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The Works of Edgar Allan Poe
Volume 1 of the Raven Edition
April, 2000 [Etext #2147]
[Date last updated: June 24, 2005]
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 1
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[Redactor's note: This is the Project Gutenberg "Raven" edition of
the works of Edgar Allan Poe. The Windows (ISO-8891 or Latin-1)
character set is used. Save the file as a "DOS" file to convert to
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extent possible with the italicized words bracketed with the
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volumes, the most popular works of Poe. Occasional printer's errors
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The Raven Edition
THE WORKS OF
EDGAR ALLAN POE
IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME I Contents
Edgar Allan Poe, An Appreciation
Life of Poe, by James Russell Lowell
Death of Poe, by N. P. Willis
The Unparalled Adventures of One Hans Pfall
The Gold Bug
Four Beasts in One
The Murders in the Rue Morgue
The Mystery of Marie Rogêt
The Balloon Hoax
MS. Found in a Bottle
The Oval Portrait
EDGAR ALLAN POE
AN APPRECIATION
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "never--never more!"
THIS stanza from "The Raven" was recommended by James Russell Lowell
as an inscription upon the Baltimore monument which marks the resting
place of Edgar Allan Poe, the most interesting and original figure in
American letters. And, to signify that peculiar musical quality of
Poe's genius which inthralls every reader, Mr. Lowell suggested this
additional verse, from the "Haunted Palace":
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling ever more,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
Born in poverty at Boston, January 19 1809, dying under painful
circumstances at Baltimore, October 7, 1849, his whole literary
career of scarcely fifteen years a pitiful struggle for mere
subsistence, his memory malignantly misrepresented by his earliest
biographer, Griswold, how completely has truth at last routed
falsehood and how magnificently has Poe come into his own, For "The
Raven," first published in 1845, and, within a few months, read,
recited and parodied wherever the English language was spoken, the
half-starved poet received $10! Less than a year later his brother
poet, N. P. Willis, issued this touching appeal to the admirers of
genius on behalf of the neglected author, his dying wife and her
devoted mother, then living under very straitened circumstances in a
little cottage at Fordham, N. Y.:
"Here is one of the finest scholars, one of the most original men of
genius, and one of the most industrious of the literary profession of
our country, whose temporary suspension of labor, from bodily
illness, drops him immediately to a level with the common objects of
public charity. There is no intermediate stopping-place, no
respectful shelter, where, with the delicacy due to genius and
culture, he might secure aid, till, with returning health, he would
resume his labors, and his unmortified sense of independence."
And this was the tribute paid by the American public to the master
who had given to it such tales of conjuring charm, of witchery and
mystery as "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "Ligeia"; such
fascinating hoaxes as "The Unparalleled Adventure of Hans Pfaall,"
"MSS. Found in a Bottle," "A Descent Into a Maelstrom" and "The
Balloon Hoax"; such tales of conscience as "William Wilson," "The
Black Cat" and "The Tell-tale Heart," wherein the retributions of
remorse are portrayed with an awful fidelity; such tales of natural
beauty as "The Island of the Fay" and "The Domain of Arnheim"; such
marvellous studies in ratiocination as the "Gold-bug," "The Murders
in the Rue Morgue," "The Purloined Letter" and "The Mystery of Marie
Roget," the latter, a recital of fact, demonstrating the author's
wonderful capability of correctly analyzing the mysteries of the
human mind; such tales of illusion and banter as "The Premature
Burial" and "The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether"; such bits
of extravaganza as "The Devil in the Belfry" and "The Angel of the
Odd"; such tales of adventure as "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon
Pym"; such papers of keen criticism and review as won for Poe the
enthusiastic admiration of Charles Dickens, although they made him
many enemies among the over-puffed minor American writers so
mercilessly exposed by him; such poems of beauty and melody as "The
Bells," "The Haunted Palace," "Tamerlane," "The City in the Sea" and
"The Raven." What delight for the jaded senses of the reader is this
enchanted domain of wonder-pieces! What an atmosphere of beauty,
music, color! What resources of imagination, construction, analysis
and absolute art! One might almost sympathize with Sarah Helen
Whitman, who, confessing to a half faith in the old superstition of
the significance of anagrams, found, in the transposed letters of
Edgar Poe's name, the words "a God-peer." His mind, she says, was
indeed a "Haunted Palace," echoing to the footfalls of angels and
demons.
"No man," Poe himself wrote, "has recorded, no man has dared to
record, the wonders of his inner life."
In these twentieth century days -of lavish recognition-artistic,
popular and material-of genius, what rewards might not a Poe claim!
Edgar's father, a son of General David Poe, the American
revolutionary patriot and friend of Lafayette, had married Mrs.
Hopkins, an English actress, and, the match meeting with parental
disapproval, had himself taken to the stage as a profession.
Notwithstanding Mrs. Poe's beauty and talent the young couple had a
sorry struggle for existence. When Edgar, at the age of two years,
was orphaned, the family was in the utmost destitution. Apparently
the future poet was to be cast upon the world homeless and
friendless. But fate decreed that a few glimmers of sunshine were to
illumine his life, for the little fellow was adopted by John Allan, a
wealthy merchant of Richmond, Va. A brother and sister, the remaining
children, were cared for by others.
In his new home Edgar found all the luxury and advantages money could
provide. He was petted, spoiled and shown off to strangers. In Mrs.
Allan he found all the affection a childless wife could bestow. Mr.
Allan took much pride in the captivating, precocious lad. At the age
of five the boy recited, with fine effect, passages of English poetry
to the visitors at the Allan house.
From his eighth to his thirteenth year he attended the Manor House
school, at Stoke-Newington, a suburb of London. It was the Rev. Dr.
Bransby, head of the school, whom Poe so quaintly portrayed in
"William Wilson." Returning to Richmond in 1820 Edgar was sent to the
school of Professor Joseph H. Clarke. He proved an apt pupil. Years
afterward Professor Clarke thus wrote:
"While the other boys wrote mere mechanical verses, Poe wrote genuine
poetry; the boy was a born poet. As a scholar he was ambitious to
excel. He was remarkable for self-respect, without haughtiness. He
had a sensitive and tender heart and would do anything for a friend.
His nature was entirely free from selfishness."
At the age of seventeen Poe entered the University of Virginia at
Charlottesville. He left that institution after one session. Official
records prove that he was not expelled. On the contrary, he gained a
creditable record as a student, although it is admitted that he
contracted debts and had "an ungovernable passion for card-playing."
These debts may have led to his quarrel with Mr. Allan which
eventually compelled him to make his own way in the world.
Early in 1827 Poe made his first literary venture. He induced Calvin
Thomas, a poor and youthful printer, to publish a small volume of his
verses under the title "Tamerlane and Other Poems." In 1829 we find
Poe in Baltimore with another manuscript volume of verses, which was
soon published. Its title was "Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane and Other Poems."
Neither of these ventures seems to have attracted much attention.
Soon after Mrs. Allan's death, which occurred in 1829, Poe, through
the aid of Mr. Allan, secured admission to the United States Military
Academy at West Point. Any glamour which may have attached to cadet
life in Poe's eyes was speedily lost, for discipline at West Point
was never so severe nor were the accommodations ever so poor. Poe's
bent was more and more toward literature. Life at the academy daily
became increasingly distasteful. Soon he began to purposely neglect
his studies and to disregard his duties, his aim being to secure his
dismissal from the United States service. In this he succeeded. On
March 7, 1831, Poe found himself free. Mr. Allan's second marriage
had thrown the lad on his own resources. His literary career was to
begin.
Poe's first genuine victory was won in 1833, when he was the
successful competitor for a prize of $100 offered by a Baltimore
periodical for the best prose story. "A MSS. Found in a Bottle" was
the winning tale. Poe had submitted six stories in a volume. "Our
only difficulty," says Mr. Latrobe, one of the judges, "was in
selecting from the rich contents of the volume."
During the fifteen years of his literary life Poe was connected with
various newspapers and magazines in Richmond, Philadelphia and New
York. He was faithful, punctual, industrious, thorough. N. P. Willis,
who for some time employed Poe as critic and sub-editor on the
"Evening Mirror," wrote thus:
"With the highest admiration for Poe's genius, and a willingness to
let it alone for more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by
common report to expect a very capricious attention to his duties,
and occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on,
however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. We saw but
one presentiment of the man-a quiet, patient, industrious and most
gentlemanly person.
"We heard, from one who knew him well (what should be stated in all
mention of his lamentable irregularities), that with a single glass
of wine his whole nature was reversed, the demon became uppermost,
and, though none of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his
will was palpably insane. In this reversed character, we repeat, it
was never our chance to meet him."
On September 22, 1835, Poe married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in
Baltimore. She had barely turned thirteen years, Poe himself was but
twenty-six. He then was a resident of Richmond and a regular
contributor to the "Southern Literary Messenger." It was not until a
year later that the bride and her widowed mother followed him thither.
Poe's devotion to his child-wife was one of the most beautiful
features of his life. Many of his famous poetic productions were
inspired by her beauty and charm. Consumption had marked her for its
victim, and the constant efforts of husband and mother were to secure
for her all the comfort and happiness their slender means permitted.
Virginia died January 30, 1847, when but twenty-five years of age. A
friend of the family pictures the death-bed scene--mother and husband
trying to impart warmth to her by chafing her hands and her feet,
while her pet cat was suffered to nestle upon her bosom for the sake
of added warmth.
These verses from "Annabel Lee," written by Poe in 1849, the last
year of his life, tell of his sorrow at the loss of his child-wife:
I was a child and _she_ was a child,
In a kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with _a _love that was more than love--
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago;
In this kingdom by the sea.
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea,
Poe was connected at various times and in various capacities with the
"Southern Literary Messenger" in Richmond, Va.; "Graham's Magazine"
and the "Gentleman's Magazine" in Philadelphia.; the "Evening
Mirror," the "Broadway journal," and "Godey's Lady's Book" in New
York. Everywhere Poe's life was one of unremitting toil. No tales and
poems were ever produced at a greater cost of brain and spirit.
Poe's initial salary with the "Southern Literary Messenger," to which
he contributed the first drafts of a number of his best-known tales,
was $10 a week! Two years later his salary was but $600 a year. Even
in 1844, when his literary reputation was established securely, he
wrote to a friend expressing his pleasure because a magazine to which
he was to contribute had agreed to pay him $20 monthly for two pages
of criticism.
Those were discouraging times in American literature, but Poe never
lost faith. He was finally to triumph wherever pre-eminent talents
win admirers. His genius has had no better description than in this
stanza from William Winter's poem, read at the dedication exercises
of the Actors' Monument to Poe, May 4, 1885, in New York:
He was the voice of beauty and of woe,
Passion and mystery and the dread unknown;
Pure as the mountains of perpetual snow,
Cold as the icy winds that round them moan,
Dark as the eaves wherein earth's thunders groan,
Wild as the tempests of the upper sky,
Sweet as the faint, far-off celestial tone of angel
whispers, fluttering from on high,
And tender as love's tear when youth and beauty die.
In the two and a half score years that have elapsed since Poe's death
he has come fully into his own. For a while Griswold's malignant
misrepresentations colored the public estimate of Poe as man and as
writer. But, thanks to J. H. Ingram, W. F. Gill, Eugene Didier, Sarah
Helen Whitman and others these scandals have been dispelled and Poe
is seen as he actually was-not as a man without failings, it is true,
but as the finest and most original genius in American letters. As
the years go on his fame increases. His works have been translated
into many foreign languages. His is a household name in France and
England-in fact, the latter nation has often uttered the reproach
that Poe's own country has been slow to appreciate him. But that
reproach, if it ever was warranted, certainly is untrue.
W. H. R.
~~~~~~ End of Text ~~~~~~
==========
EDGAR ALLAN POE{*1}
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
THE situation of American literature is anomalous. It has no centre,
or, if it have, it is like that of the sphere of Hermes. It is,
divided into many systems, each revolving round its several suns, and
often presenting to the rest only the faint glimmer of a
milk-and-water way. Our capital city, unlike London or Paris, is not
a great central heart from which life and vigor radiate to the
extremities, but resembles more an isolated umbilicus stuck down as
near a's may be to the centre of the land, and seeming rather to tell
a legend of former usefulness than to serve any present need. Boston,
New York, Philadelphia, each has its literature almost more distinct
than those of the different dialects of Germany; and the Young Queen
of the West has also one of her own, of which some articulate rumor
barely has reached us dwellers by the Atlantic.
Perhaps there is no task more difficult than the just criticism of
contemporary literature. It is even more grateful to give praise
where it is needed than where it is deserved, and friendship so often
seduces the iron stylus of justice into a vague flourish, that she
writes what seems rather like an epitaph than a criticism. Yet if
praise be given as an alms, we could not drop so poisonous a one into
any man's hat. The critic's ink may suffer equally from too large an
infusion of nutgalls or of sugar. But it is easier to be generous
than to be just, and we might readily put faith in that fabulous
direction to the hiding place of truth, did we judge from the amount
of water which we usually find mixed with it.
Remarkable experiences are usually confined to the inner life of
imaginative men, but Mr. Poe's biography displays a vicissitude and
peculiarity of interest such as is rarely met with. The offspring of
a romantic marriage, and left an orphan at an early age, he was
adopted by Mr. Allan, a wealthy Virginian, whose barren marriage-bed
seemed the warranty of a large estate to the young poet.
Having received a classical education in England, he returned home
and entered the University of Virginia, where, after an extravagant
course, followed by reformation at the last extremity, he was
graduated with the highest honors of his class. Then came a boyish
attempt to join the fortunes of the insurgent Greeks, which ended at
St. Petersburg, where he got into difficulties through want of a
passport, from which he was rescued by the American consul and sent
home. He now entered the military academy at West Point, from which
he obtained a dismissal on hearing of the birth of a son to his
adopted father, by a second marriage, an event which cut off his
expectations as an heir. The death of Mr. Allan, in whose will his
name was not mentioned, soon after relieved him of all doubt in this
regard, and he committed himself at once to authorship for a support.
Previously to this, however, he had published (in 1827) a small
volume of poems, which soon ran through three editions, and excited
high expectations of its author's future distinction in the minds of
many competent judges.
That no certain augury can be drawn from a poet's earliest lispings
there are instances enough to prove. Shakespeare's first poems,
though brimful of vigor and youth and picturesqueness, give but a
very faint promise of the directness, condensation and overflowing
moral of his maturer works. Perhaps, however, Shakespeare is hardly a
case in point, his "Venus and Adonis" having been published, we
believe, in his twenty-sixth year. Milton's Latin verses show
tenderness, a fine eye for nature, and a delicate appreciation of
classic models, but give no hint of the author of a new style in
poetry. Pope's youthful pieces have all the sing-song, wholly
unrelieved by the glittering malignity and eloquent irreligion of his
later productions. Collins' callow namby-pamby died and gave no sign
of the vigorous and original genius which he afterward displayed. We
have never thought that the world lost more in the "marvellous boy,"
Chatterton, than a very ingenious imitator of obscure and antiquated
dulness. Where he becomes original (as it is called), the interest of
ingenuity ceases and he becomes stupid. Kirke White's promises were
indorsed by the respectable name of Mr. Southey, but surely with no
authority from Apollo. They have the merit of a traditional piety,
which to our mind, if uttered at all, had been less objectionable in
the retired closet of a diary, and in the sober raiment of prose.
They do not clutch hold of the memory with the drowning pertinacity of
Watts; neither have they the interest of his occasional simple, lucky
beauty. Burns having fortunately been rescued by his humble station
from the contaminating society of the "Best models," wrote well and
naturally from the first. Had he been unfortunate enough to have had
an educated taste, we should have had a series of poems from which, as
from his letters, we could sift here and there a kernel from the mass
of chaff. Coleridge's youthful efforts give no promise whatever of
that poetical genius which produced at once the wildest, tenderest,
most original and most purely imaginative poems of modem times.
Byron's "Hours of Idleness" would never find a reader except from an
intrepid and indefatigable curiosity. In Wordsworth's first preludings
there is but a dim foreboding of the creator of an era. From Southey's
early poems, a safer augury might have been drawn. They show the
patient investigator, the close student of history, and the unwearied
explorer of the beauties of predecessors, but they give no assurances
of a man who should add aught to stock of household words, or to the
rarer and more sacred delights of the fireside or the arbor. The
earliest specimens of Shelley's poetic mind already, also, give tokens
of that ethereal sublimation in which the spirit seems to soar above
the regions of words, but leaves its body, the verse, to be entombed,
without hope of resurrection, in a mass of them. Cowley is generally
instanced as a wonder of precocity. But his early insipidities show
only a capacity for rhyming and for the metrical arrangement of
certain conventional combinations of words, a capacity wholly
dependent on a delicate physical organization, and an unhappy memory.
An early poem is only remarkable when it displays an effort of
_reason, _and the rudest verses in which we can trace some conception
of the ends of poetry, are worth all the miracles of smooth juvenile
versification. A school-boy, one would say, might acquire the regular
see-saw of Pope merely by an association with the motion of the
play-ground tilt.
Mr. Poe's early productions show that he could see through the verse
to the spirit beneath, and that he already had a feeling that all the
life and grace of the one must depend on and be modulated by the will
of the other. We call them the most remarkable boyish poems that we
have ever read. We know of none that can compare with them for
maturity of purpose, and a nice understanding of the effects of
language and metre. Such pieces are only valuable when they display
what we can only express by the contradictory phrase of _innate
experience. _We copy one of the shorter poems, written when the
author was only fourteen. There is a little dimness in the filling
up, but the grace and symmetry of the outline are such as few poets
ever attain. There is a smack of ambrosia about it.
TO HELEN
Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!
It is the tendency of the young poet that impresses us. Here is no
"withering scorn," no heart "blighted" ere it has safely got into its
teens, none of the drawing-room sansculottism which Byron had brought
into vogue. All is limpid and serene, with a pleasant dash of the
Greek Helicon in it. The melody of the whole, too, is remarkable. It
is not of that kind which can be demonstrated arithmetically upon the
tips of the fingers. It is of that finer sort which the inner ear
alone _can _estimate. It seems simple, like a Greek column, because
of its perfection. In a poem named "Ligeia," under which title he
intended to personify the music of nature, our boy-poet gives us the
following exquisite picture:
Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one,
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
Say, is it thy will,
On the breezes to toss,
Or, capriciously still,
Like the lone albatross,
Incumbent on night,
As she on the air,
To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there?
John Neal, himself a man of genius, and whose lyre has been too
long capriciously silent, appreciated the high merit of these and
similar passages, and drew a proud horoscope for their author.
Mr. Poe had that indescribable something which men have agreed to
call _genius_. No man could ever tell us precisely what it is, and
yet there is none who is not inevitably aware of its presence and its
power. Let talent writhe and contort itself as it may, it has no such
magnetism. Larger of bone and sinew it may be, but the wings are
wanting. Talent sticks fast to earth, and its most perfect works have
still one- foot of clay. Genius claims kindred with the very workings
of Nature herself, so that a sunset shall seem like a quotation from
Dante, and if Shakespeare be read in the very presence of the sea
itself, his verses shall but seem nobler for the sublime criticism of
ocean. Talent may make friends for itself, but only genius can give
to its creations the divine power of winning love and veneration.
Enthusiasm cannot cling to what itself is unenthusiastic, nor will he
ever have disciples who has not himself impulsive zeal enough to be a
disciple. Great wits are allied to madness only inasmuch as they are
possessed and carried away by their demon, While talent keeps him, as
Paracelsus did, securely prisoned in the pommel of his sword. To the
eye of genius, the veil of the spiritual world is ever rent asunder
that it may perceive the ministers of good and evil who throng
continually around it. No man of mere talent ever flung his inkstand
at the devil.
When we say that Mr. Poe had genius, we do not mean to say that he
has produced evidence of the highest. But to say that he possesses it
at all is to say that he needs only zeal, industry, and a reverence
for the trust reposed in him, to achieve the proudest triumphs and
the greenest laurels. If we may believe the Longinuses; and
Aristotles of our newspapers, we have quite too many geniuses of the
loftiest order to render a place among them at all desirable, whether
for its hardness of attainment or its seclusion. The highest peak of
our Parnassus is, according to these gentlemen, by far the most
thickly settled portion of the country, a circumstance which must
make it an uncomfortable residence for individuals of a poetical
temperament, if love of solitude be, as immemorial tradition asserts,
a necessary part of their idiosyncrasy.
Mr. Poe has two of the prime qualities of genius, a faculty of
vigorous yet minute analysis, and a wonderful fecundity of
imagination. The first of these faculties is as needful to the artist
in words, as a knowledge of anatomy is to the artist in colors or in
stone. This enables him to conceive truly, to maintain a proper
relation of parts, and to draw a correct outline, while the second
groups, fills up and colors. Both of these Mr. Poe has displayed with
singular distinctness in his prose works, the last predominating in
his earlier tales, and the first in his later ones. In judging of the
merit of an author, and assigning him his niche among our household
gods, we have a right to regard him from our own point of view, and
to measure him by our own standard. But, in estimating the amount of
power displayed in his works, we must be governed by his own design,
and placing them by the side of his own ideal, find how much is
wanting. We differ from Mr. Poe in his opinions of the objects of
art. He esteems that object to be the creation of Beauty, and perhaps
it is only in the definition of that word that we disagree with him.
But in what we shall say of his writings, we shall take his own
standard as our guide. The temple of the god of song is equally.
accessible from every side, and there is room enough in it for all
who bring offerings, or seek in oracle.
In his tales, Mr. Poe has chosen to exhibit his power chiefly in that
dim region which stretches from the very utmost limits of the
probable into the weird confines of superstition and unreality. He
combines in a very remarkable manner two faculties which are seldom
found united; a power of influencing the mind of the reader by the
impalpable shadows of mystery, and a minuteness of detail which does
not leave a pin or a button unnoticed. Both are, in truth, the
natural results of the predominating quality of his mind, to which we
have before alluded, analysis. It is this which distinguishes the
artist. His mind at once reaches forward to the effect to be
produced. Having resolved to bring about certain emotions in the
reader, he makes all subordinate parts tend strictly to the common
centre. Even his mystery is mathematical to his own mind. To him X is
a known quantity all along. In any picture that he paints he
understands the chemical properties of all his colors. However vague
some of his figures may seem, however formless the shadows, to him
the outline is as clear and distinct as that of a geometrical
diagram. For this reason Mr. Poe has no sympathy with Mysticism. The
Mystic dwells in the mystery, is enveloped with it; it colors all his
thoughts; it affects his optic nerve especially, and the commonest
things get a rainbow edging from it. Mr. Poe, on the other hand, is a
spectator _ab extra_. He analyzes, he dissects, he watches
"with an eye serene,
The very pulse of the machine,"
for such it practically is to him, with wheels and cogs and
piston-rods, all working to produce a certain end.
This analyzing tendency of his mind balances the poetical, and by
giving him the patience to be minute, enables him to throw a
wonderful reality into his most unreal fancies. A monomania he paints
with great power. He loves to dissect one of these cancers of the
mind, and to trace all the subtle ramifications of its roots. In
raising images of horror, also, he has strange success, conveying to
us sometimes by a dusky hint some terrible _doubt _which is the
secret of all horror. He leaves to imagination the task of finishing
the picture, a task to which only she is competent.
"For much imaginary work was there;
Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,
That for Achilles' image stood his spear
Grasped in an armed hand; himself behind
Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind."
Besides the merit of conception, Mr. Poe's writings have also that of
form.
His style is highly finished, graceful and truly classical. It would
be hard to find a living author who had displayed such varied powers.
As an example of his style we would refer to one of his tales, "The
House of Usher," in the first volume of his "Tales of the Grotesque
and Arabesque." It has a singular charm for us, and we think that no
one could read it without being strongly moved by its serene and
sombre beauty. Had its author written nothing else, it would alone
have been enough to stamp him as a man of genius, and the master of a
classic style. In this tale occurs, perhaps, the most beautiful of
his poems.
The great masters of imagination have seldom resorted to the vague
and the unreal as sources of effect. They have not used dread and
horror alone, but only in combination with other qualities, as means
of subjugating the fancies of their readers. The loftiest muse has
ever a household and fireside charm about her. Mr. Poe's secret lies
mainly in the skill with which he has employed the strange
fascination of mystery and terror. In this his success is so great
and striking as to deserve the name of art, not artifice. We cannot
call his materials the noblest or purest, but we must concede to him
the highest merit of construction.
As a critic, Mr. Poe was aesthetically deficient. Unerring in his
analysis of dictions, metres and plots, he seemed wanting in the
faculty of perceiving the profounder ethics of art. His criticisms
are, however, distinguished for scientific precision and coherence of
logic. They have the exactness, and at the same time, the coldness of
mathematical demonstrations. Yet they stand in strikingly refreshing
contrast with the vague generalisms and sharp personalities of the
day. If deficient in warmth, they are also without the heat of
partisanship. They are especially valuable as illustrating the great
truth, too generally overlooked, that analytic power is a subordinate
quality of the critic.
On the whole, it may be considered certain that Mr. Poe has attained
an individual eminence in our literature which he will keep. He has
given proof of power and originality. He has done that which could
only be done once with success or safety, and the imitation or
repetition of which would produce weariness.
~~~~~~ End of Text ~~~~~~
======
DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE
BY N. P. WILLIS
THE ancient fable of two antagonistic spirits imprisoned in one body,
equally powerful and having the complete mastery by turns-of one man,
that is to say, inhabited by both a devil and an angel seems to have
been realized, if all we hear is true, in the character of the
extraordinary man whose name we have written above. Our own
impression of the nature of Edgar A. Poe, differs in some important
degree, however, from that which has been generally conveyed in the
notices of his death. Let us, before telling what we personally know
of him, copy a graphic and highly finished portraiture, from the pen
of Dr. Rufus W. Griswold, which appeared in a recent number of the
"Tribune:"{*1}
"Edgar Allen Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore on Sunday, October
7th. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by
it. The poet was known, personally or by reputation, in all this
country; he had readers in England and in several of the states of
Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends; and the regrets for
his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in
him literary art has lost one of its most brilliant but erratic stars.
"His conversation was at times almost supramortal in its eloquence.
His voice was modulated with astonishing skill, and his large and
variably expressive eyes looked repose or shot fiery tumult into
theirs who listened, while his own face glowed, or was changeless in
pallor, as his imagination quickened his blood or drew it back frozen
to his heart. His imagery was from the worlds which no mortals can
see but with the vision of genius. Suddenly starting from a
proposition, exactly and sharply defined, in terms of utmost
simplicity and clearness, he rejected the forms of customary logic,
and by a crystalline process of accretion, built up his ocular
demonstrations in forms of gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur, or in
those of the most airy and delicious beauty, so minutely and
distinctly, yet so rapidly, that the attention which was yielded to
him was chained till it stood among his wonderful creations, till he
himself dissolved the spell, and brought his hearers back to common
and base existence, by vulgar fancies or exhibitions of the ignoblest
passion.
"He was at all times a dreamer-dwelling in ideal realms-in heaven or
hell-peopled with the creatures and the accidents of his brain. He
walked-the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in
indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayer (never
for himself, for he felt, or professed to feel, that he was already
damned, but) for their happiness who at the moment were objects of
his idolatry; or with his glances introverted to a heart gnawed with
anguish, and with a face shrouded in gloom, he would brave the
wildest storms, and all night, with drenched garments and arms
beating the winds and rains, would speak as if the spirits that at
such times only could be evoked by him from the Aidenn, close by
whose portals his disturbed soul sought to forget the ills to which
his constitution subjected him---close by the Aidenn where were those
he loved-the Aidenn which he might never see, but in fitful glimpses,
as its gates opened to receive the less fiery and more happy natures
whose destiny to sin did not involve the doom of death.
"He seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subjugated his will and
engrossed his faculties, always to bear the memory of some
controlling sorrow. The remarkable poem of 'The Raven' was probably
much more nearly than has been supposed, even by those who were very
intimate with him, a reflection and an echo of his own history. _He_
was that bird's
" ' unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore--
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of 'Never-never more.'
"Every genuine author in a greater or less degree leaves in his
works, whatever their design, traces of his personal character:
elements of his immortal being, in which the individual survives the
person. While we read the pages of the 'Fall of the House of Usher,'
or of 'Mesmeric Revelations,' we see in the solemn and stately gloom
which invests one, and in the subtle metaphysical analysis of both,
indications of the idiosyncrasies of what was most remarkable and
peculiar in the author's intellectual nature. But we see here only
the better phases of his nature, only the symbols of his juster
action, for his harsh experience had deprived him of all faith in man
or woman. He had made up his mind upon the numberless complexities of
the social world, and the whole system with him was an imposture.
This conviction gave a direction to his shrewd and naturally
unamiable character. Still, though he regarded society as composed
altogether of villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of
that kind which enabled him to cope with villany, while it
continually caused him by overshots to fail of the success of
honesty. He was in many respects like Francis Vivian in Bulwer's
novel of 'The Caxtons.' Passion, in him, comprehended -many of the
worst emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not
contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak of
wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing
natural advantages of this poor boy--his beauty, his readiness, the
daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery atmosphere--had
raised his constitutional self-confidence into an arrogance that
turned his very claims to admiration into prejudices against him.
Irascible, envious--bad enough, but not the worst, for these salient
angles were all varnished over with a cold, repellant cynicism, his
passions vented themselves in sneers. There seemed to him no moral
susceptibility; and, what was more remarkable in a proud nature,
little or nothing of the true point of honor. He had, to a morbid
excess, that, desire to rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but
no wish for the esteem or the love of his species; only the hard wish
to succeed-not shine, not serve -succeed, that he might have the
right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit.
"We have suggested the influence of his aims and vicissitudes upon
his literature. It was more conspicuous in his later than in his
earlier writings. Nearly all that he wrote in the last two or three
years-including much of his best poetry-was in some sense
biographical; in draperies of his imagination, those who had taken
the trouble to trace his steps, could perceive, but slightly
concealed, the figure of himself."
Apropos of the disparaging portion of the above well-written sketch,
let us truthfully say:
Some four or five years since, when editing a daily paper in this
city, Mr. Poe was employed by us, for several months, as critic and
sub-editor. This was our first personal acquaintance with him. He
resided with his wife and mother at Fordham, a few miles out of town,
but was at his desk in the office, from nine in the morning till the
evening paper went to press. With the highest admiration for his
genius, and a willingness to let it atone for more than ordinary
irregularity, we were led by common report to expect a very
capricious attention to his duties, and occasionally a scene of
violence and difficulty. Time went on, however, and he was invariably
punctual and industrious. With his pale, beautiful, and intellectual
face, as a reminder of what genius was in him, it was impossible, of
course, not to treat him always with deferential courtesy, and, to
our occasional request that he would not probe too deep in a
criticism, or that he would erase a passage colored too highly with
his resentments against society and mankind, he readily and
courteously assented-far more yielding than most men, we thought, on
points so excusably sensitive. With a prospect of taking the lead in
another periodical, he, at last, voluntarily gave up his employment
with us, and, through all this considerable period, we had seen but
one presentment of the man-a quiet, patient, industrious, and most
gentlemanly person, commanding the utmost respect and good feeling by
his unvarying deportment and ability.
Residing as he did in the country, we never met Mr. Poe in hours of
leisure; but he frequently called on us afterward at our place of
business, and we met him often in the street-invariably the same sad
mannered, winning and refined gentleman, such as we had always known
him. It was by rumor only, up to the day of his death, that we knew
of any other development of manner or character. We heard, from one
who knew him well (what should be stated in all mention of his
lamentable irregularities), that, with a single glass of wine, his
whole nature was reversed, the demon became uppermost, and, though
none of the usual signs of intoxication were visible, his will was
palpably insane. Possessing his reasoning faculties in excited
activity, at such times, and seeking his acquaintances with his
wonted look and memory, he easily seemed personating only another
phase of his natural character, and was accused, accordingly, of
insulting arrogance and bad-heartedness. In this reversed character,
we repeat, it was never our chance to see him. We know it from
hearsay, and we mention it in connection with this sad infirmity of
physical constitution; which puts it upon very nearly the ground of a
temporary and almost irresponsible insanity.
The arrogance, vanity, and depravity of heart, of which Mr. Poe was
generally accused, seem to us referable altogether to this reversed
phase of his character. Under that degree of intoxication which only
acted upon him by demonizing his sense of truth and right, he
doubtless said and did much that was wholly irreconcilable with his
better nature; but, when himself, and as we knew him only, his
modesty and unaffected humility, as to his own deservings, were a
constant charm to his character. His letters, of which the constant
application for autographs has taken from us, we are sorry to
confess, the greater portion, exhibited this quality very strongly.
In one of the carelessly written notes of which we chance still to
retain possession, for instance, he speaks of "The Raven"--that
extraordinary poem which electrified the world of imaginative
readers, and has become the type of a school of poetry of its
own-and, in evident earnest, attributes its success to the few words
of commendation with which we had prefaced it in this paper. -It will
throw light on his sane character to give a literal copy of the note:
"FORDHAM, April 20, 1849
"My DEAR WILLIS--The poem which I inclose, and which I am so vain as
to hope you will like, in some respects, has been just published in a
paper for which sheer necessity compels me to write, now and then. It
pays well as times go-but unquestionably it ought to pay ten prices;
for whatever I send it I feel I am consigning to the tomb of the
Capulets. The verses accompanying this, may I beg you to take out of
the tomb, and bring them to light in the 'Home journal?' If you can
oblige me so far as to copy them, I do not think it will be necessary
to say 'From the ----, that would be too bad; and, perhaps, 'From a
late ---- paper,' would do.
"I have not forgotten how a 'good word in season' from you made 'The
Raven,' and made 'Ulalume' (which by-the-way, people have done me the
honor of attributing to you), therefore, I would ask you (if I dared)
to say something of these lines if they please you.
"Truly yours ever,
"EDGAR A. POE."
In double proof of his earnest disposition to do the best for
himself, and of the trustful and grateful nature which has been
denied him, we give another of the only three of his notes which we
chance to retain :
"FORDHAM, January 22, 1848.
"My DEAR MR. WILLIS-I am about to make an effort at re-establishing
myself in the literary world, and _feel _that I may depend upon your
aid.
"My general aim is to start a Magazine, to be called 'The Stylus,'
but it would be useless to me, even when established, if not entirely
out of the control of a publisher. I mean, therefore, to get up a
journal which shall be _my own_ at all points. With this end in view,
I must get a list of at least five hundred subscribers to begin with;
nearly two hundred I have already. I propose, however, to go South
and West, among my personal and literary friends--old college and
West Point acquaintances -and see what I can do. In order to get the
means of taking the first step, I propose to lecture at the Society
Library, on Thursday, the 3d of February, and, that there may be no
cause of _squabbling_, my subject shall _not be literary _at all. I
have chosen a broad text: 'The Universe.'
"Having thus given you _the facts_ of the case, I leave all the rest
to the suggestions of your own tact and generosity. Gratefully, _most
gratefully,_
_"Your friend always,
"EDGAR A. POE._"
Brief and chance-taken as these letters are, we think they
sufficiently prove the existence of the very qualities denied to Mr.
Poe-humility, willingness to persevere, belief in another's
friendship, and capability of cordial and grateful friendship! Such
he assuredly was when sane. Such only he has invariably seemed to us,
in all we have happened personally to know of him, through a
friendship of five or six years. And so much easier is it to believe
what we have seen and known, than what we hear of only, that we
remember him but with admiration and respect; these descriptions of
him, when morally insane, seeming to us like portraits, painted in
sickness, of a man we have only known in health.
But there is another, more touching, and far more forcible evidence
that there was _goodness _in Edgar A. Poe. To reveal it we are
obliged to venture upon the lifting of the veil which sacredly covers
grief and refinement in poverty; but we think it may be excused, if
so we can brighten the memory of the poet, even were there not a more
needed and immediate service which it may render to the nearest link
broken by his death.
Our first knowledge of Mr. Poe's removal to this city was by a call
which we received from a lady who introduced herself to us as the
mother of his wife. She was in search of employment for him, and she
excused her errand by mentioning that he was ill, that her daughter
was a confirmed invalid, and that their circumstances were such as
compelled her taking it upon herself. The countenance of this lady,
made beautiful and saintly with an evidently complete giving up of
her life to privation and sorrowful tenderness, her gentle and
mournful voice urging its plea, her long-forgotten but habitually and
unconsciously refined manners, and her appealing and yet appreciative
mention of the claims and abilities of her son, disclosed at once the
presence of one of those angels upon earth that women in adversity
can be. It was a hard fate that she was watching over. Mr. Poe wrote
with fastidious difficulty, and in a style too much above the popular
level to be well paid. He was always in pecuniary difficulty, and,
with his sick wife, frequently in want of the merest necessaries of
life. Winter after winter, for years, the most touching sight to us,
in this whole city, has been that tireless minister to genius, thinly
and insufficiently clad, going from office to office with a poem, or
an article on some literary subject, to sell, sometimes simply
pleading in a broken voice that he was ill, and begging for him,
mentioning nothing but that "he was ill," whatever might be the
reason for his writing nothing, and never, amid all her tears and
recitals of distress, suffering one syllable to escape her lips that
could convey a doubt of him, or a complaint, or a lessening of pride
in his genius and good intentions. Her daughter died a year and a
half since, but she did not desert him. She continued his ministering
angel--living with him, caring for him, guarding him against
exposure, and when he was carried away by temptation, amid grief and
the loneliness of feelings unreplied to, and awoke from his self
abandonment prostrated in destitution and suffering, _begging _for
him still. If woman's devotion, born with a first love, and fed with
human passion, hallow its object, as it is allowed to do, what does
not a devotion like this-pure, disinterested and holy as the watch of
an invisible spirit-say for him who inspired it?
We have a letter before us, written by this lady, Mrs. Clemm, on the
morning in which she heard of the death of this object of her
untiring care. It is merely a request that we would call upon her,
but we will copy a few of its words--sacred as its privacy is--to
warrant the truth of the picture we have drawn above, and add force
to the appeal we wish to make for her:
"I have this morning heard of the death of my darling Eddie. . . .
Can you give me any circumstances or particulars? . . . Oh! do not
desert your poor friend in his bitter affliction! . . . Ask -Mr. --
to come, as I must deliver a message to him from my poor Eddie. . . .
I need not ask you to notice his death and to speak well of him. I
know you will. But say what an affectionate son he was to me, his
poor desolate mother. . ."
To hedge round a grave with respect, what choice is there, between
the relinquished wealth and honors of the world, and the story of
such a woman's unrewarded devotion! Risking what we do, in delicacy,
by making it public, we feel--other reasons aside--that it betters
the world to make known that there are such ministrations to its
erring and gifted. What we have said will speak to some hearts. There
are those who will be glad to know how the lamp, whose light of
poetry has beamed on their far-away recognition, was watched over
with care and pain, that they may send to her, who is more darkened
than they by its extinction, some token of their sympathy. She is
destitute and alone. If any, far or near, will send to us what may
aid and cheer her through the remainder of her life, we will joyfully
place it in her bands.
~~~~~ End of Text ~~~~~~
==========
The Unparalleled Adventures of
One Hans Pfaal {*1}
BY late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high
state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there
occurred of a nature so completely unexpected -- so entirely novel --
so utterly at variance with preconceived opinions -- as to leave no
doubt on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an uproar, all
physics in a ferment, all reason and astronomy together by the ears.
It appears that on the -- -- day of -- -- (I am not positive about
the date), a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically
mentioned, were assembled in the great square of the Exchange in the
well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was warm -- unusually so
for the season -- there was hardly a breath of air stirring; and the
multitude were in no bad humor at being now and then besprinkled with
friendly showers of momentary duration, that fell from large white
masses of cloud which chequered in a fitful manner the blue vault of
the firmament. Nevertheless, about noon, a slight but remarkable
agitation became apparent in the assembly: the clattering of ten
thousand tongues succeeded; and, in an instant afterward, ten
thousand faces were upturned toward the heavens, ten thousand pipes
descended simultaneously from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and
a shout, which could be compared to nothing but the roaring of
Niagara, resounded long, loudly, and furiously, through all the
environs of Rotterdam.
The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From
behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of cloud
already mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open area of
blue space, a queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid substance,
so oddly shaped, so whimsically put together, as not to be in any
manner comprehended, and never to be sufficiently admired, by the
host of sturdy burghers who stood open-mouthed below. What could it
be? In the name of all the vrows and devils in Rotterdam, what could
it possibly portend? No one knew, no one could imagine; no one -- not
even the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk -- had the
slightest clew by which to unravel the mystery; so, as nothing more
reasonable could be done, every one to a man replaced his pipe
carefully in the corner of his mouth, and cocking up his right eye
towards the phenomenon, puffed, paused, waddled about, and grunted
significantly -- then waddled back, grunted, paused, and finally --
puffed again.
In the meantime, however, lower and still lower toward the goodly
city, came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so much
smoke. In a very few minutes it arrived near enough to be accurately
discerned. It appeared to be -- yes! it was undoubtedly a species of
balloon; but surely no such balloon had ever been seen in Rotterdam
before. For who, let me ask, ever heard of a balloon manufactured
entirely of dirty newspapers? No man in Holland certainly; yet here,
under the very noses of the people, or rather at some distance above
their noses was the identical thing in question, and composed, I have
it on the best authority, of the precise material which no one had
ever before known to be used for a similar purpose. It was an
egregious insult to the good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam. As
to the shape of the phenomenon, it was even still more reprehensible.
Being little or nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside
down. And this similitude was regarded as by no means lessened when,
upon nearer inspection, there was perceived a large tassel depending
from its apex, and, around the upper rim or base of the cone, a
circle of little instruments, resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a
continual tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But still worse.
Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this fantastic machine, there
hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver hat, with a brim
superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black band and
a silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that many
citizens of Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat repeatedly
before; and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard it with eyes
of familiarity; while the vrow Grettel Pfaall, upon sight of it,
uttered an exclamation of joyful surprise, and declared it to be the
identical hat of her good man himself. Now this was a circumstance
the more to be observed, as Pfaall, with three companions, had
actually disappeared from Rotterdam about five years before, in a
very sudden and unaccountable manner, and up to the date of this
narrative all attempts had failed of obtaining any intelligence
concerning them whatsoever. To be sure, some bones which were thought
to be human, mixed up with a quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had
been lately discovered in a retired situation to the east of
Rotterdam, and some people went so far as to imagine that in this
spot a foul murder had been committed, and that the sufferers were in
all probability Hans Pfaall and his associates. But to return.
The balloon (for such no doubt it was) had now descended to within a
hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a sufficiently
distinct view of the person of its occupant. This was in truth a very
droll little somebody. He could not have been more than two feet in
height; but this altitude, little as it was, would have been
sufficient to destroy his equilibrium, and tilt him over the edge of
his tiny car, but for the intervention of a circular rim reaching as
high as the breast, and rigged on to the cords of the balloon. The
body of the little man was more than proportionately broad, giving to
his entire figure a rotundity highly absurd. His feet, of course,
could not be seen at all, although a horny substance of suspicious
nature was occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom of the
car, or to speak more properly, in the top of the hat. His hands were
enormously large. His hair was extremely gray, and collected in a cue
behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and inflammatory;
his eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and cheeks, although
wrinkled with age, were broad, puffy, and double; but of ears of any
kind or character there was not a semblance to be discovered upon any
portion of his head. This odd little gentleman was dressed in a loose
surtout of sky-blue satin, with tight breeches to match, fastened
with silver buckles at the knees. His vest was of some bright yellow
material; a white taffety cap was set jauntily on one side of his
head; and, to complete his equipment, a blood-red silk handkerchief
enveloped his throat, and fell down, in a dainty manner, upon his
bosom, in a fantastic bow-knot of super-eminent dimensions.
Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet from
the surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was suddenly
seized with a fit of trepidation, and appeared disinclined to make
any nearer approach to terra firma. Throwing out, therefore, a
quantity of sand from a canvas bag, which, he lifted with great
difficulty, he became stationary in an instant. He then proceeded, in
a hurried and agitated manner, to extract from a side-pocket in his
surtout a large morocco pocket-book. This he poised suspiciously in
his hand, then eyed it with an air of extreme surprise, and was
evidently astonished at its weight. He at length opened it, and
drawing there from a huge letter sealed with red sealing-wax and tied
carefully with red tape, let it fall precisely at the feet of the
burgomaster, Superbus Von Underduk. His Excellency stooped to take it
up. But the aeronaut, still greatly discomposed, and having
apparently no farther business to detain him in Rotterdam, began at
this moment to make busy preparations for departure; and it being
necessary to discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to
reascend, the half dozen bags which he threw out, one after another,
without taking the trouble to empty their contents, tumbled, every
one of them, most unfortunately upon the back of the burgomaster, and
rolled him over and over no less than one-and-twenty times, in the
face of every man in Rotterdam. It is not to be supposed, however,
that the great Underduk suffered this impertinence on the part of the
little old man to pass off with impunity. It is said, on the
contrary, that during each and every one of his one-and twenty
circumvolutions he emitted no less than one-and-twenty distinct and
furious whiffs from his pipe, to which he held fast the whole time
with all his might, and to which he intends holding fast until the
day of his death.
In the meantime the balloon arose like a lark, and, soaring far away
above the city, at length drifted quietly behind a cloud similar to
that from which it had so oddly emerged, and was thus lost forever to
the wondering eyes of the good citizens of Rotterdam. All attention
was now directed to the letter, the descent of which, and the
consequences attending thereupon, had proved so fatally subversive of
both person and personal dignity to his Excellency, the illustrious
Burgomaster Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk. That functionary, however,
had not failed, during his circumgyratory movements, to bestow a
thought upon the important subject of securing the packet in
question, which was seen, upon inspection, to have fallen into the
most proper hands, being actually addressed to himself and Professor
Rub-a-dub, in their official capacities of President and
Vice-President of the Rotterdam College of Astronomy. It was
accordingly opened by those dignitaries upon the spot, and found to
contain the following extraordinary, and indeed very serious,
communications.
To their Excellencies Von Underduk and Rub-a-dub, President and
Vice-President of the States' College of Astronomers, in the city of
Rotterdam.
"Your Excellencies may perhaps be able to remember an humble artizan,
by name Hans Pfaall, and by occupation a mender of bellows, who, with
three others, disappeared from Rotterdam, about five years ago, in a
manner which must have been considered by all parties at once sudden,
and extremely unaccountable. If, however, it so please your
Excellencies, I, the writer of this communication, am the identical
Hans Pfaall himself. It is well known to most of my fellow citizens,
that for the period of forty years I continued to occupy the little
square brick building, at the head of the alley called Sauerkraut, in
which I resided at the time of my disappearance. My ancestors have
also resided therein time out of mind -- they, as well as myself,
steadily following the respectable and indeed lucrative profession of
mending of bellows. For, to speak the truth, until of late years,
that the heads of all the people have been set agog with politics, no
better business than my own could an honest citizen of Rotterdam
either desire or deserve. Credit was good, employment was never
wanting, and on all hands there was no lack of either money or
good-will. But, as I was saying, we soon began to feel the effects of
liberty and long speeches, and radicalism, and all that sort of
thing. People who were formerly, the very best customers in the
world, had now not a moment of time to think of us at all. They had,
so they said, as much as they could do to read about the revolutions,
and keep up with the march of intellect and the spirit of the age. If
a fire wanted fanning, it could readily be fanned with a newspaper,
and as the government grew weaker, I have no doubt that leather and
iron acquired durability in proportion, for, in a very short time,
there was not a pair of bellows in all Rotterdam that ever stood in
need of a stitch or required the assistance of a hammer. This was a
state of things not to be endured. I soon grew as poor as a rat, and,
having a wife and children to provide for, my burdens at length
became intolerable, and I spent hour after hour in reflecting upon
the most convenient method of putting an end to my life. Duns, in the
meantime, left me little leisure for contemplation. My house was
literally besieged from morning till night, so that I began to rave,
and foam, and fret like a caged tiger against the bars of his
enclosure. There were three fellows in particular who worried me
beyond endurance, keeping watch continually about my door, and
threatening me with the law. Upon these three I internally vowed the
bitterest revenge, if ever I should be so happy as to get them within
my clutches; and I believe nothing in the world but the pleasure of
this anticipation prevented me from putting my plan of suicide into
immediate execution, by blowing my brains out with a blunderbuss. I
thought it best, however, to dissemble my wrath, and to treat them
with promises and fair words, until, by some good turn of fate, an
opportunity of vengeance should be afforded me.
"One day, having given my creditors the slip, and feeling more than
usually dejected, I continued for a long time to wander about the
most obscure streets without object whatever, until at length I
chanced to stumble against the corner of a bookseller's stall. Seeing
a chair close at hand, for the use of customers, I threw myself
doggedly into it, and, hardly knowing why, opened the pages of the
first volume which came within my reach. It proved to be a small
pamphlet treatise on Speculative Astronomy, written either by
Professor Encke of Berlin or by a Frenchman of somewhat similar name.
I had some little tincture of information on matters of this nature,
and soon became more and more absorbed in the contents of the book,
reading it actually through twice before I awoke to a recollection of
what was passing around me. By this time it began to grow dark, and I
directed my steps toward home. But the treatise had made an indelible
impression on my mind, and, as I sauntered along the dusky streets, I
revolved carefully over in my memory the wild and sometimes
unintelligible reasonings of the writer. There are some particular
passages which affected my imagination in a powerful and
extraordinary manner. The longer I meditated upon these the more
intense grew the interest which had been excited within me. The
limited nature of my education in general, and more especially my
ignorance on subjects connected with natural philosophy, so far from
rendering me diffident of my own ability to comprehend what I had
read, or inducing me to mistrust the many vague notions which had
arisen in consequence, merely served as a farther stimulus to
imagination; and I was vain enough, or perhaps reasonable enough, to
doubt whether those crude ideas which, arising in ill-regulated
minds, have all the appearance, may not often in effect possess all
the force, the reality, and other inherent properties, of instinct or
intuition; whether, to proceed a step farther, profundity itself
might not, in matters of a purely speculative nature, be detected as
a legitimate source of falsity and error. In other words, I believed,
and still do believe, that truth, is frequently of its own essence,
superficial, and that, in many cases, the depth lies more in the
abysses where we seek her, than in the actual situations wherein she
may be found. Nature herself seemed to afford me corroboration of
these ideas. In the contemplation of the heavenly bodies it struck me
forcibly that I could not distinguish a star with nearly as much
precision, when I gazed on it with earnest, direct and undeviating
attention, as when I suffered my eye only to glance in its vicinity
alone. I was not, of course, at that time aware that this apparent
paradox was occasioned by the center of the visual area being less
susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the exterior portions
of the retina. This knowledge, and some of another kind, came
afterwards in the course of an eventful five years, during which I
have dropped the prejudices of my former humble situation in life,
and forgotten the bellows-mender in far different occupations. But at
the epoch of which I speak, the analogy which a casual observation of
a star offered to the conclusions I had already drawn, struck me with
the force of positive conformation, and I then finally made up my
mind to the course which I afterwards pursued.
"It was late when I reached home, and I went immediately to bed. My
mind, however, was too much occupied to sleep, and I lay the whole
night buried in meditation. Arising early in the morning, and
contriving again to escape the vigilance of my creditors, I repaired
eagerly to the bookseller's stall, and laid out what little ready
money I possessed, in the purchase of some volumes of Mechanics and
Practical Astronomy. Having arrived at home safely with these, I
devoted every spare moment to their perusal, and soon made such
proficiency in studies of this nature as I thought sufficient for the
execution of my plan. In the intervals of this period, I made every
endeavor to conciliate the three creditors who had given me so much
annoyance. In this I finally succeeded -- partly by selling enough of
my household furniture to satisfy a moiety of their claim, and partly
by a promise of paying the balance upon completion of a little
project which I told them I had in view, and for assistance in which
I solicited their services. By these means -- for they were ignorant
men -- I found little difficulty in gaining them over to my purpose.
"Matters being thus arranged, I contrived, by the aid of my wife and
with the greatest secrecy and caution, to dispose of what property I
had remaining, and to borrow, in small sums, under various pretences,
and without paying any attention to my future means of repayment, no
inconsiderable quantity of ready money. With the means thus accruing
I proceeded to procure at intervals, cambric muslin, very fine, in
pieces of twelve yards each; twine; a lot of the varnish of
caoutchouc; a large and deep basket of wicker-work, made to order;
and several other articles necessary in the construction and
equipment of a balloon of extraordinary dimensions. This I directed
my wife to make up as soon as possible, and gave her all requisite
information as to the particular method of proceeding. In the
meantime I worked up the twine into a net-work of sufficient
dimensions; rigged it with a hoop and the necessary cords; bought a
quadrant, a compass, a spy-glass, a common barometer with some
important modifications, and two astronomical instruments not so
generally known. I then took opportunities of conveying by night, to
a retired situation east of Rotterdam, five iron-bound casks, to
contain about fifty gallons each, and one of a larger size; six
tinned ware tubes, three inches in diameter, properly shaped, and ten
feet in length; a quantity of a particular metallic substance, or
semi-metal, which I shall not name, and a dozen demijohns of a very
common acid. The gas to be formed from these latter materials is a
gas never yet generated by any other person than myself -- or at
least never applied to any similar purpose. The secret I would make
no difficulty in disclosing, but that it of right belongs to a
citizen of Nantz, in France, by whom it was conditionally
communicated to myself. The same individual submitted to me, without
being at all aware of my intentions, a method of constructing
balloons from the membrane of a certain animal, through which
substance any escape of gas was nearly an impossibility. I found it,
however, altogether too expensive, and was not sure, upon the whole,
whether cambric muslin with a coating of gum caoutchouc, was not
equally as good. I mention this circumstance, because I think it
probable that hereafter the individual in question may attempt a
balloon ascension with the novel gas and material I have spoken of,
and I do not wish to deprive him of the honor of a very singular
invention.
"On the spot which I intended each of the smaller casks to occupy
respectively during the inflation of the balloon, I privately dug a
hole two feet deep; the holes forming in this manner a circle
twenty-five feet in diameter. In the centre of this circle, being the
station designed for the large cask, I also dug a hole three feet in
depth. In each of the five smaller holes, I deposited a canister
containing fifty pounds, and in the larger one a keg holding one
hundred and fifty pounds, of cannon powder. These -- the keg and
canisters -- I connected in a proper manner with covered trains; and
having let into one of the canisters the end of about four feet of
slow match, I covered up the hole, and placed the cask over it,
leaving the other end of the match protruding about an inch, and
barely visible beyond the cask. I then filled up the remaining holes,
and placed the barrels over them in their destined situation.
"Besides the articles above enumerated, I conveyed to the depot, and
there secreted, one of M. Grimm's improvements upon the apparatus for
condensation of the atmospheric air. I found this machine, however,
to require considerable alteration before it could be adapted to the
purposes to which I intended making it applicable. But, with severe
labor and unremitting perseverance, I at length met with entire
success in all my preparations. My balloon was soon completed. It
would contain more than forty thousand cubic feet of gas; would take
me up easily, I calculated, with all my implements, and, if I managed
rightly, with one hundred and seventy-five pounds of ballast into the
bargain. It had received three coats of varnish, and I found the
cambric muslin to answer all the purposes of silk itself, quite as
strong and a good deal less expensive.
"Everything being now ready, I exacted from my wife an oath of
secrecy in relation to all my actions from the day of my first visit
to the bookseller's stall; and promising, on my part, to return as
soon as circumstances would permit, I gave her what little money I
had left, and bade her farewell. Indeed I had no fear on her account.
She was what people call a notable woman, and could manage matters in
the world without my assistance. I believe, to tell the truth, she
always looked upon me as an idle boy, a mere make-weight, good for
nothing but building castles in the air, and was rather glad to get
rid of me. It was a dark night when I bade her good-bye, and taking
with me, as aides-de-camp, the three creditors who had given me so
much trouble, we carried the balloon, with the car and accoutrements,
by a roundabout way, to the station where the other articles were
deposited. We there found them all unmolested, and I proceeded
immediately to business.
"It was the first of April. The night, as I said before, was dark;
there was not a star to be seen; and a drizzling rain, falling at
intervals, rendered us very uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was
concerning the balloon, which, in spite of the varnish with which it
was defended, began to grow rather heavy with the moisture; the
powder also was liable to damage. I therefore kept my three duns
working with great diligence, pounding down ice around the central
cask, and stirring the acid in the others. They did not cease,
however, importuning me with questions as to what I intended to do
with all this apparatus, and expressed much dissatisfaction at the
terrible labor I made them undergo. They could not perceive, so they
said, what good was likely to result from their getting wet to the
skin, merely to take a part in such horrible incantations. I began to
get uneasy, and worked away with all my might, for I verily believe
the idiots supposed that I had entered into a compact with the devil,
and that, in short, what I was now doing was nothing better than it
should be. I was, therefore, in great fear of their leaving me
altogether. I contrived, however, to pacify them by promises of
payment of all scores in full, as soon as I could bring the present
business to a termination. To these speeches they gave, of course,
their own interpretation; fancying, no doubt, that at all events I
should come into possession of vast quantities of ready money; and
provided I paid them all I owed, and a trifle more, in consideration
of their services, I dare say they cared very little what became of
either my soul or my carcass.
"In about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently
inflated. I attached the car, therefore, and put all my implements in
it -- not forgetting the condensing apparatus, a copious supply of
water, and a large quantity of provisions, such as pemmican, in which
much nutriment is contained in comparatively little bulk. I also
secured in the car a pair of pigeons and a cat. It was now nearly
daybreak, and I thought it high time to take my departure. Dropping a
lighted cigar on the ground, as if by accident, I took the
opportunity, in stooping to pick it up, of igniting privately the
piece of slow match, whose end, as I said before, protruded a very
little beyond the lower rim of one of the smaller casks. This
manoeuvre was totally unperceived on the part of the three duns; and,
jumping into the car, I immediately cut the single cord which held me
to the earth, and was pleased to find that I shot upward, carrying
with all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of leaden ballast,
and able to have carried up as many more.
"Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards, when,
roaring and rumbling up after me in the most horrible and tumultuous
manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire, and smoke, and sulphur,
and legs and arms, and gravel, and burning wood, and blazing metal,
that my very heart sunk within me, and I fell down in the bottom of
the car, trembling with unmitigated terror. Indeed, I now perceived
that I had entirely overdone the business, and that the main
consequences of the shock were yet to be experienced. Accordingly, in
less than a second, I felt all the blood in my body rushing to my
temples, and immediately thereupon, a concussion, which I shall never
forget, burst abruptly through the night and seemed to rip the very
firmament asunder. When I afterward had time for reflection, I did
not fail to attribute the extreme violence of the explosion, as
regarded myself, to its proper cause -- my situation directly above
it, and in the line of its greatest power. But at the time, I thought
only of preserving my life. The balloon at first collapsed, then
furiously expanded, then whirled round and round with horrible
velocity, and finally, reeling and staggering like a drunken man,
hurled me with great force over the rim of the car, and left me
dangling, at a terrific height, with my head downward, and my face
outwards, by a piece of slender cord about three feet in length,
which hung accidentally through a crevice near the bottom of the
wicker-work, and in which, as I fell, my left foot became most
providentially entangled. It is impossible -- utterly impossible --
to form any adequate idea of the horror of my situation. I gasped
convulsively for breath -- a shudder resembling a fit of the ague
agitated every nerve and muscle of my frame -- I felt my eyes
starting from their sockets -- a horrible nausea overwhelmed me --
and at length I fainted away.
"How long I remained in this state it is impossible to say. It must,
however, have been no inconsiderable time, for when I partially
recovered the sense of existence, I found the day breaking, the
balloon at a prodigious height over a wilderness of ocean, and not a
trace of land to be discovered far and wide within the limits of the
vast horizon. My sensations, however, upon thus recovering, were by
no means so rife with agony as might have been anticipated. Indeed,
there was much of incipient madness in the calm survey which I began
to take of my situation. I drew up to my eyes each of my hands, one
after the other, and wondered what occurrence could have given rise
to the swelling of the veins, and the horrible blackness of the
fingernails. I afterward carefully examined my head, shaking it
repeatedly, and feeling it with minute attention, until I succeeded
in satisfying myself that it was not, as I had more than half
suspected, larger than my balloon. Then, in a knowing manner, I felt
in both my breeches pockets, and, missing therefrom a set of tablets
and a toothpick case, endeavored to account for their disappearance,
and not being able to do so, felt inexpressibly chagrined. It now
occurred to me that I suffered great uneasiness in the joint of my
left ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation began to glimmer
through my mind. But, strange to say! I was neither astonished nor
horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it was a kind of
chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was about to display in
extricating myself from this dilemma; and I never, for a moment,
looked upon my ultimate safety as a question susceptible of doubt.
For a few minutes I remained wrapped in the profoundest meditation. I
have a distinct recollection of frequently compressing my lips,
putting my forefinger to the side of my nose, and making use of other
gesticulations and grimaces common to men who, at ease in their
arm-chairs, meditate upon matters of intricacy or importance. Having,
as I thought, sufficiently collected my ideas, I now, with great
caution and deliberation, put my hands behind my back, and unfastened
the large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my
inexpressibles. This buckle had three teeth, which, being somewhat
rusty, turned with great difficulty on their axis. I brought them,
however, after some trouble, at right angles to the body of the
buckle, and was glad to find them remain firm in that position.
Holding the instrument thus obtained within my teeth, I now proceeded
to untie the knot of my cravat. I had to rest several times before I
could accomplish this manoeuvre, but it was at length accomplished.
To one end of the cravat I then made fast the buckle, and the other
end I tied, for greater security, tightly around my wrist. Drawing
now my body upwards, with a prodigious exertion of muscular force, I
succeeded, at the very first trial, in throwing the buckle over the
car, and entangling it, as I had anticipated, in the circular rim of
the wicker-work.
"My body was now inclined towards the side of the car, at an angle of
about forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was
therefore only forty-five degrees below the perpendicular. So far
from it, I still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon; for
the change of situation which I had acquired, had forced the bottom
of the car considerably outwards from my position, which was
accordingly one of the most imminent and deadly peril. It should be
remembered, however, that when I fell in the first instance, from the
car, if I had fallen with my face turned toward the balloon, instead
of turned outwardly from it, as it actually was; or if, in the second
place, the cord by which I was suspended had chanced to hang over the
upper edge, instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the car,
-- I say it may be readily conceived that, in either of these
supposed cases, I should have been unable to accomplish even as much
as I had now accomplished, and the wonderful adventures of Hans
Pfaall would have been utterly lost to posterity, I had therefore
every reason to be grateful; although, in point of fact, I was still
too stupid to be anything at all, and hung for, perhaps, a quarter of
an hour in that extraordinary manner, without making the slightest
farther exertion whatsoever, and in a singularly tranquil state of
idiotic enjoyment. But this feeling did not fail to die rapidly away,
and thereunto succeeded horror, and dismay, and a chilling sense of
utter helplessness and ruin. In fact, the blood so long accumulating
in the vessels of my head and throat, and which had hitherto buoyed
up my spirits with madness and delirium, had now begun to retire
within their proper channels, and the distinctness which was thus
added to my perception of the danger, merely served to deprive me of
the self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this weakness
was, luckily for me, of no very long duration. In good time came to
my rescue the spirit of despair, and, with frantic cries and
struggles, I jerked my way bodily upwards, till at length, clutching
with a vise-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed my person over
it, and fell headlong and shuddering within the car.
"It was not until some time afterward that I recovered myself
sufficiently to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon. I then,
however, examined it with attention, and found it, to my great
relief, uninjured. My implements were all safe, and, fortunately, I
had lost neither ballast nor provisions. Indeed, I had so well
secured them in their places, that such an accident was entirely out
of the question. Looking at my watch, I found it six o'clock. I was
still rapidly ascending, and my barometer gave a present altitude of
three and three-quarter miles. Immediately beneath me in the ocean,
lay a small black object, slightly oblong in shape, seemingly about
the size, and in every way bearing a great resemblance to one of
those childish toys called a domino. Bringing my telescope to bear
upon it, I plainly discerned it to be a British ninety four-gun ship,
close-hauled, and pitching heavily in the sea with her head to the
W.S.W. Besides this ship, I saw nothing but the ocean and the sky,
and the sun, which had long arisen.
"It is now high time that I should explain to your Excellencies the
object of my perilous voyage. Your Excellencies will bear in mind
that distressed circumstances in Rotterdam had at length driven me to
the resolution of committing suicide. It was not, however, that to
life itself I had any, positive disgust, but that I was harassed
beyond endurance by the adventitious miseries attending my situation.
In this state of mind, wishing to live, yet wearied with life, the
treatise at the stall of the bookseller opened a resource to my
imagination. I then finally made up my mind. I determined to depart,
yet live -- to leave the world, yet continue to exist -- in short, to
drop enigmas, I resolved, let what would ensue, to force a passage,
if I could, to the moon. Now, lest I should be supposed more of a
madman than I actually am, I will detail, as well as I am able, the
considerations which led me to believe that an achievement of this
nature, although without doubt difficult, and incontestably full of
danger, was not absolutely, to a bold spirit, beyond the confines of
the possible.
"The moon's actual distance from the earth was the first thing to be
attended to. Now, the mean or average interval between the centres of
the two planets is 59.9643 of the earth's equatorial radii, or only
about 237,000 miles. I say the mean or average interval. But it must
be borne in mind that the form of the moon's orbit being an ellipse
of eccentricity amounting to no less than 0.05484 of the major
semi-axis of the ellipse itself, and the earth's centre being
situated in its focus, if I could, in any manner, contrive to meet
the moon, as it were, in its perigee, the above mentioned distance
would be materially diminished. But, to say nothing at present of
this possibility, it was very certain that, at all events, from the
237,000 miles I would have to deduct the radius of the earth, say
4,000, and the radius of the moon, say 1080, in all 5,080, leaving an
actual interval to be traversed, under average circumstances, of
231,920 miles. Now this, I reflected, was no very extraordinary
distance. Travelling on land has been repeatedly accomplished at the
rate of thirty miles per hour, and indeed a much greater speed may be
anticipated. But even at this velocity, it would take me no more than
322 days to reach the surface of the moon. There were, however, many
particulars inducing me to believe that my average rate of travelling
might possibly very much exceed that of thirty miles per hour, and,
as these considerations did not fail to make a deep impression upon
my mind, I will mention them more fully hereafter.
"The next point to be regarded was a matter of far greater
importance. From indications afforded by the barometer, we find that,
in ascensions from the surface of the earth we have, at the height of
1,000 feet, left below us about one-thirtieth of the entire mass of
atmospheric air, that at 10,600 we have ascended through nearly
one-third; and that at 18,000, which is not far from the elevation of
Cotopaxi, we have surmounted one-half the material, or, at all
events, one-half the ponderable, body of air incumbent upon our
globe. It is also calculated that at an altitude not exceeding the
hundredth part of the earth's diameter -- that is, not exceeding
eighty miles -- the rarefaction would be so excessive that animal
life could in no manner be sustained, and, moreover, that the most
delicate means we possess of ascertaining the presence of the
atmosphere would be inadequate to assure us of its existence. But I
did not fail to perceive that these latter calculations are founded
altogether on our experimental knowledge of the properties of air,
and the mechanical laws regulating its dilation and compression, in
what may be called, comparatively speaking, the immediate vicinity of
the earth itself; and, at the same time, it is taken for granted that
animal life is and must be essentially incapable of modification at
any given unattainable distance from the surface. Now, all such
reasoning and from such data must, of course, be simply analogical.
The greatest height ever reached by man was that of 25,000 feet,
attained in the aeronautic expedition of Messieurs Gay-Lussac and
Biot. This is a moderate altitude, even when compared with the eighty
miles in question; and I could not help thinking that the subject
admitted room for doubt and great latitude for speculation.
"But, in point of fact, an ascension being made to any given
altitude, the ponderable quantity of air surmounted in any farther
ascension is by no means in proportion to the additional height
ascended (as may be plainly seen from what has been stated before),
but in a ratio constantly decreasing. It is therefore evident that,
ascend as high as we may, we cannot, literally speaking, arrive at a
limit beyond which no atmosphere is to be found. It must exist, I
argued; although it may exist in a state of infinite rarefaction.
"On the other hand, I was aware that arguments have not been wanting
to prove the existence of a real and definite limit to the
atmosphere, beyond which there is absolutely no air whatsoever. But a
circumstance which has been left out of view by those who contend for
such a limit seemed to me, although no positive refutation of their
creed, still a point worthy very serious investigation. On comparing
the intervals between the successive arrivals of Encke's comet at its
perihelion, after giving credit, in the most exact manner, for all
the disturbances due to the attractions of the planets, it appears
that the periods are gradually diminishing; that is to say, the major
axis of the comet's ellipse is growing shorter, in a slow but
perfectly regular decrease. Now, this is precisely what ought to be
the case, if we suppose a resistance experienced from the comet from
an extremely rare ethereal medium pervading the regions of its orbit.
For it is evident that such a medium must, in retarding the comet's
velocity, increase its centripetal, by weakening its centrifugal
force. In other words, the sun's attraction would be constantly
attaining greater power, and the comet would be drawn nearer at every
revolution. Indeed, there is no other way of accounting for the
variation in question. But again. The real diameter of the same
comet's nebulosity is observed to contract rapidly as it approaches
the sun, and dilate with equal rapidity in its departure towards its
aphelion. Was I not justifiable in supposing with M. Valz, that this
apparent condensation of volume has its origin in the compression of
the same ethereal medium I have spoken of before, and which is only
denser in proportion to its solar vicinity? The lenticular-shaped
phenomenon, also called the zodiacal light, was a matter worthy of
attention. This radiance, so apparent in the tropics, and which
cannot be mistaken for any meteoric lustre, extends from the horizon
obliquely upward, and follows generally the direction of the sun's
equator. It appeared to me evidently in the nature of a rare
atmosphere extending from the sun outward, beyond the orbit of Venus
at least, and I believed indefinitely farther.{*2} Indeed, this
medium I could not suppose confined to the path of the comet's
ellipse, or to the immediate neighborhood of the sun. It was easy, on
the contrary, to imagine it pervading the entire regions of our
planetary system, condensed into what we call atmosphere at the
planets themselves, and perhaps at some of them modified by
considerations, so to speak, purely geological.
Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little further
hesitation. Granting that on my passage I should meet with atmosphere
essentially the same as at the surface of the earth, I conceived
that, by means of the very ingenious apparatus of M. Grimm, I should
readily be enabled to condense it in sufficient quantity for the
purposes of respiration. This would remove the chief obstacle in a
journey to the moon. I had indeed spent some money and great labor in
adapting the apparatus to the object intended, and confidently looked
forward to its successful application, if I could manage to complete
the voyage within any reasonable period. This brings me back to the
rate at which it might be possible to travel.
"It is true that balloons, in the first stage of their ascensions
from the earth, are known to rise with a velocity comparatively
moderate. Now, the power of elevation lies altogether in the superior
lightness of the gas in the balloon compared with the atmospheric
air; and, at first sight, it does not appear probable that, as the
balloon acquires altitude, and consequently arrives successively in
atmospheric strata of densities rapidly diminishing -- I say, it does
not appear at all reasonable that, in this its progress upwards, the
original velocity should be accelerated. On the other hand, I was not
aware that, in any recorded ascension, a diminution was apparent in
the absolute rate of ascent; although such should have been the case,
if on account of nothing else, on account of the escape of gas
through balloons ill-constructed, and varnished with no better
material than the ordinary varnish. It seemed, therefore, that the
effect of such escape was only sufficient to counterbalance the
effect of some accelerating power. I now considered that, provided in
my passage I found the medium I had imagined, and provided that it
should prove to be actually and essentially what we denominate
atmospheric air, it could make comparatively little difference at
what extreme state of rarefaction I should discover it -- that is to
say, in regard to my power of ascending -- for the gas in the balloon
would not only be itself subject to rarefaction partially similar (in
proportion to the occurrence of which, I could suffer an escape of so
much as would be requisite to prevent explosion), but, being what it
was, would, at all events, continue specifically lighter than any
compound whatever of mere nitrogen and oxygen. In the meantime, the
force of gravitation would be constantly diminishing, in proportion
to the squares of the distances, and thus, with a velocity
prodigiously accelerating, I should at length arrive in those distant
regions where the force of the earth's attraction would be superseded
by that of the moon. In accordance with these ideas, I did not think
it worth while to encumber myself with more provisions than would be
sufficient for a period of forty days.
"There was still, however, another difficulty, which occasioned me
some little disquietude. It has been observed, that, in balloon
ascensions to any considerable height, besides the pain attending
respiration, great uneasiness is experienced about the head and body,
often accompanied with bleeding at the nose, and other symptoms of an
alarming kind, and growing more and more inconvenient in proportion
to the altitude attained.{*3} This was a reflection of a nature
somewhat startling. Was it not probable that these symptoms would
increase indefinitely, or at least until terminated by death itself?
I finally thought not. Their origin was to be looked for in the
progressive removal of the customary atmospheric pressure upon the
surface of the body, and consequent distention of the superficial
blood-vessels -- not in any positive disorganization of the animal
system, as in the case of difficulty in breathing, where the
atmospheric density is chemically insufficient for the due renovation
of blood in a ventricle of the heart. Unless for default of this
renovation, I could see no reason, therefore, why life could not be
sustained even in a vacuum; for the expansion and compression of
chest, commonly called breathing, is action purely muscular, and the
cause, not the effect, of respiration. In a word, I conceived that,
as the body should become habituated to the want of atmospheric
pressure, the sensations of pain would gradually diminish -- and to
endure them while they continued, I relied with confidence upon the
iron hardihood of my constitution.
"Thus, may it please your Excellencies, I have detailed some, though
by no means all, the considerations which led me to form the project
of a lunar voyage. I shall now proceed to lay before you the result
of an attempt so apparently audacious in conception, and, at all
events, so utterly unparalleled in the annals of mankind.
"Having attained the altitude before mentioned, that is to say three
miles and three-quarters, I threw out from the car a quantity of
feathers, and found that I still ascended with sufficient rapidity;
there was, therefore, no necessity for discharging any ballast. I was
glad of this, for I wished to retain with me as much weight as I
could carry, for reasons which will be explained in the sequel. I as
yet suffered no bodily inconvenience, breathing with great freedom,
and feeling no pain whatever in the head. The cat was lying very
demurely upon my coat, which I had taken off, and eyeing the pigeons
with an air of nonchalance. These latter being tied by the leg, to
prevent their escape, were busily employed in picking up some grains
of rice scattered for them in the bottom of the car.
"At twenty minutes past six o'clock, the barometer showed an
elevation of 26,400 feet, or five miles to a fraction. The prospect
seemed unbounded. Indeed, it is very easily calculated by means of
spherical geometry, what a great extent of the earth's area I beheld.
The convex surface of any segment of a sphere is, to the entire
surface of the sphere itself, as the versed sine of the segment to
the diameter of the sphere. Now, in my case, the versed sine -- that
is to say, the thickness of the segment beneath me -- was about equal
to my elevation, or the elevation of the point of sight above the
surface. "As five miles, then, to eight thousand," would express the
proportion of the earth's area seen by me. In other words, I beheld
as much as a sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the
globe. The sea appeared unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of
the spy-glass, I could perceive it to be in a state of violent
agitation. The ship was no longer visible, having drifted away,
apparently to the eastward. I now began to experience, at intervals,
severe pain in the head, especially about the ears -- still, however,
breathing with tolerable freedom. The cat and pigeons seemed to
suffer no inconvenience whatsoever.
"At twenty minutes before seven, the balloon entered a long series of
dense cloud, which put me to great trouble, by damaging my condensing
apparatus and wetting me to the skin. This was, to be sure, a
singular recontre, for I had not believed it possible that a cloud of
this nature could be sustained at so great an elevation. I thought it
best, however, to throw out two five-pound pieces of ballast,
reserving still a weight of one hundred and sixty-five pounds. Upon
so doing, I soon rose above the difficulty, and perceived
immediately, that I had obtained a great increase in my rate of
ascent. In a few seconds after my leaving the cloud, a flash of vivid
lightning shot from one end of it to the other, and caused it to
kindle up, throughout its vast extent, like a mass of ignited and
glowing charcoal. This, it must be remembered, was in the broad light
of day. No fancy may picture the sublimity which might have been
exhibited by a similar phenomenon taking place amid the darkness of
the night. Hell itself might have been found a fitting image. Even as
it was, my hair stood on end, while I gazed afar down within the
yawning abysses, letting imagination descend, as it were, and stalk
about in the strange vaulted halls, and ruddy gulfs, and red ghastly
chasms of the hideous and unfathomable fire. I had indeed made a
narrow escape. Had the balloon remained a very short while longer
within the cloud -- that is to say -- had not the inconvenience of
getting wet, determined me to discharge the ballast, inevitable ruin
would have been the consequence. Such perils, although little
considered, are perhaps the greatest which must be encountered in
balloons. I had by this time, however, attained too great an
elevation to be any longer uneasy on this head.
"I was now rising rapidly, and by seven o'clock the barometer
indicated an altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I began
to find great difficulty in drawing my breath. My head, too, was
excessively painful; and, having felt for some time a moisture about
my cheeks, I at length discovered it to be blood, which was oozing
quite fast from the drums of my ears. My eyes, also, gave me great
uneasiness. Upon passing the hand over them they seemed to have
protruded from their sockets in no inconsiderable degree; and all
objects in the car, and even the balloon itself, appeared distorted
to my vision. These symptoms were more than I had expected, and
occasioned me some alarm. At this juncture, very imprudently, and
without consideration, I threw out from the car three five-pound
pieces of ballast. The accelerated rate of ascent thus obtained,
carried me too rapidly, and without sufficient gradation, into a
highly rarefied stratum of the atmosphere, and the result had nearly
proved fatal to my expedition and to myself. I was suddenly seized
with a spasm which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when
this, in a measure, ceased, I could catch my breath only at long
intervals, and in a gasping manner -- bleeding all the while
copiously at the nose and ears, and even slightly at the eyes. The
pigeons appeared distressed in the extreme, and struggled to escape;
while the cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out of
her mouth, staggered to and fro in the car as if under the influence
of poison. I now too late discovered the great rashness of which I
had been guilty in discharging the ballast, and my agitation was
excessive. I anticipated nothing less than death, and death in a few
minutes. The physical suffering I underwent contributed also to
render me nearly incapable of making any exertion for the
preservation of my life. I had, indeed, little power of reflection
left, and the violence of the pain in my head seemed to be greatly on
the increase. Thus I found that my senses would shortly give way
altogether, and I had already clutched one of the valve ropes with
the view of attempting a descent, when the recollection of the trick
I had played the three creditors, and the possible consequences to
myself, should I return, operated to deter me for the moment. I lay
down in the bottom of the car, and endeavored to collect my
faculties. In this I so far succeeded as to determine upon the
experiment of losing blood. Having no lancet, however, I was
constrained to perform the operation in the best manner I was able,
and finally succeeded in opening a vein in my right arm, with the
blade of my penknife. The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I
experienced a sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half
a moderate basin full, most of the worst symptoms had abandoned me
entirely. I nevertheless did not think it expedient to attempt
getting on my feet immediately; but, having tied up my arm as well as
I could, I lay still for about a quarter of an hour. At the end of
this time I arose, and found myself freer from absolute pain of any
kind than I had been during the last hour and a quarter of my
ascension. The difficulty of breathing, however, was diminished in a
very slight degree, and I found that it would soon be positively
necessary to make use of my condenser. In the meantime, looking
toward the cat, who was again snugly stowed away upon my coat, I
discovered to my infinite surprise, that she had taken the
opportunity of my indisposition to bring into light a litter of three
little kittens. This was an addition to the number of passengers on
my part altogether unexpected; but I was pleased at the occurrence.
It would afford me a chance of bringing to a kind of test the truth
of a surmise, which, more than anything else, had influenced me in
attempting this ascension. I had imagined that the habitual endurance
of the atmospheric pressure at the surface of the earth was the
cause, or nearly so, of the pain attending animal existence at a
distance above the surface. Should the kittens be found to suffer
uneasiness in an equal degree with their mother, I must consider my
theory in fault, but a failure to do so I should look upon as a
strong confirmation of my idea.
"By eight o'clock I had actually attained an elevation of seventeen
miles above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to me evident
that my rate of ascent was not only on the increase, but that the
progression would have been apparent in a slight degree even had I
not discharged the ballast which I did. The pains in my head and ears
returned, at intervals, with violence, and I still continued to bleed
occasionally at the nose; but, upon the whole, I suffered much less
than might have been expected. I breathed, however, at every moment,
with more and more difficulty, and each inhalation was attended with
a troublesome spasmodic action of the chest. I now unpacked the
condensing apparatus, and got it ready for immediate use.
"The view of the earth, at this period of my ascension, was beautiful
indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the southward, as far as
I could see, lay a boundless sheet of apparently unruffled ocean,
which every moment gained a deeper and a deeper tint of blue and
began already to assume a slight appearance of convexity. At a vast
distance to the eastward, although perfectly discernible, extended
the islands of Great Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France
and Spain, with a small portion of the northern part of the continent
of Africa. Of individual edifices not a trace could be discovered,
and the proudest cities of mankind had utterly faded away from the
face of the earth. From the rock of Gibraltar, now dwindled into a
dim speck, the dark Mediterranean sea, dotted with shining islands as
the heaven is dotted with stars, spread itself out to the eastward as
far as my vision extended, until its entire mass of waters seemed at
length to tumble headlong over the abyss of the horizon, and I found
myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of the mighty cataract.
Overhead, the sky was of a jetty black, and the stars were
brilliantly visible.
"The pigeons about this time seeming to undergo much suffering, I
determined upon giving them their liberty. I first untied one of
them, a beautiful gray-mottled pigeon, and placed him upon the rim of
the wicker-work. He appeared extremely uneasy, looking anxiously
around him, fluttering his wings, and making a loud cooing noise, but
could not be persuaded to trust himself from off the car. I took him
up at last, and threw him to about half a dozen yards from the
balloon. He made, however, no attempt to descend as I had expected,
but struggled with great vehemence to get back, uttering at the same
time very shrill and piercing cries. He at length succeeded in
regaining his former station on the rim, but had hardly done so when
his head dropped upon his breast, and he fell dead within the car.
The other one did not prove so unfortunate. To prevent his following
the example of his companion, and accomplishing a return, I threw him
downward with all my force, and was pleased to find him continue his
descent, with great velocity, making use of his wings with ease, and
in a perfectly natural manner. In a very short time he was out of
sight, and I have no doubt he reached home in safety. Puss, who
seemed in a great measure recovered from her illness, now made a
hearty meal of the dead bird and then went to sleep with much
apparent satisfaction. Her kittens were quite lively, and so far
evinced not the slightest sign of any uneasiness whatever.
"At a quarter-past eight, being no longer able to draw breath without
the most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to adjust around the
car the apparatus belonging to the condenser. This apparatus will
require some little explanation, and your Excellencies will please to
bear in mind that my object, in the first place, was to surround
myself and cat entirely with a barricade against the highly rarefied
atmosphere in which I was existing, with the intention of introducing
within this barricade, by means of my condenser, a quantity of this
same atmosphere sufficiently condensed for the purposes of
respiration. With this object in view I had prepared a very strong
perfectly air-tight, but flexible gum-elastic bag. In this bag, which
was of sufficient dimensions, the entire car was in a manner placed.
That is to say, it (the bag) was drawn over the whole bottom of the
car, up its sides, and so on, along the outside of the ropes, to the
upper rim or hoop where the net-work is attached. Having pulled the
bag up in this way, and formed a complete enclosure on all sides, and
at bottom, it was now necessary to fasten up its top or mouth, by
passing its material over the hoop of the net-work -- in other words,
between the net-work and the hoop. But if the net-work were separated
from the hoop to admit this passage, what was to sustain the car in
the meantime? Now the net-work was not permanently fastened to the
hoop, but attached by a series of running loops or nooses. I
therefore undid only a few of these loops at one time, leaving the
car suspended by the remainder. Having thus inserted a portion of the
cloth forming the upper part of the bag, I refastened the loops --
not to the hoop, for that would have been impossible, since the cloth
now intervened -- but to a series of large buttons, affixed to the
cloth itself, about three feet below the mouth of the bag, the
intervals between the buttons having been made to correspond to the
intervals between the loops. This done, a few more of the loops were
unfastened from the rim, a farther portion of the cloth introduced,
and the disengaged loops then connected with their proper buttons. In
this way it was possible to insert the whole upper part of the bag
between the net-work and the hoop. It is evident that the hoop would
now drop down within the car, while the whole weight of the car
itself, with all its contents, would be held up merely by the
strength of the buttons. This, at first sight, would seem an
inadequate dependence; but it was by no means so, for the buttons
were not only very strong in themselves, but so close together that a
very slight portion of the whole weight was supported by any one of
them. Indeed, had the car and contents been three times heavier than
they were, I should not have been at all uneasy. I now raised up the
hoop again within the covering of gum-elastic, and propped it at
nearly its former height by means of three light poles prepared for
the occasion. This was done, of course, to keep the bag distended at
the top, and to preserve the lower part of the net-work in its proper
situation. All that now remained was to fasten up the mouth of the
enclosure; and this was readily accomplished by gathering the folds
of the material together, and twisting them up very tightly on the
inside by means of a kind of stationary tourniquet.
"In the sides of the covering thus adjusted round the car, had been
inserted three circular panes of thick but clear glass, through which
I could see without difficulty around me in every horizontal
direction. In that portion of the cloth forming the bottom, was
likewise, a fourth window, of the same kind, and corresponding with a
small aperture in the floor of the car itself. This enabled me to see
perpendicularly down, but having found it impossible to place any
similar contrivance overhead, on account of the peculiar manner of
closing up the opening there, and the consequent wrinkles in the
cloth, I could expect to see no objects situated directly in my
zenith. This, of course, was a matter of little consequence; for had
I even been able to place a window at top, the balloon itself would
have prevented my making any use of it.
"About a foot below one of the side windows was a circular opening,
eight inches in diameter, and fitted with a brass rim adapted in its
inner edge to the windings of a screw. In this rim was screwed the
large tube of the condenser, the body of the machine being, of
course, within the chamber of gum-elastic. Through this tube a
quantity of the rare atmosphere circumjacent being drawn by means of
a vacuum created in the body of the machine, was thence discharged,
in a state of condensation, to mingle with the thin air already in
the chamber. This operation being repeated several times, at length
filled the chamber with atmosphere proper for all the purposes of
respiration. But in so confined a space it would, in a short time,
necessarily become foul, and unfit for use from frequent contact with
the lungs. It was then ejected by a small valve at the bottom of the
car -- the dense air readily sinking into the thinner atmosphere
below. To avoid the inconvenience of making a total vacuum at any
moment within the chamber, this purification was never accomplished
all at once, but in a gradual manner -- the valve being opened only
for a few seconds, then closed again, until one or two strokes from
the pump of the condenser had supplied the place of the atmosphere
ejected. For the sake of experiment I had put the cat and kittens in
a small basket, and suspended it outside the car to a button at the
bottom, close by the valve, through which I could feed them at any
moment when necessary. I did this at some little risk, and before
closing the mouth of the chamber, by reaching under the car with one
of the poles before mentioned to which a hook had been attached.
"By the time I had fully completed these arrangements and filled the
chamber as explained, it wanted only ten minutes of nine o'clock.
During the whole period of my being thus employed, I endured the most
terrible distress from difficulty of respiration, and bitterly did I
repent the negligence or rather fool-hardiness, of which I had been
guilty, of putting off to the last moment a matter of so much
importance. But having at length accomplished it, I soon began to
reap the benefit of my invention. Once again I breathed with perfect
freedom and ease -- and indeed why should I not? I was also agreeably
surprised to find myself, in a great measure, relieved from the
violent pains which had hitherto tormented me. A slight headache,
accompanied with a sensation of fulness or distention about the
wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all of which I had now
to complain. Thus it seemed evident that a greater part of the
uneasiness attending the removal of atmospheric pressure had actually
worn off, as I had expected, and that much of the pain endured for
the last two hours should have been attributed altogether to the
effects of a deficient respiration.
"At twenty minutes before nine o'clock -- that is to say, a short
time prior to my closing up the mouth of the chamber, the mercury
attained its limit, or ran down, in the barometer, which, as I
mentioned before, was one of an extended construction. It then
indicated an altitude on my part of 132,000 feet, or five-and-twenty
miles, and I consequently surveyed at that time an extent of the
earth's area amounting to no less than the three
hundred-and-twentieth part of its entire superficies. At nine o'clock
I had again lost sight of land to the eastward, but not before I
became aware that the balloon was drifting rapidly to the N. N. W.
The convexity of the ocean beneath me was very evident indeed,
although my view was often interrupted by the masses of cloud which
floated to and fro. I observed now that even the lightest vapors
never rose to more than ten miles above the level of the sea.
"At half past nine I tried the experiment of throwing out a handful
of feathers through the valve. They did not float as I had expected;
but dropped down perpendicularly, like a bullet, en masse, and with
the greatest velocity -- being out of sight in a very few seconds. I
did not at first know what to make of this extraordinary phenomenon;
not being able to believe that my rate of ascent had, of a sudden,
met with so prodigious an acceleration. But it soon occurred to me
that the atmosphere was now far too rare to sustain even the
feathers; that they actually fell, as they appeared to do, with great
rapidity; and that I had been surprised by the united velocities of
their descent and my own elevation.
"By ten o'clock I found that I had very little to occupy my immediate
attention. Affairs went swimmingly, and I believed the balloon to be
going upward with a speed increasing momently although I had no
longer any means of ascertaining the progression of the increase. I
suffered no pain or uneasiness of any kind, and enjoyed better
spirits than I had at any period since my departure from Rotterdam,
busying myself now in examining the state of my various apparatus,
and now in regenerating the atmosphere within the chamber. This
latter point I determined to attend to at regular intervals of forty
minutes, more on account of the preservation of my health, than from
so frequent a renovation being absolutely necessary. In the meanwhile
I could not help making anticipations. Fancy revelled in the wild and
dreamy regions of the moon. Imagination, feeling herself for once
unshackled, roamed at will among the ever-changing wonders of a
shadowy and unstable land. Now there were boary and time-honored
forests, and craggy precipices, and waterfalls tumbling with a loud
noise into abysses without a bottom. Then I came suddenly into still
noonday solitudes, where no wind of heaven ever intruded, and where
vast meadows of poppies, and slender, lily-looking flowers spread
themselves out a weary distance, all silent and motionless forever.
Then again I journeyed far down away into another country where it
was all one dim and vague lake, with a boundary line of clouds. And
out of this melancholy water arose a forest of tall eastern trees,
like a wilderness of dreams. And I have in mind that the shadows of
the trees which fell upon the lake remained not on the surface where
they fell, but sunk slowly and steadily down, and commingled with the
waves, while from the trunks of the trees other shadows were
continually coming out, and taking the place of their brothers thus
entombed. "This then," I said thoughtfully, "is the very reason why
the waters of this lake grow blacker with age, and more melancholy as
the hours run on." But fancies such as these were not the sole
possessors of my brain. Horrors of a nature most stern and most
appalling would too frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and
shake the innermost depths of my soul with the bare supposition of
their possibility. Yet I would not suffer my thoughts for any length
of time to dwell upon these latter speculations, rightly judging the
real and palpable dangers of the voyage sufficient for my undivided
attention.
"At five o'clock, p.m., being engaged in regenerating the atmosphere
within the chamber, I took that opportunity of observing the cat and
kittens through the valve. The cat herself appeared to suffer again
very much, and I had no hesitation in attributing her uneasiness
chiefly to a difficulty in breathing; but my experiment with the
kittens had resulted very strangely. I had expected, of course, to
see them betray a sense of pain, although in a less degree than their
mother, and this would have been sufficient to confirm my opinion
concerning the habitual endurance of atmospheric pressure. But I was
not prepared to find them, upon close examination, evidently enjoying
a high degree of health, breathing with the greatest ease and perfect
regularity, and evincing not the slightest sign of any uneasiness
whatever. I could only account for all this by extending my theory,
and supposing that the highly rarefied atmosphere around might
perhaps not be, as I had taken for granted, chemically insufficient
for the purposes of life, and that a person born in such a medium
might, possibly, be unaware of any inconvenience attending its
inhalation, while, upon removal to the denser strata near the earth,
he might endure tortures of a similar nature to those I had so lately
experienced. It has since been to me a matter of deep regret that an
awkward accident, at this time, occasioned me the loss of my little
family of cats, and deprived me of the insight into this matter which
a continued experiment might have afforded. In passing my hand
through the valve, with a cup of water for the old puss, the sleeves
of my shirt became entangled in the loop which sustained the basket,
and thus, in a moment, loosened it from the bottom. Had the whole
actually vanished into air, it could not have shot from my sight in a
more abrupt and instantaneous manner. Positively, there could not
have intervened the tenth part of a second between the disengagement
of the basket and its absolute and total disappearance with all that
it contained. My good wishes followed it to the earth, but of course,
I had no hope that either cat or kittens would ever live to tell the
tale of their misfortune.
"At six o'clock, I perceived a great portion of the earth's visible
area to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which continued to
advance with great rapidity, until, at five minutes before seven, the
whole surface in view was enveloped in the darkness of night. It was
not, however, until long after this time that the rays of the setting
sun ceased to illumine the balloon; and this circumstance, although
of course fully anticipated, did not fail to give me an infinite deal
of pleasure. It was evident that, in the morning, I should behold the
rising luminary many hours at least before the citizens of Rotterdam,
in spite of their situation so much farther to the eastward, and
thus, day after day, in proportion to the height ascended, would I
enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and a longer period. I now
determined to keep a journal of my passage, reckoning the days from
one to twenty-four hours continuously, without taking into
consideration the intervals of darkness.
"At ten o'clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the
rest of the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which,
obvious as it may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very
moment of which I am now speaking. If I went to sleep as I proposed,
how could the atmosphere in the chamber be regenerated in the
interim? To breathe it for more than an hour, at the farthest, would
be a matter of impossibility, or, if even this term could be extended
to an hour and a quarter, the most ruinous consequences might ensue.
The consideration of this dilemma gave me no little disquietude; and
it will hardly be believed, that, after the dangers I had undergone,
I should look upon this business in so serious a light, as to give up
all hope of accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my
mind to the necessity of a descent. But this hesitation was only
momentary. I reflected that man is the veriest slave of custom, and
that many points in the routine of his existence are deemed
essentially important, which are only so at all by his having
rendered them habitual. It was very certain that I could not do
without sleep; but I might easily bring myself to feel no
inconvenience from being awakened at intervals of an hour during the
whole period of my repose. It would require but five minutes at most
to regenerate the atmosphere in the fullest manner, and the only real
difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing myself at the proper
moment for so doing. But this was a question which, I am willing to
confess, occasioned me no little trouble in its solution. To be sure,
I had heard of the student who, to prevent his falling asleep over
his books, held in one hand a ball of copper, the din of whose
descent into a basin of the same metal on the floor beside his chair,
served effectually to startle him up, if, at any moment, he should be
overcome with drowsiness. My own case, however, was very different
indeed, and left me no room for any similar idea; for I did not wish
to keep awake, but to be aroused from slumber at regular intervals of
time. I at length hit upon the following expedient, which, simple as
it may seem, was hailed by me, at the moment of discovery, as an
invention fully equal to that of the telescope, the steam-engine, or
the art of printing itself.
"It is necessary to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation now
attained, continued its course upward with an even and undeviating
ascent, and the car consequently followed with a steadiness so
perfect that it would have been impossible to detect in it the
slightest vacillation whatever. This circumstance favored me greatly
in the project I now determined to adopt. My supply of water had been
put on board in kegs containing five gallons each, and ranged very
securely around the interior of the car. I unfastened one of these,
and taking two ropes tied them tightly across the rim of the
wicker-work from one side to the other; placing them about a foot
apart and parallel so as to form a kind of shelf, upon which I placed
the keg, and steadied it in a horizontal position. About eight inches
immediately below these ropes, and four feet from the bottom of the
car I fastened another shelf -- but made of thin plank, being the
only similar piece of wood I had. Upon this latter shelf, and exactly
beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small earthern pitcher was
deposited. I now bored a hole in the end of the keg over the pitcher,
and fitted in a plug of soft wood, cut in a tapering or conical
shape. This plug I pushed in or pulled out, as might happen, until,
after a few experiments, it arrived at that exact degree of
tightness, at which the water, oozing from the hole, and falling into
the pitcher below, would fill the latter to the brim in the period of
sixty minutes. This, of course, was a matter briefly and easily
ascertained, by noticing the proportion of the pitcher filled in any
given time. Having arranged all this, the rest of the plan is
obvious. My bed was so contrived upon the floor of the car, as to
bring my head, in lying down, immediately below the mouth of the
pitcher. It was evident, that, at the expiration of an hour, the
pitcher, getting full, would be forced to run over, and to run over
at the mouth, which was somewhat lower than the rim. It was also
evident, that the water thus falling from a height of more than four
feet, could not do otherwise than fall upon my face, and that the
sure consequences would be, to waken me up instantaneously, even from
the soundest slumber in the world.
"It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these arrangements,
and I immediately betook myself to bed, with full confidence in the
efficiency of my invention. Nor in this matter was I disappointed.
Punctually every sixty minutes was I aroused by my trusty
chronometer, when, having emptied the pitcher into the bung-hole of
the keg, and performed the duties of the condenser, I retired again
to bed. These regular interruptions to my slumber caused me even less
discomfort than I had anticipated; and when I finally arose for the
day, it was seven o'clock, and the sun had attained many degrees
above the line of my horizon.
"April 3d. I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and the
earth's apparent convexity increased in a material degree. Below me
in the ocean lay a cluster of black specks, which undoubtedly were
islands. Far away to the northward I perceived a thin, white, and
exceedingly brilliant line, or streak, on the edge of the horizon,
and I had no hesitation in supposing it to be the southern disk of
the ices of the Polar Sea. My curiosity was greatly excited, for I
had hopes of passing on much farther to the north, and might
possibly, at some period, find myself placed directly above the Pole
itself. I now lamented that my great elevation would, in this case,
prevent my taking as accurate a survey as I could wish. Much,
however, might be ascertained. Nothing else of an extraordinary
nature occurred during the day. My apparatus all continued in good
order, and the balloon still ascended without any perceptible
vacillation. The cold was intense, and obliged me to wrap up closely
in an overcoat. When darkness came over the earth, I betook myself to
bed, although it was for many hours afterward broad daylight all
around my immediate situation. The water-clock was punctual in its
duty, and I slept until next morning soundly, with the exception of
the periodical interruption.
"April 4th. Arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished at
the singular change which had taken place in the appearance of the
sea. It had lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue it had
hitherto worn, being now of a grayish-white, and of a lustre dazzling
to the eye. The islands were no longer visible; whether they had
passed down the horizon to the southeast, or whether my increasing
elevation had left them out of sight, it is impossible to say. I was
inclined, however, to the latter opinion. The rim of ice to the
northward was growing more and more apparent. Cold by no means so
intense. Nothing of importance occurred, and I passed the day in
reading, having taken care to supply myself with books.
"April 5th. Beheld the singular phenomenon of the sun rising while
nearly the whole visible surface of the earth continued to be
involved in darkness. In time, however, the light spread itself over
all, and I again saw the line of ice to the northward. It was now
very distinct, and appeared of a much darker hue than the waters of
the ocean. I was evidently approaching it, and with great rapidity.
Fancied I could again distinguish a strip of land to the eastward,
and one also to the westward, but could not be certain. Weather
moderate. Nothing of any consequence happened during the day. Went
early to bed.
"April 6th. Was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very
moderate distance, and an immense field of the same material
stretching away off to the horizon in the north. It was evident that
if the balloon held its present course, it would soon arrive above
the Frozen Ocean, and I had now little doubt of ultimately seeing the
Pole. During the whole of the day I continued to near the ice. Toward
night the limits of my horizon very suddenly and materially
increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth's form being that of an
oblate spheroid, and my arriving above the flattened regions in the
vicinity of the Arctic circle. When darkness at length overtook me, I
went to bed in great anxiety, fearing to pass over the object of so
much curiosity when I should have no opportunity of observing it.
"April 7th. Arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld what
there could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole itself.
It was there, beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my feet; but,
alas! I had now ascended to so vast a distance, that nothing could
with accuracy be discerned. Indeed, to judge from the progression of
the numbers indicating my various altitudes, respectively, at
different periods, between six A.M. on the second of April, and
twenty minutes before nine A.M. of the same day (at which time the
barometer ran down), it might be fairly inferred that the balloon had
now, at four o'clock in the morning of April the seventh, reached a
height of not less, certainly, than 7,254 miles above the surface of
the sea. This elevation may appear immense, but the estimate upon
which it is calculated gave a result in all probability far inferior
to the truth. At all events I undoubtedly beheld the whole of the
earth's major diameter; the entire northern hemisphere lay beneath me
like a chart orthographically projected: and the great circle of the
equator itself formed the boundary line of my horizon. Your
Excellencies may, however, readily imagine that the confined regions
hitherto unexplored within the limits of the Arctic circle, although
situated directly beneath me, and therefore seen without any
appearance of being foreshortened, were still, in themselves,
comparatively too diminutive, and at too great a distance from the
point of sight, to admit of any very accurate examination.
Nevertheless, what could be seen was of a nature singular and
exciting. Northwardly from that huge rim before mentioned, and which,
with slight qualification, may be called the limit of human discovery
in these regions, one unbroken, or nearly unbroken, sheet of ice
continues to extend. In the first few degrees of this its progress,
its surface is very sensibly flattened, farther on depressed into a
plane, and finally, becoming not a little concave, it terminates, at
the Pole itself, in a circular centre, sharply defined, whose
apparent diameter subtended at the balloon an angle of about
sixty-five seconds, and whose dusky hue, varying in intensity, was,
at all times, darker than any other spot upon the visible hemisphere,
and occasionally deepened into the most absolute and impenetrable
blackness. Farther than this, little could be ascertained. By twelve
o'clock the circular centre had materially decreased in
circumference, and by seven P.M. I lost sight of it entirely; the
balloon passing over the western limb of the ice, and floating away
rapidly in the direction of the equator.
"April 8th. Found a sensible diminution in the earth's apparent
diameter, besides a material alteration in its general color and
appearance. The whole visible area partook in different degrees of a
tint of pale yellow, and in some portions had acquired a brilliancy
even painful to the eye. My view downward was also considerably
impeded by the dense atmosphere in the vicinity of the surface being
loaded with clouds, between whose masses I could only now and then
obtain a glimpse of the earth itself. This difficulty of direct
vision had troubled me more or less for the last forty-eight hours;
but my present enormous elevation brought closer together, as it
were, the floating bodies of vapor, and the inconvenience became, of
course, more and more palpable in proportion to my ascent.
Nevertheless, I could easily perceive that the balloon now hovered
above the range of great lakes in the continent of North America, and
was holding a course, due south, which would bring me to the tropics.
This circumstance did not fail to give me the most heartful
satisfaction, and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate success.
Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken, had filled me with
uneasiness; for it was evident that, had I continued it much longer,
there would have been no possibility of my arriving at the moon at
all, whose orbit is inclined to the ecliptic at only the small angle
of 5 degrees 8' 48".
"April 9th. To-day the earth's diameter was greatly diminished, and
the color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of yellow. The
balloon kept steadily on her course to the southward, and arrived, at
nine P.M., over the northern edge of the Mexican Gulf.
"April 10th. I was suddenly aroused from slumber, about five o'clock
this morning, by a loud, crackling, and terrific sound, for which I
could in no manner account. It was of very brief duration, but, while
it lasted resembled nothing in the world of which I had any previous
experience. It is needless to say that I became excessively alarmed,
having, in the first instance, attributed the noise to the bursting
of the balloon. I examined all my apparatus, however, with great
attention, and could discover nothing out of order. Spent a great
part of the day in meditating upon an occurrence so extraordinary,
but could find no means whatever of accounting for it. Went to bed
dissatisfied, and in a state of great anxiety and agitation.
"April 11th. Found a startling diminution in the apparent diameter of
the earth, and a considerable increase, now observable for the first
time, in that of the moon itself, which wanted only a few days of
being full. It now required long and excessive labor to condense
within the chamber sufficient atmospheric air for the sustenance of
life.
"April 12th. A singular alteration took place in regard to the
direction of the balloon, and although fully anticipated, afforded me
the most unequivocal delight. Having reached, in its former course,
about the twentieth parallel of southern latitude, it turned off
suddenly, at an acute angle, to the eastward, and thus proceeded
throughout the day, keeping nearly, if not altogether, in the exact
plane of the lunar elipse. What was worthy of remark, a very
perceptible vacillation in the car was a consequence of this change
of route -- a vacillation which prevailed, in a more or less degree,
for a period of many hours.
"April 13th. Was again very much alarmed by a repetition of the loud,
crackling noise which terrified me on the tenth. Thought long upon
the subject, but was unable to form any satisfactory conclusion.
Great decrease in the earth's apparent diameter, which now subtended
from the balloon an angle of very little more than twenty-five
degrees. The moon could not be seen at all, being nearly in my
zenith. I still continued in the plane of the elipse, but made little
progress to the eastward.
"April 14th. Extremely rapid decrease in the diameter of the earth.
To-day I became strongly impressed with the idea, that the balloon
was now actually running up the line of apsides to the point of
perigee- in other words, holding the direct course which would bring
it immediately to the moon in that part of its orbit the nearest to
the earth. The moon iself was directly overhead, and consequently
hidden from my view. Great and long-continued labor necessary for the
condensation of the atmosphere.
"April 15th. Not even the outlines of continents and seas could now
be traced upon the earth with anything approaching distinctness.
About twelve o'clock I became aware, for the third time, of that
appalling sound which had so astonished me before. It now, however,
continued for some moments, and gathered intensity as it continued.
At length, while, stupefied and terror-stricken, I stood in
expectation of I knew not what hideous destruction, the car vibrated
with excessive violence, and a gigantic and flaming mass of some
material which I could not distinguish, came with a voice of a
thousand thunders, roaring and booming by the balloon. When my fears
and astonishment had in some degree subsided, I had little difficulty
in supposing it to be some mighty volcanic fragment ejected from that
world to which I was so rapidly approaching, and, in all probability,
one of that singular class of substances occasionally picked up on
the earth, and termed meteoric stones for want of a better
appellation.
"April 16th. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through each
of the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great delight, a
very small portion of the moon's disk protruding, as it were, on all
sides beyond the huge circumference of the balloon. My agitation was
extreme; for I had now little doubt of soon reaching the end of my
perilous voyage. Indeed, the labor now required by the condenser had
increased to a most oppressive degree, and allowed me scarcely any
respite from exertion. Sleep was a matter nearly out of the question.
I became quite ill, and my frame trembled with exhaustion. It was
impossible that human nature could endure this state of intense
suffering much longer. During the now brief interval of darkness a
meteoric stone again passed in my vicinity, and the frequency of
these phenomena began to occasion me much apprehension.
"April 17th. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will be
remembered that, on the thirteenth, the earth subtended an angular
breadth of twenty-five degrees. On the fourteenth this had greatly
diminished; on the fifteenth a still more remarkable decrease was
observable; and, on retiring on the night of the sixteenth, I had
noticed an angle of no more than about seven degrees and fifteen
minutes. What, therefore, must have been my amazement, on awakening
from a brief and disturbed slumber, on the morning of this day, the
seventeenth, at finding the surface beneath me so suddenly and
wonderfully augmented in volume, as to subtend no less than
thirty-nine degrees in apparent angular diameter! I was
thunderstruck! No words can give any adequate idea of the extreme,
the absolute horror and astonishment, with which I was seized
possessed, and altogether overwhelmed. My knees tottered beneath me
-- my teeth chattered -- my hair started up on end. "The balloon,
then, had actually burst!" These were the first tumultuous ideas that
hurried through my mind: "The balloon had positively burst! -- I was
falling -- falling with the most impetuous, the most unparalleled
velocity! To judge by the immense distance already so quickly passed
over, it could not be more than ten minutes, at the farthest, before
I should meet the surface of the earth, and be hurled into
annihilation!" But at length reflection came to my relief. I paused;
I considered; and I began to doubt. The matter was impossible. I
could not in any reason have so rapidly come down. Besides, although
I was evidently approaching the surface below me, it was with a speed
by no means commensurate with the velocity I had at first so horribly
conceived. This consideration served to calm the perturbation of my
mind, and I finally succeeded in regarding the phenomenon in its
proper point of view. In fact, amazement must have fairly deprived me
of my senses, when I could not see the vast difference, in
appearance, between the surface below me, and the surface of my
mother earth. The latter was indeed over my head, and completely
hidden by the balloon, while the moon -- the moon itself in all its
glory -- lay beneath me, and at my feet.
"The stupor and surprise produced in my mind by this extraordinary
change in the posture of affairs was perhaps, after all, that part of
the adventure least susceptible of explanation. For the
bouleversement in itself was not only natural and inevitable, but had
been long actually anticipated as a circumstance to be expected
whenever I should arrive at that exact point of my voyage where the
attraction of the planet should be superseded by the attraction of
the satellite -- or, more precisely, where the gravitation of the
balloon toward the earth should be less powerful than its gravitation
toward the moon. To be sure I arose from a sound slumber, with all my
senses in confusion, to the contemplation of a very startling
phenomenon, and one which, although expected, was not expected at the
moment. The revolution itself must, of course, have taken place in an
easy and gradual manner, and it is by no means clear that, had I even
been awake at the time of the occurrence, I should have been made
aware of it by any internal evidence of an inversion -- that is to
say, by any inconvenience or disarrangement, either about my person
or about my apparatus.
"It is almost needless to say that, upon coming to a due sense of my
situation, and emerging from the terror which had absorbed every
faculty of my soul, my attention was, in the first place, wholly
directed to the contemplation of the general physical appearance of
the moon. It lay beneath me like a chart -- and although I judged it
to be still at no inconsiderable distance, the indentures of its
surface were defined to my vision with a most striking and altogether
unaccountable distinctness. The entire absence of ocean or sea, and
indeed of any lake or river, or body of water whatsoever, struck me,
at first glance, as the most extraordinary feature in its geological
condition. Yet, strange to say, I beheld vast level regions of a
character decidedly alluvial, although by far the greater portion of
the hemisphere in sight was covered with innumerable volcanic
mountains, conical in shape, and having more the appearance of
artificial than of natural protuberance. The highest among them does
not exceed three and three-quarter miles in perpendicular elevation;
but a map of the volcanic districts of the Campi Phlegraei would
afford to your Excellencies a better idea of their general surface
than any unworthy description I might think proper to attempt. The
greater part of them were in a state of evident eruption, and gave me
fearfully to understand their fury and their power, by the repeated
thunders of the miscalled meteoric stones, which now rushed upward by
the balloon with a frequency more and more appalling.
"April 18th. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon's
apparent bulk -- and the evidently accelerated velocity of my descent
began to fill me with alarm. It will be remembered, that, in the
earliest stage of my speculations upon the possibility of a passage
to the moon, the existence, in its vicinity, of an atmosphere, dense
in proportion to the bulk of the planet, had entered largely into my
calculations; this too in spite of many theories to the contrary,
and, it may be added, in spite of a general disbelief in the
existence of any lunar atmosphere at all. But, in addition to what I
have already urged in regard to Encke's comet and the zodiacal light,
I had been strengthened in my opinion by certain observations of Mr.
Schroeter, of Lilienthal. He observed the moon when two days and a
half old, in the evening soon after sunset, before the dark part was
visible, and continued to watch it until it became visible. The two
cusps appeared tapering in a very sharp faint prolongation, each
exhibiting its farthest extremity faintly illuminated by the solar
rays, before any part of the dark hemisphere was visible. Soon
afterward, the whole dark limb became illuminated. This prolongation
of the cusps beyond the semicircle, I thought, must have arisen from
the refraction of the sun's rays by the moon's atmosphere. I
computed, also, the height of the atmosphere (which could refract
light enough into its dark hemisphere to produce a twilight more
luminous than the light reflected from the earth when the moon is
about 32 degrees from the new) to be 1,356 Paris feet; in this view,
I supposed the greatest height capable of refracting the solar ray,
to be 5,376 feet. My ideas on this topic had also received
confirmation by a passage in the eighty-second volume of the
Philosophical Transactions, in which it is stated that at an
occultation of Jupiter's satellites, the third disappeared after
having been about 1" or 2" of time indistinct, and the fourth became
indiscernible near the limb.{*4}
"Cassini frequently observed Saturn, Jupiter, and the fixed stars,
when approaching the moon to occultation, to have their circular
figure changed into an oval one; and, in other occultations, he found
no alteration of figure at all. Hence it might be supposed, that at
some times and not at others, there is a dense matter encompassing
the moon wherein the rays of the stars are refracted.
"Upon the resistance or, more properly, upon the support of an
atmosphere, existing in the state of density imagined, I had, of
course, entirely depended for the safety of my ultimate descent.
Should I then, after all, prove to have been mistaken, I had in
consequence nothing better to expect, as a finale to my adventure,
than being dashed into atoms against the rugged surface of the
satellite. And, indeed, I had now every reason to be terrified. My
distance from the moon was comparatively trifling, while the labor
required by the condenser was diminished not at all, and I could
discover no indication whatever of a decreasing rarity in the air.
"April 19th. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o'clock, the
surface of the moon being frightfully near, and my apprehensions
excited to the utmost, the pump of my condenser at length gave
evident tokens of an alteration in the atmosphere. By ten, I had
reason to believe its density considerably increased. By eleven, very
little labor was necessary at the apparatus; and at twelve o'clock,
with some hesitation, I ventured to unscrew the tourniquet, when,
finding no inconvenience from having done so, I finally threw open
the gum-elastic chamber, and unrigged it from around the car. As
might have been expected, spasms and violent headache were the
immediate consequences of an experiment so precipitate and full of
danger. But these and other difficulties attending respiration, as
they were by no means so great as to put me in peril of my life, I
determined to endure as I best could, in consideration of my leaving
them behind me momently in my approach to the denser strata near the
moon. This approach, however, was still impetuous in the extreme; and
it soon became alarmingly certain that, although I had probably not
been deceived in the expectation of an atmosphere dense in proportion
to the mass of the satellite, still I had been wrong in supposing
this density, even at the surface, at all adequate to the support of
the great weight contained in the car of my balloon. Yet this should
have been the case, and in an equal degree as at the surface of the
earth, the actual gravity of bodies at either planet supposed in the
ratio of the atmospheric condensation. That it was not the case,
however, my precipitous downfall gave testimony enough; why it was
not so, can only be explained by a reference to those possible
geological disturbances to which I have formerly alluded. At all
events I was now close upon the planet, and coming down with the most
terrible impetuosity. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in throwing
overboard first my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my condensing
apparatus and gum-elastic chamber, and finally every article within
the car. But it was all to no purpose. I still fell with horrible
rapidity, and was now not more than half a mile from the surface. As
a last resource, therefore, having got rid of my coat, hat, and
boots, I cut loose from the balloon the car itself, which was of no
inconsiderable weight, and thus, clinging with both hands to the
net-work, I had barely time to observe that the whole country, as far
as the eye could reach, was thickly interspersed with diminutive
habitations, ere I tumbled headlong into the very heart of a
fantastical-looking city, and into the middle of a vast crowd of ugly
little people, who none of them uttered a single syllable, or gave
themselves the least trouble to render me assistance, but stood, like
a parcel of idiots, grinning in a ludicrous manner, and eyeing me and
my balloon askant, with their arms set a-kimbo. I turned from them in
contempt, and, gazing upward at the earth so lately left, and left
perhaps for ever, beheld it like a huge, dull, copper shield, about
two degrees in diameter, fixed immovably in the heavens overhead, and
tipped on one of its edges with a crescent border of the most
brilliant gold. No traces of land or water could be discovered, and
the whole was clouded with variable spots, and belted with tropical
and equatorial zones.
"Thus, may it please your Excellencies, after a series of great
anxieties, unheard of dangers, and unparalleled escapes, I had, at
length, on the nineteenth day of my departure from Rotterdam, arrived
in safety at the conclusion of a voyage undoubtedly the most
extraordinary, and the most momentous, ever accomplished, undertaken,
or conceived by any denizen of earth. But my adventures yet remain to
be related. And indeed your Excellencies may well imagine that, after
a residence of five years upon a planet not only deeply interesting
in its own peculiar character, but rendered doubly so by its intimate
connection, in capacity of satellite, with the world inhabited by
man, I may have intelligence for the private ear of the States'
College of Astronomers of far more importance than the details,
however wonderful, of the mere voyage which so happily concluded.
This is, in fact, the case. I have much -- very much which it would
give me the greatest pleasure to communicate. I have much to say of
the climate of the planet; of its wonderful alternations of heat and
cold, of unmitigated and burning sunshine for one fortnight, and more
than polar frigidity for the next; of a constant transfer of
moisture, by distillation like that in vacuo, from the point beneath
the sun to the point the farthest from it; of a variable zone of
running water, of the people themselves; of their manners, customs,
and political institutions; of their peculiar physical construction;
of their ugliness; of their want of ears, those useless appendages in
an atmosphere so peculiarly modified; of their consequent ignorance
of the use and properties of speech; of their substitute for speech
in a singular method of inter-communication; of the incomprehensible
connection between each particular individual in the moon with some
particular individual on the earth -- a connection analogous with,
and depending upon, that of the orbs of the planet and the
satellites, and by means of which the lives and destinies of the
inhabitants of the one are interwoven with the lives and destinies of
the inhabitants of the other; and above all, if it so please your
Excellencies -- above all, of those dark and hideous mysteries which
lie in the outer regions of the moon -- regions which, owing to the
almost miraculous accordance of the satellite's rotation on its own
axis with its sidereal revolution about the earth, have never yet
been turned, and, by God's mercy, never shall be turned, to the
scrutiny of the telescopes of man. All this, and more- much more --
would I most willingly detail. But, to be brief, I must have my
reward. I am pining for a return to my family and to my home, and as
the price of any farther communication on my part -- in consideration
of the light which I have it in my power to throw upon many very
important branches of physical and metaphysical science -- I must
solicit, through the influence of your honorable body, a pardon for
the crime of which I have been guilty in the death of the creditors
upon my departure from Rotterdam. This, then, is the object of the
present paper. Its bearer, an inhabitant of the moon, whom I have
prevailed upon, and properly instructed, to be my messenger to the
earth, will await your Excellencies' pleasure, and return to me with
the pardon in question, if it can, in any manner, be obtained.
"I have the honor to be, etc., your Excellencies' very humble
servant,
HANS PFAALL."
Upon finishing the perusal of this very extraordinary document,
Professor Rub-a-dub, it is said, dropped his pipe upon the ground in
the extremity of his surprise, and Mynheer Superbus Von Underduk
having taken off his spectacles, wiped them, and deposited them in
his pocket, so far forgot both himself and his dignity, as to turn
round three times upon his heel in the quintessence of astonishment
and admiration. There was no doubt about the matter -- the pardon
should be obtained. So at least swore, with a round oath, Professor
Rub-a-dub, and so finally thought the illustrious Von Underduk, as he
took the arm of his brother in science, and without saying a word,
began to make the best of his way home to deliberate upon the
measures to be adopted. Having reached the door, however, of the
burgomaster's dwelling, the professor ventured to suggest that as the
messenger had thought proper to disappear -- no doubt frightened to
death by the savage appearance of the burghers of Rotterdam -- the
pardon would be of little use, as no one but a man of the moon would
undertake a voyage to so vast a distance. To the truth of this
observation the burgomaster assented, and the matter was therefore at
an end. Not so, however, rumors and speculations. The letter, having
been published, gave rise to a variety of gossip and opinion. Some of
the over-wise even made themselves ridiculous by decrying the whole
business; as nothing better than a hoax. But hoax, with these sort of
people, is, I believe, a general term for all matters above their
comprehension. For my part, I cannot conceive upon what data they
have founded such an accusation. Let us see what they say:
Imprimus. That certain wags in Rotterdam have certain especial
antipathies to certain burgomasters and astronomers.
Don't understand at all.
Secondly. That an odd little dwarf and bottle conjurer, both of whose
ears, for some misdemeanor, have been cut off close to his head, has
been missing for several days from the neighboring city of Bruges.
Well -- what of that?
Thirdly. That the newspapers which were stuck all over the little
balloon were newspapers of Holland, and therefore could not have been
made in the moon. They were dirty papers -- very dirty -- and Gluck,
the printer, would take his Bible oath to their having been printed
in Rotterdam.
He was mistaken -- undoubtedly -- mistaken.
Fourthly, That Hans Pfaall himself, the druken villain, and the three
very idle gentlemen styled his creditors, were all seen, no longer
than two or three days ago, in a tippling house in the suburbs,
having just returned, with money in their pockets, from a trip beyond
the sea.
Don't believe it -- don't believe a word of it.
Lastly. That it is an opinion very generally received, or which ought
to be generally received, that the College of Astronomers in the city
of Rotterdam, as well as other colleges in all other parts of the
world, -- not to mention colleges and astronomers in general, -- are,
to say the least of the matter, not a whit better, nor greater, nor
wiser than they ought to be.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
Notes to Hans Pfaal
{*1} NOTE--Strictly speaking, there is but little similarity between
the above sketchy trifle and the celebrated "Moon-Story" of Mr.
Locke; but as both have the character of _hoaxes _(although the one
is in a tone of banter, the other of downright earnest), and as both
hoaxes are on the same subject, the moon--moreover, as both attempt
to give plausibility by scientific detail--the author of "Hans
Pfaall" thinks it necessary to say, in _self-defence, _that his own
_jeu d'esprit _was published in the "Southern Literary Messenger"
about three weeks before the commencement of Mr. L's in the "New York
Sun." Fancying a likeness which, perhaps, does not exist, some of the
New York papers copied "Hans Pfaall," and collated it with the
"Moon-Hoax," by way of detecting the writer of the one in the writer
of the other.
As many more persons were actually gulled by the "Moon-Hoax" than
would be willing to acknowledge the fact, it may here afford some
little amusement to show why no one should have been deceived-to
point out those particulars of the story which should have been
sufficient to establish its real character. Indeed, however rich the
imagination displayed in this ingenious fiction, it wanted much of
the force which might have been given it by a more scrupulous
attention to facts and to general analogy. That the public were
misled, even for an instant, merely proves the gross ignorance which
is so generally prevalent upon subjects of an astronomical nature.
The moon's distance from the earth is, in round numbers, 240,000
miles. If we desire to ascertain how near, apparently, a lens would
bring the satellite (or any distant object), we, of course, have but
to divide the distance by the magnifying or, more strictly, by the
space-penetrating power of the glass. Mr. L. makes his lens have a
power of 42,000 times. By this divide 240,000 (the moon's real
distance), and we have five miles and five sevenths, as the apparent
distance. No animal at all could be seen so far; much less the minute
points particularized in the story. Mr. L. speaks about Sir John
Herschel's perceiving flowers (the Papaver rheas, etc.), and even
detecting the color and the shape of the eyes of small birds. Shortly
before, too, he has himself observed that the lens would not render
perceptible objects of less than eighteen inches in diameter; but
even this, as I have said, is giving the glass by far too great
power. It may be observed, in passing, that this prodigious glass is
said to have been molded at the glasshouse of Messrs. Hartley and
Grant, in Dumbarton; but Messrs. H. and G.'s establishment had ceased
operations for many years previous to the publication of the hoax.
On page 13, pamphlet edition, speaking of "a hairy veil" over the
eyes of a species of bison, the author says: "It immediately occurred
to the acute mind of Dr. Herschel that this was a providential
contrivance to protect the eyes of the animal from the great extremes
of light and darkness to which all the inhabitants of our side of the
moon are periodically subjected." But this cannot be thought a very
"acute" observation of the Doctor's. The inhabitants of our side of
the moon have, evidently, no darkness at all, so there can be nothing
of the "extremes" mentioned. In the absence of the sun they have a
light from the earth equal to that of thirteen full unclouded moons.
The topography throughout, even when professing to accord with
Blunt's Lunar Chart, is entirely at variance with that or any other
lunar chart, and even grossly at variance with itself. The points of
the compass, too, are in inextricable confusion; the writer appearing
to be ignorant that, on a lunar map, these are not in accordance with
terrestrial points; the east being to the left, etc.
Deceived, perhaps, by the vague titles, Mare Nubium, Mare
Tranquillitatis, Mare Faecunditatis, etc., given to the dark spots by
former astronomers, Mr. L. has entered into details regarding oceans
and other large bodies of water in the moon; whereas there is no
astronomical point more positively ascertained than that no such
bodies exist there. In examining the boundary between light and
darkness (in the crescent or gibbous moon) where this boundary
crosses any of the dark places, the line of division is found to be
rough and jagged; but, were these dark places liquid, it would
evidently be even.
The description of the wings of the man-bat, on page 21, is but a
literal copy of Peter Wilkins' account of the wings of his flying
islanders. This simple fact should have induced suspicion, at least,
it might be thought.
On page 23, we have the following: "What a prodigious influence must
our thirteen times larger globe have exercised upon this satellite
when an embryo in the womb of time, the passive subject of chemical
affinity!" This is very fine; but it should be observed that no
astronomer would have made such remark, especially to any journal of
Science; for the earth, in the sense intended, is not only thirteen,
but forty-nine times larger than the moon. A similar objection
applies to the whole of the concluding pages, where, by way of
introduction to some discoveries in Saturn, the philosophical
correspondent enters into a minute schoolboy account of that planet
-- this to the "Edinburgh journal of Science!"
But there is one point, in particular, which should have betrayed the
fiction. Let us imagine the power actually possessed of seeing
animals upon the moon's surface -- what would first arrest the
attention of an observer from the earth? Certainly neither their
shape, size, nor any other such peculiarity, so soon as their
remarkable _situation_. They would appear to be walking, with heels
up and head down, in the manner of flies on a ceiling. The _real_
observer would have uttered an instant ejaculation of surprise
(however prepared by previous knowledge) at the singularity of their
position; the _fictitious_ observer has not even mentioned the
subject, but speaks of seeing the entire bodies of such creatures,
when it is demonstrable that he could have seen only the diameter of
their heads!
It might as well be remarked, in conclusion, that the size, and
particularly the powers of the man-bats (for example, their ability
to fly in so rare an atmosphere--if, indeed, the moon have any), with
most of the other fancies in regard to animal and vegetable
existence, are at variance, generally, with all analogical reasoning
on these themes; and that analogy here will often amount to
conclusive demonstration. It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to add,
that all the suggestions attributed to Brewster and Herschel, in the
beginning of the article, about "a transfusion of artificial light
through the focal object of vision," etc., etc., belong to that
species of figurative writing which comes, most properly, under the
denomination of rigmarole.
There is a real and very definite limit to optical discovery among
the stars--a limit whose nature need only be stated to be understood.
If, indeed, the casting of large lenses were all that is required,
man's ingenuity would ultimately prove equal to the task, and we
might have them of any size demanded. But, unhappily, in proportion
to the increase of size in the lens, and consequently of
space-penetrating power, is the diminution of light from the object,
by diffusion of its rays. And for this evil there is no remedy within
human ability; for an object is seen by means of that light alone
which proceeds from itself, whether direct or reflected. Thus the
only "artificial" light which could avail Mr. Locke, would be some
artificial light which he should be able to throw-not upon the "focal
object of vision," but upon the real object to be viewed-to wit: upon
the moon. It has been easily calculated that, when the light
proceeding from a star becomes so diffused as to be as weak as the
natural light proceeding from the whole of the stars, in a clear and
moonless night, then the star is no longer visible for any practical
purpose.
The Earl of Ross's telescope, lately constructed in England, has a
_speculum_ with a reflecting surface of 4,071 square inches; the
Herschel telescope having one of only 1,811. The metal of the Earl of
Ross's is 6 feet diameter; it is 5 1/2 inches thick at the edges, and
5 at the centre. The weight is 3 tons. The focal length is 50 feet.
I have lately read a singular and somewhat ingenious little book,
whose title-page runs thus: "L'Homme dans la lvne ou le Voyage
Chimerique fait au Monde de la Lvne, nouuellement decouuert par
Dominique Gonzales, Aduanturier Espagnol, autremét dit le Courier
volant. Mis en notre langve par J. B. D. A. Paris, chez Francois
Piot, pres la Fontaine de Saint Benoist. Et chez J. Goignard, au
premier pilier de la grand'salle du Palais, proche les Consultations,
MDCXLVII." Pp. 76.
The writer professes to have translated his work from the English of
one Mr. D'Avisson (Davidson?) although there is a terrible ambiguity
in the statement. "J' en ai eu," says he "l'original de Monsieur
D'Avisson, medecin des mieux versez qui soient aujourd'huy dans la
cònoissance des Belles Lettres, et sur tout de la Philosophic
Naturelle. Je lui ai cette obligation entre les autres, de m' auoir
non seulement mis en main cc Livre en anglois, mais encore le
Manuscrit du Sieur Thomas D'Anan, gentilhomme Eccossois,
recommandable pour sa vertu, sur la version duquel j' advoue que j'
ay tiré le plan de la mienne."
After some irrelevant adventures, much in the manner of Gil Blas, and
which occupy the first thirty pages, the author relates that, being
ill during a sea voyage, the crew abandoned him, together with a
negro servant, on the island of St. Helena. To increase the chances
of obtaining food, the two separate, and live as far apart as
possible. This brings about a training of birds, to serve the purpose
of carrier-pigeons between them. By and by these are taught to carry
parcels of some weight-and this weight is gradually increased. At
length the idea is entertained of uniting the force of a great number
of the birds, with a view to raising the author himself. A machine is
contrived for the purpose, and we have a minute description of it,
which is materially helped out by a steel engraving. Here we perceive
the Signor Gonzales, with point ruffles and a huge periwig, seated
astride something which resembles very closely a broomstick, and
borne aloft by a multitude of wild swans _(ganzas) _who had strings
reaching from their tails to the machine.
The main event detailed in the Signor's narrative depends upon a very
important fact, of which the reader is kept in ignorance until near
the end of the book. The _ganzas, _with whom he had become so
familiar, were not really denizens of St. Helena, but of the moon.
Thence it had been their custom, time out of mind, to migrate
annually to some portion of the earth. In proper season, of course,
they would return home; and the author, happening, one day, to
require their services for a short voyage, is unexpectedly carried
straight tip, and in a very brief period arrives at the satellite.
Here he finds, among other odd things, that the people enjoy extreme
happiness; that they have no _law; _that they die without pain; that
they are from ten to thirty feet in height; that they live five
thousand years; that they have an emperor called Irdonozur; and that
they can jump sixty feet high, when, being out of the gravitating
influence, they fly about with fans.
I cannot forbear giving a specimen of the general _philosophy _of the
volume.
"I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of
the globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it
the larger they seemed. I have also me and the earth. As to the
stars, _since there was no night where I was, they always had the
same appearance; not brilliant, as usual, but pale, and very nearly
like the moon of a morning. _But few of them were visible, and these
ten times larger (as well as I could judge) than they seem to the
inhabitants of the earth. The moon, which wanted two days of being
full, was of a terrible bigness.
"I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side
of the globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to
it the larger they seemed. I have also to inform you that, whether it
was calm weather or stormy, I found myself _always immediately
between the moon and the earth._ I_ _was convinced of this for two
reasons-because my birds always flew in a straight line; and because
whenever we attempted to rest, _we were carried insensibly around the
globe of the earth. _For I admit the opinion of Copernicus, who
maintains that it never ceases to revolve _from the east to the west,
_not upon the poles of the Equinoctial, commonly called the poles of
the world, but upon those of the Zodiac, a question of which I
propose to speak more at length here-after, when I shall have leisure
to refresh my memory in regard to the astrology which I learned at
Salamanca when young, and have since forgotten."
Notwithstanding the blunders italicized, the book is not without some
claim to attention, as affording a naive specimen of the current
astronomical notions of the time. One of these assumed, that the
"gravitating power" extended but a short distance from the earth's
surface, and, accordingly, we find our voyager "carried insensibly
around the globe," etc.
There have been other "voyages to the moon," but none of higher merit
than the one just mentioned. That of Bergerac is utterly meaningless.
In the third volume of the "American Quarterly Review" will be found
quite an elaborate criticism upon a certain "journey" of the kind in
question--a criticism in which it is difficult to say whether the
critic most exposes the stupidity of the book, or his own absurd
ignorance of astronomy. I forget the title of the work; but the
_means _of the voyage are more deplorably ill conceived than are even
the _ganzas _of our friend the Signor Gonzales. The adventurer, in
digging the earth, happens to discover a peculiar metal for which the
moon has a strong attraction, and straightway constructs of it a box,
which, when cast loose from its terrestrial fastenings, flies with
him, forthwith, to the satellite. The "Flight of Thomas O'Rourke," is
a _jeu d' esprit _not altogether contemptible, and has been
translated into German. Thomas, the hero, was, in fact, the
gamekeeper of an Irish peer, whose eccentricities gave rise to the
tale. The "flight" is made on an eagle's back, from Hungry Hill, a
lofty mountain at the end of Bantry Bay.
In these various _brochures _the aim is always satirical; the theme
being a description of Lunarian customs as compared with ours. In
none is there any effort at _plausibility _in the details of the
voyage itself. The writers seem, in each instance, to be utterly
uninformed in respect to astronomy. In "Hans Pfaall" the design is
original, inasmuch as regards an attempt at _verisimilitude, _in the
application of scientific principles (so far as the whimsical nature
of the subject would permit), to the actual passage between the earth
and the moon.
{*2} The zodiacal light is probably what the ancients called Trabes.
Emicant Trabes quos docos vocant. -- Pliny, lib. 2, p. 26.
{*3} Since the original publication of Hans Pfaall, I find that Mr.
Green, of Nassau balloon notoriety, and other late aeronauts, deny
the assertions of Humboldt, in this respect, and speak of a
decreasing inconvenience, -- precisely in accordance with the theory
here urged in a mere spirit of banter.
{*4} Havelius writes that he has several times found, in skies
perfectly clear, when even stars of the sixth and seventh magnitude
were conspicuous, that, at the same altitude of the moon, at the same
elongation from the earth, and with one and the same excellent
telescope, the moon and its maculae did not appear equally lucid at
all times. From the circumstances of the observation, it is evident
that the cause of this phenomenon is not either in our air, in the
tube, in the moon, or in the eye of the spectator, but must be looked
for in something (an atmosphere?) existing about the moon.
======
THE GOLD-BUG
What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!
He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.
_--All in the Wrong._
MANY years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William
Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been
wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To
avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left New
Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his residence at
Sullivan's Island, near Charleston, South Carolina. This Island is a
very singular one. It consists of little else than the sea sand, and
is about three miles long. Its breadth at no point exceeds a quarter
of a mile. It is separated from the main land by a scarcely
perceptible creek, oozing its way through a wilderness of reeds and
slime, a favorite resort of the marsh hen. The vegetation, as might
be supposed, is scant, or at least dwarfish. No trees of any
magnitude are to be seen. Near the western extremity, where Fort
Moultrie stands, and where are some miserable frame buildings,
tenanted, during summer, by the fugitives from Charleston dust and
fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole
island, with the exception of this western point, and a line of hard,
white beach on the seacoast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of
the sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England.
The shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet,
and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with its
fragrance.
In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern
or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a small
hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made his
acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship - for there was much
in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him well
educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with misanthropy,
and subject to perverse moods of alternate enthusiasm and melancholy.
He had with him many books, but rarely employed them. His chief
amusements were gunning and fishing, or sauntering along the beach
and through the myrtles, in quest of shells or entomological
specimens; - his collection of the latter might have been envied by a
Swammerdamm. In these excursions he was usually accompanied by an old
negro, called Jupiter, who had been manumitted before the reverses of
the family, but who could be induced, neither by threats nor by
promises, to abandon what he considered his right of attendance upon
the footsteps of his young "Massa Will." It is not improbable that
the relatives of Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat unsettled in
intellect, had contrived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with
a view to the supervision and guardianship of the wanderer.
The winters in the latitude of Sullivan's Island are seldom very
severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed when a
fire is considered necessary. About the middle of October, 18-, there
occurred, however, a day of remarkable chilliness. Just before sunset
I scrambled my way through the evergreens to the hut of my friend,
whom I had not visited for several weeks - my residence being, at
that time, in Charleston, a distance of nine miles from the Island,
while the facilities of passage and re-passage were very far behind
those of the present day. Upon reaching the hut I rapped, as was my
custom, and getting no reply, sought for the key where I knew it was
secreted, unlocked the door and went in. A fine fire was blazing upon
the hearth. It was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful one. I
threw off an overcoat, took an arm-chair by the crackling
logs, and awaited patiently the arrival of my hosts.
Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial welcome.
Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about to prepare some
marsh-hens for supper. Legrand was in one of his fits - how else
shall I term them? - of enthusiasm. He had found an unknown bivalve,
forming a new genus, and, more than this, he had hunted down and
secured, with Jupiter's assistance, a scarabæus which he believed to
be totally new, but in respect to which he wished to have my opinion
on the morrow.
"And why not to-night?" I asked, rubbing my hands over the blaze,
and wishing the whole tribe of scarabæi at the devil.
"Ah, if I had only known you were here!" said Legrand, "but it's
so long since I saw you; and how could I foresee that you would pay
me a visit this very night of all others? As I was coming home I met
Lieutenant G--, from the fort, and, very foolishly, I lent him the
bug; so it will be impossible for you to see it until the morning.
Stay here to-night, and I will send Jup down for it at sunrise. It is
the loveliest thing in creation!"
"What? - sunrise?"
"Nonsense! no! - the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color - about
the size of a large hickory-nut - with two jet black spots near one
extremity of the back, and another, somewhat longer, at the other.
The antennæ are - "
"Dey aint no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin on you,"
here interrupted Jupiter; "de bug is a goole bug, solid, ebery bit of
him, inside and all, sep him wing - neber feel half so hebby a bug in
my life."
"Well, suppose it is, Jup," replied Legrand, somewhat more
earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded, "is that any
reason for your letting the birds burn? The color" - here he turned
to me - "is really almost enough to warrant Jupiter's idea. You never
saw a more brilliant metallic lustre than the scales emit - but of
this you cannot judge till tomorrow. In the mean time I can give you
some idea of the shape." Saying this, he seated himself at a small
table, on which were a pen and ink, but no paper. He looked for some
in a drawer, but found none.
"Never mind," said he at length, "this will answer;" and he
drew from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I took to be very
dirty foolscap, and made upon it a rough drawing with the pen. While
he did this, I retained my seat by the fire, for I was still chilly.
When the design was complete, he handed it to me without rising. As I
received it, a loud growl was heard, succeeded by a scratching at the
door. Jupiter opened it, and a large Newfoundland, belonging to
Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my shoulders, and loaded me with
caresses; for I had shown him much attention during previous visits.
When his gambols were over, I looked at the paper, and, to speak the
truth, found myself not a little puzzled at what my friend had
depicted.
"Well!" I said, after contemplating it for some minutes, "this is
a strange scarabæus, I must confess: new to me: never saw anything
like it before - unless it was a skull, or a death's-head - which it
more nearly resembles than anything else that has come under my
observation."
"A death's-head!" echoed Legrand -"Oh - yes - well, it has
something of that appearance upon paper, no doubt. The two upper
black spots look like eyes, eh? and the longer one at the bottom like
a mouth - and then the shape of the whole is oval."
"Perhaps so," said I; "but, Legrand, I fear you are no artist. I
must wait until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form any idea of
its personal appearance."
"Well, I don't know," said he, a little nettled, "I draw
tolerably - should do it at least - have had good masters, and
flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead."
"But, my dear fellow, you are joking then," said I, "this is a
very passable skull - indeed, I may say that it is a very excellent
skull, according to the vulgar notions about such specimens of
physiology - and your scarabæus must be the queerest scarabæus in the
world if it resembles it. Why, we may get up a very thrilling bit of
superstition upon this hint. I presume you will call the bug
scarabæus caput hominis, or something of that kind - there are many
similar titles in the Natural Histories. But where are the antennæ
you spoke of?"
"The antennæ!" said Legrand, who seemed to be getting
unaccountably warm upon the subject; "I am sure you must see the
antennæ. I made them as distinct as they are in the original insect,
and I presume that is sufficient."
"Well, well," I said, "perhaps you have - still I don't see
them;" and I handed him the paper without additional remark, not
wishing to ruffle his temper; but I was much surprised at the turn
affairs had taken; his ill humor puzzled me - and, as for the drawing
of the beetle, there were positively no antennæ visible, and the
whole did bear a very close resemblance to the ordinary cuts of a
death's-head.
He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to crumple
it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at the
design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant his face
grew violently red - in another as excessively pale. For some minutes
he continued to scrutinize the drawing minutely where he sat. At
length he arose, took a candle from the table, and proceeded to seat
himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest corner of the room. Here
again he made an anxious examination of the paper; turning it in all
directions. He said nothing, however, and his conduct greatly
astonished me; yet I thought it prudent not to exacerbate the growing
moodiness of his temper by any comment. Presently he took from his
coat pocket a wallet, placed the paper carefully in it, and deposited
both in a writing-desk, which he locked. He now grew more composed in
his demeanor; but his original air of enthusiasm had quite
disappeared. Yet he seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As the
evening wore away he became more and more absorbed in reverie, from
which no sallies of mine could arouse him. It had been my intention
to pass the night at the hut, as I had frequently done before, but,
seeing my host in this mood, I deemed it proper to take leave. He did
not press me to remain, but, as I departed, he shook my hand with
even more than his usual cordiality.
It was about a month after this (and during the interval I had
seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a visit, at Charleston, from
his man, Jupiter. I had never seen the good old negro look so
dispirited, and I feared that some serious disaster had befallen my
friend.
"Well, Jup," said I, "what is the matter now? - how is your
master?"
"Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as mought
be."
"Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he complain
of?"
"Dar! dat's it! - him neber plain of notin - but him berry sick
for all dat."
"Very sick, Jupiter! - why didn't you say so at once? Is he
confined to bed?"
"No, dat he aint! - he aint find nowhar - dat's just whar de shoe
pinch - my mind is got to be berry hebby bout poor Massa Will."
"Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are talking
about. You say your master is sick. Hasn't he told you what ails
him?"
"Why, massa, taint worf while for to git mad about de matter -
Massa Will say noffin at all aint de matter wid him - but den what
make him go about looking dis here way, wid he head down and he
soldiers up, and as white as a gose? And den he keep a syphon all de
time - "
"Keeps a what, Jupiter?"
"Keeps a syphon wid de figgurs on de slate - de queerest figgurs
I ebber did see. Ise gittin to be skeered, I tell you. Hab for to
keep mighty tight eye pon him noovers. Todder day he gib me slip fore
de sun up and was gone de whole ob de blessed day. I had a big stick
ready cut for to gib him deuced good beating when he did come - but
Ise sich a fool dat I hadn't de heart arter all - he look so berry
poorly."
"Eh? - what? - ah yes! - upon the whole I think you had better
not be too severe with the poor fellow - don't flog him, Jupiter - he
can't very well stand it - but can you form no idea of what has
occasioned this illness, or rather this change of conduct? Has
anything unpleasant happened since I saw you?"
"No, massa, dey aint bin noffin unpleasant since den - 'twas fore
den I'm feared - 'twas de berry day you was dare."
"How? what do you mean?"
"Why, massa, I mean de bug - dare now."
"The what?"
"De bug, - I'm berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit somewhere
bout de head by dat goole-bug."
"And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposition?"
"Claws enuff, massa, and mouth too. I nebber did see sick a
deuced bug - he kick and he bite ebery ting what cum near him. Massa
Will cotch him fuss, but had for to let him go gin mighty quick, I
tell you - den was de time he must ha got de bite. I did n't like de
look oh de bug mouff, myself, no how, so I would n't take hold ob him
wid my finger, but I cotch him wid a piece ob paper dat I found. I
rap him up in de paper and stuff piece ob it in he mouff - dat was de
way."
"And you think, then, that your master was really bitten by the
beetle, and that the bite made him sick?"
"I do n't tink noffin about it - I nose it. What make him dream
bout de goole so much, if taint cause he bit by de goole-bug? Ise
heerd bout dem goole-bugs fore dis."
"But how do you know he dreams about gold?"
"How I know? why cause he talk about it in he sleep - dat's how I
nose."
"Well, Jup, perhaps you are right; but to what fortunate
circumstance am I to attribute the honor of a visit from you to-day?"
"What de matter, massa?"
"Did you bring any message from Mr. Legrand "
"No, massa, I bring dis here pissel;" and here Jupiter handed me
a note which ran thus:
MY DEAR --
Why have I not seen you for so long a time? I hope you have not
been so foolish as to take offence at any little _brusquerie_ of
mine; but no, that is improbable. Since I saw you I have had great
cause for anxiety. I have something to tell you, yet scarcely know
how to tell it, or whether I should tell it at all.
I have not been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup
annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by his well-meant attentions
Would you believe it? - he had prepared a huge stick, the other day,
with which to chastise me for giving him the slip, and spending the
day, _solus_, among the hills on the main land. I verily believe that
my ill looks alone saved me a flogging.
I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met.
If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with
Jupiter. _Do_ come. I wish to see you to-_night_, upon business of
importance. I assure you that it is of the _highest_ importance.
Ever yours, WILLIAM LEGRAND.
There was something in the tone of this note which gave me great
uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that of Legrand.
What could he be dreaming of? What new crotchet possessed his
excitable brain? What "business of the highest importance" could he
possibly have to transact? Jupiter's account of him boded no good. I
dreaded lest the continued pressure of misfortune had, at length,
fairly unsettled the reason of my friend. Without a moment's
hesitation, therefore, I prepared to accompany the negro.
Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three spades, all
apparently new, lying in the bottom of the boat in which we were to
embark.
"What is the meaning of all this, Jup?" I inquired.
"Him syfe, massa, and spade."
"Very true; but what are they doing here?"
"Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will sis pon my buying for
him in de town, and de debbils own lot of money I had to gib for em."
"But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is your 'Massa
Will' going to do with scythes and spades?"
"Dat's more dan I know, and debbil take me if I don't blieve 'tis
more dan he know, too. But it's all cum ob do bug."
Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of Jupiter, whose
whole intellect seemed to be absorbed by "de bug," I now stepped into
the boat and made sail. With a fair and strong breeze we soon ran
into the little cove to the northward of Fort Moultrie, and a walk of
some two miles brought us to the hut. It was about three in the
afternoon when we arrived. Legrand had been awaiting us in eager
expectation. He grasped my hand with a nervous empressement which
alarmed me and strengthened the suspicions already entertained. His
countenance was pale even to ghastliness, and his deep-set eyes
glared with unnatural lustre. After some inquiries respecting his
health, I asked him, not knowing what better to say, if he had yet
obtained the scarabæus from Lieutenant G --.
"Oh, yes," he replied, coloring violently, "I got it from him the
next morning. Nothing should tempt me to part with that scarabæus. Do
you know that Jupiter is quite right about it?"
"In what way?" I asked, with a sad foreboding at heart.
"In supposing it to be a bug of real gold." He said this with an
air of profound seriousness, and I felt inexpressibly shocked.
"This bug is to make my fortune," he continued, with a triumphant
smile, "to reinstate me in my family possessions. Is it any wonder,
then, that I prize it? Since Fortune has thought fit to bestow it
upon me, I have only to use it properly and I shall arrive at the
gold of which it is the index. Jupiter; bring me that scarabæus!"
"What! de bug, massa? I'd rudder not go fer trubble dat bug - you
mus git him for your own self." Hereupon Legrand arose, with a grave
and stately air, and brought me the beetle from a glass case in which
it was enclosed. It was a beautiful scarabæus, and, at that time,
unknown to naturalists - of course a great prize in a scientific
point of view. There were two round, black spots near one extremity
of the back, and a long one near the other. The scales were
exceedingly hard and glossy, with all the appearance of burnished
gold. The weight of the insect was very remarkable, and, taking all
things into consideration, I could hardly blame Jupiter for his
opinion respecting it; but what to make of Legrand's concordance with
that opinion, I could not, for the life of me, tell.
"I sent for you," said he, in a grandiloquent tone, when I had
completed my examination of the beetle, "I sent for you, that I might
have your counsel and assistance in furthering the views of Fate and
of the bug" -
"My dear Legrand," I cried, interrupting him, "you are certainly
unwell, and had better use some little precautions. You shall go to
bed, and I will remain with you a few days, until you get over this.
You are feverish and" -
"Feel my pulse," said he.
I felt it, and, to say the truth, found not the slightest
indication of fever.
"But you may be ill and yet have no fever. Allow me this once to
prescribe for you. In the first place, go to bed. In the next" -
"You are mistaken," he interposed, "I am as well as I can expect
to be under the excitement which I suffer. If you really wish me
well, you will relieve this excitement."
"And how is this to be done?"
"Very easily. Jupiter and myself are going upon an expedition
into the hills, upon the main land, and, in this expedition we shall
need the aid of some person in whom we can confide. You are the only
one we can trust. Whether we succeed or fail, the excitement which
you now perceive in me will be equally allayed."
"I am anxious to oblige you in any way," I replied; "but do you
mean to say that this infernal beetle has any connection with your
expedition into the hills?"
"It has."
"Then, Legrand, I can become a party to no such absurd
proceeding."
"I am sorry - very sorry - for we shall have to try it by
ourselves."
"Try it by yourselves! The man is surely mad! - but stay! - how
long do you propose to be absent?"
"Probably all night. We shall start immediately, and be back, at
all events, by sunrise."
"And will you promise me, upon your honor, that when this freak
of yours is over, and the bug business (good God!) settled to your
satisfaction, you will then return home and follow my advice
implicitly, as that of your physician?"
"Yes; I promise; and now let us be off, for we have no time to
lose."
With a heavy heart I accompanied my friend. We started about four
o'clock - Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and myself. Jupiter had with him
the scythe and spades - the whole of which he insisted upon carrying
- more through fear, it seemed to me, of trusting either of the
implements within reach of his master, than from any excess of
industry or complaisance. His demeanor was dogged in the extreme, and
"dat deuced bug" were the sole words which escaped his lips during
the journey. For my own part, I had charge of a couple of dark
lanterns, while Legrand contented himself with the scarabæus, which
he carried attached to the end of a bit of whip-cord; twirling it to
and fro, with the air of a conjuror, as he went. When I observed this
last, plain evidence of my friend's aberration of mind, I could
scarcely refrain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his
fancy, at least for the present, or until I could adopt some more
energetic measures with a chance of success. In the mean time I
endeavored, but all in vain, to sound him in regard to the object of
the expedition. Having succeeded in inducing me to accompany him, he
seemed unwilling to hold conversation upon any topic of minor
importance, and to all my questions vouchsafed no other reply than
"we shall see!"
We crossed the creek at the head of the island by means of a
skiff; and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the main land,
proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through a tract of country
excessively wild and desolate, where no trace of a human footstep was
to be seen. Legrand led the way with decision; pausing only for an
instant, here and there, to consult what appeared to be certain
landmarks of his own contrivance upon a former occasion.
In this manner we journeyed for about two hours, and the sun was
just setting when we entered a region infinitely more dreary than any
yet seen. It was a species of table land, near the summit of an
almost inaccessible hill, densely wooded from base to pinnacle, and
interspersed with huge crags that appeared to lie loosely upon the
soil, and in many cases were prevented from precipitating themselves
into the valleys below, merely by the support of the trees against
which they reclined. Deep ravines, in various directions, gave an air
of still sterner solemnity to the scene.
The natural platform to which we had clambered was thickly
overgrown with brambles, through which we soon discovered that it
would have been impossible to force our way but for the scythe; and
Jupiter, by direction of his master, proceeded to clear for us a path
to the foot of an enormously tall tulip-tree, which stood, with some
eight or ten oaks, upon the level, and far surpassed them all, and
all other trees which I had then ever seen, in the beauty of its
foliage and form, in the wide spread of its branches, and in the
general majesty of its appearance. When we reached this tree, Legrand
turned to Jupiter, and asked him if he thought he could climb it. The
old man seemed a little staggered by the question, and for some
moments made no reply. At length he approached the huge trunk, walked
slowly around it, and examined it with minute attention. When he had
completed his scrutiny, he merely said,
"Yes, massa, Jup climb any tree he ebber see in he life."
"Then up with you as soon as possible, for it will soon be too
dark to see what we are about."
"How far mus go up, massa?" inquired Jupiter.
"Get up the main trunk first, and then I will tell you which way
to go - and here - stop! take this beetle with you."
"De bug, Massa Will! - de goole bug!" cried the negro, drawing
back in dismay - "what for mus tote de bug way up de tree? - d-n if I
do!"
"If you are afraid, Jup, a great big negro like you, to take hold
of a harmless little dead beetle, why you can carry it up by this
string - but, if you do not take it up with you in some way, I shall
be under the necessity of breaking your head with this shovel."
"What de matter now, massa?" said Jup, evidently shamed into
compliance; "always want for to raise fuss wid old nigger. Was only
funnin any how. Me feered de bug! what I keer for de bug?" Here he
took cautiously hold of the extreme end of the string, and,
maintaining the insect as far from his person as circumstances would
permit, prepared to ascend the tree.
In youth, the tulip-tree, or Liriodendron Tulipferum, the most
magnificent of American foresters, has a trunk peculiarly smooth, and
often rises to a great height without lateral branches; but, in its
riper age, the bark becomes gnarled and uneven, while many short
limbs make their appearance on the stem. Thus the difficulty of
ascension, in the present case, lay more in semblance than in
reality. Embracing the huge cylinder, as closely as possible, with
his arms and knees, seizing with his hands some projections, and
resting his naked toes upon others, Jupiter, after one or two narrow
escapes from falling, at length wriggled himself into the first great
fork, and seemed to consider the whole business as virtually
accomplished. The risk of the achievement was, in fact, now over,
although the climber was some sixty or seventy feet from the ground.
"Which way mus go now, Massa Will?" he asked.
"Keep up the largest branch - the one on this side," said
Legrand. The negro obeyed him promptly, and apparently with but
little trouble; ascending higher and higher, until no glimpse of his
squat figure could be obtained through the dense foliage which
enveloped it. Presently his voice was heard in a sort of halloo.
"How much fudder is got for go?"
"How high up are you?" asked Legrand.
"Ebber so fur," replied the negro; "can see de sky fru de top ob
de tree."
"Never mind the sky, but attend to what I say. Look down the
trunk and count the limbs below you on this side. How many limbs have
you passed?"
"One, two, tree, four, fibe - I done pass fibe big limb, massa,
pon dis side."
"Then go one limb higher."
In a few minutes the voice was heard again, announcing that the
seventh limb was attained.
"Now, Jup," cried Legrand, evidently much excited, "I want you to
work your way out upon that limb as far as you can. If you see
anything strange, let me know." By this time what little doubt I
might have entertained of my poor friend's insanity, was put finally
at rest. I had no alternative but to conclude him stricken with
lunacy, and I became seriously anxious about getting him home. While
I was pondering upon what was best to be done, Jupiter's voice was
again heard.
"Mos feerd for to ventur pon dis limb berry far - tis dead limb
putty much all de way."
"Did you say it was a dead limb, Jupiter?" cried Legrand in a
quavering voice.
"Yes, massa, him dead as de door-nail - done up for sartain -
done departed dis here life."
"What in the name heaven shall I do?" asked Legrand, seemingly in
the greatest distress. "Do!" said I, glad of an opportunity to
interpose a word, "why come home and go to bed. Come now! - that's a
fine fellow. It's getting late, and, besides, you remember your
promise."
"Jupiter," cried he, without heeding me in the least, "do you
hear me?"
"Yes, Massa Will, hear you ebber so plain."
"Try the wood well, then, with your knife, and see if you think
it very rotten."
"Him rotten, massa, sure nuff," replied the negro in a few
moments, "but not so berry rotten as mought be. Mought ventur out
leetle way pon de limb by myself, dat's true."
"By yourself! - what do you mean?"
"Why I mean de bug. 'Tis berry hebby bug. Spose I drop him down
fuss, and den de limb won't break wid just de weight ob one nigger."
"You infernal scoundrel!" cried Legrand, apparently much
relieved, "what do you mean by telling me such nonsense as that? As
sure as you drop that beetle I'll break your neck. Look here,
Jupiter, do you hear me?"
"Yes, massa, needn't hollo at poor nigger dat style."
"Well! now listen! - if you will venture out on the limb as far
as you think safe, and not let go the beetle, I'll make you a present
of a silver dollar as soon as you get down."
"I'm gwine, Massa Will - deed I is," replied the negro very
promptly - "mos out to the eend now."
"Out to the end!" here fairly screamed Legrand, "do you say you
are out to the end of that limb?"
"Soon be to de eend, massa, - o-o-o-o-oh! Lor-gol-a-marcy! what
is dis here pon de tree?"
"Well!" cried Legrand, highly delighted, "what is it?"
"Why taint noffin but a skull - somebody bin lef him head up de
tree, and de crows done gobble ebery bit ob de meat off."
"A skull, you say! - very well! - how is it fastened to the limb?
- what holds it on?"
"Sure nuff, massa; mus look. Why dis berry curous sarcumstance,
pon my word - dare's a great big nail in de skull, what fastens ob it
on to de tree."
"Well now, Jupiter, do exactly as I tell you - do you hear?"
"Yes, massa."
"Pay attention, then! - find the left eye of the skull."
"Hum! hoo! dat's good! why dare aint no eye lef at all."
"Curse your stupidity! do you know your right hand from your
left?"
"Yes, I nose dat - nose all bout dat - tis my lef hand what I
chops de wood wid."
"To be sure! you are left-handed; and your left. eye is on the
same side as your left hand. Now, I suppose, you can find the left
eye of the skull, or the place where the left eye has been. Have you
found it?"
Here was a long pause. At length the negro asked,
"Is de lef eye of de skull pon de same side as de lef hand of de
skull, too? - cause de skull aint got not a bit ob a hand at all -
nebber mind! I got de lef eye now - here de lef eye! what mus do wid
it?"
"Let the beetle drop through it, as far as the string will reach
- but be careful and not let go your hold of the string."
"All dat done, Massa Will; mighty easy ting for to put de bug fru
de hole - look out for him dare below!"
During this colloquy no portion of Jupiter's person could be
seen; but the beetle, which he had suffered to descend, was now
visible at the end of the string, and glistened, like a globe of
burnished gold, in the last rays of the setting sun, some of which
still faintly illumined the eminence upon which we stood. The
scarabæus hung quite clear of any branches, and, if allowed to fall,
would have fallen at our feet. Legrand immediately took the scythe,
and cleared with it a circular space, three or four yards in
diameter, just beneath the insect, and, having accomplished this,
ordered Jupiter to let go the string and come down from the tree.
Driving a peg, with great nicety, into the ground, at the precise
spot where the beetle fell, my friend now produced from his pocket a
tape measure. Fastening one end of this at that point of the trunk,
of the tree which was nearest the peg, he unrolled it till it reached
the peg, and thence farther unrolled it, in the direction already
established by the two points of the tree and the peg, for the
distance of fifty feet - Jupiter clearing away the brambles with the
scythe. At the spot thus attained a second peg was driven, and about
this, as a centre, a rude circle, about four feet in diameter,
described. Taking now a spade himself, and giving one to Jupiter and
one to me, Legrand begged us to set about digging as quickly as
possible.
To speak the truth, I had no especial relish for such amusement
at any time, and, at that particular moment, would most willingly
have declined it; for the night was coming on, and I felt much
fatigued with the exercise already taken; but I saw no mode of
escape, and was fearful of disturbing my poor friend's equanimity by
a refusal. Could I have depended, indeed, upon Jupiter's aid, I would
have had no hesitation in attempting to get the lunatic home by
force; but I was too well assured of the old negro's disposition, to
hope that he would assist me, under any circumstances, in a personal
contest with his master. I made no doubt that the latter had been
infected with some of the innumerable Southern superstitions about
money buried, and that his phantasy had received confirmation by the
finding of the scarabæus, or, perhaps, by Jupiter's obstinacy in
maintaining it to be "a bug of real gold." A mind disposed to lunacy
would readily be led away by such suggestions - especially if chiming
in with favorite preconceived ideas - and then I called to mind the
poor fellow's speech about the beetle's being "the index of his
fortune." Upon the whole, I was sadly vexed and puzzled, but, at
length, I concluded to make a virtue of necessity - to dig with a
good will, and thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by ocular
demonstration, of the fallacy of the opinions he entertained.
The lanterns having been lit, we all fell to work with a zeal
worthy a more rational cause; and, as the glare fell upon our persons
and implements, I could not help thinking how picturesque a group we
composed, and how strange and suspicious our labors must have
appeared to any interloper who, by chance, might have stumbled upon
our whereabouts.
We dug very steadily for two hours. Little was said; and our
chief embarrassment lay in the yelpings of the dog, who took
exceeding interest in our proceedings. He, at length, became so
obstreperous that we grew fearful of his giving the alarm to some
stragglers in the vicinity; - or, rather, this was the apprehension
of Legrand; - for myself, I should have rejoiced at any interruption
which might have enabled me to get the wanderer home. The noise was,
at length, very effectually silenced by Jupiter, who, getting out of
the hole with a dogged air of deliberation, tied the brute's mouth up
with one of his suspenders, and then returned, with a grave chuckle,
to his task.
When the time mentioned had expired, we had reached a depth of
five feet, and yet no signs of any treasure became manifest. A
general pause ensued, and I began to hope that the farce was at an
end. Legrand, however, although evidently much disconcerted, wiped
his brow thoughtfully and recommenced. We had excavated the entire
circle of four feet diameter, and now we slightly enlarged the limit,
and went to the farther depth of two feet. Still nothing appeared.
The gold-seeker, whom I sincerely pitied, at length clambered from
the pit, with the bitterest disappointment imprinted upon every
feature, and proceeded, slowly and reluctantly, to put on his coat,
which he had thrown off at the beginning of his labor. In the mean
time I made no remark. Jupiter, at a signal from his master, began to
gather up his tools. This done, and the dog having been unmuzzled, we
turned in profound silence towards home.
We had taken, perhaps, a dozen steps in this direction, when,
with a loud oath, Legrand strode up to Jupiter, and seized him by the
collar. The astonished negro opened his eyes and mouth to the fullest
extent, let fall the spades, and fell upon his knees.
"You scoundrel," said Legrand, hissing out the syllables from
between his clenched teeth - "you infernal black villain! - speak, I
tell you! - answer me this instant, without prevarication! - which -
which is your left eye?"
"Oh, my golly, Massa Will! aint dis here my lef eye for sartain?"
roared the terrified Jupiter, placing his hand upon his right organ
of vision, and holding it there with a desperate pertinacity, as if
in immediate dread of his master's attempt at a gouge.
"I thought so! - I knew it! hurrah!" vociferated Legrand, letting
the negro go, and executing a series of curvets and caracols, much to
the astonishment of his valet, who, arising from his knees, looked,
mutely, from his master to myself, and then from myself to his
master.
"Come! we must go back," said the latter, "the game's not up
yet;" and he again led the way to the tulip-tree.
"Jupiter," said he, when we reached its foot, "come here! was the
skull nailed to the limb with the face outwards, or with the face to
the limb?"
"De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at de eyes
good, widout any trouble."
"Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you dropped
the beetle?" - here Legrand touched each of Jupiter's eyes.
"Twas dis eye, massa - de lef eye - jis as you tell me," and here
it was his right eye that the negro indicated.
"That will do - must try it again."
Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied that I
saw, certain indications of method, removed the peg which marked the
spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to the
westward of its former position. Taking, now, the tape measure from
the nearest point of the trunk to the peg, as before, and continuing
the extension in a straight line to the distance of fifty feet, a
spot was indicated, removed, by several yards, from the point at
which we had been digging.
Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the
former instance, was now described, and we again set to work with the
spades. I was dreadfully weary, but, scarcely understanding what had
occasioned the change in my thoughts, I felt no longer any great
aversion from the labor imposed. I had become most unaccountably
interested - nay, even excited. Perhaps there was something, amid all
the extravagant demeanor of Legrand - some air of forethought, or of
deliberation, which impressed me. I dug eagerly, and now and then
caught myself actually looking, with something that very much
resembled expectation, for the fancied treasure, the vision of which
had demented my unfortunate companion. At a period when such vagaries
of thought most fully possessed me, and when we had been at work
perhaps an hour and a half, we were again interrupted by the violent
howlings of the dog. His uneasiness, in the first instance, had been,
evidently, but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now
assumed a bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter's again attempting to
muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and, leaping into the hole,
tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In a few seconds he had
uncovered a mass of human bones, forming two complete skeletons,
intermingled with several buttons of metal, and what appeared to be
the dust of decayed woollen. One or two strokes of a spade upturned
the blade of a large Spanish knife, and, as we dug farther, three or
four loose pieces of gold and silver coin came to light.
At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be
restrained, but the countenance of his master wore an air of extreme
disappointment He urged us, however, to continue our exertions, and
the words were hardly uttered when I stumbled and fell forward,
having caught the toe of my boot in a large ring of iron that lay
half buried in the loose earth.
We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten minutes of
more intense excitement. During this interval we had fairly unearthed
an oblong chest of wood, which, from its perfect preservation and
wonderful hardness, had plainly been subjected to some mineralizing
process - perhaps that of the Bi-chloride of Mercury. This box was
three feet and a half long, three feet broad, and two and a half feet
deep. It was firmly secured by bands of wrought iron, riveted, and
forming a kind of open trelliswork over the whole. On each side of
the chest, near the top, were three rings of iron - six in all - by
means of which a firm hold could be obtained by six persons. Our
utmost united endeavors served only to disturb the coffer very
slightly in its bed. We at once saw the impossibility of removing so
great a weight. Luckily, the sole fastenings of the lid consisted of
two sliding bolts. These we drew back - trembling and panting with
anxiety. In an instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay gleaming
before us. As the rays of the lanterns fell within the pit, there
flashed upwards a glow and a glare, from a confused heap of gold and
of jewels, that absolutely dazzled our eyes.
I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed.
Amazement was, of course, predominant. Legrand appeared exhausted
with excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter's
countenance wore, for some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is
possible, in nature of things, for any negro's visage to assume. He
seemed stupified - thunderstricken. Presently he fell upon his knees
in the pit, and, burying his naked arms up to the elbows in gold, let
them there remain, as if enjoying the luxury of a bath. At length,
with a deep sigh, he exclaimed, as if in a soliloquy,
"And dis all cum ob de goole-bug! de putty goole bug! de poor
little goole-bug, what I boosed in dat sabage kind ob style! Aint you
shamed ob yourself, nigger? - answer me dat!"
It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master
and valet to the expediency of removing the treasure. It was growing
late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that we might get every
thing housed before daylight. It was difficult to say what should be
done, and much time was spent in deliberation - so confused were the
ideas of all. We, finally, lightened the box by removing two thirds
of its contents, when we were enabled, with some trouble, to raise it
from the hole. The articles taken out were deposited among the
brambles, and the dog left to guard them, with strict orders from
Jupiter neither, upon any pretence, to stir from the spot, nor to
open his mouth until our return. We then hurriedly made for home with
the chest; reaching the hut in safety, but after excessive toil, at
one o'clock in the morning. Worn out as we were, it was not in human
nature to do more immediately. We rested until two, and had supper;
starting for the hills immediately afterwards, armed with three stout
sacks, which, by good luck, were upon the premises. A little before
four we arrived at the pit, divided the remainder of the booty, as
equally as might be, among us, and, leaving the holes unfilled, again
set out for the hut, at which, for the second time, we deposited our
golden burthens, just as the first faint streaks of the dawn gleamed
from over the tree-tops in the East.
We were now thoroughly broken down; but the intense excitement of
the time denied us repose. After an unquiet slumber of some three or
four hours' duration, we arose, as if by preconcert, to make
examination of our treasure.
The chest had been full to the brim, and we spent the whole day,
and the greater part of the next night, in a scrutiny of its
contents. There had been nothing like order or arrangement. Every
thing had been heaped in promiscuously. Having assorted all with
care, we found ourselves possessed of even vaster wealth than we had
at first supposed. In coin there was rather more than four hundred
and fifty thousand dollars - estimating the value of the pieces, as
accurately as we could, by the tables of the period. There was not a
particle of silver. All was gold of antique date and of great variety
- French, Spanish, and German money, with a few English guineas, and
some counters, of which we had never seen specimens before. There
were several very large and heavy coins, so worn that we could make
nothing of their inscriptions. There was no American money. The value
of the jewels we found more difficulty in estimating. There were
diamonds - some of them exceedingly large and fine - a hundred and
ten in all, and not one of them small; eighteen rubies of remarkable
brilliancy; - three hundred and ten emeralds, all very beautiful; and
twenty-one sapphires, with an opal. These stones had all been broken
from their settings and thrown loose in the chest. The settings
themselves, which we picked out from among the other gold, appeared
to have been beaten up with hammers, as if to prevent identification.
Besides all this, there was a vast quantity of solid gold ornaments;
- nearly two hundred massive finger and earrings; - rich chains -
thirty of these, if I remember; - eighty-three very large and heavy
crucifixes; - five gold censers of great value; - a prodigious golden
punch bowl, ornamented with richly chased vine-leaves and
Bacchanalian figures; with two sword-handles exquisitely embossed,
and many other smaller articles which I cannot recollect. The weight
of these valuables exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds
avoirdupois; and in this estimate I have not included one hundred and
ninety-seven superb gold watches; three of the number being worth
each five hundred dollars, if one. Many of them were very old, and as
time keepers valueless; the works having suffered, more or less, from
corrosion - but all were richly jewelled and in cases of great worth.
We estimated the entire contents of the chest, that night, at a
million and a half of dollars; and upon the subsequent disposal of
the trinkets and jewels (a few being retained for our own
use), it was found that we had greatly undervalued the treasure.
When, at length, we had concluded our examination, and the intense
excitement of the time had, in some measure, subsided, Legrand, who
saw that I was dying with impatience for a solution of this most
extraordinary riddle, entered into a full detail of all the
circumstances connected with it.
"You remember;" said he, "the night when I handed you the rough
sketch I had made of the scarabæus. You recollect also, that I became
quite vexed at you for insisting that my drawing resembled a
death's-head. When you first made this assertion I thought you were
jesting; but afterwards I called to mind the peculiar spots on the
back of the insect, and admitted to myself that your remark had some
little foundation in fact. Still, the sneer at my graphic powers
irritated me - for I am considered a good artist - and, therefore,
when you handed me the scrap of parchment, I was about to crumple it
up and throw it angrily into the fire."
"The scrap of paper, you mean," said I.
"No; it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first I
supposed it to be such, but when I came to draw upon it, I discovered
it, at once, to be a piece of very thin parchment. It was quite
dirty, you remember. Well, as I was in the very act of crumpling it
up, my glance fell upon the sketch at which you had been looking, and
you may imagine my astonishment when I perceived, in fact, the figure
of a death's-head just where, it seemed to me, I had made the drawing
of the beetle. For a moment I was too much amazed to think with
accuracy. I knew that my design was very different in detail from
this - although there was a certain similarity in general outline.
Presently I took a candle, and seating myself at the other end of the
room, proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely. Upon
turning it over, I saw my own sketch upon the reverse, just as I had
made it. My first idea, now, was mere surprise at the really
remarkable similarity of outline - at the singular coincidence
involved in the fact, that unknown to me, there should have been a
skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath my
figure of the scarabæus, and that this skull, not only in outline,
but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I say
the singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupified me for a
time. This is the usual effect of such coincidences. The mind
struggles to establish a connexion - a sequence of cause and effect -
and, being unable to do so, suffers a species of temporary paralysis.
But, when I recovered from this stupor, there dawned upon me
gradually a conviction which startled me even far more than the
coincidence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember that there
had been no drawing upon the parchment when I made my sketch of the
scarabæus. I became perfectly certain of this; for I recollected
turning up first one side and then the other, in search of the
cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of course I could not
have failed to notice it. Here was indeed a mystery which I felt it
impossible to explain; but, even at that early moment, there seemed
to glimmer, faintly, within the most remote and secret chambers of my
intellect, a glow-worm-like conception of that truth which last
night's adventure brought to so magnificent a demonstration. I arose
at once, and putting the parchment securely away, dismissed all
farther reflection until I should be alone.
"When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I betook
myself to a more methodical investigation of the affair. In the first
place I considered the manner in which the parchment had come into my
possession. The spot where we discovered the scarabaeus was on the
coast of the main land, about a mile eastward of the island, and but
a short distance above high water mark. Upon my taking hold of it, it
gave me a sharp bite, which caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, with
his accustomed caution, before seizing the insect, which had flown
towards him, looked about him for a leaf, or something of that
nature, by which to take hold of it. It was at this moment that his
eyes, and mine also, fell upon the scrap of parchment, which I then
supposed to be paper. It was lying half buried in the sand, a corner
sticking up. Near the spot where we found it, I observed the remnants
of the hull of what appeared to have been a ship's long boat. The
wreck seemed to have been there for a very great while; for the
resemblance to boat timbers could scarcely be traced.
"Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle in it,
and gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go home, and on the
way met Lieutenant G-. I showed him the insect, and he begged me to
let him take it to the fort. Upon my consenting, he thrust it
forthwith into his waistcoat pocket, without the parchment in which
it had been wrapped, and which I had continued to hold in my hand
during his inspection. Perhaps he dreaded my changing my mind, and
thought it best to make sure of the prize at once - you know how
enthusiastic he is on all subjects connected with Natural History. At
the same time, without being conscious of it, I must have deposited
the parchment in my own pocket.
"You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of
making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was usually
kept. I looked in the drawer, and found none there. I searched my
pockets, hoping to find an old letter, when my hand fell upon the
parchment. I thus detail the precise mode in which it came into my
possession; for the circumstances impressed me with peculiar force.
"No doubt you will think me fanciful - but I had already
established a kind of connexion. I had put together two links of a
great chain. There was a boat lying upon a sea-coast, and not far
from the boat was a parchment - not a paper - with a skull depicted
upon it. You will, of course, ask 'where is the connexion?' I reply
that the skull, or death's-head, is the well-known emblem of the
pirate. The flag of the death's head is hoisted in all engagements.
"I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper.
Parchment is durable - almost imperishable. Matters of little moment
are rarely consigned to parchment; since, for the mere ordinary
purposes of drawing or writing, it is not nearly so well adapted as
paper. This reflection suggested some meaning - some relevancy - in
the death's-head. I did not fail to observe, also, the form of the
parchment. Although one of its corners had been, by some accident,
destroyed, it could be seen that the original form was oblong. It was
just such a slip, indeed, as might have been chosen for a memorandum
- for a record of something to be long remembered and carefully
preserved."
"But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was not upon the
parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How then do you
trace any connexion between the boat and the skull - since this
latter, according to your own admission, must have been designed (God
only knows how or by whom) at some period subsequent to your
sketching the scarabæus?"
"Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at
this point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My
steps were sure, and could afford but a single result. I reasoned,
for example, thus: When I drew the scarabæus, there was no skull
apparent upon the parchment. When I had completed the drawing I gave
it to you, and observed you narrowly until you returned it. You,
therefore, did not design the skull, and no one else was present to
do it. Then it was not done by human agency. And nevertheless it was
done. "At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and
did remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which occurred
about the period in question. The weather was chilly (oh rare and
happy accident!), and a fire was blazing upon the hearth. I was
heated with exercise and sat near the table. You, however, had drawn
a chair close to the chimney. Just as I placed the parchment in your
hand, and as you were in the act of in. inspecting it, Wolf, the
Newfoundland, entered, and leaped upon your shoulders. With your left
hand you caressed him and kept him off, while your right, holding the
parchment, was permitted to fall listlessly between your knees, and
in close proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought the blaze had
caught it, and was about to caution you, but, before I could speak,
you had withdrawn it, and were engaged in its examination. When I
considered all these particulars, I doubted not for a moment that
heat had been the agent in bringing to light, upon the parchment, the
skull which I saw designed upon it. You are well aware that chemical
preparations exist, and have existed time out of mind, by means of
which it is possible to write upon either paper or vellum, so that
the characters shall become visible only when subjected to the action
of fire. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia, and diluted with four times
its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a green tint results. The
regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre, gives a red. These
colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the material
written upon cools, but again become apparent upon the
re-application of heat.
"I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its outer edges -
the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vellum - were far
more distinct than the others. It was clear that the action of the
caloric had been imperfect or unequal. I immediately kindled a fire,
and subjected every portion of the parchment to a glowing heat. At
first, the only effect was the strengthening of the faint lines in
the skull; but, upon persevering in the experiment, there became
visible, at the corner of the slip, diagonally opposite to the spot
in which the death's-head was delineated, the figure of what I at
first supposed to be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me
that it was intended for a kid."
"Ha! ha!" said I, "to be sure I have no right to laugh at you - a
million and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth - but
you are not about to establish a third link in your chain - you will
not find any especial connexion between your pirates and a goat -
pirates, you know, have nothing to do with goats; they appertain to
the farming interest."
"But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat."
"Well, a kid then - pretty much the same thing."
"Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. "You may have
heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon the figure of the
animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say
signature; because its position upon the vellum suggested this idea.
The death's-head at the corner diagonally opposite, had, in the same
manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the
absence of all else - of the body to my imagined instrument - of the
text for my context."
"I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and
the signature."
"Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly
impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I
can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than
an actual belief; - but do you know that Jupiter's silly words, about
the bug being of solid gold, had a remarkable effect upon my fancy?
And then the series of accidents and coincidences - these were so
very extraordinary. Do you observe how mere an accident it was that
these events should have occurred upon the sole day of all the year
in which it has been, or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that
without the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the
precise moment in which he appeared, I should never have become aware
of the death's-head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?"
"But proceed - I am all impatience."
"Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current - the
thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere upon the
Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must have
had some foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so long
and so continuous, could have resulted, it appeared to me, only from
the circumstance of the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had
Kidd concealed his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it,
the rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying
form. You will observe that the stories told are all about
money-seekers, not about money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his
money, there the affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some
accident - say the loss of a memorandum indicating its locality - had
deprived him of the means of recovering it, and that this accident
had become known to his followers, who otherwise might never have
heard that treasure had been concealed at all, and who, busying
themselves in vain, because unguided attempts, to regain it, had
given first birth, and then universal currency, to the reports which
are now so common. Have you ever heard of any important treasure
being unearthed along the coast?"
"Never."
"But that Kidd's accumulations were immense, is well known. I
took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them; and
you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a hope,
nearly amounting to certainty, that the parchment so strangely found,
involved a lost record of the place of deposit."
"But how did you proceed?"
"I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat;
but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating of
dirt might have something to do with the failure; so I carefully
rinsed the parchment by pouring warm water over it, and,
having done this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downwards,
and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes,
the pan having become thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and, to
my inexpressible joy, found it spotted, in several places, with what
appeared to be figures arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the
pan, and suffered it to remain another minute. Upon taking it off,
the whole was just as you see it now." Here Legrand, having re-heated
the parchment, submitted it to my inspection. The following
characters were rudely traced, in a red tint, between the
death's-head and the goat:
"53305))6*;4826)4)4;806*;488¶60))85;1-(;:*8-83(88)5*
;46(;88*96*?;8)*(;485);5*2:*(;4956*2(5*- 4)8¶8*;40692
85);)68)4;1(9;48081;8:81;4885;4)485528806*81(9;48;
(88;4(?34;48)4;161;:188;?;"
"But," said I, returning him the slip, "I am as much in the dark
as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me upon my solution
of this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable to earn
them."
"And yet," said Legrand, "the solution is by no means so
difficult as you might be lead to imagine from the first hasty
inspection of the characters. These characters, as any one might
readily guess, form a cipher - that is to say, they convey a meaning;
but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could not suppose him capable
of constructing any of the more abstruse cryptographs. I made up my
mind, at once, that this was of a simple species - such, however, as
would appear, to the crude intellect of the sailor, absolutely
insoluble without the key."
"And you really solved it?"
"Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand
times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me
to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether
human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human
ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having
once established connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a
thought to the mere difficulty of developing their import.
"In the present case - indeed in all cases of secret writing -
the first question regards the language of the cipher; for the
principles of solution, so far, especially, as the more simple
ciphers are concerned, depend upon, and are varied by, the genius of
the particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but
experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him
who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained. But, with
the cipher now before us, all difficulty was removed by the
signature. The pun upon the word 'Kidd' is appreciable in no other
language than the English. But for this consideration I should have
begun my attempts with the Spanish and French, as the tongues in
which a secret of this kind would most naturally have been written by
a pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the cryptograph to
be English.
"You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there
been divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In such
case I should have commenced with a collation and analysis of the
shorter words, and, had a word of a single letter occurred, as is
most likely, (a or I, for example,) I should have considered the
solution as assured. But, there being no division, my first step was
to ascertain the predominant letters, as well as the least frequent.
Counting all, I constructed a table, thus:
Of the character 8 there are 33.
; " 26.
4 " 19.
) " 16.
* " 13.
5 " 12.
6 " 11.
1 " 8.
0 " 6.
9 2 " 5.
: 3 " 4.
? " 3.
¶ " 2.
-. " 1.
"Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is e.
Afterwards, succession runs thus: _a o i d h n r s t u y c f g l m w
b k p q x z_. _E_ predominates so remarkably that an individual
sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is not the
prevailing character.
"Here, then, we leave, in the very beginning, the groundwork for
something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be made
of the table is obvious - but, in this particular cipher, we shall
only very partially require its aid. As our predominant character is
8, we will commence by assuming it as the _e_ of the natural
alphabet. To verify the supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen
often in couples - for _e_ is doubled with great frequency in English
- in such words, for example, as 'meet,' '.fleet,' 'speed,' 'seen,'
been,' 'agree,' &c. In the present instance we see it doubled no less
than five times, although the cryptograph is brief.
"Let us assume 8, then, as _e_. Now, of all _words_ in the
language, 'the' is most usual; let us see, therefore, whether there
are not repetitions of any three characters, in the same order of
collocation, the last of them being 8. If we discover repetitions of
such letters, so arranged, they will most probably represent the word
'the.' Upon inspection, we find no less than seven such arrangements,
the characters being ;48. We may, therefore, assume that ; represents
_t_, 4 represents _h_, and 8 represents _e_ - the last being now well
confirmed. Thus a great step has been taken.
"But, having established a single word, we are enabled to
establish a vastly important point; that is to say, several
commencements and terminations of other words. Let us refer, for
example, to the last instance but one, in which the combination ;48
occurs - not far from the end of the cipher. We know that the ;
immediately ensuing is the commencement of a word, and, of the six
characters succeeding this 'the,' we are cognizant of no less than
five. Let us set these characters down, thus, by the letters we know
them to represent, leaving a space for the unknown -
t eeth.
"Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the 'th,' as forming no
portion of the word commencing with the first t; since, by experiment
of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the vacancy, we
perceive that no word can be formed of which this _th_ can be a part.
We are thus narrowed into
t ee,
and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we arrive
at the word 'tree,' as the sole possible reading. We thus gain
another letter, _r_, represented by (, with the words 'the tree' in
juxtaposition.
"Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see
the combination ;48, and employ it by way of _termination_ to what
immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement:
the tree ;4(?34 the,
or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus:
the tree thr?3h the.
"Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank
spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus:
the tree thr...h the,
when the word '_through_' makes itself evident at once. But this
discovery gives us three new letters, _o_, _u_ and _g_, represented
by ? and 3.
"Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of
known characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this
arrangement,
83(88, or egree,
which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word 'degree,' and gives us
another letter, _d_, represented by .
"Four letters beyond the word 'degree,' we perceive the
combination
;46(;88.
"Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown
by dots, as before, we read thus: th rtee. an arrangement immediately
suggestive of the word 'thirteen,' and again furnishing us with two
new characters, _i_ and _n_, represented by 6 and *.
"Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the
combination,
53.
"Translating, as before, we obtain
good,
which assures us that the first letter is _A_, and that the first two
words are 'A good.'
"It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in
a tabular form, to avoid confusion. It will stand thus:
5 represents a
" d
8 " e
3 " g
4 " h
6 " i
* " n
" o
( " r
; " t
"We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important
letters represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the
details of the solution. I have said enough to convince you that
ciphers of this nature are readily soluble, and to give you some
insight into the rationale of their development. But be assured that
the specimen before us appertains to the very simplest species of
cryptograph. It now only remains to give you the full translation of
the characters upon the parchment, as unriddled. Here it is:
" '_A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat
forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north main
branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the
death's-head a bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet
out_.' "
"But," said I, "the enigma seems still in as bad a condition as
ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon
about 'devil's seats,' 'death's heads,' and 'bishop's hotels?' "
"I confess," replied Legrand, "that the matter still wears a
serious aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first endeavor
was to divide the sentence into the natural division intended by the
cryptographist."
"You mean, to punctuate it?"
"Something of that kind."
"But how was it possible to effect this?"
"I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run his
words together without division, so as to increase the difficulty of
solution. Now, a not over-acute man, in pursuing such an object would
be nearly certain to overdo the matter. When, in the course of his
composition, he arrived at a break in his subject which would
naturally require a pause, or a point, he would be exceedingly apt to
run his characters, at this place, more than usually close together.
If you will observe the MS., in the present instance, you will easily
detect five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting upon this hint, I
made the division thus: 'A good glass in the Bishop's hostel in the
Devil's seat - forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes - northeast and
by north - main branch seventh limb east side - shoot from the left
eye of the death's-head - a bee-line from the tree through the shot
fifty feet out.' "
"Even this division," said I, "leaves me still in the dark."
"It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a few days;
during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood of
Sullivan's Island, for any building which went by the name of the
'Bishop's Hotel;' for, of course, I dropped the obsolete word
'hostel.' Gaining no information on the subject, I was on the point
of extending my sphere of search, and proceeding in a more systematic
manner, when, one morning, it entered into my head, quite suddenly,
that this 'Bishop's Hostel' might have some reference to an old
family, of the name of Bessop, which, time out of mind, had held
possession of an ancient manor-house, about four miles to the
northward of the Island. I accordingly went over to the plantation,
and re-instituted my inquiries among the older negroes of the place.
At length one of the most aged of the women said that she had heard
of such a place as Bessop's Castle, and thought that she could guide
me to it, but that it was not a castle nor a tavern, but a high rock.
"I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some
demur, she consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it without
much difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to examine the
place. The 'castle' consisted of an irregular assemblage of cliffs
and rocks - one of the latter being quite remarkable for its height
as well as for its insulated and artificial appearance I clambered to
its apex, and then felt much at a loss as to what should be next
done.
"While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell upon a narrow
ledge in the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below the
summit upon which I stood. This ledge projected about eighteen
inches, and was not more than a foot wide, while a niche in the cliff
just above it, gave it a rude resemblance to one of the hollow-backed
chairs used by our ancestors. I made no doubt that here was the
'devil's seat' alluded to in the MS., and now I seemed to grasp the
full secret of the riddle.
"The 'good glass,' I knew, could have reference to nothing but a
telescope; for the word 'glass' is rarely employed in any other sense
by seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a telescope to be used, and a
definite point of view, admitting no variation, from which to use it.
Nor did I hesitate to believe that the phrases, "forty-one degrees
and thirteen minutes,' and 'northeast and by north,' were intended as
directions for the levelling of the glass. Greatly excited by these
discoveries, I hurried home, procured a telescope, and returned to
the rock.
"I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was impossible
to retain a seat upon it except in one particular position. This fact
confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded to use the glass. Of
course, the 'forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes' could allude to
nothing but elevation above the visible horizon, since the horizontal
direction was clearly indicated by the words, 'northeast and by
north.' This latter direction I at once established by means of a
pocket-compass; then, pointing the glass as nearly at an angle of
forty-one degrees of elevation as I could do it by guess, I moved it
cautiously up or down, until my attention was arrested by a circular
rift or opening in the foliage of a large tree that overtopped its
fellows in the distance. In the centre of this rift I perceived a
white spot, but could not, at first, distinguish what it was.
Adjusting the focus of the telescope, I again looked, and now made it
out to be a human skull.
"Upon this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the enigma
solved; for the phrase 'main branch, seventh limb, east side,' could
refer only to the position of the skull upon the tree, while 'shoot
from the left eye of the death's head' admitted, also, of but one
interpretation, in regard to a search for buried treasure. I
perceived that the design was to drop a bullet from the left eye of
the skull, and that a bee-line, or, in other words, a straight line,
drawn from the nearest point of the trunk through 'the shot,' (or the
spot where the bullet fell,) and thence extended to a distance of
fifty feet, would indicate a definite point - and beneath this point
I thought it at least possible that a deposit of value lay
concealed."
"All this," I said, "is exceedingly clear, and, although
ingenious, still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's
Hotel, what then?"
"Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I turned
homewards. The instant that I left 'the devil's seat,' however, the
circular rift vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it afterwards,
turn as I would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole
business, is the fact (for repeated experiment has convinced me it is
a fact) that the circular opening in question is visible from no
other attainable point of view than that afforded by the narrow ledge
upon the face of the rock.
"In this expedition to the 'Bishop's Hotel' I had been attended
by Jupiter, who had, no doubt, observed, for some weeks past, the
abstraction of my demeanor, and took especial care not to leave me
alone. But, on the next day, getting up very early, I contrived to
give him the slip, and went into the hills in search of the tree.
After much toil I found it. When I came home at night my valet
proposed to give me a flogging. With the rest of the adventure I
believe you are as well acquainted as myself."
"I suppose," said I, "you missed the spot, in the first attempt
at digging, through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the bug fall
through the right instead of through the left eye of the skull."
"Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches
and a half in the 'shot' - that is to say, in the position of the peg
nearest the tree; and had the treasure been beneath the 'shot,' the
error would have been of little moment; but 'the shot,' together with
the nearest point of the tree, were merely two points for the
establishment of a line of direction; of course the error, however
trivial in the beginning, increased as we proceeded with the line,
and by the time we had gone fifty feet, threw us quite off the scent.
But for my deep-seated impressions that treasure was here somewhere
actually buried, we might have had all our labor in vain."
"But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle
- how excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did you
insist upon letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from the
skull?"
"Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident
suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly,
in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystification. For this
reason I swung the beetle, and for this reason I let it fall it from
the tree. An observation of yours about its great weight suggested
the latter idea."
"Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles
me. What are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?"
"That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself.
There seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for them -
and yet it is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my suggestion
would imply. It is clear that Kidd - if Kidd indeed secreted this
treasure, which I doubt not - it is clear that he must have had
assistance in the labor. But this labor concluded, he may have
thought it expedient to remove all participants in his secret.
Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were sufficient, while his
coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it required a dozen - who
shall tell?"
_
_
~~~ End of Text ~~~
==========
FOUR BEASTS IN ONE
THE HOMO-CAMELEOPARD
Chacun a ses vertus.
--_Crebillon's Xerxes._
ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES is very generally looked upon as the Gog of the
prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable
to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the
Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious
embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation
of the sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming
of Christ; his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus; his
implacable hostility to the Jews; his pollution of the Holy of
Holies; and his miserable death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of
eleven years, are circumstances of a prominent kind, and therefore
more generally noticed by the historians of his time than the
impious, dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical achievements which
make up the sum total of his private life and reputation.
Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the world
three thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a few
minutes, imagine ourselves at that most grotesque habitation of man,
the remarkable city of Antioch. To be sure there were, in Syria and
other countries, sixteen cities of that appellation, besides the one
to which I more particularly allude. But ours is that which went by
the name of Antiochia Epidaphne, from its vicinity to the little
village of Daphne, where stood a temple to that divinity. It was
built (although about this matter there is some dispute) by Seleucus
Nicanor, the first king of the country after Alexander the Great, in
memory of his father Antiochus, and became immediately the residence
of the Syrian monarchy. In the flourishing times of the Roman Empire,
it was the ordinary station of the prefect of the eastern provinces;
and many of the emperors of the queen city (among whom may be
mentioned, especially, Verus and Valens) spent here the greater part
of their time. But I perceive we have arrived at the city itself. Let
us ascend this battlement, and throw our eyes upon the town and
neighboring country.
"What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way, with
innumerable falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and finally
through the wilderness of buildings?"
That is the Orontes, and it is the only water in sight, with the
exception of the Mediterranean, which stretches, like a broad mirror,
about twelve miles off to the southward. Every one has seen the
Mediterranean; but let me tell you, there are few who have had a peep
at Antioch. By few, I mean, few who, like you and me, have had, at
the same time, the advantages of a modern education. Therefore cease
to regard that sea, and give your whole attention to the mass of
houses that lie beneath us. You will remember that it is now the year
of the world three thousand eight hundred and thirty. Were it later
-- for example, were it the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and
forty-five, we should be deprived of this extraordinary spectacle. In
the nineteenth century Antioch is -- that is to say, Antioch will be
-- in a lamentable state of decay. It will have been, by that time,
totally destroyed, at three different periods, by three successive
earthquakes. Indeed, to say the truth, what little of its former self
may then remain, will be found in so desolate and ruinous a state
that the patriarch shall have removed his residence to Damascus. This
is well. I see you profit by my advice, and are making the most of
your time in inspecting the premises -- in
-satisfying your eyes
With the memorials and the things of fame
That most renown this city.-
I beg pardon; I had forgotten that Shakespeare will not flourish for
seventeen hundred and fifty years to come. But does not the
appearance of Epidaphne justify me in calling it grotesque?
"It is well fortified; and in this respect is as much indebted to
nature as to art."
Very true.
"There are a prodigious number of stately palaces."
There are.
"And the numerous temples, sumptuous and magnificent, may bear
comparison with the most lauded of antiquity."
All this I must acknowledge. Still there is an infinity of mud huts,
and abominable hovels. We cannot help perceiving abundance of filth
in every kennel, and, were it not for the over-powering fumes of
idolatrous incense, I have no doubt we should find a most intolerable
stench. Did you ever behold streets so insufferably narrow, or houses
so miraculously tall? What gloom their shadows cast upon the ground!
It is well the swinging lamps in those endless colonnades are kept
burning throughout the day; we should otherwise have the darkness of
Egypt in the time of her desolation.
"It is certainly a strange place! What is the meaning of yonder
singular building? See! it towers above all others, and lies to the
eastward of what I take to be the royal palace."
That is the new Temple of the Sun, who is adored in Syria under the
title of Elah Gabalah. Hereafter a very notorious Roman Emperor will
institute this worship in Rome, and thence derive a cognomen,
Heliogabalus. I dare say you would like to take a peep at the
divinity of the temple. You need not look up at the heavens; his
Sunship is not there -- at least not the Sunship adored by the
Syrians. That deity will be found in the interior of yonder building.
He is worshipped under the figure of a large stone pillar terminating
at the summit in a cone or pyramid, whereby is denoted Fire.
"Hark -- behold! -- who can those ridiculous beings be, half naked,
with their faces painted, shouting and gesticulating to the rabble?"
Some few are mountebanks. Others more particularly belong to the race
of philosophers. The greatest portion, however -- those especially
who belabor the populace with clubs -- are the principal courtiers of
the palace, executing as in duty bound, some laudable comicality of
the king's.
"But what have we here? Heavens! the town is swarming with wild
beasts! How terrible a spectacle! -- how dangerous a peculiarity!"
Terrible, if you please; but not in the least degree dangerous. Each
animal if you will take the pains to observe, is following, very
quietly, in the wake of its master. Some few, to be sure, are led
with a rope about the neck, but these are chiefly the lesser or timid
species. The lion, the tiger, and the leopard are entirely without
restraint. They have been trained without difficulty to their present
profession, and attend upon their respective owners in the capacity
of valets-de-chambre. It is true, there are occasions when Nature
asserts her violated dominions; -- but then the devouring of a
man-at-arms, or the throttling of a consecrated bull, is a
circumstance of too little moment to be more than hinted at in
Epidaphne.
"But what extraordinary tumult do I hear? Surely this is a loud noise
even for Antioch! It argues some commotion of unusual interest."
Yes -- undoubtedly. The king has ordered some novel spectacle -- some
gladiatorial exhibition at the hippodrome -- or perhaps the massacre
of the Scythian prisoners -- or the conflagration of his new palace
-- or the tearing down of a handsome temple -- or, indeed, a bonfire
of a few Jews. The uproar increases. Shouts of laughter ascend the
skies. The air becomes dissonant with wind instruments, and horrible
with clamor of a million throats. Let us descend, for the love of
fun, and see what is going on! This way -- be careful! Here we are in
the principal street, which is called the street of Timarchus. The
sea of people is coming this way, and we shall find a difficulty in
stemming the tide. They are pouring through the alley of Heraclides,
which leads directly from the palace; -- therefore the king is most
probably among the rioters. Yes; -- I hear the shouts of the herald
proclaiming his approach in the pompous phraseology of the East. We
shall have a glimpse of his person as he passes by the temple of
Ashimah. Let us ensconce ourselves in the vestibule of the sanctuary;
he will be here anon. In the meantime let us survey this image. What
is it? Oh! it is the god Ashimah in proper person. You perceive,
however, that he is neither a lamb, nor a goat, nor a satyr, neither
has he much resemblance to the Pan of the Arcadians. Yet all these
appearances have been given -- I beg pardon -- will be given -- by
the learned of future ages, to the Ashimah of the Syrians. Put on
your spectacles, and tell me what it is. What is it?
"Bless me! it is an ape!"
True -- a baboon; but by no means the less a deity. His name is a
derivation of the Greek Simia -- what great fools are antiquarians!
But see! -- see! -- yonder scampers a ragged little urchin. Where is
he going? What is he bawling about? What does he say? Oh! he says the
king is coming in triumph; that he is dressed in state; that he has
just finished putting to death, with his own hand, a thousand chained
Israelitish prisoners! For this exploit the ragamuffin is lauding him
to the skies. Hark! here comes a troop of a similar description. They
have made a Latin hymn upon the valor of the king, and are singing it
as they go:
Mille, mille, mille,
Mille, mille, mille,
Decollavimus, unus homo!
Mille, mille, mille, mille, decollavimus!
Mille, mille, mille,
Vivat qui mille mille occidit!
Tantum vini habet nemo
Quantum sanguinis effudit!{*1}
Which may be thus paraphrased:
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
We, with one warrior, have slain!
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand, a thousand.
Sing a thousand over again!
Soho! -- let us sing
Long life to our king,
Who knocked over a thousand so fine!
Soho! -- let us roar,
He has given us more
Red gallons of gore
Than all Syria can furnish of wine!
"Do you hear that flourish of trumpets?"
Yes: the king is coming! See! the people are aghast with admiration,
and lift up their eyes to the heavens in reverence. He comes; -- he
is coming; -- there he is!
"Who? -- where? -- the king? -- do not behold him -- cannot say that
I perceive him."
Then you must be blind.
"Very possible. Still I see nothing but a tumultuous mob of idiots
and madmen, who are busy in prostrating themselves before a gigantic
cameleopard, and endeavoring to obtain a kiss of the animal's hoofs.
See! the beast has very justly kicked one of the rabble over -- and
another -- and another -- and another. Indeed, I cannot help admiring
the animal for the excellent use he is making of his feet."
Rabble, indeed! -- why these are the noble and free citizens of
Epidaphne! Beasts, did you say? -- take care that you are not
overheard. Do you not perceive that the animal has the visage of a
man? Why, my dear sir, that cameleopard is no other than Antiochus
Epiphanes, Antiochus the Illustrious, King of Syria, and the most
potent of all the autocrats of the East! It is true, that he is
entitled, at times, Antiochus Epimanes -- Antiochus the madman -- but
that is because all people have not the capacity to appreciate his
merits. It is also certain that he is at present ensconced in the
hide of a beast, and is doing his best to play the part of a
cameleopard; but this is done for the better sustaining his dignity
as king. Besides, the monarch is of gigantic stature, and the dress
is therefore neither unbecoming nor over large. We may, however,
presume he would not have adopted it but for some occasion of
especial state. Such, you will allow, is the massacre of a thousand
Jews. With how superior a dignity the monarch perambulates on all
fours! His tail, you perceive, is held aloft by his two principal
concubines, Elline and Argelais; and his whole appearance would be
infinitely prepossessing, were it not for the protuberance of his
eyes, which will certainly start out of his head, and the queer color
of his face, which has become nondescript from the quantity of wine
he has swallowed. Let us follow him to the hippodrome, whither he is
proceeding, and listen to the song of triumph which he is commencing:
Who is king but Epiphanes?
Say -- do you know?
Who is king but Epiphanes?
Bravo! -- bravo!
There is none but Epiphanes,
No -- there is none:
So tear down the temples,
And put out the sun!
Well and strenuously sung! The populace are hailing him 'Prince of
Poets,' as well as 'Glory of the East,' 'Delight of the Universe,'
and 'Most Remarkable of Cameleopards.' They have encored his
effusion, and do you hear? -- he is singing it over again. When he
arrives at the hippodrome, he will be crowned with the poetic wreath,
in anticipation of his victory at the approaching Olympics.
"But, good Jupiter! what is the matter in the crowd behind us?"
Behind us, did you say? -- oh! ah! -- I perceive. My friend, it is
well that you spoke in time. Let us get into a place of safety as
soon as possible. Here! -- let us conceal ourselves in the arch of
this aqueduct, and I will inform you presently of the origin of the
commotion. It has turned out as I have been anticipating. The
singular appearance of the cameleopard and the head of a man, has, it
seems, given offence to the notions of propriety entertained, in
general, by the wild animals domesticated in the city. A mutiny has
been the result; and, as is usual upon such occasions, all human
efforts will be of no avail in quelling the mob. Several of the
Syrians have already been devoured; but the general voice of the
four-footed patriots seems to be for eating up the cameleopard. 'The
Prince of Poets,' therefore, is upon his hinder legs, running for his
life. His courtiers have left him in the lurch, and his concubines
have followed so excellent an example. 'Delight of the Universe,'
thou art in a sad predicament! 'Glory of the East,' thou art in
danger of mastication! Therefore never regard so piteously thy tail;
it will undoubtedly be draggled in the mud, and for this there is no
help. Look not behind thee, then, at its unavoidable degradation; but
take courage, ply thy legs with vigor, and scud for the hippodrome!
Remember that thou art Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus the
Illustrious! -- also 'Prince of Poets,' 'Glory of the East,' 'Delight
of the Universe,' and 'Most Remarkable of Cameleopards!' Heavens!
what a power of speed thou art displaying! What a capacity for
leg-bail thou art developing! Run, Prince! -- Bravo, Epiphanes! Well
done, Cameleopard! -- Glorious Antiochus! -- He runs! -- he leaps! --
he flies! Like an arrow from a catapult he approaches the hippodrome!
He leaps! -- he shrieks! -- he is there! This is well; for hadst
thou, 'Glory of the East,' been half a second longer in reaching the
gates of the Amphitheatre, there is not a bear's cub in Epidaphne
that would not have had a nibble at thy carcase. Let us be off -- let
us take our departure! -- for we shall find our delicate modern ears
unable to endure the vast uproar which is about to commence in
celebration of the king's escape! Listen! it has already commenced.
See! -- the whole town is topsy-turvy.
"Surely this is the most populous city of the East! What a wilderness
of people! what a jumble of all ranks and ages! what a multiplicity
of sects and nations! what a variety of costumes! what a Babel of
languages! what a screaming of beasts! what a tinkling of
instruments! what a parcel of philosophers!"
Come let us be off.
"Stay a moment! I see a vast hubbub in the hippodrome; what is the
meaning of it, I beseech you?"
That? -- oh, nothing! The noble and free citizens of Epidaphne being,
as they declare, well satisfied of the faith, valor, wisdom, and
divinity of their king, and having, moreover, been eye-witnesses of
his late superhuman agility, do think it no more than their duty to
invest his brows (in addition to the poetic crown) with the wreath of
victory in the footrace -- a wreath which it is evident he must
obtain at the celebration of the next Olympiad, and which, therefore,
they now give him in advance.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
Footnotes -- Four Beasts
{*1} Flavius Vospicus says, that the hymn here introduced was sung by
the rabble upon the occasion of Aurelian, in the Sarmatic war, having
slain, with his own hand, nine hundred and fifty of the enemy.
==========
THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid
himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond
_all_ conjecture.
--_Sir Thomas Browne._
The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in
themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them
only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they
are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source
of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical
ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into
action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which
_disentangles._ He derives pleasure from even the most trivial
occupations bringing his talent into play. He is fond of enigmas, of
conundrums, of hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a
degree of _acumen_ which appears to the ordinary apprehension
præternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and
essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition.
The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by
mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it
which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde operations,
has been called, as if _par excellence_, analysis. Yet to calculate
is not in itself to analyse. A chess-player, for example, does the
one without effort at the other. It follows that the game of chess,
in its effects upon mental character, is greatly misunderstood. I am
not now writing a treatise, but simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar
narrative by observations very much at random; I will, therefore,
take occasion to assert that the higher powers of the reflective
intellect are more decidedly and more usefully tasked by the
unostentatious game of draughts than by a the elaborate frivolity of
chess. In this latter, where the pieces have different and _bizarre_
motions, with various and variable values, what is only complex is
mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The _attention_
is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for an instant, an
oversight is committed resulting in injury or defeat. The possible
moves being not only manifold but involute, the chances of such
oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases out of ten it is the
more concentrative rather than the more acute player who conquers. In
draughts, on the contrary, where the moves are _unique_ and have but
little variation, the probabilities of inadvertence are diminished,
and the mere attention being left comparatively unemployed, what
advantages are obtained by either party are obtained by superior
_acumen_. To be less abstract - Let us suppose a game of draughts
where the pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no
oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory can
be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some _recherché_
movement, the result of some strong exertion of the intellect.
Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws himself into the
spirit of his opponent, identifies himself therewith, and not
unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole methods (sometime
indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may seduce into error or
hurry into miscalculation.
Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed the
calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect have
been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in it, while
eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is nothing of a
similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of analysis. The best
chess-player in Christendom _may_ be little more than the best player
of chess; but proficiency in whist implies capacity for success in
all those more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind.
When I say proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which
includes a comprehension of _all_ the sources whence legitimate
advantage may be derived. These are not only manifold but multiform,
and lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible
to the ordinary understanding. To observe attentively is to remember
distinctly; and, so far, the concentrative chess-player will do very
well at whist; while the rules of Hoyle (themselves based upon the
mere mechanism of the game) are sufficiently and generally
comprehensible. Thus to have a retentive memory, and to proceed by
"the book," are points commonly regarded as the sum total of good
playing. But it is in matters beyond the limits of mere rule that the
skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in silence, a host of
observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do his companions; and the
difference in the extent of the information obtained, lies not so
much in the validity of the inference as in the quality of the
observation. The necessary knowledge is that of _what_ to observe.
Our player confines himself not at all; nor, because the game is the
object, does he reject deductions from things external to the game.
He examines the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully
with that of each of his opponents. He considers the mode of
assorting the cards in each hand; often counting trump by trump, and
honor by honor, through the glances bestowed by their holders upon
each. He notes every variation of face as the play progresses,
gathering a fund of thought from the differences in the expression of
certainty, of surprise, of triumph, or of chagrin. From the manner of
gathering up a trick he judges whether the person taking it can make
another in the suit. He recognises what is played through feint, by
the air with which it is thrown upon the table. A casual or
inadvertent word; the accidental dropping or turning of a card, with
the accompanying anxiety or carelessness in regard to its
concealment; the counting of the tricks, with the order of their
arrangement; embarrassment, hesitation, eagerness or trepidation -
all afford, to his apparently intuitive perception, indications of
the true state of affairs. The first two or three rounds having been
played, he is in full possession of the contents of each hand, and
thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision of
purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the faces of
their own.
The analytical power should not be confounded with ample ingenuity;
for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the ingenious man is
often remarkably incapable of analysis. The constructive or combining
power, by which ingenuity is usually manifested, and to which the
phrenologists (I believe erroneously) have assigned a separate organ,
supposing it a primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in
those whose intellect bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have
attracted general observation among writers on morals. Between
ingenuity and the analytic ability there exists a difference far
greater, indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but
of a character very strictly analogous. It will be found, in fact,
that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the _truly_ imaginative
never otherwise than analytic.
The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in the
light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.
Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of 18--, I
there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin. This young
gentleman was of an excellent - indeed of an illustrious family, but,
by a variety of untoward events, had been reduced to such poverty
that the energy of his character succumbed beneath it, and he ceased
to bestir himself in the world, or to care for the retrieval of his
fortunes. By courtesy of his creditors, there still remained in his
possession a small remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income
arising from this, he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to
procure the necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its
superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in Paris
these are easily obtained.
Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue Montmartre,
where the accident of our both being in search of the same very rare
and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer communion. We saw
each other again and again. I was deeply interested in the little
family history which he detailed to me with all that candor which a
Frenchman indulges whenever mere self is his theme. I was astonished,
too, at the vast extent of his reading; and, above all, I felt my
soul enkindled within me by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness
of his imagination. Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I
felt that the societyof such a man would be to me a treasure beyond
price; and this feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length
arranged that we should live together during my stay in the city; and
as my worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his
own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and furnishing
in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of our common
temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long deserted through
superstitions into which we did not inquire, and tottering to its
fall in a retired and desolate portion of the Faubourg St. Germain.
Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the world, we
should have been regarded as madmen - although, perhaps, as madmen of
a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We admitted no
visitors. Indeed the locality of our retirement had been carefully
kept a secret from my own former associates; and it had been many
years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known in Paris. We existed
within ourselves alone.
It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call it?)
to be enamored of the Night for her own sake; and into this
_bizarrerie_, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving myself
up to his wild whims with a perfect _abandon_. The sable divinity
would not herself dwell with us always; but we could counterfeit her
presence. At the first dawn of the morning we closed all the messy
shutters of our old building; lighting a couple of tapers which,
strongly perfumed, threw out only the ghastliest and feeblest of
rays. By the aid of these we then busied our souls in dreams -
reading, writing, or conversing, until warned by the clock of the
advent of the true Darkness. Then we sallied forth into the streets
arm in arm, continuing the topics of the day, or roaming far and wide
until a late hour, seeking, amid the wild lights and shadows of the
populous city, that infinity of mental excitement which quiet
observation can afford.
At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although from
his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a peculiar
analytic ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an eager delight
in its exercise - if not exactly in its display - and did not
hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived. He boastedto me, with
a low chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to himself, wore
windows in their bosoms, and was wont to follow up such assertions by
direct and very startling proofs of his intimate knowledge of my own.
His manner at these moments was frigid and abstract; his eyes were
vacant in expression; while his voice, usually a rich tenor, rose
into a treble which would have sounded petulantly but for the
deliberateness and entire distinctness of the enunciation. Observing
him in these moods, I often dwelt meditatively upon the old
philosophy of the Bi-Part Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a
double Dupin - the creative and the resolvent.
Let it not be supposed, from what I have just said, that I am
detailing any mystery, or penning any romance. What I have described
in the Frenchman, was merely the result of an excited, or perhaps of
a diseased intelligence. But of the character of his remarks at the
periods in question an example will best convey the idea.
We were strolling one night down a long dirty street in the vicinity
of the Palais Royal. Being both, apparently, occupied with thought,
neither of us had spoken a syllable for fifteen minutes at least. All
at once Dupin broke forth with these words:
"He is a very little fellow, that's true, and would do better for the
_Théâtre des Variétés_."
"There can be no doubt of that," I replied unwittingly, and not at
first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection) the
extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in with my
meditations. In an instant afterward I recollected myself, and my
astonishment was profound.
"Dupin," said I, gravely, "this is beyond my comprehension. I do not
hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my senses.
How was it possible you should know I was thinking of ----- ?" Here I
paused, to ascertain beyond a doubt whether he really knew of whom I
thought.
-- "of Chantilly," said he, "why do you pause? You were remarking to
yourself that his diminutive figure unfitted him for tragedy."
This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflections.
Chantilly was a _quondam_ cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who, becoming
stage-mad, had attempted the _rôle_ of Xerxes, in Crébillon's tragedy
so called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded for his pains.
"Tell me, for Heaven's sake," I exclaimed, "the method - if method
there is - by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this
matter." In fact I was even more startled than I would have been
willing to express.
"It was the fruiterer," replied my friend, "who brought you to the
conclusion that the mender of soles was not of sufficient height for
Xerxes _et id genus omne_."
"The fruiterer! - you astonish me - I know no fruiterer whomsoever."
"The man who ran up against you as we entered the street - it may
have been fifteen minutes ago."
I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his head a
large basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by accident, as we
passed from the Rue C ---- into the thoroughfare where we stood; but
what this had to do with Chantilly I could not possibly understand.
There was not a particle of _charlâtanerie_ about Dupin. "I will
explain," he said, "and that you may comprehend all clearly, we will
first retrace the course of your meditations, from the moment in
which I spoke to you until that of the _rencontre_ with the fruiterer
in question. The larger links of the chain run thus - Chantilly,
Orion, Dr. Nichols, Epicurus, Stereotomy, the street stones, the
fruiterer."
There are few persons who have not, at some period of their lives,
amused themselves in retracing the steps by which particular
conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The occupation is
often full of interest and he who attempts it for the first time is
astonished by the apparently illimitable distance and incoherence
between the starting-point and the goal. What, then, must have been
my amazement when I heard the Frenchman speak what he had just
spoken, and when I could not help acknowledging that he had spoken
the truth. He continued:
"We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before
leaving the Rue C ---- . This was the last subject we discussed. As
we crossed into this street, a fruiterer, with a large basket upon
his head, brushing quickly past us, thrust you upon a pile of paving
stones collected at a spot where the causeway is undergoing repair.
You stepped upon one of the loose fragments, slipped, slightly
strained your ankle, appeared vexed or sulky, muttered a few words,
turned to look at the pile, and then proceeded in silence. I was not
particularly attentive to what you did; but observation has become
with me, of late, a species of necessity.
"You kept your eyes upon the ground - glancing, with a petulant
expression, at the holes and ruts in the pavement, (so that I saw you
were still thinking of the stones,) until we reached the little alley
called Lamartine, which has been paved, by way of experiment, with
the overlapping and riveted blocks. Here your countenance brightened
up, and, perceiving your lips move, I could not doubt that you
murmured the word 'stereotomy,' a term very affectedly applied to
this species of pavement. I knew that you could not say to yourself
'stereotomy' without being brought to think of atomies, and thus of
the theories of Epicurus; and since, when we discussed this subject
not very long ago, I mentioned to you how singularly, yet with how
little notice, the vague guesses of that noble Greek had met with
confirmation in the late nebular cosmogony, I felt that you could not
avoid casting your eyes upward to the great _nebula_ in Orion, and I
certainly expected that you would do so. You did look up; and I was
now assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But in that
bitter _tirade_ upon Chantilly, which appeared in yesterday's
'_Musée_,' the satirist, making some disgraceful allusions to the
cobbler s change of name upon assuming the buskin, quoted a Latin
line about which we have often conversed. I mean the line
Perdidit antiquum litera sonum.
I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly written
Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this explanation,
I was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It was clear,
therefore, that you would not fail to combine the two ideas of Orion
and Chantilly. That you did combine them I saw by the character of
the smile which passed over your lips. You thought of the poor
cobbler's immolation. So far, you had been stooping in your gait; but
now I saw you draw yourself up to your full height. I was then sure
that you reflected upon the diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this
point I interrupted your meditations to remark that as, in fact, he
was a very little fellow - that Chantilly - he would do better at the
_Théâtre des Variétés_."
Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition of the
"Gazette des Tribunaux," when the following paragraphs arrested our
attention.
"EXTRAORDINARY MURDERS. - This morning, about three o'clock, the
inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused from sleep by a
succession of terrific shrieks, issuing, apparently, from the fourth
story of a house in the Rue Morgue, known to be in the sole occupancy
of one Madame L'Espanaye, and her daughter Mademoiselle Camille
L'Espanaye. After some delay, occasioned by a fruitless attempt to
procure admission in the usual manner, the gateway was broken in with
a crowbar, and eight or ten of the neighbors entered accompanied by
two _gendarmes_. By this time the cries had ceased; but, as the party
rushed up the first flight of stairs, two or more rough voices in
angry contention were distinguished and seemed to proceed from the
upper part of the house. As the second landing was reached, these
sounds, also, had ceased and everything remained perfectly quiet. The
party spread themselves and hurried from room to room. Upon arriving
at a large back chamber in the fourth story, (the door of which,
being found locked, with the key inside, was forced open,) a
spectacle presented itself which struck every one present not less
with horror than with astonishment.
"The apartment was in the wildest disorder - the furniture broken and
thrown about in all directions. There was only one bedstead; and from
this the bed had been removed, and thrown into the middle of the
floor. On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with blood. On the hearth
were two or three long and thick tresses of grey human hair, also
dabbled in blood, and seeming to have been pulled out by the roots.
Upon the floor were found four Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three
large silver spoons, three smaller of_ métal d'Alger_, and two bags,
containing nearly four thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a
_bureau_, which stood in one corner were open, and had been,
apparently, rifled, although many articles still remained in them. A
small iron safe was discovered under the _bed_ (not under the
bedstead). It was open, with the key still in the door. It had no
contents beyond a few old letters, and other papers of little
consequence.
"Of Madame L'Espanaye no traces were here seen; but an unusual
quantity of soot being observed in the fire-place, a search was made
in the chimney, and (horrible to relate!) the corpse of the
daughter, head downward, was dragged therefrom; it having been thus
forced up the narrow aperture for a considerable distance. The body
was quite warm. Upon examining it, many excoriations were perceived,
no doubt occasioned by the violence with which it had been thrust up
and disengaged. Upon the face were many severe scratches, and, upon
the throat, dark bruises, and deep indentations of finger nails, as
if the deceased had been throttled to death.
"After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house,
without farther discovery, the party made its way into a small paved
yard in the rear of the building, where lay the corpse of the old
lady, with her throat so entirely cut that, upon an attempt to raise
her, the head fell off. The body, as well as the head, was fearfully
mutilated - the former so much so as scarcely to retain any semblance
of humanity.
"To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the
slightest clew."
The next day's paper had these additional particulars.
"_The Tragedy in the Rue Morgue._ Many individuals have been examined
in relation to this most extraordinary and frightful affair. [The
word 'affaire' has not yet, in France, that levity of import which it
conveys with us,] "but nothing whatever has transpired to throw light
upon it. We give below all the material testimony elicited.
"_Pauline Dubourg_, laundress, deposes that she has known both the
deceased for three years, having washed for them during that period.
The old lady and her daughter seemed on good terms - very
affectionate towards each other. They were excellent pay. Could not
speak in regard to their mode or means of living. Believed that
Madame L. told fortunes for a living. Was reputed to have money put
by. Never met any persons in the house when she called for the
clothes or took them home. Was sure that they had no servant in
employ. There appeared to be no furniture in any part of the building
except in the fourth story.
"_Pierre Moreau_, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the habit
of selling small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame L'Espanaye
for nearly four years. Was born in the neighborhood, and has always
resided there. The deceased and her daughter had occupied the house
in which the corpses were found, for more than six years. It was
formerly occupied by a jeweller, who under-let the upper rooms to
various persons. The house was the property of Madame L. She became
dissatisfied with the abuse of the premises by her tenant, and moved
into them herself, refusing to let any portion. The old lady was
childish. Witness had seen the daughter some five or six times during
the six years. The two lived an exceedingly retired life - were
reputed to have money. Had heard it said among the neighbors that
Madame L. told fortunes - did not believe it. Had never seen any
person enter the door except the old lady and her daughter, a porter
once or twice, and a physician some eight or ten times.
"Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same effect. No
one was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known whether
there were any living connexions of Madame L. and her daughter. The
shutters of the front windows were seldom opened. Those in the rear
were always closed, with the exception of the large back room, fourth
story. The house was a good house - not very old.
"_Isidore Muset_, _gendarme_, deposes that he was called to the house
about three o'clock in the morning, and found some twenty or thirty
persons at the gateway, endeavoring to gain admittance. Forced it
open, at length, with a bayonet - not with a crowbar. Had but little
difficulty in getting it open, on account of its being a double or
folding gate, and bolted neither at bottom not top. The shrieks were
continued until the gate was forced - and then suddenly ceased. They
seemed to be screams of some person (or persons) in great agony -
were loud and drawn out, not short and quick. Witness led the way up
stairs. Upon reaching the first landing, heard two voices in loud and
angry contention - the one a gruff voice, the other much shriller - a
very strange voice. Could distinguish some words of the former, which
was that of a Frenchman. Was positive that it was not a woman's
voice. Could distinguish the words '_sacré_' and '_diable._' The
shrill voice was that of a foreigner. Could not be sure whether it
was the voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make out what was
said, but believed the language to be Spanish. The state of the room
and of the bodies was described by this witness as we described them
yesterday.
"_Henri Duval_, a neighbor, and by trade a silver-smith, deposes that
he was one of the party who first entered the house. Corroborates the
testimony of Musèt in general. As soon as they forced an entrance,
they reclosed the door, to keep out the crowd, which collected very
fast, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. The shrill voice,
this witness thinks, was that of an Italian. Was certain it was not
French. Could not be sure that it was a man's voice. It might have
been a woman's. Was not acquainted with the Italian language. Could
not distinguish the words, but was convinced by the intonation that
the speaker was an Italian. Knew Madame L. and her daughter. Had
conversed with both frequently. Was sure that the shrill voice was
not that of either of the deceased.
"-- _Odenheimer, restaurateur._ This witness volunteered his
testimony. Not speaking French, was examined through an interpreter.
Is a native of Amsterdam. Was passing the house at the time of the
shrieks. They lasted for several minutes - probably ten. They were
long and loud - very awful and distressing. Was one of those who
entered the building. Corroborated the previous evidence in every
respect but one. Was sure that the shrill voice was that of a man -
of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish the words uttered. They were
loud and quick - unequal - spoken apparently in fear as well as in
anger. The voice was harsh - not so much shrill as harsh. Could not
call it a shrill voice. The gruff voice said repeatedly '_sacré_,'
'_diable_,' and once '_mon Dieu._'
"_Jules Mignaud_, banker, of the firm of Mignaud et Fils, Rue
Deloraine. Is the elder Mignaud. Madame L'Espanaye had some property.
Had opened an account with his banking house in the spring of the
year - (eight years previously). Made frequent deposits in small
sums. Had checked for nothing until the third day before her death,
when she took out in person the sum of 4000 francs. This sum was paid
in gold, and a clerk went home with the money.
"_Adolphe Le Bon_, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the day
in question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L'Espanaye to her
residence with the 4000 francs, put up in two bags. Upon the door
being opened, Mademoiselle L. appeared and took from his hands one of
the bags, while the old lady relieved him of the other. He then bowed
and departed. Did not see any person in the street at the time. It is
a bye-street - very lonely.
"_William Bird_, tailor deposes that he was one of the party who
entered the house. Is an Englishman. Has lived in Paris two years.
Was one of the first to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in
contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Could make out
several words, but cannot now remember all. Heard distinctly
'_sacré_' and '_mon Dieu._' There was a sound at the moment as if of
several persons struggling - a scraping and scuffling sound. The
shrill voice was very loud - louder than the gruff one. Is sure that
it was not the voice of an Englishman. Appeared to be that of a
German. Might have been a woman's voice. Does not understand German.
"Four of the above-named witnesses, being recalled, deposed that the
door of the chamber in which was found the body of Mademoiselle L.
was locked on the inside when the party reached it. Every thing was
perfectly silent - no groans or noises of any kind. Upon forcing the
door no person was seen. The windows, both of the back and front
room, were down and firmly fastened from within. A door between the
two rooms was closed, but not locked. The door leading from the front
room into the passage was locked, with the key on the inside. A small
room in the front of the house, on the fourth story, at the head of
the passage was open, the door being ajar. This room was crowded with
old beds, boxes, and so forth. These were carefully removed and
searched. There was not an inch of any portion of the house which was
not carefully searched. Sweeps were sent up and down the chimneys.
The house was a four story one, with garrets (_mansardes._) A
trap-door on the roof was nailed down very securely - did not appear
to have been opened for years. The time elapsing between the hearing
of the voices in contention and the breaking open of the room door,
was variously stated by the witnesses. Some made it as short as three
minutes - some as long as five. The door was opened with difficulty.
"_Alfonzo Garcio_, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the Rue
Morgue. Is a native of Spain. Was one of the party who entered the
house. Did not proceed up stairs. Is nervous, and was apprehensive of
the consequences of agitation. Heard the voices in contention. The
gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish what was
said. The shrill voice was that of an Englishman - is sure of this.
Does not understand the English language, but judges by the
intonation.
"_Alberto Montani_, confectioner, deposes that he was among the first
to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in question. The gruff voice
was that of a Frenchman. Distinguished several words. The speaker
appeared to be expostulating. Could not make out the words of the
shrill voice. Spoke quick and unevenly. Thinks it the voice of a
Russian. Corroborates the general testimony. Is an Italian. Never
conversed with a native of Russia.
"Several witnesses, recalled, here testified that the chimneys of all
the rooms on the fourth story were too narrow to admit the passage of
a human being. By 'sweeps' were meant cylindrical sweeping brushes,
such as are employed by those who clean chimneys. These brushes were
passed up and down every flue in the house. There is no back passage
by which any one could have descended while the party proceeded up
stairs. The body of Mademoiselle L'Espanaye was so firmly wedged in
the chimney that it could not be got down until four or five of the
party united their strength.
"_Paul Dumas_, physician, deposes that he was called to view the
bodies about day-break. They were both then lying on the sacking of
the bedstead in the chamber where Mademoiselle L. was found. The
corpse of the young lady was much bruised and excoriated. The fact
that it had been thrust up the chimney would sufficiently account for
these appearances. The throat was greatly chafed. There were several
deep scratches just below the chin, together with a series of livid
spots which were evidently the impression of fingers. The face was
fearfully discolored, and the eye-balls protruded. The tongue had
been partially bitten through. A large bruise was discovered upon the
pit of the stomach, produced, apparently, by the pressure of a knee.
In the opinion of M. Dumas, Mademoiselle L'Espanaye had been
throttled to death by some person or persons unknown. The corpse of
the mother was horribly mutilated. All the bones of the right leg and
arm were more or less shattered. The left _tibia_ much splintered, as
well as all the ribs of the left side. Whole body dreadfully bruised
and discolored. It was not possible to say how the injuries had been
inflicted. A heavy club of wood, or a broad bar of iron - a chair -
any large, heavy, and obtuse weapon would have produced such results,
if wielded by the hands of a very powerful man. No woman could have
inflicted the blows with any weapon. The head of the deceased, when
seen by witness, was entirely separated from the body, and was also
greatly shattered. The throat had evidently been cut with some very
sharp instrument - probably with a razor.
"_Alexandre Etienne_, surgeon, was called with M. Dumas to view the
bodies. Corroborated the testimony, and the opinions of M. Dumas.
"Nothing farther of importance was elicited, although several other
persons were examined. A murder so mysterious, and so perplexing in
all its particulars, was never before committed in Paris - if indeed
a murder has been committed at all. The police are entirely at fault
- an unusual occurrence in affairs of this nature. There is not,
however, the shadow of a clew apparent."
The evening edition of the paper stated that the greatest excitement
still continued in the Quartier St. Roch - that the premises in
question had been carefully re-searched, and fresh examinations of
witnesses instituted, but all to no purpose. A postscript, however,
mentioned that Adolphe Le Bon had been arrested and imprisoned -
although nothing appeared to criminate him, beyond the facts already
detailed.
Dupin seemed singularly interested in the progress of this affair --
at least so I judged from his manner, for he made no comments. It was
only after the announcement that Le Bon had been imprisoned, that he
asked me my opinion respecting the murders.
I could merely agree with all Paris in considering them an insoluble
mystery. I saw no means by which it would be possible to trace the
murderer.
"We must not judge of the means," said Dupin, "by this shell of an
examination. The Parisian police, so much extolled for _acumen_, are
cunning, but no more. There is no method in their proceedings, beyond
the method of the moment. They make a vast parade of measures; but,
not unfrequently, these are so ill adapted to the objects proposed,
as to put us in mind of Monsieur Jourdain's calling for his
_robe-de-chambre - pour mieux entendre la musique._ The results
attained by them are not unfrequently surprising, but, for the most
part, are brought about by simple diligence and activity. When these
qualities are unavailing, their schemes fail. Vidocq, for example,
was a good guesser and a persevering man. But, without educated
thought, he erred continually by the very intensity of his
investigations. He impaired his vision by holding the object too
close. He might see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual
clearness, but in so doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter
as a whole. Thus there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth
is not always in a well. In fact, as regards the more important
knowledge, I do believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth
lies in the valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops
where she is found. The modes and sources of this kind of error are
well typified in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies. To look at
a star by glances - to view it in a side-long way, by turning toward
it the exterior portions of the _retina_ (more susceptible of feeble
impressions of light than the interior), is to behold the star
distinctly - is to have the best appreciation of its lustre - a
lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn our vision
_fully_ upon it. A greater number of rays actually fall upon the eye
in the latter case, but, in the former, there is the more refined
capacity for comprehension. By undue profundity we perplex and
enfeeble thought; and it is possible to make even Venus herself
vanish from the firmanent by a scrutiny too sustained, too
concentrated, or too direct.
"As for these murders, let us enter into some examinations for
ourselves, before we make up an opinion respecting them. An inquiry
will afford us amusement," [I thought this an odd term, so applied,
but said nothing] "and, besides, Le Bon once rendered me a service
for which I am not ungrateful. We will go and see the premises with
our own eyes. I know G----, the Prefect of Police, and shall have no
difficulty in obtaining the necessary permission."
The permission was obtained, and we proceeded at once to the Rue
Morgue. This is one of those miserable thoroughfares which intervene
between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue St. Roch. It was late in the
afternoon when we reached it; as this quarter is at a great distance
from that in which we resided. The house was readily found; for there
were still many persons gazing up at the closed shutters, with an
objectless curiosity, from the opposite side of the way. It was an
ordinary Parisian house, with a gateway, on one side of which was a
glazed watch-box, with a sliding panel in the window, indicating a
_loge de concierge._ Before going in we walked up the street, turned
down an alley, and then, again turning, passed in the rear of the
building - Dupin, meanwhile examining the whole neighborhood, as well
as the house, with a minuteness of attention for which I could see no
possible object.
Retracing our steps, we came again to the front of the dwelling,
rang, and, having shown our credentials, were admitted by the agents
in charge. We went up stairs - into the chamber where the body of
Mademoiselle L'Espanaye had been found, and where both the deceased
still lay. The disorders of the room had, as usual, been suffered to
exist. I saw nothing beyond what had been stated in the "Gazette des
Tribunaux." Dupin scrutinized every thing - not excepting the bodies
of the victims. We then went into the other rooms, and into the yard;
a _gendarme_ accompanying us throughout. The examination occupied us
until dark, when we took our departure. On our way home my companion
stepped in for a moment at the office of one of the daily papers.
I have said that the whims of my friend were manifold, and that _Je
les ménagais_: - for this phrase there is no English equivalent. It
was his humor, now, to decline all conversation on the subject of the
murder, until about noon the next day. He then asked me, suddenly, if
I had observed any thing _peculiar_ at the scene of the atrocity.
There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word "peculiar,"
which caused me to shudder, without knowing why.
"No, nothing _peculiar_," I said; "nothing more, at least, than we
both saw stated in the paper."
"The 'Gazette,' " he replied, "has not entered, I fear, into the
unusual horror of the thing. But dismiss the idle opinions of this
print. It appears to me that this mystery is considered insoluble,
for the very reason which should cause it to be regarded as easy of
solution - I mean for the _outré_ character of its features. The
police are confounded by the seeming absence of motive - not for the
murder itself - but for the atrocity of the murder. They are puzzled,
too, by the seeming impossibility of reconciling the voices heard in
contention, with the facts that no one was discovered up stairs but
the assassinated Mademoiselle L'Espanaye, and that there were no
means of egress without the notice of the party ascending. The wild
disorder of the room; the corpse thrust, with the head downward, up
the chimney; the frightful mutilation of the body of the old lady;
these considerations, with those just mentioned, and others which I
need not mention, have sufficed to paralyze the powers, by putting
completely at fault the boasted _acumen_, of the government agents.
They have fallen into the gross but common error of confounding the
unusual with the abstruse. But it is by these deviations from the
plane of the ordinary, that reason feels its way, if at all, in its
search for the true. In investigations such as we are now pursuing,
it should not be so much asked 'what has occurred,' as 'what has
occurred that has never occurred before.' In fact, the facility with
which I shall arrive, or have arrived, at the solution of this
mystery, is in the direct ratio of its apparent insolubility in the
eyes of the police."
I stared at the speaker in mute astonishment.
"I am now awaiting," continued he, looking toward the door of our
apartment - "I am now awaiting a person who, although perhaps not the
perpetrator of these butcheries, must have been in some measure
implicated in their perpetration. Of the worst portion of the crimes
committed, it is probable that he is innocent. I hope that I am right
in this supposition; for upon it I build my expectation of reading
the entire riddle. I look for the man here - in this room - every
moment. It is true that he may not arrive; but the probability is
that he will. Should he come, it will be necessary to detain him.
Here are pistols; and we both know how to use them when occasion
demands their use."
I took the pistols, scarcely knowing what I did, or believing what I
heard, while Dupin went on, very much as if in a soliloquy. I have
already spoken of his abstract manner at such times. His discourse
was addressed to myself; but his voice, although by no means loud,
had that intonation which is commonly employed in speaking to some
one at a great distance. His eyes, vacant in expression, regarded
only the wall.
"That the voices heard in contention," he said, "by the party upon
the stairs, were not the voices of the women themselves, was fully
proved by the evidence. This relieves us of all doubt upon the
question whether the old lady could have first destroyed the daughter
and afterward have committed suicide. I speak of this point chiefly
for the sake of method; for the strength of Madame L'Espanaye would
have been utterly unequal to the task of thrusting her daughter's
corpse up the chimney as it was found; and the nature of the wounds
upon her own person entirely preclude the idea of self-destruction.
Murder, then, has been committed by some third party; and the voices
of this third party were those heard in contention. Let me now advert
- not to the whole testimony respecting these voices - but to what
was _peculiar_ in that testimony. Did you observe any thing peculiar
about it?"
I remarked that, while all the witnesses agreed in supposing the
gruff voice to be that of a Frenchman, there was much disagreement in
regard to the shrill, or, as one individual termed it, the harsh
voice.
"That was the evidence itself," said Dupin, "but it was not the
peculiarity of the evidence. You have observed nothing distinctive.
Yet there _was_ something to be observed. The witnesses, as you
remark, agreed about the gruff voice; they were here unanimous. But
in regard to the shrill voice, the peculiarity is - not that they
disagreed - but that, while an Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard, a
Hollander, and a Frenchman attempted to describe it, each one spoke
of it as that _of a foreigner_. Each is sure that it was not the
voice of one of his own countrymen. Each likens it - not to the voice
of an individual of any nation with whose language he is conversant -
but the converse. The Frenchman supposes it the voice of a Spaniard,
and 'might have distinguished some words _had he been acquainted with
the Spanish._' The Dutchman maintains it to have been that of a
Frenchman; but we find it stated that '_not understanding French this
witness was examined through an interpreter._' The Englishman thinks
it the voice of a German, and '_does not understand German._' The
Spaniard 'is sure' that it was that of an Englishman, but 'judges by
the intonation' altogether, '_as he has no knowledge of the
English._' The Italian believes it the voice of a Russian, but '_has
never conversed with a native of Russia._' A second Frenchman
differs, moreover, with the first, and is positive that the voice was
that of an Italian; but, _not being cognizant of that tongue_, is,
like the Spaniard, 'convinced by the intonation.' Now, how strangely
unusual must that voice have really been, about which such testimony
as this _could_ have been elicited! - in whose _tones_, even,
denizens of the five great divisions of Europe could recognise
nothing familiar! You will say that it might have been the voice of
an Asiatic - of an African. Neither Asiatics nor Africans abound in
Paris; but, without denying the inference, I will now merely call
your attention to three points. The voice is termed by one witness
'harsh rather than shrill.' It is represented by two others to have
been 'quick and _unequal._' No words - no sounds resembling words -
were by any witness mentioned as distinguishable.
"I know not," continued Dupin, "what impression I may have made, so
far, upon your own understanding; but I do not hesitate to say that
legitimate deductions even from this portion of the testimony - the
portion respecting the gruff and shrill voices - are in themselves
sufficient to engender a suspicion which should give direction to all
farther progress in the investigation of the mystery. I said
'legitimate deductions;' but my meaning is not thus fully expressed.
I designed to imply that the deductions are the _sole_ proper ones,
and that the suspicion arises _inevitably_ from them as the single
result. What the suspicion is, however, I will not say just yet. I
merely wish you to bear in mind that, with myself, it was
sufficiently forcible to give a definite form - a certain tendency -
to my inquiries in the chamber.
"Let us now transport ourselves, in fancy, to this chamber. What
shall we first seek here? The means of egress employed by the
murderers. It is not too much to say that neither of us believe in
præternatural events. Madame and Mademoiselle L'Espanaye were not
destroyed by spirits. The doers of the deed were material, and
escaped materially. Then how? Fortunately, there is but one mode of
reasoning upon the point, and that mode _must_ lead us to a definite
decision. - Let us examine, each by each, the possible means of
egress. It is clear that the assassins were in the room where
Mademoiselle L'Espanaye was found, or at least in the room adjoining,
when the party ascended the stairs. It is then only from these two
apartments that we have to seek issues. The police have laid bare the
floors, the ceilings, and the masonry of the walls, in every
direction. No _secret_ issues could have escaped their vigilance.
But, not trusting to _their_ eyes, I examined with my own. There
were, then, no secret issues. Both doors leading from the rooms into
the passage were securely locked, with the keys inside. Let us turn
to the chimneys. These, although of ordinary width for some eight or
ten feet above the hearths, will not admit, throughout their extent,
the body of a large cat. The impossibility of egress, by means
already stated, being thus absolute, we are reduced to the windows.
