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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/512-0.txt b/512-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e77aec --- /dev/null +++ b/512-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15828 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mosses from an Old Manse, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Mosses from an Old Manse + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: April, 1996 [eBook #512] +[Most recently updated: November 9, 2022] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Charles Keller + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE *** + + + + +Mosses from an Old Manse + +by Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + + +Contents + + The Old Manse + The Birthmark + A Select Party + Young Goodman Brown + Rappaccini’s Daughter + Mrs. Bullfrog + Fire Worship + Buds and Bird Voices + Monsieur du Miroir + The Hall of Fantasy + The Celestial Railroad + The Procession of Life + Feathertop: A Moralized Legend + The New Adam and Eve + Egotism; or, The Bosom Serpent + The Christmas Banquet + Drowne’s Wooden Image + The Intelligence Office + Roger Malvin’s Burial + P.’s Correspondence + Earth’s Holocaust + Passages from a Relinquished Work + Sketches from Memory + The Old Apple Dealer + The Artist of the Beautiful + A Virtuoso’s Collection + + + + +THE OLD MANSE + +The Author makes the Reader acquainted with his Abode. + + +Between two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself having +fallen from its hinges at some unknown epoch) we beheld the gray front +of the old parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black-ash +trees. It was now a twelvemonth since the funeral procession of the +venerable clergyman, its last inhabitant, had turned from that gateway +towards the village burying-ground. The wheel-track leading to the +door, as well as the whole breadth of the avenue, was almost overgrown +with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or three vagrant cows and +an old white horse who had his own living to pick up along the +roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half asleep between the door +of the house and the public highway were a kind of spiritual medium, +seen through which the edifice had not quite the aspect of belonging to +the material world. Certainly it had little in common with those +ordinary abodes which stand so imminent upon the road that every +passer-by can thrust his head, as it were, into the domestic circle. +From these quiet windows the figures of passing travellers looked too +remote and dim to disturb the sense of privacy. In its near retirement +and accessible seclusion, it was the very spot for the residence of a +clergyman,—a man not estranged from human life, yet enveloped, in the +midst of it, with a veil woven of intermingled gloom and brightness. It +was worthy to have been one of the time-honored parsonages of England, +in which, through many generations, a succession of holy occupants pass +from youth to age, and bequeath each an inheritance of sanctity to +pervade the house and hover over it as with an atmosphere. + +Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse ever been profaned by a lay occupant +until that memorable summer afternoon when I entered it as my home. A +priest had built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly men +from time to time had dwelt in it; and children born in its chambers +had grown up to assume the priestly character. It was awful to reflect +how many sermons must have been written there. The latest inhabitant +alone—he by whose translation to paradise the dwelling was left +vacant—had penned nearly three thousand discourses, besides the better, +if not the greater, number that gushed living from his lips. How often, +no doubt, had he paced to and fro along the avenue, attuning his +meditations to the sighs and gentle murmurs and deep and solemn peals +of the wind among the lofty tops of the trees! In that variety of +natural utterances he could find something accordant with every passage +of his sermon, were it of tenderness or reverential fear. The boughs +over my head seemed shadowy with solemn thoughts, as well as with +rustling leaves. I took shame to myself for having been so long a +writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope that wisdom would descend +upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue, and that I should light +upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well worth those hoards +of long-hidden gold which people seek for in moss-grown houses. +Profound treatises of morality; a layman’s unprofessional, and +therefore unprejudiced, views of religion; histories (such as Bancroft +might have written had he taken up his abode here, as he once purposed) +bright with picture, gleaming over a depth of philosophic +thought,—these were the works that might fitly have flowed from such a +retirement. In the humblest event, I resolved at least to achieve a +novel that should evolve some deep lesson, and should possess physical +substance enough to stand alone. + +In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave me no pretext for not +fulfilling it, there was in the rear of the house the most delightful +little nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a +scholar. It was here that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an +inhabitant of the Manse, and used to watch the Assyrian dawn and +Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of our eastern hill. When I +first saw the room, its walls were blackened with the smoke of +unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan +ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad +angels, or at least like men who had wrestled so continually and so +sternly with the Devil that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been +imparted to their own visages. They had all vanished now; a cheerful +coat of paint and golden-tinted paper-hangings lighted up the small +apartment; while the shadow of a willow-tree that swept against the +overhanging eaves atempered the cheery western sunshine. In place of +the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely head of one of Raphael’s +Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake of Como. The +only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always fresh, and +a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books (few, and by no means +choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as chance had thrown in my +way) stood in order about the room, seldom to be disturbed. + +The study had three windows, set with little, old-fashioned panes of +glass, each with a crack across it. The two on the western side looked, +or rather peeped, between the willow branches, down into the orchard, +with glimpses of the river through the trees. The third, facing +northward, commanded a broader view of the river, at a spot where its +hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into the light of history. It was +at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt in the Manse stood +watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle between two +nations; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther +side of the river, and the glittering line of the British on the hither +bank. He awaited, in an agony of suspense, the rattle of the musketry. +It came; and there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle-smoke +around this quiet house. + +Perhaps the reader, whom I cannot help considering as my guest in the +Old Manse, and entitled to all courtesy in the way of +sight-showing,—perhaps he will choose to take a nearer view of the +memorable spot. We stand now on the river’s brink. It may well be +called the Concord,—the river of peace and quietness; for it is +certainly the most unexcitable and sluggish stream that ever loitered +imperceptibly towards its eternity,—the sea. Positively I had lived +three weeks beside it before it grew quite clear to my perception which +way the current flowed. It never has a vivacious aspect, except when a +northwestern breeze is vexing its surface on a sunshiny day. From the +incurable indolence of its nature, the stream is happily incapable of +becoming the slave of human ingenuity, as is the fate of so many a +wild, free mountain torrent. While all things else are compelled to +subserve some useful purpose, it idles its sluggish life away in lazy +liberty, without turning a solitary spindle or affording even +water-power enough to grind the corn that grows upon its banks. The +torpor of its movement allows it nowhere a bright, pebbly shore, nor so +much as a narrow strip of glistening sand, in any part of its course. +It slumbers between broad prairies, kissing the long meadow grass, and +bathes the overhanging boughs of elder-bushes and willows, or the roots +of elms and ash-trees and clumps of maples. Flags and rushes grow along +its plashy shore; the yellow water-lily spreads its broad, flat leaves +on the margin; and the fragrant white pond-lily abounds, generally +selecting a position just so far from the river’s brink that it cannot +be grasped save at the hazard of plunging in. + +It is a marvel whence this perfect flower derives its loveliness and +perfume, springing as it does from the black mud over which the river +sleeps, and where lurk the slimy eel, and speckled frog, and the +mud-turtle, whom continual washing cannot cleanse. It is the very same +black mud out of which the yellow lily sucks its obscene life and +noisome odor. Thus we see, too, in the world that some persons +assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral circumstances +which supply good and beautiful results—the fragrance of celestial +flowers—to the daily life of others. + +The reader must not, from any testimony of mine, contract a dislike +towards our slumberous stream. In the light of a calm and golden sunset +it becomes lovely beyond expression; the more lovely for the quietude +that so well accords with the hour, when even the wind, after +blustering all day long, usually hushes itself to rest. Each tree and +rock and every blade of grass is distinctly imaged, and, however +unsightly in reality, assumes ideal beauty in the reflection. The +minutest things of earth and the broad aspect of the firmament are +pictured equally without effort and with the same felicity of success. +All the sky glows downward at our feet; the rich clouds float through +the unruffled bosom of the stream like heavenly thoughts through a +peaceful heart. We will not, then, malign our river as gross and impure +while it can glorify itself with so adequate a picture of the heaven +that broods above it; or, if we remember its tawny hue and the +muddiness of its bed, let it be a symbol that the earthiest human soul +has an infinite spiritual capacity and may contain the better world +within its depths. But, indeed, the same lesson might be drawn out of +any mud-puddle in the streets of a city; and, being taught us +everywhere, it must be true. + +Come, we have pursued a somewhat devious track in our walk to the +battle-ground. Here we are, at the point where the river was crossed by +the old bridge, the possession of which was the immediate object of the +contest. On the hither side grow two or three elms, throwing a wide +circumference of shade, but which must have been planted at some period +within the threescore years and ten that have passed since the +battle-day. On the farther shore, overhung by a clump of elder-bushes, +we discern the stone abutment of the bridge. Looking down into the +river, I once discovered some heavy fragments of the timbers, all green +with half a century’s growth of water-moss; for during that length of +time the tramp of horses and human footsteps have ceased along this +ancient highway. The stream has here about the breadth of twenty +strokes of a swimmer’s arm,—a space not too wide when the bullets were +whistling across. Old people who dwell hereabouts will point out, the +very spots on the western bank where our countrymen fell down and died; +and on this side of the river an obelisk of granite has grown up from +the soil that was fertilized with British blood. The monument, not more +than twenty feet in height, is such as it befitted the inhabitants of a +village to erect in illustration of a matter of local interest rather +than what was suitable to commemorate an epoch of national history. +Still, by the fathers of the village this famous deed was done; and +their descendants might rightfully claim the privilege of building a +memorial. + +A humbler token of the fight, yet a more interesting one than the +granite obelisk, may be seen close under the stone wall which separates +the battle-ground from the precincts of the parsonage. It is the +grave,—marked by a small, mossgrown fragment of stone at the head and +another at the foot,—the grave of two British soldiers who were slain +in the skirmish, and have ever since slept peacefully where Zechariah +Brown and Thomas Davis buried them. Soon was their warfare ended; a +weary night-march from Boston, a rattling volley of musketry across the +river, and then these many years of rest. In the long procession of +slain invaders who passed into eternity from the battle-fields of the +Revolution, these two nameless soldiers led the way. + +Lowell, the poet, as we were once standing over this grave, told me a +tradition in reference to one of the inhabitants below. The story has +something deeply impressive, though its circumstances cannot altogether +be reconciled with probability. A youth in the service of the clergyman +happened to be chopping wood, that April morning, at the back door of +the Manse; and when the noise of battle rang from side to side of the +bridge, he hastened across the intervening field to see what might be +going forward. It is rather strange, by the way, that this lad should +have been so diligently at work when the whole population of town and +country were startled out of their customary business by the advance of +the British troops. Be that as it might, the tradition, says that the +lad now left his task and hurried to the battle-field with the axe +still in his hand. The British had by this time retreated; the +Americans were in pursuit; and the late scene of strife was thus +deserted by both parties. Two soldiers lay on the ground,—one was a +corpse; but, as the young New-Englander drew nigh, the other Briton +raised himself painfully upon his hands and knees and gave a ghastly +stare into his face. The boy,—it must have been a nervous impulse, +without purpose, without thought, and betokening a sensitive and +impressible nature rather than a hardened one,—the boy uplifted his axe +and dealt the wounded soldier a fierce and fatal blow upon the head. + +I could wish that the grave might be opened; for I would fain know +whether either of the skeleton soldiers has the mark of an axe in his +skull. The story comes home to me like truth. Oftentimes, as an +intellectual and moral exercise, I have sought to follow that poor +youth through his subsequent career and observe how his soul was +tortured by the blood-stain, contracted as it had been before the long +custom of war had robbed human life of its sanctity and while it still +seemed murderous to slay a brother man. This one circumstance has borne +more fruit for me than all that history tells us of the fight. + +Many strangers come in the summer-time to view the battle-ground. For +my own part, I have never found my imagination much excited by this or +any other scene of historic celebrity; nor would the placid margin of +the river have lost any of its charm for me, had men never fought and +died there. There is a wilder interest in the tract of land-perhaps a +hundred yards in breadth—which extends between the battle-field and the +northern face of our Old Manse, with its contiguous avenue and orchard. +Here, in some unknown age, before the white man came, stood an Indian +village, convenient to the river, whence its inhabitants must have +drawn so large a part of their substance. The site is identified by the +spear and arrow-heads, the chisels, and other implements of war, labor, +and the chase, which the plough turns up from the soil. You see a +splinter of stone, half hidden beneath a sod; it looks like nothing +worthy of note; but, if you have faith enough to pick it up, behold a +relic! Thoreau, who has a strange faculty of finding what the Indians +have left behind them, first set me on the search; and I afterwards +enriched myself with some very perfect specimens, so rudely wrought +that it seemed almost as if chance had fashioned them. Their great +charm consists in this rudeness and in the individuality of each +article, so different from the productions of civilized machinery, +which shapes everything on one pattern. There is exquisite delight, +too, in picking up for one’s self an arrow-head that was dropped +centuries ago and has never been handled since, and which we thus +receive directly from the hand of the red hunter, who purposed to shoot +it at his game or at an enemy. Such an incident builds up again the +Indian village and its encircling forest, and recalls to life the +painted chiefs and warriors, the squaws at their household toil, and +the children sporting among the wigwams, while the little wind-rocked +pappose swings from the branch of a tree. It can hardly be told whether +it is a joy or a pain, after such a momentary vision, to gaze around in +the broad daylight of reality and see stone fences, white houses, +potato-fields, and men doggedly hoeing in their shirt-sleeves and +homespun pantaloons. But this is nonsense. The Old Manse is better than +a thousand wigwams. + +The Old Manse! We had almost forgotten it, but will return thither +through the orchard. This was set out by the last clergyman, in the +decline of his life, when the neighbors laughed at the hoary-headed man +for planting trees from which he could have no prospect of gathering +fruit. Even had that been the case, there was only so much the better +motive for planting them, in the pure and unselfish hope of benefiting +his successors,—an end so seldom achieved by more ambitious efforts. +But the old minister, before reaching his patriarchal age of ninety, +ate the apples from this orchard during many years, and added silver +and gold to his annual stipend by disposing of the superfluity. It is +pleasant to think of him walking among the trees in the quiet +afternoons of early autumn and picking up here and there a windfall, +while he observes how heavily the branches are weighed down, and +computes the number of empty flour-barrels that will be filled by their +burden. He loved each tree, doubtless, as if it had been his own child. +An orchard has a relation to mankind, and readily connects itself with +matters of the heart. The trees possess a domestic character; they have +lost the wild nature of their forest kindred, and have grown humanized +by receiving the care of man as well as by contributing to his wants. +There, is so much individuality of character, too, among apple trees, +that it gives them all additional claim to be the objects of human +interest. One is harsh and crabbed in its manifestations; another gives +us fruit as mild as charity. One is churlish and illiberal, evidently +grudging the few apples that it bears; another exhausts itself in +free-hearted benevolence. The variety of grotesque shapes into which +apple, trees contort themselves has its effect on those who get +acquainted with them: they stretch out their crooked branches, and take +such hold of the imagination, that we remember them as humorists and +odd fellows. And what is more melancholy than the old apple-trees that +linger about the spot where once stood a homestead, but where there is +now only a ruined chimney rising out of a grassy and weed-grown cellar? +They offer their fruit to every wayfarer,—apples that are bitter sweet +with the moral of Time’s vicissitude. + +I have met with no other such pleasant trouble in the world as that of +finding myself, with only the two or three mouths which it was my +privilege to feed, the sole inheritor of the old clergyman’s wealth of +fruits. Throughout the summer there were cherries and currants; and +then came Autumn, with his immense burden of apples, dropping them +continually from his over-laden shoulders as he trudged along. In the +stillest afternoon, if I listened, the thump of a great apple was +audible, falling without a breath of wind, from the mere necessity of +perfect ripeness. And, besides, there were pear-trees, that flung down +bushels upon bushels of heavy pears; and peach-trees, which, in a good +year, tormented me with peaches, neither to be eaten nor kept, nor, +without labor and perplexity, to be given away. The idea of an infinite +generosity and exhaustless bounty on the part of our Mother Nature was +well worth obtaining through such cares as these. That feeling can be +enjoyed in perfection only by the natives of summer islands, where the +bread-fruit, the cocoa, the palm, and the orange grow spontaneously and +hold forth the ever-ready meal; but likewise almost as well by a man +long habituated to city life, who plunges into such a solitude as that +of the Old Manse, where he plucks the fruit of trees that he did not +plant, and which therefore, to my heterodox taste, bear the closest +resemblance to those that grew in Eden. It has been an apothegm these +five thousand years, that toil sweetens the bread it earns. For my part +(speaking from hard experience, acquired while belaboring the rugged +furrows of Brook Farm), I relish best the free gifts of Providence. + +Not that it can be disputed that the light toil requisite to cultivate +a moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen vegetables as is +never found in those of the market-gardener. Childless men, if they +would know something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed,—be +it squash, bean, Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower or worthless +weed,—should plant it with their own hands, and nurse it from infancy +to maturity altogether by their own care. If there be not too many of +them, each individual plant becomes an object of separate interest. My +garden, that skirted the avenue of the Manse, was of precisely the +right extent. An hour or two of morning labor was all that it required. +But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in +deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody +could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of +creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to +observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early +peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green. +Later in the season the humming-birds were attracted by the blossoms of +a peculiar variety of bean; and they were a joy to me, those little +spiritual visitants, for deigning to sip airy food out of my +nectar-cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in the yellow +blossoms of the summer-squashes. This, too, was a deep satisfaction; +although, when they had laden themselves with sweets, they flew away to +some unknown hive, which would give back nothing in requital of what my +garden had contributed. But I was glad thus to fling a benefaction upon +the passing breeze with the certainty that somebody must profit by it +and that there would be a little more honey in the world to allay the +sourness and bitterness which mankind is always complaining of. Yes, +indeed; my life was the sweeter for that honey. + +Speaking of summer-squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and +varied forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, +shallow or deep, scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a +sculptor would do well to copy, since Art has never invented anything +more graceful. A hundred squashes in the garden were worth, in my eyes +at least, of being rendered indestructible in marble. If ever +Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a superfluity of +gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or most +delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer-squashes +gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes for +containing vegetables, they would be peculiarly appropriate. + +But not merely the squeamish love of the beautiful was gratified by my +toil in the kitchen-garden. There was a hearty enjoyment, likewise, in +observing the growth of the crook-necked winter-squashes from the first +little bulb, with the withered blossom adhering to it, until they lay +strewn upon the soil, big, round fellows, hiding their heads beneath +the leaves, but turning up their great yellow rotundities to the +noontide sun. Gazing at them, I felt that by my agency something worth +living for had been done. A new substance was born into the world. They +were real and tangible existences, which the mind could seize hold of +and rejoice in. A cabbage, too,—especially the early Dutch cabbage, +which swells to a monstrous circumference, until its ambitious heart +often bursts asunder,—is a matter to be proud of when we can claim a +share with the earth and sky in producing it. But, after all, the +hugest pleasure is reserved until these vegetable children of ours are +smoking on the table, and we, like Saturn, make a meal of them. + +What with the river, the battle-field, the orchard, and the garden, the +reader begins to despair of finding his way back into the Old Manse. +But, in agreeable weather, it is the truest hospitality to keep him out +of doors. I never grew quite acquainted with my habitation till a long +spell of sulky rain had confined me beneath its roof. There could not +be a more sombre aspect of external nature than as then seen from the +windows of my study. The great willow-tree had caught and retained +among its leaves a whole cataract of water, to be shaken down at +intervals by the frequent gusts of wind. All day long, and for a week +together, the rain was drip-drip-dripping and splash-splash-splashing +from the eaves and bubbling and foaming into the tubs beneath the +spouts. The old, unpainted shingles of the house and outbuildings were +black with moisture; and the mosses of ancient growth upon the walls +looked green and fresh, as if they were the newest things and +afterthought of Time. The usually mirrored surface of the river was +blurred by an infinity of raindrops; the whole landscape had a +completely water-soaked appearance, conveying the impression that the +earth was wet through like a sponge; while the summit of a wooded hill, +about a mile distant, was enveloped in a dense mist, where the demon of +the tempest seemed to have his abiding-place and to be plotting still +direr inclemencies. + +Nature has no kindness, no hospitality, during a rain. In the fiercest +beat of sunny days she retains a secret mercy, and welcomes the +wayfarer to shady nooks of the woods whither the sun cannot penetrate; +but she provides no shelter against her storms. It makes us shiver to +think of those deep, umbrageous recesses, those overshadowing banks, +where we found such enjoyment during the sultry afternoons. Not a twig +of foliage there but would dash a little shower into our faces. Looking +reproachfully towards the impenetrable sky,—if sky there be above that +dismal uniformity of cloud,—we are apt to murmur against the whole +system of the universe, since it involves the extinction of so many +summer days in so short a life by the hissing and spluttering rain. In +such spells of weather,—and it is to be supposed such weather +came,—Eve’s bower in paradise must have been but a cheerless and aguish +kind of shelter, nowise comparable to the old parsonage, which had +resources of its own to beguile the week’s imprisonment. The idea of +sleeping on a couch of wet roses! + +Happy the man who in a rainy day can betake himself to a huge garret, +stored, like that of the Manse, with lumber that each generation has +left behind it from a period before the Revolution. Our garret was an +arched hall, dimly illuminated through small and dusty windows; it was +but a twilight at the best; and there were nooks, or rather caverns, of +deep obscurity, the secrets of which I never learned, being too +reverent of their dust and cobwebs. The beams and rafters, roughly hewn +and with strips of bark still on them, and the rude masonry of the +chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized, an aspect unlike +what was seen elsewhere in the quiet and decorous old house. But on one +side there was a little whitewashed apartment, which bore the +traditionary title of the Saint’s Chamber, because holy men in their +youth had slept, and studied, and prayed there. With its elevated +retirement, its one window, its small fireplace, and its closet +convenient for an oratory, it was the very spot where a young man might +inspire himself with solemn enthusiasm and cherish saintly dreams. The +occupants, at various epochs, had left brief records and ejaculations +inscribed upon the walls. There, too, hung a tattered and shrivelled +roll of canvas, which on inspection proved to be the forcibly wrought +picture of a clergyman, in wig, band, and gown, holding a Bible in his +hand. As I turned his face towards the light, he eyed me with an air of +authority such as men of his profession seldom assume in our days. The +original had been pastor of the parish more than a century ago, a +friend of Whitefield, and almost his equal in fervid eloquence. I bowed +before the effigy of the dignified divine, and felt as if I had now met +face to face with the ghost by whom, as there was reason to apprehend, +the Manse was haunted. + +Houses of any antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed with +spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to. Our ghost used +to heave deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlor, and sometimes +rustled paper, as if he were turning over a sermon in the long upper +entry,—where nevertheless he was invisible, in spite of the bright +moonshine that fell through the eastern window. Not improbably he +wished me to edit and publish a selection from a chest full of +manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, while Hillard and +other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there came a +rustling noise as of a minister’s silk gown, sweeping through the very +midst of the company, so closely as almost to brush against the chairs. +Still there was nothing visible. A yet stranger business was that of a +ghostly servant-maid, who used to be heard in the kitchen at deepest +midnight, grinding coffee, cooking, ironing,—performing, in short, all +kinds of domestic labor,—although no traces of anything accomplished +could be detected the next morning. Some neglected duty of her +servitude, some ill-starched ministerial band, disturbed the poor +damsel in her grave and kept her at work without any wages. + +But to return from this digression. A part of my predecessor’s library +was stored in the garret,—no unfit receptacle indeed for such dreary +trash as comprised the greater number of volumes. The old books would +have been worth nothing at an auction. In this venerable garret, +however, they possessed an interest, quite apart from their literary +value, as heirlooms, many of which had been transmitted down through a +series of consecrated hands from the days of the mighty Puritan +divines. Autographs of famous names were to be seen in faded ink on +some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations or +interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript in illegible +shorthand, perhaps concealing matter of profound truth and wisdom. The +world will never be the better for it. A few of the books were Latin +folios, written by Catholic authors; others demolished Papistry, as +with a sledge-hammer, in plain English. A dissertation on the Book of +Job—which only Job himself could have had patience to read—filled at +least a score of small, thick-set quartos, at the rate of two or three +volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast folio body of divinity,—too +corpulent a body, it might be feared, to comprehend the spiritual +element of religion. Volumes of this form dated back two hundred years +or more, and were generally bound in black leather, exhibiting +precisely such an appearance as we should attribute to books of +enchantment. Others equally antique were of a size proper to be carried +in the large waistcoat pockets of old times,—diminutive, but as black +as their bulkier brethren, and abundantly interfused with Greek and +Latin quotations. These little old volumes impressed me as if they had +been intended for very large ones, but had been unfortunately blighted +at an early stage of their growth. + +The rain pattered upon the roof and the sky gloomed through the dusty +garret-windows while I burrowed among these venerable books in search +of any living thought which should burn like a coal of fire or glow +like an inextinguishable gem beneath the dead trumpery that had long +hidden it. But I found no such treasure; all was dead alike; and I +could not but muse deeply and wonderingly upon the humiliating fact +that the works of man’s intellect decay like those of his hands. +Thought grows mouldy. What was good and nourishing food for the spirits +of one generation affords no sustenance for the next. Books of +religion, however, cannot be considered a fair test of the enduring and +vivacious properties of human thought, because such books so seldom +really touch upon their ostensible subject, and have, therefore, so +little business to be written at all. So long as an unlettered soul can +attain to saving grace there would seem to be no deadly error in +holding theological libraries to be accumulations of, for the most +part, stupendous impertinence. + +Many of the books had accrued in the latter years of the last +clergyman’s lifetime. These threatened to be of even less interest than +the elder works a century hence to any curious inquirer who should then +rummage then as I was doing now. Volumes of the Liberal Preacher and +Christian Examiner, occasional sermons, controversial pamphlets, +tracts, and other productions of a like fugitive nature, took the place +of the thick and heavy volumes of past time. In a physical point of +view, there was much the same difference as between a feather and a +lump of lead; but, intellectually regarded, the specific gravity of old +and new was about upon a par. Both also were alike frigid. The elder +books nevertheless seemed to have been earnestly written, and might be +conceived to have possessed warmth at some former period; although, +with the lapse of time, the heated masses had cooled down even to the +freezing-point. The frigidity of the modern productions, on the other +hand, was characteristic and inherent, and evidently had little to do +with the writer’s qualities of mind and heart. In fine, of this whole +dusty heap of literature I tossed aside all the sacred part, and felt +myself none the less a Christian for eschewing it. There appeared no +hope of either mounting to the better world on a Gothic staircase of +ancient folios or of flying thither on the wings of a modern tract. + +Nothing, strange to say, retained any sap except what had been written +for the passing day and year, without the remotest pretension or idea +of permanence. There were a few old newspapers, and still older +almanacs, which reproduced to my mental eye the epochs when they had +issued from the press with a distinctness that was altogether +unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits of magic looking-glass +among the books with the images of a vanished century in them. I turned +my eyes towards the tattered picture above mentioned, and asked of the +austere divine wherefore it was that he and his brethren, after the +most painful rummaging and groping into their minds, had been able to +produce nothing half so real as these newspaper scribblers and +almanac-makers had thrown off in the effervescence of a moment. The +portrait responded not; so I sought an answer for myself. It is the age +itself that writes newspapers and almanacs, which therefore have a +distinct purpose and meaning at the time, and a kind of intelligible +truth for all times; whereas most other works—being written by men who, +in the very act, set themselves apart from their age—are likely to +possess little significance when new, and none at all when old. Genius, +indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus effects something permanent, +yet still with a similarity of office to that of the more ephemeral +writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, or +perchance of a hundred centuries. + +Lightly as I have spoken of these old books, there yet lingers with me +a superstitious reverence for literature of all kinds. A bound volume +has a charm in my eyes similar to what scraps of manuscript possess for +the good Mussulman. He imagines that those wind-wafted records are +perhaps hallowed by some sacred verse; and I, that every new book or +antique one may contain the “open sesame,”—the spell to disclose +treasures hidden in some unsuspected cave of Truth. Thus it was not +without sadness that I turned away from the library of the Old Manse. + +Blessed was the sunshine when it came again at the close of another +stormy day, beaming from the edge of the western horizon; while the +massive firmament of clouds threw down all the gloom it could, but +served only to kindle the golden light into a more brilliant glow by +the strongly contrasted shadows. Heaven smiled at the earth, so long +unseen, from beneath its heavy eyelid. To-morrow for the hill-tops and +the woodpaths. + +Or it might be that Ellery Charming came up the avenue to join me in a +fishing excursion on the river. Strange and happy times were those when +we cast aside all irksome forms and strait-laced habitudes and +delivered ourselves up to the free air, to live like the Indians or any +less conventional race during one bright semicircle of the sun. Rowing +our boat against the current, between wide meadows, we turned aside +into the Assabeth. A more lovely stream than this, for a mile above its +junction with the Concord, has never flowed on earth, nowhere, indeed, +except to lave the interior regions of a poet’s imagination. It is +sheltered from the breeze by woods and a hillside; so that elsewhere +there might be a hurricane, and here scarcely a ripple across the +shaded water. The current lingers along so gently that the mere force +of the boatman’s will seems sufficient to propel his craft against it. +It comes flowing softly through the midmost privacy and deepest heart +of a wood which whispers it to be quiet; while the stream whispers back +again from its sedgy borders, as if river and wood were hushing one +another to sleep. Yes; the river sleeps along its course and dreams of +the sky and of the clustering foliage, amid which fall showers of +broken sunlight, imparting specks of vivid cheerfulness, in contrast +with the quiet depth of the prevailing tint. Of all this scene, the +slumbering river has a dream-picture in its bosom. Which, after all, +was the most real,—the picture, or the original?—the objects palpable +to our grosser senses, or their apotheosis in the stream beneath? +Surely the disembodied images stand in closer relation to the soul. But +both the original and the reflection had here an ideal charm; and, had +it been a thought more wild, I could have fancied that this river had +strayed forth out of the rich scenery of my companion’s inner world; +only the vegetation along its banks should then have had an Oriental +character. + +Gentle and unobtrusive as the river is, yet the tranquil woods seem +hardly satisfied to allow it passage. The trees are rooted on the very +verge of the water, and dip their pendent branches into it. At one spot +there is a lofty bank, on the slope of which grow some hemlocks, +declining across the stream with outstretched arms, as if resolute to +take the plunge. In other places the banks are almost on a level with +the water; so that the quiet congregation of trees set their feet in +the flood, and are Fringed with foliage down to the surface. +Cardinal-flowers kindle their spiral flames and illuminate the dark +nooks among the shrubbery. The pond-lily grows abundantly along the +margin,—that delicious flower which, as Thoreau tells me, opens its +virgin bosom to the first sunlight and perfects its being through the +magic of that genial kiss. He has beheld beds of them unfolding in due +succession as the sunrise stole gradually from flower to flower,—a +sight not to be hoped for unless when a poet adjusts his inward eye to +a proper focus with the outward organ. Grapevines here and there twine +themselves around shrub and tree and hang their clusters over the water +within reach of the boatman’s hand. Oftentimes they unite two trees of +alien race in an inextricable twine, marrying the hemlock and the maple +against their will and enriching them with a purple offspring of which +neither is the parent. One of these ambitious parasites has climbed +into the upper branches of a tall white-pine, and is still ascending +from bough to bough, unsatisfied till it shall crown the tree’s airy +summit with a wreath of its broad foliage and a cluster of its grapes. + +The winding course of the stream continually shut out the scene behind +us and revealed as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth +to depth, and breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy kingfisher +flew from the withered branch close at hand to another at a distance, +uttering a shrill cry of anger or alarm. Ducks that had been floating +there since the preceding eve were startled at our approach and skimmed +along the glassy river, breaking its dark surface with a bright streak. +The pickerel leaped from among the lilypads. The turtle, sunning itself +upon a rock or at the root of a tree, slid suddenly into the water with +a plunge. The painted Indian who paddled his canoe along the Assabeth +three hundred years ago could hardly have seen a wilder gentleness +displayed upon its banks and reflected in its bosom than we did. Nor +could the same Indian have prepared his noontide meal with more +simplicity. We drew up our skiff at some point where the overarching +shade formed a natural bower, and there kindled a fire with the pine +cones and decayed branches that lay strewn plentifully around. Soon the +smoke ascended among the trees, impregnated with a savory incense, not +heavy, dull, and surfeiting, like the steam of cookery within doors, +but sprightly and piquant. The smell of our feast was akin to the +woodland odors with which it mingled: there was no sacrilege committed +by our intrusion there: the sacred solitude was hospitable, and granted +us free leave to cook and eat in the recess that was at once our +kitchen and banqueting-hall. It is strange what humble offices may be +performed in a beautiful scene without destroying its poetry. Our fire, +red gleaming among the trees, and we beside it, busied with culinary +rites and spreading out our meal on a mossgrown log, all seemed in +unison with the river gliding by and the foliage rustling over us. And, +what was strangest, neither did our mirth seem to disturb the propriety +of the solemn woods; although the hobgoblins of the old wilderness and +the will-of-the-wisps that glimmered in the marshy places might have +come trooping to share our table-talk and have added their shrill +laughter to our merriment. It was the very spot in which to utter the +extremest nonsense or the profoundest wisdom, or that ethereal product +of the mind which partakes of both, and may become one or the other, in +correspondence with the faith and insight of the auditor. + +So, amid sunshine and shadow, rustling leaves and sighing waters, up +gushed our talk like the babble of a fountain. The evanescent spray was +Ellery’s; and his, too, the lumps of golden thought that lay glimmering +in the fountain’s bed and brightened both our faces by the reflection. +Could he have drawn out that virgin gold, and stamped it with the +mint-mark that alone gives currency, the world might have had the +profit, and he the fame. My mind was the richer merely by the knowledge +that it was there. But the chief profit of those wild days, to him and +me, lay not in any definite idea, not in any angular or rounded truth, +which we dug out of the shapeless mass of problematical stuff, but in +the freedom which we thereby won from all custom and conventionalism +and fettering influences of man on man. We were so free to-day that it +was impossible to be slaves again to-morrow. When we crossed the +threshold of the house or trod the thronged pavements of a city, still +the leaves of the trees that overhang the Assabeth were whispering to +us, “Be free! be free!” Therefore along that shady river-bank there are +spots, marked with a heap of ashes and half-consumed brands, only less +sacred in my remembrance than the hearth of a household fire. + +And yet how sweet, as we floated homeward adown the golden river at +sunset,—how sweet was it to return within the system of human society, +not as to a dungeon and a chain, but as to a stately edifice, whence we +could go forth at will into state—her simplicity! How gently, too, did +the sight of the Old Manse, best seen from the river, overshadowed with +its willow and all environed about with the foliage of its orchard and +avenue,—how gently did its gray, homely aspect rebuke the speculative +extravagances of the day! It had grown sacred in connection with the +artificial life against which we inveighed; it had been a home for many +years, in spite of all; it was my home too; and, with these thoughts, +it seemed to me that all the artifice and conventionalism of life was +but an impalpable thinness upon its surface, and that the depth below +was none the worse for it. Once, as we turned our boat to the bank, +there was a cloud, in the shape of an immensely gigantic figure of a +hound, couched above the house, as if keeping guard over it. Gazing at +this symbol, I prayed that the upper influences might long protect the +institutions that had grown out of the heart of mankind. + +If ever my readers should decide to give up civilized life, cities, +houses, and whatever moral or material enormities in addition to these +the perverted ingenuity of our race has contrived, let it be in the +early autumn. Then Nature will love him better than at any other +season, and will take him to her bosom with a more motherly tenderness. +I could scarcely endure the roof of the old house above me in those +first autumnal days. How early in the summer, too, the prophecy of +autumn comes! Earlier in some years than in others; sometimes even in +the first weeks of July. There is no other feeling like what is caused +by this faint, doubtful, yet real perception—if it be not rather a +foreboding—of the year’s decay, so blessedly sweet and sad in the same +breath. + +Did I say that there was no feeling like it? Ah, but there is a +half-acknowledged melancholy like to this when we stand in the +perfected vigor of our life and feel that Time has now given us all his +flowers, and that the next work of his never-idle fingers must be to +steal them one by one away. + +I have forgotten whether the song of the cricket be not as early a +token of autumn’s approach as any other,—that song which may be called +an audible stillness; for though very loud and heard afar, yet the mind +does not take note of it as a sound, so completely is its individual +existence merged among the accompanying characteristics of the season. +Alas for the pleasant summertime! In August the grass is still verdant +on the hills and in the valleys; the foliage of the trees is as dense +as ever and as green; the flowers gleam forth in richer abundance along +the margin of the river and by the stone walls and deep among the +woods; the days, too, are as fervid now as they were a month ago; and +yet in every breath of wind and in every beam of sunshine we hear the +whispered farewell and behold the parting smile of a dear friend. There +is a coolness amid all the heat, a mildness in the blazing noon. Not a +breeze can stir but it thrills us with the breath of autumn. A pensive +glory is seen in the far, golden gleams, among the shadows of the +trees. The flowers—even the brightest of them, and they are the most +gorgeous of the year—have this gentle sadness wedded to their pomp, and +typify the character of the delicious time each within itself. The +brilliant cardinal-flower has never seemed gay to me. + +Still later in the season Nature’s tenderness waxes stronger. It is +impossible not to be fond of our mother now; for she is so fond of us! +At other periods she does not make this impression on me, or only at +rare intervals; but in those genial days of autumn, when she has +perfected her harvests and accomplished every needful thing that was +given her to do, then she overflows with a blessed superfluity of love. +She has leisure to caress her children now. It is good to be alive and +at such times. Thank Heaven for breath—yes, for mere breath—when it is +made up of a heavenly breeze like this! It comes with a real kiss upon +our cheeks; it would linger fondly around us if it might; but, since it +must be gone, it embraces us with its whole kindly heart and passes +onward to embrace likewise the next thing that it meets. A blessing is +flung abroad and scattered far and wide over the earth, to be gathered +up by all who choose. I recline upon the still unwithered grass and +whisper to myself, “O perfect day! O beautiful world! O beneficent +God!” And it is the promise of a blessed eternity; for our Creator +would never have made such lovely days and have given us the deep +hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were +meant to be immortal. This sunshine is the golden pledge thereof. It +beams through the gates of paradise and shows us glimpses far inward. + +By and by, in a little time, the outward world puts on a drear +austerity. On some October morning there is a heavy hoarfrost on the +grass and along the tops of the fences; and at sunrise the leaves fall +from the trees of our avenue, without a breath of wind, quietly +descending by their own weight. All summer long they have murmured like +the noise of waters; they have roared loudly while the branches were +wrestling with the thunder-gust; they have made music both glad and +solemn; they have attuned my thoughts by their quiet sound as I paced +to and fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now they can only +rustle under my feet. Henceforth the gray parsonage begins to assume a +larger importance, and draws to its fireside,—for the abomination of +the air-tight stove is reserved till wintry weather,—draws closer and +closer to its fireside the vagrant impulses that had gone wandering +about through the summer. + +When summer was dead and buried the Old Manse became as lonely as a +hermitage. Not that ever—in my time at least—it had been thronged with +company; but, at no rare intervals, we welcomed some friend out of the +dusty glare and tumult of the world, and rejoiced to share with him the +transparent obscurity that was floating over us. In one respect our +precincts were like the Enchanted Ground through which the pilgrim +travelled on his way to the Celestial City. The guests, each and all, +felt a slumberous influence upon them; they fell asleep in chairs, or +took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa, or were seen stretched among +the shadows of the orchard, looking up dreamily through the boughs. +They could not have paid a more acceptable compliment to my abode nor +to my own qualities as a host. I held it as a proof that they left +their cares behind them as they passed between the stone gate-posts at +the entrance of our avenue, and that the so powerful opiate was the +abundance of peace and quiet within and all around us. Others could +give them pleasure and amusement or instruction,—these could be picked +up anywhere; but it was for me to give them rest,—rest in a life of +trouble. What better could be done for those weary and world-worn +spirits?—for him whose career of perpetual action was impeded and +harassed by the rarest of his powers and the richest of his +acquirements?—for another who had thrown his ardent heart from earliest +youth into the strife of politics, and now, perchance, began to suspect +that one lifetime is too brief for the accomplishment of any lofty +aim?—for her oil whose feminine nature had been imposed the heavy gift +of intellectual power, such as a strong man might have staggered under, +and with it the necessity to act upon the world?—in a word, not to +multiply instances, what better could be done for anybody who came +within our magic circle than to throw the spell of a tranquil spirit +over him? And when it had wrought its full effect, then we dismissed +him, with but misty reminiscences, as if he had been dreaming of us. + +Were I to adopt a pet idea as so many people do, and fondle it in my +embraces to the exclusion of all others, it would be, that the great +want which mankind labors under at this present period is sleep. The +world should recline its vast head on the first convenient pillow and +take an age-long nap. It has gone distracted through a morbid activity, +and, while preternaturally wide awake, is nevertheless tormented by +visions that seem real to it now, but would assume their true aspect +and character were all things once set right by an interval of sound +repose. This is the only method of getting rid of old delusions and +avoiding new ones; of regenerating our race, so that it might in due +time awake as an infant out of dewy slumber; of restoring to us the +simple perception of what is right and the single-hearted desire to +achieve it, both of which have long been lost in consequence of this +weary activity of brain and torpor or passion of the heart that now +afflict the universe. Stimulants, the only mode of treatment hitherto +attempted, cannot quell the disease; they do but heighten the delirium. + +Let not the above paragraph ever be quoted against the author; for, +though tinctured with its modicum of truth, it is the result and +expression of what he knew, while he was writing, to be but a distorted +survey of the state and prospects of mankind. There were circumstances +around me which made it difficult to view the world precisely as it +exists; for, severe and sober as was the Old Manse, it was necessary to +go but a little way beyond its threshold before meeting with stranger +moral shapes of men than might have been encountered elsewhere in a +circuit of a thousand miles. + +These hobgoblins of flesh and blood were attracted thither by the +widespreading influence of a great original thinker, who had his +earthly abode at the opposite extremity of our village. His mind acted +upon other minds of a certain constitution with wonderful magnetism, +and drew many men upon long pilgrimages to speak with him face to face. +Young visionaries—to whom just so much of insight had been imparted as +to make life all a labyrinth around them—came to seek the clew that +should guide them out of their self-involved bewilderment. Gray-headed +theorists—whose systems, at first air, had finally imprisoned them in +an iron framework—travelled painfully to his door, not to ask +deliverance, but to invite the free spirit into their own thraldom. +People that had lighted on a new thought or a thought that they fancied +new, came to Emerson, as the finder of a glittering gem hastens to a +lapidary, to ascertain its quality and value. Uncertain, troubled, +earnest wanderers through the midnight of the moral world beheld his +intellectual fire as a beacon burning on a hill-top, and, climbing the +difficult ascent, looked forth into the surrounding obscurity more +hopefully than hitherto. The light revealed objects unseen +before,—mountains, gleaming lakes, glimpses of a creation among the +chaos; but also, as was unavoidable, it attracted bats and owls and the +whole host of night birds, which flapped their dusky wings against the +gazer’s eyes, and sometimes were mistaken for fowls of angelic feather. +Such delusions always hover nigh whenever a beacon-fire of truth is +kindled. + +For myself, there bad been epochs of my life when I, too, might have +asked of this prophet the master word that should solve me the riddle +of the universe; but now, being happy, I felt as if there were no +question to be put, and therefore admired Emerson as a poet, of deep +beauty and austere tenderness, but sought nothing from him as a +philosopher. It was good, nevertheless, to meet him in the woodpaths, +or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure, intellectual gleam diffused +about his presence like the garment of a shining one; and be, so quiet, +so simple, so without pretension, encountering each man alive as if +expecting to receive more than he could impart. And, in truth, the +heart of many an ordinary man had, perchance, inscriptions which he +could not read. But it was impossible to dwell in his vicinity without +inhaling more or less the mountain atmosphere of his lofty thought, +which, in the brains of some people, wrought a singular giddiness,—new +truth being as heady as new wine. Never was a poor little country +village infested with such a variety of queer, strangely dressed, oddly +behaved mortals, most of whom took upon themselves to be important +agents of the world’s destiny, yet were simply bores of a very intense +water. Such, I imagine, is the invariable character of persons who +crowd so closely about an original thinker as to draw in his unuttered +breath and thus become imbued with a false originality. This triteness +of novelty is enough to make any man of common-sense blaspheme at all +ideas of less than a century’s standing, and pray that the world may be +petrified and rendered immovable in precisely the worst moral and +physical state that it ever yet arrived at, rather than be benefited by +such schemes of such philosophers. + +And now I begin to feel—and perhaps should have sooner felt—that we +have talked enough of the Old Manse. Mine honored reader, it may be, +will vilify the poor author as an egotist for babbling through so many +pages about a mossgrown country parsonage, and his life within its +walls, and on the river, and in the woods, and the influences that +wrought upon him from all these sources. My conscience, however, does +not reproach me with betraying anything too sacredly individual to be +revealed by a human spirit to its brother or sister spirit. How +narrow-how shallow and scanty too—is the stream of thought that has +been flowing from my pen, compared with the broad tide of dim emotions, +ideas, and associations which swell around me from that portion of my +existence! How little have I told! and of that little, how almost +nothing is even tinctured with any quality that makes it exclusively my +own! Has the reader gone wandering, hand in hand with me, through the +inner passages of my being? and have we groped together into all its +chambers and examined their treasures or their rubbish? Not so. We have +been standing on the greensward, but just within the cavern’s mouth, +where the common sunshine is free to penetrate, and where every +footstep is therefore free to come. I have appealed to no sentiment or +sensibilities save such as are diffused among us all. So far as I am a +man of really individual attributes I veil my face; nor am I, nor have +I ever been, one of those supremely hospitable people who serve up +their own hearts, delicately fried, with brain sauce, as a tidbit for +their beloved public. + +Glancing back over what I have written, it seems but the scattered +reminiscences of a single summer. In fairyland there is no measurement +of time; and, in a spot so sheltered from the turmoil of life’s ocean, +three years hastened away with a noiseless flight, as the breezy +sunshine chases the cloud-shadows across the depths of a still valley. +Now came hints, growing more and more distinct, that the owner of the +old house was pining for his native air. Carpenters next, appeared, +making a tremendous racket among the outbuildings, strewing the green +grass with pine shavings and chips of chestnut joists, and vexing the +whole antiquity of the place with their discordant renovations. Soon, +moreover, they divested our abode of the veil of woodbine which had +crept over a large portion of its southern face. All the aged mosses +were cleared unsparingly away; and there were horrible whispers about +brushing up the external walls with a coat of paint,—a purpose as +little to my taste as might be that of rouging the venerable cheeks of +one’s grandmother. But the hand that renovates is always more +sacrilegious than that which destroys. In fine, we gathered up our +household goods, drank a farewell cup of tea in our pleasant little +breakfast-room,—delicately fragrant tea, an unpurchasable luxury, one +of the many angel gifts that had fallen like dew upon us,—and passed +forth between the tall stone gate-posts as uncertain as the wandering +Arabs where our tent might next be pitched. Providence took me by the +hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no +irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce while +I am writing, from the Old Manse into a custom-house. As a +story-teller, I have often contrived strange vicissitudes for my +imaginary personages, but none like this. + +The treasure of intellectual gold which I hoped to find in our secluded +dwelling had never come to light. No profound treatise of ethics, no +philosophic history, no novel even, that could stand unsupported on its +edges. All that I had to show, as a man of letters, were these, few +tales and essays, which had blossomed out like flowers in the calm +summer of my heart and mind. Save editing (an easy task) the journal of +my friend of many years, the African Cruiser, I had done nothing else. +With these idle weeds and withering blossoms I have intermixed some +that were produced long ago,—old, faded things, reminding me of flowers +pressed between the leaves of a book,—and now offer the bouquet, such +as it is, to any whom it may please. These fitful sketches, with so +little of external life about them, yet claiming no profundity of +purpose,—so reserved, even while they sometimes seem so frank,—often +but half in earnest, and never, even when most so, expressing +satisfactorily the thoughts which they profess to image,—such trifles, +I truly feel, afford no solid basis for a literary reputation. +Nevertheless, the public—if my limited number of readers, whom I +venture to regard rather as a circle of friends, may be termed a +public—will receive them the more kindly, as the last offering, the +last collection of this nature which it is my purpose ever to put +forth. Unless I could do better, I have done enough in this kind. For +myself the book will always retain one charm,—as reminding me of the +river, with its delightful solitudes, and of the avenue, the garden, +and the orchard, and especially the dear Old Manse, with the little +study on its western side, and the sunshine glimmering through the +willow branches while I wrote. + +Let the reader, if he will do me so much honor, imagine himself my +guest, and that, having seen whatever may be worthy of notice within +and about the Old Manse, he has finally been ushered into my study. +There, after seating him in an antique elbow-chair, an heirloom of the +house, I take forth a roll of manuscript and entreat his attention to +the following tales,—an act of personal inhospitality, however, which I +never was guilty of, nor ever will be, even to my worst enemy. + + + + +THE BIRTHMARK + + +In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an +eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long +before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more +attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the +care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace +smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a +beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when the +comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred +mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it +was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in +its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, +the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment +in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would +ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the +philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and +perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer +possessed this degree of faith in man’s ultimate control over Nature. +He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies +ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his +young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by +intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength +of the latter to his own. + +Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly +remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very +soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble +in his countenance that grew stronger until he spoke. + +“Georgiana,” said he, “has it never occurred to you that the mark upon +your cheek might be removed?” + +“No, indeed,” said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his +manner, she blushed deeply. “To tell you the truth it has been so often +called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so.” + +“Ah, upon another face perhaps it might,” replied her husband; “but +never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from +the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we +hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the +visible mark of earthly imperfection.” + +“Shocks you, my husband!” cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first +reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. “Then why +did you take me from my mother’s side? You cannot love what shocks +you!” + +To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of +Georgiana’s left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as +it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state +of her complexion—a healthy though delicate bloom—the mark wore a tint +of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the +surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more +indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that +bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting +motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson +stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful +distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, +though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana’s lovers were wont to say +that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the +infant’s cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic +endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a +desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing +his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however, +that the impression wrought by this fairy sign manual varied +exceedingly, according to the difference of temperament in the +beholders. Some fastidious persons—but they were exclusively of her own +sex—affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite +destroyed the effect of Georgiana’s beauty, and rendered her +countenance even hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that one +of those small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary +marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine +observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, +contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess +one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a +flaw. After his marriage,—for he thought little or nothing of the +matter before,—Aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself. + +Had she been less beautiful,—if Envy’s self could have found aught else +to sneer at,—he might have felt his affection heightened by the +prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now +stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of +emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so +perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with +every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity +which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her +productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or +that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson +hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the +highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with +the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible +frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of +his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer’s sombre +imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, +causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana’s beauty, +whether of soul or sense, had given him delight. + +At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably +and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary, +reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first +appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and +modes of feeling that it became the central point of all. With the +morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife’s face and +recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at +the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and +beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand +that wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana +soon learned to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the +peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her +cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was +brought strongly out, like a bass-relief of ruby on the whitest marble. + +Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray +the stain on the poor wife’s cheek, she herself, for the first time, +voluntarily took up the subject. + +“Do you remember, my dear Aylmer,” said she, with a feeble attempt at a +smile, “have you any recollection of a dream last night about this +odious hand?” + +“None! none whatever!” replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added, in +a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of +his emotion, “I might well dream of it; for before I fell asleep it had +taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy.” + +“And you did dream of it?” continued Georgiana, hastily; for she +dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. “A +terrible dream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to +forget this one expression?—‘It is in her heart now; we must have it +out!’ Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recall +that dream.” + +The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot +confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers +them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that +perchance belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He +had fancied himself with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation +for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the +deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have +caught hold of Georgiana’s heart; whence, however, her husband was +inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away. + +When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in +his wife’s presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to +the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with +uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an +unconscious self-deception during our waking moments. Until now he had +not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over +his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go for +the sake of giving himself peace. + +“Aylmer,” resumed Georgiana, solemnly, “I know not what may be the cost +to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal +may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as +life itself. Again: do we know that there is a possibility, on any +terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little hand which was laid +upon me before I came into the world?” + +“Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject,” +hastily interrupted Aylmer. “I am convinced of the perfect +practicability of its removal.” + +“If there be the remotest possibility of it,” continued Georgiana, “let +the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for +life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and +disgust,—life is a burden which I would fling down with joy. Either +remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep +science. All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great +wonders. Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with +the tips of two small fingers? Is this beyond your power, for the sake +of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?” + +“Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife,” cried Aylmer, rapturously, “doubt +not my power. I have already given this matter the deepest +thought—thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a +being less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper +than ever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully competent to +render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most +beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what +Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion, when his +sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will +be.” + +“It is resolved, then,” said Georgiana, faintly smiling. “And, Aylmer, +spare me not, though you should find the birthmark take refuge in my +heart at last.” + +Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek—her right cheek—not that which +bore the impress of the crimson hand. + +The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed +whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant +watchfulness which the proposed operation would require; while +Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its +success. They were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments +occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome +youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of Nature that +had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in Europe. +Seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated +the secrets of the highest cloud region and of the profoundest mines; +he had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive the +fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, and +how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and others +with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth. +Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the +human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Nature +assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from +the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. The +latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling +recognition of the truth—against which all seekers sooner or later +stumble—that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with +apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to +keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us +nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to +mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. Now, +however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, of +course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because +they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his +proposed scheme for the treatment of Georgiana. + +As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold +and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to +reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the +birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could not restrain a +strong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted. + +“Aminadab! Aminadab!” shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the floor. + +Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, +but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was +grimed with the vapors of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer’s +underworker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably +fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill +with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he +executed all the details of his master’s experiments. With his vast +strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable +earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man’s physical +nature; while Aylmer’s slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, +were no less apt a type of the spiritual element. + +“Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab,” said Aylmer, “and burn +a pastil.” + +“Yes, master,” answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form +of Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, “If she were my wife, +I’d never part with that birthmark.” + +When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an +atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had +recalled her from her deathlike faintness. The scene around her looked +like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre +rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, +into a series of beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded +abode of a lovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, +which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no other +species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to +the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and +straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. For +aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And +Aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his +chemical processes, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps, +emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, impurpled +radiance. He now knelt by his wife’s side, watching her earnestly, but +without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt that he +could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might intrude. + +“Where am I? Ah, I remember,” said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed +her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband’s +eyes. + +“Fear not, dearest!” exclaimed he. “Do not shrink from me! Believe me, +Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be +such a rapture to remove it.” + +“Oh, spare me!” sadly replied his wife. “Pray do not look at it again. +I never can forget that convulsive shudder.” + +In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from +the burden of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice some of the +light and playful secrets which science had taught him among its +profounder lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of +unsubstantial beauty came and danced before her, imprinting their +momentary footsteps on beams of light. Though she had some indistinct +idea of the method of these optical phenomena, still the illusion was +almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessed +sway over the spiritual world. Then again, when she felt a wish to look +forth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were +answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a screen. +The scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented, +but with that bewitching, yet indescribable difference which always +makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much more attractive than the +original. When wearied of this, Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a +vessel containing a quantity of earth. She did so, with little interest +at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant +shooting upward from the soil. Then came the slender stalk; the leaves +gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely +flower. + +“It is magical!” cried Georgiana. “I dare not touch it.” + +“Nay, pluck it,” answered Aylmer,—“pluck it, and inhale its brief +perfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments and +leave nothing save its brown seed vessels; but thence may be +perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself.” + +But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant +suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the agency of +fire. + +“There was too powerful a stimulus,” said Aylmer, thoughtfully. + +To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her +portrait by a scientific process of his own invention. It was to be +effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal. +Georgiana assented; but, on looking at the result, was affrighted to +find the features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while the +minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been. +Aylmer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a jar of corrosive +acid. + +Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of +study and chemical experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but +seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of +the resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of the +alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by +which the golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and +base. Aylmer appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific +logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover +this long-sought medium; “but,” he added, “a philosopher who should go +deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to +stoop to the exercise of it.” Not less singular were his opinions in +regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at his +option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps +interminably; but that it would produce a discord in Nature which all +the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find +cause to curse. + +“Aylmer, are you in earnest?” asked Georgiana, looking at him with +amazement and fear. “It is terrible to possess such power, or even to +dream of possessing it.” + +“Oh, do not tremble, my love,” said her husband. “I would not wrong +either you or myself by working such inharmonious effects upon our +lives; but I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is +the skill requisite to remove this little hand.” + +At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a +redhot iron had touched her cheek. + +Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She could hear his voice in +the distant furnace room giving directions to Aminadab, whose harsh, +uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt +or growl of a brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmer +reappeared and proposed that she should now examine his cabinet of +chemical products and natural treasures of the earth. Among the former +he showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a +gentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the +breezes that blow across a kingdom. They were of inestimable value, the +contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some of the +perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing and invigorating +delight. + +“And what is this?” asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe +containing a gold-colored liquid. “It is so beautiful to the eye that I +could imagine it the elixir of life.” + +“In one sense it is,” replied Aylmer; “or, rather, the elixir of +immortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in +this world. By its aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at +whom you might point your finger. The strength of the dose would +determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the +midst of a breath. No king on his guarded throne could keep his life if +I, in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions +justified me in depriving him of it.” + +“Why do you keep such a terrific drug?” inquired Georgiana in horror. + +“Do not mistrust me, dearest,” said her husband, smiling; “its virtuous +potency is yet greater than its harmful one. But see! here is a +powerful cosmetic. With a few drops of this in a vase of water, +freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. A +stronger infusion would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave the +rosiest beauty a pale ghost.” + +“Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?” asked +Georgiana, anxiously. + +“Oh, no,” hastily replied her husband; “this is merely superficial. +Your case demands a remedy that shall go deeper.” + +In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute +inquiries as to her sensations and whether the confinement of the rooms +and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. These questions +had such a particular drift that Georgiana began to conjecture that she +was already subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed +in with the fragrant air or taken with her food. She fancied likewise, +but it might be altogether fancy, that there was a stirring up of her +system—a strange, indefinite sensation creeping through her veins, and +tingling, half painfully, half pleasurably, at her heart. Still, +whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld herself +pale as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon her +cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it so much as she. + +To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary +to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana +turned over the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old +tomes she met with chapters full of romance and poetry. They were the +works of philosophers of the middle ages, such as Albertus Magnus, +Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the +prophetic Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists stood in advance +of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and +therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have +acquired from the investigation of Nature a power above Nature, and +from physics a sway over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and +imaginative were the early volumes of the Transactions of the Royal +Society, in which the members, knowing little of the limits of natural +possibility, were continually recording wonders or proposing methods +whereby wonders might be wrought. + +But to Georgiana the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her +husband’s own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his +scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its +development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances +to which either event was attributable. The book, in truth, was both +the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet +practical and laborious life. He handled physical details as if there +were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed +himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration towards the +infinite. In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul. +Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more profoundly +than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment than +heretofore. Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that +his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if +compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were +the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with +the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume, +rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as +melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. It was the sad +confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the +composite man, the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and +of the despair that assails the higher nature at finding itself so +miserably thwarted by the earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius in +whatever sphere might recognize the image of his own experience in +Aylmer’s journal. + +So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana that she laid her face +upon the open volume and burst into tears. In this situation she was +found by her husband. + +“It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer’s books,” said he with a smile, +though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. “Georgiana, there are +pages in that volume which I can scarcely glance over and keep my +senses. Take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you.” + +“It has made me worship you more than ever,” said she. + +“Ah, wait for this one success,” rejoined he, “then worship me if you +will. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But come, I have +sought you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest.” + +So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of +his spirit. He then took his leave with a boyish exuberance of gayety, +assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and +that the result was already certain. Scarcely had he departed when +Georgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had forgotten +to inform Aylmer of a symptom which for two or three hours past had +begun to excite her attention. It was a sensation in the fatal +birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout her +system. Hastening after her husband, she intruded for the first time +into the laboratory. + +The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and +feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the +quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning for +ages. There was a distilling apparatus in full operation. Around the +room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of +chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. +The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous +odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. The +severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and +brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become to +the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost +solely, drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself. + +He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace +as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which +it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or +misery. How different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had +assumed for Georgiana’s encouragement! + +“Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully, +thou man of clay!” muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. +“Now, if there be a thought too much or too little, it is all over.” + +“Ho! ho!” mumbled Aminadab. “Look, master! look!” + +Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler +than ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her and seized her +arm with a gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it. + +“Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?” cried he, +impetuously. “Would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over +my labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman, go!” + +“Nay, Aylmer,” said Georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed +no stinted endowment, “it is not you that have a right to complain. You +mistrust your wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you watch +the development of this experiment. Think not so unworthily of me, my +husband. Tell me all the risk we run, and fear not that I shall shrink; +for my share in it is far less than your own.” + +“No, no, Georgiana!” said Aylmer, impatiently; “it must not be.” + +“I submit,” replied she calmly. “And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever +draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would +induce me to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand.” + +“My noble wife,” said Aylmer, deeply moved, “I knew not the height and +depth of your nature until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then, +that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp +into your being with a strength of which I had no previous conception. +I have already administered agents powerful enough to do aught except +to change your entire physical system. Only one thing remains to be +tried. If that fail us we are ruined.” + +“Why did you hesitate to tell me this?” asked she. + +“Because, Georgiana,” said Aylmer, in a low voice, “there is danger.” + +“Danger? There is but one danger—that this horrible stigma shall be +left upon my cheek!” cried Georgiana. “Remove it, remove it, whatever +be the cost, or we shall both go mad!” + +“Heaven knows your words are too true,” said Aylmer, sadly. “And now, +dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while all will be tested.” + +He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness +which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After +his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the +character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous +moment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love—so +pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection nor +miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had +dreamed of. She felt how much more precious was such a sentiment than +that meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her +sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love by degrading its +perfect idea to the level of the actual; and with her whole spirit she +prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and +deepest conception. Longer than one moment she well knew it could not +be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, and each +instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant +before. + +The sound of her husband’s footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal +goblet containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be +the draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the +consequence of a highly-wrought state of mind and tension of spirit +than of fear or doubt. + +“The concoction of the draught has been perfect,” said he, in answer to +Georgiana’s look. “Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot +fail.” + +“Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer,” observed his wife, “I might +wish to put off this birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality +itself in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession to +those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at +which I stand. Were I weaker and blinder it might be happiness. Were I +stronger, it might be endured hopefully. But, being what I find myself, +methinks I am of all mortals the most fit to die.” + +“You are fit for heaven without tasting death!” replied her husband +“But why do we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. Behold its +effect upon this plant.” + +On the window seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow +blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a small +quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little +time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the +unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure. + +“There needed no proof,” said Georgiana, quietly. “Give me the goblet I +joyfully stake all upon your word.” + +“Drink, then, thou lofty creature!” exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid +admiration. “There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy +sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect.” + +She quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand. + +“It is grateful,” said she with a placid smile. “Methinks it is like +water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of +unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst +that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My +earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves around the +heart of a rose at sunset.” + +She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required +almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and +lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere +she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect +with the emotions proper to a man the whole value of whose existence +was involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood, +however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of +science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of +the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a +hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,—such were the details +which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. +Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that +volume, but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last. + +While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and +not without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse +he pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in the very +act, and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily +and murmured as if in remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed his watch. Nor +was it without avail. The crimson hand, which at first had been +strongly visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana’s cheek, now +grew more faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than ever; but +the birthmark with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of +its former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure was +more awful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow fading out the sky, +and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away. + +“By Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!” said Aylmer to himself, in almost +irrepressible ecstasy. “I can scarcely trace it now. Success! success! +And now it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest flush of blood +across her cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!” + +He drew aside the window curtain and suffered the light of natural day +to fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. At the same time he +heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant +Aminadab’s expression of delight. + +“Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!” cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of +frenzy, “you have served me well! Matter and spirit—earth and +heaven—have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses! +You have earned the right to laugh.” + +These exclamations broke Georgiana’s sleep. She slowly unclosed her +eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that +purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how +barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed +forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their +happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer’s face with a trouble and +anxiety that he could by no means account for. + +“My poor Aylmer!” murmured she. + +“Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!” exclaimed he. “My +peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!” + +“My poor Aylmer,” she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, “you +have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so +high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could +offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!” + +Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of +life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union +with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark—that +sole token of human imperfection—faded from her cheek, the parting +breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her +soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight. +Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the +gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the +immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands +the completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Alymer reached a +profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which +would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the +celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed +to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in +eternity, to find the perfect future in the present. + + + + +A SELECT PARTY + + +The man of fancy made an entertainment at one of his castles in the +air, and invited a select number of distinguished personages to favor +him with their presence. The mansion, though less splendid than many +that have been situated in the same region, was nevertheless of a +magnificence such as is seldom witnessed by those acquainted only with +terrestrial architecture. Its strong foundations and massive walls were +quarried out of a ledge of heavy and sombre clouds which had hung +brooding over the earth, apparently as dense and ponderous as its own +granite, throughout a whole autumnal day. Perceiving that the general +effect was gloomy,—so that the airy castle looked like a feudal +fortress, or a monastery of the Middle Ages, or a state prison of our +own times, rather than the home of pleasure and repose which he +intended it to be,—the owner, regardless of expense, resolved to gild +the exterior from top to bottom. Fortunately, there was just then a +flood of evening sunshine in the air. This being gathered up and poured +abundantly upon the roof and walls, imbued them with a kind of solemn +cheerfulness; while the cupolas and pinnacles were made to glitter with +the purest gold, and all the hundred windows gleamed with a glad light, +as if the edifice itself were rejoicing in its heart. + +And now, if the people of the lower world chanced to be looking upward +out of the turmoil of their petty perplexities, they probably mistook +the castle in the air for a heap of sunset clouds, to which the magic +of light and shade had imparted the aspect of a fantastically +constructed mansion. To such beholders it was unreal, because they +lacked the imaginative faith. Had they been worthy to pass within its +portal, they would have recognized the truth, that the dominions which +the spirit conquers for itself among unrealities become a thousand +times more real than the earth whereon they stamp their feet, saying, +“This is solid and substantial; this may be called a fact.” + +At the appointed hour, the host stood in his great saloon to receive +the company. It was a vast and noble room, the vaulted ceiling of which +was supported by double rows of gigantic pillars that had been hewn +entire out of masses of variegated clouds. So brilliantly were they +polished, and so exquisitely wrought by the sculptor’s skill, as to +resemble the finest specimens of emerald, porphyry, opal, and +chrysolite, thus producing a delicate richness of effect which their +immense size rendered not incompatible with grandeur. To each of these +pillars a meteor was suspended. Thousands of these ethereal lustres are +continually wandering about the firmament, burning out to waste, yet +capable of imparting a useful radiance to any person who has the art of +converting them to domestic purposes. As managed in the saloon, they +are far more economical than ordinary lamplight. Such, however, was the +intensity of their blaze that it had been found expedient to cover each +meteor with a globe of evening mist, thereby muffling the too potent +glow and soothing it into a mild and comfortable splendor. It was like +the brilliancy of a powerful yet chastened imagination,—a light which +seemed to hide whatever was unworthy to be noticed and give effect to +every beautiful and noble attribute. The guests, therefore, as they +advanced up the centre of the saloon, appeared to better advantage than +ever before in their lives. + +The first that entered, with old-fashioned punctuality, was a venerable +figure in the costume of bygone days, with his white hair flowing down +over his shoulders and a reverend beard upon his breast. He leaned upon +a staff, the tremulous stroke of which, as he set it carefully upon the +floor, re-echoed through the saloon at every footstep. Recognizing at +once this celebrated personage, whom it had cost him a vast deal of +trouble and research to discover, the host advanced nearly three +fourths of the distance down between the pillars to meet and welcome +him. + +“Venerable sir,” said the Man of Fancy, bending to the floor, “the +honor of this visit would never be forgotten were my term of existence +to be as happily prolonged as your own.” + +The old gentleman received the compliment with gracious condescension. +He then thrust up his spectacles over his forehead and appeared to take +a critical survey of the saloon. + +“Never within my recollection,” observed he, “have I entered a more +spacious and noble hall. But are you sure that it is built of solid +materials and that the structure will be permanent?” + +“O, never fear, my venerable friend,” replied the host. “In reference +to a lifetime like your own, it is true my castle may well be called a +temporary edifice. But it will endure long enough to answer all the +purposes for which it was erected.” + +But we forget that the reader has not yet been made acquainted with the +guest. It was no other than that universally accredited character so +constantly referred to in all seasons of intense cold or heat; he that, +remembers the hot Sunday and the cold Friday; the witness of a past age +whose negative reminiscences find their way into every newspaper, yet +whose antiquated and dusky abode is so overshadowed by accumulated +years and crowded back by modern edifices that none but the Man of +Fancy could have discovered it; it was, in short, that twin brother of +Time, and great-grandsire of mankind, and hand-and-glove associate of +all forgotten men and things,—the Oldest Inhabitant. The host would +willingly have drawn him into conversation, but succeeded only in +eliciting a few remarks as to the oppressive atmosphere of this present +summer evening compared with one which the guest had experienced about +fourscore years ago. The old gentleman, in fact, was a good deal +overcome by his journey among the clouds, which, to a frame so +earth-incrusted by long continuance in a lower region, was unavoidably +more fatiguing than to younger spirits. He was therefore conducted to +an easy-chair, well cushioned and stuffed with vaporous softness, and +left to take a little repose. + +The Man of Fancy now discerned another guest, who stood so quietly in +the shadow of one of the pillars that he might easily have been +overlooked. + +“My dear sir,” exclaimed the host, grasping him warmly by the hand, +“allow me to greet you as the hero of the evening. Pray do not take it +as an empty compliment; for, if there were not another guest in my +castle, it would be entirely pervaded with your presence.” + +“I thank you,” answered the unpretending stranger; “but, though you +happened to overlook me, I have not just arrived. I came very early; +and, with your permission, shall remain after the rest of the company +have retired.” + +And who does the reader imagine was this unobtrusive guest? It was the +famous performer of acknowledged impossibilities,—a character of +superhuman capacity and virtue, and, if his enemies are to be credited, +of no less remarkable weaknesses and defects. With a generosity with +which he alone sets us an example, we will glance merely at his nobler +attributes. He it is, then, who prefers the interests of others to his +own and a humble station to an exalted one. Careless of fashion, +custom, the opinions of men, and the influence of the press, he +assimilates his life to the standard of ideal rectitude, and thus +proves himself the one independent citizen of our free country. In +point of ability, many people declare him to be the only mathematician +capable of squaring the circle; the only mechanic acquainted with the +principle of perpetual motion; the only scientific philosopher who can +compel water to run up hill; the only writer of the age whose genius is +equal to the production of an epic poem; and, finally, so various are +his accomplishments, the only professor of gymnastics who has succeeded +in jumping down his own throat. With all these talents, however, he is +so far from being considered a member of good society, that it is the +severest censure of any fashionable assemblage to affirm that this +remarkable individual was present. Public orators, lecturers, and +theatrical performers particularly eschew his company. For especial +reasons, we are not at liberty to disclose his name, and shall mention +only one other trait,—a most singular phenomenon in natural +philosophy,—that, when he happens to cast his eyes upon a +looking-glass, he beholds Nobody reflected there! + +Several other guests now made their appearance; and among them, +chattering with immense volubility, a brisk little gentleman of +universal vogue in private society, and not unknown in the public +journals under the title of Monsieur On-Dit. The name would seem to +indicate a Frenchman; but, whatever be his country, he is thoroughly +versed in all the languages of the day, and can express himself quite +as much to the purpose in English as in any other tongue. No sooner +were the ceremonies of salutation over than this talkative little +person put his mouth to the host’s ear and whispered three secrets of +state, an important piece of commercial intelligence, and a rich item +of fashionable scandal. He then assured the Man of Fancy that he would +not fail to circulate in the society of the lower world a minute +description of this magnificent castle in the air and of the +festivities at which he had the honor to be a guest. So saying, +Monsieur On-Dit made his bow and hurried from one to another of the +company, with all of whom he seemed to be acquainted and to possess +some topic of interest or amusement for every individual. Coming at +last to the Oldest Inhabitant, who was slumbering comfortably in the +easy-chair, he applied his mouth to that venerable ear. + +“What do you say?” cried the old gentleman, starting from his nap and +putting up his hand to serve the purpose of an ear-trumpet. + +Monsieur On-Dit bent forward again and repeated his communication. + +“Never within my memory,” exclaimed the Oldest Inhabitant, lifting his +hands in astonishment, “has so remarkable an incident been heard of.” + +Now came in the Clerk of the Weather, who had been invited out of +deference to his official station, although the host was well aware +that his conversation was likely to contribute but little to the +general enjoyment. He soon, indeed, got into a corner with his +acquaintance of long ago, the Oldest Inhabitant, and began to compare +notes with him in reference to the great storms, gales of wind, and +other atmospherical facts that had occurred during a century past. It +rejoiced the Man of Fancy that his venerable and much-respected guest +had met with so congenial an associate. Entreating them both to make +themselves perfectly at home, he now turned to receive the Wandering +Jew. This personage, however, had latterly grown so common, by mingling +in all sorts of society and appearing at the beck of every entertainer, +that he could hardly be deemed a proper guest in a very exclusive +circle. Besides, being covered with dust from his continual wanderings +along the highways of the world, he really looked out of place in a +dress party; so that the host felt relieved of an incommodity when the +restless individual in question, after a brief stay, took his departure +on a ramble towards Oregon. + +The portal was now thronged by a crowd of shadowy people with whom the +Man of Fancy had been acquainted in his visionary youth. He had invited +them hither for the sake of observing how they would compare, whether +advantageously or otherwise, with the real characters to whom his +maturer life had introduced him. They were beings of crude imagination, +such as glide before a young man’s eye and pretend to be actual +inhabitants of the earth; the wise and witty with whom he would +hereafter hold intercourse; the generous and heroic friends whose +devotion would be requited with his own; the beautiful dream-woman who +would become the helpmate of his human toils and sorrows and at once +the source and partaker of his happiness. Alas! it is not good for the +full-grown man to look too closely at these old acquaintances, but +rather to reverence them at a distance through the medium of years that +have gathered duskily between. There was something laughably untrue in +their pompous stride and exaggerated sentiment; they were neither human +nor tolerable likenesses of humanity, but fantastic maskers, rendering +heroism and nature alike ridiculous by the grave absurdity of their +pretensions to such attributes; and as for the peerless dream-lady, +behold! there advanced up the saloon, with a movement like a jointed +doll, a sort of wax-figure of an angel, a creature as cold as +moonshine, an artifice in petticoats, with an intellect of pretty +phrases and only the semblance of a heart, yet in all these particulars +the true type of a young man’s imaginary mistress. Hardly could the +host’s punctilious courtesy restrain a smile as he paid his respects to +this unreality and met the sentimental glance with which the Dream +sought to remind him of their former love passages. + +“No, no, fair lady,” murmured he betwixt sighing and smiling; “my taste +is changed; I have learned to love what Nature makes better than my own +creations in the guise of womanhood.” + +“Ah, false one,” shrieked the dream-lady, pretending to faint, but +dissolving into thin air, out of which came the deplorable murmur of +her voice, “your inconstancy has annihilated me.” + +“So be it,” said the cruel Man of Fancy to himself; “and a good +riddance too.” + +Together with these shadows, and from the same region, there came an +uninvited multitude of shapes which at any time during his life had +tormented the Man of Fancy in his moods of morbid melancholy or had +haunted him in the delirium of fever. The walls of his castle in the +air were not dense enough to keep them out, nor would the strongest of +earthly architecture have availed to their exclusion. Here were those +forms of dim terror which had beset him at the entrance of life, waging +warfare with his hopes; here were strange uglinesses of earlier date, +such as haunt children in the night-time. He was particularly startled +by the vision of a deformed old black woman whom he imagined as lurking +in the garret of his native home, and who, when he was an infant, had +once come to his bedside and grinned at him in the crisis of a scarlet +fever. This same black shadow, with others almost as hideous, now +glided among the pillars of the magnificent saloon, grinning +recognition, until the man shuddered anew at the forgotten terrors of +his childhood. It amused him, however, to observe the black woman, with +the mischievous caprice peculiar to such beings, steal up to the chair +of the Oldest Inhabitant and peep into his half-dreamy mind. + +“Never within my memory,” muttered that venerable personage, aghast, +“did I see such a face.” + +Almost immediately after the unrealities just described, arrived a +number of guests whom incredulous readers may be inclined to rank +equally among creatures of imagination. The most noteworthy were an +incorruptible Patriot; a Scholar without pedantry; a Priest without +worldly ambition; and a Beautiful Woman without pride or coquetry; a +Married Pair whose life had never been disturbed by incongruity of +feeling; a Reformer untrammelled by his theory; and a Poet who felt no +jealousy towards other votaries of the lyre. In truth, however, the +host was not one of the cynics who consider these patterns of +excellence, without the fatal flaw, such rarities in the world; and he +had invited them to his select party chiefly out of humble deference to +the judgment of society, which pronounces them almost impossible to be +met with. + +“In my younger days,” observed the Oldest Inhabitant, “such characters +might be seen at the corner of every street.” + +Be that as it might, these specimens of perfection proved to be not +half so entertaining companions as people with the ordinary allowance +of faults. + +But now appeared a stranger, whom the host had no sooner recognized +than, with an abundance of courtesy unlavished on any other, he +hastened down the whole length of the saloon in order to pay him +emphatic honor. Yet he was a young man in poor attire, with no insignia +of rank or acknowledged eminence, nor anything to distinguish him among +the crowd except a high, white forehead, beneath which a pair of +deep-set eyes were glowing with warm light. It was such a light as +never illuminates the earth save when a great heart burns as the +household fire of a grand intellect. And who was he?—who but the Master +Genius for whom our country is looking anxiously into the mist of Time, +as destined to fulfil the great mission of creating an American +literature, hewing it, as it were, out of the unwrought granite of our +intellectual quarries? From him, whether moulded in the form of an epic +poem or assuming a guise altogether new as the spirit itself may +determine, we are to receive our first great original work, which shall +do all that remains to be achieved for our glory among the nations. How +this child of a mighty destiny had been discovered by the Man of Fancy +it is of little consequence to mention. Suffice it that he dwells as +yet unhonored among men, unrecognized by those who have known him from +his cradle; the noble countenance which should be distinguished by a +halo diffused around it passes daily amid the throng of people toiling +and troubling themselves about the trifles of a moment, and none pay +reverence to the worker of immortality. Nor does it matter much to him, +in his triumph over all the ages, though a generation or two of his own +times shall do themselves the wrong to disregard him. + +By this time Monsieur On-Dit had caught up the stranger’s name and +destiny and was busily whispering the intelligence among the other +guests. + +“Pshaw!” said one. “There can never be an American genius.” + +“Pish!” cried another. “We have already as good poets as any in the +world. For my part, I desire to see no better.” + +And the Oldest Inhabitant, when it was proposed to introduce him to the +Master Genius, begged to be excused, observing that a man who had been +honored with the acquaintance of Dwight, and Freneau, and Joel Barlow, +might be allowed a little austerity of taste. + +The saloon was now fast filling up by the arrival of other remarkable +characters, among whom were noticed Davy Jones, the distinguished +nautical personage, and a rude, carelessly dressed, harum-scarum sort +of elderly fellow, known by the nickname of Old Harry. The latter, +however, after being shown to a dressing-room, reappeared with his gray +hair nicely combed, his clothes brushed, a clean dicky on his neck, and +altogether so changed in aspect as to merit the more respectful +appellation of Venerable Henry. Joel Doe and Richard Roe came arm in +arm, accompanied by a Man of Straw, a fictitious indorser, and several +persons who had no existence except as voters in closely contested +elections. The celebrated Seatsfield, who now entered, was at first +supposed to belong to the same brotherhood, until he made it apparent +that he was a real man of flesh and blood and had his earthly domicile +in Germany. Among the latest comers, as might reasonably be expected, +arrived a guest from the far future. + +“Do you know him? do you know him?” whispered Monsieur On-Dit, who +seemed to be acquainted with everybody. “He is the representative of +Posterity,—the man of an age to come.” + +“And how came he here?” asked a figure who was evidently the prototype +of the fashion-plate in a magazine, and might be taken to represent the +vanities of the passing moment. “The fellow infringes upon our rights +by coming before his time.” + +“But you forget where we are,” answered the Man of Fancy, who overheard +the remark. “The lower earth, it is true, will be forbidden ground to +him for many long years hence; but a castle in the air is a sort of +no-man’s-land, where Posterity may make acquaintance with us on equal +terms.” + +No sooner was his identity known than a throng of guests gathered about +Posterity, all expressing the most generous interest in his welfare, +and many boasting of the sacrifices which they had made, or were +willing to make, in his behalf. Some, with as much secrecy as possible, +desired his judgment upon certain copies of verses or great manuscript +rolls of prose; others accosted him with the familiarity of old +friends, taking it for granted that he was perfectly cognizant of their +names and characters. At length, finding himself thus beset, Posterity +was put quite beside his patience. + +“Gentlemen, my good friends,” cried he, breaking loose from a misty +poet who strove to hold him by the button, “I pray you to attend to +your own business, and leave me to take care of mine! I expect to owe +you nothing, unless it be certain national debts, and other +encumbrances and impediments, physical and moral, which I shall find it +troublesome enough to remove from my path. As to your verses, pray read +them to your contemporaries. Your names are as strange to me as your +faces; and even were it otherwise,—let me whisper you a secret,—the +cold, icy memory which one generation may retain of another is but a +poor recompense to barter life for. Yet, if your heart is set on being +known to me, the surest, the only method is, to live truly and wisely +for your own age, whereby, if the native force be in you, you may +likewise live for posterity.” + +“It is nonsense,” murmured the Oldest Inhabitant, who, as a man of the +past, felt jealous that all notice should be withdrawn from himself to +be lavished on the future, “sheer nonsense, to waste so much thought on +what only is to be.” + +To divert the minds of his guests, who were considerably abashed by +this little incident, the Man of Fancy led them through several +apartments of the castle, receiving their compliments upon the taste +and varied magnificence that were displayed in each. One of these rooms +was filled with moonlight, which did not enter through the window, but +was the aggregate of all the moonshine that is scattered around the +earth on a summer night while no eyes are awake to enjoy its beauty. +Airy spirits had gathered it up, wherever they found it gleaming on the +broad bosom of a lake, or silvering the meanders of a stream, or +glimmering among the wind-stirred boughs of a wood, and had garnered it +in this one spacious hall. Along the walls, illuminated by the mild +intensity of the moonshine, stood a multitude of ideal statues, the +original conceptions of the great works of ancient or modern art, which +the sculptors did but imperfectly succeed in putting into marble; for +it is not to be supposed that the pure idea of an immortal creation +ceases to exist; it is only necessary to know where they are deposited +in order to obtain possession of them.—In the alcoves of another vast +apartment was arranged a splendid library, the volumes of which were +inestimable, because they consisted, not of actual performances, but of +the works which the authors only planned, without ever finding the +happy season to achieve them. To take familiar instances, here were the +untold tales of Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims; the unwritten cantos of +the Fairy Queen; the conclusion of Coleridge’s Christabel; and the +whole of Dryden’s projected epic on the subject of King Arthur. The +shelves were crowded; for it would not be too much to affirm that every +author has imagined and shaped out in his thought more and far better +works than those which actually proceeded from his pen. And here, +likewise, where the unrealized conceptions of youthful poets who died +of the very strength of their own genius before the world had caught +one inspired murmur from their lips. + +When the peculiarities of the library and statue-gallery were explained +to the Oldest Inhabitant, he appeared infinitely perplexed, and +exclaimed, with more energy than usual, that he had never heard of such +a thing within his memory, and, moreover, did not at all understand how +it could be. + +“But my brain, I think,” said the good old gentleman, “is getting not +so clear as it used to be. You young folks, I suppose, can see your way +through these strange matters. For my part, I give it up.” + +“And so do I,” muttered the Old Harry. “It is enough to puzzle +the—Ahem!” + +Making as little reply as possible to these observations, the Man of +Fancy preceded the company to another noble saloon, the pillars of +which were solid golden sunbeams taken out of the sky in the first hour +in the morning. Thus, as they retained all their living lustre, the +room was filled with the most cheerful radiance imaginable, yet not too +dazzling to be borne with comfort and delight. The windows were +beautifully adorned with curtains made of the many-colored clouds of +sunrise, all imbued with virgin light, and hanging in magnificent +festoons from the ceiling to the floor. Moreover, there were fragments +of rainbows scattered through the room; so that the guests, astonished +at one another, reciprocally saw their heads made glorious by the seven +primary hues; or, if they chose,—as who would not?—they could grasp a +rainbow in the air and convert it to their own apparel and adornment. +But the morning light and scattered rainbows were only a type and +symbol of the real wonders of the apartment. By an influence akin to +magic, yet perfectly natural, whatever means and opportunities of joy +are neglected in the lower world had been carefully gathered up and +deposited in the saloon of morning sunshine. As may well be conceived, +therefore, there was material enough to supply, not merely a joyous +evening, but also a happy lifetime, to more than as many people as that +spacious apartment could contain. The company seemed to renew their +youth; while that pattern and proverbial standard of innocence, the +Child Unborn, frolicked to and fro among them, communicating his own +unwrinkled gayety to all who had the good fortune to witness his +gambols. + +“My honored friends,” said the Man of Fancy, after they had enjoyed +themselves awhile, “I am now to request your presence in the +banqueting-hall, where a slight collation is awaiting you.” + +“Ah, well said!” ejaculated a cadaverous figure, who had been invited +for no other reason than that he was pretty constantly in the habit of +dining with Duke Humphrey. “I was beginning to wonder whether a castle +in the air were provided with a kitchen.” + +It was curious, in truth, to see how instantaneously the guests were +diverted from the high moral enjoyments which they had been tasting +with so much apparent zest by a suggestion of the more solid as well as +liquid delights of the festive board. They thronged eagerly in the rear +of the host, who now ushered them into a lofty and extensive hall, from +end to end of which was arranged a table, glittering all over with +innumerable dishes and drinking-vessels of gold. It is an uncertain +point whether these rich articles of plate were made for the occasion +out of molten sunbeams, or recovered from the wrecks of Spanish +galleons that had lain for ages at the bottom of the sea. The upper end +of the table was overshadowed by a canopy, beneath which was placed a +chair of elaborate magnificence, which the host himself declined to +occupy, and besought his guests to assign it to the worthiest among +them. As a suitable homage to his incalculable antiquity and eminent +distinction, the post of honor was at first tendered to the Oldest +Inhabitant. He, however, eschewed it, and requested the favor of a bowl +of gruel at a side table, where he could refresh himself with a quiet +nap. There was some little hesitation as to the next candidate, until +Posterity took the Master Genius of our country by the hand and led him +to the chair of state beneath the princely canopy. When once they +beheld him in his true place, the company acknowledged the justice of +the selection by a long thunder-roll of vehement applause. + +Then was served up a banquet, combining, if not all the delicacies of +the season, yet all the rarities which careful purveyors had met with +in the flesh, fish, and vegetable markets of the land of Nowhere. The +bill of fare being unfortunately lost, we can only mention a phoenix, +roasted in its own flames, cold potted birds of paradise, ice-creams +from the Milky-Way, and whip syllabubs and flummery from the Paradise +of Fools, whereof there was a very great consumption. As for +drinkables, the temperance people contented themselves with water as +usual; but it was the water of the Fountain of Youth; the ladies sipped +Nepenthe; the lovelorn, the careworn, and the sorrow-stricken were +supplied with brimming goblets of Lethe; and it was shrewdly +conjectured that a certain golden vase, from which only the more +distinguished guests were invited to partake, contained nectar that had +been mellowing ever since the days of classical mythology. The cloth +being removed, the company, as usual, grew eloquent over their liquor +and delivered themselves of a succession of brilliant speeches,—the +task of reporting which we resign to the more adequate ability of +Counsellor Gill, whose indispensable co-operation the Man of Fancy had +taken the precaution to secure. + +When the festivity of the banquet was at its most ethereal point, the +Clerk of the Weather was observed to steal from the table and thrust +his head between the purple and golden curtains of one of the windows. + +“My fellow-guests,” he remarked aloud, after carefully noting the signs +of the night, “I advise such of you as live at a distance to be going +as soon as possible; for a thunder-storm is certainly at hand.” + +“Mercy on me!” cried Mother Carey, who had left her brood of chickens +and come hither in gossamer drapery, with pink silk stockings. “How +shall I ever get home?” + +All now was confusion and hasty departure, with but little superfluous +leave-taking. The Oldest Inhabitant, however, true to the rule of those +long past days in which his courtesy had been studied, paused on the +threshold of the meteor-lighted hall to express his vast satisfaction +at the entertainment. + +“Never, within my memory,” observed the gracious old gentleman, “has it +been my good fortune to spend a pleasanter evening or in more select +society.” + +The wind here took his breath away, whirled his three-cornered hat into +infinite space, and drowned what further compliments it had been his +purpose to bestow. Many of the company had bespoken will-o’-the-wisps +to convoy them home; and the host, in his general beneficence, had +engaged the Man in the Moon, with an immense horn-lantern, to be the +guide of such desolate spinsters as could do no better for themselves. +But a blast of the rising tempest blew out all their lights in the +twinkling of an eye. How, in the darkness that ensued, the guests +contrived to get back to earth, or whether the greater part of them +contrived to get back at all, or are still wandering among clouds, +mists, and puffs of tempestuous wind, bruised by the beams and rafters +of the overthrown castle in the air, and deluded by all sorts of +unrealities, are points that concern themselves much more than the +writer or the public. People should think of these matters before they +trust themselves on a pleasure-party into the realm of Nowhere. + + + + +YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN + + +Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem +village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to +exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was +aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the +wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman +Brown. + +“Dearest heart,” whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips +were close to his ear, “prithee put off your journey until sunrise and +sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such +dreams and such thoughts that she’s afeard of herself sometimes. Pray +tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year.” + +“My love and my Faith,” replied young Goodman Brown, “of all nights in +the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as +thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done ’twixt now +and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, +and we but three months married?” + +“Then God bless you!” said Faith, with the pink ribbons; “and may you +find all well when you come back.” + +“Amen!” cried Goodman Brown. “Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to +bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee.” + +So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to +turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head +of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her +pink ribbons. + +“Poor little Faith!” thought he, for his heart smote him. “What a +wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. +Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had +warned her what work is to be done tonight. But no, no; ’twould kill +her to think it. Well, she’s a blessed angel on earth; and after this +one night I’ll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven.” + +With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself +justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had +taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, +which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and +closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there +is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not +who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs +overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through +an unseen multitude. + +“There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree,” said Goodman Brown +to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him as he added, “What if +the devil himself should be at my very elbow!” + +His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking +forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, +seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose at Goodman Brown’s approach +and walked onward side by side with him. + +“You are late, Goodman Brown,” said he. “The clock of the Old South was +striking as I came through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutes +agone.” + +“Faith kept me back a while,” replied the young man, with a tremor in +his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not +wholly unexpected. + +It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of it +where these two were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned, the +second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank +of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to +him, though perhaps more in expression than features. Still they might +have been taken for father and son. And yet, though the elder person +was as simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had +an indescribable air of one who knew the world, and who would not have +felt abashed at the governor’s dinner table or in King William’s court, +were it possible that his affairs should call him thither. But the only +thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, +which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought +that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living +serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted +by the uncertain light. + +“Come, Goodman Brown,” cried his fellow-traveller, “this is a dull pace +for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon +weary.” + +“Friend,” said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full stop, +“having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to +return whence I came. I have scruples touching the matter thou wot’st +of.” + +“Sayest thou so?” replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. “Let us +walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if I convince thee not +thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forest yet.” + +“Too far! too far!” exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his +walk. “My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his +father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good +Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the first of +the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept—” + +“Such company, thou wouldst say,” observed the elder person, +interpreting his pause. “Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well +acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and +that’s no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when +he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem; and +it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own +hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip’s war. They +were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along +this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends +with you for their sake.” + +“If it be as thou sayest,” replied Goodman Brown, “I marvel they never +spoke of these matters; or, verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least +rumor of the sort would have driven them from New England. We are a +people of prayer, and good works to boot, and abide no such +wickedness.” + +“Wickedness or not,” said the traveller with the twisted staff, “I have +a very general acquaintance here in New England. The deacons of many a +church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen of divers +towns make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General +Court are firm supporters of my interest. The governor and I, too—But +these are state secrets.” + +“Can this be so?” cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his +undisturbed companion. “Howbeit, I have nothing to do with the governor +and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple +husbandman like me. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet +the eye of that good old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his +voice would make me tremble both Sabbath day and lecture day.” + +Thus far the elder traveller had listened with due gravity; but now +burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently +that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy. + +“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted he again and again; then composing himself, +“Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, don’t kill me with +laughing.” + +“Well, then, to end the matter at once,” said Goodman Brown, +considerably nettled, “there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear +little heart; and I’d rather break my own.” + +“Nay, if that be the case,” answered the other, “e’en go thy ways, +Goodman Brown. I would not for twenty old women like the one hobbling +before us that Faith should come to any harm.” + +As he spoke he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in +whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had +taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and +spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin. + +“A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness +at nightfall,” said he. “But with your leave, friend, I shall take a +cut through the woods until we have left this Christian woman behind. +Being a stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with and +whither I was going.” + +“Be it so,” said his fellow-traveller. “Betake you to the woods, and +let me keep the path.” + +Accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch his +companion, who advanced softly along the road until he had come within +a staff’s length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best +of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some +indistinct words—a prayer, doubtless—as she went. The traveller put +forth his staff and touched her withered neck with what seemed the +serpent’s tail. + +“The devil!” screamed the pious old lady. + +“Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?” observed the traveller, +confronting her and leaning on his writhing stick. + +“Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?” cried the good dame. +“Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, Goodman +Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But—would your +worship believe it?—my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, +as I suspect, by that unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I +was all anointed with the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil, and wolf’s +bane.” + +“Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe,” said the +shape of old Goodman Brown. + +“Ah, your worship knows the recipe,” cried the old lady, cackling +aloud. “So, as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and no +horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me there +is a nice young man to be taken into communion to-night. But now your +good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a +twinkling.” + +“That can hardly be,” answered her friend. “I may not spare you my arm, +Goody Cloyse; but here is my staff, if you will.” + +So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed +life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the +Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take +cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down +again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his +fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had +happened. + +“That old woman taught me my catechism,” said the young man; and there +was a world of meaning in this simple comment. + +They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his +companion to make good speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so +aptly that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in the bosom of his +auditor than to be suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked a +branch of maple to serve for a walking stick, and began to strip it of +the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The +moment his fingers touched them they became strangely withered and +dried up as with a week’s sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a good +free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman +Brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree and refused to go any +farther. + +“Friend,” said he, stubbornly, “my mind is made up. Not another step +will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman do choose to +go to the devil when I thought she was going to heaven: is that any +reason why I should quit my dear Faith and go after her?” + +“You will think better of this by and by,” said his acquaintance, +composedly. “Sit here and rest yourself a while; and when you feel like +moving again, there is my staff to help you along.” + +Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as +speedily out of sight as if he had vanished into the deepening gloom. +The young man sat a few moments by the roadside, applauding himself +greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the +minister in his morning walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old +Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his that very night, which +was to have been spent so wickedly, but so purely and sweetly now, in +the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations, +Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it +advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious +of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so +happily turned from it. + +On came the hoof tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old +voices, conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled sounds +appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the young man’s +hiding-place; but, owing doubtless to the depth of the gloom at that +particular spot, neither the travellers nor their steeds were visible. +Though their figures brushed the small boughs by the wayside, it could +not be seen that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam +from the strip of bright sky athwart which they must have passed. +Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside +the branches and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst without +discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he could +have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices +of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were +wont to do, when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council. +While yet within hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch. + +“Of the two, reverend sir,” said the voice like the deacon’s, “I had +rather miss an ordination dinner than to-night’s meeting. They tell me +that some of our community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and +others from Connecticut and Rhode Island, besides several of the Indian +powwows, who, after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the +best of us. Moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into +communion.” + +“Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!” replied the solemn old tones of the +minister. “Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, you know, +until I get on the ground.” + +The hoofs clattered again; and the voices, talking so strangely in the +empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been +gathered or solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these holy +men be journeying so deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman +Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on +the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his +heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a +heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and the stars +brightening in it. + +“With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the +devil!” cried Goodman Brown. + +While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had +lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried +across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still +visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was +sweeping swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of +the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once the +listener fancied that he could distinguish the accents of towns-people +of his own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had +met at the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern. +The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he +had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest, whispering without a +wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily +in the sunshine at Salem village, but never until now from a cloud of +night There was one voice of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet +with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, +perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, +both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward. + +“Faith!” shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; +and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, “Faith! Faith!” as if +bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness. + +The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, when the +unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream, +drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off +laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent +sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through +the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, +and beheld a pink ribbon. + +“My Faith is gone!” cried he, after one stupefied moment. “There is no +good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this +world given.” + +And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did +Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate that +he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk or run. The +road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at +length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing +onward with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole +forest was peopled with frightful sounds—the creaking of the trees, the +howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes the +wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar +around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. But +he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its +other horrors. + +“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Goodman Brown when the wind laughed at him. + +“Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with +your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, come devil +himself, and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he +fear you.” + +In truth, all through the haunted forest there could be nothing more +frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew among the black +pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to +an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such +laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons +around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he +rages in the breast of man. Thus sped the demoniac on his course, +until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as +when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on +fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of +midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him +onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly +from a distance with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune; it +was a familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse +died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, +but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in awful +harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry was lost to his +own ear by its unison with the cry of the desert. + +In the interval of silence he stole forward until the light glared full +upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark +wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural +resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four +blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles +at an evening meeting. The mass of foliage that had overgrown the +summit of the rock was all on fire, blazing high into the night and +fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendent twig and leafy +festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a numerous +congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and +again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the +solitary woods at once. + +“A grave and dark-clad company,” quoth Goodman Brown. + +In truth they were such. Among them, quivering to and fro between gloom +and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen next day at the council +board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked +devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the +holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirm that the lady of the governor +was there. At least there were high dames well known to her, and wives +of honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient +maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled +lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden gleams of light +flashing over the obscure field bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he +recognized a score of the church members of Salem village famous for +their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited +at the skirts of that venerable saint, his revered pastor. But, +irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, +these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there +were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given +over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. +It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor +were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered also among their +pale-faced enemies were the Indian priests, or powwows, who had often +scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any +known to English witchcraft. + +“But where is Faith?” thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came into his +heart, he trembled. + +Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as +the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that our nature +can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more. Unfathomable to +mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse after verse was sung; and +still the chorus of the desert swelled between like the deepest tone of +a mighty organ; and with the final peal of that dreadful anthem there +came a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling +beasts, and every other voice of the unconcerted wilderness were +mingling and according with the voice of guilty man in homage to the +prince of all. The four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and +obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke wreaths +above the impious assembly. At the same moment the fire on the rock +shot redly forth and formed a glowing arch above its base, where now +appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, the figure bore no +slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of the +New England churches. + +“Bring forth the converts!” cried a voice that echoed through the field +and rolled into the forest. + +At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees +and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful +brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He +could have well-nigh sworn that the shape of his own dead father +beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke wreath, while a +woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him +back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one step, nor +to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon +Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came +also the slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, +that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had +received the devil’s promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was +she. And there stood the proselytes beneath the canopy of fire. + +“Welcome, my children,” said the dark figure, “to the communion of your +race. Ye have found thus young your nature and your destiny. My +children, look behind you!” + +They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the +fiend worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on +every visage. + +“There,” resumed the sable form, “are all whom ye have reverenced from +youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own +sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful +aspirations heavenward. Yet here are they all in my worshipping +assembly. This night it shall be granted you to know their secret +deeds: how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton +words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager +for widows’ weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime and let him +sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste +to inherit their fathers’ wealth; and how fair damsels—blush not, sweet +ones—have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the sole +guest to an infant’s funeral. By the sympathy of your human hearts for +sin ye shall scent out all the places—whether in church, bedchamber, +street, field, or forest—where crime has been committed, and shall +exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood +spot. Far more than this. It shall be yours to penetrate, in every +bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and +which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human power—than +my power at its utmost—can make manifest in deeds. And now, my +children, look upon each other.” + +They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, the +wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, trembling +before that unhallowed altar. + +“Lo, there ye stand, my children,” said the figure, in a deep and +solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once +angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. “Depending upon +one another’s hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a +dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must +be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of +your race.” + +“Welcome,” repeated the fiend worshippers, in one cry of despair and +triumph. + +And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet +hesitating on the verge of wickedness in this dark world. A basin was +hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the +lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame? Herein did +the shape of evil dip his hand and prepare to lay the mark of baptism +upon their foreheads, that they might be partakers of the mystery of +sin, more conscious of the secret guilt of others, both in deed and +thought, than they could now be of their own. The husband cast one look +at his pale wife, and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would the +next glance show them to each other, shuddering alike at what they +disclosed and what they saw! + +“Faith! Faith!” cried the husband, “look up to heaven, and resist the +wicked one.” + +Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he spoken when he found +himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind +which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the +rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had been +all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew. + +The next morning young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of +Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old +minister was taking a walk along the graveyard to get an appetite for +breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he +passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint as if to +avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the +holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. “What God +doth the wizard pray to?” quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that +excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own +lattice, catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of +morning’s milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child as from the grasp +of the fiend himself. Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied +the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and +bursting into such joy at sight of him that she skipped along the +street and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But +Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on +without a greeting. + +Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild +dream of a witch-meeting? + +Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young +Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if +not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. +On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he +could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear +and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the +pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open +Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives +and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then +did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down +upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, waking suddenly at +midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or +eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered +to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he +had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by +Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly +procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse +upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom. + + + + +RAPPACCINI’S DAUGHTER + + +A young man, named Giovanni Guasconti, came, very long ago, from the +more southern region of Italy, to pursue his studies at the University +of Padua. Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of gold ducats in his +pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy chamber of an old edifice +which looked not unworthy to have been the palace of a Paduan noble, +and which, in fact, exhibited over its entrance the armorial bearings +of a family long since extinct. The young stranger, who was not +unstudied in the great poem of his country, recollected that one of the +ancestors of this family, and perhaps an occupant of this very mansion, +had been pictured by Dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of his +Inferno. These reminiscences and associations, together with the +tendency to heartbreak natural to a young man for the first time out of +his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily as he looked around +the desolate and ill-furnished apartment. + +“Holy Virgin, signor!” cried old Dame Lisabetta, who, won by the +youth’s remarkable beauty of person, was kindly endeavoring to give the +chamber a habitable air, “what a sigh was that to come out of a young +man’s heart! Do you find this old mansion gloomy? For the love of +Heaven, then, put your head out of the window, and you will see as +bright sunshine as you have left in Naples.” + +Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not +quite agree with her that the Paduan sunshine was as cheerful as that +of southern Italy. Such as it was, however, it fell upon a garden +beneath the window and expended its fostering influences on a variety +of plants, which seemed to have been cultivated with exceeding care. + +“Does this garden belong to the house?” asked Giovanni. + +“Heaven forbid, signor, unless it were fruitful of better pot herbs +than any that grow there now,” answered old Lisabetta. “No; that garden +is cultivated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, the famous +doctor, who, I warrant him, has been heard of as far as Naples. It is +said that he distils these plants into medicines that are as potent as +a charm. Oftentimes you may see the signor doctor at work, and +perchance the signora, his daughter, too, gathering the strange flowers +that grow in the garden.” + +The old woman had now done what she could for the aspect of the +chamber; and, commending the young man to the protection of the saints, +took her departure. + +Giovanni still found no better occupation than to look down into the +garden beneath his window. From its appearance, he judged it to be one +of those botanic gardens which were of earlier date in Padua than +elsewhere in Italy or in the world. Or, not improbably, it might once +have been the pleasure-place of an opulent family; for there was the +ruin of a marble fountain in the centre, sculptured with rare art, but +so wofully shattered that it was impossible to trace the original +design from the chaos of remaining fragments. The water, however, +continued to gush and sparkle into the sunbeams as cheerfully as ever. +A little gurgling sound ascended to the young man’s window, and made +him feel as if the fountain were an immortal spirit that sung its song +unceasingly and without heeding the vicissitudes around it, while one +century imbodied it in marble and another scattered the perishable +garniture on the soil. All about the pool into which the water subsided +grew various plants, that seemed to require a plentiful supply of +moisture for the nourishment of gigantic leaves, and in some instances, +flowers gorgeously magnificent. There was one shrub in particular, set +in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of +purple blossoms, each of which had the lustre and richness of a gem; +and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed enough +to illuminate the garden, even had there been no sunshine. Every +portion of the soil was peopled with plants and herbs, which, if less +beautiful, still bore tokens of assiduous care, as if all had their +individual virtues, known to the scientific mind that fostered them. +Some were placed in urns, rich with old carving, and others in common +garden pots; some crept serpent-like along the ground or climbed on +high, using whatever means of ascent was offered them. One plant had +wreathed itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus quite +veiled and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily +arranged that it might have served a sculptor for a study. + +While Giovanni stood at the window he heard a rustling behind a screen +of leaves, and became aware that a person was at work in the garden. +His figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself to be that of no +common laborer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow, and sickly-looking man, +dressed in a scholar’s garb of black. He was beyond the middle term of +life, with gray hair, a thin, gray beard, and a face singularly marked +with intellect and cultivation, but which could never, even in his more +youthful days, have expressed much warmth of heart. + +Nothing could exceed the intentness with which this scientific gardener +examined every shrub which grew in his path: it seemed as if he was +looking into their inmost nature, making observations in regard to +their creative essence, and discovering why one leaf grew in this shape +and another in that, and wherefore such and such flowers differed among +themselves in hue and perfume. Nevertheless, in spite of this deep +intelligence on his part, there was no approach to intimacy between +himself and these vegetable existences. On the contrary, he avoided +their actual touch or the direct inhaling of their odors with a caution +that impressed Giovanni most disagreeably; for the man’s demeanor was +that of one walking among malignant influences, such as savage beasts, +or deadly snakes, or evil spirits, which, should he allow them one +moment of license, would wreak upon him some terrible fatality. It was +strangely frightful to the young man’s imagination to see this air of +insecurity in a person cultivating a garden, that most simple and +innocent of human toils, and which had been alike the joy and labor of +the unfallen parents of the race. Was this garden, then, the Eden of +the present world? And this man, with such a perception of harm in what +his own hands caused to grow,—was he the Adam? + +The distrustful gardener, while plucking away the dead leaves or +pruning the too luxuriant growth of the shrubs, defended his hands with +a pair of thick gloves. Nor were these his only armor. When, in his +walk through the garden, he came to the magnificent plant that hung its +purple gems beside the marble fountain, he placed a kind of mask over +his mouth and nostrils, as if all this beauty did but conceal a +deadlier malice; but, finding his task still too dangerous, he drew +back, removed the mask, and called loudly, but in the infirm voice of a +person affected with inward disease, “Beatrice! Beatrice!” + +“Here am I, my father. What would you?” cried a rich and youthful voice +from the window of the opposite house—a voice as rich as a tropical +sunset, and which made Giovanni, though he knew not why, think of deep +hues of purple or crimson and of perfumes heavily delectable. “Are you +in the garden?” + +“Yes, Beatrice,” answered the gardener, “and I need your help.” + +Soon there emerged from under a sculptured portal the figure of a young +girl, arrayed with as much richness of taste as the most splendid of +the flowers, beautiful as the day, and with a bloom so deep and vivid +that one shade more would have been too much. She looked redundant with +life, health, and energy; all of which attributes were bound down and +compressed, as it were and girdled tensely, in their luxuriance, by her +virgin zone. Yet Giovanni’s fancy must have grown morbid while he +looked down into the garden; for the impression which the fair stranger +made upon him was as if here were another flower, the human sister of +those vegetable ones, as beautiful as they, more beautiful than the +richest of them, but still to be touched only with a glove, nor to be +approached without a mask. As Beatrice came down the garden path, it +was observable that she handled and inhaled the odor of several of the +plants which her father had most sedulously avoided. + +“Here, Beatrice,” said the latter, “see how many needful offices +require to be done to our chief treasure. Yet, shattered as I am, my +life might pay the penalty of approaching it so closely as +circumstances demand. Henceforth, I fear, this plant must be consigned +to your sole charge.” + +“And gladly will I undertake it,” cried again the rich tones of the +young lady, as she bent towards the magnificent plant and opened her +arms as if to embrace it. “Yes, my sister, my splendour, it shall be +Beatrice’s task to nurse and serve thee; and thou shalt reward her with +thy kisses and perfumed breath, which to her is as the breath of life.” + +Then, with all the tenderness in her manner that was so strikingly +expressed in her words, she busied herself with such attentions as the +plant seemed to require; and Giovanni, at his lofty window, rubbed his +eyes and almost doubted whether it were a girl tending her favorite +flower, or one sister performing the duties of affection to another. +The scene soon terminated. Whether Dr. Rappaccini had finished his +labors in the garden, or that his watchful eye had caught the +stranger’s face, he now took his daughter’s arm and retired. Night was +already closing in; oppressive exhalations seemed to proceed from the +plants and steal upward past the open window; and Giovanni, closing the +lattice, went to his couch and dreamed of a rich flower and beautiful +girl. Flower and maiden were different, and yet the same, and fraught +with some strange peril in either shape. + +But there is an influence in the light of morning that tends to rectify +whatever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may have incurred +during the sun’s decline, or among the shadows of the night, or in the +less wholesome glow of moonshine. Giovanni’s first movement, on +starting from sleep, was to throw open the window and gaze down into +the garden which his dreams had made so fertile of mysteries. He was +surprised and a little ashamed to find how real and matter-of-fact an +affair it proved to be, in the first rays of the sun which gilded the +dew-drops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter +beauty to each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of +ordinary experience. The young man rejoiced that, in the heart of the +barren city, he had the privilege of overlooking this spot of lovely +and luxuriant vegetation. It would serve, he said to himself, as a +symbolic language to keep him in communion with Nature. Neither the +sickly and thoughtworn Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini, it is true, nor his +brilliant daughter, were now visible; so that Giovanni could not +determine how much of the singularity which he attributed to both was +due to their own qualities and how much to his wonder-working fancy; +but he was inclined to take a most rational view of the whole matter. + +In the course of the day he paid his respects to Signor Pietro +Baglioni, professor of medicine in the university, a physician of +eminent repute to whom Giovanni had brought a letter of introduction. +The professor was an elderly personage, apparently of genial nature, +and habits that might almost be called jovial. He kept the young man to +dinner, and made himself very agreeable by the freedom and liveliness +of his conversation, especially when warmed by a flask or two of Tuscan +wine. Giovanni, conceiving that men of science, inhabitants of the same +city, must needs be on familiar terms with one another, took an +opportunity to mention the name of Dr. Rappaccini. But the professor +did not respond with so much cordiality as he had anticipated. + +“Ill would it become a teacher of the divine art of medicine,” said +Professor Pietro Baglioni, in answer to a question of Giovanni, “to +withhold due and well-considered praise of a physician so eminently +skilled as Rappaccini; but, on the other hand, I should answer it but +scantily to my conscience were I to permit a worthy youth like +yourself, Signor Giovanni, the son of an ancient friend, to imbibe +erroneous ideas respecting a man who might hereafter chance to hold +your life and death in his hands. The truth is, our worshipful Dr. +Rappaccini has as much science as any member of the faculty—with +perhaps one single exception—in Padua, or all Italy; but there are +certain grave objections to his professional character.” + +“And what are they?” asked the young man. + +“Has my friend Giovanni any disease of body or heart, that he is so +inquisitive about physicians?” said the professor, with a smile. “But +as for Rappaccini, it is said of him—and I, who know the man well, can +answer for its truth—that he cares infinitely more for science than for +mankind. His patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some +new experiment. He would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, +or whatever else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as +a grain of mustard seed to the great heap of his accumulated +knowledge.” + +“Methinks he is an awful man indeed,” remarked Guasconti, mentally +recalling the cold and purely intellectual aspect of Rappaccini. “And +yet, worshipful professor, is it not a noble spirit? Are there many men +capable of so spiritual a love of science?” + +“God forbid,” answered the professor, somewhat testily; “at least, +unless they take sounder views of the healing art than those adopted by +Rappaccini. It is his theory that all medicinal virtues are comprised +within those substances which we term vegetable poisons. These he +cultivates with his own hands, and is said even to have produced new +varieties of poison, more horribly deleterious than Nature, without the +assistance of this learned person, would ever have plagued the world +withal. That the signor doctor does less mischief than might be +expected with such dangerous substances is undeniable. Now and then, it +must be owned, he has effected, or seemed to effect, a marvellous cure; +but, to tell you my private mind, Signor Giovanni, he should receive +little credit for such instances of success,—they being probably the +work of chance,—but should be held strictly accountable for his +failures, which may justly be considered his own work.” + +The youth might have taken Baglioni’s opinions with many grains of +allowance had he known that there was a professional warfare of long +continuance between him and Dr. Rappaccini, in which the latter was +generally thought to have gained the advantage. If the reader be +inclined to judge for himself, we refer him to certain black-letter +tracts on both sides, preserved in the medical department of the +University of Padua. + +“I know not, most learned professor,” returned Giovanni, after musing +on what had been said of Rappaccini’s exclusive zeal for science,—“I +know not how dearly this physician may love his art; but surely there +is one object more dear to him. He has a daughter.” + +“Aha!” cried the professor, with a laugh. “So now our friend Giovanni’s +secret is out. You have heard of this daughter, whom all the young men +in Padua are wild about, though not half a dozen have ever had the good +hap to see her face. I know little of the Signora Beatrice save that +Rappaccini is said to have instructed her deeply in his science, and +that, young and beautiful as fame reports her, she is already qualified +to fill a professor’s chair. Perchance her father destines her for +mine! Other absurd rumors there be, not worth talking about or +listening to. So now, Signor Giovanni, drink off your glass of +lachryma.” + +Guasconti returned to his lodgings somewhat heated with the wine he had +quaffed, and which caused his brain to swim with strange fantasies in +reference to Dr. Rappaccini and the beautiful Beatrice. On his way, +happening to pass by a florist’s, he bought a fresh bouquet of flowers. + +Ascending to his chamber, he seated himself near the window, but within +the shadow thrown by the depth of the wall, so that he could look down +into the garden with little risk of being discovered. All beneath his +eye was a solitude. The strange plants were basking in the sunshine, +and now and then nodding gently to one another, as if in acknowledgment +of sympathy and kindred. In the midst, by the shattered fountain, grew +the magnificent shrub, with its purple gems clustering all over it; +they glowed in the air, and gleamed back again out of the depths of the +pool, which thus seemed to overflow with colored radiance from the rich +reflection that was steeped in it. At first, as we have said, the +garden was a solitude. Soon, however,—as Giovanni had half hoped, half +feared, would be the case,—a figure appeared beneath the antique +sculptured portal, and came down between the rows of plants, inhaling +their various perfumes as if she were one of those beings of old +classic fable that lived upon sweet odors. On again beholding Beatrice, +the young man was even startled to perceive how much her beauty +exceeded his recollection of it; so brilliant, so vivid, was its +character, that she glowed amid the sunlight, and, as Giovanni +whispered to himself, positively illuminated the more shadowy intervals +of the garden path. Her face being now more revealed than on the former +occasion, he was struck by its expression of simplicity and +sweetness,—qualities that had not entered into his idea of her +character, and which made him ask anew what manner of mortal she might +be. Nor did he fail again to observe, or imagine, an analogy between +the beautiful girl and the gorgeous shrub that hung its gemlike flowers +over the fountain,—a resemblance which Beatrice seemed to have indulged +a fantastic humor in heightening, both by the arrangement of her dress +and the selection of its hues. + +Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a passionate +ardor, and drew its branches into an intimate embrace—so intimate that +her features were hidden in its leafy bosom and her glistening ringlets +all intermingled with the flowers. + +“Give me thy breath, my sister,” exclaimed Beatrice; “for I am faint +with common air. And give me this flower of thine, which I separate +with gentlest fingers from the stem and place it close beside my +heart.” + +With these words the beautiful daughter of Rappaccini plucked one of +the richest blossoms of the shrub, and was about to fasten it in her +bosom. But now, unless Giovanni’s draughts of wine had bewildered his +senses, a singular incident occurred. A small orange-colored reptile, +of the lizard or chameleon species, chanced to be creeping along the +path, just at the feet of Beatrice. It appeared to Giovanni,—but, at +the distance from which he gazed, he could scarcely have seen anything +so minute,—it appeared to him, however, that a drop or two of moisture +from the broken stem of the flower descended upon the lizard’s head. +For an instant the reptile contorted itself violently, and then lay +motionless in the sunshine. Beatrice observed this remarkable +phenomenon and crossed herself, sadly, but without surprise; nor did +she therefore hesitate to arrange the fatal flower in her bosom. There +it blushed, and almost glimmered with the dazzling effect of a precious +stone, adding to her dress and aspect the one appropriate charm which +nothing else in the world could have supplied. But Giovanni, out of the +shadow of his window, bent forward and shrank back, and murmured and +trembled. + +“Am I awake? Have I my senses?” said he to himself. “What is this +being? Beautiful shall I call her, or inexpressibly terrible?” + +Beatrice now strayed carelessly through the garden, approaching closer +beneath Giovanni’s window, so that he was compelled to thrust his head +quite out of its concealment in order to gratify the intense and +painful curiosity which she excited. At this moment there came a +beautiful insect over the garden wall; it had, perhaps, wandered +through the city, and found no flowers or verdure among those antique +haunts of men until the heavy perfumes of Dr. Rappaccini’s shrubs had +lured it from afar. Without alighting on the flowers, this winged +brightness seemed to be attracted by Beatrice, and lingered in the air +and fluttered about her head. Now, here it could not be but that +Giovanni Guasconti’s eyes deceived him. Be that as it might, he fancied +that, while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish delight, it +grew faint and fell at her feet; its bright wings shivered; it was +dead—from no cause that he could discern, unless it were the atmosphere +of her breath. Again Beatrice crossed herself and sighed heavily as she +bent over the dead insect. + +An impulsive movement of Giovanni drew her eyes to the window. There +she beheld the beautiful head of the young man—rather a Grecian than an +Italian head, with fair, regular features, and a glistening of gold +among his ringlets—gazing down upon her like a being that hovered in +mid air. Scarcely knowing what he did, Giovanni threw down the bouquet +which he had hitherto held in his hand. + +“Signora,” said he, “there are pure and healthful flowers. Wear them +for the sake of Giovanni Guasconti.” + +“Thanks, signor,” replied Beatrice, with her rich voice, that came +forth as it were like a gush of music, and with a mirthful expression +half childish and half woman-like. “I accept your gift, and would fain +recompense it with this precious purple flower; but if I toss it into +the air it will not reach you. So Signor Guasconti must even content +himself with my thanks.” + +She lifted the bouquet from the ground, and then, as if inwardly +ashamed at having stepped aside from her maidenly reserve to respond to +a stranger’s greeting, passed swiftly homeward through the garden. But +few as the moments were, it seemed to Giovanni, when she was on the +point of vanishing beneath the sculptured portal, that his beautiful +bouquet was already beginning to wither in her grasp. It was an idle +thought; there could be no possibility of distinguishing a faded flower +from a fresh one at so great a distance. + +For many days after this incident the young man avoided the window that +looked into Dr. Rappaccini’s garden, as if something ugly and monstrous +would have blasted his eyesight had he been betrayed into a glance. He +felt conscious of having put himself, to a certain extent, within the +influence of an unintelligible power by the communication which he had +opened with Beatrice. The wisest course would have been, if his heart +were in any real danger, to quit his lodgings and Padua itself at once; +the next wiser, to have accustomed himself, as far as possible, to the +familiar and daylight view of Beatrice—thus bringing her rigidly and +systematically within the limits of ordinary experience. Least of all, +while avoiding her sight, ought Giovanni to have remained so near this +extraordinary being that the proximity and possibility even of +intercourse should give a kind of substance and reality to the wild +vagaries which his imagination ran riot continually in producing. +Guasconti had not a deep heart—or, at all events, its depths were not +sounded now; but he had a quick fancy, and an ardent southern +temperament, which rose every instant to a higher fever pitch. Whether +or no Beatrice possessed those terrible attributes, that fatal breath, +the affinity with those so beautiful and deadly flowers which were +indicated by what Giovanni had witnessed, she had at least instilled a +fierce and subtle poison into his system. It was not love, although her +rich beauty was a madness to him; nor horror, even while he fancied her +spirit to be imbued with the same baneful essence that seemed to +pervade her physical frame; but a wild offspring of both love and +horror that had each parent in it, and burned like one and shivered +like the other. Giovanni knew not what to dread; still less did he know +what to hope; yet hope and dread kept a continual warfare in his +breast, alternately vanquishing one another and starting up afresh to +renew the contest. Blessed are all simple emotions, be they dark or +bright! It is the lurid intermixture of the two that produces the +illuminating blaze of the infernal regions. + +Sometimes he endeavored to assuage the fever of his spirit by a rapid +walk through the streets of Padua or beyond its gates: his footsteps +kept time with the throbbings of his brain, so that the walk was apt to +accelerate itself to a race. One day he found himself arrested; his arm +was seized by a portly personage, who had turned back on recognizing +the young man and expended much breath in overtaking him. + +“Signor Giovanni! Stay, my young friend!” cried he. “Have you forgotten +me? That might well be the case if I were as much altered as yourself.” + +It was Baglioni, whom Giovanni had avoided ever since their first +meeting, from a doubt that the professor’s sagacity would look too +deeply into his secrets. Endeavoring to recover himself, he stared +forth wildly from his inner world into the outer one and spoke like a +man in a dream. + +“Yes; I am Giovanni Guasconti. You are Professor Pietro Baglioni. Now +let me pass!” + +“Not yet, not yet, Signor Giovanni Guasconti,” said the professor, +smiling, but at the same time scrutinizing the youth with an earnest +glance. “What! did I grow up side by side with your father? and shall +his son pass me like a stranger in these old streets of Padua? Stand +still, Signor Giovanni; for we must have a word or two before we part.” + +“Speedily, then, most worshipful professor, speedily,” said Giovanni, +with feverish impatience. “Does not your worship see that I am in +haste?” + +Now, while he was speaking there came a man in black along the street, +stooping and moving feebly like a person in inferior health. His face +was all overspread with a most sickly and sallow hue, but yet so +pervaded with an expression of piercing and active intellect that an +observer might easily have overlooked the merely physical attributes +and have seen only this wonderful energy. As he passed, this person +exchanged a cold and distant salutation with Baglioni, but fixed his +eyes upon Giovanni with an intentness that seemed to bring out whatever +was within him worthy of notice. Nevertheless, there was a peculiar +quietness in the look, as if taking merely a speculative, not a human +interest, in the young man. + +“It is Dr. Rappaccini!” whispered the professor when the stranger had +passed. “Has he ever seen your face before?” + +“Not that I know,” answered Giovanni, starting at the name. + +“He HAS seen you! he must have seen you!” said Baglioni, hastily. “For +some purpose or other, this man of science is making a study of you. I +know that look of his! It is the same that coldly illuminates his face +as he bends over a bird, a mouse, or a butterfly, which, in pursuance +of some experiment, he has killed by the perfume of a flower; a look as +deep as Nature itself, but without Nature’s warmth of love. Signor +Giovanni, I will stake my life upon it, you are the subject of one of +Rappaccini’s experiments!” + +“Will you make a fool of me?” cried Giovanni, passionately. “THAT, +signor professor, were an untoward experiment.” + +“Patience! patience!” replied the imperturbable professor. “I tell +thee, my poor Giovanni, that Rappaccini has a scientific interest in +thee. Thou hast fallen into fearful hands! And the Signora +Beatrice,—what part does she act in this mystery?” + +But Guasconti, finding Baglioni’s pertinacity intolerable, here broke +away, and was gone before the professor could again seize his arm. He +looked after the young man intently and shook his head. + +“This must not be,” said Baglioni to himself. “The youth is the son of +my old friend, and shall not come to any harm from which the arcana of +medical science can preserve him. Besides, it is too insufferable an +impertinence in Rappaccini, thus to snatch the lad out of my own hands, +as I may say, and make use of him for his infernal experiments. This +daughter of his! It shall be looked to. Perchance, most learned +Rappaccini, I may foil you where you little dream of it!” + +Meanwhile Giovanni had pursued a circuitous route, and at length found +himself at the door of his lodgings. As he crossed the threshold he was +met by old Lisabetta, who smirked and smiled, and was evidently +desirous to attract his attention; vainly, however, as the ebullition +of his feelings had momentarily subsided into a cold and dull vacuity. +He turned his eyes full upon the withered face that was puckering +itself into a smile, but seemed to behold it not. The old dame, +therefore, laid her grasp upon his cloak. + +“Signor! signor!” whispered she, still with a smile over the whole +breadth of her visage, so that it looked not unlike a grotesque carving +in wood, darkened by centuries. “Listen, signor! There is a private +entrance into the garden!” + +“What do you say?” exclaimed Giovanni, turning quickly about, as if an +inanimate thing should start into feverish life. “A private entrance +into Dr. Rappaccini’s garden?” + +“Hush! hush! not so loud!” whispered Lisabetta, putting her hand over +his mouth. “Yes; into the worshipful doctor’s garden, where you may see +all his fine shrubbery. Many a young man in Padua would give gold to be +admitted among those flowers.” + +Giovanni put a piece of gold into her hand. + +“Show me the way,” said he. + +A surmise, probably excited by his conversation with Baglioni, crossed +his mind, that this interposition of old Lisabetta might perchance be +connected with the intrigue, whatever were its nature, in which the +professor seemed to suppose that Dr. Rappaccini was involving him. But +such a suspicion, though it disturbed Giovanni, was inadequate to +restrain him. The instant that he was aware of the possibility of +approaching Beatrice, it seemed an absolute necessity of his existence +to do so. It mattered not whether she were angel or demon; he was +irrevocably within her sphere, and must obey the law that whirled him +onward, in ever-lessening circles, towards a result which he did not +attempt to foreshadow; and yet, strange to say, there came across him a +sudden doubt whether this intense interest on his part were not +delusory; whether it were really of so deep and positive a nature as to +justify him in now thrusting himself into an incalculable position; +whether it were not merely the fantasy of a young man’s brain, only +slightly or not at all connected with his heart. + +He paused, hesitated, turned half about, but again went on. His +withered guide led him along several obscure passages, and finally +undid a door, through which, as it was opened, there came the sight and +sound of rustling leaves, with the broken sunshine glimmering among +them. Giovanni stepped forth, and, forcing himself through the +entanglement of a shrub that wreathed its tendrils over the hidden +entrance, stood beneath his own window in the open area of Dr. +Rappaccini’s garden. + +How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass +and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible +realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly self-possessed, amid +circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to +anticipate! Fate delights to thwart us thus. Passion will choose his +own time to rush upon the scene, and lingers sluggishly behind when an +appropriate adjustment of events would seem to summon his appearance. +So was it now with Giovanni. Day after day his pulses had throbbed with +feverish blood at the improbable idea of an interview with Beatrice, +and of standing with her, face to face, in this very garden, basking in +the Oriental sunshine of her beauty, and snatching from her full gaze +the mystery which he deemed the riddle of his own existence. But now +there was a singular and untimely equanimity within his breast. He +threw a glance around the garden to discover if Beatrice or her father +were present, and, perceiving that he was alone, began a critical +observation of the plants. + +The aspect of one and all of them dissatisfied him; their gorgeousness +seemed fierce, passionate, and even unnatural. There was hardly an +individual shrub which a wanderer, straying by himself through a +forest, would not have been startled to find growing wild, as if an +unearthly face had glared at him out of the thicket. Several also would +have shocked a delicate instinct by an appearance of artificialness +indicating that there had been such commixture, and, as it were, +adultery, of various vegetable species, that the production was no +longer of God’s making, but the monstrous offspring of man’s depraved +fancy, glowing with only an evil mockery of beauty. They were probably +the result of experiment, which in one or two cases had succeeded in +mingling plants individually lovely into a compound possessing the +questionable and ominous character that distinguished the whole growth +of the garden. In fine, Giovanni recognized but two or three plants in +the collection, and those of a kind that he well knew to be poisonous. +While busy with these contemplations he heard the rustling of a silken +garment, and, turning, beheld Beatrice emerging from beneath the +sculptured portal. + +Giovanni had not considered with himself what should be his deportment; +whether he should apologize for his intrusion into the garden, or +assume that he was there with the privity at least, if not by the +desire, of Dr. Rappaccini or his daughter; but Beatrice’s manner placed +him at his ease, though leaving him still in doubt by what agency he +had gained admittance. She came lightly along the path and met him near +the broken fountain. There was surprise in her face, but brightened by +a simple and kind expression of pleasure. + +“You are a connoisseur in flowers, signor,” said Beatrice, with a +smile, alluding to the bouquet which he had flung her from the window. +“It is no marvel, therefore, if the sight of my father’s rare +collection has tempted you to take a nearer view. If he were here, he +could tell you many strange and interesting facts as to the nature and +habits of these shrubs; for he has spent a lifetime in such studies, +and this garden is his world.” + +“And yourself, lady,” observed Giovanni, “if fame says true,—you +likewise are deeply skilled in the virtues indicated by these rich +blossoms and these spicy perfumes. Would you deign to be my +instructress, I should prove an apter scholar than if taught by Signor +Rappaccini himself.” + +“Are there such idle rumors?” asked Beatrice, with the music of a +pleasant laugh. “Do people say that I am skilled in my father’s science +of plants? What a jest is there! No; though I have grown up among these +flowers, I know no more of them than their hues and perfume; and +sometimes methinks I would fain rid myself of even that small +knowledge. There are many flowers here, and those not the least +brilliant, that shock and offend me when they meet my eye. But pray, +signor, do not believe these stories about my science. Believe nothing +of me save what you see with your own eyes.” + +“And must I believe all that I have seen with my own eyes?” asked +Giovanni, pointedly, while the recollection of former scenes made him +shrink. “No, signora; you demand too little of me. Bid me believe +nothing save what comes from your own lips.” + +It would appear that Beatrice understood him. There came a deep flush +to her cheek; but she looked full into Giovanni’s eyes, and responded +to his gaze of uneasy suspicion with a queenlike haughtiness. + +“I do so bid you, signor,” she replied. “Forget whatever you may have +fancied in regard to me. If true to the outward senses, still it may be +false in its essence; but the words of Beatrice Rappaccini’s lips are +true from the depths of the heart outward. Those you may believe.” + +A fervor glowed in her whole aspect and beamed upon Giovanni’s +consciousness like the light of truth itself; but while she spoke there +was a fragrance in the atmosphere around her, rich and delightful, +though evanescent, yet which the young man, from an indefinable +reluctance, scarcely dared to draw into his lungs. It might be the odor +of the flowers. Could it be Beatrice’s breath which thus embalmed her +words with a strange richness, as if by steeping them in her heart? A +faintness passed like a shadow over Giovanni and flitted away; he +seemed to gaze through the beautiful girl’s eyes into her transparent +soul, and felt no more doubt or fear. + +The tinge of passion that had colored Beatrice’s manner vanished; she +became gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her communion +with the youth not unlike what the maiden of a lonely island might have +felt conversing with a voyager from the civilized world. Evidently her +experience of life had been confined within the limits of that garden. +She talked now about matters as simple as the daylight or summer +clouds, and now asked questions in reference to the city, or Giovanni’s +distant home, his friends, his mother, and his sisters—questions +indicating such seclusion, and such lack of familiarity with modes and +forms, that Giovanni responded as if to an infant. Her spirit gushed +out before him like a fresh rill that was just catching its first +glimpse of the sunlight and wondering at the reflections of earth and +sky which were flung into its bosom. There came thoughts, too, from a +deep source, and fantasies of a gemlike brilliancy, as if diamonds and +rubies sparkled upward among the bubbles of the fountain. Ever and anon +there gleamed across the young man’s mind a sense of wonder that he +should be walking side by side with the being who had so wrought upon +his imagination, whom he had idealized in such hues of terror, in whom +he had positively witnessed such manifestations of dreadful +attributes,—that he should be conversing with Beatrice like a brother, +and should find her so human and so maidenlike. But such reflections +were only momentary; the effect of her character was too real not to +make itself familiar at once. + +In this free intercourse they had strayed through the garden, and now, +after many turns among its avenues, were come to the shattered +fountain, beside which grew the magnificent shrub, with its treasury of +glowing blossoms. A fragrance was diffused from it which Giovanni +recognized as identical with that which he had attributed to Beatrice’s +breath, but incomparably more powerful. As her eyes fell upon it, +Giovanni beheld her press her hand to her bosom as if her heart were +throbbing suddenly and painfully. + +“For the first time in my life,” murmured she, addressing the shrub, “I +had forgotten thee.” + +“I remember, signora,” said Giovanni, “that you once promised to reward +me with one of these living gems for the bouquet which I had the happy +boldness to fling to your feet. Permit me now to pluck it as a memorial +of this interview.” + +He made a step towards the shrub with extended hand; but Beatrice +darted forward, uttering a shriek that went through his heart like a +dagger. She caught his hand and drew it back with the whole force of +her slender figure. Giovanni felt her touch thrilling through his +fibres. + +“Touch it not!” exclaimed she, in a voice of agony. “Not for thy life! +It is fatal!” + +Then, hiding her face, she fled from him and vanished beneath the +sculptured portal. As Giovanni followed her with his eyes, he beheld +the emaciated figure and pale intelligence of Dr. Rappaccini, who had +been watching the scene, he knew not how long, within the shadow of the +entrance. + +No sooner was Guasconti alone in his chamber than the image of Beatrice +came back to his passionate musings, invested with all the witchery +that had been gathering around it ever since his first glimpse of her, +and now likewise imbued with a tender warmth of girlish womanhood. She +was human; her nature was endowed with all gentle and feminine +qualities; she was worthiest to be worshipped; she was capable, surely, +on her part, of the height and heroism of love. Those tokens which he +had hitherto considered as proofs of a frightful peculiarity in her +physical and moral system were now either forgotten, or, by the subtle +sophistry of passion transmitted into a golden crown of enchantment, +rendering Beatrice the more admirable by so much as she was the more +unique. Whatever had looked ugly was now beautiful; or, if incapable of +such a change, it stole away and hid itself among those shapeless half +ideas which throng the dim region beyond the daylight of our perfect +consciousness. Thus did he spend the night, nor fell asleep until the +dawn had begun to awake the slumbering flowers in Dr. Rappaccini’s +garden, whither Giovanni’s dreams doubtless led him. Up rose the sun in +his due season, and, flinging his beams upon the young man’s eyelids, +awoke him to a sense of pain. When thoroughly aroused, he became +sensible of a burning and tingling agony in his hand—in his right +hand—the very hand which Beatrice had grasped in her own when he was on +the point of plucking one of the gemlike flowers. On the back of that +hand there was now a purple print like that of four small fingers, and +the likeness of a slender thumb upon his wrist. + +Oh, how stubbornly does love,—or even that cunning semblance of love +which flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into +the heart,—how stubbornly does it hold its faith until the moment comes +when it is doomed to vanish into thin mist! Giovanni wrapped a +handkerchief about his hand and wondered what evil thing had stung him, +and soon forgot his pain in a reverie of Beatrice. + +After the first interview, a second was in the inevitable course of +what we call fate. A third; a fourth; and a meeting with Beatrice in +the garden was no longer an incident in Giovanni’s daily life, but the +whole space in which he might be said to live; for the anticipation and +memory of that ecstatic hour made up the remainder. Nor was it +otherwise with the daughter of Rappaccini. She watched for the youth’s +appearance, and flew to his side with confidence as unreserved as if +they had been playmates from early infancy—as if they were such +playmates still. If, by any unwonted chance, he failed to come at the +appointed moment, she stood beneath the window and sent up the rich +sweetness of her tones to float around him in his chamber and echo and +reverberate throughout his heart: “Giovanni! Giovanni! Why tarriest +thou? Come down!” And down he hastened into that Eden of poisonous +flowers. + +But, with all this intimate familiarity, there was still a reserve in +Beatrice’s demeanor, so rigidly and invariably sustained that the idea +of infringing it scarcely occurred to his imagination. By all +appreciable signs, they loved; they had looked love with eyes that +conveyed the holy secret from the depths of one soul into the depths of +the other, as if it were too sacred to be whispered by the way; they +had even spoken love in those gushes of passion when their spirits +darted forth in articulated breath like tongues of long-hidden flame; +and yet there had been no seal of lips, no clasp of hands, nor any +slightest caress such as love claims and hallows. He had never touched +one of the gleaming ringlets of her hair; her garment—so marked was the +physical barrier between them—had never been waved against him by a +breeze. On the few occasions when Giovanni had seemed tempted to +overstep the limit, Beatrice grew so sad, so stern, and withal wore +such a look of desolate separation, shuddering at itself, that not a +spoken word was requisite to repel him. At such times he was startled +at the horrible suspicions that rose, monster-like, out of the caverns +of his heart and stared him in the face; his love grew thin and faint +as the morning mist, his doubts alone had substance. But, when +Beatrice’s face brightened again after the momentary shadow, she was +transformed at once from the mysterious, questionable being whom he had +watched with so much awe and horror; she was now the beautiful and +unsophisticated girl whom he felt that his spirit knew with a certainty +beyond all other knowledge. + +A considerable time had now passed since Giovanni’s last meeting with +Baglioni. One morning, however, he was disagreeably surprised by a +visit from the professor, whom he had scarcely thought of for whole +weeks, and would willingly have forgotten still longer. Given up as he +had long been to a pervading excitement, he could tolerate no +companions except upon condition of their perfect sympathy with his +present state of feeling. Such sympathy was not to be expected from +Professor Baglioni. + +The visitor chatted carelessly for a few moments about the gossip of +the city and the university, and then took up another topic. + +“I have been reading an old classic author lately,” said he, “and met +with a story that strangely interested me. Possibly you may remember +it. It is of an Indian prince, who sent a beautiful woman as a present +to Alexander the Great. She was as lovely as the dawn and gorgeous as +the sunset; but what especially distinguished her was a certain rich +perfume in her breath—richer than a garden of Persian roses. Alexander, +as was natural to a youthful conqueror, fell in love at first sight +with this magnificent stranger; but a certain sage physician, happening +to be present, discovered a terrible secret in regard to her.” + +“And what was that?” asked Giovanni, turning his eyes downward to avoid +those of the professor. + +“That this lovely woman,” continued Baglioni, with emphasis, “had been +nourished with poisons from her birth upward, until her whole nature +was so imbued with them that she herself had become the deadliest +poison in existence. Poison was her element of life. With that rich +perfume of her breath she blasted the very air. Her love would have +been poison—her embrace death. Is not this a marvellous tale?” + +“A childish fable,” answered Giovanni, nervously starting from his +chair. “I marvel how your worship finds time to read such nonsense +among your graver studies.” + +“By the by,” said the professor, looking uneasily about him, “what +singular fragrance is this in your apartment? Is it the perfume of your +gloves? It is faint, but delicious; and yet, after all, by no means +agreeable. Were I to breathe it long, methinks it would make me ill. It +is like the breath of a flower; but I see no flowers in the chamber.” + +“Nor are there any,” replied Giovanni, who had turned pale as the +professor spoke; “nor, I think, is there any fragrance except in your +worship’s imagination. Odors, being a sort of element combined of the +sensual and the spiritual, are apt to deceive us in this manner. The +recollection of a perfume, the bare idea of it, may easily be mistaken +for a present reality.” + +“Ay; but my sober imagination does not often play such tricks,” said +Baglioni; “and, were I to fancy any kind of odor, it would be that of +some vile apothecary drug, wherewith my fingers are likely enough to be +imbued. Our worshipful friend Rappaccini, as I have heard, tinctures +his medicaments with odors richer than those of Araby. Doubtless, +likewise, the fair and learned Signora Beatrice would minister to her +patients with draughts as sweet as a maiden’s breath; but woe to him +that sips them!” + +Giovanni’s face evinced many contending emotions. The tone in which the +professor alluded to the pure and lovely daughter of Rappaccini was a +torture to his soul; and yet the intimation of a view of her character +opposite to his own, gave instantaneous distinctness to a thousand dim +suspicions, which now grinned at him like so many demons. But he strove +hard to quell them and to respond to Baglioni with a true lover’s +perfect faith. + +“Signor professor,” said he, “you were my father’s friend; perchance, +too, it is your purpose to act a friendly part towards his son. I would +fain feel nothing towards you save respect and deference; but I pray +you to observe, signor, that there is one subject on which we must not +speak. You know not the Signora Beatrice. You cannot, therefore, +estimate the wrong—the blasphemy, I may even say—that is offered to her +character by a light or injurious word.” + +“Giovanni! my poor Giovanni!” answered the professor, with a calm +expression of pity, “I know this wretched girl far better than +yourself. You shall hear the truth in respect to the poisoner +Rappaccini and his poisonous daughter; yes, poisonous as she is +beautiful. Listen; for, even should you do violence to my gray hairs, +it shall not silence me. That old fable of the Indian woman has become +a truth by the deep and deadly science of Rappaccini and in the person +of the lovely Beatrice.” + +Giovanni groaned and hid his face + +“Her father,” continued Baglioni, “was not restrained by natural +affection from offering up his child in this horrible manner as the +victim of his insane zeal for science; for, let us do him justice, he +is as true a man of science as ever distilled his own heart in an +alembic. What, then, will be your fate? Beyond a doubt you are selected +as the material of some new experiment. Perhaps the result is to be +death; perhaps a fate more awful still. Rappaccini, with what he calls +the interest of science before his eyes, will hesitate at nothing.” + +“It is a dream,” muttered Giovanni to himself; “surely it is a dream.” + +“But,” resumed the professor, “be of good cheer, son of my friend. It +is not yet too late for the rescue. Possibly we may even succeed in +bringing back this miserable child within the limits of ordinary +nature, from which her father’s madness has estranged her. Behold this +little silver vase! It was wrought by the hands of the renowned +Benvenuto Cellini, and is well worthy to be a love gift to the fairest +dame in Italy. But its contents are invaluable. One little sip of this +antidote would have rendered the most virulent poisons of the Borgias +innocuous. Doubt not that it will be as efficacious against those of +Rappaccini. Bestow the vase, and the precious liquid within it, on your +Beatrice, and hopefully await the result.” + +Baglioni laid a small, exquisitely wrought silver vial on the table and +withdrew, leaving what he had said to produce its effect upon the young +man’s mind. + +“We will thwart Rappaccini yet,” thought he, chuckling to himself, as +he descended the stairs; “but, let us confess the truth of him, he is a +wonderful man—a wonderful man indeed; a vile empiric, however, in his +practice, and therefore not to be tolerated by those who respect the +good old rules of the medical profession.” + +Throughout Giovanni’s whole acquaintance with Beatrice, he had +occasionally, as we have said, been haunted by dark surmises as to her +character; yet so thoroughly had she made herself felt by him as a +simple, natural, most affectionate, and guileless creature, that the +image now held up by Professor Baglioni looked as strange and +incredible as if it were not in accordance with his own original +conception. True, there were ugly recollections connected with his +first glimpses of the beautiful girl; he could not quite forget the +bouquet that withered in her grasp, and the insect that perished amid +the sunny air, by no ostensible agency save the fragrance of her +breath. These incidents, however, dissolving in the pure light of her +character, had no longer the efficacy of facts, but were acknowledged +as mistaken fantasies, by whatever testimony of the senses they might +appear to be substantiated. There is something truer and more real than +what we can see with the eyes and touch with the finger. On such better +evidence had Giovanni founded his confidence in Beatrice, though rather +by the necessary force of her high attributes than by any deep and +generous faith on his part. But now his spirit was incapable of +sustaining itself at the height to which the early enthusiasm of +passion had exalted it; he fell down, grovelling among earthly doubts, +and defiled therewith the pure whiteness of Beatrice’s image. Not that +he gave her up; he did but distrust. He resolved to institute some +decisive test that should satisfy him, once for all, whether there were +those dreadful peculiarities in her physical nature which could not be +supposed to exist without some corresponding monstrosity of soul. His +eyes, gazing down afar, might have deceived him as to the lizard, the +insect, and the flowers; but if he could witness, at the distance of a +few paces, the sudden blight of one fresh and healthful flower in +Beatrice’s hand, there would be room for no further question. With this +idea he hastened to the florist’s and purchased a bouquet that was +still gemmed with the morning dew-drops. + +It was now the customary hour of his daily interview with Beatrice. +Before descending into the garden, Giovanni failed not to look at his +figure in the mirror,—a vanity to be expected in a beautiful young man, +yet, as displaying itself at that troubled and feverish moment, the +token of a certain shallowness of feeling and insincerity of character. +He did gaze, however, and said to himself that his features had never +before possessed so rich a grace, nor his eyes such vivacity, nor his +cheeks so warm a hue of superabundant life. + +“At least,” thought he, “her poison has not yet insinuated itself into +my system. I am no flower to perish in her grasp.” + +With that thought he turned his eyes on the bouquet, which he had never +once laid aside from his hand. A thrill of indefinable horror shot +through his frame on perceiving that those dewy flowers were already +beginning to droop; they wore the aspect of things that had been fresh +and lovely yesterday. Giovanni grew white as marble, and stood +motionless before the mirror, staring at his own reflection there as at +the likeness of something frightful. He remembered Baglioni’s remark +about the fragrance that seemed to pervade the chamber. It must have +been the poison in his breath! Then he shuddered—shuddered at himself. +Recovering from his stupor, he began to watch with curious eye a spider +that was busily at work hanging its web from the antique cornice of the +apartment, crossing and recrossing the artful system of interwoven +lines—as vigorous and active a spider as ever dangled from an old +ceiling. Giovanni bent towards the insect, and emitted a deep, long +breath. The spider suddenly ceased its toil; the web vibrated with a +tremor originating in the body of the small artisan. Again Giovanni +sent forth a breath, deeper, longer, and imbued with a venomous feeling +out of his heart: he knew not whether he were wicked, or only +desperate. The spider made a convulsive gripe with his limbs and hung +dead across the window. + +“Accursed! accursed!” muttered Giovanni, addressing himself. “Hast thou +grown so poisonous that this deadly insect perishes by thy breath?” + +At that moment a rich, sweet voice came floating up from the garden. + +“Giovanni! Giovanni! It is past the hour! Why tarriest thou? Come +down!” + +“Yes,” muttered Giovanni again. “She is the only being whom my breath +may not slay! Would that it might!” + +He rushed down, and in an instant was standing before the bright and +loving eyes of Beatrice. A moment ago his wrath and despair had been so +fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as to wither her by a +glance; but with her actual presence there came influences which had +too real an existence to be at once shaken off: recollections of the +delicate and benign power of her feminine nature, which had so often +enveloped him in a religious calm; recollections of many a holy and +passionate outgush of her heart, when the pure fountain had been +unsealed from its depths and made visible in its transparency to his +mental eye; recollections which, had Giovanni known how to estimate +them, would have assured him that all this ugly mystery was but an +earthly illusion, and that, whatever mist of evil might seem to have +gathered over her, the real Beatrice was a heavenly angel. Incapable as +he was of such high faith, still her presence had not utterly lost its +magic. Giovanni’s rage was quelled into an aspect of sullen +insensibility. Beatrice, with a quick spiritual sense, immediately felt +that there was a gulf of blackness between them which neither he nor +she could pass. They walked on together, sad and silent, and came thus +to the marble fountain and to its pool of water on the ground, in the +midst of which grew the shrub that bore gem-like blossoms. Giovanni was +affrighted at the eager enjoyment—the appetite, as it were—with which +he found himself inhaling the fragrance of the flowers. + +“Beatrice,” asked he, abruptly, “whence came this shrub?” + +“My father created it,” answered she, with simplicity. + +“Created it! created it!” repeated Giovanni. “What mean you, Beatrice?” + +“He is a man fearfully acquainted with the secrets of Nature,” replied +Beatrice; “and, at the hour when I first drew breath, this plant sprang +from the soil, the offspring of his science, of his intellect, while I +was but his earthly child. Approach it not!” continued she, observing +with terror that Giovanni was drawing nearer to the shrub. “It has +qualities that you little dream of. But I, dearest Giovanni,—I grew up +and blossomed with the plant and was nourished with its breath. It was +my sister, and I loved it with a human affection; for, alas!—hast thou +not suspected it?—there was an awful doom.” + +Here Giovanni frowned so darkly upon her that Beatrice paused and +trembled. But her faith in his tenderness reassured her, and made her +blush that she had doubted for an instant. + +“There was an awful doom,” she continued, “the effect of my father’s +fatal love of science, which estranged me from all society of my kind. +Until Heaven sent thee, dearest Giovanni, oh, how lonely was thy poor +Beatrice!” + +“Was it a hard doom?” asked Giovanni, fixing his eyes upon her. + +“Only of late have I known how hard it was,” answered she, tenderly. +“Oh, yes; but my heart was torpid, and therefore quiet.” + +Giovanni’s rage broke forth from his sullen gloom like a lightning +flash out of a dark cloud. + +“Accursed one!” cried he, with venomous scorn and anger. “And, finding +thy solitude wearisome, thou hast severed me likewise from all the +warmth of life and enticed me into thy region of unspeakable horror!” + +“Giovanni!” exclaimed Beatrice, turning her large bright eyes upon his +face. The force of his words had not found its way into her mind; she +was merely thunderstruck. + +“Yes, poisonous thing!” repeated Giovanni, beside himself with passion. +“Thou hast done it! Thou hast blasted me! Thou hast filled my veins +with poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and +deadly a creature as thyself—a world’s wonder of hideous monstrosity! +Now, if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others, +let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!” + +“What has befallen me?” murmured Beatrice, with a low moan out of her +heart. “Holy Virgin, pity me, a poor heart-broken child!” + +“Thou,—dost thou pray?” cried Giovanni, still with the same fiendish +scorn. “Thy very prayers, as they come from thy lips, taint the +atmosphere with death. Yes, yes; let us pray! Let us to church and dip +our fingers in the holy water at the portal! They that come after us +will perish as by a pestilence! Let us sign crosses in the air! It will +be scattering curses abroad in the likeness of holy symbols!” + +“Giovanni,” said Beatrice, calmly, for her grief was beyond passion, +“why dost thou join thyself with me thus in those terrible words? I, it +is true, am the horrible thing thou namest me. But thou,—what hast thou +to do, save with one other shudder at my hideous misery to go forth out +of the garden and mingle with thy race, and forget there ever crawled +on earth such a monster as poor Beatrice?” + +“Dost thou pretend ignorance?” asked Giovanni, scowling upon her. +“Behold! this power have I gained from the pure daughter of +Rappaccini.” + +There was a swarm of summer insects flitting through the air in search +of the food promised by the flower odors of the fatal garden. They +circled round Giovanni’s head, and were evidently attracted towards him +by the same influence which had drawn them for an instant within the +sphere of several of the shrubs. He sent forth a breath among them, and +smiled bitterly at Beatrice as at least a score of the insects fell +dead upon the ground. + +“I see it! I see it!” shrieked Beatrice. “It is my father’s fatal +science! No, no, Giovanni; it was not I! Never! never! I dreamed only +to love thee and be with thee a little time, and so to let thee pass +away, leaving but thine image in mine heart; for, Giovanni, believe it, +though my body be nourished with poison, my spirit is God’s creature, +and craves love as its daily food. But my father,—he has united us in +this fearful sympathy. Yes; spurn me, tread upon me, kill me! Oh, what +is death after such words as thine? But it was not I. Not for a world +of bliss would I have done it.” + +Giovanni’s passion had exhausted itself in its outburst from his lips. +There now came across him a sense, mournful, and not without +tenderness, of the intimate and peculiar relationship between Beatrice +and himself. They stood, as it were, in an utter solitude, which would +be made none the less solitary by the densest throng of human life. +Ought not, then, the desert of humanity around them to press this +insulated pair closer together? If they should be cruel to one another, +who was there to be kind to them? Besides, thought Giovanni, might +there not still be a hope of his returning within the limits of +ordinary nature, and leading Beatrice, the redeemed Beatrice, by the +hand? O, weak, and selfish, and unworthy spirit, that could dream of an +earthly union and earthly happiness as possible, after such deep love +had been so bitterly wronged as was Beatrice’s love by Giovanni’s +blighting words! No, no; there could be no such hope. She must pass +heavily, with that broken heart, across the borders of Time—she must +bathe her hurts in some fount of paradise, and forget her grief in the +light of immortality, and THERE be well. + +But Giovanni did not know it. + +“Dear Beatrice,” said he, approaching her, while she shrank away as +always at his approach, but now with a different impulse, “dearest +Beatrice, our fate is not yet so desperate. Behold! there is a +medicine, potent, as a wise physician has assured me, and almost divine +in its efficacy. It is composed of ingredients the most opposite to +those by which thy awful father has brought this calamity upon thee and +me. It is distilled of blessed herbs. Shall we not quaff it together, +and thus be purified from evil?” + +“Give it me!” said Beatrice, extending her hand to receive the little +silver vial which Giovanni took from his bosom. She added, with a +peculiar emphasis, “I will drink; but do thou await the result.” + +She put Baglioni’s antidote to her lips; and, at the same moment, the +figure of Rappaccini emerged from the portal and came slowly towards +the marble fountain. As he drew near, the pale man of science seemed to +gaze with a triumphant expression at the beautiful youth and maiden, as +might an artist who should spend his life in achieving a picture or a +group of statuary and finally be satisfied with his success. He paused; +his bent form grew erect with conscious power; he spread out his hands +over them in the attitude of a father imploring a blessing upon his +children; but those were the same hands that had thrown poison into the +stream of their lives. Giovanni trembled. Beatrice shuddered nervously, +and pressed her hand upon her heart. + +“My daughter,” said Rappaccini, “thou art no longer lonely in the +world. Pluck one of those precious gems from thy sister shrub and bid +thy bridegroom wear it in his bosom. It will not harm him now. My +science and the sympathy between thee and him have so wrought within +his system that he now stands apart from common men, as thou dost, +daughter of my pride and triumph, from ordinary women. Pass on, then, +through the world, most dear to one another and dreadful to all +besides!” + +“My father,” said Beatrice, feebly,—and still as she spoke she kept her +hand upon her heart,—“wherefore didst thou inflict this miserable doom +upon thy child?” + +“Miserable!” exclaimed Rappaccini. “What mean you, foolish girl? Dost +thou deem it misery to be endowed with marvellous gifts against which +no power nor strength could avail an enemy—misery, to be able to quell +the mightiest with a breath—misery, to be as terrible as thou art +beautiful? Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak +woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none?” + +“I would fain have been loved, not feared,” murmured Beatrice, sinking +down upon the ground. “But now it matters not. I am going, father, +where the evil which thou hast striven to mingle with my being will +pass away like a dream-like the fragrance of these poisonous flowers, +which will no longer taint my breath among the flowers of Eden. +Farewell, Giovanni! Thy words of hatred are like lead within my heart; +but they, too, will fall away as I ascend. Oh, was there not, from the +first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?” + +To Beatrice,—so radically had her earthly part been wrought upon by +Rappaccini’s skill,—as poison had been life, so the powerful antidote +was death; and thus the poor victim of man’s ingenuity and of thwarted +nature, and of the fatality that attends all such efforts of perverted +wisdom, perished there, at the feet of her father and Giovanni. Just at +that moment Professor Pietro Baglioni looked forth from the window, and +called loudly, in a tone of triumph mixed with horror, to the +thunderstricken man of science, “Rappaccini! Rappaccini! and is _this_ +the upshot of your experiment!” + + + + +MRS. BULLFROG + + +It makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible people +act in the matter of choosing wives. They perplex their judgments by a +most undue attention to little niceties of personal appearance, habits, +disposition, and other trifles which concern nobody but the lady +herself. An unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of +perfection, keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered +that no tolerable woman will accept them. Now this is the very height +of absurdity. A kind Providence has so skilfully adapted sex to sex and +the mass of individuals to each other, that, with certain obvious +exceptions, any male and female may be moderately happy in the married +state. The true rule is to ascertain that the match is fundamentally a +good one, and then to take it for granted that all minor objections, +should there be such, will vanish, if you let them alone. Only put +yourself beyond hazard as to the real basis of matrimonial bliss, and +it is scarcely to be imagined what miracles, in the way of recognizing +smaller incongruities, connubial love will effect. + +For my own part I freely confess that, in my bachelorship, I was +precisely such an over-curious simpleton as I now advise the reader not +to be. My early habits had gifted me with a feminine sensibility and +too exquisite refinement. I was the accomplished graduate of a dry +goods store, where, by dint of ministering to the whims of fine ladies, +and suiting silken hose to delicate limbs, and handling satins, +ribbons, chintzes calicoes, tapes, gauze, and cambric needles, I grew +up a very ladylike sort of a gentleman. It is not assuming too much to +affirm that the ladies themselves were hardly so ladylike as Thomas +Bullfrog. So painfully acute was my sense of female imperfection, and +such varied excellence did I require in the woman whom I could love, +that there was an awful risk of my getting no wife at all, or of being +driven to perpetrate matrimony with my own image in the looking-glass. +Besides the fundamental principle already hinted at, I demanded the +fresh bloom of youth, pearly teeth, glossy ringlets, and the whole list +of lovely items, with the utmost delicacy of habits and sentiments, a +silken texture of mind, and, above all, a virgin heart. In a word, if a +young angel just from paradise, yet dressed in earthly fashion, had +come and offered me her hand, it is by no means certain that I should +have taken it. There was every chance of my becoming a most miserable +old bachelor, when, by the best luck in the world, I made a journey +into another state, and was smitten by, and smote again, and wooed, +won, and married, the present Mrs. Bullfrog, all in the space of a +fortnight. Owing to these extempore measures, I not only gave my bride +credit for certain perfections which have not as yet come to light, but +also overlooked a few trifling defects, which, however, glimmered on my +perception long before the close of the honeymoon. Yet, as there was no +mistake about the fundamental principle aforesaid, I soon learned, as +will be seen, to estimate Mrs. Bullfrog’s deficiencies and +superfluities at exactly their proper value. + +The same morning that Mrs. Bullfrog and I came together as a unit, we +took two seats in the stage-coach and began our journey towards my +place of business. There being no other passengers, we were as much +alone and as free to give vent to our raptures as if I had hired a hack +for the matrimonial jaunt. My bride looked charmingly in a green silk +calash and riding habit of pelisse cloth; and whenever her red lips +parted with a smile, each tooth appeared like an inestimable pearl. +Such was my passionate warmth that—we had rattled out of the village, +gentle reader, and were lonely as Adam and Eve in paradise—I plead +guilty to no less freedom than a kiss. The gentle eye of Mrs. Bullfrog +scarcely rebuked me for the profanation. Emboldened by her indulgence, +I threw back the calash from her polished brow, and suffered my +fingers, white and delicate as her own, to stray among those dark and +glossy curls which realized my daydreams of rich hair. + +“My love,” said Mrs. Bullfrog tenderly, “you will disarrange my curls.” + +“Oh, no, my sweet Laura!” replied I, still playing with the glossy +ringlet. “Even your fair hand could not manage a curl more delicately +than mine. I propose myself the pleasure of doing up your hair in +papers every evening at the same time with my own.” + +“Mr. Bullfrog,” repeated she, “you must not disarrange my curls.” + +This was spoken in a more decided tone than I had happened to hear, +until then, from my gentlest of all gentle brides. At the same time she +put up her hand and took mine prisoner; but merely drew it away from +the forbidden ringlet, and then immediately released it. Now, I am a +fidgety little man, and always love to have something in my fingers; so +that, being debarred from my wife’s curls, I looked about me for any +other plaything. On the front seat of the coach there was one of those +small baskets in which travelling ladies who are too delicate to appear +at a public table generally carry a supply of gingerbread, biscuits and +cheese, cold ham, and other light refreshments, merely to sustain +nature to the journey’s end. Such airy diet will sometimes keep them in +pretty good flesh for a week together. Laying hold of this same little +basket, I thrust my hand under the newspaper with which it was +carefully covered. + +“What’s this, my dear?” cried I; for the black neck of a bottle had +popped out of the basket. + +“A bottle of Kalydor, Mr. Bullfrog,” said my wife, coolly taking the +basket from my hands and replacing it on the front seat. + +There was no possibility of doubting my wife’s word; but I never knew +genuine Kalydor, such as I use for my own complexion, to smell so much +like cherry brandy. I was about to express my fears that the lotion +would injure her skin, when an accident occurred which threatened more +than a skin-deep injury. Our Jehu had carelessly driven over a heap of +gravel and fairly capsized the coach, with the wheels in the air and +our heels where our heads should have been. What became of my wits I +cannot imagine; they have always had a perverse trick of deserting me +just when they were most needed; but so it chanced, that in the +confusion of our overthrow I quite forgot that there was a Mrs. +Bullfrog in the world. Like many men’s wives, the good lady served her +husband as a steppingstone. I had scrambled out of the coach and was +instinctively settling my cravat, when somebody brushed roughly by me, +and I heard a smart thwack upon the coachman’s ear. + +“Take that, you villain!” cried a strange, hoarse voice. “You have +ruined me, you blackguard! I shall never be the woman I have been!” + +And then came a second thwack, aimed at the driver’s other ear; but +which missed it, and hit him on the nose, causing a terrible effusion +of blood. Now, who or what fearful apparition was inflicting this +punishment on the poor fellow remained an impenetrable mystery to me. +The blows were given by a person of grisly aspect, with a head almost +bald, and sunken cheeks, apparently of the feminine gender, though +hardly to be classed in the gentler sex. There being no teeth to +modulate the voice, it had a mumbled fierceness, not passionate, but +stern, which absolutely made me quiver like calf’s-foot jelly. Who +could the phantom be? The most awful circumstance of the affair is yet +to be told: for this ogre, or whatever it was, had a riding habit like +Mrs. Bullfrog’s, and also a green silk calash dangling down her back by +the strings. In my terror and turmoil of mind I could imagine nothing +less than that the Old Nick, at the moment of our overturn, had +annihilated my wife and jumped into her petticoats. This idea seemed +the most probable, since I could nowhere perceive Mrs. Bullfrog alive, +nor, though I looked very sharply about the coach, could I detect any +traces of that beloved woman’s dead body. There would have been a +comfort in giving her Christian burial. + +“Come, sir, bestir yourself! Help this rascal to set up the coach,” +said the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech at three +countrymen at a distance, “Here, you fellows, ain’t you ashamed to +stand off when a poor woman is in distress?” + +The countrymen, instead of fleeing for their lives, came running at +full speed, and laid hold of the topsy-turvy coach. I, also, though a +small-sized man, went to work like a son of Anak. The coachman, too, +with the blood still streaming from his nose, tugged and toiled most +manfully, dreading, doubtless, that the next blow might break his head. +And yet, bemauled as the poor fellow had been, he seemed to glance at +me with an eye of pity, as if my case were more deplorable than his. +But I cherished a hope that all would turn out a dream, and seized the +opportunity, as we raised the coach, to jam two of my fingers under the +wheel, trusting that the pain would awaken me. + +“Why, here we are, all to rights again!” exclaimed a sweet voice +behind. “Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. My dear Mr. +Bullfrog, how you perspire! Do let me wipe your face. Don’t take this +little accident too much to heart, good driver. We ought to be thankful +that none of our necks are broken.” + +“We might have spared one neck out of the three,” muttered the driver, +rubbing his ear and pulling his nose, to ascertain whether he had been +cuffed or not. “Why, the woman’s a witch!” + +I fear that the reader will not believe, yet it is positively a fact, +that there stood Mrs. Bullfrog, with her glossy ringlets curling on her +brow, and two rows of orient pearls gleaming between her parted lips, +which wore a most angelic smile. She had regained her riding habit and +calash from the grisly phantom, and was, in all respects, the lovely +woman who had been sitting by my side at the instant of our overturn. +How she had happened to disappear, and who had supplied her place, and +whence she did now return, were problems too knotty for me to solve. +There stood my wife. That was the one thing certain among a heap of +mysteries. Nothing remained but to help her into the coach, and plod +on, through the journey of the day and the journey of life, as +comfortably as we could. As the driver closed the door upon us, I heard +him whisper to the three countrymen, “How do you suppose a fellow feels +shut up in the cage with a she tiger?” + +Of course this query could have no reference to my situation. Yet, +unreasonable as it may appear, I confess that my feelings were not +altogether so ecstatic as when I first called Mrs. Bullfrog mine. True, +she was a sweet woman and an angel of a wife; but what if a Gorgon +should return, amid the transports of our connubial bliss, and take the +angel’s place. I recollected the tale of a fairy, who half the time was +a beautiful woman and half the time a hideous monster. Had I taken that +very fairy to be the wife of my bosom? While such whims and chimeras +were flitting across my fancy I began to look askance at Mrs. Bullfrog, +almost expecting that the transformation would be wrought before my +eyes. + +To divert my mind, I took up the newspaper which had covered the little +basket of refreshments, and which now lay at the bottom of the coach, +blushing with a deep-red stain and emitting a potent spirituous fume +from the contents of the broken bottle of Kalydor. The paper was two or +three years old, but contained an article of several columns, in which +I soon grew wonderfully interested. It was the report of a trial for +breach of promise of marriage, giving the testimony in full, with +fervid extracts from both the gentleman’s and lady’s amatory +correspondence. The deserted damsel had personally appeared in court, +and had borne energetic evidence to her lover’s perfidy and the +strength of her blighted affections. On the defendant’s part there had +been an attempt, though insufficiently sustained, to blast the +plaintiff’s character, and a plea, in mitigation of damages, on account +of her unamiable temper. A horrible idea was suggested by the lady’s +name. + +“Madam,” said I, holding the newspaper before Mrs. Bullfrog’s +eyes,—and, though a small, delicate, and thin-visaged man, I feel +assured that I looked very terrific,—“madam,” repeated I, through my +shut teeth, “were you the plaintiff in this cause?” + +“Oh, my dear Mr. Bullfrog,” replied my wife, sweetly, “I thought all +the world knew that!” + +“Horror! horror!” exclaimed I, sinking back on the seat. + +Covering my face with both hands, I emitted a deep and deathlike groan, +as if my tormented soul were rending me asunder—I, the most exquisitely +fastidious of men, and whose wife was to have been the most delicate +and refined of women, with all the fresh dew-drops glittering on her +virgin rosebud of a heart! + +I thought of the glossy ringlets and pearly teeth; I thought of the +Kalydor; I thought of the coachman’s bruised ear and bloody nose; I +thought of the tender love secrets which she had whispered to the judge +and jury and a thousand tittering auditors,—and gave another groan! + +“Mr. Bullfrog,” said my wife. + +As I made no reply, she gently took my hands within her own, removed +them from my face, and fixed her eyes steadfastly on mine. + +“Mr. Bullfrog,” said she, not unkindly, yet with all the decision of +her strong character, “let me advise you to overcome this foolish +weakness, and prove yourself, to the best of your ability, as good a +husband as I will be a wife. You have discovered, perhaps, some little +imperfections in your bride. Well, what did you expect? Women are not +angels. If they were, they would go to heaven for husbands; or, at +least, be more difficult in their choice on earth.” + +“But why conceal those imperfections?” interposed I, tremulously. + +“Now, my love, are not you a most unreasonable little man?” said Mrs. +Bullfrog, patting me on the cheek. “Ought a woman to disclose her +frailties earlier than the wedding day? Few husbands, I assure you, +make the discovery in such good season, and still fewer complain that +these trifles are concealed too long. Well, what a strange man you are! +Poh! you are joking.” + +“But the suit for breach of promise!” groaned I. + +“Ah, and is that the rub?” exclaimed my wife. “Is it possible that you +view that affair in an objectionable light? Mr. Bullfrog, I never could +have dreamed it! Is it an objection that I have triumphantly defended +myself against slander and vindicated my purity in a court of justice? +Or do you complain because your wife has shown the proper spirit of a +woman, and punished the villain who trifled with her affections?” + +“But,” persisted I, shrinking into a corner of the coach, however,—for +I did not know precisely how much contradiction the proper spirit of a +woman would endure,—“but, my love, would it not have been more +dignified to treat the villain with the silent contempt he merited?” + +“That is all very well, Mr. Bullfrog,” said my wife, slyly; “but, in +that case, where would have been the five thousand dollars which are to +stock your dry goods store?” + +“Mrs. Bullfrog, upon your honor,” demanded I, as if my life hung upon +her words, “is there no mistake about those five thousand dollars?” + +“Upon my word and honor there is none,” replied she. “The jury gave me +every cent the rascal had; and I have kept it all for my dear +Bullfrog.” + +“Then, thou dear woman,” cried I, with an overwhelming gush of +tenderness, “let me fold thee to my heart. The basis of matrimonial +bliss is secure, and all thy little defects and frailties are forgiven. +Nay, since the result has been so fortunate, I rejoice at the wrongs +which drove thee to this blessed lawsuit. Happy Bullfrog that I am!” + + + + +FIRE WORSHIP + + +It is a great revolution in social and domestic life, and no less so in +the life of a secluded student, this almost universal exchange of the +open fireplace for the cheerless and ungenial stove. On such a morning +as now lowers around our old gray parsonage, I miss the bright face of +my ancient friend, who was wont to dance upon the hearth and play the +part of more familiar sunshine. It is sad to turn from the cloudy sky +and sombre landscape; from yonder hill, with its crown of rusty, black +pines, the foliage of which is so dismal in the absence of the sun; +that bleak pasture-land, and the broken surface of the potato-field, +with the brown clods partly concealed by the snowfall of last night; +the swollen and sluggish river, with ice-incrusted borders, dragging +its bluish-gray stream along the verge of our orchard like a snake half +torpid with the cold,—it is sad to turn from an outward scene of so +little comfort and find the same sullen influences brooding within the +precincts of my study. Where is that brilliant guest, that quick and +subtle spirit, whom Prometheus lured from heaven to civilize mankind +and cheer them in their wintry desolation; that comfortable inmate, +whose smile, during eight months of the year, was our sufficient +consolation for summer’s lingering advance and early flight? Alas! +blindly inhospitable, grudging the food that kept him cheery and +mercurial, we have thrust him into an iron prison, and compel him to +smoulder away his life on a daily pittance which once would have been +too scanty for his breakfast. Without a metaphor, we now make our fire +in an air-tight stove, and supply it with some half a dozen sticks of +wood between dawn and nightfall. + +I never shall be reconciled to this enormity. Truly may it be said that +the world looks darker for it. In one way or another, here and there +and all around us, the inventions of mankind are fast blotting the +picturesque, the poetic, and the beautiful out of human life. The +domestic fire was a type of all these attributes, and seemed to bring +might and majesty, and wild nature and a spiritual essence, into our in +most home, and yet to dwell with us in such friendliness that its +mysteries and marvels excited no dismay. The same mild companion that +smiled so placidly in our faces was he that comes roaring out of Ætna +and rushes madly up the sky like a fiend breaking loose from torment +and fighting for a place among the upper angels. He it is, too, that +leaps from cloud to cloud amid the crashing thunder-storm. It was he +whom the Gheber worshipped with no unnatural idolatry; and it was he +who devoured London and Moscow and many another famous city, and who +loves to riot through our own dark forests and sweep across our +prairies, and to whose ravenous maw, it is said, the universe shall one +day be given as a final feast. Meanwhile he is the great artisan and +laborer by whose aid men are enabled to build a world within a world, +or, at least, to smooth down the rough creation which Nature flung to +it. He forges the mighty anchor and every lesser instrument; he drives +the steamboat and drags the rail-car; and it was he—this creature of +terrible might, and so many-sided utility and all-comprehensive +destructiveness—that used to be the cheerful, homely friend of our +wintry days, and whom we have made the prisoner of this iron cage. + +How kindly he was! and, though the tremendous agent of change, yet +bearing himself with such gentleness, so rendering himself a part of +all life-long and age-coeval associations, that it seemed as if he were +the great conservative of nature. While a man was true to the fireside, +so long would he be true to country and law, to the God whom his +fathers worshipped, to the wife of his youth, and to all things else +which instinct or religion has taught us to consider sacred. With how +sweet humility did this elemental spirit perform all needful offices +for the household in which he was domesticated! He was equal to the +concoction of a grand dinner, yet scorned not to roast a potato or +toast a bit of cheese. How humanely did he cherish the school-boy’s icy +fingers, and thaw the old man’s joints with a genial warmth which +almost equalled the glow of youth! And how carefully did he dry the +cowhide boots that had trudged through mud and snow, and the shaggy +outside garment stiff with frozen sleet! taking heed, likewise, to the +comfort of the faithful dog who had followed his master through the +storm. When did he refuse a coal to light a pipe, or even a part of his +own substance to kindle a neighbor’s fire? And then, at twilight, when +laborer, or scholar, or mortal of whatever age, sex, or degree, drew a +chair beside him and looked into his glowing face, how acute, how +profound, how comprehensive was his sympathy with the mood of each and +all! He pictured forth their very thoughts. To the youthful he showed +the scenes of the adventurous life before them; to the aged the shadows +of departed love and hope; and, if all earthly things had grown +distasteful, he could gladden the fireside muser with golden glimpses +of a better world. And, amid this varied communion with the human soul, +how busily would the sympathizer, the deep moralist, the painter of +magic pictures, be causing the teakettle to boil! + +Nor did it lessen the charm of his soft, familiar courtesy and +helpfulness that the mighty spirit, were opportunity offered him, would +run riot through the peaceful house, wrap its inmates in his terrible +embrace, and leave nothing of them save their whitened bones. This +possibility of mad destruction only made his domestic kindness the more +beautiful and touching. It was so sweet of him, being endowed with such +power, to dwell day after day, and one long lonesome night after +another, on the dusky hearth, only now and then betraying his wild +nature by thrusting his red tongue out of the chimney-top! True, he had +done much mischief in the world, and was pretty certain to do more; but +his warm heart atoned for all. He was kindly to the race of man; and +they pardoned his characteristic imperfections. + +The good old clergyman, my predecessor in this mansion, was well +acquainted with the comforts of the fireside. His yearly allowance of +wood, according to the terms of his settlement, was no less than sixty +cords. Almost an annual forest was converted from sound oak logs into +ashes, in the kitchen, the parlor, and this little study, where now an +unworthy successor, not in the pastoral office, but merely in his +earthly abode, sits scribbling beside an air-tight stove. I love to +fancy one of those fireside days while the good man, a contemporary of +the Revolution, was in his early prime, some five-and-sixty years ago. +Before sunrise, doubtless, the blaze hovered upon the gray skirts of +night and dissolved the frostwork that had gathered like a curtain over +the small window-panes. There is something peculiar in the aspect of +the morning fireside; a fresher, brisker glare; the absence of that +mellowness which can be produced only by half-consumed logs, and +shapeless brands with the white ashes on them, and mighty coals, the +remnant of tree-trunks that the hungry, elements have gnawed for hours. +The morning hearth, too, is newly swept, and the brazen andirons well +brightened, so that the cheerful fire may see its face in them. Surely +it was happiness, when the pastor, fortified with a substantial +breakfast, sat down in his arm-chair and slippers and opened the Whole +Body of Divinity, or the Commentary on Job, or whichever of his old +folios or quartos might fall within the range of his weekly sermons. It +must have been his own fault if the warmth and glow of this abundant +hearth did not permeate the discourse and keep his audience comfortable +in spite of the bitterest northern blast that ever wrestled with the +church-steeple. He reads while the heat warps the stiff covers of the +volume; he writes without numbness either in his heart or fingers; and, +with unstinted hand, he throws fresh sticks of wood upon the fire. + +A parishioner comes in. With what warmth of benevolence—how should he +be otherwise than warm in any of his attributes?—does the minister bid +him welcome, and set a chair for him in so close proximity to the +hearth, that soon the guest finds it needful to rub his scorched shins +with his great red hands! The melted snow drips from his steaming boots +and bubbles upon the hearth. His puckered forehead unravels its +entanglement of crisscross wrinkles. We lose much of the enjoyment of +fireside heat without such an opportunity of marking its genial effect +upon those who have been looking the inclement weather in the face. In +the course of the day our clergyman himself strides forth, perchance to +pay a round of pastoral visits; or, it may he, to visit his mountain of +a wood-pile and cleave the monstrous logs into billets suitable for the +fire. He returns with fresher life to his beloved hearth. During the +short afternoon the western sunshine comes into the study and strives +to stare the ruddy blaze out of countenance but with only a brief +triumph, soon to be succeeded by brighter glories of its rival. +Beautiful it is to see the strengthening gleam, the deepening light +that gradually casts distinct shadows of the human figure, the table, +and the high-backed chairs upon the opposite wall, and at length, as +twilight comes on, replenishes the room with living radiance and makes +life all rose-color. Afar the wayfarer discerns the flickering flame as +it dances upon the windows, and hails it as a beacon-light of humanity, +reminding him, in his cold and lonely path, that the world is not all +snow, and solitude, and desolation. At eventide, probably, the study +was peopled with the clergyman’s wife and family, and children tumbled +themselves upon the hearth-rug, and grave puss sat with her back to the +fire, or gazed, with a semblance of human meditation, into its fervid +depths. Seasonably the plenteous ashes of the day were raked over the +mouldering brands, and from the heap came jets of flame, and an incense +of night-long smoke creeping quietly up the chimney. + +Heaven forgive the old clergyman! In his later life, when for almost +ninety winters he had been gladdened by the firelight,—when it had +gleamed upon him from infancy to extreme age, and never without +brightening his spirits as well as his visage, and perhaps keeping him +alive so long,—he had the heart to brick up his chimney-place and bid +farewell to the face of his old friend forever, why did he not take an +eternal leave of the sunshine too? His sixty cords of wood had probably +dwindled to a far less ample supply in modern times; and it is certain +that the parsonage had grown crazy with time and tempest and pervious +to the cold; but still it was one of the saddest tokens of the decline +and fall of open fireplaces that, the gray patriarch should have +deigned to warm himself at an air-tight stove. + +And I, likewise,—who have found a home in this ancient owl’s-nest since +its former occupant took his heavenward flight,—I, to my shame, have +put up stoves in kitchen and parlor and chamber. Wander where you will +about the house, not a glimpse of the earth-born, heaven-aspiring fiend +of Ætna,—him that sports in the thunder-storm, the idol of the Ghebers, +the devourer of cities, the forest-rioter and prairie-sweeper, the +future destroyer of our earth, the old chimney-corner companion who +mingled himself so sociably with household joys and sorrows,—not a +glimpse of this mighty and kindly one will greet your eyes. He is now +an invisible presence. There is his iron cage. Touch it, and he +scorches your fingers. He delights to singe a garment or perpetrate any +other little unworthy mischief; for his temper is ruined by the +ingratitude of mankind, for whom he cherished such warmth of feeling, +and to whom he taught all their arts, even that of making his own +prison-house. In his fits of rage he puffs volumes of smoke and noisome +gas through the crevices of the door, and shakes the iron walls of his +dungeon so as to overthrow the ornamental urn upon its summit. We +tremble lest he should break forth amongst us. Much of his time is +spent in sighs, burdened with unutterable grief, and long drawn through +the funnel. He amuses himself, too, with repeating all the whispers, +the moans, and the louder utterances or tempestuous howls of the wind; +so that the stove becomes a microcosm of the aerial world. Occasionally +there are strange combinations of sounds,—voices talking almost +articulately within the hollow chest of iron,—insomuch that fancy +beguiles me with the idea that my firewood must have grown in that +infernal forest of lamentable trees which breathed their complaints to +Dante. When the listener is half asleep he may readily take these +voices for the conversation of spirits and assign them an intelligible +meaning. Anon there is a pattering noise,—drip, drip, drip,—as if a +summer shower were falling within the narrow circumference of the +stove. + +These barren and tedious eccentricities are all that the air-tight +stove can bestow in exchange for the invaluable moral influences which +we have lost by our desertion of the open fireplace. Alas! is this +world so very bright that we can afford to choke up such a domestic +fountain of gladsomeness, and sit down by its darkened source without +being conscious of a gloom? + +It is my belief that social intercourse cannot long continue what it +has been, now that we have subtracted from it so important and +vivifying an element as firelight. The effects will be more perceptible +on our children and the generations that shall succeed them than on +ourselves, the mechanism of whose life may remain unchanged, though its +spirit be far other than it was. The sacred trust of the household fire +has been transmitted in unbroken succession from the earliest ages, and +faithfully cherished in spite of every discouragement such as the +curfew law of the Norman conquerors, until in these evil days physical +science has nearly succeeded in extinguishing it. But we at least have +our youthful recollections tinged with the glow of the hearth, and our +life-long habits and associations arranged on the principle of a mutual +bond in the domestic fire. Therefore, though the sociable friend be +forever departed, yet in a degree he will be spiritually present with +us; and still more will the empty forms which were once full of his +rejoicing presence continue to rule our manners. We shall draw our +chairs together as we and our forefathers have been wont for thousands +of years back, and sit around some blank and empty corner of the room, +babbling with unreal cheerfulness of topics suitable to the homely +fireside. A warmth from the past—from the ashes of bygone years and the +raked-up embers of long ago—will sometimes thaw the ice about our +hearts; but it must be otherwise with our successors. On the most +favorable supposition, they will be acquainted with the fireside in no +better shape than that of the sullen stove; and more probably they will +have grown up amid furnace heat in houses which might be fancied to +have their foundation over the infernal pit, whence sulphurous steams +and unbreathable exhalations ascend through the apertures of the floor. +There will be nothing to attract these poor children to one centre. +They will never behold one another through that peculiar medium of +vision the ruddy gleam of blazing wood or bituminous coal—-which gives +the human spirit so deep an insight into its fellows and melts all +humanity into one cordial heart of hearts. Domestic life, if it may +still be termed domestic, will seek its separate corners, and never +gather itself into groups. The easy gossip; the merry yet unambitious +Jest; the life-like, practical discussion of real matters in a casual +way; the soul of truth which is so often incarnated in a simple +fireside word,—will disappear from earth. Conversation will contract +the air of debate, and all mortal intercourse be chilled with a fatal +frost. + +In classic times, the exhortation to fight “pro axis et focis,” for the +altars and the hearths, was considered the strongest appeal that could +be made to patriotism. And it seemed an immortal utterance; for all +subsequent ages and people have acknowledged its force and responded to +it with the full portion of manhood that nature had assigned to each. +Wisely were the altar and the hearth conjoined in one mighty sentence; +for the hearth, too, had its kindred sanctity. Religion sat down beside +it, not in the priestly robes which decorated and perhaps disguised her +at the altar, but arrayed in a simple matron’s garb, and uttering her +lessons with the tenderness of a mother’s voice and heart. The holy +hearth! If any earthly and material thing, or rather a divine idea +embodied in brick and mortar, might be supposed to possess the +permanence of moral truth, it was this. All revered it. The man who did +not put off his shoes upon this holy ground would have deemed it +pastime to trample upon the altar. It has been our task to uproot the +hearth. What further reform is left for our children to achieve, unless +they overthrow the altar too? And by what appeal hereafter, when the +breath of hostile armies may mingle with the pure, cold breezes of our +country, shall we attempt to rouse up native valor? Fight for your +hearths? There will be none throughout the land. FIGHT FOR YOUR STOVES! +Not I, in faith. If in such a cause I strike a blow, it shall be on the +invader’s part; and Heaven grant that it may shatter the abomination +all to pieces! + + + + +BUDS AND BIRD VOICES + + +Balmy Spring—weeks later than we expected and months later than we +longed for her—comes at last to revive the moss on the roof and walls +of our old mansion. She peeps brightly into my study-window, inviting +me to throw it open and create a summer atmosphere by the intermixture +of her genial breath with the black and cheerless comfort of the stove. +As the casement ascends, forth into infinite space fly the innumerable +forms of thought or fancy that have kept me company in the retirement +of this little chamber during the sluggish lapse of wintry weather; +visions, gay, grotesque, and sad; pictures of real life, tinted with +nature’s homely gray and russet; scenes in dreamland, bedizened with +rainbow hues which faded before they were well laid on,—all these may +vanish now, and leave me to mould a fresh existence out of sunshine, +Brooding Meditation may flap her dusky wings and take her owl-like +Right, blinking amid the cheerfulness of noontide. Such companions +befit the season of frosted window-panes and crackling fires, when the +blast howls through the black-ash trees of our avenue and the drifting +snow-storm chokes up the wood-paths and fills the highway from stone +wall to stone wall. In the spring and summer time all sombre thoughts +should follow the winter northward with the sombre and thoughtful +crows. The old paradisiacal economy of life is again in force; we live, +not to think or to labor, but for the simple end of being happy. +Nothing for the present hour is worthy of man’s infinite capacity save +to imbibe the warm smile of heaven and sympathize with the reviving +earth. + +The present Spring comes onward with fleeter footsteps, because Winter +lingered so unconscionably long that with her best diligence she can +hardly retrieve half the allotted period of her reign. It is but a +fortnight since I stood on the brink of our swollen river and beheld +the accumulated ice of four frozen months go down the stream. Except in +streaks here and there upon the hillsides, the whole visible universe +was then covered with deep snow, the nethermost layer of which had been +deposited by an early December storm. It was a sight to make the +beholder torpid, in the impossibility of imagining how this vast white +napkin was to be removed from the face of the corpse-like world in less +time than had been required to spread it there. But who can estimate +the power of gentle influences, whether amid material desolation or the +moral winter of man’s heart? There have been no tempestuous rains, even +no sultry days, but a constant breath of southern winds, with now a day +of kindly sunshine, and now a no less kindly mist or a soft descent of +showers, in which a smile and a blessing seemed to have been steeped. +The snow has vanished as if by magic; whatever heaps may be hidden in +the woods and deep gorges of the hills, only two solitary specks remain +in the landscape; and those I shall almost regret to miss when +to-morrow I look for them in vain. Never before, methinks, has spring +pressed so closely on the footsteps of retreating winter. Along the +roadside the green blades of grass have sprouted on the very edge of +the snow-drifts. The pastures and mowing-fields have not vet assumed a +general aspect of verdure; but neither have they the cheerless-brown +tint which they wear in latter autumn when vegetation has entirely +ceased; there is now a faint shadow of life, gradually brightening into +the warm reality. Some tracts in a happy exposure,—as, for instance, +yonder southwestern slope of an orchard, in front of that old red +farm-house beyond the river,—such patches of land already wear a +beautiful and tender green, to which no future luxuriance can add a +charm. It looks unreal; a prophecy, a hope, a transitory effect of +sonic peculiar light, which will vanish with the slightest motion of +the eye. But beauty is never a delusion; not these verdant tracts, but +the dark and barren landscape all around them, is a shadow and a dream. +Each moment wins seine portion of the earth from death to life; a +sudden gleam of verdure brightens along the sunny slope of a bank which +an instant ago was brown and bare. You look again, and behold an +apparition of green grass! + +The trees in our orchard and elsewhere are as yet naked, but already +appear full of life and vegetable blood. It seems as if by one magic +touch they might instantaneously burst into full foliage, and that the +wind which now sighs through their naked branches might make sudden +music amid innumerable leaves. The mossgrown willow-tree which for +forty years past has overshadowed these western windows will be among +the first to put on its green attire. There are some objections to the +willow; it is not a dry and cleanly tree, and impresses the beholder +with an association of sliminess. No trees, I think, are perfectly +agreeable as companions unless they have glossy leaves, dry bark, and a +firm and hard texture of trunk and branches. But the willow is almost +the earliest to gladden us with the promise and reality of beauty in +its graceful and delicate foliage, and the last to scatter its yellow +yet scarcely withered leaves upon the ground. All through the winter, +too, its yellow twigs give it a sunny aspect, which is not without a +cheering influence even in the grayest and gloomiest day. Beneath a +clouded sky it faithfully remembers the sunshine. Our old house would +lose a charm were the willow to be cut down, with its golden crown over +the snow-covered roof and its heap of summer verdure. + +The lilac-shrubs under my study-windows are likewise almost in leaf: in +two or three days more I may put forth my hand and pluck the topmost +bough in its freshest green. These lilacs are very aged, and have lost +the luxuriant foliage of their prime. The heart, or the judgment, or +the moral sense, or the taste is dissatisfied with their present +aspect. Old age is not venerable when it embodies itself in lilacs, +rose-bushes, or any other ornamental shrub; it seems as if such plants, +as they grow only for beauty, ought to flourish always in immortal +youth, or, at least, to die before their sad decrepitude. Trees of +beauty are trees of paradise, and therefore not subject to decay by +their original nature, though they have lost that precious birthright +by being transplanted to an earthly soil. There is a kind of ludicrous +unfitness in the idea of a time-stricken and grandfatherly lilac-bush. +The analogy holds good in human life. Persons who can only be graceful +and ornamental—who can give the world nothing but flowers—should die +young, and never be seen with gray hair and wrinkles, any more than the +flower-shrubs with mossy bark and blighted foliage, like the lilacs +under my window. Not that beauty is worthy of less than immortality; +no, the beautiful should live forever,—and thence, perhaps, the sense +of impropriety when we see it triumphed over by time. Apple-trees, on +the other hand, grow old without reproach. Let them live as long as +they may, and contort themselves into whatever perversity of shape they +please, and deck their withered limbs with a springtime gaudiness of +pink blossoms; still they are respectable, even if they afford us only +an apple or two in a season. Those few apples—or, at all events, the +remembrance of apples in bygone years—are the atonement which +utilitarianism inexorably demands for the privilege of lengthened life. +Human flower-shrubs, if they will grow old on earth, should, besides +their lovely blossoms, bear some kind of fruit that will satisfy +earthly appetites, else neither man nor the decorum of nature will deem +it fit that the moss should gather on them. + +One of the first things that strikes the attention when the white sheet +of winter is withdrawn is the neglect and disarray that lay hidden +beneath it. Nature is not cleanly according to our prejudices. The +beauty of preceding years, now transformed to brown and blighted +deformity, obstructs the brightening loveliness of the present hour. +Our avenue is strewn with the whole crop of autumn’s withered leaves. +There are quantities of decayed branches which one tempest after +another has flung down, black and rotten, and one or two with the ruin +of a bird’s-nest clinging to them. In the garden are the dried +bean-vines, the brown stalks of the asparagus-bed, and melancholy old +cabbages which were frozen into the soil before their unthrifty +cultivator could find time to gather them. How invariably, throughout +all the forms of life, do we find these intermingled memorials of +death! On the soil of thought and in the garden of the heart, as well +as in the sensual world, he withered leaves,—the ideas and feelings +that we have done with. There is no wind strong enough to sweep them +away; infinite space will not garner then from our sight. What mean +they? Why may we not be permitted to live and enjoy, as if this were +the first life and our own the primal enjoyment, instead of treading +always on these dry hones and mouldering relics, from the aged +accumulation of which springs all that now appears so young and new? +Sweet must have been the springtime of Eden, when no earlier year had +strewn its decay upon the virgin turf and no former experience had +ripened into summer and faded into autumn in the hearts of its +inhabitants! That was a world worth living in. O then murmurer, it is +out of the very wantonness of such a life that then feignest these idle +lamentations. There is no decay. Each human soul is the first-created +inhabitant of its own Eden. We dwell in an old moss-covered mansion, +and tread in the worn footprints of the past, and have a gray +clergyman’s ghost for our daily and nightly inmate; yet all these +outward circumstances are made less than visionary by the renewing +power of the spirit. Should the spirit ever lose this power,—should the +withered leaves, and the rotten branches, and the moss-covered house, +and the ghost of the gray past ever become its realities, and the +verdure and the freshness merely its faint dream,—then let it pray to +be released from earth. It will need the air of heaven to revive its +pristine energies. + +What an unlooked-for flight was this from our shadowy avenue of +black-ash and balm of Gilead trees into the infinite! Now we have our +feet again upon the turf. Nowhere does the grass spring up so +industriously as in this homely yard, along the base of the stone wall, +and in the sheltered nooks of the buildings, and especially around the +southern doorstep,—a locality which seems particularly favorable to its +growth, for it is already tall enough to bend over and wave in the +wind. I observe that several weeds—and most frequently a plant that +stains the fingers with its yellow juice—have survived and retained +their freshness and sap throughout the winter. One knows not how they +have deserved such an exception from the common lot of their race. They +are now the patriarchs of the departed year, and may preach mortality +to the present generation of flowers and weeds. + +Among the delights of spring, how is it possible to forget the birds? +Even the crows were welcome as the sable harbingers of a brighter and +livelier race. They visited us before the snow was off, but seem mostly +to have betaken themselves to remote depths of the woods, which they +haunt all summer long. Many a time shall I disturb them there, and feel +as if I had intruded among a company of silent worshippers, as they sit +in Sabbath stillness among the tree-tops. Their voices, when they +speak, are in admirable accordance with the tranquil solitude of a +summer afternoon; and resounding so far above the head, their loud +clamor increases the religious quiet of the scene instead of breaking +it. A crow, however, has no real pretensions to religion, in spite of +his gravity of mien and black attire; he is certainly a thief, and +probably an infidel. The gulls are far more respectable, in a moral +point of view. These denizens of seabeaten rocks and haunters of the +lonely beach come up our inland river at this season, and soar high +overhead, flapping their broad wings in the upper sunshine. They are +among the most picturesque of birds, because they so float and rest +upon the air as to become almost stationary parts of the landscape. The +imagination has time to grow acquainted with them; they have not +flitted away in a moment. You go up among the clouds and greet these +lofty-flighted gulls, and repose confidently with them upon the +sustaining atmosphere. Duck’s have their haunts along the solitary +places of the river, and alight in flocks upon the broad bosom of the +overflowed meadows. Their flight is too rapid and determined for the +eye to catch enjoyment from it, although it never fails to stir up the +heart with the sportsman’s ineradicable instinct. They have now gone +farther northward, but will visit us again in autumn. + +The smaller birds,—the little songsters of the woods, and those that +haunt man’s dwellings and claim human friendship by building their +nests under the sheltering eaves or among the orchard trees,—these +require a touch more delicate and a gentler heart than mine to do them +justice. Their outburst of melody is like a brook let loose from wintry +chains. We need not deem it a too high and solemn word to call it a +hymn of praise to the Creator; since Nature, who pictures the reviving +year in so many sights of beauty, has expressed the sentiment of +renewed life in no other sound save the notes of these blessed birds. +Their music, however, just now, seems to be incidental, and not the +result of a set purpose. They are discussing the economy of life and +love and the site and architecture of their summer residences, and have +no time to sit on a twig and pour forth solemn hymns, or overtures, +operas, symphonies, and waltzes. Anxious questions are asked; grave +subjects are settled in quick and animated debate; and only by +occasional accident, as from pure ecstasy, does a rich warble roll its +tiny waves of golden sound through the atmosphere. Their little bodies +are as busy as their voices; they are all a constant flutter and +restlessness. Even when two or three retreat to a tree-top to hold +council, they wag their tails and heads all the time with the +irrepressible activity of their nature, which perhaps renders their +brief span of life in reality as long as the patriarchal age of +sluggish man. The blackbirds, three species of which consort together, +are the noisiest of all our feathered citizens. Great companies of +them—more than the famous “four-and-twenty” whom Mother Goose has +immortalized—congregate in contiguous treetops and vociferate with all +the clamor and confusion of a turbulent political meeting. Politics, +certainly, must be the occasion of such tumultuous debates; but still, +unlike all other politicians, they instil melody into their individual +utterances and produce harmony as a general effect. Of all bird voices, +none are more sweet and cheerful to my ear than those of swallows, in +the dim, sunstreaked interior of a lofty barn; they address the heart +with even a closer sympathy than robin-redbreast. But, indeed, all +these winged people, that dwell in the vicinity of homesteads, seem to +partake of human nature, and possess the germ, if not the development, +of immortal souls. We hear them saying their melodious prayers at +morning’s blush and eventide. A little while ago, in the deep of night, +there came the lively thrill of a bird’s note from a neighboring +tree,—a real song, such as greets the purple dawn or mingles with the +yellow sunshine. What could the little bird mean by pouring it forth at +midnight? Probably the music gushed out of the midst of a dream in +which he fancied himself in paradise with his mate, but suddenly awoke +on a cold leafless bough, with a New England mist penetrating through +his feathers. That was a sad exchange of imagination for reality. + +Insects are among the earliest births of sprung. Multitudes of I know +not what species appeared long ago on the surface of the snow. Clouds +of them, almost too minute for sight, hover in a beam of sunshine, and +vanish, as if annihilated, when they pass into the shade. A mosquito +has already been heard to sound the small horror of his bugle-horn. +Wasps infest the sunny windows of the house. A bee entered one of the +chambers with a prophecy of flowers. Rare butterflies came before the +snow was off, flaunting in the chill breeze, and looking forlorn and +all astray, in spite of the magnificence of their dark velvet cloaks, +with golden borders. + +The fields and wood-paths have as yet few charms to entice the +wanderer. In a walk, the other day, I found no violets, nor anemones, +nor anything in the likeness of a flower. It was worth while, however, +to ascend our opposite hill for the sake of gaining a general idea of +the advance of spring, which I had hitherto been studying in its minute +developments. The river lay around me in a semicircle, overflowing all +the meadows which give it its Indian name, and offering a noble breadth +to sparkle in the sunbeams. Along the hither shore a row of trees stood +up to their knees in water; and afar off, on the surface of the stream, +tufts of bushes thrust up their heads, as it were, to breathe. The most +striking objects were great solitary trees here and there, with a +mile-wide waste of water all around them. The curtailment of the trunk, +by its immersion in the river, quite destroys the fair proportions of +the tree, and thus makes us sensible of a regularity and propriety in +the usual forms of nature. The flood of the present season—though it +never amounts to a freshet on our quiet stream—has encroached farther +upon the land than any previous one for at least a score of years. It +has overflowed stone fences, and even rendered a portion of the highway +navigable for boats. + +The waters, however, are now gradually subsiding; islands become +annexed to the mainland; and other islands emerge, like new creations, +from the watery waste. The scene supplies an admirable image of the +receding of the Nile, except that there is no deposit of black slime; +or of Noah’s flood, only that there is a freshness and novelty in these +recovered portions of the continent which give the impression of a +world just made rather than of one so polluted that a deluge had been +requisite to purify it. These upspringing islands are the greenest +spots in the landscape; the first gleam of sunlight suffices to cover +them with verdure. + +Thank Providence for spring! The earth—and man himself, by sympathy +with his birthplace would be far other than we find them if life toiled +wearily onward without this periodical infusion of the primal spirit. +Will the world ever be so decayed that spring may not renew its +greenness? Can man be so dismally age stricken that no faintest +sunshine of his youth may revisit him once a year? It is impossible. +The moss on our time-worn mansion brightens into beauty; the good old +pastor who once dwelt here renewed his prime, regained his boyhood, in +the genial breezes of his ninetieth spring. Alas for the worn and heavy +soul if, whether in youth or age, it have outlived its privilege of +springtime sprightliness! From such a soul the world must hope no +reformation of its evil, no sympathy with the lofty faith and gallant +struggles of those who contend in its behalf. Summer works in the +present, and thinks not of the future; autumn is a rich conservative; +winter has utterly lost its faith, and clings tremulously to the +remembrance of what has been; but spring, with its outgushing life, is +the true type of the movement. + + + + +MONSIEUR DU MIROIR + + +Than the gentleman above named, there is nobody, in the whole circle of +my acquaintance, whom I have more attentively studied, yet of whom I +have less real knowledge, beneath the surface which it pleases him to +present. Being anxious to discover who and what he really is, and how +connected with me, and what are to be the results to him and to myself +of the joint interest which, without any choice on my part, seems to be +permanently established between us, and incited, furthermore, by the +propensities of a student of human nature, though doubtful whether +Monsieur du Miroir have aught of humanity but the figure,—I have +determined to place a few of his remarkable points before the public, +hoping to be favored with some clew to the explanation of his +character. Nor let the reader condemn any part of the narrative as +frivolous, since a subject of such grave reflection diffuses its +importance through the minutest particulars; and there is no judging +beforehand what odd little circumstance may do the office of a blind +man’s dog among the perplexities of this dark investigation; and +however extraordinary, marvellous, preternatural, and utterly +incredible some of the meditated disclosures may appear, I pledge my +honor to maintain as sacred a regard to fact as if my testimony were +given on oath and involved the dearest interests of the personage in +question. Not that there is matter for a criminal accusation against +Monsieur du Miroir, nor am I the man to bring it forward if there were. +The chief that I complain of is his impenetrable mystery, which is no +better than nonsense if it conceal anything good, and much worse in the +contrary case. + +But, if undue partialities could be supposed to influence me, Monsieur +du Miroir might hope to profit rather than to suffer by them, for in +the whole of our long intercourse we have seldom had the slightest +disagreement; and, moreover, there are reasons for supposing him a near +relative of mine, and consequently entitled to the best word that I can +give him. He bears indisputably a strong personal resemblance to +myself, and generally puts on mourning at the funerals of the family. +On the other hand, his name would indicate a French descent; in which +case, infinitely preferring that my blood should flow from a bold +British and pure Puritan source, I beg leave to disclaim all kindred +with Monsieur du Miroir. Some genealogists trace his origin to Spain, +and dub him a knight of the order of the CABALLEROS DE LOS ESPEJOZ, one +of whom was overthrown by Don Quixote. But what says Monsieur du Miroir +himself of his paternity and his fatherland? Not a word did he ever say +about the matter; and herein, perhaps, lies one of his most especial +reasons for maintaining such a vexatious mystery, that he lacks the +faculty of speech to expound it. His lips are sometimes seen to move; +his eyes and countenance are alive with shifting expression, as if +corresponding by visible hieroglyphics to his modulated breath; and +anon he will seem to pause with as satisfied an air as if he had been +talking excellent sense. Good sense or bad, Monsieur du Miroir is the +sole judge of his own conversational powers, never having whispered so +much as a syllable that reached the ears of any other auditor. Is he +really dumb? or is all the world deaf? or is it merely a piece of my +friend’s waggery, meant for nothing but to make fools of us? If so, he +has the joke all to himself. + +This dumb devil which possesses Monsieur do Miroir is, I am persuaded, +the sole reason that he does not make me the most flattering +protestations of friendship. In many particulars—indeed, as to all his +cognizable and not preternatural points, except that, once in a great +while, I speak a word or two—there exists the greatest apparent +sympathy between us. Such is his confidence in my taste that he goes +astray from the general fashion and copies all his dresses after mine. +I never try on a new garment without expecting to meet, Monsieur du +Miroir in one of the same pattern. He has duplicates of all my +waistcoats and cravats, shirt-bosoms of precisely a similar plait, and +an old coat for private wear, manufactured, I suspect, by a Chinese +tailor, in exact imitation of a beloved old coat of mine, with a +facsimile, stitch by stitch, of a patch upon the elbow. In truth, the +singular and minute coincidences that occur, both in the accidents of +the passing day and the serious events of our lives, remind me of those +doubtful legends of lovers, or twin children, twins of fate, who have +lived, enjoyed, suffered, and died in unison, each faithfully repeating +the last tremor of the other’s breath, though separated by vast tracts +of sea and land. Strange to say, my incommodities belong equally to my +companion, though the burden is nowise alleviated by his participation. +The other morning, after a night of torment from the toothache, I met +Monsieur du Miroir with such a swollen anguish in his cheek that my own +pangs were redoubled, as were also his, if I might judge by a fresh +contortion of his visage. All the inequalities of my spirits are +communicated to him, causing the unfortunate Monsieur du Miroir to mope +and scowl through a whole summer’s day, or to laugh as long, for no +better reason than the gay or gloomy crotchets of my brain. Once we +were joint sufferers of a three months’ sickness, and met like mutual +ghosts in the first days of convalescence. Whenever I have been in +love, Monsieur du Miroir has looked passionate and tender; and never +did my mistress discard me, but this too susceptible gentleman grew +lackadaisical. His temper, also, rises to blood heat, fever heat, or +boiling-water beat, according to the measure of any wrong which might +seem to have fallen entirely on myself. I have sometimes been calmed +down by the sight of my own inordinate wrath depicted on his frowning +brow. Yet, however prompt in taking up my quarrels, I cannot call to +mind that he ever struck a downright blow in my behalf; nor, in fact, +do I perceive that any real and tangible good has resulted from his +constant interference in my affairs; so that, in my distrustful moods, +I am apt to suspect Monsieur du Miroir’s sympathy to be mere outward +show, not a whit better nor worse than other people’s sympathy. +Nevertheless, as mortal man must have something in the guise of +sympathy,—and whether the true metal, or merely copper-washed, is of +less moment,—I choose rather to content myself with Monsieur du +Miroir’s, such as it is, than to seek the sterling coin, and perhaps +miss even the counterfeit. + +In my age of vanities I have often seen him in the ballroom, and might +again were I to seek him there. We have encountered each other at the +Tremont Theatre, where, however, he took his seat neither in the +dress-circle, pit, nor upper regions, nor threw a single glance at the +stage, though the brightest star, even Fanny Kemble herself, might be +culminating there. No; this whimsical friend of mine chose to linger in +the saloon, near one of the large looking-glasses which throw back +their pictures of the illuminated room. He is so full of these +unaccountable eccentricities that I never like to notice Monsieur du +Miroir, nor to acknowledge the slightest connection with him, in places +of public resort. He, however, has no scruple about claiming my +acquaintance, even when his common-sense, if he had any, might teach +him that I would as willingly exchange a nod with the Old Nick. It was +but the other day that he got into a large brass kettle at the entrance +of a hardware-store, and thrust his head, the moment afterwards, into a +bright, new warming-pan, whence he gave me a most merciless look of +recognition. He smiled, and so did I; but these childish tricks make +decent people rather shy of Monsieur du Miroir, and subject him to more +dead cuts than any other gentleman in town. + +One of this singular person’s most remarkable peculiarities is his +fondness for water, wherein he excels any temperance man whatever. His +pleasure, it must be owned, is not so much to drink it (in which +respect a very moderate quantity will answer his occasions) as to souse +himself over head and ears wherever he may meet with it. Perhaps he is +a merman, or born of a mermaid’s marriage with a mortal, and thus +amphibious by hereditary right, like the children which the old river +deities, or nymphs of fountains, gave to earthly love. When no cleaner +bathing-place happened to be at hand, I have seen the foolish fellow in +a horse-pond. Some times he refreshes himself in the trough of a +town-pump, without caring what the people think about him. Often, while +carefully picking my way along the street after a heavy shower, I have +been scandalized to see Monsieur du Miroir, in full dress, paddling +from one mud-puddle to another, and plunging into the filthy depths of +each. Seldom have I peeped into a well without discerning this +ridiculous gentleman at the bottom, whence he gazes up, as through a +long telescopic tube, and probably makes discoveries among the stars by +daylight. Wandering along lonesome paths or in pathless forests, when I +have come to virgin fountains of which it would have been pleasant to +deem myself the first discoverer, I have started to find Monsieur du +Miroir there before me. The solitude seemed lonelier for his presence. +I have leaned from a precipice that frowns over Lake George, which the +French call nature’s font of sacramental water, and used it in their +log-churches here and their cathedrals beyond the sea, and seen him far +below in that pure element. At Niagara, too, where I would gladly have +forgotten both myself and him, I could not help observing my companion +in the smooth water on the very verge of the cataract just above the +Table Rock. Were I to reach the sources of the Nile, I should expect to +meet him there. Unless he be another Ladurlad, whose garments the depth +of ocean could not moisten, it is difficult to conceive how he keeps +himself in any decent pickle; though I am bound to confess that his +clothes seem always as dry and comfortable as my own. But, as a friend, +I could wish that he would not so often expose himself in liquor. + +All that I have hitherto related may be classed among those little +personal oddities which agreeably diversify the surface of society, +and, though they may sometimes annoy us, yet keep our daily intercourse +fresher and livelier than if they were done away. By an occasional +hint, however, I have endeavored to pave the way for stranger things to +come, which, had they been disclosed at once, Monsieur du Miroir might +have been deemed a shadow, and myself a person of no veracity, and this +truthful history a fabulous legend. But, now that the reader knows me +worthy of his confidence, I will begin to make him stare. + +To speak frankly, then, I could bring the most astounding proofs that +Monsieur du Miroir is at least a conjurer, if not one of that unearthly +tribe with whom conjurers deal. He has inscrutable methods of conveying +himself from place to place with the rapidity of the swiftest steamboat +or rail-car. Brick walls and oaken doors and iron bolts are no +impediment to his passage. Here in my chamber, for instance, as the +evening deepens into night, I sit alone,—the key turned and withdrawn +from the lock, the keyhole stuffed with paper to keep out a peevish +little blast of wind. Yet, lonely as I seem, were I to lift one of the +lamps and step five paces eastward, Monsieur du Miroir would be sure to +meet me with a lamp also in his hand; and were I to take the +stage-coach to-morrow, without giving him the least hint of my design, +and post onward till the week’s end, at whatever hotel I might find +myself I should expect to share my private apartment with this +inevitable Monsieur du Miroir. Or, out of a mere wayward fantasy, were +I to go, by moonlight, and stand beside the stone Pout of the Shaker +Spring at Canterbury, Monsieur du Miroir would set forth on the same +fool’s errand, and would not fail to meet me there. Shall I heighten +the reader’s wonder? While writing these latter sentences, I happened +to glance towards the large, round globe of one off the brass andirons, +and lo! a miniature apparition of Monsieur du Miroir, with his face +widened and grotesquely contorted, as if he were making fun of my +amazement! But he has played so many of these jokes that they begin to +lose their effect. Once, presumptuous that he was, he stole into the +heaven of a young lady’s eyes; so that, while I gazed and was dreaming +only of herself, I found him also in my dream. Years have so changed +him since that he need never hope to enter those heavenly orbs again. + +From these veritable statements it will be readily concluded that, had +Monsieur du Miroir played such pranks in old witch times, matters might +have gone hard with him; at least if the constable and posse comitatus +could have executed a warrant, or the jailer had been cunning enough to +keep him. But it has often occurred to me as a very singular +circumstance, and as betokening either a temperament morbidly +suspicious or some weighty cause of apprehension, that he never trusts +himself within the grasp even of his most intimate friend. If you step +forward to meet him, he readily advances; if you offer him your hand, +he extends his own with an air of the utmost frankness; but, though you +calculate upon a hearty shake, you do not get hold of his little +finger. Ah, this Monsieur du Miroir is a slippery fellow! + +These truly are matters of special admiration. After vainly +endeavoring, by the strenuous exertion of my own wits, to gain a +satisfactory insight into the character of Monsieur du Miroir, I had +recourse to certain wise men, and also to books of abstruse philosophy, +seeking who it was that haunted me, and why. I heard long lectures and +read huge volumes with little profit beyond the knowledge that many +former instances are recorded, in successive ages, of similar +connections between ordinary mortals and beings possessing the +attributes of Monsieur du Miroir. Some now alive, perhaps, besides +myself, have such attendants. Would that Monsieur du Miroir could be +persuaded to transfer his attachment to one of those, and allow some +other of his race to assume the situation that he now holds in regard +to me! If I must needs have so intrusive an intimate, who stares me in +the face in my closest privacy, and follows me even to my bedchamber, I +should prefer—scandal apart—the laughing bloom of a young girl to the +dark and bearded gravity of my present companion. But such desires are +never to be gratified. Though the members of Monsieur du Miroir’s +family have been accused, perhaps justly, of visiting their friends +often in splendid halls, and seldom in darksome dungeons, yet they +exhibit a rare constancy to the objects of their first attachment, +however unlovely in person or unamiable in disposition,—however +unfortunate, or even infamous, and deserted by all the world besides. +So will it be with my associate. Our fates appear inseparably blended. +It is my belief, as I find him mingling with my earliest recollections, +that we came into existence together, as my shadow follows me into the +sunshine, and that hereafter, as heretofore, the brightness or gloom of +my fortunes will shine upon, or darken, the face of Monsieur du Miroir. +As we have been young together, and as it is now near the summer noon +with both of us, so, if long life be granted, shall each count his own +wrinkles on the other’s brow and his white hairs on the other’s head. +And when the coffin-lid shall have closed over me and that face and +form, which, more truly than the lover swears it to his beloved, are +the sole light of his existence,—when they shall be laid in that dark +chamber, whither his swift and secret footsteps cannot bring him,—then +what is to become of poor Monsieur du Miroir? Will he have the +fortitude, with my other friends, to take a last look at my pale +countenance? Will he walk foremost in the funeral train? Will he come +often and haunt around my grave, and weed away the nettles, and plant +flowers amid the verdure, and scrape the moss out of the letters of my +burial-stone? Will he linger where I have lived, to remind the +neglectful world of one who staked much to win a name, but will not +then care whether he lost or won? + +Not thus will he prove his deep fidelity. O, what terror, if this +friend of mine, after our last farewell, should step into the crowded +street, or roam along our old frequented path by the still waters, or +sit down in the domestic circle where our faces are most familiar and +beloved! No; but when the rays of heaven shall bless me no more, nor +the thoughtful lamplight gleam upon my studies, nor the cheerful +fireside gladden the meditative man, then, his task fulfilled, shall +this mysterious being vanish from the earth forever. He will pass to +the dark realm of nothingness, but will not find me there. + +There is something fearful in bearing such a relation to a creature so +imperfectly known, and in the idea that, to a certain extent, all which +concerns myself will be reflected in its consequences upon him. When we +feel that another is to share the self-same fortune with ourselves we +judge more severely of our prospects, and withhold our confidence from +that delusive magic which appears to shed an infallibility of happiness +over our own pathway. Of late years, indeed, there has been much to +sadden my intercourse with Monsieur de Miroir. Had not our union been a +necessary condition of our life, we must have been estranged ere now. +In early youth, when my affections were warm and free, I loved him +well, and could always spend a pleasant hour in his society, chiefly +because it gave me an excellent opinion of myself. Speechless as he +was, Monsieur du Miroir had then a most agreeable way of calling me a +handsome fellow; and I, of course, returned the compliment; so that, +the more we kept each other’s company, the greater coxcombs we mutually +grew. But neither of us need apprehend any such misfortune now. When we +chance to meet,—for it is chance oftener than design,—each glances +sadly at the other’s forehead, dreading wrinkles there; and at our +temples, whence the hair is thinning away too early; and at the sunken +eyes, which no longer shed a gladsome light over the whole face. I +involuntarily peruse him as a record of my heavy youth, which has been +wasted in sluggishness for lack of hope and impulse, or equally thrown +away in toil that had no wise motive and has accomplished no good end. +I perceive that the tranquil gloom of a disappointed soul has darkened +through his countenance, where the blackness of the future seems to +mingle with the shadows of the past, giving him the aspect of a fated +man. Is it too wild a thought that my fate may have assumed this image +of myself, and therefore haunts me with such inevitable pertinacity, +originating every act which it appears to imitate, while it deludes me +by pretending to share the events of which it is merely the emblem and +the prophecy? I must banish this idea, or it will throw too deep an awe +round my companion. At our next meeting, especially if it be at +midnight or in solitude, I fear that I shall glance aside and shudder; +in which case, as Monsieur du Miroir is extremely sensitive to +ill-treatment, he also will avert his eyes and express horror or +disgust. + +But no; this is unworthy of me. As of old I sought his society for the +bewitching dreams of woman’s love which he inspired, and because I +fancied a bright fortune in his aspect, so now will I hold daily and +long communion with hint for the sake of the stern lessons that he will +teach my manhood. With folded arms we will sit face to face, and +lengthen out our silent converse till a wiser cheerfulness shall have +been wrought from the very texture of despondency. He will say, perhaps +indignantly, that it befits only him to mourn for the decay of outward +grace, which, while he possessed it, was his all. But have not you, he +will ask, a treasure in reserve, to which every year may add far more +value than age or death itself can snatch from that miserable clay? He +will tell me that though the bloom of life has been nipped with a +frost, yet the soul must not sit shivering in its cell, but bestir +itself manfully, and kindle a genial warmth from its own exercise +against; the autumnal and the wintry atmosphere. And I, in return, will +bid him be of good cheer, nor take it amiss that I must blanch his +locks and wrinkle him up like a wilted apple, since it shall be my +endeavor so to beautify his face with intellect and mild benevolence +that he shall profit immensely by the change. But here a smile will +glimmer somewhat sadly over Monsieur du Miroir’s visage. + +When this subject shall have been sufficiently discussed we may take up +others as important. Reflecting upon his power of following me to the +remotest regions and into the deepest privacy, I will compare the +attempt to escape him to the hopeless race that men sometimes run with +memory, or their own hearts, or their moral selves, which, though +burdened with cares enough to crush an elephant, will never be one step +behind. I will be self-contemplative, as nature bids me, and make him +the picture or visible type of what I muse upon, that my mind may not +wander so vaguely as heretofore, chasing its own shadow through a chaos +and catching only the monsters that abide there. Then will we turn our +thoughts to the spiritual world, of the reality of which my companions +shall furnish me an illustration, if not an argument; for, as we have +only the testimony of the eye to Monsieur du Miroir’s existence, while +all the other senses would fail to inform us that such a figure stands +within arm’s-length, wherefore should there not be beings innumerable +close beside us, and filling heaven and earth with their multitude, yet +of whom no corporeal perception can take cognizance? A blind man might +as reasonably deny that Monsieur du Miroir exists, as we, because the +Creator has hitherto withheld the spiritual perception, can therefore +contend that there are no spirits. O, there are! And, at this moment, +when the subject of which I write has grown strong within me and +surrounded itself with those solemn and awful associations which might +have seemed most alien to it, I could fancy that Monsieur du Miroir +himself is a wanderer from the spiritual world, with nothing human +except his delusive garment of visibility. Methinks I should tremble +now were his wizard power of gliding through all impediments in search +of me to place him suddenly before my eyes. + +Ha! What is yonder? Shape of mystery, did the tremor of my heartstrings +vibrate to thine own, and call thee from thy home among the dancers of +the northern lights, and shadows flung from departed sunshine, and +giant spectres that appear on clouds at daybreak and affright the +climber of the Alps? In truth it startled me, as I threw a wary glance +eastward across the chamber, to discern an unbidden guest with his eyes +bent on mine. The identical MONSIEUR DU MIROIR! Still there he sits and +returns my gaze with as much of awe and curiosity as if he, too, had +spent a solitary evening in fantastic musings and made me his theme. So +inimitably does he counterfeit that I could almost doubt which of us is +the visionary form, or whether each be not the other’s mystery, and +both twin brethren of one fate, in mutually reflected spheres. O +friend, canst thou not hear and answer me? Break down the barrier +between us! Grasp my hand! Speak! Listen! A few words, perhaps, might +satisfy the feverish yearning of my soul for some master-thought that +should guide me through this labyrinth of life, teaching wherefore I +was born, and how to do my task on earth, and what is death. Alas! Even +that unreal image should forget to ape me and smile at these vain +questions. Thus do mortals deify, as it were, a mere shadow of +themselves, a spectre of human reason, and ask of that to unveil the +mysteries which Divine Intelligence has revealed so far as needful to +our guidance, and hid the rest. + +Farewell, Monsieur du Miroir. Of you, perhaps, as of many men, it may +be doubted whether you are the wiser, though your whole business is +REFLECTION. + + + + +THE HALL OF FANTASY + + +It has happened to me, on various occasions, to find myself in a +certain edifice which would appear to have some of the characteristics +of a public exchange. Its interior is a spacious hall, with a pavement +of white marble. Overhead is a lofty dome, supported by long rows of +pillars of fantastic architecture, the idea of which was probably taken +from the Moorish ruins of the Alhambra, or perhaps from some enchanted +edifice in the Arabian tales. The windows of this hall have a breadth +and grandeur of design and an elaborateness of workmanship that have +nowhere been equalled, except in the Gothic cathedrals of the Old +World. Like their prototypes, too, they admit the light of heaven only +through stained and pictured glass, thus filling the hall with +many-colored radiance and painting its marble floor with beautiful or +grotesque designs; so that its inmates breathe, as it were, a visionary +atmosphere, and tread upon the fantasies of poetic minds. These +peculiarities, combining a wilder mixture of styles than even an +American architect usually recognizes as allowable,—Grecian, Gothic, +Oriental, and nondescript,—cause the whole edifice to give the +impression of a dream, which might be dissipated and shattered to +fragments by merely stamping the foot upon the pavement. Yet, with such +modifications and repairs as successive ages demand, the Hall of +Fantasy is likely to endure longer than the most substantial structure +that ever cumbered the earth. + +It is not at all times that one can gain admittance into this edifice, +although most persons enter it at some period or other of their lives; +if not in their waking moments, then by the universal passport of a +dream. At my last visit I wandered thither unawares while my mind was +busy with an idle tale, and was startled by the throng of people who +seemed suddenly to rise up around me. + +“Bless me! Where am I?” cried I, with but a dim recognition of the +place. + +“You are in a spot,” said a friend who chanced to be near at hand, +“which occupies in the world of fancy the same position which the +Bourse, the Rialto, and the Exchange do in the commercial world. All +who have affairs in that mystic region, which lies above, below, or +beyond the actual, may here meet and talk over the business of their +dreams.” + +“It is a noble hall,” observed I. + +“Yes,” he replied. “Yet we see but a small portion of the edifice. In +its upper stories are said to be apartments where the inhabitants of +earth may hold converse with those of the moon; and beneath our feet +are gloomy cells, which communicate with the infernal regions, and +where monsters and chimeras are kept in confinement and fed with all +unwholesomeness.” + +In niches and on pedestals around about the hall stood the statues or +busts of men who in every age have been rulers and demigods in the +realms of imagination and its kindred regions. The grand old +countenance of Homer; the shrunken and decrepit form but vivid face of +AEsop; the dark presence of Dante; the wild Ariosto; Rabelais’s smile +of deep-wrought mirth, the profound, pathetic humor of Cervantes; the +all-glorious Shakespeare; Spenser, meet guest for an allegoric +structure; the severe divinity of Milton; and Bunyan, moulded of +homeliest clay, but instinct with celestial fire,—were those that +chiefly attracted my eye. Fielding, Richardson, and Scott occupied +conspicuous pedestals. In an obscure and shadowy niche was deposited +the bust of our countryman, the author of Arthur Mervyn. + +“Besides these indestructible memorials of real genius,” remarked my +companion, “each century has erected statues of its own ephemeral +favorites in wood.” + +“I observe a few crumbling relics of such,” said I. “But ever and anon, +I suppose, Oblivion comes with her huge broom and sweeps them all from +the marble floor. But such will never be the fate of this fine statue +of Goethe.” + +“Nor of that next to it,—Emanuel Swedenborg,” said he. “Were ever two +men of transcendent imagination more unlike?” + +In the centre of the hall springs an ornamental fountain, the water of +which continually throws itself into new shapes and snatches the most +diversified lines from the stained atmosphere around. It is impossible +to conceive what a strange vivacity is imparted to the scene by the +magic dance of this fountain, with its endless transformations, in +which the imaginative beholder may discern what form he will. The water +is supposed by some to flow from the same source as the Castalian +spring, and is extolled by others as uniting the virtues of the +Fountain of Youth with those of many other enchanted wells long +celebrated in tale and song. Having never tasted it, I can bear no +testimony to its quality. + +“Did you ever drink this water?” I inquired of my friend. + +“A few sips now and then,” answered he. “But there are men here who +make it their constant beverage,—or, at least, have the credit of doing +so. In some instances it is known to have intoxicating qualities.” + +“Pray let us look at these water-drinkers,” said I. + +So we passed among the fantastic pillars till we came to a spot where a +number of persons were clustered together in the light of one of the +great stained windows, which seemed to glorify the whole group as well +as the marble that they trod on. Most of them were men of broad +foreheads, meditative countenances, and thoughtful, inward eyes; yet it +required but a trifle to summon up mirth, peeping out from the very +midst of grave and lofty musings. Some strode about, or leaned against +the pillars of the hall, alone and in silence; their faces wore a rapt +expression, as if sweet music were in the air around them, or as if +their inmost souls were about to float away in song. One or two, +perhaps, stole a glance at the bystanders, to watch if their poetic +absorption were observed. Others stood talking in groups, with a +liveliness of expression, a ready smile, and a light, intellectual +laughter, which showed how rapidly the shafts of wit were glancing to +and fro among them. + +A few held higher converse, which caused their calm and melancholy +souls to beam moonlight from their eyes. As I lingered near them,—for I +felt an inward attraction towards these men, as if the sympathy of +feeling, if not of genius, had united me to their order,—my friend +mentioned several of their names. The world has likewise heard those +names; with some it has been familiar for years; and others are daily +making their way deeper into the universal heart. + +“Thank Heaven,” observed I to my companion, as we passed to another +part of the hall, “we have done with this techy, wayward, shy, proud +unreasonable set of laurel-gatherers. I love them in their works, but +have little desire to meet them elsewhere.” + +“You have adopted all old prejudice, I see,” replied my friend, who was +familiar with most of these worthies, being himself a student of +poetry, and not without the poetic flame. “But, so far as my experience +goes, men of genius are fairly gifted with the social qualities; and in +this age there appears to be a fellow-feeling among them which had not +heretofore been developed. As men, they ask nothing better than to be +on equal terms with their fellow-men; and as authors, they have thrown +aside their proverbial jealousy, and acknowledge a generous +brotherhood.” + +“The world does not think so,” answered I. “An author is received in +general society pretty much as we honest citizens are in the Hall of +Fantasy. We gaze at him as if he had no business among us, and question +whether he is fit for any of our pursuits.” + +“Then it is a very foolish question,” said he. “Now, here are a class +of men whom we may daily meet on ’Change. Yet what poet in the hall is +more a fool of fancy than the sagest of them?” + +He pointed to a number of persons, who, manifest as the fact was, would +have deemed it an insult to be told that they stood in the Hall of +Fantasy. Their visages were traced into wrinkles and furrows, each of +which seemed the record of some actual experience in life. Their eyes +had the shrewd, calculating glance which detects so quickly and so +surely all that it concerns a man of business to know about the +characters and purposes of his fellow-men. Judging them as they stood, +they might be honored and trusted members of the Chamber of Commerce, +who had found the genuine secret of wealth and whose sagacity gave them +the command of fortune. + +There was a character of detail and matter of fact in their talk which +concealed the extravagance of its purport, insomuch that the wildest +schemes had the aspect of everyday realities. Thus the listener was not +startled at the idea of cities to be built, as if by magic, in the +heart of pathless forests; and of streets to be laid out where now the +sea was tossing; and of mighty rivers to be stayed in their courses in +order to turn the machinery of a cotton-mill. It was only by an effort, +and scarcely then, that the mind convinced itself that such +speculations were as much matter of fantasy as the old dream of +Eldorado, or as Mammon’s Cave, or any other vision of gold ever +conjured up by the imagination of needy poet or romantic adventurer. + +“Upon my word,” said I, “it is dangerous to listen to such dreamers as +these. Their madness is contagious.” + +“Yes,” said my friend, “because they mistake the Hall of Fantasy for +actual brick and mortar, and its purple atmosphere for unsophisticated +sunshine. But the poet knows his whereabout, and therefore is less +likely to make a fool of himself in real life.” + +“Here again,” observed I, as we advanced a little farther, “we see +another order of dreamers, peculiarly characteristic, too, of the +genius of our country.” + +These were the inventors of fantastic machines. Models of their +contrivances were placed against some of the pillars of the hall, and +afforded good emblems of the result generally to be anticipated from an +attempt to reduce day-dreams to practice. The analogy may hold in +morals as well as physics; for instance, here was the model of a +railroad through the air and a tunnel under the sea. Here was a +machine—stolen, I believe—for the distillation of heat from moonshine; +and another for the condensation of morning mist into square blocks of +granite, wherewith it was proposed to rebuild the entire Hall of +Fantasy. One man exhibited a sort of lens whereby he had succeeded in +making sunshine out of a lady’s smile; and it was his purpose wholly to +irradiate the earth by means of this wonderful invention. + +“It is nothing new,” said I; “for most of our sunshine comes from +woman’s smile already.” + +“True,” answered the inventor; “but my machine will secure a constant +supply for domestic use; whereas hitherto it has been very precarious.” + +Another person had a scheme for fixing the reflections of objects in a +pool of water, and thus taking the most life-like portraits imaginable; +and the same gentleman demonstrated the practicability of giving a +permanent dye to ladies’ dresses, in the gorgeous clouds of sunset. +There were at least fifty kinds of perpetual motion, one of which was +applicable to the wits of newspaper editors and writers of every +description. Professor Espy was here, with a tremendous storm in a +gum-elastic bag. I could enumerate many more of these Utopian +inventions; but, after all, a more imaginative collection is to be +found in the Patent Office at Washington. + +Turning from the inventors we took a more general survey of the inmates +of the hall. Many persons were present whose right of entrance appeared +to consist in some crotchet of the brain, which, so long as it might +operate, produced a change in their relation to the actual world. It is +singular how very few there are who do not occasionally gain admittance +on such a score, either in abstracted musings, or momentary thoughts, +or bright anticipations, or vivid remembrances; for even the actual +becomes ideal, whether in hope or memory, and beguiles the dreamer into +the Hall of Fantasy. Some unfortunates make their whole abode and +business here, and contract habits which unfit them for all the real +employments of life. Others—but these are few—possess the faculty, in +their occasional visits, of discovering a purer truth than the world +call impart among the lights and shadows of these pictured windows. + +And with all its dangerous influences, we have reason to thank God that +there is such a place of refuge from the gloom and chillness of actual +life. Hither may come the prisoner, escaping from his dark and narrow +cell and cankerous chain, to breathe free air in this enchanted +atmosphere. The sick man leaves his weary pillow, and finds strength to +wander hither, though his wasted limbs might not support him even to +the threshold of his chamber. The exile passes through the Hall of +Fantasy to revisit his native soil. The burden of years rolls down from +the old man’s shoulders the moment that the door uncloses. Mourners +leave their heavy sorrows at the entrance, and here rejoin the lost +ones whose faces would else be seen no more, until thought shall have +become the only fact. It may be said, in truth, that there is but half +a life—the meaner and earthier half—for those who never find their way +into the hall. Nor must I fail to mention that in the observatory of +the edifice is kept that wonderful perspective-glass, through which the +shepherds of the Delectable Mountains showed Christian the far-off +gleam of the Celestial City. The eye of Faith still loves to gaze +through it. + +“I observe some men here,” said I to my friend, “who might set up a +strong claim to be reckoned among the most real personages of the day.” + +“Certainly,” he replied. “If a man be in advance of his age, he must be +content to make his abode in this hall until the lingering generations +of his fellow-men come up with him. He can find no other shelter in the +universe. But the fantasies of one day are the deepest realities of a +future one.” + +“It is difficult to distinguish them apart amid the gorgeous and +bewildering light of this ball,” rejoined I. “The white sunshine of +actual life is necessary in order to test them. I am rather apt to +doubt both men and their reasonings till I meet them in that truthful +medium.” + +“Perhaps your faith in the ideal is deeper than you are aware,” said my +friend. “You are at least a democrat; and methinks no scanty share of +such faith is essential to the adoption of that creed.” + +Among the characters who had elicited these remarks were most of the +noted reformers of the day, whether in physics, politics, morals, or +religion. There is no surer method of arriving at the Hall of Fantasy +than to throw one’s-self into the current of a theory; for, whatever +landmarks of fact may be set up along the stream, there is a law of +nature that impels it thither. And let it be so; for here the wise head +and capacious heart may do their work; and what is good and true +becomes gradually hardened into fact, while error melts away and +vanishes among the shadows of the ball. Therefore may none who believe +and rejoice in the progress of mankind be angry with me because I +recognized their apostles and leaders amid the fantastic radiance of +those pictured windows. I love and honor such men as well as they. + +It would be endless to describe the herd of real or self styled +reformers that peopled this place of refuge. They were the +representatives of an unquiet period, when mankind is seeking to cast +off the whole tissue of ancient custom like a tattered garment. Many of +then had got possession of some crystal fragment of truth, the +brightness of which so dazzled them that they could see nothing else in +the wide universe. Here were men whose faith had embodied itself in the +form of a potato; and others whose long beards had a deep spiritual +significance. Here was the abolitionist, brandishing his one idea like +an iron flail. In a word, there were a thousand shapes of good and +evil, faith and infidelity, wisdom and nonsense,—a most incongruous +throng. + +Yet, withal, the heart of the stanchest conservative, unless he abjured +his fellowship with man, could hardly have helped throbbing in sympathy +with the spirit that pervaded these innumerable theorists. It was good +for the man of unquickened heart to listen even to their folly. Far +down beyond the fathom of the intellect the soul acknowledged that all +these varying and conflicting developments of humanity were united in +one sentiment. Be the individual theory as wild as fancy could make it, +still the wiser spirit would recognize the struggle of the race after a +better and purer life than had yet been realized on earth. My faith +revived even while I rejected all their schemes. It could not be that +the world should continue forever what it has been; a soil where +Happiness is so rare a flower and Virtue so often a blighted fruit; a +battle-field where the good principle, with its shield flung above its +head, can hardly save itself amid the rush of adverse influences. In +the enthusiasm of such thoughts I gazed through one of the pictured +windows, and, behold! the whole external world was tinged with the +dimly glorious aspect that is peculiar to the Hall of Fantasy, insomuch +that it seemed practicable at that very instant to realize some plan +for the perfection of mankind. But, alas! if reformers would understand +the sphere in which their lot is cast they must cease to look through +pictured windows. Yet they not only use this medium, but mistake it for +the whitest sunshine. + +“Come,” said I to my friend, starting from a deep revery, “let us +hasten hence, or I shall be tempted to make a theory, after which there +is little hope of any man.” + +“Come hither, then,” answered he. “Here is one theory that swallows up +and annihilates all others.” + +He led me to a distant part of the hall where a crowd of deeply +attentive auditors were assembled round an elderly man of plain, +honest, trustworthy aspect. With an earnestness that betokened the +sincerest faith in his own doctrine, he announced that the destruction +of the world was close at hand. + +“It is Father Miller himself!” exclaimed I. + +“No less a man,” said my friend; “and observe how picturesque a +contrast between his dogma and those of the reformers whom we have just +glanced at. They look for the earthly perfection of mankind, and are +forming schemes which imply that the immortal spirit will be connected +with a physical nature for innumerable ages of futurity. On the other +hand, here comes good Father Miller, and with one puff of his +relentless theory scatters all their dreams like so many withered +leaves upon the blast.” + +“It is, perhaps, the only method of getting mankind out of the various +perplexities into which they have fallen,” I replied. “Yet I could wish +that the world might be permitted to endure until some great moral +shall have been evolved. A riddle is propounded. Where is the solution? +The sphinx did not slay herself until her riddle had been guessed. Will +it not be so with the world? Now, if it should be burned to-morrow +morning, I am at a loss to know what purpose will have been +accomplished, or how the universe will be wiser or better for our +existence and destruction.” + +“We cannot tell what mighty truths may have been embodied in act +through the existence of the globe and its inhabitants,” rejoined my +companion. “Perhaps it may be revealed to us after the fall of the +curtain over our catastrophe; or not impossibly, the whole drama, in +which we are involuntary actors, may have been performed for the +instruction of another set of spectators. I cannot perceive that our +own comprehension of it is at all essential to the matter. At any rate, +while our view is so ridiculously narrow and superficial it would be +absurd to argue the continuance of the world from the fact that it +seems to have existed hitherto in vain.” + +“The poor old earth,” murmured I. “She has faults enough, in all +conscience, but I cannot hear to have her perish.” + +“It is no great matter,” said my friend. “The happiest of us has been +weary of her many a time and oft.” + +“I doubt it,” answered I, pertinaciously; “the root of human nature +strikes down deep into this earthly soil, and it is but reluctantly +that we submit to be transplanted, even for a higher cultivation in +heaven. I query whether the destruction of the earth would gratify any +one individual, except perhaps some embarrassed man of business whose +notes fall due a day after the day of doom.” + +Then methought I heard the expostulating cry of a multitude against the +consummation prophesied by Father Miller. The lover wrestled with +Providence for his foreshadowed bliss. Parents entreated that the +earth’s span of endurance might be prolonged by some seventy years, so +that their new-born infant should not be defrauded of his lifetime. A +youthful poet murmured because there would be no posterity to recognize +the inspiration of his song. The reformers, one and all, demanded a few +thousand years to test their theories, after which the universe might +go to wreck. A mechanician, who was busied with an improvement of the +steam-engine, asked merely time to perfect his model. A miser insisted +that the world’s destruction would be a personal wrong to himself, +unless he should first be permitted to add a specified sum to his +enormous heap of gold. A little boy made dolorous inquiry whether the +last day would come before Christmas, and thus deprive him of his +anticipated dainties. In short, nobody seemed satisfied that this +mortal scene of things should have its close just now. Yet, it must be +confessed, the motives of the crowd for desiring its continuance were +mostly so absurd, that unless infinite Wisdom had been aware of much +better reasons, the solid earth must have melted away at once. + +For my own part, not to speak of a few private and personal ends, I +really desired our old mother’s prolonged existence for her own dear +sake. + +“The poor old earth!” I repeated. “What I should chiefly regret in her +destruction would be that very earthliness which no other sphere or +state of existence can renew or compensate. The fragrance of flowers +and of new-mown hay; the genial warmth of sunshine, and the beauty of a +sunset among clouds; the comfort and cheerful glow of the fireside; the +deliciousness of fruits and of all good cheer; the magnificence of +mountains, and seas, and cataracts, and the softer charm of rural +scenery; even the fast-falling snow and the gray atmosphere through +which it descends,—all these and innumerable other enjoyable things of +earth must perish with her. Then the country frolics; the homely humor; +the broad, open-mouthed roar of laughter, in which body and soul +conjoin so heartily! I fear that no other world call show its anything +just like this. As for purely moral enjoyments, the good will find them +in every state of being. But where the material and the moral exist +together, what is to happen then? And then our mute four-footed friends +and the winged songsters of our woods! Might it not be lawful to regret +them, even in the hallowed groves of paradise?” + +“You speak like the very spirit of earth, imbued with a scent of +freshly turned soil,” exclaimed my friend. + +“It is not that I so much object to giving up these enjoyments on my +own account,” continued I, “but I hate to think that they will have +been eternally annihilated from the list of joys.” + +“Nor need they be,” he replied. “I see no real force in what you say. +Standing in this Hall of Fantasy, we perceive what even the +earth-clogged intellect of man can do in creating circumstances which, +though we call them shadowy and visionary, are scarcely more so than +those that surround us in actual life. Doubt not then that man’s +disembodied spirit may recreate time and the world for itself, with all +their peculiar enjoyments, should there still be human yearnings amid +life eternal and infinite. But I doubt whether we shall be inclined to +play such a poor scene over again.” + +“O, you are ungrateful to our mother earth!” rejoined I. “Come what +may, I never will forget her! Neither will it satisfy me to have her +exist merely in idea. I want her great, round, solid self to endure +interminably, and still to be peopled with the kindly race of man, whom +I uphold to be much better than he thinks himself. Nevertheless, I +confide the whole matter to Providence, and shall endeavor so to live +that the world may come to an end at any moment without leaving me at a +loss to find foothold somewhere else.” + +“It is an excellent resolve,” said my companion, looking at his watch. +“But come; it is the dinner-hour. Will you partake of my vegetable +diet?” + +A thing so matter of fact as an invitation to dinner, even when the +fare was to be nothing more substantial than vegetables and fruit, +compelled us forthwith to remove from the Hall of Fantasy. As we passed +out of the portal we met the spirits of several persons who had been +sent thither in magnetic sleep. I looked back among the sculptured +pillars and at the transformations of the gleaming fountain, and almost +desired that the whole of life might be spent in that visionary scene +where the actual world, with its hard angles, should never rub against +me, and only be viewed through the medium of pictured windows. But for +those who waste all their days in the Hall of Fantasy, good Father +Miller’s prophecy is already accomplished, and the solid earth has come +to an untimely end. Let us be content, therefore, with merely an +occasional visit, for the sake of spiritualizing the grossness of this +actual life, and prefiguring to ourselves a state in which the Idea +shall be all in all. + + + + +THE CELESTIAL RAILROAD + + +Not a great while ago, passing through the gate of dreams, I visited +that region of the earth in which lies the famous City of Destruction. +It interested me much to learn that by the public spirit of some of the +inhabitants a railroad has recently been established between this +populous and flourishing town and the Celestial City. Having a little +time upon my hands, I resolved to gratify a liberal curiosity by making +a trip thither. Accordingly, one fine morning after paying my bill at +the hotel, and directing the porter to stow my luggage behind a coach, +I took my seat in the vehicle and set out for the station-house. It was +my good fortune to enjoy the company of a gentleman—one Mr. +Smooth-it-away—who, though he had never actually visited the Celestial +City, yet seemed as well acquainted with its laws, customs, policy, and +statistics, as with those of the City of Destruction, of which he was a +native townsman. Being, moreover, a director of the railroad +corporation and one of its largest stockholders, he had it in his power +to give me all desirable information respecting that praiseworthy +enterprise. + +Our coach rattled out of the city, and at a short distance from its +outskirts passed over a bridge of elegant construction, but somewhat +too slight, as I imagined, to sustain any considerable weight. On both +sides lay an extensive quagmire, which could not have been more +disagreeable either to sight or smell, had all the kennels of the earth +emptied their pollution there. + +“This,” remarked Mr. Smooth-it-away, “is the famous Slough of Despond—a +disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater that it might so +easily be converted into firm ground.” + +“I have understood,” said I, “that efforts have been made for that +purpose from time immemorial. Bunyan mentions that above twenty +thousand cartloads of wholesome instructions had been thrown in here +without effect.” + +“Very probably! And what effect could be anticipated from such +unsubstantial stuff?” cried Mr. Smooth-it-away. “You observe this +convenient bridge. We obtained a sufficient foundation for it by +throwing into the slough some editions of books of morality, volumes of +French philosophy and German rationalism; tracts, sermons, and essays +of modern clergymen; extracts from Plato, Confucius, and various Hindoo +sages together with a few ingenious commentaries upon texts of +Scripture,—all of which by some scientific process, have been converted +into a mass like granite. The whole bog might be filled up with similar +matter.” + +It really seemed to me, however, that the bridge vibrated and heaved up +and down in a very formidable manner; and, in spite of Mr. +Smooth-it-away’s testimony to the solidity of its foundation, I should +be loath to cross it in a crowded omnibus, especially if each passenger +were encumbered with as heavy luggage as that gentleman and myself. +Nevertheless we got over without accident, and soon found ourselves at +the stationhouse. This very neat and spacious edifice is erected on the +site of the little wicket gate, which formerly, as all old pilgrims +will recollect, stood directly across the highway, and, by its +inconvenient narrowness, was a great obstruction to the traveller of +liberal mind and expansive stomach. The reader of John Bunyan will be +glad to know that Christian’s old friend Evangelist, who was accustomed +to supply each pilgrim with a mystic roll, now presides at the ticket +office. Some malicious persons it is true deny the identity of this +reputable character with the Evangelist of old times, and even pretend +to bring competent evidence of an imposture. Without involving myself +in a dispute I shall merely observe that, so far as my experience goes, +the square pieces of pasteboard now delivered to passengers are much +more convenient and useful along the road than the antique roll of +parchment. Whether they will be as readily received at the gate of the +Celestial City I decline giving an opinion. + +A large number of passengers were already at the station-house awaiting +the departure of the cars. By the aspect and demeanor of these persons +it was easy to judge that the feelings of the community had undergone a +very favorable change in reference to the celestial pilgrimage. It +would have done Bunyan’s heart good to see it. Instead of a lonely and +ragged man with a huge burden on his back, plodding along sorrowfully +on foot while the whole city hooted after him, here were parties of the +first gentry and most respectable people in the neighborhood setting +forth towards the Celestial City as cheerfully as if the pilgrimage +were merely a summer tour. Among the gentlemen were characters of +deserved eminence—magistrates, politicians, and men of wealth, by whose +example religion could not but be greatly recommended to their meaner +brethren. In the ladies’ apartment, too, I rejoiced to distinguish some +of those flowers of fashionable society who are so well fitted to adorn +the most elevated circles of the Celestial City. There was much +pleasant conversation about the news of the day, topics of business and +politics, or the lighter matters of amusement; while religion, though +indubitably the main thing at heart, was thrown tastefully into the +background. Even an infidel would have heard little or nothing to shock +his sensibility. + +One great convenience of the new method of going on pilgrimage I must +not forget to mention. Our enormous burdens, instead of being carried +on our shoulders as had been the custom of old, were all snugly +deposited in the baggage car, and, as I was assured, would be delivered +to their respective owners at the journey’s end. Another thing, +likewise, the benevolent reader will be delighted to understand. It may +be remembered that there was an ancient feud between Prince Beelzebub +and the keeper of the wicket gate, and that the adherents of the former +distinguished personage were accustomed to shoot deadly arrows at +honest pilgrims while knocking at the door. This dispute, much to the +credit as well of the illustrious potentate above mentioned as of the +worthy and enlightened directors of the railroad, has been pacifically +arranged on the principle of mutual compromise. The prince’s subjects +are now pretty numerously employed about the station-house, some in +taking care of the baggage, others in collecting fuel, feeding the +engines, and such congenial occupations; and I can conscientiously +affirm that persons more attentive to their business, more willing to +accommodate, or more generally agreeable to the passengers, are not to +be found on any railroad. Every good heart must surely exult at so +satisfactory an arrangement of an immemorial difficulty. + +“Where is Mr. Greatheart?” inquired I. “Beyond a doubt the directors +have engaged that famous old champion to be chief conductor on the +railroad?” + +“Why, no,” said Mr. Smooth-it-away, with a dry cough. “He was offered +the situation of brakeman; but, to tell you the truth, our friend +Greatheart has grown preposterously stiff and narrow in his old age. He +has so often guided pilgrims over the road on foot that he considers it +a sin to travel in any other fashion. Besides, the old fellow had +entered so heartily into the ancient feud with Prince Beelzebub that he +would have been perpetually at blows or ill language with some of the +prince’s subjects, and thus have embroiled us anew. So, on the whole, +we were not sorry when honest Greatheart went off to the Celestial City +in a huff and left us at liberty to choose a more suitable and +accommodating man. Yonder comes the engineer of the train. You will +probably recognize him at once.” + +The engine at this moment took its station in advance of the cars, +looking, I must confess, much more like a sort of mechanical demon that +would hurry us to the infernal regions than a laudable contrivance for +smoothing our way to the Celestial City. On its top sat a personage +almost enveloped in smoke and flame, which, not to startle the reader, +appeared to gush from his own mouth and stomach as well as from the +engine’s brazen abdomen. + +“Do my eyes deceive me?” cried I. “What on earth is this! A living +creature? If so, he is own brother to the engine he rides upon!” + +“Poh, poh, you are obtuse!” said Mr. Smooth-it-away, with a hearty +laugh. “Don’t you know Apollyon, Christian’s old enemy, with whom he +fought so fierce a battle in the Valley of Humiliation? He was the very +fellow to manage the engine; and so we have reconciled him to the +custom of going on pilgrimage, and engaged him as chief engineer.” + +“Bravo, bravo!” exclaimed I, with irrepressible enthusiasm; “this shows +the liberality of the age; this proves, if anything can, that all musty +prejudices are in a fair way to be obliterated. And how will Christian +rejoice to hear of this happy transformation of his old antagonist! I +promise myself great pleasure in informing him of it when we reach the +Celestial City.” + +The passengers being all comfortably seated, we now rattled away +merrily, accomplishing a greater distance in ten minutes than Christian +probably trudged over in a day. It was laughable, while we glanced +along, as it were, at the tail of a thunderbolt, to observe two dusty +foot travellers in the old pilgrim guise, with cockle shell and staff, +their mystic rolls of parchment in their hands and their intolerable +burdens on their backs. The preposterous obstinacy of these honest +people in persisting to groan and stumble along the difficult pathway +rather than take advantage of modern improvements, excited great mirth +among our wiser brotherhood. We greeted the two pilgrims with many +pleasant gibes and a roar of laughter; whereupon they gazed at us with +such woful and absurdly compassionate visages that our merriment grew +tenfold more obstreperous. Apollyon also entered heartily into the fun, +and contrived to flirt the smoke and flame of the engine, or of his own +breath, into their faces, and envelop them in an atmosphere of scalding +steam. These little practical jokes amused us mightily, and doubtless +afforded the pilgrims the gratification of considering themselves +martyrs. + +At some distance from the railroad Mr. Smooth-it-away pointed to a +large, antique edifice, which, he observed, was a tavern of long +standing, and had formerly been a noted stopping-place for pilgrims. In +Bunyan’s road-book it is mentioned as the Interpreter’s House. + +“I have long had a curiosity to visit that old mansion,” remarked I. + +“It is not one of our stations, as you perceive,” said my companion +“The keeper was violently opposed to the railroad; and well he might +be, as the track left his house of entertainment on one side, and thus +was pretty certain to deprive him of all his reputable customers. But +the footpath still passes his door, and the old gentleman now and then +receives a call from some simple traveller, and entertains him with +fare as old-fashioned as himself.” + +Before our talk on this subject came to a conclusion we were rushing by +the place where Christian’s burden fell from his shoulders at the sight +of the Cross. This served as a theme for Mr. Smooth-it-away, Mr. +Livefor-the-world, Mr. Hide-sin-in-the-heart, Mr. Scaly-conscience, and +a knot of gentlemen from the town of Shun-repentance, to descant upon +the inestimable advantages resulting from the safety of our baggage. +Myself, and all the passengers indeed, joined with great unanimity in +this view of the matter; for our burdens were rich in many things +esteemed precious throughout the world; and, especially, we each of us +possessed a great variety of favorite Habits, which we trusted would +not be out of fashion even in the polite circles of the Celestial City. +It would have been a sad spectacle to see such an assortment of +valuable articles tumbling into the sepulchre. Thus pleasantly +conversing on the favorable circumstances of our position as compared +with those of past pilgrims and of narrow-minded ones at the present +day, we soon found ourselves at the foot of the Hill Difficulty. +Through the very heart of this rocky mountain a tunnel has been +constructed of most admirable architecture, with a lofty arch and a +spacious double track; so that, unless the earth and rocks should +chance to crumble down, it will remain an eternal monument of the +builder’s skill and enterprise. It is a great though incidental +advantage that the materials from the heart of the Hill Difficulty have +been employed in filling up the Valley of Humiliation, thus obviating +the necessity of descending into that disagreeable and unwholesome +hollow. + +“This is a wonderful improvement, indeed,” said I. “Yet I should have +been glad of an opportunity to visit the Palace Beautiful and be +introduced to the charming young ladies—Miss Prudence, Miss Piety, Miss +Charity, and the rest—who have the kindness to entertain pilgrims +there.” + +“Young ladies!” cried Mr. Smooth-it-away, as soon as he could speak for +laughing. “And charming young ladies! Why, my dear fellow, they are old +maids, every soul of them—prim, starched, dry, and angular; and not one +of them, I will venture to say, has altered so much as the fashion of +her gown since the days of Christian’s pilgrimage.” + +“Ah, well,” said I, much comforted, “then I can very readily dispense +with their acquaintance.” + +The respectable Apollyon was now putting on the steam at a prodigious +rate, anxious, perhaps, to get rid of the unpleasant reminiscences +connected with the spot where he had so disastrously encountered +Christian. Consulting Mr. Bunyan’s road-book, I perceived that we must +now be within a few miles of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, into +which doleful region, at our present speed, we should plunge much +sooner than seemed at all desirable. In truth, I expected nothing +better than to find myself in the ditch on one side or the Quag on the +other; but on communicating my apprehensions to Mr. Smooth-it-away, he +assured me that the difficulties of this passage, even in its worst +condition, had been vastly exaggerated, and that, in its present state +of improvement, I might consider myself as safe as on any railroad in +Christendom. + +Even while we were speaking the train shot into the entrance of this +dreaded Valley. Though I plead guilty to some foolish palpitations of +the heart during our headlong rush over the causeway here constructed, +yet it were unjust to withhold the highest encomiums on the boldness of +its original conception and the ingenuity of those who executed it. It +was gratifying, likewise, to observe how much care had been taken to +dispel the everlasting gloom and supply the defect of cheerful +sunshine, not a ray of which has ever penetrated among these awful +shadows. For this purpose, the inflammable gas which exudes plentifully +from the soil is collected by means of pipes, and thence communicated +to a quadruple row of lamps along the whole extent of the passage. Thus +a radiance has been created even out of the fiery and sulphurous curse +that rests forever upon the valley—a radiance hurtful, however, to the +eyes, and somewhat bewildering, as I discovered by the changes which it +wrought in the visages of my companions. In this respect, as compared +with natural daylight, there is the same difference as between truth +and falsehood, but if the reader have ever travelled through the dark +Valley, he will have learned to be thankful for any light that he could +get—if not from the sky above, then from the blasted soil beneath. Such +was the red brilliancy of these lamps that they appeared to build walls +of fire on both sides of the track, between which we held our course at +lightning speed, while a reverberating thunder filled the Valley with +its echoes. Had the engine run off the track,—a catastrophe, it is +whispered, by no means unprecedented,—the bottomless pit, if there be +any such place, would undoubtedly have received us. Just as some dismal +fooleries of this nature had made my heart quake there came a +tremendous shriek, careering along the valley as if a thousand devils +had burst their lungs to utter it, but which proved to be merely the +whistle of the engine on arriving at a stopping-place. + +The spot where we had now paused is the same that our friend Bunyan—a +truthful man, but infected with many fantastic notions—has designated, +in terms plainer than I like to repeat, as the mouth of the infernal +region. This, however, must be a mistake, inasmuch as Mr. +Smooth-it-away, while we remained in the smoky and lurid cavern, took +occasion to prove that Tophet has not even a metaphorical existence. +The place, he assured us, is no other than the crater of a half-extinct +volcano, in which the directors had caused forges to be set up for the +manufacture of railroad iron. Hence, also, is obtained a plentiful +supply of fuel for the use of the engines. Whoever had gazed into the +dismal obscurity of the broad cavern mouth, whence ever and anon darted +huge tongues of dusky flame, and had seen the strange, half-shaped +monsters, and visions of faces horribly grotesque, into which the smoke +seemed to wreathe itself, and had heard the awful murmurs, and shrieks, +and deep, shuddering whispers of the blast, sometimes forming +themselves into words almost articulate, would have seized upon Mr. +Smooth-it-away’s comfortable explanation as greedily as we did. The +inhabitants of the cavern, moreover, were unlovely personages, dark, +smoke-begrimed, generally deformed, with misshapen feet, and a glow of +dusky redness in their eyes as if their hearts had caught fire and were +blazing out of the upper windows. It struck me as a peculiarity that +the laborers at the forge and those who brought fuel to the engine, +when they began to draw short breath, positively emitted smoke from +their mouth and nostrils. + +Among the idlers about the train, most of whom were puffing cigars +which they had lighted at the flame of the crater, I was perplexed to +notice several who, to my certain knowledge, had heretofore set forth +by railroad for the Celestial City. They looked dark, wild, and smoky, +with a singular resemblance, indeed, to the native inhabitants, like +whom, also, they had a disagreeable propensity to ill-natured gibes and +sneers, the habit of which had wrought a settled contortion of their +visages. Having been on speaking terms with one of these persons,—an +indolent, good-for-nothing fellow, who went by the name of +Take-it-easy,—I called him, and inquired what was his business there. + +“Did you not start,” said I, “for the Celestial City?” + +“That’s a fact,” said Mr. Take-it-easy, carelessly puffing some smoke +into my eyes. “But I heard such bad accounts that I never took pains to +climb the hill on which the city stands. No business doing, no fun +going on, nothing to drink, and no smoking allowed, and a thrumming of +church music from morning till night. I would not stay in such a place +if they offered me house room and living free.” + +“But, my good Mr. Take-it-easy,” cried I, “why take up your residence +here, of all places in the world?” + +“Oh,” said the loafer, with a grin, “it is very warm hereabouts, and I +meet with plenty of old acquaintances, and altogether the place suits +me. I hope to see you back again some day soon. A pleasant journey to +you.” + +While he was speaking the bell of the engine rang, and we dashed away +after dropping a few passengers, but receiving no new ones. Rattling +onward through the Valley, we were dazzled with the fiercely gleaming +gas lamps, as before. But sometimes, in the dark of intense brightness, +grim faces, that bore the aspect and expression of individual sins, or +evil passions, seemed to thrust themselves through the veil of light, +glaring upon us, and stretching forth a great, dusky hand, as if to +impede our progress. I almost thought that they were my own sins that +appalled me there. These were freaks of imagination—nothing more, +certainly-mere delusions, which I ought to be heartily ashamed of; but +all through the Dark Valley I was tormented, and pestered, and +dolefully bewildered with the same kind of waking dreams. The mephitic +gases of that region intoxicate the brain. As the light of natural day, +however, began to struggle with the glow of the lanterns, these vain +imaginations lost their vividness, and finally vanished from the first +ray of sunshine that greeted our escape from the Valley of the Shadow +of Death. Ere we had gone a mile