midnight
`` Still , Mr. Ratcliffe -- still you describe the inconsistencies of a madman . '' `` By no means , '' replied Ratcliffe . `` That the imagination of this gentleman is disordered , I will not pretend to dispute ; I have already told you that it has sometimes broken out into paroxysms approaching to real mental alienation . But it is of his common state of mind that I speak ; it is irregular , but not deranged ; the shades are as gradual as those that divide the light of noonday from midnight . The courtier who ruins his fortune for the attainment of a title which can do him no good , or power of which he can make no suitable or creditable use , the miser who hoards his useless wealth , and the prodigal who squanders it , are all marked with a certain shade of insanity . To criminals who are guilty of enormities , when the temptation , to a sober mind , bears no proportion to the horror of the act , or the probability of detection and punishment , the same observation applies ; and every violent passion , as well as anger , may be termed a short madness . '' `` This may be all good philosophy , Mr. Ratcliffe , '' answered Miss Vere ; `` but , excuse me , it by no means emboldens me to visit , at this late hour , a person whose extravagance of imagination you yourself can only palliate . ''