Sheridan Le Fanu Quotes

But to die as lovers may - to die together, so that they may live together.

You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.

But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.

If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours.

You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever.

Nevertheless, life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of the resources of either.

For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighed upon me all day. I felt myself a changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet. Whatever it might be, my soul acquiesced in it.

You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me.

I have never been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, "unless it should be with you.

Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don't you see - each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structure.

I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, "unless it should be with you." How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled. Her soft cheek was glowing against mine. "Darling, darling," she murmured, "I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so." I started from her. She was gazing on me with eyes from which all fire, all meaning had flown, and a face colorless and apathetic. "Is there a chill in the air, dear?" she said drowsily. "I almost shiver; have I been dreaming? Let us come in. Come; come; come in.

Darling, darling. I live in you, and you would die for me. I love you so.

Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood.

Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die, sweetly die--into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.

You are afraid to die?' Yes, everyone is.' But to die as lovers may - to die together, so that they may live together. Girls are caterpillars when they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don't you see - each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structures.

I remember everything about it—with an effort. I see it all, as divers see what is going on above them, through a medium, dense, rippling, but transparent.

but curiosity is a restless and scrupulous passion, and no one girl can endure, with patience, that hers should be baffled by another.

...and to this hour the image of Carmilla returns to mind with ambiguous alterations--sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door.

Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exists and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.

She was slender, and wonderfully graceful. Except that her movements were languid—very languid—indeed, there was nothing in her appearance to indicate an invalid.

What a fool I was! and yet, in the sight of angels, are we any wiser as we grow older? It seems to me, only, that our illusions change as we go on; but, still, we are madmen all the same.

She used to place her pretty arms about my neck, draw me to her, and laying her cheek to mine, murmur with her lips near my ear, “Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.” And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently glow upon my cheek.

Although I felt very weak, I did not feel ill; and strength, one always fancies, is a thing that may be picked up when we please.

Let us look again for a moment; it is the last time, perhaps, I shall see the moonlight with you.

Perhaps other souls than human are sometimes born into the world, and clothed in flesh.

There is no such sense of solitude as that which we experience upon the silent and vast elevations of great mountains. Lifted high above the level of human sounds and habitations, among the wild expanses and colossal features of Nature, we are thrilled in our loneliness with a strange fear and elation – an ascent above the reach of life's expectations or companionship, and the tremblings of a wild and undefined misgivings.

The stream of life is black and angry; how so many of us get across without drowning, I often wonder. The best way is not to look too far before-just from one stepping-stone to another; and though you may wet your feet, He won't let you drown-He has not allowed me.

The mind is a different organ by night and by day.

Women are so enigmatical – some in everything – all in matters of the heart. Don't they sometimes actually admire what is repulsive?...

Over all this the schloss shows its many-windowed front; its towers, and its Gothic chapel.

truth I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me: you say it wearies you; But how I got it--came by it.

Knowledge is power-and power of one sort or another is the secret lust of human souls; and here is, beside the sense of exploration, the undefinable interest of a story, and above all, something forbidden, to stimulate the contumacious appetite.

The moon, this night," she said, "is full of idyllic and magnetic influence - and see, when you look behind you at the front of the schloss how all its windows flash and twinkle with that silvery splendor, as if unseen hands had lighted up the rooms to receive fairy guests.

The world is a parable-the habitation of symbols-the phantoms of spiritual things immortal shown in material shape.

Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes

If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die, sweetly die--into mine.

Young people like, and even love, on impulse.

There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond her years, in her smiling melancholy persistent refusal to afford me the least ray of light.

Pero los sueños atraviesan los muros de piedra, iluminan las habitaciones vacías y oscurecen las iluminadas, y los personajes que intervienen en el sueño entran y salen a placer, burlándose de los cerrojos.

I believe the entire natural world is but the ultimate expression of that spiritual world from which, and in which alone, it has its life.

There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature

Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardor of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet over-powering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips traveled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, "You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever." Then she had thrown herself back in her chair, with her small hands over her eyes, leaving me trembling.

I can not help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.

