more was necessary from him than from
others,--lavishing his treasures as if to bribe mankind to receive him
into their class. It is scarcely necessary to say, that the bounty which
flowed from a source so capricious was often abused, and his confidence
frequently betrayed. These disappointments, which occur to all, more or
less, and most to such as confer benefits without just discrimination,
his diseased fancy set down to the hatred and contempt excited by his
personal deformity.--But I fatigue you, Miss Vere?"

"No, by no means; I--I could not prevent my attention from wandering an
instant; pray proceed."

"He became at length," continued Ratcliffe, "the most ingenious
self-tormentor of whom I have ever heard; the scoff of the rabble, and
the sneer of the yet more brutal vulgar of his own rank, was to him
agony and breaking on the wheel. He regarded the laugh of the common
people whom he passed on the street, and the suppressed titter, or yet
more offensive terror, of the young girls to whom he was introduced in
company, as proofs of the true sense which the world entertained of
him, as a prodigy unfit to be received among them on the usual terms
of society, and as vindicating the wisdom of his purpose in withdrawing
himself from among them. On the faith and sincerity of two persons
alone, he seemed to rely implicitly--on that of his betrothed bride, and
of a friend eminently gifted in personal accomplishments, who seemed,
and indeed probably was, sincerely attached to him. He ought to have
been so at least, for he was literally loaded with benefits by him whom
you are now about to see. The parents of the subject of my story died
within a short space of each other. Their death postponed the marriage,
for which the day had been fixed. The lady did not seem greatly to
mourn this delay,--perhaps that was not to have been expected; but
she intimated no change of intention, when, after a decent interval,
a second day was named for their union. The friend of whom I spoke was
then a constant resident at the Hall. In an evil hour, at the earnest
request and entreaty of this friend, they joined a general party, where
men of different political opinions were mingled, and where they drank
deep. A quarrel ensued; the friend of the Recluse drew his sword with
others, and was thrown down and disarmed by a more powerful antagonist.
They fell in the struggle at the feet of the Recluse, who, maimed and
truncated as his form appears