The only ghosts, I believe, who creep into this world, are dead young mothers, returned to see how their children fare. There is no other inducement great enough to bring the departed back. They glide into the acquainted room when day and night, their jailers, are in the grip, and whisper, "How is it with you, my child?" but always, lest a strange face should frighten him, they whisper it so low that he may not hear. They bend over him to see that he sleeps peacefully, and replace his sweet arm beneath the coverlet, and they open the drawers to count how many little vests he has. They love to do these things. What is saddest about ghosts is that they may not know their child. They expect him to be just as he was when they left him, and they are easily bewildered, and search for him from room to room, and hate the unknown boy he has become. Poor, passionate souls, they may even do him an injury. These are the ghosts that go wailing about old houses, and foolish wild stories are invented to explain what is all so pathetic and simple. I know of a man who, after wandering far, returned to his early home to pass the evening of his days in it, and sometimes from his chair by the fire he saw the door open softly and a woman's face appear. She always looked at him very vindictively, and then vanished. Strange things happened in this house. Windows were opened in the night. The curtains of his bed were set fire to. A step on the stair was loosened. The covering of an old well in a corridor where he walked was cunningly removed. And when he fell ill the wrong potion was put in the glass by his bedside, and he died. How could the pretty young mother know that this grizzled interloper was the child of whom she was in search? All our notions about ghosts are wrong. It is nothing so petty as lost wills or deeds of violence that brings them back, and we are not nearly so afraid of them as they are of us.
J.M. Barrie
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Usually they come in clusters: Why do you have that ... J.M. DARHOWER Sleep is no longer a healing bath, a recuperation of vital forces, but an oblivion, a nightly brush ... J.M. COETZEE Like Dinah says, “We can only play the cards we’ve been dealt. It doesn’t do any good to wish ... J.M. SULLIVAN No papers, no money; no family, no friends, no sense of who you are. The obscurest of the obscure, s... J.M. COETZEE We Are All One. When we allow ourselves to become aware of this statement in its purest form, we ope... J.M. HARRISON The Heart of what you are is not your body or your thoughts but pure Consciousness itself. J.M. HARRISON You have enemies the moment you have success. Our job is finding a way to do business with them. Eve... J.M. LAWLER I bundled in my own blanket and reflected on the strange and somewhat unexpected friendship that was... J.M. RICHARDS It was nice. Even in high school, I’d mostly had makeshift friends forged by the shared status of ... J.M. RICHARDS I had always thought that I was fine with being alone. Halfway through high school, I moved from Bra... J.M. RICHARDS Well, if you can accept that I’m a great big geeky fangirl, then I guess I can accept that you’r... J.M. RICHARDS When the moment shifts, and you realize you don't actually want to be alone, that underneath the bra... J.M. RICHARDS I know he’s a realist, he’s okay with being alone, and he helps people when he thinks no one is ... J.M. RICHARDS I Can Be Alone and it's Okay. J.M. RICHARDS I got through it, and I wore it like a badge of honor—I Can Be Alone and it's Okay. J.M. RICHARDS You shouldn’t have to pretend to be as excited as I am just to make me happy. If it comes to that,... J.M. RICHARDS As much as I cared about him, I wasn’t a slave to fate. I could choose to ignore my feelings, stro... J.M. RICHARDS Being in love with your best friend is problematic. J.M. RICHARDS You always question what's new. It's human nature. While everything else, you know, no matter how st... J.M. DARHOWER Um, you don’t have to join me, but if you’re looking for a table, there are a couple good seats ... J.M. RICHARDS Usually the things that kill us are the things we do every single day. J.M. MCDERMOTT The grief of the keen is no personal complaint for the death of one woman over eighty years, but see... J.M. SYNGE As a man has no right to kill one of his children if it is diseased or insane, so a man who has made... J.M. SYNGE In a good play every speech should be as fully flavored as a nut or apple. J.M. SYNGE The secret of happiness is not doing what we like but in liking what we do. J.M. COETZEE I am not the we of anyone J.M. COETZEE Truth is not spoken in anger. Truth is spoken, if it ever comes to be spoken, in love. The gaze of l... J.M. COETZEE The distinctive crimes of this generation are crimes of subtlety and finesse. —ALEXANDER S. ... J.M. CARLISLE Alan shrugged. “I love the CBC, really, but being voted its president—” “Co-president,” Sp... J.M. RICHARDS Lewis exasperated her, always talking about life before the Plague and how it would be if everything... J.M. SULLIVAN With the buck before me suspended in immobility, there seems to be time for all things, time even to... J.M. COETZEE Who are you?” he asked, in a bewildered tone. I cocked my head at him, totally baffled. “I told ... J.M. RICHARDS I wouldn’t joke if you weren’t always patching me up,” Davin retorted. He looked at Chad again... J.M. RICHARDS It’s so peaceful. I could go to sleep in here.” His eyes flickered to me once more, and for a di... J.M. RICHARDS Den Staat kümmert nicht, ob der Bürger lebt oder stirbt. Wichtig für den Staat und sein Archiv is... J.M. COETZEE Wie es im Zeitalter der Könige naiv gewesen wäre zu glauben, dass der erstgeborene Königssohn der... J.M. COETZEE she’d rather sacrifice herself than him suffer a single moment because of her existence. J.M. DARHOWER You fix what's broken, not what's lost. He's gone. You can't fix that. You can't bring him back. But... J.M. DARHOWER The sun is setting, the sky is a tumult of oranges, reds and violets. J.M. COETZEE I truly believe I am not afraid of death. What I shrink from, I believe, is the shame of dying as st... J.M. COETZEE Do not think to swim below. The ocean is already pushing into ears, sinuses, temples, the softness o... J.M. LEDGARD From one seed a whole handful: that was what it meant to say the bounty of the earth . J.M. COETZEE When you're mortal, life is nothing more than a drawn-out game of Russian Roulette. Every moment is ... J.M. DARHOWER He turned to leave when arms suddenly wrapped around him from behind, stalling him. Sighing, he clos... J.M. DARHOWER He once envied the humans because they were given the Earth, but looking at her, he wondered if mayb... J.M. DARHOWER I suddenly felt the way Cinderella might have felt if she hadn’t had that convenient midnight curf... J.M. RICHARDS The problem in this world is that we have poetry but insist on living in prose. J.M. CAMPOS I don’t want to go home yet.” He twisted at the waist and patted the seat behind him. “Take a ... J.M. STEWART The reason is that as far as I am concerned, what happened to me is a purely private matter. In anot... J.M. COETZEE Adam delayed only a second longer before traversing into the uncertain future, crossing the hidden d... J.M. NORTHUP He would not mind hearing Petrus's story one day. But preferably not reduced to English. More and mo... J.M. COETZEE Poetry speaks to you either at first sight or not at all. A flash of revelation and a flash of respo... J.M. COETZEE I'm sorry, my child, I just find it hard to whip up an interest in the subject. It's admirable, what... J.M. COETZEE Dia wrinkled her nose. “Gross. You need a decent girl, one that can straighten you out.” �... J.M. DARHOWER Die Herren der Information haben die Poesie aus dem Auge verloren, wo Worte eine Bedeutung haben kö... J.M. COETZEE That is ever the way. 'Tis all jealousy to the bride and good wishes to the corpse. JAMES BARRIE