It was long before the terror of recent events subsided; and to this hour the image of Carmilla returns to memory with ambiguous alternations—sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door.

It stands on a slight eminence

I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, "unless it should be with you." How

There is a faculty in man that will acknowledge the unseen. He may scout and scare religion from him; but if he does, superstition perches near.

The air was still. The silvery vapour hung serenely on the far horizon, and the frosty stars blinked brightly. Everyone knows the effect of such a scene on a mind already saddened. Fancies and regrets float mistily in the dream, and the scene affects us with a strange mixture of memory and anticipation, like some sweet old air heard in the distance.

From these foolish embraces, which were not of very frequent occurrence, I must allow, I used to wish to extricate myself; but my energies seemed to fail me. Her murmured words sounded like a lullaby in my ear, and soothed my resistance into a trance, from which I only seemed to recover myself when she withdrew her arms. In these mysterious moods I did not like her. I experienced a strange tumultuous excitement that was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled with a vague sense of fear and disgust. I had no distinct thoughts about her while such scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to explain the feeling.

There was a coldness, it seemed to me, beyond her years, in her smiling melancholy persistent refusal to afford me the least ray of light. I cannot say we quarreled upon this point, for she would not quarrel upon any. It was, of course, very unfair of me to press her, very ill-bred, but I really could not help it; and I might just as well have let it alone. What she did tell me amounted, in my unconscionable estimation--to nothing.

Do you think," I said at length, "that you will ever confide fully in me?" She turned round smiling, but made no answer, only continued to smile on me. "You won't answer that?" I said. "You can't answer pleasantly; I ought not to have asked you." "You were quite right to ask me that, or anything. You do not know how dear you are to me, or you could not think any confidence too great to look for. But I am under vows, no nun half so awfully, and I dare not tell my story yet, even to you. The time is very near when you shall know everything. You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish.

Pen, ink, and paper are cold vehicles for the marvellous, and a "reader" decidedly a more critical animal than a "listener.

she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, “You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one forever.

You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.

The world," he resumed after a short pause, "has no faith in any man's conversion; it never forgets what he was, it never believes him anything better, it is an inexorable and stupid judge.

Mademoiselle De Lafontaine – in right of her father, who was a German, assumed to be psychological, metaphysical and something of a mystic – now declared that when the moon shone with a light so intense it was well known that it indicated a special spiritual activity. The effect of the full moon in such a state of brilliancy was manifold. It acted on dreams, it acted on lunacy, it acted on nervous people; it had marvelous physical influences connected with life. Mademoiselle related that here cousin, who was mate of a merchant ship, having taken a nap on deck on such a night, lying on his back, with his face full in the light of the moon, had wakened, after a dream of an old woman clawing him by the cheek, with his features horribly drawn to one side; and his countenance had never quite recovered its equilibrium.

I should tell you all with pleasure,' said the General, 'but you would not believe me.' 'Why should I not?' he asked. 'Because', he answered testily, 'you believe in nothing but what consists with your own prejudices and illusions. I remember when I was like you, but I have learned better.

At another time, or in another case, it might have excited my ridicule. But into what quackeries will not people rush for a last chance, where all accustomed means have failed, and the life of a beloved object is at stake?

what storm-benighted traveller, when fierce winds and rains are lashing around his lodging, can withstand the cheering influences of a glorious log-fire?

Twelve years ago, in vision or reality, I certainly saw you. I could not forget your face. It has remained before my eyes ever since.

Her looks lost nothing in the daylight— she was certainly the most beautiful creature I had ever seen. . .

Charlotte Bronte borrowed liberally and sloppily from Joseph Sheridan le Fanu when penning Jane Eyre. The originality of this classic novel is tarnished as a result.

Boating, my dear Mrs. Bedel, is the dullest of all things; don't you think so? Because a boat looks very pretty from the shore, we fancy that the shore must look very pretty from a boat; and when we try it, we find we have only got down into a pit and can see nothing rightly. For my part, I hate boating and I hate the water...

Pese a todo, la vida y la muerte son estados misteriosos, y sabemos poco de los resortes de uno y otro.

