CatacombsSamuel Rogers, whose bald, polished head and sunken eyes gave him a rather cadaverous appearance, once visited the catacombs in Paris with Lord Dudley. As they were leaving, the keeper, catching sight of Rogers, rushed toward him with apparent horror.
"No, no!" the man cried. "You have no right to come out! Go back inside! Go back!" Lord Dudley left the scene beset by hysterical laughter, leaving Rogers to make his escape unaided.
[Rogers later reproached Dudley for his inconsiderate abandonment. "My dear Rogers," Dudley replied, "you looked so much at home I did not like to interfere!"]
[Trivia: Until the practice was forbidden by law in 1823, a suicide was typically interred in unconsecrated ground on the north side of a churchyard or at a crossroads with a stake driven through its body to keep its ghost from rising and haunting the neighborhood.]
Rogers, Samuel (1763-1855) English poet [noted for his central position in literary society (numbering Byron, Lamb, and Wordsworth among his friends); for his Table Talk (1856) and
Recollections (1859); and for such poetic
works as
Pleasures of Memory (1792),
Jacqueline (1814), and
Italy (1822-28)]
[Sources: F. Adams Treasury of Modern Anecdote; Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts]More Samuel Rogers anecdotesRelated Anecdote Keywords:
Misunderstandings Mistaken Identity Ghosts Supernatural Death Burial Appearance Horror
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