356 On the Pleasures of Body- Snatching. [APRIL, 



of its future glory. I got home without meeting with any adventure, or 

 with any thing at all, except a cow, which had found its way through a 

 gap in the wall, and was philosophising behind a large monument as I 

 passed. I remember, when I burst unawares in upon her ruminations 

 (for my pace was somewhat of the quickest), and the meditative animal 

 received the intrusion with a plunge of alarm, I thought my heart would 

 have leaped into my mouth. After this night, the church-yard was my 

 regular road home. By degrees, my pace became slower as I passed 

 through it ; and, at length, I even stopped to look about me, or sat down 

 on a tomb-stone to rest. This place so unsuited to the usual habits and 

 feelings of youth was now sought, not merely as being the shortest cut to 

 iny father's house, but absolutely for its own sake, as affording positive 

 enjoyments not to be found elsewhere. Now, what was this ? Was the 

 attraction in the natural situation of the spot ? That was as bad as could 

 be. Was it in the oblong tomb-stones some standing bolt upright, 

 some sprawling on their bellies, some painted white, and some painted 

 black ? No for, even in the eyes of a boy, these exhibited the acme of 

 tastelessness and absurdity. Tt was something under the stones ; it was 

 the breath that exhaled from the damp, rich, heavy earth, and formed the 

 atmosphere of the church-yard ; it was the scent which allures the goule 

 and the afrit of Eastern story to the new-made grave, arid the raven of real 

 nature to the field of battle ; it was the instinctive struggling of genius, 

 when surrounded, though unconsciously, with the objects of its direction, 

 and the future spoils of its powers ; the beating of the young bird in 

 darkness, and silence, and loneliness against the shell which curtains it 

 from the world ! But as it occasionally happens, owing to some whim of 

 Nature, that the said bird may beat its heart out before breaking the shell, 

 and consequently depart this life I am not sure if it be a bull before 

 coming into the world ; so my genius, as aforesaid, might have struggled 

 long enough with my ignorance before getting its possessor initiated into 

 the mysteries and pleasures of resurrectionizing, had it not been for the 

 following circumstance : 



One dark night for the season was now far advanced, and there was 

 no moon when wending along the accustomed path, I remembered that 

 the funeral had taken place that day of a man, an acquaintance of my 

 own, who had been killed by falling down his own stairs. This, by the 

 way, is as foolish a death as a man can die before dinner. However, the 

 thought struck me I don't know why; why should I? that I would 

 look where they had laid him. It was somewhat dark, as J have said; 

 but, by this time, I cared no more for being in the dark in a church-yard, 

 than when playing at hide-and-seek in my father's parlour. I examined 

 first the town-ward and more populous district, and then turned my 

 researches towards the more distant and less fashionable neighbourhood of 

 this city of the silent. When, approaching the wall, near the upper end of 

 the ground, I fancied that I observed something dark and moving on the 

 top, and stopped short, I confess, in a sudden uneasiness approaching to 

 a stew. Presently a noise, as if of a heavy body falling on the ground, 

 convinced me that some person had leaped from the wall into the church- 

 yard; and I drew back behind a monument to watch the result. That I 

 had at this time heard of resurrectionizing, I cannot deny ; but as for that 



admirable art being practised in the small and precise town of , it 



had never entered either my head or that of any other inhabitant to dream 

 of such a thing. And yet, I solemnly aver to you, that the thrill which* 



