Capítulo 16 de 23

THE PREMATURE BURIAL

There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing,

but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of

legitimate fiction. These the mere romanticist must eschew, if he

do not wish to offend or to disgust. They are with propriety

handled only when the severity and majesty of Truth sanctify and

sustain them. We thrill, for example, with the most intense of

“pleasurable pain” over the accounts of the Passage of the

Beresina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon, of the Plague at London,

of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of the stifling of the

hundred and twenty-three prisoners in the Black Hole at Calcutta.

But in these accounts it is the fact——it is the reality——it is

the history which excites. As inventions, we should regard them

with simple abhorrence.

I have mentioned some few of the more prominent and august

calamities on record; but in these it is the extent, not less

than the character of the calamity, which so vividly impresses

the fancy. I need not remind the reader that, from the long and

weird catalogue of human miseries, I might have selected many

individual instances more replete with essential suffering than

any of these vast generalities of disaster. The true

wretchedness, indeed—the ultimate woe——is particular, not

diffuse. 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 these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere

mortality. That it has frequently, very frequently, so fallen

will scarcely be denied by those who think. The boundaries which

divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall

say where the one ends, and where the other begins? We know that

there are diseases in which occur total cessations of all the

apparent functions of vitality, and yet in which these cessations

are merely suspensions, properly so called. They are only

temporary pauses in the incomprehensible mechanism. A certain

period elapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again sets

in motion the magic pinions and the wizard wheels. The silver

cord was not for ever loosed, nor the golden bowl irreparably

broken. But where, meantime, was the soul?

Apart, however, from the inevitable conclusion, a priori that

such causes must produce such effects——that the well-known

occurrence of such cases of suspended animation must naturally

give rise, now and then, to premature interments—apart from this

consideration, we have the direct testimony of medical and

ordinary experience to prove that a vast number of such

interments have actually taken place. I might refer at once, if

necessary, to a hundred well-authenticated instances. One of very

remarkable character, and of which the circumstances may be fresh

in the memory of some of my readers, occurred, not very long ago,

in the neighboring city of Baltimore, where it occasioned a

painful, intense, and widely-extended excitement. The wife of one

of the most respectable citizens—a lawyer of eminence and a

member of Congress—was seized with a sudden and unaccountable

illness, which completely baffled the skill of her physicians.

After much suffering she died, or was supposed to die. No one

suspected, indeed, or had reason to suspect, that she was not

actually dead. She presented all the ordinary appearances of

death. The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The

lips were of the 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 be decomposition.

The lady was deposited in her family vault, which, for three

subsequent years, was undisturbed. At the expiration of this term

it was opened for the reception of a sarcophagus; but, alas! how

fearful a shock awaited the husband, who, personally, threw open

the door! As its portals swung outwardly back, some

white-apparelled object fell rattling within his arms. It was the

skeleton of his wife in her yet unmoulded shroud.

A careful investigation rendered it evident that she had revived

within two days after her entombment; that her struggles within

the coffin had caused it to fall from a ledge, or shelf to the

floor, where it was so broken as to permit her escape. A lamp

which had been accidentally left, full of oil, within the tomb,

was found empty; it might have been exhausted, however, by

evaporation. On the uttermost of the steps which led down into

the dread chamber was a large fragment of the coffin, with which,

it seemed, that she had endeavored to arrest attention by

striking the iron door. While thus occupied, she probably

swooned, or possibly died, through sheer terror; and, in failing,

her shroud became entangled in some iron-work which projected

interiorly. Thus she remained, 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

that truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. The heroine of the

story was a Mademoiselle Victorine Lafourcade, a young girl of

illustrious family, of wealth, and of great personal beauty.

Among her numerous suitors was Julien Bossuet, a poor

litterateur, or journalist of Paris. His talents and general

amiability had recommended him to the notice of the heiress, by

whom he seems to have been truly beloved; but her pride of birth

decided her, finally, to reject him, and to wed a Monsieur

Renelle, a banker and a diplomatist of some eminence. After

marriage, however, this gentleman neglected, and, perhaps, even

more positively ill-treated her. Having passed with him some

wretched years, she died—at least her condition so closely

resembled death as to deceive every one who saw her. She was

buried——not in a vault, but in an ordinary grave in the village

of her nativity. Filled with despair, and still inflamed by the

memory of a profound attachment, the lover journeys from the

capital to the remote province in which the village lies, with

the romantic purpose of disinterring the corpse, and possessing

himself of its luxuriant tresses. He reaches the grave. At

midnight he unearths the coffin, opens it, and is in the act of

detaching the hair, when he is arrested by the unclosing of the

beloved eyes. In fact, the lady had been buried alive. Vitality

had not altogether departed, and she was aroused by the caresses

of her lover from the lethargy which had been mistaken for death.

