical substitution (the bearing of temptation on behalf of another); exorcisms; ships in the night; corruption in the heart of man and his handiwork; a Viaticum delivered alongside the footsteps of a mysterious, sinister stranger; and nine more—each as chillingly otherworldly as the last.  First published in 1907, A Mirror of Shalott is among the earliest entries in supernatural fiction by a leading light of Anglo-Catholic literat