fortunes "there is something in this world worth living
for."

The Inquisition scenes of _St. Leon_ were undoubtedly coloured
faintly by those of Lewis's _Monk_ (1794) and Mrs. Radcliffe's
_Italian_ (1798); but it is characteristic of Godwin that instead
of trying to portray the terror of the shadowy hall, he chooses
rather to present the argumentative speeches of St. Leon and the
Inquisitor. The aged stranger, who bestows on St. Leon the
philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, has the piercing eye
so familiar to readers of the novel of terror: "You wished to
escape from its penetrating power, but you had not the strength
to move. I began to feel as if it were some mysterious and
superior being in human form;"[86] but apart from this trait he
is not an impressive figure. The only character who would have
felt perfectly at home in the realm of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk"
Lewis is Bethlem Gabor, who appears for the first time in the
fourth volume of _St. Leon_. He is akin to Schedoni and his
compeers in his love of solitude, his independence of
companionship, and his superhuman aspect, but he is a figure who
inspires awe and pity as well as terror. Beside this personage
the other characters pale into insignificance:

"He was more than six feet in stature ... and he was
built as if it had been a colossus, destined to sustain
the weight of the starry heavens. His voice was like
thunder ... his head and chin were clothed with a thick
and shaggy hair, in colour a dead-black. He had
suffered considerable mutilation in the services
through which he had passed ... Bethlem Gabor, though
universally respected for the honour and magnanimity of
a soldier, was not less remarkable for habits of
reserve and taciturnity... Seldom did he allow himself
to open his thoughts but when he did, Great God! what
supernatural eloquence seemed to inspire and enshroud
him... Bethlem Gabor's was a soul that soared to a
sightless distance above the sphere of pity."[87]

The superstitions of bygone ages, which had fired the imagination
of so many writers of romance, left Godwin cold. He was mildly
interested in the supernatural as affording insight into the
"credulity of the human mind," and even compiled a treatise on
_The Lives of the Necromancers_ (1834).[88] But the hints and
suggestions, the gloom, the weird lights and shades which help to
create that romantic atmosphe