He bore her frantically to his lodgings in the village. He

employed certain powerful restoratives suggested by no little

medical learning. In fine, she revived. She recognized her

preserver. She remained with him until, by slow degrees, she

fully recovered her original health. Her woman’s heart was not

adamant, and this last lesson of love sufficed to soften it. She

bestowed it upon Bossuet. She returned no more to her husband,

but, concealing from him her resurrection, fled with her lover to

America. Twenty years afterward, the two returned to France, in

the persuasion that time had so greatly altered the lady’s

appearance that her friends would be unable to recognize 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 her

resistance, deciding that the peculiar circumstances, with the

long lapse of years, had extinguished, not only equitably, but

legally, the authority of the husband.

The “Chirurgical Journal” of Leipsic, a periodical of high

authority and merit, which some American bookseller would do well

to translate and republish, records in a late number a very

distressing event of the character in question.

An officer of artillery, a man of gigantic stature and of robust

health, being thrown from an unmanageable horse, received a very

severe contusion upon the head, which rendered him insensible at

once; the skull was slightly fractured, but no immediate danger

was apprehended. Trepanning was accomplished successfully. He was

bled, and many other of the ordinary means of relief were

adopted. Gradually, however, he fell into a more and more

hopeless state of stupor, and, finally, it was thought that he

died.

The weather was warm, and he was buried with indecent haste in

one of the public cemeteries. His funeral took place on Thursday.

On the Sunday following, the grounds of the cemetery were, as

usual, much thronged with visitors, and about noon an intense

excitement was created by the declaration of a peasant that,

while sitting upon the grave of the officer, he had distinctly

felt a commotion of the earth, as if occasioned by some one

struggling beneath. At first little attention was paid to the

man’s asseveration; but his evident terror, and the dogged

obstinacy with which he persisted in his story, had at length

their natural effect upon the crowd. Spades were hurriedly

procured, and the grave, which was shamefully shallow, was in a

few minutes so far thrown open 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 his furious struggles, he

had partially uplifted.

He was forthwith conveyed to the nearest hospital, and there

pronounced to be still living, although in an asphytic condition.

After some hours he revived, recognized individuals of his

acquaintance, and, in broken sentences spoke of his agonies in

the grave.

From what he related, it was clear that he must have been

conscious of life for more than an hour, while inhumed, before

lapsing into insensibility. The grave was carelessly and loosely

filled with an exceedingly porous soil; and thus some air was

necessarily admitted. He heard the footsteps of the crowd

overhead, and endeavored to make himself heard in turn. It was

the tumult within the grounds of the cemetery, he said, which

appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep, but no sooner was he

awake than he became fully aware of the awful horrors of his

position.

This patient, it is recorded, was doing well and seemed to be in

a fair way of ultimate recovery, but fell a victim to the

quackeries of medical experiment. The galvanic battery was

applied, and he suddenly expired in one of those ecstatic

paroxysms which, occasionally, it superinduces.

The mention of the galvanic battery, nevertheless, recalls to my

memory a well known and very extraordinary case in point, where

its action proved 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 subject of converse.

The patient, Mr. Edward Stapleton, had died, apparently of typhus

fever, accompanied with some anomalous symptoms which had excited

the curiosity of his medical attendants. Upon his seeming

decease, his friends were requested to sanction a post-mortem

examination, but declined to permit it. As often happens, when

such refusals are made, the practitioners resolved to disinter

the body and dissect it at leisure, in private. Arrangements were

easily effected with some of the numerous corps of

body-snatchers, with which London abounds; and, upon the third

night after the funeral, the supposed corpse was unearthed from a

grave eight feet deep, and deposited in the opening chamber of

one of the private hospitals.

An incision of some extent had been actually made in the abdomen,

when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject suggested

an application of the battery. One experiment succeeded another,

and the customary effects supervened, with nothing to

characterize them in any respect, except, upon one or two

occasions, a more than ordinary degree of 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, was especially desirous of testing a theory of

his own, and insisted upon applying the battery to one of the

pectoral muscles. A rough gash was made, and a wire hastily

brought in contact, when the patient, with a hurried but quite

unconvulsive movement, arose from the table, stepped into the

middle of the floor, gazed about him uneasily for a few seconds,

and then—spoke. What he said was unintelligible, but words were

uttered; the syllabification was distinct. Having spoken, he fell

heavily to the floor.

