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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nightmare Abbey, by Thomas Love Peacock
+#4 in our series by Thomas Love Peacock
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+Title: Nightmare Abbey
+
+Author: Thomas Love Peacock
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9909]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 30, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHTMARE ABBEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Tom Allen,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+By
+
+_Thomas Love Peacock_
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+  NOTES TO _Nightmare Abbey_
+
+
+
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY:
+
+BY
+
+THE AUTHOR OF HEADLONG HALL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  There's a dark lantern of the spirit,
+  Which none see by but those who bear it,
+  That makes them in the dark see visions
+  And hag themselves with apparitions,
+  Find racks for their own minds, and vaunt
+  Of their own misery and want.
+  BUTLER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LONDON:
+
+1818.
+
+
+MATTHEW. Oh! it's your only fine humour, sir. Your true melancholy
+breeds your perfect fine wit, sir. I am melancholy myself, divers
+times, sir; and then do I no more but take pen and paper presently,
+and overflow you half a score or a dozen of sonnets at a sitting.
+
+STEPHEN. Truly, sir, and I love such things out of measure.
+
+MATTHEW. Why, I pray you, sir, make use of my study: it's at your
+service.
+
+STEPHEN. I thank you, sir, I shall be bold, I warrant you. Have you a
+stool there, to be melancholy upon?
+
+BEN JONSON, _Every Man in his Humour_, Act 3, Sc. I
+
+  Ay esleu gazouiller et siffler oye, comme dit le commun
+  proverbe, entre les cygnes, plutoust que d'estre entre
+  tant de gentils poetes et faconds orateurs mut du tout
+  estime.
+
+  RABELAIS, _Prol. L_. 5
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Nightmare Abbey, a venerable family-mansion, in a highly picturesque
+state of semi-dilapidation, pleasantly situated on a strip of dry land
+between the sea and the fens, at the verge of the county of Lincoln,
+had the honour to be the seat of Christopher Glowry, Esquire. This
+gentleman was naturally of an atrabilarious temperament, and much
+troubled with those phantoms of indigestion which are commonly called
+_blue devils_. He had been deceived in an early friendship: he had
+been crossed in love; and had offered his hand, from pique, to a lady,
+who accepted it from interest, and who, in so doing, violently tore
+asunder the bonds of a tried and youthful attachment. Her vanity was
+gratified by being the mistress of a very extensive, if not very
+lively, establishment; but all the springs of her sympathies were
+frozen. Riches she possessed, but that which enriches them, the
+participation of affection, was wanting. All that they could purchase
+for her became indifferent to her, because that which they could not
+purchase, and which was more valuable than themselves, she had, for
+their sake, thrown away. She discovered, when it was too late, that
+she had mistaken the means for the end--that riches, rightly used, are
+instruments of happiness, but are not in themselves happiness. In this
+wilful blight of her affections, she found them valueless as means:
+they had been the end to which she had immolated all her affections,
+and were now the only end that remained to her. She did not confess
+this to herself as a principle of action, but it operated through the
+medium of unconscious self-deception, and terminated in inveterate
+avarice. She laid on external things the blame of her mind's internal
+disorder, and thus became by degrees an accomplished scold. She often
+went her daily rounds through a series of deserted apartments, every
+creature in the house vanishing at the creak of her shoe, much more
+at the sound of her voice, to which the nature of things affords no
+simile; for, as far as the voice of woman, when attuned by gentleness
+and love, transcends all other sounds in harmony, so far does
+it surpass all others in discord, when stretched into unnatural
+shrillness by anger and impatience.
+
+Mr Glowry used to say that his house was no better than a spacious
+kennel, for every one in it led the life of a dog. Disappointed both
+in love and in friendship, and looking upon human learning as vanity,
+he had come to a conclusion that there was but one good thing in the
+world, _videlicet_, a good dinner; and this his parsimonious lady
+seldom suffered him to enjoy: but, one morning, like Sir Leoline in
+Christabel, 'he woke and found his lady dead,' and remained a very
+consulate widower, with one small child.
+
+This only son and heir Mr Glowry had christened Scythrop, from the
+name of a maternal ancestor, who had hanged himself one rainy day in a
+fit of _toedium vitae_, and had been eulogised by a coroner's jury in
+the comprehensive phrase of _felo de se_; on which account, Mr Glowry
+held his memory in high honour, and made a punchbowl of his skull.
+
+When Scythrop grew up, he was sent, as usual, to a public school,
+where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence
+to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was
+sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head:
+having finished his education to the high satisfaction of the
+master and fellows of his college, who had, in testimony of their
+approbation, presented him with a silver fish-slice, on which his name
+figured at the head of a laudatory inscription in some semi-barbarous
+dialect of Anglo-Saxonised Latin.
+
+His fellow-students, however, who drove tandem and random in great
+perfection, and were connoisseurs in good inns, had taught him to
+drink deep ere he departed. He had passed much of his time with these
+choice spirits, and had seen the rays of the midnight lamp tremble
+on many a lengthening file of empty bottles. He passed his vacations
+sometimes at Nightmare Abbey, sometimes in London, at the house of
+his uncle, Mr Hilary, a very cheerful and elastic gentleman, who had
+married the sister of the melancholy Mr Glowry. The company that
+frequented his house was the gayest of the gay. Scythrop danced with
+the ladies and drank with the gentlemen, and was pronounced by both a
+very accomplished charming fellow, and an honour to the university.
+
+At the house of Mr Hilary, Scythrop first saw the beautiful Miss Emily
+Girouette. He fell in love; which is nothing new. He was favourably
+received; which is nothing strange. Mr Glowry and Mr Girouette had
+a meeting on the occasion, and quarrelled about the terms of the
+bargain; which is neither new nor strange. The lovers were torn
+asunder, weeping and vowing everlasting constancy; and, in three weeks
+after this tragical event, the lady was led a smiling bride to the
+altar, by the Honourable Mr Lackwit; which is neither strange nor new.
+
+Scythrop received this intelligence at Nightmare Abbey, and was half
+distracted on the occasion. It was his first disappointment, and
+preyed deeply on his sensitive spirit. His father, to comfort him,
+read him a Commentary on Ecclesiastes, which he had himself composed,
+and which demonstrated incontrovertibly that all is vanity. He
+insisted particularly on the text, 'One man among a thousand have I
+found, but a woman amongst all those have I not found.'
+
+'How could he expect it,' said Scythrop, 'when the whole thousand were
+locked up in his seraglio? His experience is no precedent for a free
+state of society like that in which we live.'
+
+'Locked up or at large,' said Mr Glowry, 'the result is the same:
+their minds are always locked up, and vanity and interest keep the
+key. I speak feelingly, Scythrop.'
+
+'I am sorry for it, sir,' said Scythrop. 'But how is it that their
+minds are locked up? The fault is in their artificial education, which
+studiously models them into mere musical dolls, to be set out for sale
+in the great toy-shop of society.'
+
+'To be sure,' said Mr Glowry, 'their education is not so well finished
+as yours has been; and your idea of a musical doll is good. I bought
+one myself, but it was confoundedly out of tune; but, whatever be the
+cause, Scythrop, the effect is certainly this, that one is pretty
+nearly as good as another, as far as any judgment can be formed of
+them before marriage. It is only after marriage that they show
+their true qualities, as I know by bitter experience. Marriage is,
+therefore, a lottery, and the less choice and selection a man bestows
+on his ticket the better; for, if he has incurred considerable pains
+and expense to obtain a lucky number, and his lucky number proves a
+blank, he experiences not a simple, but a complicated disappointment;
+the loss of labour and money being superadded to the disappointment of
+drawing a blank, which, constituting simply and entirely the grievance
+of him who has chosen his ticket at random, is, from its simplicity,
+the more endurable.' This very excellent reasoning was thrown away
+upon Scythrop, who retired to his tower as dismal and disconsolate as
+before.
+
+The tower which Scythrop inhabited stood at the south-eastern angle of
+the Abbey; and, on the southern side, the foot of the tower opened on
+a terrace, which was called the garden, though nothing grew on it but
+ivy, and a few amphibious weeds. The south-western tower, which was
+ruinous and full of owls, might, with equal propriety, have been
+called the aviary. This terrace or garden, or terrace-garden, or
+garden-terrace (the reader may name it _ad libitum_), took in an
+oblique view of the open sea, and fronted a long tract of level
+sea-coast, and a fine monotony of fens and windmills.
+
+The reader will judge, from what we have said, that this building was
+a sort of castellated abbey; and it will, probably, occur to him to
+inquire if it had been one of the strong-holds of the ancient church
+militant. Whether this was the case, or how far it had been indebted
+to the taste of Mr Glowry's ancestors for any transmutations from its
+original state, are, unfortunately, circumstances not within the pale
+of our knowledge.
+
+The north-western tower contained the apartments of Mr Glowry. The
+moat at its base, and the fens beyond, comprised the whole of his
+prospect. This moat surrounded the Abbey, and was in immediate contact
+with the walls on every side but the south.
+
+The north-eastern tower was appropriated to the domestics, whom Mr
+Glowry always chose by one of two criterions,--a long face, or a
+dismal name. His butler was Raven; his steward was Crow; his valet was
+Skellet. Mr Glowry maintained that the valet was of French extraction,
+and that his name was Squelette. His grooms were Mattocks and Graves.
+On one occasion, being in want of a footman, he received a letter
+from a person signing himself Diggory Deathshead, and lost no time in
+securing this acquisition; but on Diggory's arrival, Mr Glowry was
+horror-struck by the sight of a round ruddy face, and a pair of
+laughing eyes. Deathshead was always grinning,--not a ghastly smile,
+but the grin of a comic mask; and disturbed the echoes of the hall
+with so much unhallowed laughter, that Mr Glowry gave him his
+discharge. Diggory, however, had staid long enough to make conquests
+of all the old gentleman's maids, and left him a flourishing colony of
+young Deathsheads to join chorus with the owls, that had before been
+the exclusive choristers of Nightmare Abbey.
+
+The main body of the building was divided into rooms of state,
+spacious apartments for feasting, and numerous bed-rooms for visitors,
+who, however, were few and far between.
+
+Family interests compelled Mr Glowry to receive occasional visits from
+Mr and Mrs Hilary, who paid them from the same motive; and, as the
+lively gentleman on these occasions found few conductors for his
+exuberant gaiety, he became like a double-charged electric jar, which
+often exploded in some burst of outrageous merriment to the signal
+discomposure of Mr Glowry's nerves.
+
+Another occasional visitor, much more to Mr Glowry's taste, was Mr
+Flosky,[1] a very lachrymose and morbid gentleman, of some note in
+the literary world, but in his own estimation of much more merit than
+name. The part of his character which recommended him to Mr Glowry,
+was his very fine sense of the grim and the tearful. No one could
+relate a dismal story with so many minutiae of supererogatory
+wretchedness. No one could call up a _raw-head and bloody-bones_ with
+so many adjuncts and circumstances of ghastliness. Mystery was his
+mental element. He lived in the midst of that visionary world in which
+nothing is but what is not. He dreamed with his eyes open, and saw
+ghosts dancing round him at noontide. He had been in his youth
+an enthusiast for liberty, and had hailed the dawn of the French
+Revolution as the promise of a day that was to banish war and slavery,
+and every form of vice and misery, from the face of the earth. Because
+all this was not done, he deduced that nothing was done; and from this
+deduction, according to his system of logic, he drew a conclusion
+that worse than nothing was done; that the overthrow of the feudal
+fortresses of tyranny and superstition was the greatest calamity that
+had ever befallen mankind; and that their only hope now was to rake
+the rubbish together, and rebuild it without any of those loopholes
+by which the light had originally crept in. To qualify himself for a
+coadjutor in this laudable task, he plunged into the central
+opacity of Kantian metaphysics, and lay _perdu_ several years in
+transcendental darkness, till the common daylight of common sense
+became intolerable to his eyes. He called the sun an _ignis fatuus_;
+and exhorted all who would listen to his friendly voice, which were
+about as many as called 'God save King Richard,' to shelter themselves
+from its delusive radiance in the obscure haunt of Old Philosophy.
+This word Old had great charms for him. The good old times were always
+on his lips; meaning the days when polemic theology was in its prime,
+and rival prelates beat the drum ecclesiastic with Herculean vigour,
+till the one wound up his series of syllogisms with the very orthodox
+conclusion of roasting the other.
+
+But the dearest friend of Mr Glowry, and his most welcome guest,
+was Mr Toobad, the Manichaean Millenarian. The twelfth verse of the
+twelfth chapter of Revelations was always in his mouth: 'Woe to the
+inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come among
+you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short
+time.' He maintained that the supreme dominion of the world was, for
+wise purposes, given over for a while to the Evil Principle; and that
+this precise period of time, commonly called the enlightened age, was
+the point of his plenitude of power. He used to add that by and by he
+would be cast down, and a high and happy order of things succeed; but
+he never omitted the saving clause, 'Not in our time'; which last
+words were always echoed in doleful response by the sympathetic Mr
+Glowry.
+
+Another and very frequent visitor, was the Reverend Mr Larynx, the
+vicar of Claydyke, a village about ten miles distant;--a good-natured
+accommodating divine, who was always most obligingly ready to take a
+dinner and a bed at the house of any country gentleman in distress
+for a companion. Nothing came amiss to him,--a game at billiards, at
+chess, at draughts, at backgammon, at piquet, or at all-fours in
+a _tete-a-tete_,--or any game on the cards, round, square, or
+triangular, in a party of any number exceeding two. He would even
+dance among friends, rather than that a lady, even if she were on the
+wrong side of thirty, should sit still for want of a partner. For a
+ride, a walk, or a sail, in the morning,--a song after dinner, a ghost
+story after supper,--a bottle of port with the squire, or a cup of
+green tea with his lady,--for all or any of these, or for any thing
+else that was agreeable to any one else, consistently with the dye of
+his coat, the Reverend Mr Larynx was at all times equally ready. When
+at Nightmare Abbey, he would condole with Mr Glowry,--drink Madeira
+with Scythrop,--crack jokes with Mr Hilary,--hand Mrs Hilary to the
+piano, take charge of her fan and gloves, and turn over her music with
+surprising dexterity,--quote Revelations with Mr Toobad,--and lament
+the good old times of feudal darkness with the transcendental Mr
+Flosky.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Shortly after the disastrous termination of Scythrop's passion for
+Miss Emily Girouette, Mr Glowry found himself, much against his will,
+involved in a lawsuit, which compelled him to dance attendance on the
+High Court of Chancery. Scythrop was left alone at Nightmare Abbey. He
+was a burnt child, and dreaded the fire of female eyes. He wandered
+about the ample pile, or along the garden-terrace, with 'his
+cogitative faculties immersed in cogibundity of cogitation.' The
+terrace terminated at the south-western tower, which, as we have said,
+was ruinous and full of owls. Here would Scythrop take his evening
+seat, on a fallen fragment of mossy stone, with his back resting
+against the ruined wall,--a thick canopy of ivy, with an owl in it,
+over his head,--and the Sorrows of Werter in his hand. He had some
+taste for romance reading before he went to the university, where, we
+must confess, in justice to his college, he was cured of the love of
+reading in all its shapes; and the cure would have been radical, if
+disappointment in love, and total solitude, had not conspired to bring
+on a relapse. He began to devour romances and German tragedies, and,
+by the recommendation of Mr Flosky, to pore over ponderous tomes of
+transcendental philosophy, which reconciled him to the labour of
+studying them by their mystical jargon and necromantic imagery. In
+the congenial solitude of Nightmare Abbey, the distempered ideas of
+metaphysical romance and romantic metaphysics had ample time and space
+to germinate into a fertile crop of chimeras, which rapidly shot up
+into vigorous and abundant vegetation.
+
+He now became troubled with the _passion for reforming the world_.[2]
+He built many castles in the air, and peopled them with secret
+tribunals, and bands of illuminati, who were always the imaginary
+instruments of his projected regeneration of the human species. As he
+intended to institute a perfect republic, he invested himself with
+absolute sovereignty over these mystical dispensers of liberty. He
+slept with Horrid Mysteries under his pillow, and dreamed of venerable
+eleutherarchs and ghastly confederates holding midnight conventions in
+subterranean caves. He passed whole mornings in his study, immersed
+in gloomy reverie, stalking about the room in his nightcap, which
+he pulled over his eyes like a cowl, and folding his striped calico
+dressing-gown about him like the mantle of a conspirator.
+
+'Action,' thus he soliloquised, 'is the result of opinion, and to
+new-model opinion would be to new-model society. Knowledge is power;
+it is in the hands of a few, who employ it to mislead the many, for
+their own selfish purposes of aggrandisement and appropriation. What
+if it were in the hands of a few who should employ it to lead the
+many? What if it were universal, and the multitude were enlightened?
+No. The many must be always in leading-strings; but let them have wise
+and honest conductors. A few to think, and many to act; that is the
+only basis of perfect society. So thought the ancient philosophers:
+they had their esoterical and exoterical doctrines. So thinks the
+sublime Kant, who delivers his oracles in language which none but
+the initiated can comprehend. Such were the views of those secret
+associations of illuminati, which were the terror of superstition and
+tyranny, and which, carefully selecting wisdom and genius from the
+great wilderness of society, as the bee selects honey from the flowers
+of the thorn and the nettle, bound all human excellence in a chain,
+which, if it had not been prematurely broken, would have commanded
+opinion, and regenerated the world.'
+
+Scythrop proceeded to meditate on the practicability of reviving a
+confederation of regenerators. To get a clear view of his own ideas,
+and to feel the pulse of the wisdom and genius of the age, he wrote
+and published a treatise, in which his meanings were carefully wrapt
+up in the monk's hood of transcendental technology, but filled with
+hints of matter deep and dangerous, which he thought would set
+the whole nation in a ferment; and he awaited the result in awful
+expectation, as a miner who has fired a train awaits the explosion of
+a rock. However, he listened and heard nothing; for the explosion, if
+any ensued, was not sufficiently loud to shake a single leaf of the
+ivy on the towers of Nightmare Abbey; and some months afterwards he
+received a letter from his bookseller, informing him that only seven
+copies had been sold, and concluding with a polite request for the
+balance.
+
+Scythrop did not despair. 'Seven copies,' he thought, 'have been sold.
+Seven is a mystical number, and the omen is good. Let me find the
+seven purchasers of my seven copies, and they shall be the seven
+golden candle-sticks with which I will illuminate the world.'
+
+Scythrop had a certain portion of mechanical genius, which his
+romantic projects tended to develope. He constructed models of cells
+and recesses, sliding panels and secret passages, that would have
+baffled the skill of the Parisian police. He took the opportunity of
+his father's absence to smuggle a dumb carpenter into the Abbey, and
+between them they gave reality to one of these models in Scythrop's
+tower. Scythrop foresaw that a great leader of human regeneration
+would be involved in fearful dilemmas, and determined, for the benefit
+of mankind in general, to adopt all possible precautions for the
+preservation of himself.
+
+The servants, even the women, had been tutored into silence. Profound
+stillness reigned throughout and around the Abbey, except when the
+occasional shutting of a door would peal in long reverberations
+through the galleries, or the heavy tread of the pensive butler would
+wake the hollow echoes of the hall. Scythrop stalked about like the
+grand inquisitor, and the servants flitted past him like familiars. In
+his evening meditations on the terrace, under the ivy of the ruined
+tower, the only sounds that came to his ear were the rustling of the
+wind in the ivy, the plaintive voices of the feathered choristers, the
+owls, the occasional striking of the Abbey clock, and the monotonous
+dash of the sea on its low and level shore. In the mean time, he drank
+Madeira, and laid deep schemes for a thorough repair of the crazy
+fabric of human nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mr Glowry returned from London with the loss of his lawsuit. Justice
+was with him, but the law was against him. He found Scythrop in a
+mood most sympathetically tragic; and they vied with each other in
+enlivening their cups by lamenting the depravity of this degenerate
+age, and occasionally interspersing divers grim jokes about graves,
+worms, and epitaphs. Mr Glowry's friends, whom we have mentioned in
+the first chapter, availed themselves of his return to pay him a
+simultaneous visit. At the same time arrived Scythrop's friend and
+fellow-collegian, the Honourable Mr Listless. Mr Glowry had discovered
+this fashionable young gentleman in London, 'stretched on the rack of
+a too easy chair,' and devoured with a gloomy and misanthropical _nil
+curo_, and had pressed him so earnestly to take the benefit of the
+pure country air, at Nightmare Abbey, that Mr Listless, finding it
+would give him more trouble to refuse than to comply, summoned his
+French valet, Fatout, and told him he was going to Lincolnshire. On
+this simple hint, Fatout went to work, and the imperials were packed,
+and the post-chariot was at the door, without the Honourable Mr
+Listless having said or thought another syllable on the subject.
+
+Mr and Mrs Hilary brought with them an orphan niece, a daughter of Mr
+Glowry's youngest sister, who had made a runaway love-match with an
+Irish officer. The lady's fortune disappeared in the first year: love,
+by a natural consequence, disappeared in the second: the Irishman
+himself, by a still more natural consequence, disappeared in the
+third. Mr Glowry had allowed his sister an annuity, and she had lived
+in retirement with her only daughter, whom, at her death, which had
+recently happened, she commended to the care of Mrs Hilary.
+
+Miss Marionetta Celestina O'Carroll was a very blooming and
+accomplished young lady. Being a compound of the _Allegro Vivace_ of
+the O'Carrolls, and of the _Andante Doloroso_ of the Glowries, she
+exhibited in her own character all the diversities of an April sky.
+Her hair was light-brown; her eyes hazel, and sparkling with a mild
+but fluctuating light; her features regular; her lips full, and of
+equal size; and her person surpassingly graceful. She was a proficient
+in music. Her conversation was sprightly, but always on subjects light
+in their nature and limited in their interest: for moral sympathies,
+in any general sense, had no place in her mind. She had some coquetry,
+and more caprice, liking and disliking almost in the same moment;
+pursuing an object with earnestness while it seemed unattainable, and
+rejecting it when in her power as not worth the trouble of possession.
+
+Whether she was touched with a _penchant_ for her cousin Scythrop, or
+was merely curious to see what effect the tender passion would have on
+so _outre_ a person, she had not been three days in the Abbey before
+she threw out all the lures of her beauty and accomplishments to make
+a prize of his heart. Scythrop proved an easy conquest. The image of
+Miss Emily Girouette was already sufficiently dimmed by the power of
+philosophy and the exercise of reason: for to these influences, or to
+any influence but the true one, are usually ascribed the mental cures
+performed by the great physician Time. Scythrop's romantic dreams had
+indeed given him many _pure anticipated cognitions_ of combinations
+of beauty and intelligence, which, he had some misgivings, were not
+exactly realised in his cousin Marionetta; but, in spite of these
+misgivings, he soon became distractedly in love; which, when the young
+lady clearly perceived, she altered her tactics, and assumed as much
+coldness and reserve as she had before shown ardent and ingenuous
+attachment. Scythrop was confounded at the sudden change; but, instead
+of falling at her feet and requesting an explanation, he retreated
+to his tower, muffled himself in his nightcap, seated himself in
+the president's chair of his imaginary secret tribunal, summoned
+Marionetta with all terrible formalities, frightened her out of her
+wits, disclosed himself, and clasped the beautiful penitent to his
+bosom.
+
+While he was acting this reverie--in the moment in which the awful
+president of the secret tribunal was throwing back his cowl and his
+mantle, and discovering himself to the lovely culprit as her adoring
+and magnanimous lover, the door of the study opened, and the real
+Marionetta appeared.
+
+The motives which had led her to the tower were a little penitence, a
+little concern, a little affection, and a little fear as to what the
+sudden secession of Scythrop, occasioned by her sudden change of
+manner, might portend. She had tapped several times unheard, and of
+course unanswered; and at length, timidly and cautiously opening the
+door, she discovered him standing up before a black velvet chair,
+which was mounted on an old oak table, in the act of throwing open his
+striped calico dressing-gown, and flinging away his nightcap--which is
+what the French call an imposing attitude.
+
+Each stood a few moments fixed in their respective places--the lady in
+astonishment, and the gentleman in confusion. Marionetta was the first
+to break silence. 'For heaven's sake,' said she, 'my dear Scythrop,
+what is the matter?'
+
+'For heaven's sake, indeed!' said Scythrop, springing from the table;
+'for your sake, Marionetta, and you are my heaven,--distraction is the
+matter. I adore you, Marionetta, and your cruelty drives me mad.'
+He threw himself at her knees, devoured her hand with kisses, and
+breathed a thousand vows in the most passionate language of romance.
+
+Marionetta listened a long time in silence, till her lover had
+exhausted his eloquence and paused for a reply. She then said, with a
+very arch look, 'I prithee deliver thyself like a man of this world.'
+The levity of this quotation, and of the manner in which it was
+delivered, jarred so discordantly on the high-wrought enthusiasm of
+the romantic inamorato, that he sprang upon his feet, and beat his
+forehead with his clenched fist. The young lady was terrified; and,
+deeming it expedient to soothe him, took one of his hands in hers,
+placed the other hand on his shoulder, looked up in his face with a
+winning seriousness, and said, in the tenderest possible tone, 'What
+would you have, Scythrop?'
+
+Scythrop was in heaven again. 'What would I have? What but you,
+Marionetta? You, for the companion of my studies, the partner of my
+thoughts, the auxiliary of my great designs for the emancipation of
+mankind.'
+
+'I am afraid I should be but a poor auxiliary, Scythrop. What would
+you have me do?'
+
+'Do as Rosalia does with Carlos, divine Marionetta. Let us each open
+a vein in the other's arm, mix our blood in a bowl, and drink it as
+a sacrament of love. Then we shall see visions of transcendental
+illumination, and soar on the wings of ideas into the space of pure
+intelligence.'
+
+Marionetta could not reply; she had not so strong a stomach as
+Rosalia, and turned sick at the proposition. She disengaged herself
+suddenly from Scythrop, sprang through the door of the tower, and fled
+with precipitation along the corridors. Scythrop pursued her, crying,
+'Stop, stop, Marionetta--my life, my love!' and was gaining rapidly on
+her flight, when, at an ill-omened corner, where two corridors ended
+in an angle, at the head of a staircase, he came into sudden and
+violent contact with Mr Toobad, and they both plunged together to the
+foot of the stairs, like two billiard-balls into one pocket. This gave
+the young lady time to escape, and enclose herself in her chamber;
+while Mr Toobad, rising slowly, and rubbing his knees and shoulders,
+said, 'You see, my dear Scythrop, in this little incident, one of the
+innumerable proofs of the temporary supremacy of the devil; for what
+but a systematic design and concurrent contrivance of evil could have
+made the angles of time and place coincide in our unfortunate persons
+at the head of this accursed staircase?'
+
+'Nothing else, certainly,' said Scythrop: 'you are perfectly in the
+right, Mr Toobad. Evil, and mischief, and misery, and confusion,
+and vanity, and vexation of spirit, and death, and disease, and
+assassination, and war, and poverty, and pestilence, and famine, and
+avarice, and selfishness, and rancour, and jealousy, and spleen,
+and malevolence, and the disappointments of philanthropy, and the
+faithlessness of friendship, and the crosses of love--all prove the
+accuracy of your views, and the truth of your system; and it is not
+impossible that the infernal interruption of this fall downstairs may
+throw a colour of evil on the whole of my future existence.'
+
+'My dear boy,' said Mr Toobad, 'you have a fine eye for consequences.'
+
+So saying, he embraced Scythrop, who retired, with a disconsolate
+step, to dress for dinner; while Mr Toobad stalked across the hall,
+repeating, 'Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea, for
+the devil is come among you, having great wrath.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The flight of Marionetta, and the pursuit of Scythrop, had been
+witnessed by Mr Glowry, who, in consequence, narrowly observed his son
+and his niece in the evening; and, concluding from their manner, that
+there was a better understanding between them than he wished to see,
+he determined on obtaining the next morning from Scythrop a full and
+satisfactory explanation. He, therefore, shortly after breakfast,
+entered Scythrop's tower, with a very grave face, and said, without
+ceremony or preface, 'So, sir, you are in love with your cousin.'
+
+Scythrop, with as little hesitation, answered, 'Yes, sir.'
+
+'That is candid, at least; and she is in love with you.'
+
+'I wish she were, sir.'
+
+'You know she is, sir.'
+
+'Indeed, sir, I do not.'
+
+'But you hope she is.'
+
+'I do, from my soul.'
+
+'Now that is very provoking, Scythrop, and very disappointing: I could
+not have supposed that you, Scythrop Glowry, of Nightmare Abbey,
+would have been infatuated with such a dancing, laughing, singing,
+thoughtless, careless, merry-hearted thing, as Marionetta--in all
+respects the reverse of you and me. It is very disappointing,
+Scythrop. And do you know, sir, that Marionetta has no fortune?'
+
+'It is the more reason, sir, that her husband should have one.'
+
+'The more reason for her; but not for you. My wife had no fortune, and
+I had no consolation in my calamity. And do you reflect, sir, what an
+enormous slice this lawsuit has cut out of our family estate? we who
+used to be the greatest landed proprietors in Lincolnshire.'
+
+'To be sure, sir, we had more acres of fen than any man on this
+coast: but what are fens to love? What are dykes and windmills to
+Marionetta?'
+
+'And what, sir, is love to a windmill? Not grist, I am certain:
+besides, sir, I have made a choice for you. I have made a choice for
+you, Scythrop. Beauty, genius, accomplishments, and a great fortune
+into the bargain. Such a lovely, serious creature, in a fine state of
+high dissatisfaction with the world, and every thing in it. Such a
+delightful surprise I had prepared for you. Sir, I have pledged my
+honour to the contract--the honour of the Glowries of Nightmare Abbey:
+and now, sir, what is to be done?'
+
+'Indeed, sir, I cannot say. I claim, on this occasion, that liberty of
+action which is the co-natal prerogative of every rational being.'
+
+'Liberty of action, sir? there is no such thing as liberty of action.
+We are all slaves and puppets of a blind and unpathetic necessity.'
+
+'Very true, sir; but liberty of action, between individuals, consists
+in their being differently influenced, or modified, by the same
+universal necessity; so that the results are unconsentaneous, and
+their respective necessitated volitions clash and fly off in a
+tangent.'
+
+'Your logic is good, sir: but you are aware, too, that one individual
+may be a medium of adhibiting to another a mode or form of necessity,
+which may have more or less influence in the production of
+consentaneity; and, therefore, sir, if you do not comply with my
+wishes in this instance (you have had your own way in every thing
+else), I shall be under the necessity of disinheriting you, though
+I shall do it with tears in my eyes.' Having said these words, he
+vanished suddenly, in the dread of Scythrop's logic.
+
+Mr Glowry immediately sought Mrs Hilary, and communicated to her his
+views of the case in point. Mrs Hilary, as the phrase is, was as fond
+of Marionetta as if she had been her own child: but--there is always a
+_but_ on these occasions--she could do nothing for her in the way
+of fortune, as she had two hopeful sons, who were finishing their
+education at Brazen-nose, and who would not like to encounter any
+diminution of their prospects, when they should be brought out of the
+house of mental bondage--i.e. the university--to the land flowing with
+milk and honey--i.e. the west end of London.
+
+Mrs Hilary hinted to Marionetta, that propriety, and delicacy, and
+decorum, and dignity, &c. &c. &c.,[3] would require them to leave the
+Abbey immediately. Marionetta listened in silent submission, for she
+knew that her inheritance was passive obedience; but, when Scythrop,
+who had watched the opportunity of Mrs Hilary's departure, entered,
+and, without speaking a word, threw himself at her feet in a paroxysm
+of grief, the young lady, in equal silence and sorrow, threw her arms
+round his neck and burst into tears. A very tender scene ensued, which
+the sympathetic susceptibilities of the soft-hearted reader can more
+accurately imagine than we can delineate. But when Marionetta hinted
+that she was to leave the Abbey immediately, Scythrop snatched from
+its repository his ancestor's skull, filled it with Madeira, and
+presenting himself before Mr Glowry, threatened to drink off the
+contents if Mr Glowry did not immediately promise that Marionetta
+should not be taken from the Abbey without her own consent. Mr Glowry,
+who took the Madeira to be some deadly brewage, gave the required
+promise in dismal panic. Scythrop returned to Marionetta with a joyful
+heart, and drank the Madeira by the way.
+
+Mr Glowry, during his residence in London, had come to an agreement
+with his friend Mr Toobad, that a match between Scythrop and Mr
+Toobad's daughter would be a very desirable occurrence. She was
+finishing her education in a German convent, but Mr Toobad described
+her as being fully impressed with the truth of his Ahrimanic
+philosophy,[4] and being altogether as gloomy and antithalian a young
+lady as Mr Glowry himself could desire for the future mistress of
+Nightmare Abbey. She had a great fortune in her own right, which was
+not, as we have seen, without its weight in inducing Mr Glowry to
+set his heart upon her as his daughter-in-law that was to be; he was
+therefore very much disturbed by Scythrop's untoward attachment to
+Marionetta. He condoled on the occasion with Mr Toobad; who said, that
+he had been too long accustomed to the intermeddling of the devil in
+all his affairs, to be astonished at this new trace of his cloven
+claw; but that he hoped to outwit him yet, for he was sure there could
+be no comparison between his daughter and Marionetta in the mind of
+any one who had a proper perception of the fact, that, the world
+being a great theatre of evil, seriousness and solemnity are the
+characteristics of wisdom, and laughter and merriment make a human
+being no better than a baboon. Mr Glowry comforted himself with this
+view of the subject, and urged Mr Toobad to expedite his daughter's
+return from Germany. Mr Toobad said he was in daily expectation of her
+arrival in London, and would set off immediately to meet her, that
+he might lose no time in bringing her to Nightmare Abbey. 'Then,' he
+added, 'we shall see whether Thalia or Melpomene--whether the Allegra
+or the Penserosa--will carry off the symbol of victory.'--'There can
+be no doubt,' said Mr Glowry, 'which way the scale will incline, or
+Scythrop is no true scion of the venerable stem of the Glowries.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Marionetta felt secure of Scythrop's heart; and notwithstanding the
+difficulties that surrounded her, she could not debar herself from the
+pleasure of tormenting her lover, whom she kept in a perpetual fever.
+Sometimes she would meet him with the most unqualified affection;
+sometimes with the most chilling indifference; rousing him to anger by
+artificial coldness--softening him to love by eloquent tenderness--or
+inflaming him to jealousy by coquetting with the Honourable Mr
+Listless, who seemed, under her magical influence, to burst into
+sudden life, like the bud of the evening primrose. Sometimes she would
+sit by the piano, and listen with becoming attention to Scythrop's
+pathetic remonstrances; but, in the most impassioned part of his
+oratory, she would convert all his ideas into a chaos, by striking up
+some Rondo Allegro, and saying, 'Is it not pretty?' Scythrop would
+begin to storm; and she would answer him with,
+
+  'Zitti, zitti, piano, piano,
+  Non facciamo confusione,'
+
+or some similar _facezia_, till he would start away from her, and
+enclose himself in his tower, in an agony of agitation, vowing to
+renounce her, and her whole sex, for ever; and returning to her
+presence at the summons of the billet, which she never failed to
+send with many expressions of penitence and promises of amendment.
+Scythrop's schemes for regenerating the world, and detecting his seven
+golden candle-sticks, went on very slowly in this fever of his spirit.
+
+Things proceeded in this train for several days; and Mr Glowry began
+to be uneasy at receiving no intelligence from Mr Toobad; when one
+evening the latter rushed into the library, where the family and the
+visitors were assembled, vociferating, 'The devil is come among
+you, having great wrath!' He then drew Mr Glowry aside into another
+apartment, and after remaining some time together, they re-entered the
+library with faces of great dismay, but did not condescend to explain
+to any one the cause of their discomfiture.
+
+The next morning, early, Mr Toobad departed. Mr Glowry sighed and
+groaned all day, and said not a word to any one. Scythrop had
+quarrelled, as usual, with Marionetta, and was enclosed in his tower,
+in a fit of morbid sensibility. Marionetta was comforting herself at
+the piano, with singing the airs of _Nina pazza per amore_; and the
+Honourable Mr Listless was listening to the harmony, as he lay
+supine on the sofa, with a book in his hand, into which he peeped at
+intervals. The Reverend Mr Larynx approached the sofa, and proposed a
+game at billiards.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Billiards! Really I should be very happy; but, in my present exhausted
+state, the exertion is too much for me. I do not know when I have been
+equal to such an effort. (_He rang the bell for his valet. Fatout
+entered_.) Fatout! when did I play at billiards last?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De fourteen December de last year, Monsieur. (_Fatout bowed and
+retired_.)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+So it was. Seven months ago. You see, Mr Larynx; you see, sir. My
+nerves, Miss O'Carroll, my nerves are shattered. I have been advised
+to try Bath. Some of the faculty recommend Cheltenham. I think of
+trying both, as the seasons don't clash. The season, you know, Mr
+Larynx--the season, Miss O'Carroll--the season is every thing.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+And health is something. _N'est-ce pas_, Mr Larynx?
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Most assuredly, Miss O'Carroll. For, however reasoners may dispute
+about the _summum bonum_, none of them will deny that a very good
+dinner is a very good thing: and what is a good dinner without a good
+appetite? and whence is a good appetite but from good health? Now,
+Cheltenham, Mr Listless, is famous for good appetites.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+The best piece of logic I ever heard, Mr Larynx; the very best,
+I assure you. I have thought very seriously of Cheltenham: very
+seriously and profoundly. I thought of it--let me see--when did I
+think of it? (_He rang again, and Fatout reappeared._) Fatout! when
+did I think of going to Cheltenham, and did not go?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De Juillet twenty-von, de last summer, Monsieur. (_Fatout retired._)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+So it was. An invaluable fellow that, Mr Larynx--invaluable, Miss
+O'Carroll.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+So I should judge, indeed. He seems to serve you as a walking memory,
+and to be a living chronicle, not of your actions only, but of your
+thoughts.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+An excellent definition of the fellow, Miss O'Carroll,--excellent,
+upon my honour. Ha! ha! he! Heigho! Laughter is pleasant, but the
+exertion is too much for me.
+
+
+A parcel was brought in for Mr Listless; it had been sent express.
+Fatout was summoned to unpack it; and it proved to contain a new
+novel, and a new poem, both of which had long been anxiously expected
+by the whole host of fashionable readers; and the last number of a
+popular Review, of which the editor and his coadjutors were in high
+favour at court, and enjoyed ample pensions[5] for their services to
+church and state. As Fatout left the room, Mr Flosky entered, and
+curiously inspected the literary arrivals.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+(_Turning over the leaves._) 'Devilman, a novel.' Hm. Hatred--revenge--
+misanthropy--and quotations from the Bible. Hm. This is the morbid
+anatomy of black bile.--'Paul Jones, a poem.' Hm. I see how it is.
+Paul Jones, an amiable enthusiast--disappointed in his affections--
+turns pirate from ennui and magnanimity--cuts various masculine
+throats, wins various feminine hearts--is hanged at the yard-arm! The
+catastrophe is very awkward, and very unpoetical.--'The Downing Street
+Review.' Hm. First article--An Ode to the Red Book, by Roderick
+Sackbut, Esquire. Hm. His own poem reviewed by himself. Hm--m--m.
+
+
+(_Mr Flosky proceeded in silence to look over the other articles
+of the review; Marionetta inspected the novel, and Mr Listless the
+poem._)
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+For a young man of fashion and family, Mr Listless, you seem to be of
+a very studious turn.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Studious! You are pleased to be facetious, Mr Larynx. I hope you do
+not suspect me of being studious. I have finished my education. But
+there are some fashionable books that one must read, because they are
+ingredients of the talk of the day; otherwise, I am no fonder of books
+than I dare say you yourself are, Mr Larynx.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Why, sir, I cannot say that I am indeed particularly fond of books;
+yet neither can I say that I never do read. A tale or a poem, now and
+then, to a circle of ladies over their work, is no very heterodox
+employment of the vocal energy. And I must say, for myself, that
+few men have a more Job-like endurance of the eternally recurring
+questions and answers that interweave themselves, on these occasions,
+with the crisis of an adventure, and heighten the distress of a
+tragedy.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And very often make the distress when the author has omitted it.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I shall try your patience some rainy morning, Mr Larynx; and Mr
+Listless shall recommend us the very newest new book, that every body
+reads.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You shall receive it, Miss O'Carroll, with all the gloss of novelty;
+fresh as a ripe green-gage in all the downiness of its bloom. A
+mail-coach copy from Edinburgh, forwarded express from London.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+This rage for novelty is the bane of literature. Except my works and
+those of my particular friends, nothing is good that is not as old as
+Jeremy Taylor: and, _entre nous_, the best parts of my friends' books
+were either written or suggested by myself.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Sir, I reverence you. But I must say, modern books are very
+consolatory and congenial to my feelings. There is, as it were, a
+delightful north-east wind, an intellectual blight breathing through
+them; a delicious misanthropy and discontent, that demonstrates the
+nullity of virtue and energy, and puts me in good humour with myself
+and my sofa.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Very true, sir. Modern literature is a north-east wind--a blight of
+the human soul. I take credit to myself for having helped to make it
+so. The way to produce fine fruit is to blight the flower. You call
+this a paradox. Marry, so be it. Ponder thereon.
+
+
+The conversation was interrupted by the re-appearance of Mr Toobad,
+covered with mud. He just showed himself at the door, muttered 'The
+devil is come among you!' and vanished. The road which connected
+Nightmare Abbey with the civilised world, was artificially raised
+above the level of the fens, and ran through them in a straight line
+as far as the eye could reach, with a ditch on each side, of which the
+water was rendered invisible by the aquatic vegetation that covered
+the surface. Into one of these ditches the sudden action of a
+shy horse, which took fright at a windmill, had precipitated the
+travelling chariot of Mr Toobad, who had been reduced to the necessity
+of scrambling in dismal plight through the window. One of the wheels
+was found to be broken; and Mr Toobad, leaving the postilion to
+get the chariot as well as he could to Claydyke for the purpose of
+cleaning and repairing, had walked back to Nightmare Abbey, followed
+by his servant with the imperial, and repeating all the way his
+favourite quotation from the Revelations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Mr Toobad had found his daughter Celinda in London, and after the
+first joy of meeting was over, told her he had a husband ready for
+her. The young lady replied, very gravely, that she should take the
+liberty to choose for herself. Mr Toobad said he saw the devil was
+determined to interfere with all his projects, but he was resolved
+on his own part, not to have on his conscience the crime of passive
+obedience and non-resistance to Lucifer, and therefore she should
+marry the person he had chosen for her. Miss Toobad replied, _tres
+posement_, she assuredly would not. 'Celinda, Celinda,' said Mr
+Toobad, 'you most assuredly shall.'--'Have I not a fortune in my own
+right, sir?' said Celinda. 'The more is the pity,' said Mr Toobad:
+'but I can find means, miss; I can find means. There are more ways
+than one of breaking in obstinate girls.' They parted for the night
+with the expression of opposite resolutions, and in the morning the
+young lady's chamber was found empty, and what was become of her Mr
+Toobad had no clue to conjecture. He continued to investigate town and
+country in search of her; visiting and revisiting Nightmare Abbey at
+intervals, to consult with his friend, Mr Glowry. Mr Glowry agreed
+with Mr Toobad that this was a very flagrant instance of filial
+disobedience and rebellion; and Mr Toobad declared, that when he
+discovered the fugitive, she should find that 'the devil was come unto
+her, having great wrath.'
+
+In the evening, the whole party met, as usual, in the library.
+Marionetta sat at the harp; the Honourable Mr Listless sat by her and
+turned over her music, though the exertion was almost too much
+for him. The Reverend Mr Larynx relieved him occasionally in this
+delightful labour. Scythrop, tormented by the demon Jealousy, sat in
+the corner biting his lips and fingers. Marionetta looked at him every
+now and then with a smile of most provoking good humour, which he
+pretended not to see, and which only the more exasperated his troubled
+spirit. He took down a volume of Dante, and pretended to be deeply
+interested in the Purgatorio, though he knew not a word he was
+reading, as Marionetta was well aware; who, tripping across the room,
+peeped into his book, and said to him, 'I see you are in the middle of
+Purgatory.'--'I am in the middle of hell,' said Scythrop furiously.
+'Are you?' said she; 'then come across the room, and I will sing you
+the finale of Don Giovanni.'
+
+'Let me alone,' said Scythrop. Marionetta looked at him with a
+deprecating smile, and said, 'You unjust, cross creature, you.'--'Let
+me alone,' said Scythrop, but much less emphatically than at first,
+and by no means wishing to be taken at his word. Marionetta left him
+immediately, and returning to the harp, said, just loud enough for
+Scythrop to hear--'Did you ever read Dante, Mr Listless? Scythrop
+is reading Dante, and is just now in Purgatory.'--'And I' said the
+Honourable Mr Listless, 'am not reading Dante, and am just now in
+Paradise,' bowing to Marionetta.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+You are very gallant, Mr Listless; and I dare say you are very fond of
+reading Dante.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I don't know how it is, but Dante never came in my way till lately. I
+never had him in my collection, and if I had had him I should not have
+read him. But I find he is growing fashionable, and I am afraid I must
+read him some wet morning.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+No, read him some evening, by all means. Were you ever in love, Mr
+Listless?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I assure you, Miss O'Carroll, never--till I came to Nightmare Abbey.
+I dare say it is very pleasant; but it seems to give so much trouble
+that I fear the exertion would be too much for me.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Shall I teach you a compendious method of courtship, that will give
+you no trouble whatever?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You will confer on me an inexpressible obligation. I am all impatience
+to learn it.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Sit with your back to the lady and read Dante; only be sure to begin
+in the middle, and turn over three or four pages at once--backwards
+as well as forwards, and she will immediately perceive that you are
+desperately in love with her--desperately.
+
+
+_(The Honourable Mr Listless sitting between Scythrop and Marionetta,
+and fixing all his attention on the beautiful speaker, did not observe
+Scythrop, who was doing as she described.)_
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You are pleased to be facetious, Miss O'Carroll. The lady would
+infallibly conclude that I was the greatest brute in town.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Far from it. She would say, perhaps, some people have odd methods of
+showing their affection.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+But I should think, with submission--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_joining them from another part of the room_)
+
+Did I not hear Mr Listless observe that Dante is becoming fashionable?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I did hazard a remark to that effect, Mr Flosky, though I speak on
+such subjects with a consciousness of my own nothingness, in the
+presence of so great a man as Mr Flosky. I know not what is the colour
+of Dante's devils, but as he is certainly becoming fashionable I
+conclude they are blue; for the blue devils, as it seems to me, Mr
+Flosky, constitute the fundamental feature of fashionable literature.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The blue are, indeed, the staple commodity; but as they will not
+always be commanded, the black, red, and grey may be admitted as
+substitutes. Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution, have played
+the devil, Mr Listless, and brought the devil into play.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD (_starting up_)
+
+Having great wrath.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+This is no play upon words, but the sober sadness of veritable fact.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution. I cannot exactly see the
+connection of ideas.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I should be sorry if you could; I pity the man who can see the
+connection of his own ideas. Still more do I pity him, the connection
+of whose ideas any other person can see. Sir, the great evil is,
+that there is too much common-place light in our moral and political
+literature; and light is a great enemy to mystery, and mystery is a
+great friend to enthusiasm. Now the enthusiasm for abstract truth is
+an exceedingly fine thing, as long as the truth, which is the object
+of the enthusiasm, is so completely abstract as to be altogether out
+of the reach of the human faculties; and, in that sense, I have
+myself an enthusiasm for truth, but in no other, for the pleasure of
+metaphysical investigation lies in the means, not in the end; and if
+the end could be found, the pleasure of the means would cease. The
+mind, to be kept in health, must be kept in exercise. The proper
+exercise of the mind is elaborate reasoning. Analytical reasoning is a
+base and mechanical process, which takes to pieces and examines, bit
+by bit, the rude material of knowledge, and extracts therefrom a few
+hard and obstinate things called facts, every thing in the shape of
+which I cordially hate. But synthetical reasoning, setting up as its
+goal some unattainable abstraction, like an imaginary quantity in
+algebra, and commencing its course with taking for granted some two
+assertions which cannot be proved, from the union of these two assumed
+truths produces a third assumption, and so on in infinite series, to
+the unspeakable benefit of the human intellect. The beauty of this
+process is, that at every step it strikes out into two branches, in
+a compound ratio of ramification; so that you are perfectly sure of
+losing your way, and keeping your mind in perfect health, by the
+perpetual exercise of an interminable quest; and for these reasons I
+have christened my eldest son Emanuel Kant Flosky.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Nothing can be more luminous.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And what has all that to do with Dante, and the blue devils?
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Not much, I should think, with Dante, but a great deal with the blue
+devils.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It is very certain, and much to be rejoiced at, that our literature is
+hag-ridden. Tea has shattered our nerves; late dinners make us slaves
+of indigestion; the French Revolution has made us shrink from the name
+of philosophy, and has destroyed, in the more refined part of the
+community (of which number I am one), all enthusiasm for political
+liberty. That part of the _reading public_ which shuns the solid
+food of reason for the light diet of fiction, requires a perpetual
+adhibition of _sauce piquante_ to the palate of its depraved
+imagination. It lived upon ghosts, goblins, and skeletons (I and my
+friend Mr Sackbut served up a few of the best), till even the devil
+himself, though magnified to the size of Mount Athos, became too base,
+common, and popular, for its surfeited appetite. The ghosts have
+therefore been laid, and the devil has been cast into outer darkness,
+and now the delight of our spirits is to dwell on all the vices and
+blackest passions of our nature, tricked out in a masquerade dress of
+heroism and disappointed benevolence; the whole secret of which lies
+in forming combinations that contradict all our experience, and
+affixing the purple shred of some particular virtue to that precise
+character, in which we should be most certain not to find it in the
+living world; and making this single virtue not only redeem all the
+real and manifest vices of the character, but make them actually
+pass for necessary adjuncts, and indispensable accompaniments and
+characteristics of the said virtue.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+That is, because the devil is come among us, and finds it for his
+interest to destroy all our perceptions of the distinctions of right
+and wrong.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I do not precisely enter into your meaning, Mr Flosky, and should be
+glad if you would make it a little more plain to me.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+One or two examples will do it, Miss O'Carroll. If I were to take all
+the mean and sordid qualities of a money-dealing Jew, and tack on to
+them, as with a nail, the quality of extreme benevolence, I should
+have a very decent hero for a modern novel; and should contribute my
+quota to the fashionable method of administering a mass of vice, under
+a thin and unnatural covering of virtue, like a spider wrapt in a
+bit of gold leaf, and administered as a wholesome pill. On the same
+principle, if a man knocks me down, and takes my purse and watch by
+main force, I turn him to account, and set him forth in a tragedy as
+a dashing young fellow, disinherited for his romantic generosity, and
+full of a most amiable hatred of the world in general, and his own
+country in particular, and of a most enlightened and chivalrous
+affection for himself: then, with the addition of a wild girl to fall
+in love with him, and a series of adventures in which they break all
+the Ten Commandments in succession (always, you will observe, for some
+sublime motive, which must be carefully analysed in its progress), I
+have as amiable a pair of tragic characters as ever issued from that
+new region of the belles lettres, which I have called the Morbid
+Anatomy of Black Bile, and which is greatly to be admired and rejoiced
+at, as affording a fine scope for the exhibition of mental power.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Which is about as well employed as the power of a hothouse would be in
+forcing up a nettle to the size of an elm. If we go on in this way, we
+shall have a new art of poetry, of which one of the first rules will
+be: To remember to forget that there are any such things as sunshine
+and music in the world.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+It seems to be the case with us at present, or we should not have
+interrupted Miss O'Carroll's music with this exceedingly dry
+conversation.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I should be most happy if Miss O'Carroll would remind us that there
+are yet both music and sunshine--
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+In the voice and the smile of beauty. May I entreat the favour
+of--(_turning over the pages of music._)
+
+
+All were silent, and Marionetta sung:
+
+  Why are thy looks so blank, grey friar?
+  Why are thy looks so blue?
+  Thou seem'st more pale and lank, grey friar,
+  Than thou wast used to do:--
+  Say, what has made thee rue?
+
+  Thy form was plump, and a light did shine
+  In thy round and ruby face,
+  Which showed an outward visible sign
+  Of an inward spiritual grace:--
+  Say, what has changed thy case?
+
+  Yet will I tell thee true, grey friar,
+  I very well can see,
+  That, if thy looks are blue, grey friar,
+  'Tis all for love of me,--
+  'Tis all for love of me.
+
+  But breathe not thy vows to me, grey friar,
+  Oh, breathe them not, I pray;
+  For ill beseems in a reverend friar,
+  The love of a mortal may;
+  And I needs must say thee nay.
+
+  But, could'st thou think my heart to move
+  With that pale and silent scowl?
+  Know, he who would win a maiden's love,
+  Whether clad in cap or cowl,
+  Must be more of a lark than an owl.
+
+
+Scythrop immediately replaced Dante on the shelf, and joined the
+circle round the beautiful singer. Marionetta gave him a smile of
+approbation that fully restored his complacency, and they continued
+on the best possible terms during the remainder of the evening. The
+Honourable Mr Listless turned over the leaves with double alacrity,
+saying, 'You are severe upon invalids, Miss O'Carroll: to escape your
+satire, I must try to be sprightly, though the exertion is too much
+for me.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A new visitor arrived at the Abbey, in the person of Mr Asterias,
+the ichthyologist. This gentleman had passed his life in seeking the
+living wonders of the deep through the four quarters of the world;
+he had a cabinet of stuffed and dried fishes, of shells, sea-weeds,
+corals, and madrepores, that was the admiration and envy of the Royal
+Society. He had penetrated into the watery den of the Sepia Octopus,
+disturbed the conjugal happiness of that turtle-dove of the ocean, and
+come off victorious in a sanguinary conflict. He had been becalmed
+in the tropical seas, and had watched, in eager expectation, though
+unhappily always in vain, to see the colossal polypus rise from the
+water, and entwine its enormous arms round the masts and the rigging.
+He maintained the origin of all things from water, and insisted that
+the polypodes were the first of animated things, and that, from their
+round bodies and many-shooting arms, the Hindoos had taken their gods,
+the most ancient of deities. But the chief object of his ambition, the
+end and aim of his researches, was to discover a triton and a mermaid,
+the existence of which he most potently and implicitly believed, and
+was prepared to demonstrate, _a priori, a posteriori, a fortiori_,
+synthetically and analytically, syllogistically and inductively,
+by arguments deduced both from acknowledged facts and plausible
+hypotheses. A report that a mermaid had been seen 'sleeking her soft
+alluring locks' on the sea-coast of Lincolnshire, had brought him in
+great haste from London, to pay a long-promised and often-postponed
+visit to his old acquaintance, Mr Glowry.
+
+Mr Asterias was accompanied by his son, to whom he had given the name
+of Aquarius--flattering himself that he would, in the process of time,
+become a constellation among the stars of ichthyological science. What
+charitable female had lent him the mould in which this son was cast,
+no one pretended to know; and, as he never dropped the most distant
+allusion to Aquarius's mother, some of the wags of London maintained
+that he had received the favours of a mermaid, and that the scientific
+perquisitions which kept him always prowling about the sea-shore, were
+directed by the less philosophical motive of regaining his lost love.
+
+Mr Asterias perlustrated the sea-coast for several days, and reaped
+disappointment, but not despair. One night, shortly after his arrival,
+he was sitting in one of the windows of the library, looking towards
+the sea, when his attention was attracted by a figure which was moving
+near the edge of the surf, and which was dimly visible through the
+moonless summer night. Its motions were irregular, like those of a
+person in a state of indecision. It had extremely long hair, which
+floated in the wind. Whatever else it might be, it certainly was not a
+fisherman. It might be a lady; but it was neither Mrs Hilary nor Miss
+O'Carroll, for they were both in the library. It might be one of the
+female servants; but it had too much grace, and too striking an air of
+habitual liberty, to render it probable. Besides, what should one of
+the female servants be doing there at this hour, moving to and fro,
+as it seemed, without any visible purpose? It could scarcely be a
+stranger; for Claydyke, the nearest village, was ten miles distant;
+and what female would come ten miles across the fens, for no purpose
+but to hover over the surf under the walls of Nightmare Abbey? Might
+it not be a mermaid? It was possibly a mermaid. It was probably a
+mermaid. It was very probably a mermaid. Nay, what else could it be
+but a mermaid? It certainly was a mermaid. Mr Asterias stole out of
+the library on tiptoe, with his finger on his lips, having beckoned
+Aquarius to follow him.
+
+The rest of the party was in great surprise at Mr Asterias's movement,
+and some of them approached the window to see if the locality would
+tend to elucidate the mystery. Presently they saw him and Aquarius
+cautiously stealing along on the other side of the moat, but they saw
+nothing more; and Mr Asterias returning, told them, with accents of
+great disappointment, that he had had a glimpse of a mermaid, but she
+had eluded him in the darkness, and was gone, he presumed, to sup with
+some enamoured triton, in a submarine grotto.
+
+'But, seriously, Mr Asterias,' said the Honourable Mr Listless, 'do
+you positively believe there are such things as mermaids?'
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Most assuredly; and tritons too.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+What! things that are half human and half fish?
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Precisely. They are the oran-outangs of the sea. But I am persuaded
+that there are also complete sea men, differing in no respect from us,
+but that they are stupid, and covered with scales; for, though our
+organisation seems to exclude us essentially from the class of
+amphibious animals, yet anatomists well know that the _foramen ovale_
+may remain open in an adult, and that respiration is, in that case,
+not necessary to life: and how can it be otherwise explained that the
+Indian divers, employed in the pearl fishery, pass whole hours under
+the water; and that the famous Swedish gardener of Troningholm lived
+a day and a half under the ice without being drowned? A nereid, or
+mermaid, was taken in the year 1403 in a Dutch lake, and was in every
+respect like a French woman, except that she did not speak. Towards
+the end of the seventeenth century, an English ship, a hundred and
+fifty leagues from land, in the Greenland seas, discovered a flotilla
+of sixty or seventy little skiffs, in each of which was a triton, or
+sea man: at the approach of the English vessel the whole of them,
+seized with simultaneous fear, disappeared, skiffs and all, under
+the water, as if they had been a human variety of the nautilus. The
+illustrious Don Feijoo has preserved an authentic and well-attested
+story of a young Spaniard, named Francis de la Vega, who, bathing with
+some of his friends in June, 1674, suddenly dived under the sea and
+rose no more. His friends thought him drowned; they were plebeians and
+pious Catholics; but a philosopher might very legitimately have drawn
+the same conclusion.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Nothing could be more logical.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Five years afterwards, some fishermen near Cadiz found in their nets a
+triton, or sea man; they spoke to him in several languages--
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+They were very learned fishermen.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+They had the gift of tongues by especial favour of their brother
+fisherman, Saint Peter.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Is Saint Peter the tutelar saint of Cadiz?
+
+
+(_None of the company could answer this question, and_ MR ASTERIAS
+_proceeded_.)
+
+They spoke to him in several languages, but he was as mute as a fish.
+They handed him over to some holy friars, who exorcised him; but the
+devil was mute too. After some days he pronounced the name Lierganes.
+A monk took him to that village. His mother and brothers recognised
+and embraced him; but he was as insensible to their caresses as any
+other fish would have been. He had some scales on his body, which
+dropped off by degrees; but his skin was as hard and rough as
+shagreen. He stayed at home nine years, without recovering his
+speech or his reason: he then disappeared again; and one of his old
+acquaintance, some years after, saw him pop his head out of the water
+near the coast of the Asturias. These facts were certified by his
+brothers, and by Don Gaspardo de la Riba Aguero, Knight of Saint
+James, who lived near Lierganes, and often had the pleasure of
+our triton's company to dinner.--Pliny mentions an embassy of the
+Olyssiponians to Tiberius, to give him intelligence of a triton which
+had been heard playing on its shell in a certain cave; with several
+other authenticated facts on the subject of tritons and nereids.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You astonish me. I have been much on the sea-shore, in the season, but
+I do not think I ever saw a mermaid. (_He rang, and summoned Fatout,
+who made his appearance half-seas-over_.) Fatout! did I ever see a
+mermaid?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Mermaid! mer-r-m-m-aid! Ah! merry maid! Oui, monsieur! Yes, sir, very
+many. I vish dere vas von or two here in de kitchen--ma foi! Dey be
+all as melancholic as so many tombstone.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I mean, Fatout, an odd kind of human fish.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De odd fish! Ah, oui! I understand de phrase: ve have seen nothing
+else since ve left town--ma foi!
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You seem to have a cup too much, sir.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Non, monsieur: de cup too little. De fen be very unwholesome, and I
+drink-a-de ponch vid Raven de butler, to keep out de bad air.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Fatout! I insist on your being sober.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Oui, monsieur; I vil be as sober as de reverendissime pere Jean. I
+should be ver glad of de merry maid; but de butler be de odd fish,
+and he swim in de bowl de ponch. Ah! ah! I do recollect de leetle-a
+song:--'About fair maids, and about fair maids, and about my merry
+maids all.' (_Fatout reeled out, singing_.)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I am overwhelmed: I never saw the rascal in such a condition before.
+But will you allow me, Mr Asterias, to inquire into the _cui bono_ of
+all the pains and expense you have incurred to discover a mermaid? The
+_cui bono_, sir, is the question I always take the liberty to ask when
+I see any one taking much trouble for any object. I am myself a sort
+of Signor Pococurante, and should like to know if there be any thing
+better or pleasanter, than the state of existing and doing nothing?
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+I have made many voyages, Mr Listless, to remote and barren shores:
+I have travelled over desert and inhospitable lands: I have defied
+danger--I have endured fatigue--I have submitted to privation. In the
+midst of these I have experienced pleasures which I would not at any
+time have exchanged for that of existing and doing nothing. I have
+known many evils, but I have never known the worst of all, which, as
+it seems to me, are those which are comprehended in the inexhaustible
+varieties of _ennui_: spleen, chagrin, vapours, blue devils,
+time-killing, discontent, misanthropy, and all their interminable
+train of fretfulness, querulousness, suspicions, jealousies, and
+fears, which have alike infected society, and the literature of
+society; and which would make an arctic ocean of the human mind, if
+the more humane pursuits of philosophy and science did not keep alive
+the better feelings and more valuable energies of our nature.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You are pleased to be severe upon our fashionable belles lettres.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Surely not without reason, when pirates, highwaymen, and other
+varieties of the extensive genus Marauder, are the only _beau ideal_
+of the active, as splenetic and railing misanthropy is of the
+speculative energy. A gloomy brow and a tragical voice seem to have
+been of late the characteristics of fashionable manners: and a morbid,
+withering, deadly, antisocial sirocco, loaded with moral and political
+despair, breathes through all the groves and valleys of the modern
+Parnassus; while science moves on in the calm dignity of its course,
+affording to youth delights equally pure and vivid--to maturity, calm
+and grateful occupation--to old age, the most pleasing recollections
+and inexhaustible materials of agreeable and salutary reflection; and,
+while its votary enjoys the disinterested pleasure of enlarging the
+intellect and increasing the comforts of society, he is himself
+independent of the caprices of human intercourse and the accidents of
+human fortune. Nature is his great and inexhaustible treasure. His
+days are always too short for his enjoyment: _ennui_, is a stranger to
+his door. At peace with the world and with his own mind, he suffices
+to himself, makes all around him happy, and the close of his pleasing
+and beneficial existence is the evening of a beautiful day.[6]
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Really I should like very well to lead such a life myself, but the
+exertion would be too much for me. Besides, I have been at college.
+I contrive to get through my day by sinking the morning in bed,
+and killing the evening in company; dressing and dining in the
+intermediate space, and stopping the chinks and crevices of the few
+vacant moments that remain with a little easy reading. And that
+amiable discontent and antisociality which you reprobate in our
+present drawing-room-table literature, I find, I do assure you, a very
+fine mental tonic, which reconciles me to my favourite pursuit of
+doing nothing, by showing me that nobody is worth doing any thing for.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+But is there not in such compositions a kind of unconscious
+self-detection, which seems to carry their own antidote with them? For
+surely no one who cordially and truly either hates or despises the
+world will publish a volume every three months to say so.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+There is a secret in all this, which I will elucidate with a dusky
+remark. According to Berkeley, the _esse_ of things is _percipi_. They
+exist as they are perceived. But, leaving for the present, as far
+as relates to the material world, the materialists, hyloists, and
+antihyloists, to settle this point among them, which is indeed
+
+  A subtle question, raised among
+  Those out o' their wits, and those i' the wrong:
+
+for only we transcendentalists are in the right: we may very safely
+assert that the _esse_ of happiness is _percipi_. It exists as it is
+perceived. 'It is the mind that maketh well or ill.' The elements of
+pleasure and pain are every where. The degree of happiness that any
+circumstances or objects can confer on us depends on the mental
+disposition with which we approach them. If you consider what is meant
+by the common phrases, a happy disposition and a discontented temper,
+you will perceive that the truth for which I am contending is
+universally admitted.
+
+
+_(Mr Flosky suddenly stopped: he found himself unintentionally
+trespassing within the limits of common sense.)_
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+It is very true; a happy disposition finds materials of enjoyment
+every where. In the city, or the country--in society, or in
+solitude--in the theatre, or the forest--in the hum of the multitude,
+or in the silence of the mountains, are alike materials of reflection
+and elements of pleasure. It is one mode of pleasure to listen to
+the music of 'Don Giovanni,' in a theatre glittering with light, and
+crowded with elegance and beauty: it is another to glide at sunset
+over the bosom of a lonely lake, where no sound disturbs the silence
+but the motion of the boat through the waters. A happy disposition
+derives pleasure from both, a discontented temper from neither, but
+is always busy in detecting deficiencies, and feeding dissatisfaction
+with comparisons. The one gathers all the flowers, the other all the
+nettles, in its path. The one has the faculty of enjoying every thing,
+the other of enjoying nothing. The one realises all the pleasure of
+the present good; the other converts it into pain, by pining after
+something better, which is only better because it is not present, and
+which, if it were present, would not be enjoyed. These morbid spirits
+are in life what professed critics are in literature; they see nothing
+but faults, because they are predetermined to shut their eyes to
+beauties. The critic does his utmost to blight genius in its infancy;
+that which rises in spite of him he will not see; and then he
+complains of the decline of literature. In like manner, these cankers
+of society complain of human nature and society, when they have
+wilfully debarred themselves from all the good they contain, and done
+their utmost to blight their own happiness and that of all around
+them. Misanthropy is sometimes the product of disappointed
+benevolence; but it is more frequently the offspring of overweening
+and mortified vanity, quarrelling with the world for not being better
+treated than it deserves.
+
+
+SCYTHROP (_to Marionetta_)
+
+These remarks are rather uncharitable. There is great good in human
+nature, but it is at present ill-conditioned. Ardent spirits cannot
+but be dissatisfied with things as they are; and, according to their
+views of the probabilities of amelioration, they will rush into the
+extremes of either hope or despair--of which the first is enthusiasm,
+and the second misanthropy; but their sources in this case are the
+same, as the Severn and the Wye run in different directions, and both
+rise in Plinlimmon.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+'And there is salmon in both;' for the resemblance is about as close
+as that between Macedon and Monmouth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Marionetta observed the next day a remarkable perturbation in
+Scythrop, for which she could not imagine any probable cause. She was
+willing to believe at first that it had some transient and trifling
+source, and would pass off in a day or two; but, contrary to this
+expectation, it daily increased. She was well aware that Scythrop had
+a strong tendency to the love of mystery, for its own sake; that is
+to say, he would employ mystery to serve a purpose, but would first
+choose his purpose by its capability of mystery. He seemed now to have
+more mystery on his hands than the laws of the system allowed, and to
+wear his coat of darkness with an air of great discomfort. All her
+little playful arts lost by degrees much of their power either to
+irritate or to soothe; and the first perception of her diminished
+influence produced in her an immediate depression of spirits, and a
+consequent sadness of demeanour, that rendered her very interesting to
+Mr Glowry; who, duly considering the improbability of accomplishing
+his wishes with respect to Miss Toobad (which improbability naturally
+increased in the diurnal ratio of that young lady's absence), began
+to reconcile himself by degrees to the idea of Marionetta being his
+daughter.
+
+Marionetta made many ineffectual attempts to extract from Scythrop the
+secret of his mystery; and, in despair of drawing it from himself,
+began to form hopes that she might find a clue to it from Mr Flosky,
+who was Scythrop's dearest friend, and was more frequently than any
+other person admitted to his solitary tower. Mr Flosky, however, had
+ceased to be visible in a morning. He was engaged in the composition
+of a dismal ballad; and, Marionetta's uneasiness overcoming her
+scruples of decorum, she determined to seek him in the apartment which
+he had chosen for his study. She tapped at the door, and at the sound
+'Come in,' entered the apartment. It was noon, and the sun was shining
+in full splendour, much to the annoyance of Mr Flosky, who had
+obviated the inconvenience by closing the shutters, and drawing
+the window-curtains. He was sitting at his table by the light of a
+solitary candle, with a pen in one hand, and a muffineer in the other,
+with which he occasionally sprinkled salt on the wick, to make it burn
+blue. He sate with 'his eye in a fine frenzy rolling,' and turned his
+inspired gaze on Marionetta as if she had been the ghastly ladie of
+a magical vision; then placed his hand before his eyes, with an
+appearance of manifest pain--shook his head--withdrew his hand--rubbed
+his eyes, like a waking man--and said, in a tone of ruefulness most
+jeremitaylorically pathetic, 'To what am I to attribute this very
+unexpected pleasure, my dear Miss O'Carroll?'