Berthe was wonderfully well educated for a Frenchwoman of that period, and surprisingly handsome for a Frenchwoman of any.

You have zeal - have you nerve?

I am afraid we women are factionists; we always take a side, and nature has formed us for advocates rather than judges.

Have not women preferred hatred to indifference, and the reputation of witchcraft, with all its penalties, to absolute insignificance?

In Styria, we, though by no means magnificent people, inhabit a castle, or schloss.

No one likes a straight road but the man who pays for it, or who, when he travels, is brute enough to wish to get to his journey's end.

In my time first cousins did not meet like strangers. But we are learning modesty from the Americans, and old English ways are too gross for us.

The nearest inhabited village is about seven of your English miles to the left.

I AM NOW GOING TO tell you something so strange that it will require all your faith in my veracity to believe my story.

If you were less pretty I think I should be very much more afraid of you

Life and death are mysterious states and we know little of the resources of either

I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, “unless it should be with you.

In truth I know not why I am so sad. It wearies me: you say it wearies you; But how I got it—came by it.

I wonder whether you feel as strangely drawn towards me as i do to you

You will do well to take advantage of Madame's short residence to get up your French a little... You will be glad of this, my dear, when you have reached France, where you will find they speak nothing else.

Are you glad I came?" "Delighted, dear Carmilla," I answered. "And you asked for the picture you think like me, to hang in your room," she murmured with a sigh, as she drew her arm closer about my waist, and let her pretty head sink upon my shoulder. "How romantic you are, Carmilla," I said. "Whenever you tell me your story, it will be made up chiefly of some one great romance." She kissed me silently. "I am sure, Carmilla, you have been in love; that there is, at this moment, an affair of the heart going on." "I have been in love with no one, and never shall," she whispered, "unless it should be with you." How beautiful she looked in the moonlight! Shy and strange was the look with which she quickly hid her face in my neck and hair, with tumultuous sighs, that seemed almost to sob, and pressed in mine a hand that trembled. Her

I experienced a strange tumultuous excitement that was pleasurable, ever and anon, mingled with a vague sense of fear and disgust. I had no distinct thoughts about her while such scenes lasted, but I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to explain the feeling.

Mia cara, il tuo piccolo cuore è ferito; non giudicarmi crudele perché obbedisco all’irresistibile legge della mia forza e della mia debolezza. Se il tuo piccolo cuore è ferito, anche il mio sanguina con il tuo. Nell’estasi della mia grande umiliazione, io vivo nella tua calda vita e tu morirai.., morirai dolcemente.., nella mia vita. Non posso farne a meno; come io mi avvicino a te, così tu, a tua volta, ti accosterai ad altri, e capirai l’estasi di questa crudeltà che è sempre amore; così, per ora, non cercare di sapere più niente di me e di te, ma abbi fiducia in me con tutta la tua anima appassionata».

It was now the stormy equinoctial weather that sounds the wild dirge of autumn, and marches the winter in. I love, and always did, that grand undefinable music, threatening and bewailing, with its strange soul of liberty and desolation.

Places change imperceptibly – in detail, at least – a good deal,' said the Doctor, making an effort to keep up a conversation that plainly would not go on itself; 'and people too; population shifts – there's an old fellow, sir, they call Death.

When once we engage in secret and guilty practices we are nearer other and greater crimes than we at all suspect.

schloss

This always shocked me like a momentary glare of insanity.

All things proceed from Nature—don't they? All things in the heaven, in the earth, and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains?

phantasmagoria surrounded by darkness.

groups, and the varieties of the undulating ground on which they stood, there was little that could be

D’Avray, her father, and I had met before in Algeria. He was dying now. He left the child on his death-bed to me.

The gloom was increased by several grand old trees

the wicked woman’s son was evidently making love to the girl. Both were standing by the old window-seat,

the strong opinions I entertained against the marriage of first cousins,

The precautions of nervous people re infectious, and persons of a like temperament are pretty sure, after a time, to imitate them.

In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die - die sweetly die - into mine.

