Green Tea by Sheridan le Fanu. This long short story, or short novella centres on the descent into madness of the Reverend Mr Jennings, as observed over time by his friend Dr Martin Hesselius who Rev Jennings initially approaches with regard to a mysterious illness he's suffering from. As the story progresses, we learn of Rev Jenning's partiality to green tea, which he feels aids his (fairly obsessive) studies into the metaphysical. This habit may or may not have lead to the appearance of a spectral monkey, glimpsed first one evening in an omnibus. The monkey, if you'll forgive me for mixing animal metaphors, proceeds sporadically to dog his every move, enticing him to commit acts of violence against others and himself. The conclusion of the story is dreadful and seemingly inevitable... it's more of a tale of the weird than a ghost story as such, and can be read really as the tragic and hopeless observance of one man's observance of his friend's downward spiral into mental illness. Yeah, not very Christmassy I know.
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