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I must apologise for intruding on you, Mr Flosky; but the interest
+which I--you--take in my cousin Scythrop--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Pardon me, Miss O'Carroll; I do not take any interest in any person or
+thing on the face of the earth; which sentiment, if you analyse it,
+you will find to be the quintessence of the most refined philanthropy.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I will take it for granted that it is so, Mr Flosky; I am not
+conversant with metaphysical subtleties, but--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Subtleties! my dear Miss O'Carroll. I am sorry to find you
+participating in the vulgar error of the _reading public,_ to whom
+an unusual collocation of words, involving a juxtaposition of
+antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of
+hyperoxysophistical paradoxology.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Indeed, Mr Flosky, it suggests no such notion to me. I have sought you
+for the purpose of obtaining information.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY _(shaking his head)_
+
+No one ever sought me for such a purpose before.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I think, Mr Flosky--that is, I believe--that is, I fancy--that is, I
+imagine--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The [Greek: toytesti], the _id est_, the _cioe_, the _c'est a dire_,
+the _that is_, my dear Miss O'Carroll, is not applicable in this
+case--if you will permit me to take the liberty of saying so. Think
+is not synonymous with believe--for belief, in many most important
+particulars, results from the total absence, the absolute negation of
+thought, and is thereby the sane and orthodox condition of mind; and
+thought and belief are both essentially different from fancy, and
+fancy, again, is distinct from imagination. This distinction between
+fancy and imagination is one of the most abstruse and important points
+of metaphysics. I have written seven hundred pages of promise to
+elucidate it, which promise I shall keep as faithfully as the bank
+will its promise to pay.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I assure you, Mr Flosky, I care no more about metaphysics than I do
+about the bank; and, if you will condescend to talk to a simple girl
+in intelligible terms--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Say not condescend! Know you not that you talk to the most humble of
+men, to one who has buckled on the armour of sanctity, and clothed
+himself with humility as with a garment?
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+My cousin Scythrop has of late had an air of mystery about him, which
+gives me great uneasiness.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+That is strange: nothing is so becoming to a man as an air of mystery.
+Mystery is the very key-stone of all that is beautiful in poetry, all
+that is sacred in faith, and all that is recondite in transcendental
+psychology. I am writing a ballad which is all mystery; it is 'such
+stuff as dreams are made of,' and is, indeed, stuff made of a dream;
+for, last night I fell asleep as usual over my book, and had a vision
+of pure reason. I composed five hundred lines in my sleep; so that,
+having had a dream of a ballad, I am now officiating as my own Peter
+Quince, and making a ballad of my dream, and it shall be called
+Bottom's Dream, because it has no bottom.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I see, Mr Flosky, you think my intrusion unseasonable, and are
+inclined to punish it, by talking nonsense to me. (_Mr Flosky gave a
+start at the word nonsense, which almost overturned the table._) I
+assure you, I would not have intruded if I had not been very much
+interested in the question I wish to ask you.--(_Mr Flosky listened
+in sullen dignity._)--My cousin Scythrop seems to have some secret
+preying on his mind.--(_Mr Flosky was silent._)--He seems very
+unhappy--Mr Flosky.--Perhaps you are acquainted with the cause.--(_Mr
+Flosky was still silent._)--I only wish to know--Mr Flosky--if it is
+any thing--that could be remedied by any thing--that any one--of whom
+I know any thing--could do.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_after a pause_)
+
+There are various ways of getting at secrets. The most approved
+methods, as recommended both theoretically and practically in
+philosophical novels, are eavesdropping at key-holes, picking the
+locks of chests and desks, peeping into letters, steaming wafers, and
+insinuating hot wire under sealing wax; none of which methods I hold
+it lawful to practise.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Surely, Mr Flosky, you cannot suspect me of wishing to adopt or
+encourage such base and contemptible arts.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Yet are they recommended, and with well-strung reasons, by writers of
+gravity and note, as simple and easy methods of studying character,
+and gratifying that laudable curiosity which aims at the knowledge of
+man.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I am as ignorant of this morality which you do not approve, as of the
+metaphysics which you do: I should be glad to know by your means, what
+is the matter with my cousin; I do not like to see him unhappy, and I
+suppose there is some reason for it.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Now I should rather suppose there is no reason for it: it is the
+fashion to be unhappy. To have a reason for being so would be
+exceedingly common-place: to be so without any is the province of
+genius: the art of being miserable for misery's sake, has been brought
+to great perfection in our days; and the ancient Odyssey, which held
+forth a shining example of the endurance of real misfortune, will
+give place to a modern one, setting out a more instructive picture of
+querulous impatience under imaginary evils.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Will you oblige me, Mr Flosky, by giving me a plain answer to a plain
+question?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It is impossible, my dear Miss O'Carroll. I never gave a plain answer
+to a question in my life.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Do you, or do you not, know what is the matter with my cousin?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+To say that I do not know, would be to say that I am ignorant of
+something; and God forbid, that a transcendental metaphysician, who
+has pure anticipated cognitions of every thing, and carries the whole
+science of geometry in his head without ever having looked into
+Euclid, should fall into so empirical an error as to declare himself
+ignorant of any thing: to say that I do know, would be to pretend to
+positive and circumstantial knowledge touching present matter of fact,
+which, when you consider the nature of evidence, and the various
+lights in which the same thing may be seen--
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I see, Mr Flosky, that either you have no information, or are
+determined not to impart it; and I beg your pardon for having given
+you this unnecessary trouble.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+My dear Miss O'Carroll, it would have given me great pleasure to have
+said any thing that would have given you pleasure; but if any person
+living could make report of having obtained any information on any
+subject from Ferdinando Flosky, my transcendental reputation would be
+ruined for ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Scythrop grew every day more reserved, mysterious, and distrait; and
+gradually lengthened the duration of his diurnal seclusions in his
+tower. Marionetta thought she perceived in all this very manifest
+symptoms of a warm love cooling.
+
+It was seldom that she found herself alone with him in the morning,
+and, on these occasions, if she was silent in the hope of his speaking
+first, not a syllable would he utter; if she spoke to him indirectly,
+he assented monosyllabically; if she questioned him, his answers
+were brief, constrained, and evasive. Still, though her spirits were
+depressed, her playfulness had not so totally forsaken her, but that
+it illuminated at intervals the gloom of Nightmare Abbey; and if, on
+any occasion, she observed in Scythrop tokens of unextinguished or
+returning passion, her love of tormenting her lover immediately got
+the better both of her grief and her sympathy, though not of her
+curiosity, which Scythrop seemed determined not to satisfy. This
+playfulness, however, was in a great measure artificial, and usually
+vanished with the irritable Strephon, to whose annoyance it had been
+exerted. The Genius Loci, the _tutela_ of Nightmare Abbey, the
+spirit of black melancholy, began to set his seal on her pallescent
+countenance. Scythrop perceived the change, found his tender
+sympathies awakened, and did his utmost to comfort the afflicted
+damsel, assuring her that his seeming inattention had only proceeded
+from his being involved in a profound meditation on a very hopeful
+scheme for the regeneration of human society. Marionetta called him
+ungrateful, cruel, cold-hearted, and accompanied her reproaches with
+many sobs and tears; poor Scythrop growing every moment more soft
+and submissive--till, at length, he threw himself at her feet, and
+declared that no competition of beauty, however dazzling, genius,
+however transcendent, talents, however cultivated, or philosophy,
+however enlightened, should ever make him renounce his divine
+Marionetta.
+
+'Competition!' thought Marionetta, and suddenly, with an air of the
+most freezing indifference, she said, 'You are perfectly at liberty,
+sir, to do as you please; I beg you will follow your own plans,
+without any reference to me.'
+
+Scythrop was confounded. What was become of all her passion and her
+tears? Still kneeling, he kissed her hand with rueful timidity, and
+said, in most pathetic accents, 'Do you not love me, Marionetta?'
+
+'No,' said Marionetta, with a look of cold composure: 'No.' Scythrop
+still looked up incredulously. 'No, I tell you.'
+
+'Oh! very well, madam,' said Scythrop, rising, 'if that is the case,
+there are those in the world--'
+
+'To be sure there are, sir;--and do you suppose I do not see through
+your designs, you ungenerous monster?'
+
+'My designs? Marionetta!'
+
+'Yes, your designs, Scythrop. You have come here to cast me off, and
+artfully contrive that it should appear to be my doing, and not yours,
+thinking to quiet your tender conscience with this pitiful stratagem.
+But do not suppose that you are of so much consequence to me: do not
+suppose it: you are of no consequence to me at all--none at all:
+therefore, leave me: I renounce you: leave me; why do you not leave
+me?'
+
+Scythrop endeavoured to remonstrate, but without success. She
+reiterated her injunctions to him to leave her, till, in the
+simplicity of his spirit, he was preparing to comply. When he had
+nearly reached the door, Marionetta said, 'Farewell.' Scythrop looked
+back. 'Farewell, Scythrop,' she repeated, 'you will never see me
+again.'
+
+'Never see you again, Marionetta?'
+
+'I shall go from hence to-morrow, perhaps to-day; and before we meet
+again, one of us will be married, and we might as well be dead, you
+know, Scythrop.'
+
+The sudden change of her voice in the last few words, and the burst
+of tears that accompanied them, acted like electricity on the
+tender-hearted youth; and, in another instant, a complete
+reconciliation was accomplished without the intervention of words.
+
+There are, indeed, some learned casuists, who maintain that love has
+no language, and that all the misunderstandings and dissensions of
+lovers arise from the fatal habit of employing words on a subject to
+which words are inapplicable; that love, beginning with looks, that
+is to say, with the physiognomical expression of congenial mental
+dispositions, tends through a regular gradation of signs and symbols
+of affection, to that consummation which is most devoutly to be
+wished; and that it neither is necessary that there should be, nor
+probable that there would be, a single word spoken from first to
+last between two sympathetic spirits, were it not that the arbitrary
+institutions of society have raised, at every step of this very simple
+process, so many complicated impediments and barriers in the shape
+of settlements and ceremonies, parents and guardians, lawyers,
+Jew-brokers, and parsons, that many an adventurous knight (who, in
+order to obtain the conquest of the Hesperian fruit, is obliged to
+fight his way through all these monsters), is either repulsed at the
+onset, or vanquished before the achievement of his enterprise: and
+such a quantity of unnatural talking is rendered inevitably necessary
+through all the stages of the progression, that the tender and
+volatile spirit of love often takes flight on the pinions of some of
+the [Greek: epea pteroenta], or _winged words_ which are pressed into
+his service in despite of himself.
+
+At this conjuncture, Mr Glowry entered, and sitting down near them,
+said, 'I see how it is; and, as we are all sure to be miserable do
+what we may, there is no need of taking pains to make one another more
+so; therefore, with God's blessing and mine, there'--joining their
+hands as he spoke.
+
+Scythrop was not exactly prepared for this decisive step; but he could
+only stammer out, 'Really, sir, you are too good;' and Mr Glowry
+departed to bring Mr Hilary to ratify the act.
+
+Now, whatever truth there may be in the theory of love and language,
+of which we have so recently spoken, certain it is, that during Mr
+Glowry's absence, which lasted half an hour, not a single word was
+said by either Scythrop or Marionetta.
+
+Mr Glowry returned with Mr Hilary, who was delighted at the prospect
+of so advantageous an establishment for his orphan niece, of whom he
+considered himself in some manner the guardian, and nothing remained,
+as Mr Glowry observed, but to fix the day.
+
+Marionetta blushed, and was silent. Scythrop was also silent for a
+time, and at length hesitatingly said, 'My deal sir, your goodness
+overpowers me; but really you are so precipitate.'
+
+Now, this remark, if the young lady had made it, would, whether she
+thought it or not--for sincerity is a thing of no account on these
+occasions, nor indeed on any other, according to Mr Flosky--this
+remark, if the young lady had made it, would have been perfectly
+_comme il faut_; but, being made by the young gentleman, it was _toute
+autre chose_, and was, indeed, in the eyes of his mistress, a most
+heinous and irremissible offence. Marionetta was angry, very angry,
+but she concealed her anger, and said, calmly and coldly, 'Certainly,
+you are much too precipitate, Mr Glowry. I assure you, sir, I have
+by no means made up my mind; and, indeed, as far as I know it, it
+inclines the other way; but it will be quite time enough to think of
+these matters seven years hence. Before surprise permitted reply, the
+young lady had locked herself up in her own apartment.
+
+'Why, Scythrop,' said Mr Glowry, elongating his face exceedingly, 'the
+devil is come among us sure enough, as Mr Toobad observes: I thought
+you and Marionetta were both of a mind.'
+
+'So we are, I believe, sir,' said Scythrop, gloomily, and stalked away
+to his tower.
+
+'Mr Glowry,' said Mr Hilary, 'I do not very well understand all this.'
+
+'Whims, brother Hilary,' said Mr Glowry; 'some little foolish love
+quarrel, nothing more. Whims, freaks, April showers. They will be
+blown over by to-morrow.'
+
+'If not,' said Mr Hilary, 'these April showers have made us April
+fools.'
+
+'Ah!' said Mr Glowry, 'you are a happy man, and in all your
+afflictions you can console yourself with a joke, let it be ever so
+bad, provided you crack it yourself. I should be very happy to laugh
+with you, if it would give you any satisfaction; but, really, at
+present, my heart is so sad, that I find it impossible to levy a
+contribution on my muscles.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+On the evening on which Mr Asterias had caught a glimpse of a female
+figure on the sea-shore, which he had translated into the visual sign
+of his interior cognition of a mermaid, Scythrop, retiring to his
+tower, found his study preoccupied. A stranger, muffled in a cloak,
+was sitting at his table. Scythrop paused in surprise. The stranger
+rose at his entrance, and looked at him intently a few minutes, in
+silence. The eyes of the stranger alone were visible. All the rest
+of the figure was muffled and mantled in the folds of a black cloak,
+which was raised, by the right hand, to the level of the eyes. This
+scrutiny being completed, the stranger, dropping the cloak, said, 'I
+see, by your physiognomy, that you may be trusted;' and revealed to
+the astonished Scythrop a female form and countenance of dazzling
+grace and beauty, with long flowing hair of raven blackness, and
+large black eyes of almost oppressive brilliancy, which strikingly
+contrasted with a complexion of snowy whiteness. Her dress was
+extremely elegant, but had an appearance of foreign fashion, as if
+both the lady and her mantua-maker were of 'a far countree.'
+
+  'I guess 'twas frightful there to see
+  A lady so richly clad as she,
+  Beautiful exceedingly.'
+
+For, if it be terrible to one young lady to find another under a tree
+at midnight, it must, _a fortiori_, be much more terrible to a young
+gentleman to find a young lady in his study at that hour. If the
+logical consecutiveness of this conclusion be not manifest to my
+readers, I am sorry for their dulness, and must refer them, for more
+ample elucidation, to a treatise which Mr Flosky intends to write, on
+the Categories of Relation, which comprehend Substance and Accident,
+Cause and Effect, Action and Re-action.
+
+Scythrop, therefore, either was or ought to have been frightened; at
+all events, he was astonished; and astonishment, though not in itself
+fear, is nevertheless a good stage towards it, and is, indeed, as it
+were, the half-way house between respect and terror, according to Mr
+Burke's graduated scale of the sublime.[7]
+
+'You are surprised,' said the lady; 'yet why should you be surprised?
+If you had met me in a drawing-room, and I had been introduced to
+you by an old woman, it would have been a matter of course: can the
+division of two or three walls, and the absence of an unimportant
+personage, make the same object essentially different in the
+perception of a philosopher?'
+
+'Certainly not,' said Scythrop; 'but when any class of objects
+has habitually presented itself to our perceptions in invariable
+conjunction with particular relations, then, on the sudden appearance
+of one object of the class divested of those accompaniments, the
+essential difference of the relation is, by an involuntary process,
+transferred to the object itself, which thus offers itself to our
+perceptions with all the strangeness of novelty.'
+
+'You are a philosopher,' said the lady, 'and a lover of liberty. You
+are the author of a treatise, called "Philosophical Gas; or, a Project
+for a General Illumination of the Human Mind."'
+
+'I am,' said Scythrop, delighted at this first blossom of his renown.
+
+'I am a stranger in this country,' said the lady; 'I have been but a
+few days in it, yet I find myself immediately under the necessity of
+seeking refuge from an atrocious persecution. I had no friend to whom
+I could apply; and, in the midst of my difficulties, accident threw
+your pamphlet in my way. I saw that I had, at least, one kindred mind
+in this nation, and determined to apply to you.'
+
+'And what would you have me do?' said Scythrop, more and more amazed,
+and not a little perplexed.
+
+'I would have you,' said the young lady, 'assist me in finding some
+place of retreat, where I can remain concealed from the indefatigable
+search that is being made for me. I have been so nearly caught once or
+twice already, that I cannot confide any longer in my own ingenuity.'
+
+Doubtless, thought Scythrop, this is one of my golden candle-sticks.
+'I have constructed,' said he, 'in this tower, an entrance to a small
+suite of unknown apartments in the main building, which I defy any
+creature living to detect. If you would like to remain there a day or
+two, till I can find you a more suitable concealment, you may rely on
+the honour of a transcendental eleutherarch.'
+
+'I rely on myself,' said the lady. 'I act as I please, go where I
+please, and let the world say what it will. I am rich enough to set
+it at defiance. It is the tyrant of the poor and the feeble, but the
+slave of those who are above the reach of its injury.'
+
+Scythrop ventured to inquire the name of his fair _protegee_. 'What
+is a name?' said the lady: 'any name will serve the purpose of
+distinction. Call me Stella. I see by your looks,' she added, 'that
+you think all this very strange. When you know me better, your
+surprise will cease. I submit not to be an accomplice in my sex's
+slavery. I am, like yourself, a lover of freedom, and I carry my
+theory into practice. _They alone are subject to blind authority who
+have no reliance on their own strength_.'
+
+Stella took possession of the recondite apartments. Scythrop intended
+to find her another asylum; but from day to day he postponed his
+intention, and by degrees forgot it. The young lady reminded him of
+it from day to day, till she also forgot it. Scythrop was anxious to
+learn her history; but she would add nothing to what she had already
+communicated, that she was shunning an atrocious persecution. Scythrop
+thought of Lord C. and the Alien Act, and said, 'As you will not
+tell your name, I suppose it is in the green bag.' Stella, not
+understanding what he meant, was silent; and Scythrop, translating
+silence into acquiescence, concluded that he was sheltering an
+_illuminee_ whom Lord S. suspected of an intention to take the
+Tower, and set fire to the Bank: exploits, at least, as likely to be
+accomplished by the hands and eyes of a young beauty, as by a drunken
+cobbler and doctor, armed with a pamphlet and an old stocking.
+
+Stella, in her conversations with Scythrop, displayed a highly
+cultivated and energetic mind, full of impassioned schemes of liberty,
+and impatience of masculine usurpation. She had a lively sense of all
+the oppressions that are done under the sun; and the vivid pictures
+which her imagination presented to her of the numberless scenes of
+injustice and misery which are being acted at every moment in every
+part of the inhabited world, gave an habitual seriousness to her
+physiognomy, that made it seem as if a smile had never once hovered on
+her lips. She was intimately conversant with the German language and
+literature; and Scythrop listened with delight to her repetitions of
+her favourite passages from Schiller and Goethe, and to her encomiums
+on the sublime Spartacus Weishaupt, the immortal founder of the sect
+of the Illuminati. Scythrop found that his soul had a greater capacity
+of love than the image of Marionetta had filled. The form of Stella
+took possession of every vacant corner of the cavity, and by degrees
+displaced that of Marionetta from many of the outworks of the citadel;
+though the latter still held possession of the _keep_. He judged, from
+his new friend calling herself Stella, that, if it were not her real
+name, she was an admirer of the principles of the German play from
+which she had taken it, and took an opportunity of leading the
+conversation to that subject; but to his great surprise, the lady
+spoke very ardently of the singleness and exclusiveness of love, and
+declared that the reign of affection was one and indivisible; that it
+might be transferred, but could not be participated. 'If I ever love,'
+said she, 'I shall do so without limit or restriction. I shall hold
+all difficulties light, all sacrifices cheap, all obstacles gossamer.
+But for love so total, I shall claim a return as absolute. I will have
+no rival: whether more or less favoured will be of little moment. I
+will be neither first nor second--I will be alone. The heart which I
+shall possess I will possess entirely, or entirely renounce.'
+
+Scythrop did not dare to mention the name of Marionetta; he trembled
+lest some unlucky accident should reveal it to Stella, though he
+scarcely knew what result to wish or anticipate, and lived in the
+double fever of a perpetual dilemma. He could not dissemble to himself
+that he was in love, at the same time, with two damsels of minds and
+habits as remote as the antipodes. The scale of predilection always
+inclined to the fair one who happened to be present; but the absent
+was never effectually outweighed, though the degrees of exaltation and
+depression varied according to accidental variations in the outward
+and visible signs of the inward and spiritual graces of his respective
+charmers. Passing and repassing several times a day from the company
+of the one to that of the other, he was like a shuttlecock between two
+battledores, changing its direction as rapidly as the oscillations of
+a pendulum, receiving many a hard knock on the cork of a sensitive
+heart, and flying from point to point on the feathers of a
+super-sublimated head. This was an awful state of things. He had
+now as much mystery about him as any romantic transcendentalist or
+transcendental romancer could desire. He had his esoterical and his
+exoterical love. He could not endure the thought of losing either of
+them, but he trembled when he imagined the possibility that some fatal
+discovery might deprive him of both. The old proverb concerning two
+strings to a bow gave him some gleams of comfort; but that concerning
+two stools occurred to him more frequently, and covered his forehead
+with a cold perspiration. With Stella, he could indulge freely in all
+his romantic and philosophical visions. He could build castles in the
+air, and she would pile towers and turrets on the imaginary edifices.
+With Marionetta it was otherwise: she knew nothing of the world and
+society beyond the sphere of her own experience. Her life was all
+music and sunshine, and she wondered what any one could see to
+complain of in such a pleasant state of things. She loved Scythrop,
+she hardly knew why; indeed she was not always sure that she loved him
+at all: she felt her fondness increase or diminish in an inverse ratio
+to his. When she had manoeuvred him into a fever of passionate love,
+she often felt and always assumed indifference: if she found that her
+coldness was contagious, and that Scythrop either was, or pretended to
+be, as indifferent as herself, she would become doubly kind, and raise
+him again to that elevation from which she had previously thrown him
+down. Thus, when his love was flowing, hers was ebbing: when his was
+ebbing, hers was flowing. Now and then there were moments of level
+tide, when reciprocal affection seemed to promise imperturbable
+harmony; but Scythrop could scarcely resign his spirit to the pleasing
+illusion, before the pinnace of the lover's affections was caught in
+some eddy of the lady's caprice, and he was whirled away from the
+shore of his hopes, without rudder or compass, into an ocean of mists
+and storms. It resulted, from this system of conduct, that all that
+passed between Scythrop and Marionetta, consisted in making and
+unmaking love. He had no opportunity to take measure of her
+understanding by conversations on general subjects, and on his
+favourite designs; and, being left in this respect to the exercise of
+indefinite conjecture, he took it for granted, as most lovers would do
+in similar circumstances, that she had great natural talents, which
+she wasted at present on trifles: but coquetry would end with
+marriage, and leave room for philosophy to exert its influence on her
+mind. Stella had no coquetry, no disguise: she was an enthusiast in
+subjects of general interest; and her conduct to Scythrop was always
+uniform, or rather showed a regular progression of partiality which
+seemed fast ripening into love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Scythrop, attending one day the summons to dinner, found in the
+drawing-room his friend Mr Cypress the poet, whom he had known at
+college, and who was a great favourite of Mr Glowry. Mr Cypress said,
+he was on the point of leaving England, but could not think of doing
+so without a farewell-look at Nightmare Abbey and his respected
+friends, the moody Mr Glowry and the mysterious Mr Scythrop, the
+sublime Mr Flosky and the pathetic Mr Listless; to all of whom, and
+the morbid hospitality of the melancholy dwelling in which they were
+then assembled, he assured them he should always look back with as
+much affection as his lacerated spirit could feel for any thing. The
+sympathetic condolence of their respective replies was cut short by
+Raven's announcement of 'dinner on table.'
+
+The conversation that took place when the wine was in circulation, and
+the ladies were withdrawn, we shall report with our usual scrupulous
+fidelity.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+You are leaving England, Mr Cypress. There is a delightful melancholy
+in saying farewell to an old acquaintance, when the chances are twenty
+to one against ever meeting again. A smiling bumper to a sad parting,
+and let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS (_filling a bumper_)
+
+This is the only social habit that the disappointed spirit never
+unlearns.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX (_filling_)
+
+It is the only piece of academical learning that the finished educatee
+retains.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_filling_)
+
+It is the only objective fact which the sceptic can realise.
+
+
+SCYTHROP (_filling_)
+
+It is the only styptic for a bleeding heart.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS (_filling_)
+
+It is the only trouble that is very well worth taking.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS (_filling_)
+
+It is the only key of conversational truth.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD (_filling_)
+
+It is the only antidote to the great wrath of the devil.
+
+
+MR HILARY (_filling_)
+
+It is the only symbol of perfect life. The inscription 'HIC NON
+BIBITUR' will suit nothing but a tombstone.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+You will see many fine old ruins, Mr Cypress; crumbling pillars, and
+mossy walls--many a one-legged Venus and headless Minerva--many a
+Neptune buried in sand--many a Jupiter turned topsy-turvy--many a
+perforated Bacchus doing duty as a water-pipe--many reminiscences of
+the ancient world, which I hope was better worth living in than the
+modern; though, for myself, I care not a straw more for one than the
+other, and would not go twenty miles to see any thing that either
+could show.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+It is something to seek, Mr Glowry. The mind is restless, and must
+persist in seeking, though to find is to be disappointed. Do you feel
+no aspirations towards the countries of Socrates and Cicero? No wish
+to wander among the venerable remains of the greatness that has passed
+for ever?
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Not a grain.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+It is, indeed, much the same as if a lover should dig up the buried
+form of his mistress, and gaze upon relics which are any thing but
+herself, to wander among a few mouldy ruins, that are only imperfect
+indexes to lost volumes of glory, and meet at every step the more
+melancholy ruins of human nature--a degenerate race of stupid and
+shrivelled slaves, grovelling in the lowest depths of servility and
+superstition.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+It is the fashion to go abroad. I have thought of it myself, but am
+hardly equal to the exertion. To be sure, a little eccentricity and
+originality are allowable in some cases; and the most eccentric and
+original of all characters is an Englishman who stays at home.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+I should have no pleasure in visiting countries that are past all hope
+of regeneration. There is great hope of our own; and it seems to me
+that an Englishman, who, either by his station in society, or by his
+genius, or (as in your instance, Mr Cypress,) by both, has the power
+of essentially serving his country in its arduous struggle with its
+domestic enemies, yet forsakes his country, which is still so rich
+in hope, to dwell in others which are only fertile in the ruins of
+memory, does what none of those ancients, whose fragmentary memorials
+you venerate, would have done in similar circumstances.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+Sir, I have quarrelled with my wife; and a man who has quarrelled with
+his wife is absolved from all duty to his country. I have written an
+ode to tell the people as much, and they may take it as they list.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+Do you suppose, if Brutus had quarrelled with his wife, he would have
+given it as a reason to Cassius for having nothing to do with his
+enterprise? Or would Cassius have been satisfied with such an excuse?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Brutus was a senator; so is our dear friend: but the cases are
+different. Brutus had some hope of political good: Mr Cypress has
+none. How should he, after what we have seen in France?
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+A Frenchman is born in harness, ready saddled, bitted, and bridled,
+for any tyrant to ride. He will fawn under his rider one moment, and
+throw him and kick him to death the next; but another adventurer
+springs on his back, and by dint of whip and spur on he goes as
+before. We may, without much vanity, hope better of ourselves.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+I have no hope for myself or for others. Our life is a false nature;
+it is not in the harmony of things; it is an all-blasting upas,
+whose root is earth, and whose leaves are the skies which rain their
+poison-dews upon mankind. We wither from our youth; we gasp with
+unslaked thirst for unattainable good; lured from the first to the
+last by phantoms--love, fame, ambition, avarice--all idle, and all
+ill--one meteor of many names, that vanishes in the smoke of death.[8]
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+A most delightful speech, Mr Cypress. A most amiable and instructive
+philosophy. You have only to impress its truth on the minds of
+all living men, and life will then, indeed, be the desert and the
+solitude; and I must do you, myself, and our mutual friends, the
+justice to observe, that let society only give fair play at one and
+the same time, as I flatter myself it is inclined to do, to your
+system of morals, and my system of metaphysics, and Scythrop's system
+of politics, and Mr Listless's system of manners, and Mr Toobad's
+system of religion, and the result will be as fine a mental chaos as
+even the immortal Kant himself could ever have hoped to see; in the
+prospect of which I rejoice.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+'Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at:' I am one
+of those who cannot see the good that is to result from all this
+mystifying and blue-devilling of society. The contrast it presents
+to the cheerful and solid wisdom of antiquity is too forcible not to
+strike any one who has the least knowledge of classical literature. To
+represent vice and misery as the necessary accompaniments of genius,
+is as mischievous as it is false, and the feeling is as unclassical as
+the language in which it is usually expressed.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+It is our calamity. The devil has come among us, and has begun by
+taking possession of all the cleverest fellows. Yet, forsooth, this is
+the enlightened age. Marry, how? Did our ancestors go peeping about
+with dark lanterns, and do we walk at our ease in broad sunshine?
+Where is the manifestation of our light? By what symptoms do you
+recognise it? What are its signs, its tokens, its symptoms, its
+symbols, its categories, its conditions? What is it, and why? How,
+where, when is it to be seen, felt, and understood? What do we see by
+it which our ancestors saw not, and which at the same time is worth
+seeing? We see a hundred men hanged, where they saw one. We see five
+hundred transported, where they saw one. We see five thousand in the
+workhouse, where they saw one. We see scores of Bible Societies, where
+they saw none. We see paper, where they saw gold. We see men in stays,
+where they saw men in armour. We see painted faces, where they saw
+healthy ones. We see children perishing in manufactories, where they
+saw them flourishing in the fields. We see prisons, where they saw
+castles. We see masters, where they saw representatives. In short,
+they saw true men, where we see false knaves. They saw Milton, and we
+see Mr Sackbut.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The false knave, sir, is my honest friend; therefore, I beseech you,
+let him be countenanced. God forbid but a knave should have some
+countenance at his friend's request.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+'Good men and true' was their common term, like the chalos chagathos
+of the Athenians. It is so long since men have been either good or
+true, that it is to be questioned which is most obsolete, the fact or
+the phraseology.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+There is no worth nor beauty but in the mind's idea. Love sows the
+wind and reaps the whirlwind.[9] Confusion, thrice confounded, is the
+portion of him who rests even for an instant on that most brittle of
+reeds--the affection of a human being. The sum of our social destiny
+is to inflict or to endure.[10]
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Rather to bear and forbear, Mr Cypress--a maxim which you perhaps
+despise. Ideal beauty is not the mind's creation: it is real beauty,
+refined and purified in the mind's alembic, from the alloy which
+always more or less accompanies it in our mixed and imperfect nature.
+But still the gold exists in a very ample degree. To expect too
+much is a disease in the expectant, for which human nature is not
+responsible; and, in the common name of humanity, I protest against
+these false and mischievous ravings. To rail against humanity for not
+being abstract perfection, and against human love for not realising
+all the splendid visions of the poets of chivalry, is to rail at the
+summer for not being all sunshine, and at the rose for not being
+always in bloom.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+Human love! Love is not an inhabitant of the earth. We worship him as
+the Athenians did their unknown God: but broken hearts are the martyrs
+of his faith, and the eye shall never see the form which phantasy
+paints, and which passion pursues through paths of delusive beauty,
+among flowers whose odours are agonies, and trees whose gums are
+poison.[11]
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+You talk like a Rosicrucian, who will love nothing but a sylph, who
+does not believe in the existence of a sylph, and who yet quarrels
+with the whole universe for not containing a sylph.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+The mind is diseased of its own beauty, and fevers into false
+creation. The forms which the sculptor's soul has seized exist only in
+himself.[12]
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Permit me to discept. They are the mediums of common forms combined
+and arranged into a common standard. The ideal beauty of the Helen of
+Zeuxis was the combined medium of the real beauty of the virgins of
+Crotona.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+But to make ideal beauty the shadow in the water, and, like the dog in
+the fable, to throw away the substance in catching at the shadow, is
+scarcely the characteristic of wisdom, whatever it may be of genius.
+To reconcile man as he is to the world as it is, to preserve and
+improve all that is good, and destroy or alleviate all that is evil,
+in physical and moral nature--have been the hope and aim of the
+greatest teachers and ornaments of our species. I will say, too,
+that the highest wisdom and the highest genius have been invariably
+accompanied with cheerfulness. We have sufficient proofs on record
+that Shakspeare and Socrates were the most festive of companions. But
+now the little wisdom and genius we have seem to be entering into a
+conspiracy against cheerfulness.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+How can we be cheerful with the devil among us!
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+How can we be cheerful when our nerves are shattered?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+How can we be cheerful when we are surrounded by a _reading public_,
+that is growing too wise for its betters?
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+How can we be cheerful when our great general designs are crossed
+every moment by our little particular passions?
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+How can we be cheerful in the midst of disappointment and despair?
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Let us sing a catch.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+No: a nice tragical ballad. The Norfolk Tragedy to the tune of the
+Hundredth Psalm.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+I say a catch.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+I say no. A song from Mr Cypress.
+
+
+ALL
+
+A song from Mr Cypress.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS _sung_--
+
+  There is a fever of the spirit,
+  The brand of Cain's unresting doom,
+  Which in the lone dark souls that bear it
+  Glows like the lamp in Tullia's tomb:
+  Unlike that lamp, its subtle fire
+  Burns, blasts, consumes its cell, the heart,
+  Till, one by one, hope, joy, desire,
+  Like dreams of shadowy smoke depart.
+
+  When hope, love, life itself, are only
+  Dust--spectral memories--dead and cold--
+  The unfed fire burns bright and lonely,
+  Like that undying lamp of old:
+  And by that drear illumination,
+  Till time its clay-built home has rent,
+  Thought broods on feeling's desolation--
+  The soul is its own monument.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Admirable. Let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Now, I say again, a catch.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+I am for you.
+
+
+ME HILARY
+
+'Seamen three.'
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Agreed. I'll be Harry Gill, with the voice of three. Begin
+
+
+MR HILARY AND THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+  Seamen three! I What men be ye?
+  Gotham's three wise men we be.
+  Whither in your bowl so free?
+  To rake the moon from out the sea.
+  The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
+  And our ballast is old wine;
+  And your ballast is old wine.
+
+  Who art thou, so fast adrift?
+  I am he they call Old Care.
+  Here on board we will thee lift.
+  No: I may not enter there.
+  Wherefore so? 'Tis Jove's decree,
+  In a bowl Care may not be;
+  In a bowl Care may not be.
+
+  Pear ye not the waves that roll?
+  No: in charmed bowl we swim.
+  What the charm that floats the bowl?
+  Water may not pass the brim.
+  The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
+  And our ballast is old wine;
+  And your ballast is old wine.
+
+
+This catch was so well executed by the spirit and science of Mr
+Hilary, and the deep tri-une voice of the reverend gentleman, that the
+whole party, in spite of themselves, caught the contagion, and joined
+in chorus at the conclusion, each raising a bumper to his lips:
+
+  The bowl goes trim: the moon doth shine:
+  And our ballast is old wine.
+
+Mr Cypress, having his ballast on board, stepped, the same evening,
+into his bowl, or travelling chariot, and departed to rake seas and
+rivers, lakes and canals, for the moon of ideal beauty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+It was the custom of the Honourable Mr Listless, on adjourning from
+the bottle to the ladies, to retire for a few moments to make a second
+toilette, that he might present himself in becoming taste. Fatout,
+attending as usual, appeared with a countenance of great dismay, and
+informed his master that he had just ascertained that the abbey was
+haunted. Mrs Hilary's _gentlewoman_, for whom Fatout had lately
+conceived a _tendresse_, had been, as she expressed it, 'fritted out
+of her seventeen senses' the preceding night, as she was retiring to
+her bedchamber, by a ghastly figure which she had met stalking along
+one of the galleries, wrapped in a white shroud, with a bloody turban
+on its head. She had fainted away with fear; and, when she
+recovered, she found herself in the dark, and the figure was gone.
+'_Sacre--cochon--bleu_!' exclaimed Fatout, giving very deliberate
+emphasis to every portion of his terrible oath--'I vould not meet de
+_revenant_, de ghost--_non_--not for all de _bowl-de-ponch_ in de
+vorld.'
+
+'Fatout,' said the Honourable Mr Listless, 'did I ever see a ghost?'
+
+'_Jamais_, monsieur, never.'
+
+'Then I hope I never shall, for, in the present shattered state of my
+nerves, I am afraid it would be too much for me. There--loosen the
+lace of my stays a little, for really this plebeian practice of
+eating--Not too loose--consider my shape. That will do. And I desire
+that you bring me no more stories of ghosts; for, though I do not
+believe in such things, yet, when one is awake in the night, one is
+apt, if one thinks of them, to have fancies that give one a kind of a
+chill, particularly if one opens one's eyes suddenly on one's dressing
+gown, hanging in the moonlight, between the bed and the window.'
+
+The Honourable Mr Listless, though he had prohibited Fatout from
+bringing him any more stories of ghosts, could not help thinking of
+that which Fatout had already brought; and, as it was uppermost in his
+mind, when he descended to the tea and coffee cups, and the rest of
+the company in the library, he almost involuntarily asked Mr Flosky,
+whom he looked up to as a most oraculous personage, whether any story
+of any ghost that had ever appeared to any one, was entitled to any
+degree of belief?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+By far the greater number, to a very great degree.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Really, that is very alarming!
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+_Sunt geminoe somni portoe_. There are two gates through which ghosts
+find their way to the upper air: fraud and self-delusion. In the
+latter case, a ghost is a _deceptio visus_, an ocular spectrum, an
+idea with the force of a sensation. I have seen many ghosts myself. I
+dare say there are few in this company who have not seen a ghost.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I am happy to say, I never have, for one.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+We have such high authority for ghosts, that it is rank scepticism to
+disbelieve them. Job saw a ghost, which came for the express purpose
+of asking a question, and did not wait for an answer.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Because Job was too frightened to give one.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Spectres appeared to the Egyptians during the darkness with which
+Moses covered Egypt. The witch of Endor raised the ghost of Samuel.
+Moses and Elias appeared on Mount Tabor. An evil spirit was sent into
+the army of Sennacherib, and exterminated it in a single night.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+Saying, The devil is come among you, having great wrath.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Saint Macarius interrogated a skull, which was found in the desert,
+and made it relate, in presence of several witnesses, what was going
+forward in hell. Saint Martin of Tours, being jealous of a pretended
+martyr, who was the rival saint of his neighbourhood, called up his
+ghost, and made him confess that he was damned. Saint Germain, being
+on his travels, turned out of an inn a large party of ghosts, who had
+every night taken possession of the _table d'hote_, and consumed a
+copious supper.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Jolly ghosts, and no doubt all friars. A similar party took possession
+of the cellar of M. Swebach, the painter, in Paris, drank his wine,
+and threw the empty bottles at his head.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+An atrocious act.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Pausanias relates, that the neighing of horses and the tumult of
+combatants were heard every night on the field of Marathon: that those
+who went purposely to hear these sounds suffered severely for their
+curiosity; but those who heard them by accident passed with impunity.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+I once saw a ghost myself, in my study, which is the last place where
+any one but a ghost would look for me. I had not been into it for
+three months, and was going to consult Tillotson, when, on opening the
+door, I saw a venerable figure in a flannel dressing gown, sitting in
+my arm-chair, and reading my Jeremy Taylor. It vanished in a moment,
+and so did I; and what it was or what it wanted I have never been able
+to ascertain.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It was an idea with the force of a sensation. It is seldom that ghosts
+appeal to two senses at once; but, when I was in Devonshire, the
+following story was well attested to me. A young woman, whose lover
+was at sea, returning one evening over some solitary fields, saw
+her lover sitting on a stile over which she was to pass. Her first
+emotions were surprise and joy, but there was a paleness and
+seriousness in his face that made them give place to alarm. She
+advanced towards him, and he said to her, in a solemn voice, 'The eye
+that hath seen me shall see me no more. Thine eye is upon me, but I am
+not.' And with these words he vanished; and on that very day and hour,
+as it afterwards appeared, he had perished by shipwreck.
+
+The whole party now drew round in a circle, and each related some
+ghostly anecdote, heedless of the flight of time, till, in a pause of
+the conversation, they heard the hollow tongue of midnight sounding
+twelve.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+All these anecdotes admit of solution on psychological principles.
+It is more easy for a soldier, a philosopher, or even a saint, to be
+frightened at his own shadow, than for a dead man to come out of his
+grave. Medical writers cite a thousand singular examples of the force
+of imagination. Persons of feeble, nervous, melancholy temperament,
+exhausted by fever, by labour, or by spare diet, will readily conjure
+up, in the magic ring of their own phantasy, spectres, gorgons,
+chimaeras, and all the objects of their hatred and their love. We
+are most of us like Don Quixote, to whom a windmill was a giant, and
+Dulcinea a magnificent princess: all more or less the dupes of our own
+imagination, though we do not all go so far as to see ghosts, or to
+fancy ourselves pipkins and teapots.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I can safely say I have seen too many ghosts myself to believe in
+their external existence. I have seen all kinds of ghosts: black
+spirits and white, red spirits and grey. Some in the shapes of
+venerable old men, who have met me in my rambles at noon; some
+of beautiful young women, who have peeped through my curtains at
+midnight.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And have proved, I doubt not, 'palpable to feeling as to sight.'
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+By no means, sir. You reflect upon my purity. Myself and my friends,
+particularly my friend Mr Sackbut, are famous for our purity. No, sir,
+genuine untangible ghosts. I live in a world of ghosts. I see a ghost
+at this moment.
+
+
+Mr Flosky fixed his eyes on a door at the farther end of the library.
+The company looked in the same direction. The door silently opened,
+and a ghastly figure, shrouded in white drapery, with the semblance
+of a bloody turban on its head, entered and stalked slowly up the
+apartment. Mr Flosky, familiar as he was with ghosts, was not prepared
+for this apparition, and made the best of his way out at the opposite
+door. Mrs Hilary and Marionetta followed, screaming. The Honourable Mr
+Listless, by two turns of his body, rolled first off the sofa and
+then under it. The Reverend Mr Larynx leaped up and fled with so much
+precipitation, that he overturned the table on the foot of Mr Glowry.
+Mr Glowry roared with pain hi the ear of Mr Toobad. Mr Toobad's alarm
+so bewildered his senses, that, missing the door, he threw up one of
+the windows, jumped out in his panic, and plunged over head and ears
+in the moat. Mr Asterias and his son, who were on the watch for their
+mermaid, were attracted by the splashing, threw a net over him, and
+dragged him to land.
+
+Scythrop and Mr Hilary meanwhile had hastened to his assistance, and,
+on arriving at the edge of the moat, followed by several servants with
+ropes and torches, found Mr Asterias and Aquarius busy in endeavouring
+to extricate Mr Toobad from the net, who was entangled in the meshes,
+and floundering with rage. Scythrop was lost in amazement; but Mr
+Hilary saw, at one view, all the circumstances of the adventure, and
+burst into an immoderate fit of laughter; on recovering from which, he
+said to Mr Asterias, 'You have caught an odd fish, indeed.' Mr Toobad
+was highly exasperated at this unseasonable pleasantry; but Mr Hilary
+softened his anger, by producing a knife, and cutting the Gordian knot
+of his reticular envelopment. 'You see,' said Mr Toobad, 'you see,
+gentlemen, in my unfortunate person proof upon proof of the present
+dominion of the devil in the affairs of this world; and I have no
+doubt but that the apparition of this night was Apollyon himself in
+disguise, sent for the express purpose of terrifying me into this
+complication of misadventures. The devil is come among you, having
+great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Mr Glowry was much surprised, on occasionally visiting Scythrop's
+tower, to find the door always locked, and to be kept sometimes
+waiting many minutes for admission: during which he invariably heard a
+heavy rolling sound like that of a ponderous mangle, or of a waggon on
+a weighing-bridge, or of theatrical thunder.
+
+He took little notice of this for some time; at length his curiosity
+was excited, and, one day, instead of knocking at the door, as usual,
+the instant he reached it, he applied his ear to the key-hole, and
+like Bottom, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, 'spied a voice,' which he
+guessed to be of the feminine gender, and knew to be not Scythrop's,
+whose deeper tones he distinguished at intervals. Having attempted in
+vain to catch a syllable of the discourse, he knocked violently at
+the door, and roared for immediate admission. The voices ceased, the
+accustomed rolling sound was heard, the door opened, and Scythrop
+was discovered alone. Mr Glowry looked round to every corner of the
+apartment, and then said, 'Where is the lady?'
+
+'The lady, sir?' said Scythrop.
+
+'Yes, sir, the lady.'
+
+'Sir, I do not understand you.'
+
+'You don't, sir?'
+
+'No, indeed, sir. There is no lady here.'
+
+'But, sir, this is not the only apartment in the tower, and I make no
+doubt there is a lady up stairs.'
+
+'You are welcome to search, sir.'
+
+'Yes, and while I am searching, she will slip out from some lurking
+place, and make her escape.'
+
+'You may lock this door, sir, and take the key with you.'
+
+'But there is the terrace door: she has escaped by the terrace.'
+
+'The terrace, sir, has no other outlet, and the walls are too high for
+a lady to jump down.'
+
+'Well, sir, give me the key.'
+
+Mr Glowry took the key, searched every nook of the tower, and
+returned.
+
+'You are a fox, Scythrop; you are an exceedingly cunning fox, with
+that demure visage of yours. What was that lumbering sound I heard
+before you opened the door?'
+
+'Sound, sir?'
+
+'Yes, sir, sound.'
+
+'My dear sir, I am not aware of any sound, except my great table,
+which I moved on rising to let you in.'
+
+'The table!--let me see that. No, sir; not a tenth part heavy enough,
+not a tenth part.'
+
+'But, sir, you do not consider the laws of acoustics: a whisper
+becomes a peal of thunder in the focus of reverberation. Allow me to
+explain this: sounds striking on concave surfaces are reflected from
+them, and, after reflection, converge to points which are the foci of
+these surfaces. It follows, therefore, that the ear may be so placed
+in one, as that it shall hear a sound better than when situated nearer
+to the point of the first impulse: again, in the case of two concave
+surfaces placed opposite to each other--'
+
+'Nonsense, sir. Don't tell me of foci. Pray, sir, will concave
+surfaces produce two voices when nobody speaks? I heard two voices,
+and one was feminine; feminine, sir: what say you to that?'
+
+'Oh, sir, I perceive your mistake: I am writing a tragedy, and was
+acting over a scene to myself. To convince you, I will give you a
+specimen; but you must first understand the plot. It is a tragedy on
+the German model. The Great Mogul is in exile, and has taken lodgings
+at Kensington, with his only daughter, the Princess Rantrorina,
+who takes in needlework, and keeps a day school. _The princess is
+discovered hemming a set of shirts for the parson of the parish: they
+are to be marked with a large R. Enter to her the Great Mogul. A
+pause, during which they look at each other expressively. The
+princess changes colour several times. The Mogul takes snuff in great
+agitation. Several grains are heard to fall on the stage. His heart is
+seen to beat through his upper benjamin._--THE MOGUL _(with a mournful
+look at his left shoe_). 'My shoe-string is broken.'--THE PRINCESS
+(_after an interval of melancholy reflection_). 'I know it.' THE
+MOGUL. 'My second shoe-string! The first broke when I lost my empire:
+the second has broken to-day. When will my poor heart break?'--THE
+PRINCESS. 'Shoe-strings, hearts, and empires! Mysterious sympathy!'
+
+'Nonsense, sir,' interrupted Mr Glowry. 'That is not at all like the
+voice I heard.'
+
+'But, sir,' said Scythrop, 'a key-hole may be so constructed as to act
+like an acoustic tube, and an acoustic tube, sir, will modify sound in
+a very remarkable manner. Consider the construction of the ear, and
+the nature and causes of sound. The external part of the ear is a
+cartilaginous funnel.'
+
+'It wo'n't do, Scythrop. There is a girl concealed in this tower, and
+find her I will. There are such things as sliding panels and secret
+closets.'--He sounded round the room with his cane, but detected
+no hollowness.--'I have heard, sir,' he continued, 'that during my
+absence, two years ago, you had a dumb carpenter closeted with you
+day after day. I did not dream that you were laying contrivances for
+carrying on secret intrigues. Young men will have their way: I had my
+way when I was a young man: but, sir, when your cousin Marionetta--'
+
+Scythrop now saw that the affair was growing serious. To have clapped
+his hand upon his father's mouth, to have entreated him to be silent,
+would, in the first place, not have made him so; and, in the second,
+would have shown a dread of being overheard by somebody. His only
+resource, therefore, was to try to drown Mr Glowry's voice; and,
+having no other subject, he continued his description of the ear,
+raising his voice continually as Mr Glowry raised his.
+
+'When your cousin Marionetta,' said Mr Glowry, 'whom you profess to
+love--whom you profess to love, sir--'
+
+'The internal canal of the ear,' said Scythrop, 'is partly bony and
+partly cartilaginous. This internal canal is--'
+
+'Is actually in the house, sir; and, when you are so shortly to be--as
+I expect--'
+
+'Closed at the further end by the _membrana tympani_--'
+
+'Joined together in holy matrimony--'
+
+'Under which is carried a branch of the fifth pair of nerves--'
+
+'I say, sir, when you are so shortly to be married to your cousin
+Marionetta--'
+
+'The _cavitas tympani_--'
+
+A loud noise was heard behind the book-case, which, to the
+astonishment of Mr Glowry, opened in the middle, and the massy
+compartments, with all their weight of books, receding from each other
+in the manner of a theatrical scene, with a heavy rolling sound (which
+Mr Glowry immediately recognised to be the same which had excited his
+curiosity,) disclosed an interior apartment, in the entrance of
+which stood the beautiful Stella, who, stepping forward, exclaimed,
+'Married! Is he going to be married? The profligate!'
+
+'Really, madam,' said Mr Glowry, 'I do not know what he is going to
+do, or what I am going to do, or what any one is going to do; for all
+this is incomprehensible.'
+
+'I can explain it all,' said Scythrop, 'in a most satisfactory manner,
+if you will but have the goodness to leave us alone.'
+
+'Pray, sir, to which act of the tragedy of the Great Mogul does this
+incident belong?'
+
+'I entreat you, my dear sir, leave us alone.'
+
+Stella threw herself into a chair, and burst into a tempest of tears.
+Scythrop sat down by her, and took her hand. She snatched her hand
+away, and turned her back upon him. He rose, sat down on the other
+side, and took her other hand. She snatched it away, and turned from
+him again. Scythrop continued entreating Mr Glowry to leave them
+alone; but the old gentleman was obstinate, and would not go.
+
+'I suppose, after all,' said Mr Glowry maliciously, 'it is only a
+phaenomenon in acoustics, and this young lady is a reflection of sound
+from concave surfaces.'
+
+Some one tapped at the door: Mr Glowry opened it, and Mr Hilary
+entered. He had been seeking Mr Glowry, and had traced him to
+Scythrop's tower. He stood a few moments in silent surprise, and then
+addressed himself to Mr Glowry for an explanation.
+
+'The explanation,' said Mr Glowry, 'is very satisfactory. The Great
+Mogul has taken lodgings at Kensington, and the external part of the
+ear is a cartilaginous funnel.'
+
+'Mr Glowry, that is no explanation.'
+
+'Mr Hilary, it is all I know about the matter.'
+
+'Sir, this pleasantry is very unseasonable. I perceive that my niece
+is sported with in a most unjustifiable manner, and I shall see if she
+will be more successful in obtaining an intelligible answer.' And he
+departed in search of Marionetta.
+
+Scythrop was now in a hopeless predicament. Mr Hilary made a hue and
+cry in the abbey, and summoned his wife and Marionetta to Scythrop's
+apartment. The ladies, not knowing what was the matter, hastened in
+great consternation. Mr Toobad saw them sweeping along the corridor,
+and judging from their manner that the devil had manifested his wrath
+in some new shape, followed from pure curiosity.
+
+Scythrop meanwhile vainly endeavoured to get rid of Mr Glowry and
+to pacify Stella. The latter attempted to escape from the tower,
+declaring she would leave the abbey immediately, and he should never
+see her or hear of her more. Scythrop held her hand and detained her
+by force, till Mr Hilary reappeared with Mrs Hilary and Marionetta.
+Marionetta, seeing Scythrop grasping the hand of a strange beauty,
+fainted away in the arms of her aunt. Scythrop flew to her assistance;
+and Stella with redoubled anger sprang towards the door, but was
+intercepted in her intended flight by being caught in the arms of Mr
+Toobad, who exclaimed--'Celinda!'
+
+'Papa!' said the young lady disconsolately.
+
+'The devil is come among you,' said Mr Toobad, 'how came my daughter
+here?'
+
+'Your daughter!' exclaimed Mr Glowry.
+
+'Your daughter!' exclaimed Scythrop, and Mr and Mrs Hilary.
+
+'Yes,' said Mr Toobad, 'my daughter Celinda.'
+
+Marionetta opened her eyes and fixed them on Celinda; Celinda in
+return fixed hers on Marionetta. They were at remote points of the
+apartment. Scythrop was equidistant from both of them, central and
+motionless, like Mahomet's coffin.
+
+'Mr Glowry,' said Mr Toobad, 'can you tell by what means my daughter
+came here?'
+
+'I know no more,' said Mr Glowry, 'than the Great Mogul.'
+
+'Mr Scythrop,' said Mr Toobad, 'how came my daughter here?'
+
+'I did not know, sir, that the lady was your daughter.'
+
+'But how came she here?'
+
+'By spontaneous locomotion,' said Scythrop, sullenly.
+
+'Celinda,' said Mr Toobad, 'what does all this mean?'
+
+'I really do not know, sir.'
+
+'This is most unaccountable. When I told you in London that I had
+chosen a husband for you, you thought proper to run away from him; and
+now, to all appearance, you have run away to him.'
+
+'How, sir! was that your choice?'
+
+'Precisely; and if he is yours too we shall be both of a mind, for the
+first time in our lives.'
+
+'He is not my choice, sir. This lady has a prior claim: I renounce
+him.'
+
+'And I renounce him,' said Marionetta.
+
+Scythrop knew not what to do. He could not attempt to conciliate the
+one without irreparably offending the other; and he was so fond of
+both, that the idea of depriving himself for ever of the society
+of either was intolerable to him: he therefore retreated into his
+stronghold, mystery; maintained an impenetrable silence; and contented
+himself with stealing occasionally a deprecating glance at each of the
+objects of his idolatry. Mr Toobad and Mr Hilary, in the mean time,
+were each insisting on an explanation from Mr Glowry, who they thought
+had been playing a double game on this occasion. Mr Glowry was
+vainly endeavouring to persuade them of his innocence in the whole
+transaction. Mrs Hilary was endeavouring to mediate between her
+husband and brother. The Honourable Mr Listless, the Reverend Mr
+Larynx, Mr Flosky, Mr Asterias, and Aquarius, were attracted by the
+tumult to the scene of action, and were appealed to severally and
+conjointly by the respective disputants. Multitudinous questions, and
+answers _en masse_, composed a _charivari_, to which the genius of
+Rossini alone could have given a suitable accompaniment, and which
+was only terminated by Mrs Hilary and Mr Toobad retreating with the
+captive damsels. The whole party followed, with the exception of
+Scythrop, who threw himself into his arm-chair, crossed his left
+foot over his right knee, placed the hollow of his left hand on the
+interior ancle of his left leg, rested his right elbow on the elbow
+of the chair, placed the ball of his right thumb against his right
+temple, curved the forefinger along the upper part of his forehead,
+rested the point of the middle finger on the bridge of his nose, and
+the points of the two others on the lower part of the palm, fixed his
+eyes intently on the veins in the back of his left hand, and sat in
+this position like the immoveable Theseus, who, as is well known to
+many who have not been at college, and to some few who have, _sedet,
+oeternumque sedebit_.[13] We hope the admirers of the _minutiae_ in
+poetry and romance will appreciate this accurate description of a
+pensive attitude.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Scythrop was still in this position when Raven entered to announce
+that dinner was on table.
+
+'I cannot come,' said Scythrop.
+
+Raven sighed. 'Something is the matter,' said Raven: 'but man is born
+to trouble.'
+
+'Leave me,' said Scythrop: 'go, and croak elsewhere.'
+
+'Thus it is,' said Raven. 'Five-and-twenty years have I lived in
+Nightmare Abbey, and now all the reward of my affection is--Go, and
+croak elsewhere. I have danced you on my knee, and fed you with
+marrow.'
+
+'Good Raven,' said Scythrop, 'I entreat you to leave me.'
+
+'Shall I bring your dinner here?' said Raven. 'A boiled fowl and
+a glass of Madeira are prescribed by the faculty in cases of low
+spirits. But you had better join the party: it is very much reduced
+already.'
+
+'Reduced! how?'
+
+'The Honourable Mr Listless is gone. He declared that, what with
+family quarrels in the morning, and ghosts at night, he could get
+neither sleep nor peace; and that the agitation was too much for his
+nerves: though Mr Glowry assured him that the ghost was only poor Crow
+walking in his sleep, and that the shroud and bloody turban were a
+sheet and a red nightcap.'
+
+'Well, sir?'
+
+'The Reverend Mr Larynx has been called off on duty, to marry or bury
+(I don't know which) some unfortunate person or persons, at Claydyke:
+but man is born to trouble!'
+
+'Is that all?'
+
+'No. Mr Toobad is gone too, and a strange lady with him.'
+
+'Gone!'
+
+'Gone. And Mr and Mrs Hilary, and Miss O'Carroll: they are all gone.
+There is nobody left but Mr Asterias and his son, and they are going
+to-night.'
+
+'Then I have lost them both.'
+
+'Won't you come to dinner?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Shall I bring your dinner here?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What will you have?'
+
+'A pint of port and a pistol.'[14]
+
+'A pistol!'
+
+'And a pint of port. I will make my exit like Werter. Go. Stay. Did
+Miss O'Carroll say any thing?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Did Miss Toobad say any thing?'
+
+'The strange lady? No.'
+
+'Did either of them cry?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'What did they do?'
+
+'Nothing.'
+
+'What did Mr Toobad say?'
+
+'He said, fifty times over, the devil was come among us.'
+
+'And they are gone?'
+
+'Yes; and the dinner is getting cold. There is a time for every
+thing under the sun. You may as well dine first, and be miserable
+afterwards.'
+
+'True, Raven. There is something in that. I will take your advice:
+therefore, bring me----'
+
+'The port and the pistol?'
+
+'No; the boiled fowl and Madeira.'
+
+Scythrop had dined, and was sipping his Madeira alone, immersed in
+melancholy musing, when Mr Glowry entered, followed by Raven, who,
+having placed an additional glass and set a chair for Mr Glowry,
+withdrew. Mr Glowry sat down opposite Scythrop. After a pause, during
+which each filled and drank in silence, Mr Glowry said, 'So, sir,
+you have played your cards well. I proposed Miss Toobad to you: you
+refused her. Mr Toobad proposed you to her: she refused you. You fell
+in love with Marionetta, and were going to poison yourself, because,
+from pure fatherly regard to your temporal interests, I withheld my
+consent. When, at length, I offered you my consent, you told me I was
+too precipitate. And, after all, I find you and Miss Toobad living
+together in the same tower, and behaving in every respect like two
+plighted lovers. Now, sir, if there be any rational solution of all
+this absurdity, I shall be very much obliged to you for a small
+glimmering of information.'
+
+'The solution, sir, is of little moment; but I will leave it in
+writing for your satisfaction. The crisis of my fate is come: the
+world is a stage, and my direction is _exit._'
+
+'Do not talk so, sir;--do not talk so, Scythrop. What would you have?'
+
+'I would have my love.'
+
+'And pray, sir, who is your love?'
+
+'Celinda--Marionetta--either--both.'
+
+'Both! That may do very well in a German tragedy; and the Great Mogul
+might have found it very feasible in his lodgings at Kensington; but
+it will not do in Lincolnshire. Will you have Miss Toobad?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And renounce Marionetta?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'But you must renounce one.'
+
+'I cannot.'
+
+'And you cannot have both. What is to be done?'
+
+'I must shoot myself.'
+
+'Don't talk so, Scythrop. Be rational, my dear Scythrop. Consider, and
+make a cool, calm choice, and I will exert myself in your behalf.'
+
+'Why should I choose, sir? Both have renounced _me_: I have no hope of
+either.'
+
+'Tell me which you will have, and I will plead your cause
+irresistibly.'
+
+'Well, sir,--I will have--no, sir, I cannot renounce either. I
+cannot choose either. I am doomed to be the victim of eternal
+disappointments; and I have no resource but a pistol.'
+
+'Scythrop--Scythrop;--if one of them should come to you--what then?'
+
+'That, sir, might alter the case: but that cannot be.'
+
+'It can be, Scythrop; it will be: I promise you it will be. Have but a
+little patience--but a week's patience; and it shall be.'
+
+'A week, sir, is an age: but, to oblige you, as a last act of
+filial duty, I will live another week. It is now Thursday evening,
+twenty-five minutes past seven. At this hour and minute, on Thursday
+next, love and fate shall smile on me, or I will drink my last pint of
+port in this world.'
+
+Mr Glowry ordered his travelling chariot, and departed from the abbey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The day after Mr Glowry's departure was one of incessant rain, and
+Scythrop repented of the promise he had given. The next day was one of
+bright sunshine: he sat on the terrace, read a tragedy of Sophocles,
+and was not sorry, when Raven announced dinner, to find himself alive.
+On the third evening, the wind blew, and the rain beat, and the owl
+flapped against his windows; and he put a new flint in his pistol. On
+the fourth day, the sun shone again; and he locked the pistol up in a
+drawer, where he left it undisturbed, till the morning of the eventful
+Thursday, when he ascended the turret with a telescope, and spied
+anxiously along the road that crossed the fens from Claydyke: but
+nothing appeared on it. He watched in this manner from ten A.M. till
+Raven summoned him to dinner at five; when he stationed Crow at the
+telescope, and descended to his own funeral-feast. He left open the
+communications between the tower and turret, and called aloud at
+intervals to Crow,--'Crow, Crow, is any thing coming?' Crow answered,
+'The wind blows, and the windmills turn, but I see nothing coming;'
+and, at every answer, Scythrop found the necessity of raising his
+spirits with a bumper. After dinner, he gave Raven his watch to set by
+the abbey clock. Raven brought it, Scythrop placed it on the table,
+and Raven departed. Scythrop called again to Crow; and Crow, who had
+fallen asleep, answered mechanically, 'I see nothing coming.' Scythrop
+laid his pistol between his watch and his bottle. The hour-hand passed
+the VII.--the minute-hand moved on;--it was within three minutes of
+the appointed time. Scythrop called again to Crow: Crow answered as
+before. Scythrop rang the bell: Raven appeared.
+
+'Raven,' said Scythrop, 'the clock is too fast.'
+
+'No, indeed,' said Raven, who knew nothing of Scythrop's intentions;
+'if any thing, it is too slow.'
+
+'Villain!' said Scythrop, pointing the pistol at him; 'it is too
+fast.'
+
+'Yes--yes--too fast, I meant,' said Raven, in manifest fear.
+
+'How much too fast?' said Scythrop.
+
+'As much as you please,' said Raven.
+
+'How much, I say?' said Scythrop, pointing the pistol again.
+
+'An hour, a full hour, sir,' said the terrified butler.
+
+'Put back my watch,' said Scythrop.
+
+Raven, with trembling hand, was putting back the watch, when the
+rattle of wheels was heard in the court; and Scythrop, springing down
+the stairs by three steps together, was at the door in sufficient time
+to have handed either of the young ladies from the carriage, if she
+had happened to be in it; but Mr Glowry was alone.
+
+'I rejoice to see you,' said Mr Glowry; 'I was fearful of being too
+late, for I waited till the last moment in the hope of accomplishing
+my promise; but all my endeavours have been vain, as these letters
+will show.'
+
+Scythrop impatiently broke the seals. The contents were these:
+
+  Almost a stranger in England, I fled from parental tyranny,
+  and the dread of an arbitrary marriage, to the protection of a
+  stranger and a philosopher, whom I expected to find something
+  better than, or at least something different from, the rest of his
+  worthless species. Could I, after what has occurred, have
+  expected nothing more from you than the common-place impertinence
+  of sending your father to treat with me, and with mine, for me? I
+  should be a little moved in your favour, if I could believe you
+  capable of carrying into effect the resolutions which your father
+  says you have taken, in the event of my proving inflexible;
+  though I doubt not you will execute them, as far as relates to
+  the pint of wine, twice over, at least. I wish you much happiness
+  with Miss O'Carroll. I shall always cherish a grateful
+  recollection of Nightmare Abbey, for having been the means of
+  introducing me to a true transcendentalist; and, though he is a
+  little older than myself, which is all one in Germany, I shall
+  very soon have the pleasure of subscribing myself
+
+  CELINDA FLOSKY
+
+  I hope, my dear cousin, that you will not be angry with me,
+  but that you will always think of me as a sincere friend, who
+  will always feel interested in your welfare; I am sure you love
+  Miss Toobad much better than me, and I wish you much happiness
+  with her. Mr Listless assures me that people do not kill
+  themselves for love now-a-days, though it is still the fashion to
+  talk about it. I shall, in a very short time, change my name and
+  situation, and shall always be happy to see you in Berkeley
+  Square, when, to the unalterable designation of your affectionate
+  cousin, I shall subjoin the signature of
+
+  MARIONETTA LISTLESS
+
+Scythrop tore both the letters to atoms, and railed in good set terms
+against the fickleness of women.
+
+'Calm yourself, my dear Scythrop,' said Mr Glowry; 'there are yet
+maidens in England.'
+
+'Very true, sir,' said Scythrop.
+
+'And the next time,' said Mr Glowry, 'have but one string to your
+bow.'
+
+'Very good advice, sir,' said Scythrop.
+
+'And, besides,' said Mr Glowry, 'the fatal time is past, for it is now
+almost eight.'
+
+'Then that villain, Raven,' said Scythrop, 'deceived me when he said
+that the clock was too fast; but, as you observe very justly, the time
+has gone by, and I have just reflected that these repeated crosses in
+love qualify me to take a very advanced degree in misanthropy; and
+there is, therefore, good hope that I may make a figure in the world.
+But I shall ring for the rascal Raven, and admonish him.'
+
+Raven appeared. Scythrop looked at him very fiercely two or three
+minutes; and Raven, still remembering the pistol, stood quaking in
+mute apprehension, till Scythrop, pointing significantly towards the
+dining-room, said, 'Bring some Madeira.'
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+[1] _Mr Flosky_: A corruption of Filosky, quasi [Greek: philoschios],
+a lover, or sectator, of shadows.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+[2] _the passion for reforming the world_: See Forsyth's _Principles
+of Moral Science_.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+[3] _decorum, and dignity, &c. &c. &c._: We are not masters of the
+whole vocabulary. See any novel by any literary lady.
+
+[4] _his Ahrimanic philosophy_: Ahrimanes, in the Persian mythology,
+is the evil power, the prince of the kingdom of darkness. He is the
+rival of Oromazes, the prince of the kingdom of light. These two
+powers have divided and equal dominion. Sometimes one of the two has a
+temporary supremacy.--According to Mr Toobad, the present period would
+be the reign of Ahrimanes. Lord Byron seems to be of the same opinion,
+by the use he has made of Ahrimanes in 'Manfred'; where the great
+Alastor, or [Greek: Kachos Daimon], of Persia, is hailed king of
+the world by the Nemesis of Greece, in concert with three of
+the Scandinavian Valkyrae, under the name of the Destinies; the
+astrological spirits of the alchemists of the middle ages; an
+elemental witch, transplanted from Denmark to the Alps; and a chorus
+of Dr Faustus's devils, who come in the last act for a soul. It is
+difficult to conceive where this heterogeneous mythological company
+could have originally met, except at a _table d'hote_, like the six
+kings in 'Candide'.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+[5] _pensions_: 'PENSION. Pay given to a slave of state for treason to
+his country.'--JOHNSON'S _Dictionary_.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+[6] _... of a beautiful day_: See Denys Montfort: _Histoire Naturelle
+des Mollusques; Vues Generales_, pp. 37, 38. (P.) The second half of
+this speech by Mr Asterias and the opening sentence of his previous
+speech are a paraphrase from Montfort, pp. 37-9.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+[7] _Mr Burke's graduated scale of the sublime_: There must be some
+mistake in this, for the whole honourable band of gentlemen-pensioners
+has resolved unanimously, that Mr Burke was a very sublime person,
+particularly after he had prostituted his own soul, and betrayed his
+country and mankind, for 1200_l_. a year: yet he does not appear to
+have been a very terrible personage, and certainly went off with a
+very small portion of human respect, though he contrived to excite,
+in a great degree, the astonishment of all honest men. Our immaculate
+laureate (who gives us to understand that, if he had not been purified
+by holy matrimony into a mystical type, he would have died a virgin,)
+is another sublime gentleman of the same genus: he very much
+astonished some persons when he sold his birthright for a pot of sack;
+but not even his _Sosia_ has a grain of respect for him, though,
+doubtless, he thinks his name very terrible to the enemy, when he
+flourishes his criticopoeticopolitical tomahawk, and sets up his
+Indian yell for the blood of his old friends: but, at best, he is a
+mere political scarecrow, a man of straw, ridiculous to all who know
+of what materials he is made; and to none more so, than to those who
+have stuffed him, and set him up, as the Priapus of the garden of the
+golden apples of corruption.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+[8] _... vanishes in the smoke of death_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4.
+cxxiv. cxxvi.
+
+[9] _... and reaps the whirlwind_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4. cxxiii.
+
+[10] _... or to endure_: _Ibid_. canto 3. lxxi.
+
+[11] _... whose gums are poison_: _Ibid_. canto 4. cxxi. cxxxvi.
+
+[12] _... exist only in himself_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4. cxxii.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+[13] _sedet, oeternumque sedebit_: Sits, and will sit for ever.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+[14] _a pint of port and a pistol_: See _The Sorrows of Werter_,
+Letter 93.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nightmare Abbey, by Thomas Love Peacock
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nightmare Abbey, by Thomas Love Peacock
+#4 in our series by Thomas Love Peacock
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Nightmare Abbey
+
+Author: Thomas Love Peacock
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9909]
+[This file last updated on July 17, 2010]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 30, 2003]
+
+Edition: 11
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHTMARE ABBEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Tom Allen,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+By
+
+_Thomas Love Peacock_
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+  NOTES TO _Nightmare Abbey_
+
+
+
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY:
+
+BY
+
+THE AUTHOR OF HEADLONG HALL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  There's a dark lantern of the spirit,
+  Which none see by but those who bear it,
+  That makes them in the dark see visions
+  And hag themselves with apparitions,
+  Find racks for their own minds, and vaunt
+  Of their own misery and want.
