Terror by Gaslight Quotes

“When she had arranged her household affairs, she came to the library and bade me follow her. Then, with the mirror still swinging against her knees, she led me through the garden and the wilderness down to a misty wood. It being autumn, the trees were tinted gloriously in dusky bars of colouring. The rowan, with his amber leaves and scarlet berries, stood before the brown black-spotted sycamore; the silver beech flaunted his golden coins against my poverty; firs, green and fawn-hued, slumbered in hazy gossamer. No bird carolled, although the sun was hot. Marina noted the absence of sound, and without prelude of any kind began to sing from the ballad of the Witch Mother: about the nine enchanted knots, and the trouble-comb in the lady's knotted hair, and the master-kid that ran beneath her couch. Every drop of my blood froze in dread, for whilst she sang her face took on the majesty of one who traffics with infernal powers. As the shade of the trees fell over her, and we passed intermittently out of the light, I saw that her eyes glittered like rings of sapphires.

("The Basilisk")”
― R. Murray Gilchrist, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“A man need not be ashamed of moist eyes when he gazes on the face of some loved one who is far away. It's human. It shows a kindly heart, an impressionable mind!

("The Doomed Man")”
― Dick Donovan, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“The world of shadows and superstition that was Victorian England, so well depicted in this 1871 tale, was unique. While the foundations of so much of our present knowledge of subjects like medicine, public health, electricity, chemistry and agriculture, were being, if not laid, at least mapped out, people could still believe in the existence of devils and demons. And why not? A good ghost story is pure entertainment. It was not until well into the twentieth century that ghost stories began to have a deeper significance and to become allegorical; in fact, to lose their charm. No mental effort is required to read 'The Weird Woman', no seeking for hidden meanings; there are no complexities of plot, no allegory on the state of the world. And so it should be. At what other point in literary history could a man, standing over the body of his fiancee, say such a line as this:

'Speak, hound! Or, by heaven, this night shall witness two murders instead of one!'

Those were the days.

(introduction to "The Weird Woman")”
― Hugh Lamb, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“This wine is grand. This poison is grand. It is fine to have good wine to drink, and good poison to kill with, is it not?

("The Wondersmith")”
― Fitz James O'Brien, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“When she paused, I embraced the opportunity to turn the trend of conversation by saying:

'I am afraid that I was a little rude to you last night,' but I hardly expected such a blunt reply as she made.

'Yes, you were exceedingly rude, and I hate rude men.'

'I hope you don't hate me,' I cried, laughingly.

'Oh no, not quite. You're a Londoner, you see.'

This was very severe. I confess I was hardly prepared for it, and I was tempted to say something cutting in reply, but checked myself, bowed, and merely remarked:

'Which is not my fault. Therefore pity me rather than blame me.'

'Certainly I do that,' she replied, with an amusing seriousness.

("The Doomed Man")”
― Dick Donovan, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“By now, at the end of a sloping alley, we had reached the shores of a vast marsh. Some unknown quality in the sparkling water had stained its whole bed a bright yellow. Green leaves, of such a sour brightness as almost poisoned to behold, floated on the surface of the rush-girdled pools. Weeds like tempting veils of mossy velvet grew beneath in vivid contrast with the soil. Alders and willows hung over the margin. From where we stood a half-submerged path of rough stones, threaded by deep swift channels, crossed to the very centre.

("The Basilisk")”
― R. Murray Gilchrist, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“None save her people knew her history, but there were wonderful stories of how she had bowed to tradition, and concentrated in herself the characteristics of a thousand wizard fathers. In the blossom of her youth she had sought strange knowledge, and had tasted thereof, and rued.

("The Basilisk")”
― R. Murray Gilchrist, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“He hoped and feared,' continued Solon, in a low. mournful voice; 'but at times he was very miserable, because he did not think it possible that so much happiness was reserved for him as the love of this beautiful, innocent girl. At night, when he was in bed, and all the world was dreaming, he lay awake looking up at the old books against the walls, thinking how he could bring about the charming of her heart. One night, when he was thinking of this, he suddenly found himself in a beautiful country, where the light did not come from sun or moon or stars, but floated round and over and in everything like the atmosphere. On all sides he heard mysterious melodies sung by strangely musical voices. None of the features of the landscape was definite; yet when he looked on the vague harmonies of colour that melted one into another before his sight he was filled with a sense of inexplicable beauty. On every side of him fluttered radiant bodies, which darted to and fro through the illuminated space. They were not birds, yet they flew like birds; and as each one crossed the path of his vision he felt a strange delight flash through his brain, and straightaway an interior voice seemed to sing beneath the vaulted dome of his temples a verse containing some beautiful thought. Little fairies were all this time dancing and fluttering around him, perching on his head, on his shoulders, or balancing themselves on his fingertips. 'Where am I?' he asked. 'Ah, Solon?' he heard them whisper, in tones that sounded like the distant tinkling of silver bells, "this land is nameless; but those who tread its soil, and breathe its air, and gaze on its floating sparks of light, are poets forevermore.' Having said this, they vanished, and with them the beautiful indefinite land, and the flashing lights, and the illumined air; and the hunchback found himself again in bed, with the moonlight quivering on the floor, and the dusty books on their shelves, grim and mouldy as ever.'

