"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."
Yesterday I wrote that Lafcadio Hearn, who came to call himself Yakumo Koizumi, had been interested in the supernatural and the spooky way before he moved to Japan. Here's an example of what I mean. What is the fear of ghosts among those who believe in...
When we talk about Lafcadio Hearn we often think of his folklore stories, but he also wrote a whole bunch of other stuff, and he has been fascinated by the supernatural and the macabre long before he moved to Japan. This is one of them. Long...
The body was cold as ice; the heart had long ceased to beat, yet there were no other signs of death. Nobody even spoke of burying the woman. She had died of grief and anger at having been divorced. It would have been useless to...
The theatre was full. I cannot remember what they were playing. I did not have time to observe the actors. I only remember how vast the building seemed. Looking back, I saw an ocean of faces stretching away almost beyond the eye's power of definition...
The daimyō’s wife was dying, and knew that she was dying. She had not been able to leave her bed since the early autumn of the tenth Bunsei. It was now the fourth month of the twelfth Bunsei,—the year 1829 by Western counting; and the cherry-trees...
"I am not afraid to die," said the dying wife; — "there is only one thing that troubles me now. I wish that I could know who will take my place in this house." "My dear one," answered the sorrowing husband, "nobody shall ever take your...
Today's reading on my Patreon is "The Spectre Barber" by Johann Karl August Musäus translated and collected by Helen Smith in The Decameron of the West (1839)....
Christina Rossetti wrote "The Hour and the Ghost" in 1856. It was later published in 1862 in her collection Goblin Market and Other Poems. Here it is. BRIDE. O LOVE, love, hold me fast, He draws me away from thee; I cannot stem the blast, Nor the cold strong sea: Far...
by Sarah Elizabeth Utterson in Tales of the Dead (1813) “Of shapes that walk At dead of night, and clank their chains, and wave The torch of hell around the murderer’s bed.” Pleasures of Imagination. On the evening of the 12th of June 17—, a joyous party was assembled at Monsieur de Montbrun’s...
The curtains were half drawn, the floor was swept And strewn with rushes, rosemary and may Lay thick upon the bed on which I lay, Where through the lattice ivy-shadows crept. He leaned above me, thinking that I slept And could not hear him; but I heard him say: "Poor child,...