+  BUTLER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LONDON:
+
+1818.
+
+
+MATTHEW. Oh! it's your only fine humour, sir. Your true melancholy
+breeds your perfect fine wit, sir. I am melancholy myself, divers
+times, sir; and then do I no more but take pen and paper presently,
+and overflow you half a score or a dozen of sonnets at a sitting.
+
+STEPHEN. Truly, sir, and I love such things out of measure.
+
+MATTHEW. Why, I pray you, sir, make use of my study: it's at your
+service.
+
+STEPHEN. I thank you, sir, I shall be bold, I warrant you. Have you a
+stool there, to be melancholy upon?
+
+BEN JONSON, _Every Man in his Humour_, Act 3, Sc. I
+
+  Ay esleu gazouiller et siffler oye, comme dit le commun
+  proverbe, entre les cygnes, plutoust que d'estre entre
+  tant de gentils poetes et faconds orateurs mut du tout
+  estime.
+
+  RABELAIS, _Prol. L_. 5
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Nightmare Abbey, a venerable family-mansion, in a highly picturesque
+state of semi-dilapidation, pleasantly situated on a strip of dry land
+between the sea and the fens, at the verge of the county of Lincoln,
+had the honour to be the seat of Christopher Glowry, Esquire. This
+gentleman was naturally of an atrabilarious temperament, and much
+troubled with those phantoms of indigestion which are commonly called
+_blue devils_. He had been deceived in an early friendship: he had
+been crossed in love; and had offered his hand, from pique, to a lady,
+who accepted it from interest, and who, in so doing, violently tore
+asunder the bonds of a tried and youthful attachment. Her vanity was
+gratified by being the mistress of a very extensive, if not very
+lively, establishment; but all the springs of her sympathies were
+frozen. Riches she possessed, but that which enriches them, the
+participation of affection, was wanting. All that they could purchase
+for her became indifferent to her, because that which they could not
+purchase, and which was more valuable than themselves, she had, for
+their sake, thrown away. She discovered, when it was too late, that
+she had mistaken the means for the end--that riches, rightly used, are
+instruments of happiness, but are not in themselves happiness. In this
+wilful blight of her affections, she found them valueless as means:
+they had been the end to which she had immolated all her affections,
+and were now the only end that remained to her. She did not confess
+this to herself as a principle of action, but it operated through the
+medium of unconscious self-deception, and terminated in inveterate
+avarice. She laid on external things the blame of her mind's internal
+disorder, and thus became by degrees an accomplished scold. She often
+went her daily rounds through a series of deserted apartments, every
+creature in the house vanishing at the creak of her shoe, much more
+at the sound of her voice, to which the nature of things affords no
+simile; for, as far as the voice of woman, when attuned by gentleness
+and love, transcends all other sounds in harmony, so far does
+it surpass all others in discord, when stretched into unnatural
+shrillness by anger and impatience.
+
+Mr Glowry used to say that his house was no better than a spacious
+kennel, for every one in it led the life of a dog. Disappointed both
+in love and in friendship, and looking upon human learning as vanity,
+he had come to a conclusion that there was but one good thing in the
+world, _videlicet_, a good dinner; and this his parsimonious lady
+seldom suffered him to enjoy: but, one morning, like Sir Leoline in
+Christabel, 'he woke and found his lady dead,' and remained a very
+consolate widower, with one small child.
+
+This only son and heir Mr Glowry had christened Scythrop, from the
+name of a maternal ancestor, who had hanged himself one rainy day in a
+fit of _toedium vitae_, and had been eulogised by a coroner's jury in
+the comprehensive phrase of _felo de se_; on which account, Mr Glowry
+held his memory in high honour, and made a punchbowl of his skull.
+
+When Scythrop grew up, he was sent, as usual, to a public school,
+where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence
+to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was
+sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head:
+having finished his education to the high satisfaction of the
+master and fellows of his college, who had, in testimony of their
+approbation, presented him with a silver fish-slice, on which his name
+figured at the head of a laudatory inscription in some semi-barbarous
+dialect of Anglo-Saxonised Latin.
+
+His fellow-students, however, who drove tandem and random in great
+perfection, and were connoisseurs in good inns, had taught him to
+drink deep ere he departed. He had passed much of his time with these
+choice spirits, and had seen the rays of the midnight lamp tremble
+on many a lengthening file of empty bottles. He passed his vacations
+sometimes at Nightmare Abbey, sometimes in London, at the house of
+his uncle, Mr Hilary, a very cheerful and elastic gentleman, who had
+married the sister of the melancholy Mr Glowry. The company that
+frequented his house was the gayest of the gay. Scythrop danced with
+the ladies and drank with the gentlemen, and was pronounced by both a
+very accomplished charming fellow, and an honour to the university.
+
+At the house of Mr Hilary, Scythrop first saw the beautiful Miss Emily
+Girouette. He fell in love; which is nothing new. He was favourably
+received; which is nothing strange. Mr Glowry and Mr Girouette had
+a meeting on the occasion, and quarrelled about the terms of the
+bargain; which is neither new nor strange. The lovers were torn
+asunder, weeping and vowing everlasting constancy; and, in three weeks
+after this tragical event, the lady was led a smiling bride to the
+altar, by the Honourable Mr Lackwit; which is neither strange nor new.
+
+Scythrop received this intelligence at Nightmare Abbey, and was half
+distracted on the occasion. It was his first disappointment, and
+preyed deeply on his sensitive spirit. His father, to comfort him,
+read him a Commentary on Ecclesiastes, which he had himself composed,
+and which demonstrated incontrovertibly that all is vanity. He
+insisted particularly on the text, 'One man among a thousand have I
+found, but a woman amongst all those have I not found.'
+
+'How could he expect it,' said Scythrop, 'when the whole thousand were
+locked up in his seraglio? His experience is no precedent for a free
+state of society like that in which we live.'
+
+'Locked up or at large,' said Mr Glowry, 'the result is the same:
+their minds are always locked up, and vanity and interest keep the
+key. I speak feelingly, Scythrop.'
+
+'I am sorry for it, sir,' said Scythrop. 'But how is it that their
+minds are locked up? The fault is in their artificial education, which
+studiously models them into mere musical dolls, to be set out for sale
+in the great toy-shop of society.'
+
+'To be sure,' said Mr Glowry, 'their education is not so well finished
+as yours has been; and your idea of a musical doll is good. I bought
+one myself, but it was confoundedly out of tune; but, whatever be the
+cause, Scythrop, the effect is certainly this, that one is pretty
+nearly as good as another, as far as any judgment can be formed of
+them before marriage. It is only after marriage that they show
+their true qualities, as I know by bitter experience. Marriage is,
+therefore, a lottery, and the less choice and selection a man bestows
+on his ticket the better; for, if he has incurred considerable pains
+and expense to obtain a lucky number, and his lucky number proves a
+blank, he experiences not a simple, but a complicated disappointment;
+the loss of labour and money being superadded to the disappointment of
+drawing a blank, which, constituting simply and entirely the grievance
+of him who has chosen his ticket at random, is, from its simplicity,
+the more endurable.' This very excellent reasoning was thrown away
+upon Scythrop, who retired to his tower as dismal and disconsolate as
+before.
+
+The tower which Scythrop inhabited stood at the south-eastern angle of
+the Abbey; and, on the southern side, the foot of the tower opened on
+a terrace, which was called the garden, though nothing grew on it but
+ivy, and a few amphibious weeds. The south-western tower, which was
+ruinous and full of owls, might, with equal propriety, have been
+called the aviary. This terrace or garden, or terrace-garden, or
+garden-terrace (the reader may name it _ad libitum_), took in an
+oblique view of the open sea, and fronted a long tract of level
+sea-coast, and a fine monotony of fens and windmills.
+
+The reader will judge, from what we have said, that this building was
+a sort of castellated abbey; and it will, probably, occur to him to
+inquire if it had been one of the strong-holds of the ancient church
+militant. Whether this was the case, or how far it had been indebted
+to the taste of Mr Glowry's ancestors for any transmutations from its
+original state, are, unfortunately, circumstances not within the pale
+of our knowledge.
+
+The north-western tower contained the apartments of Mr Glowry. The
+moat at its base, and the fens beyond, comprised the whole of his
+prospect. This moat surrounded the Abbey, and was in immediate contact
+with the walls on every side but the south.
+
+The north-eastern tower was appropriated to the domestics, whom Mr
+Glowry always chose by one of two criterions,--a long face, or a
+dismal name. His butler was Raven; his steward was Crow; his valet was
+Skellet. Mr Glowry maintained that the valet was of French extraction,
+and that his name was Squelette. His grooms were Mattocks and Graves.
+On one occasion, being in want of a footman, he received a letter
+from a person signing himself Diggory Deathshead, and lost no time in
+securing this acquisition; but on Diggory's arrival, Mr Glowry was
+horror-struck by the sight of a round ruddy face, and a pair of
+laughing eyes. Deathshead was always grinning,--not a ghastly smile,
+but the grin of a comic mask; and disturbed the echoes of the hall
+with so much unhallowed laughter, that Mr Glowry gave him his
+discharge. Diggory, however, had staid long enough to make conquests
+of all the old gentleman's maids, and left him a flourishing colony of
+young Deathsheads to join chorus with the owls, that had before been
+the exclusive choristers of Nightmare Abbey.
+
+The main body of the building was divided into rooms of state,
+spacious apartments for feasting, and numerous bed-rooms for visitors,
+who, however, were few and far between.
+
+Family interests compelled Mr Glowry to receive occasional visits from
+Mr and Mrs Hilary, who paid them from the same motive; and, as the
+lively gentleman on these occasions found few conductors for his
+exuberant gaiety, he became like a double-charged electric jar, which
+often exploded in some burst of outrageous merriment to the signal
+discomposure of Mr Glowry's nerves.
+
+Another occasional visitor, much more to Mr Glowry's taste, was Mr
+Flosky,[1] a very lachrymose and morbid gentleman, of some note in
+the literary world, but in his own estimation of much more merit than
+name. The part of his character which recommended him to Mr Glowry,
+was his very fine sense of the grim and the tearful. No one could
+relate a dismal story with so many minutiae of supererogatory
+wretchedness. No one could call up a _raw-head and bloody-bones_ with
+so many adjuncts and circumstances of ghastliness. Mystery was his
+mental element. He lived in the midst of that visionary world in which
+nothing is but what is not. He dreamed with his eyes open, and saw
+ghosts dancing round him at noontide. He had been in his youth
+an enthusiast for liberty, and had hailed the dawn of the French
+Revolution as the promise of a day that was to banish war and slavery,
+and every form of vice and misery, from the face of the earth. Because
+all this was not done, he deduced that nothing was done; and from this
+deduction, according to his system of logic, he drew a conclusion
+that worse than nothing was done; that the overthrow of the feudal
+fortresses of tyranny and superstition was the greatest calamity that
+had ever befallen mankind; and that their only hope now was to rake
+the rubbish together, and rebuild it without any of those loopholes
+by which the light had originally crept in. To qualify himself for a
+coadjutor in this laudable task, he plunged into the central
+opacity of Kantian metaphysics, and lay _perdu_ several years in
+transcendental darkness, till the common daylight of common sense
+became intolerable to his eyes. He called the sun an _ignis fatuus_;
+and exhorted all who would listen to his friendly voice, which were
+about as many as called 'God save King Richard,' to shelter themselves
+from its delusive radiance in the obscure haunt of Old Philosophy.
+This word Old had great charms for him. The good old times were always
+on his lips; meaning the days when polemic theology was in its prime,
+and rival prelates beat the drum ecclesiastic with Herculean vigour,
+till the one wound up his series of syllogisms with the very orthodox
+conclusion of roasting the other.
+
+But the dearest friend of Mr Glowry, and his most welcome guest,
+was Mr Toobad, the Manichaean Millenarian. The twelfth verse of the
+twelfth chapter of Revelations was always in his mouth: 'Woe to the
+inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come among
+you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short
+time.' He maintained that the supreme dominion of the world was, for
+wise purposes, given over for a while to the Evil Principle; and that
+this precise period of time, commonly called the enlightened age, was
+the point of his plenitude of power. He used to add that by and by he
+would be cast down, and a high and happy order of things succeed; but
+he never omitted the saving clause, 'Not in our time'; which last
+words were always echoed in doleful response by the sympathetic Mr
+Glowry.
+
+Another and very frequent visitor, was the Reverend Mr Larynx, the
+vicar of Claydyke, a village about ten miles distant;--a good-natured
+accommodating divine, who was always most obligingly ready to take a
+dinner and a bed at the house of any country gentleman in distress
+for a companion. Nothing came amiss to him,--a game at billiards, at
+chess, at draughts, at backgammon, at piquet, or at all-fours in
+a _tete-a-tete_,--or any game on the cards, round, square, or
+triangular, in a party of any number exceeding two. He would even
+dance among friends, rather than that a lady, even if she were on the
+wrong side of thirty, should sit still for want of a partner. For a
+ride, a walk, or a sail, in the morning,--a song after dinner, a ghost
+story after supper,--a bottle of port with the squire, or a cup of
+green tea with his lady,--for all or any of these, or for any thing
+else that was agreeable to any one else, consistently with the dye of
+his coat, the Reverend Mr Larynx was at all times equally ready. When
+at Nightmare Abbey, he would condole with Mr Glowry,--drink Madeira
+with Scythrop,--crack jokes with Mr Hilary,--hand Mrs Hilary to the
+piano, take charge of her fan and gloves, and turn over her music with
+surprising dexterity,--quote Revelations with Mr Toobad,--and lament
+the good old times of feudal darkness with the transcendental Mr
+Flosky.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Shortly after the disastrous termination of Scythrop's passion for
+Miss Emily Girouette, Mr Glowry found himself, much against his will,
+involved in a lawsuit, which compelled him to dance attendance on the
+High Court of Chancery. Scythrop was left alone at Nightmare Abbey. He
+was a burnt child, and dreaded the fire of female eyes. He wandered
+about the ample pile, or along the garden-terrace, with 'his
+cogitative faculties immersed in cogibundity of cogitation.' The
+terrace terminated at the south-western tower, which, as we have said,
+was ruinous and full of owls. Here would Scythrop take his evening
+seat, on a fallen fragment of mossy stone, with his back resting
+against the ruined wall,--a thick canopy of ivy, with an owl in it,
+over his head,--and the Sorrows of Werter in his hand. He had some
+taste for romance reading before he went to the university, where, we
+must confess, in justice to his college, he was cured of the love of
+reading in all its shapes; and the cure would have been radical, if
+disappointment in love, and total solitude, had not conspired to bring
+on a relapse. He began to devour romances and German tragedies, and,
+by the recommendation of Mr Flosky, to pore over ponderous tomes of
+transcendental philosophy, which reconciled him to the labour of
+studying them by their mystical jargon and necromantic imagery. In
+the congenial solitude of Nightmare Abbey, the distempered ideas of
+metaphysical romance and romantic metaphysics had ample time and space
+to germinate into a fertile crop of chimeras, which rapidly shot up
+into vigorous and abundant vegetation.
+
+He now became troubled with the _passion for reforming the world_.[2]
+He built many castles in the air, and peopled them with secret
+tribunals, and bands of illuminati, who were always the imaginary
+instruments of his projected regeneration of the human species. As he
+intended to institute a perfect republic, he invested himself with
+absolute sovereignty over these mystical dispensers of liberty. He
+slept with Horrid Mysteries under his pillow, and dreamed of venerable
+eleutherarchs and ghastly confederates holding midnight conventions in
+subterranean caves. He passed whole mornings in his study, immersed
+in gloomy reverie, stalking about the room in his nightcap, which
+he pulled over his eyes like a cowl, and folding his striped calico
+dressing-gown about him like the mantle of a conspirator.
+
+'Action,' thus he soliloquised, 'is the result of opinion, and to
+new-model opinion would be to new-model society. Knowledge is power;
+it is in the hands of a few, who employ it to mislead the many, for
+their own selfish purposes of aggrandisement and appropriation. What
+if it were in the hands of a few who should employ it to lead the
+many? What if it were universal, and the multitude were enlightened?
+No. The many must be always in leading-strings; but let them have wise
+and honest conductors. A few to think, and many to act; that is the
+only basis of perfect society. So thought the ancient philosophers:
+they had their esoterical and exoterical doctrines. So thinks the
+sublime Kant, who delivers his oracles in language which none but
+the initiated can comprehend. Such were the views of those secret
+associations of illuminati, which were the terror of superstition and
+tyranny, and which, carefully selecting wisdom and genius from the
+great wilderness of society, as the bee selects honey from the flowers
+of the thorn and the nettle, bound all human excellence in a chain,
+which, if it had not been prematurely broken, would have commanded
+opinion, and regenerated the world.'
+
+Scythrop proceeded to meditate on the practicability of reviving a
+confederation of regenerators. To get a clear view of his own ideas,
+and to feel the pulse of the wisdom and genius of the age, he wrote
+and published a treatise, in which his meanings were carefully wrapt
+up in the monk's hood of transcendental technology, but filled with
+hints of matter deep and dangerous, which he thought would set
+the whole nation in a ferment; and he awaited the result in awful
+expectation, as a miner who has fired a train awaits the explosion of
+a rock. However, he listened and heard nothing; for the explosion, if
+any ensued, was not sufficiently loud to shake a single leaf of the
+ivy on the towers of Nightmare Abbey; and some months afterwards he
+received a letter from his bookseller, informing him that only seven
+copies had been sold, and concluding with a polite request for the
+balance.
+
+Scythrop did not despair. 'Seven copies,' he thought, 'have been sold.
+Seven is a mystical number, and the omen is good. Let me find the
+seven purchasers of my seven copies, and they shall be the seven
+golden candle-sticks with which I will illuminate the world.'
+
+Scythrop had a certain portion of mechanical genius, which his
+romantic projects tended to develope. He constructed models of cells
+and recesses, sliding panels and secret passages, that would have
+baffled the skill of the Parisian police. He took the opportunity of
+his father's absence to smuggle a dumb carpenter into the Abbey, and
+between them they gave reality to one of these models in Scythrop's
+tower. Scythrop foresaw that a great leader of human regeneration
+would be involved in fearful dilemmas, and determined, for the benefit
+of mankind in general, to adopt all possible precautions for the
+preservation of himself.
+
+The servants, even the women, had been tutored into silence. Profound
+stillness reigned throughout and around the Abbey, except when the
+occasional shutting of a door would peal in long reverberations
+through the galleries, or the heavy tread of the pensive butler would
+wake the hollow echoes of the hall. Scythrop stalked about like the
+grand inquisitor, and the servants flitted past him like familiars. In
+his evening meditations on the terrace, under the ivy of the ruined
+tower, the only sounds that came to his ear were the rustling of the
+wind in the ivy, the plaintive voices of the feathered choristers, the
+owls, the occasional striking of the Abbey clock, and the monotonous
+dash of the sea on its low and level shore. In the mean time, he drank
+Madeira, and laid deep schemes for a thorough repair of the crazy
+fabric of human nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mr Glowry returned from London with the loss of his lawsuit. Justice
+was with him, but the law was against him. He found Scythrop in a
+mood most sympathetically tragic; and they vied with each other in
+enlivening their cups by lamenting the depravity of this degenerate
+age, and occasionally interspersing divers grim jokes about graves,
+worms, and epitaphs. Mr Glowry's friends, whom we have mentioned in
+the first chapter, availed themselves of his return to pay him a
+simultaneous visit. At the same time arrived Scythrop's friend and
+fellow-collegian, the Honourable Mr Listless. Mr Glowry had discovered
+this fashionable young gentleman in London, 'stretched on the rack of
+a too easy chair,' and devoured with a gloomy and misanthropical _nil
+curo_, and had pressed him so earnestly to take the benefit of the
+pure country air, at Nightmare Abbey, that Mr Listless, finding it
+would give him more trouble to refuse than to comply, summoned his
+French valet, Fatout, and told him he was going to Lincolnshire. On
+this simple hint, Fatout went to work, and the imperials were packed,
+and the post-chariot was at the door, without the Honourable Mr
+Listless having said or thought another syllable on the subject.
+
+Mr and Mrs Hilary brought with them an orphan niece, a daughter of Mr
+Glowry's youngest sister, who had made a runaway love-match with an
+Irish officer. The lady's fortune disappeared in the first year: love,
+by a natural consequence, disappeared in the second: the Irishman
+himself, by a still more natural consequence, disappeared in the
+third. Mr Glowry had allowed his sister an annuity, and she had lived
+in retirement with her only daughter, whom, at her death, which had
+recently happened, she commended to the care of Mrs Hilary.
+
+Miss Marionetta Celestina O'Carroll was a very blooming and
+accomplished young lady. Being a compound of the _Allegro Vivace_ of
+the O'Carrolls, and of the _Andante Doloroso_ of the Glowries, she
+exhibited in her own character all the diversities of an April sky.
+Her hair was light-brown; her eyes hazel, and sparkling with a mild
+but fluctuating light; her features regular; her lips full, and of
+equal size; and her person surpassingly graceful. She was a proficient
+in music. Her conversation was sprightly, but always on subjects light
+in their nature and limited in their interest: for moral sympathies,
+in any general sense, had no place in her mind. She had some coquetry,
+and more caprice, liking and disliking almost in the same moment;
+pursuing an object with earnestness while it seemed unattainable, and
+rejecting it when in her power as not worth the trouble of possession.
+
+Whether she was touched with a _penchant_ for her cousin Scythrop, or
+was merely curious to see what effect the tender passion would have on
+so _outre_ a person, she had not been three days in the Abbey before
+she threw out all the lures of her beauty and accomplishments to make
+a prize of his heart. Scythrop proved an easy conquest. The image of
+Miss Emily Girouette was already sufficiently dimmed by the power of
+philosophy and the exercise of reason: for to these influences, or to
+any influence but the true one, are usually ascribed the mental cures
+performed by the great physician Time. Scythrop's romantic dreams had
+indeed given him many _pure anticipated cognitions_ of combinations
+of beauty and intelligence, which, he had some misgivings, were not
+exactly realised in his cousin Marionetta; but, in spite of these
+misgivings, he soon became distractedly in love; which, when the young
+lady clearly perceived, she altered her tactics, and assumed as much
+coldness and reserve as she had before shown ardent and ingenuous
+attachment. Scythrop was confounded at the sudden change; but, instead
+of falling at her feet and requesting an explanation, he retreated
+to his tower, muffled himself in his nightcap, seated himself in
+the president's chair of his imaginary secret tribunal, summoned
+Marionetta with all terrible formalities, frightened her out of her
+wits, disclosed himself, and clasped the beautiful penitent to his
+bosom.
+
+While he was acting this reverie--in the moment in which the awful
+president of the secret tribunal was throwing back his cowl and his
+mantle, and discovering himself to the lovely culprit as her adoring
+and magnanimous lover, the door of the study opened, and the real
+Marionetta appeared.
+
+The motives which had led her to the tower were a little penitence, a
+little concern, a little affection, and a little fear as to what the
+sudden secession of Scythrop, occasioned by her sudden change of
+manner, might portend. She had tapped several times unheard, and of
+course unanswered; and at length, timidly and cautiously opening the
+door, she discovered him standing up before a black velvet chair,
+which was mounted on an old oak table, in the act of throwing open his
+striped calico dressing-gown, and flinging away his nightcap--which is
+what the French call an imposing attitude.
+
+Each stood a few moments fixed in their respective places--the lady in
+astonishment, and the gentleman in confusion. Marionetta was the first
+to break silence. 'For heaven's sake,' said she, 'my dear Scythrop,
+what is the matter?'
+
+'For heaven's sake, indeed!' said Scythrop, springing from the table;
+'for your sake, Marionetta, and you are my heaven,--distraction is the
+matter. I adore you, Marionetta, and your cruelty drives me mad.'
+He threw himself at her knees, devoured her hand with kisses, and
+breathed a thousand vows in the most passionate language of romance.
+
+Marionetta listened a long time in silence, till her lover had
+exhausted his eloquence and paused for a reply. She then said, with a
+very arch look, 'I prithee deliver thyself like a man of this world.'
+The levity of this quotation, and of the manner in which it was
+delivered, jarred so discordantly on the high-wrought enthusiasm of
+the romantic inamorato, that he sprang upon his feet, and beat his
+forehead with his clenched fist. The young lady was terrified; and,
+deeming it expedient to soothe him, took one of his hands in hers,
+placed the other hand on his shoulder, looked up in his face with a
+winning seriousness, and said, in the tenderest possible tone, 'What
+would you have, Scythrop?'
+
+Scythrop was in heaven again. 'What would I have? What but you,
+Marionetta? You, for the companion of my studies, the partner of my
+thoughts, the auxiliary of my great designs for the emancipation of
+mankind.'
+
+'I am afraid I should be but a poor auxiliary, Scythrop. What would
+you have me do?'
+
+'Do as Rosalia does with Carlos, divine Marionetta. Let us each open
+a vein in the other's arm, mix our blood in a bowl, and drink it as
+a sacrament of love. Then we shall see visions of transcendental
+illumination, and soar on the wings of ideas into the space of pure
+intelligence.'
+
+Marionetta could not reply; she had not so strong a stomach as
+Rosalia, and turned sick at the proposition. She disengaged herself
+suddenly from Scythrop, sprang through the door of the tower, and fled
+with precipitation along the corridors. Scythrop pursued her, crying,
+'Stop, stop, Marionetta--my life, my love!' and was gaining rapidly on
+her flight, when, at an ill-omened corner, where two corridors ended
+in an angle, at the head of a staircase, he came into sudden and
+violent contact with Mr Toobad, and they both plunged together to the
+foot of the stairs, like two billiard-balls into one pocket. This gave
+the young lady time to escape, and enclose herself in her chamber;
+while Mr Toobad, rising slowly, and rubbing his knees and shoulders,
+said, 'You see, my dear Scythrop, in this little incident, one of the
+innumerable proofs of the temporary supremacy of the devil; for what
+but a systematic design and concurrent contrivance of evil could have
+made the angles of time and place coincide in our unfortunate persons
+at the head of this accursed staircase?'
+
+'Nothing else, certainly,' said Scythrop: 'you are perfectly in the
+right, Mr Toobad. Evil, and mischief, and misery, and confusion,
+and vanity, and vexation of spirit, and death, and disease, and
+assassination, and war, and poverty, and pestilence, and famine, and
+avarice, and selfishness, and rancour, and jealousy, and spleen,
+and malevolence, and the disappointments of philanthropy, and the
+faithlessness of friendship, and the crosses of love--all prove the
+accuracy of your views, and the truth of your system; and it is not
+impossible that the infernal interruption of this fall downstairs may
+throw a colour of evil on the whole of my future existence.'
+
+'My dear boy,' said Mr Toobad, 'you have a fine eye for consequences.'
+
+So saying, he embraced Scythrop, who retired, with a disconsolate
+step, to dress for dinner; while Mr Toobad stalked across the hall,
+repeating, 'Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea, for
+the devil is come among you, having great wrath.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The flight of Marionetta, and the pursuit of Scythrop, had been
+witnessed by Mr Glowry, who, in consequence, narrowly observed his son
+and his niece in the evening; and, concluding from their manner, that
+there was a better understanding between them than he wished to see,
+he determined on obtaining the next morning from Scythrop a full and
+satisfactory explanation. He, therefore, shortly after breakfast,
+entered Scythrop's tower, with a very grave face, and said, without
+ceremony or preface, 'So, sir, you are in love with your cousin.'
+
+Scythrop, with as little hesitation, answered, 'Yes, sir.'
+
+'That is candid, at least; and she is in love with you.'
+
+'I wish she were, sir.'
+
+'You know she is, sir.'
+
+'Indeed, sir, I do not.'
+
+'But you hope she is.'
+
+'I do, from my soul.'
+
+'Now that is very provoking, Scythrop, and very disappointing: I could
+not have supposed that you, Scythrop Glowry, of Nightmare Abbey,
+would have been infatuated with such a dancing, laughing, singing,
+thoughtless, careless, merry-hearted thing, as Marionetta--in all
+respects the reverse of you and me. It is very disappointing,
+Scythrop. And do you know, sir, that Marionetta has no fortune?'
+
+'It is the more reason, sir, that her husband should have one.'
+
+'The more reason for her; but not for you. My wife had no fortune, and
+I had no consolation in my calamity. And do you reflect, sir, what an
+enormous slice this lawsuit has cut out of our family estate? we who
+used to be the greatest landed proprietors in Lincolnshire.'
+
+'To be sure, sir, we had more acres of fen than any man on this
+coast: but what are fens to love? What are dykes and windmills to
+Marionetta?'
+
+'And what, sir, is love to a windmill? Not grist, I am certain:
+besides, sir, I have made a choice for you. I have made a choice for
+you, Scythrop. Beauty, genius, accomplishments, and a great fortune
+into the bargain. Such a lovely, serious creature, in a fine state of
+high dissatisfaction with the world, and every thing in it. Such a
+delightful surprise I had prepared for you. Sir, I have pledged my
+honour to the contract--the honour of the Glowries of Nightmare Abbey:
+and now, sir, what is to be done?'
+
+'Indeed, sir, I cannot say. I claim, on this occasion, that liberty of
+action which is the co-natal prerogative of every rational being.'
+
+'Liberty of action, sir? there is no such thing as liberty of action.
+We are all slaves and puppets of a blind and unpathetic necessity.'
+
+'Very true, sir; but liberty of action, between individuals, consists
+in their being differently influenced, or modified, by the same
+universal necessity; so that the results are unconsentaneous, and
+their respective necessitated volitions clash and fly off in a
+tangent.'
+
+'Your logic is good, sir: but you are aware, too, that one individual
+may be a medium of adhibiting to another a mode or form of necessity,
+which may have more or less influence in the production of
+consentaneity; and, therefore, sir, if you do not comply with my
+wishes in this instance (you have had your own way in every thing
+else), I shall be under the necessity of disinheriting you, though
+I shall do it with tears in my eyes.' Having said these words, he
+vanished suddenly, in the dread of Scythrop's logic.
+
+Mr Glowry immediately sought Mrs Hilary, and communicated to her his
+views of the case in point. Mrs Hilary, as the phrase is, was as fond
+of Marionetta as if she had been her own child: but--there is always a
+_but_ on these occasions--she could do nothing for her in the way
+of fortune, as she had two hopeful sons, who were finishing their
+education at Brazen-nose, and who would not like to encounter any
+diminution of their prospects, when they should be brought out of the
+house of mental bondage--i.e. the university--to the land flowing with
+milk and honey--i.e. the west end of London.
+
+Mrs Hilary hinted to Marionetta, that propriety, and delicacy, and
+decorum, and dignity, &c. &c. &c.,[3] would require them to leave the
+Abbey immediately. Marionetta listened in silent submission, for she
+knew that her inheritance was passive obedience; but, when Scythrop,
+who had watched the opportunity of Mrs Hilary's departure, entered,
+and, without speaking a word, threw himself at her feet in a paroxysm
+of grief, the young lady, in equal silence and sorrow, threw her arms
+round his neck and burst into tears. A very tender scene ensued, which
+the sympathetic susceptibilities of the soft-hearted reader can more
+accurately imagine than we can delineate. But when Marionetta hinted
+that she was to leave the Abbey immediately, Scythrop snatched from
+its repository his ancestor's skull, filled it with Madeira, and
+presenting himself before Mr Glowry, threatened to drink off the
+contents if Mr Glowry did not immediately promise that Marionetta
+should not be taken from the Abbey without her own consent. Mr Glowry,
+who took the Madeira to be some deadly brewage, gave the required
+promise in dismal panic. Scythrop returned to Marionetta with a joyful
+heart, and drank the Madeira by the way.
+
+Mr Glowry, during his residence in London, had come to an agreement
+with his friend Mr Toobad, that a match between Scythrop and Mr
+Toobad's daughter would be a very desirable occurrence. She was
+finishing her education in a German convent, but Mr Toobad described
+her as being fully impressed with the truth of his Ahrimanic
+philosophy,[4] and being altogether as gloomy and antithalian a young
+lady as Mr Glowry himself could desire for the future mistress of
+Nightmare Abbey. She had a great fortune in her own right, which was
+not, as we have seen, without its weight in inducing Mr Glowry to
+set his heart upon her as his daughter-in-law that was to be; he was
+therefore very much disturbed by Scythrop's untoward attachment to
+Marionetta. He condoled on the occasion with Mr Toobad; who said, that
+he had been too long accustomed to the intermeddling of the devil in
+all his affairs, to be astonished at this new trace of his cloven
+claw; but that he hoped to outwit him yet, for he was sure there could
+be no comparison between his daughter and Marionetta in the mind of
+any one who had a proper perception of the fact, that, the world
+being a great theatre of evil, seriousness and solemnity are the
+characteristics of wisdom, and laughter and merriment make a human
+being no better than a baboon. Mr Glowry comforted himself with this
+view of the subject, and urged Mr Toobad to expedite his daughter's
+return from Germany. Mr Toobad said he was in daily expectation of her
+arrival in London, and would set off immediately to meet her, that
+he might lose no time in bringing her to Nightmare Abbey. 'Then,' he
+added, 'we shall see whether Thalia or Melpomene--whether the Allegra
+or the Penserosa--will carry off the symbol of victory.'--'There can
+be no doubt,' said Mr Glowry, 'which way the scale will incline, or
+Scythrop is no true scion of the venerable stem of the Glowries.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Marionetta felt secure of Scythrop's heart; and notwithstanding the
+difficulties that surrounded her, she could not debar herself from the
+pleasure of tormenting her lover, whom she kept in a perpetual fever.
+Sometimes she would meet him with the most unqualified affection;
+sometimes with the most chilling indifference; rousing him to anger by
+artificial coldness--softening him to love by eloquent tenderness--or
+inflaming him to jealousy by coquetting with the Honourable Mr
+Listless, who seemed, under her magical influence, to burst into
+sudden life, like the bud of the evening primrose. Sometimes she would
+sit by the piano, and listen with becoming attention to Scythrop's
+pathetic remonstrances; but, in the most impassioned part of his
+oratory, she would convert all his ideas into a chaos, by striking up
+some Rondo Allegro, and saying, 'Is it not pretty?' Scythrop would
+begin to storm; and she would answer him with,
+
+  'Zitti, zitti, piano, piano,
+  Non facciamo confusione,'
+
+or some similar _facezia_, till he would start away from her, and
+enclose himself in his tower, in an agony of agitation, vowing to
+renounce her, and her whole sex, for ever; and returning to her
+presence at the summons of the billet, which she never failed to
+send with many expressions of penitence and promises of amendment.
+Scythrop's schemes for regenerating the world, and detecting his seven
+golden candle-sticks, went on very slowly in this fever of his spirit.
+
+Things proceeded in this train for several days; and Mr Glowry began
+to be uneasy at receiving no intelligence from Mr Toobad; when one
+evening the latter rushed into the library, where the family and the
+visitors were assembled, vociferating, 'The devil is come among
+you, having great wrath!' He then drew Mr Glowry aside into another
+apartment, and after remaining some time together, they re-entered the
+library with faces of great dismay, but did not condescend to explain
+to any one the cause of their discomfiture.
+
+The next morning, early, Mr Toobad departed. Mr Glowry sighed and
+groaned all day, and said not a word to any one. Scythrop had
+quarrelled, as usual, with Marionetta, and was enclosed in his tower,
+in a fit of morbid sensibility. Marionetta was comforting herself at
+the piano, with singing the airs of _Nina pazza per amore_; and the
+Honourable Mr Listless was listening to the harmony, as he lay
+supine on the sofa, with a book in his hand, into which he peeped at
+intervals. The Reverend Mr Larynx approached the sofa, and proposed a
+game at billiards.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Billiards! Really I should be very happy; but, in my present exhausted
+state, the exertion is too much for me. I do not know when I have been
+equal to such an effort. (_He rang the bell for his valet. Fatout
+entered_.) Fatout! when did I play at billiards last?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De fourteen December de last year, Monsieur. (_Fatout bowed and
+retired_.)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+So it was. Seven months ago. You see, Mr Larynx; you see, sir. My
+nerves, Miss O'Carroll, my nerves are shattered. I have been advised
+to try Bath. Some of the faculty recommend Cheltenham. I think of
+trying both, as the seasons don't clash. The season, you know, Mr
+Larynx--the season, Miss O'Carroll--the season is every thing.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+And health is something. _N'est-ce pas_, Mr Larynx?
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Most assuredly, Miss O'Carroll. For, however reasoners may dispute
+about the _summum bonum_, none of them will deny that a very good
+dinner is a very good thing: and what is a good dinner without a good
+appetite? and whence is a good appetite but from good health? Now,
+Cheltenham, Mr Listless, is famous for good appetites.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+The best piece of logic I ever heard, Mr Larynx; the very best,
+I assure you. I have thought very seriously of Cheltenham: very
+seriously and profoundly. I thought of it--let me see--when did I
+think of it? (_He rang again, and Fatout reappeared._) Fatout! when
+did I think of going to Cheltenham, and did not go?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De Juillet twenty-von, de last summer, Monsieur. (_Fatout retired._)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+So it was. An invaluable fellow that, Mr Larynx--invaluable, Miss
+O'Carroll.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+So I should judge, indeed. He seems to serve you as a walking memory,
+and to be a living chronicle, not of your actions only, but of your
+thoughts.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+An excellent definition of the fellow, Miss O'Carroll,--excellent,
+upon my honour. Ha! ha! he! Heigho! Laughter is pleasant, but the
+exertion is too much for me.
+
+
+A parcel was brought in for Mr Listless; it had been sent express.
+Fatout was summoned to unpack it; and it proved to contain a new
+novel, and a new poem, both of which had long been anxiously expected
+by the whole host of fashionable readers; and the last number of a
+popular Review, of which the editor and his coadjutors were in high
+favour at court, and enjoyed ample pensions[5] for their services to
+church and state. As Fatout left the room, Mr Flosky entered, and
+curiously inspected the literary arrivals.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+(_Turning over the leaves._) 'Devilman, a novel.' Hm. Hatred--revenge--
+misanthropy--and quotations from the Bible. Hm. This is the morbid
+anatomy of black bile.--'Paul Jones, a poem.' Hm. I see how it is.
+Paul Jones, an amiable enthusiast--disappointed in his affections--
+turns pirate from ennui and magnanimity--cuts various masculine
+throats, wins various feminine hearts--is hanged at the yard-arm! The
+catastrophe is very awkward, and very unpoetical.--'The Downing Street
+Review.' Hm. First article--An Ode to the Red Book, by Roderick
+Sackbut, Esquire. Hm. His own poem reviewed by himself. Hm--m--m.
+
+
+(_Mr Flosky proceeded in silence to look over the other articles
+of the review; Marionetta inspected the novel, and Mr Listless the
+poem._)
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+For a young man of fashion and family, Mr Listless, you seem to be of
+a very studious turn.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Studious! You are pleased to be facetious, Mr Larynx. I hope you do
+not suspect me of being studious. I have finished my education. But
+there are some fashionable books that one must read, because they are
+ingredients of the talk of the day; otherwise, I am no fonder of books
+than I dare say you yourself are, Mr Larynx.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Why, sir, I cannot say that I am indeed particularly fond of books;
+yet neither can I say that I never do read. A tale or a poem, now and
+then, to a circle of ladies over their work, is no very heterodox
+employment of the vocal energy. And I must say, for myself, that
+few men have a more Job-like endurance of the eternally recurring
+questions and answers that interweave themselves, on these occasions,
+with the crisis of an adventure, and heighten the distress of a
+tragedy.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And very often make the distress when the author has omitted it.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I shall try your patience some rainy morning, Mr Larynx; and Mr
+Listless shall recommend us the very newest new book, that every body
+reads.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You shall receive it, Miss O'Carroll, with all the gloss of novelty;
+fresh as a ripe green-gage in all the downiness of its bloom. A
+mail-coach copy from Edinburgh, forwarded express from London.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+This rage for novelty is the bane of literature. Except my works and
+those of my particular friends, nothing is good that is not as old as
+Jeremy Taylor: and, _entre nous_, the best parts of my friends' books
+were either written or suggested by myself.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Sir, I reverence you. But I must say, modern books are very
+consolatory and congenial to my feelings. There is, as it were, a
+delightful north-east wind, an intellectual blight breathing through
+them; a delicious misanthropy and discontent, that demonstrates the
+nullity of virtue and energy, and puts me in good humour with myself
+and my sofa.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Very true, sir. Modern literature is a north-east wind--a blight of
+the human soul. I take credit to myself for having helped to make it
+so. The way to produce fine fruit is to blight the flower. You call
+this a paradox. Marry, so be it. Ponder thereon.
+
+
+The conversation was interrupted by the re-appearance of Mr Toobad,
+covered with mud. He just showed himself at the door, muttered 'The
+devil is come among you!' and vanished. The road which connected
+Nightmare Abbey with the civilised world, was artificially raised
+above the level of the fens, and ran through them in a straight line
+as far as the eye could reach, with a ditch on each side, of which the
+water was rendered invisible by the aquatic vegetation that covered
+the surface. Into one of these ditches the sudden action of a
+shy horse, which took fright at a windmill, had precipitated the
+travelling chariot of Mr Toobad, who had been reduced to the necessity
+of scrambling in dismal plight through the window. One of the wheels
+was found to be broken; and Mr Toobad, leaving the postilion to
+get the chariot as well as he could to Claydyke for the purpose of
+cleaning and repairing, had walked back to Nightmare Abbey, followed
+by his servant with the imperial, and repeating all the way his
+favourite quotation from the Revelations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Mr Toobad had found his daughter Celinda in London, and after the
+first joy of meeting was over, told her he had a husband ready for
+her. The young lady replied, very gravely, that she should take the
+liberty to choose for herself. Mr Toobad said he saw the devil was
+determined to interfere with all his projects, but he was resolved
+on his own part, not to have on his conscience the crime of passive
+obedience and non-resistance to Lucifer, and therefore she should
+marry the person he had chosen for her. Miss Toobad replied, _tres
+posement_, she assuredly would not. 'Celinda, Celinda,' said Mr
+Toobad, 'you most assuredly shall.'--'Have I not a fortune in my own
+right, sir?' said Celinda. 'The more is the pity,' said Mr Toobad:
+'but I can find means, miss; I can find means. There are more ways
+than one of breaking in obstinate girls.' They parted for the night
+with the expression of opposite resolutions, and in the morning the
+young lady's chamber was found empty, and what was become of her Mr
+Toobad had no clue to conjecture. He continued to investigate town and
+country in search of her; visiting and revisiting Nightmare Abbey at
+intervals, to consult with his friend, Mr Glowry. Mr Glowry agreed
+with Mr Toobad that this was a very flagrant instance of filial
+disobedience and rebellion; and Mr Toobad declared, that when he
+discovered the fugitive, she should find that 'the devil was come unto
+her, having great wrath.'
+
+In the evening, the whole party met, as usual, in the library.
+Marionetta sat at the harp; the Honourable Mr Listless sat by her and
+turned over her music, though the exertion was almost too much
+for him. The Reverend Mr Larynx relieved him occasionally in this
+delightful labour. Scythrop, tormented by the demon Jealousy, sat in
+the corner biting his lips and fingers. Marionetta looked at him every
+now and then with a smile of most provoking good humour, which he
+pretended not to see, and which only the more exasperated his troubled
+spirit. He took down a volume of Dante, and pretended to be deeply
+interested in the Purgatorio, though he knew not a word he was
+reading, as Marionetta was well aware; who, tripping across the room,
+peeped into his book, and said to him, 'I see you are in the middle of
+Purgatory.'--'I am in the middle of hell,' said Scythrop furiously.
+'Are you?' said she; 'then come across the room, and I will sing you
+the finale of Don Giovanni.'
+
+'Let me alone,' said Scythrop. Marionetta looked at him with a
+deprecating smile, and said, 'You unjust, cross creature, you.'--'Let
+me alone,' said Scythrop, but much less emphatically than at first,
+and by no means wishing to be taken at his word. Marionetta left him
+immediately, and returning to the harp, said, just loud enough for
+Scythrop to hear--'Did you ever read Dante, Mr Listless? Scythrop
+is reading Dante, and is just now in Purgatory.'--'And I' said the
+Honourable Mr Listless, 'am not reading Dante, and am just now in
+Paradise,' bowing to Marionetta.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+You are very gallant, Mr Listless; and I dare say you are very fond of
+reading Dante.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I don't know how it is, but Dante never came in my way till lately. I
+never had him in my collection, and if I had had him I should not have
+read him. But I find he is growing fashionable, and I am afraid I must
+read him some wet morning.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+No, read him some evening, by all means. Were you ever in love, Mr
+Listless?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I assure you, Miss O'Carroll, never--till I came to Nightmare Abbey.
+I dare say it is very pleasant; but it seems to give so much trouble
+that I fear the exertion would be too much for me.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Shall I teach you a compendious method of courtship, that will give
+you no trouble whatever?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You will confer on me an inexpressible obligation. I am all impatience
+to learn it.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Sit with your back to the lady and read Dante; only be sure to begin
+in the middle, and turn over three or four pages at once--backwards
+as well as forwards, and she will immediately perceive that you are
+desperately in love with her--desperately.
+
+
+_(The Honourable Mr Listless sitting between Scythrop and Marionetta,
+and fixing all his attention on the beautiful speaker, did not observe
+Scythrop, who was doing as she described.)_
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You are pleased to be facetious, Miss O'Carroll. The lady would
+infallibly conclude that I was the greatest brute in town.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Far from it. She would say, perhaps, some people have odd methods of
+showing their affection.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+But I should think, with submission--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_joining them from another part of the room_)
+
+Did I not hear Mr Listless observe that Dante is becoming fashionable?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I did hazard a remark to that effect, Mr Flosky, though I speak on
+such subjects with a consciousness of my own nothingness, in the
+presence of so great a man as Mr Flosky. I know not what is the colour
+of Dante's devils, but as he is certainly becoming fashionable I
+conclude they are blue; for the blue devils, as it seems to me, Mr
+Flosky, constitute the fundamental feature of fashionable literature.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The blue are, indeed, the staple commodity; but as they will not
+always be commanded, the black, red, and grey may be admitted as
+substitutes. Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution, have played
+the devil, Mr Listless, and brought the devil into play.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD (_starting up_)
+
+Having great wrath.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+This is no play upon words, but the sober sadness of veritable fact.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution. I cannot exactly see the
+connection of ideas.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I should be sorry if you could; I pity the man who can see the
+connection of his own ideas. Still more do I pity him, the connection
+of whose ideas any other person can see. Sir, the great evil is,
+that there is too much common-place light in our moral and political
+literature; and light is a great enemy to mystery, and mystery is a
+great friend to enthusiasm. Now the enthusiasm for abstract truth is
+an exceedingly fine thing, as long as the truth, which is the object
+of the enthusiasm, is so completely abstract as to be altogether out
+of the reach of the human faculties; and, in that sense, I have
+myself an enthusiasm for truth, but in no other, for the pleasure of
+metaphysical investigation lies in the means, not in the end; and if
+the end could be found, the pleasure of the means would cease. The
+mind, to be kept in health, must be kept in exercise. The proper
+exercise of the mind is elaborate reasoning. Analytical reasoning is a
+base and mechanical process, which takes to pieces and examines, bit
+by bit, the rude material of knowledge, and extracts therefrom a few
+hard and obstinate things called facts, every thing in the shape of
+which I cordially hate. But synthetical reasoning, setting up as its
+goal some unattainable abstraction, like an imaginary quantity in
+algebra, and commencing its course with taking for granted some two
+assertions which cannot be proved, from the union of these two assumed
+truths produces a third assumption, and so on in infinite series, to
+the unspeakable benefit of the human intellect. The beauty of this
+process is, that at every step it strikes out into two branches, in
+a compound ratio of ramification; so that you are perfectly sure of
+losing your way, and keeping your mind in perfect health, by the
+perpetual exercise of an interminable quest; and for these reasons I
+have christened my eldest son Emanuel Kant Flosky.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Nothing can be more luminous.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And what has all that to do with Dante, and the blue devils?
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Not much, I should think, with Dante, but a great deal with the blue
+devils.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It is very certain, and much to be rejoiced at, that our literature is
+hag-ridden. Tea has shattered our nerves; late dinners make us slaves
+of indigestion; the French Revolution has made us shrink from the name
+of philosophy, and has destroyed, in the more refined part of the
+community (of which number I am one), all enthusiasm for political
+liberty. That part of the _reading public_ which shuns the solid
+food of reason for the light diet of fiction, requires a perpetual
+adhibition of _sauce piquante_ to the palate of its depraved
+imagination. It lived upon ghosts, goblins, and skeletons (I and my
+friend Mr Sackbut served up a few of the best), till even the devil
+himself, though magnified to the size of Mount Athos, became too base,
+common, and popular, for its surfeited appetite. The ghosts have
+therefore been laid, and the devil has been cast into outer darkness,
+and now the delight of our spirits is to dwell on all the vices and
+blackest passions of our nature, tricked out in a masquerade dress of
+heroism and disappointed benevolence; the whole secret of which lies
+in forming combinations that contradict all our experience, and
+affixing the purple shred of some particular virtue to that precise
+character, in which we should be most certain not to find it in the
+living world; and making this single virtue not only redeem all the
+real and manifest vices of the character, but make them actually
+pass for necessary adjuncts, and indispensable accompaniments and
+characteristics of the said virtue.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+That is, because the devil is come among us, and finds it for his
+interest to destroy all our perceptions of the distinctions of right
+and wrong.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I do not precisely enter into your meaning, Mr Flosky, and should be
+glad if you would make it a little more plain to me.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+One or two examples will do it, Miss O'Carroll. If I were to take all
+the mean and sordid qualities of a money-dealing Jew, and tack on to
+them, as with a nail, the quality of extreme benevolence, I should
+have a very decent hero for a modern novel; and should contribute my
+quota to the fashionable method of administering a mass of vice, under
+a thin and unnatural covering of virtue, like a spider wrapt in a
+bit of gold leaf, and administered as a wholesome pill. On the same
+principle, if a man knocks me down, and takes my purse and watch by
+main force, I turn him to account, and set him forth in a tragedy as
+a dashing young fellow, disinherited for his romantic generosity, and
+full of a most amiable hatred of the world in general, and his own
+country in particular, and of a most enlightened and chivalrous
+affection for himself: then, with the addition of a wild girl to fall
+in love with him, and a series of adventures in which they break all
+the Ten Commandments in succession (always, you will observe, for some
+sublime motive, which must be carefully analysed in its progress), I
+have as amiable a pair of tragic characters as ever issued from that
+new region of the belles lettres, which I have called the Morbid
+Anatomy of Black Bile, and which is greatly to be admired and rejoiced
+at, as affording a fine scope for the exhibition of mental power.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Which is about as well employed as the power of a hothouse would be in
+forcing up a nettle to the size of an elm. If we go on in this way, we
+shall have a new art of poetry, of which one of the first rules will
+be: To remember to forget that there are any such things as sunshine
+and music in the world.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+It seems to be the case with us at present, or we should not have
+interrupted Miss O'Carroll's music with this exceedingly dry
+conversation.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I should be most happy if Miss O'Carroll would remind us that there
+are yet both music and sunshine--
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+In the voice and the smile of beauty. May I entreat the favour
+of--(_turning over the pages of music._)
+
+
+All were silent, and Marionetta sung:
+
+  Why are thy looks so blank, grey friar?
+  Why are thy looks so blue?
+  Thou seem'st more pale and lank, grey friar,
+  Than thou wast used to do:--
+  Say, what has made thee rue?
+
+  Thy form was plump, and a light did shine
+  In thy round and ruby face,
+  Which showed an outward visible sign
+  Of an inward spiritual grace:--
+  Say, what has changed thy case?
+
+  Yet will I tell thee true, grey friar,
+  I very well can see,
+  That, if thy looks are blue, grey friar,
+  'Tis all for love of me,--
+  'Tis all for love of me.
+
+  But breathe not thy vows to me, grey friar,
+  Oh, breathe them not, I pray;
+  For ill beseems in a reverend friar,
+  The love of a mortal may;
+  And I needs must say thee nay.
+
+  But, could'st thou think my heart to move
+  With that pale and silent scowl?
+  Know, he who would win a maiden's love,
+  Whether clad in cap or cowl,
+  Must be more of a lark than an owl.
+
+
+Scythrop immediately replaced Dante on the shelf, and joined the
+circle round the beautiful singer. Marionetta gave him a smile of
+approbation that fully restored his complacency, and they continued
+on the best possible terms during the remainder of the evening. The
+Honourable Mr Listless turned over the leaves with double alacrity,
+saying, 'You are severe upon invalids, Miss O'Carroll: to escape your
+satire, I must try to be sprightly, though the exertion is too much
+for me.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A new visitor arrived at the Abbey, in the person of Mr Asterias,
+the ichthyologist. This gentleman had passed his life in seeking the
+living wonders of the deep through the four quarters of the world;
+he had a cabinet of stuffed and dried fishes, of shells, sea-weeds,
+corals, and madrepores, that was the admiration and envy of the Royal
+Society. He had penetrated into the watery den of the Sepia Octopus,
+disturbed the conjugal happiness of that turtle-dove of the ocean, and
+come off victorious in a sanguinary conflict. He had been becalmed
+in the tropical seas, and had watched, in eager expectation, though
+unhappily always in vain, to see the colossal polypus rise from the
+water, and entwine its enormous arms round the masts and the rigging.
+He maintained the origin of all things from water, and insisted that
+the polypodes were the first of animated things, and that, from their
+round bodies and many-shooting arms, the Hindoos had taken their gods,
+the most ancient of deities. But the chief object of his ambition, the
+end and aim of his researches, was to discover a triton and a mermaid,
+the existence of which he most potently and implicitly believed, and
+was prepared to demonstrate, _a priori, a posteriori, a fortiori_,
+synthetically and analytically, syllogistically and inductively,
+by arguments deduced both from acknowledged facts and plausible
+hypotheses. A report that a mermaid had been seen 'sleeking her soft
+alluring locks' on the sea-coast of Lincolnshire, had brought him in
+great haste from London, to pay a long-promised and often-postponed
+visit to his old acquaintance, Mr Glowry.
+
+Mr Asterias was accompanied by his son, to whom he had given the name
+of Aquarius--flattering himself that he would, in the process of time,
+become a constellation among the stars of ichthyological science. What
+charitable female had lent him the mould in which this son was cast,
+no one pretended to know; and, as he never dropped the most distant
+allusion to Aquarius's mother, some of the wags of London maintained
+that he had received the favours of a mermaid, and that the scientific
+perquisitions which kept him always prowling about the sea-shore, were
+directed by the less philosophical motive of regaining his lost love.
+
+Mr Asterias perlustrated the sea-coast for several days, and reaped
+disappointment, but not despair. One night, shortly after his arrival,
+he was sitting in one of the windows of the library, looking towards
+the sea, when his attention was attracted by a figure which was moving
+near the edge of the surf, and which was dimly visible through the
+moonless summer night. Its motions were irregular, like those of a
+person in a state of indecision. It had extremely long hair, which
+floated in the wind. Whatever else it might be, it certainly was not a
+fisherman. It might be a lady; but it was neither Mrs Hilary nor Miss
+O'Carroll, for they were both in the library. It might be one of the
+female servants; but it had too much grace, and too striking an air of
+habitual liberty, to render it probable. Besides, what should one of
+the female servants be doing there at this hour, moving to and fro,
+as it seemed, without any visible purpose? It could scarcely be a
+stranger; for Claydyke, the nearest village, was ten miles distant;
+and what female would come ten miles across the fens, for no purpose
+but to hover over the surf under the walls of Nightmare Abbey? Might
+it not be a mermaid? It was possibly a mermaid. It was probably a
+mermaid. It was very probably a mermaid. Nay, what else could it be
+but a mermaid? It certainly was a mermaid. Mr Asterias stole out of
+the library on tiptoe, with his finger on his lips, having beckoned
+Aquarius to follow him.
+
+The rest of the party was in great surprise at Mr Asterias's movement,
+and some of them approached the window to see if the locality would
+tend to elucidate the mystery. Presently they saw him and Aquarius
+cautiously stealing along on the other side of the moat, but they saw
+nothing more; and Mr Asterias returning, told them, with accents of
+great disappointment, that he had had a glimpse of a mermaid, but she
+had eluded him in the darkness, and was gone, he presumed, to sup with
+some enamoured triton, in a submarine grotto.
+
+'But, seriously, Mr Asterias,' said the Honourable Mr Listless, 'do
+you positively believe there are such things as mermaids?'
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Most assuredly; and tritons too.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+What! things that are half human and half fish?
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Precisely. They are the oran-outangs of the sea. But I am persuaded
+that there are also complete sea men, differing in no respect from us,
+but that they are stupid, and covered with scales; for, though our
+organisation seems to exclude us essentially from the class of
+amphibious animals, yet anatomists well know that the _foramen ovale_
+may remain open in an adult, and that respiration is, in that case,
+not necessary to life: and how can it be otherwise explained that the
+Indian divers, employed in the pearl fishery, pass whole hours under
+the water; and that the famous Swedish gardener of Troningholm lived
+a day and a half under the ice without being drowned? A nereid, or
+mermaid, was taken in the year 1403 in a Dutch lake, and was in every
+respect like a French woman, except that she did not speak. Towards
+the end of the seventeenth century, an English ship, a hundred and
+fifty leagues from land, in the Greenland seas, discovered a flotilla
+of sixty or seventy little skiffs, in each of which was a triton, or
+sea man: at the approach of the English vessel the whole of them,
+seized with simultaneous fear, disappeared, skiffs and all, under
+the water, as if they had been a human variety of the nautilus. The
+illustrious Don Feijoo has preserved an authentic and well-attested
+story of a young Spaniard, named Francis de la Vega, who, bathing with
+some of his friends in June, 1674, suddenly dived under the sea and
+rose no more. His friends thought him drowned; they were plebeians and
+pious Catholics; but a philosopher might very legitimately have drawn
+the same conclusion.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Nothing could be more logical.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Five years afterwards, some fishermen near Cadiz found in their nets a
+triton, or sea man; they spoke to him in several languages--
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+They were very learned fishermen.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+They had the gift of tongues by especial favour of their brother
+fisherman, Saint Peter.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Is Saint Peter the tutelar saint of Cadiz?
+
+
+(_None of the company could answer this question, and_ MR ASTERIAS
+_proceeded_.)
+
+They spoke to him in several languages, but he was as mute as a fish.
+They handed him over to some holy friars, who exorcised him; but the
+devil was mute too. After some days he pronounced the name Lierganes.
+A monk took him to that village. His mother and brothers recognised
+and embraced him; but he was as insensible to their caresses as any
+other fish would have been. He had some scales on his body, which
+dropped off by degrees; but his skin was as hard and rough as
+shagreen. He stayed at home nine years, without recovering his
+speech or his reason: he then disappeared again; and one of his old
+acquaintance, some years after, saw him pop his head out of the water
+near the coast of the Asturias. These facts were certified by his
+brothers, and by Don Gaspardo de la Riba Aguero, Knight of Saint
+James, who lived near Lierganes, and often had the pleasure of
+our triton's company to dinner.--Pliny mentions an embassy of the
+Olyssiponians to Tiberius, to give him intelligence of a triton which
+had been heard playing on its shell in a certain cave; with several
+other authenticated facts on the subject of tritons and nereids.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You astonish me. I have been much on the sea-shore, in the season, but
+I do not think I ever saw a mermaid. (_He rang, and summoned Fatout,
+who made his appearance half-seas-over_.) Fatout! did I ever see a
+mermaid?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Mermaid! mer-r-m-m-aid! Ah! merry maid! Oui, monsieur! Yes, sir, very
+many. I vish dere vas von or two here in de kitchen--ma foi! Dey be
+all as melancholic as so many tombstone.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I mean, Fatout, an odd kind of human fish.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De odd fish! Ah, oui! I understand de phrase: ve have seen nothing
+else since ve left town--ma foi!
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You seem to have a cup too much, sir.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Non, monsieur: de cup too little. De fen be very unwholesome, and I
+drink-a-de ponch vid Raven de butler, to keep out de bad air.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Fatout! I insist on your being sober.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Oui, monsieur; I vil be as sober as de reverendissime pere Jean. I
+should be ver glad of de merry maid; but de butler be de odd fish,
+and he swim in de bowl de ponch. Ah! ah! I do recollect de leetle-a
+song:--'About fair maids, and about fair maids, and about my merry
+maids all.' (_Fatout reeled out, singing_.)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I am overwhelmed: I never saw the rascal in such a condition before.
+But will you allow me, Mr Asterias, to inquire into the _cui bono_ of
+all the pains and expense you have incurred to discover a mermaid? The
+_cui bono_, sir, is the question I always take the liberty to ask when
+I see any one taking much trouble for any object. I am myself a sort
+of Signor Pococurante, and should like to know if there be any thing
+better or pleasanter, than the state of existing and doing nothing?
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+I have made many voyages, Mr Listless, to remote and barren shores:
+I have travelled over desert and inhospitable lands: I have defied
+danger--I have endured fatigue--I have submitted to privation. In the
+midst of these I have experienced pleasures which I would not at any
+time have exchanged for that of existing and doing nothing. I have
+known many evils, but I have never known the worst of all, which, as
+it seems to me, are those which are comprehended in the inexhaustible
+varieties of _ennui_: spleen, chagrin, vapours, blue devils,
+time-killing, discontent, misanthropy, and all their interminable
+train of fretfulness, querulousness, suspicions, jealousies, and
+fears, which have alike infected society, and the literature of
+society; and which would make an arctic ocean of the human mind, if
+the more humane pursuits of philosophy and science did not keep alive
+the better feelings and more valuable energies of our nature.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You are pleased to be severe upon our fashionable belles lettres.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Surely not without reason, when pirates, highwaymen, and other
+varieties of the extensive genus Marauder, are the only _beau ideal_
+of the active, as splenetic and railing misanthropy is of the
+speculative energy. A gloomy brow and a tragical voice seem to have
+been of late the characteristics of fashionable manners: and a morbid,
+withering, deadly, antisocial sirocco, loaded with moral and political
+despair, breathes through all the groves and valleys of the modern
+Parnassus; while science moves on in the calm dignity of its course,
+affording to youth delights equally pure and vivid--to maturity, calm
+and grateful occupation--to old age, the most pleasing recollections
+and inexhaustible materials of agreeable and salutary reflection; and,
+while its votary enjoys the disinterested pleasure of enlarging the
+intellect and increasing the comforts of society, he is himself
+independent of the caprices of human intercourse and the accidents of
+human fortune. Nature is his great and inexhaustible treasure. His
+days are always too short for his enjoyment: _ennui_, is a stranger to
+his door. At peace with the world and with his own mind, he suffices
+to himself, makes all around him happy, and the close of his pleasing
+and beneficial existence is the evening of a beautiful day.[6]
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Really I should like very well to lead such a life myself, but the
+exertion would be too much for me. Besides, I have been at college.
+I contrive to get through my day by sinking the morning in bed,
+and killing the evening in company; dressing and dining in the
+intermediate space, and stopping the chinks and crevices of the few
+vacant moments that remain with a little easy reading. And that
+amiable discontent and antisociality which you reprobate in our
+present drawing-room-table literature, I find, I do assure you, a very
+fine mental tonic, which reconciles me to my favourite pursuit of
+doing nothing, by showing me that nobody is worth doing any thing for.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+But is there not in such compositions a kind of unconscious
+self-detection, which seems to carry their own antidote with them? For
+surely no one who cordially and truly either hates or despises the
+world will publish a volume every three months to say so.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+There is a secret in all this, which I will elucidate with a dusky
+remark. According to Berkeley, the _esse_ of things is _percipi_. They
+exist as they are perceived. But, leaving for the present, as far
+as relates to the material world, the materialists, hyloists, and
+antihyloists, to settle this point among them, which is indeed
+
+  A subtle question, raised among
+  Those out o' their wits, and those i' the wrong:
+
+for only we transcendentalists are in the right: we may very safely
+assert that the _esse_ of happiness is _percipi_. It exists as it is
+perceived. 'It is the mind that maketh well or ill.' The elements of
+pleasure and pain are every where. The degree of happiness that any
+circumstances or objects can confer on us depends on the mental
+disposition with which we approach them. If you consider what is meant
+by the common phrases, a happy disposition and a discontented temper,
+you will perceive that the truth for which I am contending is
+universally admitted.
+
+
+_(Mr Flosky suddenly stopped: he found himself unintentionally
+trespassing within the limits of common sense.)_
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+It is very true; a happy disposition finds materials of enjoyment
+every where. In the city, or the country--in society, or in
+solitude--in the theatre, or the forest--in the hum of the multitude,
+or in the silence of the mountains, are alike materials of reflection
+and elements of pleasure. It is one mode of pleasure to listen to
+the music of 'Don Giovanni,' in a theatre glittering with light, and
+crowded with elegance and beauty: it is another to glide at sunset
+over the bosom of a lonely lake, where no sound disturbs the silence
+but the motion of the boat through the waters. A happy disposition
+derives pleasure from both, a discontented temper from neither, but
+is always busy in detecting deficiencies, and feeding dissatisfaction
+with comparisons. The one gathers all the flowers, the other all the
+nettles, in its path. The one has the faculty of enjoying every thing,
+the other of enjoying nothing. The one realises all the pleasure of
+the present good; the other converts it into pain, by pining after
+something better, which is only better because it is not present, and
+which, if it were present, would not be enjoyed. These morbid spirits
+are in life what professed critics are in literature; they see nothing
+but faults, because they are predetermined to shut their eyes to
+beauties. The critic does his utmost to blight genius in its infancy;
+that which rises in spite of him he will not see; and then he
+complains of the decline of literature. In like manner, these cankers
+of society complain of human nature and society, when they have
+wilfully debarred themselves from all the good they contain, and done
+their utmost to blight their own happiness and that of all around
+them. Misanthropy is sometimes the product of disappointed
+benevolence; but it is more frequently the offspring of overweening
+and mortified vanity, quarrelling with the world for not being better
+treated than it deserves.
+
+
+SCYTHROP (_to Marionetta_)
+
+These remarks are rather uncharitable. There is great good in human
+nature, but it is at present ill-conditioned. Ardent spirits cannot
+but be dissatisfied with things as they are; and, according to their
+views of the probabilities of amelioration, they will rush into the
+extremes of either hope or despair--of which the first is enthusiasm,
+and the second misanthropy; but their sources in this case are the
+same, as the Severn and the Wye run in different directions, and both
+rise in Plinlimmon.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+'And there is salmon in both;' for the resemblance is about as close
+as that between Macedon and Monmouth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Marionetta observed the next day a remarkable perturbation in
+Scythrop, for which she could not imagine any probable cause. She was
+willing to believe at first that it had some transient and trifling
+source, and would pass off in a day or two; but, contrary to this
+expectation, it daily increased. She was well aware that Scythrop had
+a strong tendency to the love of mystery, for its own sake; that is
+to say, he would employ mystery to serve a purpose, but would first
+choose his purpose by its capability of mystery. He seemed now to have
+more mystery on his hands than the laws of the system allowed, and to
+wear his coat of darkness with an air of great discomfort. All her
+little playful arts lost by degrees much of their power either to
+irritate or to soothe; and the first perception of her diminished
+influence produced in her an immediate depression of spirits, and a
+consequent sadness of demeanour, that rendered her very interesting to
+Mr Glowry; who, duly considering the improbability of accomplishing
+his wishes with respect to Miss Toobad (which improbability naturally
+increased in the diurnal ratio of that young lady's absence), began
+to reconcile himself by degrees to the idea of Marionetta being his
+daughter.
+
+Marionetta made many ineffectual attempts to extract from Scythrop the
+secret of his mystery; and, in despair of drawing it from himself,
+began to form hopes that she might find a clue to it from Mr Flosky,
+who was Scythrop's dearest friend, and was more frequently than any
+other person admitted to his solitary tower. Mr Flosky, however, had
+ceased to be visible in a morning. He was engaged in the composition
+of a dismal ballad; and, Marionetta's uneasiness overcoming her
+scruples of decorum, she determined to seek him in the apartment which
+he had chosen for his study. She tapped at the door, and at the sound
+'Come in,' entered the apartment. It was noon, and the sun was shining
+in full splendour, much to the annoyance of Mr Flosky, who had
+obviated the inconvenience by closing the shutters, and drawing
+the window-curtains. He was sitting at his table by the light of a
+solitary candle, with a pen in one hand, and a muffineer in the other,
+with which he occasionally sprinkled salt on the wick, to make it burn
+blue. He sate with 'his eye in a fine frenzy rolling,' and turned his
+inspired gaze on Marionetta as if she had been the ghastly ladie of
+a magical vision; then placed his hand before his eyes, with an
+appearance of manifest pain--shook his head--withdrew his hand--rubbed
+his eyes, like a waking man--and said, in a tone of ruefulness most
+jeremitaylorically pathetic, 'To what am I to attribute this very
+unexpected pleasure, my dear Miss O'Carroll?'