The Squire came to the side of the bed, and put his arms under Dickon, and lifted the boy—in a dead sleep all the time—and carried him out so, at the door.

Deus misereatus mei (May God compassionate me)

But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live together.

My progress seemed like a journey through the Spessart, where at every step some new goblin or monster starts from the ground or steps from behind a tree.

And when she had spoken such a rhapsody, she would press me more closely in her trembling embrace, and her lips in soft kisses gently flow upon my cheek.

Perhaps other souls than human are sometimes born into the world, and clothed in human flesh. —Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Uncle Silas (1864)

her secret guilty pleasures were the ghost stories of Sheridan Le Fanu and Arthur Machen.

The ghost story has had many great practitioners, but, justly, two names stand above them all: M. R. James and Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.

I saw something moving round the foot of the bed, which at first I could not accurately distinguish. But I soon saw that it was a sooty-black animal that resembled a monstrous cat. It appeared to me about four or five feet long for it measured fully the length of the hearthrug as it passed over it; and it continued to-ing and fro-ing with the lithe, sinister restlessness of a beast in a cage. I could not cry out, although as you may suppose, I was terrified. Its pace was growing faster, and the room rapidly darker and darker, and at length so dark that I could no longer see anything of it but its eyes. I felt it spring lightly on the bed. The two broad eyes approached my face, and suddenly I felt a stinging pain as if two large needles darted, an inch or two apart, deep into my breast. I waked with a scream.

But, I suspect, in all lives there are certain emotional scenes, those in which our passions have been most wildly and terribly roused, that are of all others the most vaguely and dimly remembered.

The effect of the full moon in such a state of of brilliancy was manifold. It acted on dreams, it acted on lunacy, it acted on nervous people, it had marvellous physical influences connected with life.

Those hours of opium happiness which the Doctor and I spent together in secret were regulated with a scientific accuracy. We did not blindly smoke the drug of paradise, and leave our dreams to chance. While smoking, we carefully steered our conversation through the brightest and calmest channels of thought.

I have got into one of my moping moods tonight,’ said my father, after a silence; then quoting Shakespeare, whom, by way of keeping up our English, he used to read aloud, he said: ‘In truth I know not why I am so sad: It wearies me; you say it wearies you; But how I got it – came by it . . . I forget the rest.

You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me and still come with me. and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.

You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me and still come with me, and hating me through death and after. There is no such word as indifference in my apathetic nature.

I was not frightened, for I was one of those happy children who are studiously kept in ignorance of ghost stories, of fairy tales, and of all such lore as makes us cover up our heads when the door creeks suddenly, or the flicker of an expiring candle makes the shadow of a bed-post dance upon the wall, nearer to our faces.

You have heard, no doubt, of the appalling superstition that prevails in Upper and Lower Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Serbia, in Poland, even in Russia; the superstition, so we must call it, of the Vampire.

See how a sleepy child will put off the inevitable departure for bed. The little creature's eyes blink and stare, and it needs constant jogging to prevent his nodding off into the slumber which nature craves. His waking is a pain; he is quite worn out, and peevish, and stupid, and yet he implores a respite, and deprecates repose, and vows he is not sleepy, even to the moment when his mother takes him in her arms, and carries him, in a sweet slumber, to the nursery. So it is with us old children of earth and the great sleep of death, and nature our kind mother.

Here is an obvious connexion between the material and the invisible; the healthy tone of the system, and its unimpaired energy, may, for aught we can tell, guard us against influences which would otherwise render life itself terrific.

How marvellously lie our anxieties, in filmy layers, one over the other! Take away that which has lain on the upper surface for so long—the care of cares—the only one, as it seemed to you, between your soul and the radiance of Heaven—and straight you find a new stratum there. As physical science tells us no fluid is without its skin, so does it seem with this fine medium of the soul, and these successive films of care that form upon its surface on mere contact with the upper air and light.

If human testimony, taken with every care and solemnity, judicially, before commissions innumerable, each consisting of many members, all chosen for integrity and intelligence, and constituting reports more voluminous perhaps than exist upon any one other class of cases, is worth anything, it is difficult to deny, or even to doubt the existence of such a phenomenon as the Vampire.

