THE PREMATURE BURIAL
THERE are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing, butwhich are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate fiction.These the mere romanticist must eschew, if he do not wish to offend orto disgust. They are with propriety handled only when the severity andmajesty of Truth sanctify and sustain them. We thrill, for example, withthe most intense of ”pleasurable pain” over the accounts of the Passageof the Beresina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon, of the Plague at London,of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of the stifling of the hundredand twenty-three prisoners in the Black Hole at Calcutta. But in theseaccounts it is the fact----it is the reality----it is the history whichexcites. As inventions, we should regard them with simple abhorrence.
I have mentioned some few of the more prominent and august calamitieson record; but in these it is the extent, not less than the characterof the calamity, which so vividly impresses the fancy. I need not remindthe reader that, from the long and weird catalogue of human miseries,I might have selected many individual instances more replete withessential suffering than any of these vast generalities of disaster.The true wretchedness, indeed--the ultimate woe----is particular, notdiffuse. That the ghastly extremes of agony are endured by man the unit,and never by man the mass----for this let us thank a merciful God!
To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of theseextremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality. That it hasfrequently, very frequently, so fallen will scarcely be denied by thosewho think. The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at bestshadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the otherbegins? We know that there are diseases in which occur total cessationsof all the apparent functions of vitality, and yet in which thesecessations are merely suspensions, properly so called. They are onlytemporary pauses in the incomprehensible mechanism. A certain periodelapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again sets in motion themagic pinions and the wizard wheels. The silver cord was not for everloosed, nor the golden bowl irreparably broken. But where, meantime, wasthe soul?
Apart, however, from the inevitable conclusion, a priori that suchcauses must produce such effects----that the well-known occurrence ofsuch cases of suspended animation must naturally give rise, now andthen, to premature interments--apart from this consideration, we havethe direct testimony of medical and ordinary experience to prove that avast number of such interments have actually taken place. I might referat once, if necessary to a hundred well authenticated instances. One ofvery remarkable character, and of which the circumstances may be freshin the memory of some of my readers, occurred, not very long ago, in theneighboring city of Baltimore, where it occasioned a painful, intense,and widely-extended excitement. The wife of one of the most respectablecitizens--a lawyer of eminence and a member of Congress--was seized witha sudden and unaccountable illness, which completely baffled the skillof her physicians. After much suffering she died, or was supposed todie. No one suspected, indeed, or had reason to suspect, that she wasnot actually dead. She presented all the ordinary appearances of death.The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The lips were ofthe usual marble pallor. The eyes were lustreless. There was no warmth.Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied,during which it had acquired a stony rigidity. The funeral, in short,was hastened, on account of the rapid advance of what was supposed to bedecomposition.
The lady was deposited in her family vault, which, for three subsequentyears, was undisturbed. At the expiration of this term it was openedfor the reception of a sarcophagus;----but, alas! how fearful a shockawaited the husband, who, personally, threw open the door! As itsportals swung outwardly back, some white-apparelled object fell rattlingwithin his arms. It was the skeleton of his wife in her yet unmouldedshroud.
A careful investigation rendered it evident that she had revived withintwo days after her entombment; that her struggles within the coffin hadcaused it to fall from a ledge, or shelf to the floor, where it was sobroken as to permit her escape. A lamp which had been accidentallyleft, full of oil, within the tomb, was found empty; it might have beenexhausted, however, by evaporation. On the uttermost of the steps whichled down into the dread chamber was a large fragment of the coffin,with which, it seemed, that she had endeavored to arrest attention bystriking the iron door. While thus occupied, she probably swooned, orpossibly died, through sheer terror; and, in failing, her shroud becameentangled in some iron--work which projected interiorly. Thus sheremained, and thus she rotted, erect.