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I must apologise for intruding on you, Mr Flosky; but the interest
+which I--you--take in my cousin Scythrop--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Pardon me, Miss O'Carroll; I do not take any interest in any person or
+thing on the face of the earth; which sentiment, if you analyse it,
+you will find to be the quintessence of the most refined philanthropy.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I will take it for granted that it is so, Mr Flosky; I am not
+conversant with metaphysical subtleties, but--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Subtleties! my dear Miss O'Carroll. I am sorry to find you
+participating in the vulgar error of the _reading public,_ to whom
+an unusual collocation of words, involving a juxtaposition of
+antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of
+hyperoxysophistical paradoxology.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Indeed, Mr Flosky, it suggests no such notion to me. I have sought you
+for the purpose of obtaining information.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY _(shaking his head)_
+
+No one ever sought me for such a purpose before.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I think, Mr Flosky--that is, I believe--that is, I fancy--that is, I
+imagine--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The [Greek: toytesti], the _id est_, the _cioe_, the _c'est a dire_,
+the _that is_, my dear Miss O'Carroll, is not applicable in this
+case--if you will permit me to take the liberty of saying so. Think
+is not synonymous with believe--for belief, in many most important
+particulars, results from the total absence, the absolute negation of
+thought, and is thereby the sane and orthodox condition of mind; and
+thought and belief are both essentially different from fancy, and
+fancy, again, is distinct from imagination. This distinction between
+fancy and imagination is one of the most abstruse and important points
+of metaphysics. I have written seven hundred pages of promise to
+elucidate it, which promise I shall keep as faithfully as the bank
+will its promise to pay.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I assure you, Mr Flosky, I care no more about metaphysics than I do
+about the bank; and, if you will condescend to talk to a simple girl
+in intelligible terms--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Say not condescend! Know you not that you talk to the most humble of
+men, to one who has buckled on the armour of sanctity, and clothed
+himself with humility as with a garment?
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+My cousin Scythrop has of late had an air of mystery about him, which
+gives me great uneasiness.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+That is strange: nothing is so becoming to a man as an air of mystery.
+Mystery is the very key-stone of all that is beautiful in poetry, all
+that is sacred in faith, and all that is recondite in transcendental
+psychology. I am writing a ballad which is all mystery; it is 'such
+stuff as dreams are made of,' and is, indeed, stuff made of a dream;
+for, last night I fell asleep as usual over my book, and had a vision
+of pure reason. I composed five hundred lines in my sleep; so that,
+having had a dream of a ballad, I am now officiating as my own Peter
+Quince, and making a ballad of my dream, and it shall be called
+Bottom's Dream, because it has no bottom.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I see, Mr Flosky, you think my intrusion unseasonable, and are
+inclined to punish it, by talking nonsense to me. (_Mr Flosky gave a
+start at the word nonsense, which almost overturned the table._) I
+assure you, I would not have intruded if I had not been very much
+interested in the question I wish to ask you.--(_Mr Flosky listened
+in sullen dignity._)--My cousin Scythrop seems to have some secret
+preying on his mind.--(_Mr Flosky was silent._)--He seems very
+unhappy--Mr Flosky.--Perhaps you are acquainted with the cause.--(_Mr
+Flosky was still silent._)--I only wish to know--Mr Flosky--if it is
+any thing--that could be remedied by any thing--that any one--of whom
+I know any thing--could do.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_after a pause_)
+
+There are various ways of getting at secrets. The most approved
+methods, as recommended both theoretically and practically in
+philosophical novels, are eavesdropping at key-holes, picking the
+locks of chests and desks, peeping into letters, steaming wafers, and
+insinuating hot wire under sealing wax; none of which methods I hold
+it lawful to practise.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Surely, Mr Flosky, you cannot suspect me of wishing to adopt or
+encourage such base and contemptible arts.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Yet are they recommended, and with well-strung reasons, by writers of
+gravity and note, as simple and easy methods of studying character,
+and gratifying that laudable curiosity which aims at the knowledge of
+man.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I am as ignorant of this morality which you do not approve, as of the
+metaphysics which you do: I should be glad to know by your means, what
+is the matter with my cousin; I do not like to see him unhappy, and I
+suppose there is some reason for it.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Now I should rather suppose there is no reason for it: it is the
+fashion to be unhappy. To have a reason for being so would be
+exceedingly common-place: to be so without any is the province of
+genius: the art of being miserable for misery's sake, has been brought
+to great perfection in our days; and the ancient Odyssey, which held
+forth a shining example of the endurance of real misfortune, will
+give place to a modern one, setting out a more instructive picture of
+querulous impatience under imaginary evils.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Will you oblige me, Mr Flosky, by giving me a plain answer to a plain
+question?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It is impossible, my dear Miss O'Carroll. I never gave a plain answer
+to a question in my life.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Do you, or do you not, know what is the matter with my cousin?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+To say that I do not know, would be to say that I am ignorant of
+something; and God forbid, that a transcendental metaphysician, who
+has pure anticipated cognitions of every thing, and carries the whole
+science of geometry in his head without ever having looked into
+Euclid, should fall into so empirical an error as to declare himself
+ignorant of any thing: to say that I do know, would be to pretend to
+positive and circumstantial knowledge touching present matter of fact,
+which, when you consider the nature of evidence, and the various
+lights in which the same thing may be seen--
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I see, Mr Flosky, that either you have no information, or are
+determined not to impart it; and I beg your pardon for having given
+you this unnecessary trouble.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+My dear Miss O'Carroll, it would have given me great pleasure to have
+said any thing that would have given you pleasure; but if any person
+living could make report of having obtained any information on any
+subject from Ferdinando Flosky, my transcendental reputation would be
+ruined for ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Scythrop grew every day more reserved, mysterious, and distrait; and
+gradually lengthened the duration of his diurnal seclusions in his
+tower. Marionetta thought she perceived in all this very manifest
+symptoms of a warm love cooling.
+
+It was seldom that she found herself alone with him in the morning,
+and, on these occasions, if she was silent in the hope of his speaking
+first, not a syllable would he utter; if she spoke to him indirectly,
+he assented monosyllabically; if she questioned him, his answers
+were brief, constrained, and evasive. Still, though her spirits were
+depressed, her playfulness had not so totally forsaken her, but that
+it illuminated at intervals the gloom of Nightmare Abbey; and if, on
+any occasion, she observed in Scythrop tokens of unextinguished or
+returning passion, her love of tormenting her lover immediately got
+the better both of her grief and her sympathy, though not of her
+curiosity, which Scythrop seemed determined not to satisfy. This
+playfulness, however, was in a great measure artificial, and usually
+vanished with the irritable Strephon, to whose annoyance it had been
+exerted. The Genius Loci, the _tutela_ of Nightmare Abbey, the
+spirit of black melancholy, began to set his seal on her pallescent
+countenance. Scythrop perceived the change, found his tender
+sympathies awakened, and did his utmost to comfort the afflicted
+damsel, assuring her that his seeming inattention had only proceeded
+from his being involved in a profound meditation on a very hopeful
+scheme for the regeneration of human society. Marionetta called him
+ungrateful, cruel, cold-hearted, and accompanied her reproaches with
+many sobs and tears; poor Scythrop growing every moment more soft
+and submissive--till, at length, he threw himself at her feet, and
+declared that no competition of beauty, however dazzling, genius,
+however transcendent, talents, however cultivated, or philosophy,
+however enlightened, should ever make him renounce his divine
+Marionetta.
+
+'Competition!' thought Marionetta, and suddenly, with an air of the
+most freezing indifference, she said, 'You are perfectly at liberty,
+sir, to do as you please; I beg you will follow your own plans,
+without any reference to me.'
+
+Scythrop was confounded. What was become of all her passion and her
+tears? Still kneeling, he kissed her hand with rueful timidity, and
+said, in most pathetic accents, 'Do you not love me, Marionetta?'
+
+'No,' said Marionetta, with a look of cold composure: 'No.' Scythrop
+still looked up incredulously. 'No, I tell you.'
+
+'Oh! very well, madam,' said Scythrop, rising, 'if that is the case,
+there are those in the world--'
+
+'To be sure there are, sir;--and do you suppose I do not see through
+your designs, you ungenerous monster?'
+
+'My designs? Marionetta!'
+
+'Yes, your designs, Scythrop. You have come here to cast me off, and
+artfully contrive that it should appear to be my doing, and not yours,
+thinking to quiet your tender conscience with this pitiful stratagem.
+But do not suppose that you are of so much consequence to me: do not
+suppose it: you are of no consequence to me at all--none at all:
+therefore, leave me: I renounce you: leave me; why do you not leave
+me?'
+
+Scythrop endeavoured to remonstrate, but without success. She
+reiterated her injunctions to him to leave her, till, in the
+simplicity of his spirit, he was preparing to comply. When he had
+nearly reached the door, Marionetta said, 'Farewell.' Scythrop looked
+back. 'Farewell, Scythrop,' she repeated, 'you will never see me
+again.'
+
+'Never see you again, Marionetta?'
+
+'I shall go from hence to-morrow, perhaps to-day; and before we meet
+again, one of us will be married, and we might as well be dead, you
+know, Scythrop.'
+
+The sudden change of her voice in the last few words, and the burst
+of tears that accompanied them, acted like electricity on the
+tender-hearted youth; and, in another instant, a complete
+reconciliation was accomplished without the intervention of words.
+
+There are, indeed, some learned casuists, who maintain that love has
+no language, and that all the misunderstandings and dissensions of
+lovers arise from the fatal habit of employing words on a subject to
+which words are inapplicable; that love, beginning with looks, that
+is to say, with the physiognomical expression of congenial mental
+dispositions, tends through a regular gradation of signs and symbols
+of affection, to that consummation which is most devoutly to be
+wished; and that it neither is necessary that there should be, nor
+probable that there would be, a single word spoken from first to
+last between two sympathetic spirits, were it not that the arbitrary
+institutions of society have raised, at every step of this very simple
+process, so many complicated impediments and barriers in the shape
+of settlements and ceremonies, parents and guardians, lawyers,
+Jew-brokers, and parsons, that many an adventurous knight (who, in
+order to obtain the conquest of the Hesperian fruit, is obliged to
+fight his way through all these monsters), is either repulsed at the
+onset, or vanquished before the achievement of his enterprise: and
+such a quantity of unnatural talking is rendered inevitably necessary
+through all the stages of the progression, that the tender and
+volatile spirit of love often takes flight on the pinions of some of
+the [Greek: epea pteroenta], or _winged words_ which are pressed into
+his service in despite of himself.
+
+At this conjuncture, Mr Glowry entered, and sitting down near them,
+said, 'I see how it is; and, as we are all sure to be miserable do
+what we may, there is no need of taking pains to make one another more
+so; therefore, with God's blessing and mine, there'--joining their
+hands as he spoke.
+
+Scythrop was not exactly prepared for this decisive step; but he could
+only stammer out, 'Really, sir, you are too good;' and Mr Glowry
+departed to bring Mr Hilary to ratify the act.
+
+Now, whatever truth there may be in the theory of love and language,
+of which we have so recently spoken, certain it is, that during Mr
+Glowry's absence, which lasted half an hour, not a single word was
+said by either Scythrop or Marionetta.
+
+Mr Glowry returned with Mr Hilary, who was delighted at the prospect
+of so advantageous an establishment for his orphan niece, of whom he
+considered himself in some manner the guardian, and nothing remained,
+as Mr Glowry observed, but to fix the day.
+
+Marionetta blushed, and was silent. Scythrop was also silent for a
+time, and at length hesitatingly said, 'My deal sir, your goodness
+overpowers me; but really you are so precipitate.'
+
+Now, this remark, if the young lady had made it, would, whether she
+thought it or not--for sincerity is a thing of no account on these
+occasions, nor indeed on any other, according to Mr Flosky--this
+remark, if the young lady had made it, would have been perfectly
+_comme il faut_; but, being made by the young gentleman, it was _toute
+autre chose_, and was, indeed, in the eyes of his mistress, a most
+heinous and irremissible offence. Marionetta was angry, very angry,
+but she concealed her anger, and said, calmly and coldly, 'Certainly,
+you are much too precipitate, Mr Glowry. I assure you, sir, I have
+by no means made up my mind; and, indeed, as far as I know it, it
+inclines the other way; but it will be quite time enough to think of
+these matters seven years hence. Before surprise permitted reply, the
+young lady had locked herself up in her own apartment.
+
+'Why, Scythrop,' said Mr Glowry, elongating his face exceedingly, 'the
+devil is come among us sure enough, as Mr Toobad observes: I thought
+you and Marionetta were both of a mind.'
+
+'So we are, I believe, sir,' said Scythrop, gloomily, and stalked away
+to his tower.
+
+'Mr Glowry,' said Mr Hilary, 'I do not very well understand all this.'
+
+'Whims, brother Hilary,' said Mr Glowry; 'some little foolish love
+quarrel, nothing more. Whims, freaks, April showers. They will be
+blown over by to-morrow.'
+
+'If not,' said Mr Hilary, 'these April showers have made us April
+fools.'
+
+'Ah!' said Mr Glowry, 'you are a happy man, and in all your
+afflictions you can console yourself with a joke, let it be ever so
+bad, provided you crack it yourself. I should be very happy to laugh
+with you, if it would give you any satisfaction; but, really, at
+present, my heart is so sad, that I find it impossible to levy a
+contribution on my muscles.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+On the evening on which Mr Asterias had caught a glimpse of a female
+figure on the sea-shore, which he had translated into the visual sign
+of his interior cognition of a mermaid, Scythrop, retiring to his
+tower, found his study preoccupied. A stranger, muffled in a cloak,
+was sitting at his table. Scythrop paused in surprise. The stranger
+rose at his entrance, and looked at him intently a few minutes, in
+silence. The eyes of the stranger alone were visible. All the rest
+of the figure was muffled and mantled in the folds of a black cloak,
+which was raised, by the right hand, to the level of the eyes. This
+scrutiny being completed, the stranger, dropping the cloak, said, 'I
+see, by your physiognomy, that you may be trusted;' and revealed to
+the astonished Scythrop a female form and countenance of dazzling
+grace and beauty, with long flowing hair of raven blackness, and
+large black eyes of almost oppressive brilliancy, which strikingly
+contrasted with a complexion of snowy whiteness. Her dress was
+extremely elegant, but had an appearance of foreign fashion, as if
+both the lady and her mantua-maker were of 'a far countree.'
+
+  'I guess 'twas frightful there to see
+  A lady so richly clad as she,
+  Beautiful exceedingly.'
+
+For, if it be terrible to one young lady to find another under a tree
+at midnight, it must, _a fortiori_, be much more terrible to a young
+gentleman to find a young lady in his study at that hour. If the
+logical consecutiveness of this conclusion be not manifest to my
+readers, I am sorry for their dulness, and must refer them, for more
+ample elucidation, to a treatise which Mr Flosky intends to write, on
+the Categories of Relation, which comprehend Substance and Accident,
+Cause and Effect, Action and Re-action.
+
+Scythrop, therefore, either was or ought to have been frightened; at
+all events, he was astonished; and astonishment, though not in itself
+fear, is nevertheless a good stage towards it, and is, indeed, as it
+were, the half-way house between respect and terror, according to Mr
+Burke's graduated scale of the sublime.[7]
+
+'You are surprised,' said the lady; 'yet why should you be surprised?
+If you had met me in a drawing-room, and I had been introduced to
+you by an old woman, it would have been a matter of course: can the
+division of two or three walls, and the absence of an unimportant
+personage, make the same object essentially different in the
+perception of a philosopher?'
+
+'Certainly not,' said Scythrop; 'but when any class of objects
+has habitually presented itself to our perceptions in invariable
+conjunction with particular relations, then, on the sudden appearance
+of one object of the class divested of those accompaniments, the
+essential difference of the relation is, by an involuntary process,
+transferred to the object itself, which thus offers itself to our
+perceptions with all the strangeness of novelty.'
+
+'You are a philosopher,' said the lady, 'and a lover of liberty. You
+are the author of a treatise, called "Philosophical Gas; or, a Project
+for a General Illumination of the Human Mind."'
+
+'I am,' said Scythrop, delighted at this first blossom of his renown.
+
+'I am a stranger in this country,' said the lady; 'I have been but a
+few days in it, yet I find myself immediately under the necessity of
+seeking refuge from an atrocious persecution. I had no friend to whom
+I could apply; and, in the midst of my difficulties, accident threw
+your pamphlet in my way. I saw that I had, at least, one kindred mind
+in this nation, and determined to apply to you.'
+
+'And what would you have me do?' said Scythrop, more and more amazed,
+and not a little perplexed.
+
+'I would have you,' said the young lady, 'assist me in finding some
+place of retreat, where I can remain concealed from the indefatigable
+search that is being made for me. I have been so nearly caught once or
+twice already, that I cannot confide any longer in my own ingenuity.'
+
+Doubtless, thought Scythrop, this is one of my golden candle-sticks.
+'I have constructed,' said he, 'in this tower, an entrance to a small
+suite of unknown apartments in the main building, which I defy any
+creature living to detect. If you would like to remain there a day or
+two, till I can find you a more suitable concealment, you may rely on
+the honour of a transcendental eleutherarch.'
+
+'I rely on myself,' said the lady. 'I act as I please, go where I
+please, and let the world say what it will. I am rich enough to set
+it at defiance. It is the tyrant of the poor and the feeble, but the
+slave of those who are above the reach of its injury.'
+
+Scythrop ventured to inquire the name of his fair _protegee_. 'What
+is a name?' said the lady: 'any name will serve the purpose of
+distinction. Call me Stella. I see by your looks,' she added, 'that
+you think all this very strange. When you know me better, your
+surprise will cease. I submit not to be an accomplice in my sex's
+slavery. I am, like yourself, a lover of freedom, and I carry my
+theory into practice. _They alone are subject to blind authority who
+have no reliance on their own strength_.'
+
+Stella took possession of the recondite apartments. Scythrop intended
+to find her another asylum; but from day to day he postponed his
+intention, and by degrees forgot it. The young lady reminded him of
+it from day to day, till she also forgot it. Scythrop was anxious to
+learn her history; but she would add nothing to what she had already
+communicated, that she was shunning an atrocious persecution. Scythrop
+thought of Lord C. and the Alien Act, and said, 'As you will not
+tell your name, I suppose it is in the green bag.' Stella, not
+understanding what he meant, was silent; and Scythrop, translating
+silence into acquiescence, concluded that he was sheltering an
+_illuminee_ whom Lord S. suspected of an intention to take the
+Tower, and set fire to the Bank: exploits, at least, as likely to be
+accomplished by the hands and eyes of a young beauty, as by a drunken
+cobbler and doctor, armed with a pamphlet and an old stocking.
+
+Stella, in her conversations with Scythrop, displayed a highly
+cultivated and energetic mind, full of impassioned schemes of liberty,
+and impatience of masculine usurpation. She had a lively sense of all
+the oppressions that are done under the sun; and the vivid pictures
+which her imagination presented to her of the numberless scenes of
+injustice and misery which are being acted at every moment in every
+part of the inhabited world, gave an habitual seriousness to her
+physiognomy, that made it seem as if a smile had never once hovered on
+her lips. She was intimately conversant with the German language and
+literature; and Scythrop listened with delight to her repetitions of
+her favourite passages from Schiller and Goethe, and to her encomiums
+on the sublime Spartacus Weishaupt, the immortal founder of the sect
+of the Illuminati. Scythrop found that his soul had a greater capacity
+of love than the image of Marionetta had filled. The form of Stella
+took possession of every vacant corner of the cavity, and by degrees
+displaced that of Marionetta from many of the outworks of the citadel;
+though the latter still held possession of the _keep_. He judged, from
+his new friend calling herself Stella, that, if it were not her real
+name, she was an admirer of the principles of the German play from
+which she had taken it, and took an opportunity of leading the
+conversation to that subject; but to his great surprise, the lady
+spoke very ardently of the singleness and exclusiveness of love, and
+declared that the reign of affection was one and indivisible; that it
+might be transferred, but could not be participated. 'If I ever love,'
+said she, 'I shall do so without limit or restriction. I shall hold
+all difficulties light, all sacrifices cheap, all obstacles gossamer.
+But for love so total, I shall claim a return as absolute. I will have
+no rival: whether more or less favoured will be of little moment. I
+will be neither first nor second--I will be alone. The heart which I
+shall possess I will possess entirely, or entirely renounce.'
+
+Scythrop did not dare to mention the name of Marionetta; he trembled
+lest some unlucky accident should reveal it to Stella, though he
+scarcely knew what result to wish or anticipate, and lived in the
+double fever of a perpetual dilemma. He could not dissemble to himself
+that he was in love, at the same time, with two damsels of minds and
+habits as remote as the antipodes. The scale of predilection always
+inclined to the fair one who happened to be present; but the absent
+was never effectually outweighed, though the degrees of exaltation and
+depression varied according to accidental variations in the outward
+and visible signs of the inward and spiritual graces of his respective
+charmers. Passing and repassing several times a day from the company
+of the one to that of the other, he was like a shuttlecock between two
+battledores, changing its direction as rapidly as the oscillations of
+a pendulum, receiving many a hard knock on the cork of a sensitive
+heart, and flying from point to point on the feathers of a
+super-sublimated head. This was an awful state of things. He had
+now as much mystery about him as any romantic transcendentalist or
+transcendental romancer could desire. He had his esoterical and his
+exoterical love. He could not endure the thought of losing either of
+them, but he trembled when he imagined the possibility that some fatal
+discovery might deprive him of both. The old proverb concerning two
+strings to a bow gave him some gleams of comfort; but that concerning
+two stools occurred to him more frequently, and covered his forehead
+with a cold perspiration. With Stella, he could indulge freely in all
+his romantic and philosophical visions. He could build castles in the
+air, and she would pile towers and turrets on the imaginary edifices.
+With Marionetta it was otherwise: she knew nothing of the world and
+society beyond the sphere of her own experience. Her life was all
+music and sunshine, and she wondered what any one could see to
+complain of in such a pleasant state of things. She loved Scythrop,
+she hardly knew why; indeed she was not always sure that she loved him
+at all: she felt her fondness increase or diminish in an inverse ratio
+to his. When she had manoeuvred him into a fever of passionate love,
+she often felt and always assumed indifference: if she found that her
+coldness was contagious, and that Scythrop either was, or pretended to
+be, as indifferent as herself, she would become doubly kind, and raise
+him again to that elevation from which she had previously thrown him
+down. Thus, when his love was flowing, hers was ebbing: when his was
+ebbing, hers was flowing. Now and then there were moments of level
+tide, when reciprocal affection seemed to promise imperturbable
+harmony; but Scythrop could scarcely resign his spirit to the pleasing
+illusion, before the pinnace of the lover's affections was caught in
+some eddy of the lady's caprice, and he was whirled away from the
+shore of his hopes, without rudder or compass, into an ocean of mists
+and storms. It resulted, from this system of conduct, that all that
+passed between Scythrop and Marionetta, consisted in making and
+unmaking love. He had no opportunity to take measure of her
+understanding by conversations on general subjects, and on his
+favourite designs; and, being left in this respect to the exercise of
+indefinite conjecture, he took it for granted, as most lovers would do
+in similar circumstances, that she had great natural talents, which
+she wasted at present on trifles: but coquetry would end with
+marriage, and leave room for philosophy to exert its influence on her
+mind. Stella had no coquetry, no disguise: she was an enthusiast in
+subjects of general interest; and her conduct to Scythrop was always
+uniform, or rather showed a regular progression of partiality which
+seemed fast ripening into love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Scythrop, attending one day the summons to dinner, found in the
+drawing-room his friend Mr Cypress the poet, whom he had known at
+college, and who was a great favourite of Mr Glowry. Mr Cypress said,
+he was on the point of leaving England, but could not think of doing
+so without a farewell-look at Nightmare Abbey and his respected
+friends, the moody Mr Glowry and the mysterious Mr Scythrop, the
+sublime Mr Flosky and the pathetic Mr Listless; to all of whom, and
+the morbid hospitality of the melancholy dwelling in which they were
+then assembled, he assured them he should always look back with as
+much affection as his lacerated spirit could feel for any thing. The
+sympathetic condolence of their respective replies was cut short by
+Raven's announcement of 'dinner on table.'
+
+The conversation that took place when the wine was in circulation, and
+the ladies were withdrawn, we shall report with our usual scrupulous
+fidelity.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+You are leaving England, Mr Cypress. There is a delightful melancholy
+in saying farewell to an old acquaintance, when the chances are twenty
+to one against ever meeting again. A smiling bumper to a sad parting,
+and let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS (_filling a bumper_)
+
+This is the only social habit that the disappointed spirit never
+unlearns.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX (_filling_)
+
+It is the only piece of academical learning that the finished educatee
+retains.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_filling_)
+
+It is the only objective fact which the sceptic can realise.
+
+
+SCYTHROP (_filling_)
+
+It is the only styptic for a bleeding heart.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS (_filling_)
+
+It is the only trouble that is very well worth taking.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS (_filling_)
+
+It is the only key of conversational truth.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD (_filling_)
+
+It is the only antidote to the great wrath of the devil.
+
+
+MR HILARY (_filling_)
+
+It is the only symbol of perfect life. The inscription 'HIC NON
+BIBITUR' will suit nothing but a tombstone.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+You will see many fine old ruins, Mr Cypress; crumbling pillars, and
+mossy walls--many a one-legged Venus and headless Minerva--many a
+Neptune buried in sand--many a Jupiter turned topsy-turvy--many a
+perforated Bacchus doing duty as a water-pipe--many reminiscences of
+the ancient world, which I hope was better worth living in than the
+modern; though, for myself, I care not a straw more for one than the
+other, and would not go twenty miles to see any thing that either
+could show.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+It is something to seek, Mr Glowry. The mind is restless, and must
+persist in seeking, though to find is to be disappointed. Do you feel
+no aspirations towards the countries of Socrates and Cicero? No wish
+to wander among the venerable remains of the greatness that has passed
+for ever?
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Not a grain.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+It is, indeed, much the same as if a lover should dig up the buried
+form of his mistress, and gaze upon relics which are any thing but
+herself, to wander among a few mouldy ruins, that are only imperfect
+indexes to lost volumes of glory, and meet at every step the more
+melancholy ruins of human nature--a degenerate race of stupid and
+shrivelled slaves, grovelling in the lowest depths of servility and
+superstition.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+It is the fashion to go abroad. I have thought of it myself, but am
+hardly equal to the exertion. To be sure, a little eccentricity and
+originality are allowable in some cases; and the most eccentric and
+original of all characters is an Englishman who stays at home.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+I should have no pleasure in visiting countries that are past all hope
+of regeneration. There is great hope of our own; and it seems to me
+that an Englishman, who, either by his station in society, or by his
+genius, or (as in your instance, Mr Cypress,) by both, has the power
+of essentially serving his country in its arduous struggle with its
+domestic enemies, yet forsakes his country, which is still so rich
+in hope, to dwell in others which are only fertile in the ruins of
+memory, does what none of those ancients, whose fragmentary memorials
+you venerate, would have done in similar circumstances.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+Sir, I have quarrelled with my wife; and a man who has quarrelled with
+his wife is absolved from all duty to his country. I have written an
+ode to tell the people as much, and they may take it as they list.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+Do you suppose, if Brutus had quarrelled with his wife, he would have
+given it as a reason to Cassius for having nothing to do with his
+enterprise? Or would Cassius have been satisfied with such an excuse?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Brutus was a senator; so is our dear friend: but the cases are
+different. Brutus had some hope of political good: Mr Cypress has
+none. How should he, after what we have seen in France?
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+A Frenchman is born in harness, ready saddled, bitted, and bridled,
+for any tyrant to ride. He will fawn under his rider one moment, and
+throw him and kick him to death the next; but another adventurer
+springs on his back, and by dint of whip and spur on he goes as
+before. We may, without much vanity, hope better of ourselves.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+I have no hope for myself or for others. Our life is a false nature;
+it is not in the harmony of things; it is an all-blasting upas,
+whose root is earth, and whose leaves are the skies which rain their
+poison-dews upon mankind. We wither from our youth; we gasp with
+unslaked thirst for unattainable good; lured from the first to the
+last by phantoms--love, fame, ambition, avarice--all idle, and all
+ill--one meteor of many names, that vanishes in the smoke of death.[8]
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+A most delightful speech, Mr Cypress. A most amiable and instructive
+philosophy. You have only to impress its truth on the minds of
+all living men, and life will then, indeed, be the desert and the
+solitude; and I must do you, myself, and our mutual friends, the
+justice to observe, that let society only give fair play at one and
+the same time, as I flatter myself it is inclined to do, to your
+system of morals, and my system of metaphysics, and Scythrop's system
+of politics, and Mr Listless's system of manners, and Mr Toobad's
+system of religion, and the result will be as fine a mental chaos as
+even the immortal Kant himself could ever have hoped to see; in the
+prospect of which I rejoice.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+'Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at:' I am one
+of those who cannot see the good that is to result from all this
+mystifying and blue-devilling of society. The contrast it presents
+to the cheerful and solid wisdom of antiquity is too forcible not to
+strike any one who has the least knowledge of classical literature. To
+represent vice and misery as the necessary accompaniments of genius,
+is as mischievous as it is false, and the feeling is as unclassical as
+the language in which it is usually expressed.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+It is our calamity. The devil has come among us, and has begun by
+taking possession of all the cleverest fellows. Yet, forsooth, this is
+the enlightened age. Marry, how? Did our ancestors go peeping about
+with dark lanterns, and do we walk at our ease in broad sunshine?
+Where is the manifestation of our light? By what symptoms do you
+recognise it? What are its signs, its tokens, its symptoms, its
+symbols, its categories, its conditions? What is it, and why? How,
+where, when is it to be seen, felt, and understood? What do we see by
+it which our ancestors saw not, and which at the same time is worth
+seeing? We see a hundred men hanged, where they saw one. We see five
+hundred transported, where they saw one. We see five thousand in the
+workhouse, where they saw one. We see scores of Bible Societies, where
+they saw none. We see paper, where they saw gold. We see men in stays,
+where they saw men in armour. We see painted faces, where they saw
+healthy ones. We see children perishing in manufactories, where they
+saw them flourishing in the fields. We see prisons, where they saw
+castles. We see masters, where they saw representatives. In short,
+they saw true men, where we see false knaves. They saw Milton, and we
+see Mr Sackbut.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The false knave, sir, is my honest friend; therefore, I beseech you,
+let him be countenanced. God forbid but a knave should have some
+countenance at his friend's request.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+'Good men and true' was their common term, like the chalos chagathos
+of the Athenians. It is so long since men have been either good or
+true, that it is to be questioned which is most obsolete, the fact or
+the phraseology.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+There is no worth nor beauty but in the mind's idea. Love sows the
+wind and reaps the whirlwind.[9] Confusion, thrice confounded, is the
+portion of him who rests even for an instant on that most brittle of
+reeds--the affection of a human being. The sum of our social destiny
+is to inflict or to endure.[10]
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Rather to bear and forbear, Mr Cypress--a maxim which you perhaps
+despise. Ideal beauty is not the mind's creation: it is real beauty,
+refined and purified in the mind's alembic, from the alloy which
+always more or less accompanies it in our mixed and imperfect nature.
+But still the gold exists in a very ample degree. To expect too
+much is a disease in the expectant, for which human nature is not
+responsible; and, in the common name of humanity, I protest against
+these false and mischievous ravings. To rail against humanity for not
+being abstract perfection, and against human love for not realising
+all the splendid visions of the poets of chivalry, is to rail at the
+summer for not being all sunshine, and at the rose for not being
+always in bloom.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+Human love! Love is not an inhabitant of the earth. We worship him as
+the Athenians did their unknown God: but broken hearts are the martyrs
+of his faith, and the eye shall never see the form which phantasy
+paints, and which passion pursues through paths of delusive beauty,
+among flowers whose odours are agonies, and trees whose gums are
+poison.[11]
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+You talk like a Rosicrucian, who will love nothing but a sylph, who
+does not believe in the existence of a sylph, and who yet quarrels
+with the whole universe for not containing a sylph.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+The mind is diseased of its own beauty, and fevers into false
+creation. The forms which the sculptor's soul has seized exist only in
+himself.[12]
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Permit me to discept. They are the mediums of common forms combined
+and arranged into a common standard. The ideal beauty of the Helen of
+Zeuxis was the combined medium of the real beauty of the virgins of
+Crotona.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+But to make ideal beauty the shadow in the water, and, like the dog in
+the fable, to throw away the substance in catching at the shadow, is
+scarcely the characteristic of wisdom, whatever it may be of genius.
+To reconcile man as he is to the world as it is, to preserve and
+improve all that is good, and destroy or alleviate all that is evil,
+in physical and moral nature--have been the hope and aim of the
+greatest teachers and ornaments of our species. I will say, too,
+that the highest wisdom and the highest genius have been invariably
+accompanied with cheerfulness. We have sufficient proofs on record
+that Shakspeare and Socrates were the most festive of companions. But
+now the little wisdom and genius we have seem to be entering into a
+conspiracy against cheerfulness.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+How can we be cheerful with the devil among us!
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+How can we be cheerful when our nerves are shattered?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+How can we be cheerful when we are surrounded by a _reading public_,
+that is growing too wise for its betters?
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+How can we be cheerful when our great general designs are crossed
+every moment by our little particular passions?
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+How can we be cheerful in the midst of disappointment and despair?
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Let us sing a catch.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+No: a nice tragical ballad. The Norfolk Tragedy to the tune of the
+Hundredth Psalm.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+I say a catch.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+I say no. A song from Mr Cypress.
+
+
+ALL
+
+A song from Mr Cypress.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS _sung_--
+
+  There is a fever of the spirit,
+  The brand of Cain's unresting doom,
+  Which in the lone dark souls that bear it
+  Glows like the lamp in Tullia's tomb:
+  Unlike that lamp, its subtle fire
+  Burns, blasts, consumes its cell, the heart,
+  Till, one by one, hope, joy, desire,
+  Like dreams of shadowy smoke depart.
+
+  When hope, love, life itself, are only
+  Dust--spectral memories--dead and cold--
+  The unfed fire burns bright and lonely,
+  Like that undying lamp of old:
+  And by that drear illumination,
+  Till time its clay-built home has rent,
+  Thought broods on feeling's desolation--
+  The soul is its own monument.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Admirable. Let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Now, I say again, a catch.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+I am for you.
+
+
+ME HILARY
+
+'Seamen three.'
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Agreed. I'll be Harry Gill, with the voice of three. Begin
+
+
+MR HILARY AND THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+  Seamen three! I What men be ye?
+  Gotham's three wise men we be.
+  Whither in your bowl so free?
+  To rake the moon from out the sea.
+  The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
+  And our ballast is old wine;
+  And your ballast is old wine.
+
+  Who art thou, so fast adrift?
+  I am he they call Old Care.
+  Here on board we will thee lift.
+  No: I may not enter there.
+  Wherefore so? 'Tis Jove's decree,
+  In a bowl Care may not be;
+  In a bowl Care may not be.
+
+  Pear ye not the waves that roll?
+  No: in charmed bowl we swim.
+  What the charm that floats the bowl?
+  Water may not pass the brim.
+  The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
+  And our ballast is old wine;
+  And your ballast is old wine.
+
+
+This catch was so well executed by the spirit and science of Mr
+Hilary, and the deep tri-une voice of the reverend gentleman, that the
+whole party, in spite of themselves, caught the contagion, and joined
+in chorus at the conclusion, each raising a bumper to his lips:
+
+  The bowl goes trim: the moon doth shine:
+  And our ballast is old wine.
+
+Mr Cypress, having his ballast on board, stepped, the same evening,
+into his bowl, or travelling chariot, and departed to rake seas and
+rivers, lakes and canals, for the moon of ideal beauty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+It was the custom of the Honourable Mr Listless, on adjourning from
+the bottle to the ladies, to retire for a few moments to make a second
+toilette, that he might present himself in becoming taste. Fatout,
+attending as usual, appeared with a countenance of great dismay, and
+informed his master that he had just ascertained that the abbey was
+haunted. Mrs Hilary's _gentlewoman_, for whom Fatout had lately
+conceived a _tendresse_, had been, as she expressed it, 'fritted out
+of her seventeen senses' the preceding night, as she was retiring to
+her bedchamber, by a ghastly figure which she had met stalking along
+one of the galleries, wrapped in a white shroud, with a bloody turban
+on its head. She had fainted away with fear; and, when she
+recovered, she found herself in the dark, and the figure was gone.
+'_Sacre--cochon--bleu_!' exclaimed Fatout, giving very deliberate
+emphasis to every portion of his terrible oath--'I vould not meet de
+_revenant_, de ghost--_non_--not for all de _bowl-de-ponch_ in de
+vorld.'
+
+'Fatout,' said the Honourable Mr Listless, 'did I ever see a ghost?'
+
+'_Jamais_, monsieur, never.'
+
+'Then I hope I never shall, for, in the present shattered state of my
+nerves, I am afraid it would be too much for me. There--loosen the
+lace of my stays a little, for really this plebeian practice of
+eating--Not too loose--consider my shape. That will do. And I desire
+that you bring me no more stories of ghosts; for, though I do not
+believe in such things, yet, when one is awake in the night, one is
+apt, if one thinks of them, to have fancies that give one a kind of a
+chill, particularly if one opens one's eyes suddenly on one's dressing
+gown, hanging in the moonlight, between the bed and the window.'
+
+The Honourable Mr Listless, though he had prohibited Fatout from
+bringing him any more stories of ghosts, could not help thinking of
+that which Fatout had already brought; and, as it was uppermost in his
+mind, when he descended to the tea and coffee cups, and the rest of
+the company in the library, he almost involuntarily asked Mr Flosky,
+whom he looked up to as a most oraculous personage, whether any story
+of any ghost that had ever appeared to any one, was entitled to any
+degree of belief?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+By far the greater number, to a very great degree.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Really, that is very alarming!
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+_Sunt geminoe somni portoe_. There are two gates through which ghosts
+find their way to the upper air: fraud and self-delusion. In the
+latter case, a ghost is a _deceptio visus_, an ocular spectrum, an
+idea with the force of a sensation. I have seen many ghosts myself. I
+dare say there are few in this company who have not seen a ghost.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I am happy to say, I never have, for one.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+We have such high authority for ghosts, that it is rank scepticism to
+disbelieve them. Job saw a ghost, which came for the express purpose
+of asking a question, and did not wait for an answer.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Because Job was too frightened to give one.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Spectres appeared to the Egyptians during the darkness with which
+Moses covered Egypt. The witch of Endor raised the ghost of Samuel.
+Moses and Elias appeared on Mount Tabor. An evil spirit was sent into
+the army of Sennacherib, and exterminated it in a single night.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+Saying, The devil is come among you, having great wrath.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Saint Macarius interrogated a skull, which was found in the desert,
+and made it relate, in presence of several witnesses, what was going
+forward in hell. Saint Martin of Tours, being jealous of a pretended
+martyr, who was the rival saint of his neighbourhood, called up his
+ghost, and made him confess that he was damned. Saint Germain, being
+on his travels, turned out of an inn a large party of ghosts, who had
+every night taken possession of the _table d'hote_, and consumed a
+copious supper.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Jolly ghosts, and no doubt all friars. A similar party took possession
+of the cellar of M. Swebach, the painter, in Paris, drank his wine,
+and threw the empty bottles at his head.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+An atrocious act.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Pausanias relates, that the neighing of horses and the tumult of
+combatants were heard every night on the field of Marathon: that those
+who went purposely to hear these sounds suffered severely for their
+curiosity; but those who heard them by accident passed with impunity.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+I once saw a ghost myself, in my study, which is the last place where
+any one but a ghost would look for me. I had not been into it for
+three months, and was going to consult Tillotson, when, on opening the
+door, I saw a venerable figure in a flannel dressing gown, sitting in
+my arm-chair, and reading my Jeremy Taylor. It vanished in a moment,
+and so did I; and what it was or what it wanted I have never been able
+to ascertain.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It was an idea with the force of a sensation. It is seldom that ghosts
+appeal to two senses at once; but, when I was in Devonshire, the
+following story was well attested to me. A young woman, whose lover
+was at sea, returning one evening over some solitary fields, saw
+her lover sitting on a stile over which she was to pass. Her first
+emotions were surprise and joy, but there was a paleness and
+seriousness in his face that made them give place to alarm. She
+advanced towards him, and he said to her, in a solemn voice, 'The eye
+that hath seen me shall see me no more. Thine eye is upon me, but I am
+not.' And with these words he vanished; and on that very day and hour,
+as it afterwards appeared, he had perished by shipwreck.
+
+The whole party now drew round in a circle, and each related some
+ghostly anecdote, heedless of the flight of time, till, in a pause of
+the conversation, they heard the hollow tongue of midnight sounding
+twelve.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+All these anecdotes admit of solution on psychological principles.
+It is more easy for a soldier, a philosopher, or even a saint, to be
+frightened at his own shadow, than for a dead man to come out of his
+grave. Medical writers cite a thousand singular examples of the force
+of imagination. Persons of feeble, nervous, melancholy temperament,
+exhausted by fever, by labour, or by spare diet, will readily conjure
+up, in the magic ring of their own phantasy, spectres, gorgons,
+chimaeras, and all the objects of their hatred and their love. We
+are most of us like Don Quixote, to whom a windmill was a giant, and
+Dulcinea a magnificent princess: all more or less the dupes of our own
+imagination, though we do not all go so far as to see ghosts, or to
+fancy ourselves pipkins and teapots.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I can safely say I have seen too many ghosts myself to believe in
+their external existence. I have seen all kinds of ghosts: black
+spirits and white, red spirits and grey. Some in the shapes of
+venerable old men, who have met me in my rambles at noon; some
+of beautiful young women, who have peeped through my curtains at
+midnight.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And have proved, I doubt not, 'palpable to feeling as to sight.'
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+By no means, sir. You reflect upon my purity. Myself and my friends,
+particularly my friend Mr Sackbut, are famous for our purity. No, sir,
+genuine untangible ghosts. I live in a world of ghosts. I see a ghost
+at this moment.
+
+
+Mr Flosky fixed his eyes on a door at the farther end of the library.
+The company looked in the same direction. The door silently opened,
+and a ghastly figure, shrouded in white drapery, with the semblance
+of a bloody turban on its head, entered and stalked slowly up the
+apartment. Mr Flosky, familiar as he was with ghosts, was not prepared
+for this apparition, and made the best of his way out at the opposite
+door. Mrs Hilary and Marionetta followed, screaming. The Honourable Mr
+Listless, by two turns of his body, rolled first off the sofa and
+then under it. The Reverend Mr Larynx leaped up and fled with so much
+precipitation, that he overturned the table on the foot of Mr Glowry.
+Mr Glowry roared with pain hi the ear of Mr Toobad. Mr Toobad's alarm
+so bewildered his senses, that, missing the door, he threw up one of
+the windows, jumped out in his panic, and plunged over head and ears
+in the moat. Mr Asterias and his son, who were on the watch for their
+mermaid, were attracted by the splashing, threw a net over him, and
+dragged him to land.
+
+Scythrop and Mr Hilary meanwhile had hastened to his assistance, and,
+on arriving at the edge of the moat, followed by several servants with
+ropes and torches, found Mr Asterias and Aquarius busy in endeavouring
+to extricate Mr Toobad from the net, who was entangled in the meshes,
+and floundering with rage. Scythrop was lost in amazement; but Mr
+Hilary saw, at one view, all the circumstances of the adventure, and
+burst into an immoderate fit of laughter; on recovering from which, he
+said to Mr Asterias, 'You have caught an odd fish, indeed.' Mr Toobad
+was highly exasperated at this unseasonable pleasantry; but Mr Hilary
+softened his anger, by producing a knife, and cutting the Gordian knot
+of his reticular envelopment. 'You see,' said Mr Toobad, 'you see,
+gentlemen, in my unfortunate person proof upon proof of the present
+dominion of the devil in the affairs of this world; and I have no
+doubt but that the apparition of this night was Apollyon himself in
+disguise, sent for the express purpose of terrifying me into this
+complication of misadventures. The devil is come among you, having
+great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Mr Glowry was much surprised, on occasionally visiting Scythrop's
+tower, to find the door always locked, and to be kept sometimes
+waiting many minutes for admission: during which he invariably heard a
+heavy rolling sound like that of a ponderous mangle, or of a waggon on
+a weighing-bridge, or of theatrical thunder.
+
+He took little notice of this for some time; at length his curiosity
+was excited, and, one day, instead of knocking at the door, as usual,
+the instant he reached it, he applied his ear to the key-hole, and
+like Bottom, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, 'spied a voice,' which he
+guessed to be of the feminine gender, and knew to be not Scythrop's,
+whose deeper tones he distinguished at intervals. Having attempted in
+vain to catch a syllable of the discourse, he knocked violently at
+the door, and roared for immediate admission. The voices ceased, the
+accustomed rolling sound was heard, the door opened, and Scythrop
+was discovered alone. Mr Glowry looked round to every corner of the
+apartment, and then said, 'Where is the lady?'
+
+'The lady, sir?' said Scythrop.
+
+'Yes, sir, the lady.'
+
+'Sir, I do not understand you.'
+
+'You don't, sir?'
+
+'No, indeed, sir. There is no lady here.'
+
+'But, sir, this is not the only apartment in the tower, and I make no
+doubt there is a lady up stairs.'
+
+'You are welcome to search, sir.'
+
+'Yes, and while I am searching, she will slip out from some lurking
+place, and make her escape.'
+
+'You may lock this door, sir, and take the key with you.'
+
+'But there is the terrace door: she has escaped by the terrace.'
+
+'The terrace, sir, has no other outlet, and the walls are too high for
+a lady to jump down.'
+
+'Well, sir, give me the key.'
+
+Mr Glowry took the key, searched every nook of the tower, and
+returned.
+
+'You are a fox, Scythrop; you are an exceedingly cunning fox, with
+that demure visage of yours. What was that lumbering sound I heard
+before you opened the door?'
+
+'Sound, sir?'
+
+'Yes, sir, sound.'
+
+'My dear sir, I am not aware of any sound, except my great table,
+which I moved on rising to let you in.'
+
+'The table!--let me see that. No, sir; not a tenth part heavy enough,
+not a tenth part.'
+
+'But, sir, you do not consider the laws of acoustics: a whisper
+becomes a peal of thunder in the focus of reverberation. Allow me to
+explain this: sounds striking on concave surfaces are reflected from
+them, and, after reflection, converge to points which are the foci of
+these surfaces. It follows, therefore, that the ear may be so placed
+in one, as that it shall hear a sound better than when situated nearer
+to the point of the first impulse: again, in the case of two concave
+surfaces placed opposite to each other--'
+
+'Nonsense, sir. Don't tell me of foci. Pray, sir, will concave
+surfaces produce two voices when nobody speaks? I heard two voices,
+and one was feminine; feminine, sir: what say you to that?'
+
+'Oh, sir, I perceive your mistake: I am writing a tragedy, and was
+acting over a scene to myself. To convince you, I will give you a
+specimen; but you must first understand the plot. It is a tragedy on
+the German model. The Great Mogul is in exile, and has taken lodgings
+at Kensington, with his only daughter, the Princess Rantrorina,
+who takes in needlework, and keeps a day school. _The princess is
+discovered hemming a set of shirts for the parson of the parish: they
+are to be marked with a large R. Enter to her the Great Mogul. A
+pause, during which they look at each other expressively. The
+princess changes colour several times. The Mogul takes snuff in great
+agitation. Several grains are heard to fall on the stage. His heart is
+seen to beat through his upper benjamin._--THE MOGUL _(with a mournful
+look at his left shoe_). 'My shoe-string is broken.'--THE PRINCESS
+(_after an interval of melancholy reflection_). 'I know it.' THE
+MOGUL. 'My second shoe-string! The first broke when I lost my empire:
+the second has broken to-day. When will my poor heart break?'--THE
+PRINCESS. 'Shoe-strings, hearts, and empires! Mysterious sympathy!'
+
+'Nonsense, sir,' interrupted Mr Glowry. 'That is not at all like the
+voice I heard.'
+
+'But, sir,' said Scythrop, 'a key-hole may be so constructed as to act
+like an acoustic tube, and an acoustic tube, sir, will modify sound in
+a very remarkable manner. Consider the construction of the ear, and
+the nature and causes of sound. The external part of the ear is a
+cartilaginous funnel.'
+
+'It wo'n't do, Scythrop. There is a girl concealed in this tower, and
+find her I will. There are such things as sliding panels and secret
+closets.'--He sounded round the room with his cane, but detected
+no hollowness.--'I have heard, sir,' he continued, 'that during my
+absence, two years ago, you had a dumb carpenter closeted with you
+day after day. I did not dream that you were laying contrivances for
+carrying on secret intrigues. Young men will have their way: I had my
+way when I was a young man: but, sir, when your cousin Marionetta--'
+
+Scythrop now saw that the affair was growing serious. To have clapped
+his hand upon his father's mouth, to have entreated him to be silent,
+would, in the first place, not have made him so; and, in the second,
+would have shown a dread of being overheard by somebody. His only
+resource, therefore, was to try to drown Mr Glowry's voice; and,
+having no other subject, he continued his description of the ear,
+raising his voice continually as Mr Glowry raised his.
+
+'When your cousin Marionetta,' said Mr Glowry, 'whom you profess to
+love--whom you profess to love, sir--'
+
+'The internal canal of the ear,' said Scythrop, 'is partly bony and
+partly cartilaginous. This internal canal is--'
+
+'Is actually in the house, sir; and, when you are so shortly to be--as
+I expect--'
+
+'Closed at the further end by the _membrana tympani_--'
+
+'Joined together in holy matrimony--'
+
+'Under which is carried a branch of the fifth pair of nerves--'
+
+'I say, sir, when you are so shortly to be married to your cousin
+Marionetta--'
+
+'The _cavitas tympani_--'
+
+A loud noise was heard behind the book-case, which, to the
+astonishment of Mr Glowry, opened in the middle, and the massy
+compartments, with all their weight of books, receding from each other
+in the manner of a theatrical scene, with a heavy rolling sound (which
+Mr Glowry immediately recognised to be the same which had excited his
+curiosity,) disclosed an interior apartment, in the entrance of
+which stood the beautiful Stella, who, stepping forward, exclaimed,
+'Married! Is he going to be married? The profligate!'
+
+'Really, madam,' said Mr Glowry, 'I do not know what he is going to
+do, or what I am going to do, or what any one is going to do; for all
+this is incomprehensible.'
+
+'I can explain it all,' said Scythrop, 'in a most satisfactory manner,
+if you will but have the goodness to leave us alone.'
+
+'Pray, sir, to which act of the tragedy of the Great Mogul does this
+incident belong?'
+
+'I entreat you, my dear sir, leave us alone.'
+
+Stella threw herself into a chair, and burst into a tempest of tears.
+Scythrop sat down by her, and took her hand. She snatched her hand
+away, and turned her back upon him. He rose, sat down on the other
+side, and took her other hand. She snatched it away, and turned from
+him again. Scythrop continued entreating Mr Glowry to leave them
+alone; but the old gentleman was obstinate, and would not go.
+
+'I suppose, after all,' said Mr Glowry maliciously, 'it is only a
+phaenomenon in acoustics, and this young lady is a reflection of sound
+from concave surfaces.'
+
+Some one tapped at the door: Mr Glowry opened it, and Mr Hilary
+entered. He had been seeking Mr Glowry, and had traced him to
+Scythrop's tower. He stood a few moments in silent surprise, and then
+addressed himself to Mr Glowry for an explanation.
+
+'The explanation,' said Mr Glowry, 'is very satisfactory. The Great
+Mogul has taken lodgings at Kensington, and the external part of the
+ear is a cartilaginous funnel.'
+
+'Mr Glowry, that is no explanation.'
+
+'Mr Hilary, it is all I know about the matter.'
+
+'Sir, this pleasantry is very unseasonable. I perceive that my niece
+is sported with in a most unjustifiable manner, and I shall see if she
+will be more successful in obtaining an intelligible answer.' And he
+departed in search of Marionetta.
+
+Scythrop was now in a hopeless predicament. Mr Hilary made a hue and
+cry in the abbey, and summoned his wife and Marionetta to Scythrop's
+apartment. The ladies, not knowing what was the matter, hastened in
+great consternation. Mr Toobad saw them sweeping along the corridor,
+and judging from their manner that the devil had manifested his wrath
+in some new shape, followed from pure curiosity.
+
+Scythrop meanwhile vainly endeavoured to get rid of Mr Glowry and
+to pacify Stella. The latter attempted to escape from the tower,
+declaring she would leave the abbey immediately, and he should never
+see her or hear of her more. Scythrop held her hand and detained her
+by force, till Mr Hilary reappeared with Mrs Hilary and Marionetta.
+Marionetta, seeing Scythrop grasping the hand of a strange beauty,
+fainted away in the arms of her aunt. Scythrop flew to her assistance;
+and Stella with redoubled anger sprang towards the door, but was
+intercepted in her intended flight by being caught in the arms of Mr
+Toobad, who exclaimed--'Celinda!'
+
+'Papa!' said the young lady disconsolately.
+
+'The devil is come among you,' said Mr Toobad, 'how came my daughter
+here?'
+
+'Your daughter!' exclaimed Mr Glowry.
+
+'Your daughter!' exclaimed Scythrop, and Mr and Mrs Hilary.
+
+'Yes,' said Mr Toobad, 'my daughter Celinda.'
+
+Marionetta opened her eyes and fixed them on Celinda; Celinda in
+return fixed hers on Marionetta. They were at remote points of the
+apartment. Scythrop was equidistant from both of them, central and
+motionless, like Mahomet's coffin.
+
+'Mr Glowry,' said Mr Toobad, 'can you tell by what means my daughter
+came here?'
+
+'I know no more,' said Mr Glowry, 'than the Great Mogul.'
+
+'Mr Scythrop,' said Mr Toobad, 'how came my daughter here?'
+
+'I did not know, sir, that the lady was your daughter.'
+
+'But how came she here?'
+
+'By spontaneous locomotion,' said Scythrop, sullenly.
+
+'Celinda,' said Mr Toobad, 'what does all this mean?'
+
+'I really do not know, sir.'
+
+'This is most unaccountable. When I told you in London that I had
+chosen a husband for you, you thought proper to run away from him; and
+now, to all appearance, you have run away to him.'
+
+'How, sir! was that your choice?'
+
+'Precisely; and if he is yours too we shall be both of a mind, for the
+first time in our lives.'
+
+'He is not my choice, sir. This lady has a prior claim: I renounce
+him.'
+
+'And I renounce him,' said Marionetta.
+
+Scythrop knew not what to do. He could not attempt to conciliate the
+one without irreparably offending the other; and he was so fond of
+both, that the idea of depriving himself for ever of the society
+of either was intolerable to him: he therefore retreated into his
+stronghold, mystery; maintained an impenetrable silence; and contented
+himself with stealing occasionally a deprecating glance at each of the
+objects of his idolatry. Mr Toobad and Mr Hilary, in the mean time,
+were each insisting on an explanation from Mr Glowry, who they thought
+had been playing a double game on this occasion. Mr Glowry was
+vainly endeavouring to persuade them of his innocence in the whole
+transaction. Mrs Hilary was endeavouring to mediate between her
+husband and brother. The Honourable Mr Listless, the Reverend Mr
+Larynx, Mr Flosky, Mr Asterias, and Aquarius, were attracted by the
+tumult to the scene of action, and were appealed to severally and
+conjointly by the respective disputants. Multitudinous questions, and
+answers _en masse_, composed a _charivari_, to which the genius of
+Rossini alone could have given a suitable accompaniment, and which
+was only terminated by Mrs Hilary and Mr Toobad retreating with the
+captive damsels. The whole party followed, with the exception of
+Scythrop, who threw himself into his arm-chair, crossed his left
+foot over his right knee, placed the hollow of his left hand on the
+interior ancle of his left leg, rested his right elbow on the elbow
+of the chair, placed the ball of his right thumb against his right
+temple, curved the forefinger along the upper part of his forehead,
+rested the point of the middle finger on the bridge of his nose, and
+the points of the two others on the lower part of the palm, fixed his
+eyes intently on the veins in the back of his left hand, and sat in
+this position like the immoveable Theseus, who, as is well known to
+many who have not been at college, and to some few who have, _sedet,
+oeternumque sedebit_.[13] We hope the admirers of the _minutiae_ in
+poetry and romance will appreciate this accurate description of a
+pensive attitude.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Scythrop was still in this position when Raven entered to announce
+that dinner was on table.
+
+'I cannot come,' said Scythrop.
+
+Raven sighed. 'Something is the matter,' said Raven: 'but man is born
+to trouble.'
+
+'Leave me,' said Scythrop: 'go, and croak elsewhere.'
+
+'Thus it is,' said Raven. 'Five-and-twenty years have I lived in
+Nightmare Abbey, and now all the reward of my affection is--Go, and
+croak elsewhere. I have danced you on my knee, and fed you with
+marrow.'
+
+'Good Raven,' said Scythrop, 'I entreat you to leave me.'
+
+'Shall I bring your dinner here?' said Raven. 'A boiled fowl and
+a glass of Madeira are prescribed by the faculty in cases of low
+spirits. But you had better join the party: it is very much reduced
+already.'
+
+'Reduced! how?'
+
+'The Honourable Mr Listless is gone. He declared that, what with
+family quarrels in the morning, and ghosts at night, he could get
+neither sleep nor peace; and that the agitation was too much for his
+nerves: though Mr Glowry assured him that the ghost was only poor Crow
+walking in his sleep, and that the shroud and bloody turban were a
+sheet and a red nightcap.'
+
+'Well, sir?'
+
+'The Reverend Mr Larynx has been called off on duty, to marry or bury
+(I don't know which) some unfortunate person or persons, at Claydyke:
+but man is born to trouble!'
+
+'Is that all?'
+
+'No. Mr Toobad is gone too, and a strange lady with him.'
+
+'Gone!'
+
+'Gone. And Mr and Mrs Hilary, and Miss O'Carroll: they are all gone.
+There is nobody left but Mr Asterias and his son, and they are going
+to-night.'
+
+'Then I have lost them both.'
+
+'Won't you come to dinner?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Shall I bring your dinner here?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What will you have?'
+
+'A pint of port and a pistol.'[14]
+
+'A pistol!'
+
+'And a pint of port. I will make my exit like Werter. Go. Stay. Did
+Miss O'Carroll say any thing?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Did Miss Toobad say any thing?'
+
+'The strange lady? No.'
+
+'Did either of them cry?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'What did they do?'
+
+'Nothing.'
+
+'What did Mr Toobad say?'
+
+'He said, fifty times over, the devil was come among us.'
+
+'And they are gone?'
+
+'Yes; and the dinner is getting cold. There is a time for every
+thing under the sun. You may as well dine first, and be miserable
+afterwards.'
+
+'True, Raven. There is something in that. I will take your advice:
+therefore, bring me----'
+
+'The port and the pistol?'
+
+'No; the boiled fowl and Madeira.'
+
+Scythrop had dined, and was sipping his Madeira alone, immersed in
+melancholy musing, when Mr Glowry entered, followed by Raven, who,
+having placed an additional glass and set a chair for Mr Glowry,
+withdrew. Mr Glowry sat down opposite Scythrop. After a pause, during
+which each filled and drank in silence, Mr Glowry said, 'So, sir,
+you have played your cards well. I proposed Miss Toobad to you: you
+refused her. Mr Toobad proposed you to her: she refused you. You fell
+in love with Marionetta, and were going to poison yourself, because,
+from pure fatherly regard to your temporal interests, I withheld my
+consent. When, at length, I offered you my consent, you told me I was
+too precipitate. And, after all, I find you and Miss Toobad living
+together in the same tower, and behaving in every respect like two
+plighted lovers. Now, sir, if there be any rational solution of all
+this absurdity, I shall be very much obliged to you for a small
+glimmering of information.'
+
+'The solution, sir, is of little moment; but I will leave it in
+writing for your satisfaction. The crisis of my fate is come: the
+world is a stage, and my direction is _exit._'
+
+'Do not talk so, sir;--do not talk so, Scythrop. What would you have?'
+
+'I would have my love.'
+
+'And pray, sir, who is your love?'
+
+'Celinda--Marionetta--either--both.'
+
+'Both! That may do very well in a German tragedy; and the Great Mogul
+might have found it very feasible in his lodgings at Kensington; but
+it will not do in Lincolnshire. Will you have Miss Toobad?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And renounce Marionetta?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'But you must renounce one.'
+
+'I cannot.'
+
+'And you cannot have both. What is to be done?'
+
+'I must shoot myself.'
+
+'Don't talk so, Scythrop. Be rational, my dear Scythrop. Consider, and
+make a cool, calm choice, and I will exert myself in your behalf.'
+
+'Why should I choose, sir? Both have renounced _me_: I have no hope of
+either.'
+
+'Tell me which you will have, and I will plead your cause
+irresistibly.'
+
+'Well, sir,--I will have--no, sir, I cannot renounce either. I
+cannot choose either. I am doomed to be the victim of eternal
+disappointments; and I have no resource but a pistol.'
+
+'Scythrop--Scythrop;--if one of them should come to you--what then?'
+
+'That, sir, might alter the case: but that cannot be.'
+
+'It can be, Scythrop; it will be: I promise you it will be. Have but a
+little patience--but a week's patience; and it shall be.'
+
+'A week, sir, is an age: but, to oblige you, as a last act of
+filial duty, I will live another week. It is now Thursday evening,
+twenty-five minutes past seven. At this hour and minute, on Thursday
+next, love and fate shall smile on me, or I will drink my last pint of
+port in this world.'
+
+Mr Glowry ordered his travelling chariot, and departed from the abbey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The day after Mr Glowry's departure was one of incessant rain, and
+Scythrop repented of the promise he had given. The next day was one of
+bright sunshine: he sat on the terrace, read a tragedy of Sophocles,
+and was not sorry, when Raven announced dinner, to find himself alive.
+On the third evening, the wind blew, and the rain beat, and the owl
+flapped against his windows; and he put a new flint in his pistol. On
+the fourth day, the sun shone again; and he locked the pistol up in a
+drawer, where he left it undisturbed, till the morning of the eventful
+Thursday, when he ascended the turret with a telescope, and spied
+anxiously along the road that crossed the fens from Claydyke: but
+nothing appeared on it. He watched in this manner from ten A.M. till
+Raven summoned him to dinner at five; when he stationed Crow at the
+telescope, and descended to his own funeral-feast. He left open the
+communications between the tower and turret, and called aloud at
+intervals to Crow,--'Crow, Crow, is any thing coming?' Crow answered,
+'The wind blows, and the windmills turn, but I see nothing coming;'
+and, at every answer, Scythrop found the necessity of raising his
+spirits with a bumper. After dinner, he gave Raven his watch to set by
+the abbey clock. Raven brought it, Scythrop placed it on the table,
+and Raven departed. Scythrop called again to Crow; and Crow, who had
+fallen asleep, answered mechanically, 'I see nothing coming.' Scythrop
+laid his pistol between his watch and his bottle. The hour-hand passed
+the VII.--the minute-hand moved on;--it was within three minutes of
+the appointed time. Scythrop called again to Crow: Crow answered as
+before. Scythrop rang the bell: Raven appeared.
+
+'Raven,' said Scythrop, 'the clock is too fast.'
+
+'No, indeed,' said Raven, who knew nothing of Scythrop's intentions;
+'if any thing, it is too slow.'
+
+'Villain!' said Scythrop, pointing the pistol at him; 'it is too
+fast.'
+
+'Yes--yes--too fast, I meant,' said Raven, in manifest fear.
+
+'How much too fast?' said Scythrop.
+
+'As much as you please,' said Raven.
+
+'How much, I say?' said Scythrop, pointing the pistol again.
+
+'An hour, a full hour, sir,' said the terrified butler.
+
+'Put back my watch,' said Scythrop.
+
+Raven, with trembling hand, was putting back the watch, when the
+rattle of wheels was heard in the court; and Scythrop, springing down
+the stairs by three steps together, was at the door in sufficient time
+to have handed either of the young ladies from the carriage, if she
+had happened to be in it; but Mr Glowry was alone.
+
+'I rejoice to see you,' said Mr Glowry; 'I was fearful of being too
+late, for I waited till the last moment in the hope of accomplishing
+my promise; but all my endeavours have been vain, as these letters
+will show.'
+
+Scythrop impatiently broke the seals. The contents were these:
+
+  Almost a stranger in England, I fled from parental tyranny,
+  and the dread of an arbitrary marriage, to the protection of a
+  stranger and a philosopher, whom I expected to find something
+  better than, or at least something different from, the rest of his
+  worthless species. Could I, after what has occurred, have
+  expected nothing more from you than the common-place impertinence
+  of sending your father to treat with me, and with mine, for me? I
+  should be a little moved in your favour, if I could believe you
+  capable of carrying into effect the resolutions which your father
+  says you have taken, in the event of my proving inflexible;
+  though I doubt not you will execute them, as far as relates to
+  the pint of wine, twice over, at least. I wish you much happiness
+  with Miss O'Carroll. I shall always cherish a grateful
+  recollection of Nightmare Abbey, for having been the means of
+  introducing me to a true transcendentalist; and, though he is a
+  little older than myself, which is all one in Germany, I shall
+  very soon have the pleasure of subscribing myself
+
+  CELINDA FLOSKY
+
+  I hope, my dear cousin, that you will not be angry with me,
+  but that you will always think of me as a sincere friend, who
+  will always feel interested in your welfare; I am sure you love
+  Miss Toobad much better than me, and I wish you much happiness
+  with her. Mr Listless assures me that people do not kill
+  themselves for love now-a-days, though it is still the fashion to
+  talk about it. I shall, in a very short time, change my name and
+  situation, and shall always be happy to see you in Berkeley
+  Square, when, to the unalterable designation of your affectionate
+  cousin, I shall subjoin the signature of
+
+  MARIONETTA LISTLESS
+
+Scythrop tore both the letters to atoms, and railed in good set terms
+against the fickleness of women.
+
+'Calm yourself, my dear Scythrop,' said Mr Glowry; 'there are yet
+maidens in England.'
+
+'Very true, sir,' said Scythrop.
+
+'And the next time,' said Mr Glowry, 'have but one string to your
+bow.'
+
+'Very good advice, sir,' said Scythrop.
+
+'And, besides,' said Mr Glowry, 'the fatal time is past, for it is now
+almost eight.'
+
+'Then that villain, Raven,' said Scythrop, 'deceived me when he said
+that the clock was too fast; but, as you observe very justly, the time
+has gone by, and I have just reflected that these repeated crosses in
+love qualify me to take a very advanced degree in misanthropy; and
+there is, therefore, good hope that I may make a figure in the world.
+But I shall ring for the rascal Raven, and admonish him.'
+
+Raven appeared. Scythrop looked at him very fiercely two or three
+minutes; and Raven, still remembering the pistol, stood quaking in
+mute apprehension, till Scythrop, pointing significantly towards the
+dining-room, said, 'Bring some Madeira.'
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+[1] _Mr Flosky_: A corruption of Filosky, quasi [Greek: philoschios],
+a lover, or sectator, of shadows.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+[2] _the passion for reforming the world_: See Forsyth's _Principles
+of Moral Science_.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+[3] _decorum, and dignity, &c. &c. &c._: We are not masters of the
+whole vocabulary. See any novel by any literary lady.
+
+[4] _his Ahrimanic philosophy_: Ahrimanes, in the Persian mythology,
+is the evil power, the prince of the kingdom of darkness. He is the
+rival of Oromazes, the prince of the kingdom of light. These two
+powers have divided and equal dominion. Sometimes one of the two has a
+temporary supremacy.--According to Mr Toobad, the present period would
+be the reign of Ahrimanes. Lord Byron seems to be of the same opinion,
+by the use he has made of Ahrimanes in 'Manfred'; where the great
+Alastor, or [Greek: Kachos Daimon], of Persia, is hailed king of
+the world by the Nemesis of Greece, in concert with three of
+the Scandinavian Valkyrae, under the name of the Destinies; the
+astrological spirits of the alchemists of the middle ages; an
+elemental witch, transplanted from Denmark to the Alps; and a chorus
+of Dr Faustus's devils, who come in the last act for a soul. It is
+difficult to conceive where this heterogeneous mythological company
+could have originally met, except at a _table d'hote_, like the six
+kings in 'Candide'.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+[5] _pensions_: 'PENSION. Pay given to a slave of state for treason to
+his country.'--JOHNSON'S _Dictionary_.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+[6] _... of a beautiful day_: See Denys Montfort: _Histoire Naturelle
+des Mollusques; Vues Generales_, pp. 37, 38. (P.) The second half of
+this speech by Mr Asterias and the opening sentence of his previous
+speech are a paraphrase from Montfort, pp. 37-9.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+[7] _Mr Burke's graduated scale of the sublime_: There must be some
+mistake in this, for the whole honourable band of gentlemen-pensioners
+has resolved unanimously, that Mr Burke was a very sublime person,
+particularly after he had prostituted his own soul, and betrayed his
+country and mankind, for 1200_l_. a year: yet he does not appear to
+have been a very terrible personage, and certainly went off with a
+very small portion of human respect, though he contrived to excite,
+in a great degree, the astonishment of all honest men. Our immaculate
+laureate (who gives us to understand that, if he had not been purified
+by holy matrimony into a mystical type, he would have died a virgin,)
+is another sublime gentleman of the same genus: he very much
+astonished some persons when he sold his birthright for a pot of sack;
+but not even his _Sosia_ has a grain of respect for him, though,
+doubtless, he thinks his name very terrible to the enemy, when he
+flourishes his criticopoeticopolitical tomahawk, and sets up his
+Indian yell for the blood of his old friends: but, at best, he is a
+mere political scarecrow, a man of straw, ridiculous to all who know
+of what materials he is made; and to none more so, than to those who
+have stuffed him, and set him up, as the Priapus of the garden of the
+golden apples of corruption.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+[8] _... vanishes in the smoke of death_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4.
+cxxiv. cxxvi.
+
+[9] _... and reaps the whirlwind_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4. cxxiii.
+
+[10] _... or to endure_: _Ibid_. canto 3. lxxi.
+
+[11] _... whose gums are poison_: _Ibid_. canto 4. cxxi. cxxxvi.
+
+[12] _... exist only in himself_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4. cxxii.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+[13] _sedet, oeternumque sedebit_: Sits, and will sit for ever.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+[14] _a pint of port and a pistol_: See _The Sorrows of Werter_,
+Letter 93.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nightmare Abbey, by Thomas Love Peacock
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nightmare Abbey, by Thomas Love Peacock
+#4 in our series by Thomas Love Peacock
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+
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+Title: Nightmare Abbey
+
+Author: Thomas Love Peacock
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9909]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 30, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHTMARE ABBEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Tom Allen,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+By
+
+_Thomas Love Peacock_
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+  NOTES TO _Nightmare Abbey_
+
+
+
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY:
+
+BY
+
+THE AUTHOR OF HEADLONG HALL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  There's a dark lantern of the spirit,
+  Which none see by but those who bear it,
+  That makes them in the dark see visions
+  And hag themselves with apparitions,
+  Find racks for their own minds, and vaunt
+  Of their own misery and want.