beyond it I could well-nigh have taken +my oath that this whole gloomy passage was a dream. + +At the end of the valley, as John Bunyan mentions, is a cavern, where, +in his days, dwelt two cruel giants, Pope and Pagan, who had strown the +ground about their residence with the bones of slaughtered pilgrims. +These vile old troglodytes are no longer there; but into their deserted +cave another terrible giant has thrust himself, and makes it his +business to seize upon honest travellers and fatten them for his table +with plentiful meals of smoke, mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, and +sawdust. He is a German by birth, and is called Giant +Transcendentalist; but as to his form, his features, his substance, and +his nature generally, it is the chief peculiarity of this huge +miscreant that neither he for himself, nor anybody for him, has ever +been able to describe them. As we rushed by the cavern’s mouth we +caught a hasty glimpse of him, looking somewhat like an +ill-proportioned figure, but considerably more like a heap of fog and +duskiness. He shouted after us, but in so strange a phraseology that we +knew not what he meant, nor whether to be encouraged or affrighted. + +It was late in the day when the train thundered into the ancient city +of Vanity, where Vanity Fair is still at the height of prosperity, and +exhibits an epitome of whatever is brilliant, gay, and fascinating +beneath the sun. As I purposed to make a considerable stay here, it +gratified me to learn that there is no longer the want of harmony +between the town’s-people and pilgrims, which impelled the former to +such lamentably mistaken measures as the persecution of Christian and +the fiery martyrdom of Faithful. On the contrary, as the new railroad +brings with it great trade and a constant influx of strangers, the lord +of Vanity Fair is its chief patron, and the capitalists of the city are +among the largest stockholders. Many passengers stop to take their +pleasure or make their profit in the Fair, instead of going onward to +the Celestial City. Indeed, such are the charms of the place that +people often affirm it to be the true and only heaven; stoutly +contending that there is no other, that those who seek further are mere +dreamers, and that, if the fabled brightness of the Celestial City lay +but a bare mile beyond the gates of Vanity, they would not be fools +enough to go thither. Without subscribing to these perhaps exaggerated +encomiums, I can truly say that my abode in the city was mainly +agreeable, and my intercourse with the inhabitants productive of much +amusement and instruction. + +Being naturally of a serious turn, my attention was directed to the +solid advantages derivable from a residence here, rather than to the +effervescent pleasures which are the grand object with too many +visitants. The Christian reader, if he have had no accounts of the city +later than Bunyan’s time, will be surprised to hear that almost every +street has its church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere held in +higher respect than at Vanity Fair. And well do they deserve such +honorable estimation; for the maxims of wisdom and virtue which fall +from their lips come from as deep a spiritual source, and tend to as +lofty a religious aim, as those of the sagest philosophers of old. In +justification of this high praise I need only mention the names of the +Rev. Mr. Shallow-deep, the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-truth, that fine old +clerical character the Rev. Mr. This-today, who expects shortly to +resign his pulpit to the Rev. Mr. That-tomorrow; together with the Rev. +Mr. Bewilderment, the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit, and, last and greatest, +the Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine. The labors of these eminent divines are +aided by those of innumerable lecturers, who diffuse such a various +profundity, in all subjects of human or celestial science, that any man +may acquire an omnigenous erudition without the trouble of even +learning to read. Thus literature is etherealized by assuming for its +medium the human voice; and knowledge, depositing all its heavier +particles, except, doubtless, its gold becomes exhaled into a sound, +which forthwith steals into the ever-open ear of the community. These +ingenious methods constitute a sort of machinery, by which thought and +study are done to every person’s hand without his putting himself to +the slightest inconvenience in the matter. There is another species of +machine for the wholesale manufacture of individual morality. This +excellent result is effected by societies for all manner of virtuous +purposes, with which a man has merely to connect himself, throwing, as +it were, his quota of virtue into the common stock, and the president +and directors will take care that the aggregate amount be well applied. +All these, and other wonderful improvements in ethics, religion, and +literature, being made plain to my comprehension by the ingenious Mr. +Smooth-it-away, inspired me with a vast admiration of Vanity Fair. + +It would fill a volume, in an age of pamphlets, were I to record all my +observations in this great capital of human business and pleasure. +There was an unlimited range of society—the powerful, the wise, the +witty, and the famous in every walk of life; princes, presidents, +poets, generals, artists, actors, and philanthropists,—all making their +own market at the fair, and deeming no price too exorbitant for such +commodities as hit their fancy. It was well worth one’s while, even if +he had no idea of buying or selling, to loiter through the bazaars and +observe the various sorts of traffic that were going forward. + +Some of the purchasers, I thought, made very foolish bargains. For +instance, a young man having inherited a splendid fortune, laid out a +considerable portion of it in the purchase of diseases, and finally +spent all the rest for a heavy lot of repentance and a suit of rags. A +very pretty girl bartered a heart as clear as crystal, and which seemed +her most valuable possession, for another jewel of the same kind, but +so worn and defaced as to be utterly worthless. In one shop there were +a great many crowns of laurel and myrtle, which soldiers, authors, +statesmen, and various other people pressed eagerly to buy; some +purchased these paltry wreaths with their lives, others by a toilsome +servitude of years, and many sacrificed whatever was most valuable, yet +finally slunk away without the crown. There was a sort of stock or +scrip, called Conscience, which seemed to be in great demand, and would +purchase almost anything. Indeed, few rich commodities were to be +obtained without paying a heavy sum in this particular stock, and a +man’s business was seldom very lucrative unless he knew precisely when +and how to throw his hoard of conscience into the market. Yet as this +stock was the only thing of permanent value, whoever parted with it was +sure to find himself a loser in the long run. Several of the +speculations were of a questionable character. Occasionally a member of +Congress recruited his pocket by the sale of his constituents; and I +was assured that public officers have often sold their country at very +moderate prices. Thousands sold their happiness for a whim. Gilded +chains were in great demand, and purchased with almost any sacrifice. +In truth, those who desired, according to the old adage, to sell +anything valuable for a song, might find customers all over the Fair; +and there were innumerable messes of pottage, piping hot, for such as +chose to buy them with their birthrights. A few articles, however, +could not be found genuine at Vanity Fair. If a customer wished to +renew his stock of youth the dealers offered him a set of false teeth +and an auburn wig; if he demanded peace of mind, they recommended opium +or a brandy bottle. + +Tracts of land and golden mansions, situate in the Celestial City, were +often exchanged, at very disadvantageous rates, for a few years’ lease +of small, dismal, inconvenient tenements in Vanity Fair. Prince +Beelzebub himself took great interest in this sort of traffic, and +sometimes condescended to meddle with smaller matters. I once had the +pleasure to see him bargaining with a miser for his soul, which, after +much ingenious skirmishing on both sides, his highness succeeded in +obtaining at about the value of sixpence. The prince remarked with a +smile, that he was a loser by the transaction. + +Day after day, as I walked the streets of Vanity, my manners and +deportment became more and more like those of the inhabitants. The +place began to seem like home; the idea of pursuing my travels to the +Celestial City was almost obliterated from my mind. I was reminded of +it, however, by the sight of the same pair of simple pilgrims at whom +we had laughed so heartily when Apollyon puffed smoke and steam into +their faces at the commencement of our journey. There they stood amidst +the densest bustle of Vanity; the dealers offering them their purple +and fine linen and jewels, the men of wit and humor gibing at them, a +pair of buxom ladies ogling them askance, while the benevolent Mr. +Smooth-it-away whispered some of his wisdom at their elbows, and +pointed to a newly-erected temple; but there were these worthy +simpletons, making the scene look wild and monstrous, merely by their +sturdy repudiation of all part in its business or pleasures. + +One of them—his name was Stick-to-the-right—perceived in my face, I +suppose, a species of sympathy and almost admiration, which, to my own +great surprise, I could not help feeling for this pragmatic couple. It +prompted him to address me. + +“Sir,” inquired he, with a sad, yet mild and kindly voice, “do you call +yourself a pilgrim?” + +“Yes,” I replied, “my right to that appellation is indubitable. I am +merely a sojourner here in Vanity Fair, being bound to the Celestial +City by the new railroad.” + +“Alas, friend,” rejoined Mr. Stick-to-the-truth, “I do assure you, and +beseech you to receive the truth of my words, that that whole concern +is a bubble. You may travel on it all your lifetime, were you to live +thousands of years, and yet never get beyond the limits of Vanity Fair. +Yea, though you should deem yourself entering the gates of the blessed +city, it will be nothing but a miserable delusion.” + +“The Lord of the Celestial City,” began the other pilgrim, whose name +was Mr. Foot-it-to-heaven, “has refused, and will ever refuse, to grant +an act of incorporation for this railroad; and unless that be obtained, +no passenger can ever hope to enter his dominions. Wherefore every man +who buys a ticket must lay his account with losing the purchase money, +which is the value of his own soul.” + +“Poh, nonsense!” said Mr. Smooth-it-away, taking my arm and leading me +off, “these fellows ought to be indicted for a libel. If the law stood +as it once did in Vanity Fair we should see them grinning through the +iron bars of the prison window.” + +This incident made a considerable impression on my mind, and +contributed with other circumstances to indispose me to a permanent +residence in the city of Vanity; although, of course, I was not simple +enough to give up my original plan of gliding along easily and +commodiously by railroad. Still, I grew anxious to be gone. There was +one strange thing that troubled me. Amid the occupations or amusements +of the Fair, nothing was more common than for a person—whether at +feast, theatre, or church, or trafficking for wealth and honors, or +whatever he might be doing, to vanish like a soap bubble, and be never +more seen of his fellows; and so accustomed were the latter to such +little accidents that they went on with their business as quietly as if +nothing had happened. But it was otherwise with me. + +Finally, after a pretty long residence at the Fair, I resumed my +journey towards the Celestial City, still with Mr. Smooth-it-away at my +side. At a short distance beyond the suburbs of Vanity we passed the +ancient silver mine, of which Demas was the first discoverer, and which +is now wrought to great advantage, supplying nearly all the coined +currency of the world. A little further onward was the spot where Lot’s +wife had stood forever under the semblance of a pillar of salt. Curious +travellers have long since carried it away piecemeal. Had all regrets +been punished as rigorously as this poor dame’s were, my yearning for +the relinquished delights of Vanity Fair might have produced a similar +change in my own corporeal substance, and left me a warning to future +pilgrims. + +The next remarkable object was a large edifice, constructed of +moss-grown stone, but in a modern and airy style of architecture. The +engine came to a pause in its vicinity, with the usual tremendous +shriek. + +“This was formerly the castle of the redoubted giant Despair,” observed +Mr. Smooth-it-away; “but since his death Mr. Flimsy-faith has repaired +it, and keeps an excellent house of entertainment here. It is one of +our stopping-places.” + +“It seems but slightly put together,” remarked I, looking at the frail +yet ponderous walls. “I do not envy Mr. Flimsy-faith his habitation. +Some day it will thunder down upon the heads of the occupants.” + +“We shall escape at all events,” said Mr. Smooth-it-away, “for Apollyon +is putting on the steam again.” + +The road now plunged into a gorge of the Delectable Mountains, and +traversed the field where in former ages the blind men wandered and +stumbled among the tombs. One of these ancient tombstones had been +thrust across the track by some malicious person, and gave the train of +cars a terrible jolt. Far up the rugged side of a mountain I perceived +a rusty iron door, half overgrown with bushes and creeping plants, but +with smoke issuing from its crevices. + +“Is that,” inquired I, “the very door in the hill-side which the +shepherds assured Christian was a by-way to hell?” + +“That was a joke on the part of the shepherds,” said Mr. Smooth-itaway, +with a smile. “It is neither more nor less than the door of a cavern +which they use as a smoke-house for the preparation of mutton hams.” + +My recollections of the journey are now, for a little space, dim and +confused, inasmuch as a singular drowsiness here overcame me, owing to +the fact that we were passing over the enchanted ground, the air of +which encourages a disposition to sleep. I awoke, however, as soon as +we crossed the borders of the pleasant land of Beulah. All the +passengers were rubbing their eyes, comparing watches, and +congratulating one another on the prospect of arriving so seasonably at +the journey’s end. The sweet breezes of this happy clime came +refreshingly to our nostrils; we beheld the glimmering gush of silver +fountains, overhung by trees of beautiful foliage and delicious fruit, +which were propagated by grafts from the celestial gardens. Once, as we +dashed onward like a hurricane, there was a flutter of wings and the +bright appearance of an angel in the air, speeding forth on some +heavenly mission. The engine now announced the close vicinity of the +final station-house by one last and horrible scream, in which there +seemed to be distinguishable every kind of wailing and woe, and bitter +fierceness of wrath, all mixed up with the wild laughter of a devil or +a madman. Throughout our journey, at every stopping-place, Apollyon had +exercised his ingenuity in screwing the most abominable sounds out of +the whistle of the steam-engine; but in this closing effort he outdid +himself and created an infernal uproar, which, besides disturbing the +peaceful inhabitants of Beulah, must have sent its discord even through +the celestial gates. + +While the horrid clamor was still ringing in our ears we heard an +exulting strain, as if a thousand instruments of music, with height and +depth and sweetness in their tones, at once tender and triumphant, were +struck in unison, to greet the approach of some illustrious hero, who +had fought the good fight and won a glorious victory, and was come to +lay aside his battered arms forever. Looking to ascertain what might be +the occasion of this glad harmony, I perceived, on alighting from the +cars, that a multitude of shining ones had assembled on the other side +of the river, to welcome two poor pilgrims, who were just emerging from +its depths. They were the same whom Apollyon and ourselves had +persecuted with taunts, and gibes, and scalding steam, at the +commencement of our journey—the same whose unworldly aspect and +impressive words had stirred my conscience amid the wild revellers of +Vanity Fair. + +“How amazingly well those men have got on,” cried I to Mr. +Smoothit—away. “I wish we were secure of as good a reception.” + +“Never fear, never fear!” answered my friend. “Come, make haste; the +ferry boat will be off directly, and in three minutes you will be on +the other side of the river. No doubt you will find coaches to carry +you up to the city gates.” + +A steam ferry boat, the last improvement on this important route, lay +at the river side, puffing, snorting, and emitting all those other +disagreeable utterances which betoken the departure to be immediate. I +hurried on board with the rest of the passengers, most of whom were in +great perturbation: some bawling out for their baggage; some tearing +their hair and exclaiming that the boat would explode or sink; some +already pale with the heaving of the stream; some gazing affrighted at +the ugly aspect of the steersman; and some still dizzy with the +slumberous influences of the Enchanted Ground. Looking back to the +shore, I was amazed to discern Mr. Smooth-it-away waving his hand in +token of farewell. + +“Don’t you go over to the Celestial City?” exclaimed I. + +“Oh, no!” answered he with a queer smile, and that same disagreeable +contortion of visage which I had remarked in the inhabitants of the +Dark Valley. “Oh, no! I have come thus far only for the sake of your +pleasant company. Good-by! We shall meet again.” + +And then did my excellent friend Mr. Smooth-it-away laugh outright, in +the midst of which cachinnation a smoke-wreath issued from his mouth +and nostrils, while a twinkle of lurid flame darted out of either eye, +proving indubitably that his heart was all of a red blaze. The impudent +fiend! To deny the existence of Tophet, when he felt its fiery tortures +raging within his breast. I rushed to the side of the boat, intending +to fling myself on shore; but the wheels, as they began their +revolutions, threw a dash of spray over me so cold—so deadly cold, with +the chill that will never leave those waters until Death be drowned in +his own river—that with a shiver and a heartquake I awoke. Thank Heaven +it was a Dream! + + + + +THE PROCESSION OF LIFE + + +Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. All of us +have our places, and are to move onward under the direction of the +Chief Marshal. The grand difficulty results from the invariably +mistaken principles on which the deputy marshals seek to arrange this +immense concourse of people, so much more numerous than those that +train their interminable length through streets and highways in times +of political excitement. Their scheme is ancient, far beyond the memory +of man or even the record of history, and has hitherto been very little +modified by the innate sense of something wrong, and the dim perception +of better methods, that have disquieted all the ages through which the +procession has taken its march. Its members are classified by the +merest external circumstances, and thus are more certain to be thrown +out of their true positions than if no principle of arrangement were +attempted. In one part of the procession we see men of landed estate or +moneyed capital gravely keeping each other company, for the +preposterous reason that they chance to have a similar standing in the +tax-gatherer’s book. Trades and professions march together with +scarcely a more real bond of union. In this manner, it cannot be +denied, people are disentangled from the mass and separated into +various classes according to certain apparent relations; all have some +artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the first, learn +to consider as a genuine characteristic. Fixing our attention on such +outside shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of those +realities by which nature, fortune, fate, or Providence has constituted +for every man a brotherhood, wherein it is one great office of human +wisdom to classify him. When the mind has once accustomed itself to a +proper arrangement of the Procession of Life, or a true classification +of society, even though merely speculative, there is thenceforth a +satisfaction which pretty well suffices for itself without the aid of +any actual reformation in the order of march. + +For instance, assuming to myself the power of marshalling the aforesaid +procession, I direct a trumpeter to send forth a blast loud enough to +be heard from hence to China; and a herald, with world-pervading voice, +to make proclamation for a certain class of mortals to take their +places. What shall be their principle of union? After all, an external +one, in comparison with many that might be found, yet far more real +than those which the world has selected for a similar purpose. Let all +who are afflicted with like physical diseases form themselves into +ranks. + +Our first attempt at classification is not very successful. It may +gratify the pride of aristocracy to reflect that disease, more than any +other circumstance of human life, pays due observance to the +distinctions which rank and wealth, and poverty and lowliness, have +established among mankind. Some maladies are rich and precious, and +only to be acquired by the right of inheritance or purchased with gold. +Of this kind is the gout, which serves as a bond of brotherhood to the +purple-visaged gentry, who obey the herald’s voice, and painfully +hobble from all civilized regions of the globe to take their post in +the grand procession. In mercy to their toes, let us hope that the +march may not be long. The Dyspeptics, too, are people of good standing +in the world. For them the earliest salmon is caught in our eastern +rivers, and the shy woodcock stains the dry leaves with his blood in +his remotest haunts, and the turtle comes from the far Pacific Islands +to be gobbled up in soup. They can afford to flavor all their dishes +with indolence, which, in spite of the general opinion, is a sauce more +exquisitely piquant than appetite won by exercise. Apoplexy is another +highly respectable disease. We will rank together all who have the +symptom of dizziness in the brain, and as fast as any drop by the way +supply their places with new members of the board of aldermen. + +On the other hand, here come whole tribes of people whose physical +lives are but a deteriorated variety of life, and themselves a meaner +species of mankind; so sad an effect has been wrought by the tainted +breath of cities, scanty and unwholesome food, destructive modes of +labor, and the lack of those moral supports that might partially have +counteracted such bad influences. Behold here a train of house +painters, all afflicted with a peculiar sort of colic. Next in place we +will marshal those workmen in cutlery, who have breathed a fatal +disorder into their lungs with the impalpable dust of steel. Tailors +and shoemakers, being sedentary men, will chiefly congregate into one +part of the procession and march under similar banners of disease; but +among them we may observe here and there a sickly student, who has left +his health between the leaves of classic volumes; and clerks, likewise, +who have caught their deaths on high official stools; and men of genius +too, who have written sheet after sheet with pens dipped in their +heart’s blood. These are a wretched quaking, short-breathed set. But +what is this cloud of pale-cheeked, slender girls, who disturb the ear +with the multiplicity of their short, dry coughs? They are +seamstresses, who have plied the daily and nightly needle in the +service of master tailors and close-fisted contractors, until now it is +almost time for each to hem the borders of her own shroud. Consumption +points their place in the procession. With their sad sisterhood are +intermingled many youthful maidens who have sickened in aristocratic +mansions, and for whose aid science has unavailingly searched its +volumes, and whom breathless love has watched. In our ranks the rich +maiden and the poor seamstress may walk arm in arm. We might find +innumerable other instances, where the bond of mutual disease—not to +speak of nation-sweeping pestilence—embraces high and low, and makes +the king a brother of the clown. But it is not hard to own that disease +is the natural aristocrat. Let him keep his state, and have his +established orders of rank, and wear his royal mantle of the color of a +fever flush and let the noble and wealthy boast their own physical +infirmities, and display their symptoms as the badges of high station. +All things considered, these are as proper subjects of human pride as +any relations of human rank that men can fix upon. + +Sound again, thou deep-breathed trumpeter! and herald, with thy voice +of might, shout forth another summons that shall reach the old baronial +castles of Europe, and the rudest cabin of our western wilderness! What +class is next to take its place in the procession of mortal life? Let +it be those whom the gifts of intellect have united in a noble +brotherhood. + +Ay, this is a reality, before which the conventional distinctions of +society melt away like a vapor when we would grasp it with the hand. +Were Byron now alive, and Burns, the first would come from his +ancestral abbey, flinging aside, although unwillingly, the inherited +honors of a thousand years, to take the arm of the mighty peasant who +grew immortal while he stooped behind his plough. These are gone; but +the hall, the farmer’s fireside, the hut, perhaps the palace, the +counting-room, the workshop, the village, the city, life’s high places +and low ones, may all produce their poets, whom a common temperament +pervades like an electric sympathy. Peer or ploughman, we will muster +them pair by pair and shoulder to shoulder. Even society, in its most +artificial state, consents to this arrangement. These factory girls +from Lowell shall mate themselves with the pride of drawing-rooms and +literary circles, the bluebells in fashion’s nosegay, the Sapphos, and +Montagues, and Nortons of the age. Other modes of intellect bring +together as strange companies. Silk-gowned professor of languages, give +your arm to this sturdy blacksmith, and deem yourself honored by the +conjunction, though you behold him grimy from the anvil. All varieties +of human speech are like his mother tongue to this rare man. +Indiscriminately let those take their places, of whatever rank they +come, who possess the kingly gifts to lead armies or to sway a +people—Nature’s generals, her lawgivers, her kings, and with them also +the deep philosophers who think the thought in one generation that is +to revolutionize society in the next. With the hereditary legislator in +whom eloquence is a far-descended attainment—a rich echo repeated by +powerful voices from Cicero downward—we will match some wondrous +backwoodsman, who has caught a wild power of language from the breeze +among his native forest boughs. But we may safely leave these brethren +and sisterhood to settle their own congenialities. Our ordinary +distinctions become so trifling, so impalpable, so ridiculously +visionary, in comparison with a classification founded on truth, that +all talk about the matter is immediately a common place. + +Yet the longer I reflect the less am I satisfied with the idea of +forming a separate class of mankind on the basis of high intellectual +power. At best it is but a higher development of innate gifts common to +all. Perhaps, moreover, he whose genius appears deepest and truest +excels his fellows in nothing save the knack of expression; he throws +out occasionally a lucky hint at truths of which every human soul is +profoundly, though unutterably, conscious. Therefore, though we suffer +the brotherhood of intellect to march onward together, it may be +doubted whether their peculiar relation will not begin to vanish as +soon as the procession shall have passed beyond the circle of this +present world. But we do not classify for eternity. + +And next, let the trumpet pour forth a funereal wail, and the herald’s +voice give breath in one vast cry to all the groans and grievous +utterances that are audible throughout the earth. We appeal now to the +sacred bond of sorrow, and summon the great multitude who labor under +similar afflictions to take their places in the march. + +How many a heart that would have been insensible to any other call has +responded to the doleful accents of that voice! It has gone far and +wide, and high and low, and left scarcely a mortal roof unvisited. +Indeed, the principle is only too universal for our purpose, and, +unless we limit it, will quite break up our classification of mankind, +and convert the whole procession into a funeral train. We will +therefore be at some pains to discriminate. Here comes a lonely rich +man: he has built a noble fabric for his dwelling-house, with a front +of stately architecture and marble floors and doors of precious woods; +the whole structure is as beautiful as a dream and as substantial as +the native rock. But the visionary shapes of a long posterity, for +whose home this mansion was intended, have faded into nothingness since +the death of the founder’s only son. The rich man gives a glance at his +sable garb in one of the splendid mirrors of his drawing-room, and +descending a flight of lofty steps instinctively offers his arm to +yonder poverty stricken widow in the rusty black bonnet, and with a +check apron over her patched gown. The sailor boy, who was her sole +earthly stay, was washed overboard in a late tempest. This couple from +the palace and the almshouse are but the types of thousands more who +represent the dark tragedy of life and seldom quarrel for the upper +parts. Grief is such a leveller, with its own dignity and its own +humility, that the noble and the peasant, the beggar and the monarch, +will waive their pretensions to external rank without the officiousness +of interference on our part. If pride—the influence of the world’s +false distinctions—remain in the heart, then sorrow lacks the +earnestness which makes it holy and reverend. It loses its reality and +becomes a miserable shadow. On this ground we have an opportunity to +assign over multitudes who would willingly claim places here to other +parts of the procession. If the mourner have anything dearer than his +grief he must seek his true position elsewhere. There are so many +unsubstantial sorrows which the necessity of our mortal state begets on +idleness, that an observer, casting aside sentiment, is sometimes led +to question whether there be any real woe, except absolute physical +suffering and the loss of closest friends. A crowd who exhibit what +they deem to be broken hearts—and among them many lovelorn maids and +bachelors, and men of disappointed ambition in arts or politics, and +the poor who were once rich, or who have sought to be rich in vain—the +great majority of these may ask admittance into some other fraternity. +There is no room here. Perhaps we may institute a separate class where +such unfortunates will naturally fall into the procession. Meanwhile +let them stand aside and patiently await their time. + +If our trumpeter can borrow a note from the doomsday trumpet blast, let +him sound it now. The dread alarum should make the earth quake to its +centre, for the herald is about to address mankind with a summons to +which even the purest mortal may be sensible of some faint responding +echo in his breast. In many bosoms it will awaken a still small voice +more terrible than its own reverberating uproar. + +The hideous appeal has swept around the globe. Come, all ye guilty +ones, and rank yourselves in accordance with the brotherhood of crime. +This, indeed, is an awful summons. I almost tremble to look at the +strange partnerships that begin to be formed, reluctantly, but by the +invincible necessity of like to like in this part of the procession. A +forger from the state prison seizes the arm of a distinguished +financier. How indignantly does the latter plead his fair reputation +upon ’Change, and insist that his operations, by their magnificence of +scope, were removed into quite another sphere of morality than those of +his pitiful companion! But let him cut the connection if he can. Here +comes a murderer with his clanking chains, and pairs himself—horrible +to tell—with as pure and upright a man, in all observable respects, as +ever partook of the consecrated bread and wine. He is one of those, +perchance the most hopeless of all sinners, who practise such an +exemplary system of outward duties, that even a deadly crime may be +hidden from their own sight and remembrance, under this unreal +frostwork. Yet he now finds his place. Why do that pair of flaunting +girls, with the pert, affected laugh and the sly leer at the +by-standers, intrude themselves into the same rank with yonder decorous +matron, and that somewhat prudish maiden? Surely these poor creatures, +born to vice as their sole and natural inheritance, can be no fit +associates for women who have been guarded round about by all the +proprieties of domestic life, and who could not err unless they first +created the opportunity. Oh no; it must be merely the impertinence of +those unblushing hussies; and we can only wonder how such respectable +ladies should have responded to a summons that was not meant for them. + +We shall make short work of this miserable class, each member of which +is entitled to grasp any other member’s hand, by that vile degradation +wherein guilty error has buried all alike. The foul fiend to whom it +properly belongs must relieve us of our loathsome task. Let the bond +servants of sin pass on. But neither man nor woman, in whom good +predominates, will smile or sneer, nor bid the Rogues’ March be played, +in derision of their array. Feeling within their breasts a shuddering +sympathy, which at least gives token of the sin that might have been, +they will thank God for any place in the grand procession of human +existence, save among those most wretched ones. Many, however, will be +astonished at the fatal impulse that drags them thitherward. Nothing is +more remarkable than the various deceptions by which guilt conceals +itself from the perpetrator’s conscience, and oftenest, perhaps, by the +splendor of its garments. Statesmen, rulers, generals, and all men who +act over an extensive sphere, are most liable to be deluded in this +way; they commit wrong, devastation, and murder, on so grand a scale, +that it impresses them as speculative rather than actual; but in our +procession we find them linked in detestable conjunction with the +meanest criminals whose deeds have the vulgarity of petty details. Here +the effect of circumstance and accident is done away, and a man finds +his rank according to the spirit of his crime, in whatever shape it may +have been developed. + +We have called the Evil; now let us call the Good. The trumpet’s brazen +throat should pour heavenly music over the earth, and the herald’s +voice go forth with the sweetness of an angel’s accents, as if to +summon each upright man to his reward. But how is this? Does none +answer to the call? Not one: for the just, the pure, the true, and all +who might most worthily obey it, shrink sadly back, as most conscious +of error and imperfection. Then let the summons be to those whose +pervading principle is Love. This classification will embrace all the +truly good, and none in whose souls there exists not something that may +expand itself into a heaven, both of well-doing and felicity. + +The first that presents himself is a man of wealth, who has bequeathed +the bulk of his property to a hospital; his ghost, methinks, would have +a better right here than his living body. But here they come, the +genuine benefactors of their race. Some have wandered about the earth +with pictures of bliss in their imagination, and with hearts that +shrank sensitively from the idea of pain and woe, yet have studied all +varieties of misery that human nature can endure. The prison, the +insane asylum, the squalid chamber of the almshouse, the manufactory +where the demon of machinery annihilates the human soul, and the cotton +field where God’s image becomes a beast of burden; to these and every +other scene where man wrongs or neglects his brother, the apostles of +humanity have penetrated. This missionary, black with India’s burning +sunshine, shall give his arm to a pale-faced brother who has made +himself familiar with the infected alleys and loathsome haunts of vice +in one of our own cities. The generous founder of a college shall be +the partner of a maiden lady of narrow substance, one of whose good +deeds it has been to gather a little school of orphan children. If the +mighty merchant whose benefactions are reckoned by thousands of dollars +deem himself worthy, let him join the procession with her whose love +has proved itself by watchings at the sick-bed, and all those lowly +offices which bring her into actual contact with disease and +wretchedness. And with those whose impulses have guided them to +benevolent actions, we will rank others to whom Providence has assigned +a different tendency and different powers. Men who have spent their +lives in generous and holy contemplation for the human race; those who, +by a certain heavenliness of spirit, have purified the atmosphere +around them, and thus supplied a medium in which good and high things +may be projected and performed—give to these a lofty place among the +benefactors of mankind, although no deed, such as the world calls +deeds, may be recorded of them. There are some individuals of whom we +cannot conceive it proper that they should apply their hands to any +earthly instrument, or work out any definite act; and others, perhaps +not less high, to whom it is an essential attribute to labor in body as +well as spirit for the welfare of their brethren. Thus, if we find a +spiritual sage whose unseen, inestimable influence has exalted the +moral standard of mankind, we will choose for his companion some poor +laborer who has wrought for love in the potato field of a neighbor +poorer than himself. + +We have summoned this various multitude—and, to the credit of our +nature, it is a large one—on the principle of Love. It is singular, +nevertheless, to remark the shyness that exists among many members of +the present class, all of whom we might expect to recognize one another +by the freemasonry of mutual goodness, and to embrace like brethren, +giving God thanks for such various specimens of human excellence. But +it is far otherwise. Each sect surrounds its own righteousness with a +hedge of thorns. It is difficult for the good Christian to acknowledge +the good Pagan; almost impossible for the good Orthodox to grasp the +hand of the good Unitarian, leaving to their Creator to settle the +matters in dispute, and giving their mutual efforts strongly and +trustingly to whatever right thing is too evident to be mistaken. Then +again, though the heart be large, yet the mind is often of such +moderate dimensions as to be exclusively filled up with one idea. When +a good man has long devoted himself to a particular kind of +beneficence—to one species of reform—he is apt to become narrowed into +the limits of the path wherein he treads, and to fancy that there is no +other good to be done on earth but that self-same good to which he has +put his hand, and in the very mode that best suits his own conceptions. +All else is worthless. His scheme must be wrought out by the united +strength of the whole world’s stock of love, or the world is no longer +worthy of a position in the universe. Moreover, powerful Truth, being +the rich grape juice expressed from the vineyard of the ages, has an +intoxicating quality, when imbibed by any save a powerful intellect, +and often, as it were, impels the quaffer to quarrel in his cups. For +such reasons, strange to say, it is harder to contrive a friendly +arrangement of these brethren of love and righteousness, in the +procession of life, than to unite even the wicked, who, indeed, are +chained together by their crimes. The fact is too preposterous for +tears, too lugubrious for laughter. + +But, let good men push and elbow one another as they may during their +earthly march, all will be peace among them when the honorable array of +their procession shall tread on heavenly ground. There they will +doubtless find that they have been working each for the other’s cause, +and that every well-delivered stroke, which, with an honest purpose any +mortal struck, even for a narrow object, was indeed stricken for the +universal cause of good. Their own view may be bounded by country, +creed, profession, the diversities of individual character—but above +them all is the breadth of Providence. How many who have deemed +themselves antagonists will smile hereafter, when they look back upon +the world’s wide harvest field, and perceive that, in unconscious +brotherhood, they were helping to bind the selfsame sheaf! + +But, come! The sun is hastening westward, while the march of human +life, that never paused before, is delayed by our attempt to rearrange +its order. It is desirable to find some comprehensive principle, that +shall render our task easier by bringing thousands into the ranks where +hitherto we have brought one. Therefore let the trumpet, if possible, +split its brazen throat with a louder note than ever, and the herald +summon all mortals, who, from whatever cause, have lost, or never +found, their proper places in the wold. + +Obedient to this call, a great multitude come together, most of them +with a listless gait, betokening weariness of soul, yet with a gleam of +satisfaction in their faces, at a prospect of at length reaching those +positions which, hitherto, they have vainly sought. But here will be +another disappointment; for we can attempt no more than merely to +associate in one fraternity all who are afflicted with the same vague +trouble. Some great mistake in life is the chief condition of +admittance into this class. Here are members of the learned +professions, whom Providence endowed with special gifts for the plough, +the forge, and the wheelbarrow, or for the routine of unintellectual +business. We will assign to them, as partners in the march, those lowly +laborers and handicraftsmen, who have pined, as with a dying thirst, +after the unattainable fountains of knowledge. The latter have lost +less than their companions; yet more, because they deem it infinite. +Perchance the two species of unfortunates may comfort one another. Here +are Quakers with the instinct of battle in them; and men of war who +should have worn the broad brim. Authors shall be ranked here whom some +freak of Nature, making game of her poor children, had imbued with the +confidence of genius and strong desire of fame, but has favored with no +corresponding power; and others, whose lofty gifts were unaccompanied +with the faculty of expression, or any of that earthly machinery by +which ethereal endowments must be manifested to mankind. All these, +therefore, are melancholy laughing-stocks. Next, here are honest and +well intentioned persons, who by a want of tact—by inaccurate +perceptions—by a distorting imagination—have been kept continually at +cross purposes with the world and bewildered upon the path of life. Let +us see if they can confine themselves within the line of our +procession. In this class, likewise, we must assign places to those who +have encountered that worst of ill success, a higher fortune than their +abilities could vindicate; writers, actors, painters, the pets of a +day, but whose laurels wither unrenewed amid their hoary hair; +politicians, whom some malicious contingency of affairs has thrust into +conspicuous station, where, while the world stands gazing at them, the +dreary consciousness of imbecility makes them curse their birth hour. +To such men, we give for a companion him whose rare talents, which +perhaps require a Revolution for their exercise, are buried in the tomb +of sluggish circumstances. + +Not far from these, we must find room for one whose success has been of +the wrong kind; the man who should have lingered in the cloisters of a +university, digging new treasures out of the Herculaneum of antique +lore, diffusing depth and accuracy of literature throughout his +country, and thus making for himself a great and quiet fame. But the +outward tendencies around him have proved too powerful for his inward +nature, and have drawn him into the arena of political tumult, there to +contend at disadvantage, whether front to front, or side by side, with +the brawny giants of actual life. He becomes, it may be, a name for +brawling parties to bandy to and fro, a legislator of the Union; a +governor of his native state; an ambassador to the courts of kings or +queens; and the world may deem him a man of happy stars. But not so the +wise; and not so himself, when he looks through his experience, and +sighs to miss that fitness, the one invaluable touch which makes all +things true and real. So much achieved, yet how abortive is his life! +Whom shall we choose for his companion? Some weak framed blacksmith, +perhaps, whose delicacy of muscle might have suited a tailor’s +shopboard better than the anvil. + +Shall we bid the trumpet sound again? It is hardly worth the while. +There remain a few idle men of fortune, tavern and grog-shop loungers, +lazzaroni, old bachelors, decaying maidens, and people of crooked +intellect or temper, all of whom may find their like, or some tolerable +approach to it, in the plentiful diversity of our latter class. There +too, as his ultimate destiny, must we rank the dreamer, who, all his +life long, has cherished the idea that he was peculiarly apt for +something, but never could determine what it was; and there the most +unfortunate of men, whose purpose it has been to enjoy life’s +pleasures, but to avoid a manful struggle with its toil and sorrow. The +remainder, if any, may connect themselves with whatever rank of the +procession they shall find best adapted to their tastes and +consciences. The worst possible fate would be to remain behind, +shivering in the solitude of time, while all the world is on the move +towards eternity. Our attempt to classify society is now complete. The +result may be anything but perfect; yet better—to give it the very +lowest praise—than the antique rule of the herald’s office, or the +modern one of the tax-gatherer, whereby the accidents and superficial +attributes with which the real nature of individuals has least to do, +are acted upon as the deepest characteristics of mankind. Our task is +done! Now let the grand procession move! + +Yet pause a while! We had forgotten the Chief Marshal. + +Hark! That world-wide swell of solemn music, with the clang of a mighty +bell breaking forth through its regulated uproar, announces his +approach. He comes; a severe, sedate, immovable, dark rider, waving his +truncheon of universal sway, as he passes along the lengthened line, on +the pale horse of the Revelation. It is Death! Who else could assume +the guidance of a procession that comprehends all humanity? And if +some, among these many millions, should deem themselves classed amiss, +yet let them take to their hearts the comfortable truth that Death +levels us all into one great brotherhood, and that another state of +being will surely rectify the wrong of this. Then breathe thy wail upon +the earth’s wailing wind, thou band of melancholy music, made up of +every sigh that the human heart, unsatisfied, has uttered! There is yet +triumph in thy tones. And now we move! Beggars in their rags, and Kings +trailing the regal purple in the dust; the Warrior’s gleaming helmet; +the Priest in his sable robe; the hoary Grandsire, who has run life’s +circle and come back to childhood; the ruddy School-boy with his golden +curls, frisking along the march; the Artisan’s stuff jacket; the +Noble’s star-decorated coat;—the whole presenting a motley spectacle, +yet with a dusky grandeur brooding over it. Onward, onward, into that +dimness where the lights of Time which have blazed along the +procession, are flickering in their sockets! And whither! We know not; +and Death, hitherto our leader, deserts us by the wayside, as the tramp +of our innumerable footsteps echoes beyond his sphere. He knows not, +more than we, our destined goal. But God, who made us, knows, and will +not leave us on our toilsome and doubtful march, either to wander in +infinite uncertainty, or perish by the way! + + + + +FEATHERTOP: A MORALIZED LEGEND + + +“Dickon,” cried Mother Rigby, “a coal for my pipe!” + +The pipe was in the old dame’s mouth when she said these words. She had +thrust it there after filling it with tobacco, but without stooping to +light it at the hearth, where indeed there was no appearance of a fire +having been kindled that morning. Forthwith, however, as soon as the +order was given, there was an intense red glow out of the bowl of the +pipe, and a whiff of smoke came from Mother Rigby’s lips. Whence the +coal came, and how brought thither by an invisible hand, I have never +been able to discover. + +“Good!” quoth Mother Rigby, with a nod of her head. “Thank ye, Dickon! +And now for making this scarecrow. Be within call, Dickon, in case I +need you again.” + +The good woman had risen thus early (for as yet it was scarcely +sunrise) in order to set about making a scarecrow, which she intended +to put in the middle of her corn-patch. It was now the latter week of +May, and the crows and blackbirds had already discovered the little, +green, rolledup leaf of the Indian corn just peeping out of the soil. +She was determined, therefore, to contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as +ever was seen, and to finish it immediately, from top to toe, so that +it should begin its sentinel’s duty that very morning. Now Mother Rigby +(as everybody must have heard) was one of the most cunning and potent +witches in New England, and might, with very little trouble, have made +a scarecrow ugly enough to frighten the minister himself. But on this +occasion, as she had awakened in an uncommonly pleasant humor, and was +further dulcified by her pipe tobacco, she resolved to produce +something fine, beautiful, and splendid, rather than hideous and +horrible. + +“I don’t want to set up a hobgoblin in my own corn-patch, and almost at +my own doorstep,” said Mother Rigby to herself, puffing out a whiff of +smoke; “I could do it if I pleased, but I’m tired of doing marvellous +things, and so I’ll keep within the bounds of every-day business just +for variety’s sake. Besides, there is no use in scaring the little +children for a mile roundabout, though ’tis true I’m a witch.” + +It was settled, therefore, in her own mind, that the scarecrow should +represent a fine gentleman of the period, so far as the materials at +hand would allow. Perhaps it may be as well to enumerate the chief of +the articles that went to the composition of this figure. + +The most important item of all, probably, although it made so little +show, was a certain broomstick, on which Mother Rigby had taken many an +airy gallop at midnight, and which now served the scarecrow by way of a +spinal column, or, as the unlearned phrase it, a backbone. One of its +arms was a disabled flail which used to be wielded by Goodman Rigby, +before his spouse worried him out of this troublesome world; the other, +if I mistake not, was composed of the pudding stick and a broken rung +of a chair, tied loosely together at the elbow. As for its legs, the +right was a hoe handle, and the left an undistinguished and +miscellaneous stick from the woodpile. Its lungs, stomach, and other +affairs of that kind were nothing better than a meal bag stuffed with +straw. Thus we have made out the skeleton and entire corporosity of the +scarecrow, with the exception of its head; and this was admirably +supplied by a somewhat withered and shrivelled pumpkin, in which Mother +Rigby cut two holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth, leaving a +bluish-colored knob in the middle to pass for a nose. It was really +quite a respectable face. + +“I’ve seen worse ones on human shoulders, at any rate,” said Mother +Rigby. “And many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin head, as well as my +scarecrow.” + +But the clothes, in this case, were to be the making of the man. So the +good old woman took down from a peg an ancient plum-colored coat of +London make, and with relics of embroidery on its seams, cuffs, +pocket-flaps, and button-holes, but lamentably worn and faded, patched +at the elbows, tattered at the skirts, and threadbare all over. On the +left breast was a round hole, whence either a star of nobility had been +rent away, or else the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it +through and through. The neighbors said that this rich garment belonged +to the Black Man’s wardrobe, and that he kept it at Mother Rigby’s +cottage for the convenience of slipping it on whenever he wished to +make a grand appearance at the governor’s table. To match the coat +there was a velvet waistcoat of very ample size, and formerly +embroidered with foliage that had been as brightly golden as the maple +leaves in October, but which had now quite vanished out of the +substance of the velvet. Next came a pair of scarlet breeches, once +worn by the French governor of Louisbourg, and the knees of which had +touched the lower step of the throne of Louis le Grand. The Frenchman +had given these small-clothes to an Indian powwow, who parted with them +to the old witch for a gill of strong waters, at one of their dances in +the forest. Furthermore, Mother Rigby produced a pair of silk stockings +and put them on the figure’s legs, where they showed as unsubstantial +as a dream, with the wooden reality of the two sticks making itself +miserably apparent through the holes. Lastly, she put her dead +husband’s wig on the bare scalp of the pumpkin, and surmounted the +whole with a dusty three-cornered hat, in which was stuck the longest +tail feather of a rooster. + +Then the old dame stood the figure up in a corner of her cottage and +chuckled to behold its yellow semblance of a visage, with its nobby +little nose thrust into the air. It had a strangely self-satisfied +aspect, and seemed to say, “Come look at me!” + +“And you are well worth looking at, that’s a fact!” quoth Mother Rigby, +in admiration at her own handiwork. “I’ve made many a puppet since I’ve +been a witch, but methinks this is the finest of them all. ’Tis almost +too good for a scarecrow. And, by the by, I’ll just fill a fresh pipe +of tobacco and then take him out to the corn-patch.” + +While filling her pipe the old woman continued to gaze with almost +motherly affection at the figure in the corner. To say the truth, +whether it were chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, there was +something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with +its tattered finery; and as for the countenance, it appeared to shrivel +its yellow surface into a grin—a funny kind of expression betwixt scorn +and merriment, as if it understood itself to be a jest at mankind. The +more Mother Rigby looked the better she was pleased. + +“Dickon,” cried she sharply, “another coal for my pipe!” + +Hardly had she spoken, than, just as before, there was a red-glowing +coal on the top of the tobacco. She drew in a long whiff and puffed it +forth again into the bar of morning sunshine which struggled through +the one dusty pane of her cottage window. Mother Rigby always liked to +flavor her pipe with a coal of fire from the particular chimney corner +whence this had been brought. But where that chimney corner might be, +or who brought the coal from it,—further than that the invisible +messenger seemed to respond to the name of Dickon,—I cannot tell. + +“That puppet yonder,” thought Mother Rigby, still with her eyes fixed +on the scarecrow, “is too good a piece of work to stand all summer in a +corn-patch, frightening away the crows and blackbirds. He’s capable of +better things. Why, I’ve danced with a worse one, when partners +happened to be scarce, at our witch meetings in the forest! What if I +should let him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty +fellows who go bustling about the world?” + +The old witch took three or four more whiffs of her pipe and smiled. + +“He’ll meet plenty of his brethren at every street corner!” continued +she. “Well; I didn’t mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than +the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am, and a witch I’m likely to +be, and there’s no use trying to shirk it. I’ll make a man of my +scarecrow, were it only for the joke’s sake!” + +While muttering these words, Mother Rigby took the pipe from her own +mouth and thrust it into the crevice which represented the same feature +in the pumpkin visage of the scarecrow. + +“Puff, darling, puff!” said she. “Puff away, my fine fellow! your life +depends on it!” + +This was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to be addressed to a mere +thing of sticks, straw, and old clothes, with nothing better than a +shrivelled pumpkin for a head,—as we know to have been the scarecrow’s +case. Nevertheless, as we must carefully hold in remembrance, Mother +Rigby was a witch of singular power and dexterity; and, keeping this +fact duly before our minds, we shall see nothing beyond credibility in +the remarkable incidents of our story. Indeed, the great difficulty +will be at once got over, if we can only bring ourselves to believe +that, as soon as the old dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of +smoke from the scarecrow’s mouth. It was the very feeblest of whiffs, +to be sure; but it was followed by another and another, each more +decided than the preceding one. + +“Puff away, my pet! puff away, my pretty one!” Mother Rigby kept +repeating, with her pleasantest smile. “It is the breath of life to ye; +and that you may take my word for.” + +Beyond all question the pipe was bewitched. There must have been a +spell either in the tobacco or in the fiercely-glowing coal that so +mysteriously burned on top of it, or in the pungently-aromatic smoke +which exhaled from the kindled weed. The figure, after a few doubtful +attempts at length blew forth a volley of smoke extending all the way +from the obscure corner into the bar of sunshine. There it eddied and +melted away among the motes of dust. It seemed a convulsive effort; for +the two or three next whiffs were fainter, although the coal still +glowed and threw a gleam over the scarecrow’s visage. The old witch +clapped her skinny hands together, and smiled encouragingly upon her +handiwork. She saw that the charm worked well. The shrivelled, yellow +face, which heretofore had been no face at all, had already a thin, +fantastic haze, as it were of human likeness, shifting to and fro +across it; sometimes vanishing entirely, but growing more perceptible +than ever with the next whiff from the pipe. The whole figure, in like +manner, assumed a show of life, such as we impart to ill-defined shapes +among the clouds, and half deceive ourselves with the pastime of our +own fancy. + +If we must needs pry closely into the matter, it may be doubted whether +there was any real change, after all, in the sordid, wornout worthless, +and ill-jointed substance of the scarecrow; but merely a spectral +illusion, and a cunning effect of light and shade so colored and +contrived as to delude the eyes of most men. The miracles of witchcraft +seem always to have had a very shallow subtlety; and, at least, if the +above explanation do not hit the truth of the process, I can suggest no +better. + +“Well puffed, my pretty lad!” still cried old Mother Rigby. “Come, +another good stout whiff, and let it be with might and main. Puff for +thy life, I tell thee! Puff out of the very bottom of thy heart, if any +heart thou hast, or any bottom to it! Well done, again! Thou didst suck +in that mouthful as if for the pure love of it.” + +And then the witch beckoned to the scarecrow, throwing so much magnetic +potency into her gesture that it seemed as if it must inevitably be +obeyed, like the mystic call of the loadstone when it summons the iron. + +“Why lurkest thou in the corner, lazy one?” said she. “Step forth! Thou +hast the world before thee!” + +Upon my word, if the legend were not one which I heard on my +grandmother’s knee, and which had established its place among things +credible before my childish judgment could analyze its probability, I +question whether I should have the face to tell it now. + +In obedience to Mother Rigby’s word, and extending its arm as if to +reach her outstretched hand, the figure made a step forward—a kind of +hitch and jerk, however, rather than a step—then tottered and almost +lost its balance. What could the witch expect? It was nothing, after +all, but a scarecrow stuck upon two sticks. But the strong-willed old +beldam scowled, and beckoned, and flung the energy of her purpose so +forcibly at this poor combination of rotten wood, and musty straw, and +ragged garments, that it was compelled to show itself a man, in spite +of the reality of things. So it stepped into the bar of sunshine. There +it stood, poor devil of a contrivance that it was!—with only the +thinnest vesture of human similitude about it, through which was +evident the stiff, rickety, incongruous, faded, tattered, +good-for-nothing patchwork of its substance, ready to sink in a heap +upon the floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness to be erect. Shall +I confess the truth? At its present point of vivification, the +scarecrow reminds me of some of the lukewarm and abortive characters, +composed of heterogeneous materials, used for the thousandth time, and +never worth using, with which romance writers (and myself, no doubt, +among the rest) have so overpeopled the world of fiction. + +But the fierce old hag began to get angry and show a glimpse of her +diabolic nature (like a snake’s head, peeping with a hiss out of her +bosom), at this pusillanimous behavior of the thing which she had taken +the trouble to put together. + +“Puff away, wretch!” cried she, wrathfully. “Puff, puff, puff, thou +thing of straw and emptiness! thou rag or two! thou meal bag! thou +pumpkin head! thou nothing! Where shall I find a name vile enough to +call thee by? Puff, I say, and suck in thy fantastic life with the +smoke! else I snatch the pipe from thy mouth and hurl thee where that +red coal came from.” + +Thus threatened, the unhappy scarecrow had nothing for it but to puff +away for dear life. As need was, therefore, it applied itself lustily +to the pipe, and sent forth such abundant volleys of tobacco smoke that +the small cottage kitchen became all vaporous. The one sunbeam +struggled mistily through, and could but imperfectly define the image +of the cracked and dusty window pane on the opposite wall. Mother +Rigby, meanwhile, with one brown arm akimbo and the other stretched +towards the figure, loomed grimly amid the obscurity with such port and +expression as when she was wont to heave a ponderous nightmare on her +victims and stand at the bedside to enjoy their agony. In fear and +trembling did this poor scarecrow puff. But its efforts, it must be +acknowledged, served an excellent purpose; for, with each successive +whiff, the figure lost more and more of its dizzy and perplexing +tenuity and seemed to take denser substance. Its very garments, +moreover, partook of the magical change, and shone with the gloss of +novelty and glistened with the skilfully embroidered gold that had long +ago been rent away. And, half revealed among the smoke, a yellow visage +bent its lustreless eyes on Mother Rigby. + +At last the old witch clinched her fist and shook it at the figure. Not +that she was positively angry, but merely acting on the +principle—perhaps untrue, or not the only truth, though as high a one +as Mother Rigby could be expected to attain—that feeble and torpid +natures, being incapable of better inspiration, must be stirred up by +fear. But here was the crisis. Should she fail in what she now sought +to effect, it was her ruthless purpose to scatter the miserable +simulacre into its original elements. + +“Thou hast a man’s aspect,” said she, sternly. “Have also the echo and +mockery of a voice! I bid thee speak!” + +The scarecrow gasped, struggled, and at length emitted a murmur, which +was so incorporated with its smoky breath that you could scarcely tell +whether it were indeed a voice or only a whiff of tobacco. Some +narrators of this legend hold the opinion that Mother Rigby’s +conjurations and the fierceness of her will had compelled a familiar +spirit into the figure, and that the voice was his. + +“Mother,” mumbled the poor stifled voice, “be not so awful with me! I +would fain speak; but being without wits, what can I say?” + +“Thou canst speak, darling, canst thou?” cried Mother Rigby, relaxing +her grim countenance into a smile. “And what shalt thou say, quoth-a! +Say, indeed! Art thou of the brotherhood of the empty skull, and +demandest of me what thou shalt say? Thou shalt say a thousand things, +and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said +nothing! Be not afraid, I tell thee! When thou comest into the world +(whither I purpose sending thee forthwith) thou shalt not lack the +wherewithal to talk. Talk! Why, thou shall babble like a mill-stream, +if thou wilt. Thou hast brains enough for that, I trow!” + +“At your service, mother,” responded the figure. + +“And that was well said, my pretty one,” answered Mother Rigby. “Then +thou speakest like thyself, and meant nothing. Thou shalt have a +hundred such set phrases, and five hundred to the boot of them. And +now, darling, I have taken so much pains with thee and thou art so +beautiful, that, by my troth, I love thee better than any witch’s +puppet in the world; and I’ve made them of all sorts—clay, wax, straw, +sticks, night fog, morning mist, sea foam, and chimney smoke. But thou +art the very best. So give heed to what I say.” + +“Yes, kind mother,” said the figure, “with all my heart!” + +“With all thy heart!” cried the old witch, setting her hands to her +sides and laughing loudly. “Thou hast such a pretty way of speaking. +With all thy heart! And thou didst put thy hand to the left side of thy +waistcoat as if thou really hadst one!” + +So now, in high good humor with this fantastic contrivance of hers, +Mother Rigby told the scarecrow that it must go and play its part in +the great world, where not one man in a hundred, she affirmed, was +gifted with more real substance than itself. And, that he might hold up +his head with the best of them, she endowed him, on the spot, with an +unreckonable amount of wealth. It consisted partly of a gold mine in +Eldorado, and of ten thousand shares in a broken bubble, and of half a +million acres of vineyard at the North Pole, and of a castle in the +air, and a chateau in Spain, together with all the rents and income +therefrom accruing. She further made over to him the cargo of a certain +ship, laden with salt of Cadiz, which she herself, by her necromantic +arts, had caused to founder, ten years before, in the deepest part of +mid-ocean. If the salt were not dissolved, and could be brought to +market, it would fetch a pretty penny among the fishermen. That he +might not lack ready money, she gave him a copper farthing of +Birmingham manufacture, being all the coin she had about her, and +likewise a great deal of brass, which she applied to his forehead, thus +making it yellower than ever. + +“With that brass alone,” quoth Mother Rigby, “thou canst pay thy way +all over the earth. Kiss me, pretty darling! I have done my best for +thee.” + +Furthermore, that the adventurer might lack no possible advantage +towards a fair start in life, this excellent old dame gave him a token +by which he was to introduce himself to a certain magistrate, member of +the council, merchant, and elder of the church (the four capacities +constituting but one man), who stood at the head of society in the +neighboring metropolis. The token was neither more nor less than a +single word, which Mother Rigby whispered to the scarecrow, and which +the scarecrow was to whisper to the merchant. + +“Gouty as the old fellow is, he’ll run thy errands for thee, when once +thou hast given him that word in his ear,” said the old witch. “Mother +Rigby knows the worshipful Justice Gookin, and the worshipful Justice +knows Mother Rigby!” + +Here the witch thrust her wrinkled face close to the puppet’s, +chuckling irrepressibly, and fidgeting all through her system, with +delight at the idea which she meant to communicate. + +“The worshipful Master Gookin,” whispered she, “hath a comely maiden to +his daughter. And hark ye, my pet! Thou hast a fair outside, and a +pretty wit enough of thine own. Yea, a pretty wit enough! Thou wilt +think better of it when thou hast seen more of other people’s wits. +Now, with thy outside and thy inside, thou art the very man to win a +young girl’s heart. Never doubt it! I tell thee it shall be so. Put but +a bold face on the matter, sigh, smile, flourish thy hat, thrust forth +thy leg like a dancing-master, put thy right hand to the left side of +thy waistcoat, and pretty Polly Gookin is thine own!” + +All this while the new creature had been sucking in and exhaling the +vapory fragrance of his pipe, and seemed now to continue this +occupation as much for the enjoyment it afforded as because it was an +essential condition of his existence. It was wonderful to see how +exceedingly like a human being it behaved. Its eyes (for it appeared to +possess a pair) were bent on Mother Rigby, and at suitable junctures it +nodded or shook its head. Neither did it lack words proper for the +occasion: “Really! Indeed! Pray tell me! Is it possible! Upon my word! +By no means! Oh! Ah! Hem!” and other such weighty utterances as imply +attention, inquiry, acquiescence, or dissent on the part of the +auditor. Even had you stood by and seen the scarecrow made, you could +scarcely have resisted the conviction that it perfectly understood the +cunning counsels which the old witch poured into its counterfeit of an +ear. The more earnestly it applied its lips to the pipe, the more +distinctly was its human likeness stamped among visible realities, the +more sagacious grew its expression, the more lifelike its gestures and +movements, and the more intelligibly audible its voice. Its garments, +too, glistened so much the brighter with an illusory magnificence. The +very pipe, in which burned the spell of all this wonderwork, ceased to +appear as a smoke-blackened earthen stump, and became a meerschaum, +with painted bowl and amber mouthpiece. + +It might be apprehended, however, that as the life of the illusion +seemed identical with the vapor of the pipe, it would terminate +simultaneously with the reduction of the tobacco to ashes. But the +beldam foresaw the difficulty. + +“Hold thou the pipe, my precious one,” said she, “while I fill it for +thee again.” + +It was sorrowful to behold how the fine gentleman began to fade back +into a scarecrow while Mother Rigby shook the ashes out of the pipe and +proceeded to replenish it from her tobacco-box. + +“Dickon,” cried she, in her high, sharp tone, “another coal for this +pipe!” + +No sooner said than the intensely red speck of fire was glowing within +the pipe-bowl; and the scarecrow, without waiting for the witch’s +bidding, applied the tube to his lips and drew in a few short, +convulsive whiffs, which soon, however, became regular and equable. + +“Now, mine own heart’s darling,” quoth Mother Rigby, “whatever may +happen to thee, thou must stick to thy pipe. Thy life is in it; and +that, at least, thou knowest well, if thou knowest nought besides. +Stick to thy pipe, I say! Smoke, puff, blow thy cloud; and tell the +people, if any question be made, that it is for thy health, and that so +the physician orders thee to do. And, sweet one, when thou shalt find +thy pipe getting low, go apart into some corner, and (first filling +thyself with smoke) cry sharply, ‘Dickon, a fresh pipe of tobacco!’ +and, ‘Dickon, another coal for my pipe!’ and have it into thy pretty +mouth as speedily as may be. Else, instead of a gallant gentleman in a +gold-laced coat, thou wilt be but a jumble of sticks and tattered +clothes, and a bag of straw, and a withered pumpkin! Now depart, my +treasure, and good luck go with thee!” + +“Never fear, mother!” said the figure, in a stout voice, and sending +forth a courageous whiff of smoke, “I will thrive, if an honest man and +a gentleman may!” + +“Oh, thou wilt be the death of me!” cried the old witch, convulsed with +laughter. “That was well said. If an honest man and a gentleman may! +Thou playest thy part to perfection. Get along with thee for a smart +fellow; and I will wager on thy head, as a man of pith and substance, +with a brain and what they call a heart, and all else that a man should +have, against any other thing on two legs. I hold myself a better witch +than yesterday, for thy sake. Did not I make thee? And I defy any witch +in New England to make such another! Here; take my staff along with +thee!” + +The staff, though it was but a plain oaken stick, immediately took the +aspect of a gold-headed cane. + +“That gold head has as much sense in it as thine own,” said Mother +Rigby, “and it will guide thee straight to worshipful Master Gookin’s +door. Get thee gone, my pretty pet, my darling, my precious one, my +treasure; and if any ask thy name, it is Feathertop. For thou hast a +feather in thy hat, and I have thrust a handful of feathers into the +hollow of thy head, and thy wig, too, is of the fashion they call +Feathertop,—so be Feathertop thy name!” + +And, issuing from the cottage, Feathertop strode manfully towards town. +Mother Rigby stood at the threshold, well pleased to see how the +sunbeams glistened on him, as if all his magnificence were real, and +how diligently and lovingly he smoked his pipe, and how handsomely he +walked, in spite of a little stiffness of his legs. She watched him +until out of sight, and threw a witch benediction after her darling, +when a turn of the road snatched him from her view. + +Betimes in the forenoon, when the principal street of the neighboring +town was just at its acme of life and bustle, a stranger of very +distinguished figure was seen on the sidewalk. His port as well as his +garments betokened nothing short of nobility. He wore a +richly-embroidered plum-colored coat, a waistcoat of costly velvet, +magnificently adorned with golden foliage, a pair of splendid scarlet +breeches, and the finest and glossiest of white silk stockings. His +head was covered with a peruke, so daintily powdered and adjusted that +it would have been sacrilege to disorder it with a hat; which, +therefore (and it was a gold-laced hat, set off with a snowy feather), +he carried beneath his arm. On the breast of his coat glistened a star. +He managed his gold-headed cane with an airy grace, peculiar to the +fine gentlemen of the period; and, to give the highest possible finish +to his equipment, he had lace ruffles at his wrist, of a most ethereal +delicacy, sufficiently avouching how idle and aristocratic must be the +hands which they half concealed. + +It was a remarkable point in the accoutrement of this brilliant +personage that he held in his left hand a fantastic kind of a pipe, +with an exquisitely painted bowl and an amber mouthpiece. This he +applied to his lips as often as every five or six paces, and inhaled a +deep whiff of smoke, which, after being retained a moment in his lungs, +might be seen to eddy gracefully from his mouth and nostrils. + +As may well be supposed, the street was all astir to find out the +stranger’s name. + +“It is some great nobleman, beyond question,” said one of the +townspeople. “Do you see the star at his breast?” + +“Nay; it is too bright to be seen,” said another. “Yes; he must needs +be a nobleman, as you say. But by what conveyance, think you, can his +lordship have voyaged or travelled hither? There has been no vessel +from the old country for a month past; and if he have arrived overland +from the southward, pray where are his attendants and equipage?” + +“He needs no equipage to set off his rank,” remarked a third. “If he +came among us in rags, nobility would shine through a hole in his +elbow. I never saw such dignity of aspect. He has the old Norman blood +in his veins, I warrant him.” + +“I rather take him to be a Dutchman, or one of your high Germans,” said +another citizen. “The men of those countries have always the pipe at +their mouths.” + +“And so has a Turk,” answered his companion. “But, in my judgment, this +stranger hath been bred at the French court, and hath there learned +politeness and grace of manner, which none understand so well as the +nobility of France. That gait, now! A vulgar spectator might deem it +stiff—he might call it a hitch and jerk—but, to my eye, it hath an +unspeakable majesty, and must have been acquired by constant +observation of the deportment of the Grand Monarque. The stranger’s +character and office are evident enough. He is a French ambassador, +come to treat with our rulers about the cession of Canada.” + +“More probably a Spaniard,” said another, “and hence his yellow +complexion; or, most likely, he is from the Havana, or from some port +on the Spanish main, and comes to make investigation about the piracies +which our government is thought to connive at. Those settlers in Peru +and Mexico have skins as yellow as the gold which they dig out of their +mines.” + +“Yellow or not,” cried a lady, “he is a beautiful man!—so tall, so +slender! such a fine, noble face, with so well-shaped a nose, and all +that delicacy of expression about the mouth! And, bless me, how bright +his star is! It positively shoots out flames!” + +“So do your eyes, fair lady,” said the stranger, with a bow and a +flourish of his pipe; for he was just passing at the instant. “Upon my +honor, they have quite dazzled me.” + +“Was ever so original and exquisite a compliment?” murmured the lady, +in an ecstasy of delight. + +Amid the general admiration excited by the stranger’s appearance, there +were only two dissenting voices. One was that of an impertinent cur, +which, after snuffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its +tail between its legs and skulked into its master’s back yard, +vociferating an execrable howl. The other dissentient was a young +child, who squalled at the fullest stretch of his lungs, and babbled +some unintelligible nonsense about a pumpkin. + +Feathertop meanwhile pursued his way along the street. Except for the +few complimentary words to the lady, and now and then a slight +inclination of the head in requital of the profound reverences of the +bystanders, he seemed wholly absorbed in his pipe. There needed no +other proof of his rank and consequence than the perfect equanimity +with which he comported himself, while the curiosity and admiration of +the town swelled almost into clamor around him. With a crowd gathering +behind his footsteps, he finally reached the mansion-house of the +worshipful Justice Gookin, entered the gate, ascended the steps of the +front door, and knocked. In the interim, before his summons was +answered, the stranger was observed to shake the ashes out of his pipe. + +“What did he say in that sharp voice?” inquired one of the spectators. + +“Nay, I know not,” answered his friend. “But the sun dazzles my eyes +strangely. How dim and faded his lordship looks all of a sudden! Bless +my wits, what is the matter with me?” + +“The wonder is,” said the other, “that his pipe, which was out only an +instant ago, should be all alight again, and with the reddest coal I +ever saw. There is something mysterious about this stranger. What a +whiff of smoke was that! Dim and faded did you call him? Why, as he +turns about the star on his breast is all ablaze.” + +“It is, indeed,” said his companion; “and it will go near to dazzle +pretty Polly Gookin, whom I see peeping at it out of the chamber +window.” + +The door being now opened, Feathertop turned to the crowd, made a +stately bend of his body like a great man acknowledging the reverence +of the meaner sort, and vanished into the house. There was a mysterious +kind of a smile, if it might not better be called a grin or grimace, +upon his visage; but, of all the throng that beheld him, not an +individual appears to have possessed insight enough to detect the +illusive character of the stranger except a little child and a cur dog. + +Our legend here loses somewhat of its continuity, and, passing over the +preliminary explanation between Feathertop and the merchant, goes in +quest of the pretty Polly Gookin. She was a damsel of a soft, round +figure, with light hair and blue eyes, and a fair, rosy face, which +seemed neither very shrewd nor very simple. This young lady had caught +a glimpse of the glistening stranger while standing on the threshold, +and had forthwith put on a laced cap, a string of beads, her finest +kerchief, and her stiffest damask petticoat in preparation for the +interview. Hurrying from her chamber to the parlor, she had ever since +been viewing herself in the large looking-glass and practising pretty +airs-now a smile, now a ceremonious dignity of aspect, and now a softer +smile than the former, kissing her hand likewise, tossing her head, and +managing her fan; while within the mirror an unsubstantial little maid +repeated every gesture and did all the foolish things that Polly did, +but without making her ashamed of them. In short, it was the fault of +pretty Polly’s ability rather than her will if she failed to be as +complete an artifice as the illustrious Feathertop himself; and, when +she thus tampered with her own simplicity, the witch’s phantom might +well hope to win her. + +No sooner did Polly hear her father’s gouty footsteps approaching the +parlor door, accompanied with the stiff clatter of Feathertop’s +high-heeled shoes, than she seated herself bolt upright and innocently +began warbling a song. + +“Polly! daughter Polly!” cried the old merchant. “Come hither, child.” + +Master Gookin’s aspect, as he opened the door, was doubtful and +troubled. + +“This gentleman,” continued he, presenting the stranger, “is the +Chevalier Feathertop,—nay, I beg his pardon, my Lord Feathertop,—who +hath brought me a token of remembrance from an ancient friend of mine. +Pay your duty to his lordship, child, and honor him as his quality +deserves.” + +After these few words of introduction, the worshipful magistrate +immediately quitted the room. But, even in that brief moment, had the +fair Polly glanced aside at her father instead of devoting herself +wholly to the brilliant guest, she might have taken warning of some +mischief nigh at hand. The old man was nervous, fidgety, and very pale. +Purposing a smile of courtesy, he had deformed his face with a sort of +galvanic grin, which, when Feathertop’s back was turned, he exchanged +for a scowl, at the same time shaking his fist and stamping his gouty +foot—an incivility which brought its retribution along with it. The +truth appears to have been that Mother Rigby’s word of introduction, +whatever it might be, had operated far more on the rich merchant’s +fears than on his good will. Moreover, being a man of wonderfully acute +observation, he had noticed that these painted figures on the bowl of +Feathertop’s pipe were in motion. Looking more closely he became +convinced that these figures were a party of little demons, each duly +provided with horns and a tail, and dancing hand in hand, with gestures +of diabolical merriment, round the circumference of the pipe bowl. As +if to confirm his suspicions, while Master Gookin ushered his guest +along a dusky passage from his private room to the parlor, the star on +Feathertop’s breast had scintillated actual flames, and threw a +flickering gleam upon the wall, the ceiling, and the floor. + +With such sinister prognostics manifesting themselves on all hands, it +is not to be marvelled at that the merchant should have felt that he +was committing his daughter to a very questionable acquaintance. He +cursed, in his secret soul, the insinuating elegance of Feathertop’s +manners, as this brilliant personage bowed, smiled, put his hand on his +heart, inhaled a long whiff from his pipe, and enriched the atmosphere +with the smoky vapor of a fragrant and visible sigh. Gladly would poor +Master Gookin have thrust his dangerous guest into the street; but +there was a constraint and terror within him. This respectable old +gentleman, we fear, at an earlier period of life, had given some pledge +or other to the evil principle, and perhaps was now to redeem it by the +sacrifice of his daughter. + +It so happened that the parlor door was partly of glass, shaded by a +silken curtain, the folds of which hung a little awry. So strong was +the merchant’s interest in witnessing what was to ensue between the +fair Polly and the gallant Feathertop that, after quitting the room, he +could by no means refrain from peeping through the crevice of the +curtain. + +But there was nothing very miraculous to be seen; nothing—except the +trifles previously noticed—to confirm the idea of a supernatural peril +environing the pretty Polly. The stranger it is true was evidently a +thorough and practised man of the world, systematic and self-possessed, +and therefore the sort of a person to whom a parent ought not to +confide a simple, young girl without due watchfulness for the result. +The worthy magistrate who had been conversant with all degrees and +qualities of mankind, could not but perceive every motion and gesture +of the distinguished Feathertop came in its proper place; nothing had +been left rude or native in him; a well-digested conventionalism had +incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and transformed him +into a work of art. Perhaps it was this peculiarity that invested him +with a species of ghastliness and awe. It is the effect of anything +completely and consummately artificial, in human shape, that the person +impresses us as an unreality and as having hardly pith enough to cast a +shadow upon the floor. As regarded Feathertop, all this resulted in a +wild, extravagant, and fantastical impression, as if his life and being +were akin to the smoke that curled upward from his pipe. + +But pretty Polly Gookin felt not thus. The pair were now promenading +the room: Feathertop with his dainty stride and no less dainty grimace, +the girl with a native maidenly grace, just touched, not spoiled, by a +slightly affected manner, which seemed caught from the perfect artifice +of her companion. The longer the interview continued, the more charmed +was pretty Polly, until, within the first quarter of an hour (as the +old magistrate noted by his watch), she was evidently beginning to be +in love. Nor need it have been witchcraft that subdued her in such a +hurry; the poor child’s heart, it may be, was so very fervent that it +melted her with its own warmth as reflected from the hollow semblance +of a lover. No matter what Feathertop said, his words found depth and +reverberation in her ear; no matter what he did, his action was heroic +to her eye. And by this time it is to be supposed there was a blush on +Polly’s cheek, a tender smile about her mouth and a liquid softness in +her glance; while the star kept coruscating on Feathertop’s breast, and +the little demons careered with more frantic merriment than ever about +the circumference of his pipe bowl. O pretty Polly Gookin, why should +these imps rejoice so madly that a silly maiden’s heart was about to be +given to a shadow! Is it so unusual a misfortune, so rare a triumph? + +By and by Feathertop paused, and throwing himself into an imposing +attitude, seemed to summon the fair girl to survey his figure and +resist him longer if she could. His star, his embroidery, his buckles +glowed at that instant with unutterable splendor; the picturesque hues +of his attire took a richer depth of coloring; there was a gleam and +polish over his whole presence betokening the perfect witchery of +well-ordered manners. The maiden raised her eyes and suffered them to +linger upon her companion with a bashful and admiring gaze. Then, as if +desirous of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have +side by side with so much brilliancy, she cast a glance towards the +full-length looking-glass in front of which they happened to be +standing. It was one of the truest plates in the world and incapable of +flattery. No sooner did the images therein reflected meet Polly’s eye +than she shrieked, shrank from the stranger’s side, gazed at him for a +moment in the wildest dismay, and sank insensible upon the floor. +Feathertop likewise had looked towards the mirror, and there beheld, +not the glittering mockery of his outside show, but a picture of the +sordid patchwork of his real composition stripped of all witchcraft. + +The wretched simulacrum! We almost pity him. He threw up his arms with +an expression of despair that went further than any of his previous +manifestations towards vindicating his claims to be reckoned human, for +perchance the only time since this so often empty and deceptive life of +mortals began its course, an illusion had seen and fully recognized +itself. + +Mother Rigby was seated by her kitchen hearth in the twilight of this +eventful day, and had just shaken the ashes out of a new pipe, when she +heard a hurried tramp along the road. Yet it did not seem so much the +tramp of human footsteps as the clatter of sticks or the rattling of +dry bones. + +“Ha!” thought the old witch, “what step is that? Whose skeleton is out +of its grave now, I wonder?” + +A figure burst headlong into the cottage door. It was Feathertop! His +pipe was still alight; the star still flamed upon his breast; the +embroidery still glowed upon his garments; nor had he lost, in any +degree or manner that could be estimated, the aspect that assimilated +him with our mortal brotherhood. But yet, in some indescribable way (as +is the case with all that has deluded us when once found out), the poor +reality was felt beneath the cunning artifice. + +“What has gone wrong?” demanded the witch. “Did yonder sniffling +hypocrite thrust my darling from his door? The villain! I’ll set twenty +fiends to torment him till he offer thee his daughter on his bended +knees!” + +“No, mother,” said Feathertop despondingly; “it was not that.” + +“Did the girl scorn my precious one?” asked Mother Rigby, her fierce +eyes glowing like two coals of Tophet. “I’ll cover her face with +pimples! Her nose shall be as red as the coal in thy pipe! Her front +teeth shall drop out! In a week hence she shall not be worth thy +having!” + +“Let her alone, mother,” answered poor Feathertop; “the girl was half +won; and methinks a kiss from her sweet lips might have made me +altogether human. But,” he added, after a brief pause and then a howl +of self-contempt, “I’ve seen myself, mother! I’ve seen myself for the +wretched, ragged, empty thing I am! I’ll exist no longer!” + +Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might +against the chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor, a +medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from +the heap, and a shrivelled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now +lustreless; but the rudely-carved gap, that just before had been a +mouth still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and was so +far human. + +“Poor fellow!” quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics +of her ill-fated contrivance. “My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There +are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, +made up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and +good-for-nothing trash as he was! Yet they live in fair repute, and +never see themselves for what they are. And why should my poor puppet +be the only one to know himself and perish for it?” + +While thus muttering, the witch had filled a fresh pipe of tobacco, and +held the stem between her fingers, as doubtful whether to thrust it +into her own mouth or Feathertop’s. + +“Poor Feathertop!” she continued. “I could easily give him another +chance and send him forth again tomorrow. But no; his feelings are too +tender, his sensibilities too deep. He seems to have too much heart to +bustle for his own advantage in such an empty and heartless world. +Well! well! I’ll make a scarecrow of him after all. ’Tis an innocent +and useful vocation, and will suit my darling well; and, if each of his +human brethren had as fit a one, ’twould be the better for mankind; and +as for this pipe of tobacco, I need it more than he.” + +So saying Mother Rigby put the stem between her lips. “Dickon!” cried +she, in her high, sharp tone, “another coal for my pipe!” + + + + +THE NEW ADAM AND EVE + + +We who are born into the world’s artificial system can never adequately +know how little in our present state and circumstances is natural, and +how much is merely the interpolation of the perverted mind and heart of +man. Art has become a second and stronger nature; she is a step-mother, +whose crafty tenderness has taught us to despise the bountiful and +wholesome ministrations of our true parent. It is only through the +medium of the imagination that we can lessen those iron fetters, which +we call truth and reality, and make ourselves even partially sensible +what prisoners we are. For instance, let us conceive good Father +Miller’s interpretation of the prophecies to have proved true. The Day +of Doom has burst upon the globe and swept away the whole race of men. +From cities and fields, sea-shore and midland mountain region, vast +continents, and even the remotest islands of the ocean, each living +thing is gone. No breath of a created being disturbs this earthly +atmosphere. But the abodes of man, and all that he has accomplished, +the footprints of his wanderings and the results of his toil, the +visible symbols of his intellectual cultivation and moral progress,—in +short, everything physical that can give evidence of his present +position,—shall remain untouched by the hand of destiny. Then, to +inherit and repeople this waste and deserted earth, we will suppose a +new Adam and a new Eve to have been created, in the full development of +mind and heart, but with no knowledge of their predecessors nor of the +diseased circumstances that had become incrusted around them. Such a +pair would at once distinguish between art and nature. Their instincts +and intuitions would immediately recognize the wisdom and simplicity of +the latter; while the former, with its elaborate perversities, would +offer them a continual succession of puzzles. + +Let us attempt, in a mood half sportive and half thoughtful, to track +these imaginary heirs of our mortality, through their first day’s +experience. No longer ago than yesterday the flame of human life was +extinguished; there has been a breathless night; and now another morn +approaches, expecting to find the earth no less desolate than at +eventide. + +It is dawn. The east puts on its immemorial blush, although no human +eye is gazing at it; for all the phenomena of the natural world renew +themselves, in spite of the solitude that now broods around the globe. +There is still beauty of earth, sea, and sky, for beauty’s sake. But +soon there are to be spectators. Just when the earliest sunshine gilds +earth’s mountain-tops, two beings have come into life, not in such an +Eden as bloomed to welcome our first parents, but in the heart of a +modern city. They find themselves in existence, and gazing into one +another’s eyes. Their emotion is not astonishment; nor do they perplex +themselves with efforts to discover what, and whence, and why they are. +Each is satisfied to be, because the other exists likewise; and their +first consciousness is of calm and mutual enjoyment, which seems not to +have been the birth of that very moment, but prolonged from a past +eternity. Thus content with an inner sphere which they inhabit +together, it is not immediately that the outward world can obtrude +itself upon their notice. + +Soon, however, they feel the invincible necessity of this earthly life, +and begin to make acquaintance with the objects and circumstances that +surround them. Perhaps no other stride so vast remains to be taken as +when they first turn from the reality of their mutual glance to the +dreams and shadows that perplex them everywhere else. + +“Sweetest Eve, where are we?” exclaims the new Adam; for speech, or +some equivalent mode of expression, is born with them, and comes just +as natural as breath. “Methinks I do not recognize this place.” + +“Nor I, dear Man,” replies the new Eve. “And what a strange place, too! +Let me come closer to thy side and behold thee only; for all other +sights trouble and perplex my spirit.” + +“Nay, Eve,” replies Adam, who appears to have the stronger tendency +towards the material world; “it were well that we gain some insight +into these matters. We are in an odd situation here. Let us look about +us.” + +Assuredly there are sights enough to throw the new inheritors of earth +into a state of hopeless perplexity. The long lines of edifices, their +windows glittering in the yellow sunrise, and the narrow street +between, with its barren pavement tracked and battered by wheels that +have now rattled into an irrevocable past! The signs, with their +unintelligible hieroglyphics! The squareness and ugliness, and regular +or irregular deformity of everything that meets the eye! The marks of +wear and tear, and unrenewed decay, which distinguish the works of man +from the growth of nature! What is there in all this, capable of the +slightest significance to minds that know nothing of the artificial +system which is implied in every lamp-post and each brick of the +houses? Moreover, the utter loneliness and silence, in a scene that +originally grew out of noise and bustle, must needs impress a feeling +of desolation even upon Adam and Eve, unsuspicious as they are of the +recent extinction of human existence. In a forest, solitude would be +life; in a city, it is death. + +The new Eve looks round with a sensation of doubt and distrust, such as +a city dame, the daughter of numberless generations of citizens, might +experience if suddenly transported to the garden of Eden. At length her +downcast eye discovers a small tuft of grass, just beginning to sprout +among the stones of the pavement; she eagerly grasps it, and is +sensible that this little herb awakens some response within her heart. +Nature finds nothing else to offer her. Adam, after staring up and down +the street without detecting a single object that his comprehension can +lay hold of, finally turns his forehead to the sky. There, indeed, is +something which the soul within him recognizes. + +“Look up yonder, mine own Eve,” he cries; “surely we ought to dwell +among those gold-tinged clouds or in the blue depths beyond them. I +know not how nor when, but evidently we have strayed away from our +home; for I see nothing hereabouts that seems to belong to us.” + +“Can we not ascend thither?” inquires Eve. + +“Why not?” answers Adam, hopefully. “But no; something drags us down in +spite of our best efforts. Perchance we may find a path hereafter.” + +In the energy of new life it appears no such impracticable feat to +climb into the sky. But they have already received a woful lesson, +which may finally go far towards reducing them to the level of the +departed race, when they acknowledge the necessity of keeping the +beaten track of earth. They now set forth on a ramble through the city, +in the hope of making their escape from this uncongenial sphere. +Already in the fresh elasticity of their spirits they have found the +idea of weariness. We will watch them as they enter some of the shops +and public or private edifices; for every door, whether of alderman or +beggar, church or hall of state, has been flung wide open by the same +agency that swept away the inmates. + +It so happens,—and not unluckily for an Adam and Eve who are still in +the costume that might better have befitted Eden,—it so happens that +their first visit is to a fashionable dry-goods store. No courteous and +importunate attendants hasten to receive their orders; no throng of +ladies are tossing over the rich Parisian fabrics. All is deserted; +trade is at a stand-still; and not even an echo of the national +watchword, “Go ahead!” disturbs the quiet of the new customers. But +specimens of the latest earthly fashions, silks of every shade, and +whatever is most delicate or splendid for the decoration of the human +form, he scattered around, profusely as bright autumnal leaves in a +forest. Adam looks at a few of the articles, but throws them carelessly +aside with whatever exclamation may correspond to “Pish!” or “Pshaw!” +in the new vocabulary of nature. Eve, however,—be it said without +offence to her native modesty,—examines these treasures of her sex with +somewhat livelier interest. A pair of corsets chance to be upon the +counter; she inspects them curiously, but knows not what to make of +them. Then she handles a fashionable silk with dim yearnings, thoughts +that wander hither and thither, instincts groping in the dark. + +“On the whole, I do not like it,” she observes, laying the glossy +fabric upon the counter. “But, Adam, it is very strange. What can these +things mean? Surely I ought to know; yet they put me in a perfect +maze.” + +“Poh! my dear Eve, why trouble thy little head about such nonsense?” +cries Adam, in a fit of impatience. “Let us go somewhere else. But +stay; how very beautiful! My loveliest Eve, what a charm you have +imparted to that robe by merely throwing it over your shoulders!” + +For Eve, with the taste that nature moulded into her composition, has +taken a remnant of exquisite silver gauze and drawn it around her +forms, with an effect that gives Adam his first idea of the witchery of +dress. He beholds his spouse in a new light and with renewed +admiration; yet is hardly reconciled to any other attire than her own +golden locks. However, emulating Eve’s example, he makes free with a +mantle of blue velvet, and puts it on so picturesquely that it might +seem to have fallen from heaven upon his stately figure. Thus garbed +they go in search of new discoveries. + +They next wander into a Church, not to make a display of their fine +clothes, but attracted by its spire pointing upwards to the sky, +whither they have already yearned to climb. As they enter the portal, a +clock, which it was the last earthly act of the sexton to wind up, +repeats the hour in deep reverberating tones; for Time has survived his +former progeny, and, with the iron tongue that man gave him, is now +speaking to his two grandchildren. They listen, but understand him not. +Nature would measure time by the succession of thoughts and acts which +constitute real life, and not by hours of emptiness. They pass up the +church-aisle, and raise their eyes to the ceiling. Had our Adam and Eve +become mortal in some European city, and strayed into the vastness and +sublimity of an old cathedral, they might have recognized the purpose +for which the deep-souled founders reared it. Like the dim awfulness of +an ancient forest, its very atmosphere would have incited them to +prayer. Within the snug walls of a metropolitan church there can be no +such influence. + +Yet some odor of religion is still lingering here, the bequest of pious +souls, who had grace to enjoy a foretaste of immortal life. Perchance +they breathe a prophecy of a better world to their successors, who have +become obnoxious to all their own cares and calamities in the present +one. + +“Eve, something impels me to look upward,” says Adam; “but it troubles +me to see this roof between us and the sky. Let us go forth, and +perhaps we shall discern a Great Face looking down upon us.” + +“Yes; a Great Face, with a beam of love brightening over it, like +sunshine,” responds Eve. “Surely we have seen such a countenance +somewhere.” + +They go out of the church, and kneeling at its threshold give way to +the spirit’s natural instinct of adoration towards a beneficent Father. +But, in truth, their life thus far has been a continual prayer. Purity +and simplicity hold converse at every moment with their Creator. + +We now observe them entering a Court of Justice. But what remotest +conception can they attain of the purposes of such an edifice? How +should the idea occur to them that human brethren, of like nature with +themselves, and originally included in the same law of love which is +their only rule of life, should ever need an outward enforcement of the +true voice within their souls? And what, save a woful experience, the +dark result of many centuries, could teach them the sad mysteries of +crime? O Judgment Seat, not by the pure in heart vast thou established, +nor in the simplicity of nature; but by hard and wrinkled men, and upon +the accumulated heap of earthly wrong. Thou art the very symbol of +man’s perverted state. + +On as fruitless an errand our wanderers next visit a Hall of +Legislature, where Adam places Eve in the Speaker’s chair, unconscious +of the moral which he thus exemplifies. Man’s intellect, moderated by +Woman’s tenderness and moral sense! Were such the legislation of the +world there would be no need of State Houses, Capitols, Halls of +Parliament, nor even of those little assemblages of patriarchs beneath +the shadowy trees, by whom freedom was first interpreted to mankind on +our native shores. + +Whither go they next? A perverse destiny seems to perplex them with one +after another of the riddles which mankind put forth to the wandering +universe, and left unsolved in their own destruction. They enter an +edifice of stern gray stone standing insulated in the midst of others, +and gloomy even in the sunshine, which it barely suffers to penetrate +through its iron grated windows. It is a prison. The jailer has left +his post at the summons of a stronger authority than the sheriff’s. But +the prisoners? Did the messenger of fate, when he shook open all the +doors, respect the magistrate’s warrant and the judge’s sentence, and +leave the inmates of the dungeons to be delivered by due course of +earthly law? No; a new trial has been granted in a higher court, which +may set judge, jury, and prisoner at its bar all in a row, and perhaps +find one no less guilty than another. The jail, like the whole earth, +is now a solitude, and has thereby lost something of its dismal gloom. +But here are the narrow cells, like tombs, only drearier and deadlier, +because in these the immortal spirit was buried with the body. +Inscriptions appear on the walls, scribbled with a pencil or scratched +with a rusty nail; brief words of agony, perhaps, or guilt’s desperate +defiance to the world, or merely a record of a date by which the writer +strove to keep up with the march of life. There is not a living eye +that could now decipher these memorials. + +Nor is it while so fresh from their Creator’s hand that the new +denizens of earth—no, nor their descendants for a thousand years—could +discover that this edifice was a hospital for the direst disease which +could afflict their predecessors. Its patients bore the outward marks +of that leprosy with which all were more or less infected. They were +sick-and so were the purest of their brethren—with the plague of sin. A +deadly sickness, indeed! Feeling its symptoms within the breast, men +concealed it with fear and shame, and were only the more cruel to those +unfortunates whose pestiferous sores were flagrant to the common eye. +Nothing save a rich garment could ever hide the plague-spot. In the +course of the world’s lifetime, every remedy was tried for its cure and +extirpation, except the single one, the flower that grew in Heaven and +was sovereign for all the miseries of earth. Man never had attempted to +cure sin by LOVE! Had he but once made the effort, it might well have +happened that there would have been no more need of the dark +lazar-house into which Adam and Eve have wandered. Hasten forth with +your native innocence, lest the damps of these still conscious walls +infect you likewise, and thus another fallen race be propagated! + +Passing from the interior of the prison into the space within its +outward wall, Adam pauses beneath a structure of the simplest +contrivance, yet altogether unaccountable to him. It consists merely of +two upright posts, supporting a transverse beam, from which dangles a +cord. + +“Eve, Eve!” cries Adam, shuddering with a nameless horror. “What can +this thing be?” + +“I know not,” answers Eve; “but, Adam, my heart is sick! There seems to +be no more sky,—no more sunshine!” + +Well might Adam shudder and poor Eve be sick at heart; for this +mysterious object was the type of mankind’s whole system in regard to +the great difficulties which God had given to be solved,—a system of +fear and vengeance, never successful, yet followed to the last. Here, +on the morning when the final summons came, a criminal—one criminal, +where none were guiltless—had died upon the gallows. Had the world +heard the footfall of its own approaching doom, it would have been no +inappropriate act thus to close the record of its deeds by one so +characteristic. + +The two pilgrims now hurry from the prison. Had they known how the +former inhabitants of earth were shut up in artificial error and +cramped and chained by their perversions, they might have compared the +whole moral world to a prison-house, and have deemed the removal of the +race a general jail-delivery. + +They next enter, unannounced, but they might have rung at the door in +vain, a private mansion, one of the stateliest in Beacon Street. A wild +and plaintive strain of music is quivering through the house, now +rising like a solemn organ-peal, and now dying into the faintest +murmur, as if some spirit that had felt an interest in the departed +family were bemoaning itself in the solitude of hall and chamber. +Perhaps a virgin, the purest of mortal race, has been left behind to +perform a requiem for the whole kindred of humanity. Not so. These are +the tones of an Eolian harp, through which Nature pours the harmony +that lies concealed in her every breath, whether of summer breeze or +tempest. Adam and Eve are lost in rapture, unmingled with surprise. The +passing wind, that stirred the harp-strings, has been hushed, before +they can think of examining the splendid furniture, the gorgeous +carpets, and the architecture of the rooms. These things amuse their +unpractised eyes, but appeal to nothing within their hearts. Even the +pictures upon the walls scarcely excite a deeper interest; for there is +something radically artificial and deceptive in painting with which +minds in the primal simplicity cannot sympathize. The unbidden guests +examine a row of family portraits, but are too dull to recognize them +as men and women, beneath the disguise of a preposterous garb, and with +features and expression debased, because inherited through ages of +moral and physical decay. + +Chance, however, presents them with pictures of human beauty, fresh +from the hand of Nature. As they enter a magnificent apartment they are +astonished, but not affrighted, to perceive two figures advancing to +meet them. Is it not awful to imagine that any life, save their own, +should remain in the wide world? + +“How is this?” exclaims Adam. “My beautiful Eve, are you in two places +at once?” + +“And you, Adam!” answers Eve, doubtful, yet delighted. “Surely that +noble and lovely form is yours. Yet here you are by my side. I am +content with one,—methinks there should not be two.” + +This miracle is wrought by a tall looking-glass, the mystery of which +they soon fathom, because Nature creates a mirror for the human face in +every pool of water, and for her own great features in waveless lakes. +Pleased and satisfied with gazing at themselves, they now discover the +marble statue of a child in a corner of the room so exquisitely +idealized that it is almost worthy to be the prophetic likeness of +their first-born. Sculpture, in its highest excellence, is more genuine +than painting, and might seem to be evolved from a natural germ, by the +same law as a leaf or flower. The statue of the child impresses the +solitary pair as if it were a companion; it likewise hints at secrets +both of the past and future. + +“My husband!” whispers Eve. + +“What would you say, dearest Eve?” inquires Adam. + +“I wonder if we are alone in the world,” she continues, “with a sense +of something like fear at the thought of other inhabitants. This lovely +little form! Did it ever breathe? Or is it only the shadow of something +real, like our pictures in the mirror?” + +“It is strange!” replies Adam, pressing his hand to his brow. “There +are mysteries all around us. An idea flits continually before me,—would +that I could seize it! Eve, Eve, are we treading in the footsteps of +beings that bore a likeness to ourselves? If so, whither are they +gone?—and why is their world so unfit for our dwelling-place?” + +“Our great Father only knows,” answers Eve. “But something tells me +that we shall not always be alone. And how sweet if other beings were +to visit us in the shape of this fair image!” + +Then they wander through the house, and everywhere find tokens of human +life, which now, with the idea recently suggested, excite a deeper +curiosity in their bosoms. Woman has here left traces of her delicacy +and refinement, and of her gentle labors. Eve ransacks a work-basket +and instinctively thrusts the rosy tip of her finger into a thimble. +She takes up a piece of embroidery, glowing with mimic flowers, in one +of which a fair damsel of the departed race has left her needle. Pity +that the Day of Doom should have anticipated the completion of such a +useful task! Eve feels almost conscious of the skill to finish it. A +pianoforte has been left open. She flings her hand carelessly over the +keys, and strikes out a sudden melody, no less natural than the strains +of the AEolian harp, but joyous with the dance of her yet unburdened +life. Passing through a dark entry they find a broom behind the door; +and Eve, who comprises the whole nature of womanhood, has a dim idea +that it is an instrument proper for her hand. In another apartment they +behold a canopied bed, and all the appliances of luxurious repose. A +heap of forest-leaves would be more to the purpose. They enter the +nursery, and are perplexed with the sight of little gowns and caps, +tiny slices, and a cradle, amid the drapery of which is still to be +seen the impress of a baby’s form. Adam slightly notices these trifles; +but Eve becomes involved in a fit of mute reflection from which it is +hardly possible to rouse her. + +By a most unlucky arrangement there was to have been a grand +dinner-party in this mansion on the very day when the whole human +family, including the invited guests, were summoned to the unknown +regions of illimitable space. At the moment of fate, the table was +actually spread, and the company on the point of sitting down. Adam and +Eve come unbidden to the banquet; it has now been some time cold, but +otherwise furnishes them with highly favorable specimens of the +gastronomy of their predecessors. But it is difficult to imagine the +perplexity of the unperverted couple, in endeavoring to find proper +food for their first meal, at a table where the cultivated appetites of +a fashionable party were to have been gratified. Will Nature teach them +the mystery of a plate of turtle-soup? Will she embolden them to attack +a haunch of venison? Will she initiate them into the merits of a +Parisian pasty, imported by the last steamer that ever crossed the +Atlantic? Will she not, rather, bid them turn with disgust from fish, +fowl, and flesh, which, to their pure nostrils, steam with a loathsome +odor of death and corruption?—Food? The bill of fare contains nothing +which they recognize as such. + +Fortunately, however, the dessert is ready upon a neighboring table. +Adam, whose appetite and animal instincts are quicker than those of +Eve, discovers this fitting banquet. + +“Here, dearest Eve,” he exclaims,—“here is food.” + +“Well,” answered she, with the germ of a housewife stirring within her, +“we have been so busy to-day, that a picked-up dinner must serve.” + +So Eve comes to the table and receives a red-cheeked apple from her +husband’s hand in requital of her predecessor’s fatal gift to our +common grandfather. She eats it without sin, and, let us hope, with no +disastrous consequences to her future progeny. They make a plentiful, +yet temperate, meal of fruit, which, though not gathered in paradise, +is legitimately derived from the seeds that were planted there. Their +primal appetite is satisfied. + +“What shall we drink, Eve?” inquires Adam. + +Eve peeps among some bottles and decanters, which, as they contain +fluids, she naturally conceives must be proper to quench thirst. But +never before did claret, hock, and madeira, of rich and rare perfume, +excite such disgust as now. + +“Pah!” she exclaims, after smelling at various wines. “What stuff is +here? The beings who have gone before us could not have possessed the +same nature that we do; for neither their hunger nor thirst were like +our own.” + +“Pray hand me yonder bottle,” says Adam. “If it be drinkable by any +manner of mortal, I must moisten my throat with it.” + +After some remonstrances, she takes up a champagne bottle, but is +frightened by the sudden explosion of the cork, and drops it upon the +floor. There the untasted liquor effervesces. Had they quaffed it they +would have experienced that brief delirium whereby, whether excited by +moral or physical causes, man sought to recompense himself for the +calm, life-long joys which he had lost by his revolt from nature. At +length, in a refrigerator, Eve finds a glass pitcher of water, pure, +cold, and bright as ever gushed from a fountain among the hills. Both +drink; and such refreshment does it bestow, that they question one +another if this precious liquid be not identical with the stream of +life within them. + +“And now,” observes Adam, “we must again try to discover what sort of a +world this is, and why we have been sent hither.” + +“Why? to love one another,” cries Eve. “Is not that employment enough?” + +“Truly is it,” answers Adam, kissing her; “but still—I know +not—something tells us there is labor to be done. Perhaps our allotted +task is no other than to climb into the sky, which is so much more +beautiful than earth.” + +“Then would we were there now,” murmurs Eve, “that no task or duty +might come between us!” + +They leave the hospitable mansion, and we next see them passing down +State Street. The clock on the old State House points to high noon, +when the Exchange should be in its glory and present the liveliest +emblem of what was the sole business of life, as regarded a multitude +of the foregone worldlings. It is over now. The Sabbath of eternity has +shed its stillness along the street. Not even a newsboy assails the two +solitary passers-by with an extra penny-paper from the office of the +Times or Mail, containing a full account of yesterday’s terrible +catastrophe. Of all the dull times that merchants and speculators have +known, this is the very worst; for, so far as they were concerned, +creation itself has taken the benefit of the Bankrupt Act. After all, +it is a pity. Those mighty capitalists who had just attained the +wished-for wealth! Those shrewd men of traffic who had devoted so many +years to the most intricate and artificial of sciences, and had barely +mastered it when the universal bankruptcy was announced by peal of +trumpet! Can they have been so incautious as to provide no currency of +the country whither they have gone, nor any bills of exchange, or +letters of credit from the needy on earth to the cash-keepers of +heaven? + +Adam and Eve enter a Bank. Start not, ye whose funds are treasured +there! You will never need them now. Call not for the police. The +stones of the street and the coin of the vaults are of equal value to +this simple pair. Strange sight! They take up the bright gold in +handfuls and throw it sportively into the air for the sake of seeing +the glittering worthlessness descend again in a shower. They know not +that each of those small yellow circles was once a magic spell, potent +to sway men’s hearts and mystify their moral sense. Here let them pause +in the investigation of the past. They have discovered the mainspring, +the life, the very essence of the system that had wrought itself into +the vitals of mankind, and choked their original nature in its deadly +gripe. Yet how powerless over these young inheritors of earth’s hoarded +wealth! And here, too, are huge, packages of back-notes, those +talismanic slips of paper which once had the efficacy to build up +enchanted palaces like exhalations, and work all kinds of perilous +wonders, yet were themselves but the ghosts of money, the shadows of a +shade. How like is this vault to a magician’s cave when the +all-powerful wand is broken, and the visionary splendor vanished, and +the floor strewn with fragments of shattered spells, and lifeless +shapes, once animated by demons! + +“Everywhere, my dear Eve,” observes Adam, “we find heaps of rubbish of +one kind or another. Somebody, I am convinced, has taken pains to +collect them, but for what purpose? Perhaps, hereafter, we shall be +moved to do the like. Can that be our business in the world?” + +“O no, no, Adam!” answers Eve. “It would be better to sit down quietly +and look upward to tine sky.” + +They leave the Bank, and in good time; for had they tarried later they +would probably have encountered some gouty old goblin of a capitalist, +whose soul could not long be anywhere save in the vault with his +treasure. + +Next they drop into a jeweller’s shop. They are pleased with the glow +of gems; and Adam twines a string of beautiful pearls around the head +of Eve, and fastens his own mantle with a magnificent diamond brooch. +Eve thanks him, and views herself with delight, in the nearest +looking-glass. Shortly afterward, observing a bouquet of roses and +other brilliant flowers in a vase of water, she flings away the +inestimable pearls, and adorns herself with these lovelier gems of +nature. They charm her with sentiment as well as beauty. + +“Surely they are living beings,” she remarks to Adam. + +“I think so,” replies Adam, “and they seem to be as little at home in +the world as ourselves.” + +We must not attempt to follow every footstep of these investigators +whom their Creator has commissioned to pass unconscious judgment upon +the works and ways of the vanished race. By this time, being endowed +with quick and accurate perceptions, they begin to understand the +purpose of the many things around them. They conjecture, for instance, +that the edifices of the city were erected, not by the immediate hand +that made the world, but by beings somewhat similar to themselves, for +shelter and convenience. But how will they explain the magnificence of +one habitation as compared with the squalid misery of another? Through +what medium can the idea of servitude enter their minds? When will they +comprehend the great and miserable fact—the evidences of which appeal +to their senses everywhere—that one portion of earth’s lost inhabitants +was rolling in luxury while the multitude was toiling for scanty food? +A wretched change, indeed, must be wrought in their own hearts ere they +can conceive the primal decree of Love to have been so completely +abrogated, that a brother should ever want what his brother had. When +their intelligence shah have reached so far, Earth’s new progeny will +have little reason to exult over her old rejected one. + +Their wanderings have now brought them into the suburbs of the city, +They stand on a grassy brow of a hill at the foot of a granite obelisk +which points its great finger upwards, as if the human family had +agreed, by a visible symbol of age-long endurance, to offer some high +sacrifice of thanksgiving or supplication. The solemn height of the +monument, its deep simplicity, and the absence of any vulgar and +practical use, all strengthen its effect upon Adam and Eve, and leave +them to interpret it by a purer sentiment than the builders thought of +expressing. + +“Eve, it is a visible prayer,” observed Adam. + +“And we will pray too,” she replies. + +Let us pardon these poor children of neither father nor mother for so +absurdly mistaking the purport of the memorial which man founded and +woman finished on far-famed Bunker Hill. The idea of war is not native +to their souls. Nor have they sympathies for the brave defenders of +liberty, since oppression is one of their unconjectured mysteries. +Could they guess that the green sward on which they stand so peacefully +was once strewn with human corpses and purple with their blood, it +would equally amaze them that one generation of men should perpetrate +such carnage, and that a subsequent generation should triumphantly +commemorate it. + +With a sense of delight they now stroll across green fields and along +the margin of a quiet river. Not to track them too closely, we next +find the wanderers entering a Gothic edifice of gray stone, where the +bygone world has left whatever it deemed worthy of record, in the rich +library of Harvard University. + +No student ever yet enjoyed such solitude and silence as now broods +within its deep alcoves. Little do the present visitors understand what +opportunities are thrown away upon them. Yet Adam looks anxiously at +the long rows of volumes, those storied heights of human lore, +ascending one above another from floor to ceiling. He takes up a bulky +folio. It opens in his hands as if spontaneously to impart the spirit +of its author to the yet unworn and untainted intellect of the +fresh-created mortal. He stands poring over the regular columns of +mystic characters, seemingly in studious mood; for the unintelligible +thought upon the page has a mysterious relation to his mind, and makes +itself felt as if it were a burden flung upon him. He is even painfully +perplexed, and grasps vainly at he knows not what. O Adam, it is too +soon, too soon by at least five thousand years, to put on spectacles +and bury yourself in the alcoves of a library! + +“What can this be?” he murmurs at last. “Eve, methinks nothing is so +desirable as to find out the mystery of this big and heavy object with +its thousand thin divisions. See! it stares me in the face as if it +were about to speak!” + +Eve, by a feminine instinct, is dipping into a volume of fashionable +poetry, the production certainly the most fortunate of earthly bards, +since his lay continues in vogue when all the great masters of the lyre +have passed into oblivion. But let not, his ghost be too exultant! The +world’s one lady tosses the book upon the floor and laughs merrily at +her husband’s abstracted mien. + +“My dear Adam,” cries she, “you look pensive and dismal. Do fling down +that stupid thing; for even if it should speak it would not be worth +attending to. Let us talk with one another, and with the sky, and the +green earth, and its trees and flowers. They will teach us better +knowledge than we can find here.” + +“Well, Eve, perhaps you are right,” replies Adam, with a sort of sigh. +“Still I cannot help thinking that the interpretation of the riddles +amid which we have been wandering all day long might here be +discovered.” + +“It may be better not to seek the interpretation,” persists Eve. “For +my part, the air of this place does not suit me. If you love me, come +away!” + +She prevails, and rescues him from the mysterious perils of the +library. Happy influence of woman! Had he lingered there long enough to +obtain a clew to its treasures,—as was not impossible, his intellect +being of human structure, indeed, but with an untransmitted vigor and +acuteness,—had he then and there become a student, the annalist of our +poor world would soon have recorded the downfall of a second Adam. The +fatal apple of another Tree of knowledge would have been eaten. All the +perversions, and sophistries, and false wisdom so aptly mimicking the +true,—all the narrow truth, so partial that it becomes more deceptive +than falsehood,—all the wrong principles and worse practice, the +pernicious examples and mistaken rules of life,—all the specious +theories which turn earth into cloudland and men into shadows,—all the +sad experience which it took mankind so many ages to accumulate, and +from which they never drew a moral for their future guidance, the whole +heap of this disastrous lore would have tumbled at once upon Adam’s +head. There would have been nothing left for him but to take up the +already abortive experiment of life where he had dropped it, and toil +onward with it a little farther. + +But, blessed in his ignorance, he may still enjoy a new world in our +worn-out one. Should he fall short of good, even as far as we did, he +has at least the freedom—no worthless one—to make errors for himself. +And his literature, when the progress of centuries shall create it, +will be no interminably repeated echo of our own poetry and +reproduction of the images that were moulded by our great fathers of +song and fiction, but a melody never yet heard on earth, and +intellectual forms unbreathed upon by our conceptions. Therefore let +the dust of ages gather upon the volumes of the library, and in due +season the roof of the edifice crumble down upon the whole. When the +second Adam’s descendants shall have collected as much rubbish of their +own, it will be time enough to dig into our ruins and compare the +literary advancement of two independent races. + +But we are looking forward too far. It seems to be the vice of those +who have a long past behind them. We will return to the new Adam and +Eve, who, having no reminiscences save dim and fleeting visions of a +pre-existence, are content to live and be happy in the present. + +The day is near its close when these pilgrims, who derive their being +from no dead progenitors, reach the cemetery of Mount Auburn. With +light hearts—for earth and sky now gladden each other with beauty—they +tread along the winding paths, among marble pillars, mimic temples, +urns, obelisks, and sarcophagi, sometimes pausing to contemplate these +fantasies of human growth, and sometimes to admire the flowers +wherewith nature converts decay to loveliness. Can Death, in the midst +of his old triumphs, make them sensible that they have taken up the +heavy burden of mortality which a whole species had thrown down? Dust +kindred to their own has never lain in the grave. Will they then +recognize, and so soon, that Time and the elements have an indefeasible +claim upon their bodies? Not improbably they may. There must have been +shadows enough, even amid the primal sunshine of their existence, to +suggest the thought of the soul’s incongruity with its circumstances. +They have already learned that something is to be thrown aside. The +idea of Death is in them, or not far off. But, were they to choose a +symbol for him, it would be the butterfly soaring upward, or the bright +angel beckoning them aloft, or the child asleep, with soft dreams +visible through her transparent purity. + +Such a Child, in whitest marble, they have found among the monuments of +Mount Auburn. + +“Sweetest Eve,” observes Adam, while hand in hand they contemplate this +beautiful object, “yonder sun has left us, and the whole world is +fading from our sight. Let us sleep as this lovely little figure is +sleeping. Our Father only knows whether what outward things we have +possessed to-day are to be snatched from us forever. But should our +earthly life be leaving us with the departing light, we need not doubt +that another morn will find us somewhere beneath the smile of God. I +feel that he has imparted the boon of existence never to be resumed.” + +“And no matter where we exist,” replies Eve, “for we shall always be +together.” + + + + +EGOTISM; OR, THE BOSOM SERPENT + + +“Here he comes!” shouted the boys along the street. “Here comes the man +with a snake in his bosom!” + +This outcry, saluting Herkimer’s ears as he was about to enter the iron +gate of the Elliston mansion, made him pause. It was not without a +shudder that he found himself on the point of meeting his former +acquaintance, whom he had known in the glory of youth, and whom now +after an interval of five years, he was to find the victim either of a +diseased fancy or a horrible physical misfortune. + +“A snake in his bosom!” repeated the young sculptor to himself. “It +must be he. No second man on earth has such a bosom friend. And now, my +poor Rosina, Heaven grant me wisdom to discharge my errand aright! +Woman’s faith must be strong indeed since thine has not yet failed.” + +Thus musing, he took his stand at the entrance of the gate and waited +until the personage so singularly announced should make his appearance. +After an instant or two he beheld the figure of a lean man, of +unwholesome look, with glittering eyes and long black hair, who seemed +to imitate the motion of a snake; for, instead of walking straight +forward with open front, he undulated along the pavement in a curved +line. It may be too fanciful to say that something, either in his moral +or material aspect, suggested the idea that a miracle had been wrought +by transforming a serpent into a man, but so imperfectly that the snaky +nature was yet hidden, and scarcely hidden, under the mere outward +guise of humanity. Herkimer remarked that his complexion had a greenish +tinge over its sickly white, reminding him of a species of marble out +of which he had once wrought a head of Envy, with her snaky locks. + +The wretched being approached the gate, but, instead of entering, +stopped short and fixed the glitter of his eye full upon the +compassionate yet steady countenance of the sculptor. + +“It gnaws me! It gnaws me!” he exclaimed. + +And then there was an audible hiss, but whether it came from the +apparent lunatic’s own lips, or was the real hiss of a serpent, might +admit of a discussion. At all events, it made Herkimer shudder to his +heart’s core. + +“Do you know me, George Herkimer?” asked the snake-possessed. + +Herkimer did know him; but it demanded all the intimate and practical +acquaintance with the human face, acquired by modelling actual +likenesses in clay, to recognize the features of Roderick Elliston in +the visage that now met the sculptor’s gaze. Yet it was he. It added +nothing to the wonder to reflect that the once brilliant young man had +undergone this odious and fearful change during the no more than five +brief years of Herkimer’s abode at Florence. The possibility of such a +transformation being granted, it was as easy to conceive it effected in +a moment as in an age. Inexpressibly shocked and startled, it was still +the keenest pang when Herkimer remembered that the fate of his cousin +Rosina, the ideal of gentle womanhood, was indissolubly interwoven with +that of a being whom Providence seemed to have unhumanized. + +“Elliston! Roderick!” cried he, “I had heard of this; but my conception +came far short of the truth. What has befallen you? Why do I find you +thus?” + +“Oh, ’tis a mere nothing! A snake! A snake! The commonest thing in the +world. A snake in the bosom—that’s all,” answered Roderick Elliston. +“But how is your own breast?” continued he, looking the sculptor in the +eye with the most acute and penetrating glance that it had ever been +his fortune to encounter. “All pure and wholesome? No reptile there? By +my faith and conscience, and by the devil within me, here is a wonder! +A man without a serpent in his bosom!” + +“Be calm, Elliston,” whispered George Herkimer, laying his hand upon +the shoulder of the snake-possessed. “I have crossed the ocean to meet +you. Listen! Let us be private. I bring a message from Rosina—from your +wife!” + +“It gnaws me! It gnaws me!” muttered Roderick. + +With this exclamation, the most frequent in his mouth, the unfortunate +man clutched both hands upon his breast as if an intolerable sting or +torture impelled him to rend it open and let out the living mischief, +even should it be intertwined with his own life. He then freed himself +from Herkimer’s grasp by a subtle motion, and, gliding through the +gate, took refuge in his antiquated family residence. The sculptor did +not pursue him. He saw that no available intercourse could be expected +at such a moment, and was desirous, before another meeting, to inquire +closely into the nature of Roderick’s disease and the circumstances +that had reduced him to so lamentable a condition. He succeeded in +obtaining the necessary information from an eminent medical gentleman. + +Shortly after Elliston’s separation from his wife—now nearly four years +ago—his associates had observed a singular gloom spreading over his +daily life, like those chill, gray mists that sometimes steal away the +sunshine from a summer’s morning. The symptoms caused them endless +perplexity. They knew not whether ill health were robbing his spirits +of elasticity, or whether a canker of the mind was gradually eating, as +such cankers do, from his moral system into the physical frame, which +is but the shadow of the former. They looked for the root of this +trouble in his shattered schemes of domestic bliss,—wilfully shattered +by himself,—but could not be satisfied of its existence there. Some +thought that their once brilliant friend was in an incipient stage of +insanity, of which his passionate impulses had perhaps been the +forerunners; others prognosticated a general blight and gradual +decline. From Roderick’s own lips they could learn nothing. More than +once, it is true, he had been heard to say, clutching his hands +convulsively upon his breast,—“It gnaws me! It gnaws me!”—but, by +different auditors, a great diversity of explanation was assigned to +this ominous expression. What could it be that gnawed the breast of +Roderick Elliston? Was it sorrow? Was it merely the tooth of physical +disease? Or, in his reckless course, often verging upon profligacy, if +not plunging into its depths, had he been guilty of some deed which +made his bosom a prey to the deadlier fangs of remorse? There was +plausible ground for each of these conjectures; but it must not be +concealed that more than one elderly gentleman, the victim of good +cheer and slothful habits, magisterially pronounced the secret of the +whole matter to be Dyspepsia! + +Meanwhile, Roderick seemed aware how generally he had become the +subject of curiosity and conjecture, and, with a morbid repugnance to +such notice, or to any notice whatsoever, estranged himself from all +companionship. Not merely the eye of man was a horror to him; not +merely the light of a friend’s countenance; but even the blessed +sunshine, likewise, which in its universal beneficence typifies the +radiance of the Creator’s face, expressing his love for all the +creatures of his hand. The dusky twilight was now too transparent for +Roderick Elliston; the blackest midnight was his chosen hour to steal +abroad; and if ever he were seen, it was when the watchman’s lantern +gleamed upon his figure, gliding along the street, with his hands +clutched upon his bosom, still muttering, “It gnaws me! It gnaws me!” +What could it be that gnawed him? + +After a time, it became known that Elliston was in the habit of +resorting to all the noted quacks that infested the city, or whom money +would tempt to journey thither from a distance. By one of these +persons, in the exultation of a supposed cure, it was proclaimed far +and wide, by dint of handbills and little pamphlets on dingy paper, +that a distinguished gentleman, Roderick Elliston, Esq., had been +relieved of a SNAKE in his stomach! So here was the monstrous secret, +ejected from its lurking place into public view, in all its horrible +deformity. The mystery was out; but not so the bosom serpent. He, if it +were anything but a delusion, still lay coiled in his living den. The +empiric’s cure had been a sham, the effect, it was supposed, of some +stupefying drug which more nearly caused the death of the patient than +of the odious reptile that possessed him. When Roderick Elliston +regained entire sensibility, it was to find his misfortune the town +talk—the more than nine days’ wonder and horror—while, at his bosom, he +felt the sickening motion of a thing alive, and the gnawing of that +restless fang which seemed to gratify at once a physical appetite and a +fiendish spite. + +He summoned the old black servant, who had been bred up in his father’s +house, and was a middle-aged man while Roderick lay in his cradle. + +“Scipio!” he began; and then paused, with his arms folded over his +heart. “What do people say of me, Scipio.” + +“Sir! my poor master! that you had a serpent in your bosom,” answered +the servant with hesitation. + +“And what else?” asked Roderick, with a ghastly look at the man. + +“Nothing else, dear master,” replied Scipio, “only that the doctor gave +you a powder, and that the snake leaped out upon the floor.” + +“No, no!” muttered Roderick to himself, as he shook his head, and +pressed his hands with a more convulsive force upon his breast, “I feel +him still. It gnaws me! It gnaws me!” + +From this time the miserable sufferer ceased to shun the world, but +rather solicited and forced himself upon the notice of acquaintances +and strangers. It was partly the result of desperation on finding that +the cavern of his own bosom had not proved deep and dark enough to hide +the secret, even while it was so secure a fortress for the loathsome +fiend that had crept into it. But still more, this craving for +notoriety was a symptom of the intense morbidness which now pervaded +his nature. All persons chronically diseased are egotists, whether the +disease be of the mind or body; whether it be sin, sorrow, or merely +the more tolerable calamity of some endless pain, or mischief among the +cords of mortal life. Such individuals are made acutely conscious of a +self, by the torture in which it dwells. Self, therefore, grows to be +so prominent an object with them that they cannot but present it to the +face of every casual passer-by. There is a pleasure—perhaps the +greatest of which the sufferer is susceptible—in displaying the wasted +or ulcerated limb, or the cancer in the breast; and the fouler the +crime, with so much the more difficulty does the perpetrator prevent it +from thrusting up its snake-like head to frighten the world; for it is +that cancer, or that crime, which constitutes their respective +individuality. Roderick Elliston, who, a little while before, had held +himself so scornfully above the common lot of men, now paid full +allegiance to this humiliating law. The snake in his bosom seemed the +symbol of a monstrous egotism to which everything was referred, and +which he pampered, night and day, with a continual and exclusive +sacrifice of devil worship. + +He soon exhibited what most people considered indubitable tokens of +insanity. In some of his moods, strange to say, he prided and gloried +himself on being marked out from the ordinary experience of mankind, by +the possession of a double nature, and a life within a life. He +appeared to imagine that the snake was a divinity,—not celestial, it is +true, but darkly infernal,—and that he thence derived an eminence and a +sanctity, horrid, indeed, yet more desirable than whatever ambition +aims at. Thus he drew his misery around him like a regal mantle, and +looked down triumphantly upon those whose vitals nourished no deadly +monster. Oftener, however, his human nature asserted its empire over +him in the shape of a yearning for fellowship. It grew to be his custom +to spend the whole day in wandering about the streets, aimlessly, +unless it might be called an aim to establish a species of brotherhood +between himself and the world. With cankered ingenuity, he sought out +his own disease in every breast. Whether insane or not, he showed so +keen a perception of frailty, error, and vice, that many persons gave +him credit for being possessed not merely with a serpent, but with an +actual fiend, who imparted this evil faculty of recognizing whatever +was ugliest in man’s heart. + +For instance, he met an individual, who, for thirty years, had +cherished a hatred against his own brother. Roderick, amidst the throng +of the street, laid his hand on this man’s chest, and looking full into +his forbidding face, “How is the snake to-day?” he inquired, with a +mock expression of sympathy. + +“The snake!” exclaimed the brother hater—“what do you mean?” + +“The snake! The snake! Does it gnaw you?” persisted Roderick. “Did you +take counsel with him this morning when you should have been saying +your prayers? Did he sting, when you thought of your brother’s health, +wealth, and good repute? Did he caper for joy, when you remembered the +profligacy of his only son? And whether he stung, or whether he +frolicked, did you feel his poison throughout your body and soul, +converting everything to sourness and bitterness? That is the way of +such serpents. I have learned the whole nature of them from my own!” + +“Where is the police?” roared the object of Roderick’s persecution, at +the same time giving an instinctive clutch to his breast. “Why is this +lunatic allowed to go at large?” + +“Ha, ha!” chuckled Roderick, releasing his grasp of the man.— “His +bosom serpent has stung him then!” + +Often it pleased the unfortunate young man to vex people with a lighter +satire, yet still characterized by somewhat of snake-like virulence. +One day he encountered an ambitious statesman, and gravely inquired +after the welfare of his boa constrictor; for of that species, Roderick +affirmed, this gentleman’s serpent must needs be, since its appetite +was enormous enough to devour the whole country and constitution. At +another time, he stopped a close-fisted old fellow, of great wealth, +but who skulked about the city in the guise of a scarecrow, with a +patched blue surtout, brown hat, and mouldy boots, scraping pence +together, and picking up rusty nails. Pretending to look earnestly at +this respectable person’s stomach, Roderick assured him that his snake +was a copper-head and had been generated by the immense quantities of +that base metal with which he daily defiled his fingers. Again, he +assaulted a man of rubicund visage, and told him that few bosom +serpents had more of the devil in them than those that breed in the +vats of a distillery. The next whom Roderick honored with his attention +was a distinguished clergyman, who happened just then to be engaged in +a theological controversy, where human wrath was more perceptible than +divine inspiration. + +“You have swallowed a snake in a cup of sacramental wine,” quoth he. + +“Profane wretch!” exclaimed the divine; but, nevertheless, his hand +stole to his breast. + +He met a person of sickly sensibility, who, on some early +disappointment, had retired from the world, and thereafter held no +intercourse with his fellow-men, but brooded sullenly or passionately +over the irrevocable past. This man’s very heart, if Roderick might be +believed, had been changed into a serpent, which would finally torment +both him and itself to death. Observing a married couple, whose +domestic troubles were matter of notoriety, he condoled with both on +having mutually taken a house adder to their bosoms. To an envious +author, who depreciated works which he could never equal, he said that +his snake was the slimiest and filthiest of all the reptile tribe, but +was fortunately without a sting. A man of impure life, and a brazen +face, asking Roderick if there were any serpent in his breast, he told +him that there was, and of the same species that once tortured Don +Rodrigo, the Goth. He took a fair young girl by the hand, and gazing +sadly into her eyes, warned her that she cherished a serpent of the +deadliest kind within her gentle breast; and the world found the truth +of those ominous words, when, a few months afterwards, the poor girl +died of love and shame. Two ladies, rivals in fashionable life who +tormented one another with a thousand little stings of womanish spite, +were given to understand that each of their hearts was a nest of +diminutive snakes, which did quite as much mischief as one great one. + +But nothing seemed to please Roderick better than to lay hold of a +person infected with jealousy, which he represented as an enormous +green reptile, with an ice-cold length of body, and the sharpest sting +of any snake save one. + +“And what one is that?” asked a by-stander, overhearing him. + +It was a dark-browed man who put the question; he had an evasive eye, +which in the course of a dozen years had looked no mortal directly in +the face. There was an ambiguity about this person’s character,—a stain +upon his reputation,—yet none could tell precisely of what nature, +although the city gossips, male and female, whispered the most +atrocious surmises. Until a recent period he had followed the sea, and +was, in fact, the very shipmaster whom George Herkimer had encountered, +under such singular circumstances, in the Grecian Archipelago. + +“What bosom serpent has the sharpest sting?” repeated this man; but he +put the question as if by a reluctant necessity, and grew pale while he +was uttering it. + +“Why need you ask?” replied Roderick, with a look of dark intelligence. +“Look into your own breast. Hark! my serpent bestirs himself! He +acknowledges the presence of a master fiend!” + +And then, as the by-standers afterwards affirmed, a hissing sound was +heard, apparently in Roderick Elliston’s breast. It was said, too, that +an answering hiss came from the vitals of the shipmaster, as if a snake +were actually lurking there and had been aroused by the call of its +brother reptile. If there were in fact any such sound, it might have +been caused by a malicious exercise of ventriloquism on the part of +Roderick. + +Thus making his own actual serpent—if a serpent there actually was in +his bosom—the type of each man’s fatal error, or hoarded sin, or +unquiet conscience, and striking his sting so unremorsefully into the +sorest spot, we may well imagine that Roderick became the pest of the +city. Nobody could elude him—none could withstand him. He grappled with +the ugliest truth that he could lay his hand on, and compelled his +adversary to do the same. Strange spectacle in human life where it is +the instinctive effort of one and all to hide those sad realities, and +leave them undisturbed beneath a heap of superficial topics which +constitute the materials of intercourse between man and man! It was not +to be tolerated that Roderick Elliston should break through the tacit +compact by which the world has done its best to secure repose without +relinquishing evil. The victims of his malicious remarks, it is true, +had brothers enough to keep them in countenance; for, by Roderick’s +theory, every mortal bosom harbored either a brood of small serpents or +one overgrown monster that had devoured all the rest. Still the city +could not bear this new apostle. It was demanded by nearly all, and +particularly by the most respectable inhabitants, that Roderick should +no longer be permitted to violate the received rules of decorum by +obtruding his own bosom serpent to the public gaze, and dragging those +of decent people from their lurking places. + +Accordingly, his relatives interfered and placed him in a private +asylum for the insane. When the news was noised abroad, it was observed +that many persons walked the streets with freer countenances and +covered their breasts less carefully with their hands. + +His confinement, however, although it contributed not a little to the +peace of the town, operated unfavorably upon Roderick himself. In +solitude his melancholy grew more black and sullen. He spent whole +days—indeed, it was his sole occupation—in communing with the serpent. +A conversation was sustained, in which, as it seemed, the hidden +monster bore a part, though unintelligibly to the listeners, and +inaudible except in a hiss. Singular as it may appear, the sufferer had +now contracted a sort of affection for his tormentor, mingled, however, +with the intensest loathing and horror. Nor were such discordant +emotions incompatible. Each, on the contrary, imparted strength and +poignancy to its opposite. Horrible love—horrible antipathy—embracing +one another in his bosom, and both concentrating themselves upon a +being that had crept into his vitals or been engendered there, and +which was nourished with his food, and lived upon his life, and was as +intimate with him as his own heart, and yet was the foulest of all +created things! But not the less was it the true type of a morbid +nature. + +Sometimes, in his moments of rage and bitter hatred against the snake +and himself, Roderick determined to be the death of him, even at the +expense of his own life. Once he attempted it by starvation; but, while +the wretched man was on the point of famishing, the monster seemed to +feed upon his heart, and to thrive and wax gamesome, as if it were his +sweetest and most congenial diet. Then he privily took a dose of active +poison, imagining that it would not fail to kill either himself or the +devil that possessed him, or both together. Another mistake; for if +Roderick had not yet been destroyed by his own poisoned heart nor the +snake by gnawing it, they had little to fear from arsenic or corrosive +sublimate. Indeed, the venomous pest appeared to operate as an antidote +against all other poisons. The physicians tried to suffocate the fiend +with tobacco smoke. He breathed it as freely as if it were his native +atmosphere. Again, they drugged their patient with opium and drenched +him with intoxicating liquors, hoping that the snake might thus be +reduced to stupor and perhaps be ejected from the stomach. They +succeeded in rendering Roderick insensible; but, placing their hands +upon his breast, they were inexpressibly horror stricken to feel the +monster wriggling, twining, and darting to and fro within his narrow +limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and incited to +unusual feats of activity. Thenceforth they gave up all attempts at +cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer submitted to his fate, resumed +his former loathsome affection for the bosom fiend, and spent whole +miserable days before a looking-glass, with his mouth wide open, +watching, in hope and horror, to catch a glimpse of the snake’s head +far down within his throat. It is supposed that he succeeded; for the +attendants once heard a frenzied shout, and, rushing into the room, +found Roderick lifeless upon the floor. + +He was kept but little longer under restraint. After minute +investigation, the medical directors of the asylum decided that his +mental disease did not amount to insanity, nor would warrant his +confinement, especially as its influence upon his spirits was +unfavorable, and might produce the evil which it was meant to remedy. +His eccentricities were doubtless great; he had habitually violated +many of the customs and prejudices of society; but the world was not, +without surer ground, entitled to treat him as a madman. On this +decision of such competent authority Roderick was released, and had +returned to his native city the very day before his encounter with +George Herkimer. + +As soon as possible after learning these particulars the sculptor, +together with a sad and tremulous companion, sought Elliston at his own +house. It was a large, sombre edifice of wood, with pilasters and a +balcony, and was divided from one of the principal streets by a terrace +of three elevations, which was ascended by successive flights of stone +steps. Some immense old elms almost concealed the front of the mansion. +This spacious and once magnificent family residence was built by a +grandee of the race early in the past century, at which epoch, land +being of small comparative value, the garden and other grounds had +formed quite an extensive domain. Although a portion of the ancestral +heritage had been alienated, there was still a shadowy enclosure in the +rear of the mansion where a student, or a dreamer, or a man of stricken +heart might lie all day upon the grass, amid the solitude of murmuring +boughs, and forget that a city had grown up around him. + +Into this retirement the sculptor and his companion were ushered by +Scipio, the old black servant, whose wrinkled visage grew almost sunny +with intelligence and joy as he paid his humble greetings to one of the +two visitors. + +“Remain in the arbor,” whispered the sculptor to the figure that leaned +upon his arm. “You will know whether, and when, to make your +appearance.” + +“God will teach me,” was the reply. “May He support me too!” + +Roderick was reclining on the margin of a fountain which gushed into +the fleckered sunshine with the same clear sparkle and the same voice +of airy quietude as when trees of primeval growth flung their shadows +cross its bosom. How strange is the life of a fountain!