In the year 1810, a case of living inhumation happened in France,attended with circumstances which go far to warrant the assertion thattruth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. The heroine of the story was aMademoiselle Victorine Lafourcade, a young girl of illustrious family,of wealth, and of great personal beauty. Among her numerous suitors wasJulien Bossuet, a poor litterateur, or journalist of Paris. His talentsand general amiability had recommended him to the notice of the heiress,by whom he seems to have been truly beloved; but her pride of birthdecided her, finally, to reject him, and to wed a Monsieur Renelle, abanker and a diplomatist of some eminence. After marriage, however, thisgentleman neglected, and, perhaps, even more positively ill-treated her.Having passed with him some wretched years, she died,----at least hercondition so closely resembled death as to deceive every one who sawher. She was buried----not in a vault, but in an ordinary grave in thevillage of her nativity. Filled with despair, and still inflamed by thememory of a profound attachment, the lover journeys from the capital tothe remote province in which the village lies, with the romantic purposeof disinterring the corpse, and possessing himself of its luxurianttresses. He reaches the grave. At midnight he unearths the coffin, opensit, and is in the act of detaching the hair, when he is arrested by theunclosing of the beloved eyes. In fact, the lady had been buriedalive. Vitality had not altogether departed, and she was aroused bythe caresses of her lover from the lethargy which had been mistakenfor death. He bore her frantically to his lodgings in the village. Heemployed certain powerful restoratives suggested by no little medicallearning. In fine, she revived. She recognized her preserver. Sheremained with him until, by slow degrees, she fully recovered heroriginal health. Her woman's heart was not adamant, and this lastlesson of love sufficed to soften it. She bestowed it upon Bossuet.She returned no more to her husband, but, concealing from him herresurrection, fled with her lover to America. Twenty years afterward,the two returned to France, in the persuasion that time had so greatlyaltered the lady's appearance that her friends would be unable torecognize her. They were mistaken, however, for, at the first meeting,Monsieur Renelle did actually recognize and make claim to his wife.This claim she resisted, and a judicial tribunal sustained her in herresistance, deciding that the peculiar circumstances, with the longlapse of years, had extinguished, not only equitably, but legally, theauthority of the husband.
The ”Chirurgical Journal” of Leipsic--a periodical of high authorityand merit, which some American bookseller would do well to translateand republish, records in a late number a very distressing event of thecharacter in question.
An officer of artillery, a man of gigantic stature and of robusthealth, being thrown from an unmanageable horse, received a very severecontusion upon the head, which rendered him insensible at once; theskull was slightly fractured, but no immediate danger was apprehended.Trepanning was accomplished successfully. He was bled, and many other ofthe ordinary means of relief were adopted. Gradually, however, he fellinto a more and more hopeless state of stupor, and, finally, it wasthought that he died.
The weather was warm, and he was buried with indecent haste in one ofthe public cemeteries. His funeral took place on Thursday. On the Sundayfollowing, the grounds of the cemetery were, as usual, much throngedwith visiters, and about noon an intense excitement was created bythe declaration of a peasant that, while sitting upon the grave ofthe officer, he had distinctly felt a commotion of the earth, as ifoccasioned by some one struggling beneath. At first little attention waspaid to the man's asseveration; but his evident terror, and the doggedobstinacy with which he persisted in his story, had at length theirnatural effect upon the crowd. Spades were hurriedly procured, and thegrave, which was shamefully shallow, was in a few minutes so far thrownopen that the head of its occupant appeared. He was then seemingly dead;but he sat nearly erect within his coffin, the lid of which, in hisfurious struggles, he had partially uplifted.
He was forthwith conveyed to the nearest hospital, and there pronouncedto be still living, although in an asphytic condition. After some hourshe revived, recognized individuals of his acquaintance, and, in brokensentences spoke of his agonies in the grave.
From what he related, it was clear that he must have been consciousof life for more than an hour, while inhumed, before lapsing intoinsensibility. The grave was carelessly and loosely filled with anexceedingly porous soil; and thus some air was necessarily admitted.He heard the footsteps of the crowd overhead, and endeavored to makehimself heard in turn. It was the tumult within the grounds of thecemetery, he said, which appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep, butno sooner was he awake than he became fully aware of the awful horrorsof his position.
This patient, it is recorded, was doing well and seemed to be in a fairway of ultimate recovery, but fell a victim to the quackeries of medicalexperiment. The galvanic battery was applied, and he suddenly expired inone of those ecstatic paroxysms which, occasionally, it superinduces.
The mention of the galvanic battery, nevertheless, recalls to my memorya well known and very extraordinary case in point, where its actionproved the means of restoring to animation a young attorney of London,who had been interred for two days. This occurred in 1831, and created,at the time, a very profound sensation wherever it was made the subjectof converse.
