Dracula. Bram Stoker

me. I am very, very happy, and I

      don’t know what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the

      future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His good*

      ness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and

      such a friend.

      «Good-bye.»

      Dr. Seward’s Diary.

      (Kept in phonograph)

      25 M ay. Ebb tide in appetite to-day. Cannot eat, cannot rest,

      so diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of

      empty feeling; nothing in the world seems of sufficient impor-

      tance to be worth the doing. … As I knew that the only cure

      for this sort of thing was work, I went down amongst the pa-

      tients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much

      interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him

      as well as I can. To-day I seemed to get nearer than ever before

      to the heart of his mystery.

      I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a

      view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination..

      In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of

      cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness

      a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth

      of hell.

      (Mem., under what circumstances would I not avoid the pit

      of hell?) Omnia Ronuz venalia sunt. Hell has its price! verb. sap.

      If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to

      trace it afterwards accurately, so I had better commence to do

      so, therefore

      R. M. Renfield, aetat 59. Sanguine temperament; R great

      physical strength; morbidly excitable; periods of gloom, ending

      in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the

      sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end

      in a mentally-accomplished finish; a possibly dangerous man,

      probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as

      secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think

      of on ^this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal

      force is balanced with the centrifugal; when duty, a cause, etc, f

      58 Dracula

      is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only acci*

      dent or a series of accidents can balance it.

      Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Hon. Arthur Holmwood.

      11 25 May.

      f>: My dear Art,

      «We’ve told yarns by the camp-fire in the prairies; and dressed

      one another’s wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas;

      and drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more

      yarns to be told, and other wounds to be healed, and another

      health to be drunk. Won’t you let this be at my camp-fire to-

      morrow night? I have no hesitation hi asking you, as I know a

      certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner-party, and that you

      are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the Korea,

      Jack Seward. He’s coming, too, and we both want to mingle our

      weeps over the wine-cup, and to dr-ink a health with all our

      hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won

      the noblest heart that God has made and the best worth whining.

      We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a

      health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to

      leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes.

      Come!

      «Yours, as ever and always,

      «QUINCEY P. MORRIS.»»

      Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey P. Morris.

      «26 May.

      u Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make

      both your ears tingle.

      CHAPTER VI

      MINA MURRAY’S JOURNAL

      24 July. Whitby. Lucy met me at the station, jookingsweeter

      and loj/elie^thaiLe^er, and we drove up to the houseTftnTCres-

      cen t irTwhlcf they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little

      river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out

      as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with

      high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away

      than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so

      steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look

      right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The

      houses of the old town the side away from us are all red-

      roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the

      pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin

      of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which

      is the scene of part of «Marmion,» where the girl was built up

      in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of

      beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady

      is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is

      another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard,

      all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in

      Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of

      the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called

      Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply

      over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some

      of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the

      stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway

      far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through

      the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long looking

      at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come

      and sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing

      now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three

      old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing

      all