Through those of the front room no one could have escaped without
notice from the crowd in the street. The murderers _must_ have
passed, then, through those of the back room. Now, brought to this
conclusion in so unequivocal a manner as we are, it is not our part,
as reasoners, to reject it on account of apparent impossibilities. It
is only left for us to prove that these apparent 'impossibilities'
are, in reality, not such.
"There are two windows in the chamber. One of them is unobstructed by
furniture, and is wholly visible. The lower portion of the other is
hidden from view by the head of the unwieldy bedstead which is thrust
close up against it. The former was found securely fastened from
within. It resisted the utmost force of those who endeavored to raise
it. A large gimlet-hole had been pierced in its frame to the left,
and a very stout nail was found fitted therein, nearly to the head.
Upon examining the other window, a similar nail was seen similarly
fitted in it; and a vigorous attempt to raise this sash, failed also.
The police were now entirely satisfied that egress had not been in
these directions. And, _therefore_, it was thought a matter of
supererogation to withdraw the nails and open the windows.
"My own examination was somewhat more particular, and was so for the
reason I have just given - because here it was, I knew, that all
apparent impossibilities _must_ be proved to be not such in reality.
"I proceeded to think thus - _à posteriori_. The murderers did escape
from one of these windows. This being so, they could not have
refastened the sashes from the inside, as they were found fastened; -
the consideration which put a stop, through its obviousness, to the
scrutiny of the police in this quarter. Yet the sashes _were_
fastened. They _must_, then, have the power of fastening themselves.
There was no escape from this conclusion. I stepped to the
unobstructed casement, withdrew the nail with some difficulty and
attempted to raise the sash. It resisted all my efforts, as I had
anticipated. A concealed spring must, I now know, exist; and this
corroboration of my idea convinced me that my premises at least, were
correct, however mysterious still appeared the circumstances
attending the nails. A careful search soon brought to light the
hidden spring. I pressed it, and, satisfied with the discovery,
forbore to upraise the sash.
"I now replaced the nail and regarded it attentively. A person
passing out through this window might have reclosed it, and the
spring would have caught - but the nail could not have been replaced.
The conclusion was plain, and again narrowed in the field of my
investigations. The assassins _must_ have escaped through the other
window. Supposing, then, the springs upon each sash to be the same,
as was probable, there _must_ be found a difference between the
nails, or at least between the modes of their fixture. Getting upon
the sacking of the bedstead, I looked over the head-board minutely at
the second casement. Passing my hand down behind the board, I readily
discovered and pressed the spring, which was, as I had supposed,
identical in character with its neighbor. I now looked at the nail.
It was as stout as the other, and apparently fitted in the same
manner - driven in nearly up to the head.
"You will say that I was puzzled; but, if you think so, you must have
misunderstood the nature of the inductions. To use a sporting phrase,
I had not been once 'at fault.' The scent had never for an instant
been lost. There was no flaw in any link of the chain. I had traced
the secret to its ultimate result, - and that result was _the nail._
It had, I say, in every respect, the appearance of its fellow in the
other window; but this fact was an absolute nullity (conclusive us it
might seem to be) when compared with the consideration that here, at
this point, terminated the clew. 'There _must_ be something wrong,' I
said, 'about the nail.' I touched it; and the head, with about a
quarter of an inch of the shank, came off in my fingers. The rest of
the shank was in the gimlet-hole where it had been broken off. The
fracture was an old one (for its edges were incrusted with rust), and
had apparently been accomplished by the blow of a hammer, which had
partially imbedded, in the top of the bottom sash, the head portion
of the nail. I now carefully replaced this head portion in the
indentation whence I had taken it, and the resemblance to a perfect
nail was complete - the fissure was invisible. Pressing the spring, I
gently raised the sash for a few inches; the head went up with it,
remaining firm in its bed. I closed the window, and the semblance of
the whole nail was again perfect.
"The riddle, so far, was now unriddled. The assassin had escaped
through the window which looked upon the bed. Dropping of its own
accord upon his exit (or perhaps purposely closed), it had become
fastened by the spring; and it was the retention of this spring which
had been mistaken by the police for that of the nail, - farther
inquiry being thus considered unnecessary.
"The next question is that of the mode of descent. Upon this point I
had been satisfied in my walk with you around the building. About
five feet and a half from the casement in question there runs a
lightning-rod. From this rod it would have been impossible for any
one to reach the window itself, to say nothing of entering it. I
observed, however, that the shutters of the fourth story were of the
peculiar kind called by Parisian carpenters _ferrades_ - a kind
rarely employed at the present day, but frequently seen upon very old
mansions at Lyons and Bourdeaux. They are in the form of an ordinary
door, (a single, not a folding door) except that the lower half is
latticed or worked in open trellis - thus affording an excellent hold
for the hands. In the present instance these shutters are fully three
feet and a half broad. When we saw them from the rear of the house,
they were both about half open - that is to say, they stood off at
right angles from the wall. It is probable that the police, as well
as myself, examined the back of the tenement; but, if so, in looking
at these _ferrades_ in the line of their breadth (as they must have
done), they did not perceive this great breadth itself, or, at all
events, failed to take it into due consideration. In fact, having
once satisfied themselves that no egress could have been made in this
quarter, they would naturally bestow here a very cursory examination.
It was clear to me, however, that the shutter belonging to the window
at the head of the bed, would, if swung fully back to the wall, reach
to within two feet of the lightning-rod. It was also evident that, by
exertion of a very unusual degree of activity and courage, an
entrance into the window, from the rod, might have been thus
effected. - By reaching to the distance of two feet and a half (we
now suppose the shutter open to its whole extent) a robber might have
taken a firm grasp upon the trellis-work. Letting go, then, his hold
upon the rod, placing his feet securely against the wall, and
springing boldly from it, he might have swung the shutter so as to
close it, and, if we imagine the window open at the time, might even
have swung himself into the room.
"I wish you to bear especially in mind that I have spoken of a _very_
unusual degree of activity as requisite to success in so hazardous
and so difficult a feat. It is my design to show you, first, that the
thing might possibly have been accomplished: - but, secondly and
_chiefly_, I wish to impress upon your understanding the _very
extraordinary_ - the almost præternatural character of that agility
which could have accomplished it.
"You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that 'to make
out my case,' I should rather undervalue, than insist upon a full
estimation of the activity required in this matter. This may be the
practice in law, but it is not the usage of reason. My ultimate
object is only the truth. My immediate purpose is to lead you to
place in juxta-position, that _very unusual_ activity of which I have
just spoken with that _very peculiar_ shrill (or harsh) and _unequal_
voice, about whose nationality no two persons could be found to
agree, and in whose utterance no syllabification could be detected."
At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning of
Dupin flitted over my mind. I seemed to be upon the verge of
comprehension without power to comprehend - men, at times, find
themselves upon the brink of remembrance without being able, in the
end, to remember. My friend went on with his discourse.
"You will see," he said, "that I have shifted the question from the
mode of egress to that of ingress. It was my design to convey the
idea that both were effected in the same manner, at the same point.
Let us now revert to the interior of the room. Let us survey the
appearances here. The drawers of the bureau, it is said, had been
rifled, although many articles of apparel still remained within them.
The conclusion here is absurd. It is a mere guess - a very silly one
- and no more. How are we to know that the articles found in the
drawers were not all these drawers had originally contained? Madame
L'Espanaye and her daughter lived an exceedingly retired life - saw
no company - seldom went out - had little use for numerous changes of
habiliment. Those found were at least of as good quality as any
likely to be possessed by these ladies. If a thief had taken any, why
did he not take the best - why did he not take all? In a word, why
did he abandon four thousand francs in gold to encumber himself with
a bundle of linen? The gold _was _abandoned. Nearly the whole sum
mentioned by Monsieur Mignaud, the banker, was discovered, in bags,
upon the floor. I wish you, therefore, to discard from your thoughts
the blundering idea of _motive_, engendered in the brains of the
police by that portion of the evidence which speaks of money
delivered at the door of the house. Coincidences ten times as
remarkable as this (the delivery of the money, and murder committed
within three days upon the party receiving it), happen to all of us
every hour of our lives, without attracting even momentary notice.
Coincidences, in general, are great stumbling-blocks in the way of
that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the
theory of probabilities - that theory to which the most glorious
objects of human research are indebted for the most glorious of
illustration. In the present instance, had the gold been gone, the
fact of its delivery three days before would have formed something
more than a coincidence. It would have been corroborative of this
idea of motive. But, under the real circumstances of the case, if we
are to suppose gold the motive of this outrage, we must also imagine
the perpetrator so vacillating an idiot as to have abandoned his gold
and his motive together.
"Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn your
attention - that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, and that
startling absence of motive in a murder so singularly atrocious as
this - let us glance at the butchery itself. Here is a woman
strangled to death by manual strength, and thrust up a chimney, head
downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such modes of murder as this.
Least of all, do they thus dispose of the murdered. In the manner of
thrusting the corpse up the chimney, you will admit that there was
something _excessively outré_ - something altogether irreconcilable
with our common notions of human action, even when we suppose the
actors the most depraved of men. Think, too, how great must have been
that strength which could have thrust the body _up_ such an aperture
so forcibly that the united vigor of several persons was found barely
sufficient to drag it _down!_
"Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor most
marvellous. On the hearth were thick tresses - very thick tresses -
of grey human hair. These had been torn out by the roots. You are
aware of the great force necessary in tearing thus from the head even
twenty or thirty hairs together. You saw the locks in question as
well as myself. Their roots (a hideous sight!) were clotted with
fragments of the flesh of the scalp - sure token of the prodigious
power which had been exerted in uprooting perhaps half a million of
hairs at a time. The throat of the old lady was not merely cut, but
the head absolutely severed from the body: the instrument was a mere
razor. I wish you also to look at the _brutal_ ferocity of these
deeds. Of the bruises upon the body of Madame L'Espanaye I do not
speak. Monsieur Dumas, and his worthy coadjutor Monsieur Etienne,
have pronounced that they were inflicted by some obtuse instrument;
and so far these gentlemen are very correct. The obtuse instrument
was clearly the stone pavement in the yard, upon which the victim had
fallen from the window which looked in upon the bed. This idea,
however simple it may now seem, escaped the police for the same
reason that the breadth of the shutters escaped them - because, by
the affair of the nails, their perceptions had been hermetically
sealed against the possibility of the windows having ever been opened
at all.
"If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly reflected
upon the odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so far as to
combine the ideas of an agility astounding, a strength superhuman, a
ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive, a _grotesquerie_ in
horror absolutely alien from humanity, and a voice foreign in tone to
the ears of men of many nations, and devoid of all distinct or
intelligible syllabification. What result, then, has ensued? What
impression have I made upon your fancy?"
I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. "A
madman," I said, "has done this deed - some raving maniac, escaped
from a neighboring _Maison de Santé._"
"In some respects," he replied, "your idea is not irrelevant. But the
voices of madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are never found to
tally with that peculiar voice heard upon the stairs. Madmen are of
some nation, and their language, however incoherent in its words, has
always the coherence of syllabification. Besides, the hair of a
madman is not such as I now hold in my hand. I disentangled this
little tuft from the rigidly clutched fingers of Madame L'Espanaye.
Tell me what you can make of it."
"Dupin!" I said, completely unnerved; "this hair is most unusual -
this is no _human_ hair."
"I have not asserted that it is," said he; "but, before we decide
this point, I wish you to glance at the little sketch I have here
traced upon this paper. It is a _fac-simile_ drawing of what has been
described in one portion of the testimony as 'dark bruises, and deep
indentations of finger nails,' upon the throat of Mademoiselle
L'Espanaye, and in another, (by Messrs. Dumas and Etienne,) as a
'series of livid spots, evidently the impression of fingers.'
"You will perceive," continued my friend, spreading out the paper
upon the table before us, "that this drawing gives the idea of a firm
and fixed hold. There is no _slipping_ apparent. Each finger has
retained - possibly until the death of the victim - the fearful grasp
by which it originally imbedded itself. Attempt, now, to place all
your fingers, at the same time, in the respective impressions as you
see them."
I made the attempt in vain.
"We are possibly not giving this matter a fair trial," he said. "The
paper is spread out upon a plane surface; but the human throat is
cylindrical. Here is a billet of wood, the circumference of which is
about that of the throat. Wrap the drawing around it, and try the
experiment again."
I did so; but the difficulty was even more obvious than before.
"This," I said, "is the mark of no human hand."
"Read now," replied Dupin, "this passage from Cuvier."
It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account of the
large fulvous Ourang-Outang of the East Indian Islands. The gigantic
stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild ferocity, and
the imitative propensities of these mammalia are sufficiently well
known to all. I understood the full horrors of the murder at once.
"The description of the digits," said I, as I made an end of reading,
"is in exact accordance with this drawing. I see that no animal but
an Ourang-Outang, of the species here mentioned, could have impressed
the indentations as you have traced them. This tuft of tawny hair,
too, is identical in character with that of the beast of Cuvier. But
I cannot possibly comprehend the particulars of this frightful
mystery. Besides, there were _two_ voices heard in contention, and
one of them was unquestionably the voice of a Frenchman."
"True; and you will remember an expression attributed almost
unanimously, by the evidence, to this voice, - the expression, '_mon
Dieu!_' This, under the circumstances, has been justly characterized
by one of the witnesses (Montani, the confectioner,) as an expression
of remonstrance or expostulation. Upon these two words, therefore, I
have mainly built my hopes of a full solution of the riddle. A
Frenchman was cognizant of the murder. It is possible - indeed it is
far more than probable - that he was innocent of all participation in
the bloody transactions which took place. The Ourang-Outang may have
escaped from him. He may have traced it to the chamber; but, under
the agitating circumstances which ensued, he could never have
re-captured it. It is still at large. I will not pursue these guesses
- for I have no right to call them more - since the shades of
reflection upon which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth
to be appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend
to make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will
call them guesses then, and speak of them as such. If the Frenchman
in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this atrocity, this
advertisement which I left last night, upon our return home, at the
office of 'Le Monde,' (a paper devoted to the shipping interest, and
much sought by sailors,) will bring him to our residence."
He handed me a paper, and I read thus:
CAUGHT - _In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the -
inst.,_ (the morning of the murder,) _a very large, tawny
Ourang-Outang of the Bornese species. The owner, (who is ascertained
to be a sailor, belonging to a Maltese vessel,) may have the animal
again, upon identifying it satisfactorily, and paying a few charges
arising from its capture and keeping. Call at No. ---- , Rue ----,
Faubourg St. Germain - au troisiême._
"How was it possible," I asked, "that you should know the man to be a
sailor, and belonging to a Maltese vessel?"
"I do _not_ know it," said Dupin. "I am not _sure_ of it. Here,
however, is a small piece of ribbon, which from its form, and from
its greasy appearance, has evidently been used in tying the hair in
one of those long _queues_ of which sailors are so fond. Moreover,
this knot is one which few besides sailors can tie, and is peculiar
to the Maltese. I picked the ribbon up at the foot of the
lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either of the deceased.
Now if, after all, I am wrong in my induction from this ribbon, that
the Frenchman was a sailor belonging to a Maltese vessel, still I can
have done no harm in saying what I did in the advertisement. If I am
in error, he will merely suppose that I have been misled by some
circumstance into which he will not take the trouble to inquire. But
if I am right, a great point is gained. Cognizant although innocent
of the murder, the Frenchman will naturally hesitate about replying
to the advertisement - about demanding the Ourang-Outang. He will
reason thus: - 'I am innocent; I am poor; my Ourang-Outang is of
great value - to one in my circumstances a fortune of itself - why
should I lose it through idle apprehensions of danger? Here it is,
within my grasp. It was found in the Bois de Boulogne - at a vast
distance from the scene of that butchery. How can it ever be
suspected that a brute beast should have done the deed? The police
are at fault - they have failed to procure the slightest clew. Should
they even trace the animal, it would be impossible to prove me
cognizant of the murder, or to implicate me in guilt on account of
that cognizance. Above all, _I am known._ The advertiser designates
me as the possessor of the beast. I am not sure to what limit his
knowledge may extend. Should I avoid claiming a property of so great
value, which it is known that I possess, I will render the animal at
least, liable to suspicion. It is not my policy to attract attention
either to myself or to the beast. I will answer the advertisement,
get the Ourang-Outang, and keep it close until this matter has blown
over.' "
At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs.
"Be ready," said Dupin, "with your pistols, but neither use them nor
show them until at a signal from myself."
The front door of the house had been left open, and the visiter had
entered, without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the
staircase. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we heard
him descending. Dupin was moving quickly to the door, when we again
heard him coming up. He did not turn back a second time, but stepped
up with decision, and rapped at the door of our chamber.
"Come in," said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone.
A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently, - a tall, stout, and
muscular-looking person, with a certain dare-devil expression of
countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly
sunburnt, was more than half hidden by whisker and _mustachio._ He
had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be otherwise
unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us "good evening," in French
accents, which, although somewhat Neufchatelish, were still
sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin.
"Sit down, my freind," said Dupin. "I suppose you have called about
the Ourang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy you the possession of
him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very valuable animal. How old
do you suppose him to be?"
The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved of some
intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone:
"I have no way of telling - but he can't be more than four or five
years old. Have you got him here?"
"Oh no, we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He is at a
livery stable in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get him in the
morning. Of course you are prepared to identify the property?"
"To be sure I am, sir."
"I shall be sorry to part with him," said Dupin.
"I don't mean that you should be at all this trouble for nothing,
sir," said the man. "Couldn't expect it. Am very willing to pay a
reward for the finding of the animal - that is to say, any thing in
reason."
"Well," replied my friend, "that is all very fair, to be sure. Let me
think! - what should I have? Oh! I will tell you. My reward shall be
this. You shall give me all the information in your power about these
murders in the Rue Morgue."
Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very quietly. Just
as quietly, too, he walked toward the door, locked it and put the key
in his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his bosom and placed it,
without the least flurry, upon the table.
The sailor's face flushed up as if he were struggling with
suffocation. He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel, but the
next moment he fell back into his seat, trembling violently, and with
the countenance of death itself. He spoke not a word. I pitied him
from the bottom of my heart.
"My friend," said Dupin, in a kind tone, "you are alarming yourself
unnecessarily - you are indeed. We mean you no harm whatever. I
pledge you the honor of a gentleman, and of a Frenchman, that we
intend you no injury. I perfectly well know that you are innocent of
the atrocities in the Rue Morgue. It will not do, however, to deny
that you are in some measure implicated in them. From what I have
already said, you must know that I have had means of information
about this matter - means of which you could never have dreamed. Now
the thing stands thus. You have done nothing which you could have
avoided - nothing, certainly, which renders you culpable. You were
not even guilty of robbery, when you might have robbed with impunity.
You have nothing to conceal. You have no reason for concealment. On
the other hand, you are bound by every principle of honor to confess
all you know. An innocent man is now imprisoned, charged with that
crime of which you can point out the perpetrator."
The sailor had recovered his presence of mind, in a great measure,
while Dupin uttered these words; but his original boldness of bearing
was all gone.
"So help me God," said he, after a brief pause, "I will tell you all
I know about this affair; - but I do not expect you to believe one
half I say - I would be a fool indeed if I did. Still, I am innocent,
and I will make a clean breast if I die for it."
What he stated was, in substance, this. He had lately made a voyage
to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed one, landed at
Borneo, and passed into the interior on an excursion of pleasure.
Himself and a companion had captured the Ourang- Outang. This
companion dying, the animal fell into his own exclusive possession.
After great trouble, occasioned by the intractable ferocity of his
captive during the home voyage, he at length succeeded in lodging it
safely at his own residence in Paris, where, not to attract toward
himself the unpleasant curiosity of his neighbors, he kept it
carefully secluded, until such time as it should recover from a wound
in the foot, received from a splinter on board ship. His ultimate
design was to sell it.
Returning home from some sailors' frolic the night, or rather in the
morning of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own bed-room,
into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where it had been,
as was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand, and fully lathered,
it was sitting before a looking-glass, attempting the operation of
shaving, in which it had no doubt previously watched its master
through the key-hole of the closet. Terrified at the sight of so
dangerous a weapon in the possession of an animal so ferocious, and
so well able to use it, the man, for some moments, was at a loss what
to do. He had been accustomed, however, to quiet the creature, even
in its fiercest moods, by the use of a whip, and to this he now
resorted. Upon sight of it, the Ourang-Outang sprang at once through
the door of the chamber, down the stairs, and thence, through a
window, unfortunately open, into the street.
The Frenchman followed in despair; the ape, razor still in hand,
occasionally stopping to look back and gesticulate at its pursuer,
until the latter had nearly come up with it. It then again made off.
In this manner the chase continued for a long time. The streets were
profoundly quiet, as it was nearly three o'clock in the morning. In
passing down an alley in the rear of the Rue Morgue, the fugitive's
attention was arrested by a light gleaming from the open window of
Madame L'Espanaye's chamber, in the fourth story of her house.
Rushing to the building, it perceived the lightning rod, clambered up
with inconceivable agility, grasped the shutter, which was thrown
fully back against the wall, and, by its means, swung itself directly
upon the headboard of the bed. The whole feat did not occupy a
minute. The shutter was kicked open again by the Ourang-Outang as it
entered the room.
The sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. He had
strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could scarcely
escape from the trap into which it had ventured, except by the rod,
where it might be intercepted as it came down. On the other hand,
there was much cause for anxiety as to what it might do in the house.
This latter reflection urged the man still to follow the fugitive. A
lightning rod is ascended without difficulty, especially by a sailor;
but, when he had arrived as high as the window, which lay far to his
left, his career was stopped; the most that he could accomplish was
to reach over so as to obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room.
At this glimpse he nearly fell from his hold through excess of
horror. Now it was that those hideous shrieks arose upon the night,
which had startled from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame
L'Espanaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes, had
apparently been occupied in arranging some papers in the iron chest
already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle of the
room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the floor. The
victims must have been sitting with their backs toward the window;
and, from the time elapsing between the ingress of the beast and the
screams, it seems probable that it was not immediately perceived. The
flapping-to of the shutter would naturally have been attributed to
the wind.
As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame
L'Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing
it,) and was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation of
the motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate and motionless;
she had swooned. The screams and struggles of the old lady (during
which the hair was torn from her head) had the effect of changing the
probably pacific purposes of the Ourang-Outang into those of wrath.
With one determined sweep of its muscular arm it nearly severed her
head from her body. The sight of blood inflamed its anger into
phrenzy. Gnashing its teeth, and flashing fire from its eyes, it flew
upon the body of the girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her
throat, retaining its grasp until she expired. Its wandering and wild
glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over which the
face of its master, rigid with horror, was just discernible. The fury
of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the dreaded whip, was
instantly converted into fear. Conscious of having deserved
punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its bloody deeds, and
skipped about the chamber in an agony of nervous agitation; throwing
down and breaking the furniture as it moved, and dragging the bed
from the bedstead. In conclusion, it seized first the corpse of the
daughter, and thrust it up the chimney, as it was found; then that of
the old lady, which it immediately hurled through the window
headlong.
As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the
sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than clambering
down it, hurried at once home - dreading the consequences of the
butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his terror, all solicitude about
the fate of the Ourang-Outang. The words heard by the party upon the
staircase were the Frenchman's exclamations of horror and affright,
commingled with the fiendish jabberings of the brute.
I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must have escaped
from the chamber, by the rod, just before the break of the door. It
must have closed the window as it passed through it. It was
subsequently caught by the owner himself, who obtained for it a very
large sum at the _Jardin des Plantes._ Le Don was instantly released,
upon our narration of the circumstances (with some comments from
Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police. This functionary,
however well disposed to my friend, could not altogether conceal his
chagrin at the turn which affairs had taken, and was fain to indulge
in a sarcasm or two, about the propriety of every person minding his
own business.
"Let him talk," said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to
reply. "Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience, I am
satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle. Nevertheless,
that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is by no means that
matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in truth, our friend the
Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be profound. In his wisdom is no
_stamen._ It is all head and no body, like the pictures of the
Goddess Laverna, -- or, at best, all head and shoulders, like a
codfish. But he is a good creature after all. I like him especially
for one master stroke of cant, by which he has attained his
reputation for ingenuity. I mean the way he has '_de nier ce qui est,
et d'expliquer ce qui n'est pas._' " *
* Rousseau - Nouvelle Heloise.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
==========
THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET.{*1}
A SEQUEL TO "THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE."
Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit
parallel lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und zufalle
modifieiren gewohulich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie
unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen
sind. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das
Lutherthum hervor.
There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real
ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally modify
the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and its
consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the Reformation;
instead of Protestantism came Lutheranism.
- Novalis. {*2} Moral Ansichten.
THERE are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have not
occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling half-credence
in the supernatural, by coincidences of so seemingly marvellous a
character that, as mere coincidences, the intellect has been unable
to receive them. Such sentiments - for the half-credences of which I
speak have never the full force of thought - such sentiments are
seldom thoroughly stifled unless by reference to the doctrine of
chance, or, as it is technically termed, the Calculus of
Probabilities. Now this Calculus is, in its essence, purely
mathematical; and thus we have the anomaly of the most rigidly exact
in science applied to the shadow and spirituality of the most
intangible in speculation.
The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to make public,
will be found to form, as regards sequence of time, the primary
branch of a series of scarcely intelligible coincidences, whose
secondary or concluding branch will be recognized by all readers in
the late murder of Mary Cecila Rogers, at New York.
When, in an article entitled "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," I
endeavored, about a year ago, to depict some very remarkable features
in the mental character of my friend, the Chevalier C. Auguste Dupin,
it did not occur to me that I should ever resume the subject. This
depicting of character constituted my design; and this design was
thoroughly fulfilled in the wild train of circumstances brought to
instance Dupin's idiosyncrasy. I might have adduced other examples,
but I should have proven no more. Late events, however, in their
surprising development, have startled me into some farther details,
which will carry with them the air of extorted confession. Hearing
what I have lately heard, it would be indeed strange should I remain
silent in regard to what I both heard and saw so long ago.
Upon the winding up of the tragedy involved in the deaths of Madame
L'Espanaye and her daughter, the Chevalier dismissed the affair at
once from his attention, and relapsed into his old habits of moody
reverie. Prone, at all times, to abstraction, I readily fell in with
his humor; and, continuing to occupy our chambers in the Faubourg
Saint Germain, we gave the Future to the winds, and slumbered
tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull world around us into
dreams.
But these dreams were not altogether uninterrupted. It may readily be
supposed that the part played by my friend, in the drama at the Rue
Morgue, had not failed of its impression upon the fancies of the
Parisian police. With its emissaries, the name of Dupin had grown
into a household word. The simple character of those inductions by
which he had disentangled the mystery never having been explained
even to the Prefect, or to any other individual than myself, of
course it is not surprising that the affair was regarded as little
less than miraculous, or that the Chevalier's analytical abilities
acquired for him the credit of intuition. His frankness would have
led him to disabuse every inquirer of such prejudice; but his
indolent humor forbade all farther agitation of a topic whose
interest to himself had long ceased. It thus happened that he found
himself the cynosure of the policial eyes; and the cases were not few
in which attempt was made to engage his services at the Prefecture.
One of the most remarkable instances was that of the murder of a
young girl named Marie Rogêt.
This event occurred about two years after the atrocity in the Rue
Morgue. Marie, whose Christian and family name will at once arrest
attention from their resemblance to those of the unfortunate "cigar-
girl," was the only daughter of the widow Estelle Rogêt. The father
had died during the child's infancy, and from the period of his
death, until within eighteen months before the assassination which
forms the subject of our narrative, the mother and daughter had dwelt
together in the Rue Pavée Saint Andrée; {*3} Madame there keeping a
pension, assisted by Marie. Affairs went on thus until the latter had
attained her twenty-second year, when her great beauty attracted the
notice of a perfumer, who occupied one of the shops in the basement
of the Palais Royal, and whose custom lay chiefly among the desperate
adventurers infesting that neighborhood. Monsieur Le Blanc {*4} was
not unaware of the advantages to be derived from the attendance of
the fair Marie in his perfumery; and his liberal proposals were
accepted eagerly by the girl, although with somewhat more of
hesitation by Madame.
The anticipations of the shopkeeper were realized, and his rooms soon
became notorious through the charms of the sprightly grisette. She
had been in his employ about a year, when her admirers were thrown
info confusion by her sudden disappearance from the shop. Monsieur Le
Blanc was unable to account for her absence, and Madame Rogêt was
distracted with anxiety and terror. The public papers immediately
took up the theme, and the police were upon the point of making
serious investigations, when, one fine morning, after the lapse of a
week, Marie, in good health, but with a somewhat saddened air, made
her re-appearance at her usual counter in the perfumery. All inquiry,
except that of a private character, was of course immediately hushed.
Monsieur Le Blanc professed total ignorance, as before. Marie, with
Madame, replied to all questions, that the last week had been spent
at the house of a relation in the country. Thus the affair died away,
and was generally forgotten; for the girl, ostensibly to relieve
herself from the impertinence of curiosity, soon bade a final adieu
to the perfumer, and sought the shelter of her mother's residence in
the Rue Pavée Saint Andrée.
It was about five months after this return home, that her friends
were alarmed by her sudden disappearance for the second time. Three
days elapsed, and nothing was heard of her. On the fourth her corpse
was found floating in the Seine, * near the shore which is opposite
the Quartier of the Rue Saint Andree, and at a point not very far
distant from the secluded neighborhood of the Barrière du Roule. {*6}
The atrocity of this murder, (for it was at once evident that murder
had been committed,) the youth and beauty of the victim, and, above
all, her previous notoriety, conspired to produce intense excitement
in the minds of the sensitive Parisians. I can call to mind no
similar occurrence producing so general and so intense an effect. For
several weeks, in the discussion of this one absorbing theme, even
the momentous political topics of the day were forgotten. The Prefect
made unusual exertions; and the powers of the whole Parisian police
were, of course, tasked to the utmost extent.
Upon the first discovery of the corpse, it was not supposed that the
murderer would be able to elude, for more than a very brief period,
the inquisition which was immediately set on foot. It was not until
the expiration of a week that it was deemed necessary to offer a
reward; and even then this reward was limited to a thousand francs.
In the mean time the investigation proceeded with vigor, if not
always with judgment, and numerous individuals were examined to no
purpose; while, owing to the continual absence of all clue to the
mystery, the popular excitement greatly increased. At the end of the
tenth day it was thought advisable to double the sum originally
proposed; and, at length, the second week having elapsed without
leading to any discoveries, and the prejudice which always exists in
Paris against the Police having given vent to itself in several
serious émeutes, the Prefect took it upon himself to offer the sum of
twenty thousand francs "for the conviction of the assassin," or, if
more than one should prove to have been implicated, "for the
conviction of any one of the assassins." In the proclamation setting
forth this reward, a full pardon was promised to any accomplice who
should come forward in evidence against his fellow; and to the whole
was appended, wherever it appeared, the private placard of a
committee of citizens, offering ten thousand francs, in addition to
the amount proposed by the Prefecture. The entire reward thus stood
at no less than thirty thousand francs, which will be regarded as an
extraordinary sum when we consider the humble condition of the girl,
and the great frequency, in large cities, of such atrocities as the
one described.
No one doubted now that the mystery of this murder would be
immediately brought to light. But although, in one or two instances,
arrests were made which promised elucidation, yet nothing was
elicited which could implicate the parties suspected; and they were
discharged forthwith. Strange as it may appear, the third week from
the discovery of the body had passed, and passed without any light
being thrown upon the subject, before even a rumor of the events
which had so agitated the public mind, reached the ears of Dupin and
myself. Engaged in researches which absorbed our whole attention, it
had been nearly a month since either of us had gone abroad, or
received a visiter, or more than glanced at the leading political
articles in one of the daily papers. The first intelligence of the
murder was brought us by G ----, in person. He called upon us early
in the afternoon of the thirteenth of July, 18--, and remained with
us until late in the night. He had been piqued by the failure of all
his endeavors to ferret out the assassins. His reputation - so he
said with a peculiarly Parisian air - was at stake. Even his honor
was concerned. The eyes of the public were upon him; and there was
really no sacrifice which he would not be willing to make for the
development of the mystery. He concluded a somewhat droll speech with
a compliment upon what he was pleased to term the tact of Dupin, and
made him a direct, and certainly a liberal proposition, the precise
nature of which I do not feel myself at liberty to disclose, but
which has no bearing upon the proper subject of my narrative.
The compliment my friend rebutted as best he could, but the
proposition he accepted at once, although its advantages were
altogether provisional. This point being settled, the Prefect broke
forth at once into explanations of his own views, interspersing them
with long comments upon the evidence; of which latter we were not yet
in possession. He discoursed much, and beyond doubt, learnedly; while
I hazarded an occasional suggestion as the night wore drowsily away.
Dupin, sitting steadily in his accustomed arm-chair, was the
embodiment of respectful attention. He wore spectacles, during the
whole interview; and an occasional signal glance beneath their green
glasses, sufficed to convince me that he slept not the less soundly,
because silently, throughout the seven or eight leaden-footed hours
which immediately preceded the departure of the Prefect.
In the morning, I procured, at the Prefecture, a full report of all
the evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices, a copy
of every paper in which, from first to last, had been published any
decisive information in regard to this sad affair. Freed from all
that was positively disproved, this mass of information stood thus:
Marie Rogêt left the residence of her mother, in the Rue Pavée St.
Andrée, about nine o'clock in the morning of Sunday June the
twenty-second, 18--. In going out, she gave notice to a Monsieur
Jacques St. Eustache, {*7} and to him only, of her intent intention
to spend the day with an aunt who resided in the Rue des Drômes. The
Rue des Drômes is a short and narrow but populous thoroughfare, not
far from the banks of the river, and at a distance of some two miles,
in the most direct course possible, from the pension of Madame Rogêt.
St. Eustache was the accepted suitor of Marie, and lodged, as well as
took his meals, at the pension. He was to have gone for his betrothed
at dusk, and to have escorted her home. In the afternoon, however, it
came on to rain heavily; and, supposing that she would remain all
night at her aunt's, (as she had done under similar circumstances
before,) he did not think it necessary to keep his promise. As night
drew on, Madame Rogêt (who was an infirm old lady, seventy years of
age,) was heard to express a fear "that she should never see Marie
again;" but this observation attracted little attention at the time.
On Monday, it was ascertained that the girl had not been to the Rue
des Drômes; and when the day elapsed without tidings of her, a tardy
search was instituted at several points in the city, and its
environs. It was not, however until the fourth day from the period of
disappearance that any thing satisfactory was ascertained respecting
her. On this day, (Wednesday, the twenty-fifth of June,) a Monsieur
Beauvais, {*8} who, with a friend, had been making inquiries for
Marie near the Barrière du Roule, on the shore of the Seine which is
opposite the Rue Pavée St. Andrée, was informed that a corpse had
just been towed ashore by some fishermen, who had found it floating
in the river. Upon seeing the body, Beauvais, after some hesitation,
identified it as that of the perfumery-girl. His friend recognized it
more promptly.
The face was suffused with dark blood, some of which issued from the
mouth. No foam was seen, as in the case of the merely drowned. There
was no discoloration in the cellular tissue. About the throat were
bruises and impressions of fingers. The arms were bent over on the
chest and were rigid. The right hand was clenched; the left partially
open. On the left wrist were two circular excoriations, apparently
the effect of ropes, or of a rope in more than one volution. A part
of the right wrist, also, was much chafed, as well as the back
throughout its extent, but more especially at the shoulder-blades. In
bringing the body to the shore the fishermen had attached to it a
rope; but none of the excoriations had been effected by this. The
flesh of the neck was much swollen. There were no cuts apparent, or
bruises which appeared the effect of blows. A piece of lace was found
tied so tightly around the neck as to be hidden from sight; it was
completely buried in the flesh, and was fasted by a knot which lay
just under the left ear. This alone would have sufficed to produce
death. The medical testimony spoke confidently of the virtuous
character of the deceased. She had been subjected, it said, to brutal
violence. The corpse was in such condition when found, that there
could have been no difficulty in its recognition by friends.
The dress was much torn and otherwise disordered. In the outer
garment, a slip, about a foot wide, had been torn upward from the
bottom hem to the waist, but not torn off. It was wound three times
around the waist, and secured by a sort of hitch in the back. The
dress immediately beneath the frock was of fine muslin; and from this
a slip eighteen inches wide had been torn entirely out - torn very
evenly and with great care. It was found around her neck, fitting
loosely, and secured with a hard knot. Over this muslin slip and the
slip of lace, the strings of a bonnet were attached; the bonnet being
appended. The knot by which the strings of the bonnet were fastened,
was not a lady's, but a slip or sailor's knot.
After the recognition of the corpse, it was not, as usual, taken to
the Morgue, (this formality being superfluous,) but hastily interred
not far front the spot at which it was brought ashore. Through the
exertions of Beauvais, the matter was industriously hushed up, as far
as possible; and several days had elapsed before any public emotion
resulted. A weekly paper, {*9} however, at length took up the theme;
the corpse was disinterred, and a re-examination instituted; but
nothing was elicited beyond what has been already noted. The clothes,
however, were now submitted to the mother and friends of the
deceased, and fully identified as those worn by the girl upon leaving
home.
Meantime, the excitement increased hourly. Several individuals were
arrested and discharged. St. Eustache fell especially under
suspicion; and he failed, at first, to give an intelligible account
of his whereabouts during the Sunday on which Marie left home.
Subsequently, however, he submitted to Monsieur G----, affidavits,
accounting satisfactorily for every hour of the day in question. As
time passed and no discovery ensued, a thousand contradictory rumors
were circulated, and journalists busied themselves in suggestions.
Among these, the one which attracted the most notice, was the idea
that Marie Rogêt still lived - that the corpse found in the Seine was
that of some other unfortunate. It will be proper that I submit to
the reader some passages which embody the suggestion alluded to.
These passages are literal translations from L'Etoile, {*10} a paper
conducted, in general, with much ability.
"Mademoiselle Rogêt left her mother's house on Sunday morning, June
the twenty-second, 18--, with the ostensible purpose of going to see
her aunt, or some other connexion, in the Rue des Drômes. From that
hour, nobody is proved to have seen her. There is no trace or tidings
of her at all. . . . There has no person, whatever, come forward, so
far, who saw her at all, on that day, after she left her mother's
door. . . . Now, though we have no evidence that Marie Rogêt was in
the land of the living after nine o'clock on Sunday, June the
twenty-second, we have proof that, up to that hour, she was alive. On
Wednesday noon, at twelve, a female body was discovered afloat on the
shore of the Barrière de Roule. This was, even if we presume that
Marie Rogêt was thrown into the river within three hours after she
left her mother's house, only three days from the time she left her
home - three days to an hour. But it is folly to suppose that the
murder, if murder was committed on her body, could have been
consummated soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the
body into the river before midnight. Those who are guilty of such
horrid crimes, choose darkness rather the light . . . . Thus we see
that if the body found in the river was that of Marie Rogêt, it could
only have been in the water two and a half days, or three at the
outside. All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies
thrown into the water immediately after death by violence, require
from six to ten days for decomposition to take place to bring them to
the top of the water. Even where a cannon is fired over a corpse, and
it rises before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again,
if let alone. Now, we ask, what was there in this cave to cause a
departure from the ordinary course of nature? . . . If the body had
been kept in its mangled state on shore until Tuesday night, some
trace would be found on shore of the murderers. It is a doubtful
point, also, whether the body would be so soon afloat, even were it
thrown in after having been dead two days. And, furthermore, it is
exceedingly improbable that any villains who had committed such a
murder as is here supposed, would have throw the body in without
weight to sink it, when such a precaution could have so easily been
taken."
The editor here proceeds to argue that the body must have been in the
water "not three days merely, but, at least, five times three days,"
because it was so far decomposed that Beauvais had great difficulty
in recognizing it. This latter point, however, was fully disproved. I
continue the translation:
"What, then, are the facts on which M. Beauvais says that he has no
doubt the body was that of Marie Rogêt? He ripped up the gown sleeve,
and says he found marks which satisfied him of the identity. The
public generally supposed those marks to have consisted of some
description of scars. He rubbed the arm and found hair upon it -
something as indefinite, we think, as can readily be imagined - as
little conclusive as finding an arm in the sleeve. M. Beauvais did
not return that night, but sent word to Madame Rogêt, at seven
o'clock, on Wednesday evening, that an investigation was still in
progress respecting her daughter. If we allow that Madame Rogêt, from
her age and grief, could not go over, (which is allowing a great
deal,) there certainly must have been some one who would have thought
it worth while to go over and attend the investigation, if they
thought the body was that of Marie. Nobody went over. There was
nothing said or heard about the matter in the Rue Pavée St. Andrée,
that reached even the occupants of the same building. M. St.
Eustache, the lover and intended husband of Marie, who boarded in her
mother's house, deposes that he did not hear of the discovery of the
body of his intended until the next morning, when M. Beauvais came
into his chamber and told him of it. For an item of news like this,
it strikes us it was very coolly received."
In this way the journal endeavored to create the impression of an
apathy on the part of the relatives of Marie, inconsistent with the
supposition that these relatives believed the corpse to be hers. Its
insinuations amount to this: - that Marie, with the connivance of her
friends, had absented herself from the city for reasons involving a
charge against her chastity; and that these friends, upon the
discovery of a corpse in the Seine, somewhat resembling that of the
girl, had availed themselves of the opportunity to impress press the
public with the belief of her death. But L'Etoile was again
over-hasty. It was distinctly proved that no apathy, such as was
imagined, existed; that the old lady was exceedingly feeble, and so
agitated as to be unable to attend to any duty, that St. Eustache, so
far from receiving the news coolly, was distracted with grief, and
bore himself so frantically, that M. Beauvais prevailed upon a friend
and relative to take charge of him, and prevent his attending the
examination at the disinterment. Moreover, although it was stated by
L'Etoile, that the corpse was re-interred at the public expense -
that an advantageous offer of private sculpture was absolutely
declined by the family - and that no member of the family attended
the ceremonial: - although, I say, all this was asserted by L'Etoile
in furtherance of the impression it designed to convey - yet all this
was satisfactorily disproved. In a subsequent number of the paper, an
attempt was made to throw suspicion upon Beauvais himself. The editor
says:
"Now, then, a change comes over the matter. We are told that on one
occasion, while a Madame B---- was at Madame Rogêt's house, M.
Beauvais, who was going out, told her that a gendarme was expected
there, and she, Madame B., must not say anything to the gendarme
until he returned, but let the matter be for him. . . . In the
present posture of affairs, M. Beauvais appears to have the whole
matter looked up in his head. A single step cannot be taken without
M. Beauvais; for, go which way you will, you run against him. . . .
For some reason, he determined that nobody shall have any thing to do
with the proceedings but himself, and he has elbowed the male
relatives out of the way, according to their representations, in a
very singular manner. He seems to have been very much averse to
permitting the relatives to see the body."
By the following fact, some color was given to the suspicion thus
thrown upon Beauvais. A visiter at his office, a few days prior to
the girl's disappearance, and during the absence of its occupant, had
observed a rose in the key-hole of the door, and the name "Marie"
inscribed upon a slate which hung near at hand.
The general impression, so far as we were enabled to glean it from
the newspapers, seemed to be, that Marie had been the victim of a
gang of desperadoes - that by these she had been borne across the
river, maltreated and murdered. Le Commerciel, {*11} however, a print
of extensive influence, was earnest in combating this popular idea. I
quote a passage or two from its columns:
"We are persuaded that pursuit has hitherto been on a false scent, so
far as it has been directed to the Barrière du Roule. It is
impossible that a person so well known to thousands as this young
woman was, should have passed three blocks without some one having
seen her; and any one who saw her would have remembered it, for she
interested all who knew her. It was when the streets were full of
people, when she went out. . . . It is impossible that she could have
gone to the Barrière du Roule, or to the Rue des Drômes, without
being recognized by a dozen persons; yet no one has come forward who
saw her outside of her mother's door, and there is no evidence,
except the testimony concerning her expressed intentions, that she
did go out at all. Her gown was torn, bound round her, and tied; and
by that the body was carried as a bundle. If the murder had been
committed at the Barrière du Roule, there would have been no
necessity for any such arrangement. The fact that the body was found
floating near the Barrière, is no proof as to where it was thrown
into the water. . . . . A piece of one of the unfortunate girl's
petticoats, two feet long and one foot wide, was torn out and tied
under her chin around the back of her head, probably to prevent
screams. This was done by fellows who had no pocket-handkerchief."
A day or two before the Prefect called upon us, however, some
important information reached the police, which seemed to overthrow,
at least, the chief portion of Le Commerciel's argument. Two small
boys, sons of a Madame Deluc, while roaming among the woods near the
Barrière du Roule, chanced to penetrate a close thicket, within which
were three or four large stones, forming a kind of seat, with a back
and footstool. On the upper stone lay a white petticoat; on the
second a silk scarf. A parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief
were also here found. The handkerchief bore the name "Marie Rogêt."
Fragments of dress were discovered on the brambles around. The earth
was trampled, the bushes were broken, and there was every evidence of
a struggle. Between the thicket and the river, the fences were found
taken down, and the ground bore evidence of some heavy burthen having
been dragged along it.
A weekly paper, Le Soleil,{*12} had the following comments upon this
discovery -- comments which merely echoed the sentiment of the whole
Parisian press:
"The things had all evidently been there at least three or four
weeks; they were all mildewed down hard with the action of the rain
and stuck together from mildew. The grass had grown around and over
some of them. The silk on the parasol was strong, but the threads of
it were run together within. The upper part, where it had been
doubled and folded, was all mildewed and rotten, and tore on its
being opened. . . . . The pieces of her frock torn out by the bushes
were about three inches wide and six inches long. One part was the
hem of the frock, and it had been mended; the other piece was part of
the skirt, not the hem. They looked like strips torn off, and were on
the thorn bush, about a foot from the ground. . . . . There can be no
doubt, therefore, that the spot of this appalling outrage has been
discovered."
Consequent upon this discovery, new evidence appeared. Madame Deluc
testified that she keeps a roadside inn not far from the bank of the
river, opposite the Barrière du Roule. The neighborhood is secluded
-- particularly so. It is the usual Sunday resort of blackguards from
the city, who cross the river in boats. About three o'clock, in the
afternoon of the Sunday in question, a young girl arrived at the inn,
accompanied by a young man of dark complexion. The two remained here
for some time. On their departure, they took the road to some thick
woods in the vicinity. Madame Deluc's attention was called to the
dress worn by the girl, on account of its resemblance to one worn by
a deceased relative. A scarf was particularly noticed. Soon after the
departure of the couple, a gang of miscreants made their appearance,
behaved boisterously, ate and drank without making payment, followed
in the route of the young man and girl, returned to the inn about
dusk, and re-crossed the river as if in great haste.
It was soon after dark, upon this same evening, that Madame Deluc, as
well as her eldest son, heard the screams of a female in the vicinity
of the inn. The screams were violent but brief. Madame D. recognized
not only the scarf which was found in the thicket, but the dress
which was discovered upon the corpse. An omnibus driver, Valence,
{*13} now also testified that he saw Marie Rogêt cross a ferry on the
Seine, on the Sunday in question, in company with a young man of dark
complexion. He, Valence, knew Marie, and could not be mistaken in her
identity. The articles found in the thicket were fully identified by
the relatives of Marie.
The items of evidence and information thus collected by myself, from
the newspapers, at the suggestion of Dupin, embraced only one more
point -- but this was a point of seemingly vast consequence. It
appears that, immediately after the discovery of the clothes as above
described, the lifeless, or nearly lifeless body of St. Eustache,
Marie's betrothed, was found in the vicinity of what all now supposed
the scene of the outrage. A phial labelled "laudanum," and emptied,
was found near him. His breath gave evidence of the poison. He died
without speaking. Upon his person was found a letter, briefly stating
his love for Marie, with his design of self- destruction.
"I need scarcely tell you," said Dupin, as he finished the perusal of
my notes, "that this is a far more intricate case than that of the
Rue Morgue; from which it differs in one important respect. This is
an ordinary, although an atrocious instance of crime. There is
nothing peculiarly outré about it. You will observe that, for this
reason, the mystery has been considered easy, when, for this reason,
it should have been considered difficult, of solution. Thus; at
first, it was thought unnecessary to offer a reward. The myrmidons of
G--- were able at once to comprehend how and why such an atrocity
might have been committed. They could picture to their imaginations a
mode - many modes - and a motive - many motives; and because it was
not impossible that either of these numerous modes and motives could
have been the actual one, they have taken it for granted that one of
them must. But the case with which these variable fancies were
entertained, and the very plausibility which each assumed, should
have been understood as indicative rather of the difficulties than of
the facilities which must attend elucidation. I have before observed
that it is by prominences above the plane of the ordinary, that
reason feels her way, if at all, in her search for the true, and that
the proper question in cases such as this, is not so much 'what has
occurred?' as 'what has occurred that has never occurred before?' In
the investigations at the house of Madame L'Espanaye, {*14} the
agents of G---- were discouraged and confounded by that very
unusualness which, to a properly regulated intellect, would have
afforded the surest omen of success; while this same intellect might
have been plunged in despair at the ordinary character of all that
met the eye in the case of the perfumery-girl, and yet told of
nothing but easy triumph to the functionaries of the Prefecture.
"In the case of Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter there was, even at
the beginning of our investigation, no doubt that murder had been
committed. The idea of suicide was excluded at once. Here, too, we
are freed, at the commencement, from all supposition of self- murder.
The body found at the Barrière du Roule, was found under such
circumstances as to leave us no room for embarrassment upon this
important point. But it has been suggested that the corpse
discovered, is not that of the Marie Rogêt for the conviction of
whose assassin, or assassins, the reward is offered, and respecting
whom, solely, our agreement has been arranged with the Prefect. We
both know this gentleman well. It will not do to trust him too far.
If, dating our inquiries from the body found, and thence tracing a
murderer, we yet discover this body to be that of some other
individual than Marie; or, if starting from the living Marie, we find
her, yet find her unassassinated -- in either case we lose our labor;
since it is Monsieur G---- with whom we have to deal. For our own
purpose, therefore, if not for the purpose of justice, it is
indispensable that our first step should be the determination of the
identity of the corpse with the Marie Rogêt who is missing.
"With the public the arguments of L'Etoile have had weight; and that
the journal itself is convinced of their importance would appear from
the manner in which it commences one of its essays upon the subject -
'Several of the morning papers of the day,' it says, 'speak of the
_conclusive_ article in Monday's Etoile.' To me, this article appears
conclusive of little beyond the zeal of its inditer. We should bear
in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather
to create a sensation -- to make a point - than to further the cause
of truth. The latter end is only pursued when it seems coincident
with the former. The print which merely falls in with ordinary
opinion (however well founded this opinion may be) earns for itself
no credit with the mob. The mass of the people regard as profound
only him who suggests _pungent contradictions_ of the general idea.
In ratiocination, not less than in literature, it is the epigram
which is the most immediately and the most universally appreciated.
In both, it is of the lowest order of merit.
"What I mean to say is, that it is the mingled epigram and melodrame
of the idea, that Marie Rogêt still lives, rather than any true
plausibility in this idea, which have suggested it to L'Etoile, and
secured it a favorable reception with the public. Let us examine the
heads of this journal's argument; endeavoring to avoid the
incoherence with which it is originally set forth.
"The first aim of the writer is to show, from the brevity of the
interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the
floating corpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie. The
reduction of this interval to its smallest possible dimension,
becomes thus, at once, an object with the reasoner. In the rash
pursuit of this object, he rushes into mere assumption at the outset.
'It is folly to suppose,' he says, 'that the murder, if murder was
committed on her body, could have been consummated soon enough to
have enabled her murderers to throw the body into the river before
midnight.' We demand at once, and very naturally, why? Why is it
folly to suppose that the murder was committed _within five minutes_
after the girl's quitting her mother's house? Why is it folly to
suppose that the murder was committed at any given period of the day?
There have been assassinations at all hours. But, had the murder
taken place at any moment between nine o'clock in the morning of
Sunday, and a quarter before midnight, there would still have been
time enough 'to throw the body into the river before midnight.' This
assumption, then, amounts precisely to this - that the murder was not
committed on Sunday at all - and, if we allow L'Etoile to assume
this, we may permit it any liberties whatever. The paragraph
beginning 'It is folly to suppose that the murder, etc.,' however it
appears as printed in L'Etoile, may be imagined to have existed
actually thus in the brain of its inditer - 'It is folly to suppose
that the murder, if murder was committed on the body, could have been
committed soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the body
into the river before midnight; it is folly, we say, to suppose all
this, and to suppose at the same time, (as we are resolved to
suppose,) that the body was not thrown in until after midnight' -- a
sentence sufficiently inconsequential in itself, but not so utterly
preposterous as the one printed.
"Were it my purpose," continued Dupin, "merely to _make out a case_
against this passage of L'Etoile's argument, I might safely leave it
where it is. It is not, however, with L'Etoile that we have to do,
but with the truth. The sentence in question has but one meaning, as
it stands; and this meaning I have fairly stated: but it is material
that we go behind the mere words, for an idea which these words have
obviously intended, and failed to convey. It was the design of the
journalist to say that, at whatever period of the day or night of
Sunday this murder was committed, it was improbable that the
assassins would have ventured to bear the corpse to the river before
midnight. And herein lies, really, the assumption of which I
complain. It is assumed that the murder was committed at such a
position, and under such circumstances, that the bearing it to the
river became necessary. Now, the assassination might have taken place
upon the river's brink, or on the river itself; and, thus, the
throwing the corpse in the water might have been resorted to, at any
period of the day or night, as the most obvious and most immediate
mode of disposal. You will understand that I suggest nothing here as
probable, or as cöincident with my own opinion. My design, so far,
has no reference to the facts of the case. I wish merely to caution
you against the whole tone of L'Etoile's suggestion, by calling your
attention to its ex parte character at the outset.
"Having prescribed thus a limit to suit its own preconceived notions;
having assumed that, if this were the body of Marie, it could have
been in the water but a very brief time; the journal goes on to say:
'All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into
the water immediately after death by violence, require from six to
ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to
the top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and
it rises before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again
if let alone.'
"These assertions have been tacitly received by every paper in Paris,
with the exception of Le Moniteur. {*15} This latter print endeavors
to combat that portion of the paragraph which has reference to
'drowned bodies' only, by citing some five or six instances in which
the bodies of individuals known to be drowned were found floating
after the lapse of less time than is insisted upon by L'Etoile. But
there is something excessively unphilosophical in the attempt on the
part of Le Moniteur, to rebut the general assertion of L'Etoile, by a
citation of particular instances militating against that assertion.
Had it been possible to adduce fifty instead of five examples of
bodies found floating at the end of two or three days, these fifty
examples could still have been properly regarded only as exceptions
to L'Etoile's rule, until such time as the rule itself should be
confuted. Admitting the rule, (and this Le Moniteur does not deny,
insisting merely upon its exceptions,) the argument of L'Etoile is
suffered to remain in full force; for this argument does not pretend
to involve more than a question of the probability of the body having
risen to the surface in less than three days; and this probability
will be in favor of L'Etoile's position until the instances so
childishly adduced shall be sufficient in number to establish an
antagonistical rule.
"You will see at once that all argument upon this head should be
urged, if at all, against the rule itself; and for this end we must
examine the rationale of the rule. Now the human body, in general, is
neither much lighter nor much heavier than the water of the Seine;
that is to say, the specific gravity of the human body, in its
natural condition, is about equal to the bulk of fresh water which it
displaces. The bodies of fat and fleshy persons, with small bones,
and of women generally, are lighter than those of the lean and
large-boned, and of men; and the specific gravity of the water of a
river is somewhat influenced by the presence of the tide from sea.
But, leaving this tide out of question, it may be said that very few
human bodies will sink at all, even in fresh water, of their own
accord. Almost any one, falling into a river, will be enabled to
float, if he suffer the specific gravity of the water fairly to be
adduced in comparison with his own - that is to say, if he suffer his
whole person to be immersed, with as little exception as possible.
The proper position for one who cannot swim, is the upright position
of the walker on land, with the head thrown fully back, and immersed;
the mouth and nostrils alone remaining above the surface. Thus
circumstanced, we shall find that we float without difficulty and
without exertion. It is evident, however, that the gravities of the
body, and of the bulk of water displaced, are very nicely balanced,
and that a trifle will cause either to preponderate. An arm, for
instance, uplifted from the water, and thus deprived of its support,
is an additional weight sufficient to immerse the whole head, while
the accidental aid of the smallest piece of timber will enable us to
elevate the head so as to look about. Now, in the struggles of one
unused to swimming, the arms are invariably thrown upwards, while an
attempt is made to keep the head in its usual perpendicular position.
The result is the immersion of the mouth and nostrils, and the
inception, during efforts to breathe while beneath the surface, of
water into the lungs. Much is also received into the stomach, and the
whole body becomes heavier by the difference between the weight of
the air originally distending these cavities, and that of the fluid
which now fills them. This difference is sufficient to cause the body
to sink, as a general rule; but is insufficient in the cases of
individuals with small bones and an abnormal quantity of flaccid or
fatty matter. Such individuals float even after drowning.
"The corpse, being supposed at the bottom of the river, will there
remain until, by some means, its specific gravity again becomes less
than that of the bulk of water which it displaces. This effect is
brought about by decomposition, or otherwise. The result of
decomposition is the generation of gas, distending the cellular
tissues and all the cavities, and giving the puffed appearance which
is so horrible. When this distension has so far progressed that the
bulk of the corpse is materially increased without a corresponding
increase of mass or weight, its specific gravity becomes less than
that of the water displaced, and it forthwith makes its appearance at
the surface. But decomposition is modified by innumerable
circumstances - is hastened or retarded by innumerable agencies; for
example, by the heat or cold of the season, by the mineral
impregnation or purity of the water, by its depth or shallowness, by
its currency or stagnation, by the temperament of the body, by its
infection or freedom from disease before death. Thus it is evident
that we can assign no period, with any thing like accuracy, at which
the corpse shall rise through decomposition. Under certain conditions
this result would be brought about within an hour; under others, it
might not take place at all. There are chemical infusions by which
the animal frame can be preserved foreverfrom corruption; the
Bi-chloride of Mercury is one. But, apart from decomposition, there
may be, and very usually is, a generation of gas within the stomach,
from the acetous fermentation of vegetable matter (or within other
cavities from other causes) sufficient to induce a distension which
will bring the body to the surface. The effect produced by the firing
of a cannon is that of simple vibration. This may either loosen the
corpse from the soft mud or ooze in which it is imbedded, thus
permitting it to rise when other agencies have already prepared it
for so doing; or it may overcome the tenacity of some putrescent
portions of the cellular tissue; allowing the cavities to distend
under the influence of the gas.
"Having thus before us the whole philosophy of this subject, we can
easily test by it the assertions of L'Etoile. 'All experience shows,'
says this paper, 'that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown into the
water immediately after death by violence, require from six to ten
days for sufficient decomposition to take place to bring them to the
top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired over a corpse, and it
rises before at least five or six days' immersion, it sinks again if
let alone.'
"The whole of this paragraph must now appear a tissue of
inconsequence and incoherence. All experience does not show that
'drowned bodies' require from six to ten days for sufficient
decomposition to take place to bring them to the surface. Both
science and experience show that the period of their rising is, and
necessarily must be, indeterminate. If, moreover, a body has risen to
the surface through firing of cannon, it will not 'sink again if let
alone,' until decomposition has so far progressed as to permit the
escape of the generated gas. But I wish to call your attention to the
distinction which is made between 'drowned bodies,' and 'bodies
thrown into the water immediately after death by violence.' Although
the writer admits the distinction, he yet includes them all in the
same category. I have shown how it is that the body of a drowning man
becomes specifically heavier than its bulk of water, and that he
would not sink at all, except for the struggles by which he elevates
his arms above the surface, and his gasps for breath while beneath
the surface - gasps which supply by water the place of the original
air in the lungs. But these struggles and these gasps would not occur
in the body 'thrown into the water immediately after death by
violence.' Thus, in the latter instance, the body, as a general rule,
would not sink at all - a fact of which L'Etoile is evidently
ignorant. When decomposition had proceeded to a very great extent -
when the flesh had in a great measure left the bones - then, indeed,
but not till then, should we lose sight of the corpse.
"And now what are we to make of the argument, that the body found
could not be that of Marie Rogêt, because, three days only having
elapsed, this body was found floating? If drowned, being a woman, she
might never have sunk; or having sunk, might have reappeared in
twenty-four hours, or less. But no one supposes her to have been
drowned; and, dying before being thrown into the river, she might
have been found floating at any period afterwards whatever.
" 'But,' says L'Etoile, 'if the body had been kept in its mangled
state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found on
shore of the murderers.' Here it is at first difficult to perceive
the intention of the reasoner. He means to anticipate what he
imagines would be an objection to his theory - viz: that the body was
kept on shore two days, suffering rapid decomposition - morerapid
than if immersed in water. He supposes that, had this been the case,
it might have appeared at the surface on the Wednesday, and thinks
that only under such circumstances it could so have appeared. He is
accordingly in haste to show that it was not kept on shore; for, if
so, 'some trace would be found on shore of the murderers.' I presume
you smile at the sequitur. You cannot be made to see how the mere
duration of the corpse on the shore could operate to multiply traces
of the assassins. Nor can I.
" 'And furthermore it is exceedingly improbable,' continues our
journal, 'that any villains who had committed such a murder as is
here supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to sink
it, when such a precaution could have so easily been taken.' Observe,
here, the laughable confusion of thought! No one - not even L'Etoile
- disputes the murder committed _on the body found_. The marks of
violence are too obvious. It is our reasoner's object merely to show
that this body is not Marie's. He wishes to prove that Marie is not
assassinated - not that the corpse was not. Yet his observation
proves only the latter point. Here is a corpse without weight
attached. Murderers, casting it in, would not have failed to attach a
weight. Therefore it was not thrown in by murderers. This is all
which is proved, if any thing is. The question of identity is not
even approached, and L'Etoile has been at great pains merely to
gainsay now what it has admitted only a moment before. 'We are
perfectly convinced,' it says, 'that the body found was that of a
murdered female.'
"Nor is this the sole instance, even in this division of his subject,
where our reasoner unwittingly reasons against himself. His evident
object, I have already said, is to reduce, us much as possible, the
interval between Marie's disappearance and the finding of the corpse.
Yet we find him urging the point that no person saw the girl from the
moment of her leaving her mother's house. 'We have no evidence,' he
says, 'that Marie Rogêt was in the land of the living after nine
o'clock on Sunday, June the twenty-second.' As his argument is
obviously an ex parte one, he should, at least, have left this matter
out of sight; for had any one been known to see Marie, say on Monday,
or on Tuesday, the interval in question would have been much reduced,
and, by his own ratiocination, the probability much diminished of the
corpse being that of the grisette. It is, nevertheless, amusing to
observe that L'Etoile insists upon its point in the full belief of
its furthering its general argument.
"Reperuse now that portion of this argument which has reference to
the identification of the corpse by Beauvais. In regard to the hair
upon the arm, L'Etoile has been obviously disingenuous. M. Beauvais,
not being an idiot, could never have urged, in identification of the
corpse, simply hair upon its arm. No arm is without hair. The
generality of the expression of L'Etoile is a mere perversion of the
witness' phraseology. He must have spoken of some peculiarity in this
hair. It must have been a peculiarity of color, of quantity, of
length, or of situation.
" 'Her foot,' says the journal, 'was small - so are thousands of
feet. Her garter is no proof whatever - nor is her shoe - for shoes
and garters are sold in packages. The same may be said of the flowers
in her hat. One thing upon which M. Beauvais strongly insists is,
that the clasp on the garter found, had been set back to take it in.
This amounts to nothing; for most women find it proper to take a pair
of garters home and fit them to the size of the limbs they are to
encircle, rather than to try them in the store where they purchase.'
Here it is difficult to suppose the reasoner in earnest. Had M.
Beauvais, in his search for the body of Marie, discovered a corpse
corresponding in general size and appearance to the missing girl, he
would have been warranted (without reference to the question of
habiliment at all) in forming an opinion that his search had been
successful. If, in addition to the point of general size and contour,
he had found upon the arm a peculiar hairy appearance which he had
observed upon the living Marie, his opinion might have been justly
strengthened; and the increase of positiveness might well have been
in the ratio of the peculiarity, or unusualness, of the hairy mark.
If, the feet of Marie being small, those of the corpse were also
small, the increase of probability that the body was that of Marie
would not be an increase in a ratio merely arithmetical, but in one
highly geometrical, or accumulative. Add to all this shoes such as
she had been known to wear upon the day of her disappearance, and,
although these shoes may be 'sold in packages,' you so far augment
the probability as to verge upon the certain. What, of itself, would
be no evidence of identity, becomes through its corroborative
position, proof most sure. Give us, then, flowers in the hat
corresponding to those worn by the missing girl, and we seek for
nothing farther. If only one flower, we seek for nothing farther -
what then if two or three, or more? Each successive one is multiple
evidence - proof not _added_ to proof, but multiplied by hundreds or
thousands. Let us now discover, upon the deceased, garters such as
the living used, and it is almost folly to proceed. But these garters
are found to be tightened, by the setting back of a clasp, in just
such a manner as her own had been tightened by Marie, shortly
previous to her leaving home. It is now madness or hypocrisy to
doubt. What L'Etoile says in respect to this abbreviation of the
garter's being an usual occurrence, shows nothing beyond its own
pertinacity in error. The elastic nature of the clasp-garter is
self-demonstration of the unusualness of the abbreviation. What is
made to adjust itself, must of necessity require foreign adjustment
but rarely. It must have been by an accident, in its strictest sense,
that these garters of Marie needed the tightening described. They
alone would have amply established her identity. But it is not that
the corpse was found to have the garters of the missing girl, or
found to have her shoes, or her bonnet, or the flowers of her bonnet,
or her feet, or a peculiar mark upon the arm, or her general size and
appearance - it is that the corpse had each, and _all collectively_.
Could it be proved that the editor of L'Etoile _really_ entertained a
doubt, under the circumstances, there would be no need, in his case,
of a commission de lunatico inquirendo. He has thought it sagacious
to echo the small talk of the lawyers, who, for the most part,
content themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts of the
courts. I would here observe that very much of what is rejected as
evidence by a court, is the best of evidence to the intellect. For
the court, guiding itself by the general principles of evidence - the
recognized and _booked_ principles - is averse from swerving at
particular instances. And this steadfast adherence to principle, with
rigorous disregard of the conflicting exception, is a sure mode of
attaining the maximum of attainable truth, in any long sequence of
time. The practice, in mass, is therefore philosophical; but it is
not the less certain that it engenders vast individual error. {*16}
"In respect to the insinuations levelled at Beauvais, you will be
willing to dismiss them in a breath. You have already fathomed the
true character of this good gentleman. He is a busy-body, with much
of romance and little of wit. Any one so constituted will readily so
conduct himself, upon occasion of real excitement, as to render
himself liable to suspicion on the part of the over acute, or the
ill- disposed. M. Beauvais (as it appears from your notes) had some
personal interviews with the editor of L'Etoile, and offended him by
venturing an opinion that the corpse, notwithstanding the theory of
the editor, was, in sober fact, that of Marie. 'He persists,' says
the paper, 'in asserting the corpse to be that of Marie, but cannot
give a circumstance, in addition to those which we have commented
upon, to make others believe.' Now, without re-adverting to the fact
that stronger evidence 'to make others believe,' could never have
been adduced, it may be remarked that a man may very well be
understood to believe, in a case of this kind, without the ability to
advance a single reason for the belief of a second party. Nothing is
more vague than impressions of individual identity. Each man
recognizes his neighbor, yet there are few instances in which any one
is prepared to give a reason for his recognition. The editor of
L'Etoile had no right to be offended at M. Beauvais' unreasoning
belief.
"The suspicious circumstances which invest him, will be found to
tally much better with my hypothesis of romantic busy-bodyism, than
with the reasoner's suggestion of guilt. Once adopting the more
charitable interpretation, we shall find no difficulty in
comprehending the rose in the key-hole; the 'Marie' upon the slate;
the 'elbowing the male relatives out of the way;' the 'aversion to
permitting them to see the body;' the caution given to Madame B----,
that she must hold no conversation with the gendarme until his return
(Beauvais'); and, lastly, his apparent determination 'that nobody
should have anything to do with the proceedings except himself.' It
seems to me unquestionable that Beauvais was a suitor of Marie's;
that she coquetted with him; and that he was ambitious of being
thought to enjoy her fullest intimacy and confidence. I shall say
nothing more upon this point; and, as the evidence fully rebuts the
assertion of L'Etoile, touching the matter of apathy on the part of
the mother and other relatives - an apathy inconsistent with the
supposition of their believing the corpse to be that of the
perfumery- girl - we shall now proceed as if the question of identity
were settled to our perfect satisfaction."
"And what," I here demanded, "do you think of the opinions of Le
Commerciel?"
"That, in spirit, they are far more worthy of attention than any
which have been promulgated upon the subject. The deductions from the
premises are philosophical and acute; but the premises, in two
instances, at least, are founded in imperfect observation. Le
Commerciel wishes to intimate that Marie was seized by some gang of
low ruffians not far from her mother's door. 'It is impossible,' it
urges, 'that a person so well known to thousands as this young woman
was, should have passed three blocks without some one having seen
her.' This is the idea of a man long resident in Paris - a public man
- and one whose walks to and fro in the city, have been mostly
limited to the vicinity of the public offices. He is aware that he
seldom passes so far as a dozen blocks from his own bureau, without
being recognized and accosted. And, knowing the extent of his
personal acquaintance with others, and of others with him, he
compares his notoriety with that of the perfumery-girl, finds no
great difference between them, and reaches at once the conclusion
that she, in her walks, would be equally liable to recognition with
himself in his. This could only be the case were her walks of the
same unvarying, methodical character, and within the same species of
limited region as are his own. He passes to and fro, at regular
intervals, within a confined periphery, abounding in individuals who
are led to observation of his person through interest in the kindred
nature of his occupation with their own. But the walks of Marie may,
in general, be supposed discursive. In this particular instance, it
will be understood as most probable, that she proceeded upon a route
of more than average diversity from her accustomed ones. The parallel
which we imagine to have existed in the mind of Le Commerciel would
only be sustained in the event of the two individuals' traversing the
whole city. In this case, granting the personal acquaintances to be
equal, the chances would be also equal that an equal number of
personal rencounters would be made. For my own part, I should hold it
not only as possible, but as very far more than probable, that Marie
might have proceeded, at any given period, by any one of the many
routes between her own residence and that of her aunt, without
meeting a single individual whom she knew, or by whom she was known.
In viewing this question in its full and proper light, we must hold
steadily in mind the great disproportion between the personal
acquaintances of even the most noted individual in Paris, and the
entire population of Paris itself.
"But whatever force there may still appear to be in the suggestion of
Le Commerciel, will be much diminished when we take into
consideration the hour at which the girl went abroad. 'It was when
the streets were full of people,' says Le Commerciel, 'that she went
out.' But not so. It was at nine o'clock in the morning. Now at nine
o'clock of every morning in the week, _with the exception of Sunday_,
the streets of the city are, it is true, thronged with people. At
nine on Sunday, the populace are chiefly within doors _preparing for
church_. No observing person can have failed to notice the peculiarly
deserted air of the town, from about eight until ten on the morning
of every Sabbath. Between ten and eleven the streets are thronged,
but not at so early a period as that designated.
"There is another point at which there seems a deficiency of
observation on the part of Le Commerciel. 'A piece,' it says, 'of one
of the unfortunate girl's petticoats, two feet long, and one foot
wide, was torn out and tied under her chin, and around the back of
her head, probably to prevent screams. This was done, by fellows who
had no pocket-handkerchiefs.' Whether this idea is, or is not well
founded, we will endeavor to see hereafter; but by 'fellows who have
no pocket-handkerchiefs' the editor intends the lowest class of
ruffians. These, however, are the very description of people who will
always be found to have handkerchiefs even when destitute of shirts.
You must have had occasion to observe how absolutely indispensable,
of late years, to the thorough blackguard, has become the
pocket-handkerchief."
"And what are we to think," I asked, "of the article in Le Soleil?"
"That it is a vast pity its inditer was not born a parrot - in which
case he would have been the most illustrious parrot of his race. He
has merely repeated the individual items of the already published
opinion; collecting them, with a laudable industry, from this paper
and from that. 'The things had all evidently been there,' he says,'at
least, three or four weeks, and there can be _no doubt_ that the spot
of this appalling outrage has been discovered.' The facts here
re-stated by Le Soleil, are very far indeed from removing my own
doubts upon this subject, and we will examine them more particularly
hereafter in connexion with another division of the theme.
"At present we must occupy ourselves with other investigations You
cannot fail to have remarked the extreme laxity of the examination of
the corpse. To be sure, the question of identity was readily
determined, or should have been; but there were other points to be
ascertained. Had the body been in any respect despoiled? Had the
deceased any articles of jewelry about her person upon leaving home?
if so, had she any when found? These are important questions utterly
untouched by the evidence; and there are others of equal moment,
which have met with no attention. We must endeavor to satisfy
ourselves by personal inquiry. The case of St. Eustache must be
re-examined. I have no suspicion of this person; but let us proceed
methodically. We will ascertain beyond a doubt the validity of the
affidavits in regard to his whereabouts on the Sunday. Affidavits of
this character are readily made matter of mystification. Should there
be nothing wrong here, however, we will dismiss St. Eustache from our
investigations. His suicide, however corroborative of suspicion, were
there found to be deceit in the affidavits, is, without such deceit,
in no respect an unaccountable circumstance, or one which need cause
us to deflect from the line of ordinary analysis.
"In that which I now propose, we will discard the interior points of
this tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its outskirts. Not
the least usual error, in investigations such as this, is the
limiting of inquiry to the immediate, with total disregard of the
collateral or circumstantial events. It is the mal-practice of the
courts to confine evidence and discussion to the bounds of apparent
relevancy. Yet experience has shown, and a true philosophy will
always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of truth, arises
from the seemingly irrelevant. It is through the spirit of this
principle, if not precisely through its letter, that modern science
has resolved to calculate upon the unforeseen. But perhaps you do not
comprehend me. The history of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly
shown that to collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are
indebted for the most numerous and most valuable discoveries, that it
has at length become necessary, in any prospective view of
improvement, to make not only large, but the largest allowances for
inventions that shall arise by chance, and quite out of the range of
ordinary expectation. It is no longer philosophical to base, upon
what has been, a vision of what is to be. Accident is admitted as a
portion of the substructure. We make chance a matter of absolute
calculation. We subject the unlooked for and unimagined, to the
mathematical _formulae_ of the schools.
"I repeat that it is no more than fact, that the larger portion of
all truth has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in accordance
with the spirit of the principle involved in this fact, that I would
divert inquiry, in the present case, from the trodden and hitherto
unfruitful ground of the event itself, to the contemporary
circumstances which surround it. While you ascertain the validity of
the affidavits, I will examine the newspapers more generally than you
have as yet done. So far, we have only reconnoitred the field of
investigation; but it will be strange indeed if a comprehensive
survey, such as I propose, of the public prints, will not afford us
some minute points which shall establish a direction for inquiry."
In pursuance of Dupin's suggestion, I made scrupulous examination of
the affair of the affidavits. The result was a firm conviction of
their validity, and of the consequent innocence of St. Eustache. In
the mean time my friend occupied himself, with what seemed to me a
minuteness altogether objectless, in a scrutiny of the various
newspaper files. At the end of a week he placed before me the
following extracts:
"About three years and a half ago, a disturbance very similar to the
present, was caused by the disappearance of this same Marie Rogêt,
from the parfumerie of Monsieur Le Blanc, in the Palais Royal. At the
end of a week, however, she re-appeared at her customary comptoir, as
well as ever, with the exception of a slight paleness not altogether
usual. It was given out by Monsieur Le Blanc and her mother, that she
had merely been on a visit to some friend in the country; and the
affair was speedily hushed up. We presume that the present absence is
a freak of the same nature, and that, at the expiration of a week, or
perhaps of a month, we shall have her among us again." - Evening
Paper - Monday June 23. {*17}
"An evening journal of yesterday, refers to a former mysterious
disappearance of Mademoiselle Rogêt. It is well known that, during
the week of her absence from Le Blanc's parfumerie, she was in the
company of a young naval officer, much noted for his debaucheries. A
quarrel, it is supposed, providentially led to her return home. We
have the name of the Lothario in question, who is, at present,
stationed in Paris, but, for obvious reasons, forbear to make it
public." - Le Mercurie - Tuesday Morning, June 24. {*18}
"An outrage of the most atrocious character was perpetrated near this
city the day before yesterday. A gentleman, with his wife and
daughter, engaged, about dusk, the services of six young men, who
were idly rowing a boat to and fro near the banks of the Seine, to
convey him across the river. Upon reaching the opposite shore, the
three passengers stepped out, and had proceeded so far as to be
beyond the view of the boat, when the daughter discovered that she
had left in it her parasol. She returned for it, was seized by the
gang, carried out into the stream, gagged, brutally treated, and
finally taken to the shore at a point not far from that at which she
had originally entered the boat with her parents. The villains have
escaped for the time, but the police are upon their trail, and some
of them will soon be taken." - Morning Paper - June 25. {*19}
"We have received one or two communications, the object of which is
to fasten the crime of the late atrocity upon Mennais; {*20} but as
this gentleman has been fully exonerated by a loyal inquiry, and as
the arguments of our several correspondents appear to be more zealous
than profound, we do not think it advisable to make them public." -
Morning Paper - June 28. {*21}
"We have received several forcibly written communications, apparently
from various sources, and which go far to render it a matter of
certainty that the unfortunate Marie Rogêt has become a victim of one
of the numerous bands of blackguards which infest the vicinity of the
city upon Sunday. Our own opinion is decidedly in favor of this
supposition. We shall endeavor to make room for some of these
arguments hereafter." - Evening Paper - Tuesday, June 31. {*22}
"On Monday, one of the bargemen connected with the revenue service,
saw a empty boat floating down the Seine. Sails were lying in the
bottom of the boat. The bargeman towed it under the barge office. The
next morning it was taken from thence, without the knowledge of any
of the officers. The rudder is now at the barge office." - Le
Diligence - Thursday, June 26. §
Upon reading these various extracts, they not only seemed to me
irrelevant, but I could perceive no mode in which any one of them
could be brought to bear upon the matter in hand. I waited for some
explanation from Dupin.
"It is not my present design," he said, "to dwell upon the first and
second of those extracts. I have copied them chiefly to show you the
extreme remissness of the police, who, as far as I can understand
from the Prefect, have not troubled themselves, in any respect, with
an examination of the naval officer alluded to. Yet it is mere folly
to say that between the first and second disappearance of Marie,
there is no _supposable_ connection. Let us admit the first elopement
to have resulted in a quarrel between the lovers, and the return home
of the betrayed. We are now prepared to view a second elopement (if
we know that an elopement has again taken place) as indicating a
renewal of the betrayer's advances, rather than as the result of new
proposals by a second individual - we are prepared to regard it as a
'making up' of the old amour, rather than as the commencement of a
new one. The chances are ten to one, that he who had once eloped with
Marie, would again propose an elopement, rather than that she to whom
proposals of elopement had been made by one individual, should have
them made to her by another. And here let me call your attention to
the fact, that the time elapsing between the first ascertained, and
the second supposed elopement, is a few months more than the general
period of the cruises of our men-of-war. Had the lover been
interrupted in his first villany by the necessity of departure to
sea, and had he seized the first moment of his return to renew the
base designs not yet altogether accomplished - or not yet altogether
accomplished by _him?_ Of all these things we know nothing.
"You will say, however, that, in the second instance, there was no
elopement as imagined. Certainly not - but are we prepared to say
that there was not the frustrated design? Beyond St. Eustache, and
perhaps Beauvais, we find no recognized, no open, no honorable
suitors of Marie. Of none other is there any thing said. Who, then,
is the secret lover, of whom the relatives (at least most of them)
know nothing, but whom Marie meets upon the morning of Sunday, and
who is so deeply in her confidence, that she hesitates not to remain
with him until the shades of the evening descend, amid the solitary
groves of the Barrière du Roule? Who is that secret lover, I ask, of
whom, at least, most of the relatives know nothing? And what means
the singular prophecy of Madame Rogêt on the morning of Marie's
departure? -- 'I fear that I shall never see Marie again.'
"But if we cannot imagine Madame Rogêt privy to the design of
elopement, may we not at least suppose this design entertained by the
girl? Upon quitting home, she gave it to be understood that she was
about to visit her aunt in the Rue des Drômes and St. Eustache was
requested to call for her at dark. Now, at first glance, this fact
strongly militates against my suggestion; - but let us reflect. That
she did meet some companion, and proceed with him across the river,
reaching the Barrière du Roule at so late an hour as three o'clock in
the afternoon, is known. But in consenting so to accompany this
individual, (_for whatever purpose -- to her mother known or
unknown,_) she must have thought of her expressed intention when
leaving home, and of the surprise and suspicion aroused in the bosom
of her affianced suitor, St. Eustache, when, calling for her, at the
hour appointed, in the Rue des Drômes, he should find that she had
not been there, and when, moreover, upon returning to the pension
with this alarming intelligence, he should become aware of her
continued absence from home. She must have thought of these things, I
say. She must have foreseen the chagrin of St. Eustache, the
suspicion of all. She could not have thought of returning to brave
this suspicion; but the suspicion becomes a point of trivial
importance to her, if we suppose her not intending to return.
"We may imagine her thinking thus - 'I am to meet a certain person
for the purpose of elopement, or for certain other purposes known
only to myself. It is necessary that there be no chance of
interruption - there must be sufficient time given us to elude
pursuit - I will give it to be understood that I shall visit and
spend the day with my aunt at the Rue des Drômes - I well tell St.
Eustache not to call for me until dark - in this way, my absence from
home for the longest possible period, without causing suspicion or
anxiety, will be accounted for, and I shall gain more time than in
any other manner. If I bid St. Eustache call for me at dark, he will
be sure not to call before; but, if I wholly neglect to bid him call,
my time for escape will be diminished, since it will be expected that
I return the earlier, and my absence will the sooner excite anxiety.
Now, if it were my design to return at all - if I had in
contemplation merely a stroll with the individual in question - it
would not be my policy to bid St. Eustache call; for, calling, he
will be sure to ascertain that I have played him false - a fact of
which I might keep him for ever in ignorance, by leaving home without
notifying him of my intention, by returning before dark, and by then
stating that I had been to visit my aunt in the Rue des Drômes. But,
as it is my design never to return - or not for some weeks - or not
until certain concealments are effected - the gaining of time is the
only point about which I need give myself any concern.'
"You have observed, in your notes, that the most general opinion in
relation to this sad affair is, and was from the first, that the girl
had been the victim of a gang of blackguards. Now, the popular
opinion, under certain conditions, is not to be disregarded. When
arising of itself -- when manifesting itself in a strictly
spontaneous manner -- we should look upon it as analogous with that
_intuition_ which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual man of
genius. In ninety-nine cases from the hundred I would abide by its
decision. But it is important that we find no palpable traces of
_suggestion_. The opinion must be rigorously _the public's own_; and
the distinction is often exceedingly difficult to perceive and to
maintain. In the present instance, it appears to me that this 'public
opinion' in respect to a gang, has been superinduced by the
collateral event which is detailed in the third of my extracts. All
Paris is excited by the discovered corpse of Marie, a girl young,
beautiful and notorious. This corpse is found, bearing marks of
violence, and floating in the river. But it is now made known that,
at the very period, or about the very period, in which it is supposed
that the girl was assassinated, an outrage similar in nature to that
endured by the deceased, although less in extent, was perpetuated, by
a gang of young ruffians, upon the person of a second young female.
Is it wonderful that the one known atrocity should influence the
popular judgment in regard to the other unknown? This judgment
awaited direction, and the known outrage seemed so opportunely to
afford it! Marie, too, was found in the river; and upon this very
river was this known outrage committed. The connexion of the two
events had about it so much of the palpable, that the true wonder
would have been a failure of the populace to appreciate and to seize
it. But, in fact, the one atrocity, known to be so committed, is, if
any thing, evidence that the other, committed at a time nearly
coincident, was not so committed. It would have been a miracle
indeed, if, while a gang of ruffians were perpetrating, at a given
locality, a most unheard-of wrong, there should have been another
similar gang, in a similar locality, in the same city, under the same
circumstances, with the same means and appliances, engaged in a wrong
of precisely the same aspect, at precisely the same period of time!
Yet in what, if not in this marvellous train of coincidence, does the
accidentally suggested opinion of the populace call upon us to
believe?
"Before proceeding farther, let us consider the supposed scene of the
assassination, in the thicket at the Barrière du Roule. This thicket,
although dense, was in the close vicinity of a public road. Within
were three or four large stones, forming a kind of seat with a back
and footstool. On the upper stone was discovered a white petticoat;
on the second, a silk scarf. A parasol, gloves, and a
pocket-handkerchief, were also here found. The handkerchief bore the
name, 'Marie Rogêt.' Fragments of dress were seen on the branches
around. The earth was trampled, the bushes were broken, and there was
every evidence of a violent struggle.
"Notwithstanding the acclamation with which the discovery of this
thicket was received by the press, and the unanimity with which it
was supposed to indicate the precise scene of the outrage, it must be
admitted that there was some very good reason for doubt. That it was
the scene, I may or I may not believe - but there was excellent
reason for doubt. Had the true scene been, as Le Commerciel
suggested, in the neighborhood of the Rue Pavée St. Andrée, the
perpetrators of the crime, supposing them still resident in Paris,
would naturally have been stricken with terror at the public
attention thus acutely directed into the proper channel; and, in
certain classes of minds, there would have arisen, at once, a sense
of the necessity of some exertion to redivert this attention. And
thus, the thicket of the Barrière du Roule having been already
suspected, the idea of placing the articles where they were found,
might have been naturally entertained. There is no real evidence,
although Le Soleil so supposes, that the articles discovered had been
more than a very few days in the thicket; while there is much
circumstantial proof that they could not have remained there, without
attracting attention, during the twenty days elapsing between the
fatal Sunday and the afternoon upon which they were found by the
boys. 'They were all _mildewed_ down hard,' says Le Soleil, adopting
the opinions of its predecessors, 'with the action of the rain, and
stuck together from _mildew_. The grass had grown around and over
some of them. The silk of the parasol was strong, but the threads of
it were run together within. The upper part, where it bad been
doubled and folded, was all _mildewed_ and rotten, and tore on being
opened.' In respect to the grass having '.grown around and over some
of them,' it is obvious that the fact could only have been
ascertained from the words, and thus from the recollections, of two
small boys; for these boys removed the articles and took them home
before they had been seen by a third party. But grass will grow,
especially in warm and damp weather, (such as was that of the period
of the murder,) as much as two or three inches in a single day. A
parasol lying upon a newly turfed ground, might, in a single week, be
entirely concealed from sight by the upspringing grass. And touching
that mildew upon which the editor of Le Soleil so pertinaciously
insists, that he employs the word no less than three times in the
brief paragraph just quoted, is he really unaware of the nature of
this mildew? Is he to be told that it is one of the many classes of
fungus, of which the most ordinary feature is its upspringing and
decadence within twenty-four hours?
"Thus we see, at a glance, that what has been most triumphantly
adduced in support of the idea that the articles bad been 'for at
least three or four weeks' in the thicket, is most absurdly null as
regards any evidence of that fact. On the other hand, it is
exceedingly difficult to believe that these articles could have
remained in the thicket specified, for a longer period than a single
week - for a longer period than from one Sunday to the next. Those
who know any thing of the vicinity of Paris, know the extreme
difficulty of finding seclusion unless at a great distance from its
suburbs. Such a thing as an unexplored, or even an unfrequently
visited recess, amid its woods or groves, is not for a moment to be
imagined. Let any one who, being at heart a lover of nature, is yet
chained by duty to the dust and heat of this great metropolis - let
any such one attempt, even during the weekdays, to slake his thirst
for solitude amid the scenes of natural loveliness which immediately
surround us. At every second step, he will find the growing charm
dispelled by the voice and personal intrusion of some ruffian or
party of carousing blackguards. He will seek privacy amid the densest
foliage, all in vain. Here are the very nooks where the unwashed most
abound - here are the temples most desecrate. With sickness of the
heart the wanderer will flee back to the polluted Paris as to a less
odious because less incongruous sink of pollution. But if the
vicinity of the city is so beset during the working days of the week,
how much more so on the Sabbath! It is now especially that, released
from the claims of labor, or deprived of the customary opportunities
of crime, the town blackguard seeks the precincts of the town, not
through love of the rural, which in his heart he despises, but by way
of escape from the restraints and conventionalities of society. He
desires less the fresh air and the green trees, than the utter
license of the country. Here, at the road-side inn, or beneath the
foliage of the woods, he indulges, unchecked by any eye except those
of his boon companions, in all the mad excess of a counterfeit
hilarity - the joint offspring of liberty and of rum. I say nothing
more than what must be obvious to every dispassionate observer, when
I repeat that the circumstance of the articles in question having
remained undiscovered, for a longer period - than from one Sunday to
another, in any thicket in the immediate neighborhood of Paris, is to
be looked upon as little less than miraculous.
"But there are not wanting other grounds for the suspicion that the
articles were placed in the thicket with the view of diverting
attention from the real scene of the outrage. And, first, let me
direct your notice to the date of the discovery of the articles.
Collate this with the date of the fifth extract made by myself from
the newspapers. You will find that the discovery followed, almost
immediately, the urgent communications sent to the evening paper.
These communications, although various and apparently from various
sources, tended all to the same point - viz., the directing of
attention to a gang as the perpetrators of the outrage, and to the
neighborhood of the Barrière du Roule as its scene. Now here, of
course, the suspicion is not that, in consequence of these
communications, or of the public attention by them directed, the
articles were found by the boys; but the suspicion might and may well
have been, that the articles were not before found by the boys, for
the reason that the articles had not before been in the thicket;
having been deposited there only at so late a period as at the date,
or shortly prior to the date of the communications by the guilty
authors of these communications themselves.
"This thicket was a singular - an exceedingly singular one. It was
unusually dense. Within its naturally walled enclosure were three
extraordinary stones, forming a seat with a back and footstool. And
this thicket, so full of a natural art, was in the immediate
vicinity, within a few rods, of the dwelling of Madame Deluc, whose
boys were in the habit of closely examining the shrubberies about
them in search of the bark of the sassafras. Would it be a rash wager
- a wager of one thousand to one -- that a day never passed over the
heads of these boys without finding at least one of them ensconced in
the umbrageous hall, and enthroned upon its natural throne? Those who
would hesitate at such a wager, have either never been boys
themselves, or have forgotten the boyish nature. I repeat -- it is
exceedingly hard to comprehend how the articles could have remained
in this thicket undiscovered, for a longer period than one or two
days; and that thus there is good ground for suspicion, in spite of
the dogmatic ignorance of Le Soleil, that they were, at a
comparatively late date, deposited where found.
"But there are still other and stronger reasons for believing them so
deposited, than any which I have as yet urged. And, now, let me beg
your notice to the highly artificial arrangement of the articles. On
the upper stone lay a white petticoat; on the second a silk scarf;
scattered around, were a parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief
bearing the name, 'Marie Rogêt.' Here is just such an arrangement as
would naturally be made by a not over-acute person wishing to dispose
the articles naturally. But it is by no means a really natural
arrangement. I should rather have looked to see the things all lying
on the ground and trampled under foot. In the narrow limits of that
bower, it would have been scarcely possible that the petticoat and
scarf should have retained a position upon the stones, when subjected
to the brushing to and fro of many struggling persons. 'There was
evidence,' it is said, 'of a struggle; and the earth was trampled,
the bushes were broken,' - but the petticoat and the scarf are found
deposited as if upon shelves. 'The pieces of the frock torn out by
the bushes were about three inches wide and six inches long. One part
was the hem of the frock and it had been mended. They looked like
strips torn off.' Here, inadvertently, Le Soleil has employed an
exceedingly suspicious phrase. The pieces, as described, do indeed
'look like strips torn off;' but purposely and by hand. It is one of
the rarest of accidents that a piece is 'torn off,' from any garment
such as is now in question, by the agency of a thorn. From the very
nature of such fabrics, a thorn or nail becoming entangled in them,
tears them rectangularly - divides them into two longitudinal rents,
at right angles with each other, and meeting at an apex where the
thorn enters - but it is scarcely possible to conceive the piece
'torn off.' I never so knew it, nor did you. To tear a piece off from
such fabric, two distinct forces, in different directions, will be,
in almost every case, required. If there be two edges to the fabric -
if, for example, it be a pocket- handkerchief, and it is desired to
tear from it a slip, then, and then only, will the one force serve
the purpose. But in the present case the question is of a dress,
presenting but one edge. To tear a piece from the interior, where no
edge is presented, could only be effected by a miracle through the
agency of thorns, and no one thorn could accomplish it. But, even
where an edge is presented, two thorns will be necessary, operating,
the one in two distinct directions, and the other in one. And this in
the supposition that the edge is unhemmed. If hemmed, the matter is
nearly out of the question. We thus see the numerous and great
obstacles in the way of pieces being 'torn off' through the simple
agency of 'thorns;' yet we are required to believe not only that one
piece but that many have been so torn. 'And one part,' too, 'was the
hem of the frock!' Another piece was 'part of the skirt, not the
hem,' - that is to say, was torn completely out through the agency of
thorns, from the uncaged interior of the dress! These, I say, are
things which one may well be pardoned for disbelieving; yet, taken
collectedly, they form, perhaps, less of reasonable ground for
suspicion, than the one startling circumstance of the articles'
having been left in this thicket at all, by any murderers who had
enough precaution to think of removing the corpse. You will not have
apprehended me rightly, however, if you suppose it my design to deny
this thicket as the scene of the outrage. There might have been a
wrong here, or, more possibly, an accident at Madame Deluc's. But, in
fact, this is a point of minor importance. We are not engaged in an
attempt to discover the scene, but to produce the perpetrators of the
murder. What I have adduced, notwithstanding the minuteness with
which I have adduced it, has been with the view, first, to show the
folly of the positive and headlong assertions of Le Soleil, but
secondly and chiefly, to bring you, by the most natural route, to a
further contemplation of the doubt whether this assassination has, or
has not been, the work of a gang.
"We will resume this question by mere allusion to the revolting
details of the surgeon examined at the inquest. It is only necessary
to say that is published inferences, in regard to the number of
ruffians, have been properly ridiculed as unjust and totally
baseless, by all the reputable anatomists of Paris. Not that the
matter might not have been as inferred, but that there was no ground
for the inference: - was there not much for another?
"Let us reflect now upon 'the traces of a struggle;' and let me ask
what these traces have been supposed to demonstrate. A gang. But do
they not rather demonstrate the absence of a gang? What struggle
could have taken place - what struggle so violent and so enduring as
to have left its 'traces' in all directions - between a weak and
defenceless girl and the gang of ruffians imagined? The silent grasp
of a few rough arms and all would have been over. The victim must
have been absolutely passive at their will. You will here bear in
mind that the arguments urged against the thicket as the scene, are
applicable in chief part, only against it as the scene of an outrage
committed by more than a single individual. If we imagine but one
violator, we can conceive, and thus only conceive, the struggle of so
violent and so obstinate a nature as to have left the 'traces'
apparent.
"And again. I have already mentioned the suspicion to be excited by
the fact that the articles in question were suffered to remain at all
in the thicket where discovered. It seems almost impossible that
these evidences of guilt should have been accidentally left where
found. There was sufficient presence of mind (it is supposed) to
remove the corpse; and yet a more positive evidence than the corpse
itself (whose features might have been quickly obliterated by decay,)
is allowed to lie conspicuously in the scene of the outrage - I
allude to the handkerchief with the name of the deceased. If this was
accident, it was not the accident of a gang. We can imagine it only
the accident of an individual. Let us see. An individual has
committed the murder. He is alone with the ghost of the departed. He
is appalled by what lies motionless before him. The fury of his
passion is over, and there is abundant room in his heart for the
natural awe of the deed. His is none of that confidence which the
presence of numbers inevitably inspires. He is alone with the dead.
He trembles and is bewildered. Yet there is a necessity for disposing
of the corpse. He bears it to the river, but leaves behind him the
other evidences of guilt; for it is difficult, if not impossible to
carry all the burthen at once, and it will be easy to return for what
is left. But in his toilsome journey to the water his fears redouble
within him. The sounds of life encompass his path. A dozen times he
hears or fancies the step of an observer. Even the very lights from
the city bewilder him. Yet, in time and by long and frequent pauses
of deep agony, he reaches the river's brink, and disposes of his
ghastly charge - perhaps through the medium of a boat. But now what
treasure does the world hold - what threat of vengeance could it hold
out - which would have power to urge the return of that lonely
murderer over that toilsome and perilous path, to the thicket and its
blood chilling recollections? He returns not, let the consequences be
what they may. He could not return if he would. His sole thought is
immediate escape. He turns his back forever upon those dreadful
shrubberies and flees as from the wrath to come.
"But how with a gang? Their number would have inspired them with
confidence; if, indeed confidence is ever wanting in the breast of
the arrant blackguard; and of arrant blackguards alone are the
supposed gangs ever constituted. Their number, I say, would have
prevented the bewildering and unreasoning terror which I have
imagined to paralyze the single man. Could we suppose an oversight in
one, or two, or three, this oversight would have been remedied by a
fourth. They would have left nothing behind them; for their number
would have enabled them to carry all at once. There would have been
no need of return.
"Consider now the circumstance that in the outer garment of the
corpse when found, 'a slip, about a foot wide had been torn upward
from the bottom hem to the waist wound three times round the waist,
and secured by a sort of hitch in the back.' This was done with the
obvious design of affording a handle by which to carry the body. But
would any number of men have dreamed of resorting to such an
expedient? To three or four, the limbs of the corpse would have
afforded not only a sufficient, but the best possible hold. The
device is that of a single individual; and this brings us to the fact
that 'between the thicket and the river, the rails of the fences were
found taken down, and the ground bore evident traces of some heavy
burden having been dragged along it!' But would a number of men have
put themselves to the superfluous trouble of taking down a fence, for
the purpose of dragging through it a corpse which they might have
lifted over any fence in an instant? Would a number of men have so
dragged a corpse at all as to have left evident traces of the
dragging?
"And here we must refer to an observation of Le Commerciel; an
observation upon which I have already, in some measure, commented. 'A
piece,' says this journal, 'of one of the unfortunate girl's
petticoats was torn out and tied under her chin, and around the back
of her head, probably to prevent screams. This was done by fellows
who had no pocket-handkerchiefs.'
"I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never without a
pocket-handkerchief. But it is not to this fact that I now especially
advert. That it was not through want of a handkerchief for the
purpose imagined by Le Commerciel, that this bandage was employed, is
rendered apparent by the handkerchief left in the thicket; and that
the object was not 'to prevent screams' appears, also, from the
bandage having been employed in preference to what would so much
better have answered the purpose. But the language of the evidence
speaks of the strip in question as 'found around the neck, fitting
loosely, and secured with a hard knot.' These words are sufficiently
vague, but differ materially from those of Le Commerciel. The slip
was eighteen inches wide, and therefore, although of muslin, would
form a strong band when folded or rumpled longitudinally. And thus
rumpled it was discovered. My inference is this. The solitary
murderer, having borne the corpse, for some distance, (whether from
the thicket or elsewhere) by means of the bandage hitched around its
middle, found the weight, in this mode of procedure, too much for his
strength. He resolved to drag the burthen - the evidence goes to show
that it was dragged. With this object in view, it became necessary to
attach something like a rope to one of the extremities. It could be
best attached about the neck, where the head would prevent its
slipping off. And, now, the murderer bethought him, unquestionably,
of the bandage about the loins. He would have used this, but for its
volution about the corpse, the hitch which embarrassed it, and the
reflection that it had not been 'torn off' from the garment. It was
easier to tear a new slip from the petticoat. He tore it, made it
fast about the neck, and so dragged his victim to the brink of the
river. That this 'bandage,' only attainable with trouble and delay,
and but imperfectly answering its purpose - that this bandage was
employed at all, demonstrates that the necessity for its employment
sprang from circumstances arising at a period when the handkerchief
was no longer attainable -- that is to say, arising, as we have
imagined, after quitting the thicket, (if the thicket it was), and on
the road between the thicket and the river.
"But the evidence, you will say, of Madame Deluc, (!) points
especially to the presence of a gang, in the vicinity of the thicket,
at or about the epoch of the murder. This I grant. I doubt if there
were not a dozen gangs, such as described by Madame Deluc, in and
about the vicinity of the Barrière du Roule at or about the period of
this tragedy. But the gang which has drawn upon itself the pointed
animadversion, although the somewhat tardy and very suspicious
evidence of Madame Deluc, is the only gang which is represented by
that honest and scrupulous old lady as having eaten her cakes and
swallowed her brandy, without putting themselves to the trouble of
making her payment. Et hinc illæ iræ?
"But what is the precise evidence of Madame Deluc? 'A gang of
miscreants made their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and drank
without making payment, followed in the route of the young man and
girl, returned to the inn about dusk, and recrossed the river as if
in great haste.'
"Now this 'great haste' very possibly seemed greater haste in the
eyes of Madame Deluc, since she dwelt lingeringly and lamentingly
upon her violated cakes and ale - cakes and ale for which she might
still have entertained a faint hope of compensation. Why, otherwise,
since it was about dusk, should she make a point of the haste? It is
no cause for wonder, surely, that even a gang of blackguards should
make haste to get home, when a wide river is to be crossed in small
boats, when storm impends, and when night approaches.
"I say approaches; for the night had not yet arrived. It was only
about dusk that the indecent haste of these 'miscreants' offended the
sober eyes of Madame Deluc. But we are told that it was upon this
very evening that Madame Deluc, as well as her eldest son, 'heard the
screams of a female in the vicinity of the inn.' And in what words
does Madame Deluc designate the period of the evening at which these
screams were heard? 'It was soon after dark,' she says. But 'soon
after dark,' is, at least, dark; and 'about dusk' is as certainly
daylight. Thus it is abundantly clear that the gang quitted the
Barrière du Roule prior to the screams overheard (?) by Madame Deluc.
And although, in all the many reports of the evidence, the relative
expressions in question are distinctly and invariably employed just
as I have employed them in this conversation with yourself, no notice
whatever of the gross discrepancy has, as yet, been taken by any of
the public journals, or by any of the Myrmidons of police.
"I shall add but one to the arguments against a gang; but this one
has, to my own understanding at least, a weight altogether
irresistible. Under the circumstances of large reward offered, and
full pardon to any King's evidence, it is not to be imagined, for a
moment, that some member of a gang of low ruffians, or of any body of
men, would not long ago have betrayed his accomplices. Each one of a
gang so placed, is not so much greedy of reward, or anxious for
escape, as fearful of betrayal. He betrays eagerly and early that he
may not himself be betrayed. That the secret has not been divulged,
is the very best of proof that it is, in fact, a secret. The horrors
of this dark deed are known only to one, or two, living human beings,
and to God.
"Let us sum up now the meagre yet certain fruits of our long
analysis. We have attained the idea either of a fatal accident under
the roof of Madame Deluc, or of a murder perpetrated, in the thicket
at the Barrière du Roule, by a lover, or at least by an intimate and
secret associate of the deceased. This associate is of swarthy
complexion. This complexion, the 'hitch' in the bandage, and the
'sailor's knot,' with which the bonnet-ribbon is tied, point to a
seaman. His companionship with the deceased, a gay, but not an abject
young girl, designates him as above the grade of the common sailor.
Here the well written and urgent communications to the journals are
much in the way of corroboration. The circumstance of the first
elopement, as mentioned by Le Mercurie, tends to blend the idea of
this seaman with that of the 'naval officer' who is first known to
have led the unfortunate into crime.
"And here, most fitly, comes the consideration of the continued
absence of him of the dark complexion. Let me pause to observe that
the complexion of this man is dark and swarthy; it was no common
swarthiness which constituted the sole point of remembrance, both as
regards Valence and Madame Deluc. But why is this man absent? Was he
murdered by the gang? If so, why are there only traces of the
assassinated girl? The scene of the two outrages will naturally be
supposed identical. And where is his corpse? The assassins would most
probably have disposed of both in the same way. But it may be said
that this man lives, and is deterred from making himself known,
through dread of being charged with the murder. This consideration
might be supposed to operate upon him now - at this late period -
since it has been given in evidence that he was seen with Marie - but
it would have had no force at the period of the deed. The first
impulse of an innocent man would have been to announce the outrage,
and to aid in identifying the ruffians. This policy would have
suggested. He had been seen with the girl. He had crossed the river
with her in an open ferry-boat. The denouncing of the assassins would
have appeared, even to an idiot, the surest and sole means of
relieving himself from suspicion. We cannot suppose him, on the night
of the fatal Sunday, both innocent himself and incognizant of an
outrage committed. Yet only under such circumstances is it possible
to imagine that he would have failed, if alive, in the denouncement
of the assassins.
"And what means are ours, of attaining the truth? We shall find these
means multiplying and gathering distinctness as we proceed. Let us
sift to the bottom this affair of the first elopement. Let us know
the full history of 'the officer,' with his present circumstances,
and his whereabouts at the precise period of the murder. Let us
carefully compare with each other the various communications sent to
the evening paper, in which the object was to inculpate a gang. This
done, let us compare these communications, both as regards style and
MS., with those sent to the morning paper, at a previous period, and
insisting so vehemently upon the guilt of Mennais. And, all this
done, let us again compare these various communications with the
known MSS. of the officer. Let us endeavor to ascertain, by repeated
questionings of Madame Deluc and her boys, as well as of the omnibus
driver, Valence, something more of the personal appearance and
bearing of the 'man of dark complexion.' Queries, skilfully directed,
will not fail to elicit, from some of these parties, information on
this particular point (or upon others) - information which the
parties themselves may not even be aware of possessing. And let us
now trace the boatpicked up by the bargeman on the morning of Monday
the twenty-third of June, and which was removed from the
barge-office, without the cognizance of the officer in attendance,
and without the rudder, at some period prior to the discovery of the
corpse. With a proper caution and perseverance we shall infallibly
trace this boat; for not only can the bargeman who picked it up
identify it, but the rudder is at hand. The rudder of a sail-boat
would not have been abandoned, without inquiry, by one altogether at
ease in heart. And here let me pause to insinuate a question. There
was no advertisement of the picking up of this boat. It was silently
taken to the barge-office, and as silently removed. But its owner or
employer - how happened he, at so early a period as Tuesday morning,
to be informed, without the agency of advertisement, of the locality
of the boat taken up on Monday, unless we imagine some connexion with
the navy - some personal permanent connexion leading to cognizance of
its minute in interests - its petty local news?
"In speaking of the lonely assassin dragging his burden to the shore,
I have already suggested the probability of his availing himself of a
boat. Now we are to understand that Marie Rogêt was precipitated from
a boat. This would naturally have been the case. The corpse could not
have been trusted to the shallow waters of the shore. The peculiar
marks on the back and shoulders of the victim tell of the bottom ribs
of a boat. That the body was found without weight is also
corroborative of the idea. If thrown from the shore a weight would
have been attached. We can only account for its absence by supposing
the murderer to have neglected the precaution of supplying himself
with it before pushing off. In the act of consigning the corpse to
the water, he would unquestionably have noticed his oversight; but
then no remedy would have been at hand. Any risk would have been
preferred to a return to that accursed shore. Having rid himself of
his ghastly charge, the murderer would have hastened to the city.
There, at some obscure wharf, he would have leaped on land. But the
boat - would he have secured it? He would have been in too great
haste for such things as securing a boat. Moreover, in fastening it
to the wharf, he would have felt as if securing evidence against
himself. His natural thought would have been to cast from him, as far
as possible, all that had held connection with his crime. He would
not only have fled from the wharf, but he would not have permitted
the boat to remain. Assuredly he would have cast it adrift. Let us
pursue our fancies. - In the morning, the wretch is stricken with
unutterable horror at finding that the boat has been picked up and
detained at a locality which he is in the daily habit of frequenting
- at a locality, perhaps, which his duty compels him to frequent. The
next night, without daring to ask for the rudder, he removes it. Now
where is that rudderless boat? Let it be one of our first purposes to
discover. With the first glimpse we obtain of it, the dawn of our
success shall begin. This boat shall guide us, with a rapidity which
will surprise even ourselves, to him who employed it in the midnight
of the fatal Sabbath. Corroboration will rise upon corroboration, and
the murderer will be traced."
[For reasons which we shall not specify, but which to many readers
will appear obvious, we have taken the liberty of here omitting, from
the MSS. placed in our hands, such portion as details the following
up of the apparently slight clew obtained by Dupin. We feel it
advisable only to state, in brief, that the result desired was
brought to pass; and that the Prefect fulfilled punctually, although
with reluctance, the terms of his compact with the Chevalier. Mr.
Poe's article concludes with the following words. - Eds. {*23}]
It will be understood that I speak of coincidences and no more. What
I have said above upon this topic must suffice. In my own heart there
dwells no faith in præter-nature. That Nature and its God are two, no
man who thinks, will deny. That the latter, creating the former, can,
at will, control or modify it, is also unquestionable. I say "at
will;" for the question is of will, and not, as the insanity of logic
has assumed, of power. It is not that the Deity cannot modify his
laws, but that we insult him in imagining a possible necessity for
modification. In their origin these laws were fashioned to embrace
all contingencies which could lie in the Future. With God all is Now.
I repeat, then, that I speak of these things only as of coincidences.
And farther: in what I relate it will be seen that between the fate
of the unhappy Mary Cecilia Rogers, so far as that fate is known, and
the fate of one Marie Rogêt up to a certain epoch in her history,
there has existed a parallel in the contemplation of whose wonderful
exactitude the reason becomes embarrassed. I say all this will be
seen. But let it not for a moment be supposed that, in proceeding
with the sad narrative of Marie from the epoch just mentioned, and in
tracing to its dénouement the mystery which enshrouded her, it is my
covert design to hint at an extension of the parallel, or even to
suggest that the measures adopted in Paris for the discovery of the
assassin of a grisette, or measures founded in any similar
ratiocination, would produce any similar result.
For, in respect to the latter branch of the supposition, it should be
considered that the most trifling variation in the facts of the two
cases might give rise to the most important miscalculations, by
diverting thoroughly the two courses of events; very much as, in
arithmetic, an error which, in its own individuality, may be
inappreciable, produces, at length, by dint of multiplication at all
points of the process, a result enormously at variance with truth.
And, in regard to the former branch, we must not fail to hold in view
that the very Calculus of Probabilities to which I have referred,
forbids all idea of the extension of the parallel: - forbids it with
a positiveness strong and decided just in proportion as this parallel
has already been long-drawn and exact. This is one of those anomalous
propositions which, seemingly appealing to thought altogether apart
from the mathematical, is yet one which only the mathematician can
fully entertain. Nothing, for example, is more difficult than to
convince the merely general reader that the fact of sixes having been
thrown twice in succession by a player at dice, is sufficient cause
for betting the largest odds that sixes will not be thrown in the
third attempt. A suggestion to this effect is usually rejected by the
intellect at once. It does not appear that the two throws which have
been completed, and which lie now absolutely in the Past, can have
influence upon the throw which exists only in the Future. The chance
for throwing sixes seems to be precisely as it was at any ordinary
time - that is to say, subject only to the influence of the various
other throws which may be made by the dice. And this is a reflection
which appears so exceedingly obvious that attempts to controvert it
are received more frequently with a derisive smile than with anything
like respectful attention. The error here involved - a gross error
redolent of mischief - I cannot pretend to expose within the limits
assigned me at present; and with the philosophical it needs no
exposure. It may be sufficient here to say that it forms one of an
infinite series of mistakes which arise in the path or Reason through
her propensity for seeking truth in detail.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
FOOTNOTES--Marie Rogêt
{*1} Upon the original publication of "Marie Roget," the foot-notes
now appended were considered unnecessary; but the lapse of several
years since the tragedy upon which the tale is based, renders it
expedient to give them, and also to say a few words in explanation of
the general design. A young girl, Mary Cecilia Rogers, was murdered
in the vicinity of New York; and, although her death occasioned an
intense and long-enduring excitement, the mystery attending it had
remained unsolved at the period when the present paper was written
and published (November, 1842). Herein, under pretence of relating
the fate of a Parisian grisette, the author has followed in minute
detail, the essential, while merely paralleling the inessential facts
of the real murder of Mary Rogers. Thus all argument founded upon the
fiction is applicable to the truth: and the investigation of the
truth was the object. The "Mystery of Marie Roget" was composed at a
distance from the scene of the atrocity, and with no other means of
investigation than the newspapers afforded. Thus much escaped the
writer of which he could have availed himself had he been upon the
spot, and visited the localities. It may not be improper to record,
nevertheless, that the confessions of two persons, (one of them the
Madame Deluc of the narrative) made, at different periods, long
subsequent to the publication, confirmed, in full, not only the
general conclusion, but absolutely all the chief hypothetical details
by which that conclusion was attained.
{*2} The nom de plume of Von Hardenburg.
{*3} Nassau Street.
{*4} Anderson.
{*5} The Hudson.
{*6} Weehawken.
{*7} Payne.
{*8} Crommelin.
{*9} The New York "Mercury."
(*10} The New York "Brother Jonathan," edited by H. Hastings Weld,
Esq.
{*11} New York "Journal of Commerce."
{*12} Philadelphia "Saturday Evening Post," edited by C. I. Peterson,
Esq.
{*13} Adam
{*14} See "Murders in the Rue Morgue."
{*15} The New York "Commercial Advertiser," edited by Col. Stone.
{*16} "A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent its
being unfolded according to its objects; and he who arranges topics
in reference to their causes, will cease to value them according to
their results. Thus the jurisprudence of every nation will show that,
when law becomes a science and a system, it ceases to be justice. The
errors into which a blind devotion to principles of classification
has led the common law, will be seen by observing how often the
legislature has been obliged to come forward to restore the equity
its scheme had lost." - Landor.
{*17} New York "Express"
{*18} NewYork "Herald."
{*19} New York "Courier and Inquirer."
{*20} Mennais was one of the parties originally suspected and
arrested, but discharged through total lack of evidence.
{*21} New York "Courier and Inquirer."
{*22} New York "Evening Post."
{*23} Of the Magazine in which the article was originally published.
==========
THE BALLOON-HOAX
[Astounding News by Express, _via_ Norfolk! - The Atlantic
crossed in Three Days! Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's Flying
Machine! - Arrival at Sullivan's Island, near Charlestown, S.C., of
Mr. Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth,
and four others, in the Steering Balloon, "Victoria," after a passage
of Seventy-five Hours from Land to Land! Full Particulars of the
Voyage!
The subjoined _jeu d'esprit_ with the preceding heading in
magnificent capitals, well interspersed with notes of admiration, was
originally published, as matter of fact, in the "New York Sun," a
daily newspaper, and therein fully subserved the purpose of creating
indigestible aliment for the _quidnuncs_ during the few hours
intervening between a couple of the Charleston mails. The rush for
the "sole paper which had the news," was something beyond even the
prodigious; and, in fact, if (as some assert) the "Victoria" _did_
not absolutely accomplish the voyage recorded, it will be difficult
to assign a reason why she _should_ not have accomplished it.]
THE great problem is at length solved! The air, as well as the
earth and the ocean, has been subdued by science, and will become a
common and convenient highway for mankind. _The Atlantic has been
actually crossed in a Balloon!_ and this too without difficulty -
without any great apparent danger - with thorough control of the
machine - and in the inconceivably brief period of seventy-five hours
from shore to shore! By the energy of an agent at Charleston, S.C.,
we are enabled to be the first to furnish the public with a detailed
account of this most extraordinary voyage, which was performed
between Saturday, the 6th instant, at 11, A.M., and 2, P.M., on
Tuesday, the 9th instant, by Sir Everard Bringhurst; Mr. Osborne, a
nephew of Lord Bentinck's; Mr. Monck Mason and Mr. Robert Holland,
the well-known æronauts; Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, author of "Jack
Sheppard," &c.; and Mr. Henson, the projector of the late
unsuccessful flying machine - with two seamen from Woolwich - in all,
eight persons. The particulars furnished below may be relied on as
authentic and accurate in every respect, as, with a slight exception,
they are copied _verbatim_ from the joint diaries of Mr. Monck Mason
and Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, to whose politeness our agent is also
indebted for much verbal information respecting the balloon itself,
its construction, and other matters of interest. The only alteration
in the MS. received, has been made for the purpose of throwing the
hurried account of our agent, Mr. Forsyth, into a connected and
intelligible form.
"THE BALLOON.
"Two very decided failures, of late - those of Mr. Henson and Sir
George Cayley - had much weakened the public interest in the subject
of aerial navigation. Mr. Henson's scheme (which at first was
considered very feasible even by men of science,) was founded upon
the principle of an inclined plane, started from an eminence by an
extrinsic force, applied and continued by the revolution of impinging
vanes, in form and number resembling the vanes of a windmill. But,
in all the experiments made with models at the Adelaide Gallery, it
was found that the operation of these fans not only did not propel
the machine, but actually impeded its flight. The only propelling
force it ever exhibited, was the mere _impetus_ acquired from the
descent of the inclined plane; and this _impetus_ carried the
machine farther when the vanes were at rest, than when they were in
motion - a fact which sufficiently demonstrates their inutility;
and in the absence of the propelling, which was also the _sustaining_
power, the whole fabric would necessarily descend. This
consideration led Sir George Cayley to think only of adapting a
propeller to some machine having of itself an independent power of
support - in a word, to a balloon; the idea, however, being novel,
or original, with Sir George, only so far as regards the mode of its
application to practice. He exhibited a model of his invention at
the Polytechnic Institution. The propelling principle, or power, was
here, also, applied to interrupted surfaces, or vanes, put in
revolution. These vanes were four in number, but were found entirely
ineffectual in moving the balloon, or in aiding its ascending power.
The whole project was thus a complete failure.
"It was at this juncture that Mr. Monck Mason (whose voyage from
Dover to Weilburg in the balloon, "Nassau," occasioned so much
excitement in 1837,) conceived the idea of employing the principle of
the Archimedean screw for the purpose of propulsion through the air -
rightly attributing the failure of Mr. Henson's scheme, and of Sir
George Cayley's, to the interruption of surface in the independent
vanes. He made the first public experiment at Willis's Rooms, but
afterward removed his model to the Adelaide Gallery.
"Like Sir George Cayley's balloon, his own was an ellipsoid. Its
length was thirteen feet six inches - height, six feet eight inches.
It contained about three hundred and twenty cubic feet of gas, which,
if pure hydrogen, would support twenty-one pounds upon its first
inflation, before the gas has time to deteriorate or escape. The
weight of the whole machine and apparatus was seventeen pounds -
leaving about four pounds to spare. Beneath the centre of the
balloon, was a frame of light wood, about nine feet long, and rigged
on to the balloon itself with a network in the customary manner.
From this framework was suspended a wicker basket or car.
"The screw consists of an axis of hollow brass tube, eighteen
inches in length, through which, upon a semi-spiral inclined at
fifteen degrees, pass a series of steel wire radii, two feet long,
and thus projecting a foot on either side. These radii are connected
at the outer extremities by two bands of flattened wire - the whole
in this manner forming the framework of the screw, which is completed
by a covering of oiled silk cut into gores, and tightened so as to
present a tolerably uniform surface. At each end of its axis this
screw is supported by pillars of hollow brass tube descending from
the hoop. In the lower ends of these tubes are holes in which the
pivots of the axis revolve. From the end of the axis which is next
the car, proceeds a shaft of steel, connecting the screw with the
pinion of a piece of spring machinery fixed in the car. By the
operation of this spring, the screw is made to revolve with great
rapidity, communicating a progressive motion to the whole. By means
of the rudder, the machine was readily turned in any direction. The
spring was of great power, compared with its dimensions, being
capable of raising forty-five pounds upon a barrel of four inches
diameter, after the first turn, and gradually increasing as it was
wound up. It weighed, altogether, eight pounds six ounces. The
rudder was a light frame of cane covered with silk, shaped somewhat
like a battledoor, and was about three feet long, and at the widest,
one foot. Its weight was about two ounces. It could be turned
_flat_, and directed upwards or downwards, as well as to the right or
left; and thus enabled the æronaut to transfer the resistance of
the air which in an inclined position it must generate in its
passage, to any side upon which he might desire to act; thus
determining the balloon in the opposite direction.
"This model (which, through want of time, we have necessarily
described in an imperfect manner,) was put in action at the Adelaide
Gallery, where it accomplished a velocity of five miles per hour;
although, strange to say, it excited very little interest in
comparison with the previous complex machine of Mr. Henson - so
resolute is the world to despise anything which carries with it an
air of simplicity. To accomplish the great desideratum of ærial
navigation, it was very generally supposed that some exceedingly
complicated application must be made of some unusually profound
principle in dynamics.
"So well satisfied, however, was Mr. Mason of the ultimate
success of his invention, that he determined to construct
immediately, if possible, a balloon of sufficient capacity to test
the question by a voyage of some extent - the original design being
to cross the British Channel, as before, in the Nassau balloon. To
carry out his views, he solicited and obtained the patronage of Sir
Everard Bringhurst and Mr. Osborne, two gentlemen well known for
scientific acquirement, and especially for the interest they have
exhibited in the progress of ærostation. The project, at the desire
of Mr. Osborne, was kept a profound secret from the public - the only
persons entrusted with the design being those actually engaged in the
construction of the machine, which was built (under the
superintendence of Mr. Mason, Mr. Holland, Sir Everard Bringhurst,
and Mr. Osborne,) at the seat of the latter gentleman near
Penstruthal, in Wales. Mr. Henson, accompanied by his friend Mr.
Ainsworth, was admitted to a private view of the balloon, on Saturday
last - when the two gentlemen made final arrangements to be included
in the adventure. We are not informed for what reason the two seamen
were also included in the party - but, in the course of a day or two,
we shall put our readers in possession of the minutest particulars
respecting this extraordinary voyage.
"The balloon is composed of silk, varnished with the liquid gum
caoutchouc. It is of vast dimensions, containing more than 40,000
cubic feet of gas; but as coal gas was employed in place of the
more expensive and inconvenient hydrogen, the supporting power of the
machine, when fully inflated, and immediately after inflation, is not
more than about 2500 pounds. The coal gas is not only much less
costly, but is easily procured and managed.
"For its introduction into common use for purposes of
aerostation, we are indebted to Mr. Charles Green. Up to his
discovery, the process of inflation was not only exceedingly
expensive, but uncertain. Two, and even three days, have frequently
been wasted in futile attempts to procure a sufficiency of hydrogen
to fill a balloon, from which it had great tendency to escape, owing
to its extreme subtlety, and its affinity for the surrounding
atmosphere. In a balloon sufficiently perfect to retain its contents
of coal-gas unaltered, in quantity or amount, for six months, an
equal quantity of hydrogen could not be maintained in equal purity
for six weeks.
"The supporting power being estimated at 2500 pounds, and the
united weights of the party amounting only to about 1200, there was
left a surplus of 1300, of which again 1200 was exhausted by ballast,
arranged in bags of different sizes, with their respective weights
marked upon them - by cordage, barometers, telescopes, barrels
containing provision for a fortnight, water-casks, cloaks,
carpet-bags, and various other indispensable matters, including a
coffee-warmer, contrived for warming coffee by means of slack-lime,
so as to dispense altogether with fire, if it should be judged
prudent to do so. All these articles, with the exception of the
ballast, and a few trifles, were suspended from the hoop overhead.
The car is much smaller and lighter, in proportion, than the one
appended to the model. It is formed of a light wicker, and is
wonderfully strong, for so frail looking a machine. Its rim is about
four feet deep. The rudder is also very much larger, in proportion,
than that of the model; and the screw is considerably smaller. The
balloon is furnished besides with a grapnel, and a guide-rope;
which latter is of the most indispensable importance. A few words, in
explanation, will here be necessary for such of our readers as are
not conversant with the details of aerostation.
"As soon as the balloon quits the earth, it is subjected to the
influence of many circumstances tending to create a difference in its
weight; augmenting or diminishing its ascending power. For
example, there may be a deposition of dew upon the silk, to the
extent, even, of several hundred pounds; ballast has then to be
thrown out, or the machine may descend. This ballast being
discarded, and a clear sunshine evaporating the dew, and at the same
time expanding the gas in the silk, the whole will again rapidly
ascend. To check this ascent, the only recourse is, (or rather
_was_, until Mr. Green's invention of the guide-rope,) the permission
of the escape of gas from the valve; but, in the loss of gas, is a
proportionate general loss of ascending power; so that, in a
comparatively brief period, the best-constructed balloon must
necessarily exhaust all its resources, and come to the earth. This
was the great obstacle to voyages of length.
"The guide-rope remedies the difficulty in the simplest manner
conceivable. It is merely a very long rope which is suffered to
trail from the car, and the effect of which is to prevent the balloon
from changing its level in any material degree. If, for example,
there should be a deposition of moisture upon the silk, and the
machine begins to descend in consequence, there will be no necessity
for discharging ballast to remedy the increase of weight, for it is
remedied, or counteracted, in an exactly just proportion, by the
deposit on the ground of just so much of the end of the rope as is
necessary. If, on the other hand, any circumstances should cause
undue levity, and consequent ascent, this levity is immediately
counteracted by the additional weight of rope upraised from the
earth. Thus, the balloon can neither ascend or descend, except
within very narrow limits, and its resources, either in gas or
ballast, remain comparatively unimpaired. When passing over an
expanse of water, it becomes necessary to employ small kegs of copper
or wood, filled with liquid ballast of a lighter nature than water.
These float, and serve all the purposes of a mere rope on land.
Another most important office of the guide-rope, is to point out the
_direction_ of the balloon. The rope _drags_, either on land or sea,
while the balloon is free; the latter, consequently, is always in
advance, when any progress whatever is made: a comparison,
therefore, by means of the compass, of the relative positions of the
two objects, will always indicate the _course_. In the same way, the
angle formed by the rope with the vertical axis of the machine,
indicates the _velocity_. When there is _no_ angle - in other words,
when the rope hangs perpendicularly, the whole apparatus is
stationary; but the larger the angle, that is to say, the farther
the balloon precedes the end of the rope, the greater the velocity;
and the converse.
"As the original design was to cross the British Channel, and
alight as near Paris as possible, the voyagers had taken the
precaution to prepare themselves with passports directed to all parts
of the Continent, specifying the nature of the expedition, as in the
case of the Nassau voyage, and entitling the adventurers to exemption
from the usual formalities of office: unexpected events, however,
rendered these passports superfluous.
"The inflation was commenced very quietly at daybreak, on
Saturday morning, the 6th instant, in the Court-Yard of Weal-Vor
House, Mr. Osborne's seat, about a mile from Penstruthal, in North
Wales; and at 7 minutes past 11, every thing being ready for
departure, the balloon was set free, rising gently but steadily, in a
direction nearly South; no use being made, for the first half hour,
of either the screw or the rudder. We proceed now with the journal,
as transcribed by Mr. Forsyth from the joint MSS. Of Mr. Monck
Mason, and Mr. Ainsworth. The body of the journal, as given, is in
the hand-writing of Mr. Mason, and a P. S. is appended, each day,
by Mr. Ainsworth, who has in preparation, and will shortly give the
public a more minute, and no doubt, a thrillingly interesting account
of the voyage.
"THE JOURNAL.
"_Saturday, April the 6th_. - Every preparation likely to
embarrass us, having been made over night, we commenced the inflation
this morning at daybreak; but owing to a thick fog, which
encumbered the folds of the silk and rendered it unmanageable, we did
not get through before nearly eleven o'clock. Cut loose, then, in
high spirits, and rose gently but steadily, with a light breeze at
North, which bore us in the direction of the British Channel. Found
the ascending force greater than we had expected; and as we arose
higher and so got clear of the cliffs, and more in the sun's rays,
our ascent became very rapid. I did not wish, however, to lose gas
at so early a period of the adventure, and so concluded to ascend for
the present. We soon ran out our guide-rope; but even when we had
raised it clear of the earth, we still went up very rapidly. The
balloon was unusually steady, and looked beautifully. In about ten
minutes after starting, the barometer indicated an altitude of 15,000
feet. The weather was remarkably fine, and the view of the subjacent
country - a most romantic one when seen from any point, - was now
especially sublime. The numerous deep gorges presented the appearance
of lakes, on account of the dense vapors with which they were filled,
and the pinnacles and crags to the South East, piled in inextricable
confusion, resembling nothing so much as the giant cities of eastern
fable. We were rapidly approaching the mountains in the South; but
our elevation was more than sufficient to enable us to pass them in
safety. In a few minutes we soared over them in fine style; and
Mr. Ainsworth, with the seamen, was surprised at their apparent want
of altitude when viewed from the car, the tendency of great elevation
in a balloon being to reduce inequalities of the surface below, to
nearly a dead level. At half-past eleven still proceeding nearly
South, we obtained our first view of the Bristol Channel; and, in
fifteen minutes afterward, the line of breakers on the coast appeared
immediately beneath us, and we were fairly out at sea. We now
resolved to let off enough gas to bring our guide-rope, with the
buoys affixed, into the water. This was immediately done, and we
commenced a gradual descent. In about twenty minutes our first buoy
dipped, and at the touch of the second soon afterwards, we remained
stationary as to elevation. We were all now anxious to test the
efficiency of the rudder and screw, and we put them both into
requisition forthwith, for the purpose of altering our direction more
to the eastward, and in a line for Paris. By means of the rudder we
instantly effected the necessary change of direction, and our course
was brought nearly at right angles to that of the wind; when we set
in motion the spring of the screw, and were rejoiced to find it
propel us readily as desired. Upon this we gave nine hearty cheers,
and dropped in the sea a bottle, enclosing a slip of parchment with a
brief account of the principle of the invention. Hardly, however,
had we done with our rejoicings, when an unforeseen accident occurred
which discouraged us in no little degree. The steel rod connecting
the spring with the propeller was suddenly jerked out of place, at
the car end, (by a swaying of the car through some movement of one of
the two seamen we had taken up,) and in an instant hung dangling out
of reach, from the pivot of the axis of the screw. While we were
endeavoring to regain it, our attention being completely absorbed, we
became involved in a strong current of wind from the East, which bore
us, with rapidly increasing force, towards the Atlantic. We soon
found ourselves driving out to sea at the rate of not less,
certainly, than fifty or sixty miles an hour, so that we came up with
Cape Clear, at some forty miles to our North, before we had secured
the rod, and had time to think what we were about. It was now that
Mr. Ainsworth made an extraordinary, but to my fancy, a by no means
unreasonable or chimerical proposition, in which he was instantly
seconded by Mr. Holland - viz.: that we should take advantage of the
strong gale which bore us on, and in place of beating back to Paris,
make an attempt to reach the coast of North America. After slight
reflection I gave a willing assent to this bold proposition, which
(strange to say) met with objection from the two seamen only. As the
stronger party, however, we overruled their fears, and kept
resolutely upon our course. We steered due West; but as the
trailing of the buoys materially impeded our progress, and we had the
balloon abundantly at command, either for ascent or descent, we first
threw out fifty pounds of ballast, and then wound up (by means of a
windlass) so much of the rope as brought it quite clear of the sea.
We perceived the effect of this manoeuvre immediately, in a vastly
increased rate of progress; and, as the gale freshened, we flew
with a velocity nearly inconceivable; the guide-rope flying out
behind the car, like a streamer from a vessel. It is needless to say
that a very short time sufficed us to lose sight of the coast. We
passed over innumerable vessels of all kinds, a few of which were
endeavoring to beat up, but the most of them lying to. We occasioned
the greatest excitement on board all - an excitement greatly relished
by ourselves, and especially by our two men, who, now under the
influence of a dram of Geneva, seemed resolved to give all scruple,
or fear, to the wind. Many of the vessels fired signal guns; and
in all we were saluted with loud cheers (which we heard with
surprising distinctness) and the waving of caps and handkerchiefs. We
kept on in this manner throughout the day, with no material incident,
and, as the shades of night closed around us, we made a rough
estimate of the distance traversed. It could not have been less than
five hundred miles, and was probably much more. The propeller was
kept in constant operation, and, no doubt, aided our progress
materially. As the sun went down, the gale freshened into an
absolute hurricane, and the ocean beneath was clearly visible on
account of its phosphorescence. The wind was from the East all
night, and gave us the brightest omen of success. We suffered no
little from cold, and the dampness of the atmosphere was most
unpleasant; but the ample space in the car enabled us to lie down,
and by means of cloaks and a few blankets, we did sufficiently well.
"P.S. (by Mr. Ainsworth.) The last nine hours have been
unquestionably the most exciting of my life. I can conceive nothing
more sublimating than the strange peril and novelty of an adventure
such as this. May God grant that we succeed! I ask not success for
mere safety to my insignificant person, but for the sake of human
knowledge and - for the vastness of the triumph. And yet the feat is
only so evidently feasible that the sole wonder is why men have
scrupled to attempt it before. One single gale such as now befriends
us - let such a tempest whirl forward a balloon for four or five days
(these gales often last longer) and the voyager will be easily borne,
in that period, from coast to coast. In view of such a gale the
broad Atlantic becomes a mere lake. I am more struck, just now, with
the supreme silence which reigns in the sea beneath us,
notwithstanding its agitation, than with any other phenomenon
presenting itself. The waters give up no voice to the heavens. The
immense flaming ocean writhes and is tortured uncomplainingly. The
mountainous surges suggest the idea of innumerable dumb gigantic
fiends struggling in impotent agony. In a night such as is this to
me, a man _lives_ - lives a whole century of ordinary life - nor
would I forego this rapturous delight for that of a whole century of
ordinary existence.
"_Sunday, the seventh_. [Mr. Mason's MS.] This morning the gale,
by 10, had subsided to an eight or nine - knot breeze, (for a vessel
at sea,) and bears us, perhaps, thirty miles per hour, or more. It
has veered, however, very considerably to the north; and now, at
sundown, we are holding our course due west, principally by the screw
and rudder, which answer their purposes to admiration. I regard the
project as thoroughly successful, and the easy navigation of the air
in any direction (not exactly in the teeth of a gale) as no longer
problematical. We could not have made head against the strong wind
of yesterday; but, by ascending, we might have got out of its
influence, if requisite. Against a pretty stiff breeze, I feel
convinced, we can make our way with the propeller. At noon, to-day,
ascended to an elevation of nearly 25,000 feet, by discharging
ballast. Did this to search for a more direct current, but found
none so favorable as the one we are now in. We have an abundance of
gas to take us across this small pond, even should the voyage last
three weeks. I have not the slightest fear for the result. The
difficulty has been strangely exaggerated and misapprehended. I can
choose my current, and should I find _all_ currents against me, I can
make very tolerable headway with the propeller. We have had no
incidents worth recording. The night promises fair.
P.S. [By Mr. Ainsworth.] I have little to record, except the
fact (to me quite a surprising one) that, at an elevation equal to
that of Cotopaxi, I experienced neither very intense cold, nor
headache, nor difficulty of breathing; neither, I find, did Mr.
Mason, nor Mr. Holland, nor Sir Everard. Mr. Osborne complained of
constriction of the chest - but this soon wore off. We have flown at
a great rate during the day, and we must be more than half way across
the Atlantic. We have passed over some twenty or thirty vessels of
various kinds, and all seem to be delightfully astonished. Crossing
the ocean in a balloon is not so difficult a feat after all. _Omne
ignotum pro magnifico. Mem:_ at 25,000 feet elevation the sky
appears nearly black, and the stars are distinctly visible; while
the sea does not seem convex (as one might suppose) but absolutely
and most unequivocally _concave_.{*1}
"_Monday, the 8th_. [Mr. Mason's MS.] This morning we had again
some little trouble with the rod of the propeller, which must be
entirely remodelled, for fear of serious accident - I mean the steel
rod - not the vanes. The latter could not be improved. The wind has
been blowing steadily and strongly from the north-east all day and
so far fortune seems bent upon favoring us. Just before day, we were
all somewhat alarmed at some odd noises and concussions in the
balloon, accompanied with the apparent rapid subsidence of the whole
machine. These phenomena were occasioned by the expansion of the
gas, through increase of heat in the atmosphere, and the consequent
disruption of the minute particles of ice with which the network had
become encrusted during the night. Threw down several bottles to the
vessels below. Saw one of them picked up by a large ship - seemingly
one of the New York line packets. Endeavored to make out her name,
but could not be sure of it. Mr. Osborne's telescope made it out
something like "Atalanta." It is now 12, at night, and we are still
going nearly west, at a rapid pace. The sea is peculiarly
phosphorescent.
"P.S. [By Mr. Ainsworth.] It is now 2, A.M., and nearly calm, as
well as I can judge - but it is very difficult to determine this
point, since we move _with_ the air so completely. I have not slept
since quitting Wheal-Vor, but can stand it no longer, and must take a
nap. We cannot be far from the American coast.
"_Tuesday, the _9_th_. [Mr. Ainsworth's MS.] _One, P.M. We are
in full view of the low coast of South Carolina_. The great problem
is accomplished. We have crossed the Atlantic - fairly and _easily_
crossed it in a balloon! God be praised! Who shall say that
anything is impossible hereafter?"
The Journal here ceases. Some particulars of the descent were
communicated, however, by Mr. Ainsworth to Mr. Forsyth. It was
nearly dead calm when the voyagers first came in view of the coast,
which was immediately recognized by both the seamen, and by Mr.
Osborne. The latter gentleman having acquaintances at Fort Moultrie,
it was immediately resolved to descend in its vicinity. The balloon
was brought over the beach (the tide being out and the sand hard,
smooth, and admirably adapted for a descent,) and the grapnel let go,
which took firm hold at once. The inhabitants of the island, and of
the fort, thronged out, of course, to see the balloon; but it was
with the greatest difficulty that any one could be made to credit the
actual voyage - _the crossing of the Atlantic_. The grapnel caught
at 2, P.M., precisely; and thus the whole voyage was completed in
seventy-five hours; or rather less, counting from shore to shore.
No serious accident occurred. No real danger was at any time
apprehended. The balloon was exhausted and secured without trouble;
and when the MS. from which this narrative is compiled was
despatched from Charleston, the party were still at Fort Moultrie.
Their farther intentions were not ascertained; but we can safely
promise our readers some additional information either on Monday or
in the course of the next day, at farthest.
This is unquestionably the most stupendous, the most interesting,
and the most important undertaking, ever accomplished or even
attempted by man. What magnificent events may ensue, it would be
useless now to think of determining.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
{*1} _Note_. - Mr. Ainsworth has not attempted to account for this
phenomenon, which, however, is quite susceptible of explanation. A
line dropped from an elevation of 25,000 feet, perpendicularly to the
surface of the earth (or sea), would form the perpendicular of a
right-angled triangle, of which the base would extend from the right
angle to the horizon, and the hypothenuse from the horizon to the
balloon. But the 25,000 feet of altitude is little or nothing, in
comparison with the extent of the prospect. In other words, the base
and hypothenuse of the supposed triangle would be so long when
compared with the perpendicular, that the two former may be regarded
as nearly parallel. In this manner the horizon of the æronaut would
appear to be _on a level_ with the car. But, as the point immediately
beneath him seems, and is, at a great distance below him, it seems,
of course, also, at a great distance below the horizon. Hence the
impression of _concavity_; and this impression must remain, until
the elevation shall bear so great a proportion to the extent of
prospect, that the apparent parallelism of the base and hypothenuse
disappears - when the earth's real convexity must become apparent.
==========
MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE
Qui n'a plus qu'un moment a vivre
N'a plus rien a dissimuler.
-- Quinault -- Atys.
OF my country and of my family I have little to say. Ill usage and
length of years have driven me from the one, and estranged me from
the other. Hereditary wealth afforded me an education of no common
order, and a contemplative turn of mind enabled me to methodize the
stores which early study very diligently garnered up. -- Beyond all
things, the study of the German moralists gave me great delight; not
from any ill-advised admiration of their eloquent madness, but from
the ease with which my habits of rigid thought enabled me to detect
their falsities. I have often been reproached with the aridity of my
genius; a deficiency of imagination has been imputed to me as a
crime; and the Pyrrhonism of my opinions has at all times rendered me
notorious. Indeed, a strong relish for physical philosophy has, I
fear, tinctured my mind with a very common error of this age -- I
mean the habit of referring occurrences, even the least susceptible
of such reference, to the principles of that science. Upon the whole,
no person could be less liable than myself to be led away from the
severe precincts of truth by the ignes fatui of superstition. I have
thought proper to premise thus much, lest the incredible tale I have
to tell should be considered rather the raving of a crude
imagination, than the positive experience of a mind to which the
reveries of fancy have been a dead letter and a nullity.
After many years spent in foreign travel, I sailed in the year 18 --
, from the port of Batavia, in the rich and populous island of Java,
on a voyage to the Archipelago of the Sunda islands. I went as
passenger -- having no other inducement than a kind of nervous
restlessness which haunted me as a fiend.
Our vessel was a beautiful ship of about four hundred tons,
copper-fastened, and built at Bombay of Malabar teak. She was
freighted with cotton-wool and oil, from the Lachadive islands. We
had also on board coir, jaggeree, ghee, cocoa-nuts, and a few cases
of opium. The stowage was clumsily done, and the vessel consequently
crank.
We got under way with a mere breath of wind, and for many days stood
along the eastern coast of Java, without any other incident to
beguile the monotony of our course than the occasional meeting with
some of the small grabs of the Archipelago to which we were bound.
One evening, leaning over the taffrail, I observed a very singular,
isolated cloud, to the N.W. It was remarkable, as well for its color,
as from its being the first we had seen since our departure from
Batavia. I watched it attentively until sunset, when it spread all at
once to the eastward and westward, girting in the horizon with a
narrow strip of vapor, and looking like a long line of low beach. My
notice was soon afterwards attracted by the dusky-red appearance of
the moon, and the peculiar character of the sea. The latter was
undergoing a rapid change, and the water seemed more than usually
transparent. Although I could distinctly see the bottom, yet, heaving
the lead, I found the ship in fifteen fathoms. The air now became
intolerably hot, and was loaded with spiral exhalations similar to
those arising from heat iron. As night came on, every breath of wind
died away, an more entire calm it is impossible to conceive. The
flame of a candle burned upon the poop without the least perceptible
motion, and a long hair, held between the finger and thumb, hung
without the possibility of detecting a vibration. However, as the
captain said he could perceive no indication of danger, and as we
were drifting in bodily to shore, he ordered the sails to be furled,
and the anchor let go. No watch was set, and the crew, consisting
principally of Malays, stretched themselves deliberately upon deck. I
went below -- not without a full presentiment of evil. Indeed, every
appearance warranted me in apprehending a Simoom. I told the captain
my fears; but he paid no attention to what I said, and left me
without deigning to give a reply. My uneasiness, however, prevented
me from sleeping, and about midnight I went upon deck. -- As I placed
my foot upon the upper step of the companion-ladder, I was startled
by a loud, humming noise, like that occasioned by the rapid
revolution of a mill-wheel, and before I could ascertain its meaning,
I found the ship quivering to its centre. In the next instant, a
wilderness of foam hurled us upon our beam-ends, and, rushing over us
fore and aft, swept the entire decks from stem to stern.
The extreme fury of the blast proved, in a great measure, the
salvation of the ship. Although completely water-logged, yet, as her
masts had gone by the board, she rose, after a minute, heavily from
the sea, and, staggering awhile beneath the immense pressure of the
tempest, finally righted.
By what miracle I escaped destruction, it is impossible to say.
Stunned by the shock of the water, I found myself, upon recovery,
jammed in between the stern-post and rudder. With great difficulty I
gained my feet, and looking dizzily around, was, at first, struck
with the idea of our being among breakers; so terrific, beyond the
wildest imagination, was the whirlpool of mountainous and foaming
ocean within which we were engulfed. After a while, I heard the voice
of an old Swede, who had shipped with us at the moment of our leaving
port. I hallooed to him with all my strength, and presently he came
reeling aft. We soon discovered that we were the sole survivors of
the accident. All on deck, with the exception of ourselves, had been
swept overboard; -- the captain and mates must have perished as they
slept, for the cabins were deluged with water. Without assistance, we
could expect to do little for the security of the ship, and our
exertions were at first paralyzed by the momentary expectation of
going down. Our cable had, of course, parted like pack-thread, at the
first breath of the hurricane, or we should have been instantaneously
overwhelmed. We scudded with frightful velocity before the sea, and
the water made clear breaches over us. The frame-work of our stern
was shattered excessively, and, in almost every respect, we had
received considerable injury; but to our extreme Joy we found the
pumps unchoked, and that we had made no great shifting of our
ballast. The main fury of the blast had already blown over, and we
apprehended little danger from the violence of the wind; but we
looked forward to its total cessation with dismay; well believing,
that, in our shattered condition, we should inevitably perish in the
tremendous swell which would ensue. But this very just apprehension
seemed by no means likely to be soon verified. For five entire days
and nights -- during which our only subsistence was a small quantity
of jaggeree, procured with great difficulty from the forecastle --
the hulk flew at a rate defying computation, before rapidly
succeeding flaws of wind, which, without equalling the first violence
of the Simoom, were still more terrific than any tempest I had before
encountered. Our course for the first four days was, with trifling
variations, S.E. and by S.; and we must have run down the coast of
New Holland. -- On the fifth day the cold became extreme, although
the wind had hauled round a point more to the northward. -- The sun
arose with a sickly yellow lustre, and clambered a very few degrees
above the horizon -- emitting no decisive light. -- There were no
clouds apparent, yet the wind was upon the increase, and blew with a
fitful and unsteady fury. About noon, as nearly as we could guess,
our attention was again arrested by the appearance of the sun. It
gave out no light, properly so called, but a dull and sullen glow
without reflection, as if all its rays were polarized. Just before
sinking within the turgid sea, its central fires suddenly went out,
as if hurriedly extinguished by some unaccountable power. It was a
dim, sliver-like rim, alone, as it rushed down the unfathomable
ocean.
We waited in vain for the arrival of the sixth day -- that day to me
has not arrived -- to the Swede, never did arrive. Thenceforward we
were enshrouded in patchy darkness, so that we could not have seen an
object at twenty paces from the ship. Eternal night continued to
envelop us, all unrelieved by the phosphoric sea-brilliancy to which
we had been accustomed in the tropics. We observed too, that,
although the tempest continued to rage with unabated violence, there
was no longer to be discovered the usual appearance of surf, or foam,
which had hitherto attended us. All around were horror, and thick
gloom, and a black sweltering desert of ebony. -- Superstitious
terror crept by degrees into the spirit of the old Swede, and my own
soul was wrapped up in silent wonder. We neglected all care of the
ship, as worse than useless, and securing ourselves, as well as
possible, to the stump of the mizen-mast, looked out bitterly into
the world of ocean. We had no means of calculating time, nor could we
form any guess of our situation. We were, however, well aware of
having made farther to the southward than any previous navigators,
and felt great amazement at not meeting with the usual impediments of
ice. In the meantime every moment threatened to be our last -- every
mountainous billow hurried to overwhelm us. The swell surpassed
anything I had imagined possible, and that we were not instantly
buried is a miracle. My companion spoke of the lightness of our
cargo, and reminded me of the excellent qualities of our ship; but I
could not help feeling the utter hopelessness of hope itself, and
prepared myself gloomily for that death which I thought nothing could
defer beyond an hour, as, with every knot of way the ship made, the
swelling of the black stupendous seas became more dismally appalling.
At times we gasped for breath at an elevation beyond the albatross --
at times became dizzy with the velocity of our descent into some
watery hell, where the air grew stagnant, and no sound disturbed the
slumbers of the kraken.
We were at the bottom of one of these abysses, when a quick scream
from my companion broke fearfully upon the night. "See! see!" cried
he, shrieking in my ears, "Almighty God! see! see!" As he spoke, I
became aware of a dull, sullen glare of red light which streamed down
the sides of the vast chasm where we lay, and threw a fitful
brilliancy upon our deck. Casting my eyes upwards, I beheld a
spectacle which froze the current of my blood. At a terrific height
directly above us, and upon the very verge of the precipitous
descent, hovered a gigantic ship of, perhaps, four thousand tons.
Although upreared upon the summit of a wave more than a hundred times
her own altitude, her apparent size exceeded that of any ship of the
line or East Indiaman in existence. Her huge hull was of a deep dingy
black, unrelieved by any of the customary carvings of a ship. A
single row of brass cannon protruded from her open ports, and dashed
from their polished surfaces the fires of innumerable
battle-lanterns, which swung to and fro about her rigging. But what
mainly inspired us with horror and astonishment, was that she bore up
under a press of sail in the very teeth of that supernatural sea, and
of that ungovernable hurricane. When we first discovered her, her
bows were alone to be seen, as she rose slowly from the dim and
horrible gulf beyond her. For a moment of intense terror she paused
upon the giddy pinnacle, as if in contemplation of her own sublimity,
then trembled and tottered, and -- came down.
At this instant, I know not what sudden self-possession came over my
spirit. Staggering as far aft as I could, I awaited fearlessly the
ruin that was to overwhelm. Our own vessel was at length ceasing from
her struggles, and sinking with her head to the sea. The shock of the
descending mass struck her, consequently, in that portion of her
frame which was already under water, and the inevitable result was to
hurl me, with irresistible violence, upon the rigging of the
stranger.
As I fell, the ship hove in stays, and went about; and to the
confusion ensuing I attributed my escape from the notice of the crew.
With little difficulty I made my way unperceived to the main
hatchway, which was partially open, and soon found an opportunity of
secreting myself in the hold. Why I did so I can hardly tell. An
indefinite sense of awe, which at first sight of the navigators of
the ship had taken hold of my mind, was perhaps the principle of my
concealment. I was unwilling to trust myself with a race of people
who had offered, to the cursory glance I had taken, so many points of
vague novelty, doubt, and apprehension. I therefore thought proper to
contrive a hiding-place in the hold. This I did by removing a small
portion of the shifting-boards, in such a manner as to afford me a
convenient retreat between the huge timbers of the ship.
I had scarcely completed my work, when a footstep in the hold forced
me to make use of it. A man passed by my place of concealment with a
feeble and unsteady gait. I could not see his face, but had an
opportunity of observing his general appearance. There was about it
an evidence of great age and infirmity. His knees tottered beneath a
load of years, and his entire frame quivered under the burthen. He
muttered to himself, in a low broken tone, some words of a language
which I could not understand, and groped in a corner among a pile of
singular-looking instruments, and decayed charts of navigation. His
manner was a wild mixture of the peevishness of second childhood, and
the solemn dignity of a God. He at length went on deck, and I saw him
no more.
* * * * * * * *
A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken possession of my soul
-- a sensation which will admit of no analysis, to which the lessons
of bygone times are inadequate, and for which I fear futurity itself
will offer me no key. To a mind constituted like my own, the latter
consideration is an evil. I shall never -- I know that I shall never
-- be satisfied with regard to the nature of my conceptions. Yet it
is not wonderful that these conceptions are indefinite, since they
have their origin in sources so utterly novel. A new sense -- a new
entity is added to my soul.
* * * * * * * *
It is long since I first trod the deck of this terrible ship, and the
rays of my destiny are, I think, gathering to a focus.
Incomprehensible men! Wrapped up in meditations of a kind which I
cannot divine, they pass me by unnoticed. Concealment is utter folly
on my part, for the people will not see. It was but just now that I
passed directly before the eyes of the mate -- it was no long while
ago that I ventured into the captain's own private cabin, and took
thence the materials with which I write, and have written. I shall
from time to time continue this Journal. It is true that I may not
find an opportunity of transmitting it to the world, but I will not
fall to make the endeavour. At the last moment I will enclose the MS.
in a bottle, and cast it within the sea.
* * * * * * * *
An incident has occurred which has given me new room for meditation.
Are such things the operation of ungoverned Chance? I had ventured
upon deck and thrown myself down, without attracting any notice,
among a pile of ratlin-stuff and old sails in the bottom of the yawl.
While musing upon the singularity of my fate, I unwittingly daubed
with a tar-brush the edges of a neatly-folded studding-sail which lay
near me on a barrel. The studding-sail is now bent upon the ship, and
the thoughtless touches of the brush are spread out into the word
DISCOVERY.
I have made many observations lately upon the structure of the
vessel. Although well armed, she is not, I think, a ship of war. Her
rigging, build, and general equipment, all negative a supposition of
this kind. What she is not, I can easily perceive -- what she is I
fear it is impossible to say. I know not how it is, but in
scrutinizing her strange model and singular cast of spars, her huge
size and overgrown suits of canvas, her severely simple bow and
antiquated stern, there will occasionally flash across my mind a
sensation of familiar things, and there is always mixed up with such
indistinct shadows of recollection, an unaccountable memory of old
foreign chronicles and ages long ago.
* * * * * * * *
I have been looking at the timbers of the ship. She is built of a
material to which I am a stranger. There is a peculiar character
about the wood which strikes me as rendering it unfit for the purpose
to which it has been applied. I mean its extreme porousness,
considered independently by the worm-eaten condition which is a
consequence of navigation in these seas, and apart from the
rottenness attendant upon age. It will appear perhaps an observation
somewhat over-curious, but this wood would have every characteristic
of Spanish oak, if Spanish oak were distended by any unnatural means.
In reading the above sentence a curious apothegm of an old
weather-beaten Dutch navigator comes full upon my recollection. "It
is as sure," he was wont to say, when any doubt was entertained of
his veracity, "as sure as there is a sea where the ship itself will
grow in bulk like the living body of the seaman."
* * * * * * * *
About an hour ago, I made bold to thrust myself among a group of the
crew. They paid me no manner of attention, and, although I stood in
the very midst of them all, seemed utterly unconscious of my
presence. Like the one I had at first seen in the hold, they all bore
about them the marks of a hoary old age. Their knees trembled with
infirmity; their shoulders were bent double with decrepitude; their
shrivelled skins rattled in the wind; their voices were low,
tremulous and broken; their eyes glistened with the rheum of years;
and their gray hairs streamed terribly in the tempest. Around them,
on every part of the deck, lay scattered mathematical instruments of
the most quaint and obsolete construction.
* * * * * * * *
I mentioned some time ago the bending of a studding-sail. From that
period the ship, being thrown dead off the wind, has continued her
terrific course due south, with every rag of canvas packed upon her,
from her trucks to her lower studding-sail booms, and rolling every
moment her top-gallant yard-arms into the most appalling hell of
water which it can enter into the mind of a man to imagine. I have
just left the deck, where I find it impossible to maintain a footing,
although the crew seem to experience little inconvenience. It appears
to me a miracle of miracles that our enormous bulk is not swallowed
up at once and forever. We are surely doomed to hover continually
upon the brink of Eternity, without taking a final plunge into the
abyss. From billows a thousand times more stupendous than any I have
ever seen, we glide away with the facility of the arrowy sea-gull;
and the colossal waters rear their heads above us like demons of the
deep, but like demons confined to simple threats and forbidden to
destroy. I am led to attribute these frequent escapes to the only
natural cause which can account for such effect. -- I must suppose
the ship to be within the influence of some strong current, or
impetuous under-tow.
* * * * * * * *
I have seen the captain face to face, and in his own cabin -- but, as
I expected, he paid me no attention. Although in his appearance there
is, to a casual observer, nothing which might bespeak him more or
less than man-still a feeling of irrepressible reverence and awe
mingled with the sensation of wonder with which I regarded him. In
stature he is nearly my own height; that is, about five feet eight
inches. He is of a well-knit and compact frame of body, neither
robust nor remarkably otherwise. But it is the singularity of the
expression which reigns upon the face -- it is the intense, the
wonderful, the thrilling evidence of old age, so utter, so extreme,
which excites within my spirit a sense -- a sentiment ineffable. His
forehead, although little wrinkled, seems to bear upon it the stamp
of a myriad of years. -- His gray hairs are records of the past, and
his grayer eyes are Sybils of the future. The cabin floor was thickly
strewn with strange, iron-clasped folios, and mouldering instruments
of science, and obsolete long-forgotten charts. His head was bowed
down upon his hands, and he pored, with a fiery unquiet eye, over a
paper which I took to be a commission, and which, at all events, bore
the signature of a monarch. He muttered to himself, as did the first
seaman whom I saw in the hold, some low peevish syllables of a
foreign tongue, and although the speaker was close at my elbow, his
voice seemed to reach my ears from the distance of a mile.
* * * * * * * *
The ship and all in it are imbued with the spirit of Eld. The crew
glide to and fro like the ghosts of buried centuries; their eyes have
an eager and uneasy meaning; and when their fingers fall athwart my
path in the wild glare of the battle-lanterns, I feel as I have never
felt before, although I have been all my life a dealer in
antiquities, and have imbibed the shadows of fallen columns at
Balbec, and Tadmor, and Persepolis, until my very soul has become a
ruin.
* * * * * * * *
When I look around me I feel ashamed of my former apprehensions. If I
trembled at the blast which has hitherto attended us, shall I not
stand aghast at a warring of wind and ocean, to convey any idea of
which the words tornado and simoom are trivial and ineffective? All
in the immediate vicinity of the ship is the blackness of eternal
night, and a chaos of foamless water; but, about a league on either
side of us, may be seen, indistinctly and at intervals, stupendous
ramparts of ice, towering away into the desolate sky, and looking
like the walls of the universe.
* * * * * * * *
As I imagined, the ship proves to be in a current; if that
appellation can properly be given to a tide which, howling and
shrieking by the white ice, thunders on to the southward with a
velocity like the headlong dashing of a cataract.
* * * * * * * *
To conceive the horror of my sensations is, I presume, utterly
impossible; yet a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of these awful
regions, predominates even over my despair, and will reconcile me to
the most hideous aspect of death. It is evident that we are hurrying
onwards to some exciting knowledge -- some never-to-be-imparted
secret, whose attainment is destruction. Perhaps this current leads
us to the southern pole itself. It must be confessed that a
supposition apparently so wild has every probability in its favor.
* * * * * * * *
The crew pace the deck with unquiet and tremulous step; but there is
upon their countenances an expression more of the eagerness of hope
than of the apathy of despair.
In the meantime the wind is still in our poop, and, as we carry a
crowd of canvas, the ship is at times lifted bodily from out the sea
-- Oh, horror upon horror! the ice opens suddenly to the right, and
to the left, and we are whirling dizzily, in immense concentric
circles, round and round the borders of a gigantic amphitheatre, the
summit of whose walls is lost in the darkness and the distance. But
little time will be left me to ponder upon my destiny -- the circles
rapidly grow small -- we are plunging madly within the grasp of the
whirlpool -- and amid a roaring, and bellowing, and thundering of
ocean and of tempest, the ship is quivering, oh God! and -- going
down.
NOTE. -- The "MS. Found in a Bottle," was originally published in
1831, and it was not until many years afterwards that I became
acquainted with the maps of Mercator, in which the ocean is
represented as rushing, by four mouths, into the (northern) Polar
Gulf, to be absorbed into the bowels of the earth; the Pole itself
being represented by a black rock, towering to a prodigious height.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
========
The Oval Portrait
THE chateau into which my valet had ventured to make forcible
entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition,
to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled
gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines,
not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. To all
appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned. We
established ourselves in one of the smallest and least sumptuously
furnished apartments. It lay in a remote turret of the building. Its
decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung
with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial
trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited
modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque. In these
paintings, which depended from the walls not only in their main
surfaces, but in very many nooks which the bizarre architecture of
the chateau rendered necessary -- in these paintings my incipient
delirium, perhaps, had caused me to take deep interest; so that I
bade Pedro to close the heavy shutters of the room -- since it was
already night -- to light the tongues of a tall candelabrum which
stood by the head of my bed -- and to throw open far and wide the
fringed curtains of black velvet which enveloped the bed itself. I
wished all this done that I might resign myself, if not to sleep, at
least alternately to the contemplation of these pictures, and the
perusal of a small volume which had been found upon the pillow, and
which purported to criticise and describe them.
Long -- long I read -- and devoutly, devotedly I gazed. Rapidly and
gloriously the hours flew by and the deep midnight came. The position
of the candelabrum displeased me, and outreaching my hand with
difficulty, rather than disturb my slumbering valet, I placed it so
as to throw its rays more fully upon the book.
But the action produced an effect altogether unanticipated. The rays
of the numerous candles (for there were many) now fell within a niche
of the room which had hitherto been thrown into deep shade by one of
the bed-posts. I thus saw in vivid light a picture all unnoticed
before. It was the portrait of a young girl just ripening into
womanhood. I glanced at the painting hurriedly, and then closed my
eyes. Why I did this was not at first apparent even to my own
perception. But while my lids remained thus shut, I ran over in my
mind my reason for so shutting them. It was an impulsive movement to
gain time for thought -- to make sure that my vision had not deceived
me -- to calm and subdue my fancy for a more sober and more certain
gaze. In a very few moments I again looked fixedly at the painting.
That I now saw aright I could not and would not doubt; for the first
flashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the
dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses, and to startle me at
once into waking life.
The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a
mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically termed a
vignette manner; much in the style of the favorite heads of Sully.
The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the radiant hair melted
imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the
back-ground of the whole. The frame was oval, richly gilded and
filigreed in Moresque. As a thing of art nothing could be more
admirable than the painting itself. But it could have been neither
the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the
countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me. Least
of all, could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its half
slumber, had mistaken the head for that of a living person. I saw at
once that the peculiarities of the design, of the vignetting, and of
the frame, must have instantly dispelled such idea -- must have
prevented even its momentary entertainment. Thinking earnestly upon
these points, I remained, for an hour perhaps, half sitting, half
reclining, with my vision riveted upon the portrait. At length,
satisfied with the true secret of its effect, I fell back within the
bed. I had found the spell of the picture in an absolute
life-likeliness of expression, which, at first startling, finally
confounded, subdued, and appalled me. With deep and reverent awe I
replaced the candelabrum in its former position. The cause of my deep
agitation being thus shut from view, I sought eagerly the volume
which discussed the paintings and their histories. Turning to the
number which designated the oval portrait, I there read the vague and
quaint words which follow:
"She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of
glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the
painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a
bride in his Art; she a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely
than full of glee; all light and smiles, and frolicsome as the young
fawn; loving and cherishing all things; hating only the Art which was
her rival; dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward
instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover. It
was thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of
his desire to portray even his young bride. But she was humble and
obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high
turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from
overhead. But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on
from hour to hour, and from day to day. And he was a passionate, and
wild, and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so that he would
not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret
withered the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly
to all but him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly,
because she saw that the painter (who had high renown) took a fervid
and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict
her who so loved him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak.
And in sooth some who beheld the portrait spoke of its resemblance in
low words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not less of the power
of the painter than of his deep love for her whom he depicted so
surpassingly well. But at length, as the labor drew nearer to its
conclusion, there were admitted none into the turret; for the painter
had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his eyes from
canvas merely, even to regard the countenance of his wife. And he
would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were
drawn from the cheeks of her who sate beside him. And when many weeks
bad passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the
mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again
flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp. And then the
brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment,
the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but
in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid,
and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, 'This is indeed Life
itself!' turned suddenly to regard his beloved: -- She was dead!"
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 1
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 2
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[Redactor's Note--There are some Greek letters in this volume
(_Silence--A Fable_, the introduction, and two words in _The
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Contents
VOLUME II
The Purloined Letter
The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherezade
A Descent into the Maelström
Von Kempelen and his Discovery
Mesmeric Revelation
The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar
The Black Cat
The Fall of the House of Usher
Silence -- a Fable
The Masque of the Red Death
The Cask of Amontillado
The Imp of the Perverse
The Island of the Fay
The Assignation
The Pit and the Pendulum
The Premature Burial
The Domain of Arnheim
Landor's Cottage
William Wilson
The Tell-Tale Heart
Berenice
Eleonora
{Notes}
======
======
THE PURLOINED LETTER
Nil sapientiae odiosius acumine nimio.
_Seneca_.
At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18-,
I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum, in
company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back library,
or book-closet, au troisiême, No. 33, Rue Dunôt, Faubourg St.
Germain. For one hour at least we had maintained a profound silence;
while each, to any casual observer, might have seemed intently and
exclusively occupied with the curling eddies of smoke that oppressed
the atmosphere of the chamber. For myself, however, I was mentally
discussing certain topics which had formed matter for conversation
between us at an earlier period of the evening; I mean the affair of
the Rue Morgue, and the mystery attending the murder of Marie Rogêt.
I looked upon it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when the
door of our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old
acquaintance, Monsieur G--, the Prefect of the Parisian police.
We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much of
the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we had not
seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the dark, and
Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but sat down
again, without doing so, upon G.'s saying that he had called to
consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend, about some
official business which had occasioned a great deal of trouble.
"If it is any point requiring reflection," observed Dupin, as he
forebore to enkindle the wick, "we shall examine it to better purpose
in the dark."
"That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a
fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension,
and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities."
"Very true," said Dupin, as he supplied his visiter with a pipe, and
rolled towards him a comfortable chair.
"And what is the difficulty now?" I asked. "Nothing more in the
assassination way, I hope?"
"Oh no; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is very
simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently
well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the
details of it, because it is so excessively odd."
"Simple and odd," said Dupin.
"Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we have all
been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet
baffles us altogether."
"Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at
fault," said my friend.
"What nonsense you do talk!" replied the Prefect, laughing heartily.
"Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain," said Dupin.
"Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?"
"A little too self-evident."
"Ha! ha! ha - ha! ha! ha! - ho! ho! ho!" roared our visiter,
profoundly amused, "oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!"
"And what, after all, is the matter on hand?" I asked.
"Why, I will tell you," replied the Prefect, as he gave a long,
steady and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair. "I
will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me caution you
that this is an affair demanding the greatest secrecy, and that I
should most probably lose the position I now hold, were it known that
I confided it to any one."
"Proceed," said I.
"Or not," said Dupin.
"Well, then; I have received personal information, from a very high
quarter, that a certain document of the last importance, has been
purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who purloined it
is known; this beyond a doubt; he was seen to take it. It is known,
also, that it still remains in his possession."
"How is this known?" asked Dupin.
"It is clearly inferred," replied the Prefect, "from the nature of
the document, and from the non-appearance of certain results which
would at once arise from its passing out of the robber's possession;
that is to say, from his employing it as he must design in the end to
employ it."
"Be a little more explicit," I said.
"Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its holder
a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is immensely
valuable." The Prefect was fond of the cant of diplomacy.
"Still I do not quite understand," said Dupin.
"No? Well; the disclosure of the document to a third person, who
shall be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a personage
of most exalted station; and this fact gives the holder of the
document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage whose honor and
peace are so jeopardized."
"But this ascendancy," I interposed, "would depend upon the robber's
knowledge of the loser's knowledge of the robber. Who would dare -"
"The thief," said G., "is the Minister D--, who dares all things,
those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of the
theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in question - a
letter, to be frank - had been received by the personage robbed while
alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she was suddenly
interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted personage from whom
especially it was her wish to conceal it. After a hurried and vain
endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she was forced to place it, open
as it was, upon a table. The address, however, was uppermost, and,
the contents thus unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this
juncture enters the Minister D--. His lynx eye immediately perceives
the paper, recognises the handwriting of the address, observes the
confusion of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After
some business transactions, hurried through in his ordinary manner,
he produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens
it, pretends to read it, and then places it in close juxtaposition to
the other. Again he converses, for some fifteen minutes, upon the
public affairs. At length, in taking leave, he takes also from the
table the letter to which he had no claim. Its rightful owner saw,
but, of course, dared not call attention to the act, in the presence
of the third personage who stood at her elbow. The minister decamped;
leaving his own letter - one of no importance - upon the table."
"Here, then," said Dupin to me, "you have precisely what you demand
to make the ascendancy complete - the robber's knowledge of the
loser's knowledge of the robber."
"Yes," replied the Prefect; "and the power thus attained has, for
some months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a very
dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly convinced,
every day, of the necessity of reclaiming her letter. But this, of
course, cannot be done openly. In fine, driven to despair, she has
committed the matter to me."
"Than whom," said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, "no more
sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or even imagined."
"You flatter me," replied the Prefect; "but it is possible that some
such opinion may have been entertained."
"It is clear," said I, "as you observe, that the letter is still in
possession of the minister; since it is this possession, and not any
employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With the
employment the power departs."
"True," said G.; "and upon this conviction I proceeded. My first care
was to make thorough search of the minister's hotel; and here my
chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching without his
knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of the danger which
would result from giving him reason to suspect our design."
"But," said I, "you are quite au fait in these investigations. The
Parisian police have done this thing often before."
"O yes; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of the
minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently absent
from home all night. His servants are by no means numerous. They
sleep at a distance from their master's apartment, and, being chiefly
Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I have keys, as you know, with
which I can open any chamber or cabinet in Paris. For three months a
night has not passed, during the greater part of which I have not
been engaged, personally, in ransacking the D-- Hotel. My honor is
interested, and, to mention a great secret, the reward is enormous.
So I did not abandon the search until I had become fully satisfied
that the thief is a more astute man than myself. I fancy that I have
investigated every nook and corner of the premises in which it is
possible that the paper can be concealed."
"But is it not possible," I suggested, "that although the letter may
be in possession of the minister, as it unquestionably is, he may
have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?"
"This is barely possible," said Dupin. "The present peculiar
condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues in
which D-- is known to be involved, would render the instant
availability of the document - its susceptibility of being produced
at a moment's notice - a point of nearly equal importance with its
possession."
"Its susceptibility of being produced?" said I.
"That is to say, of being destroyed," said Dupin.
"True," I observed; "the paper is clearly then upon the premises. As
for its being upon the person of the minister, we may consider that
as out of the question."
"Entirely," said the Prefect. "He has been twice waylaid, as if by
footpads, and his person rigorously searched under my own
inspection."
"You might have spared yourself this trouble," said Dupin. "D--, I
presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must have anticipated
these waylayings, as a matter of course."
"Not altogether a fool," said G., "but then he's a poet, which I take
to be only one remove from a fool."
"True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from
his meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of certain doggrel
myself."
"Suppose you detail," said I, "the particulars of your search."
"Why the fact is, we took our time, and we searched every where. I
have had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire
building, room by room; devoting the nights of a whole week to each.
We examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. We opened every
possible drawer; and I presume you know that, to a properly trained
police agent, such a thing as a secret drawer is impossible. Any man
is a dolt who permits a 'secret' drawer to escape him in a search of
this kind. The thing is so plain. There is a certain amount of bulk -
of space - to be accounted for in every cabinet. Then we have
accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line could not escape us.
After the cabinets we took the chairs. The cushions we probed with
the fine long needles you have seen me employ. From the tables we
removed the tops."
"Why so?"
"Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece of
furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an article;
then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within the cavity,
and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of bedposts are employed
in the same way."
"But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?" I asked.
"By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient wadding
of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we were obliged
to proceed without noise."
"But you could not have removed - you could not have taken to pieces
all articles of furniture in which it would have been possible to
make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter may be compressed
into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in shape or bulk from a
large knitting-needle, and in this form it might be inserted into the
rung of a chair, for example. You did not take to pieces all the
chairs?"
"Certainly not; but we did better - we examined the rungs of every
chair in the hotel, and, indeed the jointings of every description of
furniture, by the aid of a most powerful microscope. Had there been
any traces of recent disturbance we should not have failed to detect
it instantly. A single grain of gimlet-dust, for example, would have
been as obvious as an apple. Any disorder in the glueing - any unusual
gaping in the joints - would have sufficed to insure detection."
"I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the
plates, and you probed the beds and the bed-clothes, as well as the
curtains and carpets."
"That of course; and when we had absolutely completed every particle
of the furniture in this way, then we examined the house itself. We
divided its entire surface into compartments, which we numbered, so
that none might be missed; then we scrutinized each individual square
inch throughout the premises, including the two houses immediately
adjoining, with the microscope, as before."
"The two houses adjoining!" I exclaimed; "you must have had a great
deal of trouble."
"We had; but the reward offered is prodigious!"
"You include the grounds about the houses?"
"All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us comparatively
little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks, and found it
undisturbed."
"You looked among D--'s papers, of course, and into the books of the
library?"
"Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only opened
every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume, not
contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according to the fashion of
some of our police officers. We also measured the thickness of every
book-cover, with the most accurate admeasurement, and applied to each
the most jealous scrutiny of the microscope. Had any of the bindings
been recently meddled with, it would have been utterly impossible
that the fact should have escaped observation. Some five or six
volumes, just from the hands of the binder, we carefully probed,
longitudinally, with the needles."
"You explored the floors beneath the carpets?"
"Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards with
the microscope."
"And the paper on the walls?"
"Yes."
"You looked into the cellars?"
"We did."
"Then," I said, "you have been making a miscalculation, and the
letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose."
"I fear you are right there," said the Prefect. "And now, Dupin, what
would you advise me to do?"
"To make a thorough re-search of the premises."
"That is absolutely needless," replied G--. "I am not more sure that
I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the Hotel."
"I have no better advice to give you," said Dupin. "You have, of
course, an accurate description of the letter?"
"Oh yes!" - And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum-book
proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal, and
especially of the external appearance of the missing document. Soon
after finishing the perusal of this description, he took his
departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever known
the good gentleman before. In about a month afterwards he paid us
another visit, and found us occupied very nearly as before. He took a
pipe and a chair and entered into some ordinary conversation. At
length I said, -
"Well, but G--, what of the purloined letter? I presume you have at
last made up your mind that there is no such thing as overreaching
the Minister?"
"Confound him, say I - yes; I made the re-examination, however, as
Dupin suggested - but it was all labor lost, as I knew it would be."
"How much was the reward offered, did you say?" asked Dupin.
"Why, a very great deal - a very liberal reward - I don't like to say
how much, precisely; but one thing I will say, that I wouldn't mind
giving my individual check for fifty thousand francs to any one who
could obtain me that letter. The fact is, it is becoming of more and
more importance every day; and the reward has been lately doubled. If
it were trebled, however, I could do no more than I have done."
"Why, yes," said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs of his
meerschaum, "I really - think, G--, you have not exerted yourself -
to the utmost in this matter. You might - do a little more, I think,
eh?"
"How? - in what way?'
"Why - puff, puff - you might - puff, puff - employ counsel in the
matter, eh? - puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the story they tell
of Abernethy?"
"No; hang Abernethy!"
"To be sure! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a certain
rich miser conceived the design of spunging upon this Abernethy for a
medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary
conversation in a private company, he insinuated his case to the
physician, as that of an imaginary individual.
" 'We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his symptoms are such and
such; now, doctor, what would you have directed him to take?'
" 'Take!' said Abernethy, 'why, take advice, to be sure.' "
"But," said the Prefect, a little discomposed, "I am perfectly
willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would really give fifty
thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter."
"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing a
check-book, "you may as well fill me up a check for the amount
mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter."
I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder-stricken.
For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking
incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed
starting from their sockets; then, apparently recovering himself in
some measure, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant
stares, finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand
francs, and handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined
it carefully and deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an
escritoire, took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This
functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a
trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then,
scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at length
unceremoniously from the room and from the house, without having
uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill up the
check.
When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations.
"The Parisian police," he said, "are exceedingly able in their way.
They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed in
the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when
G-- detailed to us his made of searching the premises at the Hotel
D--, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory
investigation - so far as his labors extended."
"So far as his labors extended?" said I.
"Yes," said Dupin. "The measures adopted were not only the best of
their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter
been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would,
beyond a question, have found it."
I merely laughed - but he seemed quite serious in all that he said.
"The measures, then," he continued, "were good in their kind, and
well executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the
case, and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources
are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he
forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by being too
deep or too shallow, for the matter in hand; and many a schoolboy is
a better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose
success at guessing in the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal
admiration. This game is simple, and is played with marbles. One
player holds in his hand a number of these toys, and demands of
another whether that number is even or odd. If the guess is right,
the guesser wins one; if wrong, he loses one. The boy to whom I
allude won all the marbles of the school. Of course he had some
principle of guessing; and this lay in mere observation and
admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For example, an
arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his closed hand,
asks, 'are they even or odd?' Our schoolboy replies, 'odd,' and
loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says to
himself, 'the simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his
amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon
the second; I will therefore guess odd;' - he guesses odd, and wins.
Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have
reasoned thus: 'This fellow finds that in the first instance I
guessed odd, and, in the second, he will propose to himself, upon the
first impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first
simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is too
simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even
as before. I will therefore guess even;' - he guesses even, and wins.
Now this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his fellows termed
'lucky,' - what, in its last analysis, is it?"
"It is merely," I said, "an identification of the reasoner's
intellect with that of his opponent."
"It is," said Dupin; "and, upon inquiring, of the boy by what means
he effected the thorough identification in which his success
consisted, I received answer as follows: 'When I wish to find out how
wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is any one, or what
are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face,
as accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his,
and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind or
heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.' This
response of the schoolboy lies at the bottom of all the spurious
profundity which has been attributed to Rochefoucault, to La Bougive,
to Machiavelli, and to Campanella."
"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intellect with
that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the
accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured."
"For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin; "and
the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default of
this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather
through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are
engaged. They consider only their own ideas of ingenuity; and, in
searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which they
would have hidden it. They are right in this much - that their own
ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of the mass; but when
the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from
their own, the felon foils them, of course. This always happens when
it is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have
no variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when
urged by some unusual emergency - by some extraordinary reward - they
extend or exaggerate their old modes of practice, without touching
their principles. What, for example, in this case of D--, has been
done to vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and
probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope and
dividing the surface of the building into registered square inches -
what is it all but an exaggeration of the application of the one
principle or set of principles of search, which are based upon the
one set of notions regarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect,
in the long routine of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see
he has taken it for granted that all men proceed to conceal a letter,
- not exactly in a gimlet hole bored in a chair-leg - but, at least,
in some out-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of
thought which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole
bored in a chair-leg? And do you not see also, that such recherchés
nooks for concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and
would be adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of
concealment, a disposal of the article concealed - a disposal of it
in this recherché manner, - is, in the very first instance,
presumable and presumed; and thus its discovery depends, not at all
upon the acumen, but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and
determination of the seekers; and where the case is of importance -
or, what amounts to the same thing in the policial eyes, when the
reward is of magnitude, - the qualities in question have never been
known to fail. You will now understand what I meant in suggesting
that, had the purloined letter been hidden any where within the
limits of the Prefect's examination - in other words, had the
principle of its concealment been comprehended within the principles
of the Prefect - its discovery would have been a matter altogether
beyond question. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly
mystified; and the remote source of his defeat lies in the
supposition that the Minister is a fool, because he has acquired
renown as a poet. All fools are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he
is merely guilty of a non distributio medii in thence inferring that
all poets are fools."
"But is this really the poet?" I asked. "There are two brothers, I
know; and both have attained reputation in letters. The Minister I
believe has written learnedly on the Differential Calculus. He is a
mathematician, and no poet."
"You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet and
mathematician, he would reason well; as mere mathematician, he could
not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the mercy of
the Prefect."
"You surprise me," I said, "by these opinions, which have been
contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean to set at
naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical reason
has long been regarded as the reason par excellence."
" 'Il y a à parièr,' " replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, " 'que
toute idée publique, toute convention reçue est une sottise, car elle
a convenue au plus grand nombre.' The mathematicians, I grant you,
have done their best to promulgate the popular error to which you
allude, and which is none the less an error for its promulgation as
truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for example, they have
insinuated the term 'analysis' into application to algebra. The
French are the originators of this particular deception; but if a
term is of any importance - if words derive any value from
applicability - then 'analysis' conveys 'algebra' about as much as,
in Latin, 'ambitus' implies 'ambition,' 'religio' 'religion,' or
'homines honesti,' a set of honorablemen."
"You have a quarrel on hand, I see," said I, "with some of the
algebraists of Paris; but proceed."
"I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason which
is cultivated in any especial form other than the abstractly logical.
I dispute, in particular, the reason educed by mathematical study.
The mathematics are the science of form and quantity; mathematical
reasoning is merely logic applied to observation upon form and
quantity. The great error lies in supposing that even the truths of
what is called pure algebra, are abstract or general truths. And this
error is so egregious that I am confounded at the universality with
which it has been received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of
general truth. What is true of relation - of form and quantity - is
often grossly false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter
science it is very usually untrue that the aggregated parts are equal
to the whole. In chemistry also the axiom fails. In the consideration
of motive it fails; for two motives, each of a given value, have not,
necessarily, a value when united, equal to the sum of their values
apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths which are only
truths within the limits of relation. But the mathematician argues,
from his finite truths, through habit, as if they were of an
absolutely general applicability - as the world indeed imagines them
to be. Bryant, in his very learned 'Mythology,' mentions an analogous
source of error, when he says that 'although the Pagan fables are not
believed, yet we forget ourselves continually, and make inferences
from them as existing realities.' With the algebraists, however, who
are Pagans themselves, the 'Pagan fables' are believed, and the
inferences are made, not so much through lapse of memory, as through
an unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet
encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of equal
roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point of his
faith that x2+px was absolutely and unconditionally equal to q. Say
to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you please, that
you believe occasions may occur where x2+px is not altogether equal
to q, and, having made him understand what you mean, get out of his
reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond doubt, he will endeavor
to knock you down.
"I mean to say," continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his last
observations, "that if the Minister had been no more than a
mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of
giving me this check. I know him, however, as both mathematician and
poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference to
the circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a
courtier, too, and as a bold intriguant. Such a man, I considered,
could not fail to be aware of the ordinary policial modes of action.
He could not have failed to anticipate - and events have proved that
he did not fail to anticipate - the waylayings to which he was
subjected. He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret
investigations of his premises. His frequent absences from home at
night, which were hailed by the Prefect as certain aids to his
success, I regarded only as ruses, to afford opportunity for thorough
search to the police, and thus the sooner to impress them with the
conviction to which G--, in fact, did finally arrive - the conviction
that the letter was not upon the premises. I felt, also, that the
whole train of thought, which I was at some pains in detailing to you
just now, concerning the invariable principle of policial action in
searches for articles concealed - I felt that this whole train of
thought would necessarily pass through the mind of the Minister. It
would imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary nooks of
concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to see that
the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would be as open as
his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and
to the microscopes of the Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be
driven, as a matter of course, to simplicity, if not deliberately
induced to it as a matter of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how
desperately the Prefect laughed when I suggested, upon our first
interview, that it was just possible this mystery troubled him so
much on account of its being so very self-evident."
"Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really thought he
would have fallen into convulsions."
"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict
analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been
given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may be made
to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a description. The
principle of the vis inertiæ, for example, seems to be identical in
physics and metaphysics. It is not more true in the former, that a
large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller one,
and that its subsequent momentum is commensurate with this
difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster
capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in
their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less
readily moved, and more embarrassed and full of hesitation in the
first few steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which
of the street signs, over the shop- doors, are the most attractive of
attention?"
"I have never given the matter a thought," I said.
"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon a
map. One party playing requires another to find a given word - the
name of town, river, state or empire - any word, in short, upon the
motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game
generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most
minutely lettered names; but the adept selects such words as stretch,
in large characters, from one end of the chart to the other. These,
like the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street,
escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the
physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral
inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those
considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably
self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or
beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He never once thought it
probable, or possible, that the Minister had deposited the letter
immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best
preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.
"But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and
discriminating ingenuity of D--; upon the fact that the document must
always have been at hand, if he intended to use it to good purpose;
and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was
not hidden within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search -
the more satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the
Minister had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of
not attempting to conceal it at all.
"Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green
spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the
Ministerial hotel. I found D-- at home, yawning, lounging, and
dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of
ennui. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being now
alive - but that is only when nobody sees him.
"To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the
necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and
thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly intent only
upon the conversation of my host.
"I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near which he
sat, and upon which lay confusedly, some miscellaneous letters and
other papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few books.
Here, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw
nothing to excite particular suspicion.
"At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a
trumpery fillagree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung dangling by a
dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the middle
of the mantel-piece. In this rack, which had three or four
compartments, were five or six visiting cards and a solitary letter.
This last was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two,
across the middle - as if a design, in the first instance, to tear it
entirely up as worthless, had been altered, or stayed, in the second.
It had a large black seal, bearing the D-- cipher very conspicuously,
and was addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to D--, the minister,
himself. It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed,
contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.
"No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it to be
that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance,
radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so
minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the D--
cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the S--
family. Here, the address, to the Minister, diminutive and feminine;
there the superscription, to a certain royal personage, was markedly
bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of correspondence.
But, then, the radicalness of these differences, which was excessive;
the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent
with the true methodical habits of D--, and so suggestive of a design
to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the
document; these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation
of this document, full in the view of every visiter, and thus exactly
in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived;
these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one
who came with the intention to suspect.
"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a
most animated discussion with the Minister upon a topic which I knew
well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention
really riveted upon the letter. In this examination, I committed to
memory its external appearance and arrangement in the rack; and also
fell, at length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial
doubt I might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the
paper, I observed them to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They
presented the broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff
paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded
in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had
formed the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear
to me that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out,
re-directed, and re-sealed. I bade the Minister good morning, and
took my departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table.
"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite
eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged,
however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately
beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of
fearful screams, and the shoutings of a terrified mob. D-- rushed to
a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the meantime, I stepped
to the card-rack took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced
it by a fac-simile, (so far as regards externals,) which I had
carefully prepared at my lodgings - imitating the D-- cipher, very
readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.
"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic
behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of
women and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball,
and the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard.
When he had gone, D-- came from the window, whither I had followed
him immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterwards I
bade him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay."
"But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing the letter by a
fac-simile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to
have seized it openly, and departed?"
"D--," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man, and a man of nerve. His
hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had I
made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the
Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard
of me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations.
You know my political prepossessions. In this matter, I act as a
partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has
had her in his power. She has now him in hers - since, being unaware
that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his
exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at
once, to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be
more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about the
facilis descensus Averni; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani
said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In
the present instance I have no sympathy - at least no pity - for him
who descends. He is that monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of
genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to know the
precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the
Prefect terms 'a certain personage' he is reduced to opening the
letter which I left for him in the card-rack."
"How? did you put any thing particular in it?"
"Why - it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior blank -
that would have been insulting. D--, at Vienna once, did me an evil
turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should remember.
So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the identity
of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not to give
him a clue. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just copied into
the middle of the blank sheet the words -
" '-- -- Un dessein si funeste, S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, est digne
de Thyeste.
They are to be found in Crebillon's 'Atrée.' "
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE
Truth is stranger than fiction.
OLD SAYING.
HAVING had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental
investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsoornot, a work which
(like the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even
in Europe; and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any
American -- if we except, perhaps, the author of the "Curiosities of
American Literature"; -- having had occasion, I say, to turn over
some pages of the first -- mentioned very remarkable work, I was not
a little astonished to discover that the literary world has hitherto
been strangely in error respecting the fate of the vizier's daughter,
Scheherazade, as that fate is depicted in the "Arabian Nights"; and
that the denouement there given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far
as it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very much
farther.
For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the
inquisitive reader to the "Isitsoornot" itself, but in the meantime,
I shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I there discovered.
It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of the tales, a
certain monarch having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not
only puts her to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the
prophet, to espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his
dominions, and the next morning to deliver her up to the executioner.
Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with a
religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit upon him
as a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was interrupted
one afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit from his grand
vizier, to whose daughter, it appears, there had occurred an idea.
Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would either
redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty, or perish,
after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the attempt.
Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be leap-year (which
makes the sacrifice more meritorious), she deputes her father, the
grand vizier, to make an offer to the king of her hand. This hand the
king eagerly accepts -- (he had intended to take it at all events,
and had put off the matter from day to day, only through fear of the
vizier), -- but, in accepting it now, he gives all parties very
distinctly to understand, that, grand vizier or no grand vizier, he
has not the slightest design of giving up one iota of his vow or of
his privileges. When, therefore, the fair Scheherazade insisted upon
marrying the king, and did actually marry him despite her father's
excellent advice not to do any thing of the kind -- when she would
and did marry him, I say, will I, nill I, it was with her beautiful
black eyes as thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow.
It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had been reading
Machiavelli, beyond doubt), had a very ingenious little plot in her
mind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived, upon I forget what
specious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch sufficiently
near that of the royal pair to admit of easy conversation from bed to
bed; and, a little before cock-crowing, she took care to awaken the
good monarch, her husband (who bore her none the worse will because
he intended to wring her neck on the morrow), -- she managed to
awaken him, I say, (although on account of a capital conscience and
an easy digestion, he slept well) by the profound interest of a story
(about a rat and a black cat, I think) which she was narrating (all
in an undertone, of course) to her sister. When the day broke, it so
happened that this history was not altogether finished, and that
Scheherazade, in the nature of things could not finish it just then,
since it was high time for her to get up and be bowstrung -- a thing
very little more pleasant than hanging, only a trifle more genteel.
The king's curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry to say, even
over his sound religious principles, induced him for this once to
postpone the fulfilment of his vow until next morning, for the
purpose and with the hope of hearing that night how it fared in the
end with the black cat (a black cat, I think it was) and the rat.
The night having arrived, however, the lady Scheherazade not only put
the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat (the rat was blue)
but before she well knew what she was about, found herself deep in
the intricacies of a narration, having reference (if I am not
altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green wings) that went, in
a violent manner, by clockwork, and was wound up with an indigo key.
With this history the king was even more profoundly interested than
with the other -- and, as the day broke before its conclusion
(notwithstanding all the queen's endeavors to get through with it in
time for the bowstringing), there was again no resource but to
postpone that ceremony as before, for twenty-four hours. The next
night there happened a similar accident with a similar result; and
then the next -- and then again the next; so that, in the end, the
good monarch, having been unavoidably deprived of all opportunity to
keep his vow during a period of no less than one thousand and one
nights, either forgets it altogether by the expiration of this time,
or gets himself absolved of it in the regular way, or (what is more
probable) breaks it outright, as well as the head of his father
confessor. At all events, Scheherazade, who, being lineally descended
from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the whole seven baskets of talk,
which the latter lady, we all know, picked up from under the trees in
the garden of Eden-Scheherazade, I say, finally triumphed, and the
tariff upon beauty was repealed.
Now, this conclusion (which is that of the story as we have it upon
record) is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant -- but alas!
like a great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than true, and I
am indebted altogether to the "Isitsoornot" for the means of
correcting the error. "Le mieux," says a French proverb, "est
l'ennemi du bien," and, in mentioning that Scheherazade had inherited
the seven baskets of talk, I should have added that she put them out
at compound interest until they amounted to seventy-seven.
"My dear sister," said she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I
quote the language of the "Isitsoornot" at this point, verbatim) "my
dear sister," said she, "now that all this little difficulty about
the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is so happily
repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great indiscretion in
withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry to say, snores -- a
thing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion of Sinbad the
sailor. This person went through numerous other and more interesting
adventures than those which I related; but the truth is, I felt
sleepy on the particular night of their narration, and so was seduced
into cutting them short -- a grievous piece of misconduct, for which
I only trust that Allah will forgive me. But even yet it is not too
late to remedy my great neglect -- and as soon as I have given the
king a pinch or two in order to wake him up so far that he may stop
making that horrible noise, I will forthwith entertain you (and him
if he pleases) with the sequel of this very remarkable story."
Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it from the
"Isitsoornot," expressed no very particular intensity of
gratification; but the king, having been sufficiently pinched, at
length ceased snoring, and finally said, "hum!" and then "hoo!" when
the queen, understanding these words (which are no doubt Arabic) to
signify that he was all attention, and would do his best not to snore
any more -- the queen, I say, having arranged these matters to her
satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once, into the history of Sinbad
the sailor:
"'At length, in my old age, [these are the words of Sinbad himself,
as retailed by Scheherazade] -- 'at length, in my old age, and after
enjoying many years of tranquillity at home, I became once more
possessed of a desire of visiting foreign countries; and one day,
without acquainting any of my family with my design, I packed up some
bundles of such merchandise as was most precious and least bulky,
and, engaged a porter to carry them, went with him down to the
sea-shore, to await the arrival of any chance vessel that might
convey me out of the kingdom into some region which I had not as yet
explored.
"'Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down beneath
some trees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of perceiving a
ship, but during several hours we saw none whatever. At length I
fancied that I could hear a singular buzzing or humming sound; and
the porter, after listening awhile, declared that he also could
distinguish it. Presently it grew louder, and then still louder, so
that we could have no doubt that the object which caused it was
approaching us. At length, on the edge of the horizon, we discovered
a black speck, which rapidly increased in size until we made it out
to be a vast monster, swimming with a great part of its body above
the surface of the sea. It came toward us with inconceivable
swiftness, throwing up huge waves of foam around its breast, and
illuminating all that part of the sea through which it passed, with a
long line of fire that extended far off into the distance.
"'As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly. Its length was
equal to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and it was as
wide as the great hall of audience in your palace, O most sublime and
munificent of the Caliphs. Its body, which was unlike that of
ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock, and of a jetty blackness
throughout all that portion of it which floated above the water, with
the exception of a narrow blood-red streak that completely begirdled
it. The belly, which floated beneath the surface, and of which we
could get only a glimpse now and then as the monster rose and fell
with the billows, was entirely covered with metallic scales, of a
color like that of the moon in misty weather. The back was flat and
nearly white, and from it there extended upwards of six spines, about
half the length of the whole body.
"'The horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive, but, as
if to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with at least four
score of eyes, that protruded from their sockets like those of the
green dragon-fly, and were arranged all around the body in two rows,
one above the other, and parallel to the blood-red streak, which
seemed to answer the purpose of an eyebrow. Two or three of these
dreadful eyes were much larger than the others, and had the
appearance of solid gold.
"'Although this beast approached us, as I have before said, with the
greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by necromancy-
for it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like a duck, nor
wings like the seashell which is blown along in the manner of a
vessel; nor yet did it writhe itself forward as do the eels. Its head
and its tail were shaped precisely alike, only, not far from the
latter, were two small holes that served for nostrils, and through
which the monster puffed out its thick breath with prodigious
violence, and with a shrieking, disagreeable noise.
"'Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great, but it
was even surpassed by our astonishment, when upon getting a nearer
look, we perceived upon the creature's back a vast number of animals
about the size and shape of men, and altogether much resembling them,
except that they wore no garments (as men do), being supplied (by
nature, no doubt) with an ugly uncomfortable covering, a good deal
like cloth, but fitting so tight to the skin, as to render the poor
wretches laughably awkward, and put them apparently to severe pain.
On the very tips of their heads were certain square-looking boxes,
which, at first sight, I thought might have been intended to answer
as turbans, but I soon discovered that they were excessively heavy
and solid, and I therefore concluded they were contrivances designed,
by their great weight, to keep the heads of the animals steady and
safe upon their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were
fastened black collars, (badges of servitude, no doubt,) such as we
keep on our dogs, only much wider and infinitely stiffer, so that it
was quite impossible for these poor victims to move their heads in
any direction without moving the body at the same time; and thus they
were doomed to perpetual contemplation of their noses -- a view
puggish and snubby in a wonderful, if not positively in an awful
degree.
"'When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood, it
suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and emitted
from it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense cloud of
smoke, and a noise that I can compare to nothing but thunder. As the
smoke cleared away, we saw one of the odd man-animals standing near
the head of the large beast with a trumpet in his hand, through which
(putting it to his mouth) he presently addressed us in loud, harsh,
and disagreeable accents, that, perhaps, we should have mistaken for
language, had they not come altogether through the nose.
"'Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how to reply, as I
could in no manner understand what was said; and in this difficulty I
turned to the porter, who was near swooning through affright, and
demanded of him his opinion as to what species of monster it was,
what it wanted, and what kind of creatures those were that so swarmed
upon its back. To this the porter replied, as well as he could for
trepidation, that he had once before heard of this sea-beast; that it
was a cruel demon, with bowels of sulphur and blood of fire, created
by evil genii as the means of inflicting misery upon mankind; that
the things upon its back were vermin, such as sometimes infest cats
and dogs, only a little larger and more savage; and that these vermin
had their uses, however evil -- for, through the torture they caused
the beast by their nibbling and stingings, it was goaded into that
degree of wrath which was requisite to make it roar and commit ill,
and so fulfil the vengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genii.
"This account determined me to take to my heels, and, without once
even looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the hills, while
the porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an opposite
direction, so that, by these means, he finally made his escape with
my bundles, of which I have no doubt he took excellent care --
although this is a point I cannot determine, as I do not remember
that I ever beheld him again.
"'For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men-vermin
(who had come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon overtaken,
bound hand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which immediately
swam out again into the middle of the sea.
"'I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home to
peril my life in such adventures as this; but regret being useless, I
made the best of my condition, and exerted myself to secure the
goodwill of the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and who appeared
to exercise authority over his fellows. I succeeded so well in this
endeavor that, in a few days, the creature bestowed upon me various
tokens of his favor, and in the end even went to the trouble of
teaching me the rudiments of what it was vain enough to denominate
its language; so that, at length, I was enabled to converse with it
readily, and came to make it comprehend the ardent desire I had of
seeing the world.
"'Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt unt
grumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,' said he to me, one day after dinner- but
I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your majesty is not
conversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so the man-animals
were called; I presume because their language formed the connecting
link between that of the horse and that of the rooster). With your
permission, I will translate. 'Washish squashish,' and so forth: --
that is to say, 'I am happy to find, my dear Sinbad, that you are
really a very excellent fellow; we are now about doing a thing which
is called circumnavigating the globe; and since you are so desirous
of seeing the world, I will strain a point and give you a free
passage upon back of the beast.'"
When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far, relates the
"Isitsoornot," the king turned over from his left side to his right,
and said:
"It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you omitted,
hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know I think them
exceedingly entertaining and strange?"
The king having thus expressed himself, we are told, the fair
Scheherazade resumed her history in the following words:
"Sinbad went on in this manner with his narrative to the caliph- 'I
thanked the man-animal for its kindness, and soon found myself very
much at home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious rate through
the ocean; although the surface of the latter is, in that part of the
world, by no means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we
went -- so to say -- either up hill or down hill all the time.'
"That I think, was very singular," interrupted the king.
"Nevertheless, it is quite true," replied Scheherazade.
"I have my doubts," rejoined the king; "but, pray, be so good as to
go on with the story."
"I will," said the queen. "'The beast,' continued Sinbad to the
caliph, 'swam, as I have related, up hill and down hill until, at
length, we arrived at an island, many hundreds of miles in
circumference, but which, nevertheless, had been built in the middle
of the sea by a colony of little things like caterpillars'" {*1}
"Hum!" said the king.
"'Leaving this island,' said Sinbad -- (for Scheherazade, it must be
understood, took no notice of her husband's ill-mannered ejaculation)
'leaving this island, we came to another where the forests were of
solid stone, and so hard that they shivered to pieces the
finest-tempered axes with which we endeavoured to cut them down."'
{*2}
"Hum!" said the king, again; but Scheherazade, paying him no
attention, continued in the language of Sinbad.
"'Passing beyond this last island, we reached a country where there
was a cave that ran to the distance of thirty or forty miles within
the bowels of the earth, and that contained a greater number of far
more spacious and more magnificent palaces than are to be found in
all Damascus and Bagdad. From the roofs of these palaces there hung
myriads of gems, liked diamonds, but larger than men; and in among
the streets of towers and pyramids and temples, there flowed immense
rivers as black as ebony, and swarming with fish that had no eyes.'"
{*3}
"Hum!" said the king. "'We then swam into a region of the sea where
we found a lofty mountain, down whose sides there streamed torrents
of melted metal, some of which were twelve miles wide and sixty miles
long {*4}; while from an abyss on the summit, issued so vast a
quantity of ashes that the sun was entirely blotted out from the
heavens, and it became darker than the darkest midnight; so that when
we were even at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles from the
mountain, it was impossible to see the whitest object, however close
we held it to our eyes.'" {*5}
"Hum!" said the king.
"'After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage until we
met with a land in which the nature of things seemed reversed -- for
we here saw a great lake, at the bottom of which, more than a hundred
feet beneath the surface of the water, there flourished in full leaf
a forest of tall and luxuriant trees.'" {*6}
"Hoo!" said the king.
"Some hundred miles farther on brought us to a climate where the
atmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or steel, just as our own
does feather.'" {*7}
"Fiddle de dee," said the king.
"Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently arrived at the
most magnificent region in the whole world. Through it there
meandered a glorious river for several thousands of miles. This river
was of unspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than that of
amber. It was from three to six miles in width; and its banks which
arose on either side to twelve hundred feet in perpendicular height,
were crowned with ever-blossoming trees and perpetual sweet-scented
flowers, that made the whole territory one gorgeous garden; but the
name of this luxuriant land was the Kingdom of Horror, and to enter
it was inevitable death'" {*8}
"Humph!" said the king.
"'We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after some days, came to
another, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of monstrous
animals with horns resembling scythes upon their heads. These hideous
beasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil, of a funnel
shape, and line the sides of them with, rocks, so disposed one upon
the other that they fall instantly, when trodden upon by other
animals, thus precipitating them into the monster's dens, where their
blood is immediately sucked, and their carcasses afterwards hurled
contemptuously out to an immense distance from "the caverns of
death."'" {*9}
"Pooh!" said the king.
"'Continuing our progress, we perceived a district with vegetables
that grew not upon any soil but in the air. {*10} There were others
that sprang from the substance of other vegetables; {*11} others that
derived their substance from the bodies of living animals; {*12} and
then again, there were others that glowed all over with intense fire;
{*13} others that moved from place to place at pleasure, {*14} and
what was still more wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and
breathed and moved their limbs at will and had, moreover, the
detestable passion of mankind for enslaving other creatures, and
confining them in horrid and solitary prisons until the fulfillment
of appointed tasks.'" {*15}
"Pshaw!" said the king.
"'Quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in which the bees
and the birds are mathematicians of such genius and erudition, that
they give daily instructions in the science of geometry to the wise
men of the empire. The king of the place having offered a reward for
the solution of two very difficult problems, they were solved upon
the spot -- the one by the bees, and the other by the birds; but the
king keeping their solution a secret, it was only after the most
profound researches and labor, and the writing of an infinity of big
books, during a long series of years, that the men-mathematicians at
length arrived at the identical solutions which had been given upon
the spot by the bees and by the birds.'" {*16}
"Oh my!" said the king.
"'We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we found ourselves
close upon another, from whose shores there flew over our heads a
flock of fowls a mile in breadth, and two hundred and forty miles
long; so that, although they flew a mile during every minute, it
required no less than four hours for the whole flock to pass over us
-- in which there were several millions of millions of fowl.'" {*17}
"Oh fy!" said the king.
"'No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned us great
annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a fowl of
another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs which I met in
my former voyages; for it was bigger than the biggest of the domes on
your seraglio, oh, most Munificent of Caliphs. This terrible fowl had
no head that we could perceive, but was fashioned entirely of belly,
which was of a prodigious fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking
substance, smooth, shining and striped with various colors. In its
talons, the monster was bearing away to his eyrie in the heavens, a
house from which it had knocked off the roof, and in the interior of
which we distinctly saw human beings, who, beyond doubt, were in a
state of frightful despair at the horrible fate which awaited them.
We shouted with all our might, in the hope of frightening the bird
into letting go of its prey, but it merely gave a snort or puff, as
if of rage and then let fall upon our heads a heavy sack which proved
to be filled with sand!'"
"Stuff!" said the king.
"'It was just after this adventure that we encountered a continent of
immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which, nevertheless, was
supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue cow that had no fewer
than four hundred horns.'" {*18}
"That, now, I believe," said the king, "because I have read something
of the kind before, in a book."
"'We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming in between
the legs of the cow, and, after some hours, found ourselves in a
wonderful country indeed, which, I was informed by the man-animal,
was his own native land, inhabited by things of his own species. This
elevated the man-animal very much in my esteem, and in fact, I now
began to feel ashamed of the contemptuous familiarity with which I
had treated him; for I found that the man-animals in general were a
nation of the most powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their
brain, {*19} which, no doubt, served to stimulate them by their
painful writhings and wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of
imagination!'"
"Nonsense!" said the king.
"'Among the magicians, were domesticated several animals of very
singular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones were
iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he had
black stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard a diet,
he was so strong and swift that he would drag a load more weighty
than the grandest temple in this city, at a rate surpassing that of
the flight of most birds.'" {*20}
"Twattle!" said the king.
"'I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers, but bigger
than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and brick; her
blood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she was nearly
related,) was boiling water; and like him she ate nothing but wood or
black stones. This hen brought forth very frequently, a hundred
chickens in the day; and, after birth, they took up their residence
for several weeks within the stomach of their mother.'" {*21}
"Fa! lal!" said the king.
"'One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of brass
and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity that he
would have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with the
exception of the great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid. {*22} Another of
these magi constructed (of like material) a creature that put to
shame even the genius of him who made it; for so great were its
reasoning powers that, in a second, it performed calculations of so
vast an extent that they would have required the united labor of
fifty thousand fleshy men for a year. (*23} But a still more
wonderful conjuror fashioned for himself a mighty thing that was
neither man nor beast, but which had brains of lead, intermixed with
a black matter like pitch, and fingers that it employed with such
incredible speed and dexterity that it would have had no trouble in
writing out twenty thousand copies of the Koran in an hour, and this
with so exquisite a precision, that in all the copies there should
not be found one to vary from another by the breadth of the finest
hair. This thing was of prodigious strength, so that it erected or
overthrew the mightiest empires at a breath; but its powers were
exercised equally for evil and for good.'"
"Ridiculous!" said the king.
"'Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who had in his
veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of sitting
down to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his dinner was
thoroughly roasted upon its floor. {*24} Another had the faculty of
converting the common metals into gold, without even looking at them
during the process. {*25} Another had such a delicacy of touch that
he made a wire so fine as to be invisible. {*26} Another had such
quickness of perception that he counted all the separate motions of
an elastic body, while it was springing backward and forward at the
rate of nine hundred millions of times in a second.'" {*27}
"Absurd!" said the king.
"'Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid that nobody ever
yet saw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish their arms,
kick out their legs, fight, or even get up and dance at his will.
{*28} Another had cultivated his voice to so great an extent that he
could have made himself heard from one end of the world to the other.
{*29} Another had so long an arm that he could sit down in Damascus
and indite a letter at Bagdad -- or indeed at any distance
whatsoever. {*30} Another commanded the lightning to come down to him
out of the heavens, and it came at his call; and served him for a
plaything when it came. Another took two loud sounds and out of them
made a silence. Another constructed a deep darkness out of two
brilliant lights. {*31} Another made ice in a red-hot furnace. {*32}
Another directed the sun to paint his portrait, and the sun did.
{*33} Another took this luminary with the moon and the planets, and
having first weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into their
depths and found out the solidity of the substance of which they were
made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising a necromantic
ability, that not even their infants, nor their commonest cats and
dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects that do not exist at all,
or that for twenty millions of years before the birth of the nation
itself had been blotted out from the face of creation."' {*34}
Analogous experiments in respect to sound produce analogous results.
"Preposterous!" said the king.
"'The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise
magi,'" continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner disturbed
by these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions on the part of
her husband -- "'the wives and daughters of these eminent conjurers
are every thing that is accomplished and refined; and would be every
thing that is interesting and beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality
that besets them, and from which not even the miraculous powers of
their husbands and fathers has, hitherto, been adequate to save. Some
fatalities come in certain shapes, and some in others -- but this of
which I speak has come in the shape of a crotchet.'"
"A what?" said the king.
"'A crotchet'" said Scheherazade. "'One of the evil genii, who are
perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into the heads
of these accomplished ladies that the thing which we describe as
personal beauty consists altogether in the protuberance of the region
which lies not very far below the small of the back. Perfection of
loveliness, they say, is in the direct ratio of the extent of this
lump. Having been long possessed of this idea, and bolsters being
cheap in that country, the days have long gone by since it was
possible to distinguish a woman from a dromedary-'"
"Stop!" said the king -- "I can't stand that, and I won't. You have
already given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day, too, I
perceive, is beginning to break. How long have we been married? -- my
conscience is getting to be troublesome again. And then that
dromedary touch -- do you take me for a fool? Upon the whole, you
might as well get up and be throttled."
These words, as I learn from the "Isitsoornot," both grieved and
astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of
scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she
submitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however, great
consolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from the
reflection that much of the history remained still untold, and that
the petulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for him a most
righteous reward, in depriving him of many inconceivable adventures.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTRÖM.
The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as _our_
ways; nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the
vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, _which have
a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus_. _Joseph
Glanville. _ .
WE had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some
minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.
"Not long ago," said he at length, "and I could have guided you
on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about three
years past, there happened to me an event such as never happened to
mortal man - or at least such as no man ever survived to tell of -
and the six hours of deadly terror which I then endured have broken
me up body and soul. You suppose me a _very_ old man - but I am not.
It took less than a single day to change these hairs from a jetty
black to white, to weaken my limbs, and to unstring my nerves, so
that I tremble at the least exertion, and am frightened at a shadow.
Do you know I can scarcely look over this little cliff without
getting giddy?"
The "little cliff," upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown
himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung over
it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his elbow on
its extreme and slippery edge - this "little cliff" arose, a sheer
unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some fifteen or sixteen
hundred feet from the world of crags beneath us. Nothing would have
tempted me to within half a dozen yards of its brink. In truth so
deeply was I excited by the perilous position of my companion, that I
fell at full length upon the ground, clung to the shrubs around me,
and dared not even glance upward at the sky - while I struggled in
vain to divest myself of the idea that the very foundations of the
mountain were in danger from the fury of the winds. It was long
before I could reason myself into sufficient courage to sit up and
look out into the distance.
"You must get over these fancies," said the guide, "for I have
brought you here that you might have the best possible view of the
scene of that event I mentioned - and to tell you the whole story
with the spot just under your eye."
"We are now," he continued, in that particularizing manner which
distinguished him - "we are now close upon the Norwegian coast - in
the sixty-eighth degree of latitude - in the great province of
Nordland - and in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon
whose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up a
little higher - hold on to the grass if you feel giddy - so - and
look out, beyond the belt of vapor beneath us, into the sea."
I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose
waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the Nubian
geographer's account of the _Mare Tenebrarum_. A panorama more
deplorably desolate no human imagination can conceive. To the right
and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay outstretched, like
ramparts of the world, lines of horridly black and beetling cliff,
whose character of gloom was but the more forcibly illustrated by the
surf which reared high up against its white and ghastly crest,
howling and shrieking forever. Just opposite the promontory upon
whose apex we were placed, and at a distance of some five or six
miles out at sea, there was visible a small, bleak-looking island;
or, more properly, its position was discernible through the
wilderness of surge in which it was enveloped. About two miles nearer
the land, arose another of smaller size, hideously craggy and barren,
and encompassed at various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks.
The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more
distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about it.
Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward that a
brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed trysail, and
constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight, still there was here
nothing like a regular swell, but only a short, quick, angry cross
dashing of water in every direction - as well in the teeth of the
wind as otherwise. Of foam there was little except in the immediate
vicinity of the rocks.
"The island in the distance," resumed the old man, "is called by
the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to the
northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm, Keildhelm,
Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off - between Moskoe and Vurrgh - are
Otterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These are the true
names of the places - but why it has been thought necessary to name
them at all, is more than either you or I can understand. Do you hear
anything? Do you see any change in the water?"
We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to
which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we had
caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from the
summit. As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and gradually
increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of buffaloes upon
an American prairie; and at the same moment I perceived that what
seamen term the _chopping_ character of the ocean beneath us, was
rapidly changing into a current which set to the eastward. Even while
I gazed, this current acquired a monstrous velocity. Each moment
added to its speed - to its headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the
whole sea, as far as Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury; but
it was between Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its
sway. Here the vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a
thousand conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied
convulsion - heaving, boiling, hissing - gyrating in gigantic and
innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the
eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes except
in precipitous descents.
In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another radical
alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and the
whirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while prodigious streaks of foam
became apparent where none had been seen before. These streaks, at
length, spreading out to a great distance, and entering into
combination, took unto themselves the gyratory motion of the subsided
vortices, and seemed to form the germ of another more vast. Suddenly
- very suddenly - this assumed a distinct and definite existence, in
a circle of more than a mile in diameter. The edge of the whirl was
represented by a broad belt of gleaming spray; but no particle of
this slipped into the mouth of the terrific funnel, whose interior,
as far as the eye could fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and
jet-black wall of water, inclined to the horizon at an angle of some
forty-five degrees, speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying
and sweltering motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling
voice, half shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract
of Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven.
The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. I
threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in an
excess of nervous agitation.
"This," said I at length, to the old man - "this _can_ be nothing
else than the great whirlpool of the Maelström."
"So it is sometimes termed," said he. "We Norwegians call it the
Moskoe-ström, from the island of Moskoe in the midway."
The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared me
for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the most
circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception either
of the magnificence, or of the horror of the scene - or of the wild
bewildering sense of _the novel_ which confounds the beholder. I am
not sure from what point of view the writer in question surveyed it,
nor at what time; but it could neither have been from the summit of
Helseggen, nor during a storm. There are some passages of his
description, nevertheless, which may be quoted for their details,
although their effect is exceedingly feeble in conveying an
impression of the spectacle.
"Between Lofoden and Moskoe," he says, "the depth of the water is
between thirty-six and forty fathoms; but on the other side, toward
Ver (Vurrgh) this depth decreases so as not to afford a convenient
passage for a vessel, without the risk of splitting on the rocks,
which happens even in the calmest weather. When it is flood, the
stream runs up the country between Lofoden and Moskoe with a
boisterous rapidity; but the roar of its impetuous ebb to the sea
is scarce equalled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts; the
noise being heard several leagues off, and the vortices or pits are
of such an extent and depth, that if a ship comes within its
attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom,
and there beat to pieces against the rocks; and when the water
relaxes, the fragments thereof are thrown up again. But these
intervals of tranquility are only at the turn of the ebb and flood,
and in calm weather, and last but a quarter of an hour, its violence
gradually returning. When the stream is most boisterous, and its fury
heightened by a storm, it is dangerous to come within a Norway mile
of it. Boats, yachts, and ships have been carried away by not
guarding against it before they were within its reach. It likewise
happens frequently, that whales come too near the stream, and are
overpowered by its violence; and then it is impossible to describe
their howlings and bellowings in their fruitless struggles to
disengage themselves. A bear once, attempting to swim from Lofoden to
Moskoe, was caught by the stream and borne down, while he roared
terribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large stocks of firs and pine
trees, after being absorbed by the current, rise again broken and
torn to such a degree as if bristles grew upon them. This plainly
shows the bottom to consist of craggy rocks, among which they are
whirled to and fro. This stream is regulated by the flux and reflux
of the sea - it being constantly high and low water every six hours.
In the year 1645, early in the morning of Sexagesima Sunday, it raged
with such noise and impetuosity that the very stones of the houses on
the coast fell to the ground."
In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this
could have been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of the
vortex. The "forty fathoms" must have reference only to portions of
the channel close upon the shore either of Moskoe or Lofoden. The
depth in the centre of the Moskoe-ström must be immeasurably greater;
and no better proof of this fact is necessary than can be obtained
from even the sidelong glance into the abyss of the whirl which may
be had from the highest crag of Helseggen. Looking down from this
pinnacle upon the howling Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling
at the simplicity with which the honest Jonas Ramus records, as a
matter difficult of belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the
bears; for it appeared to me, in fact, a self-evident thing, that the
largest ship of the line in existence, coming within the influence of
that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a feather the
hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once.
The attempts to account for the phenomenon - some of which, I
remember, seemed to me sufficiently plausible in perusal - now wore a
very different and unsatisfactory aspect. The idea generally received
is that this, as well as three smaller vortices among the Ferroe
islands, "have no other cause than the collision of waves rising and
falling, at flux and reflux, against a ridge of rocks and shelves,
which confines the water so that it precipitates itself like a
cataract; and thus the higher the flood rises, the deeper must the
fall be, and the natural result of all is a whirlpool or vortex, the
prodigious suction of which is sufficiently known by lesser
experiments." - These are the words of the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Kircher and others imagine that in the centre of the channel of the
Maelström is an abyss penetrating the globe, and issuing in some very
remote part - the Gulf of Bothnia being somewhat decidedly named in
one instance. This opinion, idle in itself, was the one to which, as
I gazed, my imagination most readily assented; and, mentioning it
to the guide, I was rather surprised to hear him say that, although
it was the view almost universally entertained of the subject by the
Norwegians, it nevertheless was not his own. As to the former notion
he confessed his inability to comprehend it; and here I agreed with
him - for, however conclusive on paper, it becomes altogether
unintelligible, and even absurd, amid the thunder of the abyss.
"You have had a good look at the whirl now," said the old man,
"and if you will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee, and
deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that will
convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe-ström."
I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.
"Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smack of
about seventy tons burthen, with which we were in the habit of
fishing among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In all
violent eddies at sea there is good fishing, at proper opportunities,
if one has only the courage to attempt it; but among the whole of
the Lofoden coastmen, we three were the only ones who made a regular
business of going out to the islands, as I tell you. The usual
grounds are a great way lower down to the southward. There fish can
be got at all hours, without much risk, and therefore these places
are preferred. The choice spots over here among the rocks, however,
not only yield the finest variety, but in far greater abundance; so
that we often got in a single day, what the more timid of the craft
could not scrape together in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of
desperate speculation - the risk of life standing instead of labor,
and courage answering for capital.
"We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast
than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take
advantage of the fifteen minutes' slack to push across the main
channel of the Moskoe-ström, far above the pool, and then drop down
upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen, where the
eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to remain until
nearly time for slack-water again, when we weighed and made for home.
We never set out upon this expedition without a steady side wind for
going and coming - one that we felt sure would not fail us before our
return - and we seldom made a mis-calculation upon this point. Twice,
during six years, we were forced to stay all night at anchor on
account of a dead calm, which is a rare thing indeed just about here;
and once we had to remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving
to death, owing to a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival,
and made the channel too boisterous to be thought of. Upon this
occasion we should have been driven out to sea in spite of
everything, (for the whirlpools threw us round and round so
violently, that, at length, we fouled our anchor and dragged it) if
it had not been that we drifted into one of the innumerable cross
currents - here to-day and gone to-morrow - which drove us under the
lee of Flimen, where, by good luck, we brought up.
"I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we
encountered 'on the grounds' - it is a bad spot to be in, even in
good weather - but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of the
Moskoe-ström itself without accident; although at times my heart
has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind or
before the slack. The wind sometimes was not as strong as we thought
it at starting, and then we made rather less way than we could wish,
while the current rendered the smack unmanageable. My eldest brother
had a son eighteen years old, and I had two stout boys of my own.
These would have been of great assistance at such times, in using the
sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing - but, somehow, although we
ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart to let the young ones
get into the danger - for, after all is said and done, it _was_ a
horrible danger, and that is the truth.
"It is now within a few days of three years since what I am going
to tell you occurred. It was on the tenth day of July, 18-, a day
which the people of this part of the world will never forget - for it
was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that ever came out
of the heavens. And yet all the morning, and indeed until late in the
afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze from the south-west,
while the sun shone brightly, so that the oldest seaman among us
could not have foreseen what was to follow.
"The three of us - my two brothers and myself - had crossed over
to the islands about two o'clock P. M., and had soon nearly loaded
the smack with fine fish, which, we all remarked, were more plenty
that day than we had ever known them. It was just seven, _by my
watch_, when we weighed and started for home, so as to make the worst
of the Ström at slack water, which we knew would be at eight.
"We set out with a fresh wind on our starboard quarter, and for
some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of danger,
for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend it. All at
once we were taken aback by a breeze from over Helseggen. This was
most unusual - something that had never happened to us before - and I
began to feel a little uneasy, without exactly knowing why. We put
the boat on the wind, but could make no headway at all for the
eddies, and I was upon the point of proposing to return to the
anchorage, when, looking astern, we saw the whole horizon covered
with a singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing
velocity.
"In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell away, and
we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This state
of things, however, did not last long enough to give us time to think
about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon us - in less than
two the sky was entirely overcast - and what with this and the
driving spray, it became suddenly so dark that we could not see each
other in the smack.
"Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt describing.
The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced any thing like it. We
had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us; but, at
the first puff, both our masts went by the board as if they had been
sawed off - the mainmast taking with it my youngest brother, who had
lashed himself to it for safety.
"Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat upon
water. It had a complete flush deck, with only a small hatch near the
bow, and this hatch it had always been our custom to batten down when
about to cross the Ström, by way of precaution against the chopping
seas. But for this circumstance we should have foundered at once -
for we lay entirely buried for some moments. How my elder brother
escaped destruction I cannot say, for I never had an opportunity of
ascertaining. For my part, as soon as I had let the foresail run, I
threw myself flat on deck, with my feet against the narrow gunwale of
the bow, and with my hands grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of the
fore-mast. It was mere instinct that prompted me to do this - which
was undoubtedly the very best thing I could have done - for I was too
much flurried to think.
"For some moments we were completely deluged, as I say, and all
this time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt. When I could stand
it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still keeping hold with
my hands, and thus got my head clear. Presently our little boat gave
herself a shake, just as a dog does in coming out of the water, and
thus rid herself, in some measure, of the seas. I was now trying to
get the better of the stupor that had come over me, and to collect my
senses so as to see what was to be done, when I felt somebody grasp
my arm. It was my elder brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I
had made sure that he was overboard - but the next moment all this
joy was turned into horror - for he put his mouth close to my ear,
and screamed out the word '_Moskoe-ström!_'
"No one ever will know what my feelings were at that moment. I
shook from head to foot as if I had had the most violent fit of the
ague. I knew what he meant by that one word well enough - I knew what
he wished to make me understand. With the wind that now drove us on,
we were bound for the whirl of the Ström, and nothing could save us!
"You perceive that in crossing the Ström _channel_, we always
went a long way up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather, and
then had to wait and watch carefully for the slack - but now we were
driving right upon the pool itself, and in such a hurricane as this!
'To be sure,' I thought, 'we shall get there just about the slack -
there is some little hope in that' - but in the next moment I cursed
myself for being so great a fool as to dream of hope at all. I knew
very well that we were doomed, had we been ten times a ninety-gun
ship.
"By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or
perhaps we did not feel it so much, as we scudded before it, but at
all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the wind,
and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute mountains. A
singular change, too, had come over the heavens. Around in every
direction it was still as black as pitch, but nearly overhead there
burst out, all at once, a circular rift of clear sky - as clear as I
ever saw - and of a deep bright blue - and through it there blazed
forth the full moon with a lustre that I never before knew her to
wear. She lit up every thing about us with the greatest distinctness
- but, oh God, what a scene it was to light up!
"I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother - but, in
some manner which I could not understand, the din had so increased
that I could not make him hear a single word, although I screamed at
the top of my voice in his ear. Presently he shook his head, looking
as pale as death, and held up one of his finger, as if to say
_'listen! '_
"At first I could not make out what he meant - but soon a hideous
thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its fob. It was not
going. I glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst into
tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. _It had run down at
seven o'clock! We were behind the time of the slack, and the whirl
of the Ström was in full fury!_
"When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden,
the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always to
slip from beneath her - which appears very strange to a landsman -
and this is what is called _riding_, in sea phrase. Well, so far we
had ridden the swells very cleverly; but presently a gigantic sea
happened to take us right under the counter, and bore us with it as
it rose - up - up - as if into the sky. I would not have believed
that any wave could rise so high. And then down we came with a sweep,
a slide, and a plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was
falling from some lofty mountain-top in a dream. But while we were up
I had thrown a quick glance around - and that one glance was all
sufficient. I saw our exact position in an instant. The Moskoe-Ström
whirlpool was about a quarter of a mile dead ahead - but no more like
the every-day Moskoe-Ström, than the whirl as you now see it is like
a mill-race. If I had not known where we were, and what we had to
expect, I should not have recognised the place at all. As it was, I
involuntarily closed my eyes in horror. The lids clenched themselves
together as if in a spasm.
"It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until we
suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The boat
made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot off in its new
direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring noise of
the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill shriek - such a
sound as you might imagine given out by the waste-pipes of many
thousand steam-vessels, letting off their steam all together. We were
now in the belt of surf that always surrounds the whirl; and I
thought, of course, that another moment would plunge us into the
abyss - down which we could only see indistinctly on account of the
amazing velocity with which we wore borne along. The boat did not
seem to sink into the water at all, but to skim like an air-bubble
upon the surface of the surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl,
and on the larboard arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood
like a huge writhing wall between us and the horizon.
"It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws of
the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching it.
Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great deal of
that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was despair that
strung my nerves.
"It may look like boasting - but what I tell you is truth - I
began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a
manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a
consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful a
manifestation of God's power. I do believe that I blushed with shame
when this idea crossed my mind. After a little while I became
possessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl itself. I
positively felt a _wish_ to explore its depths, even at the sacrifice
I was going to make; and my principal grief was that I should never
be able to tell my old companions on shore about the mysteries I
should see. These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man's
mind in such extremity - and I have often thought since, that the
revolutions of the boat around the pool might have rendered me a
little light-headed.
"There was another circumstance which tended to restore my
self-possession; and this was the cessation of the wind, which
could not reach us in our present situation - for, as you saw
yourself, the belt of surf is considerably lower than the general bed
of the ocean, and this latter now towered above us, a high, black,
mountainous ridge. If you have never been at sea in a heavy gale, you
can form no idea of the confusion of mind occasioned by the wind and
spray together. They blind, deafen, and strangle you, and take away
all power of action or reflection. But we were now, in a great
measure, rid of these annoyances - just us death-condemned felons in
prison are allowed petty indulgences, forbidden them while their doom
is yet uncertain.
"How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to
say. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying rather
than floating, getting gradually more and more into the middle of the
surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible inner edge. All
this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. My brother was at the
stern, holding on to a small empty water-cask which had been securely
lashed under the coop of the counter, and was the only thing on deck
that had not been swept overboard when the gale first took us. As we
approached the brink of the pit he let go his hold upon this, and
made for the ring, from which, in the agony of his terror, he
endeavored to force my hands, as it was not large enough to afford us
both a secure grasp. I never felt deeper grief than when I saw him
attempt this act - although I knew he was a madman when he did it - a
raving maniac through sheer fright. I did not care, however, to
contest the point with him. I knew it could make no difference
whether either of us held on at all; so I let him have the bolt,
and went astern to the cask. This there was no great difficulty in
doing; for the smack flew round steadily enough, and upon an even
keel - only swaying to and fro, with the immense sweeps and swelters
of the whirl. Scarcely had I secured myself in my new position, when
we gave a wild lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the
abyss. I muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was over.
"As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had
instinctively tightened my hold upon the barrel, and closed my eyes.
For some seconds I dared not open them - while I expected instant
destruction, and wondered that I was not already in my
death-struggles with the water. But moment after moment elapsed. I
still lived. The sense of falling had ceased; and the motion of the
vessel seemed much as it had been before, while in the belt of foam,
with the exception that she now lay more along. I took courage, and
looked once again upon the scene.
"Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, and
admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be
hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a
funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose
perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but for
the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for the
gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays of the
full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I have
already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along the
black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of the abyss.
"At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately.
The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I beheld. When I
recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell instinctively
downward. In this direction I was able to obtain an unobstructed
view, from the manner in which the smack hung on the inclined surface
of the pool. She was quite upon an even keel - that is to say, her
deck lay in a plane parallel with that of the water - but this latter
sloped at an angle of more than forty-five degrees, so that we seemed
to be lying upon our beam-ends. I could not help observing,
nevertheless, that I had scarcely more difficulty in maintaining my
hold and footing in this situation, than if we had been upon a dead
level; and this, I suppose, was owing to the speed at which we
revolved.
"The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the
profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on
account of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped, and
over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow and
tottering bridge which Mussulmen say is the only pathway between Time
and Eternity. This mist, or spray, was no doubt occasioned by the
clashing of the great walls of the funnel, as they all met together
at the bottom - but the yell that went up to the Heavens from out of
that mist, I dare not attempt to describe.
"Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam
above, had carried us a great distance down the slope; but our
farther descent was by no means proportionate. Round and round we
swept - not with any uniform movement - but in dizzying swings and
jerks, that sent us sometimes only a few hundred yards - sometimes
nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward, at
each revolution, was slow, but very perceptible.
"Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we
were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only object in
the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were visible
fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and trunks of
trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of house furniture,
broken boxes, barrels and staves. I have already described the
unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my original terrors.
It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer and nearer to my
dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a strange interest, the
numerous things that floated in our company. I _must_ have been
delirious - for I even sought _amusement_ in speculating upon the
relative velocities of their several descents toward the foam below.
'This fir tree,' I found myself at one time saying, 'will certainly
be the next thing that takes the awful plunge and disappears,' - and
then I was disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant
ship overtook it and went down before. At length, after making
several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all - this fact
- the fact of my invariable miscalculation - set me upon a train of
reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat
heavily once more.
"It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a
more exciting _hope_. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly
from present observation. I called to mind the great variety of
buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been
absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-ström. By far the
greater number of the articles were shattered in the most
extraordinary way - so chafed and roughened as to have the appearance
of being stuck full of splinters - but then I distinctly recollected
that there were _some_ of them which were not disfigured at all. Now
I could not account for this difference except by supposing that the
roughened fragments were the only ones which had been _completely
absorbed_ - that the others had entered the whirl at so late a period
of the tide, or, for some reason, had descended so slowly after
entering, that they did not reach the bottom before the turn of the
flood came, or of the ebb, as the case might be. I conceived it
possible, in either instance, that they might thus be whirled up
again to the level of the ocean, without undergoing the fate of those
which had been drawn in more early, or absorbed more rapidly. I made,
also, three important observations. The first was, that, as a general
rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their descent - the
second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the one spherical,
and the other _of any other shape_, the superiority in speed of
descent was with the sphere - the third, that, between two masses of
equal size, the one cylindrical, and the other of any other shape,
the cylinder was absorbed the more slowly. Since my escape, I have
had several conversations on this subject with an old school-master
of the district; and it was from him that I learned the use of the
words 'cylinder' and 'sphere.' He explained to me - although I have
forgotten the explanation - how what I observed was, in fact, the
natural consequence of the forms of the floating fragments - and
showed me how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex,
offered more resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater
difficulty than an equally bulky body, of any form whatever. {*1}
"There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in
enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn them
to account, and this was that, at every revolution, we passed
something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a vessel,
while many of these things, which had been on our level when I first
opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool, were now high up
above us, and seemed to have moved but little from their original
station.
"I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself
securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose
from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I
attracted my brother's attention by signs, pointed to the floating
barrels that came near us, and did everything in my power to make him
understand what I was about to do. I thought at length that he
comprehended my design - but, whether this was the case or not, he
shook his head despairingly, and refused to move from his station by
the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach him; the emergency admitted
of no delay; and so, with a bitter struggle, I resigned him to his
fate, fastened myself to the cask by means of the lashings which
secured it to the counter, and precipitated myself with it into the
sea, without another moment's hesitation.
"The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is
myself who now tell you this tale - as you see that I _did_ escape -
and as you are already in possession of the mode in which this escape
was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that I have farther
to say - I will bring my story quickly to conclusion. It might have
been an hour, or thereabout, after my quitting the smack, when,
having descended to a vast distance beneath me, it made three or four
wild gyrations in rapid succession, and, bearing my loved brother
with it, plunged headlong, at once and forever, into the chaos of
foam below. The barrel to which I was attached sunk very little
farther than half the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the
spot at which I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in
the character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast
funnel became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the
whirl grew, gradually, less and less violent. By degrees, the froth
and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf seemed slowly
to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone down, and the full
moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I found myself on the
surface of the ocean, in full view of the shores of Lofoden, and
above the spot where the pool of the Moskoe-ström _had been_. It was
the hour of the slack - but the sea still heaved in mountainous waves
from the effects of the hurricane. I was borne violently into the
channel of the Ström, and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast
into the 'grounds' of the fishermen. A boat picked me up - exhausted
from fatigue - and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from
the memory of its horror. Those who drew me on board were my old
mates and daily companions - but they knew me no more than they would
have known a traveller from the spirit-land. My hair which had been
raven-black the day before, was as white as you see it now. They say
too that the whole expression of my countenance had changed. I told
them my story - they did not believe it. I now tell it to _you_ - and
I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it than did the merry
fishermen of Lofoden."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY
AFTER THE very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say nothing of
the summary in 'Silliman's Journal,' with the detailed statement just
published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be supposed, of course,
that in offering a few hurried remarks in reference to Von Kempelen's
discovery, I have any design to look at the subject in a scientific
point of view. My object is simply, in the first place, to say a few
words of Von Kempelen himself (with whom, some years ago, I had the
honor of a slight personal acquaintance), since every thing which
concerns him must necessarily, at this moment, be of interest; and,
in the second place, to look in a general way, and speculatively, at
the results of the discovery.
It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations which
I have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to be a
general impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this kind, from
the newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding as it
unquestionably is, is unanticipated.
By reference to the 'Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy' (Cottle and Munroe,
London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that this
illustrious chemist had not only conceived the idea now in question,
but had actually made no inconsiderable progress, experimentally, in
the very identical analysis now so triumphantly brought to an issue
by Von Kempelen, who although he makes not the slightest allusion to
it, is, without doubt (I say it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if
required), indebted to the 'Diary' for at least the first hint of his
own undertaking.
The paragraph from the 'Courier and Enquirer,' which is now going the
rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the invention for a
Mr. Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I confess, a little
apocryphal, for several reasons; although there is nothing either
impossible or very improbable in the statement made. I need not go
into details. My opinion of the paragraph is founded principally upon
its manner. It does not look true. Persons who are narrating facts,
are seldom so particular as Mr. Kissam seems to be, about day and
date and precise location. Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually did come
upon the discovery he says he did, at the period designated -- nearly
eight years ago -- how happens it that he took no steps, on the
instant, to reap the immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must
have known would have resulted to him individually, if not to the
world at large, from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible
that any man of common understanding could have discovered what Mr.
Kissam says he did, and yet have subsequently acted so like a baby --
so like an owl -- as Mr. Kissam admits that he did. By-the-way, who
is Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in the 'Courier and
Enquirer' a fabrication got up to 'make a talk'? It must be confessed
that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little dependence is to
be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if I were not well
aware, from experience, how very easily men of science are mystified,
on points out of their usual range of inquiry, I should be profoundly
astonished at finding so eminent a chemist as Professor Draper,
discussing Mr. Kissam's (or is it Mr. Quizzem's?) pretensions to the
discovery, in so serious a tone.
But to return to the 'Diary' of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet was
not designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the writer,
as any person at all conversant with authorship may satisfy himself
at once by the slightest inspection of the style. At page 13, for
example, near the middle, we read, in reference to his researches
about the protoxide of azote: 'In less than half a minute the
respiration being continued, diminished gradually and were succeeded
by analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.' That the
respiration was not 'diminished,' is not only clear by the subsequent
context, but by the use of the plural, 'were.' The sentence, no
doubt, was thus intended: 'In less than half a minute, the
respiration [being continued, these feelings] diminished gradually,
and were succeeded by [a sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on
all the muscles.' A hundred similar instances go to show that the MS.
so inconsiderately published, was merely a rough note-book, meant
only for the writer's own eye, but an inspection of the pamphlet will
convince almost any thinking person of the truth of my suggestion.
The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last man in the world to
commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had he a more than
ordinary dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly afraid of appearing
empirical; so that, however fully he might have been convinced that
he was on the right track in the matter now in question, he would
never have spoken out, until he had every thing ready for the most
practical demonstration. I verily believe that his last moments would
have been rendered wretched, could he have suspected that his wishes
in regard to burning this 'Diary' (full of crude speculations) would
have been unattended to; as, it seems, they were. I say 'his wishes,'
for that he meant to include this note-book among the miscellaneous
papers directed 'to be burnt,' I think there can be no manner of
doubt. Whether it escaped the flames by good fortune or by bad, yet
remains to be seen. That the passages quoted above, with the other
similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the hint, I do not in the
slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet remains to be seen
whether this momentous discovery itself (momentous under any
circumstances) will be of service or disservice to mankind at large.
That Von Kempelen and his immediate friends will reap a rich harvest,
it would be folly to doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so
weak as not to 'realize,' in time, by large purchases of houses and
land, with other property of intrinsic value.
In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the 'Home
Journal,' and has since been extensively copied, several
misapprehensions of the German original seem to have been made by the
translator, who professes to have taken the passage from a late
number of the Presburg 'Schnellpost.' 'Viele' has evidently been
misconceived (as it often is), and what the translator renders by
'sorrows,' is probably 'lieden,' which, in its true version,
'sufferings,' would give a totally different complexion to the whole
account; but, of course, much of this is merely guess, on my part.
Von Kempelen, however, is by no means 'a misanthrope,' in appearance,
at least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance with him was
casual altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in saying that I know
him at all; but to have seen and conversed with a man of so
prodigious a notoriety as he has attained, or will attain in a few
days, is not a small matter, as times go.
'The Literary World' speaks of him, confidently, as a native of
Presburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in 'The Home Journal') but
I am pleased in being able to state positively, since I have it from
his own lips, that he was born in Utica, in the State of New York,
although both his parents, I believe, are of Presburg descent. The
family is connected, in some way, with Maelzel, of
Automaton-chess-player memory. In person, he is short and stout, with
large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but pleasing
mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect in
one of his feet. His address is frank, and his whole manner
noticeable for bonhomie. Altogether, he looks, speaks, and acts as
little like 'a misanthrope' as any man I ever saw. We were
fellow-sojouners for a week about six years ago, at Earl's Hotel, in
Providence, Rhode Island; and I presume that I conversed with him, at
various times, for some three or four hours altogether. His principal
topics were those of the day, and nothing that fell from him led me
to suspect his scientific attainments. He left the hotel before me,
intending to go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was in the
latter city that his great discovery was first made public; or,
rather, it was there that he was first suspected of having made it.