—born at every +moment, yet of an age coeval with the rocks, and far surpassing the +venerable antiquity of a forest. + +“You are come! I have expected you,” said Elliston, when he became +aware of the sculptor’s presence. + +His manner was very different from that of the preceding day—quiet, +courteous, and, as Herkimer thought, watchful both over his guest and +himself. This unnatural restraint was almost the only trait that +betokened anything amiss. He had just thrown a book upon the grass, +where it lay half opened, thus disclosing itself to be a natural +history of the serpent tribe, illustrated by lifelike plates. Near it +lay that bulky volume, the Ductor Dubitantium of Jeremy Taylor, full of +cases of conscience, and in which most men, possessed of a conscience, +may find something applicable to their purpose. + +“You see,” observed Elliston, pointing to the book of serpents, while a +smile gleamed upon his lips, “I am making an effort to become better +acquainted with my bosom friend; but I find nothing satisfactory in +this volume. If I mistake not, he will prove to be sui generis, and +akin to no other reptile in creation.” + +“Whence came this strange calamity?” inquired the sculptor. + +“My sable friend Scipio has a story,” replied Roderick, “of a snake +that had lurked in this fountain—pure and innocent as it looks—ever +since it was known to the first settlers. This insinuating personage +once crept into the vitals of my great grandfather and dwelt there many +years, tormenting the old gentleman beyond mortal endurance. In short +it is a family peculiarity. But, to tell you the truth, I have no faith +in this idea of the snake’s being an heirloom. He is my own snake, and +no man’s else.” + +“But what was his origin?” demanded Herkimer. + +“Oh, there is poisonous stuff in any man’s heart sufficient to generate +a brood of serpents,” said Elliston with a hollow laugh. “You should +have heard my homilies to the good town’s-people. Positively, I deem +myself fortunate in having bred but a single serpent. You, however, +have none in your bosom, and therefore cannot sympathize with the rest +of the world. It gnaws me! It gnaws me!” + +With this exclamation Roderick lost his self-control and threw himself +upon the grass, testifying his agony by intricate writhings, in which +Herkimer could not but fancy a resemblance to the motions of a snake. +Then, likewise, was heard that frightful hiss, which often ran through +the sufferer’s speech, and crept between the words and syllables +without interrupting their succession. + +“This is awful indeed!” exclaimed the sculptor—“an awful infliction, +whether it be actual or imaginary. Tell me, Roderick Elliston, is there +any remedy for this loathsome evil?” + +“Yes, but an impossible one,” muttered Roderick, as he lay wallowing +with his face in the grass. “Could I for one moment forget myself, the +serpent might not abide within me. It is my diseased self-contemplation +that has engendered and nourished him.” + +“Then forget yourself, my husband,” said a gentle voice above him; +“forget yourself in the idea of another!” + +Rosina had emerged from the arbor, and was bending over him with the +shadow of his anguish reflected in her countenance, yet so mingled with +hope and unselfish love that all anguish seemed but an earthly shadow +and a dream. She touched Roderick with her hand. A tremor shivered +through his frame. At that moment, if report be trustworthy, the +sculptor beheld a waving motion through the grass, and heard a tinkling +sound, as if something had plunged into the fountain. Be the truth as +it might, it is certain that Roderick Elliston sat up like a man +renewed, restored to his right mind, and rescued from the fiend which +had so miserably overcome him in the battle-field of his own breast. + +“Rosina!” cried he, in broken and passionate tones, but with nothing of +the wild wail that had haunted his voice so long, “forgive! forgive!” + +Her happy tears bedewed his face. + +“The punishment has been severe,” observed the sculptor. “Even Justice +might now forgive; how much more a woman’s tenderness! Roderick +Elliston, whether the serpent was a physical reptile, or whether the +morbidness of your nature suggested that symbol to your fancy, the +moral of the story is not the less true and strong. A tremendous +Egotism, manifesting itself in your case in the form of jealousy, is as +fearful a fiend as ever stole into the human heart. Can a breast, where +it has dwelt so long, be purified?” + +“Oh yes,” said Rosina with a heavenly smile. “The serpent was but a +dark fantasy, and what it typified was as shadowy as itself. The past, +dismal as it seems, shall fling no gloom upon the future. To give it +its due importance we must think of it but as an anecdote in our +Eternity.” + + + + +THE CHRISTMAS BANQUET + +FROM THE UNPUBLISHED “ALLEGORIES OF THE HEART.” + + +“I have here attempted,” said Roderick, unfolding a few sheets of +manuscript, as he sat with Rosina and the sculptor in the +summer-house,—“I have attempted to seize hold of a personage who glides +past me, occasionally, in my walk through life. My former sad +experience, as you know, has gifted me with some degree of insight into +the gloomy mysteries of the human heart, through which I have wandered +like one astray in a dark cavern, with his torch fast flickering to +extinction. But this man, this class of men, is a hopeless puzzle.” + +“Well, but propound him,” said the sculptor. “Let us have an idea of +hint, to begin with.” + +“Why, indeed,” replied Roderick, “he is such a being as I could +conceive you to carve out of marble, and some yet unrealized perfection +of human science to endow with an exquisite mockery of intellect; but +still there lacks the last inestimable touch of a divine Creator. He +looks like a man; and, perchance, like a better specimen of man than +you ordinarily meet. You might esteem him wise; he is capable of +cultivation and refinement, and has at least an external conscience; +but the demands that spirit makes upon spirit are precisely those to +which he cannot respond. When at last you come close to him you find +him chill and unsubstantial,—a mere vapor.” + +“I believe,” said Rosina, “I have a glimmering idea of what you mean.” + +“Then be thankful,” answered her husband, smiling; “but do not +anticipate any further illumination from what I am about to read. I +have here imagined such a man to be—what, probably, he never +is—conscious of the deficiency in his spiritual organization. Methinks +the result would be a sense of cold unreality wherewith he would go +shivering through the world, longing to exchange his load of ice for +any burden of real grief that fate could fling upon a human being.” + +Contenting himself with this preface, Roderick began to read. + + +In a certain old gentleman’s last will and testament there appeared a +bequest, which, as his final thought and deed, was singularly in +keeping with a long life of melancholy eccentricity. He devised a +considerable sum for establishing a fund, the interest of which was to +be expended, annually forever, in preparing a Christmas Banquet for ten +of the most miserable persons that could be found. It seemed not to be +the testator’s purpose to make these half a score of sad hearts merry, +but to provide that the stern or fierce expression of human discontent +should not be drowned, even for that one holy and joyful day, amid the +acclamations of festal gratitude which all Christendom sends up. And he +desired, likewise, to perpetuate his own remonstrance against the +earthly course of Providence, and his sad and sour dissent from those +systems of religion or philosophy which either find sunshine in the +world or draw it down from heaven. + +The task of inviting the guests, or of selecting among such as might +advance their claims to partake of this dismal hospitality, was +confided to the two trustees or stewards of the fund. These gentlemen, +like their deceased friend, were sombre humorists, who made it their +principal occupation to number the sable threads in the web of human +life, and drop all the golden ones out of the reckoning. They performed +their present office with integrity and judgment. The aspect of the +assembled company, on the day of the first festival, might not, it is +true, have satisfied every beholder that these were especially the +individuals, chosen forth from all the world, whose griefs were worthy +to stand as indicators of the mass of human suffering. Yet, after due +consideration, it could not be disputed that here was a variety of +hopeless discomfort, which, if it sometimes arose from causes +apparently inadequate, was thereby only the shrewder imputation against +the nature and mechanism of life. + +The arrangements and decorations of the banquet were probably intended +to signify that death in life which had been the testator’s definition +of existence. The hall, illuminated by torches, was hung round with +curtains of deep and dusky purple, and adorned with branches of cypress +and wreaths of artificial flowers, imitative of such as used to be +strewn over the dead. A sprig of parsley was laid by every plate. The +main reservoir of wine, was a sepulchral urn of silver, whence the +liquor was distributed around the table in small vases, accurately +copied from those that held the tears of ancient mourners. Neither had +the stewards—if it were their taste that arranged these +details—forgotten the fantasy of the old Egyptians, who seated a +skeleton at every festive board, and mocked their own merriment with +the imperturbable grin of a death’s-head. Such a fearful guest, +shrouded in a black mantle, sat now at the head of the table. It was +whispered, I know not with what truth, that the testator himself had +once walked the visible world with the machinery of that sane skeleton, +and that it was one of the stipulations of his will, that he should +thus be permitted to sit, from year to year, at the banquet which he +had instituted. If so, it was perhaps covertly implied that he had +cherished no hopes of bliss beyond the grave to compensate for the +evils which he felt or imagined here. And if, in their bewildered +conjectures as to the purpose of earthly existence, the banqueters +should throw aside the veil, and cast an inquiring glance at this +figure of death, as seeking thence the solution otherwise unattainable, +the only reply would be a stare of the vacant eye-caverns and a grin of +the skeleton jaws. Such was the response that the dead man had fancied +himself to receive when he asked of Death to solve the riddle of his +life; and it was his desire to repeat it when the guests of his dismal +hospitality should find themselves perplexed with the same question. + +“What means that wreath?” asked several of the company, while viewing +the decorations of the table. + +They alluded to a wreath of cypress, which was held on high by a +skeleton arm, protruding from within the black mantle. + +“It is a crown,” said one of the stewards, “not for the worthiest, but +for the wofulest, when he shall prove his claim to it.” + +The guest earliest bidden to the festival was a man of soft and gentle +character, who had not energy to struggle against the heavy despondency +to which his temperament rendered him liable; and therefore with +nothing outwardly to excuse him from happiness, he had spent a life of +quiet misery that made his blood torpid, and weighed upon his breath, +and sat like a ponderous night-fiend upon every throb of his +unresisting heart. His wretchedness seemed as deep as his original +nature, if not identical with it. It was the misfortune of a second +guest to cherish within his bosom a diseased heart, which had become so +wretchedly sore that the continual and unavoidable rubs of the world, +the blow of an enemy, the careless jostle of a stranger, and even the +faithful and loving touch of a friend, alike made ulcers in it. As is +the habit of people thus afflicted, he found his chief employment in +exhibiting these miserable sores to any who would give themselves the +pain of viewing them. A third guest was a hypochondriac, whose +imagination wrought necromancy in his outward and inward world, and +caused him to see monstrous faces in the household fire, and dragons in +the clouds of sunset, and fiends in the guise of beautiful women, and +something ugly or wicked beneath all the pleasant surfaces of nature. +His neighbor at table was one who, in his early youth, had trusted +mankind too much, and hoped too highly in their behalf, and, in meeting +with many disappointments, had become desperately soured. For several +years back this misanthrope bad employed himself in accumulating +motives for hating and despising his race,—such as murder, lust, +treachery, ingratitude, faithlessness of trusted friends, instinctive +vices of children, impurity of women, hidden guilt in men of saint-like +aspect,—and, in short, all manner of black realities that sought to +decorate themselves with outward grace or glory. But at every atrocious +fact that was added to his catalogue, at every increase of the sad +knowledge which he spent his life to collect, the native impulses of +the poor man’s loving and confiding heart made him groan with anguish. +Next, with his heavy brow bent downward, there stole into the hall a +man naturally earnest and impassioned, who, from his immemorial +infancy, had felt the consciousness of a high message to the world; +but, essaying to deliver it, had found either no voice or form of +speech, or else no ears to listen. Therefore his whole life was a +bitter questioning of himself: “Why have not men acknowledged my +mission? Am I not a self-deluding fool? What business have I on earth? +Where is my grave?” Throughout the festival, he quaffed frequent +draughts from the sepulchral urn of wine, hoping thus to quench the +celestial fire that tortured his own breast and could not benefit his +race. + +Then there entered, having flung away a ticket for a ball, a gay +gallant of yesterday, who had found four or five wrinkles in his brow, +and more gray hairs than he could well number on his head. Endowed with +sense and feeling, he had nevertheless spent his youth in folly, but +had reached at last that dreary point in life where Folly quits us of +her own accord, leaving us to make friends with Wisdom if we can. Thus, +cold and desolate, he had come to seek Wisdom at the banquet, and +wondered if the skeleton were she. To eke out the company, the stewards +had invited a distressed poet from his home in the almshouse, and a +melancholy idiot from the street-corner. The latter had just the +glimmering of sense that was sufficient to make him conscious of a +vacancy, which the poor fellow, all his life long, had mistily sought +to fill up with intelligence, wandering up and down the streets, and +groaning miserably because his attempts were ineffectual. The only lady +in the hall was one who had fallen short of absolute and perfect +beauty, merely by the trifling defect of a slight cast in her left eye. +But this blemish, minute as it was, so shocked the pure ideal of her +soul, rather than her vanity, that she passed her life in solitude, and +veiled her countenance even from her own gaze. So the skeleton sat +shrouded at one end of the table, and this poor lady at the other. + +One other guest remains to be described. He was a young man of smooth +brow, fair cheek, and fashionable mien. So far as his exterior +developed him, he might much more suitably have found a place at some +merry Christmas table, than have been numbered among the blighted, +fate-stricken, fancy-tortured set of ill-starred banqueters. Murmurs +arose among the guests as they noted, the glance of general scrutiny +which the intruder threw over his companions. What had he to do among +them? Why did not the skeleton of the dead founder of the feast unbend +its rattling joints, arise, and motion the unwelcome stranger from the +board? + +“Shameful!” said the morbid man, while a new ulcer broke out in his +heart. “He comes to mock us! we shall be the jest of his tavern friends +I—he will make a farce of our miseries, and bring it out upon the +stage!” + +“O, never mind him!” said the hypochondriac, smiling sourly. “He shall +feast from yonder tureen of viper-soup; and if there is a fricassee of +scorpions on the table, pray let him have his share of it. For the +dessert, he shall taste the apples of Sodom, then, if he like our +Christmas fare, let him return again next year!” + +“Trouble him not,” murmured the melancholy man, with gentleness. “What +matters it whether the consciousness of misery come a few years sooner +or later? If this youth deem himself happy now, yet let him sit with us +for the sake of the wretchedness to come.” + +The poor idiot approached the young man with that mournful aspect of +vacant inquiry which his face continually wore, and which caused people +to say that he was always in search of his missing wits. After no +little examination he touched the stranger’s hand, but immediately drew +back his own, shaking his head and shivering. + +“Cold, cold, cold!” muttered the idiot. + +The young man shivered too, and smiled. + +“Gentlemen, and you, madam,” said one of the stewards of the festival, +“do not conceive so ill either of our caution or judgment, as to +imagine that we have admitted this young stranger—Gervayse Hastings by +name—without a full investigation and thoughtful balance of his claims. +Trust me, not a guest at the table is better entitled to his seat.” + +The steward’s guaranty was perforce satisfactory. The company, +therefore, took their places, and addressed themselves to the serious +business of the feast, but were soon disturbed by the hypochondriac, +who thrust back his chair, complaining that a dish of stewed toads and +vipers was set before him, and that there was green ditchwater in his +cup of wine. This mistake being amended, he quietly resumed his seat. +The wine, as it flowed freely from the sepulchral urn, seemed to come +imbued with all gloomy inspirations; so that its influence was not to +cheer, but either to sink the revellers into a deeper melancholy, or +elevate their spirits to an enthusiasm of wretchedness. The +conversation was various. They told sad stories about people who might +have been Worthy guests at such a festival as the present. They talked +of grisly incidents in human history; of strange crimes, which, if +truly considered, were but convulsions of agony; of some lives that had +been altogether wretched, and of others, which, wearing a general +semblance of happiness, had yet been deformed, sooner or later, by +misfortune, as by the intrusion of a grim face at a banquet; of +death-bed scenes, and what dark intimations might be gathered from the +words of dying men; of suicide, and whether the more eligible mode were +by halter, knife, poison, drowning, gradual starvation, or the fumes of +charcoal. The majority of the guests, as is the custom with people +thoroughly and profoundly sick at heart, were anxious to make their own +woes the theme of discussion, and prove themselves most excellent in +anguish. The misanthropist went deep into the philosophy of evil, and +wandered about in the darkness, with now and then a gleam of discolored +light hovering on ghastly shapes and horrid scenery. Many a miserable +thought, such as men have stumbled upon from age to age, did he now +rake up again, and gloat over it as an inestimable gem, a diamond, a +treasure far preferable to those bright, spiritual revelations of a +better world, which are like precious stones from heaven’s pavement. +And then, amid his lore of wretchedness he hid his face and wept. + +It was a festival at which the woful man of Uz might suitably have been +a guest, together with all, in each succeeding age, who have tasted +deepest of the bitterness of life. And be it said, too, that every son +or daughter of woman, however favored with happy fortune, might, at one +sad moment or another, have claimed the privilege of a stricken heart, +to sit down at this table. But, throughout the feast, it was remarked +that the young stranger, Gervayse Hastings, was unsuccessful in his +attempts to catch its pervading spirit. At any deep, strong thought +that found utterance, and which was torn out, as it were, from the +saddest recesses of human consciousness, he looked mystified and +bewildered; even more than the poor idiot, who seemed to grasp at such +things with his earnest heart, and thus occasionally to comprehend +them. The young man’s conversation was of a colder and lighter kind, +often brilliant, but lacking the powerful characteristics of a nature +that had been developed by suffering. + +“Sir,” said the misanthropist, bluntly, in reply to some observation by +Gervayse Hastings, “pray do not address me again. We have no right to +talk together. Our minds have nothing in common. By what claim you +appear at this banquet I cannot guess; but methinks, to a man who could +say what you have just now said, my companions and myself must seem no +more than shadows flickering on the wall. And precisely such a shadow +are you to us.” + +The young man smiled and bowed, but, drawing himself back in his chair, +he buttoned his coat over his breast, as if the banqueting-ball were +growing chill. Again the idiot fixed his melancholy stare upon the +youth, and murmured, “Cold! cold! cold!” + +The banquet drew to its conclusion, and the guests departed. Scarcely +had they stepped across the threshold of the hall, when the scene that +had there passed seemed like the vision of a sick fancy, or an +exhalation from a stagnant heart. Now and then, however, during the +year that ensued, these melancholy people caught glimpses of one +another, transient, indeed, but enough to prove that they walked the +earth with the ordinary allotment of reality. Sometimes a pair of them +came face to face, while stealing through the evening twilight, +enveloped in their sable cloaks. Sometimes they casually met in +churchyards. Once, also, it happened that two of the dismal banqueters +mutually started at recognizing each other in the noonday sunshine of a +crowded street, stalking there like ghosts astray. Doubtless they +wondered why the skeleton did not come abroad at noonday too. + +But whenever the necessity of their affairs compelled these Christmas +guests into the bustling world, they were sure to encounter the young +man who had so unaccountably been admitted to the festival. They saw +him among the gay and fortunate; they caught the sunny sparkle of his +eye; they heard the light and careless tones of his voice, and muttered +to themselves with such indignation as only the aristocracy of +wretchedness could kindle, “The traitor! The vile impostor! Providence, +in its own good time, may give him a right to feast among us!” But the +young man’s unabashed eye dwelt upon their gloomy figures as they +passed him, seeming to say, perchance with somewhat of a sneer, “First, +know my secret then, measure your claims with mine!” + +The step of Time stole onward, and soon brought merry Christmas round +again, with glad and solemn worship in the churches, and sports, games, +festivals, and everywhere the bright face of Joy beside the household +fire. Again likewise the hall, with its curtains of dusky purple, was +illuminated by the death-torches gleaming on the sepulchral decorations +of the banquet. The veiled, skeleton sat in state, lifting the +cypress-wreath above its head, as the guerdon of some guest illustrious +in the qualifications which there claimed precedence. As the stewards +deemed the world inexhaustible in misery, and were desirous of +recognizing it in all its forms, they had not seen fit to reassemble +the company of the former year. New faces now threw their gloom across +the table. + +There was a man of nice conscience, who bore a blood-stain in his +heart—the death of a fellow-creature—which, for his more exquisite +torture, had chanced with such a peculiarity of circumstances, that he +could not absolutely determine whether his will had entered into the +deed or not. Therefore, his whole life was spent in the agony of an +inward trial for murder, with a continual sifting of the details of his +terrible calamity, until his mind had no longer any thought, nor his +soul any emotion, disconnected with it, There was a mother, too,—a +mother once, but a desolation now,—who, many years before, had gone out +on a pleasure-party, and, returning, found her infant smothered in its +little bed. And ever since she has been tortured with the fantasy that +her buried baby lay smothering in its coffin. Then there was an aged +lady, who had lived from time immemorial with a constant tremor +quivering through her-frame. It was terrible to discern her dark shadow +tremulous upon the wall; her lips, likewise, were tremulous; and the +expression of her eye seemed to indicate that her soul was trembling +too. Owing to the bewilderment and confusion which made almost a chaos +of her intellect, it was impossible to discover what dire misfortune +had thus shaken her nature to its depths; so that the stewards had +admitted her to the table, not from any acquaintance with her history, +but on the safe testimony of her miserable aspect. Some surprise was +expressed at the presence of a bluff, red-faced gentleman, a certain +Mr. Smith, who had evidently the fat of many a rich feast within him, +and the habitual twinkle of whose eye betrayed a disposition to break +forth into uproarious laughter for little cause or none. It turned out, +however, that, with the best possible flow of spirits, our poor friend +was afflicted with a physical disease of the heart, which threatened +instant death on the slightest cachinnatory indulgence, or even that +titillation of the bodily frame produced by merry thoughts. In this +dilemma he had sought admittance to the banquet, on the ostensible plea +of his irksome and miserable state, but, in reality, with the hope of +imbibing a life-preserving melancholy. + +A married couple had been invited from a motive of bitter humor, it +being well understood that they rendered each other unutterably +miserable whenever they chanced to meet, and therefore must necessarily +be fit associates at the festival. In contrast with these was another +couple still unmarried, who had interchanged their hearts in early +life, but had been divided by circumstances as impalpable as morning +mist, and kept apart so long that their spirits now found it impossible +to meet, Therefore, yearning for communion, yet shrinking from one +another and choosing none beside, they felt themselves companionless in +life, and looked upon eternity as a boundless desert. Next to the +skeleton sat a mere son of earth,—a hunter of the Exchange,—a gatherer +of shining dust,—a man whose life’s record was in his ledger, and whose +soul’s prison-house the vaults of the bank where he kept his deposits. +This person had been greatly perplexed at his invitation, deeming +himself one of the most fortunate men in the city; but the stewards +persisted in demanding his presence, assuring him that he had no +conception how miserable he was. + +And now appeared a figure which we must acknowledge as our acquaintance +of the former festival. It was Gervayse Hastings, whose presence had +then caused so much question and criticism, and who now took his place +with the composure of one whose claims were satisfactory to himself and +must needs be allowed by others. Yet his easy and unruffled face +betrayed no sorrow. + +The well-skilled beholders gazed a moment into his eyes and shook their +heads, to miss the unuttered sympathy—the countersign never to be +falsified—of those whose hearts are cavern-mouths through which they +descend into a region of illimitable woe and recognize other wanderers +there. + +“Who is this youth?” asked the man with a bloodstain on his conscience. +“Surely he has never gone down into the depths! I know all the aspects +of those who have passed through the dark valley. By what right is he +among us?” + +“Ah, it is a sinful thing to come hither without a sorrow,” murmured +the aged lady, in accents that partook of the eternal tremor which +pervaded her whole being “Depart, young man! Your soul has never been +shaken, and, therefore, I tremble so much the more to look at you.” + +“His soul shaken! No; I’ll answer for it,” said bluff Mr. Smith, +pressing his hand upon his heart and making himself as melancholy as he +could, for fear of a fatal explosion of laughter. “I know the lad well; +he has as fair prospects as any young man about town, and has no more +right among us miserable creatures than the child unborn. He never was +miserable and probably never will be!” + +“Our honored guests,” interposed the stewards, “pray have patience with +us, and believe, at least, that our deep veneration for the sacredness +of this solemnity would preclude any wilful violation of it. Receive +this young man to your table. It may not be too much to say, that no +guest here would exchange his own heart for the one that beats within +that youthful bosom!” + +“I’d call it a bargain, and gladly, too,” muttered Mr. Smith, with a +perplexing mixture of sadness and mirthful conceit. “A plague upon +their nonsense! My own heart is the only really miserable one in the +company; it will certainly be the death of me at last!” + +Nevertheless, as on the former occasion, the judgment of the stewards +being without appeal, the company sat down. The obnoxious guest made no +more attempt to obtrude his conversation on those about him, but +appeared to listen to the table-talk with peculiar assiduity, as if +some inestimable secret, otherwise beyond his reach, might be conveyed +in a casual word. And in truth, to those who could understand and value +it, there was rich matter in the upgushings and outpourings of these +initiated souls to whom sorrow had been a talisman, admitting them into +spiritual depths which no other spell can open. Sometimes out of the +midst of densest gloom there flashed a momentary radiance, pure as +crystal, bright as the flame of stars, and shedding such a glow upon +the mysteries of life, that the guests were ready to exclaim, “Surely +the riddle is on the point of being solved!” At such illuminated +intervals the saddest mourners felt it to be revealed that mortal +griefs are but shadowy and external; no more than the sable robes +voluminously shrouding a certain divine reality, and thus indicating +what might otherwise be altogether invisible to mortal eye. + +“Just now,” remarked the trembling old woman, “I seemed to see beyond +the outside. And then my everlasting tremor passed away!” + +“Would that I could dwell always in these momentary gleams of light!” +said the man of stricken conscience. “Then the blood-stain in my heart +would be washed clean away.” + +This strain of conversation appeared so unintelligibly absurd to good +Mr. Smith, that he burst into precisely the fit of laughter which his +physicians had warned him against, as likely to prove instantaneously +fatal. In effect, he fell back in his chair a corpse, with a broad grin +upon his face, while his ghost, perchance, remained beside it +bewildered at its unpremeditated exit. This catastrophe of course broke +up the festival. + +“How is this? You do not tremble!” observed the tremulous old woman to +Gervayse Hastings, who was gazing at the dead man with singular +intentness. “Is it not awful to see him so suddenly vanish out of the +midst of life,—this man of flesh and blood, whose earthly nature was so +warm and strong? There is a never-ending tremor in my soul, but it +trembles afresh at, this! And you are calm!” + +“Would that he could teach me somewhat!” said Gervayse Hastings, +drawing a long breath. “Men pass before me like shadows on the wall; +their actions, passions, feelings, are flickerings of the light, and +then they vanish! Neither the corpse, nor yonder skeleton, nor this old +woman’s everlasting tremor, can give me what I seek.” + +And then the company departed. + +We cannot linger to narrate, in such detail, more circumstances of +these singular festivals, which, in accordance with the founder’s will, +continued to be kept with the regularity of an established institution. +In process of time the stewards adopted the custom of inviting, from +far and near, those individuals whose misfortunes were prominent above +other men’s, and whose mental and moral development might, therefore, +be supposed to possess a corresponding interest. The exiled noble of +the French Revolution, and the broken soldier of the Empire, were alike +represented at the table. Fallen monarchs, wandering about the earth, +have found places at that forlorn and miserable feast. The statesman, +when his party flung him off, might, if he chose it, be once more a +great man for the space of a single banquet. Aaron Burr’s name appears +on the record at a period when his ruin—the profoundest and most +striking, with more of moral circumstance in it than that of almost any +other man—was complete in his lonely age. Stephen Guard, when his +wealth weighed upon him like a mountain, once sought admittance of his +own accord. It is not probable, however, that these men had any lesson +to teach in the lore of discontent and misery which might not equally +well have been studied in the common walks of life. Illustrious +unfortunates attract a wider sympathy, not because their griefs are +more intense, but because, being set on lofty pedestals, they the +better serve mankind as instances and bywords of calamity. + +It concerns our present purpose to say that, at each successive +festival, Gervayse Hastings showed his face, gradually changing from +the smooth beauty of his youth to the thoughtful comeliness of manhood, +and thence to the bald, impressive dignity of age. He was the only +individual invariably present. Yet on every occasion there were +murmurs, both from those who knew his character and position, and from +them whose hearts shrank back as denying his companionship in their +mystic fraternity. + +“Who is this impassive man?” had been asked a hundred times. “Has he +suffered? Has he sinned? There are no traces of either. Then wherefore +is he here?” + +“You must inquire of the stewards or of himself,” was the constant +reply. “We seem to know him well here in our city, and know nothing of +him but what is creditable and fortunate. Yet hither he comes, year +after year, to this gloomy banquet, and sits among the guests like a +marble statue. Ask yonder skeleton, perhaps that may solve the riddle!” + +It was in truth a wonder. The life of Gervayse Hastings was not merely +a prosperous, but a brilliant one. Everything had gone well with him. +He was wealthy, far beyond the expenditure that was required by habits +of magnificence, a taste of rare purity and cultivation, a love of +travel, a scholar’s instinct to collect a splendid library, and, +moreover, what seemed a magnificent liberality to the distressed. He +had sought happiness, and not vainly, if a lovely and tender wife, and +children of fair promise, could insure it. He had, besides, ascended +above the limit which separates the obscure from the distinguished, and +had won a stainless reputation in affairs of the widest public +importance. Not that he was a popular character, or had within him the +mysterious attributes which are essential to that species of success. +To the public he was a cold abstraction, wholly destitute of those rich +lines of personality, that living warmth, and the peculiar faculty of +stamping his own heart’s impression on a multitude of hearts, by which +the people recognize their favorites. And it must be owned that, after +his most intimate associates had done their best to know him +thoroughly, and love him warmly, they were startled to find how little +hold he had upon their affections. They approved, they admired, but +still in those moments when the human spirit most craves reality, they +shrank back from Gervayse Hastings, as powerless to give them what they +sought. It was the feeling of distrustful regret with which we should +draw back the hand after extending it, in an illusive twilight, to +grasp the hand of a shadow upon the wall. + +As the superficial fervency of youth decayed, this peculiar effect of +Gervayse Hastings’s character grew more perceptible. His children, when +he extended his arms, came coldly to his knees, but never climbed them +of their own accord. His wife wept secretly, and almost adjudged +herself a criminal because she shivered in the chill of his bosom. He, +too, occasionally appeared not unconscious of the chillness of his +moral atmosphere, and willing, if it might be so, to warm himself at a +kindly fire. But age stole onward and benumbed him snore and more. As +the hoar-frost began to gather on him his wife went to her grave, and +was doubtless warmer there; his children either died or were scattered +to different homes of their own; and old Gervayse Hastings, unscathed +by grief,—alone, but needing no companionship,—continued his steady +walk through life, and still one very Christmas day attended at the +dismal banquet. His privilege as a guest had become prescriptive now. +Had he claimed the head of the table, even the skeleton would have been +ejected from its seat. + +Finally, at the merry Christmas-tide, when he had numbered fourscore +years complete, this pale, highbrowed, marble-featured old man once +more entered the long-frequented hall, with the same impassive aspect +that had called forth so much dissatisfied remark at his first +attendance. Time, except in matters merely external, had done nothing +for him, either of good or evil. As he took his place he threw a calm, +inquiring glance around the table, as if to ascertain whether any guest +had yet appeared, after so many unsuccessful banquets, who might impart +to him the mystery—the deep, warm secret—the life within the +life—which, whether manifested in joy or sorrow, is what gives +substance to a world of shadows. + +“My friends,” said Gervayse Hastings, assuming a position which his +long conversance with the festival caused to appear natural, “you are +welcome! I drink to you all in this cup of sepulchral wine.” + +The guests replied courteously, but still in a manner that proved them +unable to receive the old man as a member of their sad fraternity. It +may be well to give the reader an idea of the present company at the +banquet. + +One was formerly a clergyman, enthusiastic in his profession, and +apparently of the genuine dynasty of those old Puritan divines whose +faith in their calling, and stern exercise of it, had placed them among +the mighty of the earth. But yielding to the speculative tendency of +the age, he had gone astray from the firm foundation of an ancient +faith, and wandered into a cloud-region, where everything was misty and +deceptive, ever mocking him with a semblance of reality, but still +dissolving when he flung himself upon it for support and rest. His +instinct and early training demanded something steadfast; but, looking +forward, he beheld vapors piled on vapors, and behind him an impassable +gulf between the man of yesterday and to-day, on the borders of which +he paced to and fro, sometimes wringing his hands in agony, and often +making his own woe a theme of scornful merriment. This surely was a +miserable man. Next, there was a theorist,—one of a numerous tribe, +although he deemed himself unique since the creation,—a theorist, who +had conceived a plan by which all the wretchedness of earth, moral and +physical, might be done away, and the bliss of the millennium at once +accomplished. But, the incredulity of mankind debarring him from +action, he was smitten with as much grief as if the whole mass of woe +which he was denied the opportunity to remedy were crowded into his own +bosom. A plain old man in black attracted much of the company’s notice, +on the supposition that he was no other than Father Miller, who, it +seemed, had given himself up to despair at the tedious delay of the +final conflagration. Then there was a man distinguished for native +pride and obstinacy, who, a little while before, had possessed immense +wealth, and held the control of a vast moneyed interest which he had +wielded in the same spirit as a despotic monarch would wield the power +of his empire, carrying on a tremendous moral warfare, the roar and +tremor of which was felt at every fireside in the land. At length came +a crushing ruin,—a total overthrow of fortune, power, and +character,—the effect of which on his imperious and, in many respects, +noble and lofty nature might have entitled him to a place, not merely +at our festival, but among the peers of Pandemonium. + +There was a modern philanthropist, who had become so deeply sensible of +the calamities of thousands and millions of his fellow-creatures, and +of the impracticableness of any general measures for their relief, that +he had no heart to do what little good lay immediately within his +power, but contented himself with being miserable for sympathy. Near +him sat a gentleman in a predicament hitherto unprecedented, but of +which the present epoch probably affords numerous examples. Ever since +he was of capacity to read a newspaper, this person had prided himself +on his consistent adherence to one political party, but, in the +confusion of these latter days, had got bewildered and knew not +whereabouts his party was. This wretched condition, so morally desolate +and disheartening to a man who has long accustomed himself to merge his +individuality in the mass of a great body, can only be conceived by +such as have experienced it. His next companion was a popular orator +who had lost his voice, and—as it was pretty much all that he had to +lose—had fallen into a state of hopeless melancholy. The table was +likewise graced by two of the gentler sex,—one, a half-starved, +consumptive seamstress, the representative of thousands just as +wretched; the other, a woman of unemployed energy, who found herself in +the world with nothing to achieve, nothing to enjoy, and nothing even +to suffer. She had, therefore, driven herself to the verge of madness +by dark broodings over the wrongs of her sex, and its exclusion from a +proper field of action. The roll of guests being thus complete, a +side-table had been set for three or four disappointed office-seekers, +with hearts as sick as death, whom the stewards had admitted partly +because their calamities really entitled them to entrance here, and +partly that they were in especial need of a good dinner. There was +likewise a homeless dog, with his tail between his legs, licking up the +crumbs and gnawing the fragments of the feast,—such a melancholy cur as +one sometimes sees about the streets without a master, and willing to +follow the first that will accept his service. + +In their own way, these were as wretched a set of people as ever had +assembled at the festival. There they sat, with the veiled skeleton of +the founder holding aloft the cypress-wreath, at one end of the table, +and at the other, wrapped in furs, the withered figure of Gervayse +Hastings, stately, calm, and cold, impressing the company with awe, yet +so little interesting their sympathy that he might have vanished into +thin air without their once exclaiming, “Whither is he gone?” + +“Sir,” said the philanthropist, addressing the old man, “you have been +so long a guest at this annual festival, and have thus been conversant +with so many varieties of human affliction, that, not improbably, you +have thence derived some great and important lessons. How blessed were +your lot could you reveal a secret by which all this mass of woe might +be removed!” + +“I know of but one misfortune,” answered Gervayse Hastings, quietly, +“and that is my own.” + +“Your own!” rejoined the philanthropist. “And looking back on your +serene and prosperous life, how can you claim to be the sole +unfortunate of the human race?” + +“You will not understand it,” replied Gervayse Hastings, feebly, and +with a singular inefficiency of pronunciation, and sometimes putting +one word for another. “None have understood it, not even those who +experience the like. It is a chillness, a want of earnestness, a +feeling as if what should be my heart were a thing of vapor, a haunting +perception of unreality! Thus seeming to possess all that other men +have, all that men aim at, I have really possessed nothing, neither joy +nor griefs. All things, all persons,—as was truly said to me at this +table long and long ago,—have been like shadows flickering on the wall. +It was so with my wife and children, with those who seemed my friends: +it is so with yourselves, whom I see now before one. Neither have I +myself any real existence, but am a shadow like the rest.” + +“And how is it with your views of a future life?” inquired the +speculative clergyman. + +“Worse than with you,” said the old man, in a hollow and feeble tone; +“for I cannot conceive it earnestly enough to feel either hope or fear. +Mine,—mine is the wretchedness! This cold heart,—this unreal life! Ah! +it grows colder still.” + +It so chanced that at this juncture the decayed ligaments of the +skeleton gave way, and the dry hones fell together in a heap, thus +causing the dusty wreath of cypress to drop upon the table. The +attention of the company being thus diverted for a single instant from +Gervayse Hastings, they perceived, on turning again towards him, that +the old man had undergone a change. His shadow had ceased to flicker on +the wall. + + +“Well, Rosina, what is your criticism?” asked Roderick, as he rolled up +the manuscript. + +“Frankly, your success is by no means complete,” replied she. “It is +true, I have an idea of the character you endeavor to describe; but it +is rather by dint of my own thought than your expression.” + +“That is unavoidable,” observed the sculptor, “because the +characteristics are all negative. If Gervayse Hastings could have +imbibed one human grief at the gloomy banquet, the task of describing +him would have been infinitely easier. Of such persons—and we do meet +with these moral monsters now and then—it is difficult to conceive how +they came to exist here, or what there is in them capable of existence +hereafter. They seem to be on the outside of everything; and nothing +wearies the soul more than an attempt to comprehend them within its +grasp.” + + + + +DROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE + + +One sunshiny morning, in the good old times of the town of Boston, a +young carver in wood, well known by the name of Drowne, stood +contemplating a large oaken log, which it was his purpose to convert +into the figure-head of a vessel. And while he discussed within his own +mind what sort of shape or similitude it were well to bestow upon this +excellent piece of timber, there came into Drowne’s workshop a certain +Captain Hunnewell, owner and commander of the good brig called the +Cynosure, which had just returned from her first voyage to Fayal. + +“Ah! that will do, Drowne, that will do!” cried the jolly captain, +tapping the log with his rattan. “I bespeak this very piece of oak for +the figure-head of the Cynosure. She has shown herself the sweetest +craft that ever floated, and I mean to decorate her prow with the +handsomest image that the skill of man can cut out of timber. And, +Drowne, you are the fellow to execute it.” + +“You give me more credit than I deserve, Captain Hunnewell,” said the +carver, modestly, yet as one conscious of eminence in his art. “But, +for the sake of the good brig, I stand ready to do my best. And which +of these designs do you prefer? Here,”—pointing to a staring, +half-length figure, in a white wig and scarlet coat,—“here is an +excellent model, the likeness of our gracious king. Here is the valiant +Admiral Vernon. Or, if you prefer a female figure, what say you to +Britannia with the trident?” + +“All very fine, Drowne; all very fine,” answered the mariner. “But as +nothing like the brig ever swam the ocean, so I am determined she shall +have such a figure-head as old Neptune never saw in his life. And what +is more, as there is a secret in the matter, you must pledge your +credit not to betray it.” + +“Certainly,” said Drowne, marvelling, however, what possible mystery +there could be in reference to an affair so open, of necessity, to the +inspection of all the world as the figure-head of a vessel. “You may +depend, captain, on my being as secret as the nature of the case will +permit.” + +Captain Hunnewell then took Drowne by the button, and communicated his +wishes in so low a tone that it would be unmannerly to repeat what was +evidently intended for the carver’s private ear. We shall, therefore, +take the opportunity to give the reader a few desirable particulars +about Drowne himself. + +He was the first American who is known to have attempted—in a very +humble line, it is true—that art in which we can now reckon so many +names already distinguished, or rising to distinction. From his +earliest boyhood he had exhibited a knack—for it would be too proud a +word to call it genius—a knack, therefore, for the imitation of the +human figure in whatever material came most readily to hand. The snows +of a New England winter had often supplied him with a species of marble +as dazzingly white, at least, as the Parian or the Carrara, and if less +durable, yet sufficiently so to correspond with any claims to permanent +existence possessed by the boy’s frozen statues. Yet they won +admiration from maturer judges than his school-fellows, and were +indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth that +might have made the snow melt beneath his hand. As he advanced in life, +the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible materials for the +display of his skill, which now began to bring him a return of solid +silver as well as the empty praise that had been an apt reward enough +for his productions of evanescent snow. He became noted for carving +ornamental pump heads, and wooden urns for gate posts, and decorations, +more grotesque than fanciful, for mantelpieces. No apothecary would +have deemed himself in the way of obtaining custom without setting up a +gilded mortar, if not a head of Galen or Hippocrates, from the skilful +hand of Drowne. + +But the great scope of his business lay in the manufacture of +figure-heads for vessels. Whether it were the monarch himself, or some +famous British admiral or general, or the governor of the province, or +perchance the favorite daughter of the ship-owner, there the image +stood above the prow, decked out in gorgeous colors, magnificently +gilded, and staring the whole world out of countenance, as if from an +innate consciousness of its own superiority. These specimens of native +sculpture had crossed the sea in all directions, and been not ignobly +noticed among the crowded shipping of the Thames and wherever else the +hardy mariners of New England had pushed their adventures. It must be +confessed that a family likeness pervaded these respectable progeny of +Drowne’s skill; that the benign countenance of the king resembled those +of his subjects, and that Miss Peggy Hobart, the merchant’s daughter, +bore a remarkable similitude to Britannia, Victory, and other ladies of +the allegoric sisterhood; and, finally, that they all had a kind of +wooden aspect which proved an intimate relationship with the unshaped +blocks of timber in the carver’s workshop. But at least there was no +inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any attribute to +render them really works of art, except that deep quality, be it of +soul or intellect, which bestows life upon the lifeless and warmth upon +the cold, and which, had it been present, would have made Drowne’s +wooden image instinct with spirit. + +The captain of the Cynosure had now finished his instructions. + +“And Drowne,” said he, impressively, “you must lay aside all other +business and set about this forthwith. And as to the price, only do the +job in first-rate style, and you shall settle that point yourself.” + +“Very well, captain,” answered the carver, who looked grave and +somewhat perplexed, yet had a sort of smile upon his visage; “depend +upon it, I’ll do my utmost to satisfy you.” + +From that moment the men of taste about Long Wharf and the Town Dock +who were wont to show their love for the arts by frequent visits to +Drowne’s workshop, and admiration of his wooden images, began to be +sensible of a mystery in the carver’s conduct. Often he was absent in +the daytime. Sometimes, as might be judged by gleams of light from the +shop windows, he was at work until a late hour of the evening; although +neither knock nor voice, on such occasions, could gain admittance for a +visitor, or elicit any word of response. Nothing remarkable, however, +was observed in the shop at those late hours when it was thrown open. A +fine piece of timber, indeed, which Drowne was known to have reserved +for some work of especial dignity, was seen to be gradually assuming +shape. What shape it was destined ultimately to take was a problem to +his friends and a point on which the carver himself preserved a rigid +silence. But day after day, though Drowne was seldom noticed in the act +of working upon it, this rude form began to be developed until it +became evident to all observers that a female figure was growing into +mimic life. At each new visit they beheld a larger pile of wooden chips +and a nearer approximation to something beautiful. It seemed as if the +hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself from the unimaginative world +within the heart of her native tree, and that it was only necessary to +remove the strange shapelessness that had incrusted her, and reveal the +grace and loveliness of a divinity. Imperfect as the design, the +attitude, the costume, and especially the face of the image still +remained, there was already an effect that drew the eye from the wooden +cleverness of Drowne’s earlier productions and fixed it upon the +tantalizing mystery of this new project. + +Copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man and a resident of +Boston, came one day to visit Drowne; for he had recognized so much of +moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, in the dearth of +professional sympathy, to cultivate his acquaintance. On entering the +shop, the artist glanced at the inflexible image of king, commander, +dame, and allegory, that stood around, on the best of which might have +been bestowed the questionable praise that it looked as if a living man +had here been changed to wood, and that not only the physical, but the +intellectual and spiritual part, partook of the stolid transformation. +But in not a single instance did it seem as if the wood were imbibing +the ethereal essence of humanity. What a wide distinction is here! and +how far the slightest portion of the latter merit have outvalued the +utmost degree of the former! + +“My friend Drowne;” said Copley, smiling to himself, but alluding to +the mechanical and wooden cleverness that so invariably distinguished +the images, “you are really a remarkable person! I have seldom met with +a man in your line of business that could do so much; for one other +touch might make this figure of General Wolfe, for instance, a +breathing and intelligent human creature.” + +“You would have me think that you are praising me highly, Mr. Copley,” +answered Drowne, turning his back upon Wolfe’s image in apparent +disgust. “But there has come a light into my mind. I know what you know +as well, that the one touch which you speak of as deficient is the only +one that would be truly valuable, and that without it these works of +mine are no better than worthless abortions. There is the same +difference between them and the works of an inspired artist as between +a sign-post daub and one of your best pictures.” + +“This is strange,” cried Copley, looking him in the face, which now, as +the painter fancied, had a singular depth of intelligence, though +hitherto it had not given him greatly the advantage over his own family +of wooden images. “What has come over you? How is it that, possessing +the idea which you have now uttered, you should produce only such works +as these?” + +The carver smiled, but made no reply. Copley turned again to the +images, conceiving that the sense of deficiency which Drowne had just +expressed, and which is so rare in a merely mechanical character, must +surely imply a genius, the tokens of which had heretofore been +overlooked. But no; there was not a trace of it. He was about to +withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a half-developed figure +which lay in a corner of the workshop, surrounded by scattered chips of +oak. It arrested him at once. + +“What is here? Who has done this?” he broke out, after contemplating it +in speechless astonishment for an instant. “Here is the divine, the +lifegiving touch. What inspired hand is beckoning this wood to arise +and live? Whose work is this?” + +“No man’s work,” replied Drowne. “The figure lies within that block of +oak, and it is my business to find it.” + +“Drowne,” said the true artist, grasping the carver fervently by the +hand, “you are a man of genius!” + +As Copley departed, happening to glance backward from the threshold, he +beheld Drowne bending over the half-created shape, and stretching forth +his arms as if he would have embraced and drawn it to his heart; while, +had such a miracle been possible, his countenance expressed passion +enough to communicate warmth and sensibility to the lifeless oak. + +“Strange enough!” said the artist to himself. “Who would have looked +for a modern Pygmalion in the person of a Yankee mechanic!” + +As yet, the image was but vague in its outward presentment; so that, as +in the cloud shapes around the western sun, the observer rather felt, +or was led to imagine, than really saw what was intended by it. Day by +day, however, the work assumed greater precision, and settled its +irregular and misty outline into distincter grace and beauty. The +general design was now obvious to the common eye. It was a female +figure, in what appeared to be a foreign dress; the gown being laced +over the bosom, and opening in front so as to disclose a skirt or +petticoat, the folds and inequalities of which were admirably +represented in the oaken substance. She wore a hat of singular +gracefulness, and abundantly laden with flowers, such as never grew in +the rude soil of New England, but which, with all their fanciful +luxuriance, had a natural truth that it seemed impossible for the most +fertile imagination to have attained without copying from real +prototypes. There were several little appendages to this dress, such as +a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain about the neck, a watch in the +bosom, and a ring upon the finger, all of which would have been deemed +beneath the dignity of sculpture. They were put on, however, with as +much taste as a lovely woman might have shown in her attire, and could +therefore have shocked none but a judgment spoiled by artistic rules. + +The face was still imperfect; but gradually, by a magic touch, +intelligence and sensibility brightened through the features, with all +the effect of light gleaming forth from within the solid oak. The face +became alive. It was a beautiful, though not precisely regular and +somewhat haughty aspect, but with a certain piquancy about the eyes and +mouth, which, of all expressions, would have seemed the most impossible +to throw over a wooden countenance. And now, so far as carving went, +this wonderful production was complete. + +“Drowne,” said Copley, who had hardly missed a single day in his visits +to the carver’s workshop, “if this work were in marble it would make +you famous at once; nay, I would almost affirm that it would make an +era in the art. It is as ideal as an antique statue, and yet as real as +any lovely woman whom one meets at a fireside or in the street. But I +trust you do not mean to desecrate this exquisite creature with paint, +like those staring kings and admirals yonder?” + +“Not paint her!” exclaimed Captain Hunnewell, who stood by; “not paint +the figure-head of the Cynosure! And what sort of a figure should I cut +in a foreign port with such an unpainted oaken stick as this over my +prow! She must, and she shall, be painted to the life, from the topmost +flower in her hat down to the silver spangles on her slippers.” + +“Mr. Copley,” said Drowne, quietly, “I know nothing of marble statuary, +and nothing of the sculptor’s rules of art; but of this wooden image, +this work of my hands, this creature of my heart,”—and here his voice +faltered and choked in a very singular manner,—“of this—of her—I may +say that I know something. A well-spring of inward wisdom gushed within +me as I wrought upon the oak with my whole strength, and soul, and +faith. Let others do what they may with marble, and adopt what rules +they choose. If I can produce my desired effect by painted wood, those +rules are not for me, and I have a right to disregard them.” + +“The very spirit of genius,” muttered Copley to himself. “How otherwise +should this carver feel himself entitled to transcend all rules, and +make me ashamed of quoting them?” + +He looked earnestly at Drowne, and again saw that expression of human +love which, in a spiritual sense, as the artist could not help +imagining, was the secret of the life that had been breathed into this +block of wood. + +The carver, still in the same secrecy that marked all his operations +upon this mysterious image, proceeded to paint the habiliments in their +proper colors, and the countenance with Nature’s red and white. When +all was finished he threw open his workshop, and admitted the towns +people to behold what he had done. Most persons, at their first +entrance, felt impelled to remove their hats, and pay such reverence as +was due to the richly-dressed and beautiful young lady who seemed to +stand in a corner of the room, with oaken chips and shavings scattered +at her feet. Then came a sensation of fear; as if, not being actually +human, yet so like humanity, she must therefore be something +preternatural. There was, in truth, an indefinable air and expression +that might reasonably induce the query, Who and from what sphere this +daughter of the oak should be? The strange, rich flowers of Eden on her +head; the complexion, so much deeper and more brilliant than those of +our native beauties; the foreign, as it seemed, and fantastic garb, yet +not too fantastic to be worn decorously in the street; the +delicately-wrought embroidery of the skirt; the broad gold chain about +her neck; the curious ring upon her finger; the fan, so exquisitely +sculptured in open work, and painted to resemble pearl and ebony;—where +could Drowne, in his sober walk of life, have beheld the vision here so +matchlessly embodied! And then her face! In the dark eyes, and around +the voluptuous mouth, there played a look made up of pride, coquetry, +and a gleam of mirthfulness, which impressed Copley with the idea that +the image was secretly enjoying the perplexing admiration of himself +and other beholders. + +“And will you,” said he to the carver, “permit this masterpiece to +become the figure-head of a vessel? Give the honest captain yonder +figure of Britannia—it will answer his purpose far better—and send this +fairy queen to England, where, for aught I know, it may bring you a +thousand pounds.” + +“I have not wrought it for money,” said Drowne. + +“What sort of a fellow is this!” thought Copley. “A Yankee, and throw +away the chance of making his fortune! He has gone mad; and thence has +come this gleam of genius.” + +There was still further proof of Drowne’s lunacy, if credit were due to +the rumor that he had been seen kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady, +and gazing with a lover’s passionate ardor into the face that his own +hands had created. The bigots of the day hinted that it would be no +matter of surprise if an evil spirit were allowed to enter this +beautiful form, and seduce the carver to destruction. + +The fame of the image spread far and wide. The inhabitants visited it +so universally, that after a few days of exhibition there was hardly an +old man or a child who had not become minutely familiar with its +aspect. Even had the story of Drowne’s wooden image ended here, its +celebrity might have been prolonged for many years by the reminiscences +of those who looked upon it in their childhood, and saw nothing else so +beautiful in after life. But the town was now astounded by an event, +the narrative of which has formed itself into one of the most singular +legends that are yet to be met with in the traditionary chimney corners +of the New England metropolis, where old men and women sit dreaming of +the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the present and the +future. + +One fine morning, just before the departure of the Cynosure on her +second voyage to Fayal, the commander of that gallant vessel was seen +to issue from his residence in Hanover Street. He was stylishly dressed +in a blue broadcloth coat, with gold lace at the seams and +button-holes, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, a triangular hat, with +a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore a silver-hilted hanger at +his side. But the good captain might have been arrayed in the robes of +a prince or the rags of a beggar, without in either case attracting +notice, while obscured by such a companion as now leaned on his arm. +The people in the street started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped +aside from their path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or marble in +astonishment. + +“Do you see it?—do you see it?” cried one, with tremulous eagerness. +“It is the very same!” + +“The same?” answered another, who had arrived in town only the night +before. “Who do you mean? I see only a sea-captain in his shoregoing +clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit, with a bunch of beautiful +flowers in her hat. On my word, she is as fair and bright a damsel as +my eyes have looked on this many a day!” + +“Yes; the same!—the very same!” repeated the other. “Drowne’s wooden +image has come to life!” + +Here was a miracle indeed! Yet, illuminated by the sunshine, or +darkened by the alternate shade of the houses, and with its garments +fluttering lightly in the morning breeze, there passed the image along +the street. It was exactly and minutely the shape, the garb, and the +face which the towns-people had so recently thronged to see and admire. +Not a rich flower upon her head, not a single leaf, but had had its +prototype in Drowne’s wooden workmanship, although now their fragile +grace had become flexible, and was shaken by every footstep that the +wearer made. The broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the +one represented on the image, and glistened with the motion imparted by +the rise and fall of the bosom which it decorated. A real diamond +sparkled on her finger. In her right hand she bore a pearl and ebony +fan, which she flourished with a fantastic and bewitching coquetry, +that was likewise expressed in all her movements as well as in the +style of her beauty and the attire that so well harmonized with it. The +face with its brilliant depth of complexion had the same piquancy of +mirthful mischief that was fixed upon the countenance of the image, but +which was here varied and continually shifting, yet always essentially +the same, like the sunny gleam upon a bubbling fountain. On the whole, +there was something so airy and yet so real in the figure, and withal +so perfectly did it represent Drowne’s image, that people knew not +whether to suppose the magic wood etherealized into a spirit or warmed +and softened into an actual woman. + +“One thing is certain,” muttered a Puritan of the old stamp, “Drowne +has sold himself to the devil; and doubtless this gay Captain Hunnewell +is a party to the bargain.” + +“And I,” said a young man who overheard him, “would almost consent to +be the third victim, for the liberty of saluting those lovely lips.” + +“And so would I,” said Copley, the painter, “for the privilege of +taking her picture.” + +The image, or the apparition, whichever it might be, still escorted by +the bold captain, proceeded from Hanover Street through some of the +cross lanes that make this portion of the town so intricate, to Ann +Street, thence into Dock Square, and so downward to Drowne’s shop, +which stood just on the water’s edge. The crowd still followed, +gathering volume as it rolled along. Never had a modern miracle +occurred in such broad daylight, nor in the presence of such a +multitude of witnesses. The airy image, as if conscious that she was +the object of the murmurs and disturbance that swelled behind her, +appeared slightly vexed and flustered, yet still in a manner consistent +with the light vivacity and sportive mischief that were written in her +countenance. She was observed to flutter her fan with such vehement +rapidity that the elaborate delicacy of its workmanship gave way, and +it remained broken in her hand. + +Arriving at Drowne’s door, while the captain threw it open, the +marvellous apparition paused an instant on the threshold, assuming the +very attitude of the image, and casting over the crowd that glance of +sunny coquetry which all remembered on the face of the oaken lady. She +and her cavalier then disappeared. + +“Ah!” murmured the crowd, drawing a deep breath, as with one vast pair +of lungs. + +“The world looks darker now that she has vanished,” said some of the +young men. + +But the aged, whose recollections dated as far back as witch times, +shook their heads, and hinted that our forefathers would have thought +it a pious deed to burn the daughter of the oak with fire. + +“If she be other than a bubble of the elements,” exclaimed Copley, “I +must look upon her face again.” + +He accordingly entered the shop; and there, in her usual corner, stood +the image, gazing at him, as it might seem, with the very same +expression of mirthful mischief that had been the farewell look of the +apparition when, but a moment before, she turned her face towards the +crowd. The carver stood beside his creation mending the beautiful fan, +which by some accident was broken in her hand. But there was no longer +any motion in the lifelike image, nor any real woman in the workshop, +nor even the witchcraft of a sunny shadow, that might have deluded +people’s eyes as it flitted along the street. Captain Hunnewell, too, +had vanished. His hoarse sea-breezy tones, however, were audible on the +other side of a door that opened upon the water. + +“Sit down in the stern sheets, my lady,” said the gallant captain. +“Come, bear a hand, you lubbers, and set us on board in the turning of +a minute-glass.” + +And then was heard the stroke of oars. + +“Drowne,” said Copley with a smile of intelligence, “you have been a +truly fortunate man. What painter or statuary ever had such a subject! +No wonder that she inspired a genius into you, and first created the +artist who afterwards created her image.” + +Drowne looked at him with a visage that bore the traces of tears, but +from which the light of imagination and sensibility, so recently +illuminating it, had departed. He was again the mechanical carver that +he had been known to be all his lifetime. + +“I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. Copley,” said he, putting his +hand to his brow. “This image! Can it have been my work? Well, I have +wrought it in a kind of dream; and now that I am broad awake I must set +about finishing yonder figure of Admiral Vernon.” + +And forthwith he employed himself on the stolid countenance of one of +his wooden progeny, and completed it in his own mechanical style, from +which he was never known afterwards to deviate. He followed his +business industriously for many years, acquired a competence, and in +the latter part of his life attained to a dignified station in the +church, being remembered in records and traditions as Deacon Drowne, +the carver. One of his productions, an Indian chief, gilded all over, +stood during the better part of a century on the cupola of the Province +House, bedazzling the eyes of those who looked upward, like an angel of +the sun. Another work of the good deacon’s hand—a reduced likeness of +his friend Captain Hunnewell, holding a telescope and quadrant—may be +seen to this day, at the corner of Broad and State streets, serving in +the useful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical instrument maker. +We know not how to account for the inferiority of this quaint old +figure, as compared with the recorded excellence of the Oaken Lady, +unless on the supposition that in every human spirit there is +imagination, sensibility, creative power, genius, which, according to +circumstances, may either be developed in this world, or shrouded in a +mask of dulness until another state of being. To our friend Drowne +there came a brief season of excitement, kindled by love. It rendered +him a genius for that one occasion, but, quenched in disappointment, +left him again the mechanical carver in wood, without the power even of +appreciating the work that his own hands had wrought. Yet who can doubt +that the very highest state to which a human spirit can attain, in its +loftiest aspirations, is its truest and most natural state, and that +Drowne was more consistent with himself when he wrought the admirable +figure of the mysterious lady, than when he perpetrated a whole progeny +of blockheads? + +There was a rumor in Boston, about this period, that a young Portuguese +lady of rank, on some occasion of political or domestic disquietude, +had fled from her home in Fayal and put herself under the protection of +Captain Hunnewell, on board of whose vessel, and at whose residence, +she was sheltered until a change of affairs. This fair stranger must +have been the original of Drowne’s Wooden Image. + + + + +THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE + + +Grave figure, with a pair of mysterious spectacles on his nose and a +pen behind his ear, was seated at a desk in the corner of a +metropolitan office. The apartment was fitted up with a counter, and +furnished with an oaken cabinet and a Chair or two, in simple and +business-like style. Around the walls were stuck advertisements of +articles lost, or articles wanted, or articles to be disposed of; in +one or another of which classes were comprehended nearly all the +Conveniences, or otherwise, that the imagination of man has contrived. +The interior of the room was thrown into shadow, partly by the tall +edifices that rose on the opposite side of the street, and partly by +the immense show-bills of blue and crimson paper that were expanded +over each of the three windows. Undisturbed by the tramp of feet, the +rattle of wheels, the hump of voices, the shout of the city crier, the +scream of the newsboys, and other tokens of the multitudinous life that +surged along in front of the office, the figure at the desk pored +diligently over a folio volume, of ledger-like size and aspect, He +looked like the spirit of a record—the soul of his own great volume +made visible in mortal shape. + +But scarcely an instant elapsed without the appearance at the door of +some individual from the busy population whose vicinity was manifested +by so much buzz, and clatter, and outcry. Now, it was a thriving +mechanic in quest of a tenement that should come within his moderate +means of rent; now, a ruddy Irish girl from the banks of Killarney, +wandering from kitchen to kitchen of our land, while her heart still +hung in the peat-smoke of her native cottage; now, a single gentleman +looking out for economical board; and now—for this establishment +offered an epitome of worldly pursuits—it was a faded beauty inquiring +for her lost bloom; or Peter Schlemihl, for his lost shadow; or an +author of ten years’ standing, for his vanished reputation; or a moody +man, for yesterday’s sunshine. + +At the next lifting of the latch there entered a person with his hat +awry upon his head, his clothes perversely ill-suited to his form, his +eyes staring in directions opposite to their intelligence, and a +certain odd unsuitableness pervading his whole figure. Wherever he +might chance to be, whether in palace or cottage, church or market, on +land or sea, or even at his own fireside, he must have worn the +characteristic expression of a man out of his right place. + +“This,” inquired he, putting his question in the form of an +assertion,—“this is the Central Intelligence Office?” + +“Even so,” answered the figure at the desk, turning another leaf of his +volume; he then looked the applicant in the face and said briefly, +“Your business?” + +“I want,” said the latter, with tremulous earnestness, “a place!” + +“A place! and of what nature?” asked the Intelligencer. “There are many +vacant, or soon to be so, some of which will probably suit, since they +range from that of a footman up to a seat at the council-board, or in +the cabinet, or a throne, or a presidential chair.” + +The stranger stood pondering before the desk with an unquiet, +dissatisfied air,—a dull, vague pain of heart, expressed by a slight +contortion of the brow,—an earnestness of glance, that asked and +expected, yet continually wavered, as if distrusting. In short, he +evidently wanted, not in a physical or intellectual sense, but with an +urgent moral necessity that is the hardest of all things to satisfy, +since it knows not its own object. + +“Ah, you mistake me!” said he at length, with a gesture of nervous +impatience. “Either of the places you mention, indeed, might answer my +purpose; or, more probably, none of them. I want my place! my own +place! my true place in the world! my proper sphere! my thing to do, +which Nature intended me to perform when she fashioned me thus awry, +and which I have vainly sought all my lifetime! Whether it be a +footman’s duty or a king’s is of little consequence, so it be naturally +mine. Can you help me here?” + +“I will enter your application,” answered the Intelligencer, at the +same time writing a few lines in his volume. “But to undertake such a +business, I tell you frankly, is quite apart from the ground covered by +my official duties. Ask for something specific, and it may doubtless be +negotiated for you, on your compliance with the conditions. But were I +to go further, I should have the whole population of the city upon my +shoulders; since far the greater proportion of them are, more or less, +in your predicament.” + +The applicant sank into a fit of despondency, and passed out of the +door without again lifting his eyes; and, if he died of the +disappointment, he was probably buried in the wrong tomb, inasmuch as +the fatality of such people never deserts them, and, whether alive or +dead, they are invariably out of place. + +Almost immediately another foot was heard on the threshold. A youth +entered hastily, and threw a glance around the office to ascertain +whether the man of intelligence was alone. He then approached close to +the desk, blushed like a maiden, and seemed at a loss how to broach his +business. + +“You come upon an affair of the heart,” said the official personage, +looking into him through his mysterious spectacles. “State it in as few +words as may be.” + +“You are right,” replied the youth. “I have a heart to dispose of.” + +“You seek an exchange?” said the Intelligencer. “Foolish youth, why not +be contented with your own?” + +“Because,” exclaimed the young man, losing his embarrassment in a +passionate glow,—“because my heart burns me with an intolerable fire; +it tortures me all day long with yearnings for I know not what, and +feverish throbbings, and the pangs of a vague sorrow; and it awakens me +in the night-time with a quake, when there is nothing to be feared. I +cannot endure it any longer. It were wiser to throw away such a heart, +even if it brings me nothing in return.” + +“O, very well,” said the man of office, making an entry in his volume. +“Your affair will be easily transacted. This species of brokerage makes +no inconsiderable part of my business; and there is always a large +assortment of the article to select from. Here, if I mistake not, comes +a pretty fair sample.” + +Even as he spoke the door was gently and slowly thrust ajar, affording +a glimpse of the slender figure of a young girl, who, as she timidly +entered, seemed to bring the light and cheerfulness of the outer +atmosphere into the somewhat gloomy apartment. We know not her errand +there, nor can we reveal whether the young man gave up his heart into +her custody. If so, the arrangement was neither better nor worse than +in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, where the parallel sensibilities +of a similar age, importunate affections, and the easy satisfaction of +characters not deeply conscious of themselves, supply the place of any +profounder sympathy. + +Not always, however, was the agency of the passions and affections an +office of so little trouble. It happened, rarely, indeed, in proportion +to the cases that came under an ordinary rule, but still it did happen, +that a heart was occasionally brought hither of such exquisite +material, so delicately attempered, and so curiously wrought, that no +other heart could be found to match it. It might almost be considered a +misfortune, in a worldly point of view, to be the possessor of such a +diamond of the purest water; since in any reasonable probability it +could only be exchanged for an ordinary pebble, or a bit of cunningly +manufactured glass, or, at least, for a jewel of native richness, but +ill-set, or with some fatal flaw, or an earthy vein running through its +central lustre. To choose another figure, it is sad that hearts which +have their wellspring in the infinite, and contain inexhaustible +sympathies, should ever be doomed to pour themselves into shallow +vessels, and thus lavish their rich affections on the ground. Strange +that the finer and deeper nature, whether in man or woman, while +possessed of every other delicate instinct, should so often lack that +most invaluable one of preserving itself front contamination with what +is of a baser kind! Sometimes, it is true, the spiritual fountain is +kept pure by a wisdom within itself, and sparkles into the light of +heaven without a stain from the earthy strata through which it had +gushed upward. And sometimes, even here on earth, the pure mingles with +the pure, and the inexhaustible is recompensed with the infinite. But +these miracles, though he should claim the credit of them, are far +beyond the scope of such a superficial agent in human affairs as the +figure in the mysterious spectacles. + +Again the door was opened, admitting the bustle of the city with a +fresher reverberation into the Intelligence Office. Now entered a man +of woe-begone and downcast look; it was such an aspect as if he had +lost the very soul out of his body, and had traversed all the world +over, searching in the dust of the highways, and along the shady +footpaths, and beneath the leaves of the forest, and among the sands of +the sea-shore, in hopes to recover it again. He had bent an anxious +glance along the pavement of the street as he came hitherward; he +looked also in the angle of the doorstep, and upon the floor of the +room; and, finally, coming up to the Man of Intelligence, he gazed +through the inscrutable spectacles which the latter wore, as if the +lost treasure might be hidden within his eyes. + +“I have lost—” he began; and then he paused. + +“Yes,” said the Intelligencer, “I see that you have lost,—but what?” + +“I have lost a precious jewel!” replied the unfortunate person, “the +like of which is not to be found among any prince’s treasures. While I +possessed it, the contemplation of it was my sole and sufficient +happiness. No price should have purchased it of me; but it has fallen +from my bosom where I wore it in my careless wanderings about the +city.” + +After causing the stranger to describe the marks of his lost jewel, the +Intelligencer opened a drawer of the oaken cabinet which has been +mentioned as forming a part of the furniture of the room. Here were +deposited whatever articles had been picked up in the streets, until +the right owners should claim them. It was a strange and heterogeneous +collection. Not the least remarkable part of it was a great number of +wedding-rings, each one of which had been riveted upon the finger with +holy vows, and all the mystic potency that the most solemn rites could +attain, but had, nevertheless, proved too slippery for the wearer’s +vigilance. The gold of some was worn thin, betokening the attrition of +years of wedlock; others, glittering from the jeweller’s shop, must +have been lost within the honeymoon. There were ivory tablets, the +leaves scribbled over with sentiments that had been the deepest truths +of the writer’s earlier years, but which were now quite obliterated +from his memory. So scrupulously were articles preserved in this +depository, that not even withered flowers were rejected; white roses, +and blush-roses, and moss-roses, fit emblems of virgin purity and +shamefacedness, which bad been lost or flung away, and trampled into +the pollution of the streets; locks of hair,—the golden and the glossy +dark,—the long tresses of woman and the crisp curls of man, signified +that lovers were now and then so heedless of the faith intrusted to +them as to drop its symbol from the treasure-place of the bosom. Many +of these things were imbued with perfumes, and perhaps a sweet scent +had departed from the lives of their former possessors ever since they +had so wilfully or negligently lost them. Here were gold pencil-cases, +little ruby hearts with golden arrows through them, bosom-pins, pieces +of coin, and small articles of every description, comprising nearly all +that have been lost since a long time ago. Most of them, doubtless, had +a history and a meaning, if there were time to search it out and room +to tell it. Whoever has missed anything valuable, whether out of his +heart, mind, or pocket, would do well to make inquiry at the Central +Intelligence Office. + +And in the corner of one of the drawers of the oaken cabinet, after +considerable research, was found a great pearl, looking like the soul +of celestial purity, congealed and polished. + +“There is my jewel! my very pearl!” cried the stranger, almost beside +himself with rapture. “It is mine! Give it me this moment! or I shall +perish!” + +“I perceive,” said the Man of Intelligence, examining it more closely, +“that this is the Pearl of Great Price!” + +“The very same,” answered the stranger. “Judge, then, of my misery at +losing it out of my bosom! Restore it to me! I must not live without it +an instant to longer.” + +“Pardon me,” rejoined the Intelligencer, calmly, “you ask what is +beyond my duty. This pearl, as you well know, is held upon a peculiar +tenure; and having once let it escape from your keeping, you have no +greater claim to it—nay, not so great—as any other person. I cannot +give it back.” + +Nor could the entreaties of the miserable man—who saw before his eyes +the jewel of his life without the power to reclaim it—soften the heart +of this stern being, impassive to human sympathy, though exercising +such an apparent influence over human fortunes. Finally the loser of +the inestimable pearl clutched his hands among his hair, and ran madly +forth into the world, which was affrighted at his desperate looks. +There passed him on the doorstep a fashionable young gentleman, whose +business was to inquire for a damask rosebud, the gift of his +lady-love, which he had lost out of his buttonhole within a hour after +receiving it. So various were the errands of those who visited this +Central Office, where all human wishes seemed to be made known, and, so +far as destiny would allow, negotiated to their fulfilment. + +The next that entered was a man beyond the middle age, bearing the look +of one who knew the world and his own course in it. He had just +alighted from a handsome private carriage, which had orders to wait in +the street while its owner transacted his business. This person came up +to the desk with a quick, determined step, and looked the Intelligencer +in the face with a resolute eye; though, at the same time, some secret +trouble gleamed from it in red and dusky light. + +“I have an estate to dispose of,” said he, with a brevity that seemed +characteristic. + +“Describe it,” said the Intelligencer. + +The applicant proceeded to give the boundaries of his property, its +nature, comprising tillage, pasture, woodland, and pleasure-grounds, in +ample circuit; together with a mansion-house, in the construction of +which it had been his object to realize a castle in the air, hardening +its shadowy walls into granite, and rendering its visionary splendor +perceptible to the awakened eye. Judging from his description, it was +beautiful enough to vanish like a dream, yet substantial enough to +endure for centuries. He spoke, too, of the gorgeous furniture, the +refinements of upholstery, and all the luxurious artifices that +combined to render this a residence where life might flow onward in a +stream of golden days, undisturbed by the ruggedness which fate loves +to fling into it. + +“I am a man of strong will,” said he, in conclusion; “and at my first +setting out in life, as a poor, unfriended youth, I resolved to make +myself the possessor of such a mansion and estate as this, together +with the abundant revenue necessary to uphold it. I have succeeded to +the extent of my utmost wish. And this is the estate which I have now +concluded to dispose of.” + +“And your terms?” asked the Intelligencer, after taking down the +particulars with which the stranger had supplied him. + +“Easy, abundantly easy!” answered the successful man, smiling, but with +a stern and almost frightful contraction of the brow, as if to quell an +inward pang. “I have been engaged in various sorts of business,—a +distiller, a trader to Africa, an East India merchant, a speculator in +the stocks,—and, in the course of these affairs, have contracted an +encumbrance of a certain nature. The purchaser of the estate shall +merely be required to assume this burden to himself.” + +“I understand you,” said the Man of Intelligence, putting his pen +behind his ear. “I fear that no bargain can be negotiated on these +conditions. Very probably the next possessor may acquire the estate +with a similar encumbrance, but it will be of his own contracting, and +will not lighten your burden in the least.” + +“And am I to live on,” fiercely exclaimed the stranger, “with the dirt +of these accursed acres and the granite of this infernal mansion +crushing down my soul? How, if I should turn the edifice into an +almshouse or a hospital, or tear it down and build a church?” + +“You can at least make the experiment,” said the Intelligencer; “but +the whole matter is one which you must settle for yourself.” + +The man of deplorable success withdrew, and got into his coach, which +rattled off lightly over the wooden pavements, though laden with the +weight of much land, a stately house, and ponderous heaps of gold, all +compressed into an evil conscience. + +There now appeared many applicants for places; among the most +noteworthy of whom was a small, smoke-dried figure, who gave himself +out to be one of the bad spirits that had waited upon Dr. Faustus in +his laboratory. He pretended to show a certificate of character, which, +he averred, had been given him by that famous necromancer, and +countersigned by several masters whom he had subsequently served. + +“I am afraid, my good friend,” observed the Intelligencer, “that your +chance of getting a service is but poor. Nowadays, men act the evil +spirit for themselves and their neighbors, and play the part more +effectually than ninety-nine out of a hundred of your fraternity.” + +But, just as the poor fiend was assuming a vaporous consistency, being +about to vanish through the floor in sad disappointment and chagrin, +the editor of a political newspaper chanced to enter the office in +quest of a scribbler of party paragraphs. The former servant of Dr. +Faustus, with some misgivings as to his sufficiency of venom, was +allowed to try his hand in this capacity. Next appeared, likewise +seeking a service, the mysterious man in Red, who had aided Bonaparte +in his ascent to imperial power. He was examined as to his +qualifications by an aspiring politician, but finally rejected, as +lacking familiarity with the cunning tactics of the present day. + +People continued to succeed each other with as much briskness as if +everybody turned aside, out of the roar and tumult of the city, to +record here some want, or superfluity, or desire. Some had goods or +possessions, of which they wished to negotiate the sale. A China +merchant had lost his health by a long residence in that wasting +climate. He very liberally offered his disease, and his wealth along +with it, to any physician who would rid him of both together. A soldier +offered his wreath of laurels for as good a leg as that which it had +cost him on the battle-field. One poor weary wretch desired nothing but +to be accommodated with any creditable method of laying down his life; +for misfortune and pecuniary troubles had so subdued his spirits that +he could no longer conceive the possibility of happiness, nor had the +heart to try for it. Nevertheless, happening to, overhear some +conversation in the Intelligence Office respecting wealth to be rapidly +accumulated by a certain mode of speculation, he resolved to live out +this one other experiment of better fortune. Many persons desired to +exchange their youthful vices for others better suited to the gravity +of advancing age; a few, we are glad to say, made earnest, efforts to +exchange vice for virtue, and, hard as the bargain was, succeeded in +effecting it. But it was remarkable that what all were the least +willing to give up, even on the most advantageous terms, were the +habits, the oddities, the characteristic traits, the little ridiculous +indulgences, somewhere between faults and follies, of which nobody but +themselves could understand the fascination. + +The great folio, in which the Man of Intelligence recorded all these +freaks of idle hearts, and aspirations of deep hearts, and desperate +longings of miserable hearts, and evil prayers of perverted hearts, +would be curious reading were it possible to obtain it for publication. +Human character in its individual developments-human nature in the +mass—may best be studied in its wishes; and this was the record of them +all. There was an endless diversity of mode and circumstance, yet +withal such a similarity in the real groundwork, that any one page of +the volume-whether written in the days before the Flood, or the +yesterday that is just gone by, or to be written on the morrow that is +close at hand, or a thousand ages hence—might serve as a specimen of +the whole. Not but that there were wild sallies of fantasy that could +scarcely occur to more than one man’s brain, whether reasonable or +lunatic. The strangest wishes—yet most incident to men who had gone +deep into scientific pursuits, and attained a high intellectual stage, +though not the loftiest—were, to contend with Nature, and wrest from +her some secret, or some power, which she had seen fit to withhold from +mortal grasp. She loves to delude her aspiring students, and mock them +with mysteries that seem but just beyond their utmost reach. To concoct +new minerals, to produce new forms of vegetable life, to create an +insect, if nothing higher in the living scale, is a sort of wish that +has often revelled in the breast of a man of science. An astronomer, +who lived far more among the distant worlds of space than in this lower +sphere, recorded a wish to behold the opposite side of the moon, which, +unless the system of the firmament be reversed, she can never turn +towards the earth. On the same page of the volume was written the wish +of a little child to have the stars for playthings. + +The most ordinary wish, that was written down with wearisome +recurrence, was, of course, for wealth, wealth, wealth, in sums from a +few shillings up to unreckonable thousands. But in reality this +often-repeated expression covered as many different desires. Wealth is +the golden essence of the outward world, embodying almost everything +that exists beyond the limits of the soul; and therefore it is the +natural yearning for the life in the midst of which we find ourselves, +and of which gold is the condition of enjoyment, that men abridge into +this general wish. Here and there, it is true, the volume testified to +some heart so perverted as to desire gold for its own sake. Many wished +for power; a strange desire indeed, since it is but another form of +slavery. Old people wished for the delights of youth; a fop for a +fashionable coat; an idle reader, for a new novel; a versifier, for a +rhyme to some stubborn word; a painter, for Titian’s secret of +coloring; a prince, for a cottage; a republican, for a kingdom and a +palace; a libertine, for his neighbor’s wife; a man of palate, for +green peas; and a poor man, for a crust of bread. The ambitious desires +of public men, elsewhere so craftily concealed, were here expressed +openly and boldly, side by side with the unselfish wishes of the +philanthropist for the welfare of the race, so beautiful, so +comforting, in contrast with the egotism that continually weighed self +against the world. Into the darker secrets of the Book of Wishes we +will not penetrate. + +It would be an instructive employment for a student of mankind, +perusing this volume carefully and comparing its records with men’s +perfected designs, as expressed in their deeds and daily life, to +ascertain how far the one accorded with the other. Undoubtedly, in most +cases, the correspondence would be found remote. The holy and generous +wish, that rises like incense from a pure heart towards heaven, often +lavishes its sweet perfume on the blast of evil times. The foul, +selfish, murderous wish, that steams forth from a corrupted heart, +often passes into the spiritual atmosphere without being concreted into +an earthly deed. Yet this volume is probably truer, as a representation +of the human heart, than is the living drama of action as it evolves +around us. There is more of good and more of evil in it; more redeeming +points of the bad and more errors of the virtuous; higher upsoarings, +and baser degradation of the soul; in short, a more perplexing +amalgamation of vice and virtue than we witness in the outward world. +Decency and external conscience often produce a far fairer outside than +is warranted by the stains within. And be it owned, oil the other hand, +that a man seldom repeats to his nearest friend, any more than he +realizes in act, the purest wishes, which, at some blessed time or +other, have arisen from the depths of his nature and witnessed for him +in this volume. Yet there is enough on every leaf to make the good man +shudder for his own wild and idle wishes, as well as for the sinner, +whose whole life is the incarnation of a wicked desire. + +But again the door is opened, and we hear the tumultuous stir of the +world,—a deep and awful sound, expressing in another form some portion +of what is written in the volume that lies before the Man of +Intelligence. A grandfatherly personage tottered hastily into the +office, with such an earnestness in his infirm alacrity that his white +hair floated backward as he hurried up to the desk, while his dim eyes +caught a momentary lustre from his vehemence of purpose. This venerable +figure explained that he was in search of To-morrow. + +“I have spent all my life in pursuit of it,” added the sage old +gentleman, “being assured that To-morrow has some vast benefit or other +in store for me. But I am now getting a little in years, and must make +haste; for, unless I overtake To-morrow soon, I begin to be afraid it +will finally escape me.” + +“This fugitive To-morrow, my venerable friend,” said the Man of +Intelligence, “is a stray child of Time, and is flying from his father +into the region of the infinite. Continue your pursuit, and you will +doubtless come up with him; but as to the earthly gifts which you +expect, he has scattered them all among a throng of Yesterdays.” + +Obliged to content himself with this enigmatical response, the +grandsire hastened forth with a quick clatter of his staff upon the +floor; and, as he disappeared, a little boy scampered through the door +in chase of a butterfly which had got astray amid the barren sunshine +of the city. Had the old gentleman been shrewder, he might have +detected To-morrow under the semblance of that gaudy insect. The golden +butterfly glistened through the shadowy apartment, and brushed its +wings against the Book of Wishes, and fluttered forth again with the +child still in pursuit. + +A man now entered, in neglected attire, with the aspect of a thinker, +but somewhat too rough-hewn and brawny for a scholar. His face was full +of sturdy vigor, with some finer and keener attribute beneath. Though +harsh at first, it was tempered with the glow of a large, warm heart, +which had force enough to heat his powerful intellect through and +through. He advanced to the Intelligencer and looked at him with a +glance of such stern sincerity that perhaps few secrets were beyond its +scope. + +“I seek for Truth,” said he. + +“It is precisely the most rare pursuit that has ever come under my +cognizance,” replied the Intelligencer, as he made the new inscription +in his volume. “Most men seek to impose some cunning falsehood upon +themselves for truth. But I can lend no help to your researches. You +must achieve the miracle for yourself. At some fortunate moment you may +find Truth at your side, or perhaps she may be mistily discerned far in +advance, or possibly behind you.” + +“Not behind me,” said the seeker; “for I have left nothing on my track +without a thorough investigation. She flits before me, passing now +through a naked solitude, and now mingling with the throng of a popular +assembly, and now writing with the pen of a French philosopher, and now +standing at the altar of an old cathedral, in the guise of a Catholic +priest, performing the high mass. O weary search! But I must not +falter; and surely my heart-deep quest of Truth shall avail at last.” + +He paused and fixed his eyes upon the Intelligencer with a depth of +investigation that seemed to hold commerce with the inner nature of +this being, wholly regardless of his external development. + +“And what are you?” said he. “It will not satisfy me to point to this +fantastic show of an Intelligence Office and this mockery of business. +Tell me what is beneath it, and what your real agency in life and your +influence upon mankind.” + +“Yours is a mind,” answered the Man of Intelligence, “before which the +forms and fantasies that conceal the inner idea from the multitude +vanish at once and leave the naked reality beneath. Know, then, the +secret. My agency in worldly action, my connection with the press, and +tumult, and intermingling, and development of human affairs, is merely +delusive. The desire of man’s heart does for him whatever I seem to do. +I am no minister of action, but the Recording Spirit.” + +What further secrets were then spoken remains a mystery, inasmuch as +the roar of the city, the bustle of human business, the outcry of the +jostling masses, the rush and tumult of man’s life, in its noisy and +brief career, arose so high that it drowned the words of these two +talkers; and whether they stood talking in the moon, or in Vanity Fair, +or in a city of this actual world, is more than I can say. + + + + +ROGER MALVIN’S BURIAL + + +One of the few incidents of Indian warfare naturally susceptible of the +moonlight of romance was that expedition undertaken for the defence of +the frontiers in the year 1725, which resulted in the well-remembered +“Lovell’s Fight.” Imagination, by casting certain circumstances +judicially into the shade, may see much to admire in the heroism of a +little band who gave battle to twice their number in the heart of the +enemy’s country. The open bravery displayed by both parties was in +accordance with civilized ideas of valor; and chivalry itself might not +blush to record the deeds of one or two individuals. The battle, though +so fatal to those who fought, was not unfortunate in its consequences +to the country; for it broke the strength of a tribe and conduced to +the peace which subsisted during several ensuing years. History and +tradition are unusually minute in their memorials of their affair; and +the captain of a scouting party of frontier men has acquired as actual +a military renown as many a victorious leader of thousands. Some of the +incidents contained in the following pages will be recognized, +notwithstanding the substitution of fictitious names, by such as have +heard, from old men’s lips, the fate of the few combatants who were in +a condition to retreat after “Lovell’s Fight.” + + +The early sunbeams hovered cheerfully upon the tree-tops, beneath which +two weary and wounded men had stretched their limbs the night before. +Their bed of withered oak leaves was strewn upon the small level space, +at the foot of a rock, situated near the summit of one of the gentle +swells by which the face of the country is there diversified. The mass +of granite, rearing its smooth, flat surface fifteen or twenty feet +above their heads, was not unlike a gigantic gravestone, upon which the +veins seemed to form an inscription in forgotten characters. On a tract +of several acres around this rock, oaks and other hard-wood trees had +supplied the place of the pines, which were the usual growth of the +land; and a young and vigorous sapling stood close beside the +travellers. + +The severe wound of the elder man had probably deprived him of sleep; +for, so soon as the first ray of sunshine rested on the top of the +highest tree, he reared himself painfully from his recumbent posture +and sat erect. The deep lines of his countenance and the scattered gray +of his hair marked him as past the middle age; but his muscular frame +would, but for the effect of his wound, have been as capable of +sustaining fatigue as in the early vigor of life. Languor and +exhaustion now sat upon his haggard features; and the despairing glance +which he sent forward through the depths of the forest proved his own +conviction that his pilgrimage was at an end. He next turned his eyes +to the companion who reclined by his side. The youth—for he had +scarcely attained the years of manhood—lay, with his head upon his arm, +in the embrace of an unquiet sleep, which a thrill of pain from his +wounds seemed each moment on the point of breaking. His right hand +grasped a musket; and, to judge from the violent action of his +features, his slumbers were bringing back a vision of the conflict of +which he was one of the few survivors. A shout deep and loud in his +dreaming fancy—found its way in an imperfect murmur to his lips; and, +starting even at the slight sound of his own voice, he suddenly awoke. +The first act of reviving recollection was to make anxious inquiries +respecting the condition of his wounded fellow-traveller. The latter +shook his head. + +“Reuben, my boy,” said he, “this rock beneath which we sit will serve +for an old hunter’s gravestone. There is many and many a long mile of +howling wilderness before us yet; nor would it avail me anything if the +smoke of my own chimney were but on the other side of that swell of +land. The Indian bullet was deadlier than I thought.” + +“You are weary with our three days’ travel,” replied the youth, “and a +little longer rest will recruit you. Sit you here while I search the +woods for the herbs and roots that must be our sustenance; and, having +eaten, you shall lean on me, and we will turn our faces homeward. I +doubt not that, with my help, you can attain to some one of the +frontier garrisons.” + +“There is not two days’ life in me, Reuben,” said the other, calmly, +“and I will no longer burden you with my useless body, when you can +scarcely support your own. Your wounds are deep and your strength is +failing fast; yet, if you hasten onward alone, you may be preserved. +For me there is no hope, and I will await death here.” + +“If it must be so, I will remain and watch by you,” said Reuben, +resolutely. + +“No, my son, no,” rejoined his companion. “Let the wish of a dying man +have weight with you; give me one grasp of your hand, and get you +hence. Think you that my last moments will be eased by the thought that +I leave you to die a more lingering death? I have loved you like a +father, Reuben; and at a time like this I should have something of a +father’s authority. I charge you to be gone that I may die in peace.” + +“And because you have been a father to me, should I therefore leave you +to perish and to lie unburied in the wilderness?” exclaimed the youth. +“No; if your end be in truth approaching, I will watch by you and +receive your parting words. I will dig a grave here by the rock, in +which, if my weakness overcome me, we will rest together; or, if Heaven +gives me strength, I will seek my way home.” + +“In the cities and wherever men dwell,” replied the other, “they bury +their dead in the earth; they hide them from the sight of the living; +but here, where no step may pass perhaps for a hundred years, wherefore +should I not rest beneath the open sky, covered only by the oak leaves +when the autumn winds shall strew them? And for a monument, here is +this gray rock, on which my dying hand shall carve the name of Roger +Malvin, and the traveller in days to come will know that here sleeps a +hunter and a warrior. Tarry not, then, for a folly like this, but +hasten away, if not for your own sake, for hers who will else be +desolate.” + +Malvin spoke the last few words in a faltering voice, and their effect +upon his companion was strongly visible. They reminded him that there +were other and less questionable duties than that of sharing the fate +of a man whom his death could not benefit. Nor can it be affirmed that +no selfish feeling strove to enter Reuben’s heart, though the +consciousness made him more earnestly resist his companion’s +entreaties. + +“How terrible to wait the slow approach of death in this solitude!” +exclaimed he. “A brave man does not shrink in the battle; and, when +friends stand round the bed, even women may die composedly; but here—” + +“I shall not shrink even here, Reuben Bourne,” interrupted Malvin. “I +am a man of no weak heart, and, if I were, there is a surer support +than that of earthly friends. You are young, and life is dear to you. +Your last moments will need comfort far more than mine; and when you +have laid me in the earth, and are alone, and night is settling on the +forest, you will feel all the bitterness of the death that may now be +escaped. But I will urge no selfish motive to your generous nature. +Leave me for my sake, that, having said a prayer for your safety, I may +have space to settle my account undisturbed by worldly sorrows.” + +“And your daughter,—how shall I dare to meet her eye?” exclaimed +Reuben. “She will ask the fate of her father, whose life I vowed to +defend with my own. Must I tell her that he travelled three days’ march +with me from the field of battle and that then I left him to perish in +the wilderness? Were it not better to lie down and die by your side +than to return safe and say this to Dorcas?” + +“Tell my daughter,” said Roger Malvin, “that, though yourself sore +wounded, and weak, and weary, you led my tottering footsteps many a +mile, and left me only at my earnest entreaty, because I would not have +your blood upon my soul. Tell her that through pain and danger you were +faithful, and that, if your lifeblood could have saved me, it would +have flowed to its last drop; and tell her that you will be something +dearer than a father, and that my blessing is with you both, and that +my dying eyes can see a long and pleasant path in which you will +journey together.” + +As Malvin spoke he almost raised himself from the ground, and the +energy of his concluding words seemed to fill the wild and lonely +forest with a vision of happiness; but, when he sank exhausted upon his +bed of oak leaves, the light which had kindled in Reuben’s eye was +quenched. He felt as if it were both sin and folly to think of +happiness at such a moment. His companion watched his changing +countenance, and sought with generous art to wile him to his own good. + +“Perhaps I deceive myself in regard to the time I have to live,” he +resumed. “It may be that, with speedy assistance, I might recover of my +wound. The foremost fugitives must, ere this, have carried tidings of +our fatal battle to the frontiers, and parties will be out to succor +those in like condition with ourselves. Should you meet one of these +and guide them hither, who can tell but that I may sit by my own +fireside again?” + +A mournful smile strayed across the features of the dying man as he +insinuated that unfounded hope,—which, however, was not without its +effect on Reuben. No merely selfish motive, nor even the desolate +condition of Dorcas, could have induced him to desert his companion at +such a moment—but his wishes seized on the thought that Malvin’s life +might be preserved, and his sanguine nature heightened almost to +certainty the remote possibility of procuring human aid. + +“Surely there is reason, weighty reason, to hope that friends are not +far distant,” he said, half aloud. “There fled one coward, unwounded, +in the beginning of the fight, and most probably he made good speed. +Every true man on the frontier would shoulder his musket at the news; +and, though no party may range so far into the woods as this, I shall +perhaps encounter them in one day’s march. Counsel me faithfully,” he +added, turning to Malvin, in distrust of his own motives. “Were your +situation mine, would you desert me while life remained?” + +“It is now twenty years,” replied Roger Malvin,—sighing, however, as he +secretly acknowledged the wide dissimilarity between the two cases,—“it +is now twenty years since I escaped with one dear friend from Indian +captivity near Montreal. We journeyed many days through the woods, till +at length overcome with hunger and weariness, my friend lay down and +besought me to leave him; for he knew that, if I remained, we both must +perish; and, with but little hope of obtaining succor, I heaped a +pillow of dry leaves beneath his head and hastened on.” + +“And did you return in time to save him?” asked Reuben, hanging on +Malvin’s words as if they were to be prophetic of his own success. + +“I did,” answered the other. “I came upon the camp of a hunting party +before sunset of the same day. I guided them to the spot where my +comrade was expecting death; and he is now a hale and hearty man upon +his own farm, far within the frontiers, while I lie wounded here in the +depths of the wilderness.” + +This example, powerful in affecting Reuben’s decision, was aided, +unconsciously to himself, by the hidden strength of many another +motive. Roger Malvin perceived that the victory was nearly won. + +“Now, go, my son, and Heaven prosper you!” he said. “Turn not back with +your friends when you meet them, lest your wounds and weariness +overcome you; but send hitherward two or three, that may be spared, to +search for me; and believe me, Reuben, my heart will be lighter with +every step you take towards home.” Yet there was, perhaps, a change +both in his countenance and voice as he spoke thus; for, after all, it +was a ghastly fate to be left expiring in the wilderness. + +Reuben Bourne, but half convinced that he was acting rightly, at length +raised himself from the ground and prepared himself for his departure. +And first, though contrary to Malvin’s wishes, he collected a stock of +roots and herbs, which had been their only food during the last two +days. This useless supply he placed within reach of the dying man, for +whom, also, he swept together a bed of dry oak leaves. Then climbing to +the summit of the rock, which on one side was rough and broken, he bent +the oak sapling downward, and bound his handkerchief to the topmost +branch. This precaution was not unnecessary to direct any who might +come in search of Malvin; for every part of the rock, except its broad, +smooth front, was concealed at a little distance by the dense +undergrowth of the forest. The handkerchief had been the bandage of a +wound upon Reuben’s arm; and, as he bound it to the tree, he vowed by +the blood that stained it that he would return, either to save his +companion’s life or to lay his body in the grave. He then descended, +and stood, with downcast eyes, to receive Roger Malvin’s parting words. + +The experience of the latter suggested much and minute advice +respecting the youth’s journey through the trackless forest. Upon this +subject he spoke with calm earnestness, as if he were sending Reuben to +the battle or the chase while he himself remained secure at home, and +not as if the human countenance that was about to leave him were the +last he would ever behold. But his firmness was shaken before he +concluded. + +“Carry my blessing to Dorcas, and say that my last prayer shall be for +her and you. Bid her to have no hard thoughts because you left me +here,”—Reuben’s heart smote him,—“for that your life would not have +weighed with you if its sacrifice could have done me good. She will +marry you after she has mourned a little while for her father; and +Heaven grant you long and happy days, and may your children’s children +stand round your death bed! And, Reuben,” added he, as the weakness of +mortality made its way at last, “return, when your wounds are healed +and your weariness refreshed,—return to this wild rock, and lay my +bones in the grave, and say a prayer over them.” + +An almost superstitious regard, arising perhaps from the customs of the +Indians, whose war was with the dead as well as the living, was paid by +the frontier inhabitants to the rites of sepulture; and there are many +instances of the sacrifice of life in the attempt to bury those who had +fallen by the “sword of the wilderness.” Reuben, therefore, felt the +full importance of the promise which he most solemnly made to return +and perform Roger Malvin’s obsequies. It was remarkable that the +latter, speaking his whole heart in his parting words, no longer +endeavored to persuade the youth that even the speediest succor might +avail to the preservation of his life. Reuben was internally convinced +that he should see Malvin’s living face no more. His generous nature +would fain have delayed him, at whatever risk, till the dying scene +were past; but the desire of existence and the hope of happiness had +strengthened in his heart, and he was unable to resist them. + +“It is enough,” said Roger Malvin, having listened to Reuben’s promise. +“Go, and God speed you!” + +The youth pressed his hand in silence, turned, and was departing. His +slow and faltering steps, however, had borne him but a little way +before Malvin’s voice recalled him. + +“Reuben, Reuben,” said he, faintly; and Reuben returned and knelt down +by the dying man. + +“Raise me, and let me lean against the rock,” was his last request. “My +face will be turned towards home, and I shall see you a moment longer +as you pass among the trees.” + +Reuben, having made the desired alteration in his companion’s posture, +again began his solitary pilgrimage. He walked more hastily at first +than was consistent with his strength; for a sort of guilty feeling, +which sometimes torments men in their most justifiable acts, caused him +to seek concealment from Malvin’s eyes; but after he had trodden far +upon the rustling forest leaves he crept back, impelled by a wild and +painful curiosity, and, sheltered by the earthy roots of an uptorn +tree, gazed earnestly at the desolate man. The morning sun was +unclouded, and the trees and shrubs imbibed the sweet air of the month +of May; yet there seemed a gloom on Nature’s face, as if she +sympathized with mortal pain and sorrow. Roger Malvin’s hands were +uplifted in a fervent prayer, some of the words of which stole through +the stillness of the woods and entered Reuben’s heart, torturing it +with an unutterable pang. They were the broken accents of a petition +for his own happiness and that of Dorcas; and, as the youth listened, +conscience, or something in its similitude, pleaded strongly with him +to return and lie down again by the rock. He felt how hard was the doom +of the kind and generous being whom he had deserted in his extremity. +Death would come like the slow approach of a corpse, stealing gradually +towards him through the forest, and showing its ghastly and motionless +features from behind a nearer and yet a nearer tree. But such must have +been Reuben’s own fate had he tarried another sunset; and who shall +impute blame to him if he shrink from so useless a sacrifice? As he +gave a parting look, a breeze waved the little banner upon the sapling +oak and reminded Reuben of his vow. + + +Many circumstances combined to retard the wounded traveller in his way +to the frontiers. On the second day the clouds, gathering densely over +the sky, precluded the possibility of regulating his course by the +position of the sun; and he knew not but that every effort of his +almost exhausted strength was removing him farther from the home he +sought. His scanty sustenance was supplied by the berries and other +spontaneous products of the forest. Herds of deer, it is true, +sometimes bounded past him, and partridges frequently whirred up before +his footsteps; but his ammunition had been expended in the fight, and +he had no means of slaying them. His wounds, irritated by the constant +exertion in which lay the only hope of life, wore away his strength and +at intervals confused his reason. But, even in the wanderings of +intellect, Reuben’s young heart clung strongly to existence; and it was +only through absolute incapacity of motion that he at last sank down +beneath a tree, compelled there to await death. + +In this situation he was discovered by a party who, upon the first +intelligence of the fight, had been despatched to the relief of the +survivors. They conveyed him to the nearest settlement, which chanced +to be that of his own residence. + +Dorcas, in the simplicity of the olden time, watched by the bedside of +her wounded lover, and administered all those comforts that are in the +sole gift of woman’s heart and hand. During several days Reuben’s +recollection strayed drowsily among the perils and hardships through +which he had passed, and he was incapable of returning definite answers +to the inquiries with which many were eager to harass him. No authentic +particulars of the battle had yet been circulated; nor could mothers, +wives, and children tell whether their loved ones were detained by +captivity or by the stronger chain of death. Dorcas nourished her +apprehensions in silence till one afternoon when Reuben awoke from an +unquiet sleep, and seemed to recognize her more perfectly than at any +previous time. She saw that his intellect had become composed, and she +could no longer restrain her filial anxiety. + +“My father, Reuben?” she began; but the change in her lover’s +countenance made her pause. + +The youth shrank as if with a bitter pain, and the blood gushed vividly +into his wan and hollow cheeks. His first impulse was to cover his +face; but, apparently with a desperate effort, he half raised himself +and spoke vehemently, defending himself against an imaginary +accusation. + +“Your father was sore wounded in the battle, Dorcas; and he bade me not +burden myself with him, but only to lead him to the lakeside, that he +might quench his thirst and die. But I would not desert the old man in +his extremity, and, though bleeding myself, I supported him; I gave him +half my strength, and led him away with me. For three days we journeyed +on together, and your father was sustained beyond my hopes, but, +awaking at sunrise on the fourth day, I found him faint and exhausted; +he was unable to proceed; his life had ebbed away fast; and—” + +“He died!” exclaimed Dorcas, faintly. + +Reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his selfish love of life +had hurried him away before her father’s fate was decided. He spoke +not; he only bowed his head; and, between shame and exhaustion, sank +back and hid his face in the pillow. Dorcas wept when her fears were +thus confirmed; but the shock, as it had been long anticipated, was on +that account the less violent. + +“You dug a grave for my poor father in the wilderness, Reuben?” was the +question by which her filial piety manifested itself. + +“My hands were weak; but I did what I could,” replied the youth in a +smothered tone. “There stands a noble tombstone above his head; and I +would to Heaven I slept as soundly as he!” + +Dorcas, perceiving the wildness of his latter words, inquired no +further at the time; but her heart found ease in the thought that Roger +Malvin had not lacked such funeral rites as it was possible to bestow. +The tale of Reuben’s courage and fidelity lost nothing when she +communicated it to her friends; and the poor youth, tottering from his +sick chamber to breathe the sunny air, experienced from every tongue +the miserable and humiliating torture of unmerited praise. All +acknowledged that he might worthily demand the hand of the fair maiden +to whose father he had been “faithful unto death;” and, as my tale is +not of love, it shall suffice to say that in the space of a few months +Reuben became the husband of Dorcas Malvin. During the marriage +ceremony the bride was covered with blushes, but the bridegroom’s face +was pale. + +There was now in the breast of Reuben Bourne an incommunicable +thought—something which he was to conceal most heedfully from her whom +he most loved and trusted. He regretted, deeply and bitterly, the moral +cowardice that had restrained his words when he was about to disclose +the truth to Dorcas; but pride, the fear of losing her affection, the +dread of universal scorn, forbade him to rectify this falsehood. He +felt that for leaving Roger Malvin he deserved no censure. His +presence, the gratuitous sacrifice of his own life, would have added +only another and a needless agony to the last moments of the dying man; +but concealment had imparted to a justifiable act much of the secret +effect of guilt; and Reuben, while reason told him that he had done +right, experienced in no small degree the mental horrors which punish +the perpetrator of undiscovered crime. By a certain association of +ideas, he at times almost imagined himself a murderer. For years, also, +a thought would occasionally recur, which, though he perceived all its +folly and extravagance, he had not power to banish from his mind. It +was a haunting and torturing fancy that his father-in-law was yet +sitting at the foot of the rock, on the withered forest leaves, alive, +and awaiting his pledged assistance. These mental deceptions, however, +came and went, nor did he ever mistake them for realities: but in the +calmest and clearest moods of his mind he was conscious that he had a +deep vow unredeemed, and that an unburied corpse was calling to him out +of the wilderness. Yet such was the consequence of his prevarication +that he could not obey the call. It was now too late to require the +assistance of Roger Malvin’s friends in performing his long-deferred +sepulture; and superstitious fears, of which none were more susceptible +than the people of the outward settlements, forbade Reuben to go alone. +Neither did he know where in the pathless and illimitable forest to +seek that smooth and lettered rock at the base of which the body lay: +his remembrance of every portion of his travel thence was indistinct, +and the latter part had left no impression upon his mind. There was, +however, a continual impulse, a voice audible only to himself, +commanding him to go forth and redeem his vow; and he had a strange +impression that, were he to make the trial, he would be led straight to +Malvin’s bones. But year after year that summons, unheard but felt, was +disobeyed. His one secret thought became like a chain binding down his +spirit and like a serpent gnawing into his heart; and he was +transformed into a sad and downcast yet irritable man. + +In the course of a few years after their marriage changes began to be +visible in the external prosperity of Reuben and Dorcas. The only +riches of the former had been his stout heart and strong arm; but the +latter, her father’s sole heiress, had made her husband master of a +farm, under older cultivation, larger, and better stocked than most of +the frontier establishments. Reuben Bourne, however, was a neglectful +husbandman; and, while the lands of the other settlers became annually +more fruitful, his deteriorated in the same proportion. The +discouragements to agriculture were greatly lessened by the cessation +of Indian war, during which men held the plough in one hand and the +musket in the other, and were fortunate if the products of their +dangerous labor were not destroyed, either in the field or in the barn, +by the savage enemy. But Reuben did not profit by the altered condition +of the country; nor can it be denied that his intervals of industrious +attention to his affairs were but scantily rewarded with success. The +irritability by which he had recently become distinguished was another +cause of his declining prosperity, as it occasioned frequent quarrels +in his unavoidable intercourse with the neighboring settlers. The +results of these were innumerable lawsuits; for the people of New +England, in the earliest stages and wildest circumstances of the +country, adopted, whenever attainable, the legal mode of deciding their +differences. To be brief, the world did not go well with Reuben Bourne; +and, though not till many years after his marriage, he was finally a +ruined man, with but one remaining expedient against the evil fate that +had pursued him. He was to throw sunlight into some deep recess of the +forest, and seek subsistence from the virgin bosom of the wilderness. + +The only child of Reuben and Dorcas was a son, now arrived at the age +of fifteen years, beautiful in youth, and giving promise of a glorious +manhood. He was peculiarly qualified for, and already began to excel +in, the wild accomplishments of frontier life. His foot was fleet, his +aim true, his apprehension quick, his heart glad and high; and all who +anticipated the return of Indian war spoke of Cyrus Bourne as a future +leader in the land. The boy was loved by his father with a deep and +silent strength, as if whatever was good and happy in his own nature +had been transferred to his child, carrying his affections with it. +Even Dorcas, though loving and beloved, was far less dear to him; for +Reuben’s secret thoughts and insulated emotions had gradually made him +a selfish man, and he could no longer love deeply except where he saw +or imagined some reflection or likeness of his own mind. In Cyrus he +recognized what he had himself been in other days; and at intervals he +seemed to partake of the boy’s spirit, and to be revived with a fresh +and happy life. Reuben was accompanied by his son in the expedition, +for the purpose of selecting a tract of land and felling and burning +the timber, which necessarily preceded the removal of the household +gods. Two months of autumn were thus occupied, after which Reuben +Bourne and his young hunter returned to spend their last winter in the +settlements. + + +It was early in the month of May that the little family snapped asunder +whatever tendrils of affections had clung to inanimate objects, and +bade farewell to the few who, in the blight of fortune, called +themselves their friends. The sadness of the parting moment had, to +each of the pilgrims, its peculiar alleviations. Reuben, a moody man, +and misanthropic because unhappy, strode onward with his usual stern +brow and downcast eye, feeling few regrets and disdaining to +acknowledge any. Dorcas, while she wept abundantly over the broken ties +by which her simple and affectionate nature had bound itself to +everything, felt that the inhabitants of her inmost heart moved on with +her, and that all else would be supplied wherever she might go. And the +boy dashed one tear-drop from his eye, and thought of the adventurous +pleasures of the untrodden forest. + +Oh, who, in the enthusiasm of a daydream, has not wished that he were a +wanderer in a world of summer wilderness, with one fair and gentle +being hanging lightly on his arm? In youth his free and exulting step +would know no barrier but the rolling ocean or the snow-topped +mountains; calmer manhood would choose a home where Nature had strewn a +double wealth in the vale of some transparent stream; and when hoary +age, after long, long years of that pure life, stole on and found him +there, it would find him the father of a race, the patriarch of a +people, the founder of a mighty nation yet to be. When death, like the +sweet sleep which we welcome after a day of happiness, came over him, +his far descendants would mourn over the venerated dust. Enveloped by +tradition in mysterious attributes, the men of future generations would +call him godlike; and remote posterity would see him standing, dimly +glorious, far up the valley of a hundred centuries. + +The tangled and gloomy forest through which the personages of my tale +were wandering differed widely from the dreamer’s land of fantasy; yet +there was something in their way of life that Nature asserted as her +own, and the gnawing cares which went with them from the world were all +that now obstructed their happiness. One stout and shaggy steed, the +bearer of all their wealth, did not shrink from the added weight of +Dorcas; although her hardy breeding sustained her, during the latter +part of each day’s journey, by her husband’s side. Reuben and his son, +their muskets on their shoulders and their axes slung behind them, kept +an unwearied pace, each watching with a hunter’s eye for the game that +supplied their food. When hunger bade, they halted and prepared their +meal on the bank of some unpolluted forest brook, which, as they knelt +down with thirsty lips to drink, murmured a sweet unwillingness, like a +maiden at love’s first kiss. They slept beneath a hut of branches, and +awoke at peep of light refreshed for the toils of another day. Dorcas +and the boy went on joyously, and even Reuben’s spirit shone at +intervals with an outward gladness; but inwardly there was a cold cold +sorrow, which he compared to the snowdrifts lying deep in the glens and +hollows of the rivulets while the leaves were brightly green above. + +Cyrus Bourne was sufficiently skilled in the travel of the woods to +observe that his father did not adhere to the course they had pursued +in their expedition of the preceding autumn. They were now keeping +farther to the north, striking out more directly from the settlements, +and into a region of which savage beasts and savage men were as yet the +sole possessors. The boy sometimes hinted his opinions upon the +subject, and Reuben listened attentively, and once or twice altered the +direction of their march in accordance with his son’s counsel; but, +having so done, he seemed ill at ease. His quick and wandering glances +were sent forward apparently in search of enemies lurking behind the +tree trunks, and, seeing nothing there, he would cast his eyes +backwards as if in fear of some pursuer. Cyrus, perceiving that his +father gradually resumed the old direction, forbore to interfere; nor, +though something began to weigh upon his heart, did his adventurous +nature permit him to regret the increased length and the mystery of +their way. + +On the afternoon of the fifth day they halted, and made their simple +encampment nearly an hour before sunset. The face of the country, for +the last few miles, had been diversified by swells of land resembling +huge waves of a petrified sea; and in one of the corresponding hollows, +a wild and romantic spot, had the family reared their hut and kindled +their fire. There is something chilling, and yet heart-warming, in the +thought of these three, united by strong bands of love and insulated +from all that breathe beside. The dark and gloomy pines looked down +upon them, and, as the wind swept through their tops, a pitying sound +was heard in the forest; or did those old trees groan in fear that men +were come to lay the axe to their roots at last? Reuben and his son, +while Dorcas made ready their meal, proposed to wander out in search of +game, of which that day’s march had afforded no supply. The boy, +promising not to quit the vicinity of the encampment, bounded off with +a step as light and elastic as that of the deer he hoped to slay; while +his father, feeling a transient happiness as he gazed after him, was +about to pursue an opposite direction. Dorcas in the meanwhile, had +seated herself near their fire of fallen branches upon the mossgrown +and mouldering trunk of a tree uprooted years before. Her employment, +diversified by an occasional glance at the pot, now beginning to simmer +over the blaze, was the perusal of the current year’s Massachusetts +Almanac, which, with the exception of an old black-letter Bible, +comprised all the literary wealth of the family. None pay a greater +regard to arbitrary divisions of time than those who are excluded from +society; and Dorcas mentioned, as if the information were of +importance, that it was now the twelfth of May. Her husband started. + +“The twelfth of May! I should remember it well,” muttered he, while +many thoughts occasioned a momentary confusion in his mind. “Where am +I? Whither am I wandering? Where did I leave him?” + +Dorcas, too well accustomed to her husband’s wayward moods to note any +peculiarity of demeanor, now laid aside the almanac and addressed him +in that mournful tone which the tender hearted appropriate to griefs +long cold and dead. + +“It was near this time of the month, eighteen years ago, that my poor +father left this world for a better. He had a kind arm to hold his head +and a kind voice to cheer him, Reuben, in his last moments; and the +thought of the faithful care you took of him has comforted me many a +time since. Oh, death would have been awful to a solitary man in a wild +place like this!” + +“Pray Heaven, Dorcas,” said Reuben, in a broken voice,—“pray Heaven +that neither of us three dies solitary and lies unburied in this +howling wilderness!” And he hastened away, leaving her to watch the +fire beneath the gloomy pines. + +Reuben Bourne’s rapid pace gradually slackened as the pang, +unintentionally inflicted by the words of Dorcas, became less acute. +Many strange reflections, however, thronged upon him; and, straying +onward rather like a sleep walker than a hunter, it was attributable to +no care of his own that his devious course kept him in the vicinity of +the encampment. His steps were imperceptibly led almost in a circle; +nor did he observe that he was on the verge of a tract of land heavily +timbered, but not with pine-trees. The place of the latter was here +supplied by oaks and other of the harder woods; and around their roots +clustered a dense and bushy under-growth, leaving, however, barren +spaces between the trees, thick strewn with withered leaves. Whenever +the rustling of the branches or the creaking of the trunks made a +sound, as if the forest were waking from slumber, Reuben instinctively +raised the musket that rested on his arm, and cast a quick, sharp +glance on every side; but, convinced by a partial observation that no +animal was near, he would again give himself up to his thoughts. He was +musing on the strange influence that had led him away from his +premeditated course, and so far into the depths of the wilderness. +Unable to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives +lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him +onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat. He +trusted that it was Heaven’s intent to afford him an opportunity of +expiating his sin; he hoped that he might find the bones so long +unburied; and that, having laid the earth over them, peace would throw +its sunlight into the sepulchre of his heart. From these thoughts he +was aroused by a rustling in the forest at some distance from the spot +to which he had wandered. Perceiving the motion of some object behind a +thick veil of undergrowth, he fired, with the instinct of a hunter and +the aim of a practised marksman. A low moan, which told his success, +and by which even animals cars express their dying agony, was unheeded +by Reuben Bourne. What were the recollections now breaking upon him? + +The thicket into which Reuben had fired was near the summit of a swell +of land, and was clustered around the base of a rock, which, in the +shape and smoothness of one of its surfaces, was not unlike a gigantic +gravestone. As if reflected in a mirror, its likeness was in Reuben’s +memory. He even recognized the veins which seemed to form an +inscription in forgotten characters: everything remained the same, +except that a thick covert of bushes shrouded the lowerpart of the +rock, and would have hidden Roger Malvin had he still been sitting +there. Yet in the next moment Reuben’s eye was caught by another change +that time had effected since he last stood where he was now standing +again behind the earthy roots of the uptorn tree. The sapling to which +he had bound the bloodstained symbol of his vow had increased and +strengthened into an oak, far indeed from its maturity, but with no +mean spread of shadowy branches. There was one singularity observable +in this tree which made Reuben tremble. The middle and lower branches +were in luxuriant life, and an excess of vegetation had fringed the +trunk almost to the ground; but a blight had apparently stricken the +upper part of the oak, and the very topmost bough was withered, +sapless, and utterly dead. Reuben remembered how the little banner had +fluttered on that topmost bough, when it was green and lovely, eighteen +years before. Whose guilt had blasted it? + + +Dorcas, after the departure of the two hunters, continued her +preparations for their evening repast. Her sylvan table was the +moss-covered trunk of a large fallen tree, on the broadest part of +which she had spread a snow-white cloth and arranged what were left of +the bright pewter vessels that had been her pride in the settlements. +It had a strange aspect that one little spot of homely comfort in the +desolate heart of Nature. The sunshine yet lingered upon the higher +branches of the trees that grew on rising ground; but the shadows of +evening had deepened into the hollow where the encampment was made, and +the firelight began to redden as it gleamed up the tall trunks of the +pines or hovered on the dense and obscure mass of foliage that circled +round the spot. The heart of Dorcas was not sad; for she felt that it +was better to journey in the wilderness with two whom she loved than to +be a lonely woman in a crowd that cared not for her. As she busied +herself in arranging seats of mouldering wood, covered with leaves, for +Reuben and her son, her voice danced through the gloomy forest in the +measure of a song that she had learned in youth. The rude melody, the +production of a bard who won no name, was descriptive of a winter +evening in a frontier cottage, when, secured from savage inroad by the +high-piled snow-drifts, the family rejoiced by their own fireside. The +whole song possessed the nameless charm peculiar to unborrowed thought, +but four continually-recurring lines shone out from the rest like the +blaze of the hearth whose joys they celebrated. Into them, working +magic with a few simple words, the poet had instilled the very essence +of domestic love and household happiness, and they were poetry and +picture joined in one. As Dorcas sang, the walls of her forsaken home +seemed to encircle her; she no longer saw the gloomy pines, nor heard +the wind which still, as she began each verse, sent a heavy breath +through the branches, and died away in a hollow moan from the burden of +the song. She was aroused by the report of a gun in the vicinity of the +encampment; and either the sudden sound, or her loneliness by the +glowing fire, caused her to tremble violently. The next moment she +laughed in the pride of a mother’s heart. + +“My beautiful young hunter! My boy has slain a deer!” she exclaimed, +recollecting that in the direction whence the shot proceeded Cyrus had +gone to the chase. + +She waited a reasonable time to hear her son’s light step bounding over +the rustling leaves to tell of his success. But he did not immediately +appear; and she sent her cheerful voice among the trees in search of +him. + +“Cyrus! Cyrus!” + +His coming was still delayed; and she determined, as the report had +apparently been very near, to seek for him in person. Her assistance, +also, might be necessary in bringing home the venison which she +flattered herself he had obtained. She therefore set forward, directing +her steps by the long-past sound, and singing as she went, in order +that the boy might be aware of her approach and run to meet her. From +behind the trunk of every tree, and from every hiding-place in the +thick foliage of the undergrowth, she hoped to discover the countenance +of her son, laughing with the sportive mischief that is born of +affection. The sun was now beneath the horizon, and the light that came +down among the leaves was sufficiently dim to create many illusions in +her expecting fancy. Several times she seemed indistinctly to see his +face gazing out from among the leaves; and once she imagined that he +stood beckoning to her at the base of a craggy rock. Keeping her eyes +on this object, however, it proved to be no more than the trunk of an +oak fringed to the very ground with little branches, one of which, +thrust out farther than the rest, was shaken by the breeze. Making her +way round the foot of the rock, she suddenly found herself close to her +husband, who had approached in another direction. Leaning upon the butt +of his gun, the muzzle of which rested upon the withered leaves, he was +apparently absorbed in the contemplation of some object at his feet. + +“How is this, Reuben? Have you slain the deer and fallen asleep over +him?” exclaimed Dorcas, laughing cheerfully, on her first slight +observation of his posture and appearance. + +He stirred not, neither did he turn his eyes towards her; and a cold, +shuddering fear, indefinite in its source and object, began to creep +into her blood. She now perceived that her husband’s face was ghastly +pale, and his features were rigid, as if incapable of assuming any +other expression than the strong despair which had hardened upon them. +He gave not the slightest evidence that he was aware of her approach. + +“For the love of Heaven, Reuben, speak to me!” cried Dorcas; and the +strange sound of her own voice affrighted her even more than the dead +silence. + +Her husband started, stared into her face, drew her to the front of the +rock, and pointed with his finger. + +Oh, there lay the boy, asleep, but dreamless, upon the fallen forest +leaves! His cheek rested upon his arm—his curled locks were thrown back +from his brow—his limbs were slightly relaxed. Had a sudden weariness +overcome the youthful hunter? Would his mother’s voice arouse him? She +knew that it was death. + +“This broad rock is the gravestone of your near kindred, Dorcas,” said +her husband. “Your tears will fall at once over your father and your +son.” + +She heard him not. With one wild shriek, that seemed to force its way +from the sufferer’s inmost soul, she sank insensible by the side of her +dead boy. At that moment the withered topmost bough of the oak loosened +itself in the stilly air, and fell in soft, light fragments upon the +rock, upon the leaves, upon Reuben, upon his wife and child, and upon +Roger Malvin’s bones. Then Reuben’s heart was stricken, and the tears +gushed out like water from a rock. The vow that the wounded youth had +made the blighted man had come to redeem. His sin was expiated,—the +curse was gone from him; and in the hour when he had shed blood dearer +to him than his own, a prayer, the first for years, went up to Heaven +from the lips of Reuben Bourne. + + + + +P.’S CORRESPONDENCE + + +My unfortunate friend P. has lost the thread of his life by the +interposition of long intervals of partially disordered reason. The +past and present are jumbled together in his mind in a manner often +productive of curious results, and which will be better understood +after the perusal of the following letter than from any description +that I could give. The poor fellow, without once stirring from the +little whitewashed, iron-grated room to which he alludes in his first +paragraph, is nevertheless a great traveller, and meets in his +wanderings a variety of personages who have long ceased to be visible +to any eye save his own. In my opinion, all this is not so much a +delusion as a partly wilful and partly involuntary sport of the +imagination, to which his disease has imparted such morbid energy that +he beholds these spectral scenes and characters with no less +distinctness than a play upon the stage, and with somewhat more of +illusive credence. Many of his letters are in my possession, some based +upon the same vagary as the present one, and others upon hypotheses not +a whit short of it in absurdity. The whole form a series of +correspondence, which, should fate seasonably remove my poor friend +from what is to him a world of moonshine, I promise myself a pious +pleasure in editing for the public eye. P. had always a hankering after +literary reputation, and has made more than one unsuccessful effort to +achieve it. It would not be a little odd, if, after missing his object +while seeking it by the light of reason, he should prove to have +stumbled upon it in his misty excursions beyond the limits of sanity. + +LONDON, February 29, 1845. + + +MY DEAR FRIEND: Old associations cling to the mind with astonishing +tenacity. Daily custom grows up about us like a stone wall, and +consolidates itself into almost as material an entity as mankind’s +strongest architecture. It is sometimes a serious question with me +whether ideas be not really visible and tangible, and endowed with all +the other qualities of matter. Sitting as I do at this moment in my +hired apartment, writing beside the hearth, over which hangs a print of +Queen Victoria, listening to the muffled roar of the world’s +metropolis, and with a window at but five paces distant, through which, +whenever I please, I can gaze out on actual London,—with all this +positive certainty as to my whereabouts, what kind of notion, do you +think, is just now perplexing my brain? Why,—would you believe it?—that +all this time I am still an inhabitant of that wearisome little +chamber,—that whitewashed little chamber,—that little chamber with its +one small window, across which, from some inscrutable reason of taste +or convenience, my landlord had placed a row of iron bars,—that same +little chamber, in short, whither your kindness has so often brought +you to visit me! Will no length of time or breadth of space enfranchise +me from that unlovely abode? I travel; but it seems to be like the +snail, with my house upon my head. Ah, well! I am verging, I suppose, +on that period of life when present scenes and events make but feeble +impressions in comparison with those of yore; so that I must reconcile +myself to be more and more the prisoner of Memory, who merely lets me +hop about a little with her chain around my leg. + +My letters of introduction have been of the utmost service, enabling me +to make the acquaintance of several distinguished characters who, until +now, have seemed as remote from the sphere of my personal intercourse +as the wits of Queen Anne’s time or Ben Jenson’s compotators at the +Mermaid. One of the first of which I availed myself was the letter to +Lord Byron. I found his lordship looking much older than I had +anticipated, although, considering his former irregularities of life +and the various wear and tear of his constitution, not older than a man +on the verge of sixty reasonably may look. But I had invested his +earthly frame, in my imagination, with the poet’s spiritual +immortality. He wears a brown wig, very luxuriantly curled, and +extending down over his forehead. The expression of his eyes is +concealed by spectacles. His early tendency to obesity having +increased, Lord Byron is now enormously fat,—so fat as to give the +impression of a person quite overladen with his own flesh, and without +sufficient vigor to diffuse his personal life through the great mass of +corporeal substance which weighs upon him so cruelly. You gaze at the +mortal heap; and, while it fills your eye with what purports to be +Byron, you murmur within yourself, “For Heaven’s sake, where is he?” +Were I disposed to be caustic, I might consider this mass of earthly +matter as the symbol, in a material shape, of those evil habits and +carnal vices which unspiritualize man’s nature and clog up his avenues +of communication with the better life. But this would be too harsh; +and, besides, Lord Byron’s morals have been improving while his outward +man has swollen to such unconscionable circumference. Would that he +were leaner; for, though he did me the honor to present his hand, yet +it was so puffed out with alien substance that I could not feel as if I +had touched the hand that wrote Childe Harold. + +On my entrance his lordship apologized for not rising to receive me, on +the sufficient plea that the gout for several years past had taken up +its constant residence in his right foot, which accordingly was swathed +in many rolls of flannel and deposited upon a cushion. The other foot +was hidden in the drapery of his chair. Do you recollect whether +Byron’s right or left foot was the deformed one. + +The noble poet’s reconciliation with Lady Byron is now, as you are +aware, of ten years’ standing; nor does it exhibit, I am assured, any +symptom of breach or fracture. They are said to be, if not a happy, at +least a contented, or at all events a quiet couple, descending the +slope of life with that tolerable degree of mutual support which will +enable them to come easily and comfortably to the bottom. It is +pleasant to reflect how entirely the poet has redeemed his youthful +errors in this particular. Her ladyship’s influence, it rejoices me to +add, has been productive of the happiest results upon Lord Byron in a +religious point of view. He now combines the most rigid tenets of +Methodism with the ultra doctrines of the Puseyites; the former being +perhaps due to the convictions wrought upon his mind by his noble +consort, while the latter are the embroidery and picturesque +illumination demanded by his imaginative character. Much of whatever +expenditure his increasing habits of thrift continue to allow him is +bestowed in the reparation or beautifying of places of worship; and +this nobleman, whose name was once considered a synonyme of the foul +fiend, is now all but canonized as a saint in many pulpits of the +metropolis and elsewhere. In politics, Lord Byron is an uncompromising +conservative, and loses no opportunity, whether in the House of Lords +or in private circles, of denouncing and repudiating the mischievous +and anarchical notions of his earlier day. Nor does he fail to visit +similar sins in other people with the sincerest vengeance which his +somewhat blunted pen is capable of inflicting. Southey and he are on +the most intimate terms. You are aware that, some little time before +the death of Moore, Byron caused that brilliant but reprehensible man +to be evicted from his house. Moore took the insult so much to heart +that, it is said to have been one great cause of the fit of illness +which brought him to the grave. Others pretend that the lyrist died in +a very happy state of mind, singing one of his own sacred melodies, and +expressing his belief that it would be heard within the gate of +paradise, and gain him instant and honorable admittance. I wish he may +have found it so. + +I failed not, as you may suppose, in the course of conversation with +Lord Byron, to pay the weed of homage due to a mighty poet, by +allusions to passages in Childe Harold, and Manfred, and Don Juan, +which have made so large a portion of the music of my life. My words, +whether apt or otherwise, were at least warm with the enthusiasm of one +worthy to discourse of immortal poesy. It was evident, however, that +they did not go precisely to the right spot. I could perceive that +there was some mistake or other, and was not a little angry with +myself, and ashamed of my abortive attempt to throw back, from my own +heart to the gifted author’s ear, the echo of those strains that have +resounded throughout the world. But by and by the secret peeped quietly +out. Byron,—I have the information from his own lips, so that you need +not hesitate to repeat it in literary circles,—Byron is preparing a new +edition of his complete works, carefully corrected, expurgated, and +amended, in accordance with his present creed of taste, morals, +politics, and religion. It so happened that the very passages of +highest inspiration to which I had alluded were among the condemned and +rejected rubbish which it is his purpose to cast into the gulf of +oblivion. To whisper you the truth, it appears to me that his passions +having burned out, the extinction of their vivid and riotous flame has +deprived Lord Byron of the illumination by which he not merely wrote, +but was enabled to feel and comprehend what he had written. Positively +he no longer understands his own poetry. + +This became very apparent on his favoring me so far as to read a few +specimens of Don Juan in the moralized version. Whatever is licentious, +whatever disrespectful to the sacred mysteries of our faith, whatever +morbidly melancholic or splenetically sportive, whatever assails +settled constitutions of government or systems of society, whatever +could wound the sensibility of any mortal, except a pagan, a +republican, or a dissenter, has been unrelentingly blotted out, and its +place supplied by unexceptionable verses in his lordship’s later style. +You may judge how much of the poem remains as hitherto published. The +result is not so good as might be wished; in plain terms, it is a very +sad affair indeed; for, though the torches kindled in Tophet have been +extinguished, they leave an abominably ill odor, and are succeeded by +no glimpses of hallowed fire. It is to be hoped, nevertheless, that +this attempt on Lord Byron’s part to atone for his youthful errors will +at length induce the Dean of Westminster, or whatever churchman is +concerned, to allow Thorwaldsen’s statue of the poet its due niche in +the grand old Abbey. His bones, you know, when brought from Greece, +were denied sepulture among those of his tuneful brethren there. + +What a vile slip of the pen was that! How absurd in me to talk about +burying the bones of Byron, who, I have just seen alive, and incased in +a big, round bulk of flesh! But, to say the truth, a prodigiously fat +man always impresses me as a kind of hobgoblin; in the very +extravagance of his mortal system I find something akin to the +immateriality of a ghost. And then that ridiculous old story darted +into my mind, how that Byron died of fever at Missolonghi, above twenty +years ago. More and more I recognize that we dwell in a world of +shadows; and, for my part, I hold it hardly worth the trouble to +attempt a distinction between shadows in the mind and shadows out of +it. If there be any difference, the former are rather the more +substantial. + +Only think of my good fortune! The venerable Robert Burns—now, if I +mistake not, in his eighty-seventh year—happens to be making a visit to +London, as if on purpose to afford me an opportunity of grasping him by +the hand. For upwards of twenty years past he has hardly left his quiet +cottage in Ayrshire for a single night, and has only been drawn hither +now by the irresistible persuasions of all the distinguished men in +England. They wish to celebrate the patriarch’s birthday by a festival. +It will be the greatest literary triumph on record. Pray Heaven the +little spirit of life within the aged bard’s bosom may not be +extinguished in the lustre of that hour! I have already had the honor +of an introduction to him at the British Museum, where he was examining +a collection of his own unpublished letters, interspersed with songs, +which have escaped the notice of all his biographers. + +Poh! Nonsense! What am I thinking of? How should Burns have been +embalmed in biography when he is still a hearty old man? + +The figure of the bard is tall and in the highest degree reverend, nor +the less so that it is much bent by the burden of time. His white hair +floats like a snowdrift around his face, in which are seen the furrows +of intellect and passion, like the channels of headlong torrents that +have foamed themselves away. The old gentleman is in excellent +preservation, considering his time of life. He has that crickety sort +of liveliness,—I mean the cricket’s humor of chirping for any cause or +none,—which is perhaps the most favorable mood that can befall extreme +old age. Our pride forbids us to desire it for ourselves, although we +perceive it to be a beneficence of nature in the case of others. I was +surprised to find it in Burns. It seems as if his ardent heart and +brilliant imagination had both burned down to the last embers, leaving +only a little flickering flame in one corner, which keeps dancing +upward and laughing all by itself. He is no longer capable of pathos. +At the request of Allan Cunningham, he attempted to sing his own song +to Mary in Heaven; but it was evident that the feeling of those verses, +so profoundly true and so simply expressed, was entirely beyond the +scope of his present sensibilities; and, when a touch of it did +partially awaken him, the tears immediately gushed into his eyes and +his voice broke into a tremulous cackle. And yet he but indistinctly +knew wherefore he was weeping. Ah, he must not think again of Mary in +Heaven until he shake off the dull impediment of time and ascend to +meet her there. + +Burns then began to repeat Tan O’Shanter; but was so tickled with its +wit and humor—of which, however, I suspect he had but a traditionary +sense—that he soon burst into a fit of chirruping laughter, succeeded +by a cough, which brought this not very agreeable exhibition to a +close. On the whole, I would rather not have witnessed it. It is a +satisfactory idea, however, that the last forty years of the peasant +poet’s life have been passed in competence and perfect comfort. Having +been cured of his bardic improvidence for many a day past, and grown as +attentive to the main chance as a canny Scotsman should be, he is now +considered to be quite well off as to pecuniary circumstances. This, I +suppose, is worth having lived so long for. + +I took occasion to inquire of some of the countrymen of Burns in regard +to the health of Sir Walter Scott. His condition, I am sorry to say, +remains the same as for ten years past; it is that of a hopeless +paralytic, palsied not more in body than in those nobler attributes of +which the body is the instrument. And thus he vegetates from day to day +and from year to year at that splendid fantasy of Abbotsford, which +grew out of his brain, and became a symbol of the great romancer’s +tastes, feelings, studies, prejudices, and modes of intellect. Whether +in verse, prose, or architecture, he could achieve but one thing, +although that one in infinite variety. There he reclines, on a couch in +his library, and is said to spend whole hours of every day in dictating +tales to an amanuensis,—to an imaginary amanuensis; for it is not +deemed worth any one’s trouble now to take down what flows from that +once brilliant fancy, every image of which was formerly worth gold and +capable of being coined. Yet Cunningham, who has lately seen him, +assures me that there is now and then a touch of the genius,—a striking +combination of incident, or a picturesque trait of character, such as +no other man alive could have bit off,—a glimmer from that ruined mind, +as if the sun had suddenly flashed on a half-rusted helmet in the gloom +of an ancient ball. But the plots of these romances become inextricably +confused; the characters melt into one another; and the tale loses +itself like the course of a stream flowing through muddy and marshy +ground. + +For my part, I can hardly regret that Sir Walter Scott had lost his +consciousness of outward things before his works went out of vogue. It +was good that he should forget his fame rather than that fame should +first have forgotten him. Were he still a writer, and as brilliant a +one as ever, he could no longer maintain anything like the same +position in literature. The world, nowadays, requires a more earnest +purpose, a deeper moral, and a closer and homelier truth than he was +qualified to supply it with. Yet who can be to the present generation +even what Scott has been to the past? I had expectations from a young +man,—one Dickens,—who published a few magazine articles, very rich in +humor, and not without symptoms of genuine pathos; but the poor fellow +died shortly after commencing an odd series of sketches, entitled, I +think, the Pickwick Papers. Not impossibly the world has lost more than +it dreams of by the untimely death of this Mr. Dickens. + +Whom do you think I met in Pall Mall the other day? You would not hit +it in ten guesses. Why, no less a man than Napoleon Bonaparte, or all +that is now left of him,—that is to say, the skin, bones, and corporeal +substance, little cocked hat, green coat, white breeches, and small +sword, which are still known by his redoubtable name. He was attended +only by two policemen, who walked quietly behind the phantasm of the +old ex-emperor, appearing to have no duty in regard to him except to +see that none of the light-fingered gentry should possess themselves of +thee star of the Legion of Honor. Nobody save myself so much as turned +to look after him; nor, it grieves me to confess, could even I contrive +to muster up any tolerable interest, even by all that the warlike +spirit, formerly manifested within that now decrepit shape, had wrought +upon our globe. There is no surer method of annihilating the magic +influence of a great renown than by exhibiting the possessor of it in +the decline, the overthrow, the utter degradation of his powers,—buried +beneath his own mortality,—and lacking even the qualities of sense that +enable the most ordinary men to bear themselves decently in the eye of +the world. This is the state to which disease, aggravated by long +endurance of a tropical climate, and assisted by old age,—for he is now +above seventy,—has reduced Bonaparte. The British government has acted +shrewdly in retransporting him from St. Helena to England. They should +now restore him to Paris, and there let him once again review the +relics of his armies. His eye is dull and rheumy; his nether lip hung +down upon his chin. While I was observing him there chanced to be a +little extra bustle in the street; and he, the brother of Caesar and +Hannibal,—the great captain who had veiled the world in battle-smoke +and tracked it round with bloody footsteps,—was seized with a nervous +trembling, and claimed the protection of the two policemen by a cracked +and dolorous cry. The fellows winked at one another, laughed aside, +and, patting Napoleon on the back, took each an arm and led him away. + +Death and fury! Ha, villain, how came you hither? Avaunt! or I fling my +inkstand at your head. Tush, tusk; it is all a mistake. Pray, my dear +friend, pardon this little outbreak. The fact is, the mention of those +two policemen, and their custody of Bonaparte, had called up the idea +of that odious wretch—you remember him well—who was pleased to take +such gratuitous and impertinent care of my person before I quitted New +England. Forthwith up rose before my mind’s eye that same little +whitewashed room, with the iron-grated window,—strange that it should +have been iron-grated!—where, in too easy compliance with the absurd +wishes of my relatives, I have wasted several good years of my life. +Positively it seemed to me that I was still sitting there, and that the +keeper—not that he ever was my keeper neither, but only a kind of +intrusive devil of a body-servant—had just peeped in at the door. The +rascal! I owe him an old grudge, and will find a time to pay it yet. +Fie! fie! The mere thought of him has exceedingly discomposed me. Even +now that hateful chamber—the iron-grated window, which blasted the +blessed sunshine as it fell through the dusty panes and made it poison +to my soul-looks more distinct to my view than does this my comfortable +apartment in the heart of London. The reality—that which I know to be +such—hangs like remnants of tattered scenery over the intolerably +prominent illusion. Let us think of it no more. + +You will be anxious to hear of Shelley. I need not say, what is known +to all the world, that this celebrated poet has for many years past +been reconciled to the Church of England. In his more recent works he +has applied his fine powers to the vindication of the Christian faith, +with an especial view to that particular development. Latterly, as you +may not have heard, he has taken orders, and been inducted to a small +country living in the gift of the Lord Chancellor. Just now, luckily +for me, he has come to the metropolis to superintend the publication of +a volume of discourses treating of the poetico-philosophical proofs of +Christianity on the basis of the Thirty-nine Articles. On my first +introduction I felt no little embarrassment as to the manner of +combining what I had to say to the author of _Queen Mali_, the _Revolt +of Islam_, and _Prometheus Unbound_ with such acknowledgments as might +be acceptable to a Christian minister and zealous upholder of the +Established Church. But Shelley soon placed me at my ease. Standing +where he now does, and reviewing all his successive productions from a +higher point, he assures me that there is a harmony, an order, a +regular procession, which enables him to lay his hand upon any one of +the earlier poems and say, “This is my work,” with precisely the same +complacency of conscience wherewithal he contemplates the volume of +discourses above mentioned. They are like the successive steps of a +staircase, the lowest of which, in the depth of chaos, is as essential +to the support of the whole as the highest and final one resting upon +the threshold of the heavens. I felt half inclined to ask him what +would have been his fate had he perished on the lower steps of his +staircase, instead of building his way aloft into the celestial +brightness. + +How all this may be I neither pretend to understand nor greatly care, +so long as Shelley has really climbed, as it seems he has, from a lower +region to a loftier one. Without touching upon their religious merits, +I consider the productions of his maturity superior, as poems, to those +of his youth. They are warmer with human love, which has served as an +interpreter between his mind and the multitude. The author has learned +to dip his pen oftener into his heart, and has thereby avoided the +faults into which a too exclusive use of fancy and intellect are wont +to betray him. Formerly his page was often little other than a concrete +arrangement of crystallizations, or even of icicles, as cold as they +were brilliant. Now you take it to your heart, and are conscious of a +heart-warmth responsive to your own. In his private character Shelley +can hardly have grown more gentle, kind, and affectionate than his +friends always represented him to be up to that disastrous night when +he was drowned in the Mediterranean. Nonsense, again,—sheer nonsense! +What, am I babbling about? I was thinking of that old figment of his +being lost in the Bay of Spezzia, and washed ashore near Via Reggio, +and burned to ashes on a funeral pyre, with wine, and spices, and +frankincense; while Byron stood on the beach and beheld a flame of +marvellous beauty rise heavenward from the dead poet’s heart, and that +his fire-purified relics were finally buried near his child in Roman +earth. If all this happened three-and-twenty years ago, how could I +have met the drowned and burned and buried man here in London only +yesterday? + +Before quitting the subject, I may mention that Dr. Reginald Heber, +heretofore Bishop of Calcutta, but recently translated to a see in +England, called on Shelley while I was with him. They appeared to be on +terms of very cordial intimacy, and are said to have a joint poem in +contemplation. What a strange, incongruous dream is the life of man! + +Coleridge has at last finished his poem of Christabel. It will be +issued entire by old John Murray in the course of the present +publishing season. The poet, I hear, is visited with a troublesome +affection of the tongue, which has put a period, or some lesser stop, +to the life-long discourse that has hitherto been flowing from his +lips. He will not survive it above a month, unless his accumulation of +ideas be sluiced off in some other way. Wordsworth died only a week or +two ago. Heaven rest his soul, and grant that he may not have completed +_The Excursion_! Methinks I am sick of everything he wrote, except his +_Laodamia_. It is very sad, this inconstancy of the mind to the poets +whom it once worshipped. Southey is as hale as ever, and writes with +his usual diligence. Old Gifford is still alive, in the extremity of +age, and with most pitiable decay of what little sharp and narrow +intellect the Devil had gifted him withal. One hates to allow such a +man the privilege of growing old and infirm. It takes away our +speculative license of kicking him. + +Keats? No; I have not seen him except across a crowded street, with +coaches, drays, horsemen, cabs, omnibuses, foot-passengers, and divers +other sensual obstructions intervening betwixt his small and slender +figure and my eager glance. I would fain have met him on the sea-shore, +or beneath a natural arch of forest trees, or the Gothic arch of an old +cathedral, or among Grecian ruins, or at a glimmering fireside on the +verge of evening, or at the twilight entrance of a cave, into the +dreamy depths of which he would have led me by the hand; anywhere, in +short, save at Temple Bar, where his presence was blotted out by the +porter-swollen bulks of these gross Englishmen. I stood and watched him +fading away, fading away along the pavement, and could hardly tell +whether he were an actual man or a thought that had slipped out of my +mind and clothed itself in human form and habiliments merely to beguile +me. At one moment he put his handkerchief to his lips, and withdrew it, +I am almost certain, stained with blood. You never saw anything so +fragile as his person. The truth is, Keats has all his life felt the +effects of that terrible bleeding at the lungs caused by the article on +his Endymion in the Quarterly Review, and which so nearly brought him +to the grave. Ever since he has glided about the world like a ghost, +sighing a melancholy tone in the ear of here and there a friend, but +never sending forth his voice to greet the multitude. I can hardly +think him a great poet. The burden of a mighty genius would never have +been imposed upon shoulders so physically frail and a spirit so +infirmly sensitive. Great poets should have iron sinews. + +Yet Keats, though for so many years he has given nothing to the world, +is understood to have devoted himself to the composition of an epic +poem. Some passages of it have been communicated to the inner circle of +his admirers, and impressed them as the loftiest strains that have been +audible on earth since Milton’s days. If I can obtain copies of these +specimens, I will ask you to present them to James Russell Lowell, who +seems to be one of the poet’s most fervent and worthiest worshippers. +The information took me by surprise. I had supposed that all Keats’s +poetic incense, without being embodied in human language, floated up to +heaven and mingled with the songs of the immortal choristers, who +perhaps were conscious of an unknown voice among them, and thought +their melody the sweeter for it. But it is not so; he has positively +written a poem on the subject of _Paradise Regained_, though in another +sense than that which presented itself to the mind of Milton. In +compliance, it may be imagined, with the dogma of those who pretend +that all epic possibilities in the past history of the world are +exhausted, Keats has thrown his poem forward into an indefinitely +remote futurity. He pictures mankind amid the closing circumstances of +the time-long warfare between good and evil. Our race is on the eve of +its final triumph. Man is within the last stride of perfection; Woman, +redeemed from the thraldom against which our sibyl uplifts so powerful +and so sad a remonstrance, stands equal by his side or communes for +herself with angels; the Earth, sympathizing with her children’s +happier state, has clothed herself in such luxuriant and loving beauty +as no eye ever witnessed since our first parents saw the sun rise over +dewy Eden. Nor then indeed; for this is the fulfilment of what was then +but a golden promise. But the picture has its shadows. There remains to +mankind another peril,—a last encounter with the evil principle. Should +the battle go against us, we sink back into the slime and misery of +ages. If we triumph—But it demands a poet’s eye to contemplate the +splendor of such a consummation and not to be dazzled. + +To this great work Keats is said to have brought so deep and tender a +spirit of humanity that the poem has all the sweet and warm interest of +a village tale no less than the grandeur which befits so high a theme. +Such, at least, is the perhaps partial representation of his friends; +for I have not read or heard even a single line of the performance in +question. Keats, I am told, withholds it from the press, under an idea +that the age has not enough of spiritual insight to receive it +worthily. I do not like this distrust; it makes me distrust the poet. +The universe is waiting to respond to the highest word that the best +child of time and immortality can utter. If it refuse to listen, it is +because he mumbles and stammers, or discourses things unseasonable and +foreign to the purpose. + +I visited the House of Lords the other day to hear Canning, who, you +know, is now a peer, with I forget what title. He disappointed me. Time +blunts both point and edge, and does great mischief to men of his order +of intellect. Then I stepped into the lower House and listened to a few +words from Cobbett, who looked as earthy as a real clodhopper, or +rather as if he had lain a dozen years beneath the clods. The men whom +I meet nowadays often impress me thus; probably because my spirits are +not very good, and lead me to think much about graves, with the long +grass upon them, and weather-worn epitaphs, and dry bones of people who +made noise enough in their day, but now can only clatter, clatter, +clatter, when the sexton’s spade disturbs them. Were it only possible +to find out who are alive and who dead, it would contribute infinitely +to my peace of mind. Every day of my life somebody comes and stares me +in the face whom I had quietly blotted out of the tablet of living men, +and trusted nevermore to be pestered with the sight or sound of him. +For instance, going to Drury Lane Theatre a few evenings since, up rose +before me, in the ghost of Hamlet’s father, the bodily presence of the +elder Kean, who did die, or ought to have died, in some drunken fit or +other, so long ago that his fame is scarcely traditionary now. His +powers are quite gone; he was rather the ghost of himself than the +ghost of the Danish king. + +In the stage-box sat several elderly and decrepit people, and among +them a stately ruin of a woman on a very large scale, with a +profile—for I did not see her front face—that stamped itself into my +brain as a seal impresses hot wax. By the tragic gesture with which she +took a pinch of snuff, I was sure it must be Mrs. Siddons. Her brother, +John Kemble, sat behind,—a broken-down figure, but still with a kingly +majesty about him. In lieu of all former achievements, Nature enables +him to look the part of Lear far better than in the meridian of his +genius. Charles Matthews was likewise there; but a paralytic affection +has distorted his once mobile countenance into a most disagreeable +one-sidedness, from which he could no more wrench it into proper form +than he could rearrange the face of the great globe itself. It looks as +if, for the joke’s sake, the poor man had twisted his features into an +expression at once the most ludicrous and horrible that he could +contrive, and at that very moment, as a judgment for making himself so +hideous, an avenging Providence had seen fit to petrify him. Since it +is out of his own power, I would gladly assist him to change +countenance, for his ugly visage haunts me both at noontide and +night-time. Some other players of the past generation were present, but +none that greatly interested me. It behooves actors, more than all +other men of publicity, to vanish from the scene betimes. Being at best +but painted shadows flickering on the wall and empty sounds that echo +anther’s thought, it is a sad disenchantment when the colors begin to +fade and the voice to croak with age. + +What is there new in the literary way on your side of the water? +Nothing of the kind has come under any inspection, except a volume of +poems published above a year ago by Dr. Channing. I did not before know +that this eminent writer is a poet; nor does the volume alluded to +exhibit any of the characteristics of the author’s mind as displayed in +his prose works; although some of the poems have a richness that is not +merely of the surface, but glows still the brighter the deeper and more +faithfully you look into then. They seem carelessly wrought, however, +like those rings and ornaments of the very purest gold, but of rude, +native manufacture, which are found among the gold-dust from Africa. I +doubt whether the American public will accept them; it looks less to +the assay of metal than to the neat and cunning manufacture. How slowly +our literature grows up! Most of our writers of promise have come to +untimely ends. There was that wild fellow, John Neal, who almost turned +my boyish brain with his romances; he surely has long been dead, else +he never could keep himself so quiet. Bryant has gone to his last +sleep, with the _Thanatopsis_ gleaming over him like a sculptured +marble sepulchre by moonlight. Halleck, who used to write queer verses +in the newspapers and published a Don Juanic poem called _Fanny_, is +defunct as a poet, though averred to be exemplifying the metempsychosis +as a man of business. Somewhat later there was Whittier, a fiery Quaker +youth, to whom the muse had perversely assigned a battle-trumpet, and +who got himself lynched, ten years agone, in South Carolina. I +remember, too, a lad just from college, Longfellow by name, who +scattered some delicate verses to the winds, and went to Germany, and +perished, I think, of intense application, at the University of +Gottingen. Willis—what a pity!—was lost, if I recollect rightly, in +1833, on his voyage to Europe, whither he was going to give us sketches +of the world’s sunny face. If these had lived, they might, one or all +of them, have grown to be famous men. + +And yet there is no telling: it may be as well that they have died. I +was myself a young man of promise. O shattered brain, O broken spirit, +where is the fulfilment of that promise? The sad truth is, that, when +fate would gently disappoint the world, it takes away the hopefulest +mortals in their youth; when it would laugh the world’s hopes to scorn, +it lets them live. Let me die upon this apothegm, for I shall never +make a truer one. + +What a strange substance is the human brain! Or rather,—for there is no +need of generalizing the remark,—what an odd brain is mine! Would you +believe it? Daily and nightly there come scraps of poetry humming in my +intellectual ear—some as airy as birdnotes, and some as delicately neat +as parlor-music, and a few as grand as organ-peals—that seem just such +verses as those departed poets would have written had not an inexorable +destiny snatched them from their inkstands. They visit me in spirit, +perhaps desiring to engage my services as the amanuensis of their +posthumous productions, and thus secure the endless renown that they +have forfeited by going hence too early. But I have my own business to +attend to; and besides, a medical gentleman, who interests himself in +some little ailments of mine, advises me not to make too free use of +pen and ink. There are clerks enough out of employment who would be +glad of such a job. + +Good by! Are you alive or dead? and what are you about? Still +scribbling for the Democratic? And do those infernal compositors and +proof-readers misprint your unfortunate productions as vilely as ever? +It is too bad. Let every man manufacture his own nonsense, say I. +Expect me home soon, and—to whisper you a secret—in company with the +poet Campbell, who purposes to visit Wyoming and enjoy the shadow of +the laurels that he planted there. Campbell is now an old man. He calls +himself well, better than ever in his life, but looks strangely pale, +and so shadow-like that one might almost poke a finger through his +densest material. I tell him, by way of joke, that he is as dim and +forlorn as Memory, though as unsubstantial as Hope. + +Your true friend, P. + + +P. S.