"I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may be amongst the commonest dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young; and my heart, though weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the shadows m any, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may."
Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord, or else it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant, and saturnine.
Bram Stoker - Dracula