This is about all that I personally know of the now immortal Von
Kempelen; but I have thought that even these few details would have
interest for the public.
There can be little question that most of the marvellous rumors
afloat about this affair are pure inventions, entitled to about as
much credit as the story of Aladdin's lamp; and yet, in a case of
this kind, as in the case of the discoveries in California, it is
clear that the truth may be stranger than fiction. The following
anecdote, at least, is so well authenticated, that we may receive it
implicitly.
Von Kempelen had never been even tolerably well off during his
residence at Bremen; and often, it was well known, he had been put to
extreme shifts in order to raise trifling sums. When the great
excitement occurred about the forgery on the house of Gutsmuth & Co.,
suspicion was directed toward Von Kempelen, on account of his having
purchased a considerable property in Gasperitch Lane, and his
refusing, when questioned, to explain how he became possessed of the
purchase money. He was at length arrested, but nothing decisive
appearing against him, was in the end set at liberty. The police,
however, kept a strict watch upon his movements, and thus discovered
that he left home frequently, taking always the same road, and
invariably giving his watchers the slip in the neighborhood of that
labyrinth of narrow and crooked passages known by the flash name of
the 'Dondergat.' Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traced
him to a garret in an old house of seven stories, in an alley called
Flatzplatz, -- and, coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they
imagined, in the midst of his counterfeiting operations. His
agitation is represented as so excessive that the officers had not
the slightest doubt of his guilt. After hand-cuffing him, they
searched his room, or rather rooms, for it appears he occupied all
the mansarde.
Opening into the garret where they caught him, was a closet, ten feet
by eight, fitted up with some chemical apparatus, of which the object
has not yet been ascertained. In one corner of the closet was a very
small furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and on the fire a kind of
duplicate crucible -- two crucibles connected by a tube. One of these
crucibles was nearly full of lead in a state of fusion, but not
reaching up to the aperture of the tube, which was close to the brim.
The other crucible had some liquid in it, which, as the officers
entered, seemed to be furiously dissipating in vapor. They relate
that, on finding himself taken, Kempelen seized the crucibles with
both hands (which were encased in gloves that afterwards turned out
to be asbestic), and threw the contents on the tiled floor. It was
now that they hand-cuffed him; and before proceeding to ransack the
premises they searched his person, but nothing unusual was found
about him, excepting a paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing
what was afterward ascertained to be a mixture of antimony and some
unknown substance, in nearly, but not quite, equal proportions. All
attempts at analyzing the unknown substance have, so far, failed, but
that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be doubted.
Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the officers went
through a sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing material was found,
to the chemist's sleeping-room. They here rummaged some drawers and
boxes, but discovered only a few papers, of no importance, and some
good coin, silver and gold. At length, looking under the bed, they
saw a large, common hair trunk, without hinges, hasp, or lock, and
with the top lying carelessly across the bottom portion. Upon
attempting to draw this trunk out from under the bed, they found
that, with their united strength (there were three of them, all
powerful men), they 'could not stir it one inch.' Much astonished at
this, one of them crawled under the bed, and looking into the trunk,
said:
'No wonder we couldn't move it -- why it's full to the brim of old
bits of brass!'
Putting his feet, now, against the wall so as to get a good purchase,
and pushing with all his force, while his companions pulled with an
theirs, the trunk, with much difficulty, was slid out from under the
bed, and its contents examined. The supposed brass with which it was
filled was all in small, smooth pieces, varying from the size of a
pea to that of a dollar; but the pieces were irregular in shape,
although more or less flat-looking, upon the whole, 'very much as
lead looks when thrown upon the ground in a molten state, and there
suffered to grow cool.' Now, not one of these officers for a moment
suspected this metal to be any thing but brass. The idea of its being
gold never entered their brains, of course; how could such a wild
fancy have entered it? And their astonishment may be well conceived,
when the next day it became known, all over Bremen, that the 'lot of
brass' which they had carted so contemptuously to the police office,
without putting themselves to the trouble of pocketing the smallest
scrap, was not only gold -- real gold -- but gold far finer than any
employed in coinage-gold, in fact, absolutely pure, virgin, without
the slightest appreciable alloy.
I need not go over the details of Von Kempelen's confession (as far
as it went) and release, for these are familiar to the public. That
he has actually realized, in spirit and in effect, if not to the
letter, the old chimaera of the philosopher's stone, no sane person
is at liberty to doubt. The opinions of Arago are, of course,
entitled to the greatest consideration; but he is by no means
infallible; and what he says of bismuth, in his report to the
Academy, must be taken cum grano salis. The simple truth is, that up
to this period all analysis has failed; and until Von Kempelen
chooses to let us have the key to his own published enigma, it is
more than probable that the matter will remain, for years, in statu
quo. All that as yet can fairly be said to be known is, that 'Pure
gold can be made at will, and very readily from lead in connection
with certain other substances, in kind and in proportions, unknown.'
Speculation, of course, is busy as to the immediate and ultimate
results of this discovery -- a discovery which few thinking persons
will hesitate in referring to an increased interest in the matter of
gold generally, by the late developments in California; and this
reflection brings us inevitably to another -- the exceeding
inopportuneness of Von Kempelen's analysis. If many were prevented
from adventuring to California, by the mere apprehension that gold
would so materially diminish in value, on account of its
plentifulness in the mines there, as to render the speculation of
going so far in search of it a doubtful one -- what impression will
be wrought now, upon the minds of those about to emigrate, and
especially upon the minds of those actually in the mineral region, by
the announcement of this astounding discovery of Von Kempelen? a
discovery which declares, in so many words, that beyond its intrinsic
worth for manufacturing purposes (whatever that worth may be), gold
now is, or at least soon will be (for it cannot be supposed that Von
Kempelen can long retain his secret), of no greater value than lead,
and of far inferior value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly
difficult to speculate prospectively upon the consequences of the
discovery, but one thing may be positively maintained -- that the
announcement of the discovery six months ago would have had material
influence in regard to the settlement of California.
In Europe, as yet, the most noticeable results have been a rise of
two hundred per cent. in the price of lead, and nearly twenty-five
per cent. that of silver.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
MESMERIC REVELATION
WHATEVER doubt may still envelop the _rationale_ of mesmerism,
its startling _facts_ are now almost universally admitted. Of these
latter, those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession - an
unprofitable and disreputable tribe. There can be no more absolute
waste of time than the attempt to _prove_, at the present day, that
man, by mere exercise of will, can so impress his fellow, as to cast
him into an abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble very
closely those of _death_, or at least resemble them more nearly than
they do the phenomena of any other normal condition within our
cognizance; that, while in this state, the person so impressed
employs only with effort, and then feebly, the external organs of
sense, yet perceives, with keenly refined perception, and through
channels supposed unknown, matters beyond the scope of the physical
organs; that, moreover, his intellectual faculties are wonderfully
exalted and invigorated; that his sympathies with the person so
impressing him are profound; and, finally, that his susceptibility
to the impression increases with its frequency, while, in the same
proportion, the peculiar phenomena elicited are more extended and
more _pronounced_.
I say that these - which are the laws of mesmerism in its
general features - it would be supererogation to demonstrate; nor
shall I inflict upon my readers so needless a demonstration;
to-day. My purpose at present is a very different one indeed. I am
impelled, even in the teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail
without comment the very remarkable substance of a colloquy,
occurring between a sleep-waker and myself.
I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing the person in
question, (Mr. Vankirk,) and the usual acute susceptibility and
exaltation of the mesmeric perception had supervened. For many months
he had been laboring under confirmed phthisis, the more distressing
effects of which had been relieved by my manipulations; and on the
night of Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I was summoned to his
bedside.
The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the
heart, and breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary
symptoms of asthma. In spasms such as these he had usually found
relief from the application of mustard to the nervous centres, but
to-night this had been attempted in vain.
As I entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and
although evidently in much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally,
quite at ease.
"I sent for you to-night," he said, "not so much to administer
to my bodily ailment, as to satisfy me concerning certain psychal
impressions which, of late, have occasioned me much anxiety and
surprise. I need not tell you how sceptical I have hitherto been on
the topic of the soul's immortality. I cannot deny that there has
always existed, as if in that very soul which I have been denying, a
vague half-sentiment of its own existence. But this half-sentiment
at no time amounted to conviction. With it my reason had nothing to
do. All attempts at logical inquiry resulted, indeed, in leaving me
more sceptical than before. I had been advised to study Cousin. I
studied him in his own works as well as in those of his European and
American echoes. The 'Charles Elwood' of Mr. Brownson, for example,
was placed in my hands. I read it with profound attention.
Throughout I found it logical, but the portions which were not
_merely_ logical were unhappily the initial arguments of the
disbelieving hero of the book. In his summing up it seemed evident
to me that the reasoner had not even succeeded in convincing himself.
His end had plainly forgotten his beginning, like the government of
Trinculo. In short, I was not long in perceiving that if man is to
be intellectually convinced of his own immortality, he will never be
so convinced by the mere abstractions which have been so long the
fashion of the moralists of England, of France, and of Germany.
Abstractions may amuse and exercise, but take no hold on the mind.
Here upon earth, at least, philosophy, I am persuaded, will always in
vain call upon us to look upon qualities as things. The will may
assent - the soul - the intellect, never.
"I repeat, then, that I only half felt, and never intellectually
believed. But latterly there has been a certain deepening of the
feeling, until it has come so nearly to resemble the acquiescence of
reason, that I find it difficult to distinguish between the two. I
am enabled, too, plainly to trace this effect to the mesmeric
influence. I cannot better explain my meaning than by the hypothesis
that the mesmeric exaltation enables me to perceive a train of
ratiocination which, in my abnormal existence, convinces, but which,
in full accordance with the mesmeric phenomena, does not extend,
except through its _effect_, into my normal condition. In
sleep-waking, the reasoning and its conclusion - the cause and its
effect - are present together. In my natural state, the cause
vanishing, the effect only, and perhaps only partially, remains.
"These considerations have led me to think that some good
results might ensue from a series of well-directed questions
propounded to me while mesmerized. You have often observed the
profound self-cognizance evinced by the sleep-waker - the extensive
knowledge he displays upon all points relating to the mesmeric
condition itself; and from this self-cognizance may be deduced
hints for the proper conduct of a catechism."
I consented of course to make this experiment. A few passes
threw Mr. Vankirk into the mesmeric sleep. His breathing became
immediately more easy, and he seemed to suffer no physical
uneasiness. The following conversation then ensued: - V. in the
dialogue representing the patient, and P. myself.
_ P._ Are you asleep?
_ V._ Yes - no I would rather sleep more soundly.
_P._ [_After a few more passes._] Do you sleep now?
_V._ Yes.
_P._ How do you think your present illness will result?
_V._ [_After a long hesitation and speaking as if with effort_.]
I must die.
_P._ Does the idea of death afflict you?
_V._ [_Very quickly_.] No - no!
_P._ Are you pleased with the prospect?
_V._ If I were awake I should like to die, but now it is no
matter. The mesmeric condition is so near death as to content me.
_P._ I wish you would explain yourself, Mr. Vankirk.
_V._ I am willing to do so, but it requires more effort than I
feel able to make. You do not question me properly.
_P._ What then shall I ask?
_V._ You must begin at the beginning.
_P._ The beginning! but where is the beginning?
_V._ You know that the beginning is GOD. [_This was said in a
low, fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most profound
veneration_.]
_P._ What then is God?
_V._ [_Hesitating for many minutes._] I cannot tell.
_P._ Is not God spirit?
_V._ While I was awake I knew what you meant by "spirit," but
now it seems only a word - such for instance as truth, beauty - a
quality, I mean.
_P._ Is not God immaterial?
_V._ There is no immateriality - it is a mere word. That which
is not matter, is not at all - unless qualities are things.
_P._ Is God, then, material?
_V._ No. [_This reply startled me very much._]
_P._ What then is he?
_V._ [_After a long pause, and mutteringly._] I see - but it is
a thing difficult to tell. [_Another long pause._] He is not spirit,
for he exists. Nor is he matter, as _you understand it_. But there
are _gradations_ of matter of which man knows nothing; the grosser
impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser. The
atmosphere, for example, impels the electric principle, while the
electric principle permeates the atmosphere. These gradations of
matter increase in rarity or fineness, until we arrive at a matter
_unparticled_ - without particles - indivisible - _one_ and here the
law of impulsion and permeation is modified. The ultimate, or
unparticled matter, not only permeates all things but impels all
things - and thus _is_ all things within itself. This matter is God.
What men attempt to embody in the word "thought," is this matter in
motion.
_P._ The metaphysicians maintain that all action is reducible to
motion and thinking, and that the latter is the origin of the former.
_V._ Yes; and I now see the confusion of idea. Motion is the
action of _mind_ - not of _thinking_. The unparticled matter, or
God, in quiescence, is (as nearly as we can conceive it) what men
call mind. And the power of self-movement (equivalent in effect to
human volition) is, in the unparticled matter, the result of its
unity and omniprevalence; _how_ I know not, and now clearly see
that I shall never know. But the unparticled matter, set in motion
by a law, or quality, existing within itself, is thinking.
_P._ Can you give me no more precise idea of what you term the
unparticled matter?
_V._ The matters of which man is cognizant, escape the senses in
gradation. We have, for example, a metal, a piece of wood, a drop of
water, the atmosphere, a gas, caloric, electricity, the luminiferous
ether. Now we call all these things matter, and embrace all matter
in one general definition; but in spite of this, there can be no
two ideas more essentially distinct than that which we attach to a
metal, and that which we attach to the luminiferous ether. When we
reach the latter, we feel an almost irresistible inclination to class
it with spirit, or with nihility. The only consideration which
restrains us is our conception of its atomic constitution; and
here, even, we have to seek aid from our notion of an atom, as
something possessing in infinite minuteness, solidity, palpability,
weight. Destroy the idea of the atomic constitution and we should no
longer be able to regard the ether as an entity, or at least as
matter. For want of a better word we might term it spirit. Take,
now, a step beyond the luminiferous ether - conceive a matter as much
more rare than the ether, as this ether is more rare than the metal,
and we arrive at once (in spite of all the school dogmas) at a unique
mass - an unparticled matter. For although we may admit infinite
littleness in the atoms themselves, the infinitude of littleness in
the spaces between them is an absurdity. There will be a point -
there will be a degree of rarity, at which, if the atoms are
sufficiently numerous, the interspaces must vanish, and the mass
absolutely coalesce. But the consideration of the atomic
constitution being now taken away, the nature of the mass inevitably
glides into what we conceive of spirit. It is clear, however, that it
is as fully matter as before. The truth is, it is impossible to
conceive spirit, since it is impossible to imagine what is not. When
we flatter ourselves that we have formed its conception, we have
merely deceived our understanding by the consideration of infinitely
rarified matter.
_P._ There seems to me an insurmountable objection to the idea
of absolute coalescence; - and that is the very slight resistance
experienced by the heavenly bodies in their revolutions through space
- a resistance now ascertained, it is true, to exist in _some_
degree, but which is, nevertheless, so slight as to have been quite
overlooked by the sagacity even of Newton. We know that the
resistance of bodies is, chiefly, in proportion to their density.
Absolute coalescence is absolute density. Where there are no
interspaces, there can be no yielding. An ether, absolutely dense,
would put an infinitely more effectual stop to the progress of a star
than would an ether of adamant or of iron.
_V._ Your objection is answered with an ease which is nearly in
the ratio of its apparent unanswerability. - As regards the progress
of the star, it can make no difference whether the star passes
through the ether _or the ether through it_. There is no
astronomical error more unaccountable than that which reconciles the
known retardation of the comets with the idea of their passage
through an ether: for, however rare this ether be supposed, it would
put a stop to all sidereal revolution in a very far briefer period
than has been admitted by those astronomers who have endeavored to
slur over a point which they found it impossible to comprehend. The
retardation actually experienced is, on the other hand, about that
which might be expected from the _friction_ of the ether in the
instantaneous passage through the orb. In the one case, the
retarding force is momentary and complete within itself - in the
other it is endlessly accumulative.
_P._ But in all this - in this identification of mere matter
with God - is there nothing of irreverence? [_I was forced to
repeat this question before the sleep-waker fully comprehended my
meaning_.]
_V._ Can you say _why_ matter should be less reverenced than
mind? But you forget that the matter of which I speak is, in all
respects, the very "mind" or "spirit" of the schools, so far as
regards its high capacities, and is, moreover, the "matter" of these
schools at the same time. God, with all the powers attributed to
spirit, is but the perfection of matter.
_P._ You assert, then, that the unparticled matter, in motion,
is thought?
_V._ In general, this motion is the universal thought of the
universal mind. This thought creates. All created things are but
the thoughts of God.
_P._ You say, "in general."
_V._ Yes. The universal mind is God. For new individualities,
_matter_ is necessary.
_P._ But you now speak of "mind" and "matter" as do the
metaphysicians.
_V._ Yes - to avoid confusion. When I say "mind," I mean the
unparticled or ultimate matter; by "matter," I intend all else.
_P._ You were saying that "for new individualities matter is
necessary."
_V._ Yes; for mind, existing unincorporate, is merely God. To
create individual, thinking beings, it was necessary to incarnate
portions of the divine mind. Thus man is individualized. Divested of
corporate investiture, he were God. Now, the particular motion of
the incarnated portions of the unparticled matter is the thought of
man; as the motion of the whole is that of God.
_P._ You say that divested of the body man will be God?
_V._ [_After much hesitation._] I could not have said this; it
is an absurdity.
_P._ [_Referring to my notes._] You _did_ say that "divested of
corporate investiture man were God."
_V._ And this is true. Man thus divested _would be_ God - would
be unindividualized. But he can never be thus divested - at least
never _will be_ - else we must imagine an action of God returning
upon itself - a purposeless and futile action. Man is a creature.
Creatures are thoughts of God. It is the nature of thought to be
irrevocable.
_P._ I do not comprehend. You say that man will never put off
the body?
_V._ I say that he will never be bodiless.
_P._ Explain.
_V._ There are two bodies - the rudimental and the complete;
corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butterfly.
What we call "death," is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present
incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is
perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design.
_P._ But of the worm's metamorphosis we are palpably cognizant.
_V._ _We_, certainly - but not the worm. The matter of which
our rudimental body is composed, is within the ken of the organs of
that body; or, more distinctly, our rudimental organs are adapted
to the matter of which is formed the rudimental body; but not to
that of which the ultimate is composed. The ultimate body thus
escapes our rudimental senses, and we perceive only the shell which
falls, in decaying, from the inner form; not that inner form itself;
but this inner form, as well as the shell, is appreciable by those
who have already acquired the ultimate life.
_P._ You have often said that the mesmeric state very nearly
resembles death. How is this?
_V._ When I say that it resembles death, I mean that it
resembles the ultimate life; for when I am entranced the senses of
my rudimental life are in abeyance, and I perceive external things
directly, without organs, through a medium which I shall employ in
the ultimate, unorganized life.
_P._ Unorganized?
_V._ Yes; organs are contrivances by which the individual is
brought into sensible relation with particular classes and forms of
matter, to the exclusion of other classes and forms. The organs of
man are adapted to his rudimental condition, and to that only; his
ultimate condition, being unorganized, is of unlimited comprehension
in all points but one - the nature of the volition of God - that is
to say, the motion of the unparticled matter. You will have a
distinct idea of the ultimate body by conceiving it to be entire
brain. This it is _not_; but a conception of this nature will
bring you near a comprehension of what it _is_. A luminous body
imparts vibration to the luminiferous ether. The vibrations generate
similar ones within the retina; these again communicate similar
ones to the optic nerve. The nerve conveys similar ones to the brain;
the brain, also, similar ones to the unparticled matter which
permeates it. The motion of this latter is thought, of which
perception is the first undulation. This is the mode by which the
mind of the rudimental life communicates with the external world;
and this external world is, to the rudimental life, limited, through
the idiosyncrasy of its organs. But in the ultimate, unorganized
life, the external world reaches the whole body, (which is of a
substance having affinity to brain, as I have said,) with no other
intervention than that of an infinitely rarer ether than even the
luminiferous; and to this ether - in unison with it - the whole
body vibrates, setting in motion the unparticled matter which
permeates it. It is to the absence of idiosyncratic organs,
therefore, that we must attribute the nearly unlimited perception of
the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, organs are the cages
necessary to confine them until fledged.
_P._ You speak of rudimental "beings." Are there other
rudimental thinking beings than man?
_V._ The multitudinous conglomeration of rare matter into
nebulæ, planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebulæ,
suns, nor planets, is for the sole purpose of supplying _pabulum_ for
the idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity of rudimental beings.
But for the necessity of the rudimental, prior to the ultimate life,
there would have been no bodies such as these. Each of these is
tenanted by a distinct variety of organic, rudimental, thinking
creatures. In all, the organs vary with the features of the place
tenanted. At death, or metamorphosis, these creatures, enjoying the
ultimate life - immortality - and cognizant of all secrets but _the
one_, act all things and pass everywhere by mere volition: -
indwelling, not the stars, which to us seem the sole palpabilities,
and for the accommodation of which we blindly deem space created -
but that SPACE itself - that infinity of which the truly substantive
vastness swallows up the star-shadows -- blotting them out as
non-entities from the perception of the angels.
_P._ You say that "but for the _necessity_ of the rudimental
life" there would have been no stars. But why this necessity?
_V._ In the inorganic life, as well as in the inorganic matter
generally, there is nothing to impede the action of one simple
_unique_ law - the Divine Volition. With the view of producing
impediment, the organic life and matter, (complex, substantial, and
law-encumbered,) were contrived.
_P._ But again - why need this impediment have been produced?
_V._ The result of law inviolate is perfection - right -
negative happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong,
positive pain. Through the impediments afforded by the number,
complexity, and substantiality of the laws of organic life and
matter, the violation of law is rendered, to a certain extent,
practicable. Thus pain, which in the inorganic life is impossible,
is possible in the organic.
_P._ But to what good end is pain thus rendered possible?
_V._ All things are either good or bad by comparison. A
sufficient analysis will show that pleasure, in all cases, is but the
contrast of pain. _Positive_ pleasure is a mere idea. To be happy
at any one point we must have suffered at the same. Never to suffer
would have been never to have been blessed. But it has been shown
that, in the inorganic life, pain cannot be thus the necessity for
the organic. The pain of the primitive life of Earth, is the sole
basis of the bliss of the ultimate life in Heaven.
_P._ Still, there is one of your expressions which I find it
impossible to comprehend - "the truly _substantive_ vastness of
infinity."
_V._ This, probably, is because you have no sufficiently generic
conception of the term "_substance_" itself. We must not regard it
as a quality, but as a sentiment: - it is the perception, in thinking
beings, of the adaptation of matter to their organization. There are
many things on the Earth, which would be nihility to the inhabitants
of Venus - many things visible and tangible in Venus, which we could
not be brought to appreciate as existing at all. But to the
inorganic beings - to the angels - the whole of the unparticled
matter is substance - that is to say, the whole of what we term "space"
is to them the truest substantiality; - the stars, meantime,
through what we consider their materiality, escaping the angelic
sense, just in proportion as the unparticled matter, through what we
consider its immateriality, eludes the organic.
As the sleep-waker pronounced these latter words, in a feeble tone,
I observed on his countenance a singular expression, which somewhat
alarmed me, and induced me to awake him at once. No sooner had I
done this, than, with a bright smile irradiating all his features, he
fell back upon his pillow and expired. I noticed that in less than a
minute afterward his corpse had all the stern rigidity of stone. His
brow was of the coldness of ice. Thus, ordinarily, should it have
appeared, only after long pressure from Azrael's hand. Had the
sleep-waker, indeed, during the latter portion of his discourse, been
addressing me from out the region of the shadows?
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR
OF course I shall not pretend to consider it any matter for wonder,
that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar has excited discussion. It
would have been a miracle had it not-especially under the
circumstances. Through the desire of all parties concerned, to keep
the affair from the public, at least for the present, or until we had
farther opportunities for investigation -- through our endeavors to
effect this -- a garbled or exaggerated account made its way into
society, and became the source of many unpleasant misrepresentations,
and, very naturally, of a great deal of disbelief.
It is now rendered necessary that I give the facts -- as far as I
comprehend them myself. They are, succinctly, these:
My attention, for the last three years, had been repeatedly drawn to
the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine months ago it occurred to
me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments made hitherto,
there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable omission: --
no person had as yet been mesmerized in articulo mortis. It remained
to be seen, first, whether, in such condition, there existed in the
patient any susceptibility to the magnetic influence; secondly,
whether, if any existed, it was impaired or increased by the
condition; thirdly, to what extent, or for how long a period, the
encroachments of Death might be arrested by the process. There were
other points to be ascertained, but these most excited my curiosity
-- the last in especial, from the immensely important character of
its consequences.
In looking around me for some subject by whose means I might test
these particulars, I was brought to think of my friend, M. Ernest
Valdemar, the well-known compiler of the "Bibliotheca Forensica," and
author (under the nom de plume of Issachar Marx) of the Polish
versions of "Wallenstein" and "Gargantua." M. Valdemar, who has
resided principally at Harlaem, N.Y., since the year 1839, is (or
was) particularly noticeable for the extreme spareness of his person
-- his lower limbs much resembling those of John Randolph; and, also,
for the whiteness of his whiskers, in violent contrast to the
blackness of his hair -- the latter, in consequence, being very
generally mistaken for a wig. His temperament was markedly nervous,
and rendered him a good subject for mesmeric experiment. On two or
three occasions I had put him to sleep with little difficulty, but
was disappointed in other results which his peculiar constitution had
naturally led me to anticipate. His will was at no period positively,
or thoroughly, under my control, and in regard to clairvoyance, I
could accomplish with him nothing to be relied upon. I always
attributed my failure at these points to the disordered state of his
health. For some months previous to my becoming acquainted with him,
his physicians had declared him in a confirmed phthisis. It was his
custom, indeed, to speak calmly of his approaching dissolution, as of
a matter neither to be avoided nor regretted.
When the ideas to which I have alluded first occurred to me, it was
of course very natural that I should think of M. Valdemar. I knew the
steady philosophy of the man too well to apprehend any scruples from
him; and he had no relatives in America who would be likely to
interfere. I spoke to him frankly upon the subject; and, to my
surprise, his interest seemed vividly excited. I say to my surprise,
for, although he had always yielded his person freely to my
experiments, he had never before given me any tokens of sympathy with
what I did. His disease was if that character which would admit of
exact calculation in respect to the epoch of its termination in
death; and it was finally arranged between us that he would send for
me about twenty-four hours before the period announced by his
physicians as that of his decease.
It is now rather more than seven months since I received, from M.
Valdemar himself, the subjoined note:
My DEAR P -- ,
You may as well come now. D -- and F -- are agreed that I cannot hold
out beyond to-morrow midnight; and I think they have hit the time
very nearly.
VALDEMAR
I received this note within half an hour after it was written, and in
fifteen minutes more I was in the dying man's chamber. I had not seen
him for ten days, and was appalled by the fearful alteration which
the brief interval had wrought in him. His face wore a leaden hue;
the eyes were utterly lustreless; and the emaciation was so extreme
that the skin had been broken through by the cheek-bones. His
expectoration was excessive. The pulse was barely perceptible. He
retained, nevertheless, in a very remarkable manner, both his mental
power and a certain degree of physical strength. He spoke with
distinctness -- took some palliative medicines without aid -- and,
when I entered the room, was occupied in penciling memoranda in a
pocket-book. He was propped up in the bed by pillows. Doctors D --
and F -- were in attendance.
After pressing Valdemar's hand, I took these gentlemen aside, and
obtained from them a minute account of the patient's condition. The
left lung had been for eighteen months in a semi-osseous or
cartilaginous state, and was, of course, entirely useless for all
purposes of vitality. The right, in its upper portion, was also
partially, if not thoroughly, ossified, while the lower region was
merely a mass of purulent tubercles, running one into another.
Several extensive perforations existed; and, at one point, permanent
adhesion to the ribs had taken place. These appearances in the right
lobe were of comparatively recent date. The ossification had
proceeded with very unusual rapidity; no sign of it had discovered a
month before, and the adhesion had only been observed during the
three previous days. Independently of the phthisis, the patient was
suspected of aneurism of the aorta; but on this point the osseous
symptoms rendered an exact diagnosis impossible. It was the opinion
of both physicians that M. Valdemar would die about midnight on the
morrow (Sunday). It was then seven o'clock on Saturday evening.
On quitting the invalid's bed-side to hold conversation with myself,
Doctors D -- and F -- had bidden him a final farewell. It had not
been their intention to return; but, at my request, they agreed to
look in upon the patient about ten the next night.
When they had gone, I spoke freely with M. Valdemar on the subject of
his approaching dissolution, as well as, more particularly, of the
experiment proposed. He still professed himself quite willing and
even anxious to have it made, and urged me to commence it at once. A
male and a female nurse were in attendance; but I did not feel myself
altogether at liberty to engage in a task of this character with no
more reliable witnesses than these people, in case of sudden
accident, might prove. I therefore postponed operations until about
eight the next night, when the arrival of a medical student with whom
I had some acquaintance, (Mr. Theodore L -- l,) relieved me from
farther embarrassment. It had been my design, originally, to wait for
the physicians; but I was induced to proceed, first, by the urgent
entreaties of M. Valdemar, and secondly, by my conviction that I had
not a moment to lose, as he was evidently sinking fast.
Mr. L -- l was so kind as to accede to my desire that he would take
notes of all that occurred, and it is from his memoranda that what I
now have to relate is, for the most part, either condensed or copied
verbatim.
It wanted about five minutes of eight when, taking the patient's
hand, I begged him to state, as distinctly as he could, to Mr. L --
l, whether he (M. Valdemar) was entirely willing that I should make
the experiment of mesmerizing him in his then condition.
He replied feebly, yet quite audibly, "Yes, I wish to be "I fear you
have mesmerized" -- adding immediately afterwards, deferred it too
long."
While he spoke thus, I commenced the passes which I had already found
most effectual in subduing him. He was evidently influenced with the
first lateral stroke of my hand across his forehead; but although I
exerted all my powers, no farther perceptible effect was induced
until some minutes after ten o'clock, when Doctors D -- and F --
called, according to appointment. I explained to them, in a few
words, what I designed, and as they opposed no objection, saying that
the patient was already in the death agony, I proceeded without
hesitation -- exchanging, however, the lateral passes for downward
ones, and directing my gaze entirely into the right eye of the
sufferer.
By this time his pulse was imperceptible and his breathing was
stertorous, and at intervals of half a minute.
This condition was nearly unaltered for a quarter of an hour. At the
expiration of this period, however, a natural although a very deep
sigh escaped the bosom of the dying man, and the stertorous breathing
ceased -- that is to say, its stertorousness was no longer apparent;
the intervals were undiminished. The patient's extremities were of an
icy coldness.
At five minutes before eleven I perceived unequivocal signs of the
mesmeric influence. The glassy roll of the eye was changed for that
expression of uneasy inward examination which is never seen except in
cases of sleep-waking, and which it is quite impossible to mistake.
With a few rapid lateral passes I made the lids quiver, as in
incipient sleep, and with a few more I closed them altogether. I was
not satisfied, however, with this, but continued the manipulations
vigorously, and with the fullest exertion of the will, until I had
completely stiffened the limbs of the slumberer, after placing them
in a seemingly easy position. The legs were at full length; the arms
were nearly so, and reposed on the bed at a moderate distance from
the loin. The head was very slightly elevated.
When I had accomplished this, it was fully midnight, and I requested
the gentlemen present to examine M. Valdemar's condition. After a few
experiments, they admitted him to be an unusually perfect state of
mesmeric trance. The curiosity of both the physicians was greatly
excited. Dr. D -- resolved at once to remain with the patient all
night, while Dr. F -- took leave with a promise to return at
daybreak. Mr. L -- l and the nurses remained.
We left M. Valdemar entirely undisturbed until about three o'clock in
the morning, when I approached him and found him in precisely the
same condition as when Dr. F -- went away -- that is to say, he lay
in the same position; the pulse was imperceptible; the breathing was
gentle (scarcely noticeable, unless through the application of a
mirror to the lips); the eyes were closed naturally; and the limbs
were as rigid and as cold as marble. Still, the general appearance
was certainly not that of death.
As I approached M. Valdemar I made a kind of half effort to influence
his right arm into pursuit of my own, as I passed the latter gently
to and fro above his person. In such experiments with this patient
had never perfectly succeeded before, and assuredly I had little
thought of succeeding now; but to my astonishment, his arm very
readily, although feebly, followed every direction I assigned it with
mine. I determined to hazard a few words of conversation.
"M. Valdemar," I said, "are you asleep?" He made no answer, but I
perceived a tremor about the lips, and was thus induced to repeat the
question, again and again. At its third repetition, his whole frame
was agitated by a very slight shivering; the eyelids unclosed
themselves so far as to display a white line of the ball; the lips
moved sluggishly, and from between them, in a barely audible whisper,
issued the words:
"Yes; -- asleep now. Do not wake me! -- let me die so!"
I here felt the limbs and found them as rigid as ever. The right arm,
as before, obeyed the direction of my hand. I questioned the
sleep-waker again:
"Do you still feel pain in the breast, M. Valdemar?"
The answer now was immediate, but even less audible than before: "No
pain -- I am dying."
I did not think it advisable to disturb him farther just then, and
nothing more was said or done until the arrival of Dr. F -- , who
came a little before sunrise, and expressed unbounded astonishment at
finding the patient still alive. After feeling the pulse and applying
a mirror to the lips, he requested me to speak to the sleep-waker
again. I did so, saying:
"M. Valdemar, do you still sleep?"
As before, some minutes elapsed ere a reply was made; and during the
interval the dying man seemed to be collecting his energies to speak.
At my fourth repetition of the question, he said very faintly, almost
inaudibly:
"Yes; still asleep -- dying."
It was now the opinion, or rather the wish, of the physicians, that
M. Valdemar should be suffered to remain undisturbed in his present
apparently tranquil condition, until death should supervene -- and
this, it was generally agreed, must now take place within a few
minutes. I concluded, however, to speak to him once more, and merely
repeated my previous question.
While I spoke, there came a marked change over the countenance of the
sleep-waker. The eyes rolled themselves slowly open, the pupils
disappearing upwardly; the skin generally assumed a cadaverous hue,
resembling not so much parchment as white paper; and the circular
hectic spots which, hitherto, had been strongly defined in the centre
of each cheek, went out at once. I use this expression, because the
suddenness of their departure put me in mind of nothing so much as
the extinguishment of a candle by a puff of the breath. The upper
lip, at the same time, writhed itself away from the teeth, which it
had previously covered completely; while the lower jaw fell with an
audible jerk, leaving the mouth widely extended, and disclosing in
full view the swollen and blackened tongue. I presume that no member
of the party then present had been unaccustomed to death-bed horrors;
but so hideous beyond conception was the appearance of M. Valdemar at
this moment, that there was a general shrinking back from the region
of the bed.
I now feel that I have reached a point of this narrative at which
every reader will be startled into positive disbelief. It is my
business, however, simply to proceed.
There was no longer the faintest sign of vitality in M. Valdemar; and
concluding him to be dead, we were consigning him to the charge of
the nurses, when a strong vibratory motion was observable in the
tongue. This continued for perhaps a minute. At the expiration of
this period, there issued from the distended and motionless jaws a
voice -- such as it would be madness in me to attempt describing.
There are, indeed, two or three epithets which might be considered as
applicable to it in part; I might say, for example, that the sound
was harsh, and broken and hollow; but the hideous whole is
indescribable, for the simple reason that no similar sounds have ever
jarred upon the ear of humanity. There were two particulars,
nevertheless, which I thought then, and still think, might fairly be
stated as characteristic of the intonation -- as well adapted to
convey some idea of its unearthly peculiarity. In the first place,
the voice seemed to reach our ears -- at least mine -- from a vast
distance, or from some deep cavern within the earth. In the second
place, it impressed me (I fear, indeed, that it will be impossible to
make myself comprehended) as gelatinous or glutinous matters impress
the sense of touch.
I have spoken both of "sound" and of "voice." I mean to say that the
sound was one of distinct -- of even wonderfully, thrillingly
distinct -- syllabification. M. Valdemar spoke -- obviously in reply
to the question I had propounded to him a few minutes before. I had
asked him, it will be remembered, if he still slept. He now said:
"Yes; -- no; -- I have been sleeping -- and now -- now -- I am dead.
No person present even affected to deny, or attempted to repress, the
unutterable, shuddering horror which these few words, thus uttered,
were so well calculated to convey. Mr. L -- l (the student) swooned.
The nurses immediately left the chamber, and could not be induced to
return. My own impressions I would not pretend to render intelligible
to the reader. For nearly an hour, we busied ourselves, silently --
without the utterance of a word -- in endeavors to revive Mr. L -- l.
When he came to himself, we addressed ourselves again to an
investigation of M. Valdemar's condition.
It remained in all respects as I have last described it, with the
exception that the mirror no longer afforded evidence of respiration.
An attempt to draw blood from the arm failed. I should mention, too,
that this limb was no farther subject to my will. I endeavored in
vain to make it follow the direction of my hand. The only real
indication, indeed, of the mesmeric influence, was now found in the
vibratory movement of the tongue, whenever I addressed M. Valdemar a
question. He seemed to be making an effort to reply, but had no
longer sufficient volition. To queries put to him by any other person
than myself he seemed utterly insensible -- although I endeavored to
place each member of the company in mesmeric rapport with him. I
believe that I have now related all that is necessary to an
understanding of the sleep-waker's state at this epoch. Other nurses
were procured; and at ten o'clock I left the house in company with
the two physicians and Mr. L -- l.
In the afternoon we all called again to see the patient. His
condition remained precisely the same. We had now some discussion as
to the propriety and feasibility of awakening him; but we had little
difficulty in agreeing that no good purpose would be served by so
doing. It was evident that, so far, death (or what is usually termed
death) had been arrested by the mesmeric process. It seemed clear to
us all that to awaken M. Valdemar would be merely to insure his
instant, or at least his speedy dissolution.
From this period until the close of last week -- an interval of
nearly seven months -- we continued to make daily calls at M.
Valdemar's house, accompanied, now and then, by medical and other
friends. All this time the sleeper-waker remained exactly as I have
last described him. The nurses' attentions were continual.
It was on Friday last that we finally resolved to make the experiment
of awakening or attempting to awaken him; and it is the (perhaps)
unfortunate result of this latter experiment which has given rise to
so much discussion in private circles -- to so much of what I cannot
help thinking unwarranted popular feeling.
For the purpose of relieving M. Valdemar from the mesmeric trance, I
made use of the customary passes. These, for a time, were
unsuccessful. The first indication of revival was afforded by a
partial descent of the iris. It was observed, as especially
remarkable, that this lowering of the pupil was accompanied by the
profuse out-flowing of a yellowish ichor (from beneath the lids) of a
pungent and highly offensive odor.
It was now suggested that I should attempt to influence the patient's
arm, as heretofore. I made the attempt and failed. Dr. F -- then
intimated a desire to have me put a question. I did so, as follows:
"M. Valdemar, can you explain to us what are your feelings or wishes
now?"
There was an instant return of the hectic circles on the cheeks; the
tongue quivered, or rather rolled violently in the mouth (although
the jaws and lips remained rigid as before;) and at length the same
hideous voice which I have already described, broke forth:
"For God's sake! -- quick! -- quick! -- put me to sleep -- or, quick!
-- waken me! -- quick! -- I say to you that I am dead!"
I was thoroughly unnerved, and for an instant remained undecided what
to do. At first I made an endeavor to re-compose the patient; but,
failing in this through total abeyance of the will, I retraced my
steps and as earnestly struggled to awaken him. In this attempt I
soon saw that I should be successful -- or at least I soon fancied
that my success would be complete -- and I am sure that all in the
room were prepared to see the patient awaken.
For what really occurred, however, it is quite impossible that any
human being could have been prepared.
As I rapidly made the mesmeric passes, amid ejaculations of "dead!
dead!" absolutely bursting from the tongue and not from the lips of
the sufferer, his whole frame at once -- within the space of a single
minute, or even less, shrunk -- crumbled -- absolutely rotted away
beneath my hands. Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay
a nearly liquid mass of loathsome -- of detestable putridity.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE BLACK CAT.
FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to
pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to
expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence.
Yet, mad am I not - and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I
die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to
place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a
series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events
have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me. Yet I will not
attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror
- to many they will seem less terrible than _barroques_. Hereafter,
perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to
the common-place - some intellect more calm, more logical, and far
less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances
I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very
natural causes and effects.
From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my
disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to
make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals,
and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With
these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding
and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my
growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal
sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a
faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of
explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus
derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing
love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had
frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity
of mere _Man_.
I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition
not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic
pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most
agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small
monkey, and _a cat_.
This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely
black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his
intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with
superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion,
which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she
was ever _serious_ upon this point - and I mention the matter at all
for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be
remembered.
Pluto - this was the cat's name - was my favorite pet and
playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about
the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from
following me through the streets.
Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during
which my general temperament and character - through the
instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance - had (I blush to confess
it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by
day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of
others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At
length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course,
were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected,
but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient
regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of
maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by
accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease
grew upon me - for what disease is like Alcohol! - and at length even
Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish -
even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.
One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my
haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I
seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight
wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly
possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at
once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish
malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took
from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor
beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the
socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable
atrocity.
When reason returned with the morning - when I had slept off the
fumes of the night's debauch - I experienced a sentiment half of
horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty;
but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul
remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in
wine all memory of the deed.
In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost
eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer
appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but,
as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so
much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident
dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But
this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to
my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of
this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that
my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive
impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary
faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of
Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or
a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should
not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best
judgment, to violate that which is _Law_, merely because we
understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to
my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul _to
vex itself_ - to offer violence to its own nature - to do wrong for
the wrong's sake only - that urged me to continue and finally to
consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One
morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it
to the limb of a tree; - hung it with the tears streaming from my
eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; - hung it _because_
I knew that it had loved me, and _because_ I felt it had given me no
reason of offence; - hung it _because_ I knew that in so doing I was
committing a sin - a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal
soul as to place it - if such a thing wore possible - even beyond the
reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible
God.
On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was
aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in
flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty
that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the
conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth
was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.
I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of
cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am
detailing a chain of facts - and wish not to leave even a possible
link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins.
The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was
found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the
middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed.
The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the
fire - a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread.
About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed
to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager
attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar
expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven
in _bas relief_ upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic
_cat_. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous.
There was a rope about the animal's neck.
When I first beheld this apparition - for I could scarcely regard
it as less - my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length
reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a
garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had
been immediately filled by the crowd - by some one of whom the animal
must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window,
into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of
arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the
victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread
plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the _ammonia_ from
the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.
Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether
to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not
the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I
could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this
period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed,
but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the
animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now
habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of
somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.
One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy,
my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon
the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which
constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking
steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now
caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the
object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It
was a black cat - a very large one - fully as large as Pluto, and
closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a
white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large,
although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole
region of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose,
purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my
notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I
at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made
no claim to it - knew nothing of it - had never seen it before.
I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the
animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do
so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it
reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became
immediately a great favorite with my wife.
For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me.
This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but - I know not
how or why it was - its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted
and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance
rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain
sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty,
preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks,
strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually - very
gradually - I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to
flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a
pestilence.
What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery,
on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had
been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only
endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a
high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my
distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and
purest pleasures.
With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself
seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which
it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat,
it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering
me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get
between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long
and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast.
At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet
withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but
chiefly - let me confess it at once - by absolute dread of the beast.
This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil - and yet I
should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed
to own - yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own -
that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had
been heightened by one of the merest chimaeras it would be possible
to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the
character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and
which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange
beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this
mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by
slow degrees - degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long
time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful - it had, at length,
assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the
representation of an object that I shudder to name - and for this,
above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the
monster _had I dared_ - it was now, I say, the image of a hideous -
of a ghastly thing - of the GALLOWS! - oh, mournful and terrible
engine of Horror and of Crime - of Agony and of Death!
And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere
Humanity. And _a brute beast _- whose fellow I had contemptuously
destroyed - _a brute beast_ to work out for _me_ - for me a man,
fashioned in the image of the High God - so much of insufferable wo!
Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any
more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in
the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to
find the hot breath of _the thing_ upon my face, and its vast weight
- an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off -
incumbent eternally upon my _heart!_
Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble
remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole
intimates - the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of
my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind;
while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a
fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife,
alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.
One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the
cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit.
The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me
headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and
forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed
my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have
proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow
was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference,
into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp
and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without
a groan.
This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and
with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew
that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night,
without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects
entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into
minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved
to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I
deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard - about packing
it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so
getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I
considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined
to wall it up in the cellar - as the monks of the middle ages are
recorded to have walled up their victims.
For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls
were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout
with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had
prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a
projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been
filled up, and made to resemble the red of the cellar. I made no
doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert
the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could
detect any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not
deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and,
having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped
it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole
structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and
hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which
could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very
carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished, I felt
satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest
appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was
picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and
said to myself - "Here at least, then, my labor has not been in
vain."
My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause
of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put
it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there
could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty
animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and
forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to
describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which
the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did
not make its appearance during the night - and thus for one night at
least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and
tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my
soul!
The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came
not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had
fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness
was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some
few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered.
Even a search had been instituted - but of course nothing was to be
discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.
Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police
came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make
rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the
inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment
whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They
left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth
time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My
heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked
the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and
roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and
prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be
restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and
to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.
"Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I
delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a
little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this - this is a very
well constructed house." [In the rabid desire to say something
easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] - "I may say an
_excellently_ well constructed house. These walls are you going,
gentlemen? - these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through
the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I
held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind
which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.
But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the
Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into
silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! - by a
cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and
then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream,
utterly anomalous and inhuman - a howl - a wailing shriek, half of
horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of
hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of
the demons that exult in the damnation.
Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to
the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained
motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a
dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The
corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect
before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended
mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had
seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to
the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE FALL
OF
THE HOUSE OF USHER
Son coeur est un luth suspendu;
Sitôt qu'on le touche il rèsonne..
_ De Béranger_ .
DURING the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn
of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I
had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary
tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the
evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I
know not how it was - but, with the first glimpse of the building, a
sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable;
for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable,
because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even
the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked
upon the scene before me - upon the mere house, and the simple
landscape features of the domain - upon the bleak walls - upon the
vacant eye-like windows - upon a few rank sedges - and upon a few
white trunks of decayed trees - with an utter depression of soul
which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the
after-dream of the reveller upon opium - the bitter lapse into
everyday life - the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an
iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed
dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could
torture into aught of the sublime. What was it - I paused to think -
what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of
Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with
the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced
to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion, that while, beyond
doubt, there _are_ combinations of very simple natural objects which
have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power
lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I
reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of
the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to
modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful
impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the
precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled
lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down - but with a shudder even more
thrilling than before - upon the remodelled and inverted images of
the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the vacant and
eye-like windows.
Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a
sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one
of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since
our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a
distant part of the country - a letter from him - which, in its
wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal
reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer
spoke of acute bodily illness - of a mental disorder which oppressed
him - and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his
only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness
of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in
which all this, and much more, was said - it was the apparent _heart_
that went with his request - which allowed me no room for hesitation;
and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very
singular summons.
Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I
really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always
excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient
family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility
of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works
of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of
munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate
devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox
and easily recognisable beauties, of musical science. I had learned,
too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all
time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring
branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct
line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very
temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered,
while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of
the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while
speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long
lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other - it was this
deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent
undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the
name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the
original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation
of the "House of Usher" - an appellation which seemed to include, in
the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the
family mansion.
I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish
experiment - that of looking down within the tarn - had been to
deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the
consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition - for why
should I not so term it? - served mainly to accelerate the increase
itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all
sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this
reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself,
from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy - a
fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid
force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my
imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and
domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their
immediate vicinity - an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air
of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the
gray wall, and the silent tarn - a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull,
sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.
Shaking off from my spirit what _must_ have been a dream, I
scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal
feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The
discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread the
whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the eaves.
Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No
portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild
inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the
crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much
that reminded me of the specious totality of old wood-work which has
rotted for long years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance
from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of
extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of
instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have
discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the
roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag
direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.
Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house.
A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway
of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in
silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to
the _studio_ of his master. Much that I encountered on the way
contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of
which I have already spoken. While the objects around me - while the
carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the
ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial
trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to
such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy - while I
hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this - I still
wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary
images were stirring up. On one of the staircases, I met the
physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled
expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with
trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and
ushered me into the presence of his master.
The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The
windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance
from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from
within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the
trellissed panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more
prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to
reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the
vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls.
The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and
tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about,
but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed
an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable
gloom hung over and pervaded all.
Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been
lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which
had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality - of
the constrained effort of the _ennuyé_; man of the world. A glance,
however, at his countenance, convinced me of his perfect sincerity.
We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon
him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never
before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick
Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit
the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my
early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times
remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid,
and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid,
but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew
model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations;
a finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want
of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity;
these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the
temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten.
And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these
features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much
of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of
the skin, and the now miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things
startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered
to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it
floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with
effort, connect its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple
humanity.
In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an
incoherence - an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from
a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual
trepidancy - an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this
nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by
reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced
from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action
was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from
a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in
abeyance) to that species of energetic concision - that abrupt,
weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation - that leaden,
self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may
be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of
opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement.
It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his
earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford
him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the
nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family
evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy - a mere
nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon
pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations.
Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me;
although, perhaps, the terms, and the general manner of the narration
had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the
senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear
only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were
oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and
there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments,
which did not inspire him with horror.
To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave.
"I shall perish," said he, "I must perish in this deplorable folly.
Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events
of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at
the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may
operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no
abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror. In
this unnerved - in this pitiable condition - I feel that the period
will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason
together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR."
I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and
equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He
was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the
dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never
ventured forth - in regard to an influence whose supposititious force
was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be re-stated - an influence
which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family
mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his
spirit - an effect which the _physique_ of the gray walls and
turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at
length, brought about upon the _morale_ of his existence.
He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the
peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more
natural and far more palpable origin - to the severe and
long-continued illness - indeed to the evidently approaching
dissolution - of a tenderly beloved sister - his sole companion for
long years - his last and only relative on earth. "Her decease," he
said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, "would leave him
(him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the
Ushers." While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called)
passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without
having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an
utter astonishment not unmingled with dread - and yet I found it
impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor
oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door,
at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and
eagerly the countenance of the brother - but he had buried his face
in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary
wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled
many passionate tears.
The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of
her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the
person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially
cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had
steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not
betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the
evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother
told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating
power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had
obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should
obtain - that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no
more.
For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either
Usher or myself: and during this period I was busied in earnest
endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and
read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild
improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and
still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses
of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all
attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent
positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and
physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom.
I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I
thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I should
fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the
studies, or of the occupations, in which he involved me, or led me
the way. An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a
sulphureous lustre over all. His long improvised dirges will ring
forever in my ears. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a
certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the
last waltz of Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate
fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at
which I shuddered the more thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing
not why; - from these paintings (vivid as their images now are
before me) I would in vain endeavor to educe more than a small
portion which should lie within the compass of merely written words.
By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested
and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal
was Roderick Usher. For me at least - in the circumstances then
surrounding me - there arose out of the pure abstractions which the
hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvass, an intensity of
intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the
contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of
Fuseli.
One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not
so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth,
although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the interior of
an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls,
smooth, white, and without interruption or device. Certain accessory
points of the design served well to convey the idea that this
excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth.
No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no
torch, or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a
flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a
ghastly and inappropriate splendor.
I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve
which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the
exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was,
perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the
guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic
character of his performances. But the fervid _facility_ of his
_impromptus_ could not be so accounted for. They must have been, and
were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias
(for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rhymed verbal
improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and
concentration to which I have previously alluded as observable only
in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words
of one of these rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps,
the more forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the
under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived,
and for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, of
the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, which
were entitled "The Haunted Palace," ran very nearly, if not
accurately, thus:
I.
In the greenest of our valleys,
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace -
Radiant palace - reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion -
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
II.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow;
(This - all this - was in the olden
Time long ago)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odor went away.
III.
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-tunéd law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
IV.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
V.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate;
(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
And, round about his home, the glory
That blushed and bloomed
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
VI.
And travellers now within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows, see
Vast forms that move fantastically
To a discordant melody;
While, like a rapid ghastly river,
Through the pale door,
A hideous throng rush out forever,
And laugh - but smile no more.
I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad, led us
into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of
Usher's which I mention not so much on account of its novelty, (for
other men * have thought thus,) as on account of the pertinacity with
which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was that
of the sentience of all vegetable things. But, in his disordered
fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed,
under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization. I lack
words to express the full extent, or the earnest _abandon_ of his
persuasion. The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously
hinted) with the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The
conditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in
the method of collocation of these stones - in the order of their
arrangement, as well as in that of the many _fungi_ which overspread
them, and of the decayed trees which stood around - above all, in the
long undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its
reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidence - the
evidence of the sentience - was to be seen, he said, (and I here
started as he spoke,) in the gradual yet certain condensation of an
atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls. The result
was discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and
terrible influence which for centuries had moulded the destinies of
his family, and which made _him_ what I now saw him - what he was.
Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none.
* Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop
of Landaff. - See "Chemical Essays," vol v.
Our books - the books which, for years, had formed no small
portion of the mental existence of the invalid - were, as might be
supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We
pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of
Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of
Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg;
the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D'Indaginé, and of De la
Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the
City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite volume was a small
octavo edition of the _Directorium Inquisitorium_, by the Dominican
Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela, about
the old African Satyrs and gipans, over which Usher would sit
dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the
perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic -
the manual of a forgotten church - the _Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum
Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae_.
I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of
its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening,
having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he
stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight,
(previously to its final interment,) in one of the numerous vaults
within the main walls of the building. The worldly reason, however,
assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel
at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution
(so he told me) by consideration of the unusual character of the
malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on
the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation
of the burial-ground of the family. I will not deny that when I
called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon
the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire
to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means
an unnatural, precaution.
At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the
arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been
encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we
placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our torches, half
smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity
for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely without means of
admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath
that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment.
It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst
purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in later days, as a place of deposit
for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion
of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which
we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of
massive iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight
caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.
Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this
region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of
the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking
similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my
attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out
some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had
been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had
always existed between them. Our glances, however, rested not long
upon the dead - for we could not regard her unawed. The disease
which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left,
as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the
mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that
suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in
death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and, having secured the
door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy
apartments of the upper portion of the house.
And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable
change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend.
His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were
neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with
hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance
had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue - but the luminousness
of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of
his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme
terror, habitually characterized his utterance. There were times,
indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring
with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the
necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all
into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him
gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest
attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder
that his condition terrified - that it infected me. I felt creeping
upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own
fantastic yet impressive superstitions.
It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the
seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within
the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep
came not near my couch - while the hours waned and waned away. I
struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me.
I endeavored to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due
to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room - of
the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the
breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the
walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my
efforts were fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded
my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus
of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a
struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly
within the intense darkness of the chamber, harkened - I know not
why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me - to certain low
and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at
long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense
sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my
clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the
night), and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable condition
into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the
apartment.
I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an
adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognised it
as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle
touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was,
as usual, cadaverously wan - but, moreover, there was a species of
mad hilarity in his eyes - an evidently restrained _hysteria_ in his
whole demeanor. His air appalled me - but anything was preferable to
the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his
presence as a relief.
"And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly, after having
stared about him for some moments in silence - "you have not then
seen it? - but, stay! you shall." Thus speaking, and having
carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and
threw it freely open to the storm.
The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our
feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and
one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind had
apparently collected its force in our vicinity; for there were
frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind; and
the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press
upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the
life-like velocity with which they flew careering from all points
against each other, without passing away into the distance. I say
that even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving this
- yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars - nor was there any
flashing forth of the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge
masses of agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects
immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a
faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung
about and enshrouded the mansion.
"You must not - you shall not behold this!" said I,
shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from
the window to a seat. "These appearances, which bewilder you, are
merely electrical phenomena not uncommon - or it may be that they
have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us
close this casement; - the air is chilling and dangerous to your
frame. Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you
shall listen; - and so we will pass away this terrible night
together."
The antique volume which I had taken up was the "Mad Trist" of
Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favorite of Usher's
more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in
its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest
for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however,
the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that
the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find
relief (for the history of mental disorder is full of similar
anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read.
Could I have judged, indeed, by the wild overstrained air of vivacity
with which he harkened, or apparently harkened, to the words of the
tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my
design.
I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where
Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for peaceable
admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an
entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the words of the
narrative run thus:
"And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was
now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which
he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who,
in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn, but, feeling the
rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest,
uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made quickly room in the
plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand; and now pulling
therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder,
that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarummed and
reverberated throughout the forest."
At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment,
paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my
excited fancy had deceived me) - it appeared to me that, from some
very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my
ears, what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the
echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and
ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It
was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my
attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements,
and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the
sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested
or disturbed me. I continued the story:
"But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door,
was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful
hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and
prodigious demeanor, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard
before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and upon the wall
there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend enwritten -
Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin;
Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;
And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the
dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a
shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had
fain to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of
it, the like whereof was never before heard."
Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild
amazement - for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this
instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it
proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant,
but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound -
the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for
the dragon's unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.
Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second
and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting
sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I
still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any
observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no
means certain that he had noticed the sounds in question; although,
assuredly, a strange alteration had, during the last few minutes,
taken place in his demeanor. From a position fronting my own, he had
gradually brought round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the
door of the chamber; and thus I could but partially perceive his
features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were
murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breast - yet I
knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the
eye as I caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of his body,
too, was at variance with this idea - for he rocked from side to side
with a gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken
notice of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, which
thus proceeded:
"And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of
the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the
breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass
from out of the way before him, and approached valorously over the
silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall;
which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his
feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing
sound."
No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than - as if a
shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a
floor of silver - I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and
clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely
unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement of
Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His
eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole
countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my hand
upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his whole person;
a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that he spoke
in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my
presence. Bending closely over him, I at length drank in the hideous
import of his words.
"Not hear it? - yes, I hear it, and _have_ heard it. Long -
long - long - many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it -
yet I dared not - oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am! - I
dared not - I _dared_ not speak! _We have put her living in the
tomb!_ Said I not that my senses were acute? I _now_ tell you
that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I
heard them - many, many days ago - yet I dared not - _I dared not
speak!_ And now - to-night - Ethelred - ha! ha! - the breaking
of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the
clangor of the shield! - say, rather, the rending of her coffin,
and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles
within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh whither shall I fly?
Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for
my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not
distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!"
- here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his
syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul - "_Madman!
I tell you that she now stands without the door!_"
As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been
found the potency of a spell - the huge antique pannels to which the
speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous
and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust - but then
without those doors there _did_ stand the lofty and enshrouded figure
of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes,
and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her
emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to
and fro upon the threshold - then, with a low moaning cry, fell
heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and
now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim
to the terrors he had anticipated.
From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The
storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing
the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light,
and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued;
for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The
radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now
shone vividly through that once barely-discernible fissure, of which
I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a
zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly
widened - there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind - the entire
orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight - my brain reeled as
I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder - there was a long tumultuous
shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters - and the deep and
dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments
of the "_House of Usher_."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
SILENCE -- A FABLE
ALCMAN. The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags and caves are
silent.
"LISTEN to me," said the Demon as he placed his hand upon my head.
"The region of which I speak is a dreary region in Libya, by the
borders of the river Zaire. And there is no quiet there, nor silence.
"The waters of the river have a saffron and sickly hue; and they flow
not onwards to the sea, but palpitate forever and forever beneath the
red eye of the sun with a tumultuous and convulsive motion. For many
miles on either side of the river's oozy bed is a pale desert of
gigantic water-lilies. They sigh one unto the other in that solitude,
and stretch towards the heaven their long and ghastly necks, and nod
to and fro their everlasting heads. And there is an indistinct murmur
which cometh out from among them like the rushing of subterrene
water. And they sigh one unto the other.
"But there is a boundary to their realm -- the boundary of the dark,
horrible, lofty forest. There, like the waves about the Hebrides, the
low underwood is agitated continually. But there is no wind
throughout the heaven. And the tall primeval trees rock eternally
hither and thither with a crashing and mighty sound. And from their
high summits, one by one, drop everlasting dews. And at the roots
strange poisonous flowers lie writhing in perturbed slumber. And
overhead, with a rustling and loud noise, the gray clouds rush
westwardly forever, until they roll, a cataract, over the fiery wall
of the horizon. But there is no wind throughout the heaven. And by
the shores of the river Zaire there is neither quiet nor silence.
"It was night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but,
having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the tall
and the rain fell upon my head -- and the lilies sighed one unto the
other in the solemnity of their desolation.
"And, all at once, the moon arose through the thin ghastly mist, and
was crimson in color. And mine eyes fell upon a huge gray rock which
stood by the shore of the river, and was lighted by the light of the
moon. And the rock was gray, and ghastly, and tall, -- and the rock
was gray. Upon its front were characters engraven in the stone; and I
walked through the morass of water-lilies, until I came close unto
the shore, that I might read the characters upon the stone. But I
could not decypher them. And I was going back into the morass, when
the moon shone with a fuller red, and I turned and looked again upon
the rock, and upon the characters; -- and the characters were
DESOLATION.
"And I looked upwards, and there stood a man upon the summit of the
rock; and I hid myself among the water-lilies that I might discover
the actions of the man. And the man was tall and stately in form, and
was wrapped up from his shoulders to his feet in the toga of old
Rome. And the outlines of his figure were indistinct -- but his
features were the features of a deity; for the mantle of the night,
and of the mist, and of the moon, and of the dew, had left uncovered
the features of his face. And his brow was lofty with thought, and
his eye wild with care; and, in the few furrows upon his cheek I read
the fables of sorrow, and weariness, and disgust with mankind, and a
longing after solitude.
"And the man sat upon the rock, and leaned his head upon his hand,
and looked out upon the desolation. He looked down into the low
unquiet shrubbery, and up into the tall primeval trees, and up higher
at the rustling heaven, and into the crimson moon. And I lay close
within shelter of the lilies, and observed the actions of the man.
And the man trembled in the solitude; -- but the night waned, and he
sat upon the rock.
"And the man turned his attention from the heaven, and looked out
upon the dreary river Zaire, and upon the yellow ghastly waters, and
upon the pale legions of the water-lilies. And the man listened to
the sighs of the water-lilies, and to the murmur that came up from
among them. And I lay close within my covert and observed the actions
of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude; -- but the night
waned and he sat upon the rock.
"Then I went down into the recesses of the morass, and waded afar in
among the wilderness of the lilies, and called unto the hippopotami
which dwelt among the fens in the recesses of the morass. And the
hippopotami heard my call, and came, with the behemoth, unto the foot
of the rock, and roared loudly and fearfully beneath the moon. And I
lay close within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And
the man trembled in the solitude; -- but the night waned and he sat
upon the rock.
"Then I cursed the elements with the curse of tumult; and a frightful
tempest gathered in the heaven where, before, there had been no wind.
And the heaven became livid with the violence of the tempest -- and
the rain beat upon the head of the man -- and the floods of the river
came down -- and the river was tormented into foam -- and the
water-lilies shrieked within their beds -- and the forest crumbled
before the wind -- and the thunder rolled -- and the lightning fell
-- and the rock rocked to its foundation. And I lay close within my
covert and observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in
the solitude; -- but the night waned and he sat upon the rock.
"Then I grew angry and cursed, with the curse of silence, the river,
and the lilies, and the wind, and the forest, and the heaven, and the
thunder, and the sighs of the water-lilies. And they became accursed,
and were still. And the moon ceased to totter up its pathway to
heaven -- and the thunder died away -- and the lightning did not
flash -- and the clouds hung motionless -- and the waters sunk to
their level and remained -- and the trees ceased to rock -- and the
water-lilies sighed no more -- and the murmur was heard no longer
from among them, nor any shadow of sound throughout the vast
illimitable desert. And I looked upon the characters of the rock, and
they were changed; -- and the characters were SILENCE.
"And mine eyes fell upon the countenance of the man, and his
countenance was wan with terror. And, hurriedly, he raised his head
from his hand, and stood forth upon the rock and listened. But there
was no voice throughout the vast illimitable desert, and the
characters upon the rock were SILENCE. And the man shuddered, and
turned his face away, and fled afar off, in haste, so that I beheld
him no more."
Now there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi -- in the
iron-bound, melancholy volumes of the Magi. Therein, I say, are
glorious histories of the Heaven, and of the Earth, and of the mighty
sea -- and of the Genii that over-ruled the sea, and the earth, and
the lofty heaven. There was much lore too in the sayings which were
said by the Sybils; and holy, holy things were heard of old by the
dim leaves that trembled around Dodona -- but, as Allah liveth, that
fable which the Demon told me as he sat by my side in the shadow of
the tomb, I hold to be the most wonderful of all! And as the Demon
made an end of his story, he fell back within the cavity of the tomb
and laughed. And I could not laugh with the Demon, and he cursed me
because I could not laugh. And the lynx which dwelleth forever in the
tomb, came out therefrom, and lay down at the feet of the Demon, and
looked at him steadily in the face.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.
THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had
ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal
-- the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and
sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with
dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the
face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid
and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure,
progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half
an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When
his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a
thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and
dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of
one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent
structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august
taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of
iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy
hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of
ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from
within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the
courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could
take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to
think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There
were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers,
there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and
security were within. Without was the "Red Death."
It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion,
and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince
Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the
most unusual magnificence.
It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of
the rooms in which it was held. There were seven -- an imperial
suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight
vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on
either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely
impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been
expected from the duke's love of the bizarre. The apartments were so
irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than
one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty
yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the
middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon
a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These
windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with
the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it
opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue
-- and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple
in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The
third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was
furnished and lighted with orange -- the fifth with white -- the
sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in
black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the
walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and
hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to
correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet -- a
deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any
lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay
scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of
any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers.
But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite
to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that
protected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly
illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and
fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect
of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the
blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild
a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were
few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at
all.
It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western
wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a
dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the
circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from
the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and
deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis
that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were
constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken
to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions;
and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while
the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest
grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their
brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes
had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the
musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own
nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other,
that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar
emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace
three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there
came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same
disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.
But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel.
The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors
and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans
were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre.
There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt
that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be
sure that he was not.
He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the
seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own
guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure
they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy
and phantasm -- much of what has been since seen in "Hernani." There
were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There
were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There was much of
the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of
the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited
disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a
multitude of dreams. And these -- the dreams -- writhed in and about,
taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the
orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there
strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And
then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of
the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes
of the chime die away -- they have endured but an instant -- and a
light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And
now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and
fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows
through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber
which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the
maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a
ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of
the sable drapery appals; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable
carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more
solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in
the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.
But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat
feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until
at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock.
And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the
waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all
things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by
the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps, that more of
thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the
thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus, too, it happened,
perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly
sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had
found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure
which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And
the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly
around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or
murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise -- then, finally,
of terror, of horror, and of disgust.
In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be
supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such
sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly
unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone
beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are
chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched
without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death
are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made.
The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the
costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety
existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to
foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the
visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened
corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in
detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not
approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far
as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in
blood -- and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was
besprinkled with the scarlet horror.
When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which
with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its
role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be
convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror
or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.
"Who dares?" he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him
-- "who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and
unmask him -- that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from
the battlements!"
It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince
Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven
rooms loudly and clearly -- for the prince was a bold and robust man,
and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.
It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale
courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight
rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who
at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and
stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain
nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had
inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to
seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the
prince's person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one
impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made
his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step
which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber
to the purple -- through the purple to the green -- through the green
to the orange -- through this again to the white -- and even thence
to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It
was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and
the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through
the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly
terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and
had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of
the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity
of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer.
There was a sharp cry -- and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the
sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in
death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of
despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the
black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood
erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in
unutterable horror at finding the grave-cerements and corpse-like
mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any
tangible form.
And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come
like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in
the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the
despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went
out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods
expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable
dominion over all.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.
THE thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could;
but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well
know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave
utterance to a threat. _At length_ I would be avenged; this was a
point definitively settled - but the very definitiveness with which
it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish,
but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution
overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger
fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.
It must be understood, that neither by word nor deed had I given
Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont,
to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile _now_ was
at the thought of his immolation.
He had a weak point - this Fortunato - although in other regards
he was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on
his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso
spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the
time and opportunity - to practise imposture upon the British and
Austrian _millionaires_. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like
his countrymen, was a quack - but in the matter of old wines he was
sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially: I
was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely
whenever I could.
It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the
carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me with
excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man wore
motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head
was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so pleased to see
him, that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.
I said to him - "My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How
remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a pipe
of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts."
"How?" said he. "Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in
the middle of the carnival!"
"I have my doubts," I replied; "and I was silly enough to pay
the full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You
were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain."
"Amontillado!"
"I have my doubts."
"Amontillado!"
"And I must satisfy them."
"Amontillado!"
"As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a
critical turn, it is he. He will tell me --"
"Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."
"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for
your own."
"Come, let us go."
"Whither?"
"To your vaults."
"My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I
perceive you have an engagement. Luchesi --"
"I have no engagement; - come."
"My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold
with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are insufferably
damp. They are encrusted with nitre."
"Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing.
Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he
cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado."
Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm. Putting on
a mask of black silk, and drawing a _roquelaire_ closely about my
person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.
There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make
merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I should not return
until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir
from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure
their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was
turned.
I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to
Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway
that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and winding
staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed. We came at
length to the foot of the descent, and stood together on the damp
ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.
The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap
jingled as he strode.
"The pipe," said he.
"It is farther on," said I; "but observe the white web-work
which gleams from these cavern walls."
He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs
that distilled the rheum of intoxication.
"Nitre?" he asked, at length.
"Nitre," I replied. "How long have you had that cough?"
"Ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh!
- ugh! ugh! ugh! - ugh! ugh! ugh!"
My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.
"It is nothing," he said, at last.
"Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health is
precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are
happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no
matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be
responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi --"
"Enough," he said; "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not
kill me. I shall not die of a cough."
"True - true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention of
alarming you unnecessarily - but you should use all proper caution.
A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps."
Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long
row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.
"Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.
He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me
familiarly, while his bells jingled.
"I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us."
"And I to your long life."
He again took my arm, and we proceeded.
"These vaults," he said, "are extensive."
"The Montresors," I replied, "were a great and numerous family."
"I forget your arms."
"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a
serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel."
"And the motto?"
"_Nemo me impune lacessit_."
"Good!" he said.
The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own
fancy grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through walls of piled
bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost
recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made bold
to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.
"The nitre!" I said: "see, it increases. It hangs like moss
upon the vaults. We are below the river's bed. The drops of
moisture trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is
too late. Your cough --"
"It is nothing," he said; "let us go on. But first, another
draught of the Medoc."
I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grâve. He emptied it at a
breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and threw
the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.
I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement - a
grotesque one.
"You do not comprehend?" he said.
"Not I," I replied.
"Then you are not of the brotherhood."
"How?"
"You are not of the masons."
"Yes, yes," I said, "yes, yes."
"You? Impossible! A mason?"
"A mason," I replied.
"A sign," he said.
"It is this," I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the
folds of my _roquelaire_.
"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. "But let us
proceed to the Amontillado."
"Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak, and
again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We continued
our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed through a range of
low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a
deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux
rather to glow than flame.
At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less
spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the
vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris.
Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this
manner. From the fourth the bones had been thrown down, and lay
promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some
size. Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones,
we perceived a still interior recess, in depth about four feet, in
width three, in height six or seven. It seemed to have been
constructed for no especial use in itself, but formed merely the
interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the
catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of
solid granite.
It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch,
endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination the
feeble light did not enable us to see.
"Proceed," I said; "herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi
--"
"He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped
unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In an
instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his
progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A moment
more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface were two
iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally.
From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock.
Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few
seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded to resist.
Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.
"Pass your hand," I said, "over the wall; you cannot help
feeling the nitre. Indeed it is _very_ damp. Once more let me
_implore_ you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you.
But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power."
"The Amontillado!" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from
his astonishment.
"True," I replied; "the Amontillado."
As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of
which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a
quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and with
the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of
the niche.
I had scarcely laid the first tier of my masonry when I
discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure
worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning
cry from the depth of the recess. It was _not_ the cry of a drunken
man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I laid the second
tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I heard the furious
vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for several minutes,
during which, that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction,
I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones. When at last the
clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel, and finished without
interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier. The wall
was now nearly upon a level with my breast. I again paused, and
holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few feeble rays
upon the figure within.
A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from
the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back.
For a brief moment I hesitated - I trembled. Unsheathing my rapier,
I began to grope with it about the recess: but the thought of an
instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the
catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached the wall. I replied
to the yells of him who clamored. I re-echoed - I aided - I
surpassed them in volume and in strength. I did this, and the
clamorer grew still.
It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had
completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had finished
a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a
single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled with its
weight; I placed it partially in its destined position. But now
there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon
my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in
recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The voice said -
"Ha! ha! ha! - he! he! - a very good joke indeed - an
excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the
palazzo - he! he! he! - over our wine - he! he! he!"
"The Amontillado!" I said.
"He! he! he! - he! he! he! - yes, the Amontillado. But
is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the
palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone."
"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."
"_For the love of God, Montressor!_"
"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"
But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew
impatient. I called aloud -
"Fortunato!"
No answer. I called again -
"Fortunato!"
No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture
and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling
of the bells. My heart grew sick - on account of the dampness of the
catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor. I forced the last
stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the new
masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a
century no mortal has disturbed them. _In pace requiescat!_
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE
IN THE consideration of the faculties and impulses -- of the prima
mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make room
for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a radical,
primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally overlooked by all
the moralists who have preceded them. In the pure arrogance of the
reason, we have all overlooked it. We have suffered its existence to
escape our senses, solely through want of belief -- of faith; --
whether it be faith in Revelation, or faith in the Kabbala. The idea
of it has never occurred to us, simply because of its supererogation.
We saw no need of the impulse -- for the propensity. We could not
perceive its necessity. We could not understand, that is to say, we
could not have understood, had the notion of this primum mobile ever
obtruded itself; -- we could not have understood in what manner it
might be made to further the objects of humanity, either temporal or
eternal. It cannot be denied that phrenology and, in great measure,
all metaphysicianism have been concocted a priori. The intellectual
or logical man, rather than the understanding or observant man, set
himself to imagine designs -- to dictate purposes to God. Having thus
fathomed, to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah, out of
these intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind. In the
matter of phrenology, for example, we first determined, naturally
enough, that it was the design of the Deity that man should eat. We
then assigned to man an organ of alimentiveness, and this organ is
the scourge with which the Deity compels man, will-I nill-I, into
eating. Secondly, having settled it to be God's will that man should
continue his species, we discovered an organ of amativeness,
forthwith. And so with combativeness, with ideality, with causality,
with constructiveness, -- so, in short, with every organ, whether
representing a propensity, a moral sentiment, or a faculty of the
pure intellect. And in these arrangements of the Principia of human
action, the Spurzheimites, whether right or wrong, in part, or upon
the whole, have but followed, in principle, the footsteps of their
predecessors: deducing and establishing every thing from the
preconceived destiny of man, and upon the ground of the objects of
his Creator.
It would have been wiser, it would have been safer, to classify (if
classify we must) upon the basis of what man usually or occasionally
did, and was always occasionally doing, rather than upon the basis of
what we took it for granted the Deity intended him to do. If we
cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his
inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into being? If we cannot
understand him in his objective creatures, how then in his
substantive moods and phases of creation?
Induction, a posteriori, would have brought phrenology to admit, as
an innate and primitive principle of human action, a paradoxical
something, which we may call perverseness, for want of a more
characteristic term. In the sense I intend, it is, in fact, a mobile
without motive, a motive not motivirt. Through its promptings we act
without comprehensible object; or, if this shall be understood as a
contradiction in terms, we may so far modify the proposition as to
say, that through its promptings we act, for the reason that we
should not. In theory, no reason can be more unreasonable, but, in
fact, there is none more strong. With certain minds, under certain
conditions, it becomes absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain
that I breathe, than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any
action is often the one unconquerable force which impels us, and
alone impels us to its prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming
tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake, admit of analysis, or
resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive
impulse-elementary. It will be said, I am aware, that when we persist
in acts because we feel we should not persist in them, our conduct is
but a modification of that which ordinarily springs from the
combativeness of phrenology. But a glance will show the fallacy of
this idea. The phrenological combativeness has for its essence, the
necessity of self-defence. It is our safeguard against injury. Its
principle regards our well-being; and thus the desire to be well is
excited simultaneously with its development. It follows, that the
desire to be well must be excited simultaneously with any principle
which shall be merely a modification of combativeness, but in the
case of that something which I term perverseness, the desire to be
well is not only not aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment
exists.
An appeal to one's own heart is, after all, the best reply to the
sophistry just noticed. No one who trustingly consults and thoroughly
questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the entire
radicalness of the propensity in question. It is not more
incomprehensible than distinctive. There lives no man who at some
period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire to
tantalize a listener by circumlocution. The speaker is aware that he
displeases; he has every intention to please, he is usually curt,
precise, and clear, the most laconic and luminous language is
struggling for utterance upon his tongue, it is only with difficulty
that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he dreads and
deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet, the thought
strikes him, that by certain involutions and parentheses this anger
may be engendered. That single thought is enough. The impulse
increases to a wish, the wish to a desire, the desire to an
uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the deep regret and
mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of all consequences) is
indulged.
We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know
that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of
our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We
glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with the
anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It
must, it shall be undertaken to-day, and yet we put it off until
to-morrow, and why? There is no answer, except that we feel perverse,
using the word with no comprehension of the principle. To-morrow
arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but
with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a
positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This
craving gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action
is at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us,
-- of the definite with the indefinite -- of the substance with the
shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the shadow
which prevails, -- we struggle in vain. The clock strikes, and is the
knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer -- note
to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies -- it disappears
-- we are free. The old energy returns. We will labor now. Alas, it
is too late!
We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss -- we
grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the danger.
Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and dizziness
and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable feeling. By
gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud assumes shape, as
did the vapor from the bottle out of which arose the genius in the
Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud upon the precipice's edge,
there grows into palpability, a shape, far more terrible than any
genius or any demon of a tale, and yet it is but a thought, although
a fearful one, and one which chills the very marrow of our bones with
the fierceness of the delight of its horror. It is merely the idea of
what would be our sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a
fall from such a height. And this fall -- this rushing annihilation
-- for the very reason that it involves that one most ghastly and
loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and
suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination --
for this very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because
our reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the
most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so
demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the edge
of a precipice, thus meditates a Plunge. To indulge, for a moment, in
any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for reflection but
urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say, that we cannot. If
there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden
effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and
are destroyed.
Examine these similar actions as we will, we shall find them
resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetrate them
because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this there is no
intelligible principle; and we might, indeed, deem this perverseness
a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it not occasionally
known to operate in furtherance of good.
I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your
question, that I may explain to you why I am here, that I may assign
to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect of a cause
for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting this cell of the
condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might either have
misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble, have fancied me
mad. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am one of the many
uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse.
It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a more
thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered upon the
means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their
accomplishment involved a chance of detection. At length, in reading
some French Memoirs, I found an account of a nearly fatal illness
that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the agency of a candle
accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my fancy at once. I knew my
victim's habit of reading in bed. I knew, too, that his apartment was
narrow and ill-ventilated. But I need not vex you with impertinent
details. I need not describe the easy artifices by which I
substituted, in his bed-room candle-stand, a wax-light of my own
making for the one which I there found. The next morning he was
discovered dead in his bed, and the Coroner's verdict was -- "Death
by the visitation of God."
Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The
idea of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains of the
fatal taper I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no shadow of
a clew by which it would be possible to convict, or even to suspect
me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a sentiment of
satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon my absolute
security. For a very long period of time I was accustomed to revel in
this sentiment. It afforded me more real delight than all the mere
worldly advantages accruing from my sin. But there arrived at length
an epoch, from which the pleasurable feeling grew, by scarcely
perceptible gradations, into a haunting and harassing thought. It
harassed because it haunted. I could scarcely get rid of it for an
instant. It is quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the
ringing in our ears, or rather in our memories, of the burthen of
some ordinary song, or some unimpressive snatches from an opera. Nor
will we be the less tormented if the song in itself be good, or the
opera air meritorious. In this manner, at last, I would perpetually
catch myself pondering upon my security, and repeating, in a low
undertone, the phrase, "I am safe."
One day, whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested myself in
the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary syllables. In a fit
of petulance, I remodelled them thus; "I am safe -- I am safe -- yes
-- if I be not fool enough to make open confession!"
No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill creep to
my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of perversity,
(whose nature I have been at some trouble to explain), and I
remembered well that in no instance I had successfully resisted their
attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion that I might possibly
be fool enough to confess the murder of which I had been guilty,
confronted me, as if the very ghost of him whom I had murdered -- and
beckoned me on to death.
At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the soul. I
walked vigorously -- faster -- still faster -- at length I ran. I
felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of
thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too well
understood that to think, in my situation, was to be lost. I still
quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through the crowded
thoroughfares. At length, the populace took the alarm, and pursued
me. I felt then the consummation of my fate. Could I have torn out my
tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice resounded in my ears
-- a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I turned -- I gasped
for breath. For a moment I experienced all the pangs of suffocation;
I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and then some invisible fiend, I
thought, struck me with his broad palm upon the back. The long
imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul.
They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with marked
emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of interruption before
concluding the brief, but pregnant sentences that consigned me to the
hangman and to hell.
Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial
conviction, I fell prostrate in a swoon.
But why shall I say more? To-day I wear these chains, and am here!
To-morrow I shall be fetterless! -- but where?
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE ISLAND OF THE FAY
Nullus enim locus sine genio est. -- _Servius_.
"LA MUSIQUE," says Marmontel, in those "Contes Moraux" {*1} which in
all our translations, we have insisted upon calling "Moral Tales," as
if in mockery of their spirit -- "la musique est le seul des talents
qui jouissent de lui-meme; tous les autres veulent des temoins." He
here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet sounds with the
capacity for creating them. No more than any other talent, is that
for music susceptible of complete enjoyment, where there is no second
party to appreciate its exercise. And it is only in common with other
talents that it produces effects which may be fully enjoyed in
solitude. The idea which the raconteur has either failed to entertain
clearly, or has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of
point, is, doubtless, the very tenable one that the higher order of
music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively alone.
The proposition, in this form, will be admitted at once by those who
love the lyre for its own sake, and for its spiritual uses. But there
is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen mortality and
perhaps only one -- which owes even more than does music to the
accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the happiness experienced in
the contemplation of natural scenery. In truth, the man who would
behold aright the glory of God upon earth must in solitude behold
that glory. To me, at least, the presence -- not of human life only,
but of life in any other form than that of the green things which
grow upon the soil and are voiceless -- is a stain upon the landscape
-- is at war with the genius of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard
the dark valleys, and the gray rocks, and the waters that silently
smile, and the forests that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud
watchful mountains that look down upon all, -- I love to regard these
as themselves but the colossal members of one vast animate and
sentient whole -- a whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most
perfect and most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate
planets; whose meek handmaiden is the moon, whose mediate sovereign
is the sun; whose life is eternity, whose thought is that of a God;
whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in immensity,
whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own cognizance of the
animalculae which infest the brain -- a being which we, in
consequence, regard as purely inanimate and material much in the same
manner as these animalculae must thus regard us.
Our telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on every
hand -- notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the
priesthood -- that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important
consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which the
stars move are those best adapted for the evolution, without
collision, of the greatest possible number of bodies. The forms of
those bodies are accurately such as, within a given surface, to
include the greatest possible amount of matter; -- while the surfaces
themselves are so disposed as to accommodate a denser population than
could be accommodated on the same surfaces otherwise arranged. Nor is
it any argument against bulk being an object with God, that space
itself is infinite; for there may be an infinity of matter to fill
it. And since we see clearly that the endowment of matter with
vitality is a principle -- indeed, as far as our judgments extend,
the leading principle in the operations of Deity, -- it is scarcely
logical to imagine it confined to the regions of the minute, where we
daily trace it, and not extending to those of the august. As we find
cycle within cycle without end, -- yet all revolving around one
far-distant centre which is the God-head, may we not analogically
suppose in the same manner, life within life, the less within the
greater, and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly
erring, through self-esteem, in believing man, in either his temporal
or future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that
vast "clod of the valley" which he tills and contemns, and to which
he denies a soul for no more profound reason than that he does not
behold it in operation. {*2}
These fancies, and such as these, have always given to my meditations
among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers and the ocean, a
tinge of what the everyday world would not fail to term fantastic. My
wanderings amid such scenes have been many, and far-searching, and
often solitary; and the interest with which I have strayed through
many a dim, deep valley, or gazed into the reflected Heaven of many a
bright lake, has been an interest greatly deepened by the thought
that I have strayed and gazed alone. What flippant Frenchman was it
who said in allusion to the well-known work of Zimmerman, that, "la
solitude est une belle chose; mais il faut quelqu'un pour vous dire
que la solitude est une belle chose?" The epigram cannot be
gainsayed; but the necessity is a thing that does not exist.
It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant region
of mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and melancholy
tarn writhing or sleeping within all -- that I chanced upon a certain
rivulet and island. I came upon them suddenly in the leafy June, and
threw myself upon the turf, beneath the branches of an unknown
odorous shrub, that I might doze as I contemplated the scene. I felt
that thus only should I look upon it -- such was the character of
phantasm which it wore.
On all sides -- save to the west, where the sun was about sinking --
arose the verdant walls of the forest. The little river which turned
sharply in its course, and was thus immediately lost to sight, seemed
to have no exit from its prison, but to be absorbed by the deep green
foliage of the trees to the east -- while in the opposite quarter (so
it appeared to me as I lay at length and glanced upward) there poured
down noiselessly and continuously into the valley, a rich golden and
crimson waterfall from the sunset fountains of the sky.
About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in, one
small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the bosom of
the stream.
So blended bank and shadow there
That each seemed pendulous in air -- so mirror-like was the glassy
water, that it was scarcely possible to say at what point upon the
slope of the emerald turf its crystal dominion began.
My position enabled me to include in a single view both the eastern
and western extremities of the islet; and I observed a
singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all one
radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed beneath the
eyes of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with flowers. The
grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and Asphodel-interspersed.
The trees were lithe, mirthful, erect -- bright, slender, and
graceful, -- of eastern figure and foliage, with bark smooth, glossy,
and parti-colored. There seemed a deep sense of life and joy about
all; and although no airs blew from out the heavens, yet every thing
had motion through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumerable
butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tulips with wings.
{*4}
The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest
shade. A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom here pervaded all
things. The trees were dark in color, and mournful in form and
attitude, wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral shapes
that conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death. The grass
wore the deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its blades hung
droopingly, and hither and thither among it were many small unsightly
hillocks, low and narrow, and not very long, that had the aspect of
graves, but were not; although over and all about them the rue and
the rosemary clambered. The shade of the trees fell heavily upon the
water, and seemed to bury itself therein, impregnating the depths of
the element with darkness. I fancied that each shadow, as the sun
descended lower and lower, separated itself sullenly from the trunk
that gave it birth, and thus became absorbed by the stream; while
other shadows issued momently from the trees, taking the place of
their predecessors thus entombed.
This idea, having once seized upon my fancy, greatly excited it, and
I lost myself forthwith in revery. "If ever island were enchanted,"
said I to myself, "this is it. This is the haunt of the few gentle
Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are these green tombs
theirs? -- or do they yield up their sweet lives as mankind yield up
their own? In dying, do they not rather waste away mournfully,
rendering unto God, little by little, their existence, as these trees
render up shadow after shadow, exhausting their substance unto
dissolution? What the wasting tree is to the water that imbibes its
shade, growing thus blacker by what it preys upon, may not the life
of the Fay be to the death which engulfs it?"
As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly to
rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the island,
bearing upon their bosom large, dazzling, white flakes of the bark of
the sycamore-flakes which, in their multiform positions upon the
water, a quick imagination might have converted into any thing it
pleased, while I thus mused, it appeared to me that the form of one
of those very Fays about whom I had been pondering made its way
slowly into the darkness from out the light at the western end of the
island. She stood erect in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it
with the mere phantom of an oar. While within the influence of the
lingering sunbeams, her attitude seemed indicative of joy -- but
sorrow deformed it as she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided
along, and at length rounded the islet and re-entered the region of
light. "The revolution which has just been made by the Fay,"
continued I, musingly, "is the cycle of the brief year of her life.
She has floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a
year nearer unto Death; for I did not fail to see that, as she came
into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in the
dark water, making its blackness more black."
And again the boat appeared and the Fay, but about the attitude of
the latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of elastic
joy. She floated again from out the light and into the gloom (which
deepened momently) and again her shadow fell from her into the ebony
water, and became absorbed into its blackness. And again and again
she made the circuit of the island, (while the sun rushed down to his
slumbers), and at each issuing into the light there was more sorrow
about her person, while it grew feebler and far fainter and more
indistinct, and at each passage into the gloom there fell from her a
darker shade, which became whelmed in a shadow more black. But at
length when the sun had utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost
of her former self, went disconsolately with her boat into the region
of the ebony flood, and that she issued thence at all I cannot say,
for darkness fell over an things and I beheld her magical figure no
more.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE ASSIGNATION
Stay for me there! I will not fail.
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
[_Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King, Bishop of
Chichester_.]
ILL-FATED and mysterious man! - bewildered in the brilliancy of
thine own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own youth!
Again in fancy I behold thee! Once more thy form hath risen before
me! - not - oh not as thou art - in the cold valley and shadow -
but as thou _shouldst be_ - squandering away a life of magnificent
meditation in that city of dim visions, thine own Venice - which is a
star-beloved Elysium of the sea, and the wide windows of whose
Palladian palaces look down with a deep and bitter meaning upon the
secrets of her silent waters. Yes! I repeat it - as thou _shouldst
be_. There are surely other worlds than this - other thoughts than
the thoughts of the multitude - other speculations than the
speculations of the sophist. Who then shall call thy conduct into
question? who blame thee for thy visionary hours, or denounce
those occupations as a wasting away of life, which were but the
overflowings of thine everlasting energies?
It was at Venice, beneath the covered archway there called the
_Ponte di Sospiri_, that I met for the third or fourth time the
person of whom I speak. It is with a confused recollection that I
bring to mind the circumstances of that meeting. Yet I remember - ah!
how should I forget? - the deep midnight, the Bridge of Sighs,
the beauty of woman, and the Genius of Romance that stalked up and
down the narrow canal.
It was a night of unusual gloom. The great clock of the Piazza
had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening. The square of the
Campanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights in the old Ducal
Palace were dying fast away. I was returning home from the Piazetta,
by way of the Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived opposite the
mouth of the canal San Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke
suddenly upon the night, in one wild, hysterical, and long continued
shriek. Startled at the sound, I sprang upon my feet: while the
gondolier, letting slip his single oar, lost it in the pitchy
darkness beyond a chance of recovery, and we were consequently left
to the guidance of the current which here sets from the greater into
the smaller channel. Like some huge and sable-feathered condor, we
were slowly drifting down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when a
thousand flambeaux flashing from the windows, and down the staircases
of the Ducal Palace, turned all at once that deep gloom into a livid
and preternatural day.
A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen from
an upper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim canal.
The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim; and,
although my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a stout
swimmer, already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon the surface,
the treasure which was to be found, alas! only within the abyss.
Upon the broad black marble flagstones at the entrance of the palace,
and a few steps above the water, stood a figure which none who then
saw can have ever since forgotten. It was the Marchesa Aphrodite -
the adoration of all Venice - the gayest of the gay - the most lovely
where all were beautiful - but still the young wife of the old and
intriguing Mentoni, and the mother of that fair child, her first and
only one, who now, deep beneath the murky water, was thinking in
bitterness of heart upon her sweet caresses, and exhausting its
little life in struggles to call upon her name.
She stood alone. Her small, bare, and silvery feet gleamed in the
black mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet more than
half loosened for the night from its ball-room array, clustered, amid
a shower of diamonds, round and round her classical head, in curls
like those of the young hyacinth. A snowy-white and gauze-like
drapery seemed to be nearly the sole covering to her delicate form;
but the mid-summer and midnight air was hot, sullen, and still, and
no motion in the statue-like form itself, stirred even the folds of
that raiment of very vapor which hung around it as the heavy marble
hangs around the Niobe. Yet - strange to say! - her large lustrous
eyes were not turned downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest
hope lay buried - but riveted in a widely different direction! The
prison of the Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in
all Venice - but how could that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when
beneath her lay stifling her only child? Yon dark, gloomy niche,
too, yawns right opposite her chamber window - what, then, _could_
there be in its shadows - in its architecture - in its ivy-wreathed
and solemn cornices - that the Marchesa di Mentoni had not wondered
at a thousand times before? Nonsense! - Who does not remember
that, at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror,
multiplies the images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable far-off
places, the wo which is close at hand?
Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the
water-gate, stood, in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of Mentoni
himself. He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and
seemed _ennuye_ to the very death, as at intervals he gave directions
for the recovery of his child. Stupified and aghast, I had myself no
power to move from the upright position I had assumed upon first
hearing the shriek, and must have presented to the eyes of the
agitated group a spectral and ominous appearance, as with pale
countenance and rigid limbs, I floated down among them in that
funereal gondola.
All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the
search were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy
sorrow. There seemed but little hope for the child; (how much less
than for the mother! ) but now, from the interior of that dark
niche which has been already mentioned as forming a part of the Old
Republican prison, and as fronting the lattice of the Marchesa, a
figure muffled in a cloak, stepped out within reach of the light,
and, pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy descent, plunged
headlong into the canal. As, in an instant afterwards, he stood with
the still living and breathing child within his grasp, upon the
marble flagstones by the side of the Marchesa, his cloak, heavy with
the drenching water, became unfastened, and, falling in folds about
his feet, discovered to the wonder-stricken spectators the graceful
person of a very young man, with the sound of whose name the greater
part of Europe was then ringing.
No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa! She will now
receive her child - she will press it to her heart - she will cling
to its little form, and smother it with her caresses. Alas!
_another's_ arms have taken it from the stranger - _another's_ arms
have taken it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the palace!
And the Marchesa! Her lip - her beautiful lip trembles: tears
are gathering in her eyes - those eyes which, like Pliny's acanthus,
are "soft and almost liquid." Yes! tears are gathering in those
eyes - and see! the entire woman thrills throughout the soul, and
the statue has started into life! The pallor of the marble
countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom, the very purity of the
marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed over with a tide of
ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder quivers about her
delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the rich silver
lilies in the grass.
Why _should_ that lady blush! To this demand there is no answer
- except that, having left, in the eager haste and terror of a
mother's heart, the privacy of her own _boudoir_, she has neglected
to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers, and utterly forgotten to
throw over her Venetian shoulders that drapery which is their due.
What other possible reason could there have been for her so blushing?
- for the glance of those wild appealing eyes? for the unusual
tumult of that throbbing bosom? - for the convulsive pressure of
that trembling hand? - that hand which fell, as Mentoni turned into
the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of the stranger. What reason
could there have been for the low - the singularly low tone of those
unmeaning words which the lady uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu?
"Thou hast conquered," she said, or the murmurs of the water
deceived me; "thou hast conquered - one hour after sunrise - we
shall meet - so let it be!"
* * * * * * *
The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the
palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon the
flags. He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye glanced
around in search of a gondola. I could not do less than offer him
the service of my own; and he accepted the civility. Having
obtained an oar at the water-gate, we proceeded together to his
residence, while he rapidly recovered his self-possession, and spoke
of our former slight acquaintance in terms of great apparent
cordiality.
There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being
minute. The person of the stranger - let me call him by this title,
who to all the world was still a stranger - the person of the
stranger is one of these subjects. In height he might have been
below rather than above the medium size: although there were
moments of intense passion when his frame actually _expanded_ and
belied the assertion. The light, almost slender symmetry of his
figure, promised more of that ready activity which he evinced at the
Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strength which he has been
known to wield without an effort, upon occasions of more dangerous
emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity - singular, wild,
full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to intense
and brilliant jet - and a profusion of curling, black hair, from
which a forehead of unusual breadth gleamed forth at intervals all
light and ivory - his were features than which I have seen none more
classically regular, except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor
Commodus. Yet his countenance was, nevertheless, one of those which
all men have seen at some period of their lives, and have never
afterwards seen again. It had no peculiar - it had no settled
predominant expression to be fastened upon the memory; a
countenance seen and instantly forgotten - but forgotten with a vague
and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind. Not that the
spirit of each rapid passion failed, at any time, to throw its own
distinct image upon the mirror of that face - but that the mirror,
mirror-like, retained no vestige of the passion, when the passion had
departed.
Upon leaving him on the night of our adventure, he solicited me,
in what I thought an urgent manner, to call upon him _very_ early the
next morning. Shortly after sunrise, I found myself accordingly at
his Palazzo, one of those huge structures of gloomy, yet fantastic
pomp, which tower above the waters of the Grand Canal in the vicinity
of the Rialto. I was shown up a broad winding staircase of mosaics,
into an apartment whose unparalleled splendor burst through the
opening door with an actual glare, making me blind and dizzy with
luxuriousness.
I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy. Report had spoken of his
possessions in terms which I had even ventured to call terms of
ridiculous exaggeration. But as I gazed about me, I could not bring
myself to believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe could have
supplied the princely magnificence which burned and blazed around.
Although, as I say, the sun had arisen, yet the room was still
brilliantly lighted up. I judge from this circumstance, as well as
from an air of exhaustion in the countenance of my friend, that he
had not retired to bed during the whole of the preceding night. In
the architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the evident
design had been to dazzle and astound. Little attention had been
paid to the _decora_ of what is technically called _keeping_, or to
the proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered from object to
object, and rested upon none - neither the _grotesques_ of the Greek
painters, nor the sculptures of the best Italian days, nor the huge
carvings of untutored Egypt. Rich draperies in every part of the
room trembled to the vibration of low, melancholy music, whose origin
was not to be discovered. The senses were oppressed by mingled and
conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange convolute censers,
together with multitudinous flaring and flickering tongues of emerald
and violet fire. The rays of the newly risen sun poured in upon the
whole, through windows, formed each of a single pane of
crimson-tinted glass. Glancing to and fro, in a thousand
reflections, from curtains which rolled from their cornices like
cataracts of molten silver, the beams of natural glory mingled at
length fitfully with the artificial light, and lay weltering in
subdued masses upon a carpet of rich, liquid-looking cloth of Chili
gold.
"Ha! ha! ha! - ha! ha! ha! " - laughed the proprietor,
motioning me to a seat as I entered the room, and throwing himself
back at full-length upon an ottoman. "I see," said he, perceiving
that I could not immediately reconcile myself to the _bienseance_ of
so singular a welcome - "I see you are astonished at my apartment -
at my statues - my pictures - my originality of conception in
architecture and upholstery! absolutely drunk, eh, with my
magnificence? But pardon me, my dear sir, (here his tone of voice
dropped to the very spirit of cordiality,) pardon me for my
uncharitable laughter. You appeared so _utterly_ astonished.
Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous, that a man _must_
laugh or die. To die laughing, must be the most glorious of all
glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More - a very fine man was Sir Thomas
More - Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also in the
_Absurdities_ of Ravisius Textor, there is a long list of characters
who came to the same magnificent end. Do you know, however,"
continued he musingly, "that at Sparta (which is now Palæ; ochori,)
at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel, among a chaos of
scarcely visible ruins, is a kind of _socle_, upon which are still
legible the letters 7!=9 . They are undoubtedly part of '+7!=9! .
Now, at Sparta were a thousand temples and shrines to a thousand
different divinities. How exceedingly strange that the altar of
Laughter should have survived all the others! But in the present
instance," he resumed, with a singular alteration of voice and
manner, "I have no right to be merry at your expense. You might well
have been amazed. Europe cannot produce anything so fine as this, my
little regal cabinet. My other apartments are by no means of the
same order - mere _ultras_ of fashionable insipidity. This is better
than fashion - is it not? Yet this has but to be seen to become the
rage - that is, with those who could afford it at the cost of their
entire patrimony. I have guarded, however, against any such
profanation. With one exception, you are the only human being besides
myself and my _valet_, who has been admitted within the mysteries of
these imperial precincts, since they have been bedizzened as you see!"
I bowed in acknowledgment - for the overpowering sense of splendor
and perfume, and music, together with the unexpected eccentricity of
his address and manner, prevented me from expressing, in words, my
appreciation of what I might have construed into a compliment.
"Here," he resumed, arising and leaning on my arm as he sauntered
around the apartment, "here are paintings from the Greeks to Cimabue,
and from Cimabue to the present hour. Many are chosen, as you see,
with little deference to the opinions of Virtu. They are all,
however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this. Here, too, are
some _chefs d'oeuvre_ of the unknown great; and here, unfinished
designs by men, celebrated in their day, whose very names the
perspicacity of the academies has left to silence and to me. What
think you," said he, turning abruptly as he spoke - "what think you
of this Madonna della Pieta?"
"It is Guido's own! " I said, with all the enthusiasm of my
nature, for I had been poring intently over its surpassing
loveliness. "It is Guido's own! - how _could_ you have obtained it?
- she is undoubtedly in painting what the Venus is in sculpture."
"Ha! " said he thoughtfully, "the Venus - the beautiful Venus?
- the Venus of the Medici? - she of the diminutive head and the
gilded hair? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to
be heard with difficulty,) and all the right, are restorations; and
in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence of
all affectation. Give _me_ the Canova! The Apollo, too, is a copy
- there can be no doubt of it - blind fool that I am, who cannot
behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot help - pity
me! - I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was it not Socrates
who said that the statuary found his statue in the block of marble?
Then Michael Angelo was by no means original in his couplet -
'Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto
Che un marmo solo in se non circunscriva.' "
It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the manner of the
true gentleman, we are always aware of a difference from the bearing
of the vulgar, without being at once precisely able to determine in
what such difference consists. Allowing the remark to have applied
in its full force to the outward demeanor of my acquaintance, I felt
it, on that eventful morning, still more fully applicable to his
moral temperament and character. Nor can I better define that
peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place him so essentially apart
from all other human beings, than by calling it a _habit_ of intense
and continual thought, pervading even his most trivial actions -
intruding upon his moments of dalliance - and interweaving itself
with his very flashes of merriment - like adders which writhe from
out the eyes of the grinning masks in the cornices around the temples
of Persepolis.
I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the
mingled tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly descanted
upon matters of little importance, a certain air of trepidation - a
degree of nervous _unction_ in action and in speech - an unquiet
excitability of manner which appeared to me at all times
unaccountable, and upon some occasions even filled me with alarm.
Frequently, too, pausing in the middle of a sentence whose
commencement he had apparently forgotten, he seemed to be listening
in the deepest attention, as if either in momentary expectation of a
visiter, or to sounds which must have had existence in his
imagination alone.
It was during one of these reveries or pauses of apparent
abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar
Politian's beautiful tragedy "The Orfeo," (the first native Italian
tragedy,) which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage
underlined in pencil. It was a passage towards the end of the third
act - a passage of the most heart-stirring excitement - a passage
which, although tainted with impurity, no man shall read without a
thrill of novel emotion - no woman without a sigh. The whole page
was blotted with fresh tears; and, upon the opposite interleaf,
were the following English lines, written in a hand so very different
from the peculiar characters of my acquaintance, that I had some
difficulty in recognising it as his own: -
Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine -
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers;
And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"Onward! " - but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf! ) my spirit hovering lies,
Mute - motionless - aghast!
For alas! alas! with me
The light of life is o'er.
"No more - no more - no more,"
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore,)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!
Now all my hours are trances;
And all my nightly dreams
Are where the dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams,
In what ethereal dances,
By what Italian streams.
Alas! for that accursed time
They bore thee o'er the billow,
From Love to titled age and crime,
And an unholy pillow! -
From me, and from our misty clime,
Where weeps the silver willow!
That these lines were written in English - a language with which I
had not believed their author acquainted - afforded me little matter
for surprise. I was too well aware of the extent of his
acquirements, and of the singular pleasure he took in concealing them
from observation, to be astonished at any similar discovery; but
the place of date, I must confess, occasioned me no little amazement.
It had been originally written _London_, and afterwards carefully
overscored - not, however, so effectually as to conceal the word from
a scrutinizing eye. I say, this occasioned me no little amazement;
for I well remember that, in a former conversation with a friend, I
particularly inquired if he had at any time met in London the
Marchesa di Mentoni, (who for some years previous to her marriage had
resided in that city,) when his answer, if I mistake not, gave me to
understand that he had never visited the metropolis of Great Britain.
I might as well here mention, that I have more than once heard,
(without, of course, giving credit to a report involving so many
improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak, was not only by
birth, but in education, an _Englishman_.
* * * * * * * * *
"There is one painting," said he, without being aware of my notice
of the tragedy - "there is still one painting which you have not
seen." And throwing aside a drapery, he discovered a full-length
portrait of the Marchesa Aphrodite.
Human art could have done no more in the delineation of her
superhuman beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before me
the preceding night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before
me once again. But in the expression of the countenance, which was
beaming all over with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible
anomaly!) that fitful stain of melancholy which will ever be found
inseparable from the perfection of the beautiful. Her right arm lay
folded over her bosom. With her left she pointed downward to a
curiously fashioned vase. One small, fairy foot, alone visible,
barely touched the earth; and, scarcely discernible in the
brilliant atmosphere which seemed to encircle and enshrine her
loveliness, floated a pair of the most delicately imagined wings. My
glance fell from the painting to the figure of my friend, and the
vigorous words of Chapman's _Bussy D'Ambois_, quivered instinctively
upon my lips:
"He is up
There like a Roman statue! He will stand
Till Death hath made him marble!"
"Come," he said at length, turning towards a table of richly
enamelled and massive silver, upon which were a few goblets
fantastically stained, together with two large Etruscan vases,
fashioned in the same extraordinary model as that in the foreground
of the portrait, and filled with what I supposed to be
Johannisberger. "Come," he said, abruptly, "let us drink! It is
early - but let us drink. It is _indeed_ early," he continued,
musingly, as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer made the apartment
ring with the first hour after sunrise: "It is _indeed_ early - but
what matters it? let us drink! Let us pour out an offering to yon
solemn sun which these gaudy lamps and censers are so eager to subdue!"
And, having made me pledge him in a bumper, he swallowed in rapid
succession several goblets of the wine.
"To dream," he continued, resuming the tone of his desultory
conversation, as he held up to the rich light of a censer one of the
magnificent vases - "to dream has been the business of my life. I
have therefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of dreams. In
the heart of Venice could I have erected a better? You behold
around you, it is true, a medley of architectural embellishments. The
chastity of Ionia is offended by antediluvian devices, and the
sphynxes of Egypt are outstretched upon carpets of gold. Yet the
effect is incongruous to the timid alone. Proprieties of place, and
especially of time, are the bugbears which terrify mankind from the
contemplation of the magnificent. Once I was myself a decorist; but
that sublimation of folly has palled upon my soul. All this is now
the fitter for my purpose. Like these arabesque censers, my spirit
is writhing in fire, and the delirium of this scene is fashioning me
for the wilder visions of that land of real dreams whither I am now
rapidly departing." He here paused abruptly, bent his head to his
bosom, and seemed to listen to a sound which I could not hear. At
length, erecting his frame, he looked upwards, and ejaculated the
lines of the Bishop of Chichester:
_"Stay for me there! I will not fail_
_To meet thee in that hollow vale."_
In the next instant, confessing the power of the wine, he threw
himself at full-length upon an ottoman.
A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock at
the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to anticipate a second
disturbance, when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the room,
and faltered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the incoherent
words, "My mistress! - my mistress! - Poisoned! - poisoned!
Oh, beautiful - oh, beautiful Aphrodite!"
Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to arouse the
sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence. But his limbs were
rigid - his lips were livid - his lately beaming eyes were riveted in
_death_. I staggered back towards the table - my hand fell upon a
cracked and blackened goblet - and a consciousness of the entire and
terrible truth flashed suddenly over my soul.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM
Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.
[_Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the
site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris_.]
I WAS sick -- sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at
length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses
were leaving me. The sentence -- the dread sentence of death -- was
the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. After that,
the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy
indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution --
perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill wheel.
This only for a brief period; for presently I heard no more. Yet, for
a while, I saw; but with how terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips
of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me white -- whiter than
the sheet upon which I trace these words -- and thin even to
grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of
firmness -- of immoveable resolution -- of stern contempt of human
torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was Fate, were still
issuing from those lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I
saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no
sound succeeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious horror,
the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable draperies which
enwrapped the walls of the apartment. And then my vision fell upon
the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect
of charity, and seemed white and slender angels who would save me;
but then, all at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my
spirit, and I felt every fibre in my frame thrill as if I had touched
the wire of a galvanic battery, while the angel forms became
meaningless spectres, with heads of flame, and I saw that from them
there would be no help. And then there stole into my fancy, like a
rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in
the grave. The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long
before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at
length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges
vanished, as if magically, from before me; the tall candles sank into
nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of darkness
supervened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing
descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, night
were the universe.
I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness was
lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even
to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest slumber -- no! In
delirium -- no! In a swoon -- no! In death -- no! even in the grave
all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from
the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some
dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail may that web have been)
we remember not that we have dreamed. In the return to life from the
swoon there are two stages; first, that of the sense of mental or
spiritual; secondly, that of the sense of physical, existence. It
seems probable that if, upon reaching the second stage, we could
recall the impressions of the first, we should find these impressions
eloquent in memories of the gulf beyond. And that gulf is -- what?
How at least shall we distinguish its shadows from those of the tomb?
But if the impressions of what I have termed the first stage, are
not, at will, recalled, yet, after long interval, do they not come
unbidden, while we marvel whence they come? He who has never swooned,
is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in
coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in mid-air the sad
visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the
perfume of some novel flower -- is not he whose brain grows
bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never
before arrested his attention.
Amid frequent and thoughtful endeavors to remember; amid earnest
struggles to regather some token of the state of seeming nothingness
into which my soul had lapsed, there have been moments when I have
dreamed of success; there have been brief, very brief periods when I
have conjured up remembrances which the lucid reason of a later epoch
assures me could have had reference only to that condition of seeming
unconsciousness. These shadows of memory tell, indistinctly, of tall
figures that lifted and bore me in silence down -- down -- still down
-- till a hideous dizziness oppressed me at the mere idea of the
interminableness of the descent. They tell also of a vague horror at
my heart, on account of that heart's unnatural stillness. Then comes
a sense of sudden motionlessness throughout all things; as if those
who bore me (a ghastly train!) had outrun, in their descent, the
limits of the limitless, and paused from the wearisomeness of their
toil. After this I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all
is madness -- the madness of a memory which busies itself among
forbidden things.
Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and sound -- the
tumultuous motion of the heart, and, in my ears, the sound of its
beating. Then a pause in which all is blank. Then again sound, and
motion, and touch -- a tingling sensation pervading my frame. Then
the mere consciousness of existence, without thought -- a condition
which lasted long. Then, very suddenly, thought, and shuddering
terror, and earnest endeavor to comprehend my true state. Then a
strong desire to lapse into insensibility. Then a rushing revival of
soul and a successful effort to move. And now a full memory of the
trial, of the judges, of the sable draperies, of the sentence, of the
sickness, of the swoon. Then entire forgetfulness of all that
followed; of all that a later day and much earnestness of endeavor
have enabled me vaguely to recall.
So far, I had not opened my eyes. I felt that I lay upon my back,
unbound. I reached out my hand, and it fell heavily upon something
damp and hard. There I suffered it to remain for many minutes, while
I strove to imagine where and what I could be. I longed, yet dared
not to employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at objects around
me. It was not that I feared to look upon things horrible, but that I
grew aghast lest there should be nothing to see. At length, with a
wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst
thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night
encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness
seemed to oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably
close. I still lay quietly, and made effort to exercise my reason. I
brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from
that point to deduce my real condition. The sentence had passed; and
it appeared to me that a very long interval of time had since
elapsed. Yet not for a moment did I suppose myself actually dead.
Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in fiction, is
altogether inconsistent with real existence; -- but where and in what
state was I? The condemned to death, I knew, perished usually at the
autos-da-fe, and one of these had been held on the very night of the
day of my trial. Had I been remanded to my dungeon, to await the next
sacrifice, which would not take place for many months? This I at once
saw could not be. Victims had been in immediate demand. Moreover, my
dungeon, as well as all the condemned cells at Toledo, had stone
floors, and light was not altogether excluded.
A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my
heart, and for a brief period, I once more relapsed into
insensibility. Upon recovering, I at once started to my feet,
trembling convulsively in every fibre. I thrust my arms wildly above
and around me in all directions. I felt nothing; yet dreaded to move
a step, lest I should be impeded by the walls of a tomb. Perspiration
burst from every pore, and stood in cold big beads upon my forehead.
The agony of suspense grew at length intolerable, and I cautiously
moved forward, with my arms extended, and my eyes straining from
their sockets, in the hope of catching some faint ray of light. I
proceeded for many paces; but still all was blackness and vacancy. I
breathed more freely. It seemed evident that mine was not, at least,
the most hideous of fates.
And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, there came
thronging upon my recollection a thousand vague rumors of the horrors
of Toledo. Of the dungeons there had been strange things narrated --
fables I had always deemed them -- but yet strange, and too ghastly
to repeat, save in a whisper. Was I left to perish of starvation in
this subterranean world of darkness; or what fate, perhaps even more
fearful, awaited me? That the result would be death, and a death of
more than customary bitterness, I knew too well the character of my
judges to doubt. The mode and the hour were all that occupied or
distracted me.
My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction.
It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry -- very smooth, slimy, and
cold. I followed it up; stepping with all the careful distrust with
which certain antique narratives had inspired me. This process,
however, afforded me no means of ascertaining the dimensions of my
dungeon; as I might make its circuit, and return to the point whence
I set out, without being aware of the fact; so perfectly uniform
seemed the wall. I therefore sought the knife which had been in my
pocket, when led into the inquisitorial chamber; but it was gone; my
clothes had been exchanged for a wrapper of coarse serge. I had
thought of forcing the blade in some minute crevice of the masonry,
so as to identify my point of departure. The difficulty,
nevertheless, was but trivial; although, in the disorder of my fancy,
it seemed at first insuperable. I tore a part of the hem from the
robe and placed the fragment at full length, and at right angles to
the wall. In groping my way around the prison, I could not fail to
encounter this rag upon completing the circuit. So, at least I
thought: but I had not counted upon the extent of the dungeon, or
upon my own weakness. The ground was moist and slippery. I staggered
onward for some time, when I stumbled and fell. My excessive fatigue
induced me to remain prostrate; and sleep soon overtook me as I lay.
Upon awaking, and stretching forth an arm, I found beside me a loaf
and a pitcher with water. I was too much exhausted to reflect upon
this circumstance, but ate and drank with avidity. Shortly afterward,
I resumed my tour around the prison, and with much toil came at last
upon the fragment of the serge. Up to the period when I fell I had
counted fifty-two paces, and upon resuming my walk, I had counted
forty-eight more; -- when I arrived at the rag. There were in all,
then, a hundred paces; and, admitting two paces to the yard, I
presumed the dungeon to be fifty yards in circuit. I had met,
however, with many angles in the wall, and thus I could form no guess
at the shape of the vault; for vault I could not help supposing it to
be.
I had little object -- certainly no hope these researches; but a
vague curiosity prompted me to continue them. Quitting the wall, I
resolved to cross the area of the enclosure. At first I proceeded
with extreme caution, for the floor, although seemingly of solid
material, was treacherous with slime. At length, however, I took
courage, and did not hesitate to step firmly; endeavoring to cross in
as direct a line as possible. I had advanced some ten or twelve paces
in this manner, when the remnant of the torn hem of my robe became
entangled between my legs. I stepped on it, and fell violently on my
face.
In the confusion attending my fall, I did not immediately apprehend a
somewhat startling circumstance, which yet, in a few seconds
afterward, and while I still lay prostrate, arrested my attention. It
was this -- my chin rested upon the floor of the prison, but my lips
and the upper portion of my head, although seemingly at a less
elevation than the chin, touched nothing. At the same time my
forehead seemed bathed in a clammy vapor, and the peculiar smell of
decayed fungus arose to my nostrils. I put forward my arm, and
shuddered to find that I had fallen at the very brink of a circular
pit, whose extent, of course, I had no means of ascertaining at the
moment. Groping about the masonry just below the margin, I succeeded
in dislodging a small fragment, and let it fall into the abyss. For
many seconds I hearkened to its reverberations as it dashed against
the sides of the chasm in its descent; at length there was a sullen
plunge into water, succeeded by loud echoes. At the same moment there
came a sound resembling the quick opening, and as rapid closing of a
door overhead, while a faint gleam of light flashed suddenly through
the gloom, and as suddenly faded away.
I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and
congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which I had escaped.
Another step before my fall, and the world had seen me no more. And
the death just avoided, was of that very character which I had
regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales respecting the
Inquisition. To the victims of its tyranny, there was the choice of
death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most
hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved for the latter. By long
suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound
of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject
for the species of torture which awaited me.
Shaking in every limb, I groped my way back to the wall; resolving
there to perish rather than risk the terrors of the wells, of which
my imagination now pictured many in various positions about the
dungeon. In other conditions of mind I might have had courage to end
my misery at once by a plunge into one of these abysses; but now I
was the veriest of cowards. Neither could I forget what I had read of
these pits -- that the sudden extinction of life formed no part of
their most horrible plan.
Agitation of spirit kept me awake for many long hours; but at length
I again slumbered. Upon arousing, I found by my side, as before, a
loaf and a pitcher of water. A burning thirst consumed me, and I
emptied the vessel at a draught. It must have been drugged; for
scarcely had I drunk, before I became irresistibly drowsy. A deep
sleep fell upon me -- a sleep like that of death. How long it lasted
of course, I know not; but when, once again, I unclosed my eyes, the
objects around me were visible. By a wild sulphurous lustre, the
origin of which I could not at first determine, I was enabled to see
the extent and aspect of the prison.
In its size I had been greatly mistaken. The whole circuit of its
walls did not exceed twenty-five yards. For some minutes this fact
occasioned me a world of vain trouble; vain indeed! for what could be
of less importance, under the terrible circumstances which environed
me, then the mere dimensions of my dungeon? But my soul took a wild
interest in trifles, and I busied myself in endeavors to account for
the error I had committed in my measurement. The truth at length
flashed upon me. In my first attempt at exploration I had counted
fifty-two paces, up to the period when I fell; I must then have been
within a pace or two of the fragment of serge; in fact, I had nearly
performed the circuit of the vault. I then slept, and upon awaking, I
must have returned upon my steps -- thus supposing the circuit nearly
double what it actually was. My confusion of mind prevented me from
observing that I began my tour with the wall to the left, and ended
it with the wall to the right.
I had been deceived, too, in respect to the shape of the enclosure.
In feeling my way I had found many angles, and thus deduced an idea
of great irregularity; so potent is the effect of total darkness upon
one arousing from lethargy or sleep! The angles were simply those of
a few slight depressions, or niches, at odd intervals. The general
shape of the prison was square. What I had taken for masonry seemed
now to be iron, or some other metal, in huge plates, whose sutures or
joints occasioned the depression. The entire surface of this metallic
enclosure was rudely daubed in all the hideous and repulsive devices
to which the charnel superstition of the monks has given rise. The
figures of fiends in aspects of menace, with skeleton forms, and
other more really fearful images, overspread and disfigured the
walls. I observed that the outlines of these monstrosities were
sufficiently distinct, but that the colors seemed faded and blurred,
as if from the effects of a damp atmosphere. I now noticed the floor,
too, which was of stone. In the centre yawned the circular pit from
whose jaws I had escaped; but it was the only one in the dungeon.
All this I saw indistinctly and by much effort: for my personal
condition had been greatly changed during slumber. I now lay upon my
back, and at full length, on a species of low framework of wood. To
this I was securely bound by a long strap resembling a surcingle. It
passed in many convolutions about my limbs and body, leaving at
liberty only my head, and my left arm to such extent that I could, by
dint of much exertion, supply myself with food from an earthen dish
which lay by my side on the floor. I saw, to my horror, that the
pitcher had been removed. I say to my horror; for I was consumed with
intolerable thirst. This thirst it appeared to be the design of my
persecutors to stimulate: for the food in the dish was meat pungently
seasoned.
Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling of my prison. It was some
thirty or forty feet overhead, and constructed much as the side
walls. In one of its panels a very singular figure riveted my whole
attention. It was the painted figure of Time as he is commonly
represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he held what, at a
casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum
such as we see on antique clocks. There was something, however, in
the appearance of this machine which caused me to regard it more
attentively. While I gazed directly upward at it (for its position
was immediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion. In an
instant afterward the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief, and
of course slow. I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but
more in wonder. Wearied at length with observing its dull movement, I
turned my eyes upon the other objects in the cell.
A slight noise attracted my notice, and, looking to the floor, I saw
several enormous rats traversing it. They had issued from the well,
which lay just within view to my right. Even then, while I gazed,
they came up in troops, hurriedly, with ravenous eyes, allured by the
scent of the meat. From this it required much effort and attention to
scare them away.
It might have been half an hour, perhaps even an hour, (for I
could take but imperfect note of time) before I again cast my
eyes upward. What I then saw confounded and amazed me. The sweep of
the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard. As a natural
consequence, its velocity was also much greater. But what mainly
disturbed me was the idea that had perceptibly descended. I now
observed -- with what horror it is needless to say -- that its nether
extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering steel, about a foot
in length from horn to horn; the horns upward, and the under edge
evidently as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor also, it seemed
massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into a solid and broad
structure above. It was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the
whole hissed as it swung through the air.
I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by monkish ingenuity
in torture. My cognizance of the pit had become known to the
inquisitorial agents -- the pit whose horrors had been destined for
so bold a recusant as myself -- the pit, typical of hell, and
regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule of all their punishments. The
plunge into this pit I had avoided by the merest of accidents, I knew
that surprise, or entrapment into torment, formed an important
portion of all the grotesquerie of these dungeon deaths. Having
failed to fall, it was no part of the demon plan to hurl me into the
abyss; and thus (there being no alternative) a different and a milder
destruction awaited me. Milder! I half smiled in my agony as I
thought of such application of such a term.
What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of horror more than
mortal, during which I counted the rushing vibrations of the steel!
Inch by inch -- line by line -- with a descent only appreciable at
intervals that seemed ages -- down and still down it came! Days
passed -- it might have been that many days passed -- ere it swept so
closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odor of the
sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prayed -- I wearied
heaven with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew frantically
mad, and struggled to force myself upward against the sweep of the
fearful scimitar. And then I fell suddenly calm, and lay smiling at
the glittering death, as a child at some rare bauble.
There was another interval of utter insensibility; it was brief; for,
upon again lapsing into life there had been no perceptible descent in
the pendulum. But it might have been long; for I knew there were
demons who took note of my swoon, and who could have arrested the
vibration at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt very -- oh,
inexpressibly sick and weak, as if through long inanition. Even amid
the agonies of that period, the human nature craved food. With
painful effort I outstretched my left arm as far as my bonds
permitted, and took possession of the small remnant which had been
spared me by the rats. As I put a portion of it within my lips, there
rushed to my mind a half formed thought of joy -- of hope. Yet what
business had I with hope? It was, as I say, a half formed thought --
man has many such which are never completed. I felt that it was of
joy -- of hope; but felt also that it had perished in its formation.
In vain I struggled to perfect -- to regain it. Long suffering had
nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile
-- an idiot.
The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my length. I saw
that the crescent was designed to cross the region of the heart. It
would fray the serge of my robe -- it would return and repeat its
operations -- again -- and again. Notwithstanding terrifically wide
sweep (some thirty feet or more) and the its hissing vigor of its
descent, sufficient to sunder these very walls of iron, still the
fraying of my robe would be all that, for several minutes, it would
accomplish. And at this thought I paused. I dared not go farther than
this reflection. I dwelt upon it with a pertinacity of attention --
as if, in so dwelling, I could arrest here the descent of the steel.
I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the crescent as it should
pass across the garment -- upon the peculiar thrilling sensation
which the friction of cloth produces on the nerves. I pondered upon
all this frivolity until my teeth were on edge.
Down -- steadily down it crept. I took a frenzied pleasure in
contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity. To the right --
to the left -- far and wide -- with the shriek of a damned spirit; to
my heart with the stealthy pace of the tiger! I alternately laughed
and howled as the one or the other idea grew predominant.
Down -- certainly, relentlessly down! It vibrated within three inches
of my bosom! I struggled violently, furiously, to free my left arm.
This was free only from the elbow to the hand. I could reach the
latter, from the platter beside me, to my mouth, with great effort,
but no farther. Could I have broken the fastenings above the elbow, I
would have seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum. I might as
well have attempted to arrest an avalanche!
Down -- still unceasingly -- still inevitably down! I gasped and
struggled at each vibration. I shrunk convulsively at its every
sweep. My eyes followed its outward or upward whirls with the
eagerness of the most unmeaning despair; they closed themselves
spasmodically at the descent, although death would have been a
relief, oh! how unspeakable! Still I quivered in every nerve to think
how slight a sinking of the machinery would precipitate that keen,
glistening axe upon my bosom. It was hope that prompted the nerve to
quiver -- the frame to shrink. It was hope -- the hope that triumphs
on the rack -- that whispers to the death-condemned even in the
dungeons of the Inquisition.
I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would bring the steel in
actual contact with my robe, and with this observation there suddenly
came over my spirit all the keen, collected calmness of despair. For
the first time during many hours -- or perhaps days -- I thought. It
now occurred to me that the bandage, or surcingle, which enveloped
me, was unique. I was tied by no separate cord. The first stroke of
the razorlike crescent athwart any portion of the band, would so
detach it that it might be unwound from my person by means of my left
hand. But how fearful, in that case, the proximity of the steel! The
result of the slightest struggle how deadly! Was it likely, moreover,
that the minions of the torturer had not foreseen and provided for
this possibility! Was it probable that the bandage crossed my bosom
in the track of the pendulum? Dreading to find my faint, and, as it
seemed, in last hope frustrated, I so far elevated my head as to
obtain a distinct view of my breast. The surcingle enveloped my limbs
and body close in all directions -- save in the path of the
destroying crescent.
Scarcely had I dropped my head back into its original position, when
there flashed upon my mind what I cannot better describe than as the
unformed half of that idea of deliverance to which I have previously
alluded, and of which a moiety only floated indeterminately through
my brain when I raised food to my burning lips. The whole thought was
now present -- feeble, scarcely sane, scarcely definite, -- but still
entire. I proceeded at once, with the nervous energy of despair, to
attempt its execution.
For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low framework upon which
I lay, had been literally swarming with rats. They were wild, bold,
ravenous; their red eyes glaring upon me as if they waited but for
motionlessness on my part to make me their prey. "To what food," I
thought, "have they been accustomed in the well?"
They had devoured, in spite of all my efforts to prevent them, all
but a small remnant of the contents of the dish. I had fallen into an
habitual see-saw, or wave of the hand about the platter: and, at
length, the unconscious uniformity of the movement deprived it of
effect. In their voracity the vermin frequently fastened their sharp
fangs in my fingers. With the particles of the oily and spicy viand
which now remained, I thoroughly rubbed the bandage wherever I could
reach it; then, raising my hand from the floor, I lay breathlessly
still.
At first the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at the
change -- at the cessation of movement. They shrank alarmedly back;
many sought the well. But this was only for a moment. I had not
counted in vain upon their voracity. Observing that I remained
without motion, one or two of the boldest leaped upon the frame-work,
and smelt at the surcingle. This seemed the signal for a general
rush. Forth from the well they hurried in fresh troops. They clung to
the wood -- they overran it, and leaped in hundreds upon my person.
The measured movement of the pendulum disturbed them not at all.
Avoiding its strokes they busied themselves with the anointed
bandage. They pressed -- they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating
heaps. They writhed upon my throat; their cold lips sought my own; I
was half stifled by their thronging pressure; disgust, for which the
world has no name, swelled my bosom, and chilled, with a heavy
clamminess, my heart. Yet one minute, and I felt that the struggle
would be over. Plainly I perceived the loosening of the bandage. I
knew that in more than one place it must be already severed. With a
more than human resolution I lay still.
Nor had I erred in my calculations -- nor had I endured in vain. I at
length felt that I was free. The surcingle hung in ribands from my
body. But the stroke of the pendulum already pressed upon my bosom.
It had divided the serge of the robe. It had cut through the linen
beneath. Twice again it swung, and a sharp sense of pain shot through
every nerve. But the moment of escape had arrived. At a wave of my
hand my deliverers hurried tumultuously away. With a steady movement
-- cautious, sidelong, shrinking, and slow -- I slid from the embrace
of the bandage and beyond the reach of the scimitar. For the moment,
at least, I was free.
Free! -- and in the grasp of the Inquisition! I had scarcely stepped
from my wooden bed of horror upon the stone floor of the prison, when
the motion of the hellish machine ceased and I beheld it drawn up, by
some invisible force, through the ceiling. This was a lesson which I
took desperately to heart. My every motion was undoubtedly watched.
Free! -- I had but escaped death in one form of agony, to be
delivered unto worse than death in some other. With that thought I
rolled my eves nervously around on the barriers of iron that hemmed
me in. Something unusual -- some change which, at first, I could not
appreciate distinctly -- it was obvious, had taken place in the
apartment. For many minutes of a dreamy and trembling abstraction, I
busied myself in vain, unconnected conjecture. During this period, I
became aware, for the first time, of the origin of the sulphurous
light which illumined the cell. It proceeded from a fissure, about
half an inch in width, extending entirely around the prison at the
base of the walls, which thus appeared, and were, completely
separated from the floor. I endeavored, but of course in vain, to
look through the aperture.
As I arose from the attempt, the mystery of the alteration in the
chamber broke at once upon my understanding. I have observed that,
although the outlines of the figures upon the walls were sufficiently
distinct, yet the colors seemed blurred and indefinite. These colors
had now assumed, and were momentarily assuming, a startling and most
intense brilliancy, that gave to the spectral and fiendish
portraitures an aspect that might have thrilled even firmer nerves
than my own. Demon eyes, of a wild and ghastly vivacity, glared upon
me in a thousand directions, where none had been visible before, and
gleamed with the lurid lustre of a fire that I could not force my
imagination to regard as unreal.
Unreal! -- Even while I breathed there came to my nostrils the breath
of the vapour of heated iron! A suffocating odour pervaded the
prison! A deeper glow settled each moment in the eyes that glared at
my agonies! A richer tint of crimson diffused itself over the
pictured horrors of blood. I panted! I gasped for breath! There could
be no doubt of the design of my tormentors -- oh! most unrelenting!
oh! most demoniac of men! I shrank from the glowing metal to the
centre of the cell. Amid the thought of the fiery destruction that
impended, the idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul like
balm. I rushed to its deadly brink. I threw my straining vision
below. The glare from the enkindled roof illumined its inmost
recesses. Yet, for a wild moment, did my spirit refuse to comprehend
the meaning of what I saw. At length it forced -- it wrestled its way
into my soul -- it burned itself in upon my shuddering reason. -- Oh!
for a voice to speak! -- oh! horror! -- oh! any horror but this! With
a shriek, I rushed from the margin, and buried my face in my hands --
weeping bitterly.
The heat rapidly increased, and once again I looked up, shuddering as
with a fit of the ague. There had been a second change in the cell --
and now the change was obviously in the form. As before, it was in
vain that I, at first, endeavoured to appreciate or understand what
was taking place. But not long was I left in doubt. The Inquisitorial
vengeance had been hurried by my two-fold escape, and there was to be
no more dallying with the King of Terrors. The room had been square.
I saw that two of its iron angles were now acute -- two,
consequently, obtuse. The fearful difference quickly increased with a
low rumbling or moaning sound. In an instant the apartment had
shifted its form into that of a lozenge. But the alteration stopped
not here-I neither hoped nor desired it to stop. I could have clasped
the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I
said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known
that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
Could I resist its glow? or, if even that, could I withstand its
pressure And now, flatter and flatter grew the lozenge, with a
rapidity that left me no time for contemplation. Its centre, and of
course, its greatest width, came just over the yawning gulf. I shrank
back -- but the closing walls pressed me resistlessly onward. At
length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch of
foothold on the firm floor of the prison. I struggled no more, but
the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long, and final scream
of despair. I felt that I tottered upon the brink -- I averted my
eyes --
There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud blast as
of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a thousand
thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm caught my
own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General
Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in
the hands of its enemies.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE PREMATURE BURIAL
THERE are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing,
but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of legitimate
fiction. These the mere romanticist must eschew, if he do not wish to
offend or to disgust. They are with propriety handled only when the
severity and majesty of Truth sanctify and sustain them. We thrill,
for example, with the most intense of "pleasurable pain" over the
accounts of the Passage of the Beresina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon,
of the Plague at London, of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of
the stifling of the hundred and twenty-three prisoners in the Black
Hole at Calcutta. But in these accounts it is the fact - -- it is the
reality - -- it is the history which excites. As inventions, we
should regard them with simple abhorrence.
I have mentioned some few of the more prominent and august calamities
on record; but in these it is the extent, not less than the character
of the calamity, which so vividly impresses the fancy. I need not
remind the reader that, from the long and weird catalogue of human
miseries, I might have selected many individual instances more
replete with essential suffering than any of these vast generalities
of disaster. The true wretchedness, indeed -- the ultimate woe - --
is particular, not diffuse. That the ghastly extremes of agony are
endured by man the unit, and never by man the mass - -- for this let
us thank a merciful God!
To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of
these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.
That it has frequently, very frequently, so fallen will scarcely be
denied by those who think. The boundaries which divide Life from
Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one
ends, and where the other begins? We know that there are diseases in
which occur total cessations of all the apparent functions of
vitality, and yet in which these cessations are merely suspensions,
properly so called. They are only temporary pauses in the
incomprehensible mechanism. A certain period elapses, and some unseen
mysterious principle again sets in motion the magic pinions and the
wizard wheels. The silver cord was not for ever loosed, nor the
golden bowl irreparably broken. But where, meantime, was the soul?
Apart, however, from the inevitable conclusion, a priori that such
causes must produce such effects - -- that the well-known occurrence
of such cases of suspended animation must naturally give rise, now
and then, to premature interments -- apart from this consideration,
we have the direct testimony of medical and ordinary experience to
prove that a vast number of such interments have actually taken
place. I might refer at once, if necessary to a hundred well
authenticated instances. One of very remarkable character, and of
which the circumstances may be fresh in the memory of some of my
readers, occurred, not very long ago, in the neighboring city of
Baltimore, where it occasioned a painful, intense, and
widely-extended excitement. The wife of one of the most respectable
citizens-a lawyer of eminence and a member of Congress -- was seized
with a sudden and unaccountable illness, which completely baffled the
skill of her physicians. After much suffering she died, or was
supposed to die. No one suspected, indeed, or had reason to suspect,
that she was not actually dead. She presented all the ordinary
appearances of death. The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken
outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were
lustreless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days
the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony
rigidity. The funeral, in short, was hastened, on account of the
rapid advance of what was supposed to be decomposition.
The lady was deposited in her family vault, which, for three
subsequent years, was undisturbed. At the expiration of this term it
was opened for the reception of a sarcophagus; - -- but, alas! how
fearful a shock awaited the husband, who, personally, threw open the
door! As its portals swung outwardly back, some white-apparelled
object fell rattling within his arms. It was the skeleton of his wife
in her yet unmoulded shroud.
A careful investigation rendered it evident that she had revived
within two days after her entombment; that her struggles within the
coffin had caused it to fall from a ledge, or shelf to the floor,
where it was so broken as to permit her escape. A lamp which had been
accidentally left, full of oil, within the tomb, was found empty; it
might have been exhausted, however, by evaporation. On the uttermost
of the steps which led down into the dread chamber was a large
fragment of the coffin, with which, it seemed, that she had
endeavored to arrest attention by striking the iron door. While thus
occupied, she probably swooned, or possibly died, through sheer
terror; and, in failing, her shroud became entangled in some iron --
work which projected interiorly. Thus she remained, and thus she
rotted, erect.
In the year 1810, a case of living inhumation happened in France,
attended with circumstances which go far to warrant the assertion
that truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. The heroine of the
story was a Mademoiselle Victorine Lafourcade, a young girl of
illustrious family, of wealth, and of great personal beauty. Among
her numerous suitors was Julien Bossuet, a poor litterateur, or
journalist of Paris. His talents and general amiability had
recommended him to the notice of the heiress, by whom he seems to
have been truly beloved; but her pride of birth decided her, finally,
to reject him, and to wed a Monsieur Renelle, a banker and a
diplomatist of some eminence. After marriage, however, this gentleman
neglected, and, perhaps, even more positively ill-treated her. Having
passed with him some wretched years, she died, - -- at least her
condition so closely resembled death as to deceive every one who saw
her. She was buried - -- not in a vault, but in an ordinary grave in
the village of her nativity. Filled with despair, and still inflamed
by the memory of a profound attachment, the lover journeys from the
capital to the remote province in which the village lies, with the
romantic purpose of disinterring the corpse, and possessing himself
of its luxuriant tresses. He reaches the grave. At midnight he
unearths the coffin, opens it, and is in the act of detaching the
hair, when he is arrested by the unclosing of the beloved eyes. In
fact, the lady had been buried alive. Vitality had not altogether
departed, and she was aroused by the caresses of her lover from the
lethargy which had been mistaken for death. He bore her frantically
to his lodgings in the village. He employed certain powerful
restoratives suggested by no little medical learning. In fine, she
revived. She recognized her preserver. She remained with him until,
by slow degrees, she fully recovered her original health. Her woman's
heart was not adamant, and this last lesson of love sufficed to
soften it. She bestowed it upon Bossuet. She returned no more to her
husband, but, concealing from him her resurrection, fled with her
lover to America. Twenty years afterward, the two returned to France,
in the persuasion that time had so greatly altered the lady's
appearance that her friends would be unable to recognize her. They
were mistaken, however, for, at the first meeting, Monsieur Renelle
did actually recognize and make claim to his wife. This claim she
resisted, and a judicial tribunal sustained her in her resistance,
deciding that the peculiar circumstances, with the long lapse of
years, had extinguished, not only equitably, but legally, the
authority of the husband.
The "Chirurgical Journal" of Leipsic -- a periodical of high
authority and merit, which some American bookseller would do well to
translate and republish, records in a late number a very distressing
event of the character in question.
An officer of artillery, a man of gigantic stature and of robust
health, being thrown from an unmanageable horse, received a very
severe contusion upon the head, which rendered him insensible at
once; the skull was slightly fractured, but no immediate danger was
apprehended. Trepanning was accomplished successfully. He was bled,
and many other of the ordinary means of relief were adopted.
Gradually, however, he fell into a more and more hopeless state of
stupor, and, finally, it was thought that he died.
The weather was warm, and he was buried with indecent haste in one of
the public cemeteries. His funeral took place on Thursday. On the
Sunday following, the grounds of the cemetery were, as usual, much
thronged with visiters, and about noon an intense excitement was
created by the declaration of a peasant that, while sitting upon the
grave of the officer, he had distinctly felt a commotion of the
earth, as if occasioned by some one struggling beneath. At first
little attention was paid to the man's asseveration; but his evident
terror, and the dogged obstinacy with which he persisted in his
story, had at length their natural effect upon the crowd. Spades were
hurriedly procured, and the grave, which was shamefully shallow, was
in a few minutes so far thrown open that the head of its occupant
appeared. He was then seemingly dead; but he sat nearly erect within
his coffin, the lid of which, in his furious struggles, he had
partially uplifted.
He was forthwith conveyed to the nearest hospital, and there
pronounced to be still living, although in an asphytic condition.
After some hours he revived, recognized individuals of his
acquaintance, and, in broken sentences spoke of his agonies in the
grave.
From what he related, it was clear that he must have been conscious
of life for more than an hour, while inhumed, before lapsing into
insensibility. The grave was carelessly and loosely filled with an
exceedingly porous soil; and thus some air was necessarily admitted.
He heard the footsteps of the crowd overhead, and endeavored to make
himself heard in turn. It was the tumult within the grounds of the
cemetery, he said, which appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep,
but no sooner was he awake than he became fully aware of the awful
horrors of his position.
This patient, it is recorded, was doing well and seemed to be in a
fair way of ultimate recovery, but fell a victim to the quackeries of
medical experiment. The galvanic battery was applied, and he suddenly
expired in one of those ecstatic paroxysms which, occasionally, it
superinduces.
The mention of the galvanic battery, nevertheless, recalls to my
memory a well known and very extraordinary case in point, where its
action proved the means of restoring to animation a young attorney of
London, who had been interred for two days. This occurred in 1831,
and created, at the time, a very profound sensation wherever it was
made the subject of converse.
The patient, Mr. Edward Stapleton, had died, apparently of typhus
fever, accompanied with some anomalous symptoms which had excited the
curiosity of his medical attendants. Upon his seeming decease, his
friends were requested to sanction a post-mortem examination, but
declined to permit it. As often happens, when such refusals are made,
the practitioners resolved to disinter the body and dissect it at
leisure, in private. Arrangements were easily effected with some of
the numerous corps of body-snatchers, with which London abounds; and,
upon the third night after the funeral, the supposed corpse was
unearthed from a grave eight feet deep, and deposited in the opening
chamber of one of the private hospitals.
An incision of some extent had been actually made in the abdomen,
when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject suggested an
application of the battery. One experiment succeeded another, and the
customary effects supervened, with nothing to characterize them in
any respect, except, upon one or two occasions, a more than ordinary
degree of life-likeness in the convulsive action.
It grew late. The day was about to dawn; and it was thought
expedient, at length, to proceed at once to the dissection. A
student, however, was especially desirous of testing a theory of his
own, and insisted upon applying the battery to one of the pectoral
muscles. A rough gash was made, and a wire hastily brought in
contact, when the patient, with a hurried but quite unconvulsive
movement, arose from the table, stepped into the middle of the floor,
gazed about him uneasily for a few seconds, and then -- spoke. What
he said was unintelligible, but words were uttered; the
syllabification was distinct. Having spoken, he fell heavily to the
floor.
For some moments all were paralyzed with awe -- but the urgency of
the case soon restored them their presence of mind. It was seen that
Mr. Stapleton was alive, although in a swoon. Upon exhibition of
ether he revived and was rapidly restored to health, and to the
society of his friends -- from whom, however, all knowledge of his
resuscitation was withheld, until a relapse was no longer to be
apprehended. Their wonder -- their rapturous astonishment -- may be
conceived.
The most thrilling peculiarity of this incident, nevertheless, is
involved in what Mr. S. himself asserts. He declares that at no
period was he altogether insensible -- that, dully and confusedly, he
was aware of everything which happened to him, from the moment in
which he was pronounced dead by his physicians, to that in which he
fell swooning to the floor of the hospital. "I am alive," were the
uncomprehended words which, upon recognizing the locality of the
dissecting-room, he had endeavored, in his extremity, to utter.
It were an easy matter to multiply such histories as these -- but I
forbear -- for, indeed, we have no need of such to establish the fact
that premature interments occur. When we reflect how very rarely,
from the nature of the case, we have it in our power to detect them,
we must admit that they may frequently occur without our cognizance.
Scarcely, in truth, is a graveyard ever encroached upon, for any
purpose, to any great extent, that skeletons are not found in
postures which suggest the most fearful of suspicions.
Fearful indeed the suspicion -- but more fearful the doom! It may be
asserted, without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well
adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental distress,
as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression of the lungs --
the stifling fumes from the damp earth -- the clinging to the death
garments -- the rigid embrace of the narrow house -- the blackness of
the absolute Night -- the silence like a sea that overwhelms -- the
unseen but palpable presence of the Conqueror Worm -- these things,
with the thoughts of the air and grass above, with memory of dear
friends who would fly to save us if but informed of our fate, and
with consciousness that of this fate they can never be informed --
that our hopeless portion is that of the really dead -- these
considerations, I say, carry into the heart, which still palpitates,
a degree of appalling and intolerable horror from which the most
daring imagination must recoil. We know of nothing so agonizing upon
Earth -- we can dream of nothing half so hideous in the realms of the
nethermost Hell. And thus all narratives upon this topic have an
interest profound; an interest, nevertheless, which, through the
sacred awe of the topic itself, very properly and very peculiarly
depends upon our conviction of the truth of the matter narrated. What
I have now to tell is of my own actual knowledge -- of my own
positive and personal experience.
For several years I had been subject to attacks of the singular
disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy, in default
of a more definitive title. Although both the immediate and the
predisposing causes, and even the actual diagnosis, of this disease
are still mysterious, its obvious and apparent character is
sufficiently well understood. Its variations seem to be chiefly of
degree. Sometimes the patient lies, for a day only, or even for a
shorter period, in a species of exaggerated lethargy. He is senseless
and externally motionless; but the pulsation of the heart is still
faintly perceptible; some traces of warmth remain; a slight color
lingers within the centre of the cheek; and, upon application of a
mirror to the lips, we can detect a torpid, unequal, and vacillating
action of the lungs. Then again the duration of the trance is for
weeks -- even for months; while the closest scrutiny, and the most
rigorous medical tests, fail to establish any material distinction
between the state of the sufferer and what we conceive of absolute
death. Very usually he is saved from premature interment solely by
the knowledge of his friends that he has been previously subject to
catalepsy, by the consequent suspicion excited, and, above all, by
the non-appearance of decay. The advances of the malady are, luckily,
gradual. The first manifestations, although marked, are unequivocal.
The fits grow successively more and more distinctive, and endure each
for a longer term than the preceding. In this lies the principal
security from inhumation. The unfortunate whose first attack should
be of the extreme character which is occasionally seen, would almost
inevitably be consigned alive to the tomb.
My own case differed in no important particular from those mentioned
in medical books. Sometimes, without any apparent cause, I sank,
little by little, into a condition of hemi-syncope, or half swoon;
and, in this condition, without pain, without ability to stir, or,
strictly speaking, to think, but with a dull lethargic consciousness
of life and of the presence of those who surrounded my bed, I
remained, until the crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to
perfect sensation. At other times I was quickly and impetuously
smitten. I grew sick, and numb, and chilly, and dizzy, and so fell
prostrate at once. Then, for weeks, all was void, and black, and
silent, and Nothing became the universe. Total annihilation could be
no more. From these latter attacks I awoke, however, with a gradation
slow in proportion to the suddenness of the seizure. Just as the day
dawns to the friendless and houseless beggar who roams the streets
throughout the long desolate winter night -- just so tardily -- just
so wearily -- just so cheerily came back the light of the Soul to me.
Apart from the tendency to trance, however, my general health
appeared to be good; nor could I perceive that it was at all affected
by the one prevalent malady -- unless, indeed, an idiosyncrasy in my
ordinary sleep may be looked upon as superinduced. Upon awaking from
slumber, I could never gain, at once, thorough possession of my
senses, and always remained, for many minutes, in much bewilderment
and perplexity; -- the mental faculties in general, but the memory in
especial, being in a condition of absolute abeyance.
In all that I endured there was no physical suffering but of moral
distress an infinitude. My fancy grew charnel, I talked "of worms, of
tombs, and epitaphs." I was lost in reveries of death, and the idea
of premature burial held continual possession of my brain. The
ghastly Danger to which I was subjected haunted me day and night. In
the former, the torture of meditation was excessive -- in the latter,
supreme. When the grim Darkness overspread the Earth, then, with
every horror of thought, I shook -- shook as the quivering plumes
upon the hearse. When Nature could endure wakefulness no longer, it
was with a struggle that I consented to sleep -- for I shuddered to
reflect that, upon awaking, I might find myself the tenant of a
grave. And when, finally, I sank into slumber, it was only to rush at
once into a world of phantasms, above which, with vast, sable,
overshadowing wing, hovered, predominant, the one sepulchral Idea.
From the innumerable images of gloom which thus oppressed me in
dreams, I select for record but a solitary vision. Methought I was
immersed in a cataleptic trance of more than usual duration and
profundity. Suddenly there came an icy hand upon my forehead, and an
impatient, gibbering voice whispered the word "Arise!" within my ear.
I sat erect. The darkness was total. I could not see the figure of
him who had aroused me. I could call to mind neither the period at
which I had fallen into the trance, nor the locality in which I then
lay. While I remained motionless, and busied in endeavors to collect
my thought, the cold hand grasped me fiercely by the wrist, shaking
it petulantly, while the gibbering voice said again:
"Arise! did I not bid thee arise?"
"And who," I demanded, "art thou?"
"I have no name in the regions which I inhabit," replied the voice,
mournfully; "I was mortal, but am fiend. I was merciless, but am
pitiful. Thou dost feel that I shudder. -- My teeth chatter as I
speak, yet it is not with the chilliness of the night -- of the night
without end. But this hideousness is insufferable. How canst thou
tranquilly sleep? I cannot rest for the cry of these great agonies.
These sights are more than I can bear. Get thee up! Come with me into
the outer Night, and let me unfold to thee the graves. Is not this a
spectacle of woe? -- Behold!"
I looked; and the unseen figure, which still grasped me by the wrist,
had caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind, and from each
issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay, so that I could see
into the innermost recesses, and there view the shrouded bodies in
their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm. But alas! the real
sleepers were fewer, by many millions, than those who slumbered not
at all; and there was a feeble struggling; and there was a general
sad unrest; and from out the depths of the countless pits there came
a melancholy rustling from the garments of the buried. And of those
who seemed tranquilly to repose, I saw that a vast number had
changed, in a greater or less degree, the rigid and uneasy position
in which they had originally been entombed. And the voice again said
to me as I gazed:
"Is it not -- oh! is it not a pitiful sight?" -- but, before I could
find words to reply, the figure had ceased to grasp my wrist, the
phosphoric lights expired, and the graves were closed with a sudden
violence, while from out them arose a tumult of despairing cries,
saying again: "Is it not -- O, God, is it not a very pitiful sight?"
Phantasies such as these, presenting themselves at night, extended
their terrific influence far into my waking hours. My nerves became
thoroughly unstrung, and I fell a prey to perpetual horror. I
hesitated to ride, or to walk, or to indulge in any exercise that
would carry me from home. In fact, I no longer dared trust myself out
of the immediate presence of those who were aware of my proneness to
catalepsy, lest, falling into one of my usual fits, I should be
buried before my real condition could be ascertained. I doubted the
care, the fidelity of my dearest friends. I dreaded that, in some
trance of more than customary duration, they might be prevailed upon
to regard me as irrecoverable. I even went so far as to fear that, as
I occasioned much trouble, they might be glad to consider any very
protracted attack as sufficient excuse for getting rid of me
altogether. It was in vain they endeavored to reassure me by the most
solemn promises. I exacted the most sacred oaths, that under no
circumstances they would bury me until decomposition had so
materially advanced as to render farther preservation impossible.
And, even then, my mortal terrors would listen to no reason -- would
accept no consolation. I entered into a series of elaborate
precautions. Among other things, I had the family vault so remodelled
as to admit of being readily opened from within. The slightest
pressure upon a long lever that extended far into the tomb would
cause the iron portal to fly back. There were arrangements also for
the free admission of air and light, and convenient receptacles for
food and water, within immediate reach of the coffin intended for my
reception. This coffin was warmly and softly padded, and was provided
with a lid, fashioned upon the principle of the vault-door, with the
addition of springs so contrived that the feeblest movement of the
body would be sufficient to set it at liberty. Besides all this,
there was suspended from the roof of the tomb, a large bell, the rope
of which, it was designed, should extend through a hole in the
coffin, and so be fastened to one of the hands of the corpse. But,
alas? what avails the vigilance against the Destiny of man? Not even
these well-contrived securities sufficed to save from the uttermost
agonies of living inhumation, a wretch to these agonies foredoomed!
There arrived an epoch -- as often before there had arrived -- in
which I found myself emerging from total unconsciousness into the
first feeble and indefinite sense of existence. Slowly -- with a
tortoise gradation -- approached the faint gray dawn of the psychal
day. A torpid uneasiness. An apathetic endurance of dull pain. No
care -- no hope -- no effort. Then, after a long interval, a ringing
in the ears; then, after a lapse still longer, a prickling or
tingling sensation in the extremities; then a seemingly eternal
period of pleasurable quiescence, during which the awakening feelings
are struggling into thought; then a brief re-sinking into non-entity;
then a sudden recovery. At length the slight quivering of an eyelid,
and immediately thereupon, an electric shock of a terror, deadly and
indefinite, which sends the blood in torrents from the temples to the
heart. And now the first positive effort to think. And now the first
endeavor to remember. And now a partial and evanescent success. And
now the memory has so far regained its dominion, that, in some
measure, I am cognizant of my state. I feel that I am not awaking
from ordinary sleep. I recollect that I have been subject to
catalepsy. And now, at last, as if by the rush of an ocean, my
shuddering spirit is overwhelmed by the one grim Danger -- by the one
spectral and ever-prevalent idea.
For some minutes after this fancy possessed me, I remained without
motion. And why? I could not summon courage to move. I dared not make
the effort which was to satisfy me of my fate -- and yet there was
something at my heart which whispered me it was sure. Despair -- such
as no other species of wretchedness ever calls into being -- despair
alone urged me, after long irresolution, to uplift the heavy lids of
my eyes. I uplifted them. It was dark -- all dark. I knew that the
fit was over. I knew that the crisis of my disorder had long passed.
I knew that I had now fully recovered the use of my visual faculties
-- and yet it was dark -- all dark -- the intense and utter
raylessness of the Night that endureth for evermore.
I endeavored to shriek-, and my lips and my parched tongue moved
convulsively together in the attempt -- but no voice issued from the
cavernous lungs, which oppressed as if by the weight of some
incumbent mountain, gasped and palpitated, with the heart, at every
elaborate and struggling inspiration.
The movement of the jaws, in this effort to cry aloud, showed me that
they were bound up, as is usual with the dead. I felt, too, that I
lay upon some hard substance, and by something similar my sides were,
also, closely compressed. So far, I had not ventured to stir any of
my limbs -- but now I violently threw up my arms, which had been
lying at length, with the wrists crossed. They struck a solid wooden
substance, which extended above my person at an elevation of not more
than six inches from my face. I could no longer doubt that I reposed
within a coffin at last.
And now, amid all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherub Hope
-- for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made spasmodic
exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I felt my wrists
for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now the Comforter fled
for ever, and a still sterner Despair reigned triumphant; for I could
not help perceiving the absence of the paddings which I had so
carefully prepared -- and then, too, there came suddenly to my
nostrils the strong peculiar odor of moist earth. The conclusion was
irresistible. I was not within the vault. I had fallen into a trance
while absent from home-while among strangers -- when, or how, I could
not remember -- and it was they who had buried me as a dog -- nailed
up in some common coffin -- and thrust deep, deep, and for ever, into
some ordinary and nameless grave.
As this awful conviction forced itself, thus, into the innermost
chambers of my soul, I once again struggled to cry aloud. And in this
second endeavor I succeeded. A long, wild, and continuous shriek, or
yell of agony, resounded through the realms of the subterranean
Night.
"Hillo! hillo, there!" said a gruff voice, in reply.
"What the devil's the matter now!" said a second.
"Get out o' that!" said a third.
"What do you mean by yowling in that ere kind of style, like a
cattymount?" said a fourth; and hereupon I was seized and shaken
without ceremony, for several minutes, by a junto of very
rough-looking individuals. They did not arouse me from my slumber --
for I was wide awake when I screamed -- but they restored me to the
full possession of my memory.
This adventure occurred near Richmond, in Virginia. Accompanied by a
friend, I had proceeded, upon a gunning expedition, some miles down
the banks of the James River. Night approached, and we were overtaken
by a storm. The cabin of a small sloop lying at anchor in the stream,
and laden with garden mould, afforded us the only available shelter.
We made the best of it, and passed the night on board. I slept in one
of the only two berths in the vessel -- and the berths of a sloop of
sixty or twenty tons need scarcely be described. That which I
occupied had no bedding of any kind. Its extreme width was eighteen
inches. The distance of its bottom from the deck overhead was
precisely the same. I found it a matter of exceeding difficulty to
squeeze myself in. Nevertheless, I slept soundly, and the whole of my
vision -- for it was no dream, and no nightmare -- arose naturally
from the circumstances of my position -- from my ordinary bias of
thought -- and from the difficulty, to which I have alluded, of
collecting my senses, and especially of regaining my memory, for a
long time after awaking from slumber. The men who shook me were the
crew of the sloop, and some laborers engaged to unload it. From the
load itself came the earthly smell. The bandage about the jaws was a
silk handkerchief in which I had bound up my head, in default of my
customary nightcap.
The tortures endured, however, were indubitably quite equal for the
time, to those of actual sepulture. They were fearfully -- they were
inconceivably hideous; but out of Evil proceeded Good; for their very
excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion. My soul acquired
tone -- acquired temper. I went abroad. I took vigorous exercise. I
breathed the free air of Heaven. I thought upon other subjects than
Death. I discarded my medical books. "Buchan" I burned. I read no
"Night Thoughts" -- no fustian about churchyards -- no bugaboo tales
-- such as this. In short, I became a new man, and lived a man's
life. From that memorable night, I dismissed forever my charnel
apprehensions, and with them vanished the cataleptic disorder, of
which, perhaps, they had been less the consequence than the cause.
There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of
our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell -- but the
imagination of man is no Carathis, to explore with impunity its every
cavern. Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be
regarded as altogether fanciful -- but, like the Demons in whose
company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep, or
they will devour us -- they must be suffered to slumber, or we
perish.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM
The garden like a lady fair was cut,
That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut.
The azure fields of Heaven were 'sembled right
In a large round, set with the flowers of light.
The flowers de luce, and the round sparks of dew.
That hung upon their azure leaves did shew
Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue.
Giles Fletcher.
FROM his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my friend
Ellison along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in its mere worldly
sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person of whom I
speak seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing the doctrines of
Turgot, Price, Priestley, and Condorcet -- of exemplifying by
individual instance what has been deemed the chimera of the
perfectionists. In the brief existence of Ellison I fancy that I have
seen refuted the dogma, that in man's very nature lies some hidden
principle, the antagonist of bliss. An anxious examination of his
career has given me to understand that in general, from the violation
of a few simple laws of humanity arises the wretchedness of mankind
-- that as a species we have in our possession the as yet unwrought
elements of content -- and that, even now, in the present darkness
and madness of all thought on the great question of the social
condition, it is not impossible that man, the individual, under
certain unusual and highly fortuitous conditions, may be happy.
With opinions such as these my young friend, too, was fully imbued,
and thus it is worthy of observation that the uninterrupted enjoyment
which distinguished his life was, in great measure, the result of
preconcert. It is indeed evident that with less of the instinctive
philosophy which, now and then, stands so well in the stead of
experience, Mr. Ellison would have found himself precipitated, by the
very extraordinary success of his life, into the common vortex of
unhappiness which yawns for those of pre-eminent endowments. But it
is by no means my object to pen an essay on happiness. The ideas of
my friend may be summed up in a few words. He admitted but four
elementary principles, or more strictly, conditions of bliss. That
which he considered chief was (strange to say!) the simple and purely
physical one of free exercise in the open air. "The health," he said,
"attainable by other means is scarcely worth the name." He instanced
the ecstasies of the fox-hunter, and pointed to the tillers of the
earth, the only people who, as a class, can be fairly considered
happier than others. His second condition was the love of woman. His
third, and most difficult of realization, was the contempt of
ambition. His fourth was an object of unceasing pursuit; and he held
that, other things being equal, the extent of attainable happiness
was in proportion to the spirituality of this object.
Ellison was remarkable in the continuous profusion of good gifts
lavished upon him by fortune. In personal grace and beauty he
exceeded all men. His intellect was of that order to which the
acquisition of knowledge is less a labor than an intuition and a
necessity. His family was one of the most illustrious of the empire.
His bride was the loveliest and most devoted of women. His
possessions had been always ample; but on the attainment of his
majority, it was discovered that one of those extraordinary freaks of
fate had been played in his behalf which startle the whole social
world amid which they occur, and seldom fail radically to alter the
moral constitution of those who are their objects.
It appears that about a hundred years before Mr. Ellison's coming of
age, there had died, in a remote province, one Mr. Seabright Ellison.
This gentleman had amassed a princely fortune, and, having no
immediate connections, conceived the whim of suffering his wealth to
accumulate for a century after his decease. Minutely and sagaciously
directing the various modes of investment, he bequeathed the
aggregate amount to the nearest of blood, bearing the name of
Ellison, who should be alive at the end of the hundred years. Many
attempts had been made to set aside this singular bequest; their ex
post facto character rendered them abortive; but the attention of a
jealous government was aroused, and a legislative act finally
obtained, forbidding all similar accumulations. This act, however,
did not prevent young Ellison from entering into possession, on his
twenty-first birthday, as the heir of his ancestor Seabright, of a
fortune of four hundred and fifty millions of dollars. {*1}
When it had become known that such was the enormous wealth inherited,
there were, of course, many speculations as to the mode of its
disposal. The magnitude and the immediate availability of the sum
bewildered all who thought on the topic. The possessor of any
appreciable amount of money might have been imagined to perform any
one of a thousand things. With riches merely surpassing those of any
citizen, it would have been easy to suppose him engaging to supreme
excess in the fashionable extravagances of his time -- or busying
himself with political intrigue -- or aiming at ministerial power --
or purchasing increase of nobility -- or collecting large museums of
virtu -- or playing the munificent patron of letters, of science, of
art -- or endowing, and bestowing his name upon extensive
institutions of charity. But for the inconceivable wealth in the
actual possession of the heir, these objects and all ordinary objects
were felt to afford too limited a field. Recourse was had to figures,
and these but sufficed to confound. It was seen that, even at three
per cent., the annual income of the inheritance amounted to no less
than thirteen millions and five hundred thousand dollars; which was
one million and one hundred and twenty-five thousand per month; or
thirty-six thousand nine hundred and eighty-six per day; or one
thousand five hundred and forty-one per hour; or six and twenty
dollars for every minute that flew. Thus the usual track of
supposition was thoroughly broken up. Men knew not what to imagine.
There were some who even conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest
himself of at least one-half of his fortune, as of utterly
superfluous opulence -- enriching whole troops of his relatives by
division of his superabundance. To the nearest of these he did, in
fact, abandon the very unusual wealth which was his own before the
inheritance.
I was not surprised, however, to perceive that he had long made up
his mind on a point which had occasioned so much discussion to his
friends. Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of his decision.
In regard to individual charities he had satisfied his conscience. In
the possibility of any improvement, properly so called, being
effected by man himself in the general condition of man, he had (I am
sorry to confess it) little faith. Upon the whole, whether happily or
unhappily, he was thrown back, in very great measure, upon self.
In the widest and noblest sense he was a poet. He comprehended,
moreover, the true character, the august aims, the supreme majesty
and dignity of the poetic sentiment. The fullest, if not the sole
proper satisfaction of this sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in
the creation of novel forms of beauty. Some peculiarities, either in
his early education, or in the nature of his intellect, had tinged
with what is termed materialism all his ethical speculations; and it
was this bias, perhaps, which led him to believe that the most
advantageous at least, if not the sole legitimate field for the
poetic exercise, lies in the creation of novel moods of purely
physical loveliness. Thus it happened he became neither musician nor
poet -- if we use this latter term in its every-day acceptation. Or
it might have been that he neglected to become either, merely in
pursuance of his idea that in contempt of ambition is to be found one
of the essential principles of happiness on earth. Is it not indeed,
possible that, while a high order of genius is necessarily ambitious,
the highest is above that which is termed ambition? And may it not
thus happen that many far greater than Milton have contentedly
remained "mute and inglorious?" I believe that the world has never
seen -- and that, unless through some series of accidents goading the
noblest order of mind into distasteful exertion, the world will never
see -- that full extent of triumphant execution, in the richer
domains of art, of which the human nature is absolutely capable.
Ellison became neither musician nor poet; although no man lived more
profoundly enamored of music and poetry. Under other circumstances
than those which invested him, it is not impossible that he would
have become a painter. Sculpture, although in its nature rigorously
poetical was too limited in its extent and consequences, to have
occupied, at any time, much of his attention. And I have now
mentioned all the provinces in which the common understanding of the
poetic sentiment has declared it capable of expatiating. But Ellison
maintained that the richest, the truest, and most natural, if not
altogether the most extensive province, had been unaccountably
neglected. No definition had spoken of the landscape-gardener as of
the poet; yet it seemed to my friend that the creation of the
landscape-garden offered to the proper Muse the most magnificent of
opportunities. Here, indeed, was the fairest field for the display of
imagination in the endless combining of forms of novel beauty; the
elements to enter into combination being, by a vast superiority, the
most glorious which the earth could afford. In the multiform and
multicolor of the flowers and the trees, he recognised the most
direct and energetic efforts of Nature at physical loveliness. And in
the direction or concentration of this effort -- or, more properly,
in its adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth -- he
perceived that he should be employing the best means -- laboring to
the greatest advantage -- in the fulfilment, not only of his own
destiny as poet, but of the august purposes for which the Deity had
implanted the poetic sentiment in man.
"Its adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth." In his
explanation of this phraseology, Mr. Ellison did much toward solving
what has always seemed to me an enigma: -- I mean the fact (which
none but the ignorant dispute) that no such combination of scenery
exists in nature as the painter of genius may produce. No such
paradises are to be found in reality as have glowed on the canvas of
Claude. In the most enchanting of natural landscapes, there will
always be found a defect or an excess -- many excesses and defects.
While the component parts may defy, individually, the highest skill
of the artist, the arrangement of these parts will always be
susceptible of improvement. In short, no position can be attained on
the wide surface of the natural earth, from which an artistical eye,
looking steadily, will not find matter of offence in what is termed
the "composition" of the landscape. And yet how unintelligible is
this! In all other matters we are justly instructed to regard nature
as supreme. With her details we shrink from competition. Who shall
presume to imitate the colors of the tulip, or to improve the
proportions of the lily of the valley? The criticism which says, of
sculpture or portraiture, that here nature is to be exalted or
idealized rather than imitated, is in error. No pictorial or
sculptural combinations of points of human liveliness do more than
approach the living and breathing beauty. In landscape alone is the
principle of the critic true; and, having felt its truth here, it is
but the headlong spirit of generalization which has led him to
pronounce it true throughout all the domains of art. Having, I say,
felt its truth here; for the feeling is no affectation or chimera.
The mathematics afford no more absolute demonstrations than the
sentiments of his art yields the artist. He not only believes, but
positively knows, that such and such apparently arbitrary
arrangements of matter constitute and alone constitute the true
beauty. His reasons, however, have not yet been matured into
expression. It remains for a more profound analysis than the world
has yet seen, fully to investigate and express them. Nevertheless he
is confirmed in his instinctive opinions by the voice of all his
brethren. Let a "composition" be defective; let an emendation be
wrought in its mere arrangement of form; let this emendation be
submitted to every artist in the world; by each will its necessity be
admitted. And even far more than this: -- in remedy of the defective
composition, each insulated member of the fraternity would have
suggested the identical emendation.
I repeat that in landscape arrangements alone is the physical nature
susceptible of exaltation, and that, therefore, her susceptibility of
improvement at this one point, was a mystery I had been unable to
solve. My own thoughts on the subject had rested in the idea that the
primitive intention of nature would have so arranged the earth's
surface as to have fulfilled at all points man's sense of perfection
in the beautiful, the sublime, or the picturesque; but that this
primitive intention had been frustrated by the known geological
disturbances -- disturbances of form and color -- grouping, in the
correction or allaying of which lies the soul of art. The force of
this idea was much weakened, however, by the necessity which it
involved of considering the disturbances abnormal and unadapted to
any purpose. It was Ellison who suggested that they were prognostic
of death. He thus explained: -- Admit the earthly immortality of man
to have been the first intention. We have then the primitive
arrangement of the earth's surface adapted to his blissful estate, as
not existent but designed. The disturbances were the preparations for
his subsequently conceived deathful condition.
"Now," said my friend, "what we regard as exaltation of the landscape
may be really such, as respects only the moral or human point of
view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may possibly effect a
blemish in the picture, if we can suppose this picture viewed at
large -- in mass -- from some point distant from the earth's surface,
although not beyond the limits of its atmosphere. It is easily
understood that what might improve a closely scrutinized detail, may
at the same time injure a general or more distantly observed effect.
There may be a class of beings, human once, but now invisible to
humanity, to whom, from afar, our disorder may seem order -- our
unpicturesqueness picturesque, in a word, the earth-angels, for whose
scrutiny more especially than our own, and for whose death -- refined
appreciation of the beautiful, may have been set in array by God the
wide landscape-gardens of the hemispheres."
In the course of discussion, my friend quoted some passages from a
writer on landscape-gardening who has been supposed to have well
treated his theme:
"There are properly but two styles of landscape-gardening, the
natural and the artificial. One seeks to recall the original beauty
of the country, by adapting its means to the surrounding scenery,
cultivating trees in harmony with the hills or plain of the
neighboring land; detecting and bringing into practice those nice
relations of size, proportion, and color which, hid from the common
observer, are revealed everywhere to the experienced student of
nature. The result of the natural style of gardening, is seen rather
in the absence of all defects and incongruities -- in the prevalence
of a healthy harmony and order -- than in the creation of any special
wonders or miracles. The artificial style has as many varieties as
there are different tastes to gratify. It has a certain general
relation to the various styles of building. There are the stately
avenues and retirements of Versailles; Italian terraces; and a
various mixed old English style, which bears some relation to the
domestic Gothic or English Elizabethan architecture. Whatever may be
said against the abuses of the artificial landscape -- gardening, a
mixture of pure art in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty. This
is partly pleasing to the eye, by the show of order and design, and
partly moral. A terrace, with an old moss -- covered balustrade,
calls up at once to the eye the fair forms that have passed there in
other days. The slightest exhibition of art is an evidence of care
and human interest."
"From what I have already observed," said Ellison, "you will
understand that I reject the idea, here expressed, of recalling the
original beauty of the country. The original beauty is never so great
as that which may be introduced. Of course, every thing depends on
the selection of a spot with capabilities. What is said about
detecting and bringing into practice nice relations of size,
proportion, and color, is one of those mere vaguenesses of speech
which serve to veil inaccuracy of thought. The phrase quoted may mean
any thing, or nothing, and guides in no degree. That the true result
of the natural style of gardening is seen rather in the absence of
all defects and incongruities than in the creation of any special
wonders or miracles, is a proposition better suited to the grovelling
apprehension of the herd than to the fervid dreams of the man of
genius. The negative merit suggested appertains to that hobbling
criticism which, in letters, would elevate Addison into apotheosis.
In truth, while that virtue which consists in the mere avoidance of
vice appeals directly to the understanding, and can thus be
circumscribed in rule, the loftier virtue, which flames in creation,
can be apprehended in its results alone. Rule applies but to the
merits of denial -- to the excellencies which refrain. Beyond these,
the critical art can but suggest. We may be instructed to build a
"Cato," but we are in vain told how to conceive a Parthenon or an
"Inferno." The thing done, however; the wonder accomplished; and the
capacity for apprehension becomes universal. The sophists of the
negative school who, through inability to create, have scoffed at
creation, are now found the loudest in applause. What, in its
chrysalis condition of principle, affronted their demure reason,
never fails, in its maturity of accomplishment, to extort admiration
from their instinct of beauty.
"The author's observations on the artificial style," continued
Ellison, "are less objectionable. A mixture of pure art in a garden
scene adds to it a great beauty. This is just; as also is the
reference to the sense of human interest. The principle expressed is
incontrovertible -- but there may be something beyond it. There may
be an object in keeping with the principle -- an object unattainable
by the means ordinarily possessed by individuals, yet which, if
attained, would lend a charm to the landscape-garden far surpassing
that which a sense of merely human interest could bestow. A poet,
having very unusual pecuniary resources, might, while retaining the
necessary idea of art or culture, or, as our author expresses it, of
interest, so imbue his designs at once with extent and novelty of
beauty, as to convey the sentiment of spiritual interference. It will
be seen that, in bringing about such result, he secures all the
advantages of interest or design, while relieving his work of the
harshness or technicality of the worldly art. In the most rugged of
wildernesses -- in the most savage of the scenes of pure nature --
there is apparent the art of a creator; yet this art is apparent to
reflection only; in no respect has it the obvious force of a feeling.
Now let us suppose this sense of the Almighty design to be one step
depressed -- to be brought into something like harmony or consistency
with the sense of human art -- to form an intermedium between the
two: -- let us imagine, for example, a landscape whose combined
vastness and definitiveness -- whose united beauty, magnificence, and
strangeness, shall convey the idea of care, or culture, or
superintendence, on the part of beings superior, yet akin to humanity
-- then the sentiment of interest is preserved, while the art
intervolved is made to assume the air of an intermediate or secondary
nature -- a nature which is not God, nor an emanation from God, but
which still is nature in the sense of the handiwork of the angels
that hover between man and God."
It was in devoting his enormous wealth to the embodiment of a vision
such as this -- in the free exercise in the open air ensured by the
personal superintendence of his plans -- in the unceasing object
which these plans afforded -- in the high spirituality of the object
-- in the contempt of ambition which it enabled him truly to feel --
in the perennial springs with which it gratified, without possibility
of satiating, that one master passion of his soul, the thirst for
beauty, above all, it was in the sympathy of a woman, not unwomanly,
whose loveliness and love enveloped his existence in the purple
atmosphere of Paradise, that Ellison thought to find, and found,
exemption from the ordinary cares of humanity, with a far greater
amount of positive happiness than ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams
of De Stael.
I despair of conveying to the reader any distinct conception of the
marvels which my friend did actually accomplish. I wish to describe,
but am disheartened by the difficulty of description, and hesitate
between detail and generality. Perhaps the better course will be to
unite the two in their extremes.
Mr. Ellison's first step regarded, of course, the choice of a
locality, and scarcely had he commenced thinking on this point, when
the luxuriant nature of the Pacific Islands arrested his attention.
In fact, he had made up his mind for a voyage to the South Seas, when
a night's reflection induced him to abandon the idea. "Were I
misanthropic," he said, "such a locale would suit me. The
thoroughness of its insulation and seclusion, and the difficulty of
ingress and egress, would in such case be the charm of charms; but as
yet I am not Timon. I wish the composure but not the depression of
solitude. There must remain with me a certain control over the extent
and duration of my repose. There will be frequent hours in which I
shall need, too, the sympathy of the poetic in what I have done. Let
me seek, then, a spot not far from a populous city -- whose vicinity,
also, will best enable me to execute my plans."
In search of a suitable place so situated, Ellison travelled for
several years, and I was permitted to accompany him. A thousand spots
with which I was enraptured he rejected without hesitation, for
reasons which satisfied me, in the end, that he was right. We came at
length to an elevated table-land of wonderful fertility and beauty,
affording a panoramic prospect very little less in extent than that
of Aetna, and, in Ellison's opinion as well as my own, surpassing the
far-famed view from that mountain in all the true elements of the
picturesque.
"I am aware," said the traveller, as he drew a sigh of deep delight
after gazing on this scene, entranced, for nearly an hour, "I know
that here, in my circumstances, nine-tenths of the most fastidious of
men would rest content. This panorama is indeed glorious, and I
should rejoice in it but for the excess of its glory. The taste of
all the architects I have ever known leads them, for the sake of
'prospect,' to put up buildings on hill-tops. The error is obvious.
Grandeur in any of its moods, but especially in that of extent,
startles, excites -- and then fatigues, depresses. For the occasional
scene nothing can be better -- for the constant view nothing worse.
And, in the constant view, the most objectionable phase of grandeur
is that of extent; the worst phase of extent, that of distance. It is
at war with the sentiment and with the sense of seclusion -- the
sentiment and sense which we seek to humor in 'retiring to the
country.' In looking from the summit of a mountain we cannot help
feeling abroad in the world. The heart-sick avoid distant prospects
as a pestilence."
It was not until toward the close of the fourth year of our search
that we found a locality with which Ellison professed himself
satisfied. It is, of course, needless to say where was the locality.
The late death of my friend, in causing his domain to be thrown open
to certain classes of visiters, has given to Arnheim a species of
secret and subdued if not solemn celebrity, similar in kind, although
infinitely superior in degree, to that which so long distinguished
Fonthill.
The usual approach to Arnheim was by the river. The visiter left the
city in the early morning. During the forenoon he passed between
shores of a tranquil and domestic beauty, on which grazed innumerable
sheep, their white fleeces spotting the vivid green of rolling
meadows. By degrees the idea of cultivation subsided into that of
merely pastoral care. This slowly became merged in a sense of
retirement -- this again in a consciousness of solitude. As the
evening approached, the channel grew more narrow, the banks more and
more precipitous; and these latter were clothed in rich, more
profuse, and more sombre foliage. The water increased in
transparency. The stream took a thousand turns, so that at no moment
could its gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance than a
furlong. At every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned within an
enchanted circle, having insuperable and impenetrable walls of
foliage, a roof of ultramarine satin, and no floor -- the keel
balancing itself with admirable nicety on that of a phantom bark
which, by some accident having been turned upside down, floated in
constant company with the substantial one, for the purpose of
sustaining it. The channel now became a gorge -- although the term is
somewhat inapplicable, and I employ it merely because the language
has no word which better represents the most striking -- not the most
distinctive-feature of the scene. The character of gorge was
maintained only in the height and parallelism of the shores; it was
lost altogether in their other traits. The walls of the ravine
(through which the clear water still tranquilly flowed) arose to an
elevation of a hundred and occasionally of a hundred and fifty feet,
and inclined so much toward each other as, in a great measure, to
shut out the light of day; while the long plume-like moss which
depended densely from the intertwining shrubberies overhead, gave the
whole chasm an air of funereal gloom. The windings became more
frequent and intricate, and seemed often as if returning in upon
themselves, so that the voyager had long lost all idea of direction.
He was, moreover, enwrapt in an exquisite sense of the strange. The
thought of nature still remained, but her character seemed to have
undergone modification, there was a weird symmetry, a thrilling
uniformity, a wizard propriety in these her works. Not a dead branch
-- not a withered leaf -- not a stray pebble -- not a patch of the
brown earth was anywhere visible. The crystal water welled up against
the clean granite, or the unblemished moss, with a sharpness of
outline that delighted while it bewildered the eye.
Having threaded the mazes of this channel for some hours, the gloom
deepening every moment, a sharp and unexpected turn of the vessel
brought it suddenly, as if dropped from heaven, into a circular basin
of very considerable extent when compared with the width of the
gorge. It was about two hundred yards in diameter, and girt in at all
points but one -- that immediately fronting the vessel as it entered
-- by hills equal in general height to the walls of the chasm,
although of a thoroughly different character. Their sides sloped from
the water's edge at an angle of some forty-five degrees, and they
were clothed from base to summit -- not a perceptible point escaping
-- in a drapery of the most gorgeous flower-blossoms; scarcely a
green leaf being visible among the sea of odorous and fluctuating
color. This basin was of great depth, but so transparent was the
water that the bottom, which seemed to consist of a thick mass of
small round alabaster pebbles, was distinctly visible by glimpses --
that is to say, whenever the eye could permit itself not to see, far
down in the inverted heaven, the duplicate blooming of the hills. On
these latter there were no trees, nor even shrubs of any size. The
impressions wrought on the observer were those of richness, warmth,
color, quietude, uniformity, softness, delicacy, daintiness,
voluptuousness, and a miraculous extremeness of culture that
suggested dreams of a new race of fairies, laborious, tasteful,
magnificent, and fastidious; but as the eye traced upward the
myriad-tinted slope, from its sharp junction with the water to its
vague termination amid the folds of overhanging cloud, it became,
indeed, difficult not to fancy a panoramic cataract of rubies,
sapphires, opals, and golden onyxes, rolling silently out of the sky.
The visiter, shooting suddenly into this bay from out the gloom of
the ravine, is delighted but astounded by the full orb of the
declining sun, which he had supposed to be already far below the
horizon, but which now confronts him, and forms the sole termination
of an otherwise limitless vista seen through another chasm -- like
rift in the hills.
But here the voyager quits the vessel which has borne him so far, and
descends into a light canoe of ivory, stained with arabesque devices
in vivid scarlet, both within and without. The poop and beak of this
boat arise high above the water, with sharp points, so that the
general form is that of an irregular crescent. It lies on the surface
of the bay with the proud grace of a swan. On its ermined floor
reposes a single feathery paddle of satin-wood; but no oarsmen or
attendant is to be seen. The guest is bidden to be of good cheer --
that the fates will take care of him. The larger vessel disappears,
and he is left alone in the canoe, which lies apparently motionless
in the middle of the lake. While he considers what course to pursue,
however, he becomes aware of a gentle movement in the fairy bark. It
slowly swings itself around until its prow points toward the sun. It
advances with a gentle but gradually accelerated velocity, while the
slight ripples it creates seem to break about the ivory side in
divinest melody-seem to offer the only possible explanation of the
soothing yet melancholy music for whose unseen origin the bewildered
voyager looks around him in vain.
The canoe steadily proceeds, and the rocky gate of the vista is
approached, so that its depths can be more distinctly seen. To the
right arise a chain of lofty hills rudely and luxuriantly wooded. It
is observed, however, that the trait of exquisite cleanness where the
bank dips into the water, still prevails. There is not one token of
the usual river debris. To the left the character of the scene is
softer and more obviously artificial. Here the bank slopes upward
from the stream in a very gentle ascent, forming a broad sward of
grass of a texture resembling nothing so much as velvet, and of a
brilliancy of green which would bear comparison with the tint of the
purest emerald. This plateau varies in width from ten to three
hundred yards; reaching from the river-bank to a wall, fifty feet
high, which extends, in an infinity of curves, but following the
general direction of the river, until lost in the distance to the
westward. This wall is of one continuous rock, and has been formed by
cutting perpendicularly the once rugged precipice of the stream's
southern bank, but no trace of the labor has been suffered to remain.
The chiselled stone has the hue of ages, and is profusely overhung
and overspread with the ivy, the coral honeysuckle, the eglantine,
and the clematis. The uniformity of the top and bottom lines of the
wall is fully relieved by occasional trees of gigantic height,
growing singly or in small groups, both along the plateau and in the
domain behind the wall, but in close proximity to it; so that
frequent limbs (of the black walnut especially) reach over and dip
their pendent extremities into the water. Farther back within the
domain, the vision is impeded by an impenetrable screen of foliage.
These things are observed during the canoe's gradual approach to what
I have called the gate of the vista. On drawing nearer to this,
however, its chasm-like appearance vanishes; a new outlet from the
bay is discovered to the left -- in which direction the wall is also
seen to sweep, still following the general course of the stream. Down
this new opening the eye cannot penetrate very far; for the stream,
accompanied by the wall, still bends to the left, until both are
swallowed up by the leaves.
The boat, nevertheless, glides magically into the winding channel;
and here the shore opposite the wall is found to resemble that
opposite the wall in the straight vista. Lofty hills, rising
occasionally into mountains, and covered with vegetation in wild
luxuriance, still shut in the scene.
Floating gently onward, but with a velocity slightly augmented, the
voyager, after many short turns, finds his progress apparently barred
by a gigantic gate or rather door of burnished gold, elaborately
carved and fretted, and reflecting the direct rays of the now
fast-sinking sun with an effulgence that seems to wreath the whole
surrounding forest in flames. This gate is inserted in the lofty
wall; which here appears to cross the river at right angles. In a few
moments, however, it is seen that the main body of the water still
sweeps in a gentle and extensive curve to the left, the wall
following it as before, while a stream of considerable volume,
diverging from the principal one, makes its way, with a slight
ripple, under the door, and is thus hidden from sight. The canoe
falls into the lesser channel and approaches the gate. Its ponderous
wings are slowly and musically expanded. The boat glides between
them, and commences a rapid descent into a vast amphitheatre entirely
begirt with purple mountains, whose bases are laved by a gleaming
river throughout the full extent of their circuit. Meantime the whole
Paradise of Arnheim bursts upon the view. There is a gush of
entrancing melody; there is an oppressive sense of strange sweet
odor, -- there is a dream -- like intermingling to the eye of tall
slender Eastern trees -- bosky shrubberies -- flocks of golden and
crimson birds -- lily-fringed lakes -- meadows of violets, tulips,
poppies, hyacinths, and tuberoses -- long intertangled lines of
silver streamlets -- and, upspringing confusedly from amid all, a
mass of semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture sustaining itself by
miracle in mid-air, glittering in the red sunlight with a hundred
oriels, minarets, and pinnacles; and seeming the phantom handiwork,
conjointly, of the Sylphs, of the Fairies, of the Genii and of the
Gnomes.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
LANDOR'S COTTAGE
A Pendant to "The Domain of Arnheim"
DURING A pedestrian trip last summer, through one or two of the river
counties of New York, I found myself, as the day declined, somewhat
embarrassed about the road I was pursuing. The land undulated very
remarkably; and my path, for the last hour, had wound about and about
so confusedly, in its effort to keep in the valleys, that I no longer
knew in what direction lay the sweet village of B-, where I had
determined to stop for the night. The sun had scarcely shone --
strictly speaking -- during the day, which nevertheless, had been
unpleasantly warm. A smoky mist, resembling that of the Indian
summer, enveloped all things, and of course, added to my uncertainty.
Not that I cared much about the matter. If I did not hit upon the
village before sunset, or even before dark, it was more than possible
that a little Dutch farmhouse, or something of that kind, would soon
make its appearance -- although, in fact, the neighborhood (perhaps
on account of being more picturesque than fertile) was very sparsely
inhabited. At all events, with my knapsack for a pillow, and my hound
as a sentry, a bivouac in the open air was just the thing which would
have amused me. I sauntered on, therefore, quite at ease -- Ponto
taking charge of my gun -- until at length, just as I had begun to
consider whether the numerous little glades that led hither and
thither, were intended to be paths at all, I was conducted by one of
them into an unquestionable carriage track. There could be no
mistaking it. The traces of light wheels were evident; and although
the tall shrubberies and overgrown undergrowth met overhead, there
was no obstruction whatever below, even to the passage of a Virginian
mountain wagon -- the most aspiring vehicle, I take it, of its kind.
The road, however, except in being open through the wood -- if wood
be not too weighty a name for such an assemblage of light trees --
and except in the particulars of evident wheel-tracks -- bore no
resemblance to any road I had before seen. The tracks of which I
speak were but faintly perceptible -- having been impressed upon the
firm, yet pleasantly moist surface of -- what looked more like green
Genoese velvet than any thing else. It was grass, clearly -- but
grass such as we seldom see out of England -- so short, so thick, so
even, and so vivid in color. Not a single impediment lay in the
wheel-route -- not even a chip or dead twig. The stones that once
obstructed the way had been carefully placed -- not thrown-along the
sides of the lane, so as to define its boundaries at bottom with a
kind of half-precise, half-negligent, and wholly picturesque
definition. Clumps of wild flowers grew everywhere, luxuriantly, in
the interspaces.
What to make of all this, of course I knew not. Here was art
undoubtedly -- that did not surprise me -- all roads, in the ordinary
sense, are works of art; nor can I say that there was much to wonder
at in the mere excess of art manifested; all that seemed to have been
done, might have been done here -- with such natural "capabilities"
(as they have it in the books on Landscape Gardening) -- with very
little labor and expense. No; it was not the amount but the character
of the art which caused me to take a seat on one of the blossomy
stones and gaze up and down this fairy -- like avenue for half an
hour or more in bewildered admiration. One thing became more and more
evident the longer I gazed: an artist, and one with a most scrupulous
eye for form, had superintended all these arrangements. The greatest
care had been taken to preserve a due medium between the neat and
graceful on the one hand, and the pittoresque, in the true sense of
the Italian term, on the other. There were few straight, and no long
uninterrupted lines. The same effect of curvature or of color
appeared twice, usually, but not oftener, at any one point of view.
Everywhere was variety in uniformity. It was a piece of
"composition," in which the most fastidiously critical taste could
scarcely have suggested an emendation.
I had turned to the right as I entered this road, and now, arising, I
continued in the same direction. The path was so serpentine, that at
no moment could I trace its course for more than two or three paces
in advance. Its character did not undergo any material change.
Presently the murmur of water fell gently upon my ear -- and in a few
moments afterward, as I turned with the road somewhat more abruptly
than hitherto, I became aware that a building of some kind lay at the
foot of a gentle declivity just before me. I could see nothing
distinctly on account of the mist which occupied all the little
valley below. A gentle breeze, however, now arose, as the sun was
about descending; and while I remained standing on the brow of the
slope, the fog gradually became dissipated into wreaths, and so
floated over the scene.
As it came fully into view -- thus gradually as I describe it --
piece by piece, here a tree, there a glimpse of water, and here again
the summit of a chimney, I could scarcely help fancying that the
whole was one of the ingenious illusions sometimes exhibited under
the name of "vanishing pictures."
By the time, however, that the fog had thoroughly disappeared, the
sun had made its way down behind the gentle hills, and thence, as it
with a slight chassez to the south, had come again fully into sight,
glaring with a purplish lustre through a chasm that entered the
valley from the west. Suddenly, therefore -- and as if by the hand of
magic -- this whole valley and every thing in it became brilliantly
visible.
The first coup d'oeil, as the sun slid into the position described,
impressed me very much as I have been impressed, when a boy, by the
concluding scene of some well-arranged theatrical spectacle or
melodrama. Not even the monstrosity of color was wanting; for the
sunlight came out through the chasm, tinted all orange and purple;
while the vivid green of the grass in the valley was reflected more
or less upon all objects from the curtain of vapor that still hung
overhead, as if loth to take its total departure from a scene so
enchantingly beautiful.
The little vale into which I thus peered down from under the fog
canopy could not have been more than four hundred yards long; while
in breadth it varied from fifty to one hundred and fifty or perhaps
two hundred. It was most narrow at its northern extremity, opening
out as it tended southwardly, but with no very precise regularity.
The widest portion was within eighty yards of the southern extreme.
The slopes which encompassed the vale could not fairly be called
hills, unless at their northern face. Here a precipitous ledge of
granite arose to a height of some ninety feet; and, as I have
mentioned, the valley at this point was not more than fifty feet
wide; but as the visiter proceeded southwardly from the cliff, he
found on his right hand and on his left, declivities at once less
high, less precipitous, and less rocky. All, in a word, sloped and
softened to the south; and yet the whole vale was engirdled by
eminences, more or less high, except at two points. One of these I
have already spoken of. It lay considerably to the north of west, and
was where the setting sun made its way, as I have before described,
into the amphitheatre, through a cleanly cut natural cleft in the
granite embankment; this fissure might have been ten yards wide at
its widest point, so far as the eye could trace it. It seemed to lead
up, up like a natural causeway, into the recesses of unexplored
mountains and forests. The other opening was directly at the southern
end of the vale. Here, generally, the slopes were nothing more than
gentle inclinations, extending from east to west about one hundred
and fifty yards. In the middle of this extent was a depression, level
with the ordinary floor of the valley. As regards vegetation, as well
as in respect to every thing else, the scene softened and sloped to
the south. To the north -- on the craggy precipice -- a few paces
from the verge -- up sprang the magnificent trunks of numerous
hickories, black walnuts, and chestnuts, interspersed with occasional
oak, and the strong lateral branches thrown out by the walnuts
especially, spread far over the edge of the cliff. Proceeding
southwardly, the explorer saw, at first, the same class of trees, but
less and less lofty and Salvatorish in character; then he saw the
gentler elm, succeeded by the sassafras and locust -- these again by
the softer linden, red-bud, catalpa, and maple -- these yet again by
still more graceful and more modest varieties. The whole face of the
southern declivity was covered with wild shrubbery alone -- an
occasional silver willow or white poplar excepted. In the bottom of
the valley itself -- (for it must be borne in mind that the
vegetation hitherto mentioned grew only on the cliffs or hillsides)
-- were to be seen three insulated trees. One was an elm of fine size
and exquisite form: it stood guard over the southern gate of the
vale. Another was a hickory, much larger than the elm, and altogether
a much finer tree, although both were exceedingly beautiful: it
seemed to have taken charge of the northwestern entrance, springing
from a group of rocks in the very jaws of the ravine, and throwing
its graceful body, at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, far out
into the sunshine of the amphitheatre. About thirty yards east of
this tree stood, however, the pride of the valley, and beyond all
question the most magnificent tree I have ever seen, unless, perhaps,
among the cypresses of the Itchiatuckanee. It was a triple -- stemmed
tulip-tree -- the Liriodendron Tulipiferum -- one of the natural
order of magnolias. Its three trunks separated from the parent at
about three feet from the soil, and diverging very slightly and
gradually, were not more than four feet apart at the point where the
largest stem shot out into foliage: this was at an elevation of about
eighty feet. The whole height of the principal division was one
hundred and twenty feet. Nothing can surpass in beauty the form, or
the glossy, vivid green of the leaves of the tulip-tree. In the
present instance they were fully eight inches wide; but their glory
was altogether eclipsed by the gorgeous splendor of the profuse
blossoms. Conceive, closely congregated, a million of the largest and
most resplendent tulips! Only thus can the reader get any idea of the
picture I would convey. And then the stately grace of the clean,
delicately -- granulated columnar stems, the largest four feet in
diameter, at twenty from the ground. The innumerable blossoms,
mingling with those of other trees scarcely less beautiful, although
infinitely less majestic, filled the valley with more than Arabian
perfumes.
The general floor of the amphitheatre was grass of the same character
as that I had found in the road; if anything, more deliciously soft,
thick, velvety, and miraculously green. It was hard to conceive how
all this beauty had been attained.
I have spoken of two openings into the vale. From the one to the
northwest issued a rivulet, which came, gently murmuring and slightly
foaming, down the ravine, until it dashed against the group of rocks
out of which sprang the insulated hickory. Here, after encircling the
tree, it passed on a little to the north of east, leaving the tulip
tree some twenty feet to the south, and making no decided alteration
in its course until it came near the midway between the eastern and
western boundaries of the valley. At this point, after a series of
sweeps, it turned off at right angles and pursued a generally
southern direction meandering as it went -- until it became lost in a
small lake of irregular figure (although roughly oval), that lay
gleaming near the lower extremity of the vale. This lakelet was,
perhaps, a hundred yards in diameter at its widest part. No crystal
could be clearer than its waters. Its bottom, which could be
distinctly seen, consisted altogether, of pebbles brilliantly white.
Its banks, of the emerald grass already described, rounded, rather
than sloped, off into the clear heaven below; and so clear was this
heaven, so perfectly, at times, did it reflect all objects above it,
that where the true bank ended and where the mimic one commenced, it
was a point of no little difficulty to determine. The trout, and some
other varieties of fish, with which this pond seemed to be almost
inconveniently crowded, had all the appearance of veritable
flying-fish. It was almost impossible to believe that they were not
absolutely suspended in the air. A light birch canoe that lay
placidly on the water, was reflected in its minutest fibres with a
fidelity unsurpassed by the most exquisitely polished mirror. A small
island, fairly laughing with flowers in full bloom, and affording
little more space than just enough for a picturesque little building,
seemingly a fowl-house -- arose from the lake not far from its
northern shore -- to which it was connected by means of an
inconceivably light -- looking and yet very primitive bridge. It was
formed of a single, broad and thick plank of the tulip wood. This was
forty feet long, and spanned the interval between shore and shore
with a slight but very perceptible arch, preventing all oscillation.
From the southern extreme of the lake issued a continuation of the
rivulet, which, after meandering for, perhaps, thirty yards, finally
passed through the "depression" (already described) in the middle of
the southern declivity, and tumbling down a sheer precipice of a
hundred feet, made its devious and unnoticed way to the Hudson.
The lake was deep -- at some points thirty feet -- but the rivulet
seldom exceeded three, while its greatest width was about eight. Its
bottom and banks were as those of the pond -- if a defect could have
been attributed, in point of picturesqueness, it was that of
excessive neatness.
The expanse of the green turf was relieved, here and there, by an
occasional showy shrub, such as the hydrangea, or the common
snowball, or the aromatic seringa; or, more frequently, by a clump of
geraniums blossoming gorgeously in great varieties. These latter grew
in pots which were carefully buried in the soil, so as to give the
plants the appearance of being indigenous. Besides all this, the
lawn's velvet was exquisitely spotted with sheep -- a considerable
flock of which roamed about the vale, in company with three tamed
deer, and a vast number of brilliantly -- plumed ducks. A very large
mastiff seemed to be in vigilant attendance upon these animals, each
and all.
Along the eastern and western cliffs -- where, toward the upper
portion of the amphitheatre, the boundaries were more or less
precipitous -- grew ivy in great profusion -- so that only here and
there could even a glimpse of the naked rock be obtained. The
northern precipice, in like manner, was almost entirely clothed by
grape-vines of rare luxuriance; some springing from the soil at the
base of the cliff, and others from ledges on its face.
The slight elevation which formed the lower boundary of this little
domain, was crowned by a neat stone wall, of sufficient height to
prevent the escape of the deer. Nothing of the fence kind was
observable elsewhere; for nowhere else was an artificial enclosure
needed: -- any stray sheep, for example, which should attempt to make
its way out of the vale by means of the ravine, would find its
progress arrested, after a few yards' advance, by the precipitous
ledge of rock over which tumbled the cascade that had arrested my
attention as I first drew near the domain. In short, the only ingress
or egress was through a gate occupying a rocky pass in the road, a
few paces below the point at which I stopped to reconnoitre the
scene.
I have described the brook as meandering very irregularly through the
whole of its course. Its two general directions, as I have said, were
first from west to east, and then from north to south. At the turn,
the stream, sweeping backward, made an almost circular loop, so as to
form a peninsula which was very nearly an island, and which included
about the sixteenth of an acre. On this peninsula stood a
dwelling-house -- and when I say that this house, like the infernal
terrace seen by Vathek, "etait d'une architecture inconnue dans les
annales de la terre," I mean, merely, that its tout ensemble struck
me with the keenest sense of combined novelty and propriety -- in a
word, of poetry -- (for, than in the words just employed, I could
scarcely give, of poetry in the abstract, a more rigorous definition)
-- and I do not mean that merely outre was perceptible in any
respect.
In fact nothing could well be more simple -- more utterly
unpretending than this cottage. Its marvellous effect lay altogether
in its artistic arrangement as a picture. I could have fancied, while
I looked at it, that some eminent landscape-painter had built it with
his brush.
The point of view from which I first saw the valley, was not
altogether, although it was nearly, the best point from which to
survey the house. I will therefore describe it as I afterwards saw it
-- from a position on the stone wall at the southern extreme of the
amphitheatre.
The main building was about twenty-four feet long and sixteen broad
-- certainly not more. Its total height, from the ground to the apex
of the roof, could not have exceeded eighteen feet. To the west end
of this structure was attached one about a third smaller in all its
proportions: -- the line of its front standing back about two yards
from that of the larger house, and the line of its roof, of course,
being considerably depressed below that of the roof adjoining. At
right angles to these buildings, and from the rear of the main one --
not exactly in the middle -- extended a third compartment, very small
-- being, in general, one-third less than the western wing. The roofs
of the two larger were very steep -- sweeping down from the
ridge-beam with a long concave curve, and extending at least four
feet beyond the walls in front, so as to form the roofs of two
piazzas. These latter roofs, of course, needed no support; but as
they had the air of needing it, slight and perfectly plain pillars
were inserted at the corners alone. The roof of the northern wing was
merely an extension of a portion of the main roof. Between the chief
building and western wing arose a very tall and rather slender square
chimney of hard Dutch bricks, alternately black and red: -- a slight
cornice of projecting bricks at the top. Over the gables the roofs
also projected very much: -- in the main building about four feet to
the east and two to the west. The principal door was not exactly in
the main division, being a little to the east -- while the two
windows were to the west. These latter did not extend to the floor,
but were much longer and narrower than usual -- they had single
shutters like doors -- the panes were of lozenge form, but quite
large. The door itself had its upper half of glass, also in lozenge
panes -- a movable shutter secured it at night. The door to the west
wing was in its gable, and quite simple -- a single window looked out
to the south. There was no external door to the north wing, and it
also had only one window to the east.
The blank wall of the eastern gable was relieved by stairs (with a
balustrade) running diagonally across it -- the ascent being from the
south. Under cover of the widely projecting eave these steps gave
access to a door leading to the garret, or rather loft -- for it was
lighted only by a single window to the north, and seemed to have been
intended as a store-room.
The piazzas of the main building and western wing had no floors, as
is usual; but at the doors and at each window, large, flat irregular
slabs of granite lay imbedded in the delicious turf, affording
comfortable footing in all weather. Excellent paths of the same
material -- not nicely adapted, but with the velvety sod filling
frequent intervals between the stones, led hither and thither from
the house, to a crystal spring about five paces off, to the road, or
to one or two out -- houses that lay to the north, beyond the brook,
and were thoroughly concealed by a few locusts and catalpas.
Not more than six steps from the main door of the cottage stood the
dead trunk of a fantastic pear-tree, so clothed from head to foot in
the gorgeous bignonia blossoms that one required no little scrutiny
to determine what manner of sweet thing it could be. From various
arms of this tree hung cages of different kinds. In one, a large
wicker cylinder with a ring at top, revelled a mocking bird; in
another an oriole; in a third the impudent bobolink -- while three or
four more delicate prisons were loudly vocal with canaries.
The pillars of the piazza were enwreathed in jasmine and sweet
honeysuckle; while from the angle formed by the main structure and
its west wing, in front, sprang a grape-vine of unexampled
luxuriance. Scorning all restraint, it had clambered first to the
lower roof -- then to the higher; and along the ridge of this latter
it continued to writhe on, throwing out tendrils to the right and
left, until at length it fairly attained the east gable, and fell
trailing over the stairs.
The whole house, with its wings, was constructed of the old-fashioned
Dutch shingles -- broad, and with unrounded corners. It is a
peculiarity of this material to give houses built of it the
appearance of being wider at bottom than at top -- after the manner
of Egyptian architecture; and in the present instance, this
exceedingly picturesque effect was aided by numerous pots of gorgeous
flowers that almost encompassed the base of the buildings.
The shingles were painted a dull gray; and the happiness with which
this neutral tint melted into the vivid green of the tulip tree
leaves that partially overshadowed the cottage, can readily be
conceived by an artist.
From the position near the stone wall, as described, the buildings
were seen at great advantage -- for the southeastern angle was thrown
forward -- so that the eye took in at once the whole of the two
fronts, with the picturesque eastern gable, and at the same time
obtained just a sufficient glimpse of the northern wing, with parts
of a pretty roof to the spring-house, and nearly half of a light
bridge that spanned the brook in the near vicinity of the main
buildings.
I did not remain very long on the brow of the hill, although long
enough to make a thorough survey of the scene at my feet. It was
clear that I had wandered from the road to the village, and I had
thus good traveller's excuse to open the gate before me, and inquire
my way, at all events; so, without more ado, I proceeded.
The road, after passing the gate, seemed to lie upon a natural ledge,
sloping gradually down along the face of the north-eastern cliffs. It
led me on to the foot of the northern precipice, and thence over the
bridge, round by the eastern gable to the front door. In this
progress, I took notice that no sight of the out-houses could be
obtained.
As I turned the corner of the gable, the mastiff bounded towards me
in stern silence, but with the eye and the whole air of a tiger. I
held him out my hand, however, in token of amity -- and I never yet
knew the dog who was proof against such an appeal to his courtesy. He
not only shut his mouth and wagged his tail, but absolutely offered
me his paw-afterward extending his civilities to Ponto.
As no bell was discernible, I rapped with my stick against the door,
which stood half open. Instantly a figure advanced to the threshold
-- that of a young woman about twenty-eight years of age -- slender,
or rather slight, and somewhat above the medium height. As she
approached, with a certain modest decision of step altogether
indescribable. I said to myself, "Surely here I have found the
perfection of natural, in contradistinction from artificial grace."
The second impression which she made on me, but by far the more vivid
of the two, was that of enthusiasm. So intense an expression of
romance, perhaps I should call it, or of unworldliness, as that which
gleamed from her deep-set eyes, had never so sunk into my heart of
hearts before. I know not how it is, but this peculiar expression of
the eye, wreathing itself occasionally into the lips, is the most
powerful, if not absolutely the sole spell, which rivets my interest
in woman. "Romance, provided my readers fully comprehended what I
would here imply by the word -- "romance" and "womanliness" seem to
me convertible terms: and, after all, what man truly loves in woman,
is simply her womanhood. The eyes of Annie (I heard some one from the
interior call her "Annie, darling!") were "spiritual grey;" her hair,
a light chestnut: this is all I had time to observe of her.
At her most courteous of invitations, I entered -- passing first into
a tolerably wide vestibule. Having come mainly to observe, I took
notice that to my right as I stepped in, was a window, such as those
in front of the house; to the left, a door leading into the principal
room; while, opposite me, an open door enabled me to see a small
apartment, just the size of the vestibule, arranged as a study, and
having a large bow window looking out to the north.
Passing into the parlor, I found myself with Mr. Landor -- for this,
I afterwards found, was his name. He was civil, even cordial in his
manner, but just then, I was more intent on observing the
arrangements of the dwelling which had so much interested me, than
the personal appearance of the tenant.
The north wing, I now saw, was a bed-chamber, its door opened into
the parlor. West of this door was a single window, looking toward the
brook. At the west end of the parlor, were a fireplace, and a door
leading into the west wing -- probably a kitchen.
Nothing could be more rigorously simple than the furniture of the
parlor. On the floor was an ingrain carpet, of excellent texture -- a
white ground, spotted with small circular green figures. At the
windows were curtains of snowy white jaconet muslin: they were
tolerably full, and hung decisively, perhaps rather formally in
sharp, parallel plaits to the floor -- just to the floor. The walls
were prepared with a French paper of great delicacy, a silver ground,
with a faint green cord running zig-zag throughout. Its expanse was
relieved merely by three of Julien's exquisite lithographs a trois
crayons, fastened to the wall without frames. One of these drawings
was a scene of Oriental luxury, or rather voluptuousness; another was
a "carnival piece," spirited beyond compare; the third was a Greek
female head -- a face so divinely beautiful, and yet of an expression
so provokingly indeterminate, never before arrested my attention.
The more substantial furniture consisted of a round table, a few
chairs (including a large rocking-chair), and a sofa, or rather
"settee;" its material was plain maple painted a creamy white,
slightly interstriped with green; the seat of cane. The chairs and
table were "to match," but the forms of all had evidently been
designed by the same brain which planned "the grounds;" it is
impossible to conceive anything more graceful.
On the table were a few books, a large, square, crystal bottle of
some novel perfume, a plain ground -- glass astral (not solar) lamp
with an Italian shade, and a large vase of resplendently-blooming
flowers. Flowers, indeed, of gorgeous colours and delicate odour
formed the sole mere decoration of the apartment. The fire-place was
nearly filled with a vase of brilliant geranium. On a triangular
shelf in each angle of the room stood also a similar vase, varied
only as to its lovely contents. One or two smaller bouquets adorned
the mantel, and late violets clustered about the open windows.
It is not the purpose of this work to do more than give in detail, a
picture of Mr. Landor's residence -- as I found it. How he made it
what it was -- and why -- with some particulars of Mr. Landor himself
-- may, possibly form the subject of another article.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
WILLIAM WILSON
What say of it? what say of CONSCIENCE grim,
That spectre in my path?
_Chamberlayne's Pharronida._
LET me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair
page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real
appellation. This has been already too much an object for the scorn
-- for the horror -- for the detestation of my race. To the uttermost
regions of the globe have not the indignant winds bruited its
unparalleled infamy? Oh, outcast of all outcasts most abandoned! --
to the earth art thou not forever dead? to its honors, to its
flowers, to its golden aspirations? -- and a cloud, dense, dismal,
and limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy hopes and
heaven?
I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody a record of my later
years of unspeakable misery, and unpardonable crime. This epoch --
these later years -- took unto themselves a sudden elevation in
turpitude, whose origin alone it is my present purpose to assign. Men
usually grow base by degrees. From me, in an instant, all virtue
dropped bodily as a mantle. From comparatively trivial wickedness I
passed, with the stride of a giant, into more than the enormities of
an Elah-Gabalus. What chance -- what one event brought this evil
thing to pass, bear with me while I relate. Death approaches; and the
shadow which foreruns him has thrown a softening influence over my
spirit. I long, in passing through the dim valley, for the sympathy
-- I had nearly said for the pity -- of my fellow men. I would fain
have them believe that I have been, in some measure, the slave of
circumstances beyond human control. I would wish them to seek out for
me, in the details I am about to give, some little oasis of fatality
amid a wilderness of error. I would have them allow -- what they
cannot refrain from allowing -- that, although temptation may have
erewhile existed as great, man was never thus, at least, tempted
before -- certainly, never thus fell. And is it therefore that he has
never thus suffered? Have I not indeed been living in a dream? And am
I not now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest
of all sublunary visions?
I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative and easily excitable
temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable; and, in my
earliest infancy, I gave evidence of having fully inherited the
family character. As I advanced in years it was more strongly
developed; becoming, for many reasons, a cause of serious disquietude
to my friends, and of positive injury to myself. I grew self-willed,
addicted to the wildest caprices, and a prey to the most ungovernable
passions. Weak-minded, and beset with constitutional infirmities akin
to my own, my parents could do but little to check the evil
propensities which distinguished me. Some feeble and ill-directed
efforts resulted in complete failure on their part, and, of course,
in total triumph on mine. Thenceforward my voice was a household law;
and at an age when few children have abandoned their leading-strings,
I was left to the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but
name, the master of my own actions.
My earliest recollections of a school-life, are connected with a
large, rambling, Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking village of
England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees, and
where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it was a
dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old town. At
this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness of its
deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its thousand
shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight, at the deep
hollow note of the church-bell, breaking, each hour, with sullen and
sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky atmosphere in which the
fretted Gothic steeple lay imbedded and asleep.
It gives me, perhaps, as much of pleasure as I can now in any manner
experience, to dwell upon minute recollections of the school and its
concerns. Steeped in misery as I am -- misery, alas! only too real --
I shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however slight and temporary,
in the weakness of a few rambling details. These, moreover, utterly
trivial, and even ridiculous in themselves, assume, to my fancy,
adventitious importance, as connected with a period and a locality
when and where I recognise the first ambiguous monitions of the
destiny which afterwards so fully overshadowed me. Let me then
remember.
The house, I have said, was old and irregular. The grounds were
extensive, and a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of
mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. This prison-like
rampart formed the limit of our domain; beyond it we saw but thrice a
week -- once every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by two ushers,
we were permitted to take brief walks in a body through some of the
neighbouring fields -- and twice during Sunday, when we were paraded
in the same formal manner to the morning and evening service in the
one church of the village. Of this church the principal of our school
was pastor. With how deep a spirit of wonder and perplexity was I
wont to regard him from our remote pew in the gallery, as, with step
solemn and slow, he ascended the pulpit! This reverend man, with
countenance so demurely benign, with robes so glossy and so
clerically flowing, with wig so minutely powdered, so rigid and so
vast, -- -could this be he who, of late, with sour visage, and in
snuffy habiliments, administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian laws
of the academy? Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for
solution!
At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate. It
was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with jagged
iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did it inspire! It was
never opened save for the three periodical egressions and ingressions
already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty hinges, we
found a plenitude of mystery -- a world of matter for solemn remark,
or for more solemn meditation.
The extensive enclosure was irregular in form, having many capacious
recesses. Of these, three or four of the largest constituted the
play-ground. It was level, and covered with fine hard gravel. I well
remember it had no trees, nor benches, nor anything similar within
it. Of course it was in the rear of the house. In front lay a small
parterre, planted with box and other shrubs; but through this sacred
division we passed only upon rare occasions indeed -- such as a first
advent to school or final departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent
or friend having called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the
Christmas or Midsummer holy-days.
But the house! -- how quaint an old building was this! -- to me how
veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really no end to its
windings -- to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult,
at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its two
stories one happened to be. From each room to every other there were
sure to be found three or four steps either in ascent or descent.
Then the lateral branches were innumerable -- inconceivable -- and so
returning in upon themselves, that our most exact ideas in regard to
the whole mansion were not very far different from those with which
we pondered upon infinity. During the five years of my residence
here, I was never able to ascertain with precision, in what remote
locality lay the little sleeping apartment assigned to myself and
some eighteen or twenty other scholars.
The school-room was the largest in the house -- I could not help
thinking, in the world. It was very long, narrow, and dismally low,
with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In a remote and
terror-inspiring angle was a square enclosure of eight or ten feet,
comprising the sanctum, "during hours," of our principal, the
Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure, with massy door,
sooner than open which in the absence of the "Dominic," we would all
have willingly perished by the peine forte et dure. In other angles
were two other similar boxes, far less reverenced, indeed, but still
greatly matters of awe. One of these was the pulpit of the
"classical" usher, one of the "English and mathematical."
Interspersed about the room, crossing and recrossing in endless
irregularity, were innumerable benches and desks, black, ancient, and
time-worn, piled desperately with much-bethumbed books, and so
beseamed with initial letters, names at full length, grotesque
figures, and other multiplied efforts of the knife, as to have
entirely lost what little of original form might have been their
portion in days long departed. A huge bucket with water stood at one
extremity of the room, and a clock of stupendous dimensions at the
other.
Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable academy, I passed,
yet not in tedium or disgust, the years of the third lustrum of my
life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no external world of
incident to occupy or amuse it; and the apparently dismal monotony of
a school was replete with more intense excitement than my riper youth
has derived from luxury, or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must
believe that my first mental development had in it much of the
uncommon -- even much of the outre. Upon mankind at large the events
of very early existence rarely leave in mature age any definite
impression. All is gray shadow -- a weak and irregular remembrance --
an indistinct regathering of feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric
pains. With me this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the
energy of a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as
vivid, as deep, and as durable as the exergues of the Carthaginian
medals.
Yet in fact -- in the fact of the world's view -- how little was
there to remember! The morning's awakening, the nightly summons to
bed; the connings, the recitations; the periodical half-holidays, and
perambulations; the play-ground, with its broils, its pastimes, its
intrigues; -- these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were made to
involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich incident, an
universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most passionate and
spirit-stirring. "Oh, le bon temps, que ce siecle de fer!"
In truth, the ardor, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness of my
disposition, soon rendered me a marked character among my
schoolmates, and by slow, but natural gradations, gave me an
ascendancy over all not greatly older than myself; -- over all with a
single exception. This exception was found in the person of a
scholar, who, although no relation, bore the same Christian and
surname as myself; -- a circumstance, in fact, little remarkable;
for, notwithstanding a noble descent, mine was one of those everyday
appellations which seem, by prescriptive right, to have been, time
out of mind, the common property of the mob. In this narrative I have
therefore designated myself as William Wilson, -- a fictitious title
not very dissimilar to the real. My namesake alone, of those who in
school phraseology constituted "our set," presumed to compete with me
in the studies of the class -- in the sports and broils of the
play-ground -- to refuse implicit belief in my assertions, and
submission to my will -- indeed, to interfere with my arbitrary
dictation in any respect whatsoever. If there is on earth a supreme
and unqualified despotism, it is the despotism of a master mind in
boyhood over the less energetic spirits of its companions.
Wilson's rebellion was to me a source of the greatest embarrassment;
-- the more so as, in spite of the bravado with which in public I
made a point of treating him and his pretensions, I secretly felt
that I feared him, and could not help thinking the equality which he
maintained so easily with myself, a proof of his true superiority;
since not to be overcome cost me a perpetual struggle. Yet this
superiority -- even this equality -- was in truth acknowledged by no
one but myself; our associates, by some unaccountable blindness,
seemed not even to suspect it. Indeed, his competition, his
resistance, and especially his impertinent and dogged interference
with my purposes, were not more pointed than private. He appeared to
be destitute alike of the ambition which urged, and of the passionate
energy of mind which enabled me to excel. In his rivalry he might
have been supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart,
astonish, or mortify myself; although there were times when I could
not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder, abasement, and
pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his insults, or his
contradictions, a certain most inappropriate, and assuredly most
unwelcome affectionateness of manner. I could only conceive this
singular behavior to arise from a consummate self-conceit assuming
the vulgar airs of patronage and protection.
Perhaps it was this latter trait in Wilson's conduct, conjoined with
our identity of name, and the mere accident of our having entered the
school upon the same day, which set afloat the notion that we were
brothers, among the senior classes in the academy. These do not
usually inquire with much strictness into the affairs of their
juniors. I have before said, or should have said, that Wilson was
not, in the most remote degree, connected with my family. But
assuredly if we had been brothers we must have been twins; for, after
leaving Dr. Bransby's, I casually learned that my namesake was born
on the nineteenth of January, 1813 -- and this is a somewhat
remarkable coincidence; for the day is precisely that of my own
nativity.
It may seem strange that in spite of the continual anxiety occasioned
me by the rivalry of Wilson, and his intolerable spirit of
contradiction, I could not bring myself to hate him altogether. We
had, to be sure, nearly every day a quarrel in which, yielding me
publicly the palm of victory, he, in some manner, contrived to make
me feel that it was he who had deserved it; yet a sense of pride on
my part, and a veritable dignity on his own, kept us always upon what
are called "speaking terms," while there were many points of strong
congeniality in our tempers, operating to awake me in a sentiment
which our position alone, perhaps, prevented from ripening into
friendship. It is difficult, indeed, to define, or even to describe,
my real feelings towards him. They formed a motley and heterogeneous
admixture; -- some petulant animosity, which was not yet hatred, some
esteem, more respect, much fear, with a world of uneasy curiosity. To
the moralist it will be unnecessary to say, in addition, that Wilson
and myself were the most inseparable of companions.
It was no doubt the anomalous state of affairs existing between us,
which turned all my attacks upon him, (and they were many, either
open or covert) into the channel of banter or practical joke (giving
pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather than into a more
serious and determined hostility. But my endeavours on this head were
by no means uniformly successful, even when my plans were the most
wittily concocted; for my namesake had much about him, in character,
of that unassuming and quiet austerity which, while enjoying the
poignancy of its own jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and
absolutely refuses to be laughed at. I could find, indeed, but one
vulnerable point, and that, lying in a personal peculiarity, arising,
perhaps, from constitutional disease, would have been spared by any
antagonist less at his wit's end than myself; -- my rival had a
weakness in the faucal or guttural organs, which precluded him from
raising his voice at any time above a very low whisper. Of this
defect I did not fall to take what poor advantage lay in my power.
Wilson's retaliations in kind were many; and there was one form of
his practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure. How his sagacity
first discovered at all that so petty a thing would vex me, is a
question I never could solve; but, having discovered, he habitually
practised the annoyance. I had always felt aversion to my uncourtly
patronymic, and its very common, if not plebeian praenomen. The words
were venom in my ears; and when, upon the day of my arrival, a second
William Wilson came also to the academy, I felt angry with him for
bearing the name, and doubly disgusted with the name because a
stranger bore it, who would be the cause of its twofold repetition,
who would be constantly in my presence, and whose concerns, in the
ordinary routine of the school business, must inevitably, on account
of the detestable coincidence, be often confounded with my own.
The feeling of vexation thus engendered grew stronger with every
circumstance tending to show resemblance, moral or physical, between
my rival and myself. I had not then discovered the remarkable fact
that we were of the same age; but I saw that we were of the same
height, and I perceived that we were even singularly alike in general
contour of person and outline of feature. I was galled, too, by the
rumor touching a relationship, which had grown current in the upper
forms. In a word, nothing could more seriously disturb me, (although
I scrupulously concealed such disturbance,) than any allusion to a
similarity of mind, person, or condition existing between us. But, in
truth, I had no reason to believe that (with the exception of the
matter of relationship, and in the case of Wilson himself,) this
similarity had ever been made a subject of comment, or even observed
at all by our schoolfellows. That he observed it in all its bearings,
and as fixedly as I, was apparent; but that he could discover in such
circumstances so fruitful a field of annoyance, can only be
attributed, as I said before, to his more than ordinary penetration.
His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself, lay both in
words and in actions; and most admirably did he play his part. My
dress it was an easy matter to copy; my gait and general manner were,
without difficulty, appropriated; in spite of his constitutional
defect, even my voice did not escape him. My louder tones were, of
course, unattempted, but then the key, it was identical; and his
singular whisper, it grew the very echo of my own.
How greatly this most exquisite portraiture harassed me, (for it
could not justly be termed a caricature,) I will not now venture to
describe. I had but one consolation -- in the fact that the
imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone, and that I had to
endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic smiles of my namesake
himself. Satisfied with having produced in my bosom the intended
effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the sting he had
inflicted, and was characteristically disregardful of the public
applause which the success of his witty endeavours might have so
easily elicited. That the school, indeed, did not feel his design,
perceive its accomplishment, and participate in his sneer, was, for
many anxious months, a riddle I could not resolve. Perhaps the
gradation of his copy rendered it not so readily perceptible; or,
more possibly, I owed my security to the master air of the copyist,
who, disdaining the letter, (which in a painting is all the obtuse
can see,) gave but the full spirit of his original for my individual
contemplation and chagrin.
I have already more than once spoken of the disgusting air of
patronage which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent officious
interference withy my will. This interference often took the
ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given, but hinted
or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance which gained strength
as I grew in years. Yet, at this distant day, let me do him the
simple justice to acknowledge that I can recall no occasion when the
suggestions of my rival were on the side of those errors or follies
so usual to his immature age and seeming inexperience; that his moral
sense, at least, if not his general talents and worldly wisdom, was
far keener than my own; and that I might, to-day, have been a better,
and thus a happier man, had I less frequently rejected the counsels
embodied in those meaning whispers which I then but too cordially
hated and too bitterly despised.
As it was, I at length grew restive in the extreme under his
distasteful supervision, and daily resented more and more openly what
I considered his intolerable arrogance. I have said that, in the
first years of our connexion as schoolmates, my feelings in regard to
him might have been easily ripened into friendship: but, in the
latter months of my residence at the academy, although the intrusion
of his ordinary manner had, beyond doubt, in some measure, abated, my
sentiments, in nearly similar proportion, partook very much of
positive hatred. Upon one occasion he saw this, I think, and
afterwards avoided, or made a show of avoiding me.
It was about the same period, if I remember aright, that, in an
altercation of violence with him, in which he was more than usually
thrown off his guard, and spoke and acted with an openness of
demeanor rather foreign to his nature, I discovered, or fancied I
discovered, in his accent, his air, and general appearance, a
something which first startled, and then deeply interested me, by
bringing to mind dim visions of my earliest infancy -- wild, confused
and thronging memories of a time when memory herself was yet unborn.
I cannot better describe the sensation which oppressed me than by
saying that I could with difficulty shake off the belief of my having
been acquainted with the being who stood before me, at some epoch
very long ago -- some point of the past even infinitely remote. The
delusion, however, faded rapidly as it came; and I mention it at all
but to define the day of the last conversation I there held with my
singular namesake.
The huge old house, with its countless subdivisions, had several
large chambers communicating with each other, where slept the greater
number of the students. There were, however, (as must necessarily
happen in a building so awkwardly planned,) many little nooks or
recesses, the odds and ends of the structure; and these the economic
ingenuity of Dr. Bransby had also fitted up as dormitories; although,
being the merest closets, they were capable of accommodating but a
single individual. One of these small apartments was occupied by
Wilson.
One night, about the close of my fifth year at the school, and
immediately after the altercation just mentioned, finding every one
wrapped in sleep, I arose from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole through
a wilderness of narrow passages from my own bedroom to that of my
rival. I had long been plotting one of those ill-natured pieces of
practical wit at his expense in which I had hitherto been so
uniformly unsuccessful. It was my intention, now, to put my scheme in
operation, and I resolved to make him feel the whole extent of the
malice with which I was imbued. Having reached his closet, I
noiselessly entered, leaving the lamp, with a shade over it, on the
outside. I advanced a step, and listened to the sound of his tranquil
breathing. Assured of his being asleep, I returned, took the light,
and with it again approached the bed. Close curtains were around it,
which, in the prosecution of my plan, I slowly and quietly withdrew,
when the bright rays fell vividly upon the sleeper, and my eyes, at
the same moment, upon his countenance. I looked; -- and a numbness,
an iciness of feeling instantly pervaded my frame. My breast heaved,
my knees tottered, my whole spirit became possessed with an
objectless yet intolerable horror. Gasping for breath, I lowered the
lamp in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these -- these the
lineaments of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they were his, but
I shook as if with a fit of the ague in fancying they were not. What
was there about them to confound me in this manner? I gazed; -- while
my brain reeled with a multitude of incoherent thoughts. Not thus he
appeared -- assuredly not thus -- in the vivacity of his waking
hours. The same name! the same contour of person! the same day of
arrival at the academy! And then his dogged and meaningless imitation
of my gait, my voice, my habits, and my manner! Was it, in truth,
within the bounds of human possibility, that what I now saw was the
result, merely, of the habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation?
Awe-stricken, and with a creeping shudder, I extinguished the lamp,
passed silently from the chamber, and left, at once, the halls of
that old academy, never to enter them again.
After a lapse of some months, spent at home in mere idleness, I found
myself a student at Eton. The brief interval had been sufficient to
enfeeble my remembrance of the events at Dr. Bransby's, or at least
to effect a material change in the nature of the feelings with which
I remembered them. The truth -- the tragedy -- of the drama was no
more. I could now find room to doubt the evidence of my senses; and
seldom called up the subject at all but with wonder at extent of
human credulity, and a smile at the vivid force of the imagination
which I hereditarily possessed. Neither was this species of
scepticism likely to be diminished by the character of the life I led
at Eton. The vortex of thoughtless folly into which I there so
immediately and so recklessly plunged, washed away all but the froth
of my past hours, engulfed at once every solid or serious impression,
and left to memory only the veriest levities of a former existence.
I do not wish, however, to trace the course of my miserable
profligacy here -- a profligacy which set at defiance the laws, while
it eluded the vigilance of the institution. Three years of folly,
passed without profit, had but given me rooted habits of vice, and
added, in a somewhat unusual degree, to my bodily stature, when,
after a week of soulless dissipation, I invited a small party of the
most dissolute students to a secret carousal in my chambers. We met
at a late hour of the night; for our debaucheries were to be
faithfully protracted until morning. The wine flowed freely, and
there were not wanting other and perhaps more dangerous seductions;
so that the gray dawn had already faintly appeared in the east, while
our delirious extravagance was at its height. Madly flushed with
cards and intoxication, I was in the act of insisting upon a toast of
more than wonted profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted
by the violent, although partial unclosing of the door of the
apartment, and by the eager voice of a servant from without. He said
that some person, apparently in great haste, demanded to speak with
me in the hall.
Wildly excited with wine, the unexpected interruption rather
delighted than surprised me. I staggered forward at once, and a few
steps brought me to the vestibule of the building. In this low and
small room there hung no lamp; and now no light at all was admitted,
save that of the exceedingly feeble dawn which made its way through
the semi-circular window. As I put my foot over the threshold, I
became aware of the figure of a youth about my own height, and
habited in a white kerseymere morning frock, cut in the novel fashion
of the one I myself wore at the moment. This the faint light enabled
me to perceive; but the features of his face I could not distinguish.
Upon my entering he strode hurriedly up to me, and, seizing me by.
the arm with a gesture of petulant impatience, whispered the words
"William Wilson!" in my ear.
I grew perfectly sober in an instant. There was that in the manner of
the stranger, and in the tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as
he held it between my eyes and the light, which filled me with
unqualified amazement; but it was not this which had so violently
moved me. It was the pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular,
low, hissing utterance; and, above all, it was the character, the
tone, the key, of those few, simple, and familiar, yet whispered
syllables, which came with a thousand thronging memories of bygone
days, and struck upon my soul with the shock of a galvanic battery.
Ere I could recover the use of my senses he was gone.
Although this event failed not of a vivid effect upon my disordered
imagination, yet was it evanescent as vivid. For some weeks, indeed,
I busied myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped in a cloud of
morbid speculation. I did not pretend to disguise from my perception
the identity of the singular individual who thus perseveringly
interfered with my affairs, and harassed me with his insinuated
counsel. But who and what was this Wilson? -- and whence came he? --
and what were his purposes? Upon neither of these points could I be
satisfied; merely ascertaining, in regard to him, that a sudden
accident in his family had caused his removal from Dr. Bransby's
academy on the afternoon of the day in which I myself had eloped. But
in a brief period I ceased to think upon the subject; my attention
being all absorbed in a contemplated departure for Oxford. Thither I
soon went; the uncalculating vanity of my parents furnishing me with
an outfit and annual establishment, which would enable me to indulge
at will in the luxury already so dear to my heart, -- to vie in
profuseness of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the
wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain.
Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional temperament
broke forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned even the common
restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of my revels. But it
were absurd to pause in the detail of my extravagance. Let it
suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-Heroded Herod, and that,
giving name to a multitude of novel follies, I added no brief
appendix to the long catalogue of vices then usual in the most
dissolute university of Europe.
It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so
utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate, as to seek acquaintance
with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession, and, having become
an adept in his despicable science, to practise it habitually as a
means of increasing my already enormous income at the expense of the
weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the
fact. And the very enormity of this offence against all manly and
honourable sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole
reason of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed,
among my most abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed
the clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such
courses, the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson -- the
noblest and most commoner at Oxford -- him whose follies (said his
parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy -- whose
errors but inimitable whim -- whose darkest vice but a careless and
dashing extravagance?
I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when there
came to the university a young parvenu nobleman, Glendinning -- rich,
said report, as Herodes Atticus -- his riches, too, as easily
acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and, of course, marked
him as a fitting subject for my skill. I frequently engaged him in
play, and contrived, with the gambler's usual art, to let him win
considerable sums, the more effectually to entangle him in my snares.
At length, my schemes being ripe, I met him (with the full intention
that this meeting should be final and decisive) at the chambers of a
fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,) equally intimate with both, but who,
to do him Justice, entertained not even a remote suspicion of my
design. To give to this a better colouring, I had contrived to have
assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful
that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and
originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be
brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so
customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder
how any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.
We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at length
effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole antagonist.
The game, too, was my favorite ecarte! The rest of the company,
interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned their own cards,
and were standing around us as spectators. The parvenu, who had been
induced by my artifices in the early part of the evening, to drink
deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild nervousness of
manner for which his intoxication, I thought, might partially, but
could not altogether account. In a very short period he had become my
debtor to a large amount, when, having taken a long draught of port,
he did precisely what I had been coolly anticipating -- he proposed
to double our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of
reluctance, and not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him
into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance,
did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how
entirely the prey was in my toils; in less than an hour he had
quadrupled his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing
the florid tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I
perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say to my
astonishment. Glendinning had been represented to my eager inquiries
as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had as yet lost,
although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed, very seriously
annoy, much less so violently affect him. That he was overcome by the
wine just swallowed, was the idea which most readily presented
itself; and, rather with a view to the preservation of my own
character in the eyes of my associates, than from any less interested
motive, I was about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of
the play, when some expressions at my elbow from among the company,
and an ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning,
gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under
circumstances which, rendering him an object for the pity of all,
should have protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.
What now might have been my conduct it is difficult to say. The
pitiable condition of my dupe had thrown an air of embarrassed gloom
over all; and, for some moments, a profound silence was maintained,
during which I could not help feeling my cheeks tingle with the many
burning glances of scorn or reproach cast upon me by the less
abandoned of the party. I will even own that an intolerable weight of
anxiety was for a brief instant lifted from my bosom by the sudden
and extraordinary interruption which ensued. The wide, heavy folding
doors of the apartment were all at once thrown open, to their full
extent, with a vigorous and rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as
if by magic, every candle in the room. Their light, in dying, enabled
us just to perceive that a stranger had entered, about my own height,
and closely muffled in a cloak. The darkness, however, was now total;
and we could only feel that he was standing in our midst. Before any
one of us could recover from the extreme astonishment into which this
rudeness had thrown all, we heard the voice of the intruder.
"Gentlemen," he said, in a low, distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten
whisper which thrilled to the very marrow of my bones, "Gentlemen, I
make no apology for this behaviour, because in thus behaving, I am
but fulfilling a duty. You are, beyond doubt, uninformed of the true
character of the person who has to-night won at ecarte a large sum of
money from Lord Glendinning. I will therefore put you upon an
expeditious and decisive plan of obtaining this very necessary
information. Please to examine, at your leisure, the inner linings of
the cuff of his left sleeve, and the several little packages which
may be found in the somewhat capacious pockets of his embroidered
morning wrapper."
While he spoke, so profound was the stillness that one might have
heard a pin drop upon the floor. In ceasing, he departed at once, and
as abruptly as he had entered. Can I -- shall I describe my
sensations? -- must I say that I felt all the horrors of the damned?
Most assuredly I had little time given for reflection. Many hands
roughly seized me upon the spot, and lights were immediately
reprocured. A search ensued. In the lining of my sleeve were found
all the court cards essential in ecarte, and, in the pockets of my
wrapper, a number of packs, facsimiles of those used at our sittings,
with the single exception that mine were of the species called,
technically, arrondees; the honours being slightly convex at the
ends, the lower cards slightly convex at the sides. In this
disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary, at the length of the
pack, will invariably find that he cuts his antagonist an honor;
while the gambler, cutting at the breadth, will, as certainly, cut
nothing for his victim which may count in the records of the game.
Any burst of indignation upon this discovery would have affected me
less than the silent contempt, or the sarcastic composure, with which
it was received.
"Mr. Wilson," said our host, stooping to remove from beneath his feet
an exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare furs, "Mr. Wilson, this is
your property." (The weather was cold; and, upon quitting my own
room, I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper, putting it off
upon reaching the scene of play.) "I presume it is supererogatory to
seek here (eyeing the folds of the garment with a bitter smile) for
any farther evidence of your skill. Indeed, we have had enough. You
will see the necessity, I hope, of quitting Oxford -- at all events,
of quitting instantly my chambers."
Abased, humbled to the dust as I then was, it is probable that I
should have resented this galling language by immediate personal
violence, had not my whole attention been at the moment arrested by a
fact of the most startling character. The cloak which I had worn was
of a rare description of fur; how rare, how extravagantly costly, I
shall not venture to say. Its fashion, too, was of my own fantastic
invention; for I was fastidious to an absurd degree of coxcombry, in
matters of this frivolous nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston
reached me that which he had picked up upon the floor, and near the
folding doors of the apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly
bordering upon terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my
arm, (where I had no doubt unwittingly placed it,) and that the one
presented me was but its exact counterpart in every, in even the
minutest possible particular. The singular being who had so
disastrously exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a cloak;
and none had been worn at all by any of the members of our party with
the exception of myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I took the
one offered me by Preston; placed it, unnoticed, over my own; left
the apartment with a resolute scowl of defiance; and, next morning
ere dawn of day, commenced a hurried journey from Oxford to the
continent, in a perfect agony of horror and of shame.
I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation, and
proved, indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion had as
yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had fresh
evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in my
concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain! -- at
Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness,
stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna, too -- at Berlin
-- and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to curse
him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length
flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of
the earth I fled in vain.
And again, and again, in secret communion with my own spirit, would I
demand the questions "Who is he? -- whence came he? -- and what are
his objects?" But no answer was there found. And then I scrutinized,
with a minute scrutiny, the forms, and the methods, and the leading
traits of his impertinent supervision. But even here there was very
little upon which to base a conjecture. It was noticeable, indeed,
that, in no one of the multiplied instances in which he had of late
crossed my path, had he so crossed it except to frustrate those
schemes, or to disturb those actions, which, if fully carried out,
might have resulted in bitter mischief. Poor justification this, in
truth, for an authority so imperiously assumed! Poor indemnity for
natural rights of self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly
denied!
I had also been forced to notice that my tormentor, for a very long
period of time, (while scrupulously and with miraculous dexterity
maintaining his whim of an identity of apparel with myself,) had so
contrived it, in the execution of his varied interference with my
will, that I saw not, at any moment, the features of his face. Be
Wilson what he might, this, at least, was but the veriest of
affectation, or of folly. Could he, for an instant, have supposed
that, in my admonisher at Eton -- in the destroyer of my honor at
Oxford, -- in him who thwarted my ambition at Rome, my revenge at
Paris, my passionate love at Naples, or what he falsely termed my
avarice in Egypt, -- that in this, my arch-enemy and evil genius,
could fall to recognise the William Wilson of my school boy days, --
the namesake, the companion, the rival, -- the hated and dreaded
rival at Dr. Bransby's? Impossible! -- But let me hasten to the last
eventful scene of the drama.
