Some places speak distinctly. Certain dark gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck. – Robert Louis Stevenson

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. – Thomas Ingoldsby, “The Spectre of Tappington,” 1837

But it is presumptuous to scrutinize too far into these matters: Ghosts have undoubtedly forms and customs peculiar to themselves. – Francis Grose, “Superstitions: A Ghost,” A Provincial Glossary, with a Collectio