of her stories. Ghostly legends would always appeal to her, and
she probably amassed a hoard of traditions when she visited
English castles during her tours with her husband. The background
of _Gaston de Blondeville_ is Kenilworth Castle. That ancient
ruins stirred her imagination profoundly is clear from passages
in her notes on the journeys. In Furness Abbey she sees in her
mind's eye "a midnight procession of monks," and at Brougham
Castle:

"One almost saw the surly keeper descending through
this door-case and heard him rattle the keys of the
chamber above, listening with indifference to the clank
of chains and to the echo of that groan below which
seemed to rend the heart it burst from,"

or again:

"Slender saplings of ash waved over the deserted door
cases, where at the transforming hour of twilight, the
superstitious eye might mistake them for spectres of
some early possessor of the castle, restless from
guilt, or of some sufferer persevering for vengeance."

Mrs. Radcliffe's style compares favourably with that of many of
her contemporaries, with that of Mrs. Roche, for instance, who
wrote _The Children of the Abbey_ and an array of other forgotten
romances, but she is too fond of long, imperfectly balanced
sentences, with as many awkward twists and turns as the winding
stairways of her ancient turrets. Nobody in the novels, except
the talkative, comic servant, who is meant to be vulgar and