For some moments all were paralyzed with awe—but the urgency of

the case soon restored them their presence of mind. It was seen

that Mr. Stapleton was alive, although in a swoon. Upon

exhibition of ether he revived and was rapidly restored to

health, and to the society of his friends—from whom, however, all

knowledge of his resuscitation was withheld, until a relapse was

no longer to be apprehended. Their wonder—their rapturous

astonishment—may be conceived.

The most thrilling peculiarity of this incident, nevertheless, is

involved in what Mr. S. himself asserts. He declares that at no

period was he altogether insensible—that, dully and confusedly,

he was aware of everything which happened to him, from the moment

in which he was pronounced dead by his physicians, to that in

which he fell swooning to the floor of the hospital. “I am

alive,” were the uncomprehended words which, upon recognizing the

locality of the dissecting-room, he had endeavored, in his

extremity, to utter.

It were an easy matter to multiply such histories as these—but I

forbear—for, indeed, we have no need of such to establish the

fact that premature interments occur. When we reflect how very

rarely, from the nature of the case, we have it in our power to

detect them, we must admit that they may frequently occur without

our cognizance. Scarcely, in truth, is a graveyard ever

encroached upon, for any purpose, to any great extent, that

skeletons are not found in postures which suggest the most

fearful of suspicions.

Fearful indeed the suspicion—but more fearful the doom! It may be

asserted, without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well

adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental

distress, as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression

of the lungs—the stifling fumes from the damp earth—the clinging

to the death garments—the rigid embrace of the narrow house—the

blackness of the absolute Night—the silence like a sea that

overwhelms—the unseen but palpable presence of the Conqueror

Worm—these things, with the thoughts of the air and grass above,

with memory of dear friends who would fly to save us if but

informed of our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate

they can never be informed—that our hopeless portion is that of

the really dead—these considerations, I say, carry into the

heart, which still palpitates, a degree of appalling and

intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must

recoil. We know of nothing so agonizing upon Earth—we can dream

of nothing half so hideous in the realms of the nethermost Hell.

And thus all narratives upon this topic have an interest

profound; an interest, nevertheless, which, through the sacred

awe of the topic itself, very properly and very peculiarly

depends upon our conviction of the truth of the matter narrated.

What I have now to tell is of my own actual knowledge—of my own

positive and personal experience.

For several years I had been subject to attacks of the singular

disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy, in

default of a more definitive title. Although both the immediate

and the predisposing causes, and even the actual diagnosis, of

this disease are still mysterious, its obvious and apparent

character is sufficiently well understood. Its variations seem to

be chiefly of degree. Sometimes the patient lies, for a day only,

or even for a shorter period, in a species of exaggerated

lethargy. He is senseless and externally motionless; but the

pulsation of the heart is still faintly perceptible; some traces

of warmth 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 duration of the trance is for weeks—even for

months; while the closest scrutiny, and the most rigorous medical

tests, fail to establish any material distinction between the

state of the sufferer and what we conceive of absolute death.

Very usually he is saved from premature interment solely by the

knowledge of his friends that he has been previously subject to

catalepsy, by the consequent suspicion excited, and, above all,

by the non-appearance of decay. The advances of the malady are,

luckily, gradual. The first manifestations, although marked, are

unequivocal. The fits grow successively more and more

distinctive, and endure each for a longer term than the

preceding. In this lies the principal security from inhumation.

The unfortunate whose first attack should be of the extreme

character which is occasionally seen, would almost inevitably be

consigned alive to the tomb.

My own case differed in no important particular from those

mentioned in medical books. Sometimes, without any apparent

cause, I sank, little by little, into a condition of

semi-syncope, or half swoon; and, in this condition, without

pain, without ability to stir, or, strictly speaking, to think,

but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and of the

presence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the

crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect

sensation. At other times I was quickly and impetuously smitten.

I grew sick, and numb, and chilly, and dizzy, and so fell

prostrate at once. Then, for weeks, all was 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 the seizure.

Just as the day dawns to the friendless and houseless beggar who

roams the streets throughout the long desolate winter night—just

so tardily—just so wearily—just so cheerily came back the light

of the Soul to me.

Apart from the tendency to trance, however, my general health

appeared to be good; nor could I perceive that it was at all

affected by the one prevalent malady—unless, indeed, an

idiosyncrasy in my ordinary sleep may be looked upon as

superinduced. Upon awaking from slumber, I could never gain, at

once, thorough possession of my senses, and always remained, for

many minutes, in much bewilderment and perplexity—the mental

faculties in general, but the memory in especial, being in a

condition of absolute abeyance.