The patient, Mr. Edward Stapleton, had died, apparently of typhus fever,accompanied with some anomalous symptoms which had excited the curiosityof his medical attendants. Upon his seeming decease, his friends wererequested to sanction a post-mortem examination, but declined to permitit. As often happens, when such refusals are made, the practitionersresolved to disinter the body and dissect it at leisure, in private.Arrangements were easily effected with some of the numerous corps ofbody-snatchers, with which London abounds; and, upon the third nightafter the funeral, the supposed corpse was unearthed from a grave eightfeet deep, and deposited in the opening chamber of one of the privatehospitals.
An incision of some extent had been actually made in the abdomen,when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject suggested anapplication of the battery. One experiment succeeded another, and thecustomary effects supervened, with nothing to characterize them in anyrespect, except, upon one or two occasions, a more than ordinary degreeof life-likeness in the convulsive action.
It grew late. The day was about to dawn; and it was thought expedient,at length, to proceed at once to the dissection. A student, however, wasespecially desirous of testing a theory of his own, and insisted uponapplying the battery to one of the pectoral muscles. A rough gash wasmade, and a wire hastily brought in contact, when the patient, with ahurried but quite unconvulsive movement, arose from the table, steppedinto the middle of the floor, gazed about him uneasily for a fewseconds, and then--spoke. What he said was unintelligible, but wordswere uttered; the syllabification was distinct. Having spoken, he fellheavily to the floor.
For some moments all were paralyzed with awe--but the urgency of thecase soon restored them their presence of mind. It was seen that Mr.Stapleton was alive, although in a swoon. Upon exhibition of ether herevived and was rapidly restored to health, and to the society of hisfriends--from whom, however, all knowledge of his resuscitation waswithheld, until a relapse was no longer to be apprehended. Theirwonder--their rapturous astonishment--may be conceived.
The most thrilling peculiarity of this incident, nevertheless, isinvolved in what Mr. S. himself asserts. He declares that at no periodwas he altogether insensible--that, dully and confusedly, he was awareof everything which happened to him, from the moment in which he waspronounced dead by his physicians, to that in which he fell swooning tothe floor of the hospital. ”I am alive,” were the uncomprehended wordswhich, upon recognizing the locality of the dissecting-room, he hadendeavored, in his extremity, to utter.
It were an easy matter to multiply such histories as these--but Iforbear--for, indeed, we have no need of such to establish the fact thatpremature interments occur. When we reflect how very rarely, from thenature of the case, we have it in our power to detect them, we mustadmit that they may frequently occur without our cognizance. Scarcely,in truth, is a graveyard ever encroached upon, for any purpose, to anygreat extent, that skeletons are not found in postures which suggest themost fearful of suspicions.
Fearful indeed the suspicion--but more fearful the doom! It may beasserted, without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well adaptedto inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental distress, as isburial before death. The unendurable oppression of the lungs--thestifling fumes from the damp earth--the clinging to the deathgarments--the rigid embrace of the narrow house--the blackness of theabsolute Night--the silence like a sea that overwhelms--the unseen butpalpable presence of the Conqueror Worm--these things, with the thoughtsof the air and grass above, with memory of dear friends who would fly tosave us if but informed of our fate, and with consciousness that of thisfate they can never be informed--that our hopeless portion is that ofthe really dead--these considerations, I say, carry into the heart,which still palpitates, a degree of appalling and intolerable horrorfrom which the most daring imagination must recoil. We know of nothingso agonizing upon Earth--we can dream of nothing half so hideous in therealms of the nethermost Hell. And thus all narratives upon this topichave an interest profound; an interest, nevertheless, which, throughthe sacred awe of the topic itself, very properly and very peculiarlydepends upon our conviction of the truth of the matter narrated. What Ihave now to tell is of my own actual knowledge--of my own positive andpersonal experience.
