n faces, and an
apartment whose walls were hung with carpets of a thousand kinds
and a thousand hues, which moved slowly to and fro as if stirred
by human creatures stifling beneath their weight. But Beckford
passes swiftly from one mood to another, and was only momentarily
fascinated by terror. So infinite is the variety of _Vathek_ in
scenery and in temper that it seems like its wealthy, eccentric,
author secluded in Fonthill Abbey, to dwell apart in defiant,
splendid isolation.

It is impossible to understand or appreciate _Vathek_ apart from
Beckford's life and character, which contain elements almost as
grotesque and fantastic as those of his romance. He was no
visionary dreamer, content to build his pleasure-domes in air. He
revelled in the golden glories of good Haroun-Alraschid,[69] but
he craved too for solid treasures he could touch and handle, for
precious jewels, for rare, beautiful volumes, for curious, costly
furniture. The scenes of splendour portrayed in _Vathek_ were
based on tangible reality.[70] Beckford's schemes in later
life--his purchase of Gibbon's entire library, his twice-built
tower on Lansdown Hill, were as grandiose and ambitious as those
of an Eastern caliph. The whimsical, Puckish humour, which helped
to counteract the strain of gloomy bitterness in his nature, was
early revealed in his _Biographical Memoirs of Extraordinary
Painters_ and in his burlesques of the sentimental novels of the
day, which were accepted by the compiler of _Living Authors_
(1817) as a serious contribution to fiction by one Miss Jacquetta
Agneta Mariana Jenks. Moore,[71] in his _Journal_, October 1818,
remarks:

"The two mock novels, _Azemia_ and _The Elegant
Enthusiast_, were written to ridicule the novels
written by his sister, Mrs. Harvey (I think), who read
these parodies on herself quite innocently."

Even in the gloomy regions of Eblis, Beckford will not wholly
repress his sense of the ridiculous. Carathis, unawed by the
effulgence of his infernal majesty, behaves like a buffoon,
shouting at the Dives and actually attempting to thrust a Soliman
from his throne, before she is finally whirled away with her
heart aflame. The calm politeness with which the dastardly
Barkiaroukh consents to a blood-curdling murder, the sardonic
dialogue between Vathek on the edge of the precipice and the
Giaour concealed in the abyss, the buoyantly high-spirited
description of the plump Indian kicked and