+  BUTLER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LONDON:
+
+1818.
+
+
+MATTHEW. Oh! it's your only fine humour, sir. Your true melancholy
+breeds your perfect fine wit, sir. I am melancholy myself, divers
+times, sir; and then do I no more but take pen and paper presently,
+and overflow you half a score or a dozen of sonnets at a sitting.
+
+STEPHEN. Truly, sir, and I love such things out of measure.
+
+MATTHEW. Why, I pray you, sir, make use of my study: it's at your
+service.
+
+STEPHEN. I thank you, sir, I shall be bold, I warrant you. Have you a
+stool there, to be melancholy upon?
+
+BEN JONSON, _Every Man in his Humour_, Act 3, Sc. I
+
+  Ay esleu gazouiller et siffler oye, comme dit le commun
+  proverbe, entre les cygnes, plutoust que d'estre entre
+  tant de gentils poëtes et faconds orateurs mut du tout
+  estimé.
+
+  RABELAIS, _Prol. L_. 5
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Nightmare Abbey, a venerable family-mansion, in a highly picturesque
+state of semi-dilapidation, pleasantly situated on a strip of dry land
+between the sea and the fens, at the verge of the county of Lincoln,
+had the honour to be the seat of Christopher Glowry, Esquire. This
+gentleman was naturally of an atrabilarious temperament, and much
+troubled with those phantoms of indigestion which are commonly called
+_blue devils_. He had been deceived in an early friendship: he had
+been crossed in love; and had offered his hand, from pique, to a lady,
+who accepted it from interest, and who, in so doing, violently tore
+asunder the bonds of a tried and youthful attachment. Her vanity was
+gratified by being the mistress of a very extensive, if not very
+lively, establishment; but all the springs of her sympathies were
+frozen. Riches she possessed, but that which enriches them, the
+participation of affection, was wanting. All that they could purchase
+for her became indifferent to her, because that which they could not
+purchase, and which was more valuable than themselves, she had, for
+their sake, thrown away. She discovered, when it was too late, that
+she had mistaken the means for the end--that riches, rightly used, are
+instruments of happiness, but are not in themselves happiness. In this
+wilful blight of her affections, she found them valueless as means:
+they had been the end to which she had immolated all her affections,
+and were now the only end that remained to her. She did not confess
+this to herself as a principle of action, but it operated through the
+medium of unconscious self-deception, and terminated in inveterate
+avarice. She laid on external things the blame of her mind's internal
+disorder, and thus became by degrees an accomplished scold. She often
+went her daily rounds through a series of deserted apartments, every
+creature in the house vanishing at the creak of her shoe, much more
+at the sound of her voice, to which the nature of things affords no
+simile; for, as far as the voice of woman, when attuned by gentleness
+and love, transcends all other sounds in harmony, so far does
+it surpass all others in discord, when stretched into unnatural
+shrillness by anger and impatience.
+
+Mr Glowry used to say that his house was no better than a spacious
+kennel, for every one in it led the life of a dog. Disappointed both
+in love and in friendship, and looking upon human learning as vanity,
+he had come to a conclusion that there was but one good thing in the
+world, _videlicet_, a good dinner; and this his parsimonious lady
+seldom suffered him to enjoy: but, one morning, like Sir Leoline in
+Christabel, 'he woke and found his lady dead,' and remained a very
+consulate widower, with one small child.
+
+This only son and heir Mr Glowry had christened Scythrop, from the
+name of a maternal ancestor, who had hanged himself one rainy day in a
+fit of _toedium vitae_, and had been eulogised by a coroner's jury in
+the comprehensive phrase of _felo de se_; on which account, Mr Glowry
+held his memory in high honour, and made a punchbowl of his skull.
+
+When Scythrop grew up, he was sent, as usual, to a public school,
+where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence
+to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was
+sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head:
+having finished his education to the high satisfaction of the
+master and fellows of his college, who had, in testimony of their
+approbation, presented him with a silver fish-slice, on which his name
+figured at the head of a laudatory inscription in some semi-barbarous
+dialect of Anglo-Saxonised Latin.
+
+His fellow-students, however, who drove tandem and random in great
+perfection, and were connoisseurs in good inns, had taught him to
+drink deep ere he departed. He had passed much of his time with these
+choice spirits, and had seen the rays of the midnight lamp tremble
+on many a lengthening file of empty bottles. He passed his vacations
+sometimes at Nightmare Abbey, sometimes in London, at the house of
+his uncle, Mr Hilary, a very cheerful and elastic gentleman, who had
+married the sister of the melancholy Mr Glowry. The company that
+frequented his house was the gayest of the gay. Scythrop danced with
+the ladies and drank with the gentlemen, and was pronounced by both a
+very accomplished charming fellow, and an honour to the university.
+
+At the house of Mr Hilary, Scythrop first saw the beautiful Miss Emily
+Girouette. He fell in love; which is nothing new. He was favourably
+received; which is nothing strange. Mr Glowry and Mr Girouette had
+a meeting on the occasion, and quarrelled about the terms of the
+bargain; which is neither new nor strange. The lovers were torn
+asunder, weeping and vowing everlasting constancy; and, in three weeks
+after this tragical event, the lady was led a smiling bride to the
+altar, by the Honourable Mr Lackwit; which is neither strange nor new.
+
+Scythrop received this intelligence at Nightmare Abbey, and was half
+distracted on the occasion. It was his first disappointment, and
+preyed deeply on his sensitive spirit. His father, to comfort him,
+read him a Commentary on Ecclesiastes, which he had himself composed,
+and which demonstrated incontrovertibly that all is vanity. He
+insisted particularly on the text, 'One man among a thousand have I
+found, but a woman amongst all those have I not found.'
+
+'How could he expect it,' said Scythrop, 'when the whole thousand were
+locked up in his seraglio? His experience is no precedent for a free
+state of society like that in which we live.'
+
+'Locked up or at large,' said Mr Glowry, 'the result is the same:
+their minds are always locked up, and vanity and interest keep the
+key. I speak feelingly, Scythrop.'
+
+'I am sorry for it, sir,' said Scythrop. 'But how is it that their
+minds are locked up? The fault is in their artificial education, which
+studiously models them into mere musical dolls, to be set out for sale
+in the great toy-shop of society.'
+
+'To be sure,' said Mr Glowry, 'their education is not so well finished
+as yours has been; and your idea of a musical doll is good. I bought
+one myself, but it was confoundedly out of tune; but, whatever be the
+cause, Scythrop, the effect is certainly this, that one is pretty
+nearly as good as another, as far as any judgment can be formed of
+them before marriage. It is only after marriage that they show
+their true qualities, as I know by bitter experience. Marriage is,
+therefore, a lottery, and the less choice and selection a man bestows
+on his ticket the better; for, if he has incurred considerable pains
+and expense to obtain a lucky number, and his lucky number proves a
+blank, he experiences not a simple, but a complicated disappointment;
+the loss of labour and money being superadded to the disappointment of
+drawing a blank, which, constituting simply and entirely the grievance
+of him who has chosen his ticket at random, is, from its simplicity,
+the more endurable.' This very excellent reasoning was thrown away
+upon Scythrop, who retired to his tower as dismal and disconsolate as
+before.
+
+The tower which Scythrop inhabited stood at the south-eastern angle of
+the Abbey; and, on the southern side, the foot of the tower opened on
+a terrace, which was called the garden, though nothing grew on it but
+ivy, and a few amphibious weeds. The south-western tower, which was
+ruinous and full of owls, might, with equal propriety, have been
+called the aviary. This terrace or garden, or terrace-garden, or
+garden-terrace (the reader may name it _ad libitum_), took in an
+oblique view of the open sea, and fronted a long tract of level
+sea-coast, and a fine monotony of fens and windmills.
+
+The reader will judge, from what we have said, that this building was
+a sort of castellated abbey; and it will, probably, occur to him to
+inquire if it had been one of the strong-holds of the ancient church
+militant. Whether this was the case, or how far it had been indebted
+to the taste of Mr Glowry's ancestors for any transmutations from its
+original state, are, unfortunately, circumstances not within the pale
+of our knowledge.
+
+The north-western tower contained the apartments of Mr Glowry. The
+moat at its base, and the fens beyond, comprised the whole of his
+prospect. This moat surrounded the Abbey, and was in immediate contact
+with the walls on every side but the south.
+
+The north-eastern tower was appropriated to the domestics, whom Mr
+Glowry always chose by one of two criterions,--a long face, or a
+dismal name. His butler was Raven; his steward was Crow; his valet was
+Skellet. Mr Glowry maintained that the valet was of French extraction,
+and that his name was Squelette. His grooms were Mattocks and Graves.
+On one occasion, being in want of a footman, he received a letter
+from a person signing himself Diggory Deathshead, and lost no time in
+securing this acquisition; but on Diggory's arrival, Mr Glowry was
+horror-struck by the sight of a round ruddy face, and a pair of
+laughing eyes. Deathshead was always grinning,--not a ghastly smile,
+but the grin of a comic mask; and disturbed the echoes of the hall
+with so much unhallowed laughter, that Mr Glowry gave him his
+discharge. Diggory, however, had staid long enough to make conquests
+of all the old gentleman's maids, and left him a flourishing colony of
+young Deathsheads to join chorus with the owls, that had before been
+the exclusive choristers of Nightmare Abbey.
+
+The main body of the building was divided into rooms of state,
+spacious apartments for feasting, and numerous bed-rooms for visitors,
+who, however, were few and far between.
+
+Family interests compelled Mr Glowry to receive occasional visits from
+Mr and Mrs Hilary, who paid them from the same motive; and, as the
+lively gentleman on these occasions found few conductors for his
+exuberant gaiety, he became like a double-charged electric jar, which
+often exploded in some burst of outrageous merriment to the signal
+discomposure of Mr Glowry's nerves.
+
+Another occasional visitor, much more to Mr Glowry's taste, was Mr
+Flosky,[1] a very lachrymose and morbid gentleman, of some note in
+the literary world, but in his own estimation of much more merit than
+name. The part of his character which recommended him to Mr Glowry,
+was his very fine sense of the grim and the tearful. No one could
+relate a dismal story with so many minutiæ of supererogatory
+wretchedness. No one could call up a _raw-head and bloody-bones_ with
+so many adjuncts and circumstances of ghastliness. Mystery was his
+mental element. He lived in the midst of that visionary world in which
+nothing is but what is not. He dreamed with his eyes open, and saw
+ghosts dancing round him at noontide. He had been in his youth
+an enthusiast for liberty, and had hailed the dawn of the French
+Revolution as the promise of a day that was to banish war and slavery,
+and every form of vice and misery, from the face of the earth. Because
+all this was not done, he deduced that nothing was done; and from this
+deduction, according to his system of logic, he drew a conclusion
+that worse than nothing was done; that the overthrow of the feudal
+fortresses of tyranny and superstition was the greatest calamity that
+had ever befallen mankind; and that their only hope now was to rake
+the rubbish together, and rebuild it without any of those loopholes
+by which the light had originally crept in. To qualify himself for a
+coadjutor in this laudable task, he plunged into the central
+opacity of Kantian metaphysics, and lay _perdu_ several years in
+transcendental darkness, till the common daylight of common sense
+became intolerable to his eyes. He called the sun an _ignis fatuus_;
+and exhorted all who would listen to his friendly voice, which were
+about as many as called 'God save King Richard,' to shelter themselves
+from its delusive radiance in the obscure haunt of Old Philosophy.
+This word Old had great charms for him. The good old times were always
+on his lips; meaning the days when polemic theology was in its prime,
+and rival prelates beat the drum ecclesiastic with Herculean vigour,
+till the one wound up his series of syllogisms with the very orthodox
+conclusion of roasting the other.
+
+But the dearest friend of Mr Glowry, and his most welcome guest,
+was Mr Toobad, the Manichaean Millenarian. The twelfth verse of the
+twelfth chapter of Revelations was always in his mouth: 'Woe to the
+inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come among
+you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short
+time.' He maintained that the supreme dominion of the world was, for
+wise purposes, given over for a while to the Evil Principle; and that
+this precise period of time, commonly called the enlightened age, was
+the point of his plenitude of power. He used to add that by and by he
+would be cast down, and a high and happy order of things succeed; but
+he never omitted the saving clause, 'Not in our time'; which last
+words were always echoed in doleful response by the sympathetic Mr
+Glowry.
+
+Another and very frequent visitor, was the Reverend Mr Larynx, the
+vicar of Claydyke, a village about ten miles distant;--a good-natured
+accommodating divine, who was always most obligingly ready to take a
+dinner and a bed at the house of any country gentleman in distress
+for a companion. Nothing came amiss to him,--a game at billiards, at
+chess, at draughts, at backgammon, at piquet, or at all-fours in
+a _tête-à-tête_,--or any game on the cards, round, square, or
+triangular, in a party of any number exceeding two. He would even
+dance among friends, rather than that a lady, even if she were on the
+wrong side of thirty, should sit still for want of a partner. For a
+ride, a walk, or a sail, in the morning,--a song after dinner, a ghost
+story after supper,--a bottle of port with the squire, or a cup of
+green tea with his lady,--for all or any of these, or for any thing
+else that was agreeable to any one else, consistently with the dye of
+his coat, the Reverend Mr Larynx was at all times equally ready. When
+at Nightmare Abbey, he would condole with Mr Glowry,--drink Madeira
+with Scythrop,--crack jokes with Mr Hilary,--hand Mrs Hilary to the
+piano, take charge of her fan and gloves, and turn over her music with
+surprising dexterity,--quote Revelations with Mr Toobad,--and lament
+the good old times of feudal darkness with the transcendental Mr
+Flosky.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Shortly after the disastrous termination of Scythrop's passion for
+Miss Emily Girouette, Mr Glowry found himself, much against his will,
+involved in a lawsuit, which compelled him to dance attendance on the
+High Court of Chancery. Scythrop was left alone at Nightmare Abbey. He
+was a burnt child, and dreaded the fire of female eyes. He wandered
+about the ample pile, or along the garden-terrace, with 'his
+cogitative faculties immersed in cogibundity of cogitation.' The
+terrace terminated at the south-western tower, which, as we have said,
+was ruinous and full of owls. Here would Scythrop take his evening
+seat, on a fallen fragment of mossy stone, with his back resting
+against the ruined wall,--a thick canopy of ivy, with an owl in it,
+over his head,--and the Sorrows of Werter in his hand. He had some
+taste for romance reading before he went to the university, where, we
+must confess, in justice to his college, he was cured of the love of
+reading in all its shapes; and the cure would have been radical, if
+disappointment in love, and total solitude, had not conspired to bring
+on a relapse. He began to devour romances and German tragedies, and,
+by the recommendation of Mr Flosky, to pore over ponderous tomes of
+transcendental philosophy, which reconciled him to the labour of
+studying them by their mystical jargon and necromantic imagery. In
+the congenial solitude of Nightmare Abbey, the distempered ideas of
+metaphysical romance and romantic metaphysics had ample time and space
+to germinate into a fertile crop of chimeras, which rapidly shot up
+into vigorous and abundant vegetation.
+
+He now became troubled with the _passion for reforming the world_.[2]
+He built many castles in the air, and peopled them with secret
+tribunals, and bands of illuminati, who were always the imaginary
+instruments of his projected regeneration of the human species. As he
+intended to institute a perfect republic, he invested himself with
+absolute sovereignty over these mystical dispensers of liberty. He
+slept with Horrid Mysteries under his pillow, and dreamed of venerable
+eleutherarchs and ghastly confederates holding midnight conventions in
+subterranean caves. He passed whole mornings in his study, immersed
+in gloomy reverie, stalking about the room in his nightcap, which
+he pulled over his eyes like a cowl, and folding his striped calico
+dressing-gown about him like the mantle of a conspirator.
+
+'Action,' thus he soliloquised, 'is the result of opinion, and to
+new-model opinion would be to new-model society. Knowledge is power;
+it is in the hands of a few, who employ it to mislead the many, for
+their own selfish purposes of aggrandisement and appropriation. What
+if it were in the hands of a few who should employ it to lead the
+many? What if it were universal, and the multitude were enlightened?
+No. The many must be always in leading-strings; but let them have wise
+and honest conductors. A few to think, and many to act; that is the
+only basis of perfect society. So thought the ancient philosophers:
+they had their esoterical and exoterical doctrines. So thinks the
+sublime Kant, who delivers his oracles in language which none but
+the initiated can comprehend. Such were the views of those secret
+associations of illuminati, which were the terror of superstition and
+tyranny, and which, carefully selecting wisdom and genius from the
+great wilderness of society, as the bee selects honey from the flowers
+of the thorn and the nettle, bound all human excellence in a chain,
+which, if it had not been prematurely broken, would have commanded
+opinion, and regenerated the world.'
+
+Scythrop proceeded to meditate on the practicability of reviving a
+confederation of regenerators. To get a clear view of his own ideas,
+and to feel the pulse of the wisdom and genius of the age, he wrote
+and published a treatise, in which his meanings were carefully wrapt
+up in the monk's hood of transcendental technology, but filled with
+hints of matter deep and dangerous, which he thought would set
+the whole nation in a ferment; and he awaited the result in awful
+expectation, as a miner who has fired a train awaits the explosion of
+a rock. However, he listened and heard nothing; for the explosion, if
+any ensued, was not sufficiently loud to shake a single leaf of the
+ivy on the towers of Nightmare Abbey; and some months afterwards he
+received a letter from his bookseller, informing him that only seven
+copies had been sold, and concluding with a polite request for the
+balance.
+
+Scythrop did not despair. 'Seven copies,' he thought, 'have been sold.
+Seven is a mystical number, and the omen is good. Let me find the
+seven purchasers of my seven copies, and they shall be the seven
+golden candle-sticks with which I will illuminate the world.'
+
+Scythrop had a certain portion of mechanical genius, which his
+romantic projects tended to develope. He constructed models of cells
+and recesses, sliding panels and secret passages, that would have
+baffled the skill of the Parisian police. He took the opportunity of
+his father's absence to smuggle a dumb carpenter into the Abbey, and
+between them they gave reality to one of these models in Scythrop's
+tower. Scythrop foresaw that a great leader of human regeneration
+would be involved in fearful dilemmas, and determined, for the benefit
+of mankind in general, to adopt all possible precautions for the
+preservation of himself.
+
+The servants, even the women, had been tutored into silence. Profound
+stillness reigned throughout and around the Abbey, except when the
+occasional shutting of a door would peal in long reverberations
+through the galleries, or the heavy tread of the pensive butler would
+wake the hollow echoes of the hall. Scythrop stalked about like the
+grand inquisitor, and the servants flitted past him like familiars. In
+his evening meditations on the terrace, under the ivy of the ruined
+tower, the only sounds that came to his ear were the rustling of the
+wind in the ivy, the plaintive voices of the feathered choristers, the
+owls, the occasional striking of the Abbey clock, and the monotonous
+dash of the sea on its low and level shore. In the mean time, he drank
+Madeira, and laid deep schemes for a thorough repair of the crazy
+fabric of human nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mr Glowry returned from London with the loss of his lawsuit. Justice
+was with him, but the law was against him. He found Scythrop in a
+mood most sympathetically tragic; and they vied with each other in
+enlivening their cups by lamenting the depravity of this degenerate
+age, and occasionally interspersing divers grim jokes about graves,
+worms, and epitaphs. Mr Glowry's friends, whom we have mentioned in
+the first chapter, availed themselves of his return to pay him a
+simultaneous visit. At the same time arrived Scythrop's friend and
+fellow-collegian, the Honourable Mr Listless. Mr Glowry had discovered
+this fashionable young gentleman in London, 'stretched on the rack of
+a too easy chair,' and devoured with a gloomy and misanthropical _nil
+curo_, and had pressed him so earnestly to take the benefit of the
+pure country air, at Nightmare Abbey, that Mr Listless, finding it
+would give him more trouble to refuse than to comply, summoned his
+French valet, Fatout, and told him he was going to Lincolnshire. On
+this simple hint, Fatout went to work, and the imperials were packed,
+and the post-chariot was at the door, without the Honourable Mr
+Listless having said or thought another syllable on the subject.
+
+Mr and Mrs Hilary brought with them an orphan niece, a daughter of Mr
+Glowry's youngest sister, who had made a runaway love-match with an
+Irish officer. The lady's fortune disappeared in the first year: love,
+by a natural consequence, disappeared in the second: the Irishman
+himself, by a still more natural consequence, disappeared in the
+third. Mr Glowry had allowed his sister an annuity, and she had lived
+in retirement with her only daughter, whom, at her death, which had
+recently happened, she commended to the care of Mrs Hilary.
+
+Miss Marionetta Celestina O'Carroll was a very blooming and
+accomplished young lady. Being a compound of the _Allegro Vivace_ of
+the O'Carrolls, and of the _Andante Doloroso_ of the Glowries, she
+exhibited in her own character all the diversities of an April sky.
+Her hair was light-brown; her eyes hazel, and sparkling with a mild
+but fluctuating light; her features regular; her lips full, and of
+equal size; and her person surpassingly graceful. She was a proficient
+in music. Her conversation was sprightly, but always on subjects light
+in their nature and limited in their interest: for moral sympathies,
+in any general sense, had no place in her mind. She had some coquetry,
+and more caprice, liking and disliking almost in the same moment;
+pursuing an object with earnestness while it seemed unattainable, and
+rejecting it when in her power as not worth the trouble of possession.
+
+Whether she was touched with a _penchant_ for her cousin Scythrop, or
+was merely curious to see what effect the tender passion would have on
+so _outré_ a person, she had not been three days in the Abbey before
+she threw out all the lures of her beauty and accomplishments to make
+a prize of his heart. Scythrop proved an easy conquest. The image of
+Miss Emily Girouette was already sufficiently dimmed by the power of
+philosophy and the exercise of reason: for to these influences, or to
+any influence but the true one, are usually ascribed the mental cures
+performed by the great physician Time. Scythrop's romantic dreams had
+indeed given him many _pure anticipated cognitions_ of combinations
+of beauty and intelligence, which, he had some misgivings, were not
+exactly realised in his cousin Marionetta; but, in spite of these
+misgivings, he soon became distractedly in love; which, when the young
+lady clearly perceived, she altered her tactics, and assumed as much
+coldness and reserve as she had before shown ardent and ingenuous
+attachment. Scythrop was confounded at the sudden change; but, instead
+of falling at her feet and requesting an explanation, he retreated
+to his tower, muffled himself in his nightcap, seated himself in
+the president's chair of his imaginary secret tribunal, summoned
+Marionetta with all terrible formalities, frightened her out of her
+wits, disclosed himself, and clasped the beautiful penitent to his
+bosom.
+
+While he was acting this reverie--in the moment in which the awful
+president of the secret tribunal was throwing back his cowl and his
+mantle, and discovering himself to the lovely culprit as her adoring
+and magnanimous lover, the door of the study opened, and the real
+Marionetta appeared.
+
+The motives which had led her to the tower were a little penitence, a
+little concern, a little affection, and a little fear as to what the
+sudden secession of Scythrop, occasioned by her sudden change of
+manner, might portend. She had tapped several times unheard, and of
+course unanswered; and at length, timidly and cautiously opening the
+door, she discovered him standing up before a black velvet chair,
+which was mounted on an old oak table, in the act of throwing open his
+striped calico dressing-gown, and flinging away his nightcap--which is
+what the French call an imposing attitude.
+
+Each stood a few moments fixed in their respective places--the lady in
+astonishment, and the gentleman in confusion. Marionetta was the first
+to break silence. 'For heaven's sake,' said she, 'my dear Scythrop,
+what is the matter?'
+
+'For heaven's sake, indeed!' said Scythrop, springing from the table;
+'for your sake, Marionetta, and you are my heaven,--distraction is the
+matter. I adore you, Marionetta, and your cruelty drives me mad.'
+He threw himself at her knees, devoured her hand with kisses, and
+breathed a thousand vows in the most passionate language of romance.
+
+Marionetta listened a long time in silence, till her lover had
+exhausted his eloquence and paused for a reply. She then said, with a
+very arch look, 'I prithee deliver thyself like a man of this world.'
+The levity of this quotation, and of the manner in which it was
+delivered, jarred so discordantly on the high-wrought enthusiasm of
+the romantic inamorato, that he sprang upon his feet, and beat his
+forehead with his clenched fist. The young lady was terrified; and,
+deeming it expedient to soothe him, took one of his hands in hers,
+placed the other hand on his shoulder, looked up in his face with a
+winning seriousness, and said, in the tenderest possible tone, 'What
+would you have, Scythrop?'
+
+Scythrop was in heaven again. 'What would I have? What but you,
+Marionetta? You, for the companion of my studies, the partner of my
+thoughts, the auxiliary of my great designs for the emancipation of
+mankind.'
+
+'I am afraid I should be but a poor auxiliary, Scythrop. What would
+you have me do?'
+
+'Do as Rosalia does with Carlos, divine Marionetta. Let us each open
+a vein in the other's arm, mix our blood in a bowl, and drink it as
+a sacrament of love. Then we shall see visions of transcendental
+illumination, and soar on the wings of ideas into the space of pure
+intelligence.'
+
+Marionetta could not reply; she had not so strong a stomach as
+Rosalia, and turned sick at the proposition. She disengaged herself
+suddenly from Scythrop, sprang through the door of the tower, and fled
+with precipitation along the corridors. Scythrop pursued her, crying,
+'Stop, stop, Marionetta--my life, my love!' and was gaining rapidly on
+her flight, when, at an ill-omened corner, where two corridors ended
+in an angle, at the head of a staircase, he came into sudden and
+violent contact with Mr Toobad, and they both plunged together to the
+foot of the stairs, like two billiard-balls into one pocket. This gave
+the young lady time to escape, and enclose herself in her chamber;
+while Mr Toobad, rising slowly, and rubbing his knees and shoulders,
+said, 'You see, my dear Scythrop, in this little incident, one of the
+innumerable proofs of the temporary supremacy of the devil; for what
+but a systematic design and concurrent contrivance of evil could have
+made the angles of time and place coincide in our unfortunate persons
+at the head of this accursed staircase?'
+
+'Nothing else, certainly,' said Scythrop: 'you are perfectly in the
+right, Mr Toobad. Evil, and mischief, and misery, and confusion,
+and vanity, and vexation of spirit, and death, and disease, and
+assassination, and war, and poverty, and pestilence, and famine, and
+avarice, and selfishness, and rancour, and jealousy, and spleen,
+and malevolence, and the disappointments of philanthropy, and the
+faithlessness of friendship, and the crosses of love--all prove the
+accuracy of your views, and the truth of your system; and it is not
+impossible that the infernal interruption of this fall downstairs may
+throw a colour of evil on the whole of my future existence.'
+
+'My dear boy,' said Mr Toobad, 'you have a fine eye for consequences.'
+
+So saying, he embraced Scythrop, who retired, with a disconsolate
+step, to dress for dinner; while Mr Toobad stalked across the hall,
+repeating, 'Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea, for
+the devil is come among you, having great wrath.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The flight of Marionetta, and the pursuit of Scythrop, had been
+witnessed by Mr Glowry, who, in consequence, narrowly observed his son
+and his niece in the evening; and, concluding from their manner, that
+there was a better understanding between them than he wished to see,
+he determined on obtaining the next morning from Scythrop a full and
+satisfactory explanation. He, therefore, shortly after breakfast,
+entered Scythrop's tower, with a very grave face, and said, without
+ceremony or preface, 'So, sir, you are in love with your cousin.'
+
+Scythrop, with as little hesitation, answered, 'Yes, sir.'
+
+'That is candid, at least; and she is in love with you.'
+
+'I wish she were, sir.'
+
+'You know she is, sir.'
+
+'Indeed, sir, I do not.'
+
+'But you hope she is.'
+
+'I do, from my soul.'
+
+'Now that is very provoking, Scythrop, and very disappointing: I could
+not have supposed that you, Scythrop Glowry, of Nightmare Abbey,
+would have been infatuated with such a dancing, laughing, singing,
+thoughtless, careless, merry-hearted thing, as Marionetta--in all
+respects the reverse of you and me. It is very disappointing,
+Scythrop. And do you know, sir, that Marionetta has no fortune?'
+
+'It is the more reason, sir, that her husband should have one.'
+
+'The more reason for her; but not for you. My wife had no fortune, and
+I had no consolation in my calamity. And do you reflect, sir, what an
+enormous slice this lawsuit has cut out of our family estate? we who
+used to be the greatest landed proprietors in Lincolnshire.'
+
+'To be sure, sir, we had more acres of fen than any man on this
+coast: but what are fens to love? What are dykes and windmills to
+Marionetta?'
+
+'And what, sir, is love to a windmill? Not grist, I am certain:
+besides, sir, I have made a choice for you. I have made a choice for
+you, Scythrop. Beauty, genius, accomplishments, and a great fortune
+into the bargain. Such a lovely, serious creature, in a fine state of
+high dissatisfaction with the world, and every thing in it. Such a
+delightful surprise I had prepared for you. Sir, I have pledged my
+honour to the contract--the honour of the Glowries of Nightmare Abbey:
+and now, sir, what is to be done?'
+
+'Indeed, sir, I cannot say. I claim, on this occasion, that liberty of
+action which is the co-natal prerogative of every rational being.'
+
+'Liberty of action, sir? there is no such thing as liberty of action.
+We are all slaves and puppets of a blind and unpathetic necessity.'
+
+'Very true, sir; but liberty of action, between individuals, consists
+in their being differently influenced, or modified, by the same
+universal necessity; so that the results are unconsentaneous, and
+their respective necessitated volitions clash and fly off in a
+tangent.'
+
+'Your logic is good, sir: but you are aware, too, that one individual
+may be a medium of adhibiting to another a mode or form of necessity,
+which may have more or less influence in the production of
+consentaneity; and, therefore, sir, if you do not comply with my
+wishes in this instance (you have had your own way in every thing
+else), I shall be under the necessity of disinheriting you, though
+I shall do it with tears in my eyes.' Having said these words, he
+vanished suddenly, in the dread of Scythrop's logic.
+
+Mr Glowry immediately sought Mrs Hilary, and communicated to her his
+views of the case in point. Mrs Hilary, as the phrase is, was as fond
+of Marionetta as if she had been her own child: but--there is always a
+_but_ on these occasions--she could do nothing for her in the way
+of fortune, as she had two hopeful sons, who were finishing their
+education at Brazen-nose, and who would not like to encounter any
+diminution of their prospects, when they should be brought out of the
+house of mental bondage--i.e. the university--to the land flowing with
+milk and honey--i.e. the west end of London.
+
+Mrs Hilary hinted to Marionetta, that propriety, and delicacy, and
+decorum, and dignity, &c. &c. &c.,[3] would require them to leave the
+Abbey immediately. Marionetta listened in silent submission, for she
+knew that her inheritance was passive obedience; but, when Scythrop,
+who had watched the opportunity of Mrs Hilary's departure, entered,
+and, without speaking a word, threw himself at her feet in a paroxysm
+of grief, the young lady, in equal silence and sorrow, threw her arms
+round his neck and burst into tears. A very tender scene ensued, which
+the sympathetic susceptibilities of the soft-hearted reader can more
+accurately imagine than we can delineate. But when Marionetta hinted
+that she was to leave the Abbey immediately, Scythrop snatched from
+its repository his ancestor's skull, filled it with Madeira, and
+presenting himself before Mr Glowry, threatened to drink off the
+contents if Mr Glowry did not immediately promise that Marionetta
+should not be taken from the Abbey without her own consent. Mr Glowry,
+who took the Madeira to be some deadly brewage, gave the required
+promise in dismal panic. Scythrop returned to Marionetta with a joyful
+heart, and drank the Madeira by the way.
+
+Mr Glowry, during his residence in London, had come to an agreement
+with his friend Mr Toobad, that a match between Scythrop and Mr
+Toobad's daughter would be a very desirable occurrence. She was
+finishing her education in a German convent, but Mr Toobad described
+her as being fully impressed with the truth of his Ahrimanic
+philosophy,[4] and being altogether as gloomy and antithalian a young
+lady as Mr Glowry himself could desire for the future mistress of
+Nightmare Abbey. She had a great fortune in her own right, which was
+not, as we have seen, without its weight in inducing Mr Glowry to
+set his heart upon her as his daughter-in-law that was to be; he was
+therefore very much disturbed by Scythrop's untoward attachment to
+Marionetta. He condoled on the occasion with Mr Toobad; who said, that
+he had been too long accustomed to the intermeddling of the devil in
+all his affairs, to be astonished at this new trace of his cloven
+claw; but that he hoped to outwit him yet, for he was sure there could
+be no comparison between his daughter and Marionetta in the mind of
+any one who had a proper perception of the fact, that, the world
+being a great theatre of evil, seriousness and solemnity are the
+characteristics of wisdom, and laughter and merriment make a human
+being no better than a baboon. Mr Glowry comforted himself with this
+view of the subject, and urged Mr Toobad to expedite his daughter's
+return from Germany. Mr Toobad said he was in daily expectation of her
+arrival in London, and would set off immediately to meet her, that
+he might lose no time in bringing her to Nightmare Abbey. 'Then,' he
+added, 'we shall see whether Thalia or Melpomene--whether the Allegra
+or the Penserosa--will carry off the symbol of victory.'--'There can
+be no doubt,' said Mr Glowry, 'which way the scale will incline, or
+Scythrop is no true scion of the venerable stem of the Glowries.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Marionetta felt secure of Scythrop's heart; and notwithstanding the
+difficulties that surrounded her, she could not debar herself from the
+pleasure of tormenting her lover, whom she kept in a perpetual fever.
+Sometimes she would meet him with the most unqualified affection;
+sometimes with the most chilling indifference; rousing him to anger by
+artificial coldness--softening him to love by eloquent tenderness--or
+inflaming him to jealousy by coquetting with the Honourable Mr
+Listless, who seemed, under her magical influence, to burst into
+sudden life, like the bud of the evening primrose. Sometimes she would
+sit by the piano, and listen with becoming attention to Scythrop's
+pathetic remonstrances; but, in the most impassioned part of his
+oratory, she would convert all his ideas into a chaos, by striking up
+some Rondo Allegro, and saying, 'Is it not pretty?' Scythrop would
+begin to storm; and she would answer him with,
+
+  'Zitti, zitti, piano, piano,
+  Non facciamo confusione,'
+
+or some similar _facezia_, till he would start away from her, and
+enclose himself in his tower, in an agony of agitation, vowing to
+renounce her, and her whole sex, for ever; and returning to her
+presence at the summons of the billet, which she never failed to
+send with many expressions of penitence and promises of amendment.
+Scythrop's schemes for regenerating the world, and detecting his seven
+golden candle-sticks, went on very slowly in this fever of his spirit.
+
+Things proceeded in this train for several days; and Mr Glowry began
+to be uneasy at receiving no intelligence from Mr Toobad; when one
+evening the latter rushed into the library, where the family and the
+visitors were assembled, vociferating, 'The devil is come among
+you, having great wrath!' He then drew Mr Glowry aside into another
+apartment, and after remaining some time together, they re-entered the
+library with faces of great dismay, but did not condescend to explain
+to any one the cause of their discomfiture.
+
+The next morning, early, Mr Toobad departed. Mr Glowry sighed and
+groaned all day, and said not a word to any one. Scythrop had
+quarrelled, as usual, with Marionetta, and was enclosed in his tower,
+in a fit of morbid sensibility. Marionetta was comforting herself at
+the piano, with singing the airs of _Nina pazza per amore_; and the
+Honourable Mr Listless was listening to the harmony, as he lay
+supine on the sofa, with a book in his hand, into which he peeped at
+intervals. The Reverend Mr Larynx approached the sofa, and proposed a
+game at billiards.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Billiards! Really I should be very happy; but, in my present exhausted
+state, the exertion is too much for me. I do not know when I have been
+equal to such an effort. (_He rang the bell for his valet. Fatout
+entered_.) Fatout! when did I play at billiards last?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De fourteen December de last year, Monsieur. (_Fatout bowed and
+retired_.)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+So it was. Seven months ago. You see, Mr Larynx; you see, sir. My
+nerves, Miss O'Carroll, my nerves are shattered. I have been advised
+to try Bath. Some of the faculty recommend Cheltenham. I think of
+trying both, as the seasons don't clash. The season, you know, Mr
+Larynx--the season, Miss O'Carroll--the season is every thing.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+And health is something. _N'est-ce pas_, Mr Larynx?
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Most assuredly, Miss O'Carroll. For, however reasoners may dispute
+about the _summum bonum_, none of them will deny that a very good
+dinner is a very good thing: and what is a good dinner without a good
+appetite? and whence is a good appetite but from good health? Now,
+Cheltenham, Mr Listless, is famous for good appetites.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+The best piece of logic I ever heard, Mr Larynx; the very best,
+I assure you. I have thought very seriously of Cheltenham: very
+seriously and profoundly. I thought of it--let me see--when did I
+think of it? (_He rang again, and Fatout reappeared._) Fatout! when
+did I think of going to Cheltenham, and did not go?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De Juillet twenty-von, de last summer, Monsieur. (_Fatout retired._)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+So it was. An invaluable fellow that, Mr Larynx--invaluable, Miss
+O'Carroll.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+So I should judge, indeed. He seems to serve you as a walking memory,
+and to be a living chronicle, not of your actions only, but of your
+thoughts.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+An excellent definition of the fellow, Miss O'Carroll,--excellent,
+upon my honour. Ha! ha! he! Heigho! Laughter is pleasant, but the
+exertion is too much for me.
+
+
+A parcel was brought in for Mr Listless; it had been sent express.
+Fatout was summoned to unpack it; and it proved to contain a new
+novel, and a new poem, both of which had long been anxiously expected
+by the whole host of fashionable readers; and the last number of a
+popular Review, of which the editor and his coadjutors were in high
+favour at court, and enjoyed ample pensions[5] for their services to
+church and state. As Fatout left the room, Mr Flosky entered, and
+curiously inspected the literary arrivals.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+(_Turning over the leaves._) 'Devilman, a novel.' Hm. Hatred--revenge--
+misanthropy--and quotations from the Bible. Hm. This is the morbid
+anatomy of black bile.--'Paul Jones, a poem.' Hm. I see how it is.
+Paul Jones, an amiable enthusiast--disappointed in his affections--
+turns pirate from ennui and magnanimity--cuts various masculine
+throats, wins various feminine hearts--is hanged at the yard-arm! The
+catastrophe is very awkward, and very unpoetical.--'The Downing Street
+Review.' Hm. First article--An Ode to the Red Book, by Roderick
+Sackbut, Esquire. Hm. His own poem reviewed by himself. Hm--m--m.
+
+
+(_Mr Flosky proceeded in silence to look over the other articles
+of the review; Marionetta inspected the novel, and Mr Listless the
+poem._)
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+For a young man of fashion and family, Mr Listless, you seem to be of
+a very studious turn.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Studious! You are pleased to be facetious, Mr Larynx. I hope you do
+not suspect me of being studious. I have finished my education. But
+there are some fashionable books that one must read, because they are
+ingredients of the talk of the day; otherwise, I am no fonder of books
+than I dare say you yourself are, Mr Larynx.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Why, sir, I cannot say that I am indeed particularly fond of books;
+yet neither can I say that I never do read. A tale or a poem, now and
+then, to a circle of ladies over their work, is no very heterodox
+employment of the vocal energy. And I must say, for myself, that
+few men have a more Job-like endurance of the eternally recurring
+questions and answers that interweave themselves, on these occasions,
+with the crisis of an adventure, and heighten the distress of a
+tragedy.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And very often make the distress when the author has omitted it.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I shall try your patience some rainy morning, Mr Larynx; and Mr
+Listless shall recommend us the very newest new book, that every body
+reads.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You shall receive it, Miss O'Carroll, with all the gloss of novelty;
+fresh as a ripe green-gage in all the downiness of its bloom. A
+mail-coach copy from Edinburgh, forwarded express from London.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+This rage for novelty is the bane of literature. Except my works and
+those of my particular friends, nothing is good that is not as old as
+Jeremy Taylor: and, _entre nous_, the best parts of my friends' books
+were either written or suggested by myself.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Sir, I reverence you. But I must say, modern books are very
+consolatory and congenial to my feelings. There is, as it were, a
+delightful north-east wind, an intellectual blight breathing through
+them; a delicious misanthropy and discontent, that demonstrates the
+nullity of virtue and energy, and puts me in good humour with myself
+and my sofa.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Very true, sir. Modern literature is a north-east wind--a blight of
+the human soul. I take credit to myself for having helped to make it
+so. The way to produce fine fruit is to blight the flower. You call
+this a paradox. Marry, so be it. Ponder thereon.
+
+
+The conversation was interrupted by the re-appearance of Mr Toobad,
+covered with mud. He just showed himself at the door, muttered 'The
+devil is come among you!' and vanished. The road which connected
+Nightmare Abbey with the civilised world, was artificially raised
+above the level of the fens, and ran through them in a straight line
+as far as the eye could reach, with a ditch on each side, of which the
+water was rendered invisible by the aquatic vegetation that covered
+the surface. Into one of these ditches the sudden action of a
+shy horse, which took fright at a windmill, had precipitated the
+travelling chariot of Mr Toobad, who had been reduced to the necessity
+of scrambling in dismal plight through the window. One of the wheels
+was found to be broken; and Mr Toobad, leaving the postilion to
+get the chariot as well as he could to Claydyke for the purpose of
+cleaning and repairing, had walked back to Nightmare Abbey, followed
+by his servant with the imperial, and repeating all the way his
+favourite quotation from the Revelations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Mr Toobad had found his daughter Celinda in London, and after the
+first joy of meeting was over, told her he had a husband ready for
+her. The young lady replied, very gravely, that she should take the
+liberty to choose for herself. Mr Toobad said he saw the devil was
+determined to interfere with all his projects, but he was resolved
+on his own part, not to have on his conscience the crime of passive
+obedience and non-resistance to Lucifer, and therefore she should
+marry the person he had chosen for her. Miss Toobad replied, _très
+posément_, she assuredly would not. 'Celinda, Celinda,' said Mr
+Toobad, 'you most assuredly shall.'--'Have I not a fortune in my own
+right, sir?' said Celinda. 'The more is the pity,' said Mr Toobad:
+'but I can find means, miss; I can find means. There are more ways
+than one of breaking in obstinate girls.' They parted for the night
+with the expression of opposite resolutions, and in the morning the
+young lady's chamber was found empty, and what was become of her Mr
+Toobad had no clue to conjecture. He continued to investigate town and
+country in search of her; visiting and revisiting Nightmare Abbey at
+intervals, to consult with his friend, Mr Glowry. Mr Glowry agreed
+with Mr Toobad that this was a very flagrant instance of filial
+disobedience and rebellion; and Mr Toobad declared, that when he
+discovered the fugitive, she should find that 'the devil was come unto
+her, having great wrath.'
+
+In the evening, the whole party met, as usual, in the library.
+Marionetta sat at the harp; the Honourable Mr Listless sat by her and
+turned over her music, though the exertion was almost too much
+for him. The Reverend Mr Larynx relieved him occasionally in this
+delightful labour. Scythrop, tormented by the demon Jealousy, sat in
+the corner biting his lips and fingers. Marionetta looked at him every
+now and then with a smile of most provoking good humour, which he
+pretended not to see, and which only the more exasperated his troubled
+spirit. He took down a volume of Dante, and pretended to be deeply
+interested in the Purgatorio, though he knew not a word he was
+reading, as Marionetta was well aware; who, tripping across the room,
+peeped into his book, and said to him, 'I see you are in the middle of
+Purgatory.'--'I am in the middle of hell,' said Scythrop furiously.
+'Are you?' said she; 'then come across the room, and I will sing you
+the finale of Don Giovanni.'
+
+'Let me alone,' said Scythrop. Marionetta looked at him with a
+deprecating smile, and said, 'You unjust, cross creature, you.'--'Let
+me alone,' said Scythrop, but much less emphatically than at first,
+and by no means wishing to be taken at his word. Marionetta left him
+immediately, and returning to the harp, said, just loud enough for
+Scythrop to hear--'Did you ever read Dante, Mr Listless? Scythrop
+is reading Dante, and is just now in Purgatory.'--'And I' said the
+Honourable Mr Listless, 'am not reading Dante, and am just now in
+Paradise,' bowing to Marionetta.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+You are very gallant, Mr Listless; and I dare say you are very fond of
+reading Dante.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I don't know how it is, but Dante never came in my way till lately. I
+never had him in my collection, and if I had had him I should not have
+read him. But I find he is growing fashionable, and I am afraid I must
+read him some wet morning.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+No, read him some evening, by all means. Were you ever in love, Mr
+Listless?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I assure you, Miss O'Carroll, never--till I came to Nightmare Abbey.
+I dare say it is very pleasant; but it seems to give so much trouble
+that I fear the exertion would be too much for me.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Shall I teach you a compendious method of courtship, that will give
+you no trouble whatever?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You will confer on me an inexpressible obligation. I am all impatience
+to learn it.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Sit with your back to the lady and read Dante; only be sure to begin
+in the middle, and turn over three or four pages at once--backwards
+as well as forwards, and she will immediately perceive that you are
+desperately in love with her--desperately.
+
+
+_(The Honourable Mr Listless sitting between Scythrop and Marionetta,
+and fixing all his attention on the beautiful speaker, did not observe
+Scythrop, who was doing as she described.)_
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You are pleased to be facetious, Miss O'Carroll. The lady would
+infallibly conclude that I was the greatest brute in town.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Far from it. She would say, perhaps, some people have odd methods of
+showing their affection.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+But I should think, with submission--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_joining them from another part of the room_)
+
+Did I not hear Mr Listless observe that Dante is becoming fashionable?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I did hazard a remark to that effect, Mr Flosky, though I speak on
+such subjects with a consciousness of my own nothingness, in the
+presence of so great a man as Mr Flosky. I know not what is the colour
+of Dante's devils, but as he is certainly becoming fashionable I
+conclude they are blue; for the blue devils, as it seems to me, Mr
+Flosky, constitute the fundamental feature of fashionable literature.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The blue are, indeed, the staple commodity; but as they will not
+always be commanded, the black, red, and grey may be admitted as
+substitutes. Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution, have played
+the devil, Mr Listless, and brought the devil into play.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD (_starting up_)
+
+Having great wrath.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+This is no play upon words, but the sober sadness of veritable fact.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution. I cannot exactly see the
+connection of ideas.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I should be sorry if you could; I pity the man who can see the
+connection of his own ideas. Still more do I pity him, the connection
+of whose ideas any other person can see. Sir, the great evil is,
+that there is too much common-place light in our moral and political
+literature; and light is a great enemy to mystery, and mystery is a
+great friend to enthusiasm. Now the enthusiasm for abstract truth is
+an exceedingly fine thing, as long as the truth, which is the object
+of the enthusiasm, is so completely abstract as to be altogether out
+of the reach of the human faculties; and, in that sense, I have
+myself an enthusiasm for truth, but in no other, for the pleasure of
+metaphysical investigation lies in the means, not in the end; and if
+the end could be found, the pleasure of the means would cease. The
+mind, to be kept in health, must be kept in exercise. The proper
+exercise of the mind is elaborate reasoning. Analytical reasoning is a
+base and mechanical process, which takes to pieces and examines, bit
+by bit, the rude material of knowledge, and extracts therefrom a few
+hard and obstinate things called facts, every thing in the shape of
+which I cordially hate. But synthetical reasoning, setting up as its
+goal some unattainable abstraction, like an imaginary quantity in
+algebra, and commencing its course with taking for granted some two
+assertions which cannot be proved, from the union of these two assumed
+truths produces a third assumption, and so on in infinite series, to
+the unspeakable benefit of the human intellect. The beauty of this
+process is, that at every step it strikes out into two branches, in
+a compound ratio of ramification; so that you are perfectly sure of
+losing your way, and keeping your mind in perfect health, by the
+perpetual exercise of an interminable quest; and for these reasons I
+have christened my eldest son Emanuel Kant Flosky.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Nothing can be more luminous.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And what has all that to do with Dante, and the blue devils?
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Not much, I should think, with Dante, but a great deal with the blue
+devils.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It is very certain, and much to be rejoiced at, that our literature is
+hag-ridden. Tea has shattered our nerves; late dinners make us slaves
+of indigestion; the French Revolution has made us shrink from the name
+of philosophy, and has destroyed, in the more refined part of the
+community (of which number I am one), all enthusiasm for political
+liberty. That part of the _reading public_ which shuns the solid
+food of reason for the light diet of fiction, requires a perpetual
+adhibition of _sauce piquante_ to the palate of its depraved
+imagination. It lived upon ghosts, goblins, and skeletons (I and my
+friend Mr Sackbut served up a few of the best), till even the devil
+himself, though magnified to the size of Mount Athos, became too base,
+common, and popular, for its surfeited appetite. The ghosts have
+therefore been laid, and the devil has been cast into outer darkness,
+and now the delight of our spirits is to dwell on all the vices and
+blackest passions of our nature, tricked out in a masquerade dress of
+heroism and disappointed benevolence; the whole secret of which lies
+in forming combinations that contradict all our experience, and
+affixing the purple shred of some particular virtue to that precise
+character, in which we should be most certain not to find it in the
+living world; and making this single virtue not only redeem all the
+real and manifest vices of the character, but make them actually
+pass for necessary adjuncts, and indispensable accompaniments and
+characteristics of the said virtue.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+That is, because the devil is come among us, and finds it for his
+interest to destroy all our perceptions of the distinctions of right
+and wrong.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I do not precisely enter into your meaning, Mr Flosky, and should be
+glad if you would make it a little more plain to me.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+One or two examples will do it, Miss O'Carroll. If I were to take all
+the mean and sordid qualities of a money-dealing Jew, and tack on to
+them, as with a nail, the quality of extreme benevolence, I should
+have a very decent hero for a modern novel; and should contribute my
+quota to the fashionable method of administering a mass of vice, under
+a thin and unnatural covering of virtue, like a spider wrapt in a
+bit of gold leaf, and administered as a wholesome pill. On the same
+principle, if a man knocks me down, and takes my purse and watch by
+main force, I turn him to account, and set him forth in a tragedy as
+a dashing young fellow, disinherited for his romantic generosity, and
+full of a most amiable hatred of the world in general, and his own
+country in particular, and of a most enlightened and chivalrous
+affection for himself: then, with the addition of a wild girl to fall
+in love with him, and a series of adventures in which they break all
+the Ten Commandments in succession (always, you will observe, for some
+sublime motive, which must be carefully analysed in its progress), I
+have as amiable a pair of tragic characters as ever issued from that
+new region of the belles lettres, which I have called the Morbid
+Anatomy of Black Bile, and which is greatly to be admired and rejoiced
+at, as affording a fine scope for the exhibition of mental power.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Which is about as well employed as the power of a hothouse would be in
+forcing up a nettle to the size of an elm. If we go on in this way, we
+shall have a new art of poetry, of which one of the first rules will
+be: To remember to forget that there are any such things as sunshine
+and music in the world.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+It seems to be the case with us at present, or we should not have
+interrupted Miss O'Carroll's music with this exceedingly dry
+conversation.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I should be most happy if Miss O'Carroll would remind us that there
+are yet both music and sunshine--
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+In the voice and the smile of beauty. May I entreat the favour
+of--(_turning over the pages of music._)
+
+
+All were silent, and Marionetta sung:
+
+  Why are thy looks so blank, grey friar?
+  Why are thy looks so blue?
+  Thou seem'st more pale and lank, grey friar,
+  Than thou wast used to do:--
+  Say, what has made thee rue?
+
+  Thy form was plump, and a light did shine
+  In thy round and ruby face,
+  Which showed an outward visible sign
+  Of an inward spiritual grace:--
+  Say, what has changed thy case?
+
+  Yet will I tell thee true, grey friar,
+  I very well can see,
+  That, if thy looks are blue, grey friar,
+  'Tis all for love of me,--
+  'Tis all for love of me.
+
+  But breathe not thy vows to me, grey friar,
+  Oh, breathe them not, I pray;
+  For ill beseems in a reverend friar,
+  The love of a mortal may;
+  And I needs must say thee nay.
+
+  But, could'st thou think my heart to move
+  With that pale and silent scowl?
+  Know, he who would win a maiden's love,
+  Whether clad in cap or cowl,
+  Must be more of a lark than an owl.
+
+
+Scythrop immediately replaced Dante on the shelf, and joined the
+circle round the beautiful singer. Marionetta gave him a smile of
+approbation that fully restored his complacency, and they continued
+on the best possible terms during the remainder of the evening. The
+Honourable Mr Listless turned over the leaves with double alacrity,
+saying, 'You are severe upon invalids, Miss O'Carroll: to escape your
+satire, I must try to be sprightly, though the exertion is too much
+for me.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A new visitor arrived at the Abbey, in the person of Mr Asterias,
+the ichthyologist. This gentleman had passed his life in seeking the
+living wonders of the deep through the four quarters of the world;
+he had a cabinet of stuffed and dried fishes, of shells, sea-weeds,
+corals, and madrepores, that was the admiration and envy of the Royal
+Society. He had penetrated into the watery den of the Sepia Octopus,
+disturbed the conjugal happiness of that turtle-dove of the ocean, and
+come off victorious in a sanguinary conflict. He had been becalmed
+in the tropical seas, and had watched, in eager expectation, though
+unhappily always in vain, to see the colossal polypus rise from the
+water, and entwine its enormous arms round the masts and the rigging.
+He maintained the origin of all things from water, and insisted that
+the polypodes were the first of animated things, and that, from their
+round bodies and many-shooting arms, the Hindoos had taken their gods,
+the most ancient of deities. But the chief object of his ambition, the
+end and aim of his researches, was to discover a triton and a mermaid,
+the existence of which he most potently and implicitly believed, and
+was prepared to demonstrate, _à priori, à posteriori, à fortiori_,
+synthetically and analytically, syllogistically and inductively,
+by arguments deduced both from acknowledged facts and plausible
+hypotheses. A report that a mermaid had been seen 'sleeking her soft
+alluring locks' on the sea-coast of Lincolnshire, had brought him in
+great haste from London, to pay a long-promised and often-postponed
+visit to his old acquaintance, Mr Glowry.
+
+Mr Asterias was accompanied by his son, to whom he had given the name
+of Aquarius--flattering himself that he would, in the process of time,
+become a constellation among the stars of ichthyological science. What
+charitable female had lent him the mould in which this son was cast,
+no one pretended to know; and, as he never dropped the most distant
+allusion to Aquarius's mother, some of the wags of London maintained
+that he had received the favours of a mermaid, and that the scientific
+perquisitions which kept him always prowling about the sea-shore, were
+directed by the less philosophical motive of regaining his lost love.
+
+Mr Asterias perlustrated the sea-coast for several days, and reaped
+disappointment, but not despair. One night, shortly after his arrival,
+he was sitting in one of the windows of the library, looking towards
+the sea, when his attention was attracted by a figure which was moving
+near the edge of the surf, and which was dimly visible through the
+moonless summer night. Its motions were irregular, like those of a
+person in a state of indecision. It had extremely long hair, which
+floated in the wind. Whatever else it might be, it certainly was not a
+fisherman. It might be a lady; but it was neither Mrs Hilary nor Miss
+O'Carroll, for they were both in the library. It might be one of the
+female servants; but it had too much grace, and too striking an air of
+habitual liberty, to render it probable. Besides, what should one of
+the female servants be doing there at this hour, moving to and fro,
+as it seemed, without any visible purpose? It could scarcely be a
+stranger; for Claydyke, the nearest village, was ten miles distant;
+and what female would come ten miles across the fens, for no purpose
+but to hover over the surf under the walls of Nightmare Abbey? Might
+it not be a mermaid? It was possibly a mermaid. It was probably a
+mermaid. It was very probably a mermaid. Nay, what else could it be
+but a mermaid? It certainly was a mermaid. Mr Asterias stole out of
+the library on tiptoe, with his finger on his lips, having beckoned
+Aquarius to follow him.
+
+The rest of the party was in great surprise at Mr Asterias's movement,
+and some of them approached the window to see if the locality would
+tend to elucidate the mystery. Presently they saw him and Aquarius
+cautiously stealing along on the other side of the moat, but they saw
+nothing more; and Mr Asterias returning, told them, with accents of
+great disappointment, that he had had a glimpse of a mermaid, but she
+had eluded him in the darkness, and was gone, he presumed, to sup with
+some enamoured triton, in a submarine grotto.
+
+'But, seriously, Mr Asterias,' said the Honourable Mr Listless, 'do
+you positively believe there are such things as mermaids?'
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Most assuredly; and tritons too.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+What! things that are half human and half fish?
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Precisely. They are the oran-outangs of the sea. But I am persuaded
+that there are also complete sea men, differing in no respect from us,
+but that they are stupid, and covered with scales; for, though our
+organisation seems to exclude us essentially from the class of
+amphibious animals, yet anatomists well know that the _foramen ovale_
+may remain open in an adult, and that respiration is, in that case,
+not necessary to life: and how can it be otherwise explained that the
+Indian divers, employed in the pearl fishery, pass whole hours under
+the water; and that the famous Swedish gardener of Troningholm lived
+a day and a half under the ice without being drowned? A nereid, or
+mermaid, was taken in the year 1403 in a Dutch lake, and was in every
+respect like a French woman, except that she did not speak. Towards
+the end of the seventeenth century, an English ship, a hundred and
+fifty leagues from land, in the Greenland seas, discovered a flotilla
+of sixty or seventy little skiffs, in each of which was a triton, or
+sea man: at the approach of the English vessel the whole of them,
+seized with simultaneous fear, disappeared, skiffs and all, under
+the water, as if they had been a human variety of the nautilus. The
+illustrious Don Feijoo has preserved an authentic and well-attested
+story of a young Spaniard, named Francis de la Vega, who, bathing with
+some of his friends in June, 1674, suddenly dived under the sea and
+rose no more. His friends thought him drowned; they were plebeians and
+pious Catholics; but a philosopher might very legitimately have drawn
+the same conclusion.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Nothing could be more logical.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Five years afterwards, some fishermen near Cadiz found in their nets a
+triton, or sea man; they spoke to him in several languages--
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+They were very learned fishermen.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+They had the gift of tongues by especial favour of their brother
+fisherman, Saint Peter.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Is Saint Peter the tutelar saint of Cadiz?
+
+
+(_None of the company could answer this question, and_ MR ASTERIAS
+_proceeded_.)
+
+They spoke to him in several languages, but he was as mute as a fish.
+They handed him over to some holy friars, who exorcised him; but the
+devil was mute too. After some days he pronounced the name Lierganes.
+A monk took him to that village. His mother and brothers recognised
+and embraced him; but he was as insensible to their caresses as any
+other fish would have been. He had some scales on his body, which
+dropped off by degrees; but his skin was as hard and rough as
+shagreen. He stayed at home nine years, without recovering his
+speech or his reason: he then disappeared again; and one of his old
+acquaintance, some years after, saw him pop his head out of the water
+near the coast of the Asturias. These facts were certified by his
+brothers, and by Don Gaspardo de la Riba Aguero, Knight of Saint
+James, who lived near Lierganes, and often had the pleasure of
+our triton's company to dinner.--Pliny mentions an embassy of the
+Olyssiponians to Tiberius, to give him intelligence of a triton which
+had been heard playing on its shell in a certain cave; with several
+other authenticated facts on the subject of tritons and nereids.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You astonish me. I have been much on the sea-shore, in the season, but
+I do not think I ever saw a mermaid. (_He rang, and summoned Fatout,
+who made his appearance half-seas-over_.) Fatout! did I ever see a
+mermaid?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Mermaid! mer-r-m-m-aid! Ah! merry maid! Oui, monsieur! Yes, sir, very
+many. I vish dere vas von or two here in de kitchen--ma foi! Dey be
+all as melancholic as so many tombstone.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I mean, Fatout, an odd kind of human fish.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De odd fish! Ah, oui! I understand de phrase: ve have seen nothing
+else since ve left town--ma foi!
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You seem to have a cup too much, sir.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Non, monsieur: de cup too little. De fen be very unwholesome, and I
+drink-a-de ponch vid Raven de butler, to keep out de bad air.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Fatout! I insist on your being sober.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Oui, monsieur; I vil be as sober as de révérendissime père Jean. I
+should be ver glad of de merry maid; but de butler be de odd fish,
+and he swim in de bowl de ponch. Ah! ah! I do recollect de leetle-a
+song:--'About fair maids, and about fair maids, and about my merry
+maids all.' (_Fatout reeled out, singing_.)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I am overwhelmed: I never saw the rascal in such a condition before.
+But will you allow me, Mr Asterias, to inquire into the _cui bono_ of
+all the pains and expense you have incurred to discover a mermaid? The
+_cui bono_, sir, is the question I always take the liberty to ask when
+I see any one taking much trouble for any object. I am myself a sort
+of Signor Pococurante, and should like to know if there be any thing
+better or pleasanter, than the state of existing and doing nothing?
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+I have made many voyages, Mr Listless, to remote and barren shores:
+I have travelled over desert and inhospitable lands: I have defied
+danger--I have endured fatigue--I have submitted to privation. In the
+midst of these I have experienced pleasures which I would not at any
+time have exchanged for that of existing and doing nothing. I have
+known many evils, but I have never known the worst of all, which, as
+it seems to me, are those which are comprehended in the inexhaustible
+varieties of _ennui_: spleen, chagrin, vapours, blue devils,
+time-killing, discontent, misanthropy, and all their interminable
+train of fretfulness, querulousness, suspicions, jealousies, and
+fears, which have alike infected society, and the literature of
+society; and which would make an arctic ocean of the human mind, if
+the more humane pursuits of philosophy and science did not keep alive
+the better feelings and more valuable energies of our nature.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You are pleased to be severe upon our fashionable belles lettres.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Surely not without reason, when pirates, highwaymen, and other
+varieties of the extensive genus Marauder, are the only _beau idéal_
+of the active, as splenetic and railing misanthropy is of the
+speculative energy. A gloomy brow and a tragical voice seem to have
+been of late the characteristics of fashionable manners: and a morbid,
+withering, deadly, antisocial sirocco, loaded with moral and political
+despair, breathes through all the groves and valleys of the modern
+Parnassus; while science moves on in the calm dignity of its course,
+affording to youth delights equally pure and vivid--to maturity, calm
+and grateful occupation--to old age, the most pleasing recollections
+and inexhaustible materials of agreeable and salutary reflection; and,
+while its votary enjoys the disinterested pleasure of enlarging the
+intellect and increasing the comforts of society, he is himself
+independent of the caprices of human intercourse and the accidents of
+human fortune. Nature is his great and inexhaustible treasure. His
+days are always too short for his enjoyment: _ennui_, is a stranger to
+his door. At peace with the world and with his own mind, he suffices
+to himself, makes all around him happy, and the close of his pleasing
+and beneficial existence is the evening of a beautiful day.[6]
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Really I should like very well to lead such a life myself, but the
+exertion would be too much for me. Besides, I have been at college.
+I contrive to get through my day by sinking the morning in bed,
+and killing the evening in company; dressing and dining in the
+intermediate space, and stopping the chinks and crevices of the few
+vacant moments that remain with a little easy reading. And that
+amiable discontent and antisociality which you reprobate in our
+present drawing-room-table literature, I find, I do assure you, a very
+fine mental tonic, which reconciles me to my favourite pursuit of
+doing nothing, by showing me that nobody is worth doing any thing for.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+But is there not in such compositions a kind of unconscious
+self-detection, which seems to carry their own antidote with them? For
+surely no one who cordially and truly either hates or despises the
+world will publish a volume every three months to say so.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+There is a secret in all this, which I will elucidate with a dusky
+remark. According to Berkeley, the _esse_ of things is _percipi_. They
+exist as they are perceived. But, leaving for the present, as far
+as relates to the material world, the materialists, hyloists, and
+antihyloists, to settle this point among them, which is indeed
+
+  A subtle question, raised among
+  Those out o' their wits, and those i' the wrong:
+
+for only we transcendentalists are in the right: we may very safely
+assert that the _esse_ of happiness is _percipi_. It exists as it is
+perceived. 'It is the mind that maketh well or ill.' The elements of
+pleasure and pain are every where. The degree of happiness that any
+circumstances or objects can confer on us depends on the mental
+disposition with which we approach them. If you consider what is meant
+by the common phrases, a happy disposition and a discontented temper,
+you will perceive that the truth for which I am contending is
+universally admitted.
+
+
+_(Mr Flosky suddenly stopped: he found himself unintentionally
+trespassing within the limits of common sense.)_
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+It is very true; a happy disposition finds materials of enjoyment
+every where. In the city, or the country--in society, or in
+solitude--in the theatre, or the forest--in the hum of the multitude,
+or in the silence of the mountains, are alike materials of reflection
+and elements of pleasure. It is one mode of pleasure to listen to
+the music of 'Don Giovanni,' in a theatre glittering with light, and
+crowded with elegance and beauty: it is another to glide at sunset
+over the bosom of a lonely lake, where no sound disturbs the silence
+but the motion of the boat through the waters. A happy disposition
+derives pleasure from both, a discontented temper from neither, but
+is always busy in detecting deficiencies, and feeding dissatisfaction
+with comparisons. The one gathers all the flowers, the other all the
+nettles, in its path. The one has the faculty of enjoying every thing,
+the other of enjoying nothing. The one realises all the pleasure of
+the present good; the other converts it into pain, by pining after
+something better, which is only better because it is not present, and
+which, if it were present, would not be enjoyed. These morbid spirits
+are in life what professed critics are in literature; they see nothing
+but faults, because they are predetermined to shut their eyes to
+beauties. The critic does his utmost to blight genius in its infancy;
+that which rises in spite of him he will not see; and then he
+complains of the decline of literature. In like manner, these cankers
+of society complain of human nature and society, when they have
+wilfully debarred themselves from all the good they contain, and done
+their utmost to blight their own happiness and that of all around
+them. Misanthropy is sometimes the product of disappointed
+benevolence; but it is more frequently the offspring of overweening
+and mortified vanity, quarrelling with the world for not being better
+treated than it deserves.
+
+
+SCYTHROP (_to Marionetta_)
+
+These remarks are rather uncharitable. There is great good in human
+nature, but it is at present ill-conditioned. Ardent spirits cannot
+but be dissatisfied with things as they are; and, according to their
+views of the probabilities of amelioration, they will rush into the
+extremes of either hope or despair--of which the first is enthusiasm,
+and the second misanthropy; but their sources in this case are the
+same, as the Severn and the Wye run in different directions, and both
+rise in Plinlimmon.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+'And there is salmon in both;' for the resemblance is about as close
+as that between Macedon and Monmouth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Marionetta observed the next day a remarkable perturbation in
+Scythrop, for which she could not imagine any probable cause. She was
+willing to believe at first that it had some transient and trifling
+source, and would pass off in a day or two; but, contrary to this
+expectation, it daily increased. She was well aware that Scythrop had
+a strong tendency to the love of mystery, for its own sake; that is
+to say, he would employ mystery to serve a purpose, but would first
+choose his purpose by its capability of mystery. He seemed now to have
+more mystery on his hands than the laws of the system allowed, and to
+wear his coat of darkness with an air of great discomfort. All her
+little playful arts lost by degrees much of their power either to
+irritate or to soothe; and the first perception of her diminished
+influence produced in her an immediate depression of spirits, and a
+consequent sadness of demeanour, that rendered her very interesting to
+Mr Glowry; who, duly considering the improbability of accomplishing
+his wishes with respect to Miss Toobad (which improbability naturally
+increased in the diurnal ratio of that young lady's absence), began
+to reconcile himself by degrees to the idea of Marionetta being his
+daughter.
+
+Marionetta made many ineffectual attempts to extract from Scythrop the
+secret of his mystery; and, in despair of drawing it from himself,
+began to form hopes that she might find a clue to it from Mr Flosky,
+who was Scythrop's dearest friend, and was more frequently than any
+other person admitted to his solitary tower. Mr Flosky, however, had
+ceased to be visible in a morning. He was engaged in the composition
+of a dismal ballad; and, Marionetta's uneasiness overcoming her
+scruples of decorum, she determined to seek him in the apartment which
+he had chosen for his study. She tapped at the door, and at the sound
+'Come in,' entered the apartment. It was noon, and the sun was shining
+in full splendour, much to the annoyance of Mr Flosky, who had
+obviated the inconvenience by closing the shutters, and drawing
+the window-curtains. He was sitting at his table by the light of a
+solitary candle, with a pen in one hand, and a muffineer in the other,
+with which he occasionally sprinkled salt on the wick, to make it burn
+blue. He sate with 'his eye in a fine frenzy rolling,' and turned his
+inspired gaze on Marionetta as if she had been the ghastly ladie of
+a magical vision; then placed his hand before his eyes, with an
+appearance of manifest pain--shook his head--withdrew his hand--rubbed
+his eyes, like a waking man--and said, in a tone of ruefulness most
+jeremitaylorically pathetic, 'To what am I to attribute this very
+unexpected pleasure, my dear Miss O'Carroll?'
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I must apologise for intruding on you, Mr Flosky; but the interest
+which I--you--take in my cousin Scythrop--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Pardon me, Miss O'Carroll; I do not take any interest in any person or
+thing on the face of the earth; which sentiment, if you analyse it,
+you will find to be the quintessence of the most refined philanthropy.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I will take it for granted that it is so, Mr Flosky; I am not
+conversant with metaphysical subtleties, but--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Subtleties! my dear Miss O'Carroll. I am sorry to find you
+participating in the vulgar error of the _reading public,_ to whom
+an unusual collocation of words, involving a juxtaposition of
+antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of
+hyperoxysophistical paradoxology.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Indeed, Mr Flosky, it suggests no such notion to me. I have sought you
+for the purpose of obtaining information.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY _(shaking his head)_
+
+No one ever sought me for such a purpose before.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I think, Mr Flosky--that is, I believe--that is, I fancy--that is, I
+imagine--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The [Greek: toytesti], the _id est_, the _cioè_, the _c'est à dire_,
+the _that is_, my dear Miss O'Carroll, is not applicable in this
+case--if you will permit me to take the liberty of saying so. Think
+is not synonymous with believe--for belief, in many most important
+particulars, results from the total absence, the absolute negation of
+thought, and is thereby the sane and orthodox condition of mind; and
+thought and belief are both essentially different from fancy, and
+fancy, again, is distinct from imagination. This distinction between
+fancy and imagination is one of the most abstruse and important points
+of metaphysics. I have written seven hundred pages of promise to
+elucidate it, which promise I shall keep as faithfully as the bank
+will its promise to pay.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I assure you, Mr Flosky, I care no more about metaphysics than I do
+about the bank; and, if you will condescend to talk to a simple girl
+in intelligible terms--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Say not condescend! Know you not that you talk to the most humble of
+men, to one who has buckled on the armour of sanctity, and clothed
+himself with humility as with a garment?
