Charles Robert Maturin

“ Every thing passed before me as in a dream. I saw the pageant move on, without a thought of who was to be the victim. I returned to the convent—I felt my destiny was fixed—I had no wish to avert or arrest it—I was like one who sees an enormous engine (whose operation is to crush him to atoms) put in motion, and, stupified with horror, gazes on it with a calmness that might be mistaken for that of one who was coolly analysing the complication of its machinery, and calculating the resistless crush of its blow. ”

“ I was silent in the refectory,—in the garden I walked alone. I neither thought, nor felt, nor lived,—if life depends on consciousness, and the motions of the will. I slept through my existence like the Simorgh in the Eastern fable, but this sleep was not to last long. My abstraction and calmness would not do for the Jesuits. My stupor, my noiseless tread, my fixed eyes, my ghastly silence, might indeed have impressed a superstitious community with the idea that it was no human creature who stalked through their cloisters, and haunted their choir. ”

“ He caught it up, rushed into the next room, tore, cut, and hacked it in every direction, and eagerly watched the fragments that burned like tinder in the turf-fire which had been lit in his room. As Melmoth saw the last blaze, he threw himself into bed, in hope of a deep and intense sleep. He had done what was required of him, and felt exhausted both in mind and body; but his slumber was not so sound as he had hoped for. The sullen light of the turf-fire, burning but never blazing, disturbed him every moment. ”

“ It was at this moment that Melmoth, starting from his trance of terror, and looking round him, saw all, to the number of hundreds, anxious, restless, and occupied; and, though obviously in vain, the sight cheered his heart. “How much good there is in man,” he cried, “when it is called forth by the sufferings of his fellows!” He had no leisure or inclination, then, to analyse the compound he called good, and resolve it into its component parts of curiosity, strong excitement, the pride of physical strength, or the comparative consciousness of safety. ”

“ Melmoth’s surtout, in spite of his efforts to wrap it round him, was fluttering in rags,—not a thread of the stranger’s garments seemed ruffled by the blast. But this did not strike him so much as his obvious insensibility to the distress and terror around him, and he exclaimed aloud, “Good God! is it possible that any thing bearing the human form should stand there without making an effort, without expressing a feeling, for those perishing wretches!” A pause ensued, or the blast carried away the sound; but a few moments after, Melmoth distinctly heard the words, “Let them perish.” ”

“ The sublime and yet softened beauty of the scenery around, had filled the soul of Stanton with delight, and he enjoyed that delight as Englishmen generally do, silently.
The magnificent remains of two dynasties that had passed away, the ruins of Roman palaces, and of Moorish fortresses, were around and above him;—the dark and heavy thunder-clouds that advanced slowly, seemed like the shrouds of these spectres of departed greatness; they approached, but did not yet overwhelm or conceal them, as if nature herself was for once awed by the power of man ”

“ There is something so very horrible in the sight of human beings perishing so near us, that we feel one firm step rightly planted, one arm steadily held out, might save at least one,—yet feel we know not where to fix that step, and cannot stretch that arm, that Melmoth’s senses reeled under the shock, and for a moment he echoed the storm with yells of actual insanity. ”

“ The victim reached the door, found it shut, and rallied. I turned, and saw a groupe worthy of Murillo. A more perfect human form never existed than that of this unfortunate youth. He stood in an attitude of despair—he was streaming with blood. The monks, with their lights, their scourges, and their dark habits, seemed like a groupe of demons who had made prey of a wandering angel,—the groupe resembled the infernal furies pursuing a mad Orestes. And, indeed, no ancient sculptor ever designed a figure more exquisite and perfect than that they had so barbarously mangled. ”

“ My voice shall ring in your ears till then, and the glance of these eyes shall be reflected from every object, animate or inanimate, till you behold them again.”—“Is it under circumstances so horrible we are to meet again?” said Stanton, shrinking under the full-lighted blaze of those demon eyes. “I never,” said the stranger, in an emphatic tone,—“I never desert my friends in misfortune. When they are plunged in the lowest abyss of human calamity, they are sure to be visited by me.” ”

“ Heaven and earth,—all that is valuable in time, or precious in eternity, are summoned, are waiting for the irrevocable words that seal your salvation, and ensure that of those you love. What demon has taken possession of you, my child, and seized the moment you were coming to Christ, to cast you down, and tear you? How shall I—how shall the fraternity, and all the souls who are to escape from punishment by the merit of your prayers, answer to God for your horrible apostacy?” “Let them answer for themselves—let every one of us answer for ourselves—that is the dictate of reason.” ”