For several years I had been subject to attacks of the singular disorderwhich physicians have agreed to term catalepsy, in default of a moredefinitive title. Although both the immediate and the predisposingcauses, and even the actual diagnosis, of this disease are stillmysterious, its obvious and apparent character is sufficiently wellunderstood. Its variations seem to be chiefly of degree. Sometimes thepatient lies, for a day only, or even for a shorter period, in a speciesof exaggerated lethargy. He is senseless and externally motionless; butthe pulsation of the heart is still faintly perceptible; some traces ofwarmth remain; a slight color lingers within the centre of the cheek;and, upon application of a mirror to the lips, we can detect a torpid,unequal, and vacillating action of the lungs. Then again the durationof the trance is for weeks--even for months; while the closest scrutiny,and the most rigorous medical tests, fail to establish any materialdistinction between the state of the sufferer and what we conceive ofabsolute death. Very usually he is saved from premature interment solelyby the knowledge of his friends that he has been previously subject tocatalepsy, by the consequent suspicion excited, and, above all, bythe non-appearance of decay. The advances of the malady are, luckily,gradual. The first manifestations, although marked, are unequivocal. Thefits grow successively more and more distinctive, and endure each for alonger term than the preceding. In this lies the principal security frominhumation. The unfortunate whose first attack should be of the extremecharacter which is occasionally seen, would almost inevitably beconsigned alive to the tomb.
My own case differed in no important particular from those mentioned inmedical books. Sometimes, without any apparent cause, I sank, little bylittle, into a condition of hemi-syncope, or half swoon; and, in thiscondition, without pain, without ability to stir, or, strictly speaking,to think, but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and of thepresence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the crisis ofthe disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect sensation. At othertimes I was quickly and impetuously smitten. I grew sick, and numb, andchilly, and dizzy, and so fell prostrate at once. Then, for weeks, allwas void, and black, and silent, and Nothing became the universe.Total annihilation could be no more. From these latter attacks I awoke,however, with a gradation slow in proportion to the suddenness of theseizure. Just as the day dawns to the friendless and houseless beggarwho roams the streets throughout the long desolate winter night--justso tardily--just so wearily--just so cheerily came back the light of theSoul to me.
Apart from the tendency to trance, however, my general health appearedto be good; nor could I perceive that it was at all affected by the oneprevalent malady--unless, indeed, an idiosyncrasy in my ordinary sleepmay be looked upon as superinduced. Upon awaking from slumber, I couldnever gain, at once, thorough possession of my senses, and alwaysremained, for many minutes, in much bewilderment and perplexity;--themental faculties in general, but the memory in especial, being in acondition of absolute abeyance.
In all that I endured there was no physical suffering but of moraldistress an infinitude. My fancy grew charnel, I talked ”of worms, oftombs, and epitaphs.” I was lost in reveries of death, and the ideaof premature burial held continual possession of my brain. The ghastlyDanger to which I was subjected haunted me day and night. In the former,the torture of meditation was excessive--in the latter, supreme. Whenthe grim Darkness overspread the Earth, then, with every horror ofthought, I shook--shook as the quivering plumes upon the hearse. WhenNature could endure wakefulness no longer, it was with a struggle thatI consented to sleep--for I shuddered to reflect that, upon awaking, Imight find myself the tenant of a grave. And when, finally, I sank intoslumber, it was only to rush at once into a world of phantasms, abovewhich, with vast, sable, overshadowing wing, hovered, predominant, theone sepulchral Idea.
From the innumerable images of gloom which thus oppressed me in dreams,I select for record but a solitary vision. Methought I was immersed ina cataleptic trance of more than usual duration and profundity. Suddenlythere came an icy hand upon my forehead, and an impatient, gibberingvoice whispered the word ”Arise!” within my ear.
I sat erect. The darkness was total. I could not see the figure of himwho had aroused me. I could call to mind neither the period at which Ihad fallen into the trance, nor the locality in which I then lay. WhileI remained motionless, and busied in endeavors to collect my thought,the cold hand grasped me fiercely by the wrist, shaking it petulantly,while the gibbering voice said again:
”Arise! did I not bid thee arise?”
”And who,” I demanded, ”art thou?”
”I have no name in the regions which I inhabit,” replied the voice,mournfully; ”I was mortal, but am fiend. I was merciless, but ampitiful. Thou dost feel that I shudder.--My teeth chatter as I speak,yet it is not with the chilliness of the night--of the night withoutend. But this hideousness is insufferable. How canst thou tranquillysleep? I cannot rest for the cry of these great agonies. These sightsare more than I can bear. Get thee up! Come with me into the outerNight, and let me unfold to thee the graves. Is not this a spectacle ofwoe?--Behold!”
