Nightmare Abbey

d 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 conscienc

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 in

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 kn

n 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 Dan

Mr Listless; and I dare say you

ately. I never had him in my collection, and if I had had him I should not have read him

evening, by all means. Were y

came to Nightmare Abbey. I dare say it is very pleasant; but it seems to

pendious method of courtship, that

confer on me an inexpressible obliga

middle, and turn over three or four pages at once — backwards as well as forwards, an

ionetta, and fixing all his attention on the beautiful speak

facetious, Miss O’Carroll. The lady would infalli

say, perhaps, some people have odd

TLESS But I should th

of the room) Did I not hear Mr Listless

ingness, 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 fashi

anded, the black, red, and grey may be admitted as substitutes. Tea, late dinners, and th

rting up) Havi

upon words, but the sober

nners, and the French Revolution. I can

siasm 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 abstrac

ARYNX Nothing can

d what has all that to do wit

think, with Dante, but a gr

ante 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 dre

us, and finds it for his interest to destroy all ou

r meaning, Mr Flosky, and should be glad if

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, an

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 firs

us at present, or we should not have interrupted Miss

iss O’Carroll would remind us that th

d the smile of beauty. May I entreat the f

ent, and Mar

ooks so blank

thy look

ore pale and l

wast use

has made

plump, and a

und and r

an outward

rd spiritu

has change

ell thee tru

well

looks are blu

for lov

for lov

t thy vows to

he them n

ems in a rev

of a mo

s must say

thou think m

pale and s

would win a m

lad in ca

e of a lark

s 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 alacr