Edgar Allan Poe

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 Leipzig- 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 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 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.