Nor, of all the other inventions of the
human imagination, has there ever been one so perfect in crawling terror
as this. Lilith and Karl were quite familiar with the popular ideas on the
subject. It did not require to be explained to them, that a vampire was a
body retaining a kind of animal life after the soul had departed. If any
relation existed between it and the vanished ghost, it was only sufficient
to make it restless in its grave. Possessed of vitality enough to keep it
uncorrupted and pliant, its only instinct was a blind hunger for the sole
food which could keep its awful life persistent--living human blood. Hence
it, or, if not it, a sort of semi-material exhalation or essence of it,
retaining its form and material relations, crept from its tomb, and went
roaming about till it found some one asleep, towards whom it had an
attraction, founded on old affection. It sucked the blood of this unhappy
being, transferring so much of its life to itself as a vampire could
assimilate. Death was the certain consequence.
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