Page:Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal, t. I.djvu/18

 'Do you never see ghosts?' When I got to be on more intimate terms with him, his invariable reply was—'My fate; that horrible, horrible fate of mine!' But then, smiling and arching his eyebrows, he always hummed, 'Non ci pensiam.

"He was not of a gloomy or brooding disposition, was he?"

"No, not at all; he was only very superstitious."

"As all artists, I believe."

"Or rather, all persons like—well, like ourselves; for nothing renders people so superstitious as vice"

"Or ignorance."

"Oh! that is quite a different kind of superstition."

"Was there any peculiar dynamic quality in his eyes?"

"For myself of course there was; yet he had not what you would call hypnotizing eyes; his glances were far more dreamy than piercing, or staring; and still they had such penetrating power that, from the very first time I saw him,