You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me and still come with me, and hating me through death and after.

I have often wondered since at my own firmness. In that dreadful interview with my uncle I had felt, in the whirl and horror of my mind, on the very point of submitting, just as nervous people are said to throw themselves over precipices through sheer dread of falling.

But to die as lovers may - to die together, so that they may live together. Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime, there are grubs and larvae, don't you see - each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structures.

We are in God’s hands: nothing can happen without his permission, and all will end well for those who love him. He is our faithful creator; He has made us all, and will take care of us.” “Creator! Nature!“ said the young lady in answer to my gentle father. “And this disease that invades the country is natural. Nature. All things proceed from Nature—don’t they? All things in the heaven, in the earth, and under the earth, act and live as Nature ordains? I think so.

Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably towards the beautiful stranger. I did feel, as she said, “drawn towards her,” but there was also something of repulsion. In this ambiguous feeling, however, the sense of attraction immensely prevailed. She interested and won me; she was so beautiful and so indescribably engaging.

What was the power that induced strong soldiers to put off their jackets and shirts, and present their hands to be tied up, and tortured for hours, it might be, under the scourge, with an air of ready volition? The moral coercion of despair; the result of an unconscious calculation of chances that satisfies them that it is ultimately better to do all that, bad as it is, than try the alternative. These unconscious calculations are going on every day with each of us, and the results embody themselves in our lives; and no one knows that there has been a process and a balance struck, and that what they see, and very likely blame, is by the fiat of an invisible but quite irresistible power.

Nevertheless life and death are mysterious states, and we know little of the resources of either.

overcoming with an effort the horror that had for a time suspended my utterances.

Genç insanlar çabuk hoşlanır, hatta severler.- Carmilla

Nasıl kıskançlık içindeyim, bilemezsin.- Carmilla

Bilmem sen de tuhaf şekilde bana doğru çekildiğini hissediyor musun?- Carmilla

curiosity is a restless and unscrupulous passion,

Religion was a subject on which I had never heard her speak a word. If I had known the world better, this particular neglect or antipathy would not have so much surprised me.

If your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine.

strength, one always fancies, is a thing that may be picked up when we please.

There are indolent styles of the spirits in which indisposed to talk ourselves, the talk of others is pleasant to our listless ears

I live in you and you would die for me. I love you so

You, who live in towns, can have no idea how great and event the introduction of a new friend is , in such a solitude as surrounded us

Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood.’ - Carmilla

El amor tiene sus sacrificios. No hay sacrificio sin sangre.

Judge whether I say truth.

piece of Turkey carpet

Everyone has enemy; you will learn all that so soon as you are little older, and without cause she is mine

(...) and I tell you, Austin Ruthyn, if you won't look about and marry somebody, somebody may possibly marry you.

The human mind, I take it, must have either comfort in the past or hope in the future," he continued, "otherwise it is in danger.

Looks and language of hatred are not very pretty at any time, but in the atmosphere of death they acquire a character of horror.

A man is so much judged by his acquaintance; and, in fact, it is essential.

Beauty is no advantage to a man. The being agreeable is an immense one.

An arrow shot into the sea, it can hurt no one.

Truth will never spoil any one. Praise is very delightful.

It has been always a rule with me to go straight at everything. I think the best diplomacy is directness, and that the truest caution lies in courage.

It is better to be sought after than to offer one's self.

ten years of our lives were as a mist that rolls away.

Truth, like murder, will out some day.

No one is ever too old to do a foolish thing.

I have been in love with no one, and never shall", she whispered, "unless it should be with you.

I have been in love with no one, and never shall,” she whispered, “unless it should be with you.

— Jamás me he enamorado de nadie, y jamás me enamoraré —susurró—; a menos que sea de ti.

They had spoken and passed like ships at sea, in this wide life, and now who could count the miles and billows between them! Never to cross or come in sight again!

I believe people can't learn wisdom without suffering.

You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever

[...] and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing room door.

