Nightmare Abbey by Thomas Love Peacock (top 10 best books of all time txt) 📕
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Published in 1818, Peacock’s novella Nightmare Abbey is a gentle satire of the then-popular gothic movement in literature. He pokes fun at the genre’s obsessions and most of the book’s characters are caricatures of well-known personages of the time.
Young Scythrop is the only son of Mr. Glowry, living in the semi-ruined Nightmare Abbey on his estate in Lincolnshire. Mr. Glowry, the survivor of a miserable marriage, is addicted to the depressing and the morbid, surrounding himself with servants whose names, such as Raven, Graves and Skellet, reflect his obsessions. His friends, also, are chosen from those who best reflect his misanthropic views.
Scythrop himself imagines himself a philosopher with a unique view of the world, and to this end has written a treatise titled “Philosophical Gas; or, a Project for a General Illumination of the Human Mind.” Only seven copies of this treatise have ever been sold, and Scythrop dreams of being united with one of the buyers. His passions, though, become more earthy when he falls in love both with his cousin Marionetta and then also with a mysterious woman who appears in his apartment and begs him for asylum, thus creating a situation of romantic farce as he tries to decide between the two.
These events are interleaved between entertaining discussions among the varied guests at Nightmare Abbey, richly filled with humor, allusions and quotation.
Nightmare Abbey is probably Peacock’s most successful work of fiction, and helped establish his position as an important satirist of his times. His satire, though, is light-hearted rather than savage and is directed more at foolish opinions than attacking particular persons.
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- Author: Thomas Love Peacock
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Seamen three! I What men be ye?
Gotham’s three wise men we be.
Whither in your bowl so free?
To rake the moon from out the sea.
The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
And our ballast is old wine;
And your ballast is old wine.
Who art thou, so fast adrift?
I am he they call Old Care.
Here on board we will thee lift.
No: I may not enter there.
Wherefore so? ’Tis Jove’s decree,
In a bowl Care may not be;
In a bowl Care may not be.
Hear ye not the waves that roll?
No: in charmed bowl we swim.
What the charm that floats the bowl?
Water may not pass the brim.
The bowl goes trim. The moon doth shine.
And our ballast is old wine;
And your ballast is old wine.
This catch was so well executed by the spirit and science of Mr. Hilary, and the deep triune voice of the reverend gentleman, that the whole party, in spite of themselves, caught the contagion, and joined in chorus at the conclusion, each raising a bumper to his lips:
AllThe bowl goes trim: the moon doth shine:
And our ballast is old wine.
Mr. Cypress, having his ballast on board, stepped, the same evening, into his bowl, or travelling chariot, and departed to rake seas and rivers, lakes and canals, for the moon of ideal beauty.
XIIIt was the custom of the Honourable Mr. Listless, on adjourning from the bottle to the ladies, to retire for a few moments to make a second toilette, that he might present himself in becoming taste. Fatout, attending as usual, appeared with a countenance of great dismay, and informed his master that he had just ascertained that the abbey was haunted. Mrs. Hilary’s gentlewoman, for whom Fatout had lately conceived a tendresse, had been, as she expressed it, “fritted out of her seventeen senses” the preceding night, as she was retiring to her bedchamber, by a ghastly figure which she had met stalking along one of the galleries, wrapped in a white shroud, with a bloody turban on its head. She had fainted away with fear; and, when she recovered, she found herself in the dark, and the figure was gone. “Sacre—cochon—bleu!” exclaimed Fatout, giving very deliberate emphasis to every portion of his terrible oath—“I vould not meet de revenant, de ghost—non—not for all de bowl-de-ponch in de vorld.”
“Fatout,” said the Honourable Mr. Listless, “did I ever see a ghost?”
“Jamais, monsieur, never.”
“Then I hope I never shall, for, in the present shattered state of my nerves, I am afraid it would be too much for me. There—loosen the lace of my stays a little, for really this plebeian practice of eating—Not too loose—consider my shape. That will do. And I desire that you bring me no more stories of ghosts; for, though I do not believe in such things, yet, when one is awake in the night, one is apt, if one thinks of them, to have fancies that give one a kind of a chill, particularly if one opens one’s eyes suddenly on one’s dressing gown, hanging in the moonlight, between the bed and the window.”
The Honourable Mr. Listless, though he had prohibited Fatout from bringing him any more stories of ghosts, could not help thinking of that which Fatout had already brought; and, as it was uppermost in his mind, when he descended to the tea and coffee cups, and the rest of the company in the library, he almost involuntarily asked Mr. Flosky, whom he looked up to as a most oraculous personage, whether any story of any ghost that had ever appeared to anyone, was entitled to any degree of belief?
Mr. FloskyBy far the greater number, to a very great degree.
The Honourable Mr. ListlessReally, that is very alarming!
Mr. FloskySunt geminoe somni portoe. There are two gates through which ghosts find their way to the upper air: fraud and self-delusion. In the latter case, a ghost is a deceptio visus, an ocular spectrum, an idea with the force of a sensation. I have seen many ghosts myself. I dare say there are few in this company who have not seen a ghost.
The Honourable Mr. ListlessI am happy to say, I never have, for one.
The Reverend Mr. LarynxWe have such high authority for ghosts, that it is rank scepticism to disbelieve them. Job saw a ghost, which came for the express purpose of asking a question, and did not wait for an answer.
The Honourable Mr. ListlessBecause Job was too frightened to give one.
The Reverend Mr. LarynxSpectres appeared to the Egyptians during the darkness with which Moses covered Egypt. The witch of Endor raised the ghost of Samuel. Moses and Elias appeared on Mount Tabor. An evil spirit was sent into the army of Sennacherib, and exterminated it in a single night.
Mr. ToobadSaying, “The devil is come among you, having great wrath.”
Mr. FloskySaint Macarius interrogated a skull, which was found in the desert, and made it relate, in presence of several witnesses, what was going forward in hell. Saint Martin of Tours, being jealous of a pretended martyr, who was the rival saint of his neighbourhood, called up his ghost, and made him confess that he was damned. Saint Germain, being on his travels, turned out of an inn a large party of ghosts, who had every night taken possession of the table d’hôte, and consumed a copious supper.
Mr. HilaryJolly ghosts, and no doubt all friars. A similar party took possession of the cellar of M. Swebach, the painter, in Paris, drank his wine, and threw the empty bottles at his head.
The Reverend Mr. LarynxAn atrocious act.
Mr. FloskyPausanias relates, that the neighing of horses and the tumult of combatants were heard every night on the field of Marathon: that those who went purposely to hear these sounds suffered severely for their curiosity; but those who heard them by accident passed with impunity.
The Reverend Mr. LarynxI once saw a ghost myself, in my study, which is the last
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