Thus far I had succumbed supinely to this imperious domination. The
sentiment of deep awe with which I habitually regarded the elevated
character, the majestic wisdom, the apparent omnipresence and
omnipotence of Wilson, added to a feeling of even terror, with which
certain other traits in his nature and assumptions inspired me, had
operated, hitherto, to impress me with an idea of my own utter
weakness and helplessness, and to suggest an implicit, although
bitterly reluctant submission to his arbitrary will. But, of late
days, I had given myself up entirely to wine; and its maddening
influence upon my hereditary temper rendered me more and more
impatient of control. I began to murmur, -- to hesitate, -- to
resist. And was it only fancy which induced me to believe that, with
the increase of my own firmness, that of my tormentor underwent a
proportional diminution? Be this as it may, I now began to feel the
inspiration of a burning hope, and at length nurtured in my secret
thoughts a stern and desperate resolution that I would submit no
longer to be enslaved.
It was at Rome, during the Carnival of 18 -- , that I attended a
masquerade in the palazzo of the Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio. I had
indulged more freely than usual in the excesses of the wine-table;
and now the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded rooms irritated me
beyond endurance. The difficulty, too, of forcing my way through the
mazes of the company contributed not a little to the ruffling of my
temper; for I was anxiously seeking, (let me not say with what
unworthy motive) the young, the gay, the beautiful wife of the aged
and doting Di Broglio. With a too unscrupulous confidence she had
previously communicated to me the secret of the costume in which she
would be habited, and now, having caught a glimpse of her person, I
was hurrying to make my way into her presence. -- At this moment I
felt a light hand placed upon my shoulder, and that ever-remembered,
low, damnable whisper within my ear.
In an absolute phrenzy of wrath, I turned at once upon him who had
thus interrupted me, and seized him violently by tile collar. He was
attired, as I had expected, in a costume altogether similar to my
own; wearing a Spanish cloak of blue velvet, begirt about the waist
with a crimson belt sustaining a rapier. A mask of black silk
entirely covered his face.
"Scoundrel!" I said, in a voice husky with rage, while every syllable
I uttered seemed as new fuel to my fury, "scoundrel! impostor!
accursed villain! you shall not -- you shall not dog me unto death!
Follow me, or I stab you where you stand!" -- and I broke my way from
the ball-room into a small ante-chamber adjoining -- dragging him
unresistingly with me as I went.
Upon entering, I thrust him furiously from me. He staggered against
the wall, while I closed the door with an oath, and commanded him to
draw. He hesitated but for an instant; then, with a slight sigh, drew
in silence, and put himself upon his defence.
The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with every species of
wild excitement, and felt within my single arm the energy and power
of a multitude. In a few seconds I forced him by sheer strength
against the wainscoting, and thus, getting him at mercy, plunged my
sword, with brute ferocity, repeatedly through and through his bosom.
At that instant some person tried the latch of the door. I hastened
to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned to my dying
antagonist. But what human language can adequately portray that
astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the spectacle then
presented to view? The brief moment in which I averted my eyes had
been sufficient to produce, apparently, a material change in the
arrangements at the upper or farther end of the room. A large mirror,
-- so at first it seemed to me in my confusion -- now stood where
none had been perceptible before; and, as I stepped up to it in
extremity of terror, mine own image, but with features all pale and
dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me with a feeble and tottering
gait.
Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist -- it was
Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his dissolution.
His mask and cloak lay, where he had thrown them, upon the floor. Not
a thread in all his raiment -- not a line in all the marked and
singular lineaments of his face which was not, even in the most
absolute identity, mine own!
It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could have
fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:
"You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou also
dead -- dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst thou
exist -- and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how
utterly thou hast murdered thyself."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
The Tell-Tale Heart.
TRUE! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and
am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my
senses - not destroyed - not dulled them. Above all was the sense of
hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I
heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe
how healthily - how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once
conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none.
Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.
He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think
it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture - a
pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my
blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually - I made up my
mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye
forever.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you
should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -
with what caution - with what foresight - with what dissimulation I
went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole
week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned
the latch of his door and opened it - oh so gently! And then, when I
had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern,
all closed, closed, that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my
head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in!
I moved it slowly - very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb
the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within
the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha!
would a madman have been so wise as this, And then, when my head was
well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously-oh, so cautiously -
cautiously (for the hinges creaked) - I undid it just so much that a
single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven
long nights - every night just at midnight - but I found the eye
always closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was
not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning,
when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke
courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and
inquiring how he has passed the night. So you see he would have been
a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at
twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.
Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the
door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never
before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers - of my
sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think
that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even
to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the
idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as
if startled. Now you may think that I drew back - but no. His room
was as black as pitch with the thick darkness, (for the shutters were
close fastened, through fear of robbers,) and so I knew that he could
not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily,
steadily.
I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb
slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in bed,
crying out - "Who's there?"
I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not move
a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was
still sitting up in the bed listening; - just as I have done, night
after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.
Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of
mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief - oh, no! - it
was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul
when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just
at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own
bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted
me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied
him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying
awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in the
bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been
trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to
himself - "It is nothing but the wind in the chimney - it is only a
mouse crossing the floor," or "It is merely a cricket which has made
a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with
these suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain;
because Death, in approaching him had stalked with his black shadow
before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful
influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel -
although he neither saw nor heard - to feel the presence of my head
within the room.
When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him
lie down, I resolved to open a little - a very, very little crevice
in the lantern. So I opened it - you cannot imagine how stealthily,
stealthily - until, at length a simple dim ray, like the thread of
the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full upon the vulture
eye.
It was open - wide, wide open - and I grew furious as I gazed upon
it. I saw it with perfect distinctness - all a dull blue, with a
hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I
could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had
directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.
And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but
over-acuteness of the sense? - now, I say, there came to my ears a
low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in
cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the old
man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum
stimulates the soldier into courage.
But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held
the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray
upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It
grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The
old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say,
louder every moment! - do you mark me well I have told you that I am
nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the
dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this
excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I
refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I
thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me - the
sound would be heard by a neighbour! The old man's hour had come!
With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room.
He shrieked once - once only. In an instant I dragged him to the
floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to
find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on
with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be
heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I
removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone
dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes.
There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me
no more.
If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I
describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body.
The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I
dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and the legs.
I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and
deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so
cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye - not even his - could have
detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out - no stain of
any kind - no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A
tub had caught all - ha! ha!
When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock - still
dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking
at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, - for
what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced
themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek
had been heard by a neighbour during the night; suspicion of foul
play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police
office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the
premises.
I smiled, - for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The
shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was
absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade
them search - search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I
showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of
my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here
to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of
my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath
which reposed the corpse of the victim.
The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was
singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they
chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale
and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my
ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more
distinct: - It continued and became more distinct: I talked more
freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained
definiteness - until, at length, I found that the noise was not
within my ears.
No doubt I now grew _very_ pale; - but I talked more fluently, and
with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased - and what could I
do? It was a low, dull, quick sound - much such a sound as a watch
makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath - and yet the
officers heard it not. I talked more quickly - more vehemently; but
the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a
high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily
increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro
with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of the
men - but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I
foamed - I raved - I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been
sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all
and continually increased. It grew louder - louder - louder! And
still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they
heard not? Almighty God! - no, no! They heard! - they suspected! -
they knew! - they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought,
and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything
was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those
hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and
now - again! - hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!
"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! - tear
up the planks! here, here! - It is the beating of his hideous heart!"
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
BERENICE
Dicebant mihi sodales, si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas
aliquantulum forelevatas.
- _Ebn Zaiat_.
MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform.
Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various
as the hues of that arch - as distinct too, yet as intimately
blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow! How is it that
from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness? - from the
covenant of peace, a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a
consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either
the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies
which _are_, have their origin in the ecstasies which _might have
been_.
My baptismal name is Egaeus; that of my family I will not
mention. Yet there are no towers in the land more time-honored than
my gloomy, gray, hereditary halls. Our line has been called a race of
visionaries; and in many striking particulars - in the character of
the family mansion - in the frescos of the chief saloon - in the
tapestries of the dormitories - in the chiselling of some buttresses
in the armory - but more especially in the gallery of antique
paintings - in the fashion of the library chamber - and, lastly, in
the very peculiar nature of the library's contents - there is more
than sufficient evidence to warrant the belief.
The recollections of my earliest years are connected with that
chamber, and with its volumes - of which latter I will say no more.
Here died my mother. Herein was I born. But it is mere idleness to
say that I had not lived before - that the soul has no previous
existence. You deny it? - let us not argue the matter. Convinced
myself, I seek not to convince. There is, however, a remembrance of
aerial forms - of spiritual and meaning eyes - of sounds, musical yet
sad - a remembrance which will not be excluded; a memory like a
shadow - vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like a shadow,
too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight
of my reason shall exist.
In that chamber was I born. Thus awaking from the long night of
what seemed, but was not, nonentity, at once into the very regions of
fairy land - into a palace of imagination - into the wild dominions
of monastic thought and erudition - it is not singular that I gazed
around me with a startled and ardent eye - that I loitered away my
boyhood in books, and dissipated my youth in reverie; but it _is_
singular that as years rolled away, and the noon of manhood found me
still in the mansion of my fathers - it _is_ wonderful what
stagnation there fell upon the springs of my life - wonderful how
total an inversion took place in the character of my commonest
thought. The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as
visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in
turn, not the material of my every-day existence, but in very deed
that existence utterly and solely in itself.
* * * * * * *
Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my
paternal halls. Yet differently we grew - I, ill of health, and
buried in gloom - she, agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy;
hers, the ramble on the hill-side - mine the studies of the cloister;
I, living within my own heart, and addicted, body and soul, to the
most intense and painful meditation - she, roaming carelessly through
life, with no thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent
flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice! -I call upon her name -
Berenice! - and from the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous
recollections are startled at the sound! Ah, vividly is her image
before me now, as in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy!
Oh, gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh, sylph amid the shrubberies of
Arnheim! Oh, Naiad among its fountains! And then - then all is
mystery and terror, and a tale which should not be told. Disease - a
fatal disease, fell like the simoon upon her frame; and, even while I
gazed upon her, the spirit of change swept over her, pervading her
mind, her habits, and her character, and, in a manner the most subtle
and terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person! Alas! the
destroyer came and went! - and the victim -where is she? I knew her
not - or knew her no longer as Berenice.
Among the numerous train of maladies superinduced by that fatal
and primary one which effected a revolution of so horrible a kind in
the moral and physical being of my cousin, may be mentioned as the
most distressing and obstinate in its nature, a species of epilepsy
not unfrequently terminating in _trance_ itself - trance very nearly
resembling positive dissolution, and from which her manner of
recovery was in most instances, startlingly abrupt. In the mean time
my own disease - for I have been told that I should call it by no
other appellation - my own disease, then, grew rapidly upon me, and
assumed finally a monomaniac character of a novel and extraordinary
form - hourly and momently gaining vigor - and at length obtaining
over me the most incomprehensible ascendancy. This monomania, if I
must so term it, consisted in a morbid irritability of those
properties of the mind in metaphysical science termed the
_attentive_. It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I
fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind
of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous
_intensity of interest_ with which, in my case, the powers of
meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves,
in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the
universe.
To muse for long unwearied hours, with my attention riveted to
some frivolous device on the margin, or in the typography of a book;
to become absorbed, for the better part of a summer's day, in a
quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry or upon the floor; to
lose myself, for an entire night, in watching the steady flame of a
lamp, or the embers of a fire; to dream away whole days over the
perfume of a flower; to repeat, monotonously, some common word, until
the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea
whatever to the mind; to lose all sense of motion or physical
existence, by means of absolute bodily quiescence long and
obstinately persevered in: such were a few of the most common and
least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental
faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly
bidding defiance to anything like analysis or explanation.
Yet let me not be misapprehended. The undue, earnest, and morbid
attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous, must
not be confounded in character with that ruminating propensity common
to all mankind, and more especially indulged in by persons of ardent
imagination. It was not even, as might be at first supposed, an
extreme condition, or exaggeration of such propensity, but primarily
and essentially distinct and different. In the one instance, the
dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually _not_
frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wilderness
of deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom, until, at the
conclusion of a day dream _often replete with luxury_, he finds the
_incitamentum_, or first cause of his musings, entirely vanished and
forgotten. In my case, the primary object was _invariably frivolous_,
although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a
refracted and unreal importance. Few deductions, if any, were made;
and those few pertinaciously returning in upon the original object as
a centre. The meditations were _never_ pleasurable; and, at the
termination of the reverie, the first cause, so far from being out of
sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest which
was the prevailing feature of the disease. In a word, the powers of
mind more particularly exercised were, with me, as I have said
before, the _attentive_, and are, with the day-dreamer, the
_speculative_.
My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to
irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in
their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the characteristic
qualities of the disorder itself. I well remember, among others, the
treatise of the noble Italian, Coelius Secundus Curio, "_De
Amplitudine Beati Regni Dei;_" St. Austin's great work, the "City of
God;" and Tertullian's "_De Carne Christi_," in which the paradoxical
sentence "_Mortuus est Dei filius; credible est quia ineptum est: et
sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile est,_" occupied my
undivided time, for many weeks of laborious and fruitless
investigation.
Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivial
things, my reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of by
Ptolemy Hephestion, which steadily resisting the attacks of human
violence, and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds, trembled
only to the touch of the flower called Asphodel. And although, to a
careless thinker, it might appear a matter beyond doubt, that the
alteration produced by her unhappy malady, in the _moral_ condition
of Berenice, would afford me many objects for the exercise of that
intense and abnormal meditation whose nature I have been at some
trouble in explaining, yet such was not in any degree the case. In
the lucid intervals of my infirmity, her calamity, indeed, gave me
pain, and, taking deeply to heart that total wreck of her fair and
gentle life, I did not fall to ponder, frequently and bitterly, upon
the wonder-working means by which so strange a revolution had been so
suddenly brought to pass. But these reflections partook not of the
idiosyncrasy of my disease, and were such as would have occurred,
under similar circumstances, to the ordinary mass of mankind. True to
its own character, my disorder revelled in the less important but
more startling changes wrought in the _physical_ frame of Berenice -
in the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal
identity.
During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely
I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence,
feelings with me, _had never been_ of the heart, and my passions
_always were_ of the mind. Through the gray of the early morning -
among the trellised shadows of the forest at noonday - and in the
silence of my library at night - she had flitted by my eyes, and I
had seen her - not as the living and breathing Berenice, but as the
Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the
abstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire, but to
analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most
abstruse although desultory speculation. And _now_ - now I shuddered
in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet, bitterly
lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that
she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to her of
marriage.
And at length the period of our nuptials was approaching, when,
upon an afternoon in the winter of the year - one of those
unseasonably warm, calm, and misty days which are the nurse of the
beautiful Halcyon {*1}, - I sat, (and sat, as I thought, alone,) in
the inner apartment of the library. But, uplifting my eyes, I saw
that Berenice stood before me.
Was it my own excited imagination - or the misty influence of the
atmosphere - or the uncertain twilight of the chamber - or the gray
draperies which fell around her figure - that caused in it so
vacillating and indistinct an outline? I could not tell. She spoke no
word; and I - not for worlds could I have uttered a syllable. An icy
chill ran through my frame; a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed
me; a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and sinking back upon the
chair, I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my
eyes riveted upon her person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and
not one vestige of the former being lurked in any single line of the
contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face.
The forehead was high, and very pale, and singularly placid; and
the once jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed the
hollow temples with innumerable ringlets, now of a vivid yellow, and
jarring discordantly, in their fantastic character, with the reigning
melancholy of the countenance. The eyes were lifeless, and
lustreless, and seemingly pupilless, and I shrank involuntarily from
their glassy stare to he contemplation of the thin and shrunken
lips. They parted; and in a smile of peculiar meaning, _the teeth_ of
the changed Berenice disclosed themselves slowly to my view. Would to
God that I had never beheld them, or that, having done so, I had
died!
* * * * * * *
The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found
that my cousin had departed from the chamber. But from the disordered
chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be driven
away, the white and ghastly _spectrum_ of the teeth. Not a speck on
their surface - not a shade on their enamel - not an indenture in
their edges - but what that period of her smile had sufficed to brand
in upon my memory. I saw them _now_ even more unequivocally than I
beheld them _then_. The teeth! - the teeth! - they were here, and
there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long,
narrow, and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about
them, as in the very moment of their first terrible development. Then
came the full fury of my _monomania_, and I struggled in vain against
its strange and irresistible influence. In the multiplied objects of
the external world I had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these I
longed with a phrenzied desire. All other matters and all different
interests became absorbed in their single contemplation. They - they
alone were present to the mental eye, and they, in their sole
individuality, became the essence of my mental life. I held them in
every light. I turned them in every attitude. I surveyed their
characteristics. I dwelt upon their peculiarities. I pondered upon
their conformation. I mused upon the alteration in their nature. I
shuddered as I assigned to them in imagination a sensitive and
sentient power, and even when unassisted by the lips, a capability of
moral expression. Of Mademoiselle Salle it has been well said, "_Que
tous ses pas etaient des sentiments_," and of Berenice I more
seriously believed _que toutes ses dents etaient des idees_. _Des
idees!_ - ah here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me! _Des
idees!_ - ah _therefore_ it was that I coveted them so madly! I felt
that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace, in giving
me back to reason.
And the evening closed in upon me thus - and then the darkness
came, and tarried, and went - and the day again dawned - and the
mists of a second night were now gathering around - and still I sat
motionless in that solitary room - and still I sat buried in
meditation - and still the _phantasma_ of the teeth maintained its
terrible ascendancy, as, with the most vivid hideous distinctness, it
floated about amid the changing lights and shadows of the chamber. At
length there broke in upon my dreams a cry as of horror and dismay;
and thereunto, after a pause, succeeded the sound of troubled voices,
intermingled with many low moanings of sorrow or of pain. I arose
from my seat, and throwing open one of the doors of the library, saw
standing out in the ante-chamber a servant maiden, all in tears, who
told me that Berenice was - no more! She had been seized with
epilepsy in the early morning, and now, at the closing in of the
night, the grave was ready for its tenant, and all the preparations
for the burial were completed.
* * * * * * *
I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there
alone. It seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and
exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well
aware, that since the setting of the sun, Berenice had been interred.
But of that dreary period which intervened I had no positive, at
least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with
horror - horror more horrible from being vague, and terror more
terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the record my
existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible
recollections. I strived to decypher them, but in vain; while ever
and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill and
piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears. I
had done a deed - what was it? I asked myself the question aloud, and
the whispering echoes of the chamber answered me, - "_what was it?_"
On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little
box. It was of no remarkable character, and I had seen it frequently
before, for it was the property of the family physician; but how came
it _there_, upon my table, and why did I shudder in regarding it?
These things were in no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at
length dropped to the open pages of a book, and to a sentence
underscored therein. The words were the singular but simple ones of
the poet Ebn Zaiat: - "_Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae
visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas_." Why then, as I
perused them, did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end, and
the blood of my body become congealed within my veins?
There came a light tap at the library door - and, pale as the
tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were wild
with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very
low. What said he? - some broken sentences I heard. He told of a wild
cry disturbing the silence of the night - of the gathering together
of the household - of a search in the direction of the sound; and
then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a
violated grave - of a disfigured body enshrouded, yet still breathing
- still palpitating - _still alive_!
He pointed to garments; - they were muddy and clotted with gore.
I spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand: it was indented with
the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some object
against the wall. I looked at it for some minutes: it was a spade.
With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the box that lay
upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my tremor, it slipped
from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it,
with a rattling sound, there rolled out some instruments of dental
surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking
substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
ELEONORA
Sub conservatione formae specificae salva anima.
_ Raymond Lully_ .
I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion.
Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether
madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence -- whether much that
is glorious- whether all that is profound -- does not spring from
disease of thought -- from moods of mind exalted at the expense of
the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many
things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray
visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in awakening,
to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In
snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and
more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however,
rudderless or compassless into the vast ocean of the "light
ineffable," and again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer,
"agressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi."
We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there are
two distinct conditions of my mental existence -- the condition of a
lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the memory of
events forming the first epoch of my life -- and a condition of
shadow and doubt, appertaining to the present, and to the
recollection of what constitutes the second great era of my being.
Therefore, what I shall tell of the earlier period, believe; and to
what I may relate of the later time, give only such credit as may
seem due, or doubt it altogether, or, if doubt it ye cannot, then
play unto its riddle the Oedipus.
She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen calmly and
distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter of the only
sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my
cousin. We had always dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun, in
the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. No unguided footstep ever came
upon that vale; for it lay away up among a range of giant hills that
hung beetling around about it, shutting out the sunlight from its
sweetest recesses. No path was trodden in its vicinity; and, to reach
our happy home, there was need of putting back, with force, the
foliage of many thousands of forest trees, and of crushing to death
the glories of many millions of fragrant flowers. Thus it was that we
lived all alone, knowing nothing of the world without the valley --
I, and my cousin, and her mother.
From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our
encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter
than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding stealthily about in
mazy courses, it passed away, at length, through a shadowy gorge,
among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called
it the "River of Silence"; for there seemed to be a hushing influence
in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered
along, that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down
within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless
content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.
The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets that
glided through devious ways into its channel, as well as the spaces
that extended from the margins away down into the depths of the
streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the bottom, -- these
spots, not less than the whole surface of the valley, from the river
to the mountains that girdled it in, were carpeted all by a soft
green grass, thick, short, perfectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, but
so besprinkled throughout with the yellow buttercup, the white daisy,
the purple violet, and the ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding
beauty spoke to our hearts in loud tones, of the love and of the
glory of God.
And, here and there, in groves about this grass, like wildernesses of
dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall slender stems stood not
upright, but slanted gracefully toward the light that peered at
noon-day into the centre of the valley. Their mark was speckled with
the vivid alternate splendor of ebony and silver, and was smoother
than all save the cheeks of Eleonora; so that, but for the brilliant
green of the huge leaves that spread from their summits in long,
tremulous lines, dallying with the Zephyrs, one might have fancied
them giant serpents of Syria doing homage to their sovereign the Sun.
Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I with
Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It was one evening at
the close of the third lustrum of her life, and of the fourth of my
own, that we sat, locked in each other's embrace, beneath the
serpent-like trees, and looked down within the water of the River of
Silence at our images therein. We spoke no words during the rest of
that sweet day, and our words even upon the morrow were tremulous and
few. We had drawn the God Eros from that wave, and now we felt that
he had enkindled within us the fiery souls of our forefathers. The
passions which had for centuries distinguished our race, came
thronging with the fancies for which they had been equally noted, and
together breathed a delirious bliss over the Valley of the
Many-Colored Grass. A change fell upon all things. Strange, brilliant
flowers, star-shaped, burn out upon the trees where no flowers had
been known before. The tints of the green carpet deepened; and when,
one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in place
of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life arose in our
paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with all gay glowing
birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us. The golden and silver
fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of which issued, little by
little, a murmur that swelled, at length, into a lulling melody more
divine than that of the harp of Aeolus-sweeter than all save the
voice of Eleonora. And now, too, a voluminous cloud, which we had
long watched in the regions of Hesper, floated out thence, all
gorgeous in crimson and gold, and settling in peace above us, sank,
day by day, lower and lower, until its edges rested upon the tops of
the mountains, turning all their dimness into magnificence, and
shutting us up, as if forever, within a magic prison-house of
grandeur and of glory.
The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but she was a
maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among the
flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of love which animated her
heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we walked
together in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, and discoursed of
the mighty changes which had lately taken place therein.
At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad change
which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt only upon this
one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all our converse, as, in
the songs of the bard of Schiraz, the same images are found
occurring, again and again, in every impressive variation of phrase.
She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosom -- that,
like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in loveliness only to
die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay solely in a
consideration which she revealed to me, one evening at twilight, by
the banks of the River of Silence. She grieved to think that, having
entombed her in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, I would quit
forever its happy recesses, transferring the love which now was so
passionately her own to some maiden of the outer and everyday world.
And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly at the feet of
Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to Heaven, that I
would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of Earth -- that
I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the
memory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. And I
called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe to witness the pious
solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of Him and of her,
a saint in Helusion should I prove traitorous to that promise,
involved a penalty the exceeding great horror of which will not
permit me to make record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora
grew brighter at my words; and she sighed as if a deadly burthen had
been taken from her breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept;
but she made acceptance of the vow, (for what was she but a child?)
and it made easy to her the bed of her death. And she said to me, not
many days afterward, tranquilly dying, that, because of what I had
done for the comfort of her spirit she would watch over me in that
spirit when departed, and, if so it were permitted her return to me
visibly in the watches of the night; but, if this thing were, indeed,
beyond the power of the souls in Paradise, that she would, at least,
give me frequent indications of her presence, sighing upon me in the
evening winds, or filling the air which I breathed with perfume from
the censers of the angels. And, with these words upon her lips, she
yielded up her innocent life, putting an end to the first epoch of my
own.
Thus far I have faithfully said. But as I pass the barrier in Times
path, formed by the death of my beloved, and proceed with the second
era of my existence, I feel that a shadow gathers over my brain, and
I mistrust the perfect sanity of the record. But let me on. -- Years
dragged themselves along heavily, and still I dwelled within the
Valley of the Many-Colored Grass; but a second change had come upon
all things. The star-shaped flowers shrank into the stems of the
trees, and appeared no more. The tints of the green carpet faded;
and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels withered away; and there
sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten, dark, eye-like violets, that
writhed uneasily and were ever encumbered with dew. And Life departed
from our paths; for the tall flamingo flaunted no longer his scarlet
plumage before us, but flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with
all the gay glowing birds that had arrived in his company. And the
golden and silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end
of our domain and bedecked the sweet river never again. And the
lulling melody that had been softer than the wind-harp of Aeolus, and
more divine than all save the voice of Eleonora, it died little by
little away, in murmurs growing lower and lower, until the stream
returned, at length, utterly, into the solemnity of its original
silence. And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose, and,
abandoning the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, fell back
into the regions of Hesper, and took away all its manifold golden and
gorgeous glories from the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.
Yet the promises of Eleonora were not forgotten; for I heard the
sounds of the swinging of the censers of the angels; and streams of a
holy perfume floated ever and ever about the valley; and at lone
hours, when my heart beat heavily, the winds that bathed my brow came
unto me laden with soft sighs; and indistinct murmurs filled often
the night air, and once -- oh, but once only! I was awakened from a
slumber, like the slumber of death, by the pressing of spiritual lips
upon my own.
But the void within my heart refused, even thus, to be filled. I
longed for the love which had before filled it to overflowing. At
length the valley pained me through its memories of Eleonora, and I
left it for ever for the vanities and the turbulent triumphs of the
world.
I found myself within a strange city, where all things might have
served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams I had dreamed so
long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. The pomps and
pageantries of a stately court, and the mad clangor of arms, and the
radiant loveliness of women, bewildered and intoxicated my brain. But
as yet my soul had proved true to its vows, and the indications of
the presence of Eleonora were still given me in the silent hours of
the night. Suddenly these manifestations they ceased, and the world
grew dark before mine eyes, and I stood aghast at the burning
thoughts which possessed, at the terrible temptations which beset me;
for there came from some far, far distant and unknown land, into the
gay court of the king I served, a maiden to whose beauty my whole
recreant heart yielded at once -- at whose footstool I bowed down
without a struggle, in the most ardent, in the most abject worship of
love. What, indeed, was my passion for the young girl of the valley
in comparison with the fervor, and the delirium, and the
spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration with which I poured out my whole
soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde? -- Oh, bright
was the seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had room for none
other. -- Oh, divine was the angel Ermengarde! and as I looked down
into the depths of her memorial eyes, I thought only of them -- and
of her.
I wedded; -- nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness
was not visited upon me. And once -- but once again in the silence of
the night; there came through my lattice the soft sighs which had
forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into familiar and sweet
voice, saying:
"Sleep in peace! -- for the Spirit of Love reigneth and ruleth, and,
in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Ermengarde, thou art
absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in Heaven, of
thy vows unto Eleonora."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
Notes to This Volume
Notes --- Scherezade
{*1} The coralites.
{*2} "One of the most remarkable natural curiosities in Texas is a
petrified forest, near the head of Pasigno river. It consists of
several hundred trees, in an erect position, all turned to stone.
Some trees, now growing, are partly petrified. This is a startling
fact for natural philosophers, and must cause them to modify the
existing theory of petrification. -- _Kennedy_.
This account, at first discredited, has since been corroborated by
the discovery of a completely petrified forest, near the head waters
of the Cheyenne, or Chienne river, which has its source in the Black
Hills of the rocky chain.
There is scarcely, perhaps, a spectacle on the surface of the globe
more remarkable, either in a geological or picturesque point of view
than that presented by the petrified forest, near Cairo. The
traveller, having passed the tombs of the caliphs, just beyond the
gates of the city, proceeds to the southward, nearly at right angles
to the road across the desert to Suez, and after having travelled
some ten miles up a low barren valley, covered with sand, gravel, and
sea shells, fresh as if the tide had retired but yesterday, crosses a
low range of sandhills, which has for some distance run parallel to
his path. The scene now presented to him is beyond conception
singular and desolate. A mass of fragments of trees, all converted
into stone, and when struck by his horse's hoof ringing like cast
iron, is seen to extend itself for miles and miles around him, in the
form of a decayed and prostrate forest. The wood is of a dark brown
hue, but retains its form in perfection, the pieces being from one to
fifteen feet in length, and from half a foot to three feet in
thickness, strewed so closely together, as far as the eye can reach,
that an Egyptian donkey can scarcely thread its way through amongst
them, and so natural that, were it in Scotland or Ireland, it might
pass without remark for some enormous drained bog, on which the
exhumed trees lay rotting in the sun. The roots and rudiments of the
branches are, in many cases, nearly perfect, and in some the
worm-holes eaten under the bark are readily recognizable. The most
delicate of the sap vessels, and all the finer portions of the centre
of the wood, are perfectly entire, and bear to be examined with the
strongest magnifiers. The whole are so thoroughly silicified as to
scratch glass and are capable of receiving the highest polish.--
_Asiatic Magazine_.
{*3} The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.
{*4} In Iceland, 1783.
{*5} "During the eruption of Hecla, in 1766, clouds of this kind
produced such a degree of darkness that, at Glaumba, which is more
than fifty leagues from the mountain, people could only find their
way by groping. During the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1794, at Caserta,
four leagues distant, people could only walk by the light of torches.
On the first of May, 1812, a cloud of volcanic ashes and sand, coming
from a volcano in the island of St. Vincent, covered the whole of
Barbadoes, spreading over it so intense a darkness that, at mid-day,
in the open air, one could not perceive the trees or other objects
near him, or even a white handkerchief placed at the distance of six
inches from the eye._" -- Murray, p. 215, Phil. edit._
{*6} In the year 1790, in the Caraccas during an earthquake a portion
of the granite soil sank and left a lake eight hundred yards in
diameter, and from eighty to a hundred feet deep. It was a part of
the forest of Aripao which sank, and the trees remained green for
several months under the water." -- _Murray_, p. 221
{*7} The hardest steel ever manufactured may, under the action of a
blowpipe, be reduced to an impalpable powder, which will float
readily in the atmospheric air.
{*8} The region of the Niger. See Simmona's _Colonial Magazine_ .
{*9} The Myrmeleon-lion-ant. The term "monster" is equally applicable
to small abnormal things and to great, while such epithets as "vast"
are merely comparative. The cavern of the myrmeleon is vast in
comparison with the hole of the common red ant. A grain of silex is
also a "rock."
{*10} The _Epidendron, Flos Aeris,_ of the family of the _Orchideae_,
grows with merely the surface of its roots attached to a tree or
other object, from which it derives no nutriment -- subsisting
altogether upon air.
{*11} The _Parasites,_ such as the wonderful _Rafflesia Arnaldii_.
{*12} _Schouw_ advocates a class of plants that grow upon living
animals -- the _Plantae_ _Epizoae_. Of this class are the _Fuci_ and
_Algae_.
_Mr. J. B. Williams, of Salem, Mass._, presented the "National
Institute" with an insect from New Zealand, with the following
description: " '_The Hotte_, a decided caterpillar, or worm, is found
gnawing at the root of the _Rota_ tree, with a plant growing out of
its head. This most peculiar and extraordinary insect travels up both
the _Rota_ and _Ferriri_ trees, and entering into the top, eats its
way, perforating the trunk of the trees until it reaches the root, and
dies, or remains dormant, and the plant propagates out of its head;
the body remains perfect and entire, of a harder substance than when
alive. From this insect the natives make a coloring for tattooing.
{*13} In mines and natural caves we find a species of cryptogamous
_fungus_ that emits an intense phosphorescence.
{*14} The orchis, scabius and valisneria.
{*15} The corolla of this flower (_Aristolochia Clematitis_), which
is tubular, but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is inflated
into a globular figure at the base. The tubular part is internally
beset with stiff hairs, pointing downwards. The globular part
contains the pistil, which consists merely of a germen and stigma,
together with the surrounding stamens. But the stamens, being shorter
than the germen, cannot discharge the pollen so as to throw it upon
the stigma, as the flower stands always upright till after
impregnation. And hence, without some additional and peculiar aid,
the pollen must necessarily fan down to the bottom of the flower.
Now, the aid that nature has furnished in this case, is that of the
_Tiputa Pennicornis_, a small insect, which entering the tube of the
corrolla in quest of honey, descends to the bottom, and rummages
about till it becomes quite covered with pollen; but not being able
to force its way out again, owing to the downward position of the
hairs, which converge to a point like the wires of a mouse-trap, and
being somewhat impatient of its confinement it brushes backwards and
forwards, trying every corner, till, after repeatedly traversing the
stigma, it covers it with pollen sufficient for its impregnation, in
consequence of which the flower soon begins to droop, and the hairs
to shrink to the sides of the tube, effecting an easy passage for the
escape of the insect." --_Rev. P. Keith-System of Physiological
Botany_.
{*16} The bees -- ever since bees were -- have been constructing
their cells with just such sides, in just such number, and at just
such inclinations, as it has been demonstrated (in a problem
involving the profoundest mathematical principles) are the very
sides, in the very number, and at the very angles, which will afford
the creatures the most room that is compatible with the greatest
stability of structure.
During the latter part of the last century, the question arose among
mathematicians--"to determine the best form that can be given to the
sails of a windmill, according to their varying distances from the
revolving vanes, and likewise from the centres of the revoloution."
This is an excessively complex problem, for it is, in other words, to
find the best possible position at an infinity of varied distances
and at an infinity of points on the arm. There were a thousand futile
attempts to answer the query on the part of the most illustrious
mathematicians, and when at length, an undeniable solution was
discovered, men found that the wings of a bird had given it with
absolute precision ever since the first bird had traversed the air.
{*17} He observed a flock of pigeons passing betwixt Frankfort and
the Indian territory, one mile at least in breadth; it took up four
hours in passing, which, at the rate of one mile per minute, gives a
length of 240 miles; and, supposing three pigeons to each square
yard, gives 2,230,272,000 Pigeons. -- "_Travels in Canada and the
United States," by Lieut. F. Hall._
{*18} The earth is upheld by a cow of a blue color, having horns four
hundred in number." -- _Sale's Koran_.
{*19} "The _Entozoa_, or intestinal worms, have repeatedly been
observed in the muscles, and in the cerebral substance of men." --
See Wyatt's Physiology, p. 143.
{*20} On the Great Western Railway, between London and Exeter, a
speed of 71 miles per hour has been attained. A train weighing 90
tons was whirled from Paddington to Didcot (53 miles) in 51 minutes.
{*21} The _Eccalobeion_
{*22} Maelzel's Automaton Chess-player.
{*23} Babbage's Calculating Machine.
{*24} _Chabert_, and since him, a hundred others.
{*25} The Electrotype.
{*26} _Wollaston_ made of platinum for the field of views in a
telescope a wire one eighteen-thousandth part of an inch in
thickness. It could be seen only by means of the microscope.
{*27} Newton demonstrated that the retina beneath the influence of
the violet ray of the spectrum, vibrated 900,000,000 of times in a
second.
{*28} Voltaic pile.
{*29} The Electro Telegraph Printing Apparatus.
{*30} The Electro telegraph transmits intelligence instantaneously-
at least at so far as regards any distance upon the earth.
{*31} Common experiments in Natural Philosophy. If two red rays from
two luminous points be admitted into a dark chamber so as to fall on
a white surface, and differ in their length by 0.0000258 of an inch,
their intensity is doubled. So also if the difference in length be
any whole-number multiple of that fraction. A multiple by 2 1/4, 3
1/4, &c., gives an intensity equal to one ray only; but a multiple by
2 1/2, 3 1/2, &c., gives the result of total darkness. In violet rays
similar effects arise when the difference in length is 0.000157 of an
inch; and with all other rays the results are the same -- the
difference varying with a uniform increase from the violet to the red.
{*32} Place a platina crucible over a spirit lamp, and keep it a red
heat; pour in some sulphuric acid, which, though the most volatile of
bodies at a common temperature, will be found to become completely
fixed in a hot crucible, and not a drop evaporates -- being
surrounded by an atmosphere of its own, it does not, in fact, touch
the sides. A few drops of water are now introduced, when the acid,
immediately coming in contact with the heated sides of the crucible,
flies off in sulphurous acid vapor, and so rapid is its progress,
that the caloric of the water passes off with it, which falls a lump
of ice to the bottom; by taking advantage of the moment before it is
allowed to remelt, it may be turned out a lump of ice from a red-hot
vessel.
{*33} The Daguerreotype.
{*34) Although light travels 167,000 miles in a second, the distance
of 61 Cygni (the only star whose distance is ascertained) is so
inconceivably great, that its rays would require more than ten years
to reach the earth. For stars beyond this, 20 -- or even 1000 years
-- would be a moderate estimate. Thus, if they had been annihilated
20, or 1000 years ago, we might still see them to-day by the light
which started from their surfaces 20 or 1000 years in the past time.
That many which we see daily are really extinct, is not impossible --
not even improbable.
Notes--Maelstrom
{*1} See Archimedes, "_De Incidentibus in Fluido_." - lib. 2.
Notes--Island of the Fay
{*1} Moraux is here derived from moeurs, and its meaning is
"fashionable" or more strictly "of manners."
{*2} Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise "De Situ
Orbis," says "either the world is a great animal, or" etc
{*3} Balzac--in substance--I do not remember the words
{*4} Florem putares nare per liquidum aethera. -- P. Commire.
Notes-- Domain of Arnheim
{*1} An incident, similar in outline to the one here imagined,
occurred, not very long ago, in England. The name of the fortunate
heir was Thelluson. I first saw an account of this matter in the
"Tour" of Prince Puckler Muskau, who makes the sum inherited _ninety
millions of pounds_, and justly observes that "in the contemplation
of so vast a sum, and of the services to which it might be applied,
there is something even of the sublime." To suit the views of this
article I have followed the Prince's statement, although a grossly
exaggerated one. The germ, and in fact, the commencement of the
present paper was published many years ago -- previous to the issue
of the first number of Sue's admirable _Juif Errant_, which may
possibly have been suggested to him by Muskau's account.
Notes--Berenice
{*1} For as Jove, during the winter season, gives twice seven days of
warmth, men have called this element and temperate time the nurse of
the beautiful Halcyon -- _Simonides_
End of Notes to Volume Two
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 2
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 3
Volume 3 of the Raven Edition
#8 in our series by Edgar Allan Poe
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[Redactor's Note: This is Volume III of the "Raven Edition" of the
Works of Poe. The notes to PYM are at the end of that novella. There
are no other notes in this volume. III. Figures in Chapter 23 are
included as "tiff" and "jpeg" files, as are the hieroglyphics in
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THE WORKS OF
EDGAR ALLAN POE
IN FIVE VOLUMES
Contents Volume III
Narrative of A. Gordon Pym
Ligeia
Morella
A Tale of the Ragged Mountains
The Spectacles
King Pest
Three Sundays in a Week
NARRATIVE OF A. GORDON PYM
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
UPON my return to the United States a few months ago, after the
extraordinary series of adventure in the South Seas and elsewhere, of
which an account is given in the following pages, accident threw me
into the society of several gentlemen in Richmond, Va., who felt deep
interest in all matters relating to the regions I had visited, and
who were constantly urging it upon me, as a duty, to give my
narrative to the public. I had several reasons, however, for
declining to do so, some of which were of a nature altogether
private, and concern no person but myself; others not so much so. One
consideration which deterred me was that, having kept no journal
during a greater portion of the time in which I was absent, I feared
I should not be able to write, from mere memory, a statement so
minute and connected as to have the _appearance _of that truth it
would really possess, barring only the natural and unavoidable
exaggeration to which all of us are prone when detailing events which
have had powerful influence in exciting the imaginative faculties.
Another reason was, that the incidents to be narrated were of a
nature so positively marvellous that, unsupported as my assertions
must necessarily be (except by the evidence of a single individual,
and he a half-breed Indian), I could only hope for belief among my
family, and those of my friends who have had reason, through life, to
put faith in my veracity-the probability being that the public at
large would regard what I should put forth as merely an impudent and
ingenious fiction. A distrust in my own abilities as a writer was,
nevertheless, one of the principal causes which prevented me from
complying with the suggestions of my advisers.
Among those gentlemen in Virginia who expressed the greatest interest
in my statement, more particularly in regard to that portion of it
which related to the Antarctic Ocean, was Mr. Poe, lately editor of
the "Southern Literary Messenger," a monthly magazine, published by
Mr. Thomas W. White, in the city of Richmond. He strongly advised me,
among others, to prepare at once a full account of what I had seen
and undergone, and trust to the shrewdness and common-sense of the
public-insisting, with great plausibility, that however roughly, as
regards mere authorship, my book should be got up, its very
uncouthness, if there were any, would give it all the better chance
of being received as truth.
Notwithstanding this representation, I did not make up my mind to do
as he suggested. He afterward proposed (finding that I would not stir
in the matter) that I should allow him to draw up, in his own words,
a narrative of the earlier portion of my adventures, from facts
afforded by myself, publishing it in the "Southern Messenger" _under
the garb of fiction. _To this, perceiving no objection, I consented,
stipulating only that my real name should be retained. Two numbers of
the pretended fiction appeared, consequently, in the "Messenger" for
January and February (1837), and, in order that it might certainly be
regarded as fiction, the name of Mr. Poe was affixed to the articles
in the table of contents of the magazine.
The manner in which this ruse was received has induced me at length
to undertake a regular compilation and publication of the adventures
in question; for I found that, in spite of the air of fable which had
been so ingeniously thrown around that portion of my statement which
appeared in the "Messenger" (without altering or distorting a single
fact), the public were still not at all disposed to receive it as
fable, and several letters were sent to Mr. P.'s address, distinctly
expressing a conviction to the contrary. I thence concluded that the
facts of my narrative would prove of such a nature as to carry with
them sufficient evidence of their own authenticity, and that I had
consequently little to fear on the score of popular incredulity.
This_ exposé _being made, it will be seen at once how much of what
follows I claim to be my own writing; and it will also be understood
that no fact is misrepresented in the first few pages which were
written by Mr. Poe. Even to those readers who have not seen the
"Messenger," it will be unnecessary to point out where his portion
ends and my own commences; the difference in point of style will be
readily perceived.
A. G. PYM.
CHAPTER 1
MY name is Arthur Gordon Pym. My father was a respectable trader
in sea-stores at Nantucket, where I was born. My maternal grandfather
was an attorney in good practice. He was fortunate in every thing,
and had speculated very successfully in stocks of the Edgarton New
Bank, as it was formerly called. By these and other means he had
managed to lay by a tolerable sum of money. He was more attached to
myself, I believe, than to any other person in the world, and I
expected to inherit the most of his property at his death. He sent
me, at six years of age, to the school of old Mr. Ricketts, a
gentleman with only one arm and of eccentric manners -- he is well
known to almost every person who has visited New Bedford. I stayed at
his school until I was sixteen, when I left him for Mr. E. Ronald's
academy on the hill. Here I became intimate with the son of Mr.
Barnard, a sea-captain, who generally sailed in the employ of Lloyd
and Vredenburgh -- Mr. Barnard is also very well known in New
Bedford, and has many relations, I am certain, in Edgarton. His son
was named Augustus, and he was nearly two years older than myself. He
had been on a whaling voyage with his father in the John Donaldson,
and was always talking to me of his adventures in the South Pacific
Ocean. I used frequently to go home with him, and remain all day, and
sometimes all night. We occupied the same bed, and he would be sure
to keep me awake until almost light, telling me stories of the
natives of the Island of Tinian, and other places he had visited in
his travels. At last I could not help being interested in what he
said, and by degrees I felt the greatest desire to go to sea. I owned
a sailboat called the Ariel, and worth about seventy-five dollars.
She had a half-deck or cuddy, and was rigged sloop-fashion -- I
forget her tonnage, but she would hold ten persons without much
crowding. In this boat we were in the habit of going on some of the
maddest freaks in the world; and, when I now think of them, it
appears to me a thousand wonders that I am alive to-day.
I will relate one of these adventures by way of introduction to a
longer and more momentous narrative. One night there was a party at
Mr. Barnard's, and both Augustus and myself were not a little
intoxicated toward the close of it. As usual, in such cases, I took
part of his bed in preference to going home. He went to sleep, as I
thought, very quietly (it being near one when the party broke up),
and without saying a word on his favorite topic. It might have been
half an hour from the time of our getting in bed, and I was just
about falling into a doze, when he suddenly started up, and swore
with a terrible oath that he would not go to sleep for any Arthur Pym
in Christendom, when there was so glorious a breeze from the
southwest. I never was so astonished in my life, not knowing what he
intended, and thinking that the wines and liquors he had drunk had
set him entirely beside himself. He proceeded to talk very coolly,
however, saying he knew that I supposed him intoxicated, but that he
was never more sober in his life. He was only tired, he added, of
lying in bed on such a fine night like a dog, and was determined to
get up and dress, and go out on a frolic with the boat. I can hardly
tell what possessed me, but the words were no sooner out of his mouth
than I felt a thrill of the greatest excitement and pleasure, and
thought his mad idea one of the most delightful and most reasonable
things in the world. It was blowing almost a gale, and the weather
was very cold -- it being late in October. I sprang out of bed,
nevertheless, in a kind of ecstasy, and told him I was quite as brave
as himself, and quite as tired as he was of lying in bed like a dog,
and quite as ready for any fun or frolic as any Augustus Barnard in
Nantucket.
We lost no time in getting on our clothes and hurrying down to
the boat. She was lying at the old decayed wharf by the lumber-yard
of Pankey & Co., and almost thumping her side out against the rough
logs. Augustus got into her and bailed her, for she was nearly half
full of water. This being done, we hoisted jib and mainsail, kept
full, and started boldly out to sea.
The wind, as I before said, blew freshly from the southwest. The
night was very clear and cold. Augustus had taken the helm, and I
stationed myself by the mast, on the deck of the cuddy. We flew along
at a great rate -- neither of us having said a word since casting
loose from the wharf. I now asked my companion what course he
intended to steer, and what time he thought it probable we should get
back. He whistled for a few minutes, and then said crustily: "_I_ am
going to sea -- _you_ may go home if you think proper." Turning my
eyes upon him, I perceived at once that, in spite of his assumed
_nonchalance_, he was greatly agitated. I could see him distinctly by
the light of the moon -- his face was paler than any marble, and his
hand shook so excessively that he could scarcely retain hold of the
tiller. I found that something had gone wrong, and became seriously
alarmed. At this period I knew little about the management of a boat,
and was now depending entirely upon the nautical skill of my friend.
The wind, too, had suddenly increased, as we were fast getting out of
the lee of the land -- still I was ashamed to betray any trepidation,
and for almost half an hour maintained a resolute silence. I could
stand it no longer, however, and spoke to Augustus about the
propriety of turning back. As before, it was nearly a minute before
he made answer, or took any notice of my suggestion. "By-and-by,"
said he at length -- "time enough -- home by-and-by." I had expected
a similar reply, but there was something in the tone of these words
which filled me with an indescribable feeling of dread. I again
looked at the speaker attentively. His lips were perfectly livid, and
his knees shook so violently together that he seemed scarcely able to
stand. "For God's sake, Augustus," I screamed, now heartily
frightened, "what ails you?- what is the matter?- what _are_ you
going to do?" "Matter!" he stammered, in the greatest apparent
surprise, letting go the tiller at the same moment, and falling
forward into the bottom of the boat- "matter- why, nothing is the --
matter -- going home- d--d--don't you see?" The whole truth now
flashed upon me. I flew to him and raised him up. He was drunk --
beastly drunk -- he could no longer either stand, speak, or see. His
eyes were perfectly glazed; and as I let him go in the extremity of
my despair, he rolled like a mere log into the bilge-water, from
which I had lifted him. It was evident that, during the evening, he
had drunk far more than I suspected, and that his conduct in bed had
been the result of a highly-concentrated state of intoxication- a
state which, like madness, frequently enables the victim to imitate
the outward demeanour of one in perfect possession of his senses. The
coolness of the night air, however, had had its usual effect- the
mental energy began to yield before its influence- and the confused
perception which he no doubt then had of his perilous situation had
assisted in hastening the catastrophe. He was now thoroughly
insensible, and there was no probability that he would be otherwise
for many hours.
It is hardly possible to conceive the extremity of my terror. The
fumes of the wine lately taken had evaporated, leaving me doubly
timid and irresolute. I knew that I was altogether incapable of
managing the boat, and that a fierce wind and strong ebb tide were
hurrying us to destruction. A storm was evidently gathering behind
us; we had neither compass nor provisions; and it was clear that, if
we held our present course, we should be out of sight of land before
daybreak. These thoughts, with a crowd of others equally fearful,
flashed through my mind with a bewildering rapidity, and for some
moments paralyzed me beyond the possibility of making any exertion.
The boat was going through the water at a terrible rate- full before
the wind- no reef in either jib or mainsail- running her bows
completely under the foam. It was a thousand wonders she did not
broach to- Augustus having let go the tiller, as I said before, and I
being too much agitated to think of taking it myself. By good luck,
however, she kept steady, and gradually I recovered some degree of
presence of mind. Still the wind was increasing fearfully, and
whenever we rose from a plunge forward, the sea behind fell combing
over our counter, and deluged us with water. I was so utterly
benumbed, too, in every limb, as to be nearly unconscious of
sensation. At length I summoned up the resolution of despair, and
rushing to the mainsail let it go by the run. As might have been
expected, it flew over the bows, and, getting drenched with water,
carried away the mast short off by the board. This latter accident
alone saved me from instant destruction. Under the jib only, I now
boomed along before the wind, shipping heavy seas occasionally over
the counter, but relieved from the terror of immediate death. I took
the helm, and breathed with greater freedom as I found that there yet
remained to us a chance of ultimate escape. Augustus still lay
senseless in the bottom of the boat; and as there was imminent danger
of his drowning (the water being nearly a foot deep just where he
fell), I contrived to raise him partially up, and keep him in a
sitting position, by passing a rope round his waist, and lashing it
to a ringbolt in the deck of the cuddy. Having thus arranged every
thing as well as I could in my chilled and agitated condition, I
recommended myself to God, and made up my mind to bear whatever might
happen with all the fortitude in my power.
Hardly had I come to this resolution, when, suddenly, a loud and
long scream or yell, as if from the throats of a thousand demons,
seemed to pervade the whole atmosphere around and above the boat.
Never while I live shall I forget the intense agony of terror I
experienced at that moment. My hair stood erect on my head -- I felt
the blood congealing in my veins -- my heart ceased utterly to beat,
and without having once raised my eyes to learn the source of my
alarm, I tumbled headlong and insensible upon the body of my fallen
companion.
I found myself, upon reviving, in the cabin of a large
whaling-ship (the Penguin) bound to Nantucket. Several persons were
standing over me, and Augustus, paler than death, was busily occupied
in chafing my hands. Upon seeing me open my eyes, his exclamations of
gratitude and joy excited alternate laughter and tears from the
rough-looking personages who were present. The mystery of our being
in existence was now soon explained. We had been run down by the
whaling-ship, which was close-hauled, beating up to Nantucket with
every sail she could venture to set, and consequently running almost
at right angles to our own course. Several men were on the look-out
forward, but did not perceive our boat until it was an impossibility
to avoid coming in contact- their shouts of warning upon seeing us
were what so terribly alarmed me. The huge ship, I was told, rode
immediately over us with as much ease as our own little vessel would
have passed over a feather, and without the least perceptible
impediment to her progress. Not a scream arose from the deck of the
victim- there was a slight grating sound to be heard mingling with
the roar of wind and water, as the frail bark which was swallowed up
rubbed for a moment along the keel of her destroyer- but this was
all. Thinking our boat (which it will be remembered was dismasted)
some mere shell cut adrift as useless, the captain (Captain E. T. V.
Block, of New London) was for proceeding on his course without
troubling himself further about the matter. Luckily, there were two
of the look-out who swore positively to having seen some person at
our helm, and represented the possibility of yet saving him. A
discussion ensued, when Block grew angry, and, after a while, said
that "it was no business of his to be eternally watching for
egg-shells; that the ship should not put about for any such nonsense;
and if there was a man run down, it was nobody's fault but his own,
he might drown and be dammed" or some language to that effect. Henderson,
the first mate, now took the matter up, being justly indignant, as
well as the whole ship's crew, at a speech evincing so base a degree
of heartless atrocity. He spoke plainly, seeing himself upheld by the
men, told the captain he considered him a fit subject for the
gallows, and that he would disobey his orders if he were hanged for
it the moment he set his foot on shore. He strode aft, jostling Block
(who turned pale and made no answer) on one side, and seizing the
helm, gave the word, in a firm voice, Hard-a-lee! The men flew to
their posts, and the ship went cleverly about. All this had occupied
nearly five minutes, and it was supposed to be hardly within the
bounds of possibility that any individual could be saved- allowing
any to have been on board the boat. Yet, as the reader has seen, both
Augustus and myself were rescued; and our deliverance seemed to have
been brought about by two of those almost inconceivable pieces of
good fortune which are attributed by the wise and pious to the
special interference of Providence.
While the ship was yet in stays, the mate lowered the jolly-boat
and jumped into her with the very two men, I believe, who spoke up as
having seen me at the helm. They had just left the lee of the vessel
(the moon still shining brightly) when she made a long and heavy roll
to windward, and Henderson, at the same moment, starting up in his
seat bawled out to his crew to back water. He would say nothing else-
repeating his cry impatiently, back water! black water! The men put
back as speedily as possible, but by this time the ship had gone
round, and gotten fully under headway, although all hands on board
were making great exertions to take in sail. In despite of the danger
of the attempt, the mate clung to the main-chains as soon as they
came within his reach. Another huge lurch now brought the starboard
side of the vessel out of water nearly as far as her keel, when the
cause of his anxiety was rendered obvious enough. The body of a man
was seen to be affixed in the most singular manner to the smooth and
shining bottom (the Penguin was coppered and copper-fastened), and
beating violently against it with every movement of the hull. After
several ineffectual efforts, made during the lurches of the ship, and
at the imminent risk of swamping the boat I was finally disengaged
from my perilous situation and taken on board- for the body proved to
be my own. It appeared that one of the timber-bolts having started
and broken a passage through the copper, it had arrested my progress
as I passed under the ship, and fastened me in so extraordinary a
manner to her bottom. The head of the bolt had made its way through
the collar of the green baize jacket I had on, and through the back
part of my neck, forcing itself out between two sinews and just below
the right ear. I was immediately put to bed- although life seemed to
be totally extinct. There was no surgeon on board. The captain,
however, treated me with every attention- to make amends, I presume,
in the eyes of his crew, for his atrocious behaviour in the previous
portion of the adventure.
In the meantime, Henderson had again put off from the ship,
although the wind was now blowing almost a hurricane. He had not been
gone many minutes when he fell in with some fragments of our boat,
and shortly afterward one of the men with him asserted that he could
distinguish a cry for help at intervals amid the roaring of the
tempest. This induced the hardy seamen to persevere in their search
for more than half an hour, although repeated signals to return were
made them by Captain Block, and although every moment on the water in
so frail a boat was fraught to them with the most imminent and deadly
peril. Indeed, it is nearly impossible to conceive how the small
jolly they were in could have escaped destruction for a single
instant. She was built, however, for the whaling service, and was
fitted, as I have since had reason to believe, with air-boxes, in the
manner of some life-boats used on the coast of Wales.
After searching in vain for about the period of time just
mentioned, it was determined to get back to the ship. They had
scarcely made this resolve when a feeble cry arose from a dark object
that floated rapidly by. They pursued and soon overtook it. It proved
to be the entire deck of the Ariel's cuddy. Augustus was struggling
near it, apparently in the last agonies. Upon getting hold of him it
was found that he was attached by a rope to the floating timber. This
rope, it will be remembered, I had myself tied around his waist, and
made fast to a ringbolt, for the purpose of keeping him in an upright
position, and my so doing, it appeared, had been ultimately the means
of preserving his life. The Ariel was slightly put together, and in
going down her frame naturally went to pieces; the deck of the cuddy,
as might have been expected, was lifted, by the force of the water
rushing in, entirely from the main timbers, and floated (with other
fragments, no doubt) to the surface- Augustus was buoyed up with it,
and thus escaped a terrible death.
It was more than an hour after being taken on board the Penguin
before he could give any account of himself, or be made to comprehend
the nature of the accident which had befallen our boat. At length he
became thoroughly aroused, and spoke much of his sensations while in
the water. Upon his first attaining any degree of consciousness, he
found himself beneath the surface, whirling round and round with
inconceivable rapidity, and with a rope wrapped in three or four
folds tightly about his neck. In an instant afterward he felt himself
going rapidly upward, when, his head striking violently against a
hard substance, he again relapsed into insensibility. Upon once more
reviving he was in fuller possession of his reason- this was still,
however, in the greatest degree clouded and confused. He now knew
that some accident had occurred, and that he was in the water,
although his mouth was above the surface, and he could breathe with
some freedom. Possibly, at this period the deck was drifting rapidly
before the wind, and drawing him after it, as he floated upon his
back. Of course, as long as he could have retained this position, it
would have been nearly impossible that he should be drowned.
Presently a surge threw him directly athwart the deck, and this post
he endeavored to maintain, screaming at intervals for help. Just
before he was discovered by Mr. Henderson, he had been obliged to
relax his hold through exhaustion, and, falling into the sea, had
given himself up for lost. During the whole period of his struggles
he had not the faintest recollection of the Ariel, nor of the matters
in connexion with the source of his disaster. A vague feeling of
terror and despair had taken entire possession of his faculties. When
he was finally picked up, every power of his mind had failed him;
and, as before said, it was nearly an hour after getting on board the
Penguin before he became fully aware of his condition. In regard to
myself- I was resuscitated from a state bordering very nearly upon
death (and after every other means had been tried in vain for three
hours and a half) by vigorous friction with flannels bathed in hot
oil- a proceeding suggested by Augustus. The wound in my neck,
although of an ugly appearance, proved of little real consequence,
and I soon recovered from its effects.
The Penguin got into port about nine o'clock in the morning,
after encountering one of the severest gales ever experienced off
Nantucket. Both Augustus and myself managed to appear at Mr.
Barnard's in time for breakfast- which, luckily, was somewhat late,
owing to the party over night. I suppose all at the table were too
much fatigued themselves to notice our jaded appearance- of course,
it would not have borne a very rigid scrutiny. Schoolboys, however,
can accomplish wonders in the way of deception, and I verily believe
not one of our friends in Nantucket had the slightest suspicion that
the terrible story told by some sailors in town of their having run
down a vessel at sea and drowned some thirty or forty poor devils,
had reference either to the Ariel, my companion, or myself. We two
have since very frequently talked the matter over- but never without
a shudder. In one of our conversations Augustus frankly confessed to
me, that in his whole life he had at no time experienced so
excruciating a sense of dismay, as when on board our little boat he
first discovered the extent of his intoxication, and felt himself
sinking beneath its influence.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 1 ~~~
CHAPTER 2
IN no affairs of mere prejudice, pro or con, do we deduce
inferences with entire certainty, even from the most simple data. It
might be supposed that a catastrophe such as I have just related
would have effectually cooled my incipient passion for the sea. On
the contrary, I never experienced a more ardent longing for the wild
adventures incident to the life of a navigator than within a week
after our miraculous deliverance. This short period proved amply long
enough to erase from my memory the shadows, and bring out in vivid
light all the pleasurably exciting points of color, all the
picturesqueness, of the late perilous accident. My conversations with
Augustus grew daily more frequent and more intensely full of
interest. He had a manner of relating his stories of the ocean (more
than one half of which I now suspect to have been sheer fabrications)
well adapted to have weight with one of my enthusiastic temperament
and somewhat gloomy although glowing imagination. It is strange, too,
that he most strongly enlisted my feelings in behalf of the life of a
seaman, when he depicted his more terrible moments of suffering and
despair. For the bright side of the painting I had a limited
sympathy. My visions were of shipwreck and famine; of death or
captivity among barbarian hordes; of a lifetime dragged out in sorrow
and tears, upon some gray and desolate rock, in an ocean
unapproachable and unknown. Such visions or desires- for they
amounted to desires- are common, I have since been assured, to the
whole numerous race of the melancholy among men- at the time of which
I speak I regarded them only as prophetic glimpses of a destiny which
I felt myself in a measure bound to fulfil. Augustus thoroughly
entered into my state of mind. It is probable, indeed, that our
intimate communion had resulted in a partial interchange of
character.
About eighteen months after the period of the Ariel's disaster,
the firm of Lloyd and Vredenburgh (a house connected in some manner
with the Messieurs Enderby, I believe, of Liverpool) were engaged in
repairing and fitting out the brig Grampus for a whaling voyage. She
was an old hulk, and scarcely seaworthy when all was done to her that
could be done. I hardly know why she was chosen in preference to
other good vessels belonging to the same owners -- but so it was. Mr.
Barnard was appointed to command her, and Augustus was going with
him. While the brig was getting ready, he frequently urged upon me
the excellency of the opportunity now offered for indulging my desire
of travel. He found me by no means an unwilling listener -- yet the
matter could not be so easily arranged. My father made no direct
opposition; but my mother went into hysterics at the bare mention of
the design; and, more than all, my grandfather, from whom I expected
much, vowed to cut me off with a shilling if I should ever broach the
subject to him again. These difficulties, however, so far from
abating my desire, only added fuel to the flame. I determined to go
at all hazards; and, having made known my intentions to Augustus, we
set about arranging a plan by which it might be accomplished. In the
meantime I forbore speaking to any of my relations in regard to the
voyage, and, as I busied myself ostensibly with my usual studies, it
was supposed that I had abandoned the design. I have since frequently
examined my conduct on this occasion with sentiments of displeasure
as well as of surprise. The intense hypocrisy I made use of for the
furtherance of my project- an hypocrisy pervading every word and
action of my life for so long a period of time- could only have been
rendered tolerable to myself by the wild and burning expectation with
which I looked forward to the fulfilment of my long-cherished visions
of travel.
In pursuance of my scheme of deception, I was necessarily obliged
to leave much to the management of Augustus, who was employed for the
greater part of every day on board the Grampus, attending to some
arrangements for his father in the cabin and cabin hold. At night,
however, we were sure to have a conference and talk over our hopes.
After nearly a month passed in this manner, without our hitting upon
any plan we thought likely to succeed, he told me at last that he had
determined upon everything necessary. I had a relation living in New
Bedford, a Mr. Ross, at whose house I was in the habit of spending
occasionally two or three weeks at a time. The brig was to sail about
the middle of June (June, 1827), and it was agreed that, a day or two
before her putting to sea, my father was to receive a note, as usual,
from Mr. Ross, asking me to come over and spend a fortnight with
Robert and Emmet (his sons). Augustus charged himself with the
inditing of this note and getting it delivered. Having set out as
supposed, for New Bedford, I was then to report myself to my
companion, who would contrive a hiding-place for me in the Grampus.
This hiding-place, he assured me, would be rendered sufficiently
comfortable for a residence of many days, during which I was not to
make my appearance. When the brig had proceeded so far on her course
as to make any turning back a matter out of question, I should then,
he said, be formally installed in all the comforts of the cabin; and
as to his father, he would only laugh heartily at the joke. Vessels
enough would be met with by which a letter might be sent home
explaining the adventure to my parents.
The middle of June at length arrived, and every thing had been
matured. The note was written and delivered, and on a Monday morning
I left the house for the New Bedford packet, as supposed. I went,
however, straight to Augustus, who was waiting for me at the corner
of a street. It had been our original plan that I should keep out of
the way until dark, and then slip on board the brig; but, as there
was now a thick fog in our favor, it was agreed to lose no time in
secreting me. Augustus led the way to the wharf, and I followed at a
little distance, enveloped in a thick seaman's cloak, which he had
brought with him, so that my person might not be easily recognized.
just as we turned the second corner, after passing Mr. Edmund's well,
who should appear, standing right in front of me, and looking me full
in the face, but old Mr. Peterson, my grandfather. "Why, bless my
soul, Gordon," said he, after a long pause, "why, why,- whose dirty
cloak is that you have on?" "Sir!" I replied, assuming, as well as I
could, in the exigency of the moment, an air of offended surprise,
and talking in the gruffest of all imaginable tones- "sir! you are a
sum'mat mistaken- my name, in the first place, bee'nt nothing at all
like Goddin, and I'd want you for to know better, you blackguard,
than to call my new obercoat a darty one." For my life I could hardly
refrain from screaming with laughter at the odd manner in which the
old gentleman received this handsome rebuke. He started back two or
three steps, turned first pale and then excessively red, threw up his
spectacles, then, putting them down, ran full tilt at me, with his
umbrella uplifted. He stopped short, however, in his career, as if
struck with a sudden recollection; and presently, turning round,
hobbled off down the street, shaking all the while with rage, and
muttering between his teeth: "Won't do -- new glasses -- thought it
was Gordon --d--d good-for-nothing salt water Long Tom."
After this narrow escape we proceeded with greater caution, and
arrived at our point of destination in safety. There were only one or
two of the hands on board, and these were busy forward, doing
something to the forecastle combings. Captain Barnard, we knew very
well, was engaged at Lloyd and Vredenburgh's, and would remain there
until late in the evening, so we had little to apprehend on his
account. Augustus went first up the vessel's side, and in a short
while I followed him, without being noticed by the men at work. We
proceeded at once into the cabin, and found no person there. It was
fitted up in the most comfortable style- a thing somewhat unusual in
a whaling-vessel. There were four very excellent staterooms, with
wide and convenient berths. There was also a large stove, I took
notice, and a remarkably thick and valuable carpet covering the floor
of both the cabin and staterooms. The ceiling was full seven feet
high, and, in short, every thing appeared of a more roomy and
agreeable nature than I had anticipated. Augustus, however, would
allow me but little time for observation, insisting upon the
necessity of my concealing myself as soon as possible. He led the way
into his own stateroom, which was on the starboard side of the brig,
and next to the bulkheads. Upon entering, he closed the door and
bolted it. I thought I had never seen a nicer little room than the
one in which I now found myself. It was about ten feet long, and had
only one berth, which, as I said before, was wide and convenient. In
that portion of the closet nearest the bulkheads there was a space of
four feet square, containing a table, a chair, and a set of hanging
shelves full of books, chiefly books of voyages and travels. There
were many other little comforts in the room, among which I ought not
to forget a kind of safe or refrigerator, in which Augustus pointed
out to me a host of delicacies, both in the eating and drinking
department.
He now pressed with his knuckles upon a certain spot of the
carpet in one corner of the space just mentioned, letting me know
that a portion of the flooring, about sixteen inches square, had been
neatly cut out and again adjusted. As he pressed, this portion rose
up at one end sufficiently to allow the passage of his finger
beneath. In this manner he raised the mouth of the trap (to which the
carpet was still fastened by tacks), and I found that it led into the
after hold. He next lit a small taper by means of a phosphorous
match, and, placing the light in a dark lantern, descended with it
through the opening, bidding me follow. I did so, and he then pulled
the cover upon the hole, by means of a nail driven into the under
side--the carpet, of course, resuming its original position on the
floor of the stateroom, and all traces of the aperture being
concealed.
The taper gave out so feeble a ray that it was with the greatest
difficulty I could grope my way through the confused mass of lumber
among which I now found myself. By degrees, however, my eyes became
accustomed to the gloom, and I proceeded with less trouble, holding
on to the skirts of my friend's coat. He brought me, at length, after
creeping and winding through innumerable narrow passages, to an
iron-bound box, such as is used sometimes for packing fine
earthenware. It was nearly four feet high, and full six long, but
very narrow. Two large empty oil-casks lay on the top of it, and
above these, again, a vast quantity of straw matting, piled up as
high as the floor of the cabin. In every other direction around was
wedged as closely as possible, even up to the ceiling, a complete
chaos of almost every species of ship-furniture, together with a
heterogeneous medley of crates, hampers, barrels, and bales, so that
it seemed a matter no less than miraculous that we had discovered any
passage at all to the box. I afterward found that Augustus had
purposely arranged the stowage in this hold with a view to affording
me a thorough concealment, having had only one assistant in the
labour, a man not going out in the brig.
My companion now showed me that one of the ends of the box could
be removed at pleasure. He slipped it aside and displayed the
interior, at which I was excessively amused. A mattress from one of
the cabin berths covered the whole of its bottom, and it contained
almost every article of mere comfort which could be crowded into so
small a space, allowing me, at the same time, sufficient room for my
accommodation, either in a sitting position or lying at full length.
Among other things, there were some books, pen, ink, and paper, three
blankets, a large jug full of water, a keg of sea-biscuit, three or
four immense Bologna sausages, an enormous ham, a cold leg of roast
mutton, and half a dozen bottles of cordials and liqueurs. I
proceeded immediately to take possession of my little apartment, and
this with feelings of higher satisfaction, I am sure, than any
monarch ever experienced upon entering a new palace. Augustus now
pointed out to me the method of fastening the open end of the box,
and then, holding the taper close to the deck, showed me a piece of
dark whipcord lying along it. This, he said, extended from my
hiding-place throughout an the necessary windings among the lumber,
to a nail which was driven into the deck of the hold, immediately
beneath the trap-door leading into his stateroom. By means of this
cord I should be enabled readily to trace my way out without his
guidance, provided any unlooked-for accident should render such a
step necessary. He now took his departure, leaving with me the
lantern, together with a copious supply of tapers and phosphorous,
and promising to pay me a visit as often as he could contrive to do
so without observation. This was on the seventeenth of June.
I remained three days and nights (as nearly as I could guess) in
my hiding-place without getting out of it at all, except twice for
the purpose of stretching my limbs by standing erect between two
crates just opposite the opening. During the whole period I saw
nothing of Augustus; but this occasioned me little uneasiness, as I
knew the brig was expected to put to sea every hour, and in the
bustle he would not easily find opportunities of coming down to me.
At length I heard the trap open and shut, and presently he called in
a low voice, asking if all was well, and if there was any thing I
wanted. "Nothing," I replied; "I am as comfortable as can be; when
will the brig sail?" "She will be under weigh in less than half an
hour," he answered. "I came to let you know, and for fear you should
be uneasy at my absence. I shall not have a chance of coming down
again for some time- perhaps for three or four days more. All is
going on right aboveboard. After I go up and close the trap, do you
creep along by the whipcord to where the nail is driven in. You will
find my watch there -- it may be useful to you, as you have no
daylight to keep time by. I suppose you can't tell how long you have
been buried- only three days- this is the twentieth. I would bring
the watch to your box, but am afraid of being missed." With this he
went up.
In about an hour after he had gone I distinctly felt the brig in
motion, and congratulated myself upon having at length fairly
commenced a voyage. Satisfied with this idea, I determined to make my
mind as easy as possible, and await the course of events until I
should be permitted to exchange the box for the more roomy, although
hardly more comfortable, accommodations of the cabin. My first care
was to get the watch. Leaving the taper burning, I groped along in
the dark, following the cord through windings innumerable, in some of
which I discovered that, after toiling a long distance, I was brought
back within a foot or two of a former position. At length I reached
the nail, and securing the object of my journey, returned with it in
safety. I now looked over the books which had been so thoughtfully
provided, and selected the expedition of Lewis and Clarke to the
mouth of the Columbia. With this I amused myself for some time, when,
growing sleepy, I extinguished the light with great care, and soon
fell into a sound slumber.
Upon awakening I felt strangely confused in mind, and some time
elapsed before I could bring to recollection all the various
circumstances of my situation. By degrees, however, I remembered all.
Striking a light, I looked at the watch; but it was run down, and
there were, consequently, no means of determining how long I slept.
My limbs were greatly cramped, and I was forced to relieve them by
standing between the crates. Presently feeling an almost ravenous
appetite, I bethought myself of the cold mutton, some of which I had
eaten just before going to sleep, and found excellent. What was my
astonishment in discovering it to be in a state of absolute
putrefaction! This circumstance occasioned me great disquietude; for,
connecting it with the disorder of mind I experienced upon awakening,
I began to suppose that I must have slept for an inordinately long
period of time. The close atmosphere of the hold might have had
something to do with this, and might, in the end, be productive of
the most serious results. My head ached excessively; I fancied that I
drew every breath with difficulty; and, in short, I was oppressed
with a multitude of gloomy feelings. Still I could not venture to
make any disturbance by opening the trap or otherwise, and, having
wound up the watch, contented myself as well as possible.
Throughout the whole of the next tedious twenty-four hours no
person came to my relief, and I could not help accusing Augustus of
the grossest inattention. What alarmed me chiefly was, that the water
in my jug was reduced to about half a pint, and I was suffering much
from thirst, having eaten freely of the Bologna sausages after the
loss of my mutton. I became very uneasy, and could no longer take any
interest in my books. I was overpowered, too, with a desire to sleep,
yet trembled at the thought of indulging it, lest there might exist
some pernicious influence, like that of burning charcoal, in the
confined air of the hold. In the meantime the roll of the brig told
me that we were far in the main ocean, and a dull humming sound,
which reached my ears as if from an immense distance, convinced me no
ordinary gale was blowing. I could not imagine a reason for the
absence of Augustus. We were surely far enough advanced on our voyage
to allow of my going up. Some accident might have happened to him-
but I could think of none which would account for his suffering me to
remain so long a prisoner, except, indeed, his having suddenly died
or fallen overboard, and upon this idea I could not dwell with any
degree of patience. It was possible that we had been baffled by head
winds, and were still in the near vicinity of Nantucket. This notion,
however, I was forced to abandon; for such being the case, the brig
must have frequently gone about; and I was entirely satisfied, from
her continual inclination to the larboard, that she had been sailing
all along with a steady breeze on her starboard quarter. Besides,
granting that we were still in the neighborhood of the island, why
should not Augustus have visited me and informed me of the
circumstance? Pondering in this manner upon the difficulties of my
solitary and cheerless condition, I resolved to wait yet another
twenty-four hours, when, if no relief were obtained, I would make my
way to the trap, and endeavour either to hold a parley with my
friend, or get at least a little fresh air through the opening, and a
further supply of water from the stateroom. While occupied with this
thought, however, I fell in spite of every exertion to the contrary,
into a state of profound sleep, or rather stupor. My dreams were of
the most terrific description. Every species of calamity and horror
befell me. Among other miseries I was smothered to death between huge
pillows, by demons of the most ghastly and ferocious aspect. Immense
serpents held me in their embrace, and looked earnestly in my face
with their fearfully shining eyes. Then deserts, limitless, and of
the most forlorn and awe-inspiring character, spread themselves out
before me. Immensely tall trunks of trees, gray and leafless, rose up
in endless succession as far as the eye could reach. Their roots were
concealed in wide-spreading morasses, whose dreary water lay
intensely black, still, and altogether terrible, beneath. And the
strange trees seemed endowed with a human vitality, and waving to and
fro their skeleton arms, were crying to the silent waters for mercy,
in the shrill and piercing accents of the most acute agony and
despair. The scene changed; and I stood, naked and alone, amidst the
burning sand-plains of Sahara. At my feet lay crouched a fierce lion
of the tropics. Suddenly his wild eyes opened and fell upon me. With
a conculsive bound he sprang to his feet, and laid bare his horrible
teeth. In another instant there burst from his red throat a roar like
the thunder of the firmament, and I fell impetuously to the earth.
Stifling in a paroxysm of terror, I at last found myself partially
awake. My dream, then, was not all a dream. Now, at least, I was in
possession of my senses. The paws of some huge and real monster were
pressing heavily upon my bosom -- his hot breath was in my ear- and
his white and ghastly fangs were gleaming upon me through the gloom.
Had a thousand lives hung upon the movement of a limb or the
utterance of a syllable, I could have neither stirred nor spoken. The
beast, whatever it was, retained his position without attempting any
immediate violence, while I lay in an utterly helpless, and, I
fancied, a dying condition beneath him. I felt that my powers of body
and mind were fast leaving me- in a word, that I was perishing, and
perishing of sheer fright. My brain swam -- I grew deadly sick -- my
vision failed -- even the glaring eyeballs above me grew dim. Making
a last strong effort, I at length breathed a faint ejaculation to
God, and resigned myself to die. The sound of my voice seemed to
arouse all the latent fury of the animal. He precipitated himself at
full length upon my body; but what was my astonishment, when, with a
long and low whine, he commenced licking my face and hands with the
greatest eagerness, and with the most extravagant demonstration of
affection and joy! I was bewildered, utterly lost in amazement- but I
could not forget the peculiar whine of my Newfoundland dog Tiger, and
the odd manner of his caresses I well knew. It was he. I experienced
a sudden rush of blood to my temples- a giddy and overpowering sense
of deliverance and reanimation. I rose hurriedly from the mattress
upon which I had been lying, and, throwing myself upon the neck of my
faithful follower and friend, relieved the long oppression of my
bosom in a flood of the most passionate tears.
As upon a former occasion my conceptions were in a state of the
greatest indistinctness and confusion after leaving the mattress. For
a long time I found it nearly impossible to connect any ideas; but,
by very slow degrees, my thinking faculties returned, and I again
called to memory the several incidents of my condition. For the
presence of Tiger I tried in vain to account; and after busying
myself with a thousand different conjectures respecting him, was
forced to content myself with rejoicing that he was with me to share
my dreary solitude, and render me comfort by his caresses. Most
people love their dogs -- but for Tiger I had an affection far more
ardent than common; and never, certainly, did any creature more truly
deserve it. For seven years he had been my inseparable companion, and
in a multitude of instances had given evidence of all the noble
qualities for which we value the animal. I had rescued him, when a
puppy, from the clutches of a malignant little villain in Nantucket
who was leading him, with a rope around his neck, to the water; and
the grown dog repaid the obligation, about three years afterward, by
saving me from the bludgeon of a street robber.
Getting now hold of the watch, I found, upon applying it to my
ear, that it had again run down; but at this I was not at all
surprised, being convinced, from the peculiar state of my feelings,
that I had slept, as before, for a very long period of time, how
long, it was of course impossible to say. I was burning up with
fever, and my thirst was almost intolerable. I felt about the box for
my little remaining supply of water, for I had no light, the taper
having burnt to the socket of the lantern, and the phosphorus-box not
coming readily to hand. Upon finding the jug, however, I discovered
it to be empty -- Tiger, no doubt, having been tempted to drink it,
as well as to devour the remnant of mutton, the bone of which lay,
well picked, by the opening of the box. The spoiled meat I could well
spare, but my heart sank as I thought of the water. I was feeble in
the extreme -- so much so that I shook all over, as with an ague, at
the slightest movement or exertion. To add to my troubles, the brig
was pitching and rolling with great violence, and the oil-casks which
lay upon my box were in momentary danger of falling down, so as to
block up the only way of ingress or egress. I felt, also, terrible
sufferings from sea-sickness. These considerations determined me to
make my way, at all hazards, to the trap, and obtain immediate
relief, before I should be incapacitated from doing so altogether.
Having come to this resolve, I again felt about for the
phosphorus-box and tapers. The former I found after some little
trouble; but, not discovering the tapers as soon as I had expected
(for I remembered very nearly the spot in which I had placed them), I
gave up the search for the present, and bidding Tiger lie quiet,
began at once my journey toward the trap.
In this attempt my great feebleness became more than ever
apparent. It was with the utmost difficulty I could crawl along at
all, and very frequently my limbs sank suddenly from beneath me;
when, falling prostrate on my face, I would remain for some minutes
in a state bordering on insensibility. Still I struggled forward by
slow degrees, dreading every moment that I should swoon amid the
narrow and intricate windings of the lumber, in which event I had
nothing but death to expect as the result. At length, upon making a
push forward with all the energy I could command, I struck my
forehead violently against the sharp corner of an iron-bound crate.
The accident only stunned me for a few moments; but I found, to my
inexpressible grief, that the quick and violent roll of the vessel
had thrown the crate entirely across my path, so as effectually to
block up the passage. With my utmost exertions I could not move it a
single inch from its position, it being closely wedged in among the
surrounding boxes and ship-furniture. It became necessary, therefore,
enfeebled as I was, either to leave the guidance of the whipcord and
seek out a new passage, or to climb over the obstacle, and resume the
path on the other side. The former alternative presented too many
difficulties and dangers to be thought of without a shudder. In my
present weak state of both mind and body, I should infallibly lose my
way if I attempted it, and perish miserably amid the dismal and
disgusting labyrinths of the hold. I proceeded, therefore, without
hesitation, to summon up all my remaining strength and fortitude, and
endeavour, as I best might, to clamber over the crate.
Upon standing erect, with this end in view, I found the
undertaking even a more serious task than my fears had led me to
imagine. On each side of the narrow passage arose a complete wall of
various heavy lumber, which the least blunder on my part might be the
means of bringing down upon my head; or, if this accident did not
occur, the path might be effectually blocked up against my return by
the descending mass, as it was in front by the obstacle there. The
crate itself was a long and unwieldy box, upon which no foothold
could be obtained. In vain I attempted, by every means in my power,
to reach the top, with the hope of being thus enabled to draw myself
up. Had I succeeded in reaching it, it is certain that my strength
would have proved utterly inadequate to the task of getting over, and
it was better in every respect that I failed. At length, in a
desperate effort to force the crate from its ground, I felt a strong
vibration in the side next me. I thrust my hand eagerly to the edge
of the planks, and found that a very large one was loose. With my
pocket-knife, which, luckily, I had with me, I succeeded, after great
labour, in prying it entirely off; and getting it through the
aperture, discovered, to my exceeding joy, that there were no boards
on the opposite side -- in other words, that the top was wanting, it
being the bottom through which I had forced my way. I now met with no
important difficulty in proceeding along the line until I finally
reached the nail. With a beating heart I stood erect, and with a
gentle touch pressed against the cover of the trap. It did not rise
as soon as I had expected, and I pressed it with somewhat more
determination, still dreading lest some other person than Augustus
might be in his state-room. The door, however, to my astonishment,
remained steady, and I became somewhat uneasy, for I knew that it had
formerly required but little or no effort to remove it. I pushed it
strongly -- it was nevertheless firm: with all my strength -- it
still did not give way: with rage, with fury, with despair -- it set
at defiance my utmost efforts; and it was evident, from the
unyielding nature of the resistance, that the hole had either been
discovered and effectually nailed up, or that some immense weight had
been placed upon it, which it was useless to think of removing.
My sensations were those of extreme horror and dismay. In vain I
attempted to reason on the probable cause of my being thus entombed.
I could summon up no connected chain of reflection, and, sinking on
the floor, gave way, unresistingly, to the most gloomy imaginings, in
which the dreadful deaths of thirst, famine, suffocation, and
premature interment crowded upon me as the prominent disasters to be
encountered. At length there returned to me some portion of presence
of mind. I arose, and felt with my fingers for the seams or cracks of
the aperture. Having found them, I examined them closely to ascertain
if they emitted any light from the state-room; but none was visible.
I then forced the blade of my pen-knife through them, until I met
with some hard obstacle. Scraping against it, I discovered it to be a
solid mass of iron, which, from its peculiar wavy feel as I passed
the blade along it, I concluded to be a chain-cable. The only course
now left me was to retrace my way to the box, and there either yield
to my sad fate, or try so to tranquilize my mind as to admit of my
arranging some plan of escape. I immediately set about the attempt,
and succeeded, after innumerable difficulties, in getting back. As I
sank, utterly exhausted, upon the mattress, Tiger threw himself at
full length by my side, and seemed as if desirous, by his caresses,
of consoling me in my troubles, and urging me to bear them with
fortitude.
The singularity of his behavior at length forcibly arrested my
attention. After licking my face and hands for some minutes, he would
suddenly cease doing so, and utter a low whine. Upon reaching out my
hand toward him, I then invariably found him lying on his back, with
his paws uplifted. This conduct, so frequently repeated, appeared
strange, and I could in no manner account for it. As the dog seemed
distressed, I concluded that he had received some injury; and, taking
his paws in my hands, I examined them one by one, but found no sign
of any hurt. I then supposed him hungry, and gave him a large piece
of ham, which he devoured with avidity -- afterward, however,
resuming his extraordinary manoeuvres. I now imagined that he was
suffering, like myself, the torments of thirst, and was about
adopting this conclusion as the true one, when the idea occurred to
me that I had as yet only examined his paws, and that there might
possibly be a wound upon some portion of his body or head. The latter
I felt carefully over, but found nothing. On passing my hand,
however, along his back, I perceived a slight erection of the hair
extending completely across it. Probing this with my finger, I
discovered a string, and tracing it up, found that it encircled the
whole body. Upon a closer scrutiny, I came across a small slip of
what had the feeling of letter paper, through which the string had
been fastened in such a manner as to bring it immediately beneath the
left shoulder of the animal.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 2 ~~~
CHAPTER 3
THE thought instantly occurred to me that the paper was a note
from Augustus, and that some unaccountable accident having happened
to prevent his relieving me from my dungeon, he had devised this
method of acquainting me with the true state of affairs. Trembling
with eagerness, I now commenced another search for my phosphorus
matches and tapers. I had a confused recollection of having put them
carefully away just before falling asleep; and, indeed, previously to
my last journey to the trap, I had been able to remember the exact
spot where I had deposited them. But now I endeavored in vain to call
it to mind, and busied myself for a full hour in a fruitless and
vexatious search for the missing articles; never, surely, was there a
more tantalizing state of anxiety and suspense. At length, while
groping about, with my head close to the ballast, near the opening of
the box, and outside of it, I perceived a faint glimmering of light
in the direction of the steerage. Greatly surprised, I endeavored to
make my way toward it, as it appeared to be but a few feet from my
position. Scarcely had I moved with this intention, when I lost sight
of the glimmer entirely, and, before I could bring it into view
again, was obliged to feel along by the box until I had exactly
resumed my original situation. Now, moving my head with caution to
and fro, I found that, by proceeding slowly, with great care, in an
opposite direction to that in which I had at first started, I was
enabled to draw near the light, still keeping it in view. Presently I
came directly upon it (having squeezed my way through innumerable
narrow windings), and found that it proceeded from some fragments of
my matches lying in an empty barrel turned upon its side. I was
wondering how they came in such a place, when my hand fell upon two
or three pieces of taper wax, which had been evidently mumbled by the
dog. I concluded at once that he had devoured the whole of my supply
of candles, and I felt hopeless of being ever able to read the note
of Augustus. The small remnants of the wax were so mashed up among
other rubbish in the barrel, that I despaired of deriving any service
from them, and left them as they were. The phosphorus, of which there
was only a speck or two, I gathered up as well as I could, and
returned with it, after much difficulty, to my box, where Tiger had
all the while remained.
What to do next I could not tell. The hold was so intensely dark
that I could not see my hand, however close I would hold it to my
face. The white slip of paper could barely be discerned, and not even
that when I looked at it directly; by turning the exterior portions
of the retina toward it- that is to say, by surveying it slightly
askance, I found that it became in some measure perceptible. Thus the
gloom of my prison may be imagined, and the note of my friend, if
indeed it were a note from him, seemed only likely to throw me into
further trouble, by disquieting to no purpose my already enfeebled
and agitated mind. In vain I revolved in my brain a multitude of
absurd expedients for procuring light- such expedients precisely as a
man in the perturbed sleep occasioned by opium would be apt to fall
upon for a similar purpose- each and all of which appear by turns to
the dreamer the most reasonable and the most preposterous of
conceptions, just as the reasoning or imaginative faculties flicker,
alternately, one above the other. At last an idea occurred to me
which seemed rational, and which gave me cause to wonder, very
justly, that I had not entertained it before. I placed the slip of
paper on the back of a book, and, collecting the fragments of the
phosphorus matches which I had brought from the barrel, laid them
together upon the paper. I then, with the palm of my hand, rubbed the
whole over quickly, yet steadily. A clear light diffused itself
immediately throughout the whole surface; and had there been any
writing upon it, I should not have experienced the least difficulty,
I am sure, in reading it. Not a syllable was there, however- nothing
but a dreary and unsatisfactory blank; the illumination died away in
a few seconds, and my heart died away within me as it went.
I have before stated more than once that my intellect, for some
period prior to this, had been in a condition nearly bordering on
idiocy. There were, to be sure, momentary intervals of perfect
sanity, and, now and then, even of energy; but these were few. It
must be remembered that I had been, for many days certainly, inhaling
the almost pestilential atmosphere of a close hold in a whaling
vessel, and for a long portion of that time but scantily supplied
with water. For the last fourteen or fifteen hours I had none- nor
had I slept during that time. Salt provisions of the most exciting
kind had been my chief, and, indeed, since the loss of the mutton, my
only supply of food, with the exception of the sea-biscuit; and these
latter were utterly useless to me, as they were too dry and hard to
be swallowed in the swollen and parched condition of my throat. I was
now in a high state of fever, and in every respect exceedingly ill.
This will account for the fact that many miserable hours of
despondency elapsed after my last adventure with the phosphorus,
before the thought suggested itself that I had examined only one side
of the paper. I shall not attempt to describe my feelings of rage
(for I believe I was more angry than any thing else) when the
egregious oversight I had committed flashed suddenly upon my
perception. The blunder itself would have been unimportant, had not
my own folly and impetuosity rendered it otherwise- in my
disappointment at not finding some words upon the slip, I had
childishly torn it in pieces and thrown it away, it was impossible to
say where.
From the worst part of this dilemma I was relieved by the
sagacity of Tiger. Having got, after a long search, a small piece of
the note, I put it to the dog's nose, and endeavored to make him
understand that he must bring me the rest of it. To my astonishment,
(for I had taught him none of the usual tricks for which his breed
are famous,) he seemed to enter at once into my meaning, and,
rummaging about for a few moments, soon found another considerable
portion. Bringing me this, he paused awhile, and, rubbing his nose
against my hand, appeared to be waiting for my approval of what he
had done. I patted him on the head, when he immediately made off
again. It was now some minutes before he came back- but when he did
come, he brought with him a large slip, which proved to be all the
paper missing- it having been torn, it seems, only into three pieces.
Luckily, I had no trouble in finding what few fragments of the
phosphorus were left- being guided by the indistinct glow one or two
of the particles still emitted. My difficulties had taught me the
necessity of caution, and I now took time to reflect upon what I was
about to do. It was very probable, I considered, that some words were
written upon that side of the paper which had not been examined- but
which side was that? Fitting the pieces together gave me no clew in
this respect, although it assured me that the words (if there were
any) would be found all on one side, and connected in a proper
manner, as written. There was the greater necessity of ascertaining
the point in question beyond a doubt, as the phosphorus remaining
would be altogether insufficient for a third attempt, should I fail
in the one I was now about to make. I placed the paper on a book as
before, and sat for some minutes thoughtfully revolving the matter
over in my mind. At last I thought it barely possible that the
written side might have some unevenness on its surface, which a
delicate sense of feeling might enable me to detect. I determined to
make the experiment and passed my finger very carefully over the side
which first presented itself. Nothing, however, was perceptible, and
I turned the paper, adjusting it on the book. I now again carried my
forefinger cautiously along, when I was aware of an exceedingly
slight, but still discernable glow, which followed as it proceeded.
This, I knew, must arise from some very minute remaining particles of
the phosphorus with which I had covered the paper in my previous
attempt. The other, or under side, then, was that on which lay the
writing, if writing there should finally prove to be. Again I turned
the note, and went to work as I had previously done. Having rubbed in
the phosphorus, a brilliancy ensued as before- but this time several
lines of MS. in a large hand, and apparently in red ink, became
distinctly visible. The glimmer, although sufficiently bright, was
but momentary. Still, had I not been too greatly excited, there would
have been ample time enough for me to peruse the whole three
sentences before me- for I saw there were three. In my anxiety,
however, to read all at once, I succeeded only in reading the seven
concluding words, which thus appeared- "blood- your life depends upon
lying close."
Had I been able to ascertain the entire contents of the note-the
full meaning of the admonition which my friend had thus attempted to
convey, that admonition, even although it should have revealed a
story of disaster the most unspeakable, could not, I am firmly
convinced, have imbued my mind with one tithe of the harrowing and
yet indefinable horror with which I was inspired by the fragmentary
warning thus received. And "blood," too, that word of all words- so
rife at all times with mystery, and suffering, and terror- how trebly
full of import did it now appear- how chilly and heavily (disjointed,
as it thus was, from any foregoing words to qualify or render it
distinct) did its vague syllables fall, amid the deep gloom of my
prison, into the innermost recesses of my soul!
Augustus had, undoubtedly, good reasons for wishing me to remain
concealed, and I formed a thousand surmises as to what they could be-
but I could think of nothing affording a satisfactory solution of the
mystery. Just after returning from my last journey to the trap, and
before my attention had been otherwise directed by the singular
conduct of Tiger, I had come to the resolution of making myself heard
at all events by those on board, or, if I could not succeed in this
directly, of trying to cut my way through the orlop deck. The half
certainty which I felt of being able to accomplish one of these two
purposes in the last emergency, had given me courage (which I should
not otherwise have had) to endure the evils of my situation. The few
words I had been able to read, however, had cut me off from these
final resources, and I now, for the first time, felt all the misery
of my fate. In a paroxysm of despair I threw myself again upon the
mattress, where, for about the period of a day and night, I lay in a
kind of stupor, relieved only by momentary intervals of reason and
recollection.
At length I once more arose, and busied myself in reflection
upon the horrors which encompassed me. For another twenty-four hours
it was barely possible that I might exist without water- for a longer
time I could not do so. During the first portion of my imprisonment I
had made free use of the cordials with which Augustus had supplied
me, but they only served to excite fever, without in the least degree
assuaging thirst. I had now only about a gill left, and this was of a
species of strong peach liqueur at which my stomach revolted. The
sausages were entirely consumed; of the ham nothing remained but a
small piece of the skin; and all the biscuit, except a few fragments
of one, had been eaten by Tiger. To add to my troubles, I found that
my headache was increasing momentarily, and with it the species of
delirium which had distressed me more or less since my first falling
asleep. For some hours past it had been with the greatest difficulty
I could breathe at all, and now each attempt at so doing was attended
with the most depressing spasmodic action of the chest. But there was
still another and very different source of disquietude, and one,
indeed, whose harassing terrors had been the chief means of arousing
me to exertion from my stupor on the mattress. It arose from the
demeanor of the dog.
I first observed an alteration in his conduct while rubbing in
the phosphorus on the paper in my last attempt. As I rubbed, he ran
his nose against my hand with a slight snarl; but I was too greatly
excited at the time to pay much attention to the circumstance. Soon
afterward, it will be remembered, I threw myself on the mattress, and
fell into a species of lethargy. Presently I became aware of a
singular hissing sound close at my ears, and discovered it to proceed
from Tiger, who was panting and wheezing in a state of the greatest
apparent excitement, his eyeballs flashing fiercely through the
gloom. I spoke to him, when he replied with a low growl, and then
remained quiet. Presently I relapsed into my stupor, from which I was
again awakened in a similar manner. This was repeated three or four
times, until finally his behaviour inspired me with so great a degree
of fear, that I became fully aroused. He was now lying close by the
door of the box, snarling fearfully, although in a kind of undertone,
and grinding his teeth as if strongly convulsed. I had no doubt
whatever that the want of water or the confined atmosphere of the
hold had driven him mad, and I was at a loss what course to pursue. I
could not endure the thought of killing him, yet it seemed absolutely
necessary for my own safety. I could distinctly perceive his eyes
fastened upon me with an expression of the most deadly animosity, and
I expected every instant that he would attack me. At last I could
endure my terrible situation no longer, and determined to make my way
from the box at all hazards, and dispatch him, if his opposition
should render it necessary for me to do so. To get out, I had to pass
directly over his body, and he already seemed to anticipate my
design--missing himself upon his fore-legs (as I perceived by the
altered position of his eyes), and displayed the whole of his white
fangs, which were easily discernible. I took the remains of the
ham-skin, and the bottle containing the liqueur, and secured them
about my person, together with a large carving-knife which Augustus
had left me- then, folding my cloak around me as closely as possible,
I made a movement toward the mouth of the box. No sooner did I do
this, than the dog sprang with a loud growl toward my throat. The
whole weight of his body struck me on the right shoulder, and I fell
violently to the left, while the enraged animal passed entirely over
me. I had fallen upon my knees, with my head buried among the
blankets, and these protected me from a second furious assault,
during which I felt the sharp teeth pressing vigorously upon the
woollen which enveloped my neck- yet, luckily, without being able to
penetrate all the folds. I was now beneath the dog, and a few moments
would place me completely in his power. Despair gave me strength, and
I rose boldly up, shaking him from me by main force, and dragging
with me the blankets from the mattress. These I now threw over him,
and before he could extricate himself, I had got through the door and
closed it effectually against his pursuit. In this struggle, however,
I had been forced to drop the morsel of ham-skin, and I now found my
whole stock of provisions reduced to a single gill of liqueur. As
this reflection crossed my mind, I felt myself actuated by one of
those fits of perverseness which might be supposed to influence a
spoiled child in similar circumstances, and, raising the bottle to my
lips, I drained it to the last drop, and dashed it furiously upon the
floor.
Scarcely had the echo of the crash died away, when I heard my
name pronounced in an eager but subdued voice, issuing from the
direction of the steerage. So unexpected was anything of the kind,
and so intense was the emotion excited within me by the sound, that I
endeavoured in vain to reply. My powers of speech totally failed, and
in an agony of terror lest my friend should conclude me dead, and
return without attempting to reach me, I stood up between the crates
near the door of the box, trembling convulsively, and gasping and
struggling for utterance. Had a thousand words depended upon a
syllable, I could not have spoken it. There was a slight movement now
audible among the lumber somewhere forward of my station. The sound
presently grew less distinct, then again less so, and still less.
Shall I ever forget my feelings at this moment? He was going- my
friend, my companion, from whom I had a right to expect so much- he
was going- he would abandon me- he was gone! He would leave me to
perish miserably, to expire in the most horrible and loathesome of
dungeons- and one word, one little syllable, would save me- yet that
single syllable I could not utter! I felt, I am sure, more than ten
thousand times the agonies of death itself. My brain reeled, and I
fell, deadly sick, against the end of the box.
As I fell the carving-knife was shaken out from the waist-band
of my pantaloons, and dropped with a rattling sound to the floor.
Never did any strain of the richest melody come so sweetly to my
ears! With the intensest anxiety I listened to ascertain the effect
of the noise upon Augustus- for I knew that the person who called my
name could be no one but himself. All was silent for some moments. At
length I again heard the word "Arthur!" repeated in a low tone, and
one full of hesitation. Reviving hope loosened at once my powers of
speech, and I now screamed at the top of my voice, "Augustus! oh,
Augustus!" "Hush! for God's sake be silent!" he replied, in a voice
trembling with agitation; "I will be with you immediately- as soon as
I can make my way through the hold." For a long time I heard him
moving among the lumber, and every moment seemed to me an age. At
length I felt his hand upon my shoulder, and he placed, at the same
moment, a bottle of water to my lips. Those only who have been
suddenly redeemed from the jaws of the tomb, or who have known the
insufferable torments of thirst under circumstances as aggravated as
those which encompassed me in my dreary prison, can form any idea of
the unutterable transports which that one long draught of the richest
of all physical luxuries afforded.
When I had in some degree satisfied my thirst, Augustus produced
from his pocket three or four boiled potatoes, which I devoured with
the greatest avidity. He had brought with him a light in a dark
lantern, and the grateful rays afforded me scarcely less comfort than
the food and drink. But I was impatient to learn the cause of his
protracted absence, and he proceeded to recount what had happened on
board during my incarceration.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 3 ~~~
CHAPTER 4
THE brig put to sea, as I had supposed, in about an hour after he
had left the watch. This was on the twentieth of June. It will be
remembered that I had then been in the hold for three days; and,
during this period, there was so constant a bustle on board, and so
much running to and fro, especially in the cabin and staterooms, that
he had had no chance of visiting me without the risk of having the
secret of the trap discovered. When at length he did come, I had
assured him that I was doing as well as possible; and, therefore, for
the two next days be felt but little uneasiness on my account- still,
however, watching an opportunity of going down. It was not until the
fourth day that he found one. Several times during this interval he
had made up his mind to let his father know of the adventure, and
have me come up at once; but we were still within reaching distance
of Nantucket, and it was doubtful, from some expressions which had
escaped Captain Barnard, whether he would not immediately put back if
he discovered me to be on board. Besides, upon thinking the matter
over, Augustus, so he told me, could not imagine that I was in
immediate want, or that I would hesitate, in such case, to make
myself heard at the trap. When, therefore, he considered everything
he concluded to let me stay until he could meet with an opportunity
of visiting me unobserved. This, as I said before, did not occur
until the fourth day after his bringing me the watch, and the seventh
since I had first entered the hold. He then went down without taking
with him any water or provisions, intending in the first place merely
to call my attention, and get me to come from the box to the trap,-
when he would go up to the stateroom and thence hand me down a supply.
When he descended for this purpose he found that I was asleep,
for it seems that I was snoring very loudly. From all the
calculations I can make on the subject, this must have been the
slumber into which I fell just after my return from the trap with the
watch, and which, consequently, must have lasted for more than three
entire days and nights at the very least. Latterly, I have had reason
both from my own experience and the assurance of others, to be
acquainted with the strong soporific effects of the stench arising
from old fish-oil when closely confined; and when I think of the
condition of the hold in which I was imprisoned, and the long period
during which the brig had been used as a whaling vessel, I am more
inclined to wonder that I awoke at all, after once falling asleep,
than that I should have slept uninterruptedly for the period
specified above.
Augustus called to me at first in a low voice and without
closing the trap- but I made him no reply. He then shut the trap, and
spoke to me in a louder, and finally in a very loud tone- still I
continued to snore. He was now at a loss what to do. It would take
him some time to make his way through the lumber to my box, and in
the meanwhile his absence would be noticed by Captain Barnard, who
had occasion for his services every minute, in arranging and copying
papers connected with the business of the voyage. He determined,
therefore, upon reflection, to ascend, and await another opportunity
of visiting me. He was the more easily induced to this resolve, as my
slumber appeared to be of the most tranquil nature, and he could not
suppose that I had undergone any inconvenience from my incarceration.
He had just made up his mind on these points when his attention was
arrested by an unusual bustle, the sound of which proceeded
apparently from the cabin. He sprang through the trap as quickly as
possible, closed it, and threw open the door of his stateroom. No
sooner had he put his foot over the threshold than a pistol flashed
in his face, and he was knocked down, at the same moment, by a blow
from a handspike.
A strong hand held him on the cabin floor, with a tight grasp
upon his throat; still he was able to see what was going on around
him. His father was tied hand and foot, and lying along the steps of
the companion-way, with his head down, and a deep wound in the
forehead, from which the blood was flowing in a continued stream. He
spoke not a word, and was apparently dying. Over him stood the first
mate, eyeing him with an expression of fiendish derision, and
deliberately searching his pockets, from which he presently drew
forth a large wallet and a chronometer. Seven of the crew (among whom
was the cook, a negro) were rummaging the staterooms on the larboard
for arms, where they soon equipped themselves with muskets and
ammunition. Besides Augustus and Captain Barnard, there were nine men
altogether in the cabin, and these among the most ruffianly of the
brig's company. The villains now went upon deck, taking my friend
with them after having secured his arms behind his back. They
proceeded straight to the forecastle, which was fastened down- two of
the mutineers standing by it with axes- two also at the main hatch.
The mate called out in a loud voice: "Do you hear there below? tumble
up with you, one by one- now, mark that- and no grumbling!" It was
some minutes before any one appeared:- at last an Englishman, who had
shipped as a raw hand, came up, weeping piteously, and entreating the
mate, in the most humble manner, to spare his life. The only reply
was a blow on the forehead from an axe. The poor fellow fell to the
deck without a groan, and the black cook lifted him up in his arms as
he would a child, and tossed him deliberately into the sea. Hearing
the blow and the plunge of the body, the men below could now be
induced to venture on deck neither by threats nor promises, until a
proposition was made to smoke them out. A general rush then ensued,
and for a moment it seemed possible that the brig might be retaken.
The mutineers, however, succeeded at last in closing the forecastle
effectually before more than six of their opponents could get up.
These six, finding themselves so greatly outnumbered and without
arms, submitted after a brief struggle. The mate gave them fair
words- no doubt with a view of inducing those below to yield, for
they had no difficulty in hearing all that was said on deck. The
result proved his sagacity, no less than his diabolical villainy. All
in the forecastle presently signified their intention of submitting,
and, ascending one by one, were pinioned and then thrown on their
backs, together with the first six- there being in all, of the crew
who were not concerned in the mutiny, twenty-seven.
A scene of the most horrible butchery ensued. The bound seamen
were dragged to the gangway. Here the cook stood with an axe,
striking each victim on the head as he was forced over the side of
the vessel by the other mutineers. In this manner twenty-two
perished, and Augustus had given himself up for lost, expecting every
moment his own turn to come next. But it seemed that the villains
were now either weary, or in some measure disgusted with their bloody
labour; for the four remaining prisoners, together with my friend,
who had been thrown on the deck with the rest, were respited while
the mate sent below for rum, and the whole murderous party held a
drunken carouse, which lasted until sunset. They now fell to
disputing in regard to the fate of the survivors, who lay not more
than four paces off, and could distinguish every word said. Upon some
of the mutineers the liquor appeared to have a softening effect, for
several voices were heard in favor of releasing the captives
altogether, on condition of joining the mutiny and sharing the
profits. The black cook, however (who in all respects was a perfect
demon, and who seemed to exert as much influence, if not more, than
the mate himself), would listen to no proposition of the kind, and
rose repeatedly for the purpose of resuming his work at the gangway.
Fortunately he was so far overcome by intoxication as to be easily
restrained by the less bloodthirsty of the party, among whom was a
line-manager, who went by the name of Dirk Peters. This man was the
son of an Indian squaw of the tribe of Upsarokas, who live among the
fastnesses of the Black Hills, near the source of the Missouri. His
father was a fur-trader, I believe, or at least connected in some
manner with the Indian trading-posts on Lewis river. Peter himself
was one of the most ferocious-looking men I ever beheld. He was short
in stature, not more than four feet eight inches high, but his limbs
were of Herculean mould. His hands, especially, were so enormously
thick and broad as hardly to retain a human shape. His arms, as well
as legs, were bowed in the most singular manner, and appeared to
possess no flexibility whatever. His head was equally deformed, being
of immense size, with an indentation on the crown (like that on the
head of most negroes), and entirely bald. To conceal this latter
deficiency, which did not proceed from old age, he usually wore a wig
formed of any hair-like material which presented itself- occasionally
the skin of a Spanish dog or American grizzly bear. At the time
spoken of, he had on a portion of one of these bearskins; and it
added no little to the natural ferocity of his countenance, which
betook of the Upsaroka character. The mouth extended nearly from ear
to ear, the lips were thin, and seemed, like some other portions of
his frame, to be devoid of natural pliancy, so that the ruling
expression never varied under the influence of any emotion whatever.
This ruling expression may be conceived when it is considered that
the teeth were exceedingly long and protruding, and never even
partially covered, in any instance, by the lips. To pass this man
with a casual glance, one might imagine him to be convulsed with
laughter, but a second look would induce a shuddering acknowledgment,
that if such an expression were indicative of merriment, the
merriment must be that of a demon. Of this singular being many
anecdotes were prevalent among the seafaring men of Nantucket. These
anecdotes went to prove his prodigious strength when under
excitement, and some of them had given rise to a doubt of his sanity.
But on board the Grampus, it seems, he was regarded, at the time of
the mutiny, with feelings more of derision than of anything else. I
have been thus particular in speaking of Dirk Peters, because,
ferocious as he appeared, he proved the main instrument in preserving
the life of Augustus, and because I shall have frequent occasion to
mention him hereafter in the course of my narrative- a narrative, let
me here say, which, in its latter portions, will be found to include
incidents of a nature so entirely out of the range of human
experience, and for this reason so far beyond the limits of human
credulity, that I proceed in utter hopelessness of obtaining credence
for all that I shall tell, yet confidently trusting in time and
progressing science to verify some of the most important and most
improbable of my statements.
After much indecision and two or three violent quarrels, it was
determined at last that all the prisoners (with the exception of
Augustus, whom Peters insisted in a jocular manner upon keeping as
his clerk) should be set adrift in one of the smallest whaleboats.
The mate went down into the cabin to see if Captain Barnard was still
living- for, it will be remembered, he was left below when the
mutineers came up. Presently the two made their appearance, the
captain pale as death, but somewhat recovered from the effects of his
wound. He spoke to the men in a voice hardly articulate, entreated
them not to set him adrift, but to return to their duty, and
promising to land them wherever they chose, and to take no steps for
bringing them to justice. He might as well have spoken to the winds.
Two of the ruffians seized him by the arms and hurled him over the
brig's side into the boat, which had been lowered while the mate went
below. The four men who were lying on the deck were then untied and
ordered to follow, which they did without attempting any resistance-
Augustus being still left in his painful position, although he
struggled and prayed only for the poor satisfaction of being
permitted to bid his father farewell. A handful of sea-biscuit and a
jug of water were now handed down; but neither mast, sail, oar, nor
compass. The boat was towed astern for a few minutes, during which
the mutineers held another consultation- it was then finally cut
adrift. By this time night had come on- there were neither moon nor
stars visible- and a short and ugly sea was running, although there
was no great deal of wind. The boat was instantly out of sight, and
little hope could be entertained for the unfortunate sufferers who
were in it. This event happened, however, in latitude 35 degrees 30'
north, longitude 61 degrees 20' west, and consequently at no very
great distance from the Bermuda Islands. Augustus therefore
endeavored to console himself with the idea that the boat might
either succeed in reaching the land, or come sufficiently near to be
fallen in with by vessels off the coast.
All sail was now put upon the brig, and she continued her
original course to the southwest- the mutineers being bent upon some
piratical expedition, in which, from all that could be understood, a
ship was to be intercepted on her way from the Cape Verd Islands to
Porto Rico. No attention was paid to Augustus, who was untied and
suffered to go about anywhere forward of the cabin companion-way.
Dirk Peters treated him with some degree of kindness, and on one
occasion saved him from the brutality of the cook. His situation was
still one of the most precarious, as the men were continually
intoxicated, and there was no relying upon their continued good-humor
or carelessness in regard to himself. His anxiety on my account be
represented, however, as the most distressing result of his
condition; and, indeed, I had never reason to doubt the sincerity of
his friendship. More than once he had resolved to acquaint the
mutineers with the secret of my being on board, but was restrained
from so doing, partly through recollection of the atrocities he had
already beheld, and partly through a hope of being able soon to bring
me relief. For the latter purpose he was constantly on the watch;
but, in spite of the most constant vigilance, three days elapsed
after the boat was cut adrift before any chance occurred. At length,
on the night of the third day, there came on a heavy blow from the
eastward, and all hands were called up to take in sail. During the
confusion which ensued, he made his way below unobserved, and into
the stateroom. What was his grief and horror in discovering that the
latter had been rendered a place of deposit for a variety of
sea-stores and ship-furniture, and that several fathoms of old
chain-cable, which had been stowed away beneath the companion-ladder,
had been dragged thence to make room for a chest, and were now lying
immediately upon the trap! To remove it without discovery was
impossible, and he returned on deck as quickly as he could. As be
came up, the mate seized him by the throat, and demanding what he had
been doing in the cabin, was about flinging him over the larboard
bulwark, when his life was again preserved through the interference
of Dirk Peters. Augustus was now put in handcuffs (of which there
were several pairs on board), and his feet lashed tightly together.
He was then taken into the steerage, and thrown into a lower berth
next to the forecastle bulkheads, with the assurance that he should
never put his foot on deck again "until the brig was no longer a
brig." This was the expression of the cook, who threw him into the
berth- it is hardly possible to say what precise meaning intended by
the phrase. The whole affair, however, proved the ultimate means of
my relief, as will presently appear.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 4 ~~~
CHAPTER 5
FOR some minutes after the cook had left the forecastle, Augustus
abandoned himself to despair, never hoping to leave the berth alive.
He now came to the resolution of acquainting the first of the men who
should come down with my situation, thinking it better to let me take
my chance with the mutineers than perish of thirst in the hold,- for
it had been ten days since I was first imprisoned, and my jug of
water was not a plentiful supply even for four. As he was thinking on
this subject, the idea came all at once into his head that it might
be possible to communicate with me by the way of the main hold. In
any other circumstances, the difficulty and hazard of the undertaking
would have prevented him from attempting it; but now he had, at all
events, little prospect of life, and consequently little to lose, he
bent his whole mind, therefore, upon the task.
His handcuffs were the first consideration. At first he saw no
method of removing them, and feared that he should thus be baffled in
the very outset; but upon a closer scrutiny he discovered that the
irons could be slipped off and on at pleasure, with very little
effort or inconvenience, merely by squeezing his hands through them,-
this species of manacle being altogether ineffectual in confining
young persons, in whom the smaller bones readily yield to pressure.
He now untied his feet, and, leaving the cord in such a manner that
it could easily be readjusted in the event of any person's coming
down, proceeded to examine the bulkhead where it joined the berth.
The partition here was of soft pine board, an inch thick, and he saw
that he should have little trouble in cutting his way through. A
voice was now heard at the forecastle companion-way, and he had just
time to put his right hand into its handcuff (the left had not been
removed) and to draw the rope in a slipknot around his ankle, when
Dirk Peters came below, followed by Tiger, who immediately leaped
into the berth and lay down. The dog had been brought on board by
Augustus, who knew my attachment to the animal, and thought it would
give me pleasure to have him with me during the voyage. He went up to
our house for him immediately after first taking me into the hold,
but did not think of mentioning the circumstance upon his bringing
the watch. Since the mutiny, Augustus had not seen him before his
appearance with Dirk Peters, and had given him up for lost, supposing
him to have been thrown overboard by some of the malignant villains
belonging to the mate's gang. It appeared afterward that he had
crawled into a hole beneath a whale-boat, from which, not having room
to turn round, he could not extricate himself. Peters at last let him
out, and, with a species of good feeling which my friend knew well
how to appreciate, had now brought him to him in the forecastle as a
companion, leaving at the same time some salt junk and potatoes, with
a can of water, he then went on deck, promising to come down with
something more to eat on the next day.
When he had gone, Augustus freed both hands from the manacles and
unfastened his feet. He then turned down the head of the mattress on
which he had been lying, and with his penknife (for the ruffians had
not thought it worth while to search him) commenced cutting
vigorously across one of the partition planks, as closely as possible
to the floor of the berth. He chose to cut here, because, if suddenly
interrupted, he would be able to conceal what had been done by
letting the head of the mattress fall into its proper position. For
the remainder of the day, however, no disturbance occurred, and by
night he had completely divided the plank. It should here be observed
that none of the crew occupied the forecastle as a sleeping-place,
living altogether in the cabin since the mutiny, drinking the wines
and feasting on the sea-stores of Captain Barnard, and giving no more
heed than was absolutely necessary to the navigation of the brig.
These circumstances proved fortunate both for myself and Augustus;
for, had matters been otherwise, he would have found it impossible to
reach me. As it was, he proceeded with confidence in his design. It
was near daybreak, however, before he completed the second division
of the board (which was about a foot above the first cut), thus
making an aperture quite large enough to admit his passage through
with facility to the main orlop deck. Having got here, he made his
way with but little trouble to the lower main hatch, although in so
doing he had to scramble over tiers of oil-casks piled nearly as high
as the upper deck, there being barely room enough left for his body.
Upon reaching the hatch he found that Tiger had followed him below,
squeezing between two rows of the casks. It was now too late,
however, to attempt getting to me before dawn, as the chief
difficulty lay in passing through the close stowage in the lower
hold. He therefore resolved to return, and wait till the next night.
With this design, he proceeded to loosen the hatch, so that he might
have as little detention as possible when he should come again. No
sooner had he loosened it than Tiger sprang eagerly to the small
opening produced, snuffed for a moment, and then uttered a long
whine, scratching at the same time, as if anxious to remove the
covering with his paws. There could be no doubt, from his behaviour,
that he was aware of my being in the hold, and Augustus thought it
possible that he would be able to get to me if he put him down. He
now hit upon the expedient of sending the note, as it was especially
desirable that I should make no attempt at forcing my way out at
least under existing circumstances, and there could be no certainty
of his getting to me himself on the morrow as he intended.
After-events proved how fortunate it was that the idea occurred to
him as it did; for, had it not been for the receipt of the note, I
should undoubtedly have fallen upon some plan, however desperate, of
alarming the crew, and both our lives would most probably have been
sacrificed in consequence.
Having concluded to write, the difficulty was now to procure the
materials for so doing. An old toothpick was soon made into a pen;
and this by means of feeling altogether, for the between-decks was as
dark as pitch. Paper enough was obtained from the back of a letter- a
duplicate of the forged letter from Mr. Ross. This had been the
original draught; but the handwriting not being sufficiently well
imitated, Augustus had written another, thrusting the first, by good
fortune, into his coat-pocket, where it was now most opportunely
discovered. Ink alone was thus wanting, and a substitute was
immediately found for this by means of a slight incision with the
pen-knife on the back of a finger just above the nail- a copious flow
of blood ensuing, as usual, from wounds in that vicinity. The note
was now written, as well as it could be in the dark and under the
circumstances. It briefly explained that a mutiny had taken place;
that Captain Barnard was set adrift; and that I might expect
immediate relief as far as provisions were concerned, but must not
venture upon making any disturbance. It concluded with these words:
"_I have scrawled this with blood- your life depends upon lying
close._"
This slip of paper being tied upon the dog, he was now put down
the hatchway, and Augustus made the best of his way back to the
forecastle, where be found no reason to believe that any of the crew
had been in his absence. To conceal the hole in the partition, he
drove his knife in just above it, and hung up a pea-jacket which he
found in the berth. His handcuffs were then replaced, and also the
rope around his ankles.
These arrangements were scarcely completed when Dirk Peters came
below, very drunk, but in excellent humour, and bringing with him my
friend's allowance of provision for the day. This consisted of a
dozen large Irish potatoes roasted, and a pitcher of water. He sat
for some time on a chest by the berth, and talked freely about the
mate and the general concerns of the brig. His demeanour was
exceedingly capricious, and even grotesque. At one time Augustus was
much alarmed by odd conduct. At last, however, he went on deck,
muttering a promise to bring his prisoner a good dinner on the
morrow. During the day two of the crew (harpooners) came down,
accompanied by the cook, all three in nearly the last stage of
intoxication. Like Peters, they made no scruple of talking
unreservedly about their plans. It appeared that they were much
divided among themselves as to their ultimate course, agreeing in no
point, except the attack on the ship from the Cape Verd Islands, with
which they were in hourly expectation of meeting. As far as could be
ascertained, the mutiny had not been brought about altogether for the
sake of booty; a private pique of the chief mate's against Captain
Barnard having been the main instigation. There now seemed to be two
principal factions among the crew- one headed by the mate, the other
by the cook. The former party were for seizing the first suitable
vessel which should present itself, and equipping it at some of the
West India Islands for a piratical cruise. The latter division,
however, which was the stronger, and included Dirk Peters among its
partisans, were bent upon pursuing the course originally laid out for
the brig into the South Pacific; there either to take whale, or act
otherwise, as circumstances should suggest. The representations of
Peters, who had frequently visited these regions, had great weight,
apparently, with the mutineers, wavering, as they were, between
half-engendered notions of profit and pleasure. He dwelt on the world
of novelty and amusement to be found among the innumerable islands of
the Pacific, on the perfect security and freedom from all restraint
to be enjoyed, but, more particularly, on the deliciousness of the
climate, on the abundant means of good living, and on the voluptuous
beauty of the women. As yet, nothing had been absolutely determined
upon; but the pictures of the hybrid line-manager were taking strong
hold upon the ardent imaginations of the seamen, and there was every
possibility that his intentions would be finally carried into effect.
The three men went away in about an hour, and no one else entered
the forecastle all day. Augustus lay quiet until nearly night. He
then freed himself from the rope and irons, and prepared for his
attempt. A bottle was found in one of the berths, and this he filled
with water from the pitcher left by Peters, storing his pockets at
the same time with cold potatoes. To his great joy he also came
across a lantern, with a small piece of tallow candle in it. This he
could light at any moment, as be had in his possession a box of
phosphorus matches. When it was quite dark, he got through the hole
in the bulkhead, having taken the precaution to arrange the
bedclothes in the berth so as to convey the idea of a person covered
up. When through, he hung up the pea-jacket on his knife, as before,
to conceal the aperture- this manoeuvre being easily effected, as he
did not readjust the piece of plank taken out until afterward. He was
now on the main orlop deck, and proceeded to make his way, as before,
between the upper deck and the oil-casks to the main hatchway. Having
reached this, he lit the piece of candle, and descended, groping with
extreme difficulty among the compact stowage of the hold. In a few
moments he became alarmed at the insufferable stench and the
closeness of the atmosphere. He could not think it possible that I
had survived my confinement for so long a period breathing so
oppressive an air. He called my name repeatedly, but I made him no
reply, and his apprehensions seemed thus to be confirmed. The brig
was rolling violently, and there was so much noise in consequence,
that it was useless to listen for any weak sound, such as those of my
breathing or snoring. He threw open the lantern, and held it as high
as possible, whenever an opportunity occurred, in order that, by
observing the light, I might, if alive, be aware that succor was
approaching. Still nothing was heard from me, and the supposition of
my death began to assume the character of certainty. He determined,
nevertheless, to force a passage, if possible, to the box, and at
least ascertain beyond a doubt the truth of his surmises. He pushed
on for some time in a most pitiable state of anxiety, until, at
length, he found the pathway utterly blocked up, and that there was
no possibility of making any farther way by the course in which he
had set out. Overcome now by his feelings, he threw himself among the
lumber in despair, and wept like a child. It was at this period that
he heard the crash occasioned by the bottle which I had thrown down.
Fortunate, indeed, was it that the incident occurred- for, upon this
incident, trivial as it appears, the thread of my destiny depended.
Many years elapsed, however, before I was aware of this fact. A
natural shame and regret for his weakness and indecision prevented
Augustus from confiding to me at once what a more intimate and
unreserved communion afterward induced him to reveal. Upon finding
his further progress in the hold impeded by obstacles which he could
not overcome, he had resolved to abandon his attempt at reaching me,
and return at once to the forecastle. Before condemning him entirely
on this head, the harassing circumstances which embarrassed him
should be taken into consideration. The night was fast wearing away,
and his absence from the forecastle might be discovered; and indeed
would necessarily be so, if be should fail to get back to the berth
by daybreak. His candle was expiring in the socket, and there would
be the greatest difficulty in retracing his way to the hatchway in
the dark. It must be allowed, too, that he had every good reason to
believe me dead; in which event no benefit could result to me from
his reaching the box, and a world of danger would be encountered to
no purpose by himself. He had repeatedly called, and I had made him
no answer. I had been now eleven days and nights with no more water
than that contained in the jug which he had left with me- a supply
which it was not at all probable I had boarded in the beginning of my
confinement, as I had every cause to expect a speedy release. The
atmosphere of the hold, too, must have appeared to him, coming from
the comparatively open air of the steerage, of a nature absolutely
poisonous, and by far more intolerable than it had seemed to me upon
my first taking up my quarters in the box- the hatchways at that time
having been constantly open for many months previous. Add to these
considerations that of the scene of bloodshed and terror so lately
witnessed by my friend; his confinement, privations, and narrow
escapes from death, together with the frail and equivocal tenure by
which he still existed- circumstances all so well calculated to
prostrate every energy of mind- and the reader will be easily
brought, as I have been, to regard his apparent falling off in
friendship and in faith with sentiments rather of sorrow than of
anger.
The crash of the bottle was distinctly heard, yet Augustus was
not sure that it proceeded from the hold. The doubt, however, was
sufficient inducement to persevere. He clambered up nearly to the
orlop deck by means of the stowage, and then, watching for a lull in
the pitchings of the vessel, he called out to me in as loud a tone as
he could command, regardless, for the moment, of being overheard by
the crew. It will be remembered that on this occasion the voice
reached me, but I was so entirely overcome by violent agitation as to
be incapable of reply. Confident, now, that his worst apprehensions
were well founded, be descended, with a view of getting back to the
forecastle without loss of time. In his haste some small boxes were
thrown down, the noise occasioned by which I heard, as will be
recollected. He had made considerable progress on his return when the
fall of the knife again caused him to hesitate. He retraced his steps
immediately, and, clambering up the stowage a second time, called out
my name, loudly as before, having watched for a lull. This time I
found voice to answer. Overjoyed at discovering me to be still alive,
he now resolved to brave every difficulty and danger in reaching me.
Having extricated himself as quickly as possible from the labyrinth
of lumber by which he was hemmed in, he at length struck into an
opening which promised better, and finally, after a series of
struggles, arrived at the box in a state of utter exhaustion.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 5 ~~~
CHAPTER 6
THE leading particulars of this narration were all that Augustus
communicated to me while we remained near the box. It was not until
afterward that he entered fully into all the details. He was
apprehensive of being missed, and I was wild with impatience to leave
my detested place of confinement. We resolved to make our way at once
to the hole in the bulkhead, near which I was to remain for the
present, while he went through to reconnoiter. To leave Tiger in the
box was what neither of us could endure to think of, yet, how to act
otherwise was the question. He now seemed to be perfectly quiet, and
we could not even distinguish the sound of his breathing upon
applying our ears closely to the box. I was convinced that he was
dead, and determined to open the door. We found him lying at full
length, apparently in a deep stupor, yet still alive. No time was to
be lost, yet I could not bring myself to abandon an animal who had
now been twice instrumental in saving my life, without some attempt
at preserving him. We therefore dragged him along with us as well as
we could, although with the greatest difficulty and fatigue;
Augustus, during part of the time, being forced to clamber over the
impediments in our way with the huge dog in his arms- a feat to which
the feebleness of my frame rendered me totally inadequate. At length
we succeeded in reaching the hole, when Augustus got through, and
Tiger was pushed in afterward. All was found to be safe, and we did
not fail to return sincere thanks to God for our deliverance from the
imminent danger we had escaped. For the present, it was agreed that I
should remain near the opening, through which my companion could
readily supply me with a part of his daily provision, and where I
could have the advantages of breathing an atmosphere comparatively
pure.
In explanation of some portions of this narrative, wherein I have
spoken of the stowage of the brig, and which may appear ambiguous to
some of my readers who may have seen a proper or regular stowage, I
must here state that the manner in which this most important duty had
been per formed on board the Grampus was a most shameful piece of
neglect on the part of Captain Barnard, who was by no means as
careful or as experienced a seaman as the hazardous nature of the
service on which he was employed would seem necessarily to demand. A
proper stowage cannot be accomplished in a careless manner, and many
most disastrous accidents, even within the limits of my own
experience, have arisen from neglect or ignorance in this particular.
Coasting vessels, in the frequent hurry and bustle attendant upon
taking in or discharging cargo, are the most liable to mishap from
the want of a proper attention to stowage. The great point is to
allow no possibility of the cargo or ballast shifting position even
in the most violent rollings of the vessel. With this end, great
attention must be paid, not only to the bulk taken in, but to the
nature of the bulk, and whether there be a full or only a partial
cargo. In most kinds of freight the stowage is accomplished by means
of a screw. Thus, in a load of tobacco or flour, the whole is screwed
so tightly into the hold of the vessel that the barrels or hogsheads,
upon discharging, are found to be completely flattened, and take some
time to regain their original shape. This screwing, however, is
resorted to principally with a view of obtaining more room in the
hold; for in a full load of any such commodities as flour or tobacco,
there can be no danger of any shifting whatever, at least none from
which inconvenience can result. There have been instances, indeed,
where this method of screwing has resulted in the most lamentable
consequences, arising from a cause altogether distinct from the
danger attendant upon a shifting of cargo. A load of cotton, for
example, tightly screwed while in certain conditions, has been known,
through the expansion of its bulk, to rend a vessel asunder at sea.
There can be no doubt either that the same result would ensue in the
case of tobacco, while undergoing its usual course of fermentation,
were it not for the interstices consequent upon the rotundity of the
hogsheads.
It is when a partial cargo is received that danger is chiefly to
be apprehended from shifting, and that precautions should be always
taken to guard against such misfortune. Only those who have
encountered a violent gale of wind, or rather who have experienced
the rolling of a vessel in a sudden calm after the gale, can form an
idea of the tremendous force of the plunges, and of the consequent
terrible impetus given to all loose articles in the vessel. It is
then that the necessity of a cautious stowage, when there is a
partial cargo, becomes obvious. When lying-to (especially with a
small bead sail), a vessel which is not properly modelled in the bows
is frequently thrown upon her beam-ends; this occurring even every
fifteen or twenty minutes upon an average, yet without any serious
consequences resulting, provided there be a proper stowage. If this,
however, has not been strictly attended to, in the first of these
heavy lurches the whole of the cargo tumbles over to the side of the
vessel which lies upon the water, and, being thus prevented from
regaining her equilibrium, as she would otherwise necessarily do, she
is certain to fill in a few seconds and go down. It is not too much
to say that at least one-half of the instances in which vessels have
foundered in heavy gales at sea may be attributed to a shifting of
cargo or of ballast.
When a partial cargo of any kind is taken on board, the whole,
after being first stowed as compactly as may be, should be covered
with a layer of stout shifting-boards, extending completely across
the vessel. Upon these boards strong temporary stanchions should be
erected, reaching to the timbers above, and thus securing every thing
in its place. In cargoes consisting of grain, or any similar matter,
additional precautions are requisite. A hold filled entirely with
grain upon leaving port will be found not more than three fourths
full upon reaching its destination -- this, too, although the
freight, when measured bushel by bushel by the consignee, will
overrun by a vast deal (on account of the swelling of the grain) the
quantity consigned. This result is occasioned by settling during the
voyage, and is the more perceptible in proportion to the roughness of
the weather experienced. If grain loosely thrown in a vessel, then,
is ever so well secured by shifting-boards and stanchions, it will be
liable to shift in a long passage so greatly as to bring about the
most distressing calamities. To prevent these, every method should be
employed before leaving port to settle the cargo as much as possible;
and for this there are many contrivances, among which may be
mentioned the driving of wedges into the grain. Even after all this
is done, and unusual pains taken to secure the shifting-boards, no
seaman who knows what he is about will feel altogether secure in a
gale of any violence with a cargo of grain on board, and, least of
all, with a partial cargo. Yet there are hundreds of our coasting
vessels, and, it is likely, many more from the ports of Europe, which
sail daily with partial cargoes, even of the most dangerous species,
and without any precaution whatever. The wonder is that no more
accidents occur than do actually happen. A lamentable instance of
this heedlessness occurred to my knowledge in the case of Captain
Joel Rice of the schooner Firefly, which sailed from Richmond,
Virginia, to Madeira, with a cargo of corn, in the year 1825. The
captain had gone many voyages without serious accident, although he
was in the habit of paying no attention whatever to his stowage, more
than to secure it in the ordinary manner. He had never before sailed
with a cargo of grain, and on this occasion had the corn thrown on
board loosely, when it did not much more than half fill the vessel.
For the first portion of the voyage he met with nothing more than
light breezes; but when within a day's sail of Madeira there came on
a strong gale from the N. N. E. which forced him to lie-to. He
brought the schooner to the wind under a double-reefed foresail
alone, when she rode as well as any vessel could be expected to do,
and shipped not a drop of water. Toward night the gale somewhat
abated, and she rolled with more unsteadiness than before, but still
did very well, until a heavy lurch threw her upon her beam-ends to
starboard. The corn was then heard to shift bodily, the force of the
movement bursting open the main hatchway. The vessel went down like a
shot. This happened within hail of a small sloop from Madeira, which
picked up one of the crew (the only person saved), and which rode out
the gale in perfect security, as indeed a jolly boat might have done
under proper management.
The stowage on board the Grampus was most clumsily done, if
stowage that could be called which was little better than a
promiscuous huddling together of oil-casks {*1} and ship furniture. I
have already spoken of the condition of articles in the hold. On the
orlop deck there was space enough for my body (as I have stated)
between the oil-casks and the upper deck; a space was left open
around the main hatchway; and several other large spaces were left in
the stowage. Near the hole cut through the bulkhead by Augustus there
was room enough for an entire cask, and in this space I found myself
comfortably situated for the present.
By the time my friend had got safely into the berth, and
readjusted his handcuffs and the rope, it was broad daylight. We had
made a narrow escape indeed; for scarcely had he arranged all
matters, when the mate came below, with Dirk Peters and the cook.
They talked for some time about the vessel from the Cape Verds, and
seemed to be excessively anxious for her appearance. At length the
cook came to the berth in which Augustus was lying, and seated
himself in it near the head. I could see and hear every thing from my
hiding-place, for the piece cut out had not been put back, and I was
in momentary expectation that the negro would fall against the
pea-jacket, which was hung up to conceal the aperture, in which case
all would have been discovered, and our lives would, no doubt, have
been instantly sacrificed. Our good fortune prevailed, however; and
although he frequently touched it as the vessel rolled, he never
pressed against it sufficiently to bring about a discovery. The
bottom of the jacket had been carefully fastened to the bulkhead, so
that the hole might not be seen by its swinging to one side. All this
time Tiger was lying in the foot of the berth, and appeared to have
recovered in some measure his faculties, for I could see him
occasionally open his eyes and draw a long breath.
After a few minutes the mate and cook went above, leaving Dirk
Peters behind, who, as soon as they were gone, came and sat himself
down in the place just occupied by the mate. He began to talk very
sociably with Augustus, and we could now see that the greater part of
his apparent intoxication, while the two others were with him, was a
feint. He answered all my companion's questions with perfect freedom;
told him that he had no doubt of his father's having been picked up,
as there were no less than five sail in sight just before sundown on
the day he was cut adrift; and used other language of a consolatory
nature, which occasioned me no less surprise than pleasure. Indeed, I
began to entertain hopes, that through the instrumentality of Peters
we might be finally enabled to regain possession of the brig, and
this idea I mentioned to Augustus as soon as I found an opportunity.
He thought the matter possible, but urged the necessity of the
greatest caution in making the attempt, as the conduct of the hybrid
appeared to be instigated by the most arbitrary caprice alone; and,
indeed, it was difficult to say if be was at any moment of sound
mind. Peters went upon deck in about an hour, and did not return
again until noon, when he brought Augustus a plentiful supply of junk
beef and pudding. Of this, when we were left alone, I partook
heartily, without returning through the hole. No one else came down
into the forecastle during the day, and at night, I got into
Augustus' berth, where I slept soundly and sweetly until nearly
daybreak, when he awakened me upon hearing a stir upon deck, and I
regained my hiding-place as quickly as possible. When the day was
fully broke, we found that Tiger had recovered his strength almost
entirely, and gave no indications of hydrophobia, drinking a little
water that was offered him with great apparent eagerness. During the
day he regained all his former vigour and appetite. His strange
conduct had been brought on, no doubt, by the deleterious quality of
the air of the hold, and had no connexion with canine madness. I
could not sufficiently rejoice that I had persisted in bringing him
with me from the box. This day was the thirtieth of June, and the
thirteenth since the Grampus made sad from Nantucket.
On the second of July the mate came below drunk as usual, and in
an excessively good-humor. He came to Augustus's berth, and, giving
him a slap on the back, asked him if he thought he could behave
himself if he let him loose, and whether he would promise not to be
going into the cabin again. To this, of course, my friend answered in
the affirmative, when the ruffian set him at liberty, after making
him drink from a flask of rum which he drew from his coat-pocket.
Both now went on deck, and I did not see Augustus for about three
hours. He then came below with the good news that he had obtained
permission to go about the brig as be pleased anywhere forward of the
mainmast, and that he had been ordered to sleep, as usual, in the
forecastle. He brought me, too, a good dinner, and a plentiful supply
of water. The brig was still cruising for the vessel from the Cape
Verds, and a sail was now in sight, which was thought to be the one
in question. As the events of the ensuing eight days were of little
importance, and had no direct bearing upon the main incidents of my
narrative, I will here throw them into the form of a journal, as I do
not wish to omit them altogether.
July 3. Augustus furnished me with three blankets, with which I
contrived a comfortable bed in my hiding-place. No one came below,
except my companion, during the day. Tiger took his station in the
berth just by the aperture, and slept heavily, as if not yet entirely
recovered from the effects of his sickness. Toward night a flaw of
wind struck the brig before sail could be taken in, and very nearly
capsized her. The puff died away immediately, however, and no damage
was done beyond the splitting of the foretopsail. Dirk Peters treated
Augustus all this day with great kindness and entered into a long
conversation with him respecting the Pacific Ocean, and the islands
he had visited in that region. He asked him whether be would not like
to go with the mutineers on a kind of exploring and pleasure voyage
in those quarters, and said that the men were gradually coming over
to the mate's views. To this Augustus thought it best to reply that
he would be glad to go on such an adventure, since nothing better
could be done, and that any thing was preferable to a piratical life.
July 4th. The vessel in sight proved to be a small brig from
Liverpool, and was allowed to pass unmolested. Augustus spent most of
his time on deck, with a view of obtaining all the information in his
power respecting the intentions of the mutineers. They had frequent
and violent quarrels among themselves, in one of which a harpooner,
Jim Bonner, was thrown overboard. The party of the mate was gaining
ground. Jim Bonner belonged to the cook's gang, of which Peters was a
partisan.
July 5th. About daybreak there came on a stiff breeze from the
west, which at noon freshened into a gale, so that the brig could
carry nothing more than her trysail and foresail. In taking in the
foretopsail, Simms, one of the common hands, and belonging also to
the cook's gang, fell overboard, being very much in liquor, and was
drowned- no attempt being made to save him. The whole number of
persons on board was now thirteen, to wit: Dirk Peters; Seymour, the
black cook; Jones, Greely, Hartman Rogers and William Allen, all of
the cook's party; of the cook's party; the mate, whose name I never
learned; Absalom Hicks, Wilson, John Hunty Richard Parker, of the mate's
party;- besides Augustus and myself.
July 6th. The gale lasted all this day, blowing in heavy squalls,
accompanied with rain. The brig took in a good deal of water through
her seams, and one of the pumps was kept continually going, Augustus
being forced to take his turn. Just at twilight a large ship passed
close by us, without having been discovered until within hail. The
ship was supposed to be the one for which the mutineers were on the
lookout. The mate hailed her, but the reply was drowned in the
roaring of the gale. At eleven, a sea was shipped amidships, which
tore away a great portion of the larboard bulwarks, and did some
other slight damage. Toward morning the weather moderated, and at
sunrise there was very little wind.
July 7th. There was a heavy swell running all this day, during
which the brig, being light, rolled excessively, and many articles
broke loose in the hold, as I could hear distinctly from my
hiding-place. I suffered a great deal from sea-sickness. Peters had a
long conversation this day with Augustus, and told him that two of
his gang, Greely and Allen, had gone over to the mate, and were
resolved to turn pirates. He put several questions to Augustus which
he did not then exactly understand. During a part of this evening the
leak gained upon the vessel; and little could be done to remedy it,
as it was occasioned by the brigs straining, and taking in the water
through her seams. A sail was thrummed, and got under the bows, which
aided us in some measure, so that we began to gain upon the leak.
July 8th. A light breeze sprang up at sunrise from the eastward,
when the mate headed the brig to the southwest, with the intention of
making some of the West India islands in pursuance of his piratical
designs. No opposition was made by Peters or the cook- at least none
in the hearing of Augustus. All idea of taking the vessel from the
Cape Verds was abandoned. The leak was now easily kept under by one
pump going every three quarters of an hour. The sail was drawn from
beneath the bows. Spoke two small schooners during the day.
July 9th. Fine weather. All hands employed in repairing bulwarks.
Peters had again a long conversation with Augustus, and spoke more
plainly than he had done heretofore. He said nothing should induce
him to come into the mate's views, and even hinted his intention of
taking the brig out of his hands. He asked my friend if he could
depend upon his aid in such case, to which Augustus said, "Yes,"
without hesitation. Peters then said he would sound the others of his
party upon the subject, and went away. During the remainder of the
day Augustus had no opportunity of speaking with him privately.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 6 ~~~
CHAPTER 7
JULY 10. Spoke a brig from Rio, bound to Norfolk. Weather hazy,
with a light baffling wind from the eastward. To-day Hartman Rogers
died, having been attacked on the eighth with spasms after drinking a
glass of grog. This man was of the cook's party, and one upon whom
Peters placed his main reliance. He told Augustus that he believed
the mate had poisoned him, and that he expected, if he did not be on
the look-out, his own turn would come shortly. There were now only
himself, Jones, and the cook belonging to his own gang- on the other
side there were five. He had spoken to Jones about taking the command
from the mate; but the project having been coolly received, he had
been deterred from pressing the matter any further, or from saying
any thing to the cook. It was well, as it happened, that he was so
prudent, for in the afternoon the cook expressed his determination of
siding with the mate, and went over formally to that party; while
Jones took an opportunity of quarrelling with Peters, and hinted that
he would let the mate know of the plan in agitation. There was now,
evidently, no time to be lost, and Peters expressed his determination
of attempting to take the vessel at all hazards, provided Augustus
would lend him his aid. My friend at once assured him of his
willingness to enter into any plan for that purpose, and, thinking
the opportunity a favourable one, made known the fact of my being on
board. At this the hybrid was not more astonished than delighted, as
he had no reliance whatever upon Jones, whom he already considered as
belonging to the party of the mate. They went below immediately, when
Augustus called to me by name, and Peters and myself were soon made
acquainted. It was agreed that we should attempt to retake the vessel
upon the first good opportunity, leaving Jones altogether out of our
councils. In the event of success, we were to run the brig into the
first port that offered, and deliver her up. The desertion of his
party had frustrated Peters' design of going into the Pacific- an
adventure which could not be accomplished without a crew, and he
depended upon either getting acquitted upon trial, on the score of
insanity (which he solemnly avowed had actuated him in lending his
aid to the mutiny), or upon obtaining a pardon, if found guilty,
through the representations of Augustus and myself. Our deliberations
were interrupted for the present by the cry of, "All hands take in
sail," and Peters and Augustus ran up on deck.
As usual, the crew were nearly all drunk; and, before sail could
be properly taken in, a violent squall laid the brig on her
beam-ends. By keeping her away, however, she righted, having shipped
a good deal of water. Scarcely was everything secure, when another
squall took the vessel, and immediately afterward another- no damage
being done. There was every appearance of a gale of wind, which,
indeed, shortly came on, with great fury, from the northward and
westward. All was made as snug as possible, and we laid-to, as usual,
under a close-reefed foresail. As night drew on, the wind increased
in violence, with a remarkably heavy sea. Peters now came into the
forecastle with Augustus, and we resumed our deliberations.
We agreed that no opportunity could be more favourable than the
present for carrying our designs into effect, as an attempt at such a
moment would never be anticipated. As the brig was snugly laid-to,
there would be no necessity of manoeuvring her until good weather,
when, if we succeeded in our attempt, we might liberate one, or
perhaps two of the men, to aid us in taking her into port. The main
difficulty was the great disproportion in our forces. There were only
three of us, and in the cabin there were nine. All the arms on board,
too, were in their possession, with the exception of a pair of small
pistols which Peters had concealed about his person, and the large
seaman's knife which he always wore in the waistband of his
pantaloons. From certain indications, too- such, for example, as
there being no such thing as an axe or a handspike lying in their
customary places -- we began to fear that the mate had his
suspicions, at least in regard to Peters, and that he would let slip
no opportunity of getting rid of him. It was clear, indeed, that what
we should determine to do could not be done too soon. Still the odds
were too much against us to allow of our proceeding without the
greatest caution.
Peters proposed that he should go up on deck, and enter into
conversation with the watch (Allen), when he would be able to throw
him into the sea without trouble, and without making any disturbance,
by seizing a good opportunity, that Augustus and myself should then
come up, and endeavour to provide ourselves with some kind of weapons
from the deck, and that we should then make a rush together, and
secure the companion-way before any opposition could be offered. I
objected to this, because I could not believe that the mate (who was
a cunning fellow in all matters which did not affect his
superstitious prejudices) would suffer himself to be so easily
entrapped. The very fact of there being a watch on deck at all was
sufficient proof that he was upon the alert,- it not being usual
except in vessels where discipline is most rigidly enforced, to
station a watch on deck when a vessel is lying-to in a gale of wind.
As I address myself principally, if not altogether, to persons who
have never been to sea, it may be as well to state the exact
condition of a vessel under such circumstances. Lying-to, or, in
sea-parlance, "laying-to," is a measure resorted to for various
purposes, and effected in various manners. In moderate weather it is
frequently done with a view of merely bringing the vessel to a
stand-still, to wait for another vessel or any similar object. If the
vessel which lies-to is under full sail, the manoeuvre is usually
accomplished by throwing round some portion of her sails, so as to
let the wind take them aback, when she becomes stationary. But we are
now speaking of lying-to in a gale of wind. This is done when the
wind is ahead, and too violent to admit of carrying sail without
danger of capsizing; and sometimes even when the wind is fair, but
the sea too heavy for the vessel to be put before it. If a vessel be
suffered to scud before the wind in a very heavy sea, much damage is
usually done her by the shipping of water over her stern, and
sometimes by the violent plunges she makes forward. This manoeuvre,
then, is seldom resorted to in such case, unless through necessity.
When the vessel is in a leaky condition she is often put before the
wind even in the heaviest seas; for, when lying-to, her seams are
sure to be greatly opened by her violent straining, and it is not so
much the case when scudding. Often, too, it becomes necessary to scud
a vessel, either when the blast is so exceedingly furious as to tear
in pieces the sail which is employed with a view of bringing her head
to the wind, or when, through the false modelling of the frame or
other causes, this main object cannot be effected.
Vessels in a gale of wind are laid-to in different manners,
according to their peculiar construction. Some lie-to best under a
foresail, and this, I believe, is the sail most usually employed.
Large square-rigged vessels have sails for the express purpose,
called storm-staysails. But the jib is occasionally employed by
itself, -- sometimes the jib and foresail, or a double-reefed
foresail, and not unfrequently the after-sails, are made use of.
Foretopsails are very often found to answer the purpose better than
any other species of sail. The Grampus was generally laid-to under a
close-reefed foresail.
When a vessel is to be laid-to, her head is brought up to the
wind just so nearly as to fill the sail under which she lies when
hauled flat aft, that is, when brought diagonally across the vessel.
This being done, the bows point within a few degrees of the direction
from which the wind issues, and the windward bow of course receives
the shock of the waves. In this situation a good vessel will ride out
a very heavy gale of wind without shipping a drop of water, and
without any further attention being requisite on the part of the
crew. The helm is usually lashed down, but this is altogether
unnecessary (except on account of the noise it makes when loose), for
the rudder has no effect upon the vessel when lying-to. Indeed, the
helm had far better be left loose than lashed very fast, for the
rudder is apt to be torn off by heavy seas if there be no room for
the helm to play. As long as the sail holds, a well modelled vessel
will maintain her situation, and ride every sea, as if instinct with
life and reason. If the violence of the wind, however, should tear
the sail into pieces (a feat which it requires a perfect hurricane to
accomplish under ordinary circumstances), there is then imminent
danger. The vessel falls off from the wind, and, coming broadside to
the sea, is completely at its mercy: the only resource in this case
is to put her quietly before the wind, letting her scud until some
other sail can be set. Some vessels will lie-to under no sail
whatever, but such are not to be trusted at sea.
But to return from this digression. It had never been customary
with the mate to have any watch on deck when lying-to in a gale of
wind, and the fact that he had now one, coupled with the circumstance
of the missing axes and handspikes, fully convinced us that the crew
were too well on the watch to be taken by surprise in the manner
Peters had suggested. Something, however, was to be done, and that
with as little delay as practicable, for there could be no doubt that
a suspicion having been once entertained against Peters, he would be
sacrificed upon the earliest occasion, and one would certainly be
either found or made upon the breaking of the gale.
Augustus now suggested that if Peters could contrive to remove,
under any pretext, the piece of chain-cable which lay over the trap
in the stateroom, we might possibly be able to come upon them
unawares by means of the hold; but a little reflection convinced us
that the vessel rolled and pitched too violently for any attempt of
that nature.
By good fortune I at length hit upon the idea of working upon the
superstitious terrors and guilty conscience of the mate. It will be
remembered that one of the crew, Hartman Rogers, had died during the
morning, having been attacked two days before with spasms after
drinking some spirits and water. Peters had expressed to us his
opinion that this man had been poisoned by the mate, and for this
belief he had reasons, so he said, which were incontrovertible, but
which he could not be prevailed upon to explain to us- this wayward
refusal being only in keeping with other points of his singular
character. But whether or not he had any better grounds for
suspecting the mate than we had ourselves, we were easily led to fall
in with his suspicion, and determined to act accordingly.
Rogers had died about eleven in the forenoon, in violent
convulsions; and the corpse presented in a few minutes after death
one of the most horrid and loathsome spectacles I ever remember to
have seen. The stomach was swollen immensely, like that of a man who
has been drowned and lain under water for many weeks. The hands were
in the same condition, while the face was shrunken, shrivelled, and
of a chalky whiteness, except where relieved by two or three glaring
red blotches like those occasioned by the erysipelas: one of these
blotches extended diagonally across the face, completely covering up
an eye as if with a band of red velvet. In this disgusting condition
the body had been brought up from the cabin at noon to be thrown
overboard, when the mate getting a glimpse of it (for he now saw it
for the first time), and being either touched with remorse for his
crime or struck with terror at so horrible a sight, ordered the men
to sew the body up in its hammock, and allow it the usual rites of
sea-burial. Having given these directions, he went below, as if to
avoid any further sight of his victim. While preparations were making
to obey his orders, the gale came on with great fury, and the design
was abandoned for the present. The corpse, left to itself, was washed
into the larboard scuppers, where it still lay at the time of which I
speak, floundering about with the furious lurches of the brig.
Having arranged our plan, we set about putting it in execution as
speedily as possible. Peters went upon deck, and, as he had
anticipated, was immediately accosted by Allen, who appeared to be
stationed more as a watch upon the forecastle than for any other
purpose. The fate of this villain, however, was speedily and silently
decided; for Peters, approaching him in a careless manner, as if
about to address him, seized him by the throat, and, before he could
utter a single cry, tossed him over the bulwarks. He then called to
us, and we came up. Our first precaution was to look about for
something with which to arm ourselves, and in doing this we had to
proceed with great care, for it was impossible to stand on deck an
instant without holding fast, and violent seas broke over the vessel
at every plunge forward. It was indispensable, too, that we should be
quick in our operations, for every minute we expected the mate to be
up to set the pumps going, as it was evident the brig must be taking
in water very fast. After searching about for some time, we could
find nothing more fit for our purpose than the two pump-handles, one
of which Augustus took, and I the other. Having secured these, we
stripped off the shirt of the corpse and dropped the body overboard.
Peters and myself then went below, leaving Augustus to watch upon
deck, where he took his station just where Allen had been placed, and
with his back to the cabin companionway, so that, if any of the mates
gang should come up, he might suppose it was the watch.
As soon as I got below I commenced disguising myself so as to
represent the corpse of Rogers. The shirt which we had taken from the
body aided us very much, for it was of singular form and character,
and easily recognizable- a kind of smock, which the deceased wore
over his other clothing. It was a blue stockinett, with large white
stripes running across. Having put this on, I proceeded to equip
myself with a false stomach, in imitation of the horrible deformity
of the swollen corpse. This was soon effected by means of stuffing
with some bedclothes. I then gave the same appearance to my hands by
drawing on a pair of white woollen mittens, and filling them in with
any kind of rags that offered themselves. Peters then arranged my
face, first rubbing it well over with white chalk, and afterward
blotching it with blood, which he took from a cut in his finger. The
streak across the eye was not forgotten and presented a most shocking
appearance.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 7 ~~~
CHAPTER 8
AS I viewed myself in a fragment of looking-glass which hung up
in the cabin, and by the dim light of a kind of battle-lantern, I was
so impressed with a sense of vague awe at my appearance, and at the
recollection of the terrific reality which I was thus representing,
that I was seized with a violent tremour, and could scarcely summon
resolution to go on with my part. It was necessary, however, to act
with decision, and Peters and myself went upon deck.
We there found everything safe, and, keeping close to the
bulwarks, the three of us crept to the cabin companion-way. It was
only partially closed, precautions having been taken to prevent its
being suddenly pushed to from without, by means of placing billets of
wood on the upper step so as to interfere with the shutting. We found
no difficulty in getting a full view of the interior of the cabin
through the cracks where the hinges were placed. It now proved to
have been very fortunate for us that we had not attempted to take
them by surprise, for they were evidently on the alert. Only one was
asleep, and he lying just at the foot of the companion-ladder, with a
musket by his side. The rest were seated on several mattresses, which
had been taken from the berths and thrown on the floor. They were
engaged in earnest conversation; and although they had been
carousing, as appeared from two empty jugs, with some tin tumblers
which lay about, they were not as much intoxicated as usual. All had
knives, one or two of them pistols, and a great many muskets were
lying in a berth close at hand.
We listened to their conversation for some time before we could
make up our minds how to act, having as yet resolved on nothing
determinate, except that we would attempt to paralyze their
exertions, when we should attack them, by means of the apparition of
Rogers. They were discussing their piratical plans, in which all we
could hear distinctly was, that they would unite with the crew of a
schooner _Hornet_, and, if possible, get the schooner herself into
their possession preparatory to some attempt on a large scale, the
particulars of which could not be made out by either of us.
One of the men spoke of Peters, when the mate replied to him in a
low voice which could not be distinguished, and afterward added more
loudly, that "he could not understand his being so much forward with
the captain's brat in the forecastle, and he thought the sooner both
of them were overboard the better." To this no answer was made, but
we could easily perceive that the hint was well received by the whole
party, and more particularly by Jones. At this period I was
excessively agitated, the more so as I could see that neither
Augustus nor Peters could determine how to act. I made up my mind,
however, to sell my life as dearly as possible, and not to suffer
myself to be overcome by any feelings of trepidation.
The tremendous noise made by the roaring of the wind in the
rigging, and the washing of the sea over the deck, prevented us from
hearing what was said, except during momentary lulls. In one of
these, we all distinctly heard the mate tell one of the men to "go
forward, have an eye upon them, for he wanted no such secret doings
on board the brig." It was well for us that the pitching of the
vessel at this moment was so violent as to prevent this order from
being carried into instant execution. The cook got up from his
mattress to go for us, when a tremendous lurch, which I thought would
carry away the masts, threw him headlong against one of the larboard
stateroom doors, bursting it open, and creating a good deal of other
confusion. Luckily, neither of our party was thrown from his
position, and we had time to make a precipitate retreat to the
forecastle, and arrange a hurried plan of action before the messenger
made his appearance, or rather before he put his head out of the
companion-hatch, for he did not come on deck. From this station he
could not notice the absence of Allen, and he accordingly bawled out,
as if to him, repeating the orders of the mate. Peters cried out,
"Ay, ay," in a disguised voice, and the cook immediately went below,
without entertaining a suspicion that all was not right.
My two companions now proceeded boldly aft and down into the
cabin, Peters closing the door after him in the same manner he had
found it. The mate received them with feigned cordiality, and told
Augustus that, since he had behaved himself so well of late, he might
take up his quarters in the cabin and be one of them for the future.
He then poured him out a tumbler half full of rum, and made him drink
it. All this I saw and heard, for I followed my friends to the cabin
as soon as the door was shut, and took up my old point of
observation. I had brought with me the two pump-handles, one of which
I secured near the companion-way, to be ready for use when required.
I now steadied myself as well as possible so as to have a good
view of all that was passing within, and endeavoured to nerve myself
to the task of descending among the mutineers when Peters should make
a signal to me, as agreed upon. Presently he contrived to turn the
conversation upon the bloody deeds of the mutiny, and by degrees led
the men to talk of the thousand superstitions which are so
universally current among seamen. I could not make out all that was
said, but I could plainly see the effects of the conversation in the
countenances of those present. The mate was evidently much agitated,
and presently, when some one mentioned the terrific appearance of
Rogers' corpse, I thought he was upon the point of swooning. Peters
now asked him if he did not think it would be better to have the body
thrown overboard at once as it was too horrible a sight to see it
floundering about in the scuppers. At this the villain absolutely
gasped for breath, and turned his head slowly round upon his
companions, as if imploring some one to go up and perform the task.
No one, however, stirred, and it was quite evident that the whole
party were wound up to the highest pitch of nervous excitement.
Peters now made me the signal. I immediately threw open the door of
the companion-way, and, descending, without uttering a syllable,
stood erect in the midst of the party.
The intense effect produced by this sudden apparition is not at
all to be wondered at when the various circumstances are taken into
consideration. Usually, in cases of a similar nature, there is left
in the mind of the spectator some glimmering of doubt as to the
reality of the vision before his eyes; a degree of hope, however
feeble, that he is the victim of chicanery, and that the apparition
is not actually a visitant from the old world of shadows. It is not
too much to say that such remnants of doubt have been at the bottom
of almost every such visitation, and that the appalling horror which
has sometimes been brought about, is to be attributed, even in the
cases most in point, and where most suffering has been experienced,
more to a kind of anticipative horror, lest the apparition might
possibly be real, than to an unwavering belief in its reality. But,
in the present instance, it will be seen immediately, that in the
minds of the mutineers there was not even the shadow of a basis upon
which to rest a doubt that the apparition of Rogers was indeed a
revivification of his disgusting corpse, or at least its spiritual
image. The isolated situation of the brig, with its entire
inaccessibility on account of the gale, confined the apparently
possible means of deception within such narrow and definite limits,
that they must have thought themselves enabled to survey them all at
a glance. They had now been at sea twenty-four days, without holding
more than a speaking communication with any vessel whatever. The
whole of the crew, too- at least all whom they had the most remote
reason for suspecting to be on board- were assembled in the cabin,
with the exception of Allen, the watch; and his gigantic stature (be
was six feet six inches high) was too familiar in their eyes to
permit the notion that he was the apparition before them to enter
their minds even for an instant. Add to these considerations the
awe-inspiring nature of the tempest, and that of the conversation
brought about by Peters; the deep impression which the loathsomeness
of the actual corpse had made in the morning upon the imaginations of
the men; the excellence of the imitation in my person, and the
uncertain and wavering light in which they beheld me, as the glare of
the cabin lantern, swinging violently to and fro, fell dubiously and
fitfully upon my figure, and there will be no reason to wonder that
the deception had even more than the entire effect which we had
anticipated. The mate sprang up from the mattress on which he was
lying, and, without uttering a syllable, fell back, stone dead, upon
the cabin floor, and was hurled to the leeward like a log by a heavy
roll of the brig. Of the remaining seven, there were but three who
had at first any degree of presence of mind. The four others sat for
some time rooted apparently to the floor, the most pitiable objects
of horror and utter despair my eyes ever encountered. The only
opposition we experienced at all was from the cook, John Hunt, and
Richard Parker; but they made but a feeble and irresolute defence.
The two former were shot instantly by Peters, and I felled Parker
with a blow on the head from the pump-handle which I had brought with
me. In the meantime, Augustus seized one of the muskets lying on the
floor and shot another mutineer Wilson through the breast. There
were now but three remaining; but by this time they had become
aroused from their lethargy, and perhaps began to see that a
deception had been practised upon them, for they fought with great
resolution and fury, and, but for the immense muscular strength of
Peters, might have ultimately got the better of us. These three men
were -- Jones, Greely, and Absolom Hicks. Jones had thrown
Augustus to the floor, stabbed him in several places along the right
arm, and would no doubt have soon dispatched him (as neither Peters
nor myself could immediately get rid of our own antagonists), had it
not been for the timely aid of a friend, upon whose assistance we,
surely, had never depended. This friend was no other than Tiger. With
a low growl, he bounded into the cabin, at a most critical moment for
Augustus, and throwing himself upon Jones, pinned him to the floor in
an instant. My friend, however, was now too much injured to render us
any aid whatever, and I was so encumbered with my disguise that I
could do but little. The dog would not leave his hold upon the throat
of Jones -- Peters, nevertheless, was far more than a match for the
two men who remained, and would, no doubt, have dispatched them
sooner, had it not been for the narrow space in which he had to act,
and the tremendous lurches of the vessel. Presently he was enabled to
get hold of a heavy stool, several of which lay about the floor. With
this he beat out the brains of Greely as he was in the act of
discharging a musket at me, and immediately afterward a roll of the
brig throwing him in contact with Hicks, he seized him by the throat,
and, by dint of sheer strength, strangled him instantaneously. Thus,
in far less time than I have taken to tell it, we found ourselves
masters of the brig.
The only person of our opponents who was left alive was Richard
Parker. This man, it will be remembered, I had knocked down with a
blow from the pump-handle at the commencement of the attack. He now
lay motionless by the door of the shattered stateroom; but, upon
Peters touching him with his foot, he spoke, and entreated for mercy.
His head was only slightly cut, and otherwise he had received no
injury, having been merely stunned by the blow. He now got up, and,
for the present, we secured his hands behind his back. The dog was
still growling over Jones; but, upon examination, we found him
completely dead, the blood issuing in a stream from a deep wound in
the throat, inflicted, no doubt, by the sharp teeth of the animal.
It was now about one o'clock in the morning, and the wind was
still blowing tremendously. The brig evidently laboured much more
than usual, and it became absolutely necessary that something should
be done with a view of easing her in some measure. At almost every
roll to leeward she shipped a sea, several of which came partially
down into the cabin during our scuffle, the hatchway having been left
open by myself when I descended. The entire range of bulwarks to
larboard had been swept away, as well as the caboose, together with
the jollyboat from the counter. The creaking and working of the
mainmast, too, gave indication that it was nearly sprung. To make
room for more stowage in the afterhold, the heel of this mast had
been stepped between decks (a very reprehensible practice,
occasionally resorted to by ignorant ship-builders), so that it was
in imminent danger of working from its step. But, to crown all our
difficulties, we plummed the well, and found no less than seven feet
of water.
Leaving the bodies of the crew lying in the cabin, we got to work
immediately at the pumps- Parker, of course, being set at liberty to
assist us in the labour. Augustus's arm was bound up as well as we
could effect it, and he did what he could, but that was not much.
However, we found that we could just manage to keep the leak from
gaining upon us by having one pump constantly going. As there were
only four of us, this was severe labour; but we endeavoured to keep
up our spirits, and looked anxiously for daybreak, when we hoped to
lighten the brig by cutting away the mainmast.
In this manner we passed a night of terrible anxiety and fatigue,
and, when the day at length broke, the gale had neither abated in the
least, nor were there any signs of its abating. We now dragged the
bodies on deck and threw them overboard. Our next care was to get rid
of the mainmast. The necessary preparations having been made, Peters
cut away at the mast (having found axes in the cabin), while the rest
of us stood by the stays and lanyards. As the brig gave a tremendous
lee-lurch, the word was given to cut away the weather-lanyards, which
being done, the whole mass of wood and rigging plunged into the sea,
clear of the brig, and without doing any material injury. We now
found that the vessel did not labour quite as much as before, but our
situation was still exceedingly precarious, and in spite of the
utmost exertions, we could not gain upon the leak without the aid of
both pumps. The little assistance which Augustus could render us was
not really of any importance. To add to our distress, a heavy sea,
striking the brig to the windward, threw her off several points from
the wind, and, before she could regain her position, another broke
completely over her, and hurled her full upon her beam-ends. The
ballast now shifted in a mass to leeward (the stowage had been
knocking about perfectly at random for some time), and for a few
moments we thought nothing could save us from capsizing. Presently,
however, we partially righted; but the ballast still retaining its
place to larboard, we lay so much along that it was useless to think
of working the pumps, which indeed we could not have done much longer
in any case, as our hands were entirely raw with the excessive labour
we had undergone, and were bleeding in the most horrible manner.
Contrary to Parker's advice, we now proceeded to cut away the
foremast, and at length accomplished it after much difficulty, owing
to the position in which we lay. In going overboard the wreck took
with it the bowsprit, and left us a complete hulk.
So far we had had reason to rejoice in the escape of our
longboat, which had received no damage from any of the huge seas
which had come on board. But we had not long to congratulate
ourselves; for the foremast having gone, and, of course, the foresail
with it, by which the brig had been steadied, every sea now made a
complete breach over us, and in five minutes our deck was swept from
stern to stern, the longboat and starboard bulwarks torn off, and
even the windlass shattered into fragments. It was, indeed, hardly
possible for us to be in a more pitiable condition.
At noon there seemed to be some slight appearance of the gale's
abating, but in this we were sadly disappointed, for it only lulled
for a few minutes to blow with redoubled fury. About four in the
afternoon it was utterly impossible to stand up against the violence
of the blast; and, as the night closed in upon us, I had not a shadow
of hope that the vessel would hold together until morning.
By midnight we had settled very deep in the water, which was now
up to the orlop deck. The rudder went soon afterward, the sea which
tore it away lifting the after portion of the brig entirely from the
water, against which she thumped in her descent with such a
concussion as would be occasioned by going ashore. We had all
calculated that the rudder would hold its own to the last, as it was
unusually strong, being rigged as I have never seen one rigged either
before or since. Down its main timber there ran a succession of stout
iron hooks, and others in the same manner down the stern-post.
Through these hooks there extended a very thick wrought-iron rod, the
rudder being thus held to the stern-post and swinging freely on the
rod. The tremendous force of the sea which tore it off may be
estimated by the fact, that the hooks in the stern-post, which ran
entirely through it, being clinched on the inside, were drawn every
one of them completely out of the solid wood.
We had scarcely time to draw breath after the violence of this
shock, when one of the most tremendous waves I had then ever known
broke right on board of us, sweeping the companion-way clear off,
bursting in the hatchways, and filling every inch of the vessel with
water.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 8 ~~~
CHAPTER 9
LUCKILY, just before night, all four of us had lashed ourselves
firmly to the fragments of the windlass, lying in this manner as flat
upon the deck as possible. This precaution alone saved us from
destruction. As it was, we were all more or less stunned by the
immense weight of water which tumbled upon us, and which did not roll
from above us until we were nearly exhausted. As soon as I could
recover breath, I called aloud to my companions. Augustus alone
replied, saying: "It is all over with us, and may God have mercy upon
our souls!" By-and-by both the others were enabled to speak, when
they exhorted us to take courage, as there was still hope; it being
impossible, from the nature of the cargo, that the brig could go
down, and there being every chance that the gale would blow over by
the morning. These words inspired me with new life; for, strange as
it may seem, although it was obvious that a vessel with a cargo of
empty oil-casks would not sink, I had been hitherto so confused in
mind as to have overlooked this consideration altogether; and the
danger which I had for some time regarded as the most imminent was
that of foundering. As hope revived within me, I made use of every
opportunity to strengthen the lashings which held me to the remains
of the windlass, and in this occupation I soon discovered that my
companions were also busy. The night was as dark as it could possibly
be, and the horrible shrieking din and confusion which surrounded us
it is useless to attempt describing. Our deck lay level with the sea,
or rather we were encircled with a towering ridge of foam, a portion
of which swept over us even instant. It is not too much to say that
our heads were not fairly out of the water more than one second in
three. Although we lay close together, no one of us could see the
other, or, indeed, any portion of the brig itself, upon which we were
so tempestuously hurled about. At intervals we called one to the
other, thus endeavouring to keep alive hope, and render consolation
and encouragement to such of us as stood most in need of it. The
feeble condition of Augustus made him an object of solicitude with us
all; and as, from the lacerated condition of his right arm, it must
have been impossible for him to secure his lashings with any degree
of firmness, we were in momentary expectation of finding that he had
gone overboard -- yet to render him aid was a thing altogether out of
the question. Fortunately, his station was more secure than that of
any of the rest of us; for the upper part of his body lying just
beneath a portion of the shattered windlass, the seas, as they
tumbled in upon him, were greatly broken in their violence. In any
other situation than this (into which he had been accidentally thrown
after having lashed himself in a very exposed spot) he must
inevitably have perished before morning. Owing to the brig's lying so
much along, we were all less liable to be washed off than otherwise
would have been the case. The heel, as I have before stated, was to
larboard, about one half of the deck being constantly under water.
The seas, therefore, which struck us to starboard were much broken,
by the vessel's side, only reaching us in fragments as we lay flat on
our faces; while those which came from larboard being what are called
back-water seas, and obtaining little hold upon us on account of our
posture, had not sufficient force to drag us from our fastenings.
In this frightful situation we lay until the day broke so as to
show us more fully the horrors which surrounded us. The brig was a
mere log, rolling about at the mercy of every wave; the gale was upon
the increase, if any thing, blowing indeed a complete hurricane, and
there appeared to us no earthly prospect of deliverance. For several
hours we held on in silence, expecting every moment that our lashings
would either give way, that the remains of the windlass would go by
the board, or that some of the huge seas, which roared in every
direction around us and above us, would drive the hulk so far beneath
the water that we should be drowned before it could regain the
surface. By the mercy of God, however, we were preserved from these
imminent dangers, and about midday were cheered by the light of the
blessed sun. Shortly afterward we could perceive a sensible
diminution in the force of the wind, when, now for the first time
since the latter part of the evening before, Augustus spoke, asking
Peters, who lay closest to him, if he thought there was any
possibility of our being saved. As no reply was at first made to this
question, we all concluded that the hybrid had been drowned where he
lay; but presently, to our great joy, he spoke, although very feebly,
saying that he was in great pain, being so cut by the tightness of
his lashings across the stomach, that he must either find means of
loosening them or perish, as it was impossible that he could endure
his misery much longer. This occasioned us great distress, as it was
altogether useless to think of aiding him in any manner while the sea
continued washing over us as it did. We exhorted him to bear his
sufferings with fortitude, and promised to seize the first
opportunity which should offer itself to relieve him. He replied that
it would soon be too late; that it would be all over with him before
we could help him; and then, after moaning for some minutes, lay
silent, when we concluded that he had perished.
As the evening drew on, the sea had fallen so much that scarcely
more than one wave broke over the hulk from windward in the course of
five minutes, and the wind had abated a great deal, although still
blowing a severe gale. I had not heard any of my companions speak for
hours, and now called to Augustus. He replied, although very feebly,
so that I could not distinguish what he said. I then spoke to Peters
and to Parker, neither of whom returned any answer.
Shortly after this period I fell into a state of partial
insensibility, during which the most pleasing images floated in my
imagination; such as green trees, waving meadows of ripe grain,
processions of dancing girls, troops of cavalry, and other
phantasies. I now remember that, in all which passed before my mind's
eye, motion was a predominant idea. Thus, I never fancied any
stationary object, such as a house, a mountain, or any thing of that
kind; but windmills, ships, large birds, balloons, people on
horseback, carriages driving furiously, and similar moving objects,
presented themselves in endless succession. When I recovered from
this state, the sun was, as near as I could guess, an hour high. I
had the greatest difficulty in bringing to recollection the various
circumstances connected with my situation, and for some time remained
firmly convinced that I was still in the hold of the brig, near the
box, and that the body of Parker was that of Tiger.
When I at length completely came to my senses, I found that the
wind blew no more than a moderate breeze, and that the sea was
comparatively calm; so much so that it only washed over the brig
amidships. My left arm had broken loose from its lashings, and was
much cut about the elbow; my right was entirely benumbed, and the
hand and wrist swollen prodigiously by the pressure of the rope,
which had worked from the shoulder downward. I was also in great pain
from another rope which went about my waist, and had been drawn to an
insufferable degree of tightness. Looking round upon my companions, I
saw that Peters still lived, although a thick line was pulled so
forcibly around his loins as to give him the appearance of being cut
nearly in two; as I stirred, he made a feeble motion to me with his
hand, pointing to the rope. Augustus gave no indication of life
whatever, and was bent nearly double across a splinter of the
windlass. Parker spoke to me when he saw me moving, and asked me if I
had not sufficient strength to release him from his situation, saying
that if I would summon up what spirits I could, and contrive to untie
him, we might yet save our lives; but that otherwise we must all
perish. I told him to take courage, and I would endeavor to free him.
Feeling in my pantaloons' pocket, I got hold of my penknife, and,
after several ineffectual attempts, at length succeeded in opening
it. I then, with my left hand, managed to free my right from its
fastenings, and afterward cut the other ropes which held me. Upon
attempting, however, to move from my position, I found that my legs
failed me altogether, and that I could not get up; neither could I
move my right arm in any direction. Upon mentioning this to Parker,
he advised me to lie quiet for a few minutes, holding on to the
windlass with my left hand, so as to allow time for the blood to
circulate. Doing this, the numbness presently began to die away so
that I could move first one of my legs, and then the other, and,
shortly afterward I regained the partial use of my right arm. I now
crawled with great caution toward Parker, without getting on my legs,
and soon cut loose all the lashings about him, when, after a short
delay, he also recovered the partial use of his limbs. We now lost no
time in getting loose the rope from Peters. It had cut a deep gash
through the waistband of his woollen pantaloons, and through two
shirts, and made its way into his groin, from which the blood flowed
out copiously as we removed the cordage. No sooner had we removed it,
however, than he spoke, and seemed to experience instant relief-
being able to move with much greater ease than either Parker or
myself- this was no doubt owing to the discharge of blood.
We had little hopes that Augustus would recover, as he evinced no
signs of life; but, upon getting to him, we discovered that he had
merely swooned from the loss of blood, the bandages we had placed
around his wounded arm having been torn off by the water; none of the
ropes which held him to the windlass were drawn sufficiently tight to
occasion his death. Having relieved him from the fastenings, and got
him clear of the broken wood about the windlass, we secured him in a
dry place to windward, with his head somewhat lower than his body,
and all three of us busied ourselves in chafing his limbs. In about
half an hour he came to himself, although it was not until the next
morning that he gave signs of recognizing any of us, or had
sufficient strength to speak. By the time we had thus got clear of
our lashings it was quite dark, and it began to cloud up, so that we
were again in the greatest agony lest it should come on to blow hard,
in which event nothing could have saved us from perishing, exhausted
as we were. By good fortune it continued very moderate during the
night, the sea subsiding every minute, which gave us great hopes of
ultimate preservation. A gentle breeze still blew from the N. W., but
the weather was not at all cold. Augustus was lashed carefully to
windward in such a manner as to prevent him from slipping overboard
with the rolls of the vessel, as he was still too weak to hold on at
all. For ourselves there was no such necessity. We sat close
together, supporting each other with the aid of the broken ropes
about the windlass, and devising methods of escape from our frightful
situation. We derived much comfort from taking off our clothes and
wringing the water from them. When we put them on after this, they
felt remarkably warm and pleasant, and served to invigorate us in no
little degree. We helped Augustus off with his, and wrung them for
him, when he experienced the same comfort.
Our chief sufferings were now those of hunger and thirst, and
when we looked forward to the means of relief in this respect, our
hearts sunk within us, and we were induced to regret that we had
escaped the less dreadful perils of the sea. We endeavoured, however,
to console ourselves with the hope of being speedily picked up by
some vessel and encouraged each other to bear with fortitude the
evils that might happen.
The morning of the fourteenth at length dawned, and the weather
still continued clear and pleasant, with a steady but very light
breeze from the N. W. The sea was now quite smooth, and as, from some
cause which we could not determine, the brig did not lie so much along
as she had done before, the deck was comparatively dry, and we could
move about with freedom. We had now been better than three entire
days and nights without either food or drink, and it became
absolutely necessary that we should make an attempt to get up
something from below. As the brig was completely full of water, we
went to this work despondently, and with but little expectation of
being able to obtain anything. We made a kind of drag by driving some
nails which we broke out from the remains of the companion-hatch into
two pieces of wood. Tying these across each other, and fastening them
to the end of a rope, we threw them into the cabin, and dragged them
to and fro, in the faint hope of being thus able to entangle some
article which might be of use to us for food, or which might at least
render us assistance in getting it. We spent the greater part of the
morning in this labour without effect, fishing up nothing more than a
few bedclothes, which were readily caught by the nails. Indeed, our
contrivance was so very clumsy that any greater success was hardly to
be anticipated.
We now tried the forecastle, but equally in vain, and were upon
the brink of despair, when Peters proposed that we should fasten a
rope to his body, and let him make an attempt to get up something by
diving into the cabin. This proposition we hailed with all the
delight which reviving hope could inspire. He proceeded immediately
to strip off his clothes with the exception of his pantaloons; and a
strong rope was then carefully fastened around his middle, being
brought up over his shoulders in such a manner that there was no
possibility of its slipping. The undertaking was one of great
difficulty and danger; for, as we could hardly expect to find much,
if any, provision in the cabin itself, it was necessary that the
diver, after letting himself down, should make a turn to the right,
and proceed under water a distance of ten or twelve feet, in a narrow
passage, to the storeroom, and return, without drawing breath.
Everything being ready, Peters now descended in the cabin, going
down the companion-ladder until the water reached his chin. He then
plunged in, head first, turning to the right as he plunged, and
endeavouring to make his way to the storeroom. In this first attempt,
however, he was altogether unsuccessful. In less than half a minute
after his going down we felt the rope jerked violently (the signal we
had agreed upon when he desired to be drawn up). We accordingly drew
him up instantly, but so incautiously as to bruise him badly against
the ladder. He had brought nothing with him, and had been unable to
penetrate more than a very little way into the passage, owing to the
constant exertions he found it necessary to make in order to keep
himself from floating up against the deck. Upon getting out he was
very much exhausted, and had to rest full fifteen minutes before he
could again venture to descend.
The second attempt met with even worse success; for he remained
so long under water without giving the signal, that, becoming alarmed
for his safety, we drew him out without it, and found that he was
almost at the last gasp, having, as he said, repeatedly jerked at the
rope without our feeling it. This was probably owing to a portion of
it having become entangled in the balustrade at the foot of the
ladder. This balustrade was, indeed, so much in the way, that we
determined to remove it, if possible, before proceeding with our
design. As we had no means of getting it away except by main force,
we all descended into the water as far as we could on the ladder, and
giving a pull against it with our united strength, succeeded in
breaking it down.
The third attempt was equally unsuccessful with the two first,
and it now became evident that nothing could be done in this manner
without the aid of some weight with which the diver might steady
himself, and keep to the floor of the cabin while making his search.
For a long time we looked about in vain for something which might
answer this purpose; but at length, to our great joy, we discovered
one of the weather-forechains so loose that we had not the least
difficulty in wrenching it off. Having fastened this securely to one
of his ankles, Peters now made his fourth descent into the cabin, and
this time succeeded in making his way to the door of the steward's
room. To his inexpressible grief, however, he found it locked, and
was obliged to return without effecting an entrance, as, with the
greatest exertion, he could remain under water not more, at the
utmost extent, than a single minute. Our affairs now looked gloomy
indeed, and neither Augustus nor myself could refrain from bursting
into tears, as we thought of the host of difficulties which
encompassed us, and the slight probability which existed of our
finally making an escape. But this weakness was not of long duration.
Throwing ourselves on our knees to God, we implored His aid in the
many dangers which beset us; and arose with renewed hope and vigor to
think what could yet be done by mortal means toward accomplishing our
deliverance.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 9 ~~~
CHAPTER 10
SHORTLY afterward an incident occurred which I am induced to look
upon as more intensely productive of emotion, as far more replete
with the extremes first of delight and then of horror, than even any
of the thousand chances which afterward befell me in nine long years,
crowded with events of the most startling and, in many cases, of the
most unconceived and unconceivable character. We were lying on the
deck near the companion-way, and debating the possibility of yet
making our way into the storeroom, when, looking toward Augustus, who
lay fronting myself, I perceived that he had become all at once
deadly pale, and that his lips were quivering in the most singular
and unaccountable manner. Greatly alarmed, I spoke to him, but he
made me no reply, and I was beginning to think that he was suddenly
taken ill, when I took notice of his eyes, which were glaring
apparently at some object behind me. I turned my head, and shall
never forget the ecstatic joy which thrilled through every particle
of my frame, when I perceived a large brig bearing down upon us, and
not more than a couple of miles off. I sprung to my feet as if a
musket bullet had suddenly struck me to the heart; and, stretching
out my arms in the direction of the vessel, stood in this manner,
motionless, and unable to articulate a syllable. Peters and Parker
were equally affected, although in different ways. The former danced
about the deck like a madman, uttering the most extravagant
rhodomontades, intermingled with howls and imprecations, while the
latter burst into tears, and continued for many minutes weeping like
a child.
The vessel in sight was a large hermaphrodite brig, of a Dutch
build, and painted black, with a tawdry gilt figure-head. She had
evidently seen a good deal of rough weather, and, we supposed, had
suffered much in the gale which had proved so disastrous to
ourselves; for her foretopmast was gone, and some of her starboard
bulwarks. When we first saw her, she was, as I have already said,
about two miles off and to windward, bearing down upon us. The breeze
was very gentle, and what astonished us chiefly was, that she had no
other sails set than her foremast and mainsail, with a flying jib --
of course she came down but slowly, and our impatience amounted
nearly to phrensy. The awkward manner in which she steered, too, was
remarked by all of us, even excited as we were. She yawed about so
considerably, that once or twice we thought it impossible she could
see us, or imagined that, having seen us, and discovered no person on
board, she was about to tack and make off in another direction. Upon
each of these occasions we screamed and shouted at the top of our
voices, when the stranger would appear to change for a moment her
intention, and again hold on toward us -- this singular conduct being
repeated two or three times, so that at last we could think of no
other manner of accounting for it than by supposing the helmsman to
be in liquor.
No person was seen upon her decks until she arrived within about
a quarter of a mile of us. We then saw three seamen, whom by their
dress we took to be Hollanders. Two of these were lying on some old
sails near the forecastle, and the third, who appeared to be looking
at us with great curiosity, was leaning over the starboard bow near
the bowsprit. This last was a stout and tall man, with a very dark
skin. He seemed by his manner to be encouraging us to have patience,
nodding to us in a cheerful although rather odd way, and smiling
constantly, so as to display a set of the most brilliantly white
teeth. As his vessel drew nearer, we saw a red flannel cap which he
had on fall from his head into the water; but of this he took little
or no notice, continuing his odd smiles and gesticulations. I relate
these things and circumstances minutely, and I relate them, it must
be understood, precisely as they _appeared _to us.
The brig came on slowly, and now more steadily than before, and
-- I cannot speak calmly of this event -- our hearts leaped up wildly
within us, and we poured out our whole souls in shouts and
thanksgiving to God for the complete, unexpected, and glorious
deliverance that was so palpably at hand. Of a sudden, and all at
once, there came wafted over the ocean from the strange vessel (which
was now close upon us) a smell, a stench, such as the whole world has
no name for -- no conception of -- hellish -- utterly suffocating --
insufferable, inconceivable. I gasped for breath, and turning to my
companions, perceived that they were paler than marble. But we had
now no time left for question or surmise- the brig was within fifty
feet of us, and it seemed to be her intention to run under our
counter, that we might board her without putting out a boat. We
rushed aft, when, suddenly, a wide yaw threw her off full five or six
points from the course she had been running, and, as she passed under
our stern at the distance of about twenty feet, we had a full view of
her decks. Shall I ever forget the triple horror of that spectacle?
Twenty-five or thirty human bodies, among whom were several females,
lay scattered about between the counter and the galley in the last
and most loathsome state of putrefaction. We plainly saw that not a
soul lived in that fated vessel! Yet we could not help shouting to
the dead for help! Yes, long and loudly did we beg, in the agony of
the moment, that those silent and disgusting images would stay for
us, would not abandon us to become like them, would receive us among
their goodly company! We were raving with horror and despair-
thoroughly mad through the anguish of our grievous disappointment.
As our first loud yell of terror broke forth, it was replied to
by something, from near the bowsprit of the stranger, so closely
resembling the scream of a human voice that the nicest ear might have
been startled and deceived. At this instant another sudden yaw
brought the region of the forecastle for a moment into view, and we
beheld at once the origin of the sound. We saw the tall stout figure
still leaning on the bulwark, and still nodding his head to and fro,
but his face was now turned from us so that we could not behold it.
His arms were extended over the rail, and the palms of his hands fell
outward. His knees were lodged upon a stout rope, tightly stretched,
and reaching from the heel of the bowsprit to a cathead. On his back,
from which a portion of the shirt had been torn, leaving it bare,
there sat a huge sea-gull, busily gorging itself with the horrible
flesh, its bill and talons deep buried, and its white plumage
spattered all over with blood. As the brig moved farther round so as
to bring us close in view, the bird, with much apparent difficulty,
drew out its crimsoned head, and, after eyeing us for a moment as if
stupefied, arose lazily from the body upon which it had been
feasting, and, flying directly above our deck, hovered there a while
with a portion of clotted and liver-like substance in its beak. The
horrid morsel dropped at length with a sullen splash immediately at
the feet of Parker. May God forgive me, but now, for the first time,
there flashed through my mind a thought, a thought which I will not
mention, and I felt myself making a step toward the ensanguined spot.
I looked upward, and the eyes of Augustus met my own with a degree of
intense and eager meaning which immediately brought me to my senses.
I sprang forward quickly, and, with a deep shudder, threw the
frightful thing into the sea.
The body from which it had been taken, resting as it did upon the
rope, had been easily swayed to and fro by the exertions of the
carnivorous bird, and it was this motion which had at first impressed
us with the belief of its being alive. As the gull relieved it of its
weight, it swung round and fell partially over, so that the face was
fully discovered. Never, surely, was any object so terribly full of
awe! The eyes were gone, and the whole flesh around the mouth,
leaving the teeth utterly naked. This, then, was the smile which had
cheered us on to hope! this the -- but I forbear. The brig, as I have
already told, passed under our stern, and made its way slowly but
steadily to leeward. With her and with her terrible crew went all our
gay visions of deliverance and joy. Deliberately as she went by, we
might possibly have found means of boarding her, had not our sudden
disappointment and the appalling nature of the discovery which
accompanied it laid entirely prostrate every active faculty of mind
and body. We had seen and felt, but we could neither think nor act,
until, alas! too late. How much our intellects had been weakened by
this incident may be estimated by the fact, that when the vessel had
proceeded so far that we could perceive no more than the half of her
hull, the proposition was seriously entertained of attempting to
overtake her by swimming!
I have, since this period, vainly endeavoured to obtain some clew
to the hideous uncertainty which enveloped the fate of the stranger.
Her build and general appearance, as I have before stated, led us to
the belief that she was a Dutch trader, and the dresses of the crew
also sustained this opinion. We might have easily seen the name upon
her stern, and, indeed, taken other observations, which would have
guided us in making out her character; but the intense excitement of
the moment blinded us to every thing of that nature. From the
saffron-like hue of such of the corpses as were not entirely decayed,
we concluded that the whole of her company had perished by the yellow
fever, or some other virulent disease of the same fearful kind. If
such were the case (and I know not what else to imagine), death, to
judge from the positions of the bodies, must have come upon them in a
manner awfully sudden and overwhelming, in a way totally distinct
from that which generally characterizes even the most deadly
pestilences with which mankind are acquainted. It is possible,
indeed, that poison, accidentally introduced into some of their
sea-stores, may have brought about the disaster, or that the eating
of some unknown venomous species of fish, or other marine animal, or
oceanic bird, might have induced it -- but it is utterly useless to
form conjectures where all is involved, and will, no doubt, remain
for ever involved, in the most appalling and unfathomable mystery.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 10 ~~~
CHAPTER 11
WE spent the remainder of the day in a condition of stupid
lethargy, gazing after the retreating vessel until the darkness,
hiding her from our sight, recalled us in some measure to our senses.
The pangs of hunger and thirst then returned, absorbing all other
cares and considerations. Nothing, however, could be done until the
morning, and, securing ourselves as well as possible, we endeavoured
to snatch a little repose. In this I succeeded beyond my
expectations, sleeping until my companions, who had not been so
fortunate, aroused me at daybreak to renew our attempts at getting up
provisions from the hull.
It was now a dead calm, with the sea as smooth as have ever known
it, -- the weather warm and pleasant. The brig was out of sight. We
commenced our operations by wrenching off, with some trouble, another
of the forechains; and having fastened both to Peters' feet, he again
made an endeavour to reach the door of the storeroom, thinking it
possible that he might be able to force it open, provided he could
get at it in sufficient time; and this he hoped to do, as the hulk
lay much more steadily than before.
He succeeded very quickly in reaching the door, when, loosening
one of the chains from his ankle, be made every exertion to force the
passage with it, but in vain, the framework of the room being far
stronger than was anticipated. He was quite exhausted with his long
stay under water, and it became absolutely necessary that some other
one of us should take his place. For this service Parker immediately
volunteered; but, after making three ineffectual efforts, found that
he could never even succeed in getting near the door. The condition
of Augustus's wounded arm rendered it useless for him to attempt
going down, as he would be unable to force the room open should be
reach it, and it accordingly now devolved upon me to exert myself for
our common deliverance.
Peters had left one of the chains in the passage, and I found,
upon plunging in, that I had not sufficient balance to keep me firmly
down. I determined, therefore, to attempt no more, in my first
effort, than merely to recover the other chain. In groping along the
floor of the passage for this, I felt a hard substance, which I
immediately grasped, not having time to ascertain what it was, but
returning and ascending instantly to the surface. The prize proved to
be a bottle, and our joy may be conceived when I say that it was
found to be full of port wine. Giving thanks to God for this timely
and cheering assistance, we immediately drew the cork with my
penknife, and, each taking a moderate sup, felt the most
indescribable comfort from the warmth, strength, and spirits with
which it inspired us. We then carefully recorked the bottle, and, by
means of a handkerchief, swung it in such a manner that there was no
possibility of its getting broken.
Having rested a while after this fortunate discovery, I again
descended, and now recovered the chain, with which I instantly came
up. I then fastened it on and went down for the third time, when I
became fully satisfied that no exertions whatever, in that situation,
would enable me to force open the door of the storeroom. I therefore
returned in despair.
There seemed now to be no longer any room for hope, and I could
perceive in the countenances of my companions that they had made up
their minds to perish. The wine had evidently produced in them a
species of delirium, which, perhaps, I had been prevented from
feeling by the immersion I had undergone since drinking it. They
talked incoherently, and about matters unconnected with our
condition, Peters repeatedly asking me questions about Nantucket.
Augustus, too, I remember, approached me with a serious air, and
requested me to lend him a pocket-comb, as his hair was full of
fish-scales, and he wished to get them out before going on shore.
Parker appeared somewhat less affected, and urged me to dive at
random into the cabin, and bring up any article which might come to
hand. To this I consented, and, in the first attempt, after staying
under a full minute, brought up a small leather trunk belonging to
Captain Barnard. This was immediately opened in the faint hope that
it might contain something to eat or drink. We found nothing,
however, except a box of razors and two linen shirts. I now went down
again, and returned without any success. As my head came above water
I heard a crash on deck, and, upon getting up, saw that my companions
had ungratefully taken advantage of my absence to drink the remainder
of the wine, having let the bottle fall in the endeavour to replace
it before I saw them. I remonstrated with them on the heartlessness
of their conduct, when Augustus burst into tears. The other two
endeavoured to laugh the matter off as a joke, but I hope never again
to behold laughter of such a species: the distortion of countenance
was absolutely frightful. Indeed, it was apparent that the stimulus,
in the empty state of their stomachs, had taken instant and violent
effect, and that they were all exceedingly intoxicated. With great
difficulty I prevailed upon them to lie down, when they fell very
soon into a heavy slumber, accompanied with loud stertorous
breathing.
I now found myself, as it were, alone in the brig, and my
reflections, to be sure, were of the most fearful and gloomy nature.
No prospect offered itself to my view but a lingering death by
famine, or, at the best, by being overwhelmed in the first gale which
should spring up, for in our present exhausted condition we could
have no hope of living through another.
The gnawing hunger which I now experienced was nearly
insupportable, and I felt myself capable of going to any lengths in
order to appease it. With my knife I cut off a small portion of the
leather trunk, and endeavoured to eat it, but found it utterly
impossible to swallow a single morsel, although I fancied that some
little alleviation of my suffering was obtained by chewing small
pieces of it and spitting them out. Toward night my companions awoke,
one by one, each in an indescribable state of weakness and horror,
brought on by the wine, whose fumes had now evaporated. They shook as
if with a violent ague, and uttered the most lamentable cries for
water. Their condition affected me in the most lively degree, at the
same time causing me to rejoice in the fortunate train of
circumstances which had prevented me from indulging in the wine, and
consequently from sharing their melancholy and most distressing
sensations. Their conduct, however, gave me great uneasiness and
alarm; for it was evident that, unless some favourable change took
place, they could afford me no assistance in providing for our common
safety. I had not yet abandoned all idea being able to get up
something from below; but the attempt could not possibly be resumed
until some one of them was sufficiently master of himself to aid me
by holding the end of the rope while I went down. Parker appeared to
be somewhat more in possession of his senses than the others, and I
endeavoured, by every means in my power, to rouse him. Thinking that
a plunge in the sea-water might have a beneficial effect, I contrived
to fasten the end of a rope around his body, and then, leading him to
the companion-way (he remaining quite passive all the while), pushed
him in, and immediately drew him out. I had good reason to
congratulate myself upon having made this experiment; for he appeared
much revived and invigorated, and, upon getting out, asked me, in a
rational manner, why I had so served him. Having explained my object,
he expressed himself indebted to me, and said that he felt greatly
better from the immersion, afterward conversing sensibly upon our
situation. We then resolved to treat Augustus and Peters in the same
way, which we immediately did, when they both experienced much
benefit from the shock. This idea of sudden immersion had been
suggested to me by reading in some medical work the good effect of
the shower-bath in a case where the patient was suffering from _mania
a potu_.
Finding that I could now trust my companions to hold the end of
the rope, I again made three or four plunges into the cabin, although
it was now quite dark, and a gentle but long swell from the northward
rendered the hulk somewhat unsteady. In the course of these attempts
I succeeded in bringing up two case-knives, a three-gallon jug,
empty, and a blanket, but nothing which could serve us for food. I
continued my efforts, after getting these articles, until I was
completely exhausted, but brought up nothing else. During the night
Parker and Peters occupied themselves by turns in the same manner;
but nothing coming to hand, we now gave up this attempt in despair,
concluding that we were exhausting ourselves in vain.
We passed the remainder of this night in a state of the most
intense mental and bodily anguish that can possibly be imagined. The
morning of the sixteenth at length dawned, and we looked eagerly
around the horizon for relief, but to no purpose. The sea was still
smooth, with only a long swell from the northward, as on yesterday.
This was the sixth day since we had tasted either food or drink, with
the exception of the bottle of port wine, and it was clear that we
could hold out but a very little while longer unless something could
be obtained. I never saw before, nor wish to see again, human beings
so utterly emaciated as Peters and Augustus. Had I met them on shore
in their present condition I should not have had the slightest
suspicion that I had ever beheld them. Their countenances were
totally changed in character, so that I could not bring myself to
believe them really the same individuals with whom I had been in
company but a few days before. Parker, although sadly reduced, and so
feeble that he could not raise his head from his bosom, was not so
far gone as the other two. He suffered with great patience, making no
complaint, and endeavouring to inspire us with hope in every manner
he could devise. For myself, although at the commencement of the
voyage I had been in bad health, and was at all times of a delicate
constitution, I suffered less than any of us, being much less reduced
in frame, and retaining my powers of mind in a surprising degree,
while the rest were completely prostrated in intellect, and seemed to
be brought to a species of second childhood, generally simpering in
their expressions, with idiotic smiles, and uttering the most absurd
platitudes. At intervals, however, they would appear to revive
suddenly, as if inspired all at once with a consciousness of their
condition, when they would spring upon their feet in a momentary
flash of vigour, and speak, for a short period, of their prospects,
in a manner altogether rational, although full of the most intense
despair. It is possible, however, that my companions may have
entertained the same opinion of their own condition as I did of mine,
and that I may have unwittingly been guilty of the same extravagances
and imbecilities as themselves -- this is a matter which cannot be
determined.
About noon Parker declared that he saw land off the larboard
quarter, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could restrain him
from plunging into the sea with the view of swimming toward it.
Peters and Augustus took little notice of what he said, being
apparently wrapped up in moody contemplation. Upon looking in the
direction pointed out, I could not perceive the faintest appearance
of the shore -- indeed, I was too well aware that we were far from
any land to indulge in a hope of that nature. It was a long time,
nevertheless, before I could convince Parker of his mistake. He then
burst into a flood of tears, weeping like a child, with loud cries
and sobs, for two or three hours, when becoming exhausted, he fell
asleep.
Peters and Augustus now made several ineffectual efforts to
swallow portions of the leather. I advised them to chew it and spit
it out; but they were too excessively debilitated to be able to
follow my advice. I continued to chew pieces of it at intervals, and
found some relief from so doing; my chief distress was for water, and
I was only prevented from taking a draught from the sea by
remembering the horrible consequences which thus have resulted to
others who were similarly situated with ourselves.
The day wore on in this manner, when I suddenly discovered a sail
to the eastward, and on our larboard bow. She appeared to be a large
ship, and was coming nearly athwart us, being probably twelve or
fifteen miles distant. None of my companions had as yet discovered
her, and I forbore to tell them of her for the present, lest we might
again be disappointed of relief. At length upon her getting nearer, I
saw distinctly that she was heading immediately for us, with her
light sails filled. I could now contain myself no longer, and pointed
her out to my fellow-sufferers. They immediately sprang to their
feet, again indulging in the most extravagant demonstrations of joy,
weeping, laughing in an idiotic manner, jumping, stamping upon the
deck, tearing their hair, and praying and cursing by turns. I was so
affected by their conduct, as well as by what I considered a sure
prospect of deliverance, that I could not refrain from joining in
with their madness, and gave way to the impulses of my gratitude and
ecstasy by lying and rolling on the deck, clapping my hands,
shouting, and other similar acts, until I was suddenly called to my
recollection, and once more to the extreme human misery and despair,
by perceiving the ship all at once with her stern fully presented
toward us, and steering in a direction nearly opposite to that in
which I had at first perceived her.
It was some time before I could induce my poor companions to
believe that this sad reverse in our prospects had actually taken
place. They replied to all my assertions with a stare and a gesture
implying that they were not to be deceived by such
misrepresentations. The conduct of Augustus most sensibly affected
me. In spite of all I could say or do to the contrary, he persisted
in saying that the ship was rapidly nearing us, and in making
preparations to go on board of her. Some seaweed floating by the
brig, he maintained that it was the ship's boat, and endeavoured to
throw himself upon it, howling and shrieking in the most heartrending
manner, when I forcibly restrained him from thus casting himself into
the sea.
Having become in some degree pacified, we continued to watch the
ship until we finally lost sight of her, the weather becoming hazy,
with a light breeze springing up. As soon as she was entirely gone,
Parker turned suddenly toward me with an expression of countenance
which made me shudder. There was about him an air of self-possession
which I had not noticed in him until now, and before he opened his
lips my heart told me what he would say. He proposed, in a few words,
that one of us should die to preserve the existence of the others.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 11 ~~~
CHAPTER 12
I had for some time past, dwelt upon the prospect of our being
reduced to this last horrible extremity, and had secretly made up my
mind to suffer death in any shape or under any circumstances rather
than resort to such a course. Nor was this resolution in any degree
weakened by the present intensity of hunger under which I laboured.
The proposition had not been heard by either Peters or Augustus. I
therefore took Parker aside; and mentally praying to God for power to
dissuade him from the horrible purpose he entertained, I expostulated
with him for a long time, and in the most supplicating manner,
begging him in the name of every thing which he held sacred, and
urging him by every species of argument which the extremity of the
case suggested, to abandon the idea, and not to mention it to either
of the other two.
He heard all I said without attempting to controvert any of my
arguments, and I had begun to hope that he would be prevailed upon to
do as I desired. But when I had ceased speaking, he said that he knew
very well all I had said was true, and that to resort to such a
course was the most horrible alternative which could enter into the
mind of man; but that he had now held out as long as human nature
could be sustained; that it was unnecessary for all to perish, when,
by the death of one, it was possible, and even probable, that the
rest might be finally preserved; adding that I might save myself the
trouble of trying to turn him from his purpose, his mind having been
thoroughly made up on the subject even before the appearance of the
ship, and that only her heaving in sight had prevented him from
mentioning his intention at an earlier period.
I now begged him, if he would not be prevailed upon to abandon
his design, at least to defer it for another day, when some vessel
might come to our relief; again reiterating every argument I could
devise, and which I thought likely to have influence with one of his
rough nature. He said, in reply, that he had not spoken until the
very last possible moment, that he could exist no longer without
sustenance of some kind, and that therefore in another day his
suggestion would be too late, as regarded himself at least.
Finding that he was not to be moved by anything I could say in a
mild tone, I now assumed a different demeanor, and told him that he
must be aware I had suffered less than any of us from our calamities;
that my health and strength, consequently, were at that moment far
better than his own, or than that either of Peters or Augustus; in
short, that I was in a condition to have my own way by force if I
found it necessary; and that if he attempted in any manner to
acquaint the others with his bloody and cannibal designs, I would not
hesitate to throw him into the sea. Upon this he immediately seized
me by the throat, and drawing a knife, made several ineffectual
efforts to stab me in the stomach; an atrocity which his excessive
debility alone prevented him from accomplishing. In the meantime,
being roused to a high pitch of anger, I forced him to the vessel's
side, with the full intention of throwing him overboard. He was saved
from his fate, however, by the interference of Peters, who now
approached and separated us, asking the cause of the disturbance.
This Parker told before I could find means in any manner to prevent
him.
The effect of his words was even more terrible than what I had
anticipated. Both Augustus and Peters, who, it seems, had long
secretly entertained the same fearful idea which Parker had been
merely the first to broach, joined with him in his design and
insisted upon its immediately being carried into effect. I had
calculated that one at least of the two former would be found still
possessed of sufficient strength of mind to side with myself in
resisting any attempt to execute so dreadful a purpose, and, with the
aid of either one of them, I had no fear of being able to prevent its
accomplishment. Being disappointed in this expectation, it became
absolutely necessary that I should attend to my own safety, as a
further resistance on my part might possibly be considered by men in
their frightful condition a sufficient excuse for refusing me fair
play in the tragedy that I knew would speedily be enacted.
I now told them I was willing to submit to the proposal, merely
requesting a delay of about one hour, in order that the fog which had
gathered around us might have an opportunity of lifting, when it was
possible that the ship we had seen might be again in sight. After
great difficulty I obtained from them a promise to wait thus long;
and, as I had anticipated (a breeze rapidly coming in), the fog
lifted before the hour had expired, when, no vessel appearing in
sight, we prepared to draw lots.
It is with extreme reluctance that I dwell upon the appalling
scene which ensued; a scene which, with its minutest details, no
after events have been able to efface in the slightest degree from my
memory, and whose stern recollection will embitter every future
moment of my existence. Let me run over this portion of my narrative
with as much haste as the nature of the events to be spoken of will
permit. The only method we could devise for the terrific lottery, in
which we were to take each a chance, was that of drawing straws.
Small splinters of wood were made to answer our purpose, and it was
agreed that I should be the holder. I retired to one end of the hulk,
while my poor companions silently took up their station in the other
with their backs turned toward me. The bitterest anxiety which I
endured at any period of this fearful drama was while I occupied
myself in the arrangement of the lots. There are few conditions into
which man can possibly fall where he will not feel a deep interest in
the preservation of his existence; an interest momentarily increasing
with the frailness of the tenure by which that existence may be held.
But now that the silent, definite, and stern nature of the business
in which I was engaged (so different from the tumultuous dangers of
the storm or the gradually approaching horrors of famine) allowed me
to reflect on the few chances I had of escaping the most appalling of
deaths- a death for the most appalling of purposes- every particle of
that energy which had so long buoyed me up departed like feathers
before the wind, leaving me a helpless prey to the most abject and
pitiable terror. I could not, at first, even summon up sufficient
strength to tear and fit together the small splinters of wood, my
fingers absolutely refusing their office, and my knees knocking
violently against each other. My mind ran over rapidly a thousand
absurd projects by which to avoid becoming a partner in the awful
speculation. I thought of falling on my knees to my companions, and
entreating them to let me escape this necessity; of suddenly rushing
upon them, and, by putting one of them to death, of rendering the
decision by lot useless- in short, of every thing but of going
through with the matter I had in hand. At last, after wasting a long
time in this imbecile conduct, I was recalled to my senses by the
voice of Parker, who urged me to relieve them at once from the
terrible anxiety they were enduring. Even then I could not bring
myself to arrange the splinters upon the spot, but thought over every
species of finesse by which I could trick some one of my
fellow-sufferers to draw the short straw, as it had been agreed that
whoever drew the shortest of four splinters from my hand was to die
for the preservation of the rest. Before any one condemn me for this
apparent heartlessness, let him be placed in a situation precisely
similar to my own.
At length delay was no longer possible, and, with a heart almost
bursting from my bosom, I advanced to the region of the forecastle,
where my companions were awaiting me. I held out my hand with the
splinters, and Peters immediately drew. He was free- his, at least,
was not the shortest; and there was now another chance against my
escape. I summoned up all my strength, and passed the lots to
Augustus. He also drew immediately, and he also was free; and now,
whether I should live or die, the chances were no more than precisely
even. At this moment all the fierceness of the tiger possessed my
bosom, and I felt toward my poor fellow-creature, Parker, the most
intense, the most diabolical hatred. But the feeling did not last;
and, at length, with a convulsive shudder and closed eyes, I held out
the two remaining splinters toward him. It was fully five minutes
before he could summon resolution to draw, during which period of
heartrending suspense I never once opened my eyes. Presently one of
the two lots was quickly drawn from my hand. The decision was then
over, yet I knew not whether it was for me or against me. No one
spoke, and still I dared not satisfy myself by looking at the
splinter I held. Peters at length took me by the hand, and I forced
myself to look up, when I immediately saw by the countenance of
Parker that I was safe, and that he it was who had been doomed to
suffer. Gasping for breath, I fell senseless to the deck.
I recovered from my swoon in time to behold the consummation of
the tragedy in the death of him who had been chiefly instrumental in
bringing it about. He made no resistance whatever, and was stabbed in
the back by Peters, when he fell instantly dead. I must not dwell
upon the fearful repast which immediately ensued. Such things may be
imagined, but words have no power to impress the mind with the
exquisite horror of their reality. Let it suffice to say that, having
in some measure appeased the raging thirst which consumed us by the
blood of the victim, and having by common consent taken off the
hands, feet, and head, throwing them together with the entrails, into
the sea, we devoured the rest of the body, piecemeal, during the four
ever memorable days of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and
twentieth of the month.
On the nineteenth, there coming on a smart shower which lasted
fifteen or twenty minutes, we contrived to catch some water by means
of a sheet which had been fished up from the cabin by our drag just
after the gale. The quantity we took in all did not amount to more
than half a gallon; but even this scanty allowance supplied us with
comparative strength and hope.
On the twenty-first we were again reduced to the last necessity.
The weather still remained warm and pleasant, with occasional fogs
and light breezes, most usually from N. to W.
On the twenty-second, as we were sitting close huddled together,
gloomily revolving over our lamentable condition, there flashed
through my mind all at once an idea which inspired me with a bright
gleam of hope. I remembered that, when the foremast had been cut
away, Peters, being in the windward chains, passed one of the axes
into my hand, requesting me to put it, if possible, in a place of
security, and that a few minutes before the last heavy sea struck the
brig and filled her I had taken this axe into the forecastle and laid
it in one of the larboard berths. I now thought it possible that, by
getting at this axe, we might cut through the deck over the
storeroom, and thus readily supply ourselves with provisions.
When I communicated this object to my companions, they uttered a
feeble shout of joy, and we all proceeded forthwith to the
forecastle. The difficulty of descending here was greater than that
of going down in the cabin, the opening being much smaller, for it
will be remembered that the whole framework about the cabin
companion-hatch had been carried away, whereas the forecastle-way,
being a simple hatch of only about three feet square, had remained
uninjured. I did not hesitate, however, to attempt the descent; and a
rope being fastened round my body as before, I plunged boldly in,
feet foremost, made my way quickly to the berth, and at the first
attempt brought up the axe. It was hailed with the most ecstatic joy
and triumph, and the ease with which it had been obtained was
regarded as an omen of our ultimate preservation.
We now commenced cutting at the deck with all the energy of
rekindled hope, Peters and myself taking the axe by turns, Augustus's
wounded arm not permitting him to aid us in any degree. As we were
still so feeble as to be scarcely able to stand unsupported, and
could consequently work but a minute or two without resting, it soon
became evident that many long hours would be necessary to accomplish
our task- that is, to cut an opening sufficiently large to admit of a
free access to the storeroom. This consideration, however, did not
discourage us; and, working all night by the light of the moon, we
succeeded in effecting our purpose by daybreak on the morning of the
twenty-third.
Peters now volunteered to go down; and, having made all
arrangements as before, he descended, and soon returned bringing up
with him a small jar, which, to our great joy, proved to be full of
olives. Having shared these among us, and devoured them with the
greatest avidity, we proceeded to let him down again. This time he
succeeded beyond our utmost expectations, returning instantly with a
large ham and a bottle of Madeira wine. Of the latter we each took a
moderate sup, having learned by experience the pernicious
consequences of indulging too freely. The ham, except about two
pounds near the bone, was not in a condition to be eaten, having been
entirely spoiled by the salt water. The sound part was divided among
us. Peters and Augustus, not being able to restrain their appetite,
swallowed theirs upon the instant; but I was more cautious, and ate
but a small portion of mine, dreading the thirst which I knew would
ensue. We now rested a while from our labors, which had been
intolerably severe.
By noon, feeling somewhat strengthened and refreshed, we again
renewed our attempt at getting up provisions, Peters and myself going
down alternately, and always with more or less success, until
sundown. During this interval we had the good fortune to bring up,
altogether, four more small jars of olives, another ham, a carboy
containing nearly three gallons of excellent Cape Madeira wine, and,
what gave us still more delight, a small tortoise of the Gallipago
breed, several of which had been taken on board by Captain Barnard,
as the _Grampus_ was leaving port, from the schooner _Mary Pitts_,
just returned from a sealing voyage in the Pacific.
In a subsequent portion of this narrative I shall have frequent
occasion to mention this species of tortoise. It is found
principally, as most of my readers may know, in the group of islands
called the Gallipagos, which, indeed, derive their name from the
animal -- the Spanish word Gallipago meaning a fresh-water terrapin.
From the peculiarity of their shape and action they have been
sometimes called the elephant tortoise. They are frequently found of
an enormous size. I have myself seen several which would weigh from
twelve to fifteen hundred pounds, although I do not remember that any
navigator speaks of having seen them weighing more than eight
hundred. Their appearance is singular, and even disgusting. Their
steps are very slow, measured, and heavy, their bodies being carried
about a foot from the ground. Their neck is long, and exceedingly
slender, from eighteen inches to two feet is a very common length,
and I killed one, where the distance from the shoulder to the
extremity of the head was no less than three feet ten inches. The
head has a striking resemblance to that of a serpent. They can exist
without food for an almost incredible length of time, instances
having been known where they have been thrown into the hold of a
vessel and lain two years without nourishment of any kind- being as
fat, and, in every respect, in as good order at the expiration of the
time as when they were first put in. In one particular these
extraordinary animals bear a resemblance to the dromedary, or camel
of the desert. In a bag at the root of the neck they carry with them
a constant supply of water. In some instances, upon killing them
after a full year's deprivation of all nourishment, as much as three
gallons of perfectly sweet and fresh water have been found in their
bags. Their food is chiefly wild parsley and celery, with purslain,
sea-kelp, and prickly pears, upon which latter vegetable they thrive
wonderfully, a great quantity of it being usually found on the
hillsides near the shore wherever the animal itself is discovered.
They are excellent and highly nutritious food, and have, no doubt,
been the means of preserving the lives of thousands of seamen
employed in the whale-fishery and other pursuits in the Pacific.
The one which we had the good fortune to bring up from the
storeroom was not of a large size, weighing probably sixty-five or
seventy pounds. It was a female, and in excellent condition, being
exceedingly fat, and having more than a quart of limpid and sweet
water in its bag. This was indeed a treasure; and, falling on our
knees with one accord, we returned fervent thanks to God for so
seasonable a relief.
We had great difficulty in getting the animal up through the
opening, as its struggles were fierce and its strength prodigious. It
was upon the point of making its escape from Peter's grasp, and
slipping back into the water, when Augustus, throwing a rope with a
slipknot around its throat, held it up in this manner until I jumped
into the hole by the side of Peters, and assisted him in lifting it
out.
The water we drew carefully from the bag into the jug; which, it
will be remembered, had been brought up before from the cabin. Having
done this, we broke off the neck of a bottle so as to form, with the
cork, a kind of glass, holding not quite half a gill. We then each
drank one of these measures full, and resolved to limit ourselves to
this quantity per day as long as it should hold out.
During the last two or three days, the weather having been dry
and pleasant, the bedding we had obtained from the cabin, as well as
our clothing, had become thoroughly dry, so that we passed this night
(that of the twenty-third) in comparative comfort, enjoying a
tranquil repose, after having supped plentifully on olives and ham,
with a small allowance of the wine. Being afraid of losing some of
our stores overboard during the night, in the event of a breeze
springing up, we secured them as well as possible with cordage to the
fragments of the windlass. Our tortoise, which we were anxious to
preserve alive as long as we could, we threw on its back, and
otherwise carefully fastened.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 12 ~~~
CHAPTER 13
JULY 24. This morning saw us wonderfully recruited in spirits and
strength. Notwithstanding the perilous situation in which we were
still placed, ignorant of our position, although certainly at a great
distance from land, without more food than would last us for a
fortnight even with great care, almost entirely without water, and
floating about at the mercy of every wind and wave on the merest
wreck in the world, still the infinitely more terrible distresses and
dangers from which we had so lately and so providentially been
delivered caused us to regard what we now endured as but little more
than an ordinary evil- so strictly comparative is either good or ill.
At sunrise we were preparing to renew our attempts at getting up
something from the storeroom, when, a smart shower coming on, with
some lightning, we turn our attention to the catching of water by
means of the sheet we had used before for this purpose. We had no
other means of collecting the rain than by holding the sheet spread
out with one of the forechain-plates in the middle of it. The water,
thus conducted to the centre, was drained through into our jug. We
had nearly filled it in this manner, when, a heavy squall coming on
from the northward, obliged us to desist, as the hulk began once more
to roll so violently that we could no longer keep our feet. We now
went forward, and, lashing ourselves securely to the remnant of the
windlass as before, awaited the event with far more calmness than
could have been anticipated or would have been imagined possible
under the circumstances. At noon the wind had freshened into a
two-reef breeze, and by night into a stiff gale, accompanied with a
tremendously heavy swell. Experience having taught us, however, the
best method of arranging our lashings, we weathered this dreary night
in tolerable security, although thoroughly drenched at almost every
instant by the sea, and in momentary dread of being washed off.
Fortunately, the weather was so warm as to render the water rather
grateful than otherwise.
July 25. This morning the gale had diminished to a mere ten-knot
breeze, and the sea had gone down with it so considerably that we
were able to keep ourselves dry upon the deck. To our great grief,
however, we found that two jars of our olives, as well as the whole
of our ham, had been washed overboard, in spite of the careful manner
in which they had been fastened. We determined not to kill the
tortoise as yet, and contented ourselves for the present with a
breakfast on a few of the olives, and a measure of water each, which
latter we mixed half and half, with wine, finding great relief and
strength from the mixture, without the distressing intoxication which
had ensued upon drinking the port. The sea was still far too rough
for the renewal of our efforts at getting up provision from the
storeroom. Several articles, of no importance to us in our present
situation, floated up through the opening during the day, and were
immediately washed overboard. We also now observed that the hulk lay
more along than ever, so that we could not stand an instant without
lashing ourselves. On this account we passed a gloomy and
uncomfortable day. At noon the sun appeared to be nearly vertical,
and we had no doubt that we had been driven down by the long
succession of northward and northwesterly winds into the near
vicinity of the equator. Toward evening we saw several sharks, and were
somewhat alarmed by the audacious manner in which an enormously large
one approached us. At one time, a lurch throwing the deck very far
beneath the water, the monster actually swam in upon us, floundering
for some moments just over the companion-hatch, and striking Peters
violently with his tail. A heavy sea at length hurled him overboard,
much to our relief. In moderate weather we might have easily captured
him.
July 26. This morning, the wind having greatly abated, and the
sea not being very rough, we determined to renew our exertions in the
storeroom. After a great deal of hard labor during the whole day, we
found that nothing further was to be expected from this quarter, the
partitions of the room having been stove during the night, and its
contents swept into the hold. This discovery, as may be supposed,
filled us with despair.
July 27. The sea nearly smooth, with a light wind, and still from
the northward and westward. The sun coming out hotly in the
afternoon, we occupied ourselves in drying our clothes. Found great
relief from thirst, and much comfort otherwise, by bathing in the
sea; in this, however, we were forced to use great caution, being
afraid of sharks, several of which were seen swimming around the brig
during the day.
July 28. Good weather still. The brig now began to lie along so
alarmingly that we feared she would eventually roll bottom up.
Prepared ourselves as well as we could for this emergency, lashing
our tortoise, waterjug, and two remaining jars of olives as far as
possible over to the windward, placing them outside the hull below
the main-chains. The sea very smooth all day, with little or no wind.
July 29. A continuance of the same weather. Augustus's wounded
arm began to evince symptoms of mortification. He complained of
drowsiness and excessive thirst, but no acute pain. Nothing could be
done for his relief beyond rubbing his wounds with a little of the
vinegar from the olives, and from this no benefit seemed to be
experienced. We did every thing in our power for his comfort, and
trebled his allowance of water.
July 30. An excessively hot day, with no wind. An enormous shark
kept close by the hulk during the whole of the forenoon. We made
several unsuccessful attempts to capture him by means of a noose.
Augustus much worse, and evidently sinking as much from want of
proper nourishment as from the effect of his wounds. He constantly
prayed to be relieved from his sufferings, wishing for nothing but
death. This evening we ate the last of our olives, and found the
water in our jug so putrid that we could not swallow it at all
without the addition of wine. Determined to kill our tortoise in the
morning.
July 31. After a night of excessive anxiety and fatigue, owing to
the position of the hulk, we set about killing and cutting up our
tortoise. He proved to be much smaller than we had supposed, although
in good condition,- the whole meat about him not amounting to more
than ten pounds. With a view of preserving a portion of this as long
as possible, we cut it into fine pieces, and filled with them our
three remaining olive jars and the wine-bottle (all of which had been
kept), pouring in afterward the vinegar from the olives. In this
manner we put away about three pounds of the tortoise, intending not
to touch it until we had consumed the rest. We concluded to restrict
ourselves to about four ounces of the meat per day; the whole would
thus last us thirteen days. A brisk shower, with severe thunder and
lightning, came on about dusk, but lasted so short a time that we
only succeeded in catching about half a pint of water. The whole of
this, by common consent, was given to Augustus, who now appeared to
be in the last extremity. He drank the water from the sheet as we
caught it (we holding it above him as he lay so as to let it run into
his mouth), for we had now nothing left capable of holding water,
unless we had chosen to empty out our wine from the carboy, or the
stale water from the jug. Either of these expedients would have been
resorted to had the shower lasted.
The sufferer seemed to derive but little benefit from the
draught. His arm was completely black from the wrist to the shoulder,
and his feet were like ice. We expected every moment to see him
breathe his last. He was frightfully emaciated; so much so that,
although he weighed a hundred and twenty-seven pounds upon his
leaving Nantucket, he now did not weigh more than forty or fifty at
the farthest. His eyes were sunk far in his head, being scarcely
perceptible, and the skin of his cheeks hung so loosely as to prevent
his masticating any food, or even swallowing any liquid, without
great difficulty.
August 1. A continuance of the same calm weather, with an
oppressively hot sun. Suffered exceedingly from thirst, the water in
the jug being absolutely putrid and swarming with vermin. We
contrived, nevertheless, to swallow a portion of it by mixing it with
wine; our thirst, however, was but little abated. We found more
relief by bathing in the sea, but could not avail ourselves of this
expedient except at long intervals, on account of the continual
presence of sharks. We now saw clearly that Augustus could not be
saved; that he was evidently dying. We could do nothing to relieve
his sufferings, which appeared to be great. About twelve o'clock he
expired in strong convulsions, and without having spoken for several
hours. His death filled us with the most gloomy forebodings, and had
so great an effect upon our spirits that we sat motionless by the
corpse during the whole day, and never addressed each other except in
a whisper. It was not until some time after dark that we took courage
to get up and throw the body overboard. It was then loathsome beyond
expression, and so far decayed that, as Peters attempted to lift it,
an entire leg came off in his grasp. As the mass of putrefaction
slipped over the vessel's side into the water, the glare of
phosphoric light with which it was surrounded plainly discovered to
us seven or eight large sharks, the clashing of whose horrible teeth,
as their prey was torn to pieces among them, might have been heard at
the distance of a mile. We shrunk within ourselves in the extremity
of horror at the sound.
August 2. The same fearfully calm and hot weather. The dawn found
us in a state of pitiable dejection as well as bodily exhaustion. The
water in the jug was now absolutely useless, being a thick gelatinous
mass; nothing but frightful-looking worms mingled with slime. We
threw it out, and washed the jug well in the sea, afterward pouring a
little vinegar in it from our bottles of pickled tortoise. Our thirst
could now scarcely be endured, and we tried in vain to relieve it by
wine, which seemed only to add fuel to the flame, and excited us to a
high degree of intoxication. We afterward endeavoured to relieve our
sufferings by mixing the wine with seawater; but this instantly
brought about the most violent retchings, so that we never again
attempted it. During the whole day we anxiously sought an opportunity
of bathing, but to no purpose; for the hulk was now entirely besieged
on all sides with sharks- no doubt the identical monsters who had
devoured our poor companion on the evening before, and who were in
momentary expectation of another similar feast. This circumstance
occasioned us the most bitter regret and filled us with the most
depressing and melancholy forebodings. We had experienced
indescribable relief in bathing, and to have this resource cut off in
so frightful a manner was more than we could bear. Nor, indeed, were
we altogether free from the apprehension of immediate danger, for the
least slip or false movement would have thrown us at once within
reach of those voracious fish, who frequently thrust themselves
directly upon us, swimming up to leeward. No shouts or exertions on
our part seemed to alarm them. Even when one of the largest was
struck with an axe by Peters and much wounded, he persisted in his
attempts to push in where we were. A cloud came up at dusk, but, to
our extreme anguish, passed over without discharging itself. It is
quite impossible to conceive our sufferings from thirst at this
period. We passed a sleepless night, both on this account and through
dread of the sharks.
August 3. No prospect of relief, and the brig lying still more
and more along, so that now we could not maintain a footing upon deck
at all. Busied ourselves in securing our wine and tortoise-meat, so
that we might not lose them in the event of our rolling over. Got out
two stout spikes from the forechains, and, by means of the axe, drove
them into the hull to windward within a couple of feet of the water,
this not being very far from the keel, as we were nearly upon our
beam-ends. To these spikes we now lashed our provisions, as being
more secure than their former position beneath the chains. Suffered
great agony from thirst during the whole day- no chance of bathing on
account of the sharks, which never left us for a moment. Found it
impossible to sleep.
August 4. A little before daybreak we perceived that the hulk was
heeling over, and aroused ourselves to prevent being thrown off by
the movement. At first the roll was slow and gradual, and we
contrived to clamber over to windward very well, having taken the
precaution to leave ropes hanging from the spikes we had driven in
for the provision. But we had not calculated sufficiently upon the
acceleration of the impetus; for, presently the heel became too
violent to allow of our keeping pace with it; and, before either of
us knew what was to happen, we found ourselves hurled furiously into
the sea, and struggling several fathoms beneath the surface, with the
huge hull immediately above us.
In going under the water I had been obliged to let go my hold
upon the rope; and finding that I was completely beneath the vessel,
and my strength nearly exhausted, I scarcely made a struggle for
life, and resigned myself, in a few seconds, to die. But here again I
was deceived, not having taken into consideration the natural rebound
of the hull to windward. The whirl of the water upward, which the
vessel occasioned in rolling partially back, brought me to the
surface still more violently than I had been plunged beneath. Upon
coming up I found myself about twenty yards from the hulk, as near as
I could judge. She was lying keel up, rocking furiously from side to
side, and the sea in all directions around was much agitated, and
full of strong whirlpools. I could see nothing of Peters. An oil-cask
was floating within a few feet of me, and various other articles from
the brig were scattered about.
My principal terror was now on account of the sharks, which I
knew to be in my vicinity. In order to deter these, if possible, from
approaching me, I splashed the water vigorously with both hands and
feet as I swam towards the hulk, creating a body of foam. I have no
doubt that to this expedient, simple as it was, I was indebted for my
preservation; for the sea all round the brig, just before her rolling
over, was so crowded with these monsters, that I must have been, and
really was, in actual contact with some of them during my progress.
By great good fortune, however, I reached the side of the vessel in
safety, although so utterly weakened by the violent exertion I had
used that I should never have been able to get upon it but for the
timely assistance of Peters, who, now, to my great joy, made his
appearance (having scrambled up to the keel from the opposite side of
the hull), and threw me the end of a rope -- one of those which had
been attached to the spikes.
Having barely escaped this danger, our attention was now directed
to the dreadful imminency of another -- that of absolute starvation.
Our whole stock of provision had been swept overboard in spite of all
our care in securing it; and seeing no longer the remotest
possibility of obtaining more, we gave way both of us to despair,
weeping aloud like children, and neither of us attempting to offer
consolation to the other. Such weakness can scarcely be conceived,
and to those who have never been similarly situated will, no doubt,
appear unnatural; but it must be remembered that our intellects were
so entirely disordered by the long course of privation and terror to
which we had been subjected, that we could not justly be considered,
at that period, in the light of rational beings. In subsequent
perils, nearly as great, if not greater, I bore up with fortitude
against all the evils of my situation, and Peters, it will be seen,
evinced a stoical philosophy nearly as incredible as his present
childlike supineness and imbecility -- the mental condition made the
difference.
The overturning of the brig, even with the consequent loss of the
wine and turtle, would not, in fact, have rendered our situation more
deplorable than before, except for the disappearance of the
bedclothes by which we had been hitherto enabled to catch rainwater,
and of the jug in which we had kept it when caught; for we found the
whole bottom, from within two or three feet of the bends as far as
the keel, together with the keel itself, thickly covered with large
barnacles, which proved to be excellent and highly nutritious food.
Thus, in two important respects, the accident we had so greatly
dreaded proved to be a benefit rather than an injury; it had opened
to us a supply of provisions which we could not have exhausted, using
it moderately, in a month; and it had greatly contributed to our
comfort as regards position, we being much more at ease, and in
infinitely less danger, than before.
The difficulty, however, of now obtaining water blinded us to all
the benefits of the change in our condition. That we might be ready
to avail ourselves, as far as possible, of any shower which might
fall we took off our shirts, to make use of them as we had of the
sheets -- not hoping, of course, to get more in this way, even under
the most favorable circumstances, than half a gill at a time. No
signs of a cloud appeared during the day, and the agonies of our
thirst were nearly intolerable. At night, Peters obtained about an
hour's disturbed sleep, but my intense sufferings would not permit me
to close my eyes for a single moment.
August 5. To-day, a gentle breeze springing up carried us through
a vast quantity of seaweed, among which we were so fortunate as to
find eleven small crabs, which afforded us several delicious meals.
Their shells being quite soft, we ate them entire, and found that
they irritated our thirst far less than the barnacles. Seeing no
trace of sharks among the seaweed, we also ventured to bathe, and
remained in the water for four or five hours, during which we
experienced a very sensible diminution of our thirst. Were greatly
refreshed, and spent the night somewhat more comfortably than before,
both of us snatching a little sleep.
August 6. This day we were blessed by a brisk and continual rain,
lasting from about noon until after dark. Bitterly did we now regret
the loss of our jug and carboy; for, in spite of the little means we
had of catching the water, we might have filled one, if not both of
them. As it was, we contrived to satisfy the cravings of thirst by
suffering the shirts to become saturated, and then wringing them so
as to let the grateful fluid trickle into our mouths. In this
occupation we passed the entire day.
August 7. Just at daybreak we both at the same instant descried a
sail to the eastward, and _evidently coming towards us!_ We hailed
the glorious sight with a long, although feeble shout of rapture; and
began instantly to make every signal in our power, by flaring the
shirts in the air, leaping as high as our weak condition would
permit, and even by hallooing with all the strength of our lungs,
although the vessel could not have been less than fifteen miles
distant. However, she still continued to near our hulk, and we felt
that, if she but held her present course, she must eventually come so
close as to perceive us. In about an hour after we first discovered
her, we could clearly see the people on her decks. She was a long,
low, and rakish-looking topsail schooner, with a black ball in her
foretopsail, and had, apparently, a full crew. We now became alarmed,
for we could hardly imagine it possible that she did not observe us,
and were apprehensive that she meant to leave us to perish as we were
-- an act of fiendish barbarity, which, however incredible it may
appear, has been repeatedly perpetuated at sea, under circumstances
very nearly similar, and by beings who were regarded as belonging to
the human species. {*2} In this instance, however, by the mercy of
God, we were destined to be most happily deceived; for, presently we
were aware of a sudden commotion on the deck of the stranger, who
immediately afterward ran up a British flag, and, hauling her wind,
bore up directly upon us. In half an hour more we found ourselves in
her cabin. She proved to be the Jane Guy, of Liverpool, Captain Guy,
bound on a sealing and trading voyage to the South Seas and Pacific.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 13 ~~~
CHAPTER 14
THE _Jane Guy_ was a fine-looking topsail schooner of a hundred
and eighty tons burden. She was unusually sharp in the bows, and on a
wind, in moderate weather, the fastest sailer I have ever seen. Her
qualities, however, as a rough sea-boat, were not so good, and her
draught of water was by far too great for the trade to which she was
destined. For this peculiar service, a larger vessel, and one of a
light proportionate draught, is desirable- say a vessel of from three
hundred to three hundred and fifty tons. She should be bark-rigged,
and in other respects of a different construction from the usual
South Sea ships. It is absolutely necessary that she should be well
armed. She should have, say ten or twelve twelve-pound carronades,
and two or three long twelves, with brass blunderbusses, and
water-tight arm-chests for each top. Her anchors and cables should be
of far greater strength than is required for any other species of
trade, and, above all, her crew should be numerous and efficient- not
less, for such a vessel as I have described, than fifty or sixty
able-bodied men. The Jane Guy had a crew of thirty-five, all able
seamen, besides the captain and mate, but she was not altogether as
well armed or otherwise equipped, as a navigator acquainted with the
difficulties and dangers of the trade could have desired.
Captain Guy was a gentleman of great urbanity of manner, and of
considerable experience in the southern traffic, to which he had
devoted a great portion of his life. He was deficient, however, in
energy, and, consequently, in that spirit of enterprise which is here
so absolutely requisite. He was part owner of the vessel in which he
sailed, and was invested with discretionary powers to cruise in the
South Seas for any cargo which might come most readily to hand. He
had on board, as usual in such voyages, beads, looking-glasses,
tinder-works, axes, hatchets, saws, adzes, planes, chisels, gouges,
gimlets, files, spokeshaves, rasps, hammers, nails, knives, scissors,
razors, needles, thread, crockery-ware, calico, trinkets, and other
similar articles.
The schooner sailed from Liverpool on the tenth of July, crossed
the Tropic of Cancer on the twenty-fifth, in longitude twenty degrees
west, and reached Sal, one of the Cape Verd islands, on the
twenty-ninth, where she took in salt and other necessaries for the
voyage. On the third of August, she left the Cape Verds and steered
southwest, stretching over toward the coast of Brazil, so as to cross
the equator between the meridians of twenty-eight and thirty degrees
west longitude. This is the course usually taken by vessels bound
from Europe to the Cape of Good Hope, or by that route to the East
Indies. By proceeding thus they avoid the calms and strong contrary
currents which continually prevail on the coast of Guinea, while, in
the end, it is found to be the shortest track, as westerly winds are
never wanting afterward by which to reach the Cape. It was Captain
Guy's intention to make his first stoppage at Kerguelen's Land- I
hardly know for what reason. On the day we were picked up the
schooner was off Cape St. Roque, in longitude thirty-one degrees
west; so that, when found, we had drifted probably, from north to
south, _not less than five-and-twenty degrees!_
On board the Jane Guy we were treated with all the kindness our
distressed situation demanded. In about a fortnight, during which
time we continued steering to the southeast, with gentle breezes and
fine weather, both Peters and myself recovered entirely from the
effects of our late privation and dreadful sufferings, and we began
to remember what had passed rather as a frightful dream from which we
had been happily awakened, than as events which had taken place in
sober and naked reality. I have since found that this species of
partial oblivion is usually brought about by sudden transition,
whether from joy to sorrow or from sorrow to joy- the degree of
forgetfulness being proportioned to the degree of difference in the
exchange. Thus, in my own case, I now feel it impossible to realize
the full extent of the misery which I endured during the days spent
upon the hulk. The incidents are remembered, but not the feelings
which the incidents elicited at the time of their occurrence. I only
know, that when they did occur, I then thought human nature could
sustain nothing more of agony.
We continued our voyage for some weeks without any incidents of
greater moment than the occasional meeting with whaling-ships, and
more frequently with the black or right whale, so called in
contradistinction to the spermaceti. These, however, were chiefly
found south of the twenty-fifth parallel. On the sixteenth of
September, being in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope, the
schooner encountered her first gale of any violence since leaving
Liverpool. In this neighborhood, but more frequently to the south and
east of the promontory (we were to the westward), navigators have
often to contend with storms from the northward, which rage with
great fury. They always bring with them a heavy sea, and one of their
most dangerous features is the instantaneous chopping round of the
wind, an occurrence almost certain to take place during the greatest
force of the gale. A perfect hurricane will be blowing at one moment
from the northward or northeast, and in the next not a breath of wind
will be felt in that direction, while from the southwest it will come
out all at once with a violence almost inconceivable. A bright spot
to the southward is the sure forerunner of the change, and vessels
are thus enabled to take the proper precautions.
It was about six in the morning when the blow came on with a
white squall, and, as usual, from the northward. By eight it had
increased very much, and brought down upon us one of the most
tremendous seas I had then ever beheld. Every thing had been made as
snug as possible, but the schooner laboured excessively, and gave
evidence of her bad qualities as a seaboat, pitching her forecastle
under at every plunge and with the greatest difficulty struggling up
from one wave before she was buried in another. Just before sunset
the bright spot for which we had been on the look-out made its
appearance in the southwest, and in an hour afterward we perceived
the little headsail we carried flapping listlessly against the mast.
In two minutes more, in spite of every preparation, we were hurled on
our beam-ends, as if by magic, and a perfect wilderness of foam made
a clear breach over us as we lay. The blow from the southwest,
however, luckily proved to be nothing more than a squall, and we had
the good fortune to right the vessel without the loss of a spar. A
heavy cross sea gave us great trouble for a few hours after this, but
toward morning we found ourselves in nearly as good condition as
before the gale. Captain Guy considered that he had made an escape
little less than miraculous.
On the thirteenth of October we came in sight of Prince Edward's
Island, in latitude 46 degrees 53' S., longitude 37 degrees 46' E.
Two days afterward we found ourselves near Possession Island, and
presently passed the islands of Crozet, in latitude 42 degrees 59'
S., longitude 48 degrees E. On the eighteenth we made Kerguelen's or
Desolation Island, in the Southern Indian Ocean, and came to anchor
in Christmas Harbour, having four fathoms of water.
This island, or rather group of islands, bears southeast from the
Cape of Good Hope, and is distant therefrom nearly eight hundred
leagues. It was first discovered in 1772, by the Baron de Kergulen,
or Kerguelen, a Frenchman, who, thinking the land to form a portion
of an extensive southern continent carried home information to that
effect, which produced much excitement at the time. The government,
taking the matter up, sent the baron back in the following year for
the purpose of giving his new discovery a critical examination, when
the mistake was discovered. In 1777, Captain Cook fell in with the
same group, and gave to the principal one the name of Desolation
Island, a title which it certainly well deserves. Upon approaching
the land, however, the navigator might be induced to suppose
otherwise, as the sides of most of the hills, from September to
March, are clothed with very brilliant verdure. This deceitful
appearance is caused by a small plant resembling saxifrage, which is
abundant, growing in large patches on a species of crumbling moss.
Besides this plant there is scarcely a sign of vegetation on the
island, if we except some coarse rank grass near the harbor, some
lichen, and a shrub which bears resemblance to a cabbage shooting
into seed, and which has a bitter and acrid taste.
The face of the country is hilly, although none of the hills can
be called lofty. Their tops are perpetually covered with snow. There
are several harbors, of which Christmas Harbour is the most
convenient. It is the first to be met with on the northeast side of
the island after passing Cape Francois, which forms the northern
shore, and, by its peculiar shape, serves to distinguish the harbour.
Its projecting point terminates in a high rock, through which is a
large hole, forming a natural arch. The entrance is in latitude 48
degrees 40' S., longitude 69 degrees 6' E. Passing in here, good
anchorage may be found under the shelter of several small islands,
which form a sufficient protection from all easterly winds.
