Jerome, Jerome K.: Three Men on the Bummel (1900)
“In the German parks there are special seats labelled, ‘Only for grown-ups’ (Nur fur Erwachsene), and the German small boy, anxious to sit down, and reading that notice, passes by, and hunts for a seat on which children are permitted to rest; and there he seats himself, careful not to touch the woodwork with his muddy boots. Imagine a seat in Regent’s or St. James’s Park labelled ‘Only for grown-ups!’ Every child for five miles round would be trying to get on that seat, and hauling other children off who were on. As for any ‘grown-up,’ he would never be able to get within half a mile of that seat for the crowd. The German small boy, who has accidentally sat down on such without noticing, rises with a start when his error is pointed out to him, and goes away with down-cast head, blushing to the roots of his hair with shame and regret.”
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Keats, John: The Eve of St. Agnes (1820)
“Full of this whim was thoughtful Madeline: / The music, yearning like a God in pain, / She scarcely heard: her maiden eyes divine, / Fix’d on the floor, saw many a sweeping train / Pass by—she heeded not at all: in vain / Came many a tiptoe, amorous cavalier, / And back retir’d; not cool’d by high disdain, / But she saw not: her heart was otherwhere; / She sigh’d for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year.”
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Poe, Edgar Allan: Arthur Gordon Pym (1850)
“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Of Nantucket. Comprising the Details of a Mutiny and Atrocious Butchery on Board the American Brig Grampus, on Her Way to the South Seas, in the Month of June, 1827. With an Account of the Recapture of the Vessel by the Survivers; Their Shipwreck and Subsequent Horrible Sufferings from Famine; Their Deliverance by means of the British Schooner Jane Guy; the Brief Cruise of this Latter Vessel in the Antarctic Ocean; Her Capture, and the Massacre of Her Crew among a Group of Islands in the Eighty-Fourth Parallel of Southern Latitude; Together with the Incredible Adventures and Discoveries still farther South to which that Distressing Calamity Gave Rise.”
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Sheridan le Fanu, Joseph: Carmilla (1872)
“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.”
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St. Patrick: The Confession of St. Patrick
“As cause for proceeding against me they found—after thirty years!—a confession I had made before I was a deacon. In the anxiety of my troubled mind I confided to my dearest friend what I had done in my boyhood one day, nay, in one hour, because I was not yet strong. I know not, God knoweth—whether I was then fifteen years old: and I did not believe in the living God, nor did I so from my childhood, but lived in death and unbelief until I was severely chastised and really humiliated, by hunger and nakedness, and that daily.”
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Twain, Mark: Extracts from Adam’s Diary (1903)
„She engages herself in many foolish things; among others, to study out why the animals called lions and tigers live on grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth they wear would indicate that they were intended to eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that would be to kill each other, and that would introduce what, as I understand it, is called ‘death’; and death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the Park. Which is a pity, on some accounts.“
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Various authors: Before Dracula. Vampires in 19th Century Fiction (1801–1897)
„For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt / A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt; / At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured / Pearls, while on land they wither’d and adored. / Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont, / And in those meads where sometime she might haunt, / Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse, / Though Fancy’s casket were unlock’d to choose. / Ah, what a world of love was at her feet!“ (John Keats: Lamia)
„I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering. ... Yet I believe that I met her first and most frequently in some large, old, decaying city near the Rhine.“ (Edgar Allan Poe: Ligeia)
„As I leaned against the door it moved slightly and opened inwards. The shelter of even a tomb was welcome in that pitiless tempest and I was about to enter when there came a flash of forked lightning that lit up the whole expanse of the heavens. In the instant, as I am a living man, I saw, as my eyes were turned into the darkness of the tomb, a beautiful woman with rounded cheeks and red lips, seemingly sleeping on a bier.“ (Bram Stoker: Dracula’s Guest)