Illustration by Gustav Doré for The Bridge of Sighs by Thomas Hood, 1870.
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Taken from: Magia Posthuma
One of the most important sources for the history of vampirism is the report Visum et Repertum written and attested by military surgeons in Serbia on January 26 1732. It was sent to the authorities in Belgrade and Vienna, and copied by envoys of foreign governments. Foremost it was distributed in various versions to newspapers and scientific periodicals throughout Europe causing a public as well as scientific sensation in many European countries throughout the year 1732. In fact, had it not been for this report, the word ‘vampire’ and the stories of these supposedly blood drinking corpses would probably not have become known, and consequently the popular vampire of authors like John William Polidori and Bram Stoker, as well as the vampire of 20th and 21st century popular media would not have come into existence.
From “The Book of Disquiet” by Fernando Pessoa.
I feel in my soul a divine regret for everything, a choked and sobbing grief for the condemnation of dreams in the flesh of those who dreamed them. And I hate without hatred all the poets who wrote verses, all the idealists who saw their ideals take shape, all those who obtained what they wanted.