("The Wondersmith")”
― Fitz James O'Brien, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“As the last dish of confections was removed a weird pageant swept across the further end of the banqueting-room: Oberon and Titania with Robin Goodfellow and the rest, attired in silks and satins gorgeous of hue, and bedizened with such late flowers as were still with us. I leaned forward to commend, and saw that each face was brown and wizened and thin-haired: so that their motions and their wedding paean felt goblin and discomforting; nor could I smile till they departed by the further door.

("The Basilisk")”
― R. Murray Gilchrist, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“They don't take the Bible as a general thing, sailors don't; though I will say that I never saw the man at sea who didn't give it the credit of being an uncommon good yarn.

("Kentucky's Ghost")”
― Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“My wife and I said good-bye the next morning in a little sheltered place among the lumber on the wharf; she was one of your women who never like to do their crying before folks.

She climbed on the pile of lumber and sat down, a little flushed and quivery, to watch us off. I remember seeing her there with the baby till we were well down the channel. I remember noticing the bay as it grew cleaner, and thinking that I would break off swearing; and I remember cursing Bob Smart like a pirate within an hour.

("Kentucky's Ghost")”
― Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“When I knelt to kiss her hand, she sighed heavily. 'Ask me nothing,' she said. 'Life itself is too joyless to be more embittered by explanations. Let all rest between us as now. I will love coldly, you warmly, with no nearer approaching.'

("The Basilisk")”
― R. Murray Gilchrist, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“Let us drink deep brothers,' he cried, leaving off his strange anointment for a while, to lift a great glass, filled with sparkling liquor, to his lips. 'Let us drink to our approaching triumph. Let us drink to the great poison, Macousha. Subtle seed of Death, - swift hurricane that sweeps away Life, - vast hammer that crushes brain and heart and artery with its resistless weight, -I drink to it.'

'It is a noble concoction, Duke Balthazar,' said Madame Filomel, nodding in her chair as she swallowed her wine in great gulps. 'Where did you obtain it?'

'It is made,' said the Wondersmith, swallowing another great draught of wine ere he replied, 'in the wild woods of Guiana, in silence and in mystery. Only one tribe of Indians, the Macoushi Indians, know the secret. It is simmered over fires built of strange woods, and the maker of it dies in the making. The place, for a mile around the spot where it is fabricated, is shunned as accursed. Devils hover over the pot in which it stews; and the birds of the air, scenting the smallest breath of its vapour from far away, drop to earth with paralysed wings, cold and dead.'

'It kills, then, fast?' asked Kerplonne, the artificial-eye maker, - his own eyes gleaming, under the influence of the wine, with a sinister lustre, as if they had been fresh from the factory, and were yet untarnished by use.

'Kills?' echoed the Wondersmith, derisively; 'it is swifter than thunderbolts, stronger than lightning. But you shall see it proved before we let forth our army on the city accursed. You shall see a wretch die, as if smitten by a falling fragment of the sun.'

("The Wondersmith")”
― Fitz James O'Brien, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“...brandy, which is fallen and accursed wine, as devils are fallen and accursed angels...

("The Wondersmith")”
― Fitz James O'Brien, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“Golosh Street is an interesting locality. All the oddities of trade seemed to have found their way thither and made an eccentric mercantile settlement. There is a bird-shop at one corner. Immediately opposite is an establishment where they sell nothing but ornaments made out of the tinted leaves of autumn, varnished and gummed into various forms. Further down is a second-hand book-stall. There is a small chink between two ordinary-sized houses, in which a little Frenchman makes and sells artificial eyes, specimens of which, ranged on a black velvet cushion, stare at you unwinkingly through the window as you pass, until you shudder and hurry on, thinking how awful the world would be if everyone went about without eyelids. Madame Filomel, the fortune-teller, lives at No. 12 Golosh Street, second storey front, pull the bell on the left-hand side. Next door to Madame is the shop of Herr Hippe, commonly called the Wondersmith.

("The Wondersmith")”
― Fitz James O'Brien, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“I reeled with giddiness - flames passed before my eyes.

I remembered those precipices that drew one towards them with irresistible power - wells that have had to be filled up because of persons throwing themselves into them - trees that have had to be cut down because of people hanging themselves upon them - the contagion of suicide and theft and murder, which at various times has taken possession of people's minds, by means well understood; that strange inducement, which makes people kill themselves because others kill themselves. My hair rose upon my head with horror!

("The Invisible Eye")”
― Erckmann-Chatrian, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror

“Hang care!' exclaimed he. 'This is, a delicious evening; the wine has a finer relish here than in the house, and the song is more exciting and melodious under the tranquil sky than in the close room, where sound is stifled. Come, let us have a bacchanalian chant - let us, with old Sir Toby, make the welkin dance, and rouse the night-owl with a catch. I am right merry. Pass the bottle, and tune your voices - a catch, a catch! The lights will be here anon.'

("The Haunted House Of Paddington")”
― Charles Ollier, Terror by Gaslight: More Victorian Tales of Terror