Leon and the
Inquisitor. The aged stranger, who bestows on St. Leon the
philosopher's stone and the elixir of life, has the piercing eye
so familiar to readers of the novel of terror: "You wished to
escape from its penetrating power, but you had not the strength
to move. I began to feel as if it were some mysterious and
superior being in human form;"[86] but apart from this trait he
is not an impressive figure. The only character who would have
felt perfectly at home in the realm of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk"
Lewis is Bethlem Gabor, who appears for the first time in the
fourth volume of _St. Leon_. He is akin to Schedoni and his
compeers in his love of solitude, his independence of
companionship, and his superhuman aspect, but he is a figure who
inspires awe and pity as well as terror. Beside this personage
the other characters pale into insignificance:
"He was more than six feet in stature ... and he was
built as if it had been a colossus, destined to sustain
the weight of the starry heavens. His voice was like
thunder ... his head and chin were clothed with a thick
and shaggy hair, in colour a dead-black. He had
suffered considerable mutilation in the services
through which he had passed ... Bethlem Gabor, though
universally respected for the honour and magnanimity of
a soldier, was not less remarkable for habits of
reserve and taciturnity.
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