hing, the same unutterable shuddering, as I feel,
start up within him and shoot through his whole frame at the sight of
them, these miscreate deformities, such as toads, beetles, or that
most nauseous of all Nature's abortions, the bat, are not indifferent
or insignificant: their very existence is a state of direct enmity and
warfare against his. In good truth one might smile at the unbelievers
whose imagination is too barren for ghosts and fearful goblins, and
such births of night as we see in sickness, to grow up in it, or who
stare and marvel at Dante's descriptions; when the commonest everyday
life is perpetually paralysing our eyesight with some of these
portentous distorted masterpieces among the works of horrour. Yet how
can we have a real feeling and love for beauty, without detesting and
recoiling from such monstrosities?"

"Why recoil from them?" askt Roderick: "why should we see nothing in
the vast realm of water, in lakes, rivers, and seas, but those dismal
objects which you have taught yourself to find there? why not rather
look on such creatures as queer, amusing, and ludicrous mummers? so
that the deep might be called a kind of large maskt ballroom. But your
caprices go still further; for while you love roses with a sort of
idolatry, there are other flowers for which you have a no less
passionate hatred: yet what harm has the dear bright tulip ever done
you? or all the other gay children of summer that you persecute? Thus
again you have an antipathy to sundry colours, to sundry scents, and
to a number of thoughts; and you never take any pains to strengthen
yourself against these moods, but give way to them and sink down into
them as into a luxurious feather bed; so that I often fear I shall
lose you altogether some day, and find nothing but a patchwork of
whims and prejudices sitting at that table instead of my Emilius."

Emilius was wroth to the bottom of his heart, and answered not a word.
He had now given up all thought of making his intended confession; nor
did the thoughtless Roderick shew the least wish to hear the secret
which his melancholy companion had announced to him with such an air
of solemnity. He was sitting carelessly in the armchair, playing with
his mask, when on a sudden he cried: "Be so kind, Emilius, as to lend
me your large cloak."

"What for?" askt the other.

"I hear music in the church over the way," answered Roderick; "and
some how or other I have mist this hour every evenin