In all that I endured there was no physical suffering but of

moral distress an infinitude. My fancy grew charnel, I talked “of

worms, of tombs, and epitaphs.” I was lost in reveries of death,

and the idea of premature burial held continual possession of my

brain. The ghastly Danger to which I was subjected haunted me day

and night. In the former, the torture of meditation was

excessive—in the latter, supreme. When the grim Darkness

overspread the Earth, then, with every horror of thought, I

shook—shook as the quivering plumes upon the hearse. When Nature

could endure wakefulness no longer, it was with a struggle that I

consented to sleep—for I shuddered to reflect that, upon awaking,

I might find myself the tenant of a grave. And when, finally, I

sank into slumber, it was only to rush at once into a world of

phantasms, above which, with vast, sable, overshadowing wing,

hovered, predominant, the one 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 in a cataleptic trance of more than usual duration

and profundity. Suddenly there came an icy hand upon my forehead,

and an impatient, gibbering voice whispered the word “Arise!”

within my ear.

I sat erect. The darkness was total. I could not see the figure

of him who had aroused me. I could call to mind neither the

period at which I had fallen into the trance, nor the locality in

which I then lay. While I 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 am pitiful. 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 without end. But this hideousness is insufferable. How

canst thou tranquilly sleep? I cannot rest for the cry of these

great agonies. These sights are more than I can bear. Get thee

up! Come with me into the outer Night, and let me unfold to thee

the graves. Is not this a spectacle of woe?—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 each issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay; so

that I could see into the innermost recesses, and there view the

shrouded bodies in their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.

But alas! the real sleepers were fewer, by many millions, than

those who slumbered not at all; and there was a feeble

struggling; and there was a general sad unrest; and from out the

depths of the countless pits there came a melancholy rustling

from the garments of the buried. And of those who seemed

tranquilly to repose, I saw that a vast number had changed, in a

greater or less degree, the rigid and uneasy position in which

they had originally been entombed. And the voice again said to me

as I gazed:

“Is it not—oh! is it not a pitiful sight?” But, before I could

find words to reply, the figure had ceased to grasp my wrist, the

phosphoric lights expired, and the graves were closed with a

sudden violence, while from out them arose a tumult of despairing

cries, saying again: “Is it not—O, God, is it not a very

pitiful sight?”

Phantasies such as these, presenting themselves at night,

extended their terrific influence far into my waking hours. My

nerves became thoroughly unstrung, and I fell a prey to perpetual

horror. I hesitated to ride, or to 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 presence of those who

were aware of my proneness to catalepsy, lest, falling into one

of my usual fits, I should be buried before my real condition

could be ascertained. I doubted the care, the fidelity of my

dearest friends. I dreaded that, in some trance of more than

customary duration, they might be prevailed upon to regard me as

irrecoverable. I even went so far as to fear that, as I

occasioned much trouble, they might be glad to consider any very

protracted attack as sufficient excuse for getting rid of me

altogether. It was in vain they endeavored to reassure me by the

most solemn promises. I exacted the most sacred oaths, that under

no circumstances they would bury me until decomposition had so

materially advanced as to render farther preservation impossible.

And, even then, my mortal terrors would listen to no reason—would

accept no consolation. I entered into a series of elaborate

precautions. Among other things, I had the family vault so

remodelled as to admit of being readily opened from within. The

slightest pressure upon a long lever that 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

of the coffin intended for my reception. This coffin was warmly

and softly padded, and was provided with a lid, fashioned upon

the principle of the vault-door, with the addition of springs so

contrived that the feeblest movement of the body would be

sufficient to set it at liberty. Besides all 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 the

coffin, 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 these well-contrived securities sufficed to save from

the uttermost agonies of living inhumation, a wretch to these

agonies foredoomed!

There arrived an epoch—as often before there had arrived—in which

I found myself emerging from total unconsciousness into the first

feeble and indefinite sense of existence. Slowly—with a tortoise

gradation—approached the faint gray dawn of the psychal day. A

torpid uneasiness. An apathetic endurance of dull pain. No

care—no hope—no effort. Then, after a long interval, a ringing in

the ears; then, after a lapse still longer, a prickling or

tingling sensation in the extremities; then a seemingly eternal

period of pleasurable quiescence, during which the awakening

feelings are struggling into thought; then a brief re-sinking

into non-entity; then a sudden recovery. At length the slight

quivering of an eyelid, and immediately thereupon, an electric

shock of a terror, deadly and indefinite, which sends the blood

in torrents from the temples to the heart. And now the first

positive effort to think. And now the first endeavor to remember.

