October 31, 1929 [Blackmail]

It's all ghosts and monsters now, shouts out there in the dark, the children hiding gates and and tossing flour. Once again I go to the World Atlas, between whose thick and settled pages many small things hide—rosebuds and fern-leaves, a child's first scrawl, ticket-stubs and clippings—among them Joel Benton's Hallowe'en poem from 1896—and, as atlases may one year wander, I'll copy it out tonight, to honor the occasion:

Pixie, kobold, elf, and sprite
All are on their rounds to-night,—
In the wan moon's silver ray
Thrives their helter-skelter play.

Fond of cellar, barn, or stack
True unto the almanac,
They present to credulous eyes
Strange hobgoblin mysteries.

Cabbage-stumps--straws wet with dew—
Apple-skins, and chestnuts too,
And a mirror for some lass
Show what wonders come to pass.

Doors they move, and gates they hide
Mischiefs that on moonbeams ride
Are their deeds,—and, by their spells,
Love records its oracles.

Don't we all, of long ago
By the ruddy fireplace glow,
In the kitchen and the hall,
Those queer, coof-like pranks recall?

Eery shadows were they then—
But to-night they come again;
Were we once more but sixteen
Precious would be Hallowe'en.

Last week the Stock Market also has done its fiduciary mischiefs—but no charm protects us, for Wall Street loves no one, chooses neither with mirror nor nut nor needle the future spouse, the happy day. No, it's all helter-skelter, "hobgoblin mysteries," the stock-ticker a sharp-toothed mouth opening wider every day, gobbling it all down.

Fitting that I saw Blackmail, the sound of loss clear as the film's crowds murmur, the street-sounds clatter by, and the villain threatens to break silence unless plenty of cash is forthcoming. Alfred Hitchcock is a bit of a pixie himself, working magic: the noise of real life creeps in while his performers pose just so in his demanding frame, objects he adjusts precisely to guarantee breathless anticipation, panic, despair—and (thank God for the movies!) relief.

I hear a child-ghost wooooo-ing at the keyhole, and I'm duly frightened.