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+My cousin Scythrop has of late had an air of mystery about him, which
+gives me great uneasiness.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+That is strange: nothing is so becoming to a man as an air of mystery.
+Mystery is the very key-stone of all that is beautiful in poetry, all
+that is sacred in faith, and all that is recondite in transcendental
+psychology. I am writing a ballad which is all mystery; it is 'such
+stuff as dreams are made of,' and is, indeed, stuff made of a dream;
+for, last night I fell asleep as usual over my book, and had a vision
+of pure reason. I composed five hundred lines in my sleep; so that,
+having had a dream of a ballad, I am now officiating as my own Peter
+Quince, and making a ballad of my dream, and it shall be called
+Bottom's Dream, because it has no bottom.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I see, Mr Flosky, you think my intrusion unseasonable, and are
+inclined to punish it, by talking nonsense to me. (_Mr Flosky gave a
+start at the word nonsense, which almost overturned the table._) I
+assure you, I would not have intruded if I had not been very much
+interested in the question I wish to ask you.--(_Mr Flosky listened
+in sullen dignity._)--My cousin Scythrop seems to have some secret
+preying on his mind.--(_Mr Flosky was silent._)--He seems very
+unhappy--Mr Flosky.--Perhaps you are acquainted with the cause.--(_Mr
+Flosky was still silent._)--I only wish to know--Mr Flosky--if it is
+any thing--that could be remedied by any thing--that any one--of whom
+I know any thing--could do.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_after a pause_)
+
+There are various ways of getting at secrets. The most approved
+methods, as recommended both theoretically and practically in
+philosophical novels, are eavesdropping at key-holes, picking the
+locks of chests and desks, peeping into letters, steaming wafers, and
+insinuating hot wire under sealing wax; none of which methods I hold
+it lawful to practise.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Surely, Mr Flosky, you cannot suspect me of wishing to adopt or
+encourage such base and contemptible arts.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Yet are they recommended, and with well-strung reasons, by writers of
+gravity and note, as simple and easy methods of studying character,
+and gratifying that laudable curiosity which aims at the knowledge of
+man.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I am as ignorant of this morality which you do not approve, as of the
+metaphysics which you do: I should be glad to know by your means, what
+is the matter with my cousin; I do not like to see him unhappy, and I
+suppose there is some reason for it.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Now I should rather suppose there is no reason for it: it is the
+fashion to be unhappy. To have a reason for being so would be
+exceedingly common-place: to be so without any is the province of
+genius: the art of being miserable for misery's sake, has been brought
+to great perfection in our days; and the ancient Odyssey, which held
+forth a shining example of the endurance of real misfortune, will
+give place to a modern one, setting out a more instructive picture of
+querulous impatience under imaginary evils.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Will you oblige me, Mr Flosky, by giving me a plain answer to a plain
+question?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It is impossible, my dear Miss O'Carroll. I never gave a plain answer
+to a question in my life.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Do you, or do you not, know what is the matter with my cousin?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+To say that I do not know, would be to say that I am ignorant of
+something; and God forbid, that a transcendental metaphysician, who
+has pure anticipated cognitions of every thing, and carries the whole
+science of geometry in his head without ever having looked into
+Euclid, should fall into so empirical an error as to declare himself
+ignorant of any thing: to say that I do know, would be to pretend to
+positive and circumstantial knowledge touching present matter of fact,
+which, when you consider the nature of evidence, and the various
+lights in which the same thing may be seen--
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I see, Mr Flosky, that either you have no information, or are
+determined not to impart it; and I beg your pardon for having given
+you this unnecessary trouble.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+My dear Miss O'Carroll, it would have given me great pleasure to have
+said any thing that would have given you pleasure; but if any person
+living could make report of having obtained any information on any
+subject from Ferdinando Flosky, my transcendental reputation would be
+ruined for ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Scythrop grew every day more reserved, mysterious, and distrait; and
+gradually lengthened the duration of his diurnal seclusions in his
+tower. Marionetta thought she perceived in all this very manifest
+symptoms of a warm love cooling.
+
+It was seldom that she found herself alone with him in the morning,
+and, on these occasions, if she was silent in the hope of his speaking
+first, not a syllable would he utter; if she spoke to him indirectly,
+he assented monosyllabically; if she questioned him, his answers
+were brief, constrained, and evasive. Still, though her spirits were
+depressed, her playfulness had not so totally forsaken her, but that
+it illuminated at intervals the gloom of Nightmare Abbey; and if, on
+any occasion, she observed in Scythrop tokens of unextinguished or
+returning passion, her love of tormenting her lover immediately got
+the better both of her grief and her sympathy, though not of her
+curiosity, which Scythrop seemed determined not to satisfy. This
+playfulness, however, was in a great measure artificial, and usually
+vanished with the irritable Strephon, to whose annoyance it had been
+exerted. The Genius Loci, the _tutela_ of Nightmare Abbey, the
+spirit of black melancholy, began to set his seal on her pallescent
+countenance. Scythrop perceived the change, found his tender
+sympathies awakened, and did his utmost to comfort the afflicted
+damsel, assuring her that his seeming inattention had only proceeded
+from his being involved in a profound meditation on a very hopeful
+scheme for the regeneration of human society. Marionetta called him
+ungrateful, cruel, cold-hearted, and accompanied her reproaches with
+many sobs and tears; poor Scythrop growing every moment more soft
+and submissive--till, at length, he threw himself at her feet, and
+declared that no competition of beauty, however dazzling, genius,
+however transcendent, talents, however cultivated, or philosophy,
+however enlightened, should ever make him renounce his divine
+Marionetta.
+
+'Competition!' thought Marionetta, and suddenly, with an air of the
+most freezing indifference, she said, 'You are perfectly at liberty,
+sir, to do as you please; I beg you will follow your own plans,
+without any reference to me.'
+
+Scythrop was confounded. What was become of all her passion and her
+tears? Still kneeling, he kissed her hand with rueful timidity, and
+said, in most pathetic accents, 'Do you not love me, Marionetta?'
+
+'No,' said Marionetta, with a look of cold composure: 'No.' Scythrop
+still looked up incredulously. 'No, I tell you.'
+
+'Oh! very well, madam,' said Scythrop, rising, 'if that is the case,
+there are those in the world--'
+
+'To be sure there are, sir;--and do you suppose I do not see through
+your designs, you ungenerous monster?'
+
+'My designs? Marionetta!'
+
+'Yes, your designs, Scythrop. You have come here to cast me off, and
+artfully contrive that it should appear to be my doing, and not yours,
+thinking to quiet your tender conscience with this pitiful stratagem.
+But do not suppose that you are of so much consequence to me: do not
+suppose it: you are of no consequence to me at all--none at all:
+therefore, leave me: I renounce you: leave me; why do you not leave
+me?'
+
+Scythrop endeavoured to remonstrate, but without success. She
+reiterated her injunctions to him to leave her, till, in the
+simplicity of his spirit, he was preparing to comply. When he had
+nearly reached the door, Marionetta said, 'Farewell.' Scythrop looked
+back. 'Farewell, Scythrop,' she repeated, 'you will never see me
+again.'
+
+'Never see you again, Marionetta?'
+
+'I shall go from hence to-morrow, perhaps to-day; and before we meet
+again, one of us will be married, and we might as well be dead, you
+know, Scythrop.'
+
+The sudden change of her voice in the last few words, and the burst
+of tears that accompanied them, acted like electricity on the
+tender-hearted youth; and, in another instant, a complete
+reconciliation was accomplished without the intervention of words.
+
+There are, indeed, some learned casuists, who maintain that love has
+no language, and that all the misunderstandings and dissensions of
+lovers arise from the fatal habit of employing words on a subject to
+which words are inapplicable; that love, beginning with looks, that
+is to say, with the physiognomical expression of congenial mental
+dispositions, tends through a regular gradation of signs and symbols
+of affection, to that consummation which is most devoutly to be
+wished; and that it neither is necessary that there should be, nor
+probable that there would be, a single word spoken from first to
+last between two sympathetic spirits, were it not that the arbitrary
+institutions of society have raised, at every step of this very simple
+process, so many complicated impediments and barriers in the shape
+of settlements and ceremonies, parents and guardians, lawyers,
+Jew-brokers, and parsons, that many an adventurous knight (who, in
+order to obtain the conquest of the Hesperian fruit, is obliged to
+fight his way through all these monsters), is either repulsed at the
+onset, or vanquished before the achievement of his enterprise: and
+such a quantity of unnatural talking is rendered inevitably necessary
+through all the stages of the progression, that the tender and
+volatile spirit of love often takes flight on the pinions of some of
+the [Greek: epea pteroenta], or _winged words_ which are pressed into
+his service in despite of himself.
+
+At this conjuncture, Mr Glowry entered, and sitting down near them,
+said, 'I see how it is; and, as we are all sure to be miserable do
+what we may, there is no need of taking pains to make one another more
+so; therefore, with God's blessing and mine, there'--joining their
+hands as he spoke.
+
+Scythrop was not exactly prepared for this decisive step; but he could
+only stammer out, 'Really, sir, you are too good;' and Mr Glowry
+departed to bring Mr Hilary to ratify the act.
+
+Now, whatever truth there may be in the theory of love and language,
+of which we have so recently spoken, certain it is, that during Mr
+Glowry's absence, which lasted half an hour, not a single word was
+said by either Scythrop or Marionetta.
+
+Mr Glowry returned with Mr Hilary, who was delighted at the prospect
+of so advantageous an establishment for his orphan niece, of whom he
+considered himself in some manner the guardian, and nothing remained,
+as Mr Glowry observed, but to fix the day.
+
+Marionetta blushed, and was silent. Scythrop was also silent for a
+time, and at length hesitatingly said, 'My deal sir, your goodness
+overpowers me; but really you are so precipitate.'
+
+Now, this remark, if the young lady had made it, would, whether she
+thought it or not--for sincerity is a thing of no account on these
+occasions, nor indeed on any other, according to Mr Flosky--this
+remark, if the young lady had made it, would have been perfectly
+_comme il faut_; but, being made by the young gentleman, it was _toute
+autre chose_, and was, indeed, in the eyes of his mistress, a most
+heinous and irremissible offence. Marionetta was angry, very angry,
+but she concealed her anger, and said, calmly and coldly, 'Certainly,
+you are much too precipitate, Mr Glowry. I assure you, sir, I have
+by no means made up my mind; and, indeed, as far as I know it, it
+inclines the other way; but it will be quite time enough to think of
+these matters seven years hence. Before surprise permitted reply, the
+young lady had locked herself up in her own apartment.
+
+'Why, Scythrop,' said Mr Glowry, elongating his face exceedingly, 'the
+devil is come among us sure enough, as Mr Toobad observes: I thought
+you and Marionetta were both of a mind.'
+
+'So we are, I believe, sir,' said Scythrop, gloomily, and stalked away
+to his tower.
+
+'Mr Glowry,' said Mr Hilary, 'I do not very well understand all this.'
+
+'Whims, brother Hilary,' said Mr Glowry; 'some little foolish love
+quarrel, nothing more. Whims, freaks, April showers. They will be
+blown over by to-morrow.'
+
+'If not,' said Mr Hilary, 'these April showers have made us April
+fools.'
+
+'Ah!' said Mr Glowry, 'you are a happy man, and in all your
+afflictions you can console yourself with a joke, let it be ever so
+bad, provided you crack it yourself. I should be very happy to laugh
+with you, if it would give you any satisfaction; but, really, at
+present, my heart is so sad, that I find it impossible to levy a
+contribution on my muscles.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+On the evening on which Mr Asterias had caught a glimpse of a female
+figure on the sea-shore, which he had translated into the visual sign
+of his interior cognition of a mermaid, Scythrop, retiring to his
+tower, found his study preoccupied. A stranger, muffled in a cloak,
+was sitting at his table. Scythrop paused in surprise. The stranger
+rose at his entrance, and looked at him intently a few minutes, in
+silence. The eyes of the stranger alone were visible. All the rest
+of the figure was muffled and mantled in the folds of a black cloak,
+which was raised, by the right hand, to the level of the eyes. This
+scrutiny being completed, the stranger, dropping the cloak, said, 'I
+see, by your physiognomy, that you may be trusted;' and revealed to
+the astonished Scythrop a female form and countenance of dazzling
+grace and beauty, with long flowing hair of raven blackness, and
+large black eyes of almost oppressive brilliancy, which strikingly
+contrasted with a complexion of snowy whiteness. Her dress was
+extremely elegant, but had an appearance of foreign fashion, as if
+both the lady and her mantua-maker were of 'a far countree.'
+
+  'I guess 'twas frightful there to see
+  A lady so richly clad as she,
+  Beautiful exceedingly.'
+
+For, if it be terrible to one young lady to find another under a tree
+at midnight, it must, _à fortiori_, be much more terrible to a young
+gentleman to find a young lady in his study at that hour. If the
+logical consecutiveness of this conclusion be not manifest to my
+readers, I am sorry for their dulness, and must refer them, for more
+ample elucidation, to a treatise which Mr Flosky intends to write, on
+the Categories of Relation, which comprehend Substance and Accident,
+Cause and Effect, Action and Re-action.
+
+Scythrop, therefore, either was or ought to have been frightened; at
+all events, he was astonished; and astonishment, though not in itself
+fear, is nevertheless a good stage towards it, and is, indeed, as it
+were, the half-way house between respect and terror, according to Mr
+Burke's graduated scale of the sublime.[7]
+
+'You are surprised,' said the lady; 'yet why should you be surprised?
+If you had met me in a drawing-room, and I had been introduced to
+you by an old woman, it would have been a matter of course: can the
+division of two or three walls, and the absence of an unimportant
+personage, make the same object essentially different in the
+perception of a philosopher?'
+
+'Certainly not,' said Scythrop; 'but when any class of objects
+has habitually presented itself to our perceptions in invariable
+conjunction with particular relations, then, on the sudden appearance
+of one object of the class divested of those accompaniments, the
+essential difference of the relation is, by an involuntary process,
+transferred to the object itself, which thus offers itself to our
+perceptions with all the strangeness of novelty.'
+
+'You are a philosopher,' said the lady, 'and a lover of liberty. You
+are the author of a treatise, called "Philosophical Gas; or, a Project
+for a General Illumination of the Human Mind."'
+
+'I am,' said Scythrop, delighted at this first blossom of his renown.
+
+'I am a stranger in this country,' said the lady; 'I have been but a
+few days in it, yet I find myself immediately under the necessity of
+seeking refuge from an atrocious persecution. I had no friend to whom
+I could apply; and, in the midst of my difficulties, accident threw
+your pamphlet in my way. I saw that I had, at least, one kindred mind
+in this nation, and determined to apply to you.'
+
+'And what would you have me do?' said Scythrop, more and more amazed,
+and not a little perplexed.
+
+'I would have you,' said the young lady, 'assist me in finding some
+place of retreat, where I can remain concealed from the indefatigable
+search that is being made for me. I have been so nearly caught once or
+twice already, that I cannot confide any longer in my own ingenuity.'
+
+Doubtless, thought Scythrop, this is one of my golden candle-sticks.
+'I have constructed,' said he, 'in this tower, an entrance to a small
+suite of unknown apartments in the main building, which I defy any
+creature living to detect. If you would like to remain there a day or
+two, till I can find you a more suitable concealment, you may rely on
+the honour of a transcendental eleutherarch.'
+
+'I rely on myself,' said the lady. 'I act as I please, go where I
+please, and let the world say what it will. I am rich enough to set
+it at defiance. It is the tyrant of the poor and the feeble, but the
+slave of those who are above the reach of its injury.'
+
+Scythrop ventured to inquire the name of his fair _protégée_. 'What
+is a name?' said the lady: 'any name will serve the purpose of
+distinction. Call me Stella. I see by your looks,' she added, 'that
+you think all this very strange. When you know me better, your
+surprise will cease. I submit not to be an accomplice in my sex's
+slavery. I am, like yourself, a lover of freedom, and I carry my
+theory into practice. _They alone are subject to blind authority who
+have no reliance on their own strength_.'
+
+Stella took possession of the recondite apartments. Scythrop intended
+to find her another asylum; but from day to day he postponed his
+intention, and by degrees forgot it. The young lady reminded him of
+it from day to day, till she also forgot it. Scythrop was anxious to
+learn her history; but she would add nothing to what she had already
+communicated, that she was shunning an atrocious persecution. Scythrop
+thought of Lord C. and the Alien Act, and said, 'As you will not
+tell your name, I suppose it is in the green bag.' Stella, not
+understanding what he meant, was silent; and Scythrop, translating
+silence into acquiescence, concluded that he was sheltering an
+_illuminée_ whom Lord S. suspected of an intention to take the
+Tower, and set fire to the Bank: exploits, at least, as likely to be
+accomplished by the hands and eyes of a young beauty, as by a drunken
+cobbler and doctor, armed with a pamphlet and an old stocking.
+
+Stella, in her conversations with Scythrop, displayed a highly
+cultivated and energetic mind, full of impassioned schemes of liberty,
+and impatience of masculine usurpation. She had a lively sense of all
+the oppressions that are done under the sun; and the vivid pictures
+which her imagination presented to her of the numberless scenes of
+injustice and misery which are being acted at every moment in every
+part of the inhabited world, gave an habitual seriousness to her
+physiognomy, that made it seem as if a smile had never once hovered on
+her lips. She was intimately conversant with the German language and
+literature; and Scythrop listened with delight to her repetitions of
+her favourite passages from Schiller and Goethe, and to her encomiums
+on the sublime Spartacus Weishaupt, the immortal founder of the sect
+of the Illuminati. Scythrop found that his soul had a greater capacity
+of love than the image of Marionetta had filled. The form of Stella
+took possession of every vacant corner of the cavity, and by degrees
+displaced that of Marionetta from many of the outworks of the citadel;
+though the latter still held possession of the _keep_. He judged, from
+his new friend calling herself Stella, that, if it were not her real
+name, she was an admirer of the principles of the German play from
+which she had taken it, and took an opportunity of leading the
+conversation to that subject; but to his great surprise, the lady
+spoke very ardently of the singleness and exclusiveness of love, and
+declared that the reign of affection was one and indivisible; that it
+might be transferred, but could not be participated. 'If I ever love,'
+said she, 'I shall do so without limit or restriction. I shall hold
+all difficulties light, all sacrifices cheap, all obstacles gossamer.
+But for love so total, I shall claim a return as absolute. I will have
+no rival: whether more or less favoured will be of little moment. I
+will be neither first nor second--I will be alone. The heart which I
+shall possess I will possess entirely, or entirely renounce.'
+
+Scythrop did not dare to mention the name of Marionetta; he trembled
+lest some unlucky accident should reveal it to Stella, though he
+scarcely knew what result to wish or anticipate, and lived in the
+double fever of a perpetual dilemma. He could not dissemble to himself
+that he was in love, at the same time, with two damsels of minds and
+habits as remote as the antipodes. The scale of predilection always
+inclined to the fair one who happened to be present; but the absent
+was never effectually outweighed, though the degrees of exaltation and
+depression varied according to accidental variations in the outward
+and visible signs of the inward and spiritual graces of his respective
+charmers. Passing and repassing several times a day from the company
+of the one to that of the other, he was like a shuttlecock between two
+battledores, changing its direction as rapidly as the oscillations of
+a pendulum, receiving many a hard knock on the cork of a sensitive
+heart, and flying from point to point on the feathers of a
+super-sublimated head. This was an awful state of things. He had
+now as much mystery about him as any romantic transcendentalist or
+transcendental romancer could desire. He had his esoterical and his
+exoterical love. He could not endure the thought of losing either of
+them, but he trembled when he imagined the possibility that some fatal
+discovery might deprive him of both. The old proverb concerning two
+strings to a bow gave him some gleams of comfort; but that concerning
+two stools occurred to him more frequently, and covered his forehead
+with a cold perspiration. With Stella, he could indulge freely in all
+his romantic and philosophical visions. He could build castles in the
+air, and she would pile towers and turrets on the imaginary edifices.
+With Marionetta it was otherwise: she knew nothing of the world and
+society beyond the sphere of her own experience. Her life was all
+music and sunshine, and she wondered what any one could see to
+complain of in such a pleasant state of things. She loved Scythrop,
+she hardly knew why; indeed she was not always sure that she loved him
+at all: she felt her fondness increase or diminish in an inverse ratio
+to his. When she had manoeuvred him into a fever of passionate love,
+she often felt and always assumed indifference: if she found that her
+coldness was contagious, and that Scythrop either was, or pretended to
+be, as indifferent as herself, she would become doubly kind, and raise
+him again to that elevation from which she had previously thrown him
+down. Thus, when his love was flowing, hers was ebbing: when his was
+ebbing, hers was flowing. Now and then there were moments of level
+tide, when reciprocal affection seemed to promise imperturbable
+harmony; but Scythrop could scarcely resign his spirit to the pleasing
+illusion, before the pinnace of the lover's affections was caught in
+some eddy of the lady's caprice, and he was whirled away from the
+shore of his hopes, without rudder or compass, into an ocean of mists
+and storms. It resulted, from this system of conduct, that all that
+passed between Scythrop and Marionetta, consisted in making and
+unmaking love. He had no opportunity to take measure of her
+understanding by conversations on general subjects, and on his
+favourite designs; and, being left in this respect to the exercise of
+indefinite conjecture, he took it for granted, as most lovers would do
+in similar circumstances, that she had great natural talents, which
+she wasted at present on trifles: but coquetry would end with
+marriage, and leave room for philosophy to exert its influence on her
+mind. Stella had no coquetry, no disguise: she was an enthusiast in
+subjects of general interest; and her conduct to Scythrop was always
+uniform, or rather showed a regular progression of partiality which
+seemed fast ripening into love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Scythrop, attending one day the summons to dinner, found in the
+drawing-room his friend Mr Cypress the poet, whom he had known at
+college, and who was a great favourite of Mr Glowry. Mr Cypress said,
+he was on the point of leaving England, but could not think of doing
+so without a farewell-look at Nightmare Abbey and his respected
+friends, the moody Mr Glowry and the mysterious Mr Scythrop, the
+sublime Mr Flosky and the pathetic Mr Listless; to all of whom, and
+the morbid hospitality of the melancholy dwelling in which they were
+then assembled, he assured them he should always look back with as
+much affection as his lacerated spirit could feel for any thing. The
+sympathetic condolence of their respective replies was cut short by
+Raven's announcement of 'dinner on table.'
+
+The conversation that took place when the wine was in circulation, and
+the ladies were withdrawn, we shall report with our usual scrupulous
+fidelity.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+You are leaving England, Mr Cypress. There is a delightful melancholy
+in saying farewell to an old acquaintance, when the chances are twenty
+to one against ever meeting again. A smiling bumper to a sad parting,
+and let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS (_filling a bumper_)
+
+This is the only social habit that the disappointed spirit never
+unlearns.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX (_filling_)
+
+It is the only piece of academical learning that the finished educatee
+retains.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_filling_)
+
+It is the only objective fact which the sceptic can realise.
+
+
+SCYTHROP (_filling_)
+
+It is the only styptic for a bleeding heart.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS (_filling_)
+
+It is the only trouble that is very well worth taking.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS (_filling_)
+
+It is the only key of conversational truth.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD (_filling_)
+
+It is the only antidote to the great wrath of the devil.
+
+
+MR HILARY (_filling_)
+
+It is the only symbol of perfect life. The inscription 'HIC NON
+BIBITUR' will suit nothing but a tombstone.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+You will see many fine old ruins, Mr Cypress; crumbling pillars, and
+mossy walls--many a one-legged Venus and headless Minerva--many a
+Neptune buried in sand--many a Jupiter turned topsy-turvy--many a
+perforated Bacchus doing duty as a water-pipe--many reminiscences of
+the ancient world, which I hope was better worth living in than the
+modern; though, for myself, I care not a straw more for one than the
+other, and would not go twenty miles to see any thing that either
+could show.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+It is something to seek, Mr Glowry. The mind is restless, and must
+persist in seeking, though to find is to be disappointed. Do you feel
+no aspirations towards the countries of Socrates and Cicero? No wish
+to wander among the venerable remains of the greatness that has passed
+for ever?
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Not a grain.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+It is, indeed, much the same as if a lover should dig up the buried
+form of his mistress, and gaze upon relics which are any thing but
+herself, to wander among a few mouldy ruins, that are only imperfect
+indexes to lost volumes of glory, and meet at every step the more
+melancholy ruins of human nature--a degenerate race of stupid and
+shrivelled slaves, grovelling in the lowest depths of servility and
+superstition.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+It is the fashion to go abroad. I have thought of it myself, but am
+hardly equal to the exertion. To be sure, a little eccentricity and
+originality are allowable in some cases; and the most eccentric and
+original of all characters is an Englishman who stays at home.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+I should have no pleasure in visiting countries that are past all hope
+of regeneration. There is great hope of our own; and it seems to me
+that an Englishman, who, either by his station in society, or by his
+genius, or (as in your instance, Mr Cypress,) by both, has the power
+of essentially serving his country in its arduous struggle with its
+domestic enemies, yet forsakes his country, which is still so rich
+in hope, to dwell in others which are only fertile in the ruins of
+memory, does what none of those ancients, whose fragmentary memorials
+you venerate, would have done in similar circumstances.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+Sir, I have quarrelled with my wife; and a man who has quarrelled with
+his wife is absolved from all duty to his country. I have written an
+ode to tell the people as much, and they may take it as they list.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+Do you suppose, if Brutus had quarrelled with his wife, he would have
+given it as a reason to Cassius for having nothing to do with his
+enterprise? Or would Cassius have been satisfied with such an excuse?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Brutus was a senator; so is our dear friend: but the cases are
+different. Brutus had some hope of political good: Mr Cypress has
+none. How should he, after what we have seen in France?
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+A Frenchman is born in harness, ready saddled, bitted, and bridled,
+for any tyrant to ride. He will fawn under his rider one moment, and
+throw him and kick him to death the next; but another adventurer
+springs on his back, and by dint of whip and spur on he goes as
+before. We may, without much vanity, hope better of ourselves.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+I have no hope for myself or for others. Our life is a false nature;
+it is not in the harmony of things; it is an all-blasting upas,
+whose root is earth, and whose leaves are the skies which rain their
+poison-dews upon mankind. We wither from our youth; we gasp with
+unslaked thirst for unattainable good; lured from the first to the
+last by phantoms--love, fame, ambition, avarice--all idle, and all
+ill--one meteor of many names, that vanishes in the smoke of death.[8]
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+A most delightful speech, Mr Cypress. A most amiable and instructive
+philosophy. You have only to impress its truth on the minds of
+all living men, and life will then, indeed, be the desert and the
+solitude; and I must do you, myself, and our mutual friends, the
+justice to observe, that let society only give fair play at one and
+the same time, as I flatter myself it is inclined to do, to your
+system of morals, and my system of metaphysics, and Scythrop's system
+of politics, and Mr Listless's system of manners, and Mr Toobad's
+system of religion, and the result will be as fine a mental chaos as
+even the immortal Kant himself could ever have hoped to see; in the
+prospect of which I rejoice.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+'Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at:' I am one
+of those who cannot see the good that is to result from all this
+mystifying and blue-devilling of society. The contrast it presents
+to the cheerful and solid wisdom of antiquity is too forcible not to
+strike any one who has the least knowledge of classical literature. To
+represent vice and misery as the necessary accompaniments of genius,
+is as mischievous as it is false, and the feeling is as unclassical as
+the language in which it is usually expressed.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+It is our calamity. The devil has come among us, and has begun by
+taking possession of all the cleverest fellows. Yet, forsooth, this is
+the enlightened age. Marry, how? Did our ancestors go peeping about
+with dark lanterns, and do we walk at our ease in broad sunshine?
+Where is the manifestation of our light? By what symptoms do you
+recognise it? What are its signs, its tokens, its symptoms, its
+symbols, its categories, its conditions? What is it, and why? How,
+where, when is it to be seen, felt, and understood? What do we see by
+it which our ancestors saw not, and which at the same time is worth
+seeing? We see a hundred men hanged, where they saw one. We see five
+hundred transported, where they saw one. We see five thousand in the
+workhouse, where they saw one. We see scores of Bible Societies, where
+they saw none. We see paper, where they saw gold. We see men in stays,
+where they saw men in armour. We see painted faces, where they saw
+healthy ones. We see children perishing in manufactories, where they
+saw them flourishing in the fields. We see prisons, where they saw
+castles. We see masters, where they saw representatives. In short,
+they saw true men, where we see false knaves. They saw Milton, and we
+see Mr Sackbut.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The false knave, sir, is my honest friend; therefore, I beseech you,
+let him be countenanced. God forbid but a knave should have some
+countenance at his friend's request.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+'Good men and true' was their common term, like the chalos chagathos
+of the Athenians. It is so long since men have been either good or
+true, that it is to be questioned which is most obsolete, the fact or
+the phraseology.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+There is no worth nor beauty but in the mind's idea. Love sows the
+wind and reaps the whirlwind.[9] Confusion, thrice confounded, is the
+portion of him who rests even for an instant on that most brittle of
+reeds--the affection of a human being. The sum of our social destiny
+is to inflict or to endure.[10]
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Rather to bear and forbear, Mr Cypress--a maxim which you perhaps
+despise. Ideal beauty is not the mind's creation: it is real beauty,
+refined and purified in the mind's alembic, from the alloy which
+always more or less accompanies it in our mixed and imperfect nature.
+But still the gold exists in a very ample degree. To expect too
+much is a disease in the expectant, for which human nature is not
+responsible; and, in the common name of humanity, I protest against
+these false and mischievous ravings. To rail against humanity for not
+being abstract perfection, and against human love for not realising
+all the splendid visions of the poets of chivalry, is to rail at the
+summer for not being all sunshine, and at the rose for not being
+always in bloom.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+Human love! Love is not an inhabitant of the earth. We worship him as
+the Athenians did their unknown God: but broken hearts are the martyrs
+of his faith, and the eye shall never see the form which phantasy
+paints, and which passion pursues through paths of delusive beauty,
+among flowers whose odours are agonies, and trees whose gums are
+poison.[11]
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+You talk like a Rosicrucian, who will love nothing but a sylph, who
+does not believe in the existence of a sylph, and who yet quarrels
+with the whole universe for not containing a sylph.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+The mind is diseased of its own beauty, and fevers into false
+creation. The forms which the sculptor's soul has seized exist only in
+himself.[12]
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Permit me to discept. They are the mediums of common forms combined
+and arranged into a common standard. The ideal beauty of the Helen of
+Zeuxis was the combined medium of the real beauty of the virgins of
+Crotona.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+But to make ideal beauty the shadow in the water, and, like the dog in
+the fable, to throw away the substance in catching at the shadow, is
+scarcely the characteristic of wisdom, whatever it may be of genius.
+To reconcile man as he is to the world as it is, to preserve and
+improve all that is good, and destroy or alleviate all that is evil,
+in physical and moral nature--have been the hope and aim of the
+greatest teachers and ornaments of our species. I will say, too,
+that the highest wisdom and the highest genius have been invariably
+accompanied with cheerfulness. We have sufficient proofs on record
+that Shakspeare and Socrates were the most festive of companions. But
+now the little wisdom and genius we have seem to be entering into a
+conspiracy against cheerfulness.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+How can we be cheerful with the devil among us!
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+How can we be cheerful when our nerves are shattered?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+How can we be cheerful when we are surrounded by a _reading public_,
+that is growing too wise for its betters?
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+How can we be cheerful when our great general designs are crossed
+every moment by our little particular passions?
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+How can we be cheerful in the midst of disappointment and despair?
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Let us sing a catch.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+No: a nice tragical ballad. The Norfolk Tragedy to the tune of the
+Hundredth Psalm.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+I say a catch.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+I say no. A song from Mr Cypress.
+
+
+ALL
+
+A song from Mr Cypress.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS _sung_--
+
+  There is a fever of the spirit,
+  The brand of Cain's unresting doom,
+  Which in the lone dark souls that bear it
+  Glows like the lamp in Tullia's tomb:
+  Unlike that lamp, its subtle fire
+  Burns, blasts, consumes its cell, the heart,
+  Till, one by one, hope, joy, desire,
+  Like dreams of shadowy smoke depart.
+
+  When hope, love, life itself, are only
+  Dust--spectral memories--dead and cold--
+  The unfed fire burns bright and lonely,
+  Like that undying lamp of old:
+  And by that drear illumination,
+  Till time its clay-built home has rent,
+  Thought broods on feeling's desolation--
+  The soul is its own monument.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Admirable. Let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Now, I say again, a catch.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+I am for you.
+
+
+ME HILARY
+
+'Seamen three.'
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Agreed. I'll be Harry Gill, with the voice of three. Begin
+
+
+MR HILARY AND THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+  Seamen three! I What men be ye?
+  Gotham's three wise men we be.
+  Whither in your bowl so free?
+  To rake the moon from out the sea.
+  The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
+  And our ballast is old wine;
+  And your ballast is old wine.
+
+  Who art thou, so fast adrift?
+  I am he they call Old Care.
+  Here on board we will thee lift.
+  No: I may not enter there.
+  Wherefore so? 'Tis Jove's decree,
+  In a bowl Care may not be;
+  In a bowl Care may not be.
+
+  Pear ye not the waves that roll?
+  No: in charmed bowl we swim.
+  What the charm that floats the bowl?
+  Water may not pass the brim.
+  The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
+  And our ballast is old wine;
+  And your ballast is old wine.
+
+
+This catch was so well executed by the spirit and science of Mr
+Hilary, and the deep tri-une voice of the reverend gentleman, that the
+whole party, in spite of themselves, caught the contagion, and joined
+in chorus at the conclusion, each raising a bumper to his lips:
+
+  The bowl goes trim: the moon doth shine:
+  And our ballast is old wine.
+
+Mr Cypress, having his ballast on board, stepped, the same evening,
+into his bowl, or travelling chariot, and departed to rake seas and
+rivers, lakes and canals, for the moon of ideal beauty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+It was the custom of the Honourable Mr Listless, on adjourning from
+the bottle to the ladies, to retire for a few moments to make a second
+toilette, that he might present himself in becoming taste. Fatout,
+attending as usual, appeared with a countenance of great dismay, and
+informed his master that he had just ascertained that the abbey was
+haunted. Mrs Hilary's _gentlewoman_, for whom Fatout had lately
+conceived a _tendresse_, had been, as she expressed it, 'fritted out
+of her seventeen senses' the preceding night, as she was retiring to
+her bedchamber, by a ghastly figure which she had met stalking along
+one of the galleries, wrapped in a white shroud, with a bloody turban
+on its head. She had fainted away with fear; and, when she
+recovered, she found herself in the dark, and the figure was gone.
+'_Sacre--cochon--bleu_!' exclaimed Fatout, giving very deliberate
+emphasis to every portion of his terrible oath--'I vould not meet de
+_revenant_, de ghost--_non_--not for all de _bowl-de-ponch_ in de
+vorld.'
+
+'Fatout,' said the Honourable Mr Listless, 'did I ever see a ghost?'
+
+'_Jamais_, monsieur, never.'
+
+'Then I hope I never shall, for, in the present shattered state of my
+nerves, I am afraid it would be too much for me. There--loosen the
+lace of my stays a little, for really this plebeian practice of
+eating--Not too loose--consider my shape. That will do. And I desire
+that you bring me no more stories of ghosts; for, though I do not
+believe in such things, yet, when one is awake in the night, one is
+apt, if one thinks of them, to have fancies that give one a kind of a
+chill, particularly if one opens one's eyes suddenly on one's dressing
+gown, hanging in the moonlight, between the bed and the window.'
+
+The Honourable Mr Listless, though he had prohibited Fatout from
+bringing him any more stories of ghosts, could not help thinking of
+that which Fatout had already brought; and, as it was uppermost in his
+mind, when he descended to the tea and coffee cups, and the rest of
+the company in the library, he almost involuntarily asked Mr Flosky,
+whom he looked up to as a most oraculous personage, whether any story
+of any ghost that had ever appeared to any one, was entitled to any
+degree of belief?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+By far the greater number, to a very great degree.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Really, that is very alarming!
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+_Sunt geminoe somni portoe_. There are two gates through which ghosts
+find their way to the upper air: fraud and self-delusion. In the
+latter case, a ghost is a _deceptio visûs_, an ocular spectrum, an
+idea with the force of a sensation. I have seen many ghosts myself. I
+dare say there are few in this company who have not seen a ghost.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I am happy to say, I never have, for one.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+We have such high authority for ghosts, that it is rank scepticism to
+disbelieve them. Job saw a ghost, which came for the express purpose
+of asking a question, and did not wait for an answer.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Because Job was too frightened to give one.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Spectres appeared to the Egyptians during the darkness with which
+Moses covered Egypt. The witch of Endor raised the ghost of Samuel.
+Moses and Elias appeared on Mount Tabor. An evil spirit was sent into
+the army of Sennacherib, and exterminated it in a single night.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+Saying, The devil is come among you, having great wrath.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Saint Macarius interrogated a skull, which was found in the desert,
+and made it relate, in presence of several witnesses, what was going
+forward in hell. Saint Martin of Tours, being jealous of a pretended
+martyr, who was the rival saint of his neighbourhood, called up his
+ghost, and made him confess that he was damned. Saint Germain, being
+on his travels, turned out of an inn a large party of ghosts, who had
+every night taken possession of the _table d'hôte_, and consumed a
+copious supper.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Jolly ghosts, and no doubt all friars. A similar party took possession
+of the cellar of M. Swebach, the painter, in Paris, drank his wine,
+and threw the empty bottles at his head.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+An atrocious act.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Pausanias relates, that the neighing of horses and the tumult of
+combatants were heard every night on the field of Marathon: that those
+who went purposely to hear these sounds suffered severely for their
+curiosity; but those who heard them by accident passed with impunity.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+I once saw a ghost myself, in my study, which is the last place where
+any one but a ghost would look for me. I had not been into it for
+three months, and was going to consult Tillotson, when, on opening the
+door, I saw a venerable figure in a flannel dressing gown, sitting in
+my arm-chair, and reading my Jeremy Taylor. It vanished in a moment,
+and so did I; and what it was or what it wanted I have never been able
+to ascertain.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It was an idea with the force of a sensation. It is seldom that ghosts
+appeal to two senses at once; but, when I was in Devonshire, the
+following story was well attested to me. A young woman, whose lover
+was at sea, returning one evening over some solitary fields, saw
+her lover sitting on a stile over which she was to pass. Her first
+emotions were surprise and joy, but there was a paleness and
+seriousness in his face that made them give place to alarm. She
+advanced towards him, and he said to her, in a solemn voice, 'The eye
+that hath seen me shall see me no more. Thine eye is upon me, but I am
+not.' And with these words he vanished; and on that very day and hour,
+as it afterwards appeared, he had perished by shipwreck.
+
+The whole party now drew round in a circle, and each related some
+ghostly anecdote, heedless of the flight of time, till, in a pause of
+the conversation, they heard the hollow tongue of midnight sounding
+twelve.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+All these anecdotes admit of solution on psychological principles.
+It is more easy for a soldier, a philosopher, or even a saint, to be
+frightened at his own shadow, than for a dead man to come out of his
+grave. Medical writers cite a thousand singular examples of the force
+of imagination. Persons of feeble, nervous, melancholy temperament,
+exhausted by fever, by labour, or by spare diet, will readily conjure
+up, in the magic ring of their own phantasy, spectres, gorgons,
+chimaeras, and all the objects of their hatred and their love. We
+are most of us like Don Quixote, to whom a windmill was a giant, and
+Dulcinea a magnificent princess: all more or less the dupes of our own
+imagination, though we do not all go so far as to see ghosts, or to
+fancy ourselves pipkins and teapots.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I can safely say I have seen too many ghosts myself to believe in
+their external existence. I have seen all kinds of ghosts: black
+spirits and white, red spirits and grey. Some in the shapes of
+venerable old men, who have met me in my rambles at noon; some
+of beautiful young women, who have peeped through my curtains at
+midnight.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And have proved, I doubt not, 'palpable to feeling as to sight.'
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+By no means, sir. You reflect upon my purity. Myself and my friends,
+particularly my friend Mr Sackbut, are famous for our purity. No, sir,
+genuine untangible ghosts. I live in a world of ghosts. I see a ghost
+at this moment.
+
+
+Mr Flosky fixed his eyes on a door at the farther end of the library.
+The company looked in the same direction. The door silently opened,
+and a ghastly figure, shrouded in white drapery, with the semblance
+of a bloody turban on its head, entered and stalked slowly up the
+apartment. Mr Flosky, familiar as he was with ghosts, was not prepared
+for this apparition, and made the best of his way out at the opposite
+door. Mrs Hilary and Marionetta followed, screaming. The Honourable Mr
+Listless, by two turns of his body, rolled first off the sofa and
+then under it. The Reverend Mr Larynx leaped up and fled with so much
+precipitation, that he overturned the table on the foot of Mr Glowry.
+Mr Glowry roared with pain hi the ear of Mr Toobad. Mr Toobad's alarm
+so bewildered his senses, that, missing the door, he threw up one of
+the windows, jumped out in his panic, and plunged over head and ears
+in the moat. Mr Asterias and his son, who were on the watch for their
+mermaid, were attracted by the splashing, threw a net over him, and
+dragged him to land.
+
+Scythrop and Mr Hilary meanwhile had hastened to his assistance, and,
+on arriving at the edge of the moat, followed by several servants with
+ropes and torches, found Mr Asterias and Aquarius busy in endeavouring
+to extricate Mr Toobad from the net, who was entangled in the meshes,
+and floundering with rage. Scythrop was lost in amazement; but Mr
+Hilary saw, at one view, all the circumstances of the adventure, and
+burst into an immoderate fit of laughter; on recovering from which, he
+said to Mr Asterias, 'You have caught an odd fish, indeed.' Mr Toobad
+was highly exasperated at this unseasonable pleasantry; but Mr Hilary
+softened his anger, by producing a knife, and cutting the Gordian knot
+of his reticular envelopment. 'You see,' said Mr Toobad, 'you see,
+gentlemen, in my unfortunate person proof upon proof of the present
+dominion of the devil in the affairs of this world; and I have no
+doubt but that the apparition of this night was Apollyon himself in
+disguise, sent for the express purpose of terrifying me into this
+complication of misadventures. The devil is come among you, having
+great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Mr Glowry was much surprised, on occasionally visiting Scythrop's
+tower, to find the door always locked, and to be kept sometimes
+waiting many minutes for admission: during which he invariably heard a
+heavy rolling sound like that of a ponderous mangle, or of a waggon on
+a weighing-bridge, or of theatrical thunder.
+
+He took little notice of this for some time; at length his curiosity
+was excited, and, one day, instead of knocking at the door, as usual,
+the instant he reached it, he applied his ear to the key-hole, and
+like Bottom, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, 'spied a voice,' which he
+guessed to be of the feminine gender, and knew to be not Scythrop's,
+whose deeper tones he distinguished at intervals. Having attempted in
+vain to catch a syllable of the discourse, he knocked violently at
+the door, and roared for immediate admission. The voices ceased, the
+accustomed rolling sound was heard, the door opened, and Scythrop
+was discovered alone. Mr Glowry looked round to every corner of the
+apartment, and then said, 'Where is the lady?'
+
+'The lady, sir?' said Scythrop.
+
+'Yes, sir, the lady.'
+
+'Sir, I do not understand you.'
+
+'You don't, sir?'
+
+'No, indeed, sir. There is no lady here.'
+
+'But, sir, this is not the only apartment in the tower, and I make no
+doubt there is a lady up stairs.'
+
+'You are welcome to search, sir.'
+
+'Yes, and while I am searching, she will slip out from some lurking
+place, and make her escape.'
+
+'You may lock this door, sir, and take the key with you.'
+
+'But there is the terrace door: she has escaped by the terrace.'
+
+'The terrace, sir, has no other outlet, and the walls are too high for
+a lady to jump down.'
+
+'Well, sir, give me the key.'
+
+Mr Glowry took the key, searched every nook of the tower, and
+returned.
+
+'You are a fox, Scythrop; you are an exceedingly cunning fox, with
+that demure visage of yours. What was that lumbering sound I heard
+before you opened the door?'
+
+'Sound, sir?'
+
+'Yes, sir, sound.'
+
+'My dear sir, I am not aware of any sound, except my great table,
+which I moved on rising to let you in.'
+
+'The table!--let me see that. No, sir; not a tenth part heavy enough,
+not a tenth part.'
+
+'But, sir, you do not consider the laws of acoustics: a whisper
+becomes a peal of thunder in the focus of reverberation. Allow me to
+explain this: sounds striking on concave surfaces are reflected from
+them, and, after reflection, converge to points which are the foci of
+these surfaces. It follows, therefore, that the ear may be so placed
+in one, as that it shall hear a sound better than when situated nearer
+to the point of the first impulse: again, in the case of two concave
+surfaces placed opposite to each other--'
+
+'Nonsense, sir. Don't tell me of foci. Pray, sir, will concave
+surfaces produce two voices when nobody speaks? I heard two voices,
+and one was feminine; feminine, sir: what say you to that?'
+
+'Oh, sir, I perceive your mistake: I am writing a tragedy, and was
+acting over a scene to myself. To convince you, I will give you a
+specimen; but you must first understand the plot. It is a tragedy on
+the German model. The Great Mogul is in exile, and has taken lodgings
+at Kensington, with his only daughter, the Princess Rantrorina,
+who takes in needlework, and keeps a day school. _The princess is
+discovered hemming a set of shirts for the parson of the parish: they
+are to be marked with a large R. Enter to her the Great Mogul. A
+pause, during which they look at each other expressively. The
+princess changes colour several times. The Mogul takes snuff in great
+agitation. Several grains are heard to fall on the stage. His heart is
+seen to beat through his upper benjamin._--THE MOGUL _(with a mournful
+look at his left shoe_). 'My shoe-string is broken.'--THE PRINCESS
+(_after an interval of melancholy reflection_). 'I know it.' THE
+MOGUL. 'My second shoe-string! The first broke when I lost my empire:
+the second has broken to-day. When will my poor heart break?'--THE
+PRINCESS. 'Shoe-strings, hearts, and empires! Mysterious sympathy!'
+
+'Nonsense, sir,' interrupted Mr Glowry. 'That is not at all like the
+voice I heard.'
+
+'But, sir,' said Scythrop, 'a key-hole may be so constructed as to act
+like an acoustic tube, and an acoustic tube, sir, will modify sound in
+a very remarkable manner. Consider the construction of the ear, and
+the nature and causes of sound. The external part of the ear is a
+cartilaginous funnel.'
+
+'It wo'n't do, Scythrop. There is a girl concealed in this tower, and
+find her I will. There are such things as sliding panels and secret
+closets.'--He sounded round the room with his cane, but detected
+no hollowness.--'I have heard, sir,' he continued, 'that during my
+absence, two years ago, you had a dumb carpenter closeted with you
+day after day. I did not dream that you were laying contrivances for
+carrying on secret intrigues. Young men will have their way: I had my
+way when I was a young man: but, sir, when your cousin Marionetta--'
+
+Scythrop now saw that the affair was growing serious. To have clapped
+his hand upon his father's mouth, to have entreated him to be silent,
+would, in the first place, not have made him so; and, in the second,
+would have shown a dread of being overheard by somebody. His only
+resource, therefore, was to try to drown Mr Glowry's voice; and,
+having no other subject, he continued his description of the ear,
+raising his voice continually as Mr Glowry raised his.
+
+'When your cousin Marionetta,' said Mr Glowry, 'whom you profess to
+love--whom you profess to love, sir--'
+
+'The internal canal of the ear,' said Scythrop, 'is partly bony and
+partly cartilaginous. This internal canal is--'
+
+'Is actually in the house, sir; and, when you are so shortly to be--as
+I expect--'
+
+'Closed at the further end by the _membrana tympani_--'
+
+'Joined together in holy matrimony--'
+
+'Under which is carried a branch of the fifth pair of nerves--'
+
+'I say, sir, when you are so shortly to be married to your cousin
+Marionetta--'
+
+'The _cavitas tympani_--'
+
+A loud noise was heard behind the book-case, which, to the
+astonishment of Mr Glowry, opened in the middle, and the massy
+compartments, with all their weight of books, receding from each other
+in the manner of a theatrical scene, with a heavy rolling sound (which
+Mr Glowry immediately recognised to be the same which had excited his
+curiosity,) disclosed an interior apartment, in the entrance of
+which stood the beautiful Stella, who, stepping forward, exclaimed,
+'Married! Is he going to be married? The profligate!'
+
+'Really, madam,' said Mr Glowry, 'I do not know what he is going to
+do, or what I am going to do, or what any one is going to do; for all
+this is incomprehensible.'
+
+'I can explain it all,' said Scythrop, 'in a most satisfactory manner,
+if you will but have the goodness to leave us alone.'
+
+'Pray, sir, to which act of the tragedy of the Great Mogul does this
+incident belong?'
+
+'I entreat you, my dear sir, leave us alone.'
+
+Stella threw herself into a chair, and burst into a tempest of tears.
+Scythrop sat down by her, and took her hand. She snatched her hand
+away, and turned her back upon him. He rose, sat down on the other
+side, and took her other hand. She snatched it away, and turned from
+him again. Scythrop continued entreating Mr Glowry to leave them
+alone; but the old gentleman was obstinate, and would not go.
+
+'I suppose, after all,' said Mr Glowry maliciously, 'it is only a
+phænomenon in acoustics, and this young lady is a reflection of sound
+from concave surfaces.'
+
+Some one tapped at the door: Mr Glowry opened it, and Mr Hilary
+entered. He had been seeking Mr Glowry, and had traced him to
+Scythrop's tower. He stood a few moments in silent surprise, and then
+addressed himself to Mr Glowry for an explanation.
+
+'The explanation,' said Mr Glowry, 'is very satisfactory. The Great
+Mogul has taken lodgings at Kensington, and the external part of the
+ear is a cartilaginous funnel.'
+
+'Mr Glowry, that is no explanation.'
+
+'Mr Hilary, it is all I know about the matter.'
+
+'Sir, this pleasantry is very unseasonable. I perceive that my niece
+is sported with in a most unjustifiable manner, and I shall see if she
+will be more successful in obtaining an intelligible answer.' And he
+departed in search of Marionetta.
+
+Scythrop was now in a hopeless predicament. Mr Hilary made a hue and
+cry in the abbey, and summoned his wife and Marionetta to Scythrop's
+apartment. The ladies, not knowing what was the matter, hastened in
+great consternation. Mr Toobad saw them sweeping along the corridor,
+and judging from their manner that the devil had manifested his wrath
+in some new shape, followed from pure curiosity.
+
+Scythrop meanwhile vainly endeavoured to get rid of Mr Glowry and
+to pacify Stella. The latter attempted to escape from the tower,
+declaring she would leave the abbey immediately, and he should never
+see her or hear of her more. Scythrop held her hand and detained her
+by force, till Mr Hilary reappeared with Mrs Hilary and Marionetta.
+Marionetta, seeing Scythrop grasping the hand of a strange beauty,
+fainted away in the arms of her aunt. Scythrop flew to her assistance;
+and Stella with redoubled anger sprang towards the door, but was
+intercepted in her intended flight by being caught in the arms of Mr
+Toobad, who exclaimed--'Celinda!'
+
+'Papa!' said the young lady disconsolately.
+
+'The devil is come among you,' said Mr Toobad, 'how came my daughter
+here?'
+
+'Your daughter!' exclaimed Mr Glowry.
+
+'Your daughter!' exclaimed Scythrop, and Mr and Mrs Hilary.
+
+'Yes,' said Mr Toobad, 'my daughter Celinda.'
+
+Marionetta opened her eyes and fixed them on Celinda; Celinda in
+return fixed hers on Marionetta. They were at remote points of the
+apartment. Scythrop was equidistant from both of them, central and
+motionless, like Mahomet's coffin.
+
+'Mr Glowry,' said Mr Toobad, 'can you tell by what means my daughter
+came here?'
+
+'I know no more,' said Mr Glowry, 'than the Great Mogul.'
+
+'Mr Scythrop,' said Mr Toobad, 'how came my daughter here?'
+
+'I did not know, sir, that the lady was your daughter.'
+
+'But how came she here?'
+
+'By spontaneous locomotion,' said Scythrop, sullenly.
+
+'Celinda,' said Mr Toobad, 'what does all this mean?'
+
+'I really do not know, sir.'
+
+'This is most unaccountable. When I told you in London that I had
+chosen a husband for you, you thought proper to run away from him; and
+now, to all appearance, you have run away to him.'
+
+'How, sir! was that your choice?'
+
+'Precisely; and if he is yours too we shall be both of a mind, for the
+first time in our lives.'
+
+'He is not my choice, sir. This lady has a prior claim: I renounce
+him.'
+
+'And I renounce him,' said Marionetta.
+
+Scythrop knew not what to do. He could not attempt to conciliate the
+one without irreparably offending the other; and he was so fond of
+both, that the idea of depriving himself for ever of the society
+of either was intolerable to him: he therefore retreated into his
+stronghold, mystery; maintained an impenetrable silence; and contented
+himself with stealing occasionally a deprecating glance at each of the
+objects of his idolatry. Mr Toobad and Mr Hilary, in the mean time,
+were each insisting on an explanation from Mr Glowry, who they thought
+had been playing a double game on this occasion. Mr Glowry was
+vainly endeavouring to persuade them of his innocence in the whole
+transaction. Mrs Hilary was endeavouring to mediate between her
+husband and brother. The Honourable Mr Listless, the Reverend Mr
+Larynx, Mr Flosky, Mr Asterias, and Aquarius, were attracted by the
+tumult to the scene of action, and were appealed to severally and
+conjointly by the respective disputants. Multitudinous questions, and
+answers _en masse_, composed a _charivari_, to which the genius of
+Rossini alone could have given a suitable accompaniment, and which
+was only terminated by Mrs Hilary and Mr Toobad retreating with the
+captive damsels. The whole party followed, with the exception of
+Scythrop, who threw himself into his arm-chair, crossed his left
+foot over his right knee, placed the hollow of his left hand on the
+interior ancle of his left leg, rested his right elbow on the elbow
+of the chair, placed the ball of his right thumb against his right
+temple, curved the forefinger along the upper part of his forehead,
+rested the point of the middle finger on the bridge of his nose, and
+the points of the two others on the lower part of the palm, fixed his
+eyes intently on the veins in the back of his left hand, and sat in
+this position like the immoveable Theseus, who, as is well known to
+many who have not been at college, and to some few who have, _sedet,
+oeternumque sedebit_.[13] We hope the admirers of the _minutiæ_ in
+poetry and romance will appreciate this accurate description of a
+pensive attitude.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Scythrop was still in this position when Raven entered to announce
+that dinner was on table.
+
+'I cannot come,' said Scythrop.
+
+Raven sighed. 'Something is the matter,' said Raven: 'but man is born
+to trouble.'
+
+'Leave me,' said Scythrop: 'go, and croak elsewhere.'
+
+'Thus it is,' said Raven. 'Five-and-twenty years have I lived in
+Nightmare Abbey, and now all the reward of my affection is--Go, and
+croak elsewhere. I have danced you on my knee, and fed you with
+marrow.'
+
+'Good Raven,' said Scythrop, 'I entreat you to leave me.'
+
+'Shall I bring your dinner here?' said Raven. 'A boiled fowl and
+a glass of Madeira are prescribed by the faculty in cases of low
+spirits. But you had better join the party: it is very much reduced
+already.'
+
+'Reduced! how?'
+
+'The Honourable Mr Listless is gone. He declared that, what with
+family quarrels in the morning, and ghosts at night, he could get
+neither sleep nor peace; and that the agitation was too much for his
+nerves: though Mr Glowry assured him that the ghost was only poor Crow
+walking in his sleep, and that the shroud and bloody turban were a
+sheet and a red nightcap.'
+
+'Well, sir?'
+
+'The Reverend Mr Larynx has been called off on duty, to marry or bury
+(I don't know which) some unfortunate person or persons, at Claydyke:
+but man is born to trouble!'
+
+'Is that all?'
+
+'No. Mr Toobad is gone too, and a strange lady with him.'
+
+'Gone!'
+
+'Gone. And Mr and Mrs Hilary, and Miss O'Carroll: they are all gone.
+There is nobody left but Mr Asterias and his son, and they are going
+to-night.'
+
+'Then I have lost them both.'
+
+'Won't you come to dinner?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Shall I bring your dinner here?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What will you have?'
+
+'A pint of port and a pistol.'[14]
+
+'A pistol!'
+
+'And a pint of port. I will make my exit like Werter. Go. Stay. Did
+Miss O'Carroll say any thing?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Did Miss Toobad say any thing?'
+
+'The strange lady? No.'
+
+'Did either of them cry?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'What did they do?'
+
+'Nothing.'
+
+'What did Mr Toobad say?'
+
+'He said, fifty times over, the devil was come among us.'
+
+'And they are gone?'
+
+'Yes; and the dinner is getting cold. There is a time for every
+thing under the sun. You may as well dine first, and be miserable
+afterwards.'
+
+'True, Raven. There is something in that. I will take your advice:
+therefore, bring me----'
+
+'The port and the pistol?'
+
+'No; the boiled fowl and Madeira.'
+
+Scythrop had dined, and was sipping his Madeira alone, immersed in
+melancholy musing, when Mr Glowry entered, followed by Raven, who,
+having placed an additional glass and set a chair for Mr Glowry,
+withdrew. Mr Glowry sat down opposite Scythrop. After a pause, during
+which each filled and drank in silence, Mr Glowry said, 'So, sir,
+you have played your cards well. I proposed Miss Toobad to you: you
+refused her. Mr Toobad proposed you to her: she refused you. You fell
+in love with Marionetta, and were going to poison yourself, because,
+from pure fatherly regard to your temporal interests, I withheld my
+consent. When, at length, I offered you my consent, you told me I was
+too precipitate. And, after all, I find you and Miss Toobad living
+together in the same tower, and behaving in every respect like two
+plighted lovers. Now, sir, if there be any rational solution of all
+this absurdity, I shall be very much obliged to you for a small
+glimmering of information.'
+
+'The solution, sir, is of little moment; but I will leave it in
+writing for your satisfaction. The crisis of my fate is come: the
+world is a stage, and my direction is _exit._'
+
+'Do not talk so, sir;--do not talk so, Scythrop. What would you have?'
+
+'I would have my love.'
+
+'And pray, sir, who is your love?'
+
+'Celinda--Marionetta--either--both.'
+
+'Both! That may do very well in a German tragedy; and the Great Mogul
+might have found it very feasible in his lodgings at Kensington; but
+it will not do in Lincolnshire. Will you have Miss Toobad?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And renounce Marionetta?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'But you must renounce one.'
+
+'I cannot.'
+
+'And you cannot have both. What is to be done?'
+
+'I must shoot myself.'
+
+'Don't talk so, Scythrop. Be rational, my dear Scythrop. Consider, and
+make a cool, calm choice, and I will exert myself in your behalf.'
+
+'Why should I choose, sir? Both have renounced _me_: I have no hope of
+either.'
+
+'Tell me which you will have, and I will plead your cause
+irresistibly.'
+
+'Well, sir,--I will have--no, sir, I cannot renounce either. I
+cannot choose either. I am doomed to be the victim of eternal
+disappointments; and I have no resource but a pistol.'
+
+'Scythrop--Scythrop;--if one of them should come to you--what then?'
+
+'That, sir, might alter the case: but that cannot be.'
+
+'It can be, Scythrop; it will be: I promise you it will be. Have but a
+little patience--but a week's patience; and it shall be.'
+
+'A week, sir, is an age: but, to oblige you, as a last act of
+filial duty, I will live another week. It is now Thursday evening,
+twenty-five minutes past seven. At this hour and minute, on Thursday
+next, love and fate shall smile on me, or I will drink my last pint of
+port in this world.'
+
+Mr Glowry ordered his travelling chariot, and departed from the abbey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The day after Mr Glowry's departure was one of incessant rain, and
+Scythrop repented of the promise he had given. The next day was one of
+bright sunshine: he sat on the terrace, read a tragedy of Sophocles,
+and was not sorry, when Raven announced dinner, to find himself alive.
+On the third evening, the wind blew, and the rain beat, and the owl
+flapped against his windows; and he put a new flint in his pistol. On
+the fourth day, the sun shone again; and he locked the pistol up in a
+drawer, where he left it undisturbed, till the morning of the eventful
+Thursday, when he ascended the turret with a telescope, and spied
+anxiously along the road that crossed the fens from Claydyke: but
+nothing appeared on it. He watched in this manner from ten A.M. till
+Raven summoned him to dinner at five; when he stationed Crow at the
+telescope, and descended to his own funeral-feast. He left open the
+communications between the tower and turret, and called aloud at
+intervals to Crow,--'Crow, Crow, is any thing coming?' Crow answered,
+'The wind blows, and the windmills turn, but I see nothing coming;'
+and, at every answer, Scythrop found the necessity of raising his
+spirits with a bumper. After dinner, he gave Raven his watch to set by
+the abbey clock. Raven brought it, Scythrop placed it on the table,
+and Raven departed. Scythrop called again to Crow; and Crow, who had
+fallen asleep, answered mechanically, 'I see nothing coming.' Scythrop
+laid his pistol between his watch and his bottle. The hour-hand passed
+the VII.--the minute-hand moved on;--it was within three minutes of
+the appointed time. Scythrop called again to Crow: Crow answered as
+before. Scythrop rang the bell: Raven appeared.
+
+'Raven,' said Scythrop, 'the clock is too fast.'
+
+'No, indeed,' said Raven, who knew nothing of Scythrop's intentions;
+'if any thing, it is too slow.'
+
+'Villain!' said Scythrop, pointing the pistol at him; 'it is too
+fast.'
+
+'Yes--yes--too fast, I meant,' said Raven, in manifest fear.
+
+'How much too fast?' said Scythrop.
+
+'As much as you please,' said Raven.
+
+'How much, I say?' said Scythrop, pointing the pistol again.
+
+'An hour, a full hour, sir,' said the terrified butler.
+
+'Put back my watch,' said Scythrop.
+
+Raven, with trembling hand, was putting back the watch, when the
+rattle of wheels was heard in the court; and Scythrop, springing down
+the stairs by three steps together, was at the door in sufficient time
+to have handed either of the young ladies from the carriage, if she
+had happened to be in it; but Mr Glowry was alone.
+
+'I rejoice to see you,' said Mr Glowry; 'I was fearful of being too
+late, for I waited till the last moment in the hope of accomplishing
+my promise; but all my endeavours have been vain, as these letters
+will show.'
+
+Scythrop impatiently broke the seals. The contents were these:
+
+  Almost a stranger in England, I fled from parental tyranny,
+  and the dread of an arbitrary marriage, to the protection of a
+  stranger and a philosopher, whom I expected to find something
+  better than, or at least something different from, the rest of his
+  worthless species. Could I, after what has occurred, have
+  expected nothing more from you than the common-place impertinence
+  of sending your father to treat with me, and with mine, for me? I
+  should be a little moved in your favour, if I could believe you
+  capable of carrying into effect the resolutions which your father
+  says you have taken, in the event of my proving inflexible;
+  though I doubt not you will execute them, as far as relates to
+  the pint of wine, twice over, at least. I wish you much happiness
+  with Miss O'Carroll. I shall always cherish a grateful
+  recollection of Nightmare Abbey, for having been the means of
+  introducing me to a true transcendentalist; and, though he is a
+  little older than myself, which is all one in Germany, I shall
+  very soon have the pleasure of subscribing myself
+
+  CELINDA FLOSKY
+
+  I hope, my dear cousin, that you will not be angry with me,
+  but that you will always think of me as a sincere friend, who
+  will always feel interested in your welfare; I am sure you love
+  Miss Toobad much better than me, and I wish you much happiness
+  with her. Mr Listless assures me that people do not kill
+  themselves for love now-a-days, though it is still the fashion to
+  talk about it. I shall, in a very short time, change my name and
+  situation, and shall always be happy to see you in Berkeley
+  Square, when, to the unalterable designation of your affectionate
+  cousin, I shall subjoin the signature of
+
+  MARIONETTA LISTLESS
+
+Scythrop tore both the letters to atoms, and railed in good set terms
+against the fickleness of women.
+
+'Calm yourself, my dear Scythrop,' said Mr Glowry; 'there are yet
+maidens in England.'
+
+'Very true, sir,' said Scythrop.
+
+'And the next time,' said Mr Glowry, 'have but one string to your
+bow.'
+
+'Very good advice, sir,' said Scythrop.
+
+'And, besides,' said Mr Glowry, 'the fatal time is past, for it is now
+almost eight.'
+
+'Then that villain, Raven,' said Scythrop, 'deceived me when he said
+that the clock was too fast; but, as you observe very justly, the time
+has gone by, and I have just reflected that these repeated crosses in
+love qualify me to take a very advanced degree in misanthropy; and
+there is, therefore, good hope that I may make a figure in the world.
+But I shall ring for the rascal Raven, and admonish him.'
+
+Raven appeared. Scythrop looked at him very fiercely two or three
+minutes; and Raven, still remembering the pistol, stood quaking in
+mute apprehension, till Scythrop, pointing significantly towards the
+dining-room, said, 'Bring some Madeira.'
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+[1] _Mr Flosky_: A corruption of Filosky, quasi [Greek: philoschios],
+a lover, or sectator, of shadows.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+[2] _the passion for reforming the world_: See Forsyth's _Principles
+of Moral Science_.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+[3] _decorum, and dignity, &c. &c. &c._: We are not masters of the
+whole vocabulary. See any novel by any literary lady.
+
+[4] _his Ahrimanic philosophy_: Ahrimanes, in the Persian mythology,
+is the evil power, the prince of the kingdom of darkness. He is the
+rival of Oromazes, the prince of the kingdom of light. These two
+powers have divided and equal dominion. Sometimes one of the two has a
+temporary supremacy.--According to Mr Toobad, the present period would
+be the reign of Ahrimanes. Lord Byron seems to be of the same opinion,
+by the use he has made of Ahrimanes in 'Manfred'; where the great
+Alastor, or [Greek: Kachos Daimôn], of Persia, is hailed king of
+the world by the Nemesis of Greece, in concert with three of
+the Scandinavian Valkyrae, under the name of the Destinies; the
+astrological spirits of the alchemists of the middle ages; an
+elemental witch, transplanted from Denmark to the Alps; and a chorus
+of Dr Faustus's devils, who come in the last act for a soul. It is
+difficult to conceive where this heterogeneous mythological company
+could have originally met, except at a _table d'hôte_, like the six
+kings in 'Candide'.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+[5] _pensions_: 'PENSION. Pay given to a slave of state for treason to
+his country.'--JOHNSON'S _Dictionary_.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+[6] _... of a beautiful day_: See Denys Montfort: _Histoire Naturelle
+des Mollusques; Vues Générales_, pp. 37, 38. (P.) The second half of
+this speech by Mr Asterias and the opening sentence of his previous
+speech are a paraphrase from Montfort, pp. 37-9.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+[7] _Mr Burke's graduated scale of the sublime_: There must be some
+mistake in this, for the whole honourable band of gentlemen-pensioners
+has resolved unanimously, that Mr Burke was a very sublime person,
+particularly after he had prostituted his own soul, and betrayed his
+country and mankind, for 1200_l_. a year: yet he does not appear to
+have been a very terrible personage, and certainly went off with a
+very small portion of human respect, though he contrived to excite,
+in a great degree, the astonishment of all honest men. Our immaculate
+laureate (who gives us to understand that, if he had not been purified
+by holy matrimony into a mystical type, he would have died a virgin,)
+is another sublime gentleman of the same genus: he very much
+astonished some persons when he sold his birthright for a pot of sack;
+but not even his _Sosia_ has a grain of respect for him, though,
+doubtless, he thinks his name very terrible to the enemy, when he
+flourishes his criticopoeticopolitical tomahawk, and sets up his
+Indian yell for the blood of his old friends: but, at best, he is a
+mere political scarecrow, a man of straw, ridiculous to all who know
+of what materials he is made; and to none more so, than to those who
+have stuffed him, and set him up, as the Priapus of the garden of the
+golden apples of corruption.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+[8] _... vanishes in the smoke of death_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4.
+cxxiv. cxxvi.
+
+[9] _... and reaps the whirlwind_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4. cxxiii.
+
+[10] _... or to endure_: _Ibid_. canto 3. lxxi.
+
+[11] _... whose gums are poison_: _Ibid_. canto 4. cxxi. cxxxvi.
+
+[12] _... exist only in himself_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4. cxxii.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+[13] _sedet, oeternumque sedebit_: Sits, and will sit for ever.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+[14] _a pint of port and a pistol_: See _The Sorrows of Werter_,
+Letter 93.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nightmare Abbey, by Thomas Love Peacock
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Nightmare Abbey, by Thomas Love Peacock
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+Title: Nightmare Abbey
+
+Author: Thomas Love Peacock
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9909]
+[This file last updated on July 17, 2010]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on October 30, 2003]
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+Edition: 11
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NIGHTMARE ABBEY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Tom Allen,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+By
+
+_Thomas Love Peacock_
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+  NOTES TO _Nightmare Abbey_
+
+
+
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY:
+
+BY
+
+THE AUTHOR OF HEADLONG HALL.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  There's a dark lantern of the spirit,
+  Which none see by but those who bear it,
+  That makes them in the dark see visions
+  And hag themselves with apparitions,
+  Find racks for their own minds, and vaunt
+  Of their own misery and want.