Proceeding on eastwardly from this anchorage you come to Wasp Bay, at
the head of the harbour. This is a small basin, completely
landlocked, into which you can go with four fathoms, and find
anchorage in from ten to three, hard clay bottom. A ship might lie
here with her best bower ahead all the year round without risk. To
the westward, at the head of Wasp Bay, is a small stream of excellent
water, easily procured.
Some seal of the fur and hair species are still to be found on
Kerguelen's Island, and sea elephants abound. The feathered tribes
are discovered in great numbers. Penguins are very plenty, and of
these there are four different kinds. The royal penguin, so called
from its size and beautiful plumage, is the largest. The upper part
of the body is usually gray, sometimes of a lilac tint; the under
portion of the purest white imaginable. The head is of a glossy and
most brilliant black, the feet also. The chief beauty of plumage,
however, consists in two broad stripes of a gold color, which pass
along from the head to the breast. The bill is long, and either pink
or bright scarlet. These birds walk erect; with a stately carriage.
They carry their heads high with their wings drooping like two arms,
and, as their tails project from their body in a line with the legs,
the resemblance to a human figure is very striking, and would be apt
to deceive the spectator at a casual glance or in the gloom of the
evening. The royal penguins which we met with on Kerguelen's Land
were rather larger than a goose. The other kinds are the macaroni,
the jackass, and the rookery penguin. These are much smaller, less
beautiful in plumage, and different in other respects.
Besides the penguin many other birds are here to be found, among
which may be mentioned sea-hens, blue peterels, teal, ducks, Port
Egmont hens, shags, Cape pigeons, the nelly, sea swallows, terns, sea
gulls, Mother Carey's chickens, Mother Carey's geese, or the great
peterel, and, lastly, the albatross.
The great peterel is as large as the common albatross, and is
carnivorous. It is frequently called the break-bones, or osprey
peterel. They are not at all shy, and, when properly cooked, are
palatable food. In flying they sometimes sail very close to the
surface of the water, with the wings expanded, without appearing to
move them in the least degree, or make any exertion with them
whatever.
The albatross is one of the largest and fiercest of the South Sea
birds. It is of the gull species, and takes its prey on the wing,
never coming on land except for the purpose of breeding. Between this
bird and the penguin the most singular friendship exists. Their nests
are constructed with great uniformity upon a plan concerted between
the two species- that of the albatross being placed in the centre of
a little square formed by the nests of four penguins. Navigators have
agreed in calling an assemblage of such encampments a rookery. These
rookeries have been often described, but as my readers may not all
have seen these descriptions, and as I shall have occasion hereafter
to speak of the penguin and albatross, it will not be amiss to say
something here of their mode of building and living.
When the season for incubation arrives, the birds assemble in vast
numbers, and for some days appear to be deliberating upon the proper
course to be pursued. At length they proceed to action. A level piece
of ground is selected, of suitable extent, usually comprising three
or four acres, and situated as near the sea as possible, being still
beyond its reach. The spot is chosen with reference to its evenness
of surface, and that is preferred which is the least encumbered with
stones. This matter being arranged, the birds proceed, with one
accord, and actuated apparently by one mind, to trace out, with
mathematical accuracy, either a square or other parallelogram, as may
best suit the nature of the ground, and of just sufficient size to
accommodate easily all the birds assembled, and no more- in this
particular seeming determined upon preventing the access of future
stragglers who have not participated in the labor of the encampment.
One side of the place thus marked out runs parallel with the water's
edge, and is left open for ingress or egress.
Having defined the limits of the rookery, the colony now begin to
clear it of every species of rubbish, picking up stone by stone, and
carrying them outside of the lines, and close by them, so as to form
a wall on the three inland sides. Just within this wall a perfectly
level and smooth walk is formed, from six to eight feet wide, and
extending around the encampment- thus serving the purpose of a
general promenade.
The next process is to partition out the whole area into small
squares exactly equal in size. This is done by forming narrow paths,
very smooth, and crossing each other at right angles throughout the
entire extent of the rookery. At each intersection of these paths the
nest of an albatross is constructed, and a penguin's nest in the
centre of each square- thus every penguin is surrounded by four
albatrosses, and each albatross by a like number of penguins. The
penguin's nest consists of a hole in the earth, very shallow, being
only just of sufficient depth to keep her single egg from rolling.
The albatross is somewhat less simple in her arrangements, erecting a
hillock about a foot high and two in diameter. This is made of earth,
seaweed, and shells. On its summit she builds her nest.
The birds take especial care never to leave their nests
unoccupied for an instant during the period of incubation, or,
indeed, until the young progeny are sufficiently strong to take care
of themselves. While the male is absent at sea in search of food, the
female remains on duty, and it is only upon the return of her partner
that she ventures abroad. The eggs are never left uncovered at all --
while one bird leaves the nest the other nestling in by its side.
This precaution is rendered necessary by the thieving propensities
prevalent in the rookery, the inhabitants making no scruple to
purloin each other's eggs at every good opportunity.
Although there are some rookeries in which the penguin and
albatross are the sole population, yet in most of them a variety of
oceanic birds are to be met with, enjoying all the privileges of
citizenship, and scattering their nests here and there, wherever they
can find room, never interfering, however, with the stations of the
larger species. The appearance of such encampments, when seen from a
distance, is exceedingly singular. The whole atmosphere just above
the settlement is darkened with the immense number of the albatross
(mingled with the smaller tribes) which are continually hovering over
it, either going to the ocean or returning home. At the same time a
crowd of penguins are to be observed, some passing to and fro in the
narrow alleys, and some marching with the military strut so peculiar
to them, around the general promenade ground which encircles the
rookery. In short, survey it as we will, nothing can be more
astonishing than the spirit of reflection evinced by these feathered
beings, and nothing surely can be better calculated to elicit
reflection in every well-regulated human intellect.
On the morning after our arrival in Christmas Harbour the chief
mate, Mr. Patterson, took the boats, and (although it was somewhat
early in the season) went in search of seal, leaving the captain and
a young relation of his on a point of barren land to the westward,
they having some business, whose nature I could not ascertain, to
transact in the interior of the island. Captain Guy took with him a
bottle, in which was a sealed letter, and made his way from the point
on which he was set on shore toward one of the highest peaks in the
place. It is probable that his design was to leave the letter on that
height for some vessel which he expected to come after him. As soon
as we lost sight of him we proceeded (Peters and myself being in the
mate's boat) on our cruise around the coast, looking for seal. In
this business we were occupied about three weeks, examining with
great care every nook and corner, not only of Kerguelen's Land, but
of the several small islands in the vicinity. Our labours, however,
were not crowned with any important success. We saw a great many fur
seal, but they were exceedingly shy, and with the greatest exertions,
we could only procure three hundred and fifty skins in all. Sea
elephants were abundant, especially on the western coast of the
mainland, but of these we killed only twenty, and this with great
difficulty. On the smaller islands we discovered a good many of the
hair seal, but did not molest them. We returned to the schooner: on
the eleventh, where we found Captain Guy and his nephew, who gave a
very bad account of the interior, representing it as one of the most
dreary and utterly barren countries in the world. They had remained
two nights on the island, owing to some misunderstanding, on the part
of the second mate, in regard to the sending a jollyboat from the
schooner to take them off.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 14 ~~~
CHAPTER 15
ON the twelfth we made sail from Christmas Harbour retracing our
way to the westward, and leaving Marion's Island, one of Crozet's
group, on the larboard. We afterward passed Prince Edward's Island,
leaving it also on our left, then, steering more to the northward,
made, in fifteen days, the islands of Tristan d'Acunha, in latitude
37 degrees 8' S, longitude 12 degrees 8' W.
This group, now so well known, and which consists of three
circular islands, was first discovered by the Portuguese, and was
visited afterward by the Dutch in 1643, and by the French in 1767.
The three islands together form a triangle, and are distant from each
other about ten miles, there being fine open passages between. The
land in all of them is very high, especially in Tristan d'Acunha,
properly so called. This is the largest of the group, being fifteen
miles in circumference, and so elevated that it can be seen in clear
weather at the distance of eighty or ninety miles. A part of the land
toward the north rises more than a thousand feet perpendicularly from
the sea. A tableland at this height extends back nearly to the centre
of the island, and from this tableland arises a lofty cone like that
of Teneriffe. The lower half of this cone is clothed with trees of
good size, but the upper region is barren rock, usually hidden among
the clouds, and covered with snow during the greater part of the
year. There are no shoals or other dangers about the island, the
shores being remarkably bold and the water deep. On the northwestern
coast is a bay, with a beach of black sand where a landing with boats
can be easily effected, provided there be a southerly wind. Plenty of
excellent water may here be readily procured; also cod and other fish
may be taken with hook and line.
The next island in point of size, and the most westwardly of the
group, is that called the Inaccessible. Its precise situation is 37
degrees 17' S. latitude, longitude 12 degrees 24' W. It is seven or
eight miles in circumference, and on all sides presents a forbidding
and precipitous aspect. Its top is perfectly flat, and the whole
region is sterile, nothing growing upon it except a few stunted
shrubs.
Nightingale Island, the smallest and most southerly, is in
latitude 37 degrees 26' S., longitude 12 degrees 12' W. Off its
southern extremity is a high ledge of rocky islets; a few also of a
similar appearance are seen to the northeast. The ground is irregular
and sterile, and a deep valley partially separates it.
The shores of these islands abound, in the proper season, with
sea lions, sea elephants, the hair and fur seal, together with a
great variety of oceanic birds. Whales are also plenty in their
vicinity. Owing to the ease with which these various animals were
here formerly taken, the group has been much visited since its
discovery. The Dutch and French frequented it at a very early period.
In 1790, Captain Patten, of the ship Industry, of Philadelphia, made
Tristan d'Acunha, where he remained seven months (from August, 1790,
to April, 1791) for the purpose of collecting sealskins. In this time
he gathered no less than five thousand six hundred, and says that he
would have had no difficulty in loading a large ship with oil in
three weeks. Upon his arrival he found no quadrupeds, with the
exception of a few wild goats; the island now abounds with all our
most valuable domestic animals, which have been introduced by
subsequent navigators.
I believe it was not long after Captain Patten's visit that
Captain Colquhoun, of the American brig Betsey, touched at the
largest of the islands for the purpose of refreshment. He planted
onions, potatoes, cabbages, and a great many other vegetables, an
abundance of all which is now to be met with.
In 1811, a Captain Haywood, in the Nereus, visited Tristan. He
found there three Americans, who were residing upon the island to
prepare sealskins and oil. One of these men was named Jonathan
Lambert, and he called himself the sovereign of the country. He had
cleared and cultivated about sixty acres of land, and turned his
attention to raising the coffee-plant and sugar-cane, with which he
had been furnished by the American Minister at Rio Janeiro. This
settlement, however, was finally abandoned, and in 1817 the islands
were taken possession of by the British Government, who sent a
detachment for that purpose from the Cape of Good Hope. They did not,
however, retain them long; but, upon the evacuation of the country as
a British possession, two or three English families took up their
residence there independently of the Government. On the twenty-fifth
of March, 1824, the Berwick, Captain Jeffrey, from London to Van
Diemen's Land, arrived at the place, where they found an Englishman
of the name of Glass, formerly a corporal in the British artillery.
He claimed to be supreme governor of the islands, and had under his
control twenty-one men and three women. He gave a very favourable
account of the salubrity of the climate and of the productiveness of
the soil. The population occupied themselves chiefly in collecting
sealskins and sea elephant oil, with which they traded to the Cape of
Good Hope, Glass owning a small schooner. At the period of our
arrival the governor was still a resident, but his little community
had multiplied, there being fifty-six persons upon Tristan, besides a
smaller settlement of seven on Nightingale Island. We had no
difficulty in procuring almost every kind of refreshment which we
required- sheep, hogs, bullocks, rabbits, poultry, goats, fish in
great variety, and vegetables were abundant. Having come to anchor
close in with the large island, in eighteen fathoms, we took all we
wanted on board very conveniently. Captain Guy also purchased of
Glass five hundred sealskins and some ivory. We remained here a week,
during which the prevailing winds were from the northward and
westward, and the weather somewhat hazy. On the fifth of November we
made sail to the southward and westward, with the intention of having
a thorough search for a group of islands called the Auroras,
respecting whose existence a great diversity of opinion has existed.
These islands are said to have been discovered as early as 1762,
by the commander of the ship Aurora. In 1790, Captain Manuel de
Oyarvido,, in the ship Princess, belonging to the Royal Philippine
Company, sailed, as he asserts, directly among them. In 1794, the
Spanish corvette Atrevida went with the determination of ascertaining
their precise situation, and, in a paper published by the Royal
Hydrographical Society of Madrid in the year 1809, the following
language is used respecting this expedition: "The corvette Atrevida
practised, in their immediate vicinity, from the twenty-first to the
twenty-seventh of January, all the necessary observations, and
measured by chronometers the difference of longitude between these
islands and the port of Soledad in the Manillas. The islands are
three, they are very nearly in the same meridian; the centre one is
rather low, and the other two may be seen at nine leagues' distance."
The observations made on board the Atrevida give the following
results as the precise situation of each island. The most northern is
in latitude 52 degrees 37' 24" S., longitude 47 degrees, 43' 15" W.;
the middle one in latitude 53 degrees 2' 40" S., longitude 47 degrees
55' 15" W.; and the most southern in latitude 53 degrees 15' 22" S.,
longitude 47 degrees 57' 15" W.
On the twenty-seventh of January, 1820, Captain James Weddel, of
the British navy, sailed from Staten Land also in search of the
Auroras. He reports that, having made the most diligent search and
passed not only immediately over the spots indicated by the commander
of the Atrevida, but in every direction throughout the vicinity of
these spots, he could discover no indication of land. These
conflicting statements have induced other navigators to look out for
the islands; and, strange to say, while some have sailed through
every inch of sea where they are supposed to lie without finding
them, there have been not a few who declare positively that they have
seen them; and even been close in with their shores. It was Captain
Guy's intention to make every exertion within his power to settle the
question so oddly in dispute. {*3}
We kept on our course, between the south and west, with variable
weather, until the twentieth of the month, when we found ourselves on
the debated ground, being in latitude 53 degrees 15' S., longitude 47
degrees 58' W.- that is to say, very nearly upon the spot indicated
as the situation of the most southern of the group. Not perceiving
any sign of land, we continued to the westward of the parallel of
fifty-three degrees south, as far as the meridian of fifty degrees
west. We then stood to the north as far as the parallel of fifty-two
degrees south, when we turned to the eastward, and kept our parallel
by double altitudes, morning and evening, and meridian altitudes of
the planets and moon. Having thus gone eastwardly to the meridian of
the western coast of Georgia, we kept that meridian until we were in
the latitude from which we set out. We then took diagonal courses
throughout the entire extent of sea circumscribed, keeping a lookout
constantly at the masthead, and repeating our examination with the
greatest care for a period of three weeks, during which the weather
was remarkably pleasant and fair, with no haze whatsoever. Of course
we were thoroughly satisfied that, whatever islands might have
existed in this vicinity at any former period, no vestige of them
remained at the present day. Since my return home I find that the
same ground was traced over, with equal care, in 1822, by Captain
Johnson, of the American schooner Henry, and by Captain Morrell in
the American schooner Wasp- in both cases with the same result as in
our own.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 15 ~~~
CHAPTER 16
It had been Captain Guy's original intention, after satisfying
himself about the Auroras, to proceed through the Strait of Magellan,
and up along the western coast of Patagonia; but information received
at Tristan d'Acunha induced him to steer to the southward, in the
hope of falling in with some small islands said to lie about the
parallel of 60 degrees S., longitude 41 degrees 20' W. In the event
of his not discovering these lands, he designed, should the season
prove favourable, to push on toward the pole. Accordingly, on the
twelfth of December, we made sail in that direction. On the
eighteenth we found ourselves about the station indicated by Glass,
and cruised for three days in that neighborhood without finding any
traces of the islands he had mentioned. On the twenty-first, the
weather being unusually pleasant, we again made sail to the
southward, with the resolution of penetrating in that course as far
as possible. Before entering upon this portion of my narrative, it
may be as well, for the information of those readers who have paid
little attention to the progress of discovery in these regions, to
give some brief account of the very few attempts at reaching the
southern pole which have hitherto been made.
That of Captain Cook was the first of which we have any distinct
account. In 1772 he sailed to the south in the Resolution,
accompanied by Lieutenant Furneaux in the Adventure. In December he
found himself as far as the fifty-eighth parallel of south latitude,
and in longitude 26 degrees 57' E. Here he met with narrow fields of
ice, about eight or ten inches thick, and running northwest and
southeast. This ice was in large cakes, and usually it was packed so
closely that the vessel had great difficulty in forcing a passage. At
this period Captain Cook supposed, from the vast number of birds to
be seen, and from other indications, that he was in the near vicinity
of land. He kept on to the southward, the weather being exceedingly
cold, until he reached the sixty-fourth parallel, in longitude 38
degrees 14' E.. Here he had mild weather, with gentle breezes, for
five days, the thermometer being at thirty-six. In January, 1773, the
vessels crossed the Antarctic circle, but did not succeed in
penetrating much farther; for upon reaching latitude 67 degrees 15'
they found all farther progress impeded by an immense body of ice,
extending all along the southern horizon as far as the eye could
reach. This ice was of every variety- and some large floes of it,
miles in extent, formed a compact mass, rising eighteen or twenty
feet above the water. It being late in the season, and no hope
entertained of rounding these obstructions, Captain Cook now
reluctantly turned to the northward.
In the November following he renewed his search in the
Antarctic. In latitude 59 degrees 40' he met with a strong current
setting to the southward. In December, when the vessels were in
latitude 67 degrees 31', longitude 142 degrees 54' W., the cold was
excessive, with heavy gales and fog. Here also birds were abundant;
the albatross, the penguin, and the peterel especially. In latitude
70 degrees 23' some large islands of ice were encountered, and
shortly afterward the clouds to the southward were observed to be of
a snowy whiteness, indicating the vicinity of field ice. In latitude
71 degrees 10', longitude 106 degrees 54' W., the navigators were
stopped, as before, by an immense frozen expanse, which filled the
whole area of the southern horizon. The northern edge of this expanse
was ragged and broken, so firmly wedged together as to be utterly
impassible, and extending about a mile to the southward. Behind it
the frozen surface was comparatively smooth for some distance, until
terminated in the extreme background by gigantic ranges of ice
mountains, the one towering above the other. Captain Cook concluded
that this vast field reached the southern pole or was joined to a
continent. Mr. J. N. Reynolds, whose great exertions and perseverance
have at length succeeded in getting set on foot a national
expedition, partly for the purpose of exploring these regions, thus
speaks of the attempt of the Resolution. "We are not surprised that
Captain Cook was unable to go beyond 71 degrees 10', but we are
astonished that he did attain that point on the meridian of 106
degrees 54' west longitude. Palmer's Land lies south of the Shetland,
latitude sixty-four degrees, and tends to the southward and westward
farther than any navigator has yet penetrated. Cook was standing for
this land when his progress was arrested by the ice; which, we
apprehend, must always be the case in that point, and so early in the
season as the sixth of January- and we should not be surprised if a
portion of the icy mountains described was attached to the main body
of Palmer's Land, or to some other portions of land lying farther to
the southward and westward."
In 1803, Captains Kreutzenstern and Lisiausky were dispatched by
Alexander of Russia for the purpose of circumnavigating the globe. In
endeavouring to get south, they made no farther than 59 degrees 58',
in longitude 70 degrees 15' W. They here met with strong currents
setting eastwardly. Whales were abundant, but they saw no ice. In
regard to this voyage, Mr. Reynolds observes that, if Kreutzenstern
had arrived where he did earlier in the season, he must have
encountered ice- it was March when he reached the latitude specified.
The winds, prevailing, as they do, from the southward and westward,
had carried the floes, aided by currents, into that icy region
bounded on the north by Georgia, east by Sandwich Land and the South
Orkneys, and west by the South Shetland islands.
In 1822, Captain James Weddell, of the British navy, with two
very small vessels, penetrated farther to the south than any previous
navigator, and this, too, without encountering extraordinary
difficulties. He states that although he was frequently hemmed in by
ice before reaching the seventy-second parallel, yet, upon attaining
it, not a particle was to be discovered, and that, upon arriving at
the latitude of 74 degrees 15', no fields, and only three islands of
ice were visible. It is somewhat remarkable that, although vast
flocks of birds were seen, and other usual indications of land, and
although, south of the Shetlands, unknown coasts were observed from
the masthead tending southwardly, Weddell discourages the idea of
land existing in the polar regions of the south.
On the 11th of January, 1823, Captain Benjamin Morrell, of the
American schooner Wasp, sailed from Kerguelen's Land with a view of
penetrating as far south as possible. On the first of February he
found himself in latitude 64 degrees 52' S., longitude 118 degrees
27' E. The following passage is extracted from his journal of that
date. "The wind soon freshened to an eleven-knot breeze, and we
embraced this opportunity of making to the west; being however
convinced that the farther we went south beyond latitude sixty-four
degrees, the less ice was to be apprehended, we steered a little to
the southward, until we crossed the Antarctic circle, and were in
latitude 69 degrees 15' E. In this latitude there was no field ice,
and very few ice islands in sight.
Under the date of March fourteenth I find also this entry. The
sea was now entirely free of field ice, and there were not more than
a dozen ice islands in sight. At the same time the temperature of the
air and water was at least thirteen degrees higher (more mild) than
we had ever found it between the parallels of sixty and sixty-two
south. We were now in latitude 70 degrees 14' S., and the temperature
of the air was forty-seven, and that of the water forty-four. In this
situation I found the variation to be 14 degrees 27' easterly, per
azimuth.... I have several times passed within the Antarctic circle,
on different meridians, and have uniformly found the temperature,
both of the air and the water, to become more and more mild the
farther I advanced beyond the sixty-fifth degree of south latitude,
and that the variation decreases in the same proportion. While north
of this latitude, say between sixty and sixty-five south, we
frequently had great difficulty in finding a passage for the vessel
between the immense and almost innumerable ice islands, some of which
were from one to two miles in circumference, and more than five
hundred feet above the surface of the water."
Being nearly destitute of fuel and water, and without proper
instruments, it being also late in the season, Captain Morrell was
now obliged to put back, without attempting any further progress to
the westward, although an entirely open, sea lay before him. He
expresses the opinion that, had not these overruling considerations
obliged him to retreat, he could have penetrated, if not to the pole
itself, at least to the eighty-fifth parallel. I have given his ideas
respecting these matters somewhat at length, that the reader may have
an opportunity of seeing how far they were borne out by my own
subsequent experience.
In 1831, Captain Briscoe, in the employ of the Messieurs
Enderby, whale-ship owners of London, sailed in the brig Lively for
the South Seas, accompanied by the cutter Tula. On the twenty-eighth
of February, being in latitude 66 degrees 30' S., longitude 47
degrees 31' E., he descried land, and "clearly discovered through the
snow the black peaks of a range of mountains running E. S. E." He
remained in this neighbourhood during the whole of the following
month, but was unable to approach the coast nearer than within ten
leagues, owing to the boisterous state of the weather. Finding it
impossible to make further discovery during this season, he returned
northward to winter in Van Diemen's Land.
In the beginning of 1832 he again proceeded southwardly, and on
the fourth of February was seen to the southeast in latitude 67
degrees 15' longitude 69 degrees 29' W. This was soon found to be an
island near the headland of the country he had first discovered. On
the twenty-first of the month he succeeded in landing on the latter,
and took possession of it in the name of William IV, calling it
Adelaide's Island, in honour of the English queen. These particulars
being made known to the Royal Geographical Society of London, the
conclusion was drawn by that body "that there is a continuous tract
of land extending from 47 degrees 30' E. to 69 degrees 29' W.
longitude, running the parallel of from sixty-six to sixty-seven
degrees south latitude." In respect to this conclusion Mr. Reynolds
observes: "In the correctness of it we by no means concur; nor do the
discoveries of Briscoe warrant any such indifference. It was within
these limits that Weddel proceeded south on a meridian to the east of
Georgia, Sandwich Land, and the South Orkney and Shetland islands."
My own experience will be found to testify most directly to the
falsity of the conclusion arrived at by the society.
These are the principal attempts which have been made at
penetrating to a high southern latitude, and it will now be seen that
there remained, previous to the voyage of the Jane, nearly three
hundred degrees of longitude in which the Antarctic circle had not
been crossed at all. Of course a wide field lay before us for
discovery, and it was with feelings of most intense interest that I
heard Captain Guy express his resolution of pushing boldly to the
southward.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 16 ~~~
CHAPTER 17
We kept our course southwardly for four days after giving up
the search for Glass's islands, without meeting with any ice at all.
On the twenty-sixth, at noon, we were in latitude 63 degrees 23' S.,
longitude 41 degrees 25' W. We now saw several large ice islands, and
a floe of field ice, not, however, of any great extent. The winds
generally blew from the southeast, or the northeast, but were very
light. Whenever we had a westerly wind, which was seldom, it was
invariably attended with a rain squall. Every day we had more or less
snow. The thermometer, on the twenty-seventh stood at thirty-five.
January 1, 1828.- This day we found ourselves completely hemmed
in by the ice, and our prospects looked cheerless indeed. A strong
gale blew, during the whole forenoon, from the northeast, and drove
large cakes of the drift against the rudder and counter with such
violence that we all trembled for the consequences. Toward evening,
the gale still blowing with fury, a large field in front separated,
and we were enabled, by carrying a press of sail to force a passage
through the smaller flakes into some open water beyond. As we
approached this space we took in sail by degrees, and having at
length got clear, lay-to under a single reefed foresail.
January 2.- We had now tolerably pleasant weather. At noon we
found ourselves in latitude 69 degrees 10' S, longitude 42 degrees
20' W, having crossed the Antarctic circle. Very little ice was to be
seen to the southward, although large fields of it lay behind us.
This day we rigged some sounding gear, using a large iron pot capable
of holding twenty gallons, and a line of two hundred fathoms. We
found the current setting to the north, about a quarter of a mile per
hour. The temperature of the air was now about thirty-three. Here we
found the variation to be 14 degrees 28' easterly, per azimuth.
January 5.- We had still held on to the southward without any
very great impediments. On this morning, however, being in latitude
73 degrees 15' E., longitude 42 degrees 10' W, we were again brought
to a stand by an immense expanse of firm ice. We saw, nevertheless,
much open water to the southward, and felt no doubt of being able to
reach it eventually. Standing to the eastward along the edge of the
floe, we at length came to a passage of about a mile in width,
through which we warped our way by sundown. The sea in which we now
were was thickly covered with ice islands, but had no field ice, and
we pushed on boldly as before. The cold did not seem to increase,
although we had snow very frequently, and now and then hail squalls
of great violence. Immense flocks of the albatross flew over the
schooner this day, going from southeast to northwest.
January 7.- The sea still remained pretty well open, so that we
had no difficulty in holding on our course. To the westward we saw
some icebergs of incredible size, and in the afternoon passed very
near one whose summit could not have been less than four hundred
fathoms from the surface of the ocean. Its girth was probably, at the
base, three-quarters of a league, and several streams of water were
running from crevices in its sides. We remained in sight of this
island two days, and then only lost it in a fog.
January 10.- Early this morning we had the misfortune to lose a
man overboard. He was an American named Peter Vredenburgh, a native
of New York, and was one of the most valuable hands on board the
schooner. In going over the bows his foot slipped, and he fell
between two cakes of ice, never rising again. At noon of this day we
were in latitude 78 degrees 30', longitude 40 degrees 15' W. The cold
was now excessive, and we had hail squalls continually from the
northward and eastward. In this direction also we saw several more
immense icebergs, and the whole horizon to the eastward appeared to
be blocked up with field ice, rising in tiers, one mass above the
other. Some driftwood floated by during the evening, and a great
quantity of birds flew over, among which were nellies, peterels,
albatrosses, and a large bird of a brilliant blue plumage. The
variation here, per azimuth, was less than it had been previously to
our passing the Antarctic circle.
January 12.-Our passage to the south again looked doubtful, as
nothing was to be seen in the direction of the pole but one
apparently limitless floe, backed by absolute mountains of ragged
ice, one precipice of which arose frowningly above the other. We
stood to the westward until the fourteenth, in the hope of finding an
entrance.
January 14.-This morning we reached the western extremity of the
field which had impeded us, and, weathering it, came to an open sea,
without a particle of ice. Upon sounding with two hundred fathoms, we
here found a current setting southwardly at the rate of half a mile
per hour. The temperature of the air was forty-seven, that of the
water thirtyfour. We now sailed to the southward without meeting any
interruption of moment until the sixteenth, when, at noon, we were in
latitude 81 degrees 21', longitude 42 degrees W. We here again
sounded, and found a current setting still southwardly, and at the
rate of three quarters of a mile per hour. The variation per azimuth
had diminished, and the temperature of the air was mild and pleasant,
the thermometer being as high as fifty-one. At this period not a
particle of ice was to be discovered. All hands on board now felt
certain of attaining the pole.
January 17.- This day was full of incident. Innumerable flights
of birds flew over us from the southward, and several were shot from
the deck, one of them, a species of pelican, proved to be excellent
eating. About midday a small floe of ice was seen from the masthead
off the larboard bow, and upon it there appeared to be some large
animal. As the weather was good and nearly calm, Captain Guy ordered
out two of the boats to see what it was. Dirk Peters and myself
accompanied the mate in the larger boat. Upon coming up with the
floe, we perceived that it was in the possession of a gigantic
creature of the race of the Arctic bear, but far exceeding in size
the largest of these animals. Being well armed, we made no scruple of
attacking it at once. Several shots were fired in quick succession,
the most of which took effect, apparently, in the head and body.
Nothing discouraged, however, the monster threw himself from the ice,
and swam with open jaws, to the boat in which were Peters and myself.
Owing to the confusion which ensued among us at this unexpected turn
of the adventure, no person was ready immediately with a second shot,
and the bear had actually succeeded in getting half his vast bulk
across our gunwale, and seizing one of the men by the small of his
back, before any efficient means were taken to repel him. In this
extremity nothing but the promptness and agility of Peters saved us
from destruction. Leaping upon the back of the huge beast, he plunged
the blade of a knife behind the neck, reaching the spinal marrow at a
blow. The brute tumbled into the sea lifeless, and without a
struggle, rolling over Peters as he fell. The latter soon recovered
himself, and a rope being thrown him, he secured the carcass before
entering the boat. We then returned in triumph to the schooner,
towing our trophy behind us. This bear, upon admeasurement, proved
to be full fifteen feet in his greatest length. His wool was
perfectly white, and very coarse, curling tightly. The eyes were of a
blood red, and larger than those of the Arctic bear, the snout also
more rounded, rather resembling the snout of the bulldog. The meat
was tender, but excessively rank and fishy, although the men devoured
it with avidity, and declared it excellent eating.
Scarcely had we got our prize alongside, when the man at the
masthead gave the joyful shout of "land on the starboard bow!" All
hands were now upon the alert, and, a breeze springing up very
opportunely from the northward and eastward, we were soon close in
with the coast. It proved to be a low rocky islet, of about a league
in circumference, and altogether destitute of vegetation, if we
except a species of prickly pear. In approaching it from the
northward, a singular ledge of rock is seen projecting into the sea,
and bearing a strong resemblance to corded bales of cotton. Around
this ledge to the westward is a small bay, at the bottom of which our
boats effected a convenient landing.
It did not take us long to explore every portion of the island,
but, with one exception, we found nothing worthy of our observation.
In the southern extremity, we picked up near the shore, half buried
in a pile of loose stones, a piece of wood, which seemed to have
formed the prow of a canoe. There had been evidently some attempt at
carving upon it, and Captain Guy fancied that he made out the figure
of a tortoise, but the resemblance did not strike me very forcibly.
Besides this prow, if such it were, we found no other token that any
living creature had ever been here before. Around the coast we
discovered occasional small floes of ice- but these were very few.
The exact situation of the islet (to which Captain Guy gave the name
of Bennet's Islet, in honour of his partner in the ownership of the
schooner) is 82 degrees 50' S. latitude, 42 degrees 20' W. longitude.
We had now advanced to the southward more than eight degrees
farther than any previous navigators, and the sea still lay perfectly
open before us. We found, too, that the variation uniformly decreased
as we proceeded, and, what was still more surprising, that the
temperature of the air, and latterly of the water, became milder. The
weather might even be called pleasant, and we had a steady but very
gentle breeze always from some northern point of the compass. The sky
was usually clear, with now and then a slight appearance of thin
vapour in the southern horizon- this, however, was invariably of
brief duration. Two difficulties alone presented themselves to our
view; we were getting short of fuel, and symptoms of scurvy had
occurred among several of the crew. These considerations began to
impress upon Captain Guy the necessity of returning, and he spoke of
it frequently. For my own part, confident as I was of soon arriving
at land of some description upon the course we were pursuing, and
having every reason to believe, from present appearances, that we
should not find it the sterile soil met with in the higher Arctic
latitudes, I warmly pressed upon him the expediency of persevering,
at least for a few days longer, in the direction we were now holding.
So tempting an opportunity of solving the great problem in regard to
an Antarctic continent had never yet been afforded to man, and I
confess that I felt myself bursting with indignation at the timid and
ill-timed suggestions of our commander. I believe, indeed, that what
I could not refrain from saying to him on this head had the effect of
inducing him to push on. While, therefore, I cannot but lament the
most unfortunate and bloody events which immediately arose from my
advice, I must still be allowed to feel some degree of gratification
at having been instrumental, however remotely, in opening to the eye
of science one of the most intensely exciting secrets which has ever
engrossed its attention.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 17 ~~~
CHAPTER 18
January 18.- This morning {*4} we continued to the southward,
with the same pleasant weather as before. The sea was entirely
smooth, the air tolerably warm and from the northeast, the
temperature of the water fifty-three. We now again got our
sounding-gear in order, and, with a hundred and fifty fathoms of
line, found the current setting toward the pole at the rate of a mile
an hour. This constant tendency to the southward, both in the wind
and current, caused some degree of speculation, and even of alarm, in
different quarters of the schooner, and I saw distinctly that no
little impression had been made upon the mind of Captain Guy. He was
exceedingly sensitive to ridicule, however, and I finally succeeded
in laughing him out of his apprehensions. The variation was now very
trivial. In the course of the day we saw several large whales of the
right species, and innumerable flights of the albatross passed over
the vessel. We also picked up a bush, full of red berries, like those
of the hawthorn, and the carcass of a singular-looking land-animal.
It was three feet in length, and but six inches in height, with four
very short legs, the feet armed with long claws of a brilliant
scarlet, and resembling coral in substance. The body was covered with
a straight silky hair, perfectly white. The tail was peaked like that
of a rat, and about a foot and a half long. The head resembled a
cat's, with the exception of the ears- these were flopped like the
ears of a dog. The teeth were of the same brilliant scarlet as the
claws.
January 19.- To-day, being in latitude 83 degrees 20', longitude
43 degrees 5' W. (the sea being of an extraordinarily dark colour),
we again saw land from the masthead, and, upon a closer scrutiny,
found it to be one of a group of very large islands. The shore was
precipitous, and the interior seemed to be well wooded, a
circumstance which occasioned us great joy. In about four hours from
our first discovering the land we came to anchor in ten fathoms,
sandy bottom, a league from the coast, as a high surf, with strong
ripples here and there, rendered a nearer approach of doubtful
expediency. The two largest boats were now ordered out, and a party,
well armed (among whom were Peters and myself), proceeded to look for
an opening in the reef which appeared to encircle the island. After
searching about for some time, we discovered an inlet, which we were
entering, when we saw four large canoes put off from the shore,
filled with men who seemed to be well armed. We waited for them to
come up, and, as they moved with great rapidity, they were soon
within hail. Captain Guy now held up a white handkerchief on the
blade of an oar, when the strangers made a full stop, and commenced a
loud jabbering all at once, intermingled with occasional shouts, in
which we could distinguish the words Anamoo-moo! and Lama-Lama! They
continued this for at least half an hour, during which we had a good
opportunity of observing their appearance.
In the four canoes, which might have been fifty feet long and
five broad, there were a hundred and ten savages in all. They were
about the ordinary stature of Europeans, but of a more muscular and
brawny frame. Their complexion a jet black, with thick and long
woolly hair. They were clothed in skins of an unknown black animal,
shaggy and silky, and made to fit the body with some degree of skill,
the hair being inside, except where turned out about the neck,
wrists, and ankles. Their arms consisted principally of clubs, of a
dark, and apparently very heavy wood. Some spears, however, were
observed among them, headed with flint, and a few slings. The bottoms
of the canoes were full of black stones about the size of a large egg.
When they had concluded their harangue (for it was clear they
intended their jabbering for such), one of them who seemed to be the
chief stood up in the prow of his canoe, and made signs for us to
bring our boats alongside of him. This hint we pretended not to
understand, thinking it the wiser plan to maintain, if possible, the
interval between us, as their number more than quadrupled our own.
Finding this to be the case, the chief ordered the three other canoes
to hold back, while he advanced toward us with his own. As soon as he
came up with us he leaped on board the largest of our boats, and
seated himself by the side of Captain Guy, pointing at the same time
to the schooner, and repeating the word Anamoo-moo! and Lama-Lama! We
now put back to the vessel, the four canoes following at a little
distance.
Upon getting alongside, the chief evinced symptoms of extreme
surprise and delight, clapping his hands, slapping his thighs and
breast, and laughing obstreperously. His followers behind joined in
his merriment, and for some minutes the din was so excessive as to be
absolutely deafening. Quiet being at length restored, Captain Guy
ordered the boats to be hoisted up, as a necessary precaution, and
gave the chief (whose name we soon found to be Too-wit) to understand
that we could admit no more than twenty of his men on deck at one
time. With this arrangement he appeared perfectly satisfied, and gave
some directions to the canoes, when one of them approached, the rest
remaining about fifty yards off. Twenty of the savages now got on
board, and proceeded to ramble over every part of the deck, and
scramble about among the rigging, making themselves much at home, and
examining every article with great inquisitiveness.
It was quite evident that they had never before seen any of the
white race- from whose complexion, indeed, they appeared to recoil.
They believed the Jane to be a living creature, and seemed to be
afraid of hurting it with the points of their spears, carefully
turning them up. Our crew were much amused with the conduct of
Too-wit in one instance. The cook was splitting some wood near the
galley, and, by accident, struck his axe into the deck, making a gash
of considerable depth. The chief immediately ran up, and pushing the
cook on one side rather roughly, commenced a half whine, half howl,
strongly indicative of sympathy in what he considered the sufferings
of the schooner, patting and smoothing the gash with his hand, and
washing it from a bucket of seawater which stood by. This was a
degree of ignorance for which we were not prepared, and for my part I
could not help thinking some of it affected.
When the visitors had satisfied, as well as they could, their
curiosity in regard to our upper works, they were admitted below,
when their amazement exceeded all bounds. Their astonishment now
appeared to be far too deep for words, for they roamed about in
silence, broken only by low ejaculations. The arms afforded them much
food for speculation, and they were suffered to handle and examine
them at leisure. I do not believe that they had the least suspicion
of their actual use, but rather took them for idols, seeing the care
we had of them, and the attention with which we watched their
movements while handling them. At the great guns their wonder was
redoubled. They approached them with every mark of the profoundest
reverence and awe, but forbore to examine them minutely. There were
two large mirrors in the cabin, and here was the acme of their
amazement. Too-wit was the first to approach them, and he had got in
the middle of the cabin, with his face to one and his back to the
other, before he fairly perceived them. Upon raising his eyes and
seeing his reflected self in the glass, I thought the savage would go
mad; but, upon turning short round to make a retreat, and beholding
himself a second time in the opposite direction, I was afraid he
would expire upon the spot. No persuasion could prevail upon him to
take another look; throwing himself upon the floor, with his face
buried in his hands, he remained thus until we were obliged to drag
him upon deck.
The whole of the savages were admitted on board in this manner,
twenty at a time, Too-wit being suffered to remain during the entire
period. We saw no disposition to thievery among them, nor did we miss
a single article after their departure. Throughout the whole of their
visit they evinced the most friendly manner. There were, however,
some points in their demeanour which we found it impossible to
understand; for example, we could not get them to approach several
very harmless objects- such as the schooner's sails, an egg, an open
book, or a pan of flour. We endeavoured to ascertain if they had
among them any articles which might be turned to account in the way
of traffic, but found great difficulty in being comprehended. We made
out, nevertheless, what greatly astonished us, that the islands
abounded in the large tortoise of the Gallipagos, one of which we saw
in the canoe of Too-wit. We saw also some biche de mer in the hands
of one of the savages, who was greedily devouring it in its natural
state. These anomalies- for they were such when considered in regard
to the latitude- induced Captain Guy to wish for a thorough
investigation of the country, in the hope of making a profitable
speculation in his discovery. For my own part, anxious as I was to
know something more of these islands, I was still more earnestly bent
on prosecuting the voyage to the southward without delay. We had now
fine weather, but there was no telling how long it would last; and
being already in the eighty-fourth parallel, with an open sea before
us, a current setting strongly to the southward, and the wind fair, I
could not listen with any patience to a proposition of stopping
longer than was absolutely necessary for the health of the crew and
the taking on board a proper supply of fuel and fresh provisions. I
represented to the captain that we might easily make this group on
our return, and winter here in the event of being blocked up by the
ice. He at length came into my views (for in some way, hardly known
to myself, I had acquired much influence over him), and it was
finally resolved that, even in the event of our finding biche de mer,
we should only stay here a week to recruit, and then push on to the
southward while we might. Accordingly we made every necessary
preparation, and, under the guidance of Too-wit, got the Jane through
the reef in safety, coming to anchor about a mile from the shore, in
an excellent bay, completely landlocked, on the southeastern coast of
the main island, and in ten fathoms of water, black sandy bottom. At
the head of this bay there were three fine springs (we were told) of
good water, and we saw abundance of wood in the vicinity. The four
canoes followed us in, keeping, however, at a respectful distance.
Too-wit himself remained on board, and, upon our dropping anchor,
invited us to accompany him on shore, and visit his village in the
interior. To this Captain Guy consented; and ten savages being left
on board as hostages, a party of us, twelve in all, got in readiness
to attend the chief. We took care to be well armed, yet without
evincing any distrust. The schooner had her guns run out, her
boarding-nettings up, and every other proper precaution was taken to
guard against surprise. Directions were left with the chief mate to
admit no person on board during our absence, and, in the event of our
not appearing in twelve hours, to send the cutter, with a swivel,
around the island in search of us.
At every step we took inland the conviction forced itself upon
us that we were in a country differing essentially from any hitherto
visited by civilized men. We saw nothing with which we had been
formerly conversant. The trees resembled no growth of either the
torrid, the temperate, of the northern frigid zones, and were
altogether unlike those of the lower southern latitudes we had
already traversed. The very rocks were novel in their mass, their
color, and their stratification; and the streams themselves, utterly
incredible as it may appear, had so little in common with those of
other climates, that we were scrupulous of tasting them, and, indeed,
had difficulty in bringing ourselves to believe that their qualities
were purely those of nature. At a small brook which crossed our path
(the first we had reached) Too-wit and his attendants halted to
drink. On account of the singular character of the water, we refused
to taste it, supposing it to be polluted; and it was not until some
time afterward we came to understand that such was the appearance of
the streams throughout the whole group. I am at a loss to give a
distinct idea of the nature of this liquid, and cannot do so without
many words. Although it flowed with rapidity in all declivities where
common water would do so, yet never, except when falling in a
cascade, had it the customary appearance of limpidity. It was,
nevertheless, in point of fact, as perfectly limpid as any limestone
water in existence, the difference being only in appearance. At first
sight, and especially in cases where little declivity was found, it
bore resemblance, as regards consistency, to a thick infusion of
gum arabic in common water. But this was only the least remarkable of
its extraordinary qualities. It was not colourless, nor was it of any
one uniform colour- presenting to the eye, as it flowed, every
possible shade of purple; like the hues of a changeable silk. This
variation in shade was produced in a manner which excited as profound
astonishment in the minds of our party as the mirror had done in the
case of Too-wit. Upon collecting a basinful, and allowing it to
settle thoroughly, we perceived that the whole mass of liquid was
made up of a number of distinct veins, each of a distinct hue; that
these veins did not commingle; and that their cohesion was perfect in
regard to their own particles among themselves, and imperfect in
regard to neighbouring veins. Upon passing the blade of a knife
athwart the veins, the water closed over it immediately, as with us,
and also, in withdrawing it, all traces of the passage of the knife
were instantly obliterated. If, however, the blade was passed down
accurately between the two veins, a perfect separation was effected,
which the power of cohesion did not immediately rectify. The
phenomena of this water formed the first definite link in that vast
chain of apparent miracles with which I was destined to be at length
encircled.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 18 ~~~
CHAPTER 19
We were nearly three hours in reaching the village, it being
more than nine miles in the interior, and the path lying through a
rugged country. As we passed along, the party of Too-wit (the whole
hundred and ten savages of the canoes) was momentarily strengthened
by smaller detachments, of from two to six or seven, which joined us,
as if by accident, at different turns of the road. There appeared so
much of system in this that I could not help feeling distrust, and I
spoke to Captain Guy of my apprehensions. It was now too late,
however, to recede, and we concluded that our best security lay in
evincing a perfect confidence in the good faith of Too-wit. We
accordingly went on, keeping a wary eye upon the manoeuvres of the
savages, and not permitting them to divide our numbers by pushing in
between. In this way, passing through a precipitous ravine, we at
length reached what we were told was the only collection of
habitations upon the island. As we came in sight of them, the chief
set up a shout, and frequently repeated the word Klock-klock, which
we supposed to be the name of the village, or perhaps the generic
name for villages.
The dwellings were of the most miserable description imaginable,
and, unlike those of even the lowest of the savage races with which
mankind are acquainted, were of no uniform plan. Some of them (and
these we found belonged to the Wampoos or Yampoos, the great men of
the land) consisted of a tree cut down at about four feet from the
root, with a large black skin thrown over it, and hanging in loose
folds upon the ground. Under this the savage nestled. Others were
formed by means of rough limbs of trees, with the withered foliage
upon them, made to recline, at an angle of forty-five degrees,
against a bank of clay, heaped up, without regular form, to the
height of five or six feet. Others, again, were mere holes dug in the
earth perpendicularly, and covered over with similar branches, these
being removed when the tenant was about to enter, and pulled on again
when he had entered. A few were built among the forked limbs of trees
as they stood, the upper limbs being partially cut through, so as to
bend over upon the lower, thus forming thicker shelter from the
weather. The greater number, however, consisted of small shallow
caverns, apparently scratched in the face of a precipitous ledge of
dark stone, resembling fuller's earth, with which three sides of the
village were bounded. At the door of each of these primitive caverns
was a small rock, which the tenant carefully placed before the
entrance upon leaving his residence, for what purpose I could not
ascertain, as the stone itself was never of sufficient size to close
up more than a third of the opening.
This village, if it were worthy of the name, lay in a valley of
some depth, and could only be approached from the southward, the
precipitous ledge of which I have already spoken cutting off all
access in other directions. Through the middle of the valley ran a
brawling stream of the same magical-looking water which has been
described. We saw several strange animals about the dwellings, all
appearing to be thoroughly domesticated. The largest of these
creatures resembled our common hog in the structure of the body and
snout; the tail, however, was bushy, and the legs slender as those of
the antelope. Its motion was exceedingly awkward and indecisive, and
we never saw it attempt to run. We noticed also several animals very
similar in appearance, but of a greater length of body, and covered
with a black wool. There were a great variety of tame fowls running
about, and these seemed to constitute the chief food of the natives.
To our astonishment we saw black albatross among these birds in a
state of entire domestication, going to sea periodically for food,
but always returning to the village as a home, and using the southern
shore in the vicinity as a place of incubation. There they were
joined by their friends the pelicans as usual, but these latter never
followed them to the dwellings of the savages. Among the other kinds
of tame fowls were ducks, differing very little from the canvass-back
of our own country, black gannets, and a large bird not unlike the
buzzard in appearance, but not carnivorous. Of fish there seemed to
be a great abundance. We saw, during our visit, a quantity of dried
salmon, rock cod, blue dolphins, mackerel, blackfish, skate, conger
eels, elephantfish, mullets, soles, parrotfish, leather-jackets,
gurnards, hake, flounders, paracutas, and innumerable other
varieties. We noticed, too, that most of them were similar to the
fish about the group of Lord Auckland Islands, in a latitude as low
as fifty-one degrees south. The Gallipago tortoise was also very
plentiful. We saw but few wild animals, and none of a large size, or
of a species with which we were familiar. One or two serpents of a
formidable aspect crossed our path, but the natives paid them little
attention, and we concluded that they were not venomous.
As we approached the village with Too-wit and his party, a vast
crowd of the people rushed out to meet us, with loud shouts, among
which we could only distinguish the everlasting Anamoo-moo! and
Lama-Lama! We were much surprised at perceiving that, with one or two
exceptions, these new comers were entirely naked, and skins being
used only by the men of the canoes. All the weapons of the country
seemed also to be in the possession of the latter, for there was no
appearance of any among the villagers. There were a great many women
and children, the former not altogether wanting in what might be
termed personal beauty. They were straight, tall, and well formed,
with a grace and freedom of carriage not to be found in civilized
society. Their lips, however, like those of the men, were thick and
clumsy, so that, even when laughing, the teeth were never disclosed.
Their hair was of a finer texture than that of the males. Among these
naked villagers there might have been ten or twelve who were clothed,
like the party of Too-wit, in dresses of black skin, and armed with
lances and heavy clubs. These appeared to have great influence among
the rest, and were always addressed by the title Wampoo. These, too,
were the tenants of the black skin palaces. That of Too-wit was
situated in the centre of the village, and was much larger and
somewhat better constructed than others of its kind. The tree which
formed its support was cut off at a distance of twelve feet or
thereabouts from the root, and there were several branches left just
below the cut, these serving to extend the covering, and in this way
prevent its flapping about the trunk. The covering, too, which
consisted of four very large skins fastened together with wooden
skewers, was secured at the bottom with pegs driven through it and
into the ground. The floor was strewed with a quantity of dry leaves
by way of carpet.
To this hut we were conducted with great solemnity, and as many
of the natives crowded in after us as possible. Too-wit seated
himself on the leaves, and made signs that we should follow his
example. This we did, and presently found ourselves in a situation
peculiarly uncomfortable, if not indeed critical. We were on the
ground, twelve in number, with the savages, as many as forty, sitting
on their hams so closely around us that, if any disturbance had
arisen, we should have found it impossible to make use of our arms,
or indeed to have risen to our feet. The pressure was not only inside
the tent, but outside, where probably was every individual on the
whole island, the crowd being prevented from trampling us to death
only by the incessant exertions and vociferations of Too-wit. Our
chief security lay, however, in the presence of Too-wit himself among
us, and we resolved to stick by him closely, as the best chance of
extricating ourselves from the dilemma, sacrificing him immediately
upon the first appearance of hostile design.
After some trouble a certain degree of quiet was restored, when
the chief addressed us in a speech of great length, and very nearly
resembling the one delivered in the canoes, with the exception that
the Anamoo-moos! were now somewhat more strenuously insisted upon
than the Lama-Lamas! We listened in profound silence until the
conclusion of this harangue, when Captain Guy replied by assuring the
chief of his eternal friendship and goodwill, concluding what he had
to say be a present of several strings of blue beads and a knife. At
the former the monarch, much to our surprise, turned up his nose with
some expression of contempt, but the knife gave him the most
unlimited satisfaction, and he immediately ordered dinner. This was
handed into the tent over the heads of the attendants, and consisted
of the palpitating entrails of a specials of unknown animal, probably
one of the slim-legged hogs which we had observed in our approach to
the village. Seeing us at a loss how to proceed, he began, by way of
setting us an example, to devour yard after yard of the enticing
food, until we could positively stand it no longer, and evinced such
manifest symptoms of rebellion of stomach as inspired his majesty
with a degree of astonishment only inferior to that brought about by
the looking-glasses. We declined, however, partaking of the
delicacies before us, and endeavoured to make him understand that we
had no appetite whatever, having just finished a hearty dejeuner.
When the monarch had made an end of his meal, we commenced a
series of cross-questioning in every ingenious manner we could
devise, with a view of discovering what were the chief productions of
the country, and whether any of them might be turned to profit. At
length he seemed to have some idea of our meaning, and offered to
accompany us to a part of coast where he assured us the biche de mer
(pointing to a specimen of that animal) was to be found in great
abundance. We were glad of this early opportunity of escaping from
the oppression of the crowd, and signified our eagerness to proceed.
We now left the tent, and, accompanied by the whole population of the
village, followed the chief to the southeastern extremity of the
island, nor far from the bay where our vessel lay at anchor. We
waited here for about an hour, until the four canoes were brought
around by some of the savages to our station. The whole of our party
then getting into one of them, we were paddled along the edge of the
reef before mentioned, and of another still farther out, where we saw
a far greater quantity of biche de mer than the oldest seamen among
us had ever seen in those groups of the lower latitudes most
celebrated for this article of commerce. We stayed near these reefs
only long enough to satisfy ourselves that we could easily load a
dozen vessels with the animal if necessary, when we were taken
alongside the schooner, and parted with Too-wit, after obtaining from
him a promise that he would bring us, in the course of twenty-four
hours, as many of the canvass-back ducks and Gallipago tortoises as
his canoes would hold. In the whole of this adventure we saw nothing
in the demeanour of the natives calculated to create suspicion, with
the single exception of the systematic manner in which their party
was strengthened during our route from the schooner to the village.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 19 ~~~
CHAPTER 20
THE chief was as good as his word, and we were soon plentifully
supplied with fresh provisions. We found the tortoises as fine as
we had ever seen, and the ducks surpassed our best species of wild
fowl, being exceedingly tender, juicy, and well-flavoured. Besides
these, the savages brought us, upon our making them comprehend our
wishes, a vast quantity of brown celery and scurvy grass, with a
canoe-load of fresh fish and some dried. The celery was a treat
indeed, and the scurvy grass proved of incalculable benefit in
restoring those of our men who had shown symptoms of disease. In a
very short time we had not a single person on the sick-list. We had
also plenty of other kinds of fresh provisions, among which may be
mentioned a species of shellfish resembling the mussel in shape, but
with the taste of an oyster. Shrimps, too, and prawns were abundant,
and albatross and other birds' eggs with dark shells. We took in,
too, a plentiful stock of the flesh of the hog which I have mentioned
before. Most of the men found it a palatable food, but I thought it
fishy and otherwise disagreeable. In return for these good things we
presented the natives with blue beads, brass trinkets, nails, knives,
and pieces of red cloth, they being fully delighted in the exchange.
We established a regular market on shore, just under the guns of the
schooner, where our barterings were carried on with every appearance
of good faith, and a degree of order which their conduct at the
village of _Klock-klock_ had not led us to expect from the savages.
Matters went on thus very amicably for several days, during which
parties of the natives were frequently on board the schooner, and
parties of our men frequently on shore, making long excursions into
the interior, and receiving no molestation whatever. Finding the ease
with which the vessel might be loaded with _biche de mer_, owing to
the friendly disposition of the islanders, and the readiness with
which they would render us assistance in collecting it, Captain Guy
resolved to enter into negotiations with Too-wit for the erection of
suitable houses in which to cure the article, and for the services of
himself and tribe in gathering as much as possible, while he himself
took advantage of the fine weather to prosecute his voyage to the
southward. Upon mentioning this project to the chief he seemed very
willing to enter into an agreement. A bargain was accordingly struck,
perfectly satisfactory to both parties, by which it was arranged
that, after making the necessary preparations, such as laying off the
proper grounds, erecting a portion of the buildings, and doing some
other work in which the whole of our crew would be required, the
schooner should proceed on her route, leaving three of her men on the
island to superintend the fulfilment of the project, and instruct the
natives in drying the _biche de mer_. In regard to terms, these were
made to depend upon the exertions of the savages in our absence. They
were to receive a stipulated quantity of blue beads, knives, red
cloth, and so forth, for every certain number of piculs of the _biche
de mer_ which should be ready on our return.
A description of the nature of this important article of
commerce, and the method of preparing it, may prove of some interest
to my readers, and I can find no more suitable place than this for
introducing an account of it. The following comprehensive notice of
the substance is taken from a modern history of a voyage to the South
Seas.
"It is that _mollusca_ from the Indian Seas which is known to
commerce by the French name _bouche de mer_ (a nice morsel from the
sea). If I am not much mistaken, the celebrated Cuvier calls it
_gasteropeda pulmonifera_. It is abundantly gathered in the coasts of
the Pacific islands, and gathered especially for the Chinese market,
where it commands a great price, perhaps as much as their
much-talked-of edible birds' nests, which are properly made up of the
gelatinous matter picked up by a species of swallow from the body of
these molluscae. They have no shell, no legs, nor any prominent part,
except an _absorbing_ and an _excretory_, opposite organs; but, by
their elastic wings, like caterpillars or worms, they creep in
shallow waters, in which, when low, they can be seen by a kind of
swallow, the sharp bill of which, inserted in the soft animal, draws
a gummy and filamentous substance, which, by drying, can be wrought
into the solid walls of their nest. Hence the name of _gasteropeda
pulmonifera_.
"This mollusca is oblong, and of different sizes, from three to
eighteen inches in length; and I have seen a few that were not less
than two feet long. They were nearly round, a little flattish on one
side, which lies next to the bottom of the sea; and they are from one
to eight inches thick. They crawl up into shallow water at particular
seasons of the year, probably for the purpose of gendering, as we
often find them in pairs. It is when the sun has the most power on
the water, rendering it tepid, that they approach the shore; and they
often go up into places so shallow that, on the tide's receding, they
are left dry, exposed to the beat of the sun. But they do not bring
forth their young in shallow water, as we never see any of their
progeny, and full-grown ones are always observed coming in from deep
water. They feed principally on that class of zoophytes which produce
the coral.
"The _biche de mer_ is generally taken in three or four feet of
water; after which they are brought on shore, and split at one end
with a knife, the incision being one inch or more, according to the
size of the mollusca. Through this opening the entrails are forced
out by pressure, and they are much like those of any other small
tenant of the deep. The article is then washed, and afterward boiled
to a certain degree, which must not be too much or too little. They
are then buried in the ground for four hours, then boiled again for a
short time, after which they are dried, either by the fire or the
sun. Those cured by the sun are worth the most; but where one picul
(133 1/3 lbs.) can be cured that way, I can cure thirty piculs by the
fire. When once properly cured, they can be kept in a dry place for
two or three years without any risk; but they should be examined once
in every few months, say four times a year, to see if any dampness is
likely to affect them.
"The Chinese, as before stated, consider _biche de mer_ a very
great luxury, believing that it wonderfully strengthens and nourishes
the system, and renews the exhausted system of the immoderate
voluptuary. The first quality commands a high price in Canton, being
worth ninety dollars a picul; the second quality, seventy-five
dollars; the third, fifty dollars; the fourth, thirty dollars; the
fifth, twenty dollars; the sixth, twelve dollars; the seventh, eight
dollars; and the eighth, four dollars; small cargoes, however, will
often bring more in Manilla, Singapore, and Batavia."
An agreement having been thus entered into, we proceeded
immediately to land everything necessary for preparing the buildings
and clearing the ground. A large flat space near the eastern shore of
the bay was selected, where there was plenty of both wood and water,
and within a convenient distance of the principal reefs on which the
_biche de mer_ was to be procured. We now all set to work in good
earnest, and soon, to the great astonishment of the savages, had
felled a sufficient number of trees for our purpose, getting them
quickly in order for the framework of the houses, which in two or
three days were so far under way that we could safely trust the rest
of the work to the three men whom we intended to leave behind. These
were John Carson, Alfred Harris, and ___ Peterson (all natives of
London, I believe), who volunteered their services in this respect.
By the last of the month we had everything in readiness for
departure. We had agreed, however, to pay a formal visit of
leave-taking to the village, and Too-wit insisted so pertinaciously
upon our keeping the promise that we did not think it advisable to
run the risk of offending him by a final refusal. I believe that not
one of us had at this time the slightest suspicion of the good faith
of the savages. They had uniformly behaved with the greatest decorum,
aiding us with alacrity in our work, offering us their commodities,
frequently without price, and never, in any instance, pilfering a
single article, although the high value they set upon the goods we
had with us was evident by the extravagant demonstrations of joy
always manifested upon our making them a present. The women
especially were most obliging in every respect, and, upon the whole,
we should have been the most suspicious of human beings had we
entertained a single thought of perfidy on the part of a people who
treated us so well. A very short while sufficed to prove that this
apparent kindness of disposition was only the result of a deeply laid
plan for our destruction, and that the islanders for whom we
entertained such inordinate feelings of esteem, were among the most
barbarous, subtle, and bloodthirsty wretches that ever contaminated
the face of the globe.
It was on the first of February that we went on shore for the
purpose of visiting the village. Although, as said before, we
entertained not the slightest suspicion, still no proper precaution
was neglected. Six men were left in the schooner, with instructions
to permit none of the savages to approach the vessel during our
absence, under any pretence whatever, and to remain constantly on
deck. The boarding-nettings were up, the guns double-shotted with
grape and canister, and the swivels loaded with canisters of
musket-balls. She lay, with her anchor apeak, about a mile from the
shore, and no canoe could approach her in any direction without being
distinctly seen and exposed to the full fire of our swivels
immediately.
The six men being left on board, our shore-party consisted of
thirty-two persons in all. We were armed to the teeth, having with
us muskets, pistols, and cutlasses; besides, each had a long kind of
seaman's knife, somewhat resembling the bowie knife now so much used
throughout our western and southern country. A hundred of the black
skin warriors met us at the landing for the purpose of accompanying
us on our way. We noticed, however, with some surprise, that they
were now entirely without arms; and, upon questioning Too-wit in
relation to this circumstance, he merely answered that _Mattee non we
pa pa si_ -- meaning that there was no need of arms where all were
brothers. We took this in good part, and proceeded.
We had passed the spring and rivulet of which I before spoke, and
were now entering upon a narrow gorge leading through the chain of
soapstone hills among which the village was situated. This gorge was
very rocky and uneven, so much so that it was with no little
difficulty we scrambled through it on our first visit to Klock-klock.
The whole length of the ravine might have been a mile and a half, or
probably two miles. It wound in every possible direction through the
hills (having apparently formed, at some remote period, the bed of a
torrent), in no instance proceeding more than twenty yards without an
abrupt turn. The sides of this dell would have averaged, I am sure,
seventy or eighty feet in perpendicular altitude throughout the whole
of their extent, and in some portions they arose to an astonishing
height, overshadowing the pass so completely that but little of the
light of day could penetrate. The general width was about forty feet,
and occasionally it diminished so as not to allow the passage of more
than five or six persons abreast. In short, there could be no place
in the world better adapted for the consummation of an ambuscade, and
it was no more than natural that we should look carefully to our arms
as we entered upon it. When I now think of our egregious folly, the
chief subject of astonishment seems to be, that we should have ever
ventured, under any circumstances, so completely into the power of
unknown savages as to permit them to march both before and behind us
in our progress through this ravine. Yet such was the order we
blindly took up, trusting foolishly to the force of our party, the
unarmed condition of Too-wit and his men, the certain efficacy of our
firearms (whose effect was yet a secret to the natives), and, more
than all, to the long-sustained pretension of friendship kept up by
these infamous wretches. Five or six of them went on before, as if to
lead the way, ostentatiously busying themselves in removing the
larger stones and rubbish from the path. Next came our own party. We
walked closely together, taking care only to prevent separation.
Behind followed the main body of the savages, observing unusual order
and decorum.
Dirk Peters, a man named Wilson Allen, and myself were on the
right of our companions, examining, as we went along, the singular
stratification of the precipice which overhung us. A fissure in the
soft rock attracted our attention. It was about wide enough for one
person to enter without squeezing, and extended back into the hill
some eighteen or twenty feet in a straight course, sloping afterward
to the left. The height of the opening, is far as we could see into
it from the main gorge, was perhaps sixty or seventy feet. There were
one or two stunted shrubs growing from the crevices, bearing a
species of filbert which I felt some curiosity to examine, and pushed
in briskly for that purpose, gathering five or six of the nuts at a
grasp, and then hastily retreating. As I turned, I found that Peters
and Allen had followed me. I desired them to go back, as there was
not room for two persons to pass, saying they should have some of my
nuts. They accordingly turned, and were scrambling back, Allen being
close to the mouth of the fissure, when I was suddenly aware of a
concussion resembling nothing I had ever before experienced, and
which impressed me with a vague conception, if indeed I then thought
of anything, that the whole foundations of the solid globe were
suddenly rent asunder, and that the day of universal dissolution was
at hand.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 20 ~~~
CHAPTER 21
AS soon as I could collect my scattered senses, I found myself
nearly suffocated, and grovelling in utter darkness among a quantity
of loose earth, which was also falling upon me heavily in every
direction, threatening to bury me entirely. Horribly alarmed at this
idea, I struggled to gain my feet, and at last succeeded. I then
remained motionless for some moments, endeavouring to conceive what
had happened to me, and where I was. Presently I heard a deep groan
just at my ear, and afterward the smothered voice of Peters calling
to me for aid in the name of God. I scrambled one or two paces
forward, when I fell directly over the head and shoulders of my
companion, who, I soon discovered, was buried in a loose mass of
earth as far as his middle, and struggling desperately to free
himself from the pressure. I tore the dirt from around him with all
the energy I could command, and at length succeeded in getting him
out.
As soon as we sufficiently recovered from our fright and surprise
to be capable of conversing rationally, we both came to the
conclusion that the walls of the fissure in which we had ventured
had, by some convulsion of nature, or probably from their own weight,
caved in overhead, and that we were consequently lost for ever, being
thus entombed alive. For a long time we gave up supinely to the most
intense agony and despair, such as cannot be adequately imagined by
those who have never been in a similar position. I firmly believed
that no incident ever occurring in the course of human events is more
adapted to inspire the supremeness of mental and bodily distress than
a case like our own, of living inhumation. The blackness of darkness
which envelops the victim, the terrific oppression of lungs, the
stifling fumes from the damp earth, unite with the ghastly
considerations that we are beyond the remotest confines of hope, and
that such is the allotted portion of the dead, to carry into the
human heart a degree of appalling awe and horror not to be tolerated-
never to be conceived.
At length Peters proposed that we should endeavour to ascertain
precisely the extent of our calamity, and grope about our prison; it
being barely possible, he observed, that some opening might yet be
left us for escape. I caught eagerly at this hope, and, arousing
myself to exertion, attempted to force my way through the loose
earth. Hardly had I advanced a single step before a glimmer of light
became perceptible, enough to convince me that, at all events, we
should not immediately perish for want of air. We now took some
degree of heart, and encouraged each other to hope for the best.
Having scrambled over a bank of rubbish which impeded our farther
progress in the direction of the light, we found less difficulty in
advancing and also experienced some relief from the excessive
oppression of lungs which had tormented us. Presently we were enabled
to obtain a glimpse of the objects around, and discovered that we
were near the extremity of the straight portion of the fissure, where
it made a turn to the left. A few struggles more, and we reached the
bend, when to our inexpressible joy, there appeared a long seam or
crack extending upward a vast distance, generally at an angle of
about forty-five degrees, although sometimes much more precipitous.
We could not see through the whole extent of this opening; but, as a
good deal of light came down it, we had little doubt of finding at
the top of it (if we could by any means reach the top) a clear
passage into the open air.
I now called to mind that three of us had entered the fissure
from the main gorge, and that our companion, Allen, was still
missing; we determined at once to retrace our steps and look for him.
After a long search, and much danger from the farther caving in of
the earth above us, Peters at length cried out to me that he had hold
of our companion's foot, and that his whole body was deeply buried
beneath the rubbish beyond the possibility of extricating him. I soon
found that what he said was too true, and that, of course, life had
been long extinct. With sorrowful hearts, therefore, we left the
corpse to its fate, and again made our way to the bend.
The breadth of the seam was barely sufficient to admit us, and,
after one or two ineffectual efforts at getting up, we began once
more to despair. I have before said that the chain of hills through
which ran the main gorge was composed of a species of soft rock
resembling soapstone. The sides of the cleft we were now attempting
to ascend were of the same material, and so excessively slippery,
being wet, that we could get but little foothold upon them even in
their least precipitous parts; in some places, where the ascent was
nearly perpendicular, the difficulty was, of course, much aggravated;
and, indeed, for some time we thought insurmountable. We took
courage, however, from despair, and what, by dint of cutting steps in
the soft stone with our bowie knives, and swinging at the risk of our
lives, to small projecting points of a harder species of slaty rock
which now and then protruded from the general mass, we at length
reached a natural platform, from which was perceptible a patch of
blue sky, at the extremity of a thickly-wooded ravine. Looking back
now, with somewhat more leisure, at the passage through which we had
thus far proceeded, we clearly saw from the appearance of its sides,
that it was of late formation, and we concluded that the concussion,
whatever it was, which had so unexpectedly overwhelmed us, had also,
at the same moment, laid open this path for escape. Being quite
exhausted with exertion, and indeed, so weak that we were scarcely
able to stand or articulate, Peters now proposed that we should
endeavour to bring our companions to the rescue by firing the pistols
which still remained in our girdles- the muskets as well as cutlasses
had been lost among the loose earth at the bottom of the chasm.
Subsequent events proved that, had we fired, we should have sorely
repented it, but luckily a half suspicion of foul play had by this
time arisen in my mind, and we forbore to let the savages know of our
whereabouts.
After having reposed for about an hour, we pushed on slowly up
the ravine, and had gone no great way before we heard a succession of
tremendous yells. At length we reached what might be called the
surface of the ground; for our path hitherto, since leaving the
platform, had lain beneath an archway of high rock and foliage, at a
vast distance overhead. With great caution we stole to a narrow
opening, through which we had a clear sight of the surrounding
country, when the whole dreadful secret of the concussion broke upon
us in one moment and at one view.
The spot from which we looked was not far from the summit of the
highest peak in the range of the soapstone hills. The gorge in which
our party of thirty-two had entered ran within fifty feet to the left
of us. But, for at least one hundred yards, the channel or bed of
this gorge was entirely filled up with the chaotic ruins of more than
a million tons of earth and stone that had been artificially tumbled
within it. The means by which the vast mass had been precipitated
were not more simple than evident, for sure traces of the murderous
work were yet remaining. In several spots along the top of the
eastern side of the gorge (we were now on the western) might be seen
stakes of wood driven into the earth. In these spots the earth had
not given way, but throughout the whole extent of the face of the
precipice from which the mass had fallen, it was clear, from marks
left in the soil resembling those made by the drill of the rock
blaster, that stakes similar to those we saw standing had been
inserted, at not more than a yard apart, for the length of perhaps
three hundred feet, and ranging at about ten feet back from the edge
of the gulf. Strong cords of grape vine were attached to the stakes
still remaining on the hill, and it was evident that such cords had
also been attached to each of the other stakes. I have already spoken
of the singular stratification of these soapstone hills; and the
description just given of the narrow and deep fissure through which
we effected our escape from inhumation will afford a further
conception of its nature. This was such that almost every natural
convulsion would be sure to split the soil into perpendicular layers
or ridges running parallel with one another, and a very moderate
exertion of art would be sufficient for effecting the same purpose.
Of this stratification the savages had availed themselves to
accomplish their treacherous ends. There can be no doubt that, by the
continuous line of stakes, a partial rupture of the soil had been
brought about probably to the depth of one or two feet, when by means
of a savage pulling at the end of each of the cords (these cords
being attached to the tops of the stakes, and extending back from the
edge of the cliff), a vast leverage power was obtained, capable of
hurling the whole face of the hill, upon a given signal, into the
bosom of the abyss below. The fate of our poor companions was no
longer a matter of uncertainty. We alone had escaped from the tempest
of that overwhelming destruction. We were the only living white men
upon the island.
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 21 ~~~
CHAPTER 22
OUR situation, as it now appeared, was scarcely less dreadful
than when we had conceived ourselves entombed forever. We saw before
us no prospect but that of being put to death by the savages, or of
dragging out a miserable existence in captivity among them. We might,
to be sure, conceal ourselves for a time from their observation among
the fastnesses of the hills, and, as a final resort, in the chasm
from which we had just issued; but we must either perish in the long
polar winter through cold and famine, or be ultimately discovered in
our efforts to obtain relief.
The whole country around us seemed to be swarming with savages,
crowds of whom, we now perceived, had come over from the islands to
the southward on flat rafts, doubtless with a view of lending their
aid in the capture and plunder of the Jane. The vessel still lay
calmly at anchor in the bay, those on board being apparently quite
unconscious of any danger awaiting them. How we longed at that moment
to be with them! either to aid in effecting their escape, or to
perish with them in attempting a defence. We saw no chance even of
warning them of their danger without bringing immediate destruction
upon our own heads, with but a remote hope of benefit to them. A
pistol fired might suffice to apprise them that something wrong had
occurred; but the report could not possibly inform them that their
only prospect of safety lay in getting out of the harbour forthwith--
it could not tell them that no principles of honour now bound them
to remain, that their companions were no longer among the living.
Upon hearing the discharge they could not be more thoroughly prepared
to meet the foe, who were now getting ready to attack, than they
already were, and always had been. No good, therefore, and infinite
harm, would result from our firing, and after mature deliberation,
we forbore.
Our next thought was to attempt to rush toward the vessel, to
seize one of the four canoes which lay at the head of the bay, and
endeavour to force a passage on board. But the utter impossibility of
succeeding in this desperate task soon became evident. The country,
as I said before, was literally swarming with the natives, skulking
among the bushes and recesses of the hills, so as not to be observed
from the schooner. In our immediate vicinity especially, and
blockading the sole path by which we could hope to attain the shore
at the proper point were stationed the whole party of the black skin
warriors, with Too-wit at their head, and apparently only waiting for
some re-enforcement to commence his onset upon the Jane. The canoes,
too, which lay at the head of the bay, were manned with savages,
unarmed, it is true, but who undoubtedly had arms within reach. We
were forced, therefore, however unwillingly, to remain in our place
of concealment, mere spectators of the conflict which presently
ensued.
In about half an hour we saw some sixty or seventy rafts, or
flatboats, without riggers, filled with savages, and coming round the
southern bight of the harbor. They appeared to have no arms except
short clubs, and stones which lay in the bottom of the rafts.
Immediately afterward another detachment, still larger, appeared in
an opposite direction, and with similar weapons. The four canoes,
too, were now quickly filled with natives, starting up from the
bushes at the head of the bay, and put off swiftly to join the other
parties. Thus, in less time than I have taken to tell it, and as if
by magic, the Jane saw herself surrounded by an immense multitude of
desperadoes evidently bent upon capturing her at all hazards.
That they would succeed in so doing could not be doubted for an
instant. The six men left in the vessel, however resolutely they
might engage in her defence, were altogether unequal to the proper
management of the guns, or in any manner to sustain a contest at such
odds. I could hardly imagine that they would make resistance at all,
but in this was deceived; for presently I saw them get springs upon
the cable, and bring the vessel's starboard broadside to bear upon
the canoes, which by this time were within pistol range, the rafts
being nearly a quarter of a mile to windward. Owing to some cause
unknown, but most probably to the agitation of our poor friends at
seeing themselves in so hopeless a situation, the discharge was an
entire failure. Not a canoe was hit or a single savage injured, the
shots striking short and ricocheting over their heads. The only
effect produced upon them was astonishment at the unexpected report
and smoke, which was so excessive that for some moments I almost
thought they would abandon their design entirely, and return to the
shore. And this they would most likely have done had our men followed
up their broadside by a discharge of small arms, in which, as the
canoes were now so near at hand, they could not have failed in doing
some execution, sufficient, at least, to deter this party from a
farther advance, until they could have given the rafts also a
broadside. But, in place of this, they left the canoe party to
recover from their panic, and, by looking about them, to see that no
injury had been sustained, while they flew to the larboard to get
ready for the rafts.
The discharge to larboard produced the most terrible effect. The
star and double-headed shot of the large guns cut seven or eight of
the rafts completely asunder, and killed, perhaps, thirty or forty of
the savages outright, while a hundred of them, at least, were thrown
into the water, the most of them dreadfully wounded. The remainder,
frightened out of their senses, commenced at once a precipitate
retreat, not even waiting to pick up their maimed companions, who
were swimming about in every direction, screaming and yelling for
aid. This great success, however, came too late for the salvation of
our devoted people. The canoe party were already on board the
schooner to the number of more than a hundred and fifty, the most of
them having succeeded in scrambling up the chains and over the
boarding-netting even before the matches had been applied to the
larboard guns. Nothing now could withstand their brute rage. Our men
were borne down at once, overwhelmed, trodden under foot, and
absolutely torn to pieces in an instant.
Seeing this, the savages on the rafts got the better of their
fears, and came up in shoals to the plunder. In five minutes the Jane
was a pitiable scene indeed of havoc and tumultuous outrage. The
decks were split open and ripped up; the cordage, sails, and
everything movable on deck demolished as if by magic, while, by dint
of pushing at the stern, towing with the canoes, and hauling at the
sides, as they swam in thousands around the vessel, the wretches
finally forced her on shore (the cable having been slipped), and
delivered her over to the good offices of Too-wit, who, during the
whole of the engagement, had maintained, like a skilful general, his
post of security and reconnaissance among the hills, but, now that
the victory was completed to his satisfaction, condescended to
scamper down with his warriors of the black skin, and become a
partaker in the spoils.
Too-wit's descent left us at liberty to quit our hiding place
and reconnoitre the hill in the vicinity of the chasm. At about fifty
yards from the mouth of it we saw a small spring of water, at which
we slaked the burning thirst that now consumed us. Not far from the
spring we discovered several of the filbert-bushes which I mentioned
before. Upon tasting the nuts we found them palatable, and very
nearly resembling in flavour the common English filbert. We collected
our hats full immediately, deposited them within the ravine, and
returned for more. While we were busily employed in gathering these,
a rustling in the bushes alarmed us, and we were upon the point of
stealing back to our covert, when a large black bird of the bittern
species strugglingly and slowly arose above the shrubs. I was so much
startled that I could do nothing, but Peters had sufficient presence
of mind to run up to it before it could make its escape, and seize it
by the neck. Its struggles and screams were tremendous, and we had
thoughts of letting it go, lest the noise should alarm some of the
savages who might be still lurking in the neighbourhood. A stab with
a bowie knife, however, at length brought it to the ground, and we
dragged it into the ravine, congratulating ourselves that, at all
events, we had thus obtained a supply of food enough to last us for a
week.
We now went out again to look about us, and ventured a
considerable distance down the southern declivity of the hill, but
met with nothing else which could serve us for food. We therefore
collected a quantity of dry wood and returned, seeing one or two
large parties of the natives on their way to the village, laden with
the plunder of the vessel, and who, we were apprehensive, might
discover us in passing beneath the hill.
Our next care was to render our place of concealment as secure
as possible, and with this object, we arranged some brushwood over
the aperture which I have before spoken of as the one through which
we saw the patch of blue sky, on reaching the platform from the
interior of the chasm. We left only a very small opening just wide
enough to admit of our seeing the, bay, without the risk of being
discovered from below. Having done this, we congratulated ourselves
upon the security of the position; for we were now completely
excluded from observation, as long as we chose to remain within the
ravine itself, and not venture out upon the hill, We could perceive
no traces of the savages having ever been within this hollow; but,
indeed, when we came to reflect upon the probability that the fissure
through which we attained it had been only just now created by the
fall of the cliff opposite, and that no other way of attaining it
could be perceived, we were not so much rejoiced at the thought of
being secure from molestation as fearful lest there should be
absolutely no means left us for descent. We resolved to explore the
summit of the hill thoroughly, when a good opportunity should offer.
In the meantime we watched the motions of the savages through our
loophole.
They had already made a complete wreck of the vessel, and were
now preparing to set her on fire. In a little while we saw the smoke
ascending in huge volumes from her main hatchway, and, shortly
afterward, a dense mass of flame burst up from the forecastle. The
rigging, masts and what remained of the sails caught immediately, and
the fire spread rapidly along the decks. Still a great many of the
savages retained their stations about her, hammering with large
stones, axes, and cannon balls at the bolts and other iron and copper
work. On the beach, and in canoes and rafts, there were not less,
altogether, in the immediate vicinity of the schooner, than ten
thousand natives, besides the shoals of them who, laden with booty,
were making their way inland and over to the neighbouring islands. We
now anticipated a catastrophe, and were not disappointed. First of
all there came a smart shock (which we felt as distinctly where we
were as if we had been slightly galvanized), but unattended with any
visible signs of an explosion. The savages were evidently startled,
and paused for an instant from their labours and yellings. They were
upon the point of recommencing, when suddenly a mass of smoke puffed
up from the decks, resembling a black and heavy thundercloud- then,
as if from its bowels, arose a tall stream of vivid fire to the
height, apparently, of a quarter of a mile- then there came a sudden
circular expansion of the flame- then the whole atmosphere was
magically crowded, in a single instant, with a wild chaos of wood,
and metal, and human limbs-and, lastly, came the concussion in its
fullest fury, which hurled us impetuously from our feet, while the
hills echoed and re-echoed the tumult, and a dense shower of the
minutest fragments of the ruins tumbled headlong in every direction
around us.
The havoc among the savages far exceeded our utmost expectation,
and they had now, indeed, reaped the full and perfect fruits of their
treachery. Perhaps a thousand perished by the explosion, while at
least an equal number were desperately mangled. The whole surface of
the bay was literally strewn with the struggling and drowning
wretches, and on shore matters were even worse. They seemed utterly
appalled by the suddenness and completeness of their discomfiture,
and made no efforts at assisting one another. At length we observed a
total change in their demeanour. From absolute stupor, they appeared
to be, all at once, aroused to the highest pitch of excitement, and
rushed wildly about, going to and from a certain point on the beach,
with the strangest expressions of mingled horror, rage, and intense
curiosity depicted on their countenances, and shouting, at the top of
their voices, "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!"
Presently we saw a large body go off into the hills, whence they
returned in a short time, carrying stakes of wood. These they brought
to the station where the crowd was the thickest, which now separated
so as to afford us a view of the object of all this excitement. We
perceived something white lying upon the ground, but could not
immediately make out what it was. At length we saw that it was the
carcass of the strange animal with the scarlet teeth and claws which
the schooner had picked up at sea on the eighteenth of January.
Captain Guy had had the body preserved for the purpose of stuffing
the skin and taking it to England. I remember he had given some
directions about it just before our making the island, and it had
been brought into the cabin and stowed away in one of the lockers. It
had now been thrown on shore by the explosion; but why it had
occasioned so much concern among the savages was more than we could
comprehend. Although they crowded around the carcass at a little
distance, none of them seemed willing to approach it closely.
By-and-by the men with the stakes drove them in a circle around it,
and no sooner was this arrangement completed, than the whole of the
vast assemblage rushed into the interior of the island, with loud
screams of "Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!"
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 22 ~~~
CHAPTER 23
DURING the six or seven days immediately following we remained
in our hiding-place upon the hill, going out only occasionally, and
then with the greatest precaution, for water and filberts. We had
made a kind of penthouse on the platform, furnishing it with a bed of
dry leaves, and placing in it three large flat stones, which served
us for both fireplace and table. We kindled a fire without difficulty
by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, the one soft, the other
hard. The bird we had taken in such good season proved excellent
eating, although somewhat tough. It was not an oceanic fowl, but a
species of bittern, with jet black and grizzly plumage, and
diminutive wings in proportion to its bulk. We afterward saw three of
the same kind in the vicinity of the ravine, apparently seeking for
the one we had captured; but, as they never alighted, we had no
opportunity of catching them.
As long as this fowl lasted we suffered nothing from our
situation, but it was now entirely consumed, and it became absolutely
necessary that we should look out for provision. The filberts would
not satisfy the cravings of hunger, afflicting us, too, with severe
gripings of the bowels, and, if freely indulged in, with violent
headache. We had seen several large tortoises near the seashore to
the eastward of the hill, and perceived they might be easily taken,
if we could get at them without the observation of the natives. It
was resolved, therefore, to make an attempt at descending.
We commenced by going down the southern declivity, which seemed
to offer the fewest difficulties, but had not proceeded a hundred
yards before (as we had anticipated from appearances on the hilltop)
our progress was entirely arrested by a branch of the gorge in which
our companions had perished. We now passed along the edge of this for
about a quarter of a mile, when we were again stopped by a precipice
of immense depth, and, not being able to make our way along the brink
of it, we were forced to retrace our steps by the main ravine.
We now pushed over to the eastward, but with precisely similar
fortune. After an hour's scramble, at the risk of breaking our necks,
we discovered that we had merely descended into a vast pit of black
granite, with fine dust at the bottom, and whence the only egress was
by the rugged path in which we had come down. Toiling again up this
path, we now tried the northern edge of the hill. Here we were
obliged to use the greatest possible caution in our maneuvers, as the
least indiscretion would expose us to the full view of the savages in
the village. We crawled along, therefore, on our hands and knees,
and, occasionally, were even forced to throw ourselves at full
length, dragging our bodies along by means of the shrubbery. In this
careful manner we had proceeded but a little way, when we arrived at
a chasm far deeper than any we had yet seen, and leading directly
into the main gorge. Thus our fears were fully confirmed, and we
found ourselves cut off entirely from access to the world below.
Thoroughly exhausted by our exertions, we made the best of our way
back to the platform, and throwing ourselves upon the bed of leaves,
slept sweetly and soundly for some hours.
For several days after this fruitless search we were occupied in
exploring every part of the summit of the hill, in order to inform
ourselves of its actual resources. We found that it would afford us
no food, with the exception of the unwholesome filberts, and a rank
species of scurvy grass, which grew in a little patch of not more
than four rods square, and would be soon exhausted. On the fifteenth
of February, as near as I can remember, there was not a blade of this
left, and the nuts were growing scarce; our situation, therefore,
could hardly be more lamentable. {*5} On the sixteenth we again went
round the walls of our prison, in hope of finding some avenue of
escape; but to no purpose. We also descended the chasm in which we
had been overwhelmed, with the faint expectation of discovering,
through this channel, some opening to the main ravine. Here, too, we
were disappointed, although we found and brought up with us a musket.
On the seventeenth we set out with the determination of examining
more thoroughly the chasm of black granite into which we had made our
way in the first search. We remembered that one of the fissures in
the sides of this pit had been but partially looked into, and we were
anxious to explore it, although with no expectation of discovering
here any opening.
We found no great difficulty in reaching the bottom of the hollow
as before, and were now sufficiently calm to survey it with some
attention. It was, indeed, one of the most singular-looking places
imaginable, and we could scarcely bring ourselves to believe it
altogether the work of nature. The pit, from its eastern to its
western extremity, was about five hundred yards in length, when all
its windings were threaded; the distance from east to west in a
straight line not being more (I should suppose, having no means of
accurate examination) than forty or fifty yards. Upon first
descending into the chasm, that is to say, for a hundred feet
downward from the summit of the hill, the sides of the abyss bore
little resemblance to each other, and, apparently, had at no time
been connected, the one surface being of the soapstone, and the other
of marl, granulated with some metallic matter. The average breadth or
interval between the two cliffs was probably here sixty feet, but
there seemed to be no regularity of formation. Passing down, however,
beyond the limit spoken of, the interval rapidly contracted, and the
sides began to run parallel, although, for some distance farther,
they were still dissimilar in their material and form of surface.
Upon arriving within fifty feet of the bottom, a perfect regularity
commenced. The sides were now entirely uniform in substance, in
colour, and in lateral direction, the material being a very black and
shining granite, and the distance between the two sides, at all
points facing each other, exactly twenty yards. The precise formation
of the chasm will be best understood by means of a delineation taken
upon the spot; for I had luckily with me a pocketbook and pencil,
which I preserved with great care through a long series of subsequent
adventure, and to which I am indebted for memoranda of many subjects
which would otherwise have been crowded from my remembrance.
This figure (see figure 1) {image} gives the general outlines of
the chasm, without the minor cavities in the sides, of which there
were several, each cavity having a corresponding protuberance
opposite. The bottom of the gulf was covered to the depth of three or
four inches with a powder almost impalpable, beneath which we found a
continuation of the black granite. To the right, at the lower
extremity, will be noticed the appearance of a small opening; this is
the fissure alluded to above, and to examine which more minutely than
before was the object of our second visit. We now pushed into it with
vigor, cutting away a quantity of brambles which impeded us, and
removing a vast heap of sharp flints somewhat resembling arrowheads
in shape. We were encouraged to persevere, however, by perceiving
some little light proceeding from the farther end. We at length
squeezed our way for about thirty feet, and found that the aperture
was a low and regularly formed arch, having a bottom of the same
impalpable powder as that in the main chasm. A strong light now broke
upon us, and, turning a short bend, we found ourselves in another
lofty chamber, similar to the one we had left in every respect but
longitudinal form. Its general figure is here given. (See figure 2.)
{image}
The total length of this chasm, commencing at the opening a and
proceeding round the curve _b_ to the extremity _d_, is five hundred
and fifty yards. At _c_ we discovered a small aperture similar to the
one through which we had issued from the other chasm, and this was
choked up in the same manner with brambles and a quantity of the
white arrowhead flints. We forced our way through it, finding it
about forty feet long, and emerged into a third chasm. This, too, was
precisely like the first, except in its longitudinal shape, which was
thus. (See figure 3.) {image}
We found the entire length of the third chasm three hundred and
twenty yards. At the point _a_ was an opening about six feet wide,
and extending fifteen feet into the rock, where it terminated in a
bed of marl, there being no other chasm beyond, as we had expected.
We were about leaving this fissure, into which very little light was
admitted, when Peters called my attention to a range of
singular-looking indentures in the surface of the marl forming the
termination of the _cul-de-sac_. With a very slight exertion of the
imagination, the left, or most northern of these indentures might
have been taken for the intentional, although rude, representation of
a human figure standing erect, with outstretched arm. The rest of
them bore also some little resemblance to alphabetical characters,
and Peters was willing, at all events, to adopt the idle opinion that
they were really such. I convinced him of his error, finally, by
directing his attention to the floor of the fissure, where, among the
powder, we picked up, piece by piece, several large flakes of the
marl, which had evidently been broken off by some convulsion from the
surface where the indentures were found, and which had projecting
points exactly fitting the indentures; thus proving them to have been
the work of nature. Figure 4 {image} presents an accurate copy of the
whole.
After satisfying ourselves that these singular caverns afforded
us no means of escape from our prison, we made our way back, dejected
and dispirited, to the summit of the hill. Nothing worth mentioning
occurred during the next twenty-four hours, except that, in examining
the ground to the eastward of the third chasm, we found two
triangular holes of great depth, and also with black granite sides.
Into these holes we did not think it worth while to attempt
descending, as they had the appearance of mere natural wells, without
outlet. They were each about twenty yards in circumference, and their
shape, as well as relative position in regard to the third chasm, is
shown in figure 5. {image}
~~~ End of Text of Chapter 23 ~~~
CHAPTER XXIV
ON the twentieth of the month, finding it altogether impossible to
subsist any longer upon the filberts, the use of which occasioned us
the most excruciating torment, we resolved to make a desperate
attempt at descending the southern declivity of the hill. The face of
the precipice was here of the softest species of soapstone, although
nearly perpendicular throughout its whole extent (a depth of a
hundred and fifty feet at the least), and in many places even
overarching. After a long search we discovered a narrow ledge about
twenty feet below the brink of the gulf; upon this Peters contrived
to leap, with what assistance I could render him by means of our
pocket-handkerchiefs tied together. With somewhat more difficulty I
also got down; and we then saw the possibility of descending the
whole way by the process in which we had clambered up from the chasm
when we had been buried by the fall of the hill-that is, by cutting
steps in the face of the soapstone with our knives. The extreme
hazard of the attempt can scarcely be conceived; but, as there was no
other resource, we determined to undertake it.
Upon the ledge where we stood there grew some filbert-bushes; and to
one of these we made fast an end of our rope of handkerchiefs. The
other end being tied round Peters' waist, I lowered him down over the
edge of the precipice until the handkerchiefs were stretched tight.
He now proceeded to dig a deep hole in the soapstone (as far in as
eight or ten inches), sloping away the rock above to the height of a
foot, or thereabout, so as to allow of his driving, with the butt of
a pistol, a tolerably strong peg into the levelled surface. I then
drew him up for about four feet, when he made a hole similar to the
one below, driving in a peg as before, and having thus a
resting-place for both feet and hands. I now unfastened the
handkerchiefs from the bush, throwing him the end, which he tied to
the peg in the uppermost hole, letting himself down gently to a
station about three feet lower than he had yet been that is, to the
full extent of the handkerchiefs. Here he dug another hole, and drove
another peg. He then drew himself up, so as to rest his feet in the
hole just cut, taking hold with his hands upon the peg in the one
above. It was now necessary to untie the handkerchiefs from the
topmost peg, with the view of fastening them to the second; and here
he found that an error had been committed in cutting the holes at so
great a distance apart. However, after one or two unsuccessful and
dangerous attempts at reaching the knot (having to hold on with his
left hand while he labored to undo the fastening with his right), he
at length cut the string, leaving six inches of it affixed to the
peg. Tying the handkerchiefs now to the second peg, he descended to a
station below the third, taking care not to go too far down. By these
means (means which I should never have conceived of myself, and for
which we were indebted altogether to Peters' ingenuity and
resolution) my companion finally succeeded, with the occasional aid
of projections in the cliff, in reaching the bottom without accident.
It was some time before I could summon sufficient resolution to
follow him; but I did at length attempt it. Peters had taken off his
shirt before descending, and this, with my own, formed the rope
necessary for the adventure. After throwing down the musket found in
the chasm, I fastened this rope to the bushes, and let myself down
rapidly, striving, by the vigor of my movements, to banish the
trepidation which I could overcome in no other manner. This answered
sufficiently well for the first four or five steps; but presently I
found my imagination growing terribly excited by thoughts of the vast
depths yet to be descended, and the precarious nature of the pegs and
soapstone holes which were my only support. It was in vain I
endeavored to banish these reflections, and to keep my eyes steadily
bent upon the flat surface of the cliff before me. The more earnestly
I struggled _not to think, _the more intensely vivid became my
conceptions, and the more horribly distinct. At length arrived that
crisis of fancy, so fearful in all similar cases, the crisis in which
we began to anticipate the feelings with which we _shall _fall-to
picture to ourselves the sickness, and dizziness, and the last
struggle, and the half swoon, and the final bitterness of the rushing
and headlong descent. And now I found these fancies creating their
own realities, and all imagined horrors crowding upon me in fact. I
felt my knees strike violently together, while my fingers were
gradually but certainly relaxing their grasp. There was a ringing in
my ears, and I said, "This is my knell of death!" And now I was
consumed with the irrepressible desire of looking below. I could not,
I would not, confine my glances to the cliff; and, with a wild,
indefinable emotion, half of horror, half of a relieved oppression, I
threw my vision far down into the abyss. For one moment my fingers
clutched convulsively upon their hold, while, with the movement, the
faintest possible idea of ultimate escape wandered, like a shadow,
through my mind -in the next my whole soul was pervaded with a
longing to fall; a desire, a yearning, a passion utterly
uncontrollable. I let go at once my grasp upon the peg, and, turning
half round from the precipice, remained tottering for an instant
against its naked face. But now there came a spinning of the brain; a
shrill-sounding and phantom voice screamed within my ears; a dusky,
fiendish, and filmy figure stood immediately beneath me; and,
sighing, I sunk down with a bursting heart, and plunged within its
arms.
I had swooned, and Peters had caught me as I fell. He had observed my
proceedings from his station at the bottom of the cliff; and
perceiving my imminent danger, had endeavored to inspire me with
courage by every suggestion he could devise; although my confusion of
mind had been so great as to prevent my hearing what he said, or
being conscious that he had even spoken to me at all. At length,
seeing me totter, he hastened to ascend to my rescue, and arrived
just in time for my preservation. Had I fallen with my full weight,
the rope of linen would inevitably have snapped, and I should have
been precipitated into the abyss; as it was, he contrived to let me
down gently, so as to remain suspended without danger until animation
returned. This was in about fifteen minutes. On recovery, my
trepidation had entirely vanished; I felt a new being, and, with some
little further aid from my companion, reached the bottom also in
safety.
We now found ourselves not far from the ravine which had proved the
tomb of our friends, and to the southward of the spot where the hill
had fallen. The place was one of singular wildness, and its aspect
brought to my mind the descriptions given by travellers of those
dreary regions marking the site of degraded Babylon. Not to speak of
the ruins of the disrupted cliff, which formed a chaotic barrier in
the vista to the northward, the surface of the ground in every other
direction was strewn with huge tumuli, apparently the wreck of some
gigantic structures of art; although, in detail, no semblance of art
could be detected. Scoria were abundant, and large shapeless blocks
of the black granite, intermingled with others of marl, {*6} and both
granulated with metal. Of vegetation there were no traces whatsoever
throughout the whole of the desolate area within sight. Several
immense scorpions were seen, and various reptiles not elsewhere to be
found in the high latitudes. As food was our most immediate object,
we resolved to make our way to the seacoast, distant not more than
half a mile, with a view of catching turtle, several of which we had
observed from our place of concealment on the hill. We had proceeded
some hundred yards, threading our route cautiously between the huge
rocks and tumuli, when, upon turning a corner, five savages sprung
upon us from a small cavern, felling Peters to the ground with a blow
from a club. As he fell the whole party rushed upon him to secure
their victim, leaving me time to recover from my astonishment. I
still had the musket, but the barrel had received so much injury in
being thrown from the precipice that I cast it aside as useless,
preferring to trust my pistols, which had been carefully preserved in
order. With these I advanced upon the assailants, firing one after
the other in quick succession. Two savages fell, and one, who was in
the act of thrusting a spear into Peters, sprung to his feet without
accomplishing his purpose. My companion being thus released, we had
no further difficulty. He had his pistols also, but prudently
declined using them, confiding in his great personal strength, which
far exceeded that of any person I have ever known. Seizing a club
from one of the savages who had fallen, he dashed out the brains of
the three who remained, killing each instantaneously with a single
blow of the weapon, and leaving us completely masters of the field.
So rapidly bad these events passed, that we could scarcely believe in
their reality, and were standing over the bodies of the dead in a
species of stupid contemplation, when we were brought to recollection
by the sound of shouts in the distance. It was clear that the savages
had been alarmed by the firing, and that we had little chance of
avoiding discovery. To regain the cliff, it would be necessary to
proceed in the direction of the shouts, and even should we succeed in
arriving at its base, we should never be able to ascend it without
being seen. Our situation was one of the greatest peril, and we were
hesitating in which path to commence a flight, when one of the
savages _whom _I had shot, and supposed dead, sprang briskly to his
feet, and attempted to make his escape. We overtook _him, _however,
before he had advanced many paces, and were about to put him to
death, when Peters suggested that we might derive some benefit from
forcing him to accompany us in our attempt to escape. We therefore
dragged him with us, making him understand that we would shoot him if
he offered resistance. In a few minutes he was perfectly submissive,
and ran by our sides as we pushed in among the rocks, making for the
seashore.
So far, the irregularities of the ground we had been traversing hid
the sea, except at intervals, from our sight, and, when we first had
it fairly in view, it was perhaps two hundred yards distant. As we
emerged into the open beach we saw, to our great dismay, an immense
crowd of the natives pouring from the village, and from all visible
quarters of the island, making toward us with gesticulations of
extreme fury, and howling like wild beasts. We were upon the point of
turning upon our steps, and trying to secure a retreat among the
fastnesses of the rougher ground, when I discovered the bows of two
canoes projecting from behind a large rock which ran out into the
water. Toward these we now ran with all speed, and, reaching them,
found them unguarded, and without any other freight than three of the
large Gallipago turtles and the usual supply of paddles for sixty
rowers. We instantly took possession of one of them, and, forcing our
captive on board, pushed out to sea with all the strength we could
command.
We had not made, however, more than fifty yards from the shore before
we became sufficiently calm to perceive the great oversight of which
we had been guilty in leaving the other canoe in the power of the
savages, who, by this time, were not more than twice as far from the
beach as ourselves, and were rapidly advancing to the pursuit. No
time was now to be lost. Our hope was, at best, a forlorn one, but we
had none other. It was very doubtful whether, with the utmost
exertion, we could get back in time to anticipate them in taking
possession of the canoe; but yet there was a chance that we could. We
might save ourselves if we succeeded, while not to make the attempt
was to resign ourselves to inevitable butchery.
The canoe was modelled with the bow and stern alike, and, in place of
turning it around, we merely changed our position in paddling. As
soon as the savages perceived this they redoubled their yells, as
well as their speed, and approached with inconceivable rapidity. We
pulled, however, with all the energy of desperation, and arrived at
the contested point before more than one of the natives had attained
it. This man paid dearly for his superior agility, Peters shooting
him through the head with a pistol as he approached the shore. The
foremost among the rest of his party were probably some twenty or
thirty paces distant as we seized upon the canoe. We at first
endeavored to pull her into the deep water, beyond the reach of the
savages, but, finding her too firmly aground, and there being no time
to spare, Peters, with one or two heavy strokes from the butt of the
musket, succeeded in dashing out a large portion of the bow and of
one side. We then pushed off. Two of the natives by this time had got
hold of our boat, obstinately refusing to let go, until we were
forced to despatch them with our knives. We were now clear off, and
making great way out to sea. The main body of the savages, upon
reaching the broken canoe, set up the most tremendous yell of rage
and disappointment conceivable. In truth, from everything I could see
of these wretches, they appeared to be the most wicked, hypocritical,
vindictive, bloodthirsty, and altogether fiendish race of men upon
the face of the globe. It is clear we should have had no mercy had we
fallen into their hands. They made a mad attempt at following us in
the fractured canoe, but, finding it useless, again vented their rage
in a series of hideous vociferations, and rushed up into the hills.
We were thus relieved from immediate danger, but our situation was
still sufficiently gloomy. We knew that four canoes of the kind we
had were at one time in the possession of the savages, and were not
aware of the fact (afterward ascertained from our captive) that two
of these had been blown to pieces in the explosion of the _Jane Guy.
_We calculated, therefore, upon being yet pursued, as soon as our
enemies could get round to the bay (distant about three miles) where
the boats were usually laid up. Fearing this, we made every exertion
to leave the island behind us, and went rapidly through the water,
forcing the prisoner to take a paddle. In about half an hour, when we
had gained probably five or six miles to the southward, a large fleet
of the flat-bottomed canoes or rafts were seen to emerge from the bay
evidently with the design of pursuit. Presently they put back,
despairing to overtake us.
~~~ End of Text Chapter 24 ~~~
CHAPTER XXV
WE now found ourselves in the wide and desolate Antarctic Ocean, in
a latitude exceeding eighty-four degrees, in a frail canoe, and with
no provision but the three turtles. The long polar winter, too, could
not be considered as far distant, and it became necessary that we
should deliberate well upon the course to be pursued. There were six
or seven islands in sight belonging to the same group, and distant
from each other about five or six leagues; but upon neither of these
had we any intention to venture. In coming from the northward in the
_Jane Guy_ we had been gradually leaving behind us the severest
regions of ice-this, however little it maybe in accordance with the
generally received notions respecting the Antarctic, was a fact-
experience would not permit us to deny. To attempt, therefore,
getting back would be folly --- especially at so late a period of the
season. Only one course seemed to be left open for hope. We resolved
to steer boldly to the southward, where there was at least a
probability of discovering other lands, and more than a probability
of finding a still milder climate.
So far we had found the Antarctic, like the Arctic Ocean, peculiarly
free from violent storms or immoderately rough water; but our canoe
was, at best, of frail structure, although large, and we set busily
to work with a view of rendering her as safe as the limited means in
our possession would admit. The body of the boat was of no better
material than bark -the bark of a tree unknown. The ribs were of a
tough osier, well adapted to the purpose for which it was used. We
had fifty feet room from stem to stern, from four to six in breadth,
and in depth throughout four feet and a half-the boats thus differing
vastly in shape from those of any other inhabitants of the Southern
Ocean with whom civilized nations are acquainted. We never did
believe them the workmanship of the ignorant islanders who owned
them; and some days after this period discovered, by questioning our
captive, that they were in fact made by the natives of a group to the
southwest of the country where we found them, having fallen
accidentally into the hands of our barbarians. What we could do for
the security of our boat was very little indeed. Several wide rents
were discovered near both ends, and these we contrived to patch up
with pieces of woollen jacket. With the help of the superfluous
paddles, of which there were a great many, we erected a kind of
framework about the bow, so as to break the force of any seas which
might threaten to fill us in that quarter. We also set up two
paddle-blades for masts, placing them opposite each other, one by
each gunwale, thus saving the necessity of a yard. To these masts we
attached a sail made of our shirts-doing this with some difficulty,
as here we could get no assistance from our prisoner whatever,
although he bad been willing enough to labor in all the other
operations. The sight of the linen seemed to affect him in a very
singular manner. He could not be prevailed upon to touch it or go
near it, shuddering when we attempted to force him, and shrieking
out, _"Tekeli-li!"_
Having completed our arrangements in regard to the security of the
canoe, we now set sail to the south-southeast for the present, with
the view of weathering the most southerly of the group in sight. This
being done, we turned the bow full to the southward. The weather
could by no means be considered disagreeable. We had a prevailing
andvery gentle wind from the northward, a smooth sea, and continual
daylight. No ice whatever was to be seen; _nor did I ever see one
particle of this after leaving the parallel of Bennet's Islet.
_Indeed, the temperature of the water was here far too warm for its
existence in any quantity. Having killed the largest of our
tortoises, and obtained from him not only food but a copious supply
of water, we continued on our course, without any incident of moment,
for perhaps seven or eight days, during which period we must have
proceeded a vast distance to the southward, as the wind blew
constantly with us, and a very strong current set continually in the
direction we were pursuing.
_March 1st_. {*7}-Many unusual phenomena now -indicated that we were
entering upon a region of novelty and wonder. A high range of light
gray vapor appeared constantly in the southern horizon, flaring up
occasionally in lofty streaks, now darting from east to west, now
from west to east, and again presenting a level and uniform summit-in
short, having all the wild variations of the Aurora Borealis. The
average height of this vapor, as apparent from our station, was about
twenty-five degrees. The temperature of the sea seemed to be
increasing momentarily, and there was a very perceptible alteration
in its color.
_March 2d._-To-day by repeated questioning of our captive, we came to
the knowledge of many particulars in regard to the island of the
massacre, its inhabitants, and customs-but with these how can I now
detain the reader? I may say, however, that we learned there were
eight islands in the group-that they were governed by a common king,
named _Tsalemon _or _Psalemoun, _who resided in one of the smallest
of the islands; that the black skins forming the dress of the
warriors came from an animal of huge size to be found only in a
valley near the court of the king-that the inhabitants of the group
fabricated no other boats than the flat-bottomed rafts; the four
canoes being all of the kind in their possession, and, these having
been obtained, by mere accident, from some large island in the
southwest-that his own name was Nu-Nu-that he had no knowledge of
Bennet's Islet-and that the appellation of the island he had left was
Tsalal. The commencement of the words _Tsalemon _and Tsalal was given
with a prolonged hissing sound, which 'we found it impossible to
imitate, even after repeated endeavors, and which was precisely the
same with the note of the black bittern we had eaten up on the summit
of the hill.
_March 3d._-The heat of the water was now truly remarkable, and in
color was undergoing a rapid change, being no longer transparent, but
of a milky consistency and hue. In our immediate vicinity it was
usually smooth, never so rough as to endanger the canoe-but we were
frequently surprised at perceiving, to our right and left, at
different distances, sudden and extensive agitations of the surface;
these, we at length noticed, were always preceded by wild flickerings
in the region of vapor to the southward.
_March 4th._-To-day, with the view of widening our sail, the breeze
from the northward dying away perceptibly, I took from my coat-pocket
a white handkerchief. Nu-Nu was seated at my elbow, and the linen
accidentally flaring in his face, he became violently affected with
convulsions. These were succeeded by drowsiness and stupor, and low
murmurings of _"'Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!"_
_March _5th.-The wind had entirely ceased, but it was evident that we
were still hurrying on to the southward, under the influence of a
powerful current. And now, -indeed, it would seem reasonable that we
should experience some alarm at the turn events were taking-but we
felt none. The countenance of Peters indicated nothing of this
nature, although it wore at times an expression I could not fathom.
The polar winter appeared to be coming on--but coming without its
terrors. I felt a numbness of body and mind--a dreaminess of
sensation but this was all.
_March 6th._-The gray vapor had now arisen many more degrees above
the horizon, and was gradually losing its grayness of tint. The heat
of the water was extreme, even unpleasant to the touch, and its milky
hue was more evident than ever. Today a violent agitation of the
water occurred very close to the canoe. It was attended, as usual,
with a wild flaring up of the vapor at its summit, and a momentary
division at its base. A fine white powder, resembling ashes-but
certainly not such-fell over the canoe and over a large surface of
the water, as the flickering died away among the vapor and the
commotion subsided in the sea. Nu-Nu now threw himself on his face in
the bottom of the boat, and no persuasions could induce him to arise.
_March 7th._-This day we questioned Nu-Nu concerning the motives of
his countrymen in destroying our companions; but he appeared to be
too utterly overcome by terror to afford us any rational reply. He
still obstinately lay in the bottom of the boat; and, upon
reiterating the questions as to the motive, made use only of idiotic
gesticulations, such as raising with his forefinger the upper lip,
and displaying the teeth which lay beneath it. These were black. We
had never before seen the teeth of an inhabitant of Tsalal.
_March 8th._-To-day there floated by us one of the white animals
whose appearance upon the beach at Tsalal had occasioned so wild a
commotion among the savages. I would have picked it up, but there
came over me a sudden listlessness, and I forbore. The heat of the
water still increased, and the hand could no longer be endured within
it. Peters spoke little, and I knew not what to think of his apathy.
Nu-Nu breathed, and no more.
_March 9th._-The whole ashy material fell now continually around us,
and in vast quantities. The range of vapor to the southward had
arisen prodigiously in the horizon, and began to assume more
distinctness of form. I can liken it to nothing but a limitless
cataract, rolling silently into the sea from some immense and
far-distant rampart in the heaven. The gigantic curtain ranged along
the whole extent of the southern horizon. It emitted no sound.
_March 21st._-A sullen darkness now hovered above us-but from out the
milky depths of the ocean a luminous glare arose, and stole up along
the bulwarks of the boat. We were nearly overwhelmed by the white
ashy shower which settled upon us and upon the canoe, but melted into
the water as it fell. The summit of the cataract was utterly lost in
the dimness and the distance. Yet we were evidently approaching it
with a hideous velocity. At intervals there were visible in it wide,
yawning, but momentary rents, and from out these rents, within which
was a chaos of flitting and indistinct images, there came rushing and
mighty, but soundless winds, tearing up the enkindled ocean in their
course.
_March 22d._-The darkness had materially increased, relieved only by
the glare of the water thrown back from the white curtain before us.
Many gigantic and pallidly white birds flew continuously now from
beyond the veil, and their scream was the eternal _Tekeli-li! _as
they retreated from our vision. Hereupon Nu-Nu stirred in the bottom
of the boat; but upon touching him we found his spirit departed. And
now we rushed into the embraces of the cataract, where a chasm threw
itself open to receive us. But there arose in our pathway a shrouded
human figure, very far larger in its proportions than any dweller
among men. And the hue of the skin of the figure was of the perfect
whiteness of the snow.
NOTE
THE circumstances connected with the late sudden and distressing
death of Mr. Pym are already well known to the public through the
medium of the daily press. It is feared that the few remaining
chapters which were to have completed his narrative, and which were
retained by him, while the above were in type, for the purpose of
revision, have been irrecoverably lost through the accident by which
he perished himself. This, however, may prove not to be the case, and
the papers, if ultimately found, will be given to the public.
No means have been left untried to remedy the deficiency. The
gentleman whose name is mentioned in the preface, and who, from the
statement there made, might be supposed able to fill the vacuum, has
declined the task-this, for satisfactory reasons connected with the
general inaccuracy of the details afforded him, and his disbelief in
the entire truth of the latter portions of the narration. Peters,
from whom some information might be expected, is still alive, and a
resident of Illinois, but cannot be met with at present. He may
hereafter be found, and will, no doubt, afford material for a
conclusion of Mr. Pym's account.
The loss of two or three final chapters (for there were but two or
three) is the more deeply to be regretted, as it can not be doubted
they contained matter relative to the Pole itself, or at least to
regions in its very near proximity; and as, too, the statements of
the author in relation to these regions may shortly be verified or
contradicted by means of the governmental expedition now preparing
for the Southern Ocean.
On one point in the narrative some remarks may well be offered; and
it would afford the writer of this appendix much pleasure if what he
may here observe should have a tendency to throw credit, in any
degree, upon the very singular pages now published. We allude to the
chasms found in the island of Tsalal, and to the whole of the figures
upon pages 245-47 {of the printed edition -ed.}.
Mr. Pym has given the figures of the chasms without comment, and
speaks decidedly of the _indentures _found at the extremity of the
most easterly of these chasms as having but a fanciful resemblance to
alphabetical characters, and, in short, as being positively _not
such. _This assertion is made in a manner so simple, and sustained by
a species of demonstration so conclusive (viz., the fitting of the
projections of the fragments found among the dust into the indentures
upon the wall), that we are forced to believe the writer in earnest;
and no reasonable reader should suppose otherwise. But as the facts
in relation to all the figures are most singular (especially when
taken in connection with statements made in the body of the
narrative), it may be as well to say a word or two concerning them
all-this, too, the more especially as the facts in question have,
beyond doubt, escaped the attention of Mr. Poe.
Figure 1, then, figure 2, figure 3, and figure 5, when conjoined with
one another in the precise order which the chasms themselves
presented, and when deprived of the small lateral branches or arches
(which, it will be remembered, served only as a means of
communication between the main chambers, and were of totally distinct
character), constitute an Ethiopian verbal root-the root {image} "To
be shady,'-- whence all the inflections of shadow or darkness.
In regard to the "left or most northwardly" of the indentures in
figure 4, it is more than probable that the opinion of Peters was
correct, and that the hieroglyphical appearance was really the work
of art, and intended as the representation of a human form. The
delineation is before the reader, and he may, or may not, perceive
the resemblance suggested; but the rest of the indentures afford
strong confirmation of Peters' idea. The upper range is evidently the
Arabic verbal root {image}. "To be white," whence all the inflections
of brilliancy and whiteness. The lower range is not so immediately
perspicuous. The characters are somewhat broken and disjointed;
nevertheless, it can not be doubted that, in their perfect state,
they formed the full Egyptian word {image}. "The region of the
south.' It should be observed that these interpretations confirm the
opinion of Peters in regard to the "most northwardly" of the,
figures. The arm is outstretched toward the south.
Conclusions such as these open a wide field for speculation and
exciting conjecture. They should be regarded, perhaps, in connection
with some of the most faintly detailed incidents of the narrative;
although in no visible manner is this chain of connection complete.
Tekeli-li! was the cry of the affrighted natives of Tsalal upon
discovering the carcase of the _white _animal picked up at sea. This
also was the shuddering exclamatives of Tsalal upon discovering the
carcass of the _white _materials in possession of Mr. Pym. This also
was the shriek of the swift-flying, _white, _and gigantic birds which
issued from the vapory _white _curtain of the South. Nothing _white
_was to be found at Tsalal, and nothing otherwise in the subsequent
voyage to the region beyond. It is not impossible that "Tsalal," the
appellation of the island of the chasms, may be found, upon minute
philological scrutiny, to betray either some alliance with the chasms
themselves, or some reference to the Ethiopian characters so
mysteriously written in their windings.
_"I have graven it within the hills, and my vengeance upon the dust
within the rock."_
~~~ End of text Chapter 25 ~~~
Notes
{*1} Whaling vessels are usually fitted with iron oil-tanks- why the
_Grampus_ was not I have never been able to ascertain.
{*2} The case of the brig _Polly_, of Boston, is one so much in
point, and her fate, in many respects, so remarkably similar to our
own, that I cannot forbear alluding to it here. This vessel, of one
hundred and thirty tons burden, sailed from Boston, with a cargo of
lumber and provisions, for Santa Croix, on the twelfth of December,
1811, under the command of Captain Casneau. There were eight souls on
board besides the captain- the mate, four seamen, and the cook,
together with a Mr. Hunt, and a negro girl belonging to him. On the
fifteenth, having cleared the shoal of Georges, she sprung a leak in
a gale of wind from the southeast, and was finally capsized; but, the
masts going by the board, she afterward righted. They remained in
this situation, without fire, and with very little provision, for the
period of one hundred and ninety-one days (from December the
fifteenth to June the twentieth), when Captain Casneau and Samuel
Badger, the only survivors, were taken off the wreck by the Fame, of
Hull, Captain Featherstone, bound home from Rio Janeiro. When picked
up, they were in latitude 28 degrees N., longitude 13 degrees W.,
having drifted above two thousand miles! On the ninth of July the
Fame fell in with the brig Dromero, Captain Perkins, who landed the
two sufferers in Kennebeck. The narrative from which we gather these
details ends in the following words:
"It is natural to inquire how they could float such a vast
distance, upon the most frequented part of the Atlantic, and not be
discovered all this time. They were passed by more than a dozen sail,
one of which came so nigh them that they could distinctly see the
people on deck and on the rigging looking at them; but, to the
inexpressible disappointment of the starving and freezing men, they
stifled the dictates of compassion, hoisted sail, and cruelly
abandoned them to their fate."
{*3} Among the vessels which at various times have professed to meet
with the Auroras may be mentioned the ship San Miguel, in 1769; the
ship Aurora, in 1774; the brig Pearl, in 1779; and the ship Dolores,
in 1790. They all agree in giving the mean latitude fifty-three
degrees south.
{*4} The terms morning and evening, which I have made use of to avoid
confusion in my narrative, as far as possible, must not, of course,
be taken in their ordinary sense. For a long time past we had had no
night at all, the daylight being continual. The dates throughout are
according to nautical time, and the bearing must be understood as per
compass. I would also remark, in this place, that I cannot, in the
first portion of what is here written, pretend to strict accuracy in
respect to dates, or latitudes and longitudes, having kept no regular
journal until after the period of which this first portion treats. In
many instances I have relied altogether upon memory.
{*5} This day was rendered remarkable by our observing in the south
several huge wreaths of the grayish vapour I have spoken of.
{*6} The marl was also black; indeed, we noticed no light colored
substances of any kind upon the island.
{*7}For obvious reasons I cannot pretend to strict accuracy in these
dates. They are given principally with a view to perspicity of
naarrative, and as set down in my pencil memorandum..
~~~~~~ End of Text ~~~~~~ Narrative of A. Gordon Pym
======
LIGEIA
And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the
mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will
pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield
himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the
weakness of his feeble will. --Joseph Glanvill.
I Cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where, I
first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years have since
elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much suffering. Or, perhaps,
I cannot now bring these points to mind, because, in truth, the
character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet placid
cast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her
low musical language, made their way into my heart by paces so
steadily and stealthily progressive that they have been unnoticed and
unknown. Yet I believe that I met her first and most frequently in
some large, old, decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family -- I
have surely heard her speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date
cannot be doubted. Ligeia! Ligeia! in studies of a nature more than
all else adapted to deaden impressions of the outward world, it is by
that sweet word alone -- by Ligeia -- that I bring before mine eyes
in fancy the image of her who is no more. And now, while I write, a
recollection flashes upon me that I have never known the paternal
name of her who was my friend and my betrothed, and who became the
partner of my studies, and finally the wife of my bosom. Was it a
playful charge on the part of my Ligeia? or was it a test of my
strength of affection, that I should institute no inquiries upon this
point? or was it rather a caprice of my own -- a wildly romantic
offering on the shrine of the most passionate devotion? I but
indistinctly recall the fact itself -- what wonder that I have
utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated or attended it?
And, indeed, if ever she, the wan and the misty-winged Ashtophet of
idolatrous Egypt, presided, as they tell, over marriages ill-omened,
then most surely she presided over mine.
There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory falls me not. It
is the person of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat slender,
and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I would in vain attempt to
portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or the
incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came
and departed as a shadow. I was never made aware of her entrance into
my closed study save by the dear music of her low sweet voice, as she
placed her marble hand upon my shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden
ever equalled her. It was the radiance of an opium-dream -- an airy
and spirit-lifting vision more wildly divine than the phantasies
which hovered vision about the slumbering souls of the daughters of
Delos. Yet her features were not of that regular mould which we have
been falsely taught to worship in the classical labors of the
heathen. "There is no exquisite beauty," says Bacon, Lord Verulam,
speaking truly of all the forms and genera of beauty, without some
strangeness in the proportion." Yet, although I saw that the features
of Ligeia were not of a classic regularity -- although I perceived
that her loveliness was indeed "exquisite," and felt that there was
much of "strangeness" pervading it, yet I have tried in vain to
detect the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of "the
strange." I examined the contour of the lofty and pale forehead -- it
was faultless -- how cold indeed that word when applied to a majesty
so divine! -- the skin rivalling the purest ivory, the commanding
extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the regions above the
temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant and
naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the full force of the
Homeric epithet, "hyacinthine!" I looked at the delicate outlines of
the nose -- and nowhere but in the graceful medallions of the Hebrews
had I beheld a similar perfection. There were the same luxurious
smoothness of surface, the same scarcely perceptible tendency to the
aquiline, the same harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free
spirit. I regarded the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of
all things heavenly -- the magnificent turn of the short upper lip --
the soft, voluptuous slumber of the under -- the dimples which
sported, and the color which spoke -- the teeth glancing back, with a
brilliancy almost startling, every ray of the holy light which fell
upon them in her serene and placid, yet most exultingly radiant of
all smiles. I scrutinized the formation of the chin -- and here, too,
I found the gentleness of breadth, the softness and the majesty, the
fullness and the spirituality, of the Greek -- the contour which the
god Apollo revealed but in a dream, to Cleomenes, the son of the
Athenian. And then I peered into the large eves of Ligeia.
For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It might have
been, too, that in these eves of my beloved lay the secret to which
Lord Verulam alludes. They were, I must believe, far larger than the
ordinary eyes of our own race. They were even fuller than the fullest
of the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of Nourjahad. Yet it
was only at intervals -- in moments of intense excitement -- that
this peculiarity became more than slightly noticeable in Ligeia. And
at such moments was her beauty -- in my heated fancy thus it appeared
perhaps -- the beauty of beings either above or apart from the earth
-- the beauty of the fabulous Houri of the Turk. The hue of the orbs
was the most brilliant of black, and, far over them, hung jetty
lashes of great length. The brows, slightly irregular in outline, had
the same tint. The "strangeness," however, which I found in the eyes,
was of a nature distinct from the formation, or the color, or the
brilliancy of the features, and must, after all, be referred to the
expression. Ah, word of no meaning! behind whose vast latitude of
mere sound we intrench our ignorance of so much of the spiritual. The
expression of the eyes of Ligeia! How for long hours have I pondered
upon it! How have I, through the whole of a midsummer night,
struggled to fathom it! What was it -- that something more profound
than the well of Democritus -- which lay far within the pupils of my
beloved? What was it? I was possessed with a passion to discover.
Those eyes! those large, those shining, those divine orbs! they
became to me twin stars of Leda, and I to them devoutest of
astrologers.
There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies of the
science of mind, more thrillingly exciting than the fact -- never, I
believe, noticed in the schools -- that, in our endeavors to recall
to memory something long forgotten, we often find ourselves upon the
very verge of remembrance, without being able, in the end, to
remember. And thus how frequently, in my intense scrutiny of Ligeia's
eyes, have I felt approaching the full knowledge of their expression
-- felt it approaching -- yet not quite be mine -- and so at length
entirely depart! And (strange, oh strangest mystery of all!) I found,
in the commonest objects of the universe, a circle of analogies to
theat expression. I mean to say that, subsequently to the period when
Ligeia's beauty passed into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine,
I derived, from many existences in the material world, a sentiment
such as I felt always aroused within me by her large and luminous
orbs. Yet not the more could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or
even steadily view it. I recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in
the survey of a rapidly-growing vine -- in the contemplation of a
moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running water. I have
felt it in the ocean; in the falling of a meteor. I have felt it in
the glances of unusually aged people. And there are one or two stars
in heaven -- (one especially, a star of the sixth magnitude, double
and changeable, to be found near the large star in Lyra) in a
telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the feeling. I
have been filled with it by certain sounds from stringed instruments,
and not unfrequently by passages from books. Among innumerable other
instances, I well remember something in a volume of Joseph Glanvill,
which (perhaps merely from its quaintness -- who shall say?) never
failed to inspire me with the sentiment; -- "And the will therein
lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with
its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature
of its intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto
death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
Length of years, and subsequent reflection, have enabled me to trace,
indeed, some remote connection between this passage in the English
moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An intensity in
thought, action, or speech, was possibly, in her, a result, or at
least an index, of that gigantic volition which, during our long
intercourse, failed to give other and more immediate evidence of its
existence. Of all the women whom I have ever known, she, the
outwardly calm, the ever-placid Ligeia, was the most violently a prey
to the tumultuous vultures of stern passion. And of such passion I
could form no estimate, save by the miraculous expansion of those
eyes which at once so delighted and appalled me -- by the almost
magical melody, modulation, distinctness and placidity of her very
low voice -- and by the fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by
contrast with her manner of utterance) of the wild words which she
habitually uttered.
I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was immense -- such as I
have never known in woman. In the classical tongues was she deeply
proficient, and as far as my own acquaintance extended in regard to
the modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her at fault.
Indeed upon any theme of the most admired, because simply the most
abstruse of the boasted erudition of the academy, have I ever found
Ligeia at fault? How singularly -- how thrillingly, this one point in
the nature of my wife has forced itself, at this late period only,
upon my attention! I said her knowledge was such as I have never
known in woman -- but where breathes the man who has traversed, and
successfully, all the wide areas of moral, physical, and mathematical
science? I saw not then what I now clearly perceive, that the
acquisitions of Ligeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I was
sufficiently aware of her infinite supremacy to resign myself, with a
child-like confidence, to her guidance through the chaotic world of
metaphysical investigation at which I was most busily occupied during
the earlier years of our marriage. With how vast a triumph -- with
how vivid a delight -- with how much of all that is ethereal in hope
-- did I feel, as she bent over me in studies but little sought --
but less known -- that delicious vista by slow degrees expanding
before me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden path, I might
at length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too divinely precious
not to be forbidden!
How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after some
years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings to
themselves and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a child groping
benighted. Her presence, her readings alone, rendered vividly
luminous the many mysteries of the transcendentalism in which we were
immersed. Wanting the radiant lustre of her eyes, letters, lambent
and golden, grew duller than Saturnian lead. And now those eyes shone
less and less frequently upon the pages over which I pored. Ligeia
grew ill. The wild eyes blazed with a too -- too glorious effulgence;
the pale fingers became of the transparent waxen hue of the grave,
and the blue veins upon the lofty forehead swelled and sank
impetuously with the tides of the gentle emotion. I saw that she must
die -- and I struggled desperately in spirit with the grim Azrael.
And the struggles of the passionate wife were, to my astonishment,
even more energetic than my own. There had been much in her stern
nature to impress me with the belief that, to her, death would have
come without its terrors; -- but not so. Words are impotent to convey
any just idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled
with the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle.
would have soothed -- I would have reasoned; but, in the intensity of
her wild desire for life, -- for life -- but for life -- solace and
reason were the uttermost folly. Yet not until the last instance,
amid the most convulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was shaken
the external placidity of her demeanor. Her voice grew more gentle --
grew more low -- yet I would not wish to dwell upon the wild meaning
of the quietly uttered words. My brain reeled as I hearkened
entranced, to a melody more than mortal -- to assumptions and
aspirations which mortality had never before known.
That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have been
easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would have reigned
no ordinary passion. But in death only, was I fully impressed with
the strength of her affection. For long hours, detaining my hand,
would she pour out before me the overflowing of a heart whose more
than passionate devotion amounted to idolatry. How had I deserved to
be so blessed by such confessions? -- how had I deserved to be so
cursed with the removal of my beloved in the hour of her making them,
But upon this subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that
in Ligeia's more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all
unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length recognized the
principle of her longing with so wildly earnest a desire for the life
which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild longing -- it
is this eager vehemence of desire for life -- but for life -- that I
have no power to portray -- no utterance capable of expressing.
At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning me,
peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses composed
by herself not many days before. I obeyed her. -- They were these:
Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly;
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!
That motley drama! -- oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased forever more,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness and more of Sin
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout,
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes! -- it writhes! -- with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out -- out are the lights -- out all!
And over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
"O God!" half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending her
arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of these lines
-- "O God! O Divine Father! -- shall these things be undeviatingly
so? -- shall this Conqueror be not once conquered? Are we not part
and parcel in Thee? Who -- who knoweth the mysteries of the will with
its vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death
utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will."
And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her white arms to
fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. And as she breathed
her last sighs, there came mingled with them a low murmur from her
lips. I bent to them my ear and distinguished, again, the concluding
words of the passage in Glanvill -- "Man doth not yield him to the
angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his
feeble will."
She died; -- and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, could no
longer endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in the dim and
decaying city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what the world calls
wealth. Ligeia had brought me far more, very far more than ordinarily
falls to the lot of mortals. After a few months, therefore, of weary
and aimless wandering, I purchased, and put in some repair, an abbey,
which I shall not name, in one of the wildest and least frequented
portions of fair England. The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the
building, the almost savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy
and time-honored memories connected with both, had much in unison
with the feelings of utter abandonment which had driven me into that
remote and unsocial region of the country. Yet although the external
abbey, with its verdant decay hanging about it, suffered but little
alteration, I gave way, with a child-like perversity, and perchance
with a faint hope of alleviating my sorrows, to a display of more
than regal magnificence within. -- For such follies, even in
childhood, I had imbibed a taste and now they came back to me as if
in the dotage of grief. Alas, I feel how much even of incipient
madness might have been discovered in the gorgeous and fantastic
draperies, in the solemn carvings of Egypt, in the wild cornices and
furniture, in the Bedlam patterns of the carpets of tufted gold! I
had become a bounden slave in the trammels of opium, and my labors
and my orders had taken a coloring from my dreams. But these
absurdities must not pause to detail. Let me speak only of that one
chamber, ever accursed, whither in a moment of mental alienation, I
led from the altar as my bride -- as the successor of the unforgotten
Ligeia -- the fair-haired and blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of
Tremaine.
There is no individual portion of the architecture and decoration of
that bridal chamber which is not now visibly before me. Where were
the souls of the haughty family of the bride, when, through thirst of
gold, they permitted to pass the threshold of an apartment so
bedecked, a maiden and a daughter so beloved? I have said that I
minutely remember the details of the chamber -- yet I am sadly
forgetful on topics of deep moment -- and here there was no system,
no keeping, in the fantastic display, to take hold upon the memory.
The room lay in a high turret of the castellated abbey, was
pentagonal in shape, and of capacious size. Occupying the whole
southern face of the pentagon was the sole window -- an immense sheet
of unbroken glass from Venice -- a single pane, and tinted of a
leaden hue, so that the rays of either the sun or moon, passing
through it, fell with a ghastly lustre on the objects within. Over
the upper portion of this huge window, extended the trellice-work of
an aged vine, which clambered up the massy walls of the turret. The
ceiling, of gloomy-looking oak, was excessively lofty, vaulted, and
elaborately fretted with the wildest and most grotesque specimens of
a semi-Gothic, semi-Druidical device. From out the most central
recess of this melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain of
gold with long links, a huge censer of the same metal, Saracenic in
pattern, and with many perforations so contrived that there writhed
in and out of them, as if endued with a serpent vitality, a continual
succession of parti-colored fires.
Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, were in
various stations about -- and there was the couch, too -- bridal
couch -- of an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony,
with a pall-like canopy above. In each of the angles of the chamber
stood on end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite, from the tombs
of the kings over against Luxor, with their aged lids full of
immemorial sculpture. But in the draping of the apartment lay, alas!
the chief phantasy of all. The lofty walls, gigantic in height --
even unproportionably so -- were hung from summit to foot, in vast
folds, with a heavy and massive-looking tapestry -- tapestry of a
material which was found alike as a carpet on the floor, as a
covering for the ottomans and the ebony bed, as a canopy for the bed,
and as the gorgeous volutes of the curtains which partially shaded
the window. The material was the richest cloth of gold. It was
spotted all over, at irregular intervals, with arabesque figures,
about a foot in diameter, and wrought upon the cloth in patterns of
the most jetty black. But these figures partook of the true character
of the arabesque only when regarded from a single point of view. By a
contrivance now common, and indeed traceable to a very remote period
of antiquity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one entering
the room, they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities; but upon
a farther advance, this appearance gradually departed; and step by
step, as the visitor moved his station in the chamber, he saw himself
surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly forms which belong
to the superstition of the Norman, or arise in the guilty slumbers of
the monk. The phantasmagoric effect was vastly heightened by the
artificial introduction of a strong continual current of wind behind
the draperies -- giving a hideous and uneasy animation to the whole.
In halls such as these -- in a bridal chamber such as this -- I
passed, with the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallowed hours of the first
month of our marriage -- passed them with but little disquietude.
That my wife dreaded the fierce moodiness of my temper -- that she
shunned me and loved me but little -- I could not help perceiving;
but it gave me rather pleasure than otherwise. I loathed her with a
hatred belonging more to demon than to man. My memory flew back, (oh,
with what intensity of regret!) to Ligeia, the beloved, the august,
the beautiful, the entombed. I revelled in recollections of her
purity, of her wisdom, of her lofty, her ethereal nature, of her
passionate, her idolatrous love. Now, then, did my spirit fully and
freely burn with more than all the fires of her own. In the
excitement of my opium dreams (for I was habitually fettered in the
shackles of the drug) I would call aloud upon her name, during the
silence of the night, or among the sheltered recesses of the glens by
day, as if, through the wild eagerness, the solemn passion, the
consuming ardor of my longing for the departed, I could restore her
to the pathway she had abandoned -- ah, could it be forever? -- upon
the earth.
About the commencement of the second month of the marriage, the Lady
Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, from which her recovery was
slow. The fever which consumed her rendered her nights uneasy; and in
her perturbed state of half-slumber, she spoke of sounds, and of
motions, in and about the chamber of the turret, which I concluded
had no origin save in the distemper of her fancy, or perhaps in the
phantasmagoric influences of the chamber itself. She became at length
convalescent -- finally well. Yet but a brief period elapsed, ere a
second more violent disorder again threw her upon a bed of suffering;
and from this attack her frame, at all times feeble, never altogether
recovered. Her illnesses were, after this epoch, of alarming
character, and of more alarming recurrence, defying alike the
knowledge and the great exertions of her physicians. With the
increase of the chronic disease which had thus, apparently, taken too
sure hold upon her constitution to be eradicated by human means, I
could not fall to observe a similar increase in the nervous
irritation of her temperament, and in her excitability by trivial
causes of fear. She spoke again, and now more frequently and
pertinaciously, of the sounds -- of the slight sounds -- and of the
unusual motions among the tapestries, to which she had formerly
alluded.
One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed this
distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my attention.
She had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I had been
watching, with feelings half of anxiety, half of vague terror, the
workings of her emaciated countenance. I sat by the side of her ebony
bed, upon one of the ottomans of India. She partly arose, and spoke,
in an earnest low whisper, of sounds which she then heard, but which
I could not hear -- of motions which she then saw, but which I could
not perceive. The wind was rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries,
and I wished to show her (what, let me confess it, I could not all
believe) that those almost inarticulate breathings, and those very
gentle variations of the figures upon the wall, were but the natural
effects of that customary rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor,
overspreading her face, had proved to me that my exertions to
reassure her would be fruitless. She appeared to be fainting, and no
attendants were within call. I remembered where was deposited a
decanter of light wine which had been ordered by her physicians, and
hastened across the chamber to procure it. But, as I stepped beneath
the light of the censer, two circumstances of a startling nature
attracted my attention. I had felt that some palpable although
invisible object had passed lightly by my person; and I saw that
there lay upon the golden carpet, in the very middle of the rich
lustre thrown from the censer, a shadow -- a faint, indefinite shadow
of angelic aspect -- such as might be fancied for the shadow of a
shade. But I was wild with the excitement of an immoderate dose of
opium, and heeded these things but little, nor spoke of them to
Rowena. Having found the wine, I recrossed the chamber, and poured
out a gobletful, which I held to the lips of the fainting lady. She
had now partially recovered, however, and took the vessel herself,
while I sank upon an ottoman near me, with my eyes fastened upon her
person. It was then that I became distinctly aware of a gentle
footfall upon the carpet, and near the couch; and in a second
thereafter, as Rowena was in the act of raising the wine to her lips,
I saw, or may have dreamed that I saw, fall within the goblet, as if
from some invisible spring in the atmosphere of the room, three or
four large drops of a brilliant and ruby colored fluid. If this I saw
-- not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine unhesitatingly, and I
forbore to speak to her of a circumstance which must, after all, I
considered, have been but the suggestion of a vivid imagination,
rendered morbidly active by the terror of the lady, by the opium, and
by the hour.
Yet I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, immediately
subsequent to the fall of the ruby-drops, a rapid change for the
worse took place in the disorder of my wife; so that, on the third
subsequent night, the hands of her menials prepared her for the tomb,
and on the fourth, I sat alone, with her shrouded body, in that
fantastic chamber which had received her as my bride. -- Wild
visions, opium-engendered, flitted, shadow-like, before me. I gazed
with unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the room, upon
the varying figures of the drapery, and upon the writhing of the
parti-colored fires in the censer overhead. My eyes then fell, as I
called to mind the circumstances of a former night, to the spot
beneath the glare of the censer where I had seen the faint traces of
the shadow. It was there, however, no longer; and breathing with
greater freedom, I turned my glances to the pallid and rigid figure
upon the bed. Then rushed upon me a thousand memories of Ligeia --
and then came back upon my heart, with the turbulent violence of a
flood, the whole of that unutterable wo with which I had regarded her
thus enshrouded. The night waned; and still, with a bosom full of
bitter thoughts of the one only and supremely beloved, I remained
gazing upon the body of Rowena.
It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I had
taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very distinct,
startled me from my revery. -- I felt that it came from the bed of
ebony -- the bed of death. I listened in an agony of superstitious
terror -- but there was no repetition of the sound. I strained my
vision to detect any motion in the corpse -- but there was not the
slightest perceptible. Yet I could not have been deceived. I had
heard the noise, however faint, and my soul was awakened within me. I
resolutely and perseveringly kept my attention riveted upon the body.
Many minutes elapsed before any circumstance occurred tending to
throw light upon the mystery. At length it became evident that a
slight, a very feeble, and barely noticeable tinge of color had
flushed up within the cheeks, and along the sunken small veins of the
eyelids. Through a species of unutterable horror and awe, for which
the language of mortality has no sufficiently energetic expression, I
felt my heart cease to beat, my limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a
sense of duty finally operated to restore my self-possession. I could
no longer doubt that we had been precipitate in our preparations --
that Rowena still lived. It was necessary that some immediate
exertion be made; yet turret was altogether apart from the portion of
the abbey tenanted by the servants -- there were none within call --
I had no means of summoning them to my aid without leaving the room
for many minutes -- and this I could not venture to do. I therefore
struggled alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit ill hovering.
In a short period it was certain, however, that a relapse had taken
place; the color disappeared from both eyelid and cheek, leaving a
wanness even more than that of marble; the lips became doubly
shrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly expression of death; a
repulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the surface of
the body; and all the usual rigorous illness immediately supervened.
I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which I had been so
startlingly aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate waking
visions of Ligeia.
An hour thus elapsed when (could it be possible?) I was a second time
aware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the bed. I
listened -- in extremity of horror. The sound came again -- it was a
sigh. Rushing to the corpse, I saw -- distinctly saw -- a tremor upon
the lips. In a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a bright
line of the pearly teeth. Amazement now struggled in my bosom with
the profound awe which had hitherto reigned there alone. I felt that
my vision grew dim, that my reason wandered; and it was only by a
violent effort that I at length succeeded in nerving myself to the
task which duty thus once more had pointed out. There was now a
partial glow upon the forehead and upon the cheek and throat; a
perceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame; there was even a slight
pulsation at the heart. The lady lived; and with redoubled ardor I
betook myself to the task of restoration. I chafed and bathed the
temples and the hands, and used every exertion which experience, and
no little. medical reading, could suggest. But in vain. Suddenly, the
color fled, the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the expression of
the dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body took upon
itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense rigidity, the
sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of that which has
been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb.
And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia -- and again, (what marvel
that I shudder while I write,) again there reached my ears a low sob
from the region of the ebony bed. But why shall I minutely detail the
unspeakable horrors of that night? Why shall I pause to relate how,
time after time, until near the period of the gray dawn, this hideous
drama of revivification was repeated; how each terrific relapse was
only into a sterner and apparently more irredeemable death; how each
agony wore the aspect of a struggle with some invisible foe; and how
each struggle was succeeded by I know not what of wild change in the
personal appearance of the corpse? Let me hurry to a conclusion.
The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she who had
been dead, once again stirred -- and now more vigorously than
hitherto, although arousing from a dissolution more appalling in its
utter hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or to
move, and remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a helpless prey
to a whirl of violent emotions, of which extreme awe was perhaps the
least terrible, the least consuming. The corpse, I repeat, stirred,
and now more vigorously than before. The hues of life flushed up with
unwonted energy into the countenance -- the limbs relaxed -- and,
save that the eyelids were yet pressed heavily together, and that the
bandages and draperies of the grave still imparted their charnel
character to the figure, I might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed
shaken off, utterly, the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not,
even then, altogether adopted, I could at least doubt no longer,
when, arising from the bed, tottering, with feeble steps, with closed
eyes, and with the manner of one bewildered in a dream, the thing
that was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into the middle of
the apartment.
I trembled not -- I stirred not -- for a crowd of unutterable fancies
connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of the figure,
rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed -- had chilled me
into stone. I stirred not -- but gazed upon the apparition. There was
a mad disorder in my thoughts -- a tumult unappeasable. Could it,
indeed, be the living Rowena who confronted me? Could it indeed be
Rowena at all -- the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion
of Tremaine? Why, why should I doubt it? The bandage lay heavily
about the mouth -- but then might it not be the mouth of the
breathing Lady of Tremaine? And the cheeks-there were the roses as in
her noon of life -- yes, these might indeed be the fair cheeks of the
living Lady of Tremaine. And the chin, with its dimples, as in
health, might it not be hers? -- but had she then grown taller since
her malady? What inexpressible madness seized me with that thought?
One bound, and I had reached her feet! Shrinking from my touch, she
let fall from her head, unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had
confined it, and there streamed forth, into the rushing atmosphere of
the chamber, huge masses of long and dishevelled hair; it was blacker
than the raven wings of the midnight! And now slowly opened the eyes
of the figure which stood before me. "Here then, at least," I
shrieked aloud, "can I never -- can I never be mistaken -- these are
the full, and the black, and the wild eyes -- of my lost love -- of
the lady -- of the LADY LIGEIA."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
MORELLA
Itself, by itself, solely, one everlasting, and single.
PLATO: SYMPOS.
WITH a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I regarded my
friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years ago,
my soul from our first meeting, burned with fires it had never before
known; but the fires were not of Eros, and bitter and tormenting to
my spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in no manner define
their unusual meaning or regulate their vague intensity. Yet we met;
and fate bound us together at the altar, and I never spoke of passion
nor thought of love. She, however, shunned society, and, attaching
herself to me alone rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder;
it is a happiness to dream.
Morella's erudition was profound. As I hope to live, her talents were
of no common order -- her powers of mind were gigantic. I felt this,
and, in many matters, became her pupil. I soon, however, found that,
perhaps on account of her Presburg education, she placed before me a
number of those mystical writings which are usually considered the
mere dross of the early German literature. These, for what reason I
could not imagine, were her favourite and constant study -- and that
in process of time they became my own, should be attributed to the
simple but effectual influence of habit and example.
In all this, if I err not, my reason had little to do. My
convictions, or I forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by the
ideal, nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read to be
discovered, unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds or in my
thoughts. Persuaded of this, I abandoned myself implicitly to the
guidance of my wife, and entered with an unflinching heart into the
intricacies of her studies. And then -- then, when poring over
forbidden pages, I felt a forbidden spirit enkindling within me --
would Morella place her cold hand upon my own, and rake up from the
ashes of a dead philosophy some low, singular words, whose strange
meaning burned themselves in upon my memory. And then, hour after
hour, would I linger by her side, and dwell upon the music of her
voice, until at length its melody was tainted with terror, and there
fell a shadow upon my soul, and I grew pale, and shuddered inwardly
at those too unearthly tones. And thus, joy suddenly faded into
horror, and the most beautiful became the most hideous, as Hinnon
became Ge-Henna.
It is unnecessary to state the exact character of those disquisitions
which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned, formed, for so
long a time, almost the sole conversation of Morella and myself. By
the learned in what might be termed theological morality they will be
readily conceived, and by the unlearned they would, at all events, be
little understood. The wild Pantheism of Fichte; the modified
Paliggenedia of the Pythagoreans; and, above all, the doctrines of
Identity as urged by Schelling, were generally the points of
discussion presenting the most of beauty to the imaginative Morella.
That identity which is termed personal, Mr. Locke, I think, truly
defines to consist in the saneness of rational being. And since by
person we understand an intelligent essence having reason, and since
there is a consciousness which always accompanies thinking, it is
this which makes us all to be that which we call ourselves, thereby
distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our
personal identity. But the principium indivduationis, the notion of
that identity which at death is or is not lost for ever, was to me,
at all times, a consideration of intense interest; not more from the
perplexing and exciting nature of its consequences, than from the
marked and agitated manner in which Morella mentioned them.
But, indeed, the time had now arrived when the mystery of my wife's
manner oppressed me as a spell. I could no longer bear the touch of
her wan fingers, nor the low tone of her musical language, nor the
lustre of her melancholy eyes. And she knew all this, but did not
upbraid; she seemed conscious of my weakness or my folly, and,
smiling, called it fate. She seemed also conscious of a cause, to me
unknown, for the gradual alienation of my regard; but she gave me no
hint or token of its nature. Yet was she woman, and pined away daily.
In time the crimson spot settled steadily upon the cheek, and the
blue veins upon the pale forehead became prominent; and one instant
my nature melted into pity, but in, next I met the glance of her
meaning eyes, and then my soul sickened and became giddy with the
giddiness of one who gazes downward into some dreary and unfathomable
abyss.
Shall I then say that I longed with an earnest and consuming desire
for the moment of Morella's decease? I did; but the fragile spirit
clung to its tenement of clay for many days, for many weeks and
irksome months, until my tortured nerves obtained the mastery over my
mind, and I grew furious through delay, and, with the heart of a
fiend, cursed the days and the hours and the bitter moments, which
seemed to lengthen and lengthen as her gentle life declined, like
shadows in the dying of the day.
But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in heaven, Morella
called me to her bedside. There was a dim mist over all the earth,
and a warm glow upon the waters, and amid the rich October leaves of
the forest, a rainbow from the firmament had surely fallen.
"It is a day of days," she said, as I approached; "a day of all days
either to live or die. It is a fair day for the sons of earth and
life -- ah, more fair for the daughters of heaven and death!"
I kissed her forehead, and she continued:
"I am dying, yet shall I live."
"Morella!"
"The days have never been when thou couldst love me -- but her whom
in life thou didst abhor, in death thou shalt adore."
"Morella!"
"I repeat I am dying. But within me is a pledge of that affection --
ah, how little! -- which thou didst feel for me, Morella. And when my
spirit departs shall the child live -- thy child and mine, Morella's.
But thy days shall be days of sorrow -- that sorrow which is the most
lasting of impressions, as the cypress is the most enduring of trees.
For the hours of thy happiness are over and joy is not gathered twice
in a life, as the roses of Paestum twice in a year. Thou shalt no
longer, then, play the Teian with time, but, being ignorant of the
myrtle and the vine, thou shalt bear about with thee thy shroud on
the earth, as do the Moslemin at Mecca."
"Morella!" I cried, "Morella! how knowest thou this?" but she turned
away her face upon the pillow and a slight tremor coming over her
limbs, she thus died, and I heard her voice no more.
Yet, as she had foretold, her child, to which in dying she had given
birth, which breathed not until the mother breathed no more, her
child, a daughter, lived. And she grew strangely in stature and
intellect, and was the perfect resemblance of her who had departed,
and I loved her with a love more fervent than I had believed it
possible to feel for any denizen of earth.
But, ere long the heaven of this pure affection became darkened, and
gloom, and horror, and grief swept over it in clouds. I said the
child grew strangely in stature and intelligence. Strange, indeed,
was her rapid increase in bodily size, but terrible, oh! terrible
were the tumultuous thoughts which crowded upon me while watching the
development of her mental being. Could it be otherwise, when I daily
discovered in the conceptions of the child the adult powers and
faculties of the woman? when the lessons of experience fell from the
lips of infancy? and when the wisdom or the passions of maturity I
found hourly gleaming from its full and speculative eye? When, I say,
all this beeame evident to my appalled senses, when I could no longer
hide it from my soul, nor throw it off from those perceptions which
trembled to receive it, is it to be wondered at that suspicions, of a
nature fearful and exciting, crept in upon my spirit, or that my
thoughts fell back aghast upon the wild tales and thrilling theories
of the entombed Morella? I snatched from the scrutiny of the world a
being whom destiny compelled me to adore, and in the rigorous
seclusion of my home, watched with an agonizing anxiety over all
which concerned the beloved.
And as years rolled away, and I gazed day after day upon her holy,
and mild, and eloquent face, and poured over her maturing form, day
after day did I discover new points of resemblance in the child to
her mother, the melancholy and the dead. And hourly grew darker these
shadows of similitude, and more full, and more definite, and more
perplexing, and more hideously terrible in their aspect. For that her
smile was like her mother's I could bear; but then I shuddered at its
too perfect identity, that her eyes were like Morella's I could
endure; but then they, too, often looked down into the depths of my
soul with Morella's own intense and bewildering meaning. And in the
contour of the high forehead, and in the ringlets of the silken hair,
and in the wan fingers which buried themselves therein, and in the
sad musical tones of her speech, and above all -- oh, above all, in
the phrases and expressions of the dead on the lips of the loved and
the living, I found food for consuming thought and horror, for a worm
that would not die.
Thus passed away two lustra of her life, and as yet my daughter
remained nameless upon the earth. "My child," and "my love," were the
designations usually prompted by a father's affection, and the rigid
seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse. Morella's name
died with her at her death. Of the mother I had never spoken to the
daughter, it was impossible to speak. Indeed, during the brief period
of her existence, the latter had received no impressions from the
outward world, save such as might have been afforded by the narrow
limits of her privacy. But at length the ceremony of baptism
presented to my mind, in its unnerved and agitated condition, a
present deliverance from the terrors of my destiny. And at the
baptismal font I hesitated for a name. And many titles of the wise
and beautiful, of old and modern times, of my own and foreign lands,
came thronging to my lips, with many, many fair titles of the gentle,
and the happy, and the good. What prompted me then to disturb the
memory of the buried dead? What demon urged me to breathe that sound,
which in its very recollection was wont to make ebb the purple blood
in torrents from the temples to the heart? What fiend spoke from the
recesses of my soul, when amid those dim aisles, and in the silence
of the night, I whispered within the ears of the holy man the
syllables -- Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the features of
my child, and overspread them with hues of death, as starting at that
scarcely audible sound, she turned her glassy eyes from the earth to
heaven, and falling prostrate on the black slabs of our ancestral
vault, responded -- "I am here!"
Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct, fell those few simple sounds
within my ear, and thence like molten lead rolled hissingly into my
brain. Years -- years may pass away, but the memory of that epoch
never. Nor was I indeed ignorant of the flowers and the vine -- but
the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed me night and day. And I kept
no reckoning of time or place, and the stars of my fate faded from
heaven, and therefore the earth grew dark, and its figures passed by
me like flitting shadows, and among them all I beheld only --
Morella. The winds of the firmament breathed but one sound within my
ears, and the ripples upon the sea murmured evermore -- Morella. But
she died; and with my own hands I bore her to the tomb; and I laughed
with a long and bitter laugh as I found no traces of the first in the
channel where I laid the second. -- Morella.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
A TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS
DURING the fall of the year 1827, while residing near
Charlottesville, Virginia, I casually made the acquaintance of Mr.
Augustus Bedloe. This young gentleman was remarkable in every
respect, and excited in me a profound interest and curiosity. I found
it impossible to comprehend him either in his moral or his physical
relations. Of his family I could obtain no satisfactory account.
Whence he came, I never ascertained. Even about his age -- although I
call him a young gentleman -- there was something which perplexed me
in no little degree. He certainly seemed young -- and he made a point
of speaking about his youth -- yet there were moments when I should
have had little trouble in imagining him a hundred years of age. But
in no regard was he more peculiar than in his personal appearance. He
was singularly tall and thin. He stooped much. His limbs were
exceedingly long and emaciated. His forehead was broad and low. His
complexion was absolutely bloodless. His mouth was large and
flexible, and his teeth were more wildly uneven, although sound, than
I had ever before seen teeth in a human head. The expression of his
smile, however, was by no means unpleasing, as might be supposed; but
it had no variation whatever. It was one of profound melancholy -- of
a phaseless and unceasing gloom. His eyes were abnormally large, and
round like those of a cat. The pupils, too, upon any accession or
diminution of light, underwent contraction or dilation, just such as
is observed in the feline tribe. In moments of excitement the orbs
grew bright to a degree almost inconceivable; seeming to emit
luminous rays, not of a reflected but of an intrinsic lustre, as does
a candle or the sun; yet their ordinary condition was so totally
vapid, filmy, and dull as to convey the idea of the eyes of a
long-interred corpse.
These peculiarities of person appeared to cause him much annoyance,
and he was continually alluding to them in a sort of half
explanatory, half apologetic strain, which, when I first heard it,
impressed me very painfully. I soon, however, grew accustomed to it,
and my uneasiness wore off. It seemed to be his design rather to
insinuate than directly to assert that, physically, he had not always
been what he was -- that a long series of neuralgic attacks had
reduced him from a condition of more than usual personal beauty, to
that which I saw. For many years past he had been attended by a
physician, named Templeton -- an old gentleman, perhaps seventy years
of age -- whom he had first encountered at Saratoga, and from whose
attention, while there, he either received, or fancied that he
received, great benefit. The result was that Bedloe, who was wealthy,
had made an arrangement with Dr. Templeton, by which the latter, in
consideration of a liberal annual allowance, had consented to devote
his time and medical experience exclusively to the care of the
invalid.
Doctor Templeton had been a traveller in his younger days, and at
Paris had become a convert, in great measure, to the doctrines of
Mesmer. It was altogether by means of magnetic remedies that he had
succeeded in alleviating the acute pains of his patient; and this
success had very naturally inspired the latter with a certain degree
of confidence in the opinions from which the remedies had been
educed. The Doctor, however, like all enthusiasts, had struggled hard
to make a thorough convert of his pupil, and finally so far gained
his point as to induce the sufferer to submit to numerous
experiments. By a frequent repetition of these, a result had arisen,
which of late days has become so common as to attract little or no
attention, but which, at the period of which I write, had very rarely
been known in America. I mean to say, that between Doctor Templeton
and Bedloe there had grown up, little by little, a very distinct and
strongly marked rapport, or magnetic relation. I am not prepared to
assert, however, that this rapport extended beyond the limits of the
simple sleep-producing power, but this power itself had attained
great intensity. At the first attempt to induce the magnetic
somnolency, the mesmerist entirely failed. In the fifth or sixth he
succeeded very partially, and after long continued effort. Only at
the twelfth was the triumph complete. After this the will of the
patient succumbed rapidly to that of the physician, so that, when I
first became acquainted with the two, sleep was brought about almost
instantaneously by the mere volition of the operator, even when the
invalid was unaware of his presence. It is only now, in the year
1845, when similar miracles are witnessed daily by thousands, that I
dare venture to record this apparent impossibility as a matter of
serious fact.
The temperature of Bedloe was, in the highest degree sensitive,
excitable, enthusiastic. His imagination was singularly vigorous and
creative; and no doubt it derived additional force from the habitual
use of morphine, which he swallowed in great quantity, and without
which he would have found it impossible to exist. It was his practice
to take a very large dose of it immediately after breakfast each
morning -- or, rather, immediately after a cup of strong coffee, for
he ate nothing in the forenoon -- and then set forth alone, or
attended only by a dog, upon a long ramble among the chain of wild
and dreary hills that lie westward and southward of Charlottesville,
and are there dignified by the title of the Ragged Mountains.
Upon a dim, warm, misty day, toward the close of November, and during
the strange interregnum of the seasons which in America is termed the
Indian Summer, Mr. Bedloe departed as usual for the hills. The day
passed, and still he did not return.
About eight o'clock at night, having become seriously alarmed at his
protracted absence, we were about setting out in search of him, when
he unexpectedly made his appearance, in health no worse than usual,
and in rather more than ordinary spirits. The account which he gave
of his expedition, and of the events which had detained him, was a
singular one indeed.
"You will remember," said he, "that it was about nine in the morning
when I left Charlottesville. I bent my steps immediately to the
mountains, and, about ten, entered a gorge which was entirely new to
me. I followed the windings of this pass with much interest. The
scenery which presented itself on all sides, although scarcely
entitled to be called grand, had about it an indescribable and to me
a delicious aspect of dreary desolation. The solitude seemed
absolutely virgin. I could not help believing that the green sods and
the gray rocks upon which I trod had been trodden never before by the
foot of a human being. So entirely secluded, and in fact
inaccessible, except through a series of accidents, is the entrance
of the ravine, that it is by no means impossible that I was indeed
the first adventurer -- the very first and sole adventurer who had
ever penetrated its recesses.
"The thick and peculiar mist, or smoke, which distinguishes the
Indian Summer, and which now hung heavily over all objects, served,
no doubt, to deepen the vague impressions which these objects
created. So dense was this pleasant fog that I could at no time see
more than a dozen yards of the path before me. This path was
excessively sinuous, and as the sun could not be seen, I soon lost
all idea of the direction in which I journeyed. In the meantime the
morphine had its customary effect -- that of enduing all the external
world with an intensity of interest. In the quivering of a leaf -- in
the hue of a blade of grass -- in the shape of a trefoil -- in the
humming of a bee -- in the gleaming of a dew-drop -- in the breathing
of the wind -- in the faint odors that came from the forest -- there
came a whole universe of suggestion -- a gay and motley train of
rhapsodical and immethodical thought.
"Busied in this, I walked on for several hours, during which the mist
deepened around me to so great an extent that at length I was reduced
to an absolute groping of the way. And now an indescribable
uneasiness possessed me -- a species of nervous hesitation and
tremor. I feared to tread, lest I should be precipitated into some
abyss. I remembered, too, strange stories told about these Ragged
Hills, and of the uncouth and fierce races of men who tenanted their
groves and caverns. A thousand vague fancies oppressed and
disconcerted me- fancies the more distressing because vague. Very
suddenly my attention was arrested by the loud beating of a drum.
"My amazement was, of course, extreme. A drum in these hills was a
thing unknown. I could not have been more surprised at the sound of
the trump of the Archangel. But a new and still more astounding
source of interest and perplexity arose. There came a wild rattling
or jingling sound, as if of a bunch of large keys, and upon the
instant a dusky-visaged and half-naked man rushed past me with a
shriek. He came so close to my person that I felt his hot breath upon
my face. He bore in one hand an instrument composed of an assemblage
of steel rings, and shook them vigorously as he ran. Scarcely had he
disappeared in the mist before, panting after him, with open mouth
and glaring eyes, there darted a huge beast. I could not be mistaken
in its character. It was a hyena.
"The sight of this monster rather relieved than heightened my terrors
-- for I now made sure that I dreamed, and endeavored to arouse
myself to waking consciousness. I stepped boldly and briskly forward.
I rubbed my eyes. I called aloud. I pinched my limbs. A small spring
of water presented itself to my view, and here, stooping, I bathed my
hands and my head and neck. This seemed to dissipate the equivocal
sensations which had hitherto annoyed me. I arose, as I thought, a
new man, and proceeded steadily and complacently on my unknown way.
"At length, quite overcome by exertion, and by a certain oppressive
closeness of the atmosphere, I seated myself beneath a tree.
Presently there came a feeble gleam of sunshine, and the shadow of
the leaves of the tree fell faintly but definitely upon the grass. At
this shadow I gazed wonderingly for many minutes. Its character
stupefied me with astonishment. I looked upward. The tree was a palm.
"I now arose hurriedly, and in a state of fearful agitation -- for
the fancy that I dreamed would serve me no longer. I saw -- I felt
that I had perfect command of my senses -- and these senses now
brought to my soul a world of novel and singular sensation. The heat
became all at once intolerable. A strange odor loaded the breeze. A
low, continuous murmur, like that arising from a full, but gently
flowing river, came to my ears, intermingled with the peculiar hum of
multitudinous human voices.
"While I listened in an extremity of astonishment which I need not
attempt to describe, a strong and brief gust of wind bore off the
incumbent fog as if by the wand of an enchanter.
"I found myself at the foot of a high mountain, and looking down into
a vast plain, through which wound a majestic river. On the margin of
this river stood an Eastern-looking city, such as we read of in the
Arabian Tales, but of a character even more singular than any there
described. From my position, which was far above the level of the
town, I could perceive its every nook and corner, as if delineated on
a map. The streets seemed innumerable, and crossed each other
irregularly in all directions, but were rather long winding alleys
than streets, and absolutely swarmed with inhabitants. The houses
were wildly picturesque. On every hand was a wilderness of balconies,
of verandas, of minarets, of shrines, and fantastically carved
oriels. Bazaars abounded; and in these were displayed rich wares in
infinite variety and profusion -- silks, muslins, the most dazzling
cutlery, the most magnificent jewels and gems. Besides these things,
were seen, on all sides, banners and palanquins, litters with stately
dames close veiled, elephants gorgeously caparisoned, idols
grotesquely hewn, drums, banners, and gongs, spears, silver and
gilded maces. And amid the crowd, and the clamor, and the general
intricacy and confusion- amid the million of black and yellow men,
turbaned and robed, and of flowing beard, there roamed a countless
multitude of holy filleted bulls, while vast legions of the filthy
but sacred ape clambered, chattering and shrieking, about the
cornices of the mosques, or clung to the minarets and oriels. From
the swarming streets to the banks of the river, there descended
innumerable flights of steps leading to bathing places, while the
river itself seemed to force a passage with difficulty through the
vast fleets of deeply -- burthened ships that far and wide
encountered its surface. Beyond the limits of the city arose, in
frequent majestic groups, the palm and the cocoa, with other gigantic
and weird trees of vast age, and here and there might be seen a field
of rice, the thatched hut of a peasant, a tank, a stray temple, a
gypsy camp, or a solitary graceful maiden taking her way, with a
pitcher upon her head, to the banks of the magnificent river.
"You will say now, of course, that I dreamed; but not so. What I saw
-- what I heard -- what I felt -- what I thought -- had about it
nothing of the unmistakable idiosyncrasy of the dream. All was
rigorously self-consistent. At first, doubting that I was really
awake, I entered into a series of tests, which soon convinced me that
I really was. Now, when one dreams, and, in the dream, suspects that
he dreams, the suspicion never fails to confirm itself, and the
sleeper is almost immediately aroused. Thus Novalis errs not in
saying that 'we are near waking when we dream that we dream.' Had the
vision occurred to me as I describe it, without my suspecting it as a
dream, then a dream it might absolutely have been, but, occurring as
it did, and suspected and tested as it was, I am forced to class it
among other phenomena."
"In this I am not sure that you are wrong," observed Dr. Templeton,
"but proceed. You arose and descended into the city."
"I arose," continued Bedloe, regarding the Doctor with an air of
profound astonishment "I arose, as you say, and descended into the
city. On my way I fell in with an immense populace, crowding through
every avenue, all in the same direction, and exhibiting in every
action the wildest excitement. Very suddenly, and by some
inconceivable impulse, I became intensely imbued with personal
interest in what was going on. I seemed to feel that I had an
important part to play, without exactly understanding what it was.
Against the crowd which environed me, however, I experienced a deep
sentiment of animosity. I shrank from amid them, and, swiftly, by a
circuitous path, reached and entered the city. Here all was the
wildest tumult and contention. A small party of men, clad in garments
half-Indian, half-European, and officered by gentlemen in a uniform
partly British, were engaged, at great odds, with the swarming rabble
of the alleys. I joined the weaker party, arming myself with the
weapons of a fallen officer, and fighting I knew not whom with the
nervous ferocity of despair. We were soon overpowered by numbers, and
driven to seek refuge in a species of kiosk. Here we barricaded
ourselves, and, for the present were secure. From a loop-hole near
the summit of the kiosk, I perceived a vast crowd, in furious
agitation, surrounding and assaulting a gay palace that overhung the
river. Presently, from an upper window of this place, there descended
an effeminate-looking person, by means of a string made of the
turbans of his attendants. A boat was at hand, in which he escaped to
the opposite bank of the river.
"And now a new object took possession of my soul. I spoke a few
hurried but energetic words to my companions, and, having succeeded
in gaining over a few of them to my purpose made a frantic sally from
the kiosk. We rushed amid the crowd that surrounded it. They
retreated, at first, before us. They rallied, fought madly, and
retreated again. In the mean time we were borne far from the kiosk,
and became bewildered and entangled among the narrow streets of tall,
overhanging houses, into the recesses of which the sun had never been
able to shine. The rabble pressed impetuously upon us, harrassing us
with their spears, and overwhelming us with flights of arrows. These
latter were very remarkable, and resembled in some respects the
writhing creese of the Malay. They were made to imitate the body of a
creeping serpent, and were long and black, with a poisoned barb. One
of them struck me upon the right temple. I reeled and fell. An
instantaneous and dreadful sickness seized me. I struggled -- I
gasped -- I died." "You will hardly persist now," said I smiling,
"that the whole of your adventure was not a dream. You are not
prepared to maintain that you are dead?"
When I said these words, I of course expected some lively sally from
Bedloe in reply, but, to my astonishment, he hesitated, trembled,
became fearfully pallid, and remained silent. I looked toward
Templeton. He sat erect and rigid in his chair -- his teeth
chattered, and his eyes were starting from their sockets. "Proceed!"
he at length said hoarsely to Bedloe.
"For many minutes," continued the latter, "my sole sentiment -- my
sole feeling -- was that of darkness and nonentity, with the
consciousness of death. At length there seemed to pass a violent and
sudden shock through my soul, as if of electricity. With it came the
sense of elasticity and of light. This latter I felt -- not saw. In
an instant I seemed to rise from the ground. But I had no bodily, no
visible, audible, or palpable presence. The crowd had departed. The
tumult had ceased. The city was in comparative repose. Beneath me lay
my corpse, with the arrow in my temple, the whole head greatly
swollen and disfigured. But all these things I felt -- not saw. I
took interest in nothing. Even the corpse seemed a matter in which I
had no concern. Volition I had none, but appeared to be impelled into
motion, and flitted buoyantly out of the city, retracing the
circuitous path by which I had entered it. When I had attained that
point of the ravine in the mountains at which I had encountered the
hyena, I again experienced a shock as of a galvanic battery, the
sense of weight, of volition, of substance, returned. I became my
original self, and bent my steps eagerly homeward -- but the past had
not lost the vividness of the real -- and not now, even for an
instant, can I compel my understanding to regard it as a dream."
"Nor was it," said Templeton, with an air of deep solemnity, "yet it
would be difficult to say how otherwise it should be termed. Let us
suppose only, that the soul of the man of to-day is upon the verge of
some stupendous psychal discoveries. Let us content ourselves with
this supposition. For the rest I have some explanation to make. Here
is a watercolor drawing, which I should have shown you before, but
which an unaccountable sentiment of horror has hitherto prevented me
from showing."
We looked at the picture which he presented. I saw nothing in it of
an extraordinary character, but its effect upon Bedloe was
prodigious. He nearly fainted as he gazed. And yet it was but a
miniature portrait -- a miraculously accurate one, to be sure -- of
his own very remarkable features. At least this was my thought as I
regarded it.
"You will perceive," said Templeton, "the date of this picture -- it
is here, scarcely visible, in this corner -- 1780. In this year was
the portrait taken. It is the likeness of a dead friend -- a Mr.
Oldeb -- to whom I became much attached at Calcutta, during the
administration of Warren Hastings. I was then only twenty years old.
When I first saw you, Mr. Bedloe, at Saratoga, it was the miraculous
similarity which existed between yourself and the painting which
induced me to accost you, to seek your friendship, and to bring about
those arrangements which resulted in my becoming your constant
companion. In accomplishing this point, I was urged partly, and
perhaps principally, by a regretful memory of the deceased, but also,
in part, by an uneasy, and not altogether horrorless curiosity
respecting yourself.
"In your detail of the vision which presented itself to you amid the
hills, you have described, with the minutest accuracy, the Indian
city of Benares, upon the Holy River. The riots, the combat, the
massacre, were the actual events of the insurrection of Cheyte Sing,
which took place in 1780, when Hastings was put in imminent peril of
his life. The man escaping by the string of turbans was Cheyte Sing
himself. The party in the kiosk were sepoys and British officers,
headed by Hastings. Of this party I was one, and did all I could to
prevent the rash and fatal sally of the officer who fell, in the
crowded alleys, by the poisoned arrow of a Bengalee. That officer was
my dearest friend. It was Oldeb. You will perceive by these
manuscripts," (here the speaker produced a note-book in which several
pages appeared to have been freshly written,) "that at the very
period in which you fancied these things amid the hills, I was
engaged in detailing them upon paper here at home."
In about a week after this conversation, the following paragraphs
appeared in a Charlottesville paper:
"We have the painful duty of announcing the death of Mr. Augustus
Bedlo, a gentleman whose amiable manners and many virtues have long
endeared him to the citizens of Charlottesville.
"Mr. B., for some years past, has been subject to neuralgia, which
has often threatened to terminate fatally; but this can be regarded
only as the mediate cause of his decease. The proximate cause was one
of especial singularity. In an excursion to the Ragged Mountains, a
few days since, a slight cold and fever were contracted, attended
with great determination of blood to the head. To relieve this, Dr.
Templeton resorted to topical bleeding. Leeches were applied to the
temples. In a fearfully brief period the patient died, when it
appeared that in the jar containing the leeches, had been introduced,
by accident, one of the venomous vermicular sangsues which are now
and then found in the neighboring ponds. This creature fastened
itself upon a small artery in the right temple. Its close resemblance
to the medicinal leech caused the mistake to be overlooked until too
late.
"N. B. The poisonous sangsue of Charlottesville may always be
distinguished from the medicinal leech by its blackness, and
especially by its writhing or vermicular motions, which very nearly
resemble those of a snake."
I was speaking with the editor of the paper in question, upon the
topic of this remarkable accident, when it occurred to me to ask how
it happened that the name of the deceased had been given as Bedlo.
"I presume," I said, "you have authority for this spelling, but I
have always supposed the name to be written with an e at the end."
"Authority? -- no," he replied. "It is a mere typographical error.
The name is Bedlo with an e, all the world over, and I never knew it
to be spelt otherwise in my life."
"Then," said I mutteringly, as I turned upon my heel, "then indeed
has it come to pass that one truth is stranger than any fiction --
for Bedloe, without the e, what is it but Oldeb conversed! And this
man tells me that it is a typographical error."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE SPECTACLES
MANY years ago, it was the fashion to ridicule the idea of "love at
first sight;" but those who think, not less than those who feel
deeply, have always advocated its existence. Modern discoveries,
indeed, in what may be termed ethical magnetism or magnetoesthetics,
render it probable that the most natural, and, consequently, the
truest and most intense of the human affections are those which arise
in the heart as if by electric sympathy -- in a word, that the
brightest and most enduring of the psychal fetters are those which
are riveted by a glance. The confession I am about to make will add
another to the already almost innumerable instances of the truth of
the position.
My story requires that I should be somewhat minute. I am still a very
young man -- not yet twenty-two years of age. My name, at present, is
a very usual and rather plebeian one -- Simpson. I say "at present;"
for it is only lately that I have been so called -- having
legislatively adopted this surname within the last year in order to
receive a large inheritance left me by a distant male relative,
Adolphus Simpson, Esq. The bequest was conditioned upon my taking the
name of the testator, -- the family, not the Christian name; my
Christian name is Napoleon Bonaparte -- or, more properly, these are
my first and middle appellations.
I assumed the name, Simpson, with some reluctance, as in my true
patronym, Froissart, I felt a very pardonable pride -- believing that
I could trace a descent from the immortal author of the "Chronicles."
While on the subject of names, by the bye, I may mention a singular
coincidence of sound attending the names of some of my immediate
predecessors. My father was a Monsieur Froissart, of Paris. His wife
-- my mother, whom he married at fifteen -- was a Mademoiselle
Croissart, eldest daughter of Croissart the banker, whose wife,
again, being only sixteen when married, was the eldest daughter of
one Victor Voissart. Monsieur Voissart, very singularly, had married
a lady of similar name -- a Mademoiselle Moissart. She, too, was
quite a child when married; and her mother, also, Madame Moissart,
was only fourteen when led to the altar. These early marriages are
usual in France. Here, however, are Moissart, Voissart, Croissart,
and Froissart, all in the direct line of descent. My own name,
though, as I say, became Simpson, by act of Legislature, and with so
much repugnance on my part, that, at one period, I actually hesitated
about accepting the legacy with the useless and annoying proviso
attached.
As to personal endowments, I am by no means deficient. On the
contrary, I believe that I am well made, and possess what nine tenths
of the world would call a handsome face. In height I am five feet
eleven. My hair is black and curling. My nose is sufficiently good.
My eyes are large and gray; and although, in fact they are weak a
very inconvenient degree, still no defect in this regard would be
suspected from their appearance. The weakness itself, however, has
always much annoyed me, and I have resorted to every remedy -- short
of wearing glasses. Being youthful and good-looking, I naturally
dislike these, and have resolutely refused to employ them. I know
nothing, indeed, which so disfigures the countenance of a young
person, or so impresses every feature with an air of demureness, if
not altogether of sanctimoniousness and of age. An eyeglass, on the
other hand, has a savor of downright foppery and affectation. I have
hitherto managed as well as I could without either. But something too
much of these merely personal details, which, after all, are of
little importance. I will content myself with saying, in addition,
that my temperament is sanguine, rash, ardent, enthusiastic -- and
that all my life I have been a devoted admirer of the women.
One night last winter I entered a box at the P- -- Theatre, in
company with a friend, Mr. Talbot. It was an opera night, and the
bills presented a very rare attraction, so that the house was
excessively crowded. We were in time, however, to obtain the front
seats which had been reserved for us, and into which, with some
little difficulty, we elbowed our way.
For two hours my companion, who was a musical fanatico, gave his
undivided attention to the stage; and, in the meantime, I amused
myself by observing the audience, which consisted, in chief part, of
the very elite of the city. Having satisfied myself upon this point,
I was about turning my eyes to the prima donna, when they were
arrested and riveted by a figure in one of the private boxes which
had escaped my observation.
If I live a thousand years, I can never forget the intense emotion
with which I regarded this figure. It was that of a female, the most
exquisite I had ever beheld. The face was so far turned toward the
stage that, for some minutes, I could not obtain a view of it -- but
the form was divine; no other word can sufficiently express its
magnificent proportion -- and even the term "divine" seems
ridiculously feeble as I write it.
The magic of a lovely form in woman -- the necromancy of female
gracefulness -- was always a power which I had found it impossible to
resist, but here was grace personified, incarnate, the beau ideal of
my wildest and most enthusiastic visions. The figure, almost all of
which the construction of the box permitted to be seen, was somewhat
above the medium height, and nearly approached, without positively
reaching, the majestic. Its perfect fullness and tournure were
delicious. The head of which only the back was visible, rivalled in
outline that of the Greek Psyche, and was rather displayed than
concealed by an elegant cap of gaze aerienne, which put me in mind of
the ventum textilem of Apuleius. The right arm hung over the
balustrade of the box, and thrilled every nerve of my frame with its
exquisite symmetry. Its upper portion was draperied by one of the
loose open sleeves now in fashion. This extended but little below the
elbow. Beneath it was worn an under one of some frail material,
close-fitting, and terminated by a cuff of rich lace, which fell
gracefully over the top of the hand, revealing only the delicate
fingers, upon one of which sparkled a diamond ring, which I at once
saw was of extraordinary value. The admirable roundness of the wrist
was well set off by a bracelet which encircled it, and which also was
ornamented and clasped by a magnificent aigrette of jewels-telling,
in words that could not be mistaken, at once of the wealth and
fastidious taste of the wearer.
I gazed at this queenly apparition for at least half an hour, as if I
had been suddenly converted to stone; and, during this period, I felt
the full force and truth of all that has been said or sung concerning
"love at first sight." My feelings were totally different from any
which I had hitherto experienced, in the presence of even the most
celebrated specimens of female loveliness. An unaccountable, and what
I am compelled to consider a magnetic, sympathy of soul for soul,
seemed to rivet, not only my vision, but my whole powers of thought
and feeling, upon the admirable object before me. I saw -- I felt --
I knew that I was deeply, madly, irrevocably in love -- and this even
before seeing the face of the person beloved. So intense, indeed, was
the passion that consumed me, that I really believe it would have
received little if any abatement had the features, yet unseen, proved
of merely ordinary character, so anomalous is the nature of the only
true love -- of the love at first sight -- and so little really
dependent is it upon the external conditions which only seem to
create and control it.
While I was thus wrapped in admiration of this lovely vision, a
sudden disturbance among the audience caused her to turn her head
partially toward me, so that I beheld the entire profile of the face.
Its beauty even exceeded my anticipations -- and yet there was
something about it which disappointed me without my being able to
tell exactly what it was. I said "disappointed," but this is not
altogether the word. My sentiments were at once quieted and exalted.
They partook less of transport and more of calm enthusiasm of
enthusiastic repose. This state of feeling arose, perhaps, from the
Madonna-like and matronly air of the face; and yet I at once
understood that it could not have arisen entirely from this. There
was something else- some mystery which I could not develope -- some
expression about the countenance which slightly disturbed me while it
greatly heightened my interest. In fact, I was just in that condition
of mind which prepares a young and susceptible man for any act of
extravagance. Had the lady been alone, I should undoubtedly have
entered her box and accosted her at all hazards; but, fortunately,
she was attended by two companions -- a gentleman, and a strikingly
beautiful woman, to all appearance a few years younger than herself.
I revolved in my mind a thousand schemes by which I might obtain,
hereafter, an introduction to the elder lady, or, for the present, at
all events, a more distinct view of her beauty. I would have removed
my position to one nearer her own, but the crowded state of the
theatre rendered this impossible; and the stern decrees of Fashion
had, of late, imperatively prohibited the use of the opera-glass in a
case such as this, even had I been so fortunate as to have one with
me -- but I had not -- and was thus in despair.
At length I bethought me of applying to my companion.
"Talbot," I said, "you have an opera-glass. Let me have it."
"An opera -- glass! -- no! -- what do you suppose I would be doing
with an opera-glass?" Here he turned impatiently toward the stage.
"But, Talbot," I continued, pulling him by the shoulder, "listen to
me will you? Do you see the stage -- box? -- there! -- no, the next.
-- did you ever behold as lovely a woman?"
"She is very beautiful, no doubt," he said.
"I wonder who she can be?"
"Why, in the name of all that is angelic, don't you know who she is?
'Not to know her argues yourself unknown.' She is the celebrated
Madame Lalande -- the beauty of the day par excellence, and the talk
of the whole town. Immensely wealthy too -- a widow, and a great
match -- has just arrived from Paris."
"Do you know her?"
"Yes; I have the honor."
"Will you introduce me?"
"Assuredly, with the greatest pleasure; when shall it be?"
"To-morrow, at one, I will call upon you at B--'s.
"Very good; and now do hold your tongue, if you can."
In this latter respect I was forced to take Talbot's advice; for he
remained obstinately deaf to every further question or suggestion,
and occupied himself exclusively for the rest of the evening with
what was transacting upon the stage.
In the meantime I kept my eyes riveted on Madame Lalande, and at
length had the good fortune to obtain a full front view of her face.
It was exquisitely lovely -- this, of course, my heart had told me
before, even had not Talbot fully satisfied me upon the point -- but
still the unintelligible something disturbed me. I finally concluded
that my senses were impressed by a certain air of gravity, sadness,
or, still more properly, of weariness, which took something from the
youth and freshness of the countenance, only to endow it with a
seraphic tenderness and majesty, and thus, of course, to my
enthusiastic and romantic temperment, with an interest tenfold.
While I thus feasted my eyes, I perceived, at last, to my great
trepidation, by an almost imperceptible start on the part of the
lady, that she had become suddenly aware of the intensity of my gaze.
Still, I was absolutely fascinated, and could not withdraw it, even
for an instant. She turned aside her face, and again I saw only the
chiselled contour of the back portion of the head. After some
minutes, as if urged by curiosity to see if I was still looking, she
gradually brought her face again around and again encountered my
burning gaze. Her large dark eyes fell instantly, and a deep blush
mantled her cheek. But what was my astonishment at perceiving that
she not only did not a second time avert her head, but that she
actually took from her girdle a double eyeglass -- elevated it --
adjusted it -- and then regarded me through it, intently and
deliberately, for the space of several minutes.
Had a thunderbolt fallen at my feet I could not have been more
thoroughly astounded -- astounded only -- not offended or disgusted
in the slightest degree; although an action so bold in any other
woman would have been likely to offend or disgust. But the whole
thing was done with so much quietude -- so much nonchalance -- so
much repose- with so evident an air of the highest breeding, in short
-- that nothing of mere effrontery was perceptible, and my sole
sentiments were those of admiration and surprise.
I observed that, upon her first elevation of the glass, she had
seemed satisfied with a momentary inspection of my person, and was
withdrawing the instrument, when, as if struck by a second thought,
she resumed it, and so continued to regard me with fixed attention
for the space of several minutes -- for five minutes, at the very
least, I am sure.
This action, so remarkable in an American theatre, attracted very
general observation, and gave rise to an indefinite movement, or
buzz, among the audience, which for a moment filled me with
confusion, but produced no visible effect upon the countenance of
Madame Lalande.
Having satisfied her curiosity -- if such it was -- she dropped the
glass, and quietly gave her attention again to the stage; her profile
now being turned toward myself, as before. I continued to watch her
unremittingly, although I was fully conscious of my rudeness in so
doing. Presently I saw the head slowly and slightly change its
position; and soon I became convinced that the lady, while pretending
to look at the stage was, in fact, attentively regarding myself. It
is needless to say what effect this conduct, on the part of so
fascinating a woman, had upon my excitable mind.
Having thus scrutinized me for perhaps a quarter of an hour, the fair
object of my passion addressed the gentleman who attended her, and
while she spoke, I saw distinctly, by the glances of both, that the
conversation had reference to myself.
Upon its conclusion, Madame Lalande again turned toward the stage,
and, for a few minutes, seemed absorbed in the performance. At the
expiration of this period, however, I was thrown into an extremity of
agitation by seeing her unfold, for the second time, the eye-glass
which hung at her side, fully confront me as before, and,
disregarding the renewed buzz of the audience, survey me, from head
to foot, with the same miraculous composure which had previously so
delighted and confounded my soul.
This extraordinary behavior, by throwing me into a perfect fever of
excitement -- into an absolute delirium of love-served rather to
embolden than to disconcert me. In the mad intensity of my devotion,
I forgot everything but the presence and the majestic loveliness of
the vision which confronted my gaze. Watching my opportunity, when I
thought the audience were fully engaged with the opera, I at length
caught the eyes of Madame Lalande, and, upon the instant, made a
slight but unmistakable bow.
She blushed very deeply -- then averted her eyes -- then slowly and
cautiously looked around, apparently to see if my rash action had
been noticed -- then leaned over toward the gentleman who sat by her
side.
I now felt a burning sense of the impropriety I had committed, and
expected nothing less than instant exposure; while a vision of
pistols upon the morrow floated rapidly and uncomfortably through my
brain. I was greatly and immediately relieved, however, when I saw
the lady merely hand the gentleman a play-bill, without speaking, but
the reader may form some feeble conception of my astonishment -- of
my profound amazement -- my delirious bewilderment of heart and soul
-- when, instantly afterward, having again glanced furtively around,
she allowed her bright eyes to set fully and steadily upon my own,
and then, with a faint smile, disclosing a bright line of her pearly
teeth, made two distinct, pointed, and unequivocal affirmative
inclinations of the head.
It is useless, of course, to dwell upon my joy -- upon my transport-
upon my illimitable ecstasy of heart. If ever man was mad with excess
of happiness, it was myself at that moment. I loved. This was my
first love -- so I felt it to be. It was love supreme-indescribable.
It was "love at first sight;" and at first sight, too, it had been
appreciated and returned.
Yes, returned. How and why should I doubt it for an instant. What
other construction could I possibly put upon such conduct, on the
part of a lady so beautiful -- so wealthy -- evidently so
accomplished -- of so high breeding -- of so lofty a position in
society -- in every regard so entirely respectable as I felt assured
was Madame Lalande? Yes, she loved me -- she returned the enthusiasm
of my love, with an enthusiasm as blind -- as uncompromising -- as
uncalculating -- as abandoned -- and as utterly unbounded as my own!
These delicious fancies and reflections, however, were now
interrupted by the falling of the drop-curtain. The audience arose;
and the usual tumult immediately supervened. Quitting Talbot
abruptly, I made every effort to force my way into closer proximity
with Madame Lalande. Having failed in this, on account of the crowd,
I at length gave up the chase, and bent my steps homeward; consoling
myself for my disappointment in not having been able to touch even
the hem of her robe, by the reflection that I should be introduced by
Talbot, in due form, upon the morrow.
This morrow at last came, that is to say, a day finally dawned upon a
long and weary night of impatience; and then the hours until "one"
were snail-paced, dreary, and innumerable. But even Stamboul, it is
said, shall have an end, and there came an end to this long delay.
The clock struck. As the last echo ceased, I stepped into B--'s and
inquired for Talbot.
"Out," said the footman -- Talbot's own.
"Out!" I replied, staggering back half a dozen paces -- "let me tell
you, my fine fellow, that this thing is thoroughly impossible and
impracticable; Mr. Talbot is not out. What do you mean?"
"Nothing, sir; only Mr. Talbot is not in, that's all. He rode over to
S--, immediately after breakfast, and left word that he would not be
in town again for a week."
I stood petrified with horror and rage. I endeavored to reply, but my
tongue refused its office. At length I turned on my heel, livid with
wrath, and inwardly consigning the whole tribe of the Talbots to the
innermost regions of Erebus. It was evident that my considerate
friend, il fanatico, had quite forgotten his appointment with myself
-- had forgotten it as soon as it was made. At no time was he a very
scrupulous man of his word. There was no help for it; so smothering
my vexation as well as I could, I strolled moodily up the street,
propounding futile inquiries about Madame Lalande to every male
acquaintance I met. By report she was known, I found, to all- to many
by sight -- but she had been in town only a few weeks, and there were
very few, therefore, who claimed her personal acquaintance. These
few, being still comparatively strangers, could not, or would not,
take the liberty of introducing me through the formality of a morning
call. While I stood thus in despair, conversing with a trio of
friends upon the all absorbing subject of my heart, it so happened
that the subject itself passed by.
"As I live, there she is!" cried one.
"Surprisingly beautiful!" exclaimed a second.
"An angel upon earth!" ejaculated a third.
I looked; and in an open carriage which approached us, passing slowly
down the street, sat the enchanting vision of the opera, accompanied
by the younger lady who had occupied a portion of her box.
"Her companion also wears remarkably well," said the one of my trio
who had spoken first.
"Astonishingly," said the second; "still quite a brilliant air, but
art will do wonders. Upon my word, she looks better than she did at
Paris five years ago. A beautiful woman still; -- don't you think so,
Froissart? -- Simpson, I mean."
"Still!" said I, "and why shouldn't she be? But compared with her
friend she is as a rush -- light to the evening star -- a glow --
worm to Antares.
"Ha! ha! ha! -- why, Simpson, you have an astonishing tact at making
discoveries -- original ones, I mean." And here we separated, while
one of the trio began humming a gay vaudeville, of which I caught
only the lines-
Ninon, Ninon, Ninon a bas-
A bas Ninon De L'Enclos!
During this little scene, however, one thing had served greatly to
console me, although it fed the passion by which I was consumed. As
the carriage of Madame Lalande rolled by our group, I had observed
that she recognized me; and more than this, she had blessed me, by
the most seraphic of all imaginable smiles, with no equivocal mark of
the recognition.
As for an introduction, I was obliged to abandon all hope of it until
such time as Talbot should think proper to return from the country.
In the meantime I perseveringly frequented every reputable place of
public amusement; and, at length, at the theatre, where I first saw
her, I had the supreme bliss of meeting her, and of exchanging
glances with her once again. This did not occur, however, until the
lapse of a fortnight. Every day, in the interim, I had inquired for
Talbot at his hotel, and every day had been thrown into a spasm of
wrath by the everlasting "Not come home yet" of his footman.
Upon the evening in question, therefore, I was in a condition little
short of madness. Madame Lalande, I had been told, was a Parisian --
had lately arrived from Paris -- might she not suddenly return? --
return before Talbot came back -- and might she not be thus lost to
me forever? The thought was too terrible to bear. Since my future
happiness was at issue, I resolved to act with a manly decision. In a
word, upon the breaking up of the play, I traced the lady to her
residence, noted the address, and the next morning sent her a full
and elaborate letter, in which I poured out my whole heart.
I spoke boldly, freely -- in a word, I spoke with passion. I
concealed nothing -- nothing even of my weakness. I alluded to the
romantic circumstances of our first meeting -- even to the glances
which had passed between us. I went so far as to say that I felt
assured of her love; while I offered this assurance, and my own
intensity of devotion, as two excuses for my otherwise unpardonable
conduct. As a third, I spoke of my fear that she might quit the city
before I could have the opportunity of a formal introduction. I
concluded the most wildly enthusiastic epistle ever penned, with a
frank declaration of my worldly circumstances -- of my affluence --
and with an offer of my heart and of my hand.
In an agony of expectation I awaited the reply. After what seemed the
lapse of a century it came.
Yes, actually came. Romantic as all this may appear, I really
received a letter from Madame Lalande -- the beautiful, the wealthy,
the idolized Madame Lalande. Her eyes -- her magnificent eyes, had
not belied her noble heart. Like a true Frenchwoman as she was she
had obeyed the frank dictates of her reason -- the generous impulses
of her nature -- despising the conventional pruderies of the world.
She had not scorned my proposals. She had not sheltered herself in
silence. She had not returned my letter unopened. She had even sent
me, in reply, one penned by her own exquisite fingers. It ran thus:
"Monsieur Simpson vill pardonne me for not compose de butefulle tong
of his contree so vell as might. It is only de late dat I am arrive,
and not yet ave do opportunite for to -- l'etudier.
"Vid dis apologie for the maniere, I vill now say dat, helas!-
Monsieur Simpson ave guess but de too true. Need I say de more?
Helas! am I not ready speak de too moshe?
"EUGENIE LALAND."
This noble -- spirited note I kissed a million times, and committed,
no doubt, on its account, a thousand other extravagances that have
now escaped my memory. Still Talbot would not return. Alas! could he
have formed even the vaguest idea of the suffering his absence had
occasioned his friend, would not his sympathizing nature have flown
immediately to my relief? Still, however, he came not. I wrote. He
replied. He was detained by urgent business -- but would shortly
return. He begged me not to be impatient -- to moderate my transports
-- to read soothing books -- to drink nothing stronger than Hock --
and to bring the consolations of philosophy to my aid. The fool! if
he could not come himself, why, in the name of every thing rational,
could he not have enclosed me a letter of presentation? I wrote him
again, entreating him to forward one forthwith. My letter was
returned by that footman, with the following endorsement in pencil.
The scoundrel had joined his master in the country:
"Left S- -- yesterday, for parts unknown -- did not say where -- or
when be back -- so thought best to return letter, knowing your
handwriting, and as how you is always, more or less, in a hurry.
"Yours sincerely,
"STUBBS."
After this, it is needless to say, that I devoted to the infernal
deities both master and valet: -- but there was little use in anger,
and no consolation at all in complaint.
But I had yet a resource left, in my constitutional audacity.
Hitherto it had served me well, and I now resolved to make it avail
me to the end. Besides, after the correspondence which had passed
between us, what act of mere informality could I commit, within
bounds, that ought to be regarded as indecorous by Madame Lalande?
Since the affair of the letter, I had been in the habit of watching
her house, and thus discovered that, about twilight, it was her
custom to promenade, attended only by a negro in livery, in a public
square overlooked by her windows. Here, amid the luxuriant and
shadowing groves, in the gray gloom of a sweet midsummer evening, I
observed my opportunity and accosted her.
The better to deceive the servant in attendance, I did this with the
assured air of an old and familiar acquaintance. With a presence of
mind truly Parisian, she took the cue at once, and, to greet me, held
out the most bewitchingly little of hands. The valet at once fell
into the rear, and now, with hearts full to overflowing, we
discoursed long and unreservedly of our love.
As Madame Lalande spoke English even less fluently than she wrote it,
our conversation was necessarily in French. In this sweet tongue, so
adapted to passion, I gave loose to the impetuous enthusiasm of my
nature, and, with all the eloquence I could command, besought her to
consent to an immediate marriage.
At this impatience she smiled. She urged the old story of decorum-
that bug-bear which deters so many from bliss until the opportunity
for bliss has forever gone by. I had most imprudently made it known
among my friends, she observed, that I desired her acquaintance- thus
that I did not possess it -- thus, again, there was no possibility of
concealing the date of our first knowledge of each other. And then
she adverted, with a blush, to the extreme recency of this date. To
wed immediately would be improper -- would be indecorous -- would be
outre. All this she said with a charming air of naivete which
enraptured while it grieved and convinced me. She went even so far as
to accuse me, laughingly, of rashness -- of imprudence. She bade me
remember that I really even know not who she was -- what were her
prospects, her connections, her standing in society. She begged me,
but with a sigh, to reconsider my proposal, and termed my love an
infatuation -- a will o' the wisp -- a fancy or fantasy of the moment
-- a baseless and unstable creation rather of the imagination than of
the heart. These things she uttered as the shadows of the sweet
twilight gathered darkly and more darkly around us -- and then, with
a gentle pressure of her fairy-like hand, overthrew, in a single
sweet instant, all the argumentative fabric she had reared.
I replied as best I could -- as only a true lover can. I spoke at
length, and perseveringly of my devotion, of my passion -- of her
exceeding beauty, and of my own enthusiastic admiration. In
conclusion, I dwelt, with a convincing energy, upon the perils that
encompass the course of love -- that course of true love that never
did run smooth -- and thus deduced the manifest danger of rendering
that course unnecessarily long.
This latter argument seemed finally to soften the rigor of her
determination. She relented; but there was yet an obstacle, she said,
which she felt assured I had not properly considered. This was a
delicate point -- for a woman to urge, especially so; in mentioning
it, she saw that she must make a sacrifice of her feelings; still,
for me, every sacrifice should be made. She alluded to the topic of
age. Was I aware -- was I fully aware of the discrepancy between us?
That the age of the husband, should surpass by a few years -- even by
fifteen or twenty -- the age of the wife, was regarded by the world
as admissible, and, indeed, as even proper, but she had always
entertained the belief that the years of the wife should never exceed
in number those of the husband. A discrepancy of this unnatural kind
gave rise, too frequently, alas! to a life of unhappiness. Now she
was aware that my own age did not exceed two and twenty; and I, on
the contrary, perhaps, was not aware that the years of my Eugenie
extended very considerably beyond that sum.
About all this there was a nobility of soul -- a dignity of candor-
which delighted -- which enchanted me -- which eternally riveted my
chains. I could scarcely restrain the excessive transport which
possessed me.
"My sweetest Eugenie," I cried, "what is all this about which you are
discoursing? Your years surpass in some measure my own. But what
then? The customs of the world are so many conventional follies. To
those who love as ourselves, in what respect differs a year from an
hour? I am twenty-two, you say, granted: indeed, you may as well call
me, at once, twenty-three. Now you yourself, my dearest Eugenie, can
have numbered no more than -- can have numbered no more than -- no
more than -- than -- than -- than-"
Here I paused for an instant, in the expectation that Madame Lalande
would interrupt me by supplying her true age. But a Frenchwoman is
seldom direct, and has always, by way of answer to an embarrassing
query, some little practical reply of her own. In the present
instance, Eugenie, who for a few moments past had seemed to be
searching for something in her bosom, at length let fall upon the
grass a miniature, which I immediately picked up and presented to
her.
"Keep it!" she said, with one of her most ravishing smiles. "Keep it
for my sake -- for the sake of her whom it too flatteringly
represents. Besides, upon the back of the trinket you may discover,
perhaps, the very information you seem to desire. It is now, to be
sure, growing rather dark -- but you can examine it at your leisure
in the morning. In the meantime, you shall be my escort home
to-night. My friends are about holding a little musical levee. I can
promise you, too, some good singing. We French are not nearly so
punctilious as you Americans, and I shall have no difficulty in
smuggling you in, in the character of an old acquaintance."
With this, she took my arm, and I attended her home. The mansion was
quite a fine one, and, I believe, furnished in good taste. Of this
latter point, however, I am scarcely qualified to judge; for it was
just dark as we arrived; and in American mansions of the better sort
lights seldom, during the heat of summer, make their appearance at
this, the most pleasant period of the day. In about an hour after my
arrival, to be sure, a single shaded solar lamp was lit in the
principal drawing-room; and this apartment, I could thus see, was
arranged with unusual good taste and even splendor; but two other
rooms of the suite, and in which the company chiefly assembled,
remained, during the whole evening, in a very agreeable shadow. This
is a well-conceived custom, giving the party at least a choice of
light or shade, and one which our friends over the water could not do
better than immediately adopt.
The evening thus spent was unquestionably the most delicious of my
life. Madame Lalande had not overrated the musical abilities of her
friends; and the singing I here heard I had never heard excelled in
any private circle out of Vienna. The instrumental performers were
many and of superior talents. The vocalists were chiefly ladies, and
no individual sang less than well. At length, upon a peremptory call
for "Madame Lalande," she arose at once, without affectation or
demur, from the chaise longue upon which she had sat by my side, and,
accompanied by one or two gentlemen and her female friend of the
opera, repaired to the piano in the main drawing-room. I would have
escorted her myself, but felt that, under the circumstances of my
introduction to the house, I had better remain unobserved where I
was. I was thus deprived of the pleasure of seeing, although not of
hearing, her sing.
The impression she produced upon the company seemed electrical but
the effect upon myself was something even more. I know not how
adequately to describe it. It arose in part, no doubt, from the
sentiment of love with which I was imbued; but chiefly from my
conviction of the extreme sensibility of the singer. It is beyond the
reach of art to endow either air or recitative with more impassioned
expression than was hers. Her utterance of the romance in Otello --
the tone with which she gave the words "Sul mio sasso," in the
Capuletti -- is ringing in my memory yet. Her lower tones were
absolutely miraculous. Her voice embraced three complete octaves,
extending from the contralto D to the D upper soprano, and, though
sufficiently powerful to have filled the San Carlos, executed, with
the minutest precision, every difficulty of vocal
composition-ascending and descending scales, cadences, or fiorituri.
In the final of the Somnambula, she brought about a most remarkable
effect at the words:
Ah! non guinge uman pensiero
Al contento ond 'io son piena.
Here, in imitation of Malibran, she modified the original phrase of
Bellini, so as to let her voice descend to the tenor G, when, by a
rapid transition, she struck the G above the treble stave, springing
over an interval of two octaves.
Upon rising from the piano after these miracles of vocal execution,
she resumed her seat by my side; when I expressed to her, in terms of
the deepest enthusiasm, my delight at her performance. Of my surprise
I said nothing, and yet was I most unfeignedly surprised; for a
certain feebleness, or rather a certain tremulous indecision of voice
in ordinary conversation, had prepared me to anticipate that, in
singing, she would not acquit herself with any remarkable ability.
Our conversation was now long, earnest, uninterrupted, and totally
unreserved. She made me relate many of the earlier passages of my
life, and listened with breathless attention to every word of the
narrative. I concealed nothing -- felt that I had a right to conceal
nothing -- from her confiding affection. Encouraged by her candor
upon the delicate point of her age, I entered, with perfect
frankness, not only into a detail of my many minor vices, but made
full confession of those moral and even of those physical
infirmities, the disclosure of which, in demanding so much higher a
degree of courage, is so much surer an evidence of love. I touched
upon my college indiscretions -- upon my extravagances -- upon my
carousals- upon my debts -- upon my flirtations. I even went so far
as to speak of a slightly hectic cough with which, at one time, I had
been troubled -- of a chronic rheumatism -- of a twinge of hereditary
gout- and, in conclusion, of the disagreeable and inconvenient, but
hitherto carefully concealed, weakness of my eyes.
"Upon this latter point," said Madame Lalande, laughingly, "you have
been surely injudicious in coming to confession; for, without the
confession, I take it for granted that no one would have accused you
of the crime. By the by," she continued, "have you any recollection-"
and here I fancied that a blush, even through the gloom of the
apartment, became distinctly visible upon her cheek -- "have you any
recollection, mon cher ami of this little ocular assistant, which now
depends from my neck?"
As she spoke she twirled in her fingers the identical double
eye-glass which had so overwhelmed me with confusion at the opera.
"Full well -- alas! do I remember it," I exclaimed, pressing
passionately the delicate hand which offered the glasses for my
inspection. They formed a complex and magnificent toy, richly chased
and filigreed, and gleaming with jewels, which, even in the deficient
light, I could not help perceiving were of high value.
"Eh bien! mon ami" she resumed with a certain empressment of manner
that rather surprised me -- "Eh bien! mon ami, you have earnestly
besought of me a favor which you have been pleased to denominate
priceless. You have demanded of me my hand upon the morrow. Should I
yield to your entreaties -- and, I may add, to the pleadings of my
own bosom -- would I not be entitled to demand of you a very -- a
very little boon in return?"
"Name it!" I exclaimed with an energy that had nearly drawn upon us
the observation of the company, and restrained by their presence
alone from throwing myself impetuously at her feet. "Name it, my
beloved, my Eugenie, my own! -- name it! -- but, alas! it is already
yielded ere named."
"You shall conquer, then, mon ami," said she, "for the sake of the
Eugenie whom you love, this little weakness which you have at last
confessed -- this weakness more moral than physical -- and which, let
me assure you, is so unbecoming the nobility of your real nature --
so inconsistent with the candor of your usual character -- and which,
if permitted further control, will assuredly involve you, sooner or
later, in some very disagreeable scrape. You shall conquer, for my
sake, this affectation which leads you, as you yourself acknowledge,
to the tacit or implied denial of your infirmity of vision. For, this
infirmity you virtually deny, in refusing to employ the customary
means for its relief. You will understand me to say, then, that I
wish you to wear spectacles; -- ah, hush! -- you have already
consented to wear them, for my sake. You shall accept the little toy
which I now hold in my hand, and which, though admirable as an aid to
vision, is really of no very immense value as a gem. You perceive
that, by a trifling modification thus -- or thus -- it can be adapted
to the eyes in the form of spectacles, or worn in the waistcoat
pocket as an eye-glass. It is in the former mode, however, and
habitually, that you have already consented to wear it for my sake."
This request -- must I confess it? -- confused me in no little
degree. But the condition with which it was coupled rendered
hesitation, of course, a matter altogether out of the question.
"It is done!" I cried, with all the enthusiasm that I could muster at
the moment. "It is done -- it is most cheerfully agreed. I sacrifice
every feeling for your sake. To-night I wear this dear eye-glass, as
an eye-glass, and upon my heart; but with the earliest dawn of that
morning which gives me the pleasure of calling you wife, I will place
it upon my -- upon my nose, -- and there wear it ever afterward, in
the less romantic, and less fashionable, but certainly in the more
serviceable, form which you desire."
Our conversation now turned upon the details of our arrangements for
the morrow. Talbot, I learned from my betrothed, had just arrived in
town. I was to see him at once, and procure a carriage. The soiree
would scarcely break up before two; and by this hour the vehicle was
to be at the door, when, in the confusion occasioned by the departure
of the company, Madame L. could easily enter it unobserved. We were
then to call at the house of a clergyman who would be in waiting;
there be married, drop Talbot, and proceed on a short tour to the
East, leaving the fashionable world at home to make whatever comments
upon the matter it thought best.
Having planned all this, I immediately took leave, and went in search
of Talbot, but, on the way, I could not refrain from stepping into a
hotel, for the purpose of inspecting the miniature; and this I did by
the powerful aid of the glasses. The countenance was a surpassingly
beautiful one! Those large luminous eyes! -- that proud Grecian nose!
-- those dark luxuriant curls! -- "Ah!" said I, exultingly to myself,
"this is indeed the speaking image of my beloved!" I turned the
reverse, and discovered the words -- "Eugenie Lalande -- aged
twenty-seven years and seven months."
I found Talbot at home, and proceeded at once to acquaint him with my
good fortune. He professed excessive astonishment, of course, but
congratulated me most cordially, and proffered every assistance in
his power. In a word, we carried out our arrangement to the letter,
and, at two in the morning, just ten minutes after the ceremony, I
found myself in a close carriage with Madame Lalande -- with Mrs.
Simpson, I should say -- and driving at a great rate out of town, in
a direction Northeast by North, half-North.
It had been determined for us by Talbot, that, as we were to be up
all night, we should make our first stop at C--, a village about
twenty miles from the city, and there get an early breakfast and some
repose, before proceeding upon our route. At four precisely,
therefore, the carriage drew up at the door of the principal inn. I
handed my adored wife out, and ordered breakfast forthwith. In the
meantime we were shown into a small parlor, and sat down.
It was now nearly if not altogether daylight; and, as I gazed,
enraptured, at the angel by my side, the singular idea came, all at
once, into my head, that this was really the very first moment since
my acquaintance with the celebrated loveliness of Madame Lalande,
that I had enjoyed a near inspection of that loveliness by daylight
at all.
"And now, mon ami," said she, taking my hand, and so interrupting
this train of reflection, "and now, mon cher ami, since we are
indissolubly one -- since I have yielded to your passionate
entreaties, and performed my portion of our agreement -- I presume
you have not forgotten that you also have a little favor to bestow --
a little promise which it is your intention to keep. Ah! let me see!
Let me remember! Yes; full easily do I call to mind the precise words
of the dear promise you made to Eugenie last night. Listen! You spoke
thus: 'It is done! -- it is most cheerfully agreed! I sacrifice every
feeling for your sake. To-night I wear this dear eye-glass as an
eye-glass, and upon my heart; but with the earliest dawn of that
morning which gives me the privilege of calling you wife, I will
place it upon my -- upon my nose, -- and there wear it ever
afterward, in the less romantic, and less fashionable, but certainly
in the more serviceable, form which you desire.' These were the exact
words, my beloved husband, were they not?"
"They were," I said; "you have an excellent memory; and assuredly, my
beautiful Eugenie, there is no disposition on my part to evade the
performance of the trivial promise they imply. See! Behold! they are
becoming -- rather -- are they not?" And here, having arranged the
glasses in the ordinary form of spectacles, I applied them gingerly
in their proper position; while Madame Simpson, adjusting her cap,
and folding her arms, sat bolt upright in her chair, in a somewhat
stiff and prim, and indeed, in a somewhat undignified position.
"Goodness gracious me!" I exclaimed, almost at the very instant that
the rim of the spectacles had settled upon my nose -- "My goodness
gracious me! -- why, what can be the matter with these glasses?" and
taking them quickly off, I wiped them carefully with a silk
handkerchief, and adjusted them again.
But if, in the first instance, there had occurred something which
occasioned me surprise, in the second, this surprise became elevated
into astonishment; and this astonishment was profound -- was extreme-
indeed I may say it was horrific. What, in the name of everything
hideous, did this mean? Could I believe my eyes? -- could I? -- that
was the question. Was that -- was that -- was that rouge? And were
those- and were those -- were those wrinkles, upon the visage of
Eugenie Lalande? And oh! Jupiter, and every one of the gods and
goddesses, little and big! what -- what -- what -- what had become of
her teeth? I dashed the spectacles violently to the ground, and,
leaping to my feet, stood erect in the middle of the floor,
confronting Mrs. Simpson, with my arms set a-kimbo, and grinning and
foaming, but, at the same time, utterly speechless with terror and
with rage.
Now I have already said that Madame Eugenie Lalande -- that is to
say, Simpson -- spoke the English language but very little better
than she wrote it, and for this reason she very properly never
attempted to speak it upon ordinary occasions. But rage will carry a
lady to any extreme; and in the present care it carried Mrs. Simpson
to the very extraordinary extreme of attempting to hold a
conversation in a tongue that she did not altogether understand.
"Vell, Monsieur," said she, after surveying me, in great apparent
astonishment, for some moments -- "Vell, Monsieur? -- and vat den? --
vat de matter now? Is it de dance of de Saint itusse dat you ave? If
not like me, vat for vy buy de pig in the poke?"
"You wretch!" said I, catching my breath -- "you -- you -- you
villainous old hag!"
"Ag? -- ole? -- me not so ver ole, after all! Me not one single day
more dan de eighty-doo."
"Eighty-two!" I ejaculated, staggering to the wall -- "eighty-two
hundred thousand baboons! The miniature said twenty-seven years and
seven months!"
"To be sure! -- dat is so! -- ver true! but den de portraite has been
take for dese fifty-five year. Ven I go marry my segonde usbande,
Monsieur Lalande, at dat time I had de portraite take for my daughter
by my first usbande, Monsieur Moissart!"
"Moissart!" said I.
"Yes, Moissart," said she, mimicking my pronunciation, which, to
speak the truth, was none of the best, -- "and vat den? Vat you know
about de Moissart?"
"Nothing, you old fright! -- I know nothing about him at all; only I
had an ancestor of that name, once upon a time."
"Dat name! and vat you ave for say to dat name? 'Tis ver goot name;
and so is Voissart -- dat is ver goot name too. My daughter,
Mademoiselle Moissart, she marry von Monsieur Voissart, -- and de
name is bot ver respectaable name."
"Moissart?" I exclaimed, "and Voissart! Why, what is it you mean?"
"Vat I mean? -- I mean Moissart and Voissart; and for de matter of
dat, I mean Croissart and Froisart, too, if I only tink proper to
mean it. My daughter's daughter, Mademoiselle Voissart, she marry von
Monsieur Croissart, and den again, my daughter's grande daughter,
Mademoiselle Croissart, she marry von Monsieur Froissart; and I
suppose you say dat dat is not von ver respectaable name.-"
"Froissart!" said I, beginning to faint, "why, surely you don't say
Moissart, and Voissart, and Croissart, and Froissart?"
"Yes," she replied, leaning fully back in her chair, and stretching
out her lower limbs at great length; "yes, Moissart, and Voissart,
and Croissart, and Froissart. But Monsieur Froissart, he vas von ver
big vat you call fool -- he vas von ver great big donce like yourself
-- for he lef la belle France for come to dis stupide Amerique- and
ven he get here he went and ave von ver stupide, von ver, ver stupide
sonn, so I hear, dough I not yet av ad de plaisir to meet vid him --
neither me nor my companion, de Madame Stephanie Lalande. He is name
de Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart, and I suppose you say dat dat, too,
is not von ver respectable name."
Either the length or the nature of this speech, had the effect of
working up Mrs. Simpson into a very extraordinary passion indeed; and
as she made an end of it, with great labor, she lumped up from her
chair like somebody bewitched, dropping upon the floor an entire
universe of bustle as she lumped. Once upon her feet, she gnashed her
gums, brandished her arms, rolled up her sleeves, shook her fist in
my face, and concluded the performance by tearing the cap from her
head, and with it an immense wig of the most valuable and beautiful
black hair, the whole of which she dashed upon the ground with a
yell, and there trammpled and danced a fandango upon it, in an
absolute ecstasy and agony of rage.
Meantime I sank aghast into the chair which she had vacated.
"Moissart and Voissart!" I repeated, thoughtfully, as she cut one of
her pigeon-wings, and "Croissart and Froissart!" as she completed
another -- "Moissart and Voissart and Croissart and Napoleon
Bonaparte Froissart! -- why, you ineffable old serpent, that's me --
that's me -- d'ye hear? that's me" -- here I screamed at the top of
my voice -- "that's me-e-e! I am Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart! and if
I havn't married my great, great, grandmother, I wish I may be
everlastingly confounded!"
Madame Eugenie Lalande, quasi Simpson -- formerly Moissart -- was, in
sober fact, my great, great, grandmother. In her youth she had been
beautiful, and even at eighty-two, retained the majestic height, the
sculptural contour of head, the fine eyes and the Grecian nose of her
girlhood. By the aid of these, of pearl-powder, of rouge, of false
hair, false teeth, and false tournure, as well as of the most skilful
modistes of Paris, she contrived to hold a respectable footing among
the beauties en peu passees of the French metropolis. In this
respect, indeed, she might have been regarded as little less than the
equal of the celebrated Ninon De L'Enclos.
She was immensely wealthy, and being left, for the second time, a
widow without children, she bethought herself of my existence in
America, and for the purpose of making me her heir, paid a visit to
the United States, in company with a distant and exceedingly lovely
relative of her second husband's -- a Madame Stephanie Lalande.
At the opera, my great, great, grandmother's attention was arrested
by my notice; and, upon surveying me through her eye-glass, she was
struck with a certain family resemblance to herself. Thus interested,
and knowing that the heir she sought was actually in the city, she
made inquiries of her party respecting me. The gentleman who attended
her knew my person, and told her who I was. The information thus
obtained induced her to renew her scrutiny; and this scrutiny it was
which so emboldened me that I behaved in the absurd manner already
detailed. She returned my bow, however, under the impression that, by
some odd accident, I had discovered her identity. When, deceived by
my weakness of vision, and the arts of the toilet, in respect to the
age and charms of the strange lady, I demanded so enthusiastically of
Talbot who she was, he concluded that I meant the younger beauty, as
a matter of course, and so informed me, with perfect truth, that she
was "the celebrated widow, Madame Lalande."
In the street, next morning, my great, great, grandmother encountered
Talbot, an old Parisian acquaintance; and the conversation, very
naturally turned upon myself. My deficiencies of vision were then
explained; for these were notorious, although I was entirely ignorant
of their notoriety, and my good old relative discovered, much to her
chagrin, that she had been deceived in supposing me aware of her
identity, and that I had been merely making a fool of myself in
making open love, in a theatre, to an old woman unknown. By way of
punishing me for this imprudence, she concocted with Talbot a plot.
He purposely kept out of my way to avoid giving me the introduction.
My street inquiries about "the lovely widow, Madame Lalande," were
supposed to refer to the younger lady, of course, and thus the
conversation with the three gentlemen whom I encountered shortly
after leaving Talbot's hotel will be easily explained, as also their
allusion to Ninon De L'Enclos. I had no opportunity of seeing Madame
Lalande closely during daylight; and, at her musical soiree, my silly
weakness in refusing the aid of glasses effectually prevented me from
making a discovery of her age. When "Madame Lalande" was called upon
to sing, the younger lady was intended; and it was she who arose to
obey the call; my great, great, grandmother, to further the
deception, arising at the same moment and accompanying her to the
piano in the main drawing-room. Had I decided upon escorting her
thither, it had been her design to suggest the propriety of my
remaining where I was; but my own prudential views rendered this
unnecessary. The songs which I so much admired, and which so
confirmed my impression of the youth of my mistress, were executed by
Madame Stephanie Lalande. The eyeglass was presented by way of adding
a reproof to the hoax -- a sting to the epigram of the deception. Its
presentation afforded an opportunity for the lecture upon affectation
with which I was so especially edified. It is almost superfluous to
add that the glasses of the instrument, as worn by the old lady, had
been exchanged by her for a pair better adapted to my years. They
suited me, in fact, to a T.
The clergyman, who merely pretended to tie the fatal knot, was a boon
companion of Talbot's, and no priest. He was an excellent "whip,"
however; and having doffed his cassock to put on a great-coat, he
drove the hack which conveyed the "happy couple" out of town. Talbot
took a seat at his side. The two scoundrels were thus "in at the
death," and through a half-open window of the back parlor of the inn,
amused themselves in grinning at the denouement of the drama. I
believe I shall be forced to call them both out.
Nevertheless, I am not the husband of my great, great, grandmother;
and this is a reflection which affords me infinite relief, -- but I
am the husband of Madame Lalande -- of Madame Stephanie Lalande --
with whom my good old relative, besides making me her sole heir when
she dies -- if she ever does -- has been at the trouble of concocting
me a match. In conclusion: I am done forever with billets doux and am
never to be met without SPECTACLES.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
KING PEST.
A Tale Containing an Allegory.
The gods do bear and will allow in kings
The things which they abhor in rascal routes.
_Buckhurst's Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex._
ABOUT twelve o'clock, one night in the month of October, and during
the chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen belonging to the
crew of the "Free and Easy," a trading schooner plying between Sluys
and the Thames, and then at anchor in that river, were much
astonished to find themselves seated in the tap-room of an ale-house
in the parish of St. Andrews, London -- which ale-house bore for sign
the portraiture of a "Jolly Tar."
The room, although ill-contrived, smoke-blackened, low-pitched, and
in every other respect agreeing with the general character of such
places at the period -- was, nevertheless, in the opinion of the
grotesque groups scattered here and there within it, sufficiently
well adapted to its purpose.
Of these groups our two seamen formed, I think, the most interesting,
if not the most conspicuous.
The one who appeared to be the elder, and whom his companion
addressed by the characteristic appellation of "Legs," was at the
same time much the taller of the two. He might have measured six feet
and a half, and an habitual stoop in the shoulders seemed to have
been the necessary consequence of an altitude so enormous. --
Superfluities in height were, however, more than accounted for by
deficiencies in other respects. He was exceedingly thin; and might,
as his associates asserted, have answered, when drunk, for a pennant
at the mast-head, or, when sober, have served for a jib-boom. But
these jests, and others of a similar nature, had evidently produced,
at no time, any effect upon the cachinnatory muscles of the tar. With
high cheek-bones, a large hawk-nose, retreating chin, fallen
under-jaw, and huge protruding white eyes, the expression of his
countenance, although tinged with a species of dogged indifference to
matters and things in general, was not the less utterly solemn and
serious beyond all attempts at imitation or description.
The younger seaman was, in all outward appearance, the converse of
his companion. His stature could not have exceeded four feet. A pair
of stumpy bow-legs supported his squat, unwieldy figure, while his
unusually short and thick arms, with no ordinary fists at their
extremities, swung off dangling from his sides like the fins of a
sea-turtle. Small eyes, of no particular color, twinkled far back in
his head. His nose remained buried in the mass of flesh which
enveloped his round, full, and purple face; and his thick upper-lip
rested upon the still thicker one beneath with an air of complacent
self-satisfaction, much heightened by the owner's habit of licking
them at intervals. He evidently regarded his tall shipmate with a
feeling half-wondrous, half-quizzical; and stared up occasionally in
his face as the red setting sun stares up at the crags of Ben Nevis.
Various and eventful, however, had been the peregrinations of the
worthy couple in and about the different tap-houses of the
neighbourhood during the earlier hours of the night. Funds even the
most ample, are not always everlasting: and it was with empty pockets
our friends had ventured upon the present hostelrie.
At the precise period, then, when this history properly commences,
Legs, and his fellow Hugh Tarpaulin, sat, each with both elbows
resting upon the large oaken table in the middle of the floor, and
with a hand upon either cheek. They were eyeing, from behind a huge
flagon of unpaid-for "humming-stuff," the portentous words, "No
Chalk," which to their indignation and astonishment were scored over
the doorway by means of that very mineral whose presence they
purported to deny. Not that the gift of decyphering written
characters -- a gift among the commonalty of that day considered
little less cabalistical than the art of inditing -- could, in strict
justice, have been laid to the charge of either disciple of the sea;
but there was, to say the truth, a certain twist in the formation of
the letters -- an indescribable lee-lurch about the whole -- -which
foreboded, in the opinion of both seamen, a long run of dirty
weather; and determined them at once, in the allegorical words of
Legs himself, to "pump ship, clew up all sail, and scud before the
wind."
Having accordingly disposed of what remained of the ale, and looped
up the points of their short doublets, they finally made a bolt for
the street. Although Tarpaulin rolled twice into the fire-place,
mistaking it for the door, yet their escape was at length happily
effected -- and half after twelve o'clock found our heroes ripe for
mischief, and running for life down a dark alley in the direction of
St. Andrew's Stair, hotly pursued by the landlady of the "Jolly Tar."
At the epoch of this eventful tale, and periodically, for many years
before and after, all England, but more especially the metropolis,
resounded with the fearful cry of "Plague!" The city was in a great
measure depopulated -- and in those horrible regions, in the vicinity
of the Thames, where amid the dark, narrow, and filthy lanes and
alleys, the Demon of Disease was supposed to have had his nativity,
Awe, Terror, and Superstition were alone to be found stalking abroad.
By authority of the king such districts were placed under ban, and
all persons forbidden, under pain of death, to intrude upon their
dismal solitude. Yet neither the mandate of the monarch, nor the huge
barriers erected at the entrances of the streets, nor the prospect of
that loathsome death which, with almost absolute certainty,
overwhelmed the wretch whom no peril could deter from the adventure,
prevented the unfurnished and untenanted dwellings from being
stripped, by the hand of nightly rapine, of every article, such as
iron, brass, or lead-work, which could in any manner be turned to a
profitable account.
Above all, it was usually found, upon the annual winter opening of
the barriers, that locks, bolts, and secret cellars, had proved but
slender protection to those rich stores of wines and liquors which,
in consideration of the risk and trouble of removal, many of the
numerous dealers having shops in the neighbourhood had consented to
trust, during the period of exile, to so insufficient a security.
But there were very few of the terror-stricken people who attributed
these doings to the agency of human hands. Pest-spirits,
plague-goblins, and fever-demons, were the popular imps of mischief;
and tales so blood-chilling were hourly told, that the whole mass of
forbidden buildings was, at length, enveloped in terror as in a
shroud, and the plunderer himself was often scared away by the
horrors his own depreciations had created; leaving the entire vast
circuit of prohibited district to gloom, silence, pestilence, and
death.
It was by one of the terrific barriers already mentioned, and which
indicated the region beyond to be under the Pest-ban, that, in
scrambling down an alley, Legs and the worthy Hugh Tarpaulin found
their progress suddenly impeded. To return was out of the question,
and no time was to be lost, as their pursuers were close upon their
heels. With thorough-bred seamen to clamber up the roughly fashioned
plank-work was a trifle; and, maddened with the twofold excitement of
exercise and liquor, they leaped unhesitatingly down within the
enclosure, and holding on their drunken course with shouts and
yellings, were soon bewildered in its noisome and intricate recesses.
Had they not, indeed, been intoxicated beyond moral sense, their
reeling footsteps must have been palsied by the horrors of their
situation. The air was cold and misty. The paving-stones, loosened
from their beds, lay in wild disorder amid the tall, rank grass,
which sprang up around the feet and ankles. Fallen houses choked up
the streets. The most fetid and poisonous smells everywhere
prevailed; -- and by the aid of that ghastly light which, even at
midnight, never fails to emanate from a vapory and pestilential at
atmosphere, might be discerned lying in the by-paths and alleys, or
rotting in the windowless habitations, the carcass of many a
nocturnal plunderer arrested by the hand of the plague in the very
perpetration of his robbery.
-- But it lay not in the power of images, or sensations, or
impediments such as these, to stay the course of men who, naturally
brave, and at that time especially, brimful of courage and of
"humming-stuff!" would have reeled, as straight as their condition
might have permitted, undauntedly into the very jaws of Death. Onward
-- still onward stalked the grim Legs, making the desolate solemnity
echo and re-echo with yells like the terrific war-whoop of the
Indian: and onward, still onward rolled the dumpy Tarpaulin, hanging
on to the doublet of his more active companion, and far surpassing
the latter's most strenuous exertions in the way of vocal music, by
bull-roarings in basso, from the profundity of his stentorian lungs.
They had now evidently reached the strong hold of the pestilence.
Their way at every step or plunge grew more noisome and more horrible
-- the paths more narrow and more intricate. Huge stones and beams
falling momently from the decaying roofs above them, gave evidence,
by their sullen and heavy descent, of the vast height of the
surrounding houses; and while actual exertion became necessary to
force a passage through frequent heaps of rubbish, it was by no means
seldom that the hand fell upon a skeleton or rested upon a more
fleshly corpse.
Suddenly, as the seamen stumbled against the entrance of a tall and
ghastly-looking building, a yell more than usually shrill from the
throat of the excited Legs, was replied to from within, in a rapid
succession of wild, laughter-like, and fiendish shrieks. Nothing
daunted at sounds which, of such a nature, at such a time, and in
such a place, might have curdled the very blood in hearts less
irrevocably on fire, the drunken couple rushed headlong against the
door, burst it open, and staggered into the midst of things with a
volley of curses.
The room within which they found themselves proved to be the shop of
an undertaker; but an open trap-door, in a corner of the floor near
the entrance, looked down upon a long range of wine-cellars, whose
depths the occasional sound of bursting bottles proclaimed to be well
stored with their appropriate contents. In the middle of the room
stood a table -- in the centre of which again arose a huge tub of
what appeared to be punch. Bottles of various wines and cordials,
together with jugs, pitchers, and flagons of every shape and quality,
were scattered profusely upon the board. Around it, upon
coffin-tressels, was seated a company of six. This company I will
endeavor to delineate one by one.
Fronting the entrance, and elevated a little above his companions,
sat a personage who appeared to be the president of the table. His
stature was gaunt and tall, and Legs was confounded to behold in him
a figure more emaciated than himself. His face was as yellow as
saffron -- but no feature excepting one alone, was sufficiently
marked to merit a particular description. This one consisted in a
forehead so unusually and hideously lofty, as to have the appearance
of a bonnet or crown of flesh superadded upon the natural head. His
mouth was puckered and dimpled into an expression of ghastly
affability, and his eyes, as indeed the eyes of all at table, were
glazed over with the fumes of intoxication. This gentleman was
clothed from head to foot in a richly-embroidered black silk-velvet
pall, wrapped negligently around his form after the fashion of a
Spanish cloak. -- His head was stuck full of sable hearse-plumes,
which he nodded to and fro with a jaunty and knowing air; and, in his
right hand, he held a huge human thigh-bone, with which he appeared
to have been just knocking down some member of the company for a
song.
Opposite him, and with her back to the door, was a lady of no whit
the less extraordinary character. Although quite as tall as the
person just described, she had no right to complain of his unnatural
emaciation. She was evidently in the last stage of a dropsy; and her
figure resembled nearly that of the huge puncheon of October beer
which stood, with the head driven in, close by her side, in a corner
of the chamber. Her face was exceedingly round, red, and full; and
the same peculiarity, or rather want of peculiarity, attached itself
to her countenance, which I before mentioned in the case of the
president -- that is to say, only one feature of her face was
sufficiently distinguished to need a separate characterization:
indeed the acute Tarpaulin immediately observed that the same remark
might have applied to each individual person of the party; every one
of whom seemed to possess a monopoly of some particular portion of
physiognomy. With the lady in question this portion proved to be the
mouth. Commencing at the right ear, it swept with a terrific chasm to
the left -- the short pendants which she wore in either auricle
continually bobbing into the aperture. She made, however, every
exertion to keep her mouth closed and look dignified, in a dress
consisting of a newly starched and ironed shroud coming up close
under her chin, with a crimpled ruffle of cambric muslin.
At her right hand sat a diminutive young lady whom she appeared to
patronise. This delicate little creature, in the trembling of her
wasted fingers, in the livid hue of her lips, and in the slight
hectic spot which tinged her otherwise leaden complexion, gave
evident indications of a galloping consumption. An air of gave
extreme haut ton, however, pervaded her whole appearance; she wore in
a graceful and degage manner, a large and beautiful winding-sheet of
the finest India lawn; her hair hung in ringlets over her neck; a
soft smile played about her mouth; but her nose, extremely long,
thin, sinuous, flexible and pimpled, hung down far below her under
lip, and in spite of the delicate manner in which she now and then
moved it to one side or the other with her tongue, gave to her
countenance a somewhat equivocal expression.
Over against her, and upon the left of the dropsical lady, was seated
a little puffy, wheezing, and gouty old man, whose cheeks reposed
upon the shoulders of their owner, like two huge bladders of Oporto
wine. With his arms folded, and with one bandaged leg deposited upon
the table, he seemed to think himself entitled to some consideration.
He evidently prided himself much upon every inch of his personal
appearance, but took more especial delight in calling attention to
his gaudy-colored surtout. This, to say the truth, must have cost him
no little money, and was made to fit him exceedingly well -- being
fashioned from one of the curiously embroidered silken covers
appertaining to those glorious escutcheons which, in England and
elsewhere, are customarily hung up, in some conspicuous place, upon
the dwellings of departed aristocracy.
Next to him, and at the right hand of the president, was a gentleman
in long white hose and cotton drawers. His frame shook, in a
ridiculous manner, with a fit of what Tarpaulin called "the horrors."
His jaws, which had been newly shaved, were tightly tied up by a
bandage of muslin; and his arms being fastened in a similar way at
the wrists, I I prevented him from helping himself too freely to the
liquors upon the table; a precaution rendered necessary, in the
opinion of Legs, by the peculiarly sottish and wine-bibbing cast of
his visage. A pair of prodigious ears, nevertheless, which it was no
doubt found impossible to confine, towered away into the atmosphere
of the apartment, and were occasionally pricked up in a spasm, at the
sound of the drawing of a cork.
Fronting him, sixthly and lastly, was situated a singularly
stiff-looking personage, who, being afflicted with paralysis, must,
to speak seriously, have felt very ill at ease in his unaccommodating
habiliments. He was habited, somewhat uniquely, in a new and handsome
mahogany coffin. Its top or head-piece pressed upon the skull of the
wearer, and extended over it in the fashion of a hood, giving to the
entire face an air of indescribable interest. Arm-holes had been cut
in the sides, for the sake not more of elegance than of convenience;
but the dress, nevertheless, prevented its proprietor from sitting as
erect as his associates; and as he lay reclining against his tressel,
at an angle of forty-five degrees, a pair of huge goggle eyes rolled
up their awful whites towards the celling in absolute amazement at
their own enormity.
Before each of the party lay a portion of a skull, which was used as
a drinking cup. Overhead was suspended a human skeleton, by means of
a rope tied round one of the legs and fastened to a ring in the
ceiling. The other limb, confined by no such fetter, stuck off from
the body at right angles, causing the whole loose and rattling frame
to dangle and twirl about at the caprice of every occasional puff of
wind which found its way into the apartment. In the cranium of this
hideous thing lay quantity of ignited charcoal, which threw a fitful
but vivid light over the entire scene; while coffins, and other wares
appertaining to the shop of an undertaker, were piled high up around
the room, and against the windows, preventing any ray from escaping
into the street.
At sight of this extraordinary assembly, and of their still more
extraordinary paraphernalia, our two seamen did not conduct
themselves with that degree of decorum which might have been
expected. Legs, leaning against the wall near which he happened to be
standing, dropped his lower jaw still lower than usual, and spread
open his eyes to their fullest extent: while Hugh Tarpaulin, stooping
down so as to bring his nose upon a level with the table, and
spreading out a palm upon either knee, burst into a long, loud, and
obstreperous roar of very ill-timed and immoderate laughter.
Without, however, taking offence at behaviour so excessively rude,
the tall president smiled very graciously upon the intruders --
nodded to them in a dignified manner with his head of sable plumes --
and, arising, took each by an arm, and led him to a seat which some
others of the company had placed in the meantime for his
accommodation. Legs to all this offered not the slightest resistance,
but sat down as he was directed; while tile gallant Hugh, removing
his coffin tressel from its station near the head of the table, to
the vicinity of the little consumptive lady in the winding sheet,
plumped down by her side in high glee, and pouring out a skull of red
wine, quaffed it to their better acquaintance. But at this
presumption the stiff gentleman in the coffin seemed exceedingly
nettled; and serious consequences might have ensued, had not the
president, rapping upon the table with his truncheon, diverted the
attention of all present to the following speech:
"It becomes our duty upon the present happy occasion" --
"Avast there!" interrupted Legs, looking very serious, "avast there a
bit, I say, and tell us who the devil ye all are, and what business
ye have here, rigged off like the foul fiends, and swilling the snug
blue ruin stowed away for the winter by my honest shipmate, Will
Wimble the undertaker!"
At this unpardonable piece of ill-breeding, all the original company
half started to their feet, and uttered the same rapid succession of
wild fiendish shrieks which had before caught the attention of the
seamen. The president, however, was the first to recover his
composure, and at length, turning to Legs with great dignity,
recommenced:
"Most willingly will we gratify any reasonable curiosity on the part
of guests so illustrious, unbidden though they be. Know then that in
these dominions I am monarch, and here rule with undivided empire
under the title of 'King Pest the First.'
"This apartment, which you no doubt profanely suppose to be the shop
of Will Wimble the undertaker -- a man whom we know not, and whose
plebeian appellation has never before this night thwarted our royal
ears -- this apartment, I say, is the Dais-Chamber of our Palace,
devoted to the councils of our kingdom, and to other sacred and lofty
purposes.
"The noble lady who sits opposite is Queen Pest, our Serene Consort.
The other exalted personages whom you behold are all of our family,
and wear the insignia of the blood royal under the respective titles
of 'His Grace the Arch Duke Pest-Iferous' -- 'His Grace the Duke
Pest-Ilential' -- 'His Grace the Duke Tem-Pest' -- and 'Her Serene
Highness the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.'
"As regards," continued he, "your demand of the business upon which
we sit here in council, we might be pardoned for replying that it
concerns, and concerns alone, our own private and regal interest, and
is in no manner important to any other than ourself. But in
consideration of those rights to which as guests and strangers you
may feel yourselves entitled, we will furthermore explain that we are
here this night, prepared by deep research and accurate
investigation, to examine, analyze, and thoroughly determine the
indefinable spirit -- the incomprehensible qualities and nature -- of
those inestimable treasures of the palate, the wines, ales, and
liqueurs of this goodly metropolis: by so doing to advance not more
our own designs than the true welfare of that unearthly sovereign
whose reign is over us all, whose dominions are unlimited, and whose
name is 'Death.'
"Whose name is Davy Jones!" ejaculated Tarpaulin, helping the lady by
his side to a skull of liqueur, and pouring out a second for himself.
"Profane varlet!" said the president, now turning his attention to
the worthy Hugh, "profane and execrable wretch! -- we have said, that
in consideration of those rights which, even in thy filthy person, we
feel no inclination to violate, we have condescended to make reply to
thy rude and unseasonable inquiries. We nevertheless, for your
unhallowed intrusion upon our councils, believe it our duty to mulct
thee and thy companion in each a gallon of Black Strap -- having
imbibed which to the prosperity of our kingdom -- at a single draught
-- and upon your bended knees -- ye shall be forthwith free either to
proceed upon your way, or remain and be admitted to the privileges of
our table, according to your respective and individual pleasures."
"It would be a matter of utter impossibility," replied Legs, whom the
assumptions and dignity of King Pest the First had evidently inspired
some feelings of respect, and who arose and steadied himself by the
table as he spoke -- "It would, please your majesty, be a matter of
utter impossibility to stow away in my hold even one-fourth part of
the same liquor which your majesty has just mentioned. To say nothing
of the stuffs placed on board in the forenoon by way of ballast, and
not to mention the various ales and liqueurs shipped this evening at
different sea-ports, I have, at present, a full cargo of 'humming
stuff' taken in and duly paid for at the sign of the 'Jolly Tar.' You
will, therefore, please your majesty, be so good as to take the will
for the deed -- for by no manner of means either can I or will I
swallow another drop -- least of all a drop of that villainous
bilge-water that answers to the hall of 'Black Strap.'"
"Belay that!" interrupted Tarpaulin, astonished not more at the
length of his companion's speech than at the nature of his refusal --
"Belay that you tubber! -- and I say, Legs, none of your palaver! My
hull is still light, although I confess you yourself seem to be a
little top-heavy; and as for the matter of your share of the cargo,
why rather than raise a squall I would find stowageroom for it
myself, but" --
"This proceeding," interposed the president, "is by no means in
accordance with the terms of the mulct or sentence, which is in its
nature Median, and not to be altered or recalled. The conditions we
have imposed must be fulfilled to the letter, and that without a
moment's hesitation -- in failure of which fulfilment we decree that
you do here be tied neck and heels together, and duly drowned as
rebels in yon hogshead of October beer!"
"A sentence! -- a sentence! -- a righteous and just sentence! -- a
glorious decree! -- a most worthy and upright, and holy
condemnation!" shouted the Pest family altogether. The king elevated
his forehead into innumerable wrinkles; the gouty little old man
puffed like a pair of bellows; the lady of the winding sheet waved
her nose to and fro; the gentleman in the cotton drawers pricked up
his ears; she of the shroud gasped like a dying fish; and he of the
coffin looked stiff and rolled up his eyes.
"Ugh! ugh! ugh!" chuckled Tarpaulin without heeding the general
excitation, "ugh! ugh! ugh! -- ugh! ugh! ugh! -- ugh! ugh! ugh! -- I
was saying," said he, "I was saying when Mr. King Pest poked in his
marlin-spike, that as for the matter of two or three gallons more or
less of Black Strap, it was a trifle to a tight sea-boat like myself
not overstowed -- but when it comes to drinking the health of the
Devil (whom God assoilzie) and going down upon my marrow bones to his
ill-favored majesty there, whom I know, as well as I know myself to
be a sinner, to be nobody in the whole world, but Tim Hurlygurly the
stage-player -- why! it's quite another guess sort of a thing, and
utterly and altogether past my comprehension."
