SOURCE: "The Man With the Nose" (The Temple Bar, October 1872)  by Rhoda Broughton

DESCRIPTION: "'But his nose?' return I, suppressing my merriment; 'what kind of nose was it? See, I am as grave as a judge. ''It was very prominent,' she answers, in a sort of awe-struck half-whisper, 'and very sharply chiselled; the nostrils very much cut out.' A little pause. 'His eyebrows were one straight black line across his face, and under them his eyes burnt like dull coals of fire, that shone and yet did not shine; they looked like dead eyes, sunken, half-extinguished, and yet sinister.'" ("The Man With the Nose" by Rhoda Broughton)

NOTES: When Elizabeth was a teen she was hypnotised by a tall, foreign gentleman named Wiertz (who has the most unnatural looking nose) and has dreamed occasional since about him appearing and taking control of her mind. Through her honeymoon in Germany she thinks she has seen Wiertz again. When her new husband is called away by a dying uncle, he returns to find his bride gone. Wiertz has finally appeared and taken her away.

HISTORY: It is not clear whether Broughton's mesmerist is human or supernatural. She leaves much unclarified to enhance the mysterious aura around her villain. The most famous mesmerist in fiction is George du Maurier's (Daphne du Maurier's grandfather) Svengali from the novel Trilby (1894). Broughton's tale pre-dates it by 22 years as do a number of others after Franz Mesmer began promoting his ideas around 1806. Arthur Conan Doyle did two stories with the idea "John Barrington Cowles" (1886) and expanded version "The Parasite" (1894).