“ He sat down and prepared to listen, and the Spaniard began to speak; but after some hesitation, he snatched the picture from his neck, and trampling on it with true continental action, exclaimed, “Devil! devil! thou choakest me!” and crushing the portrait, glass and all, under his feet, exclaimed, “Now I am easier.”
The room in which they sat was a low, mean, wretchedly furnished apartment; the evening was tempestuous, and as the windows and doors rattled in the blast, Melmoth felt as if he listened to some herald of “fate and fear.” A deep and sickening agitation shook his frame ”

“ My companions assumed a more sanctified air, and I struggled for a more composed one.
“As we went to the church, they conversed in whispers, but those whispers were intended to reach my ear. I could hear them say, “It is in vain that he struggles with grace; there never was a more decided vocation; God never obtained a more glorious victory. Already he has the look of a child of heaven;—the monastic gait,—the downcast look;—the motion of his arms naturally imitates the sign of the cross, and the very folds of his mantle arrange themselves, by a divine instinct, into those of a Monk’s habit.” ”

“ I will never be a monk.” The Superior, at these words, ran in despair round the cell. I followed him, exclaiming, in a voice that must have filled him with horror, “I exclaim against the vows—let those who forced me to it, take the guilt on themselves—let my father, in his own person, expiate his guilt in bringing me into the world—let my brother sacrifice his pride—why must I be the only victim of the crime of the one, and the passions of the other?” ”

“ After a long pause, the Spaniard said, “That motive, Senhor, a few days past I believed it was not in mortal power to compel me to disclose. I deemed it incommunicable as it was incredible. I conceived myself to be alone on the earth, without sympathy and beyond relief. It is singular that accident should have placed me within the reach of the only being from whom I could expect either, and perhaps a developement of those circumstances which have placed me in a situation so extraordinary.” This exordium, delivered with a composed but thrilling gravity, had an effect on Melmoth. ”

“ You know I might have the Superior and half the convent at my bed-side this moment if I pleased, with their tapers, their holy water, and their preparations for extreme unction, and all the masquerade of death, by which they try to dupe even the dying, and insult God even on the threshold of his own eternal mansion. I suffered you to sit beside me, because I thought, from your repugnance to the monastic life, you might be a willing hearer of its deceptions, and its despair. ”

“ Curiosity is in one respect like love, it always compromises between the object and the feeling; and provided the latter possesses sufficient energy, no matter how contemptible the former may be. A child might have smiled at the agitation of Stanton, caused as it was by the accidental appearance of a stranger; but no man, in the full energy of his passions, was there, but must have trembled at the horrible agony of emotion with which he felt approaching, with sudden and irresistible velocity, the crisis of his destiny. ”

“ I never read the books they furnished me with,—I neglected the flowers with which they filled my room,—and the superb organ they introduced into my apartment, I never touched, except to elicit some deep and melancholy chords from its keys. To those who urged me to employ my talents for painting and music, I still answered with the same apathetic monotony, “I am to be a monk.” “But, my brother, the love of flowers, of music, of all that can be consecrated to God, is also worthy of the attention of man—you abuse the indulgence of the Superior.” ”

“ I was unable to answer, my mother saw it, and redoubled her efforts. “My son, if I thought that my kneeling at your feet would soften your obduracy, I would prostrate myself before them this moment.” “Oh! madam, the sight of such unnatural humiliation ought to kill me.” “And yet you will not yield—the agony of this confession, the interests of my salvation and your own, nay, the preservation of my life, are of no weight with you.” She perceived that these words made me tremble, and repeated, “Yes, my life; beyond the day that your inflexibility exposes me to infamy, I will not live. ”

“ What is there you see before you so horrible, that you recoil, that you cross yourself, that you lift your eyes and hands to heaven?—a creature whom despair has driven to utter desperate truth! Truth may be horrible to the inmates of a convent, whose whole life is artificial and perverted,—whose very hearts are sophisticated beyond the hand even of Heaven (which they alienate by their hypocrisy) to touch. ”

