Dwaraka/Training_Dataset_of_Project_Gutebberg_Gothic_Fiction

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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

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