“All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions.  These do not at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and death, nay of more than either life or death.  Yet must we be satisfied, in the first place because we have to be, no other means is at our control, and secondly, because, after all these things, tradition and superstition, are everything.  Does not the belief in vampires rest for others, though not, alas! for us, on them?  A year ago which of us would have received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific, sceptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century?  We even scouted a belief that we saw justified under our very eyes.  Take it, then, that the vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his cure, rest for the moment on the same base.  For, let me tell you, he is known everywhere that men have been.  In old Greece, in old Rome, he flourish in Germany all over, in France, in India, even in the Chermosese, and in China, so far from us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples for him at this day.  He have follow the wake of the berserker Icelander, the devil-begotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon, the Magyar.

“So far, then, we have all we may act upon, and let me tell you that very much of the beliefs are justified by what we have seen in our own so unhappy experience.  The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time, he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living.  Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow younger, that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty.

“But he cannot flourish without this diet, he eat not as others.  Even friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him eat, never!  He throws no shadow, he make in the mirror no reflect, as again Jonathan observe.  He has the strength of many of his hand, witness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolves, and when he help him from the diligence too.  He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog, he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy.

“He can come in mist which he create, that noble ship’s captain proved him of this, but, from what we know, the distance he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself.

“He come on moonlight rays as elemental dust, as again Jonathan saw those sisters in the castle of Dracula.  He become so small, we ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hairbreadth space at the tomb door.  He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with fire, solder you call it.  He can see in the dark, no small power this, in a world which is one half shut from the light.  Ah, but hear me through.