Цитаты из книги автора Horace Walpole The Castle of Otranto

His way of life was made easy to him. As Usher of the Ex­chequer, Comp­troller of the Pipe, and Clerk of the Estreats in the Ex­chequer, he re­ceived nearly two thou­sand a year for do­ing noth­ing, lived with his father, and amused him­self.

But Theodore’s grief was too fresh to ad­mit the thought of an­other love; and it was not un­til after fre­quent dis­courses with Isa­bella of his dear Mat­ilda, that he was per­suaded he could know no hap­pi­ness but in the so­ci­ety of one with whom he could forever in­dulge the mel­an­choly that had taken pos­ses­sion of his soul.

What! is she dead?” cried he in wild con­fu­sion. A clap of thun­der at that in­stant shook the castle to its found­a­tions; the earth rocked, and the clank of more than mor­tal ar­mour was heard be­hind.

Wast thou de­livered from bond­age,” said the spectre, “to pur­sue car­nal de­lights?

Kneel, head­strong boy, and list, while a father un­folds a tale of hor­ror that will ex­pel every sen­ti­ment from thy soul, but sen­sa­tions of sac­red ven­geance

Theodore, like Isa­bella, was too re­cently ac­quain­ted with par­ental au­thor­ity to sub­mit to its de­cisions against the im­pulse of his heart. He had little curi­os­ity to learn the friar’s reas­ons, and less dis­pos­i­tion to obey them. The lovely Mat­ilda had made stronger im­pres­sions on him than fi­lial af­fec­tion. All night he pleased him­self with vis­ions of love; and it was not till late after the morn­ing-of­fice, that he re­col­lec­ted the friar’s com­mands to at­tend him at Alf­onso’s tomb.

Theodore, like Isa­bella, was too re­cently ac­quain­ted with par­ental au­thor­ity to sub­mit to its de­cisions against the im­pulse of his heart.

“Thy fate de­pends on thy father,” said Hip­pol­ita; “I have ill-be­stowed my ten­der­ness, if it has taught thee to revere aught bey­ond him. Adieu! my child: I go to pray for thee.”

“My lovely chil­dren,” said the touched Hip­pol­ita, “your ten­der­ness over­powers me—but I must not give way to it. It is not ours to make elec­tion for ourselves: heaven, our fath­ers, and our hus­bands must de­cide for us. Have pa­tience un­til you hear what Man­fred and Fre­deric have de­term­ined. If the Mar­quis ac­cepts Mat­ilda’s hand, I know she will read­ily obey. Heaven may in­ter­pose and pre­vent the rest. What means my child?” con­tin­ued she, see­ing Mat­ilda fall at her feet with a flood of speech­less tears—“But no; an­swer me not, my daugh­ter: I must not hear a word against the pleas­ure of thy father.”

this mood he roved in­sens­ibly to the caves which had formerly served as a re­treat to her­mits, and were now re­por­ted round the coun­try to be haunted by evil spir­its.