He was not allowed to finish this speech in tranquillity. At the name
Tim Hurlygurly the whole assembly leaped from their name seats.
"Treason!" shouted his Majesty King Pest the First.
"Treason!" said the little man with the gout.
"Treason!" screamed the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
"Treason!" muttered the gentleman with his jaws tied up.
"Treason!" growled he of the coffin.
"Treason! treason!" shrieked her majesty of the mouth; and, seizing
by the hinder part of his breeches the unfortunate Tarpaulin, who had
just commenced pouring out for himself a skull of liqueur, she lifted
him high into the air, and let him fall without ceremony into the
huge open puncheon of his beloved ale. Bobbing up and down, for a few
seconds, like an apple in a bowl of toddy, he, at length, finally
disappeared amid the whirlpool of foam which, in the already
effervescent liquor, his struggles easily succeeded in creating.
Not tamely, however, did the tall seaman behold the discomfiture of
his companion. Jostling King Pest through the open trap, the valiant
Legs slammed the door down upon him with an oath, and strode towards
the centre of the room. Here tearing down the skeleton which swung
over the table, he laid it about him with so much energy and good
will, that, as the last glimpses of light died away within the
apartment, he succeeded in knocking out the brains of the little
gentleman with the gout. Rushing then with all his force against the
fatal hogshead full of October ale and Hugh Tarpaulin, he rolled it
over and over in an instant. Out burst a deluge of liquor so fierce
-- so impetuous -- so overwhelming -- that the room was flooded from
wall to wall -- the loaded table was overturned -- the tressels were
thrown upon their backs -- the tub of punch into the fire-place --
and the ladies into hysterics. Piles of death-furniture floundered
about. Jugs, pitchers, and carboys mingled promiscuously in the
melee, and wicker flagons encountered desperately with bottles of
junk. The man with the horrors was drowned upon the spot-the little
stiff gentleman floated off in his coffin -- and the victorious Legs,
seizing by the waist the fat lady in the shroud, rushed out with her
into the street, and made a bee-line for the "Free and Easy,"
followed under easy sail by the redoubtable Hugh Tarpaulin, who,
having sneezed three or four times, panted and puffed after him with
the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THREE SUNDAYS IN A WEEK
YOU hard-headed, dunder-headed, obstinate, rusty, crusty, musty,
fusty, old savage!" said I, in fancy, one afternoon, to my grand
uncle Rumgudgeon -- shaking my fist at him in imagination.
Only in imagination. The fact is, some trivial discrepancy did exist,
just then, between what I said and what I had not the courage to say
-- between what I did and what I had half a mind to do.
The old porpoise, as I opened the drawing-room door, was sitting with
his feet upon the mantel-piece, and a bumper of port in his paw,
making strenuous efforts to accomplish the ditty.
Remplis ton verre vide!
Vide ton verre plein!
"My dear uncle," said I, closing the door gently, and approaching him
with the blandest of smiles, "you are always so very kind and
considerate, and have evinced your benevolence in so many -- so very
many ways -- that -- that I feel I have only to suggest this little
point to you once more to make sure of your full acquiescence."
"Hem!" said he, "good boy! go on!"
"I am sure, my dearest uncle [you confounded old rascal!], that you
have no design really, seriously, to oppose my union with Kate. This
is merely a joke of yours, I know -- ha! ha! ha! -- how very pleasant
you are at times."
"Ha! ha! ha!" said he, "curse you! yes!"
"To be sure -- of course! I knew you were jesting. Now, uncle, all
that Kate and myself wish at present, is that you would oblige us
with your advice as -- as regards the time -- you know, uncle -- in
short, when will it be most convenient for yourself, that the wedding
shall -- shall come off, you know?"
"Come off, you scoundrel! -- what do you mean by that? -- Better wait
till it goes on."
"Ha! ha! ha! -- he! he! he! -- hi! hi! hi! -- ho! ho! ho! -- hu! hu!
hu!- that's good! -- oh that's capital -- such a wit! But all we want
just now, you know, uncle, is that you would indicate the time
precisely."
"Ah! -- precisely?"
"Yes, uncle -- that is, if it would be quite agreeable to yourself."
"Wouldn't it answer, Bobby, if I were to leave it at random -- some
time within a year or so, for example? -- must I say precisely?"
"If you please, uncle -- precisely."
"Well, then, Bobby, my boy -- you're a fine fellow, aren't you? --
since you will have the exact time I'll -- why I'll oblige you for
once:"
"Dear uncle!"
"Hush, sir!" [drowning my voice] -- I'll oblige you for once. You
shall have my consent -- and the plum, we mus'n't forget the plum --
let me see! when shall it be? To-day's Sunday -- isn't it? Well,
then, you shall be married precisely -- precisely, now mind! -- when
three Sundays come together in a week! Do you hear me, sir! What are
you gaping at? I say, you shall have Kate and her plum when three
Sundays come together in a week -- but not till then -- you young
scapegrace -- not till then, if I die for it. You know me -- I'm a
man of my word -- now be off!" Here he swallowed his bumper of port,
while I rushed from the room in despair.
A very "fine old English gentleman," was my grand-uncle Rumgudgeon,
but unlike him of the song, he had his weak points. He was a little,
pursy, pompous, passionate semicircular somebody, with a red nose, a
thick scull, [sic] a long purse, and a strong sense of his own
consequence. With the best heart in the world, he contrived, through
a predominant whim of contradiction, to earn for himself, among those
who only knew him superficially, the character of a curmudgeon. Like
many excellent people, he seemed possessed with a spirit of
tantalization, which might easily, at a casual glance, have been
mistaken for malevolence. To every request, a positive "No!" was his
immediate answer, but in the end -- in the long, long end -- there
were exceedingly few requests which he refused. Against all attacks
upon his purse he made the most sturdy defence; but the amount
extorted from him, at last, was generally in direct ratio with the
length of the siege and the stubbornness of the resistance. In
charity no one gave more liberally or with a worse grace.
For the fine arts, and especially for the belles-lettres, he
entertained a profound contempt. With this he had been inspired by
Casimir Perier, whose pert little query "A quoi un poete est il bon?"
he was in the habit of quoting, with a very droll pronunciation, as
the ne plus ultra of logical wit. Thus my own inkling for the Muses
had excited his entire displeasure. He assured me one day, when I
asked him for a new copy of Horace, that the translation of "Poeta
nascitur non fit" was "a nasty poet for nothing fit" -- a remark
which I took in high dudgeon. His repugnance to "the humanities" had,
also, much increased of late, by an accidental bias in favor of what
he supposed to be natural science. Somebody had accosted him in the
street, mistaking him for no less a personage than Doctor Dubble L.
Dee, the lecturer upon quack physics. This set him off at a tangent;
and just at the epoch of this story -- for story it is getting to be
after all -- my grand-uncle Rumgudgeon was accessible and pacific
only upon points which happened to chime in with the caprioles of the
hobby he was riding. For the rest, he laughed with his arms and legs,
and his politics were stubborn and easily understood. He thought,
with Horsley, that "the people have nothing to do with the laws but
to obey them."
I had lived with the old gentleman all my life. My parents, in dying,
had bequeathed me to him as a rich legacy. I believe the old villain
loved me as his own child -- nearly if not quite as well as he loved
Kate -- but it was a dog's existence that he led me, after all. From
my first year until my fifth, he obliged me with very regular
floggings. From five to fifteen, he threatened me, hourly, with the
House of Correction. From fifteen to twenty, not a day passed in
which he did not promise to cut me off with a shilling. I was a sad
dog, it is true -- but then it was a part of my nature -- a point of
my faith. In Kate, however, I had a firm friend, and I knew it. She
was a good girl, and told me very sweetly that I might have her (plum
and all) whenever I could badger my grand-uncle Rumgudgeon, into the
necessary consent. Poor girl! -- she was barely fifteen, and without
this consent, her little amount in the funds was not come-at-able
until five immeasurable summers had "dragged their slow length
along." What, then, to do? At fifteen, or even at twenty-one [for I
had now passed my fifth olympiad] five years in prospect are very
much the same as five hundred. In vain we besieged the old gentleman
with importunities. Here was a piece de resistance (as Messieurs Ude
and Careme would say) which suited his perverse fancy to a T. It
would have stiffed the indignation of Job himself, to see how much
like an old mouser he behaved to us two poor wretched little mice. In
his heart he wished for nothing more ardently than our union. He had
made up his mind to this all along. In fact, he would have given ten
thousand pounds from his own pocket (Kate's plum was her own) if he
could have invented any thing like an excuse for complying with our
very natural wishes. But then we had been so imprudent as to broach
the subject ourselves. Not to oppose it under such circumstances, I
sincerely believe, was not in his power.
I have said already that he had his weak points; but in speaking of
these, I must not be understood as referring to his obstinacy: which
was one of his strong points -- "assurement ce n' etait pas sa
foible." When I mention his weakness I have allusion to a bizarre
old-womanish superstition which beset him. He was great in dreams,
portents, et id genus omne of rigmarole. He was excessively
punctilious, too, upon small points of honor, and, after his own
fashion, was a man of his word, beyond doubt. This was, in fact, one
of his hobbies. The spirit of his vows he made no scruple of setting
at naught, but the letter was a bond inviolable. Now it was this
latter peculiarity in his disposition, of which Kates ingenuity
enabled us one fine day, not long after our interview in the
dining-room, to take a very unexpected advantage, and, having thus,
in the fashion of all modern bards and orators, exhausted in
prolegomena, all the time at my command, and nearly all the room at
my disposal, I will sum up in a few words what constitutes the whole
pith of the story.
It happened then -- so the Fates ordered it -- that among the naval
acquaintances of my betrothed, were two gentlemen who had just set
foot upon the shores of England, after a year's absence, each, in
foreign travel. In company with these gentlemen, my cousin and I,
preconcertedly paid uncle Rumgudgeon a visit on the afternoon of
Sunday, October the tenth, -- just three weeks after the memorable
decision which had so cruelly defeated our hopes. For about half an
hour the conversation ran upon ordinary topics, but at last, we
contrived, quite naturally, to give it the following turn:
CAPT. PRATT. "Well I have been absent just one year. -- Just one year
to-day, as I live -- let me see! yes! -- this is October the tenth.
You remember, Mr. Rumgudgeon, I called, this day year to bid you
good-bye. And by the way, it does seem something like a coincidence,
does it not -- that our friend, Captain Smitherton, here, has been
absent exactly a year also -- a year to-day!"
SMITHERTON. "Yes! just one year to a fraction. You will remember, Mr.
Rumgudgeon, that I called with Capt. Pratol on this very day, last
year, to pay my parting respects."
UNCLE. "Yes, yes, yes -- I remember it very well -- very queer
indeed! Both of you gone just one year. A very strange coincidence,
indeed! Just what Doctor Dubble L. Dee would denominate an
extraordinary concurrence of events. Doctor Dub-"
KATE. [Interrupting.] "To be sure, papa, it is something strange; but
then Captain Pratt and Captain Smitherton didn't go altogether the
same route, and that makes a difference, you know."
UNCLE. "I don't know any such thing, you huzzy! How should I? I think
it only makes the matter more remarkable, Doctor Dubble L. Dee-
KATE. Why, papa, Captain Pratt went round Cape Horn, and Captain
Smitherton doubled the Cape of Good Hope."
UNCLE. "Precisely! -- the one went east and the other went west, you
jade, and they both have gone quite round the world. By the by,
Doctor Dubble L. Dee-
MYSELF. [Hurriedly.] "Captain Pratt, you must come and spend the
evening with us to-morrow -- you and Smitherton -- you can tell us
all about your voyage, and well have a game of whist and-
PRATT. "Wist, my dear fellow -- you forget. To-morrow will be Sunday.
Some other evening-
KATE. "Oh, no. fie! -- Robert's not quite so bad as that. To-day's
Sunday."
PRATT. "I beg both your pardons -- but I can't be so much mistaken. I
know to-morrow's Sunday, because-"
SMITHERTON. [Much surprised.] "What are you all thinking about?
Wasn't yesterday, Sunday, I should like to know?"
ALL. "Yesterday indeed! you are out!"
UNCLE. "To-days Sunday, I say -- don't I know?"
PRATT. "Oh no! -- to-morrow's Sunday."
SMITHERTON. "You are all mad -- every one of you. I am as positive
that yesterday was Sunday as I am that I sit upon this chair."
KATE. [jumping up eagerly.] "I see it -- I see it all. Papa, this is
a judgment upon you, about -- about you know what. Let me alone, and
I'll explain it all in a minute. It's a very simple thing, indeed.
Captain Smitherton says that yesterday was Sunday: so it was; he is
right. Cousin Bobby, and uncle and I say that to-day is Sunday: so it
is; we are right. Captain Pratt maintains that to-morrow will be
Sunday: so it will; he is right, too. The fact is, we are all right,
and thus three Sundays have come together in a week."
SMITHERTON. [After a pause.] "By the by, Pratt, Kate has us
completely. What fools we two are! Mr. Rumgudgeon, the matter stands
thus: the earth, you know, is twenty-four thousand miles in
circumference. Now this globe of the earth turns upon its own axis-
revolves -- spins round -- these twenty-four thousand miles of
extent, going from west to east, in precisely twenty-four hours. Do
you understand Mr. Rumgudgeon?-"
UNCLE. "To be sure -- to be sure -- Doctor Dub-"
SMITHERTON. [Drowning his voice.] "Well, sir; that is at the rate of
one thousand miles per hour. Now, suppose that I sail from this
position a thousand miles east. Of course I anticipate the rising of
the sun here at London by just one hour. I see the sun rise one hour
before you do. Proceeding, in the same direction, yet another
thousand miles, I anticipate the rising by two hours -- another
thousand, and I anticipate it by three hours, and so on, until I go
entirely round the globe, and back to this spot, when, having gone
twenty-four thousand miles east, I anticipate the rising of the
London sun by no less than twenty-four hours; that is to say, I am a
day in advance of your time. Understand, eh?"
UNCLE. "But Double L. Dee-"
SMITHERTON. [Speaking very loud.] "Captain Pratt, on the contrary,
when he had sailed a thousand miles west of this position, was an
hour, and when he had sailed twenty-four thousand miles west, was
twenty-four hours, or one day, behind the time at London. Thus, with
me, yesterday was Sunday -- thus, with you, to-day is Sunday -- and
thus, with Pratt, to-morrow will be Sunday. And what is more, Mr.
Rumgudgeon, it is positively clear that we are all right; for there
can be no philosophical reason assigned why the idea of one of us
should have preference over that of the other."
UNCLE. "My eyes! -- well, Kate -- well, Bobby! -- this is a judgment
upon me, as you say. But I am a man of my word -- mark that! you
shall have her, boy, (plum and all), when you please. Done up, by
Jove! Three Sundays all in a row! I'll go, and take Dubble L. Dee's
opinion upon that."
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 3
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 4
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[Redactor's note: This is volume 4 of the five volume "Raven Edition"
of the Works of Poe. The only figure is that of the Chess automaton
in Maelzel's Chess Player. There are several greek words.]
THE WORKS OF
EDGAR ALLAN POE
IN FIVE VOLUMES
VOLUME FOUR
Contents
The Devil in the Belfry
Lionizing
X-ing a Paragrab
Metzengerstein
The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq.
How to Write a Blackwood article
A Predicament
Mystification
Diddling
The Angel of the Odd
Mellonia Tauta
The Duc de l'Omlette
The Oblong Box
Loss of Breath
The Man That Was Used Up
The Business Man
The Landscape Garden
Maelzel's Chess-Player
The Power of Words
The Colloquy of Monas and Una
The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion
Shadow.--A Parable
======
THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY
What o'clock is it? -- _Old Saying_.
EVERYBODY knows, in a general way, that the finest place in the world
is -- or, alas, was -- the Dutch borough of Vondervotteimittiss. Yet
as it lies some distance from any of the main roads, being in a
somewhat out-of-the-way situation, there are perhaps very few of my
readers who have ever paid it a visit. For the benefit of those who
have not, therefore, it will be only proper that I should enter into
some account of it. And this is indeed the more necessary, as with
the hope of enlisting public sympathy in behalf of the inhabitants, I
design here to give a history of the calamitous events which have so
lately occurred within its limits. No one who knows me will doubt
that the duty thus self-imposed will be executed to the best of my
ability, with all that rigid impartiality, all that cautious
examination into facts, and diligent collation of authorities, which
should ever distinguish him who aspires to the title of historian.
By the united aid of medals, manuscripts, and inscriptions, I am
enabled to say, positively, that the borough of Vondervotteimittiss
has existed, from its origin, in precisely the same condition which
it at present preserves. Of the date of this origin, however, I
grieve that I can only speak with that species of indefinite
definiteness which mathematicians are, at times, forced to put up
with in certain algebraic formulae. The date, I may thus say, in
regard to the remoteness of its antiquity, cannot be less than any
assignable quantity whatsoever.
Touching the derivation of the name Vondervotteimittiss, I confess
myself, with sorrow, equally at fault. Among a multitude of opinions
upon this delicate point- some acute, some learned, some sufficiently
the reverse -- I am able to select nothing which ought to be
considered satisfactory. Perhaps the idea of Grogswigg- nearly
coincident with that of Kroutaplenttey -- is to be cautiously
preferred. -- It runs: -- "Vondervotteimittis -- Vonder, lege Donder
-- Votteimittis, quasi und Bleitziz- Bleitziz obsol: -- pro Blitzen."
This derivative, to say the truth, is still countenanced by some
traces of the electric fluid evident on the summit of the steeple of
the House of the Town-Council. I do not choose, however, to commit
myself on a theme of such importance, and must refer the reader
desirous of information to the "Oratiunculae de Rebus
Praeter-Veteris," of Dundergutz. See, also, Blunderbuzzard "De
Derivationibus," pp. 27 to 5010, Folio, Gothic edit., Red and Black
character, Catch-word and No Cypher; wherein consult, also, marginal
notes in the autograph of Stuffundpuff, with the Sub-Commentaries of
Gruntundguzzell.
Notwithstanding the obscurity which thus envelops the date of the
foundation of Vondervotteimittis, and the derivation of its name,
there can be no doubt, as I said before, that it has always existed
as we find it at this epoch. The oldest man in the borough can
remember not the slightest difference in the appearance of any
portion of it; and, indeed, the very suggestion of such a possibility
is considered an insult. The site of the village is in a perfectly
circular valley, about a quarter of a mile in circumference, and
entirely surrounded by gentle hills, over whose summit the people
have never yet ventured to pass. For this they assign the very good
reason that they do not believe there is anything at all on the other
side.
Round the skirts of the valley (which is quite level, and paved
throughout with flat tiles), extends a continuous row of sixty little
houses. These, having their backs on the hills, must look, of course,
to the centre of the plain, which is just sixty yards from the front
door of each dwelling. Every house has a small garden before it, with
a circular path, a sun-dial, and twenty-four cabbages. The buildings
themselves are so precisely alike, that one can in no manner be
distinguished from the other. Owing to the vast antiquity, the style
of architecture is somewhat odd, but it is not for that reason the
less strikingly picturesque. They are fashioned of hard-burned little
bricks, red, with black ends, so that the walls look like a
chess-board upon a great scale. The gables are turned to the front,
and there are cornices, as big as all the rest of the house, over the
eaves and over the main doors. The windows are narrow and deep, with
very tiny panes and a great deal of sash. On the roof is a vast
quantity of tiles with long curly ears. The woodwork, throughout, is
of a dark hue and there is much carving about it, with but a trifling
variety of pattern for, time out of mind, the carvers of
Vondervotteimittiss have never been able to carve more than two
objects -- a time-piece and a cabbage. But these they do exceedingly
well, and intersperse them, with singular ingenuity, wherever they
find room for the chisel.
The dwellings are as much alike inside as out, and the furniture is
all upon one plan. The floors are of square tiles, the chairs and
tables of black-looking wood with thin crooked legs and puppy feet.
The mantelpieces are wide and high, and have not only time-pieces and
cabbages sculptured over the front, but a real time-piece, which
makes a prodigious ticking, on the top in the middle, with a
flower-pot containing a cabbage standing on each extremity by way of
outrider. Between each cabbage and the time-piece, again, is a little
China man having a large stomach with a great round hole in it,
through which is seen the dial-plate of a watch.
The fireplaces are large and deep, with fierce crooked-looking
fire-dogs. There is constantly a rousing fire, and a huge pot over
it, full of sauer-kraut and pork, to which the good woman of the
house is always busy in attending. She is a little fat old lady, with
blue eyes and a red face, and wears a huge cap like a sugar-loaf,
ornamented with purple and yellow ribbons. Her dress is of
orange-colored linsey-woolsey, made very full behind and very short
in the waist -- and indeed very short in other respects, not reaching
below the middle of her leg. This is somewhat thick, and so are her
ankles, but she has a fine pair of green stockings to cover them. Her
shoes -- of pink leather -- are fastened each with a bunch of yellow
ribbons puckered up in the shape of a cabbage. In her left hand she
has a little heavy Dutch watch; in her right she wields a ladle for
the sauerkraut and pork. By her side there stands a fat tabby cat,
with a gilt toy-repeater tied to its tail, which "the boys" have
there fastened by way of a quiz.
The boys themselves are, all three of them, in the garden attending
the pig. They are each two feet in height. They have three-cornered
cocked hats, purple waistcoats reaching down to their thighs,
buckskin knee-breeches, red stockings, heavy shoes with big silver
buckles, long surtout coats with large buttons of mother-of-pearl.
Each, too, has a pipe in his mouth, and a little dumpy watch in his
right hand. He takes a puff and a look, and then a look and a puff.
The pig- which is corpulent and lazy -- is occupied now in picking up
the stray leaves that fall from the cabbages, and now in giving a
kick behind at the gilt repeater, which the urchins have also tied to
his tail in order to make him look as handsome as the cat.
Right at the front door, in a high-backed leather-bottomed armed
chair, with crooked legs and puppy feet like the tables, is seated
the old man of the house himself. He is an exceedingly puffy little
old gentleman, with big circular eyes and a huge double chin. His
dress resembles that of the boys -- and I need say nothing farther
about it. All the difference is, that his pipe is somewhat bigger
than theirs and he can make a greater smoke. Like them, he has a
watch, but he carries his watch in his pocket. To say the truth, he
has something of more importance than a watch to attend to -- and
what that is, I shall presently explain. He sits with his right leg
upon his left knee, wears a grave countenance, and always keeps one
of his eyes, at least, resolutely bent upon a certain remarkable
object in the centre of the plain.
This object is situated in the steeple of the House of the Town
Council. The Town Council are all very little, round, oily,
intelligent men, with big saucer eyes and fat double chins, and have
their coats much longer and their shoe-buckles much bigger than the
ordinary inhabitants of Vondervotteimittiss. Since my sojourn in the
borough, they have had several special meetings, and have adopted
these three important resolutions:
"That it is wrong to alter the good old course of things:"
"That there is nothing tolerable out of Vondervotteimittiss:" and-
"That we will stick by our clocks and our cabbages."
Above the session-room of the Council is the steeple, and in the
steeple is the belfry, where exists, and has existed time out of
mind, the pride and wonder of the village -- the great clock of the
borough of Vondervotteimittiss. And this is the object to which the
eyes of the old gentlemen are turned who sit in the leather-bottomed
arm-chairs.
The great clock has seven faces -- one in each of the seven sides of
the steeple -- so that it can be readily seen from all quarters. Its
faces are large and white, and its hands heavy and black. There is a
belfry-man whose sole duty is to attend to it; but this duty is the
most perfect of sinecures -- for the clock of Vondervotteimittis was
never yet known to have anything the matter with it. Until lately,
the bare supposition of such a thing was considered heretical. From
the remotest period of antiquity to which the archives have
reference, the hours have been regularly struck by the big bell. And,
indeed the case was just the same with all the other clocks and
watches in the borough. Never was such a place for keeping the true
time. When the large clapper thought proper to say "Twelve o'clock!"
all its obedient followers opened their throats simultaneously, and
responded like a very echo. In short, the good burghers were fond of
their sauer-kraut, but then they were proud of their clocks.
All people who hold sinecure offices are held in more or less
respect, and as the belfry -- man of Vondervotteimittiss has the most
perfect of sinecures, he is the most perfectly respected of any man
in the world. He is the chief dignitary of the borough, and the very
pigs look up to him with a sentiment of reverence. His coat-tail is
very far longer -- his pipe, his shoe -- buckles, his eyes, and his
stomach, very far bigger -- than those of any other old gentleman in
the village; and as to his chin, it is not only double, but triple.
I have thus painted the happy estate of Vondervotteimittiss: alas,
that so fair a picture should ever experience a reverse!
There has been long a saying among the wisest inhabitants, that "no
good can come from over the hills"; and it really seemed that the
words had in them something of the spirit of prophecy. It wanted five
minutes of noon, on the day before yesterday, when there appeared a
very odd-looking object on the summit of the ridge of the eastward.
Such an occurrence, of course, attracted universal attention, and
every little old gentleman who sat in a leather-bottomed arm-chair
turned one of his eyes with a stare of dismay upon the phenomenon,
still keeping the other upon the clock in the steeple.
By the time that it wanted only three minutes to noon, the droll
object in question was perceived to be a very diminutive
foreign-looking young man. He descended the hills at a great rate, so
that every body had soon a good look at him. He was really the most
finicky little personage that had ever been seen in
Vondervotteimittiss. His countenance was of a dark snuff-color, and
he had a long hooked nose, pea eyes, a wide mouth, and an excellent
set of teeth, which latter he seemed anxious of displaying, as he was
grinning from ear to ear. What with mustachios and whiskers, there
was none of the rest of his face to be seen. His head was uncovered,
and his hair neatly done up in papillotes. His dress was a
tight-fitting swallow-tailed black coat (from one of whose pockets
dangled a vast length of white handkerchief), black kerseymere
knee-breeches, black stockings, and stumpy-looking pumps, with huge
bunches of black satin ribbon for bows. Under one arm he carried a
huge chapeau-de-bras, and under the other a fiddle nearly five times
as big as himself. In his left hand was a gold snuff-box, from which,
as he capered down the hill, cutting all manner of fantastic steps,
he took snuff incessantly with an air of the greatest possible
self-satisfaction. God bless me! -- here was a sight for the honest
burghers of Vondervotteimittiss!
To speak plainly, the fellow had, in spite of his grinning, an
audacious and sinister kind of face; and as he curvetted right into
the village, the old stumpy appearance of his pumps excited no little
suspicion; and many a burgher who beheld him that day would have
given a trifle for a peep beneath the white cambric handkerchief
which hung so obtrusively from the pocket of his swallow-tailed coat.
But what mainly occasioned a righteous indignation was, that the
scoundrelly popinjay, while he cut a fandango here, and a whirligig
there, did not seem to have the remotest idea in the world of such a
thing as keeping time in his steps.
The good people of the borough had scarcely a chance, however, to get
their eyes thoroughly open, when, just as it wanted half a minute of
noon, the rascal bounced, as I say, right into the midst of them;
gave a chassez here, and a balancez there; and then, after a
pirouette and a pas-de-zephyr, pigeon-winged himself right up into
the belfry of the House of the Town Council, where the
wonder-stricken belfry-man sat smoking in a state of dignity and
dismay. But the little chap seized him at once by the nose; gave it a
swing and a pull; clapped the big chapeau de-bras upon his head;
knocked it down over his eyes and mouth; and then, lifting up the big
fiddle, beat him with it so long and so soundly, that what with the
belfry-man being so fat, and the fiddle being so hollow, you would
have sworn that there was a regiment of double-bass drummers all
beating the devil's tattoo up in the belfry of the steeple of
Vondervotteimittiss.
There is no knowing to what desperate act of vengeance this
unprincipled attack might have aroused the inhabitants, but for the
important fact that it now wanted only half a second of noon. The
bell was about to strike, and it was a matter of absolute and
pre-eminent necessity that every body should look well at his watch.
It was evident, however, that just at this moment the fellow in the
steeple was doing something that he had no business to do with the
clock. But as it now began to strike, nobody had any time to attend
to his manoeuvres, for they had all to count the strokes of the bell
as it sounded.
"One!" said the clock.
"Von!" echoed every little old gentleman in every leather-bottomed
arm-chair in Vondervotteimittiss. "Von!" said his watch also; "von!"
said the watch of his vrow; and "von!" said the watches of the boys,
and the little gilt repeaters on the tails of the cat and pig.
"Two!" continued the big bell; and
"Doo!" repeated all the repeaters.
"Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!" said the bell.
"Dree! Vour! Fibe! Sax! Seben! Aight! Noin! Den!" answered the
others.
"Eleven!" said the big one.
"Eleben!" assented the little ones.
"Twelve!" said the bell.
"Dvelf!" they replied perfectly satisfied, and dropping their voices.
"Und dvelf it is!" said all the little old gentlemen, putting up
their watches. But the big bell had not done with them yet.
"Thirteen!" said he.
"Der Teufel!" gasped the little old gentlemen, turning pale, dropping
their pipes, and putting down all their right legs from over their
left knees.
"Der Teufel!" groaned they, "Dirteen! Dirteen!! -- Mein Gott, it is
Dirteen o'clock!!"
Why attempt to describe the terrible scene which ensued? All
Vondervotteimittiss flew at once into a lamentable state of uproar.
"Vot is cum'd to mein pelly?" roared all the boys -- "I've been ongry
for dis hour!"
"Vot is com'd to mein kraut?" screamed all the vrows, "It has been
done to rags for this hour!"
"Vot is cum'd to mein pipe?" swore all the little old gentlemen,
"Donder and Blitzen; it has been smoked out for dis hour!" -- and
they filled them up again in a great rage, and sinking back in their
arm-chairs, puffed away so fast and so fiercely that the whole valley
was immediately filled with impenetrable smoke.
Meantime the cabbages all turned very red in the face, and it seemed
as if old Nick himself had taken possession of every thing in the
shape of a timepiece. The clocks carved upon the furniture took to
dancing as if bewitched, while those upon the mantel-pieces could
scarcely contain themselves for fury, and kept such a continual
striking of thirteen, and such a frisking and wriggling of their
pendulums as was really horrible to see. But, worse than all, neither
the cats nor the pigs could put up any longer with the behavior of
the little repeaters tied to their tails, and resented it by
scampering all over the place, scratching and poking, and squeaking
and screeching, and caterwauling and squalling, and flying into the
faces, and running under the petticoats of the people, and creating
altogether the most abominable din and confusion which it is possible
for a reasonable person to conceive. And to make matters still more
distressing, the rascally little scape-grace in the steeple was
evidently exerting himself to the utmost. Every now and then one
might catch a glimpse of the scoundrel through the smoke. There he
sat in the belfry upon the belfry-man, who was lying flat upon his
back. In his teeth the villain held the bell-rope, which he kept
jerking about with his head, raising such a clatter that my ears ring
again even to think of it. On his lap lay the big fiddle, at which he
was scraping, out of all time and tune, with both hands, making a
great show, the nincompoop! of playing "Judy O'Flannagan and Paddy
O'Rafferty."
Affairs being thus miserably situated, I left the place in disgust,
and now appeal for aid to all lovers of correct time and fine kraut.
Let us proceed in a body to the borough, and restore the ancient
order of things in Vondervotteimittiss by ejecting that little fellow
from the steeple.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
LIONIZING
-------- all people went
Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment.
--_ Bishop Hall's Satires_.
I AM - that is to say I was - a great man; but I am neither the
author of Junius nor the man in the mask; for my name, I believe, is
Robert Jones, and I was born somewhere in the city of Fum-Fudge.
The first action of my life was the taking hold of my nose with
both hands. My mother saw this and called me a genius: my father wept
for joy and presented me with a treatise on Nosology. This I mastered
before I was breeched.
I now began to feel my way in the science, and soon came to
understand that, provided a man had a nose sufficiently conspicuous
he might, by merely following it, arrive at a Lionship. But my
attention was not confined to theories alone. Every morning I gave my
proboscis a couple of pulls and swallowed a half dozen of drams.
When I came of age my father asked me, one day, If I would step
with him into his study.
"My son," said he, when we were seated, "what is the chief end of
your existence?"
"My father," I answered, "it is the study of Nosology."
"And what, Robert," he inquired, "is Nosology?"
"Sir," I said, "it is the Science of Noses."
"And can you tell me," he demanded, "what is the meaning of a
nose?"
"A nose, my father;" I replied, greatly softened, "has been
variously defined by about a thousand different authors." [Here I
pulled out my watch.] "It is now noon or thereabouts - we shall have
time enough to get through with them all before midnight. To commence
then: - The nose, according to Bartholinus, is that protuberance --
that bump - that excrescence - that - "
"Will do, Robert," interrupted the good old gentleman. "I am
thunderstruck at the extent of your information - I am positively --
upon my soul." [Here he closed his eyes and placed his hand upon his
heart.] "Come here!" [Here he took me by the arm.] "Your education
may now be considered as finished - it is high time you should
scuffle for yourself - and you cannot do a better thing than merely
follow your nose -- so - so - so - " [Here he kicked me down stairs
and out of the door] - "so get out of my house, and God bless you!"
As I felt within me the divine afflatus, I considered this
accident rather fortunate than otherwise. I resolved to be guided by
the paternal advice. I determined to follow my nose. I gave it a pull
or two upon the spot, and wrote a pamphlet on Nosology forthwith.
All Fum-Fudge was in an uproar.
"Wonderful genius!" said the Quarterly.
"Superb physiologist!" said the Westminster.
"Clever fellow!" said the Foreign.
"Fine writer!" said the Edinburgh.
"Profound thinker!" said the Dublin.
"Great man!" said Bentley.
"Divine soul!" said Fraser.
"One of us!" said Blackwood.
"Who can he be?" said Mrs. Bas-Bleu.
"What can he be?" said big Miss Bas-Bleu.
"Where can he be?" said little Miss Bas-Bleu. - But I paid these
people no attention whatever - I just stepped into the shop of an
artist.
The Duchess of Bless-my-Soul was sitting for her portrait; the
Marquis of So-and-So was holding the Duchess' poodle; the Earl of
This-and-That was flirting with her salts; and his Royal Highness of
Touch-me-Not was leaning upon the back of her chair.
I approached the artist and turned up my nose.
"Oh, beautiful!" sighed her Grace.
"Oh my!" lisped the Marquis.
"Oh, shocking!" groaned the Earl.
"Oh, abominable!" growled his Royal Highness.
"What will you take for it?" asked the artist.
"For his nose!" shouted her Grace.
"A thousand pounds," said I, sitting down.
"A thousand pounds?" inquired the artist, musingly.
"A thousand pounds," said I.
"Beautiful!" said he, entranced.
"A thousand pounds," said I.
"Do you warrant it?" he asked, turning the nose to the light.
"I do," said I, blowing it well.
"Is it quite original?" he inquired; touching it with reverence.
"Humph!" said I, twisting it to one side.
"Has no copy been taken?" he demanded, surveying it through a
microscope.
"None," said I, turning it up.
"Admirable!" he ejaculated, thrown quite off his guard by the beauty
of the manoeuvre.
"A thousand pounds," said I.
"A thousand pounds?" said he.
"Precisely," said I.
"A thousand pounds?" said he.
"Just so," said I.
"You shall have them," said he. "What a piece of virtu!" So he drew
me a check upon the spot, and took a sketch of my nose. I engaged
rooms in Jermyn street, and sent her Majesty the ninety-ninth edition
of the "Nosology," with a portrait of the proboscis. - That sad
little rake, the Prince of Wales, invited me to dinner.
We were all lions and recherchés.
There was a modern Platonist. He quoted Porphyry, Iamblicus,
Plotinus, Proclus, Hierocles, Maximus Tyrius, and Syrianus.
There was a human-perfectibility man. He quoted Turgot, Price,
Priestly, Condorcet, De Stael, and the "Ambitious Student in Ill
Health."
There was Sir Positive Paradox. He observed that all fools were
philosophers, and that all philosophers were fools.
There was Æstheticus Ethix. He spoke of fire, unity, and atoms;
bi-part and pre-existent soul; affinity and discord; primitive
intelligence and homöomeria.
There was Theologos Theology. He talked of Eusebius and Arianus;
heresy and the Council of Nice; Puseyism and consubstantialism;
Homousios and Homouioisios.
There was Fricassée from the Rocher de Cancale. He mentioned Muriton
of red tongue; cauliflowers with velouté sauce; veal à la St.
Menehoult; marinade à la St. Florentin; and orange jellies en
mosäiques.
There was Bibulus O'Bumper. He touched upon Latour and Markbrünnen;
upon Mousseux and Chambertin; upon Richbourg and St. George; upon
Haubrion, Leonville, and Medoc; upon Barac and Preignac; upon Grâve,
upon Sauterne, upon Lafitte, and upon St. Peray. He shook his head at
Clos de Vougeot, and told, with his eyes shut, the difference between
Sherry and Amontillado.
There was Signor Tintontintino from Florence. He discoursed of
Cimabué, Arpino, Carpaccio, and Argostino - of the gloom of
Caravaggio, of the amenity of Albano, of the colors of Titian, of the
frows of Rubens, and of the waggeries of Jan Steen.
There was the President of the Fum-Fudge University. He was of
opinion that the moon was called Bendis in Thrace, Bubastis in Egypt,
Dian in Rome, and Artemis in Greece. There was a Grand Turk from
Stamboul. He could not help thinking that the angels were horses,
cocks, and bulls; that somebody in the sixth heaven had seventy
thousand heads; and that the earth was supported by a sky-blue cow
with an incalculable number of green horns.
There was Delphinus Polyglott. He told us what had become of the
eighty-three lost tragedies of Æschylus; of the fifty-four orations
of Isæus; of the three hundred and ninety-one speeches of Lysias; of
the hundred and eighty treatises of Theophrastus; of the eighth book
of the conic sections of Apollonius; of Pindar's hymns and
dithyrambics; and of the five and forty tragedies of Homer Junior.
There was Ferdinand Fitz-Fossillus Feltspar. He informed us all about
internal fires and tertiary formations; about äeriforms, fluidiforms,
and solidiforms; about quartz and marl; about schist and schorl;
about gypsum and trap; about talc and calc; about blende and
horn-blende; about mica-slate and pudding-stone; about cyanite and
lepidolite; about hematite and tremolite; about antimony and
calcedony; about manganese and whatever you please.
There was myself. I spoke of myself; - of myself, of myself, of
myself; - of Nosology, of my pamphlet, and of myself. I turned up my
nose, and I spoke of myself.
"Marvellous clever man!" said the Prince.
"Superb!" said his guests: - and next morning her Grace of
Bless-my-Soul paid me a visit.
"Will you go to Almack's, pretty creature?" she said, tapping me
under the chin.
"Upon honor," said I.
"Nose and all?" she asked.
"As I live," I replied.
"Here then is a card, my life. Shall I say you will be there?"
"Dear Duchess, with all my heart."
"Pshaw, no! - but with all your nose?"
"Every bit of it, my love," said I: so I gave it a twist or two, and
found myself at Almack's. The rooms were crowded to suffocation.
"He is coming!" said somebody on the staircase.
"He is coming!" said somebody farther up.
"He is coming!" said somebody farther still.
"He is come!" exclaimed the Duchess. "He is come, the little love!" -
and, seizing me firmly by both hands, she kissed me thrice upon the
nose. A marked sensation immediately ensued.
"Diavolo!" cried Count Capricornutti.
"Dios guarda!" muttered Don Stiletto.
"Mille tonnerres!" ejaculated the Prince de Grenouille.
"Tousand teufel!" growled the Elector of Bluddennuff.
It was not to be borne. I grew angry. I turned short upon
Bluddennuff.
"Sir!" said I to him, "you are a baboon."
"Sir," he replied, after a pause, "Donner und Blitzen!"
This was all that could be desired. We exchanged cards. At
Chalk-Farm, the next morning, I shot off his nose - and then called
upon my friends.
"Bête!" said the first.
"Fool!" said the second.
"Dolt!" said the third.
"Ass!" said the fourth.
"Ninny!" said the fifth.
"Noodle!" said the sixth.
"Be off!" said the seventh.
At all this I felt mortified, and so called upon my father.
"Father," I asked, "what is the chief end of my existence?"
"My son," he replied, "it is still the study of Nosology; but in
hitting the Elector upon the nose you have overshot your mark. You
have a fine nose, it is true; but then Bluddennuff has none. You are
damned, and he has become the hero of the day. I grant you that in
Fum-Fudge the greatness of a lion is in proportion to the size of his
proboscis - but, good heavens! there is no competing with a lion who
has no proboscis at all."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
X-ING A PARAGRAB
AS it is well known that the 'wise men' came 'from the East,' and as
Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head came from the East, it follows that Mr.
Bullet-head was a wise man; and if collateral proof of the matter be
needed, here we have it -- Mr. B. was an editor. Irascibility was his
sole foible, for in fact the obstinacy of which men accused him was
anything but his foible, since he justly considered it his forte. It
was his strong point -- his virtue; and it would have required all
the logic of a Brownson to convince him that it was 'anything else.'
I have shown that Touch-and-go Bullet-head was a wise man; and the
only occasion on which he did not prove infallible, was when,
abandoning that legitimate home for all wise men, the East, he
migrated to the city of Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, or some place
of a similar title, out West.
I must do him the justice to say, however, that when he made up his
mind finally to settle in that town, it was under the impression that
no newspaper, and consequently no editor, existed in that particular
section of the country. In establishing 'The Tea-Pot' he expected to
have the field all to himself. I feel confident he never would have
dreamed of taking up his residence in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis
had he been aware that, in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, there lived
a gentleman named John Smith (if I rightly remember), who for many
years had there quietly grown fat in editing and publishing the
'Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis Gazette.' It was solely, therefore, on
account of having been misinformed, that Mr. Bullet-head found
himself in Alex-suppose we call it Nopolis, 'for short' -- but, as he
did find himself there, he determined to keep up his character for
obst -- for firmness, and remain. So remain he did; and he did more;
he unpacked his press, type, etc., etc., rented an office exactly
opposite to that of the 'Gazette,' and, on the third morning after
his arrival, issued the first number of 'The Alexan' -- that is to
say, of 'The Nopolis Tea-Pot' -- as nearly as I can recollect, this
was the name of the new paper.
The leading article, I must admit, was brilliant -- not to say
severe. It was especially bitter about things in general -- and as
for the editor of 'The Gazette,' he was torn all to pieces in
particular. Some of Bullethead's remarks were really so fiery that I
have always, since that time, been forced to look upon John Smith,
who is still alive, in the light of a salamander. I cannot pretend to
give all the 'Tea-Pot's' paragraphs verbatim, but one of them runs
thus:
'Oh, yes! -- Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! The editor over the way
is a genius -- O, my! Oh, goodness, gracious! -- what is this world
coming to? Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!'
A philippic at once so caustic and so classical, alighted like a
bombshell among the hitherto peaceful citizens of Nopolis. Groups of
excited individuals gathered at the corners of the streets. Every one
awaited, with heartfelt anxiety, the reply of the dignified Smith.
Next morning it appeared as follows:
'We quote from "The Tea-Pot" of yesterday the subjoined paragraph:
"Oh, yes! Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! Oh, my! Oh, goodness! Oh,
tempora! Oh, Moses!" Why, the fellow is all O! That accounts for his
reasoning in a circle, and explains why there is neither beginning
nor end to him, nor to anything he says. We really do not believe the
vagabond can write a word that hasn't an O in it. Wonder if this
O-ing is a habit of his? By-the-by, he came away from Down-East in a
great hurry. Wonder if he O's as much there as he does here? "O! it
is pitiful."'
The indignation of Mr. Bullet-head at these scandalous insinuations,
I shall not attempt to describe. On the eel-skinning principle,
however, he did not seem to be so much incensed at the attack upon
his integrity as one might have imagined. It was the sneer at his
style that drove him to desperation. What! -- he Touch-and-go
Bullet-head! -- not able to write a word without an O in it! He would
soon let the jackanapes see that he was mistaken. Yes! he would let
him see how much he was mistaken, the puppy! He, Touch-and-go
Bullet-head, of Frogpondium, would let Mr. John Smith perceive that
he, Bullet-head, could indite, if it so pleased him, a whole
paragraph -- aye! a whole article -- in which that contemptible vowel
should not once -- not even once -- make its appearance. But no; --
that would be yielding a point to the said John Smith. He,
Bullet-head, would make no alteration in his style, to suit the
caprices of any Mr. Smith in Christendom. Perish so vile a thought!
The O forever; He would persist in the O. He would be as O-wy as O-wy
could be.
Burning with the chivalry of this determination, the great
Touch-and-go, in the next 'Tea-Pot,' came out merely with this simple
but resolute paragraph, in reference to this unhappy affair:
'The editor of the "Tea-Pot" has the honor of advising the editor of
the "Gazette" that he (the "Tea-Pot") will take an opportunity in
tomorrow morning's paper, of convincing him (the "Gazette") that he
(the "Tea-Pot") both can and will be his own master, as regards
style; he (the "Tea-Pot") intending to show him (the "Gazette") the
supreme, and indeed the withering contempt with which the criticism
of him (the "Gazette") inspires the independent bosom of him (the
"TeaPot") by composing for the especial gratification (?) of him (the
"Gazette") a leading article, of some extent, in which the beautiful
vowel -- the emblem of Eternity -- yet so offensive to the
hyper-exquisite delicacy of him (the "Gazette") shall most certainly
not be avoided by his (the "Gazette's") most obedient, humble
servant, the "Tea-Pot." "So much for Buckingham!"'
In fulfilment of the awful threat thus darkly intimated rather than
decidedly enunciated, the great Bullet-head, turning a deaf ear to
all entreaties for 'copy,' and simply requesting his foreman to 'go
to the d-l,' when he (the foreman) assured him (the 'Tea-Pot'!) that
it was high time to 'go to press': turning a deaf ear to everything,
I say, the great Bullet-head sat up until day-break, consuming the
midnight oil, and absorbed in the composition of the really
unparalleled paragraph, which follows:-
'So ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don't crow, another
time, before you're out of the woods! Does your mother know you're
out? Oh, no, no! -- so go home at once, now, John, to your odious old
woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl -- go! You won't!
Oh, poh, poh, don't do so! You've got to go, you know! So go at once,
and don't go slow, for nobody owns you here, you know! Oh! John,
John, if you don't go you're no homo -- no! You're only a fowl, an
owl, a cow, a sow, -- a doll, a poll; a poor, old,
good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or frog, come out of a
Concord bog. Cool, now -- cool! Do be cool, you fool! None of your
crowing, old cock! Don't frown so -- don't! Don't hollo, nor howl nor
growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how you do look! Told you
so, you know -- but stop rolling your goose of an old poll about so,
and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!'
Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great
Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly,
composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS. to
the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home, retired, with
ineffable dignity to bed.
Meantime the devil, to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs to
his 'case,' in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a
commencement at 'setting' the MS. 'up.'
In the first place, of course, -- as the opening word was 'So,' -- he
made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph with a
capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw himself upon
the little-o box with a blindfold impetuosity -- but who shall
describe his horror when his fingers came up without the anticipated
letter in their clutch? who shall paint his astonishment and rage at
perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles, that he had been only thumping
them to no purpose, against the bottom of an empty box. Not a single
little-o was in the little-o hole; and, glancing fearfully at the
capital-O partition, he found that to his extreme terror, in a
precisely similar predicament. Awe -- stricken, his first impulse was
to rush to the foreman.
'Sir!' said he, gasping for breath, 'I can't never set up nothing
without no o's.'
'What do you mean by that?' growled the foreman, who was in a very
ill humor at being kept so late.
'Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a
little un!'
'What -- what the d-l has become of all that were in the case?'
'I don't know, sir,' said the boy, 'but one of them ere "G'zette"
devils is bin prowling 'bout here all night, and I spect he's gone
and cabbaged 'em every one.'
'Dod rot him! I haven't a doubt of it,' replied the foreman, getting
purple with rage 'but I tell you what you do, Bob, that's a good boy
-- you go over the first chance you get and hook every one of their
i's and (d-n them!) their izzards.'
'Jist so,' replied Bob, with a wink and a frown -- 'I'll be into 'em,
I'll let 'em know a thing or two; but in de meantime, that ere
paragrab? Mus go in to-night, you know -- else there'll be the d-l to
pay, and-'
'And not a bit of pitch hot,' interrupted the foreman, with a deep
sigh, and an emphasis on the 'bit.' 'Is it a long paragraph, Bob?'
'Shouldn't call it a wery long paragrab,' said Bob.
'Ah, well, then! do the best you can with it! We must get to press,'
said the foreman, who was over head and ears in work; 'just stick in
some other letter for o; nobody's going to read the fellow's trash
anyhow.'
'Wery well,' replied Bob, 'here goes it!' and off he hurried to his
case, muttering as he went: 'Considdeble vell, them ere expressions,
perticcler for a man as doesn't swar. So I's to gouge out all their
eyes, eh? and d-n all their gizzards! Vell! this here's the chap as
is just able for to do it.' The fact is that although Bob was but
twelve years old and four feet high, he was equal to any amount of
fight, in a small way.
The exigency here described is by no means of rare occurrence in
printing-offices; and I cannot tell how to account for it, but the
fact is indisputable, that when the exigency does occur, it almost
always happens that x is adopted as a substitute for the letter
deficient. The true reason, perhaps, is that x is rather the most
superabundant letter in the cases, or at least was so in the old
times -- long enough to render the substitution in question an
habitual thing with printers. As for Bob, he would have considered it
heretical to employ any other character, in a case of this kind, than
the x to which he had been accustomed.
'I shell have to x this ere paragrab,' said he to himself, as he read
it over in astonishment, 'but it's jest about the awfulest o-wy
paragrab I ever did see': so x it he did, unflinchingly, and to press
it went x-ed.
Next morning the population of Nopolis were taken all aback by
reading in 'The Tea-Pot,' the following extraordinary leader:
'Sx hx, Jxhn! hxw nxw? Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw. Dxn't crxw, anxther
time, befxre yxu're xut xf the wxxds! Dxes yxur mxther knxw yxu're
xut? Xh, nx, nx! -- sx gx hxme at xnce, nxw, Jxhn, tx yxur xdixus xld
wxxds xf Cxncxrd! Gx hxme tx yxur wxxds, xld xwl, -- gx! Yxu wxn't?
Xh, pxh, pxh, Jxhn, dxn't dx sx! Yxu've gxt tx gx, yxu knxw, sx gx at
xnce, and dxn't gx slxw; fxr nxbxdy xwns yxu here, yxu knxw. Xh,
Jxhn, Jxhn, Jxhn, if yxu dxn't gx yxu're nx hxmx -- nx! Yxu're xnly a
fxwl, an xwl; a cxw, a sxw; a dxll, a pxll; a pxxr xld
gxxd-fxr-nxthing-tx-nxbxdy, lxg, dxg, hxg, xr frxg, cxme xut xf a
Cxncxrd bxg. Cxxl, nxw -- cxxl! Dx be cxxl, yxu fxxl! Nxne xf yxur
crxwing, xld cxck! Dxn't frxwn sx -- dxn't! Dxn't hxllx, nxr hxwl,
nxr grxwl, nxr bxw-wxw-wxw! Gxxd Lxrd, Jxhn, hxw yxu dx lxxk! Txld
yxu sx, yxu knxw, -- but stxp rxlling yxur gxxse xf an xld pxll abxut
sx, and gx and drxwn yxur sxrrxws in a bxwl!'
The uproar occasioned by this mystical and cabalistical article, is
not to be conceived. The first definite idea entertained by the
populace was, that some diabolical treason lay concealed in the
hieroglyphics; and there was a general rush to Bullet-head's
residence, for the purpose of riding him on a rail; but that
gentleman was nowhere to be found. He had vanished, no one could tell
how; and not even the ghost of him has ever been seen since.
Unable to discover its legitimate object, the popular fury at length
subsided; leaving behind it, by way of sediment, quite a medley of
opinion about this unhappy affair.
One gentleman thought the whole an X-ellent joke.
Another said that, indeed, Bullet-head had shown much X-uberance of
fancy.
A third admitted him X-entric, but no more.
A fourth could only suppose it the Yankee's design to X-press, in a
general way, his X-asperation.
'Say, rather, to set an X-ample to posterity,' suggested a fifth.
That Bullet-head had been driven to an extremity, was clear to all;
and in fact, since that editor could not be found, there was some
talk about lynching the other one.
The more common conclusion, however, was that the affair was, simply,
X-traordinary and in-X-plicable. Even the town mathematician
confessed that he could make nothing of so dark a problem. X, every.
body knew, was an unknown quantity; but in this case (as he properly
observed), there was an unknown quantity of X.
The opinion of Bob, the devil (who kept dark about his having 'X-ed
the paragrab'), did not meet with so much attention as I think it
deserved, although it was very openly and very fearlessly expressed.
He said that, for his part, he had no doubt about the matter at all,
that it was a clear case, that Mr. Bullet-head 'never could be
persuaded fur to drink like other folks, but vas continually
a-svigging o' that ere blessed XXX ale, and as a naiteral
consekvence, it just puffed him up savage, and made him X (cross) in
the X-treme.'
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
METZENGERSTEIN
Pestis eram vivus - moriens tua mors ero.
-- _Martin Luther_
HORROR and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why
then give a date to this story I have to tell? Let it suffice to say,
that at the period of which I speak, there existed, in the interior
of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in the doctrines of the
Metempsychosis. Of the doctrines themselves - that is, of their
falsity, or of their probability - I say nothing. I assert, however,
that much of our incredulity - as La Bruyere says of all our
unhappiness - "_vient de ne pouvoir être seuls_." {*1}
But there are some points in the Hungarian superstition which
were fast verging to absurdity. They - the Hungarians - differed very
essentially from their Eastern authorities. For example, "_The
soul_," said the former - I give the words of an acute and
intelligent Parisian - "_ne demeure qu'un seul fois dans un corps
sensible: au reste - un cheval, un chien, un homme meme, n'est que la
ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux._"
The families of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein had been at
variance for centuries. Never before were two houses so illustrious,
mutually embittered by hostility so deadly. The origin of this enmity
seems to be found in the words of an ancient prophecy - "A lofty name
shall have a fearful fall when, as the rider over his horse, the
mortality of Metzengerstein shall triumph over the immortality of
Berlifitzing."
To be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning. But
more trivial causes have given rise - and that no long while ago - to
consequences equally eventful. Besides, the estates, which were
contiguous, had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs of a
busy government. Moreover, near neighbors are seldom friends; and the
inhabitants of the Castle Berlifitzing might look, from their lofty
buttresses, into the very windows of the palace Metzengerstein. Least
of all had the more than feudal magnificence, thus discovered, a
tendency to allay the irritable feelings of the less ancient and less
wealthy Berlifitzings. What wonder then, that the words, however
silly, of that prediction, should have succeeded in setting and
keeping at variance two families already predisposed to quarrel by
every instigation of hereditary jealousy? The prophecy seemed to
imply - if it implied anything - a final triumph on the part of the
already more powerful house; and was of course remembered with the
more bitter animosity by the weaker and less influential.
Wilhelm, Count Berlifitzing, although loftily descended, was, at
the epoch of this narrative, an infirm and doting old man, remarkable
for nothing but an inordinate and inveterate personal antipathy to
the family of his rival, and so passionate a love of horses, and of
hunting, that neither bodily infirmity, great age, nor mental
incapacity, prevented his daily participation in the dangers of the
chase.
Frederick, Baron Metzengerstein, was, on the other hand, not yet
of age. His father, the Minister G--, died young. His mother, the Lady
Mary, followed him quickly after. Frederick was, at that time, in his
fifteenth year. In a city, fifteen years are no long period - a child
may be still a child in his third lustrum: but in a wilderness - in
so magnificent a wilderness as that old principality, fifteen years
have a far deeper meaning.
From some peculiar circumstances attending the administration of
his father, the young Baron, at the decease of the former, entered
immediately upon his vast possessions. Such estates were seldom held
before by a nobleman of Hungary. His castles were without number. The
chief in point of splendor and extent was the "Chateau
Metzengerstein." The boundary line of his dominions was never clearly
defined; but his principal park embraced a circuit of fifty miles.
Upon the succession of a proprietor so young, with a character so
well known, to a fortune so unparalleled, little speculation was
afloat in regard to his probable course of conduct. And, indeed, for
the space of three days, the behavior of the heir out-heroded Herod,
and fairly surpassed the expectations of his most enthusiastic
admirers. Shameful debaucheries - flagrant treacheries - unheard-of
atrocities - gave his trembling vassals quickly to understand that no
servile submission on their part - no punctilios of conscience on his
own - were thenceforward to prove any security against the
remorseless fangs of a petty Caligula. On the night of the fourth
day, the stables of the castle Berlifitzing were discovered to be on
fire; and the unanimous opinion of the neighborhood added the crime
of the incendiary to the already hideous list of the Baron's
misdemeanors and enormities.
But during the tumult occasioned by this occurrence, the young
nobleman himself sat apparently buried in meditation, in a vast and
desolate upper apartment of the family palace of Metzengerstein. The
rich although faded tapestry hangings which swung gloomily upon the
walls, represented the shadowy and majestic forms of a thousand
illustrious ancestors. _Here_, rich-ermined priests, and pontifical
dignitaries, familiarly seated with the autocrat and the sovereign,
put a veto on the wishes of a temporal king, or restrained with the
fiat of papal supremacy the rebellious sceptre of the Arch-enemy.
_There_, the dark, tall statures of the Princes Metzengerstein -
their muscular war-coursers plunging over the carcasses of fallen
foes - startled the steadiest nerves with their vigorous expression;
and _here_, again, the voluptuous and swan-like figures of the dames
of days gone by, floated away in the mazes of an unreal dance to the
strains of imaginary melody.
But as the Baron listened, or affected to listen, to the
gradually increasing uproar in the stables of Berlifitzing - or
perhaps pondered upon some more novel, some more decided act of
audacity - his eyes became unwittingly rivetted to the figure of an
enormous, and unnaturally colored horse, represented in the tapestry
as belonging to a Saracen ancestor of the family of his rival. The
horse itself, in the foreground of the design, stood motionless and
statue-like - while farther back, its discomfited rider perished by
the dagger of a Metzengerstein.
On Frederick's lip arose a fiendish expression, as he became
aware of the direction which his glance had, without his
consciousness, assumed. Yet he did not remove it. On the contrary, he
could by no means account for the overwhelming anxiety which appeared
falling like a pall upon his senses. It was with difficulty that he
reconciled his dreamy and incoherent feelings with the certainty of
being awake. The longer he gazed the more absorbing became the spell
- the more impossible did it appear that he could ever withdraw his
glance from the fascination of that tapestry. But the tumult without
becoming suddenly more violent, with a compulsory exertion he
diverted his attention to the glare of ruddy light thrown full by the
flaming stables upon the windows of the apartment.
The action, however, was but momentary, his gaze returned
mechanically to the wall. To his extreme horror and astonishment, the
head of the gigantic steed had, in the meantime, altered its
position. The neck of the animal, before arched, as if in compassion,
over the prostrate body of its lord, was now extended, at full
length, in the direction of the Baron. The eyes, before invisible,
now wore an energetic and human expression, while they gleamed with a
fiery and unusual red; and the distended lips of the apparently
enraged horse left in full view his gigantic and disgusting teeth.
Stupified with terror, the young nobleman tottered to the door.
As he threw it open, a flash of red light, streaming far into the
chamber, flung his shadow with a clear outline against the quivering
tapestry, and he shuddered to perceive that shadow - as he staggered
awhile upon the threshold - assuming the exact position, and
precisely filling up the contour, of the relentless and triumphant
murderer of the Saracen Berlifitzing.
To lighten the depression of his spirits, the Baron hurried into
the open air. At the principal gate of the palace he encountered
three equerries. With much difficulty, and at the imminent peril of
their lives, they were restraining the convulsive plunges of a
gigantic and fiery-colored horse.
"Whose horse? Where did you get him?" demanded the youth, in a
querulous and husky tone of voice, as he became instantly aware that
the mysterious steed in the tapestried chamber was the very
counterpart of the furious animal before his eyes.
"He is your own property, sire," replied one of the equerries,
"at least he is claimed by no other owner. We caught him flying, all
smoking and foaming with rage, from the burning stables of the Castle
Berlifitzing. Supposing him to have belonged to the old Count's stud
of foreign horses, we led him back as an estray. But the grooms there
disclaim any title to the creature; which is strange, since he bears
evident marks of having made a narrow escape from the flames.
"The letters W. V. B. are also branded very distinctly on his
forehead," interrupted a second equerry, "I supposed them, of course,
to be the initials of Wilhelm Von Berlifitzing - but all at the
castle are positive in denying any knowledge of the horse."
"Extremely singular!" said the young Baron, with a musing air,
and apparently unconscious of the meaning of his words. "He is, as
you say, a remarkable horse - a prodigious horse! although, as you
very justly observe, of a suspicious and untractable character, let
him be mine, however," he added, after a pause, "perhaps a rider like
Frederick of Metzengerstein, may tame even the devil from the stables
of Berlifitzing."
"You are mistaken, my lord; the horse, as I think we mentioned,
is _not_ from the stables of the Count. If such had been the case, we
know our duty better than to bring him into the presence of a noble
of your family."
"True!" observed the Baron, dryly, and at that instant a page of
the bedchamber came from the palace with a heightened color, and a
precipitate step. He whispered into his master's ear an account of
the sudden disappearance of a small portion of the tapestry, in an
apartment which he designated; entering, at the same time, into
particulars of a minute and circumstantial character; but from the
low tone of voice in which these latter were communicated, nothing
escaped to gratify the excited curiosity of the equerries.
The young Frederick, during the conference, seemed agitated by a
variety of emotions. He soon, however, recovered his composure, and
an expression of determined malignancy settled upon his countenance,
as he gave peremptory orders that a certain chamber should be
immediately locked up, and the key placed in his own possession.
"Have you heard of the unhappy death of the old hunter
Berlifitzing?" said one of his vassals to the Baron, as, after the
departure of the page, the huge steed which that nobleman had adopted
as his own, plunged and curvetted, with redoubled fury, down the long
avenue which extended from the chateau to the stables of
Metzengerstein.
"No!" said the Baron, turning abruptly toward the speaker, "dead!
say you?"
"It is indeed true, my lord; and, to a noble of your name, will
be, I imagine, no unwelcome intelligence."
A rapid smile shot over the countenance of the listener. "How
died he?"
"In his rash exertions to rescue a favorite portion of his
hunting stud, he has himself perished miserably in the flames."
"I-n-d-e-e-d-!" ejaculated the Baron, as if slowly and
deliberately impressed with the truth of some exciting idea.
"Indeed;" repeated the vassal.
"Shocking!" said the youth, calmly, and turned quietly into the
chateau.
From this date a marked alteration took place in the outward
demeanor of the dissolute young Baron Frederick Von Metzengerstein.
Indeed, his behavior disappointed every expectation, and proved
little in accordance with the views of many a manoeuvering mamma;
while his habits and manner, still less than formerly, offered any
thing congenial with those of the neighboring aristocracy. He was
never to be seen beyond the limits of his own domain, and, in this
wide and social world, was utterly companionless - unless, indeed,
that unnatural, impetuous, and fiery-colored horse, which he
henceforward continually bestrode, had any mysterious right to the
title of his friend.
Numerous invitations on the part of the neighborhood for a long
time, however, periodically came in. "Will the Baron honor our
festivals with his presence?" "Will the Baron join us in a hunting of
the boar?" - "Metzengerstein does not hunt;" "Metzengerstein will not
attend," were the haughty and laconic answers.
These repeated insults were not to be endured by an imperious
nobility. Such invitations became less cordial - less frequent - in
time they ceased altogether. The widow of the unfortunate Count
Berlifitzing was even heard to express a hope "that the Baron might
be at home when he did not wish to be at home, since he disdained the
company of his equals; and ride when he did not wish to ride, since
he preferred the society of a horse." This to be sure was a very
silly explosion of hereditary pique; and merely proved how singularly
unmeaning our sayings are apt to become, when we desire to be
unusually energetic.
The charitable, nevertheless, attributed the alteration in the
conduct of the young nobleman to the natural sorrow of a son for the
untimely loss of his parents - forgetting, however, his atrocious and
reckless behavior during the short period immediately succeeding that
bereavement. Some there were, indeed, who suggested a too haughty
idea of self-consequence and dignity. Others again (among them may be
mentioned the family physician) did not hesitate in speaking of
morbid melancholy, and hereditary ill-health; while dark hints, of a
more equivocal nature, were current among the multitude.
Indeed, the Baron's perverse attachment to his lately-acquired
charger - an attachment which seemed to attain new strength from
every fresh example of the animal's ferocious and demon-like
propensities - at length became, in the eyes of all reasonable men, a
hideous and unnatural fervor. In the glare of noon - at the dead hour
of night - in sickness or in health - in calm or in tempest - the
young Metzengerstein seemed rivetted to the saddle of that colossal
horse, whose intractable audacities so well accorded with his own
spirit.
There were circumstances, moreover, which coupled with late
events, gave an unearthly and portentous character to the mania of
the rider, and to the capabilities of the steed. The space passed
over in a single leap had been accurately measured, and was found to
exceed, by an astounding difference, the wildest expectations of the
most imaginative. The Baron, besides, had no particular _name_ for
the animal, although all the rest in his collection were
distinguished by characteristic appellations. His stable, too, was
appointed at a distance from the rest; and with regard to grooming
and other necessary offices, none but the owner in person had
ventured to officiate, or even to enter the enclosure of that
particular stall. It was also to be observed, that although the three
grooms, who had caught the steed as he fled from the conflagration at
Berlifitzing, had succeeded in arresting his course, by means of a
chain-bridle and noose - yet no one of the three could with any
certainty affirm that he had, during that dangerous struggle, or at
any period thereafter, actually placed his hand upon the body of the
beast. Instances of peculiar intelligence in the demeanor of a noble
and high-spirited horse are not to be supposed capable of exciting
unreasonable attention - especially among men who, daily trained to
the labors of the chase, might appear well acquainted with the
sagacity of a horse - but there were certain circumstances which
intruded themselves per force upon the most skeptical and phlegmatic;
and it is said there were times when the animal caused the gaping
crowd who stood around to recoil in horror from the deep and
impressive meaning of his terrible stamp - times when the young
Metzengerstein turned pale and shrunk away from the rapid and
searching expression of his earnest and human-looking eye.
Among all the retinue of the Baron, however, none were found to
doubt the ardor of that extraordinary affection which existed on the
part of the young nobleman for the fiery qualities of his horse; at
least, none but an insignificant and misshapen little page, whose
deformities were in everybody's way, and whose opinions were of the
least possible importance. He - if his ideas are worth mentioning at
all - had the effrontery to assert that his master never vaulted into
the saddle without an unaccountable and almost imperceptible shudder,
and that, upon his return from every long-continued and habitual
ride, an expression of triumphant malignity distorted every muscle in
his countenance.
One tempestuous night, Metzengerstein, awaking from a heavy
slumber, descended like a maniac from his chamber, and, mounting in
hot haste, bounded away into the mazes of the forest. An occurrence
so common attracted no particular attention, but his return was
looked for with intense anxiety on the part of his domestics, when,
after some hours' absence, the stupendous and magnificent battlements
of the Chateau Metzengerstein, were discovered crackling and rocking
to their very foundation, under the influence of a dense and livid
mass of ungovernable fire.
As the flames, when first seen, had already made so terrible a
progress that all efforts to save any portion of the building were
evidently futile, the astonished neighborhood stood idly around in
silent and pathetic wonder. But a new and fearful object soon
rivetted the attention of the multitude, and proved how much more
intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings of a crowd by the
contemplation of human agony, than that brought about by the most
appalling spectacles of inanimate matter.
Up the long avenue of aged oaks which led from the forest to the
main entrance of the Chateau Metzengerstein, a steed, bearing an
unbonneted and disordered rider, was seen leaping with an impetuosity
which outstripped the very Demon of the Tempest.
The career of the horseman was indisputably, on his own part,
uncontrollable. The agony of his countenance, the convulsive struggle
of his frame, gave evidence of superhuman exertion: but no sound,
save a solitary shriek, escaped from his lacerated lips, which were
bitten through and through in the intensity of terror. One instant,
and the clattering of hoofs resounded sharply and shrilly above the
roaring of the flames and the shrieking of the winds - another, and,
clearing at a single plunge the gate-way and the moat, the steed
bounded far up the tottering staircases of the palace, and, with its
rider, disappeared amid the whirlwind of chaotic fire.
The fury of the tempest immediately died away, and a dead calm
sullenly succeeded. A white flame still enveloped the building like a
shroud, and, streaming far away into the quiet atmosphere, shot forth
a glare of preternatural light; while a cloud of smoke settled
heavily over the battlements in the distinct colossal figure of - _a
horse_.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE SYSTEM OF DOCTOR TARR AND PROFESSOR FETHER
DURING the autumn of 18--, while on a tour through the extreme
southern provinces of France, my route led me within a few miles of a
certain Maison de Sante or private mad-house, about which I had heard
much in Paris from my medical friends. As I had never visited a place
of the kind, I thought the opportunity too good to be lost; and so
proposed to my travelling companion (a gentleman with whom I had made
casual acquaintance a few days before) that we should turn aside, for
an hour or so, and look through the establishment. To this he
objected -- pleading haste in the first place, and, in the second, a
very usual horror at the sight of a lunatic. He begged me, however,
not to let any mere courtesy towards himself interfere with the
gratification of my curiosity, and said that he would ride on
leisurely, so that I might overtake him during the day, or, at all
events, during the next. As he bade me good-bye, I bethought me that
there might be some difficulty in obtaining access to the premises,
and mentioned my fears on this point. He replied that, in fact,
unless I had personal knowledge of the superintendent, Monsieur
Maillard, or some credential in the way of a letter, a difficulty
might be found to exist, as the regulations of these private
mad-houses were more rigid than the public hospital laws. For
himself, he added, he had, some years since, made the acquaintance of
Maillard, and would so far assist me as to ride up to the door and
introduce me; although his feelings on the subject of lunacy would
not permit of his entering the house.
I thanked him, and, turning from the main road, we entered a
grass-grown by-path, which, in half an hour, nearly lost itself in a
dense forest, clothing the base of a mountain. Through this dank and
gloomy wood we rode some two miles, when the Maison de Sante came in
view. It was a fantastic chateau, much dilapidated, and indeed
scarcely tenantable through age and neglect. Its aspect inspired me
with absolute dread, and, checking my horse, I half resolved to turn
back. I soon, however, grew ashamed of my weakness, and proceeded.
As we rode up to the gate-way, I perceived it slightly open, and the
visage of a man peering through. In an instant afterward, this man
came forth, accosted my companion by name, shook him cordially by the
hand, and begged him to alight. It was Monsieur Maillard himself. He
was a portly, fine-looking gentleman of the old school, with a
polished manner, and a certain air of gravity, dignity, and authority
which was very impressive.
My friend, having presented me, mentioned my desire to inspect the
establishment, and received Monsieur Maillard's assurance that he
would show me all attention, now took leave, and I saw him no more.
When he had gone, the superintendent ushered me into a small and
exceedingly neat parlor, containing, among other indications of
refined taste, many books, drawings, pots of flowers, and musical
instruments. A cheerful fire blazed upon the hearth. At a piano,
singing an aria from Bellini, sat a young and very beautiful woman,
who, at my entrance, paused in her song, and received me with
graceful courtesy. Her voice was low, and her whole manner subdued. I
thought, too, that I perceived the traces of sorrow in her
countenance, which was excessively, although to my taste, not
unpleasingly, pale. She was attired in deep mourning, and excited in
my bosom a feeling of mingled respect, interest, and admiration.
I had heard, at Paris, that the institution of Monsieur Maillard was
managed upon what is vulgarly termed the "system of soothing" -- that
all punishments were avoided -- that even confinement was seldom
resorted to -- that the patients, while secretly watched, were left
much apparent liberty, and that most of them were permitted to roam
about the house and grounds in the ordinary apparel of persons in
right mind.
Keeping these impressions in view, I was cautious in what I said
before the young lady; for I could not be sure that she was sane;
and, in fact, there was a certain restless brilliancy about her eyes
which half led me to imagine she was not. I confined my remarks,
therefore, to general topics, and to such as I thought would not be
displeasing or exciting even to a lunatic. She replied in a perfectly
rational manner to all that I said; and even her original
observations were marked with the soundest good sense, but a long
acquaintance with the metaphysics of mania, had taught me to put no
faith in such evidence of sanity, and I continued to practise,
throughout the interview, the caution with which I commenced it.
Presently a smart footman in livery brought in a tray with fruit,
wine, and other refreshments, of which I partook, the lady soon
afterward leaving the room. As she departed I turned my eyes in an
inquiring manner toward my host.
"No," he said, "oh, no -- a member of my family -- my niece, and a
most accomplished woman."
"I beg a thousand pardons for the suspicion," I replied, "but of
course you will know how to excuse me. The excellent administration
of your affairs here is well understood in Paris, and I thought it
just possible, you know-
"Yes, yes -- say no more -- or rather it is myself who should thank
you for the commendable prudence you have displayed. We seldom find
so much of forethought in young men; and, more than once, some
unhappy contre-temps has occurred in consequence of thoughtlessness
on the part of our visitors. While my former system was in operation,
and my patients were permitted the privilege of roaming to and fro at
will, they were often aroused to a dangerous frenzy by injudicious
persons who called to inspect the house. Hence I was obliged to
enforce a rigid system of exclusion; and none obtained access to the
premises upon whose discretion I could not rely."
"While your former system was in operation!" I said, repeating his
words -- "do I understand you, then, to say that the 'soothing
system' of which I have heard so much is no longer in force?"
"It is now," he replied, "several weeks since we have concluded to
renounce it forever."
"Indeed! you astonish me!"
"We found it, sir," he said, with a sigh, "absolutely necessary to
return to the old usages. The danger of the soothing system was, at
all times, appalling; and its advantages have been much overrated. I
believe, sir, that in this house it has been given a fair trial, if
ever in any. We did every thing that rational humanity could suggest.
I am sorry that you could not have paid us a visit at an earlier
period, that you might have judged for yourself. But I presume you
are conversant with the soothing practice -- with its details."
"Not altogether. What I have heard has been at third or fourth hand."
"I may state the system, then, in general terms, as one in which the
patients were menages-humored. We contradicted no fancies which
entered the brains of the mad. On the contrary, we not only indulged
but encouraged them; and many of our most permanent cures have been
thus effected. There is no argument which so touches the feeble
reason of the madman as the argumentum ad absurdum. We have had men,
for example, who fancied themselves chickens. The cure was, to insist
upon the thing as a fact -- to accuse the patient of stupidity in not
sufficiently perceiving it to be a fact -- and thus to refuse him any
other diet for a week than that which properly appertains to a
chicken. In this manner a little corn and gravel were made to perform
wonders."
"But was this species of acquiescence all?"
"By no means. We put much faith in amusements of a simple kind, such
as music, dancing, gymnastic exercises generally, cards, certain
classes of books, and so forth. We affected to treat each individual
as if for some ordinary physical disorder, and the word 'lunacy' was
never employed. A great point was to set each lunatic to guard the
actions of all the others. To repose confidence in the understanding
or discretion of a madman, is to gain him body and soul. In this way
we were enabled to dispense with an expensive body of keepers."
"And you had no punishments of any kind?"
"None."
"And you never confined your patients?"
"Very rarely. Now and then, the malady of some individual growing to
a crisis, or taking a sudden turn of fury, we conveyed him to a
secret cell, lest his disorder should infect the rest, and there kept
him until we could dismiss him to his friends -- for with the raging
maniac we have nothing to do. He is usually removed to the public
hospitals."
"And you have now changed all this -- and you think for the better?"
"Decidedly. The system had its disadvantages, and even its dangers.
It is now, happily, exploded throughout all the Maisons de Sante of
France."
"I am very much surprised," I said, "at what you tell me; for I made
sure that, at this moment, no other method of treatment for mania
existed in any portion of the country."
"You are young yet, my friend," replied my host, "but the time will
arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is going on
in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others. Believe
nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see. Now about our
Maisons de Sante, it is clear that some ignoramus has misled you.
After dinner, however, when you have sufficiently recovered from the
fatigue of your ride, I will be happy to take you over the house, and
introduce to you a system which, in my opinion, and in that of every
one who has witnessed its operation, is incomparably the most
effectual as yet devised."
"Your own?" I inquired -- "one of your own invention?"
"I am proud," he replied, "to acknowledge that it is -- at least in
some measure."
In this manner I conversed with Monsieur Maillard for an hour or two,
during which he showed me the gardens and conservatories of the
place.
"I cannot let you see my patients," he said, "just at present. To a
sensitive mind there is always more or less of the shocking in such
exhibitions; and I do not wish to spoil your appetite for dinner. We
will dine. I can give you some veal a la Menehoult, with cauliflowers
in veloute sauce -- after that a glass of Clos de Vougeot -- then
your nerves will be sufficiently steadied."
At six, dinner was announced; and my host conducted me into a large
salle a manger, where a very numerous company were assembled --
twenty-five or thirty in all. They were, apparently, people of
rank-certainly of high breeding -- although their habiliments, I
thought, were extravagantly rich, partaking somewhat too much of the
ostentatious finery of the vielle cour. I noticed that at least
two-thirds of these guests were ladies; and some of the latter were
by no means accoutred in what a Parisian would consider good taste at
the present day. Many females, for example, whose age could not have
been less than seventy were bedecked with a profusion of jewelry,
such as rings, bracelets, and earrings, and wore their bosoms and
arms shamefully bare. I observed, too, that very few of the dresses
were well made -- or, at least, that very few of them fitted the
wearers. In looking about, I discovered the interesting girl to whom
Monsieur Maillard had presented me in the little parlor; but my
surprise was great to see her wearing a hoop and farthingale, with
high-heeled shoes, and a dirty cap of Brussels lace, so much too
large for her that it gave her face a ridiculously diminutive
expression. When I had first seen her, she was attired, most
becomingly, in deep mourning. There was an air of oddity, in short,
about the dress of the whole party, which, at first, caused me to
recur to my original idea of the "soothing system," and to fancy that
Monsieur Maillard had been willing to deceive me until after dinner,
that I might experience no uncomfortable feelings during the repast,
at finding myself dining with lunatics; but I remembered having been
informed, in Paris, that the southern provincialists were a
peculiarly eccentric people, with a vast number of antiquated
notions; and then, too, upon conversing with several members of the
company, my apprehensions were immediately and fully dispelled.
The dining-room itself, although perhaps sufficiently comfortable and
of good dimensions, had nothing too much of elegance about it. For
example, the floor was uncarpeted; in France, however, a carpet is
frequently dispensed with. The windows, too, were without curtains;
the shutters, being shut, were securely fastened with iron bars,
applied diagonally, after the fashion of our ordinary shop-shutters.
The apartment, I observed, formed, in itself, a wing of the chateau,
and thus the windows were on three sides of the parallelogram, the
door being at the other. There were no less than ten windows in all.
The table was superbly set out. It was loaded with plate, and more
than loaded with delicacies. The profusion was absolutely barbaric.
There were meats enough to have feasted the Anakim. Never, in all my
life, had I witnessed so lavish, so wasteful an expenditure of the
good things of life. There seemed very little taste, however, in the
arrangements; and my eyes, accustomed to quiet lights, were sadly
offended by the prodigious glare of a multitude of wax candles,
which, in silver candelabra, were deposited upon the table, and all
about the room, wherever it was possible to find a place. There were
several active servants in attendance; and, upon a large table, at
the farther end of the apartment, were seated seven or eight people
with fiddles, fifes, trombones, and a drum. These fellows annoyed me
very much, at intervals, during the repast, by an infinite variety of
noises, which were intended for music, and which appeared to afford
much entertainment to all present, with the exception of myself.
Upon the whole, I could not help thinking that there was much of the
bizarre about every thing I saw -- but then the world is made up of
all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts of
conventional customs. I had travelled, too, so much, as to be quite
an adept at the nil admirari; so I took my seat very coolly at the
right hand of my host, and, having an excellent appetite, did justice
to the good cheer set before me.
The conversation, in the meantime, was spirited and general. The
ladies, as usual, talked a great deal. I soon found that nearly all
the company were well educated; and my host was a world of
good-humored anecdote in himself. He seemed quite willing to speak of
his position as superintendent of a Maison de Sante; and, indeed, the
topic of lunacy was, much to my surprise, a favorite one with all
present. A great many amusing stories were told, having reference to
the whims of the patients.
"We had a fellow here once," said a fat little gentleman, who sat at
my right, -- "a fellow that fancied himself a tea-pot; and by the
way, is it not especially singular how often this particular crotchet
has entered the brain of the lunatic? There is scarcely an insane
asylum in France which cannot supply a human tea-pot. Our gentleman
was a Britannia -- ware tea-pot, and was careful to polish himself
every morning with buckskin and whiting."
"And then," said a tall man just opposite, "we had here, not long
ago, a person who had taken it into his head that he was a donkey --
which allegorically speaking, you will say, was quite true. He was a
troublesome patient; and we had much ado to keep him within bounds.
For a long time he would eat nothing but thistles; but of this idea
we soon cured him by insisting upon his eating nothing else. Then he
was perpetually kicking out his heels-so-so-"
"Mr. De Kock! I will thank you to behave yourself!" here interrupted
an old lady, who sat next to the speaker. "Please keep your feet to
yourself! You have spoiled my brocade! Is it necessary, pray, to
illustrate a remark in so practical a style? Our friend here can
surely comprehend you without all this. Upon my word, you are nearly
as great a donkey as the poor unfortunate imagined himself. Your
acting is very natural, as I live."
"Mille pardons! Ma'm'selle!" replied Monsieur De Kock, thus addressed
-- "a thousand pardons! I had no intention of offending. Ma'm'selle
Laplace -- Monsieur De Kock will do himself the honor of taking wine
with you."
Here Monsieur De Kock bowed low, kissed his hand with much ceremony,
and took wine with Ma'm'selle Laplace.
"Allow me, mon ami," now said Monsieur Maillard, addressing myself,
"allow me to send you a morsel of this veal a la St. Menhoult -- you
will find it particularly fine."
At this instant three sturdy waiters had just succeeded in depositing
safely upon the table an enormous dish, or trencher, containing what
I supposed to be the "monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen
ademptum." A closer scrutiny assured me, however, that it was only a
small calf roasted whole, and set upon its knees, with an apple in
its mouth, as is the English fashion of dressing a hare.
"Thank you, no," I replied; "to say the truth, I am not particularly
partial to veal a la St. -- what is it? -- for I do not find that it
altogether agrees with me. I will change my plate, however, and try
some of the rabbit."
There were several side-dishes on the table, containing what appeared
to be the ordinary French rabbit -- a very delicious morceau, which I
can recommend.
"Pierre," cried the host, "change this gentleman's plate, and give
him a side-piece of this rabbit au-chat."
"This what?" said I.
"This rabbit au-chat."
"Why, thank you -- upon second thoughts, no. I will just help myself
to some of the ham."
There is no knowing what one eats, thought I to myself, at the tables
of these people of the province. I will have none of their rabbit
au-chat -- and, for the matter of that, none of their cat-au-rabbit
either.
"And then," said a cadaverous looking personage, near the foot of the
table, taking up the thread of the conversation where it had been
broken off, -- "and then, among other oddities, we had a patient,
once upon a time, who very pertinaciously maintained himself to be a
Cordova cheese, and went about, with a knife in his hand, soliciting
his friends to try a small slice from the middle of his leg."
"He was a great fool, beyond doubt," interposed some one, "but not to
be compared with a certain individual whom we all know, with the
exception of this strange gentleman. I mean the man who took himself
for a bottle of champagne, and always went off with a pop and a fizz,
in this fashion."
Here the speaker, very rudely, as I thought, put his right thumb in
his left cheek, withdrew it with a sound resembling the popping of a
cork, and then, by a dexterous movement of the tongue upon the teeth,
created a sharp hissing and fizzing, which lasted for several
minutes, in imitation of the frothing of champagne. This behavior, I
saw plainly, was not very pleasing to Monsieur Maillard; but that
gentleman said nothing, and the conversation was resumed by a very
lean little man in a big wig.
"And then there was an ignoramus," said he, "who mistook himself for
a frog, which, by the way, he resembled in no little degree. I wish
you could have seen him, sir," -- here the speaker addressed myself
-- "it would have done your heart good to see the natural airs that
he put on. Sir, if that man was not a frog, I can only observe that
it is a pity he was not. His croak thus -- o-o-o-o-gh -- o-o-o-o-gh!
was the finest note in the world -- B flat; and when he put his
elbows upon the table thus -- after taking a glass or two of wine --
and distended his mouth, thus, and rolled up his eyes, thus, and
winked them with excessive rapidity, thus, why then, sir, I take it
upon myself to say, positively, that you would have been lost in
admiration of the genius of the man."
"I have no doubt of it," I said.
"And then," said somebody else, "then there was Petit Gaillard, who
thought himself a pinch of snuff, and was truly distressed because he
could not take himself between his own finger and thumb."
"And then there was Jules Desoulieres, who was a very singular
genius, indeed, and went mad with the idea that he was a pumpkin. He
persecuted the cook to make him up into pies -- a thing which the
cook indignantly refused to do. For my part, I am by no means sure
that a pumpkin pie a la Desoulieres would not have been very capital
eating indeed!"
"You astonish me!" said I; and I looked inquisitively at Monsieur
Maillard.
"Ha! ha! ha!" said that gentleman -- "he! he! he! -- hi! hi! hi! --
ho! ho! ho! -- hu! hu! hu! hu! -- very good indeed! You must not be
astonished, mon ami; our friend here is a wit -- a drole -- you must
not understand him to the letter."
"And then," said some other one of the party, -- "then there was
Bouffon Le Grand -- another extraordinary personage in his way. He
grew deranged through love, and fancied himself possessed of two
heads. One of these he maintained to be the head of Cicero; the other
he imagined a composite one, being Demosthenes' from the top of the
forehead to the mouth, and Lord Brougham's from the mouth to the
chin. It is not impossible that he was wrong; but he would have
convinced you of his being in the right; for he was a man of great
eloquence. He had an absolute passion for oratory, and could not
refrain from display. For example, he used to leap upon the
dinner-table thus, and -- and-"
Here a friend, at the side of the speaker, put a hand upon his
shoulder and whispered a few words in his ear, upon which he ceased
talking with great suddenness, and sank back within his chair.
"And then," said the friend who had whispered, "there was Boullard,
the tee-totum. I call him the tee-totum because, in fact, he was
seized with the droll but not altogether irrational crotchet, that he
had been converted into a tee-totum. You would have roared with
laughter to see him spin. He would turn round upon one heel by the
hour, in this manner -- so -- "
Here the friend whom he had just interrupted by a whisper, performed
an exactly similar office for himself.
"But then," cried the old lady, at the top of her voice, "your
Monsieur Boullard was a madman, and a very silly madman at best; for
who, allow me to ask you, ever heard of a human tee-totum? The thing
is absurd. Madame Joyeuse was a more sensible person, as you know.
She had a crotchet, but it was instinct with common sense, and gave
pleasure to all who had the honor of her acquaintance. She found,
upon mature deliberation, that, by some accident, she had been turned
into a chicken-cock; but, as such, she behaved with propriety. She
flapped her wings with prodigious effect -- so -- so -- and, as for
her crow, it was delicious! Cock-a-doodle-doo! -- cock-a-doodle-doo!
-- cock-a-doodle-de-doo-dooo-do-o-o-o-o-o-o!"
"Madame Joyeuse, I will thank you to behave yourself!" here
interrupted our host, very angrily. "You can either conduct yourself
as a lady should do, or you can quit the table forthwith-take your
choice."
The lady (whom I was much astonished to hear addressed as Madame
Joyeuse, after the description of Madame Joyeuse she had just given)
blushed up to the eyebrows, and seemed exceedingly abashed at the
reproof. She hung down her head, and said not a syllable in reply.
But another and younger lady resumed the theme. It was my beautiful
girl of the little parlor.
"Oh, Madame Joyeuse was a fool!" she exclaimed, "but there was really
much sound sense, after all, in the opinion of Eugenie Salsafette.
She was a very beautiful and painfully modest young lady, who thought
the ordinary mode of habiliment indecent, and wished to dress
herself, always, by getting outside instead of inside of her clothes.
It is a thing very easily done, after all. You have only to do so --
and then so -- so -- so -- and then so -- so -- so -- and then so --
so -- and then-
"Mon dieu! Ma'm'selle Salsafette!" here cried a dozen voices at once.
"What are you about? -- forbear! -- that is sufficient! -- we see,
very plainly, how it is done! -- hold! hold!" and several persons
were already leaping from their seats to withhold Ma'm'selle
Salsafette from putting herself upon a par with the Medicean Venus,
when the point was very effectually and suddenly accomplished by a
series of loud screams, or yells, from some portion of the main body
of the chateau.
My nerves were very much affected, indeed, by these yells; but the
rest of the company I really pitied. I never saw any set of
reasonable people so thoroughly frightened in my life. They all grew
as pale as so many corpses, and, shrinking within their seats, sat
quivering and gibbering with terror, and listening for a repetition
of the sound. It came again -- louder and seemingly nearer -- and
then a third time very loud, and then a fourth time with a vigor
evidently diminished. At this apparent dying away of the noise, the
spirits of the company were immediately regained, and all was life
and anecdote as before. I now ventured to inquire the cause of the
disturbance.
"A mere bagtelle," said Monsieur Maillard. "We are used to these
things, and care really very little about them. The lunatics, every
now and then, get up a howl in concert; one starting another, as is
sometimes the case with a bevy of dogs at night. It occasionally
happens, however, that the concerto yells are succeeded by a
simultaneous effort at breaking loose, when, of course, some little
danger is to be apprehended."
"And how many have you in charge?"
"At present we have not more than ten, altogether."
"Principally females, I presume?"
"Oh, no -- every one of them men, and stout fellows, too, I can tell
you."
"Indeed! I have always understood that the majority of lunatics were
of the gentler sex."
"It is generally so, but not always. Some time ago, there were about
twenty-seven patients here; and, of that number, no less than
eighteen were women; but, lately, matters have changed very much, as
you see."
"Yes -- have changed very much, as you see," here interrupted the
gentleman who had broken the shins of Ma'm'selle Laplace.
"Yes -- have changed very much, as you see!" chimed in the whole
company at once.
"Hold your tongues, every one of you!" said my host, in a great rage.
Whereupon the whole company maintained a dead silence for nearly a
minute. As for one lady, she obeyed Monsieur Maillard to the letter,
and thrusting out her tongue, which was an excessively long one, held
it very resignedly, with both hands, until the end of the
entertainment.
"And this gentlewoman," said I, to Monsieur Maillard, bending over
and addressing him in a whisper -- "this good lady who has just
spoken, and who gives us the cock-a-doodle-de-doo -- she, I presume,
is harmless -- quite harmless, eh?"
"Harmless!" ejaculated he, in unfeigned surprise, "why -- why, what
can you mean?"
"Only slightly touched?" said I, touching my head. "I take it for
granted that she is not particularly not dangerously affected, eh?"
"Mon dieu! what is it you imagine? This lady, my particular old
friend Madame Joyeuse, is as absolutely sane as myself. She has her
little eccentricities, to be sure -- but then, you know, all old
women -- all very old women -- are more or less eccentric!"
"To be sure," said I, -- "to be sure -- and then the rest of these
ladies and gentlemen-"
"Are my friends and keepers," interupted Monsieur Maillard, drawing
himself up with hauteur, -- "my very good friends and assistants."
"What! all of them?" I asked, -- "the women and all?"
"Assuredly," he said, -- "we could not do at all without the women;
they are the best lunatic nurses in the world; they have a way of
their own, you know; their bright eyes have a marvellous effect; --
something like the fascination of the snake, you know."
"To be sure," said I, -- "to be sure! They behave a little odd, eh?
-- they are a little queer, eh? -- don't you think so?"
"Odd! -- queer! -- why, do you really think so? We are not very
prudish, to be sure, here in the South -- do pretty much as we please
-- enjoy life, and all that sort of thing, you know-"
"To be sure," said I, -- "to be sure."
And then, perhaps, this Clos de Vougeot is a little heady, you know
-- a little strong -- you understand, eh?"
"To be sure," said I, -- "to be sure. By the bye, Monsieur, did I
understand you to say that the system you have adopted, in place of
the celebrated soothing system, was one of very rigorous severity?"
"By no means. Our confinement is necessarily close; but the treatment
-- the medical treatment, I mean -- is rather agreeable to the
patients than otherwise."
"And the new system is one of your own invention?"
"Not altogether. Some portions of it are referable to Professor Tarr,
of whom you have, necessarily, heard; and, again, there are
modifications in my plan which I am happy to acknowledge as belonging
of right to the celebrated Fether, with whom, if I mistake not, you
have the honor of an intimate acquaintance."
"I am quite ashamed to confess," I replied, "that I have never even
heard the names of either gentleman before."
"Good heavens!" ejaculated my host, drawing back his chair abruptly,
and uplifting his hands. "I surely do not hear you aright! You did
not intend to say, eh? that you had never heard either of the learned
Doctor Tarr, or of the celebrated Professor Fether?"
"I am forced to acknowledge my ignorance," I replied; "but the truth
should be held inviolate above all things. Nevertheless, I feel
humbled to the dust, not to be acquainted with the works of these, no
doubt, extraordinary men. I will seek out their writings forthwith,
and peruse them with deliberate care. Monsieur Maillard, you have
really -- I must confess it -- you have really -- made me ashamed of
myself!"
And this was the fact.
"Say no more, my good young friend," he said kindly, pressing my
hand, -- "join me now in a glass of Sauterne."
We drank. The company followed our example without stint. They
chatted -- they jested -- they laughed -- they perpetrated a thousand
absurdities -- the fiddles shrieked -- the drum row-de-dowed -- the
trombones bellowed like so many brazen bulls of Phalaris -- and the
whole scene, growing gradually worse and worse, as the wines gained
the ascendancy, became at length a sort of pandemonium in petto. In
the meantime, Monsieur Maillard and myself, with some bottles of
Sauterne and Vougeot between us, continued our conversation at the
top of the voice. A word spoken in an ordinary key stood no more
chance of being heard than the voice of a fish from the bottom of
Niagra Falls.
"And, sir," said I, screaming in his ear, "you mentioned something
before dinner about the danger incurred in the old system of
soothing. How is that?"
"Yes," he replied, "there was, occasionally, very great danger
indeed. There is no accounting for the caprices of madmen; and, in my
opinion as well as in that of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether, it is
never safe to permit them to run at large unattended. A lunatic may
be 'soothed,' as it is called, for a time, but, in the end, he is
very apt to become obstreperous. His cunning, too, is proverbial and
great. If he has a project in view, he conceals his design with a
marvellous wisdom; and the dexterity with which he counterfeits
sanity, presents, to the metaphysician, one of the most singular
problems in the study of mind. When a madman appears thoroughly sane,
indeed, it is high time to put him in a straitjacket."
"But the danger, my dear sir, of which you were speaking, in your own
experience -- during your control of this house -- have you had
practical reason to think liberty hazardous in the case of a
lunatic?"
"Here? -- in my own experience? -- why, I may say, yes. For example:
-- no very long while ago, a singular circumstance occurred in this
very house. The 'soothing system,' you know, was then in operation,
and the patients were at large. They behaved remarkably
well-especially so, any one of sense might have known that some
devilish scheme was brewing from that particular fact, that the
fellows behaved so remarkably well. And, sure enough, one fine
morning the keepers found themselves pinioned hand and foot, and
thrown into the cells, where they were attended, as if they were the
lunatics, by the lunatics themselves, who had usurped the offices of
the keepers."
"You don't tell me so! I never heard of any thing so absurd in my
life!"
"Fact -- it all came to pass by means of a stupid fellow -- a lunatic
-- who, by some means, had taken it into his head that he had
invented a better system of government than any ever heard of before
-- of lunatic government, I mean. He wished to give his invention a
trial, I suppose, and so he persuaded the rest of the patients to
join him in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the reigning powers."
"And he really succeeded?"
"No doubt of it. The keepers and kept were soon made to exchange
places. Not that exactly either -- for the madmen had been free, but
the keepers were shut up in cells forthwith, and treated, I am sorry
to say, in a very cavalier manner."
"But I presume a counter-revolution was soon effected. This condition
of things could not have long existed. The country people in the
neighborhood-visitors coming to see the establishment -- would have
given the alarm."
"There you are out. The head rebel was too cunning for that. He
admitted no visitors at all -- with the exception, one day, of a very
stupid-looking young gentleman of whom he had no reason to be afraid.
He let him in to see the place -- just by way of variety, -- to have
a little fun with him. As soon as he had gammoned him sufficiently,
he let him out, and sent him about his business."
"And how long, then, did the madmen reign?"
"Oh, a very long time, indeed -- a month certainly -- how much longer
I can't precisely say. In the meantime, the lunatics had a jolly
season of it -- that you may swear. They doffed their own shabby
clothes, and made free with the family wardrobe and jewels. The
cellars of the chateau were well stocked with wine; and these madmen
are just the devils that know how to drink it. They lived well, I can
tell you."
"And the treatment -- what was the particular species of treatment
which the leader of the rebels put into operation?"
"Why, as for that, a madman is not necessarily a fool, as I have
already observed; and it is my honest opinion that his treatment was
a much better treatment than that which it superseded. It was a very
capital system indeed -- simple -- neat -- no trouble at all -- in
fact it was delicious it was."
Here my host's observations were cut short by another series of
yells, of the same character as those which had previously
disconcerted us. This time, however, they seemed to proceed from
persons rapidly approaching.
"Gracious heavens!" I ejaculated -- "the lunatics have most
undoubtedly broken loose."
"I very much fear it is so," replied Monsieur Maillard, now becoming
excessively pale. He had scarcely finished the sentence, before loud
shouts and imprecations were heard beneath the windows; and,
immediately afterward, it became evident that some persons outside
were endeavoring to gain entrance into the room. The door was beaten
with what appeared to be a sledge-hammer, and the shutters were
wrenched and shaken with prodigious violence.
A scene of the most terrible confusion ensued. Monsieur Maillard, to
my excessive astonishment threw himself under the side-board. I had
expected more resolution at his hands. The members of the orchestra,
who, for the last fifteen minutes, had been seemingly too much
intoxicated to do duty, now sprang all at once to their feet and to
their instruments, and, scrambling upon their table, broke out, with
one accord, into, "Yankee Doodle," which they performed, if not
exactly in tune, at least with an energy superhuman, during the whole
of the uproar.
Meantime, upon the main dining-table, among the bottles and glasses,
leaped the gentleman who, with such difficulty, had been restrained
from leaping there before. As soon as he fairly settled himself, he
commenced an oration, which, no doubt, was a very capital one, if it
could only have been heard. At the same moment, the man with the
teetotum predilection, set himself to spinning around the apartment,
with immense energy, and with arms outstretched at right angles with
his body; so that he had all the air of a tee-totum in fact, and
knocked everybody down that happened to get in his way. And now, too,
hearing an incredible popping and fizzing of champagne, I discovered
at length, that it proceeded from the person who performed the bottle
of that delicate drink during dinner. And then, again, the frog-man
croaked away as if the salvation of his soul depended upon every note
that he uttered. And, in the midst of all this, the continuous
braying of a donkey arose over all. As for my old friend, Madame
Joyeuse, I really could have wept for the poor lady, she appeared so
terribly perplexed. All she did, however, was to stand up in a
corner, by the fireplace, and sing out incessantly at the top of her
voice, "Cock-a-doodle-de-dooooooh!"
And now came the climax -- the catastrophe of the drama. As no
resistance, beyond whooping and yelling and cock-a-doodling, was
offered to the encroachments of the party without, the ten windows
were very speedily, and almost simultaneously, broken in. But I shall
never forget the emotions of wonder and horror with which I gazed,
when, leaping through these windows, and down among us pele-mele,
fighting, stamping, scratching, and howling, there rushed a perfect
army of what I took to be Chimpanzees, Ourang-Outangs, or big black
baboons of the Cape of Good Hope.
I received a terrible beating -- after which I rolled under a sofa
and lay still. After lying there some fifteen minutes, during which
time I listened with all my ears to what was going on in the room, I
came to same satisfactory denouement of this tragedy. Monsieur
Maillard, it appeared, in giving me the account of the lunatic who
had excited his fellows to rebellion, had been merely relating his
own exploits. This gentleman had, indeed, some two or three years
before, been the superintendent of the establishment, but grew crazy
himself, and so became a patient. This fact was unknown to the
travelling companion who introduced me. The keepers, ten in number,
having been suddenly overpowered, were first well tarred, then --
carefully feathered, and then shut up in underground cells. They had
been so imprisoned for more than a month, during which period
Monsieur Maillard had generously allowed them not only the tar and
feathers (which constituted his "system"), but some bread and
abundance of water. The latter was pumped on them daily. At length,
one escaping through a sewer, gave freedom to all the rest.
The "soothing system," with important modifications, has been resumed
at the chateau; yet I cannot help agreeing with Monsieur Maillard,
that his own "treatment" was a very capital one of its kind. As he
justly observed, it was "simple -- neat -- and gave no trouble at all
-- not the least."
I have only to add that, although I have searched every library in
Europe for the works of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether, I have, up
to the present day, utterly failed in my endeavors at procuring an
edition.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
HOW TO WRITE A BLACKWOOD ARTICLE.
"In the name of the Prophet -- figs!!"
_ Cry of the Turkish fig-peddler_.
I PRESUME everybody has heard of me. My name is the Signora Psyche
Zenobia. This I know to be a fact. Nobody but my enemies ever calls
me Suky Snobbs. I have been assured that Suky is but a vulgar
corruption of Psyche, which is good Greek, and means "the soul"
(that's me, I'm all soul) and sometimes "a butterfly," which latter
meaning undoubtedly alludes to my appearance in my new crimson satin
dress, with the sky-blue Arabian mantelet, and the trimmings of green
agraffas, and the seven flounces of orange-colored auriculas. As for
Snobbs -- any person who should look at me would be instantly aware
that my name wasn't Snobbs. Miss Tabitha Turnip propagated that
report through sheer envy. Tabitha Turnip indeed! Oh the little
wretch! But what can we expect from a turnip? Wonder if she remembers
the old adage about "blood out of a turnip," &c.? [Mem. put her in
mind of it the first opportunity.] [Mem. again -- pull her nose.]
Where was I? Ah! I have been assured that Snobbs is a mere corruption
of Zenobia, and that Zenobia was a queen -- (So am I. Dr. Moneypenny
always calls me the Queen of the Hearts) -- and that Zenobia, as well
as Psyche, is good Greek, and that my father was "a Greek," and that
consequently I have a right to our patronymic, which is Zenobia and
not by any means Snobbs. Nobody but Tabitha Turnip calls me Suky
Snobbs. I am the Signora Psyche Zenobia.
As I said before, everybody has heard of me. I am that very Signora
Psyche Zenobia, so justly celebrated as corresponding secretary to
the "Philadelphia, Regular, Exchange, Tea, Total, Young, Belles,
Lettres, Universal, Experimental, Bibliographical, Association, To,
Civilize, Humanity." Dr. Moneypenny made the title for us, and says
he chose it because it sounded big like an empty rum-puncheon. (A
vulgar man that sometimes -- but he's deep.) We all sign the initials
of the society after our names, in the fashion of the R. S. A., Royal
Society of Arts -- the S. D. U. K., Society for the Diffusion of
Useful Knowledge, &c, &c. Dr. Moneypenny says that S. stands for
stale, and that D. U. K. spells duck, (but it don't,) that S. D. U.
K. stands for Stale Duck and not for Lord Brougham's society -- but
then Dr. Moneypenny is such a queer man that I am never sure when he
is telling me the truth. At any rate we always add to our names the
initials P. R. E. T. T. Y. B. L. U. E. B. A. T. C. H. -- that is to
say, Philadelphia, Regular, Exchange, Tea, Total, Young, Belles,
Lettres, Universal, Experimental, Bibliographical, Association, To,
Civilize, Humanity -- one letter for each word, which is a decided
improvement upon Lord Brougham. Dr. Moneypenny will have it that our
initials give our true character -- but for my life I can't see what
he means.
Notwithstanding the good offices of the Doctor, and the strenuous
exertions of the association to get itself into notice, it met with
no very great success until I joined it. The truth is, the members
indulged in too flippant a tone of discussion. The papers read every
Saturday evening were characterized less by depth than buffoonery.
They were all whipped syllabub. There was no investigation of first
causes, first principles. There was no investigation of any thing at
all. There was no attention paid to that great point, the "fitness of
things." In short there was no fine writing like this. It was all low
-- very! No profundity, no reading, no metaphysics -- nothing which
the learned call spirituality, and which the unlearned choose to
stigmatize as cant. [Dr. M. says I ought to spell "cant" with a
capital K -- but I know better.]
When I joined the society it was my endeavor to introduce a better
style of thinking and writing, and all the world knows how well I
have succeeded. We get up as good papers now in the P. R. E. T. T. Y.
B. L. U. E. B. A. T. C. H. as any to be found even in Blackwood. I
say, Blackwood, because I have been assured that the finest writing,
upon every subject, is to be discovered in the pages of that justly
celebrated Magazine. We now take it for our model upon all themes,
and are getting into rapid notice accordingly. And, after all, it's
not so very difficult a matter to compose an article of the genuine
Blackwood stamp, if one only goes properly about it. Of course I
don't speak of the political articles. Everybody knows how they are
managed, since Dr. Moneypenny explained it. Mr. Blackwood has a pair
of tailor's-shears, and three apprentices who stand by him for
orders. One hands him the "Times," another the "Examiner" and a third
a "Culley's New Compendium of Slang-Whang." Mr. B. merely cuts out
and intersperses. It is soon done -- nothing but "Examiner,"
"Slang-Whang," and "Times" -- then "Times," "Slang-Whang," and
"Examiner" -- and then "Times," "Examiner," and "Slang-Whang."
But the chief merit of the Magazine lies in its miscellaneous
articles; and the best of these come under the head of what Dr.
Moneypenny calls the bizarreries (whatever that may mean) and what
everybody else calls the intensities. This is a species of writing
which I have long known how to appreciate, although it is only since
my late visit to Mr. Blackwood (deputed by the society) that I have
been made aware of the exact method of composition. This method is
very simple, but not so much so as the politics. Upon my calling at
Mr. B.'s, and making known to him the wishes of the society, he
received me with great civility, took me into his study, and gave me
a clear explanation of the whole process.
"My dear madam," said he, evidently struck with my majestic
appearance, for I had on the crimson satin, with the green agraffas,
and orange-colored auriclas. "My dear madam," said he, "sit down. The
matter stands thus: In the first place your writer of intensities
must have very black ink, and a very big pen, with a very blunt nib.
And, mark me, Miss Psyche Zenobia!" he continued, after a pause, with
the most expressive energy and solemnity of manner, "mark me! -- that
pen -- must -- never be mended! Herein, madam, lies the secret, the
soul, of intensity. I assume upon myself to say, that no individual,
of however great genius ever wrote with a good pen -- understand me,
-- a good article. You may take, it for granted, that when manuscript
can be read it is never worth reading. This is a leading principle in
our faith, to which if you cannot readily assent, our conference is
at an end."
He paused. But, of course, as I had no wish to put an end to the
conference, I assented to a proposition so very obvious, and one,
too, of whose truth I had all along been sufficiently aware. He
seemed pleased, and went on with his instructions.
"It may appear invidious in me, Miss Psyche Zenobia, to refer you to
any article, or set of articles, in the way of model or study, yet
perhaps I may as well call your attention to a few cases. Let me see.
There was 'The Dead Alive,' a capital thing! -- the record of a
gentleman's sensations when entombed before the breath was out of his
body -- full of tastes, terror, sentiment, metaphysics, and
erudition. You would have sworn that the writer had been born and
brought up in a coffin. Then we had the 'Confessions of an
Opium-eater' -- fine, very fine! -- glorious imagination -- deep
philosophy acute speculation -- plenty of fire and fury, and a good
spicing of the decidedly unintelligible. That was a nice bit of
flummery, and went down the throats of the people delightfully. They
would have it that Coleridge wrote the paper -- but not so. It was
composed by my pet baboon, Juniper, over a rummer of Hollands and
water, 'hot, without sugar.'" [This I could scarcely have believed
had it been anybody but Mr. Blackwood, who assured me of it.] "Then
there was 'The Involuntary Experimentalist,' all about a gentleman
who got baked in an oven, and came out alive and well, although
certainly done to a turn. And then there was 'The Diary of a Late
Physician,' where the merit lay in good rant, and indifferent Greek
-- both of them taking things with the public. And then there was
'The Man in the Bell,' a paper by-the-by, Miss Zenobia, which I
cannot sufficiently recommend to your attention. It is the history of
a young person who goes to sleep under the clapper of a church bell,
and is awakened by its tolling for a funeral. The sound drives him
mad, and, accordingly, pulling out his tablets, he gives a record of
his sensations. Sensations are the great things after all. Should you
ever be drowned or hung, be sure and make a note of your sensations
-- they will be worth to you ten guineas a sheet. If you wish to
write forcibly, Miss Zenobia, pay minute attention to the
sensations."
"That I certainly will, Mr. Blackwood," said I.
"Good!" he replied. "I see you are a pupil after my own heart. But I
must put you au fait to the details necessary in composing what may
be denominated a genuine Blackwood article of the sensation stamp --
the kind which you will understand me to say I consider the best for
all purposes.
"The first thing requisite is to get yourself into such a scrape as
no one ever got into before. The oven, for instance, -- that was a
good hit. But if you have no oven or big bell, at hand, and if you
cannot conveniently tumble out of a balloon, or be swallowed up in an
earthquake, or get stuck fast in a chimney, you will have to be
contented with simply imagining some similar misadventure. I should
prefer, however, that you have the actual fact to bear you out.
Nothing so well assists the fancy, as an experimental knowledge of
the matter in hand. 'Truth is strange,' you know, 'stranger than
fiction' -- besides being more to the purpose."
Here I assured him I had an excellent pair of garters, and would go
and hang myself forthwith.
"Good!" he replied, "do so; -- although hanging is somewhat hacknied.
Perhaps you might do better. Take a dose of Brandreth's pills, and
then give us your sensations. However, my instructions will apply
equally well to any variety of misadventure, and in your way home you
may easily get knocked in the head, or run over by an omnibus, or
bitten by a mad dog, or drowned in a gutter. But to proceed.
"Having determined upon your subject, you must next consider the
tone, or manner, of your narration. There is the tone didactic, the
tone enthusiastic, the tone natural -- all common -- place enough.
But then there is the tone laconic, or curt, which has lately come
much into use. It consists in short sentences. Somehow thus: Can't be
too brief. Can't be too snappish. Always a full stop. And never a
paragraph.
"Then there is the tone elevated, diffusive, and interjectional. Some
of our best novelists patronize this tone. The words must be all in a
whirl, like a humming-top, and make a noise very similar, which
answers remarkably well instead of meaning. This is the best of all
possible styles where the writer is in too great a hurry to think.
"The tone metaphysical is also a good one. If you know any big words
this is your chance for them. Talk of the Ionic and Eleatic schools
-- of Archytas, Gorgias, and Alcmaeon. Say something about
objectivity and subjectivity. Be sure and abuse a man named Locke.
Turn up your nose at things in general, and when you let slip any
thing a little too absurd, you need not be at the trouble of
scratching it out, but just add a footnote and say that you are
indebted for the above profound observation to the 'Kritik der reinem
Vernunft,' or to the 'Metaphysithe Anfongsgrunde der
Noturwissenchaft.' This would look erudite and -- and -- and frank.
"There are various other tones of equal celebrity, but I shall
mention only two more -- the tone transcendental and the tone
heterogeneous. In the former the merit consists in seeing into the
nature of affairs a very great deal farther than anybody else. This
second sight is very efficient when properly managed. A little
reading of the 'Dial' will carry you a great way. Eschew, in this
case, big words; get them as small as possible, and write them upside
down. Look over Channing's poems and quote what he says about a 'fat
little man with a delusive show of Can.' Put in something about the
Supernal Oneness. Don't say a syllable about the Infernal Twoness.
Above all, study innuendo. Hint everything -- assert nothing. If you
feel inclined to say 'bread and butter,' do not by any means say it
outright. You may say any thing and every thing approaching to 'bread
and butter.' You may hint at buck-wheat cake, or you may even go so
far as to insinuate oat-meal porridge, but if bread and butter be
your real meaning, be cautious, my dear Miss Psyche, not on any
account to say 'bread and butter!'"
I assured him that I should never say it again as long as I lived. He
kissed me and continued:
"As for the tone heterogeneous, it is merely a judicious mixture, in
equal proportions, of all the other tones in the world, and is
consequently made up of every thing deep, great, odd, piquant,
pertinent, and pretty.
"Let us suppose now you have determined upon your incidents and tone.
The most important portion -- in fact, the soul of the whole
business, is yet to be attended to -- I allude to the filling up. It
is not to be supposed that a lady, or gentleman either, has been
leading the life of a book worm. And yet above all things it is
necessary that your article have an air of erudition, or at least
afford evidence of extensive general reading. Now I'll put you in the
way of accomplishing this point. See here!" (pulling down some three
or four ordinary-looking volumes, and opening them at random). "By
casting your eye down almost any page of any book in the world, you
will be able to perceive at once a host of little scraps of either
learning or bel-espritism, which are the very thing for the spicing
of a Blackwood article. You might as well note down a few while I
read them to you. I shall make two divisions: first, Piquant Facts
for the Manufacture of Similes, and, second, Piquant Expressions to
be introduced as occasion may require. Write now!" -- and I wrote as
he dictated.
"PIQUANT FACTS FOR SIMILES. 'There were originally but three Muses --
Melete, Mneme, Aoede -- meditation, memory, and singing.' You may
make a good deal of that little fact if properly worked. You see it
is not generally known, and looks recherche. You must be careful and
give the thing with a downright improviso air.
"Again. 'The river Alpheus passed beneath the sea, and emerged
without injury to the purity of its waters.' Rather stale that, to be
sure, but, if properly dressed and dished up, will look quite as
fresh as ever.
"Here is something better. 'The Persian Iris appears to some persons
to possess a sweet and very powerful perfume, while to others it is
perfectly scentless.' Fine that, and very delicate! Turn it about a
little, and it will do wonders. We'll have some thing else in the
botanical line. There's nothing goes down so well, especially with
the help of a little Latin. Write!
"'The Epidendrum Flos Aeris, of Java, bears a very beautiful flower,
and will live when pulled up by the roots. The natives suspend it by
a cord from the ceiling, and enjoy its fragrance for years.' That's
capital! That will do for the similes. Now for the Piquant
Expressions.
"PIQUANT EXPRESSIONS. 'The Venerable Chinese novel Ju-Kiao-Li.' Good!
By introducing these few words with dexterity you will evince your
intimate acquaintance with the language and literature of the
Chinese. With the aid of this you may either get along without either
Arabic, or Sanscrit, or Chickasaw. There is no passing muster,
however, without Spanish, Italian, German, Latin, and Greek. I must
look you out a little specimen of each. Any scrap will answer,
because you must depend upon your own ingenuity to make it fit into
your article. Now write!
"'Aussi tendre que Zaire' -- as tender as Zaire-French. Alludes to
the frequent repetition of the phrase, la tendre Zaire, in the French
tragedy of that name. Properly introduced, will show not only your
knowledge of the language, but your general reading and wit. You can
say, for instance, that the chicken you were eating (write an article
about being choked to death by a chicken-bone) was not altogether
aussi tendre que Zaire. Write!
_'Van muerte tan escondida,
Que no te sienta venir,
Porque el plazer del morir,
No mestorne a dar la vida.'_
"That's Spanish -- from Miguel de Cervantes. 'Come quickly, O death!
but be sure and don't let me see you coming, lest the pleasure I
shall feel at your appearance should unfortunately bring me back
again to life.' This you may slip in quite a propos when you are
struggling in the last agonies with the chicken-bone. Write!
_'Il pover 'huomo che non se'n era accorto,
Andava combattendo, e era morto.'_
That's Italian, you perceive -- from Ariosto. It means that a great
hero, in the heat of combat, not perceiving that he had been fairly
killed, continued to fight valiantly, dead as he was. The application
of this to your own case is obvious -- for I trust, Miss Psyche, that
you will not neglect to kick for at least an hour and a half after
you have been choked to death by that chicken-bone. Please to write!
_'Und sterb'ich doch, no sterb'ich denn_
_Durch sie -- durch sie!'_
That's German -- from Schiller. 'And if I die, at least I die -- for
thee -- for thee!' Here it is clear that you are apostrophizing the
cause of your disaster, the chicken. Indeed what gentleman (or lady
either) of sense, wouldn't die, I should like to know, for a well
fattened capon of the right Molucca breed, stuffed with capers and
mushrooms, and served up in a salad-bowl, with orange-jellies en
mosaiques. Write! (You can get them that way at Tortoni's) -- Write,
if you please!
"Here is a nice little Latin phrase, and rare too, (one can't be too
recherche or brief in one's Latin, it's getting so common --
ignoratio elenchi. He has committed an ignoratio elenchi -- that is
to say, he has understood the words of your proposition, but not the
idea. The man was a fool, you see. Some poor fellow whom you address
while choking with that chicken-bone, and who therefore didn't
precisely understand what you were talking about. Throw the ignoratio
elenchi in his teeth, and, at once, you have him annihilated. If he
dares to reply, you can tell him from Lucan (here it is) that
speeches are mere anemonae verborum, anemone words. The anemone, with
great brilliancy, has no smell. Or, if he begins to bluster, you may
be down upon him with insomnia Jovis, reveries of Jupiter -- a phrase
which Silius Italicus (see here!) applies to thoughts pompous and
inflated. This will be sure and cut him to the heart. He can do
nothing but roll over and die. Will you be kind enough to write?
"In Greek we must have some thing pretty -- from Demosthenes, for
example. !<,D@ N,LT8 ¯"4 B"84< :"P,F,J"4
[Anerh o pheugoen kai palin makesetai] There is a tolerably good
translation of it in Hudibras
'For he that flies may fight again,
Which he can never do that's slain.'
In a Blackwood article nothing makes so fine a show as your Greek.
The very letters have an air of profundity about them. Only observe,
madam, the astute look of that Epsilon! That Phi ought certainly to
be a bishop! Was ever there a smarter fellow than that Omicron? Just
twig that Tau! In short, there is nothing like Greek for a genuine
sensation-paper. In the present case your application is the most
obvious thing in the world. Rap out the sentence, with a huge oath,
and by way of ultimatum at the good-for-nothing dunder-headed villain
who couldn't understand your plain English in relation to the
chicken-bone. He'll take the hint and be off, you may depend upon
it."
These were all the instructions Mr. B. could afford me upon the topic
in question, but I felt they would be entirely sufficient. I was, at
length, able to write a genuine Blackwood article, and determined to
do it forthwith. In taking leave of me, Mr. B. made a proposition for
the purchase of the paper when written; but as he could offer me only
fifty guineas a sheet, I thought it better to let our society have
it, than sacrifice it for so paltry a sum. Notwithstanding this
niggardly spirit, however, the gentleman showed his consideration for
me in all other respects, and indeed treated me with the greatest
civility. His parting words made a deep impression upon my heart, and
I hope I shall always remember them with gratitude.
"My dear Miss Zenobia," he said, while the tears stood in his eyes,
"is there anything else I can do to promote the success of your
laudable undertaking? Let me reflect! It is just possible that you
may not be able, so soon as convenient, to -- to -- get yourself
drowned, or -- choked with a chicken-bone, or -- or hung, -- or --
bitten by a -- but stay! Now I think me of it, there are a couple of
very excellent bull-dogs in the yard -- fine fellows, I assure you --
savage, and all that -- indeed just the thing for your money --
they'll have you eaten up, auricula and all, in less than five
minutes (here's my watch!) -- and then only think of the sensations!
Here! I say -- Tom! -- Peter! -- Dick, you villain! -- let out those"
-- but as I was really in a great hurry, and had not another moment
to spare, I was reluctantly forced to expedite my departure, and
accordingly took leave at once -- somewhat more abruptly, I admit,
than strict courtesy would have otherwise allowed.
It was my primary object upon quitting Mr. Blackwood, to get into
some immediate difficulty, pursuant to his advice, and with this view
I spent the greater part of the day in wandering about Edinburgh,
seeking for desperate adventures -- adventures adequate to the
intensity of my feelings, and adapted to the vast character of the
article I intended to write. In this excursion I was attended by one
negro -- servant, Pompey, and my little lap-dog Diana, whom I had
brought with me from Philadelphia. It was not, however, until late in
the afternoon that I fully succeeded in my arduous undertaking. An
important event then happened of which the following Blackwood
article, in the tone heterogeneous, is the substance and result.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
A PREDICAMENT
What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?
--COMUS.
IT was a quiet and still afternoon when I strolled forth in the
goodly city of Edina. The confusion and bustle in the streets were
terrible. Men were talking. Women were screaming. Children were
choking. Pigs were whistling. Carts they rattled. Bulls they
bellowed. Cows they lowed. Horses they neighed. Cats they
caterwauled. Dogs they danced. Danced! Could it then be possible?
Danced! Alas, thought I, my dancing days are over! Thus it is ever.
What a host of gloomy recollections will ever and anon be awakened in
the mind of genius and imaginative contemplation, especially of a
genius doomed to the everlasting and eternal, and continual, and, as
one might say, the -- continued -- yes, the continued and continuous,
bitter, harassing, disturbing, and, if I may be allowed the
expression, the very disturbing influence of the serene, and godlike,
and heavenly, and exalted, and elevated, and purifying effect of what
may be rightly termed the most enviable, the most truly enviable --
nay! the most benignly beautiful, the most deliciously ethereal, and,
as it were, the most pretty (if I may use so bold an expression)
thing (pardon me, gentle reader!) in the world -- but I am always led
away by my feelings. In such a mind, I repeat, what a host of
recollections are stirred up by a trifle! The dogs danced! I -- I
could not! They frisked -- I wept. They capered -- I sobbed aloud.
Touching circumstances! which cannot fail to bring to the
recollection of the classical reader that exquisite passage in
relation to the fitness of things, which is to be found in the
commencement of the third volume of that admirable and venerable
Chinese novel the Jo-Go-Slow.
In my solitary walk through, the city I had two humble but faithful
companions. Diana, my poodle! sweetest of creatures! She had a
quantity of hair over her one eye, and a blue ribband tied
fashionably around her neck. Diana was not more than five inches in
height, but her head was somewhat bigger than her body, and her tail
being cut off exceedingly close, gave an air of injured innocence to
the interesting animal which rendered her a favorite with all.
And Pompey, my negro! -- sweet Pompey! how shall I ever forget thee?
I had taken Pompey's arm. He was three feet in height (I like to be
particular) and about seventy, or perhaps eighty, years of age. He
had bow-legs and was corpulent. His mouth should not be called small,
nor his ears short. His teeth, however, were like pearl, and his
large full eyes were deliciously white. Nature had endowed him with
no neck, and had placed his ankles (as usual with that race) in the
middle of the upper portion of the feet. He was clad with a striking
simplicity. His sole garments were a stock of nine inches in height,
and a nearly -- new drab overcoat which had formerly been in the
service of the tall, stately, and illustrious Dr. Moneypenny. It was
a good overcoat. It was well cut. It was well made. The coat was
nearly new. Pompey held it up out of the dirt with both hands.
There were three persons in our party, and two of them have already
been the subject of remark. There was a third -- that person was
myself. I am the Signora Psyche Zenobia. I am not Suky Snobbs. My
appearance is commanding. On the memorable occasion of which I speak
I was habited in a crimson satin dress, with a sky-blue Arabian
mantelet. And the dress had trimmings of green agraffas, and seven
graceful flounces of the orange-colored auricula. I thus formed the
third of the party. There was the poodle. There was Pompey. There was
myself. We were three. Thus it is said there were originally but
three Furies -- Melty, Nimmy, and Hetty -- Meditation, Memory, and
Fiddling.
Leaning upon the arm of the gallant Pompey, and attended at a
respectable distance by Diana, I proceeded down one of the populous
and very pleasant streets of the now deserted Edina. On a sudden,
there presented itself to view a church -- a Gothic cathedral --
vast, venerable, and with a tall steeple, which towered into the sky.
What madness now possessed me? Why did I rush upon my fate? I was
seized with an uncontrollable desire to ascend the giddy pinnacle,
and then survey the immense extent of the city. The door of the
cathedral stood invitingly open. My destiny prevailed. I entered the
ominous archway. Where then was my guardian angel? -- if indeed such
angels there be. If! Distressing monosyllable! what world of mystery,
and meaning, and doubt, and uncertainty is there involved in thy two
letters! I entered the ominous archway! I entered; and, without
injury to my orange-colored auriculas, I passed beneath the portal,
and emerged within the vestibule. Thus it is said the immense river
Alfred passed, unscathed, and unwetted, beneath the sea.
I thought the staircase would never have an end. Round! Yes, they
went round and up, and round and up and round and up, until I could
not help surmising, with the sagacious Pompey, upon whose supporting
arm I leaned in all the confidence of early affection -- I could not
help surmising that the upper end of the continuous spiral ladder had
been accidentally, or perhaps designedly, removed. I paused for
breath; and, in the meantime, an accident occurred of too momentous a
nature in a moral, and also in a metaphysical point of view, to be
passed over without notice. It appeared to me -- indeed I was quite
confident of the fact -- I could not be mistaken -- no! I had, for
some moments, carefully and anxiously observed the motions of my
Diana -- I say that I could not be mistaken -- Diana smelt a rat! At
once I called Pompey's attention to the subject, and he -- he agreed
with me. There was then no longer any reasonable room for doubt. The
rat had been smelled -- and by Diana. Heavens! shall I ever forget
the intense excitement of the moment? Alas! what is the boasted
intellect of man? The rat! -- it was there -- that is to say, it was
somewhere. Diana smelled the rat. I -- I could not! Thus it is said
the Prussian Isis has, for some persons, a sweet and very powerful
perfume, while to others it is perfectly scentless.
The staircase had been surmounted, and there were now only three or
four more upward steps intervening between us and the summit. We
still ascended, and now only one step remained. One step! One little,
little step! Upon one such little step in the great staircase of
human life how vast a sum of human happiness or misery depends! I
thought of myself, then of Pompey, and then of the mysterious and
inexplicable destiny which surrounded us. I thought of Pompey! --
alas, I thought of love! I thought of my many false steps which have
been taken, and may be taken again. I resolved to be more cautious,
more reserved. I abandoned the arm of Pompey, and, without his
assistance, surmounted the one remaining step, and gained the chamber
of the belfry. I was followed immediately afterward by my poodle.
Pompey alone remained behind. I stood at the head of the staircase,
and encouraged him to ascend. He stretched forth to me his hand, and
unfortunately in so doing was forced to abandon his firm hold upon
the overcoat. Will the gods never cease their persecution? The
overcoat is dropped, and, with one of his feet, Pompey stepped upon
the long and trailing skirt of the overcoat. He stumbled and fell --
this consequence was inevitable. He fell forward, and, with his
accursed head, striking me full in the -- in the breast, precipitated
me headlong, together with himself, upon the hard, filthy, and
detestable floor of the belfry. But my revenge was sure, sudden, and
complete. Seizing him furiously by the wool with both hands, I tore
out a vast quantity of black, and crisp, and curling material, and
tossed it from me with every manifestation of disdain. It fell among
the ropes of the belfry and remained. Pompey arose, and said no word.
But he regarded me piteously with his large eyes and -- sighed. Ye
Gods -- that sigh! It sunk into my heart. And the hair -- the wool!
Could I have reached that wool I would have bathed it with my tears,
in testimony of regret. But alas! it was now far beyond my grasp. As
it dangled among the cordage of the bell, I fancied it alive. I
fancied that it stood on end with indignation. Thus the happy-dandy
Flos Aeris of Java bears, it is said, a beautiful flower, which will
live when pulled up by the roots. The natives suspend it by a cord
from the ceiling and enjoy its fragrance for years.
Our quarrel was now made up, and we looked about the room for an
aperture through which to survey the city of Edina. Windows there
were none. The sole light admitted into the gloomy chamber proceeded
from a square opening, about a foot in diameter, at a height of about
seven feet from the floor. Yet what will the energy of true genius
not effect? I resolved to clamber up to this hole. A vast quantity of
wheels, pinions, and other cabalistic -- looking machinery stood
opposite the hole, close to it; and through the hole there passed an
iron rod from the machinery. Between the wheels and the wall where
the hole lay there was barely room for my body -- yet I was
desperate, and determined to persevere. I called Pompey to my side.
"You perceive that aperture, Pompey. I wish to look through it. You
will stand here just beneath the hole -- so. Now, hold out one of
your hands, Pompey, and let me step upon it -- thus. Now, the other
hand, Pompey, and with its aid I will get upon your shoulders."
He did every thing I wished, and I found, upon getting up, that I
could easily pass my head and neck through the aperture. The prospect
was sublime. Nothing could be more magnificent. I merely paused a
moment to bid Diana behave herself, and assure Pompey that I would be
considerate and bear as lightly as possible upon his shoulders. I
told him I would be tender of his feelings -- ossi tender que
beefsteak. Having done this justice to my faithful friend, I gave
myself up with great zest and enthusiasm to the enjoyment of the
scene which so obligingly spread itself out before my eyes.
Upon this subject, however, I shall forbear to dilate. I will not
describe the city of Edinburgh. Every one has been to the city of
Edinburgh. Every one has been to Edinburgh -- the classic Edina. I
will confine myself to the momentous details of my own lamentable
adventure. Having, in some measure, satisfied my curiosity in regard
to the extent, situation, and general appearance of the city, I had
leisure to survey the church in which I was, and the delicate
architecture of the steeple. I observed that the aperture through
which I had thrust my head was an opening in the dial-plate of a
gigantic clock, and must have appeared, from the street, as a large
key-hole, such as we see in the face of the French watches. No doubt
the true object was to admit the arm of an attendant, to adjust, when
necessary, the hands of the clock from within. I observed also, with
surprise, the immense size of these hands, the longest of which could
not have been less than ten feet in length, and, where broadest,
eight or nine inches in breadth. They were of solid steel apparently,
and their edges appeared to be sharp. Having noticed these
particulars, and some others, I again turned my eyes upon the
glorious prospect below, and soon became absorbed in contemplation.
From this, after some minutes, I was aroused by the voice of Pompey,
who declared that he could stand it no longer, and requested that I
would be so kind as to come down. This was unreasonable, and I told
him so in a speech of some length. He replied, but with an evident
misunderstanding of my ideas upon the subject. I accordingly grew
angry, and told him in plain words, that he was a fool, that he had
committed an ignoramus e-clench-eye, that his notions were mere
insommary Bovis, and his words little better than an
ennemywerrybor'em. With this he appeared satisfied, and I resumed my
contemplations.
It might have been half an hour after this altercation when, as I was
deeply absorbed in the heavenly scenery beneath me, I was startled by
something very cold which pressed with a gentle pressure on the back
of my neck. It is needless to say that I felt inexpressibly alarmed.
I knew that Pompey was beneath my feet, and that Diana was sitting,
according to my explicit directions, upon her hind legs, in the
farthest corner of the room. What could it be? Alas! I but too soon
discovered. Turning my head gently to one side, I perceived, to my
extreme horror, that the huge, glittering, scimetar-like minute-hand
of the clock had, in the course of its hourly revolution, descended
upon my neck. There was, I knew, not a second to be lost. I pulled
back at once -- but it was too late. There was no chance of forcing
my head through the mouth of that terrible trap in which it was so
fairly caught, and which grew narrower and narrower with a rapidity
too horrible to be conceived. The agony of that moment is not to be
imagined. I threw up my hands and endeavored, with all my strength,
to force upward the ponderous iron bar. I might as well have tried to
lift the cathedral itself. Down, down, down it came, closer and yet
closer. I screamed to Pompey for aid; but he said that I had hurt his
feelings by calling him 'an ignorant old squint-eye:' I yelled to
Diana; but she only said 'bow-wow-wow,' and that I had told her 'on
no account to stir from the corner.' Thus I had no relief to expect
from my associates.
Meantime the ponderous and terrific Scythe of Time (for I now
discovered the literal import of that classical phrase) had not
stopped, nor was it likely to stop, in its career. Down and still
down, it came. It had already buried its sharp edge a full inch in my
flesh, and my sensations grew indistinct and confused. At one time I
fancied myself in Philadelphia with the stately Dr. Moneypenny, at
another in the back parlor of Mr. Blackwood receiving his invaluable
instructions. And then again the sweet recollection of better and
earlier times came over me, and I thought of that happy period when
the world was not all a desert, and Pompey not altogether cruel.
The ticking of the machinery amused me. Amused me, I say, for my
sensations now bordered upon perfect happiness, and the most trifling
circumstances afforded me pleasure. The eternal click-clak,
click-clak, click-clak of the clock was the most melodious of music
in my ears, and occasionally even put me in mind of the graceful
sermonic harangues of Dr. Ollapod. Then there were the great figures
upon the dial-plate -- how intelligent how intellectual, they all
looked! And presently they took to dancing the Mazurka, and I think
it was the figure V. who performed the most to my satisfaction. She
was evidently a lady of breeding. None of your swaggerers, and
nothing at all indelicate in her motions. She did the pirouette to
admiration -- whirling round upon her apex. I made an endeavor to
hand her a chair, for I saw that she appeared fatigued with her
exertions -- and it was not until then that I fully perceived my
lamentable situation. Lamentable indeed! The bar had buried itself
two inches in my neck. I was aroused to a sense of exquisite pain. I
prayed for death, and, in the agony of the moment, could not help
repeating those exquisite verses of the poet Miguel De Cervantes:
Vanny Buren, tan escondida
Query no te senty venny
Pork and pleasure, delly morry
Nommy, torny, darry, widdy!
But now a new horror presented itself, and one indeed sufficient to
startle the strongest nerves. My eyes, from the cruel pressure of the
machine, were absolutely starting from their sockets. While I was
thinking how I should possibly manage without them, one actually
tumbled out of my head, and, rolling down the steep side of the
steeple, lodged in the rain gutter which ran along the eaves of the
main building. The loss of the eye was not so much as the insolent
air of independence and contempt with which it regarded me after it
was out. There it lay in the gutter just under my nose, and the airs
it gave itself would have been ridiculous had they not been
disgusting. Such a winking and blinking were never before seen. This
behavior on the part of my eye in the gutter was not only irritating
on account of its manifest insolence and shameful ingratitude, but
was also exceedingly inconvenient on account of the sympathy which
always exists between two eyes of the same head, however far apart. I
was forced, in a manner, to wink and to blink, whether I would or
not, in exact concert with the scoundrelly thing that lay just under
my nose. I was presently relieved, however, by the dropping out of
the other eye. In falling it took the same direction (possibly a
concerted plot) as its fellow. Both rolled out of the gutter
together, and in truth I was very glad to get rid of them.
The bar was now four inches and a half deep in my neck, and there was
only a little bit of skin to cut through. My sensations were those of
entire happiness, for I felt that in a few minutes, at farthest, I
should be relieved from my disagreeable situation. And in this
expectation I was not at all deceived. At twenty-five minutes past
five in the afternoon, precisely, the huge minute-hand had proceeded
sufficiently far on its terrible revolution to sever the small
remainder of my neck. I was not sorry to see the head which had
occasioned me so much embarrassment at length make a final separation
from my body. It first rolled down the side of the steeple, then
lodge, for a few seconds, in the gutter, and then made its way, with
a plunge, into the middle of the street.
I will candidly confess that my feelings were now of the most
singular -- nay, of the most mysterious, the most perplexing and
incomprehensible character. My senses were here and there at one and
the same moment. With my head I imagined, at one time, that I, the
head, was the real Signora Psyche Zenobia -- at another I felt
convinced that myself, the body, was the proper identity. To clear my
ideas on this topic I felt in my pocket for my snuff-box, but, upon
getting it, and endeavoring to apply a pinch of its grateful contents
in the ordinary manner, I became immediately aware of my peculiar
deficiency, and threw the box at once down to my head. It took a
pinch with great satisfaction, and smiled me an acknowledgement in
return. Shortly afterward it made me a speech, which I could hear but
indistinctly without ears. I gathered enough, however, to know that
it was astonished at my wishing to remain alive under such
circumstances. In the concluding sentences it quoted the noble words
of Ariosto--
Il pover hommy che non sera corty
And have a combat tenty erry morty; thus comparing me to the hero
who, in the heat of the combat, not perceiving that he was dead,
continued to contest the battle with inextinguishable valor. There
was nothing now to prevent my getting down from my elevation, and I
did so. What it was that Pompey saw so very peculiar in my appearance
I have never yet been able to find out. The fellow opened his mouth
from ear to ear, and shut his two eyes as if he were endeavoring to
crack nuts between the lids. Finally, throwing off his overcoat, he
made one spring for the staircase and disappeared. I hurled after the
scoundrel these vehement words of Demosthenes-
Andrew O'Phlegethon, you really make haste to fly, and then turned to
the darling of my heart, to the one-eyed! the shaggy-haired Diana.
Alas! what a horrible vision affronted my eyes? Was that a rat I saw
skulking into his hole? Are these the picked bones of the little
angel who has been cruelly devoured by the monster? Ye gods! and what
do I behold -- is that the departed spirit, the shade, the ghost, of
my beloved puppy, which I perceive sitting with a grace so
melancholy, in the corner? Hearken! for she speaks, and, heavens! it
is in the German of Schiller-
"Unt stubby duk, so stubby dun
Duk she! duk she!"
Alas! and are not her words too true?
"And if I died, at least I died
For thee -- for thee."
Sweet creature! she too has sacrificed herself
in my behalf. Dogless, niggerless, headless, what now remains for the
unhappy Signora Psyche Zenobia? Alas -- nothing! I have done.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
MYSTIFICATION
Slid, if these be your "passados" and "montantes," I'll have none o'
them.
-- NED KNOWLES.
THE BARON RITZNER VON JUNG was a noble Hungarian family, every member
of which (at least as far back into antiquity as any certain records
extend) was more or less remarkable for talent of some description --
the majority for that species of grotesquerie in conception of which
Tieck, a scion of the house, has given a vivid, although by no means
the most vivid exemplifications. My acquaintance with Ritzner
commenced at the magnificent Chateau Jung, into which a train of
droll adventures, not to be made public, threw a place in his regard,
and here, with somewhat more difficulty, a partial insight into his
mental conformation. In later days this insight grew more clear, as
the intimacy which had at first permitted it became more close; and
when, after three years of the character of the Baron Ritzner von
Jung.
I remember the buzz of curiosity which his advent excited within the
college precincts on the night of the twenty-fifth of June. I
remember still more distinctly, that while he was pronounced by all
parties at first sight "the most remarkable man in the world," no
person made any attempt at accounting for his opinion. That he was
unique appeared so undeniable, that it was deemed impertinent to
inquire wherein the uniquity consisted. But, letting this matter pass
for the present, I will merely observe that, from the first moment of
his setting foot within the limits of the university, he began to
exercise over the habits, manners, persons, purses, and propensities
of the whole community which surrounded him, an influence the most
extensive and despotic, yet at the same time the most indefinite and
altogether unaccountable. Thus the brief period of his residence at
the university forms an era in its annals, and is characterized by
all classes of people appertaining to it or its dependencies as "that
very extraordinary epoch forming the domination of the Baron Ritzner
von Jung." then of no particular age, by which I mean that it was
impossible to form a guess respecting his age by any data personally
afforded. He might have been fifteen or fifty, and was twenty-one
years and seven months. He was by no means a handsome man -- perhaps
the reverse. The contour of his face was somewhat angular and harsh.
His forehead was lofty and very fair; his nose a snub; his eyes
large, heavy, glassy, and meaningless. About the mouth there was more
to be observed. The lips were gently protruded, and rested the one
upon the other, after such a fashion that it is impossible to
conceive any, even the most complex, combination of human features,
conveying so entirely, and so singly, the idea of unmitigated
gravity, solemnity and repose.
It will be perceived, no doubt, from what I have already said, that
the Baron was one of those human anomalies now and then to be found,
who make the science of mystification the study and the business of
their lives. For this science a peculiar turn of mind gave him
instinctively the cue, while his physical appearance afforded him
unusual facilities for carrying his prospects into effect. I quaintly
termed the domination of the Baron Ritzner von Jung, ever rightly
entered into the mystery which overshadowed his character. I truly
think that no person at the university, with the exception of myself,
ever suspected him to be capable of a joke, verbal or practical: --
the old bull-dog at the garden-gate would sooner have been accused,
-- the ghost of Heraclitus, -- or the wig of the Emeritus Professor
of Theology. This, too, when it was evident that the most egregious
and unpardonable of all conceivable tricks, whimsicalities and
buffooneries were brought about, if not directly by him, at least
plainly through his intermediate agency or connivance. The beauty, if
I may so call it, of his art mystifique, lay in that consummate
ability (resulting from an almost intuitive knowledge of human
nature, and a most wonderful self-possession,) by means of which he
never failed to make it appear that the drolleries he was occupied in
bringing to a point, arose partly in spite, and partly in consequence
of the laudable efforts he was making for their prevention, and for
the preservation of the good order and dignity of Alma Mater. The
deep, the poignant, the overwhelming mortification, which upon each
such failure of his praise worthy endeavors, would suffuse every
lineament of his countenance, left not the slightest room for doubt
of his sincerity in the bosoms of even his most skeptical companions.
The adroitness, too, was no less worthy of observation by which he
contrived to shift the sense of the grotesque from the creator to the
created -- from his own person to the absurdities to which he had
given rise. In no instance before that of which I speak, have I known
the habitual mystific escape the natural consequence of his manoevres
-- an attachment of the ludicrous to his own character and person.
Continually enveloped in an atmosphere of whim, my friend appeared to
live only for the severities of society; and not even his own
household have for a moment associated other ideas than those of the
rigid and august with the memory of the Baron Ritzner von Jung. the
demon of the dolce far niente lay like an incubus upon the
university. Nothing, at least, was done beyond eating and drinking
and making merry. The apartments of the students were converted into
so many pot-houses, and there was no pot-house of them all more
famous or more frequented than that of the Baron. Our carousals here
were many, and boisterous, and long, and never unfruitful of events.
Upon one occasion we had protracted our sitting until nearly
daybreak, and an unusual quantity of wine had been drunk. The company
consisted of seven or eight individuals besides the Baron and myself.
Most of these were young men of wealth, of high connection, of great
family pride, and all alive with an exaggerated sense of honor. They
abounded in the most ultra German opinions respecting the duello. To
these Quixotic notions some recent Parisian publications, backed by
three or four desperate and fatal conversation, during the greater
part of the night, had run wild upon the all -- engrossing topic of
the times. The Baron, who had been unusually silent and abstracted in
the earlier portion of the evening, at length seemed to be aroused
from his apathy, took a leading part in the discourse, and dwelt upon
the benefits, and more especially upon the beauties, of the received
code of etiquette in passages of arms with an ardor, an eloquence, an
impressiveness, and an affectionateness of manner, which elicited the
warmest enthusiasm from his hearers in general, and absolutely
staggered even myself, who well knew him to be at heart a ridiculer
of those very points for which he contended, and especially to hold
the entire fanfaronade of duelling etiquette in the sovereign
contempt which it deserves.
Looking around me during a pause in the Baron's discourse (of which
my readers may gather some faint idea when I say that it bore
resemblance to the fervid, chanting, monotonous, yet musical sermonic
manner of Coleridge), I perceived symptoms of even more than the
general interest in the countenance of one of the party. This
gentleman, whom I shall call Hermann, was an original in every
respect -- except, perhaps, in the single particular that he was a
very great fool. He contrived to bear, however, among a particular
set at the university, a reputation for deep metaphysical thinking,
and, I believe, for some logical talent. As a duellist he had
acquired who had fallen at his hands; but they were many. He was a
man of courage undoubtedly. But it was upon his minute acquaintance
with the etiquette of the duello, and the nicety of his sense of
honor, that he most especially prided himself. These things were a
hobby which he rode to the death. To Ritzner, ever upon the lookout
for the grotesque, his peculiarities had for a long time past
afforded food for mystification. Of this, however, I was not aware;
although, in the present instance, I saw clearly that something of a
whimsical nature was upon the tapis with my friend, and that Hermann
was its especial object.
As the former proceeded in his discourse, or rather monologue I
perceived the excitement of the latter momently increasing. At length
he spoke; offering some objection to a point insisted upon by R., and
giving his reasons in detail. To these the Baron replied at length
(still maintaining his exaggerated tone of sentiment) and concluding,
in what I thought very bad taste, with a sarcasm and a sneer. The
hobby of Hermann now took the bit in his teeth. This I could discern
by the studied hair-splitting farrago of his rejoinder. His last
words I distinctly remember. "Your opinions, allow me to say, Baron
von Jung, although in the main correct, are, in many nice points,
discreditable to yourself and to the university of which you are a
member. In a few respects they are even unworthy of serious
refutation. I would say more than this, sir, were it not for the fear
of giving you offence (here the speaker smiled blandly), I would say,
sir, that your opinions are not the opinions to be expected from a
gentleman."
As Hermann completed this equivocal sentence, all eyes were turned
upon the Baron. He became pale, then excessively red; then, dropping
his pocket-handkerchief, stooped to recover it, when I caught a
glimpse of his countenance, while it could be seen by no one else at
the table. It was radiant with the quizzical expression which was its
natural character, but which I had never seen it assume except when
we were alone together, and when he unbent himself freely. In an
instant afterward he stood erect, confronting Hermann; and so total
an alteration of countenance in so short a period I certainly never
saw before. For a moment I even fancied that I had misconceived him,
and that he was in sober earnest. He appeared to be stifling with
passion, and his face was cadaverously white. For a short time he
remained silent, apparently striving to master his emotion. Having at
length seemingly succeeded, he reached a decanter which stood near
him, saying as he held it firmly clenched "The language you have
thought proper to employ, Mynheer Hermann, in addressing yourself to
me, is objectionable in so many particulars, that I have neither
temper nor time for specification. That my opinions, however, are not
the opinions to be expected from a gentleman, is an observation so
directly offensive as to allow me but one line of conduct. Some
courtesy, nevertheless, is due to the presence of this company, and
to yourself, at this moment, as my guest. You will pardon me,
therefore, if, upon this consideration, I deviate slightly from the
general usage among gentlemen in similar cases of personal affront.
You will forgive me for the moderate tax I shall make upon your
imagination, and endeavor to consider, for an instant, the reflection
of your person in yonder mirror as the living Mynheer Hermann
himself. This being done, there will be no difficulty whatever. I
shall discharge this decanter of wine at your image in yonder mirror,
and thus fulfil all the spirit, if not the exact letter, of
resentment for your insult, while the necessity of physical violence
to your real person will be obviated."
With these words he hurled the decanter, full of wine, against the
mirror which hung directly opposite Hermann; striking the reflection
of his person with great precision, and of course shattering the
glass into fragments. The whole company at once started to their
feet, and, with the exception of myself and Ritzner, took their
departure. As Hermann went out, the Baron whispered me that I should
follow him and make an offer of my services. To this I agreed; not
knowing precisely what to make of so ridiculous a piece of business.
The duellist accepted my aid with his stiff and ultra recherche air,
and, taking my arm, led me to his apartment. I could hardly forbear
laughing in his face while he proceeded to discuss, with the
profoundest gravity, what he termed "the refinedly peculiar
character" of the insult he had received. After a tiresome harangue
in his ordinary style, he took down from his book shelves a number of
musty volumes on the subject of the duello, and entertained me for a
long time with their contents; reading aloud, and commenting
earnestly as he read. I can just remember the titles of some of the
works. There were the "Ordonnance of Philip le Bel on Single Combat";
the "Theatre of Honor," by Favyn, and a treatise "On the Permission
of Duels," by Andiguier. He displayed, also, with much pomposity,
Brantome's "Memoirs of Duels," -- published at Cologne, 1666, in the
types of Elzevir -- a precious and unique vellum-paper volume, with a
fine margin, and bound by Derome. But he requested my attention
particularly, and with an air of mysterious sagacity, to a thick
octavo, written in barbarous Latin by one Hedelin, a Frenchman, and
having the quaint title, "Duelli Lex Scripta, et non; aliterque."
From this he read me one of the drollest chapters in the world
concerning "Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per
se," about half of which, he averred, was strictly applicable to his
own "refinedly peculiar" case, although not one syllable of the whole
matter could I understand for the life of me. Having finished the
chapter, he closed the book, and demanded what I thought necessary to
be done. I replied that I had entire confidence in his superior
delicacy of feeling, and would abide by what he proposed. With this
answer he seemed flattered, and sat down to write a note to the
Baron. It ran thus:
Sir, -- My friend, M. P.-, will hand you this note. I find it
incumbent upon me to request, at your earliest convenience, an
explanation of this evening's occurrences at your chambers. In the
event of your declining this request, Mr. P. will be happy to
arrange, with any friend whom you may appoint, the steps preliminary
to a meeting.
With sentiments of perfect respect,
Your most humble servant,
JOHANN HERMAN.
To the Baron Ritzner von Jung,
Not knowing what better to do, I called upon Ritzner with this
epistle. He bowed as I presented it; then, with a grave countenance,
motioned me to a seat. Having perused the cartel, he wrote the
following reply, which I carried to Hermann.
SIR, -- Through our common friend, Mr. P., I have received your note
of this evening. Upon due reflection I frankly admit the propriety of
the explanation you suggest. This being admitted, I still find great
difficulty, (owing to the refinedly peculiar nature of our
disagreement, and of the personal affront offered on my part,) in so
wording what I have to say by way of apology, as to meet all the
minute exigencies, and all the variable shadows, of the case. I have
great reliance, however, on that extreme delicacy of discrimination,
in matters appertaining to the rules of etiquette, for which you have
been so long and so pre-eminently distinguished. With perfect
certainty, therefore, of being comprehended, I beg leave, in lieu of
offering any sentiments of my own, to refer you to the opinions of
Sieur Hedelin, as set forth in the ninth paragraph of the chapter of
"Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se," in his
"Duelli Lex scripta, et non; aliterque." The nicety of your
discernment in all the matters here treated, will be sufficient, I am
assured, to convince you that the mere circumstance of me referring
you to this admirable passage, ought to satisfy your request, as a
man of honor, for explanation.
With sentiments of profound respect,
Your most obedient servant,
VON JUNG.
The Herr Johann Hermann
Hermann commenced the perusal of this epistle with a scowl, which,
however, was converted into a smile of the most ludicrous
self-complacency as he came to the rigmarole about Injuriae per
applicationem, per constructionem, et per se. Having finished
reading, he begged me, with the blandest of all possible smiles, to
be seated, while he made reference to the treatise in question.
Turning to the passage specified, he read it with great care to
himself, then closed the book, and desired me, in my character of
confidential acquaintance, to express to the Baron von Jung his
exalted sense of his chivalrous behavior, and, in that of second, to
assure him that the explanation offered was of the fullest, the most
honorable, and the most unequivocally satisfactory nature.
Somewhat amazed at all this, I made my retreat to the Baron. He
seemed to receive Hermann's amicable letter as a matter of course,
and after a few words of general conversation, went to an inner room
and brought out the everlasting treatise "Duelli Lex scripta, et non;
aliterque." He handed me the volume and asked me to look over some
portion of it. I did so, but to little purpose, not being able to
gather the least particle of meaning. He then took the book himself,
and read me a chapter aloud. To my surprise, what he read proved to
be a most horribly absurd account of a duel between two baboons. He
now explained the mystery; showing that the volume, as it appeared
prima facie, was written upon the plan of the nonsense verses of Du
Bartas; that is to say, the language was ingeniously framed so as to
present to the ear all the outward signs of intelligibility, and even
of profundity, while in fact not a shadow of meaning existed. The key
to the whole was found in leaving out every second and third word
alternately, when there appeared a series of ludicrous quizzes upon a
single combat as practised in modern times.
The Baron afterwards informed me that he had purposely thrown the
treatise in Hermann's way two or three weeks before the adventure,
and that he was satisfied, from the general tenor of his
conversation, that he had studied it with the deepest attention, and
firmly believed it to be a work of unusual merit. Upon this hint he
proceeded. Hermann would have died a thousand deaths rather than
acknowledge his inability to understand anything and everything in
the universe that had ever been written about the duello.
Littleton Barry.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
DIDDLING
CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE EXACT SCIENCES.
Hey, diddle diddle
The cat and the fiddle
SINCE the world began there have been two Jeremys. The one wrote a
Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has been much
admired by Mr. John Neal, and was a great man in a small way. The
other gave name to the most important of the Exact Sciences, and was
a great man in a great way -- I may say, indeed, in the very greatest
of ways.
Diddling -- or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle -- is
sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing
diddling, is somewhat difficult to define. We may get, however, at a
tolerably distinct conception of the matter in hand, by defining- not
the thing, diddling, in itself -- but man, as an animal that diddles.
Had Plato but hit upon this, he would have been spared the affront of
the picked chicken.
Very pertinently it was demanded of Plato, why a picked chicken,
which was clearly "a biped without feathers," was not, according to
his own definition, a man? But I am not to be bothered by any similar
query. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no animal that
diddles but man. It will take an entire hen-coop of picked chickens
to get over that.
What constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling is,
in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures that wear coats and
pantaloons. A crow thieves; a fox cheats; a weasel outwits; a man
diddles. To diddle is his destiny. "Man was made to mourn," says the
poet. But not so: -- he was made to diddle. This is his aim -- his
object- his end. And for this reason when a man's diddled we say he's
"done."
Diddling, rightly considered, is a compound, of which the ingredients
are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity, audacity,
nonchalance, originality, impertinence, and grin.
Minuteness: -- Your diddler is minute. His operations are upon a
small scale. His business is retail, for cash, or approved paper at
sight. Should he ever be tempted into magnificent speculation, he
then, at once, loses his distinctive features, and becomes what we
term "financier." This latter word conveys the diddling idea in every
respect except that of magnitude. A diddler may thus be regarded as a
banker in petto -- a "financial operation," as a diddle at
Brobdignag. The one is to the other, as Homer to "Flaccus" -- as a
Mastodon to a mouse -- as the tail of a comet to that of a pig.
Interest: -- Your diddler is guided by self-interest. He scorns to
diddle for the mere sake of the diddle. He has an object in view- his
pocket -- and yours. He regards always the main chance. He looks to
Number One. You are Number Two, and must look to yourself.
Perseverance: -- Your diddler perseveres. He is not readily
discouraged. Should even the banks break, he cares nothing about it.
He steadily pursues his end, and
Ut canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto. so he never lets go of
his game.
Ingenuity: -- Your diddler is ingenious. He has constructiveness
large. He understands plot. He invents and circumvents. Were he not
Alexander he would be Diogenes. Were he not a diddler, he would be a
maker of patent rat-traps or an angler for trout.
Audacity: -- Your diddler is audacious. -- He is a bold man. He
carries the war into Africa. He conquers all by assault. He would not
fear the daggers of Frey Herren. With a little more prudence Dick
Turpin would have made a good diddler; with a trifle less blarney,
Daniel O'Connell; with a pound or two more brains Charles the
Twelfth.
Nonchalance: -- Your diddler is nonchalant. He is not at all nervous.
He never had any nerves. He is never seduced into a flurry. He is
never put out -- unless put out of doors. He is cool -- cool as a
cucumber. He is calm -- "calm as a smile from Lady Bury." He is easy-
easy as an old glove, or the damsels of ancient Baiae.
Originality: -- Your diddler is original -- conscientiously so. His
thoughts are his own. He would scorn to employ those of another. A
stale trick is his aversion. He would return a purse, I am sure, upon
discovering that he had obtained it by an unoriginal diddle.
Impertinence. -- Your diddler is impertinent. He swaggers. He sets
his arms a-kimbo. He thrusts his hands in his trowsers' pockets. He
sneers in your face. He treads on your corns. He eats your dinner, he
drinks your wine, he borrows your money, he pulls your nose, he kicks
your poodle, and he kisses your wife.
Grin: -- Your true diddler winds up all with a grin. But this nobody
sees but himself. He grins when his daily work is done -- when his
allotted labors are accomplished -- at night in his own closet, and
altogether for his own private entertainment. He goes home. He locks
his door. He divests himself of his clothes. He puts out his candle.
He gets into bed. He places his head upon the pillow. All this done,
and your diddler grins. This is no hypothesis. It is a matter of
course. I reason a priori, and a diddle would be no diddle without a
grin.
The origin of the diddle is referrable to the infancy of the Human
Race. Perhaps the first diddler was Adam. At all events, we can trace
the science back to a very remote period of antiquity. The moderns,
however, have brought it to a perfection never dreamed of by our
thick-headed progenitors. Without pausing to speak of the "old saws,"
therefore, I shall content myself with a compendious account of some
of the more "modern instances."
A very good diddle is this. A housekeeper in want of a sofa, for
instance, is seen to go in and out of several cabinet warehouses. At
length she arrives at one offering an excellent variety. She is
accosted, and invited to enter, by a polite and voluble individual at
the door. She finds a sofa well adapted to her views, and upon
inquiring the price, is surprised and delighted to hear a sum named
at least twenty per cent. lower than her expectations. She hastens to
make the purchase, gets a bill and receipt, leaves her address, with
a request that the article be sent home as speedily as possible, and
retires amid a profusion of bows from the shopkeeper. The night
arrives and no sofa. A servant is sent to make inquiry about the
delay. The whole transaction is denied. No sofa has been sold -- no
money received -- except by the diddler, who played shop-keeper for
the nonce.
Our cabinet warehouses are left entirely unattended, and thus afford
every facility for a trick of this kind. Visiters enter, look at
furniture, and depart unheeded and unseen. Should any one wish to
purchase, or to inquire the price of an article, a bell is at hand,
and this is considered amply sufficient.
Again, quite a respectable diddle is this. A well-dressed individual
enters a shop, makes a purchase to the value of a dollar; finds, much
to his vexation, that he has left his pocket-book in another coat
pocket; and so says to the shopkeeper-
"My dear sir, never mind; just oblige me, will you, by sending the
bundle home? But stay! I really believe that I have nothing less than
a five dollar bill, even there. However, you can send four dollars in
change with the bundle, you know."
"Very good, sir," replies the shop-keeper, who entertains, at once, a
lofty opinion of the high-mindedness of his customer. "I know
fellows," he says to himself, "who would just have put the goods
under their arm, and walked off with a promise to call and pay the
dollar as they came by in the afternoon."
A boy is sent with the parcel and change. On the route, quite
accidentally, he is met by the purchaser, who exclaims:
"Ah! This is my bundle, I see -- I thought you had been home with it,
long ago. Well, go on! My wife, Mrs. Trotter, will give you the five
dollars -- I left instructions with her to that effect. The change
you might as well give to me -- I shall want some silver for the Post
Office. Very good! One, two, is this a good quarter?- three, four --
quite right! Say to Mrs. Trotter that you met me, and be sure now and
do not loiter on the way."
The boy doesn't loiter at all -- but he is a very long time in
getting back from his errand -- for no lady of the precise name of
Mrs. Trotter is to be discovered. He consoles himself, however, that
he has not been such a fool as to leave the goods without the money,
and re-entering his shop with a self-satisfied air, feels sensibly
hurt and indignant when his master asks him what has become of the
change.
A very simple diddle, indeed, is this. The captain of a ship, which
is about to sail, is presented by an official looking person with an
unusually moderate bill of city charges. Glad to get off so easily,
and confused by a hundred duties pressing upon him all at once, he
discharges the claim forthwith. In about fifteen minutes, another and
less reasonable bill is handed him by one who soon makes it evident
that the first collector was a diddler, and the original collection a
diddle.
And here, too, is a somewhat similar thing. A steamboat is casting
loose from the wharf. A traveller, portmanteau in hand, is discovered
running toward the wharf, at full speed. Suddenly, he makes a dead
halt, stoops, and picks up something from the ground in a very
agitated manner. It is a pocket-book, and -- "Has any gentleman lost
a pocketbook?" he cries. No one can say that he has exactly lost a
pocket-book; but a great excitement ensues, when the treasure trove
is found to be of value. The boat, however, must not be detained.
"Time and tide wait for no man," says the captain.
"For God's sake, stay only a few minutes," says the finder of the
book -- "the true claimant will presently appear."
"Can't wait!" replies the man in authority; "cast off there, d'ye
hear?"
"What am I to do?" asks the finder, in great tribulation. "I am about
to leave the country for some years, and I cannot conscientiously
retain this large amount in my possession. I beg your pardon, sir,"
[here he addresses a gentleman on shore,] "but you have the air of an
honest man. Will you confer upon me the favor of taking charge of
this pocket-book -- I know I can trust you -- and of advertising it?
The notes, you see, amount to a very considerable sum. The owner
will, no doubt, insist upon rewarding you for your trouble-
"Me! -- no, you! -- it was you who found the book."
"Well, if you must have it so -- I will take a small reward -- just
to satisfy your scruples. Let me see -- why these notes are all
hundreds- bless my soul! a hundred is too much to take -- fifty would
be quite enough, I am sure-
"Cast off there!" says the captain.
"But then I have no change for a hundred, and upon the whole, you had
better-
"Cast off there!" says the captain.
"Never mind!" cries the gentleman on shore, who has been examining
his own pocket-book for the last minute or so -- "never mind! I can
fix it -- here is a fifty on the Bank of North America -- throw the
book."
And the over-conscientious finder takes the fifty with marked
reluctance, and throws the gentleman the book, as desired, while the
steamboat fumes and fizzes on her way. In about half an hour after
her departure, the "large amount" is seen to be a "counterfeit
presentment," and the whole thing a capital diddle.
A bold diddle is this. A camp-meeting, or something similar, is to be
held at a certain spot which is accessible only by means of a free
bridge. A diddler stations himself upon this bridge, respectfully
informs all passers by of the new county law, which establishes a
toll of one cent for foot passengers, two for horses and donkeys, and
so forth, and so forth. Some grumble but all submit, and the diddler
goes home a wealthier man by some fifty or sixty dollars well earned.
This taking a toll from a great crowd of people is an excessively
troublesome thing.
A neat diddle is this. A friend holds one of the diddler's promises
to pay, filled up and signed in due form, upon the ordinary blanks
printed in red ink. The diddler purchases one or two dozen of these
blanks, and every day dips one of them in his soup, makes his dog
jump for it, and finally gives it to him as a bonne bouche. The note
arriving at maturity, the diddler, with the diddler's dog, calls upon
the friend, and the promise to pay is made the topic of discussion.
The friend produces it from his escritoire, and is in the act of
reaching it to the diddler, when up jumps the diddler's dog and
devours it forthwith. The diddler is not only surprised but vexed and
incensed at the absurd behavior of his dog, and expresses his entire
readiness to cancel the obligation at any moment when the evidence of
the obligation shall be forthcoming.
A very mean diddle is this. A lady is insulted in the street by a
diddler's accomplice. The diddler himself flies to her assistance,
and, giving his friend a comfortable thrashing, insists upon
attending the lady to her own door. He bows, with his hand upon his
heart, and most respectfully bids her adieu. She entreats him, as her
deliverer, to walk in and be introduced to her big brother and her
papa. With a sigh, he declines to do so. "Is there no way, then,
sir," she murmurs, "in which I may be permitted to testify my
gratitude?"
"Why, yes, madam, there is. Will you be kind enough to lend me a
couple of shillings?"
In the first excitement of the moment the lady decides upon fainting
outright. Upon second thought, however, she opens her purse-strings
and delivers the specie. Now this, I say, is a diddle minute -- for
one entire moiety of the sum borrowed has to be paid to the gentleman
who had the trouble of performing the insult, and who had then to
stand still and be thrashed for performing it.
Rather a small but still a scientific diddle is this. The diddler
approaches the bar of a tavern, and demands a couple of twists of
tobacco. These are handed to him, when, having slightly examined
them, he says:
"I don't much like this tobacco. Here, take it back, and give me a
glass of brandy and water in its place." The brandy and water is
furnished and imbibed, and the diddler makes his way to the door. But
the voice of the tavern-keeper arrests him.
"I believe, sir, you have forgotten to pay for your brandy and
water."
"Pay for my brandy and water! -- didn't I give you the tobacco for
the brandy and water? What more would you have?"
"But, sir, if you please, I don't remember that you paid me for the
tobacco."
"What do you mean by that, you scoundrel? -- Didn't I give you back
your tobacco? Isn't that your tobacco lying there? Do you expect me
to pay for what I did not take?"
"But, sir," says the publican, now rather at a loss what to say, "but
sir-"
"But me no buts, sir," interrupts the diddler, apparently in very
high dudgeon, and slamming the door after him, as he makes his
escape. -- "But me no buts, sir, and none of your tricks upon
travellers."
Here again is a very clever diddle, of which the simplicity is not
its least recommendation. A purse, or pocket-book, being really lost,
the loser inserts in one of the daily papers of a large city a fully
descriptive advertisement.
Whereupon our diddler copies the facts of this advertisement, with a
change of heading, of general phraseology and address. The original,
for instance, is long, and verbose, is headed "A Pocket-Book Lost!"
and requires the treasure, when found, to be left at No. 1 Tom
Street. The copy is brief, and being headed with "Lost" only,
indicates No. 2 Dick, or No. 3 Harry Street, as the locality at which
the owner may be seen. Moreover, it is inserted in at least five or
six of the daily papers of the day, while in point of time, it makes
its appearance only a few hours after the original. Should it be read
by the loser of the purse, he would hardly suspect it to have any
reference to his own misfortune. But, of course, the chances are five
or six to one, that the finder will repair to the address given by
the diddler, rather than to that pointed out by the rightful
proprietor. The former pays the reward, pockets the treasure and
decamps.
Quite an analogous diddle is this. A lady of ton has dropped, some
where in the street, a diamond ring of very unusual value. For its
recovery, she offers some forty or fifty dollars reward -- giving, in
her advertisement, a very minute description of the gem, and of its
settings, and declaring that, on its restoration at No. so and so, in
such and such Avenue, the reward would be paid instanter, without a
single question being asked. During the lady's absence from home, a
day or two afterwards, a ring is heard at the door of No. so and so,
in such and such Avenue; a servant appears; the lady of the house is
asked for and is declared to be out, at which astounding information,
the visitor expresses the most poignant regret. His business is of
importance and concerns the lady herself. In fact, he had the good
fortune to find her diamond ring. But perhaps it would be as well
that he should call again. "By no means!" says the servant; and "By
no means!" says the lady's sister and the lady's sister-in-law, who
are summoned forthwith. The ring is clamorously identified, the
reward is paid, and the finder nearly thrust out of doors. The lady
returns and expresses some little dissatisfaction with her sister and
sister-in-law, because they happen to have paid forty or fifty
dollars for a fac-simile of her diamond ring -- a fac-simile made out
of real pinch-beck and unquestionable paste.
But as there is really no end to diddling, so there would be none to
this essay, were I even to hint at half the variations, or
inflections, of which this science is susceptible. I must bring this
paper, perforce, to a conclusion, and this I cannot do better than by
a summary notice of a very decent, but rather elaborate diddle, of
which our own city was made the theatre, not very long ago, and which
was subsequently repeated with success, in other still more verdant
localities of the Union. A middle-aged gentleman arrives in town from
parts unknown. He is remarkably precise, cautious, staid, and
deliberate in his demeanor. His dress is scrupulously neat, but
plain, unostentatious. He wears a white cravat, an ample waistcoat,
made with an eye to comfort alone; thick-soled cosy-looking shoes,
and pantaloons without straps. He has the whole air, in fact, of your
well-to-do, sober-sided, exact, and respectable "man of business,"
Par excellence -- one of the stern and outwardly hard, internally
soft, sort of people that we see in the crack high comedies --
fellows whose words are so many bonds, and who are noted for giving
away guineas, in charity, with the one hand, while, in the way of
mere bargain, they exact the uttermost fraction of a farthing with
the other.
He makes much ado before he can get suited with a boarding house. He
dislikes children. He has been accustomed to quiet. His habits are
methodical -- and then he would prefer getting into a private and
respectable small family, piously inclined. Terms, however, are no
object -- only he must insist upon settling his bill on the first of
every month, (it is now the second) and begs his landlady, when he
finally obtains one to his mind, not on any account to forget his
instructions upon this point -- but to send in a bill, and receipt,
precisely at ten o'clock, on the first day of every month, and under
no circumstances to put it off to the second.
These arrangements made, our man of business rents an office in a
reputable rather than a fashionable quarter of the town. There is
nothing he more despises than pretense. "Where there is much show,"
he says, "there is seldom any thing very solid behind" -- an
observation which so profoundly impresses his landlady's fancy, that
she makes a pencil memorandum of it forthwith, in her great family
Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.
The next step is to advertise, after some such fashion as this, in
the principal business six-pennies of the city -- the pennies are
eschewed as not "respectable" -- and as demanding payment for all
advertisements in advance. Our man of business holds it as a point of
his faith that work should never be paid for until done.
"WANTED -- The advertisers, being about to commence extensive
business operations in this city, will require the services of three
or four intelligent and competent clerks, to whom a liberal salary
will be paid. The very best recommendations, not so much for
capacity, as for integrity, will be expected. Indeed, as the duties
to be performed involve high responsibilities, and large amounts of
money must necessarily pass through the hands of those engaged, it is
deemed advisable to demand a deposit of fifty dollars from each clerk
employed. No person need apply, therefore, who is not prepared to
leave this sum in the possession of the advertisers, and who cannot
furnish the most satisfactory testimonials of morality. Young
gentlemen piously inclined will be preferred. Application should be
made between the hours of ten and eleven A. M., and four and five P.
M., of Messrs.
"Bogs, Hogs Logs, Frogs & Co.,
"No. 110 Dog Street"
By the thirty-first day of the month, this advertisement has brought
to the office of Messrs. Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company, some
fifteen or twenty young gentlemen piously inclined. But our man of
business is in no hurry to conclude a contract with any -- no man of
business is ever precipitate -- and it is not until the most rigid
catechism in respect to the piety of each young gentleman's
inclination, that his services are engaged and his fifty dollars
receipted for, just by way of proper precaution, on the part of the
respectable firm of Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and Company. On the
morning of the first day of the next month, the landlady does not
present her bill, according to promise -- a piece of neglect for
which the comfortable head of the house ending in ogs would no doubt
have chided her severely, could he have been prevailed upon to remain
in town a day or two for that purpose.
As it is, the constables have had a sad time of it, running hither
and thither, and all they can do is to declare the man of business
most emphatically, a "hen knee high" -- by which some persons imagine
them to imply that, in fact, he is n. e. i. -- by which again the
very classical phrase non est inventus, is supposed to be understood.
In the meantime the young gentlemen, one and all, are somewhat less
piously inclined than before, while the landlady purchases a
shilling's worth of the Indian rubber, and very carefully obliterates
the pencil memorandum that some fool has made in her great family
Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE ANGEL OF THE ODD
AN EXTRAVAGANZA.
IT was a chilly November afternoon. I had just consummated an
unusually hearty dinner, of which the dyspeptic _truffe_ formed not
the least important item, and was sitting alone in the dining-room,
with my feet upon the fender, and at my elbow a small table which I
had rolled up to the fire, and upon which were some apologies for
dessert, with some miscellaneous bottles of wine, spirit and
_liqueur_. In the morning I had been reading Glover's "Leonidas,"
Wilkie's "Epigoniad," Lamartine's "Pilgrimage," Barlow's "Columbiad,"
Tuckermann's "Sicily," and Griswold's "Curiosities"; I am willing
to confess, therefore, that I now felt a little stupid. I made
effort to arouse myself by aid of frequent Lafitte, and, all failing,
I betook myself to a stray newspaper in despair. Having carefully
perused the column of "houses to let," and the column of "dogs lost,"
and then the two columns of "wives and apprentices runaway," I
attacked with great resolution the editorial matter, and, reading it
from beginning to end without understanding a syllable, conceived the
possibility of its being Chinese, and so re-read it from the end to
the beginning, but with no more satisfactory result. I was about
throwing away, in disgust,
"This folio of four pages, happy work
Which not even critics criticise,"
when I felt my attention somewhat aroused by the paragraph which
follows:
"The avenues to death are numerous and strange. A London paper
mentions the decease of a person from a singular cause. He was
playing at 'puff the dart,' which is played with a long needle
inserted in some worsted, and blown at a target through a tin tube.
He placed the needle at the wrong end of the tube, and drawing his
breath strongly to puff the dart forward with force, drew the needle
into his throat. It entered the lungs, and in a few days killed
him."
Upon seeing this I fell into a great rage, without exactly
knowing why. "This thing," I exclaimed, "is a contemptible falsehood
- a poor hoax - the lees of the invention of some pitiable
penny-a-liner - of some wretched concoctor of accidents in Cocaigne.
These fellows, knowing the extravagant gullibility of the age, set
their wits to work in the imagination of improbable possibilities -
of odd accidents, as they term them; but to a reflecting intellect
(like mine," I added, in parenthesis, putting my forefinger
unconsciously to the side of my nose,) "to a contemplative
understanding such as I myself possess, it seems evident at once that
the marvelous increase of late in these 'odd accidents' is by far the
oddest accident of all. For my own part, I intend to believe nothing
henceforward that has anything of the 'singular' about it."
"Mein Gott, den, vat a vool you bees for dat!" replied one of
the most remarkable voices I ever heard. At first I took it for a
rumbling in my ears - such as a man sometimes experiences when
getting very drunk - but, upon second thought, I considered the sound
as more nearly resembling that which proceeds from an empty barrel
beaten with a big stick; and, in fact, this I should have concluded
it to be, but for the articulation of the syllables and words. I am
by no means naturally nervous, and the very few glasses of Lafitte
which I had sipped served to embolden me no little, so that I felt
nothing of trepidation, but merely uplifted my eyes with a leisurely
movement, and looked carefully around the room for the intruder. I
could not, however, perceive any one at all.
"Humph!" resumed the voice, as I continued my survey, "you mus
pe so dronk as de pig, den, for not zee me as I zit here at your
zide."
Hereupon I bethought me of looking immediately before my nose,
and there, sure enough, confronting me at the table sat a personage
nondescript, although not altogether indescribable. His body was a
wine-pipe, or a rum-puncheon, or something of that character, and
had a truly Falstaffian air. In its nether extremity were inserted
two kegs, which seemed to answer all the purposes of legs. For arms
there dangled from the upper portion of the carcass two tolerably
long bottles, with the necks outward for hands. All the head that I
saw the monster possessed of was one of those Hessian canteens which
resemble a large snuff-box with a hole in the middle of the lid.
This canteen (with a funnel on its top, like a cavalier cap slouched
over the eyes) was set on edge upon the puncheon, with the hole
toward myself; and through this hole, which seemed puckered up like
the mouth of a very precise old maid, the creature was emitting
certain rumbling and grumbling noises which he evidently intended for
intelligible talk.
"I zay," said he, "you mos pe dronk as de pig, vor zit dare and
not zee me zit ere; and I zay, doo, you mos pe pigger vool as de
goose, vor to dispelief vat iz print in de print. 'Tiz de troof -
dat it iz - eberry vord ob it."
"Who are you, pray?" said I, with much dignity, although
somewhat puzzled; "how did you get here? and what is it you are
talking about?"
"Az vor ow I com'd ere," replied the figure, "dat iz none of your
pizzness; and as vor vat I be talking apout, I be talk apout vat I
tink proper; and as vor who I be, vy dat is de very ting I com'd here
for to let you zee for yourzelf."
"You are a drunken vagabond," said I, "and I shall ring the bell
and order my footman to kick you into the street."
"He! he! he!" said the fellow, "hu! hu! hu! dat you
can't do."
"Can't do!" said I, "what do you mean? - I can't do what?"
"Ring de pell;" he replied, attempting a grin with his little
villanous mouth.
Upon this I made an effort to get up, in order to put my threat
into execution; but the ruffian just reached across the table very
deliberately, and hitting me a tap on the forehead with the neck of
one of the long bottles, knocked me back into the arm-chair from
which I had half arisen. I was utterly astounded; and, for a moment,
was quite at a loss what to do. In the meantime, he continued his
talk.
"You zee," said he, "it iz te bess vor zit still; and now you
shall know who I pe. Look at me! zee! I am te _Angel ov te
Odd_."
"And odd enough, too," I ventured to reply; "but I was always
under the impression that an angel had wings."
"Te wing!" he cried, highly incensed, "vat I pe do mit te wing?
Mein Gott! do you take me vor a shicken?"
"No - oh no!" I replied, much alarmed, "you are no chicken -
certainly not."
"Well, den, zit still and pehabe yourself, or I'll rap you again
mid me vist. It iz te shicken ab te wing, und te owl ab te wing, und
te imp ab te wing, und te head-teuffel ab te wing. Te angel ab _not_
te wing, and I am te _Angel ov te Odd_."
"And your business with me at present is - is" -
"My pizzness!" ejaculated the thing, "vy vat a low bred buppy
you mos pe vor to ask a gentleman und an angel apout his pizziness!"
This language was rather more than I could bear, even from an
angel; so, plucking up courage, I seized a salt-cellar which lay
within reach, and hurled it at the head of the intruder. Either he
dodged, however, or my aim was inaccurate; for all I accomplished was
the demolition of the crystal which protected the dial of the clock
upon the mantel-piece. As for the Angel, he evinced his sense of my
assault by giving me two or three hard consecutive raps upon the
forehead as before. These reduced me at once to submission, and I am
almost ashamed to confess that either through pain or vexation, there
came a few tears into my eyes.
"Mein Gott!" said the Angel of the Odd, apparently much softened
at my distress; "mein Gott, te man is eder ferry dronk or ferry
zorry. You mos not trink it so strong - you mos put te water in te
wine. Here, trink dis, like a goot veller, und don't gry now - don't!"
Hereupon the Angel of the Odd replenished my goblet (which was
about a third full of Port) with a colorless fluid that he poured
from one of his hand bottles. I observed that these bottles had
labels about their necks, and that these labels were inscribed
"Kirschenwasser."
The considerate kindness of the Angel mollified me in no little
measure; and, aided by the water with which he diluted my Port more
than once, I at length regained sufficient temper to listen to his
very extraordinary discourse. I cannot pretend to recount all that
he told me, but I gleaned from what he said that he was the genius
who presided over the _contretemps_ of mankind, and whose business it
was to bring about the _odd accidents_ which are continually
astonishing the skeptic. Once or twice, upon my venturing to express
my total incredulity in respect to his pretensions, he grew very
angry indeed, so that at length I considered it the wiser policy to
say nothing at all, and let him have his own way. He talked on,
therefore, at great length, while I merely leaned back in my chair
with my eyes shut, and amused myself with munching raisins and
filliping the stems about the room. But, by-and-by, the Angel
suddenly construed this behavior of mine into contempt. He arose in
a terrible passion, slouched his funnel down over his eyes, swore a
vast oath, uttered a threat of some character which I did not
precisely comprehend, and finally made me a low bow and departed,
wishing me, in the language of the archbishop in Gil-Blas, "_beaucoup
de bonheur et un peu plus de bon sens_."
His departure afforded me relief. The _very_ few glasses of
Lafitte that I had sipped had the effect of rendering me drowsy, and
I felt inclined to take a nap of some fifteen or twenty minutes, as
is my custom after dinner. At six I had an appointment of
consequence, which it was quite indispensable that I should keep.
The policy of insurance for my dwelling house had expired the day
before; and, some dispute having arisen, it was agreed that, at six,
I should meet the board of directors of the company and settle the
terms of a renewal. Glancing upward at the clock on the
mantel-piece, (for I felt too drowsy to take out my watch), I had the
pleasure to find that I had still twenty-five minutes to spare. It
was half past five; I could easily walk to the insurance office in
five minutes; and my usual siestas had never been known to exceed
five and twenty. I felt sufficiently safe, therefore, and composed
myself to my slumbers forthwith.
Having completed them to my satisfaction, I again looked toward
the time-piece and was half inclined to believe in the possibility of
odd accidents when I found that, instead of my ordinary fifteen or
twenty minutes, I had been dozing only three; for it still wanted
seven and twenty of the appointed hour. I betook myself again to my
nap, and at length a second time awoke, when, to my utter amazement,
it _still_ wanted twenty-seven minutes of six. I jumped up to
examine the clock, and found that it had ceased running. My watch
informed me that it was half past seven; and, of course, having slept
two hours, I was too late for my appointment. "It will make no
difference," I said: "I can call at the office in the morning and
apologize; in the meantime what can be the matter with the clock?"
Upon examining it I discovered that one of the raisin stems which I
had been filliping about the room during the discourse of the Angel
of the Odd, had flown through the fractured crystal, and lodging,
singularly enough, in the key-hole, with an end projecting outward,
had thus arrested the revolution of the minute hand.
"Ah!" said I, "I see how it is. This thing speaks for itself.
A natural accident, such as _will_ happen now and then!"
I gave the matter no further consideration, and at my usual hour
retired to bed. Here, having placed a candle upon a reading stand at
the bed head, and having made an attempt to peruse some pages of the
"Omnipresence of the Deity," I unfortunately fell asleep in less than
twenty seconds, leaving the light burning as it was.
My dreams were terrifically disturbed by visions of the Angel of
the Odd. Methought he stood at the foot of the couch, drew aside the
curtains, and, in the hollow, detestable tones of a rum puncheon,
menaced me with the bitterest vengeance for the contempt with which I
had treated him. He concluded a long harangue by taking off his
funnel-cap, inserting the tube into my gullet, and thus deluging me
with an ocean of Kirschenwässer, which he poured, in a continuous
flood, from one of the long necked bottles that stood him instead of
an arm. My agony was at length insufferable, and I awoke just in
time to perceive that a rat had ran off with the lighted candle from
the stand, but _not_ in season to prevent his making his escape with
it through the hole. Very soon, a strong suffocating odor assailed
my nostrils; the house, I clearly perceived, was on fire. In a few
minutes the blaze broke forth with violence, and in an incredibly
brief period the entire building was wrapped in flames. All egress
from my chamber, except through a window, was cut off. The crowd,
however, quickly procured and raised a long ladder. By means of this
I was descending rapidly, and in apparent safety, when a huge hog,
about whose rotund stomach, and indeed about whose whole air and
physiognomy, there was something which reminded me of the Angel of
the Odd, - when this hog, I say, which hitherto had been quietly
slumbering in the mud, took it suddenly into his head that his left
shoulder needed scratching, and could find no more convenient
rubbing-post than that afforded by the foot of the ladder. In an
instant I was precipitated and had the misfortune to fracture my arm.
This accident, with the loss of my insurance, and with the more
serious loss of my hair, the whole of which had been singed off by
the fire, predisposed me to serious impressions, so that, finally, I
made up my mind to take a wife. There was a rich widow disconsolate
for the loss of her seventh husband, and to her wounded spirit I
offered the balm of my vows. She yielded a reluctant consent to my
prayers. I knelt at her feet in gratitude and adoration. She
blushed and bowed her luxuriant tresses into close contact with those
supplied me, temporarily, by Grandjean. I know not how the
entanglement took place, but so it was. I arose with a shining pate,
wigless; she in disdain and wrath, half buried in alien hair. Thus
ended my hopes of the widow by an accident which could not have been
anticipated, to be sure, but which the natural sequence of events had
brought about.
Without despairing, however, I undertook the siege of a less
implacable heart. The fates were again propitious for a brief
period; but again a trivial incident interfered. Meeting my
betrothed in an avenue thronged with the _élite_ of the city, I was
hastening to greet her with one of my best considered bows, when a
small particle of some foreign matter, lodging in the corner of my
eye, rendered me, for the moment, completely blind. Before I could
recover my sight, the lady of my love had disappeared - irreparably
affronted at what she chose to consider my premeditated rudeness in
passing her by ungreeted. While I stood bewildered at the suddenness
of this accident, (which might have happened, nevertheless, to any
one under the sun), and while I still continued incapable of sight, I
was accosted by the Angel of the Odd, who proffered me his aid with a
civility which I had no reason to expect. He examined my disordered
eye with much gentleness and skill, informed me that I had a drop in
it, and (whatever a "drop" was) took it out, and afforded me relief.
I now considered it high time to die, (since fortune had so
determined to persecute me,) and accordingly made my way to the
nearest river. Here, divesting myself of my clothes, (for there is
no reason why we cannot die as we were born), I threw myself headlong
into the current; the sole witness of my fate being a solitary crow
that had been seduced into the eating of brandy-saturated corn, and
so had staggered away from his fellows. No sooner had I entered the
water than this bird took it into its head to fly away with the most
indispensable portion of my apparel. Postponing, therefore, for the
present, my suicidal design, I just slipped my nether extremities
into the sleeves of my coat, and betook myself to a pursuit of the
felon with all the nimbleness which the case required and its
circumstances would admit. But my evil destiny attended me still. As
I ran at full speed, with my nose up in the atmosphere, and intent
only upon the purloiner of my property, I suddenly perceived that my
feet rested no longer upon _terra-firma_; the fact is, I had thrown
myself over a precipice, and should inevitably have been dashed to
pieces but for my good fortune in grasping the end of a long
guide-rope, which depended from a passing balloon.
As soon as I sufficiently recovered my senses to comprehend the
terrific predicament in which I stood or rather hung, I exerted all
the power of my lungs to make that predicament known to the æronaut
overhead. But for a long time I exerted myself in vain. Either the
fool could not, or the villain would not perceive me. Meantime the
machine rapidly soared, while my strength even more rapidly failed.
I was soon upon the point of resigning myself to my fate, and
dropping quietly into the sea, when my spirits were suddenly revived
by hearing a hollow voice from above, which seemed to be lazily
humming an opera air. Looking up, I perceived the Angel of the Odd.
He was leaning with his arms folded, over the rim of the car; and
with a pipe in his mouth, at which he puffed leisurely, seemed to be
upon excellent terms with himself and the universe. I was too much
exhausted to speak, so I merely regarded him with an imploring air.
For several minutes, although he looked me full in the face, he
said nothing. At length removing carefully his meerschaum from the
right to the left corner of his mouth, he condescended to speak.
"Who pe you," he asked, "und what der teuffel you pe do dare?"
To this piece of impudence, cruelty and affectation, I could
reply only by ejaculating the monosyllable "Help!"
"Elp!" echoed the ruffian - "not I. Dare iz te pottle - elp
yourself, und pe tam'd!"
With these words he let fall a heavy bottle of Kirschenwasser
which, dropping precisely upon the crown of my head, caused me to
imagine that my brains were entirely knocked out. Impressed with
this idea, I was about to relinquish my hold and give up the ghost
with a good grace, when I was arrested by the cry of the Angel, who
bade me hold on.
"Old on!" he said; "don't pe in te urry - don't. Will you pe
take de odder pottle, or ave you pe got zober yet and come to your
zenzes?"
I made haste, hereupon, to nod my head twice - once in the
negative, meaning thereby that I would prefer not taking the other
bottle at present - and once in the affirmative, intending thus to
imply that I _was_ sober and _had_ positively come to my senses. By
these means I somewhat softened the Angel.
"Und you pelief, ten," he inquired, "at te last? You pelief,
ten, in te possibilty of te odd?"
I again nodded my head in assent.
"Und you ave pelief in _me_, te Angel of te Odd?"
I nodded again.
"Und you acknowledge tat you pe te blind dronk and te vool?"
I nodded once more.
"Put your right hand into your left hand preeches pocket, ten, in
token ov your vull zubmizzion unto te Angel ov te Odd."
This thing, for very obvious reasons, I found it quite impossible
to do. In the first place, my left arm had been broken in my fall
from the ladder, and, therefore, had I let go my hold with the right
hand, I must have let go altogether. In the second place, I could
have no breeches until I came across the crow. I was therefore
obliged, much to my regret, to shake my head in the negative -
intending thus to give the Angel to understand that I found it
inconvenient, just at that moment, to comply with his very reasonable
demand! No sooner, however, had I ceased shaking my head than -
"Go to der teuffel, ten!" roared the Angel of the Odd.
In pronouncing these words, he drew a sharp knife across the
guide-rope by which I was suspended, and as we then happened to be
precisely over my own house, (which, during my peregrinations, had
been handsomely rebuilt,) it so occurred that I tumbled headlong down
the ample chimney and alit upon the dining-room hearth.
Upon coming to my senses, (for the fall had very thoroughly
stunned me,) I found it about four o'clock in the morning. I lay
outstretched where I had fallen from the balloon. My head grovelled
in the ashes of an extinguished fire, while my feet reposed upon the
wreck of a small table, overthrown, and amid the fragments of a
miscellaneous dessert, intermingled with a newspaper, some broken
glass and shattered bottles, and an empty jug of the Schiedam
Kirschenwasser. Thus revenged himself the Angel of the Odd.
[Mabbott states that Griswold "obviously had a revised form" for use
in the 1856 volume of Poe's works. Mabbott does not substantiate this
claim, but it is surely not unreasonable. An editor, and even
typographical errors, may have produced nearly all of the very minor
changes made in this version. (Indeed, two very necessary words were
clearly dropped by accident.) An editor might have corrected
"Wickliffe's 'Epigoniad' " to "Wilkie's 'Epigoniad'," but is unlikely
to have added "Tuckerman's 'Sicily' " to the list of books read by
the narrator. Griswold was not above forgery (in Poe's letters) when
it suited his purpose, but would have too little to gain by such an
effort in this instance.]
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
MELLONTA TAUTA
TO THE EDITORS OF THE LADY'S BOOK:
I have the honor of sending you, for your magazine, an article which
I hope you will be able to comprehend rather more distinctly than I
do myself. It is a translation, by my friend, Martin Van Buren Mavis,
(sometimes called the "Poughkeepsie Seer") of an odd-looking MS.
which I found, about a year ago, tightly corked up in a jug floating
in the Mare Tenebrarum -- a sea well described by the Nubian
geographer, but seldom visited now-a-days, except for the
transcendentalists and divers for crotchets.
Truly yours,
EDGAR A. POE
{this paragraph not in the volume--ED}
ON BOARD BALLOON "SKYLARK"
April, 1, 2848
NOW, my dear friend -- now, for your sins, you are to suffer the
infliction of a long gossiping letter. I tell you distinctly that I
am going to punish you for all your impertinences by being as
tedious, as discursive, as incoherent and as unsatisfactory as
possible. Besides, here I am, cooped up in a dirty balloon, with some
one or two hundred of the canaille, all bound on a pleasure
excursion, (what a funny idea some people have of pleasure!) and I
have no prospect of touching terra firma for a month at least. Nobody
to talk to. Nothing to do. When one has nothing to do, then is the
time to correspond with ones friends. You perceive, then, why it is
that I write you this letter -- it is on account of my ennui and your
sins.
Get ready your spectacles and make up your mind to be annoyed. I mean
to write at you every day during this odious voyage.
Heigho! when will any Invention visit the human pericranium? Are we
forever to be doomed to the thousand inconveniences of the balloon?
Will nobody contrive a more expeditious mode of progress? The
jog-trot movement, to my thinking, is little less than positive
torture. Upon my word we have not made more than a hundred miles the
hour since leaving home! The very birds beat us -- at least some of
them. I assure you that I do not exaggerate at all. Our motion, no
doubt, seems slower than it actually is -- this on account of our
having no objects about us by which to estimate our velocity, and on
account of our going with the wind. To be sure, whenever we meet a
balloon we have a chance of perceiving our rate, and then, I admit,
things do not appear so very bad. Accustomed as I am to this mode of
travelling, I cannot get over a kind of giddiness whenever a balloon
passes us in a current directly overhead. It always seems to me like
an immense bird of prey about to pounce upon us and carry us off in
its claws. One went over us this morning about sunrise, and so nearly
overhead that its drag-rope actually brushed the network suspending
our car, and caused us very serious apprehension. Our captain said
that if the material of the bag had been the trumpery varnished
"silk" of five hundred or a thousand years ago, we should inevitably
have been damaged. This silk, as he explained it to me, was a fabric
composed of the entrails of a species of earth-worm. The worm was
carefully fed on mulberries -- kind of fruit resembling a water-melon
-- and, when sufficiently fat, was crushed in a mill. The paste thus
arising was called papyrus in its primary state, and went through a
variety of processes until it finally became "silk." Singular to
relate, it was once much admired as an article of female dress!
Balloons were also very generally constructed from it. A better kind
of material, it appears, was subsequently found in the down
surrounding the seed-vessels of a plant vulgarly called euphorbium,
and at that time botanically termed milk-weed. This latter kind of
silk was designated as silk-buckingham, on account of its superior
durability, and was usually prepared for use by being varnished with
a solution of gum caoutchouc -- a substance which in some respects
must have resembled the gutta percha now in common use. This
caoutchouc was occasionally called Indian rubber or rubber of twist,
and was no doubt one of the numerous fungi. Never tell me again that
I am not at heart an antiquarian.
Talking of drag-ropes -- our own, it seems, has this moment knocked a
man overboard from one of the small magnetic propellers that swarm in
ocean below us -- a boat of about six thousand tons, and, from all
accounts, shamefully crowded. These diminutive barques should be
prohibited from carrying more than a definite number of passengers.
The man, of course, was not permitted to get on board again, and was
soon out of sight, he and his life-preserver. I rejoice, my dear
friend, that we live in an age so enlightened that no such a thing as
an individual is supposed to exist. It is the mass for which the true
Humanity cares. By-the-by, talking of Humanity, do you know that our
immortal Wiggins is not so original in his views of the Social
Condition and so forth, as his contemporaries are inclined to
suppose? Pundit assures me that the same ideas were put nearly in the
same way, about a thousand years ago, by an Irish philosopher called
Furrier, on account of his keeping a retail shop for cat peltries and
other furs. Pundit knows, you know; there can be no mistake about it.
How very wonderfully do we see verified every day, the profound
observation of the Hindoo Aries Tottle (as quoted by Pundit) -- "Thus
must we say that, not once or twice, or a few times, but with almost
infinite repetitions, the same opinions come round in a circle among
men."
April 2. -- Spoke to-day the magnetic cutter in charge of the middle
section of floating telegraph wires. I learn that when this species
of telegraph was first put into operation by Horse, it was considered
quite impossible to convey the wires over sea, but now we are at a
loss to comprehend where the difficulty lay! So wags the world.
Tempora mutantur -- excuse me for quoting the Etruscan. What would we
do without the Atalantic telegraph? (Pundit says Atlantic was the
ancient adjective.) We lay to a few minutes to ask the cutter some
questions, and learned, among other glorious news, that civil war is
raging in Africa, while the plague is doing its good work beautifully
both in Yurope and Ayesher. Is it not truly remarkable that, before
the magnificent light shed upon philosophy by Humanity, the world was
accustomed to regard War and Pestilence as calamities? Do you know
that prayers were actually offered up in the ancient temples to the
end that these evils (!) might not be visited upon mankind? Is it not
really difficult to comprehend upon what principle of interest our
forefathers acted? Were they so blind as not to perceive that the
destruction of a myriad of individuals is only so much positive
advantage to the mass!
April 3. -- It is really a very fine amusement to ascend the
rope-ladder leading to the summit of the balloon-bag, and thence
survey the surrounding world. From the car below you know the
prospect is not so comprehensive -- you can see little vertically.
But seated here (where I write this) in the luxuriously-cushioned
open piazza of the summit, one can see everything that is going on in
all directions. Just now there is quite a crowd of balloons in sight,
and they present a very animated appearance, while the air is
resonant with the hum of so many millions of human voices. I have
heard it asserted that when Yellow or (Pundit will have it) Violet,
who is supposed to have been the first aeronaut, maintained the
practicability of traversing the atmosphere in all directions, by
merely ascending or descending until a favorable current was
attained, he was scarcely hearkened to at all by his contemporaries,
who looked upon him as merely an ingenious sort of madman, because
the philosophers (?) of the day declared the thing impossible. Really
now it does seem to me quite unaccountable how any thing so obviously
feasible could have escaped the sagacity of the ancient savans. But
in all ages the great obstacles to advancement in Art have been
opposed by the so-called men of science. To be sure, our men of
science are not quite so bigoted as those of old: -- oh, I have
something so queer to tell you on this topic. Do you know that it is
not more than a thousand years ago since the metaphysicians consented
to relieve the people of the singular fancy that there existed but
two possible roads for the attainment of Truth! Believe it if you
can! It appears that long, long ago, in the night of Time, there
lived a Turkish philosopher (or Hindoo possibly) called Aries Tottle.
This person introduced, or at all events propagated what was termed
the deductive or a priori mode of investigation. He started with what
he maintained to be axioms or "self-evident truths," and thence
proceeded "logically" to results. His greatest disciples were one
Neuclid, and one Cant. Well, Aries Tottle flourished supreme until
advent of one Hog, surnamed the "Ettrick Shepherd," who preached an
entirely different system, which he called the a posteriori or
inductive. His plan referred altogether to Sensation. He proceeded by
observing, analyzing, and classifying facts-instantiae naturae, as
they were affectedly called -- into general laws. Aries Tottle's
mode, in a word, was based on noumena; Hog's on phenomena. Well, so
great was the admiration excited by this latter system that, at its
first introduction, Aries Tottle fell into disrepute; but finally he
recovered ground and was permitted to divide the realm of Truth with
his more modern rival. The savans now maintained the Aristotelian and
Baconian roads were the sole possible avenues to knowledge.
"Baconian," you must know, was an adjective invented as equivalent to
Hog-ian and more euphonious and dignified.
Now, my dear friend, I do assure you, most positively, that I
represent this matter fairly, on the soundest authority and you can
easily understand how a notion so absurd on its very face must have
operated to retard the progress of all true knowledge -- which makes
its advances almost invariably by intuitive bounds. The ancient idea
confined investigations to crawling; and for hundreds of years so
great was the infatuation about Hog especially, that a virtual end
was put to all thinking, properly so called. No man dared utter a
truth to which he felt himself indebted to his Soul alone. It
mattered not whether the truth was even demonstrably a truth, for the
bullet-headed savans of the time regarded only the road by which he
had attained it. They would not even look at the end. "Let us see the
means," they cried, "the means!" If, upon investigation of the means,
it was found to come under neither the category Aries (that is to say
Ram) nor under the category Hog, why then the savans went no farther,
but pronounced the "theorist" a fool, and would have nothing to do
with him or his truth.
Now, it cannot be maintained, even, that by the crawling system the
greatest amount of truth would be attained in any long series of
ages, for the repression of imagination was an evil not to be
compensated for by any superior certainty in the ancient modes of
investigation. The error of these Jurmains, these Vrinch, these
Inglitch, and these Amriccans (the latter, by the way, were our own
immediate progenitors), was an error quite analogous with that of the
wiseacre who fancies that he must necessarily see an object the
better the more closely he holds it to his eyes. These people blinded
themselves by details. When they proceeded Hoggishly, their "facts"
were by no means always facts -- a matter of little consequence had
it not been for assuming that they were facts and must be facts
because they appeared to be such. When they proceeded on the path of
the Ram, their course was scarcely as straight as a ram's horn, for
they never had an axiom which was an axiom at all. They must have
been very blind not to see this, even in their own day; for even in
their own day many of the long "established" axioms had been
rejected. For example -- "Ex nihilo nihil fit"; "a body cannot act
where it is not"; "there cannot exist antipodes"; "darkness cannot
come out of light" -- all these, and a dozen other similar
propositions, formerly admitted without hesitation as axioms, were,
even at the period of which I speak, seen to be untenable. How absurd
in these people, then, to persist in putting faith in "axioms" as
immutable bases of Truth! But even out of the mouths of their
soundest reasoners it is easy to demonstrate the futility, the
impalpability of their axioms in general. Who was the soundest of
their logicians? Let me see! I will go and ask Pundit and be back in
a minute.... Ah, here we have it! Here is a book written nearly a
thousand years ago and lately translated from the Inglitch -- which,
by the way, appears to have been the rudiment of the Amriccan. Pundit
says it is decidedly the cleverest ancient work on its topic, Logic.
The author (who was much thought of in his day) was one Miller, or
Mill; and we find it recorded of him, as a point of some importance,
that he had a mill-horse called Bentham. But let us glance at the
treatise!
Ah! -- "Ability or inability to conceive," says Mr. Mill, very
properly, "is in no case to be received as a criterion of axiomatic
truth." What modern in his senses would ever think of disputing this
truism? The only wonder with us must be, how it happened that Mr.
Mill conceived it necessary even to hint at any thing so obvious. So
far good -- but let us turn over another paper. What have we here? --
"Contradictories cannot both be true -- that is, cannot co-exist in
nature." Here Mr. Mill means, for example, that a tree must be either
a tree or not a tree -- that it cannot be at the same time a tree and
not a tree. Very well; but I ask him why. His reply is this -- and
never pretends to be any thing else than this -- "Because it is
impossible to conceive that contradictories can both be true." But
this is no answer at all, by his own showing, for has he not just
admitted as a truism that "ability or inability to conceive is in no
case to be received as a criterion of axiomatic truth."
Now I do not complain of these ancients so much because their logic
is, by their own showing, utterly baseless, worthless and fantastic
altogether, as because of their pompous and imbecile proscription of
all other roads of Truth, of all other means for its attainment than
the two preposterous paths -- the one of creeping and the one of
crawling -- to which they have dared to confine the Soul that loves
nothing so well as to soar.
By the by, my dear friend, do you not think it would have puzzled
these ancient dogmaticians to have determined by which of their two
roads it was that the most important and most sublime of all their
truths was, in effect, attained? I mean the truth of Gravitation.
Newton owed it to Kepler. Kepler admitted that his three laws were
guessed at -- these three laws of all laws which led the great
Inglitch mathematician to his principle, the basis of all physical
principle -- to go behind which we must enter the Kingdom of
Metaphysics. Kepler guessed -- that is to say imagined. He was
essentially a "theorist" -- that word now of so much sanctity,
formerly an epithet of contempt. Would it not have puzzled these old
moles too, to have explained by which of the two "roads" a
cryptographist unriddles a cryptograph of more than usual secrecy, or
by which of the two roads Champollion directed mankind to those
enduring and almost innumerable truths which resulted from his
deciphering the Hieroglyphics.
One word more on this topic and I will be done boring you. Is it not
passing strange that, with their eternal prattling about roads to
Truth, these bigoted people missed what we now so clearly perceive to
be the great highway -- that of Consistency? Does it not seem
singular how they should have failed to deduce from the works of God
the vital fact that a perfect consistency must be an absolute truth!
How plain has been our progress since the late announcement of this
proposition! Investigation has been taken out of the hands of the
ground-moles and given, as a task, to the true and only true
thinkers, the men of ardent imagination. These latter theorize. Can
you not fancy the shout of scorn with which my words would be
received by our progenitors were it possible for them to be now
looking over my shoulder? These men, I say, theorize; and their
theories are simply corrected, reduced, systematized -- cleared,
little by little, of their dross of inconsistency -- until, finally,
a perfect consistency stands apparent which even the most stolid
admit, because it is a consistency, to be an absolute and an
unquestionable truth.
April 4. -- The new gas is doing wonders, in conjunction with the new
improvement with gutta percha. How very safe, commodious, manageable,
and in every respect convenient are our modern balloons! Here is an
immense one approaching us at the rate of at least a hundred and
fifty miles an hour. It seems to be crowded with people -- perhaps
there are three or four hundred passengers -- and yet it soars to an
elevation of nearly a mile, looking down upon poor us with sovereign
contempt. Still a hundred or even two hundred miles an hour is slow
travelling after all. Do you remember our flight on the railroad
across the Kanadaw continent? -- fully three hundred miles the hour
-- that was travelling. Nothing to be seen though -- nothing to be
done but flirt, feast and dance in the magnificent saloons. Do you
remember what an odd sensation was experienced when, by chance, we
caught a glimpse of external objects while the cars were in full
flight? Every thing seemed unique -- in one mass. For my part, I
cannot say but that I preferred the travelling by the slow train of a
hundred miles the hour. Here we were permitted to have glass windows
-- even to have them open -- and something like a distinct view of
the country was attainable.... Pundit says that the route for the
great Kanadaw railroad must have been in some measure marked out
about nine hundred years ago! In fact, he goes so far as to assert
that actual traces of a road are still discernible -- traces
referable to a period quite as remote as that mentioned. The track,
it appears was double only; ours, you know, has twelve paths; and
three or four new ones are in preparation. The ancient rails were
very slight, and placed so close together as to be, according to
modern notions, quite frivolous, if not dangerous in the extreme. The
present width of track -- fifty feet -- is considered, indeed,
scarcely secure enough. For my part, I make no doubt that a track of
some sort must have existed in very remote times, as Pundit asserts;
for nothing can be clearer, to my mind, than that, at some period --
not less than seven centuries ago, certainly -- the Northern and
Southern Kanadaw continents were united; the Kanawdians, then, would
have been driven, by necessity, to a great railroad across the
continent.
April 5. -- I am almost devoured by ennui. Pundit is the only
conversible person on board; and he, poor soul! can speak of nothing
but antiquities. He has been occupied all the day in the attempt to
convince me that the ancient Amriccans governed themselves! -- did
ever anybody hear of such an absurdity? -- that they existed in a
sort of every-man-for-himself confederacy, after the fashion of the
"prairie dogs" that we read of in fable. He says that they started
with the queerest idea conceivable, viz: that all men are born free
and equal -- this in the very teeth of the laws of gradation so
visibly impressed upon all things both in the moral and physical
universe. Every man "voted," as they called it -- that is to say
meddled with public affairs -- until at length, it was discovered
that what is everybody's business is nobody's, and that the
"Republic" (so the absurd thing was called) was without a government
at all. It is related, however, that the first circumstance which
disturbed, very particularly, the self-complacency of the
philosophers who constructed this "Republic," was the startling
discovery that universal suffrage gave opportunity for fraudulent
schemes, by means of which any desired number of votes might at any
time be polled, without the possibility of prevention or even
detection, by any party which should be merely villainous enough not
to be ashamed of the fraud. A little reflection upon this discovery
sufficed to render evident the consequences, which were that
rascality must predominate -- in a word, that a republican government
could never be any thing but a rascally one. While the philosophers,
however, were busied in blushing at their stupidity in not having
foreseen these inevitable evils, and intent upon the invention of new
theories, the matter was put to an abrupt issue by a fellow of the
name of Mob, who took every thing into his own hands and set up a
despotism, in comparison with which those of the fabulous Zeros and
Hellofagabaluses were respectable and delectable. This Mob (a
foreigner, by-the-by), is said to have been the most odious of all
men that ever encumbered the earth. He was a giant in stature --
insolent, rapacious, filthy, had the gall of a bullock with the heart
of a hyena and the brains of a peacock. He died, at length, by dint
of his own energies, which exhausted him. Nevertheless, he had his
uses, as every thing has, however vile, and taught mankind a lesson
which to this day it is in no danger of forgetting -- never to run
directly contrary to the natural analogies. As for Republicanism, no
analogy could be found for it upon the face of the earth -- unless we
except the case of the "prairie dogs," an exception which seems to
demonstrate, if anything, that democracy is a very admirable form of
government -- for dogs.
April 6. -- Last night had a fine view of Alpha Lyrae, whose disk,
through our captain's spy-glass, subtends an angle of half a degree,
looking very much as our sun does to the naked eye on a misty day.
Alpha Lyrae, although so very much larger than our sun, by the by,
resembles him closely as regards its spots, its atmosphere, and in
many other particulars. It is only within the last century, Pundit
tells me, that the binary relation existing between these two orbs
began even to be suspected. The evident motion of our system in the
heavens was (strange to say!) referred to an orbit about a prodigious
star in the centre of the galaxy. About this star, or at all events
about a centre of gravity common to all the globes of the Milky Way
and supposed to be near Alcyone in the Pleiades, every one of these
globes was declared to be revolving, our own performing the circuit
in a period of 117,000,000 of years! We, with our present lights, our
vast telescopic improvements, and so forth, of course find it
difficult to comprehend the ground of an idea such as this. Its first
propagator was one Mudler. He was led, we must presume, to this wild
hypothesis by mere analogy in the first instance; but, this being the
case, he should have at least adhered to analogy in its development.
A great central orb was, in fact, suggested; so far Mudler was
consistent. This central orb, however, dynamically, should have been
greater than all its surrounding orbs taken together. The question
might then have been asked -- "Why do we not see it?" -- we,
especially, who occupy the mid region of the cluster -- the very
locality near which, at least, must be situated this inconceivable
central sun. The astronomer, perhaps, at this point, took refuge in
the suggestion of non-luminosity; and here analogy was suddenly let
fall. But even admitting the central orb non-luminous, how did he
manage to explain its failure to be rendered visible by the
incalculable host of glorious suns glaring in all directions about
it? No doubt what he finally maintained was merely a centre of
gravity common to all the revolving orbs -- but here again analogy
must have been let fall. Our system revolves, it is true, about a
common centre of gravity, but it does this in connection with and in
consequence of a material sun whose mass more than counterbalances
the rest of the system. The mathematical circle is a curve composed
of an infinity of straight lines; but this idea of the circle -- this
idea of it which, in regard to all earthly geometry, we consider as
merely the mathematical, in contradistinction from the practical,
idea -- is, in sober fact, the practical conception which alone we
have any right to entertain in respect to those Titanic circles with
which we have to deal, at least in fancy, when we suppose our system,
with its fellows, revolving about a point in the centre of the
galaxy. Let the most vigorous of human imaginations but attempt to
take a single step toward the comprehension of a circuit so
unutterable! I would scarcely be paradoxical to say that a flash of
lightning itself, travelling forever upon the circumference of this
inconceivable circle, would still forever be travelling in a straight
line. That the path of our sun along such a circumference -- that the
direction of our system in such an orbit -- would, to any human
perception, deviate in the slightest degree from a straight line even
in a million of years, is a proposition not to be entertained; and
yet these ancient astronomers were absolutely cajoled, it appears,
into believing that a decisive curvature had become apparent during
the brief period of their astronomical history -- during the mere
point -- during the utter nothingness of two or three thousand years!
How incomprehensible, that considerations such as this did not at
once indicate to them the true state of affairs -- that of the binary
revolution of our sun and Alpha Lyrae around a common centre of
gravity!
April 7. -- Continued last night our astronomical amusements. Had a
fine view of the five Neptunian asteroids, and watched with much
interest the putting up of a huge impost on a couple of lintels in
the new temple at Daphnis in the moon. It was amusing to think that
creatures so diminutive as the lunarians, and bearing so little
resemblance to humanity, yet evinced a mechanical ingenuity so much
superior to our own. One finds it difficult, too, to conceive the
vast masses which these people handle so easily, to be as light as
our own reason tells us they actually are.
April 8. -- Eureka! Pundit is in his glory. A balloon from Kanadaw
spoke us to-day and threw on board several late papers; they contain
some exceedingly curious information relative to Kanawdian or rather
Amriccan antiquities. You know, I presume, that laborers have for
some months been employed in preparing the ground for a new fountain
at Paradise, the Emperor's principal pleasure garden. Paradise, it
appears, has been, literally speaking, an island time out of mind --
that is to say, its northern boundary was always (as far back as any
record extends) a rivulet, or rather a very narrow arm of the sea.
This arm was gradually widened until it attained its present breadth
-- a mile. The whole length of the island is nine miles; the breadth
varies materially. The entire area (so Pundit says) was, about eight
hundred years ago, densely packed with houses, some of them twenty
stories high; land (for some most unaccountable reason) being
considered as especially precious just in this vicinity. The
disastrous earthquake, however, of the year 2050, so totally uprooted
and overwhelmed the town (for it was almost too large to be called a
village) that the most indefatigable of our antiquarians have never
yet been able to obtain from the site any sufficient data (in the
shape of coins, medals or inscriptions) wherewith to build up even
the ghost of a theory concerning the manners, customs, &c., &c., &c.,
of the aboriginal inhabitants. Nearly all that we have hitherto known
of them is, that they were a portion of the Knickerbocker tribe of
savages infesting the continent at its first discovery by Recorder
Riker, a knight of the Golden Fleece. They were by no means
uncivilized, however, but cultivated various arts and even sciences
after a fashion of their own. It is related of them that they were
acute in many respects, but were oddly afflicted with monomania for
building what, in the ancient Amriccan, was denominated "churches" --
a kind of pagoda instituted for the worship of two idols that went by
the names of Wealth and Fashion. In the end, it is said, the island
became, nine tenths of it, church. The women, too, it appears, were
oddly deformed by a natural protuberance of the region just below the
small of the back -- although, most unaccountably, this deformity was
looked upon altogether in the light of a beauty. One or two pictures
of these singular women have in fact, been miraculously preserved.
They look very odd, very -- like something between a turkey-cock and
a dromedary.
Well, these few details are nearly all that have descended to us
respecting the ancient Knickerbockers. It seems, however, that while
digging in the centre of the emperors garden, (which, you know,
covers the whole island), some of the workmen unearthed a cubical and
evidently chiseled block of granite, weighing several hundred pounds.
It was in good preservation, having received, apparently, little
injury from the convulsion which entombed it. On one of its surfaces
was a marble slab with (only think of it!) an inscription -- a
legible inscription. Pundit is in ecstacies. Upon detaching the slab,
a cavity appeared, containing a leaden box filled with various coins,
a long scroll of names, several documents which appear to resemble
newspapers, with other matters of intense interest to the
antiquarian! There can be no doubt that all these are genuine
Amriccan relics belonging to the tribe called Knickerbocker. The
papers thrown on board our balloon are filled with fac-similes of the
coins, MSS., typography, &c., &c. I copy for your amusement the
Knickerbocker inscription on the marble slab:-
This Corner Stone of a Monument to
The Memory of
GEORGE WASHINGTON
Was Laid With Appropriate Ceremonies
on the
19th Day of October, 1847
The anniversary of the surrender of
Lord Cornwallis
to General Washington at Yorktown
A. D. 1781
Under the Auspices of the
Washington Monument Association of
the city of New York
This, as I give it, is a verbatim translation done by Pundit himself,
so there can be no mistake about it. From the few words thus
preserved, we glean several important items of knowledge, not the
least interesting of which is the fact that a thousand years ago
actual monuments had fallen into disuse -- as was all very proper --
the people contenting themselves, as we do now, with a mere
indication of the design to erect a monument at some future time; a
corner-stone being cautiously laid by itself "solitary and alone"
(excuse me for quoting the great American poet Benton!), as a
guarantee of the magnanimous intention. We ascertain, too, very
distinctly, from this admirable inscription, the how as well as the
where and the what, of the great surrender in question. As to the
where, it was Yorktown (wherever that was), and as to the what, it
was General Cornwallis (no doubt some wealthy dealer in corn). He was
surrendered. The inscription commemorates the surrender of -- what?
why, "of Lord Cornwallis." The only question is what could the
savages wish him surrendered for. But when we remember that these
savages were undoubtedly cannibals, we are led to the conclusion that
they intended him for sausage. As to the how of the surrender, no
language can be more explicit. Lord Cornwallis was surrendered (for
sausage) "under the auspices of the Washington Monument Association"
-- no doubt a charitable institution for the depositing of
corner-stones. -- But, Heaven bless me! what is the matter? Ah, I see
-- the balloon has collapsed, and we shall have a tumble into the
sea. I have, therefore, only time enough to add that, from a hasty
inspection of the fac-similes of newspapers, &c., &c., I find that
the great men in those days among the Amriccans, were one John, a
smith, and one Zacchary, a tailor.
Good-bye, until I see you again. Whether you ever get this letter or
not is point of little importance, as I write altogether for my own
amusement. I shall cork the MS. up in a bottle, however, and throw it
into the sea.
Yours everlastingly,
PUNDITA.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE DUC DE L'OMELETTE.
And stepped at once into a cooler clime. -- Cowper
KEATS fell by a criticism. Who was it died of "The Andromache"? {*1}
Ignoble souls! -- De L'Omelette perished of an ortolan. L'histoire en
est breve. Assist me, Spirit of Apicius!
A golden cage bore the little winged wanderer, enamored, melting,
indolent, to the Chaussee D'Antin, from its home in far Peru. From
its queenly possessor La Bellissima, to the Duc De L'Omelette, six
peers of the empire conveyed the happy bird.
That night the Duc was to sup alone. In the privacy of his bureau he
reclined languidly on that ottoman for which he sacrificed his
loyalty in outbidding his king -- the notorious ottoman of Cadet.
He buries his face in the pillow. The clock strikes! Unable to
restrain his feelings, his Grace swallows an olive. At this moment
the door gently opens to the sound of soft music, and lo! the most
delicate of birds is before the most enamored of men! But what
inexpressible dismay now overshadows the countenance of the Duc? --
"Horreur! -- chien! -- Baptiste! -- l'oiseau! ah, bon Dieu! cet
oiseau modeste que tu as deshabille de ses plumes, et que tu as servi
sans papier!" It is superfluous to say more: -- the Duc expired in a
paroxysm of disgust.
"Ha! ha! ha!" said his Grace on the third day after his decease.
"He! he! he!" replied the Devil faintly, drawing himself up with an
air of hauteur.
"Why, surely you are not serious," retorted De L'Omelette. "I have
sinned -- c'est vrai -- but, my good sir, consider! -- you have no
actual intention of putting such -- such barbarous threats into
execution."
"No what?" said his majesty -- "come, sir, strip!"
"Strip, indeed! very pretty i' faith! no, sir, I shall not strip. Who
are you, pray, that I, Duc De L'Omelette, Prince de Foie-Gras, just
come of age, author of the 'Mazurkiad,' and Member of the Academy,
should divest myself at your bidding of the sweetest pantaloons ever
made by Bourdon, the daintiest robe-de-chambre ever put together by
Rombert -- to say nothing of the taking my hair out of paper -- not
to mention the trouble I should have in drawing off my gloves?"
"Who am I? -- ah, true! I am Baal-Zebub, Prince of the Fly. I took
thee, just now, from a rose-wood coffin inlaid with ivory. Thou wast
curiously scented, and labelled as per invoice. Belial sent thee, --
my Inspector of Cemeteries. The pantaloons, which thou sayest were
made by Bourdon, are an excellent pair of linen drawers, and thy
robe-de-chambre is a shroud of no scanty dimensions."
"Sir!" replied the Duc, "I am not to be insulted with impunity!- Sir!
I shall take the earliest opportunity of avenging this insult!- Sir!
you shall hear from me! in the meantime au revoir!" -- and the Duc
was bowing himself out of the Satanic presence, when he was
interrupted and brought back by a gentleman in waiting. Hereupon his
Grace rubbed his eyes, yawned, shrugged his shoulders, reflected.
Having become satisfied of his identity, he took a bird's eye view of
his whereabouts.
The apartment was superb. Even De L'Omelette pronounced it bien comme
il faut. It was not its length nor its breadth, -- but its height --
ah, that was appalling! -- There was no ceiling -- certainly none-
but a dense whirling mass of fiery-colored clouds. His Grace's brain
reeled as he glanced upward. From above, hung a chain of an unknown
blood-red metal -- its upper end lost, like the city of Boston, parmi
les nues. From its nether extremity swung a large cresset. The Duc
knew it to be a ruby; but from it there poured a light so intense, so
still, so terrible, Persia never worshipped such -- Gheber never
imagined such -- Mussulman never dreamed of such when, drugged with
opium, he has tottered to a bed of poppies, his back to the flowers,
and his face to the God Apollo. The Duc muttered a slight oath,
decidedly approbatory.
The corners of the room were rounded into niches. Three of these were
filled with statues of gigantic proportions. Their beauty was
Grecian, their deformity Egyptian, their tout ensemble French. In the
fourth niche the statue was veiled; it was not colossal. But then
there was a taper ankle, a sandalled foot. De L'Omelette pressed his
hand upon his heart, closed his eyes, raised them, and caught his
Satanic Majesty -- in a blush.
But the paintings! -- Kupris! Astarte! Astoreth! -- a thousand and
the same! And Rafaelle has beheld them! Yes, Rafaelle has been here,
for did he not paint the ---? and was he not consequently damned? The
paintings -- the paintings! O luxury! O love! -- who, gazing on those
forbidden beauties, shall have eyes for the dainty devices of the
golden frames that besprinkled, like stars, the hyacinth and the
porphyry walls?
But the Duc's heart is fainting within him. He is not, however, as
you suppose, dizzy with magnificence, nor drunk with the ecstatic
breath of those innumerable censers. C'est vrai que de toutes ces
choses il a pense beaucoup -- mais! The Duc De L'Omelette is
terror-stricken; for, through the lurid vista which a single
uncurtained window is affording, lo! gleams the most ghastly of all
fires!
Le pauvre Duc! He could not help imagining that the glorious, the
voluptuous, the never-dying melodies which pervaded that hall, as
they passed filtered and transmuted through the alchemy of the
enchanted window-panes, were the wailings and the howlings of the
hopeless and the damned! And there, too! -- there! -- upon the
ottoman! -- who could he be? -- he, the petitmaitre -- no, the Deity
-- who sat as if carved in marble, et qui sourit, with his pale
countenance, si amerement?
Mais il faut agir -- that is to say, a Frenchman never faints
outright. Besides, his Grace hated a scene -- De L'Omelette is
himself again. There were some foils upon a table -- some points
also. The Duc s'echapper. He measures two points, and, with a grace
inimitable, offers his Majesty the choice. Horreur! his Majesty does
not fence!
Mais il joue! -- how happy a thought! -- but his Grace had always an
excellent memory. He had dipped in the "Diable" of Abbe Gualtier.
Therein it is said "que le Diable n'ose pas refuser un jeu d'ecarte."
But the chances -- the chances! True -- desperate: but scarcely more
desperate than the Duc. Besides, was he not in the secret? -- had he
not skimmed over Pere Le Brun? -- was he not a member of the Club
Vingt-un? "Si je perds," said he, "je serai deux fois perdu -- I
shall be doubly dammed -- voila tout! (Here his Grace shrugged his
shoulders.) Si je gagne, je reviendrai a mes ortolans -- que les
cartes soient preparees!"
His Grace was all care, all attention -- his Majesty all confidence.
A spectator would have thought of Francis and Charles. His Grace
thought of his game. His Majesty did not think; he shuffled. The Duc
cut.
The cards were dealt. The trump is turned -- it is -- it is -- the
king! No -- it was the queen. His Majesty cursed her masculine
habiliments. De L'Omelette placed his hand upon his heart.
They play. The Duc counts. The hand is out. His Majesty counts
heavily, smiles, and is taking wine. The Duc slips a card.
"C'est a vous a faire," said his Majesty, cutting. His Grace bowed,
dealt, and arose from the table en presentant le Roi.
His Majesty looked chagrined.
Had Alexander not been Alexander, he would have been Diogenes; and
the Duc assured his antagonist in taking leave, "que s'il n'eut ete
De L'Omelette il n'aurait point d'objection d'etre le Diable."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE OBLONG BOX.
SOME years ago, I engaged passage from Charleston, S. C, to the
city of New York, in the fine packet-ship "Independence," Captain
Hardy. We were to sail on the fifteenth of the month (June), weather
permitting; and on the fourteenth, I went on board to arrange some
matters in my state-room.
I found that we were to have a great many passengers, including a
more than usual number of ladies. On the list were several of my
acquaintances, and among other names, I was rejoiced to see that of
Mr. Cornelius Wyatt, a young artist, for whom I entertained feelings
of warm friendship. He had been with me a fellow-student at C --
University, where we were very much together. He had the ordinary
temperament of genius, and was a compound of misanthropy,
sensibility, and enthusiasm. To these qualities he united the warmest
and truest heart which ever beat in a human bosom.
I observed that his name was carded upon three state-rooms; and, upon
again referring to the list of passengers, I found that he had
engaged passage for himself, wife, and two sisters -- his own. The
state-rooms were sufficiently roomy, and each had two berths, one
above the other. These berths, to be sure, were so exceedingly narrow
as to be insufficient for more than one person; still, I could not
comprehend why there were three state-rooms for these four persons. I
was, just at that epoch, in one of those moody frames of mind which
make a man abnormally inquisitive about trifles: and I confess, with
shame, that I busied myself in a variety of ill-bred and preposterous
conjectures about this matter of the supernumerary state-room. It was
no business of mine, to be sure, but with none the less pertinacity
did I occupy myself in attempts to resolve the enigma. At last I
reached a conclusion which wrought in me great wonder why I had not
arrived at it before. "It is a servant of course," I said; "what a
fool I am, not sooner to have thought of so obvious a solution!" And
then I again repaired to the list -- but here I saw distinctly that
no servant was to come with the party, although, in fact, it had been
the original design to bring one -- for the words "and servant" had
been first written and then overscored. "Oh, extra baggage, to be
sure," I now said to myself -- "something he wishes not to be put in
the hold -- something to be kept under his own eye -- ah, I have it
-- a painting or so -- and this is what he has been bargaining about
with Nicolino, the Italian Jew." This idea satisfied me, and I
dismissed my curiosity for the nonce.
Wyatt's two sisters I knew very well, and most amiable and clever
girls they were. His wife he had newly married, and I had never yet
seen her. He had often talked about her in my presence, however, and
in his usual style of enthusiasm. He described her as of surpassing
beauty, wit, and accomplishment. I was, therefore, quite anxious to
make her acquaintance.
On the day in which I visited the ship (the fourteenth), Wyatt and
party were also to visit it -- so the captain informed me -- and I
waited on board an hour longer than I had designed, in hope of being
presented to the bride, but then an apology came. "Mrs. W. was a
little indisposed, and would decline coming on board until to-morrow,
at the hour of sailing."
The morrow having arrived, I was going from my hotel to the wharf,
when Captain Hardy met me and said that, "owing to circumstances" (a
stupid but convenient phrase), "he rather thought the 'Independence'
would not sail for a day or two, and that when all was ready, he
would send up and let me know." This I thought strange, for there was
a stiff southerly breeze; but as "the circumstances" were not
forthcoming, although I pumped for them with much perseverance, I had
nothing to do but to return home and digest my impatience at leisure.
I did not receive the expected message from the captain for nearly a
week. It came at length, however, and I immediately went on board.
The ship was crowded with passengers, and every thing was in the
bustle attendant upon making sail. Wyatt's party arrived in about ten
minutes after myself. There were the two sisters, the bride, and the
artist -- the latter in one of his customary fits of moody
misanthropy. I was too well used to these, however, to pay them any
special attention. He did not even introduce me to his wife -- this
courtesy devolving, per force, upon his sister Marian -- a very sweet
and intelligent girl, who, in a few hurried words, made us
acquainted.
Mrs. Wyatt had been closely veiled; and when she raised her veil, in
acknowledging my bow, I confess that I was very profoundly
astonished. I should have been much more so, however, had not long
experience advised me not to trust, with too implicit a reliance, the
enthusiastic descriptions of my friend, the artist, when indulging in
comments upon the loveliness of woman. When beauty was the theme, I
well knew with what facility he soared into the regions of the purely
ideal.
The truth is, I could not help regarding Mrs. Wyatt as a decidedly
plain-looking woman. If not positively ugly, she was not, I think,
very far from it. She was dressed, however, in exquisite taste -- and
then I had no doubt that she had captivated my friend's heart by the
more enduring graces of the intellect and soul. She said very few
words, and passed at once into her state-room with Mr. W.
My old inquisitiveness now returned. There was no servant -- that was
a settled point. I looked, therefore, for the extra baggage. After
some delay, a cart arrived at the wharf, with an oblong pine box,
which was every thing that seemed to be expected. Immediately upon
its arrival we made sail, and in a short time were safely over the
bar and standing out to sea.
The box in question was, as I say, oblong. It was about six feet in
length by two and a half in breadth; I observed it attentively, and
like to be precise. Now this shape was peculiar; and no sooner had I
seen it, than I took credit to myself for the accuracy of my
guessing. I had reached the conclusion, it will be remembered, that
the extra baggage of my friend, the artist, would prove to be
pictures, or at least a picture; for I knew he had been for several
weeks in conference with Nicolino: -- and now here was a box, which,
from its shape, could possibly contain nothing in the world but a
copy of Leonardo's "Last Supper;" and a copy of this very "Last
Supper," done by Rubini the younger, at Florence, I had known, for
some time, to be in the possession of Nicolino. This point,
therefore, I considered as sufficiently settled. I chuckled
excessively when I thought of my acumen. It was the first time I had
ever known Wyatt to keep from me any of his artistical secrets; but
here he evidently intended to steal a march upon me, and smuggle a
fine picture to New York, under my very nose; expecting me to know
nothing of the matter. I resolved to quiz him well, now and
hereafter.
One thing, however, annoyed me not a little. The box did not go into
the extra state-room. It was deposited in Wyatt's own; and there,
too, it remained, occupying very nearly the whole of the floor -- no
doubt to the exceeding discomfort of the artist and his wife; -- this
the more especially as the tar or paint with which it was lettered in
sprawling capitals, emitted a strong, disagreeable, and, to my fancy,
a peculiarly disgusting odor. On the lid were painted the words --
"Mrs. Adelaide Curtis, Albany, New York. Charge of Cornelius Wyatt,
Esq. This side up. To be handled with care."
Now, I was aware that Mrs. Adelaide Curtis, of Albany, was the
artist's wife's mother, -- but then I looked upon the whole address
as a mystification, intended especially for myself. I made up my
mind, of course, that the box and contents would never get farther
north than the studio of my misanthropic friend, in Chambers Street,
New York.
For the first three or four days we had fine weather, although the
wind was dead ahead; having chopped round to the northward,
immediately upon our losing sight of the coast. The passengers were,
consequently, in high spirits and disposed to be social. I must
except, however, Wyatt and his sisters, who behaved stiffly, and, I
could not help thinking, uncourteously to the rest of the party.
Wyatt's conduct I did not so much regard. He was gloomy, even beyond
his usual habit -- in fact he was morose -- but in him I was prepared
for eccentricity. For the sisters, however, I could make no excuse.
They secluded themselves in their staterooms during the greater part
of the passage, and absolutely refused, although I repeatedly urged
them, to hold communication with any person on board.
Mrs. Wyatt herself was far more agreeable. That is to say, she was
chatty; and to be chatty is no slight recommendation at sea. She
became excessively intimate with most of the ladies; and, to my
profound astonishment, evinced no equivocal disposition to coquet
with the men. She amused us all very much. I say "amused"- and
scarcely know how to explain myself. The truth is, I soon found that
Mrs. W. was far oftener laughed at than with. The gentlemen said
little about her; but the ladies, in a little while, pronounced her
"a good-hearted thing, rather indifferent looking, totally
uneducated, and decidedly vulgar." The great wonder was, how Wyatt
had been entrapped into such a match. Wealth was the general
solution- but this I knew to be no solution at all; for Wyatt had
told me that she neither brought him a dollar nor had any
expectations from any source whatever. "He had married," he said,
"for love, and for love only; and his bride was far more than worthy
of his love." When I thought of these expressions, on the part of my
friend, I confess that I felt indescribably puzzled. Could it be
possible that he was taking leave of his senses? What else could I
think? He, so refined, so intellectual, so fastidious, with so
exquisite a perception of the faulty, and so keen an appreciation of
the beautiful! To be sure, the lady seemed especially fond of him-
particularly so in his absence -- when she made herself ridiculous by
frequent quotations of what had been said by her "beloved husband,
Mr. Wyatt." The word "husband" seemed forever -- to use one of her
own delicate expressions- forever "on the tip of her tongue." In the
meantime, it was observed by all on board, that he avoided her in the
most pointed manner, and, for the most part, shut himself up alone in
his state-room, where, in fact, he might have been said to live
altogether, leaving his wife at full liberty to amuse herself as she
thought best, in the public society of the main cabin.
My conclusion, from what I saw and heard, was, that, the artist, by
some unaccountable freak of fate, or perhaps in some fit of
enthusiastic and fanciful passion, had been induced to unite himself
with a person altogether beneath him, and that the natural result,
entire and speedy disgust, had ensued. I pitied him from the bottom
of my heart -- but could not, for that reason, quite forgive his
incommunicativeness in the matter of the "Last Supper." For this I
resolved to have my revenge.
One day he came upon deck, and, taking his arm as had been my wont, I
sauntered with him backward and forward. His gloom, however (which I
considered quite natural under the circumstances), seemed entirely
unabated. He said little, and that moodily, and with evident effort.
I ventured a jest or two, and he made a sickening attempt at a smile.
Poor fellow! -- as I thought of his wife, I wondered that he could
have heart to put on even the semblance of mirth. I determined to
commence a series of covert insinuations, or innuendoes, about the
oblong box -- just to let him perceive, gradually, that I was not
altogether the butt, or victim, of his little bit of pleasant
mystification. My first observation was by way of opening a masked
battery. I said something about the "peculiar shape of that box-,"
and, as I spoke the words, I smiled knowingly, winked, and touched
him gently with my forefinger in the ribs.
The manner in which Wyatt received this harmless pleasantry convinced
me, at once, that he was mad. At first he stared at me as if he found
it impossible to comprehend the witticism of my remark; but as its
point seemed slowly to make its way into his brain, his eyes, in the
same proportion, seemed protruding from their sockets. Then he grew
very red -- then hideously pale -- then, as if highly amused with
what I had insinuated, he began a loud and boisterous laugh, which,
to my astonishment, he kept up, with gradually increasing vigor, for
ten minutes or more. In conclusion, he fell flat and heavily upon the
deck. When I ran to uplift him, to all appearance he was dead.
I called assistance, and, with much difficulty, we brought him to
himself. Upon reviving he spoke incoherently for some time. At length
we bled him and put him to bed. The next morning he was quite
recovered, so far as regarded his mere bodily health. Of his mind I
say nothing, of course. I avoided him during the rest of the passage,
by advice of the captain, who seemed to coincide with me altogether
in my views of his insanity, but cautioned me to say nothing on this
head to any person on board.
Several circumstances occurred immediately after this fit of Wyatt
which contributed to heighten the curiosity with which I was already
possessed. Among other things, this: I had been nervous -- drank too
much strong green tea, and slept ill at night -- in fact, for two
nights I could not be properly said to sleep at all. Now, my
state-room opened into the main cabin, or dining-room, as did those
of all the single men on board. Wyatt's three rooms were in the
after-cabin, which was separated from the main one by a slight
sliding door, never locked even at night. As we were almost
constantly on a wind, and the breeze was not a little stiff, the ship
heeled to leeward very considerably; and whenever her starboard side
was to leeward, the sliding door between the cabins slid open, and so
remained, nobody taking the trouble to get up and shut it. But my
berth was in such a position, that when my own state-room door was
open, as well as the sliding door in question (and my own door was
always open on account of the heat,) I could see into the after-cabin
quite distinctly, and just at that portion of it, too, where were
situated the state-rooms of Mr. Wyatt. Well, during two nights (not
consecutive) while I lay awake, I clearly saw Mrs. W., about eleven
o'clock upon each night, steal cautiously from the state-room of Mr.
W., and enter the extra room, where she remained until daybreak, when
she was called by her husband and went back. That they were virtually
separated was clear. They had separate apartments -- no doubt in
contemplation of a more permanent divorce; and here, after all I
thought was the mystery of the extra state-room.
There was another circumstance, too, which interested me much. During
the two wakeful nights in question, and immediately after the
disappearance of Mrs. Wyatt into the extra state-room, I was
attracted by certain singular cautious, subdued noises in that of her
husband. After listening to them for some time, with thoughtful
attention, I at length succeeded perfectly in translating their
import. They were sounds occasioned by the artist in prying open the
oblong box, by means of a chisel and mallet -- the latter being
apparently muffled, or deadened, by some soft woollen or cotton
substance in which its head was enveloped.
In this manner I fancied I could distinguish the precise moment when
he fairly disengaged the lid -- also, that I could determine when he
removed it altogether, and when he deposited it upon the lower berth
in his room; this latter point I knew, for example, by certain slight
taps which the lid made in striking against the wooden edges of the
berth, as he endeavored to lay it down very gently -- there being no
room for it on the floor. After this there was a dead stillness, and
I heard nothing more, upon either occasion, until nearly daybreak;
unless, perhaps, I may mention a low sobbing, or murmuring sound, so
very much suppressed as to be nearly inaudible -- if, indeed, the
whole of this latter noise were not rather produced by my own
imagination. I say it seemed to resemble sobbing or sighing- but, of
course, it could not have been either. I rather think it was a
ringing in my own ears. Mr. Wyatt, no doubt, according to custom, was
merely giving the rein to one of his hobbies -- indulging in one of
his fits of artistic enthusiasm. He had opened his oblong box, in
order to feast his eyes on the pictorial treasure within. There was
nothing in this, however, to make him sob. I repeat, therefore, that
it must have been simply a freak of my own fancy, distempered by good
Captain Hardy's green tea. Just before dawn, on each of the two
nights of which I speak, I distinctly heard Mr. Wyatt replace the lid
upon the oblong box, and force the nails into their old places by
means of the muffled mallet. Having done this, he issued from his
state-room, fully dressed, and proceeded to call Mrs. W. from hers.
We had been at sea seven days, and were now off Cape Hatteras, when
there came a tremendously heavy blow from the southwest. We were, in
a measure, prepared for it, however, as the weather had been holding
out threats for some time. Every thing was made snug, alow and aloft;
and as the wind steadily freshened, we lay to, at length, under
spanker and foretopsail, both double-reefed.
In this trim we rode safely enough for forty-eight hours -- the ship
proving herself an excellent sea-boat in many respects, and shipping
no water of any consequence. At the end of this period, however, the
gale had freshened into a hurricane, and our after -- sail split into
ribbons, bringing us so much in the trough of the water that we
shipped several prodigious seas, one immediately after the other. By
this accident we lost three men overboard with the caboose, and
nearly the whole of the larboard bulwarks. Scarcely had we recovered
our senses, before the foretopsail went into shreds, when we got up a
storm stay -- sail and with this did pretty well for some hours, the
ship heading the sea much more steadily than before.
The gale still held on, however, and we saw no signs of its abating.
