A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man woke in the night.

Barrie suggests that “haunting” is less a matter of external spirits than of human perception under the pressure of darkness and attention. In a quiet house at night, ordinary sounds and movements become charged with intention—whispers, hands at windows, latches lifting—because the mind, alert and vulnerable, supplies agency and narrative. The final sentence frames ghosts as an ancient psychological invention: the first time a human woke in fear and uncertainty, imagination populated the unknown with presences. The passage thus links folklore to universal nocturnal experience, implying that the supernatural is rooted in the storytelling instincts and anxieties that accompany consciousness itself.