"Polidori_The Vampyre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Polidori John William)

his judgment. He had, hence, that high romantic feeling of honour and
candour, which daily ruins so many milliners' apprentices. He believed all
to sympathise with virtue, and thought that vice was thrown in by Providence
merely for the picturesque effect of the scene, as we see in romances: he
thought that the misery of a cottage merely consisted in the vesting of
clothes, which were as warm, but which were better adapted to the painter's
eye by their irregular folds and various coloured patches. He thought, in
fine, that the dreams of poets were the realities of life. He was handsome,
frank, and rich: for these reasons, upon his entering into the gay circles,
many mothers surrounded him, striving which should describe with least truth
their languishing or romping favourites: the daughters at the same time, by
their brightening countenances when he approached, and by their sparkling
eyes, when he opened his lips, soon led him into false notions of his
talents and his merit. Attached as he was to the romance of his solitary
hours, he was startled at finding, that, except in the tallow and wax
candles that flickered, not from the presence of a ghost, but from want of
snuffing, there was no foundation in real life for any of that congeries of
pleasing pictures and descriptions contained in those volumes, from which he
had formed his study. Finding, however, some compensation in his gratified
vanity, he was about to relinquish his dreams, when the extraordinary being
we have above described, crossed him in his career.

He watched him; and the very impossibility of forming an idea of the
character of a man entirely absorbed in himself, who gave few other signs of
his observation of external objects, than the tacit assent to their
existence, implied by the avoidance of their contact: allowing his
imagination to picture every thing that flattered its propensity to
extravagant ideas, he soon formed this object into the hero of a romance,
and determined to observe the offspring of his fancy, rather than the person
before him. He became acquainted with him, paid him attentions, and so far
advanced upon his notice, that his presence was always recognised. He
gradually learnt that Lord Ruthven's affairs were embarrassed, and soon
found, from the notes of preparation in ---- Street, that he was about to
travel. Desirous of gaining some information respecting this singular
character, who, till now, had only whetted his curiosity, he hinted to his
guardians, that it was time for him to perform the tour, which for many
generations has been thought necessary to enable the young to take some
rapid steps in the career of vice towards putting themselves upon an
equality with the aged, and not allowing them to appear as if fallen from
the skies, whenever scandalous intrigues are mentioned as the subjects of
pleasantry or of praise, according to the degree of skill shewn in carrying
them on. They consented: and Aubrey immediately mentioning his intentions to
Lord Ruthven, was surprised to receive from him a proposal to join him.
Flattered such a mark of esteem from him, who, apparently, had nothing in
common with other men, he gladly accepted it, and in a few days they had
passed the circling waters.

Hitherto, Aubrey had had no opportunity of studying Lord Ruthven's
character, and now he found, that, though many more of his actions were
exposed to his view, the results offered different conclusions from the