If you've ever wondered about people you encounter, here's the explanation: "In every thousand people who are living on this earth, not more than one is alive."  From The Art of Being Alive by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1914.

"The man who could not forget" — an illustration by Alec Ball for London Magazine, 1902.

From Echoes of Life and Death by William Ernest Henley, 1908.

The mouse is saved when the cat gets spooked.  From Fliegende Blätter, 1937.

"A ghost is a walking secret."  From Hood's Magazine, 1846.

From The Harvard Lampoon, 1886. 

"Listen!  Can't you hear him crying now?  Can't you see the ghost?"  From Tom Ossington's Ghost by Richard Marsh, 1898.

A ghost from A Book of Ghosts by S. Baring-Gould, 1904.

"I can't, Tom, I can't!  My fingers are not strong enough, and my nails are broken—don't be angry with me, Tom!"  From Tom Ossington's Ghost by Richard Marsh, 1898.

Here we learn that the moon has but a single eye, and it's ghostly.  From "The Wind and the Moon" by George Macdonald, in One Thousand Poems for Children, 1920.

"As the gods became one god, the ghosts became one ghost."  From Life and Liberty by Edward Payson Powell, 1889.

"If he went out for a walk they trotted forth with him, some before, some following," from from A Book of Ghosts by S. Baring-Gould, 1904.

From The Gay Gnani of Gingalee by Florence Chance Huntley, 1908.

"The usual representation of an old gentleman in a ghost-infested house — and what really would have happened."  From Life, 1920.

Here's a grammatical ghost from The Shape of Fear, and Other Ghostly Tales by Elia Wilkinson Peattie, 1898.

Here's a haunted painting from Krokodil, 1945.

A ghost from A Book of Ghosts by S. Baring-Gould, 1904.

A song sung dismally by a ghost.  From The What D'Ye Call It by Mr. Gay, in A Collection of the Most Esteemed Farces and Entertainments, Performed on the British Stage, 1792.