An idea, like a ghost (according to the common notion of ghosts), must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself. – Attributed to Dickens in Many Thoughts of Many Minds by Henry Southgate, 1862

A house is never still in darkness to those who listen intently; there is a whispering in distant chambers, an unearthly hand presses the snib of the window, the latch rises. Ghosts were created when the first man woke in the night. – J.M. Barrie, The Little Minister, 1891

The meagre lighthouse all in white, haunting the seaboard, as if it were the ghost of an edifice that had once had colour and rotundity, dripped melancholy tears after its late buffeting by the waves. – Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit