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Untitled Article
enough to walk across the mouth of a coal-pit on a bridge of razor edges . Even the sight of my bundle , which I did not attempt to conceal , caused no inquiry . I shook him by the hand with a € good bye , Richard . ' He turned off : I drew the key from the lock within , and relocked the door on the outside : the court
through which I had passed was flag-paved , and a channel or gutter cut therein run under the door-sill : up the orifice I threw the key ; it fell clank , clank , upon the stones , and startled me ! That clank , clank , fell upon my heart , and for years and years afterwards that sound continued to recur in moments of great excitement , not always of danger , and shook me out of my thoughts . Who will account for this ? I think I can in some
measure , not wholly ; but as I might perplex instead of enlighten you , readers , and perhaps entangle myself in a web which I could not unravel without a lengthened process , I will avoid the accountability , and leave the statement of this spectral clank visitation to be laughed at , as a morbid fancy , a disease , a nervous superstition . Still I state it as a fact . That sound has struck upon me in the din of battle . I have heard that clank , clank , singly ,
and distinctly , above the roar of the cannon ; the sound struck twice and no more on such occasions . In the midst of festivity it has pierced through the music of the dance ; in the uproariousness of lamp-gilded mirth , that sound has suddenly haunted me . What is now become of the spectre ? I never hear it . On the three last instances of its visitation , I was in extraordinary circumstances : first of the three in Dalmatia , near , indeed among the
ruins of an ancient city on the coast , between Spalatro and Trau . I cannot find the place in any book , nor is it noted in any map within my knowledge , unless it be marked Trau Vecchio ; if so , the map is in error by some two or three leagues . On the spot 5 and in the adjacent islands , it is called Arcangelo . I looked into the * Osservazioni , ' but was not satisfied . Of this adventure I may speak
hereafter . The next was—where think you , reader?—under the tremendous down-pouring mountain of waters , in that horribly sublime cavern behind it , at the foot of Niagara , as I stepped among the eels that wriggled and writhed on the crushed fragments of rock , with which its surface is strewn : and lastly , ( this was in June , 1825 , ) at Les Escaliers Naturelles , where the river Montmorenci thunders alone in intense solitude over beds
find ridges of rocks , three miles backward from the precipice over the ledge of which he dashes himself in glistening and foamy grandeur into St . Lawrence ' s bosom . 1 will take you to this place by and by , reader , for I believe you have never yet seen it , unless your own feet have carried you there . You shall have a winter view of it as well , such as 1 had ; and you will not easily forget it . Gugy !—I wonder if he hears me across the Atlanticdo you remember how we wabbled and shook over the Cahots in your Cariole , while your tandem steeds jingled their bells , and
Untitled Article
Autobiography of Pel . Verjuice . 535
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1833, page 535, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2620/page/23/
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