Christmas Yet To Come

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?”

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”

And Scary Ghost Stories...

Click below for the BBC's version of The Signalman.

Grimaldi: The First Modern Clown

This would make a great horror film.  The below excerpt is from a terrific article by Ed Simon:

The Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi is a trauma narrative. It offers a a horrifying portrait of the abuse Grimaldi endured at the hands of his father; when the two performed together the father “fell upon his son at once, and beat him severely,” writes Dickens. “This was all taken by the audience as a most capital joke” and “the papers the next morning declared that it was perfectly wonderful to see a mere child perform so naturally.” A haunted man, Grimaldi would “sob and cry aloud, and suffer so much violent and agonizing spasms” his fellow actors feared he’d be unable to return for the second act. Yet return he did, always ready to “rally at the necessary time.”

In his own 1887 memoir, theater critic Thomas Goodwin recounted how Grimaldi visited a famed surgeon to find a cure for his melancholy. The doctor suggested he pursue “relaxation and amusement… perhaps sometimes at the theater;—go and see Grimaldi.’ ‘Alas!’ replied the patient, ‘that is of no avail to me; I am Grimaldi.’”

Click below for the article...

Havisham Jewelry

"On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of decay," stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the table but not touching it, "was brought here. It and I have worn away together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of mice have gnawed at me."

Click below:

Ghost Of Halloween Yet To Come

`Ghost of the Future.' he exclaimed,' I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me.'

Charles Dickens

This just felt like a rather magnificent prop, so Dickens popped into my head.  And I ran with it.

Image source.

I Wear The Chain I Forged In Life

...for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts, and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven. 

Charles Dickens

Image by MrEBlack.

Rest

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.


Image by steverichard.