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Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
page 159 of 488 (32%)
They turned their heads, and there was the cynic with his prodigious
spectacles set carefully on his nose, staring now at the lake, now at
the rocks, now at the distant masses of vapor, now right at the Great
Carbuncle itself, yet seemingly as unconscious of its light as if all
the scattered clouds were condensed about his person. Though its
radiance actually threw the shadow of the unbeliever at his own feet
as he turned his back upon the glorious jewel, he would not be
convinced that there was the least glimmer there.

"Where is your great humbug?" he repeated. "I challenge you to make me
see it."

"There!" said Matthew, incensed at such perverse blindness, and
turning the cynic round toward the illuminated cliff. "Take off those
abominable spectacles, and you cannot help seeing it."

Now, these colored spectacles probably darkened the cynic's sight in
at least as great a degree as the smoked glasses through which people
gaze at an eclipse. With resolute bravado, however, he snatched them
from his nose and fixed a bold stare full upon the ruddy blaze of the
Great Carbuncle. But scarcely had he encountered it when, with a deep,
shuddering groan, he dropped his head and pressed both hands across
his miserable eyes. Thenceforth there was in very truth no light of
the Great Carbuncle, nor any other light on earth, nor light of heaven
itself, for the poor cynic. So long accustomed to view all objects
through a medium that deprived them of every glimpse of brightness, a
single flash of so glorious a phenomenon, striking upon his naked
vision, had blinded him for ever.

"Matthew," said Hannah, clinging to him, "let us go hence."
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