Dracula by Stoker
Ref: Bram Stoker (1897). Dracula. Doubleday Pages.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Summary
“There are vampires. They are real, they are of our time, and they are here, close by, stalking us as we sleep...”-Van Helsing.
“Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men´s eyes, because they know -or think they know- some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain.”-Van Helsing.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Dracula’s Home
“I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia, and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian Mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe.”
__________________________________________________________________________________
Dracula’s Powers
“The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time, he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living. Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow younger, that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty. “But he cannot flourish without this diet, he eat not as others. Even friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him eat, never! He throws no shadow, he make in the mirror no reflect, as again Jonathan observe. He has the strength of many of his hand, witness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolves, and when he help him from the diligence too. He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog, he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy. “He can come in mist which he create, that noble ship’s captain proved him of this, but, from what we know, the distance he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. “He come on moonlight rays as elemental dust, as again Jonathan saw those sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become so small, we ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hairbreadth space at the tomb door. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with fire, solder you call it. He can see in the dark, no small power this, in a world which is one half shut from the light.”-Van Helsing.
“He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay, he is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he lists, he who is not of nature has yet to obey some of nature's laws, why we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come, though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day.”-Van Helsing.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Misc Quotes
“Welcome to my house! Enter freely. Go safely, and leave something of the happiness you bring!”
“I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air.”-Dracula to Mina.
“We learn from failure, not from success!”-Van Helsing.
“Remember my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker.”-Van Helsing.
“Despair has its own calms.”
“..the world seems full of good men--even if there are monsters in it.”
“No one but a woman can help a man when he is in trouble of the heart.”
“I have crossed oceans of time to find you.”-Dracula to Mina.
“Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, and with such unknown horror as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.”-Mina.
“In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves.”-Van Helsing.
I have learned not to think little of any one's belief, no matter how strange it may be. I have tried to keep an open mind, and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane.”-Van Helsing.
“I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him.”-Mina.
“But we are strong, each in our purpose, and we are all more strong together.”-Van Helsing.
“It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way, even by death, and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment.”
“And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere 'modernity' cannot kill.”-Van Helsing.
“You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot?”-Van Helsing.
“All men are mad in some way or another, and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God's madmen too, the rest of the world.”-Van Helsing.
“Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength.”-Van Helsing.
“To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith, `that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.' For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of the big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him, but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe.”-Van Helsing.
Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the folly of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise.”-Van Helsing.
__________________________________________________________________________________