“The south-western tower, which was ruinous and full of owls, might, with equal propriety, have been called an aviary...”

Nightmare Abbey (1818) Thomas Love Peacock’s satire of the gloomy Gothic & Romantic poets.

Thread of some fav quotes 1/6
#WyrdWednesday
Art: Arthur Rackham

“bring me no more stories of ghosts; for, though I do not believe in such things, yet, when one is awake in the night one is apt to have fancies... if one opens one’s eyes suddenly on one’s dressing gown, hanging in the moonlight, between the bed and the window.”

Art: J. Graham

“Might it not be a mermaid? It was possibly a mermaid. It was probably a mermaid. It was very probably a mermaid. Nay, what else could it be but a mermaid? It certainly was a mermaid.”

Art: John Gilbert

“You will see many fine old ruins... crumbling pillars, and mossy walls - many a one-legged Venus and headless Minerva - many a Neptune buried in sand - many a Jupiter turned topsy-turvy - many a perforated Bacchus doing duty as a water-pipe...”

“Let us each open a vein in the other’s arm, mix our blood in a bowl, and drink it as a sacrament of love. Then we shall see visions of transcendental illumination, and soar on the wings of ideas into the space of pure intelligence.”

Art: Jaroslaw Blaminsky

“No one could relate a dismal story with so many minutiæ of supererogatory wretchedness. No-one could call up a raw-head and bloody-bones with so many adjuncts and circumstances of ghastliness.”

Art: Theodor Kittelsen (detail)