anoni_, may have
gleaned stray hints from the novel of terror; but the spirit and
intention of the book are entirely different. Though Lytton
expressly declares that his _Zanoni_ is not an allegory, he
confesses that it has symbolical meanings. Zanoni is apt to
assume the superior pose of a lecturer elucidating an abstruse
subject to an unenlightened audience. The impression of artifice
that the book makes upon us is probably due to the fact that
Lytton first conceived his theories and then created personages
to illustrate them. His characters have no power to act of their
own volition or to do unexpected things, but must move along the
lines laid down for them.

In _The Haunted and the Haunters, or The House and the Brain_,
which appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ in 1859, Bulwer Lytton
lays aside the sin of over-elaboration and ornamentation that so
easily besets him, and relies for his effect on the impalpable
horror of his story. The calm, business-like overture, the
accurate description of the position of the house in a street off
the north side of Oxford Street, the insistence on the
matter-of-fact attitude of the watcher, and on the cool courage
of his servant, the abject fear of the dog, who dies in agony,
all tend to create an atmosphere of grave conviction. The eerie
child's footfall, the moving of the furniture by unseen hands,
the wrinkled fingers that clutch the old letters, the faintly
outlined wraiths of the man and woman in old-world garb with
ruffles, lace, and buckles, the hideous phantom of the drowned
man, the dark figure with malignant serpent eyes, shadow forth
the story hinted at in the letters found in an old drawer.
Haunted by loathly presences, the watcher experiences a sensation
of almost intolerable horror, but saves himself at the worst by
opposing his will to that of the haunters. He rightly surmises
that the evil influences, which seem in some way to emanate from
a small empty room, really proceed from a living being. His
interpretation is skilful and subtle enough not to detract from
the simple horror of the tale. A miniature, certain volatile
essences, a compass, a lodestone and other properties are found
in a room below that which appeared to be the source of the
horrors. It proves that the man, whose face is portrayed on the
miniature has been able through the exertion of will-power to
prolong his life for two centuries, and to preserve a curse in a
magical vessel. He is actually i