Pelham — CompleteLytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
History
Pelham — Complete
Lytton, Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron
Adventure stories; English fiction -- 19th century; Great Britain -- History -- 19th century -- Fiction
Yet there was one circumstance, to which, in spite of all the evidence
against Reginald, my mind still fondly and eagerly clung. In searching
the pockets of the unfortunate Tyrrell, the money he had mentioned to me
as being in his possession, could not be discovered. Had Glanville been
the murderer, at all events he could not have been the robber; it was
true that in the death scuffle, which in all probability took place, the
money might have fallen from the person of the deceased, either among
the long grass which grew rankly and luxuriantly around, or in the
sullen and slimy pool, close to which the murder was perpetrated; it was
also possible, that Thornton, knowing the deceased had so large a
sum about him, and not being aware that the circumstance had been
communicated to me or any one else, might not have been able (when he
and Dawson first went to the spot,) to resist so great a temptation.
However, there was a slight crevice in this fact, for a sunbeam of hope
to enter, and I was too sanguine, by habitual temperament and present
passion, not to turn towards it from the general darkness of my
thoughts.
With Glanville I was often brought into immediate contact. Both united
in the same party, and engaged in concerting the same measures, we
frequently met in public, and sometimes even alone. However, I was
invariably cold and distant, and Glanville confirmed rather than
diminished my suspicions, by making no commentary on my behaviour, and
imitating it in the indifference of his own. Yet, it was with a painful
and aching heart, that I marked, in his emaciated from and sunken cheek,
the gradual, but certain progress of disease and death; and while all
England rung with the renown of the young, but almost unrivalled orator,
and both parties united in anticipating the certainty and brilliancy
of his success, I felt how improbable it was, that, even if his crime
escaped the unceasing vigilance of justice, this living world would long
possess any traces of his genius but the remembrance of his name. There
was something in his love of letters, his habits of luxury and expence,
the energy of his mind--the solitude, the darkness, the hauteur, the
reserve, of his manners and life, which reminded me of the German
Wallenstein; nor was he altogether without the superstition of that
evil, but extraordinary man. It is true, that he was not addicted to
the romantic fables of astrology, but he was an earnest, though secret,
advocate of the world of spirits. He did not utterly disbelieve the
various stories of their return to earth, and their visits to the
living; and it would have been astonishing to me, had I been a less
diligent observer of human inconsistencies, to mark a mind otherwise
so reasoning and strong, in this respect so credulous and weak; and
to witness its reception of a belief, not only so adverse to ordinary
reflection, but so absolutely contradictory to the philosophy it
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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