Gothic Horror 



* 



i 



LONG before I had arrived at what cate 

 chisms call the age of reason, I was fre 

 quently taken, much against my will, to 

 church. The church was very old; and I can 

 see the interior of it at this moment just as plainly 

 as I saw it forty years ago, when it appeared to 

 me like an evil dream. There I first learned to 

 know the peculiar horror that certain forms of 

 Gothic architecture can inspire. ... I am using 

 the word " horror " in a classic sense, in its 

 antique meaning of ghostly fear. 



On the very first day of this experience, my 

 child-fancy could place the source of the horror. 

 The wizened and pointed shapes of the windows 

 immediately terrified me. In their outline I found 

 the form of apparitions that tormented me in 

 213 



