The Arkansas advocate., 1835-04-10


 Diana burst of summer shower at sun- set, with clap or two of thunder, had pu- rified the air 10 an intoxicating rareness, and the free breathing of the flowers, and the delicious perfume from the earth and grass, and the fresh foliage of the new spring, showed the delight and sympathy of inanimate nature in the nights beauty. There was no atmosphere nothing be- tween the eye and pearly moon-and she rode through the heavens without veil, like queen as she is, giving glimpse of her nearer beauty for festal favor to the worshipping stars.
 was a student at the famed university of Connecticut, and the bewilderments of philosophy and poetry were strong upon me, in place where exquisite natural beauty and the absence of all other tempta- ton secure to the classic neophite an al- most supernatural wakefalness of fancy. l contracted a taste for the horrible in those days, which still clngs to me. have tra- yelled the world over with no object but ge- neral observation, and have dwindled my my hour at courts and operas with little in- terest, while the sacking and drowning of a woman iii the Bosphorus, the mpaiement of a robber on the Nile, and the insane hospi- tals from Liverpool to Cathay, are descri- bed in my capricious journal with the vivid- ness Of the most stirring adventure.
 There is kind of disqualification in the circumstances of ones life. A peculiar turn of mind draws to itself events fitted to Its particular nucleus, and it is frequently a subject of wonder why one man meets with more remarkable things than another, when 1t is owing merely to difference of natural character. have been thus sin gular adventurer in the strange and unnatu- ral. As intend making my observations in this way the subjects of several papers, will introduce them at present with my l slighter beginnings.
 It was, as I was saying, night of won derfnl beauty. was watching corpse. IE that part of the United States, the dead are never left alone till the earth IS thrown upon them, and, as friend of the family, had been called upon for this melancholy service, on the night preceding the inter- ment. It was death which had left fa- mily of broken hearts; for, beneath the sheet which sunk so appallingly to the out line of human form, lay the wreck of beau ty and sweetness whose loss seemed to the survivors to have darkened the face of the earth. The ethereal and touching loveli- ness of that dying girl, whom had known only hopeless victim of consumption, 1 springs up in my memory even yet, and mingles with every conception of female I beauty.
 Two ladies, friends of the deceased, were 10 share my yigis. I knew them but slightly, and having read them to sleep an hour after midnight, performed my half hourly duty of entering the room where the corpse lay, to look after the lights, and then stroled into the garden tosenjoy the quiet of the summer night. The flowers were gilt tering i'll their pearl drops, and the air was breathless.
 The sight of the long sieeted uorpsa, the sudden flare of lights as the long snuffs were removed from the candles, the still ness of the cIose-shuttered room, and my own predispositon to invest death with a supernatural interest, had raised my heart to my throat. walked backwards and forwards in the garden path; and the black shadows beneath the hlacs, and even the glittering of the glow-worms within them, seemed weird and fearful.
 1 The clock struck, and re-entered. My companions stiii slept, and passed on to 1 the inner chamber. l trimmed the lights, and stood and looked at the white heap ly- ing so fearfully still within the shadow of the curtains; and my blood seemed to freeze. At the moment when l was turn- ing away with strong effort at more composed feeling, noise, like fiutter of wings, followed by rush and a sudden si- lence, struck on my startled ear. The street was as quiet as death, and the noise, which was far too audible to be deception ofthe fancy, had come from the side toward an uninhabited wing of the house. My heart stood still. Another instant, and the 1 fre-screen was dashed nown, and a arhite cGt rushed past me. and with the speed of light, sprang, like hyena, upon the corpse. The flight of a vampyre into the room would not have more curdled my veins. A convulsive shudder ran cold over me, but, recovering my selfcommand, rushed to the animal, (of whose horrible appetite for the flesh of the dead had read ncredu- lously,) and attempted to tear her from the body. With her claws fixed in the breast, and yoaol like the wall of an internal spi- Tit, she crouched fearlessly upon it, and the stains already upon the sheet, convinced me 1t would be impossible to remove her without shockingly disfguring the corpse.