And now a partial and evanescent success. And now the memory has

so far regained its dominion, that, in some measure, I am

cognizant of my state. I feel that I am not awaking from ordinary

sleep. I recollect that I have been subject 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 one spectral and

ever-prevalent idea.

For some minutes after this fancy possessed me, I remained

without motion. And why? I could not summon courage to move. I

dared not make the effort which was to satisfy me of my fate—and

yet there was something at my heart which whispered me it was

sure. Despair—such as no other species of wretchedness ever calls

into being—despair alone urged 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. I knew that the

crisis of my disorder had long passed. I knew that I had now

fully recovered the use of my visual faculties—and yet it was

dark—all dark—the intense and utter raylessness of the Night that

endureth for evermore.

I endeavored to shriek; and my lips and my parched tongue moved

convulsively together in the attempt—but no voice issued from the

cavernous lungs, which oppressed as if by the weight of some

incumbent mountain, gasped and palpitated, with the heart, at

every elaborate and struggling inspiration.

The movement of the jaws, in this effort to cry aloud, showed me

that they were bound up, as is usual with the dead. I felt, too,

that I lay upon some hard substance; and by something similar my

sides were, also, closely compressed. So far, I had not ventured

to stir any of my limbs—but now I violently threw up my arms,

which had been lying at length, with the wrists crossed. They

struck a solid wooden substance, which extended above my person

at an elevation of not more than six inches from my face. I could

no longer doubt that I reposed within a coffin at last.

And now, amid all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherub

Hope—for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made

spasmodic exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I

felt my wrists for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now

the Comforter fled for ever, and a still sterner Despair reigned

triumphant; for I could not help perceiving the absence of the

paddings which I had so carefully prepared—and then, too, there

came suddenly to my nostrils the strong peculiar odor of moist

earth. The conclusion was irresistible. I was not within the

vault. I had fallen into a trance while absent from home—while

among strangers—when, or how, I could not remember—and it was

they who had buried me as a dog—nailed up in some common

coffin—and thrust deep, deep, and for ever, into some ordinary

and nameless grave.

As this awful conviction forced itself, thus, into the innermost

chambers of my soul, I once again struggled to cry aloud. And in

this second endeavor I succeeded. A long, wild, and continuous

shriek, or yell 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 a

cattymount?” said a fourth; and hereupon I was seized and shaken

without ceremony, for several minutes, by a junto of very

rough-looking individuals. They did not arouse me from my

slumber—for I was wide awake when I screamed—but they restored me

to the full possession of my memory.

This adventure occurred near Richmond, in Virginia. Accompanied

by a friend, I had proceeded, upon a gunning expedition, some

miles down the banks of the James River. Night approached, and we

were overtaken by a storm. The cabin of a small sloop lying at

anchor in the stream, and laden with garden mould, afforded us

the only available shelter. We made the best of it, and passed

the night on board. I slept in one of the only two berths in the

vessel—and the berths of a sloop of sixty or twenty tons need

scarcely be described. That which I occupied had no bedding of

any kind. Its extreme width was eighteen inches. The distance of

its bottom from the deck overhead was precisely the same. I found

it a matter of exceeding difficulty to squeeze myself in.

Nevertheless, I slept soundly, and the whole of my vision—for it

was no dream, and no nightmare—arose naturally from the

circumstances of my position—from my ordinary bias of thought—and

from the difficulty, to which I have alluded, of collecting my

senses, and especially of regaining my memory, for a long time

after awaking from slumber. The men who shook me were the crew of

the sloop, and some laborers engaged to unload it. From the load

itself came the earthly smell. The bandage about the jaws was a

silk handkerchief in which I had bound up my head, in default of

my customary nightcap.

The tortures endured, however, were indubitably quite equal for

the time, to those of actual sepulture. They were fearfully—they

were inconceivably hideous; but out of Evil proceeded Good; for

their very excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion.

My soul acquired tone—acquired temper. I went abroad. I took

vigorous exercise. I breathed the free air of Heaven. I thought

upon other subjects than Death. I discarded my medical books.

“Buchan” I burned. I read no “Night Thoughts”—no fustian about

churchyards—no bugaboo tales—such as this. In short, I became a

new man, and lived a man’s life. From that memorable night, I

dismissed forever my charnel apprehensions, and with them

vanished the cataleptic disorder, of which, perhaps, they had

been less the consequence than the cause.

There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the

world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell—but

the imagination of man is no Carathis, to explore with impunity

its every cavern. Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors

cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful—but, like the Demons in

whose company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must

sleep, or they will devour us—they must be suffered to slumber,

or we perish.