But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live together. Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be f nally butterflies when the summer comes

Los sueños no respetan los muros de piedra ni los cuartos oscuros.

The devil approached the citadel of his heart by stealth, with many zigzags and parallels.

she drew me to her, and her hot lips traveled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, "You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever.

L'amore esige le sue vittime e non c'è sacrificio senza sangue.

You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death;

I was conscious of a love growing into adoration, and also of abhorrence. This I know is paradox, but I can make no other attempt to explain the feeling.

Darling, darling,” she murmured, “I live in you; and you would die for me, I love you so.

I treated her as if she had human sympathies, in the hope that they might be generated somehow.

There is no greater snare than the state of the man with whom all goes smoothly, and who mistakes his circumstances for his virtues.

Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours.

Jusging by the sour glance she threw on me as she said this, I concluded that I represented those 'late changes' to which all the sorrows of the house were referred. I felt unhappy under the ill-will even of this odious old woman, being one of those unhappily constructed mortals who cannot be indifferent when they reasonably ought, and always yearn after kindness, even that of the worthless.

Over the sward and low grounds a thin film of mist was stealing like smoke, marking the distances with a transparent veil; and here and there we could see the river faintly flashing in the moonlight.

Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome, possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induces was also sweet.

He never scoffed at what was good or noble — his hardest critic could not nail him to one such sentence; and yet, it seemed somehow to me that his unknown nature was a systematic blasphemy against it all.

As side-by-side we walked along this road, hemmed in by two loose stone-like walls, something running towards us in a zig-zag line passed us at a wild pace, with a sound like a frightened laugh or shudder.

Sospecho que en las vidas de todos tienen lugar ciertas escenas emocionales, en las cuales se desatan nuestras pasiones de una forma salvaje e terrible, y son entre todas las que recordamos de forma más vaga y borrosa

Well, her funeral is over, I hope, and her hymn sung; and our ears shan’t be tortured with that discord and jargon. It has made me nervous. Sit down here, beside me; sit close; hold my hand; press it hard-hard-harder.

smuggled away in whispers, by black familiars, unresisting, the beloved one leaves home, without a farewell, to darken those doors no more; henceforward to lie outside, far away, and forsaken, through the drowsy heats of summer, through days of snow and nights of tempest, without light or warmth, without a voice near. Oh, Death, king of terrors! The body quakes and the spirit faints before thee. It is vain, with hands clasped over our eyes, to scream our reclamation; the horrible image will not be excluded. We have just the word spoken eighteen hundred years ago, and our trembling faith. And through the broken vault the gleam of the Star of Bethlehem.

Thus fortified I might take my rest in peace. But dreams come through stone walls, light up dark rooms, or darken light ones, and their persons make their exits and their entrances as they please, and laugh at locksmiths.

There comes with old age a time when the heart is no longer fusible or malleable, and must retain the form in which it has cooled down. 'He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; he which is filthy, let him be filthy still.

Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don't you see--each with their peculiar propensity, necessities and structure.

There is, of course, a major problem with the gothic: it is by nature heteronormative. A notable exception is Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, with its powerful queer undertones between the innocent protagonist and the sinister, titular vampire. (“You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish,” Carmilla tells Laura. “How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me and still come with me, and hating me through death and after.”)

It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet over-powering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, "You are mine, you shall be mine, you and I are one for ever.

Round the cabin stood half a dozen mountain ashes, as the rowans, inimical to witches, are there called. On the worn planks of the door were nailed two horse-shoes, and over the lintel and spreading along the thatch, grew, luxuriant, patches of that ancient cure for many maladies, and prophylactic against the machinations of the evil one, the house-leek. Descending into the doorway, in the chiaroscuro of the interior, when your eye grew sufficiently accustomed to that dim light, you might discover, hanging at the head of the widow’s wooden-roofed bed, her beads and a phial of holy water

Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine.

Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die--die, sweetly die--into mine.