The rigging was found to be ill-fitted, and greatly strained; and on
the third day of the blow, about five in the afternoon, our
mizzen-mast, in a heavy lurch to windward, went by the board. For an
hour or more, we tried in vain to get rid of it, on account of the
prodigious rolling of the ship; and, before we had succeeded, the
carpenter came aft and announced four feet of water in the hold. To
add to our dilemma, we found the pumps choked and nearly useless.
All was now confusion and despair -- but an effort was made to
lighten the ship by throwing overboard as much of her cargo as could
be reached, and by cutting away the two masts that remained. This we
at last accomplished -- but we were still unable to do any thing at
the pumps; and, in the meantime, the leak gained on us very fast.
At sundown, the gale had sensibly diminished in violence, and as the
sea went down with it, we still entertained faint hopes of saving
ourselves in the boats. At eight P. M., the clouds broke away to
windward, and we had the advantage of a full moon -- a piece of good
fortune which served wonderfully to cheer our drooping spirits.
After incredible labor we succeeded, at length, in getting the
longboat over the side without material accident, and into this we
crowded the whole of the crew and most of the passengers. This party
made off immediately, and, after undergoing much suffering, finally
arrived, in safety, at Ocracoke Inlet, on the third day after the
wreck.
Fourteen passengers, with the captain, remained on board, resolving
to trust their fortunes to the jolly-boat at the stern. We lowered it
without difficulty, although it was only by a miracle that we
prevented it from swamping as it touched the water. It contained,
when afloat, the captain and his wife, Mr. Wyatt and party, a Mexican
officer, wife, four children, and myself, with a negro valet.
We had no room, of course, for any thing except a few positively
necessary instruments, some provisions, and the clothes upon our
backs. No one had thought of even attempting to save any thing more.
What must have been the astonishment of all, then, when having
proceeded a few fathoms from the ship, Mr. Wyatt stood up in the
stern-sheets, and coolly demanded of Captain Hardy that the boat
should be put back for the purpose of taking in his oblong box!
"Sit down, Mr. Wyatt," replied the captain, somewhat sternly, "you
will capsize us if you do not sit quite still. Our gunwhale is almost
in the water now."
"The box!" vociferated Mr. Wyatt, still standing -- "the box, I say!
Captain Hardy, you cannot, you will not refuse me. Its weight will be
but a trifle -- it is nothing- mere nothing. By the mother who bore
you -- for the love of Heaven -- by your hope of salvation, I implore
you to put back for the box!"
The captain, for a moment, seemed touched by the earnest appeal of
the artist, but he regained his stern composure, and merely said:
"Mr. Wyatt, you are mad. I cannot listen to you. Sit down, I say, or
you will swamp the boat. Stay -- hold him -- seize him! -- he is
about to spring overboard! There -- I knew it -- he is over!"
As the captain said this, Mr. Wyatt, in fact, sprang from the boat,
and, as we were yet in the lee of the wreck, succeeded, by almost
superhuman exertion, in getting hold of a rope which hung from the
fore-chains. In another moment he was on board, and rushing
frantically down into the cabin.
In the meantime, we had been swept astern of the ship, and being
quite out of her lee, were at the mercy of the tremendous sea which
was still running. We made a determined effort to put back, but our
little boat was like a feather in the breath of the tempest. We saw
at a glance that the doom of the unfortunate artist was sealed.
As our distance from the wreck rapidly increased, the madman (for as
such only could we regard him) was seen to emerge from the companion
-- way, up which by dint of strength that appeared gigantic, he
dragged, bodily, the oblong box. While we gazed in the extremity of
astonishment, he passed, rapidly, several turns of a three-inch rope,
first around the box and then around his body. In another instant
both body and box were in the sea -- disappearing suddenly, at once
and forever.
We lingered awhile sadly upon our oars, with our eyes riveted upon
the spot. At length we pulled away. The silence remained unbroken for
an hour. Finally, I hazarded a remark.
"Did you observe, captain, how suddenly they sank? Was not that an
exceedingly singular thing? I confess that I entertained some feeble
hope of his final deliverance, when I saw him lash himself to the
box, and commit himself to the sea."
"They sank as a matter of course," replied the captain, "and that
like a shot. They will soon rise again, however -- but not till the
salt melts."
"The salt!" I ejaculated.
"Hush!" said the captain, pointing to the wife and sisters of the
deceased. "We must talk of these things at some more appropriate
time."
We suffered much, and made a narrow escape, but fortune befriended
us, as well as our mates in the long-boat. We landed, in fine, more
dead than alive, after four days of intense distress, upon the beach
opposite Roanoke Island. We remained here a week, were not
ill-treated by the wreckers, and at length obtained a passage to New
York.
About a month after the loss of the "Independence," I happened to
meet Captain Hardy in Broadway. Our conversation turned, naturally,
upon the disaster, and especially upon the sad fate of poor Wyatt. I
thus learned the following particulars.
The artist had engaged passage for himself, wife, two sisters and a
servant. His wife was, indeed, as she had been represented, a most
lovely, and most accomplished woman. On the morning of the fourteenth
of June (the day in which I first visited the ship), the lady
suddenly sickened and died. The young husband was frantic with grief
-- but circumstances imperatively forbade the deferring his voyage to
New York. It was necessary to take to her mother the corpse of his
adored wife, and, on the other hand, the universal prejudice which
would prevent his doing so openly was well known. Nine-tenths of the
passengers would have abandoned the ship rather than take passage
with a dead body.
In this dilemma, Captain Hardy arranged that the corpse, being first
partially embalmed, and packed, with a large quantity of salt, in a
box of suitable dimensions, should be conveyed on board as
merchandise. Nothing was to be said of the lady's decease; and, as it
was well understood that Mr. Wyatt had engaged passage for his wife,
it became necessary that some person should personate her during the
voyage. This the deceased lady's-maid was easily prevailed on to do.
The extra state-room, originally engaged for this girl during her
mistress' life, was now merely retained. In this state-room the
pseudo-wife, slept, of course, every night. In the daytime she
performed, to the best of her ability, the part of her mistress --
whose person, it had been carefully ascertained, was unknown to any
of the passengers on board.
My own mistake arose, naturally enough, through too careless, too
inquisitive, and too impulsive a temperament. But of late, it is a
rare thing that I sleep soundly at night. There is a countenance
which haunts me, turn as I will. There is an hysterical laugh which
will forever ring within my ears.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
LOSS OF BREATH
O Breathe not, etc. -- Moore's Melodies
THE MOST notorious ill-fortune must in the end yield to the untiring
courage of philosophy -- as the most stubborn city to the ceaseless
vigilance of an enemy. Shalmanezer, as we have it in holy writings,
lay three years before Samaria; yet it fell. Sardanapalus -- see
Diodorus -- maintained himself seven in Nineveh; but to no purpose.
Troy expired at the close of the second lustrum; and Azoth, as
Aristaeus declares upon his honour as a gentleman, opened at last her
gates to Psammetichus, after having barred them for the fifth part of
a century....
"Thou wretch! -- thou vixen! -- thou shrew!" said I to my wife on the
morning after our wedding; "thou witch! -- thou hag! -- thou
whippersnapper -- thou sink of iniquity! -- thou fiery-faced
quintessence of all that is abominable! -- thou -- thou-" here
standing upon tiptoe, seizing her by the throat, and placing my mouth
close to her ear, I was preparing to launch forth a new and more
decided epithet of opprobrium, which should not fail, if ejaculated,
to convince her of her insignificance, when to my extreme horror and
astonishment I discovered that I had lost my breath.
The phrases "I am out of breath," "I have lost my breath," etc., are
often enough repeated in common conversation; but it had never
occurred to me that the terrible accident of which I speak could bona
fide and actually happen! Imagine -- that is if you have a fanciful
turn -- imagine, I say, my wonder -- my consternation -- my despair!
There is a good genius, however, which has never entirely deserted
me. In my most ungovernable moods I still retain a sense of
propriety, et le chemin des passions me conduit -- as Lord Edouard in
the "Julie" says it did him -- a la philosophie veritable.
Although I could not at first precisely ascertain to what degree the
occurence had affected me, I determined at all events to conceal the
matter from my wife, until further experience should discover to me
the extent of this my unheard of calamity. Altering my countenance,
therefore, in a moment, from its bepuffed and distorted appearance,
to an expression of arch and coquettish benignity, I gave my lady a
pat on the one cheek, and a kiss on the other, and without saying one
syllable (Furies! I could not), left her astonished at my drollery,
as I pirouetted out of the room in a Pas de Zephyr.
Behold me then safely ensconced in my private boudoir, a fearful
instance of the ill consequences attending upon irascibility --
alive, with the qualifications of the dead -- dead, with the
propensities of the living -- an anomaly on the face of the earth --
being very calm, yet breathless.
Yes! breathless. I am serious in asserting that my breath was
entirely gone. I could not have stirred with it a feather if my life
had been at issue, or sullied even the delicacy of a mirror. Hard
fate! -- yet there was some alleviation to the first overwhelming
paroxysm of my sorrow. I found, upon trial, that the powers of
utterance which, upon my inability to proceed in the conversation
with my wife, I then concluded to be totally destroyed, were in fact
only partially impeded, and I discovered that had I, at that
interesting crisis, dropped my voice to a singularly deep guttural, I
might still have continued to her the communication of my sentiments;
this pitch of voice (the guttural) depending, I find, not upon the
current of the breath, but upon a certain spasmodic action of the
muscles of the throat.
Throwing myself upon a chair, I remained for some time absorbed in
meditation. My reflections, be sure, were of no consolatory kind. A
thousand vague and lachrymatory fancies took possesion of my soul --
and even the idea of suicide flitted across my brain; but it is a
trait in the perversity of human nature to reject the obvious and the
ready, for the far-distant and equivocal. Thus I shuddered at
self-murder as the most decided of atrocities while the tabby cat
purred strenuously upon the rug, and the very water dog wheezed
assiduously under the table, each taking to itself much merit for the
strength of its lungs, and all obviously done in derision of my own
pulmonary incapacity.
Oppressed with a tumult of vague hopes and fears, I at length heard
the footsteps of my wife descending the staircase. Being now assured
of her absence, I returned with a palpitating heart to the scene of
my disaster.
Carefully locking the door on the inside, I commenced a vigorous
search. It was possible, I thought, that, concealed in some obscure
corner, or lurking in some closet or drawer, might be found the lost
object of my inquiry. It might have a vapory -- it might even have a
tangible form. Most philosophers, upon many points of philosophy, are
still very unphilosophical. William Godwin, however, says in his
"Mandeville," that "invisible things are the only realities," and
this, all will allow, is a case in point. I would have the judicious
reader pause before accusing such asseverations of an undue quantum
of absurdity. Anaxagoras, it will be remembered, maintained that snow
is black, and this I have since found to be the case.
Long and earnestly did I continue the investigation: but the
contemptible reward of my industry and perseverance proved to be only
a set of false teeth, two pair of hips, an eye, and a bundle of
billets-doux from Mr. Windenough to my wife. I might as well here
observe that this confirmation of my lady's partiality for Mr. W.
occasioned me little uneasiness. That Mrs. Lackobreath should admire
anything so dissimilar to myself was a natural and necessary evil. I
am, it is well known, of a robust and corpulent appearance, and at
the same time somewhat diminutive in stature. What wonder, then, that
the lath-like tenuity of my acquaintance, and his altitude, which has
grown into a proverb, should have met with all due estimation in the
eyes of Mrs. Lackobreath. But to return.
My exertions, as I have before said, proved fruitless. Closet after
closet -- drawer after drawer -- corner after corner -- were
scrutinized to no purpose. At one time, however, I thought myself
sure of my prize, having, in rummaging a dressing-case, accidentally
demolished a bottle of Grandjean's Oil of Archangels -- which, as an
agreeable perfume, I here take the liberty of recommending.
With a heavy heart I returned to my boudoir -- there to ponder upon
some method of eluding my wife's penetration, until I could make
arrangements prior to my leaving the country, for to this I had
already made up my mind. In a foreign climate, being unknown, I
might, with some probability of success, endeavor to conceal my
unhappy calamity -- a calamity calculated, even more than beggary, to
estrange the affections of the multitude, and to draw down upon the
wretch the well-merited indignation of the virtuous and the happy. I
was not long in hesitation. Being naturally quick, I committed to
memory the entire tragedy of "Metamora." I had the good fortune to
recollect that in the accentuation of this drama, or at least of such
portion of it as is allotted to the hero, the tones of voice in which
I found myself deficient were altogether unnecessary, and the deep
guttural was expected to reign monotonously throughout.
I practised for some time by the borders of a well frequented marsh;
-- herein, however, having no reference to a similar proceeding of
Demosthenes, but from a design peculiarly and conscientiously my own.
Thus armed at all points, I determined to make my wife believe that I
was suddenly smitten with a passion for the stage. In this, I
succeeded to a miracle; and to every question or suggestion found
myself at liberty to reply in my most frog-like and sepulchral tones
with some passage from the tragedy -- any portion of which, as I soon
took great pleasure in observing, would apply equally well to any
particular subject. It is not to be supposed, however, that in the
delivery of such passages I was found at all deficient in the looking
asquint -- the showing my teeth -- the working my knees -- the
shuffling my feet -- or in any of those unmentionable graces which
are now justly considered the characteristics of a popular performer.
To be sure they spoke of confining me in a strait-jacket -- but, good
God! they never suspected me of having lost my breath.
Having at length put my affairs in order, I took my seat very early
one morning in the mail stage for --, giving it to be understood,
among my acquaintances, that business of the last importance required
my immediate personal attendance in that city.
The coach was crammed to repletion; but in the uncertain twilight the
features of my companions could not be distinguished. Without making
any effectual resistance, I suffered myself to be placed between two
gentlemen of colossal dimensions; while a third, of a size larger,
requesting pardon for the liberty he was about to take, threw himself
upon my body at full length, and falling asleep in an instant,
drowned all my guttural ejaculations for relief, in a snore which
would have put to blush the roarings of the bull of Phalaris. Happily
the state of my respiratory faculties rendered suffocation an
accident entirely out of the question.
As, however, the day broke more distinctly in our approach to the
outskirts of the city, my tormentor, arising and adjusting his
shirt-collar, thanked me in a very friendly manner for my civility.
Seeing that I remained motionless (all my limbs were dislocated and
my head twisted on one side), his apprehensions began to be excited;
and arousing the rest of the passengers, he communicated, in a very
decided manner, his opinion that a dead man had been palmed upon them
during the night for a living and responsible fellow-traveller; here
giving me a thump on the right eye, by way of demonstrating the truth
of his suggestion.
Hereupon all, one after another (there were nine in company),
believed it their duty to pull me by the ear. A young practising
physician, too, having applied a pocket-mirror to my mouth, and found
me without breath, the assertion of my persecutor was pronounced a
true bill; and the whole party expressed a determination to endure
tamely no such impositions for the future, and to proceed no farther
with any such carcasses for the present.
I was here, accordingly, thrown out at the sign of the "Crow" (by
which tavern the coach happened to be passing), without meeting with
any farther accident than the breaking of both my arms, under the
left hind wheel of the vehicle. I must besides do the driver the
justice to state that he did not forget to throw after me the largest
of my trunks, which, unfortunately falling on my head, fractured my
skull in a manner at once interesting and extraordinary.
The landlord of the "Crow," who is a hospitable man, finding that my
trunk contained sufficient to indemnify him for any little trouble he
might take in my behalf, sent forthwith for a surgeon of his
acquaintance, and delivered me to his care with a bill and receipt
for ten dollars.
The purchaser took me to his apartments and commenced operations
immediately. Having cut off my ears, however, he discovered signs of
animation. He now rang the bell, and sent for a neighboring
apothecary with whom to consult in the emergency. In case of his
suspicions with regard to my existence proving ultimately correct,
he, in the meantime, made an incision in my stomach, and removed
several of my viscera for private dissection.
The apothecary had an idea that I was actually dead. This idea I
endeavored to confute, kicking and plunging with all my might, and
making the most furious contortions -- for the operations of the
surgeon had, in a measure, restored me to the possession of my
faculties. All, however, was attributed to the effects of a new
galvanic battery, wherewith the apothecary, who is really a man of
information, performed several curious experiments, in which, from my
personal share in their fulfillment, I could not help feeling deeply
interested. It was a course of mortification to me, nevertheless,
that although I made several attempts at conversation, my powers of
speech were so entirely in abeyance, that I could not even open my
mouth; much less, then, make reply to some ingenious but fanciful
theories of which, under other circumstances, my minute acquaintance
with the Hippocratian pathology would have afforded me a ready
confutation.
Not being able to arrive at a conclusion, the practitioners remanded
me for farther examination. I was taken up into a garret; and the
surgeon's lady having accommodated me with drawers and stockings, the
surgeon himself fastened my hands, and tied up my jaws with a
pocket-handkerchief -- then bolted the door on the outside as he
hurried to his dinner, leaving me alone to silence and to meditation.
I now discovered to my extreme delight that I could have spoken had
not my mouth been tied up with the pocket-handkerchief. Consoling
myself with this reflection, I was mentally repeating some passages
of the "Omnipresence of the Deity," as is my custom before resigning
myself to sleep, when two cats, of a greedy and vituperative turn,
entering at a hole in the wall, leaped up with a flourish a la
Catalani, and alighting opposite one another on my visage, betook
themselves to indecorous contention for the paltry consideration of
my nose.
But, as the loss of his ears proved the means of elevating to the
throne of Cyrus, the Magian or Mige-Gush of Persia, and as the
cutting off his nose gave Zopyrus possession of Babylon, so the loss
of a few ounces of my countenance proved the salvation of my body.
Aroused by the pain, and burning with indignation, I burst, at a
single effort, the fastenings and the bandage. Stalking across the
room I cast a glance of contempt at the belligerents, and throwing
open the sash to their extreme horror and disappointment,
precipitated myself, very dexterously, from the window. this moment
passing from the city jail to the scaffold erected for his execution
in the suburbs. His extreme infirmity and long continued ill health
had obtained him the privilege of remaining unmanacled; and habited
in his gallows costume -- one very similar to my own, -- he lay at
full length in the bottom of the hangman's cart (which happened to be
under the windows of the surgeon at the moment of my precipitation)
without any other guard than the driver, who was asleep, and two
recruits of the sixth infantry, who were drunk.
As ill-luck would have it, I alit upon my feet within the vehicle.
immediately, he bolted out behind, and turning down an alley, was out
of sight in the twinkling of an eye. The recruits, aroused by the
bustle, could not exactly comprehend the merits of the transaction.
Seeing, however, a man, the precise counterpart of the felon,
standing upright in the cart before their eyes, they were of (so they
expressed themselves,) and, having communicated this opinion to one
another, they took each a dram, and then knocked me down with the
butt-ends of their muskets.
It was not long ere we arrived at the place of destination. Of course
nothing could be said in my defence. Hanging was my inevitable fate.
I resigned myself thereto with a feeling half stupid, half
acrimonious. Being little of a cynic, I had all the sentiments of a
dog. The hangman, however, adjusted the noose about my neck. The drop
fell.
I forbear to depict my sensations upon the gallows; although here,
undoubtedly, I could speak to the point, and it is a topic upon which
nothing has been well said. In fact, to write upon such a theme it is
necessary to have been hanged. Every author should confine himself to
matters of experience. Thus Mark Antony composed a treatise upon
getting drunk.
I may just mention, however, that die I did not. My body was, but I
had no breath to be, suspended; and but for the knot under my left
ear (which had the feel of a military stock) I dare say that I should
have experienced very little inconvenience. As for the jerk given to
my neck upon the falling of the drop, it merely proved a corrective
to the twist afforded me by the fat gentleman in the coach.
For good reasons, however, I did my best to give the crowd the worth
of their trouble. My convulsions were said to be extraordinary. My
spasms it would have been difficult to beat. The populace encored.
Several gentlemen swooned; and a multitude of ladies were carried
home in hysterics. Pinxit availed himself of the opportunity to
retouch, from a sketch taken upon the spot, his admirable painting of
the "Marsyas flayed alive."
When I had afforded sufficient amusement, it was thought proper to
remove my body from the gallows; -- this the more especially as the
real culprit had in the meantime been retaken and recognized, a fact
which I was so unlucky as not to know.
Much sympathy was, of course, exercised in my behalf, and as no one
made claim to my corpse, it was ordered that I should be interred in
a public vault.
Here, after due interval, I was deposited. The sexton departed, and I
was left alone. A line of Marston's "Malcontent"-
Death's a good fellow and keeps open house -- struck me at that
moment as a palpable lie.
I knocked off, however, the lid of my coffin, and stepped out. The
place was dreadfully dreary and damp, and I became troubled with
ennui. By way of amusement, I felt my way among the numerous coffins
ranged in order around. I lifted them down, one by one, and breaking
open their lids, busied myself in speculations about the mortality
within.
"This," I soliloquized, tumbling over a carcass, puffy, bloated, and
rotund -- "this has been, no doubt, in every sense of the word, an
unhappy -- an unfortunate man. It has been his terrible lot not to
walk but to waddle -- to pass through life not like a human being,
but like an elephant -- not like a man, but like a rhinoceros.
"His attempts at getting on have been mere abortions, and his
circumgyratory proceedings a palpable failure. Taking a step forward,
it has been his misfortune to take two toward the right, and three
toward the left. His studies have been confined to the poetry of
Crabbe. He can have no idea of the wonder of a pirouette. To him a
pas de papillon has been an abstract conception. He has never
ascended the summit of a hill. He has never viewed from any steeple
the glories of a metropolis. Heat has been his mortal enemy. In the
dog-days his days have been the days of a dog. Therein, he has
dreamed of flames and suffocation -- of mountains upon mountains --
of Pelion upon Ossa. He was short of breath -- to say all in a word,
he was short of breath. He thought it extravagant to play upon wind
instruments. He was the inventor of self-moving fans, wind-sails, and
ventilators. He patronized Du Pont the bellows-maker, and he died
miserably in attempting to smoke a cigar. His was a case in which I
feel a deep interest -- a lot in which I sincerely sympathize.
"But here," -- said I -- "here" -- and I dragged spitefully from its
receptacle a gaunt, tall and peculiar-looking form, whose remarkable
appearance struck me with a sense of unwelcome familiarity -- "here
is a wretch entitled to no earthly commiseration." Thus saying, in
order to obtain a more distinct view of my subject, I applied my
thumb and forefinger to its nose, and causing it to assume a sitting
position upon the ground, held it thus, at the length of my arm,
while I continued my soliloquy.
-"Entitled," I repeated, "to no earthly commiseration. Who indeed
would think of compassioning a shadow? Besides, has he not had his
full share of the blessings of mortality? He was the originator of
tall monuments -- shot-towers -- lightning-rods -- Lombardy poplars.
His treatise upon "Shades and Shadows" has immortalized him. He
edited with distinguished ability the last edition of "South on the
Bones." He went early to college and studied pneumatics. He then came
home, talked eternally, and played upon the French-horn. He
patronized the bagpipes. Captain Barclay, who walked against Time,
would not walk against him. Windham and Allbreath were his favorite
writers, -- his favorite artist, Phiz. He died gloriously while
inhaling gas -- levique flatu corrupitur, like the fama pudicitae in
Hieronymus. {*1} He was indubitably a"--
"How can you? -- how -- can -- you?" -- interrupted the object of my
animadversions, gasping for breath, and tearing off, with a desperate
exertion, the bandage around its jaws -- "how can you, Mr.
Lackobreath, be so infernally cruel as to pinch me in that manner by
the nose? Did you not see how they had fastened up my mouth -- and
you must know -- if you know any thing -- how vast a superfluity of
breath I have to dispose of! If you do not know, however, sit down
and you shall see. In my situation it is really a great relief to be
able to open ones mouth -- to be able to expatiate -- to be able to
communicate with a person like yourself, who do not think yourself
called upon at every period to interrupt the thread of a gentleman's
discourse. Interruptions are annoying and should undoubtedly be
abolished -- don't you think so? -- no reply, I beg you, -- one
person is enough to be speaking at a time. -- I shall be done by and
by, and then you may begin. -- How the devil sir, did you get into
this place? -- not a word I beseech you -- been here some time myself
-- terrible accident! -- heard of it, I suppose? -- awful calamity!
-- walking under your windows -- some short while ago -- about the
time you were stage-struck -- horrible occurrence! -- heard of
"catching one's breath," eh? -- hold your tongue I tell you! -- I
caught somebody elses! -- had always too much of my own -- met Blab
at the corner of the street -- wouldn't give me a chance for a word
-- couldn't get in a syllable edgeways -- attacked, consequently,
with epilepsis -- Blab made his escape -- damn all fools! -- they
took me up for dead, and put me in this place -- pretty doings all of
them! -- heard all you said about me -- every word a lie -- horrible!
-- wonderful -- outrageous! -- hideous! -- incomprehensible! -- et
cetera -- et cetera -- et cetera -- et cetera-"
It is impossible to conceive my astonishment at so unexpected a
discourse, or the joy with which I became gradually convinced that
the breath so fortunately caught by the gentleman (whom I soon
recognized as my neighbor Windenough) was, in fact, the identical
expiration mislaid by myself in the conversation with my wife. Time,
place, and circumstances rendered it a matter beyond question. I did
not at least during the long period in which the inventor of Lombardy
poplars continued to favor me with his explanations.
In this respect I was actuated by that habitual prudence which has
ever been my predominating trait. I reflected that many difficulties
might still lie in the path of my preservation which only extreme
exertion on my part would be able to surmount. Many persons, I
considered, are prone to estimate commodities in their possession --
however valueless to the then proprietor -- however troublesome, or
distressing -- in direct ratio with the advantages to be derived by
others from their attainment, or by themselves from their
abandonment. Might not this be the case with Mr. Windenough? In
displaying anxiety for the breath of which he was at present so
willing to get rid, might I not lay myself open to the exactions of
his avarice? There are scoundrels in this world, I remembered with a
sigh, who will not scruple to take unfair opportunities with even a
next door neighbor, and (this remark is from Epictetus) it is
precisely at that time when men are most anxious to throw off the
burden of their own calamities that they feel the least desirous of
relieving them in others.
Upon considerations similar to these, and still retaining my grasp
upon the nose of Mr. W., I accordingly thought proper to model my
reply.
"Monster!" I began in a tone of the deepest indignation -- "monster
and double-winded idiot! -- dost thou, whom for thine iniquities it
has pleased heaven to accurse with a two-fold respimtion -- dost
thou, I say, presume to address me in the familiar language of an old
acquaintance? -- 'I lie,' forsooth! and 'hold my tongue,' to be sure!
-- pretty conversation indeed, to a gentleman with a single breath!
-- all this, too, when I have it in my power to relieve the calamity
under which thou dost so justly suffer -- to curtail the
superfluities of thine unhappy respiration."
Like Brutus, I paused for a reply -- with which, like a tornado, Mr.
Windenough immediately overwhelmed me. Protestation followed upon
protestation, and apology upon apology. There were no terms with
which he was unwilling to comply, and there were none of which I
failed to take the fullest advantage.
Preliminaries being at length arranged, my acquaintance delivered me
the respiration; for which (having carefully examined it) I gave him
afterward a receipt.
I am aware that by many I shall be held to blame for speaking in a
manner so cursory, of a transaction so impalpable. It will be thought
that I should have entered more minutely, into the details of an
occurrence by which -- and this is very true -- much new light might
be thrown upon a highly interesting branch of physical philosophy.
To all this I am sorry that I cannot reply. A hint is the only answer
which I am permitted to make. There were circumstances -- but I think
it much safer upon consideration to say as little as possible about
an affair so delicate -- so delicate, I repeat, and at the time
involving the interests of a third party whose sulphurous resentment
I have not the least desire, at this moment, of incurring.
We were not long after this necessary arrangement in effecting an
escape from the dungeons of the sepulchre. The united strength of our
resuscitated voices was soon sufficiently apparent. Scissors, the
Whig editor, republished a treatise upon "the nature and origin of
subterranean noises." A reply -- rejoinder -- confutation -- and
justification -- followed in the columns of a Democratic Gazette. It
was not until the opening of the vault to decide the controversy,
that the appearance of Mr. Windenough and myself proved both parties
to have been decidedly in the wrong.
I cannot conclude these details of some very singular passages in a
life at all times sufficiently eventful, without again recalling to
the attention of the reader the merits of that indiscriminate
philosophy which is a sure and ready shield against those shafts of
calamity which can neither be seen, felt nor fully understood. It was
in the spirit of this wisdom that, among the ancient Hebrews, it was
believed the gates of Heaven would be inevitably opened to that
sinner, or saint, who, with good lungs and implicit confidence,
should vociferate the word "Amen!" It was in the spirit of this
wisdom that, when a great plague raged at Athens, and every means had
been in vain attempted for its removal, Epimenides, as Laertius
relates, in his second book, of that philosopher, advised the
erection of a shrine and temple "to the proper God."
LYTTLETON BARRY.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE MAN THAT WAS USED UP.
A TALE OF THE LATE BUGABOO AND KICKAPOO CAMPAIGN.
_Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez vous en eau!_
_La moitié; de ma vie a mis l' autre au tombeau._
CORNEILLE.
I CANNOT just now remember when or where I first made the
acquaintance of that truly fine-looking fellow, Brevet Brigadier
General John A. B. C. Smith. Some one _did_ introduce me to the
gentleman, I am sure - at some public meeting, I know very well -
held about something of great importance, no doubt - at some place or
other, I feel convinced, - whose name I have unaccountably forgotten.
The truth is - that the introduction was attended, upon my part, with
a degree of anxious embarrassment which operated to prevent any
definite impressions of either time or place. I am constitutionally
nervous - this, with me, is a family failing, and I can't help it.
In especial, the slightest appearance of mystery - of any point I
cannot exactly comprehend - puts me at once into a pitiable state of
agitation.
There was something, as it were, remarkable - yes, _remarkable_,
although this is but a feeble term to express my full meaning - about
the entire individuality of the personage in question. He was,
perhaps, six feet in height, and of a presence singularly commanding.
There was an _air distingué_ pervading the whole man, which spoke of
high breeding, and hinted at high birth. Upon this topic - the topic
of Smith's personal appearance - I have a kind of melancholy
satisfaction in being minute. His head of hair would have done honor
to a Brutus; - nothing could be more richly flowing, or possess a
brighter gloss. It was of a jetty black; - which was also the
color, or more properly the no color of his unimaginable whiskers.
You perceive I cannot speak of these latter without enthusiasm; it
is not too much to say that they were the handsomest pair of whiskers
under the sun. At all events, they encircled, and at times partially
overshadowed, a mouth utterly unequalled. Here were the most entirely
even, and the most brilliantly white of all conceivable teeth. From
between them, upon every proper occasion, issued a voice of
surpassing clearness, melody, and strength. In the matter of eyes,
also, my acquaintance was pre-eminently endowed. Either one of such
a pair was worth a couple of the ordinary ocular organs. They were
of a deep hazel, exceedingly large and lustrous; and there was
perceptible about them, ever and anon, just that amount of
interesting obliquity which gives pregnancy to expression.
The bust of the General was unquestionably the finest bust I ever
saw. For your life you could not have found a fault with its
wonderful proportion. This rare peculiarity set off to great
advantage a pair of shoulders which would have called up a blush of
conscious inferiority into the countenance of the marble Apollo. I
have a passion for fine shoulders, and may say that I never beheld
them in perfection before. The arms altogether were admirably
modelled. Nor were the lower limbs less superb. These were, indeed,
the _ne plus ultra_ of good legs. Every connoisseur in such matters
admitted the legs to be good. There was neither too much flesh, nor
too little, - neither rudeness nor fragility. I could not imagine a
more graceful curve than that of the _os femoris_, and there was just
that due gentle prominence in the rear of the _fibula_ which goes to
the conformation of a properly proportioned calf. I wish to God my
young and talented friend Chiponchipino, the sculptor, had but seen
the legs of Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith.
But although men so absolutely fine-looking are neither as plenty
as reasons or blackberries, still I could not bring myself to believe
that _the remarkable_ something to which I alluded just now, - that
the odd air of _je ne sais quoi_ which hung about my new
acquaintance, - lay altogether, or indeed at all, in the supreme
excellence of his bodily endowments. Perhaps it might be traced to
the _manner_; - yet here again I could not pretend to be positive.
There _was_ a primness, not to say stiffness, in his carriage - a
degree of measured, and, if I may so express it, of rectangular
precision, attending his every movement, which, observed in a more
diminutive figure, would have had the least little savor in the
world, of affectation, pomposity or constraint, but which noticed in
a gentleman of his undoubted dimensions, was readily placed to the
account of reserve, _hauteur_ - of a commendable sense, in short, of
what is due to the dignity of colossal proportion.
The kind friend who presented me to General Smith whispered in my
ear some few words of comment upon the man. He was a _remarkable_
man - a _very_ remarkable man - indeed one of the _most_ remarkable
men of the age. He was an especial favorite, too, with the ladies -
chiefly on account of his high reputation for courage.
"In _that_ point he is unrivalled - indeed he is a perfect
desperado - a down-right fire-eater, and no mistake," said my friend,
here dropping his voice excessively low, and thrilling me with the
mystery of his tone.
"A downright fire-eater, and _no_ mistake. Showed _that_, I
should say, to some purpose, in the late tremendous swamp-fight away
down South, with the Bugaboo and Kickapoo Indians." [Here my friend
opened his eyes to some extent.] "Bless my soul! - blood and
thunder, and all that! - _prodigies_ of valor! - heard of him
of course? - you know he's the man" ---
"Man alive, how _do_ you do? why, how _are_ ye? _very_ glad
to see ye, indeed!" here interrupted the General himself, seizing my
companion by the hand as he drew near, and bowing stiffly, but
profoundly, as I was presented. I then thought, (and I think so
still,) that I never heard a clearer nor a stronger voice, nor beheld
a finer set of teeth: but I _must_ say that I was sorry for the
interruption just at that moment, as, owing to the whispers and
insinuations aforesaid, my interest had been greatly excited in the
hero of the Bugaboo and Kickapoo campaign.
However, the delightfully luminous conversation of Brevet
Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith soon completely dissipated this
chagrin. My friend leaving us immediately, we had quite a long
_tête-à-tête_, and I was not only pleased but _really_ - instructed.
I never heard a more fluent talker, or a man of greater general
information. With becoming modesty, he forebore, nevertheless, to
touch upon the theme I had just then most at heart - I mean the
mysterious circumstances attending the Bugaboo war - and, on my own
part, what I conceive to be a proper sense of delicacy forbade me to
broach the subject; although, in truth, I was exceedingly tempted to
do so. I perceived, too, that the gallant soldier preferred topics
of philosophical interest, and that he delighted, especially, in
commenting upon the rapid march of mechanical invention. Indeed,
lead him where I would, this was a point to which he invariably came
back.
"There is nothing at all like it," he would say; "we are a
wonderful people, and live in a wonderful age. Parachutes and
rail-roads - man-traps and spring-guns! Our steam-boats are upon
every sea, and the Nassau balloon packet is about to run regular
trips (fare either way only twenty pounds sterling) between London
and Timbuctoo. And who shall calculate the immense influence upon
social life - upon arts - upon commerce - upon literature - which
will be the immediate result of the great principles of electro
magnetics! Nor, is this all, let me assure you! There is really
no end to the march of invention. The most wonderful - the most
ingenious - and let me add, Mr. - Mr. - Thompson, I believe, is
your name - let me add, I say, the most _useful_ - the most truly
_useful_ mechanical contrivances, are daily springing up like
mushrooms, if I may so express myself, or, more figuratively, like -
ah - grasshoppers - like grasshoppers, Mr. Thompson - about us and
ah - ah - ah - around us!"
Thompson, to be sure, is not my name; but it is needless to say
that I left General Smith with a heightened interest in the man, with
an exalted opinion of his conversational powers, and a deep sense of
the valuable privileges we enjoy in living in this age of mechanical
invention. My curiosity, however, had not been altogether satisfied,
and I resolved to prosecute immediate inquiry among my acquaintances
touching the Brevet Brigadier General himself, and particularly
respecting the tremendous events _quorum pars magna fuit_, during
the Bugaboo and Kickapoo campaign.
The first opportunity which presented itself, and which
(_horresco referens_) I did not in the least scruple to seize,
occurred at the Church of the Reverend Doctor Drummummupp, where I
found myself established, one Sunday, just at sermon time, not only
in the pew, but by the side, of that worthy and communicative little
friend of mine, Miss Tabitha T. Thus seated, I congratulated myself,
and with much reason, upon the very flattering state of affairs. If
any person knew anything about Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C.
Smith, that person, it was clear to me, was Miss Tabitha T. We
telegraphed a few signals, and then commenced, _soto voce_, a brisk
_tête-à-tête_.
"Smith!" said she, in reply to my very earnest inquiry; "Smith!
- why, not General John A. B. C.? Bless me, I thought you _knew_
all about _him!_ This is a wonderfully inventive age! Horrid
affair that! - a bloody set of wretches, those Kickapoos! -
fought like a hero - prodigies of valor - immortal renown. Smith!
- Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C.! why, you know he's the
man" ---
"Man," here broke in Doctor Drummummupp, at the top of his voice,
and with a thump that came near knocking the pulpit about our ears;
"man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live; he
cometh up and is cut down like a flower!" I started to the extremity
of the pew, and perceived by the animated looks of the divine, that
the wrath which had nearly proved fatal to the pulpit had been
excited by the whispers of the lady and myself. There was no help
for it; so I submitted with a good grace, and listened, in all the
martyrdom of dignified silence, to the balance of that very capital
discourse.
Next evening found me a somewhat late visitor at the Rantipole
theatre, where I felt sure of satisfying my curiosity at once, by
merely stepping into the box of those exquisite specimens of
affability and omniscience, the Misses Arabella and Miranda
Cognoscenti. That fine tragedian, Climax, was doing Iago to a very
crowded house, and I experienced some little difficulty in making my
wishes understood; especially, as our box was next the slips, and
completely overlooked the stage.
"Smith?" said Miss Arabella, as she at length comprehended the
purport of my query; "Smith? - why, not General John A. B. C.?"
"Smith?" inquired Miranda, musingly. "God bless me, did you
ever behold a finer figure?"
"Never, madam, but _do_ tell me" ---
"Or so inimitable grace?"
"Never, upon my word! - But pray inform me" ---
"Or so just an appreciation of stage effect?"
"Madam!"
"Or a more delicate sense of the true beauties of Shakespeare?
Be so good as to look at that leg!"
"The devil!" and I turned again to her sister.
"Smith?" said she, "why, not General John A. B. C.? Horrid
affair that, wasn't it? - great wretches, those Bugaboos - savage
and so on - but we live in a wonderfully inventive age! - Smith!
- O yes! great man! - perfect desperado - immortal renown -
prodigies of valor! _Never heard!_" [This was given in a scream.]
"Bless my soul! why, he's the man" ---
"----- mandragora
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owd'st yesterday!"
here roared our Climax just in my ear, and shaking his fist in my
face all the time, in a way that I _couldn't_ stand, and I
_wouldn't_. I left the Misses Cognoscenti immediately, went behind
the scenes forthwith, and gave the beggarly scoundrel such a
thrashing as I trust he will remember to the day of his death.
At the _soirée_ of the lovely widow, Mrs. Kathleen O'Trump, I was
confident that I should meet with no similar disappointment.
Accordingly, I was no sooner seated at the card-table, with my pretty
hostess for a _vis-à-vis_, than I propounded those questions the
solution of which had become a matter so essential to my peace.
"Smith?" said my partner, "why, not General John A. B. C.?
Horrid affair that, wasn't it? - diamonds, did you say? -
terrible wretches those Kickapoos! - we are playing _whist_, if
you please, Mr. Tattle - however, this is the age of invention, most
certainly _the_ age, one may say - _the_ age _par excellence_ -
speak French? - oh, quite a hero - perfect desperado! - _no
hearts_, Mr. Tattle? I don't believe it! - immortal renown and
all that! - prodigies of valor! _Never heard!!_ - why, bless
me, he's the man" ---
"Mann? - _Captain_ Mann?" here screamed some little feminine
interloper from the farthest corner of the room. "Are you talking
about Captain Mann and the duel? - oh, I _must_ hear - do tell -
go on, Mrs. O'Trump! - do now go on!" And go on Mrs. O'Trump did
- all about a certain Captain Mann, who was either shot or hung, or
should have been both shot and hung. Yes! Mrs. O'Trump, she went
on, and I - I went off. There was no chance of hearing anything
farther that evening in regard to Brevet Brigadier General John A. B.
C. Smith.
Still I consoled myself with the reflection that the tide of ill
luck would not run against me forever, and so determined to make a
bold push for information at the rout of that bewitching little
angel, the graceful Mrs. Pirouette.
"Smith?" said Mrs. P., as we twirled about together in a _pas de
zephyr_, "Smith? - why, not General John A. B. C.? Dreadful
business that of the Bugaboos, wasn't it? - dreadful creatures,
those Indians! - _do_ turn out your toes! I really am ashamed
of you - man of great courage, poor fellow! - but this is a
wonderful age for invention - O dear me, I'm out of breath - quite a
desperado - prodigies of valor - _never heard!!_ - can't believe it
- I shall have to sit down and enlighten you - Smith! why, he's
the man" ---
"Man-_Fred_, I tell you!" here bawled out Miss Bas-Bleu, as I
led Mrs. Pirouette to a seat. "Did ever anybody hear the like?
It's Man-_Fred_, I say, and not at all by any means Man-_Friday_."
Here Miss Bas-Bleu beckoned to me in a very peremptory manner; and I
was obliged, will I nill I, to leave Mrs. P. for the purpose of
deciding a dispute touching the title of a certain poetical drama of
Lord Byron's. Although I pronounced, with great promptness, that the
true title was Man-_Friday_, and not by any means Man-_Fred_, yet
when I returned to seek Mrs. Pirouette she was not to be discovered,
and I made my retreat from the house in a very bitter spirit of
animosity against the whole race of the Bas-Bleus.
Matters had now assumed a really serious aspect, and I resolved
to call at once upon my particular friend, Mr. Theodore Sinivate;
for I knew that here at least I should get something like definite
information.
"Smith?" said he, in his well-known peculiar way of drawling out
his syllables; "Smith? - why, not General John A. B. C.? Savage
affair that with the Kickapo-o-o-os, wasn't it? Say! don't you
think so? - perfect despera-a-ado - great pity, 'pon my honor!
- wonderfully inventive age! - pro-o-odigies of valor! By the
by, did you ever hear about Captain Ma-a-a-a-n?"
"Captain Mann be d--d!" said I; "please to go on with your
story."
"Hem! - oh well! - quite _la même cho-o-ose_, as we say in
France. Smith, eh? Brigadier-General John A. B. C.? I say" -
[here Mr. S. thought proper to put his finger to the side of his
nose] - "I say, you don't mean to insinuate now, really and truly,
and conscientiously, that you don't know all about that affair of
Smith's, as well as I do, eh? Smith? John A-B-C.? Why, bless
me, he's the ma-a-an" ---
"_Mr_. Sinivate," said I, imploringly, "_is_ he the man in the
mask?"
"No-o-o!" said he, looking wise, "nor the man in the mo-o-on."
This reply I considered a pointed and positive insult, and so
left the house at once in high dudgeon, with a firm resolve to call
my friend, Mr. Sinivate, to a speedy account for his ungentlemanly
conduct and ill-breeding.
In the meantime, however, I had no notion of being thwarted
touching the information I desired. There was one resource left me
yet. I would go to the fountain-head. I would call forthwith upon
the General himself, and demand, in explicit terms, a solution of
this abominable piece of mystery. Here, at least, there should be no
chance for equivocation. I would be plain, positive, peremptory - as
short as pie-crust - as concise as Tacitus or Montesquieu.
It was early when I called, and the General was dressing; but I
pleaded urgent business, and was shown at once into his bed-room by
an old negro valet, who remained in attendance during my visit. As I
entered the chamber, I looked about, of course, for the occupant,
but did not immediately perceive him. There was a large and
exceedingly odd-looking bundle of something which lay close by my
feet on the floor, and, as I was not in the best humor in the world,
I gave it a kick out of the way.
"Hem! ahem! rather civil that, I should say!" said the
bundle, in one of the smallest, and altogether the funniest little
voices, between a squeak and a whistle, that I ever heard in all the
days of my existence.
"Ahem! rather civil that, I should observe."
I fairly shouted with terror, and made off, at a tangent, into
the farthest extremity of the room.
"God bless me! my dear fellow," here again whistled the
bundle, "what - what - what - why, what _is_ the matter? I really
believe you don't know me at all."
What _could_ I say to all this - what _could_ I? I staggered
into an arm-chair, and, with staring eyes and open mouth, awaited the
solution of the wonder.
"Strange you shouldn't know me though, isn't it?" presently
re-squeaked the nondescript, which I now perceived was performing,
upon the floor, some inexplicable evolution, very analogous to the
drawing on of a stocking. There was only a single leg, however,
apparent.
"Strange you shouldn't know me, though, isn't it? Pompey, bring
me that leg!" Here Pompey handed the bundle, a very capital cork
leg, already dressed, which it screwed on in a trice; and then it
stood up before my eyes.
"And a bloody action it _was_," continued the thing, as if in a
soliloquy; "but then one mustn't fight with the Bugaboos and
Kickapoos, and think of coming off with a mere scratch. Pompey, I'll
thank you now for that arm. Thomas" [turning to me] "is decidedly
the best hand at a cork leg; but if you should ever want an arm, my
dear fellow, you must really let me recommend you to Bishop." Here
Pompey screwed on an arm.
"We had rather hot work of it, that you may say. Now, you dog,
slip on my shoulders and bosom! Pettitt makes the best shoulders,
but for a bosom you will have to go to Ducrow."
"Bosom!" said I.
"Pompey, will you _never_ be ready with that wig? Scalping is
a rough process after all; but then you can procure such a capital
scratch at De L'Orme's."
"Scratch!"
"Now, you nigger, my teeth! For a _good_ set of these you had
better go to Parmly's at once; high prices, but excellent work. I
swallowed some very capital articles, though, when the big Bugaboo
rammed me down with the butt end of his rifle."
"Butt end! ram down!! my eye!!"
"O yes, by-the-by, my eye - here, Pompey, you scamp, screw it in
! Those Kickapoos are not so very slow at a gouge; but he's a
belied man, that Dr. Williams, after all; you can't imagine how well
I see with the eyes of his make."
I now began very clearly to perceive that the object before me
was nothing more nor less than my new acquaintance, Brevet Brigadier
General John A. B. C. Smith. The manipulations of Pompey had made, I
must confess, a very striking difference in the appearance of the
personal man. The voice, however, still puzzled me no little; but
even this apparent mystery was speedily cleared up.
"Pompey, you black rascal," squeaked the General, "I really do
believe you would let me go out without my palate."
Hereupon, the negro, grumbling out an apology, went up to his
master, opened his mouth with the knowing air of a horse-jockey, and
adjusted therein a somewhat singular-looking machine, in a very
dexterous manner, that I could not altogether comprehend. The
alteration, however, in the entire expression of the General's
countenance was instantaneous and surprising. When he again spoke,
his voice had resumed all that rich melody and strength which I had
noticed upon our original introduction.
"D--n the vagabonds!" said he, in so clear a tone that I
positively started at the change, "D--n the vagabonds! they not
only knocked in the roof of my mouth, but took the trouble to cut off
at least seven-eighths of my tongue. There isn't Bonfanti's equal,
however, in America, for really good articles of this description. I
can recommend you to him with confidence," [here the General bowed,]
"and assure you that I have the greatest pleasure in so doing."
I acknowledged his kindness in my best manner, and took leave of
him at once, with a perfect understanding of the true state of
affairs - with a full comprehension of the mystery which had troubled
me so long. It was evident. It was a clear case. Brevet Brigadier
General John A. B. C. Smith was the man --- was _the man that was
used up_.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE BUSINESS MAN
Method is the soul of business. -- OLD SAYING.
I AM a business man. I am a methodical man. Method is the thing,
after all. But there are no people I more heartily despise than your
eccentric fools who prate about method without understanding it;
attending strictly to its letter, and violating its spirit. These
fellows are always doing the most out-of-the-way things in what they
call an orderly manner. Now here, I conceive, is a positive paradox.
True method appertains to the ordinary and the obvious alone, and
cannot be applied to the outre. What definite idea can a body attach
to such expressions as "methodical Jack o' Dandy," or "a systematical
Will o' the Wisp"?
My notions upon this head might not have been so clear as they are,
but for a fortunate accident which happened to me when I was a very
little boy. A good-hearted old Irish nurse (whom I shall not forget
in my will) took me up one day by the heels, when I was making more
noise than was necessary, and swinging me round two or knocked my
head into a cocked hat against the bedpost. This, I say, decided my
fate, and made my fortune. A bump arose at once on my sinciput, and
turned out to be as pretty an organ of order as one shall see on a
summer's day. Hence that positive appetite for system and regularity
which has made me the distinguished man of business that I am.
If there is any thing on earth I hate, it is a genius. Your geniuses
are all arrant asses -- the greater the genius the greater the ass --
and to this rule there is no exception whatever. Especially, you
cannot make a man of business out of a genius, any more than money
out of a Jew, or the best nutmegs out of pine-knots. The creatures
are always going off at a tangent into some fantastic employment, or
ridiculous speculation, entirely at variance with the "fitness of
things," and having no business whatever to be considered as a
business at all. Thus you may tell these characters immediately by
the nature of their occupations. If you ever perceive a man setting
up as a merchant or a manufacturer, or going into the cotton or
tobacco trade, or any of those eccentric pursuits; or getting to be a
drygoods dealer, or soap-boiler, or something of that kind; or
pretending to be a lawyer, or a blacksmith, or a physician -- any
thing out of the usual way -- you may set him down at once as a
genius, and then, according to the rule-of-three, he's an ass.
Now I am not in any respect a genius, but a regular business man. My
Day-book and Ledger will evince this in a minute. They are well kept,
though I say it myself; and, in my general habits of accuracy and
punctuality, I am not to be beat by a clock. Moreover, my occupations
have been always made to chime in with the ordinary habitudes of my
fellowmen. Not that I feel the least indebted, upon this score, to my
exceedingly weak-minded parents, who, beyond doubt, would have made
an arrant genius of me at last, if my guardian angel had not come, in
good time, to the rescue. In biography the truth is every thing, and
in autobiography it is especially so -- yet I scarcely hope to be
believed when I state, however solemnly, that my poor father put me,
when I was about fifteen years of age, into the counting-house of
what be termed "a respectable hardware and commission merchant doing
a capital bit of business!" A capital bit of fiddlestick! However,
the consequence of this folly was, that in two or three days, I had
to be sent home to my button-headed family in a high state of fever,
and with a most violent and dangerous pain in the sinciput, all
around about my organ of order. It was nearly a gone case with me
then -- just touch-and-go for six weeks -- the physicians giving me
up and all that sort of thing. But, although I suffered much, I was a
thankful boy in the main. I was saved from being a "respectable
hardware and commission merchant, doing a capital bit of business,"
and I felt grateful to the protuberance which had been the means of
my salvation, as well as to the kindhearted female who had originally
put these means within my reach.
The most of boys run away from home at ten or twelve years of age,
but I waited till I was sixteen. I don't know that I should have gone
even then, if I had not happened to hear my old mother talk about
setting me up on my own hook in the grocery way. The grocery way! --
only think of that! I resolved to be off forthwith, and try and
establish myself in some decent occupation, without dancing
attendance any longer upon the caprices of these eccentric old
people, and running the risk of being made a genius of in the end. In
this project I succeeded perfectly well at the first effort, and by
the time I was fairly eighteen, found myself doing an extensive and
profitable business in the Tailor's Walking-Advertisement line.
I was enabled to discharge the onerous duties of this profession,
only by that rigid adherence to system which formed the leading
feature of my mind. A scrupulous method characterized my actions as
well as my accounts. In my case it was method -- not money -- which
made the man: at least all of him that was not made by the tailor
whom I served. At nine, every morning, I called upon that individual
for the clothes of the day. Ten o'clock found me in some fashionable
promenade or other place of public amusement. The precise regularity
with which I turned my handsome person about, so as to bring
successively into view every portion of the suit upon my back, was
the admiration of all the knowing men in the trade. Noon never passed
without my bringing home a customer to the house of my employers,
Messrs. Cut & Comeagain. I say this proudly, but with tears in my
eyes -- for the firm proved themselves the basest of ingrates. The
little account, about which we quarreled and finally parted, cannot,
in any item, be thought overcharged, by gentlemen really conversant
with the nature of the business. Upon this point, however, I feel a
degree of proud satisfaction in permitting the reader to judge for
himself. My bill ran thus:
Messrs. Cut & Comeagain, Merchant Tailors.
To Peter Proffit, Walking Advertiser, Drs.
JULY 10. -- to promenade, as usual and customer brought home... $00
25
JULY 11. -- To do do do 25
JULY 12. -- To one lie, second class; damaged black cloth sold for
invisible green............................................... 25
JULY 13. -- To one lie, first class, extra quality and size;
recommended milled satinet as broadcloth...................... 75
JULY 20. -- To purchasing bran new paper shirt collar or dickey, to
set off gray Petersham..................................... 02
AUG. 15. -- To wearing double-padded bobtail frock, (thermometer 106
in the shade)............................................. 25
AUG. 16. -- Standing on one leg three hours, to show off new-style
strapped pants at 12 1/2 cents per leg per hour............. 37 1/2
AUG. 17. -- To promenade, as usual, and large customer brought (fat
man)..................................................... 50
AUG. 18. -- To do do (medium size)................. 25
AUG. 19. -- To do do (small man and bad pay)....... 06
TOTAL [sic] $2 95 1/2
The item chiefly disputed in this bill was the very moderate charge
of two pennies for the dickey. Upon my word of honor, this was not an
unreasonable price for that dickey. It was one of the cleanest and
prettiest little dickeys I ever saw; and I have good reason to
believe that it effected the sale of three Petershams. The elder
partner of the firm, however, would allow me only one penny of the
charge, and took it upon himself to show in what manner four of the
same sized conveniences could be got out of a sheet of foolscap. But
it is needless to say that I stood upon the principle of the thing.
Business is business, and should be done in a business way. There was
no system whatever in swindling me out of a penny -- a clear fraud of
fifty per cent -- no method in any respect. I left at once the
employment of Messrs. Cut & Comeagain, and set up in the Eye-Sore
line by myself -- one of the most lucrative, respectable, and
independent of the ordinary occupations.
My strict integrity, economy, and rigorous business habits, here
again came into play. I found myself driving a flourishing trade, and
soon became a marked man upon 'Change. The truth is, I never dabbled
in flashy matters, but jogged on in the good old sober routine of the
calling -- a calling in which I should, no doubt, have remained to
the present hour, but for a little accident which happened to me in
the prosecution of one of the usual business operations of the
profession. Whenever a rich old hunks or prodigal heir or bankrupt
corporation gets into the notion of putting up a palace, there is no
such thing in the world as stopping either of them, and this every
intelligent person knows. The fact in question is indeed the basis of
the Eye-Sore trade. As soon, therefore, as a building-project is
fairly afoot by one of these parties, we merchants secure a nice
corner of the lot in contemplation, or a prime little situation just
adjoining, or tight in front. This done, we wait until the palace is
half-way up, and then we pay some tasty architect to run us up an
ornamental mud hovel, right against it; or a Down-East or Dutch
Pagoda, or a pig-sty, or an ingenious little bit of fancy work,
either Esquimau, Kickapoo, or Hottentot. Of course we can't afford to
take these structures down under a bonus of five hundred per cent
upon the prime cost of our lot and plaster. Can we? I ask the
question. I ask it of business men. It would be irrational to suppose
that we can. And yet there was a rascally corporation which asked me
to do this very thing -- this very thing! I did not reply to their
absurd proposition, of course; but I felt it a duty to go that same
night, and lamp-black the whole of their palace. For this the
unreasonable villains clapped me into jail; and the gentlemen of the
Eye-Sore trade could not well avoid cutting my connection when I came
out.
The Assault-and-Battery business, into which I was now forced to
adventure for a livelihood, was somewhat ill-adapted to the delicate
nature of my constitution; but I went to work in it with a good
heart, and found my account here, as heretofore, in those stern
habits of methodical accuracy which had been thumped into me by that
delightful old nurse -- I would indeed be the basest of men not to
remember her well in my will. By observing, as I say, the strictest
system in all my dealings, and keeping a well-regulated set of books,
I was enabled to get over many serious difficulties, and, in the end,
to establish myself very decently in the profession. The truth is,
that few individuals, in any line, did a snugger little business than
I. I will just copy a page or so out of my Day-Book; and this will
save me the necessity of blowing my own trumpet -- a contemptible
practice of which no high-minded man will be guilty. Now, the
Day-Book is a thing that don't lie.
"Jan. 1. -- New Year's Day. Met Snap in the street, groggy. Mem --
he'll do. Met Gruff shortly afterward, blind drunk. Mem -- he'll
answer, too. Entered both gentlemen in my Ledger, and opened a
running account with each.
"Jan. 2. -- Saw Snap at the Exchange, and went up and trod on his
toe. Doubled his fist and knocked me down. Good! -- got up again.
Some trifling difficulty with Bag, my attorney. I want the damages at
a thousand, but he says that for so simple a knock down we can't lay
them at more than five hundred. Mem -- must get rid of Bag -- no
system at all.
"Jan. 3 -- Went to the theatre, to look for Gruff. Saw him sitting in
a side box, in the second tier, between a fat lady and a lean one.
Quizzed the whole party through an opera-glass, till I saw the fat
lady blush and whisper to G. Went round, then, into the box, and put
my nose within reach of his hand. Wouldn't pull it -- no go. Blew it,
and tried again -- no go. Sat down then, and winked at the lean lady,
when I had the high satisfaction of finding him lift me up by the
nape of the neck, and fling me over into the pit. Neck dislocated,
and right leg capitally splintered. Went home in high glee, drank a
bottle of champagne, and booked the young man for five thousand. Bag
says it'll do.
"Feb. 15 -- Compromised the case of Mr. Snap. Amount entered in
Journal -- fifty cents -- which see.
"Feb. 16. -- Cast by that ruffian, Gruff, who made me a present of
five dollars. Costs of suit, four dollars and twenty-five cents. Nett
profit, -- see Journal,- seventy-five cents."
Now, here is a clear gain, in a very brief period, of no less than
one dollar and twenty-five cents -- this is in the mere cases of Snap
and Gruff; and I solemnly assure the reader that these extracts are
taken at random from my Day-Book.
It's an old saying, and a true one, however, that money is nothing in
comparison with health. I found the exactions of the profession
somewhat too much for my delicate state of body; and, discovering, at
last, that I was knocked all out of shape, so that I didn't know very
well what to make of the matter, and so that my friends, when they
met me in the street, couldn't tell that I was Peter Proffit at all,
it occurred to me that the best expedient I could adopt was to alter
my line of business. I turned my attention, therefore, to
Mud-Dabbling, and continued it for some years.
The worst of this occupation is, that too many people take a fancy to
it, and the competition is in consequence excessive. Every ignoramus
of a fellow who finds that he hasn't brains in sufficient quantity to
make his way as a walking advertiser, or an eye-sore prig, or a
salt-and-batter man, thinks, of course, that he'll answer very well
as a dabbler of mud. But there never was entertained a more erroneous
idea than that it requires no brains to mud-dabble. Especially, there
is nothing to be made in this way without method. I did only a retail
business myself, but my old habits of system carried me swimmingly
along. I selected my street-crossing, in the first place, with great
deliberation, and I never put down a broom in any part of the town
but that. I took care, too, to have a nice little puddle at hand,
which I could get at in a minute. By these means I got to be well
known as a man to be trusted; and this is one-half the battle, let me
tell you, in trade. Nobody ever failed to pitch me a copper, and got
over my crossing with a clean pair of pantaloons. And, as my business
habits, in this respect, were sufficiently understood, I never met
with any attempt at imposition. I wouldn't have put up with it, if I
had. Never imposing upon any one myself, I suffered no one to play
the possum with me. The frauds of the banks of course I couldn't
help. Their suspension put me to ruinous inconvenience. These,
however, are not individuals, but corporations; and corporations, it
is very well known, have neither bodies to be kicked nor souls to be
damned.
I was making money at this business when, in an evil moment, I was
induced to merge it in the Cur-Spattering -- a somewhat analogous,
but, by no means, so respectable a profession. My location, to be
sure, was an excellent one, being central, and I had capital blacking
and brushes. My little dog, too, was quite fat and up to all
varieties of snuff. He had been in the trade a long time, and, I may
say, understood it. Our general routine was this: -- Pompey, having
rolled himself well in the mud, sat upon end at the shop door, until
he observed a dandy approaching in bright boots. He then proceeded to
meet him, and gave the Wellingtons a rub or two with his wool. Then
the dandy swore very much, and looked about for a boot-black. There I
was, full in his view, with blacking and brushes. It was only a
minute's work, and then came a sixpence. This did moderately well for
a time; -- in fact, I was not avaricious, but my dog was. I allowed
him a third of the profit, but he was advised to insist upon half.
This I couldn't stand -- so we quarrelled and parted.
I next tried my hand at the Organ-Grinding for a while, and may say
that I made out pretty well. It is a plain, straightforward business,
and requires no particular abilities. You can get a music-mill for a
mere song, and to put it in order, you have but to open the works,
and give them three or four smart raps with a hammer. In improves the
tone of the thing, for business purposes, more than you can imagine.
This done, you have only to stroll along, with the mill on your back,
until you see tanbark in the street, and a knocker wrapped up in
buckskin. Then you stop and grind; looking as if you meant to stop
and grind till doomsday. Presently a window opens, and somebody
pitches you a sixpence, with a request to "Hush up and go on," etc. I
am aware that some grinders have actually afforded to "go on" for
this sum; but for my part, I found the necessary outlay of capital
too great to permit of my "going on" under a shilling.
At this occupation I did a good deal; but, somehow, I was not quite
satisfied, and so finally abandoned it. The truth is, I labored under
the disadvantage of having no monkey -- and American streets are so
muddy, and a Democratic rabble is so obstrusive, and so full of
demnition mischievous little boys.
I was now out of employment for some months, but at length succeeded,
by dint of great interest, in procuring a situation in the Sham-Post.
The duties, here, are simple, and not altogether unprofitable. For
example: -- very early in the morning I had to make up my packet of
sham letters. Upon the inside of each of these I had to scrawl a few
lines on any subject which occurred to me as sufficiently mysterious
-- signing all the epistles Tom Dobson, or Bobby Tompkins, or
anything in that way. Having folded and sealed all, and stamped them
with sham postmarks -- New Orleans, Bengal, Botany Bay, or any other
place a great way off- I set out, forthwith, upon my daily route, as
if in a very great hurry. I always called at the big houses to
deliver the letters, and receive the postage. Nobody hesitates at
paying for a letter -- especially for a double one -- people are such
fools- and it was no trouble to get round a corner before there was
time to open the epistles. The worst of this profession was, that I
had to walk so much and so fast; and so frequently to vary my route.
Besides, I had serious scruples of conscience. I can't bear to hear
innocent individuals abused -- and the way the whole town took to
cursing Tom Dobson and Bobby Tompkins was really awful to hear. I
washed my hands of the matter in disgust.
My eighth and last speculation has been in the Cat-Growing way. I
have found that a most pleasant and lucrative business, and, really,
no trouble at all. The country, it is well known, has become infested
with cats -- so much so of late, that a petition for relief, most
numerously and respectably signed, was brought before the Legislature
at its late memorable session. The Assembly, at this epoch, was
unusually well-informed, and, having passed many other wise and
wholesome enactments, it crowned all with the Cat-Act. In its
original form, this law offered a premium for cat-heads (fourpence
a-piece), but the Senate succeeded in amending the main clause, so as
to substitute the word "tails" for "heads." This amendment was so
obviously proper, that the House concurred in it nem. con.
As soon as the governor had signed the bill, I invested my whole
estate in the purchase of Toms and Tabbies. At first I could only
afford to feed them upon mice (which are cheap), but they fulfilled
the scriptural injunction at so marvellous a rate, that I at length
considered it my best policy to be liberal, and so indulged them in
oysters and turtle. Their tails, at a legislative price, now bring me
in a good income; for I have discovered a way, in which, by means of
Macassar oil, I can force three crops in a year. It delights me to
find, too, that the animals soon get accustomed to the thing, and
would rather have the appendages cut off than otherwise. I consider
myself, therefore, a made man, and am bargaining for a country seat
on the Hudson.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE LANDSCAPE GARDEN
The garden like a lady fair was cut
That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut;
The azure fields of heaven were 'sembled right
In a large round set with flow'rs of light:
The flowers de luce and the round sparks of dew
That hung upon their azure leaves, did show
Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the ev'ning blue.
-- GILES FLETCHER
NO MORE remarkable man ever lived than my friend, the young Ellison.
He was remarkable in the entire and continuous profusion of good
gifts ever lavished upon him by fortune. From his cradle to his
grave, a gale of the blandest prosperity bore him along. Nor do I use
the word Prosperity in its mere wordly or external sense. I mean it
as synonymous with happiness. The person of whom I speak, seemed born
for the purpose of foreshadowing the wild doctrines of Turgot, Price,
Priestley, and Condorcet -- of exemplifying, by individual instance,
what has been deemed the mere chimera of the perfectionists. In the
brief existence of Ellison, I fancy, that I have seen refuted the
dogma -- that in man's physical and spiritual nature, lies some
hidden principle, the antagonist of Bliss. An intimate and anxious
examination of his career, has taught me to understand that, in
general, from the violation of a few simple laws of Humanity, arises
the Wretchedness of mankind; that, as a species, we have in our
possession the as yet unwrought elements of Content, -- and that even
now, in the present blindness and darkness of all idea on the great
question of the Social Condition, it is not impossible that Man, the
individual, under certain unusual and highly fortuitous conditions,
may be happy.
With opinions such as these was my young friend fully imbued; and
thus is it especially worthy of observation that the uninterrupted
enjoyment which distinguished his life was in great part the result
of preconcert. It is, indeed evident, that with less of the
instinctive philosophy which, now and then, stands so well in the
stead of experience, Mr. Ellison would have found himself
precipitated, by the very extraordinary successes of his life, into
the common vortex of Unhappiness which yawns for those of preeminent
endowments. But it is by no means my present object to pen an essay
on Happiness. The ideas of my friend may be summed up in a few words.
He admitted but four unvarying laws, or rather elementary principles,
of Bliss. That which he considered chief, was (strange to say!) the
simple and purely physical one of free exercise in the open air. "The
health," he said, "attainable by other means than this is scarcely
worth the name." He pointed to the tillers of the earth -- the only
people who, as a class, are proverbially more happy than others --
and then he instanced the high ecstasies of the fox-hunter. His
second principle was the love of woman. His third was the contempt of
ambition. His fourth was an object of unceasing pursuit; and he held
that, other things being equal, the extent of happiness was
proportioned to the spirituality of this object.
I have said that Ellison was remarkable in the continuous profusion
of good gifts lavished upon him by Fortune. In personal grace and
beauty he exceeded all men. His intellect was of that order to which
the attainment of knowledge is less a labor than a necessity and an
intuition. His family was one of the most illustrious of the empire.
His bride was the loveliest and most devoted of women. His
possessions had been always ample; but, upon the attainment of his
one and twentieth year, it was discovered that one of those
extraordinary freaks of Fate had been played in his behalf which
startle the whole social world amid which they occur, and seldom fail
radically to alter the entire moral constitution of those who are
their objects. It appears that about one hundred years prior to Mr.
Ellison's attainment of his majority, there had died, in a remote
province, one Mr. Seabright Ellison. This gentlemen had amassed a
princely fortune, and, having no very immediate connexions, conceived
the whim of suffering his wealth to accumulate for a century after
his decease. Minutely and sagaciously directing the various modes of
investment, he bequeathed the aggregate amount to the nearest of
blood, bearing the name Ellison, who should be alive at the end of
the hundred years. Many futile attempts had been made to set aside
this singular bequest; their ex post facto character rendered them
abortive; but the attention of a jealous government was aroused, and
a decree finally obtained, forbidding all similar accumulations. This
act did not prevent young Ellison, upon his twenty-first birth-day,
from entering into possession, as the heir of his ancestor,
Seabright, of a fortune of four hundred and fifty millions of
dollars. {*1}
When it had become definitely known that such was the enormous wealth
inherited, there were, of course, many speculations as to the mode of
its disposal. The gigantic magnitude and the immediately available
nature of the sum, dazzled and bewildered all who thought upon the
topic. The possessor of any appreciable amount of money might have
been imagined to perform any one of a thousand things. With riches
merely surpassing those of any citizen, it would have been easy to
suppose him engaging to supreme excess in the fashionable
extravagances of his time; or busying himself with political
intrigues; or aiming at ministerial power, or purchasing increase of
nobility, or devising gorgeous architectural piles; or collecting
large specimens of Virtu; or playing the munificent patron of Letters
and Art; or endowing and bestowing his name upon extensive
institutions of charity. But, for the inconceivable wealth in the
actual possession of the young heir, these objects and all ordinary
objects were felt to be inadequate. Recourse was had to figures; and
figures but sufficed to confound. It was seen, that even at three per
cent, the annual income of the inheritance amounted to no less than
thirteen millions and five hundred thousand dollars; which was one
million and one hundred and twenty-five thousand per month; or
thirty-six thousand, nine hundred and eighty-six per day, or one
thousand five hundred and forty-one per hour, or six and twenty
dollars for every minute that flew. Thus the usual track of
supposition was thoroughly broken up. Men knew not what to imagine.
There were some who even conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest
himself forthwith of at least two-thirds of his fortune as of utterly
superfluous opulence; enriching whole troops of his relatives by
division of his superabundance.
I was not surprised, however, to perceive that he had long made up
his mind upon a topic which had occasioned so much of discussion to
his friends. Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of his
decision. In the widest and noblest sense, he was a poet. He
comprehended, moreover, the true character, the august aims, the
supreme majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment. The proper
gratification of the sentiment he instinctively felt to lie in the
creation of novel forms of Beauty. Some peculiarities, either in his
early education, or in the nature of his intellect, had tinged with
what is termed materialism the whole cast of his ethical
speculations; and it was this bias, perhaps, which imperceptibly led
him to perceive that the most advantageous, if not the sole
legitimate field for the exercise of the poetic sentiment, was to be
found in the creation of novel moods of purely physical loveliness.
Thus it happened that he became neither musician nor poet; if we use
this latter term in its every -- day acceptation. Or it might have
been that he became neither the one nor the other, in pursuance of an
idea of his which I have already mentioned -- the idea, that in the
contempt of ambition lay one of the essential principles of happiness
on earth. Is it not, indeed, possible that while a high order of
genius is necessarily ambitious, the highest is invariably above that
which is termed ambition? And may it not thus happen that many far
greater than Milton, have contentedly remained "mute and inglorious?"
I believe the world has never yet seen, and that, unless through some
series of accidents goading the noblest order of mind into
distasteful exertion, the world will never behold, that full extent
of triumphant execution, in the richer productions of Art, of which
the human nature is absolutely capable.
Mr. Ellison became neither musician nor poet; although no man lived
more profoundly enamored both of Music and the Muse. Under other
circumstances than those which invested him, it is not impossible
that he would have become a painter. The field of sculpture, although
in its nature rigidly poetical, was too limited in its extent and in
its consequences, to have occupied, at any time, much of his
attention. And I have now mentioned all the provinces in which even
the most liberal understanding of the poetic sentiment has declared
this sentiment capable of expatiating. I mean the most liberal public
or recognized conception of the idea involved in the phrase "poetic
sentiment." But Mr. Ellison imagined that the richest, and altogether
the most natural and most suitable province, had been blindly
neglected. No definition had spoken of the Landscape-Gardener, as of
the poet; yet my friend could not fail to perceive that the creation
of the Landscape-Garden offered to the true muse the most magnificent
of opportunities. Here was, indeed, the fairest field for the display
of invention, or imagination, in the endless combining of forms of
novel Beauty; the elements which should enter into combination being,
at all times, and by a vast superiority, the most glorious which the
earth could afford. In the multiform of the tree, and in the
multicolor of the flower, he recognized the most direct and the most
energetic efforts of Nature at physical loveliness. And in the
direction or concentration of this effort, or, still more properly,
in its adaption to the eyes which were to behold it upon earth, he
perceived that he should be employing the best means -- laboring to
the greatest advantage -- in the fulfilment of his destiny as Poet.
"Its adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it upon earth." In
his explanation of this phraseology, Mr. Ellison did much towards
solving what has always seemed to me an enigma. I mean the fact
(which none but the ignorant dispute,) that no such combinations of
scenery exist in Nature as the painter of genius has in his power to
produce. No such Paradises are to be found in reality as have glowed
upon the canvass of Claude. In the most enchanting of natural
landscapes, there will always be found a defect or an excess -- many
excesses and defects. While the component parts may exceed,
individually, the highest skill of the artist, the arrangement of the
parts will always be susceptible of improvement. In short, no
position can be attained, from which an artistical eye, looking
steadily, will not find matter of offence, in what is technically
termed the composition of a natural landscape. And yet how
unintelligible is this! In all other matters we are justly instructed
to regard Nature as supreme. With her details we shrink from
competition. Who shall presume to imitate the colors of the tulip, or
to improve the proportions of the lily of the valley? The criticism
which says, of sculpture or of portraiture, that "Nature is to be
exalted rather than imitated," is in error. No pictorial or
sculptural combinations of points of human loveliness, do more than
approach the living and breathing human beauty as it gladdens our
daily path. Byron, who often erred, erred not in saying,
I've seen more living beauty, ripe and real,
Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal. In landscape alone is the
principle of the critic true; and, having felt its truth here, it is
but the headlong spirit of generalization which has induced him to
pronounce it true throughout all the domains of Art. Having, I say,
felt its truth here. For the feeling is no affectation or chimera.
The mathematics afford no more absolute demonstrations, than the
sentiment of his Art yields to the artist. He not only believes, but
positively knows, that such and such apparently arbitrary
arrangements of matter, or form, constitute, and alone constitute,
the true Beauty. Yet his reasons have not yet been matured into
expression. It remains for a more profound analysis than the world
has yet seen, fully to investigate and express them. Nevertheless is
he confirmed in his instinctive opinions, by the concurrence of all
his compeers. Let a composition be defective, let an emendation be
wrought in its mere arrangement of form; let this emendation be
submitted to every artist in the world; by each will its necessity be
admitted. And even far more than this, in remedy of the defective
composition, each insulated member of the fraternity will suggest the
identical emendation.
I repeat that in landscape arrangements, or collocations alone, is
the physical Nature susceptible of "exaltation" and that, therefore,
her susceptibility of improvement at this one point, was a mystery
which, hitherto I had been unable to solve. It was Mr. Ellison who
first suggested the idea that what we regarded as improvement or
exaltation of the natural beauty, was really such, as respected only
the mortal or human point of view; that each alteration or
disturbance of the primitive scenery might possibly effect a blemish
in the picture, if we could suppose this picture viewed at large from
some remote point in the heavens. "It is easily understood," says Mr.
Ellison, "that what might improve a closely scrutinized detail,
might, at the same time, injure a general and more distantly --
observed effect." He spoke upon this topic with warmth: regarding not
so much its immediate or obvious importance, (which is little,) as
the character of the conclusions to which it might lead, or of the
collateral propositions which it might serve to corroborate or
sustain. There might be a class of beings, human once, but now to
humanity invisible, for whose scrutiny and for whose refined
appreciation of the beautiful, more especially than for our own, had
been set in order by God the great landscape-garden of the whole
earth.
In the course of our discussion, my young friend took occasion to
quote some passages from a writer who has been supposed to have well
treated this theme.
"There are, properly," he writes, "but two styles of
landscape-gardening, the natural and the artificial. One seeks to
recall the original beauty of the country, by adapting its means to
the surrounding scenery; cultivating trees in harmony with the hills
or plain of the neighboring land; detecting and bringing into
practice those nice relations of size, proportion and color which,
hid from the common observer, are revealed everywhere to the
experienced student of nature. The result of the natural style of
gardening, is seen rather in the absence of all defects and
incongruities -- in the prevalence of a beautiful harmony and order,
than in the creation of any special wonders or miracles. The
artificial style has as many varieties as there are different tastes
to gratify. It has a certain general relation to the various styles
of building. There are the stately avenues and retirements of
Versailles; Italian terraces; and a various mixed old English style,
which bears some relation to the domestic Gothic or English
Elizabethan architecture. Whatever may be said against the abuses of
the artificial landscape-gardening, a mixture of pure art in a garden
scene, adds to it a great beauty. This is partly pleasing to the eye,
by the show of order and design, and partly moral. A terrace, with an
old moss-covered balustrade, calls up at once to the eye, the fair
forms that have passed there in other days. The slightest exhibition
of art is an evidence of care and human interest."
"From what I have already observed," said Mr. Ellison, "you will
understand that I reject the idea, here expressed, of 'recalling the
original beauty of the country.' The original beauty is never so
great as that which may be introduced. Of course, much depends upon
the selection of a spot with capabilities. What is said in respect to
the 'detecting and bringing into practice those nice relations of
size, proportion and color,' is a mere vagueness of speech, which may
mean much, or little, or nothing, and which guides in no degree. That
the true 'result of the natural style of gardening is seen rather in
the absence of all defects and incongruities, than in the creation of
any special wonders or miracles,' is a proposition better suited to
the grovelling apprehension of the herd, than to the fervid dreams of
the man of genius. The merit suggested is, at best, negative, and
appertains to that hobbling criticism which, in letters, would
elevate Addison into apotheosis. In truth, while that merit which
consists in the mere avoiding demerit, appeals directly to the
understanding, and can thus be foreshadowed in Rule, the loftier
merit, which breathes and flames in invention or creation, can be
apprehended solely in its results. Rule applies but to the
excellences of avoidance -- to the virtues which deny or refrain.
Beyond these the critical art can but suggest. We may be instructed
to build an Odyssey, but it is in vain that we are told how to
conceive a 'Tempest,' an 'Inferno,' a 'Prometheus Bound,' a
'Nightingale,' such as that of Keats, or the 'Sensitive Plant' of
Shelley. But, the thing done, the wonder accomplished, and the
capacity for apprehension becomes universal. The sophists of the
negative school, who, through inability to create, have scoffed at
creation, are now found the loudest in applause. What, in its
chrysalis condition of principle, affronted their demure reason,
never fails, in its maturity of accomplishment, to extort admiration
from their instinct of the beautiful or of the sublime.
"Our author's observations on the artificial style of gardening,"
continued Mr. Ellison, "are less objectionable. 'A mixture of pure
art in a garden scene, adds to it a great beauty.' This is just; and
the reference to the sense of human interest is equally so. I repeat
that the principle here expressed, is incontrovertible; but there may
be something even beyond it. There may be an object in full keeping
with the principle suggested -- an object unattainable by the means
ordinarily in possession of mankind, yet which, if attained, would
lend a charm to the landscape-garden immeasurably surpassing that
which a merely human interest could bestow. The true poet possessed
of very unusual pecuniary resources, might possibly, while retaining
the necessary idea of art or interest or culture, so imbue his
designs at once with extent and novelty of Beauty, as to convey the
sentiment of spiritual interference. It will be seen that, in
bringing about such result, he secures all the advantages of interest
or design, while relieving his work of all the harshness and
technicality of Art. In the most rugged of wildernesses -- in the
most savage of the scenes of pure Nature -- there is apparent the art
of a Creator; yet is this art apparent only to reflection; in no
respect has it the obvious force of a feeling. Now, if we imagine
this sense of the Almighty Design to be harmonized in a measurable
degree, if we suppose a landscape whose combined strangeness,
vastness, definitiveness, and magnificence, shall inspire the idea of
culture, or care, or superintendence, on the part of intelligences
superior yet akin to humanity -- then the sentiment of interest is
preserved, while the Art is made to assume the air of an intermediate
or secondary Nature -- a Nature which is not God, nor an emanation of
God, but which still is Nature, in the sense that it is the handiwork
of the angels that hover between man and God."
It was in devoting his gigantic wealth to the practical embodiment of
a vision such as this -- in the free exercise in the open air, which
resulted from personal direction of his plans -- in the continuous
and unceasing object which these plans afford -- in the contempt of
ambition which it enabled him more to feel than to affect -- and,
lastly, it was in the companionship and sympathy of a devoted wife,
that Ellison thought to find, and found, an exemption from the
ordinary cares of Humanity, with a far greater amount of positive
happiness than ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams of De Stael.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
Maelzel's Chess-Player
PERHAPS no exhibition of the kind has ever elicited so general
attention as the Chess-Player of Maelzel. Wherever seen it has been
an object of intense curiosity, to all persons who think. Yet the
question of its _modus operandi is _still undetermined. Nothing has
been written on this topic which can be considered as decisive--and
accordingly we find every where men of mechanical genius, of great
general acuteness, and discriminative understanding, who make no
scruple in pronouncing the Automaton a _pure machine, _unconnected
with human agency in its movements, and consequently, beyond all
comparison, the most astonishing of the inventions of mankind. And
such it would undoubtedly be, were they right in their supposition.
Assuming this hypothesis, it would be grossly absurd to compare with
the Chess-Player, any similar thing of either modern or ancient days.
Yet there have been many and wonderful automata. In Brewster's
Letters on Natural Magic, we have an account of the most remarkable.
Among these may be mentioned, as having beyond doubt existed,
firstly, the coach invented by M. Camus for the amusement of Louis
XIV when a child. A table, about four feet square, was introduced,
into the room appropriated for the exhibition. Upon this table was
placed a carriage, six inches in length, made of wood, and drawn by
two horses of the same material. One window being down, a lady was
seen on the back seat. A coachman held the reins on the box, and a
footman and page were in their places behind. M. Camus now touched a
spring; whereupon the coachman smacked his whip, and the horses
proceeded in a natural manner, along the edge of the table, drawing
after them the carriage. Having gone as far as possible in this
direction, a sudden turn was made to the left, and the vehicle was
driven at right angles to its former course, and still closely along
the edge of the table. In this way the coach proceeded until it
arrived opposite the chair of the young prince. It then stopped, the
page descended and opened the door, the lady alighted, and presented
a petition to her sovereign. She then re-entered. The page put up the
steps, closed the door, and resumed his station. The coachman whipped
his horses, and the carriage was driven back to its original
position.
The magician of M. Maillardet is also worthy of notice. We copy the
following account of it from the _Letters _before mentioned of Dr.
B., who derived his information principal!
from the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia.
"One of the most popular pieces of mechanism which we have seen, Is
the Magician constructed by M. Maillardet, for the purpose of
answering certain given questions. A figure, dressed like a magician,
appears seated at the bottom of a wall, holding a wand in one hand,
and a book in the other A number of questions, ready prepared, are
inscribed on oval medallions, and the spectator takes any of these he
chooses and to which he wishes an answer, and having placed it in a
drawer ready to receive it, the drawer shuts with a spring till the
answer is returned. The magician then arises from his seat, bows his
head, describes circles with his wand, and consulting the book as If
in deep thought, he lifts it towards his face. Having thus appeared
to ponder over the proposed question he raises his wand, and striking
with it the wall above his head, two folding doors fly open, and
display an appropriate answer to the question. The doors again close,
the magician resumes his original position, and the drawer opens to
return the medallion. There are twenty of these medallions, all
containing different questions, to which the magician returns the
most suitable and striking answers. The medallions are thin plates of
brass, of an elliptical form, exactly resembling each other. Some of
the medallions have a question inscribed on each side, both of which
the magician answered in succession. If the drawer is shut without a
medallion being put into it, the magician rises, consults his book,
shakes his head, and resumes his seat. The folding doors remain shut,
and the drawer is returned empty. If two medallions are put into the
drawer together, an answer is returned only to the lower one. When
the machinery is wound up, the movements continue about an hour,
during which time about fifty questions may be answered. The inventor
stated that the means by which the different medallions acted upon
the machinery, so as to produce the proper answers to the questions
which they contained, were extremely simple."
The duck of Vaucanson was still more remarkable. It was _of _the size
of life, and so perfect an imitation of the living animal that all
the spectators were deceived. It executed, says Brewster, all the
natural movements and gestures, it ate and drank with avidity,
performed all the quick motions of the head and throat which are
peculiar to the duck, and like it muddled the water which it drank
with its bill. It produced also the sound of quacking in the most
natural manner. In the anatomical structure the artist exhibited the
highest skill. Every bone in the real duck had its representative In
the automaton, and its wings were anatomically exact. Every cavity,
apophysis, and curvature was imitated, and each bone executed its
proper movements. When corn was thrown down before it, the duck
stretched out its neck to pick it up, swallowed, and digested it.
{*1}
But if these machines were ingenious, what shall we think of the
calculating machine of Mr. Babbage? What shall we think of an engine
of wood and metal which can not only compute astronomical and
navigation tables to any given extent, but render the exactitude of
its operations mathematically certain through its power of correcting
its possible errors? What shall we think of a machine which can not
only accomplish all this, but actually print off its elaborate
results, when obtained, without the slightest intervention of the
intellect of man? It will, perhaps, be said, in reply, that a machine
such as we have described is altogether above comparison with the
Chess-Player of Maelzel. By no means--it is altogether beneath
it--that is to say provided we assume (what should never for a moment
be assumed) that the Chess-Player is a _pure machine, _and performs
its operations without any immediate human agency. Arithmetical or
algebraical calculations are, from their very nature, fixed and
determinate. Certain _data _being given, certain results necessarily
and inevitably follow. These results have dependence upon nothing,
and are influenced by nothing but the _data _originally given. And
the question to be solved proceeds, or should proceed, to its final
determination, by a succession of unerring steps liable to no change,
and subject to no modification. This being the case, we can without
difficulty conceive the _possibility _of so arranging a piece of
mechanism, that upon starting In accordance with the _data _of the
question to be solved, it should continue its movements regularly,
progressively, and undeviatingly towards the required solution, since
these movements, however complex, are never imagined to be otherwise
than finite and determinate. But the case is widely different with
the Chess-Player. With him there is no determinate progression. No
one move in chess necessarily follows upon any one other. From no
particular disposition of the men at one period of a game can we
predicate their disposition at a different period. Let us place the
_first move _in a game of chess, in juxta-position with the _data _of
an algebraical question, and their great difference will be
immediately perceived. From the latter--from the _data--_the second
step of the question, dependent thereupon, inevitably follows. It is
modelled by the _data. _It must be _thus _and not otherwise. But from
the first move in the game of chess no especial second move follows
of necessity. In the algebraical question, as it proceeds towards
solution, the _certainty _of its operations remains altogether
unimpaired. The second step having been a consequence of the _data,
_the third step is equally a consequence of the second, the fourth of
the third, the fifth of the fourth, and so on, _and not possibly
otherwise, _to the end. But in proportion to the progress made in a
game of chess, is the _uncertainty _of each ensuing move. A few moves
having been made, _no _step is certain. Different spectators of the
game would advise different moves. All is then dependent upon the
variable judgment of the players. Now even granting (what should not
be granted) that the movements of the Automaton Chess-Player were in
themselves determinate, they would be necessarily interrupted and
disarranged by the indeterminate will of his antagonist. There is
then no analogy whatever between the operations of the Chess-Player,
and those of the calculating machine of Mr. Babbage, and if we choose
to call the former a _pure machine _we must be prepared to admit that
it is, beyond all comparison, the most wonderful of the inventions of
mankind. Its original projector, however, Baron Kempelen, had no
scruple in declaring it to be a "very ordinary piece of mechanism--a
_bagatelle _whose effects appeared so marvellous only from the
boldness of the conception, and the fortunate choice of the methods
adopted for promoting the illusion." But it is needless to dwell upon
this point. It is quite certain that the operations of the Automaton
are regulated by _mind, _and by nothing else. Indeed this matter is
susceptible of a mathematical demonstration, _a priori. _The only
question then is of the _manner _in which human agency is brought to
bear. Before entering upon this subject it would be as well to give a
brief history and description of the Chess-Player for the benefit of
such of our readers as may never have had an opportunity of
witnessing Mr. Maelzel's exhibition.
The Automaton Chess-Player was invented in 1769, by Baron Kempelen, a
nobleman of Presburg, in Hungary, who afterwards disposed of it,
together with the secret of its operations, to its present possessor.
{2*} Soon after its completion it was exhibited in Presburg, Paris,
Vienna, and other continental cities. In 1783 and 1784, it was taken
to London by Mr. Maelzel. Of late years it has visited the principal
towns in the United States. Wherever seen, the most intense curiosity
was excited by its appearance, and numerous have been the attempts,
by men of all classes, to fathom the mystery of its evolutions. The
cut on this page gives a tolerable representation of the figure as
seen by the citizens of Richmond a few weeks ago. The right arm,
however, should lie more at length upon the box, a chess-board should
appear upon it, and the cushion should not be seen while the pipe is
held. Some immaterial alterations have been made in the costume of
the player since it came into the possession of Maelzel--the plume,
for example, was not originally worn. {image of automaton}
At the hour appointed for exhibition, a curtain is withdrawn, or
folding doors are thrown open, and the machine rolled to within about
twelve feet of the nearest of the spectators, between whom and it
(the machine) a rope is stretched. A figure is seen habited as a
Turk, and seated, with its legs crossed, at a large box apparently of
maple wood, which serves it as a table. The exhibiter will, if
requested, roll the machine to any portion of the room, suffer it to
remain altogether on any designated spot, or even shift its location
repeatedly during the progress of a game. The bottom of the box is
elevated considerably above the floor by means of the castors or
brazen rollers on which it moves, a clear view of the surface
immediately beneath the Automaton being thus afforded to the
spectators. The chair on which the figure sits is affixed permanently
to the box. On the top of this latter is a chess-board, also
permanently affixed. The right arm of the Chess-Player is extended at
full length before him, at right angles with his body, and lying, in
an apparently careless position, by the side of the board. The back
of the hand is upwards. The board itself is eighteen inches square.
The left arm of the figure is bent at the elbow, and in the left hand
is a pipe. A green drapery conceals the back of the Turk, and falls
partially over the front of both shoulders. To judge from the
external appearance of the box, it is divided into five
compartments--three cupboards of equal dimensions, and two drawers
occupying that portion of the chest lying beneath the cupboards. The
foregoing observations apply to the appearance of the Automaton upon
its first introduction into the presence of the spectators.
Maelzel now informs the company that he will disclose to their view
the mechanism of the machine. Taking from his pocket a bunch of keys
he unlocks with one of them, door marked ~ in the cut above, and
throws the cupboard fully open to the inspection of all present. Its
whole interior is apparently filled with wheels, pinions, levers, and
other machinery, crowded very closely together, so that the eye can
penetrate but a little distance into the mass. Leaving this door open
to its full extent, he goes now round to the back of the box, and
raising the drapery of the figure, opens another door situated
precisely in the rear of the one first opened. Holding a lighted
candle at this door, and shifting the position of the whole machine
repeatedly at the same time, a bright light is thrown entirely
through the cupboard, which is now clearly seen to be full,
completely full, of machinery. The spectators being satisfied of this
fact, Maelzel closes the back door, locks it, takes the key from the
lock, lets fall the drapery of the figure, and comes round to the
front. The door marked I, it will be remembered, is still open. The
exhibiter now proceeds to open the drawer which lies beneath the
cupboards at the bottom of the box--for although there are apparently
two drawers, there is really only one--the two handles and two key
holes being intended merely for ornament. Having opened this drawer
to its full extent, a small cushion, and a set of chessmen, fixed in
a frame work made to support them perpendicularly, are discovered.
Leaving this drawer, as well as cupboard No. 1 open, Maelzel now
unlocks door No. 2, and door No. 3, which are discovered to be
folding doors, opening into one and the same compartment. To the
right of this compartment, however, (that is to say the spectators'
right) a small division, six inches wide, and filled with machinery,
is partitioned off. The main compartment itself (in speaking of that
portion of the box visible upon opening doors 2 and 3, we shall
always call it the main compartment) is lined with dark cloth and
contains no machinery whatever beyond two pieces of steel,
quadrant-shaped, and situated one in each of the rear top corners of
the compartment. A small protuberance about eight inches square, and
also covered with dark cloth, lies on the floor of the compartment
near the rear corner on the spectators' left hand. Leaving doors No.
2 and No. 3 open as well as the drawer, and door No. I, the exhibiter
now goes round to the back of the main compartment, and, unlocking
another door there, displays clearly all the interior of the main
compartment, by introducing a candle behind it and within it. The
whole box being thus apparently disclosed to the scrutiny of the
company, Maelzel, still leaving the doors and drawer open, rolls the
Automaton entirely round, and exposes the back of the Turk by lifting
up the drapery. A door about ten inches square is thrown open in the
loins of the figure, and a smaller one also in the left thigh. The
interior of the figure, as seen through these apertures, appears to
be crowded with machinery. In general, every spectator is now
thoroughly satisfied of having beheld and completely scrutinized, at
one and the same time, every individual portion of the Automaton, and
the idea of any person being concealed in the interior, during so
complete an exhibition of that interior, if ever entertained, is
immediately dismissed as preposterous in the extreme.
M. Maelzel, having rolled the machine back into its original
position, now informs the company that the Automaton will play a game
of chess with any one disposed to encounter him. This challenge being
accepted, a small table is prepared for the antagonist, and placed
close by the rope, but on the spectators' side of it, and so situated
as not to prevent the company from obtaining a full view of the
Automaton. From a drawer in this table is taken a set of chess-men,
and Maelzel arranges them generally, but not always, with his own
hands, on the chess board, which consists merely of the usual number
of squares painted upon the table. The antagonist having taken his
seat, the exhibiter approaches the drawer of the box, and takes
therefrom the cushion, which, after removing the pipe from the hand
of the Automaton, he places under its left arm as a support. Then
taking also from the drawer the Automaton's set of chess-men, he
arranges them upon the chessboard before the figure. He now proceeds
to close the doors and to lock them--leaving the bunch of keys in
door No. 1. He also closes the drawer, and, finally, winds up the
machine, by applying a key to an aperture in the left end (the
spectators' left) of the box. The game now commences--the Automaton
taking the first move. The duration of the contest is usually limited
to half an hour, but if it be not finished at the expiration of this
period, and the antagonist still contend that he can beat the
Automaton, M. Maelzel has seldom any objection to continue it. Not to
weary the company, is the ostensible, and no doubt the real object of
the limitation. It Wits of course be understood that when a move is
made at his own table, by the antagonist, the corresponding move is
made at the box of the Automaton, by Maelzel himself, who then acts
as the representative of the antagonist. On the other hand, when the
Turk moves, the corresponding move is made at the table of the
antagonist, also by M. Maelzel, who then acts as the representative
of the Automaton. In this manner it is necessary that the exhibiter
should often pass from one table to the other. He also frequently
goes in rear of the figure to remove the chess-men which it has
taken, and which it deposits, when taken, on the box to the left (to
its own left) of the board. When the Automaton hesitates in relation
to its move, the exhibiter is occasionally seen to place himself very
near its right side, and to lay his hand, now and then, in a careless
manner upon the box. He has also a peculiar shuffle with his feet,
calculated to induce suspicion of collusion with the machine in minds
which are more cunning than sagacious. These peculiarities are, no
doubt, mere mannerisms of M. Maelzel, or, if he is aware of them at
all, he puts them in practice with a view of exciting in the
spectators a false idea of the pure mechanism in the Automaton.
The Turk plays with his left hand. All the movements of the arm are
at right angles. In this manner, the hand (which is gloved and bent
in a natural way,) being brought directly above the piece to be
moved, descends finally upon it, the fingers receiving it, in most
cases, without difficulty. Occasionally, however, when the piece is
not precisely in its proper situation, the Automaton fails in his
attempt at seizing it. When this occurs, no second effort is made,
but the arm continues its movement in the direction originally
intended, precisely as if the piece were in the fingers. Having thus
designated the spot whither the move should have been made, the arm
returns to its cushion, and Maelzel performs the evolution which the
Automaton pointed out. At every movement of the figure machinery is
heard in motion. During the progress of the game, the figure now and
then rolls its eyes, as if surveying the board, moves its head, and
pronounces the word _echec _(check) when necessary. {*3} If a false
move be made by his antagonist, he raps briskly on the box with the
fingers of his right hand, shakes his head roughly, and replacing the
piece falsely moved, in its former situation, assumes the next move
himself. Upon beating the game, he waves his head with an air of
triumph, looks round complacently upon the spectators, and drawing
his left arm farther back than usual, suffers his fingers alone to
rest upon the cushion. In general, the Turk is victorious--once or
twice he has been beaten. The game being ended, Maelzel will again if
desired, exhibit the mechanism of the box, in the same manner as
before. The machine is then rolled back, and a curtain hides it from
the view of the company.
There have been many attempts at solving the mystery of the
Automaton. The most general opinion in relation to it, an opinion too
not unfrequently adopted by men who should have known better, was, as
we have before said, that no immediate human agency was employed--in
other words, that the machine was purely a machine and nothing else.
Many, however maintained that the exhibiter himself regulated the
movements of the figure by mechanical means operating through the
feet of the box. Others again, spoke confidently of a magnet. Of the
first of these opinions we shall say nothing at present more than we
have already said. In relation to the second it is only necessary to
repeat what we have before stated, that the machine is rolled about
on castors, and will, at the request of a spectator, be moved to and
fro to any portion of the room, even during the progress of a game.
The supposition of the magnet is also untenable--for if a magnet were
the agent, any other magnet in the pocket of a spectator would
disarrange the entire mechanism. The exhibiter, however, will suffer
the most powerful loadstone to remain even upon the box during the
whole of the exhibition.
The first attempt at a written explanation of the secret, at least
the first attempt of which we ourselves have any knowledge, was made
in a large pamphlet printed at Paris in 1785. The author's hypothesis
amounted to this--that a dwarf actuated the machine. This dwarf he
supposed to conceal himself during the opening of the box by
thrusting his legs into two hollow cylinders, which were represented
to be (but which are not) among the machinery in the cupboard No. I,
while his body was out of the box entirely, and covered by the
drapery of the Turk. When the doors were shut, the dwarf was enabled
to bring his body within the box--the noise produced by some portion
of the machinery allowing him to do so unheard, and also to close the
door by which he entered. The interior of the automaton being then
exhibited, and no person discovered, the spectators, says the author
of this pamphlet, are satisfied that no one is within any portion of
the machine. This whole hypothesis was too obviously absurd to
require comment, or refutation, and accordingly we find that it
attracted very little attention.
In 1789 a book was published at Dresden by M. I. F. Freyhere in which
another endeavor was made to unravel the mystery. Mr. Freyhere's book
was a pretty large one, and copiously illustrated by colored
engravings. His supposition was that "a well-taught boy very thin and
tall of his age (sufficiently so that he could be concealed in a
drawer almost immediately under the chess-board") played the game of
chess and effected all the evolutions of the Automaton. This idea,
although even more silly than that of the Parisian author, met with a
better reception, and was in some measure believed to be the true
solution of the wonder, until the inventor put an end to the
discussion by suffering a close examination of the top of the box.
These bizarre attempts at explanation were followed by others equally
bizarre. Of late years however, an anonymous writer, by a course of
reasoning exceedingly unphilosophical, has contrived to blunder upon
a plausible solution--although we cannot consider it altogether the
true one. His Essay was first published in a Baltimore weekly paper,
was illustrated by cuts, and was entitled "An attempt to analyze the
Automaton Chess-Player of M. Maelzel." This Essay we suppose to have
been the original of the _pamphlet to _which Sir David Brewster
alludes in his letters on Natural Magic, and which he has no
hesitation in declaring a thorough and satisfactory explanation. The
_results _of the analysis are undoubtedly, in the main, just; but we
can only account for Brewster's pronouncing the Essay a thorough and
satisfactory explanation, by supposing him to have bestowed upon it a
very cursory and inattentive perusal. In the compendium of the Essay,
made use of in the Letters on Natural Magic, it is quite impossible
to arrive at any distinct conclusion in regard to the adequacy or
inadequacy of the analysis, on account of the gross misarrangement
and deficiency of the letters of reference employed. The same fault
is to be found in the '`Attempt &c.," as we originally saw it. The
solution consists in a series of minute explanations, (accompanied by
wood-cuts, the whole occupying many pages) in which the object is to
show the _possibility _of _so shifting the partitions _of the box, as
to allow a human being, concealed in the interior, to move portions
of his body from one part of the box to another, during the
exhibition of the mechanism--thus eluding the scrutiny of the
spectators. There can be no doubt, as we have before observed, and as
we will presently endeavor to show, that the principle, or rather the
result, of this solution is the true one. Some person is concealed in
the box during the whole time of exhibiting the interior. We object,
however, to the whole verbose description of the _manner _in which
the partitions are shifted, to accommodate the movements of the
person concealed. We object to it as a mere theory assumed in the
first place, and to which circumstances are afterwards made to adapt
themselves. It was not, and could not have been, arrived at by any
inductive reasoning. In whatever way the shifting is managed, it is
of course concealed at every step from observation. To show that
certain movements might possibly be effected in a certain way, is
very far from showing that they are actually so effected. There may
be an infinity of other methods by which the same results may be
obtained. The probability of the one assumed proving the correct one
is then as unity to infinity. But, in reality, this particular point,
the shifting of the partitions, is of no consequence whatever. It was
altogether unnecessary to devote seven or eight pages for the purpose
of proving what no one in his senses would deny--viz: that the
wonderful mechanical genius of Baron Kempelen could invent the
necessary means for shutting a door or slipping aside a pannel, with
a human agent too at his service in actual contact with the pannel or
the door, and the whole operations carried on, as the author of the
Essay himself shows, and as we shall attempt to show more fully
hereafter, entirely out of reach of the observation of the
spectators.
In attempting ourselves an explanation of the Automaton, we will, in
the first place, endeavor to show how its operations are effected,
and afterwards describe, as briefly as possible, the nature of the
_observations _from which we have deduced our result.
It will be necessary for a proper understanding of the subject, that
we repeat here in a few words, the routine adopted by the exhibiter
in disclosing the interior of the box--a routine from which he _never
_deviates in any material particular. In the first place he opens the
door No. I. Leaving this open, he goes round to the rear of the box,
and opens a door precisely at the back of door No. I. To this back
door he holds a lighted candle. He then _closes the back door, _locks
it, and, coming round to the front, opens the drawer to its full
extent. This done, he opens the doors No. 2 and No. 3, (the folding
doors) and displays the interior of the main compartment. Leaving
open the main compartment, the drawer, and the front door of cupboard
No. I, he now goes to the rear again, and throws open the back door
of the main compartment. In shutting up the box no particular order
is observed, except that the folding doors are always closed before
the drawer.
Now, let us suppose that when the machine is first rolled into the
presence of the spectators, a man is already within it. His body is
situated behind the dense machinery in cupboard No. T. (the rear
portion of which machinery is so contrived as to slip _en masse,
_from the main compartment to the cupboard No. I, as occasion may
require,) and his legs lie at full length in the main compartment.
When Maelzel opens the door No. I, the man within is not in any
danger of discovery, for the keenest eve cannot penetrate more than
about two inches into the darkness within. But the case is otherwise
when the back door of the cupboard No. I, is opened. A bright light
then pervades the cupboard, and the body of the man would be
discovered if it were there. But it is not. The putting the key in
the lock of the back door was a signal on hearing which the person
concealed brought his body forward to an angle as acute as
possible--throwing it altogether, or nearly so, into the main
compartment. This, however, is a painful position, and cannot be long
maintained. Accordingly we find that Maelzel _closes the back door.
_This being done, there is no reason why the body of the man may not
resume its former situation--for the cupboard is again so dark as to
defy scrutiny. The drawer is now opened, and the legs of the person
within drop down behind it in the space it formerly occupied. {*4}
There is, consequently, now no longer any part of the man in the main
compartment--his body being behind the machinery in cupboard No. 1,
and his legs in the space occupied by the drawer. The exhibiter,
therefore, finds himself at liberty to display the main compartment.
This he does--opening both its back and front doors--and no person Is
discovered. The spectators are now satisfied that the whole of the
box is exposed to view--and exposed too, all portions of it at one
and the same time. But of course this is not the case. They neither
see the space behind the drawer, nor the interior of cupboard No. 1
--the front door of which latter the exhibiter virtually shuts in
shutting its back door. Maelzel, having now rolled the machine
around, lifted up the drapery of the Turk, opened the doors in his
back and thigh, and shown his trunk to be full of machinery, brings
the whole back into its original position, and closes the doors. The
man within is now at liberty to move about. He gets up into the body
of the Turk just so high as to bring his eyes above the level of the
chess-board. It is very probable that he seats himself upon the
little square block or protuberance which is seen in a corner of the
main compartment when the doors are open. In this position he sees
the chess-board through the bosom of the Turk which is of gauze.
Bringing his right arm across his breast he actuates the little
machinery necessary to guide the left arm and the fingers of the
figure. This machinery is situated just beneath the left shoulder of
the Turk, and is consequently easily reached by the right hand of the
man concealed, if we suppose his right arm brought across the breast.
The motions of the head and eyes, and of the right arm of the figure,
as well as the sound _echec _are produced by other mechanism in the
interior, and actuated at will by the man within. The whole of this
mechanism--that is to say all the mechanism essential to the
machine--is most probably contained within the little cupboard (of
about six inches in breadth) partitioned off at the right (the
spectators' right) of the main compartment.
In this analysis of the operations of the Automaton, we have
purposely avoided any allusion to the manner in which the partitions
are shifted, and it will now be readily comprehended that this point
is a matter of no importance, since, by mechanism within the ability
of any common carpenter, it might be effected in an infinity of
different ways, and since we have shown that, however performed, it
is performed out of the view of the spectators. Our result is founded
upon the following _observations _taken during frequent visits to the
exhibition of Maelzel. {*5}
I. The moves of the Turk are not made at regular intervals of time,
but accommodate themselves to the moves of the antagonist--although
this point (of regularity) so important in all kinds of mechanical
contrivance, might have been readily brought about by limiting the
time allowed for the moves of the antagonist. For example, if this
limit were three minutes, the moves of the Automaton might be made at
any given intervals longer than three minutes. The fact then of
irregularity, when regularity might have been so easily attained,
goes to prove that regularity is unimportant to the action of the
Automaton--in other words, that the Automaton is not a _pure
machine._
2. When the Automaton is about to move a piece, a distinct motion is
observable just beneath the left shoulder, and which motion agitates
in a slight degree, the drapery covering the front of the left
shoulder. This motion invariably precedes, by about two seconds, the
movement of the arm itself--and the arm never, in any instance, moves
without this preparatory motion in the shoulder. Now let the
antagonist move a piece, and let the corresponding move be made by
Maelzel, as usual, upon the board of the Automaton. Then let the
antagonist narrowly watch the Automaton, until he detect the
preparatory motion in the shoulder. Immediately upon detecting this
motion, and before the arm itself begins to move, let him withdraw
his piece, as if perceiving an error in his manoeuvre. It will then
be seen that the movement of the arm, which, in all other cases,
immediately succeeds the motion in the shoulder, is withheld--is not
made--although Maelzel has not yet performed, on the board of the
Automaton, any move corresponding to the withdrawal of the
antagonist. In this case, that the Automaton was about to move is
evident--and that he did not move, was an effect plainly produced by
the withdrawal of the antagonist, and without any intervention of
Maelzel.
This fact fully proves, ~--that the intervention of Maelzel, in
performing the moves of the antagonist on the board of the Automaton,
is not essential to the movements of the Automaton, 2--that its
movements are regulated by _mind--_by some person who sees the board
of the antagonist, 3--that its movements are not regulated by the
mind of Maelzel, whose back was turned towards the antagonist at the
withdrawal of his move.
3. The Automaton does not invariably win the game. Were the machine a
pure machine this would not be the case--it would always win. The
_principle _being discovered by which a machine can be made to _play
_a game of chess, an extension of the same principle would enable it
to win a game--a farther extension would enable it to win _all
_games--that is, to beat any possible game of an antagonist. A little
consideration will convince any one that the difficulty of making a
machine beat all games, Is not in the least degree greater, as
regards the principle of the operations necessary, than that of
making it beat a single game. If then we regard the Chess-Player as a
machine, we must suppose, (what is highly improbable,) that its
inventor preferred leaving it incomplete to perfecting it-- a
supposition rendered still more absurd, when we reflect that the
leaving it incomplete would afford an argument against the
possibility of its being a pure machine--the very argument we now
adduce.
4. When the situation of the game is difficult or complex, we never
perceive the Turk either shake his head or roll his eyes. It is only
when his next move is obvious, or when the game is so circumstanced
that to a man in the Automaton's place there would be no necessity
for reflection. Now these peculiar movements of the head and eves are
movements customary with persons engaged in meditation, and the
ingenious Baron Kempelen would have adapted these movements (were the
machine a pure machine) to occasions proper for their display--that
is, to occasions of complexity. But the reverse is seen to be the
case, and this reverse applies precisely to our supposition of a man
in the interior. When engaged in meditation about the game he has no
time to think of setting in motion the mechanism of the Automaton by
which are moved the head and the eyes. When the game, however, is
obvious, he has time to look about him, and, accordingly, we see the
head shake and the eyes roll.
5. When the machine is rolled round to allow the spectators an
examination of the back of the Turk, and when his drapery is lifted
up and the doors in the trunk and thigh thrown open, the interior of
the trunk is seen to be crowded with machinery. In scrutinizing this
machinery while the Automaton was in motion, that is to say while the
whole machine was moving on the castors, it appeared to us that
certain portions of the mechanism changed their shape and position in
a degree too great to be accounted for by the simple laws of
perspective; and subsequent examinations convinced us that these
undue alterations were attributable to mirrors in the interior of the
trunk. The introduction of mirrors among the machinery could not have
been intended to influence, in any degree, the machinery itself.
Their operation, whatever that operation should prove to be, must
necessarily have reference to the eve of the spectator. We at once
concluded that these mirrors were so placed to multiply to the vision
some few pieces of machinery within the trunk so as to give it the
appearance of being crowded with mechanism. Now the direct inference
from this is that the machine is not a pure machine. For if it were,
the inventor, so far from wishing its mechanism to appear complex,
and using deception for the purpose of giving it this appearance,
would have been especially desirous of convincing those who witnessed
his exhibition, of the _simplicity _of the means by which results so
wonderful were brought about.
6. The external appearance, and, especially, the deportment of the
Turk, are, when we consider them as imitations of _life, _but very
indifferent imitations. The countenance evinces no ingenuity, and is
surpassed, in its resemblance to the human face, by the very
commonest of wax-works. The eyes roll unnaturally in the head,
without any corresponding motions of the lids or brows. The arm,
particularly, performs its operations in an exceedingly stiff,
awkward, jerking, and rectangular manner. Now, all this is the result
either of inability in Maelzel to do better, or of intentional
neglect--accidental neglect being out of the question, when we
consider that the whole time of the ingenious proprietor is occupied
in the improvement of his machines. Most assuredly we must not refer
the unlife-like appearances to inability--for all the rest of
Maelzel's automata are evidence of his full ability to copy the
motions and peculiarities of life with the most wonderful exactitude.
The rope-dancers, for example, are inimitable. When the clown laughs,
his lips, his eyes, his eye-brows, and eyelids--indeed, all the
features of his countenance--are imbued with their appropriate
expressions. In both him and his companion, every gesture is so
entirely easy, and free from the semblance of artificiality, that,
were it not for the diminutiveness of their size, and the fact of
their being passed from one spectator to another previous to their
exhibition on the rope, it would be difficult to convince any
assemblage of persons that these wooden automata were not living
creatures. We cannot, therefore, doubt Mr. Maelzel's ability, and we
must necessarily suppose that he intentionally suffered his Chess
Player to remain the same artificial and unnatural figure which Baron
Kempelen (no doubt also through design) originally made it. What this
design was it is not difficult to conceive. Were the Automaton
life-like in its motions, the spectator would be more apt to
attribute its operations to their true cause, (that is, to human
agency within) than he is now, when the awkward and rectangular
manoeuvres convey the idea of pure and unaided mechanism.
7. When, a short time previous to the commencement of the game, the
Automaton is wound up by the exhibiter as usual, an ear in any degree
accustomed to the sounds produced in winding up a system of
machinery, will not fail to discover, instantaneously, that the axis
turned by the key in the box of the Chess-Player, cannot possibly be
connected with either a weight, a spring, or any system of machinery
whatever. The inference here is the same as in our last observation.
The winding up is inessential to the operations of the Automaton, and
is performed with the design of exciting in the spectators the false
idea of mechanism.
8. When the question is demanded explicitly of Maelzel-- "Is the
Automaton a pure machine or not?" his reply is invariably the
same--"I will say nothing about it." Now the notoriety of the
Automaton, and the great curiosity it has every where excited, are
owing more especially to the prevalent opinion that it is a pure
machine, than to any other circumstance. Of course, then, it is the
interest of the proprietor to represent it as a pure machine. And
what more obvious, and more effectual method could there be of
impressing the spectators with this desired idea, than a positive and
explicit declaration to that effect? On the other hand, what more
obvious and effectual method could there be of exciting a disbelief
in the Automaton's being a pure machine, than by withholding such
explicit declaration? For, people will naturally reason thus,--It is
Maelzel's interest to represent this thing a pure machine--he refuses
to do so, directly, in words, although he does not scruple, and is
evidently anxious to do so, indirectly by actions--were it actually
what he wishes to represent it by actions, he would gladly avail
himself of the more direct testimony of words--the inference is, that
a consciousness of its not being a pure machine, is the reason of his
silence--his actions cannot implicate him in a falsehood--his words
may.
9. When, in exhibiting the interior of the box, Maelzel has thrown
open the door No. I, and also the door immediately behind it, he
holds a lighted candle at the back door (as mentioned above) and
moves the entire machine to and fro with a view of convincing the
company that the cupboard No. 1 is entirely filled with machinery.
When the machine is thus moved about, it will be apparent to any
careful observer, that whereas that portion of the machinery near the
front door No. 1, is perfectly steady and unwavering, the portion
farther within fluctuates, in a very slight degree, with the
movements of the machine. This circumstance first aroused in us the
suspicion that the more remote portion of the machinery was so
arranged as to be easily slipped, _en masse, _from its position when
occasion should require it. This occasion we have already stated to
occur when the man concealed within brings his body into an erect
position upon the closing of the back door.
10. Sir David Brewster states the figure of the Turk to be of the
size of life--but in fact it is far above the ordinary size. Nothing
is more easy than to err in our notions of magnitude. The body of the
Automaton is generally insulated, and, having no means of immediately
comparing it with any human form, we suffer ourselves to consider it
as of ordinary dimensions. This mistake may, however, be corrected by
observing the Chess-Player when, as is sometimes the case, the
exhibiter approaches it. Mr. Maelzel, to be sure, is not very tall,
but upon drawing near the machine, his head will be found at least
eighteen inches below the head of the Turk, although the latter, it
will be remembered, is in a sitting position.
11. The box behind which the Automaton is placed, is precisely three
feet six inches long, two feet four inches deep, and two feet six
inches high. These dimensions are fully sufficient for the
accommodation of a man very much above the common size--and the main
compartment alone is capable of holding any ordinary man in the
position we have mentioned as assumed by the person concealed. As
these are facts, which any one who doubts them may prove by actual
calculation, we deem it unnecessary to dwell upon them. We will only
suggest that, although the top of the box is apparently a board of
about three inches in thickness, the spectator may satisfy himself by
stooping and looking up at it when the main compartment is open, that
it is in reality very thin. The height of the drawer also will be
misconceived by those who examine it in a cursory manner. There is a
space of about three inches between the top of the drawer as seen
from the exterior, and the bottom of the cupboard--a space which must
be included in the height of the drawer. These contrivances to make
the room within the box appear less than it actually is, are
referrible to a design on the part of the inventor, to impress the
company again with a false idea, viz. that no human being can be
accommodated within the box.
12. The interior of the main compartment is lined throughout with
_cloth. _This cloth we suppose to have a twofold object. A portion of
_it _may form, when tightly stretched, the only partitions which
there is anv necessity for removing during the changes of the man's
position, viz: the partition between the rear of the main compartment
and the rear of the cupboard No. 1, and the partition between the
main compartment, and the space behind the drawer when open. If we
imagine this to be the case, the difficulty of shifting the
partitions vanishes at once, if indeed any such difficulty could be
supposed under any circumstances to exist. The second object of the
cloth is to deaden and render indistinct all sounds occasioned by the
movements of the person within.
13. The antagonist (as we have before observed) is not suffered to
play at the board of the Automaton, but is seated at some distance
from the machine. The reason which, most probably, would be assigned
for this circumstance, if the question were demanded, is, that were
the antagonist otherwise situated, his person would intervene between
the machine and the spectators, and preclude the latter from a
distinct view. But this difficulty might be easily obviated, either
by elevating the seats of the company, or by turning the end of the
box towards them during the game. The true cause of the restriction
is, perhaps, very different. Were the antagonist seated in contact
with the box, the secret would be liable to discovery, by his
detecting, with the aid of a quick car, the breathings of the man
concealed.
14. Although M. Maelzel, in disclosing the interior of the machine,
sometimes slightly deviates from the _routine _which we have pointed
out, yet _reeler in _any instance does he _so _deviate from it as to
interfere with our solution. For example, he has been known to open,
first of all, the drawer--but he never opens the main compartment
without first closing the back door of cupboard No. 1--he never opens
the main compartment without first pulling out the drawer--he never
shuts the drawer without first shutting the main compartment--he
never opens the back door of cupboard No. 1 while the main
compartment is open--and the game of chess is never commenced until
the whole machine is closed. Now if it were observed that _never, in
any single instance, _did M. Maelzel differ from the routine we have
pointed out as necessary to our solution, it would be one of the
strongest possible arguments in corroboration of it--but the argument
becomes infinitely strengthened if we duly consider the circumstance
that he _does occasionally _deviate from the routine but never does
_so _deviate as to falsify the solution.
15. There are six candles on the board of the Automaton during
exhibition. The question naturally arises--"Why are so many employed,
when a single candle, or, at farthest, two, would have been amply
sufficient to afford the spectators a clear view of the board, in a
room otherwise so well lit up as the exhibition room always is--when,
moreover, if we suppose the machine a _pure machine, _there can be no
necessity for so much light, or indeed any light at all, to enable
_it _to perform its operations--and when, especially, only a single
candle is placed upon the table of the antagonist?" The first and
most obvious inference is, that so strong a light is requisite to
enable the man within to see through the transparent material
(probably fine gauze) of which the breast of the Turk is composed.
But when we consider the arrangement of the candles, another reason
immediately presents itself. There are six lights (as we have said
before) in all. Three of these are on each side of the figure. Those
most remote from the spectators are the longest--those in the middle
are about two inches shorter--and those nearest the company about two
inches shorter still--and the candles on one side differ in height
from the candles respectively opposite on the other, by a ratio
different from two inches--that is to say, the longest candle on one
side is about three inches shorter than the longest candle on the
other, and so on. Thus it will be seen that no two of the candles are
of the same height, and thus also the difficulty of ascertaining the
_material _of the breast of the figure (against which the light is
especially directed) is greatly augmented by the dazzling effect of
the complicated crossings of the rays--crossings which are brought
about by placing the centres of radiation all upon different levels.
16. While the Chess-Player was in possession of Baron Kempelen, it
was more than once observed, first, that an Italian in the suite of
the Baron was never visible during the playing of a game at chess by
the Turk, and, secondly, that the Italian being taken seriously ill,
the exhibition was suspended until his recovery. This Italian
professed a _total _ignorance of the game of chess, although all
others of the suite played well. Similar observations have been made
since the Automaton has been purchased by Maelzel. There is a man,
_Schlumber0er, _who attends him wherever he goes, but who has no
ostensible occupation other than that of assisting in the packing and
unpacking of the automata. This man is about the medium size, and has
a remarkable stoop in the shoulders. Whether he professes to play
chess or not, we are not informed. It is quite certain, however, that
he is never to be seen during the exhibition of the Chess-Player,
although frequently visible just before and just after the
exhibition. Moreover, some years ago Maelzel visited Richmond with
his automata, and exhibited them, we believe, in the house now
occupied by M. Bossieux as a Dancing Academy. _Schlumberg_er was
suddenly taken ill, and during his illness there was no exhibition of
the Chess-Player. These facts are well known to many of our citizens.
The reason assigned for the suspension of the Chess-Player's
performances, was _not _the illness of _Schlumberger. _The inferences
from all this we leave, without farther comment, to the reader.
17. The Turk plays with his _left_ arm. A circumstance so remarkable
cannot be accidental. Brewster takes no notice of it whatever beyond
a mere statement, we believe, that such is the fact. The early writers
of treatises on the Automaton, seem not to have observed the matter
at all, and have no reference to it. The author of the pamphlet
alluded to by Brewster, mentions it, but acknowledges his inability
to account for it. Yet it is obviously from such prominent discrepancies
or incongruities as this that deductions are to be made (if made at all)
which shall lead us to the truth.
The circumstance of the Automaton's playing with his left hand cannot
have connexion with the operations of the machine, considered merely
as such. Any mechanical arrangement which would cause the figure to
move, in any given manner, the left arm--could, if reversed, cause it
to move, in the same manner, the right. But these principles cannot
be extended to the human organization, wherein there is a marked and
radical difference in the construction, and, at all events, in the
powers, of the right and left arms. Reflecting upon this latter fact,
we naturally refer the incongruity noticeable in the Chess-Player to
this peculiarity in the human organization. If so, we must imagine
some _reversion--_for the Chess-Player plays precisely as a man
_would not. _These ideas, once entertained, are sufficient of
themselves, to suggest the notion of a man in the interior. A few
more imperceptible steps lead us, finally, to the result. The
Automaton plays with his left arm, because under no other
circumstances could the man within play with his right--a
_desideratum _of course. Let us, for example, imagine the Automaton
to play with his right arm. To reach the machinery which moves the
arm, and which we have before explained to lie just beneath the
shoulder, it would be necessary for the man within either to use his
right arm in an exceedingly painful and awkward position, (viz.
brought up close to his body and tightly compressed between his body
and the side of the Automaton,) or else to use his left arm brought
across his breast. In neither case could he act with the requisite
ease or precision. On the contrary, the Automaton playing, as it
actually does, with the left arm, all difficulties vanish. The right
arm of the man within is brought across his breast, and his right
fingers act, without any constraint, upon tile machinery in the
shoulder of the figure.
We do not believe that any reasonable objections can be urged against
this solution of the Automaton Chess-Player.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE POWER OF WORDS
OINOS. Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with
immortality!
AGATHOS. You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is to be
demanded. Not even here is knowledge thing of intuition. For wisdom,
ask of the angels freely, that it may be given!
OINOS. But in this existence, I dreamed that I should be at once
cognizant of all things, and thus at once be happy in being cognizant
of all.
AGATHOS. Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the acquisition of
knowledge! In for ever knowing, we are for ever blessed; but to know
all were the curse of a fiend.
OINOS. But does not The Most High know all?
AGATHOS. That (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the one
thing unknown even to Him.
OINOS. But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not at last all
things be known?
AGATHOS. Look down into the abysmal distances! -- attempt to force
the gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep
slowly through them thus -- and thus -- and thus! Even the spiritual
vision, is it not at all points arrested by the continuous golden
walls of the universe? -- the walls of the myriads of the shining
bodies that mere number has appeared to blend into unity?
OINOS. I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no dream.
AGATHOS. There are no dreams in Aidenn -- but it is here whispered
that, of this infinity of matter, the sole purpose is to afford
infinite springs, at which the soul may allay the thirst to know,
which is for ever unquenchable within it -- since to quench it, would
be to extinguish the soul's self. Question me then, my Oinos, freely
and without fear. Come! we will leave to the left the loud harmony of
the Pleiades, and swoop outward from the throne into the starry
meadows beyond Orion, where, for pansies and violets, and heart's --
ease, are the beds of the triplicate and triple -- tinted suns.
OINOS. And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me! -- speak to me
in the earth's familiar tones. I understand not what you hinted to
me, just now, of the modes or of the method of what, during
mortality, we were accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to say
that the Creator is not God?
AGATHOS. I mean to say that the Deity does not create.
OINOS. Explain.
AGATHOS. In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures
which are now, throughout the universe, so perpetually springing into
being, can only be considered as the mediate or indirect, not as the
direct or immediate results of the Divine creative power.
OINOS. Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered heretical
in the extreme.
AGATHOS. Among angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.
OINOS. I can comprehend you thus far -- that certain operations of
what we term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain
conditions, give rise to that which has all the appearance of
creation. Shortly before the final overthrow of the earth, there
were, I well remember, many very successful experiments in what some
philosophers were weak enough to denominate the creation of
animalculae.
AGATHOS. The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of the
secondary creation -- and of the only species of creation which has
ever been, since the first word spoke into existence the first law.
OINOS. Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of nonentity,
burst hourly forth into the heavens -- are not these stars, Agathos,
the immediate handiwork of the King?
AGATHOS. Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to the
conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought can
perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our hands, for
example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and, in so doing, gave
vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it. This vibration was
indefinitely extended, till it gave impulse to every particle of the
earth's air, which thenceforward, and for ever, was actuated by the
one movement of the hand. This fact the mathematicians of our globe
well knew. They made the special effects, indeed, wrought in the
fluid by special impulses, the subject of exact calculation -- so
that it became easy to determine in what precise period an impulse of
given extent would engirdle the orb, and impress (for ever) every
atom of the atmosphere circumambient. Retrograding, they found no
difficulty, from a given effect, under given conditions, in
determining the value of the original impulse. Now the mathematicians
who saw that the results of any given impulse were absolutely endless
-- and who saw that a portion of these results were accurately
traceable through the agency of algebraic analysis -- who saw, too,
the facility of the retrogradation -- these men saw, at the same
time, that this species of analysis itself, had within itself a
capacity for indefinite progress -- that there were no bounds
conceivable to its advancement and applicability, except within the
intellect of him who advanced or applied it. But at this point our
mathematicians paused.
OINOS. And why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?
AGATHOS. Because there were some considerations of deep interest
beyond. It was deducible from what they knew, that to a being of
infinite understanding -- one to whom the perfection of the algebraic
analysis lay unfolded -- there could be no difficulty in tracing
every impulse given the air -- and the ether through the air -- to
the remotest consequences at any even infinitely remote epoch of
time. It is indeed demonstrable that every such impulse given the
air, must, in the end, impress every individual thing that exists
within the universe; -- and the being of infinite understanding --
the being whom we have imagined -- might trace the remote undulations
of the impulse -- trace them upward and onward in their influences
upon all particles of an matter -- upward and onward for ever in
their modifications of old forms -- or, in other words, in their
creation of new -- until he found them reflected -- unimpressive at
last -- back from the throne of the Godhead. And not only could such
a thing do this, but at any epoch, should a given result be afforded
him -- should one of these numberless comets, for example, be
presented to his inspection -- he could have no difficulty in
determining, by the analytic retrogradation, to what original impulse
it was due. This power of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and
perfection -- this faculty of referring at all epochs, all effects to
all causes -- is of course the prerogative of the Deity alone -- but
in every variety of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the
power itself exercised by the whole host of the Angelic
intelligences.
OINOS. But you speak merely of impulses upon the air.
AGATHOS. In speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth; but
the general proposition has reference to impulses upon the ether --
which, since it pervades, and alone pervades all space, is thus the
great medium of creation.
OINOS. Then all motion, of whatever nature, creates?
AGATHOS. It must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the
source of all motion is thought -- and the source of all thought is-
OINOS. God.
AGATHOS. I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child of the fair Earth
which lately perished -- of impulses upon the atmosphere of the
Earth.
OINOS. You did.
AGATHOS. And while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind some
thought of the physical power of words? Is not every word an impulse
on the air?
OINOS. But why, Agathos, do you weep -- and why, oh why do your wings
droop as we hover above this fair star -- which is the greenest and
yet most terrible of all we have encountered in our flight? Its
brilliant flowers look like a fairy dream -- but its fierce volcanoes
like the passions of a turbulent heart.
AGATHOS. They are! -- they are! This wild star -- it is now three
centuries since, with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes, at the
feet of my beloved -- I spoke it -- with a few passionate sentences
-- into birth. Its brilliant flowers are the dearest of all
unfulfilled dreams, and its raging volcanoes are the passions of the
most turbulent and unhallowed of hearts.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA
9,88@<J" J"LJ"
_ Sophocles - Antig _:
"These; things are in the future."
_ Una._ "Born again?"
_ Monos._ Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, "born again." These
were the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long pondered,
rejecting the explanations of the priesthood, until Death himself
resolved for me the secret.
_Una._ Death!
_Monos._ How strangely, sweet Una, you echo my words! I observe,
too, a vacillation in your step - a joyous inquietude in your eyes.
You are confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the Life
Eternal. Yes, it was of Death I spoke. And here how singularly sounds
that word which of old was wont to bring terror to all hearts -
throwing a mildew upon all pleasures!
_ Una._ Ah, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts! How
often, Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its nature!
How mysteriously did it act as a check to human bliss - saying unto
it "thus far, and no farther!" That earnest mutual love, my own
Monos, which burned within our bosoms how vainly did we flatter
ourselves, feeling happy in its first up-springing, that our
happiness would strengthen with its strength! Alas! as it grew, so
grew in our hearts the dread of that evil hour which was hurrying to
separate us forever! Thus, in time, it became painful to love. Hate
would have been mercy then.
_ Monos._ Speak not here of these griefs, dear Una - mine, mine,
forever now!
_ Una._ But the memory of past sorrow - is it not present joy? I
have much to say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I burn
to know the incidents of your own passage through the dark Valley and
Shadow.
_ Monos._ And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos
in vain? I will be minute in relating all - but at what point shall
the weird narrative begin?
_Una._ At what point?
_Monos._ You have said.
_Una._ Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the
propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say, then,
commence with the moment of life's cessation - but commence with that
sad, sad instant when, the fever having abandoned you, you sank into
a breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed down your pallid
eyelids with the passionate fingers of love.
_ Monos._ One word first, my Una, in regard to man's general
condition at this epoch. You will remember that one or two of the
wise among our forefathers - wise in fact, although not in the
world's esteem - had ventured to doubt the propriety of the term
"improvement," as applied to the progress of our civilization. There
were periods in each of the five or six centuries immediately
preceding our dissolution, when arose some vigorous intellect, boldly
contending for those principles whose truth appears now, to our
disenfranchised reason, so utterly obvious - principles which should
have taught our race to submit to the guidance of the natural laws,
rather than attempt their control. At long intervals some masterminds
appeared, looking upon each advance in practical science as a
retro-gradation in the true utility. Occasionally the poetic
intellect - that intellect which we now feel to have been the most
exalted of all - since those truths which to us were of the most
enduring importance could only be reached by that analogywhich speaks
in proof tones to the imagination alone and to the unaided reason
bears no weight - occasionally did this poetic intellect proceed a
step farther in the evolving of the vague idea of the philosophic,
and find in the mystic parable that tells of the tree of knowledge,
and of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a distinct intimation
that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant condition of his
soul. And these men - the poets - living and perishing amid the scorn
of the "utilitarians" - of rough pedants, who arrogated to themselves
a title which could have been properly applied only to the scorned -
these men, the poets, pondered piningly, yet not unwisely, upon the
ancient days when our wants were not more simple than our enjoyments
were keen - days when mirth was a word unknown, so solemnly
deep-toned was happiness - holy, august and blissful days, when blue
rivers ran undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest solitudes,
primæval, odorous, and unexplored.
Yet these noble exceptions from the general misrule served but to
strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon the most evil
of all our evil days. The great "movement" - that was the cant term -
went on: a diseased commotion, moral and physical. Art - the Arts -
arose supreme, and, once enthroned, cast chains upon the intellect
which had elevated them to power. Man, because he could not but
acknowledge the majesty of Nature, fell into childish exultation at
his acquired and still-increasing dominion over her elements. Even
while he stalked a God in his own fancy, an infantine imbecility came
over him. As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder, he
grew infected with system, and with abstraction. He enwrapped himself
in generalities. Among other odd ideas, that of universal equality
gained ground; and in the face of analogy and of God - in despite of
the loud warning voice of the laws of gradation so visibly pervading
all things in Earth an Heaven - wild attempts at an omni-prevalent
Democracy were made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the
leading evil, Knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb.
Meantime huge smoking cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank
before the hot breath of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was
deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease. And methinks,
sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the
far-fetched might have arrested us here. But now it appears that we
had worked out our own destruction in the perversion of our taste, or
rather in the blind neglect of its culture in the schools. For, in
truth, it was at this crisis that taste alone - that faculty which,
holding a middle position between the pure intellect and the moral
sense, could never safely have been disregarded - it was now that
taste alone could have led us gently back to Beauty, to Nature, and
to Life. But alas for the pure contemplative spirit and majestic
intuition of Plato! Alas for the which he justly regarded as an
all-sufficient education for the soul! Alas for him and for it! -
since both were most desperately needed when both were most entirely
forgotten or despised. {*1}
Pascal, a philosopher whom we both love, has said, how truly! -
"que tout notre raisonnement se rèduit à céder au sentiment;" and it
is not impossible that the sentiment of the natural, had time
permitted it, would have regained its old ascendancy over the harsh
mathematical reason of the schools. But this thing was not to be.
Prematurely induced by intemperance of knowledge the old age of the
world drew on. This the mass of mankind saw not, or, living lustily
although unhappily, affected not to see. But, for myself, the Earth's
records had taught me to look for widest ruin as the price of highest
civilization. I had imbibed a prescience of our Fate from comparison
of China the simple and enduring, with Assyria the architect, with
Egypt the astrologer, with Nubia, more crafty than either, the
turbulent mother of all Arts. In history {*2} of these regions I met
with a ray from the Future. The individual artificialities of the
three latter were local diseases of the Earth, and in their
individual overthrows we had seen local remedies applied; but for the
infected world at large I could anticipate no regeneration save in
death. That man, as a race, should not become extinct, I saw that he
must be "born again."
And now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our spirits,
daily, in dreams. Now it was that, in twilight, we discoursed of the
days to come, when the Art-scarred surface of the Earth, having
undergone that purification {*3} which alone could efface its
rectangular obscenities, should clothe itself anew in the verdure and
the mountain-slopes and the smiling waters of Paradise, and be
rendered at length a fit dwelling-place for man: - for man the Death
purged - for man to whose now exalted intellect there should be
poison in knowledge no more - for the redeemed, regenerated,
blissful, and now immortal, but still for the material, man.
_Una._ Well do I remember these conversations, dear Monos; but
the epoch of the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we
believed, and as the corruption you indicate did surely warrant us in
believing. Men lived; and died individually. You yourself sickened,
and passed into the grave; and thither your constant Una speedily
followed you. And though the century which has since elapsed, and
whose conclusion brings us thus together once more, tortured our
slumbering senses with no impatience of duration, yet, my Monos, it
was a century still.
_Monos._ Say, rather, a point in the vague infinity.
Unquestionably, it was in the Earth's dotage that I died. Wearied at
heart with anxieties which had their origin in the general turmoil
and decay, I succumbed to the fierce fever. After some few days of
pain, and many of dreamy delirium replete with ecstasy, the
manifestations of which you mistook for pain, while I longed but was
impotent to undeceive you - after some days there came upon me, as
you have said, a breathless and motionless torpor; and this was
termed Death by those who stood around me.
Words are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of
sentience. It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the extreme
quiescence of him, who, having slumbered long and profoundly, lying
motionless and fully prostrate in a midsummer noon, begins to steal
slowly back into consciousness, through the mere sufficiency of his
sleep, and without being awakened by external disturbances.
I breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had ceased
to beat. Volition had not departed, but was powerless. The senses
were unusually active, although eccentrically so - assuming often
each other's functions at random. The taste and the smell were
inextricably confounded, and became one sentiment, abnormal and
intense. The rose-water with which your tenderness had moistened my
lips to the last, affected me with sweet fancies of flowers -
fantastic flowers, far more lovely than any of the old Earth, but
whose prototypes we have here blooming around us. The eyelids,
transparent and bloodless, offered no complete impediment to vision.
As volition was in abeyance, the balls could not roll in their
sockets but all objects within the range of the visual hemisphere
were seen with more or less distinctness; the rays which fell upon
the external retina, or into the corner of the eye, producing a more
vivid effect than those which struck the front or interior surface.
Yet, in the former instance, this effect was so far anomalous that I
appreciated it only as sound - sound sweet or discordant as the
matters presenting themselves at my side were light or dark in shade
- curved or angular in outline. The hearing, at the same time,
although excited in degree, was not irregular in action - estimating
real sounds with an extravagance of precision, not less than of
sensibility. Touch had undergone a modification more peculiar. Its
impressions were tardily received, but pertinaciously retained, and
resulted always in the highest physical pleasure. Thus the pressure
of your sweet fingers upon my eyelids, at first only recognised
through vision, at length, long after their removal, filled my whole
being with a sensual delight immeasurable. I say with a sensual
delight. All my perceptions were purely sensual. The materials
furnished the passive brain by the senses were not in the least
degree wrought into shape by the deceased understanding. Of pain
there was some little; of pleasure there was much; but of moral pain
or pleasure none at all. Thus your wild sobs floated into my ear with
all their mournful cadences, and were appreciated in their every
variation of sad tone; but they were soft musical sounds and no more;
they conveyed to the extinct reason no intimation of the sorrows
which gave them birth; while the large and constant tears which fell
upon my face, telling the bystanders of a heart which broke, thrilled
every fibre of my frame with ecstasy alone. And this was in truth the
Death of which these bystanders spoke reverently, in low whispers -
you, sweet Una, gaspingly, with loud cries.
They attired me for the coffin - three or four dark figures which
flitted busily to and fro. As these crossed the direct line of my
vision they affected me as forms; but upon passing to my side their
images impressed me with the idea of shrieks, groans, and other
dismal expressions of terror, of horror, or of wo. You alone, habited
in a white robe, passed in all directions musically about me.
The day waned; and, as its light faded away, I became possessed
by a vague uneasiness - an anxiety such as the sleeper feels when sad
real sounds fall continuously within his ear - low distant
bell-tones, solemn, at long but equal intervals, and mingling with
melancholy dreams. Night arrived; and with its shadows a heavy
discomfort. It oppressed my limbs with the oppression of some dull
weight, and was palpable. There was also a moaning sound, not unlike
the distant reverberation of surf, but more continuous, which,
beginning with the first twilight, had grown in strength with the
darkness. Suddenly lights were brought into the room, and this
reverberation became forthwith interrupted into frequent unequal
bursts of the same sound, but less dreary and less distinct. The
ponderous oppression was in a great measure relieved; and, issuing
from the flame of each lamp, (for there were many,) there flowed
unbrokenly into my ears a strain of melodious monotone. And when now,
dear Una, approaching the bed upon which I lay outstretched, you sat
gently by my side, breathing odor from your sweet lips, and pressing
them upon my brow, there arose tremulously within my bosom, and
mingling with the merely physical sensations which circumstances had
called forth, a something akin to sentiment itself - a feeling that,
half appreciating, half responded to your earnest love and sorrow;
but this feeling took no root in the pulseless heart, and seemed
indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and faded quickly away, first
into extreme quiescence, and then into a purely sensual pleasure as
before.
And now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses, there
appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all perfect. In its
exercise I found a wild delight - yet a delight still physical,
inasmuch as the understanding had in it no part. Motion in the animal
frame had fully ceased. No muscle quivered; no nerve thrilled; no
artery throbbed. But there seemed to have sprung up in the brain,
that of which no words could convey to the merely human intelligence
even an indistinct conception. Let me term it a mental pendulous
pulsation. It was the moral embodiment of man's abstract idea of
Time. By the absolute equalization of this movement - or of such as
this - had the cycles of the firmamental orbs themselves, been
adjusted. By its aid I measured the irregularities of the clock upon
the mantel, and of the watches of the attendants. Their tickings came
sonorously to my ears. The slightest deviations from the true
proportion - and these deviations were omni-prævalent - affected me
just as violations of abstract truth were wont, on earth, to affect
the moral sense. Although no two of the time-pieces in the chamber
struck the individual seconds accurately together, yet I had no
difficulty in holding steadily in mind the tones, and the respective
momentary errors of each. And this - this keen, perfect,
self-existing sentiment of duration - this sentiment existing (as man
could not possibly have conceived it to exist) independently of any
succession of events - this idea - this sixth sense, upspringing from
the ashes of the rest, was the first obvious and certain step of the
intemporal soul upon the threshold of the temporal Eternity.
It was midnight; and you still sat by my side. All others had
departed from the chamber of Death. They had deposited me in the
coffin. The lamps burned flickeringly; for this I knew by the
tremulousness of the monotonous strains. But, suddenly these strains
diminished in distinctness and in volume. Finally they ceased. The
perfume in my nostrils died away. Forms affected my vision no longer.
The oppression of the Darkness uplifted itself from my bosom. A dull
shock like that of electricity pervaded my frame, and was followed by
total loss of the idea of contact. All of what man has termed sense
was merged in the sole consciousness of entity, and in the one
abiding sentiment of duration. The mortal body had been at length
stricken with the hand of the deadly Decay.
Yet had not all of sentience departed; for the consciousness and
the sentiment remaining supplied some of its functions by a lethargic
intuition. I appreciated the direful change now in operation upon the
flesh, and, as the dreamer is sometimes aware of the bodily presence
of one who leans over him, so, sweet Una, I still dully felt that you
sat by my side. So, too, when the noon of the second day came, I was
not unconscious of those movements which displaced you from my side,
which confined me within the coffin, which deposited me within the
hearse, which bore me to the grave, which lowered me within it, which
heaped heavily the mould upon me, and which thus left me, in
blackness and corruption, to my sad and solemn slumbers with the
worm.
And here, in the prison-house which has few secrets to disclose,
there rolled away days and weeks and months; and the soul watched
narrowly each second as it flew, and, without effort, took record of
its flight - without effort and without object.
A year passed. The consciousness of being had grown hourly more
indistinct, and that of mere locality had, in great measure, usurped
its position. The idea of entity was becoming merged in that of
place. The narrow space immediately surrounding what had been the
body, was now growing to be the body itself. At length, as often
happens to the sleeper (by sleep and its world alone is Death imaged)
- at length, as sometimes happened on Earth to the deep slumberer,
when some flitting light half startled him into awaking, yet left him
half enveloped in dreams - so to me, in the strict embrace of the
Shadow came that light which alone might have had power to startle -
the light of enduring Love. Men toiled at the grave in which I lay
darkling. They upthrew the damp earth. Upon my mouldering bones there
descended the coffin of Una.
And now again all was void. That nebulous light had been
extinguished. That feeble thrill had vibrated itself into quiescence.
Many lustra had supervened. Dust had returned to dust. The worm had
food no more. The sense of being had at length utterly departed, and
there reigned in its stead - instead of all things - dominant and
perpetual - the autocrats Place and Time. For that which was not -
for that which had no form - for that which had no thought - for that
which had no sentience - for that which was soulless, yet of which
matter formed no portion - for all this nothingness, yet for all this
immortality, the grave was still a home, and the corrosive hours,
co-mates.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE
CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION
ALD F@J BD@F@JFT
I will bring fire to thee.
_Euripides - Androm:_
EIROS.
WHY do you call me Eiros?
CHARMION
So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget too,
my earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.
EIROS.
This is indeed no dream!
CHARMION.
Dreams are with us no more; - but of these mysteries anon. I
rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational. The film of the
shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart and fear
nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have expired and, to-morrow, I
will myself induct you into the full joys and wonders of your novel
existence.
EIROS.
True - I feel no stupor - none at all. The wild sickness and the
terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad,
rushing, horrible sound, like the "voice of many waters." Yet my
senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness of their
perception of the new.
CHARMION.
A few days will remove all this; - but I fully understand you,
and feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent what
you undergo - yet the remembrance of it hangs by me still. You have
now suffered all of pain, however, which you will suffer in Aidenn.
EIROS.
In Aidenn?
CHARMION.
In Aidenn.
EIROS.
Oh God! - pity me, Charmion! - I am overburthened with the
majesty of all things - of the unknown now known - of the speculative
Future merged in the august and certain Present.
CHARMION.
Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will speak of
this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the
exercise of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward - but back.
I am burning with anxiety to hear the details of that stupendous
event which threw you among us. Tell me of it. Let us converse of
familiar things, in the old familiar language of the world which has
so fearfully perished.
EIROS.
Most fearfully, fearfully! - this is indeed no dream.
CHARMION.
Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?
EIROS.
Mourned, Charmion? - oh deeply. To that last hour of all, there
hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow over your household.
CHARMION.
And that last hour - speak of it. Remember that, beyond the naked
fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, coming out from
among mankind, I passed into Night through the Grave - at that
period, if I remember aright, the calamity which overwhelmed you was
utterly unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the speculative
philosophy of the day.
EIROS.
The individual calamity was as you say entirely unanticipated;
but analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of discussion with
astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, that, even when you
left us, men had agreed to understand those passages in the most holy
writings which speak of the final destruction of all things by fire,
as having reference to the orb of the earth alone. But in regard to
the immediate agency of the ruin, speculation had been at fault from
that epoch in astronomical knowledge in which the comets were
divested of the terrors of flame. The very moderate density of these
bodies had been well established. They had been observed to pass
among the satellites of Jupiter, without bringing about any sensible
alteration either in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary
planets. We had long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations of
inconceivable tenuity, and as altogether incapable of doing injury to
our substantial globe, even in the event of contact. But contact was
not in any degree dreaded; for the elements of all the comets were
accurately known. That among them we should look for the agency of
the threatened fiery destruction had been for many years considered
an inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild fancies had been, of late
days, strangely rife among mankind; and, although it was only with a
few of the ignorant that actual apprehension prevailed, upon the
announcement by astronomers of a new comet, yet this announcement was
generally received with I know not what of agitation and mistrust.
The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, and
it was at once conceded by all observers, that its path, at
perihelion, would bring it into very close proximity with the earth.
There were two or three astronomers, of secondary note, who
resolutely maintained that a contact was inevitable. I cannot very
well express to you the effect of this intelligence upon the people.
For a few short days they would not believe an assertion which their
intellect so long employed among worldly considerations could not in
any manner grasp. But the truth of a vitally important fact soon
makes its way into the understanding of even the most stolid.
Finally, all men saw that astronomical knowledge lied not, and they
awaited the comet. Its approach was not, at first, seemingly rapid;
nor was its appearance of very unusual character. It was of a dull
red, and had little perceptible train. For seven or eight days we saw
no material increase in its apparent diameter, and but a partial
alteration in its color. Meantime, the ordinary affairs of men were
discarded and all interests absorbed in a growing discussion,
instituted by the philosophic, in respect to the cometary nature.
Even the grossly ignorant aroused their sluggish capacities to such
considerations. The learned now gave their intellect - their soul -
to no such points as the allaying of fear, or to the sustenance of
loved theory. They sought -- they panted for right views. They
groaned for perfected knowledge. Truth arose in the purity of her
strength and exceeding majesty, and the wise bowed down and adored.
That material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants would
result from the apprehended contact, was an opinion which hourly lost
ground among the wise; and the wise were now freely permitted to rule
the reason and the fancy of the crowd. It was demonstrated, that the
density of the comet's nucleus was far less than that of our rarest
gas; and the harmless passage of a similar visitor among the
satellites of Jupiter was a point strongly insisted upon, and which
served greatly to allay terror. Theologists with an earnestness
fear-enkindled, dwelt upon the biblical prophecies, and expounded
them to the people with a directness and simplicity of which no
previous instance had been known. That the final destruction of the
earth must be brought about by the agency of fire, was urged with a
spirit that enforced every where conviction; and that the comets were
of no fiery nature (as all men now knew) was a truth which relieved
all, in a great measure, from the apprehension of the great calamity
foretold. It is noticeable that the popular prejudices and vulgar
errors in regard to pestilences and wars - errors which were wont to
prevail upon every appearance of a comet - were now altogether
unknown. As if by some sudden convulsive exertion, reason had at once
hurled superstition from her throne. The feeblest intellect had
derived vigor from excessive interest.
What minor evils might arise from the contact were points of
elaborate question. The learned spoke of slight geological
disturbances, of probable alterations in climate, and consequently in
vegetation, of possible magnetic and electric influences. Many held
that no visible or perceptible effect would in any manner be
produced. While such discussions were going on, their subject
gradually approached, growing larger in apparent diameter, and of a
more brilliant lustre. Mankind grew paler as it came. All human
operations were suspended.
There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment when
the comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing that of any
previously recorded visitation. The people now, dismissing any
lingering hope that the astronomers were wrong, experienced all the
certainty of evil. The chimerical aspect of their terror was gone.
The hearts of the stoutest of our race beat violently within their
bosoms. A very few days sufficed, however, to merge even such
feelings in sentiments more unendurable We could no longer apply to
the strange orb any accustomedthoughts. Its historical attributes had
disappeared. It oppressed us with a hideous novelty of emotion. We
saw it not as an astronomical phenomenon in the heavens, but as an
incubus upon our hearts, and a shadow upon our brains. It had taken,
with inconceivable rapidity, the character of a gigantic mantle of
rare flame, extending from horizon to horizon.
Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was clear
that we were already within the influence of the comet; yet we lived.
We even felt an unusual elasticity of frame and vivacity of mind. The
exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was apparent; for all
heavenly objects were plainly visible through it. Meantime, our
vegetation had perceptibly altered; and we gained faith, from this
predicted circumstance, in the foresight of the wise. A wild
luxuriance of foliage, utterly unknown before, burst out upon every
vegetable thing.
Yet another day - and the evil was not altogether upon us. It was
now evident that its nucleus would first reach us. A wild change had
come over all men; and the first sense of pain was the wild signal
for general lamentation and horror. This first sense of pain lay in a
rigorous constriction of the breast and lungs, and an insufferable
dryness of the skin. It could not be denied that our atmosphere was
radically affected; the conformation of this atmosphere and the
possible modifications to which it might be subjected, were now the
topics of discussion. The result of investigation sent an electric
thrill of the intensest terror through the universal heart of man.
It had been long known that the air which encircled us was a
compound of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of twenty-
one measures of oxygen, and seventy-nine of nitrogen in every one
hundred of the atmosphere. Oxygen, which was the principle of
combustion, and the vehicle of heat, was absolutely necessary to the
support of animal life, and was the most powerful and energetic agent
in nature. Nitrogen, on the contrary, was incapable of supporting
either animal life or flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would
result, it had been ascertained in just such an elevation of the
animal spirits as we had latterly experienced. It was the pursuit,
the extension of the idea, which had engendered awe. What would be
the result of a total extraction of the nitrogen? A combustion
irresistible, all-devouring, omni-prevalent, immediate; - the entire
fulfilment, in all their minute and terrible details, of the fiery
and horror-inspiring denunciations of the prophecies of the Holy
Book.
Why need I paint, Charmion, the now disenchained frenzy of
mankind? That tenuity in the comet which had previously inspired us
with hope, was now the source of the bitterness of despair. In its
impalpable gaseous character we clearly perceived the consummation of
Fate. Meantime a day again passed - bearing away with it the last
shadow of Hope. We gasped in the rapid modification of the air. The
red blood bounded tumultuously through its strict channels. A furious
delirium possessed all men; and, with arms rigidly outstretched
towards the threatening heavens, they trembled and shrieked aloud.
But the nucleus of the destroyer was now upon us; - even here in
Aidenn, I shudder while I speak. Let me be brief - brief as the ruin
that overwhelmed. For a moment there was a wild lurid light alone,
visiting and penetrating all things. Then - let us bow down Charmion,
before the excessive majesty of the great God! - then, there came a
shouting and pervading sound, as if from the mouth itself of HIM;
while the whole incumbent mass of ether in which we existed, burst at
once into a species of intense flame, for whose surpassing brilliancy
and all-fervid heat even the angels in the high Heaven of pure
knowledge have no name. Thus ended all.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
SHADOW -- A PARABLE
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the Shadow:
-- Psalm of David.
YE who read are still among the living; but I who write shall have
long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For indeed strange
things shall happen, and secret things be known, and many centuries
shall pass away, ere these memorials be seen of men. And, when seen,
there will be some to disbelieve, and some to doubt, and yet a few
who will find much to ponder upon in the characters here graven with
a stylus of iron.
The year had been a year of terror, and of feelings more intense than
terror for which there is no name upon the earth. For many prodigies
and signs had taken place, and far and wide, over sea and land, the
black wings of the Pestilence were spread abroad. To those,
nevertheless, cunning in the stars, it was not unknown that the
heavens wore an aspect of ill; and to me, the Greek Oinos, among
others, it was evident that now had arrived the alternation of that
seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when, at the entrance of Aries,
the planet Jupiter is conjoined with the red ring of the terrible
Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of the skies, if I mistake not greatly,
made itself manifest, not only in the physical orb of the earth, but
in the souls, imaginations, and meditations of mankind.
Over some flasks of the red Chian wine, within the walls of a noble
hall, in a dim city called Ptolemais, we sat, at night, a company of
seven. And to our chamber there was no entrance save by a lofty door
of brass: and the door was fashioned by the artisan Corinnos, and,
being of rare workmanship, was fastened from within. Black draperies,
likewise, in the gloomy room, shut out from our view the moon, the
lurid stars, and the peopleless streets -- but the boding and the
memory of Evil they would not be so excluded. There were things
around us and about of which I can render no distinct account --
things material and spiritual -- heaviness in the atmosphere -- a
sense of suffocation -- anxiety -- and, above all, that terrible
state of existence which the nervous experience when the senses are
keenly living and awake, and meanwhile the powers of thought lie
dormant. A dead weight hung upon us. It hung upon our limbs -- upon
the household furniture -- upon the goblets from which we drank; and
all things were depressed, and borne down thereby -- all things save
only the flames of the seven lamps which illumined our revel.
Uprearing themselves in tall slender lines of light, they thus
remained burning all pallid and motionless; and in the mirror which
their lustre formed upon the round table of ebony at which we sat,
each of us there assembled beheld the pallor of his own countenance,
and the unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his companions. Yet we
laughed and were merry in our proper way -- which was hysterical; and
sang the songs of Anacreon -- which are madness; and drank deeply --
although the purple wine reminded us of blood. For there was yet
another tenant of our chamber in the person of young Zoilus. Dead,
and at full length he lay, enshrouded; the genius and the demon of
the scene. Alas! he bore no portion in our mirth, save that his
countenance, distorted with the plague, and his eyes, in which Death
had but half extinguished the fire of the pestilence, seemed to take
such interest in our merriment as the dead may haply take in the
merriment of those who are to die. But although I, Oinos, felt that
the eyes of the departed were upon me, still I forced myself not to
perceive the bitterness of their expression, and gazing down steadily
into the depths of the ebony mirror, sang with a loud and sonorous
voice the songs of the son of Teios. But gradually my songs they
ceased, and their echoes, rolling afar off among the sable draperies
of the chamber, became weak, and undistinguishable, and so faded
away. And lo! from among those sable draperies where the sounds of
the song departed, there came forth a dark and undefined shadow -- a
shadow such as the moon, when low in heaven, might fashion from the
figure of a man: but it was the shadow neither of man nor of God, nor
of any familiar thing. And quivering awhile among the draperies of
the room, it at length rested in full view upon the surface of the
door of brass. But the shadow was vague, and formless, and
indefinite, and was the shadow neither of man nor of God -- neither
God of Greece, nor God of Chaldaea, nor any Egyptian God. And the
shadow rested upon the brazen doorway, and under the arch of the
entablature of the door, and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there
became stationary and remained. And the door whereupon the shadow
rested was, if I remember aright, over against the feet of the young
Zoilus enshrouded. But we, the seven there assembled, having seen the
shadow as it came out from among the draperies, dared not steadily
behold it, but cast down our eyes, and gazed continually into the
depths of the mirror of ebony. And at length I, Oinos, speaking some
low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling and its appellation.
And the shadow answered, "I am SHADOW, and my dwelling is near to the
Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those dim plains of Helusion
which border upon the foul Charonian canal." And then did we, the
seven, start from our seats in horror, and stand trembling, and
shuddering, and aghast, for the tones in the voice of the shadow were
not the tones of any one being, but of a multitude of beings, and,
varying in their cadences from syllable to syllable fell duskly upon
our ears in the well-remembered and familiar accents of many thousand
departed friends.
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 4
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THE WORKS OF
EDGAR ALLAN POE
IN FIVE VOLUMES
Contents
Philosophy of Furniture
A Tale of Jerusalem
The Sphinx
Hop Frog
The Man of the Crowd
Never Bet the Devill Your Head
Thou Art the Man
Why the Little Frenchman Wears his Hand in a Sling
Bon-Bon
Some words with a Mummy
The Poetic Principle
Old English Poetry
POEMS
Dedication
Preface
Poems of Later Life
The Raven
The Bells
Ulalume
To Helen
Annabel Lee
A Valentine
An Enigma
To my Mother
For Annie
To F----
To Frances S. Osgood
Eldorado
Eulalie
A Dream within a Dream
To Marie Louise (Shew)
To the Same
The City in the Sea
The Sleeper
Bridal Ballad
Notes
Poems of Manhood
Lenore
To One in Paradise
The Coliseum
The Haunted Palace
The Conqueror Worm
Silence
Dreamland
Hymn
To Zante
Scenes from "Politian"
Note
Poems of Youth
Introduction (1831)
Sonnet--To Science
Al Aaraaf
Tamerlane
To Helen
The Valley of Unrest
Israfel
To -- ("The Bowers Whereat, in Dreams I See")
To -- ("I Heed not That my Earthly Lot")
To the River --
Song
A Dream
Romance
Fairyland
The Lake To--
"The Happiest Day"
Imitation
Hymn. Translation from the Greek
"In Youth I Have Known One"
A Paean
Notes
Doubtful Poems
Alone
To Isadore
The Village Street
The Forest Reverie
Notes
PHILOSOPHY OF FURNITURE.
In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of
their residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little
sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, _meliora probant,
deteriora _sequuntur - the people are too much a race of gadabouts to
maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a
delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The
Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy.
The Scotch are _poor _decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an indeterminate
idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain they are _all _curtains - a
nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The Hottentots and
Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are preposterous.
How this happens, it is not difficult to see. We have no aristocracy
of blood, and having therefore as a natural, and indeed as an inevitable
thing, fashioned for ourselves an aristocracy of dollars, the _display of
wealth _has here to take the place and perform the office of the heraldic
display in monarchical countries. By a transition readily understood, and
which might have been as readily foreseen, we have been brought to merge
in simple _show _our notions of taste itself
To speak less abstractly. In England, for example, no mere parade of
costly appurtenances would be so likely as with us, to create an
impression of the beautiful in respect to the appurtenances themselves -
or of taste as regards the proprietor: - this for the reason, first, that
wealth is not, in England, the loftiest object of ambition as constituting
a nobility; and secondly, that there, the true nobility of blood,
confining itself within the strict limits of legitimate taste, rather
avoids than affects that mere costliness in which a _parvenu _rivalry may
at any time be successfully attempted.
The people _will _imitate the nobles, and the result is a thorough
diffusion of the proper feeling. But in America, the coins current being
the sole arms of the aristocracy, their display may be said, in general,
to be the sole means of the aristocratic distinction; and the populace,
looking always upward for models,,are insensibly led to confound the two
entirely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty. In short, the cost of
an article of furniture has at length come to be, with us, nearly the sole
test of its merit in a decorative point of view - and this test, once
established, has led the way to many analogous errors, readily traceable
to the one primitive folly.
There could be nothing more directly offensive to the eye of an artist
than the interior of what is termed in the United States - that is to say,
in Appallachia - a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual defect is a
want of keeping. We speak of the keeping of a room as we would of the
keeping of a picture - for both the picture and the room are amenable to
those undeviating principles which regulate all varieties of art; and very
nearly the same laws by which we decide on the higher merits of a
painting, suffice for decision on the adjustment of a chamber.
A want of keeping is observable sometimes in the character of the
several pieces of furniture, but generally in their colours or modes of
adaptation to use _Very _often the eye is offended by their inartistic
arrangement. Straight lines are too prevalent - too uninterruptedly
continued - or clumsily interrupted at right angles. If curved lines
occur, they are repeated into unpleasant uniformity. By undue precision,
the appearance of many a fine apartment is utterly spoiled.
Curtains are rarely well disposed, or well chosen in respect to other
decorations. With formal furniture, curtains are out of place; and an
extensive volume of drapery of any kind is, under any circumstance,
irreconcilable with good taste - the proper quantum, as well as the proper
adjustment, depending upon the character of the general effect.
Carpets are better understood of late than of ancient days, but we
still very frequently err in their patterns and colours. The soul of the
apartment is the carpet. From it are deduced not only the hues but the
forms of all objects incumbent. A judge at common law may be an ordinary
man; a good judge of a carpet _must be _a genius. Yet we have heard
discoursing of carpets, with the air "_d'un mouton qui reve," _fellows who
should not and who could not be entrusted with the management of their own
_moustaches. _Every one knows that a large floor _may _have a covering of
large figures, and that a small one must have a covering of small - yet
this is not all the knowledge in the world. As regards texture, the Saxony
is alone admissible. Brussels is the preterpluperfect tense of fashion,
and Turkey is taste in its dying agonies. Touching pattern - a carpet
should _not _be bedizzened out like a Riccaree Indian - all red chalk,
yellow ochre, and cock's feathers. In brief - distinct grounds, and vivid
circular or cycloid figures, _of no meaning, _are here Median laws. The
abomination of flowers, or representations of well-known objects of any
kind, should not be endured within the limits of Christendom. Indeed,
whether on carpets, or curtains, or tapestry, or ottoman coverings, all
upholstery of this nature should be rigidly Arabesque. As for those
antique floor-cloth & still occasionally seen in the dwellings of the
rabble - cloths of huge, sprawling, and radiating devises,
stripe-interspersed, and glorious with all hues, among which no ground is
intelligible-these are but the wicked invention of a race of time-servers
and money-lovers - children of Baal and worshippers of Mammon - Benthams,
who, to spare thought and economize fancy, first cruelly invented the
Kaleidoscope, and then established joint-stock companies to twirl it by
steam.
_ Glare is _a leading error in the philosophy of American household
decoration - an error easily recognised as deduced from the perversion of
taste just specified., We are violently enamoured of gas and of glass. The
former is totally inadmissible within doors. Its harsh and unsteady light
offends. No one having both brains and eyes will use it. A mild, or what
artists term a cool light, with its consequent warm shadows, will do
wonders for even an ill-furnished apartment. Never was a more lovely
thought than that of the astral lamp. We mean, of course, the astral lamp
proper - the lamp of Argand, with its original plain ground-glass shade,
and its tempered and uniform moonlight rays. The cut-glass shade is a weak
invention of the enemy. The eagerness with which we have adopted it,
partly on account of its _flashiness, _but principally on account of its
_greater rest, is _a good commentary on the proposition with which we
began. It is not too much to say, that the deliberate employer of a
cut-glass shade, is either radically deficient in taste, or blindly
subservient to the caprices of fashion. The light proceeding from one of
these gaudy abominations is unequal broken, and painful. It alone is
sufficient to mar a world of good effect in the furniture subjected to its
influence. Female loveliness, in especial, is more than one-half
disenchanted beneath its evil eye.
In the matter of glass, generally, we proceed upon false principles.
Its leading feature is _glitter - _and in that one word how much of all
that is detestable do we express ! Flickering, unquiet lights, are
_sometimes _pleasing - to children and idiots always so - but in the
embellishment of a room they should be scrupulously avoided. In truth,
even strong _steady _lights are inadmissible. The huge and unmeaning glass
chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted, and without shade, which dangle in
our most fashionable drawing-rooms, may be cited as the quintessence of
all that is false in taste or preposterous in folly.
The rage for _glitter-_because its idea has become as we before
observed, confounded with that of magnificence in the abstract-has led us,
also, to the exaggerated employment of mirrors. We line our dwellings with
great British plates, and then imagine we have done a fine thing. Now the
slightest thought will be sufficient to convince any one who has an eye at
all, of the ill effect of numerous looking-glasses, and especially of
large ones. Regarded apart from its reflection, the mirror presents a
continuous, flat, colourless, unrelieved surface, - a thing always and
obviously unpleasant. Considered as a reflector, it is potent in producing
a monstrous and odious uniformity: and the evil is here aggravated, not in
merely direct proportion with the augmentation of its sources, but in a
ratio constantly increasing. In fact, a room with four or five mirrors
arranged at random, is, for all purposes of artistic show, a room of no
shape at all. If we add to this evil, the attendant glitter upon glitter,
we have a perfect farrago of discordant and displeasing effects. The
veriest bumpkin, on entering an apartment so bedizzened, would be
instantly aware of something wrong, although he might be altogether unable
to assign a cause for his dissatisfaction. But let the same person be led
into a room tastefully furnished, and he would be startled into an
exclamation of pleasure and surprise.
It is an evil growing out of our republican institutions, that here a
man of large purse has usually a very little soul which he keeps in it.
The corruption of taste is a portion or a pendant of the dollar-manufac
sure. As we grow rich, our ideas grow rusty. It is, therefore, not among
_our _aristocracy that we must look (if at all, in Appallachia), for the
spirituality of a British _boudoir. _But we have seen apartments in the
tenure of Americans of moderns [possibly "modest" or "moderate"] means,
which, in negative merit at least, might vie with any of the _or-molu'd
_cabinets of our friends across the water. Even _now_, there is present to
our mind's eye a small and not, ostentatious chamber with whose
decorations no fault can be found. The proprietor lies asleep on a sofa -
the weather is cool - the time is near midnight: arc will make a sketch of
the room during his slumber.
It is oblong - some thirty feet in length and twenty-five in breadth -
a shape affording the best(ordinary) opportunities for the adjustment of
furniture. It has but one door - by no means a wide one - which is at one
end of the parallelogram, and but two windows, which are at the other.
These latter are large, reaching down to the floor - have deep recesses -
and open on an Italian _veranda. _Their panes are of a crimson-tinted
glass, set in rose-wood framings, more massive than usual. They are
curtained within the recess, by a thick silver tissue adapted to the shape
of the window, and hanging loosely in small volumes. Without the recess
are curtains of an exceedingly rich crimson silk, fringed with a deep
network of gold, and lined with silver tissue, which is the material of
the exterior blind. There are no cornices; but the folds of the whole
fabric (which are sharp rather than massive, and have an airy appearance),
issue from beneath a broad entablature of rich giltwork, which encircles
the room at the junction of the ceiling and walls. The drapery is thrown
open also, or closed, by means of a thick rope of gold loosely enveloping
it, and resolving itself readily into a knot; no pins or other such
devices are apparent. The colours of the curtains and their fringe - the
tints of crimson and gold - appear everywhere in profusion, and determine
the _character _of the room. The carpet - of Saxony material - is quite
half an inch thick, and is of the same crimson ground, relieved simply by
the appearance of a gold cord (like that festooning the curtains) slightly
relieved above the surface of the _ground, _and thrown upon it in such a
manner as to form a succession of short irregular curves - one
occasionally overlaying the other. The walls are prepared with a glossy
paper of a silver gray tint, spotted with small Arabesque devices of a
fainter hue of the prevalent crimson. Many paintings relieve the expanse
of paper. These are chiefly landscapes of an imaginative cast-such as the
fairy grottoes of Stanfield, or the lake of the Dismal Swamp of Chapman.
There are, nevertheless, three or four female heads, of an ethereal
beauty-portraits in the manner of Sully. The tone of each picture is warm,
but dark. There are no "brilliant effects." _Repose _speaks in all. Not
one is of small size. Diminutive paintings give that _spotty _look to a
room, which is the blemish of so many a fine work of Art overtouched. The
frames are broad but not deep, and richly carved, without being _dulled
_or filagreed. They have the whole lustre of burnished gold. They lie flat
on the walls, and do not hang off with cords. The designs themselves are
often seen to better advantage in this latter position, but the general
appearance of the chamber is injured. But one mirror - and this not a very
large one - is visible. In shape it is nearly circular - and it is hung so
that a reflection of the person can be obtained from it in none of the
ordinary sitting-places of the room. Two large low sofas of rosewood and
crimson silk, gold-flowered, form the only seats, with the exception of
two light conversation chairs, also of rose-wood. There is a pianoforte
(rose-wood, also), without cover, and thrown open. An octagonal table,
formed altogether of the richest gold-threaded marble, is placed near one
of the sofas. This is also without cover - the drapery of the curtains has
been thought sufficient.. Four large and gorgeous Sevres vases, in which
bloom a profusion of sweet and vivid flowers, occupy the slightly rounded
angles of the room. A tall candelabrum, bearing a small antique lamp with
highly perfumed oil, is standing near the head of my sleeping friend. Some
light and graceful hanging shelves, with golden edges and crimson silk
cords with gold tassels, sustain two or three hundred magnificently bound
books. Beyond these things, there is no furniture, if we except an Argand
lamp, with a plain crimson-tinted ground glass shade, which depends from
He lofty vaulted ceiling by a single slender gold chain, and throws a
tranquil but magical radiance over all.
~~~ End Of Text ~~~
======
A TALE OF JERUSALEM
Intensos rigidarn in frontern ascendere canos
Passus erat----
_ -Lucan--De Catone_
---a bristly _bore._
_Translation_
LET us hurry to the walls," said Abel-Phittim to Buzi-Ben-Levi and Simeon
the Pharisee, on the tenth day of the month Thammuz, in the year of the
world three thousand nine hundred and fortyone--let us hasten to the
ramparts adjoining the gate of Benjamin, which is in the city of David,
and overlooking the camp of the uncircumcised; for it is the last hour of
the fourth watch, being sunrise; and the idolaters, in fulfilment of the
promise of Pompey, should be awaiting us with the lambs for the
sacrifices."
Simeon, Abel-Phittim, and Duzi-Ben-Levi were the Gizbarim, or
sub-collectors of the offering, in the holy city of Jerusalem.
"Verily," replied the Pharisee; "let us hasten: for this generosity in the
heathen is unwonted; and fickle-mindedness has ever been an attribute of
the worshippers of Baal."
"'That they are fickle-minded and treacherous is as true as the
Pentateuch," said Buzi-Ben-Levi, "but that is only toward the people of
Adonai. When was it ever known that the Ammonites proved wanting to their
own interests? Methinks it is no great stretch of generosity to allow us
lambs for the altar of the Lord, receiving in lieu thereof thirty silver
shekels per head !"
"Thou forgettest, however, Ben-Levi," replied Abel-Phittim, "that the
Roman Pompey, who is now impiously besieging the city of the Most High,
has no assurity that we apply not the lambs thus purchased for the altar,
to the sustenance of the body, rather than of the spirit."
"Now, by the five corners of my beard!" shouted the Pharisee, who belonged
to the sect called The Dashers (that little knot of saints whose manner of
_dashing _and lacerating the feet against the pavement was long a thorn
and a reproach to less zealous devotees-a stumbling-block to less gifted
perambulators)--"by the five corners of that beard which, as a priest, I
am forbidden to shave !-have we lived to see the day when a blaspheming
and idolatrous upstart of Rome shall accuse us of appropriating to the
appetites of the flesh the most holy and consecrated elements? Have we
lived to see the day when---"'
"Let us not question the motives of the Philistine," interrupted
Abel-Phittim' "for to-day we profit for the first time by his avarice or
by his generosity; but rather let us hurry to the ramparts, lest offerings
should be wanting for that altar whose fire the rains of heaven can not
extinguish, and whose pillars of smoke no tempest can turn aside."
That part of the city to which our worthy Gizbarim now hastened, and which
bore the name of its architect, King David, was esteemed the most strongly
fortified district of Jerusalem; being situated upon the steep and lofty
hill of Zion. Here, a broad, deep, circumvallatory trench, hewn from the
solid rock, was defended by a wall of great strength erected upon its
inner edge. This wall was adorned, at regular interspaces, by square
towers of white marble; the lowest sixty, and the highest one hundred and
twenty cubits- in height. But, in the vicinity of the gate of Benjamin,
the wall arose by no means from the margin of the fosse. On the contrary,
between the level of the ditch and the basement of the rampart sprang up a
perpendicular cliff of two hundred and fifty cubits, forming part of the
precipitous Mount Moriah. So that when Simeon and his associates arrived
on the summit of the tower called Adoni-Bezek-the loftiest of all the
turrets around about Jerusalem, and the usual place of conference with the
besieging army-they looked down upon the camp of the enemy from an
eminence excelling by many feet that of the Pyramid of Cheops, and, by
several, that of the temple of Belus.
"Verily," sighed the Pharisee, as he peered dizzily over the precipice,
"the uncircumcised are as the sands by the seashore-as the locusts in the
wilderness! The valley of the King hath become the valley of Adommin."
"And yet," added Ben-Levi, "thou canst not point me out a Philistine-no,
not one-from Aleph to Tau-from the wilderness to the battlements---who
seemeth any bigger than the letter Jod!"
"Lower away the basket with the shekels of silver!" here shouted a Roman
soldier in a hoarse, rough voice, which appeared to issue from the regions
of Pluto---"lower away the basket with the accursed coin which it has
broken the jaw of a noble Roman to pronounce! Is it thus you evince your
gratitude to our master Pompeius, who, in his condescension, has thought
fit to listen to your idolatrous importunities? The god Phoebus, who is a
true god, has been charioted for an hour-and were you not to be on the
ramparts by sunrise? Aedepol! do you think that we, the conquerors of the
world, have nothing better to do than stand waiting by the walls of every
kennel, to traffic with the dogs of the earth? Lower away! I say--and see
that your trumpery be bright in color and just in weight!"
"El Elohim!" ejaculated the Pharisee, as the discordant tones of the
centurion rattled up the crags of the precipice, and fainted away against
the temple -"El Elohim!--who is the god Phoebus?--whom doth the blasphemer
invoke? Thou, Buzi-BenLevi! who art read in the laws of the Gentiles, and
hast sojourned among them who dabble with the Teraphim!--is it Nergal of
whom the idolater speaketh?----or Ashimah?--or Nibhaz,--or Tartak? --or
Adramalech?--or Anamalech?--or Succoth-Benith?---or Dagon?---or
Belial?---or Baal-Perith? -or Baal-Peor?---or Baal-Zebub?"
"Verily it is neither-but beware how thou lettest the rope slip too
rapidly through thy fingers; for should the wicker-work chance to hang on
the projection of Yonder crag, there will be a woful outpouring of the
holy things of the sanctuary."
By the assistance of some rudely constructed machinery, the heavily laden
basket was now carefully lowered down among the multitude; and, from the
giddy pinnacle, the Romans were seen gathering confusedly round it; but
owing to the vast height and the prevalence of a fog, no distinct view of
their operations could be obtained.
Half an hour had already elapsed.
"We shall be too late!" sighed the Pharisee, as at the expiration of this
period he looked over into the abyss-"we shall be too late! we shall be
turned out of office by the Katholim."
"No more," responded Abel-Phittim----"no more shall we feast upon the fat
of the land-no longer shall our beards be odorous with frankincense--our
loins girded up with fine linen from the Temple."
"Racal" swore Ben-Levi, "Racal do they mean to defraud us of the purchase
money? or, Holy Moses ! are they weighing the shekels of the tabernacle ?"
"They have given the signal at last!" cried the Pharisee-----"they have
given the signal at last!pull away, Abel-Phittim!-and thou, Buzi-Ben-Levi,
pull away!-for verily the Philistines have either still hold upon the
basket, or the Lord hath softened their hearts to place therein a beast of
good weight!" And the Gizbarim pulled away, while their burden swung
heavily upward through the still increasing mist.
"Booshoh he!"-as, at the conclusion of an hour, some object at the
extremity of the rope became indistinctly visible-"Booshoh he!" was the
exclamation which burst from the lips of Ben-Levi.
. . . . . . . . . .
"Booshoh he!--for shame!-it is a ram from the thickets of Engedi, and as
rugged as the valley of jehosaphat!"
"It is a firstling of the flock," said Abel-Phittim, "I know him by the
bleating of his lips, and the innocent folding of his limbs. His eyes are
more beautiful than the jewels of the Pectoral, and his flesh is like the
honey of Hebron."
"It is a fatted calf from the pastures of Bashan," said the Pharisee, "the
heathen have dealt wonderfully with us ----let us raise up our voices in a
psalm --let us give thanks on the shawm and on the psaltery-on the harp
and on the huggab-on the cythern and on the sackbut!"
It was not until the basket had arrived within a few feet of the Gizbarim
that a low grunt betrayed to their perception a hog of no common size.
"Now El Emanu!" slowly and with upturned eyes ejaculated the trio, as,
letting go their hold, the emancipated porker tumbled headlong among the
Philistines, "El Emanu!-God be with us---it is _the unutterable flesh!"_
~~~~~~ End of Text ~~~~~~
======
THE SPHINX
DURING the dread reign of the Cholera in New York, I had accepted the
invitation of a relative to spend a fortnight with him in the retirement
of his _cottage ornee_ on the banks of the Hudson. We had here around us
all the ordinary means of summer amusement; and what with rambling in the
woods, sketching, boating, fishing, bathing, music, and books, we should
have passed the time pleasantly enough, but for the fearful intelligence
which reached us every morning from the populous city. Not a day elapsed
which did not bring us news of the decease of some acquaintance. Then as
the fatality increased, we learned to expect daily the loss of some
friend. At length we trembled at the approach of every messenger. The very
air from the South seemed to us redolent with death. That palsying
thought, indeed, took entire possession of my soul. I could neither speak,
think, nor dream of any thing else. My host was of a less excitable
temperament, and, although greatly depressed in spirits, exerted himself
to sustain my own. His richly philosophical intellect was not at any time
affected by unrealities. To the substances of terror he was sufficiently
alive, but of its shadows he had no apprehension.
His endeavors to arouse me from the condition of abnormal gloom into which
I had fallen, were frustrated, in great measure, by certain volumes which
I had found in his library. These were of a character to force into
germination whatever seeds of hereditary superstition lay latent in my
bosom. I had been reading these books without his knowledge, and thus he
was often at a loss to account for the forcible impressions which had been
made upon my fancy.
A favorite topic with me was the popular belief in omens -- a belief
which, at this one epoch of my life, I was almost seriously disposed to
defend. On this subject we had long and animated discussions -- he
maintaining the utter groundlessness of faith in such matters, -- I
contending that a popular sentiment arising with absolute spontaneity-
that is to say, without apparent traces of suggestion -- had in itself the
unmistakable elements of truth, and was entitled to as much respect as
that intuition which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual man of genius.
The fact is, that soon after my arrival at the cottage there had occurred
to myself an incident so entirely inexplicable, and which had in it so
much of the portentous character, that I might well have been excused for
regarding it as an omen. It appalled, and at the same time so confounded
and bewildered me, that many days elapsed before I could make up my mind
to communicate the circumstances to my friend.
Near the close of exceedingly warm day, I was sitting, book in hand, at an
open window, commanding, through a long vista of the river banks, a view
of a distant hill, the face of which nearest my position had been denuded
by what is termed a land-slide, of the principal portion of its trees. My
thoughts had been long wandering from the volume before me to the gloom
and desolation of the neighboring city. Uplifting my eyes from the page,
they fell upon the naked face of the bill, and upon an object -- upon some
living monster of hideous conformation, which very rapidly made its way
from the summit to the bottom, disappearing finally in the dense forest
below. As this creature first came in sight, I doubted my own sanity -- or
at least the evidence of my own eyes; and many minutes passed before I
succeeded in convincing myself that I was neither mad nor in a dream. Yet
when I described the monster (which I distinctly saw, and calmly surveyed
through the whole period of its progress), my readers, I fear, will feel
more difficulty in being convinced of these points than even I did myself.
Estimating the size of the creature by comparison with the diameter of the
large trees near which it passed -- the few giants of the forest which had
escaped the fury of the land-slide -- I concluded it to be far larger than
any ship of the line in existence. I say ship of the line, because the
shape of the monster suggested the idea- the hull of one of our
seventy-four might convey a very tolerable conception of the general
outline. The mouth of the animal was situated at the extremity of a
proboscis some sixty or seventy feet in length, and about as thick as the
body of an ordinary elephant. Near the root of this trunk was an immense
quantity of black shaggy hair- more than could have been supplied by the
coats of a score of buffaloes; and projecting from this hair downwardly
and laterally, sprang two gleaming tusks not unlike those of the wild
boar, but of infinitely greater dimensions. Extending forward, parallel
with the proboscis, and on each side of it, was a gigantic staff, thirty
or forty feet in length, formed seemingly of pure crystal and in shape a
perfect prism, -- it reflected in the most gorgeous manner the rays of the
declining sun. The trunk was fashioned like a wedge with the apex to the
earth. From it there were outspread two pairs of wings- each wing nearly
one hundred yards in length -- one pair being placed above the other, and
all thickly covered with metal scales; each scale apparently some ten or
twelve feet in diameter. I observed that the upper and lower tiers of
wings were connected by a strong chain. But the chief peculiarity of this
horrible thing was the representation of a Death's Head, which covered
nearly the whole surface of its breast, and which was as accurately traced
in glaring white, upon the dark ground of the body, as if it had been
there carefully designed by an artist. While I regarded the terrific
animal, and more especially the appearance on its breast, with a feeling
or horror and awe -- with a sentiment of forthcoming evil, which I found
it impossible to quell by any effort of the reason, I perceived the huge
jaws at the extremity of the proboscis suddenly expand themselves, and
from them there proceeded a sound so loud and so expressive of wo, that it
struck upon my nerves like a knell and as the monster disappeared at the
foot of the hill, I fell at once, fainting, to the floor.
Upon recovering, my first impulse, of course, was to inform my friend of
what I had seen and heard -- and I can scarcely explain what feeling of
repugnance it was which, in the end, operated to prevent me.
At length, one evening, some three or four days after the occurrence, we
were sitting together in the room in which I had seen the apparition -- I
occupying the same seat at the same window, and he lounging on a sofa near
at hand. The association of the place and time impelled me to give him an
account of the phenomenon. He heard me to the end -- at first laughed
heartily -- and then lapsed into an excessively grave demeanor, as if my
insanity was a thing beyond suspicion. At this instant I again had a
distinct view of the monster- to which, with a shout of absolute terror, I
now directed his attention. He looked eagerly -- but maintained that he
saw nothing- although I designated minutely the course of the creature, as
it made its way down the naked face of the hill.
I was now immeasurably alarmed, for I considered the vision either as an
omen of my death, or, worse, as the fore-runner of an attack of mania. I
threw myself passionately back in my chair, and for some moments buried my
face in my hands. When I uncovered my eyes, the apparition was no longer
apparent.
My host, however, had in some degree resumed the calmness of his demeanor,
and questioned me very rigorously in respect to the conformation of the
visionary creature. When I had fully satisfied him on this head, he sighed
deeply, as if relieved of some intolerable burden, and went on to talk,
with what I thought a cruel calmness, of various points of speculative
philosophy, which had heretofore formed subject of discussion between us.
I remember his insisting very especially (among other things) upon the
idea that the principle source of error in all human investigations lay in
the liability of the understanding to under-rate or to over-value the
importance of an object, through mere mis-admeasurement of its
propinquity. "To estimate properly, for example," he said, "the influence
to be exercised on mankind at large by the thorough diffusion of
Democracy, the distance of the epoch at which such diffusion may possibly
be accomplished should not fail to form an item in the estimate. Yet can
you tell me one writer on the subject of government who has ever thought
this particular branch of the subject worthy of discussion at all?"
He here paused for a moment, stepped to a book-case, and brought forth one
of the ordinary synopses of Natural History. Requesting me then to
exchange seats with him, that he might the better distinguish the fine
print of the volume, he took my armchair at the window, and, opening the
book, resumed his discourse very much in the same tone as before.
"But for your exceeding minuteness," he said, "in describing the monster,
I might never have had it in my power to demonstrate to you what it was.
In the first place, let me read to you a schoolboy account of the genus
Sphinx, of the family Crepuscularia of the order Lepidoptera, of the class
of Insecta -- or insects. The account runs thus:
"'Four membranous wings covered with little colored scales of metallic
appearance; mouth forming a rolled proboscis, produced by an elongation of
the jaws, upon the sides of which are found the rudiments of mandibles and
downy palpi; the inferior wings retained to the superior by a stiff hair;
antennae in the form of an elongated club, prismatic; abdomen pointed, The
Death's -- headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar, at
times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters, and the insignia of
death which it wears upon its corslet.'"
He here closed the book and leaned forward in the chair, placing himself
accurately in the position which I had occupied at the moment of beholding
"the monster."
"Ah, here it is," he presently exclaimed -- "it is reascending the face of
the hill, and a very remarkable looking creature I admit it to be. Still,
it is by no means so large or so distant as you imagined it, -- for the
fact is that, as it wriggles its way up this thread, which some spider has
wrought along the window-sash, I find it to be about the sixteenth of an
inch in its extreme length, and also about the sixteenth of an inch
distant from the pupil of my eye."
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
HOP-FROG
I NEVER knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He
seemed to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and
to tell it well, was the surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that
his seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers.
They all took after the king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as
well as inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether
there is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never
been quite able to determine; but certain it is that a lean joker is a
rara avis in terris.
About the refinements, or, as he called them, the 'ghost' of wit, the king
troubled himself very little. He had an especial admiration for breadth in
a jest, and would often put up with length, for the sake of it.
Over-niceties wearied him. He would have preferred Rabelais' 'Gargantua'
to the 'Zadig' of Voltaire: and, upon the whole, practical jokes suited
his taste far better than verbal ones.
At the date of my narrative, professing jesters had not altogether gone
out of fashion at court. Several of the great continental 'powers' still
retain their 'fools,' who wore motley, with caps and bells, and who were
expected to be always ready with sharp witticisms, at a moment's notice,
in consideration of the crumbs that fell from the royal table.
Our king, as a matter of course, retained his 'fool.' The fact is, he
required something in the way of folly -- if only to counterbalance the
heavy wisdom of the seven wise men who were his ministers -- not to
mention himself.
His fool, or professional jester, was not only a fool, however. His value
was trebled in the eyes of the king, by the fact of his being also a dwarf
and a cripple. Dwarfs were as common at court, in those days, as fools;
and many monarchs would have found it difficult to get through their days
(days are rather longer at court than elsewhere) without both a jester to
laugh with, and a dwarf to laugh at. But, as I have already observed, your
jesters, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, are fat, round, and
unwieldy -- so that it was no small source of self-gratulation with our
king that, in Hop-Frog (this was the fool's name), he possessed a
triplicate treasure in one person.
I believe the name 'Hop-Frog' was not that given to the dwarf by his
sponsors at baptism, but it was conferred upon him, by general consent of
the several ministers, on account of his inability to walk as other men
do. In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional
gait -- something between a leap and a wriggle -- a movement that afforded
illimitable amusement, and of course consolation, to the king, for
(notwithstanding the protuberance of his stomach and a constitutional
swelling of the head) the king, by his whole court, was accounted a
capital figure.
But although Hop-Frog, through the distortion of his legs, could move only
with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the prodigious
muscular power which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his arms, by way
of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled him to perform
many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question,
or any thing else to climb. At such exercises he certainly much more
resembled a squirrel, or a small monkey, than a frog.
I am not able to say, with precision, from what country Hop-Frog
originally came. It was from some barbarous region, however, that no
person ever heard of -- a vast distance from the court of our king.
Hop-Frog, and a young girl very little less dwarfish than himself
(although of exquisite proportions, and a marvellous dancer), had been
forcibly carried off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces,
and sent as presents to the king, by one of his ever-victorious generals.
Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that a close
intimacy arose between the two little captives. Indeed, they soon became
sworn friends. Hop-Frog, who, although he made a great deal of sport, was
by no means popular, had it not in his power to render Trippetta many
services; but she, on account of her grace and exquisite beauty (although
a dwarf), was universally admired and petted; so she possessed much
influence; and never failed to use it, whenever she could, for the benefit
of Hop-Frog.
On some grand state occasion -- I forgot what -- the king determined to
have a masquerade, and whenever a masquerade or any thing of that kind,
occurred at our court, then the talents, both of Hop-Frog and Trippetta
were sure to be called into play. Hop-Frog, in especial, was so inventive
in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters, and
arranging costumes, for masked balls, that nothing could be done, it
seems, without his assistance.
The night appointed for the fete had arrived. A gorgeous hall had been
fitted up, under Trippetta's eye, with every kind of device which could
possibly give eclat to a masquerade. The whole court was in a fever of
expectation. As for costumes and characters, it might well be supposed
that everybody had come to a decision on such points. Many had made up
their minds (as to what roles they should assume) a week, or even a month,
in advance; and, in fact, there was not a particle of indecision anywhere
-- except in the case of the king and his seven minsters. Why they
hesitated I never could tell, unless they did it by way of a joke. More
probably, they found it difficult, on account of being so fat, to make up
their minds. At all events, time flew; and, as a last resort they sent for
Trippetta and Hop-Frog.
When the two little friends obeyed the summons of the king they found him
sitting at his wine with the seven members of his cabinet council; but the
monarch appeared to be in a very ill humor. He knew that Hop-Frog was not
fond of wine, for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness; and
madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his practical jokes,
and took pleasure in forcing Hop-Frog to drink and (as the king called it)
'to be merry.'
"Come here, Hop-Frog," said he, as the jester and his friend entered the
room; "swallow this bumper to the health of your absent friends, [here
Hop-Frog sighed,] and then let us have the benefit of your invention. We
want characters -- characters, man -- something novel -- out of the way.
We are wearied with this everlasting sameness. Come, drink! the wine will
brighten your wits."
Hop-Frog endeavored, as usual, to get up a jest in reply to these advances
from the king; but the effort was too much. It happened to be the poor
dwarf's birthday, and the command to drink to his 'absent friends' forced
the tears to his eyes. Many large, bitter drops fell into the goblet as he
took it, humbly, from the hand of the tyrant.
"Ah! ha! ha!" roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly drained the
beaker. -- "See what a glass of good wine can do! Why, your eyes are
shining already!"
Poor fellow! his large eyes gleamed, rather than shone; for the effect of
wine on his excitable brain was not more powerful than instantaneous. He
placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked round upon the
company with a half -- insane stare. They all seemed highly amused at the
success of the king's 'joke.'
"And now to business," said the prime minister, a very fat man.
"Yes," said the King; "Come lend us your assistance. Characters, my fine
fellow; we stand in need of characters -- all of us -- ha! ha! ha!" and as
this was seriously meant for a joke, his laugh was chorused by the seven.
Hop-Frog also laughed although feebly and somewhat vacantly.
"Come, come," said the king, impatiently, "have you nothing to suggest?"
"I am endeavoring to think of something novel," replied the dwarf,
abstractedly, for he was quite bewildered by the wine.
"Endeavoring!" cried the tyrant, fiercely; "what do you mean by that? Ah,
I perceive. You are Sulky, and want more wine. Here, drink this!" and he
poured out another goblet full and offered it to the cripple, who merely
gazed at it, gasping for breath.
"Drink, I say!" shouted the monster, "or by the fiends-"
The dwarf hesitated. The king grew purple with rage. The courtiers
smirked. Trippetta, pale as a corpse, advanced to the monarch's seat, and,
falling on her knees before him, implored him to spare her friend.
The tyrant regarded her, for some moments, in evident wonder at her
audacity. He seemed quite at a loss what to do or say -- how most
becomingly to express his indignation. At last, without uttering a
syllable, he pushed her violently from him, and threw the contents of the
brimming goblet in her face.
The poor girl got up the best she could, and, not daring even to sigh,
resumed her position at the foot of the table.
There was a dead silence for about half a minute, during which the falling
of a leaf, or of a feather, might have been heard. It was interrupted by a
low, but harsh and protracted grating sound which seemed to come at once
from every corner of the room.
"What -- what -- what are you making that noise for?" demanded the king,
turning furiously to the dwarf.
The latter seemed to have recovered, in great measure, from his
intoxication, and looking fixedly but quietly into the tyrant's face,
merely ejaculated:
"I -- I? How could it have been me?"
"The sound appeared to come from without," observed one of the courtiers.
"I fancy it was the parrot at the window, whetting his bill upon his
cage-wires."
"True," replied the monarch, as if much relieved by the suggestion; "but,
on the honor of a knight, I could have sworn that it was the gritting of
this vagabond's teeth."
Hereupon the dwarf laughed (the king was too confirmed a joker to object
to any one's laughing), and displayed a set of large, powerful, and very
repulsive teeth. Moreover, he avowed his perfect willingness to swallow as
much wine as desired. The monarch was pacified; and having drained another
bumper with no very perceptible ill effect, Hop-Frog entered at once, and
with spirit, into the plans for the masquerade.
"I cannot tell what was the association of idea," observed he, very
tranquilly, and as if he had never tasted wine in his life, "but just
after your majesty, had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face --
just after your majesty had done this, and while the parrot was making
that odd noise outside the window, there came into my mind a capital
diversion -- one of my own country frolics -- often enacted among us, at
our masquerades: but here it will be new altogether. Unfortunately,
however, it requires a company of eight persons and-"
"Here we are!" cried the king, laughing at his acute discovery of the
coincidence; "eight to a fraction -- I and my seven ministers. Come! what
is the diversion?"
"We call it," replied the cripple, "the Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs, and
it really is excellent sport if well enacted."
"We will enact it," remarked the king, drawing himself up, and lowering
his eyelids.
"The beauty of the game," continued Hop-Frog, "lies in the fright it
occasions among the women."
"Capital!" roared in chorus the monarch and his ministry.
"I will equip you as ourang-outangs," proceeded the dwarf; "leave all that
to me. The resemblance shall be so striking, that the company of
masqueraders will take you for real beasts -- and of course, they will be
as much terrified as astonished."
"Oh, this is exquisite!" exclaimed the king. "Hop-Frog! I will make a man
of you."
"The chains are for the purpose of increasing the confusion by their
jangling. You are supposed to have escaped, en masse, from your keepers.
Your majesty cannot conceive the effect produced, at a masquerade, by
eight chained ourang-outangs, imagined to be real ones by most of the
company; and rushing in with savage cries, among the crowd of delicately
and gorgeously habited men and women. The contrast is inimitable!"
"It must be," said the king: and the council arose hurriedly (as it was
growing late), to put in execution the scheme of Hop-Frog.
His mode of equipping the party as ourang-outangs was very simple, but
effective enough for his purposes. The animals in question had, at the
epoch of my story, very rarely been seen in any part of the civilized
world; and as the imitations made by the dwarf were sufficiently
beast-like and more than sufficiently hideous, their truthfulness to
nature was thus thought to be secured.
The king and his ministers were first encased in tight-fitting stockinet
shirts and drawers. They were then saturated with tar. At this stage of
the process, some one of the party suggested feathers; but the suggestion
was at once overruled by the dwarf, who soon convinced the eight, by
ocular demonstration, that the hair of such a brute as the ourang-outang
was much more efficiently represented by flu. A thick coating of the
latter was accordingly plastered upon the coating of tar. A long chain was
now procured. First, it was passed about the waist of the king, and tied,
then about another of the party, and also tied; then about all
successively, in the same manner. When this chaining arrangement was
complete, and the party stood as far apart from each other as possible,
they formed a circle; and to make all things appear natural, Hop-Frog
passed the residue of the chain in two diameters, at right angles, across
the circle, after the fashion adopted, at the present day, by those who
capture Chimpanzees, or other large apes, in Borneo.
The grand saloon in which the masquerade was to take place, was a circular
room, very lofty, and receiving the light of the sun only through a single
window at top. At night (the season for which the apartment was especially
designed) it was illuminated principally by a large chandelier, depending
by a chain from the centre of the sky-light, and lowered, or elevated, by
means of a counter-balance as usual; but (in order not to look unsightly)
this latter passed outside the cupola and over the roof.
The arrangements of the room had been left to Trippetta's superintendence;
but, in some particulars, it seems, she had been guided by the calmer
judgment of her friend the dwarf. At his suggestion it was that, on this
occasion, the chandelier was removed. Its waxen drippings (which, in
weather so warm, it was quite impossible to prevent) would have been
seriously detrimental to the rich dresses of the guests, who, on account
of the crowded state of the saloon, could not all be expected to keep from
out its centre; that is to say, from under the chandelier. Additional
sconces were set in various parts of the hall, out of the war, and a
flambeau, emitting sweet odor, was placed in the right hand of each of the
Caryaides [Caryatides] that stood against the wall -- some fifty or sixty
altogether.
The eight ourang-outangs, taking Hop-Frog's advice, waited patiently until
midnight (when the room was thoroughly filled with masqueraders) before
making their appearance. No sooner had the clock ceased striking, however,
than they rushed, or rather rolled in, all together -- for the impediments
of their chains caused most of the party to fall, and all to stumble as
they entered.
The excitement among the masqueraders was prodigious, and filled the heart
of the king with glee. As had been anticipated, there were not a few of
the guests who supposed the ferocious-looking creatures to be beasts of
some kind in reality, if not precisely ourang-outangs. Many of the women
swooned with affright; and had not the king taken the precaution to
exclude all weapons from the saloon, his party might soon have expiated
their frolic in their blood. As it was, a general rush was made for the
doors; but the king had ordered them to be locked immediately upon his
entrance; and, at the dwarf's suggestion, the keys had been deposited with
him.
While the tumult was at its height, and each masquerader attentive only to
his own safety (for, in fact, there was much real danger from the pressure
of the excited crowd), the chain by which the chandelier ordinarily hung,
and which had been drawn up on its removal, might have been seen very
gradually to descend, until its hooked extremity came within three feet of
the floor.
Soon after this, the king and his seven friends having reeled about the
hall in all directions, found themselves, at length, in its centre, and,
of course, in immediate contact with the chain. While they were thus
situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels, inciting
them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain at the
intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically
and at right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought, he inserted the
hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend; and, in an
instant, by some unseen agency, the chandelier-chain was drawn so far
upward as to take the hook out of reach, and, as an inevitable
consequence, to drag the ourang-outangs together in close connection, and
face to face.
The masqueraders, by this time, had recovered, in some measure, from their
alarm; and, beginning to regard the whole matter as a well-contrived
pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the predicament of the
apes.
"Leave them to me!" now screamed Hop-Frog, his shrill voice making itself
easily heard through all the din. "Leave them to me. I fancy I know them.
If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who they are."
Here, scrambling over the heads of the crowd, he managed to get to the
wall; when, seizing a flambeau from one of the Caryatides, he returned, as
he went, to the centre of the room-leaping, with the agility of a monkey,
upon the kings head, and thence clambered a few feet up the chain; holding
down the torch to examine the group of ourang-outangs, and still
screaming: "I shall soon find out who they are!"
And now, while the whole assembly (the apes included) were convulsed with
laughter, the jester suddenly uttered a shrill whistle; when the chain
flew violently up for about thirty feet -- dragging with it the dismayed
and struggling ourang-outangs, and leaving them suspended in mid-air
between the sky-light and the floor. Hop-Frog, clinging to the chain as it
rose, still maintained his relative position in respect to the eight
maskers, and still (as if nothing were the matter) continued to thrust his
torch down toward them, as though endeavoring to discover who they were.
So thoroughly astonished was the whole company at this ascent, that a dead
silence, of about a minute's duration, ensued. It was broken by just such
a low, harsh, grating sound, as had before attracted the attention of the
king and his councillors when the former threw the wine in the face of
Trippetta. But, on the present occasion, there could be no question as to
whence the sound issued. It came from the fang -- like teeth of the dwarf,
who ground them and gnashed them as he foamed at the mouth, and glared,
with an expression of maniacal rage, into the upturned countenances of the
king and his seven companions.
"Ah, ha!" said at length the infuriated jester. "Ah, ha! I begin to see
who these people are now!" Here, pretending to scrutinize the king more
closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him, and
which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half a
minute the whole eight ourang-outangs were blazing fiercely, amid the
shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken,
and without the power to render them the slightest assistance.
At length the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the jester
to climb higher up the chain, to be out of their reach; and, as he made
this movement, the crowd again sank, for a brief instant, into silence.
The dwarf seized his opportunity, and once more spoke:
"I now see distinctly." he said, "what manner of people these maskers are.
They are a great king and his seven privy-councillors, -- a king who does
not scruple to strike a defenceless girl and his seven councillors who
abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the jester
-- and this is my last jest."
Owing to the high combustibility of both the flax and the tar to which it
adhered, the dwarf had scarcely made an end of his brief speech before the
work of vengeance was complete. The eight corpses swung in their chains, a
fetid, blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass. The cripple hurled
his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling, and disappeared
through the sky-light.
It is supposed that Trippetta, stationed on the roof of the saloon, had
been the accomplice of her friend in his fiery revenge, and that,
together, they effected their escape to their own country: for neither was
seen again.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE MAN OF THE CROWD.
Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul.
_La Bruyère_.
IT was well said of a certain German book that "_er lasst sich nicht
lesen_" - it does not permit itself to be read. There are some secrets
which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in their beds,
wringing the hands of ghostly confessors and looking them piteously in the
eyes -- die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of
the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be
revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes up a burthen so
heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the grave. And thus
the essence of all crime is undivulged.
Not long ago, about the closing in of an evening in autumn, I sat at
the large bow window of the D---- Coffee-House in London. For some months
I had been ill in health, but was now convalescent, and, with returning
strength, found myself in one of those happy moods which are so precisely
the converse of ennui - moods of the keenest appetency, when the film from
the mental vision departs - the "PL> 0 BDT ,B,L - and the intellect,
electrified, surpasses as greatly its every-day condition, as does the
vivid yet candid reason of Leibnitz, the mad and flimsy rhetoric of
Gorgias. Merely to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived positive pleasure
even from many of the legitimate sources of pain. I felt a calm but
inquisitive interest in every thing. With a cigar in my mouth and a
newspaper in my lap, I had been amusing myself for the greater part of the
afternoon, now in poring over advertisements, now in observing the
promiscuous company in the room, and now in peering through the smoky
panes into the street.
This latter is one of the principal thoroughfares of the city, and had
been very much crowded during the whole day. But, as the darkness came on,
the throng momently increased; and, by the time the lamps were well
lighted, two dense and continuous tides of population were rushing past
the door. At this particular period of the evening I had never before been
in a similar situation, and the tumultuous sea of human heads filled me,
therefore, with a delicious novelty of emotion. I gave up, at length, all
care of things within the hotel, and became absorbed in contemplation of
the scene without.
At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing turn. I looked
at the passengers in masses, and thought of them in their aggregate
relations. Soon, however, I descended to details, and regarded with minute
interest the innumerable varieties of figure, dress, air, gait, visage,
and expression of countenance.
By far the greater number of those who went by had a satisfied
business-like demeanor, and seemed to be thinking only of making their way
through the press. Their brows were knit, and their eyes rolled quickly;
when pushed against by fellow-wayfarers they evinced no symptom of
impatience, but adjusted their clothes and hurried on. Others, still a
numerous class, were restless in their movements, had flushed faces, and
talked and gesticulated to themselves, as if feeling in solitude on
account of the very denseness of the company around. When impeded in their
progress, these people suddenly ceased muttering, but re-doubled their
gesticulations, and awaited, with an absent and overdone smile upon the
lips, the course of the persons impeding them. If jostled, they bowed
profusely to the jostlers, and appeared overwhelmed with confusion. -
There was nothing very distinctive about these two large classes beyond
what I have noted. Their habiliments belonged to that order which is
pointedly termed the decent. They were undoubtedly noblemen, merchants,
attorneys, tradesmen, stock-jobbers - the Eupatrids and the common-places
of society - men of leisure and men actively engaged in affairs of their
own - conducting business upon their own responsibility. They did not
greatly excite my attention.
The tribe of clerks was an obvious one and here I discerned two remarkable
divisions. There were the junior clerks of flash houses - young gentlemen
with tight coats, bright boots, well-oiled hair, and supercilious lips.
Setting aside a certain dapperness of carriage, which may be termed
deskism for want of a better word, the manner of these persons seemed to
me an exact fac-simile of what had been the perfection of bon ton about
twelve or eighteen months before. They wore the cast-off graces of the
gentry; - and this, I believe, involves the best definition of the class.
The division of the upper clerks of staunch firms, or of the "steady old
fellows," it was not possible to mistake. These were known by their coats
and pantaloons of black or brown, made to sit comfortably, with white
cravats and waistcoats, broad solid-looking shoes, and thick hose or
gaiters. - They had all slightly bald heads, from which the right ears,
long used to pen-holding, had an odd habit of standing off on end. I
observed that they always removed or settled their hats with both hands,
and wore watches, with short gold chains of a substantial and ancient
pattern. Theirs was the affectation of respectability; - if indeed there
be an affectation so honorable.
There were many individuals of dashing appearance, whom I easily
understood as belonging to the race of swell pick-pockets with which all
great cities are infested. I watched these gentry with much
inquisitiveness, and found it difficult to imagine how they should ever be
mistaken for gentlemen by gentlemen themselves. Their voluminousness of
wristband, with an air of excessive frankness, should betray them at once.
The gamblers, of whom I descried not a few, were still more easily
recognisable. They wore every variety of dress, from that of the desperate
thimble-rig bully, with velvet waistcoat, fancy neckerchief, gilt chains,
and filagreed buttons, to that of the scrupulously inornate clergyman,
than which nothing could be less liable to suspicion. Still all were
distinguished by a certain sodden swarthiness of complexion, a filmy
dimness of eye, and pallor and compression of lip. There were two other
traits, moreover, by which I could always detect them; - a guarded lowness
of tone in conversation, and a more than ordinary extension of the thumb
in a direction at right angles with the fingers. - Very often, in company
with these sharpers, I observed an order of men somewhat different in
habits, but still birds of a kindred feather. They may be defined as the
gentlemen who live by their wits. They seem to prey upon the public in two
battalions - that of the dandies and that of the military men. Of the
first grade the leading features are long locks and smiles; of the second
frogged coats and frowns.
Descending in the scale of what is termed gentility, I found darker and
deeper themes for speculation. I saw Jew pedlars, with hawk eyes flashing
from countenances whose every other feature wore only an expression of
abject humility; sturdy professional street beggars scowling upon
mendicants of a better stamp, whom despair alone had driven forth into the
night for charity; feeble and ghastly invalids, upon whom death had placed
a sure hand, and who sidled and tottered through the mob, looking every
one beseechingly in the face, as if in search of some chance consolation,
some lost hope; modest young girls returning from long and late labor to a
cheerless home, and shrinking more tearfully than indignantly from the
glances of ruffians, whose direct contact, even, could not be avoided;
women of the town of all kinds and of all ages - the unequivocal beauty in
the prime of her womanhood, putting one in mind of the statue in Lucian,
with the surface of Parian marble, and the interior filled with filth -
the loathsome and utterly lost leper in rags - the wrinkled, bejewelled
and paint-begrimed beldame, making a last effort at youth - the mere child
of immature form, yet, from long association, an adept in the dreadful
coquetries of her trade, and burning with a rabid ambition to be ranked
the equal of her elders in vice; drunkards innumerable and indescribable -
some in shreds and patches, reeling, inarticulate, with bruised visage and
lack-lustre eyes - some in whole although filthy garments, with a slightly
unsteady swagger, thick sensual lips, and hearty-looking rubicund faces -
others clothed in materials which had once been good, and which even now
were scrupulously well brushed - men who walked with a more than naturally
firm and springy step, but whose countenances were fearfully pale, whose
eyes hideously wild and red, and who clutched with quivering fingers, as
they strode through the crowd, at every object which came within their
reach; beside these, pie-men, porters, coal- heavers, sweeps;
organ-grinders, monkey-exhibiters and ballad mongers, those who vended
with those who sang; ragged artizans and exhausted laborers of every
description, and all full of a noisy and inordinate vivacity which jarred
discordantly upon the ear, and gave an aching sensation to the eye.
As the night deepened, so deepened to me the interest of the scene; for
not only did the general character of the crowd materially alter (its
gentler features retiring in the gradual withdrawal of the more orderly
portion of the people, and its harsher ones coming out into bolder relief,
as the late hour brought forth every species of infamy from its den,) but
the rays of the gas-lamps, feeble at first in their struggle with the
dying day, had now at length gained ascendancy, and threw over every thing
a fitful and garish lustre. All was dark yet splendid - as that ebony to
which has been likened the style of Tertullian.
The wild effects of the light enchained me to an examination of individual
faces; and although the rapidity with which the world of light flitted
before the window, prevented me from casting more than a glance upon each
visage, still it seemed that, in my then peculiar mental state, I could
frequently read, even in that brief interval of a glance, the history of
long years.
With my brow to the glass, I was thus occupied in scrutinizing the mob,
when suddenly there came into view a countenance (that of a decrepid old
man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age,) - a countenance which at
once arrested and absorbed my whole attention, on account of the absolute
idiosyncrasy of its expression. Any thing even remotely resembling that
expression I had never seen before. I well remember that my first thought,
upon beholding it, was that Retzch, had he viewed it, would have greatly
preferred it to his own pictural incarnations of the fiend. As I
endeavored, during the brief minute of my original survey, to form some
analysis of the meaning conveyed, there arose confusedly and paradoxically
within my mind, the ideas of vast mental power, of caution, of
penuriousness, of avarice, of coolness, of malice, of blood thirstiness,
of triumph, of merriment, of excessive terror, of intense - of supreme
despair. I felt singularly aroused, startled, fascinated. "How wild a
history," I said to myself, "is written within that bosom!" Then came a
craving desire to keep the man in view - to know more of him. Hurriedly
putting on an overcoat, and seizing my hat and cane, I made my way into
the street, and pushed through the crowd in the direction which I had seen
him take; for he had already disappeared. With some little difficulty I at
length came within sight of him, approached, and followed him closely, yet
cautiously, so as not to attract his attention.
I had now a good opportunity of examining his person. He was short in
stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble. His clothes, generally,
were filthy and ragged; but as he came, now and then, within the strong
glare of a lamp, I perceived that his linen, although dirty, was of
beautiful texture; and my vision deceived me, or, through a rent in a
closely-buttoned and evidently second-handed roquelaire which enveloped
him, I caught a glimpse both of a diamond and of a dagger. These
observations heightened my curiosity, and I resolved to follow the
stranger whithersoever he should go.
It was now fully night-fall, and a thick humid fog hung over the city,
soon ending in a settled and heavy rain. This change of weather had an odd
effect upon the crowd, the whole of which was at once put into new
commotion, and overshadowed by a world of umbrellas. The waver, the
jostle, and the hum increased in a tenfold degree. For my own part I did
not much regard the rain - the lurking of an old fever in my system
rendering the moisture somewhat too dangerously pleasant. Tying a
handkerchief about my mouth, I kept on. For half an hour the old man held
his way with difficulty along the great thoroughfare; and I here walked
close at his elbow through fear of losing sight of him. Never once turning
his head to look back, he did not observe me. By and bye he passed into a
cross street, which, although densely filled with people, was not quite so
much thronged as the main one he had quitted. Here a change in his
demeanor became evident. He walked more slowly and with less object than
before - more hesitatingly. He crossed and re-crossed the way repeatedly
without apparent aim; and the press was still so thick that, at every such
movement, I was obliged to follow him closely. The street was a narrow and
long one, and his course lay within it for nearly an hour, during which
the passengers had gradually diminished to about that number which is
ordinarily seen at noon in Broadway near the Park - so vast a difference
is there between a London populace and that of the most frequented
American city. A second turn brought us into a square, brilliantly
lighted, and overflowing with life. The old manner of the stranger
re-appeared. His chin fell upon his breast, while his eyes rolled wildly
from under his knit brows, in every direction, upon those who hemmed him
in. He urged his way steadily and perseveringly. I was surprised, however,
to find, upon his having made the circuit of the square, that he turned
and retraced his steps. Still more was I astonished to see him repeat the
same walk several times -- once nearly detecting me as he came round with
a sudden movement.
In this exercise he spent another hour, at the end of which we met with
far less interruption from passengers than at first. The rain fell fast;
the air grew cool; and the people were retiring to their homes. With a
gesture of impatience, the wanderer passed into a bye-street comparatively
deserted. Down this, some quarter of a mile long, he rushed with an
activity I could not have dreamed of seeing in one so aged, and which put
me to much trouble in pursuit. A few minutes brought us to a large and
busy bazaar, with the localities of which the stranger appeared well
acquainted, and where his original demeanor again became apparent, as he
forced his way to and fro, without aim, among the host of buyers and
sellers.
During the hour and a half, or thereabouts, which we passed in this place,
it required much caution on my part to keep him within reach without
attracting his observation. Luckily I wore a pair of caoutchouc
over-shoes, and could move about in perfect silence. At no moment did he
see that I watched him. He entered shop after shop, priced nothing, spoke
no word, and looked at all objects with a wild and vacant stare. I was now
utterly amazed at his behavior, and firmly resolved that we should not
part until I had satisfied myself in some measure respecting him.
A loud-toned clock struck eleven, and the company were fast deserting the
bazaar. A shop-keeper, in putting up a shutter, jostled the old man, and
at the instant I saw a strong shudder come over his frame. He hurried into
the street, looked anxiously around him for an instant, and then ran with
incredible swiftness through many crooked and people-less lanes, until we
emerged once more upon the great thoroughfare whence we had started -- the
street of the D---- Hotel. It no longer wore, however, the same aspect. It
was still brilliant with gas; but the rain fell fiercely, and there were
few persons to be seen. The stranger grew pale. He walked moodily some
paces up the once populous avenue, then, with a heavy sigh, turned in the
direction of the river, and, plunging through a great variety of devious
ways, came out, at length, in view of one of the principal theatres. It
was about being closed, and the audience were thronging from the doors. I
saw the old man gasp as if for breath while he threw himself amid the
crowd; but I thought that the intense agony of his countenance had, in
some measure, abated. His head again fell upon his breast; he appeared as
I had seen him at first. I observed that he now took the course in which
had gone the greater number of the audience - but, upon the whole, I was
at a loss to comprehend the waywardness of his actions.
As he proceeded, the company grew more scattered, and his old uneasiness
and vacillation were resumed. For some time he followed closely a party of
some ten or twelve roisterers; but from this number one by one dropped
off, until three only remained together, in a narrow and gloomy lane
little frequented. The stranger paused, and, for a moment, seemed lost in
thought; then, with every mark of agitation, pursued rapidly a route which
brought us to the verge of the city, amid regions very different from
those we had hitherto traversed. It was the most noisome quarter of
London, where every thing wore the worst impress of the most deplorable
poverty, and of the most desperate crime. By the dim light of an
accidental lamp, tall, antique, worm-eaten, wooden tenements were seen
tottering to their fall, in directions so many and capricious that scarce
the semblance of a passage was discernible between them. The paving-stones
lay at random, displaced from their beds by the rankly-growing grass.
Horrible filth festered in the dammed-up gutters. The whole atmosphere
teemed with desolation. Yet, as we proceeded, the sounds of human life
revived by sure degrees, and at length large bands of the most abandoned
of a London populace were seen reeling to and fro. The spirits of the old
man again flickered up, as a lamp which is near its death hour. Once more
he strode onward with elastic tread. Suddenly a corner was turned, a blaze
of light burst upon our sight, and we stood before one of the huge
suburban temples of Intemperance - one of the palaces of the fiend, Gin.
It was now nearly day-break; but a number of wretched inebriates still
pressed in and out of the flaunting entrance. With a half shriek of joy
the old man forced a passage within, resumed at once his original bearing,
and stalked backward and forward, without apparent object, among the
throng. He had not been thus long occupied, however, before a rush to the
doors gave token that the host was closing them for the night. It was
something even more intense than despair that I then observed upon the
countenance of the singular being whom I had watched so pertinaciously.
Yet he did not hesitate in his career, but, with a mad energy, retraced
his steps at once, to the heart of the mighty London. Long and swiftly he
fled, while I followed him in the wildest amazement, resolute not to
abandon a scrutiny in which I now felt an interest all-absorbing. The sun
arose while we proceeded, and, when we had once again reached that most
thronged mart of the populous town, the street of the D---- Hotel, it
presented an appearance of human bustle and activity scarcely inferior to
what I had seen on the evening before. And here, long, amid the momently
increasing confusion, did I persist in my pursuit of the stranger. But, as
usual, he walked to and fro, and during the day did not pass from out the
turmoil of that street. And, as the shades of the second evening came on,
I grew wearied unto death, and, stopping fully in front of the wanderer,
gazed at him steadfastly in the face. He noticed me not, but resumed his
solemn walk, while I, ceasing to follow, remained absorbed in
contemplation. "This old man," I said at length, "is the type and the
genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone. [page 228:] He is the man of
the crowd. It will be in vain to follow; for I shall learn no more of him,
nor of his deeds. The worst heart of the world is a grosser book than the
'Hortulus Animæ,' {*1} and perhaps it is but one of the great mercies of
God that 'er lasst sich nicht lesen.' "
{*1} The "_Hortulus Animæ cum Oratiunculis Aliquibus Superadditis_" of
Grünninger
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
Never Bet the Devil Your Head
A Tale With a Moral.
"_CON tal que las costumbres de un autor_," says Don Thomas de las Torres,
in the preface to his "Amatory Poems" _"sean puras y castas, importo muy
poco que no sean igualmente severas sus obras"_ -- meaning, in plain
English, that, provided the morals of an author are pure personally, it
signifies nothing what are the morals of his books. We presume that Don
Thomas is now in Purgatory for the assertion. It would be a clever thing,
too, in the way of poetical justice, to keep him there until his "Amatory
Poems" get out of print, or are laid definitely upon the shelf through
lack of readers. Every fiction should have a moral; and, what is more to
the purpose, the critics have discovered that every fiction has. Philip
Melanchthon, some time ago, wrote a commentary upon the
"Batrachomyomachia," and proved that the poet's object was to excite a
distaste for sedition. Pierre la Seine, going a step farther, shows that
the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and
drinking. Just so, too, Jacobus Hugo has satisfied himself that, by
Euenis, Homer meant to insinuate John Calvin; by Antinous, Martin Luther;
by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general; and, by the Harpies, the Dutch.
Our more modern Scholiasts are equally acute. These fellows demonstrate a
hidden meaning in "The Antediluvians," a parable in Powhatan," new views
in "Cock Robin," and transcendentalism in "Hop O' My Thumb." In short, it
has been shown that no man can sit down to write without a very profound
design. Thus to authors in general much trouble is spared. A novelist, for
example, need have no care of his moral. It is there -- that is to say, it
is somewhere -- and the moral and the critics can take care of themselves.
When the proper time arrives, all that the gentleman intended, and all
that he did not intend, will be brought to light, in the "Dial," or the
"Down-Easter," together with all that he ought to have intended, and the
rest that he clearly meant to intend: -- so that it will all come very
straight in the end.
There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by
certain ignoramuses -- that I have never written a moral tale, or, in more
precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics predestined
to bring me out, and develop my morals: -- that is the secret. By and by
the "North American Quarterly Humdrum" will make them ashamed of their
stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution -- by way of
mitigating the accusations against me -- I offer the sad history appended,
-- a history about whose obvious moral there can be no question whatever,
since he who runs may read it in the large capitals which form the title
of the tale. I should have credit for this arrangement -- a far wiser one
than that of La Fontaine and others, who reserve the impression to be
conveyed until the last moment, and thus sneak it in at the fag end of
their fables.
Defuncti injuria ne afficiantur was a law of the twelve tables, and De
mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction -- even if the dead in
question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design, therefore,
to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad dog, it is
true, and a dog's death it was that he died; but he himself was not to
blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in his mother. She
did her best in the way of flogging him while an infant -- for duties to
her well -- regulated mind were always pleasures, and babies, like tough
steaks, or the modern Greek olive trees, are invariably the better for
beating -- but, poor woman! she had the misfortune to be left-handed, and
a child flogged left-handedly had better be left unflogged. The world
revolves from right to left. It will not do to whip a baby from left to
right. If each blow in the proper direction drives an evil propensity out,
it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks its quota of
wickedness in. I was often present at Toby's chastisements, and, even by
the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was getting worse and
worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in my eyes, that there
was no hope of the villain at all, and one day when he had been cuffed
until he grew so black in the face that one might have mistaken him for a
little African, and no effect had been produced beyond that of making him
wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand it no longer, but went down upon
my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my voice, made prophecy of his ruin.
The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months of age he
used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At six
months, I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At seven months he was in
the constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies. At eight
months he peremptorily refused to put his signature to the Temperance
pledge. Thus he went on increasing in iniquity, month after month, until,
at the close of the first year, he not only insisted upon wearing
moustaches, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and
for backing his assertions by bets.
Through this latter most ungentlemanly practice, the ruin which I had
predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The fashion had "grown with
his growth and strengthened with his strength," so that, when he came to
be a man, he could scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding it with
a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually laid wagers -- no. I will do
my friend the justice to say that he would as soon have laid eggs. With
him the thing was a mere formula -- nothing more. His expressions on this
head had no meaning attached to them whatever. They were simple if not
altogether innocent expletives -- imaginative phrases wherewith to round
off a sentence. When he said "I'll bet you so and so," nobody ever thought
of taking him up; but still I could not help thinking it my duty to put
him down. The habit was an immoral one, and so I told him. It was a vulgar
one- this I begged him to believe. It was discountenanced by society --
here I said nothing but the truth. It was forbidden by act of Congress --
here I had not the slightest intention of telling a lie. I remonstrated --
but to no purpose. I demonstrated -- in vain. I entreated -- he smiled. I
implored -- he laughed. I preached- he sneered. I threatened -- he swore.
I kicked him -- he called for the police. I pulled his nose -- he blew it,
and offered to bet the Devil his head that I would not venture to try that
experiment again.
Poverty was another vice which the peculiar physical deficiency of
Dammit's mother had entailed upon her son. He was detestably poor, and
this was the reason, no doubt, that his expletive expressions about
betting, seldom took a pecuniary turn. I will not be bound to say that I
ever heard him make use of such a figure of speech as "I'll bet you a
dollar." It was usually "I'll bet you what you please," or "I'll bet you
what you dare," or "I'll bet you a trifle," or else, more significantly
still, "I'll bet the Devil my head."
This latter form seemed to please him best; -- perhaps because it involved
the least risk; for Dammit had become excessively parsimonious. Had any
one taken him up, his head was small, and thus his loss would have been
small too. But these are my own reflections and I am by no means sure that
I am right in attributing them to him. At all events the phrase in
question grew daily in favor, notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a
man betting his brains like bank-notes: -- but this was a point which my
friend's perversity of disposition would not permit him to comprehend. In
the end, he abandoned all other forms of wager, and gave himself up to
"I'll bet the Devil my head," with a pertinacity and exclusiveness of
devotion that displeased not less than it surprised me. I am always
displeased by circumstances for which I cannot account. Mysteries force a
man to think, and so injure his health. The truth is, there was something
in the air with which Mr. Dammit was wont to give utterance to his
offensive expression -- something in his manner of enunciation -- which at
first interested, and afterwards made me very uneasy -- something which,
for want of a more definite term at present, I must be permitted to call
queer; but which Mr. Coleridge would have called mystical, Mr. Kant
pantheistical, Mr. Carlyle twistical, and Mr. Emerson hyperquizzitistical.
I began not to like it at all. Mr. Dammits soul was in a perilous state. I
resolved to bring all my eloquence into play to save it. I vowed to serve
him as St. Patrick, in the Irish chronicle, is said to have served the
toad, -- that is to say, "awaken him to a sense of his situation." I
addressed myself to the task forthwith. Once more I betook myself to
remonstrance. Again I collected my energies for a final attempt at
expostulation.
When I had made an end of my lecture, Mr. Dammit indulged himself in some
very equivocal behavior. For some moments he remained silent, merely
looking me inquisitively in the face. But presently he threw his head to
one side, and elevated his eyebrows to a great extent. Then he spread out
the palms of his hands and shrugged up his shoulders. Then he winked with
the right eye. Then he repeated the operation with the left. Then he shut
them both up very tight. Then he opened them both so very wide that I
became seriously alarmed for the consequences. Then, applying his thumb to
his nose, he thought proper to make an indescribable movement with the
rest of his fingers. Finally, setting his arms a-kimbo, he condescended to
reply.
I can call to mind only the beads of his discourse. He would be obliged to
me if I would hold my tongue. He wished none of my advice. He despised all
my insinuations. He was old enough to take care of himself. Did I still
think him baby Dammit? Did I mean to say any thing against his character?
Did I intend to insult him? Was I a fool? Was my maternal parent aware, in
a word, of my absence from the domiciliary residence? He would put this
latter question to me as to a man of veracity, and he would bind himself
to abide by my reply. Once more he would demand explicitly if my mother
knew that I was out. My confusion, he said, betrayed me, and he would be
willing to bet the Devil his head that she did not.
Mr. Dammit did not pause for my rejoinder. Turning upon his heel, he left
my presence with undignified precipitation. It was well for him that he
did so. My feelings had been wounded. Even my anger had been aroused. For
once I would have taken him up upon his insulting wager. I would have won
for the Arch-Enemy Mr. Dammit's little head -- for the fact is, my mamma
was very well aware of my merely temporary absence from home.
But Khoda shefa midêhed -- Heaven gives relief -- as the Mussulmans say
when you tread upon their toes. It was in pursuance of my duty that I had
been insulted, and I bore the insult like a man. It now seemed to me,
however, that I had done all that could be required of me, in the case of
this miserable individual, and I resolved to trouble him no longer with my
counsel, but to leave him to his conscience and himself. But although I
forebore to intrude with my advice, I could not bring myself to give up
his society altogether. I even went so far as to humor some of his less
reprehensible propensities; and there were times when I found myself
lauding his wicked jokes, as epicures do mustard, with tears in my eyes:
-- so profoundly did it grieve me to hear his evil talk.
One fine day, having strolled out together, arm in arm, our route led us
in the direction of a river. There was a bridge, and we resolved to cross
it. It was roofed over, by way of protection from the weather, and the
archway, having but few windows, was thus very uncomfortably dark. As we
entered the passage, the contrast between the external glare and the
interior gloom struck heavily upon my spirits. Not so upon those of the
unhappy Dammit, who offered to bet the Devil his head that I was hipped.
He seemed to be in an unusual good humor. He was excessively lively -- so
much so that I entertained I know not what of uneasy suspicion. It is not
impossible that he was affected with the transcendentals. I am not well
enough versed, however, in the diagnosis of this disease to speak with
decision upon the point; and unhappily there were none of my friends of
the "Dial" present. I suggest the idea, nevertheless, because of a certain
species of austere Merry-Andrewism which seemed to beset my poor friend,
and caused him to make quite a Tom-Fool of himself. Nothing would serve
him but wriggling and skipping about under and over every thing that came
in his way; now shouting out, and now lisping out, all manner of odd
little and big words, yet preserving the gravest face in the world all the
time. I really could not make up my mind whether to kick or to pity him.
At length, having passed nearly across the bridge, we approached the
termination of the footway, when our progress was impeded by a turnstile
of some height. Through this I made my way quietly, pushing it around as
usual. But this turn would not serve the turn of Mr. Dammit. He insisted
upon leaping the stile, and said he could cut a pigeon-wing over it in the
air. Now this, conscientiously speaking, I did not think he could do. The
best pigeon-winger over all kinds of style was my friend Mr. Carlyle, and
as I knew he could not do it, I would not believe that it could be done by
Toby Dammit. I therefore told him, in so many words, that he was a
braggadocio, and could not do what he said. For this I had reason to be
sorry afterward; -- for he straightway offered to bet the Devil his head
that he could.
I was about to reply, notwithstanding my previous resolutions, with some
remonstrance against his impiety, when I heard, close at my elbow, a
slight cough, which sounded very much like the ejaculation "ahem!" I
started, and looked about me in surprise. My glance at length fell into a
nook of the frame -- work of the bridge, and upon the figure of a little
lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be more reverend
than his whole appearance; for he not only had on a full suit of black,
but his shirt was perfectly clean and the collar turned very neatly down
over a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a girl's. His
hands were clasped pensively together over his stomach, and his two eyes
were carefully rolled up into the top of his head.
Upon observing him more closely, I perceived that he wore a black silk
apron over his small-clothes; and this was a thing which I thought very
odd. Before I had time to make any remark, however, upon so singular a
circumstance, he interrupted me with a second "ahem!"
To this observation I was not immediately prepared to reply. The fact is,
remarks of this laconic nature are nearly unanswerable. I have known a
Quarterly Review non-plussed by the word "Fudge!" I am not ashamed to say,
therefore, that I turned to Mr. Dammit for assistance.
"Dammit," said I, "what are you about? don't you hear? -- the gentleman
says 'ahem!'" I looked sternly at my friend while I thus addressed him;
for, to say the truth, I felt particularly puzzled, and when a man is
particularly puzzled he must knit his brows and look savage, or else he is
pretty sure to look like a fool.
"Dammit," observed I -- although this sounded very much like an oath, than
which nothing was further from my thoughts -- "Dammit," I suggested --
"the gentleman says 'ahem!'"
I do not attempt to defend my remark on the score of profundity; I did not
think it profound myself; but I have noticed that the effect of our
speeches is not always proportionate with their importance in our own
eyes; and if I had shot Mr. D. through and through with a Paixhan bomb, or
knocked him in the head with the "Poets and Poetry of America," he could
hardly have been more discomfited than when I addressed him with those
simple words: "Dammit, what are you about?- don't you hear? -- the
gentleman says 'ahem!'"
"You don't say so?" gasped he at length, after turning more colors than a
pirate runs up, one after the other, when chased by a man-of-war. "Are you
quite sure he said that? Well, at all events I am in for it now, and may
as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes, then -- ahem!"
At this the little old gentleman seemed pleased -- God only knows why. He
left his station at the nook of the bridge, limped forward with a gracious
air, took Dammit by the hand and shook it cordially, looking all the while
straight up in his face with an air of the most unadulterated benignity
which it is possible for the mind of man to imagine.
"I am quite sure you will win it, Dammit," said he, with the frankest of
all smiles, "but we are obliged to have a trial, you know, for the sake of
mere form."
"Ahem!" replied my friend, taking off his coat, with a deep sigh, tying a
pocket-handkerchief around his waist, and producing an unaccountable
alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes and bringing down
the corners of his mouth -- "ahem!" And "ahem!" said he again, after a
pause; and not another word more than "ahem!" did I ever know him to say
after that. "Aha!" thought I, without expressing myself aloud -- "this is
quite a remarkable silence on the part of Toby Dammit, and is no doubt a
consequence of his verbosity upon a previous occasion. One extreme induces
another. I wonder if he has forgotten the many unanswerable questions
which he propounded to me so fluently on the day when I gave him my last
lecture? At all events, he is cured of the transcendentals."
"Ahem!" here replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my thoughts, and
looking like a very old sheep in a revery.
The old gentleman now took him by the arm, and led him more into the shade
of the bridge -- a few paces back from the turnstile. "My good fellow,"
said he, "I make it a point of conscience to allow you this much run. Wait
here, till I take my place by the stile, so that I may see whether you go
over it handsomely, and transcendentally, and don't omit any flourishes of
the pigeon-wing. A mere form, you know. I will say 'one, two, three, and
away.' Mind you, start at the word 'away'" Here he took his position by
the stile, paused a moment as if in profound reflection, then looked up
and, I thought, smiled very slightly, then tightened the strings of his
apron, then took a long look at Dammit, and finally gave the word as
agreed upon-
_One -- two -- three -- and -- away!_
Punctually at the word "away," my poor friend set off in a strong gallop.
The stile was not very high, like Mr. Lord's -- nor yet very low, like
that of Mr. Lord's reviewers, but upon the whole I made sure that he would
clear it. And then what if he did not? -- ah, that was the question --
what if he did not? "What right," said I, "had the old gentleman to make
any other gentleman jump? The little old dot-and-carry-one! who is he? If
he asks me to jump, I won't do it, that's flat, and I don't care who the
devil he is." The bridge, as I say, was arched and covered in, in a very
ridiculous manner, and there was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all
times -- an echo which I never before so particularly observed as when I
uttered the four last words of my remark.
But what I said, or what I thought, or what I heard, occupied only an
instant. In less than five seconds from his starting, my poor Toby had
taken the leap. I saw him run nimbly, and spring grandly from the floor of
the bridge, cutting the most awful flourishes with his legs as he went up.
I saw him high in the air, pigeon-winging it to admiration just over the
top of the stile; and of course I thought it an unusually singular thing
that he did not continue to go over. But the whole leap was the affair of
a moment, and, before I had a chance to make any profound reflections,
down came Mr. Dammit on the flat of his back, on the same side of the
stile from which he had started. At the same instant I saw the old
gentleman limping off at the top of his speed, having caught and wrapt up
in his apron something that fell heavily into it from the darkness of the
arch just over the turnstile. At all this I was much astonished; but I had
no leisure to think, for Dammit lay particularly still, and I concluded
that his feelings had been hurt, and that he stood in need of my
assistance. I hurried up to him and found that he had received what might
be termed a serious injury. The truth is, he had been deprived of his
head, which after a close search I could not find anywhere; so I
determined to take him home and send for the homoeopathists. In the
meantime a thought struck me, and I threw open an adjacent window of the
bridge, when the sad truth flashed upon me at once. About five feet just
above the top of the turnstile, and crossing the arch of the foot-path so
as to constitute a brace, there extended a flat iron bar, lying with its
breadth horizontally, and forming one of a series that served to
strengthen the structure throughout its extent. With the edge of this
brace it appeared evident that the neck of my unfortunate friend had come
precisely in contact.
He did not long survive his terrible loss. The homoeopathists did not give
him little enough physic, and what little they did give him he hesitated
to take. So in the end he grew worse, and at length died, a lesson to all
riotous livers. I bedewed his grave with my tears, worked a bar sinister
on his family escutcheon, and, for the general expenses of his funeral,
sent in my very moderate bill to the transcendentalists. The scoundrels
refused to pay it, so I had Mr. Dammit dug up at once, and sold him for
dog's meat.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THOU ART THE MAN
I WILL now play the Oedipus to the Rattleborough enigma. I will expound to
you -- as I alone can -- the secret of the enginery that effected the
Rattleborough miracle -- the one, the true, the admitted, the undisputed,
the indisputable miracle, which put a definite end to infidelity among the
Rattleburghers and converted to the orthodoxy of the grandames all the
carnal-minded who had ventured to be sceptical before.
This event -- which I should be sorry to discuss in a tone of unsuitable
levity -- occurred in the summer of 18--. Mr. Barnabas Shuttleworthy --
one of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens of the borough -- had
been missing for several days under circumstances which gave rise to
suspicion of foul play. Mr. Shuttleworthy had set out from Rattleborough
very early one Saturday morning, on horseback, with the avowed intention
of proceeding to the city of-, about fifteen miles distant, and of
returning the night of the same day. Two hours after his departure,
however, his horse returned without him, and without the saddle-bags which
had been strapped on his back at starting. The animal was wounded, too,
and covered with mud. These circumstances naturally gave rise to much
alarm among the friends of the missing man; and when it was found, on
Sunday morning, that he had not yet made his appearance, the whole borough
arose en masse to go and look for his body.
The foremost and most energetic in instituting this search was the bosom
friend of Mr. Shuttleworthy -- a Mr. Charles Goodfellow, or, as he was
universally called, "Charley Goodfellow," or "Old Charley Goodfellow."
Now, whether it is a marvellous coincidence, or whether it is that the
name itself has an imperceptible effect upon the character, I have never
yet been able to ascertain; but the fact is unquestionable, that there
never yet was any person named Charles who was not an open, manly, honest,
good-natured, and frank-hearted fellow, with a rich, clear voice, that did
you good to hear it, and an eye that looked you always straight in the
face, as much as to say: "I have a clear conscience myself, am afraid of
no man, and am altogether above doing a mean action." And thus all the
hearty, careless, "walking gentlemen" of the stage are very certain to be
called Charles.
Now, "Old Charley Goodfellow," although he had been in Rattleborough not
longer than six months or thereabouts, and although nobody knew any thing
about him before he came to settle in the neighborhood, had experienced no
difficulty in the world in making the acquaintance of all the respectable
people in the borough. Not a man of them but would have taken his bare
word for a thousand at any moment; and as for the women, there is no
saying what they would not have done to oblige him. And all this came of
his having been christened Charles, and of his possessing, in consequence,
that ingenuous face which is proverbially the very "best letter of
recommendation."
I have already said that Mr. Shuttleworthy was one of the most respectable
and, undoubtedly, he was the most wealthy man in Rattleborough, while "Old
Charley Goodfellow" was upon as intimate terms with him as if he had been
his own brother. The two old gentlemen were next-door neighbours, and,
although Mr. Shuttleworthy seldom, if ever, visited "Old Charley," and
never was known to take a meal in his house, still this did not prevent
the two friends from being exceedingly intimate, as I have just observed;
for "Old Charley" never let a day pass without stepping in three or four
times to see how his neighbour came on, and very often he would stay to
breakfast or tea, and almost always to dinner, and then the amount of wine
that was made way with by the two cronies at a sitting, it would really be
a difficult thing to ascertain. "Old Charleys" favorite beverage was
Chateau-Margaux, and it appeared to do Mr. Shuttleworthy's heart good to
see the old fellow swallow it, as he did, quart after quart; so that, one
day, when the wine was in and the wit as a natural consequence, somewhat
out, he said to his crony, as he slapped him upon the back -- "I tell you
what it is, 'Old Charley,' you are, by all odds, the heartiest old fellow
I ever came across in all my born days; and, since you love to guzzle the
wine at that fashion, I'll be darned if I don't have to make thee a
present of a big box of the Chateau-Margaux. Od rot me," -- (Mr.
Shuttleworthy had a sad habit of swearing, although he seldom went beyond
"Od rot me," or "By gosh," or "By the jolly golly,") -- "Od rot me," says
he, "if I don't send an order to town this very afternoon for a double box
of the best that can be got, and I'll make ye a present of it, I will! --
ye needn't say a word now -- I will, I tell ye, and there's an end of it;
so look out for it -- it will come to hand some of these fine days,
precisely when ye are looking for it the least!" I mention this little bit
of liberality on the part of Mr. Shuttleworthy, just by way of showing you
how very intimate an understanding existed between the two friends.
