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| Literary 13 1. There is no end to the old houses, with resounding galleries, and dismal state-bedchambers, and haunted wings shut up for many years, through which we may ramble, with an agreeable creeping up our back, and encounter any number of ghosts. . . . There is a haunted door, that never will keep open; or another door that never will keep shut, or a haunted sound of a spinning-wheel, or a hammer, or a footstep, or a cry, or a sigh, or a horse's tramp, or the rattling of a chain. Or else, there is a turret-clock, which, at the midnight hour, strikes thirteen when the head of the family is going to die. —Charles Dickens, A Christmas Tree (1850) 2. He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and began to descend his 13 steps cautiously, noiselessly, like a cat. He had still the most important thing to do—to steal the axe from the kitchen. That the deed must be done with an axe he had decided long ago. —Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment (1866) 3. In the Levins’ house, so long deserted, there were now so many people that almost all the rooms were occupied, and almost every day it happened that the old princess, sitting down to table, counted them all over, and put the thirteenth grandson or granddaughter at a separate table. —Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina (1877) 4. “Superstitious, indeed! You don’t know what my experience has been. My only sister was one of a party of thirteen at dinner; and she died within the year.” —Wilkie Collins, I Say No (1884) 5. “Thirteen! Ah, that is indeed a lucky number,” replied the Tin Woodman. “All my good luck seems to happen on the thirteenth. I suppose most people never notice the good luck that comes to them with the number 13, and yet if the least bit of bad luck falls on that day, they blame it to the number, and not to the proper cause.” “Thirteen’s my lucky number, too,” remarked the Scarecrow. “And mine,” said Scraps. “I’ve just thirteen patches on my head.” —L. Frank Baum, The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913) 6. Mr. Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bare heads. I’m thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen. Death’s number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn’t in the chapel, that I’ll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen. —James Joyce, Ulysses (1922) 7. “You belong to a Thirteen Club,” said the poet. “You walk under a ladder on Friday to dine thirteen at a table, everybody spilling the salt. But even you don’t go into those trees at night.” —G. K. Chesterton, The Trees of Pride (1922) Click here for next page. c 2005 Nathaniel Lachenmeyer. All rights reserved. |
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