I never could quite understand why these Jezebels like to insinuate the dreadful truth against themselves; but they do. Is it the spirit of feminine triumph overcoming feminine shame, and making them vaunt their fall as an evidence of bygone fascination and existing power? Need we wonder? Have not women preferred hatred to indifference, and the reputation of witchcraft, with all its penalties, to absolute insignificance? Thus, as they enjoyed the fear inspired among simple neighbours by their imagined traffic with the father of ill, did Madame, I think, relish with a cynical vainglory the suspicion of her satanic superiority. Next

Now the truth is, I felt rather unaccountably to the beautiful stranger. I did feel, as she said, “drawn towards her,” but there was also something of repulsion. In this ambiguous feeling, however, the sense of attraction immensely prevailed. She interested and won me; she was so beautiful and so indescribably engaging.

Mi giudicherai crudele ed egoista, ma l'amore si nutre di egoismo ed è tanto più ardente quanto più è tiranno. Non hai idea di quanto sia gelosa: devi venire con me e amarmi fino alla morte, oppure odiarmi ma seguirmi lo stesso, odiandomi fino alla morte ed oltre. L'indifferenza è un vocabolo ignoto alla mia natura struggente.

You are afraid to die?" "Yes, every one is." "But to die as lovers may—to die together, so that they may live together. "Girls are caterpillars while they live in the world, to be finally butterflies when the summer comes; but in the meantime there are grubs and larvae, don't you see—each with their peculiar propensities, necessities and structure.

My father asked me often whether I was ill; but, with an obstinacy which now seems to me unaccountable, I persisted in assuring him that I was quite well. In a sense this was true. I had no pain, I could complain of no bodily derangement. My complaint seemed to be one of the imagination, or the nerves, and, horrible as my sufferings were, I kept them, with a morbid reserve, very nearly to myself.

Üzerimde, engellemek için pek bir şey yapmadığım, tuhaf bir hüzün vardı. Ölümle ilgili belli belirsiz düşünceler kendini göstermeye başladı; yavaş yavaş dibe çekilmeye başladığıma dair bir fikir hafif hafif zihnimi ele geçiriyordu ve her nasılsa bu durumdan hoşnutsuz değildim. Düşünce üzücü olsa bile, zihnimde bu düşünceleri dillendiren ses oldukça tatlıydı. Her ne oluyorsa, ruhum onu tamamen kabullenmişti.

For some nights I slept profoundly; but still every morning I felt the same lassitude, and a languor weighted upon me all day. I felt myself a changed girl. A strange melancholy was stealing over me, a melancholy that I would not have interrupted. Dim thoughts of death began to open, and an idea that I was slowly sinking took gentle, and, somehow, not unwelcome, possession of me. If it was sad, the tone of mind which this induced was also sweet.

There were influences of a wholly unsuspected kind already gathering round the poor vicar, William Wylder; as worlds first begin in thinnest vapour, and whirl themselves in time into consistency and form, so do these dark machinations, which at times gather round unsuspecting mortals as points of revolution, begin nebulously and intangibly, and grow in volume and in density, till a colossal system, with its inexorable tendencies and forces, crushes into eternal darkness the centre it has enveloped.

- No te sientas herida ni me consideres cruel, ya que obedezco tanto a mi fuerza como a mi debilidad. Y si te sientes herida, piensa que lo mismo me ocurre a mí. Vivo en tu vida, y tú has de morir, dulcemente, en la mía. No puedo evitarlo. Ese sentimiento me acerca a ti, y a ti, por tu parte, te acercará a otros, y comprenderás que no se trata de crueldad, sino de amor. Por eso, durante un tiempo intenta no averiguar más cosas sobre mí y cuanto conmigo está relacionado, y no me niegues tu confianza”.

Dearest, your little heart is wounded; think me not cruel because I obey the irresistible law of my strength and weakness; if your dear heart is wounded, my wild heart bleeds with yours. In the rapture of my enormous humiliation I live in your warm life, and you shall die—die, sweetly die—into mine. I cannot help it; as I draw near to you, you, in your turn, will draw near to others, and learn the rapture of that cruelty, which yet is love; so, for a while, seek to know no more of me and mine, but trust me with all your loving spirit.

