Ridiculous ! '' But while he spoke Memory had searched her fatal volume and found a page which with her sad calm voice she poured into his ear . It was not altogether inapplicable to the misty scene . It told how Mr. Smith had been grievously tempted by many devilish sophistries , on the ground of a legal quibble , to commence a lawsuit against three orphan-children , joint-heirs to a considerable estate . Fortunately , before he was quite decided , his claims had turned out nearly as devoid of law as justice . As Memory ceased to read Conscience again thrust aside her mantle , and would have struck her victim with the envenomed dagger only that he struggled and clasped his hands before his heart . Even then , however , he sustained an ugly gash . Why should we follow Fancy through the whole series of those awful pictures ? Painted by an artist of wondrous power and terrible acquaintance with the secret soul , they embodied the ghosts of all the never-perpetrated sins that had glided through the lifetime of Mr. Smith . And could such beings of cloudy fantasy , so near akin to nothingness , give valid evidence against him at the day of judgment ? Be that the case or not , there is reason to believe that one truly penitential tear would have washed away each hateful picture and left the canvas white as snow . But Mr. Smith , at a prick of Conscience too keen to be endured , bellowed aloud with impatient agony , and suddenly discovered that his three guests were gone . There he sat alone , a silver-haired and highly-venerated old man , in the rich gloom of the crimsoned-curtained room , with no box of pictures on the table , but only a decanter of most excellent Madeira . Yet his heart still seemed to fester with the venom of the dagger . Nevertheless , the unfortunate old gentleman might have argued the matter with Conscience and alleged many reasons wherefore she should not smite him so pitilessly . Were we to take up his cause , it should be somewhat in the following fashion . A scheme of guilt , till it be put in execution , greatly resembles a train of incidents in a projected tale . The latter , in order to produce a sense of reality in the reader 's mind , must be conceived with such proportionate strength by the author as to seem in the glow of fancy more like truth , past , present or to come , than purely fiction . The prospective sinner , on the other hand , weaves his plot of crime , but seldom or never feels a perfect certainty that it will be executed . There is a dreaminess diffused about his thoughts ; in a dream , as it were , he strikes the death-blow into his victim 's heart and starts to find an indelible blood-stain on his hand .
Thus a novel-writer or a dramatist , in creating a villain of romance and fitting him with evil deeds , and the villain of actual life XXXXX projecting crimes that will be perpetrated , may almost meet each other halfway between reality and fancy .
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