ng occurs which is uncomfortable to me, I
endeavour to convince myself, and I have no great difficulty in doing
so, that I am a decidedly injured man."

"Indeed!"

"Yes; I get very angry, and that gets up a kind of obstinacy, which
makes me not feel half so much mental misery as would be my portion, if
I were to succumb to the evil, and commence whining over it, as many
people do, under the pretence of being resigned."

"But this family affliction of mine transcends anything that anybody
else ever endured."

"I don't know that; but it is a view of the subject which, if I were
you, would only make me more obstinate."

"What can I do?"

"In the first place, I would say to myself, 'There may or there may not
be supernatural beings, who, from some physical derangement of the
ordinary nature of things, make themselves obnoxious to living people;
if there are, d--n them! There may be vampyres; and if there are, I defy
them.' Let the imagination paint its very worst terrors; let fear do
what it will and what it can in peopling the mind with horrors. Shrink
from nothing, and even then I would defy them all."

"Is not that like defying Heaven?"

"Most certainly not; for in all we say and in all we do we act from the
impulses of that mind which is given to us by Heaven itself. If Heaven
creates an intellect and a mind of a certain order, Heaven will not
quarrel that it does the work which it was adapted to do."

"I know these are your opinions. I have heard you mention them before."

"They are the opinions of every rational person. Henry Bannerworth,
because they will stand the test of reason; and what I urge upon you is,
not to allow yourself to be mentally prostrated, even if a vampyre has
paid a visit to your house. Defy him, say I--fight him.
Self-preservation is a great law of nature, implanted in all our hearts;
do you summon it to your aid."

"I will endeavour to think as you would have me. I thought more than
once of summoning religion to my aid."

"Well, that is religion."

"Indeed!"

"I consider so, and the most rational religion of all. All that we read
about religion that does not seem expressly to agree with it, you may
consider as an allegory."

"But, Mr. Chillingworth, I cannot and will not renounce the sublime
truths of Scripture. They may be incomprehensible; they may be
inconsistent; and some of them may look ridiculous; but still they are
sacred and sublime, and I will not renounce them alth