The Birmingham age-herald., 1913-05-30
From the Kansas City Times.


TNHE vampire idea is one that doesn't
fit well in the Anglo-Sa brain
\ pan. Vampirism is a Slavic crea-
tion. 1t is love after death. a dead
woman with no heart and ice water flow
ing in her veins loves a man In the warm
flesh. She turns his head with phantas-
magoria of love and passion. While he
is asleep she opens his veins and drinks
his blood. This idea is horrible. Yet
many poets have written romanees on
this theme. Goethe, the German poet,
used the vampire legend in his Bride of
CorintR." 1t shocked the German crit
les and they accused him of bad taste in
Introducing this Slavic idea into a purely
Greek story
Our own Poe who dealt mainly in the
grotesque and the horrible and wrote
much of love after death, could never
quite "go" the vampire idea. One should
think that Poe would have reveed in
such a theme. But his chiefest work on
the subject of death divided lovers is
"The Raven" and in that song the dead
girl does not return to drain the life fluid
of her lover The raven perched above the
chamber door is not a vampire, and Le-
more, that radiant maiden, he shall clasp
her 'nevermore."
If the reader wishes to find man who
fills his stories with red Tipped vam-
pires, let him turn to the works of Theo-
phile Gautier, the French romanticist. In
his story, zone of Cleopatra's Nights"
the author pictures the volumtuous queen
as the vampire of the Nile, fitting in a
land of tombs.
In another of Gautier's stories, young
Englishman visiting the ruins of Pompeii
falls in love with the form of beautiful
woman whose imprint Is left in chunk
of lava where her body was consumed
ages ago. The man fingers long after
nightfall in the Street of Abundance and
then falls under a spell. He Is transport
ed back to the days before the eruption,
when Pompeii was a thriving metropolis
There he meets the beautiful lady, Aria
Marcella, whose imprinted bust preserved
in lava had so charmed him. Her figure
is really as beautiful as he had been led
to suspect from the mold Of it the cinders
had saved like a petrified footprint in
rock.
ARIA is vampire. She'tells the English
youth that his love has recreated her ana
her city She invites him to banquet
and he partakes with eagerness. Now
when he falls asleep, ARIA will open his
vein in his arm But luckily, help is at
hand to save our hero from the common
fate of those who daily with vampires. A
priest of the new religion that has just
Ia1 r,,ist 10 nj
makes his entry. The good man exclaims:
"Stop, ARIA, infamous daughter of pag-
anism! Was not life of misconduct
enough for you? Can you not leave the
living in their sphere? Have not your
ashes cooled yet since the day when you
perished unrepentant beneath the rain of
volcanic fire? So then, even 1000 years
have not suffced to calm your amorous
heart, and your voracious arms still draw
to your deadly breast of marble the poor
mad man whom your philters have intox-
icated!'
The vampire pleads with the holy
fa ther for one more hour of delirious life.
But the early Christian is not to be moved.
He pronounced a formula of exorcism
which banshed from Arria's cheeks the
rosy tints that had suffused them. At
that moment rang out the first peal of
the angelus.
A sob of agony broke from the lips OF
the young woman at the sound. Her out
stretched arms collapsed. The draperies
that covered her sank fold on fold as
though the contours that had sustained
them had suddenly given way. The
wretched night walker beheld on the
banquet couch beside him only handful