+  BUTLER.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+LONDON:
+
+1818.
+
+
+MATTHEW. Oh! it's your only fine humour, sir. Your true melancholy
+breeds your perfect fine wit, sir. I am melancholy myself, divers
+times, sir; and then do I no more but take pen and paper presently,
+and overflow you half a score or a dozen of sonnets at a sitting.
+
+STEPHEN. Truly, sir, and I love such things out of measure.
+
+MATTHEW. Why, I pray you, sir, make use of my study: it's at your
+service.
+
+STEPHEN. I thank you, sir, I shall be bold, I warrant you. Have you a
+stool there, to be melancholy upon?
+
+BEN JONSON, _Every Man in his Humour_, Act 3, Sc. I
+
+  Ay esleu gazouiller et siffler oye, comme dit le commun
+  proverbe, entre les cygnes, plutoust que d'estre entre
+  tant de gentils poëtes et faconds orateurs mut du tout
+  estimé.
+
+  RABELAIS, _Prol. L_. 5
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Nightmare Abbey, a venerable family-mansion, in a highly picturesque
+state of semi-dilapidation, pleasantly situated on a strip of dry land
+between the sea and the fens, at the verge of the county of Lincoln,
+had the honour to be the seat of Christopher Glowry, Esquire. This
+gentleman was naturally of an atrabilarious temperament, and much
+troubled with those phantoms of indigestion which are commonly called
+_blue devils_. He had been deceived in an early friendship: he had
+been crossed in love; and had offered his hand, from pique, to a lady,
+who accepted it from interest, and who, in so doing, violently tore
+asunder the bonds of a tried and youthful attachment. Her vanity was
+gratified by being the mistress of a very extensive, if not very
+lively, establishment; but all the springs of her sympathies were
+frozen. Riches she possessed, but that which enriches them, the
+participation of affection, was wanting. All that they could purchase
+for her became indifferent to her, because that which they could not
+purchase, and which was more valuable than themselves, she had, for
+their sake, thrown away. She discovered, when it was too late, that
+she had mistaken the means for the end--that riches, rightly used, are
+instruments of happiness, but are not in themselves happiness. In this
+wilful blight of her affections, she found them valueless as means:
+they had been the end to which she had immolated all her affections,
+and were now the only end that remained to her. She did not confess
+this to herself as a principle of action, but it operated through the
+medium of unconscious self-deception, and terminated in inveterate
+avarice. She laid on external things the blame of her mind's internal
+disorder, and thus became by degrees an accomplished scold. She often
+went her daily rounds through a series of deserted apartments, every
+creature in the house vanishing at the creak of her shoe, much more
+at the sound of her voice, to which the nature of things affords no
+simile; for, as far as the voice of woman, when attuned by gentleness
+and love, transcends all other sounds in harmony, so far does
+it surpass all others in discord, when stretched into unnatural
+shrillness by anger and impatience.
+
+Mr Glowry used to say that his house was no better than a spacious
+kennel, for every one in it led the life of a dog. Disappointed both
+in love and in friendship, and looking upon human learning as vanity,
+he had come to a conclusion that there was but one good thing in the
+world, _videlicet_, a good dinner; and this his parsimonious lady
+seldom suffered him to enjoy: but, one morning, like Sir Leoline in
+Christabel, 'he woke and found his lady dead,' and remained a very
+consolate widower, with one small child.
+
+This only son and heir Mr Glowry had christened Scythrop, from the
+name of a maternal ancestor, who had hanged himself one rainy day in a
+fit of _toedium vitae_, and had been eulogised by a coroner's jury in
+the comprehensive phrase of _felo de se_; on which account, Mr Glowry
+held his memory in high honour, and made a punchbowl of his skull.
+
+When Scythrop grew up, he was sent, as usual, to a public school,
+where a little learning was painfully beaten into him, and from thence
+to the university, where it was carefully taken out of him; and he was
+sent home like a well-threshed ear of corn, with nothing in his head:
+having finished his education to the high satisfaction of the
+master and fellows of his college, who had, in testimony of their
+approbation, presented him with a silver fish-slice, on which his name
+figured at the head of a laudatory inscription in some semi-barbarous
+dialect of Anglo-Saxonised Latin.
+
+His fellow-students, however, who drove tandem and random in great
+perfection, and were connoisseurs in good inns, had taught him to
+drink deep ere he departed. He had passed much of his time with these
+choice spirits, and had seen the rays of the midnight lamp tremble
+on many a lengthening file of empty bottles. He passed his vacations
+sometimes at Nightmare Abbey, sometimes in London, at the house of
+his uncle, Mr Hilary, a very cheerful and elastic gentleman, who had
+married the sister of the melancholy Mr Glowry. The company that
+frequented his house was the gayest of the gay. Scythrop danced with
+the ladies and drank with the gentlemen, and was pronounced by both a
+very accomplished charming fellow, and an honour to the university.
+
+At the house of Mr Hilary, Scythrop first saw the beautiful Miss Emily
+Girouette. He fell in love; which is nothing new. He was favourably
+received; which is nothing strange. Mr Glowry and Mr Girouette had
+a meeting on the occasion, and quarrelled about the terms of the
+bargain; which is neither new nor strange. The lovers were torn
+asunder, weeping and vowing everlasting constancy; and, in three weeks
+after this tragical event, the lady was led a smiling bride to the
+altar, by the Honourable Mr Lackwit; which is neither strange nor new.
+
+Scythrop received this intelligence at Nightmare Abbey, and was half
+distracted on the occasion. It was his first disappointment, and
+preyed deeply on his sensitive spirit. His father, to comfort him,
+read him a Commentary on Ecclesiastes, which he had himself composed,
+and which demonstrated incontrovertibly that all is vanity. He
+insisted particularly on the text, 'One man among a thousand have I
+found, but a woman amongst all those have I not found.'
+
+'How could he expect it,' said Scythrop, 'when the whole thousand were
+locked up in his seraglio? His experience is no precedent for a free
+state of society like that in which we live.'
+
+'Locked up or at large,' said Mr Glowry, 'the result is the same:
+their minds are always locked up, and vanity and interest keep the
+key. I speak feelingly, Scythrop.'
+
+'I am sorry for it, sir,' said Scythrop. 'But how is it that their
+minds are locked up? The fault is in their artificial education, which
+studiously models them into mere musical dolls, to be set out for sale
+in the great toy-shop of society.'
+
+'To be sure,' said Mr Glowry, 'their education is not so well finished
+as yours has been; and your idea of a musical doll is good. I bought
+one myself, but it was confoundedly out of tune; but, whatever be the
+cause, Scythrop, the effect is certainly this, that one is pretty
+nearly as good as another, as far as any judgment can be formed of
+them before marriage. It is only after marriage that they show
+their true qualities, as I know by bitter experience. Marriage is,
+therefore, a lottery, and the less choice and selection a man bestows
+on his ticket the better; for, if he has incurred considerable pains
+and expense to obtain a lucky number, and his lucky number proves a
+blank, he experiences not a simple, but a complicated disappointment;
+the loss of labour and money being superadded to the disappointment of
+drawing a blank, which, constituting simply and entirely the grievance
+of him who has chosen his ticket at random, is, from its simplicity,
+the more endurable.' This very excellent reasoning was thrown away
+upon Scythrop, who retired to his tower as dismal and disconsolate as
+before.
+
+The tower which Scythrop inhabited stood at the south-eastern angle of
+the Abbey; and, on the southern side, the foot of the tower opened on
+a terrace, which was called the garden, though nothing grew on it but
+ivy, and a few amphibious weeds. The south-western tower, which was
+ruinous and full of owls, might, with equal propriety, have been
+called the aviary. This terrace or garden, or terrace-garden, or
+garden-terrace (the reader may name it _ad libitum_), took in an
+oblique view of the open sea, and fronted a long tract of level
+sea-coast, and a fine monotony of fens and windmills.
+
+The reader will judge, from what we have said, that this building was
+a sort of castellated abbey; and it will, probably, occur to him to
+inquire if it had been one of the strong-holds of the ancient church
+militant. Whether this was the case, or how far it had been indebted
+to the taste of Mr Glowry's ancestors for any transmutations from its
+original state, are, unfortunately, circumstances not within the pale
+of our knowledge.
+
+The north-western tower contained the apartments of Mr Glowry. The
+moat at its base, and the fens beyond, comprised the whole of his
+prospect. This moat surrounded the Abbey, and was in immediate contact
+with the walls on every side but the south.
+
+The north-eastern tower was appropriated to the domestics, whom Mr
+Glowry always chose by one of two criterions,--a long face, or a
+dismal name. His butler was Raven; his steward was Crow; his valet was
+Skellet. Mr Glowry maintained that the valet was of French extraction,
+and that his name was Squelette. His grooms were Mattocks and Graves.
+On one occasion, being in want of a footman, he received a letter
+from a person signing himself Diggory Deathshead, and lost no time in
+securing this acquisition; but on Diggory's arrival, Mr Glowry was
+horror-struck by the sight of a round ruddy face, and a pair of
+laughing eyes. Deathshead was always grinning,--not a ghastly smile,
+but the grin of a comic mask; and disturbed the echoes of the hall
+with so much unhallowed laughter, that Mr Glowry gave him his
+discharge. Diggory, however, had staid long enough to make conquests
+of all the old gentleman's maids, and left him a flourishing colony of
+young Deathsheads to join chorus with the owls, that had before been
+the exclusive choristers of Nightmare Abbey.
+
+The main body of the building was divided into rooms of state,
+spacious apartments for feasting, and numerous bed-rooms for visitors,
+who, however, were few and far between.
+
+Family interests compelled Mr Glowry to receive occasional visits from
+Mr and Mrs Hilary, who paid them from the same motive; and, as the
+lively gentleman on these occasions found few conductors for his
+exuberant gaiety, he became like a double-charged electric jar, which
+often exploded in some burst of outrageous merriment to the signal
+discomposure of Mr Glowry's nerves.
+
+Another occasional visitor, much more to Mr Glowry's taste, was Mr
+Flosky,[1] a very lachrymose and morbid gentleman, of some note in
+the literary world, but in his own estimation of much more merit than
+name. The part of his character which recommended him to Mr Glowry,
+was his very fine sense of the grim and the tearful. No one could
+relate a dismal story with so many minutiæ of supererogatory
+wretchedness. No one could call up a _raw-head and bloody-bones_ with
+so many adjuncts and circumstances of ghastliness. Mystery was his
+mental element. He lived in the midst of that visionary world in which
+nothing is but what is not. He dreamed with his eyes open, and saw
+ghosts dancing round him at noontide. He had been in his youth
+an enthusiast for liberty, and had hailed the dawn of the French
+Revolution as the promise of a day that was to banish war and slavery,
+and every form of vice and misery, from the face of the earth. Because
+all this was not done, he deduced that nothing was done; and from this
+deduction, according to his system of logic, he drew a conclusion
+that worse than nothing was done; that the overthrow of the feudal
+fortresses of tyranny and superstition was the greatest calamity that
+had ever befallen mankind; and that their only hope now was to rake
+the rubbish together, and rebuild it without any of those loopholes
+by which the light had originally crept in. To qualify himself for a
+coadjutor in this laudable task, he plunged into the central
+opacity of Kantian metaphysics, and lay _perdu_ several years in
+transcendental darkness, till the common daylight of common sense
+became intolerable to his eyes. He called the sun an _ignis fatuus_;
+and exhorted all who would listen to his friendly voice, which were
+about as many as called 'God save King Richard,' to shelter themselves
+from its delusive radiance in the obscure haunt of Old Philosophy.
+This word Old had great charms for him. The good old times were always
+on his lips; meaning the days when polemic theology was in its prime,
+and rival prelates beat the drum ecclesiastic with Herculean vigour,
+till the one wound up his series of syllogisms with the very orthodox
+conclusion of roasting the other.
+
+But the dearest friend of Mr Glowry, and his most welcome guest,
+was Mr Toobad, the Manichaean Millenarian. The twelfth verse of the
+twelfth chapter of Revelations was always in his mouth: 'Woe to the
+inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come among
+you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short
+time.' He maintained that the supreme dominion of the world was, for
+wise purposes, given over for a while to the Evil Principle; and that
+this precise period of time, commonly called the enlightened age, was
+the point of his plenitude of power. He used to add that by and by he
+would be cast down, and a high and happy order of things succeed; but
+he never omitted the saving clause, 'Not in our time'; which last
+words were always echoed in doleful response by the sympathetic Mr
+Glowry.
+
+Another and very frequent visitor, was the Reverend Mr Larynx, the
+vicar of Claydyke, a village about ten miles distant;--a good-natured
+accommodating divine, who was always most obligingly ready to take a
+dinner and a bed at the house of any country gentleman in distress
+for a companion. Nothing came amiss to him,--a game at billiards, at
+chess, at draughts, at backgammon, at piquet, or at all-fours in
+a _tête-à-tête_,--or any game on the cards, round, square, or
+triangular, in a party of any number exceeding two. He would even
+dance among friends, rather than that a lady, even if she were on the
+wrong side of thirty, should sit still for want of a partner. For a
+ride, a walk, or a sail, in the morning,--a song after dinner, a ghost
+story after supper,--a bottle of port with the squire, or a cup of
+green tea with his lady,--for all or any of these, or for any thing
+else that was agreeable to any one else, consistently with the dye of
+his coat, the Reverend Mr Larynx was at all times equally ready. When
+at Nightmare Abbey, he would condole with Mr Glowry,--drink Madeira
+with Scythrop,--crack jokes with Mr Hilary,--hand Mrs Hilary to the
+piano, take charge of her fan and gloves, and turn over her music with
+surprising dexterity,--quote Revelations with Mr Toobad,--and lament
+the good old times of feudal darkness with the transcendental Mr
+Flosky.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Shortly after the disastrous termination of Scythrop's passion for
+Miss Emily Girouette, Mr Glowry found himself, much against his will,
+involved in a lawsuit, which compelled him to dance attendance on the
+High Court of Chancery. Scythrop was left alone at Nightmare Abbey. He
+was a burnt child, and dreaded the fire of female eyes. He wandered
+about the ample pile, or along the garden-terrace, with 'his
+cogitative faculties immersed in cogibundity of cogitation.' The
+terrace terminated at the south-western tower, which, as we have said,
+was ruinous and full of owls. Here would Scythrop take his evening
+seat, on a fallen fragment of mossy stone, with his back resting
+against the ruined wall,--a thick canopy of ivy, with an owl in it,
+over his head,--and the Sorrows of Werter in his hand. He had some
+taste for romance reading before he went to the university, where, we
+must confess, in justice to his college, he was cured of the love of
+reading in all its shapes; and the cure would have been radical, if
+disappointment in love, and total solitude, had not conspired to bring
+on a relapse. He began to devour romances and German tragedies, and,
+by the recommendation of Mr Flosky, to pore over ponderous tomes of
+transcendental philosophy, which reconciled him to the labour of
+studying them by their mystical jargon and necromantic imagery. In
+the congenial solitude of Nightmare Abbey, the distempered ideas of
+metaphysical romance and romantic metaphysics had ample time and space
+to germinate into a fertile crop of chimeras, which rapidly shot up
+into vigorous and abundant vegetation.
+
+He now became troubled with the _passion for reforming the world_.[2]
+He built many castles in the air, and peopled them with secret
+tribunals, and bands of illuminati, who were always the imaginary
+instruments of his projected regeneration of the human species. As he
+intended to institute a perfect republic, he invested himself with
+absolute sovereignty over these mystical dispensers of liberty. He
+slept with Horrid Mysteries under his pillow, and dreamed of venerable
+eleutherarchs and ghastly confederates holding midnight conventions in
+subterranean caves. He passed whole mornings in his study, immersed
+in gloomy reverie, stalking about the room in his nightcap, which
+he pulled over his eyes like a cowl, and folding his striped calico
+dressing-gown about him like the mantle of a conspirator.
+
+'Action,' thus he soliloquised, 'is the result of opinion, and to
+new-model opinion would be to new-model society. Knowledge is power;
+it is in the hands of a few, who employ it to mislead the many, for
+their own selfish purposes of aggrandisement and appropriation. What
+if it were in the hands of a few who should employ it to lead the
+many? What if it were universal, and the multitude were enlightened?
+No. The many must be always in leading-strings; but let them have wise
+and honest conductors. A few to think, and many to act; that is the
+only basis of perfect society. So thought the ancient philosophers:
+they had their esoterical and exoterical doctrines. So thinks the
+sublime Kant, who delivers his oracles in language which none but
+the initiated can comprehend. Such were the views of those secret
+associations of illuminati, which were the terror of superstition and
+tyranny, and which, carefully selecting wisdom and genius from the
+great wilderness of society, as the bee selects honey from the flowers
+of the thorn and the nettle, bound all human excellence in a chain,
+which, if it had not been prematurely broken, would have commanded
+opinion, and regenerated the world.'
+
+Scythrop proceeded to meditate on the practicability of reviving a
+confederation of regenerators. To get a clear view of his own ideas,
+and to feel the pulse of the wisdom and genius of the age, he wrote
+and published a treatise, in which his meanings were carefully wrapt
+up in the monk's hood of transcendental technology, but filled with
+hints of matter deep and dangerous, which he thought would set
+the whole nation in a ferment; and he awaited the result in awful
+expectation, as a miner who has fired a train awaits the explosion of
+a rock. However, he listened and heard nothing; for the explosion, if
+any ensued, was not sufficiently loud to shake a single leaf of the
+ivy on the towers of Nightmare Abbey; and some months afterwards he
+received a letter from his bookseller, informing him that only seven
+copies had been sold, and concluding with a polite request for the
+balance.
+
+Scythrop did not despair. 'Seven copies,' he thought, 'have been sold.
+Seven is a mystical number, and the omen is good. Let me find the
+seven purchasers of my seven copies, and they shall be the seven
+golden candle-sticks with which I will illuminate the world.'
+
+Scythrop had a certain portion of mechanical genius, which his
+romantic projects tended to develope. He constructed models of cells
+and recesses, sliding panels and secret passages, that would have
+baffled the skill of the Parisian police. He took the opportunity of
+his father's absence to smuggle a dumb carpenter into the Abbey, and
+between them they gave reality to one of these models in Scythrop's
+tower. Scythrop foresaw that a great leader of human regeneration
+would be involved in fearful dilemmas, and determined, for the benefit
+of mankind in general, to adopt all possible precautions for the
+preservation of himself.
+
+The servants, even the women, had been tutored into silence. Profound
+stillness reigned throughout and around the Abbey, except when the
+occasional shutting of a door would peal in long reverberations
+through the galleries, or the heavy tread of the pensive butler would
+wake the hollow echoes of the hall. Scythrop stalked about like the
+grand inquisitor, and the servants flitted past him like familiars. In
+his evening meditations on the terrace, under the ivy of the ruined
+tower, the only sounds that came to his ear were the rustling of the
+wind in the ivy, the plaintive voices of the feathered choristers, the
+owls, the occasional striking of the Abbey clock, and the monotonous
+dash of the sea on its low and level shore. In the mean time, he drank
+Madeira, and laid deep schemes for a thorough repair of the crazy
+fabric of human nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mr Glowry returned from London with the loss of his lawsuit. Justice
+was with him, but the law was against him. He found Scythrop in a
+mood most sympathetically tragic; and they vied with each other in
+enlivening their cups by lamenting the depravity of this degenerate
+age, and occasionally interspersing divers grim jokes about graves,
+worms, and epitaphs. Mr Glowry's friends, whom we have mentioned in
+the first chapter, availed themselves of his return to pay him a
+simultaneous visit. At the same time arrived Scythrop's friend and
+fellow-collegian, the Honourable Mr Listless. Mr Glowry had discovered
+this fashionable young gentleman in London, 'stretched on the rack of
+a too easy chair,' and devoured with a gloomy and misanthropical _nil
+curo_, and had pressed him so earnestly to take the benefit of the
+pure country air, at Nightmare Abbey, that Mr Listless, finding it
+would give him more trouble to refuse than to comply, summoned his
+French valet, Fatout, and told him he was going to Lincolnshire. On
+this simple hint, Fatout went to work, and the imperials were packed,
+and the post-chariot was at the door, without the Honourable Mr
+Listless having said or thought another syllable on the subject.
+
+Mr and Mrs Hilary brought with them an orphan niece, a daughter of Mr
+Glowry's youngest sister, who had made a runaway love-match with an
+Irish officer. The lady's fortune disappeared in the first year: love,
+by a natural consequence, disappeared in the second: the Irishman
+himself, by a still more natural consequence, disappeared in the
+third. Mr Glowry had allowed his sister an annuity, and she had lived
+in retirement with her only daughter, whom, at her death, which had
+recently happened, she commended to the care of Mrs Hilary.
+
+Miss Marionetta Celestina O'Carroll was a very blooming and
+accomplished young lady. Being a compound of the _Allegro Vivace_ of
+the O'Carrolls, and of the _Andante Doloroso_ of the Glowries, she
+exhibited in her own character all the diversities of an April sky.
+Her hair was light-brown; her eyes hazel, and sparkling with a mild
+but fluctuating light; her features regular; her lips full, and of
+equal size; and her person surpassingly graceful. She was a proficient
+in music. Her conversation was sprightly, but always on subjects light
+in their nature and limited in their interest: for moral sympathies,
+in any general sense, had no place in her mind. She had some coquetry,
+and more caprice, liking and disliking almost in the same moment;
+pursuing an object with earnestness while it seemed unattainable, and
+rejecting it when in her power as not worth the trouble of possession.
+
+Whether she was touched with a _penchant_ for her cousin Scythrop, or
+was merely curious to see what effect the tender passion would have on
+so _outré_ a person, she had not been three days in the Abbey before
+she threw out all the lures of her beauty and accomplishments to make
+a prize of his heart. Scythrop proved an easy conquest. The image of
+Miss Emily Girouette was already sufficiently dimmed by the power of
+philosophy and the exercise of reason: for to these influences, or to
+any influence but the true one, are usually ascribed the mental cures
+performed by the great physician Time. Scythrop's romantic dreams had
+indeed given him many _pure anticipated cognitions_ of combinations
+of beauty and intelligence, which, he had some misgivings, were not
+exactly realised in his cousin Marionetta; but, in spite of these
+misgivings, he soon became distractedly in love; which, when the young
+lady clearly perceived, she altered her tactics, and assumed as much
+coldness and reserve as she had before shown ardent and ingenuous
+attachment. Scythrop was confounded at the sudden change; but, instead
+of falling at her feet and requesting an explanation, he retreated
+to his tower, muffled himself in his nightcap, seated himself in
+the president's chair of his imaginary secret tribunal, summoned
+Marionetta with all terrible formalities, frightened her out of her
+wits, disclosed himself, and clasped the beautiful penitent to his
+bosom.
+
+While he was acting this reverie--in the moment in which the awful
+president of the secret tribunal was throwing back his cowl and his
+mantle, and discovering himself to the lovely culprit as her adoring
+and magnanimous lover, the door of the study opened, and the real
+Marionetta appeared.
+
+The motives which had led her to the tower were a little penitence, a
+little concern, a little affection, and a little fear as to what the
+sudden secession of Scythrop, occasioned by her sudden change of
+manner, might portend. She had tapped several times unheard, and of
+course unanswered; and at length, timidly and cautiously opening the
+door, she discovered him standing up before a black velvet chair,
+which was mounted on an old oak table, in the act of throwing open his
+striped calico dressing-gown, and flinging away his nightcap--which is
+what the French call an imposing attitude.
+
+Each stood a few moments fixed in their respective places--the lady in
+astonishment, and the gentleman in confusion. Marionetta was the first
+to break silence. 'For heaven's sake,' said she, 'my dear Scythrop,
+what is the matter?'
+
+'For heaven's sake, indeed!' said Scythrop, springing from the table;
+'for your sake, Marionetta, and you are my heaven,--distraction is the
+matter. I adore you, Marionetta, and your cruelty drives me mad.'
+He threw himself at her knees, devoured her hand with kisses, and
+breathed a thousand vows in the most passionate language of romance.
+
+Marionetta listened a long time in silence, till her lover had
+exhausted his eloquence and paused for a reply. She then said, with a
+very arch look, 'I prithee deliver thyself like a man of this world.'
+The levity of this quotation, and of the manner in which it was
+delivered, jarred so discordantly on the high-wrought enthusiasm of
+the romantic inamorato, that he sprang upon his feet, and beat his
+forehead with his clenched fist. The young lady was terrified; and,
+deeming it expedient to soothe him, took one of his hands in hers,
+placed the other hand on his shoulder, looked up in his face with a
+winning seriousness, and said, in the tenderest possible tone, 'What
+would you have, Scythrop?'
+
+Scythrop was in heaven again. 'What would I have? What but you,
+Marionetta? You, for the companion of my studies, the partner of my
+thoughts, the auxiliary of my great designs for the emancipation of
+mankind.'
+
+'I am afraid I should be but a poor auxiliary, Scythrop. What would
+you have me do?'
+
+'Do as Rosalia does with Carlos, divine Marionetta. Let us each open
+a vein in the other's arm, mix our blood in a bowl, and drink it as
+a sacrament of love. Then we shall see visions of transcendental
+illumination, and soar on the wings of ideas into the space of pure
+intelligence.'
+
+Marionetta could not reply; she had not so strong a stomach as
+Rosalia, and turned sick at the proposition. She disengaged herself
+suddenly from Scythrop, sprang through the door of the tower, and fled
+with precipitation along the corridors. Scythrop pursued her, crying,
+'Stop, stop, Marionetta--my life, my love!' and was gaining rapidly on
+her flight, when, at an ill-omened corner, where two corridors ended
+in an angle, at the head of a staircase, he came into sudden and
+violent contact with Mr Toobad, and they both plunged together to the
+foot of the stairs, like two billiard-balls into one pocket. This gave
+the young lady time to escape, and enclose herself in her chamber;
+while Mr Toobad, rising slowly, and rubbing his knees and shoulders,
+said, 'You see, my dear Scythrop, in this little incident, one of the
+innumerable proofs of the temporary supremacy of the devil; for what
+but a systematic design and concurrent contrivance of evil could have
+made the angles of time and place coincide in our unfortunate persons
+at the head of this accursed staircase?'
+
+'Nothing else, certainly,' said Scythrop: 'you are perfectly in the
+right, Mr Toobad. Evil, and mischief, and misery, and confusion,
+and vanity, and vexation of spirit, and death, and disease, and
+assassination, and war, and poverty, and pestilence, and famine, and
+avarice, and selfishness, and rancour, and jealousy, and spleen,
+and malevolence, and the disappointments of philanthropy, and the
+faithlessness of friendship, and the crosses of love--all prove the
+accuracy of your views, and the truth of your system; and it is not
+impossible that the infernal interruption of this fall downstairs may
+throw a colour of evil on the whole of my future existence.'
+
+'My dear boy,' said Mr Toobad, 'you have a fine eye for consequences.'
+
+So saying, he embraced Scythrop, who retired, with a disconsolate
+step, to dress for dinner; while Mr Toobad stalked across the hall,
+repeating, 'Woe to the inhabiters of the earth, and of the sea, for
+the devil is come among you, having great wrath.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The flight of Marionetta, and the pursuit of Scythrop, had been
+witnessed by Mr Glowry, who, in consequence, narrowly observed his son
+and his niece in the evening; and, concluding from their manner, that
+there was a better understanding between them than he wished to see,
+he determined on obtaining the next morning from Scythrop a full and
+satisfactory explanation. He, therefore, shortly after breakfast,
+entered Scythrop's tower, with a very grave face, and said, without
+ceremony or preface, 'So, sir, you are in love with your cousin.'
+
+Scythrop, with as little hesitation, answered, 'Yes, sir.'
+
+'That is candid, at least; and she is in love with you.'
+
+'I wish she were, sir.'
+
+'You know she is, sir.'
+
+'Indeed, sir, I do not.'
+
+'But you hope she is.'
+
+'I do, from my soul.'
+
+'Now that is very provoking, Scythrop, and very disappointing: I could
+not have supposed that you, Scythrop Glowry, of Nightmare Abbey,
+would have been infatuated with such a dancing, laughing, singing,
+thoughtless, careless, merry-hearted thing, as Marionetta--in all
+respects the reverse of you and me. It is very disappointing,
+Scythrop. And do you know, sir, that Marionetta has no fortune?'
+
+'It is the more reason, sir, that her husband should have one.'
+
+'The more reason for her; but not for you. My wife had no fortune, and
+I had no consolation in my calamity. And do you reflect, sir, what an
+enormous slice this lawsuit has cut out of our family estate? we who
+used to be the greatest landed proprietors in Lincolnshire.'
+
+'To be sure, sir, we had more acres of fen than any man on this
+coast: but what are fens to love? What are dykes and windmills to
+Marionetta?'
+
+'And what, sir, is love to a windmill? Not grist, I am certain:
+besides, sir, I have made a choice for you. I have made a choice for
+you, Scythrop. Beauty, genius, accomplishments, and a great fortune
+into the bargain. Such a lovely, serious creature, in a fine state of
+high dissatisfaction with the world, and every thing in it. Such a
+delightful surprise I had prepared for you. Sir, I have pledged my
+honour to the contract--the honour of the Glowries of Nightmare Abbey:
+and now, sir, what is to be done?'
+
+'Indeed, sir, I cannot say. I claim, on this occasion, that liberty of
+action which is the co-natal prerogative of every rational being.'
+
+'Liberty of action, sir? there is no such thing as liberty of action.
+We are all slaves and puppets of a blind and unpathetic necessity.'
+
+'Very true, sir; but liberty of action, between individuals, consists
+in their being differently influenced, or modified, by the same
+universal necessity; so that the results are unconsentaneous, and
+their respective necessitated volitions clash and fly off in a
+tangent.'
+
+'Your logic is good, sir: but you are aware, too, that one individual
+may be a medium of adhibiting to another a mode or form of necessity,
+which may have more or less influence in the production of
+consentaneity; and, therefore, sir, if you do not comply with my
+wishes in this instance (you have had your own way in every thing
+else), I shall be under the necessity of disinheriting you, though
+I shall do it with tears in my eyes.' Having said these words, he
+vanished suddenly, in the dread of Scythrop's logic.
+
+Mr Glowry immediately sought Mrs Hilary, and communicated to her his
+views of the case in point. Mrs Hilary, as the phrase is, was as fond
+of Marionetta as if she had been her own child: but--there is always a
+_but_ on these occasions--she could do nothing for her in the way
+of fortune, as she had two hopeful sons, who were finishing their
+education at Brazen-nose, and who would not like to encounter any
+diminution of their prospects, when they should be brought out of the
+house of mental bondage--i.e. the university--to the land flowing with
+milk and honey--i.e. the west end of London.
+
+Mrs Hilary hinted to Marionetta, that propriety, and delicacy, and
+decorum, and dignity, &c. &c. &c.,[3] would require them to leave the
+Abbey immediately. Marionetta listened in silent submission, for she
+knew that her inheritance was passive obedience; but, when Scythrop,
+who had watched the opportunity of Mrs Hilary's departure, entered,
+and, without speaking a word, threw himself at her feet in a paroxysm
+of grief, the young lady, in equal silence and sorrow, threw her arms
+round his neck and burst into tears. A very tender scene ensued, which
+the sympathetic susceptibilities of the soft-hearted reader can more
+accurately imagine than we can delineate. But when Marionetta hinted
+that she was to leave the Abbey immediately, Scythrop snatched from
+its repository his ancestor's skull, filled it with Madeira, and
+presenting himself before Mr Glowry, threatened to drink off the
+contents if Mr Glowry did not immediately promise that Marionetta
+should not be taken from the Abbey without her own consent. Mr Glowry,
+who took the Madeira to be some deadly brewage, gave the required
+promise in dismal panic. Scythrop returned to Marionetta with a joyful
+heart, and drank the Madeira by the way.
+
+Mr Glowry, during his residence in London, had come to an agreement
+with his friend Mr Toobad, that a match between Scythrop and Mr
+Toobad's daughter would be a very desirable occurrence. She was
+finishing her education in a German convent, but Mr Toobad described
+her as being fully impressed with the truth of his Ahrimanic
+philosophy,[4] and being altogether as gloomy and antithalian a young
+lady as Mr Glowry himself could desire for the future mistress of
+Nightmare Abbey. She had a great fortune in her own right, which was
+not, as we have seen, without its weight in inducing Mr Glowry to
+set his heart upon her as his daughter-in-law that was to be; he was
+therefore very much disturbed by Scythrop's untoward attachment to
+Marionetta. He condoled on the occasion with Mr Toobad; who said, that
+he had been too long accustomed to the intermeddling of the devil in
+all his affairs, to be astonished at this new trace of his cloven
+claw; but that he hoped to outwit him yet, for he was sure there could
+be no comparison between his daughter and Marionetta in the mind of
+any one who had a proper perception of the fact, that, the world
+being a great theatre of evil, seriousness and solemnity are the
+characteristics of wisdom, and laughter and merriment make a human
+being no better than a baboon. Mr Glowry comforted himself with this
+view of the subject, and urged Mr Toobad to expedite his daughter's
+return from Germany. Mr Toobad said he was in daily expectation of her
+arrival in London, and would set off immediately to meet her, that
+he might lose no time in bringing her to Nightmare Abbey. 'Then,' he
+added, 'we shall see whether Thalia or Melpomene--whether the Allegra
+or the Penserosa--will carry off the symbol of victory.'--'There can
+be no doubt,' said Mr Glowry, 'which way the scale will incline, or
+Scythrop is no true scion of the venerable stem of the Glowries.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Marionetta felt secure of Scythrop's heart; and notwithstanding the
+difficulties that surrounded her, she could not debar herself from the
+pleasure of tormenting her lover, whom she kept in a perpetual fever.
+Sometimes she would meet him with the most unqualified affection;
+sometimes with the most chilling indifference; rousing him to anger by
+artificial coldness--softening him to love by eloquent tenderness--or
+inflaming him to jealousy by coquetting with the Honourable Mr
+Listless, who seemed, under her magical influence, to burst into
+sudden life, like the bud of the evening primrose. Sometimes she would
+sit by the piano, and listen with becoming attention to Scythrop's
+pathetic remonstrances; but, in the most impassioned part of his
+oratory, she would convert all his ideas into a chaos, by striking up
+some Rondo Allegro, and saying, 'Is it not pretty?' Scythrop would
+begin to storm; and she would answer him with,
+
+  'Zitti, zitti, piano, piano,
+  Non facciamo confusione,'
+
+or some similar _facezia_, till he would start away from her, and
+enclose himself in his tower, in an agony of agitation, vowing to
+renounce her, and her whole sex, for ever; and returning to her
+presence at the summons of the billet, which she never failed to
+send with many expressions of penitence and promises of amendment.
+Scythrop's schemes for regenerating the world, and detecting his seven
+golden candle-sticks, went on very slowly in this fever of his spirit.
+
+Things proceeded in this train for several days; and Mr Glowry began
+to be uneasy at receiving no intelligence from Mr Toobad; when one
+evening the latter rushed into the library, where the family and the
+visitors were assembled, vociferating, 'The devil is come among
+you, having great wrath!' He then drew Mr Glowry aside into another
+apartment, and after remaining some time together, they re-entered the
+library with faces of great dismay, but did not condescend to explain
+to any one the cause of their discomfiture.
+
+The next morning, early, Mr Toobad departed. Mr Glowry sighed and
+groaned all day, and said not a word to any one. Scythrop had
+quarrelled, as usual, with Marionetta, and was enclosed in his tower,
+in a fit of morbid sensibility. Marionetta was comforting herself at
+the piano, with singing the airs of _Nina pazza per amore_; and the
+Honourable Mr Listless was listening to the harmony, as he lay
+supine on the sofa, with a book in his hand, into which he peeped at
+intervals. The Reverend Mr Larynx approached the sofa, and proposed a
+game at billiards.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Billiards! Really I should be very happy; but, in my present exhausted
+state, the exertion is too much for me. I do not know when I have been
+equal to such an effort. (_He rang the bell for his valet. Fatout
+entered_.) Fatout! when did I play at billiards last?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De fourteen December de last year, Monsieur. (_Fatout bowed and
+retired_.)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+So it was. Seven months ago. You see, Mr Larynx; you see, sir. My
+nerves, Miss O'Carroll, my nerves are shattered. I have been advised
+to try Bath. Some of the faculty recommend Cheltenham. I think of
+trying both, as the seasons don't clash. The season, you know, Mr
+Larynx--the season, Miss O'Carroll--the season is every thing.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+And health is something. _N'est-ce pas_, Mr Larynx?
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Most assuredly, Miss O'Carroll. For, however reasoners may dispute
+about the _summum bonum_, none of them will deny that a very good
+dinner is a very good thing: and what is a good dinner without a good
+appetite? and whence is a good appetite but from good health? Now,
+Cheltenham, Mr Listless, is famous for good appetites.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+The best piece of logic I ever heard, Mr Larynx; the very best,
+I assure you. I have thought very seriously of Cheltenham: very
+seriously and profoundly. I thought of it--let me see--when did I
+think of it? (_He rang again, and Fatout reappeared._) Fatout! when
+did I think of going to Cheltenham, and did not go?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De Juillet twenty-von, de last summer, Monsieur. (_Fatout retired._)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+So it was. An invaluable fellow that, Mr Larynx--invaluable, Miss
+O'Carroll.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+So I should judge, indeed. He seems to serve you as a walking memory,
+and to be a living chronicle, not of your actions only, but of your
+thoughts.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+An excellent definition of the fellow, Miss O'Carroll,--excellent,
+upon my honour. Ha! ha! he! Heigho! Laughter is pleasant, but the
+exertion is too much for me.
+
+
+A parcel was brought in for Mr Listless; it had been sent express.
+Fatout was summoned to unpack it; and it proved to contain a new
+novel, and a new poem, both of which had long been anxiously expected
+by the whole host of fashionable readers; and the last number of a
+popular Review, of which the editor and his coadjutors were in high
+favour at court, and enjoyed ample pensions[5] for their services to
+church and state. As Fatout left the room, Mr Flosky entered, and
+curiously inspected the literary arrivals.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+(_Turning over the leaves._) 'Devilman, a novel.' Hm. Hatred--revenge--
+misanthropy--and quotations from the Bible. Hm. This is the morbid
+anatomy of black bile.--'Paul Jones, a poem.' Hm. I see how it is.
+Paul Jones, an amiable enthusiast--disappointed in his affections--
+turns pirate from ennui and magnanimity--cuts various masculine
+throats, wins various feminine hearts--is hanged at the yard-arm! The
+catastrophe is very awkward, and very unpoetical.--'The Downing Street
+Review.' Hm. First article--An Ode to the Red Book, by Roderick
+Sackbut, Esquire. Hm. His own poem reviewed by himself. Hm--m--m.
+
+
+(_Mr Flosky proceeded in silence to look over the other articles
+of the review; Marionetta inspected the novel, and Mr Listless the
+poem._)
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+For a young man of fashion and family, Mr Listless, you seem to be of
+a very studious turn.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Studious! You are pleased to be facetious, Mr Larynx. I hope you do
+not suspect me of being studious. I have finished my education. But
+there are some fashionable books that one must read, because they are
+ingredients of the talk of the day; otherwise, I am no fonder of books
+than I dare say you yourself are, Mr Larynx.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Why, sir, I cannot say that I am indeed particularly fond of books;
+yet neither can I say that I never do read. A tale or a poem, now and
+then, to a circle of ladies over their work, is no very heterodox
+employment of the vocal energy. And I must say, for myself, that
+few men have a more Job-like endurance of the eternally recurring
+questions and answers that interweave themselves, on these occasions,
+with the crisis of an adventure, and heighten the distress of a
+tragedy.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And very often make the distress when the author has omitted it.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I shall try your patience some rainy morning, Mr Larynx; and Mr
+Listless shall recommend us the very newest new book, that every body
+reads.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You shall receive it, Miss O'Carroll, with all the gloss of novelty;
+fresh as a ripe green-gage in all the downiness of its bloom. A
+mail-coach copy from Edinburgh, forwarded express from London.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+This rage for novelty is the bane of literature. Except my works and
+those of my particular friends, nothing is good that is not as old as
+Jeremy Taylor: and, _entre nous_, the best parts of my friends' books
+were either written or suggested by myself.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Sir, I reverence you. But I must say, modern books are very
+consolatory and congenial to my feelings. There is, as it were, a
+delightful north-east wind, an intellectual blight breathing through
+them; a delicious misanthropy and discontent, that demonstrates the
+nullity of virtue and energy, and puts me in good humour with myself
+and my sofa.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Very true, sir. Modern literature is a north-east wind--a blight of
+the human soul. I take credit to myself for having helped to make it
+so. The way to produce fine fruit is to blight the flower. You call
+this a paradox. Marry, so be it. Ponder thereon.
+
+
+The conversation was interrupted by the re-appearance of Mr Toobad,
+covered with mud. He just showed himself at the door, muttered 'The
+devil is come among you!' and vanished. The road which connected
+Nightmare Abbey with the civilised world, was artificially raised
+above the level of the fens, and ran through them in a straight line
+as far as the eye could reach, with a ditch on each side, of which the
+water was rendered invisible by the aquatic vegetation that covered
+the surface. Into one of these ditches the sudden action of a
+shy horse, which took fright at a windmill, had precipitated the
+travelling chariot of Mr Toobad, who had been reduced to the necessity
+of scrambling in dismal plight through the window. One of the wheels
+was found to be broken; and Mr Toobad, leaving the postilion to
+get the chariot as well as he could to Claydyke for the purpose of
+cleaning and repairing, had walked back to Nightmare Abbey, followed
+by his servant with the imperial, and repeating all the way his
+favourite quotation from the Revelations.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Mr Toobad had found his daughter Celinda in London, and after the
+first joy of meeting was over, told her he had a husband ready for
+her. The young lady replied, very gravely, that she should take the
+liberty to choose for herself. Mr Toobad said he saw the devil was
+determined to interfere with all his projects, but he was resolved
+on his own part, not to have on his conscience the crime of passive
+obedience and non-resistance to Lucifer, and therefore she should
+marry the person he had chosen for her. Miss Toobad replied, _très
+posément_, she assuredly would not. 'Celinda, Celinda,' said Mr
+Toobad, 'you most assuredly shall.'--'Have I not a fortune in my own
+right, sir?' said Celinda. 'The more is the pity,' said Mr Toobad:
+'but I can find means, miss; I can find means. There are more ways
+than one of breaking in obstinate girls.' They parted for the night
+with the expression of opposite resolutions, and in the morning the
+young lady's chamber was found empty, and what was become of her Mr
+Toobad had no clue to conjecture. He continued to investigate town and
+country in search of her; visiting and revisiting Nightmare Abbey at
+intervals, to consult with his friend, Mr Glowry. Mr Glowry agreed
+with Mr Toobad that this was a very flagrant instance of filial
+disobedience and rebellion; and Mr Toobad declared, that when he
+discovered the fugitive, she should find that 'the devil was come unto
+her, having great wrath.'
+
+In the evening, the whole party met, as usual, in the library.
+Marionetta sat at the harp; the Honourable Mr Listless sat by her and
+turned over her music, though the exertion was almost too much
+for him. The Reverend Mr Larynx relieved him occasionally in this
+delightful labour. Scythrop, tormented by the demon Jealousy, sat in
+the corner biting his lips and fingers. Marionetta looked at him every
+now and then with a smile of most provoking good humour, which he
+pretended not to see, and which only the more exasperated his troubled
+spirit. He took down a volume of Dante, and pretended to be deeply
+interested in the Purgatorio, though he knew not a word he was
+reading, as Marionetta was well aware; who, tripping across the room,
+peeped into his book, and said to him, 'I see you are in the middle of
+Purgatory.'--'I am in the middle of hell,' said Scythrop furiously.
+'Are you?' said she; 'then come across the room, and I will sing you
+the finale of Don Giovanni.'
+
+'Let me alone,' said Scythrop. Marionetta looked at him with a
+deprecating smile, and said, 'You unjust, cross creature, you.'--'Let
+me alone,' said Scythrop, but much less emphatically than at first,
+and by no means wishing to be taken at his word. Marionetta left him
+immediately, and returning to the harp, said, just loud enough for
+Scythrop to hear--'Did you ever read Dante, Mr Listless? Scythrop
+is reading Dante, and is just now in Purgatory.'--'And I' said the
+Honourable Mr Listless, 'am not reading Dante, and am just now in
+Paradise,' bowing to Marionetta.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+You are very gallant, Mr Listless; and I dare say you are very fond of
+reading Dante.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I don't know how it is, but Dante never came in my way till lately. I
+never had him in my collection, and if I had had him I should not have
+read him. But I find he is growing fashionable, and I am afraid I must
+read him some wet morning.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+No, read him some evening, by all means. Were you ever in love, Mr
+Listless?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I assure you, Miss O'Carroll, never--till I came to Nightmare Abbey.
+I dare say it is very pleasant; but it seems to give so much trouble
+that I fear the exertion would be too much for me.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Shall I teach you a compendious method of courtship, that will give
+you no trouble whatever?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You will confer on me an inexpressible obligation. I am all impatience
+to learn it.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Sit with your back to the lady and read Dante; only be sure to begin
+in the middle, and turn over three or four pages at once--backwards
+as well as forwards, and she will immediately perceive that you are
+desperately in love with her--desperately.
+
+
+_(The Honourable Mr Listless sitting between Scythrop and Marionetta,
+and fixing all his attention on the beautiful speaker, did not observe
+Scythrop, who was doing as she described.)_
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You are pleased to be facetious, Miss O'Carroll. The lady would
+infallibly conclude that I was the greatest brute in town.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Far from it. She would say, perhaps, some people have odd methods of
+showing their affection.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+But I should think, with submission--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_joining them from another part of the room_)
+
+Did I not hear Mr Listless observe that Dante is becoming fashionable?
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I did hazard a remark to that effect, Mr Flosky, though I speak on
+such subjects with a consciousness of my own nothingness, in the
+presence of so great a man as Mr Flosky. I know not what is the colour
+of Dante's devils, but as he is certainly becoming fashionable I
+conclude they are blue; for the blue devils, as it seems to me, Mr
+Flosky, constitute the fundamental feature of fashionable literature.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The blue are, indeed, the staple commodity; but as they will not
+always be commanded, the black, red, and grey may be admitted as
+substitutes. Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution, have played
+the devil, Mr Listless, and brought the devil into play.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD (_starting up_)
+
+Having great wrath.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+This is no play upon words, but the sober sadness of veritable fact.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Tea, late dinners, and the French Revolution. I cannot exactly see the
+connection of ideas.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I should be sorry if you could; I pity the man who can see the
+connection of his own ideas. Still more do I pity him, the connection
+of whose ideas any other person can see. Sir, the great evil is,
+that there is too much common-place light in our moral and political
+literature; and light is a great enemy to mystery, and mystery is a
+great friend to enthusiasm. Now the enthusiasm for abstract truth is
+an exceedingly fine thing, as long as the truth, which is the object
+of the enthusiasm, is so completely abstract as to be altogether out
+of the reach of the human faculties; and, in that sense, I have
+myself an enthusiasm for truth, but in no other, for the pleasure of
+metaphysical investigation lies in the means, not in the end; and if
+the end could be found, the pleasure of the means would cease. The
+mind, to be kept in health, must be kept in exercise. The proper
+exercise of the mind is elaborate reasoning. Analytical reasoning is a
+base and mechanical process, which takes to pieces and examines, bit
+by bit, the rude material of knowledge, and extracts therefrom a few
+hard and obstinate things called facts, every thing in the shape of
+which I cordially hate. But synthetical reasoning, setting up as its
+goal some unattainable abstraction, like an imaginary quantity in
+algebra, and commencing its course with taking for granted some two
+assertions which cannot be proved, from the union of these two assumed
+truths produces a third assumption, and so on in infinite series, to
+the unspeakable benefit of the human intellect. The beauty of this
+process is, that at every step it strikes out into two branches, in
+a compound ratio of ramification; so that you are perfectly sure of
+losing your way, and keeping your mind in perfect health, by the
+perpetual exercise of an interminable quest; and for these reasons I
+have christened my eldest son Emanuel Kant Flosky.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Nothing can be more luminous.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And what has all that to do with Dante, and the blue devils?
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Not much, I should think, with Dante, but a great deal with the blue
+devils.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It is very certain, and much to be rejoiced at, that our literature is
+hag-ridden. Tea has shattered our nerves; late dinners make us slaves
+of indigestion; the French Revolution has made us shrink from the name
+of philosophy, and has destroyed, in the more refined part of the
+community (of which number I am one), all enthusiasm for political
+liberty. That part of the _reading public_ which shuns the solid
+food of reason for the light diet of fiction, requires a perpetual
+adhibition of _sauce piquante_ to the palate of its depraved
+imagination. It lived upon ghosts, goblins, and skeletons (I and my
+friend Mr Sackbut served up a few of the best), till even the devil
+himself, though magnified to the size of Mount Athos, became too base,
+common, and popular, for its surfeited appetite. The ghosts have
+therefore been laid, and the devil has been cast into outer darkness,
+and now the delight of our spirits is to dwell on all the vices and
+blackest passions of our nature, tricked out in a masquerade dress of
+heroism and disappointed benevolence; the whole secret of which lies
+in forming combinations that contradict all our experience, and
+affixing the purple shred of some particular virtue to that precise
+character, in which we should be most certain not to find it in the
+living world; and making this single virtue not only redeem all the
+real and manifest vices of the character, but make them actually
+pass for necessary adjuncts, and indispensable accompaniments and
+characteristics of the said virtue.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+That is, because the devil is come among us, and finds it for his
+interest to destroy all our perceptions of the distinctions of right
+and wrong.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I do not precisely enter into your meaning, Mr Flosky, and should be
+glad if you would make it a little more plain to me.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+One or two examples will do it, Miss O'Carroll. If I were to take all
+the mean and sordid qualities of a money-dealing Jew, and tack on to
+them, as with a nail, the quality of extreme benevolence, I should
+have a very decent hero for a modern novel; and should contribute my
+quota to the fashionable method of administering a mass of vice, under
+a thin and unnatural covering of virtue, like a spider wrapt in a
+bit of gold leaf, and administered as a wholesome pill. On the same
+principle, if a man knocks me down, and takes my purse and watch by
+main force, I turn him to account, and set him forth in a tragedy as
+a dashing young fellow, disinherited for his romantic generosity, and
+full of a most amiable hatred of the world in general, and his own
+country in particular, and of a most enlightened and chivalrous
+affection for himself: then, with the addition of a wild girl to fall
+in love with him, and a series of adventures in which they break all
+the Ten Commandments in succession (always, you will observe, for some
+sublime motive, which must be carefully analysed in its progress), I
+have as amiable a pair of tragic characters as ever issued from that
+new region of the belles lettres, which I have called the Morbid
+Anatomy of Black Bile, and which is greatly to be admired and rejoiced
+at, as affording a fine scope for the exhibition of mental power.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Which is about as well employed as the power of a hothouse would be in
+forcing up a nettle to the size of an elm. If we go on in this way, we
+shall have a new art of poetry, of which one of the first rules will
+be: To remember to forget that there are any such things as sunshine
+and music in the world.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+It seems to be the case with us at present, or we should not have
+interrupted Miss O'Carroll's music with this exceedingly dry
+conversation.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I should be most happy if Miss O'Carroll would remind us that there
+are yet both music and sunshine--
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+In the voice and the smile of beauty. May I entreat the favour
+of--(_turning over the pages of music._)
+
+
+All were silent, and Marionetta sung:
+
+  Why are thy looks so blank, grey friar?
+  Why are thy looks so blue?
+  Thou seem'st more pale and lank, grey friar,
+  Than thou wast used to do:--
+  Say, what has made thee rue?
+
+  Thy form was plump, and a light did shine
+  In thy round and ruby face,
+  Which showed an outward visible sign
+  Of an inward spiritual grace:--
+  Say, what has changed thy case?
+
+  Yet will I tell thee true, grey friar,
+  I very well can see,
+  That, if thy looks are blue, grey friar,
+  'Tis all for love of me,--
+  'Tis all for love of me.
+
+  But breathe not thy vows to me, grey friar,
+  Oh, breathe them not, I pray;
+  For ill beseems in a reverend friar,
+  The love of a mortal may;
+  And I needs must say thee nay.
+
+  But, could'st thou think my heart to move
+  With that pale and silent scowl?
+  Know, he who would win a maiden's love,
+  Whether clad in cap or cowl,
+  Must be more of a lark than an owl.
+
+
+Scythrop immediately replaced Dante on the shelf, and joined the
+circle round the beautiful singer. Marionetta gave him a smile of
+approbation that fully restored his complacency, and they continued
+on the best possible terms during the remainder of the evening. The
+Honourable Mr Listless turned over the leaves with double alacrity,
+saying, 'You are severe upon invalids, Miss O'Carroll: to escape your
+satire, I must try to be sprightly, though the exertion is too much
+for me.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A new visitor arrived at the Abbey, in the person of Mr Asterias,
+the ichthyologist. This gentleman had passed his life in seeking the
+living wonders of the deep through the four quarters of the world;
+he had a cabinet of stuffed and dried fishes, of shells, sea-weeds,
+corals, and madrepores, that was the admiration and envy of the Royal
+Society. He had penetrated into the watery den of the Sepia Octopus,
+disturbed the conjugal happiness of that turtle-dove of the ocean, and
+come off victorious in a sanguinary conflict. He had been becalmed
+in the tropical seas, and had watched, in eager expectation, though
+unhappily always in vain, to see the colossal polypus rise from the
+water, and entwine its enormous arms round the masts and the rigging.
+He maintained the origin of all things from water, and insisted that
+the polypodes were the first of animated things, and that, from their
+round bodies and many-shooting arms, the Hindoos had taken their gods,
+the most ancient of deities. But the chief object of his ambition, the
+end and aim of his researches, was to discover a triton and a mermaid,
+the existence of which he most potently and implicitly believed, and
+was prepared to demonstrate, _à priori, à posteriori, à fortiori_,
+synthetically and analytically, syllogistically and inductively,
+by arguments deduced both from acknowledged facts and plausible
+hypotheses. A report that a mermaid had been seen 'sleeking her soft
+alluring locks' on the sea-coast of Lincolnshire, had brought him in
+great haste from London, to pay a long-promised and often-postponed
+visit to his old acquaintance, Mr Glowry.
+
+Mr Asterias was accompanied by his son, to whom he had given the name
+of Aquarius--flattering himself that he would, in the process of time,
+become a constellation among the stars of ichthyological science. What
+charitable female had lent him the mould in which this son was cast,
+no one pretended to know; and, as he never dropped the most distant
+allusion to Aquarius's mother, some of the wags of London maintained
+that he had received the favours of a mermaid, and that the scientific
+perquisitions which kept him always prowling about the sea-shore, were
+directed by the less philosophical motive of regaining his lost love.
+
+Mr Asterias perlustrated the sea-coast for several days, and reaped
+disappointment, but not despair. One night, shortly after his arrival,
+he was sitting in one of the windows of the library, looking towards
+the sea, when his attention was attracted by a figure which was moving
+near the edge of the surf, and which was dimly visible through the
+moonless summer night. Its motions were irregular, like those of a
+person in a state of indecision. It had extremely long hair, which
+floated in the wind. Whatever else it might be, it certainly was not a
+fisherman. It might be a lady; but it was neither Mrs Hilary nor Miss
+O'Carroll, for they were both in the library. It might be one of the
+female servants; but it had too much grace, and too striking an air of
+habitual liberty, to render it probable. Besides, what should one of
+the female servants be doing there at this hour, moving to and fro,
+as it seemed, without any visible purpose? It could scarcely be a
+stranger; for Claydyke, the nearest village, was ten miles distant;
+and what female would come ten miles across the fens, for no purpose
+but to hover over the surf under the walls of Nightmare Abbey? Might
+it not be a mermaid? It was possibly a mermaid. It was probably a
+mermaid. It was very probably a mermaid. Nay, what else could it be
+but a mermaid? It certainly was a mermaid. Mr Asterias stole out of
+the library on tiptoe, with his finger on his lips, having beckoned
+Aquarius to follow him.
+
+The rest of the party was in great surprise at Mr Asterias's movement,
+and some of them approached the window to see if the locality would
+tend to elucidate the mystery. Presently they saw him and Aquarius
+cautiously stealing along on the other side of the moat, but they saw
+nothing more; and Mr Asterias returning, told them, with accents of
+great disappointment, that he had had a glimpse of a mermaid, but she
+had eluded him in the darkness, and was gone, he presumed, to sup with
+some enamoured triton, in a submarine grotto.
+
+'But, seriously, Mr Asterias,' said the Honourable Mr Listless, 'do
+you positively believe there are such things as mermaids?'
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Most assuredly; and tritons too.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+What! things that are half human and half fish?
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Precisely. They are the oran-outangs of the sea. But I am persuaded
+that there are also complete sea men, differing in no respect from us,
+but that they are stupid, and covered with scales; for, though our
+organisation seems to exclude us essentially from the class of
+amphibious animals, yet anatomists well know that the _foramen ovale_
+may remain open in an adult, and that respiration is, in that case,
+not necessary to life: and how can it be otherwise explained that the
+Indian divers, employed in the pearl fishery, pass whole hours under
+the water; and that the famous Swedish gardener of Troningholm lived
+a day and a half under the ice without being drowned? A nereid, or
+mermaid, was taken in the year 1403 in a Dutch lake, and was in every
+respect like a French woman, except that she did not speak. Towards
+the end of the seventeenth century, an English ship, a hundred and
+fifty leagues from land, in the Greenland seas, discovered a flotilla
+of sixty or seventy little skiffs, in each of which was a triton, or
+sea man: at the approach of the English vessel the whole of them,
+seized with simultaneous fear, disappeared, skiffs and all, under
+the water, as if they had been a human variety of the nautilus. The
+illustrious Don Feijoo has preserved an authentic and well-attested
+story of a young Spaniard, named Francis de la Vega, who, bathing with
+some of his friends in June, 1674, suddenly dived under the sea and
+rose no more. His friends thought him drowned; they were plebeians and
+pious Catholics; but a philosopher might very legitimately have drawn
+the same conclusion.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Nothing could be more logical.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Five years afterwards, some fishermen near Cadiz found in their nets a
+triton, or sea man; they spoke to him in several languages--
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+They were very learned fishermen.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+They had the gift of tongues by especial favour of their brother
+fisherman, Saint Peter.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Is Saint Peter the tutelar saint of Cadiz?
+
+
+(_None of the company could answer this question, and_ MR ASTERIAS
+_proceeded_.)
+
+They spoke to him in several languages, but he was as mute as a fish.
+They handed him over to some holy friars, who exorcised him; but the
+devil was mute too. After some days he pronounced the name Lierganes.
+A monk took him to that village. His mother and brothers recognised
+and embraced him; but he was as insensible to their caresses as any
+other fish would have been. He had some scales on his body, which
+dropped off by degrees; but his skin was as hard and rough as
+shagreen. He stayed at home nine years, without recovering his
+speech or his reason: he then disappeared again; and one of his old
+acquaintance, some years after, saw him pop his head out of the water
+near the coast of the Asturias. These facts were certified by his
+brothers, and by Don Gaspardo de la Riba Aguero, Knight of Saint
+James, who lived near Lierganes, and often had the pleasure of
+our triton's company to dinner.--Pliny mentions an embassy of the
+Olyssiponians to Tiberius, to give him intelligence of a triton which
+had been heard playing on its shell in a certain cave; with several
+other authenticated facts on the subject of tritons and nereids.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You astonish me. I have been much on the sea-shore, in the season, but
+I do not think I ever saw a mermaid. (_He rang, and summoned Fatout,
+who made his appearance half-seas-over_.) Fatout! did I ever see a
+mermaid?
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Mermaid! mer-r-m-m-aid! Ah! merry maid! Oui, monsieur! Yes, sir, very
+many. I vish dere vas von or two here in de kitchen--ma foi! Dey be
+all as melancholic as so many tombstone.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I mean, Fatout, an odd kind of human fish.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+De odd fish! Ah, oui! I understand de phrase: ve have seen nothing
+else since ve left town--ma foi!
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You seem to have a cup too much, sir.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Non, monsieur: de cup too little. De fen be very unwholesome, and I
+drink-a-de ponch vid Raven de butler, to keep out de bad air.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Fatout! I insist on your being sober.
+
+
+FATOUT
+
+Oui, monsieur; I vil be as sober as de révérendissime père Jean. I
+should be ver glad of de merry maid; but de butler be de odd fish,
+and he swim in de bowl de ponch. Ah! ah! I do recollect de leetle-a
+song:--'About fair maids, and about fair maids, and about my merry
+maids all.' (_Fatout reeled out, singing_.)
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I am overwhelmed: I never saw the rascal in such a condition before.
+But will you allow me, Mr Asterias, to inquire into the _cui bono_ of
+all the pains and expense you have incurred to discover a mermaid? The
+_cui bono_, sir, is the question I always take the liberty to ask when
+I see any one taking much trouble for any object. I am myself a sort
+of Signor Pococurante, and should like to know if there be any thing
+better or pleasanter, than the state of existing and doing nothing?
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+I have made many voyages, Mr Listless, to remote and barren shores:
+I have travelled over desert and inhospitable lands: I have defied
+danger--I have endured fatigue--I have submitted to privation. In the
+midst of these I have experienced pleasures which I would not at any
+time have exchanged for that of existing and doing nothing. I have
+known many evils, but I have never known the worst of all, which, as
+it seems to me, are those which are comprehended in the inexhaustible
+varieties of _ennui_: spleen, chagrin, vapours, blue devils,
+time-killing, discontent, misanthropy, and all their interminable
+train of fretfulness, querulousness, suspicions, jealousies, and
+fears, which have alike infected society, and the literature of
+society; and which would make an arctic ocean of the human mind, if
+the more humane pursuits of philosophy and science did not keep alive
+the better feelings and more valuable energies of our nature.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+You are pleased to be severe upon our fashionable belles lettres.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS
+
+Surely not without reason, when pirates, highwaymen, and other
+varieties of the extensive genus Marauder, are the only _beau idéal_
+of the active, as splenetic and railing misanthropy is of the
+speculative energy. A gloomy brow and a tragical voice seem to have
+been of late the characteristics of fashionable manners: and a morbid,
+withering, deadly, antisocial sirocco, loaded with moral and political
+despair, breathes through all the groves and valleys of the modern
+Parnassus; while science moves on in the calm dignity of its course,
+affording to youth delights equally pure and vivid--to maturity, calm
+and grateful occupation--to old age, the most pleasing recollections
+and inexhaustible materials of agreeable and salutary reflection; and,
+while its votary enjoys the disinterested pleasure of enlarging the
+intellect and increasing the comforts of society, he is himself
+independent of the caprices of human intercourse and the accidents of
+human fortune. Nature is his great and inexhaustible treasure. His
+days are always too short for his enjoyment: _ennui_, is a stranger to
+his door. At peace with the world and with his own mind, he suffices
+to himself, makes all around him happy, and the close of his pleasing
+and beneficial existence is the evening of a beautiful day.[6]
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Really I should like very well to lead such a life myself, but the
+exertion would be too much for me. Besides, I have been at college.
+I contrive to get through my day by sinking the morning in bed,
+and killing the evening in company; dressing and dining in the
+intermediate space, and stopping the chinks and crevices of the few
+vacant moments that remain with a little easy reading. And that
+amiable discontent and antisociality which you reprobate in our
+present drawing-room-table literature, I find, I do assure you, a very
+fine mental tonic, which reconciles me to my favourite pursuit of
+doing nothing, by showing me that nobody is worth doing any thing for.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+But is there not in such compositions a kind of unconscious
+self-detection, which seems to carry their own antidote with them? For
+surely no one who cordially and truly either hates or despises the
+world will publish a volume every three months to say so.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+There is a secret in all this, which I will elucidate with a dusky
+remark. According to Berkeley, the _esse_ of things is _percipi_. They
+exist as they are perceived. But, leaving for the present, as far
+as relates to the material world, the materialists, hyloists, and
+antihyloists, to settle this point among them, which is indeed
+
+  A subtle question, raised among
+  Those out o' their wits, and those i' the wrong:
+
+for only we transcendentalists are in the right: we may very safely
+assert that the _esse_ of happiness is _percipi_. It exists as it is
+perceived. 'It is the mind that maketh well or ill.' The elements of
+pleasure and pain are every where. The degree of happiness that any
+circumstances or objects can confer on us depends on the mental
+disposition with which we approach them. If you consider what is meant
+by the common phrases, a happy disposition and a discontented temper,
+you will perceive that the truth for which I am contending is
+universally admitted.
+
+
+_(Mr Flosky suddenly stopped: he found himself unintentionally
+trespassing within the limits of common sense.)_
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+It is very true; a happy disposition finds materials of enjoyment
+every where. In the city, or the country--in society, or in
+solitude--in the theatre, or the forest--in the hum of the multitude,
+or in the silence of the mountains, are alike materials of reflection
+and elements of pleasure. It is one mode of pleasure to listen to
+the music of 'Don Giovanni,' in a theatre glittering with light, and
+crowded with elegance and beauty: it is another to glide at sunset
+over the bosom of a lonely lake, where no sound disturbs the silence
+but the motion of the boat through the waters. A happy disposition
+derives pleasure from both, a discontented temper from neither, but
+is always busy in detecting deficiencies, and feeding dissatisfaction
+with comparisons. The one gathers all the flowers, the other all the
+nettles, in its path. The one has the faculty of enjoying every thing,
+the other of enjoying nothing. The one realises all the pleasure of
+the present good; the other converts it into pain, by pining after
+something better, which is only better because it is not present, and
+which, if it were present, would not be enjoyed. These morbid spirits
+are in life what professed critics are in literature; they see nothing
+but faults, because they are predetermined to shut their eyes to
+beauties. The critic does his utmost to blight genius in its infancy;
+that which rises in spite of him he will not see; and then he
+complains of the decline of literature. In like manner, these cankers
+of society complain of human nature and society, when they have
+wilfully debarred themselves from all the good they contain, and done
+their utmost to blight their own happiness and that of all around
+them. Misanthropy is sometimes the product of disappointed
+benevolence; but it is more frequently the offspring of overweening
+and mortified vanity, quarrelling with the world for not being better
+treated than it deserves.
+
+
+SCYTHROP (_to Marionetta_)
+
+These remarks are rather uncharitable. There is great good in human
+nature, but it is at present ill-conditioned. Ardent spirits cannot
+but be dissatisfied with things as they are; and, according to their
+views of the probabilities of amelioration, they will rush into the
+extremes of either hope or despair--of which the first is enthusiasm,
+and the second misanthropy; but their sources in this case are the
+same, as the Severn and the Wye run in different directions, and both
+rise in Plinlimmon.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+'And there is salmon in both;' for the resemblance is about as close
+as that between Macedon and Monmouth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Marionetta observed the next day a remarkable perturbation in
+Scythrop, for which she could not imagine any probable cause. She was
+willing to believe at first that it had some transient and trifling
+source, and would pass off in a day or two; but, contrary to this
+expectation, it daily increased. She was well aware that Scythrop had
+a strong tendency to the love of mystery, for its own sake; that is
+to say, he would employ mystery to serve a purpose, but would first
+choose his purpose by its capability of mystery. He seemed now to have
+more mystery on his hands than the laws of the system allowed, and to
+wear his coat of darkness with an air of great discomfort. All her
+little playful arts lost by degrees much of their power either to
+irritate or to soothe; and the first perception of her diminished
+influence produced in her an immediate depression of spirits, and a
+consequent sadness of demeanour, that rendered her very interesting to
+Mr Glowry; who, duly considering the improbability of accomplishing
+his wishes with respect to Miss Toobad (which improbability naturally
+increased in the diurnal ratio of that young lady's absence), began
+to reconcile himself by degrees to the idea of Marionetta being his
+daughter.
+
+Marionetta made many ineffectual attempts to extract from Scythrop the
+secret of his mystery; and, in despair of drawing it from himself,
+began to form hopes that she might find a clue to it from Mr Flosky,
+who was Scythrop's dearest friend, and was more frequently than any
+other person admitted to his solitary tower. Mr Flosky, however, had
+ceased to be visible in a morning. He was engaged in the composition
+of a dismal ballad; and, Marionetta's uneasiness overcoming her
+scruples of decorum, she determined to seek him in the apartment which
+he had chosen for his study. She tapped at the door, and at the sound
+'Come in,' entered the apartment. It was noon, and the sun was shining
+in full splendour, much to the annoyance of Mr Flosky, who had
+obviated the inconvenience by closing the shutters, and drawing
+the window-curtains. He was sitting at his table by the light of a
+solitary candle, with a pen in one hand, and a muffineer in the other,
+with which he occasionally sprinkled salt on the wick, to make it burn
+blue. He sate with 'his eye in a fine frenzy rolling,' and turned his
+inspired gaze on Marionetta as if she had been the ghastly ladie of
+a magical vision; then placed his hand before his eyes, with an
+appearance of manifest pain--shook his head--withdrew his hand--rubbed
+his eyes, like a waking man--and said, in a tone of ruefulness most
+jeremitaylorically pathetic, 'To what am I to attribute this very
+unexpected pleasure, my dear Miss O'Carroll?'
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I must apologise for intruding on you, Mr Flosky; but the interest
+which I--you--take in my cousin Scythrop--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Pardon me, Miss O'Carroll; I do not take any interest in any person or
+thing on the face of the earth; which sentiment, if you analyse it,
+you will find to be the quintessence of the most refined philanthropy.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I will take it for granted that it is so, Mr Flosky; I am not
+conversant with metaphysical subtleties, but--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Subtleties! my dear Miss O'Carroll. I am sorry to find you
+participating in the vulgar error of the _reading public,_ to whom
+an unusual collocation of words, involving a juxtaposition of
+antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of
+hyperoxysophistical paradoxology.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Indeed, Mr Flosky, it suggests no such notion to me. I have sought you
+for the purpose of obtaining information.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY _(shaking his head)_
+
+No one ever sought me for such a purpose before.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I think, Mr Flosky--that is, I believe--that is, I fancy--that is, I
+imagine--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The [Greek: toytesti], the _id est_, the _cioè_, the _c'est à dire_,
+the _that is_, my dear Miss O'Carroll, is not applicable in this
+case--if you will permit me to take the liberty of saying so. Think
+is not synonymous with believe--for belief, in many most important
+particulars, results from the total absence, the absolute negation of
+thought, and is thereby the sane and orthodox condition of mind; and
+thought and belief are both essentially different from fancy, and
+fancy, again, is distinct from imagination. This distinction between
+fancy and imagination is one of the most abstruse and important points
+of metaphysics. I have written seven hundred pages of promise to
+elucidate it, which promise I shall keep as faithfully as the bank
+will its promise to pay.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I assure you, Mr Flosky, I care no more about metaphysics than I do
+about the bank; and, if you will condescend to talk to a simple girl
+in intelligible terms--
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Say not condescend! Know you not that you talk to the most humble of
+men, to one who has buckled on the armour of sanctity, and clothed
+himself with humility as with a garment?