Well, on the Sunday morning in question, when it came to be fairly
understood that Mr. Shuttleworthy had met with foul play, I never saw any
one so profoundly affected as "Old Charley Goodfellow." When he first
heard that the horse had come home without his master, and without his
master's saddle-bags, and all bloody from a pistol-shot, that had gone
clean through and through the poor animal's chest without quite killing
him; when he heard all this, he turned as pale as if the missing man had
been his own dear brother or father, and shivered and shook all over as if
he had had a fit of the ague.
At first he was too much overpowered with grief to be able to do any thing
at all, or to concert upon any plan of action; so that for a long time he
endeavored to dissuade Mr. Shuttleworthy's other friends from making a
stir about the matter, thinking it best to wait awhile -- say for a week
or two, or a month, or two -- to see if something wouldn't turn up, or if
Mr. Shuttleworthy wouldn't come in the natural way, and explain his
reasons for sending his horse on before. I dare say you have often
observed this disposition to temporize, or to procrastinate, in people who
are labouring under any very poignant sorrow. Their powers of mind seem to
be rendered torpid, so that they have a horror of any thing like action,
and like nothing in the world so well as to lie quietly in bed and "nurse
their grief," as the old ladies express it -- that is to say, ruminate
over the trouble.
The people of Rattleborough had, indeed, so high an opinion of the wisdom
and discretion of "Old Charley," that the greater part of them felt
disposed to agree with him, and not make a stir in the business "until
something should turn up," as the honest old gentleman worded it; and I
believe that, after all this would have been the general determination,
but for the very suspicious interference of Mr. Shuttleworthy's nephew, a
young man of very dissipated habits, and otherwise of rather bad
character. This nephew, whose name was Pennifeather, would listen to
nothing like reason in the matter of "lying quiet," but insisted upon
making immediate search for the "corpse of the murdered man. -- This was
the expression he employed; and Mr. Goodfellow acutely remarked at the
time, that it was "a singular expression, to say no more." This remark of
'Old Charley's,' too, had great effect upon the crowd; and one of the
party was heard to ask, very impressively, "how it happened that young Mr.
Pennifeather was so intimately cognizant of all the circumstances
connected with his wealthy uncle's disappearance, as to feel authorized to
assert, distinctly and unequivocally, that his uncle was 'a murdered
man.'" Hereupon some little squibbing and bickering occurred among various
members of the crowd, and especially between "Old Charley" and Mr.
Pennifeather -- although this latter occurrence was, indeed, by no means a
novelty, for no good will had subsisted between the parties for the last
three or four months; and matters had even gone so far that Mr.
Pennifeather had actually knocked down his uncles friend for some alleged
excess of liberty that the latter had taken in the uncle's house, of which
the nephew was an inmate. Upon this occasion "Old Charley" is said to have
behaved with exemplary moderation and Christian charity. He arose from the
blow, adjusted his clothes, and made no attempt at retaliation at all --
merely muttering a few words about "taking summary vengeance at the first
convenient opportunity," -- a natural and very justifiable ebullition of
anger, which meant nothing, however, and, beyond doubt, was no sooner
given vent to than forgotten.
However these matters may be (which have no reference to the point now at
issue), it is quite certain that the people of Rattleborough, principally
through the persuasion of Mr. Pennifeather, came at length to the
determination of dispersion over the adjacent country in search of the
missing Mr. Shuttleworthy. I say they came to this determination in the
first instance. After it had been fully resolved that a search should be
made, it was considered almost a matter of course that the seekers should
disperse -- that is to say, distribute themselves in parties -- for the
more thorough examination of the region round about. I forget, however, by
what ingenious train of reasoning it was that "Old Charley" finally
convinced the assembly that this was the most injudicious plan that could
be pursued. Convince them, however, he did -- all except Mr. Pennifeather,
and, in the end, it was arranged that a search should be instituted,
carefully and very thoroughly, by the burghers en masse, "Old Charley"
himself leading the way.
As for the matter of that, there could have been no better pioneer than
"Old Charley," whom everybody knew to have the eye of a lynx; but,
although he led them into all manner of out-of-the-way holes and corners,
by routes that nobody had ever suspected of existing in the neighbourhood,
and although the search was incessantly kept up day and night for nearly a
week, still no trace of Mr. Shuttleworthy could be discovered. When I say
no trace, however, I must not be understood to speak literally, for trace,
to some extent, there certainly was. The poor gentleman had been tracked,
by his horses shoes (which were peculiar), to a spot about three miles to
the east of the borough, on the main road leading to the city. Here the
track made off into a by-path through a piece of woodland -- the path
coming out again into the main road, and cutting off about half a mile of
the regular distance. Following the shoe-marks down this lane, the party
came at length to a pool of stagnant water, half hidden by the brambles,
to the right of the lane, and opposite this pool all vestige of the track
was lost sight of. It appeared, however, that a struggle of some nature
had here taken place, and it seemed as if some large and heavy body, much
larger and heavier than a man, had been drawn from the by-path to the
pool. This latter was carefully dragged twice, but nothing was found; and
the party was upon the point of going away, in despair of coming to any
result, when Providence suggested to Mr. Goodfellow the expediency of
draining the water off altogether. This project was received with cheers,
and many high compliments to "Old Charley" upon his sagacity and
consideration. As many of the burghers had brought spades with them,
supposing that they might possibly be called upon to disinter a corpse,
the drain was easily and speedily effected; and no sooner was the bottom
visible, than right in the middle of the mud that remained was discovered
a black silk velvet waistcoat, which nearly every one present immediately
recognized as the property of Mr. Pennifeather. This waistcoat was much
torn and stained with blood, and there were several persons among the
party who had a distinct remembrance of its having been worn by its owner
on the very morning of Mr. Shuttleworthy's departure for the city; while
there were others, again, ready to testify upon oath, if required, that
Mr. P. did not wear the garment in question at any period during the
remainder of that memorable day, nor could any one be found to say that he
had seen it upon Mr. P.'s person at any period at all subsequent to Mr.
Shuttleworthy's disappearance.
Matters now wore a very serious aspect for Mr. Pennifeather, and it was
observed, as an indubitable confirmation of the suspicions which were
excited against him, that he grew exceedingly pale, and when asked what he
had to say for himself, was utterly incapable of saying a word. Hereupon,
the few friends his riotous mode of living had left him, deserted him at
once to a man, and were even more clamorous than his ancient and avowed
enemies for his instantaneous arrest. But, on the other hand, the
magnanimity of Mr. Goodfellow shone forth with only the more brilliant
lustre through contrast. He made a warm and intensely eloquent defence of
Mr. Pennifeather, in which he alluded more than once to his own sincere
forgiveness of that wild young gentleman -- "the heir of the worthy Mr.
Shuttleworthy," -- for the insult which he (the young gentleman) had, no
doubt in the heat of passion, thought proper to put upon him (Mr.
Goodfellow). "He forgave him for it," he said, "from the very bottom of
his heart; and for himself (Mr. Goodfellow), so far from pushing the
suspicious circumstances to extremity, which he was sorry to say, really
had arisen against Mr. Pennifeather, he (Mr. Goodfellow) would make every
exertion in his power, would employ all the little eloquence in his
possession to -- to -- to -- soften down, as much as he could
conscientiously do so, the worst features of this really exceedingly
perplexing piece of business."
Mr. Goodfellow went on for some half hour longer in this strain, very much
to the credit both of his head and of his heart; but your warm-hearted
people are seldom apposite in their observations -- they run into all
sorts of blunders, contre-temps and mal apropos-isms, in the
hot-headedness of their zeal to serve a friend -- thus, often with the
kindest intentions in the world, doing infinitely more to prejudice his
cause than to advance it.
So, in the present instance, it turned out with all the eloquence of "Old
Charley"; for, although he laboured earnestly in behalf of the suspected,
yet it so happened, somehow or other, that every syllable he uttered of
which the direct but unwitting tendency was not to exalt the speaker in
the good opinion of his audience, had the effect to deepen the suspicion
already attached to the individual whose cause he pleaded, and to arouse
against him the fury of the mob.
One of the most unaccountable errors committed by the orator was his
allusion to the suspected as "the heir of the worthy old gentleman Mr.
Shuttleworthy." The people had really never thought of this before. They
had only remembered certain threats of disinheritance uttered a year or
two previously by the uncle (who had no living relative except the
nephew), and they had, therefore, always looked upon this disinheritance
as a matter that was settled -- so single-minded a race of beings were the
Rattleburghers; but the remark of "Old Charley" brought them at once to a
consideration of this point, and thus gave them to see the possibility of
the threats having been nothing more than a threat. And straightway
hereupon, arose the natural question of cui bono? -- a question that
tended even more than the waistcoat to fasten the terrible crime upon the
young man. And here, lest I may be misunderstood, permit me to digress for
one moment merely to observe that the exceedingly brief and simple Latin
phrase which I have employed, is invariably mistranslated and
misconceived. "Cui bono?" in all the crack novels and elsewhere, -- in
those of Mrs. Gore, for example, (the author of "Cecil,") a lady who
quotes all tongues from the Chaldaean to Chickasaw, and is helped to her
learning, "as needed," upon a systematic plan, by Mr. Beckford, -- in all
the crack novels, I say, from those of Bulwer and Dickens to those of
Bulwer and Dickens to those of Turnapenny and Ainsworth, the two little
Latin words cui bono are rendered "to what purpose?" or, (as if quo bono,)
"to what good." Their true meaning, nevertheless, is "for whose
advantage." Cui, to whom; bono, is it for a benefit. It is a purely legal
phrase, and applicable precisely in cases such as we have now under
consideration, where the probability of the doer of a deed hinges upon the
probability of the benefit accruing to this individual or to that from the
deed's accomplishment. Now in the present instance, the question cui bono?
very pointedly implicated Mr. Pennifeather. His uncle had threatened him,
after making a will in his favour, with disinheritance. But the threat had
not been actually kept; the original will, it appeared, had not been
altered. Had it been altered, the only supposable motive for murder on the
part of the suspected would have been the ordinary one of revenge; and
even this would have been counteracted by the hope of reinstation into the
good graces of the uncle. But the will being unaltered, while the threat
to alter remained suspended over the nephew's head, there appears at once
the very strongest possible inducement for the atrocity, and so concluded,
very sagaciously, the worthy citizens of the borough of Rattle.
Mr. Pennifeather was, accordingly, arrested upon the spot, and the crowd,
after some further search, proceeded homeward, having him in custody. On
the route, however, another circumstance occurred tending to confirm the
suspicion entertained. Mr. Goodfellow, whose zeal led him to be always a
little in advance of the party, was seen suddenly to run forward a few
paces, stoop, and then apparently to pick up some small object from the
grass. Having quickly examined it he was observed, too, to make a sort of
half attempt at concealing it in his coat pocket; but this action was
noticed, as I say, and consequently prevented, when the object picked up
was found to be a Spanish knife which a dozen persons at once recognized
as belonging to Mr. Pennifeather. Moreover, his initials were engraved
upon the handle. The blade of this knife was open and bloody.
No doubt now remained of the guilt of the nephew, and immediately upon
reaching Rattleborough he was taken before a magistrate for examination.
Here matters again took a most unfavourable turn. The prisoner, being
questioned as to his whereabouts on the morning of Mr. Shuttleworthy's
disappearance, had absolutely the audacity to acknowledge that on that
very morning he had been out with his rifle deer-stalking, in the
immediate neighbourhood of the pool where the blood-stained waistcoat had
been discovered through the sagacity of Mr. Goodfellow.
This latter now came forward, and, with tears in his eyes, asked
permission to be examined. He said that a stern sense of the duty he owed
his Maker, not less than his fellow-men, would permit him no longer to
remain silent. Hitherto, the sincerest affection for the young man
(notwithstanding the latter's ill-treatment of himself, Mr. Goodfellow)
had induced him to make every hypothesis which imagination could suggest,
by way of endeavoring to account for what appeared suspicious in the
circumstances that told so seriously against Mr. Pennifeather, but these
circumstances were now altogether too convincing -- too damning, he would
hesitate no longer -- he would tell all he knew, although his heart (Mr.
Goodfellow's) should absolutely burst asunder in the effort. He then went
on to state that, on the afternoon of the day previous to Mr.
Shuttleworthy's departure for the city, that worthy old gentleman had
mentioned to his nephew, in his hearing (Mr. Goodfellow's), that his
object in going to town on the morrow was to make a deposit of an
unusually large sum of money in the "Farmers and Mechanics' Bank," and
that, then and there, the said Mr. Shuttleworthy had distinctly avowed to
the said nephew his irrevocable determination of rescinding the will
originally made, and of cutting him off with a shilling. He (the witness)
now solemnly called upon the accused to state whether what he (the
witness) had just stated was or was not the truth in every substantial
particular. Much to the astonishment of every one present, Mr.
Pennifeather frankly admitted that it was.
The magistrate now considered it his duty to send a couple of constables
to search the chamber of the accused in the house of his uncle. From this
search they almost immediately returned with the well-known steel-bound,
russet leather pocket-book which the old gentleman had been in the habit
of carrying for years. Its valuable contents, however, had been
abstracted, and the magistrate in vain endeavored to extort from the
prisoner the use which had been made of them, or the place of their
concealment. Indeed, he obstinately denied all knowledge of the matter.
The constables, also, discovered, between the bed and sacking of the
unhappy man, a shirt and neck-handkerchief both marked with the initials
of his name, and both hideously besmeared with the blood of the victim.
At this juncture, it was announced that the horse of the murdered man had
just expired in the stable from the effects of the wound he had received,
and it was proposed by Mr. Goodfellow that a post mortem examination of
the beast should be immediately made, with the view, if possible, of
discovering the ball. This was accordingly done; and, as if to demonstrate
beyond a question the guilt of the accused, Mr. Goodfellow, after
considerable searching in the cavity of the chest was enabled to detect
and to pull forth a bullet of very extraordinary size, which, upon trial,
was found to be exactly adapted to the bore of Mr. Pennifeather's rifle,
while it was far too large for that of any other person in the borough or
its vicinity. To render the matter even surer yet, however, this bullet
was discovered to have a flaw or seam at right angles to the usual suture,
and upon examination, this seam corresponded precisely with an accidental
ridge or elevation in a pair of moulds acknowledged by the accused himself
to be his own property. Upon finding of this bullet, the examining
magistrate refused to listen to any farther testimony, and immediately
committed the prisoner for trial-declining resolutely to take any bail in
the case, although against this severity Mr. Goodfellow very warmly
remonstrated, and offered to become surety in whatever amount might be
required. This generosity on the part of "Old Charley" was only in
accordance with the whole tenour of his amiable and chivalrous conduct
during the entire period of his sojourn in the borough of Rattle. In the
present instance the worthy man was so entirely carried away by the
excessive warmth of his sympathy, that he seemed to have quite forgotten,
when he offered to go bail for his young friend, that he himself (Mr.
Goodfellow) did not possess a single dollar's worth of property upon the
face of the earth.
The result of the committal may be readily foreseen. Mr. Pennifeather,
amid the loud execrations of all Rattleborough, was brought to trial at
the next criminal sessions, when the chain of circumstantial evidence
(strengthened as it was by some additional damning facts, which Mr.
Goodfellow's sensitive conscientiousness forbade him to withhold from the
court) was considered so unbroken and so thoroughly conclusive, that the
jury, without leaving their seats, returned an immediate verdict of
"Guilty of murder in the first degree." Soon afterward the unhappy wretch
received sentence of death, and was remanded to the county jail to await
the inexorable vengeance of the law.
In the meantime, the noble behavior of "Old Charley Goodfellow, had doubly
endeared him to the honest citizens of the borough. He became ten times a
greater favorite than ever, and, as a natural result of the hospitality
with which he was treated, he relaxed, as it were, perforce, the extremely
parsimonious habits which his poverty had hitherto impelled him to
observe, and very frequently had little reunions at his own house, when
wit and jollity reigned supreme-dampened a little, of course, by the
occasional remembrance of the untoward and melancholy fate which impended
over the nephew of the late lamented bosom friend of the generous host.
One fine day, this magnanimous old gentleman was agreeably surprised at
the receipt of the following letter:-
Charles Goodfellow, Esq., Rattleborough
From H.F.B. & Co.
Chat. Mar. A -- No. 1.-- 6 doz. bottles (1/2 Gross)
{The above inscription lies vertically to the left of the following letter
in the print version --Ed.}
_"Charles Goodfellow, Esquire._
_"Dear Sir -- In conformity with an order transmitted to our firm about
two months since, by our esteemed correspondent, Mr. Barnabus
Shuttleworthy, we have the honor of forwarding this morning, to your
address, a double box of Chateau-Margaux of the antelope brand, violet
seal. Box numbered and marked as per margin._
_"We remain, sir_, _
_ _"Your most ob'nt ser'ts,
_ _ _"HOGGS, FROGS, BOGS, & CO.
"City of --, June 21, 18--.
_"P.S. -- The box will reach you by wagon, on the day after your receipt
of this letter. Our respects to Mr. Shuttleworthy._
"H., F., B., & CO."
The fact is, that Mr. Goodfellow had, since the death of Mr.
Shuttleworthy, given over all expectation of ever receiving the promised
Chateau-Margaux; and he, therefore, looked upon it now as a sort of
especial dispensation of Providence in his behalf. He was highly
delighted, of course, and in the exuberance of his joy invited a large
party of friends to a petit souper on the morrow, for the purpose of
broaching the good old Mr. Shuttleworthy's present. Not that he said any
thing about "the good old Mr. Shuttleworthy" when he issued the
invitations. The fact is, he thought much and concluded to say nothing at
all. He did not mention to any one -- if I remember aright -- that he had
received a present of Chateau-Margaux. He merely asked his friends to come
and help him drink some, of a remarkable fine quality and rich flavour,
that he had ordered up from the city a couple of months ago, and of which
he would be in the receipt upon the morrow. I have often puzzled myself to
imagine why it was that "Old Charley" came to the conclusion to say
nothing about having received the wine from his old friend, but I could
never precisely understand his reason for the silence, although he had
some excellent and very magnanimous reason, no doubt.
The morrow at length arrived, and with it a very large and highly
respectable company at Mr. Goodfellow's house. Indeed, half the borough
was there, -- I myself among the number, -- but, much to the vexation of
the host, the Chateau-Margaux did not arrive until a late hour, and when
the sumptuous supper supplied by "Old Charley" had been done very ample
justice by the guests. It came at length, however, -- a monstrously big
box of it there was, too -- and as the whole party were in excessively
good humor, it was decided, nem. con., that it should be lifted upon the
table and its contents disembowelled forthwith.
No sooner said than done. I lent a helping hand; and, in a trice we had
the box upon the table, in the midst of all the bottles and glasses, not a
few of which were demolished in the scuffle. "Old Charley," who was pretty
much intoxicated, and excessively red in the face, now took a seat, with
an air of mock dignity, at the head of the board, and thumped furiously
upon it with a decanter, calling upon the company to keep order "during
the ceremony of disinterring the treasure."
After some vociferation, quiet was at length fully restored, and, as very
often happens in similar cases, a profound and remarkable silence ensued.
Being then requested to force open the lid, I complied, of course, "with
an infinite deal of pleasure." I inserted a chisel, and giving it a few
slight taps with a hammer, the top of the box flew suddenly off, and at
the same instant, there sprang up into a sitting position, directly facing
the host, the bruised, bloody, and nearly putrid corpse of the murdered
Mr. Shuttleworthy himself. It gazed for a few seconds, fixedly and
sorrowfully, with its decaying and lack-lustre eyes, full into the
countenance of Mr. Goodfellow; uttered slowly, but clearly and
impressively, the words -- "Thou art the man!" and then, falling over the
side of the chest as if thoroughly satisfied, stretched out its limbs
quiveringly upon the table.
The scene that ensued is altogether beyond description. The rush for the
doors and windows was terrific, and many of the most robust men in the
room fainted outright through sheer horror. But after the first wild,
shrieking burst of affright, all eyes were directed to Mr. Goodfellow. If
I live a thousand years, I can never forget the more than mortal agony
which was depicted in that ghastly face of his, so lately rubicund with
triumph and wine. For several minutes he sat rigidly as a statue of
marble; his eyes seeming, in the intense vacancy of their gaze, to be
turned inward and absorbed in the contemplation of his own miserable,
murderous soul. At length their expression appeared to flash suddenly out
into the external world, when, with a quick leap, he sprang from his
chair, and falling heavily with his head and shoulders upon the table, and
in contact with the corpse, poured out rapidly and vehemently a detailed
confession of the hideous crime for which Mr. Pennifeather was then
imprisoned and doomed to die.
What he recounted was in substance this: -- He followed his victim to the
vicinity of the pool; there shot his horse with a pistol; despatched its
rider with the butt end; possessed himself of the pocket-book, and,
supposing the horse dead, dragged it with great labour to the brambles by
the pond. Upon his own beast he slung the corpse of Mr. Shuttleworthy, and
thus bore it to a secure place of concealment a long distance off through
the woods.
The waistcoat, the knife, the pocket-book, and bullet, had been placed by
himself where found, with the view of avenging himself upon Mr.
Pennifeather. He had also contrived the discovery of the stained
handkerchief and shirt.
Towards the end of the blood-churning recital the words of the guilty
wretch faltered and grew hollow. When the record was finally exhausted, he
arose, staggered backward from the table, and fell-dead.
------------
The means by which this happily-timed confession was extorted, although
efficient, were simple indeed. Mr. Goodfellow's excess of frankness had
disgusted me, and excited my suspicions from the first. I was present when
Mr. Pennifeather had struck him, and the fiendish expression which then
arose upon his countenance, although momentary, assured me that his threat
of vengeance would, if possible, be rigidly fulfilled. I was thus prepared
to view the manoeuvering of "Old Charley" in a very different light from
that in which it was regarded by the good citizens of Rattleborough. I saw
at once that all the criminating discoveries arose, either directly or
indirectly, from himself. But the fact which clearly opened my eyes to the
true state of the case, was the affair of the bullet, found by Mr. G. in
the carcass of the horse. I had not forgotten, although the Rattleburghers
had, that there was a hole where the ball had entered the horse, and
another where it went out. If it were found in the animal then, after
having made its exit, I saw clearly that it must have been deposited by
the person who found it. The bloody shirt and handkerchief confirmed the
idea suggested by the bullet; for the blood on examination proved to be
capital claret, and no more. When I came to think of these things, and
also of the late increase of liberality and expenditure on the part of Mr.
Goodfellow, I entertained a suspicion which was none the less strong
because I kept it altogether to myself.
In the meantime, I instituted a rigorous private search for the corpse of
Mr. Shuttleworthy, and, for good reasons, searched in quarters as
divergent as possible from those to which Mr. Goodfellow conducted his
party. The result was that, after some days, I came across an old dry
well, the mouth of which was nearly hidden by brambles; and here, at the
bottom, I discovered what I sought.
Now it so happened that I had overheard the colloquy between the two
cronies, when Mr. Goodfellow had contrived to cajole his host into the
promise of a box of Chateaux-Margaux. Upon this hint I acted. I procured a
stiff piece of whalebone, thrust it down the throat of the corpse, and
deposited the latter in an old wine box-taking care so to double the body
up as to double the whalebone with it. In this manner I had to press
forcibly upon the lid to keep it down while I secured it with nails; and I
anticipated, of course, that as soon as these latter were removed, the top
would fly off and the body up.
Having thus arranged the box, I marked, numbered, and addressed it as
already told; and then writing a letter in the name of the wine merchants
with whom Mr. Shuttleworthy dealt, I gave instructions to my servant to
wheel the box to Mr. Goodfellow's door, in a barrow, at a given signal
from myself. For the words which I intended the corpse to speak, I
confidently depended upon my ventriloquial abilities; for their effect, I
counted upon the conscience of the murderous wretch.
I believe there is nothing more to be explained. Mr. Pennifeather was
released upon the spot, inherited the fortune of his uncle, profited by
the lessons of experience, turned over a new leaf, and led happily ever
afterward a new life.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
WHY THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN WEARS HIS HAND IN A SLING
IT'S on my visiting cards sure enough (and it's them that's all o' pink
satin paper) that inny gintleman that plases may behould the intheristhin
words, "Sir Pathrick O'Grandison, Barronitt, 39 Southampton Row, Russell
Square, Parrish o' Bloomsbury." And shud ye be wantin' to diskiver who is
the pink of purliteness quite, and the laider of the hot tun in the houl
city o' Lonon -- why it's jist mesilf. And fait that same is no wonder at
all at all (so be plased to stop curlin your nose), for every inch o' the
six wakes that I've been a gintleman, and left aff wid the bogthrothing to
take up wid the Barronissy, it's Pathrick that's been living like a houly
imperor, and gitting the iddication and the graces. Och! and wouldn't it
be a blessed thing for your spirrits if ye cud lay your two peepers jist,
upon Sir Pathrick O'Grandison, Barronitt, when he is all riddy drissed for
the hopperer, or stipping into the Brisky for the drive into the Hyde
Park. But it's the illigant big figgur that I ave, for the rason o' which
all the ladies fall in love wid me. Isn't it my own swate silf now that'll
missure the six fut, and the three inches more nor that, in me stockins,
and that am excadingly will proportioned all over to match? And it is
ralelly more than three fut and a bit that there is, inny how, of the
little ould furrener Frinchman that lives jist over the way, and that's a
oggling and a goggling the houl day, (and bad luck to him,) at the purty
widdy Misthress Tracle that's my own nixt-door neighbor, (God bliss her!)
and a most particuller frind and acquaintance? You percave the little
spalpeen is summat down in the mouth, and wears his lift hand in a sling,
and it's for that same thing, by yur lave, that I'm going to give you the
good rason.
The truth of the houl matter is jist simple enough; for the very first day
that I com'd from Connaught, and showd my swate little silf in the strait
to the widdy, who was looking through the windy, it was a gone case
althegither with the heart o' the purty Misthress Tracle. I percaved it,
ye see, all at once, and no mistake, and that's God's truth. First of all
it was up wid the windy in a jiffy, and thin she threw open her two
peepers to the itmost, and thin it was a little gould spy-glass that she
clapped tight to one o' them and divil may burn me if it didn't spake to
me as plain as a peeper cud spake, and says it, through the spy-glass:
"Och! the tip o' the mornin' to ye, Sir Pathrick O'Grandison, Barronitt,
mavourneen; and it's a nate gintleman that ye are, sure enough, and it's
mesilf and me forten jist that'll be at yur sarvice, dear, inny time o'
day at all at all for the asking." And it's not mesilf ye wud have to be
bate in the purliteness; so I made her a bow that wud ha' broken yur heart
altegither to behould, and thin I pulled aff me hat with a flourish, and
thin I winked at her hard wid both eyes, as much as to say, "True for you,
yer a swate little crature, Mrs. Tracle, me darlint, and I wish I may be
drownthed dead in a bog, if it's not mesilf, Sir Pathrick O'Grandison,
Barronitt, that'll make a houl bushel o' love to yur leddyship, in the
twinkling o' the eye of a Londonderry purraty."
And it was the nixt mornin', sure, jist as I was making up me mind whither
it wouldn't be the purlite thing to sind a bit o' writin' to the widdy by
way of a love-litter, when up com'd the delivery servant wid an illigant
card, and he tould me that the name on it (for I niver could rade the
copperplate printin on account of being lift handed) was all about
Mounseer, the Count, A Goose, Look -- aisy, Maiter-di-dauns, and that the
houl of the divilish lingo was the spalpeeny long name of the little ould
furrener Frinchman as lived over the way.
And jist wid that in cum'd the little willian himself, and then he made me
a broth of a bow, and thin he said he had ounly taken the liberty of doing
me the honor of the giving me a call, and thin he went on to palaver at a
great rate, and divil the bit did I comprehind what he wud be afther the
tilling me at all at all, excipting and saving that he said "pully wou,
woolly wou," and tould me, among a bushel o' lies, bad luck to him, that
he was mad for the love o' my widdy Misthress Tracle, and that my widdy
Mrs. Tracle had a puncheon for him.
At the hearin' of this, ye may swear, though, I was as mad as a
grasshopper, but I remimbered that I was Sir Pathrick O'Grandison,
Barronitt, and that it wasn't althegither gentaal to lit the anger git the
upper hand o' the purliteness, so I made light o' the matter and kipt
dark, and got quite sociable wid the little chap, and afther a while what
did he do but ask me to go wid him to the widdy's, saying he wud give me
the feshionable inthroduction to her leddyship.
"Is it there ye are?" said I thin to mesilf, "and it's thrue for you,
Pathrick, that ye're the fortunittest mortal in life. We'll soon see now
whither it's your swate silf, or whither it's little Mounseer
Maiter-di-dauns, that Misthress Tracle is head and ears in the love wid."
Wid that we wint aff to the widdy's, next door, and ye may well say it was
an illigant place; so it was. There was a carpet all over the floor, and
in one corner there was a forty-pinny and a Jew's harp and the divil knows
what ilse, and in another corner was a sofy, the beautifullest thing in
all natur, and sitting on the sofy, sure enough, there was the swate
little angel, Misthress Tracle.
"The tip o' the mornin' to ye," says I, "Mrs. Tracle," and thin I made
sich an illigant obaysance that it wud ha quite althegither bewildered the
brain o' ye.
"Wully woo, pully woo, plump in the mud," says the little furrenner
Frinchman, "and sure Mrs. Tracle," says he, that he did, "isn't this
gintleman here jist his reverence Sir Pathrick O'Grandison, Barronitt, and
isn't he althegither and entirely the most particular frind and
acquaintance that I have in the houl world?"
And wid that the widdy, she gits up from the sofy, and makes the swatest
curthchy nor iver was seen; and thin down she sits like an angel; and
thin, by the powers, it was that little spalpeen Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns
that plumped his silf right down by the right side of her. Och hon! I
ixpicted the two eyes o' me wud ha cum'd out of my head on the spot, I was
so dispirate mad! Howiver, "Bait who!" says I, after awhile. "Is it there
ye are, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns?" and so down I plumped on the lift side
of her leddyship, to be aven with the willain. Botheration! it wud ha done
your heart good to percave the illigant double wink that I gived her jist
thin right in the face with both eyes.
But the little ould Frinchman he niver beginned to suspict me at all at
all, and disperate hard it was he made the love to her leddyship. "Woully
wou," says he, Pully wou," says he, "Plump in the mud," says he.
"That's all to no use, Mounseer Frog, mavourneen," thinks I; and I talked
as hard and as fast as I could all the while, and throth it was mesilf
jist that divarted her leddyship complately and intirely, by rason of the
illigant conversation that I kipt up wid her all about the dear bogs of
Connaught. And by and by she gived me such a swate smile, from one ind of
her mouth to the ither, that it made me as bould as a pig, and I jist took
hould of the ind of her little finger in the most dillikitest manner in
natur, looking at her all the while out o' the whites of my eyes.
And then ounly percave the cuteness of the swate angel, for no sooner did
she obsarve that I was afther the squazing of her flipper, than she up wid
it in a jiffy, and put it away behind her back, jist as much as to say,
"Now thin, Sir Pathrick O'Grandison, there's a bitther chance for ye,
mavourneen, for it's not altogether the gentaal thing to be afther the
squazing of my flipper right full in the sight of that little furrenner
Frinchman, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns."
Wid that I giv'd her a big wink jist to say, "lit Sir Pathrick alone for
the likes o' them thricks," and thin I wint aisy to work, and you'd have
died wid the divarsion to behould how cliverly I slipped my right arm
betwane the back o' the sofy, and the back of her leddyship, and there,
sure enough, I found a swate little flipper all a waiting to say, "the tip
o' the mornin' to ye, Sir Pathrick O'Grandison, Barronitt." And wasn't it
mesilf, sure, that jist giv'd it the laste little bit of a squaze in the
world, all in the way of a commincement, and not to be too rough wid her
leddyship? and och, botheration, wasn't it the gentaalest and dilikittest
of all the little squazes that I got in return? "Blood and thunder, Sir
Pathrick, mavourneen," thinks I to mesilf, "fait it's jist the mother's
son of you, and nobody else at all at all, that's the handsomest and the
fortunittest young bog-throtter that ever cum'd out of Connaught!" And
with that I givd the flipper a big squaze, and a big squaze it was, by the
powers, that her leddyship giv'd to me back. But it would ha split the
seven sides of you wid the laffin' to behould, jist then all at once, the
consated behavior of Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns. The likes o' sich a
jabbering, and a smirking, and a parley-wouing as he begin'd wid her
leddyship, niver was known before upon arth; and divil may burn me if it
wasn't me own very two peepers that cotch'd him tipping her the wink out
of one eye. Och, hon! if it wasn't mesilf thin that was mad as a Kilkenny
cat I shud like to be tould who it was!
"Let me infarm you, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns," said I, as purlite as iver
ye seed, "that it's not the gintaal thing at all at all, and not for the
likes o' you inny how, to be afther the oggling and a goggling at her
leddyship in that fashion," and jist wid that such another squaze as it
was I giv'd her flipper, all as much as to say, "isn't it Sir Pathrick
now, my jewel, that'll be able to the proticting o' you, my darlint?" and
then there cum'd another squaze back, all by way of the answer. "Thrue for
you, Sir Pathrick," it said as plain as iver a squaze said in the world,
"Thrue for you, Sir Pathrick, mavourneen, and it's a proper nate gintleman
ye are -- that's God's truth," and with that she opened her two beautiful
peepers till I belaved they wud ha' cum'd out of her hid althegither and
intirely, and she looked first as mad as a cat at Mounseer Frog, and thin
as smiling as all out o' doors at mesilf.
"Thin," says he, the willian, "Och hon! and a wolly-wou, pully-wou," and
then wid that he shoved up his two shoulders till the divil the bit of his
hid was to be diskivered, and then he let down the two corners of his
purraty-trap, and thin not a haporth more of the satisfaction could I git
out o' the spalpeen.
Belave me, my jewel, it was Sir Pathrick that was unreasonable mad thin,
and the more by token that the Frinchman kipt an wid his winking at the
widdy; and the widdy she kept an wid the squazing of my flipper, as much
as to say, "At him again, Sir Pathrick O'Grandison, mavourneen:" so I just
ripped out wid a big oath, and says I;
"Ye little spalpeeny frog of a bog-throtting son of a bloody noun!" -- and
jist thin what d'ye think it was that her leddyship did? Troth she jumped
up from the sofy as if she was bit, and made off through the door, while I
turned my head round afther her, in a complate bewilderment and
botheration, and followed her wid me two peepers. You percave I had a
reason of my own for knowing that she couldn't git down the stares
althegither and intirely; for I knew very well that I had hould of her
hand, for the divil the bit had I iver lit it go. And says I; "Isn't it
the laste little bit of a mistake in the world that ye've been afther the
making, yer leddyship? Come back now, that's a darlint, and I'll give ye
yur flipper." But aff she wint down the stairs like a shot, and thin I
turned round to the little Frinch furrenner. Och hon! if it wasn't his
spalpeeny little paw that I had hould of in my own -- why thin -- thin it
wasn't -- that's all.
And maybe it wasn't mesilf that jist died then outright wid the laffin',
to behold the little chap when he found out that it wasn't the widdy at
all at all that he had had hould of all the time, but only Sir Pathrick
O'Grandison. The ould divil himself niver behild sich a long face as he
pet an! As for Sir Pathrick O'Grandison, Barronitt, it wasn't for the
likes of his riverence to be afther the minding of a thrifle of a mistake.
Ye may jist say, though (for it's God's thruth), that afore I left hould
of the flipper of the spalpeen (which was not till afther her leddyship's
futman had kicked us both down the stairs, I giv'd it such a nate little
broth of a squaze as made it all up into raspberry jam.
"Woully wou," says he, "pully wou," says he -- "Cot tam!"
And that's jist the thruth of the rason why he wears his lift hand in a
sling.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
BON-BON.
_ Quand un bon vin meuble mon estomac,
Je suis plus savant que Balzac -
Plus sage que Pibrac ;
Mon brass seul faisant l'attaque
De la nation Coseaque,
La mettroit au sac ;
De Charon je passerois le lac,
En dormant dans son bac ;
J'irois au fier Eac,
Sans que mon cur fit tic ni tac,
Présenter du tabac.
French Vaudeville_
THAT Pierre Bon-Bon was a _restaurateur_ of uncommon qualifications,
no man who, during the reign of ---, frequented the little Câfé in the
cul-de-sac Le Febvre at Rouen, will, I imagine, feel himself at liberty to
dispute. That Pierre Bon-Bon was, in an equal degree, skilled in the
philosophy of that period is, I presume, still more especially undeniable.
His _patés à la fois_ were beyond doubt immaculate; but what pen can do
justice to his essays _sur la Nature_ - his thoughts sur _l'Ame_ - his
observations _sur l'Esprit ?_ If his _omelettes_ - if his _fricandeaux_
were inestimable, what _littérateur_ of that day would not have given
twice as much for an "_Idée de Bon-Bon_" as for all the trash of "_Idées_"
of all the rest of the _savants ?_ Bon-Bon had ransacked libraries which
no other man had ransacked - had more than any other would have
entertained a notion of reading- had understood more than any other would
have conceived the possibility of understanding; and although, while he
flourished, there were not wanting some authors at Rouen to assert "that
his _dicta_ evinced neither the purity of the Academy, nor the depth of
the Lyceum" - although, mark me, his doctrines were by no means very
generally comprehended, still it did not follow that they were difficult
of comprehension. It was, I think, on account of their self-evidency that
many persons were led to consider them abstruse. It is to Bon-Bon - but
let this go no farther - it is to Bon-Bon that Kant himself is mainly
indebted for his metaphysics. The former was indeed not a Platonist, nor
strictly speaking an Aristotelian - nor did he, like the modern Leibnitz,
waste those precious hours which might be employed in the invention of a
_fricasée_ or, _facili gradu_, the analysis of a sensation, in frivolous
attempts at reconciling the obstinate oils and waters of ethical
discussion. Not at all. Bon-Bon was Ionic - Bon-Bon was equally Italic. He
reasoned _à priori_ - He reasoned also _à posteriori_. His ideas were
innate - or otherwise. He believed in George of Trebizonde - He believed
in Bossarion [Bessarion]. Bon-Bon was emphatically a - Bon-Bonist.
I have spoken of the philosopher in his capacity of _restaurateur_. I
would not, however, have any friend of mine imagine that, in fulfilling
his hereditary duties in that line, our hero wanted a proper estimation of
their dignity and importance. Far from it. It was impossible to say in
which branch of his profession he took the greater pride. In his opinion
the powers of the intellect held intimate connection with the capabilities
of the stomach. I am not sure, indeed, that he greatly disagreed with the
Chinese, who held that the soul lies in the abdomen. The Greeks at all
events were right, he thought, who employed the same words for the mind
and the diaphragm. {*1) By this I do not mean to insinuate a charge of
gluttony, or indeed any other serious charge to the prejudice of the
metaphysician. If Pierre Bon-Bon had his failings - and what great man has
not a thousand? - if Pierre Bon-Bon, I say, had his failings, they were
failings of very little importance - faults indeed which, in other
tempers, have often been looked upon rather in the light of virtues. As
regards one of these foibles, I should not even have mentioned it in this
history but for the remarkable prominency - the extreme _alto relievo_ -
in which it jutted out from the plane of his general disposition. He could
never let slip an opportunity of making a bargain.
{*1} MD,<,l
Not that he was avaricious - no. It was by no means necessary to the
satisfaction of the philosopher, that the bargain should be to his own
proper advantage. Provided a trade could be effected - a trade of any
kind, upon any terms, or under any circumstances - a triumphant smile was
seen for many days thereafter to enlighten his countenance, and a knowing
wink of the eye to give evidence of his sagacity.
At any epoch it would not be very wonderful if a humor so peculiar as
the one I have just mentioned, should elicit attention and remark. At the
epoch of our narrative, had this peculiarity not attracted observation,
there would have been room for wonder indeed. It was soon reported that,
upon all occasions of the kind, the smile of Bon-Bon was wont to differ
widely from the downright grin with which he would laugh at his own jokes,
or welcome an acquaintance. Hints were thrown out of an exciting nature;
stories were told of perilous bargains made in a hurry and repented of at
leisure; and instances were adduced of unaccountable capacities, vague
longings, and unnatural inclinations implanted by the author of all evil
for wise purposes of his own.
The philosopher had other weaknesses - but they are scarcely worthy
our serious examination. For example, there are few men of extraordinary
profundity who are found wanting in an inclination for the bottle. Whether
this inclination be an exciting cause, or rather a valid proof of such
profundity, it is a nice thing to say. Bon-Bon, as far as I can learn, did
not think the subject adapted to minute investigation; - nor do I. Yet in
the indulgence of a propensity so truly classical, it is not to be
supposed that the restaurateur would lose sight of that intuitive
discrimination which was wont to characterize, at one and the same time,
his essais and his omelettes. In his seclusions the Vin de Bourgogne had
its allotted hour, and there were appropriate moments for the Cotes du
Rhone. With him Sauterne was to Medoc what Catullus was to Homer. He would
sport with a syllogism in sipping St. Peray, but unravel an argument over
Clos de Vougeot, and upset a theory in a torrent of Chambertin. Well had
it been if the same quick sense of propriety had attended him in the
peddling propensity to which I have formerly alluded - but this was by no
means the case. Indeed to say the truth, that trait of mind in the
philosophic Bon-Bon did begin at length to assume a character of strange
intensity and mysticism, and appeared deeply tinctured with the diablerie
of his favorite German studies.
To enter the little Cafe in the cul-de-sac Le Febvre was, at the
period of our tale, to enter the sanctum of a man of genius. Bon-Bon was a
man of genius. There was not a sous-cusinier in Rouen, who could not have
told you that Bon-Bon was a man of genius. His very cat knew it, and
forebore to whisk her tail in the presence of the man of genius. His large
water-dog was acquainted with the fact, and upon the approach of his
master, betrayed his sense of inferiority by a sanctity of deportment, a
debasement of the ears, and a dropping of the lower jaw not altogether
unworthy of a dog. It is, however, true that much of this habitual respect
might have been attributed to the personal appearance of the
metaphysician. A distinguished exterior will, I am constrained to say,
have its way even with a beast; and I am willing to allow much in the
outward man of the restaurateur calculated to impress the imagination of
the quadruped. There is a peculiar majesty about the atmosphere of the
little great - if I may be permitted so equivocal an expression - which
mere physical bulk alone will be found at all times inefficient in
creating. If, however, Bon-Bon was barely three feet in height, and if his
head was diminutively small, still it was impossible to behold the
rotundity of his stomach without a sense of magnificence nearly bordering
upon the sublime. In its size both dogs and men must have seen a type of
his acquirements - in its immensity a fitting habitation for his immortal
soul.
I might here - if it so pleased me - dilate upon the matter of
habiliment, and other mere circumstances of the external metaphysician. I
might hint that the hair of our hero was worn short, combed smoothly over
his forehead, and surmounted by a conical-shaped white flannel cap and
tassels - that his pea-green jerkin was not after the fashion of those
worn by the common class of restaurateurs at that day- that the sleeves
were something fuller than the reigning costume permitted - that the cuffs
were turned up, not as usual in that barbarous period, with cloth of the
same quality and color as the garment, but faced in a more fanciful manner
with the particolored velvet of Genoa - that his slippers were of a bright
purple, curiously filigreed, and might have been manufactured in Japan,
but for the exquisite pointing of the toes, and the brilliant tints of the
binding and embroidery - that his breeches were of the yellow satin-like
material called aimable - that his sky-blue cloak, resembling in form a
dressing-wrapper, and richly bestudded all over with crimson devices,
floated cavalierly upon his shoulders like a mist of the morning - and
that his tout ensemble gave rise to the remarkable words of Benevenuta,
the Improvisatrice of Florence, "that it was difficult to say whether
Pierre Bon-Bon was indeed a bird of Paradise, or rather a very Paradise of
perfection." I might, I say, expatiate upon all these points if I pleased,
- but I forbear, merely personal details may be left to historical
novelists,- they are beneath the moral dignity of matter-of-fact.
I have said that "to enter the Cafe in the cul-de-sac Le Febvre was to
enter the sanctum of a man of genius" - but then it was only the man of
genius who could duly estimate the merits of the sanctum. A sign,
consisting of a vast folio, swung before the entrance. On one side of the
volume was painted a bottle; on the reverse a pate. On the back were
visible in large letters Oeuvres de Bon-Bon. Thus was delicately shadowed
forth the two-fold occupation of the proprietor.
Upon stepping over the threshold, the whole interior of the building
presented itself to view. A long, low-pitched room, of antique
construction, was indeed all the accommodation afforded by the Cafe. In a
corner of the apartment stood the bed of the metaphysician. An army of
curtains, together with a canopy a la Grecque, gave it an air at once
classic and comfortable. In the corner diagonary opposite, appeared, in
direct family communion, the properties of the kitchen and the
bibliotheque. A dish of polemics stood peacefully upon the dresser. Here
lay an ovenful of the latest ethics - there a kettle of dudecimo melanges.
Volumes of German morality were hand and glove with the gridiron - a
toasting-fork might be discovered by the side of Eusebius - Plato reclined
at his ease in the frying-pan- and contemporary manuscripts were filed
away upon the spit.
In other respects the Cafe de Bon-Bon might be said to differ little
from the usual restaurants of the period. A fireplace yawned opposite the
door. On the right of the fireplace an open cupboard displayed a
formidable array of labelled bottles.
It was here, about twelve o'clock one night during the severe winter
the comments of his neighbours upon his singular propensity - that Pierre
Bon-Bon, I say, having turned them all out of his house, locked the door
upon them with an oath, and betook himself in no very pacific mood to the
comforts of a leather-bottomed arm-chair, and a fire of blazing fagots.
It was one of those terrific nights which are only met with once or
twice during a century. It snowed fiercely, and the house tottered to its
centre with the floods of wind that, rushing through the crannies in the
wall, and pouring impetuously down the chimney, shook awfully the curtains
of the philosopher's bed, and disorganized the economy of his pate-pans
and papers. The huge folio sign that swung without, exposed to the fury of
the tempest, creaked ominously, and gave out a moaning sound from its
stanchions of solid oak.
It was in no placid temper, I say, that the metaphysician drew up his
chair to its customary station by the hearth. Many circumstances of a
perplexing nature had occurred during the day, to disturb the serenity of
his meditations. In attempting des oeufs a la Princesse, he had
unfortunately perpetrated an omelette a la Reine; the discovery of a
principle in ethics had been frustrated by the overturning of a stew; and
last, not least, he had been thwarted in one of those admirable bargains
which he at all times took such especial delight in bringing to a
successful termination. But in the chafing of his mind at these
unaccountable vicissitudes, there did not fail to be mingled some degree
of that nervous anxiety which the fury of a boisterous night is so well
calculated to produce. Whistling to his more immediate vicinity the large
black water-dog we have spoken of before, and settling himself uneasily in
his chair, he could not help casting a wary and unquiet eye toward those
distant recesses of the apartment whose inexorable shadows not even the
red firelight itself could more than partially succeed in overcoming.
Having completed a scrutiny whose exact purpose was perhaps unintelligible
to himself, he drew close to his seat a small table covered with books and
papers, and soon became absorbed in the task of retouching a voluminous
manuscript, intended for publication on the morrow.
He had been thus occupied for some minutes when "I am in no hurry,
Monsieur Bon-Bon," suddenly whispered a whining voice in the apartment.
"The devil!" ejaculated our hero, starting to his feet, overturning
the table at his side, and staring around him in astonishment.
"Very true," calmly replied the voice.
"Very true! - what is very true? - how came you here?" vociferated the
metaphysician, as his eye fell upon something which lay stretched at full
length upon the bed.
"I was saying," said the intruder, without attending to the
interrogatives, - "I was saying that I am not at all pushed for time -
that the business upon which I took the liberty of calling, is of no
pressing importance - in short, that I can very well wait until you have
finished your Exposition."
"My Exposition! - there now! - how do you know? - how came you to
understand that I was writing an Exposition? - good God!"
"Hush!" replied the figure, in a shrill undertone; and, arising
quickly from the bed, he made a single step toward our hero, while an iron
lamp that depended over-head swung convulsively back from his approach.
The philosopher's amazement did not prevent a narrow scrutiny of the
stranger's dress and appearance. The outlines of his figure, exceedingly
lean, but much above the common height, were rendered minutely distinct,
by means of a faded suit of black cloth which fitted tight to the skin,
but was otherwise cut very much in the style of a century ago. These
garments had evidently been intended for a much shorter person than their
present owner. His ankles and wrists were left naked for several inches.
In his shoes, however, a pair of very brilliant buckles gave the lie to
the extreme poverty implied by the other portions of his dress. His head
was bare, and entirely bald, with the exception of a hinder part, from
which depended a queue of considerable length. A pair of green spectacles,
with side glasses, protected his eyes from the influence of the light, and
at the same time prevented our hero from ascertaining either their color
or their conformation. About the entire person there was no evidence of a
shirt, but a white cravat, of filthy appearance, was tied with extreme
precision around the throat and the ends hanging down formally side by
side gave (although I dare say unintentionally) the idea of an
ecclesiastic. Indeed, many other points both in his appearance and
demeanor might have very well sustained a conception of that nature. Over
his left ear, he carried, after the fashion of a modern clerk, an
instrument resembling the stylus of the ancients. In a breast-pocket of
his coat appeared conspicuously a small black volume fastened with clasps
of steel. This book, whether accidentally or not, was so turned outwardly
from the person as to discover the words "Rituel Catholique" in white
letters upon the back. His entire physiognomy was interestingly saturnine
- even cadaverously pale. The forehead was lofty, and deeply furrowed with
the ridges of contemplation. The corners of the mouth were drawn down into
an expression of the most submissive humility. There was also a clasping
of the hands, as he stepped toward our hero - a deep sigh - and altogether
a look of such utter sanctity as could not have failed to be unequivocally
preposessing. Every shadow of anger faded from the countenance of the
metaphysician, as, having completed a satisfactory survey of his visiter's
person, he shook him cordially by the hand, and conducted him to a seat.
There would however be a radical error in attributing this
instantaneous transition of feeling in the philosopher, to any one of
those causes which might naturally be supposed to have had an influence.
Indeed, Pierre Bon-Bon, from what I have been able to understand of his
disposition, was of all men the least likely to be imposed upon by any
speciousness of exterior deportment. It was impossible that so accurate an
observer of men and things should have failed to discover, upon the
moment, the real character of the personage who had thus intruded upon his
hospitality. To say no more, the conformation of his visiter's feet was
sufficiently remarkable - he maintained lightly upon his head an
inordinately tall hat - there was a tremulous swelling about the hinder
part of his breeches - and the vibration of his coat tail was a palpable
fact. Judge, then, with what feelings of satisfaction our hero found
himself thrown thus at once into the society of a person for whom he had
at all times entertained the most unqualified respect. He was, however,
too much of the diplomatist to let escape him any intimation of his
suspicions in regard to the true state of affairs. It was not his cue to
appear at all conscious of the high honor he thus unexpectedly enjoyed;
but, by leading his guest into the conversation, to elicit some important
ethical ideas, which might, in obtaining a place in his contemplated
publication, enlighten the human race, and at the same time immortalize
himself - ideas which, I should have added, his visitor's great age, and
well-known proficiency in the science of morals, might very well have
enabled him to afford.
Actuated by these enlightened views, our hero bade the gentleman sit
down, while he himself took occasion to throw some fagots upon the fire,
and place upon the now re-established table some bottles of Mousseux.
Having quickly completed these operations, he drew his chair vis-a-vis to
his companion's, and waited until the latter should open the conversation.
But plans even the most skilfully matured are often thwarted in the outset
of their application - and the restaurateur found himself nonplussed by
the very first words of his visiter's speech.
"I see you know me, Bon-Bon," said he; "ha! ha! ha! - he! he! he! -
hi! hi! hi! - ho! ho! ho! - hu! hu! hu!" - and the devil, dropping at once
the sanctity of his demeanor, opened to its fullest extent a mouth from
ear to ear, so as to display a set of jagged and fang-like teeth, and,
throwing back his head, laughed long, loudly, wickedly, and uproariously,
while the black dog, crouching down upon his haunches, joined lustily in
the chorus, and the tabby cat, flying off at a tangent, stood up on end,
and shrieked in the farthest corner of the apartment.
Not so the philosopher; he was too much a man of the world either to
laugh like the dog, or by shrieks to betray the indecorous trepidation of
the cat. It must be confessed, he felt a little astonishment to see the
white letters which formed the words "Rituel Catholique" on the book in
his guest's pocket, momently changing both their color and their import,
and in a few seconds, in place of the original title the words Regitre des
Condamnes blazed forth in characters of red. This startling circumstance,
when Bon-Bon replied to his visiter's remark, imparted to his manner an
air of embarrassment which probably might, not otherwise have been
observed.
"Why sir," said the philosopher, "why sir, to speak sincerely - I I
imagine - I have some faint - some very faint idea - of the remarkable
honor-"
"Oh! - ah! - yes! - very well!" interrupted his Majesty; "say no more
- I see how it is." And hereupon, taking off his green spectacles, he
wiped the glasses carefully with the sleeve of his coat, and deposited
them in his pocket.
If Bon-Bon had been astonished at the incident of the book, his
amazement was now much increased by the spectacle which here presented
itself to view. In raising his eyes, with a strong feeling of curiosity to
ascertain the color of his guest's, he found them by no means black, as he
had anticipated - nor gray, as might have been imagined - nor yet hazel
nor blue - nor indeed yellow nor red - nor purple - nor white - nor green
- nor any other color in the heavens above, or in the earth beneath, or in
the waters under the earth. In short, Pierre Bon-Bon not only saw plainly
that his Majesty had no eyes whatsoever, but could discover no indications
of their having existed at any previous period - for the space where eyes
should naturally have been was, I am constrained to say, simply a dead
level of flesh.
It was not in the nature of the metaphysician to forbear making some
inquiry into the sources of so strange a phenomenon, and the reply of his
Majesty was at once prompt, dignified, and satisfactory.
"Eyes! my dear Bon-Bon - eyes! did you say? - oh! - ah! - I perceive!
The ridiculous prints, eh, which are in, circulation, have given you a
false idea of my personal appearance? Eyes! - true. Eyes, Pierre Bon-Bon,
are very well in their proper place - that, you would say, is the head? -
right - the head of a worm. To you, likewise, these optics are
indispensable - yet I will convince you that my vision is more penetrating
than your own. There is a cat I see in the corner - a pretty cat- look at
her - observe her well. Now, Bon-Bon, do you behold the thoughts - the
thoughts, I say, - the ideas - the reflections - which are being
engendered in her pericranium? There it is, now - you do not! She is
thinking we admire the length of her tail and the profundity of her mind.
She has just concluded that I am the most distinguished of ecclesiastics,
and that you are the most superficial of metaphysicians. Thus you see I am
not altogether blind; but to one of my profession, the eyes you speak of
would be merely an incumbrance, liable at any time to be put out by a
toasting-iron, or a pitchfork. To you, I allow, these optical affairs are
indispensable. Endeavor, Bon-Bon, to use them well; - my vision is the
soul."
Hereupon the guest helped himself to the wine upon the table, and
pouring out a bumper for Bon-Bon, requested him to drink it without
scruple, and make himself perfectly at home.
"A clever book that of yours, Pierre," resumed his Majesty, tapping
our friend knowingly upon the shoulder, as the latter put down his glass
after a thorough compliance with his visiter's injunction. "A clever book
that of yours, upon my honor. It's a work after my own heart. Your
arrangement of the matter, I think, however, might be improved, and many
of your notions remind me of Aristotle. That philosopher was one of my
most intimate acquaintances. I liked him as much for his terrible ill
temper, as for his happy knack at making a blunder. There is only one
solid truth in all that he has written, and for that I gave him the hint
out of pure compassion for his absurdity. I suppose, Pierre Bon-Bon, you
very well know to what divine moral truth I am alluding?"
"Cannot say that I -"
"Indeed! - why it was I who told Aristotle that by sneezing, men
expelled superfluous ideas through the proboscis."
"Which is - hiccup! - undoubtedly the case," said the metaphysician, while
he poured out for himself another bumper of Mousseux, and offered his
snuff-box to the fingers of his visiter.
"There was Plato, too," continued his Majesty, modestly declining the
snuff-box and the compliment it implied - "there was Plato, too, for whom
I, at one time, felt all the affection of a friend. You knew Plato,
Bon-Bon? - ah, no, I beg a thousand pardons. He met me at Athens, one day,
in the Parthenon, and told me he was distressed for an idea. I bade him
write, down that o nous estin aulos. He said that he would do so, and went
home, while I stepped over to the pyramids. But my conscience smote me for
having uttered a truth, even to aid a friend, and hastening back to
Athens, I arrived behind the philosopher's chair as he was inditing the
'aulos.'"
"Giving the lambda a fillip with my finger, I turned it upside down.
So the sentence now read 'o nous estin augos', and is, you perceive, the
fundamental doctrines in his metaphysics."
"Were you ever at Rome?" asked the restaurateur, as he finished his
second bottle of Mousseux, and drew from the closet a larger supply of
Chambertin.
But once, Monsieur Bon-Bon, but once. There was a time," said the
devil, as if reciting some passage from a book - "there was a time when
occurred an anarchy of five years, during which the republic, bereft of
all its officers, had no magistracy besides the tribunes of the people,
and these were not legally vested with any degree of executive power - at
that time, Monsieur Bon-Bon - at that time only I was in Rome, and I have
no earthly acquaintance, consequently, with any of its philosophy."*
{*2} Ils ecrivaient sur la Philosophie (_Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca_) mais
c'etait la Philosophie Grecque. - _Condorcet_.
"What do you think of - what do you think of - hiccup! - Epicurus?"
"What do I think of whom?" said the devil, in astonishment, "you
cannot surely mean to find any fault with Epicurus! What do I think of
Epicurus! Do you mean me, sir? - I am Epicurus! I am the same philosopher
who wrote each of the three hundred treatises commemorated by Diogenes
Laertes."
"That's a lie!" said the metaphysician, for the wine had gotten a
little into his head.
"Very well! - very well, sir! - very well, indeed, sir!" said his
Majesty, apparently much flattered.
"That's a lie!" repeated the restaurateur, dogmatically; "that's a -
hiccup! - a lie!"
"Well, well, have it your own way!" said the devil, pacifically, and
Bon-Bon, having beaten his Majesty at argument, thought it his duty to
conclude a second bottle of Chambertin.
"As I was saying," resumed the visiter - "as I was observing a little
while ago, there are some very outre notions in that book of yours
Monsieur Bon-Bon. What, for instance, do you mean by all that humbug about
the soul? Pray, sir, what is the soul?"
"The - hiccup! - soul," replied the metaphysician, referring to his
MS., "is undoubtedly-"
"No, sir!"
"Indubitably-"
"No, sir!"
"Indisputably-"
"No, sir!"
"Evidently-"
"No, sir!"
"Incontrovertibly-"
"No, sir!"
"Hiccup! -"
"No, sir!"
"And beyond all question, a-"
"No sir, the soul is no such thing!" (Here the philosopher, looking
daggers, took occasion to make an end, upon the spot, of his third bottle
of Chambertin.)
"Then - hic-cup! - pray, sir - what - what is it?"
"That is neither here nor there, Monsieur Bon-Bon," replied his
Majesty, musingly. "I have tasted - that is to say, I have known some very
bad souls, and some too - pretty good ones." Here he smacked his lips,
and, having unconsciously let fall his hand upon the volume in his pocket,
was seized with a violent fit of sneezing.
He continued.
"There was the soul of Cratinus - passable: Aristophanes - racy: Plato
- exquisite- not your Plato, but Plato the comic poet; your Plato would
have turned the stomach of Cerberus - faugh! Then let me see! there were
Naevius, and Andronicus, and Plautus, and Terentius. Then there were
Lucilius, and Catullus, and Naso, and Quintus Flaccus, - dear Quinty! as I
called him when he sung a seculare for my amusement, while I toasted him,
in pure good humor, on a fork. But they want flavor, these Romans. One fat
Greek is worth a dozen of them, and besides will keep, which cannot be
said of a Quirite. - Let us taste your Sauterne."
Bon-Bon had by this time made up his mind to nil admirari and
endeavored to hand down the bottles in question. He was, however,
conscious of a strange sound in the room like the wagging of a tail. Of
this, although extremely indecent in his Majesty, the philosopher took no
notice: - simply kicking the dog, and requesting him to be quiet. The
visiter continued:
"I found that Horace tasted very much like Aristotle; - you know I am
fond of variety. Terentius I could not have told from Menander. Naso, to
my astonishment, was Nicander in disguise. Virgilius had a strong twang of
Theocritus. Martial put me much in mind of Archilochus - and Titus Livius
was positively Polybius and none other."
"Hic-cup!" here replied Bon-Bon, and his majesty proceeded:
"But if I have a penchant, Monsieur Bon-Bon - if I have a penchant, it
is for a philosopher. Yet, let me tell you, sir, it is not every dev - I
mean it is not every gentleman who knows how to choose a philosopher. Long
ones are not good; and the best, if not carefully shelled, are apt to be a
little rancid on account of the gall!"
"Shelled!"
"I mean taken out of the carcass."
"What do you think of a - hic-cup! - physician?"
"Don't mention them! - ugh! ugh! ugh!" (Here his Majesty retched
violently.) "I never tasted but one - that rascal Hippocrates! - smelt of
asafoetida - ugh! ugh! ugh! - caught a wretched cold washing him in the
Styx - and after all he gave me the cholera morbus."
"The - hiccup - wretch!" ejaculated Bon-Bon, "the - hic-cup! -
absorption of a pill-box!" - and the philosopher dropped a tear.
"After all," continued the visiter, "after all, if a dev - if a
gentleman wishes to live, he must have more talents than one or two; and
with us a fat face is an evidence of diplomacy."
"How so?"
"Why, we are sometimes exceedingly pushed for provisions. You must
know that, in a climate so sultry as mine, it is frequently impossible to
keep a spirit alive for more than two or three hours; and after death,
unless pickled immediately (and a pickled spirit is not good), they will -
smell - you understand, eh? Putrefaction is always to be apprehended when
the souls are consigned to us in the usual way."
"Hiccup! - hiccup! - good God! how do you manage?"
Here the iron lamp commenced swinging with redoubled violence, and the
devil half started from his seat; - however, with a slight sigh, he
recovered his composure, merely saying to our hero in a low tone: "I tell
you what, Pierre Bon-Bon, we must have no more swearing."
The host swallowed another bumper, by way of denoting thorough
comprehension and acquiescence, and the visiter continued.
"Why, there are several ways of managing. The most of us starve: some
put up with the pickle: for my part I purchase my spirits vivente corpore,
in which case I find they keep very well."
"But the body! - hiccup! - the body!"
"The body, the body - well, what of the body? - oh! ah! I perceive.
Why, sir, the body is not at all affected by the transaction. I have made
innumerable purchases of the kind in my day, and the parties never
experienced any inconvenience. There were Cain and Nimrod, and Nero, and
Caligula, and Dionysius, and Pisistratus, and - and a thousand others, who
never knew what it was to have a soul during the latter part of their
lives; yet, sir, these men adorned society. Why possession of his
faculties, mental and corporeal? Who writes a keener epigram? Who reasons
more wittily? Who - but stay! I have his agreement in my pocket-book."
Thus saying, he produced a red leather wallet, and took from it a
number of papers. Upon some of these Bon-Bon caught a glimpse of the
letters Machi - Maza- Robesp - with the words Caligula, George, Elizabeth.
His Majesty selected a narrow slip of parchment, and from it read aloud
the following words:
"In consideration of certain mental endowments which it is unnecessary
to specify, and in further consideration of one thousand louis d'or, I
being aged one year and one month, do hereby make over to the bearer of
this agreement all my right, title, and appurtenance in the shadow called
my soul. (Signed) A...." {*4} (Here His Majesty repeated a name which I
did not feel justified in indicating more unequivocally.)
{*4} Quere-Arouet?
"A clever fellow that," resumed he; "but like you, Monsieur Bon-Bon,
he was mistaken about the soul. The soul a shadow, truly! The soul a
shadow; Ha! ha! ha! - he! he! he! - hu! hu! hu! Only think of a fricasseed
shadow!"
"Only think - hiccup! - of a fricasseed shadow!" exclaimed our hero,
whose faculties were becoming much illuminated by the profundity of his
Majesty's discourse.
"Only think of a hiccup! - fricasseed shadow!! Now, damme! - hiccup! -
humph! If I would have been such a - hiccup! - nincompoop! My soul, Mr. -
humph!"
"Your soul, Monsieur Bon-Bon?"
"Yes, sir - hiccup! - my soul is-"
"What, sir?"
"No shadow, damme!"
"Did you mean to say-"
"Yes, sir, my soul is - hiccup! - humph! - yes, sir."
"Did you not intend to assert-"
"My soul is - hiccup! - peculiarly qualified for - hiccup! - a-"
"What, sir?"
"Stew."
"Ha!"
"Soufflee."
"Eh!"
"Fricassee."
"Indeed!"
"Ragout and fricandeau - and see here, my good fellow! I'll let you
have it- hiccup! - a bargain." Here the philosopher slapped his Majesty
upon the back.
"Couldn't think of such a thing," said the latter calmly, at the same
time rising from his seat. The metaphysician stared.
"Am supplied at present," said his Majesty.
"Hiccup - e-h?" said the philosopher.
"Have no funds on hand."
"What?"
"Besides, very unhandsome in me -"
"Sir!"
"To take advantage of-"
"Hiccup!"
"Your present disgusting and ungentlemanly situation."
Here the visiter bowed and withdrew - in what manner could not
precisely be ascertained - but in a well-concerted effort to discharge a
bottle at "the villain," the slender chain was severed that depended from
the ceiling, and the metaphysician prostrated by the downfall of the lamp.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY.
THE _symposium_ of the preceding evening had been a little too much
for my nerves. I had a wretched headache, and was desperately drowsy.
Instead of going out therefore to spend the evening as I had proposed, it
occurred to me that I could not do a wiser thing than just eat a mouthful
of supper and go immediately to bed.
A light supper of course. I am exceedingly fond of Welsh rabbit. More than
a pound at once, however, may not at all times be advisable. Still, there
can be no material objection to two. And really between two and three,
there is merely a single unit of difference. I ventured, perhaps, upon
four. My wife will have it five; -- but, clearly, she has confounded two
very distinct affairs. The abstract number, five, I am willing to admit;
but, concretely, it has reference to bottles of Brown Stout, without
which, in the way of condiment, Welsh rabbit is to be eschewed.
Having thus concluded a frugal meal, and donned my night-cap, with the
serene hope of enjoying it till noon the next day, I placed my head upon
the pillow, and, through the aid of a capital conscience, fell into a
profound slumber forthwith.
But when were the hopes of humanity fulfilled? I could not have completed
my third snore when there came a furious ringing at the street-door bell,
and then an impatient thumping at the knocker, which awakened me at once.
In a minute afterward, and while I was still rubbing my eyes, my wife
thrust in my face a note, from my old friend, Doctor Ponnonner. It ran
thus:
"Come to me, by all means, my dear good friend, as soon as you
receive this. Come and help us to rejoice. At last, by long persevering
diplomacy, I have gained the assent of the Directors of the City Museum,
to my examination of the Mummy -- you know the one I mean. I have
permission to unswathe it and open it, if desirable. A few friends only
will be present -- you, of course. The Mummy is now at my house, and we
shall begin to unroll it at eleven to-night.
"Yours, ever,
PONNONNER.
By the time I had reached the "Ponnonner," it struck me that I was as wide
awake as a man need be. I leaped out of bed in an ecstacy, overthrowing
all in my way; dressed myself with a rapidity truly marvellous; and set
off, at the top of my speed, for the doctor's.
There I found a very eager company assembled. They had been awaiting me
with much impatience; the Mummy was extended upon the dining-table; and
the moment I entered its examination was commenced.
It was one of a pair brought, several years previously, by Captain Arthur
Sabretash, a cousin of Ponnonner's from a tomb near Eleithias, in the
Lybian mountains, a considerable distance above Thebes on the Nile. The
grottoes at this point, although less magnificent than the Theban
sepulchres, are of higher interest, on account of affording more numerous
illustrations of the private life of the Egyptians. The chamber from which
our specimen was taken, was said to be very rich in such illustrations;
the walls being completely covered with fresco paintings and bas-reliefs,
while statues, vases, and Mosaic work of rich patterns, indicated the vast
wealth of the deceased.
The treasure had been deposited in the Museum precisely in the same
condition in which Captain Sabretash had found it; -- that is to say, the
coffin had not been disturbed. For eight years it had thus stood, subject
only externally to public inspection. We had now, therefore, the complete
Mummy at our disposal; and to those who are aware how very rarely the
unransacked antique reaches our shores, it will be evident, at once that
we had great reason to congratulate ourselves upon our good fortune.
Approaching the table, I saw on it a large box, or case, nearly seven feet
long, and perhaps three feet wide, by two feet and a half deep. It was
oblong -- not coffin-shaped. The material was at first supposed to be the
wood of the sycamore (_platanus_), but, upon cutting into it, we found it
to be pasteboard, or, more properly, _papier mache_, composed of papyrus.
It was thickly ornamented with paintings, representing funeral scenes, and
other mournful subjects -- interspersed among which, in every variety of
position, were certain series of hieroglyphical characters, intended, no
doubt, for the name of the departed. By good luck, Mr. Gliddon formed one
of our party; and he had no difficulty in translating the letters, which
were simply phonetic, and represented the word _Allamistakeo_.
We had some difficulty in getting this case open without injury; but
having at length accomplished the task, we came to a second,
coffin-shaped, and very considerably less in size than the exterior one,
but resembling it precisely in every other respect. The interval between
the two was filled with resin, which had, in some degree, defaced the
colors of the interior box.
Upon opening this latter (which we did quite easily), we arrived at a
third case, also coffin-shaped, and varying from the second one in no
particular, except in that of its material, which was cedar, and still
emitted the peculiar and highly aromatic odor of that wood. Between the
second and the third case there was no interval -- the one fitting
accurately within the other.
Removing the third case, we discovered and took out the body itself. We
had expected to find it, as usual, enveloped in frequent rolls, or
bandages, of linen; but, in place of these, we found a sort of sheath,
made of papyrus, and coated with a layer of plaster, thickly gilt and
painted. The paintings represented subjects connected with the various
supposed duties of the soul, and its presentation to different divinities,
with numerous identical human figures, intended, very probably, as
portraits of the persons embalmed. Extending from head to foot was a
columnar, or perpendicular, inscription, in phonetic hieroglyphics, giving
again his name and titles, and the names and titles of his relations.
Around the neck thus ensheathed, was a collar of cylindrical glass beads,
diverse in color, and so arranged as to form images of deities, of the
scarabaeus, etc, with the winged globe. Around the small of the waist was
a similar collar or belt.
Stripping off the papyrus, we found the flesh in excellent preservation,
with no perceptible odor. The color was reddish. The skin was hard,
smooth, and glossy. The teeth and hair were in good condition. The eyes
(it seemed) had been removed, and glass ones substituted, which were very
beautiful and wonderfully life-like, with the exception of somewhat too
determined a stare. The fingers and the nails were brilliantly gilded.
Mr. Gliddon was of opinion, from the redness of the epidermis, that the
embalmment had been effected altogether by asphaltum; but, on scraping the
surface with a steel instrument, and throwing into the fire some of the
powder thus obtained, the flavor of camphor and other sweet-scented gums
became apparent.
We searched the corpse very carefully for the usual openings through which
the entrails are extracted, but, to our surprise, we could discover none.
No member of the party was at that period aware that entire or unopened
mummies are not infrequently met. The brain it was customary to withdraw
through the nose; the intestines through an incision in the side; the body
was then shaved, washed, and salted; then laid aside for several weeks,
when the operation of embalming, properly so called, began.
As no trace of an opening could be found, Doctor Ponnonner was preparing
his instruments for dissection, when I observed that it was then past two
o'clock. Hereupon it was agreed to postpone the internal examination until
the next evening; and we were about to separate for the present, when some
one suggested an experiment or two with the Voltaic pile.
The application of electricity to a mummy three or four thousand years old
at the least, was an idea, if not very sage, still sufficiently original,
and we all caught it at once. About one-tenth in earnest and nine-tenths
in jest, we arranged a battery in the Doctor's study, and conveyed thither
the Egyptian.
It was only after much trouble that we succeeded in laying bare some
portions of the temporal muscle which appeared of less stony rigidity than
other parts of the frame, but which, as we had anticipated, of course,
gave no indication of galvanic susceptibility when brought in contact with
the wire. This, the first trial, indeed, seemed decisive, and, with a
hearty laugh at our own absurdity, we were bidding each other good night,
when my eyes, happening to fall upon those of the Mummy, were there
immediately riveted in amazement. My brief glance, in fact, had sufficed
to assure me that the orbs which we had all supposed to be glass, and
which were originally noticeable for a certain wild stare, were now so far
covered by the lids, that only a small portion of the _tunica albuginea_
remained visible.
With a shout I called attention to the fact, and it became immediately
obvious to all.
I cannot say that I was alarmed at the phenomenon, because "alarmed" is,
in my case, not exactly the word. It is possible, however, that, but for
the Brown Stout, I might have been a little nervous. As for the rest of
the company, they really made no attempt at concealing the downright
fright which possessed them. Doctor Ponnonner was a man to be pitied. Mr.
Gliddon, by some peculiar process, rendered himself invisible. Mr. Silk
Buckingham, I fancy, will scarcely be so bold as to deny that he made his
way, upon all fours, under the table.
After the first shock of astonishment, however, we resolved, as a matter
of course, upon further experiment forthwith. Our operations were now
directed against the great toe of the right foot. We made an incision over
the outside of the exterior _os sesamoideum pollicis pedis,_ and thus got
at the root of the abductor muscle. Readjusting the battery, we now
applied the fluid to the bisected nerves -- when, with a movement of
exceeding life-likeness, the Mummy first drew up its right knee so as to
bring it nearly in contact with the abdomen, and then, straightening the
limb with inconceivable force, bestowed a kick upon Doctor Ponnonner,
which had the effect of discharging that gentleman, like an arrow from a
catapult, through a window into the street below.
We rushed out _en masse_ to bring in the mangled remains of the victim,
but had the happiness to meet him upon the staircase, coming up in an
unaccountable hurry, brimful of the most ardent philosophy, and more than
ever impressed with the necessity of prosecuting our experiment with vigor
and with zeal.
It was by his advice, accordingly, that we made, upon the spot, a profound
incision into the tip of the subject's nose, while the Doctor himself,
laying violent hands upon it, pulled it into vehement contact with the
wire.
Morally and physically -- figuratively and literally -- was the effect
electric. In the first place, the corpse opened its eyes and winked very
rapidly for several minutes, as does Mr. Barnes in the pantomime, in the
second place, it sneezed; in the third, it sat upon end; in the fourth, it
shook its fist in Doctor Ponnonner's face; in the fifth, turning to
Messieurs Gliddon and Buckingham, it addressed them, in very capital
Egyptian, thus:
"I must say, gentlemen, that I am as much surprised as I am mortified at
your behavior. Of Doctor Ponnonner nothing better was to be expected. He
is a poor little fat fool who knows no better. I pity and forgive him. But
you, Mr. Gliddon- and you, Silk -- who have travelled and resided in Egypt
until one might imagine you to the manner born -- you, I say who have been
so much among us that you speak Egyptian fully as well, I think, as you
write your mother tongue -- you, whom I have always been led to regard as
the firm friend of the mummies -- I really did anticipate more gentlemanly
conduct from you. What am I to think of your standing quietly by and
seeing me thus unhandsomely used? What am I to suppose by your permitting
Tom, Dick, and Harry to strip me of my coffins, and my clothes, in this
wretchedly cold climate? In what light (to come to the point) am I to
regard your aiding and abetting that miserable little villain, Doctor
Ponnonner, in pulling me by the nose?"
It will be taken for granted, no doubt, that upon hearing this speech
under the circumstances, we all either made for the door, or fell into
violent hysterics, or went off in a general swoon. One of these three
things was, I say, to be expected. Indeed each and all of these lines of
conduct might have been very plausibly pursued. And, upon my word, I am at
a loss to know how or why it was that we pursued neither the one nor the
other. But, perhaps, the true reason is to be sought in the spirit of the
age, which proceeds by the rule of contraries altogether, and is now
usually admitted as the solution of every thing in the way of paradox and
impossibility. Or, perhaps, after all, it was only the Mummy's exceedingly
natural and matter-of-course air that divested his words of the terrible.
However this may be, the facts are clear, and no member of our party
betrayed any very particular trepidation, or seemed to consider that any
thing had gone very especially wrong.
For my part I was convinced it was all right, and merely stepped aside,
out of the range of the Egyptian's fist. Doctor Ponnonner thrust his hands
into his breeches' pockets, looked hard at the Mummy, and grew excessively
red in the face. Mr. Glidden stroked his whiskers and drew up the collar
of his shirt. Mr. Buckingham hung down his head, and put his right thumb
into the left corner of his mouth.
The Egyptian regarded him with a severe countenance for some minutes and
at length, with a sneer, said:
"Why don't you speak, Mr. Buckingham? Did you hear what I asked you, or
not? Do take your thumb out of your mouth!"
Mr. Buckingham, hereupon, gave a slight start, took his right thumb out of
the left corner of his mouth, and, by way of indemnification inserted his
left thumb in the right corner of the aperture above-mentioned.
Not being able to get an answer from Mr. B., the figure turned peevishly
to Mr. Gliddon, and, in a peremptory tone, demanded in general terms what
we all meant.
Mr. Gliddon replied at great length, in phonetics; and but for the
deficiency of American printing-offices in hieroglyphical type, it would
afford me much pleasure to record here, in the original, the whole of his
very excellent speech.
I may as well take this occasion to remark, that all the subsequent
conversation in which the Mummy took a part, was carried on in primitive
Egyptian, through the medium (so far as concerned myself and other
untravelled members of the company) -- through the medium, I say, of
Messieurs Gliddon and Buckingham, as interpreters. These gentlemen spoke
the mother tongue of the Mummy with inimitable fluency and grace; but I
could not help observing that (owing, no doubt, to the introduction of
images entirely modern, and, of course, entirely novel to the stranger)
the two travellers were reduced, occasionally, to the employment of
sensible forms for the purpose of conveying a particular meaning. Mr.
Gliddon, at one period, for example, could not make the Egyptian
comprehend the term "politics," until he sketched upon the wall, with a
bit of charcoal a little carbuncle-nosed gentleman, out at elbows,
standing upon a stump, with his left leg drawn back, right arm thrown
forward, with his fist shut, the eyes rolled up toward Heaven, and the
mouth open at an angle of ninety degrees. Just in the same way Mr.
Buckingham failed to convey the absolutely modern idea "wig," until (at
Doctor Ponnonner's suggestion) he grew very pale in the face, and
consented to take off his own.
It will be readily understood that Mr. Gliddon's discourse turned chiefly
upon the vast benefits accruing to science from the unrolling and
disembowelling of mummies; apologizing, upon this score, for any
disturbance that might have been occasioned him, in particular, the
individual Mummy called Allamistakeo; and concluding with a mere hint (for
it could scarcely be considered more) that, as these little matters were
now explained, it might be as well to proceed with the investigation
intended. Here Doctor Ponnonner made ready his instruments.
In regard to the latter suggestions of the orator, it appears that
Allamistakeo had certain scruples of conscience, the nature of which I did
not distinctly learn; but he expressed himself satisfied with the
apologies tendered, and, getting down from the table, shook hands with the
company all round.
When this ceremony was at an end, we immediately busied ourselves in
repairing the damages which our subject had sustained from the scalpel. We
sewed up the wound in his temple, bandaged his foot, and applied a square
inch of black plaster to the tip of his nose.
It was now observed that the Count (this was the title, it seems, of
Allamistakeo) had a slight fit of shivering -- no doubt from the cold. The
Doctor immediately repaired to his wardrobe, and soon returned with a
black dress coat, made in Jennings' best manner, a pair of sky-blue plaid
pantaloons with straps, a pink gingham chemise, a flapped vest of brocade,
a white sack overcoat, a walking cane with a hook, a hat with no brim,
patent-leather boots, straw-colored kid gloves, an eye-glass, a pair of
whiskers, and a waterfall cravat. Owing to the disparity of size between
the Count and the doctor (the proportion being as two to one), there was
some little difficulty in adjusting these habiliments upon the person of
the Egyptian; but when all was arranged, he might have been said to be
dressed. Mr. Gliddon, therefore, gave him his arm, and led him to a
comfortable chair by the fire, while the Doctor rang the bell upon the
spot and ordered a supply of cigars and wine.
The conversation soon grew animated. Much curiosity was, of course,
expressed in regard to the somewhat remarkable fact of Allamistakeo's
still remaining alive.
"I should have thought," observed Mr. Buckingham, "that it is high time
you were dead."
"Why," replied the Count, very much astonished, "I am little more than
seven hundred years old! My father lived a thousand, and was by no means
in his dotage when he died."
Here ensued a brisk series of questions and computations, by means of
which it became evident that the antiquity of the Mummy had been grossly
misjudged. It had been five thousand and fifty years and some months since
he had been consigned to the catacombs at Eleithias.
"But my remark," resumed Mr. Buckingham, "had no reference to your age at
the period of interment (I am willing to grant, in fact, that you are
still a young man), and my illusion was to the immensity of time during
which, by your own showing, you must have been done up in asphaltum."
"In what?" said the Count.
"In asphaltum," persisted Mr. B.
"Ah, yes; I have some faint notion of what you mean; it might be made to
answer, no doubt -- but in my time we employed scarcely any thing else
than the Bichloride of Mercury."
"But what we are especially at a loss to understand," said Doctor
Ponnonner, "is how it happens that, having been dead and buried in Egypt
five thousand years ago, you are here to-day all alive and looking so
delightfully well."
"Had I been, as you say, dead," replied the Count, "it is more than
probable that dead, I should still be; for I perceive you are yet in the
infancy of Calvanism, and cannot accomplish with it what was a common
thing among us in the old days. But the fact is, I fell into catalepsy,
and it was considered by my best friends that I was either dead or should
be; they accordingly embalmed me at once -- I presume you are aware of the
chief principle of the embalming process?"
"Why not altogether."
"Why, I perceive -- a deplorable condition of ignorance! Well I cannot
enter into details just now: but it is necessary to explain that to embalm
(properly speaking), in Egypt, was to arrest indefinitely all the animal
functions subjected to the process. I use the word 'animal' in its widest
sense, as including the physical not more than the moral and vital being.
I repeat that the leading principle of embalmment consisted, with us, in
the immediately arresting, and holding in perpetual abeyance, all the
animal functions subjected to the process. To be brief, in whatever
condition the individual was, at the period of embalmment, in that
condition he remained. Now, as it is my good fortune to be of the blood of
the Scarabaeus, I was embalmed alive, as you see me at present."
"The blood of the Scarabaeus!" exclaimed Doctor Ponnonner.
"Yes. The Scarabaeus was the insignium or the 'arms,' of a very
distinguished and very rare patrician family. To be 'of the blood of the
Scarabaeus,' is merely to be one of that family of which the Scarabaeus is
the insignium. I speak figuratively."
"But what has this to do with you being alive?"
"Why, it is the general custom in Egypt to deprive a corpse, before
embalmment, of its bowels and brains; the race of the Scarabaei alone did
not coincide with the custom. Had I not been a Scarabeus, therefore, I
should have been without bowels and brains; and without either it is
inconvenient to live."
"I perceive that," said Mr. Buckingham, "and I presume that all the entire
mummies that come to hand are of the race of Scarabaei."
"Beyond doubt."
"I thought," said Mr. Gliddon, very meekly, "that the Scarabaeus was one
of the Egyptian gods."
"One of the Egyptian _what?"_ exclaimed the Mummy, starting to its feet.
"Gods!" repeated the traveller.
"Mr. Gliddon, I really am astonished to hear you talk in this style," said
the Count, resuming his chair. "No nation upon the face of the earth has
ever acknowledged more than one god. The Scarabaeus, the Ibis, etc., were
with us (as similar creatures have been with others) the symbols, or
media, through which we offered worship to the Creator too august to be
more directly approached."
There was here a pause. At length the colloquy was renewed by Doctor
Ponnonner.
"It is not improbable, then, from what you have explained," said he, "that
among the catacombs near the Nile there may exist other mummies of the
Scarabaeus tribe, in a condition of vitality?"
"There can be no question of it," replied the Count; "all the Scarabaei
embalmed accidentally while alive, are alive now. Even some of those
purposely so embalmed, may have been overlooked by their executors, and
still remain in the tomb."
"Will you be kind enough to explain," I said, "what you mean by 'purposely
so embalmed'?"
"With great pleasure!" answered the Mummy, after surveying me leisurely
through his eye-glass -- for it was the first time I had ventured to
address him a direct question.
"With great pleasure," he said. "The usual duration of man's life, in my
time, was about eight hundred years. Few men died, unless by most
extraordinary accident, before the age of six hundred; few lived longer
than a decade of centuries; but eight were considered the natural term.
After the discovery of the embalming principle, as I have already
described it to you, it occurred to our philosophers that a laudable
curiosity might be gratified, and, at the same time, the interests of
science much advanced, by living this natural term in installments. In the
case of history, indeed, experience demonstrated that something of this
kind was indispensable. An historian, for example, having attained the age
of five hundred, would write a book with great labor and then get himself
carefully embalmed; leaving instructions to his executors pro tem., that
they should cause him to be revivified after the lapse of a certain period
-- say five or six hundred years. Resuming existence at the expiration of
this time, he would invariably find his great work converted into a
species of hap-hazard note-book -- that is to say, into a kind of literary
arena for the conflicting guesses, riddles, and personal squabbles of
whole herds of exasperated commentators. These guesses, etc., which passed
under the name of annotations, or emendations, were found so completely to
have enveloped, distorted, and overwhelmed the text, that the author had
to go about with a lantern to discover his own book. When discovered, it
was never worth the trouble of the search. After re-writing it throughout,
it was regarded as the bounden duty of the historian to set himself to
work immediately in correcting, from his own private knowledge and
experience, the traditions of the day concerning the epoch at which he had
originally lived. Now this process of re-scription and personal
rectification, pursued by various individual sages from time to time, had
the effect of preventing our history from degenerating into absolute
fable."
"I beg your pardon," said Doctor Ponnonner at this point, laying his hand
gently upon the arm of the Egyptian -- "I beg your pardon, sir, but may I
presume to interrupt you for one moment?"
"By all means, sir," replied the Count, drawing up.
"I merely wished to ask you a question," said the Doctor. "You mentioned
the historian's personal correction of traditions respecting his own
epoch. Pray, sir, upon an average what proportion of these Kabbala were
usually found to be right?"
"The Kabbala, as you properly term them, sir, were generally discovered to
be precisely on a par with the facts recorded in the un-re-written
histories themselves; -- that is to say, not one individual iota of either
was ever known, under any circumstances, to be not totally and radically
wrong."
"But since it is quite clear," resumed the Doctor, "that at least five
thousand years have elapsed since your entombment, I take it for granted
that your histories at that period, if not your traditions were
sufficiently explicit on that one topic of universal interest, the
Creation, which took place, as I presume you are aware, only about ten
centuries before."
"Sir!" said the Count Allamistakeo.
The Doctor repeated his remarks, but it was only after much additional
explanation that the foreigner could be made to comprehend them. The
latter at length said, hesitatingly:
"The ideas you have suggested are to me, I confess, utterly novel. During
my time I never knew any one to entertain so singular a fancy as that the
universe (or this world if you will have it so) ever had a beginning at
all. I remember once, and once only, hearing something remotely hinted, by
a man of many speculations, concerning the origin _of the human race;_ and
by this individual, the very word _Adam_ (or Red Earth), which you make
use of, was employed. He employed it, however, in a generical sense, with
reference to the spontaneous germination from rank soil (just as a
thousand of the lower genera of creatures are germinated) -- the
spontaneous germination, I say, of five vast hordes of men, simultaneously
upspringing in five distinct and nearly equal divisions of the globe."
Here, in general, the company shrugged their shoulders, and one or two of
us touched our foreheads with a very significant air. Mr. Silk Buckingham,
first glancing slightly at the occiput and then at the sinciput of
Allamistakeo, spoke as follows:
"The long duration of human life in your time, together with the
occasional practice of passing it, as you have explained, in installments,
must have had, indeed, a strong tendency to the general development and
conglomeration of knowledge. I presume, therefore, that we are to
attribute the marked inferiority of the old Egyptians in all particulars
of science, when compared with the moderns, and more especially with the
Yankees, altogether to the superior solidity of the Egyptian skull."
"I confess again," replied the Count, with much suavity, "that I am
somewhat at a loss to comprehend you; pray, to what particulars of science
do you allude?"
Here our whole party, joining voices, detailed, at great length, the
assumptions of phrenology and the marvels of animal magnetism.
Having heard us to an end, the Count proceeded to relate a few anecdotes,
which rendered it evident that prototypes of Gall and Spurzheim had
flourished and faded in Egypt so long ago as to have been nearly
forgotten, and that the manoeuvres of Mesmer were really very contemptible
tricks when put in collation with the positive miracles of the Theban
savans, who created lice and a great many other similar things.
I here asked the Count if his people were able to calculate eclipses. He
smiled rather contemptuously, and said they were.
This put me a little out, but I began to make other inquiries in regard to
his astronomical knowledge, when a member of the company, who had never as
yet opened his mouth, whispered in my ear, that for information on this
head, I had better consult Ptolemy (whoever Ptolemy is), as well as one
Plutarch de facie lunae.
I then questioned the Mummy about burning-glasses and lenses, and, in
general, about the manufacture of glass; but I had not made an end of my
queries before the silent member again touched me quietly on the elbow,
and begged me for God's sake to take a peep at Diodorus Siculus. As for
the Count, he merely asked me, in the way of reply, if we moderns
possessed any such microscopes as would enable us to cut cameos in the
style of the Egyptians. While I was thinking how I should answer this
question, little Doctor Ponnonner committed himself in a very
extraordinary way.
"Look at our architecture!" he exclaimed, greatly to the indignation of
both the travellers, who pinched him black and blue to no purpose.
"Look," he cried with enthusiasm, "at the Bowling-Green Fountain in New
York! or if this be too vast a contemplation, regard for a moment the
Capitol at Washington, D. C.!" -- and the good little medical man went on
to detail very minutely, the proportions of the fabric to which he
referred. He explained that the portico alone was adorned with no less
than four and twenty columns, five feet in diameter, and ten feet apart.
The Count said that he regretted not being able to remember, just at that
moment, the precise dimensions of any one of the principal buildings of
the city of Aznac, whose foundations were laid in the night of Time, but
the ruins of which were still standing, at the epoch of his entombment, in
a vast plain of sand to the westward of Thebes. He recollected, however,
(talking of the porticoes,) that one affixed to an inferior palace in a
kind of suburb called Carnac, consisted of a hundred and forty-four
columns, thirty-seven feet in circumference, and twenty-five feet apart.
The approach to this portico, from the Nile, was through an avenue two
miles long, composed of sphynxes, statues, and obelisks, twenty, sixty,
and a hundred feet in height. The palace itself (as well as he could
remember) was, in one direction, two miles long, and might have been
altogether about seven in circuit. Its walls were richly painted all over,
within and without, with hieroglyphics. He would not pretend to assert
that even fifty or sixty of the Doctor's Capitols might have been built
within these walls, but he was by no means sure that two or three hundred
of them might not have been squeezed in with some trouble. That palace at
Carnac was an insignificant little building after all. He (the Count),
however, could not conscientiously refuse to admit the ingenuity,
magnificence, and superiority of the Fountain at the Bowling Green, as
described by the Doctor. Nothing like it, he was forced to allow, had ever
been seen in Egypt or elsewhere.
I here asked the Count what he had to say to our railroads.
"Nothing," he replied, "in particular." They were rather slight, rather
ill-conceived, and clumsily put together. They could not be compared, of
course, with the vast, level, direct, iron-grooved causeways upon which
the Egyptians conveyed entire temples and solid obelisks of a hundred and
fifty feet in altitude.
I spoke of our gigantic mechanical forces.
He agreed that we knew something in that way, but inquired how I should
have gone to work in getting up the imposts on the lintels of even the
little palace at Carnac.
This question I concluded not to hear, and demanded if he had any idea of
Artesian wells; but he simply raised his eyebrows; while Mr. Gliddon
winked at me very hard and said, in a low tone, that one had been recently
discovered by the engineers employed to bore for water in the Great Oasis.
I then mentioned our steel; but the foreigner elevated his nose, and asked
me if our steel could have executed the sharp carved work seen on the
obelisks, and which was wrought altogether by edge-tools of copper.
This disconcerted us so greatly that we thought it advisable to vary the
attack to Metaphysics. We sent for a copy of a book called the "Dial," and
read out of it a chapter or two about something that is not very clear,
but which the Bostonians call the Great Movement of Progress.
The Count merely said that Great Movements were awfully common things in
his day, and as for Progress, it was at one time quite a nuisance, but it
never progressed.
We then spoke of the great beauty and importance of Democracy, and were at
much trouble in impressing the Count with a due sense of the advantages we
enjoyed in living where there was suffrage ad libitum, and no king.
He listened with marked interest, and in fact seemed not a little amused.
When we had done, he said that, a great while ago, there had occurred
something of a very similar sort. Thirteen Egyptian provinces determined
all at once to be free, and to set a magnificent example to the rest of
mankind. They assembled their wise men, and concocted the most ingenious
constitution it is possible to conceive. For a while they managed
remarkably well; only their habit of bragging was prodigious. The thing
ended, however, in the consolidation of the thirteen states, with some
fifteen or twenty others, in the most odious and insupportable despotism
that was ever heard of upon the face of the Earth.
I asked what was the name of the usurping tyrant.
As well as the Count could recollect, it was Mob.
Not knowing what to say to this, I raised my voice, and deplored the
Egyptian ignorance of steam.
The Count looked at me with much astonishment, but made no answer. The
silent gentleman, however, gave me a violent nudge in the ribs with his
elbows -- told me I had sufficiently exposed myself for once -- and
demanded if I was really such a fool as not to know that the modern
steam-engine is derived from the invention of Hero, through Solomon de
Caus.
We were now in imminent danger of being discomfited; but, as good luck
would have it, Doctor Ponnonner, having rallied, returned to our rescue,
and inquired if the people of Egypt would seriously pretend to rival the
moderns in the all- important particular of dress.
The Count, at this, glanced downward to the straps of his pantaloons, and
then taking hold of the end of one of his coat-tails, held it up close to
his eyes for some minutes. Letting it fall, at last, his mouth extended
itself very gradually from ear to ear; but I do not remember that he said
any thing in the way of reply.
Hereupon we recovered our spirits, and the Doctor, approaching the Mummy
with great dignity, desired it to say candidly, upon its honor as a
gentleman, if the Egyptians had comprehended, at any period, the
manufacture of either Ponnonner's lozenges or Brandreth's pills.
We looked, with profound anxiety, for an answer -- but in vain. It was not
forthcoming. The Egyptian blushed and hung down his head. Never was
triumph more consummate; never was defeat borne with so ill a grace.
Indeed, I could not endure the spectacle of the poor Mummy's
mortification. I reached my hat, bowed to him stiffly, and took leave.
Upon getting home I found it past four o'clock, and went immediately to
bed. It is now ten A.M. I have been up since seven, penning these
memoranda for the benefit of my family and of mankind. The former I shall
behold no more. My wife is a shrew. The truth is, I am heartily sick of
this life and of the nineteenth century in general. I am convinced that
every thing is going wrong. Besides, I am anxious to know who will be
President in 2045. As soon, therefore, as I shave and swallow a cup of
coffee, I shall just step over to Ponnonner's and get embalmed for a
couple of hundred years.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
The Poetic Principle
IN speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either
thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the
essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite
for consideration, some few of those minor English or American poems which
best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most
definite impression. By "minor poems" I mean, of course, poems of little
length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words in regard
to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully,
has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I
hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, "a long
poem," is simply a flat contradiction in terms.
I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch
as it excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the
ratio of this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a
psychal necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would
entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a
composition of any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the
very utmost, it flags -- fails -- a revulsion ensues -- and then the poem
is, in effect, and in fact, no longer such.
There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling the
critical dictum that the "Paradise Lost" is to be devoutly admired
throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, during
perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand.
This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical, only when, losing
sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art, Unity, we view it
merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve its Unity -- its
totality of effect or impression -- we read it (as would be necessary) at
a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation of excitement
and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true poetry, there
follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no critical prejudgment
can force us to admire; but if, upon completing the work, we read it
again, omitting the first book -- that is to say, commencing with the
second -- we shall be surprised at now finding that admirable which we
before condemned -- that damnable which we had previously so much admired.
It follows from all this that the ultimate, aggregate, or absolute effect
of even the best epic under the sun, is a nullity: -- and this is
precisely the fact.
In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very
good reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but, granting
the epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an imperfect
sense of art. The modem epic is, of the supposititious ancient model, but
an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these artistic
anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem _were _popular in
reality, which I doubt, it is at least clear that no very long poem will
ever be popular again.
That the extent of a poetical work is, _ceteris paribus, _the measure
of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition
sufficiently absurd -- yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly
Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere _size, _abstractly considered
-- there can be nothing in mere _bulk, so _far as a volume is concerned,
which has so continuously elicited admiration from these saturnine
pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of physical
magnitude which it conveys, _does _impress us with a sense of the sublime
-- but no man is impressed after _this _fashion by the material grandeur
of even "The Columbiad." Even the Quarterlies have not instructed us to be
so impressed by it. As _yet, _they have not _insisted _on our estimating
Lamar" tine by the cubic foot, or Pollock by the pound -- but what else
are we to _infer _from their continual plating about "sustained effort"?
If, by "sustained effort," any little gentleman has accomplished an epic,
1* us frankly commend him for the effort -- if this indeed be a thing conk
mendable--but let us forbear praising the epic on the effort's account. It
is to be hoped that common sense, in the time to come, will prefer
deciding upon a work of Art rather by the impression it makes -- by the
effect it produces -- than by the time it took to impress the effect, or
by the amount of "sustained effort" which had been found necessary in
effecting the impression. The fact is, that perseverance is one thing and
genius quite another -- nor can all the Quarterlies in Christendom
confound them. By and by, this proposition, with many which I have been
just urging, will be received as self-evident. In the meantime, by being
generally condemned as falsities, they will not be essentially damaged as
truths.
On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief.
Undue brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem,
while now and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a
profound or enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the
stamp upon the wax. De Beranger has wrought innumerable things, pungent
and spirit-stirring, but in general they have been too imponderous to
stamp themselves deeply into the public attention, and thus, as so many
feathers of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be whistled down the
wind.
A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a
poem, in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the following
exquisite little Serenade--
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me -- who knows how? --
To thy chamber-window, sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark the silent stream --
The champak odors fail
Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on shine,
O, beloved as thou art!
O, lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My heart beats loud and fast:
O, press it close to shine again,
Where it will break at last.
Very few perhaps are familiar with these lines--yet no less a poet
than Shelley is their author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal
imagination will be appreciated by all, but by none so thoroughly as by
him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved to bathe in
the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night.
One of the finest poems by Willis -- the very best in my opinion which
he has ever written--has no doubt, through this same defect of undue
brevity, been kept back from its proper position. not less in the
The shadows lay along Broadway,
'Twas near the twilight-tide--
And slowly there a lady fair
Was walking in her pride.
Alone walk'd she; but, viewlessly,
Walk'd spirits at her side.
Peace charm'd the street beneath her feet,
And Honor charm'd the air;
And all astir looked kind on her,
And called her good as fair--
For all God ever gave to her
She kept with chary care.
She kept with care her beauties rare
From lovers warm and true--
For heart was cold to all but gold,
And the rich came not to won,
But honor'd well her charms to sell.
If priests the selling do.
Now walking there was one more fair --
A slight girl, lily-pale;
And she had unseen company
To make the spirit quail--
'Twixt Want and Scorn she walk'd forlorn,
And nothing could avail.
No mercy now can clear her brow
From this world's peace to pray
For as love's wild prayer dissolved in air,
Her woman's heart gave way!--
But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven
By man is cursed alway!
In this composition we find it difficult to recognize the Willis who
has written so many mere "verses of society." The lines are not only
richly ideal, but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness, an
evident sincerity of sentiment, for which we look in vain throughout all
the other works of this author.
While the epic mania, while the idea that to merit in poetry prolixity
is indispensable, has for some years past been gradually dying out of the
public mind, by mere dint of its own absurdity, we find it succeeded by a
heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one which, in the
brief period it has already endured, may be said to have accomplished more
in the corruption of our Poetical Literature than all its other enemies
combined. I allude to the heresy of _The Didactic. _It has been assumed,
tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate object of
all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a morals and
by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged. We
Americans especially have patronized this happy idea, and we Bostonians
very especially have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads
that to write a poem simply for the poem's sake, and to acknowledge such
to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting
in the true poetic dignity and force:--but the simple fact is that would
we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls we should immediately
there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor _can _exist any
work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than this very poem,
this poem _per se, _this poem which is a poem and nothing more, this poem
written solely for the poem's sake.
With as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom of
man, I would nevertheless limit, in some measure, its modes of
inculcation. I would limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them by
dissipation. The demands of Truth are severe. She has no sympathy with the
myrtles. All _that _which is so indispensable in Song is precisely all
_that _with which _she _has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a
flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a truth
we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple,
precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must
be in that mood which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the
poetical. _He _must be blind indeed who does not perceive the radical and
chasmal difference between the truthful and the poetical modes of
inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of
these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the
obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.
Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious
distinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral Sense. I
place Taste in the middle, because it is just this position which in the
mind it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either extreme; but
from the Moral Sense is separated by so faint a difference that Aristotle
has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the virtues
themselves. Nevertheless we find the _offices _of the trio marked with a
sufficient distinction. Just as the Intellect concerns itself with Truth,
so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the Moral Sense is regardful
of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience teaches the obligation, and
Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself with displaying the charms:
-- waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of her deformity -- her
disproportion -- her animosity to the fitting, to the appropriate, to the
harmonious -- in a word, to Beauty.
An immortal instinct deep within the spirit of man is thus plainly a
sense of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in the
manifold forms, and sounds, and odors and sentiments amid which he exists.
And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the eyes of Amaryllis in
the mirror, so is the mere oral or written repetition of these forms, and
sounds, and colors, and odors, and sentiments a duplicate source of de"
light. But this mere repetition is not poetry. He who shall simply sing,
with however glowing enthusiasm, or with however vivid a truth of
description, of the sights, and sounds, and odors, and colors, and
sentiments which greet _him _in common with all mankind -- he, I say, has
yet failed to prove his divine title. There is still a something in the
distance which he has been unable to attain. We have still a thirst
unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This
thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and
an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth for
the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us, but a wild
effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of
the glories beyond the grave, we struggle by multiform combinations among
the things and thoughts of Time to attain a portion of that Loveliness
whose very elements perhaps appertain to eternity alone. And thus when by
Poetry, or when by Music, the most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find
ourselves melted into tears, we weep then, not as the Abbate Gravina
supposes, through excess of pleasure, but through a certain petulant,
impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at
once and for ever, those divine and rapturous joys of which _through' _the
poem, or _through _the music, we attain to but brief and indeterminate
glimpses.
The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness -- this struggle, on
the part of souls fittingly constituted -- has given to the world all
_that _which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to understand
and _to feel _as poetic.
The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various modes
--in Painting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance -- very
especially in Music -- and very peculiarly, and with a wide field, in the
com position of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has
regard only to its manifestation in words. And here let me speak briefly
on the topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty that Music,
in its various modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment
in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected -- is so vitally important an
adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not
now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. It is in Music perhaps
that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired
by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles -- the creation of supernal Beauty.
It _may _be, indeed, that here this sublime end is, now and then, attained
in _fact. _We are often made to feel, with a shivering delight, that from
an earthly harp are stricken notes which _cannot _have been unfamiliar to
the angels. And thus there can be little doubt that in the union of Poetry
with Music in its popular sense, we shall find the widest field for the
Poetic development. The old Bards and Minnesingers had advantages which we
do not possess -- and Thomas Moore, singing his own songs, was, in the
most legitimate manner, perfecting them as poems.
To recapitulate then: -- I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words
as _The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. _Its sole arbiter is Taste. With
the Intellect or with the Conscience it has only collateral relations.
Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with Duty or with
Truth.
A few words, however, in explanation. _That _pleasure which is at once
the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived, I
maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the contemplation of
Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation, or
excitement _of the soul, _which we recognize as the Poetic Sentiment, and
which is so easily distinguished from Truth, which is the satisfaction of
the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of the heart. I make
Beauty, therefore--using the word as inclusive of the sublime -- I make
Beauty the province of the poem, simply because it is an obvious rule of
Art that effects should be made to spring as directly as possible from
their causes: -- no one as yet having been weak enough to deny that the
peculiar elevation in question is at least _most readily _attainable in
the poem. It by no means follows, however, that the incitements of
Passion' or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons of Truth, may not be
introduced into a poem, and with advantage; for they may subserve
incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the work: but the
true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper subjection to
that _Beauty _which is the atmosphere and the real essence of the poem.
I cannot better introduce the few poems which I shall present for your
consideration, than by the citation of the Proem to Longfellow's "Waif":
--
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an Eagle in his flight.
I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me,
That my soul cannot resist;
A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.
Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.
For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.
Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;
Who through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.
Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.
And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares that infest the day
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.
With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly
admired for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very
effective. Nothing can be better than --
------------- the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Down the corridors of Time.
The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem on the
whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful _insouciance _of
its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the sentiments, and
especially for the _ease _of the general manner. This "ease" or
naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion to regard
as ease in appearance alone--as a point of really difficult attainment.
But not so:--a natural manner is difficult only to him who should never
meddle with it--to the unnatural. It is but the result of writing with the
understanding, or with the instinct, that _the tone, _in composition,
should always be that which the mass of mankind would adopt--and must
perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion. The author who, after the
fashion of "The North American Review," should be upon _all _occasions
merely "quiet," must necessarily upon _many _occasions be simply silly, or
stupid; and has no more right to be considered "easy" or "natural" than a
Cockney exquisite, or than the sleeping Beauty in the waxworks.
Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the one
which he entitles "June." I quote only a portion of it: --
There, through the long, long summer hours,
The golden light should lie,
And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
Stand in their beauty by.
The oriole should build and tell
His love-tale, close beside my cell;
The idle butterfly
Should rest him there, and there be heard
The housewife-bee and humming bird.
And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,
Come, from the village sent,
Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,
With fairy laughter blent?
And what if, in the evening light,
Betrothed lovers walk in sight
Of my low monument?
I would the lovely scene around
Might know no sadder sight nor sound.
I know, I know I should not see
The season's glorious show,
Nor would its brightness shine for me;
Nor its wild music flow;
But if, around my place of sleep,
The friends I love should come to weep,
They might not haste to go.
Soft airs and song, and the light and bloom,
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.
These to their soften'd hearts should bear
The thoughts of what has been,
And speak of one who cannot share
The gladness of the scene;
Whose part in all the pomp that fills
The circuit of the summer hills,
Is -- that his grave is green;
And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear again his living voice.
The rhythmical flow here is even voluptuous--nothing could be more
melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The
intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of all
the poet's cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to the
soul--while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The
impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. And if, in the remaining
compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or less of a
similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or why we know
not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the
higher manifestations of true Beauty. It is, nevertheless,
A feeling of sadness and longing
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.
The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so full
of brilliancy and spirit as "The Health" of Edward Coate Pinckney: --
I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;
To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair that, like the air,
'Tis less of earth than heaven.
Her every tone is music's own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows
As one may see the burden'd bee
Forth issue from the rose.
Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the flagrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears
The image of themselves by turns, --
The idol of past years!
Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,
And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life's, but hers.
I fill'd this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon --
Her health! and would on earth there stood,
Some more of such a frame,
That life might be all poetry,
And weariness a name.
It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinckney to have been born too far south.
Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been ranked
as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which has so
long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting the thing
called "The North American Review." The poem just cited is especially
beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must refer chiefly
to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We pardon his hyperboles for the
evident earnestness with which they are uttered.
It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the _merits
_of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves.
Boccalini, in his "Advertisements from Parnassus," tells us that Zoilus
once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable book:
-- whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He replied
that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this, Apollo,
handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out _all the chaff
_for his reward.
Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics--but I am by
no means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that
the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood.
Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an
axiom, which need only be properly _put, _to become self-evident. It is
_not _excellence if it require to be demonstrated as such:--and thus to
point out too particularly the merits of a work of Art, is to admit that
they are _not _merits altogether.
Among the "Melodies" of Thomas Moore is one whose distinguished
character as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of view.
I allude to his lines beginning -- "Come, rest in this bosom." The intense
energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in Byron. There
are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that embodies the
_all in all _of the divine passion of Love -- a sentiment which, perhaps,
has found its echo in more, and in more passionate, human hearts than any
other single sentiment ever embodied in words: --
Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer
Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;
Here still is the smile, that no cloud can o'ercast,
And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.
Oh! what was love made for, if 'tis not the same
Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?
I know not, I ask not, if guilt's in that heart,
I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.
Thou hast call'd me thy Angel in moments of bliss,
And thy Angel I'll be, 'mid the horrors of this, --
Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,
And shield thee, and save thee, --or perish there too!
It has been the fashion of late days to deny Moore Imagination, while
granting him Fancy--a distinction originating with Coleridge--than whom no
man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact is, that
the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other faculties,
and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, very naturally,
the idea that he is fanciful _only. _But never was there a greater
mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet. In the
compass of the English language I can call to mind no poem more pro.
foundry--more weirdly _imaginative, _in the best sense, than the lines
commencing--"I would I were by that dim lake"--which are the com. position
of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to remember them.
One of the noblest--and, speaking of Fancy--one of the most singularly
fanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His "Fair Ines" had always for
me an inexpressible charm: --
O saw ye not fair Ines?
She's gone into the West,
To dazzle when the sun is down,
And rob the world of rest;
She took our daylight with her,
The smiles that we love best,
With morning blushes on her cheek,
And pearls upon her breast.
O turn again, fair Ines,
Before the fall of night,
For fear the moon should shine alone,
And stars unrivalltd bright;
And blessed will the lover be
That walks beneath their light,
And breathes the love against thy cheek
I dare not even write!
Would I had been, fair Ines,
That gallant cavalier,
Who rode so gaily by thy side,
And whisper'd thee so near!
Were there no bonny dames at home
Or no true lovers here,
That he should cross the seas to win
The dearest of the dear?
I saw thee, lovely Ines,
Descend along the shore,
With bands of noble gentlemen,
And banners waved before;
And gentle youth and maidens gay,
And snowy plumes they wore;
It would have been a beauteous dream,
If it had been no more!
Alas, alas, fair Ines,
She went away with song,
With music waiting on her steps,
And shootings of the throng;
But some were sad and felt no mirth,
But only Music's wrong,
In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell,
To her you've loved so long.
Farewell, farewell, fair Ines,
That vessel never bore
So fair a lady on its deck,
Nor danced so light before,--
Alas for pleasure on the sea,
And sorrow on the shorel
The smile that blest one lover's heart
Has broken many more!
"The Haunted House," by the same author, is one of the truest poems ever
written,--one of the truest, one of the most unexceptionable, one of the
most thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and in its execution. It is,
moreover, powerfully ideal--imaginative. I regret that its length renders
it unsuitable for the purposes of this lecture. In place of it permit me
to offer the universally appreciated "Bridge of Sighs":--
One more Unfortunate,
Weary of breath,
Rashly importunate
Gone to her death!
Take her up tenderly,
Lift her with care;--
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young and so fair!
Look at her garments
Clinging like cerements;
Whilst the wave constantly
Drips from her clothing;
Take her up instantly,
Loving not loathing.
Touch her not scornfully;
Think of her mournfully,
Gently and humanly;
Not of the stains of her,
All that remains of her
Now is pure womanly.
Make no deep scrutiny
Into her mutiny
Rash and undutiful;
Past all dishonor,
Death has left on her
Only the beautiful.
Where the lamps quiver
So far in the river,
With many a light
From window and casement
From garret to basement,
She stood, with amazement,
Houseless by night.
The bleak wind of March
Made her tremble and shiver,
But not the dark arch,
Or the black flowing river:
Mad from life's history,
Glad to death's mystery,
Swift to be hurl'd--
Anywhere, anywhere
Out of the world!
In she plunged boldly,
No matter how coldly
The rough river ran,--
Over the brink of it,
Picture it,--think of it,
Dissolute Man!
Lave in it, drink of it
Then, if you can!
Still, for all slips of hers,
One of Eve's family--
Wipe those poor lips of hers
Oozing so clammily,
Loop up her tresses
Escaped from the comb,
Her fair auburn tresses;
Whilst wonderment guesses
Where was her home?
Who was her father?
Who was her mother?
Had she a sister?
Had she a brother?
Or was there a dearer one
Still, and a nearer one
Yet, than all other?
Alas! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun!
Oh! it was pitiful!
Near a whole city full,
Home she had none.
Sisterly, brotherly,
Fatherly, motherly,
Feelings had changed:
Love, by harsh evidence,
Thrown from its eminence;
Even God's providence
Seeming estranged.
Take her up tenderly;
Lift her with care;
Fashion'd so slenderly,
Young, and so fair!
Ere her limbs frigidly
Stiffen too rigidly,
Decently, -- kindly, --
Smooth and compose them;
And her eyes, close them,
Staring so blindly!
Dreadfully staring
Through muddy impurity,
As when with the daring
Last look of despairing
Fixed on futurity.
Perhishing gloomily,
Spurred by contumely,
Cold inhumanity,
Burning insanity,
Into her rest, --
Cross her hands humbly,
As if praying dumbly,
Over her breast!
Owning her weakness,
Her evil behavior,
And leaving, with meekness,
Her sins to her Saviour!
The vigor of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The
versification although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the
fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which is
the thesis of the poem.
Among the minor poems of Lord Byron is one which has never received
from the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves:--
Though the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate bath declined
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit bath painted
It never bath found but in _thee._
Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,
Because it reminds me of shine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean,
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from _thee._
Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is delivered
To pain--it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemn--
They may torture, but shall not subdue me--
'Tis of _thee _that I think--not of them.
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slandered, thou never couldst shake, --
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor mute, that the world might belie.
Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one--
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'Twas folly not sooner to shun:
And if dearly that error bath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of _thee._
From the wreck of the past, which bath perished,
Thus much I at least may recall,
It bath taught me that which I most cherished
Deserved to be dearest of all:
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of _thee._
Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the
versification could scarcely be improved. No nobler _theme _ever engaged
the pen of poet. It is the soul-elevating idea that no man can consider
himself entitled to complain of Fate while in his adversity he still
retains the unwavering love of woman.
From Alfred Tennyson, although in perfect sincerity I regard him as
the noblest poet that ever lived, I have left myself time to cite only a
very brief specimen. I call him, and _think _him the noblest of poets,
_not _because the impressions he produces are at _all _times the most
profound-- _not _because the poetical excitement which he induces is at
_all _times the most intense--but because it is at all times the most
ethereal--in other words, the most elevating and most pure. No poet is so
little of the earth, earthy. What I am about to read is from his last long
poem, "The Princess":--
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remember'd kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have
endeavored to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has
been my purpose to suggest that, while this principle itself is strictly
and simply the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation of
the Principle is always found in _an elevating excitement of the soul,
_quite independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the Heart,
or of that truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason. For in regard to
passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade rather than to elevate the Soul.
Love, on the contrary--Love--the true, the divine Eros--the Uranian as
distinguished from the Diona~an Venus--is unquestionably the purest and
truest of all poetical themes. And in regard to Truth, if, to be sure,
through the attainment of a truth we are led to perceive a harmony where
none was apparent before, we experience at once the true poetical effect;
but this effect is referable to the harmony alone, and not in the least
degree to the truth which merely served to render the harmony manifest.
We shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception of
what the true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple elements
which induce in the Poet himself the poetical effect He recognizes the
ambrosia which nourishes his soul in the bright orbs that shine in
Heaven--in the volutes of the flower--in the clustering of low
shrubberies--in the waving of the grain-fields--in the slanting of tall
eastern trees -- in the blue distance of mountains -- in the grouping of
clouds-- in the twinkling of half-hidden brooks--in the gleaming of silver
rivers --in the repose of sequestered lakes--in the star-mirroring depths
of lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of birds--in the harp of
Bolos --in the sighing of the night-wind--in the repining voice of the
forest-- in the surf that complains to the shore--in the fresh breath of
the woods --in the scent of the violet--in the voluptuous perfume of the
hyacinth--in the suggestive odour that comes to him at eventide from far
distant undiscovered islands, over dim oceans, illimitable and unexplored.
He owns it in all noble thoughts--in all unworldly motives--in all holy
impulses--in all chivalrous, generous, and self-sacrificing deeds. He
feels it in the beauty of woman--in the grace of her step--in the lustre
of her eye--in the melody of her voice--in her soft laughter, in her
sigh--in the harmony of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in
her winning endearments--in her burning enthusiasms--in her gentle
charities--in her meek and devotional endurances--but above all--ah, far
above all, he kneels to it--he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in
the strength, in the altogether divine majesty--of her love.
Let me conclude by -- the recitation of yet another brief poem -- one
very different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by
Motherwell, and is called "The Song of the Cavalier." With our modern and
altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are
not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with the
sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence of the poem. To do
this fully we must identify ourselves in fancy with the soul of the old
cavalier: --
Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants all,
And don your helmes amaine:
Deathe's couriers. Fame and Honor call
No shrewish teares shall fill your eye
When the sword-hilt's in our hand, --
Heart-whole we'll part, and no whit sighe
For the fayrest of the land;
Let piping swaine, and craven wight,
Thus weepe and poling crye,
Our business is like men to fight.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
OLD ENGLISH POETRY *
IT should not be doubted that at least one-third of the affection with
which we regard the elder poets of Great Britain should be-attributed to
what is, in itself, a thing apart from poetry-we mean to the simple love
of the antique-and that, again, a third of even the proper _poetic
sentiment _inspired_ _by their writings should be ascribed to a fact
which, while it has strict connection with poetry in the abstract, and
with the old British poems themselves, should not be looked upon as a
merit appertaining to the authors of the poems. Almost every devout
admirer of the old bards, if demanded his opinion of their productions,
would mention vaguely, yet with perfect sincerity, a sense of dreamy,
wild, indefinite, and he would perhaps say, indefinable delight; on being
required to point out the source of this so shadowy pleasure, he would be
apt to speak of the quaint in phraseology and in general handling. This
quaintness is, in fact, a very powerful adjunct to ideality, but in the
case in question it arises independently of the author's will, and is
altogether apart from his intention. Words and their rhythm have varied.
Verses which affect us to-day with a vivid delight, and which delight, in
many instances, may be traced to the one source, quaintness, must have
worn in the days of their construction, a very commonplace air. This is,
of course, no argument against the poems now-we mean it only as against
the poets _thew. _There is a growing desire to overrate them. The old
English muse was frank, guileless, sincere, and although very learned,
still learned without art. No general error evinces a more thorough
confusion of ideas than the error of supposing Donne and Cowley
metaphysical in the sense wherein Wordsworth and Coleridge are so. With
the two former ethics were the end-with the two latter the means. The poet
of the "Creation" wished, by highly artificial verse, to inculcate what he
supposed to be moral truth-the poet of the "Ancient Mariner" to infuse the
Poetic Sentiment through channels suggested by analysis. The one finished
by complete failure what he commenced in the grossest misconception; the
other, by a path which could not possibly lead him astray, arrived at a
triumph which is not the less glorious because hidden from the profane
eyes of the multitude. But in this view even the "metaphysical verse" of
Cowley is but evidence of the simplicity and single-heartedness of the
man. And he was in this but a type of his school-for we may as well
designate in this way the entire class of writers whose poems are bound up
in the volume before us, and throughout all of whom there runs a very
perceptible general character. They used little art in composition. Their
writings sprang immediately from the soul-and partook intensely of that
soul's nature. Nor is it difficult to perceive the tendency of this
_abandon-to elevate _immeasurably all the energies of mind-but, again, so
to mingle the greatest possible fire, force, delicacy, and all good
things, with the lowest possible bathos, baldness, and imbecility, as to
render it not a matter of doubt that the average results of mind in such a
school will be found inferior to those results in one _(ceteris _paribus)
more artificial.
We can not bring ourselves to believe that the selections of the "Book of
Gems" are such as will impart to a poetical reader the clearest possible
idea of the beauty of the school-but if the intention had been merely to
show the school's character, the attempt might have been considered
successful in the highest degree. There are long passages now before us of
the most despicable trash, with no merit whatever beyond that of their
antiquity.. The criticisms of the editor do not particularly please us.
His enthusiasm is too general and too vivid not to be false. His opinion,
for example, of Sir Henry Wotton's "Verses on the Queen of Bohemia"-that
"there are few finer things in our language," is untenable and absurd.
In such lines we can perceive not one of those higher attributes of Poesy
which belong to her in all circumstances and throughout all time. Here
every thing is art, nakedly, or but awkwardly concealed. No prepossession
for the mere antique (and in this case we can imagine no other
prepossession) should induce us to dignify with the sacred name of poetry,
a series, such as this, of elaborate and threadbare compliments, stitched,
apparently, together, without fancy, without plausibility, and without
even an attempt at adaptation.
In common with all the world, we have been much delighted with "The
Shepherd's Hunting" by Withers--a poem partaking, in a remarkable degree,
of the peculiarities of "Il Penseroso." Speaking of Poesy the author says:
"By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least boughs rustleling,
By a daisy whose leaves spread,
Shut when Titan goes to bed,
Or a shady bush or tree,
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man.
By her help I also now
Make this churlish place allow
Something that may sweeten gladness
In the very gall of sadness--
The dull loneness, the black shade,
That these hanging vaults have made
The strange music of the waves
Beating on these hollow caves,
This black den which rocks emboss,
Overgrown with eldest moss,
The rude portals that give light
More to terror than delight,
This my chamber of neglect
Walled about with disrespect;
From all these and this dull air
A fit object for despair,
She hath taught me by her might
To draw comfort and delight."
But these lines, however good, do not bear with them much of the general
character of the English antique. Something more of this will be found in
Corbet's "Farewell to the Fairies!" We copy a portion of Marvell's "Maiden
lamenting for her Fawn," which we prefer-not only as a specimen of the
elder poets, but in itself as a beautiful poem, abounding in pathos,
exquisitely delicate imagination and truthfulness-to anything of its
species:
"It is a wondrous thing how fleet
'Twas on those little silver feet,
With what a pretty skipping grace
It oft would challenge me the race,
And when't had left me far away
'Twould stay, and run again, and stay;
For it was nimbler much than hinds,
And trod as if on the four winds.
I have a garden of my own,
But so with roses overgrown,
And lilies, that you would it guess
To be a little wilderness;
And all the spring-time of the year
It only loved to be there.
Among the beds of lilies I
Have sought it oft where it should lie,
Yet could not, till itself would rise,
Find it, although before mine eyes.
For in the flaxen lilies' shade
It like a bank of lilies laid;
Upon the roses it would feed
Until its lips even seemed to bleed,
And then to me 'twould boldly trip,
And print those roses on my lip,
But all its chief delight was still
With roses thus itself to fill,
And its pure virgin limbs to fold
In whitest sheets of lilies cold.
Had it lived long, it would have been
Lilies without, roses within."
How truthful an air of lamentations hangs here upon every syllable! It
pervades all.. It comes over the sweet melody of the words-over the
gentleness and grace which we fancy in the little maiden herself-even over
the half-playful, half-petulant air with which she lingers on the beauties
and good qualities of her favorite-like the cool shadow of a summer cloud
over a bed of lilies and violets, "and all sweet flowers." The whole is
redolent with poetry of a very lofty order. Every line is an idea
conveying either the beauty and playfulness of the fawn, or the
artlessness of the maiden, or her love, or her admiration, or her grief,
or the fragrance and warmth and _appropriateness _of the little nest-like
bed of lilies and roses which the fawn devoured as it lay upon them, and
could scarcely be distinguished from them by the once happy little damsel
who went to seek her pet with an arch and rosy smile on her face. Consider
the great variety of truthful and delicate thought in the few lines we
have quotedthe _wonder _of the little maiden at the fleetness of her
favorite-the "little silver feet"--the fawn challenging his mistress to a
race with "a pretty skipping grace," running on before, and then, with
head turned back, awaiting her approach only to fly from it again-can we
not distinctly perceive all these things? How exceedingly vigorous, too,
is the line,
"And trod as if on the four winds!"
A vigor apparent only when we keep in mind the artless character of the
speaker and the four feet of the favorite, one for each wind. Then
consider the garden of "my own," so overgrown, entangled with roses and
lilies, as to be "a little wilderness"--the fawn loving to be there, and
there "only"--the maiden seeking it "where it _should _lie"--and not being
able to distinguish it from the flowers until "itself would rise"--the
lying among the lilies "like a bank of lilies"--the loving to "fill itself
with roses,"
"And its pure virgin limbs to fold
In whitest sheets of lilies cold,"
and these things being its "chief" delights-and then the pre-eminent
beauty and naturalness of the concluding lines, whose very hyperbole only
renders them more true to nature when we consider the innocence, the
artlessness, the enthusiasm, the passionate girl, and more passionate
admiration of the bereaved child--
"Had it lived long, it would have been Lilies without, roses within."
* "Book of Gems," Edited by S. C. Hall
~~~~~~ End of Texr ~~~~~~
======POEMS
TO
THE NOBLEST OF HER SEX
THE AUTHOR OF
"THE DRAMA OF EXILE"--
TO
MISS ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
OF ENGLAND
_I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME_
WITH THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC ADMIRATION AND WITH
THE MOST SINCERE ESTEEM
1845 E.A.P.
PREFACE
THESE trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their
redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected
while going at random the "rounds of the press." I am naturally anxious
that what I have written should circulate as I wrote it, if it circulate
at all. In defence of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon me
to say that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or
very creditable to myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me
from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier
circumstances, would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has
been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in
reverence: they must not-they can not at will be excited, with an eye to
the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of man-kind.
E. A. P.
1845
THE RAVEN.
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door --
Only this, and nothing more."
Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; -- vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow -- sorrow for the lost Lenore --
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore --
Nameless here for evermore.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me -- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
"'Tis some visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door --
Some late visiter entreating entrance at my chamber door; --
This it is, and nothing more."
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you " -- here I opened wide the door; ----
Darkness there and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore!"
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore!" --
Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon I heard again a tapping somewhat louder than before.
"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore --
Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;--
'Tis the wind and nothing more!"
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door --
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door --
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore --
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!"
Quoth the raven "Nevermore."
Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
Though its answer little meaning -- little relevancy bore;
For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door --
Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
With such name as "Nevermore."
But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered -- not a feather then he fluttered --
Till I scarcely more than muttered "Other friends have flown before --
On the morrow _he_ will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."
Then the bird said "Nevermore."
Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store
Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore --
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
Of "Never -- nevermore."
But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore --
What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking "Nevermore."
This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;
This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplght gloated o'er,
But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,
_She_ shall press, ah, nevermore!
Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Angels whose faint foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee -- by these angels he hath sent
thee
Respite -- respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil! -- prophet still, if bird or devil! --
Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted --
On this home by Horror haunted -- tell me truly, I implore --
Is there -- _is_ there balm in Gilead? -- tell me -- tell me, I implore!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
"Prophet!" said I, "thing of evil -- prophet still, if bird or devil!
By that Heaven that bends above us -- by that God we both adore --
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore --
Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting
--
"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! -- quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted -- nevermore!
~~~ End of Text ~~~
Published 1845.
======
THE BELLS.
I.
HEAR the sledges with the bells -
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II.
Hear the mellow wedding-bells
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight! -
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! - how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III.
Hear the loud alarum bells -
Brazen bells!
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now - now to sit, or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear, it fully knows,
By the twanging
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows;
Yet, the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells -
Of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!
IV.
Hear the tolling of the bells -
Iron bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy meaning of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people - ah, the people -
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone,
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone -
They are neither man nor woman -
They are neither brute nor human -
They are Ghouls: -
And their king it is who tolls: -
And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the pæan of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the pæan of the bells -
Of the bells: -
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells -
To the sobbing of the bells: -
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells: -
To the tolling of the bells -
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells -
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
1849.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
ULALUME
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere --
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year:
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir: --
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul --
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
There were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll --
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek,
In the ultimate climes of the Pole --
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the Boreal Pole.
Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere --
Our memories were treacherous and sere;
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year --
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber,
(Though once we had journeyed down here)
We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
And now, as the night was senescent,
And star-dials pointed to morn --
As the star-dials hinted of morn --
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn --
Astarte's bediamonded crescent,
Distinct with its duplicate horn.
And I said -- "She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs --
She revels in a region of sighs.
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion,
To point us the path to the skies --
To the Lethean peace of the skies --
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes --
Come up, through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes."
But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said -- "Sadly this star I mistrust --
Her pallor I strangely mistrust --
Ah, hasten! -- ah, let us not linger!
Ah, fly! -- let us fly! -- for we must."
In terror she spoke; letting sink her
Wings till they trailed in the dust --
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust --
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.
I replied -- "This is nothing but dreaming.
Let us on, by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybillic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night --
See! -- it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright --
We safely may trust to a gleaming
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night."
Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom --
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista --
But were stopped by the door of a tomb --
By the door of a legended tomb: --
And I said -- "What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?"
She replied -- "Ulalume -- Ulalume --
'T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume!"
Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
As the leaves that were crisped and sere --
As the leaves that were withering and sere --
And I cried -- "It was surely October
On _this_ very night of last year,
That I journeyed -- I journeyed down here! --
That I brought a dread burden down here --
On this night, of all nights in the year,
Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber --
This misty mid region of Weir: --
Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber --
This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir."
1847.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO HELEN
I saw thee once-- once only -- years ago:
I must not say how many -- but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe --
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death --
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.
Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturn'd- alas, in sorrow!
Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight-
Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
No footstep stirred: the hated world an slept,
Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!- oh, God!
How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
Save only thee and me. I paused- I looked-
And in an instant all things disappeared.
(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)
The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
The happy flowers and the repining trees,
Were seen no more: the very roses' odors
Died in the arms of the adoring airs.
All- all expired save thee- save less than thou:
Save only the divine light in thine eyes-
Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
I saw but them- they were the world to me!
I saw but them- saw only them for hours,
Saw only them until the moon went down.
What wild heart-histories seemed to he enwritten
Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
How dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope!
How silently serene a sea of pride!
How daring an ambition; yet how deep-
How fathomless a capacity for love!
But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained;
They would not go- they never yet have gone;
Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
They have not left me (as my hopes have) since;
They follow me- they lead me through the years.
They are my ministers -- yet I their slave.
Their office is to illumine and enkindle --
My duty, to be saved by their bright light,
And purified in their electric fire,
And sanctified in their elysian fire.
They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
And are far up in Heaven -- the stars I kneel to
In the sad, silent watches of my night;
While even in the meridian glare of day
I see them still -- two sweetly scintillant
Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
ANNABEL LEE.
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE; -
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
_I_ was a child and _She_ was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my ANNABEL LEE -
With a love that the wingéd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud by night
Chilling my ANNABEL LEE;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up, in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
Went envying her and me;
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud, chilling
And killing my ANNABEL LEE.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in Heaven above
Nor the demons down under the sea
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE: -
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride
In her sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the side of the sea.
1849.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
A VALENTINE.
For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Loeda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines! -- they hold a treasure
Divine -- a talisman -- an amulet
That must be worn _at heart_. Search well the measure --
The words -- the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie _perdus_
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets -- as the name is a poet's, too.
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto -- Mendez Ferdinando --
Still form a synonym for Truth -- Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best _you_ can do.
1846.
[To discover the names in this and the following poem read the first
letter of the first line in connection with the second letter of the
second line, the third letter of the third line, the fourth of the fourth
and so on to the end.]
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
AN ENIGMA
"Seldom we find," says Solomon Don Dunce,
"Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
Through all the flimsy things we see at once
As easily as through a Naples bonnet -
Trash of all trash! - how _can_ a lady don it?
Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff-
Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it."
And, veritably, Sol is right enough.
The general tuckermanities are arrant
Bubbles - ephemeral and _so_ transparent -
But _this_ is, now, - you may depend upon it -
Stable, opaque, immortal - all by dint
Of the dear names that lie concealed within 't.
1847.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO MY MOTHER
Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
The angels, whispering to one another,
Can find, among their burning terms of love,
None so devotional as that of "Mother,"
Therefore by that dear name I long have called you --
You who are more than mother unto me,
And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
In setting my Virginia's spirit free.
My mother -- my own mother, who died early,
Was but the mother of myself; but you
Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
By that infinity with which my wife
Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.
1849.
[The above was addressed to the poet's mother-in-law, Mrs. Clemm --Ed.]
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
FOR ANNIE
Thank Heaven! the crisis --
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last --
And the fever called "Living"
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length --
But no matter! -- I feel
I am better at length.
And I rest so composedly,
Now, in my bed,
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead --
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.
The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart: -- ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!
The sickness -- the nausea --
The pitiless pain --
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain --
With the fever called "Living"
That burned in my brain.
And oh! of all tortures
_That_ torture the worst
Has abated -- the terrible
Torture of thirst
For the naphthaline river
Of Passion accurst: --
I have drank of a water
That quenches all thirst: --
Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground --
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.
And ah! let it never
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed --
And, to _sleep_, you must slumber
In just such a bed.
My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting its roses --
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:
For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansies --
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies --
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.
And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie --
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.
She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast --
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.
When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm --
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.
And I lie so composedly,
Now in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead --
And I rest so contentedly,
Now in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead --
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead: --
But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie --
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie --
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.
1849.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO F----.
BELOVED ! amid the earnest woes
That crowd around my earthly path --
(Drear path, alas! where grows
Not even one lonely rose) --
My soul at least a solace hath
In dreams of thee, and therein knows
An Eden of bland repose.
And thus thy memory is to me
Like some enchanted far-off isle
In some tumultuos sea --
Some ocean throbbing far and free
With storms -- but where meanwhile
Serenest skies continually
Just o're that one bright island smile.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO FRANCES S. OSGOOD
THOU wouldst be loved? - then let thy heart
From its present pathway part not!
Being everything which now thou art,
Be nothing which thou art not.
So with the world thy gentle ways,
Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
Shall be an endless theme of praise,
And love - a simple duty.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
ELDORADO.
Gaily bedight,
A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
Had journeyed long,
Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.
But he grew old -
This knight so bold -
And o'er his heart a shadow
Fell, as he found
No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.
And, as his strength
Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow -
'Shadow,' said he,
'Where can it be -
This land of Eldorado?'
'Over the Mountains
Of the Moon,
Down the Valley of the Shadow,
Ride, boldly ride,'
The shade replied, -
'If you seek for Eldorado!'
1849.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
EULALIE
I DWELT alone
In a world of moan,
And my soul was a stagnant tide,
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride -
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.
Ah, less - less bright
The stars of the night
Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
And never a flake
That the vapour can make
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curl -
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble and careless curl.
Now Doubt - now Pain
Come never again,
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
And all day long
Shines, bright and strong,
Astarté within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye -
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow --
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less _gone_?
_All_ that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep -- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
_One_ from the pitiless wave?
Is _all_ that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?.
1849
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)
Of all who hail thy presence as the morning --
Of all to whom thine absence is the night --
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun -- of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope- for life -- ah! above all,
For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
In Truth -- in Virtue -- in Humanity --
Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"
At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes --
Of all who owe thee most -- whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship -- oh, remember
The truest -- the most fervently devoted,
And think that these weak lines are written by him --
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
His spirit is communing with an angel's.
1847.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)
NOT long ago, the writer of these lines,
In the mad pride of intellectuality,
Maintained "the power of words"--denied that ever
A thought arose within the human brain
Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:
And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
Two words-two foreign soft dissyllables--
Italian tones, made only to be murmured
By angels dreaming in the moonlit "dew
That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,"--
Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,
Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,
Richer, far wider, far diviner visions
Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,
(Who has "the sweetest voice of all God's creatures")
Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.
The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.
With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,
I can not write-I can not speak or think--
Alas, I can not feel; for 'tis not feeling,
This standing motionless upon the golden
Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,
Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,
And thrilling as I see, upon the right,
Upon the left, and all the way along,
Amid empurpled vapors, far away
To where the prospect terminates-_thee only!_
1848.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE CITY IN THE SEA.
Lo ! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Wherethe good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently -
Gleams up the pinnacles far and free -
Up domes - up spires - up kingly halls -
Up fanes - up Babylon-like walls -
Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
Of scultured ivy and stone flowers -
Up many and many a marvellous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves ;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye -
Not the gaily-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed ;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass -
No swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea -
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave - there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrown aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide -
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow -
The hours are breathing faint and low -
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE SLEEPER.
At midnight in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapour, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top.
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the univeral valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps! -- and lo! where lies
(Her easement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies!
Oh, lady bright! can it be right --
This window open to the night?
The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
Laughingly through the lattice drop --
The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
Flit through thy chamber in and out,
And wave the curtain canopy
So fitfully -- so fearfully --
Above the closed and fringed lid
'Neath which thy slumb'ring sould lies hid,
That o'er the floor and down the wall,
Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
Oh, lady dear, hast thous no fear?
Why and what art thou dreaming here?
Sure thou art come p'er far-off seas,
A wonder to these garden trees!
Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
And this all solemn silentness!
The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
Which is enduring, so be deep!
Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
This chamber changed for one more holy,
This bed for one more melancholy,
I pray to God that she may lie
Forever with unopened eye,
While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!
My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
As it is lasting, so be deep!
Soft may the worms about her creep!
Far in the forest, dim and old,
For her may some tall vault unfold --
Some vault that oft hath flung its black
And winged pannels fluttering back,
Triumphant, o'er the crested palls,
Of her grand family funerals --
Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
Against whose portal she hath thrown,
In childhood, many an idle stone --
Some tomb fromout whose sounding door
She ne'er shall force an echo more,
Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
It was the dead who groaned within.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
BRIDAL BALLAD.
THE ring is on my hand,
And the wreath is on my brow;
Satins and jewels grand
Are all at my command,
And I am happy now.
And my lord he loves me well;
But, when first he breathed his vow,
I felt my bosom swell -
For the words rang as a knell,
And the voice seemed _his_ who fell
In the battle down the dell,
And who is happy now.
But he spoke to re-asure me,
And he kissed my pallid brow,
While a reverie came o're me,
And to the church-yard bore me,
And I sighed to him before me,
Thinking him dead D'Elormie,
"Oh, I am happy now!"
And thus the words were spoken,
And this the plighted vow,
And, though my faith be broken,
And, though my heart be broken,
Behold the golden token
That _proves_ me happy now!
Would God I could awaken!
For I dream I know not how,
And my soul is sorely shaken
Lest an evil step be taken, -
Lest the dead who is forsaken
May not be happy now.
1845.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
NOTES
1. "The Raven" was first published on the 29th January, 1845, in the New
York "Evening Mirror"-a paper its author was then assistant editor of. It
was prefaced by the following words, understood to have been written by N.
P. Willis:"We are permitted to copy (in advance of publication) from the
second number of the "American Review," the following remarkable poem by
Edgar Poe. In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of
'fugitive poetry' ever published in this country, and unsurpassed in
English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification,
and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift and 'pokerishness.' It is
one of those 'dainties bred in a book' which we feed on. It will stick to
the memory of everybody who reads it." In the February number of the
"American Review" the poem was published as by "Quarles," and it was
introduced by the following note, evidently suggested if not written by
Poe himself.
["The following lines from a correspondent-besides the deep, quaint strain
of the sentiment, and the curious introduction of some ludicrous touches
amidst the serious and impressive, as was doubtless intended by the
author-appears to us one of the most felicitous specimens of unique
rhyming which has for some time met our eye. The resources of English
rhythm for varieties of melody, measure, and sound, producing
corresponding diversities of effect, having been thoroughly studied, much
more perceived, by very few poets in the language. While the classic
tongues, especially the Greek, possess, by power of accent, several
advantages for versification over our own, chiefly through greater
abundance of spondaic: feet, we have other and very great advantages of
sound by the modern usage of rhyme. Alliteration is nearly the only effect
of that kind which the ancients had in common with us. It will be seen
that much of the melody of 'The Raven' arises from alliteration, and the
studious use of similar sounds in unusual places. In regard to its
measure, it may be noted that if all the verses were like the second, they
might properly be placed merely in short lines, producing a not uncommon
form; but the presence in all the others of one line-mostly the second in
the verse" (stanza?) --"which flows continuously, with only an aspirate
pause in the middle, like that before the short line in the Sapphic
Adonic, while the fifth has at the middle pause no similarity of sound
with any part besides, gives the versification an entirely different
effect. We could wish the capacities of our noble language in prosody were
better understood." --ED. "Am. Rev."
2. The bibliographical history of "The Bells" is curious. The subject, and
some lines of the original version, having been suggested by the poet's
friend, Mrs. Shew, Poe, when he wrote out the first draft of the poem,
headed it, "The Bells, By Mrs. M. A. Shew." This draft, now the editor's
property, consists of only seventeen lines, and read thus:
I.
The bells!-ah, the bells!
The little silver bells!
How fairy-like a melody there floats
From their throats--
From their merry little throats--
From the silver, tinkling throats
Of the bells, bells, bells--
Of the bells!
II.
The bells!-ah, the bells !
The heavy iron bells!
How horrible a monody there floats
From their throats--
From their deep-toned throats--
From their melancholy throats!
How I shudder at the notes Of the bells, bells, bells--
Of the bells !
In the autumn of 1848 Poe added another line to this poem, and sent it to
the editor of the "Union Magazine." It was not published. So, in the
following February, the poet forwarded to the same periodical a much
enlarged and altered transcript. Three months having elapsed without
publication, another revision of the poem, similar to the current version,
was sent, and in the following October was published in the "Union
Magazine."
3. This poem was first published in Colton's "American Review" for
December, 1847, as "To - Ulalume: a Ballad." Being reprinted immediately
in the "Home Journal," it was copied into various publications with the
name of the editor, N. P. Willis, appended, and was ascribed to him. When
first published, it contained the following additional stanza which Poe
subsequently, at the suggestion of Mrs. Whitman, wisely suppressed:
Said we then-we two, tben-"Ah, can it
Have been that the woodlandish ghouls--
The pitiful, the merciful ghouls--
To bar up our path and to ban it
From the secret that lies in these wolds--
Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
From the limbo of lunary souls--
This sinfully scintillant planet
From the Hell of the planetary souls?"
4. "To Helen!' (Mrs. S. Helen Whitman) was not published until November,
1848, although written several months earlier. It first appeared in the
"Union Magazine," and with the omission, contrary to the knowledge or
desire of Poe, of the line, "Oh, Godl oh, Heaven-how my heart beats in
coupling those two words."
5. "Annabel Lee" was written early in 1849, and is evidently an expression
of the poet's undying love for his deceased bride, although at least one
of his lady admirers deemed it a response to her admiration. Poe sent a
copy of the ballad to the "Union Magazine," in which publication it
appeared in January, 1850, three months after the author's death. While
suffering from "hope deferred" as to its fate, Poe presented a copy of
"Annabel Lee" to the editor of the "Southern Literary Messenger," who
published it in the November number of his periodical, a month after Poe's
death. In the meantime the poet's own copy, left among his papers, passed
into the hands of the person engaged to edit his works, and he quoted the
poem in an obituary of Poe, in the New York "Tribune," before any one else
had an opportunity of publishing it.
6. "A Valentine," one of three poems addressed to Mrs. Osgood, appears to
have been written early in 1846.
7. "An Enigma," addressed to Mrs. Sarah Anna Lewis ("Stella"), was sent to
that lady in a letter, in November, 1847, and the following March appeared
in Sartain's "Union Magazine."
8. The sonnet, "To My Mother" (Maria Clemm), was sent for publication to
the short-lived "Flag of our Union," early in 1849,' but does not appear
to have been issued until after its author's death, when it appeared in
the "Leaflets of Memory" for 1850.
9. "For Annie" was first published in the "Flag of our Union," in the
spring of 1849. Poe, annoyed at some misprints in this issue, shortly
afterwards caused a corrected copy to be inserted in the "Home Journal."
10. "To F-- --" (Frances Sargeant Osgood) appeared in the "Broadway
journal" for April, 1845. These lines are but slightly varied from those
inscribed "To Mary," in the "Southern Literary Messenger" for July, 1835,
and subsequently republished, with the two stanzas transposed, in
"Graham's Magazine" for March, 1842, as "To One Departed."
11. "To F-- --s S. O--d," a portion of the poet's triune tribute to Mrs.
Osgood, was published in the "Broadway Journal" for September, 1845. The
earliest version of these lines appeared in the "Southern Literary
Messenger" for September, 1835, as "Lines written in an Album," and was
addressed to Eliza White, the proprietor's daughter. Slightly revised, the
poem reappeared in Burton's "Gentleman's Magazine" for August, 1839, as
"To--."
12. Although "Eldorado" was published during Poe's lifetime, in 1849, in
the "Flag of our Union," it does not appear to have ever received the
author's finishing touches.
======
End of Poems of Later Life
POEMS OF MANHOOD
LENORE
AH broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll! - a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy De Vere, hast _thou_ no tear? - weep now or never more!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read - the funeral song be sung! -
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young -
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
"Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
"And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her - that she died!
"How shall the ritual, then, be read? - the requiem how be sung
"By you - by yours, the evil eye, - by yours, the slanderous tongue
"That did to death the innocent that died, and died so young?"
_Peccavimus_; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel so wrong!
The sweet Lenore hath "gone before," with Hope, that flew beside
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride -
For her, the fair and _debonair_, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes -
The life still there, upon her hair - the death upon her eyes.
"Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
"But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!
"Let no bell toll! - lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
"Should catch the note, as it doth float - up from the damned Earth.
"To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven -
"From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven -
"From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven."
~~ ~~~End of Text
======
TO ONE IN PARADISE.
THOU wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine --
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrime,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.
Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!" -- but o'er the Past
(Dim guld!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, mothionless, aghast!
For, alas! alas! with me
The light of Life is o'er!
No more -- no more -- no more --
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder0blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!
And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams --
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.
1835.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE COLISEUM.
TYPE of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length - at length - after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!
Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!
I feel ye now - I feel ye in your strength -
O spells more sure than e'er Judæan king
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!
Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!
Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!
Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,
Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,
Lit by the wanlight <wan light of the horned moon,
The swift and silent lizard of the stones!
But stay! these walls - these ivy-clad arcades -
These mouldering plinths - these sad and blackened shafts -
These vague entablatures - this crumbling frieze -
These shattered cornices - this wreck - this ruin -
These stones - alas! these gray stones - are they all -
All of the famed, and the colossal left
By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?
"Not all" - the Echoes answer me - "not all!
"Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever
"From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
"As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
"We rule the hearts of mightiest men - we rule
"With a despotic sway all giant minds.
"We are not impotent - we pallid stones.
"Not all our power is gone - not all our fame -
"Not all the magic of our high renown -
"Not all the wonder that encircles us -
"Not all the mysteries that in us lie -
"Not all the memories that hang upon
"And cling around about us as a garment,
"Clothing us in a robe of more than glory."
1833.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE HAUNTED PALACE.
IN the greenest of our valleys
By good angels tenanted,
Once a fair and stately palace --
Radiant palace -- reared its head.
In the monarch Thought's dominion --
It stood there!
Never seraph spread a pinion
Over fabric half so fair.
Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
On its roof did float and flow,
(This -- all this -- was in the olden
Time long ago,)
And every gentle air that dallied,
In that sweet day,
Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
A winged odour went away.
Wanderers in that happy valley,
Through two luminous windows, saw
Spirits moving musically,
To a lute's well-tuned law,
Round about a throne where, sitting
(Porphyrogene)
In state his glory well befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
And all with pearl and ruby glowing
Was the fair palace door,
Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
And sparkling evermore,
A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
Was but to sing,
In voices of surpassing beauty,
The wit and wisdom of their king.
But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
Assailed the monarch's high estate.
(Ah, let us mourn! -- for never sorrow
Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
And travellers, now, within that valley,
Through the red-litten windows see
Vast forms, that move fantastically
To a discordant melody,
While, lie a ghastly rapid river,
Through the pale door
A hideous throng rush out forever
And laugh -- but smile no more.
1838.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE CONQUEROR WORM.
LO ! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly -
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo !
That motley drama - oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot !
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude !
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes ! - it writhes ! - with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out - out are the lights - out all !
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels,all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
1838.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
SILENCE
THERE are some qualities -- some incorporate things,
That have a double life, which thus is made
A type of that twin entity which springs
From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
There is a two-fold _Silence_ -- sea and shore --
Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,
Some human memories and tearful lore,
Render him terrorless: his name's "No More."
He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
No power hath he of evil in himself;
But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!
1840.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
DREAM-LAND
BY a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule -
From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE - out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titian woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the dews that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters - lone and dead, -
Their still waters - still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead, -
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily, -
By the mountains - near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever, -
By the grey woods, - by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp, -
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls, -
By each spot the most unholy -
In each nook most melancholy, -
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past -
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by -
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth - and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region -
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis - oh 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not - dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
1844.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
HYMN
AT morn - at noon - at twilight dim -
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and wo - in good and ill -
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the Hours flew brightly by
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
1835.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO ZANTE
FAIR isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,
Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take
How many memories of what radiant hours
At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
How many scenes of what departed bliss!
How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!
How many visions of a maiden that is
No more - no more upon thy verdant slopes!
No _more!_ alas, that magical sad sound
Transfomring all! Thy charms shall please _no more_ -
Thy memory _no more! _Accursed ground
Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,
O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
"Isoa d'oro! Fior di Levante!"
1837.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
SCENES FROM "POLITIAN"
AN UNPUBLISHED DRAMA.
I.
ROME. -- A Hall in a Palace Alessandra and Castiglione..
_Alessandra._ Thou art sad, Castiglione.
_ Castiglione. _ Sad! -- not I.
Oh, I'm the happiest, happiest man in Rome!
A few days more, thou knowest, my Alessandra,
Will make thee mine. Oh, I am very happy!
_ Aless. _ Methinks thou hast a singular way of showing
Thy happiness! -- what ails thee, cousin of mine?
Why didst thou sigh so deeply?
_Cas. _Did I sign?
I was not conscious of it. It is a fashion,
A silly -- a most silly fashion I have
When I am _very_ happy. Did I sigh? (_sighing._)
_ Aless. _Thou didst. Thou art not well. Thou hast indulged
Too much of late, and I am vexed to see it.
Late hours and wine, Castiglione, -- these
Will ruin thee! thou art already altered --
Thy looks are haggard -- nothing so wears away
The constitution as late hours and wine.
_Cas. (musing.) _Nothing, fair cousin, nothing -- not even deep
sorrow --
Wears it away like evil hours and wine.
I will amend.
_ Aless. _Do it! I would have thee drop
Thy riotous company, too -- fellows low born --
Ill suit the like with old Di Broglio's heir
And Alessandra's husband.
_Cas. _I will drop them.
_ Aless. _ Thou wilt -- thou must. Attend thou also more
To thy dress and equipage -- they are over plain
For thy lofty rank and fashion -- much depends
Upon appearances.
_Cas. _I'll see to it.
_ Aless. _Then see to it! -- pay more attention, sir,
To a becoming carriage -- much thou wantest
In dignity.
_Cas. _Much, much, oh! much I want
In proper dignity.
_ Aless.(haughtily) _Thou mockest me, sir!
_Cas. (abstractedly.) _Sweet, gentle Lalage!
_ Aless. _Heard I aright?
I speak to him -- he speaks of Lalage!
Sir Count! (_places her hand on his shoulder_) what art thou dreaming?
he's not well!
What ails thee, sir?
_Cas. (startling.) _Cousin! fair cousin! -- madam!
I crave thy pardon -- indeed I am not well --
Your hand from off my shoulder, if you please.
This air is most oppressive! -- Madam -- the Duke!
_Enter Di Broglio._
_ Di Broglio._ My son, I've news for thee! -- hey? -- what's the
matter? (_observing Alessandra_)
I' the pouts? Kiss her, Castiglione! kiss her,
You dog! and make it up, I say, this minute!
I've news for you both. Politian is expected
Hourly in Rome -- Politian, Earl of Leicester!
We'll have him at the wedding. 'Tis his first visit
To the imperial city.
_ Aless. _What! Politian
Of Britain, Earl of Leicester?
_ Di Brog._ The same, my love.
We'll have him at the wedding. A man quite young
In years, but grey in fame. I have not seen him,
But Rumour speaks of him as of a prodigy
Pre-eminent in arts and arms, and wealth,
And high descent. We'll have him at the wedding.
_ Aless. _I have heard much of this Politian.
Gay, volatile and giddy -- is he not?
And little given to thinking.
_ Di Brog._ Far from it, love.
No branch, they say, of all philosophy
So deep abstruse he has not mastered it.
Learned as few are learned.
_ Aless. _'Tis very strange!
I have known men have seen Politian
And sought his company. They speak of him
As of one who entered madly into life,
Drinking the cup of pleasure to the dregs.
_Cas. _Ridiculous! Now I have seen Politian
And know him well -- nor learned nor mirthful he.
He is a dreamer and a man shut out
From common passions.
_ Di Brog._ Children, we disagree.
Let us go forth and taste the fragrant air
Of the garden. Did I dream, or did I hear
Politian was a _melancholy_ man? (_exeunt._)
II
ROME. A Lady's apartment, with a window open and looking into a garden.
Lalage, in deep mourning, reading at a table on which lie some books and a
hand mirror. In the background Jacinta (a servant maid) leans carelessly
upon a chair.
_ Lal._ [_Lalage_] Jacinta! is it thou?
_ Jac._ [_Jacinta_] (_pertly_.) Yes, Ma'am, I'm here.
_ Lal._ I did not know, Jacinta, you were in waiting.
Sit down! -- Let not my presence trouble you --
Sit down! -- for I am humble, most humble.
_Jac._ (_aside_.) 'Tis time.
(_Jacinta seats herself in a side-long manner upon the chair, resting her
elbows upon the back, and regarding her mistress with a contemptuous look.
Lalage continues to read_. )
_Lal._ "It in another climate, so he said,
"Bore a bright golden flower, but not i' this soil!"
(_pauses -- turns over some leaves, and resumes_)
"No lingering winters there, nor snow, nor shower --
"But Ocean ever to refresh mankind
"Breathes the shrill spirit of the western wind."
O, beautiful!- most beautiful -- how like
To what my fevered soul doth dream of Heaven!
O happy land (_pauses_) She died! -- the maiden died!
A still more happy maiden who couldst die!
Jacinta!
(_Jacinta returns no answer, and Lalage presently resumes._)
Again! -- a similar tale
Told of a beauteous dame beyond the sea!
Thus speaketh one Ferdinand in the words of the play --
"She died full young" -- one Bossola answers him --
"I think not so -- her infelicity
"Seemed to have years too many" -- Ah luckless lady!
Jacinta! (_still no answer_)
Here 's a far sterner story,
But like -- oh, very like in its despair --
Of that Egyptian queen, winning so easily
A thousand hearts -- losing at length her own.
She died. Thus endeth the history -- and her maids
Lean over and weep -- two gentle maids
With gentle names -- Eiros and Charmion!
Rainbow and Dove! -- -- Jacinta!
_Jac._ (_pettishly_.) Madam, what _is_ it?
_Lal._ Wilt thou, my good Jacinta, be so kind
As go down in the library and bring me
The Holy Evangelists.
_Jac._ Pshaw! (_exit_.)
_Lal._ If there be balm
For the wounded spirit in Gilead it is there!
Dew in the night time of my bitter trouble
Will there be found -- "dew sweeter far than that
Which hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill."
(_re-enter Jacinta, and throws a volume on the table._)
There, ma'am, 's the book. Indeed she is very troublesome. (_aside._)
_Lal. (astonished.) _ What didst thou say, Jacinta? Have I done aught
To grieve thee or to vex thee? -- I am sorry.
For thou hast served me long and ever been
Trust-worthy and respectful. (_resumes her reading._)
_Jac._ I can't believe
She has any more jewels -- no -- no -- she gave me all. (_aside._)
_Lal._ What didst thou say, Jacinta? Now I bethink me
Thou hast not spoken lately of thy wedding.
How fares good Ugo?- and when is it to be?
Can I do aught?- is there no farther aid
Thou needest, Jacinta?
_Jac_. Is there no _farther_ aid!
That's meant for me. (_aside_) I'm sure, madam, you need not
Be always throwing those jewels in my teeth.
_Lal._ Jewels! Jacinta, -- now indeed, Jacinta,
I thought not of the jewels.
_Jac._ Oh! perhaps not!
But then I might have sworn it. After all,
There 's Ugo says the ring is only paste,
For he 's sure the Count Castiglione never
Would have given a real diamond to such as you;
And at the best I'm certain, Madam, you cannot
Have use for jewels _now._ But I might have sworn it. (_exit._)
(_Lalage bursts into tears and leans her head upon the table -- after a
short pause raises it._)
_Lal._ Poor Lalage! -- and is it come to this?
Thy servant maid! -- but courage! -- 'tis but a viper
Whom thou hast cherished to sting thee to the soul!
(_taking up the mirror_)
Ha! here at least 's a friend -- too much a friend
In earlier days -- a friend will not deceive thee.
Fair mirror and true! now tell me (for thou canst)
A tale -- a pretty tale -- and heed thou not
Though it be rife with woe: It answers me.
It speaks of sunken eyes, and wasted cheeks,
And Beauty long deceased -- remembers me
Of Joy departed -- Hope, the Seraph Hope,
Inurned and entombed: -- now, in a tone
Low, sad, and solemn, but most audible,
Whispers of early grave untimely yawning
For ruined maid. Fair mirror and true- thou liest not!
Thou hast no end to gain -- no heart to break --
Castiglione lied who said he loved --
Thou true -- he false! -- false! -- false!
(_While she speaks, a monk enters her apartment, and approaches
unobserved._)
_Monk._ Refuge thou hast,
Sweet daughter, in Heaven. Think of eternal things!
Give up thy soul to penitence, and pray!
_Lal._ (arising hurriedly.) I _cannot_ pray! -- My soul is at war
with God!
The frightful sounds of merriment below
Disturb my senses -- go! I cannot pray --
The sweet airs from the garden worry me!
Thy presence grieves me -- go! -- thy priestly raiment
Fills me with dread- thy ebony crucifix
With horror and awe!
_Monk._ Think of thy precious soul!
_ Lal._ Think of my early days! -- think of my father
And mother in Heaven think of our quiet home,
And the rivulet that ran before the door!
Think of my little sisters! -- think of them!
And think of me! -- think of my trusting love
And confidence- his vows- my ruin -- think -- think
Of my unspeakable misery! -- begone!
Yet stay! yet stay! -- what was it thou saidst of prayer
And penitence? Didst thou not speak of faith
And vows before the throne?
_Monk._ I did.
_ Lal._ Lal. 'Tis well.
There is a vow were fitting should be made --
A sacred vow, imperative, and urgent,
A solemn vow!
_Monk._ Daughter, this zeal is well !
_Lal._ Father, this zeal is anything but well !
Hast thou a crucifix fit for this thing?
A crucifix whereon to register
This sacred vow? (_he hands her his own_)
Not that- Oh! no! -- no! -- no! (_shuddering_)
Not that! Not that! -- I tell thee, holy man,
Thy raiments and thy ebony cross affright me!
Stand back! I have a crucifix myself, --
I have a crucifix Methinks 'twere fitting
The deed -- the vow -- the symbol of the deed --
And the deed's register should tally, father!
(_draws a cross-handled dagger, and raises it on high_)
Behold the cross wherewith a vow like mine
Is written in Heaven!
_Monk._ Thy words are madness, daughter,
And speak a purpose unholy- thy lips are livid --
Thine eyes are wild -- tempt not the wrath divine!
Pause ere too late! -- oh, be not -- be not rash!
Swear not the oath -- oh, swear it not!
_Lal. _'Tis sworn!
III.
An apartment in a Palace. Politian and Baldazzar.
_Baldazzar_. -- -- -- Arouse thee now, Politian!
Thou must not -- nay indeed, indeed, shalt not
Give away unto these humors. Be thyself!
Shake off the idle fancies that beset thee,
And live, for now thou diest!
_Politian_. Not so, Baldazzar! _Surely_ I live.
_Bal_. Politian, it doth grieve me
To see thee thus.
_Pol_. Baldazzar, it doth grieve me
To give thee cause for grief, my honoured friend.
Command me, sir! what wouldst thou have me do?
At thy behest I will shake off that nature
Which from my, forefathers I did inherit,
Which with my mother's milk I did imbibe,
And be no more Politian, but some other.
Command me, sir!
_ Bal_. To the field, then -- to the field --
To the senate or the field.
_Pol_. Alas! Alas!
There is an imp would follow me even there!
There is an imp _hath_ followed me even there!
There is -- what voice was that?
_ Bal_. I heard it not.
I heard not any voice except thine own,
And the echo of thine own.
_ Pol_. Then I but dreamed.
_ Bal_. Give not thy soul to dreams: the camp -- the court,
Befit thee -- Fame awaits thee -- Glory calls --
And her the trumpet-tongued thou wilt not hear
In hearkening to imaginary sounds
And phantom voices.
_ Pol_. It _is_ a phantom voice!
Didst thou not hear it _then?_
_ Bal_. I heard it not.
_ Pol_. Thou heardst it not! -- Baldazaar, speak no more
To me, Politian, of thy camps and courts.
Oh! I am sick, sick, sick, even unto death,
Of the hollow and high-sounding vanities
Of the populous Earth! Bear with me yet awhile!
We have been boys together -- schoolfellows --
And now are friends -- yet shall not be so long --
For in the eternal city thou shalt do me
A kind and gentle office, and a Power --
A Power august, benignant and supreme --
Shall then absolve thee of all further duties
Unto thy friend.
_ Bal_. Thou speakest a fearful riddle
I _will_ not understand.
_ Pol_. Yet now as Fate
Approaches, and the Hours are breathing low,
The sands of Time are changed to golden grains,
And dazzle me, Baldazzar. Alas! alas!
I _cannot_ die, having within my heart
So keen a relish for the beautiful
As hath been kindled within it. Methinks the air
Is balmier now than it was wont to be --
Rich melodies are floating in the winds --
A rarer loveliness bedecks the earth --
And with a holier lustre the quiet moon
Sitteth in Heaven. -- Hist! hist! thou canst not say
Thou hearest not _now_, Baldazzar?
_ Bal_. Indeed I hear not.
_ Pol_. Not hear it! -- listen now! -- listen! -- the faintest sound
And yet the sweetest that ear ever heard!
A lady's voice! -- and sorrow in the tone!
Baldazzar, it oppresses me like a spell!
Again! -- again! -- how solemnly it falls
Into my heart of hearts! that eloquent voice
Surely I never heard -- yet it were well
Had I _but_ heard it with its thrilling tones
In earlier days!
_ Bal_. I myself hear it now.
Be still! -- the voice, if I mistake not greatly,
Proceeds from yonder lattice -- which you may see
Very plainly through the window -- it belongs,
Does it not? unto this palace of the Duke.
The singer is undoubtedly beneath
The roof of his Excellency -- and perhaps
Is even that Alessandra of whom he spoke
As the betrothed of Castiglione,
His son and heir.
_ Pol_. Be still! -- it comes again!
_Voice_ "And is thy heart so strong
(_very faintly_) As for to leave me thus
Who hath loved thee so long
In wealth and woe among?
And is thy heart so strong
As for to leave me thus?
Say nay -- say nay!"
_ Bal_. The song is English, and I oft have heard it
In merry England -- never so plaintively --
Hist! hist! it comes again!
_Voice_ "Is it so strong
(_more loudly_) As for to leave me thus
Who hath loved thee so long
In wealth and woe among?
And is thy heart so strong
As for to leave me thus?
Say nay -- say nay!"
_ Bal_. 'Tis hushed and all is still!
_ Pol_. All is _not_ still!
_ Bal_. Let us go down.
_ Pol_. Go down, Baldazzar, go!
_ Bal_. The hour is growing late -- the Duke awaits use --
Thy presence is expected in the hall
Below. What ails thee, Earl Politian?
_Voice_ "Who hath loved thee so long
(_distinctly_) In wealth and woe among,
And is thy heart so strong?
Say nay -- say nay!"
_ Bal_. Let us descend! -- 'tis time. Politian, give
These fancies to the wind. Remember, pray,
Your bearing lately savored much of rudeness
Unto the Duke. Arouse thee! and remember
_ Pol_. Remember? I do. Lead on! I _do_ remember.
(_going._)
Let us descend. Believe me I would give,
Freely would give the broad lands of my earldom
To look upon the face hidden by yon lattice --
"To gaze upon that veiled face, and hear
Once more that silent tongue."
_ Bal_. Let me beg you, sir,
Descend with me -- the Duke may be offended.
Let us go down, I pray you.
(_Voice loudly_) _Say nay! -- say nay!_
_ Pol. (aside)_ 'Tis strange! -- 'tis very strange -- methought the
voice
Chimed in with my desires, and bade me stay!
(_approaching the window._)
Sweet voice! I heed thee, and will surely stay.
Now be this Fancy, by Heaven, or be it Fate,
Still will I not descend. Baldazzar, make
Apology unto the Duke for me;
I go not down to-night.
_ Bal_. Your lordship's pleasure
Shall be attended to. Good-night, Politian.
_ Pol_. Good-night, my friend, good-night.
IV.
The gardens of a Palace -- Moonlight Lalage and Politian.
_Lalge_. And dost thou speak of love
To me, Politian? -- dost thou speak of love
To Lalage? -- ah, woe -- ah, woe is me!
This mockery is most cruel -- most cruel indeed!
_Politian_. Weep not! oh, sob not thus! -- thy bitter tears
Will madden me. Oh, mourn not, Lalage --
Be comforted! I know -- I know it all,
And _still_ I speak of love. Look at me, brightest
And beautiful Lalage! -- turn here thine eyes!
Thou askest me if I could speak of love,
Knowing what I know, and seeing what I have seen.
Thou askest me that -- and thus I answer thee --
Thus on my bended knee I answer thee. (_kneeling._)
Sweet Lalage, _I love thee_ -- _love thee_ -- _love thee_;
Thro' good and ill -- thro' weal and wo I _love thee_.
Not mother, with her first-born on her knee,
Thrills with intenser love than I for thee.
Not on God's altar, in any time or clime,
Burned there a holier fire than burneth now
Within my spirit for _thee_. And do I love? (_arising._)
Even for thy woes I love thee- even for thy woes-
Thy beauty and thy woes.
_ Lal_. Alas, proud Earl,
Thou dost forget thyself, remembering me!
How, in thy father's halls, among the maidens
Pure and reproachless of thy princely line,
Could the dishonored Lalage abide?
Thy wife, and with a tainted memory-
MY seared and blighted name, how would it tally
With the ancestral honors of thy house,
And with thy glory?
_ Pol_. Speak not to me of glory!
I hate- I loathe the name; I do abhor
The unsatisfactory and ideal thing.
Art thou not Lalage and I Politian?
Do I not love- art thou not beautiful-
What need we more? Ha! glory!- now speak not of it.
By all I hold most sacred and most solemn-
By all my wishes now- my fears hereafter-
By all I scorn on earth and hope in heaven-
There is no deed I would more glory in,
Than in thy cause to scoff at this same glory
And trample it under foot. What matters it-
What matters it, my fairest, and my best,
That we go down unhonored and forgotten
Into the dust- so we descend together.
Descend together- and then- and then, perchance-
_ Lal_. Why dost thou pause, Politian?
_ Pol_. And then, perchance
Arise together, Lalage, and roam
The starry and quiet dwellings of the blest,
And still-
_ Lal_. Why dost thou pause, Politian?
_ Pol_. And still together- together.
_ Lal_. Now Earl of Leicester!
Thou lovest me, and in my heart of hearts
I feel thou lovest me truly.
_ Pol_. Oh, Lalage!
(_throwing himself upon his knee._)
And lovest thou me?
_ Lal_. Hist! hush! within the gloom
Of yonder trees methought a figure passed-
A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiseless-
Like the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and noiseless.
(_walks across and returns._)
I was mistaken -- 'twas but a giant bough
Stirred by the autumn wind. Politian!
_ Pol_. My Lalage -- my love! why art thou moved?
Why dost thou turn so pale? Not Conscience' self,
Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it,
Should shake the firm spirit thus. But the night wind
Is chilly -- and these melancholy boughs
Throw over all things a gloom.
_ Lal_. Politian!
Thou speakest to me of love. Knowest thou the land
With which all tongues are busy -- a land new found --
Miraculously found by one of Genoa --
A thousand leagues within the golden west?
A fairy land of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine,
And crystal lakes, and over-arching forests,
And mountains, around whose towering summits the winds
Of Heaven untrammelled flow -- which air to breathe
Is Happiness now, and will be Freedom hereafter
In days that are to come?
_ Pol_. O, wilt thou -- wilt thou
Fly to that Paradise -- my Lalage, wilt thou
Fly thither with me? There Care shall be forgotten,
And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all.
And life shall then be mine, for I will live
For thee, and in thine eyes -- and thou shalt be
No more a mourner -- but the radiant Joys
Shall wait upon thee, and the angel Hope
Attend thee ever; and I will kneel to thee
And worship thee, and call thee my beloved,
My own, my beautiful, my love, my wife,
My all; -- oh, wilt thou -- wilt thou, Lalage,
Fly thither with me?
_ Lal_. A deed is to be done --
Castiglione lives!
_ Pol_. And he shall die! (_exit_)
_ Lal_. (_after a pause._) And- he- shall- die!- alas!
Castiglione die? Who spoke the words?
Where am I?- what was it he said?- Politian!
Thou art not gone- thou are not gone, Politian!
I feel thou art not gone- yet dare not look,
Lest I behold thee not; thou couldst not go
With those words upon thy lips- O, speak to me!
And let me hear thy voice- one word- one word,
To say thou art not gone,- one little sentence,
To say how thou dost scorn- how thou dost hate
My womanly weakness. Ha! ha! thou art not gone-
O speak to me! I knew thou wouldst not go!
I knew thou wouldst not, couldst not, durst not go.
Villain, thou art not gone- thou mockest me!
And thus I clutch thee- thus!- He is gone, he is gone
Gone- gone. Where am I?- 'tis well- 'tis very well!
So that the blade be keen- the blow be sure,
'Tis well, 'tis very well- alas! alas!
V.
The suburbs. Politian alone.
_Politian_. This weakness grows upon me. I am faint,
And much I fear me ill- it will not do
To die ere I have lived!- Stay, stay thy hand,
O Azrael, yet awhile!- Prince of the Powers
Of Darkness and the Tomb, O pity me!
O pity me! let me not perish now,
In the budding of my Paradisal Hope!
Give me to live yet- yet a little while:
'Tis I who pray for life- I who so late
Demanded but to die!- what sayeth the Count?
_Enter Baldazzar._
_ Baldazzar_. That knowing no cause of quarrel or of feud
Between the Earl Politian and himself.
He doth decline your cartel.
_ Pol_. What didst thou say?
What answer was it you brought me, good Baldazzar?
With what excessive fragrance the zephyr comes
Laden from yonder bowers!- a fairer day,
Or one more worthy Italy, methinks
No mortal eyes have seen!- what said the Count?
_ Bal_. That he, Castiglione' not being aware
Of any feud existing, or any cause
Of quarrel between your lordship and himself,
Cannot accept the challenge.
_ Pol_. It is most true --
All this is very true. When saw you, sir,
When saw you now, Baldazzar, in the frigid
Ungenial Britain which we left so lately,
A heaven so calm as this- so utterly free
From the evil taint of clouds?- and he did say?
_ Bal_. No more, my lord, than I have told you, sir:
The Count Castiglione will not fight,
Having no cause for quarrel.
_ Pol_. Now this is true-
All very true. Thou art my friend, Baldazzar,
And I have not forgotten it- thou'lt do me
A piece of service; wilt thou go back and say
Unto this man, that I, the Earl of Leicester,
Hold him a villain?- thus much, I prythee, say
Unto the Count- it is exceeding just
He should have cause for quarrel.
_ Bal_. My lord!- my friend!-
_ Pol_. (_aside._) 'Tis he!- he comes himself? (aloud) Thou reasonest
well.
I know what thou wouldst say- not send the message-
Well!- I will think of it- I will not send it.
Now prythee, leave me- hither doth come a person
With whom affairs of a most private nature
I would adjust.
_ Bal_. I go- to-morrow we meet,
Do we not?- at the Vatican.
_ Pol_. At the Vatican. (_exit
Bal_.)
_ Enter Castigilone._
_ Cas_. The Earl of Leicester here!
_ Pol_. I am the Earl of Leicester, and thou seest,
Dost thou not? that I am here.
_ Cas_. My lord, some strange,
Some singular mistake -- misunderstanding --
Hath without doubt arisen: thou hast been urged
Thereby, in heat of anger, to address
Some words most unaccountable, in writing,
To me, Castiglione; the bearer being
Baldazzar, Duke of Surrey. I am aware
Of nothing which might warrant thee in this thing,
Having given thee no offence. Ha!- am I right?
'Twas a mistake? -- undoubtedly -- we all
Do err at times.
_ Pol_. Draw, villain, and prate no more!
_Cas. _Ha! -- draw? -- and villain? have at thee then at once,
Proud Earl! (_draws._)
_ Pol_. (_drawing._) Thus to the expiatory tomb,
Untimely sepulchre, I do devote thee
In the name of Lalage!
_Cas. _(_letting fall his sword and recoiling to the extremity of the
stage_)
Of Lalage!
Hold off -- thy sacred hand! -- avaunt, I say!
Avaunt -- I will not fight thee -- indeed I dare not.
_ Pol_. Thou wilt not fight with me didst say, Sir Count?
Shall I be baffled thus? -- now this is well;
Didst say thou darest not? Ha!
_Cas. _I dare not -- dare not --
Hold off thy hand -- with that beloved name
So fresh upon thy lips I will not fight thee --
I cannot -- dare not.
_ Pol_. Now by my halidom
I do believe thee! -- coward, I do believe thee!
_Cas. _Ha! -- coward! -- this may not be!
(_clutches his sword and staggers towards POLITIAN, but his purpose
is changed before reaching him, and he falls upon his knee at the feet of
the Earl_)
Alas! my lord,
It is -- it is -- most true. In such a cause
I am the veriest coward. O pity me!
_ Pol_. (_greatly softened._) Alas!- I do- indeed I pity thee.
_Cas. _And Lalage-
_ Pol_. Scoundrel!- arise and die!
_Cas. _It needeth not be -- thus -- thus -- O let me die
Thus on my bended knee. It were most fitting
That in this deep humiliation I perish.
For in the fight I will not raise a hand
Against thee, Earl of Leicester. Strike thou home --
(_baring his bosom._)
Here is no let or hindrance to thy weapon-
Strike home. I _will not_ fight thee.
_ Pol_. Now, s' Death and Hell!
Am I not- am I not sorely- grievously tempted
To take thee at thy word? But mark me, sir,
Think not to fly me thus. Do thou prepare
For public insult in the streets -- before
The eyes of the citizens. I'll follow thee
Like an avenging spirit I'll follow thee
Even unto death. Before those whom thou lovest-
Before all Rome I'll taunt thee, villain, -- I'll taunt thee,
Dost hear? with _cowardice_ -- thou _wilt not_ fight me?
Thou liest! thou _shalt!_ (_exit_.)
_Cas. _Now this indeed is just!
Most righteous, and most just, avenging Heaven!
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
{In the book there is a gap in numbering the notes between 12 and 29.
--ED}
NOTE
29. Such portions of "Politian" as are known to the public first saw the
light of publicity in the "Southern Literary Messenger" for December,
1835, and January, 1836, being styled "Scenes from Politian: an
unpublished drama." These scenes were included, unaltered, in the 1845
collection of Poems, by Poe. The larger portion of the original draft
subsequently became the property of the present editor, but it is not
considered just to the poet's memory to publish it. The work is a hasty
and unrevised production of its author's earlier days of literary labor;
and, beyond the scenes already known, scarcely calculated to enhance his
reputation. As a specimen, however, of the parts unpublished, the
following fragment from the first scene of Act II. may be offered. The
Duke, it should be premised, is uncle to Alessandra, and father of
Castiglione her betrothed.
_Duke. _Why do you laugh?
_Castiglione. _Indeed
I hardly know myself. Stay! Was it not
On yesterday we were speaking of the Earl?
Of the Earl Politian? Yes! it was yesterday.
Alessandra, you and 1, you must remember!
We were walking in the garden.
_Duke, _Perfectly.
I do remember it-what of it-what then?
_Cas. 0 _nothing-nothing at all.
_Duke. _Nothing at all !
It is most singular that you should laugh
'At nothing at all!
_Cas._ Most singular-singular!
_Duke. Look you, _Castiglione, be so kind
As tell me, sir, at once what 'tis you mean.
What are you talking of?
_Cas. _Was it not so?
We differed in opinion touching him.
_Duke. _Him!--Whom?
_Cas. _Why, sir, the Earl Politian.
_Duke. _The Earl of Leicester! Yes!--is it he you mean?
We differed, indeed. If I now recollect
The words you used were that the Earl you knew
Was neither learned nor mirthful.
_Cas. _Ha! ha!--now did I?
_Duke. _That did you, sir, and well I knew at the time
You were wrong, it being not the character
Of the Earl-whom all the world allows to be
A most hilarious man. Be not, my son,
Too positive again.
_Cas. 'Tis _singular !
Most singular! I could not think it possible
So little time could so much alter one!
To say the truth about an hour ago,
As I was walking with the Count San Ozzo,
All arm in arm, we met this very man
The Earl-he, with his friend Baldazzar,
Having just arrived in Rome. Hal ha! he is altered!
Such an account he gave me of his journey!
'Twould have made you die with laughter-such tales he told
Of his caprices and his merry freaks
Along the road-such oddity-such humor--
Such wit-such whim-such flashes of wild merriment
Set off too in such full relief by the grave
Demeanor of his friend-who, to speak the truth,
Was gravity itself--
_Duke. _Did I not tell you?
_Cas. You _did-and yet 'tis strange! but true as strange,
How much I was mistaken ! I always thought
The Earl a gloomy man.
_Duke._ So, so,_ you _see! Be not too positive. Whom have we here?
It can not be the Earl?
_Cas._ The Earl! Oh, no! 'Tis not the Earl-but yet it is-and leaning
Upon his friend Baldazzar. AM welcome, sir!
(_Enter Politian and Baldazzar._)
My lord, a second welcome let me give you
To Rome-his Grace the Duke of Broglio.
Father! this is the Earl Politian, Earl
Of Leicester in Great Britain. _[Politian bows haughtily_.]
That, his friend
Baldazzar, Duke of Surrey. The Earl has letters,
So please you, for Your Grace.
_Duke. _Hal ha! Most welcome
To Rome and to our palace, Earl Politian!
And you, most noble Duke! I am glad to see you!
I knew your father well, my Lord Politian.
Castiglione! call your cousin hither,
And let me make the noble Earl acquainted
With your betrothed. You come, sir, at a time
Most seasonable. The wedding--
_Politian. _Touching those letters, sir,
Your son made mention of--your son, is he not?
Touching those letters, sir, I wot not of them.
If such there be, my friend Baldazzar here--
Baldazzar! ah!--my friend Baldazzar here
Will hand them to Your Grace. I would retire.
_Duke. _Retire!--So soon?
Came What ho ! Benito! Rupert!
His lordship's chambers-show his lordship to them!
His lordship is unwell. _(Enter Benito.)_
_Ben. _This way, my lord! _(Exit, followed by Politian_.)
_Duke. _Retire! Unwell!
_Bal_. So please you, sir. I fear me
'Tis as you say--his lordship is unwell.
The damp air of the evening-the fatigue
Of a long journey--the--indeed I had better
Follow his lordship. He must be unwell.
I will return anon.
_Duke. _Return anon!
Now this is very strange! Castiglione!
This way, my son, I wish to speak with thee.
You surely were mistaken in what you said
Of the Earl, mirthful, indeed!--which of us said
Politian was a melancholy man? _(Exeunt.)_
======
~~~ End of Notes ~~~
End of Poems of Manhood
POEMS OF YOUTH
INTRODUCTION TO POEMS--1831
_LETTER TO MR. B--._
"WEST POINT, 1831.
"DEAR B . . . . . . . . . Believing only a portion of my former volume to
be worthy a second edition-that small portion I thought it as well to
include in the present book as to republish by itself. I have therefore
herein combined 'Al Aaraaf' and 'Tamerlane' with other poems hitherto
unprinted. Nor have I hesitated to insert from the 'Minor Poems,' now
omitted, whole lines, and even passages, to the end that being placed in a
fairer light, and the trash shaken from them in which they were imbedded,
they may have some chance of being seen by posterity.
"It has been said that a good critique on a poem may be written by one who
is no poet himself. This, according to your idea and _mine _of poetry, I
feel to be false-the less poetical the critic, the less just the critique,
and the converse. On this account, and because there are but few B-'s in
the world, I would be as much ashamed of the world's good opinion as proud
of your own. Another than yourself might here observe, 'Shakespeare is in
possession of the world's good opinion, and yet Shakespeare is the
greatest of poets. It appears then that the world judge correctly, why
should you be ashamed of their favorable judgment?' The difficulty lies in
the interpretation of the word 'judgment' or 'opinion.' The opinion is the
world's, truly, but it may be called theirs as a man would call a book
his, having bought it; he did not write the book, but it is his; they did
not originate the opinion, but it is theirs. A fool, for example, thinks
Shakespeare a great poet-yet the fool has never read Shakespeare. But the
fool's neighbor, who is a step higher on the Andes of the mind, whose head
(that is to say, his more exalted thought) is too far above the fool to be
seen or understood, but whose feet (by which I mean his everyday actions)
are sufficiently near to be discerned, and by means of which that
superiority is ascertained, which but for them would never have been
discovered-this neighbor asserts that Shakespeare is a great poet--the
fool believes him, and it is henceforward his _opinion. _This neighbor's
own opinion has, in like manner, been adopted from one above him, and so,
ascendingly, to a few gifted individuals who kneel around the summit,
beholding, face to face, the master spirit who stands upon the pinnacle.
"You are aware of the great barrier in the path of an American writer. He
is read, if at all, in preference to the combined and established wit of
the world. I say established; for it is with literature as with law or
empire-an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in
possession. Besides, one might suppose that books, like their authors,
improve by travel-their having crossed the sea is, with us, so great a
distinction. Our antiquaries abandon time for distance; our very fops
glance from the binding to the bottom of the title-page, where the mystic
characters which spell London, Paris, or Genoa, are precisely so many
letters of recommendation.
"I mentioned just now a vulgar error as regards criticism. I think the
notion that no poet can form a correct estimate of his own writings is
another. I remarked before that in proportion to the poetical talent would
be the justice of a critique upon poetry. Therefore a bad poet would, I
grant, make a false critique, and his self-love would infallibly bias his
little judgment in his favor; but a poet, who is indeed a poet, could not,
I think, fail of making-a just critique; whatever should be deducted on
the score of self-love might be replaced on account of his intimate
acquaintance with the subject; in short, we have more instances of false
criticism than of just where one's own writings are the test, simply
because we have more bad poets than good. There are, of course, many
objections to what I say: Milton is a great example of the contrary; but
his opinion with respect to the 'Paradise Regained' is by no means fairly
ascertained. By what trivial circumstances men are often led to assert
what they do not really believe! Perhaps an inadvertent word has descended
to posterity. But, in fact, the 'Paradise Regained' is little, if at all,
inferior to the 'Paradise Lost,' and is only supposed so to be because men
do not like epics, whatever they may say to the contrary, and, reading
those of Milton in their natural order, are too much wearied with the
first to derive any pleasure from the second.
"I dare say Milton preferred 'Comus' to either-. if so-justly.
"As I am speaking of poetry, it will not be amiss to touch slightly upon
the most singular heresy in its modern history-the heresy of what is
called, very foolishly, the Lake School. Some years ago I might have been
induced, by an occasion like the present, to attempt a formal refutation
of their doctrine; at present it would be a work of supererogation. The
wise must bow to the wisdom of such men as Coleridge and Southey, but,
being wise, have laughed at poetical theories so prosaically exemplifled.
"Aristotle, with singular assurance, has declared poetry the most
philosophical of all writings*-but it required a Wordsworth to pronounce
it the most metaphysical. He seems to think that the end of poetry is, or
should be, instruction; yet it is a truism that the end of our existence
is happiness; if so, the end of every separate part of our existence,
everything connected with our existence, should be still happiness.
Therefore the end of instruction should be happiness; and happiness is
another name for pleasure;-therefore the end of instruction should be
pleasure: yet we see the above-mentioned opinion implies precisely the
reverse.
"To proceed: _ceteris paribus, _be who pleases is of more importance to
his fellow-men than he who instructs, since utility is happiness, and
pleasure is the end already obtained which instruction is merely the means
of obtaining.
"I see no reason, then, why our metaphysical poets should plume themselves
so much on the utility of their works, unless indeed they refer to
instruction with eternity in view; in which case, sincere respect for
their piety would not allow me to express my contempt for their judgment;
contempt which it would be difficult to conceal, since their writings are
professedly to be understood by the few, and it is the many who stand in
need of salvation. In such case I should no doubt be tempted to think of
the devil in 'Melmoth.' who labors indefatigably, through three octavo
volumes, to accomplish the destruction of one or two souls, while any
common devil would have demolished one or two thousand.
"Against the subtleties which would make poetry a study-not a passion-it
becomes the metaphysician to reason-but the poet to protest. Yet
Wordsworth and Coleridge are men in years; the one imbued in contemplation
from his childhood; the other a giant in intellect and learning. The
diffidence, then, with which I venture to dispute their authority would be
overwhelming did I not feel, from the bottom of my heart, that learning
has little to do with the imagination-intellect with the passions-or age
with poetry.
"'Trifles, like straws, upon the surface flow;
He who would search for pearls must dive below,'
are lines which have done much mischief. As regards the greater truths,
men oftener err by seeking them at the bottom than at the top; Truth lies
in the huge abysses where wisdom is sought-not in the palpable palaces
where she is found. The ancients were not always right in hiding -the
goddess in a well; witness the light which Bacon has thrown upon
philosophy; witness the principles of our divine faith -that moral
mechanism by which the simplicity of a child may overbalance the wisdom of
a man.
"We see an instance of Coleridge's liability to err, in his 'Biographia
Literaria'--professedly his literary life and opinions, but, in fact, a
treatise _de omni scibili et quibusdam aliis. _He goes wrong by reason of
his very profundity, and of his error we have a natural type in the
contemplation of a star. He who regards it directly and intensely sees, it
is true, the star, but it is the star without a ray-while he who surveys
it less inquisitively is conscious of all for which the star is useful to
us below-its brilliancy and its beauty.
"As to Wordsworth, I have no faith in him. That he had in youth the
feelings of a poet I believe-for there are glimpses of extreme delicacy in
his writings-(and delicacy is the poet's own kingdom-his _El Dorado)-but
they _have the appearance of a better day recollected; and glimpses, at
best, are little evidence of present poetic fire; we know that a few
straggling flowers spring up daily in the crevices of the glacier.
"He was to blame in wearing away his youth in contemplation with the end
of poetizing in his manhood. With the increase of his judgment the light
which should make it apparent has faded away. His judgment consequently is
too correct. This may not be understood-but the old Goths of Germany would
have understood it, who used to debate matters of importance to their
State twice, once when drunk, and once when sober-sober that they might
not be deficient in formality--drunk lest they should be destitute of
vigor.
"The long wordy discussions by which he tries to reason us into admiration
of his poetry, speak very little in his favor: they are full of such
assertions as this (I have opened one of his volumes at random) -"Of
genius the only proof is the act of doing well what is worthy to be done,
and what was never done before;'-indeed? then it follows that in doing
what is unworthy to be done, or what _has _been done before, no genius can
be evinced; yet the picking of pockets is an unw orthy act, pockets have
been picked time immemorial, and Barrington, the pickpocket, in point of
genius, would have thought hard of a comparison with William Wordsworth,
the poet.
"Again, in estimating the merit of certain poems, whether they be Ossian's
or Macpherson's can surely be of little consequence, yet, in order to
prove their worthlessness, Mr. W. has expended many pages in the
controversy. _Tantaene animis? _Can great minds descend to such absurdity?
But worse still: that he may bear down every argument in favor of these
poems, he triumphantly drags forward a passage, in his abomination with
which he expects the reader to sympathize. It is the beginning of the epic
poem 'Temora.' 'The blue waves of Ullin roll in light; the green hills are
covered with day; trees shake their dusty heads in the breeze.' And this
this gorgeous, yet simple imagery, where all is alive and panting with
immortality-this, William Wordsworth, the author of 'Peter Bell,' has
_selected _for his contempt. We shall see what better he, in his own
person, has to offer. Imprimis:
"'And now she's at the pony's tail,
And now she's at the pony's head,
On that side now, and now on this;
And, almost stifled with her bliss,
A few sad tears does Betty shed. . . .
She pats the pony, where or when
She knows not . . . . happy Betty Foy!
Oh, Johnny, never mind the doctor!'
Secondly:
"'The dew was falling fast, the-stars began to blink;
I heard a voice: it said-"Drink, pretty creature, drink!"
And, looking o'er the hedge, be-fore me I espied
A snow-white mountain lamb, with a-maiden at its side.
No other sheep was near,--the lamb was all alone,
And by a slender cord was-tether'd to a stone.'
"Now, we have no doubt this is all true: we will believe it, indeed we
will, Mr. W. Is it sympathy for the sheep you wish to excite? I love a
sheep from the bottom of my heart.
"But there are occasions, dear B-, there are occasions when even
Wordsworth is reasonable. Even Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end,
and the most unlucky blunders must come to a conclusion. Here is an
extract from his preface :-
"'Those who have been accustomed to the phraseology of modem writers, if
they persist in reading this book to a conclusion _(impossible!) will, _no
doubt, have to struggle with feelings of awkwardness; (ha! ha! ha!) they
will look round for poetry (ha! ha! ha! ha!), and will be induced to
inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts have been permitted to
assume that title.' Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
"Yet, let not Mr. W. despair; he has given immortality to a wagon, and the
bee Sophocles has transmitted to eternity a sore toe, and dignified a
tragedy with a chorus of turkeys.
"Of Coleridge, I can not speak but with reverence. His towering intellect!
his gigantic power! To use an author quoted by himself, _'Tai trouvé
souvent que la plupart des sectes ont raison dans une bonne partie de ce
qu'elles avancent, mais non pas en ce qu'elles nient , ' and _to employ
his own language, he has imprisoned his own conceptions by the barrier he
has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to think that such a
mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the Nyctanthes, waste its
perfume upon the night alone. In reading that man's poetry, I tremble like
one who stands upon a volcano, conscious from the very darkness bursting
from the crater, of the fire and the light that are weltering below.
"What is poetry?-Poetry! that Proteus-like idea, with as many appellations
as the nine-titled Corcyra! 'Give me,' I demanded of a scholar some time
ago, 'give me a definition of poetry.' _'Trèsvolontiers;' _and he
proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr. Johnson, and overwhelmed me
with a definition. Shade of the immortal Shakespeare! I imagine to myself
the scowl of your spiritual eye upon the profanity of that scurrilous Ursa
Major. Think of poetry, dear B-, think of poetry, and then think of Dr.
Samuel Johnson! Think of all that is airy and fairy-like, and then of all
that is hideous and unwieldy; think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! and
then-and then think of the 'Tempest' -the 'Midsummer-Night's Dream'-
Prospero Oberon-and Titania!
"A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for its
_immediate _object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having, for its
object, an _indefinite _instead of a _definite _pleasure, being a poem
only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting perceptible
images with definite, poetry with indefinite sensations, to which end
music is an _essential, since _the comprehension of sweet sound is our
most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a pleasurable idea,
is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the idea, wi thout
the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.
"What was meant by the invective against him who had no music in his soul?
"To sum up this long rigmarole, I have, dear B-, what you, no doubt,
perceive, for the metaphysical poets as poets, the most sovereign
contempt. That they have followers proves nothing-
"'No Indian prince has to his palace
More followers than a thief to the gallows.
* GJL*4@J"J@< 6"4 N48@F@M46@J"J@< (,<@.
~~~~~~ End of Introduction ~~~~~~
======
SONNET -- TO SCIENCE
SCIENCE! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thous not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
AL AARAAF*
PART I.
O ! NOTHING earthly save the ray
(Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty's eye,
As in those gardens where the day
Springs from the gems of Circassy -
O ! nothing earthly save the thrill
Of melody in woodland rill -
Or (music of the passion-hearted)
Joy's voice so peacefully departed
That like the murmur in the shell,
Its echo dwelleth and will dwell -
Oh, nothing of the dross of ours -
Yet all the beauty - all the flowers
That list our Love, and deck our bowers -
Adorn yon world afar, afar -
The wandering star.
'Twas a sweet time for Nesace - for there
Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
Near four bright suns - a temporary rest -
An oasis in desert of the blest.
* A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared suddenly in the
heavens - attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter
- then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since.
Away - away - 'mid seas of rays that roll
Empyrean splendor o'er th' unchained soul -
The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
Can struggle to its destin'd eminence -
To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
And late to ours, the favour'd one of God -
But, now, the ruler of an anchor'd realm,
She throws aside the sceptre - leaves the helm,
And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.
Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,
Whence sprang the "Idea of Beauty" into birth,
(Falling in wreaths thro' many a startled star,
Like woman's hair 'mid pearls, until, afar,
It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt)
She look'd into Infinity - and knelt.
Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled -
Fit emblems of the model of her world -
Seen but in beauty - not impeding sight
Of other beauty glittering thro' the light -
A wreath that twined each starry form around,
And all the opal'd air in color bound.
All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
Of flowers : of lilies such as rear'd the head
*On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang
So eagerly around about to hang
Upon the flying footsteps of -- deep pride -
Of her who lov'd a mortal - and so died.
The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
Uprear'd its purple stem around her knees :
* On Santa Maura - olim Deucadia. Sappho.
*And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam'd -
Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham'd
All other loveliness : its honied dew
(The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
Deliriously sweet, was dropp'd from Heaven,
And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
In Trebizond - and on a sunny flower
So like its own above that, to this hour,
It still remaineth, torturing the bee
With madness, and unwonted reverie :
In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
Disconsolate linger - grief that hangs her head,
Repenting follies that full long have fled,
Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,
Like guilty beauty, chasten'd, and more fair :
Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light
She fears to perfume, perfuming the night :
And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
While pettish tears adown her petals run :
And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth -
And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king :
* This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort. The bee,
feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated.
Clytia - The Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a better-known
term, the turnsol - which continually turns towards the sun, covers
itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy clouds which
cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat of the day. -
_B. de St. Pierre_.
There is cultivated in the king's garden at Paris, a species of
serpentine aloes without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower
exhales a strong odour of the vanilla, during the time of its expansion,
which is very short. It does not blow till towards the month of July - you
then perceive it gradually open its petals - expand them - fade and die. -
_St. Pierre_.
*And Valisnerian lotus thither flown
From struggling with the waters of the Rhone :
And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante !
Isola d'oro ! - Fior di Levante !
And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever
With Indian Cupid down the holy river -
Fair flowers, and fairy ! to whose care is given
§ To bear the Goddess' song, in odors, up to Heaven :
"Spirit ! that dwellest where,
In the deep sky,
The terrible and fair,
In beauty vie !
Beyond the line of blue -
The boundary of the star
Which turneth at the view
Of thy barrier and thy bar -
Of the barrier overgone
By the comets who were cast
From their pride, and from their throne
To be drudges till the last -
To be carriers of fire
(The red fire of their heart)
With speed that may not tire
And with pain that shall not part -
* There is found, in the Rhone, a beautiful lily of the Valisnerian
kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four feet - thus
preserving its head above water in the swellings of the river.
The Hyacinth.
It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first seen floating
in one of these down the river Ganges - and that he still loves the cradle
of his childhood.
§ And golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of the saints.
- _Rev. St. John_.
Who livest - _that_ we know -
In Eternity - we feel -
But the shadow of whose brow
What spirit shall reveal ?
Tho' the beings whom thy Nesace,
Thy messenger hath known
Have dream'd for thy Infinity
*A model of their own -
Thy will is done, Oh, God !
The star hath ridden high
Thro' many a tempest, but she rode
Beneath thy burning eye ;
And here, in thought, to thee -
In thought that can alone
Ascend thy empire and so be
A partner of thy throne -
* The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as having a
really human form. - _Vide Clarke's Sermons_, vol. 1, page 26, fol. edit.
The drift of Milton's argument, leads him to employ language which
would appear, at first sight, to verge upon their doctrine ; but it will
be seen immediately, that he guards himself against the charge of having
adopted one of the most ignorant errors of the dark ages of the church. -
_Dr. Sumner's Notes on Milton's Christian Doctrine_.
This opinion, in spite of many testimonies to the contrary, could
never have been very general. Andeus, a Syrian of Mesopotamia, was
condemned for the opinion, as heretical. He lived in the beginning of the
fourth century. His disciples were called Anthropmorphites. - _Vide Du
Pin_.
Among Milton's poems are these lines: -
Dicite sacrorum præsides nemorum Deæ, &c.
Quis ille primus cujus ex imagine
Natura solers finxit humanum genus ?
Eternus, incorruptus, æquævus polo,
Unusque et universus exemplar Dei. - And afterwards,
Non cui profundum Cæcitas lumen dedit
Dircæus augur vidit hunc alto sinu, &c.
*By winged Fantasy,
My embassy is given,
Till secrecy shall knowledge be
In the environs of Heaven."
She ceas'd - and buried then her burning cheek
Abash'd, amid the lilies there, to seek
A shelter from the fervour of His eye ;
For the stars trembled at the Deity.
She stirr'd not - breath'd not - for a voice was there
How solemnly pervading the calm air !
A sound of silence on the startled ear
Which dreamy poets name "the music of the sphere."
Ours is a world of words : Quiet we call
"Silence" - which is the merest word of all.
All Nature speaks, and ev'n ideal things
Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings -
But ah ! not so when, thus, in realms on high
The eternal voice of God is passing by,
And the red winds are withering in the sky !
"What tho' in worlds which sightless cycles run,
Link'd to a little system, and one sun -
Where all my love is folly and the crowd
Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud,
The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath -
(Ah ! will they cross me in my angrier path ?)
What tho' in worlds which own a single sun
The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run,
* Seltsamen Tochter Jovis
Seinem Schosskinde
Der Phantasie. - _Göethe_.
Sightless - too small to be seen - _Legge_.
Yet thine is my resplendency, so given
To bear my secrets thro' the upper Heaven.
Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,
With all thy train, athwart the moony sky -
*Apart - like fire-flies in Sicilian night,
And wing to other worlds another light !
Divulge the secrets of thy embassy
To the proud orbs that twinkle - and so be
To ev'ry heart a barrier and a ban
Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man !"
Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,
The single-mooned eve ! - on Earth we plight
Our faith to one love - and one moon adore -
The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.
As sprang that yellow star from downy hours
Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,
And bent o'er sheeny mountain and dim plain
Her way - but left not yet her Therasæan reign.
* I have often noticed a peculiar movement of the fire-flies ; - they
will collect in a body and fly off, from a common centre, into innumerable
radii.
Therasæa, or Therasea, the island mentioned by Seneca, which, in a
moment, arose from the sea to the eyes of astonished mariners.
Part II.
HIGH on a mountain of enamell'd head -
Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed
Of giant pasturage lying at his ease,
Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees
With many a mutter'd "hope to be forgiven"
What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven -
Of rosy head, that towering far away
Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray
Of sunken suns at eve - at noon of night,
While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger light -
Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile
Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthen'd air,
Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile
Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,
And nursled the young mountain in its lair.
*Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall
Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall
Of their own dissolution, while they die -
Adorning then the dwellings of the sky.
A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,
Sat gently on these columns as a crown -
A window of one circular diamond, there,
Look'd out above into the purple air,
* Some star which, from the ruin'd roof
Of shak'd Olympus, by mischance, did fall. - _Milton._
And rays from God shot down that meteor chain
And hallow'd all the beauty twice again,
Save when, between th' Empyrean and that ring,
Some eager spirit flapp'd his dusky wing.
But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen
The dimness of this world : that greyish green
That Nature loves the best for Beauty's grave
Lurk'd in each cornice, round each architrave -
And every sculptur'd cherub thereabout
That from his marble dwelling peeréd out
Seem'd earthly in the shadow of his niche -
Achaian statues in a world so rich ?
*Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis -
From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss
Of beautiful Gomorrah ! O, the wave
Is now upon thee - but too late to save !
Sound loves to revel in a summer night :
Witness the murmur of the grey twilight
* Voltaire, in speaking of Persepolis, says, "Je connois bien
l'admiration qu'inspirent ces ruines - mais un palais erigé au pied d'une
chaine des rochers sterils - peut il être un chef d'vure des arts !"
[_Voila les arguments de M. Voltaire_.]
"Oh ! the wave" - Ula Degusi is the Turkish appellation; but, on its
own shores, it is called Bahar Loth, or Almotanah. There were undoubtedly
more than two cities engluphed in the "dead sea." In the valley of Siddim
were five - Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah. Stephen of Byzantium
mentions eight, and Strabo thirteeen, (engulphed) - but the last is out of
all reason.
It is said, (Tacitus, Strabo, Josephus, Daniel of St. Saba, Nau,
Maundrell, Troilo, D'Arvieux) that after an excessive drought, the
vestiges of columns, walls, &c. are seen above the surface. At _any_
season, such remains may be discovered by looking down into the
transparent lake, and at such distances as would argue the existence of
many settlements in the space now usurped by the 'Asphaltites.'
*That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco,
Of many a wild star-gazer long ago -
That stealeth ever on the ear of him
Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim.
And sees the darkness coming as a cloud -
Is not its form - its voice - most palpable and loud ?
But what is this ? - it cometh - and it brings
A music with it - 'tis the rush of wings -
A pause - and then a sweeping, falling strain
And Nesace is in her halls again.
From the wild energy of wanton haste
Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart ;
And zone that clung around her gentle waist
Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart.
Within the centre of that hall to breathe
She paus'd and panted, Zanthe ! all beneath,
The fairy light that kiss'd her golden hair
And long'd to rest, yet could but sparkle there !
Young flowers were whispering in melody
To happy flowers that night - and tree to tree ;
Fountains were gushing music as they fell
In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell ;
Yet silence came upon material things -
Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings -
And sound alone that from the spirit sprang
Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang :
* Eyraco - Chaldea.
I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of the
darkness as it stole over the horizon.
Fairies use flowers for their charactery. - _Merry Wives of
Windsor_. [William Shakespeare]
" 'Neath blue-bell or streamer -
Or tufted wild spray
That keeps, from the dreamer,
*The moonbeam away -
Bright beings ! that ponder,
With half closing eyes,
On the stars which your wonder
Hath drawn from the skies, [in the original, this
line is slightly out of alignment]
Till they glance thro' the shade, and
Come down to your brow
Like -- eyes of the maiden
Who calls on you now -
Arise ! from your dreaming
In violet bowers,
To duty beseeming
These star-litten hours -
And shake from your tresses
Encumber'd with dew
The breath of those kisses
That cumber them too -
(O ! how, without you, Love !
Could angels be blest ?)
Those kisses of true love
That lull'd ye to rest !
Up ! - shake from your wing
Each hindering thing :
The dew of the night -
It would weigh down your flight ;
And true love caresses -
O ! leave them apart !
* In Scripture is this passage - "The sun shall not harm thee by day,
nor the moon by night." It is perhaps not generally known that the moon,
in Egypt, has the effect of producing blindness to those who sleep with
the face exposed to its rays, to which circumstance the passage evidently
alludes.
They are light on the tresses,
But lead on the heart.
Ligeia ! Ligeia !
My beautiful one !
Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
O ! is it thy will
On the breezes to toss ?
Or, capriciously still,
*Like the lone Albatross,
Incumbent on night
(As she on the air)
To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there ?
Ligeia ! whatever
Thy image may be,
No magic shall sever
Thy music from thee.
Thou hast bound many eyes
In a dreamy sleep -
But the strains still arise
Which _thy_ vigilance keep -
The sound of the rain
Which leaps down to the flower,
And dances again
In the rhythm of the shower -
The murmur that springs
From the growing of grass
* The Albatross is said to sleep on the wing.
I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am now unable
to obtain and quote from memory : - "The verie essence and, as it were,
springe-heade, and origine of all musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde
which the trees of the forest do make when they growe."
Are the music of things -
But are modell'd, alas ! -
Away, then my dearest,
O ! hie thee away
To springs that lie clearest
Beneath the moon-ray -
To lone lake that smiles,
In its dream of deep rest,
At the many star-isles
That enjewel its breast -
Where wild flowers, creeping,
Have mingled their shade,
On its margin is sleeping
Full many a maid -
Some have left the cool glade, and
* Have slept with the bee -
Arouse them my maiden,
On moorland and lea -
Go ! breathe on their slumber,
All softly in ear,
The musical number
They slumber'd to hear -
For what can awaken
An angel so soon
* The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be moonlight.
The rhyme in this verse, as in one about sixty lines before, has an
appearance of affectation. It is, however, imitated from Sir W. Scott, or
rather from Claud Halcro - in whose mouth I admired its effect :
O ! were there an island,
Tho' ever so wild
Where woman might smile, and
No man be beguil'd, &c.
Whose sleep hath been taken
Beneath the cold moon,
As the spell which no slumber
Of witchery may test,
The rythmical number
Which lull'd him to rest ?"
Spirits in wing, and angels to the view,
A thousand seraphs burst th' Empyrean thro',
Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight -
Seraphs in all but "Knowledge," the keen light
That fell, refracted, thro' thy bounds, afar
O Death ! from eye of God upon that star:
Sweet was that error - sweeter still that death -
Sweet was that error - ev'n with _us_ the breath
Of science dims the mirror of our joy -
To them 'twere the Simoom, and would destroy -
For what (to them) availeth it to know
That Truth is Falsehood - or that Bliss is Woe ?
Sweet was their death - with them to die was rife
With the last ecstacy of satiate life -
Beyond that death no immortality -
But sleep that pondereth and is not "to be" -
And there - oh ! may my weary spirit dwell -
*Apart from Heaven's Eternity - and yet how far from Hell !
* With the Arabians there is a medium between Heaven and Hell, where
men suffer no punishment, but yet do not attain that tranquil and even
happiness which they suppose to be characteristic of heavenly enjoyment.
Un no rompido sueno -
Un dia puro - allegre - libre
Quiera -
Libre de amor - de zelo -
De odio - de esperanza - de rezelo. - _Luis Ponce de Leon_.
Sorrow is not excluded from "Al Aaraaf," but it is that sorrow which
the living love to cherish for the dead, and which, in some minds,
resembles the delirium of opium. The passionate excitement of Love and the
buoyancy of spirit attendant upon intoxication are its less holy pleasures
- the price of which, to those souls who make choice of "Al Aaraaf" as
their residence after life, is final death and annihilation.
What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,
Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn ?
But two : they fell : for Heaven no grace imparts
To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover -
O ! where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known ?
*Unguided Love hath fallen - 'mid "tears of perfect moan."
He was a goodly spirit - he who fell :
A wanderer by moss-y-mantled well -
A gazer on the lights that shine above -
A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love :
What wonder ? For each star is eye-like there,
And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair -
And they, and ev'ry mossy spring were holy
To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.
The night had found (to him a night of wo)
Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo -
Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,
And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.
Here sate he with his love - his dark eye bent
With eagle gaze along the firmament:
Now turn'd it upon her - but ever then
It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.
"Iante, dearest, see ! how dim that ray !
How lovely 'tis to look so far away !
* There be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon.- _Milton._
She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve
I left her gorgeous halls - nor mourn'd to leave.
That eve - that eve - I should remember well -
The sun-ray dropp'd, in Lemnos, with a spell
On th'Arabesque carving of a gilded hall
Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall -
And on my eye-lids - O the heavy light !
How drowsily it weigh'd them into night !
On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan :
But O that light! - I slumber'd - Death, the while,
Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle
So softly that no single silken hair
Awoke that slept - or knew that it was there.
The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon
* Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon -
More beauty clung around her column'd wall
Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats withal,
And when old Time my wing did disenthral
Thence sprang I - as the eagle from his tower,
And years I left behind me in an hour.
What time upon her airy bounds I hung
One half the garden of her globe was flung
Unrolling as a chart unto my view -
Tenantless cities of the desert too !
Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
And half I wish'd to be again of men."
"My Angelo! and why of them to be ?
A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee -
* It was entire in 1687 - the most elevated spot in Athens.
Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
Than have the white breasts of the Queen of Love. - _Marlowe._
And greener fields than in yon world above,
And women's loveliness - and passionate love."
"But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
*Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft,
Perhaps my brain grew dizzy - but the world
I left so late was into chaos hurl'd -
Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar
And fell - not swiftly as I rose before,
But with a downward, tremulous motion thro'
Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!
Nor long the measure of my falling hours,
For nearest of all stars was thine to ours -
Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
A red Dædalion on the timid Earth.
"We came - and to thy Earth - but not to us
Be given our lady's bidding to discuss:
We came, my love; around, above, below,
Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go,
Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod
_ She_ grants to us, as granted by her God -
But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl'd
Never his fairy wing o'er fairier world !
Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes
Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea -
But when its glory swell'd upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,
* Pennon - for pinion. - _Milton_.
We paus'd before the heritage of men,
And thy star trembled - as doth Beauty then !"
Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away
The night that waned and waned and brought no day.
They fell : for Heaven to them no hope imparts
Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TAMERLANE
KIND solace in a dying hour!
Such, father, is not (now) my theme -
I will not madly deem that power
Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
Unearthly pride hath revell'd in -
I have no time to dote or dream:
You call it hope - that fire of fire!
It is but agony of desire:
If I _can_ hope - Oh God! I can -
Its fount is holier - more divine -
I would not call thee fool, old man,
But such is not a gift of thine.
Know thou the secret of a spirit
Bow'd from its wild pride into shame.
O! yearning heart! I did inherit
Thy withering portion with the fame,
The searing glory which hath shone
Amid the jewels of my throne,
Halo of Hell! and with a pain
Not Hell shall make me fear again -
O! craving heart, for the lost flowers
And sunshine of my summer hours!
Th' undying voice of that dead time,
With its interminable chime,
Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
Upon thy emptiness - a knell.
I have not always been as now:
The fever'd diadem on my brow
I claim'd and won usurpingly -
Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
Rome to the Caesar - this to me?
The heritage of a kingly mind,
And a proud spirit which hath striven
Triumphantly with human kind.
On mountain soil I first drew life:
The mists of the Taglay have shed
Nightly their dews upon my head,
And, I believe, the winged strife
And tumult of the headlong air
Have nestled in my very hair.
So late from Heaven - that dew - it fell
(Mid dreams of an unholy night)
Upon me - with the touch of Hell,
While the red flashing of the light
From clouds that hung, like banners, o'er,
Appeared to my half-closing eye
The pageantry of monarchy,
And the deep trumpet-thunder's roar
Came hurriedly upon me, telling
Of human battle, where my voice,
My own voice, silly child! - was swelling
(O! how my spirit would rejoice,
And leap within me at the cry)
The battle-cry of Victory!
The rain came down upon my head
Unshelter'd - and the heavy wind
Was giantlike - so thou, my mind! -
It was but man, I thought, who shed
Laurels upon me: and the rush -
The torrent of the chilly air
Gurgled within my ear the crush
Of empires - with the captive's prayer -
The hum of suiters - and the tone
Of flattery 'round a sovereign's throne.
My passions, from that hapless hour,
Usurp'd a tyranny which men
Have deem'd, since I have reach'd to power;
My innate nature - be it so:
But, father, there liv'd one who, then,
Then - in my boyhood - when their fire
Burn'd with a still intenser glow,
(For passion must, with youth, expire)
E'en _then_ who knew this iron heart
In woman's weakness had a part.
I have no words - alas! - to tell
The loveliness of loving well!
Nor would I now attempt to trace
The more than beauty of a face
Whose lineaments, upon my mind,
Are -- shadows on th' unstable wind:
Thus I remember having dwelt
Some page of early lore upon,
With loitering eye, till I have felt
The letters - with their meaning - melt
To fantasies - with none.
O, she was worthy of all love!
Love - as in infancy was mine -
'Twas such as angel minds above
Might envy; her young heart the shrine
On which my ev'ry hope and thought
Were incense - then a goodly gift,
For they were childish - and upright -
Pure -- as her young example taught:
Why did I leave it, and, adrift,
Trust to the fire within, for light?
We grew in age - and love - together,
Roaming the forest, and the wild;
My breast her shield in wintry weather -
And, when the friendly sunshine smil'd,
And she would mark the opening skies,
_I_ saw no Heaven - but in her eyes.
Young Love's first lesson is -- the heart:
For 'mid that sunshine, and those smiles,
When, from our little cares apart,
And laughing at her girlish wiles,
I'd throw me on her throbbing breast,
And pour my spirit out in tears -
There was no need to speak the rest -
No need to quiet any fears
Of her - who ask'd no reason why,
But turn'd on me her quiet eye!
Yet _more_ than worthy of the love
My spirit struggled with, and strove,
When, on the mountain peak, alone,
Ambition lent it a new tone -
I had no being - but in thee:
The world, and all it did contain
In the earth - the air - the sea -
Its joy - its little lot of pain
That was new pleasure -- the ideal,
Dim, vanities of dreams by night -
And dimmer nothings which were real -
(Shadows - and a more shadowy light!)
Parted upon their misty wings,
And, so, confusedly, became
Thine image, and - a name - a name!
Two separate - yet most intimate things.
I was ambitious - have you known
The passion, father? You have not:
A cottager, I mark'd a throne
Of half the world as all my own,
And murmur'd at such lowly lot -
But, just like any other dream,
Upon the vapour of the dew
My own had past, did not the beam
Of beauty which did while it thro'
The minute - the hour - the day - oppress
My mind with double loveliness.
We walk'd together on the crown
Of a high mountain which look'd down
Afar from its proud natural towers
Of rock and forest, on the hills -
The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers
And shouting with a thousand rills.
I spoke to her of power and pride,
But mystically - in such guise
That she might deem it nought beside
The moment's converse; in her eyes
I read, perhaps too carelessly -
A mingled feeling with my own -
The flush on her bright cheek, to me
Seem'd to become a queenly throne
Too well that I should let it be
Light in the wilderness alone.
I wrapp'd myself in grandeur then,
And donn'd a visionary crown --
Yet it was not that Fantasy
Had thrown her mantle over me -
But that, among the rabble - men,
Lion ambition is chain'd down -
And crouches to a keeper's hand -
Not so in deserts where the grand
The wild - the terrible conspire
With their own breath to fan his fire.
Look 'round thee now on Samarcand! -
Is not she queen of Earth? her pride
Above all cities? in her hand
Their destinies? in all beside
Of glory which the world hath known
Stands she not nobly and alone?
Falling - her veriest stepping-stone
Shall form the pedestal of a throne -
And who her sovereign? Timour - he
Whom the astonished people saw
Striding o'er empires haughtily
A diadem'd outlaw -
O! human love! thou spirit given,
On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
Which fall'st into the soul like rain
Upon the Siroc wither'd plain,
And failing in thy power to bless
But leav'st the heart a wilderness!
Idea! which bindest life around
With music of so strange a sound
And beauty of so wild a birth -
Farewell! for I have won the Earth!
When Hope, the eagle that tower'd, could see
No cliff beyond him in the sky,
His pinions were bent droopingly -
And homeward turn'd his soften'd eye.
'Twas sunset: when the sun will part
There comes a sullenness of heart
To him who still would look upon
The glory of the summer sun.
That soul will hate the ev'ning mist,
So often lovely, and will list
To the sound of the coming darkness (known
To those whose spirits hearken) as one
Who, in a dream of night, _would_ fly
But _cannot_ from a danger nigh.
What tho' the moon - the white moon
Shed all the splendour of her noon,
Her smile is chilly - and her beam,
In that time of dreariness, will seem
(So like you gather in your breath)
A portrait taken after death.
And boyhood is a summer sun
Whose waning is the dreariest one --
For all we live to know is known,
And all we seek to keep hath flown -
Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall
With the noon-day beauty - which is all.
I reach'd my home - my home no more -
For all had flown who made it so -
I pass'd from out its mossy door,
And, tho' my tread was soft and low,
A voice came from the threshold stone
Of one whom I had earlier known -
O! I defy thee, Hell, to show
On beds of fire that burn below,
A humbler heart - a deeper wo -
Father, I firmly do believe -
I _know_ - for Death, who comes for me
From regions of the blest afar,
Where there is nothing to deceive,
Hath left his iron gate ajar,
And rays of truth you cannot see
Are flashing thro' Eternity --
I do believe that Eblis hath
A snare in ev'ry human path -
Else how, when in the holy grove
I wandered of the idol, Love,
Who daily scents his snowy wings
With incense of burnt offerings
From the most unpolluted things,
Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven
Above with trelliced rays from Heaven
No mote may shun - no tiniest fly
The light'ning of his eagle eye -
How was it that Ambition crept,
Unseen, amid the revels there,
Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt
In the tangles of Love's very hair?
1829.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO HELEN
HELEN, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo ! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I me thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy-land !
1831.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE VALLEY OF UNREST
_Once_ it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sun-light lazily lay.
_Now_ each visiter shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless -
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Uneasily, from morn till even,
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye -
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave: - from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep: - from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.
1831.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
ISRAFEL*
IN Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute;"
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars (so legends tell)
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.
Tottering above
In her highest noon
The enamoured moon
Blushes with love,
While, to listen, the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven,)
Pauses in Heaven
And they say (the starry choir
And all the listening things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings -
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.
* And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lut, and who has the
sweetest voice of all God's creatures. - KORAN.
But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty -
Where Love's a grown up God -
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.
Therefore, thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassion'd song:
To thee the laurels belong
Best bard, because the wisest!
Merrily live, and long!
The extacies above
With thy burning measures suit -
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy lute -
Well may the stars be mute!
Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely - flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.
If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.
1836.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO - -
1
The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
The wantonest singing birds
Are lips - and all thy melody
Of lip-begotten words -
2
Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrin'd
Then desolately fall,
O! God! on my funereal mind
Like starlight on a pall -
3
Thy heart - _thy_ heart! - I wake and sigh,
And sleep to dream till day
Of truth that gold can never buy -
Of the trifles that it may.
1829.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
TO ---
I HEED not that my earthly lot
Hath-little of Earth in it--
That years of love have been forgot
In the hatred of a minute:--
I mourn not that the desolate
Are happier, sweet, than I,
But that you sorrow for my fate
Who am a passer-by.
1829.
======
TO THE RIVER ----
FAIR river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty - the unhidden heart -
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;
But when within thy wave she looks -
Which glistens then, and trembles -
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshipper resembles;
For in my heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies -
His heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.
1829.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
SONG
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I SAW thee on thy bridal day -
When a burning blush came o'er thee,
Though happiness around thee lay,
The world all love before thee:
And in thine eye a kindling light
(Whatever it might be)
Was all on Earth my aching sight
Of Loveliness could see.
That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame -
As such it well may pass -
Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame
In the breast of him, alas!
Who saw thee on that bridal day,
When that deep blush _would_ come o'er thee,
Though happiness around thee lay,
The world all love before thee.
1827.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
1
Thy soul shall find itself alone
'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone -
Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
Into thine hour of secrecy:
2
Be silent in that solitude
Which is not loneliness - for then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around thee - and their will
Shall then overshadow thee: be still.
3
For the night - tho' clear - shall frown -
And the stars shall look not down,
From their high thrones in the Heaven,
With light like Hope to mortals given -
But their red orbs, without beam,
To thy weariness shall seem
As a burning and a fever
Which would cling to thee for ever :
4
Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish -
Now are visions ne'er to vanish -
From thy spirit shall they pass
No more - like dew-drop from the grass:
5
The breeze - the breath of God - is still -
And the mist upon the hill
Shadowy - shadowy - yet unbroken,
Is a symbol and a token -
How it hangs upon the trees,
A mystery of mysteries! -
1827.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
A DREAM
In visions of the dark night
I have dreamed of joy departed --
But a waking dreams of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.
Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?
That holy dream -- that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.
What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar-
What could there be more purely bright
In Truths day-star ?
1827.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
ROMANCE
ROMANCE, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet
Hath been - a most familiar bird -
Taught me my alphabet to say -
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wild wood I did lie,
A child - with a most knowing eye.
Of late, eternal Condor years
So shake the very Heaven on high
With tumult as they thunder by,
I have no time for idle cares
Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
And when an hour with calmer wings
Its down upon thy spirit flings -
That little time with lyre and rhyme
To while away - forbidden things!
My heart would feel to be a crime
Unless it trembled with the strings.
1829.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
FAIRY-LAND
DIM vales - and shadowy floods -
And cloudy-looking woods,
Whose forms we can't discover
For the tears that drip all over
Huge moons there wax and wane -
Again - again - again -
Every moment of the night -
Forever changing places -
And they put out the star-light
With the breath from their pale faces.
About twelve by the moon-dial
One, more filmy than the rest
(A kind which, upon trial,
They have found to be the best)
Comes down - still down - and down
With its centre on the crown
Of a mountain's eminence,
While its wide circumference
In easy drapery falls
Over hamlets, over halls,
Wherever they may be -
O'er the strange woods - o'er the sea -
Over spirits on the wing -
Over every drowsy thing -
And buries them up quite
In a labyrinth of light -
And then, how deep! - O, deep!
Is the passion of their sleep.
In the morning they arise,
And their moony covering
Is soaring in the skies,
With the tempests as they toss,
Like -- almost any thing -
Or a yellow Albatross.
They use that moon no more
For the same end as before -
Videlicet a tent -
Which I think extravagant:
Its atomies, however,
Into a shower dissever,
Of which those butterflies,
Of Earth, who seek the skies,
And so come down again
(Never-contented things!)
Have brought a specimen
Upon their quivering wings.
1831.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
THE LAKE -- TO ----
IN spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide earth a spot
The which I could not love the less --
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that tower'd around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody --
Then -- ah then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight --
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define --
Nor Love -- although the Love were thine.
Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining --
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.
1827.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
EVENING STAR
'TWAS noontide of summer,
And midtime of night,
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, through the light
Of the brighter, cold moon.
'Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold-too cold for me--
There passed, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night.,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.
1827.
~~~~~~ End of Text ~~~~~~
======
"THE HAPPIEST DAY."
I
THE happiest day-the happiest hour
My seared and blighted heart hath known,
The highest hope of pride and power,
I feel hath flown.
Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween
But they have vanished long, alas!
The visions of my youth have been
But let them pass.
III
And pride, what have I now with thee?
Another brow may ev'n inherit
The venom thou hast poured on me
Be still my spirit!
IV
The happiest day-the happiest hour
Mine eyes shall see-have ever seen
The brightest glance of pride and power
I feet have been:
V
But were that hope of pride and power
Now offered with the pain
Ev'n _then I _felt-that brightest hour
I would not live again:
VI
For on its wing was dark alloy
And as it fluttered-fell
An essence-powerful to destroy
A soul that knew it well.
1827.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
IMITATION
A dark unfathom'd tide
Of interminable pride -
A mystery, and a dream,
Should my early life seem;
I say that dream was fraught
With a wild, and waking thought
Of beings that have been,
Which my spirit hath not seen,
Had I let them pass me by,
With a dreaming eye!
Let none of earth inherit
That vision on my spirit;
Those thoughts I would control
As a spell upon his soul:
For that bright hope at last
And that light time have past,
And my worldly rest hath gone
With a sigh as it pass'd on
I care not tho' it perish
With a thought I then did cherish.
1827.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
_Translation from the Greek_
HYMN TO ARISTOGE1TON AND HARMODIUS
I
WREATHED in myrtle, my sword I'll conceal
Like those champions devoted and brave,
When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
And to Athens deliverance gave.
II
Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam
In the joy breathing isles of the blest;
Where the mighty of old have their home
Where Achilles and Diomed rest
III
In fresh myrtle my blade I'll entwine,
Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,
When he made at the tutelar shrine
A libation of Tyranny's blood.
IV
Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
Ye avengers of Liberty's wrongs!
Endless ages shall cherish your fame,
Embalmed in their echoing songs!
1827.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
DREAMS
Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
My spirit not awak'ning, till the beam
Of an Eternity should bring the morrow:
Yes! tho' that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
'Twere better than the dull reality
Of waking life to him whose heart shall be,
And hath been ever, on the chilly earth,
A chaos of deep passion from his birth !
But should it be - that dream eternally
Continuing - as dreams have been to me
In my young boyhood - should it thus be given,
'Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven!
For I have revell'd, when the sun was bright
In the summer sky; in dreamy fields of light,
And left unheedingly my very heart
In climes of mine imagining - apart
From mine own home, with beings that have been
Of mine own thought - what more could I have seen?
'Twas once & _only_ once & the wild hour
From my rememberance shall not pass - some power
Or spell had bound me - 'twas the chilly wind
Came o'er me in the night & left behind
Its image on my spirit, or the moon
Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
Too coldly - or the stars - howe'er it was
That dream was as that night wind - let it pass.
I have been happy - tho' but in a dream
I have been happy - & I love the theme -
Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life -
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality which brings
To the delirious eye more lovely things
Of Paradise & Love - & all our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
{From an earlier MS. Than in the book -ED.}
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
"IN YOUTH I HAVE KNOWN ONE"
_How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods--her wilds--her mountains-the intense
Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!_
I I
IN youth I have known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held-as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light such for his spirit was fit
And yet that spirit knew-not in the hour
Of its own fervor-what had o'er it power.
II
Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a fever* by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told-or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more
That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass
As dew of the night-time, o'er the summer grass?
III
Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye
To the loved object-so the tear to the lid
Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
And yet it need not be---(that object) hid
From us in life-but common-which doth lie
Each hour before us--but then only bid
With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken
T' awake us--'Tis a symbol and a token
IV
Of what in other worlds shall be--and given
In beauty by our God, to those alone
Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,
That high tone of the spirit which hath striven
Though not with Faith-with godliness--whose throne
With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;
Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
* Query "fervor"?--ED.
======
A PÆAN.
I.
How shall the burial rite be read?
The solemn song be sung ?
The requiem for the loveliest dead,
That ever died so young?
II.
Her friends are gazing on her,
And on her gaudy bier,
And weep ! - oh! to dishonor
Dead beauty with a tear!
III.
They loved her for her wealth -
And they hated her for her pride -
But she grew in feeble health,
And they _love_ her - that she died.
IV.
They tell me (while they speak
Of her "costly broider'd pall")
That my voice is growing weak -
That I should not sing at all -
V.
Or that my tone should be
Tun'd to such solemn song
So mournfully - so mournfully,
That the dead may feel no wrong.
VI.
But she is gone above,
With young Hope at her side,
And I am drunk with love
Of the dead, who is my bride. -
VII.
Of the dead - dead who lies
All perfum'd there,
With the death upon her eyes,
And the life upon her hair.
VIII.
Thus on the coffin loud and long
I strike - the murmur sent
Through the grey chambers to my song,
Shall be the accompaniment.
IX.
Thou died'st in thy life's June -
But thou did'st not die too fair:
Thou did'st not die too soon,
Nor with too calm an air.
X.
From more than fiends on earth,
Thy life and love are riven,
To join the untainted mirth
Of more than thrones in heaven -
XII.
Therefore, to thee this night
I will no requiem raise,
But waft thee on thy flight,
With a Pæan of old days.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
NOTES
30. On the "Poems written in Youth" little comment is needed. This section
includes the pieces printed for first volume of 1827 (which was
subsequently suppressed), such poems from the first and second published
volumes of 1829 and 1831 as have not already been given in their revised
versions, and a few others collected from various sources. "Al Aaraaf"
first appeared, with the sonnet "To Silence" prefixed to it, in 1829, and
is, substantially, as originally issued. In the edition for 1831, however,
this poem, its author's longest, was introduced by the following
twenty-nine lines, which have been omitted in -all subsequent collections:
AL AARAAF
Mysterious star!
Thou wert my dream
All a long summer night--
Be now my theme!
By this clear stream,
Of thee will I write;
Meantime from afar
Bathe me in light I
Thy world has not the dross of ours,
Yet all the beauty-all the flowers
That list our love or deck our bowers
In dreamy gardens, where do lie
Dreamy maidens all the day;
While the silver winds of Circassy
On violet couches faint away.
Little---oh I little dwells in thee11
Like unto what on earth we see:
Beauty's eye is here the bluest
In the falsest and untruest--On the sweetest
air doth float
The most sad and solemn note--
If with thee be broken hearts,
Joy so peacefully departs,
That its echo still doth dwell,
Like the murmur in the shell.
Thou! thy truest type of grief
Is the gently falling leafThou!
Thy framing is so holy
Sorrow is not melancholy.
31. The earliest version of "Tamerlane" was included in the suppressed
volume of 1827, but differs very considerably from the poem as now
published. The present draft, besides innumerable verbal alterations and
improvements upon the original, is more carefully punctuated, and, the
lines being indented, presents a more pleasing appearance, to the eye at
least.
32. "To Helen" first appeared in the 1831 volume, as did also "The Valley
of Unrest" (as "The Valley Nis"), "Israfel," and one or two others of the
youthful pieces. The poem styled "Romance," constituted the Preface of the
1829 volume, but with the addition of the following lines:
Succeeding years, too wild for song,
Then rolled like tropic storms along,
Where, through the garish lights that fly
Dying along the troubled sky,
Lay bare, through vistas thunder-riven,
The blackness of the general Heaven,
That very blackness yet doth Ring
Light on the lightning's silver wing.
For being an idle boy lang syne;
Who read Anacreon and drank wine,
I early found Anacreon rhymes
Were almost passionate sometimes--
And by strange alchemy of brain
His pleasures always turned to pain--
His naiveté to wild desire--
His wit to love-his wine to fire--
And so, being young and dipt in folly,
I fell in love with melancholy,
And used to throw my earthly rest
And quiet all away in jest--
I could not love except where Death
Was mingling his with Beauty's breath--
Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny,
Were stalking between her and me.
. . . . . . . . . .
But now my soul hath too much room--
Gone are the glory and the gloom--
The black hath mellow'd into gray,
And all the fires are fading away.
My draught of passion hath been deep--
I revell'd, and I now would sleep
And after drunkenness of soul
Succeeds the glories of the bowl
An idle longing night and day
To dream my very life away.
But dreams--of those who dream as I,
Aspiringly, are damned, and die:
Yet should I swear I mean alone,
By notes so very shrilly blown,
To break upon Time's monotone,
While yet my vapid joy and grief
Are tintless of the yellow leaf--
Why not an imp the graybeard hath,
Will shake his shadow in my path--
And e'en the graybeard will o'erlook
Connivingly my dreaming-book.
~~~ End of Text ~~~
======
DOUBTFUL POEMS
Alone
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were - I have not seen
As others saw - I could not bring
My passions from a common spring -
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow - I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone -
And all I lov'd - _I_ lov'd alone -
_Then_ - in my childhood - in the dawn
Of a most stormy life - was drawn
From ev'ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still -
From the torrent, or the fountain -
From the red cliff of the mountain -
From the sun that 'round me roll'd
In its autumn tint of gold -
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass'd me flying by -
From the thunder, and the storm -
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view -
~~~ End of Text ~~~
{This poem is no longer considered doubtful as it was in 1903. Liberty has
been taken to replace the book version with an earlier, perhaps more
original manuscript version --Ed}
======
TO ISADORE
I
BENEATH the vine-clad eaves,
Whose shadows fall before
Thy lowly cottage door
Under the lilac's tremulous leaves--
Within thy snowy claspeèd hand
The purple flowers it bore..
Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,
Like queenly nymphs from Fairy-land--
Enchantress of the flowery wand,
Most beauteous Isadore!
II
And when I bade the dream
Upon thy spirit flee,
Thy violet eyes to me
Upturned, did overflowing seem
With the deep, untold delight
Of Love's serenity;
Thy classic brow, like lilies white
And pale as the Imperial Night
Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
Enthralled my soul to thee!
III
Ah I ever I behold
Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,
Blue as the languid skies
Hung with the sunset's fringe of gold;
Now strangely clear thine image grows,
And olden memories
Are startled from their long repose
Like shadows on the silent snows
When suddenly the night-wind blows
Where quiet moonlight ties.
IV
Like music heard in dreams,
Like strains of harps unknown,
Of birds forever flown
Audible as the voice of streams
That murmur in some leafy dell,
I hear thy gentlest tone,
And Silence cometh with her spell
Like that which on my tongue doth dwell,
When tremulous in dreams I tell
My love to thee alone!
V
In every valley heard,
Floating from tree to tree,
Less beautiful to, me,
The music of the radiant bird,
Than artless accents such as thine
Whose echoes never flee!
Ah! how for thy sweet voice I pine:--
For uttered in thy tones benign
(Enchantress!) this rude name of mine
Doth seem a melody I
======
THE VILLAGE STREET
IN these rapid, restless shadows,
Once I walked at eventide,
When a gentle, silent maiden,
Wal ked in beauty at my side
She alone there walked beside me
All in beauty, like a bride.
Pallidly the moon was shining
On the dewy meadows nigh;
On the silvery, silent rivers,
On the mountains far and high
On the ocean's star-lit waters,
Where the winds a-weary die.
Slowly, silently we wandered
From the open cottage door,
Underneath the elm's long branches
To the pavement bending o'er;
Underneath the mossy willow
And the dying sycamore.
With the myriad stars in beauty
All bedight, the heavens were seen,
Radiant hopes were bright around me,
Like the light of stars serene;
Like the mellow midnight splendor
Of the Night's irradiate queen.
Audibly the elm-leaves whispered
Peaceful, pleasant melodies,
Like the distant murmured music
Of unquiet, lovely seas:
While the winds were hushed in slumber
In the fragrant flowers and trees.
Wondrous and unwonted beauty
Still adorning all did seem,
While I told my love in fables
'Neath the willows by the stream;
Would the heart have kept unspoken
Love that was its rarest dream!
Instantly away we wandered
In the shadowy twilight tide,
She, the silent, scornful maiden,
Walking calmly at my side,
With a step serene and stately,
All in beauty, all in pride.
Vacantly I walked beside her.
On the earth mine eyes were cast;
Swift and keen there came unto me
Ritter memories of the past
On me, like the rain in Autumn
On the dead leaves, cold and fast.
Underneath the elms we parted,
By the lowly cottage door;
One brief word alone was uttered
Never on our lips before;
And away I walked forlornly,
Broken-hearted evermore.
Slowly, silently I loitered,
Homeward, in the night, alone;
Sudden anguish bound my spirit,
That my youth had never known;
Wild unrest, like that which cometh
When the Night's first dream hath flown.
Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper
Mad, discordant melodies,
And keen melodies like shadows
Haunt the moaning willow trees,
And the sycamores with laughter
Mock me in the nightly breeze.
Sad and pale the Autumn moonlight
Through the sighing foliage streams;
And each morning, midnight shadow,
Shadow of my sorrow seems;
Strive, 0 heart, forget thine idol!
And, 0 soul, forget thy dreams !
======
THE FOREST REVERIE
'Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
To springs that ne'er did flow
That in the sun Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.
So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died--
Quenching the fires its ashes hide,--
Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
Sweet flowers, ere long,
The rare and radiant flowers of song!
======
NOTES
Of the many verses from time to time ascribed to the pen of Edgar Poe, and
not included among his known writings, the lines entitled "Alone" have the
chief claim to our notice. _Fac-simile _copies of this piece had been in
possession of the present editor some time previous to its publication in
"Scribner's Magazine" for September, 1875; but as proofs of the authorship
claimed for it were not forthcoming, he refrained from publishing it as
requested. The desired proofs have not yet been adduced, and there is, at
present, nothing but internal evidence to guide us. "Alone" is stated to
have been written by Poe in the album of a Baltimore lady (Mrs.
Balderstone?), on March 17th, 1829, and the fac-simile given in
"Scribner's"s alleged to be of his handwriting. If the caligraphy be
Poe's, it is different in all essential respects from all the many
specimens known to us, and strongly resembles that of the writer of the
heading and dating of the manuscript, both of which the contributor of the
poem acknowledges to have been recently added. The lines, however, if not
by Poe, are the most successful imitation of his early mannerisms yet made
public, and, in the opinion of one well qualified to speak, "are not
unworthy on the whole of the parentage claimed for them."
While Edgar Poe was editor of the "Broadway journal," some lines "To
Isadore" appeared therein, and, like several of his known pieces, bore no
signature. They were at once ascribed to Poe, and in order to satisfy
questioners, an editorial paragraph subsequently appeared saying they were
by "A. Ide, junior." Two previous poems had appeared in the "Broadway
journal" over the signature of "A. M. Ide," and whoever wrote them was
also the author of the lines "To Isadore." In order, doubtless, to give a
show of variety, Poe was then publishing some of his known works in his
journal over _noms de plume, _and as no other writings whatever can be
traced to any person bearing the name of "A. M. Ide," it is not impossible
that the poems now republished in this collection may be by the author of
"The Raven." Having been published without his usual elaborate revision,
Poe may have wished to _hide _his hasty work under an assumed name. The
three pieces are included in the present collection, so the reader can
judge for himself what pretensions they possess to be by the author of
"The Raven."
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Works of Edgar Allan Poe V. 5
End of the Works of Edgar Allan Poe [Raven Edition]