Lady Eleanore's Mantle

and Other Tales of Mystery

The Prophetic Pictures - The Birthmark

Rappaccini's Daughter

"It was not love, although her rich beauty was a madness to him ; nor horror, even while he fancied her spirit to be imbued with the same baneful essence that seemed to pervade her physical frame ; but a wild offspring of both love and horror that had each parent in it, and burned like one and shivered like the other. Giovanni knew not what to dread ; still less did he know what to hope ; yet hope and dread kept a continual warfare in his breast, alternately vanquishing one another and starting up afresh to renew the contest. Blessed are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright ! It is the lurid intermixture of the two that produces the illuminating blaze of the infernal regions."

These four spellbinding stories are variations on the struggle between good and evil; prefigurations, one might say, of The Scarlet Letter.