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Tieck; and the City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite volume was
a small octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisitorium, by the
Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela,
about the old African Satyrs and OEgipans, over which Usher would sit
dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the perusal
of an exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic--the manual of
a forgotten church--the Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae
Maguntinae.
I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its
probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening, having
informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his
intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight, (previously to its
final interment,) in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls
of the building. The worldly reason, however, assigned for this singular
proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The
brother had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by consideration
of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain
obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the
remote and exposed situation of the burial-ground of the family. I will
not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the
person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at
the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a
harmless, and by no means an unnatural, precaution.
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