—Pray present my most respectful regards to our venerable and +revered friend Mr. Brockden Brown. + +It gratifies me to learn that a complete edition of his works, in a +double-columned octavo volume, is shortly to issue from the press at +Philadelphia. Tell him that no American writer enjoys a more classic +reputation on this side of the water. Is old Joel Barlow yet alive? +Unconscionable man! Why, he must have nearly fulfilled his century. And +does he meditate an epic on the war between Mexico and Texas with +machinery contrived on the principle of the steam-engine, as being the +nearest to celestial agency that our epoch can boast? How can he expect +ever to rise again, if, while just sinking into his grave, he persists +in burdening himself with such a ponderosity of leaden verses? + + + + +EARTH’S HOLOCAUST + + +Once upon a time—but whether in the time past or time to come is a +matter of little or no moment—this wide world had become so +overburdened with an accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the +inhabitants determined to rid themselves of it by a general bonfire. +The site fixed upon at the representation of the insurance companies, +and as being as central a spot as any other on the globe, was one of +the broadest prairies of the West, where no human habitation would be +endangered by the flames, and where a vast assemblage of spectators +might commodiously admire the show. Having a taste for sights of this +kind, and imagining, likewise, that the illumination of the bonfire +might reveal some profundity of moral truth heretofore hidden in mist +or darkness, I made it convenient to journey thither and be present. At +my arrival, although the heap of condemned rubbish was as yet +comparatively small, the torch had already been applied. Amid that +boundless plain, in the dusk of the evening, like a far off star alone +in the firmament, there was merely visible one tremulous gleam, whence +none could have anticipated so fierce a blaze as was destined to ensue. +With every moment, however, there came foot-travellers, women holding +up their aprons, men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering +baggage-wagons, and other vehicles, great and small, and from far and +near, laden with articles that were judged fit for nothing but to be +burned. + +“What materials have been used to kindle the flame?” inquired I of a +bystander; for I was desirous of knowing the whole process of the +affair from beginning to end. + +The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or +thereabout, who had evidently come thither as a looker-on. He struck me +immediately as having weighed for himself the true value of life and +its circumstances, and therefore as feeling little personal interest in +whatever judgment the world might form of them. Before answering my +question, he looked me in the face by the kindling light of the fire. + +“O, some very dry combustibles,” replied he, “and extremely suitable to +the purpose,—no other, in fact, than yesterday’s newspapers, last +month’s magazines, and last year’s withered leaves. Here now comes some +antiquated trash that will take fire like a handful of shavings.” + +As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the +bonfire, and threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the herald’s +office,—the blazonry of coat armor, the crests and devices of +illustrious families, pedigrees that extended back, like lines of +light, into the mist of the dark ages, together with stars, garters, +and embroidered collars, each of which, as paltry a bawble as it might +appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed vast significance, +and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most precious of moral or +material facts by the worshippers of the gorgeous past. Mingled with +this confused heap, which was tossed into the flames by armfuls at +once, were innumerable badges of knighthood, comprising those of all +the European sovereignties, and Napoleon’s decoration of the Legion of +Honor, the ribbons of which were entangled with those of the ancient +order of St. Louis. There, too, were the medals of our own Society of +Cincinnati, by means of which, as history tells us, an order of +hereditary knights came near being constituted out of the king quellers +of the Revolution. And besides, there were the patents of nobility of +German counts and barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, from the +worm-eaten instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the +bran-new parchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from +the fair hand of Victoria. + +At sight of the dense volumes of smoke, mingled with vivid jets of +flame, that gushed and eddied forth from this immense pile of earthly +distinctions, the multitude of plebeian spectators set up a joyous +shout, and clapped their hands with an emphasis that made the welkin +echo. That was their moment of triumph, achieved, after long ages, over +creatures of the same clay and the same spiritual infirmities, who had +dared to assume the privileges due only to Heaven’s better workmanship. +But now there rushed towards the blazing heap a gray-haired man, of +stately presence, wearing a coat, from the breast of which a star, or +other badge of rank, seemed to have been forcibly wrenched away. He had +not the tokens of intellectual power in his face; but still there was +the demeanor, the habitual and almost native dignity, of one who had +been born to the idea of his own social superiority, and had never felt +it questioned till that moment. + +“People,” cried he, gazing at the ruin of what was dearest to his eyes +with grief and wonder, but nevertheless with a degree of +stateliness,—“people, what have you done? This fire is consuming all +that marked your advance from barbarism, or that could have prevented +your relapse thither. We, the men of the privileged orders, were those +who kept alive from age to age the old chivalrous spirit; the gentle +and generous thought; the higher, the purer, the more refined and +delicate life. With the nobles, too, you cast off the poet, the +painter, the sculptor,—all the beautiful arts; for we were their +patrons, and created the atmosphere in which they flourish. In +abolishing the majestic distinctions of rank, society loses not only +its grace, but its steadfastness—” + +More he would doubtless have spoken; but here there arose an outcry, +sportive, contemptuous, and indignant, that altogether drowned the +appeal of the fallen nobleman, insomuch that, casting one look of +despair at his own half-burned pedigree, he shrunk back into the crowd, +glad to shelter himself under his new-found insignificance. + +“Let him thank his stars that we have not flung him into the same +fire!” shouted a rude figure, spurning the embers with his foot. “And +henceforth let no man dare to show a piece of musty parchment as his +warrant for lording it over his fellows. If he have strength of arm, +well and good; it is one species of superiority. If he have wit, +wisdom, courage, force of character, let these attributes do for him +what they may; but from this day forward no mortal must hope for place +and consideration by reckoning up the mouldy bones of his ancestors. +That nonsense is done away.” + +“And in good time,” remarked the grave observer by my side, in a low +voice, however, “if no worse nonsense comes in its place; but, at all +events, this species of nonsense has fairly lived out its life.” + +There was little space to muse or moralize over the embers of this +time-honored rubbish; for, before it was half burned out, there came +another multitude from beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of +royalty, and the crowns, globes, and sceptres of emperors and kings. +All these had been condemned as useless bawbles, playthings at best, +fit only for the infancy of the world or rods to govern and chastise it +in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at its full-grown +stature could no longer brook to be insulted. Into such contempt had +these regal insignia now fallen that the gilded crown and tinselled +robes of the player king from Drury Lane Theatre had been thrown in +among the rest, doubtless as a mockery of his brother monarchs on the +great stage of the world. It was a strange sight to discern the crown +jewels of England glowing and flashing in the midst of the fire. Some +of them had been delivered down from the time of the Saxon princes; +others were purchased with vast revenues, or perchance ravished from +the dead brows of the native potentates of Hindustan; and the whole now +blazed with a dazzling lustre, as if a star had fallen in that spot and +been shattered into fragments. The splendor of the ruined monarchy had +no reflection save in those inestimable precious stones. But enough on +this subject. It were but tedious to describe how the Emperor of +Austria’s mantle was converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars +of the French throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible to +distinguish from those of any other wood. Let me add, however, that I +noticed one of the exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire with the Czar +of Russia’s sceptre, which he afterwards flung into the flames. + +“The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable here,” observed my +new acquaintance, as the breeze enveloped us in the smoke of a royal +wardrobe. “Let us get to windward and see what they are doing on the +other side of the bonfire.” + +We accordingly passed around, and were just in time to witness the +arrival of a vast procession of Washingtonians,—as the votaries of +temperance call themselves nowadays,—accompanied by thousands of the +Irish disciples of Father Mathew, with that great apostle at their +head. They brought a rich contribution to the bonfire, being nothing +less than all the hogsheads and barrels of liquor in the world, which +they rolled before them across the prairie. + +“Now, my children,” cried Father Mathew, when they reached the verge of +the fire, “one shove more, and the work is done. And now let us stand +off and see Satan deal with his own liquor.” + +Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels within reach of the +flames, the procession stood off at a safe distance, and soon beheld +them burst into a blaze that reached the clouds and threatened to set +the sky itself on fire. And well it might; for here was the whole +world’s stock of spirituous liquors, which, instead of kindling a +frenzied light in the eyes of individual topers as of yore, soared +upwards with a bewildering gleam that startled all mankind. It was the +aggregate of that fierce fire which would otherwise have scorched the +hearts of millions. Meantime numberless bottles of precious wine were +flung into the blaze, which lapped up the contents as if it loved them, +and grew, like other drunkards, the merrier and fiercer for what it +quaffed. Never again will the insatiable thirst of the fire-fiend be so +pampered. Here were the treasures of famous bon vivants,—liquors that +had been tossed on ocean, and mellowed in the sun, and hoarded long in +the recesses of the earth,—the pale, the gold, the ruddy juice of +whatever vineyards were most delicate,—the entire vintage of Tokay,—all +mingling in one stream with the vile fluids of the common pot house, +and contributing to heighten the self-same blaze. And while it rose in +a gigantic spire that seemed to wave against the arch of the firmament +and combine itself with the light of stars, the multitude gave a shout +as if the broad earth were exulting in its deliverance from the curse +of ages. + +But the joy was not universal. Many deemed that human life would be +gloomier than ever when that brief illumination should sink down. While +the reformers were at work I overheard muttered expostulations from +several respectable gentlemen with red noses and wearing gouty shoes; +and a ragged worthy, whose face looked like a hearth where the fire is +burned out, now expressed his discontent more openly and boldly. + +“What is this world good for,” said the last toper, “now that we can +never be jolly any more? What is to comfort the poor man in sorrow and +perplexity? How is he to keep his heart warm against the cold winds of +this cheerless earth? And what do you propose to give him in exchange +for the solace that you take away? How are old friends to sit together +by the fireside without a cheerful glass between them? A plague upon +your reformation! It is a sad world, a cold world, a selfish world, a +low world, not worth an honest fellow’s living in, now that good +fellowship is gone forever!” + +This harangue excited great mirth among the bystanders; but, +preposterous as was the sentiment, I could not help commiserating the +forlorn condition of the last toper, whose boon companions had dwindled +away from his side, leaving the poor fellow without a soul to +countenance him in sipping his liquor, nor indeed any liquor to sip. +Not that this was quite the true state of the case; for I had observed +him at a critical moment filch a bottle of fourth-proof brandy that +fell beside the bonfire and hide it in his pocket. + +The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus disposed of, the zeal +of the reformers next induced them to replenish the fire with all the +boxes of tea and bags of coffee in the world. And now came the planters +of Virginia, bringing their crops of tobacco. These, being cast upon +the heap of inutility, aggregated it to the size of a mountain, and +incensed the atmosphere with such potent fragrance that methought we +should never draw pure breath again. The present sacrifice seemed to +startle the lovers of the weed more than any that they had hitherto +witnessed. + +“Well, they’ve put my pipe out,” said an old gentleman, flinging it +into the flames in a pet. “What is this world coming to? Everything +rich and racy—all the spice of life—is to be condemned as useless. Now +that they have kindled the bonfire, if these nonsensical reformers +would fling themselves into it, all would be well enough!” + +“Be patient,” responded a stanch conservative; “it will come to that in +the end. They will first fling us in, and finally themselves.” + +From the general and systematic measures of reform I now turn to +consider the individual contributions to this memorable bonfire. In +many instances these were of a very amusing character. One poor fellow +threw in his empty purse, and another a bundle of counterfeit or +insolvable bank-notes. Fashionable ladies threw in their last season’s +bonnets, together with heaps of ribbons, yellow lace, and much other +half-worn milliner’s ware, all of which proved even more evanescent in +the fire than it had been in the fashion. A multitude of lovers of both +sexes—discarded maids or bachelors and couples mutually weary of one +another—tossed in bundles of perfumed letters and enamored sonnets. A +hack politician, being deprived of bread by the loss of office, threw +in his teeth, which happened to be false ones. The Rev. Sydney +Smith—having voyaged across the Atlantic for that sole purpose—came up +to the bonfire with a bitter grin and threw in certain repudiated +bonds, fortified though they were with the broad seal of a sovereign +state. A little boy of five years old, in the premature manliness of +the present epoch, threw in his playthings; a college graduate, his +diploma; an apothecary, ruined by the spread of homeopathy, his whole +stock of drugs and medicines; a physician, his library; a parson, his +old sermons; and a fine gentleman of the old school, his code of +manners, which he had formerly written down for the benefit of the next +generation. A widow, resolving on a second marriage, slyly threw in her +dead husband’s miniature. A young man, jilted by his mistress, would +willingly have flung his own desperate heart into the flames, but could +find no means to wrench it out of his bosom. An American author, whose +works were neglected by the public, threw his pen and paper into the +bonfire and betook himself to some less discouraging occupation. It +somewhat startled me to overhear a number of ladies, highly respectable +in appearance, proposing to fling their gowns and petticoats into the +flames, and assume the garb, together with the manners, duties, +offices, and responsibilities, of the opposite sex. + +What favor was accorded to this scheme I am unable to say, my attention +being suddenly drawn to a poor, deceived, and half-delirious girl, who, +exclaiming that she was the most worthless thing alive or dead, +attempted to cast herself into the fire amid all that wrecked and +broken trumpery of the world. A good man, however, ran to her rescue. + +“Patience, my poor girl!” said he, as he drew her back from the fierce +embrace of the destroying angel. “Be patient, and abide Heaven’s will. +So long as you possess a living soul, all may be restored to its first +freshness. These things of matter and creations of human fantasy are +fit for nothing but to be burned when once they have had their day; but +your day is eternity!” + +“Yes,” said the wretched girl, whose frenzy seemed now to have sunk +down into deep despondency, “yes, and the sunshine is blotted out of +it!” + +It was now rumored among the spectators that all the weapons and +munitions of war were to be thrown into the bonfire with the exception +of the world’s stock of gunpowder, which, as the safest mode of +disposing of it, had already been drowned in the sea. This intelligence +seemed to awaken great diversity of opinion. The hopeful philanthropist +esteemed it a token that the millennium was already come; while persons +of another stamp, in whose view mankind was a breed of bulldogs, +prophesied that all the old stoutness, fervor, nobleness, generosity, +and magnanimity of the race would disappear,—these qualities, as they +affirmed, requiring blood for their nourishment. They comforted +themselves, however, in the belief that the proposed abolition of war +was impracticable for any length of time together. + +Be that as it might, numberless great guns, whose thunder had long been +the voice of battle,—the artillery of the Armada, the battering trains +of Marlborough, and the adverse cannon of Napoleon and Wellington,—were +trundled into the midst of the fire. By the continual addition of dry +combustibles, it had now waxed so intense that neither brass nor iron +could withstand it. It was wonderful to behold how these terrible +instruments of slaughter melted away like playthings of wax. Then the +armies of the earth wheeled around the mighty furnace, with their +military music playing triumphant marches,—and flung in their muskets +and swords. The standard-bearers, likewise, cast one look upward at +their banners, all tattered with shot-holes and inscribed with the +names of victorious fields; and, giving them a last flourish on the +breeze, they lowered them into the flame, which snatched them upward in +its rush towards the clouds. This ceremony being over, the world was +left without a single weapon in its hands, except possibly a few old +king’s arms and rusty swords and other trophies of the Revolution in +some of our State armories. And now the drums were beaten and the +trumpets brayed all together, as a prelude to the proclamation of +universal and eternal peace and the announcement that glory was no +longer to be won by blood, but that it would henceforth be the +contention of the human race to work out the greatest mutual good, and +that beneficence, in the future annals of the earth, would claim the +praise of valor. The blessed tidings were accordingly promulgated, and +caused infinite rejoicings among those who had stood aghast at the +horror and absurdity of war. + +But I saw a grim smile pass over the seared visage of a stately old +commander,—by his war-worn figure and rich military dress, he might +have been one of Napoleon’s famous marshals,—who, with the rest of the +world’s soldiery, had just flung away the sword that had been familiar +to his right hand for half a century. + +“Ay! ay!” grumbled he. “Let them proclaim what they please; but, in the +end, we shall find that all this foolery has only made more work for +the armorers and cannon-founders.” + +“Why, sir,” exclaimed I, in astonishment, “do you imagine that the +human race will ever so far return on the steps of its past madness as +to weld another sword or cast another cannon?” + +“There will be no need,” observed, with a sneer, one who neither felt +benevolence nor had faith in it. “When Cain wished to slay his brother, +he was at no loss for a weapon.” + +“We shall see,” replied the veteran commander. “If I am mistaken, so +much the better; but in my opinion, without pretending to philosophize +about the matter, the necessity of war lies far deeper than these +honest gentlemen suppose. What! is there a field for all the petty +disputes of individuals? and shall there be no great law court for the +settlement of national difficulties? The battle-field is the only court +where such suits can be tried.” + +“You forget, general,” rejoined I, “that, in this advanced stage of +civilization, Reason and Philanthropy combined will constitute just +such a tribunal as is requisite.” + +“Ah, I had forgotten that, indeed!” said the old warrior, as he limped +away. + +The fire was now to be replenished with materials that had hitherto +been considered of even greater importance to the well-being of society +than the warlike munitions which we had already seen consumed. A body +of reformers had travelled all over the earth in quest of the machinery +by which the different nations were accustomed to inflict the +punishment of death. A shudder passed through the multitude as these +ghastly emblems were dragged forward. Even the flames seemed at first +to shrink away, displaying the shape and murderous contrivance of each +in a full blaze of light, which of itself was sufficient to convince +mankind of the long and deadly error of human law. Those old implements +of cruelty; those horrible monsters of mechanism; those inventions +which it seemed to demand something worse than man’s natural heart to +contrive, and which had lurked in the dusky nooks of ancient prisons, +the subject of terror-stricken legend,—were now brought forth to view. +Headsmen’s axes, with the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and +a vast collection of halters that had choked the breath of plebeian +victims, were thrown in together. A shout greeted the arrival of the +guillotine, which was thrust forward on the same wheels that had borne +it from one to another of the bloodstained streets of Paris. But the +loudest roar of applause went up, telling the distant sky of the +triumph of the earth’s redemption, when the gallows made its +appearance. An ill-looking fellow, however, rushed forward, and, +putting himself in the path of the reformers, bellowed hoarsely, and +fought with brute fury to stay their progress. + +It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the executioner should +thus do his best to vindicate and uphold the machinery by which he +himself had his livelihood and worthier individuals their death; but it +deserved special note that men of a far different sphere—even of that +consecrated class in whose guardianship the world is apt to trust its +benevolence—were found to take the hangman’s view of the question. + +“Stay, my brethren!” cried one of them. “You are misled by a false +philanthropy; you know not what you do. The gallows is a +Heaven-ordained instrument. Bear it back, then, reverently, and set it +up in its old place, else the world will fall to speedy ruin and +desolation!” + +“Onward! onward!” shouted a leader in the reform. “Into the flames with +the accursed instrument of man’s bloody policy! How can human law +inculcate benevolence and love while it persists in setting up the +gallows as its chief symbol? One heave more, good friends, and the +world will be redeemed from its greatest error.” + +A thousand hands, that nevertheless loathed the touch, now lent their +assistance, and thrust the ominous burden far, far into the centre of +the raging furnace. There its fatal and abhorred image was beheld, +first black, then a red coal, then ashes. + +“That was well done!” exclaimed I. + +“Yes, it was well done,” replied, but with less enthusiasm than I +expected, the thoughtful observer, who was still at my side,—“well +done, if the world be good enough for the measure. Death, however, is +an idea that cannot easily be dispensed with in any condition between +the primal innocence and that other purity and perfection which +perchance we are destined to attain after travelling round the full +circle; but, at all events, it is well that the experiment should now +be tried.” + +“Too cold! too cold!” impatiently exclaimed the young and ardent leader +in this triumph. “Let the heart have its voice here as well as the +intellect. And as for ripeness, and as for progress, let mankind always +do the highest, kindest, noblest thing that, at any given period, it +has attained the perception of; and surely that thing cannot be wrong +nor wrongly timed.” + +I know not whether it were the excitement of the scene, or whether the +good people around the bonfire were really growing more enlightened +every instant; but they now proceeded to measures in the full length of +which I was hardly prepared to keep them company. For instance, some +threw their marriage certificates into the flames, and declared +themselves candidates for a higher, holier, and more comprehensive +union than that which had subsisted from the birth of time under the +form of the connubial tie. Others hastened to the vaults of banks and +to the coffers of the rich—all of which were opened to the first comer +on this fated occasion—and brought entire bales of paper-money to +enliven the blaze, and tons of coin to be melted down by its intensity. +Henceforth, they said, universal benevolence, uncoined and exhaustless, +was to be the golden currency of the world. At this intelligence the +bankers and speculators in the stocks grew pale, and a pickpocket, who +had reaped a rich harvest among the crowd, fell down in a deadly +fainting fit. A few men of business burned their day-books and ledgers, +the notes and obligations of their creditors, and all other evidences +of debts due to themselves; while perhaps a somewhat larger number +satisfied their zeal for reform with the sacrifice of any uncomfortable +recollection of their own indebtment. There was then a cry that the +period was arrived when the title-deeds of landed property should be +given to the flames, and the whole soil of the earth revert to the +public, from whom it had been wrongfully abstracted and most unequally +distributed among individuals. Another party demanded that all written +constitutions, set forms of government, legislative acts, +statute-books, and everything else on which human invention had +endeavored to stamp its arbitrary laws, should at once be destroyed, +leaving the consummated world as free as the man first created. + +Whether any ultimate action was taken with regard to these propositions +is beyond my knowledge; for, just then, some matters were in progress +that concerned my sympathies more nearly. + +“See! see! What heaps of books and pamphlets!” cried a fellow, who did +not seem to be a lover of literature. “Now we shall have a glorious +blaze!” + +“That’s just the thing!” said a modern philosopher. “Now we shall get +rid of the weight of dead men’s thought, which has hitherto pressed so +heavily on the living intellect that it has been incompetent to any +effectual self-exertion. Well done, my lads! Into the fire with them! +Now you are enlightening the world indeed!” + +“But what is to become of the trade?” cried a frantic bookseller. + +“O, by all means, let them accompany their merchandise,” coolly +observed an author. “It will be a noble funeral-pile!” + +The truth was, that the human race had now reached a stage of progress +so far beyond what the wisest and wittiest men of former ages had ever +dreamed of, that it would have been a manifest absurdity to allow the +earth to be any longer encumbered with their poor achievements in the +literary line. Accordingly a thorough and searching investigation had +swept the booksellers’ shops, hawkers’ stands, public and private +libraries, and even the little book-shelf by the country fireside, and +had brought the world’s entire mass of printed paper, bound or in +sheets, to swell the already mountain bulk of our illustrious bonfire. +Thick, heavy folios, containing the labors of lexicographers, +commentators, and encyclopedists, were flung in, and, falling among the +embers with a leaden thump, smouldered away to ashes like rotten wood. +The small, richly gilt French tomes of the last age, with the hundred +volumes of Voltaire among them, went off in a brilliant shower of +sparkles and little jets of flame; while the current literature of the +same nation burned red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the +visages of the spectators, converting them all to the aspect of +party-colored fiends. A collection of German stories emitted a scent of +brimstone. The English standard authors made excellent fuel, generally +exhibiting the properties of sound oak logs. Milton’s works, in +particular, sent up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening into a coal, +which promised to endure longer than almost any other material of the +pile. From Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such marvellous splendor +that men shaded their eyes as against the sun’s meridian glory; nor +even when the works of his own elucidators were flung upon him did he +cease to flash forth a dazzling radiance from beneath the ponderous +heap. It is my belief that he is still blazing as fervidly as ever. + +“Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame,” remarked I, “he +might then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose.” + +“That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do, or +at least to attempt,” answered a critic. “The chief benefit to be +expected from this conflagration of past literature undoubtedly is, +that writers will henceforth be compelled to light their lamps at the +sun or stars.” + +“If they can reach so high,” said I; “but that task requires a giant, +who may afterwards distribute the light among inferior men. It is not +every one that can steal the fire from heaven like Prometheus; but, +when once he had done the deed, a thousand hearths were kindled by it.” + +It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was the proportion between +the physical mass of any given author and the property of brilliant and +long-continued combustion. For instance, there was not a quarto volume +of the last century—nor, indeed, of the present—that could compete in +that particular with a child’s little gilt-covered book, containing +_Mother Goose’s Melodies_. _The Life and Death of Tom Thumb_ outlasted +the biography of Marlborough. An epic, indeed a dozen of them, was +converted to white ashes before the single sheet of an old ballad was +half consumed. In more than one case, too, when volumes of applauded +verse proved incapable of anything better than a stifling smoke, an +unregarded ditty of some nameless bard—perchance in the corner of a +newspaper—soared up among the stars with a flame as brilliant as their +own. Speaking of the properties of flame, methought Shelley’s poetry +emitted a purer light than almost any other productions of his day, +contrasting beautifully with the fitful and lurid gleams and gushes of +black vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of Lord Byron. As +for Tom Moore, some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning +pastil. + +I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American +authors, and scrupulously noted by my watch the precise number of +moments that changed most of them from shabbily printed books to +indistinguishable ashes. It would be invidious, however, if not +perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I shall content myself +with observing that it was not invariably the writer most frequent in +the public mouth that made the most splendid appearance in the bonfire. +I especially remember that a great deal of excellent inflammability was +exhibited in a thin volume of poems by Ellery Channing; although, to +speak the truth, there were certain portions that hissed and spluttered +in a very disagreeable fashion. A curious phenomenon occurred in +reference to several writers, native as well as foreign. Their books, +though of highly respectable figure, instead of bursting into a blaze +or even smouldering out their substance in smoke, suddenly melted away +in a manner that proved them to be ice. + +If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own works, it must here be +confessed that I looked for them with fatherly interest, but in vain. +Too probably they were changed to vapor by the first action of the +heat; at best, I can only hope that, in their quiet way, they +contributed a glimmering spark or two to the splendor of the evening. + +“Alas! and woe is me!” thus bemoaned himself a heavy-looking gentleman +in green spectacles. “The world is utterly ruined, and there is nothing +to live for any longer. The business of my life is snatched from me. +Not a volume to be had for love or money!” + +“This,” remarked the sedate observer beside me, “is a bookworm,—one of +those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you see, are +covered with the dust of libraries. He has no inward fountain of ideas; +and, in good earnest, now that the old stock is abolished, I do not see +what is to become of the poor fellow. Have you no word of comfort for +him?” + +“My dear sir,” said I to the desperate bookworm, “is not nature better +than a book? Is not the human heart deeper than any system of +philosophy? Is not life replete with more instruction than past +observers have found it possible to write down in maxims? Be of good +cheer. The great book of Time is still spread wide open before us; and, +if we read it aright, it will be to us a volume of eternal truth.” + +“O, my books, my books, my precious printed books!” reiterated the +forlorn bookworm. “My only reality was a bound volume; and now they +will not leave me even a shadowy pamphlet!” + +In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was now +descending upon the blazing heap in the shape of a cloud of pamphlets +from the press of the New World. These likewise were consumed in the +twinkling of an eye, leaving the earth, for the first time since the +days of Cadmus, free from the plague of letters,—an enviable field for +the authors of the next generation. + +“Well, and does anything remain to be done?” inquired I, somewhat +anxiously. “Unless we set fire to the earth itself, and then leap +boldly off into infinite space, I know not that we can carry reform to +any farther point.” + +“You are vastly mistaken, my good friend,” said the observer. “Believe +me, the fire will not be allowed to settle down without the addition of +fuel that will startle many persons who have lent a willing hand thus +far.” + +Nevertheless there appeared to be a relaxation of effort for a little +time, during which, probably, the leaders of the movement were +considering what should be done next. In the interval, a philosopher +threw his theory into the flames,—a sacrifice which, by those who knew +how to estimate it, was pronounced the most remarkable that had yet +been made. The combustion, however, was by no means brilliant. Some +indefatigable people, scorning to take a moment’s ease, now employed +themselves in collecting all the withered leaves and fallen boughs of +the forest, and thereby recruited the bonfire to a greater height than +ever. But this was mere by-play. + +“Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of,” said my companion. + +To my astonishment the persons who now advanced into the vacant space +around the mountain fire bore surplices and other priestly garments, +mitres, crosiers, and a confusion of Popish and Protestant emblems with +which it seemed their purpose to consummate the great act of faith. +Crosses from the spires of old cathedrals were cast upon the heap with +as little remorse as if the reverence of centuries passing in long +array beneath the lofty towers had not looked up to them as the holiest +of symbols. The font in which infants were consecrated to God, the +sacramental vessels whence piety received the hallowed draught, were +given to the same destruction. Perhaps it most nearly touched my heart +to see among these devoted relics fragments of the humble +communion-tables and undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having +been torn from the meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices +might have been permitted to retain all of sacred embellishment that +their Puritan founders had bestowed, even though the mighty structure +of St. Peter’s had sent its spoils to the fire of this terrible +sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of religion, +and might most safely be relinquished by spirits that best knew their +deep significance. + +“All is well,” said I, cheerfully. “The wood-paths shall be the aisles +of our cathedral, the firmament itself shall be its ceiling. What needs +an earthly roof between the Deity and his worshippers? Our faith can +well afford to lose all the drapery that even the holiest men have +thrown around it, and be only the more sublime in its simplicity.” + +“True,” said my companion; “but will they pause here?” + +The doubt implied in his question was well founded. In the general +destruction of books already described, a holy volume, that stood apart +from the catalogue of human literature, and yet, in one sense, was at +its head, had been spared. But the Titan of innovation,—angel or fiend, +double in his nature, and capable of deeds befitting both +characters,—at first shaking down only the old and rotten shapes of +things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible hand upon the main +pillars which supported the whole edifice of our moral and spiritual +state. The inhabitants of the earth had grown too enlightened to define +their faith within a form of words, or to limit the spiritual by any +analogy to our material existence. Truths which the heavens trembled at +were now but a fable of the world’s infancy. Therefore, as the final +sacrifice of human error, what else remained to be thrown upon the +embers of that awful pile, except the book which, though a celestial +revelation to past ages, was but a voice from a lower sphere as +regarded the present race of man? It was done! Upon the blazing heap of +falsehood and worn-out truth—things that the earth had never needed, or +had ceased to need, or had grown childishly weary of—fell the ponderous +church Bible, the great old volume that had lain so long on the cushion +of the pulpit, and whence the pastor’s solemn voice had given holy +utterance on so many a Sabbath day. There, likewise, fell the family +Bible, which the long-buried patriarch had read to his children,—in +prosperity or sorrow, by the fireside and in the summer shade of +trees,—and had bequeathed downward as the heirloom of generations. +There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that had been the soul’s +friend of some sorely tried child of dust, who thence took courage, +whether his trial were for life or death, steadfastly confronting both +in the strong assurance of immortality. + +All these were flung into the fierce and riotous blaze; and then a +mighty wind came roaring across the plain with a desolate howl, as if +it were the angry lamentation of the earth for the loss of heaven’s +sunshine; and it shook the gigantic pyramid of flame and scattered the +cinders of half-consumed abominations around upon the spectators. + +“This is terrible!” said I, feeling that my check grew pale, and seeing +a like change in the visages about me. + +“Be of good courage yet,” answered the man with whom I had so often +spoken. He continued to gaze steadily at the spectacle with a singular +calmness, as if it concerned him merely as an observer. “Be of good +courage, nor yet exult too much; for there is far less both of good and +evil in the effect of this bonfire than the world might be willing to +believe.” + +“How can that be?” exclaimed I, impatiently. “Has it not consumed +everything? Has it not swallowed up or melted down every human or +divine appendage of our mortal state that had substance enough to be +acted on by fire? Will there be anything left us to-morrow morning +better or worse than a heap of embers and ashes?” + +“Assuredly there will,” said my grave friend. “Come hither to-morrow +morning, or whenever the combustible portion of the pile shall be quite +burned out, and you will find among the ashes everything really +valuable that you have seen cast into the flames. Trust me, the world +of to-morrow will again enrich itself with the gold and diamonds which +have been cast off by the world of today. Not a truth is destroyed nor +buried so deep among the ashes but it will be raked up at last.” + +This was a strange assurance. Yet I felt inclined to credit it, the +more especially as I beheld among the wallowing flames a copy of the +Holy Scriptures, the pages of which, instead of being blackened into +tinder, only assumed a more dazzling whiteness as the fingermarks of +human imperfection were purified away. Certain marginal notes and +commentaries, it is true, yielded to the intensity of the fiery test, +but without detriment to the smallest syllable that had flamed from the +pen of inspiration. + +“Yes; there is the proof of what you say,” answered I, turning to the +observer; “but if only what is evil can feel the action of the fire, +then, surely, the conflagration has been of inestimable utility. Yet, +if I understand aright, you intimate a doubt whether the world’s +expectation of benefit would be realized by it.” + +“Listen to the talk of these worthies,” said he, pointing to a group in +front of the blazing pile; “possibly they may teach you something +useful, without intending it.” + +The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and most earthy +figure who had stood forth so furiously in defence of the gallows,—the +hangman, in short,—together with the last thief and the last murderer, +all three of whom were clustered about the last toper. The latter was +liberally passing the brandy bottle, which he had rescued from the +general destruction of wines and spirits. This little convivial party +seemed at the lowest pitch of despondency, as considering that the +purified world must needs be utterly unlike the sphere that they had +hitherto known, and therefore but a strange and desolate abode for +gentlemen of their kidney. + +“The best counsel for all of us is,” remarked the hangman, “that, as +soon as we have finished the last drop of liquor, I help you, my three +friends, to a comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then hang +myself on the same bough. This is no world for us any longer.” + +“Poh, poh, my good fellows!” said a dark-complexioned personage, who +now joined the group,—his complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and his +eyes glowed with a redder light than that of the bonfire; “be not so +cast down, my dear friends; you shall see good days yet. There is one +thing that these wiseacres have forgotten to throw into the fire, and +without which all the rest of the conflagration is just nothing at all; +yes, though they had burned the earth itself to a cinder.” + +“And what may that be?” eagerly demanded the last murderer. + +“What but the human heart itself?” said the dark-visaged stranger, with +a portentous grin. “And, unless they hit upon some method of purifying +that foul cavern, forth from it will reissue all the shapes of wrong +and misery—the same old shapes or worse ones—which they have taken such +a vast deal of trouble to consume to ashes. I have stood by this +livelong night and laughed in my sleeve at the whole business. O, take +my word for it, it will be the old world yet!” + +This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened +thought. How sad a truth, if true it were, that man’s age-long endeavor +for perfection had served only to render him the mockery of the evil +principle, from the fatal circumstance of an error at the very root of +the matter! The heart, the heart, there was the little yet boundless +sphere wherein existed the original wrong of which the crime and misery +of this outward world were merely types. Purify that inward sphere, and +the many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which now seem +almost our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms and vanish of +their own accord; but if we go no deeper than the intellect, and +strive, with merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify what +is wrong, our whole accomplishment will be a dream, so unsubstantial +that it matters little whether the bonfire, which I have so faithfully +described, were what we choose to call a real event and a flame that +would scorch the finger, or only a phosphoric radiance and a parable of +my own brain. + + + + +PASSAGES FROM A RELINQUISHED WORK + + +AT HOME + +From infancy I was under the guardianship of a village parson, who made +me the subject of daily prayer and the sufferer of innumerable stripes, +using no distinction, as to these marks of paternal love, between +myself and his own three boys. The result, it must be owned, has been +very different in their cases and mine, they being all respectable men +and well settled in life; the eldest as the successor to his father’s +pulpit, the second as a physician, and the third as a partner in a +wholesale shoe-store; while I, with better prospects than either of +them, have run the course which this volume will describe. Yet there is +room for doubt whether I should have been any better contented with +such success as theirs than with my own misfortunes,—at least, till +after my experience of the latter had made it too late for another +trial. + +My guardian had a name of considerable eminence, and fitter for the +place it occupies in ecclesiastical history than for so frivolous a +page as mine. In his own vicinity, among the lighter part of his +hearers, he was called Parson Thumpcushion, from the very forcible +gestures with which he illustrated his doctrines. Certainly, if his +powers as a preacher were to be estimated by the damage done to his +pulpit-furniture, none of his living brethren, and but few dead ones, +would have been worthy even to pronounce a benediction after him. Such +pounding and expounding the moment he began to grow warm, such slapping +with his open palm, thumping with his closed fist, and banging with the +whole weight of the great Bible, convinced me that he held, in +imagination, either the Old Nick or some Unitarian infidel at bay, and +belabored his unhappy cushion as proxy for those abominable +adversaries. Nothing but this exercise of the body while delivering his +sermons could have supported the good parson’s health under the mental +toil which they cost him in composition. + +Though Parson Thumpcushion had an upright heart, and some called it a +warm one, he was invariably stern and severe, on principle, I suppose, +to me. With late justice, though early enough, even now, to be +tinctured with generosity I acknowledge him to have been a good and +wise man after his own fashion. If his management failed as to myself, +it succeeded with his three sons; nor, I must frankly say, could any +mode of education with which it was possible for him to be acquainted +have made me much better than what I was or led me to a happier fortune +than the present. He could neither change the nature that God gave me +nor adapt his own inflexible mind to my peculiar character. Perhaps it +was my chief misfortune that I had neither father nor mother alive; for +parents have an instinctive sagacity in regard to the welfare of their +children, and the child feels a confidence both in the wisdom and +affection of his parents which he cannot transfer to any delegate of +their duties, however conscientious. An orphan’s fate is hard, be he +rich or poor. As for Parson Thumpcushion, whenever I see the old +gentleman in my dreams he looks kindly and sorrowfully at me, holding +out his hand as if each had something to forgive. With such kindness +and such forgiveness, but without the sorrow, may our next meeting be! + +I was a youth of gay and happy temperament, with an incorrigible levity +of spirit, of no vicious propensities, sensible enough, but wayward and +fanciful. What a character was this to be brought in contact with the +stern old Pilgrim spirit of my guardian! We were at variance on a +thousand points; but our chief and final dispute arose from the +pertinacity with which he insisted on my adopting a particular +profession; while I, being heir to a moderate competence, had avowed my +purpose of keeping aloof from the regular business of life. This would +have been a dangerous resolution anywhere in the world; it was fatal in +New England. There is a grossness in the conceptions of my countrymen; +they will not be convinced that any good thing may consist with what +they call idleness; they can anticipate nothing but evil of a young man +who neither studies physic, law, nor gospel, nor opens a store, nor +takes to farming, but manifests an incomprehensible disposition to be +satisfied with what his father left him. The principle is excellent in +its general influence, but most miserable in its effect on the few that +violate it. I had a quick sensitiveness to public opinion, and felt as +if it ranked me with the tavern haunters and town paupers,—with the +drunken poet who hawked his own Fourth of July odes, and the broken +soldier who had been good for nothing since last war. The consequence +of all this was a piece of light-hearted desperation. + +I do not over-estimate my notoriety when I take it for granted that +many of my readers must have heard of me in the wild way of life which +I adopted. The idea of becoming a wandering story-teller had been +suggested, a year or two before, by an encounter with several merry +vagabonds in a showman’s wagon, where they and I had sheltered +ourselves during a summer shower. The project was not more extravagant +than most which a young man forms. Stranger ones are executed every +day; and, not to mention my prototypes in the East, and the wandering +orators and poets whom my own ears have heard, I had the example of one +illustrious itinerant in the other hemisphere,—of Goldsmith, who +planned and performed his travels through France and Italy on a less +promising scheme than mine. I took credit to myself for various +qualifications, mental and personal, suited to the undertaking. +Besides, my mind had latterly tormented me for employment, keeping up +an irregular activity even in sleep, and making me conscious that I +must toil, if it were but in catching butterflies. But my chief motives +were, discontent with home and a bitter grudge against Parson +Thumpcushion, who would rather have laid me in my father’s tomb than +seen me either a novelist or an actor, two characters which I thus hit +upon a method of uniting. After all, it was not half so foolish as if I +had written romances instead of reciting them. + +The following pages will contain a picture of my vagrant life, +intermixed with specimens, generally brief and slight, of that great +mass of fiction to which I gave existence, and which has vanished like +cloud-shapes. Besides the occasions when I sought a pecuniary reward, I +was accustomed to exercise my narrative faculty wherever chance had +collected a little audience idle enough to listen. These rehearsals +were useful in testing the strong points of my stories; and, indeed, +the flow of fancy soon came upon me so abundantly that its indulgence +was its own reward, though the hope of praise also became a powerful +incitement. Since I shall never feel the warm gush of new thought as I +did then, let me beseech the reader to believe that my tales were not +always so cold as he may find them now. With each specimen will be +given a sketch of the circumstances in which the story was told. Thus +my air-drawn pictures will be set in frames perhaps more valuable than +the pictures themselves, since they will be embossed with groups of +characteristic figures, amid the lake and mountain scenery, the +villages and fertile fields, of our native land. But I write the book +for the sake of its moral, which many a dreaming youth may profit by, +though it is the experience of a wandering story-teller. + +A FLIGHT IN THE FOG. + +I set out on my rambles one morning in June about sunrise. The day +promised to be fair, though at that early hour a heavy mist lay along +the earth and settled in minute globules on the folds of my clothes, so +that I looked precisely as if touched with a hoar-frost. The sky was +quite obscured, and the trees and houses invisible till they grew out +of the fog as I came close upon them. There is a hill towards the west +whence the road goes abruptly down, holding a level course through the +village and ascending an eminence on the other side, behind which it +disappears. The whole view comprises an extent of half a mile. Here I +paused; and, while gazing through the misty veil, it partially rose and +swept away with so sudden an effect that a gray cloud seemed to have +taken the aspect of a small white town. A thin vapor being still +diffused through the atmosphere, the wreaths and pillars of fog, +whether hung in air or based on earth, appeared not less substantial +than the edifices, and gave their own indistinctness to the whole. It +was singular that such an unromantic scene should look so visionary. + +Half of the parson’s dwelling was a dingy white house, and half of it +was a cloud; but Squire Moody’s mansion, the grandest in the village, +was wholly visible, even the lattice-work of the balcony under the +front window; while in another place only two red chimneys were seen +above the mist, appertaining to my own paternal residence, then +tenanted by strangers. I could not remember those with whom I had dwelt +there, not even my mother. The brick edifice of the bank was in the +clouds; the foundations of what was to be a great block of buildings +had vanished, ominously, as it proved; the dry-goods store of Mr. +Nightingale seemed a doubtful concern; and Dominicus Pike’s tobacco +manufactory an affair of smoke, except the splendid image of an Indian +chief in front. The white spire of the meeting-house ascended out of +the densest heap of vapor, as if that shadowy base were its only +support: or, to give a truer interpretation, the steeple was the emblem +of Religion, enveloped in mystery below, yet pointing to a cloudless +atmosphere, and catching the brightness of the east on its gilded vane. + +As I beheld these objects, and the dewy street, with grassy intervals +and a border of trees between the wheeltrack and the sidewalks, all so +indistinct, and not to be traced without an effort, the whole seemed +more like memory than reality. I would have imagined that years had +already passed, and I was far away, contemplating that dim picture of +my native place, which I should retain in my mind through the mist of +time. No tears fell from my eyes among the dewdrops of the morning; nor +does it occur to me that I heaved a sigh. In truth, I had never felt +such a delicious excitement nor known what freedom was till that moment +when I gave up my home and took the whole world in exchange, fluttering +the wings of my spirit as if I would have flown from one star to +another through the universe. I waved my hand towards the dusky +village, bade it a joyous farewell, and turned away to follow any path +but that which might lead me back. Never was Childe Harold’s sentiment +adopted in a spirit more unlike his own. + +Naturally enough, I thought of Don Quixote. Recollecting how the knight +and Sancho had watched for auguries when they took the road to Toboso, +I began, between jest and earnest, to feel a similar anxiety. It was +gratified, and by a more poetical phenomenon than the braying of the +dappled ass or the neigh of Rosinante. The sun, then just above the +horizon, shone faintly through the fog, and formed a species of rainbow +in the west, bestriding my intended road like a gigantic portal. I had +never known before that a bow could be generated between the sunshine +and the morning mist. It had no brilliancy, no perceptible hues, but +was a mere unpainted framework, as white and ghostlike as the lunar +rainbow, which is deemed ominous of evil. But, with a light heart, to +which all omens were propitious, I advanced beneath the misty archway +of futurity. + +I had determined not to enter on my profession within a hundred miles +of home, and then to cover myself with a fictitious name. The first +precaution was reasonable enough, as otherwise Parson Thumpcushion +might have put an untimely catastrophe to my story; but as nobody would +be much affected by my disgrace, and all was to be suffered in my own +person, I know not why I cared about a name. For a week or two I +travelled almost at random, seeking hardly any guidance except the +whirling of a leaf at, some turn of the road, or the green bough that +beckoned me, or the naked branch that pointed its withered finger +onward. All my care was to be farther from home each night than the +preceding morning. + +A FELLOW-TRAVELLER. + +One day at noontide, when the sun had burst suddenly out of a cloud, +and threatened to dissolve me, I looked round for shelter, whether of +tavern, cottage, barn, or shady tree. The first which offered itself +was a wood,—not a forest, but a trim plantation of young oaks, growing +just thick enough to keep the mass of sunshine out, while they admitted +a few straggling beams, and thus produced the most cheerful gloom +imaginable. A brook, so small and clear, and apparently so cool, that I +wanted to drink it up, ran under the road through a little arch of +stone without once meeting the sun in its passage from the shade on one +side to the shade on the other. As there was a stepping-place over the +stone wall and a path along the rivulet, I followed it and discovered +its source,—a spring gushing out of an old barrel. + +In this pleasant spot I saw a light pack suspended from the branch of a +tree, a stick leaning against the trunk, and a person seated on the +grassy verge of the spring, with his back towards me. He was a slender +figure, dressed in black broadcloth, which was none of the finest nor +very fashionably cut. On hearing my footsteps he started up rather +nervously, and, turning round, showed the face of a young man about my +own age, with his finger in a volume which he had been reading till my +intrusion. His book was evidently a pocket Bible. Though I piqued +myself at that period on my great penetration into people’s characters +and pursuits, I could not decide whether this young man in black were +an unfledged divine from Andover, a college student, or preparing for +college at some academy. In either case I would quite as willingly have +found a merrier companion; such, for instance, as the comedian with +whom Gil Blas shared his dinner beside a fountain in Spain. + +After a nod, which was duly returned, I made a goblet of oak-leaves, +filled and emptied it two or three times, and then remarked, to hit the +stranger’s classical associations, that this beautiful fountain ought +to flow from an urn instead of an old barrel. He did not show that he +understood the allusion, and replied very briefly, with a shyness that +was quite out of place between persons who met in such circumstances. +Had he treated my next observation in the same way, we should have +parted without another word. + +“It is very singular,” said I,—“though doubtless there are good reasons +for it,—that Nature should provide drink so abundantly, and lavish it +everywhere by the roadside, but so seldom anything to eat. Why should +not we find a loaf of bread on this tree as well as a barrel of good +liquor at the foot of it?” + +“There is a loaf of bread on the tree,” replied the stranger, without +even smiling—at a coincidence which made me laugh. “I have something to +eat in my bundle; and, if you can make a dinner with me, you shall be +welcome.” + +“I accept your offer with pleasure,” said I. “A pilgrim such as I am +must not refuse a providential meal.” + +The young man had risen to take his bundle from the branch of the tree, +but now turned round and regarded me with great earnestness, coloring +deeply at the same time. However, he said nothing, and produced part of +a loaf of bread and some cheese, the former being evidently home baked, +though some days out of the oven. The fare was good enough, with a real +welcome, such as his appeared to be. After spreading these articles on +the stump of a tree, he proceeded to ask a blessing on our food, an +unexpected ceremony, and quite an impressive one at our woodland table, +with the fountain gushing beside us and the bright sky glimmering +through the boughs; nor did his brief petition affect me less because +his embarrassment made his voice tremble. At the end of the meal he +returned thanks with the same tremulous fervor. + +He felt a natural kindness for me after thus relieving my necessities, +and showed it by becoming less reserved. On my part, I professed never +to have relished a dinner better; and, in requital of the stranger’s +hospitality, solicited the pleasure of his company to supper. + +“Where? At your home?” asked he. + +“Yes,” said I, smiling. + +“Perhaps our roads are not the same,” observed he. + +“O, I can take any road but one, and yet not miss my way,” answered I. +“This morning I breakfasted at home; I shall sup at home to-night; and +a moment ago I dined at home. To be sure, there was a certain place +which I called home; but I have resolved not to see it again till I +have been quite round the globe and enter the street on the east as I +left it on the west. In the mean time, I have a home everywhere, or +nowhere, just as you please to take it.” + +“Nowhere, then; for this transitory world is not our home,” said the +young man, with solemnity. “We are all pilgrims and wanderers; but it +is strange that we two should meet.” + +I inquired the meaning of this remark, but could obtain no satisfactory +reply. But we had eaten salt together, and it was right that we should +form acquaintance after that ceremony as the Arabs of the desert do, +especially as he had learned something about myself, and the courtesy +of the country entitled me to as much information in return. I asked +whither he was travelling. + +“I do not know,” said he; “but God knows.” + +“That is strange!” exclaimed I; “not that God should know it, but that +you should not. And how is your road to be pointed out?” + +“Perhaps by an inward conviction,” he replied, looking sideways at me +to discover whether I smiled; “perhaps by an outward sign.” + +“Then, believe me,” said I, “the outward sign is already granted you, +and the inward conviction ought to follow. We are told of pious men in +old times who committed themselves to the care of Providence, and saw +the manifestation of its will in the slightest circumstances, as in the +shooting of a star, the flight of a bird, or the course taken by some +brute animal. Sometimes even a stupid ass was their guide. May I not be +as good a one?” + +“I do not know,” said the pilgrim, with perfect simplicity. + +We did, however, follow the same road, and were not overtaken, as I +partly apprehended, by the keepers of any lunatic asylum in pursuit of +a stray patient. Perhaps the stranger felt as much doubt of my sanity +as I did of his, though certainly with less justice, since I was fully +aware of my own extravagances, while he acted as wildly, and deemed it +heavenly wisdom. We were a singular couple, strikingly contrasted, yet +curiously assimilated, each of us remarkable enough by himself, and +doubly so in the other’s company. Without any formal compact, we kept +together day after day till our union appeared permanent. Even had I +seen nothing to love and admire in him, I could never have thought of +deserting one who needed me continually; for I never knew a person; not +even a woman, so unfit to roam the world in solitude as he was,—so +painfully shy, so easily discouraged by slight obstacles, and so often +depressed by a weight within himself. + +I was now far from my native place, but had not yet stepped before the +public. A slight tremor seized me whenever I thought of relinquishing +the immunities of a private character, and giving every man, and for +money too, the right which no man yet possessed, of treating me with +open scorn. But about a week after contracting the above alliance I +made my bow to an audience of nine persons, seven of whom hissed me in +a very disagreeable manner, and not without good cause. Indeed, the +failure was so signal that it would have been mere swindling to retain +the money, which had been paid on my implied contract to give its value +of amusement. So I called in the doorkeeper, bade him refund the whole +receipts, a mighty sum and was gratified with a round of applause by +way of offset to the hisses. This event would have looked most horrible +in anticipation,—a thing to make a man shoot himself, or run amuck, or +hide himself in caverns where he might not see his own burning blush; +but the reality was not so very hard to bear. It is a fact that I was +more deeply grieved by an almost parallel misfortune which happened to +my companion on the same evening. In my own behalf I was angry and +excited, not depressed; my blood ran quick, my spirits rose buoyantly, +and I had never felt such a confidence of future success and +determination to achieve it as at that trying moment. I resolved to +persevere, if it were only to wring the reluctant praise from my +enemies. + +Hitherto I had immensely underrated the difficulties of my idle trade; +now I recognized that it demanded nothing short of my whole powers +cultivated to the utmost, and exerted with the same prodigality as if I +were speaking for a great party or for the nation at large on the floor +of the Capitol. No talent or attainment could come amiss; everything, +indeed, was requisite,—wide observation, varied knowledge, deep +thoughts, and sparkling ones; pathos and levity, and a mixture of both, +like sunshine in a raindrop; lofty imagination, veiling itself in the +garb of common life; and the practised art which alone could render +these gifts, and more than these, available. Not that I ever hoped to +be thus qualified. But my despair was no ignoble one; for, knowing the +impossibility of satisfying myself, even should the world be satisfied, +I did my best to overcome it; investigated the causes of every defect; +and strove, with patient stubbornness, to remove them in the next +attempt. It is one of my few sources of pride, that, ridiculous as the +object was, I followed it up with the firmness and energy of a man. + +I manufactured a great variety of plots and skeletons of tales, and +kept them ready for use, leaving the filling up to the inspiration of +the moment; though I cannot remember ever to have told a tale which did +not vary considerably from my preconceived idea, and acquire a novelty +of aspect as often as I repeated it. Oddly enough, my success was +generally in proportion to the difference between the conception and +accomplishment. I provided two or more commencements and catastrophes +to many of the tales,—a happy expedient, suggested by the double sets +of sleeves and trimmings which diversified the suits in Sir Piercy +Shafton’s wardrobe. But my best efforts had a unity, a wholeness, and a +separate character that did not admit of this sort of mechanism. + +THE VILLAGE THEATRE + +About the first of September my fellow-traveller and myself arrived at +a country town, where a small company of actors, on their return from a +summer’s campaign in the British Provinces, were giving a series of +dramatic exhibitions. A moderately sized hall of the tavern had been +converted into a theatre. The performances that evening were, The Heir +at Law, and No Song, no Supper, with the recitation of Alexander’s +Feast between the play and farce. The house was thin and dull. But the +next day there appeared to be brighter prospects, the playbills +announcing at every corner, on the town-pump, and—awful sacrilege!—on +the very door of the meeting-house, an Unprecedented Attraction! After +setting forth the ordinary entertainments of a theatre, the public were +informed, in the hugest type that the printing-office could supply, +that the manager had been fortunate enough to accomplish an engagement +with the celebrated Story-Teller. He would make his first appearance +that evening, and recite his famous tale of Mr. Higginbotham’s +Catastrophe, which had been received with rapturous applause by +audiences in all the principal cities. This outrageous flourish of +trumpets, be it known, was wholly unauthorized by me, who had merely +made an engagement for a single evening, without assuming any more +celebrity than the little I possessed. As for the tale, it could hardly +have been applauded by rapturous audiences, being as yet an unfilled +plot; nor even when I stepped upon the stage was it decided whether Mr. +Higginbotham should live or die. + +In two or three places, underneath the flaming bills which announced +the Story-Teller, was pasted a small slip of paper, giving notice, in +tremulous characters, of a religious meeting to be held at the +school-house, where, with divine permission, Eliakim Abbott would +address sinners on the welfare of their immortal souls. + +In the evening, after the commencement of the tragedy of Douglas, I +took a ramble through the town to quicken my ideas by active motion. My +spirits were good, with a certain glow of mind which I had already +learned to depend upon as the sure prognostic of success. Passing a +small and solitary school-house, where a light was burning dimly and a +few people were entering the door, I went in with them, and saw my +friend Eliakim at the desk. He had collected about fifteen hearers, +mostly females. Just as I entered he was beginning to pray in accents +so low and interrupted that he seemed to doubt the reception of his +efforts both with God and man. There was room for distrust in regard to +the latter. At the conclusion of the prayer several of the little +audience went out, leaving him to begin his discourse under such +discouraging circumstances, added to his natural and agonizing +diffidence. Knowing that my presence on these occasions increased his +embarrassment, I had stationed myself in a dusky place near the door, +and now stole softly out. + +On my return to the tavern the tragedy was already concluded; and, +being a feeble one in itself and indifferently performed, it left so +much the better chance for the Story-Teller. The bar was thronged with +customers, the toddy-stick keeping a continual tattoo; while in the +hall there was a broad, deep, buzzing sound, with an occasional peal of +impatient thunder,—all symptoms of all overflowing house and an eager +audience. I drank a glass of wine-and-water, and stood at the side +scene conversing with a young person of doubtful sex. If a gentleman, +how could he have performed the singing girl the night before in No +Song, no Supper? Or, if a lady, why did she enact Young Norval, and now +wear a green coat and white pantaloons in the character of Little +Pickle? In either case the dress was pretty and the wearer bewitching; +so that, at the proper moment, I stepped forward with a gay heart and a +hold one; while the orchestra played a tune that had resounded at many +a country ball, and the curtain, as it rose, discovered something like +a country bar-room. Such a scene was well enough adapted to such a +tale. + +The orchestra of our little theatre consisted of two fiddles and a +clarinet; but, if the whole harmony of the Tremont had been there, it +might have swelled in vain beneath the tumult of applause that greeted +me. The good people of the town, knowing that the world contained +innumerable persons of celebrity undreamed of by them, took it for +granted that I was one, and that their roar of welcome was but a feeble +echo of those which had thundered around me in lofty theatres. Such an +enthusiastic uproar was never heard. Each person seemed a Briarcus +clapping a hundred hands, besides keeping his feet and several cudgels +in play with stamping and thumping on the floor; while the ladies +flourished their white cambric handkerchiefs, intermixed with yellow +and red bandanna, like the flags of different nations. After such a +salutation, the celebrated Story-Teller felt almost ashamed to produce +so humble an affair as Mr. Higginbotham’s Catastrophe. + +This story was originally more dramatic than as there presented, and +afforded good scope for mimicry and buffoonery, neither of which, to my +shame, did I spare. I never knew the “magic of a name” till I used that +of Mr. Higginbotham. Often as I repeated it, there were louder bursts +of merriment than those which responded to what, in my opinion, were +more legitimate strokes of humor. The success of the piece was +incalculably heightened by a stiff cue of horsehair, which Little +Pickle, in the spirit of that mischief-loving character, had fastened +to my collar, where, unknown to me, it kept making the queerest +gestures of its own in correspondence with all mine. The audience, +supposing that some enormous joke was appended to this long tail +behind, were ineffably delighted, and gave way to such a tumult of +approbation that, just as the story closed, the benches broke beneath +them and left one whole row of my admirers on the floor. Even in that +predicament they continued their applause. In after times, when I had +grown a bitter moralizer, I took this scene for an example how much of +fame is humbug; how much the meed of what our better nature blushes at; +how much an accident; how much bestowed on mistaken principles; and how +small and poor the remnant. From pit and boxes there was now a +universal call for the Story-Teller. + +That celebrated personage came not when they did call to him. As I left +the stage, the landlord, being also the postmaster, had given me a +letter with the postmark of my native village, and directed to my +assumed name in the stiff old handwriting of Parson Thumpcushion. +Doubtless he had heard of the rising renown of the Story-Teller, and +conjectured at once that such a nondescript luminary could be no other +than his lost ward. His epistle, though I never read it, affected me +most painfully. I seemed to see the Puritanic figure of my guardian +standing among the fripperies of the theatre and pointing to the +players,—the fantastic and effeminate men, the painted women, the giddy +girl in boy’s clothes, merrier than modest,—pointing to these with +solemn ridicule, and eying me with stern rebuke. His image was a type +of the austere duty, and they of the vanities of life. + +I hastened with the letter to my chamber and held it unopened in my +hand, while the applause of my buffoonery yet sounded through the +theatre. Another train of thought came over me. The stern old man +appeared again, but now with the gentleness of sorrow, softening his +authority with love as a father might, and even bending his venerable +head, as if to say that my errors had an apology in his own mistaken +discipline. I strode twice across the chamber, then held the letter in +the flame of the candle, and beheld it consume unread. It is fixed in +my mind, and was so at the time, that he had addressed me in a style of +paternal wisdom, and love, and reconciliation which I could not have +resisted had I but risked the trial. The thought still haunts me that +then I made my irrevocable choice between good and evil fate. + +Meanwhile, as this occurrence had disturbed my mind and indisposed me +to the present exercise of my profession, I left the town, in spite of +a laudatory critique in the newspaper, and untempted by the liberal +offers of the manager. As we walked onward, following the same road, on +two such different errands, Eliakim groaned in spirit, and labored with +tears to convince me of the guilt and madness of my life. + + + + +SKETCHES FROM MEMORY + + +THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS + +It was now the middle of September. We had come since sunrise from +Bartlett, passing up through the valley of the Saco, which extends +between mountainous walls, sometimes with a steep ascent, but often as +level as a church-aisle. All that day and two preceding ones we had +been loitering towards the heart of the White Mountains,—those old +crystal hills, whose mysterious brilliancy had gleamed upon our distant +wanderings before we thought of visiting them. Height after height had +risen and towered one above another till the clouds began to hang below +the peaks. Down their slopes were the red pathways of the slides, those +avalanches of earth, stones, and trees, which descend into the hollows, +leaving vestiges of their track hardly to be effaced by the vegetation +of ages. We had mountains behind us and mountains on each side, and a +group of mightier ones ahead. Still our road went up along the Saco, +right towards the centre of that group, as if to climb above the clouds +in its passage to the farther region. + +In old times the settlers used to be astounded by the inroads of the +Northern Indians, coming down upon them from this mountain rampart +through some defile known only to themselves. It is, indeed, a wondrous +path. A demon, it might be fancied, or one of the Titans, was +travelling up the valley, elbowing the heights carelessly aside as he +passed, till at length a great mountain took its stand directly across +his intended road. He tarries not for such an obstacle, but, rending it +asunder a thousand feet from peak to base, discloses its treasures of +hidden minerals, its sunless waters, all the secrets of the mountain’s +inmost heart, with a mighty fracture of rugged precipices on each side. +This is the Notch of the White Hills. Shame on me that I have attempted +to describe it by so mean an image, feeling, as I do, that it is one of +those symbolic scenes which lead the mind to the sentiment, though not +to the conception, of Omnipotence. + + +We had now reached a narrow passage, which showed almost the appearance +of having been cut by human strength and artifice in the solid rock. +There was a wall of granite on each side, high and precipitous, +especially on our right, and so smooth that a few evergreens could +hardly find foothold enough to grow there. This is the entrance, or, in +the direction we were going, the extremity, of the romantic defile of +the Notch. Before emerging from it, the rattling of wheels approached +behind us, and a stage-coach rumbled out of the mountain, with seats on +top and trunks behind, and a smart driver, in a drab great-coat, +touching the wheel-horses with the whip-stock and reigning in the +leaders. To my mind there was a sort of poetry in such an incident, +hardly inferior to what would have accompanied the painted array of an +Indian war-party gliding forth from the same wild chasm. All the +passengers, except a very fat lady on the back seat, had alighted. One +was a mineralogist, a scientific, green-spectacled figure in black, +bearing a heavy hammer, with which he did great damage to the +precipices, and put the fragments in his pocket. Another was a +well-dressed young man, who carried an operaglass set in gold, and +seemed to be making a quotation from some of Byron’s rhapsodies on +mountain scenery. There was also a trader, returning from Portland to +the upper part of Vermont; and a fair young girl, with a very faint +bloom like one of those pale and delicate flowers which sometimes occur +among alpine cliffs. + +They disappeared, and we followed them, passing through a deep pine +forest, which for some miles allowed us to see nothing but its own +dismal shade. Towards nightfall we reached a level amphitheatre, +surrounded by a great rampart of hills, which shut out the sunshine +long before it left the external world. It was here that we obtained +our first view, except at a distance, of the principal group of +mountains. They are majestic, and even awful, when contemplated in a +proper mood, yet, by their breadth of base and the long ridges which +support them, give the idea of immense bulk rather than of towering +height. Mount Washington, indeed, looked near to Heaven: he was white +with snow a mile downward, and had caught the only cloud that was +sailing through the atmosphere to veil his head. Let us forget the +other names of American statesmen that have been stamped upon these +hills, but still call the loftiest WASHINGTON. Mountains are Earth’s +undecaying monuments. They must stand while she endures, and never +should be consecrated to the mere great men of their own age and +country, but to the mighty ones alone, whose glory is universal, and +whom all time will render illustrious. + +The air, not often sultry in this elevated region, nearly two thousand +feet above the sea, was now sharp and cold, like that of a clear +November evening in the lowlands. By morning, probably, there would be +a frost, if not a snowfall, on the grass and rye, and an icy surface +over the standing water. I was glad to perceive a prospect of +comfortable quarters in a house which we were approaching, and of +pleasant company in the guests who were assembled at the door. + +OUR EVENING PARTY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS + +WE stood in front of a good substantial farm-house, of old date in that +wild country. A sign over the door denoted it to be the White Mountain +Post-Office,—an establishment which distributes letters and newspapers +to perhaps a score of persons, comprising the population of two or +three townships among the hills. The broad and weighty antlers of a +deer, “a stag of ten,” were fastened at the corner of the house; a +fox’s bushy tail was nailed beneath them; and a huge black paw lay on +the ground, newly severed and still bleeding, the trophy of a +bear-hunt. Among several persons collected about the doorsteps, the +most remarkable was a sturdy mountaineer, of six feet two, and +corresponding bulk, with a heavy set of features, such as might be +moulded on his own blacksmith’s anvil, but yet indicative of mother wit +and rough humor. As we appeared, he uplifted a tin trumpet, four or +five feet long, and blew a tremendous blast, either in honor of our +arrival or to awaken an echo from the opposite hill. + +Ethan Crawford’s guests were of such a motley description as to form +quite a picturesque group, seldom seen together except at some place +like this, at once the pleasure-house of fashionable tourists and the +homely inn of country travellers. Among the company at the door were +the mineralogist and the owner of the gold operaglass whom we had +encountered in the Notch; two Georgian gentlemen, who had chilled their +Southern blood that morning on the top of Mount Washington; a physician +and his wife from Conway; a trader of Burlington and an old squire of +the Green Mountains; and two young married couples, all the way from +Massachusetts, on the matrimonial jaunt. Besides these strangers, the +rugged county of Coos, in which we were, was represented by half a +dozen wood-cutters, who had slain a bear in the forest and smitten off +his paw. + +I had joined the party, and had a moment’s leisure to examine them +before the echo of Ethan’s blast returned from the hill. Not one, but +many echoes had caught up the harsh and tuneless sound, untwisted its +complicated threads, and found a thousand aerial harmonies in one stern +trumpet-tone. It was a distinct yet distant and dream-like symphony of +melodious instruments, as if an airy band had been hidden on the +hillside and made faint music at the summons. No subsequent trial +produced so clear, delicate, and spiritual a concert as the first. A +field-piece was then discharged from the top of a neighboring hill, and +gave birth to one long reverberation, which ran round the circle of +mountains in an unbroken chain of sound and rolled away without a +separate echo. After these experiments, the cold atmosphere drove us +all into the house, with the keenest appetites for supper. + +It did one’s heart good to see the great fires that were kindled in the +parlor and bar-room, especially the latter, where the fireplace was +built of rough stone, and might have contained the trunk of an old tree +for a backlog. + +A man keeps a comfortable hearth when his own forest is at his very +door. In the parlor, when the evening was fairly set in, we held our +hands before our eyes to shield them from the ruddy glow, and began a +pleasant variety of conversation. The mineralogist and the physician +talked about the invigorating qualities of the mountain air, and its +excellent effect on Ethan Crawford’s father, an old man of +seventy-five, with the unbroken frame of middle life. The two brides +and the doctor’s wife held a whispered discussion, which, by their +frequent titterings and a blush or two, seemed to have reference to the +trials or enjoyments of the matrimonial state. The bridegrooms sat +together in a corner, rigidly silent, like Quakers whom the spirit +moveth not, being still in the odd predicament of bashfulness towards +their own young wives. The Green Mountain squire chose me for his +companion, and described the difficulties he had met with half a +century ago in travelling from the Connecticut River through the Notch +to Conway, now a single day’s journey, though it had cost him eighteen. +The Georgians held the album between them, and favored us with the few +specimens of its contents, which they considered ridiculous enough to +be worth hearing. One extract met with deserved applause. It was a +“Sonnet to the Snow on Mount Washington,” and had been contributed that +very afternoon, bearing a signature of great distinction in magazines +and annuals. The lines were elegant and full of fancy, but too remote +from familiar sentiment, and cold as their subject, resembling those +curious specimens of crystallized vapor which I observed next day on +the mountain-top. The poet was understood to be the young gentleman of +the gold opera-glass, who heard our laudatory remarks with the +composure of a veteran. + +Such was our party, and such their ways of amusement. But on a winter +evening another set of guests assembled at the hearth where these +summer travellers were now sitting. I once had it in contemplation to +spend a month hereabouts, in sleighing-time, for the sake of studying +the yeomen of New England, who then elbow each other through the Notch +by hundreds, on their way to Portland. There could be no better school +for such a purpose than Ethan Crawford’s inn. Let the student go +thither in December, sit down with the teamsters at their meals, share +their evening merriment, and repose with them at night when every bed +has its three occupants, and parlor, bar-room, and kitchen are strewn +with slumberers around the fire. Then let him rise before daylight, +button his great-coat, muffle up his ears, and stride with the +departing caravan a mile or two, to see how sturdily they make head +against the blast. A treasure of characteristic traits will repay all +inconveniences, even should a frozen nose be of the number. + +The conversation of our party soon became more animated and sincere, +and we recounted some traditions of the Indians, who believed that the +father and mother of their race were saved from a deluge by ascending +the peak of Mount Washington. The children of that pair have been +overwhelmed, and found no such refuge. In the mythology of the savage, +these mountains were afterwards considered sacred and inaccessible, +full of unearthly wonders, illuminated at lofty heights by the blaze of +precious stones, and inhabited by deities, who sometimes shrouded +themselves in the snow-storm and came down on the lower world. There +are few legends more poetical than that of the “Great Carbuncle” of the +White Mountains. The belief was communicated to the English settlers, +and is hardly yet extinct, that a gem, of such immense size as to be +seen shining miles away, hangs from a rock over a clear, deep lake, +high up among the hills. They who had once beheld its splendor were +enthralled with an unutterable yearning to possess it. But a spirit +guarded that inestimable jewel, and bewildered the adventurer with a +dark mist from the enchanted lake. Thus life was worn away in the vain +search for an unearthly treasure, till at length the deluded one went +up the mountain, still sanguine as in youth, but returned no more. On +this theme methinks I could frame a tale with a deep moral. + +The hearts of the palefaces would not thrill to these superstitions of +the red men, though we spoke of them in the centre of their haunted +region. The habits and sentiments of that departed people were too +distinct from those of their successors to find much real sympathy. It +has often been a matter of regret to me that I was shut out from the +most peculiar field of American fiction by an inability to see any +romance, or poetry, or grandeur, or beauty in the Indian character, at +least till such traits were pointed out by others. I do abhor an Indian +story. Yet no writer can be more secure of a permanent place in our +literature than the biographer of the Indian chiefs. His subject, as +referring to tribes which have mostly vanished from the earth, gives +him a right to be placed on a classic shelf, apart from the merits +which will sustain him there. + +I made inquiries whether, in his researches about these parts, our +mineralogist had found the three “Silver Hills” which an Indian sachem +sold to an Englishman nearly two hundred years ago, and the treasure of +which the posterity of the purchaser have been looking for ever since. +But the man of science had ransacked every hill along the Saco, and +knew nothing of these prodigious piles of wealth. By this time, as +usual with men on the eve of great adventure, we had prolonged our +session deep into the night, considering how early we were to set out +on our six miles’ ride to the foot of Mount Washington. There was now a +general breaking up. I scrutinized the faces of the two bridegrooms, +and saw but little probability of their leaving the bosom of earthly +bliss, in the first week of the honeymoon and at the frosty hour of +three, to climb above the clouds; nor, when I felt how sharp the wind +was as it rushed through a broken pane and eddied between the chinks of +my unplastered chamber, did I anticipate much alacrity on my own part, +though we were to seek for the “Great Carbuncle.” + +THE CANAL-BOAT + +I was inclined to be poetical about the Grand Canal. In my imagination +De Witt Clinton was an enchanter, who had waved his magic wand from the +Hudson to Lake Erie and united them by a watery highway, crowded with +the commerce of two worlds, till then inaccessible to each other. This +simple and mighty conception had conferred inestimable value on spots +which Nature seemed to have thrown carelessly into the great body of +the earth, without foreseeing that they could ever attain importance. I +pictured the surprise of the sleepy Dutchmen when the new river first +glittered by their doors, bringing them hard cash or foreign +commodities in exchange for their hitherto unmarketable produce. Surely +the water of this canal must be the most fertilizing of all fluids; for +it causes towns, with their masses of brick and stone, their churches +and theatres, their business and hubbub, their luxury and refinement, +their gay dames and polished citizens, to spring up, till in time the +wondrous stream may flow between two continuous lines of buildings, +through one thronged street, from Buffalo to Albany. I embarked about +thirty miles below Utica, determining to voyage along the whole extent +of the canal at least twice in the course of the summer. + +Behold us, then, fairly afloat, with three horses harnessed to our +vessel, like the steeds of Neptune to a huge scallop-shell in +mythological pictures. Bound to a distant port, we had neither chart +nor compass, nor cared about the wind, nor felt the heaving of a +billow, nor dreaded shipwreck, however fierce the tempest, in our +adventurous navigation of an interminable mudpuddle; for a mudpuddle it +seemed, and as dark and turbid as if every kennel in the land paid +contribution to it. With an imperceptible current, it holds its drowsy +way through all the dismal swamps and unimpressive scenery that could +be found between the great lakes and the sea-coast. Yet there is +variety enough, both on the surface of the canal and along its banks, +to amuse the traveller, if an overpowering tedium did not deaden his +perceptions. + +Sometimes we met a black and rusty-looking vessel, laden with lumber, +salt from Syracuse, or Genesee flour, and shaped at both ends like a +square-toed boot, as if it had two sterns, and were fated always to +advance backward. On its deck would be a square hut, and a woman seen +through the window at her household work, with a little tribe of +children who perhaps had been born in this strange dwelling and knew no +other home. Thus, while the husband smoked his pipe at the helm and the +eldest son rode one of the horses, on went the family, travelling +hundreds of miles in their own house and carrying their fireside with +them. The most frequent species of craft were the “line-boats,” which +had a cabin at each end, and a great bulk of barrels, bales, and boxes +in the midst, or light packets like our own decked all over with a row +of curtained windows from stem to stern, and a drowsy face at every +one. Once we encountered a boat of rude construction, painted all in +gloomy black, and manned by three Indians, who gazed at us in silence +and with a singular fixedness of eye. Perhaps these three alone, among +the ancient possessors of the land, had attempted to derive benefit +from the white mail’s mighty projects and float along the current of +his enterprise. Not long after, in the midst of a swamp and beneath a +clouded sky, we overtook a vessel that seemed full of mirth and +sunshine. It contained a little colony of Swiss on their way to +Michigan, clad in garments of strange fashion and gay colors, scarlet, +yellow, and bright blue, singing, laughing, and making merry in odd +tones and a babble of outlandish words. One pretty damsel, with a +beautiful pair of naked white arms, addressed a mirthful remark to me. +She spoke in her native tongue, and I retorted in good English, both of +us laughing heartily at each other’s unintelligible wit. I cannot +describe how pleasantly this incident affected me. These honest Swiss +were all itinerant community of jest and fun journeying through a +gloomy land and among a dull race of money-getting drudges, meeting +none to understand their mirth, and only one to sympathize with it, yet +still retaining the happy lightness of their own spirit. + +Had I been on my feet at the time instead of sailing slowly along in a +dirty canal-boat, I should often have paused to contemplate the +diversified panorama along the banks of the canal. Sometimes the scene +was a forest, dark, dense, and impervious, breaking away occasionally +and receding from a lonely tract, covered with dismal black stumps, +where, on the verge of the canal, might be seen a log-cottage and a +sallow-faced woman at the window. Lean and aguish, she looked like +poverty personified, half clothed, half fed, and dwelling in a desert, +while a tide of wealth was sweeping by her door. Two or three miles +farther would bring us to a lock, where the slight impediment to +navigation had created a little mart of trade. Here would be found +commodities of all sorts, enumerated in yellow letters on the +window-shutters of a small grocery-store, the owner of which had set +his soul to the gathering of coppers and small change, buying and +selling through the week, and counting his gains on the blessed +Sabbath. The next scene might be the dwelling-houses and stores of a +thriving village, built of wood or small gray stones, a church-spire +rising in the midst, and generally two taverns, bearing over their +piazzas the pompous titles of “hotel,” “exchange,” “tontine,” or +“coffee-house.” Passing on, we glide now into the unquiet heart of an +inland city,—of Utica, for instance,—and find ourselves amid piles of +brick, crowded docks and quays, rich warehouses, and a busy population. +We feel the eager and hurrying spirit of the place, like a stream and +eddy whirling us along with it. Through the thickest of the tumult goes +the canal, flowing between lofty rows of buildings and arched bridges +of hewn stone. Onward, also, go we, till the hum and bustle of +struggling enterprise die away behind us and we are threading an avenue +of the ancient woods again. + +This sounds not amiss in description, but was so tiresome in reality +that we were driven to the most childish expedients for amusement. An +English traveller paraded the deck, with a rifle in his walking-stick, +and waged war on squirrels and woodpeckers, sometimes sending an +unsuccessful bullet among flocks of tame ducks and geese which abound +in the dirty water of the canal. I, also, pelted these foolish birds +with apples, and smiled at the ridiculous earnestness of their +scrambles for the prize while the apple bobbed about like a thing of +life. Several little accidents afforded us good-natured diversion. At +the moment of changing horses the tow-rope caught a Massachusetts +farmer by the leg and threw him down in a very indescribable posture, +leaving a purple mark around his sturdy limb. A new passenger fell flat +on his back in attempting to step on deck as the boat emerged from +under a bridge. Another, in his Sunday clothes, as good luck would have +it, being told to leap aboard from the bank, forthwith plunged up to +his third waistcoat-button in the canal, and was fished out in a very +pitiable plight, not at all amended by our three rounds of applause. +Anon a Virginia schoolmaster, too intent on a pocket Virgil to heed the +helmsman’s warning, “Bridge! bridge!” was saluted by the said bridge on +his knowledge-box. I had prostrated myself like a pagan before his +idol, but heard the dull, leaden sound of the contact, and fully +expected to see the treasures of the poor man’s cranium scattered about +the deck. However, as there was no harm done, except a large bump on +the head, and probably a corresponding dent in the bridge, the rest of +us exchanged glances and laughed quietly. O, bow pitiless are idle +people! + + +The table being now lengthened through the cabin and spread for supper, +the next twenty minutes were the pleasantest I had spent on the canal, +the same space at dinner excepted. At the close of the meal it had +become dusky enough for lamplight. The rain pattered unceasingly on the +deck, and sometimes came with a sullen rush against the windows, driven +by the wind as it stirred through an opening of the forest. The +intolerable dulness of the scene engendered an evil spirit in me. +Perceiving that the Englishman was taking notes in a memorandum-book, +with occasional glances round the cabin, I presumed that we were all to +figure in a future volume of travels, and amused my ill-humor by +falling into the probable vein of his remarks. He would hold up an +imaginary mirror, wherein our reflected faces would appear ugly and +ridiculous, yet still retain all undeniable likeness to the originals. +Then, with more sweeping malice, he would make these caricatures the +representatives of great classes of my countrymen. + +He glanced at the Virginia schoolmaster, a Yankee by birth, who, to +recreate himself, was examining a freshman from Schenectady College in +the conjugation of a Greek verb. Him the Englishman would portray as +the scholar of America, and compare his erudition to a school-boy’s +Latin theme made up of scraps ill-selected and worse put together. Next +the tourist looked at the Massachusetts farmer, who was delivering a +dogmatic harangue on the iniquity of Sunday mails. Here was the +far-famed yeoman of New England; his religion, writes the Englishman, +is gloom on the Sabbath, long prayers every morning and eventide, and +illiberality at all times; his boasted information is merely an +abstract and compound of newspaper paragraphs, Congress debates, caucus +harangues, and the argument and judge’s charge in his own lawsuits. The +book-monger cast his eye at a Detroit merchant, and began scribbling +faster than ever. In this sharp-eyed man, this lean man, of wrinkled +brow, we see daring enterprise and close-fisted avarice combined. Here +is the worshipper of Mammon at noonday; here is the three times +bankrupt, richer after every ruin; here, in one word, (O wicked +Englishman to say it!) here is the American. He lifted his eyeglass to +inspect a Western lady, who at once became aware of the glance, +reddened, and retired deeper into the female part of the cabin. Here +was the pure, modest, sensitive, and shrinking woman of +America,—shrinking when no evil is intended, and sensitive like +diseased flesh, that thrills if you but point at it; and strangely +modest, without confidence in the modesty of other people; and +admirably pure, with such a quick apprehension of all impurity. + +In this manner I went all through the cabin, hitting everybody as hard +a lash as I could, and laying the whole blame on the infernal +Englishman. At length I caught the eyes of my own image in the +looking-glass, where a number of the party were likewise reflected, and +among them the Englishman, who at that moment was intently observing +myself. + + +The crimson curtain being let down between the ladies and gentlemen, +the cabin became a bedchamber for twenty persons, who were laid on +shelves one above another. For a long time our various incommodities +kept us all awake except five or six, who were accustomed to sleep +nightly amid the uproar of their own snoring, and had little to dread +from any other species of disturbance. It is a curious fact that these +snorers had been the most quiet people in the boat while awake, and +became peace-breakers only when others cease to be so, breathing tumult +out of their repose. Would it were possible to affix a wind-instrument +to the nose, and thus make melody of a snore, so that a sleeping lover +might serenade his mistress or a congregation snore a psalm-tune! +Other, though fainter, sounds than these contributed to my +restlessness. My head was close to the crimson curtain,—the sexual +division of the boat,—behind which I continually heard whispers and +stealthy footsteps; the noise of a comb laid on the table or a slipper +dropped on the floor; the twang, like a broken harp-string, caused by +loosening a tight belt; the rustling of a gown in its descent; and the +unlacing of a pair of stays. My ear seemed to have the properties of an +eye; a visible image pestered my fancy in the darkness; the curtain was +withdrawn between me and the Western lady, who yet disrobed herself +without a blush. + +Finally all was hushed in that quarter. Still I was more broad awake +than through the whole preceding day, and felt a feverish impulse to +toss my limbs miles apart and appease the unquietness of mind by that +of matter. Forgetting that my berth was hardly so wide as a coffin, I +turned suddenly over and fell like an avalanche on the floor, to the +disturbance of the whole community of sleepers. As there were no bones +broken, I blessed the accident and went on deck. A lantern was burning +at each end of the boat, and one of the crew was stationed at the bows, +keeping watch, as mariners do on the ocean. Though the rain had ceased, +the sky was all one cloud, and the darkness so intense that there +seemed to be no world except the little space on which our lanterns +glimmered. Yet it was an impressive scene. + +We were traversing the “long level,” a dead flat between Utica and +Syracuse, where the canal has not rise or fall enough to require a lock +for nearly seventy miles. There can hardly be a more dismal tract of +country. The forest which covers it, consisting chiefly of white-cedar, +black-ash, and other trees that live in excessive moisture, is now +decayed and death-struck by the partial draining of the swamp into the +great ditch of the canal. Sometimes, indeed, our lights were reflected +from pools of stagnant water which stretched far in among the trunks of +the trees, beneath dense masses of dark foliage. But generally the tall +stems and intermingled branches were naked, and brought into strong +relief amid the surrounding gloom by the whiteness of their decay. +Often we beheld the prostrate form of some old sylvan giant which had +fallen and crushed down smaller trees under its immense ruin. In spots +where destruction had been riotous, the lanterns showed perhaps a +hundred trunks, erect, half overthrown, extended along the ground, +resting on their shattered limbs or tossing them desperately into the +darkness, but all of one ashy white, all naked together, in desolate +confusion. Thus growing out of the night as we drew nigh, and vanishing +as we glided on, based on obscurity, and overhung and bounded by it, +the scene was ghostlike,—the very land of unsubstantial things, whither +dreams might betake themselves when they quit the slumberer’s brain. + +My fancy found another emblem. The wild nature of America had been +driven to this desert-place by the encroachments of civilized man. And +even here, where the savage queen was throned on the ruins of her +empire, did we penetrate, a vulgar and worldly throng, intruding on her +latest solitude. In other lands decay sits among fallen palaces; but +here her home is in the forests. + +Looking ahead, I discerned a distant light, announcing the approach of +another boat, which soon passed us, and proved to be a rusty old +scow,—just such a craft as the “Flying Dutchman” would navigate on the +canal. Perhaps it was that celebrated personage himself whom I +imperfectly distinguished at the helm in a glazed cap and rough +great-coat, with a pipe in his mouth, leaving the fumes of tobacco a +hundred yards behind. Shortly after our boatman blew a horn, sending a +long and melancholy note through the forest avenue, as a signal for +some watcher in the wilderness to be ready with a change of horses. We +had proceeded a mile or two with our fresh team when the tow-rope got +entangled in a fallen branch on the edge of the canal, and caused a +momentary delay, during which I went to examine the phosphoric light of +an old tree a little within the forest. It was not the first delusive +radiance that I had followed. + +The tree lay along the ground, and was wholly converted into a mass of +diseased splendor, which threw a ghastliness around. Being full of +conceits that night, I called it a frigid fire, a funeral light, +illumining decay and death, an emblem of fame that gleams around the +dead man without warming him, or of genius when it owes its brilliancy +to moral rottenness, and was thinking that such ghostlike torches were +just fit to light up this dead forest or to blaze coldly in tombs, +when, starting from my abstraction, I looked up the canal. I +recollected myself, and discovered the lanterns glimmering far away. + +“Boat ahoy!” shouted I, making a trumpet of my closed fists. + +Though the cry must have rung for miles along that hollow passage of +the woods, it produced no effect. These packet-boats make up for their +snail-like pace by never loitering day nor night, especially for those +who have paid their fare. Indeed, the captain had an interest in +getting rid of me; for I was his creditor for a breakfast. + +“They are gone, Heaven be praised!” ejaculated I; “for I cannot +possibly overtake them. Here am I, on the ‘long level,’ at midnight, +with the comfortable prospect of a walk to Syracuse, where my baggage +will be left. And now to find a house or shed wherein to pass the +night.” So thinking aloud, I took a flambeau from the old tree, +burning, but consuming not, to light my steps withal, and, like a +jack-o’-the-lantern, set out on my midnight tour. + + + + +THE OLD APPLE DEALER + + +The lover of the moral picturesque may sometimes find what he, seeks in +a character which is nevertheless of too negative a description to be +seized upon and represented to the imaginative vision by word-painting. +As an instance, I remember an old man who carries on a little trade of +gingerbread and apples at the depot of one of our railroads. While +awaiting the departure of the cars, my observation, flitting to and fro +among the livelier characteristics of the scene, has often settled +insensibly upon this almost hueless object. Thus, unconsciously to +myself and unsuspected by him, I have studied the old apple-dealer +until he has become a naturalized citizen of my inner world. How little +would he imagine—poor, neglected, friendless, unappreciated, and with +little that demands appreciation—that the mental eye of an utter +stranger has so often reverted to his figure! Many a noble form, many a +beautiful face, has flitted before me and vanished like a shadow. It is +a strange witchcraft whereby this faded and featureless old +apple-dealer has gained a settlement in my memory. + +He is a small man, with gray hair and gray stubble beard, and is +invariably clad in a shabby surtout of snuff-color, closely buttoned, +and half concealing a pair of gray pantaloons; the whole dress, though +clean and entire, being evidently flimsy with much wear. His face, +thin, withered, furrowed, and with features which even age has failed +to render impressive, has a frost-bitten aspect. It is a moral frost +which no physical warmth or comfortableness could counteract. The +summer sunshine may fling its white heat upon him or the good fire of +the depot room may slake him the focus of its blaze on a winter’s day; +but all in vain; for still the old roan looks as if he were in a frosty +atmosphere, with scarcely warmth enough to keep life in the region +about his heart. It is a patient, long-suffering, quiet, hopeless, +shivering aspect. He is not desperate,—that, though its etymology +implies no more, would be too positive an expression,—but merely devoid +of hope. As all his past life, probably, offers no spots of brightness +to his memory, so he takes his present poverty and discomfort as +entirely a matter of course! he thinks it the definition of existence, +so far as himself is concerned, to be poor, cold, and uncomfortable. It +may be added, that time has not thrown dignity as a mantle over the old +man’s figure: there is nothing venerable about him: you pity him +without a scruple. + +He sits on a bench in the depot room; and before him, on the floor, are +deposited two baskets of a capacity to contain his whole stock in +trade. Across from one basket to the other extends a board, on which is +displayed a plate of cakes and gingerbread, some russet and red-cheeked +apples, and a box containing variegated sticks of candy, together with +that delectable condiment known by children as Gibraltar rock, neatly +done up in white paper. There is likewise a half-peck measure of +cracked walnuts and two or three tin half-pints or gills filled with +the nut-kernels, ready for purchasers. + +Such are the small commodities with which our old friend comes daily +before the world, ministering to its petty needs and little freaks of +appetite, and seeking thence the solid subsistence—so far as he may +subsist of his life. + +A slight observer would speak of the old man’s quietude; but, on closer +scrutiny, you discover that there is a continual unrest within him, +which somewhat resembles the fluttering action of the nerves in a +corpse from which life has recently departed. Though he never exhibits +any violent action, and, indeed, might appear to be sitting quite +still, yet you perceive, when his minuter peculiarities begin to be +detected, that he is always making some little movement or other. He +looks anxiously at his plate of cakes or pyramid of apples and slightly +alters their arrangement, with an evident idea that a great deal +depends on their being disposed exactly thus and so. Then for a moment +he gazes out of the window; then he shivers quietly and folds his arms +across his breast, as if to draw himself closer within himself, and +thus keep a flicker of warmth in his lonesome heart. Now he turns again +to his merchandise of cakes, apples, and candy, and discovers that this +cake or that apple, or yonder stick of red and white candy, has somehow +got out of its proper position. And is there not a walnut-kernel too +many or too few in one of those small tin measures? Again the whole +arrangement appears to be settled to his mind; but, in the course of a +minute or two, there will assuredly be something to set right. At +times, by an indescribable shadow upon his features, too quiet, +however, to be noticed until you are familiar with his ordinary aspect, +the expression of frostbitten, patient despondency becomes very +touching. It seems as if just at that instant the suspicion occurred to +him that, in his chill decline of life, earning scanty bread by selling +cakes, apples, and candy, he is a very miserable old fellow. + +But, if he thinks so, it is a mistake. He can never suffer the extreme +of misery, because the tone of his whole being is too much subdued for +him to feel anything acutely. + +Occasionally one of the passengers, to while away a tedious interval, +approaches the old man, inspects the articles upon his board, and even +peeps curiously into the two baskets. Another, striding to and fro +along the room, throws a look at the apples and gingerbread at every +turn. A third, it may be of a more sensitive and delicate texture of +being, glances shyly thitherward, cautious not to excite expectations +of a purchaser while yet undetermined whether to buy. But there appears +to be no need of such a scrupulous regard to our old friend’s feelings. +True, he is conscious of the remote possibility to sell a cake or an +apple; but innumerable disappointments have rendered him so far a +philosopher, that, even if the purchased article should be returned, he +will consider it altogether in the ordinary train of events. He speaks +to none, and makes no sign of offering his wares to the public: not +that he is deterred by pride, but by the certain conviction that such +demonstrations would not increase his custom. Besides, this activity in +business would require an energy that never could have been a +characteristic of his almost passive disposition even in youth. +Whenever an actual customer customer appears the old man looks up with +a patient eye: if the price and the article are approved, he is ready +to make change; otherwise his eyelids droop again sadly enough, but +with no heavier despondency than before. He shivers, perhaps folds his +lean arms around his lean body, and resumes the life-long, frozen +patience in which consists his strength. + +Once in a while a school-boy comes hastily up, places cent or two upon +the board, and takes up a cake, or stick of candy, or a measure of +walnuts, or an apple as red-checked as himself. There are no words as +to price, that being as well known to the buyer as to the seller. The +old apple-dealer never speaks an unnecessary word not that he is sullen +and morose; but there is none of the cheeriness and briskness in him +that stirs up people to talk. + +Not seldom he is greeted by some old neighbor, a man well to do in the +world, who makes a civil, patronizing observation about the weather; +and then, by way of performing a charitable deed, begins to chaffer for +an apple. Our friend presumes not on any past acquaintance; he makes +the briefest possible response to all general remarks, and shrinks +quietly into himself again. After every diminution of his stock he +takes care to produce from the basket another cake, another stick of +candy, another apple, or another measure of walnuts, to supply the +place of the article sold. Two or three attempts—or, perchance, half a +dozen—are requisite before the board can be rearranged to his +satisfaction. If he have received a silver coin, he waits till the +purchaser is out of sight, then examines it closely, and tries to bend +it with his finger and thumb: finally he puts it into his +waistcoat-pocket with seemingly a gentle sigh. This sigh, so faint as +to be hardly perceptible, and not expressive of any definite emotion, +is the accompaniment and conclusion of all his actions. It is the +symbol of the chillness and torpid melancholy of his old age, which +only make themselves felt sensibly when his repose is slightly +disturbed. + +Our man of gingerbread and apples is not a specimen of the “needy man +who has seen better days.” Doubtless there have been better and +brighter days in the far-off time of his youth; but none with so much +sunshine of prosperity in them that the chill, the depression, the +narrowness of means, in his declining years, can have come upon him by +surprise. His life has all been of a piece. His subdued and nerveless +boyhood prefigured his abortive prime, which likewise contained within +itself the prophecy and image of his lean and torpid age. He was +perhaps a mechanic, who never came to be a master in his craft, or a +petty tradesman, rubbing onward between passably to do and poverty. +Possibly he may look back to some brilliant epoch of his career when +there were a hundred or two of dollars to his credit in the Savings +Bank. Such must have been the extent of his better fortune,—his little +measure of this world’s triumphs,—all that he has known of success. A +meek, downcast, humble, uncomplaining creature, he probably has never +felt himself entitled to more than so much of the gifts of Providence. +Is it not still something that he has never held out his hand for +charity, nor has yet been driven to that sad home and household of +Earth’s forlorn and broken-spirited children, the almshouse? He +cherishes no quarrel, therefore, with his destiny, nor with the Author +of it. All is as it should be. + +If, indeed, he have been bereaved of a son, a bold, energetic, vigorous +young man, on whom the father’s feeble nature leaned as on a staff of +strength, in that case he may have felt a bitterness that could not +otherwise have been generated in his heart. But methinks the joy of +possessing such a son and the agony of losing him would have developed +the old man’s moral and intellectual nature to a much greater degree +than we now find it. Intense grief appears to be as much out of keeping +with his life as fervid happiness. + +To confess the truth, it is not the easiest matter in the world to +define and individualize a character like this which we are now +handling. The portrait must be so generally negative that the most +delicate pencil is likely to spoil it by introducing some too positive +tint. Every touch must be kept down, or else you destroy the subdued +tone which is absolutely essential to the whole effect. Perhaps more +may be done by contrast than by direct description. For this purpose I +make use of another cake and candy merchant, who, likewise infests the +railroad depot. This latter worthy is a very smart and well-dressed boy +of ten years old or thereabouts, who skips briskly hither and thither, +addressing the passengers in a pert voice, yet with somewhat of good +breeding in his tone and pronunciation. Now he has caught my eye, and +skips across the room with a pretty pertness, which I should like to +correct with a box on the ear. “Any cake, sir? any candy?” + +No, none for me, my lad. I did but glance at your brisk figure in order +to catch a reflected light and throw it upon your old rival yonder. + +Again, in order to invest my conception of the old man with a more +decided sense of reality, I look at him in the very moment of intensest +bustle, on the arrival of the cars. The shriek of the engine as it +rushes into the car-house is the utterance of the steam fiend, whom man +has subdued by magic spells and compels to serve as a beast of burden. +He has skimmed rivers in his headlong rush, dashed through forests, +plunged into the hearts of mountains, and glanced from the city to the +desert-place, and again to a far-off city, with a meteoric progress, +seen and out of sight, while his reverberating roar still fills the +ear. The travellers swarm forth from the cars. All are full of the +momentum which they have caught from their mode of conveyance. It seems +as if the whole world, both morally and physically, were detached from +its old standfasts and set in rapid motion. And, in the midst of this +terrible activity, there sits the old man of gingerbread, so subdued, +so hopeless, so without a stake in life, and yet not positively +miserable,—there he sits, the forlorn old creature, one chill and +sombre day after another, gathering scanty coppers for his cakes, +apples, and candy,—there sits the old apple-dealer, in his threadbare +suit of snuff-color and gray and his grizzly stubble heard. See! he +folds his lean arms around his lean figure with that quiet sigh and +that scarcely perceptible shiver which are the tokens of his inward +state. I have him now. He and the steam fiend are each other’s +antipodes; the latter is the type of all that go ahead, and the old man +the representative of that melancholy class who by some sad witchcraft +are doomed never to share in the world’s exulting progress. Thus the +contrast between mankind and this desolate brother becomes picturesque, +and even sublime. + +And now farewell, old friend! Little do you suspect that a student of +human life has made your character the theme of more than one solitary +and thoughtful hour. Many would say that you have hardly individuality +enough to be the object of your own self-love. How, then, can a +stranger’s eye detect anything in your mind and heart to study and to +wonder at? Yet, could I read but a tithe of what is written there, it +would be a volume of deeper and more comprehensive import than all that +the wisest mortals have given to the world; for the soundless depths of +the human soul and of eternity have an opening through your breast. God +be praised, were it only for your sake, that the present shapes of +human existence are not cast in iron nor hewn in everlasting adamant, +but moulded of the vapors that vanish away while the essence flits +upward to the infinite. There is a spiritual essence in this gray and +lean old shape that shall flit upward too. Yes; doubtless there is a +region where the life-long shiver will pass away from his being, and +that quiet sigh, which it has taken him so many years to breathe, will +be brought to a close for good and all. + + + + +THE ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL + + +An elderly man, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was passing along +the street, and emerged from the gloom of the cloudy evening into the +light that fell across the pavement from the window of a small shop. It +was a projecting window; and on the inside were suspended a variety of +watches, pinchbeck, silver, and one or two of gold, all with their +faces turned from the streets, as if churlishly disinclined to inform +the wayfarers what o’clock it was. Seated within the shop, sidelong to +the window with his pale face bent earnestly over some delicate piece +of mechanism on which was thrown the concentrated lustre of a shade +lamp, appeared a young man. + +“What can Owen Warland be about?” muttered old Peter Hovenden, himself +a retired watchmaker, and the former master of this same young man +whose occupation he was now wondering at. “What can the fellow be +about? These six months past I have never come by his shop without +seeing him just as steadily at work as now. It would be a flight beyond +his usual foolery to seek for the perpetual motion; and yet I know +enough of my old business to be certain that what he is now so busy +with is no part of the machinery of a watch.” + +“Perhaps, father,” said Annie, without showing much interest in the +question, “Owen is inventing a new kind of timekeeper. I am sure he has +ingenuity enough.” + +“Poh, child! He has not the sort of ingenuity to invent anything better +than a Dutch toy,” answered her father, who had formerly been put to +much vexation by Owen Warland’s irregular genius. “A plague on such +ingenuity! All the effect that ever I knew of it was to spoil the +accuracy of some of the best watches in my shop. He would turn the sun +out of its orbit and derange the whole course of time, if, as I said +before, his ingenuity could grasp anything bigger than a child’s toy!” + +“Hush, father! He hears you!” whispered Annie, pressing the old man’s +arm. “His ears are as delicate as his feelings; and you know how easily +disturbed they are. Do let us move on.” + +So Peter Hovenden and his daughter Annie plodded on without further +conversation, until in a by-street of the town they found themselves +passing the open door of a blacksmith’s shop. Within was seen the +forge, now blazing up and illuminating the high and dusky roof, and now +confining its lustre to a narrow precinct of the coal-strewn floor, +according as the breath of the bellows was puffed forth or again +inhaled into its vast leathern lungs. In the intervals of brightness it +was easy to distinguish objects in remote corners of the shop and the +horseshoes that hung upon the wall; in the momentary gloom the fire +seemed to be glimmering amidst the vagueness of unenclosed space. +Moving about in this red glare and alternate dusk was the figure of the +blacksmith, well worthy to be viewed in so picturesque an aspect of +light and shade, where the bright blaze struggled with the black night, +as if each would have snatched his comely strength from the other. Anon +he drew a white-hot bar of iron from the coals, laid it on the anvil, +uplifted his arm of might, and was soon enveloped in the myriads of +sparks which the strokes of his hammer scattered into the surrounding +gloom. + +“Now, that is a pleasant sight,” said the old watchmaker. “I know what +it is to work in gold; but give me the worker in iron after all is said +and done. He spends his labor upon a reality. What say you, daughter +Annie?” + +“Pray don’t speak so loud, father,” whispered Annie, “Robert Danforth +will hear you.” + +“And what if he should hear me?” said Peter Hovenden. “I say again, it +is a good and a wholesome thing to depend upon main strength and +reality, and to earn one’s bread with the bare and brawny arm of a +blacksmith. A watchmaker gets his brain puzzled by his wheels within a +wheel, or loses his health or the nicety of his eyesight, as was my +case, and finds himself at middle age, or a little after, past labor at +his own trade and fit for nothing else, yet too poor to live at his +ease. So I say once again, give me main strength for my money. And +then, how it takes the nonsense out of a man! Did you ever hear of a +blacksmith being such a fool as Owen Warland yonder?” + +“Well said, uncle Hovenden!” shouted Robert Danforth from the forge, in +a full, deep, merry voice, that made the roof re-echo. “And what says +Miss Annie to that doctrine? She, I suppose, will think it a genteeler +business to tinker up a lady’s watch than to forge a horseshoe or make +a gridiron.” + +Annie drew her father onward without giving him time for reply. + +But we must return to Owen Warland’s shop, and spend more meditation +upon his history and character than either Peter Hovenden, or probably +his daughter Annie, or Owen’s old school-fellow, Robert Danforth, would +have thought due to so slight a subject. From the time that his little +fingers could grasp a penknife, Owen had been remarkable for a delicate +ingenuity, which sometimes produced pretty shapes in wood, principally +figures of flowers and birds, and sometimes seemed to aim at the hidden +mysteries of mechanism. But it was always for purposes of grace, and +never with any mockery of the useful. He did not, like the crowd of +school-boy artisans, construct little windmills on the angle of a barn +or watermills across the neighboring brook. Those who discovered such +peculiarity in the boy as to think it worth their while to observe him +closely, sometimes saw reason to suppose that he was attempting to +imitate the beautiful movements of Nature as exemplified in the flight +of birds or the activity of little animals. It seemed, in fact, a new +development of the love of the beautiful, such as might have made him a +poet, a painter, or a sculptor, and which was as completely refined +from all utilitarian coarseness as it could have been in either of the +fine arts. He looked with singular distaste at the stiff and regular +processes of ordinary machinery. Being once carried to see a +steam-engine, in the expectation that his intuitive comprehension of +mechanical principles would be gratified, he turned pale and grew sick, +as if something monstrous and unnatural had been presented to him. This +horror was partly owing to the size and terrible energy of the iron +laborer; for the character of Owen’s mind was microscopic, and tended +naturally to the minute, in accordance with his diminutive frame and +the marvellous smallness and delicate power of his fingers. Not that +his sense of beauty was thereby diminished into a sense of prettiness. +The beautiful idea has no relation to size, and may be as perfectly +developed in a space too minute for any but microscopic investigation +as within the ample verge that is measured by the arc of the rainbow. +But, at all events, this characteristic minuteness in his objects and +accomplishments made the world even more incapable than it might +otherwise have been of appreciating Owen Warland’s genius. The boy’s +relatives saw nothing better to be done—as perhaps there was not—than +to bind him apprentice to a watchmaker, hoping that his strange +ingenuity might thus be regulated and put to utilitarian purposes. + +Peter Hovenden’s opinion of his apprentice has already been expressed. +He could make nothing of the lad. Owen’s apprehension of the +professional mysteries, it is true, was inconceivably quick; but he +altogether forgot or despised the grand object of a watchmaker’s +business, and cared no more for the measurement of time than if it had +been merged into eternity. So long, however, as he remained under his +old master’s care, Owen’s lack of sturdiness made it possible, by +strict injunctions and sharp oversight, to restrain his creative +eccentricity within bounds; but when his apprenticeship was served out, +and he had taken the little shop which Peter Hovenden’s failing +eyesight compelled him to relinquish, then did people recognize how +unfit a person was Owen Warland to lead old blind Father Time along his +daily course. One of his most rational projects was to connect a +musical operation with the machinery of his watches, so that all the +harsh dissonances of life might be rendered tuneful, and each flitting +moment fall into the abyss of the past in golden drops of harmony. If a +family clock was intrusted to him for repair,—one of those tall, +ancient clocks that have grown nearly allied to human nature by +measuring out the lifetime of many generations,—he would take upon +himself to arrange a dance or funeral procession of figures across its +venerable face, representing twelve mirthful or melancholy hours. +Several freaks of this kind quite destroyed the young watchmaker’s +credit with that steady and matter-of-fact class of people who hold the +opinion that time is not to be trifled with, whether considered as the +medium of advancement and prosperity in this world or preparation for +the next. His custom rapidly diminished—a misfortune, however, that was +probably reckoned among his better accidents by Owen Warland, who was +becoming more and more absorbed in a secret occupation which drew all +his science and manual dexterity into itself, and likewise gave full +employment to the characteristic tendencies of his genius. This pursuit +had already consumed many months. + +After the old watchmaker and his pretty daughter had gazed at him out +of the obscurity of the street, Owen Warland was seized with a +fluttering of the nerves, which made his hand tremble too violently to +proceed with such delicate labor as he was now engaged upon. + +“It was Annie herself!” murmured he. “I should have known it, by this +throbbing of my heart, before I heard her father’s voice. Ah, how it +throbs! I shall scarcely be able to work again on this exquisite +mechanism to-night. Annie! dearest Annie! thou shouldst give firmness +to my heart and hand, and not shake them thus; for if I strive to put +the very spirit of beauty into form and give it motion, it is for thy +sake alone. O throbbing heart, be quiet! If my labor be thus thwarted, +there will come vague and unsatisfied dreams which will leave me +spiritless to-morrow.” + +As he was endeavoring to settle himself again to his task, the shop +door opened and gave admittance to no other than the stalwart figure +which Peter Hovenden had paused to admire, as seen amid the light and +shadow of the blacksmith’s shop. Robert Danforth had brought a little +anvil of his own manufacture, and peculiarly constructed, which the +young artist had recently bespoken. Owen examined the article and +pronounced it fashioned according to his wish. + +“Why, yes,” said Robert Danforth, his strong voice filling the shop as +with the sound of a bass viol, “I consider myself equal to anything in +the way of my own trade; though I should have made but a poor figure at +yours with such a fist as this,” added he, laughing, as he laid his +vast hand beside the delicate one of Owen. “But what then? I put more +main strength into one blow of my sledge hammer than all that you have +expended since you were a ’prentice. Is not that the truth?” + +“Very probably,” answered the low and slender voice of Owen. “Strength +is an earthly monster. I make no pretensions to it. My force, whatever +there may be of it, is altogether spiritual.” + +“Well, but, Owen, what are you about?” asked his old school-fellow, +still in such a hearty volume of tone that it made the artist shrink, +especially as the question related to a subject so sacred as the +absorbing dream of his imagination. “Folks do say that you are trying +to discover the perpetual motion.” + +“The perpetual motion? Nonsense!” replied Owen Warland, with a movement +of disgust; for he was full of little petulances. “It can never be +discovered. It is a dream that may delude men whose brains are +mystified with matter, but not me. Besides, if such a discovery were +possible, it would not be worth my while to make it only to have the +secret turned to such purposes as are now effected by steam and water +power. I am not ambitious to be honored with the paternity of a new +kind of cotton machine.” + +“That would be droll enough!” cried the blacksmith, breaking out into +such an uproar of laughter that Owen himself and the bell glasses on +his work-board quivered in unison. “No, no, Owen! No child of yours +will have iron joints and sinews. Well, I won’t hinder you any more. +Good night, Owen, and success, and if you need any assistance, so far +as a downright blow of hammer upon anvil will answer the purpose, I’m +your man.” + +And with another laugh the man of main strength left the shop. + +“How strange it is,” whispered Owen Warland to himself, leaning his +head upon his hand, “that all my musings, my purposes, my passion for +the beautiful, my consciousness of power to create it,—a finer, more +ethereal power, of which this earthly giant can have no +conception,—all, all, look so vain and idle whenever my path is crossed +by Robert Danforth! He would drive me mad were I to meet him often. His +hard, brute force darkens and confuses the spiritual element within me; +but I, too, will be strong in my own way. I will not yield to him.” + +He took from beneath a glass a piece of minute machinery, which he set +in the condensed light of his lamp, and, looking intently at it through +a magnifying glass, proceeded to operate with a delicate instrument of +steel. In an instant, however, he fell back in his chair and clasped +his hands, with a look of horror on his face that made its small +features as impressive as those of a giant would have been. + +“Heaven! What have I done?” exclaimed he. “The vapor, the influence of +that brute force,—it has bewildered me and obscured my perception. I +have made the very stroke—the fatal stroke—that I have dreaded from the +first. It is all over—the toil of months, the object of my life. I am +ruined!” + +And there he sat, in strange despair, until his lamp flickered in the +socket and left the Artist of the Beautiful in darkness. + +Thus it is that ideas, which grow up within the imagination and appear +so lovely to it and of a value beyond whatever men call valuable, are +exposed to be shattered and annihilated by contact with the practical. +It is requisite for the ideal artist to possess a force of character +that seems hardly compatible with its delicacy; he must keep his faith +in himself while the incredulous world assails him with its utter +disbelief; he must stand up against mankind and be his own sole +disciple, both as respects his genius and the objects to which it is +directed. + +For a time Owen Warland succumbed to this severe but inevitable test. +He spent a few sluggish weeks with his head so continually resting in +his hands that the towns-people had scarcely an opportunity to see his +countenance. When at last it was again uplifted to the light of day, a +cold, dull, nameless change was perceptible upon it. In the opinion of +Peter Hovenden, however, and that order of sagacious understandings who +think that life should be regulated, like clockwork, with leaden +weights, the alteration was entirely for the better. Owen now, indeed, +applied himself to business with dogged industry. It was marvellous to +witness the obtuse gravity with which he would inspect the wheels of a +great old silver watch thereby delighting the owner, in whose fob it +had been worn till he deemed it a portion of his own life, and was +accordingly jealous of its treatment. In consequence of the good report +thus acquired, Owen Warland was invited by the proper authorities to +regulate the clock in the church steeple. He succeeded so admirably in +this matter of public interest that the merchants gruffly acknowledged +his merits on ’Change; the nurse whispered his praises as she gave the +potion in the sick-chamber; the lover blessed him at the hour of +appointed interview; and the town in general thanked Owen for the +punctuality of dinner time. In a word, the heavy weight upon his +spirits kept everything in order, not merely within his own system, but +wheresoever the iron accents of the church clock were audible. It was a +circumstance, though minute, yet characteristic of his present state, +that, when employed to engrave names or initials on silver spoons, he +now wrote the requisite letters in the plainest possible style, +omitting a variety of fanciful flourishes that had heretofore +distinguished his work in this kind. + +One day, during the era of this happy transformation, old Peter +Hovenden came to visit his former apprentice. + +“Well, Owen,” said he, “I am glad to hear such good accounts of you +from all quarters, and especially from the town clock yonder, which +speaks in your commendation every hour of the twenty-four. Only get rid +altogether of your nonsensical trash about the beautiful, which I nor +nobody else, nor yourself to boot, could ever understand,—only free +yourself of that, and your success in life is as sure as daylight. Why, +if you go on in this way, I should even venture to let you doctor this +precious old watch of mine; though, except my daughter Annie, I have +nothing else so valuable in the world.” + +“I should hardly dare touch it, sir,” replied Owen, in a depressed +tone; for he was weighed down by his old master’s presence. + +“In time,” said the latter,—“In time, you will be capable of it.” + +The old watchmaker, with the freedom naturally consequent on his former +authority, went on inspecting the work which Owen had in hand at the +moment, together with other matters that were in progress. The artist, +meanwhile, could scarcely lift his head. There was nothing so antipodal +to his nature as this man’s cold, unimaginative sagacity, by contact +with which everything was converted into a dream except the densest +matter of the physical world. Owen groaned in spirit and prayed +fervently to be delivered from him. + +“But what is this?” cried Peter Hovenden abruptly, taking up a dusty +bell glass, beneath which appeared a mechanical something, as delicate +and minute as the system of a butterfly’s anatomy. “What have we here? +Owen! Owen! there is witchcraft in these little chains, and wheels, and +paddles. See! with one pinch of my finger and thumb I am going to +deliver you from all future peril.” + +“For Heaven’s sake,” screamed Owen Warland, springing up with wonderful +energy, “as you would not drive me mad, do not touch it! The slightest +pressure of your finger would ruin me forever.” + +“Aha, young man! And is it so?” said the old watchmaker, looking at him +with just enough penetration to torture Owen’s soul with the bitterness +of worldly criticism. “Well, take your own course; but I warn you again +that in this small piece of mechanism lives your evil spirit. Shall I +exorcise him?” + +“You are my evil spirit,” answered Owen, much excited,—“you and the +hard, coarse world! The leaden thoughts and the despondency that you +fling upon me are my clogs, else I should long ago have achieved the +task that I was created for.” + +Peter Hovenden shook his head, with the mixture of contempt and +indignation which mankind, of whom he was partly a representative, deem +themselves entitled to feel towards all simpletons who seek other +prizes than the dusty one along the highway. He then took his leave, +with an uplifted finger and a sneer upon his face that haunted the +artist’s dreams for many a night afterwards. At the time of his old +master’s visit, Owen was probably on the point of taking up the +relinquished task; but, by this sinister event, he was thrown back into +the state whence he had been slowly emerging. + +But the innate tendency of his soul had only been accumulating fresh +vigor during its apparent sluggishness. As the summer advanced he +almost totally relinquished his business, and permitted Father Time, so +far as the old gentleman was represented by the clocks and watches +under his control, to stray at random through human life, making +infinite confusion among the train of bewildered hours. He wasted the +sunshine, as people said, in wandering through the woods and fields and +along the banks of streams. There, like a child, he found amusement in +chasing butterflies or watching the motions of water insects. There was +something truly mysterious in the intentness with which he contemplated +these living playthings as they sported on the breeze or examined the +structure of an imperial insect whom he had imprisoned. The chase of +butterflies was an apt emblem of the ideal pursuit in which he had +spent so many golden hours; but would the beautiful idea ever be +yielded to his hand like the butterfly that symbolized it? Sweet, +doubtless, were these days, and congenial to the artist’s soul. They +were full of bright conceptions, which gleamed through his intellectual +world as the butterflies gleamed through the outward atmosphere, and +were real to him, for the instant, without the toil, and perplexity, +and many disappointments of attempting to make them visible to the +sensual eye. Alas that the artist, whether in poetry, or whatever other +material, may not content himself with the inward enjoyment of the +beautiful, but must chase the flitting mystery beyond the verge of his +ethereal domain, and crush its frail being in seizing it with a +material grasp. Owen Warland felt the impulse to give external reality +to his ideas as irresistibly as any of the poets or painters who have +arrayed the world in a dimmer and fainter beauty, imperfectly copied +from the richness of their visions. + +The night was now his time for the slow progress of re-creating the one +idea to which all his intellectual activity referred itself. Always at +the approach of dusk he stole into the town, locked himself within his +shop, and wrought with patient delicacy of touch for many hours. +Sometimes he was startled by the rap of the watchman, who, when all the +world should be asleep, had caught the gleam of lamplight through the +crevices of Owen Warland’s shutters. Daylight, to the morbid +sensibility of his mind, seemed to have an intrusiveness that +interfered with his pursuits. On cloudy and inclement days, therefore, +he sat with his head upon his hands, muffling, as it were, his +sensitive brain in a mist of indefinite musings, for it was a relief to +escape from the sharp distinctness with which he was compelled to shape +out his thoughts during his nightly toil. + +From one of these fits of torpor he was aroused by the entrance of +Annie Hovenden, who came into the shop with the freedom of a customer, +and also with something of the familiarity of a childish friend. She +had worn a hole through her silver thimble, and wanted Owen to repair +it. + +“But I don’t know whether you will condescend to such a task,” said +she, laughing, “now that you are so taken up with the notion of putting +spirit into machinery.” + +“Where did you get that idea, Annie?” said Owen, starting in surprise. + +“Oh, out of my own head,” answered she, “and from something that I +heard you say, long ago, when you were but a boy and I a little child. +But come, will you mend this poor thimble of mine?” + +“Anything for your sake, Annie,” said Owen Warland,—“anything, even +were it to work at Robert Danforth’s forge.” + +“And that would be a pretty sight!” retorted Annie, glancing with +imperceptible slightness at the artist’s small and slender frame. +“Well; here is the thimble.” + +“But that is a strange idea of yours,” said Owen, “about the +spiritualization of matter.” + +And then the thought stole into his mind that this young girl possessed +the gift to comprehend him better than all the world besides. And what +a help and strength would it be to him in his lonely toil if he could +gain the sympathy of the only being whom he loved! To persons whose +pursuits are insulated from the common business of life—who are either +in advance of mankind or apart from it—there often comes a sensation of +moral cold that makes the spirit shiver as if it had reached the frozen +solitudes around the pole. What the prophet, the poet, the reformer, +the criminal, or any other man with human yearnings, but separated from +the multitude by a peculiar lot, might feel, poor Owen felt. + +“Annie,” cried he, growing pale as death at the thought, “how gladly +would I tell you the secret of my pursuit! You, methinks, would +estimate it rightly. You, I know, would hear it with a reverence that I +must not expect from the harsh, material world.” + +“Would I not? to be sure I would!” replied Annie Hovenden, lightly +laughing. “Come; explain to me quickly what is the meaning of this +little whirligig, so delicately wrought that it might be a plaything +for Queen Mab. See! I will put it in motion.” + +“Hold!” exclaimed Owen, “hold!” + +Annie had but given the slightest possible touch, with the point of a +needle, to the same minute portion of complicated machinery which has +been more than once mentioned, when the artist seized her by the wrist +with a force that made her scream aloud. She was affrighted at the +convulsion of intense rage and anguish that writhed across his +features. The next instant he let his head sink upon his hands. + +“Go, Annie,” murmured he; “I have deceived myself, and must suffer for +it. I yearned for sympathy, and thought, and fancied, and dreamed that +you might give it me; but you lack the talisman, Annie, that should +admit you into my secrets. That touch has undone the toil of months and +the thought of a lifetime! It was not your fault, Annie; but you have +ruined me!” + +Poor Owen Warland! He had indeed erred, yet pardonably; for if any +human spirit could have sufficiently reverenced the processes so sacred +in his eyes, it must have been a woman’s. Even Annie Hovenden, possibly +might not have disappointed him had she been enlightened by the deep +intelligence of love. + +The artist spent the ensuing winter in a way that satisfied any persons +who had hitherto retained a hopeful opinion of him that he was, in +truth, irrevocably doomed to unutility as regarded the world, and to an +evil destiny on his own part. The decease of a relative had put him in +possession of a small inheritance. Thus freed from the necessity of +toil, and having lost the steadfast influence of a great +purpose,—great, at least, to him,—he abandoned himself to habits from +which it might have been supposed the mere delicacy of his organization +would have availed to secure him. But when the ethereal portion of a +man of genius is obscured the earthly part assumes an influence the +more uncontrollable, because the character is now thrown off the +balance to which Providence had so nicely adjusted it, and which, in +coarser natures, is adjusted by some other method. Owen Warland made +proof of whatever show of bliss may be found in riot. He looked at the +world through the golden medium of wine, and contemplated the visions +that bubble up so gayly around the brim of the glass, and that people +the air with shapes of pleasant madness, which so soon grow ghostly and +forlorn. Even when this dismal and inevitable change had taken place, +the young man might still have continued to quaff the cup of +enchantments, though its vapor did but shroud life in gloom and fill +the gloom with spectres that mocked at him. There was a certain +irksomeness of spirit, which, being real, and the deepest sensation of +which the artist was now conscious, was more intolerable than any +fantastic miseries and horrors that the abuse of wine could summon up. +In the latter case he could remember, even out of the midst of his +trouble, that all was but a delusion; in the former, the heavy anguish +was his actual life. + +From this perilous state he was redeemed by an incident which more than +one person witnessed, but of which the shrewdest could not explain or +conjecture the operation on Owen Warland’s mind. It was very simple. On +a warm afternoon of spring, as the artist sat among his riotous +companions with a glass of wine before him, a splendid butterfly flew +in at the open window and fluttered about his head. + +“Ah,” exclaimed Owen, who had drank freely, “are you alive again, child +of the sun and playmate of the summer breeze, after your dismal +winter’s nap? Then it is time for me to be at work!” + +And, leaving his unemptied glass upon the table, he departed and was +never known to sip another drop of wine. + +And now, again, he resumed his wanderings in the woods and fields. It +might be fancied that the bright butterfly, which had come so +spirit-like into the window as Owen sat with the rude revellers, was +indeed a spirit commissioned to recall him to the pure, ideal life that +had so etheralized him among men. It might be fancied that he went +forth to seek this spirit in its sunny haunts; for still, as in the +summer time gone by, he was seen to steal gently up wherever a +butterfly had alighted, and lose himself in contemplation of it. When +it took flight his eyes followed the winged vision, as if its airy +track would show the path to heaven. But what could be the purpose of +the unseasonable toil, which was again resumed, as the watchman knew by +the lines of lamplight through the crevices of Owen Warland’s shutters? +The towns-people had one comprehensive explanation of all these +singularities. Owen Warland had gone mad! How universally +efficacious—how satisfactory, too, and soothing to the injured +sensibility of narrowness and dulness—is this easy method of accounting +for whatever lies beyond the world’s most ordinary scope! From St. +Paul’s days down to our poor little Artist of the Beautiful, the same +talisman had been applied to the elucidation of all mysteries in the +words or deeds of men who spoke or acted too wisely or too well. In +Owen Warland’s case the judgment of his towns-people may have been +correct. Perhaps he was mad. The lack of sympathy—that contrast between +himself and his neighbors which took away the restraint of example—was +enough to make him so. Or possibly he had caught just so much of +ethereal radiance as served to bewilder him, in an earthly sense, by +its intermixture with the common daylight. + +One evening, when the artist had returned from a customary ramble and +had just thrown the lustre of his lamp on the delicate piece of work so +often interrupted, but still taken up again, as if his fate were +embodied in its mechanism, he was surprised by the entrance of old +Peter Hovenden. Owen never met this man without a shrinking of the +heart. Of all the world he was most terrible, by reason of a keen +understanding which saw so distinctly what it did see, and disbelieved +so uncompromisingly in what it could not see. On this occasion the old +watchmaker had merely a gracious word or two to say. + +“Owen, my lad,” said he, “we must see you at my house to-morrow night.” + +The artist began to mutter some excuse. + +“Oh, but it must be so,” quoth Peter Hovenden, “for the sake of the +days when you were one of the household. What, my boy! don’t you know +that my daughter Annie is engaged to Robert Danforth? We are making an +entertainment, in our humble way, to celebrate the event.” + +That little monosyllable was all he uttered; its tone seemed cold and +unconcerned to an ear like Peter Hovenden’s; and yet there was in it +the stifled outcry of the poor artist’s heart, which he compressed +within him like a man holding down an evil spirit. One slight outbreak, +however, imperceptible to the old watchmaker, he allowed himself. +Raising the instrument with which he was about to begin his work, he +let it fall upon the little system of machinery that had, anew, cost +him months of thought and toil. It was shattered by the stroke! + +Owen Warland’s story would have been no tolerable representation of the +troubled life of those who strive to create the beautiful, if, amid all +other thwarting influences, love had not interposed to steal the +cunning from his hand. Outwardly he had been no ardent or enterprising +lover; the career of his passion had confined its tumults and +vicissitudes so entirely within the artist’s imagination that Annie +herself had scarcely more than a woman’s intuitive perception of it; +but, in Owen’s view, it covered the whole field of his life. Forgetful +of the time when she had shown herself incapable of any deep response, +he had persisted in connecting all his dreams of artistical success +with Annie’s image; she was the visible shape in which the spiritual +power that he worshipped, and on whose altar he hoped to lay a not +unworthy offering, was made manifest to him. Of course he had deceived +himself; there were no such attributes in Annie Hovenden as his +imagination had endowed her with. She, in the aspect which she wore to +his inward vision, was as much a creature of his own as the mysterious +piece of mechanism would be were it ever realized. Had he become +convinced of his mistake through the medium of successful love,—had he +won Annie to his bosom, and there beheld her fade from angel into +ordinary woman,—the disappointment might have driven him back, with +concentrated energy, upon his sole remaining object. On the other hand, +had he found Annie what he fancied, his lot would have been so rich in +beauty that out of its mere redundancy he might have wrought the +beautiful into many a worthier type than he had toiled for; but the +guise in which his sorrow came to him, the sense that the angel of his +life had been snatched away and given to a rude man of earth and iron, +who could neither need nor appreciate her ministrations,—this was the +very perversity of fate that makes human existence appear too absurd +and contradictory to be the scene of one other hope or one other fear. +There was nothing left for Owen Warland but to sit down like a man that +had been stunned. + +He went through a fit of illness. After his recovery his small and +slender frame assumed an obtuser garniture of flesh than it had ever +before worn. His thin cheeks became round; his delicate little hand, so +spiritually fashioned to achieve fairy task-work, grew plumper than the +hand of a thriving infant. His aspect had a childishness such as might +have induced a stranger to pat him on the head—pausing, however, in the +act, to wonder what manner of child was here. It was as if the spirit +had gone out of him, leaving the body to flourish in a sort of +vegetable existence. Not that Owen Warland was idiotic. He could talk, +and not irrationally. Somewhat of a babbler, indeed, did people begin +to think him; for he was apt to discourse at wearisome length of +marvels of mechanism that he had read about in books, but which he had +learned to consider as absolutely fabulous. Among them he enumerated +the Man of Brass, constructed by Albertus Magnus, and the Brazen Head +of Friar Bacon; and, coming down to later times, the automata of a +little coach and horses, which it was pretended had been manufactured +for the Dauphin of France; together with an insect that buzzed about +the ear like a living fly, and yet was but a contrivance of minute +steel springs. There was a story, too, of a duck that waddled, and +quacked, and ate; though, had any honest citizen purchased it for +dinner, he would have found himself cheated with the mere mechanical +apparition of a duck. + +“But all these accounts,” said Owen Warland, “I am now satisfied are +mere impositions.” + +Then, in a mysterious way, he would confess that he once thought +differently. In his idle and dreamy days he had considered it possible, +in a certain sense, to spiritualize machinery, and to combine with the +new species of life and motion thus produced a beauty that should +attain to the ideal which Nature has proposed to herself in all her +creatures, but has never taken pains to realize. He seemed, however, to +retain no very distinct perception either of the process of achieving +this object or of the design itself. + +“I have thrown it all aside now,” he would say. “It was a dream such as +young men are always mystifying themselves with. Now that I have +acquired a little common sense, it makes me laugh to think of it.” + +Poor, poor and fallen Owen Warland! These were the symptoms that he had +ceased to be an inhabitant of the better sphere that lies unseen around +us. He had lost his faith in the invisible, and now prided himself, as +such unfortunates invariably do, in the wisdom which rejected much that +even his eye could see, and trusted confidently in nothing but what his +hand could touch. This is the calamity of men whose spiritual part dies +out of them and leaves the grosser understanding to assimilate them +more and more to the things of which alone it can take cognizance; but +in Owen Warland the spirit was not dead nor passed away; it only slept. + +How it awoke again is not recorded. Perhaps the torpid slumber was +broken by a convulsive pain. Perhaps, as in a former instance, the +butterfly came and hovered about his head and reinspired him,—as indeed +this creature of the sunshine had always a mysterious mission for the +artist,—reinspired him with the former purpose of his life. Whether it +were pain or happiness that thrilled through his veins, his first +impulse was to thank Heaven for rendering him again the being of +thought, imagination, and keenest sensibility that he had long ceased +to be. + +“Now for my task,” said he. “Never did I feel such strength for it as +now.” + +Yet, strong as he felt himself, he was incited to toil the more +diligently by an anxiety lest death should surprise him in the midst of +his labors. This anxiety, perhaps, is common to all men who set their +hearts upon anything so high, in their own view of it, that life +becomes of importance only as conditional to its accomplishment. So +long as we love life for itself, we seldom dread the losing it. When we +desire life for the attainment of an object, we recognize the frailty +of its texture. But, side by side with this sense of insecurity, there +is a vital faith in our invulnerability to the shaft of death while +engaged in any task that seems assigned by Providence as our proper +thing to do, and which the world would have cause to mourn for should +we leave it unaccomplished. Can the philosopher, big with the +inspiration of an idea that is to reform mankind, believe that he is to +be beckoned from this sensible existence at the very instant when he is +mustering his breath to speak the word of light? Should he perish so, +the weary ages may pass away—the world’s, whose life sand may fall, +drop by drop—before another intellect is prepared to develop the truth +that might have been uttered then. But history affords many an example +where the most precious spirit, at any particular epoch manifested in +human shape, has gone hence untimely, without space allowed him, so far +as mortal judgment could discern, to perform his mission on the earth. +The prophet dies, and the man of torpid heart and sluggish brain lives +on. The poet leaves his song half sung, or finishes it, beyond the +scope of mortal ears, in a celestial choir. The painter—as Allston +did—leaves half his conception on the canvas to sadden us with its +imperfect beauty, and goes to picture forth the whole, if it be no +irreverence to say so, in the hues of heaven. But rather such +incomplete designs of this life will be perfected nowhere. This so +frequent abortion of man’s dearest projects must be taken as a proof +that the deeds of earth, however etherealized by piety or genius, are +without value, except as exercises and manifestations of the spirit. In +heaven, all ordinary thought is higher and more melodious than Milton’s +song. Then, would he add another verse to any strain that he had left +unfinished here? + +But to return to Owen Warland. It was his fortune, good or ill, to +achieve the purpose of his life. Pass we over a long space of intense +thought, yearning effort, minute toil, and wasting anxiety, succeeded +by an instant of solitary triumph: let all this be imagined; and then +behold the artist, on a winter evening, seeking admittance to Robert +Danforth’s fireside circle. There he found the man of iron, with his +massive substance thoroughly warmed and attempered by domestic +influences. And there was Annie, too, now transformed into a matron, +with much of her husband’s plain and sturdy nature, but imbued, as Owen +Warland still believed, with a finer grace, that might enable her to be +the interpreter between strength and beauty. It happened, likewise, +that old Peter Hovenden was a guest this evening at his daughter’s +fireside, and it was his well-remembered expression of keen, cold +criticism that first encountered the artist’s glance. + +“My old friend Owen!” cried Robert Danforth, starting up, and +compressing the artist’s delicate fingers within a hand that was +accustomed to gripe bars of iron. “This is kind and neighborly to come +to us at last. I was afraid your perpetual motion had bewitched you out +of the remembrance of old times.” + +“We are glad to see you,” said Annie, while a blush reddened her +matronly cheek. “It was not like a friend to stay from us so long.” + +“Well, Owen,” inquired the old watchmaker, as his first greeting, “how +comes on the beautiful? Have you created it at last?” + +The artist did not immediately reply, being startled by the apparition +of a young child of strength that was tumbling about on the carpet,—a +little personage who had come mysteriously out of the infinite, but +with something so sturdy and real in his composition that he seemed +moulded out of the densest substance which earth could supply. This +hopeful infant crawled towards the new-comer, and setting himself on +end, as Robert Danforth expressed the posture, stared at Owen with a +look of such sagacious observation that the mother could not help +exchanging a proud glance with her husband. But the artist was +disturbed by the child’s look, as imagining a resemblance between it +and Peter Hovenden’s habitual expression. He could have fancied that +the old watchmaker was compressed into this baby shape, and looking out +of those baby eyes, and repeating, as he now did, the malicious +question: “The beautiful, Owen! How comes on the beautiful? Have you +succeeded in creating the beautiful?” + +“I have succeeded,” replied the artist, with a momentary light of +triumph in his eyes and a smile of sunshine, yet steeped in such depth +of thought that it was almost sadness. “Yes, my friends, it is the +truth. I have succeeded.” + +“Indeed!” cried Annie, a look of maiden mirthfulness peeping out of her +face again. “And is it lawful, now, to inquire what the secret is?” + +“Surely; it is to disclose it that I have come,” answered Owen Warland. +“You shall know, and see, and touch, and possess the secret! For, +Annie,—if by that name I may still address the friend of my boyish +years,—Annie, it is for your bridal gift that I have wrought this +spiritualized mechanism, this harmony of motion, this mystery of +beauty. It comes late, indeed; but it is as we go onward in life, when +objects begin to lose their freshness of hue and our souls their +delicacy of perception, that the spirit of beauty is most needed. +If,—forgive me, Annie,—if you know how—to value this gift, it can never +come too late.” + +He produced, as he spoke, what seemed a jewel box. It was carved richly +out of ebony by his own hand, and inlaid with a fanciful tracery of +pearl, representing a boy in pursuit of a butterfly, which, elsewhere, +had become a winged spirit, and was flying heavenward; while the boy, +or youth, had found such efficacy in his strong desire that he ascended +from earth to cloud, and from cloud to celestial atmosphere, to win the +beautiful. This case of ebony the artist opened, and bade Annie place +her fingers on its edge. She did so, but almost screamed as a butterfly +fluttered forth, and, alighting on her finger’s tip, sat waving the +ample magnificence of its purple and gold-speckled wings, as if in +prelude to a flight. It is impossible to express by words the glory, +the splendor, the delicate gorgeousness which were softened into the +beauty of this object. Nature’s ideal butterfly was here realized in +all its perfection; not in the pattern of such faded insects as flit +among earthly flowers, but of those which hover across the meads of +paradise for child-angels and the spirits of departed infants to +disport themselves with. The rich down was visible upon its wings; the +lustre of its eyes seemed instinct with spirit. The firelight glimmered +around this wonder—the candles gleamed upon it; but it glistened +apparently by its own radiance, and illuminated the finger and +outstretched hand on which it rested with a white gleam like that of +precious stones. In its perfect beauty, the consideration of size was +entirely lost. Had its wings overreached the firmament, the mind could +not have been more filled or satisfied. + +“Beautiful! beautiful!” exclaimed Annie. “Is it alive? Is it alive?” + +“Alive? To be sure it is,” answered her husband. “Do you suppose any +mortal has skill enough to make a butterfly, or would put himself to +the trouble of making one, when any child may catch a score of them in +a summer’s afternoon? Alive? Certainly! But this pretty box is +undoubtedly of our friend Owen’s manufacture; and really it does him +credit.” + +At this moment the butterfly waved its wings anew, with a motion so +absolutely lifelike that Annie was startled, and even awestricken; for, +in spite of her husband’s opinion, she could not satisfy herself +whether it was indeed a living creature or a piece of wondrous +mechanism. + +“Is it alive?” she repeated, more earnestly than before. + +“Judge for yourself,” said Owen Warland, who stood gazing in her face +with fixed attention. + +The butterfly now flung itself upon the air, fluttered round Annie’s +head, and soared into a distant region of the parlor, still making +itself perceptible to sight by the starry gleam in which the motion of +its wings enveloped it. The infant on the floor followed its course +with his sagacious little eyes. After flying about the room, it +returned in a spiral curve and settled again on Annie’s finger. + +“But is it alive?” exclaimed she again; and the finger on which the +gorgeous mystery had alighted was so tremulous that the butterfly was +forced to balance himself with his wings. “Tell me if it be alive, or +whether you created it.” + +“Wherefore ask who created it, so it be beautiful?” replied Owen +Warland. “Alive? Yes, Annie; it may well be said to possess life, for +it has absorbed my own being into itself; and in the secret of that +butterfly, and in its beauty,—which is not merely outward, but deep as +its whole system,—is represented the intellect, the imagination, the +sensibility, the soul of an Artist of the Beautiful! Yes; I created it. +But”—and here his countenance somewhat changed—“this butterfly is not +now to me what it was when I beheld it afar off in the daydreams of my +youth.” + +“Be it what it may, it is a pretty plaything,” said the blacksmith, +grinning with childlike delight. “I wonder whether it would condescend +to alight on such a great clumsy finger as mine? Hold it hither, +Annie.” + +By the artist’s direction, Annie touched her finger’s tip to that of +her husband; and, after a momentary delay, the butterfly fluttered from +one to the other. It preluded a second flight by a similar, yet not +precisely the same, waving of wings as in the first experiment; then, +ascending from the blacksmith’s stalwart finger, it rose in a gradually +enlarging curve to the ceiling, made one wide sweep around the room, +and returned with an undulating movement to the point whence it had +started. + +“Well, that does beat all nature!” cried Robert Danforth, bestowing the +heartiest praise that he could find expression for; and, indeed, had he +paused there, a man of finer words and nicer perception could not +easily have said more. “That goes beyond me, I confess. But what then? +There is more real use in one downright blow of my sledge hammer than +in the whole five years’ labor that our friend Owen has wasted on this +butterfly.” + +Here the child clapped his hands and made a great babble of indistinct +utterance, apparently demanding that the butterfly should be given him +for a plaything. + +Owen Warland, meanwhile, glanced sidelong at Annie, to discover whether +she sympathized in her husband’s estimate of the comparative value of +the beautiful and the practical. There was, amid all her kindness +towards himself, amid all the wonder and admiration with which she +contemplated the marvellous work of his hands and incarnation of his +idea, a secret scorn—too secret, perhaps, for her own consciousness, +and perceptible only to such intuitive discernment as that of the +artist. But Owen, in the latter stages of his pursuit, had risen out of +the region in which such a discovery might have been torture. He knew +that the world, and Annie as the representative of the world, whatever +praise might be bestowed, could never say the fitting word nor feel the +fitting sentiment which should be the perfect recompense of an artist +who, symbolizing a lofty moral by a material trifle,—converting what +was earthly to spiritual gold,—had won the beautiful into his +handiwork. Not at this latest moment was he to learn that the reward of +all high performance must be sought within itself, or sought in vain. +There was, however, a view of the matter which Annie and her husband, +and even Peter Hovenden, might fully have understood, and which would +have satisfied them that the toil of years had here been worthily +bestowed. Owen Warland might have told them that this butterfly, this +plaything, this bridal gift of a poor watchmaker to a blacksmith’s +wife, was, in truth, a gem of art that a monarch would have purchased +with honors and abundant wealth, and have treasured it among the jewels +of his kingdom as the most unique and wondrous of them all. But the +artist smiled and kept the secret to himself. + +“Father,” said Annie, thinking that a word of praise from the old +watchmaker might gratify his former apprentice, “do come and admire +this pretty butterfly.” + +“Let us see,” said Peter Hovenden, rising from his chair, with a sneer +upon his face that always made people doubt, as he himself did, in +everything but a material existence. “Here is my finger for it to +alight upon. I shall understand it better when once I have touched it.” + +But, to the increased astonishment of Annie, when the tip of her +father’s finger was pressed against that of her husband, on which the +butterfly still rested, the insect drooped its wings and seemed on the +point of falling to the floor. Even the bright spots of gold upon its +wings and body, unless her eyes deceived her, grew dim, and the glowing +purple took a dusky hue, and the starry lustre that gleamed around the +blacksmith’s hand became faint and vanished. + +“It is dying! it is dying!” cried Annie, in alarm. + +“It has been delicately wrought,” said the artist, calmly. “As I told +you, it has imbibed a spiritual essence—call it magnetism, or what you +will. In an atmosphere of doubt and mockery its exquisite +susceptibility suffers torture, as does the soul of him who instilled +his own life into it. It has already lost its beauty; in a few moments +more its mechanism would be irreparably injured.” + +“Take away your hand, father!” entreated Annie, turning pale. “Here is +my child; let it rest on his innocent hand. There, perhaps, its life +will revive and its colors grow brighter than ever.” + +Her father, with an acrid smile, withdrew his finger. The butterfly +then appeared to recover the power of voluntary motion, while its hues +assumed much of their original lustre, and the gleam of starlight, +which was its most ethereal attribute, again formed a halo round about +it. At first, when transferred from Robert Danforth’s hand to the small +finger of the child, this radiance grew so powerful that it positively +threw the little fellow’s shadow back against the wall. He, meanwhile, +extended his plump hand as he had seen his father and mother do, and +watched the waving of the insect’s wings with infantine delight. +Nevertheless, there was a certain odd expression of sagacity that made +Owen Warland feel as if here were old Pete Hovenden, partially, and but +partially, redeemed from his hard scepticism into childish faith. + +“How wise the little monkey looks!” whispered Robert Danforth to his +wife. + +“I never saw such a look on a child’s face,” answered Annie, admiring +her own infant, and with good reason, far more than the artistic +butterfly. “The darling knows more of the mystery than we do.” + +As if the butterfly, like the artist, were conscious of something not +entirely congenial in the child’s nature, it alternately sparkled and +grew dim. At length it arose from the small hand of the infant with an +airy motion that seemed to bear it upward without an effort, as if the +ethereal instincts with which its master’s spirit had endowed it +impelled this fair vision involuntarily to a higher sphere. Had there +been no obstruction, it might have soared into the sky and grown +immortal. But its lustre gleamed upon the ceiling; the exquisite +texture of its wings brushed against that earthly medium; and a sparkle +or two, as of stardust, floated downward and lay glimmering on the +carpet. Then the butterfly came fluttering down, and, instead of +returning to the infant, was apparently attracted towards the artist’s +hand. + +“Not so! not so!” murmured Owen Warland, as if his handiwork could have +understood him. “Thou has gone forth out of thy master’s heart. There +is no return for thee.” + +With a wavering movement, and emitting a tremulous radiance, the +butterfly struggled, as it were, towards the infant, and was about to +alight upon his finger; but while it still hovered in the air, the +little child of strength, with his grandsire’s sharp and shrewd +expression in his face, made a snatch at the marvellous insect and +compressed it in his hand. Annie screamed. Old Peter Hovenden burst +into a cold and scornful laugh. The blacksmith, by main force, unclosed +the infant’s hand, and found within the palm a small heap of glittering +fragments, whence the mystery of beauty had fled forever. And as for +Owen Warland, he looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life’s +labor, and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly +than this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, +the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of +little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the +enjoyment of the reality. + + + + +A VIRTUOSO’S COLLECTION + + +The other day, having a leisure hour at my disposal, I stepped into a +new museum, to which my notice was casually drawn by a small and +unobtrusive sign: “TO BE SEEN HERE, A VIRTUOSO’S COLLECTION.” Such was +the simple yet not altogether unpromising announcement that turned my +steps aside for a little while from the sunny sidewalk of our principal +thoroughfare. Mounting a sombre staircase, I pushed open a door at its +summit, and found myself in the presence of a person, who mentioned the +moderate sum that would entitle me to admittance. + +“Three shillings, Massachusetts tenor,” said he. “No, I mean half a +dollar, as you reckon in these days.” + +While searching my pocket for the coin I glanced at the doorkeeper, the +marked character and individuality of whose aspect encouraged me to +expect something not quite in the ordinary way. He wore an +old-fashioned great-coat, much faded, within which his meagre person +was so completely enveloped that the rest of his attire was +undistinguishable. But his visage was remarkably wind-flushed, +sunburnt, and weather-worn, and had a most, unquiet, nervous, and +apprehensive expression. It seemed as if this man had some +all-important object in view, some point of deepest interest to be +decided, some momentous question to ask, might he but hope for a reply. +As it was evident, however, that I could have nothing to do with his +private affairs, I passed through an open doorway, which admitted me +into the extensive hall of the museum. + +Directly in front of the portal was the bronze statue of a youth with +winged feet. He was represented in the act of flitting away from earth, +yet wore such a look of earnest invitation that it impressed me like a +summons to enter the hall. + +“It is the original statue of Opportunity, by the ancient sculptor +Lysippus,” said a gentleman who now approached me. “I place it at the +entrance of my museum, because it is not at all times that one can gain +admittance to such a collection.” + +The speaker was a middle-aged person, of whom it was not easy to +determine whether he had spent his life as a scholar or as a man of +action; in truth, all outward and obvious peculiarities had been worn +away by an extensive and promiscuous intercourse with the world. There +was no mark about him of profession, individual habits, or scarcely of +country; although his dark complexion and high features made me +conjecture that he was a native of some southern clime of Europe. At +all events, he was evidently the virtuoso in person. + +“With your permission,” said he, “as we have no descriptive catalogue, +I will accompany you through the museum and point out whatever may be +most worthy of attention. In the first place, here is a choice +collection of stuffed animals.” + +Nearest the door stood the outward semblance of a wolf, exquisitely +prepared, it is true, and showing a very wolfish fierceness in the +large glass eyes which were inserted into its wild and crafty head. +Still it was merely the skin of a wolf, with nothing to distinguish it +from other individuals of that unlovely breed. + +“How does this animal deserve a place in your collection?” inquired I. + +“It is the wolf that devoured Little Red Riding Hood,” answered the +virtuoso; “and by his side—with a milder and more matronly look, as you +perceive—stands the she-wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus.” + +“Ah, indeed!” exclaimed I. “And what lovely lamb is this with the +snow-white fleece, which seems to be of as delicate a texture as +innocence itself?” + +“Methinks you have but carelessly read Spenser,” replied my guide, “or +you would at once recognize the ‘milk-white lamb’ which Una led. But I +set no great value upon the lamb. The next specimen is better worth our +notice.” + +“What!” cried I, “this strange animal, with the black head of an ox +upon the body of a white horse? Were it possible to suppose it, I +should say that this was Alexander’s steed Bucephalus.” + +“The same,” said the virtuoso. “And can you likewise give a name to the +famous charger that stands beside him?” + +Next to the renowned Bucephalus stood the mere skeleton of a horse, +with the white bones peeping through his ill-conditioned hide; but, if +my heart had not warmed towards that pitiful anatomy, I might as well +have quitted the museum at once. Its rarities had not been collected +with pain and toil from the four quarters of the earth, and from the +depths of the sea, and from the palaces and sepulchres of ages, for +those who could mistake this illustrious steed. + +“It, is Rosinante!” exclaimed I, with enthusiasm. + +And so it proved. My admiration for the noble and gallant horse caused +me to glance with less interest at the other animals, although many of +them might have deserved the notice of Cuvier himself. There was the +donkey which Peter Bell cudgelled so soundly, and a brother of the same +species who had suffered a similar infliction from the ancient prophet +Balaam. Some doubts were entertained, however, as to the authenticity +of the latter beast. My guide pointed out the venerable Argus, that +faithful dog of Ulysses, and also another dog (for so the skin bespoke +it), which, though imperfectly preserved, seemed once to have had three +heads. It was Cerberus. I was considerably amused at detecting in an +obscure corner the fox that became so famous by the loss of his tail. +There were several stuffed cats, which, as a dear lover