I had first thought of Milly's absurdities, to which, in description, I cannot do justice, simply because so many details have, by distance of time, escaped my recollection. But her ways and her talk were so indescribably grotesque that she made me again and again quiver with suppressed laughter. But there was a pitiable and even a melancholy meaning underlying the burlesque. This creature, with no more education than a dairy-maid, I gradually discovered had fine natural aptitudes for accomplishment - a very sweet voice, and wonderfully delicate ear, and a talent for drawing which quite threw mine into the shade. It was really astonishing.

Well, my wife was just lightin' a pig-tail - tho' light enough and to spare there was in the lift already - when who should come clatterin' at the latch-pin in the blow o' thunder and wind but Philip, poor lad himself; and an ill hour for him it was. He's been some time in ill fettle, though he was never frowsy, hot he, but always kind and dooce, and canty once, like anither; and he asked me to tak the boat across the lake at once to the clough o' cloostedd at t'other side. The woman took the pet and wodn''t hear o't; and "Dall me, if I go to-night,' quoth I. But he would not be put off so, not he; and dingdrive he went to it, cryin' and putrein' ye'd a-said, poor fellow, he was wrang i' his garrets a'most.

-Bueno, te lo dije- dijo Carmilla, cuando le describí mi tranquilo sueño-Yo misma he tenido esta noche un sueño delicioso; prendí el amuleto del pecho de mi camisón. La noche anterior estaba demasiado lejos. Estoy absolutamente segura de que todo era fantasía, excepto los sueños. Yo pensaba antes que los malos espíritus hacen soñar, pero nuestro médico me dijo que no es cierto. Es tan solo que pasa una fiebre, o cualquier otra enfermedad, cosa que sucede a menudo, según el dice, y llama a la puerta, y, al no poder entrar, sigue adelante, dejando detrás esa alarma. -¿Y qué piensas que es ese amuleto?- pregunté. -Ha sido ahumado o sumergido en cierta droga, y es un antídoto contra la malaria- respondió ella-. -Entonces, ¿actúa tan solo sobre el cuerpo? -Claro; ¿no supondrás que los malos espíritus se asustan de unos trocitos de cinta, o de los perfumes de la tienda de un droguista? No, esos males que vagan por el aire empiezan por poner a prueba los nervios, y de este modo infectan en el cerebro; pero antes de que se apoderen de una, el antídoto los repele. Estoy segura de que esto es lo que ha hecho por nosotras el amuleto. No es nada mágico, tan solo natural

In his classic study Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story from LeFanu to Blackwood, the American scholar Jack Sullivan divides traditional tales of the supernatural into two camps: the antiquarian and the visionary. The former is typified by a certain emotional detachment, coupled with subtle irony and a dry, precise evocation of a world that is recognizably our own, inhabited by sensible characters—male Edwardian antiquaries whose stolidity borders on dullness, and whose invocation of horrors is as inadvertent as it is irrevocable. The antiquarian ghost story is typified by the work of the English don M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James, himself inspired by the more open-ended horror of his Irish predecessor, Sheridan LeFanu. As Sullivan puts it, “For LeFanu’s characters, reality is inherently dark and deadly; for James’ antiquaries, darkness must be sought out through research and discovery.” The visionary ghost story, in contract, has more in common with the robust stream of American transcendentalism that emerged in the late 19th century, as well as with the hermetic and decadent artistic movements popular in fin de siècle Europe. Little surprise, then, that one of the most successful visionary writers, the British-born Algernon Blackwood, based his most rapturous and terrifying tales on his experiences in the Canadian wilderness, or that the other great supernatural visionary, the Welsh Arthur Machen, was a friend of Arthur Edward Waite, a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, and drew upon Celtic myth in his short fiction. Sullivan identified a later, third stream in supernatural writing in Lost Souls, the companion volume to Elegant Nightmares: he simply calls it the contemporary ghost story, a capacious portmanteau term that makes room for writers such as Robert Aickman, Walter de la Mare, Elizabeth Bowen and Ramsey Campbell. To this list I’d add Peter Straub, Kelly Link, Glen Hirshberg, and now, with the publication of Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, John Langan.