I looked; and the unseen figure, which still grasped me by the wrist,had caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind, and from eachissued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay, so that I could see intothe innermost recesses, and there view the shrouded bodies in theirsad and solemn slumbers with the worm. But alas! the real sleepers werefewer, by many millions, than those who slumbered not at all; and therewas a feeble struggling; and there was a general sad unrest; and fromout the depths of the countless pits there came a melancholy rustlingfrom the garments of the buried. And of those who seemed tranquillyto repose, I saw that a vast number had changed, in a greater or lessdegree, the rigid and uneasy position in which they had originally beenentombed. And the voice again said to me as I gazed:
”Is it not--oh! is it not a pitiful sight?”--but, before I could findwords to reply, the figure had ceased to grasp my wrist, the phosphoriclights expired, and the graves were closed with a sudden violence, whilefrom out them arose a tumult of despairing cries, saying again: ”Is itnot--O, God, is it not a very pitiful sight?”
Phantasies such as these, presenting themselves at night, extended theirterrific influence far into my waking hours. My nerves became thoroughlyunstrung, and I fell a prey to perpetual horror. I hesitated to ride, orto walk, or to indulge in any exercise that would carry me from home.In fact, I no longer dared trust myself out of the immediate presenceof those who were aware of my proneness to catalepsy, lest, falling intoone of my usual fits, I should be buried before my real condition couldbe ascertained. I doubted the care, the fidelity of my dearest friends.I dreaded that, in some trance of more than customary duration, theymight be prevailed upon to regard me as irrecoverable. I even went sofar as to fear that, as I occasioned much trouble, they might be glad toconsider any very protracted attack as sufficient excuse for getting ridof me altogether. It was in vain they endeavored to reassure me by themost solemn promises. I exacted the most sacred oaths, that under nocircumstances they would bury me until decomposition had so materiallyadvanced as to render farther preservation impossible. And, eventhen, my mortal terrors would listen to no reason--would accept noconsolation. I entered into a series of elaborate precautions. Amongother things, I had the family vault so remodelled as to admit of beingreadily opened from within. The slightest pressure upon a long leverthat extended far into the tomb would cause the iron portal to fly back.There were arrangements also for the free admission of air and light,and convenient receptacles for food and water, within immediate reach ofthe coffin intended for my reception. This coffin was warmly and softlypadded, and was provided with a lid, fashioned upon the principle of thevault-door, with the addition of springs so contrived that the feeblestmovement of the body would be sufficient to set it at liberty. Besidesall this, there was suspended from the roof of the tomb, a large bell,the rope of which, it was designed, should extend through a hole in thecoffin, and so be fastened to one of the hands of the corpse. But, alas?what avails the vigilance against the Destiny of man? Not even thesewell-contrived securities sufficed to save from the uttermost agonies ofliving inhumation, a wretch to these agonies foredoomed!
There arrived an epoch--as often before there had arrived--in which Ifound myself emerging from total unconsciousness into the firstfeeble and indefinite sense of existence. Slowly--with a tortoisegradation--approached the faint gray dawn of the psychal day. A torpiduneasiness. An apathetic endurance of dull pain. No care--no hope--noeffort. Then, after a long interval, a ringing in the ears; then,after a lapse still longer, a prickling or tingling sensation in theextremities; then a seemingly eternal period of pleasurable quiescence,during which the awakening feelings are struggling into thought; then abrief re-sinking into non-entity; then a sudden recovery. At length theslight quivering of an eyelid, and immediately thereupon, an electricshock of a terror, deadly and indefinite, which sends the blood intorrents from the temples to the heart. And now the first positiveeffort to think. And now the first endeavor to remember. And now apartial and evanescent success. And now the memory has so far regainedits dominion, that, in some measure, I am cognizant of my state. I feelthat I am not awaking from ordinary sleep. I recollect that I have beensubject to catalepsy. And now, at last, as if by the rush of an ocean,my shuddering spirit is overwhelmed by the one grim Danger--by the onespectral and ever-prevalent idea.
For some minutes after this fancy possessed me, I remained withoutmotion. And why? I could not summon courage to move. I dared notmake the effort which was to satisfy me of my fate--and yet there wassomething at my heart which whispered me it was sure. Despair--such asno other species of wretchedness ever calls into being--despair aloneurged me, after long irresolution, to uplift the heavy lids of my eyes.I uplifted them. It was dark--all dark. I knew that the fit was over. Iknew that the crisis of my disorder had long passed. I knew that Ihad now fully recovered the use of my visual faculties--and yet it wasdark--all dark--the intense and utter raylessness of the Night thatendureth for evermore.