of that +comfortable beast, attracted my affectionate regards. One was Dr. +Johnson’s cat Hodge; and in the same row stood the favorite cats of +Mahomet, Gray, and Walter Scott, together with Puss in Boots, and a cat +of very noble aspect—who had once been a deity of ancient Egypt. +Byron’s tame bear came next. I must not forget to mention the +Eryruanthean boar, the skin of St. George’s dragon, and that of the +serpent Python; and another skin with beautifully variegated hues, +supposed to have been the garment of the “spirited sly snake,” which +tempted Eve. Against the walls were suspended the horns of the stag +that Shakespeare shot; and on the floor lay the ponderous shell of the +tortoise which fell upon the head of Aeschylus. In one row, as natural +as life, stood the sacred bull Apis, the “cow with the crumpled horn,” +and a very wild-looking young heifer, which I guessed to be the cow +that jumped over the moon. She was probably killed by the rapidity of +her descent. As I turned away, my eyes fell upon an indescribable +monster, which proved to be a griffin. + +“I look in vain,” observed I, “for the skin of an animal which might +well deserve the closest study of a naturalist,—the winged horse, +Pegasus.” + +“He is not yet dead,” replied the virtuoso; “but he is so hard ridden +by many young gentlemen of the day that I hope soon to add his skin and +skeleton to my collection.” + +We now passed to the next alcove of the hall, in which was a multitude +of stuffed birds. They were very prettily arranged, some upon the +branches of trees, others brooding upon nests, and others suspended by +wires so artificially that they seemed in the very act of flight. Among +them was a white dove, with a withered branch of olive-leaves in her +mouth. + +“Can this be the very dove,” inquired I, “that brought the message of +peace and hope to the tempest-beaten passengers of the ark?” + +“Even so,” said my companion. + +“And this raven, I suppose,” continued I, “is the same that fed Elijah +in the wilderness.” + +“The raven? No,” said the virtuoso; “it is a bird of modern date. He +belonged to one Barnaby Rudge, and many people fancied that the Devil +himself was disguised under his sable plumage. But poor Grip has drawn +his last cork, and has been forced to ‘say die’ at last. This other +raven, hardly less curious, is that in which the soul of King George I. +revisited his lady-love, the Duchess of Kendall.” + +My guide next pointed out Minerva’s owl and the vulture that preyed +upon the liver of Prometheus. There was likewise the sacred ibis of +Egypt, and one of the Stymphalides which Hercules shot in his sixth +labor. Shelley’s skylark, Bryant’s water-fowl, and a pigeon from the +belfry of the Old South Church, preserved by N. P. Willis, were placed +on the same perch. I could not but shudder on beholding Coleridge’s +albatross, transfixed with the Ancient Mariner’s crossbow shaft. Beside +this bird of awful poesy stood a gray goose of very ordinary aspect. + +“Stuffed goose is no such rarity,” observed I. “Why do you preserve +such a specimen in your museum?” + +“It is one of the flock whose cackling saved the Roman Capitol,” +answered the virtuoso. “Many geese have cackled and hissed both before +and since; but none, like those, have clamored themselves into +immortality.” + +There seemed to be little else that demanded notice in this department +of the museum, unless we except Robinson Crusoe’s parrot, a live +phoenix, a footless bird of paradise, and a splendid peacock, supposed +to be the same that once contained the soul of Pythagoras. I therefore +passed to the next alcove, the shelves of which were covered with a +miscellaneous collection of curiosities such as are usually found in +similar establishments. One of the first things that took my eye was a +strange-looking cap, woven of some substance that appeared to be +neither woollen, cotton, nor linen. + +“Is this a magician’s cap?” I asked. + +“No,” replied the virtuoso; “it is merely Dr. Franklin’s cap of +asbestos. But here is one which, perhaps, may suit you better. It is +the wishing-cap of Fortunatus. Will you try it on?” + +“By no means,” answered I, putting it aside with my hand. “The day of +wild wishes is past with me. I desire nothing that may not come in the +ordinary course of Providence.” + +“Then probably,” returned the virtuoso, “you will not be tempted to rub +this lamp?” + +While speaking, he took from the shelf an antique brass lamp, curiously +wrought with embossed figures, but so covered with verdigris that the +sculpture was almost eaten away. + +“It is a thousand years,” said he, “since the genius of this lamp +constructed Aladdin’s palace in a single night. But he still retains +his power; and the man who rubs Aladdin’s lamp has but to desire either +a palace or a cottage.” + +“I might desire a cottage,” replied I; “but I would have it founded on +sure and stable truth, not on dreams and fantasies. I have learned to +look for the real and the true.” + +My guide next showed me Prospero’s magic wand, broken into three +fragments by the hand of its mighty master. On the same shelf lay the +gold ring of ancient Gyges, which enabled the wearer to walk invisible. +On the other side of the alcove was a tall looking-glass in a frame of +ebony, but veiled with a curtain of purple silk, through the rents of +which the gleam of the mirror was perceptible. + +“This is Cornelius Agrippa’s magic glass,” observed the virtuoso. “Draw +aside the curtain, and picture any human form within your mind, and it +will be reflected in the mirror.” + +“It is enough if I can picture it within my mind,” answered I. “Why +should I wish it to be repeated in the mirror? But, indeed, these works +of magic have grown wearisome to me. There are so many greater wonders +in the world, to those who keep their eyes open and their sight +undimmed by custom, that all the delusions of the old sorcerers seem +flat and stale. Unless you can show me something really curious, I care +not to look further into your museum.” + +“Ah, well, then,” said the virtuoso, composedly, “perhaps you may deem +some of my antiquarian rarities deserving of a glance.” + +He pointed out the iron mask, now corroded with rust; and my heart grew +sick at the sight of this dreadful relic, which had shut out a human +being from sympathy with his race. There was nothing half so terrible +in the axe that beheaded King Charles, nor in the dagger that slew +Henry of Navarre, nor in the arrow that pierced the heart of William +Rufus,—all of which were shown to me. Many of the articles derived +their interest, such as it was, from having been formerly in the +possession of royalty. For instance, here was Charlemagne’s sheepskin +cloak, the flowing wig of Louis Quatorze, the spinning-wheel of +Sardanapalus, and King Stephen’s famous breeches which cost him but a +crown. The heart of the Bloody Mary, with the word “Calais” worn into +its diseased substance, was preserved in a bottle of spirits; and near +it lay the golden case in which the queen of Gustavus Adolphus +treasured up that hero’s heart. Among these relics and heirlooms of +kings I must not forget the long, hairy ears of Midas, and a piece of +bread which had been changed to gold by the touch of that unlucky +monarch. And as Grecian Helen was a queen, it may here be mentioned +that I was permitted to take into my hand a lock of her golden hair and +the bowl which a sculptor modelled from the curve of her perfect +breast. Here, likewise, was the robe that smothered Agamemnon, Nero’s +fiddle, the Czar Peter’s brandy-bottle, the crown of Semiramis, and +Canute’s sceptre which he extended over the sea. That my own land may +not deem itself neglected, let me add that I was favored with a sight +of the skull of King Philip, the famous Indian chief, whose head the +Puritans smote off and exhibited upon a pole. + +“Show me something else,” said I to the virtuoso. “Kings are in such an +artificial position that people in the ordinary walks of life cannot +feel an interest in their relics. If you could show me the straw hat of +sweet little Nell, I would far rather see it than a king’s golden +crown.” + +“There it is,” said my guide, pointing carelessly with his staff to the +straw hat in question. “But, indeed, you are hard to please. Here are +the seven-league boots. Will you try them on?” + +“Our modern railroads have superseded their use,” answered I; “and as +to these cowhide boots, I could show you quite as curious a pair at the +Transcendental community in Roxbury.” + +We next examined a collection of swords and other weapons, belonging to +different epochs, but thrown together without much attempt at +arrangement. Here Was Arthur’s sword Excalibar, and that of the Cid +Campeader, and the sword of Brutus rusted with Caesar’s blood and his +own, and the sword of Joan of Arc, and that of Horatius, and that with +which Virginius slew his daughter, and the one which Dionysius +suspended over the head of Damocles. Here also was Arria’s sword, which +she plunged into her own breast, in order to taste of death before her +husband. The crooked blade of Saladin’s cimeter next attracted my +notice. I know not by what chance, but so it happened, that the sword +of one of our own militia generals was suspended between Don Quixote’s +lance and the brown blade of Hudibras. My heart throbbed high at the +sight of the helmet of Miltiades and the spear that was broken in the +breast of Epaminondas. I recognized the shield of Achilles by its +resemblance to the admirable cast in the possession of Professor +Felton. Nothing in this apartment interested me more than Major +Pitcairn’s pistol, the discharge of which, at Lexington, began the war +of the Revolution, and was reverberated in thunder around the land for +seven long years. The bow of Ulysses, though unstrung for ages, was +placed against the wall, together with a sheaf of Robin Hood’s arrows +and the rifle of Daniel Boone. + +“Enough of weapons,” said I, at length; “although I would gladly have +seen the sacred shield which fell from heaven in the time of Numa. And +surely you should obtain the sword which Washington unsheathed at +Cambridge. But the collection does you much credit. Let us pass on.” + +In the next alcove we saw the golden thigh of Pythagoras, which had so +divine a meaning; and, by one of the queer analogies to which the +virtuoso seemed to be addicted, this ancient emblem lay on the same +shelf with Peter Stuyvesant’s wooden leg, that was fabled to be of +silver. Here was a remnant of the Golden Fleece, and a sprig of yellow +leaves that resembled the foliage of a frost-bitten elm, but was duly +authenticated as a portion of the golden branch by which AEneas gained +admittance to the realm of Pluto. Atalanta’s golden apple and one of +the apples of discord were wrapped in the napkin of gold which +Rampsinitus brought from Hades; and the whole were deposited in the +golden vase of Bias, with its inscription: “TO THE WISEST.” + +“And how did you obtain this vase?” said I to the virtuoso. + +“It was given me long ago,” replied he, with a scornful expression in +his eye, “because I had learned to despise all things.” + +It had not escaped me that, though the virtuoso was evidently a man of +high cultivation, yet he seemed to lack sympathy with the spiritual, +the sublime, and the tender. Apart from the whim that had led him to +devote so much time, pains, and expense to the collection of this +museum, he impressed me as one of the hardest and coldest men of the +world whom I had ever met. + +“To despise all things!” repeated I. “This, at best, is the wisdom of +the understanding. It is the creed of a man whose soul, whose better +and diviner part, has never been awakened, or has died out of him.” + +“I did not think that you were still so young,” said the virtuoso. +“Should you live to my years, you will acknowledge that the vase of +Bias was not ill bestowed.” + +Without further discussion of the point, he directed my attention to +other curiosities. I examined Cinderella’s little glass slipper, and +compared it with one of Diana’s sandals, and with Fanny Elssler’s shoe, +which bore testimony to the muscular character of her illustrious foot. +On the same shelf were Thomas the Rhymer’s green velvet shoes, and the +brazen shoe of Empedocles which was thrown out of Mount AEtna. +Anacreon’s drinking-cup was placed in apt juxtaposition with one of Tom +Moore’s wine-glasses and Circe’s magic bowl. These were symbols of +luxury and riot; but near them stood the cup whence Socrates drank his +hemlock, and that which Sir Philip Sidney put from his death-parched +lips to bestow the draught upon a dying soldier. Next appeared a +cluster of tobacco-pipes, consisting of Sir Walter Raleigh’s, the +earliest on record, Dr. Parr’s, Charles Lamb’s, and the first calumet +of peace which was ever smoked between a European and an Indian. Among +other musical instruments, I noticed the lyre of Orpheus and those of +Homer and Sappho, Dr. Franklin’s famous whistle, the trumpet of Anthony +Van Corlear, and the flute which Goldsmith played upon in his rambles +through the French provinces. The staff of Peter the Hermit stood in a +corner with that of good old Bishop Jewel, and one of ivory, which had +belonged to Papirius, the Roman senator. The ponderous club of Hercules +was close at hand. The virtuoso showed me the chisel of Phidias, +Claude’s palette, and the brush of Apelles, observing that he intended +to bestow the former either on Greenough, Crawford, or Powers, and the +two latter upon Washington Allston. There was a small vase of oracular +gas from Delphos, which I trust will be submitted to the scientific +analysis of Professor Silliman. I was deeply moved on beholding a vial +of the tears into which Niobe was dissolved; nor less so on learning +that a shapeless fragment of salt was a relic of that victim of +despondency and sinful regrets,—Lot’s wife. My companion appeared to +set great value upon some Egyptian darkness in a blacking-jug. Several +of the shelves were covered by a collection of coins, among which, +however, I remember none but the Splendid Shilling, celebrated by +Phillips, and a dollar’s worth of the iron money of Lycurgus, weighing +about fifty pounds. + +Walking carelessly onward, I had nearly fallen over a huge bundle, like +a peddler’s pack, done up in sackcloth, and very securely strapped and +corded. + +“It is Christian’s burden of sin,” said the virtuoso. + +“O, pray let us open it!” cried I. “For many a year I have longed to +know its contents.” + +“Look into your own consciousness and memory,” replied the virtuoso. +“You will there find a list of whatever it contains.” + +As this was all undeniable truth, I threw a melancholy look at the +burden and passed on. A collection of old garments, banging on pegs, +was worthy of some attention, especially the shirt of Nessus, Caesar’s +mantle, Joseph’s coat of many colors, the Vicar of Bray’s cassock, +Goldsmith’s peach-bloom suit, a pair of President Jefferson’s scarlet +breeches, John Randolph’s red baize hunting-shirt, the drab +small-clothes of the Stout Gentleman, and the rags of the “man all +tattered and torn.” George Fox’s hat impressed me with deep reverence +as a relic of perhaps the truest apostle that has appeared on earth for +these eighteen hundred years. My eye was next attracted by an old pair +of shears, which I should have taken for a memorial of some famous +tailor, only that the virtuoso pledged his veracity that they were the +identical scissors of Atropos. He also showed me a broken hourglass +which had been thrown aside by Father Time, together with the old +gentleman’s gray forelock, tastefully braided into a brooch. In the +hour-glass was the handful of sand, the grains of which had numbered +the years of the Cumeean sibyl. I think it was in this alcove that I +saw the inkstand which Luther threw at the Devil, and the ring which +Essex, while under sentence of death, sent to Queen Elizabeth. And here +was the blood-incrusted pen of steel with which Faust signed away his +salvation. + +The virtuoso now opened the door of a closet and showed me a lamp +burning, while three others stood unlighted by its side. One of the +three was the lamp of Diogenes, another that of Guy Fawkes, and the +third that which Hero set forth to the midnight breeze in the high +tower of Ahydos. + +“See!” said the virtuoso, blowing with all his force at the lighted +lamp. + +The flame quivered and shrank away from his breath, but clung to the +wick, and resumed its brilliancy as soon as the blast was exhausted. + +“It is an undying lamp from the tomb of Charlemagne,” observed my +guide. “That flame was kindled a thousand years ago.” + +“How ridiculous to kindle an unnatural light in tombs!” exclaimed I. +“We should seek to behold the dead in the light of heaven. But what is +the meaning of this chafing-dish of glowing coals?” + +“That,” answered the virtuoso, “is the original fire which Prometheus +stole from heaven. Look steadfastly into it, and you will discern +another curiosity.” + +I gazed into that fire,—which, symbolically, was the origin of all that +was bright and glorious in the soul of man,—and in the midst of it, +behold a little reptile, sporting with evident enjoyment of the fervid +heat! It was a salamander. + +“What a sacrilege!” cried I, with inexpressible disgust. “Can you find +no better use for this ethereal fire than to cherish a loathsome +reptile in it? Yet there are men who abuse the sacred fire of their own +souls to as foul and guilty a purpose.” + +The virtuoso made no answer except by a dry laugh and an assurance that +the salamander was the very same which Benvenuto Cellini had seen in +his father’s household fire. He then proceeded to show me other +rarities; for this closet appeared to be the receptacle of what he +considered most valuable in his collection. + +“There,” said he, “is the Great Carbuncle of the White Mountains.” + +I gazed with no little interest at this mighty gem, which it had been +one of the wild projects of my youth to discover. Possibly it might +have looked brighter to me in those days than now; at all events, it +had not such brilliancy as to detain me long from the other articles of +the museum. The virtuoso pointed out to me a crystalline stone which +hung by a gold chain against the wall. + +“That is the philosopher’s stone,” said he. + +“And have you the elixir vita which generally accompanies it?” inquired +I. + +“Even so; this urn is filled with it,” he replied. “A draught would +refresh you. Here is Hebe’s cup; will you quaff a health from it?” + +My heart thrilled within me at the idea of such a reviving draught; for +methought I had great need of it after travelling so far on the dusty +road of life. But I know not whether it were a peculiar glance in the +virtuoso’s eye, or the circumstance that this most precious liquid was +contained in an antique sepulchral urn, that made me pause. Then came +many a thought with which, in the calmer and better hours of life, I +had strengthened myself to feel that Death is the very friend whom, in +his due season, even the happiest mortal should be willing to embrace. + +“No; I desire not an earthly immortality,” said I. + +“Were man to live longer on the earth, the spiritual would die out of +him. The spark of ethereal fire would be choked by the material, the +sensual. There is a celestial something within us that requires, after +a certain time, the atmosphere of heaven to preserve it from decay and +ruin. I will have none of this liquid. You do well to keep it in a +sepulchral urn; for it would produce death while bestowing the shadow +of life.” + +“All this is unintelligible to me,” responded my guide, with +indifference. “Life—earthly life—is the only good. But you refuse the +draught? Well, it is not likely to be offered twice within one man’s +experience. Probably you have griefs which you seek to forget in death. +I can enable you to forget them in life. Will you take a draught of +Lethe?” + +As he spoke, the virtuoso took from the shelf a crystal vase containing +a sable liquor, which caught no reflected image from the objects +around. + +“Not for the world!” exclaimed I, shrinking back. “I can spare none of +my recollections, not even those of error or sorrow. They are all alike +the food of my spirit. As well never to have lived as to lose them +now.” + +Without further parley we passed to the next alcove, the shelves of +which were burdened with ancient volumes and with those rolls of +papyrus in which was treasured up the eldest wisdom of the earth. +Perhaps the most valuable work in the collection, to a bibliomaniac, +was the Book of Hermes. For my part, however, I would have given a +higher price for those six of the Sibyl’s books which Tarquin refused +to purchase, and which the virtuoso informed me he had himself found in +the cave of Trophonius. Doubtless these old volumes contain prophecies +of the fate of Rome, both as respects the decline and fall of her +temporal empire and the rise of her spiritual one. Not without value, +likewise, was the work of Anaxagoras on Nature, hitherto supposed to be +irrecoverably lost, and the missing treatises of Longinus, by which +modern criticism might profit, and those books of Livy for which the +classic student has so long sorrowed without hope. Among these precious +tomes I observed the original manuscript of the Koran, and also that of +the Mormon Bible in Joe Smith’s authentic autograph. Alexander’s copy +of the Iliad was also there, enclosed in the jewelled casket of Darius, +still fragrant of the perfumes which the Persian kept in it. + +Opening an iron-clasped volume, bound in black leather, I discovered it +to be Cornelius Agrippa’s book of magic; and it was rendered still more +interesting by the fact that many flowers, ancient and modern, were +pressed between its leaves. Here was a rose from Eve’s bridal bower, +and all those red and white roses which were plucked in the garden of +the Temple by the partisans of York and Lancaster. Here was Halleck’s +Wild Rose of Alloway. Cowper had contributed a Sensitive Plant, and +Wordsworth an Eglantine, and Burns a Mountain Daisy, and Kirke White a +Star of Bethlehem, and Longfellow a Sprig of Fennel, with its yellow +flowers. James Russell Lowell had given a Pressed Flower, but fragrant +still, which had been shadowed in the Rhine. There was also a sprig +from Southey’s Holly Tree. One of the most beautiful specimens was a +Fringed Gentian, which had been plucked and preserved for immortality +by Bryant. From Jones Very, a poet whose voice is scarcely heard among +us by reason of its depth, there was a Wind Flower and a Columbine. + +As I closed Cornelius Agrippa’s magic volume, an old, mildewed letter +fell upon the floor. It proved to be an autograph from the Flying +Dutchman to his wife. I could linger no longer among books; for the +afternoon was waning, and there was yet much to see. The bare mention +of a few more curiosities must suffice. The immense skull of Polyphemus +was recognizable by the cavernous hollow in the centre of the forehead +where once had blazed the giant’s single eye. The tub of Diogenes, +Medea’s caldron, and Psyche’s vase of beauty were placed one within +another. Pandora’s box, without the lid, stood next, containing nothing +but the girdle of Venus, which had been carelessly flung into it. A +bundle of birch-rods which had been used by Shenstone’s schoolmistress +were tied up with the Countess of Salisbury’s garter. I know not which +to value most, a roc’s egg as big as an ordinary hogshead, or the shell +of the egg which Columbus set upon its end. Perhaps the most delicate +article in the whole museum was Queen Mab’s chariot, which, to guard it +from the touch of meddlesome fingers, was placed under a glass tumbler. + +Several of the shelves were occupied by specimens of entomology. +Feeling but little interest in the science, I noticed only Anacreon’s +grasshopper, and a bumblebee which had been presented to the virtuoso +by Ralph Waldo Emerson. + +In the part of the hall which we had now reached I observed a curtain, +that descended from the ceiling to the floor in voluminous folds, of a +depth, richness, and magnificence which I had never seen equalled. It +was not to be doubted that this splendid though dark and solemn veil +concealed a portion of the museum even richer in wonders than that +through which I had already passed; but, on my attempting to grasp the +edge of the curtain and draw it aside, it proved to be an illusive +picture. + +“You need not blush,” remarked the virtuoso; “for that same curtain +deceived Zeuxis. It is the celebrated painting of Parrhasius.” + +In a range with the curtain there were a number of other choice +pictures by artists of ancient days. Here was the famous cluster of +grapes by Zeuxis, so admirably depicted that it seemed as if the ripe +juice were bursting forth. As to the picture of the old woman by the +same illustrious painter, and which was so ludicrous that he himself +died with laughing at it, I cannot say that it particularly moved my +risibility. Ancient humor seems to have little power over modern +muscles. Here, also, was the horse painted by Apelles which living +horses neighed at; his first portrait of Alexander the Great, and his +last unfinished picture of Venus asleep. Each of these works of art, +together with others by Parrhasius, Timanthes, Polygnotus, Apollodorus, +Pausias, and Pamplulus, required more time and study than I could +bestow for the adequate perception of their merits. I shall therefore +leave them undescribed and uncriticised, nor attempt to settle the +question of superiority between ancient and modern art. + +For the same reason I shall pass lightly over the specimens of antique +sculpture which this indefatigable and fortunate virtuoso had dug out +of the dust of fallen empires. Here was AEtion’s cedar statue of +AEsculapius, much decayed, and Alcon’s iron statue of Hercules, +lamentably rusted. Here was the statue of Victory, six feet high, which +the Jupiter Olympus of Phidias had held in his hand. Here was a +forefinger of the Colossus of Rhodes, seven feet in length. Here was +the Venus Urania of Phidias, and other images of male and female beauty +or grandeur, wrought by sculptors who appeared never to have debased +their souls by the sight of any meaner forms than those of gods or +godlike mortals. But the deep simplicity of these great works was not +to be comprehended by a mind excited and disturbed, as mine was, by the +various objects that had recently been presented to it. I therefore +turned away with merely a passing glance, resolving on some future +occasion to brood over each individual statue and picture until my +inmost spirit should feel their excellence. In this department, again, +I noticed the tendency to whimsical combinations and ludicrous +analogies which seemed to influence many of the arrangements of the +museum. The wooden statue so well known as the Palladium of Troy was +placed in close apposition with the wooden head of General Jackson, +which was stolen a few years since from the bows of the frigate +Constitution. + +We had now completed the circuit of the spacious hall, and found +ourselves again near the door. Feeling somewhat wearied with the survey +of so many novelties and antiquities, I sat down upon Cowper’s sofa, +while the virtuoso threw himself carelessly into Rabelais’s easychair. +Casting my eyes upon the opposite wall, I was surprised to perceive the +shadow of a man flickering unsteadily across the wainscot, and looking +as if it were stirred by some breath of air that found its way through +the door or windows. No substantial figure was visible from which this +shadow might be thrown; nor, had there been such, was there any +sunshine that would have caused it to darken upon the wall. + +“It is Peter Schlemihl’s shadow,” observed the virtuoso, “and one of +the most valuable articles in my collection.” + +“Methinks a shadow would have made a fitting doorkeeper to such a +museum,” said I; “although, indeed, yonder figure has something strange +and fantastic about him, which suits well enough with many of the +impressions which I have received here. Pray, who is he?” + +While speaking, I gazed more scrutinizingly than before at the +antiquated presence of the person who had admitted me, and who still +sat on his bench with the same restless aspect, and dim, confused, +questioning anxiety that I had noticed on my first entrance. At this +moment he looked eagerly towards us, and, half starting from his seat, +addressed me. + +“I beseech you, kind sir,” said he, in a cracked, melancholy tone, +“have pity on the most unfortunate man in the world. For Heaven’s sake, +answer me a single question! Is this the town of Boston?” + +“You have recognized him now,” said the virtuoso. “It is Peter Rugg, +the missing man. I chanced to meet him the other day still in search of +Boston, and conducted him hither; and, as he could not succeed in +finding his friends, I have taken him into my service as doorkeeper. He +is somewhat too apt to ramble, but otherwise a man of trust and +integrity.” + +“And might I venture to ask,” continued I, “to whom am I indebted for +this afternoon’s gratification?” + +The virtuoso, before replying, laid his hand upon an antique dart, or +javelin, the rusty steel head of winch seemed to have been blunted, as +if it had encountered the resistance of a tempered shield, or +breastplate. + +“My name has not been without its distinction in the world for a longer +period than that of any other man alive,” answered he. “Yet many doubt +of my existence; perhaps you will do so to-morrow. This dart which I +hold in my hand was once grim Death’s own weapon. It served him well +for the space of four thousand years; but it fell blunted, as you see, +when he directed it against my breast.” + +These words were spoken with the calm and cold courtesy of manner that +had characterized this singular personage throughout our interview. I +fancied, it is true, that there was a bitterness indefinably mingled +with his tone, as of one cut off from natural sympathies and blasted +with a doom that had been inflicted on no other human being, and by the +results of which he had ceased to be human. Yet, withal, it seemed one +of the most terrible consequences of that doom that the victim no +longer regarded it as a calamity, but had finally accepted it as the +greatest good that could have befallen him. + +“You are the Wandering Jew!” exclaimed I. + +The virtuoso bowed without emotion of any kind; for, by centuries of +custom, he had almost lost the sense of strangeness in his fate, and +was but imperfectly conscious of the astonishment and awe with which it +affected such as are capable of death. + +“Your doom is indeed a fearful one!” said I, with irrepressible feeling +and a frankness that afterwards startled me; “yet perhaps the ethereal +spirit is not entirely extinct under all this corrupted or frozen mass +of earthly life. Perhaps the immortal spark may yet be rekindled by a +breath of heaven. Perhaps you may yet be permitted to die before it is +too late to live eternally. You have my prayers for such a +consummation. Farewell.” + +“Your prayers will be in vain,” replied he, with a smile of cold +triumph. “My destiny is linked with the realities of earth. You are +welcome to your visions and shadows of a future state; but give me what +I can see, and touch, and understand, and I ask no more.” + +“It is indeed too late,” thought I. “The soul is dead within him.” + +Struggling between pity and horror, I extended my hand, to which the +virtuoso gave his own, still with the habitual courtesy of a man of the +world, but without a single heart-throb of human brotherhood. The touch +seemed like ice, yet I know not whether morally or physically. As I +departed, he bade me observe that the inner door of the hall was +constructed with the ivory leaves of the gateway through which Aeneas +and the Sibyl had been dismissed from Hades. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Mosses from an Old Manse</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: April, 1996 [eBook #512]<br /> +[Most recently updated: November 9, 2022]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Charles Keller</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE ***</div> + +<h1>Mosses from an Old Manse</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break">by Nathaniel Hawthorne</h2> + +<hr /> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">The Old Manse</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">The Birthmark</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">A Select Party</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">Young Goodman Brown</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">Rappaccini’s Daughter</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">Mrs. Bullfrog</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">Fire Worship</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">Buds and Bird Voices</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">Monsieur du Miroir</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">The Hall of Fantasy</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">The Celestial Railroad</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">The Procession of Life</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">Feathertop: A Moralized Legend</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">The New Adam and Eve</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">Egotism; or, The Bosom Serpent</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">The Christmas Banquet</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">Drowne’s Wooden Image</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">The Intelligence Office</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">Roger Malvin’s Burial</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">P.’s Correspondence</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">Earth’s Holocaust</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">Passages from a Relinquished Work</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">Sketches from Memory</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">The Old Apple Dealer</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">The Artist of the Beautiful</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">A Virtuoso’s Collection</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap01"></a> +THE OLD MANSE</h2> + +<h4>The Author makes the Reader acquainted with his Abode.</h4> + +<p> +Between two tall gate-posts of rough-hewn stone (the gate itself having fallen +from its hinges at some unknown epoch) we beheld the gray front of the old +parsonage, terminating the vista of an avenue of black-ash trees. It was now a +twelvemonth since the funeral procession of the venerable clergyman, its last +inhabitant, had turned from that gateway towards the village burying-ground. +The wheel-track leading to the door, as well as the whole breadth of the +avenue, was almost overgrown with grass, affording dainty mouthfuls to two or +three vagrant cows and an old white horse who had his own living to pick up +along the roadside. The glimmering shadows that lay half asleep between the +door of the house and the public highway were a kind of spiritual medium, seen +through which the edifice had not quite the aspect of belonging to the material +world. Certainly it had little in common with those ordinary abodes which stand +so imminent upon the road that every passer-by can thrust his head, as it were, +into the domestic circle. From these quiet windows the figures of passing +travellers looked too remote and dim to disturb the sense of privacy. In its +near retirement and accessible seclusion, it was the very spot for the +residence of a clergyman,—a man not estranged from human life, yet +enveloped, in the midst of it, with a veil woven of intermingled gloom and +brightness. It was worthy to have been one of the time-honored parsonages of +England, in which, through many generations, a succession of holy occupants +pass from youth to age, and bequeath each an inheritance of sanctity to pervade +the house and hover over it as with an atmosphere. +</p> + +<p> +Nor, in truth, had the Old Manse ever been profaned by a lay occupant until +that memorable summer afternoon when I entered it as my home. A priest had +built it; a priest had succeeded to it; other priestly men from time to time +had dwelt in it; and children born in its chambers had grown up to assume the +priestly character. It was awful to reflect how many sermons must have been +written there. The latest inhabitant alone—he by whose translation to +paradise the dwelling was left vacant—had penned nearly three thousand +discourses, besides the better, if not the greater, number that gushed living +from his lips. How often, no doubt, had he paced to and fro along the avenue, +attuning his meditations to the sighs and gentle murmurs and deep and solemn +peals of the wind among the lofty tops of the trees! In that variety of natural +utterances he could find something accordant with every passage of his sermon, +were it of tenderness or reverential fear. The boughs over my head seemed +shadowy with solemn thoughts, as well as with rustling leaves. I took shame to +myself for having been so long a writer of idle stories, and ventured to hope +that wisdom would descend upon me with the falling leaves of the avenue, and +that I should light upon an intellectual treasure in the Old Manse well worth +those hoards of long-hidden gold which people seek for in moss-grown houses. +Profound treatises of morality; a layman’s unprofessional, and therefore +unprejudiced, views of religion; histories (such as Bancroft might have written +had he taken up his abode here, as he once purposed) bright with picture, +gleaming over a depth of philosophic thought,—these were the works that +might fitly have flowed from such a retirement. In the humblest event, I +resolved at least to achieve a novel that should evolve some deep lesson, and +should possess physical substance enough to stand alone. +</p> + +<p> +In furtherance of my design, and as if to leave me no pretext for not +fulfilling it, there was in the rear of the house the most delightful little +nook of a study that ever afforded its snug seclusion to a scholar. It was here +that Emerson wrote Nature; for he was then an inhabitant of the Manse, and used +to watch the Assyrian dawn and Paphian sunset and moonrise from the summit of +our eastern hill. When I first saw the room, its walls were blackened with the +smoke of unnumbered years, and made still blacker by the grim prints of Puritan +ministers that hung around. These worthies looked strangely like bad angels, or +at least like men who had wrestled so continually and so sternly with the Devil +that somewhat of his sooty fierceness had been imparted to their own visages. +They had all vanished now; a cheerful coat of paint and golden-tinted +paper-hangings lighted up the small apartment; while the shadow of a +willow-tree that swept against the overhanging eaves atempered the cheery +western sunshine. In place of the grim prints there was the sweet and lovely +head of one of Raphael’s Madonnas, and two pleasant little pictures of the Lake +of Como. The only other decorations were a purple vase of flowers, always +fresh, and a bronze one containing graceful ferns. My books (few, and by no +means choice; for they were chiefly such waifs as chance had thrown in my way) +stood in order about the room, seldom to be disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +The study had three windows, set with little, old-fashioned panes of glass, +each with a crack across it. The two on the western side looked, or rather +peeped, between the willow branches, down into the orchard, with glimpses of +the river through the trees. The third, facing northward, commanded a broader +view of the river, at a spot where its hitherto obscure waters gleam forth into +the light of history. It was at this window that the clergyman who then dwelt +in the Manse stood watching the outbreak of a long and deadly struggle between +two nations; he saw the irregular array of his parishioners on the farther side +of the river, and the glittering line of the British on the hither bank. He +awaited, in an agony of suspense, the rattle of the musketry. It came; and +there needed but a gentle wind to sweep the battle-smoke around this quiet +house. +</p> + +<p> +Perhaps the reader, whom I cannot help considering as my guest in the Old +Manse, and entitled to all courtesy in the way of sight-showing,—perhaps +he will choose to take a nearer view of the memorable spot. We stand now on the +river’s brink. It may well be called the Concord,—the river of peace and +quietness; for it is certainly the most unexcitable and sluggish stream that +ever loitered imperceptibly towards its eternity,—the sea. Positively I +had lived three weeks beside it before it grew quite clear to my perception +which way the current flowed. It never has a vivacious aspect, except when a +northwestern breeze is vexing its surface on a sunshiny day. From the incurable +indolence of its nature, the stream is happily incapable of becoming the slave +of human ingenuity, as is the fate of so many a wild, free mountain torrent. +While all things else are compelled to subserve some useful purpose, it idles +its sluggish life away in lazy liberty, without turning a solitary spindle or +affording even water-power enough to grind the corn that grows upon its banks. +The torpor of its movement allows it nowhere a bright, pebbly shore, nor so +much as a narrow strip of glistening sand, in any part of its course. It +slumbers between broad prairies, kissing the long meadow grass, and bathes the +overhanging boughs of elder-bushes and willows, or the roots of elms and +ash-trees and clumps of maples. Flags and rushes grow along its plashy shore; +the yellow water-lily spreads its broad, flat leaves on the margin; and the +fragrant white pond-lily abounds, generally selecting a position just so far +from the river’s brink that it cannot be grasped save at the hazard of plunging +in. +</p> + +<p> +It is a marvel whence this perfect flower derives its loveliness and perfume, +springing as it does from the black mud over which the river sleeps, and where +lurk the slimy eel, and speckled frog, and the mud-turtle, whom continual +washing cannot cleanse. It is the very same black mud out of which the yellow +lily sucks its obscene life and noisome odor. Thus we see, too, in the world +that some persons assimilate only what is ugly and evil from the same moral +circumstances which supply good and beautiful results—the fragrance of +celestial flowers—to the daily life of others. +</p> + +<p> +The reader must not, from any testimony of mine, contract a dislike towards our +slumberous stream. In the light of a calm and golden sunset it becomes lovely +beyond expression; the more lovely for the quietude that so well accords with +the hour, when even the wind, after blustering all day long, usually hushes +itself to rest. Each tree and rock and every blade of grass is distinctly +imaged, and, however unsightly in reality, assumes ideal beauty in the +reflection. The minutest things of earth and the broad aspect of the firmament +are pictured equally without effort and with the same felicity of success. All +the sky glows downward at our feet; the rich clouds float through the unruffled +bosom of the stream like heavenly thoughts through a peaceful heart. We will +not, then, malign our river as gross and impure while it can glorify itself +with so adequate a picture of the heaven that broods above it; or, if we +remember its tawny hue and the muddiness of its bed, let it be a symbol that +the earthiest human soul has an infinite spiritual capacity and may contain the +better world within its depths. But, indeed, the same lesson might be drawn out +of any mud-puddle in the streets of a city; and, being taught us everywhere, it +must be true. +</p> + +<p> +Come, we have pursued a somewhat devious track in our walk to the +battle-ground. Here we are, at the point where the river was crossed by the old +bridge, the possession of which was the immediate object of the contest. On the +hither side grow two or three elms, throwing a wide circumference of shade, but +which must have been planted at some period within the threescore years and ten +that have passed since the battle-day. On the farther shore, overhung by a +clump of elder-bushes, we discern the stone abutment of the bridge. Looking +down into the river, I once discovered some heavy fragments of the timbers, all +green with half a century’s growth of water-moss; for during that length of +time the tramp of horses and human footsteps have ceased along this ancient +highway. The stream has here about the breadth of twenty strokes of a swimmer’s +arm,—a space not too wide when the bullets were whistling across. Old +people who dwell hereabouts will point out, the very spots on the western bank +where our countrymen fell down and died; and on this side of the river an +obelisk of granite has grown up from the soil that was fertilized with British +blood. The monument, not more than twenty feet in height, is such as it +befitted the inhabitants of a village to erect in illustration of a matter of +local interest rather than what was suitable to commemorate an epoch of +national history. Still, by the fathers of the village this famous deed was +done; and their descendants might rightfully claim the privilege of building a +memorial. +</p> + +<p> +A humbler token of the fight, yet a more interesting one than the granite +obelisk, may be seen close under the stone wall which separates the +battle-ground from the precincts of the parsonage. It is the +grave,—marked by a small, mossgrown fragment of stone at the head and +another at the foot,—the grave of two British soldiers who were slain in +the skirmish, and have ever since slept peacefully where Zechariah Brown and +Thomas Davis buried them. Soon was their warfare ended; a weary night-march +from Boston, a rattling volley of musketry across the river, and then these +many years of rest. In the long procession of slain invaders who passed into +eternity from the battle-fields of the Revolution, these two nameless soldiers +led the way. +</p> + +<p> +Lowell, the poet, as we were once standing over this grave, told me a tradition +in reference to one of the inhabitants below. The story has something deeply +impressive, though its circumstances cannot altogether be reconciled with +probability. A youth in the service of the clergyman happened to be chopping +wood, that April morning, at the back door of the Manse; and when the noise of +battle rang from side to side of the bridge, he hastened across the intervening +field to see what might be going forward. It is rather strange, by the way, +that this lad should have been so diligently at work when the whole population +of town and country were startled out of their customary business by the +advance of the British troops. Be that as it might, the tradition, says that +the lad now left his task and hurried to the battle-field with the axe still in +his hand. The British had by this time retreated; the Americans were in +pursuit; and the late scene of strife was thus deserted by both parties. Two +soldiers lay on the ground,—one was a corpse; but, as the young +New-Englander drew nigh, the other Briton raised himself painfully upon his +hands and knees and gave a ghastly stare into his face. The boy,—it must +have been a nervous impulse, without purpose, without thought, and betokening a +sensitive and impressible nature rather than a hardened one,—the boy +uplifted his axe and dealt the wounded soldier a fierce and fatal blow upon the +head. +</p> + +<p> +I could wish that the grave might be opened; for I would fain know whether +either of the skeleton soldiers has the mark of an axe in his skull. The story +comes home to me like truth. Oftentimes, as an intellectual and moral exercise, +I have sought to follow that poor youth through his subsequent career and +observe how his soul was tortured by the blood-stain, contracted as it had been +before the long custom of war had robbed human life of its sanctity and while +it still seemed murderous to slay a brother man. This one circumstance has +borne more fruit for me than all that history tells us of the fight. +</p> + +<p> +Many strangers come in the summer-time to view the battle-ground. For my own +part, I have never found my imagination much excited by this or any other scene +of historic celebrity; nor would the placid margin of the river have lost any +of its charm for me, had men never fought and died there. There is a wilder +interest in the tract of land-perhaps a hundred yards in breadth—which +extends between the battle-field and the northern face of our Old Manse, with +its contiguous avenue and orchard. Here, in some unknown age, before the white +man came, stood an Indian village, convenient to the river, whence its +inhabitants must have drawn so large a part of their substance. The site is +identified by the spear and arrow-heads, the chisels, and other implements of +war, labor, and the chase, which the plough turns up from the soil. You see a +splinter of stone, half hidden beneath a sod; it looks like nothing worthy of +note; but, if you have faith enough to pick it up, behold a relic! Thoreau, who +has a strange faculty of finding what the Indians have left behind them, first +set me on the search; and I afterwards enriched myself with some very perfect +specimens, so rudely wrought that it seemed almost as if chance had fashioned +them. Their great charm consists in this rudeness and in the individuality of +each article, so different from the productions of civilized machinery, which +shapes everything on one pattern. There is exquisite delight, too, in picking +up for one’s self an arrow-head that was dropped centuries ago and has never +been handled since, and which we thus receive directly from the hand of the red +hunter, who purposed to shoot it at his game or at an enemy. Such an incident +builds up again the Indian village and its encircling forest, and recalls to +life the painted chiefs and warriors, the squaws at their household toil, and +the children sporting among the wigwams, while the little wind-rocked pappose +swings from the branch of a tree. It can hardly be told whether it is a joy or +a pain, after such a momentary vision, to gaze around in the broad daylight of +reality and see stone fences, white houses, potato-fields, and men doggedly +hoeing in their shirt-sleeves and homespun pantaloons. But this is nonsense. +The Old Manse is better than a thousand wigwams. +</p> + +<p> +The Old Manse! We had almost forgotten it, but will return thither through the +orchard. This was set out by the last clergyman, in the decline of his life, +when the neighbors laughed at the hoary-headed man for planting trees from +which he could have no prospect of gathering fruit. Even had that been the +case, there was only so much the better motive for planting them, in the pure +and unselfish hope of benefiting his successors,—an end so seldom +achieved by more ambitious efforts. But the old minister, before reaching his +patriarchal age of ninety, ate the apples from this orchard during many years, +and added silver and gold to his annual stipend by disposing of the +superfluity. It is pleasant to think of him walking among the trees in the +quiet afternoons of early autumn and picking up here and there a windfall, +while he observes how heavily the branches are weighed down, and computes the +number of empty flour-barrels that will be filled by their burden. He loved +each tree, doubtless, as if it had been his own child. An orchard has a +relation to mankind, and readily connects itself with matters of the heart. The +trees possess a domestic character; they have lost the wild nature of their +forest kindred, and have grown humanized by receiving the care of man as well +as by contributing to his wants. There, is so much individuality of character, +too, among apple trees, that it gives them all additional claim to be the +objects of human interest. One is harsh and crabbed in its manifestations; +another gives us fruit as mild as charity. One is churlish and illiberal, +evidently grudging the few apples that it bears; another exhausts itself in +free-hearted benevolence. The variety of grotesque shapes into which apple, +trees contort themselves has its effect on those who get acquainted with them: +they stretch out their crooked branches, and take such hold of the imagination, +that we remember them as humorists and odd fellows. And what is more melancholy +than the old apple-trees that linger about the spot where once stood a +homestead, but where there is now only a ruined chimney rising out of a grassy +and weed-grown cellar? They offer their fruit to every wayfarer,—apples +that are bitter sweet with the moral of Time’s vicissitude. +</p> + +<p> +I have met with no other such pleasant trouble in the world as that of finding +myself, with only the two or three mouths which it was my privilege to feed, +the sole inheritor of the old clergyman’s wealth of fruits. Throughout the +summer there were cherries and currants; and then came Autumn, with his immense +burden of apples, dropping them continually from his over-laden shoulders as he +trudged along. In the stillest afternoon, if I listened, the thump of a great +apple was audible, falling without a breath of wind, from the mere necessity of +perfect ripeness. And, besides, there were pear-trees, that flung down bushels +upon bushels of heavy pears; and peach-trees, which, in a good year, tormented +me with peaches, neither to be eaten nor kept, nor, without labor and +perplexity, to be given away. The idea of an infinite generosity and +exhaustless bounty on the part of our Mother Nature was well worth obtaining +through such cares as these. That feeling can be enjoyed in perfection only by +the natives of summer islands, where the bread-fruit, the cocoa, the palm, and +the orange grow spontaneously and hold forth the ever-ready meal; but likewise +almost as well by a man long habituated to city life, who plunges into such a +solitude as that of the Old Manse, where he plucks the fruit of trees that he +did not plant, and which therefore, to my heterodox taste, bear the closest +resemblance to those that grew in Eden. It has been an apothegm these five +thousand years, that toil sweetens the bread it earns. For my part (speaking +from hard experience, acquired while belaboring the rugged furrows of Brook +Farm), I relish best the free gifts of Providence. +</p> + +<p> +Not that it can be disputed that the light toil requisite to cultivate a +moderately sized garden imparts such zest to kitchen vegetables as is never +found in those of the market-gardener. Childless men, if they would know +something of the bliss of paternity, should plant a seed,—be it squash, +bean, Indian corn, or perhaps a mere flower or worthless weed,—should +plant it with their own hands, and nurse it from infancy to maturity altogether +by their own care. If there be not too many of them, each individual plant +becomes an object of separate interest. My garden, that skirted the avenue of +the Manse, was of precisely the right extent. An hour or two of morning labor +was all that it required. But I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a +day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that +nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of +creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a +hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a row of early peas just peeping +forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green. Later in the season the +humming-birds were attracted by the blossoms of a peculiar variety of bean; and +they were a joy to me, those little spiritual visitants, for deigning to sip +airy food out of my nectar-cups. Multitudes of bees used to bury themselves in +the yellow blossoms of the summer-squashes. This, too, was a deep satisfaction; +although, when they had laden themselves with sweets, they flew away to some +unknown hive, which would give back nothing in requital of what my garden had +contributed. But I was glad thus to fling a benefaction upon the passing breeze +with the certainty that somebody must profit by it and that there would be a +little more honey in the world to allay the sourness and bitterness which +mankind is always complaining of. Yes, indeed; my life was the sweeter for that +honey. +</p> + +<p> +Speaking of summer-squashes, I must say a word of their beautiful and varied +forms. They presented an endless diversity of urns and vases, shallow or deep, +scalloped or plain, moulded in patterns which a sculptor would do well to copy, +since Art has never invented anything more graceful. A hundred squashes in the +garden were worth, in my eyes at least, of being rendered indestructible in +marble. If ever Providence (but I know it never will) should assign me a +superfluity of gold, part of it shall be expended for a service of plate, or +most delicate porcelain, to be wrought into the shapes of summer-squashes +gathered from vines which I will plant with my own hands. As dishes for +containing vegetables, they would be peculiarly appropriate. +</p> + +<p> +But not merely the squeamish love of the beautiful was gratified by my toil in +the kitchen-garden. There was a hearty enjoyment, likewise, in observing the +growth of the crook-necked winter-squashes from the first little bulb, with the +withered blossom adhering to it, until they lay strewn upon the soil, big, +round fellows, hiding their heads beneath the leaves, but turning up their +great yellow rotundities to the noontide sun. Gazing at them, I felt that by my +agency something worth living for had been done. A new substance was born into +the world. They were real and tangible existences, which the mind could seize +hold of and rejoice in. A cabbage, too,—especially the early Dutch +cabbage, which swells to a monstrous circumference, until its ambitious heart +often bursts asunder,—is a matter to be proud of when we can claim a +share with the earth and sky in producing it. But, after all, the hugest +pleasure is reserved until these vegetable children of ours are smoking on the +table, and we, like Saturn, make a meal of them. +</p> + +<p> +What with the river, the battle-field, the orchard, and the garden, the reader +begins to despair of finding his way back into the Old Manse. But, in agreeable +weather, it is the truest hospitality to keep him out of doors. I never grew +quite acquainted with my habitation till a long spell of sulky rain had +confined me beneath its roof. There could not be a more sombre aspect of +external nature than as then seen from the windows of my study. The great +willow-tree had caught and retained among its leaves a whole cataract of water, +to be shaken down at intervals by the frequent gusts of wind. All day long, and +for a week together, the rain was drip-drip-dripping and +splash-splash-splashing from the eaves and bubbling and foaming into the tubs +beneath the spouts. The old, unpainted shingles of the house and outbuildings +were black with moisture; and the mosses of ancient growth upon the walls +looked green and fresh, as if they were the newest things and afterthought of +Time. The usually mirrored surface of the river was blurred by an infinity of +raindrops; the whole landscape had a completely water-soaked appearance, +conveying the impression that the earth was wet through like a sponge; while +the summit of a wooded hill, about a mile distant, was enveloped in a dense +mist, where the demon of the tempest seemed to have his abiding-place and to be +plotting still direr inclemencies. +</p> + +<p> +Nature has no kindness, no hospitality, during a rain. In the fiercest beat of +sunny days she retains a secret mercy, and welcomes the wayfarer to shady nooks +of the woods whither the sun cannot penetrate; but she provides no shelter +against her storms. It makes us shiver to think of those deep, umbrageous +recesses, those overshadowing banks, where we found such enjoyment during the +sultry afternoons. Not a twig of foliage there but would dash a little shower +into our faces. Looking reproachfully towards the impenetrable sky,—if +sky there be above that dismal uniformity of cloud,—we are apt to murmur +against the whole system of the universe, since it involves the extinction of +so many summer days in so short a life by the hissing and spluttering rain. In +such spells of weather,—and it is to be supposed such weather +came,—Eve’s bower in paradise must have been but a cheerless and aguish +kind of shelter, nowise comparable to the old parsonage, which had resources of +its own to beguile the week’s imprisonment. The idea of sleeping on a couch of +wet roses! +</p> + +<p> +Happy the man who in a rainy day can betake himself to a huge garret, stored, +like that of the Manse, with lumber that each generation has left behind it +from a period before the Revolution. Our garret was an arched hall, dimly +illuminated through small and dusty windows; it was but a twilight at the best; +and there were nooks, or rather caverns, of deep obscurity, the secrets of +which I never learned, being too reverent of their dust and cobwebs. The beams +and rafters, roughly hewn and with strips of bark still on them, and the rude +masonry of the chimneys, made the garret look wild and uncivilized, an aspect +unlike what was seen elsewhere in the quiet and decorous old house. But on one +side there was a little whitewashed apartment, which bore the traditionary +title of the Saint’s Chamber, because holy men in their youth had slept, and +studied, and prayed there. With its elevated retirement, its one window, its +small fireplace, and its closet convenient for an oratory, it was the very spot +where a young man might inspire himself with solemn enthusiasm and cherish +saintly dreams. The occupants, at various epochs, had left brief records and +ejaculations inscribed upon the walls. There, too, hung a tattered and +shrivelled roll of canvas, which on inspection proved to be the forcibly +wrought picture of a clergyman, in wig, band, and gown, holding a Bible in his +hand. As I turned his face towards the light, he eyed me with an air of +authority such as men of his profession seldom assume in our days. The original +had been pastor of the parish more than a century ago, a friend of Whitefield, +and almost his equal in fervid eloquence. I bowed before the effigy of the +dignified divine, and felt as if I had now met face to face with the ghost by +whom, as there was reason to apprehend, the Manse was haunted. +</p> + +<p> +Houses of any antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed with spirits +that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to. Our ghost used to heave deep +sighs in a particular corner of the parlor, and sometimes rustled paper, as if +he were turning over a sermon in the long upper entry,—where nevertheless +he was invisible, in spite of the bright moonshine that fell through the +eastern window. Not improbably he wished me to edit and publish a selection +from a chest full of manuscript discourses that stood in the garret. Once, +while Hillard and other friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there came +a rustling noise as of a minister’s silk gown, sweeping through the very midst +of the company, so closely as almost to brush against the chairs. Still there +was nothing visible. A yet stranger business was that of a ghostly +servant-maid, who used to be heard in the kitchen at deepest midnight, grinding +coffee, cooking, ironing,—performing, in short, all kinds of domestic +labor,—although no traces of anything accomplished could be detected the +next morning. Some neglected duty of her servitude, some ill-starched +ministerial band, disturbed the poor damsel in her grave and kept her at work +without any wages. +</p> + +<p> +But to return from this digression. A part of my predecessor’s library was +stored in the garret,—no unfit receptacle indeed for such dreary trash as +comprised the greater number of volumes. The old books would have been worth +nothing at an auction. In this venerable garret, however, they possessed an +interest, quite apart from their literary value, as heirlooms, many of which +had been transmitted down through a series of consecrated hands from the days +of the mighty Puritan divines. Autographs of famous names were to be seen in +faded ink on some of their fly-leaves; and there were marginal observations or +interpolated pages closely covered with manuscript in illegible shorthand, +perhaps concealing matter of profound truth and wisdom. The world will never be +the better for it. A few of the books were Latin folios, written by Catholic +authors; others demolished Papistry, as with a sledge-hammer, in plain English. +A dissertation on the Book of Job—which only Job himself could have had +patience to read—filled at least a score of small, thick-set quartos, at +the rate of two or three volumes to a chapter. Then there was a vast folio body +of divinity,—too corpulent a body, it might be feared, to comprehend the +spiritual element of religion. Volumes of this form dated back two hundred +years or more, and were generally bound in black leather, exhibiting precisely +such an appearance as we should attribute to books of enchantment. Others +equally antique were of a size proper to be carried in the large waistcoat +pockets of old times,—diminutive, but as black as their bulkier brethren, +and abundantly interfused with Greek and Latin quotations. These little old +volumes impressed me as if they had been intended for very large ones, but had +been unfortunately blighted at an early stage of their growth. +</p> + +<p> +The rain pattered upon the roof and the sky gloomed through the dusty +garret-windows while I burrowed among these venerable books in search of any +living thought which should burn like a coal of fire or glow like an +inextinguishable gem beneath the dead trumpery that had long hidden it. But I +found no such treasure; all was dead alike; and I could not but muse deeply and +wonderingly upon the humiliating fact that the works of man’s intellect decay +like those of his hands. Thought grows mouldy. What was good and nourishing +food for the spirits of one generation affords no sustenance for the next. +Books of religion, however, cannot be considered a fair test of the enduring +and vivacious properties of human thought, because such books so seldom really +touch upon their ostensible subject, and have, therefore, so little business to +be written at all. So long as an unlettered soul can attain to saving grace +there would seem to be no deadly error in holding theological libraries to be +accumulations of, for the most part, stupendous impertinence. +</p> + +<p> +Many of the books had accrued in the latter years of the last clergyman’s +lifetime. These threatened to be of even less interest than the elder works a +century hence to any curious inquirer who should then rummage then as I was +doing now. Volumes of the Liberal Preacher and Christian Examiner, occasional +sermons, controversial pamphlets, tracts, and other productions of a like +fugitive nature, took the place of the thick and heavy volumes of past time. In +a physical point of view, there was much the same difference as between a +feather and a lump of lead; but, intellectually regarded, the specific gravity +of old and new was about upon a par. Both also were alike frigid. The elder +books nevertheless seemed to have been earnestly written, and might be +conceived to have possessed warmth at some former period; although, with the +lapse of time, the heated masses had cooled down even to the freezing-point. +The frigidity of the modern productions, on the other hand, was characteristic +and inherent, and evidently had little to do with the writer’s qualities of +mind and heart. In fine, of this whole dusty heap of literature I tossed aside +all the sacred part, and felt myself none the less a Christian for eschewing +it. There appeared no hope of either mounting to the better world on a Gothic +staircase of ancient folios or of flying thither on the wings of a modern +tract. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing, strange to say, retained any sap except what had been written for the +passing day and year, without the remotest pretension or idea of permanence. +There were a few old newspapers, and still older almanacs, which reproduced to +my mental eye the epochs when they had issued from the press with a +distinctness that was altogether unaccountable. It was as if I had found bits +of magic looking-glass among the books with the images of a vanished century in +them. I turned my eyes towards the tattered picture above mentioned, and asked +of the austere divine wherefore it was that he and his brethren, after the most +painful rummaging and groping into their minds, had been able to produce +nothing half so real as these newspaper scribblers and almanac-makers had +thrown off in the effervescence of a moment. The portrait responded not; so I +sought an answer for myself. It is the age itself that writes newspapers and +almanacs, which therefore have a distinct purpose and meaning at the time, and +a kind of intelligible truth for all times; whereas most other +works—being written by men who, in the very act, set themselves apart +from their age—are likely to possess little significance when new, and +none at all when old. Genius, indeed, melts many ages into one, and thus +effects something permanent, yet still with a similarity of office to that of +the more ephemeral writer. A work of genius is but the newspaper of a century, +or perchance of a hundred centuries. +</p> + +<p> +Lightly as I have spoken of these old books, there yet lingers with me a +superstitious reverence for literature of all kinds. A bound volume has a charm +in my eyes similar to what scraps of manuscript possess for the good Mussulman. +He imagines that those wind-wafted records are perhaps hallowed by some sacred +verse; and I, that every new book or antique one may contain the “open +sesame,”—the spell to disclose treasures hidden in some unsuspected cave +of Truth. Thus it was not without sadness that I turned away from the library +of the Old Manse. +</p> + +<p> +Blessed was the sunshine when it came again at the close of another stormy day, +beaming from the edge of the western horizon; while the massive firmament of +clouds threw down all the gloom it could, but served only to kindle the golden +light into a more brilliant glow by the strongly contrasted shadows. Heaven +smiled at the earth, so long unseen, from beneath its heavy eyelid. To-morrow +for the hill-tops and the woodpaths. +</p> + +<p> +Or it might be that Ellery Charming came up the avenue to join me in a fishing +excursion on the river. Strange and happy times were those when we cast aside +all irksome forms and strait-laced habitudes and delivered ourselves up to the +free air, to live like the Indians or any less conventional race during one +bright semicircle of the sun. Rowing our boat against the current, between wide +meadows, we turned aside into the Assabeth. A more lovely stream than this, for +a mile above its junction with the Concord, has never flowed on earth, nowhere, +indeed, except to lave the interior regions of a poet’s imagination. It is +sheltered from the breeze by woods and a hillside; so that elsewhere there +might be a hurricane, and here scarcely a ripple across the shaded water. The +current lingers along so gently that the mere force of the boatman’s will seems +sufficient to propel his craft against it. It comes flowing softly through the +midmost privacy and deepest heart of a wood which whispers it to be quiet; +while the stream whispers back again from its sedgy borders, as if river and +wood were hushing one another to sleep. Yes; the river sleeps along its course +and dreams of the sky and of the clustering foliage, amid which fall showers of +broken sunlight, imparting specks of vivid cheerfulness, in contrast with the +quiet depth of the prevailing tint. Of all this scene, the slumbering river has +a dream-picture in its bosom. Which, after all, was the most real,—the +picture, or the original?—the objects palpable to our grosser senses, or +their apotheosis in the stream beneath? Surely the disembodied images stand in +closer relation to the soul. But both the original and the reflection had here +an ideal charm; and, had it been a thought more wild, I could have fancied that +this river had strayed forth out of the rich scenery of my companion’s inner +world; only the vegetation along its banks should then have had an Oriental +character. +</p> + +<p> +Gentle and unobtrusive as the river is, yet the tranquil woods seem hardly +satisfied to allow it passage. The trees are rooted on the very verge of the +water, and dip their pendent branches into it. At one spot there is a lofty +bank, on the slope of which grow some hemlocks, declining across the stream +with outstretched arms, as if resolute to take the plunge. In other places the +banks are almost on a level with the water; so that the quiet congregation of +trees set their feet in the flood, and are Fringed with foliage down to the +surface. Cardinal-flowers kindle their spiral flames and illuminate the dark +nooks among the shrubbery. The pond-lily grows abundantly along the +margin,—that delicious flower which, as Thoreau tells me, opens its +virgin bosom to the first sunlight and perfects its being through the magic of +that genial kiss. He has beheld beds of them unfolding in due succession as the +sunrise stole gradually from flower to flower,—a sight not to be hoped +for unless when a poet adjusts his inward eye to a proper focus with the +outward organ. Grapevines here and there twine themselves around shrub and tree +and hang their clusters over the water within reach of the boatman’s hand. +Oftentimes they unite two trees of alien race in an inextricable twine, +marrying the hemlock and the maple against their will and enriching them with a +purple offspring of which neither is the parent. One of these ambitious +parasites has climbed into the upper branches of a tall white-pine, and is +still ascending from bough to bough, unsatisfied till it shall crown the tree’s +airy summit with a wreath of its broad foliage and a cluster of its grapes. +</p> + +<p> +The winding course of the stream continually shut out the scene behind us and +revealed as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth to depth, and +breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy kingfisher flew from the withered +branch close at hand to another at a distance, uttering a shrill cry of anger +or alarm. Ducks that had been floating there since the preceding eve were +startled at our approach and skimmed along the glassy river, breaking its dark +surface with a bright streak. The pickerel leaped from among the lilypads. The +turtle, sunning itself upon a rock or at the root of a tree, slid suddenly into +the water with a plunge. The painted Indian who paddled his canoe along the +Assabeth three hundred years ago could hardly have seen a wilder gentleness +displayed upon its banks and reflected in its bosom than we did. Nor could the +same Indian have prepared his noontide meal with more simplicity. We drew up +our skiff at some point where the overarching shade formed a natural bower, and +there kindled a fire with the pine cones and decayed branches that lay strewn +plentifully around. Soon the smoke ascended among the trees, impregnated with a +savory incense, not heavy, dull, and surfeiting, like the steam of cookery +within doors, but sprightly and piquant. The smell of our feast was akin to the +woodland odors with which it mingled: there was no sacrilege committed by our +intrusion there: the sacred solitude was hospitable, and granted us free leave +to cook and eat in the recess that was at once our kitchen and banqueting-hall. +It is strange what humble offices may be performed in a beautiful scene without +destroying its poetry. Our fire, red gleaming among the trees, and we beside +it, busied with culinary rites and spreading out our meal on a mossgrown log, +all seemed in unison with the river gliding by and the foliage rustling over +us. And, what was strangest, neither did our mirth seem to disturb the +propriety of the solemn woods; although the hobgoblins of the old wilderness +and the will-of-the-wisps that glimmered in the marshy places might have come +trooping to share our table-talk and have added their shrill laughter to our +merriment. It was the very spot in which to utter the extremest nonsense or the +profoundest wisdom, or that ethereal product of the mind which partakes of +both, and may become one or the other, in correspondence with the faith and +insight of the auditor. +</p> + +<p> +So, amid sunshine and shadow, rustling leaves and sighing waters, up gushed our +talk like the babble of a fountain. The evanescent spray was Ellery’s; and his, +too, the lumps of golden thought that lay glimmering in the fountain’s bed and +brightened both our faces by the reflection. Could he have drawn out that +virgin gold, and stamped it with the mint-mark that alone gives currency, the +world might have had the profit, and he the fame. My mind was the richer merely +by the knowledge that it was there. But the chief profit of those wild days, to +him and me, lay not in any definite idea, not in any angular or rounded truth, +which we dug out of the shapeless mass of problematical stuff, but in the +freedom which we thereby won from all custom and conventionalism and fettering +influences of man on man. We were so free to-day that it was impossible to be +slaves again to-morrow. When we crossed the threshold of the house or trod the +thronged pavements of a city, still the leaves of the trees that overhang the +Assabeth were whispering to us, “Be free! be free!” Therefore along that shady +river-bank there are spots, marked with a heap of ashes and half-consumed +brands, only less sacred in my remembrance than the hearth of a household fire. +</p> + +<p> +And yet how sweet, as we floated homeward adown the golden river at +sunset,—how sweet was it to return within the system of human society, +not as to a dungeon and a chain, but as to a stately edifice, whence we could +go forth at will into state—her simplicity! How gently, too, did the +sight of the Old Manse, best seen from the river, overshadowed with its willow +and all environed about with the foliage of its orchard and avenue,—how +gently did its gray, homely aspect rebuke the speculative extravagances of the +day! It had grown sacred in connection with the artificial life against which +we inveighed; it had been a home for many years, in spite of all; it was my +home too; and, with these thoughts, it seemed to me that all the artifice and +conventionalism of life was but an impalpable thinness upon its surface, and +that the depth below was none the worse for it. Once, as we turned our boat to +the bank, there was a cloud, in the shape of an immensely gigantic figure of a +hound, couched above the house, as if keeping guard over it. Gazing at this +symbol, I prayed that the upper influences might long protect the institutions +that had grown out of the heart of mankind. +</p> + +<p> +If ever my readers should decide to give up civilized life, cities, houses, and +whatever moral or material enormities in addition to these the perverted +ingenuity of our race has contrived, let it be in the early autumn. Then Nature +will love him better than at any other season, and will take him to her bosom +with a more motherly tenderness. I could scarcely endure the roof of the old +house above me in those first autumnal days. How early in the summer, too, the +prophecy of autumn comes! Earlier in some years than in others; sometimes even +in the first weeks of July. There is no other feeling like what is caused by +this faint, doubtful, yet real perception—if it be not rather a +foreboding—of the year’s decay, so blessedly sweet and sad in the same +breath. +</p> + +<p> +Did I say that there was no feeling like it? Ah, but there is a +half-acknowledged melancholy like to this when we stand in the perfected vigor +of our life and feel that Time has now given us all his flowers, and that the +next work of his never-idle fingers must be to steal them one by one away. +</p> + +<p> +I have forgotten whether the song of the cricket be not as early a token of +autumn’s approach as any other,—that song which may be called an audible +stillness; for though very loud and heard afar, yet the mind does not take note +of it as a sound, so completely is its individual existence merged among the +accompanying characteristics of the season. Alas for the pleasant summertime! +In August the grass is still verdant on the hills and in the valleys; the +foliage of the trees is as dense as ever and as green; the flowers gleam forth +in richer abundance along the margin of the river and by the stone walls and +deep among the woods; the days, too, are as fervid now as they were a month +ago; and yet in every breath of wind and in every beam of sunshine we hear the +whispered farewell and behold the parting smile of a dear friend. There is a +coolness amid all the heat, a mildness in the blazing noon. Not a breeze can +stir but it thrills us with the breath of autumn. A pensive glory is seen in +the far, golden gleams, among the shadows of the trees. The flowers—even +the brightest of them, and they are the most gorgeous of the year—have +this gentle sadness wedded to their pomp, and typify the character of the +delicious time each within itself. The brilliant cardinal-flower has never +seemed gay to me. +</p> + +<p> +Still later in the season Nature’s tenderness waxes stronger. It is impossible +not to be fond of our mother now; for she is so fond of us! At other periods +she does not make this impression on me, or only at rare intervals; but in +those genial days of autumn, when she has perfected her harvests and +accomplished every needful thing that was given her to do, then she overflows +with a blessed superfluity of love. She has leisure to caress her children now. +It is good to be alive and at such times. Thank Heaven for breath—yes, +for mere breath—when it is made up of a heavenly breeze like this! It +comes with a real kiss upon our cheeks; it would linger fondly around us if it +might; but, since it must be gone, it embraces us with its whole kindly heart +and passes onward to embrace likewise the next thing that it meets. A blessing +is flung abroad and scattered far and wide over the earth, to be gathered up by +all who choose. I recline upon the still unwithered grass and whisper to +myself, “O perfect day! O beautiful world! O beneficent God!” And it is the +promise of a blessed eternity; for our Creator would never have made such +lovely days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond +all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal. This sunshine is the golden +pledge thereof. It beams through the gates of paradise and shows us glimpses +far inward. +</p> + +<p> +By and by, in a little time, the outward world puts on a drear austerity. On +some October morning there is a heavy hoarfrost on the grass and along the tops +of the fences; and at sunrise the leaves fall from the trees of our avenue, +without a breath of wind, quietly descending by their own weight. All summer +long they have murmured like the noise of waters; they have roared loudly while +the branches were wrestling with the thunder-gust; they have made music both +glad and solemn; they have attuned my thoughts by their quiet sound as I paced +to and fro beneath the arch of intermingling boughs. Now they can only rustle +under my feet. Henceforth the gray parsonage begins to assume a larger +importance, and draws to its fireside,—for the abomination of the +air-tight stove is reserved till wintry weather,—draws closer and closer +to its fireside the vagrant impulses that had gone wandering about through the +summer. +</p> + +<p> +When summer was dead and buried the Old Manse became as lonely as a hermitage. +Not that ever—in my time at least—it had been thronged with +company; but, at no rare intervals, we welcomed some friend out of the dusty +glare and tumult of the world, and rejoiced to share with him the transparent +obscurity that was floating over us. In one respect our precincts were like the +Enchanted Ground through which the pilgrim travelled on his way to the +Celestial City. The guests, each and all, felt a slumberous influence upon +them; they fell asleep in chairs, or took a more deliberate siesta on the sofa, +or were seen stretched among the shadows of the orchard, looking up dreamily +through the boughs. They could not have paid a more acceptable compliment to my +abode nor to my own qualities as a host. I held it as a proof that they left +their cares behind them as they passed between the stone gate-posts at the +entrance of our avenue, and that the so powerful opiate was the abundance of +peace and quiet within and all around us. Others could give them pleasure and +amusement or instruction,—these could be picked up anywhere; but it was +for me to give them rest,—rest in a life of trouble. What better could be +done for those weary and world-worn spirits?—for him whose career of +perpetual action was impeded and harassed by the rarest of his powers and the +richest of his acquirements?—for another who had thrown his ardent heart +from earliest youth into the strife of politics, and now, perchance, began to +suspect that one lifetime is too brief for the accomplishment of any lofty +aim?—for her oil whose feminine nature had been imposed the heavy gift of +intellectual power, such as a strong man might have staggered under, and with +it the necessity to act upon the world?—in a word, not to multiply +instances, what better could be done for anybody who came within our magic +circle than to throw the spell of a tranquil spirit over him? And when it had +wrought its full effect, then we dismissed him, with but misty reminiscences, +as if he had been dreaming of us. +</p> + +<p> +Were I to adopt a pet idea as so many people do, and fondle it in my embraces +to the exclusion of all others, it would be, that the great want which mankind +labors under at this present period is sleep. The world should recline its vast +head on the first convenient pillow and take an age-long nap. It has gone +distracted through a morbid activity, and, while preternaturally wide awake, is +nevertheless tormented by visions that seem real to it now, but would assume +their true aspect and character were all things once set right by an interval +of sound repose. This is the only method of getting rid of old delusions and +avoiding new ones; of regenerating our race, so that it might in due time awake +as an infant out of dewy slumber; of restoring to us the simple perception of +what is right and the single-hearted desire to achieve it, both of which have +long been lost in consequence of this weary activity of brain and torpor or +passion of the heart that now afflict the universe. Stimulants, the only mode +of treatment hitherto attempted, cannot quell the disease; they do but heighten +the delirium. +</p> + +<p> +Let not the above paragraph ever be quoted against the author; for, though +tinctured with its modicum of truth, it is the result and expression of what he +knew, while he was writing, to be but a distorted survey of the state and +prospects of mankind. There were circumstances around me which made it +difficult to view the world precisely as it exists; for, severe and sober as +was the Old Manse, it was necessary to go but a little way beyond its threshold +before meeting with stranger moral shapes of men than might have been +encountered elsewhere in a circuit of a thousand miles. +</p> + +<p> +These hobgoblins of flesh and blood were attracted thither by the widespreading +influence of a great original thinker, who had his earthly abode at the +opposite extremity of our village. His mind acted upon other minds of a certain +constitution with wonderful magnetism, and drew many men upon long pilgrimages +to speak with him face to face. Young visionaries—to whom just so much of +insight had been imparted as to make life all a labyrinth around +them—came to seek the clew that should guide them out of their +self-involved bewilderment. Gray-headed theorists—whose systems, at first +air, had finally imprisoned them in an iron framework—travelled painfully +to his door, not to ask deliverance, but to invite the free spirit into their +own thraldom. People that had lighted on a new thought or a thought that they +fancied new, came to Emerson, as the finder of a glittering gem hastens to a +lapidary, to ascertain its quality and value. Uncertain, troubled, earnest +wanderers through the midnight of the moral world beheld his intellectual fire +as a beacon burning on a hill-top, and, climbing the difficult ascent, looked +forth into the surrounding obscurity more hopefully than hitherto. The light +revealed objects unseen before,—mountains, gleaming lakes, glimpses of a +creation among the chaos; but also, as was unavoidable, it attracted bats and +owls and the whole host of night birds, which flapped their dusky wings against +the gazer’s eyes, and sometimes were mistaken for fowls of angelic feather. +Such delusions always hover nigh whenever a beacon-fire of truth is kindled. +</p> + +<p> +For myself, there bad been epochs of my life when I, too, might have asked of +this prophet the master word that should solve me the riddle of the universe; +but now, being happy, I felt as if there were no question to be put, and +therefore admired Emerson as a poet, of deep beauty and austere tenderness, but +sought nothing from him as a philosopher. It was good, nevertheless, to meet +him in the woodpaths, or sometimes in our avenue, with that pure, intellectual +gleam diffused about his presence like the garment of a shining one; and be, so +quiet, so simple, so without pretension, encountering each man alive as if +expecting to receive more than he could impart. And, in truth, the heart of +many an ordinary man had, perchance, inscriptions which he could not read. But +it was impossible to dwell in his vicinity without inhaling more or less the +mountain atmosphere of his lofty thought, which, in the brains of some people, +wrought a singular giddiness,—new truth being as heady as new wine. Never +was a poor little country village infested with such a variety of queer, +strangely dressed, oddly behaved mortals, most of whom took upon themselves to +be important agents of the world’s destiny, yet were simply bores of a very +intense water. Such, I imagine, is the invariable character of persons who +crowd so closely about an original thinker as to draw in his unuttered breath +and thus become imbued with a false originality. This triteness of novelty is +enough to make any man of common-sense blaspheme at all ideas of less than a +century’s standing, and pray that the world may be petrified and rendered +immovable in precisely the worst moral and physical state that it ever yet +arrived at, rather than be benefited by such schemes of such philosophers. +</p> + +<p> +And now I begin to feel—and perhaps should have sooner felt—that we +have talked enough of the Old Manse. Mine honored reader, it may be, will +vilify the poor author as an egotist for babbling through so many pages about a +mossgrown country parsonage, and his life within its walls, and on the river, +and in the woods, and the influences that wrought upon him from all these +sources. My conscience, however, does not reproach me with betraying anything +too sacredly individual to be revealed by a human spirit to its brother or +sister spirit. How narrow-how shallow and scanty too—is the stream of +thought that has been flowing from my pen, compared with the broad tide of dim +emotions, ideas, and associations which swell around me from that portion of my +existence! How little have I told! and of that little, how almost nothing is +even tinctured with any quality that makes it exclusively my own! Has the +reader gone wandering, hand in hand with me, through the inner passages of my +being? and have we groped together into all its chambers and examined their +treasures or their rubbish? Not so. We have been standing on the greensward, +but just within the cavern’s mouth, where the common sunshine is free to +penetrate, and where every footstep is therefore free to come. I have appealed +to no sentiment or sensibilities save such as are diffused among us all. So far +as I am a man of really individual attributes I veil my face; nor am I, nor +have I ever been, one of those supremely hospitable people who serve up their +own hearts, delicately fried, with brain sauce, as a tidbit for their beloved +public. +</p> + +<p> +Glancing back over what I have written, it seems but the scattered +reminiscences of a single summer. In fairyland there is no measurement of time; +and, in a spot so sheltered from the turmoil of life’s ocean, three years +hastened away with a noiseless flight, as the breezy sunshine chases the +cloud-shadows across the depths of a still valley. Now came hints, growing more +and more distinct, that the owner of the old house was pining for his native +air. Carpenters next, appeared, making a tremendous racket among the +outbuildings, strewing the green grass with pine shavings and chips of chestnut +joists, and vexing the whole antiquity of the place with their discordant +renovations. Soon, moreover, they divested our abode of the veil of woodbine +which had crept over a large portion of its southern face. All the aged mosses +were cleared unsparingly away; and there were horrible whispers about brushing +up the external walls with a coat of paint,—a purpose as little to my +taste as might be that of rouging the venerable cheeks of one’s grandmother. +But the hand that renovates is always more sacrilegious than that which +destroys. In fine, we gathered up our household goods, drank a farewell cup of +tea in our pleasant little breakfast-room,—delicately fragrant tea, an +unpurchasable luxury, one of the many angel gifts that had fallen like dew upon +us,—and passed forth between the tall stone gate-posts as uncertain as +the wandering Arabs where our tent might next be pitched. Providence took me by +the hand, and—an oddity of dispensation which, I trust, there is no +irreverence in smiling at—has led me, as the newspapers announce while I +am writing, from the Old Manse into a custom-house. As a story-teller, I have +often contrived strange vicissitudes for my imaginary personages, but none like +this. +</p> + +<p> +The treasure of intellectual gold which I hoped to find in our secluded +dwelling had never come to light. No profound treatise of ethics, no +philosophic history, no novel even, that could stand unsupported on its edges. +All that I had to show, as a man of letters, were these, few tales and essays, +which had blossomed out like flowers in the calm summer of my heart and mind. +Save editing (an easy task) the journal of my friend of many years, the African +Cruiser, I had done nothing else. With these idle weeds and withering blossoms +I have intermixed some that were produced long ago,—old, faded things, +reminding me of flowers pressed between the leaves of a book,—and now +offer the bouquet, such as it is, to any whom it may please. These fitful +sketches, with so little of external life about them, yet claiming no +profundity of purpose,—so reserved, even while they sometimes seem so +frank,—often but half in earnest, and never, even when most so, +expressing satisfactorily the thoughts which they profess to image,—such +trifles, I truly feel, afford no solid basis for a literary reputation. +Nevertheless, the public—if my limited number of readers, whom I venture +to regard rather as a circle of friends, may be termed a public—will +receive them the more kindly, as the last offering, the last collection of this +nature which it is my purpose ever to put forth. Unless I could do better, I +have done enough in this kind. For myself the book will always retain one +charm,—as reminding me of the river, with its delightful solitudes, and +of the avenue, the garden, and the orchard, and especially the dear Old Manse, +with the little study on its western side, and the sunshine glimmering through +the willow branches while I wrote. +</p> + +<p> +Let the reader, if he will do me so much honor, imagine himself my guest, and +that, having seen whatever may be worthy of notice within and about the Old +Manse, he has finally been ushered into my study. There, after seating him in +an antique elbow-chair, an heirloom of the house, I take forth a roll of +manuscript and entreat his attention to the following tales,—an act of +personal inhospitality, however, which I never was guilty of, nor ever will be, +even to my worst enemy. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap02"></a> +THE BIRTHMARK</h2> + +<p> +In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent +proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story +opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any +chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared +his fine countenance from the furnace smoke, washed the stain of acids from his +fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when +the comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred mysteries +of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual +for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing +energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart +might all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their +ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence +to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative +force and perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer +possessed this degree of faith in man’s ultimate control over Nature. He had +devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be +weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his young wife might prove +the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his +love of science, and uniting the strength of the latter to his own. +</p> + +<p> +Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly remarkable +consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very soon after their +marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble in his countenance that +grew stronger until he spoke. +</p> + +<p> +“Georgiana,” said he, “has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your +cheek might be removed?” +</p> + +<p> +“No, indeed,” said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his manner, +she blushed deeply. “To tell you the truth it has been so often called a charm +that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, upon another face perhaps it might,” replied her husband; “but never on +yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of +Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a +defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly +imperfection.” +</p> + +<p> +“Shocks you, my husband!” cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first reddening with +momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. “Then why did you take me from +my mother’s side? You cannot love what shocks you!” +</p> + +<p> +To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of +Georgiana’s left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it +were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state of her +complexion—a healthy though delicate bloom—the mark wore a tint of +deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding +rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and finally +vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its +brilliant glow. But if any shifting motion caused her to turn pale there was +the mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed +an almost fearful distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the +human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana’s lovers were wont to +say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant’s +cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were +to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would have risked +life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not +be concealed, however, that the impression wrought by this fairy sign manual +varied exceedingly, according to the difference of temperament in the +beholders. Some fastidious persons—but they were exclusively of her own +sex—affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite +destroyed the effect of Georgiana’s beauty, and rendered her countenance even +hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that one of those small blue +stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble would convert the +Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine observers, if the birthmark did not +heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the +world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the +semblance of a flaw. After his marriage,—for he thought little or nothing +of the matter before,—Aylmer discovered that this was the case with +himself. +</p> + +<p> +Had she been less beautiful,—if Envy’s self could have found aught else +to sneer at,—he might have felt his affection heightened by the +prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing +forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed +within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect +grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives. It was +the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps +ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary +and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The +crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the +highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the +lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to +dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife’s liability to +sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer’s sombre imagination was not long in +rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror +than ever Georgiana’s beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight. +</p> + +<p> +At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably and +without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary, reverted to +this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first appeared, it so connected +itself with innumerable trains of thought and modes of feeling that it became +the central point of all. With the morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon +his wife’s face and recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat +together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and +beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that +wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana soon learned to +shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the peculiar expression that +his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek into a deathlike paleness, +amid which the crimson hand was brought strongly out, like a bass-relief of +ruby on the whitest marble. +</p> + +<p> +Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray the +stain on the poor wife’s cheek, she herself, for the first time, voluntarily +took up the subject. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you remember, my dear Aylmer,” said she, with a feeble attempt at a smile, +“have you any recollection of a dream last night about this odious hand?” +</p> + +<p> +“None! none whatever!” replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added, in a dry, +cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of his emotion, +“I might well dream of it; for before I fell asleep it had taken a pretty firm +hold of my fancy.” +</p> + +<p> +“And you did dream of it?” continued Georgiana, hastily; for she dreaded lest a +gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. “A terrible dream! I wonder +that you can forget it. Is it possible to forget this one expression?—‘It +is in her heart now; we must have it out!’ Reflect, my husband; for by all +means I would have you recall that dream.” +</p> + +<p> +The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her +spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, +affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper +one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied himself with his servant +Aminadab, attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the +deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp +appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana’s heart; whence, however, her husband +was inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away. +</p> + +<p> +When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in his +wife’s presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to the mind +close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness +of matters in regard to which we practise an unconscious self-deception during +our waking moments. Until now he had not been aware of the tyrannizing +influence acquired by one idea over his mind, and of the lengths which he might +find in his heart to go for the sake of giving himself peace. +</p> + +<p> +“Aylmer,” resumed Georgiana, solemnly, “I know not what may be the cost to both +of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal may cause cureless +deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as life itself. Again: do we +know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of +this little hand which was laid upon me before I came into the world?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject,” hastily +interrupted Aylmer. “I am convinced of the perfect practicability of its +removal.” +</p> + +<p> +“If there be the remotest possibility of it,” continued Georgiana, “let the +attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this +hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust,—life is a +burden which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful hand, or +take my wretched life! You have deep science. All the world bears witness of +it. You have achieved great wonders. Cannot you remove this little, little +mark, which I cover with the tips of two small fingers? Is this beyond your +power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from +madness?” +</p> + +<p> +“Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife,” cried Aylmer, rapturously, “doubt not my +power. I have already given this matter the deepest thought—thought which +might almost have enlightened me to create a being less perfect than yourself. +Georgiana, you have led me deeper than ever into the heart of science. I feel +myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; +and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected +what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion, when his +sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is resolved, then,” said Georgiana, faintly smiling. “And, Aylmer, spare me +not, though you should find the birthmark take refuge in my heart at last.” +</p> + +<p> +Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek—her right cheek—not that +which bore the impress of the crimson hand. +</p> + +<p> +The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed whereby he +might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant watchfulness which +the proposed operation would require; while Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy +the perfect repose essential to its success. They were to seclude themselves in +the extensive apartments occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during +his toilsome youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of Nature +that had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in Europe. Seated +calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated the secrets of +the highest cloud region and of the profoundest mines; he had satisfied himself +of the causes that kindled and kept alive the fires of the volcano; and had +explained the mystery of fountains, and how it is that they gush forth, some so +bright and pure, and others with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark +bosom of the earth. Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders +of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Nature +assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the +spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, +however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the +truth—against which all seekers sooner or later stumble—that our +great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the +broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in +spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. She permits us, +indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account +to make. Now, however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, +of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because they +involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme +for the treatment of Georgiana. +</p> + +<p> +As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold and +tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to reassure her, +but was so startled with the intense glow of the birthmark upon the whiteness +of her cheek that he could not restrain a strong convulsive shudder. His wife +fainted. +</p> + +<p> +“Aminadab! Aminadab!” shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the floor. +</p> + +<p> +Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, but bulky +frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the +vapors of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer’s underworker during his +whole scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that office by his great +mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while incapable of +comprehending a single principle, he executed all the details of his master’s +experiments. With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the +indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man’s +physical nature; while Aylmer’s slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, +were no less apt a type of the spiritual element. +</p> + +<p> +“Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab,” said Aylmer, “and burn a +pastil.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, master,” answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form of +Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, “If she were my wife, I’d never +part with that birthmark.” +</p> + +<p> +When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an +atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had recalled +her from her deathlike faintness. The scene around her looked like enchantment. +Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms, where he had spent his +brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a series of beautiful apartments +not unfit to be the secluded abode of a lovely woman. The walls were hung with +gorgeous curtains, which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no +other species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to +the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and straight +lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. For aught Georgiana +knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And Aylmer, excluding the +sunshine, which would have interfered with his chemical processes, had supplied +its place with perfumed lamps, emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting +in a soft, impurpled radiance. He now knelt by his wife’s side, watching her +earnestly, but without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt +that he could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might intrude. +</p> + +<p> +“Where am I? Ah, I remember,” said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed her hand +over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband’s eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“Fear not, dearest!” exclaimed he. “Do not shrink from me! Believe me, +Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be such a +rapture to remove it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, spare me!” sadly replied his wife. “Pray do not look at it again. I never +can forget that convulsive shudder.” +</p> + +<p> +In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from the +burden of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice some of the light and +playful secrets which science had taught him among its profounder lore. Airy +figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty came and +danced before her, imprinting their momentary footsteps on beams of light. +Though she had some indistinct idea of the method of these optical phenomena, +still the illusion was almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her +husband possessed sway over the spiritual world. Then again, when she felt a +wish to look forth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were +answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a screen. The +scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented, but with +that bewitching, yet indescribable difference which always makes a picture, an +image, or a shadow so much more attractive than the original. When wearied of +this, Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel containing a quantity of +earth. She did so, with little interest at first; but was soon startled to +perceive the germ of a plant shooting upward from the soil. Then came the +slender stalk; the leaves gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them was a +perfect and lovely flower. +</p> + +<p> +“It is magical!” cried Georgiana. “I dare not touch it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, pluck it,” answered Aylmer,—“pluck it, and inhale its brief perfume +while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments and leave nothing save +its brown seed vessels; but thence may be perpetuated a race as ephemeral as +itself.” +</p> + +<p> +But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant suffered a +blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the agency of fire. +</p> + +<p> +“There was too powerful a stimulus,” said Aylmer, thoughtfully. +</p> + +<p> +To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her portrait by a +scientific process of his own invention. It was to be effected by rays of light +striking upon a polished plate of metal. Georgiana assented; but, on looking at +the result, was affrighted to find the features of the portrait blurred and +indefinable; while the minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should +have been. Aylmer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a jar of +corrosive acid. +</p> + +<p> +Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of study +and chemical experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but seemed +invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of the resources of +his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of the alchemists, who spent so +many ages in quest of the universal solvent by which the golden principle might +be elicited from all things vile and base. Aylmer appeared to believe that, by +the plainest scientific logic, it was altogether within the limits of +possibility to discover this long-sought medium; “but,” he added, “a +philosopher who should go deep enough to acquire the power would attain too +lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it.” Not less singular were his +opinions in regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at +his option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps +interminably; but that it would produce a discord in Nature which all the +world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find cause to +curse. +</p> + +<p> +“Aylmer, are you in earnest?” asked Georgiana, looking at him with amazement +and fear. “It is terrible to possess such power, or even to dream of possessing +it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, do not tremble, my love,” said her husband. “I would not wrong either you +or myself by working such inharmonious effects upon our lives; but I would have +you consider how trifling, in comparison, is the skill requisite to remove this +little hand.” +</p> + +<p> +At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a redhot +iron had touched her cheek. +</p> + +<p> +Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She could hear his voice in the +distant furnace room giving directions to Aminadab, whose harsh, uncouth, +misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt or growl of a +brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmer reappeared and proposed +that she should now examine his cabinet of chemical products and natural +treasures of the earth. Among the former he showed her a small vial, in which, +he remarked, was contained a gentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable of +impregnating all the breezes that blow across a kingdom. They were of +inestimable value, the contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he +threw some of the perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing and +invigorating delight. +</p> + +<p> +“And what is this?” asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe +containing a gold-colored liquid. “It is so beautiful to the eye that I could +imagine it the elixir of life.” +</p> + +<p> +“In one sense it is,” replied Aylmer; “or, rather, the elixir of immortality. +It is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in this world. By its +aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at whom you might point your +finger. The strength of the dose would determine whether he were to linger out +years, or drop dead in the midst of a breath. No king on his guarded throne +could keep his life if I, in my private station, should deem that the welfare +of millions justified me in depriving him of it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you keep such a terrific drug?” inquired Georgiana in horror. +</p> + +<p> +“Do not mistrust me, dearest,” said her husband, smiling; “its virtuous potency +is yet greater than its harmful one. But see! here is a powerful cosmetic. With +a few drops of this in a vase of water, freckles may be washed away as easily +as the hands are cleansed. A stronger infusion would take the blood out of the +cheek, and leave the rosiest beauty a pale ghost.” +</p> + +<p> +“Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?” asked Georgiana, +anxiously. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no,” hastily replied her husband; “this is merely superficial. Your case +demands a remedy that shall go deeper.” +</p> + +<p> +In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute inquiries as to +her sensations and whether the confinement of the rooms and the temperature of +the atmosphere agreed with her. These questions had such a particular drift +that Georgiana began to conjecture that she was already subjected to certain +physical influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken with her +food. She fancied likewise, but it might be altogether fancy, that there was a +stirring up of her system—a strange, indefinite sensation creeping +through her veins, and tingling, half painfully, half pleasurably, at her +heart. Still, whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld +herself pale as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon her +cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it so much as she. +</p> + +<p> +To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary to +devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana turned over the +volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old tomes she met with chapters +full of romance and poetry. They were the works of philosophers of the middle +ages, such as Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and the famous +friar who created the prophetic Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists +stood in advance of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of their +credulity, and therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have +acquired from the investigation of Nature a power above Nature, and from +physics a sway over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and imaginative +were the early volumes of the Transactions of the Royal Society, in which the +members, knowing little of the limits of natural possibility, were continually +recording wonders or proposing methods whereby wonders might be wrought. +</p> + +<p> +But to Georgiana the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her +husband’s own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific +career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its +final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event was +attributable. The book, in truth, was both the history and emblem of his +ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practical and laborious life. He handled +physical details as if there were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them +all, and redeemed himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration +towards the infinite. In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul. +Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more profoundly than +ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment than heretofore. Much +as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that his most splendid +successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the ideal at which +he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by +himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his +reach. The volume, rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, +was yet as melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. It was the sad +confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite +man, the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and of the despair +that assails the higher nature at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the +earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius in whatever sphere might recognize +the image of his own experience in Aylmer’s journal. +</p> + +<p> +So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana that she laid her face upon +the open volume and burst into tears. In this situation she was found by her +husband. +</p> + +<p> +“It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer’s books,” said he with a smile, though +his countenance was uneasy and displeased. “Georgiana, there are pages in that +volume which I can scarcely glance over and keep my senses. Take heed lest it +prove as detrimental to you.” +</p> + +<p> +“It has made me worship you more than ever,” said she. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, wait for this one success,” rejoined he, “then worship me if you will. I +shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But come, I have sought you for the +luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest.” +</p> + +<p> +So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his +spirit. He then took his leave with a boyish exuberance of gayety, assuring her +that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and that the result was +already certain. Scarcely had he departed when Georgiana felt irresistibly +impelled to follow him. She had forgotten to inform Aylmer of a symptom which +for two or three hours past had begun to excite her attention. It was a +sensation in the fatal birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness +throughout her system. Hastening after her husband, she intruded for the first +time into the laboratory. +</p> + +<p> +The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and feverish +worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the quantities of soot +clustered above it seemed to have been burning for ages. There was a distilling +apparatus in full operation. Around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, +crucibles, and other apparatus of chemical research. An electrical machine +stood ready for immediate use. The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was +tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of +science. The severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked +walls and brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become to +the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost solely, +drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself. +</p> + +<p> +He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if it +depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it was +distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery. How different +from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had assumed for Georgiana’s +encouragement! +</p> + +<p> +“Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully, thou man of +clay!” muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. “Now, if there be a +thought too much or too little, it is all over.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ho! ho!” mumbled Aminadab. “Look, master! look!” +</p> + +<p> +Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler than +ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her and seized her arm with a +gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it. +</p> + +<p> +“Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?” cried he, +impetuously. “Would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over my +labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman, go!” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Aylmer,” said Georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed no +stinted endowment, “it is not you that have a right to complain. You mistrust +your wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you watch the development +of this experiment. Think not so unworthily of me, my husband. Tell me all the +risk we run, and fear not that I shall shrink; for my share in it is far less +than your own.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, Georgiana!” said Aylmer, impatiently; “it must not be.” +</p> + +<p> +“I submit,” replied she calmly. “And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever draught +you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would induce me to take +a dose of poison if offered by your hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“My noble wife,” said Aylmer, deeply moved, “I knew not the height and depth of +your nature until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then, that this +crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp into your being +with a strength of which I had no previous conception. I have already +administered agents powerful enough to do aught except to change your entire +physical system. Only one thing remains to be tried. If that fail us we are +ruined.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why did you hesitate to tell me this?” asked she. +</p> + +<p> +“Because, Georgiana,” said Aylmer, in a low voice, “there is danger.” +</p> + +<p> +“Danger? There is but one danger—that this horrible stigma shall be left +upon my cheek!” cried Georgiana. “Remove it, remove it, whatever be the cost, +or we shall both go mad!” +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven knows your words are too true,” said Aylmer, sadly. “And now, dearest, +return to your boudoir. In a little while all will be tested.” +</p> + +<p> +He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which +spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After his departure +Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the character of Aylmer, and +did it completer justice than at any previous moment. Her heart exulted, while +it trembled, at his honorable love—so pure and lofty that it would accept +nothing less than perfection nor miserably make itself contented with an +earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. She felt how much more precious was +such a sentiment than that meaner kind which would have borne with the +imperfection for her sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love by +degrading its perfect idea to the level of the actual; and with her whole +spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and +deepest conception. Longer than one moment she well knew it could not be; for +his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, and each instant required +something that was beyond the scope of the instant before. +</p> + +<p> +The sound of her husband’s footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal goblet +containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be the draught of +immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the consequence of a +highly-wrought state of mind and tension of spirit than of fear or doubt. +</p> + +<p> +“The concoction of the draught has been perfect,” said he, in answer to +Georgiana’s look. “Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail.” +</p> + +<p> +“Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer,” observed his wife, “I might wish to +put off this birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality itself in +preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession to those who have +attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at which I stand. Were I +weaker and blinder it might be happiness. Were I stronger, it might be endured +hopefully. But, being what I find myself, methinks I am of all mortals the most +fit to die.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are fit for heaven without tasting death!” replied her husband “But why do +we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. Behold its effect upon this plant.” +</p> + +<p> +On the window seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow blotches, which +had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a small quantity of the liquid +upon the soil in which it grew. In a little time, when the roots of the plant +had taken up the moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a +living verdure. +</p> + +<p> +“There needed no proof,” said Georgiana, quietly. “Give me the goblet I +joyfully stake all upon your word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Drink, then, thou lofty creature!” exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid admiration. +“There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy sensible frame, too, +shall soon be all perfect.” +</p> + +<p> +She quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“It is grateful,” said she with a placid smile. “Methinks it is like water from +a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of unobtrusive fragrance +and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst that had parched me for many +days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing over my spirit +like the leaves around the heart of a rose at sunset.” +</p> + +<p> +She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required almost +more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and lingering +syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere she was lost in +slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper +to a man the whole value of whose existence was involved in the process now to +be tested. Mingled with this mood, however, was the philosophic investigation +characteristic of the man of science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A +heightened flush of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the +eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,—such were the +details which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. +Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume, but +the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last. +</p> + +<p> +While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and not +without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse he pressed +it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in the very act, and Georgiana, +out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily and murmured as if in +remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed his watch. Nor was it without avail. The +crimson hand, which at first had been strongly visible upon the marble paleness +of Georgiana’s cheek, now grew more faintly outlined. She remained not less +pale than ever; but the birthmark with every breath that came and went, lost +somewhat of its former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure +was more awful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow fading out the sky, and +you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away. +</p> + +<p> +“By Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!” said Aylmer to himself, in almost +irrepressible ecstasy. “I can scarcely trace it now. Success! success! And now +it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest flush of blood across her +cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!” +</p> + +<p> +He drew aside the window curtain and suffered the light of natural day to fall +into the room and rest upon her cheek. At the same time he heard a gross, +hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant Aminadab’s expression of +delight. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!” cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of frenzy, “you +have served me well! Matter and spirit—earth and heaven—have both +done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses! You have earned the right +to laugh.” +</p> + +<p> +These exclamations broke Georgiana’s sleep. She slowly unclosed her eyes and +gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that purpose. A faint +smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how barely perceptible was now +that crimson hand which had once blazed forth with such disastrous brilliancy +as to scare away all their happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer’s face +with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no means account for. +</p> + +<p> +“My poor Aylmer!” murmured she. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!” exclaimed he. “My peerless bride, +it is successful! You are perfect!” +</p> + +<p> +“My poor Aylmer,” she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, “you have +aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so high and pure a +feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest +Aylmer, I am dying!” +</p> + +<p> +Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, +and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal +frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark—that sole token of human +imperfection—faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect +woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her +husband, took its heavenward flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard +again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable +triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half +development, demands the completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Alymer +reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness +which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the +celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look +beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find +the perfect future in the present. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a> +A SELECT PARTY</h2> + +<p> +The man of fancy made an entertainment at one of his castles in the air, and +invited a select number of distinguished personages to favor him with their +presence. The mansion, though less splendid than many that have been situated +in the same region, was nevertheless of a magnificence such as is seldom +witnessed by those acquainted only with terrestrial architecture. Its strong +foundations and massive walls were quarried out of a ledge of heavy and sombre +clouds which had hung brooding over the earth, apparently as dense and +ponderous as its own granite, throughout a whole autumnal day. Perceiving that +the general effect was gloomy,—so that the airy castle looked like a +feudal fortress, or a monastery of the Middle Ages, or a state prison of our +own times, rather than the home of pleasure and repose which he intended it to +be,—the owner, regardless of expense, resolved to gild the exterior from +top to bottom. Fortunately, there was just then a flood of evening sunshine in +the air. This being gathered up and poured abundantly upon the roof and walls, +imbued them with a kind of solemn cheerfulness; while the cupolas and pinnacles +were made to glitter with the purest gold, and all the hundred windows gleamed +with a glad light, as if the edifice itself were rejoicing in its heart. +</p> + +<p> +And now, if the people of the lower world chanced to be looking upward out of +the turmoil of their petty perplexities, they probably mistook the castle in +the air for a heap of sunset clouds, to which the magic of light and shade had +imparted the aspect of a fantastically constructed mansion. To such beholders +it was unreal, because they lacked the imaginative faith. Had they been worthy +to pass within its portal, they would have recognized the truth, that the +dominions which the spirit conquers for itself among unrealities become a +thousand times more real than the earth whereon they stamp their feet, saying, +“This is solid and substantial; this may be called a fact.” +</p> + +<p> +At the appointed hour, the host stood in his great saloon to receive the +company. It was a vast and noble room, the vaulted ceiling of which was +supported by double rows of gigantic pillars that had been hewn entire out of +masses of variegated clouds. So brilliantly were they polished, and so +exquisitely wrought by the sculptor’s skill, as to resemble the finest +specimens of emerald, porphyry, opal, and chrysolite, thus producing a delicate +richness of effect which their immense size rendered not incompatible with +grandeur. To each of these pillars a meteor was suspended. Thousands of these +ethereal lustres are continually wandering about the firmament, burning out to +waste, yet capable of imparting a useful radiance to any person who has the art +of converting them to domestic purposes. As managed in the saloon, they are far +more economical than ordinary lamplight. Such, however, was the intensity of +their blaze that it had been found expedient to cover each meteor with a globe +of evening mist, thereby muffling the too potent glow and soothing it into a +mild and comfortable splendor. It was like the brilliancy of a powerful yet +chastened imagination,—a light which seemed to hide whatever was unworthy +to be noticed and give effect to every beautiful and noble attribute. The +guests, therefore, as they advanced up the centre of the saloon, appeared to +better advantage than ever before in their lives. +</p> + +<p> +The first that entered, with old-fashioned punctuality, was a venerable figure +in the costume of bygone days, with his white hair flowing down over his +shoulders and a reverend beard upon his breast. He leaned upon a staff, the +tremulous stroke of which, as he set it carefully upon the floor, re-echoed +through the saloon at every footstep. Recognizing at once this celebrated +personage, whom it had cost him a vast deal of trouble and research to +discover, the host advanced nearly three fourths of the distance down between +the pillars to meet and welcome him. +</p> + +<p> +“Venerable sir,” said the Man of Fancy, bending to the floor, “the honor of +this visit would never be forgotten were my term of existence to be as happily +prolonged as your own.” +</p> + +<p> +The old gentleman received the compliment with gracious condescension. He then +thrust up his spectacles over his forehead and appeared to take a critical +survey of the saloon. +</p> + +<p> +“Never within my recollection,” observed he, “have I entered a more spacious +and noble hall. But are you sure that it is built of solid materials and that +the structure will be permanent?” +</p> + +<p> +“O, never fear, my venerable friend,” replied the host. “In reference to a +lifetime like your own, it is true my castle may well be called a temporary +edifice. But it will endure long enough to answer all the purposes for which it +was erected.” +</p> + +<p> +But we forget that the reader has not yet been made acquainted with the guest. +It was no other than that universally accredited character so constantly +referred to in all seasons of intense cold or heat; he that, remembers the hot +Sunday and the cold Friday; the witness of a past age whose negative +reminiscences find their way into every newspaper, yet whose antiquated and +dusky abode is so overshadowed by accumulated years and crowded back by modern +edifices that none but the Man of Fancy could have discovered it; it was, in +short, that twin brother of Time, and great-grandsire of mankind, and +hand-and-glove associate of all forgotten men and things,—the Oldest +Inhabitant. The host would willingly have drawn him into conversation, but +succeeded only in eliciting a few remarks as to the oppressive atmosphere of +this present summer evening compared with one which the guest had experienced +about fourscore years ago. The old gentleman, in fact, was a good deal overcome +by his journey among the clouds, which, to a frame so earth-incrusted by long +continuance in a lower region, was unavoidably more fatiguing than to younger +spirits. He was therefore conducted to an easy-chair, well cushioned and +stuffed with vaporous softness, and left to take a little repose. +</p> + +<p> +The Man of Fancy now discerned another guest, who stood so quietly in the +shadow of one of the pillars that he might easily have been overlooked. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir,” exclaimed the host, grasping him warmly by the hand, “allow me +to greet you as the hero of the evening. Pray do not take it as an empty +compliment; for, if there were not another guest in my castle, it would be +entirely pervaded with your presence.” +</p> + +<p> +“I thank you,” answered the unpretending stranger; “but, though you happened to +overlook me, I have not just arrived. I came very early; and, with your +permission, shall remain after the rest of the company have retired.” +</p> + +<p> +And who does the reader imagine was this unobtrusive guest? It was the famous +performer of acknowledged impossibilities,—a character of superhuman +capacity and virtue, and, if his enemies are to be credited, of no less +remarkable weaknesses and defects. With a generosity with which he alone sets +us an example, we will glance merely at his nobler attributes. He it is, then, +who prefers the interests of others to his own and a humble station to an +exalted one. Careless of fashion, custom, the opinions of men, and the +influence of the press, he assimilates his life to the standard of ideal +rectitude, and thus proves himself the one independent citizen of our free +country. In point of ability, many people declare him to be the only +mathematician capable of squaring the circle; the only mechanic acquainted with +the principle of perpetual motion; the only scientific philosopher who can +compel water to run up hill; the only writer of the age whose genius is equal +to the production of an epic poem; and, finally, so various are his +accomplishments, the only professor of gymnastics who has succeeded in jumping +down his own throat. With all these talents, however, he is so far from being +considered a member of good society, that it is the severest censure of any +fashionable assemblage to affirm that this remarkable individual was present. +Public orators, lecturers, and theatrical performers particularly eschew his +company. For especial reasons, we are not at liberty to disclose his name, and +shall mention only one other trait,—a most singular phenomenon in natural +philosophy,—that, when he happens to cast his eyes upon a looking-glass, +he beholds Nobody reflected there! +</p> + +<p> +Several other guests now made their appearance; and among them, chattering with +immense volubility, a brisk little gentleman of universal vogue in private +society, and not unknown in the public journals under the title of Monsieur +On-Dit. The name would seem to indicate a Frenchman; but, whatever be his +country, he is thoroughly versed in all the languages of the day, and can +express himself quite as much to the purpose in English as in any other tongue. +No sooner were the ceremonies of salutation over than this talkative little +person put his mouth to the host’s ear and whispered three secrets of state, an +important piece of commercial intelligence, and a rich item of fashionable +scandal. He then assured the Man of Fancy that he would not fail to circulate +in the society of the lower world a minute description of this magnificent +castle in the air and of the festivities at which he had the honor to be a +guest. So saying, Monsieur On-Dit made his bow and hurried from one to another +of the company, with all of whom he seemed to be acquainted and to possess some +topic of interest or amusement for every individual. Coming at last to the +Oldest Inhabitant, who was slumbering comfortably in the easy-chair, he applied +his mouth to that venerable ear. +</p> + +<p> +“What do you say?” cried the old gentleman, starting from his nap and putting +up his hand to serve the purpose of an ear-trumpet. +</p> + +<p> +Monsieur On-Dit bent forward again and repeated his communication. +</p> + +<p> +“Never within my memory,” exclaimed the Oldest Inhabitant, lifting his hands in +astonishment, “has so remarkable an incident been heard of.” +</p> + +<p> +Now came in the Clerk of the Weather, who had been invited out of deference to +his official station, although the host was well aware that his conversation +was likely to contribute but little to the general enjoyment. He soon, indeed, +got into a corner with his acquaintance of long ago, the Oldest Inhabitant, and +began to compare notes with him in reference to the great storms, gales of +wind, and other atmospherical facts that had occurred during a century past. It +rejoiced the Man of Fancy that his venerable and much-respected guest had met +with so congenial an associate. Entreating them both to make themselves +perfectly at home, he now turned to receive the Wandering Jew. This personage, +however, had latterly grown so common, by mingling in all sorts of society and +appearing at the beck of every entertainer, that he could hardly be deemed a +proper guest in a very exclusive circle. Besides, being covered with dust from +his continual wanderings along the highways of the world, he really looked out +of place in a dress party; so that the host felt relieved of an incommodity +when the restless individual in question, after a brief stay, took his +departure on a ramble towards Oregon. +</p> + +<p> +The portal was now thronged by a crowd of shadowy people with whom the Man of +Fancy had been acquainted in his visionary youth. He had invited them hither +for the sake of observing how they would compare, whether advantageously or +otherwise, with the real characters to whom his maturer life had introduced +him. They were beings of crude imagination, such as glide before a young man’s +eye and pretend to be actual inhabitants of the earth; the wise and witty with +whom he would hereafter hold intercourse; the generous and heroic friends whose +devotion would be requited with his own; the beautiful dream-woman who would +become the helpmate of his human toils and sorrows and at once the source and +partaker of his happiness. Alas! it is not good for the full-grown man to look +too closely at these old acquaintances, but rather to reverence them at a +distance through the medium of years that have gathered duskily between. There +was something laughably untrue in their pompous stride and exaggerated +sentiment; they were neither human nor tolerable likenesses of humanity, but +fantastic maskers, rendering heroism and nature alike ridiculous by the grave +absurdity of their pretensions to such attributes; and as for the peerless +dream-lady, behold! there advanced up the saloon, with a movement like a +jointed doll, a sort of wax-figure of an angel, a creature as cold as +moonshine, an artifice in petticoats, with an intellect of pretty phrases and +only the semblance of a heart, yet in all these particulars the true type of a +young man’s imaginary mistress. Hardly could the host’s punctilious courtesy +restrain a smile as he paid his respects to this unreality and met the +sentimental glance with which the Dream sought to remind him of their former +love passages. +</p> + +<p> +“No, no, fair lady,” murmured he betwixt sighing and smiling; “my taste is +changed; I have learned to love what Nature makes better than my own creations +in the guise of womanhood.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, false one,” shrieked the dream-lady, pretending to faint, but dissolving +into thin air, out of which came the deplorable murmur of her voice, “your +inconstancy has annihilated me.” +</p> + +<p> +“So be it,” said the cruel Man of Fancy to himself; “and a good riddance too.” +</p> + +<p> +Together with these shadows, and from the same region, there came an uninvited +multitude of shapes which at any time during his life had tormented the Man of +Fancy in his moods of morbid melancholy or had haunted him in the delirium of +fever. The walls of his castle in the air were not dense enough to keep them +out, nor would the strongest of earthly architecture have availed to their +exclusion. Here were those forms of dim terror which had beset him at the +entrance of life, waging warfare with his hopes; here were strange uglinesses +of earlier date, such as haunt children in the night-time. He was particularly +startled by the vision of a deformed old black woman whom he imagined as +lurking in the garret of his native home, and who, when he was an infant, had +once come to his bedside and grinned at him in the crisis of a scarlet fever. +This same black shadow, with others almost as hideous, now glided among the +pillars of the magnificent saloon, grinning recognition, until the man +shuddered anew at the forgotten terrors of his childhood. It amused him, +however, to observe the black woman, with the mischievous caprice peculiar to +such beings, steal up to the chair of the Oldest Inhabitant and peep into his +half-dreamy mind. +</p> + +<p> +“Never within my memory,” muttered that venerable personage, aghast, “did I see +such a face.” +</p> + +<p> +Almost immediately after the unrealities just described, arrived a number of +guests whom incredulous readers may be inclined to rank equally among creatures +of imagination. The most noteworthy were an incorruptible Patriot; a Scholar +without pedantry; a Priest without worldly ambition; and a Beautiful Woman +without pride or coquetry; a Married Pair whose life had never been disturbed +by incongruity of feeling; a Reformer untrammelled by his theory; and a Poet +who felt no jealousy towards other votaries of the lyre. In truth, however, the +host was not one of the cynics who consider these patterns of excellence, +without the fatal flaw, such rarities in the world; and he had invited them to +his select party chiefly out of humble deference to the judgment of society, +which pronounces them almost impossible to be met with. +</p> + +<p> +“In my younger days,” observed the Oldest Inhabitant, “such characters might be +seen at the corner of every street.” +</p> + +<p> +Be that as it might, these specimens of perfection proved to be not half so +entertaining companions as people with the ordinary allowance of faults. +</p> + +<p> +But now appeared a stranger, whom the host had no sooner recognized than, with +an abundance of courtesy unlavished on any other, he hastened down the whole +length of the saloon in order to pay him emphatic honor. Yet he was a young man +in poor attire, with no insignia of rank or acknowledged eminence, nor anything +to distinguish him among the crowd except a high, white forehead, beneath which +a pair of deep-set eyes were glowing with warm light. It was such a light as +never illuminates the earth save when a great heart burns as the household fire +of a grand intellect. And who was he?—who but the Master Genius for whom +our country is looking anxiously into the mist of Time, as destined to fulfil +the great mission of creating an American literature, hewing it, as it were, +out of the unwrought granite of our intellectual quarries? From him, whether +moulded in the form of an epic poem or assuming a guise altogether new as the +spirit itself may determine, we are to receive our first great original work, +which shall do all that remains to be achieved for our glory among the nations. +How this child of a mighty destiny had been discovered by the Man of Fancy it +is of little consequence to mention. Suffice it that he dwells as yet unhonored +among men, unrecognized by those who have known him from his cradle; the noble +countenance which should be distinguished by a halo diffused around it passes +daily amid the throng of people toiling and troubling themselves about the +trifles of a moment, and none pay reverence to the worker of immortality. Nor +does it matter much to him, in his triumph over all the ages, though a +generation or two of his own times shall do themselves the wrong to disregard +him. +</p> + +<p> +By this time Monsieur On-Dit had caught up the stranger’s name and destiny and +was busily whispering the intelligence among the other guests. +</p> + +<p> +“Pshaw!” said one. “There can never be an American genius.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pish!” cried another. “We have already as good poets as any in the world. For +my part, I desire to see no better.” +</p> + +<p> +And the Oldest Inhabitant, when it was proposed to introduce him to the Master +Genius, begged to be excused, observing that a man who had been honored with +the acquaintance of Dwight, and Freneau, and Joel Barlow, might be allowed a +little austerity of taste. +</p> + +<p> +The saloon was now fast filling up by the arrival of other remarkable +characters, among whom were noticed Davy Jones, the distinguished nautical +personage, and a rude, carelessly dressed, harum-scarum sort of elderly fellow, +known by the nickname of Old Harry. The latter, however, after being shown to a +dressing-room, reappeared with his gray hair nicely combed, his clothes +brushed, a clean dicky on his neck, and altogether so changed in aspect as to +merit the more respectful appellation of Venerable Henry. Joel Doe and Richard +Roe came arm in arm, accompanied by a Man of Straw, a fictitious indorser, and +several persons who had no existence except as voters in closely contested +elections. The celebrated Seatsfield, who now entered, was at first supposed to +belong to the same brotherhood, until he made it apparent that he was a real +man of flesh and blood and had his earthly domicile in Germany. Among the +latest comers, as might reasonably be expected, arrived a guest from the far +future. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know him? do you know him?” whispered Monsieur On-Dit, who seemed to be +acquainted with everybody. “He is the representative of Posterity,—the +man of an age to come.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how came he here?” asked a figure who was evidently the prototype of the +fashion-plate in a magazine, and might be taken to represent the vanities of +the passing moment. “The fellow infringes upon our rights by coming before his +time.” +</p> + +<p> +“But you forget where we are,” answered the Man of Fancy, who overheard the +remark. “The lower earth, it is true, will be forbidden ground to him for many +long years hence; but a castle in the air is a sort of no-man’s-land, where +Posterity may make acquaintance with us on equal terms.” +</p> + +<p> +No sooner was his identity known than a throng of guests gathered about +Posterity, all expressing the most generous interest in his welfare, and many +boasting of the sacrifices which they had made, or were willing to make, in his +behalf. Some, with as much secrecy as possible, desired his judgment upon +certain copies of verses or great manuscript rolls of prose; others accosted +him with the familiarity of old friends, taking it for granted that he was +perfectly cognizant of their names and characters. At length, finding himself +thus beset, Posterity was put quite beside his patience. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen, my good friends,” cried he, breaking loose from a misty poet who +strove to hold him by the button, “I pray you to attend to your own business, +and leave me to take care of mine! I expect to owe you nothing, unless it be +certain national debts, and other encumbrances and impediments, physical and +moral, which I shall find it troublesome enough to remove from my path. As to +your verses, pray read them to your contemporaries. Your names are as strange +to me as your faces; and even were it otherwise,—let me whisper you a +secret,—the cold, icy memory which one generation may retain of another +is but a poor recompense to barter life for. Yet, if your heart is set on being +known to me, the surest, the only method is, to live truly and wisely for your +own age, whereby, if the native force be in you, you may likewise live for +posterity.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is nonsense,” murmured the Oldest Inhabitant, who, as a man of the past, +felt jealous that all notice should be withdrawn from himself to be lavished on +the future, “sheer nonsense, to waste so much thought on what only is to be.” +</p> + +<p> +To divert the minds of his guests, who were considerably abashed by this little +incident, the Man of Fancy led them through several apartments of the castle, +receiving their compliments upon the taste and varied magnificence that were +displayed in each. One of these rooms was filled with moonlight, which did not +enter through the window, but was the aggregate of all the moonshine that is +scattered around the earth on a summer night while no eyes are awake to enjoy +its beauty. Airy spirits had gathered it up, wherever they found it gleaming on +the broad bosom of a lake, or silvering the meanders of a stream, or glimmering +among the wind-stirred boughs of a wood, and had garnered it in this one +spacious hall. Along the walls, illuminated by the mild intensity of the +moonshine, stood a multitude of ideal statues, the original conceptions of the +great works of ancient or modern art, which the sculptors did but imperfectly +succeed in putting into marble; for it is not to be supposed that the pure idea +of an immortal creation ceases to exist; it is only necessary to know where +they are deposited in order to obtain possession of them.—In the alcoves +of another vast apartment was arranged a splendid library, the volumes of which +were inestimable, because they consisted, not of actual performances, but of +the works which the authors only planned, without ever finding the happy season +to achieve them. To take familiar instances, here were the untold tales of +Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims; the unwritten cantos of the Fairy Queen; the +conclusion of Coleridge’s Christabel; and the whole of Dryden’s projected epic +on the subject of King Arthur. The shelves were crowded; for it would not be +too much to affirm that every author has imagined and shaped out in his thought +more and far better works than those which actually proceeded from his pen. And +here, likewise, where the unrealized conceptions of youthful poets who died of +the very strength of their own genius before the world had caught one inspired +murmur from their lips. +</p> + +<p> +When the peculiarities of the library and statue-gallery were explained to the +Oldest Inhabitant, he appeared infinitely perplexed, and exclaimed, with more +energy than usual, that he had never heard of such a thing within his memory, +and, moreover, did not at all understand how it could be. +</p> + +<p> +“But my brain, I think,” said the good old gentleman, “is getting not so clear +as it used to be. You young folks, I suppose, can see your way through these +strange matters. For my part, I give it up.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so do I,” muttered the Old Harry. “It is enough to puzzle the—Ahem!” +</p> + +<p> +Making as little reply as possible to these observations, the Man of Fancy +preceded the company to another noble saloon, the pillars of which were solid +golden sunbeams taken out of the sky in the first hour in the morning. Thus, as +they retained all their living lustre, the room was filled with the most +cheerful radiance imaginable, yet not too dazzling to be borne with comfort and +delight. The windows were beautifully adorned with curtains made of the +many-colored clouds of sunrise, all imbued with virgin light, and hanging in +magnificent festoons from the ceiling to the floor. Moreover, there were +fragments of rainbows scattered through the room; so that the guests, +astonished at one another, reciprocally saw their heads made glorious by the +seven primary hues; or, if they chose,—as who would not?—they could +grasp a rainbow in the air and convert it to their own apparel and adornment. +But the morning light and scattered rainbows were only a type and symbol of the +real wonders of the apartment. By an influence akin to magic, yet perfectly +natural, whatever means and opportunities of joy are neglected in the lower +world had been carefully gathered up and deposited in the saloon of morning +sunshine. As may well be conceived, therefore, there was material enough to +supply, not merely a joyous evening, but also a happy lifetime, to more than as +many people as that spacious apartment could contain. The company seemed to +renew their youth; while that pattern and proverbial standard of innocence, the +Child Unborn, frolicked to and fro among them, communicating his own unwrinkled +gayety to all who had the good fortune to witness his gambols. +</p> + +<p> +“My honored friends,” said the Man of Fancy, after they had enjoyed themselves +awhile, “I am now to request your presence in the banqueting-hall, where a +slight collation is awaiting you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well said!” ejaculated a cadaverous figure, who had been invited for no +other reason than that he was pretty constantly in the habit of dining with +Duke Humphrey. “I was beginning to wonder whether a castle in the air were +provided with a kitchen.” +</p> + +<p> +It was curious, in truth, to see how instantaneously the guests were diverted +from the high moral enjoyments which they had been tasting with so much +apparent zest by a suggestion of the more solid as well as liquid delights of +the festive board. They thronged eagerly in the rear of the host, who now +ushered them into a lofty and extensive hall, from end to end of which was +arranged a table, glittering all over with innumerable dishes and +drinking-vessels of gold. It is an uncertain point whether these rich articles +of plate were made for the occasion out of molten sunbeams, or recovered from +the wrecks of Spanish galleons that had lain for ages at the bottom of the sea. +The upper end of the table was overshadowed by a canopy, beneath which was +placed a chair of elaborate magnificence, which the host himself declined to +occupy, and besought his guests to assign it to the worthiest among them. As a +suitable homage to his incalculable antiquity and eminent distinction, the post +of honor was at first tendered to the Oldest Inhabitant. He, however, eschewed +it, and requested the favor of a bowl of gruel at a side table, where he could +refresh himself with a quiet nap. There was some little hesitation as to the +next candidate, until Posterity took the Master Genius of our country by the +hand and led him to the chair of state beneath the princely canopy. When once +they beheld him in his true place, the company acknowledged the justice of the +selection by a long thunder-roll of vehement applause. +</p> + +<p> +Then was served up a banquet, combining, if not all the delicacies of the +season, yet all the rarities which careful purveyors had met with in the flesh, +fish, and vegetable markets of the land of Nowhere. The bill of fare being +unfortunately lost, we can only mention a phoenix, roasted in its own flames, +cold potted birds of paradise, ice-creams from the Milky-Way, and whip +syllabubs and flummery from the Paradise of Fools, whereof there was a very +great consumption. As for drinkables, the temperance people contented +themselves with water as usual; but it was the water of the Fountain of Youth; +the ladies sipped Nepenthe; the lovelorn, the careworn, and the sorrow-stricken +were supplied with brimming goblets of Lethe; and it was shrewdly conjectured +that a certain golden vase, from which only the more distinguished guests were +invited to partake, contained nectar that had been mellowing ever since the +days of classical mythology. The cloth being removed, the company, as usual, +grew eloquent over their liquor and delivered themselves of a succession of +brilliant speeches,—the task of reporting which we resign to the more +adequate ability of Counsellor Gill, whose indispensable co-operation the Man +of Fancy had taken the precaution to secure. +</p> + +<p> +When the festivity of the banquet was at its most ethereal point, the Clerk of +the Weather was observed to steal from the table and thrust his head between +the purple and golden curtains of one of the windows. +</p> + +<p> +“My fellow-guests,” he remarked aloud, after carefully noting the signs of the +night, “I advise such of you as live at a distance to be going as soon as +possible; for a thunder-storm is certainly at hand.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mercy on me!” cried Mother Carey, who had left her brood of chickens and come +hither in gossamer drapery, with pink silk stockings. “How shall I ever get +home?” +</p> + +<p> +All now was confusion and hasty departure, with but little superfluous +leave-taking. The Oldest Inhabitant, however, true to the rule of those long +past days in which his courtesy had been studied, paused on the threshold of +the meteor-lighted hall to express his vast satisfaction at the entertainment. +</p> + +<p> +“Never, within my memory,” observed the gracious old gentleman, “has it been my +good fortune to spend a pleasanter evening or in more select society.” +</p> + +<p> +The wind here took his breath away, whirled his three-cornered hat into +infinite space, and drowned what further compliments it had been his purpose to +bestow. Many of the company had bespoken will-o’-the-wisps to convoy them home; +and the host, in his general beneficence, had engaged the Man in the Moon, with +an immense horn-lantern, to be the guide of such desolate spinsters as could do +no better for themselves. But a blast of the rising tempest blew out all their +lights in the twinkling of an eye. How, in the darkness that ensued, the guests +contrived to get back to earth, or whether the greater part of them contrived +to get back at all, or are still wandering among clouds, mists, and puffs of +tempestuous wind, bruised by the beams and rafters of the overthrown castle in +the air, and deluded by all sorts of unrealities, are points that concern +themselves much more than the writer or the public. People should think of +these matters before they trust themselves on a pleasure-party into the realm +of Nowhere. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap04"></a> +YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN</h2> + +<p> +Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem village; but +put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to exchange a parting kiss +with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was aptly named, thrust her own +pretty head into the street, letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her +cap while she called to Goodman Brown. +</p> + +<p> +“Dearest heart,” whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips were +close to his ear, “prithee put off your journey until sunrise and sleep in your +own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such dreams and such thoughts +that she’s afeard of herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear +husband, of all nights in the year.” +</p> + +<p> +“My love and my Faith,” replied young Goodman Brown, “of all nights in the +year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as thou callest +it, forth and back again, must needs be done ’twixt now and sunrise. What, my +sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, and we but three months +married?” +</p> + +<p> +“Then God bless you!” said Faith, with the pink ribbons; “and may you find all +well when you come back.” +</p> + +<p> +“Amen!” cried Goodman Brown. “Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to bed at +dusk, and no harm will come to thee.” +</p> + +<p> +So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to turn +the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head of Faith still +peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her pink ribbons. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor little Faith!” thought he, for his heart smote him. “What a wretch am I +to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. Methought as she +spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had warned her what work is +to be done tonight. But no, no; ’twould kill her to think it. Well, she’s a +blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I’ll cling to her skirts and +follow her to heaven.” +</p> + +<p> +With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself +justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a +dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely +stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately +behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such +a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be concealed by the +innumerable trunks and the thick boughs overhead; so that with lonely footsteps +he may yet be passing through an unseen multitude. +</p> + +<p> +“There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree,” said Goodman Brown to +himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him as he added, “What if the devil +himself should be at my very elbow!” +</p> + +<p> +His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking forward +again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, seated at the +foot of an old tree. He arose at Goodman Brown’s approach and walked onward +side by side with him. +</p> + +<p> +“You are late, Goodman Brown,” said he. “The clock of the Old South was +striking as I came through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutes agone.” +</p> + +<p> +“Faith kept me back a while,” replied the young man, with a tremor in his +voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not wholly +unexpected. +</p> + +<p> +It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of it where these +two were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned, the second traveller was +about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, +and bearing a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in +expression than features. Still they might have been taken for father and son. +And yet, though the elder person was as simply clad as the younger, and as +simple in manner too, he had an indescribable air of one who knew the world, +and who would not have felt abashed at the governor’s dinner table or in King +William’s court, were it possible that his affairs should call him thither. But +the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, +which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it +might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, +of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the uncertain light. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, Goodman Brown,” cried his fellow-traveller, “this is a dull pace for the +beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon weary.” +</p> + +<p> +“Friend,” said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full stop, “having +kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to return whence I +came. I have scruples touching the matter thou wot’st of.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sayest thou so?” replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. “Let us walk on, +nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if I convince thee not thou shalt turn +back. We are but a little way in the forest yet.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too far! too far!” exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his walk. “My +father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his father before him. +We have been a race of honest men and good Christians since the days of the +martyrs; and shall I be the first of the name of Brown that ever took this path +and kept—” +</p> + +<p> +“Such company, thou wouldst say,” observed the elder person, interpreting his +pause. “Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well acquainted with your +family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and that’s no trifle to say. I +helped your grandfather, the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so +smartly through the streets of Salem; and it was I that brought your father a +pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in +King Philip’s war. They were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk +have we had along this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain +be friends with you for their sake.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it be as thou sayest,” replied Goodman Brown, “I marvel they never spoke of +these matters; or, verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least rumor of the +sort would have driven them from New England. We are a people of prayer, and +good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wickedness or not,” said the traveller with the twisted staff, “I have a very +general acquaintance here in New England. The deacons of many a church have +drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen of divers towns make me their +chairman; and a majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters of +my interest. The governor and I, too—But these are state secrets.