Nightmare Abbey

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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.

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