Quotes from Thomas Ingoldsby

'Twas now the very witching time of night, When churchyards groan, and graves give up their dead, And many a mischievous, enfranchised sprite Had long since burst his bonds of stone or lead, And hurried off, with schoolboy-like delight, To play his pranks near some poor wretch's bed, Sleeping, perhaps serenely as a porpoise, Nor dreaming of this fiendish Habeas Corpus.

Cowards, 'tis said, in certain situations, Derive a sort of courage from despair, And then perform, from downright desperation, Much more than many a bolder man would dare.

As surely as you are a living man, so surely did that spectral anatomy visit my room again last night, grin in my face, and walk away with my trousers: nor was I able to spring from my bed, or break the chain which seemed to bind me to my pillow.

Because, as we are told—a sad old joke, too— Ghosts, like the ladies, never speak till spoke to.

Lost in his own horrific contemplations... When at the bed's foot, close beside the post, He verily believed he saw—a Ghost!... From every pore distill'd a clammy dew, Quaked every limbe—the candle, too... The room was fill'd with a sulphureous smell, But where that came from Mason could not tell.

One learned gentleman, "a sage grave man," Talk'd of the Ghost in Hamlet, "sheath'd in steel"— His well-read friend, who next to speak began, Said, "That was poetry, and nothing real;" A third, of more extensive learning, ran To Sir George Villiers' Ghost, and Mrs. Veal; Of sheeted Spectres spoke with shorten'd breath, And thrice he quoted Drelincourt on Death.

...rousing himself from a reverie, which had degenerated into an absolute snooze.

The Apparition paused, and would have spoke... But then a neighbouring chanticleer awoke... —'Tis known how much dead gentlefolks eschew The appalling sound of "Cock-a-doodle-do!"

How, frequently, some murder'd man appear'd, To tell his wife and children who had done it...

"Go to the d—l!" said the disappointed ghost-hunter. An hour—two—rolled on, and still no spectral visitation... and when the turret-clock sounded at length the hour of three, Ingoldsby, whose patience and grog were alike exhausted, sprang from his chair, saying— "This is all infernal nonsense, my good fellow. Deuce of any ghost shall we see to-night..."