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can this be so?” cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his +undisturbed companion. “Howbeit, I have nothing to do with the governor and +council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple husbandman like +me. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old +man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble both +Sabbath day and lecture day.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus far the elder traveller had listened with due gravity; but now burst into +a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently that his snake-like +staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! ha! ha!” shouted he again and again; then composing himself, “Well, go on, +Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, don’t kill me with laughing.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, then, to end the matter at once,” said Goodman Brown, considerably +nettled, “there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear little heart; and +I’d rather break my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, if that be the case,” answered the other, “e’en go thy ways, Goodman +Brown. I would not for twenty old women like the one hobbling before us that +Faith should come to any harm.” +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in whom +Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had taught him +his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and spiritual adviser, jointly +with the minister and Deacon Gookin. +</p> + +<p> +“A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness at +nightfall,” said he. “But with your leave, friend, I shall take a cut through +the woods until we have left this Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to +you, she might ask whom I was consorting with and whither I was going.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be it so,” said his fellow-traveller. “Betake you to the woods, and let me +keep the path.” +</p> + +<p> +Accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch his companion, +who advanced softly along the road until he had come within a staff’s length of +the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best of her way, with singular +speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some indistinct words—a prayer, +doubtless—as she went. The traveller put forth his staff and touched her +withered neck with what seemed the serpent’s tail. +</p> + +<p> +“The devil!” screamed the pious old lady. +</p> + +<p> +“Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?” observed the traveller, confronting +her and leaning on his writhing stick. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?” cried the good dame. “Yea, truly +is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, Goodman Brown, the grandfather +of the silly fellow that now is. But—would your worship believe +it?—my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by +that unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I was all anointed with +the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil, and wolf’s bane.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe,” said the shape of old +Goodman Brown. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, your worship knows the recipe,” cried the old lady, cackling aloud. “So, +as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and no horse to ride on, I +made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me there is a nice young man to be +taken into communion to-night. But now your good worship will lend me your arm, +and we shall be there in a twinkling.” +</p> + +<p> +“That can hardly be,” answered her friend. “I may not spare you my arm, Goody +Cloyse; but here is my staff, if you will.” +</p> + +<p> +So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed life, being +one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this +fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes +in astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the +serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly +as if nothing had happened. +</p> + +<p> +“That old woman taught me my catechism,” said the young man; and there was a +world of meaning in this simple comment. +</p> + +<p> +They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his companion +to make good speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so aptly that his +arguments seemed rather to spring up in the bosom of his auditor than to be +suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked a branch of maple to serve for a +walking stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, which were +wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers touched them they became strangely +withered and dried up as with a week’s sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a +good free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown +sat himself down on the stump of a tree and refused to go any farther. +</p> + +<p> +“Friend,” said he, stubbornly, “my mind is made up. Not another step will I +budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman do choose to go to the devil +when I thought she was going to heaven: is that any reason why I should quit my +dear Faith and go after her?” +</p> + +<p> +“You will think better of this by and by,” said his acquaintance, composedly. +“Sit here and rest yourself a while; and when you feel like moving again, there +is my staff to help you along.” +</p> + +<p> +Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as speedily +out of sight as if he had vanished into the deepening gloom. The young man sat +a few moments by the roadside, applauding himself greatly, and thinking with +how clear a conscience he should meet the minister in his morning walk, nor +shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his +that very night, which was to have been spent so wickedly, but so purely and +sweetly now, in the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy +meditations, Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed +it advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of +the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so happily turned +from it. +</p> + +<p> +On came the hoof tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old voices, +conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled sounds appeared to pass +along the road, within a few yards of the young man’s hiding-place; but, owing +doubtless to the depth of the gloom at that particular spot, neither the +travellers nor their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed the +small boughs by the wayside, it could not be seen that they intercepted, even +for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of bright sky athwart which they +must have passed. Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, +pulling aside the branches and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst +without discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he could +have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices of the +minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were wont to do, +when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council. While yet within +hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch. +</p> + +<p> +“Of the two, reverend sir,” said the voice like the deacon’s, “I had rather +miss an ordination dinner than to-night’s meeting. They tell me that some of +our community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and others from +Connecticut and Rhode Island, besides several of the Indian powwows, who, after +their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. Moreover, there +is a goodly young woman to be taken into communion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!” replied the solemn old tones of the minister. +“Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, you know, until I get on +the ground.” +</p> + +<p> +The hoofs clattered again; and the voices, talking so strangely in the empty +air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been gathered or +solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these holy men be journeying so +deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for +support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and overburdened with +the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether +there really was a heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and the stars +brightening in it. +</p> + +<p> +“With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the devil!” +cried Goodman Brown. +</p> + +<p> +While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had lifted +his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried across the +zenith and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still visible, except +directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly +northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a +confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once the listener fancied that he could +distinguish the accents of towns-people of his own, men and women, both pious +and ungodly, many of whom he had met at the communion table, and had seen +others rioting at the tavern. The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, +he doubted whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest, +whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, +heard daily in the sunshine at Salem village, but never until now from a cloud +of night There was one voice of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet with +an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps, it would +grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, both saints and sinners, +seemed to encourage her onward. +</p> + +<p> +“Faith!” shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; and the +echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, “Faith! Faith!” as if bewildered +wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness. +</p> + +<p> +The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, when the unhappy +husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream, drowned immediately +in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud +swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But something +fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The +young man seized it, and beheld a pink ribbon. +</p> + +<p> +“My Faith is gone!” cried he, after one stupefied moment. “There is no good on +earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this world given.” +</p> + +<p> +And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did Goodman Brown +grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate that he seemed to fly along +the forest path rather than to walk or run. The road grew wilder and drearier +and more faintly traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of +the dark wilderness, still rushing onward with the instinct that guides mortal +man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds—the +creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; +while sometimes the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave +a broad roar around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. +But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from its other +horrors. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha! ha! ha!” roared Goodman Brown when the wind laughed at him. +</p> + +<p> +“Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with your +deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, come devil himself, and +here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he fear you.” +</p> + +<p> +In truth, all through the haunted forest there could be nothing more frightful +than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew among the black pines, brandishing +his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid +blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the +forest laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is less +hideous than when he rages in the breast of man. Thus sped the demoniac on his +course, until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as +when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and +throw up their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of midnight. He paused, +in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard the swell of +what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance with the weight of many +voices. He knew the tune; it was a familiar one in the choir of the village +meeting-house. The verse died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not +of human voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in +awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry was lost to his +own ear by its unison with the cry of the desert. +</p> + +<p> +In the interval of silence he stole forward until the light glared full upon +his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark wall of the +forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural resemblance either to an altar +or a pulpit, and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their +stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting. The mass of foliage that +had overgrown the summit of the rock was all on fire, blazing high into the +night and fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendent twig and leafy +festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a numerous +congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again +grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the solitary woods +at once. +</p> + +<p> +“A grave and dark-clad company,” quoth Goodman Brown. +</p> + +<p> +In truth they were such. Among them, quivering to and fro between gloom and +splendor, appeared faces that would be seen next day at the council board of +the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked devoutly +heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in +the land. Some affirm that the lady of the governor was there. At least there +were high dames well known to her, and wives of honored husbands, and widows, a +great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young +girls, who trembled lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden +gleams of light flashing over the obscure field bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he +recognized a score of the church members of Salem village famous for their +especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited at the skirts +of that venerable saint, his revered pastor. But, irreverently consorting with +these grave, reputable, and pious people, these elders of the church, these +chaste dames and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of +spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected +even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the +wicked, nor were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered also among their +pale-faced enemies were the Indian priests, or powwows, who had often scared +their native forest with more hideous incantations than any known to English +witchcraft. +</p> + +<p> +“But where is Faith?” thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came into his heart, +he trembled. +</p> + +<p> +Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as the pious +love, but joined to words which expressed all that our nature can conceive of +sin, and darkly hinted at far more. Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of +fiends. Verse after verse was sung; and still the chorus of the desert swelled +between like the deepest tone of a mighty organ; and with the final peal of +that dreadful anthem there came a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing +streams, the howling beasts, and every other voice of the unconcerted +wilderness were mingling and according with the voice of guilty man in homage +to the prince of all. The four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and +obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke wreaths above +the impious assembly. At the same moment the fire on the rock shot redly forth +and formed a glowing arch above its base, where now appeared a figure. With +reverence be it spoken, the figure bore no slight similitude, both in garb and +manner, to some grave divine of the New England churches. +</p> + +<p> +“Bring forth the converts!” cried a voice that echoed through the field and +rolled into the forest. +</p> + +<p> +At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees and +approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful brotherhood by the +sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He could have well-nigh sworn +that the shape of his own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward +from a smoke wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her +hand to warn him back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one +step, nor to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon +Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the +slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher +of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had received the devil’s promise to +be queen of hell. A rampant hag was she. And there stood the proselytes beneath +the canopy of fire. +</p> + +<p> +“Welcome, my children,” said the dark figure, “to the communion of your race. +Ye have found thus young your nature and your destiny. My children, look behind +you!” +</p> + +<p> +They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the fiend +worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on every visage. +</p> + +<p> +“There,” resumed the sable form, “are all whom ye have reverenced from youth. +Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own sin, +contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful aspirations +heavenward. Yet here are they all in my worshipping assembly. This night it +shall be granted you to know their secret deeds: how hoary-bearded elders of +the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of their households; +how many a woman, eager for widows’ weeds, has given her husband a drink at +bedtime and let him sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths +have made haste to inherit their fathers’ wealth; and how fair +damsels—blush not, sweet ones—have dug little graves in the garden, +and bidden me, the sole guest to an infant’s funeral. By the sympathy of your +human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the places—whether in church, +bedchamber, street, field, or forest—where crime has been committed, and +shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one mighty blood +spot. Far more than this. It shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the +deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly +supplies more evil impulses than human power—than my power at its +utmost—can make manifest in deeds. And now, my children, look upon each +other.” +</p> + +<p> +They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, the wretched man +beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, trembling before that unhallowed +altar. +</p> + +<p> +“Lo, there ye stand, my children,” said the figure, in a deep and solemn tone, +almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once angelic nature could +yet mourn for our miserable race. “Depending upon one another’s hearts, ye had +still hoped that virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is +the nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome again, my +children, to the communion of your race.” +</p> + +<p> +“Welcome,” repeated the fiend worshippers, in one cry of despair and triumph. +</p> + +<p> +And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet hesitating on +the verge of wickedness in this dark world. A basin was hollowed, naturally, in +the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? +or, perchance, a liquid flame? Herein did the shape of evil dip his hand and +prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that they might be +partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of the secret guilt of others, +both in deed and thought, than they could now be of their own. The husband cast +one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would the +next glance show them to each other, shuddering alike at what they disclosed +and what they saw! +</p> + +<p> +“Faith! Faith!” cried the husband, “look up to heaven, and resist the wicked +one.” +</p> + +<p> +Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he spoken when he found himself +amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind which died +heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the rock, and felt it +chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled +his cheek with the coldest dew. +</p> + +<p> +The next morning young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of Salem +village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old minister was +taking a walk along the graveyard to get an appetite for breakfast and meditate +his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank +from the venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at +domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard through the open +window. “What God doth the wizard pray to?” quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, +that excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice, +catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of morning’s milk. Goodman +Brown snatched away the child as from the grasp of the fiend himself. Turning +the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the head of Faith, with the pink +ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and bursting into such joy at sight of him +that she skipped along the street and almost kissed her husband before the +whole village. But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and +passed on without a greeting. +</p> + +<p> +Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild dream of +a witch-meeting? +</p> + +<p> +Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young Goodman +Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if not a desperate +man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, +when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an +anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed strain. +When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, +with his hand on the open Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of +saint-like lives and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery +unutterable, then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should +thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, waking suddenly +at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or eventide, +when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered to himself, and +gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was +borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, and +children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides neighbors not a few, +they carved no hopeful verse upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a> +RAPPACCINI’S DAUGHTER</h2> + +<p> +A young man, named Giovanni Guasconti, came, very long ago, from the more +southern region of Italy, to pursue his studies at the University of Padua. +Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of gold ducats in his pocket, took +lodgings in a high and gloomy chamber of an old edifice which looked not +unworthy to have been the palace of a Paduan noble, and which, in fact, +exhibited over its entrance the armorial bearings of a family long since +extinct. The young stranger, who was not unstudied in the great poem of his +country, recollected that one of the ancestors of this family, and perhaps an +occupant of this very mansion, had been pictured by Dante as a partaker of the +immortal agonies of his Inferno. These reminiscences and associations, together +with the tendency to heartbreak natural to a young man for the first time out +of his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily as he looked around the +desolate and ill-furnished apartment. +</p> + +<p> +“Holy Virgin, signor!” cried old Dame Lisabetta, who, won by the youth’s +remarkable beauty of person, was kindly endeavoring to give the chamber a +habitable air, “what a sigh was that to come out of a young man’s heart! Do you +find this old mansion gloomy? For the love of Heaven, then, put your head out +of the window, and you will see as bright sunshine as you have left in Naples.” +</p> + +<p> +Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not quite agree +with her that the Paduan sunshine was as cheerful as that of southern Italy. +Such as it was, however, it fell upon a garden beneath the window and expended +its fostering influences on a variety of plants, which seemed to have been +cultivated with exceeding care. +</p> + +<p> +“Does this garden belong to the house?” asked Giovanni. +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven forbid, signor, unless it were fruitful of better pot herbs than any +that grow there now,” answered old Lisabetta. “No; that garden is cultivated by +the own hands of Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, the famous doctor, who, I warrant +him, has been heard of as far as Naples. It is said that he distils these +plants into medicines that are as potent as a charm. Oftentimes you may see the +signor doctor at work, and perchance the signora, his daughter, too, gathering +the strange flowers that grow in the garden.” +</p> + +<p> +The old woman had now done what she could for the aspect of the chamber; and, +commending the young man to the protection of the saints, took her departure. +</p> + +<p> +Giovanni still found no better occupation than to look down into the garden +beneath his window. From its appearance, he judged it to be one of those +botanic gardens which were of earlier date in Padua than elsewhere in Italy or +in the world. Or, not improbably, it might once have been the pleasure-place of +an opulent family; for there was the ruin of a marble fountain in the centre, +sculptured with rare art, but so wofully shattered that it was impossible to +trace the original design from the chaos of remaining fragments. The water, +however, continued to gush and sparkle into the sunbeams as cheerfully as ever. +A little gurgling sound ascended to the young man’s window, and made him feel +as if the fountain were an immortal spirit that sung its song unceasingly and +without heeding the vicissitudes around it, while one century imbodied it in +marble and another scattered the perishable garniture on the soil. All about +the pool into which the water subsided grew various plants, that seemed to +require a plentiful supply of moisture for the nourishment of gigantic leaves, +and in some instances, flowers gorgeously magnificent. There was one shrub in +particular, set in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a +profusion of purple blossoms, each of which had the lustre and richness of a +gem; and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed enough to +illuminate the garden, even had there been no sunshine. Every portion of the +soil was peopled with plants and herbs, which, if less beautiful, still bore +tokens of assiduous care, as if all had their individual virtues, known to the +scientific mind that fostered them. Some were placed in urns, rich with old +carving, and others in common garden pots; some crept serpent-like along the +ground or climbed on high, using whatever means of ascent was offered them. One +plant had wreathed itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus quite +veiled and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily arranged that +it might have served a sculptor for a study. +</p> + +<p> +While Giovanni stood at the window he heard a rustling behind a screen of +leaves, and became aware that a person was at work in the garden. His figure +soon emerged into view, and showed itself to be that of no common laborer, but +a tall, emaciated, sallow, and sickly-looking man, dressed in a scholar’s garb +of black. He was beyond the middle term of life, with gray hair, a thin, gray +beard, and a face singularly marked with intellect and cultivation, but which +could never, even in his more youthful days, have expressed much warmth of +heart. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing could exceed the intentness with which this scientific gardener +examined every shrub which grew in his path: it seemed as if he was looking +into their inmost nature, making observations in regard to their creative +essence, and discovering why one leaf grew in this shape and another in that, +and wherefore such and such flowers differed among themselves in hue and +perfume. Nevertheless, in spite of this deep intelligence on his part, there +was no approach to intimacy between himself and these vegetable existences. On +the contrary, he avoided their actual touch or the direct inhaling of their +odors with a caution that impressed Giovanni most disagreeably; for the man’s +demeanor was that of one walking among malignant influences, such as savage +beasts, or deadly snakes, or evil spirits, which, should he allow them one +moment of license, would wreak upon him some terrible fatality. It was +strangely frightful to the young man’s imagination to see this air of +insecurity in a person cultivating a garden, that most simple and innocent of +human toils, and which had been alike the joy and labor of the unfallen parents +of the race. Was this garden, then, the Eden of the present world? And this +man, with such a perception of harm in what his own hands caused to +grow,—was he the Adam? +</p> + +<p> +The distrustful gardener, while plucking away the dead leaves or pruning the +too luxuriant growth of the shrubs, defended his hands with a pair of thick +gloves. Nor were these his only armor. When, in his walk through the garden, he +came to the magnificent plant that hung its purple gems beside the marble +fountain, he placed a kind of mask over his mouth and nostrils, as if all this +beauty did but conceal a deadlier malice; but, finding his task still too +dangerous, he drew back, removed the mask, and called loudly, but in the infirm +voice of a person affected with inward disease, “Beatrice! Beatrice!” +</p> + +<p> +“Here am I, my father. What would you?” cried a rich and youthful voice from +the window of the opposite house—a voice as rich as a tropical sunset, +and which made Giovanni, though he knew not why, think of deep hues of purple +or crimson and of perfumes heavily delectable. “Are you in the garden?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, Beatrice,” answered the gardener, “and I need your help.” +</p> + +<p> +Soon there emerged from under a sculptured portal the figure of a young girl, +arrayed with as much richness of taste as the most splendid of the flowers, +beautiful as the day, and with a bloom so deep and vivid that one shade more +would have been too much. She looked redundant with life, health, and energy; +all of which attributes were bound down and compressed, as it were and girdled +tensely, in their luxuriance, by her virgin zone. Yet Giovanni’s fancy must +have grown morbid while he looked down into the garden; for the impression +which the fair stranger made upon him was as if here were another flower, the +human sister of those vegetable ones, as beautiful as they, more beautiful than +the richest of them, but still to be touched only with a glove, nor to be +approached without a mask. As Beatrice came down the garden path, it was +observable that she handled and inhaled the odor of several of the plants which +her father had most sedulously avoided. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, Beatrice,” said the latter, “see how many needful offices require to be +done to our chief treasure. Yet, shattered as I am, my life might pay the +penalty of approaching it so closely as circumstances demand. Henceforth, I +fear, this plant must be consigned to your sole charge.” +</p> + +<p> +“And gladly will I undertake it,” cried again the rich tones of the young lady, +as she bent towards the magnificent plant and opened her arms as if to embrace +it. “Yes, my sister, my splendour, it shall be Beatrice’s task to nurse and +serve thee; and thou shalt reward her with thy kisses and perfumed breath, +which to her is as the breath of life.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, with all the tenderness in her manner that was so strikingly expressed in +her words, she busied herself with such attentions as the plant seemed to +require; and Giovanni, at his lofty window, rubbed his eyes and almost doubted +whether it were a girl tending her favorite flower, or one sister performing +the duties of affection to another. The scene soon terminated. Whether Dr. +Rappaccini had finished his labors in the garden, or that his watchful eye had +caught the stranger’s face, he now took his daughter’s arm and retired. Night +was already closing in; oppressive exhalations seemed to proceed from the +plants and steal upward past the open window; and Giovanni, closing the +lattice, went to his couch and dreamed of a rich flower and beautiful girl. +Flower and maiden were different, and yet the same, and fraught with some +strange peril in either shape. +</p> + +<p> +But there is an influence in the light of morning that tends to rectify +whatever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may have incurred during the +sun’s decline, or among the shadows of the night, or in the less wholesome glow +of moonshine. Giovanni’s first movement, on starting from sleep, was to throw +open the window and gaze down into the garden which his dreams had made so +fertile of mysteries. He was surprised and a little ashamed to find how real +and matter-of-fact an affair it proved to be, in the first rays of the sun +which gilded the dew-drops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a +brighter beauty to each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of +ordinary experience. The young man rejoiced that, in the heart of the barren +city, he had the privilege of overlooking this spot of lovely and luxuriant +vegetation. It would serve, he said to himself, as a symbolic language to keep +him in communion with Nature. Neither the sickly and thoughtworn Dr. Giacomo +Rappaccini, it is true, nor his brilliant daughter, were now visible; so that +Giovanni could not determine how much of the singularity which he attributed to +both was due to their own qualities and how much to his wonder-working fancy; +but he was inclined to take a most rational view of the whole matter. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of the day he paid his respects to Signor Pietro Baglioni, +professor of medicine in the university, a physician of eminent repute to whom +Giovanni had brought a letter of introduction. The professor was an elderly +personage, apparently of genial nature, and habits that might almost be called +jovial. He kept the young man to dinner, and made himself very agreeable by the +freedom and liveliness of his conversation, especially when warmed by a flask +or two of Tuscan wine. Giovanni, conceiving that men of science, inhabitants of +the same city, must needs be on familiar terms with one another, took an +opportunity to mention the name of Dr. Rappaccini. But the professor did not +respond with so much cordiality as he had anticipated. +</p> + +<p> +“Ill would it become a teacher of the divine art of medicine,” said Professor +Pietro Baglioni, in answer to a question of Giovanni, “to withhold due and +well-considered praise of a physician so eminently skilled as Rappaccini; but, +on the other hand, I should answer it but scantily to my conscience were I to +permit a worthy youth like yourself, Signor Giovanni, the son of an ancient +friend, to imbibe erroneous ideas respecting a man who might hereafter chance +to hold your life and death in his hands. The truth is, our worshipful Dr. +Rappaccini has as much science as any member of the faculty—with perhaps +one single exception—in Padua, or all Italy; but there are certain grave +objections to his professional character.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what are they?” asked the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“Has my friend Giovanni any disease of body or heart, that he is so inquisitive +about physicians?” said the professor, with a smile. “But as for Rappaccini, it +is said of him—and I, who know the man well, can answer for its +truth—that he cares infinitely more for science than for mankind. His +patients are interesting to him only as subjects for some new experiment. He +would sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or whatever else was +dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of mustard seed to +the great heap of his accumulated knowledge.” +</p> + +<p> +“Methinks he is an awful man indeed,” remarked Guasconti, mentally recalling +the cold and purely intellectual aspect of Rappaccini. “And yet, worshipful +professor, is it not a noble spirit? Are there many men capable of so spiritual +a love of science?” +</p> + +<p> +“God forbid,” answered the professor, somewhat testily; “at least, unless they +take sounder views of the healing art than those adopted by Rappaccini. It is +his theory that all medicinal virtues are comprised within those substances +which we term vegetable poisons. These he cultivates with his own hands, and is +said even to have produced new varieties of poison, more horribly deleterious +than Nature, without the assistance of this learned person, would ever have +plagued the world withal. That the signor doctor does less mischief than might +be expected with such dangerous substances is undeniable. Now and then, it must +be owned, he has effected, or seemed to effect, a marvellous cure; but, to tell +you my private mind, Signor Giovanni, he should receive little credit for such +instances of success,—they being probably the work of chance,—but +should be held strictly accountable for his failures, which may justly be +considered his own work.” +</p> + +<p> +The youth might have taken Baglioni’s opinions with many grains of allowance +had he known that there was a professional warfare of long continuance between +him and Dr. Rappaccini, in which the latter was generally thought to have +gained the advantage. If the reader be inclined to judge for himself, we refer +him to certain black-letter tracts on both sides, preserved in the medical +department of the University of Padua. +</p> + +<p> +“I know not, most learned professor,” returned Giovanni, after musing on what +had been said of Rappaccini’s exclusive zeal for science,—“I know not how +dearly this physician may love his art; but surely there is one object more +dear to him. He has a daughter.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aha!” cried the professor, with a laugh. “So now our friend Giovanni’s secret +is out. You have heard of this daughter, whom all the young men in Padua are +wild about, though not half a dozen have ever had the good hap to see her face. +I know little of the Signora Beatrice save that Rappaccini is said to have +instructed her deeply in his science, and that, young and beautiful as fame +reports her, she is already qualified to fill a professor’s chair. Perchance +her father destines her for mine! Other absurd rumors there be, not worth +talking about or listening to. So now, Signor Giovanni, drink off your glass of +lachryma.” +</p> + +<p> +Guasconti returned to his lodgings somewhat heated with the wine he had +quaffed, and which caused his brain to swim with strange fantasies in reference +to Dr. Rappaccini and the beautiful Beatrice. On his way, happening to pass by +a florist’s, he bought a fresh bouquet of flowers. +</p> + +<p> +Ascending to his chamber, he seated himself near the window, but within the +shadow thrown by the depth of the wall, so that he could look down into the +garden with little risk of being discovered. All beneath his eye was a +solitude. The strange plants were basking in the sunshine, and now and then +nodding gently to one another, as if in acknowledgment of sympathy and kindred. +In the midst, by the shattered fountain, grew the magnificent shrub, with its +purple gems clustering all over it; they glowed in the air, and gleamed back +again out of the depths of the pool, which thus seemed to overflow with colored +radiance from the rich reflection that was steeped in it. At first, as we have +said, the garden was a solitude. Soon, however,—as Giovanni had half +hoped, half feared, would be the case,—a figure appeared beneath the +antique sculptured portal, and came down between the rows of plants, inhaling +their various perfumes as if she were one of those beings of old classic fable +that lived upon sweet odors. On again beholding Beatrice, the young man was +even startled to perceive how much her beauty exceeded his recollection of it; +so brilliant, so vivid, was its character, that she glowed amid the sunlight, +and, as Giovanni whispered to himself, positively illuminated the more shadowy +intervals of the garden path. Her face being now more revealed than on the +former occasion, he was struck by its expression of simplicity and +sweetness,—qualities that had not entered into his idea of her character, +and which made him ask anew what manner of mortal she might be. Nor did he fail +again to observe, or imagine, an analogy between the beautiful girl and the +gorgeous shrub that hung its gemlike flowers over the fountain,—a +resemblance which Beatrice seemed to have indulged a fantastic humor in +heightening, both by the arrangement of her dress and the selection of its +hues. +</p> + +<p> +Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a passionate ardor, and +drew its branches into an intimate embrace—so intimate that her features +were hidden in its leafy bosom and her glistening ringlets all intermingled +with the flowers. +</p> + +<p> +“Give me thy breath, my sister,” exclaimed Beatrice; “for I am faint with +common air. And give me this flower of thine, which I separate with gentlest +fingers from the stem and place it close beside my heart.” +</p> + +<p> +With these words the beautiful daughter of Rappaccini plucked one of the +richest blossoms of the shrub, and was about to fasten it in her bosom. But +now, unless Giovanni’s draughts of wine had bewildered his senses, a singular +incident occurred. A small orange-colored reptile, of the lizard or chameleon +species, chanced to be creeping along the path, just at the feet of Beatrice. +It appeared to Giovanni,—but, at the distance from which he gazed, he +could scarcely have seen anything so minute,—it appeared to him, however, +that a drop or two of moisture from the broken stem of the flower descended +upon the lizard’s head. For an instant the reptile contorted itself violently, +and then lay motionless in the sunshine. Beatrice observed this remarkable +phenomenon and crossed herself, sadly, but without surprise; nor did she +therefore hesitate to arrange the fatal flower in her bosom. There it blushed, +and almost glimmered with the dazzling effect of a precious stone, adding to +her dress and aspect the one appropriate charm which nothing else in the world +could have supplied. But Giovanni, out of the shadow of his window, bent +forward and shrank back, and murmured and trembled. +</p> + +<p> +“Am I awake? Have I my senses?” said he to himself. “What is this being? +Beautiful shall I call her, or inexpressibly terrible?” +</p> + +<p> +Beatrice now strayed carelessly through the garden, approaching closer beneath +Giovanni’s window, so that he was compelled to thrust his head quite out of its +concealment in order to gratify the intense and painful curiosity which she +excited. At this moment there came a beautiful insect over the garden wall; it +had, perhaps, wandered through the city, and found no flowers or verdure among +those antique haunts of men until the heavy perfumes of Dr. Rappaccini’s shrubs +had lured it from afar. Without alighting on the flowers, this winged +brightness seemed to be attracted by Beatrice, and lingered in the air and +fluttered about her head. Now, here it could not be but that Giovanni +Guasconti’s eyes deceived him. Be that as it might, he fancied that, while +Beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish delight, it grew faint and fell +at her feet; its bright wings shivered; it was dead—from no cause that he +could discern, unless it were the atmosphere of her breath. Again Beatrice +crossed herself and sighed heavily as she bent over the dead insect. +</p> + +<p> +An impulsive movement of Giovanni drew her eyes to the window. There she beheld +the beautiful head of the young man—rather a Grecian than an Italian +head, with fair, regular features, and a glistening of gold among his +ringlets—gazing down upon her like a being that hovered in mid air. +Scarcely knowing what he did, Giovanni threw down the bouquet which he had +hitherto held in his hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Signora,” said he, “there are pure and healthful flowers. Wear them for the +sake of Giovanni Guasconti.” +</p> + +<p> +“Thanks, signor,” replied Beatrice, with her rich voice, that came forth as it +were like a gush of music, and with a mirthful expression half childish and +half woman-like. “I accept your gift, and would fain recompense it with this +precious purple flower; but if I toss it into the air it will not reach you. So +Signor Guasconti must even content himself with my thanks.” +</p> + +<p> +She lifted the bouquet from the ground, and then, as if inwardly ashamed at +having stepped aside from her maidenly reserve to respond to a stranger’s +greeting, passed swiftly homeward through the garden. But few as the moments +were, it seemed to Giovanni, when she was on the point of vanishing beneath the +sculptured portal, that his beautiful bouquet was already beginning to wither +in her grasp. It was an idle thought; there could be no possibility of +distinguishing a faded flower from a fresh one at so great a distance. +</p> + +<p> +For many days after this incident the young man avoided the window that looked +into Dr. Rappaccini’s garden, as if something ugly and monstrous would have +blasted his eyesight had he been betrayed into a glance. He felt conscious of +having put himself, to a certain extent, within the influence of an +unintelligible power by the communication which he had opened with Beatrice. +The wisest course would have been, if his heart were in any real danger, to +quit his lodgings and Padua itself at once; the next wiser, to have accustomed +himself, as far as possible, to the familiar and daylight view of +Beatrice—thus bringing her rigidly and systematically within the limits +of ordinary experience. Least of all, while avoiding her sight, ought Giovanni +to have remained so near this extraordinary being that the proximity and +possibility even of intercourse should give a kind of substance and reality to +the wild vagaries which his imagination ran riot continually in producing. +Guasconti had not a deep heart—or, at all events, its depths were not +sounded now; but he had a quick fancy, and an ardent southern temperament, +which rose every instant to a higher fever pitch. Whether or no Beatrice +possessed those terrible attributes, that fatal breath, the affinity with those +so beautiful and deadly flowers which were indicated by what Giovanni had +witnessed, she had at least instilled a fierce and subtle poison into his +system. It was not love, although her rich beauty was a madness to him; nor +horror, even while he fancied her spirit to be imbued with the same baneful +essence that seemed to pervade her physical frame; but a wild offspring of both +love and horror that had each parent in it, and burned like one and shivered +like the other. Giovanni knew not what to dread; still less did he know what to +hope; yet hope and dread kept a continual warfare in his breast, alternately +vanquishing one another and starting up afresh to renew the contest. Blessed +are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright! It is the lurid intermixture +of the two that produces the illuminating blaze of the infernal regions. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes he endeavored to assuage the fever of his spirit by a rapid walk +through the streets of Padua or beyond its gates: his footsteps kept time with +the throbbings of his brain, so that the walk was apt to accelerate itself to a +race. One day he found himself arrested; his arm was seized by a portly +personage, who had turned back on recognizing the young man and expended much +breath in overtaking him. +</p> + +<p> +“Signor Giovanni! Stay, my young friend!” cried he. “Have you forgotten me? +That might well be the case if I were as much altered as yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +It was Baglioni, whom Giovanni had avoided ever since their first meeting, from +a doubt that the professor’s sagacity would look too deeply into his secrets. +Endeavoring to recover himself, he stared forth wildly from his inner world +into the outer one and spoke like a man in a dream. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; I am Giovanni Guasconti. You are Professor Pietro Baglioni. Now let me +pass!” +</p> + +<p> +“Not yet, not yet, Signor Giovanni Guasconti,” said the professor, smiling, but +at the same time scrutinizing the youth with an earnest glance. “What! did I +grow up side by side with your father? and shall his son pass me like a +stranger in these old streets of Padua? Stand still, Signor Giovanni; for we +must have a word or two before we part.” +</p> + +<p> +“Speedily, then, most worshipful professor, speedily,” said Giovanni, with +feverish impatience. “Does not your worship see that I am in haste?” +</p> + +<p> +Now, while he was speaking there came a man in black along the street, stooping +and moving feebly like a person in inferior health. His face was all overspread +with a most sickly and sallow hue, but yet so pervaded with an expression of +piercing and active intellect that an observer might easily have overlooked the +merely physical attributes and have seen only this wonderful energy. As he +passed, this person exchanged a cold and distant salutation with Baglioni, but +fixed his eyes upon Giovanni with an intentness that seemed to bring out +whatever was within him worthy of notice. Nevertheless, there was a peculiar +quietness in the look, as if taking merely a speculative, not a human interest, +in the young man. +</p> + +<p> +“It is Dr. Rappaccini!” whispered the professor when the stranger had passed. +“Has he ever seen your face before?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not that I know,” answered Giovanni, starting at the name. +</p> + +<p> +“He HAS seen you! he must have seen you!” said Baglioni, hastily. “For some +purpose or other, this man of science is making a study of you. I know that +look of his! It is the same that coldly illuminates his face as he bends over a +bird, a mouse, or a butterfly, which, in pursuance of some experiment, he has +killed by the perfume of a flower; a look as deep as Nature itself, but without +Nature’s warmth of love. Signor Giovanni, I will stake my life upon it, you are +the subject of one of Rappaccini’s experiments!” +</p> + +<p> +“Will you make a fool of me?” cried Giovanni, passionately. “THAT, signor +professor, were an untoward experiment.” +</p> + +<p> +“Patience! patience!” replied the imperturbable professor. “I tell thee, my +poor Giovanni, that Rappaccini has a scientific interest in thee. Thou hast +fallen into fearful hands! And the Signora Beatrice,—what part does she +act in this mystery?” +</p> + +<p> +But Guasconti, finding Baglioni’s pertinacity intolerable, here broke away, and +was gone before the professor could again seize his arm. He looked after the +young man intently and shook his head. +</p> + +<p> +“This must not be,” said Baglioni to himself. “The youth is the son of my old +friend, and shall not come to any harm from which the arcana of medical science +can preserve him. Besides, it is too insufferable an impertinence in +Rappaccini, thus to snatch the lad out of my own hands, as I may say, and make +use of him for his infernal experiments. This daughter of his! It shall be +looked to. Perchance, most learned Rappaccini, I may foil you where you little +dream of it!” +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile Giovanni had pursued a circuitous route, and at length found himself +at the door of his lodgings. As he crossed the threshold he was met by old +Lisabetta, who smirked and smiled, and was evidently desirous to attract his +attention; vainly, however, as the ebullition of his feelings had momentarily +subsided into a cold and dull vacuity. He turned his eyes full upon the +withered face that was puckering itself into a smile, but seemed to behold it +not. The old dame, therefore, laid her grasp upon his cloak. +</p> + +<p> +“Signor! signor!” whispered she, still with a smile over the whole breadth of +her visage, so that it looked not unlike a grotesque carving in wood, darkened +by centuries. “Listen, signor! There is a private entrance into the garden!” +</p> + +<p> +“What do you say?” exclaimed Giovanni, turning quickly about, as if an +inanimate thing should start into feverish life. “A private entrance into Dr. +Rappaccini’s garden?” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush! hush! not so loud!” whispered Lisabetta, putting her hand over his +mouth. “Yes; into the worshipful doctor’s garden, where you may see all his +fine shrubbery. Many a young man in Padua would give gold to be admitted among +those flowers.” +</p> + +<p> +Giovanni put a piece of gold into her hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Show me the way,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +A surmise, probably excited by his conversation with Baglioni, crossed his +mind, that this interposition of old Lisabetta might perchance be connected +with the intrigue, whatever were its nature, in which the professor seemed to +suppose that Dr. Rappaccini was involving him. But such a suspicion, though it +disturbed Giovanni, was inadequate to restrain him. The instant that he was +aware of the possibility of approaching Beatrice, it seemed an absolute +necessity of his existence to do so. It mattered not whether she were angel or +demon; he was irrevocably within her sphere, and must obey the law that whirled +him onward, in ever-lessening circles, towards a result which he did not +attempt to foreshadow; and yet, strange to say, there came across him a sudden +doubt whether this intense interest on his part were not delusory; whether it +were really of so deep and positive a nature as to justify him in now thrusting +himself into an incalculable position; whether it were not merely the fantasy +of a young man’s brain, only slightly or not at all connected with his heart. +</p> + +<p> +He paused, hesitated, turned half about, but again went on. His withered guide +led him along several obscure passages, and finally undid a door, through +which, as it was opened, there came the sight and sound of rustling leaves, +with the broken sunshine glimmering among them. Giovanni stepped forth, and, +forcing himself through the entanglement of a shrub that wreathed its tendrils +over the hidden entrance, stood beneath his own window in the open area of Dr. +Rappaccini’s garden. +</p> + +<p> +How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass and +dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible realities, we find +ourselves calm, and even coldly self-possessed, amid circumstances which it +would have been a delirium of joy or agony to anticipate! Fate delights to +thwart us thus. Passion will choose his own time to rush upon the scene, and +lingers sluggishly behind when an appropriate adjustment of events would seem +to summon his appearance. So was it now with Giovanni. Day after day his pulses +had throbbed with feverish blood at the improbable idea of an interview with +Beatrice, and of standing with her, face to face, in this very garden, basking +in the Oriental sunshine of her beauty, and snatching from her full gaze the +mystery which he deemed the riddle of his own existence. But now there was a +singular and untimely equanimity within his breast. He threw a glance around +the garden to discover if Beatrice or her father were present, and, perceiving +that he was alone, began a critical observation of the plants. +</p> + +<p> +The aspect of one and all of them dissatisfied him; their gorgeousness seemed +fierce, passionate, and even unnatural. There was hardly an individual shrub +which a wanderer, straying by himself through a forest, would not have been +startled to find growing wild, as if an unearthly face had glared at him out of +the thicket. Several also would have shocked a delicate instinct by an +appearance of artificialness indicating that there had been such commixture, +and, as it were, adultery, of various vegetable species, that the production +was no longer of God’s making, but the monstrous offspring of man’s depraved +fancy, glowing with only an evil mockery of beauty. They were probably the +result of experiment, which in one or two cases had succeeded in mingling +plants individually lovely into a compound possessing the questionable and +ominous character that distinguished the whole growth of the garden. In fine, +Giovanni recognized but two or three plants in the collection, and those of a +kind that he well knew to be poisonous. While busy with these contemplations he +heard the rustling of a silken garment, and, turning, beheld Beatrice emerging +from beneath the sculptured portal. +</p> + +<p> +Giovanni had not considered with himself what should be his deportment; whether +he should apologize for his intrusion into the garden, or assume that he was +there with the privity at least, if not by the desire, of Dr. Rappaccini or his +daughter; but Beatrice’s manner placed him at his ease, though leaving him +still in doubt by what agency he had gained admittance. She came lightly along +the path and met him near the broken fountain. There was surprise in her face, +but brightened by a simple and kind expression of pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +“You are a connoisseur in flowers, signor,” said Beatrice, with a smile, +alluding to the bouquet which he had flung her from the window. “It is no +marvel, therefore, if the sight of my father’s rare collection has tempted you +to take a nearer view. If he were here, he could tell you many strange and +interesting facts as to the nature and habits of these shrubs; for he has spent +a lifetime in such studies, and this garden is his world.” +</p> + +<p> +“And yourself, lady,” observed Giovanni, “if fame says true,—you likewise +are deeply skilled in the virtues indicated by these rich blossoms and these +spicy perfumes. Would you deign to be my instructress, I should prove an apter +scholar than if taught by Signor Rappaccini himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Are there such idle rumors?” asked Beatrice, with the music of a pleasant +laugh. “Do people say that I am skilled in my father’s science of plants? What +a jest is there! No; though I have grown up among these flowers, I know no more +of them than their hues and perfume; and sometimes methinks I would fain rid +myself of even that small knowledge. There are many flowers here, and those not +the least brilliant, that shock and offend me when they meet my eye. But pray, +signor, do not believe these stories about my science. Believe nothing of me +save what you see with your own eyes.” +</p> + +<p> +“And must I believe all that I have seen with my own eyes?” asked Giovanni, +pointedly, while the recollection of former scenes made him shrink. “No, +signora; you demand too little of me. Bid me believe nothing save what comes +from your own lips.” +</p> + +<p> +It would appear that Beatrice understood him. There came a deep flush to her +cheek; but she looked full into Giovanni’s eyes, and responded to his gaze of +uneasy suspicion with a queenlike haughtiness. +</p> + +<p> +“I do so bid you, signor,” she replied. “Forget whatever you may have fancied +in regard to me. If true to the outward senses, still it may be false in its +essence; but the words of Beatrice Rappaccini’s lips are true from the depths +of the heart outward. Those you may believe.” +</p> + +<p> +A fervor glowed in her whole aspect and beamed upon Giovanni’s consciousness +like the light of truth itself; but while she spoke there was a fragrance in +the atmosphere around her, rich and delightful, though evanescent, yet which +the young man, from an indefinable reluctance, scarcely dared to draw into his +lungs. It might be the odor of the flowers. Could it be Beatrice’s breath which +thus embalmed her words with a strange richness, as if by steeping them in her +heart? A faintness passed like a shadow over Giovanni and flitted away; he +seemed to gaze through the beautiful girl’s eyes into her transparent soul, and +felt no more doubt or fear. +</p> + +<p> +The tinge of passion that had colored Beatrice’s manner vanished; she became +gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her communion with the youth +not unlike what the maiden of a lonely island might have felt conversing with a +voyager from the civilized world. Evidently her experience of life had been +confined within the limits of that garden. She talked now about matters as +simple as the daylight or summer clouds, and now asked questions in reference +to the city, or Giovanni’s distant home, his friends, his mother, and his +sisters—questions indicating such seclusion, and such lack of familiarity +with modes and forms, that Giovanni responded as if to an infant. Her spirit +gushed out before him like a fresh rill that was just catching its first +glimpse of the sunlight and wondering at the reflections of earth and sky which +were flung into its bosom. There came thoughts, too, from a deep source, and +fantasies of a gemlike brilliancy, as if diamonds and rubies sparkled upward +among the bubbles of the fountain. Ever and anon there gleamed across the young +man’s mind a sense of wonder that he should be walking side by side with the +being who had so wrought upon his imagination, whom he had idealized in such +hues of terror, in whom he had positively witnessed such manifestations of +dreadful attributes,—that he should be conversing with Beatrice like a +brother, and should find her so human and so maidenlike. But such reflections +were only momentary; the effect of her character was too real not to make +itself familiar at once. +</p> + +<p> +In this free intercourse they had strayed through the garden, and now, after +many turns among its avenues, were come to the shattered fountain, beside which +grew the magnificent shrub, with its treasury of glowing blossoms. A fragrance +was diffused from it which Giovanni recognized as identical with that which he +had attributed to Beatrice’s breath, but incomparably more powerful. As her +eyes fell upon it, Giovanni beheld her press her hand to her bosom as if her +heart were throbbing suddenly and painfully. +</p> + +<p> +“For the first time in my life,” murmured she, addressing the shrub, “I had +forgotten thee.” +</p> + +<p> +“I remember, signora,” said Giovanni, “that you once promised to reward me with +one of these living gems for the bouquet which I had the happy boldness to +fling to your feet. Permit me now to pluck it as a memorial of this interview.” +</p> + +<p> +He made a step towards the shrub with extended hand; but Beatrice darted +forward, uttering a shriek that went through his heart like a dagger. She +caught his hand and drew it back with the whole force of her slender figure. +Giovanni felt her touch thrilling through his fibres. +</p> + +<p> +“Touch it not!” exclaimed she, in a voice of agony. “Not for thy life! It is +fatal!” +</p> + +<p> +Then, hiding her face, she fled from him and vanished beneath the sculptured +portal. As Giovanni followed her with his eyes, he beheld the emaciated figure +and pale intelligence of Dr. Rappaccini, who had been watching the scene, he +knew not how long, within the shadow of the entrance. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner was Guasconti alone in his chamber than the image of Beatrice came +back to his passionate musings, invested with all the witchery that had been +gathering around it ever since his first glimpse of her, and now likewise +imbued with a tender warmth of girlish womanhood. She was human; her nature was +endowed with all gentle and feminine qualities; she was worthiest to be +worshipped; she was capable, surely, on her part, of the height and heroism of +love. Those tokens which he had hitherto considered as proofs of a frightful +peculiarity in her physical and moral system were now either forgotten, or, by +the subtle sophistry of passion transmitted into a golden crown of enchantment, +rendering Beatrice the more admirable by so much as she was the more unique. +Whatever had looked ugly was now beautiful; or, if incapable of such a change, +it stole away and hid itself among those shapeless half ideas which throng the +dim region beyond the daylight of our perfect consciousness. Thus did he spend +the night, nor fell asleep until the dawn had begun to awake the slumbering +flowers in Dr. Rappaccini’s garden, whither Giovanni’s dreams doubtless led +him. Up rose the sun in his due season, and, flinging his beams upon the young +man’s eyelids, awoke him to a sense of pain. When thoroughly aroused, he became +sensible of a burning and tingling agony in his hand—in his right +hand—the very hand which Beatrice had grasped in her own when he was on +the point of plucking one of the gemlike flowers. On the back of that hand +there was now a purple print like that of four small fingers, and the likeness +of a slender thumb upon his wrist. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, how stubbornly does love,—or even that cunning semblance of love +which flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into the +heart,—how stubbornly does it hold its faith until the moment comes when +it is doomed to vanish into thin mist! Giovanni wrapped a handkerchief about +his hand and wondered what evil thing had stung him, and soon forgot his pain +in a reverie of Beatrice. +</p> + +<p> +After the first interview, a second was in the inevitable course of what we +call fate. A third; a fourth; and a meeting with Beatrice in the garden was no +longer an incident in Giovanni’s daily life, but the whole space in which he +might be said to live; for the anticipation and memory of that ecstatic hour +made up the remainder. Nor was it otherwise with the daughter of Rappaccini. +She watched for the youth’s appearance, and flew to his side with confidence as +unreserved as if they had been playmates from early infancy—as if they +were such playmates still. If, by any unwonted chance, he failed to come at the +appointed moment, she stood beneath the window and sent up the rich sweetness +of her tones to float around him in his chamber and echo and reverberate +throughout his heart: “Giovanni! Giovanni! Why tarriest thou? Come down!” And +down he hastened into that Eden of poisonous flowers. +</p> + +<p> +But, with all this intimate familiarity, there was still a reserve in +Beatrice’s demeanor, so rigidly and invariably sustained that the idea of +infringing it scarcely occurred to his imagination. By all appreciable signs, +they loved; they had looked love with eyes that conveyed the holy secret from +the depths of one soul into the depths of the other, as if it were too sacred +to be whispered by the way; they had even spoken love in those gushes of +passion when their spirits darted forth in articulated breath like tongues of +long-hidden flame; and yet there had been no seal of lips, no clasp of hands, +nor any slightest caress such as love claims and hallows. He had never touched +one of the gleaming ringlets of her hair; her garment—so marked was the +physical barrier between them—had never been waved against him by a +breeze. On the few occasions when Giovanni had seemed tempted to overstep the +limit, Beatrice grew so sad, so stern, and withal wore such a look of desolate +separation, shuddering at itself, that not a spoken word was requisite to repel +him. At such times he was startled at the horrible suspicions that rose, +monster-like, out of the caverns of his heart and stared him in the face; his +love grew thin and faint as the morning mist, his doubts alone had substance. +But, when Beatrice’s face brightened again after the momentary shadow, she was +transformed at once from the mysterious, questionable being whom he had watched +with so much awe and horror; she was now the beautiful and unsophisticated girl +whom he felt that his spirit knew with a certainty beyond all other knowledge. +</p> + +<p> +A considerable time had now passed since Giovanni’s last meeting with Baglioni. +One morning, however, he was disagreeably surprised by a visit from the +professor, whom he had scarcely thought of for whole weeks, and would willingly +have forgotten still longer. Given up as he had long been to a pervading +excitement, he could tolerate no companions except upon condition of their +perfect sympathy with his present state of feeling. Such sympathy was not to be +expected from Professor Baglioni. +</p> + +<p> +The visitor chatted carelessly for a few moments about the gossip of the city +and the university, and then took up another topic. +</p> + +<p> +“I have been reading an old classic author lately,” said he, “and met with a +story that strangely interested me. Possibly you may remember it. It is of an +Indian prince, who sent a beautiful woman as a present to Alexander the Great. +She was as lovely as the dawn and gorgeous as the sunset; but what especially +distinguished her was a certain rich perfume in her breath—richer than a +garden of Persian roses. Alexander, as was natural to a youthful conqueror, +fell in love at first sight with this magnificent stranger; but a certain sage +physician, happening to be present, discovered a terrible secret in regard to +her.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what was that?” asked Giovanni, turning his eyes downward to avoid those +of the professor. +</p> + +<p> +“That this lovely woman,” continued Baglioni, with emphasis, “had been +nourished with poisons from her birth upward, until her whole nature was so +imbued with them that she herself had become the deadliest poison in existence. +Poison was her element of life. With that rich perfume of her breath she +blasted the very air. Her love would have been poison—her embrace death. +Is not this a marvellous tale?” +</p> + +<p> +“A childish fable,” answered Giovanni, nervously starting from his chair. “I +marvel how your worship finds time to read such nonsense among your graver +studies.” +</p> + +<p> +“By the by,” said the professor, looking uneasily about him, “what singular +fragrance is this in your apartment? Is it the perfume of your gloves? It is +faint, but delicious; and yet, after all, by no means agreeable. Were I to +breathe it long, methinks it would make me ill. It is like the breath of a +flower; but I see no flowers in the chamber.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor are there any,” replied Giovanni, who had turned pale as the professor +spoke; “nor, I think, is there any fragrance except in your worship’s +imagination. Odors, being a sort of element combined of the sensual and the +spiritual, are apt to deceive us in this manner. The recollection of a perfume, +the bare idea of it, may easily be mistaken for a present reality.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ay; but my sober imagination does not often play such tricks,” said Baglioni; +“and, were I to fancy any kind of odor, it would be that of some vile +apothecary drug, wherewith my fingers are likely enough to be imbued. Our +worshipful friend Rappaccini, as I have heard, tinctures his medicaments with +odors richer than those of Araby. Doubtless, likewise, the fair and learned +Signora Beatrice would minister to her patients with draughts as sweet as a +maiden’s breath; but woe to him that sips them!” +</p> + +<p> +Giovanni’s face evinced many contending emotions. The tone in which the +professor alluded to the pure and lovely daughter of Rappaccini was a torture +to his soul; and yet the intimation of a view of her character opposite to his +own, gave instantaneous distinctness to a thousand dim suspicions, which now +grinned at him like so many demons. But he strove hard to quell them and to +respond to Baglioni with a true lover’s perfect faith. +</p> + +<p> +“Signor professor,” said he, “you were my father’s friend; perchance, too, it +is your purpose to act a friendly part towards his son. I would fain feel +nothing towards you save respect and deference; but I pray you to observe, +signor, that there is one subject on which we must not speak. You know not the +Signora Beatrice. You cannot, therefore, estimate the wrong—the +blasphemy, I may even say—that is offered to her character by a light or +injurious word.” +</p> + +<p> +“Giovanni! my poor Giovanni!” answered the professor, with a calm expression of +pity, “I know this wretched girl far better than yourself. You shall hear the +truth in respect to the poisoner Rappaccini and his poisonous daughter; yes, +poisonous as she is beautiful. Listen; for, even should you do violence to my +gray hairs, it shall not silence me. That old fable of the Indian woman has +become a truth by the deep and deadly science of Rappaccini and in the person +of the lovely Beatrice.” +</p> + +<p> +Giovanni groaned and hid his face +</p> + +<p> +“Her father,” continued Baglioni, “was not restrained by natural affection from +offering up his child in this horrible manner as the victim of his insane zeal +for science; for, let us do him justice, he is as true a man of science as ever +distilled his own heart in an alembic. What, then, will be your fate? Beyond a +doubt you are selected as the material of some new experiment. Perhaps the +result is to be death; perhaps a fate more awful still. Rappaccini, with what +he calls the interest of science before his eyes, will hesitate at nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a dream,” muttered Giovanni to himself; “surely it is a dream.” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” resumed the professor, “be of good cheer, son of my friend. It is not +yet too late for the rescue. Possibly we may even succeed in bringing back this +miserable child within the limits of ordinary nature, from which her father’s +madness has estranged her. Behold this little silver vase! It was wrought by +the hands of the renowned Benvenuto Cellini, and is well worthy to be a love +gift to the fairest dame in Italy. But its contents are invaluable. One little +sip of this antidote would have rendered the most virulent poisons of the +Borgias innocuous. Doubt not that it will be as efficacious against those of +Rappaccini. Bestow the vase, and the precious liquid within it, on your +Beatrice, and hopefully await the result.” +</p> + +<p> +Baglioni laid a small, exquisitely wrought silver vial on the table and +withdrew, leaving what he had said to produce its effect upon the young man’s +mind. +</p> + +<p> +“We will thwart Rappaccini yet,” thought he, chuckling to himself, as he +descended the stairs; “but, let us confess the truth of him, he is a wonderful +man—a wonderful man indeed; a vile empiric, however, in his practice, and +therefore not to be tolerated by those who respect the good old rules of the +medical profession.” +</p> + +<p> +Throughout Giovanni’s whole acquaintance with Beatrice, he had occasionally, as +we have said, been haunted by dark surmises as to her character; yet so +thoroughly had she made herself felt by him as a simple, natural, most +affectionate, and guileless creature, that the image now held up by Professor +Baglioni looked as strange and incredible as if it were not in accordance with +his own original conception. True, there were ugly recollections connected with +his first glimpses of the beautiful girl; he could not quite forget the bouquet +that withered in her grasp, and the insect that perished amid the sunny air, by +no ostensible agency save the fragrance of her breath. These incidents, +however, dissolving in the pure light of her character, had no longer the +efficacy of facts, but were acknowledged as mistaken fantasies, by whatever +testimony of the senses they might appear to be substantiated. There is +something truer and more real than what we can see with the eyes and touch with +the finger. On such better evidence had Giovanni founded his confidence in +Beatrice, though rather by the necessary force of her high attributes than by +any deep and generous faith on his part. But now his spirit was incapable of +sustaining itself at the height to which the early enthusiasm of passion had +exalted it; he fell down, grovelling among earthly doubts, and defiled +therewith the pure whiteness of Beatrice’s image. Not that he gave her up; he +did but distrust. He resolved to institute some decisive test that should +satisfy him, once for all, whether there were those dreadful peculiarities in +her physical nature which could not be supposed to exist without some +corresponding monstrosity of soul. His eyes, gazing down afar, might have +deceived him as to the lizard, the insect, and the flowers; but if he could +witness, at the distance of a few paces, the sudden blight of one fresh and +healthful flower in Beatrice’s hand, there would be room for no further +question. With this idea he hastened to the florist’s and purchased a bouquet +that was still gemmed with the morning dew-drops. +</p> + +<p> +It was now the customary hour of his daily interview with Beatrice. Before +descending into the garden, Giovanni failed not to look at his figure in the +mirror,—a vanity to be expected in a beautiful young man, yet, as +displaying itself at that troubled and feverish moment, the token of a certain +shallowness of feeling and insincerity of character. He did gaze, however, and +said to himself that his features had never before possessed so rich a grace, +nor his eyes such vivacity, nor his cheeks so warm a hue of superabundant life. +</p> + +<p> +“At least,” thought he, “her poison has not yet insinuated itself into my +system. I am no flower to perish in her grasp.” +</p> + +<p> +With that thought he turned his eyes on the bouquet, which he had never once +laid aside from his hand. A thrill of indefinable horror shot through his frame +on perceiving that those dewy flowers were already beginning to droop; they +wore the aspect of things that had been fresh and lovely yesterday. Giovanni +grew white as marble, and stood motionless before the mirror, staring at his +own reflection there as at the likeness of something frightful. He remembered +Baglioni’s remark about the fragrance that seemed to pervade the chamber. It +must have been the poison in his breath! Then he shuddered—shuddered at +himself. Recovering from his stupor, he began to watch with curious eye a +spider that was busily at work hanging its web from the antique cornice of the +apartment, crossing and recrossing the artful system of interwoven +lines—as vigorous and active a spider as ever dangled from an old +ceiling. Giovanni bent towards the insect, and emitted a deep, long breath. The +spider suddenly ceased its toil; the web vibrated with a tremor originating in +the body of the small artisan. Again Giovanni sent forth a breath, deeper, +longer, and imbued with a venomous feeling out of his heart: he knew not +whether he were wicked, or only desperate. The spider made a convulsive gripe +with his limbs and hung dead across the window. +</p> + +<p> +“Accursed! accursed!” muttered Giovanni, addressing himself. “Hast thou grown +so poisonous that this deadly insect perishes by thy breath?” +</p> + +<p> +At that moment a rich, sweet voice came floating up from the garden. +</p> + +<p> +“Giovanni! Giovanni! It is past the hour! Why tarriest thou? Come down!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” muttered Giovanni again. “She is the only being whom my breath may not +slay! Would that it might!” +</p> + +<p> +He rushed down, and in an instant was standing before the bright and loving +eyes of Beatrice. A moment ago his wrath and despair had been so fierce that he +could have desired nothing so much as to wither her by a glance; but with her +actual presence there came influences which had too real an existence to be at +once shaken off: recollections of the delicate and benign power of her feminine +nature, which had so often enveloped him in a religious calm; recollections of +many a holy and passionate outgush of her heart, when the pure fountain had +been unsealed from its depths and made visible in its transparency to his +mental eye; recollections which, had Giovanni known how to estimate them, would +have assured him that all this ugly mystery was but an earthly illusion, and +that, whatever mist of evil might seem to have gathered over her, the real +Beatrice was a heavenly angel. Incapable as he was of such high faith, still +her presence had not utterly lost its magic. Giovanni’s rage was quelled into +an aspect of sullen insensibility. Beatrice, with a quick spiritual sense, +immediately felt that there was a gulf of blackness between them which neither +he nor she could pass. They walked on together, sad and silent, and came thus +to the marble fountain and to its pool of water on the ground, in the midst of +which grew the shrub that bore gem-like blossoms. Giovanni was affrighted at +the eager enjoyment—the appetite, as it were—with which he found +himself inhaling the fragrance of the flowers. +</p> + +<p> +“Beatrice,” asked he, abruptly, “whence came this shrub?” +</p> + +<p> +“My father created it,” answered she, with simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +“Created it! created it!” repeated Giovanni. “What mean you, Beatrice?” +</p> + +<p> +“He is a man fearfully acquainted with the secrets of Nature,” replied +Beatrice; “and, at the hour when I first drew breath, this plant sprang from +the soil, the offspring of his science, of his intellect, while I was but his +earthly child. Approach it not!” continued she, observing with terror that +Giovanni was drawing nearer to the shrub. “It has qualities that you little +dream of. But I, dearest Giovanni,—I grew up and blossomed with the plant +and was nourished with its breath. It was my sister, and I loved it with a +human affection; for, alas!—hast thou not suspected it?—there was +an awful doom.” +</p> + +<p> +Here Giovanni frowned so darkly upon her that Beatrice paused and trembled. But +her faith in his tenderness reassured her, and made her blush that she had +doubted for an instant. +</p> + +<p> +“There was an awful doom,” she continued, “the effect of my father’s fatal love +of science, which estranged me from all society of my kind. Until Heaven sent +thee, dearest Giovanni, oh, how lonely was thy poor Beatrice!” +</p> + +<p> +“Was it a hard doom?” asked Giovanni, fixing his eyes upon her. +</p> + +<p> +“Only of late have I known how hard it was,” answered she, tenderly. “Oh, yes; +but my heart was torpid, and therefore quiet.” +</p> + +<p> +Giovanni’s rage broke forth from his sullen gloom like a lightning flash out of +a dark cloud. +</p> + +<p> +“Accursed one!” cried he, with venomous scorn and anger. “And, finding thy +solitude wearisome, thou hast severed me likewise from all the warmth of life +and enticed me into thy region of unspeakable horror!” +</p> + +<p> +“Giovanni!” exclaimed Beatrice, turning her large bright eyes upon his face. +The force of his words had not found its way into her mind; she was merely +thunderstruck. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, poisonous thing!” repeated Giovanni, beside himself with passion. “Thou +hast done it! Thou hast blasted me! Thou hast filled my veins with poison! Thou +hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as +thyself—a world’s wonder of hideous monstrosity! Now, if our breath be +happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others, let us join our lips in one +kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!” +</p> + +<p> +“What has befallen me?” murmured Beatrice, with a low moan out of her heart. +“Holy Virgin, pity me, a poor heart-broken child!” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou,—dost thou pray?” cried Giovanni, still with the same fiendish +scorn. “Thy very prayers, as they come from thy lips, taint the atmosphere with +death. Yes, yes; let us pray! Let us to church and dip our fingers in the holy +water at the portal! They that come after us will perish as by a pestilence! +Let us sign crosses in the air! It will be scattering curses abroad in the +likeness of holy symbols!” +</p> + +<p> +“Giovanni,” said Beatrice, calmly, for her grief was beyond passion, “why dost +thou join thyself with me thus in those terrible words? I, it is true, am the +horrible thing thou namest me. But thou,—what hast thou to do, save with +one other shudder at my hideous misery to go forth out of the garden and mingle +with thy race, and forget there ever crawled on earth such a monster as poor +Beatrice?” +</p> + +<p> +“Dost thou pretend ignorance?” asked Giovanni, scowling upon her. “Behold! this +power have I gained from the pure daughter of Rappaccini.” +</p> + +<p> +There was a swarm of summer insects flitting through the air in search of the +food promised by the flower odors of the fatal garden. They circled round +Giovanni’s head, and were evidently attracted towards him by the same influence +which had drawn them for an instant within the sphere of several of the shrubs. +He sent forth a breath among them, and smiled bitterly at Beatrice as at least +a score of the insects fell dead upon the ground. +</p> + +<p> +“I see it! I see it!” shrieked Beatrice. “It is my father’s fatal science! No, +no, Giovanni; it was not I! Never! never! I dreamed only to love thee and be +with thee a little time, and so to let thee pass away, leaving but thine image +in mine heart; for, Giovanni, believe it, though my body be nourished with +poison, my spirit is God’s creature, and craves love as its daily food. But my +father,—he has united us in this fearful sympathy. Yes; spurn me, tread +upon me, kill me! Oh, what is death after such words as thine? But it was not +I. Not for a world of bliss would I have done it.” +</p> + +<p> +Giovanni’s passion had exhausted itself in its outburst from his lips. There +now came across him a sense, mournful, and not without tenderness, of the +intimate and peculiar relationship between Beatrice and himself. They stood, as +it were, in an utter solitude, which would be made none the less solitary by +the densest throng of human life. Ought not, then, the desert of humanity +around them to press this insulated pair closer together? If they should be +cruel to one another, who was there to be kind to them? Besides, thought +Giovanni, might there not still be a hope of his returning within the limits of +ordinary nature, and leading Beatrice, the redeemed Beatrice, by the hand? O, +weak, and selfish, and unworthy spirit, that could dream of an earthly union +and earthly happiness as possible, after such deep love had been so bitterly +wronged as was Beatrice’s love by Giovanni’s blighting words! No, no; there +could be no such hope. She must pass heavily, with that broken heart, across +the borders of Time—she must bathe her hurts in some fount of paradise, +and forget her grief in the light of immortality, and THERE be well. +</p> + +<p> +But Giovanni did not know it. +</p> + +<p> +“Dear Beatrice,” said he, approaching her, while she shrank away as always at +his approach, but now with a different impulse, “dearest Beatrice, our fate is +not yet so desperate. Behold! there is a medicine, potent, as a wise physician +has assured me, and almost divine in its efficacy. It is composed of +ingredients the most opposite to those by which thy awful father has brought +this calamity upon thee and me. It is distilled of blessed herbs. Shall we not +quaff it together, and thus be purified from evil?” +</p> + +<p> +“Give it me!” said Beatrice, extending her hand to receive the little silver +vial which Giovanni took from his bosom. She added, with a peculiar emphasis, +“I will drink; but do thou await the result.” +</p> + +<p> +She put Baglioni’s antidote to her lips; and, at the same moment, the figure of +Rappaccini emerged from the portal and came slowly towards the marble fountain. +As he drew near, the pale man of science seemed to gaze with a triumphant +expression at the beautiful youth and maiden, as might an artist who should +spend his life in achieving a picture or a group of statuary and finally be +satisfied with his success. He paused; his bent form grew erect with conscious +power; he spread out his hands over them in the attitude of a father imploring +a blessing upon his children; but those were the same hands that had thrown +poison into the stream of their lives. Giovanni trembled. Beatrice shuddered +nervously, and pressed her hand upon her heart. +</p> + +<p> +“My daughter,” said Rappaccini, “thou art no longer lonely in the world. Pluck +one of those precious gems from thy sister shrub and bid thy bridegroom wear it +in his bosom. It will not harm him now. My science and the sympathy between +thee and him have so wrought within his system that he now stands apart from +common men, as thou dost, daughter of my pride and triumph, from ordinary +women. Pass on, then, through the world, most dear to one another and dreadful +to all besides!” +</p> + +<p> +“My father,” said Beatrice, feebly,—and still as she spoke she kept her +hand upon her heart,—“wherefore didst thou inflict this miserable doom +upon thy child?” +</p> + +<p> +“Miserable!” exclaimed Rappaccini. “What mean you, foolish girl? Dost thou deem +it misery to be endowed with marvellous gifts against which no power nor +strength could avail an enemy—misery, to be able to quell the mightiest +with a breath—misery, to be as terrible as thou art beautiful? Wouldst +thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil +and capable of none?” +</p> + +<p> +“I would fain have been loved, not feared,” murmured Beatrice, sinking down +upon the ground. “But now it matters not. I am going, father, where the evil +which thou hast striven to mingle with my being will pass away like a +dream-like the fragrance of these poisonous flowers, which will no longer taint +my breath among the flowers of Eden. Farewell, Giovanni! Thy words of hatred +are like lead within my heart; but they, too, will fall away as I ascend. Oh, +was there not, from the first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?” +</p> + +<p> +To Beatrice,—so radically had her earthly part been wrought upon by +Rappaccini’s skill,—as poison had been life, so the powerful antidote was +death; and thus the poor victim of man’s ingenuity and of thwarted nature, and +of the fatality that attends all such efforts of perverted wisdom, perished +there, at the feet of her father and Giovanni. Just at that moment Professor +Pietro Baglioni looked forth from the window, and called loudly, in a tone of +triumph mixed with horror, to the thunderstricken man of science, “Rappaccini! +Rappaccini! and is <i>this</i> the upshot of your experiment!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a> +MRS. BULLFROG</h2> + +<p> +It makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible people act in +the matter of choosing wives. They perplex their judgments by a most undue +attention to little niceties of personal appearance, habits, disposition, and +other trifles which concern nobody but the lady herself. An unhappy gentleman, +resolving to wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart and hand till +both get so old and withered that no tolerable woman will accept them. Now this +is the very height of absurdity. A kind Providence has so skilfully adapted sex +to sex and the mass of individuals to each other, that, with certain obvious +exceptions, any male and female may be moderately happy in the married state. +The true rule is to ascertain that the match is fundamentally a good one, and +then to take it for granted that all minor objections, should there be such, +will vanish, if you let them alone. Only put yourself beyond hazard as to the +real basis of matrimonial bliss, and it is scarcely to be imagined what +miracles, in the way of recognizing smaller incongruities, connubial love will +effect. +</p> + +<p> +For my own part I freely confess that, in my bachelorship, I was precisely such +an over-curious simpleton as I now advise the reader not to be. My early habits +had gifted me with a feminine sensibility and too exquisite refinement. I was +the accomplished graduate of a dry goods store, where, by dint of ministering +to the whims of fine ladies, and suiting silken hose to delicate limbs, and +handling satins, ribbons, chintzes calicoes, tapes, gauze, and cambric needles, +I grew up a very ladylike sort of a gentleman. It is not assuming too much to +affirm that the ladies themselves were hardly so ladylike as Thomas Bullfrog. +So painfully acute was my sense of female imperfection, and such varied +excellence did I require in the woman whom I could love, that there was an +awful risk of my getting no wife at all, or of being driven to perpetrate +matrimony with my own image in the looking-glass. Besides the fundamental +principle already hinted at, I demanded the fresh bloom of youth, pearly teeth, +glossy ringlets, and the whole list of lovely items, with the utmost delicacy +of habits and sentiments, a silken texture of mind, and, above all, a virgin +heart. In a word, if a young angel just from paradise, yet dressed in earthly +fashion, had come and offered me her hand, it is by no means certain that I +should have taken it. There was every chance of my becoming a most miserable +old bachelor, when, by the best luck in the world, I made a journey into +another state, and was smitten by, and smote again, and wooed, won, and +married, the present Mrs. Bullfrog, all in the space of a fortnight. Owing to +these extempore measures, I not only gave my bride credit for certain +perfections which have not as yet come to light, but also overlooked a few +trifling defects, which, however, glimmered on my perception long before the +close of the honeymoon. Yet, as there was no mistake about the fundamental +principle aforesaid, I soon learned, as will be seen, to estimate Mrs. +Bullfrog’s deficiencies and superfluities at exactly their proper value. +</p> + +<p> +The same morning that Mrs. Bullfrog and I came together as a unit, we took two +seats in the stage-coach and began our journey towards my place of business. +There being no other passengers, we were as much alone and as free to give vent +to our raptures as if I had hired a hack for the matrimonial jaunt. My bride +looked charmingly in a green silk calash and riding habit of pelisse cloth; and +whenever her red lips parted with a smile, each tooth appeared like an +inestimable pearl. Such was my passionate warmth that—we had rattled out +of the village, gentle reader, and were lonely as Adam and Eve in +paradise—I plead guilty to no less freedom than a kiss. The gentle eye of +Mrs. Bullfrog scarcely rebuked me for the profanation. Emboldened by her +indulgence, I threw back the calash from her polished brow, and suffered my +fingers, white and delicate as her own, to stray among those dark and glossy +curls which realized my daydreams of rich hair. +</p> + +<p> +“My love,” said Mrs. Bullfrog tenderly, “you will disarrange my curls.” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no, my sweet Laura!” replied I, still playing with the glossy ringlet. +“Even your fair hand could not manage a curl more delicately than mine. I +propose myself the pleasure of doing up your hair in papers every evening at +the same time with my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Bullfrog,” repeated she, “you must not disarrange my curls.” +</p> + +<p> +This was spoken in a more decided tone than I had happened to hear, until then, +from my gentlest of all gentle brides. At the same time she put up her hand and +took mine prisoner; but merely drew it away from the forbidden ringlet, and +then immediately released it. Now, I am a fidgety little man, and always love +to have something in my fingers; so that, being debarred from my wife’s curls, +I looked about me for any other plaything. On the front seat of the coach there +was one of those small baskets in which travelling ladies who are too delicate +to appear at a public table generally carry a supply of gingerbread, biscuits +and cheese, cold ham, and other light refreshments, merely to sustain nature to +the journey’s end. Such airy diet will sometimes keep them in pretty good flesh +for a week together. Laying hold of this same little basket, I thrust my hand +under the newspaper with which it was carefully covered. +</p> + +<p> +“What’s this, my dear?” cried I; for the black neck of a bottle had popped out +of the basket. +</p> + +<p> +“A bottle of Kalydor, Mr. Bullfrog,” said my wife, coolly taking the basket +from my hands and replacing it on the front seat. +</p> + +<p> +There was no possibility of doubting my wife’s word; but I never knew genuine +Kalydor, such as I use for my own complexion, to smell so much like cherry +brandy. I was about to express my fears that the lotion would injure her skin, +when an accident occurred which threatened more than a skin-deep injury. Our +Jehu had carelessly driven over a heap of gravel and fairly capsized the coach, +with the wheels in the air and our heels where our heads should have been. What +became of my wits I cannot imagine; they have always had a perverse trick of +deserting me just when they were most needed; but so it chanced, that in the +confusion of our overthrow I quite forgot that there was a Mrs. Bullfrog in the +world. Like many men’s wives, the good lady served her husband as a +steppingstone. I had scrambled out of the coach and was instinctively settling +my cravat, when somebody brushed roughly by me, and I heard a smart thwack upon +the coachman’s ear. +</p> + +<p> +“Take that, you villain!” cried a strange, hoarse voice. “You have ruined me, +you blackguard! I shall never be the woman I have been!” +</p> + +<p> +And then came a second thwack, aimed at the driver’s other ear; but which +missed it, and hit him on the nose, causing a terrible effusion of blood. Now, +who or what fearful apparition was inflicting this punishment on the poor +fellow remained an impenetrable mystery to me. The blows were given by a person +of grisly aspect, with a head almost bald, and sunken cheeks, apparently of the +feminine gender, though hardly to be classed in the gentler sex. There being no +teeth to modulate the voice, it had a mumbled fierceness, not passionate, but +stern, which absolutely made me quiver like calf’s-foot jelly. Who could the +phantom be? The most awful circumstance of the affair is yet to be told: for +this ogre, or whatever it was, had a riding habit like Mrs. Bullfrog’s, and +also a green silk calash dangling down her back by the strings. In my terror +and turmoil of mind I could imagine nothing less than that the Old Nick, at the +moment of our overturn, had annihilated my wife and jumped into her petticoats. +This idea seemed the most probable, since I could nowhere perceive Mrs. +Bullfrog alive, nor, though I looked very sharply about the coach, could I +detect any traces of that beloved woman’s dead body. There would have been a +comfort in giving her Christian burial. +</p> + +<p> +“Come, sir, bestir yourself! Help this rascal to set up the coach,” said the +hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech at three countrymen at a +distance, “Here, you fellows, ain’t you ashamed to stand off when a poor woman +is in distress?” +</p> + +<p> +The countrymen, instead of fleeing for their lives, came running at full speed, +and laid hold of the topsy-turvy coach. I, also, though a small-sized man, went +to work like a son of Anak. The coachman, too, with the blood still streaming +from his nose, tugged and toiled most manfully, dreading, doubtless, that the +next blow might break his head. And yet, bemauled as the poor fellow had been, +he seemed to glance at me with an eye of pity, as if my case were more +deplorable than his. But I cherished a hope that all would turn out a dream, +and seized the opportunity, as we raised the coach, to jam two of my fingers +under the wheel, trusting that the pain would awaken me. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, here we are, all to rights again!” exclaimed a sweet voice behind. “Thank +you for your assistance, gentlemen. My dear Mr. Bullfrog, how you perspire! Do +let me wipe your face. Don’t take this little accident too much to heart, good +driver. We ought to be thankful that none of our necks are broken.” +</p> + +<p> +“We might have spared one neck out of the three,” muttered the driver, rubbing +his ear and pulling his nose, to ascertain whether he had been cuffed or not. +“Why, the woman’s a witch!” +</p> + +<p> +I fear that the reader will not believe, yet it is positively a fact, that +there stood Mrs. Bullfrog, with her glossy ringlets curling on her brow, and +two rows of orient pearls gleaming between her parted lips, which wore a most +angelic smile. She had regained her riding habit and calash from the grisly +phantom, and was, in all respects, the lovely woman who had been sitting by my +side at the instant of our overturn. How she had happened to disappear, and who +had supplied her place, and whence she did now return, were problems too knotty +for me to solve. There stood my wife. That was the one thing certain among a +heap of mysteries. Nothing remained but to help her into the coach, and plod +on, through the journey of the day and the journey of life, as comfortably as +we could. As the driver closed the door upon us, I heard him whisper to the +three countrymen, “How do you suppose a fellow feels shut up in the cage with a +she tiger?” +</p> + +<p> +Of course this query could have no reference to my situation. Yet, unreasonable +as it may appear, I confess that my feelings were not altogether so ecstatic as +when I first called Mrs. Bullfrog mine. True, she was a sweet woman and an +angel of a wife; but what if a Gorgon should return, amid the transports of our +connubial bliss, and take the angel’s place. I recollected the tale of a fairy, +who half the time was a beautiful woman and half the time a hideous monster. +Had I taken that very fairy to be the wife of my bosom? While such whims and +chimeras were flitting across my fancy I began to look askance at Mrs. +Bullfrog, almost expecting that the transformation would be wrought before my +eyes. +</p> + +<p> +To divert my mind, I took up the newspaper which had covered the little basket +of refreshments, and which now lay at the bottom of the coach, blushing with a +deep-red stain and emitting a potent spirituous fume from the contents of the +broken bottle of Kalydor. The paper was two or three years old, but contained +an article of several columns, in which I soon grew wonderfully interested. It +was the report of a trial for breach of promise of marriage, giving the +testimony in full, with fervid extracts from both the gentleman’s and lady’s +amatory correspondence. The deserted damsel had personally appeared in court, +and had borne energetic evidence to her lover’s perfidy and the strength of her +blighted affections. On the defendant’s part there had been an attempt, though +insufficiently sustained, to blast the plaintiff’s character, and a plea, in +mitigation of damages, on account of her unamiable temper. A horrible idea was +suggested by the lady’s name. +</p> + +<p> +“Madam,” said I, holding the newspaper before Mrs. Bullfrog’s eyes,—and, +though a small, delicate, and thin-visaged man, I feel assured that I looked +very terrific,—“madam,” repeated I, through my shut teeth, “were you the +plaintiff in this cause?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, my dear Mr. Bullfrog,” replied my wife, sweetly, “I thought all the world +knew that!” +</p> + +<p> +“Horror! horror!” exclaimed I, sinking back on the seat. +</p> + +<p> +Covering my face with both hands, I emitted a deep and deathlike groan, as if +my tormented soul were rending me asunder—I, the most exquisitely +fastidious of men, and whose wife was to have been the most delicate and +refined of women, with all the fresh dew-drops glittering on her virgin rosebud +of a heart! +</p> + +<p> +I thought of the glossy ringlets and pearly teeth; I thought of the Kalydor; I +thought of the coachman’s bruised ear and bloody nose; I thought of the tender +love secrets which she had whispered to the judge and jury and a thousand +tittering auditors,—and gave another groan! +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Bullfrog,” said my wife. +</p> + +<p> +As I made no reply, she gently took my hands within her own, removed them from +my face, and fixed her eyes steadfastly on mine. +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Bullfrog,” said she, not unkindly, yet with all the decision of her strong +character, “let me advise you to overcome this foolish weakness, and prove +yourself, to the best of your ability, as good a husband as I will be a wife. +You have discovered, perhaps, some little imperfections in your bride. Well, +what did you expect? Women are not angels. If they were, they would go to +heaven for husbands; or, at least, be more difficult in their choice on earth.” +</p> + +<p> +“But why conceal those imperfections?” interposed I, tremulously. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, my love, are not you a most unreasonable little man?” said Mrs. Bullfrog, +patting me on the cheek. “Ought a woman to disclose her frailties earlier than +the wedding day? Few husbands, I assure you, make the discovery in such good +season, and still fewer complain that these trifles are concealed too long. +Well, what a strange man you are! Poh! you are joking.” +</p> + +<p> +“But the suit for breach of promise!” groaned I. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, and is that the rub?” exclaimed my wife. “Is it possible that you view +that affair in an objectionable light? Mr. Bullfrog, I never could have dreamed +it! Is it an objection that I have triumphantly defended myself against slander +and vindicated my purity in a court of justice? Or do you complain because your +wife has shown the proper spirit of a woman, and punished the villain who +trifled with her affections?” +</p> + +<p> +“But,” persisted I, shrinking into a corner of the coach, however,—for I +did not know precisely how much contradiction the proper spirit of a woman +would endure,—“but, my love, would it not have been more dignified to +treat the villain with the silent contempt he merited?” +</p> + +<p> +“That is all very well, Mr. Bullfrog,” said my wife, slyly; “but, in that case, +where would have been the five thousand dollars which are to stock your dry +goods store?” +</p> + +<p> +“Mrs. Bullfrog, upon your honor,” demanded I, as if my life hung upon her +words, “is there no mistake about those five thousand dollars?” +</p> + +<p> +“Upon my word and honor there is none,” replied she. “The jury gave me every +cent the rascal had; and I have kept it all for my dear Bullfrog.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, thou dear woman,” cried I, with an overwhelming gush of tenderness, “let +me fold thee to my heart. The basis of matrimonial bliss is secure, and all thy +little defects and frailties are forgiven. Nay, since the result has been so +fortunate, I rejoice at the wrongs which drove thee to this blessed lawsuit. +Happy Bullfrog that I am!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a> +FIRE WORSHIP</h2> + +<p> +It is a great revolution in social and domestic life, and no less so in the +life of a secluded student, this almost universal exchange of the open +fireplace for the cheerless and ungenial stove. On such a morning as now lowers +around our old gray parsonage, I miss the bright face of my ancient friend, who +was wont to dance upon the hearth and play the part of more familiar sunshine. +It is sad to turn from the cloudy sky and sombre landscape; from yonder hill, +with its crown of rusty, black pines, the foliage of which is so dismal in the +absence of the sun; that bleak pasture-land, and the broken surface of the +potato-field, with the brown clods partly concealed by the snowfall of last +night; the swollen and sluggish river, with ice-incrusted borders, dragging its +bluish-gray stream along the verge of our orchard like a snake half torpid with +the cold,—it is sad to turn from an outward scene of so little comfort +and find the same sullen influences brooding within the precincts of my study. +Where is that brilliant guest, that quick and subtle spirit, whom Prometheus +lured from heaven to civilize mankind and cheer them in their wintry +desolation; that comfortable inmate, whose smile, during eight months of the +year, was our sufficient consolation for summer’s lingering advance and early +flight? Alas! blindly inhospitable, grudging the food that kept him cheery and +mercurial, we have thrust him into an iron prison, and compel him to smoulder +away his life on a daily pittance which once would have been too scanty for his +breakfast. Without a metaphor, we now make our fire in an air-tight stove, and +supply it with some half a dozen sticks of wood between dawn and nightfall. +</p> + +<p> +I never shall be reconciled to this enormity. Truly may it be said that the +world looks darker for it. In one way or another, here and there and all around +us, the inventions of mankind are fast blotting the picturesque, the poetic, +and the beautiful out of human life. The domestic fire was a type of all these +attributes, and seemed to bring might and majesty, and wild nature and a +spiritual essence, into our in most home, and yet to dwell with us in such +friendliness that its mysteries and marvels excited no dismay. The same mild +companion that smiled so placidly in our faces was he that comes roaring out of +Ætna and rushes madly up the sky like a fiend breaking loose from torment and +fighting for a place among the upper angels. He it is, too, that leaps from +cloud to cloud amid the crashing thunder-storm. It was he whom the Gheber +worshipped with no unnatural idolatry; and it was he who devoured London and +Moscow and many another famous city, and who loves to riot through our own dark +forests and sweep across our prairies, and to whose ravenous maw, it is said, +the universe shall one day be given as a final feast. Meanwhile he is the great +artisan and laborer by whose aid men are enabled to build a world within a +world, or, at least, to smooth down the rough creation which Nature flung to +it. He forges the mighty anchor and every lesser instrument; he drives the +steamboat and drags the rail-car; and it was he—this creature of terrible +might, and so many-sided utility and all-comprehensive +destructiveness—that used to be the cheerful, homely friend of our wintry +days, and whom we have made the prisoner of this iron cage. +</p> + +<p> +How kindly he was! and, though the tremendous agent of change, yet bearing +himself with such gentleness, so rendering himself a part of all life-long and +age-coeval associations, that it seemed as if he were the great conservative of +nature. While a man was true to the fireside, so long would he be true to +country and law, to the God whom his fathers worshipped, to the wife of his +youth, and to all things else which instinct or religion has taught us to +consider sacred. With how sweet humility did this elemental spirit perform all +needful offices for the household in which he was domesticated! He was equal to +the concoction of a grand dinner, yet scorned not to roast a potato or toast a +bit of cheese. How humanely did he cherish the school-boy’s icy fingers, and +thaw the old man’s joints with a genial warmth which almost equalled the glow +of youth! And how carefully did he dry the cowhide boots that had trudged +through mud and snow, and the shaggy outside garment stiff with frozen sleet! +taking heed, likewise, to the comfort of the faithful dog who had followed his +master through the storm. When did he refuse a coal to light a pipe, or even a +part of his own substance to kindle a neighbor’s fire? And then, at twilight, +when laborer, or scholar, or mortal of whatever age, sex, or degree, drew a +chair beside him and looked into his glowing face, how acute, how profound, how +comprehensive was his sympathy with the mood of each and all! He pictured forth +their very thoughts. To the youthful he showed the scenes of the adventurous +life before them; to the aged the shadows of departed love and hope; and, if +all earthly things had grown distasteful, he could gladden the fireside muser +with golden glimpses of a better world. And, amid this varied communion with +the human soul, how busily would the sympathizer, the deep moralist, the +painter of magic pictures, be causing the teakettle to boil! +</p> + +<p> +Nor did it lessen the charm of his soft, familiar courtesy and helpfulness that +the mighty spirit, were opportunity offered him, would run riot through the +peaceful house, wrap its inmates in his terrible embrace, and leave nothing of +them save their whitened bones. This possibility of mad destruction only made +his domestic kindness the more beautiful and touching. It was so sweet of him, +being endowed with such power, to dwell day after day, and one long lonesome +night after another, on the dusky hearth, only now and then betraying his wild +nature by thrusting his red tongue out of the chimney-top! True, he had done +much mischief in the world, and was pretty certain to do more; but his warm +heart atoned for all. He was kindly to the race of man; and they pardoned his +characteristic imperfections. +</p> + +<p> +The good old clergyman, my predecessor in this mansion, was well acquainted +with the comforts of the fireside. His yearly allowance of wood, according to +the terms of his settlement, was no less than sixty cords. Almost an annual +forest was converted from sound oak logs into ashes, in the kitchen, the +parlor, and this little study, where now an unworthy successor, not in the +pastoral office, but merely in his earthly abode, sits scribbling beside an +air-tight stove. I love to fancy one of those fireside days while the good man, +a contemporary of the Revolution, was in his early prime, some five-and-sixty +years ago. Before sunrise, doubtless, the blaze hovered upon the gray skirts of +night and dissolved the frostwork that had gathered like a curtain over the +small window-panes. There is something peculiar in the aspect of the morning +fireside; a fresher, brisker glare; the absence of that mellowness which can be +produced only by half-consumed logs, and shapeless brands with the white ashes +on them, and mighty coals, the remnant of tree-trunks that the hungry, elements +have gnawed for hours. The morning hearth, too, is newly swept, and the brazen +andirons well brightened, so that the cheerful fire may see its face in them. +Surely it was happiness, when the pastor, fortified with a substantial +breakfast, sat down in his arm-chair and slippers and opened the Whole Body of +Divinity, or the Commentary on Job, or whichever of his old folios or quartos +might fall within the range of his weekly sermons. It must have been his own +fault if the warmth and glow of this abundant hearth did not permeate the +discourse and keep his audience comfortable in spite of the bitterest northern +blast that ever wrestled with the church-steeple. He reads while the heat warps +the stiff covers of the volume; he writes without numbness either in his heart +or fingers; and, with unstinted hand, he throws fresh sticks of wood upon the +fire. +</p> + +<p> +A parishioner comes in. With what warmth of benevolence—how should he be +otherwise than warm in any of his attributes?—does the minister bid him +welcome, and set a chair for him in so close proximity to the hearth, that soon +the guest finds it needful to rub his scorched shins with his great red hands! +The melted snow drips from his steaming boots and bubbles upon the hearth. His +puckered forehead unravels its entanglement of crisscross wrinkles. We lose +much of the enjoyment of fireside heat without such an opportunity of marking +its genial effect upon those who have been looking the inclement weather in the +face. In the course of the day our clergyman himself strides forth, perchance +to pay a round of pastoral visits; or, it may he, to visit his mountain of a +wood-pile and cleave the monstrous logs into billets suitable for the fire. He +returns with fresher life to his beloved hearth. During the short afternoon the +western sunshine comes into the study and strives to stare the ruddy blaze out +of countenance but with only a brief triumph, soon to be succeeded by brighter +glories of its rival. Beautiful it is to see the strengthening gleam, the +deepening light that gradually casts distinct shadows of the human figure, the +table, and the high-backed chairs upon the opposite wall, and at length, as +twilight comes on, replenishes the room with living radiance and makes life all +rose-color. Afar the wayfarer discerns the flickering flame as it dances upon +the windows, and hails it as a beacon-light of humanity, reminding him, in his +cold and lonely path, that the world is not all snow, and solitude, and +desolation. At eventide, probably, the study was peopled with the clergyman’s +wife and family, and children tumbled themselves upon the hearth-rug, and grave +puss sat with her back to the fire, or gazed, with a semblance of human +meditation, into its fervid depths. Seasonably the plenteous ashes of the day +were raked over the mouldering brands, and from the heap came jets of flame, +and an incense of night-long smoke creeping quietly up the chimney. +</p> + +<p> +Heaven forgive the old clergyman! In his later life, when for almost ninety +winters he had been gladdened by the firelight,—when it had gleamed upon +him from infancy to extreme age, and never without brightening his spirits as +well as his visage, and perhaps keeping him alive so long,—he had the +heart to brick up his chimney-place and bid farewell to the face of his old +friend forever, why did he not take an eternal leave of the sunshine too? His +sixty cords of wood had probably dwindled to a far less ample supply in modern +times; and it is certain that the parsonage had grown crazy with time and +tempest and pervious to the cold; but still it was one of the saddest tokens of +the decline and fall of open fireplaces that, the gray patriarch should have +deigned to warm himself at an air-tight stove. +</p> + +<p> +And I, likewise,—who have found a home in this ancient owl’s-nest since +its former occupant took his heavenward flight,—I, to my shame, have put +up stoves in kitchen and parlor and chamber. Wander where you will about the +house, not a glimpse of the earth-born, heaven-aspiring fiend of +Ætna,—him that sports in the thunder-storm, the idol of the Ghebers, the +devourer of cities, the forest-rioter and prairie-sweeper, the future destroyer +of our earth, the old chimney-corner companion who mingled himself so sociably +with household joys and sorrows,—not a glimpse of this mighty and kindly +one will greet your eyes. He is now an invisible presence. There is his iron +cage. Touch it, and he scorches your fingers. He delights to singe a garment or +perpetrate any other little unworthy mischief; for his temper is ruined by the +ingratitude of mankind, for whom he cherished such warmth of feeling, and to +whom he taught all their arts, even that of making his own prison-house. In his +fits of rage he puffs volumes of smoke and noisome gas through the crevices of +the door, and shakes the iron walls of his dungeon so as to overthrow the +ornamental urn upon its summit. We tremble lest he should break forth amongst +us. Much of his time is spent in sighs, burdened with unutterable grief, and +long drawn through the funnel. He amuses himself, too, with repeating all the +whispers, the moans, and the louder utterances or tempestuous howls of the +wind; so that the stove becomes a microcosm of the aerial world. Occasionally +there are strange combinations of sounds,—voices talking almost +articulately within the hollow chest of iron,—insomuch that fancy +beguiles me with the idea that my firewood must have grown in that infernal +forest of lamentable trees which breathed their complaints to Dante. When the +listener is half asleep he may readily take these voices for the conversation +of spirits and assign them an intelligible meaning. Anon there is a pattering +noise,—drip, drip, drip,—as if a summer shower were falling within +the narrow circumference of the stove. +</p> + +<p> +These barren and tedious eccentricities are all that the air-tight stove can +bestow in exchange for the invaluable moral influences which we have lost by +our desertion of the open fireplace. Alas! is this world so very bright that we +can afford to choke up such a domestic fountain of gladsomeness, and sit down +by its darkened source without being conscious of a gloom? +</p> + +<p> +It is my belief that social intercourse cannot long continue what it has been, +now that we have subtracted from it so important and vivifying an element as +firelight. The effects will be more perceptible on our children and the +generations that shall succeed them than on ourselves, the mechanism of whose +life may remain unchanged, though its spirit be far other than it was. The +sacred trust of the household fire has been transmitted in unbroken succession +from the earliest ages, and faithfully cherished in spite of every +discouragement such as the curfew law of the Norman conquerors, until in these +evil days physical science has nearly succeeded in extinguishing it. But we at +least have our youthful recollections tinged with the glow of the hearth, and +our life-long habits and associations arranged on the principle of a mutual +bond in the domestic fire. Therefore, though the sociable friend be forever +departed, yet in a degree he will be spiritually present with us; and still +more will the empty forms which were once full of his rejoicing presence +continue to rule our manners. We shall draw our chairs together as we and our +forefathers have been wont for thousands of years back, and sit around some +blank and empty corner of the room, babbling with unreal cheerfulness of topics +suitable to the homely fireside. A warmth from the past—from the ashes of +bygone years and the raked-up embers of long ago—will sometimes thaw the +ice about our hearts; but it must be otherwise with our successors. On the most +favorable supposition, they will be acquainted with the fireside in no better +shape than that of the sullen stove; and more probably they will have grown up +amid furnace heat in houses which might be fancied to have their foundation +over the infernal pit, whence sulphurous steams and unbreathable exhalations +ascend through the apertures of the floor. There will be nothing to attract +these poor children to one centre. They will never behold one another through +that peculiar medium of vision the ruddy gleam of blazing wood or bituminous +coal—-which gives the human spirit so deep an insight into its fellows +and melts all humanity into one cordial heart of hearts. Domestic life, if it +may still be termed domestic, will seek its separate corners, and never gather +itself into groups. The easy gossip; the merry yet unambitious Jest; the +life-like, practical discussion of real matters in a casual way; the soul of +truth which is so often incarnated in a simple fireside word,—will +disappear from earth. Conversation will contract the air of debate, and all +mortal intercourse be chilled with a fatal frost. +</p> + +<p> +In classic times, the exhortation to fight “pro axis et focis,” for the altars +and the hearths, was considered the strongest appeal that could be made to +patriotism. And it seemed an immortal utterance; for all subsequent ages and +people have acknowledged its force and responded to it with the full portion of +manhood that nature had assigned to each. Wisely were the altar and the hearth +conjoined in one mighty sentence; for the hearth, too, had its kindred +sanctity. Religion sat down beside it, not in the priestly robes which +decorated and perhaps disguised her at the altar, but arrayed in a simple +matron’s garb, and uttering her lessons with the tenderness of a mother’s voice +and heart. The holy hearth! If any earthly and material thing, or rather a +divine idea embodied in brick and mortar, might be supposed to possess the +permanence of moral truth, it was this. All revered it. The man who did not put +off his shoes upon this holy ground would have deemed it pastime to trample +upon the altar. It has been our task to uproot the hearth. What further reform +is left for our children to achieve, unless they overthrow the altar too? And +by what appeal hereafter, when the breath of hostile armies may mingle with the +pure, cold breezes of our country, shall we attempt to rouse up native valor? +Fight for your hearths? There will be none throughout the land. F<small>IGHT +FOR YOUR STOVES</small>! Not I, in faith. If in such a cause I strike a blow, +it shall be on the invader’s part; and Heaven grant that it may shatter the +abomination all to pieces! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a> +BUDS AND BIRD VOICES</h2> + +<p> +Balmy Spring—weeks later than we expected and months later than we longed +for her—comes at last to revive the moss on the roof and walls of our old +mansion. She peeps brightly into my study-window, inviting me to throw it open +and create a summer atmosphere by the intermixture of her genial breath with +the black and cheerless comfort of the stove. As the casement ascends, forth +into infinite space fly the innumerable forms of thought or fancy that have +kept me company in the retirement of this little chamber during the sluggish +lapse of wintry weather; visions, gay, grotesque, and sad; pictures of real +life, tinted with nature’s homely gray and russet; scenes in dreamland, +bedizened with rainbow hues which faded before they were well laid +on,—all these may vanish now, and leave me to mould a fresh existence out +of sunshine, Brooding Meditation may flap her dusky wings and take her owl-like +Right, blinking amid the cheerfulness of noontide. Such companions befit the +season of frosted window-panes and crackling fires, when the blast howls +through the black-ash trees of our avenue and the drifting snow-storm chokes up +the wood-paths and fills the highway from stone wall to stone wall. In the +spring and summer time all sombre thoughts should follow the winter northward +with the sombre and thoughtful crows. The old paradisiacal economy of life is +again in force; we live, not to think or to labor, but for the simple end of +being happy. Nothing for the present hour is worthy of man’s infinite capacity +save to imbibe the warm smile of heaven and sympathize with the reviving earth. +</p> + +<p> +The present Spring comes onward with fleeter footsteps, because Winter lingered +so unconscionably long that with her best diligence she can hardly retrieve +half the allotted period of her reign. It is but a fortnight since I stood on +the brink of our swollen river and beheld the accumulated ice of four frozen +months go down the stream. Except in streaks here and there upon the hillsides, +the whole visible universe was then covered with deep snow, the nethermost +layer of which had been deposited by an early December storm. It was a sight to +make the beholder torpid, in the impossibility of imagining how this vast white +napkin was to be removed from the face of the corpse-like world in less time +than had been required to spread it there. But who can estimate the power of +gentle influences, whether amid material desolation or the moral winter of +man’s heart? There have been no tempestuous rains, even no sultry days, but a +constant breath of southern winds, with now a day of kindly sunshine, and now a +no less kindly mist or a soft descent of showers, in which a smile and a +blessing seemed to have been steeped. The snow has vanished as if by magic; +whatever heaps may be hidden in the woods and deep gorges of the hills, only +two solitary specks remain in the landscape; and those I shall almost regret to +miss when to-morrow I look for them in vain. Never before, methinks, has spring +pressed so closely on the footsteps of retreating winter. Along the roadside +the green blades of grass have sprouted on the very edge of the snow-drifts. +The pastures and mowing-fields have not vet assumed a general aspect of +verdure; but neither have they the cheerless-brown tint which they wear in +latter autumn when vegetation has entirely ceased; there is now a faint shadow +of life, gradually brightening into the warm reality. Some tracts in a happy +exposure,—as, for instance, yonder southwestern slope of an orchard, in +front of that old red farm-house beyond the river,—such patches of land +already wear a beautiful and tender green, to which no future luxuriance can +add a charm. It looks unreal; a prophecy, a hope, a transitory effect of sonic +peculiar light, which will vanish with the slightest motion of the eye. But +beauty is never a delusion; not these verdant tracts, but the dark and barren +landscape all around them, is a shadow and a dream. Each moment wins seine +portion of the earth from death to life; a sudden gleam of verdure brightens +along the sunny slope of a bank which an instant ago was brown and bare. You +look again, and behold an apparition of green grass! +</p> + +<p> +The trees in our orchard and elsewhere are as yet naked, but already appear +full of life and vegetable blood. It seems as if by one magic touch they might +instantaneously burst into full foliage, and that the wind which now sighs +through their naked branches might make sudden music amid innumerable leaves. +The mossgrown willow-tree which for forty years past has overshadowed these +western windows will be among the first to put on its green attire. There are +some objections to the willow; it is not a dry and cleanly tree, and impresses +the beholder with an association of sliminess. No trees, I think, are perfectly +agreeable as companions unless they have glossy leaves, dry bark, and a firm +and hard texture of trunk and branches. But the willow is almost the earliest +to gladden us with the promise and reality of beauty in its graceful and +delicate foliage, and the last to scatter its yellow yet scarcely withered +leaves upon the ground. All through the winter, too, its yellow twigs give it a +sunny aspect, which is not without a cheering influence even in the grayest and +gloomiest day. Beneath a clouded sky it faithfully remembers the sunshine. Our +old house would lose a charm were the willow to be cut down, with its golden +crown over the snow-covered roof and its heap of summer verdure. +</p> + +<p> +The lilac-shrubs under my study-windows are likewise almost in leaf: in two or +three days more I may put forth my hand and pluck the topmost bough in its +freshest green. These lilacs are very aged, and have lost the luxuriant foliage +of their prime. The heart, or the judgment, or the moral sense, or the taste is +dissatisfied with their present aspect. Old age is not venerable when it +embodies itself in lilacs, rose-bushes, or any other ornamental shrub; it seems +as if such plants, as they grow only for beauty, ought to flourish always in +immortal youth, or, at least, to die before their sad decrepitude. Trees of +beauty are trees of paradise, and therefore not subject to decay by their +original nature, though they have lost that precious birthright by being +transplanted to an earthly soil. There is a kind of ludicrous unfitness in the +idea of a time-stricken and grandfatherly lilac-bush. The analogy holds good in +human life. Persons who can only be graceful and ornamental—who can give +the world nothing but flowers—should die young, and never be seen with +gray hair and wrinkles, any more than the flower-shrubs with mossy bark and +blighted foliage, like the lilacs under my window. Not that beauty is worthy of +less than immortality; no, the beautiful should live forever,—and thence, +perhaps, the sense of impropriety when we see it triumphed over by time. +Apple-trees, on the other hand, grow old without reproach. Let them live as +long as they may, and contort themselves into whatever perversity of shape they +please, and deck their withered limbs with a springtime gaudiness of pink +blossoms; still they are respectable, even if they afford us only an apple or +two in a season. Those few apples—or, at all events, the remembrance of +apples in bygone years—are the atonement which utilitarianism inexorably +demands for the privilege of lengthened life. Human flower-shrubs, if they will +grow old on earth, should, besides their lovely blossoms, bear some kind of +fruit that will satisfy earthly appetites, else neither man nor the decorum of +nature will deem it fit that the moss should gather on them. +</p> + +<p> +One of the first things that strikes the attention when the white sheet of +winter is withdrawn is the neglect and disarray that lay hidden beneath it. +Nature is not cleanly according to our prejudices. The beauty of preceding +years, now transformed to brown and blighted deformity, obstructs the +brightening loveliness of the present hour. Our avenue is strewn with the whole +crop of autumn’s withered leaves. There are quantities of decayed branches +which one tempest after another has flung down, black and rotten, and one or +two with the ruin of a bird’s-nest clinging to them. In the garden are the +dried bean-vines, the brown stalks of the asparagus-bed, and melancholy old +cabbages which were frozen into the soil before their unthrifty cultivator +could find time to gather them. How invariably, throughout all the forms of +life, do we find these intermingled memorials of death! On the soil of thought +and in the garden of the heart, as well as in the sensual world, he withered +leaves,—the ideas and feelings that we have done with. There is no wind +strong enough to sweep them away; infinite space will not garner then from our +sight. What mean they? Why may we not be permitted to live and enjoy, as if +this were the first life and our own the primal enjoyment, instead of treading +always on these dry hones and mouldering relics, from the aged accumulation of +which springs all that now appears so young and new? Sweet must have been the +springtime of Eden, when no earlier year had strewn its decay upon the virgin +turf and no former experience had ripened into summer and faded into autumn in +the hearts of its inhabitants! That was a world worth living in. O then +murmurer, it is out of the very wantonness of such a life that then feignest +these idle lamentations. There is no decay. Each human soul is the +first-created inhabitant of its own Eden. We dwell in an old moss-covered +mansion, and tread in the worn footprints of the past, and have a gray +clergyman’s ghost for our daily and nightly inmate; yet all these outward +circumstances are made less than visionary by the renewing power of the spirit. +Should the spirit ever lose this power,—should the withered leaves, and +the rotten branches, and the moss-covered house, and the ghost of the gray past +ever become its realities, and the verdure and the freshness merely its faint +dream,—then let it pray to be released from earth. It will need the air +of heaven to revive its pristine energies. +</p> + +<p> +What an unlooked-for flight was this from our shadowy avenue of black-ash and +balm of Gilead trees into the infinite! Now we have our feet again upon the +turf. Nowhere does the grass spring up so industriously as in this homely yard, +along the base of the stone wall, and in the sheltered nooks of the buildings, +and especially around the southern doorstep,—a locality which seems +particularly favorable to its growth, for it is already tall enough to bend +over and wave in the wind. I observe that several weeds—and most +frequently a plant that stains the fingers with its yellow juice—have +survived and retained their freshness and sap throughout the winter. One knows +not how they have deserved such an exception from the common lot of their race. +They are now the patriarchs of the departed year, and may preach mortality to +the present generation of flowers and weeds. +</p> + +<p> +Among the delights of spring, how is it possible to forget the birds? Even the +crows were welcome as the sable harbingers of a brighter and livelier race. +They visited us before the snow was off, but seem mostly to have betaken +themselves to remote depths of the woods, which they haunt all summer long. +Many a time shall I disturb them there, and feel as if I had intruded among a +company of silent worshippers, as they sit in Sabbath stillness among the +tree-tops. Their voices, when they speak, are in admirable accordance with the +tranquil solitude of a summer afternoon; and resounding so far above the head, +their loud clamor increases the religious quiet of the scene instead of +breaking it. A crow, however, has no real pretensions to religion, in spite of +his gravity of mien and black attire; he is certainly a thief, and probably an +infidel. The gulls are far more respectable, in a moral point of view. These +denizens of seabeaten rocks and haunters of the lonely beach come up our inland +river at this season, and soar high overhead, flapping their broad wings in the +upper sunshine. They are among the most picturesque of birds, because they so +float and rest upon the air as to become almost stationary parts of the +landscape. The imagination has time to grow acquainted with them; they have not +flitted away in a moment. You go up among the clouds and greet these +lofty-flighted gulls, and repose confidently with them upon the sustaining +atmosphere. Duck’s have their haunts along the solitary places of the river, +and alight in flocks upon the broad bosom of the overflowed meadows. Their +flight is too rapid and determined for the eye to catch enjoyment from it, +although it never fails to stir up the heart with the sportsman’s ineradicable +instinct. They have now gone farther northward, but will visit us again in +autumn. +</p> + +<p> +The smaller birds,—the little songsters of the woods, and those that +haunt man’s dwellings and claim human friendship by building their nests under +the sheltering eaves or among the orchard trees,—these require a touch +more delicate and a gentler heart than mine to do them justice. Their outburst +of melody is like a brook let loose from wintry chains. We need not deem it a +too high and solemn word to call it a hymn of praise to the Creator; since +Nature, who pictures the reviving year in so many sights of beauty, has +expressed the sentiment of renewed life in no other sound save the notes of +these blessed birds. Their music, however, just now, seems to be incidental, +and not the result of a set purpose. They are discussing the economy of life +and love and the site and architecture of their summer residences, and have no +time to sit on a twig and pour forth solemn hymns, or overtures, operas, +symphonies, and waltzes. Anxious questions are asked; grave subjects are +settled in quick and animated debate; and only by occasional accident, as from +pure ecstasy, does a rich warble roll its tiny waves of golden sound through +the atmosphere. Their little bodies are as busy as their voices; they are all a +constant flutter and restlessness. Even when two or three retreat to a tree-top +to hold council, they wag their tails and heads all the time with the +irrepressible activity of their nature, which perhaps renders their brief span +of life in reality as long as the patriarchal age of sluggish man. The +blackbirds, three species of which consort together, are the noisiest of all +our feathered citizens. Great companies of them—more than the famous +“four-and-twenty” whom Mother Goose has immortalized—congregate in +contiguous treetops and vociferate with all the clamor and confusion of a +turbulent political meeting. Politics, certainly, must be the occasion of such +tumultuous debates; but still, unlike all other politicians, they instil melody +into their individual utterances and produce harmony as a general effect. Of +all bird voices, none are more sweet and cheerful to my ear than those of +swallows, in the dim, sunstreaked interior of a lofty barn; they address the +heart with even a closer sympathy than robin-redbreast. But, indeed, all these +winged people, that dwell in the vicinity of homesteads, seem to partake of +human nature, and possess the germ, if not the development, of immortal souls. +We hear them saying their melodious prayers at morning’s blush and eventide. A +little while ago, in the deep of night, there came the lively thrill of a +bird’s note from a neighboring tree,—a real song, such as greets the +purple dawn or mingles with the yellow sunshine. What could the little bird +mean by pouring it forth at midnight? Probably the music gushed out of the +midst of a dream in which he fancied himself in paradise with his mate, but +suddenly awoke on a cold leafless bough, with a New England mist penetrating +through his feathers. That was a sad exchange of imagination for reality. +</p> + +<p> +Insects are among the earliest births of sprung. Multitudes of I know not what +species appeared long ago on the surface of the snow. Clouds of them, almost +too minute for sight, hover in a beam of sunshine, and vanish, as if +annihilated, when they pass into the shade. A mosquito has already been heard +to sound the small horror of his bugle-horn. Wasps infest the sunny windows of +the house. A bee entered one of the chambers with a prophecy of flowers. Rare +butterflies came before the snow was off, flaunting in the chill breeze, and +looking forlorn and all astray, in spite of the magnificence of their dark +velvet cloaks, with golden borders. +</p> + +<p> +The fields and wood-paths have as yet few charms to entice the wanderer. In a +walk, the other day, I found no violets, nor anemones, nor anything in the +likeness of a flower. It was worth while, however, to ascend our opposite hill +for the sake of gaining a general idea of the advance of spring, which I had +hitherto been studying in its minute developments. The river lay around me in a +semicircle, overflowing all the meadows which give it its Indian name, and +offering a noble breadth to sparkle in the sunbeams. Along the hither shore a +row of trees stood up to their knees in water; and afar off, on the surface of +the stream, tufts of bushes thrust up their heads, as it were, to breathe. The +most striking objects were great solitary trees here and there, with a +mile-wide waste of water all around them. The curtailment of the trunk, by its +immersion in the river, quite destroys the fair proportions of the tree, and +thus makes us sensible of a regularity and propriety in the usual forms of +nature. The flood of the present season—though it never amounts to a +freshet on our quiet stream—has encroached farther upon the land than any +previous one for at least a score of years. It has overflowed stone fences, and +even rendered a portion of the highway navigable for boats. +</p> + +<p> +The waters, however, are now gradually subsiding; islands become annexed to the +mainland; and other islands emerge, like new creations, from the watery waste. +The scene supplies an admirable image of the receding of the Nile, except that +there is no deposit of black slime; or of Noah’s flood, only that there is a +freshness and novelty in these recovered portions of the continent which give +the impression of a world just made rather than of one so polluted that a +deluge had been requisite to purify it. These upspringing islands are the +greenest spots in the landscape; the first gleam of sunlight suffices to cover +them with verdure. +</p> + +<p> +Thank Providence for spring! The earth—and man himself, by sympathy with +his birthplace would be far other than we find them if life toiled wearily +onward without this periodical infusion of the primal spirit. Will the world +ever be so decayed that spring may not renew its greenness? Can man be so +dismally age stricken that no faintest sunshine of his youth may revisit him +once a year? It is impossible. The moss on our time-worn mansion brightens into +beauty; the good old pastor who once dwelt here renewed his prime, regained his +boyhood, in the genial breezes of his ninetieth spring. Alas for the worn and +heavy soul if, whether in youth or age, it have outlived its privilege of +springtime sprightliness! From such a soul the world must hope no reformation +of its evil, no sympathy with the lofty faith and gallant struggles of those +who contend in its behalf. Summer works in the present, and thinks not of the +future; autumn is a rich conservative; winter has utterly lost its faith, and +clings tremulously to the remembrance of what has been; but spring, with its +outgushing life, is the true type of the movement. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a> +MONSIEUR DU MIROIR</h2> + +<p> +Than the gentleman above named, there is nobody, in the whole circle of my +acquaintance, whom I have more attentively studied, yet of whom I have less +real knowledge, beneath the surface which it pleases him to present. Being +anxious to discover who and what he really is, and how connected with me, and +what are to be the results to him and to myself of the joint interest which, +without any choice on my part, seems to be permanently established between us, +and incited, furthermore, by the propensities of a student of human nature, +though doubtful whether Monsieur du Miroir have aught of humanity but the +figure,—I have determined to place a few of his remarkable points before +the public, hoping to be favored with some clew to the explanation of his +character. Nor let the reader condemn any part of the narrative as frivolous, +since a subject of such grave reflection diffuses its importance through the +minutest particulars; and there is no judging beforehand what odd little +circumstance may do the office of a blind man’s dog among the perplexities of +this dark investigation; and however extraordinary, marvellous, preternatural, +and utterly incredible some of the meditated disclosures may appear, I pledge +my honor to maintain as sacred a regard to fact as if my testimony were given +on oath and involved the dearest interests of the personage in question. Not +that there is matter for a criminal accusation against Monsieur du Miroir, nor +am I the man to bring it forward if there were. The chief that I complain of is +his impenetrable mystery, which is no better than nonsense if it conceal +anything good, and much worse in the contrary case. +</p> + +<p> +But, if undue partialities could be supposed to influence me, Monsieur du +Miroir might hope to profit rather than to suffer by them, for in the whole of +our long intercourse we have seldom had the slightest disagreement; and, +moreover, there are reasons for supposing him a near relative of mine, and +consequently entitled to the best word that I can give him. He bears +indisputably a strong personal resemblance to myself, and generally puts on +mourning at the funerals of the family. On the other hand, his name would +indicate a French descent; in which case, infinitely preferring that my blood +should flow from a bold British and pure Puritan source, I beg leave to +disclaim all kindred with Monsieur du Miroir. Some genealogists trace his +origin to Spain, and dub him a knight of the order of the C<small>ABALLEROS DE +LOS</small> E<small>SPEJOZ</small>, one of whom was overthrown by Don Quixote. +But what says Monsieur du Miroir himself of his paternity and his fatherland? +Not a word did he ever say about the matter; and herein, perhaps, lies one of +his most especial reasons for maintaining such a vexatious mystery, that he +lacks the faculty of speech to expound it. His lips are sometimes seen to move; +his eyes and countenance are alive with shifting expression, as if +corresponding by visible hieroglyphics to his modulated breath; and anon he +will seem to pause with as satisfied an air as if he had been talking excellent +sense. Good sense or bad, Monsieur du Miroir is the sole judge of his own +conversational powers, never having whispered so much as a syllable that +reached the ears of any other auditor. Is he really dumb? or is all the world +deaf? or is it merely a piece of my friend’s waggery, meant for nothing but to +make fools of us? If so, he has the joke all to himself. +</p> + +<p> +This dumb devil which possesses Monsieur do Miroir is, I am persuaded, the sole +reason that he does not make me the most flattering protestations of +friendship. In many particulars—indeed, as to all his cognizable and not +preternatural points, except that, once in a great while, I speak a word or +two—there exists the greatest apparent sympathy between us. Such is his +confidence in my taste that he goes astray from the general fashion and copies +all his dresses after mine. I never try on a new garment without expecting to +meet, Monsieur du Miroir in one of the same pattern. He has duplicates of all +my waistcoats and cravats, shirt-bosoms of precisely a similar plait, and an +old coat for private wear, manufactured, I suspect, by a Chinese tailor, in +exact imitation of a beloved old coat of mine, with a facsimile, stitch by +stitch, of a patch upon the elbow. In truth, the singular and minute +coincidences that occur, both in the accidents of the passing day and the +serious events of our lives, remind me of those doubtful legends of lovers, or +twin children, twins of fate, who have lived, enjoyed, suffered, and died in +unison, each faithfully repeating the last tremor of the other’s breath, though +separated by vast tracts of sea and land. Strange to say, my incommodities +belong equally to my companion, though the burden is nowise alleviated by his +participation. The other morning, after a night of torment from the toothache, +I met Monsieur du Miroir with such a swollen anguish in his cheek that my own +pangs were redoubled, as were also his, if I might judge by a fresh contortion +of his visage. All the inequalities of my spirits are communicated to him, +causing the unfortunate Monsieur du Miroir to mope and scowl through a whole +summer’s day, or to laugh as long, for no better reason than the gay or gloomy +crotchets of my brain. Once we were joint sufferers of a three months’ +sickness, and met like mutual ghosts in the first days of convalescence. +Whenever I have been in love, Monsieur du Miroir has looked passionate and +tender; and never did my mistress discard me, but this too susceptible +gentleman grew lackadaisical. His temper, also, rises to blood heat, fever +heat, or boiling-water beat, according to the measure of any wrong which might +seem to have fallen entirely on myself. I have sometimes been calmed down by +the sight of my own inordinate wrath depicted on his frowning brow. Yet, +however prompt in taking up my quarrels, I cannot call to mind that he ever +struck a downright blow in my behalf; nor, in fact, do I perceive that any real +and tangible good has resulted from his constant interference in my affairs; so +that, in my distrustful moods, I am apt to suspect Monsieur du Miroir’s +sympathy to be mere outward show, not a whit better nor worse than other +people’s sympathy. Nevertheless, as mortal man must have something in the guise +of sympathy,—and whether the true metal, or merely copper-washed, is of +less moment,—I choose rather to content myself with Monsieur du Miroir’s, +such as it is, than to seek the sterling coin, and perhaps miss even the +counterfeit. +</p> + +<p> +In my age of vanities I have often seen him in the ballroom, and might again +were I to seek him there. We have encountered each other at the Tremont +Theatre, where, however, he took his seat neither in the dress-circle, pit, nor +upper regions, nor threw a single glance at the stage, though the brightest +star, even Fanny Kemble herself, might be culminating there. No; this whimsical +friend of mine chose to linger in the saloon, near one of the large +looking-glasses which throw back their pictures of the illuminated room. He is +so full of these unaccountable eccentricities that I never like to notice +Monsieur du Miroir, nor to acknowledge the slightest connection with him, in +places of public resort. He, however, has no scruple about claiming my +acquaintance, even when his common-sense, if he had any, might teach him that I +would as willingly exchange a nod with the Old Nick. It was but the other day +that he got into a large brass kettle at the entrance of a hardware-store, and +thrust his head, the moment afterwards, into a bright, new warming-pan, whence +he gave me a most merciless look of recognition. He smiled, and so did I; but +these childish tricks make decent people rather shy of Monsieur du Miroir, and +subject him to more dead cuts than any other gentleman in town. +</p> + +<p> +One of this singular person’s most remarkable peculiarities is his fondness for +water, wherein he excels any temperance man whatever. His pleasure, it must be +owned, is not so much to drink it (in which respect a very moderate quantity +will answer his occasions) as to souse himself over head and ears wherever he +may meet with it. Perhaps he is a merman, or born of a mermaid’s marriage with +a mortal, and thus amphibious by hereditary right, like the children which the +old river deities, or nymphs of fountains, gave to earthly love. When no +cleaner bathing-place happened to be at hand, I have seen the foolish fellow in +a horse-pond. Some times he refreshes himself in the trough of a town-pump, +without caring what the people think about him. Often, while carefully picking +my way along the street after a heavy shower, I have been scandalized to see +Monsieur du Miroir, in full dress, paddling from one mud-puddle to another, and +plunging into the filthy depths of each. Seldom have I peeped into a well +without discerning this ridiculous gentleman at the bottom, whence he gazes up, +as through a long telescopic tube, and probably makes discoveries among the +stars by daylight. Wandering along lonesome paths or in pathless forests, when +I have come to virgin fountains of which it would have been pleasant to deem +myself the first discoverer, I have started to find Monsieur du Miroir there +before me. The solitude seemed lonelier for his presence. I have leaned from a +precipice that frowns over Lake George, which the French call nature’s font of +sacramental water, and used it in their log-churches here and their cathedrals +beyond the sea, and seen him far below in that pure element. At Niagara, too, +where I would gladly have forgotten both myself and him, I could not help +observing my companion in the smooth water on the very verge of the cataract +just above the Table Rock. Were I to reach the sources of the Nile, I should +expect to meet him there. Unless he be another Ladurlad, whose garments the +depth of ocean could not moisten, it is difficult to conceive how he keeps +himself in any decent pickle; though I am bound to confess that his clothes +seem always as dry and comfortable as my own. But, as a friend, I could wish +that he would not so often expose himself in liquor. +</p> + +<p> +All that I have hitherto related may be classed among those little personal +oddities which agreeably diversify the surface of society, and, though they may +sometimes annoy us, yet keep our daily intercourse fresher and livelier than if +they were done away. By an occasional hint, however, I have endeavored to pave +the way for stranger things to come, which, had they been disclosed at once, +Monsieur du Miroir might have been deemed a shadow, and myself a person of no +veracity, and this truthful history a fabulous legend. But, now that the reader +knows me worthy of his confidence, I will begin to make him stare. +</p> + +<p> +To speak frankly, then, I could bring the most astounding proofs that Monsieur +du Miroir is at least a conjurer, if not one of that unearthly tribe with whom +conjurers deal. He has inscrutable methods of conveying himself from place to +place with the rapidity of the swiftest steamboat or rail-car. Brick walls and +oaken doors and iron bolts are no impediment to his passage. Here in my +chamber, for instance, as the evening deepens into night, I sit +alone,—the key turned and withdrawn from the lock, the keyhole stuffed +with paper to keep out a peevish little blast of wind. Yet, lonely as I seem, +were I to lift one of the lamps and step five paces eastward, Monsieur du +Miroir would be sure to meet me with a lamp also in his hand; and were I to +take the stage-coach to-morrow, without giving him the least hint of my design, +and post onward till the week’s end, at whatever hotel I might find myself I +should expect to share my private apartment with this inevitable Monsieur du +Miroir. Or, out of a mere wayward fantasy, were I to go, by moonlight, and +stand beside the stone Pout of the Shaker Spring at Canterbury, Monsieur du +Miroir would set forth on the same fool’s errand, and would not fail to meet me +there. Shall I heighten the reader’s wonder? While writing these latter +sentences, I happened to glance towards the large, round globe of one off the +brass andirons, and lo! a miniature apparition of Monsieur du Miroir, with his +face widened and grotesquely contorted, as if he were making fun of my +amazement! But he has played so many of these jokes that they begin to lose +their effect. Once, presumptuous that he was, he stole into the heaven of a +young lady’s eyes; so that, while I gazed and was dreaming only of herself, I +found him also in my dream. Years have so changed him since that he need never +hope to enter those heavenly orbs again. +</p> + +<p> +From these veritable statements it will be readily concluded that, had Monsieur +du Miroir played such pranks in old witch times, matters might have gone hard +with him; at least if the constable and posse comitatus could have executed a +warrant, or the jailer had been cunning enough to keep him. But it has often +occurred to me as a very singular circumstance, and as betokening either a +temperament morbidly suspicious or some weighty cause of apprehension, that he +never trusts himself within the grasp even of his most intimate friend. If you +step forward to meet him, he readily advances; if you offer him your hand, he +extends his own with an air of the utmost frankness; but, though you calculate +upon a hearty shake, you do not get hold of his little finger. Ah, this +Monsieur du Miroir is a slippery fellow! +</p> + +<p> +These truly are matters of special admiration. After vainly endeavoring, by the +strenuous exertion of my own wits, to gain a satisfactory insight into the +character of Monsieur du Miroir, I had recourse to certain wise men, and also +to books of abstruse philosophy, seeking who it was that haunted me, and why. I +heard long lectures and read huge volumes with little profit beyond the +knowledge that many former instances are recorded, in successive ages, of +similar connections between ordinary mortals and beings possessing the +attributes of Monsieur du Miroir. Some now alive, perhaps, besides myself, have +such attendants. Would that Monsieur du Miroir could be persuaded to transfer +his attachment to one of those, and allow some other of his race to assume the +situation that he now holds in regard to me! If I must needs have so intrusive +an intimate, who stares me in the face in my closest privacy, and follows me +even to my bedchamber, I should prefer—scandal apart—the laughing +bloom of a young girl to the dark and bearded gravity of my present companion. +But such desires are never to be gratified. Though the members of Monsieur du +Miroir’s family have been accused, perhaps justly, of visiting their friends +often in splendid halls, and seldom in darksome dungeons, yet they exhibit a +rare constancy to the objects of their first attachment, however unlovely in +person or unamiable in disposition,—however unfortunate, or even +infamous, and deserted by all the world besides. So will it be with my +associate. Our fates appear inseparably blended. It is my belief, as I find him +mingling with my earliest recollections, that we came into existence together, +as my shadow follows me into the sunshine, and that hereafter, as heretofore, +the brightness or gloom of my fortunes will shine upon, or darken, the face of +Monsieur du Miroir. As we have been young together, and as it is now near the +summer noon with both of us, so, if long life be granted, shall each count his +own wrinkles on the other’s brow and his white hairs on the other’s head. And +when the coffin-lid shall have closed over me and that face and form, which, +more truly than the lover swears it to his beloved, are the sole light of his +existence,—when they shall be laid in that dark chamber, whither his +swift and secret footsteps cannot bring him,—then what is to become of +poor Monsieur du Miroir? Will he have the fortitude, with my other friends, to +take a last look at my pale countenance? Will he walk foremost in the funeral +train? Will he come often and haunt around my grave, and weed away the nettles, +and plant flowers amid the verdure, and scrape the moss out of the letters of +my burial-stone? Will he linger where I have lived, to remind the neglectful +world of one who staked much to win a name, but will not then care whether he +lost or won? +</p> + +<p> +Not thus will he prove his deep fidelity. O, what terror, if this friend of +mine, after our last farewell, should step into the crowded street, or roam +along our old frequented path by the still waters, or sit down in the domestic +circle where our faces are most familiar and beloved! No; but when the rays of +heaven shall bless me no more, nor the thoughtful lamplight gleam upon my +studies, nor the cheerful fireside gladden the meditative man, then, his task +fulfilled, shall this mysterious being vanish from the earth forever. He will +pass to the dark realm of nothingness, but will not find me there. +</p> + +<p> +There is something fearful in bearing such a relation to a creature so +imperfectly known, and in the idea that, to a certain extent, all which +concerns myself will be reflected in its consequences upon him. When we feel +that another is to share the self-same fortune with ourselves we judge more +severely of our prospects, and withhold our confidence from that delusive magic +which appears to shed an infallibility of happiness over our own pathway. Of +late years, indeed, there has been much to sadden my intercourse with Monsieur +de Miroir. Had not our union been a necessary condition of our life, we must +have been estranged ere now. In early youth, when my affections were warm and +free, I loved him well, and could always spend a pleasant hour in his society, +chiefly because it gave me an excellent opinion of myself. Speechless as he +was, Monsieur du Miroir had then a most agreeable way of calling me a handsome +fellow; and I, of course, returned the compliment; so that, the more we kept +each other’s company, the greater coxcombs we mutually grew. But neither of us +need apprehend any such misfortune now. When we chance to meet,—for it is +chance oftener than design,—each glances sadly at the other’s forehead, +dreading wrinkles there; and at our temples, whence the hair is thinning away +too early; and at the sunken eyes, which no longer shed a gladsome light over +the whole face. I involuntarily peruse him as a record of my heavy youth, which +has been wasted in sluggishness for lack of hope and impulse, or equally thrown +away in toil that had no wise motive and has accomplished no good end. I +perceive that the tranquil gloom of a disappointed soul has darkened through +his countenance, where the blackness of the future seems to mingle with the +shadows of the past, giving him the aspect of a fated man. Is it too wild a +thought that my fate may have assumed this image of myself, and therefore +haunts me with such inevitable pertinacity, originating every act which it +appears to imitate, while it deludes me by pretending to share the events of +which it is merely the emblem and the prophecy? I must banish this idea, or it +will throw too deep an awe round my companion. At our next meeting, especially +if it be at midnight or in solitude, I fear that I shall glance aside and +shudder; in which case, as Monsieur du Miroir is extremely sensitive to +ill-treatment, he also will avert his eyes and express horror or disgust. +</p> + +<p> +But no; this is unworthy of me. As of old I sought his society for the +bewitching dreams of woman’s love which he inspired, and because I fancied a +bright fortune in his aspect, so now will I hold daily and long communion with +hint for the sake of the stern lessons that he will teach my manhood. With +folded arms we will sit face to face, and lengthen out our silent converse till +a wiser cheerfulness shall have been wrought from the very texture of +despondency. He will say, perhaps indignantly, that it befits only him to mourn +for the decay of outward grace, which, while he possessed it, was his all. But +have not you, he will ask, a treasure in reserve, to which every year may add +far more value than age or death itself can snatch from that miserable clay? He +will tell me that though the bloom of life has been nipped with a frost, yet +the soul must not sit shivering in its cell, but bestir itself manfully, and +kindle a genial warmth from its own exercise against; the autumnal and the +wintry atmosphere. And I, in return, will bid him be of good cheer, nor take it +amiss that I must blanch his locks and wrinkle him up like a wilted apple, +since it shall be my endeavor so to beautify his face with intellect and mild +benevolence that he shall profit immensely by the change. But here a smile will +glimmer somewhat sadly over Monsieur du Miroir’s visage. +</p> + +<p> +When this subject shall have been sufficiently discussed we may take up others +as important. Reflecting upon his power of following me to the remotest regions +and into the deepest privacy, I will compare the attempt to escape him to the +hopeless race that men sometimes run with memory, or their own hearts, or their +moral selves, which, though burdened with cares enough to crush an elephant, +will never be one step behind. I will be self-contemplative, as nature bids me, +and make him the picture or visible type of what I muse upon, that my mind may +not wander so vaguely as heretofore, chasing its own shadow through a chaos and +catching only the monsters that abide there. Then will we turn our thoughts to +the spiritual world, of the reality of which my companions shall furnish me an +illustration, if not an argument; for, as we have only the testimony of the eye +to Monsieur du Miroir’s existence, while all the other senses would fail to +inform us that such a figure stands within arm’s-length, wherefore should there +not be beings innumerable close beside us, and filling heaven and earth with +their multitude, yet of whom no corporeal perception can take cognizance? A +blind man might as reasonably deny that Monsieur du Miroir exists, as we, +because the Creator has hitherto withheld the spiritual perception, can +therefore contend that there are no spirits. O, there are! And, at this moment, +when the subject of which I write has grown strong within me and surrounded +itself with those solemn and awful associations which might have seemed most +alien to it, I could fancy that Monsieur du Miroir himself is a wanderer from +the spiritual world, with nothing human except his delusive garment of +visibility. Methinks I should tremble now were his wizard power of gliding +through all impediments in search of me to place him suddenly before my eyes. +</p> + +<p> +Ha! What is yonder? Shape of mystery, did the tremor of my heartstrings vibrate +to thine own, and call thee from thy home among the dancers of the northern +lights, and shadows flung from departed sunshine, and giant spectres that +appear on clouds at daybreak and affright the climber of the Alps? In truth it +startled me, as I threw a wary glance eastward across the chamber, to discern +an unbidden guest with his eyes bent on mine. The identical MONSIEUR DU MIROIR! +Still there he sits and returns my gaze with as much of awe and curiosity as if +he, too, had spent a solitary evening in fantastic musings and made me his +theme. So inimitably does he counterfeit that I could almost doubt which of us +is the visionary form, or whether each be not the other’s mystery, and both +twin brethren of one fate, in mutually reflected spheres. O friend, canst thou +not hear and answer me? Break down the barrier between us! Grasp my hand! +Speak! Listen! A few words, perhaps, might satisfy the feverish yearning of my +soul for some master-thought that should guide me through this labyrinth of +life, teaching wherefore I was born, and how to do my task on earth, and what +is death. Alas! Even that unreal image should forget to ape me and smile at +these vain questions. Thus do mortals deify, as it were, a mere shadow of +themselves, a spectre of human reason, and ask of that to unveil the mysteries +which Divine Intelligence has revealed so far as needful to our guidance, and +hid the rest. +</p> + +<p> +Farewell, Monsieur du Miroir. Of you, perhaps, as of many men, it may be +doubted whether you are the wiser, though your whole business is +<small>REFLECTION</small>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a> +THE HALL OF FANTASY</h2> + +<p> +It has happened to me, on various occasions, to find myself in a certain +edifice which would appear to have some of the characteristics of a public +exchange. Its interior is a spacious hall, with a pavement of white marble. +Overhead is a lofty dome, supported by long rows of pillars of fantastic +architecture, the idea of which was probably taken from the Moorish ruins of +the Alhambra, or perhaps from some enchanted edifice in the Arabian tales. The +windows of this hall have a breadth and grandeur of design and an elaborateness +of workmanship that have nowhere been equalled, except in the Gothic cathedrals +of the Old World. Like their prototypes, too, they admit the light of heaven +only through stained and pictured glass, thus filling the hall with +many-colored radiance and painting its marble floor with beautiful or grotesque +designs; so that its inmates breathe, as it were, a visionary atmosphere, and +tread upon the fantasies of poetic minds. These peculiarities, combining a +wilder mixture of styles than even an American architect usually recognizes as +allowable,—Grecian, Gothic, Oriental, and nondescript,—cause the +whole edifice to give the impression of a dream, which might be dissipated and +shattered to fragments by merely stamping the foot upon the pavement. Yet, with +such modifications and repairs as successive ages demand, the Hall of Fantasy +is likely to endure longer than the most substantial structure that ever +cumbered the earth. +</p> + +<p> +It is not at all times that one can gain admittance into this edifice, although +most persons enter it at some period or other of their lives; if not in their +waking moments, then by the universal passport of a dream. At my last visit I +wandered thither unawares while my mind was busy with an idle tale, and was +startled by the throng of people who seemed suddenly to rise up around me. +</p> + +<p> +“Bless me! Where am I?” cried I, with but a dim recognition of the place. +</p> + +<p> +“You are in a spot,” said a friend who chanced to be near at hand, “which +occupies in the world of fancy the same position which the Bourse, the Rialto, +and the Exchange do in the commercial world. All who have affairs in that +mystic region, which lies above, below, or beyond the actual, may here meet and +talk over the business of their dreams.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is a noble hall,” observed I. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” he replied. “Yet we see but a small portion of the edifice. In its upper +stories are said to be apartments where the inhabitants of earth may hold +converse with those of the moon; and beneath our feet are gloomy cells, which +communicate with the infernal regions, and where monsters and chimeras are kept +in confinement and fed with all unwholesomeness.” +</p> + +<p> +In niches and on pedestals around about the hall stood the statues or busts of +men who in every age have been rulers and demigods in the realms of imagination +and its kindred regions. The grand old countenance of Homer; the shrunken and +decrepit form but vivid face of AEsop; the dark presence of Dante; the wild +Ariosto; Rabelais’s smile of deep-wrought mirth, the profound, pathetic humor +of Cervantes; the all-glorious Shakespeare; Spenser, meet guest for an +allegoric structure; the severe divinity of Milton; and Bunyan, moulded of +homeliest clay, but instinct with celestial fire,—were those that chiefly +attracted my eye. Fielding, Richardson, and Scott occupied conspicuous +pedestals. In an obscure and shadowy niche was deposited the bust of our +countryman, the author of Arthur Mervyn. +</p> + +<p> +“Besides these indestructible memorials of real genius,” remarked my companion, +“each century has erected statues of its own ephemeral favorites in wood.” +</p> + +<p> +“I observe a few crumbling relics of such,” said I. “But ever and anon, I +suppose, Oblivion comes with her huge broom and sweeps them all from the marble +floor. But such will never be the fate of this fine statue of Goethe.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor of that next to it,—Emanuel Swedenborg,” said he. “Were ever two men +of transcendent imagination more unlike?” +</p> + +<p> +In the centre of the hall springs an ornamental fountain, the water of which +continually throws itself into new shapes and snatches the most diversified +lines from the stained atmosphere around. It is impossible to conceive what a +strange vivacity is imparted to the scene by the magic dance of this fountain, +with its endless transformations, in which the imaginative beholder may discern +what form he will. The water is supposed by some to flow from the same source +as the Castalian spring, and is extolled by others as uniting the virtues of +the Fountain of Youth with those of many other enchanted wells long celebrated +in tale and song. Having never tasted it, I can bear no testimony to its +quality. