But, by the manner in which he was answered, it was plain
that those he addressed considered him insane; and, indeed, the
remarkable change in his expression might well justify the suspicion. He
then remembered that night in Spain, when the same sweet and mysterious
sounds were heard only by the young bridegroom and bride, of whom the
latter perished on that very night. “And am I then to be the next
victim?” thought Stanton; “and are those celestial sounds, that seem to
prepare us for heaven, only intended to announce the presence of an
incarnate fiend, who mocks the devoted with ‘airs from heaven,’ while he
prepares to surround them with ‘blasts from hell’?” It is very singular
that at this moment, when his imagination had reached its highest pitch
of elevation,--when the object he had pursued so long and fruitlessly,
had in one moment become as it were tangible to the grasp both of mind
and body,--when this spirit, with whom he had wrestled in darkness, was
at last about to declare its name, that Stanton began to feel a kind of
disappointment at the futility of his pursuits, like Bruce at
discovering the source of the Nile, or Gibbon on concluding his History. The feeling which he had dwelt on so long, that he had actually
converted it into a duty, was after all mere curiosity; but what passion
is more insatiable, or more capable of giving a kind of romantic
grandeur to all its wanderings and eccentricities? Curiosity is in one
respect like love, it always compromises between the object and the
feeling; and provided the latter possesses sufficient energy, no matter
how contemptible the former may be. A child might have smiled at the
agitation of Stanton, caused as it was by the accidental appearance of a
stranger; but no man, in the full energy of his passions, was there, but
must have trembled at the horrible agony of emotion with which he felt
approaching, with sudden and irresistible velocity, the crisis of his
destiny. When the play was over, he stood for some moments in the deserted
streets. It was a beautiful moonlight night, and he saw near him a
figure, whose shadow, projected half across the street, (there were no
flagged ways then, chains and posts were the only defence of the
foot-passenger), appeared to him of gigantic magnitude. He had been so
long accustomed to contend with these phantoms of the imagination, that
he took a kind of stubborn delight in subduing them. He walked up to the
object, and observing the shadow only was magnified, and the figure was
the ordinary height of man, he approached it, and discovered the very
object of his search,--the man whom he had seen for a moment in
Valentia, and, after a search of four years, recognised at the theatre. * * * * * * * * * * *

“You were in quest of me?”--“I was.” “Have you any thing to inquire of
me?”--“Much.” “Speak, then.”--“This is no place.” “No place! poor
wretch, I am independent of time and place. Speak, if you have any thing
to ask or to learn?”--“I have many things to ask, but nothing to learn,
I hope, from you.” “You deceive yourself, but you will be undeceived
when next we meet.”--“And when shall that be?” said Stanton, grasping
his arm; “name your hour and your place.” “The hour shall be mid-day,”
answered the stranger, with a horrid and unintelligible smile; “and the
place shall be the bare walls of a mad-house, where you shall rise
rattling in your chains, and rustling from your straw, to greet me,--yet
still you shall have _the curse of sanity_, and of memory. My voice
shall ring in your ears till then, and the glance of these eyes shall be
reflected from every object, animate or inanimate, till you behold them
again.”--“Is it under circumstances so horrible we are to meet again?”
said Stanton, shrinking under the full-lighted blaze of those demon
eyes. “I never,” said the stranger, in an emphatic tone,--“I _never
desert my friends in misfortune_. When they are plunged in the lowest
abyss of human calamity, _they are sure to be visited by me_.” * * * * *

The narrative, when Melmoth was again able to trace its continuation,
described Stanton, some years after, plunged in a state the most
deplorable. He had been always reckoned of a singular turn of mind, and the belief
of this, aggravated by his constant talk of Melmoth, his wild pursuit of
him, his strange behaviour at the theatre, and his dwelling on the
various particulars of their extraordinary meetings, with all the
intensity of the deepest conviction, (while he never could impress them
on any one’s conviction but his own), suggested to some prudent people
the idea that he was deranged. Their malignity probably took part with
their prudence. The selfish Frenchman(9) says, we feel a pleasure even
in the misfortunes of our friends,--_a plus forte_ in those of our
enemies; and as every one is an enemy to a man of genius of course, the
report of Stanton’s malady was propagated with infernal and successful
industry. Stanton’s next relative, a needy unprincipled man, watched the
report in its circulation, and saw the snares closing round his victim. He waited on him one morning, accompanied by a person of a grave, though
somewhat repulsive appearance. Stanton was as usual abstracted and
restless, and, after a few moments conversation, he proposed a drive a
few miles out of London, which he said would revive and refresh him. Stanton objected, on account of the difficulty of getting a hackney
coach, (for it is singular that at this period the number of private
equipages, though infinitely fewer than they are now, exceeded the
number of hired ones), and proposed going by water. This, however, did
not suit the kinsman’s views; and, after pretending to send for a
carriage, (which was in waiting at the end of the street), Stanton and
his companions entered it, and drove about two miles out of London. (9) Rochefoucault. The carriage then stopped. “Come, Cousin,” said the younger
Stanton,--“come and view a purchase I have made.” Stanton absently
alighted, and followed him across a small paved court; the other person
followed. “In troth, Cousin,” said Stanton, “your choice appears not to
have been discreetly made; your house has something of a gloomy
aspect.”--“Hold you content, Cousin,” replied the other; “I shall take
order that you like it better, when you have been some time a dweller
therein.” Some attendants of a mean appearance, and with most suspicious
visages, awaited them on their entrance, and they ascended a narrow
staircase, which led to a room meanly furnished. “Wait here,” said the
kinsman, to the man who accompanied them, “till I go for company to
divertise my cousin in his loneliness.” They were left alone. Stanton
took no notice of his companion, but as usual seized the first book near
him, and began to read. It was a volume in manuscript,--they were then
much more common than now. The first lines struck him as indicating insanity in the writer.