483ページ中52ページ

In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that

my mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do

not ever remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or

to have feared the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect

upon my fancy, and a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle

of bodies deprived of life, which, from being the seat of beauty

and strength, had become food for the worm. Now I was led to

examine the cause and progress of this decay and forced to spend

days and nights in vaults and charnel-houses. My attention was

fixed upon every object the most insupportable to the delicacy of

the human feelings. I saw how the fine form of man was degraded

and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the

blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders

of the eye and brain.