I endeavored to shriek; and my lips and my parched tongue movedconvulsively together in the attempt--but no voice issued from thecavernous lungs, which oppressed as if by the weight of some incumbentmountain, gasped and palpitated, with the heart, at every elaborate andstruggling inspiration.
The movement of the jaws, in this effort to cry aloud, showed me thatthey were bound up, as is usual with the dead. I felt, too, that I layupon some hard substance, and by something similar my sides were,also, closely compressed. So far, I had not ventured to stir any of mylimbs--but now I violently threw up my arms, which had been lying atlength, with the wrists crossed. They struck a solid wooden substance,which extended above my person at an elevation of not more than sixinches from my face. I could no longer doubt that I reposed within acoffin at last.
And now, amid all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherubHope--for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made spasmodicexertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I felt my wrists forthe bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now the Comforter fled forever, and a still sterner Despair reigned triumphant; for I could nothelp perceiving the absence of the paddings which I had so carefullyprepared--and then, too, there came suddenly to my nostrils the strongpeculiar odor of moist earth. The conclusion was irresistible. I wasnot within the vault. I had fallen into a trance while absent fromhome--while among strangers--when, or how, I could not remember--andit was they who had buried me as a dog--nailed up in some commoncoffin--and thrust deep, deep, and for ever, into some ordinary andnameless grave.
As this awful conviction forced itself, thus, into the innermostchambers of my soul, I once again struggled to cry aloud. And in thissecond endeavor I succeeded. A long, wild, and continuous shriek, oryell of agony, resounded through the realms of the subterranean Night.
”Hillo! hillo, there!” said a gruff voice, in reply.
”What the devil's the matter now!” said a second.
”Get out o' that!” said a third.
”What do you mean by yowling in that ere kind of style, like acattymount?” said a fourth; and hereupon I was seized and shakenwithout ceremony, for several minutes, by a junto of very rough-lookingindividuals. They did not arouse me from my slumber--for I was wideawake when I screamed--but they restored me to the full possession of mymemory.
This adventure occurred near Richmond, in Virginia. Accompanied by afriend, I had proceeded, upon a gunning expedition, some miles down thebanks of the James River. Night approached, and we were overtaken bya storm. The cabin of a small sloop lying at anchor in the stream, andladen with garden mould, afforded us the only available shelter. We madethe best of it, and passed the night on board. I slept in one of theonly two berths in the vessel--and the berths of a sloop of sixty ortwenty tons need scarcely be described. That which I occupied had nobedding of any kind. Its extreme width was eighteen inches. The distanceof its bottom from the deck overhead was precisely the same. I found ita matter of exceeding difficulty to squeeze myself in. Nevertheless, Islept soundly, and the whole of my vision--for it was no dream, and nonightmare--arose naturally from the circumstances of my position--frommy ordinary bias of thought--and from the difficulty, to which I havealluded, of collecting my senses, and especially of regaining my memory,for a long time after awaking from slumber. The men who shook me werethe crew of the sloop, and some laborers engaged to unload it. From theload itself came the earthly smell. The bandage about the jaws was asilk handkerchief in which I had bound up my head, in default of mycustomary nightcap.
The tortures endured, however, were indubitably quite equal for thetime, to those of actual sepulture. They were fearfully--they wereinconceivably hideous; but out of Evil proceeded Good; for their veryexcess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion. My soul acquiredtone--acquired temper. I went abroad. I took vigorous exercise. Ibreathed the free air of Heaven. I thought upon other subjects thanDeath. I discarded my medical books. ”Buchan” I burned. I read no ”NightThoughts”--no fustian about churchyards--no bugaboo tales--such asthis. In short, I became a new man, and lived a man's life. From thatmemorable night, I dismissed forever my charnel apprehensions, and withthem vanished the cataleptic disorder, of which, perhaps, they had beenless the consequence than the cause.
There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world ofour sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell--but the imaginationof man is no Carathis, to explore with impunity its every cavern. Alas!the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogetherfanciful--but, like the Demons in whose company Afrasiab made his voyagedown the Oxus, they must sleep, or they will devour us--they must besuffered to slumber, or we perish.