At a certain level of wretchedness a kind of spectral indifference takes over, and you see human beings as ghostly presences. Those closest to you are often no more than vague shadowy forms, barely distinct from life’s nebulous background and easily reabsorbed by the invisible.
[À un certain degré de misère, on est gagné par une sorte d’indifférence spectrale, et l’on voit les êtres comme des larves. Vos plus proches ne sont souvent pour vous que de vagues formes de l’ombre, à peine distinctes du fond nébuleux de la vie et facilement remêlées à l’invisible.]
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Les Misérables, Part 4 “Saint Denis,” Book 6 “Little Gavroche,” ch. 1 (4.6.1) (1862) [tr. Donougher (2013)]
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(Source (French)). Alternate translations:At a certain depth of misery, men are possessed by a sort of spectral indifference, and look upon their fellow beings as upon goblins. Your nearest relatives are often but vague forms of shadow for you, hardly distinct from the nebulous background of life, and easily reblended with the invisible.
[tr. Wilbour (1862)]In a certain stage of misery people are affected by a sort of spectral indifference and regard human beings as ghosts. Your nearest relatives are often to you no more than vague forms of the shadow, hardly to be distinguished from the nebulous back-ground of life, and which easily become blended. again with the invisible.
[tr. Wraxall (1862)]When a certain degree of misery is reached, one is overpowered with a sort of spectral indifference, and one regards human beings as though they were spectres. Your nearest relations are often no more for you than vague shadowy forms, barely outlined against a nebulous background of life and easily confounded again with the invisible.
[tr. Hapgood (1887)]There is a level of poverty at which we are afflicted with a kind of indifference which causes all things to seem unreal: those closest to us become no more than shadows, scarcely distinguishable against the dark background of our daily life, and easily lost to view.
[tr. Denny (1976)]At a certain depth of misery, people are possessed by a sort of spectral indifference, and look at their fellow beings as at ghosts. Your nearest relatives are often merely vague shadowy forms for you, hardly distinct from the nebulous background of life, and easily blended with the invisible.
[tr. Wilbour/Fahnestock/MacAfee (1987)]
Quotations about:
ghosts
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I am just az certain that thare iz sitch a thing az “Spiritual manafestashuns” az i am that there iz plenty ov superstishun and trickery.
[I am just as certain that there is such a thing as “spiritual manifestations” as I am that there is plenty of superstition and trickery.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 156 “Affurisms: Embers on the Harth” (1874)
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COLE: I see dead people.
MALCOLM: In your dreams? (Cole shakes his head.) While you’re awake? (Cole nods.) Dead people, like, in graves? In coffins?
COLE: Walking around like regular people. They don’t see each other. They only see what they wanna see. They don’t know they’re dead.
MALCOLM: How often do you see them?
COLE: All the time. They’re everywhere.
M. Night Shyamalan (b. 1970) Indian-American screenwriter, director
The Sixth Sense (1999)
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(Source (Video); dialog confirmed)
To fight a real sorrow, a real loss, a real insult, a real disillusion, a real treachery was infinitely less difficult than to spend a night without sleep struggling with ghosts. The imagination is far better at inventing tortures than life because the imagination is a demon within us and it knows where to strike, where it hurts.
Dear Ald,
Been an odd day … It’s all quite incredible — not that twenty years have gone by nor even that I survived … it is just to walk over the same ground after so much has happened and to remember it all with such infinite clarity.
Last week, I went back to a little village outside of Manila called Paranaque. My last visit there was February 4, 1945, and I spent one day and one night getting shelled. So I took the nostalgic walk one early morning and drank it all in and began to feel sad because nobody came up to me as they did twenty years ago and grin and say, “Victory, Joe!” So three hours later I went through a tiny alley and wound up on a dirty beach overlooking the ocean, and this little grimy 8-year-old kid comes up to me and says, “What are you looking for, Joe?” And I cup this dirty little brown face in my hand and I answer, “My youth, Joe.”
Hey, Ald! You can’t go back. At least you can’t go back and experience. You return as a tourist just to observe. Like visiting a cemetery. Nobody’s around to talk to you and reminisce, even though deep in your gut you have this urge to tap some ghost on a shoulder and say, “Hey, buddy, remember that afternoon ….”
Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Letter to Alden Schwimmer (1965)
In Anne Serling, As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling, ch. 7 (2013).
I can tell you that solitude
Is not all exaltation, inner space
Where the soul breathes and work can be done.
Solitude exposes the nerve,
Raises up ghosts.
The past, never at rest, flows through it.May Sarton (1912-1995) Belgian-American poet, novelist, memoirist [pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton]
“Gestalt at Sixty,” sec. 1 (1972)
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