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+My cousin Scythrop has of late had an air of mystery about him, which
+gives me great uneasiness.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+That is strange: nothing is so becoming to a man as an air of mystery.
+Mystery is the very key-stone of all that is beautiful in poetry, all
+that is sacred in faith, and all that is recondite in transcendental
+psychology. I am writing a ballad which is all mystery; it is 'such
+stuff as dreams are made of,' and is, indeed, stuff made of a dream;
+for, last night I fell asleep as usual over my book, and had a vision
+of pure reason. I composed five hundred lines in my sleep; so that,
+having had a dream of a ballad, I am now officiating as my own Peter
+Quince, and making a ballad of my dream, and it shall be called
+Bottom's Dream, because it has no bottom.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I see, Mr Flosky, you think my intrusion unseasonable, and are
+inclined to punish it, by talking nonsense to me. (_Mr Flosky gave a
+start at the word nonsense, which almost overturned the table._) I
+assure you, I would not have intruded if I had not been very much
+interested in the question I wish to ask you.--(_Mr Flosky listened
+in sullen dignity._)--My cousin Scythrop seems to have some secret
+preying on his mind.--(_Mr Flosky was silent._)--He seems very
+unhappy--Mr Flosky.--Perhaps you are acquainted with the cause.--(_Mr
+Flosky was still silent._)--I only wish to know--Mr Flosky--if it is
+any thing--that could be remedied by any thing--that any one--of whom
+I know any thing--could do.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_after a pause_)
+
+There are various ways of getting at secrets. The most approved
+methods, as recommended both theoretically and practically in
+philosophical novels, are eavesdropping at key-holes, picking the
+locks of chests and desks, peeping into letters, steaming wafers, and
+insinuating hot wire under sealing wax; none of which methods I hold
+it lawful to practise.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Surely, Mr Flosky, you cannot suspect me of wishing to adopt or
+encourage such base and contemptible arts.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Yet are they recommended, and with well-strung reasons, by writers of
+gravity and note, as simple and easy methods of studying character,
+and gratifying that laudable curiosity which aims at the knowledge of
+man.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I am as ignorant of this morality which you do not approve, as of the
+metaphysics which you do: I should be glad to know by your means, what
+is the matter with my cousin; I do not like to see him unhappy, and I
+suppose there is some reason for it.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Now I should rather suppose there is no reason for it: it is the
+fashion to be unhappy. To have a reason for being so would be
+exceedingly common-place: to be so without any is the province of
+genius: the art of being miserable for misery's sake, has been brought
+to great perfection in our days; and the ancient Odyssey, which held
+forth a shining example of the endurance of real misfortune, will
+give place to a modern one, setting out a more instructive picture of
+querulous impatience under imaginary evils.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Will you oblige me, Mr Flosky, by giving me a plain answer to a plain
+question?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It is impossible, my dear Miss O'Carroll. I never gave a plain answer
+to a question in my life.
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+Do you, or do you not, know what is the matter with my cousin?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+To say that I do not know, would be to say that I am ignorant of
+something; and God forbid, that a transcendental metaphysician, who
+has pure anticipated cognitions of every thing, and carries the whole
+science of geometry in his head without ever having looked into
+Euclid, should fall into so empirical an error as to declare himself
+ignorant of any thing: to say that I do know, would be to pretend to
+positive and circumstantial knowledge touching present matter of fact,
+which, when you consider the nature of evidence, and the various
+lights in which the same thing may be seen--
+
+
+MARIONETTA
+
+I see, Mr Flosky, that either you have no information, or are
+determined not to impart it; and I beg your pardon for having given
+you this unnecessary trouble.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+My dear Miss O'Carroll, it would have given me great pleasure to have
+said any thing that would have given you pleasure; but if any person
+living could make report of having obtained any information on any
+subject from Ferdinando Flosky, my transcendental reputation would be
+ruined for ever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Scythrop grew every day more reserved, mysterious, and distrait; and
+gradually lengthened the duration of his diurnal seclusions in his
+tower. Marionetta thought she perceived in all this very manifest
+symptoms of a warm love cooling.
+
+It was seldom that she found herself alone with him in the morning,
+and, on these occasions, if she was silent in the hope of his speaking
+first, not a syllable would he utter; if she spoke to him indirectly,
+he assented monosyllabically; if she questioned him, his answers
+were brief, constrained, and evasive. Still, though her spirits were
+depressed, her playfulness had not so totally forsaken her, but that
+it illuminated at intervals the gloom of Nightmare Abbey; and if, on
+any occasion, she observed in Scythrop tokens of unextinguished or
+returning passion, her love of tormenting her lover immediately got
+the better both of her grief and her sympathy, though not of her
+curiosity, which Scythrop seemed determined not to satisfy. This
+playfulness, however, was in a great measure artificial, and usually
+vanished with the irritable Strephon, to whose annoyance it had been
+exerted. The Genius Loci, the _tutela_ of Nightmare Abbey, the
+spirit of black melancholy, began to set his seal on her pallescent
+countenance. Scythrop perceived the change, found his tender
+sympathies awakened, and did his utmost to comfort the afflicted
+damsel, assuring her that his seeming inattention had only proceeded
+from his being involved in a profound meditation on a very hopeful
+scheme for the regeneration of human society. Marionetta called him
+ungrateful, cruel, cold-hearted, and accompanied her reproaches with
+many sobs and tears; poor Scythrop growing every moment more soft
+and submissive--till, at length, he threw himself at her feet, and
+declared that no competition of beauty, however dazzling, genius,
+however transcendent, talents, however cultivated, or philosophy,
+however enlightened, should ever make him renounce his divine
+Marionetta.
+
+'Competition!' thought Marionetta, and suddenly, with an air of the
+most freezing indifference, she said, 'You are perfectly at liberty,
+sir, to do as you please; I beg you will follow your own plans,
+without any reference to me.'
+
+Scythrop was confounded. What was become of all her passion and her
+tears? Still kneeling, he kissed her hand with rueful timidity, and
+said, in most pathetic accents, 'Do you not love me, Marionetta?'
+
+'No,' said Marionetta, with a look of cold composure: 'No.' Scythrop
+still looked up incredulously. 'No, I tell you.'
+
+'Oh! very well, madam,' said Scythrop, rising, 'if that is the case,
+there are those in the world--'
+
+'To be sure there are, sir;--and do you suppose I do not see through
+your designs, you ungenerous monster?'
+
+'My designs? Marionetta!'
+
+'Yes, your designs, Scythrop. You have come here to cast me off, and
+artfully contrive that it should appear to be my doing, and not yours,
+thinking to quiet your tender conscience with this pitiful stratagem.
+But do not suppose that you are of so much consequence to me: do not
+suppose it: you are of no consequence to me at all--none at all:
+therefore, leave me: I renounce you: leave me; why do you not leave
+me?'
+
+Scythrop endeavoured to remonstrate, but without success. She
+reiterated her injunctions to him to leave her, till, in the
+simplicity of his spirit, he was preparing to comply. When he had
+nearly reached the door, Marionetta said, 'Farewell.' Scythrop looked
+back. 'Farewell, Scythrop,' she repeated, 'you will never see me
+again.'
+
+'Never see you again, Marionetta?'
+
+'I shall go from hence to-morrow, perhaps to-day; and before we meet
+again, one of us will be married, and we might as well be dead, you
+know, Scythrop.'
+
+The sudden change of her voice in the last few words, and the burst
+of tears that accompanied them, acted like electricity on the
+tender-hearted youth; and, in another instant, a complete
+reconciliation was accomplished without the intervention of words.
+
+There are, indeed, some learned casuists, who maintain that love has
+no language, and that all the misunderstandings and dissensions of
+lovers arise from the fatal habit of employing words on a subject to
+which words are inapplicable; that love, beginning with looks, that
+is to say, with the physiognomical expression of congenial mental
+dispositions, tends through a regular gradation of signs and symbols
+of affection, to that consummation which is most devoutly to be
+wished; and that it neither is necessary that there should be, nor
+probable that there would be, a single word spoken from first to
+last between two sympathetic spirits, were it not that the arbitrary
+institutions of society have raised, at every step of this very simple
+process, so many complicated impediments and barriers in the shape
+of settlements and ceremonies, parents and guardians, lawyers,
+Jew-brokers, and parsons, that many an adventurous knight (who, in
+order to obtain the conquest of the Hesperian fruit, is obliged to
+fight his way through all these monsters), is either repulsed at the
+onset, or vanquished before the achievement of his enterprise: and
+such a quantity of unnatural talking is rendered inevitably necessary
+through all the stages of the progression, that the tender and
+volatile spirit of love often takes flight on the pinions of some of
+the [Greek: epea pteroenta], or _winged words_ which are pressed into
+his service in despite of himself.
+
+At this conjuncture, Mr Glowry entered, and sitting down near them,
+said, 'I see how it is; and, as we are all sure to be miserable do
+what we may, there is no need of taking pains to make one another more
+so; therefore, with God's blessing and mine, there'--joining their
+hands as he spoke.
+
+Scythrop was not exactly prepared for this decisive step; but he could
+only stammer out, 'Really, sir, you are too good;' and Mr Glowry
+departed to bring Mr Hilary to ratify the act.
+
+Now, whatever truth there may be in the theory of love and language,
+of which we have so recently spoken, certain it is, that during Mr
+Glowry's absence, which lasted half an hour, not a single word was
+said by either Scythrop or Marionetta.
+
+Mr Glowry returned with Mr Hilary, who was delighted at the prospect
+of so advantageous an establishment for his orphan niece, of whom he
+considered himself in some manner the guardian, and nothing remained,
+as Mr Glowry observed, but to fix the day.
+
+Marionetta blushed, and was silent. Scythrop was also silent for a
+time, and at length hesitatingly said, 'My deal sir, your goodness
+overpowers me; but really you are so precipitate.'
+
+Now, this remark, if the young lady had made it, would, whether she
+thought it or not--for sincerity is a thing of no account on these
+occasions, nor indeed on any other, according to Mr Flosky--this
+remark, if the young lady had made it, would have been perfectly
+_comme il faut_; but, being made by the young gentleman, it was _toute
+autre chose_, and was, indeed, in the eyes of his mistress, a most
+heinous and irremissible offence. Marionetta was angry, very angry,
+but she concealed her anger, and said, calmly and coldly, 'Certainly,
+you are much too precipitate, Mr Glowry. I assure you, sir, I have
+by no means made up my mind; and, indeed, as far as I know it, it
+inclines the other way; but it will be quite time enough to think of
+these matters seven years hence. Before surprise permitted reply, the
+young lady had locked herself up in her own apartment.
+
+'Why, Scythrop,' said Mr Glowry, elongating his face exceedingly, 'the
+devil is come among us sure enough, as Mr Toobad observes: I thought
+you and Marionetta were both of a mind.'
+
+'So we are, I believe, sir,' said Scythrop, gloomily, and stalked away
+to his tower.
+
+'Mr Glowry,' said Mr Hilary, 'I do not very well understand all this.'
+
+'Whims, brother Hilary,' said Mr Glowry; 'some little foolish love
+quarrel, nothing more. Whims, freaks, April showers. They will be
+blown over by to-morrow.'
+
+'If not,' said Mr Hilary, 'these April showers have made us April
+fools.'
+
+'Ah!' said Mr Glowry, 'you are a happy man, and in all your
+afflictions you can console yourself with a joke, let it be ever so
+bad, provided you crack it yourself. I should be very happy to laugh
+with you, if it would give you any satisfaction; but, really, at
+present, my heart is so sad, that I find it impossible to levy a
+contribution on my muscles.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+On the evening on which Mr Asterias had caught a glimpse of a female
+figure on the sea-shore, which he had translated into the visual sign
+of his interior cognition of a mermaid, Scythrop, retiring to his
+tower, found his study preoccupied. A stranger, muffled in a cloak,
+was sitting at his table. Scythrop paused in surprise. The stranger
+rose at his entrance, and looked at him intently a few minutes, in
+silence. The eyes of the stranger alone were visible. All the rest
+of the figure was muffled and mantled in the folds of a black cloak,
+which was raised, by the right hand, to the level of the eyes. This
+scrutiny being completed, the stranger, dropping the cloak, said, 'I
+see, by your physiognomy, that you may be trusted;' and revealed to
+the astonished Scythrop a female form and countenance of dazzling
+grace and beauty, with long flowing hair of raven blackness, and
+large black eyes of almost oppressive brilliancy, which strikingly
+contrasted with a complexion of snowy whiteness. Her dress was
+extremely elegant, but had an appearance of foreign fashion, as if
+both the lady and her mantua-maker were of 'a far countree.'
+
+  'I guess 'twas frightful there to see
+  A lady so richly clad as she,
+  Beautiful exceedingly.'
+
+For, if it be terrible to one young lady to find another under a tree
+at midnight, it must, _à fortiori_, be much more terrible to a young
+gentleman to find a young lady in his study at that hour. If the
+logical consecutiveness of this conclusion be not manifest to my
+readers, I am sorry for their dulness, and must refer them, for more
+ample elucidation, to a treatise which Mr Flosky intends to write, on
+the Categories of Relation, which comprehend Substance and Accident,
+Cause and Effect, Action and Re-action.
+
+Scythrop, therefore, either was or ought to have been frightened; at
+all events, he was astonished; and astonishment, though not in itself
+fear, is nevertheless a good stage towards it, and is, indeed, as it
+were, the half-way house between respect and terror, according to Mr
+Burke's graduated scale of the sublime.[7]
+
+'You are surprised,' said the lady; 'yet why should you be surprised?
+If you had met me in a drawing-room, and I had been introduced to
+you by an old woman, it would have been a matter of course: can the
+division of two or three walls, and the absence of an unimportant
+personage, make the same object essentially different in the
+perception of a philosopher?'
+
+'Certainly not,' said Scythrop; 'but when any class of objects
+has habitually presented itself to our perceptions in invariable
+conjunction with particular relations, then, on the sudden appearance
+of one object of the class divested of those accompaniments, the
+essential difference of the relation is, by an involuntary process,
+transferred to the object itself, which thus offers itself to our
+perceptions with all the strangeness of novelty.'
+
+'You are a philosopher,' said the lady, 'and a lover of liberty. You
+are the author of a treatise, called "Philosophical Gas; or, a Project
+for a General Illumination of the Human Mind."'
+
+'I am,' said Scythrop, delighted at this first blossom of his renown.
+
+'I am a stranger in this country,' said the lady; 'I have been but a
+few days in it, yet I find myself immediately under the necessity of
+seeking refuge from an atrocious persecution. I had no friend to whom
+I could apply; and, in the midst of my difficulties, accident threw
+your pamphlet in my way. I saw that I had, at least, one kindred mind
+in this nation, and determined to apply to you.'
+
+'And what would you have me do?' said Scythrop, more and more amazed,
+and not a little perplexed.
+
+'I would have you,' said the young lady, 'assist me in finding some
+place of retreat, where I can remain concealed from the indefatigable
+search that is being made for me. I have been so nearly caught once or
+twice already, that I cannot confide any longer in my own ingenuity.'
+
+Doubtless, thought Scythrop, this is one of my golden candle-sticks.
+'I have constructed,' said he, 'in this tower, an entrance to a small
+suite of unknown apartments in the main building, which I defy any
+creature living to detect. If you would like to remain there a day or
+two, till I can find you a more suitable concealment, you may rely on
+the honour of a transcendental eleutherarch.'
+
+'I rely on myself,' said the lady. 'I act as I please, go where I
+please, and let the world say what it will. I am rich enough to set
+it at defiance. It is the tyrant of the poor and the feeble, but the
+slave of those who are above the reach of its injury.'
+
+Scythrop ventured to inquire the name of his fair _protégée_. 'What
+is a name?' said the lady: 'any name will serve the purpose of
+distinction. Call me Stella. I see by your looks,' she added, 'that
+you think all this very strange. When you know me better, your
+surprise will cease. I submit not to be an accomplice in my sex's
+slavery. I am, like yourself, a lover of freedom, and I carry my
+theory into practice. _They alone are subject to blind authority who
+have no reliance on their own strength_.'
+
+Stella took possession of the recondite apartments. Scythrop intended
+to find her another asylum; but from day to day he postponed his
+intention, and by degrees forgot it. The young lady reminded him of
+it from day to day, till she also forgot it. Scythrop was anxious to
+learn her history; but she would add nothing to what she had already
+communicated, that she was shunning an atrocious persecution. Scythrop
+thought of Lord C. and the Alien Act, and said, 'As you will not
+tell your name, I suppose it is in the green bag.' Stella, not
+understanding what he meant, was silent; and Scythrop, translating
+silence into acquiescence, concluded that he was sheltering an
+_illuminée_ whom Lord S. suspected of an intention to take the
+Tower, and set fire to the Bank: exploits, at least, as likely to be
+accomplished by the hands and eyes of a young beauty, as by a drunken
+cobbler and doctor, armed with a pamphlet and an old stocking.
+
+Stella, in her conversations with Scythrop, displayed a highly
+cultivated and energetic mind, full of impassioned schemes of liberty,
+and impatience of masculine usurpation. She had a lively sense of all
+the oppressions that are done under the sun; and the vivid pictures
+which her imagination presented to her of the numberless scenes of
+injustice and misery which are being acted at every moment in every
+part of the inhabited world, gave an habitual seriousness to her
+physiognomy, that made it seem as if a smile had never once hovered on
+her lips. She was intimately conversant with the German language and
+literature; and Scythrop listened with delight to her repetitions of
+her favourite passages from Schiller and Goethe, and to her encomiums
+on the sublime Spartacus Weishaupt, the immortal founder of the sect
+of the Illuminati. Scythrop found that his soul had a greater capacity
+of love than the image of Marionetta had filled. The form of Stella
+took possession of every vacant corner of the cavity, and by degrees
+displaced that of Marionetta from many of the outworks of the citadel;
+though the latter still held possession of the _keep_. He judged, from
+his new friend calling herself Stella, that, if it were not her real
+name, she was an admirer of the principles of the German play from
+which she had taken it, and took an opportunity of leading the
+conversation to that subject; but to his great surprise, the lady
+spoke very ardently of the singleness and exclusiveness of love, and
+declared that the reign of affection was one and indivisible; that it
+might be transferred, but could not be participated. 'If I ever love,'
+said she, 'I shall do so without limit or restriction. I shall hold
+all difficulties light, all sacrifices cheap, all obstacles gossamer.
+But for love so total, I shall claim a return as absolute. I will have
+no rival: whether more or less favoured will be of little moment. I
+will be neither first nor second--I will be alone. The heart which I
+shall possess I will possess entirely, or entirely renounce.'
+
+Scythrop did not dare to mention the name of Marionetta; he trembled
+lest some unlucky accident should reveal it to Stella, though he
+scarcely knew what result to wish or anticipate, and lived in the
+double fever of a perpetual dilemma. He could not dissemble to himself
+that he was in love, at the same time, with two damsels of minds and
+habits as remote as the antipodes. The scale of predilection always
+inclined to the fair one who happened to be present; but the absent
+was never effectually outweighed, though the degrees of exaltation and
+depression varied according to accidental variations in the outward
+and visible signs of the inward and spiritual graces of his respective
+charmers. Passing and repassing several times a day from the company
+of the one to that of the other, he was like a shuttlecock between two
+battledores, changing its direction as rapidly as the oscillations of
+a pendulum, receiving many a hard knock on the cork of a sensitive
+heart, and flying from point to point on the feathers of a
+super-sublimated head. This was an awful state of things. He had
+now as much mystery about him as any romantic transcendentalist or
+transcendental romancer could desire. He had his esoterical and his
+exoterical love. He could not endure the thought of losing either of
+them, but he trembled when he imagined the possibility that some fatal
+discovery might deprive him of both. The old proverb concerning two
+strings to a bow gave him some gleams of comfort; but that concerning
+two stools occurred to him more frequently, and covered his forehead
+with a cold perspiration. With Stella, he could indulge freely in all
+his romantic and philosophical visions. He could build castles in the
+air, and she would pile towers and turrets on the imaginary edifices.
+With Marionetta it was otherwise: she knew nothing of the world and
+society beyond the sphere of her own experience. Her life was all
+music and sunshine, and she wondered what any one could see to
+complain of in such a pleasant state of things. She loved Scythrop,
+she hardly knew why; indeed she was not always sure that she loved him
+at all: she felt her fondness increase or diminish in an inverse ratio
+to his. When she had manoeuvred him into a fever of passionate love,
+she often felt and always assumed indifference: if she found that her
+coldness was contagious, and that Scythrop either was, or pretended to
+be, as indifferent as herself, she would become doubly kind, and raise
+him again to that elevation from which she had previously thrown him
+down. Thus, when his love was flowing, hers was ebbing: when his was
+ebbing, hers was flowing. Now and then there were moments of level
+tide, when reciprocal affection seemed to promise imperturbable
+harmony; but Scythrop could scarcely resign his spirit to the pleasing
+illusion, before the pinnace of the lover's affections was caught in
+some eddy of the lady's caprice, and he was whirled away from the
+shore of his hopes, without rudder or compass, into an ocean of mists
+and storms. It resulted, from this system of conduct, that all that
+passed between Scythrop and Marionetta, consisted in making and
+unmaking love. He had no opportunity to take measure of her
+understanding by conversations on general subjects, and on his
+favourite designs; and, being left in this respect to the exercise of
+indefinite conjecture, he took it for granted, as most lovers would do
+in similar circumstances, that she had great natural talents, which
+she wasted at present on trifles: but coquetry would end with
+marriage, and leave room for philosophy to exert its influence on her
+mind. Stella had no coquetry, no disguise: she was an enthusiast in
+subjects of general interest; and her conduct to Scythrop was always
+uniform, or rather showed a regular progression of partiality which
+seemed fast ripening into love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Scythrop, attending one day the summons to dinner, found in the
+drawing-room his friend Mr Cypress the poet, whom he had known at
+college, and who was a great favourite of Mr Glowry. Mr Cypress said,
+he was on the point of leaving England, but could not think of doing
+so without a farewell-look at Nightmare Abbey and his respected
+friends, the moody Mr Glowry and the mysterious Mr Scythrop, the
+sublime Mr Flosky and the pathetic Mr Listless; to all of whom, and
+the morbid hospitality of the melancholy dwelling in which they were
+then assembled, he assured them he should always look back with as
+much affection as his lacerated spirit could feel for any thing. The
+sympathetic condolence of their respective replies was cut short by
+Raven's announcement of 'dinner on table.'
+
+The conversation that took place when the wine was in circulation, and
+the ladies were withdrawn, we shall report with our usual scrupulous
+fidelity.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+You are leaving England, Mr Cypress. There is a delightful melancholy
+in saying farewell to an old acquaintance, when the chances are twenty
+to one against ever meeting again. A smiling bumper to a sad parting,
+and let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS (_filling a bumper_)
+
+This is the only social habit that the disappointed spirit never
+unlearns.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX (_filling_)
+
+It is the only piece of academical learning that the finished educatee
+retains.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY (_filling_)
+
+It is the only objective fact which the sceptic can realise.
+
+
+SCYTHROP (_filling_)
+
+It is the only styptic for a bleeding heart.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS (_filling_)
+
+It is the only trouble that is very well worth taking.
+
+
+MR ASTERIAS (_filling_)
+
+It is the only key of conversational truth.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD (_filling_)
+
+It is the only antidote to the great wrath of the devil.
+
+
+MR HILARY (_filling_)
+
+It is the only symbol of perfect life. The inscription 'HIC NON
+BIBITUR' will suit nothing but a tombstone.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+You will see many fine old ruins, Mr Cypress; crumbling pillars, and
+mossy walls--many a one-legged Venus and headless Minerva--many a
+Neptune buried in sand--many a Jupiter turned topsy-turvy--many a
+perforated Bacchus doing duty as a water-pipe--many reminiscences of
+the ancient world, which I hope was better worth living in than the
+modern; though, for myself, I care not a straw more for one than the
+other, and would not go twenty miles to see any thing that either
+could show.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+It is something to seek, Mr Glowry. The mind is restless, and must
+persist in seeking, though to find is to be disappointed. Do you feel
+no aspirations towards the countries of Socrates and Cicero? No wish
+to wander among the venerable remains of the greatness that has passed
+for ever?
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Not a grain.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+It is, indeed, much the same as if a lover should dig up the buried
+form of his mistress, and gaze upon relics which are any thing but
+herself, to wander among a few mouldy ruins, that are only imperfect
+indexes to lost volumes of glory, and meet at every step the more
+melancholy ruins of human nature--a degenerate race of stupid and
+shrivelled slaves, grovelling in the lowest depths of servility and
+superstition.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+It is the fashion to go abroad. I have thought of it myself, but am
+hardly equal to the exertion. To be sure, a little eccentricity and
+originality are allowable in some cases; and the most eccentric and
+original of all characters is an Englishman who stays at home.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+I should have no pleasure in visiting countries that are past all hope
+of regeneration. There is great hope of our own; and it seems to me
+that an Englishman, who, either by his station in society, or by his
+genius, or (as in your instance, Mr Cypress,) by both, has the power
+of essentially serving his country in its arduous struggle with its
+domestic enemies, yet forsakes his country, which is still so rich
+in hope, to dwell in others which are only fertile in the ruins of
+memory, does what none of those ancients, whose fragmentary memorials
+you venerate, would have done in similar circumstances.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+Sir, I have quarrelled with my wife; and a man who has quarrelled with
+his wife is absolved from all duty to his country. I have written an
+ode to tell the people as much, and they may take it as they list.
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+Do you suppose, if Brutus had quarrelled with his wife, he would have
+given it as a reason to Cassius for having nothing to do with his
+enterprise? Or would Cassius have been satisfied with such an excuse?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Brutus was a senator; so is our dear friend: but the cases are
+different. Brutus had some hope of political good: Mr Cypress has
+none. How should he, after what we have seen in France?
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+A Frenchman is born in harness, ready saddled, bitted, and bridled,
+for any tyrant to ride. He will fawn under his rider one moment, and
+throw him and kick him to death the next; but another adventurer
+springs on his back, and by dint of whip and spur on he goes as
+before. We may, without much vanity, hope better of ourselves.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+I have no hope for myself or for others. Our life is a false nature;
+it is not in the harmony of things; it is an all-blasting upas,
+whose root is earth, and whose leaves are the skies which rain their
+poison-dews upon mankind. We wither from our youth; we gasp with
+unslaked thirst for unattainable good; lured from the first to the
+last by phantoms--love, fame, ambition, avarice--all idle, and all
+ill--one meteor of many names, that vanishes in the smoke of death.[8]
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+A most delightful speech, Mr Cypress. A most amiable and instructive
+philosophy. You have only to impress its truth on the minds of
+all living men, and life will then, indeed, be the desert and the
+solitude; and I must do you, myself, and our mutual friends, the
+justice to observe, that let society only give fair play at one and
+the same time, as I flatter myself it is inclined to do, to your
+system of morals, and my system of metaphysics, and Scythrop's system
+of politics, and Mr Listless's system of manners, and Mr Toobad's
+system of religion, and the result will be as fine a mental chaos as
+even the immortal Kant himself could ever have hoped to see; in the
+prospect of which I rejoice.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+'Certainly, ancient, it is not a thing to rejoice at:' I am one
+of those who cannot see the good that is to result from all this
+mystifying and blue-devilling of society. The contrast it presents
+to the cheerful and solid wisdom of antiquity is too forcible not to
+strike any one who has the least knowledge of classical literature. To
+represent vice and misery as the necessary accompaniments of genius,
+is as mischievous as it is false, and the feeling is as unclassical as
+the language in which it is usually expressed.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+It is our calamity. The devil has come among us, and has begun by
+taking possession of all the cleverest fellows. Yet, forsooth, this is
+the enlightened age. Marry, how? Did our ancestors go peeping about
+with dark lanterns, and do we walk at our ease in broad sunshine?
+Where is the manifestation of our light? By what symptoms do you
+recognise it? What are its signs, its tokens, its symptoms, its
+symbols, its categories, its conditions? What is it, and why? How,
+where, when is it to be seen, felt, and understood? What do we see by
+it which our ancestors saw not, and which at the same time is worth
+seeing? We see a hundred men hanged, where they saw one. We see five
+hundred transported, where they saw one. We see five thousand in the
+workhouse, where they saw one. We see scores of Bible Societies, where
+they saw none. We see paper, where they saw gold. We see men in stays,
+where they saw men in armour. We see painted faces, where they saw
+healthy ones. We see children perishing in manufactories, where they
+saw them flourishing in the fields. We see prisons, where they saw
+castles. We see masters, where they saw representatives. In short,
+they saw true men, where we see false knaves. They saw Milton, and we
+see Mr Sackbut.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+The false knave, sir, is my honest friend; therefore, I beseech you,
+let him be countenanced. God forbid but a knave should have some
+countenance at his friend's request.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+'Good men and true' was their common term, like the chalos chagathos
+of the Athenians. It is so long since men have been either good or
+true, that it is to be questioned which is most obsolete, the fact or
+the phraseology.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+There is no worth nor beauty but in the mind's idea. Love sows the
+wind and reaps the whirlwind.[9] Confusion, thrice confounded, is the
+portion of him who rests even for an instant on that most brittle of
+reeds--the affection of a human being. The sum of our social destiny
+is to inflict or to endure.[10]
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Rather to bear and forbear, Mr Cypress--a maxim which you perhaps
+despise. Ideal beauty is not the mind's creation: it is real beauty,
+refined and purified in the mind's alembic, from the alloy which
+always more or less accompanies it in our mixed and imperfect nature.
+But still the gold exists in a very ample degree. To expect too
+much is a disease in the expectant, for which human nature is not
+responsible; and, in the common name of humanity, I protest against
+these false and mischievous ravings. To rail against humanity for not
+being abstract perfection, and against human love for not realising
+all the splendid visions of the poets of chivalry, is to rail at the
+summer for not being all sunshine, and at the rose for not being
+always in bloom.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+Human love! Love is not an inhabitant of the earth. We worship him as
+the Athenians did their unknown God: but broken hearts are the martyrs
+of his faith, and the eye shall never see the form which phantasy
+paints, and which passion pursues through paths of delusive beauty,
+among flowers whose odours are agonies, and trees whose gums are
+poison.[11]
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+You talk like a Rosicrucian, who will love nothing but a sylph, who
+does not believe in the existence of a sylph, and who yet quarrels
+with the whole universe for not containing a sylph.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+The mind is diseased of its own beauty, and fevers into false
+creation. The forms which the sculptor's soul has seized exist only in
+himself.[12]
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Permit me to discept. They are the mediums of common forms combined
+and arranged into a common standard. The ideal beauty of the Helen of
+Zeuxis was the combined medium of the real beauty of the virgins of
+Crotona.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+But to make ideal beauty the shadow in the water, and, like the dog in
+the fable, to throw away the substance in catching at the shadow, is
+scarcely the characteristic of wisdom, whatever it may be of genius.
+To reconcile man as he is to the world as it is, to preserve and
+improve all that is good, and destroy or alleviate all that is evil,
+in physical and moral nature--have been the hope and aim of the
+greatest teachers and ornaments of our species. I will say, too,
+that the highest wisdom and the highest genius have been invariably
+accompanied with cheerfulness. We have sufficient proofs on record
+that Shakspeare and Socrates were the most festive of companions. But
+now the little wisdom and genius we have seem to be entering into a
+conspiracy against cheerfulness.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+How can we be cheerful with the devil among us!
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+How can we be cheerful when our nerves are shattered?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+How can we be cheerful when we are surrounded by a _reading public_,
+that is growing too wise for its betters?
+
+
+SCYTHROP
+
+How can we be cheerful when our great general designs are crossed
+every moment by our little particular passions?
+
+
+MR CYPRESS
+
+How can we be cheerful in the midst of disappointment and despair?
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Let us sing a catch.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+No: a nice tragical ballad. The Norfolk Tragedy to the tune of the
+Hundredth Psalm.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+I say a catch.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+I say no. A song from Mr Cypress.
+
+
+ALL
+
+A song from Mr Cypress.
+
+
+MR CYPRESS _sung_--
+
+  There is a fever of the spirit,
+  The brand of Cain's unresting doom,
+  Which in the lone dark souls that bear it
+  Glows like the lamp in Tullia's tomb:
+  Unlike that lamp, its subtle fire
+  Burns, blasts, consumes its cell, the heart,
+  Till, one by one, hope, joy, desire,
+  Like dreams of shadowy smoke depart.
+
+  When hope, love, life itself, are only
+  Dust--spectral memories--dead and cold--
+  The unfed fire burns bright and lonely,
+  Like that undying lamp of old:
+  And by that drear illumination,
+  Till time its clay-built home has rent,
+  Thought broods on feeling's desolation--
+  The soul is its own monument.
+
+
+MR GLOWRY
+
+Admirable. Let us all be unhappy together.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Now, I say again, a catch.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+I am for you.
+
+
+ME HILARY
+
+'Seamen three.'
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Agreed. I'll be Harry Gill, with the voice of three. Begin
+
+
+MR HILARY AND THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+  Seamen three! I What men be ye?
+  Gotham's three wise men we be.
+  Whither in your bowl so free?
+  To rake the moon from out the sea.
+  The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
+  And our ballast is old wine;
+  And your ballast is old wine.
+
+  Who art thou, so fast adrift?
+  I am he they call Old Care.
+  Here on board we will thee lift.
+  No: I may not enter there.
+  Wherefore so? 'Tis Jove's decree,
+  In a bowl Care may not be;
+  In a bowl Care may not be.
+
+  Pear ye not the waves that roll?
+  No: in charmed bowl we swim.
+  What the charm that floats the bowl?
+  Water may not pass the brim.
+  The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
+  And our ballast is old wine;
+  And your ballast is old wine.
+
+
+This catch was so well executed by the spirit and science of Mr
+Hilary, and the deep tri-une voice of the reverend gentleman, that the
+whole party, in spite of themselves, caught the contagion, and joined
+in chorus at the conclusion, each raising a bumper to his lips:
+
+  The bowl goes trim: the moon doth shine:
+  And our ballast is old wine.
+
+Mr Cypress, having his ballast on board, stepped, the same evening,
+into his bowl, or travelling chariot, and departed to rake seas and
+rivers, lakes and canals, for the moon of ideal beauty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+It was the custom of the Honourable Mr Listless, on adjourning from
+the bottle to the ladies, to retire for a few moments to make a second
+toilette, that he might present himself in becoming taste. Fatout,
+attending as usual, appeared with a countenance of great dismay, and
+informed his master that he had just ascertained that the abbey was
+haunted. Mrs Hilary's _gentlewoman_, for whom Fatout had lately
+conceived a _tendresse_, had been, as she expressed it, 'fritted out
+of her seventeen senses' the preceding night, as she was retiring to
+her bedchamber, by a ghastly figure which she had met stalking along
+one of the galleries, wrapped in a white shroud, with a bloody turban
+on its head. She had fainted away with fear; and, when she
+recovered, she found herself in the dark, and the figure was gone.
+'_Sacre--cochon--bleu_!' exclaimed Fatout, giving very deliberate
+emphasis to every portion of his terrible oath--'I vould not meet de
+_revenant_, de ghost--_non_--not for all de _bowl-de-ponch_ in de
+vorld.'
+
+'Fatout,' said the Honourable Mr Listless, 'did I ever see a ghost?'
+
+'_Jamais_, monsieur, never.'
+
+'Then I hope I never shall, for, in the present shattered state of my
+nerves, I am afraid it would be too much for me. There--loosen the
+lace of my stays a little, for really this plebeian practice of
+eating--Not too loose--consider my shape. That will do. And I desire
+that you bring me no more stories of ghosts; for, though I do not
+believe in such things, yet, when one is awake in the night, one is
+apt, if one thinks of them, to have fancies that give one a kind of a
+chill, particularly if one opens one's eyes suddenly on one's dressing
+gown, hanging in the moonlight, between the bed and the window.'
+
+The Honourable Mr Listless, though he had prohibited Fatout from
+bringing him any more stories of ghosts, could not help thinking of
+that which Fatout had already brought; and, as it was uppermost in his
+mind, when he descended to the tea and coffee cups, and the rest of
+the company in the library, he almost involuntarily asked Mr Flosky,
+whom he looked up to as a most oraculous personage, whether any story
+of any ghost that had ever appeared to any one, was entitled to any
+degree of belief?
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+By far the greater number, to a very great degree.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Really, that is very alarming!
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+_Sunt geminoe somni portoe_. There are two gates through which ghosts
+find their way to the upper air: fraud and self-delusion. In the
+latter case, a ghost is a _deceptio visûs_, an ocular spectrum, an
+idea with the force of a sensation. I have seen many ghosts myself. I
+dare say there are few in this company who have not seen a ghost.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+I am happy to say, I never have, for one.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+We have such high authority for ghosts, that it is rank scepticism to
+disbelieve them. Job saw a ghost, which came for the express purpose
+of asking a question, and did not wait for an answer.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+Because Job was too frightened to give one.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+Spectres appeared to the Egyptians during the darkness with which
+Moses covered Egypt. The witch of Endor raised the ghost of Samuel.
+Moses and Elias appeared on Mount Tabor. An evil spirit was sent into
+the army of Sennacherib, and exterminated it in a single night.
+
+
+MR TOOBAD
+
+Saying, The devil is come among you, having great wrath.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Saint Macarius interrogated a skull, which was found in the desert,
+and made it relate, in presence of several witnesses, what was going
+forward in hell. Saint Martin of Tours, being jealous of a pretended
+martyr, who was the rival saint of his neighbourhood, called up his
+ghost, and made him confess that he was damned. Saint Germain, being
+on his travels, turned out of an inn a large party of ghosts, who had
+every night taken possession of the _table d'hôte_, and consumed a
+copious supper.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+Jolly ghosts, and no doubt all friars. A similar party took possession
+of the cellar of M. Swebach, the painter, in Paris, drank his wine,
+and threw the empty bottles at his head.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+An atrocious act.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+Pausanias relates, that the neighing of horses and the tumult of
+combatants were heard every night on the field of Marathon: that those
+who went purposely to hear these sounds suffered severely for their
+curiosity; but those who heard them by accident passed with impunity.
+
+
+THE REVEREND MR LARYNX
+
+I once saw a ghost myself, in my study, which is the last place where
+any one but a ghost would look for me. I had not been into it for
+three months, and was going to consult Tillotson, when, on opening the
+door, I saw a venerable figure in a flannel dressing gown, sitting in
+my arm-chair, and reading my Jeremy Taylor. It vanished in a moment,
+and so did I; and what it was or what it wanted I have never been able
+to ascertain.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+It was an idea with the force of a sensation. It is seldom that ghosts
+appeal to two senses at once; but, when I was in Devonshire, the
+following story was well attested to me. A young woman, whose lover
+was at sea, returning one evening over some solitary fields, saw
+her lover sitting on a stile over which she was to pass. Her first
+emotions were surprise and joy, but there was a paleness and
+seriousness in his face that made them give place to alarm. She
+advanced towards him, and he said to her, in a solemn voice, 'The eye
+that hath seen me shall see me no more. Thine eye is upon me, but I am
+not.' And with these words he vanished; and on that very day and hour,
+as it afterwards appeared, he had perished by shipwreck.
+
+The whole party now drew round in a circle, and each related some
+ghostly anecdote, heedless of the flight of time, till, in a pause of
+the conversation, they heard the hollow tongue of midnight sounding
+twelve.
+
+
+MR HILARY
+
+All these anecdotes admit of solution on psychological principles.
+It is more easy for a soldier, a philosopher, or even a saint, to be
+frightened at his own shadow, than for a dead man to come out of his
+grave. Medical writers cite a thousand singular examples of the force
+of imagination. Persons of feeble, nervous, melancholy temperament,
+exhausted by fever, by labour, or by spare diet, will readily conjure
+up, in the magic ring of their own phantasy, spectres, gorgons,
+chimaeras, and all the objects of their hatred and their love. We
+are most of us like Don Quixote, to whom a windmill was a giant, and
+Dulcinea a magnificent princess: all more or less the dupes of our own
+imagination, though we do not all go so far as to see ghosts, or to
+fancy ourselves pipkins and teapots.
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+I can safely say I have seen too many ghosts myself to believe in
+their external existence. I have seen all kinds of ghosts: black
+spirits and white, red spirits and grey. Some in the shapes of
+venerable old men, who have met me in my rambles at noon; some
+of beautiful young women, who have peeped through my curtains at
+midnight.
+
+
+THE HONOURABLE MR LISTLESS
+
+And have proved, I doubt not, 'palpable to feeling as to sight.'
+
+
+MR FLOSKY
+
+By no means, sir. You reflect upon my purity. Myself and my friends,
+particularly my friend Mr Sackbut, are famous for our purity. No, sir,
+genuine untangible ghosts. I live in a world of ghosts. I see a ghost
+at this moment.
+
+
+Mr Flosky fixed his eyes on a door at the farther end of the library.
+The company looked in the same direction. The door silently opened,
+and a ghastly figure, shrouded in white drapery, with the semblance
+of a bloody turban on its head, entered and stalked slowly up the
+apartment. Mr Flosky, familiar as he was with ghosts, was not prepared
+for this apparition, and made the best of his way out at the opposite
+door. Mrs Hilary and Marionetta followed, screaming. The Honourable Mr
+Listless, by two turns of his body, rolled first off the sofa and
+then under it. The Reverend Mr Larynx leaped up and fled with so much
+precipitation, that he overturned the table on the foot of Mr Glowry.
+Mr Glowry roared with pain hi the ear of Mr Toobad. Mr Toobad's alarm
+so bewildered his senses, that, missing the door, he threw up one of
+the windows, jumped out in his panic, and plunged over head and ears
+in the moat. Mr Asterias and his son, who were on the watch for their
+mermaid, were attracted by the splashing, threw a net over him, and
+dragged him to land.
+
+Scythrop and Mr Hilary meanwhile had hastened to his assistance, and,
+on arriving at the edge of the moat, followed by several servants with
+ropes and torches, found Mr Asterias and Aquarius busy in endeavouring
+to extricate Mr Toobad from the net, who was entangled in the meshes,
+and floundering with rage. Scythrop was lost in amazement; but Mr
+Hilary saw, at one view, all the circumstances of the adventure, and
+burst into an immoderate fit of laughter; on recovering from which, he
+said to Mr Asterias, 'You have caught an odd fish, indeed.' Mr Toobad
+was highly exasperated at this unseasonable pleasantry; but Mr Hilary
+softened his anger, by producing a knife, and cutting the Gordian knot
+of his reticular envelopment. 'You see,' said Mr Toobad, 'you see,
+gentlemen, in my unfortunate person proof upon proof of the present
+dominion of the devil in the affairs of this world; and I have no
+doubt but that the apparition of this night was Apollyon himself in
+disguise, sent for the express purpose of terrifying me into this
+complication of misadventures. The devil is come among you, having
+great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.'
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Mr Glowry was much surprised, on occasionally visiting Scythrop's
+tower, to find the door always locked, and to be kept sometimes
+waiting many minutes for admission: during which he invariably heard a
+heavy rolling sound like that of a ponderous mangle, or of a waggon on
+a weighing-bridge, or of theatrical thunder.
+
+He took little notice of this for some time; at length his curiosity
+was excited, and, one day, instead of knocking at the door, as usual,
+the instant he reached it, he applied his ear to the key-hole, and
+like Bottom, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, 'spied a voice,' which he
+guessed to be of the feminine gender, and knew to be not Scythrop's,
+whose deeper tones he distinguished at intervals. Having attempted in
+vain to catch a syllable of the discourse, he knocked violently at
+the door, and roared for immediate admission. The voices ceased, the
+accustomed rolling sound was heard, the door opened, and Scythrop
+was discovered alone. Mr Glowry looked round to every corner of the
+apartment, and then said, 'Where is the lady?'
+
+'The lady, sir?' said Scythrop.
+
+'Yes, sir, the lady.'
+
+'Sir, I do not understand you.'
+
+'You don't, sir?'
+
+'No, indeed, sir. There is no lady here.'
+
+'But, sir, this is not the only apartment in the tower, and I make no
+doubt there is a lady up stairs.'
+
+'You are welcome to search, sir.'
+
+'Yes, and while I am searching, she will slip out from some lurking
+place, and make her escape.'
+
+'You may lock this door, sir, and take the key with you.'
+
+'But there is the terrace door: she has escaped by the terrace.'
+
+'The terrace, sir, has no other outlet, and the walls are too high for
+a lady to jump down.'
+
+'Well, sir, give me the key.'
+
+Mr Glowry took the key, searched every nook of the tower, and
+returned.
+
+'You are a fox, Scythrop; you are an exceedingly cunning fox, with
+that demure visage of yours. What was that lumbering sound I heard
+before you opened the door?'
+
+'Sound, sir?'
+
+'Yes, sir, sound.'
+
+'My dear sir, I am not aware of any sound, except my great table,
+which I moved on rising to let you in.'
+
+'The table!--let me see that. No, sir; not a tenth part heavy enough,
+not a tenth part.'
+
+'But, sir, you do not consider the laws of acoustics: a whisper
+becomes a peal of thunder in the focus of reverberation. Allow me to
+explain this: sounds striking on concave surfaces are reflected from
+them, and, after reflection, converge to points which are the foci of
+these surfaces. It follows, therefore, that the ear may be so placed
+in one, as that it shall hear a sound better than when situated nearer
+to the point of the first impulse: again, in the case of two concave
+surfaces placed opposite to each other--'
+
+'Nonsense, sir. Don't tell me of foci. Pray, sir, will concave
+surfaces produce two voices when nobody speaks? I heard two voices,
+and one was feminine; feminine, sir: what say you to that?'
+
+'Oh, sir, I perceive your mistake: I am writing a tragedy, and was
+acting over a scene to myself. To convince you, I will give you a
+specimen; but you must first understand the plot. It is a tragedy on
+the German model. The Great Mogul is in exile, and has taken lodgings
+at Kensington, with his only daughter, the Princess Rantrorina,
+who takes in needlework, and keeps a day school. _The princess is
+discovered hemming a set of shirts for the parson of the parish: they
+are to be marked with a large R. Enter to her the Great Mogul. A
+pause, during which they look at each other expressively. The
+princess changes colour several times. The Mogul takes snuff in great
+agitation. Several grains are heard to fall on the stage. His heart is
+seen to beat through his upper benjamin._--THE MOGUL _(with a mournful
+look at his left shoe_). 'My shoe-string is broken.'--THE PRINCESS
+(_after an interval of melancholy reflection_). 'I know it.' THE
+MOGUL. 'My second shoe-string! The first broke when I lost my empire:
+the second has broken to-day. When will my poor heart break?'--THE
+PRINCESS. 'Shoe-strings, hearts, and empires! Mysterious sympathy!'
+
+'Nonsense, sir,' interrupted Mr Glowry. 'That is not at all like the
+voice I heard.'
+
+'But, sir,' said Scythrop, 'a key-hole may be so constructed as to act
+like an acoustic tube, and an acoustic tube, sir, will modify sound in
+a very remarkable manner. Consider the construction of the ear, and
+the nature and causes of sound. The external part of the ear is a
+cartilaginous funnel.'
+
+'It wo'n't do, Scythrop. There is a girl concealed in this tower, and
+find her I will. There are such things as sliding panels and secret
+closets.'--He sounded round the room with his cane, but detected
+no hollowness.--'I have heard, sir,' he continued, 'that during my
+absence, two years ago, you had a dumb carpenter closeted with you
+day after day. I did not dream that you were laying contrivances for
+carrying on secret intrigues. Young men will have their way: I had my
+way when I was a young man: but, sir, when your cousin Marionetta--'
+
+Scythrop now saw that the affair was growing serious. To have clapped
+his hand upon his father's mouth, to have entreated him to be silent,
+would, in the first place, not have made him so; and, in the second,
+would have shown a dread of being overheard by somebody. His only
+resource, therefore, was to try to drown Mr Glowry's voice; and,
+having no other subject, he continued his description of the ear,
+raising his voice continually as Mr Glowry raised his.
+
+'When your cousin Marionetta,' said Mr Glowry, 'whom you profess to
+love--whom you profess to love, sir--'
+
+'The internal canal of the ear,' said Scythrop, 'is partly bony and
+partly cartilaginous. This internal canal is--'
+
+'Is actually in the house, sir; and, when you are so shortly to be--as
+I expect--'
+
+'Closed at the further end by the _membrana tympani_--'
+
+'Joined together in holy matrimony--'
+
+'Under which is carried a branch of the fifth pair of nerves--'
+
+'I say, sir, when you are so shortly to be married to your cousin
+Marionetta--'
+
+'The _cavitas tympani_--'
+
+A loud noise was heard behind the book-case, which, to the
+astonishment of Mr Glowry, opened in the middle, and the massy
+compartments, with all their weight of books, receding from each other
+in the manner of a theatrical scene, with a heavy rolling sound (which
+Mr Glowry immediately recognised to be the same which had excited his
+curiosity,) disclosed an interior apartment, in the entrance of
+which stood the beautiful Stella, who, stepping forward, exclaimed,
+'Married! Is he going to be married? The profligate!'
+
+'Really, madam,' said Mr Glowry, 'I do not know what he is going to
+do, or what I am going to do, or what any one is going to do; for all
+this is incomprehensible.'
+
+'I can explain it all,' said Scythrop, 'in a most satisfactory manner,
+if you will but have the goodness to leave us alone.'
+
+'Pray, sir, to which act of the tragedy of the Great Mogul does this
+incident belong?'
+
+'I entreat you, my dear sir, leave us alone.'
+
+Stella threw herself into a chair, and burst into a tempest of tears.
+Scythrop sat down by her, and took her hand. She snatched her hand
+away, and turned her back upon him. He rose, sat down on the other
+side, and took her other hand. She snatched it away, and turned from
+him again. Scythrop continued entreating Mr Glowry to leave them
+alone; but the old gentleman was obstinate, and would not go.
+
+'I suppose, after all,' said Mr Glowry maliciously, 'it is only a
+phænomenon in acoustics, and this young lady is a reflection of sound
+from concave surfaces.'
+
+Some one tapped at the door: Mr Glowry opened it, and Mr Hilary
+entered. He had been seeking Mr Glowry, and had traced him to
+Scythrop's tower. He stood a few moments in silent surprise, and then
+addressed himself to Mr Glowry for an explanation.
+
+'The explanation,' said Mr Glowry, 'is very satisfactory. The Great
+Mogul has taken lodgings at Kensington, and the external part of the
+ear is a cartilaginous funnel.'
+
+'Mr Glowry, that is no explanation.'
+
+'Mr Hilary, it is all I know about the matter.'
+
+'Sir, this pleasantry is very unseasonable. I perceive that my niece
+is sported with in a most unjustifiable manner, and I shall see if she
+will be more successful in obtaining an intelligible answer.' And he
+departed in search of Marionetta.
+
+Scythrop was now in a hopeless predicament. Mr Hilary made a hue and
+cry in the abbey, and summoned his wife and Marionetta to Scythrop's
+apartment. The ladies, not knowing what was the matter, hastened in
+great consternation. Mr Toobad saw them sweeping along the corridor,
+and judging from their manner that the devil had manifested his wrath
+in some new shape, followed from pure curiosity.
+
+Scythrop meanwhile vainly endeavoured to get rid of Mr Glowry and
+to pacify Stella. The latter attempted to escape from the tower,
+declaring she would leave the abbey immediately, and he should never
+see her or hear of her more. Scythrop held her hand and detained her
+by force, till Mr Hilary reappeared with Mrs Hilary and Marionetta.
+Marionetta, seeing Scythrop grasping the hand of a strange beauty,
+fainted away in the arms of her aunt. Scythrop flew to her assistance;
+and Stella with redoubled anger sprang towards the door, but was
+intercepted in her intended flight by being caught in the arms of Mr
+Toobad, who exclaimed--'Celinda!'
+
+'Papa!' said the young lady disconsolately.
+
+'The devil is come among you,' said Mr Toobad, 'how came my daughter
+here?'
+
+'Your daughter!' exclaimed Mr Glowry.
+
+'Your daughter!' exclaimed Scythrop, and Mr and Mrs Hilary.
+
+'Yes,' said Mr Toobad, 'my daughter Celinda.'
+
+Marionetta opened her eyes and fixed them on Celinda; Celinda in
+return fixed hers on Marionetta. They were at remote points of the
+apartment. Scythrop was equidistant from both of them, central and
+motionless, like Mahomet's coffin.
+
+'Mr Glowry,' said Mr Toobad, 'can you tell by what means my daughter
+came here?'
+
+'I know no more,' said Mr Glowry, 'than the Great Mogul.'
+
+'Mr Scythrop,' said Mr Toobad, 'how came my daughter here?'
+
+'I did not know, sir, that the lady was your daughter.'
+
+'But how came she here?'
+
+'By spontaneous locomotion,' said Scythrop, sullenly.
+
+'Celinda,' said Mr Toobad, 'what does all this mean?'
+
+'I really do not know, sir.'
+
+'This is most unaccountable. When I told you in London that I had
+chosen a husband for you, you thought proper to run away from him; and
+now, to all appearance, you have run away to him.'
+
+'How, sir! was that your choice?'
+
+'Precisely; and if he is yours too we shall be both of a mind, for the
+first time in our lives.'
+
+'He is not my choice, sir. This lady has a prior claim: I renounce
+him.'
+
+'And I renounce him,' said Marionetta.
+
+Scythrop knew not what to do. He could not attempt to conciliate the
+one without irreparably offending the other; and he was so fond of
+both, that the idea of depriving himself for ever of the society
+of either was intolerable to him: he therefore retreated into his
+stronghold, mystery; maintained an impenetrable silence; and contented
+himself with stealing occasionally a deprecating glance at each of the
+objects of his idolatry. Mr Toobad and Mr Hilary, in the mean time,
+were each insisting on an explanation from Mr Glowry, who they thought
+had been playing a double game on this occasion. Mr Glowry was
+vainly endeavouring to persuade them of his innocence in the whole
+transaction. Mrs Hilary was endeavouring to mediate between her
+husband and brother. The Honourable Mr Listless, the Reverend Mr
+Larynx, Mr Flosky, Mr Asterias, and Aquarius, were attracted by the
+tumult to the scene of action, and were appealed to severally and
+conjointly by the respective disputants. Multitudinous questions, and
+answers _en masse_, composed a _charivari_, to which the genius of
+Rossini alone could have given a suitable accompaniment, and which
+was only terminated by Mrs Hilary and Mr Toobad retreating with the
+captive damsels. The whole party followed, with the exception of
+Scythrop, who threw himself into his arm-chair, crossed his left
+foot over his right knee, placed the hollow of his left hand on the
+interior ancle of his left leg, rested his right elbow on the elbow
+of the chair, placed the ball of his right thumb against his right
+temple, curved the forefinger along the upper part of his forehead,
+rested the point of the middle finger on the bridge of his nose, and
+the points of the two others on the lower part of the palm, fixed his
+eyes intently on the veins in the back of his left hand, and sat in
+this position like the immoveable Theseus, who, as is well known to
+many who have not been at college, and to some few who have, _sedet,
+oeternumque sedebit_.[13] We hope the admirers of the _minutiæ_ in
+poetry and romance will appreciate this accurate description of a
+pensive attitude.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Scythrop was still in this position when Raven entered to announce
+that dinner was on table.
+
+'I cannot come,' said Scythrop.
+
+Raven sighed. 'Something is the matter,' said Raven: 'but man is born
+to trouble.'
+
+'Leave me,' said Scythrop: 'go, and croak elsewhere.'
+
+'Thus it is,' said Raven. 'Five-and-twenty years have I lived in
+Nightmare Abbey, and now all the reward of my affection is--Go, and
+croak elsewhere. I have danced you on my knee, and fed you with
+marrow.'
+
+'Good Raven,' said Scythrop, 'I entreat you to leave me.'
+
+'Shall I bring your dinner here?' said Raven. 'A boiled fowl and
+a glass of Madeira are prescribed by the faculty in cases of low
+spirits. But you had better join the party: it is very much reduced
+already.'
+
+'Reduced! how?'
+
+'The Honourable Mr Listless is gone. He declared that, what with
+family quarrels in the morning, and ghosts at night, he could get
+neither sleep nor peace; and that the agitation was too much for his
+nerves: though Mr Glowry assured him that the ghost was only poor Crow
+walking in his sleep, and that the shroud and bloody turban were a
+sheet and a red nightcap.'
+
+'Well, sir?'
+
+'The Reverend Mr Larynx has been called off on duty, to marry or bury
+(I don't know which) some unfortunate person or persons, at Claydyke:
+but man is born to trouble!'
+
+'Is that all?'
+
+'No. Mr Toobad is gone too, and a strange lady with him.'
+
+'Gone!'
+
+'Gone. And Mr and Mrs Hilary, and Miss O'Carroll: they are all gone.
+There is nobody left but Mr Asterias and his son, and they are going
+to-night.'
+
+'Then I have lost them both.'
+
+'Won't you come to dinner?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Shall I bring your dinner here?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'What will you have?'
+
+'A pint of port and a pistol.'[14]
+
+'A pistol!'
+
+'And a pint of port. I will make my exit like Werter. Go. Stay. Did
+Miss O'Carroll say any thing?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Did Miss Toobad say any thing?'
+
+'The strange lady? No.'
+
+'Did either of them cry?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'What did they do?'
+
+'Nothing.'
+
+'What did Mr Toobad say?'
+
+'He said, fifty times over, the devil was come among us.'
+
+'And they are gone?'
+
+'Yes; and the dinner is getting cold. There is a time for every
+thing under the sun. You may as well dine first, and be miserable
+afterwards.'
+
+'True, Raven. There is something in that. I will take your advice:
+therefore, bring me----'
+
+'The port and the pistol?'
+
+'No; the boiled fowl and Madeira.'
+
+Scythrop had dined, and was sipping his Madeira alone, immersed in
+melancholy musing, when Mr Glowry entered, followed by Raven, who,
+having placed an additional glass and set a chair for Mr Glowry,
+withdrew. Mr Glowry sat down opposite Scythrop. After a pause, during
+which each filled and drank in silence, Mr Glowry said, 'So, sir,
+you have played your cards well. I proposed Miss Toobad to you: you
+refused her. Mr Toobad proposed you to her: she refused you. You fell
+in love with Marionetta, and were going to poison yourself, because,
+from pure fatherly regard to your temporal interests, I withheld my
+consent. When, at length, I offered you my consent, you told me I was
+too precipitate. And, after all, I find you and Miss Toobad living
+together in the same tower, and behaving in every respect like two
+plighted lovers. Now, sir, if there be any rational solution of all
+this absurdity, I shall be very much obliged to you for a small
+glimmering of information.'
+
+'The solution, sir, is of little moment; but I will leave it in
+writing for your satisfaction. The crisis of my fate is come: the
+world is a stage, and my direction is _exit._'
+
+'Do not talk so, sir;--do not talk so, Scythrop. What would you have?'
+
+'I would have my love.'
+
+'And pray, sir, who is your love?'
+
+'Celinda--Marionetta--either--both.'
+
+'Both! That may do very well in a German tragedy; and the Great Mogul
+might have found it very feasible in his lodgings at Kensington; but
+it will not do in Lincolnshire. Will you have Miss Toobad?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And renounce Marionetta?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'But you must renounce one.'
+
+'I cannot.'
+
+'And you cannot have both. What is to be done?'
+
+'I must shoot myself.'
+
+'Don't talk so, Scythrop. Be rational, my dear Scythrop. Consider, and
+make a cool, calm choice, and I will exert myself in your behalf.'
+
+'Why should I choose, sir? Both have renounced _me_: I have no hope of
+either.'
+
+'Tell me which you will have, and I will plead your cause
+irresistibly.'
+
+'Well, sir,--I will have--no, sir, I cannot renounce either. I
+cannot choose either. I am doomed to be the victim of eternal
+disappointments; and I have no resource but a pistol.'
+
+'Scythrop--Scythrop;--if one of them should come to you--what then?'
+
+'That, sir, might alter the case: but that cannot be.'
+
+'It can be, Scythrop; it will be: I promise you it will be. Have but a
+little patience--but a week's patience; and it shall be.'
+
+'A week, sir, is an age: but, to oblige you, as a last act of
+filial duty, I will live another week. It is now Thursday evening,
+twenty-five minutes past seven. At this hour and minute, on Thursday
+next, love and fate shall smile on me, or I will drink my last pint of
+port in this world.'
+
+Mr Glowry ordered his travelling chariot, and departed from the abbey.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The day after Mr Glowry's departure was one of incessant rain, and
+Scythrop repented of the promise he had given. The next day was one of
+bright sunshine: he sat on the terrace, read a tragedy of Sophocles,
+and was not sorry, when Raven announced dinner, to find himself alive.
+On the third evening, the wind blew, and the rain beat, and the owl
+flapped against his windows; and he put a new flint in his pistol. On
+the fourth day, the sun shone again; and he locked the pistol up in a
+drawer, where he left it undisturbed, till the morning of the eventful
+Thursday, when he ascended the turret with a telescope, and spied
+anxiously along the road that crossed the fens from Claydyke: but
+nothing appeared on it. He watched in this manner from ten A.M. till
+Raven summoned him to dinner at five; when he stationed Crow at the
+telescope, and descended to his own funeral-feast. He left open the
+communications between the tower and turret, and called aloud at
+intervals to Crow,--'Crow, Crow, is any thing coming?' Crow answered,
+'The wind blows, and the windmills turn, but I see nothing coming;'
+and, at every answer, Scythrop found the necessity of raising his
+spirits with a bumper. After dinner, he gave Raven his watch to set by
+the abbey clock. Raven brought it, Scythrop placed it on the table,
+and Raven departed. Scythrop called again to Crow; and Crow, who had
+fallen asleep, answered mechanically, 'I see nothing coming.' Scythrop
+laid his pistol between his watch and his bottle. The hour-hand passed
+the VII.--the minute-hand moved on;--it was within three minutes of
+the appointed time. Scythrop called again to Crow: Crow answered as
+before. Scythrop rang the bell: Raven appeared.
+
+'Raven,' said Scythrop, 'the clock is too fast.'
+
+'No, indeed,' said Raven, who knew nothing of Scythrop's intentions;
+'if any thing, it is too slow.'
+
+'Villain!' said Scythrop, pointing the pistol at him; 'it is too
+fast.'
+
+'Yes--yes--too fast, I meant,' said Raven, in manifest fear.
+
+'How much too fast?' said Scythrop.
+
+'As much as you please,' said Raven.
+
+'How much, I say?' said Scythrop, pointing the pistol again.
+
+'An hour, a full hour, sir,' said the terrified butler.
+
+'Put back my watch,' said Scythrop.
+
+Raven, with trembling hand, was putting back the watch, when the
+rattle of wheels was heard in the court; and Scythrop, springing down
+the stairs by three steps together, was at the door in sufficient time
+to have handed either of the young ladies from the carriage, if she
+had happened to be in it; but Mr Glowry was alone.
+
+'I rejoice to see you,' said Mr Glowry; 'I was fearful of being too
+late, for I waited till the last moment in the hope of accomplishing
+my promise; but all my endeavours have been vain, as these letters
+will show.'
+
+Scythrop impatiently broke the seals. The contents were these:
+
+  Almost a stranger in England, I fled from parental tyranny,
+  and the dread of an arbitrary marriage, to the protection of a
+  stranger and a philosopher, whom I expected to find something
+  better than, or at least something different from, the rest of his
+  worthless species. Could I, after what has occurred, have
+  expected nothing more from you than the common-place impertinence
+  of sending your father to treat with me, and with mine, for me? I
+  should be a little moved in your favour, if I could believe you
+  capable of carrying into effect the resolutions which your father
+  says you have taken, in the event of my proving inflexible;
+  though I doubt not you will execute them, as far as relates to
+  the pint of wine, twice over, at least. I wish you much happiness
+  with Miss O'Carroll. I shall always cherish a grateful
+  recollection of Nightmare Abbey, for having been the means of
+  introducing me to a true transcendentalist; and, though he is a
+  little older than myself, which is all one in Germany, I shall
+  very soon have the pleasure of subscribing myself
+
+  CELINDA FLOSKY
+
+  I hope, my dear cousin, that you will not be angry with me,
+  but that you will always think of me as a sincere friend, who
+  will always feel interested in your welfare; I am sure you love
+  Miss Toobad much better than me, and I wish you much happiness
+  with her. Mr Listless assures me that people do not kill
+  themselves for love now-a-days, though it is still the fashion to
+  talk about it. I shall, in a very short time, change my name and
+  situation, and shall always be happy to see you in Berkeley
+  Square, when, to the unalterable designation of your affectionate
+  cousin, I shall subjoin the signature of
+
+  MARIONETTA LISTLESS
+
+Scythrop tore both the letters to atoms, and railed in good set terms
+against the fickleness of women.
+
+'Calm yourself, my dear Scythrop,' said Mr Glowry; 'there are yet
+maidens in England.'
+
+'Very true, sir,' said Scythrop.
+
+'And the next time,' said Mr Glowry, 'have but one string to your
+bow.'
+
+'Very good advice, sir,' said Scythrop.
+
+'And, besides,' said Mr Glowry, 'the fatal time is past, for it is now
+almost eight.'
+
+'Then that villain, Raven,' said Scythrop, 'deceived me when he said
+that the clock was too fast; but, as you observe very justly, the time
+has gone by, and I have just reflected that these repeated crosses in
+love qualify me to take a very advanced degree in misanthropy; and
+there is, therefore, good hope that I may make a figure in the world.
+But I shall ring for the rascal Raven, and admonish him.'
+
+Raven appeared. Scythrop looked at him very fiercely two or three
+minutes; and Raven, still remembering the pistol, stood quaking in
+mute apprehension, till Scythrop, pointing significantly towards the
+dining-room, said, 'Bring some Madeira.'
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+NOTES
+
+NIGHTMARE ABBEY
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+[1] _Mr Flosky_: A corruption of Filosky, quasi [Greek: philoschios],
+a lover, or sectator, of shadows.
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+[2] _the passion for reforming the world_: See Forsyth's _Principles
+of Moral Science_.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+[3] _decorum, and dignity, &c. &c. &c._: We are not masters of the
+whole vocabulary. See any novel by any literary lady.
+
+[4] _his Ahrimanic philosophy_: Ahrimanes, in the Persian mythology,
+is the evil power, the prince of the kingdom of darkness. He is the
+rival of Oromazes, the prince of the kingdom of light. These two
+powers have divided and equal dominion. Sometimes one of the two has a
+temporary supremacy.--According to Mr Toobad, the present period would
+be the reign of Ahrimanes. Lord Byron seems to be of the same opinion,
+by the use he has made of Ahrimanes in 'Manfred'; where the great
+Alastor, or [Greek: Kachos Daimôn], of Persia, is hailed king of
+the world by the Nemesis of Greece, in concert with three of
+the Scandinavian Valkyrae, under the name of the Destinies; the
+astrological spirits of the alchemists of the middle ages; an
+elemental witch, transplanted from Denmark to the Alps; and a chorus
+of Dr Faustus's devils, who come in the last act for a soul. It is
+difficult to conceive where this heterogeneous mythological company
+could have originally met, except at a _table d'hôte_, like the six
+kings in 'Candide'.
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+[5] _pensions_: 'PENSION. Pay given to a slave of state for treason to
+his country.'--JOHNSON'S _Dictionary_.
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+[6] _... of a beautiful day_: See Denys Montfort: _Histoire Naturelle
+des Mollusques; Vues Générales_, pp. 37, 38. (P.) The second half of
+this speech by Mr Asterias and the opening sentence of his previous
+speech are a paraphrase from Montfort, pp. 37-9.
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+[7] _Mr Burke's graduated scale of the sublime_: There must be some
+mistake in this, for the whole honourable band of gentlemen-pensioners
+has resolved unanimously, that Mr Burke was a very sublime person,
+particularly after he had prostituted his own soul, and betrayed his
+country and mankind, for 1200_l_. a year: yet he does not appear to
+have been a very terrible personage, and certainly went off with a
+very small portion of human respect, though he contrived to excite,
+in a great degree, the astonishment of all honest men. Our immaculate
+laureate (who gives us to understand that, if he had not been purified
+by holy matrimony into a mystical type, he would have died a virgin,)
+is another sublime gentleman of the same genus: he very much
+astonished some persons when he sold his birthright for a pot of sack;
+but not even his _Sosia_ has a grain of respect for him, though,
+doubtless, he thinks his name very terrible to the enemy, when he
+flourishes his criticopoeticopolitical tomahawk, and sets up his
+Indian yell for the blood of his old friends: but, at best, he is a
+mere political scarecrow, a man of straw, ridiculous to all who know
+of what materials he is made; and to none more so, than to those who
+have stuffed him, and set him up, as the Priapus of the garden of the
+golden apples of corruption.
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+[8] _... vanishes in the smoke of death_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4.
+cxxiv. cxxvi.
+
+[9] _... and reaps the whirlwind_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4. cxxiii.
+
+[10] _... or to endure_: _Ibid_. canto 3. lxxi.
+
+[11] _... whose gums are poison_: _Ibid_. canto 4. cxxi. cxxxvi.
+
+[12] _... exist only in himself_: _Childe Harold_, canto 4. cxxii.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+[13] _sedet, oeternumque sedebit_: Sits, and will sit for ever.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+[14] _a pint of port and a pistol_: See _The Sorrows of Werter_,
+Letter 93.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Nightmare Abbey, by Thomas Love Peacock
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