(Photo by Elizabeth. See the original source here.) 

So often and so anxiously we have talked of this thing called death, that now that it is all over between us, I cannot understand why we found in it such a source of distress. It bewilders me. I am often bewildered here. Things and the fancies of things possess a relation which as yet is new and strange to me. Here is a mystery.

Now, in truth, it seems a simple matter for me to tell you how it has been with me since your lips last touched me, and your arms held me to the vanishing air.

Oh, drawn, pale lips! Nerveless, dropping arms! I told you I would come. Did ever promise fail I spoke to you? “Come and show me Death,” you said. I have come to show you Death.

- from “Since I Died” by Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, originally in Scribner’s Monthly (February 1873), as published in Avenging Angels: Ghost Stories by Victorian Women Writers edited by Melissa Edmundson (2018)   

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