“ The cry of nature hushed every other cry,—she was the only patient in the house who was not mad from politics, religion, ebriety, or some perverted passion; and terrifying as the out-break of her frenzy always was, Stanton used to await it as a kind of relief from the dissonant, melancholy, and ludicrous ravings of the others. ”

“ The basis of all ecclesiastical power rests upon fear. A crime must be discovered or invented. The vague reports circulated in the family, my mother’s constant dejection, my father’s occasional agitation, offered him a clue, which he followed with incessant industry through all its windings of doubt, mystery, and disappointment, till, in a moment of penitence, my mother, terrified by his constant denunciations if she concealed any secret of her heart or life from him, disclosed the truth. ”

“ But nature, violated by these excesses, exacts a most usurious interest for this illicit indulgence. She makes them pay for moments of rapture with hours of despair. Their precipitation from extasy to horror is almost instantaneous. In the course of a few moments, they pass from being the favourites of Heaven to becoming its outcasts. They doubt the truth of their raptures,—the truth of their vocation. They doubt every thing—the sincerity of their prayers, even the efficacy of the Saviour’s atonement, and the intercession of the blessed Virgin. They plunge from paradise to hell. ”

“ The petty squabbles and intrigues of the convent, the bitter and incessant conflict of habits, tempers, and interests, the efforts of incarcerated minds for objects of excitement, the struggles to diversify endless monotony, and elevate hopeless mediocrity;—all that makes monastic life like the wrong side of tapestry, where we see only uncouth threads, and the harsh outlines, without the glow of the colours, the richness of the tissue, or the splendour of the embroidery, that renders the external surface so rich and dazzling ”

“ There is something very horrible in the laugh of a dying man: Hovering on the verge of both worlds, he seems to give the lie to both, and proclaim the enjoyments of one, and the hopes of another, alike an imposture. “I performed that miracle myself,” he said with all the calmness, and, alas! something of the triumph of a deliberate impostor. “I knew the reservoir by which the fountain was supplied—by consent of the Superior it was drawn off in the course of the night. We worked hard at it, and laughed at your credulity every pump we drew.” ”

“ If I had ever heard he was nervous, or fanciful, or superstitious, but a character so contrary to all these impressions;—a man that, as poor Butler says, in his Remains of the Antiquarian, would have “sold Christ over again for the numerical piece of silver which Judas got for him,”—such a man to die of fear! Yet he is dying,” said John, glancing his fearful eye on the contracted nostril, the glazed eye, the dropping jaw, the whole horrible apparatus of the facies Hippocratica displayed, and soon to cease its display.
Old Melmoth at this moment seemed to be in a deep stupor ”

“ To their honour be it spoken, they never heard those sounds but as a claim, a piteous, irresistible claim on their humanity. They knew nothing of the barbarous practice on the English coast, of fastening a lanthorn to the limbs of a spanselled horse, whose plungings were to misdirect the wrecked and sinking wretches, in the vain hope that the light they saw was a beacon, and thus to double the horrors of death by the baffled expectation of relief. ”

“ I know you have power,—I defy it. I know every art of circumvention, of imposture, of malignant industry,—every resource of earth and hell, will be set at work against me. I take Heaven to witness against you, and demand only its aid to insure my victory.” My father had lost all patience; he desired the attendants to raise and remove me by force. This mention of force, so repugnant to my habits of imperious indulgence, operated fatally on intellects scarcely recovering from delirium, and too strongly tried in the late struggle. I relapsed into partial insanity. ”

“ I stood speechless with astonishment, while every voice around me repeated, “A miracle! a miracle!—God himself has sealed your vocation with his own hand.” The Superior made a signal to them to stop. He said to me in a calm voice, “My son, you are required only to believe the evidence of your own eyes. Will you make infidels of your very senses, sooner than believe God? Prostrate yourself, I adjure you, before him this moment, and, by a public and solemn act of faith, recognise that mercy that has not scrupled a miracle to invite you to salvation.” ”

“ Hear your doom—Those who are possessed of what may be called the religious character, that is, those who are visionary, weak, morose, and ascetic, may elevate themselves to a species of intoxication in the moments of devotion. They may, while clasping the images, work themselves into the delusion, that the dead stone thrills to their touch; that the figures move, assent to their petitions, and turn their lifeless eyes on them with an expression of benignity. They may, while kissing the crucifix, believe that they hear celestial voices pronouncing their pardon ”