| THE PREMATURE BURIAL EDGAR ALLEN POE |
Premature Burial
by Edgar Allan Poe
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 ironwork 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 asphyxia 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 super induces.
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 hemi-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 carnal, 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?"
Fantasies 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 junta 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 carnal 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.
by Edgar Allan Poe
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 ironwork 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 asphyxia 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 super induces.
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 hemi-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 carnal, 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?"
Fantasies 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 junta 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 carnal 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.
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