The impressive figure of
Schemoli, with his unholy power of fascinating his reluctant
accomplices, lends to the book the only sort of unity it
possesses. But even he fails to arouse a sense of fear strong
enough to fix our attention to so wandering a story. Like the
doomed brothers, we drift dejectedly through inexplicable
terrors, and we re-echo with fervour Annibal's dolorous cry:
"Why should I be shut up in this house of horrors to
deal with spirits and damned things and the secrets of
the infernal world while there are so many paths open
to pleasure, the varieties of human intercourse and the
enjoyment of life?"
Maturin, a disciple of Mrs. Radcliffe, feels it his duty to
explain away the apparently miraculous incidents in his story,
but he lacks the persevering ingenuity that partly compensates
for her frauds. On a single page he calmly discloses secrets
which have harassed us for four volumes, and his long-deferred
explanations are paltry and incredible. The bleeding figures that
wrought so painfully on the sensitive nerves of Ippolito are
merely waxen images that spout blood automatically.
Disappearances and reappearances, which seemed supernatural, are
simply effected by private exits and entrances. Other startling
phenomena are accounted for in the same trivial fashion.
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