A Creature of the Night by Fergus Hume

From my mother I had inherited one of those highly strung organizations which are largely affected by their surroundings, and which, like an Æolian harp, to the sighing wind vibrate with every breath of passion that passes over them -- organizations which take their colour, their bias, their desires from the last event which occurs, and which are entirely in sympathy with the predominating feeling of the moment. In childhood this dangerous spirit of moods and fancies had been fostered by an old Scottish nurse, who used to thrill me with wild stories of Highland superstitions, and with weird ballads of elfish fantasy; but since I had mixed in the world I had learned to control and sway my imaginative faculty, and had thus acquired a command over myself.

But, as I said before, superstition is in every one, and waxes or wanes according to their surroundings; so the terrors of childish tales, which had been half-forgotten in the bustle of worldly life, now came upon my soul with full force in this haunted city of Verona. The burial-ground, the ghostly room, the accursed palace, the phantoms of evil-seeming, all these peopled the chambers of my brain, with their unreal horrors, until I became so nervous and unstrung, that every sudden noise, every unexpected sound, and every shadowy comer, made me thrill with supernatural fear as if I were again a child listening to tales of devildom.