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you ever drink this water?” I inquired of my friend. +</p> + +<p> +“A few sips now and then,” answered he. “But there are men here who make it +their constant beverage,—or, at least, have the credit of doing so. In +some instances it is known to have intoxicating qualities.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray let us look at these water-drinkers,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +So we passed among the fantastic pillars till we came to a spot where a number +of persons were clustered together in the light of one of the great stained +windows, which seemed to glorify the whole group as well as the marble that +they trod on. Most of them were men of broad foreheads, meditative +countenances, and thoughtful, inward eyes; yet it required but a trifle to +summon up mirth, peeping out from the very midst of grave and lofty musings. +Some strode about, or leaned against the pillars of the hall, alone and in +silence; their faces wore a rapt expression, as if sweet music were in the air +around them, or as if their inmost souls were about to float away in song. One +or two, perhaps, stole a glance at the bystanders, to watch if their poetic +absorption were observed. Others stood talking in groups, with a liveliness of +expression, a ready smile, and a light, intellectual laughter, which showed how +rapidly the shafts of wit were glancing to and fro among them. +</p> + +<p> +A few held higher converse, which caused their calm and melancholy souls to +beam moonlight from their eyes. As I lingered near them,—for I felt an +inward attraction towards these men, as if the sympathy of feeling, if not of +genius, had united me to their order,—my friend mentioned several of +their names. The world has likewise heard those names; with some it has been +familiar for years; and others are daily making their way deeper into the +universal heart. +</p> + +<p> +“Thank Heaven,” observed I to my companion, as we passed to another part of the +hall, “we have done with this techy, wayward, shy, proud unreasonable set of +laurel-gatherers. I love them in their works, but have little desire to meet +them elsewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +“You have adopted all old prejudice, I see,” replied my friend, who was +familiar with most of these worthies, being himself a student of poetry, and +not without the poetic flame. “But, so far as my experience goes, men of genius +are fairly gifted with the social qualities; and in this age there appears to +be a fellow-feeling among them which had not heretofore been developed. As men, +they ask nothing better than to be on equal terms with their fellow-men; and as +authors, they have thrown aside their proverbial jealousy, and acknowledge a +generous brotherhood.” +</p> + +<p> +“The world does not think so,” answered I. “An author is received in general +society pretty much as we honest citizens are in the Hall of Fantasy. We gaze +at him as if he had no business among us, and question whether he is fit for +any of our pursuits.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then it is a very foolish question,” said he. “Now, here are a class of men +whom we may daily meet on ’Change. Yet what poet in the hall is more a fool of +fancy than the sagest of them?” +</p> + +<p> +He pointed to a number of persons, who, manifest as the fact was, would have +deemed it an insult to be told that they stood in the Hall of Fantasy. Their +visages were traced into wrinkles and furrows, each of which seemed the record +of some actual experience in life. Their eyes had the shrewd, calculating +glance which detects so quickly and so surely all that it concerns a man of +business to know about the characters and purposes of his fellow-men. Judging +them as they stood, they might be honored and trusted members of the Chamber of +Commerce, who had found the genuine secret of wealth and whose sagacity gave +them the command of fortune. +</p> + +<p> +There was a character of detail and matter of fact in their talk which +concealed the extravagance of its purport, insomuch that the wildest schemes +had the aspect of everyday realities. Thus the listener was not startled at the +idea of cities to be built, as if by magic, in the heart of pathless forests; +and of streets to be laid out where now the sea was tossing; and of mighty +rivers to be stayed in their courses in order to turn the machinery of a +cotton-mill. It was only by an effort, and scarcely then, that the mind +convinced itself that such speculations were as much matter of fantasy as the +old dream of Eldorado, or as Mammon’s Cave, or any other vision of gold ever +conjured up by the imagination of needy poet or romantic adventurer. +</p> + +<p> +“Upon my word,” said I, “it is dangerous to listen to such dreamers as these. +Their madness is contagious.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said my friend, “because they mistake the Hall of Fantasy for actual +brick and mortar, and its purple atmosphere for unsophisticated sunshine. But +the poet knows his whereabout, and therefore is less likely to make a fool of +himself in real life.” +</p> + +<p> +“Here again,” observed I, as we advanced a little farther, “we see another +order of dreamers, peculiarly characteristic, too, of the genius of our +country.” +</p> + +<p> +These were the inventors of fantastic machines. Models of their contrivances +were placed against some of the pillars of the hall, and afforded good emblems +of the result generally to be anticipated from an attempt to reduce day-dreams +to practice. The analogy may hold in morals as well as physics; for instance, +here was the model of a railroad through the air and a tunnel under the sea. +Here was a machine—stolen, I believe—for the distillation of heat +from moonshine; and another for the condensation of morning mist into square +blocks of granite, wherewith it was proposed to rebuild the entire Hall of +Fantasy. One man exhibited a sort of lens whereby he had succeeded in making +sunshine out of a lady’s smile; and it was his purpose wholly to irradiate the +earth by means of this wonderful invention. +</p> + +<p> +“It is nothing new,” said I; “for most of our sunshine comes from woman’s smile +already.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” answered the inventor; “but my machine will secure a constant supply +for domestic use; whereas hitherto it has been very precarious.” +</p> + +<p> +Another person had a scheme for fixing the reflections of objects in a pool of +water, and thus taking the most life-like portraits imaginable; and the same +gentleman demonstrated the practicability of giving a permanent dye to ladies’ +dresses, in the gorgeous clouds of sunset. There were at least fifty kinds of +perpetual motion, one of which was applicable to the wits of newspaper editors +and writers of every description. Professor Espy was here, with a tremendous +storm in a gum-elastic bag. I could enumerate many more of these Utopian +inventions; but, after all, a more imaginative collection is to be found in the +Patent Office at Washington. +</p> + +<p> +Turning from the inventors we took a more general survey of the inmates of the +hall. Many persons were present whose right of entrance appeared to consist in +some crotchet of the brain, which, so long as it might operate, produced a +change in their relation to the actual world. It is singular how very few there +are who do not occasionally gain admittance on such a score, either in +abstracted musings, or momentary thoughts, or bright anticipations, or vivid +remembrances; for even the actual becomes ideal, whether in hope or memory, and +beguiles the dreamer into the Hall of Fantasy. Some unfortunates make their +whole abode and business here, and contract habits which unfit them for all the +real employments of life. Others—but these are few—possess the +faculty, in their occasional visits, of discovering a purer truth than the +world call impart among the lights and shadows of these pictured windows. +</p> + +<p> +And with all its dangerous influences, we have reason to thank God that there +is such a place of refuge from the gloom and chillness of actual life. Hither +may come the prisoner, escaping from his dark and narrow cell and cankerous +chain, to breathe free air in this enchanted atmosphere. The sick man leaves +his weary pillow, and finds strength to wander hither, though his wasted limbs +might not support him even to the threshold of his chamber. The exile passes +through the Hall of Fantasy to revisit his native soil. The burden of years +rolls down from the old man’s shoulders the moment that the door uncloses. +Mourners leave their heavy sorrows at the entrance, and here rejoin the lost +ones whose faces would else be seen no more, until thought shall have become +the only fact. It may be said, in truth, that there is but half a +life—the meaner and earthier half—for those who never find their +way into the hall. Nor must I fail to mention that in the observatory of the +edifice is kept that wonderful perspective-glass, through which the shepherds +of the Delectable Mountains showed Christian the far-off gleam of the Celestial +City. The eye of Faith still loves to gaze through it. +</p> + +<p> +“I observe some men here,” said I to my friend, “who might set up a strong +claim to be reckoned among the most real personages of the day.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” he replied. “If a man be in advance of his age, he must be content +to make his abode in this hall until the lingering generations of his +fellow-men come up with him. He can find no other shelter in the universe. But +the fantasies of one day are the deepest realities of a future one.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is difficult to distinguish them apart amid the gorgeous and bewildering +light of this ball,” rejoined I. “The white sunshine of actual life is +necessary in order to test them. I am rather apt to doubt both men and their +reasonings till I meet them in that truthful medium.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps your faith in the ideal is deeper than you are aware,” said my friend. +“You are at least a democrat; and methinks no scanty share of such faith is +essential to the adoption of that creed.” +</p> + +<p> +Among the characters who had elicited these remarks were most of the noted +reformers of the day, whether in physics, politics, morals, or religion. There +is no surer method of arriving at the Hall of Fantasy than to throw one’s-self +into the current of a theory; for, whatever landmarks of fact may be set up +along the stream, there is a law of nature that impels it thither. And let it +be so; for here the wise head and capacious heart may do their work; and what +is good and true becomes gradually hardened into fact, while error melts away +and vanishes among the shadows of the ball. Therefore may none who believe and +rejoice in the progress of mankind be angry with me because I recognized their +apostles and leaders amid the fantastic radiance of those pictured windows. I +love and honor such men as well as they. +</p> + +<p> +It would be endless to describe the herd of real or self styled reformers that +peopled this place of refuge. They were the representatives of an unquiet +period, when mankind is seeking to cast off the whole tissue of ancient custom +like a tattered garment. Many of then had got possession of some crystal +fragment of truth, the brightness of which so dazzled them that they could see +nothing else in the wide universe. Here were men whose faith had embodied +itself in the form of a potato; and others whose long beards had a deep +spiritual significance. Here was the abolitionist, brandishing his one idea +like an iron flail. In a word, there were a thousand shapes of good and evil, +faith and infidelity, wisdom and nonsense,—a most incongruous throng. +</p> + +<p> +Yet, withal, the heart of the stanchest conservative, unless he abjured his +fellowship with man, could hardly have helped throbbing in sympathy with the +spirit that pervaded these innumerable theorists. It was good for the man of +unquickened heart to listen even to their folly. Far down beyond the fathom of +the intellect the soul acknowledged that all these varying and conflicting +developments of humanity were united in one sentiment. Be the individual theory +as wild as fancy could make it, still the wiser spirit would recognize the +struggle of the race after a better and purer life than had yet been realized +on earth. My faith revived even while I rejected all their schemes. It could +not be that the world should continue forever what it has been; a soil where +Happiness is so rare a flower and Virtue so often a blighted fruit; a +battle-field where the good principle, with its shield flung above its head, +can hardly save itself amid the rush of adverse influences. In the enthusiasm +of such thoughts I gazed through one of the pictured windows, and, behold! the +whole external world was tinged with the dimly glorious aspect that is peculiar +to the Hall of Fantasy, insomuch that it seemed practicable at that very +instant to realize some plan for the perfection of mankind. But, alas! if +reformers would understand the sphere in which their lot is cast they must +cease to look through pictured windows. Yet they not only use this medium, but +mistake it for the whitest sunshine. +</p> + +<p> +“Come,” said I to my friend, starting from a deep revery, “let us hasten hence, +or I shall be tempted to make a theory, after which there is little hope of any +man.” +</p> + +<p> +“Come hither, then,” answered he. “Here is one theory that swallows up and +annihilates all others.” +</p> + +<p> +He led me to a distant part of the hall where a crowd of deeply attentive +auditors were assembled round an elderly man of plain, honest, trustworthy +aspect. With an earnestness that betokened the sincerest faith in his own +doctrine, he announced that the destruction of the world was close at hand. +</p> + +<p> +“It is Father Miller himself!” exclaimed I. +</p> + +<p> +“No less a man,” said my friend; “and observe how picturesque a contrast +between his dogma and those of the reformers whom we have just glanced at. They +look for the earthly perfection of mankind, and are forming schemes which imply +that the immortal spirit will be connected with a physical nature for +innumerable ages of futurity. On the other hand, here comes good Father Miller, +and with one puff of his relentless theory scatters all their dreams like so +many withered leaves upon the blast.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is, perhaps, the only method of getting mankind out of the various +perplexities into which they have fallen,” I replied. “Yet I could wish that +the world might be permitted to endure until some great moral shall have been +evolved. A riddle is propounded. Where is the solution? The sphinx did not slay +herself until her riddle had been guessed. Will it not be so with the world? +Now, if it should be burned to-morrow morning, I am at a loss to know what +purpose will have been accomplished, or how the universe will be wiser or +better for our existence and destruction.” +</p> + +<p> +“We cannot tell what mighty truths may have been embodied in act through the +existence of the globe and its inhabitants,” rejoined my companion. “Perhaps it +may be revealed to us after the fall of the curtain over our catastrophe; or +not impossibly, the whole drama, in which we are involuntary actors, may have +been performed for the instruction of another set of spectators. I cannot +perceive that our own comprehension of it is at all essential to the matter. At +any rate, while our view is so ridiculously narrow and superficial it would be +absurd to argue the continuance of the world from the fact that it seems to +have existed hitherto in vain.” +</p> + +<p> +“The poor old earth,” murmured I. “She has faults enough, in all conscience, +but I cannot hear to have her perish.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is no great matter,” said my friend. “The happiest of us has been weary of +her many a time and oft.” +</p> + +<p> +“I doubt it,” answered I, pertinaciously; “the root of human nature strikes +down deep into this earthly soil, and it is but reluctantly that we submit to +be transplanted, even for a higher cultivation in heaven. I query whether the +destruction of the earth would gratify any one individual, except perhaps some +embarrassed man of business whose notes fall due a day after the day of doom.” +</p> + +<p> +Then methought I heard the expostulating cry of a multitude against the +consummation prophesied by Father Miller. The lover wrestled with Providence +for his foreshadowed bliss. Parents entreated that the earth’s span of +endurance might be prolonged by some seventy years, so that their new-born +infant should not be defrauded of his lifetime. A youthful poet murmured +because there would be no posterity to recognize the inspiration of his song. +The reformers, one and all, demanded a few thousand years to test their +theories, after which the universe might go to wreck. A mechanician, who was +busied with an improvement of the steam-engine, asked merely time to perfect +his model. A miser insisted that the world’s destruction would be a personal +wrong to himself, unless he should first be permitted to add a specified sum to +his enormous heap of gold. A little boy made dolorous inquiry whether the last +day would come before Christmas, and thus deprive him of his anticipated +dainties. In short, nobody seemed satisfied that this mortal scene of things +should have its close just now. Yet, it must be confessed, the motives of the +crowd for desiring its continuance were mostly so absurd, that unless infinite +Wisdom had been aware of much better reasons, the solid earth must have melted +away at once. +</p> + +<p> +For my own part, not to speak of a few private and personal ends, I really +desired our old mother’s prolonged existence for her own dear sake. +</p> + +<p> +“The poor old earth!” I repeated. “What I should chiefly regret in her +destruction would be that very earthliness which no other sphere or state of +existence can renew or compensate. The fragrance of flowers and of new-mown +hay; the genial warmth of sunshine, and the beauty of a sunset among clouds; +the comfort and cheerful glow of the fireside; the deliciousness of fruits and +of all good cheer; the magnificence of mountains, and seas, and cataracts, and +the softer charm of rural scenery; even the fast-falling snow and the gray +atmosphere through which it descends,—all these and innumerable other +enjoyable things of earth must perish with her. Then the country frolics; the +homely humor; the broad, open-mouthed roar of laughter, in which body and soul +conjoin so heartily! I fear that no other world call show its anything just +like this. As for purely moral enjoyments, the good will find them in every +state of being. But where the material and the moral exist together, what is to +happen then? And then our mute four-footed friends and the winged songsters of +our woods! Might it not be lawful to regret them, even in the hallowed groves +of paradise?” +</p> + +<p> +“You speak like the very spirit of earth, imbued with a scent of freshly turned +soil,” exclaimed my friend. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not that I so much object to giving up these enjoyments on my own +account,” continued I, “but I hate to think that they will have been eternally +annihilated from the list of joys.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor need they be,” he replied. “I see no real force in what you say. Standing +in this Hall of Fantasy, we perceive what even the earth-clogged intellect of +man can do in creating circumstances which, though we call them shadowy and +visionary, are scarcely more so than those that surround us in actual life. +Doubt not then that man’s disembodied spirit may recreate time and the world +for itself, with all their peculiar enjoyments, should there still be human +yearnings amid life eternal and infinite. But I doubt whether we shall be +inclined to play such a poor scene over again.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, you are ungrateful to our mother earth!” rejoined I. “Come what may, I +never will forget her! Neither will it satisfy me to have her exist merely in +idea. I want her great, round, solid self to endure interminably, and still to +be peopled with the kindly race of man, whom I uphold to be much better than he +thinks himself. Nevertheless, I confide the whole matter to Providence, and +shall endeavor so to live that the world may come to an end at any moment +without leaving me at a loss to find foothold somewhere else.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is an excellent resolve,” said my companion, looking at his watch. “But +come; it is the dinner-hour. Will you partake of my vegetable diet?” +</p> + +<p> +A thing so matter of fact as an invitation to dinner, even when the fare was to +be nothing more substantial than vegetables and fruit, compelled us forthwith +to remove from the Hall of Fantasy. As we passed out of the portal we met the +spirits of several persons who had been sent thither in magnetic sleep. I +looked back among the sculptured pillars and at the transformations of the +gleaming fountain, and almost desired that the whole of life might be spent in +that visionary scene where the actual world, with its hard angles, should never +rub against me, and only be viewed through the medium of pictured windows. But +for those who waste all their days in the Hall of Fantasy, good Father Miller’s +prophecy is already accomplished, and the solid earth has come to an untimely +end. Let us be content, therefore, with merely an occasional visit, for the +sake of spiritualizing the grossness of this actual life, and prefiguring to +ourselves a state in which the Idea shall be all in all. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a> +THE CELESTIAL RAILROAD</h2> + +<p> +Not a great while ago, passing through the gate of dreams, I visited that +region of the earth in which lies the famous City of Destruction. It interested +me much to learn that by the public spirit of some of the inhabitants a +railroad has recently been established between this populous and flourishing +town and the Celestial City. Having a little time upon my hands, I resolved to +gratify a liberal curiosity by making a trip thither. Accordingly, one fine +morning after paying my bill at the hotel, and directing the porter to stow my +luggage behind a coach, I took my seat in the vehicle and set out for the +station-house. It was my good fortune to enjoy the company of a +gentleman—one Mr. Smooth-it-away—who, though he had never actually +visited the Celestial City, yet seemed as well acquainted with its laws, +customs, policy, and statistics, as with those of the City of Destruction, of +which he was a native townsman. Being, moreover, a director of the railroad +corporation and one of its largest stockholders, he had it in his power to give +me all desirable information respecting that praiseworthy enterprise. +</p> + +<p> +Our coach rattled out of the city, and at a short distance from its outskirts +passed over a bridge of elegant construction, but somewhat too slight, as I +imagined, to sustain any considerable weight. On both sides lay an extensive +quagmire, which could not have been more disagreeable either to sight or smell, +had all the kennels of the earth emptied their pollution there. +</p> + +<p> +“This,” remarked Mr. Smooth-it-away, “is the famous Slough of Despond—a +disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater that it might so easily be +converted into firm ground.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have understood,” said I, “that efforts have been made for that purpose from +time immemorial. Bunyan mentions that above twenty thousand cartloads of +wholesome instructions had been thrown in here without effect.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very probably! And what effect could be anticipated from such unsubstantial +stuff?” cried Mr. Smooth-it-away. “You observe this convenient bridge. We +obtained a sufficient foundation for it by throwing into the slough some +editions of books of morality, volumes of French philosophy and German +rationalism; tracts, sermons, and essays of modern clergymen; extracts from +Plato, Confucius, and various Hindoo sages together with a few ingenious +commentaries upon texts of Scripture,—all of which by some scientific +process, have been converted into a mass like granite. The whole bog might be +filled up with similar matter.” +</p> + +<p> +It really seemed to me, however, that the bridge vibrated and heaved up and +down in a very formidable manner; and, in spite of Mr. Smooth-it-away’s +testimony to the solidity of its foundation, I should be loath to cross it in a +crowded omnibus, especially if each passenger were encumbered with as heavy +luggage as that gentleman and myself. Nevertheless we got over without +accident, and soon found ourselves at the stationhouse. This very neat and +spacious edifice is erected on the site of the little wicket gate, which +formerly, as all old pilgrims will recollect, stood directly across the +highway, and, by its inconvenient narrowness, was a great obstruction to the +traveller of liberal mind and expansive stomach. The reader of John Bunyan will +be glad to know that Christian’s old friend Evangelist, who was accustomed to +supply each pilgrim with a mystic roll, now presides at the ticket office. Some +malicious persons it is true deny the identity of this reputable character with +the Evangelist of old times, and even pretend to bring competent evidence of an +imposture. Without involving myself in a dispute I shall merely observe that, +so far as my experience goes, the square pieces of pasteboard now delivered to +passengers are much more convenient and useful along the road than the antique +roll of parchment. Whether they will be as readily received at the gate of the +Celestial City I decline giving an opinion. +</p> + +<p> +A large number of passengers were already at the station-house awaiting the +departure of the cars. By the aspect and demeanor of these persons it was easy +to judge that the feelings of the community had undergone a very favorable +change in reference to the celestial pilgrimage. It would have done Bunyan’s +heart good to see it. Instead of a lonely and ragged man with a huge burden on +his back, plodding along sorrowfully on foot while the whole city hooted after +him, here were parties of the first gentry and most respectable people in the +neighborhood setting forth towards the Celestial City as cheerfully as if the +pilgrimage were merely a summer tour. Among the gentlemen were characters of +deserved eminence—magistrates, politicians, and men of wealth, by whose +example religion could not but be greatly recommended to their meaner brethren. +In the ladies’ apartment, too, I rejoiced to distinguish some of those flowers +of fashionable society who are so well fitted to adorn the most elevated +circles of the Celestial City. There was much pleasant conversation about the +news of the day, topics of business and politics, or the lighter matters of +amusement; while religion, though indubitably the main thing at heart, was +thrown tastefully into the background. Even an infidel would have heard little +or nothing to shock his sensibility. +</p> + +<p> +One great convenience of the new method of going on pilgrimage I must not +forget to mention. Our enormous burdens, instead of being carried on our +shoulders as had been the custom of old, were all snugly deposited in the +baggage car, and, as I was assured, would be delivered to their respective +owners at the journey’s end. Another thing, likewise, the benevolent reader +will be delighted to understand. It may be remembered that there was an ancient +feud between Prince Beelzebub and the keeper of the wicket gate, and that the +adherents of the former distinguished personage were accustomed to shoot deadly +arrows at honest pilgrims while knocking at the door. This dispute, much to the +credit as well of the illustrious potentate above mentioned as of the worthy +and enlightened directors of the railroad, has been pacifically arranged on the +principle of mutual compromise. The prince’s subjects are now pretty numerously +employed about the station-house, some in taking care of the baggage, others in +collecting fuel, feeding the engines, and such congenial occupations; and I can +conscientiously affirm that persons more attentive to their business, more +willing to accommodate, or more generally agreeable to the passengers, are not +to be found on any railroad. Every good heart must surely exult at so +satisfactory an arrangement of an immemorial difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +“Where is Mr. Greatheart?” inquired I. “Beyond a doubt the directors have +engaged that famous old champion to be chief conductor on the railroad?” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, no,” said Mr. Smooth-it-away, with a dry cough. “He was offered the +situation of brakeman; but, to tell you the truth, our friend Greatheart has +grown preposterously stiff and narrow in his old age. He has so often guided +pilgrims over the road on foot that he considers it a sin to travel in any +other fashion. Besides, the old fellow had entered so heartily into the ancient +feud with Prince Beelzebub that he would have been perpetually at blows or ill +language with some of the prince’s subjects, and thus have embroiled us anew. +So, on the whole, we were not sorry when honest Greatheart went off to the +Celestial City in a huff and left us at liberty to choose a more suitable and +accommodating man. Yonder comes the engineer of the train. You will probably +recognize him at once.” +</p> + +<p> +The engine at this moment took its station in advance of the cars, looking, I +must confess, much more like a sort of mechanical demon that would hurry us to +the infernal regions than a laudable contrivance for smoothing our way to the +Celestial City. On its top sat a personage almost enveloped in smoke and flame, +which, not to startle the reader, appeared to gush from his own mouth and +stomach as well as from the engine’s brazen abdomen. +</p> + +<p> +“Do my eyes deceive me?” cried I. “What on earth is this! A living creature? If +so, he is own brother to the engine he rides upon!” +</p> + +<p> +“Poh, poh, you are obtuse!” said Mr. Smooth-it-away, with a hearty laugh. +“Don’t you know Apollyon, Christian’s old enemy, with whom he fought so fierce +a battle in the Valley of Humiliation? He was the very fellow to manage the +engine; and so we have reconciled him to the custom of going on pilgrimage, and +engaged him as chief engineer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Bravo, bravo!” exclaimed I, with irrepressible enthusiasm; “this shows the +liberality of the age; this proves, if anything can, that all musty prejudices +are in a fair way to be obliterated. And how will Christian rejoice to hear of +this happy transformation of his old antagonist! I promise myself great +pleasure in informing him of it when we reach the Celestial City.” +</p> + +<p> +The passengers being all comfortably seated, we now rattled away merrily, +accomplishing a greater distance in ten minutes than Christian probably trudged +over in a day. It was laughable, while we glanced along, as it were, at the +tail of a thunderbolt, to observe two dusty foot travellers in the old pilgrim +guise, with cockle shell and staff, their mystic rolls of parchment in their +hands and their intolerable burdens on their backs. The preposterous obstinacy +of these honest people in persisting to groan and stumble along the difficult +pathway rather than take advantage of modern improvements, excited great mirth +among our wiser brotherhood. We greeted the two pilgrims with many pleasant +gibes and a roar of laughter; whereupon they gazed at us with such woful and +absurdly compassionate visages that our merriment grew tenfold more +obstreperous. Apollyon also entered heartily into the fun, and contrived to +flirt the smoke and flame of the engine, or of his own breath, into their +faces, and envelop them in an atmosphere of scalding steam. These little +practical jokes amused us mightily, and doubtless afforded the pilgrims the +gratification of considering themselves martyrs. +</p> + +<p> +At some distance from the railroad Mr. Smooth-it-away pointed to a large, +antique edifice, which, he observed, was a tavern of long standing, and had +formerly been a noted stopping-place for pilgrims. In Bunyan’s road-book it is +mentioned as the Interpreter’s House. +</p> + +<p> +“I have long had a curiosity to visit that old mansion,” remarked I. +</p> + +<p> +“It is not one of our stations, as you perceive,” said my companion “The keeper +was violently opposed to the railroad; and well he might be, as the track left +his house of entertainment on one side, and thus was pretty certain to deprive +him of all his reputable customers. But the footpath still passes his door, and +the old gentleman now and then receives a call from some simple traveller, and +entertains him with fare as old-fashioned as himself.” +</p> + +<p> +Before our talk on this subject came to a conclusion we were rushing by the +place where Christian’s burden fell from his shoulders at the sight of the +Cross. This served as a theme for Mr. Smooth-it-away, Mr. Livefor-the-world, +Mr. Hide-sin-in-the-heart, Mr. Scaly-conscience, and a knot of gentlemen from +the town of Shun-repentance, to descant upon the inestimable advantages +resulting from the safety of our baggage. Myself, and all the passengers +indeed, joined with great unanimity in this view of the matter; for our burdens +were rich in many things esteemed precious throughout the world; and, +especially, we each of us possessed a great variety of favorite Habits, which +we trusted would not be out of fashion even in the polite circles of the +Celestial City. It would have been a sad spectacle to see such an assortment of +valuable articles tumbling into the sepulchre. Thus pleasantly conversing on +the favorable circumstances of our position as compared with those of past +pilgrims and of narrow-minded ones at the present day, we soon found ourselves +at the foot of the Hill Difficulty. Through the very heart of this rocky +mountain a tunnel has been constructed of most admirable architecture, with a +lofty arch and a spacious double track; so that, unless the earth and rocks +should chance to crumble down, it will remain an eternal monument of the +builder’s skill and enterprise. It is a great though incidental advantage that +the materials from the heart of the Hill Difficulty have been employed in +filling up the Valley of Humiliation, thus obviating the necessity of +descending into that disagreeable and unwholesome hollow. +</p> + +<p> +“This is a wonderful improvement, indeed,” said I. “Yet I should have been glad +of an opportunity to visit the Palace Beautiful and be introduced to the +charming young ladies—Miss Prudence, Miss Piety, Miss Charity, and the +rest—who have the kindness to entertain pilgrims there.” +</p> + +<p> +“Young ladies!” cried Mr. Smooth-it-away, as soon as he could speak for +laughing. “And charming young ladies! Why, my dear fellow, they are old maids, +every soul of them—prim, starched, dry, and angular; and not one of them, +I will venture to say, has altered so much as the fashion of her gown since the +days of Christian’s pilgrimage.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well,” said I, much comforted, “then I can very readily dispense with +their acquaintance.” +</p> + +<p> +The respectable Apollyon was now putting on the steam at a prodigious rate, +anxious, perhaps, to get rid of the unpleasant reminiscences connected with the +spot where he had so disastrously encountered Christian. Consulting Mr. +Bunyan’s road-book, I perceived that we must now be within a few miles of the +Valley of the Shadow of Death, into which doleful region, at our present speed, +we should plunge much sooner than seemed at all desirable. In truth, I expected +nothing better than to find myself in the ditch on one side or the Quag on the +other; but on communicating my apprehensions to Mr. Smooth-it-away, he assured +me that the difficulties of this passage, even in its worst condition, had been +vastly exaggerated, and that, in its present state of improvement, I might +consider myself as safe as on any railroad in Christendom. +</p> + +<p> +Even while we were speaking the train shot into the entrance of this dreaded +Valley. Though I plead guilty to some foolish palpitations of the heart during +our headlong rush over the causeway here constructed, yet it were unjust to +withhold the highest encomiums on the boldness of its original conception and +the ingenuity of those who executed it. It was gratifying, likewise, to observe +how much care had been taken to dispel the everlasting gloom and supply the +defect of cheerful sunshine, not a ray of which has ever penetrated among these +awful shadows. For this purpose, the inflammable gas which exudes plentifully +from the soil is collected by means of pipes, and thence communicated to a +quadruple row of lamps along the whole extent of the passage. Thus a radiance +has been created even out of the fiery and sulphurous curse that rests forever +upon the valley—a radiance hurtful, however, to the eyes, and somewhat +bewildering, as I discovered by the changes which it wrought in the visages of +my companions. In this respect, as compared with natural daylight, there is the +same difference as between truth and falsehood, but if the reader have ever +travelled through the dark Valley, he will have learned to be thankful for any +light that he could get—if not from the sky above, then from the blasted +soil beneath. Such was the red brilliancy of these lamps that they appeared to +build walls of fire on both sides of the track, between which we held our +course at lightning speed, while a reverberating thunder filled the Valley with +its echoes. Had the engine run off the track,—a catastrophe, it is +whispered, by no means unprecedented,—the bottomless pit, if there be any +such place, would undoubtedly have received us. Just as some dismal fooleries +of this nature had made my heart quake there came a tremendous shriek, +careering along the valley as if a thousand devils had burst their lungs to +utter it, but which proved to be merely the whistle of the engine on arriving +at a stopping-place. +</p> + +<p> +The spot where we had now paused is the same that our friend Bunyan—a +truthful man, but infected with many fantastic notions—has designated, in +terms plainer than I like to repeat, as the mouth of the infernal region. This, +however, must be a mistake, inasmuch as Mr. Smooth-it-away, while we remained +in the smoky and lurid cavern, took occasion to prove that Tophet has not even +a metaphorical existence. The place, he assured us, is no other than the crater +of a half-extinct volcano, in which the directors had caused forges to be set +up for the manufacture of railroad iron. Hence, also, is obtained a plentiful +supply of fuel for the use of the engines. Whoever had gazed into the dismal +obscurity of the broad cavern mouth, whence ever and anon darted huge tongues +of dusky flame, and had seen the strange, half-shaped monsters, and visions of +faces horribly grotesque, into which the smoke seemed to wreathe itself, and +had heard the awful murmurs, and shrieks, and deep, shuddering whispers of the +blast, sometimes forming themselves into words almost articulate, would have +seized upon Mr. Smooth-it-away’s comfortable explanation as greedily as we did. +The inhabitants of the cavern, moreover, were unlovely personages, dark, +smoke-begrimed, generally deformed, with misshapen feet, and a glow of dusky +redness in their eyes as if their hearts had caught fire and were blazing out +of the upper windows. It struck me as a peculiarity that the laborers at the +forge and those who brought fuel to the engine, when they began to draw short +breath, positively emitted smoke from their mouth and nostrils. +</p> + +<p> +Among the idlers about the train, most of whom were puffing cigars which they +had lighted at the flame of the crater, I was perplexed to notice several who, +to my certain knowledge, had heretofore set forth by railroad for the Celestial +City. They looked dark, wild, and smoky, with a singular resemblance, indeed, +to the native inhabitants, like whom, also, they had a disagreeable propensity +to ill-natured gibes and sneers, the habit of which had wrought a settled +contortion of their visages. Having been on speaking terms with one of these +persons,—an indolent, good-for-nothing fellow, who went by the name of +Take-it-easy,—I called him, and inquired what was his business there. +</p> + +<p> +“Did you not start,” said I, “for the Celestial City?” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s a fact,” said Mr. Take-it-easy, carelessly puffing some smoke into my +eyes. “But I heard such bad accounts that I never took pains to climb the hill +on which the city stands. No business doing, no fun going on, nothing to drink, +and no smoking allowed, and a thrumming of church music from morning till +night. I would not stay in such a place if they offered me house room and +living free.” +</p> + +<p> +“But, my good Mr. Take-it-easy,” cried I, “why take up your residence here, of +all places in the world?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh,” said the loafer, with a grin, “it is very warm hereabouts, and I meet +with plenty of old acquaintances, and altogether the place suits me. I hope to +see you back again some day soon. A pleasant journey to you.” +</p> + +<p> +While he was speaking the bell of the engine rang, and we dashed away after +dropping a few passengers, but receiving no new ones. Rattling onward through +the Valley, we were dazzled with the fiercely gleaming gas lamps, as before. +But sometimes, in the dark of intense brightness, grim faces, that bore the +aspect and expression of individual sins, or evil passions, seemed to thrust +themselves through the veil of light, glaring upon us, and stretching forth a +great, dusky hand, as if to impede our progress. I almost thought that they +were my own sins that appalled me there. These were freaks of +imagination—nothing more, certainly-mere delusions, which I ought to be +heartily ashamed of; but all through the Dark Valley I was tormented, and +pestered, and dolefully bewildered with the same kind of waking dreams. The +mephitic gases of that region intoxicate the brain. As the light of natural +day, however, began to struggle with the glow of the lanterns, these vain +imaginations lost their vividness, and finally vanished from the first ray of +sunshine that greeted our escape from the Valley of the Shadow of Death. Ere we +had gone a mile beyond it I could well-nigh have taken my oath that this whole +gloomy passage was a dream. +</p> + +<p> +At the end of the valley, as John Bunyan mentions, is a cavern, where, in his +days, dwelt two cruel giants, Pope and Pagan, who had strown the ground about +their residence with the bones of slaughtered pilgrims. These vile old +troglodytes are no longer there; but into their deserted cave another terrible +giant has thrust himself, and makes it his business to seize upon honest +travellers and fatten them for his table with plentiful meals of smoke, mist, +moonshine, raw potatoes, and sawdust. He is a German by birth, and is called +Giant Transcendentalist; but as to his form, his features, his substance, and +his nature generally, it is the chief peculiarity of this huge miscreant that +neither he for himself, nor anybody for him, has ever been able to describe +them. As we rushed by the cavern’s mouth we caught a hasty glimpse of him, +looking somewhat like an ill-proportioned figure, but considerably more like a +heap of fog and duskiness. He shouted after us, but in so strange a phraseology +that we knew not what he meant, nor whether to be encouraged or affrighted. +</p> + +<p> +It was late in the day when the train thundered into the ancient city of +Vanity, where Vanity Fair is still at the height of prosperity, and exhibits an +epitome of whatever is brilliant, gay, and fascinating beneath the sun. As I +purposed to make a considerable stay here, it gratified me to learn that there +is no longer the want of harmony between the town’s-people and pilgrims, which +impelled the former to such lamentably mistaken measures as the persecution of +Christian and the fiery martyrdom of Faithful. On the contrary, as the new +railroad brings with it great trade and a constant influx of strangers, the +lord of Vanity Fair is its chief patron, and the capitalists of the city are +among the largest stockholders. Many passengers stop to take their pleasure or +make their profit in the Fair, instead of going onward to the Celestial City. +Indeed, such are the charms of the place that people often affirm it to be the +true and only heaven; stoutly contending that there is no other, that those who +seek further are mere dreamers, and that, if the fabled brightness of the +Celestial City lay but a bare mile beyond the gates of Vanity, they would not +be fools enough to go thither. Without subscribing to these perhaps exaggerated +encomiums, I can truly say that my abode in the city was mainly agreeable, and +my intercourse with the inhabitants productive of much amusement and +instruction. +</p> + +<p> +Being naturally of a serious turn, my attention was directed to the solid +advantages derivable from a residence here, rather than to the effervescent +pleasures which are the grand object with too many visitants. The Christian +reader, if he have had no accounts of the city later than Bunyan’s time, will +be surprised to hear that almost every street has its church, and that the +reverend clergy are nowhere held in higher respect than at Vanity Fair. And +well do they deserve such honorable estimation; for the maxims of wisdom and +virtue which fall from their lips come from as deep a spiritual source, and +tend to as lofty a religious aim, as those of the sagest philosophers of old. +In justification of this high praise I need only mention the names of the Rev. +Mr. Shallow-deep, the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-truth, that fine old clerical +character the Rev. Mr. This-today, who expects shortly to resign his pulpit to +the Rev. Mr. That-tomorrow; together with the Rev. Mr. Bewilderment, the Rev. +Mr. Clog-the-spirit, and, last and greatest, the Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine. The +labors of these eminent divines are aided by those of innumerable lecturers, +who diffuse such a various profundity, in all subjects of human or celestial +science, that any man may acquire an omnigenous erudition without the trouble +of even learning to read. Thus literature is etherealized by assuming for its +medium the human voice; and knowledge, depositing all its heavier particles, +except, doubtless, its gold becomes exhaled into a sound, which forthwith +steals into the ever-open ear of the community. These ingenious methods +constitute a sort of machinery, by which thought and study are done to every +person’s hand without his putting himself to the slightest inconvenience in the +matter. There is another species of machine for the wholesale manufacture of +individual morality. This excellent result is effected by societies for all +manner of virtuous purposes, with which a man has merely to connect himself, +throwing, as it were, his quota of virtue into the common stock, and the +president and directors will take care that the aggregate amount be well +applied. All these, and other wonderful improvements in ethics, religion, and +literature, being made plain to my comprehension by the ingenious Mr. +Smooth-it-away, inspired me with a vast admiration of Vanity Fair. +</p> + +<p> +It would fill a volume, in an age of pamphlets, were I to record all my +observations in this great capital of human business and pleasure. There was an +unlimited range of society—the powerful, the wise, the witty, and the +famous in every walk of life; princes, presidents, poets, generals, artists, +actors, and philanthropists,—all making their own market at the fair, and +deeming no price too exorbitant for such commodities as hit their fancy. It was +well worth one’s while, even if he had no idea of buying or selling, to loiter +through the bazaars and observe the various sorts of traffic that were going +forward. +</p> + +<p> +Some of the purchasers, I thought, made very foolish bargains. For instance, a +young man having inherited a splendid fortune, laid out a considerable portion +of it in the purchase of diseases, and finally spent all the rest for a heavy +lot of repentance and a suit of rags. A very pretty girl bartered a heart as +clear as crystal, and which seemed her most valuable possession, for another +jewel of the same kind, but so worn and defaced as to be utterly worthless. In +one shop there were a great many crowns of laurel and myrtle, which soldiers, +authors, statesmen, and various other people pressed eagerly to buy; some +purchased these paltry wreaths with their lives, others by a toilsome servitude +of years, and many sacrificed whatever was most valuable, yet finally slunk +away without the crown. There was a sort of stock or scrip, called Conscience, +which seemed to be in great demand, and would purchase almost anything. Indeed, +few rich commodities were to be obtained without paying a heavy sum in this +particular stock, and a man’s business was seldom very lucrative unless he knew +precisely when and how to throw his hoard of conscience into the market. Yet as +this stock was the only thing of permanent value, whoever parted with it was +sure to find himself a loser in the long run. Several of the speculations were +of a questionable character. Occasionally a member of Congress recruited his +pocket by the sale of his constituents; and I was assured that public officers +have often sold their country at very moderate prices. Thousands sold their +happiness for a whim. Gilded chains were in great demand, and purchased with +almost any sacrifice. In truth, those who desired, according to the old adage, +to sell anything valuable for a song, might find customers all over the Fair; +and there were innumerable messes of pottage, piping hot, for such as chose to +buy them with their birthrights. A few articles, however, could not be found +genuine at Vanity Fair. If a customer wished to renew his stock of youth the +dealers offered him a set of false teeth and an auburn wig; if he demanded +peace of mind, they recommended opium or a brandy bottle. +</p> + +<p> +Tracts of land and golden mansions, situate in the Celestial City, were often +exchanged, at very disadvantageous rates, for a few years’ lease of small, +dismal, inconvenient tenements in Vanity Fair. Prince Beelzebub himself took +great interest in this sort of traffic, and sometimes condescended to meddle +with smaller matters. I once had the pleasure to see him bargaining with a +miser for his soul, which, after much ingenious skirmishing on both sides, his +highness succeeded in obtaining at about the value of sixpence. The prince +remarked with a smile, that he was a loser by the transaction. +</p> + +<p> +Day after day, as I walked the streets of Vanity, my manners and deportment +became more and more like those of the inhabitants. The place began to seem +like home; the idea of pursuing my travels to the Celestial City was almost +obliterated from my mind. I was reminded of it, however, by the sight of the +same pair of simple pilgrims at whom we had laughed so heartily when Apollyon +puffed smoke and steam into their faces at the commencement of our journey. +There they stood amidst the densest bustle of Vanity; the dealers offering them +their purple and fine linen and jewels, the men of wit and humor gibing at +them, a pair of buxom ladies ogling them askance, while the benevolent Mr. +Smooth-it-away whispered some of his wisdom at their elbows, and pointed to a +newly-erected temple; but there were these worthy simpletons, making the scene +look wild and monstrous, merely by their sturdy repudiation of all part in its +business or pleasures. +</p> + +<p> +One of them—his name was Stick-to-the-right—perceived in my face, I +suppose, a species of sympathy and almost admiration, which, to my own great +surprise, I could not help feeling for this pragmatic couple. It prompted him +to address me. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” inquired he, with a sad, yet mild and kindly voice, “do you call +yourself a pilgrim?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” I replied, “my right to that appellation is indubitable. I am merely a +sojourner here in Vanity Fair, being bound to the Celestial City by the new +railroad.” +</p> + +<p> +“Alas, friend,” rejoined Mr. Stick-to-the-truth, “I do assure you, and beseech +you to receive the truth of my words, that that whole concern is a bubble. You +may travel on it all your lifetime, were you to live thousands of years, and +yet never get beyond the limits of Vanity Fair. Yea, though you should deem +yourself entering the gates of the blessed city, it will be nothing but a +miserable delusion.” +</p> + +<p> +“The Lord of the Celestial City,” began the other pilgrim, whose name was Mr. +Foot-it-to-heaven, “has refused, and will ever refuse, to grant an act of +incorporation for this railroad; and unless that be obtained, no passenger can +ever hope to enter his dominions. Wherefore every man who buys a ticket must +lay his account with losing the purchase money, which is the value of his own +soul.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poh, nonsense!” said Mr. Smooth-it-away, taking my arm and leading me off, +“these fellows ought to be indicted for a libel. If the law stood as it once +did in Vanity Fair we should see them grinning through the iron bars of the +prison window.” +</p> + +<p> +This incident made a considerable impression on my mind, and contributed with +other circumstances to indispose me to a permanent residence in the city of +Vanity; although, of course, I was not simple enough to give up my original +plan of gliding along easily and commodiously by railroad. Still, I grew +anxious to be gone. There was one strange thing that troubled me. Amid the +occupations or amusements of the Fair, nothing was more common than for a +person—whether at feast, theatre, or church, or trafficking for wealth +and honors, or whatever he might be doing, to vanish like a soap bubble, and be +never more seen of his fellows; and so accustomed were the latter to such +little accidents that they went on with their business as quietly as if nothing +had happened. But it was otherwise with me. +</p> + +<p> +Finally, after a pretty long residence at the Fair, I resumed my journey +towards the Celestial City, still with Mr. Smooth-it-away at my side. At a +short distance beyond the suburbs of Vanity we passed the ancient silver mine, +of which Demas was the first discoverer, and which is now wrought to great +advantage, supplying nearly all the coined currency of the world. A little +further onward was the spot where Lot’s wife had stood forever under the +semblance of a pillar of salt. Curious travellers have long since carried it +away piecemeal. Had all regrets been punished as rigorously as this poor dame’s +were, my yearning for the relinquished delights of Vanity Fair might have +produced a similar change in my own corporeal substance, and left me a warning +to future pilgrims. +</p> + +<p> +The next remarkable object was a large edifice, constructed of moss-grown +stone, but in a modern and airy style of architecture. The engine came to a +pause in its vicinity, with the usual tremendous shriek. +</p> + +<p> +“This was formerly the castle of the redoubted giant Despair,” observed Mr. +Smooth-it-away; “but since his death Mr. Flimsy-faith has repaired it, and +keeps an excellent house of entertainment here. It is one of our +stopping-places.” +</p> + +<p> +“It seems but slightly put together,” remarked I, looking at the frail yet +ponderous walls. “I do not envy Mr. Flimsy-faith his habitation. Some day it +will thunder down upon the heads of the occupants.” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall escape at all events,” said Mr. Smooth-it-away, “for Apollyon is +putting on the steam again.” +</p> + +<p> +The road now plunged into a gorge of the Delectable Mountains, and traversed +the field where in former ages the blind men wandered and stumbled among the +tombs. One of these ancient tombstones had been thrust across the track by some +malicious person, and gave the train of cars a terrible jolt. Far up the rugged +side of a mountain I perceived a rusty iron door, half overgrown with bushes +and creeping plants, but with smoke issuing from its crevices. +</p> + +<p> +“Is that,” inquired I, “the very door in the hill-side which the shepherds +assured Christian was a by-way to hell?” +</p> + +<p> +“That was a joke on the part of the shepherds,” said Mr. Smooth-itaway, with a +smile. “It is neither more nor less than the door of a cavern which they use as +a smoke-house for the preparation of mutton hams.” +</p> + +<p> +My recollections of the journey are now, for a little space, dim and confused, +inasmuch as a singular drowsiness here overcame me, owing to the fact that we +were passing over the enchanted ground, the air of which encourages a +disposition to sleep. I awoke, however, as soon as we crossed the borders of +the pleasant land of Beulah. All the passengers were rubbing their eyes, +comparing watches, and congratulating one another on the prospect of arriving +so seasonably at the journey’s end. The sweet breezes of this happy clime came +refreshingly to our nostrils; we beheld the glimmering gush of silver +fountains, overhung by trees of beautiful foliage and delicious fruit, which +were propagated by grafts from the celestial gardens. Once, as we dashed onward +like a hurricane, there was a flutter of wings and the bright appearance of an +angel in the air, speeding forth on some heavenly mission. The engine now +announced the close vicinity of the final station-house by one last and +horrible scream, in which there seemed to be distinguishable every kind of +wailing and woe, and bitter fierceness of wrath, all mixed up with the wild +laughter of a devil or a madman. Throughout our journey, at every +stopping-place, Apollyon had exercised his ingenuity in screwing the most +abominable sounds out of the whistle of the steam-engine; but in this closing +effort he outdid himself and created an infernal uproar, which, besides +disturbing the peaceful inhabitants of Beulah, must have sent its discord even +through the celestial gates. +</p> + +<p> +While the horrid clamor was still ringing in our ears we heard an exulting +strain, as if a thousand instruments of music, with height and depth and +sweetness in their tones, at once tender and triumphant, were struck in unison, +to greet the approach of some illustrious hero, who had fought the good fight +and won a glorious victory, and was come to lay aside his battered arms +forever. Looking to ascertain what might be the occasion of this glad harmony, +I perceived, on alighting from the cars, that a multitude of shining ones had +assembled on the other side of the river, to welcome two poor pilgrims, who +were just emerging from its depths. They were the same whom Apollyon and +ourselves had persecuted with taunts, and gibes, and scalding steam, at the +commencement of our journey—the same whose unworldly aspect and +impressive words had stirred my conscience amid the wild revellers of Vanity +Fair. +</p> + +<p> +“How amazingly well those men have got on,” cried I to Mr. Smoothit—away. +“I wish we were secure of as good a reception.” +</p> + +<p> +“Never fear, never fear!” answered my friend. “Come, make haste; the ferry boat +will be off directly, and in three minutes you will be on the other side of the +river. No doubt you will find coaches to carry you up to the city gates.” +</p> + +<p> +A steam ferry boat, the last improvement on this important route, lay at the +river side, puffing, snorting, and emitting all those other disagreeable +utterances which betoken the departure to be immediate. I hurried on board with +the rest of the passengers, most of whom were in great perturbation: some +bawling out for their baggage; some tearing their hair and exclaiming that the +boat would explode or sink; some already pale with the heaving of the stream; +some gazing affrighted at the ugly aspect of the steersman; and some still +dizzy with the slumberous influences of the Enchanted Ground. Looking back to +the shore, I was amazed to discern Mr. Smooth-it-away waving his hand in token +of farewell. +</p> + +<p> +“Don’t you go over to the Celestial City?” exclaimed I. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, no!” answered he with a queer smile, and that same disagreeable contortion +of visage which I had remarked in the inhabitants of the Dark Valley. “Oh, no! +I have come thus far only for the sake of your pleasant company. Good-by! We +shall meet again.” +</p> + +<p> +And then did my excellent friend Mr. Smooth-it-away laugh outright, in the +midst of which cachinnation a smoke-wreath issued from his mouth and nostrils, +while a twinkle of lurid flame darted out of either eye, proving indubitably +that his heart was all of a red blaze. The impudent fiend! To deny the +existence of Tophet, when he felt its fiery tortures raging within his breast. +I rushed to the side of the boat, intending to fling myself on shore; but the +wheels, as they began their revolutions, threw a dash of spray over me so +cold—so deadly cold, with the chill that will never leave those waters +until Death be drowned in his own river—that with a shiver and a +heartquake I awoke. Thank Heaven it was a Dream! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a> +THE PROCESSION OF LIFE</h2> + +<p> +Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. All of us have +our places, and are to move onward under the direction of the Chief Marshal. +The grand difficulty results from the invariably mistaken principles on which +the deputy marshals seek to arrange this immense concourse of people, so much +more numerous than those that train their interminable length through streets +and highways in times of political excitement. Their scheme is ancient, far +beyond the memory of man or even the record of history, and has hitherto been +very little modified by the innate sense of something wrong, and the dim +perception of better methods, that have disquieted all the ages through which +the procession has taken its march. Its members are classified by the merest +external circumstances, and thus are more certain to be thrown out of their +true positions than if no principle of arrangement were attempted. In one part +of the procession we see men of landed estate or moneyed capital gravely +keeping each other company, for the preposterous reason that they chance to +have a similar standing in the tax-gatherer’s book. Trades and professions +march together with scarcely a more real bond of union. In this manner, it +cannot be denied, people are disentangled from the mass and separated into +various classes according to certain apparent relations; all have some +artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the first, learn to +consider as a genuine characteristic. Fixing our attention on such outside +shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of those realities by which +nature, fortune, fate, or Providence has constituted for every man a +brotherhood, wherein it is one great office of human wisdom to classify him. +When the mind has once accustomed itself to a proper arrangement of the +Procession of Life, or a true classification of society, even though merely +speculative, there is thenceforth a satisfaction which pretty well suffices for +itself without the aid of any actual reformation in the order of march. +</p> + +<p> +For instance, assuming to myself the power of marshalling the aforesaid +procession, I direct a trumpeter to send forth a blast loud enough to be heard +from hence to China; and a herald, with world-pervading voice, to make +proclamation for a certain class of mortals to take their places. What shall be +their principle of union? After all, an external one, in comparison with many +that might be found, yet far more real than those which the world has selected +for a similar purpose. Let all who are afflicted with like physical diseases +form themselves into ranks. +</p> + +<p> +Our first attempt at classification is not very successful. It may gratify the +pride of aristocracy to reflect that disease, more than any other circumstance +of human life, pays due observance to the distinctions which rank and wealth, +and poverty and lowliness, have established among mankind. Some maladies are +rich and precious, and only to be acquired by the right of inheritance or +purchased with gold. Of this kind is the gout, which serves as a bond of +brotherhood to the purple-visaged gentry, who obey the herald’s voice, and +painfully hobble from all civilized regions of the globe to take their post in +the grand procession. In mercy to their toes, let us hope that the march may +not be long. The Dyspeptics, too, are people of good standing in the world. For +them the earliest salmon is caught in our eastern rivers, and the shy woodcock +stains the dry leaves with his blood in his remotest haunts, and the turtle +comes from the far Pacific Islands to be gobbled up in soup. They can afford to +flavor all their dishes with indolence, which, in spite of the general opinion, +is a sauce more exquisitely piquant than appetite won by exercise. Apoplexy is +another highly respectable disease. We will rank together all who have the +symptom of dizziness in the brain, and as fast as any drop by the way supply +their places with new members of the board of aldermen. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, here come whole tribes of people whose physical lives are +but a deteriorated variety of life, and themselves a meaner species of mankind; +so sad an effect has been wrought by the tainted breath of cities, scanty and +unwholesome food, destructive modes of labor, and the lack of those moral +supports that might partially have counteracted such bad influences. Behold +here a train of house painters, all afflicted with a peculiar sort of colic. +Next in place we will marshal those workmen in cutlery, who have breathed a +fatal disorder into their lungs with the impalpable dust of steel. Tailors and +shoemakers, being sedentary men, will chiefly congregate into one part of the +procession and march under similar banners of disease; but among them we may +observe here and there a sickly student, who has left his health between the +leaves of classic volumes; and clerks, likewise, who have caught their deaths +on high official stools; and men of genius too, who have written sheet after +sheet with pens dipped in their heart’s blood. These are a wretched quaking, +short-breathed set. But what is this cloud of pale-cheeked, slender girls, who +disturb the ear with the multiplicity of their short, dry coughs? They are +seamstresses, who have plied the daily and nightly needle in the service of +master tailors and close-fisted contractors, until now it is almost time for +each to hem the borders of her own shroud. Consumption points their place in +the procession. With their sad sisterhood are intermingled many youthful +maidens who have sickened in aristocratic mansions, and for whose aid science +has unavailingly searched its volumes, and whom breathless love has watched. In +our ranks the rich maiden and the poor seamstress may walk arm in arm. We might +find innumerable other instances, where the bond of mutual disease—not to +speak of nation-sweeping pestilence—embraces high and low, and makes the +king a brother of the clown. But it is not hard to own that disease is the +natural aristocrat. Let him keep his state, and have his established orders of +rank, and wear his royal mantle of the color of a fever flush and let the noble +and wealthy boast their own physical infirmities, and display their symptoms as +the badges of high station. All things considered, these are as proper subjects +of human pride as any relations of human rank that men can fix upon. +</p> + +<p> +Sound again, thou deep-breathed trumpeter! and herald, with thy voice of might, +shout forth another summons that shall reach the old baronial castles of +Europe, and the rudest cabin of our western wilderness! What class is next to +take its place in the procession of mortal life? Let it be those whom the gifts +of intellect have united in a noble brotherhood. +</p> + +<p> +Ay, this is a reality, before which the conventional distinctions of society +melt away like a vapor when we would grasp it with the hand. Were Byron now +alive, and Burns, the first would come from his ancestral abbey, flinging +aside, although unwillingly, the inherited honors of a thousand years, to take +the arm of the mighty peasant who grew immortal while he stooped behind his +plough. These are gone; but the hall, the farmer’s fireside, the hut, perhaps +the palace, the counting-room, the workshop, the village, the city, life’s high +places and low ones, may all produce their poets, whom a common temperament +pervades like an electric sympathy. Peer or ploughman, we will muster them pair +by pair and shoulder to shoulder. Even society, in its most artificial state, +consents to this arrangement. These factory girls from Lowell shall mate +themselves with the pride of drawing-rooms and literary circles, the bluebells +in fashion’s nosegay, the Sapphos, and Montagues, and Nortons of the age. Other +modes of intellect bring together as strange companies. Silk-gowned professor +of languages, give your arm to this sturdy blacksmith, and deem yourself +honored by the conjunction, though you behold him grimy from the anvil. All +varieties of human speech are like his mother tongue to this rare man. +Indiscriminately let those take their places, of whatever rank they come, who +possess the kingly gifts to lead armies or to sway a people—Nature’s +generals, her lawgivers, her kings, and with them also the deep philosophers +who think the thought in one generation that is to revolutionize society in the +next. With the hereditary legislator in whom eloquence is a far-descended +attainment—a rich echo repeated by powerful voices from Cicero +downward—we will match some wondrous backwoodsman, who has caught a wild +power of language from the breeze among his native forest boughs. But we may +safely leave these brethren and sisterhood to settle their own congenialities. +Our ordinary distinctions become so trifling, so impalpable, so ridiculously +visionary, in comparison with a classification founded on truth, that all talk +about the matter is immediately a common place. +</p> + +<p> +Yet the longer I reflect the less am I satisfied with the idea of forming a +separate class of mankind on the basis of high intellectual power. At best it +is but a higher development of innate gifts common to all. Perhaps, moreover, +he whose genius appears deepest and truest excels his fellows in nothing save +the knack of expression; he throws out occasionally a lucky hint at truths of +which every human soul is profoundly, though unutterably, conscious. Therefore, +though we suffer the brotherhood of intellect to march onward together, it may +be doubted whether their peculiar relation will not begin to vanish as soon as +the procession shall have passed beyond the circle of this present world. But +we do not classify for eternity. +</p> + +<p> +And next, let the trumpet pour forth a funereal wail, and the herald’s voice +give breath in one vast cry to all the groans and grievous utterances that are +audible throughout the earth. We appeal now to the sacred bond of sorrow, and +summon the great multitude who labor under similar afflictions to take their +places in the march. +</p> + +<p> +How many a heart that would have been insensible to any other call has +responded to the doleful accents of that voice! It has gone far and wide, and +high and low, and left scarcely a mortal roof unvisited. Indeed, the principle +is only too universal for our purpose, and, unless we limit it, will quite +break up our classification of mankind, and convert the whole procession into a +funeral train. We will therefore be at some pains to discriminate. Here comes a +lonely rich man: he has built a noble fabric for his dwelling-house, with a +front of stately architecture and marble floors and doors of precious woods; +the whole structure is as beautiful as a dream and as substantial as the native +rock. But the visionary shapes of a long posterity, for whose home this mansion +was intended, have faded into nothingness since the death of the founder’s only +son. The rich man gives a glance at his sable garb in one of the splendid +mirrors of his drawing-room, and descending a flight of lofty steps +instinctively offers his arm to yonder poverty stricken widow in the rusty +black bonnet, and with a check apron over her patched gown. The sailor boy, who +was her sole earthly stay, was washed overboard in a late tempest. This couple +from the palace and the almshouse are but the types of thousands more who +represent the dark tragedy of life and seldom quarrel for the upper parts. +Grief is such a leveller, with its own dignity and its own humility, that the +noble and the peasant, the beggar and the monarch, will waive their pretensions +to external rank without the officiousness of interference on our part. If +pride—the influence of the world’s false distinctions—remain in the +heart, then sorrow lacks the earnestness which makes it holy and reverend. It +loses its reality and becomes a miserable shadow. On this ground we have an +opportunity to assign over multitudes who would willingly claim places here to +other parts of the procession. If the mourner have anything dearer than his +grief he must seek his true position elsewhere. There are so many unsubstantial +sorrows which the necessity of our mortal state begets on idleness, that an +observer, casting aside sentiment, is sometimes led to question whether there +be any real woe, except absolute physical suffering and the loss of closest +friends. A crowd who exhibit what they deem to be broken hearts—and among +them many lovelorn maids and bachelors, and men of disappointed ambition in +arts or politics, and the poor who were once rich, or who have sought to be +rich in vain—the great majority of these may ask admittance into some +other fraternity. There is no room here. Perhaps we may institute a separate +class where such unfortunates will naturally fall into the procession. +Meanwhile let them stand aside and patiently await their time. +</p> + +<p> +If our trumpeter can borrow a note from the doomsday trumpet blast, let him +sound it now. The dread alarum should make the earth quake to its centre, for +the herald is about to address mankind with a summons to which even the purest +mortal may be sensible of some faint responding echo in his breast. In many +bosoms it will awaken a still small voice more terrible than its own +reverberating uproar. +</p> + +<p> +The hideous appeal has swept around the globe. Come, all ye guilty ones, and +rank yourselves in accordance with the brotherhood of crime. This, indeed, is +an awful summons. I almost tremble to look at the strange partnerships that +begin to be formed, reluctantly, but by the invincible necessity of like to +like in this part of the procession. A forger from the state prison seizes the +arm of a distinguished financier. How indignantly does the latter plead his +fair reputation upon ’Change, and insist that his operations, by their +magnificence of scope, were removed into quite another sphere of morality than +those of his pitiful companion! But let him cut the connection if he can. Here +comes a murderer with his clanking chains, and pairs himself—horrible to +tell—with as pure and upright a man, in all observable respects, as ever +partook of the consecrated bread and wine. He is one of those, perchance the +most hopeless of all sinners, who practise such an exemplary system of outward +duties, that even a deadly crime may be hidden from their own sight and +remembrance, under this unreal frostwork. Yet he now finds his place. Why do +that pair of flaunting girls, with the pert, affected laugh and the sly leer at +the by-standers, intrude themselves into the same rank with yonder decorous +matron, and that somewhat prudish maiden? Surely these poor creatures, born to +vice as their sole and natural inheritance, can be no fit associates for women +who have been guarded round about by all the proprieties of domestic life, and +who could not err unless they first created the opportunity. Oh no; it must be +merely the impertinence of those unblushing hussies; and we can only wonder how +such respectable ladies should have responded to a summons that was not meant +for them. +</p> + +<p> +We shall make short work of this miserable class, each member of which is +entitled to grasp any other member’s hand, by that vile degradation wherein +guilty error has buried all alike. The foul fiend to whom it properly belongs +must relieve us of our loathsome task. Let the bond servants of sin pass on. +But neither man nor woman, in whom good predominates, will smile or sneer, nor +bid the Rogues’ March be played, in derision of their array. Feeling within +their breasts a shuddering sympathy, which at least gives token of the sin that +might have been, they will thank God for any place in the grand procession of +human existence, save among those most wretched ones. Many, however, will be +astonished at the fatal impulse that drags them thitherward. Nothing is more +remarkable than the various deceptions by which guilt conceals itself from the +perpetrator’s conscience, and oftenest, perhaps, by the splendor of its +garments. Statesmen, rulers, generals, and all men who act over an extensive +sphere, are most liable to be deluded in this way; they commit wrong, +devastation, and murder, on so grand a scale, that it impresses them as +speculative rather than actual; but in our procession we find them linked in +detestable conjunction with the meanest criminals whose deeds have the +vulgarity of petty details. Here the effect of circumstance and accident is +done away, and a man finds his rank according to the spirit of his crime, in +whatever shape it may have been developed. +</p> + +<p> +We have called the Evil; now let us call the Good. The trumpet’s brazen throat +should pour heavenly music over the earth, and the herald’s voice go forth with +the sweetness of an angel’s accents, as if to summon each upright man to his +reward. But how is this? Does none answer to the call? Not one: for the just, +the pure, the true, and all who might most worthily obey it, shrink sadly back, +as most conscious of error and imperfection. Then let the summons be to those +whose pervading principle is Love. This classification will embrace all the +truly good, and none in whose souls there exists not something that may expand +itself into a heaven, both of well-doing and felicity. +</p> + +<p> +The first that presents himself is a man of wealth, who has bequeathed the bulk +of his property to a hospital; his ghost, methinks, would have a better right +here than his living body. But here they come, the genuine benefactors of their +race. Some have wandered about the earth with pictures of bliss in their +imagination, and with hearts that shrank sensitively from the idea of pain and +woe, yet have studied all varieties of misery that human nature can endure. The +prison, the insane asylum, the squalid chamber of the almshouse, the +manufactory where the demon of machinery annihilates the human soul, and the +cotton field where God’s image becomes a beast of burden; to these and every +other scene where man wrongs or neglects his brother, the apostles of humanity +have penetrated. This missionary, black with India’s burning sunshine, shall +give his arm to a pale-faced brother who has made himself familiar with the +infected alleys and loathsome haunts of vice in one of our own cities. The +generous founder of a college shall be the partner of a maiden lady of narrow +substance, one of whose good deeds it has been to gather a little school of +orphan children. If the mighty merchant whose benefactions are reckoned by +thousands of dollars deem himself worthy, let him join the procession with her +whose love has proved itself by watchings at the sick-bed, and all those lowly +offices which bring her into actual contact with disease and wretchedness. And +with those whose impulses have guided them to benevolent actions, we will rank +others to whom Providence has assigned a different tendency and different +powers. Men who have spent their lives in generous and holy contemplation for +the human race; those who, by a certain heavenliness of spirit, have purified +the atmosphere around them, and thus supplied a medium in which good and high +things may be projected and performed—give to these a lofty place among +the benefactors of mankind, although no deed, such as the world calls deeds, +may be recorded of them. There are some individuals of whom we cannot conceive +it proper that they should apply their hands to any earthly instrument, or work +out any definite act; and others, perhaps not less high, to whom it is an +essential attribute to labor in body as well as spirit for the welfare of their +brethren. Thus, if we find a spiritual sage whose unseen, inestimable influence +has exalted the moral standard of mankind, we will choose for his companion +some poor laborer who has wrought for love in the potato field of a neighbor +poorer than himself. +</p> + +<p> +We have summoned this various multitude—and, to the credit of our nature, +it is a large one—on the principle of Love. It is singular, nevertheless, +to remark the shyness that exists among many members of the present class, all +of whom we might expect to recognize one another by the freemasonry of mutual +goodness, and to embrace like brethren, giving God thanks for such various +specimens of human excellence. But it is far otherwise. Each sect surrounds its +own righteousness with a hedge of thorns. It is difficult for the good +Christian to acknowledge the good Pagan; almost impossible for the good +Orthodox to grasp the hand of the good Unitarian, leaving to their Creator to +settle the matters in dispute, and giving their mutual efforts strongly and +trustingly to whatever right thing is too evident to be mistaken. Then again, +though the heart be large, yet the mind is often of such moderate dimensions as +to be exclusively filled up with one idea. When a good man has long devoted +himself to a particular kind of beneficence—to one species of +reform—he is apt to become narrowed into the limits of the path wherein +he treads, and to fancy that there is no other good to be done on earth but +that self-same good to which he has put his hand, and in the very mode that +best suits his own conceptions. All else is worthless. His scheme must be +wrought out by the united strength of the whole world’s stock of love, or the +world is no longer worthy of a position in the universe. Moreover, powerful +Truth, being the rich grape juice expressed from the vineyard of the ages, has +an intoxicating quality, when imbibed by any save a powerful intellect, and +often, as it were, impels the quaffer to quarrel in his cups. For such reasons, +strange to say, it is harder to contrive a friendly arrangement of these +brethren of love and righteousness, in the procession of life, than to unite +even the wicked, who, indeed, are chained together by their crimes. The fact is +too preposterous for tears, too lugubrious for laughter. +</p> + +<p> +But, let good men push and elbow one another as they may during their earthly +march, all will be peace among them when the honorable array of their +procession shall tread on heavenly ground. There they will doubtless find that +they have been working each for the other’s cause, and that every +well-delivered stroke, which, with an honest purpose any mortal struck, even +for a narrow object, was indeed stricken for the universal cause of good. Their +own view may be bounded by country, creed, profession, the diversities of +individual character—but above them all is the breadth of Providence. How +many who have deemed themselves antagonists will smile hereafter, when they +look back upon the world’s wide harvest field, and perceive that, in +unconscious brotherhood, they were helping to bind the selfsame sheaf! +</p> + +<p> +But, come! The sun is hastening westward, while the march of human life, that +never paused before, is delayed by our attempt to rearrange its order. It is +desirable to find some comprehensive principle, that shall render our task +easier by bringing thousands into the ranks where hitherto we have brought one. +Therefore let the trumpet, if possible, split its brazen throat with a louder +note than ever, and the herald summon all mortals, who, from whatever cause, +have lost, or never found, their proper places in the wold. +</p> + +<p> +Obedient to this call, a great multitude come together, most of them with a +listless gait, betokening weariness of soul, yet with a gleam of satisfaction +in their faces, at a prospect of at length reaching those positions which, +hitherto, they have vainly sought. But here will be another disappointment; for +we can attempt no more than merely to associate in one fraternity all who are +afflicted with the same vague trouble. Some great mistake in life is the chief +condition of admittance into this class. Here are members of the learned +professions, whom Providence endowed with special gifts for the plough, the +forge, and the wheelbarrow, or for the routine of unintellectual business. We +will assign to them, as partners in the march, those lowly laborers and +handicraftsmen, who have pined, as with a dying thirst, after the unattainable +fountains of knowledge. The latter have lost less than their companions; yet +more, because they deem it infinite. Perchance the two species of unfortunates +may comfort one another. Here are Quakers with the instinct of battle in them; +and men of war who should have worn the broad brim. Authors shall be ranked +here whom some freak of Nature, making game of her poor children, had imbued +with the confidence of genius and strong desire of fame, but has favored with +no corresponding power; and others, whose lofty gifts were unaccompanied with +the faculty of expression, or any of that earthly machinery by which ethereal +endowments must be manifested to mankind. All these, therefore, are melancholy +laughing-stocks. Next, here are honest and well intentioned persons, who by a +want of tact—by inaccurate perceptions—by a distorting +imagination—have been kept continually at cross purposes with the world +and bewildered upon the path of life. Let us see if they can confine themselves +within the line of our procession. In this class, likewise, we must assign +places to those who have encountered that worst of ill success, a higher +fortune than their abilities could vindicate; writers, actors, painters, the +pets of a day, but whose laurels wither unrenewed amid their hoary hair; +politicians, whom some malicious contingency of affairs has thrust into +conspicuous station, where, while the world stands gazing at them, the dreary +consciousness of imbecility makes them curse their birth hour. To such men, we +give for a companion him whose rare talents, which perhaps require a Revolution +for their exercise, are buried in the tomb of sluggish circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +Not far from these, we must find room for one whose success has been of the +wrong kind; the man who should have lingered in the cloisters of a university, +digging new treasures out of the Herculaneum of antique lore, diffusing depth +and accuracy of literature throughout his country, and thus making for himself +a great and quiet fame. But the outward tendencies around him have proved too +powerful for his inward nature, and have drawn him into the arena of political +tumult, there to contend at disadvantage, whether front to front, or side by +side, with the brawny giants of actual life. He becomes, it may be, a name for +brawling parties to bandy to and fro, a legislator of the Union; a governor of +his native state; an ambassador to the courts of kings or queens; and the world +may deem him a man of happy stars. But not so the wise; and not so himself, +when he looks through his experience, and sighs to miss that fitness, the one +invaluable touch which makes all things true and real. So much achieved, yet +how abortive is his life! Whom shall we choose for his companion? Some weak +framed blacksmith, perhaps, whose delicacy of muscle might have suited a +tailor’s shopboard better than the anvil. +</p> + +<p> +Shall we bid the trumpet sound again? It is hardly worth the while. There +remain a few idle men of fortune, tavern and grog-shop loungers, lazzaroni, old +bachelors, decaying maidens, and people of crooked intellect or temper, all of +whom may find their like, or some tolerable approach to it, in the plentiful +diversity of our latter class. There too, as his ultimate destiny, must we rank +the dreamer, who, all his life long, has cherished the idea that he was +peculiarly apt for something, but never could determine what it was; and there +the most unfortunate of men, whose purpose it has been to enjoy life’s +pleasures, but to avoid a manful struggle with its toil and sorrow. The +remainder, if any, may connect themselves with whatever rank of the procession +they shall find best adapted to their tastes and consciences. The worst +possible fate would be to remain behind, shivering in the solitude of time, +while all the world is on the move towards eternity. Our attempt to classify +society is now complete. The result may be anything but perfect; yet +better—to give it the very lowest praise—than the antique rule of +the herald’s office, or the modern one of the tax-gatherer, whereby the +accidents and superficial attributes with which the real nature of individuals +has least to do, are acted upon as the deepest characteristics of mankind. Our +task is done! Now let the grand procession move! +</p> + +<p> +Yet pause a while! We had forgotten the Chief Marshal. +</p> + +<p> +Hark! That world-wide swell of solemn music, with the clang of a mighty bell +breaking forth through its regulated uproar, announces his approach. He comes; +a severe, sedate, immovable, dark rider, waving his truncheon of universal +sway, as he passes along the lengthened line, on the pale horse of the +Revelation. It is Death! Who else could assume the guidance of a procession +that comprehends all humanity? And if some, among these many millions, should +deem themselves classed amiss, yet let them take to their hearts the +comfortable truth that Death levels us all into one great brotherhood, and that +another state of being will surely rectify the wrong of this. Then breathe thy +wail upon the earth’s wailing wind, thou band of melancholy music, made up of +every sigh that the human heart, unsatisfied, has uttered! There is yet triumph +in thy tones. And now we move! Beggars in their rags, and Kings trailing the +regal purple in the dust; the Warrior’s gleaming helmet; the Priest in his +sable robe; the hoary Grandsire, who has run life’s circle and come back to +childhood; the ruddy School-boy with his golden curls, frisking along the +march; the Artisan’s stuff jacket; the Noble’s star-decorated coat;—the +whole presenting a motley spectacle, yet with a dusky grandeur brooding over +it. Onward, onward, into that dimness where the lights of Time which have +blazed along the procession, are flickering in their sockets! And whither! We +know not; and Death, hitherto our leader, deserts us by the wayside, as the +tramp of our innumerable footsteps echoes beyond his sphere. He knows not, more +than we, our destined goal. But God, who made us, knows, and will not leave us +on our toilsome and doubtful march, either to wander in infinite uncertainty, +or perish by the way! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a> +FEATHERTOP: A MORALIZED LEGEND</h2> + +<p> +“Dickon,” cried Mother Rigby, “a coal for my pipe!” +</p> + +<p> +The pipe was in the old dame’s mouth when she said these words. She had thrust +it there after filling it with tobacco, but without stooping to light it at the +hearth, where indeed there was no appearance of a fire having been kindled that +morning. Forthwith, however, as soon as the order was given, there was an +intense red glow out of the bowl of the pipe, and a whiff of smoke came from +Mother Rigby’s lips. Whence the coal came, and how brought thither by an +invisible hand, I have never been able to discover. +</p> + +<p> +“Good!” quoth Mother Rigby, with a nod of her head. “Thank ye, Dickon! And now +for making this scarecrow. Be within call, Dickon, in case I need you again.” +</p> + +<p> +The good woman had risen thus early (for as yet it was scarcely sunrise) in +order to set about making a scarecrow, which she intended to put in the middle +of her corn-patch. It was now the latter week of May, and the crows and +blackbirds had already discovered the little, green, rolledup leaf of the +Indian corn just peeping out of the soil. She was determined, therefore, to +contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as ever was seen, and to finish it +immediately, from top to toe, so that it should begin its sentinel’s duty that +very morning. Now Mother Rigby (as everybody must have heard) was one of the +most cunning and potent witches in New England, and might, with very little +trouble, have made a scarecrow ugly enough to frighten the minister himself. +But on this occasion, as she had awakened in an uncommonly pleasant humor, and +was further dulcified by her pipe tobacco, she resolved to produce something +fine, beautiful, and splendid, rather than hideous and horrible. +</p> + +<p> +“I don’t want to set up a hobgoblin in my own corn-patch, and almost at my own +doorstep,” said Mother Rigby to herself, puffing out a whiff of smoke; “I could +do it if I pleased, but I’m tired of doing marvellous things, and so I’ll keep +within the bounds of every-day business just for variety’s sake. Besides, there +is no use in scaring the little children for a mile roundabout, though ’tis +true I’m a witch.” +</p> + +<p> +It was settled, therefore, in her own mind, that the scarecrow should represent +a fine gentleman of the period, so far as the materials at hand would allow. +Perhaps it may be as well to enumerate the chief of the articles that went to +the composition of this figure. +</p> + +<p> +The most important item of all, probably, although it made so little show, was +a certain broomstick, on which Mother Rigby had taken many an airy gallop at +midnight, and which now served the scarecrow by way of a spinal column, or, as +the unlearned phrase it, a backbone. One of its arms was a disabled flail which +used to be wielded by Goodman Rigby, before his spouse worried him out of this +troublesome world; the other, if I mistake not, was composed of the pudding +stick and a broken rung of a chair, tied loosely together at the elbow. As for +its legs, the right was a hoe handle, and the left an undistinguished and +miscellaneous stick from the woodpile. Its lungs, stomach, and other affairs of +that kind were nothing better than a meal bag stuffed with straw. Thus we have +made out the skeleton and entire corporosity of the scarecrow, with the +exception of its head; and this was admirably supplied by a somewhat withered +and shrivelled pumpkin, in which Mother Rigby cut two holes for the eyes and a +slit for the mouth, leaving a bluish-colored knob in the middle to pass for a +nose. It was really quite a respectable face. +</p> + +<p> +“I’ve seen worse ones on human shoulders, at any rate,” said Mother Rigby. “And +many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin head, as well as my scarecrow.” +</p> + +<p> +But the clothes, in this case, were to be the making of the man. So the good +old woman took down from a peg an ancient plum-colored coat of London make, and +with relics of embroidery on its seams, cuffs, pocket-flaps, and button-holes, +but lamentably worn and faded, patched at the elbows, tattered at the skirts, +and threadbare all over. On the left breast was a round hole, whence either a +star of nobility had been rent away, or else the hot heart of some former +wearer had scorched it through and through. The neighbors said that this rich +garment belonged to the Black Man’s wardrobe, and that he kept it at Mother +Rigby’s cottage for the convenience of slipping it on whenever he wished to +make a grand appearance at the governor’s table. To match the coat there was a +velvet waistcoat of very ample size, and formerly embroidered with foliage that +had been as brightly golden as the maple leaves in October, but which had now +quite vanished out of the substance of the velvet. Next came a pair of scarlet +breeches, once worn by the French governor of Louisbourg, and the knees of +which had touched the lower step of the throne of Louis le Grand. The Frenchman +had given these small-clothes to an Indian powwow, who parted with them to the +old witch for a gill of strong waters, at one of their dances in the forest. +Furthermore, Mother Rigby produced a pair of silk stockings and put them on the +figure’s legs, where they showed as unsubstantial as a dream, with the wooden +reality of the two sticks making itself miserably apparent through the holes. +Lastly, she put her dead husband’s wig on the bare scalp of the pumpkin, and +surmounted the whole with a dusty three-cornered hat, in which was stuck the +longest tail feather of a rooster. +</p> + +<p> +Then the old dame stood the figure up in a corner of her cottage and chuckled +to behold its yellow semblance of a visage, with its nobby little nose thrust +into the air. It had a strangely self-satisfied aspect, and seemed to say, +“Come look at me!” +</p> + +<p> +“And you are well worth looking at, that’s a fact!” quoth Mother Rigby, in +admiration at her own handiwork. “I’ve made many a puppet since I’ve been a +witch, but methinks this is the finest of them all. ’Tis almost too good for a +scarecrow. And, by the by, I’ll just fill a fresh pipe of tobacco and then take +him out to the corn-patch.” +</p> + +<p> +While filling her pipe the old woman continued to gaze with almost motherly +affection at the figure in the corner. To say the truth, whether it were +chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, there was something wonderfully +human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with its tattered finery; and as for +the countenance, it appeared to shrivel its yellow surface into a grin—a +funny kind of expression betwixt scorn and merriment, as if it understood +itself to be a jest at mankind. The more Mother Rigby looked the better she was +pleased. +</p> + +<p> +“Dickon,” cried she sharply, “another coal for my pipe!” +</p> + +<p> +Hardly had she spoken, than, just as before, there was a red-glowing coal on +the top of the tobacco. She drew in a long whiff and puffed it forth again into +the bar of morning sunshine which struggled through the one dusty pane of her +cottage window. Mother Rigby always liked to flavor her pipe with a coal of +fire from the particular chimney corner whence this had been brought. But where +that chimney corner might be, or who brought the coal from it,—further +than that the invisible messenger seemed to respond to the name of +Dickon,—I cannot tell. +</p> + +<p> +“That puppet yonder,” thought Mother Rigby, still with her eyes fixed on the +scarecrow, “is too good a piece of work to stand all summer in a corn-patch, +frightening away the crows and blackbirds. He’s capable of better things. Why, +I’ve danced with a worse one, when partners happened to be scarce, at our witch +meetings in the forest! What if I should let him take his chance among the +other men of straw and empty fellows who go bustling about the world?” +</p> + +<p> +The old witch took three or four more whiffs of her pipe and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“He’ll meet plenty of his brethren at every street corner!” continued she. +“Well; I didn’t mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than the lighting +of my pipe, but a witch I am, and a witch I’m likely to be, and there’s no use +trying to shirk it. I’ll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for the +joke’s sake!” +</p> + +<p> +While muttering these words, Mother Rigby took the pipe from her own mouth and +thrust it into the crevice which represented the same feature in the pumpkin +visage of the scarecrow. +</p> + +<p> +“Puff, darling, puff!” said she. “Puff away, my fine fellow! your life depends +on it!” +</p> + +<p> +This was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to be addressed to a mere thing of +sticks, straw, and old clothes, with nothing better than a shrivelled pumpkin +for a head,—as we know to have been the scarecrow’s case. Nevertheless, +as we must carefully hold in remembrance, Mother Rigby was a witch of singular +power and dexterity; and, keeping this fact duly before our minds, we shall see +nothing beyond credibility in the remarkable incidents of our story. Indeed, +the great difficulty will be at once got over, if we can only bring ourselves +to believe that, as soon as the old dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of +smoke from the scarecrow’s mouth. It was the very feeblest of whiffs, to be +sure; but it was followed by another and another, each more decided than the +preceding one. +</p> + +<p> +“Puff away, my pet! puff away, my pretty one!” Mother Rigby kept repeating, +with her pleasantest smile. “It is the breath of life to ye; and that you may +take my word for.” +</p> + +<p> +Beyond all question the pipe was bewitched. There must have been a spell either +in the tobacco or in the fiercely-glowing coal that so mysteriously burned on +top of it, or in the pungently-aromatic smoke which exhaled from the kindled +weed. The figure, after a few doubtful attempts at length blew forth a volley +of smoke extending all the way from the obscure corner into the bar of +sunshine. There it eddied and melted away among the motes of dust. It seemed a +convulsive effort; for the two or three next whiffs were fainter, although the +coal still glowed and threw a gleam over the scarecrow’s visage. The old witch +clapped her skinny hands together, and smiled encouragingly upon her handiwork. +She saw that the charm worked well. The shrivelled, yellow face, which +heretofore had been no face at all, had already a thin, fantastic haze, as it +were of human likeness, shifting to and fro across it; sometimes vanishing +entirely, but growing more perceptible than ever with the next whiff from the +pipe. The whole figure, in like manner, assumed a show of life, such as we +impart to ill-defined shapes among the clouds, and half deceive ourselves with +the pastime of our own fancy. +</p> + +<p> +If we must needs pry closely into the matter, it may be doubted whether there +was any real change, after all, in the sordid, wornout worthless, and +ill-jointed substance of the scarecrow; but merely a spectral illusion, and a +cunning effect of light and shade so colored and contrived as to delude the +eyes of most men. The miracles of witchcraft seem always to have had a very +shallow subtlety; and, at least, if the above explanation do not hit the truth +of the process, I can suggest no better. +</p> + +<p> +“Well puffed, my pretty lad!” still cried old Mother Rigby. “Come, another good +stout whiff, and let it be with might and main. Puff for thy life, I tell thee! +Puff out of the very bottom of thy heart, if any heart thou hast, or any bottom +to it! Well done, again! Thou didst suck in that mouthful as if for the pure +love of it.” +</p> + +<p> +And then the witch beckoned to the scarecrow, throwing so much magnetic potency +into her gesture that it seemed as if it must inevitably be obeyed, like the +mystic call of the loadstone when it summons the iron. +</p> + +<p> +“Why lurkest thou in the corner, lazy one?” said she. “Step forth! Thou hast +the world before thee!” +</p> + +<p> +Upon my word, if the legend were not one which I heard on my grandmother’s +knee, and which had established its place among things credible before my +childish judgment could analyze its probability, I question whether I should +have the face to tell it now. +</p> + +<p> +In obedience to Mother Rigby’s word, and extending its arm as if to reach her +outstretched hand, the figure made a step forward—a kind of hitch and +jerk, however, rather than a step—then tottered and almost lost its +balance. What could the witch expect? It was nothing, after all, but a +scarecrow stuck upon two sticks. But the strong-willed old beldam scowled, and +beckoned, and flung the energy of her purpose so forcibly at this poor +combination of rotten wood, and musty straw, and ragged garments, that it was +compelled to show itself a man, in spite of the reality of things. So it +stepped into the bar of sunshine. There it stood, poor devil of a contrivance +that it was!—with only the thinnest vesture of human similitude about it, +through which was evident the stiff, rickety, incongruous, faded, tattered, +good-for-nothing patchwork of its substance, ready to sink in a heap upon the +floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness to be erect. Shall I confess the +truth? At its present point of vivification, the scarecrow reminds me of some +of the lukewarm and abortive characters, composed of heterogeneous materials, +used for the thousandth time, and never worth using, with which romance writers +(and myself, no doubt, among the rest) have so overpeopled the world of +fiction. +</p> + +<p> +But the fierce old hag began to get angry and show a glimpse of her diabolic +nature (like a snake’s head, peeping with a hiss out of her bosom), at this +pusillanimous behavior of the thing which she had taken the trouble to put +together. +</p> + +<p> +“Puff away, wretch!” cried she, wrathfully. “Puff, puff, puff, thou thing of +straw and emptiness! thou rag or two! thou meal bag! thou pumpkin head! thou +nothing! Where shall I find a name vile enough to call thee by? Puff, I say, +and suck in thy fantastic life with the smoke! else I snatch the pipe from thy +mouth and hurl thee where that red coal came from.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus threatened, the unhappy scarecrow had nothing for it but to puff away for +dear life. As need was, therefore, it applied itself lustily to the pipe, and +sent forth such abundant volleys of tobacco smoke that the small cottage +kitchen became all vaporous. The one sunbeam struggled mistily through, and +could but imperfectly define the image of the cracked and dusty window pane on +the opposite wall. Mother Rigby, meanwhile, with one brown arm akimbo and the +other stretched towards the figure, loomed grimly amid the obscurity with such +port and expression as when she was wont to heave a ponderous nightmare on her +victims and stand at the bedside to enjoy their agony. In fear and trembling +did this poor scarecrow puff. But its efforts, it must be acknowledged, served +an excellent purpose; for, with each successive whiff, the figure lost more and +more of its dizzy and perplexing tenuity and seemed to take denser substance. +Its very garments, moreover, partook of the magical change, and shone with the +gloss of novelty and glistened with the skilfully embroidered gold that had +long ago been rent away. And, half revealed among the smoke, a yellow visage +bent its lustreless eyes on Mother Rigby. +</p> + +<p> +At last the old witch clinched her fist and shook it at the figure. Not that +she was positively angry, but merely acting on the principle—perhaps +untrue, or not the only truth, though as high a one as Mother Rigby could be +expected to attain—that feeble and torpid natures, being incapable of +better inspiration, must be stirred up by fear. But here was the crisis. Should +she fail in what she now sought to effect, it was her ruthless purpose to +scatter the miserable simulacre into its original elements. +</p> + +<p> +“Thou hast a man’s aspect,” said she, sternly. “Have also the echo and mockery +of a voice! I bid thee speak!” +</p> + +<p> +The scarecrow gasped, struggled, and at length emitted a murmur, which was so +incorporated with its smoky breath that you could scarcely tell whether it were +indeed a voice or only a whiff of tobacco. Some narrators of this legend hold +the opinion that Mother Rigby’s conjurations and the fierceness of her will had +compelled a familiar spirit into the figure, and that the voice was his. +</p> + +<p> +“Mother,” mumbled the poor stifled voice, “be not so awful with me! I would +fain speak; but being without wits, what can I say?” +</p> + +<p> +“Thou canst speak, darling, canst thou?” cried Mother Rigby, relaxing her grim +countenance into a smile. “And what shalt thou say, quoth-a! Say, indeed! Art +thou of the brotherhood of the empty skull, and demandest of me what thou shalt +say? Thou shalt say a thousand things, and saying them a thousand times over, +thou shalt still have said nothing! Be not afraid, I tell thee! When thou +comest into the world (whither I purpose sending thee forthwith) thou shalt not +lack the wherewithal to talk. Talk! Why, thou shall babble like a mill-stream, +if thou wilt. Thou hast brains enough for that, I trow!” +</p> + +<p> +“At your service, mother,” responded the figure. +</p> + +<p> +“And that was well said, my pretty one,” answered Mother Rigby. “Then thou +speakest like thyself, and meant nothing. Thou shalt have a hundred such set +phrases, and five hundred to the boot of them. And now, darling, I have taken +so much pains with thee and thou art so beautiful, that, by my troth, I love +thee better than any witch’s puppet in the world; and I’ve made them of all +sorts—clay, wax, straw, sticks, night fog, morning mist, sea foam, and +chimney smoke. But thou art the very best. So give heed to what I say.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, kind mother,” said the figure, “with all my heart!” +</p> + +<p> +“With all thy heart!” cried the old witch, setting her hands to her sides and +laughing loudly. “Thou hast such a pretty way of speaking. With all thy heart! +And thou didst put thy hand to the left side of thy waistcoat as if thou really +hadst one!” +</p> + +<p> +So now, in high good humor with this fantastic contrivance of hers, Mother +Rigby told the scarecrow that it must go and play its part in the great world, +where not one man in a hundred, she affirmed, was gifted with more real +substance than itself. And, that he might hold up his head with the best of +them, she endowed him, on the spot, with an unreckonable amount of wealth. It +consisted partly of a gold mine in Eldorado, and of ten thousand shares in a +broken bubble, and of half a million acres of vineyard at the North Pole, and +of a castle in the air, and a chateau in Spain, together with all the rents and +income therefrom accruing. She further made over to him the cargo of a certain +ship, laden with salt of Cadiz, which she herself, by her necromantic arts, had +caused to founder, ten years before, in the deepest part of mid-ocean. If the +salt were not dissolved, and could be brought to market, it would fetch a +pretty penny among the fishermen. That he might not lack ready money, she gave +him a copper farthing of Birmingham manufacture, being all the coin she had +about her, and likewise a great deal of brass, which she applied to his +forehead, thus making it yellower than ever. +</p> + +<p> +“With that brass alone,” quoth Mother Rigby, “thou canst pay thy way all over +the earth. Kiss me, pretty darling! I have done my best for thee.” +</p> + +<p> +Furthermore, that the adventurer might lack no possible advantage towards a +fair start in life, this excellent old dame gave him a token by which he was to +introduce himself to a certain magistrate, member of the council, merchant, and +elder of the church (the four capacities constituting but one man), who stood +at the head of society in the neighboring metropolis. The token was neither +more nor less than a single word, which Mother Rigby whispered to the +scarecrow, and which the scarecrow was to whisper to the merchant. +</p> + +<p> +“Gouty as the old fellow is, he’ll run thy errands for thee, when once thou +hast given him that word in his ear,” said the old witch. “Mother Rigby knows +the worshipful Justice Gookin, and the worshipful Justice knows Mother Rigby!” +</p> + +<p> +Here the witch thrust her wrinkled face close to the puppet’s, chuckling +irrepressibly, and fidgeting all through her system, with delight at the idea +which she meant to communicate. +</p> + +<p> +“The worshipful Master Gookin,” whispered she, “hath a comely maiden to his +daughter. And hark ye, my pet! Thou hast a fair outside, and a pretty wit +enough of thine own. Yea, a pretty wit enough! Thou wilt think better of it +when thou hast seen more of other people’s wits. Now, with thy outside and thy +inside, thou art the very man to win a young girl’s heart. Never doubt it! I +tell thee it shall be so. Put but a bold face on the matter, sigh, smile, +flourish thy hat, thrust forth thy leg like a dancing-master, put thy right +hand to the left side of thy waistcoat, and pretty Polly Gookin is thine own!” +</p> + +<p> +All this while the new creature had been sucking in and exhaling the vapory +fragrance of his pipe, and seemed now to continue this occupation as much for +the enjoyment it afforded as because it was an essential condition of his +existence. It was wonderful to see how exceedingly like a human being it +behaved. Its eyes (for it appeared to possess a pair) were bent on Mother +Rigby, and at suitable junctures it nodded or shook its head. Neither did it +lack words proper for the occasion: “Really! Indeed! Pray tell me! Is it +possible! Upon my word! By no means! Oh! Ah! Hem!” and other such weighty +utterances as imply attention, inquiry, acquiescence, or dissent on the part of +the auditor. Even had you stood by and seen the scarecrow made, you could +scarcely have resisted the conviction that it perfectly understood the cunning +counsels which the old witch poured into its counterfeit of an ear. The more +earnestly it applied its lips to the pipe, the more distinctly was its human +likeness stamped among visible realities, the more sagacious grew its +expression, the more lifelike its gestures and movements, and the more +intelligibly audible its voice. Its garments, too, glistened so much the +brighter with an illusory magnificence. The very pipe, in which burned the +spell of all this wonderwork, ceased to appear as a smoke-blackened earthen +stump, and became a meerschaum, with painted bowl and amber mouthpiece. +</p> + +<p> +It might be apprehended, however, that as the life of the illusion seemed +identical with the vapor of the pipe, it would terminate simultaneously with +the reduction of the tobacco to ashes. But the beldam foresaw the difficulty. +</p> + +<p> +“Hold thou the pipe, my precious one,” said she, “while I fill it for thee +again.” +</p> + +<p> +It was sorrowful to behold how the fine gentleman began to fade back into a +scarecrow while Mother Rigby shook the ashes out of the pipe and proceeded to +replenish it from her tobacco-box. +</p> + +<p> +“Dickon,” cried she, in her high, sharp tone, “another coal for this pipe!” +</p> + +<p> +No sooner said than the intensely red speck of fire was glowing within the +pipe-bowl; and the scarecrow, without waiting for the witch’s bidding, applied +the tube to his lips and drew in a few short, convulsive whiffs, which soon, +however, became regular and equable. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, mine own heart’s darling,” quoth Mother Rigby, “whatever may happen to +thee, thou must stick to thy pipe. Thy life is in it; and that, at least, thou +knowest well, if thou knowest nought besides. Stick to thy pipe, I say! Smoke, +puff, blow thy cloud; and tell the people, if any question be made, that it is +for thy health, and that so the physician orders thee to do. And, sweet one, +when thou shalt find thy pipe getting low, go apart into some corner, and +(first filling thyself with smoke) cry sharply, ‘Dickon, a fresh pipe of +tobacco!’ and, ‘Dickon, another coal for my pipe!’ and have it into thy pretty +mouth as speedily as may be. Else, instead of a gallant gentleman in a +gold-laced coat, thou wilt be but a jumble of sticks and tattered clothes, and +a bag of straw, and a withered pumpkin! Now depart, my treasure, and good luck +go with thee!” +</p> + +<p> +“Never fear, mother!” said the figure, in a stout voice, and sending forth a +courageous whiff of smoke, “I will thrive, if an honest man and a gentleman +may!” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, thou wilt be the death of me!” cried the old witch, convulsed with +laughter. “That was well said. If an honest man and a gentleman may! Thou +playest thy part to perfection. Get along with thee for a smart fellow; and I +will wager on thy head, as a man of pith and substance, with a brain and what +they call a heart, and all else that a man should have, against any other thing +on two legs. I hold myself a better witch than yesterday, for thy sake. Did not +I make thee? And I defy any witch in New England to make such another! Here; +take my staff along with thee!” +</p> + +<p> +The staff, though it was but a plain oaken stick, immediately took the aspect +of a gold-headed cane. +</p> + +<p> +“That gold head has as much sense in it as thine own,” said Mother Rigby, “and +it will guide thee straight to worshipful Master Gookin’s door. Get thee gone, +my pretty pet, my darling, my precious one, my treasure; and if any ask thy +name, it is Feathertop. For thou hast a feather in thy hat, and I have thrust a +handful of feathers into the hollow of thy head, and thy wig, too, is of the +fashion they call Feathertop,—so be Feathertop thy name!” +</p> + +<p> +And, issuing from the cottage, Feathertop strode manfully towards town. Mother +Rigby stood at the threshold, well pleased to see how the sunbeams glistened on +him, as if all his magnificence were real, and how diligently and lovingly he +smoked his pipe, and how handsomely he walked, in spite of a little stiffness +of his legs. She watched him until out of sight, and threw a witch benediction +after her darling, when a turn of the road snatched him from her view. +</p> + +<p> +Betimes in the forenoon, when the principal street of the neighboring town was +just at its acme of life and bustle, a stranger of very distinguished figure +was seen on the sidewalk. His port as well as his garments betokened nothing +short of nobility. He wore a richly-embroidered plum-colored coat, a waistcoat +of costly velvet, magnificently adorned with golden foliage, a pair of splendid +scarlet breeches, and the finest and glossiest of white silk stockings. His +head was covered with a peruke, so daintily powdered and adjusted that it would +have been sacrilege to disorder it with a hat; which, therefore (and it was a +gold-laced hat, set off with a snowy feather), he carried beneath his arm. On +the breast of his coat glistened a star. He managed his gold-headed cane with +an airy grace, peculiar to the fine gentlemen of the period; and, to give the +highest possible finish to his equipment, he had lace ruffles at his wrist, of +a most ethereal delicacy, sufficiently avouching how idle and aristocratic must +be the hands which they half concealed. +</p> + +<p> +It was a remarkable point in the accoutrement of this brilliant personage that +he held in his left hand a fantastic kind of a pipe, with an exquisitely +painted bowl and an amber mouthpiece. This he applied to his lips as often as +every five or six paces, and inhaled a deep whiff of smoke, which, after being +retained a moment in his lungs, might be seen to eddy gracefully from his mouth +and nostrils. +</p> + +<p> +As may well be supposed, the street was all astir to find out the stranger’s +name. +</p> + +<p> +“It is some great nobleman, beyond question,” said one of the townspeople. “Do +you see the star at his breast?” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay; it is too bright to be seen,” said another. “Yes; he must needs be a +nobleman, as you say. But by what conveyance, think you, can his lordship have +voyaged or travelled hither? There has been no vessel from the old country for +a month past; and if he have arrived overland from the southward, pray where +are his attendants and equipage?” +</p> + +<p> +“He needs no equipage to set off his rank,” remarked a third. “If he came among +us in rags, nobility would shine through a hole in his elbow. I never saw such +dignity of aspect. He has the old Norman blood in his veins, I warrant him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I rather take him to be a Dutchman, or one of your high Germans,” said another +citizen. “The men of those countries have always the pipe at their mouths.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so has a Turk,” answered his companion. “But, in my judgment, this +stranger hath been bred at the French court, and hath there learned politeness +and grace of manner, which none understand so well as the nobility of France. +That gait, now! A vulgar spectator might deem it stiff—he might call it a +hitch and jerk—but, to my eye, it hath an unspeakable majesty, and must +have been acquired by constant observation of the deportment of the Grand +Monarque. The stranger’s character and office are evident enough. He is a +French ambassador, come to treat with our rulers about the cession of Canada.” +</p> + +<p> +“More probably a Spaniard,” said another, “and hence his yellow complexion; or, +most likely, he is from the Havana, or from some port on the Spanish main, and +comes to make investigation about the piracies which our government is thought +to connive at. Those settlers in Peru and Mexico have skins as yellow as the +gold which they dig out of their mines.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yellow or not,” cried a lady, “he is a beautiful man!—so tall, so +slender! such a fine, noble face, with so well-shaped a nose, and all that +delicacy of expression about the mouth! And, bless me, how bright his star is! +It positively shoots out flames!” +</p> + +<p> +“So do your eyes, fair lady,” said the stranger, with a bow and a flourish of +his pipe; for he was just passing at the instant. “Upon my honor, they have +quite dazzled me.” +</p> + +<p> +“Was ever so original and exquisite a compliment?” murmured the lady, in an +ecstasy of delight. +</p> + +<p> +Amid the general admiration excited by the stranger’s appearance, there were +only two dissenting voices. One was that of an impertinent cur, which, after +snuffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its tail between its legs +and skulked into its master’s back yard, vociferating an execrable howl. The +other dissentient was a young child, who squalled at the fullest stretch of his +lungs, and babbled some unintelligible nonsense about a pumpkin. +</p> + +<p> +Feathertop meanwhile pursued his way along the street. Except for the few +complimentary words to the lady, and now and then a slight inclination of the +head in requital of the profound reverences of the bystanders, he seemed wholly +absorbed in his pipe. There needed no other proof of his rank and consequence +than the perfect equanimity with which he comported himself, while the +curiosity and admiration of the town swelled almost into clamor around him. +With a crowd gathering behind his footsteps, he finally reached the +mansion-house of the worshipful Justice Gookin, entered the gate, ascended the +steps of the front door, and knocked. In the interim, before his summons was +answered, the stranger was observed to shake the ashes out of his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +“What did he say in that sharp voice?” inquired one of the spectators. +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, I know not,” answered his friend. “But the sun dazzles my eyes strangely. +How dim and faded his lordship looks all of a sudden! Bless my wits, what is +the matter with me?” +</p> + +<p> +“The wonder is,” said the other, “that his pipe, which was out only an instant +ago, should be all alight again, and with the reddest coal I ever saw. There is +something mysterious about this stranger. What a whiff of smoke was that! Dim +and faded did you call him? Why, as he turns about the star on his breast is +all ablaze.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is, indeed,” said his companion; “and it will go near to dazzle pretty +Polly Gookin, whom I see peeping at it out of the chamber window.” +</p> + +<p> +The door being now opened, Feathertop turned to the crowd, made a stately bend +of his body like a great man acknowledging the reverence of the meaner sort, +and vanished into the house. There was a mysterious kind of a smile, if it +might not better be called a grin or grimace, upon his visage; but, of all the +throng that beheld him, not an individual appears to have possessed insight +enough to detect the illusive character of the stranger except a little child +and a cur dog. +</p> + +<p> +Our legend here loses somewhat of its continuity, and, passing over the +preliminary explanation between Feathertop and the merchant, goes in quest of +the pretty Polly Gookin. She was a damsel of a soft, round figure, with light +hair and blue eyes, and a fair, rosy face, which seemed neither very shrewd nor +very simple. This young lady had caught a glimpse of the glistening stranger +while standing on the threshold, and had forthwith put on a laced cap, a string +of beads, her finest kerchief, and her stiffest damask petticoat in preparation +for the interview. Hurrying from her chamber to the parlor, she had ever since +been viewing herself in the large looking-glass and practising pretty airs-now +a smile, now a ceremonious dignity of aspect, and now a softer smile than the +former, kissing her hand likewise, tossing her head, and managing her fan; +while within the mirror an unsubstantial little maid repeated every gesture and +did all the foolish things that Polly did, but without making her ashamed of +them. In short, it was the fault of pretty Polly’s ability rather than her will +if she failed to be as complete an artifice as the illustrious Feathertop +himself; and, when she thus tampered with her own simplicity, the witch’s +phantom might well hope to win her. +</p> + +<p> +No sooner did Polly hear her father’s gouty footsteps approaching the parlor +door, accompanied with the stiff clatter of Feathertop’s high-heeled shoes, +than she seated herself bolt upright and innocently began warbling a song. +</p> + +<p> +“Polly! daughter Polly!” cried the old merchant. “Come hither, child.” +</p> + +<p> +Master Gookin’s aspect, as he opened the door, was doubtful and troubled. +</p> + +<p> +“This gentleman,” continued he, presenting the stranger, “is the Chevalier +Feathertop,—nay, I beg his pardon, my Lord Feathertop,—who hath +brought me a token of remembrance from an ancient friend of mine. Pay your duty +to his lordship, child, and honor him as his quality deserves.” +</p> + +<p> +After these few words of introduction, the worshipful magistrate immediately +quitted the room. But, even in that brief moment, had the fair Polly glanced +aside at her father instead of devoting herself wholly to the brilliant guest, +she might have taken warning of some mischief nigh at hand. The old man was +nervous, fidgety, and very pale. Purposing a smile of courtesy, he had deformed +his face with a sort of galvanic grin, which, when Feathertop’s back was +turned, he exchanged for a scowl, at the same time shaking his fist and +stamping his gouty foot—an incivility which brought its retribution along +with it. The truth appears to have been that Mother Rigby’s word of +introduction, whatever it might be, had operated far more on the rich +merchant’s fears than on his good will. Moreover, being a man of wonderfully +acute observation, he had noticed that these painted figures on the bowl of +Feathertop’s pipe were in motion. Looking more closely he became convinced that +these figures were a party of little demons, each duly provided with horns and +a tail, and dancing hand in hand, with gestures of diabolical merriment, round +the circumference of the pipe bowl. As if to confirm his suspicions, while +Master Gookin ushered his guest along a dusky passage from his private room to +the parlor, the star on Feathertop’s breast had scintillated actual flames, and +threw a flickering gleam upon the wall, the ceiling, and the floor. +</p> + +<p> +With such sinister prognostics manifesting themselves on all hands, it is not +to be marvelled at that the merchant should have felt that he was committing +his daughter to a very questionable acquaintance. He cursed, in his secret +soul, the insinuating elegance of Feathertop’s manners, as this brilliant +personage bowed, smiled, put his hand on his heart, inhaled a long whiff from +his pipe, and enriched the atmosphere with the smoky vapor of a fragrant and +visible sigh. Gladly would poor Master Gookin have thrust his dangerous guest +into the street; but there was a constraint and terror within him. This +respectable old gentleman, we fear, at an earlier period of life, had given +some pledge or other to the evil principle, and perhaps was now to redeem it by +the sacrifice of his daughter. +</p> + +<p> +It so happened that the parlor door was partly of glass, shaded by a silken +curtain, the folds of which hung a little awry. So strong was the merchant’s +interest in witnessing what was to ensue between the fair Polly and the gallant +Feathertop that, after quitting the room, he could by no means refrain from +peeping through the crevice of the curtain. +</p> + +<p> +But there was nothing very miraculous to be seen; nothing—except the +trifles previously noticed—to confirm the idea of a supernatural peril +environing the pretty Polly. The stranger it is true was evidently a thorough +and practised man of the world, systematic and self-possessed, and therefore +the sort of a person to whom a parent ought not to confide a simple, young girl +without due watchfulness for the result. The worthy magistrate who had been +conversant with all degrees and qualities of mankind, could not but perceive +every motion and gesture of the distinguished Feathertop came in its proper +place; nothing had been left rude or native in him; a well-digested +conventionalism had incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and +transformed him into a work of art. Perhaps it was this peculiarity that +invested him with a species of ghastliness and awe. It is the effect of +anything completely and consummately artificial, in human shape, that the +person impresses us as an unreality and as having hardly pith enough to cast a +shadow upon the floor. As regarded Feathertop, all this resulted in a wild, +extravagant, and fantastical impression, as if his life and being were akin to +the smoke that curled upward from his pipe. +</p> + +<p> +But pretty Polly Gookin felt not thus. The pair were now promenading the room: +Feathertop with his dainty stride and no less dainty grimace, the girl with a +native maidenly grace, just touched, not spoiled, by a slightly affected +manner, which seemed caught from the perfect artifice of her companion. The +longer the interview continued, the more charmed was pretty Polly, until, +within the first quarter of an hour (as the old magistrate noted by his watch), +she was evidently beginning to be in love. Nor need it have been witchcraft +that subdued her in such a hurry; the poor child’s heart, it may be, was so +very fervent that it melted her with its own warmth as reflected from the +hollow semblance of a lover. No matter what Feathertop said, his words found +depth and reverberation in her ear; no matter what he did, his action was +heroic to her eye. And by this time it is to be supposed there was a blush on +Polly’s cheek, a tender smile about her mouth and a liquid softness in her +glance; while the star kept coruscating on Feathertop’s breast, and the little +demons careered with more frantic merriment than ever about the circumference +of his pipe bowl. O pretty Polly Gookin, why should these imps rejoice so madly +that a silly maiden’s heart was about to be given to a shadow! Is it so unusual +a misfortune, so rare a triumph? +</p> + +<p> +By and by Feathertop paused, and throwing himself into an imposing attitude, +seemed to summon the fair girl to survey his figure and resist him longer if +she could. His star, his embroidery, his buckles glowed at that instant with +unutterable splendor; the picturesque hues of his attire took a richer depth of +coloring; there was a gleam and polish over his whole presence betokening the +perfect witchery of well-ordered manners. The maiden raised her eyes and +suffered them to linger upon her companion with a bashful and admiring gaze. +Then, as if desirous of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have +side by side with so much brilliancy, she cast a glance towards the full-length +looking-glass in front of which they happened to be standing. It was one of the +truest plates in the world and incapable of flattery. No sooner did the images +therein reflected meet Polly’s eye than she shrieked, shrank from the +stranger’s side, gazed at him for a moment in the wildest dismay, and sank +insensible upon the floor. Feathertop likewise had looked towards the mirror, +and there beheld, not the glittering mockery of his outside show, but a picture +of the sordid patchwork of his real composition stripped of all witchcraft. +</p> + +<p> +The wretched simulacrum! We almost pity him. He threw up his arms with an +expression of despair that went further than any of his previous manifestations +towards vindicating his claims to be reckoned human, for perchance the only +time since this so often empty and deceptive life of mortals began its course, +an illusion had seen and fully recognized itself. +</p> + +<p> +Mother Rigby was seated by her kitchen hearth in the twilight of this eventful +day, and had just shaken the ashes out of a new pipe, when she heard a hurried +tramp along the road. Yet it did not seem so much the tramp of human footsteps +as the clatter of sticks or the rattling of dry bones. +</p> + +<p> +“Ha!” thought the old witch, “what step is that? Whose skeleton is out of its +grave now, I wonder?” +</p> + +<p> +A figure burst headlong into the cottage door. It was Feathertop! His pipe was +still alight; the star still flamed upon his breast; the embroidery still +glowed upon his garments; nor had he lost, in any degree or manner that could +be estimated, the aspect that assimilated him with our mortal brotherhood. But +yet, in some indescribable way (as is the case with all that has deluded us +when once found out), the poor reality was felt beneath the cunning artifice. +</p> + +<p> +“What has gone wrong?” demanded the witch. “Did yonder sniffling hypocrite +thrust my darling from his door? The villain! I’ll set twenty fiends to torment +him till he offer thee his daughter on his bended knees!” +</p> + +<p> +“No, mother,” said Feathertop despondingly; “it was not that.” +</p> + +<p> +“Did the girl scorn my precious one?” asked Mother Rigby, her fierce eyes +glowing like two coals of Tophet. “I’ll cover her face with pimples! Her nose +shall be as red as the coal in thy pipe! Her front teeth shall drop out! In a +week hence she shall not be worth thy having!” +</p> + +<p> +“Let her alone, mother,” answered poor Feathertop; “the girl was half won; and +methinks a kiss from her sweet lips might have made me altogether human. But,” +he added, after a brief pause and then a howl of self-contempt, “I’ve seen +myself, mother! I’ve seen myself for the wretched, ragged, empty thing I am! +I’ll exist no longer!” +</p> + +<p> +Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might against the +chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor, a medley of straw and +tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap, and a shrivelled +pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now lustreless; but the rudely-carved +gap, that just before had been a mouth still seemed to twist itself into a +despairing grin, and was so far human. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor fellow!” quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics of her +ill-fated contrivance. “My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There are thousands +upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, made up of just such a +jumble of wornout, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash as he was! Yet they +live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they are. And why should +my poor puppet be the only one to know himself and perish for it?” +</p> + +<p> +While thus muttering, the witch had filled a fresh pipe of tobacco, and held +the stem between her fingers, as doubtful whether to thrust it into her own +mouth or Feathertop’s. +</p> + +<p> +“Poor Feathertop!” she continued. “I could easily give him another chance and +send him forth again tomorrow. But no; his feelings are too tender, his +sensibilities too deep. He seems to have too much heart to bustle for his own +advantage in such an empty and heartless world. Well! well! I’ll make a +scarecrow of him after all. ’Tis an innocent and useful vocation, and will suit +my darling well; and, if each of his human brethren had as fit a one, ’twould +be the better for mankind; and as for this pipe of tobacco, I need it more than +he.” +</p> + +<p> +So saying Mother Rigby put the stem between her lips. “Dickon!” cried she, in +her high, sharp tone, “another coal for my pipe!” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a> +THE NEW ADAM AND EVE</h2> + +<p> +We who are born into the world’s artificial system can never adequately know +how little in our present state and circumstances is natural, and how much is +merely the interpolation of the perverted mind and heart of man. Art has become +a second and stronger nature; she is a step-mother, whose crafty tenderness has +taught us to despise the bountiful and wholesome ministrations of our true +parent. It is only through the medium of the imagination that we can lessen +those iron fetters, which we call truth and reality, and make ourselves even +partially sensible what prisoners we are. For instance, let us conceive good +Father Miller’s interpretation of the prophecies to have proved true. The Day +of Doom has burst upon the globe and swept away the whole race of men. From +cities and fields, sea-shore and midland mountain region, vast continents, and +even the remotest islands of the ocean, each living thing is gone. No breath of +a created being disturbs this earthly atmosphere. But the abodes of man, and +all that he has accomplished, the footprints of his wanderings and the results +of his toil, the visible symbols of his intellectual cultivation and moral +progress,—in short, everything physical that can give evidence of his +present position,—shall remain untouched by the hand of destiny. Then, to +inherit and repeople this waste and deserted earth, we will suppose a new Adam +and a new Eve to have been created, in the full development of mind and heart, +but with no knowledge of their predecessors nor of the diseased circumstances +that had become incrusted around them. Such a pair would at once distinguish +between art and nature. Their instincts and intuitions would immediately +recognize the wisdom and simplicity of the latter; while the former, with its +elaborate perversities, would offer them a continual succession of puzzles. +</p> + +<p> +Let us attempt, in a mood half sportive and half thoughtful, to track these +imaginary heirs of our mortality, through their first day’s experience. No +longer ago than yesterday the flame of human life was extinguished; there has +been a breathless night; and now another morn approaches, expecting to find the +earth no less desolate than at eventide. +</p> + +<p> +It is dawn. The east puts on its immemorial blush, although no human eye is +gazing at it; for all the phenomena of the natural world renew themselves, in +spite of the solitude that now broods around the globe. There is still beauty +of earth, sea, and sky, for beauty’s sake. But soon there are to be spectators. +Just when the earliest sunshine gilds earth’s mountain-tops, two beings have +come into life, not in such an Eden as bloomed to welcome our first parents, +but in the heart of a modern city. They find themselves in existence, and +gazing into one another’s eyes. Their emotion is not astonishment; nor do they +perplex themselves with efforts to discover what, and whence, and why they are. +Each is satisfied to be, because the other exists likewise; and their first +consciousness is of calm and mutual enjoyment, which seems not to have been the +birth of that very moment, but prolonged from a past eternity. Thus content +with an inner sphere which they inhabit together, it is not immediately that +the outward world can obtrude itself upon their notice. +</p> + +<p> +Soon, however, they feel the invincible necessity of this earthly life, and +begin to make acquaintance with the objects and circumstances that surround +them. Perhaps no other stride so vast remains to be taken as when they first +turn from the reality of their mutual glance to the dreams and shadows that +perplex them everywhere else. +</p> + +<p> +“Sweetest Eve, where are we?” exclaims the new Adam; for speech, or some +equivalent mode of expression, is born with them, and comes just as natural as +breath. “Methinks I do not recognize this place.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nor I, dear Man,” replies the new Eve. “And what a strange place, too! Let me +come closer to thy side and behold thee only; for all other sights trouble and +perplex my spirit.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nay, Eve,” replies Adam, who appears to have the stronger tendency towards the +material world; “it were well that we gain some insight into these matters. We +are in an odd situation here. Let us look about us.” +</p> + +<p> +Assuredly there are sights enough to throw the new inheritors of earth into a +state of hopeless perplexity. The long lines of edifices, their windows +glittering in the yellow sunrise, and the narrow street between, with its +barren pavement tracked and battered by wheels that have now rattled into an +irrevocable past! The signs, with their unintelligible hieroglyphics! The +squareness and ugliness, and regular or irregular deformity of everything that +meets the eye! The marks of wear and tear, and unrenewed decay, which +distinguish the works of man from the growth of nature! What is there in all +this, capable of the slightest significance to minds that know nothing of the +artificial system which is implied in every lamp-post and each brick of the +houses? Moreover, the utter loneliness and silence, in a scene that originally +grew out of noise and bustle, must needs impress a feeling of desolation even +upon Adam and Eve, unsuspicious as they are of the recent extinction of human +existence. In a forest, solitude would be life; in a city, it is death. +</p> + +<p> +The new Eve looks round with a sensation of doubt and distrust, such as a city +dame, the daughter of numberless generations of citizens, might experience if +suddenly transported to the garden of Eden. At length her downcast eye +discovers a small tuft of grass, just beginning to sprout among the stones of +the pavement; she eagerly grasps it, and is sensible that this little herb +awakens some response within her heart. Nature finds nothing else to offer her. +Adam, after staring up and down the street without detecting a single object +that his comprehension can lay hold of, finally turns his forehead to the sky. +There, indeed, is something which the soul within him recognizes. +</p> + +<p> +“Look up yonder, mine own Eve,” he cries; “surely we ought to dwell among those +gold-tinged clouds or in the blue depths beyond them. I know not how nor when, +but evidently we have strayed away from our home; for I see nothing hereabouts +that seems to belong to us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Can we not ascend thither?” inquires Eve. +</p> + +<p> +“Why not?” answers Adam, hopefully. “But no; something drags us down in spite +of our best efforts. Perchance we may find a path hereafter.” +</p> + +<p> +In the energy of new life it appears no such impracticable feat to climb into +the sky. But they have already received a woful lesson, which may finally go +far towards reducing them to the level of the departed race, when they +acknowledge the necessity of keeping the beaten track of earth. They now set +forth on a ramble through the city, in the hope of making their escape from +this uncongenial sphere. Already in the fresh elasticity of their spirits they +have found the idea of weariness. We will watch them as they enter some of the +shops and public or private edifices; for every door, whether of alderman or +beggar, church or hall of state, has been flung wide open by the same agency +that swept away the inmates. +</p> + +<p> +It so happens,—and not unluckily for an Adam and Eve who are still in the +costume that might better have befitted Eden,—it so happens that their +first visit is to a fashionable dry-goods store. No courteous and importunate +attendants hasten to receive their orders; no throng of ladies are tossing over +the rich Parisian fabrics. All is deserted; trade is at a stand-still; and not +even an echo of the national watchword, “Go ahead!” disturbs the quiet of the +new customers. But specimens of the latest earthly fashions, silks of every +shade, and whatever is most delicate or splendid for the decoration of the +human form, he scattered around, profusely as bright autumnal leaves in a +forest. Adam looks at a few of the articles, but throws them carelessly aside +with whatever exclamation may correspond to “Pish!” or “Pshaw!” in the new +vocabulary of nature. Eve, however,—be it said without offence to her +native modesty,—examines these treasures of her sex with somewhat +livelier interest. A pair of corsets chance to be upon the counter; she +inspects them curiously, but knows not what to make of them. Then she handles a +fashionable silk with dim yearnings, thoughts that wander hither and thither, +instincts groping in the dark. +</p> + +<p> +“On the whole, I do not like it,” she observes, laying the glossy fabric upon +the counter. “But, Adam, it is very strange. What can these things mean? Surely +I ought to know; yet they put me in a perfect maze.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poh! my dear Eve, why trouble thy little head about such nonsense?” cries +Adam, in a fit of impatience. “Let us go somewhere else. But stay; how very +beautiful! My loveliest Eve, what a charm you have imparted to that robe by +merely throwing it over your shoulders!” +</p> + +<p> +For Eve, with the taste that nature moulded into her composition, has taken a +remnant of exquisite silver gauze and drawn it around her forms, with an effect +that gives Adam his first idea of the witchery of dress. He beholds his spouse +in a new light and with renewed admiration; yet is hardly reconciled to any +other attire than her own golden locks. However, emulating Eve’s example, he +makes free with a mantle of blue velvet, and puts it on so picturesquely that +it might seem to have fallen from heaven upon his stately figure. Thus garbed +they go in search of new discoveries. +</p> + +<p> +They next wander into a Church, not to make a display of their fine clothes, +but attracted by its spire pointing upwards to the sky, whither they have +already yearned to climb. As they enter the portal, a clock, which it was the +last earthly act of the sexton to wind up, repeats the hour in deep +reverberating tones; for Time has survived his former progeny, and, with the +iron tongue that man gave him, is now speaking to his two grandchildren. They +listen, but understand him not. Nature would measure time by the succession of +thoughts and acts which constitute real life, and not by hours of emptiness. +They pass up the church-aisle, and raise their eyes to the ceiling. Had our +Adam and Eve become mortal in some European city, and strayed into the vastness +and sublimity of an old cathedral, they might have recognized the purpose for +which the deep-souled founders reared it. Like the dim awfulness of an ancient +forest, its very atmosphere would have incited them to prayer. Within the snug +walls of a metropolitan church there can be no such influence. +</p> + +<p> +Yet some odor of religion is still lingering here, the bequest of pious souls, +who had grace to enjoy a foretaste of immortal life. Perchance they breathe a +prophecy of a better world to their successors, who have become obnoxious to +all their own cares and calamities in the present one. +</p> + +<p> +“Eve, something impels me to look upward,” says Adam; “but it troubles me to +see this roof between us and the sky. Let us go forth, and perhaps we shall +discern a Great Face looking down upon us.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; a Great Face, with a beam of love brightening over it, like sunshine,” +responds Eve. “Surely we have seen such a countenance somewhere.” +</p> + +<p> +They go out of the church, and kneeling at its threshold give way to the +spirit’s natural instinct of adoration towards a beneficent Father. But, in +truth, their life thus far has been a continual prayer. Purity and simplicity +hold converse at every moment with their Creator. +</p> + +<p> +We now observe them entering a Court of Justice. But what remotest conception +can they attain of the purposes of such an edifice? How should the idea occur +to them that human brethren, of like nature with themselves, and originally +included in the same law of love which is their only rule of life, should ever +need an outward enforcement of the true voice within their souls? And what, +save a woful experience, the dark result of many centuries, could teach them +the sad mysteries of crime? O Judgment Seat, not by the pure in heart vast thou +established, nor in the simplicity of nature; but by hard and wrinkled men, and +upon the accumulated heap of earthly wrong. Thou art the very symbol of man’s +perverted state. +</p> + +<p> +On as fruitless an errand our wanderers next visit a Hall of Legislature, where +Adam places Eve in the Speaker’s chair, unconscious of the moral which he thus +exemplifies. Man’s intellect, moderated by Woman’s tenderness and moral sense! +Were such the legislation of the world there would be no need of State Houses, +Capitols, Halls of Parliament, nor even of those little assemblages of +patriarchs beneath the shadowy trees, by whom freedom was first interpreted to +mankind on our native shores. +</p> + +<p> +Whither go they next? A perverse destiny seems to perplex them with one after +another of the riddles which mankind put forth to the wandering universe, and +left unsolved in their own destruction. They enter an edifice of stern gray +stone standing insulated in the midst of others, and gloomy even in the +sunshine, which it barely suffers to penetrate through its iron grated windows. +It is a prison. The jailer has left his post at the summons of a stronger +authority than the sheriff’s. But the prisoners? Did the messenger of fate, +when he shook open all the doors, respect the magistrate’s warrant and the +judge’s sentence, and leave the inmates of the dungeons to be delivered by due +course of earthly law? No; a new trial has been granted in a higher court, +which may set judge, jury, and prisoner at its bar all in a row, and perhaps +find one no less guilty than another. The jail, like the whole earth, is now a +solitude, and has thereby lost something of its dismal gloom. But here are the +narrow cells, like tombs, only drearier and deadlier, because in these the +immortal spirit was buried with the body. Inscriptions appear on the walls, +scribbled with a pencil or scratched with a rusty nail; brief words of agony, +perhaps, or guilt’s desperate defiance to the world, or merely a record of a +date by which the writer strove to keep up with the march of life. There is not +a living eye that could now decipher these memorials. +</p> + +<p> +Nor is it while so fresh from their Creator’s hand that the new denizens of +earth—no, nor their descendants for a thousand years—could discover +that this edifice was a hospital for the direst disease which could afflict +their predecessors. Its patients bore the outward marks of that leprosy with +which all were more or less infected. They were sick-and so were the purest of +their brethren—with the plague of sin. A deadly sickness, indeed! Feeling +its symptoms within the breast, men concealed it with fear and shame, and were +only the more cruel to those unfortunates whose pestiferous sores were flagrant +to the common eye. Nothing save a rich garment could ever hide the plague-spot. +In the course of the world’s lifetime, every remedy was tried for its cure and +extirpation, except the single one, the flower that grew in Heaven and was +sovereign for all the miseries of earth. Man never had attempted to cure sin by +LOVE! Had he but once made the effort, it might well have happened that there +would have been no more need of the dark lazar-house into which Adam and Eve +have wandered. Hasten forth with your native innocence, lest the damps of these +still conscious walls infect you likewise, and thus another fallen race be +propagated! +</p> + +<p> +Passing from the interior of the prison into the space within its outward wall, +Adam pauses beneath a structure of the simplest contrivance, yet altogether +unaccountable to him. It consists merely of two upright posts, supporting a +transverse beam, from which dangles a cord. +</p> + +<p> +“Eve, Eve!” cries Adam, shuddering with a nameless horror. “What can this thing +be?” +</p> + +<p> +“I know not,” answers Eve; “but, Adam, my heart is sick! There seems to be no +more sky,—no more sunshine!” +</p> + +<p> +Well might Adam shudder and poor Eve be sick at heart; for this mysterious +object was the type of mankind’s whole system in regard to the great +difficulties which God had given to be solved,—a system of fear and +vengeance, never successful, yet followed to the last. Here, on the morning +when the final summons came, a criminal—one criminal, where none were +guiltless—had died upon the gallows. Had the world heard the footfall of +its own approaching doom, it would have been no inappropriate act thus to close +the record of its deeds by one so characteristic. +</p> + +<p> +The two pilgrims now hurry from the prison. Had they known how the former +inhabitants of earth were shut up in artificial error and cramped and chained +by their perversions, they might have compared the whole moral world to a +prison-house, and have deemed the removal of the race a general jail-delivery. +</p> + +<p> +They next enter, unannounced, but they might have rung at the door in vain, a +private mansion, one of the stateliest in Beacon Street. A wild and plaintive +strain of music is quivering through the house, now rising like a solemn +organ-peal, and now dying into the faintest murmur, as if some spirit that had +felt an interest in the departed family were bemoaning itself in the solitude +of hall and chamber. Perhaps a virgin, the purest of mortal race, has been left +behind to perform a requiem for the whole kindred of humanity. Not so. These +are the tones of an Eolian harp, through which Nature pours the harmony that +lies concealed in her every breath, whether of summer breeze or tempest. Adam +and Eve are lost in rapture, unmingled with surprise. The passing wind, that +stirred the harp-strings, has been hushed, before they can think of examining +the splendid furniture, the gorgeous carpets, and the architecture of the +rooms. These things amuse their unpractised eyes, but appeal to nothing within +their hearts. Even the pictures upon the walls scarcely excite a deeper +interest; for there is something radically artificial and deceptive in painting +with which minds in the primal simplicity cannot sympathize. The unbidden +guests examine a row of family portraits, but are too dull to recognize them as +men and women, beneath the disguise of a preposterous garb, and with features +and expression debased, because inherited through ages of moral and physical +decay. +</p> + +<p> +Chance, however, presents them with pictures of human beauty, fresh from the +hand of Nature. As they enter a magnificent apartment they are astonished, but +not affrighted, to perceive two figures advancing to meet them. Is it not awful +to imagine that any life, save their own, should remain in the wide world? +</p> + +<p> +“How is this?” exclaims Adam. “My beautiful Eve, are you in two places at +once?” +</p> + +<p> +“And you, Adam!” answers Eve, doubtful, yet delighted. “Surely that noble and +lovely form is yours. Yet here you are by my side. I am content with +one,—methinks there should not be two.” +</p> + +<p> +This miracle is wrought by a tall looking-glass, the mystery of which they soon +fathom, because Nature creates a mirror for the human face in every pool of +water, and for her own great features in waveless lakes. Pleased and satisfied +with gazing at themselves, they now discover the marble statue of a child in a +corner of the room so exquisitely idealized that it is almost worthy to be the +prophetic likeness of their first-born. Sculpture, in its highest excellence, +is more genuine than painting, and might seem to be evolved from a natural +germ, by the same law as a leaf or flower. The statue of the child impresses +the solitary pair as if it were a companion; it likewise hints at secrets both +of the past and future. +</p> + +<p> +“My husband!” whispers Eve. +</p> + +<p> +“What would you say, dearest Eve?” inquires Adam. +</p> + +<p> +“I wonder if we are alone in the world,” she continues, “with a sense of +something like fear at the thought of other inhabitants. This lovely little +form! Did it ever breathe? Or is it only the shadow of something real, like our +pictures in the mirror?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is strange!” replies Adam, pressing his hand to his brow. “There are +mysteries all around us. An idea flits continually before me,—would that +I could seize it! Eve, Eve, are we treading in the footsteps of beings that +bore a likeness to ourselves? If so, whither are they gone?—and why is +their world so unfit for our dwelling-place?” +</p> + +<p> +“Our great Father only knows,” answers Eve. “But something tells me that we +shall not always be alone. And how sweet if other beings were to visit us in +the shape of this fair image!” +</p> + +<p> +Then they wander through the house, and everywhere find tokens of human life, +which now, with the idea recently suggested, excite a deeper curiosity in their +bosoms. Woman has here left traces of her delicacy and refinement, and of her +gentle labors. Eve ransacks a work-basket and instinctively thrusts the rosy +tip of her finger into a thimble. She takes up a piece of embroidery, glowing +with mimic flowers, in one of which a fair damsel of the departed race has left +her needle. Pity that the Day of Doom should have anticipated the completion of +such a useful task! Eve feels almost conscious of the skill to finish it. A +pianoforte has been left open. She flings her hand carelessly over the keys, +and strikes out a sudden melody, no less natural than the strains of the +AEolian harp, but joyous with the dance of her yet unburdened life. Passing +through a dark entry they find a broom behind the door; and Eve, who comprises +the whole nature of womanhood, has a dim idea that it is an instrument proper +for her hand. In another apartment they behold a canopied bed, and all the +appliances of luxurious repose. A heap of forest-leaves would be more to the +purpose. They enter the nursery, and are perplexed with the sight of little +gowns and caps, tiny slices, and a cradle, amid the drapery of which is still +to be seen the impress of a baby’s form. Adam slightly notices these trifles; +but Eve becomes involved in a fit of mute reflection from which it is hardly +possible to rouse her. +</p> + +<p> +By a most unlucky arrangement there was to have been a grand dinner-party in +this mansion on the very day when the whole human family, including the invited +guests, were summoned to the unknown regions of illimitable space. At the +moment of fate, the table was actually spread, and the company on the point of +sitting down. Adam and Eve come unbidden to the banquet; it has now been some +time cold, but otherwise furnishes them with highly favorable specimens of the +gastronomy of their predecessors. But it is difficult to imagine the perplexity +of the unperverted couple, in endeavoring to find proper food for their first +meal, at a table where the cultivated appetites of a fashionable party were to +have been gratified. Will Nature teach them the mystery of a plate of +turtle-soup? Will she embolden them to attack a haunch of venison? Will she +initiate them into the merits of a Parisian pasty, imported by the last steamer +that ever crossed the Atlantic? Will she not, rather, bid them turn with +disgust from fish, fowl, and flesh, which, to their pure nostrils, steam with a +loathsome odor of death and corruption?—Food? The bill of fare contains +nothing which they recognize as such. +</p> + +<p> +Fortunately, however, the dessert is ready upon a neighboring table. Adam, +whose appetite and animal instincts are quicker than those of Eve, discovers +this fitting banquet. +</p> + +<p> +“Here, dearest Eve,” he exclaims,—“here is food.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well,” answered she, with the germ of a housewife stirring within her, “we +have been so busy to-day, that a picked-up dinner must serve.” +</p> + +<p> +So Eve comes to the table and receives a red-cheeked apple from her husband’s +hand in requital of her predecessor’s fatal gift to our common grandfather. She +eats it without sin, and, let us hope, with no disastrous consequences to her +future progeny. They make a plentiful, yet temperate, meal of fruit, which, +though not gathered in paradise, is legitimately derived from the seeds that +were planted there. Their primal appetite is satisfied. +</p> + +<p> +“What shall we drink, Eve?” inquires Adam. +</p> + +<p> +Eve peeps among some bottles and decanters, which, as they contain fluids, she +naturally conceives must be proper to quench thirst. But never before did +claret, hock, and madeira, of rich and rare perfume, excite such disgust as +now. +</p> + +<p> +“Pah!” she exclaims, after smelling at various wines. “What stuff is here? The +beings who have gone before us could not have possessed the same nature that we +do; for neither their hunger nor thirst were like our own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray hand me yonder bottle,” says Adam. “If it be drinkable by any manner of +mortal, I must moisten my throat with it.” +</p> + +<p> +After some remonstrances, she takes up a champagne bottle, but is frightened by +the sudden explosion of the cork, and drops it upon the floor. There the +untasted liquor effervesces. Had they quaffed it they would have experienced +that brief delirium whereby, whether excited by moral or physical causes, man +sought to recompense himself for the calm, life-long joys which he had lost by +his revolt from nature. At length, in a refrigerator, Eve finds a glass pitcher +of water, pure, cold, and bright as ever gushed from a fountain among the +hills. Both drink; and such refreshment does it bestow, that they question one +another if this precious liquid be not identical with the stream of life within +them. +</p> + +<p> +“And now,” observes Adam, “we must again try to discover what sort of a world +this is, and why we have been sent hither.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why? to love one another,” cries Eve. “Is not that employment enough?” +</p> + +<p> +“Truly is it,” answers Adam, kissing her; “but still—I know +not—something tells us there is labor to be done. Perhaps our allotted +task is no other than to climb into the sky, which is so much more beautiful +than earth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then would we were there now,” murmurs Eve, “that no task or duty might come +between us!” +</p> + +<p> +They leave the hospitable mansion, and we next see them passing down State +Street. The clock on the old State House points to high noon, when the Exchange +should be in its glory and present the liveliest emblem of what was the sole +business of life, as regarded a multitude of the foregone worldlings. It is +over now. The Sabbath of eternity has shed its stillness along the street. Not +even a newsboy assails the two solitary passers-by with an extra penny-paper +from the office of the Times or Mail, containing a full account of yesterday’s +terrible catastrophe. Of all the dull times that merchants and speculators have +known, this is the very worst; for, so far as they were concerned, creation +itself has taken the benefit of the Bankrupt Act. After all, it is a pity. +Those mighty capitalists who had just attained the wished-for wealth! Those +shrewd men of traffic who had devoted so many years to the most intricate and +artificial of sciences, and had barely mastered it when the universal +bankruptcy was announced by peal of trumpet! Can they have been so incautious +as to provide no currency of the country whither they have gone, nor any bills +of exchange, or letters of credit from the needy on earth to the cash-keepers +of heaven? +</p> + +<p> +Adam and Eve enter a Bank. Start not, ye whose funds are treasured there! You +will never need them now. Call not for the police. The stones of the street and +the coin of the vaults are of equal value to this simple pair. Strange sight! +They take up the bright gold in handfuls and throw it sportively into the air +for the sake of seeing the glittering worthlessness descend again in a shower. +They know not that each of those small yellow circles was once a magic spell, +potent to sway men’s hearts and mystify their moral sense. Here let them pause +in the investigation of the past. They have discovered the mainspring, the +life, the very essence of the system that had wrought itself into the vitals of +mankind, and choked their original nature in its deadly gripe. Yet how +powerless over these young inheritors of earth’s hoarded wealth! And here, too, +are huge, packages of back-notes, those talismanic slips of paper which once +had the efficacy to build up enchanted palaces like exhalations, and work all +kinds of perilous wonders, yet were themselves but the ghosts of money, the +shadows of a shade. How like is this vault to a magician’s cave when the +all-powerful wand is broken, and the visionary splendor vanished, and the floor +strewn with fragments of shattered spells, and lifeless shapes, once animated +by demons! +</p> + +<p> +“Everywhere, my dear Eve,” observes Adam, “we find heaps of rubbish of one kind +or another. Somebody, I am convinced, has taken pains to collect them, but for +what purpose? Perhaps, hereafter, we shall be moved to do the like. Can that be +our business in the world?” +</p> + +<p> +“O no, no, Adam!” answers Eve. “It would be better to sit down quietly and look +upward to tine sky.” +</p> + +<p> +They leave the Bank, and in good time; for had they tarried later they would +probably have encountered some gouty old goblin of a capitalist, whose soul +could not long be anywhere save in the vault with his treasure. +</p> + +<p> +Next they drop into a jeweller’s shop. They are pleased with the glow of gems; +and Adam twines a string of beautiful pearls around the head of Eve, and +fastens his own mantle with a magnificent diamond brooch. Eve thanks him, and +views herself with delight, in the nearest looking-glass. Shortly afterward, +observing a bouquet of roses and other brilliant flowers in a vase of water, +she flings away the inestimable pearls, and adorns herself with these lovelier +gems of nature. They charm her with sentiment as well as beauty. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely they are living beings,” she remarks to Adam. +</p> + +<p> +“I think so,” replies Adam, “and they seem to be as little at home in the world +as ourselves.” +</p> + +<p> +We must not attempt to follow every footstep of these investigators whom their +Creator has commissioned to pass unconscious judgment upon the works and ways +of the vanished race. By this time, being endowed with quick and accurate +perceptions, they begin to understand the purpose of the many things around +them. They conjecture, for instance, that the edifices of the city were +erected, not by the immediate hand that made the world, but by beings somewhat +similar to themselves, for shelter and convenience. But how will they explain +the magnificence of one habitation as compared with the squalid misery of +another? Through what medium can the idea of servitude enter their minds? When +will they comprehend the great and miserable fact—the evidences of which +appeal to their senses everywhere—that one portion of earth’s lost +inhabitants was rolling in luxury while the multitude was toiling for scanty +food? A wretched change, indeed, must be wrought in their own hearts ere they +can conceive the primal decree of Love to have been so completely abrogated, +that a brother should ever want what his brother had. When their intelligence +shah have reached so far, Earth’s new progeny will have little reason to exult +over her old rejected one. +</p> + +<p> +Their wanderings have now brought them into the suburbs of the city, They stand +on a grassy brow of a hill at the foot of a granite obelisk which points its +great finger upwards, as if the human family had agreed, by a visible symbol of +age-long endurance, to offer some high sacrifice of thanksgiving or +supplication. The solemn height of the monument, its deep simplicity, and the +absence of any vulgar and practical use, all strengthen its effect upon Adam +and Eve, and leave them to interpret it by a purer sentiment than the builders +thought of expressing. +</p> + +<p> +“Eve, it is a visible prayer,” observed Adam. +</p> + +<p> +“And we will pray too,” she replies. +</p> + +<p> +Let us pardon these poor children of neither father nor mother for so absurdly +mistaking the purport of the memorial which man founded and woman finished on +far-famed Bunker Hill. The idea of war is not native to their souls. Nor have +they sympathies for the brave defenders of liberty, since oppression is one of +their unconjectured mysteries. Could they guess that the green sward on which +they stand so peacefully was once strewn with human corpses and purple with +their blood, it would equally amaze them that one generation of men should +perpetrate such carnage, and that a subsequent generation should triumphantly +commemorate it. +</p> + +<p> +With a sense of delight they now stroll across green fields and along the +margin of a quiet river. Not to track them too closely, we next find the +wanderers entering a Gothic edifice of gray stone, where the bygone world has +left whatever it deemed worthy of record, in the rich library of Harvard +University. +</p> + +<p> +No student ever yet enjoyed such solitude and silence as now broods within its +deep alcoves. Little do the present visitors understand what opportunities are +thrown away upon them. Yet Adam looks anxiously at the long rows of volumes, +those storied heights of human lore, ascending one above another from floor to +ceiling. He takes up a bulky folio. It opens in his hands as if spontaneously +to impart the spirit of its author to the yet unworn and untainted intellect of +the fresh-created mortal. He stands poring over the regular columns of mystic +characters, seemingly in studious mood; for the unintelligible thought upon the +page has a mysterious relation to his mind, and makes itself felt as if it were +a burden flung upon him. He is even painfully perplexed, and grasps vainly at +he knows not what. O Adam, it is too soon, too soon by at least five thousand +years, to put on spectacles and bury yourself in the alcoves of a library! +</p> + +<p> +“What can this be?” he murmurs at last. “Eve, methinks nothing is so desirable +as to find out the mystery of this big and heavy object with its thousand thin +divisions. See! it stares me in the face as if it were about to speak!” +</p> + +<p> +Eve, by a feminine instinct, is dipping into a volume of fashionable poetry, +the production certainly the most fortunate of earthly bards, since his lay +continues in vogue when all the great masters of the lyre have passed into +oblivion. But let not, his ghost be too exultant! The world’s one lady tosses +the book upon the floor and laughs merrily at her husband’s abstracted mien. +</p> + +<p> +“My dear Adam,” cries she, “you look pensive and dismal. Do fling down that +stupid thing; for even if it should speak it would not be worth attending to. +Let us talk with one another, and with the sky, and the green earth, and its +trees and flowers. They will teach us better knowledge than we can find here.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Eve, perhaps you are right,” replies Adam, with a sort of sigh. “Still I +cannot help thinking that the interpretation of the riddles amid which we have +been wandering all day long might here be discovered.” +</p> + +<p> +“It may be better not to seek the interpretation,” persists Eve. “For my part, +the air of this place does not suit me. If you love me, come away!” +</p> + +<p> +She prevails, and rescues him from the mysterious perils of the library. Happy +influence of woman! Had he lingered there long enough to obtain a clew to its +treasures,—as was not impossible, his intellect being of human structure, +indeed, but with an untransmitted vigor and acuteness,—had he then and +there become a student, the annalist of our poor world would soon have recorded +the downfall of a second Adam. The fatal apple of another Tree of knowledge +would have been eaten. All the perversions, and sophistries, and false wisdom +so aptly mimicking the true,—all the narrow truth, so partial that it +becomes more deceptive than falsehood,—all the wrong principles and worse +practice, the pernicious examples and mistaken rules of life,—all the +specious theories which turn earth into cloudland and men into +shadows,—all the sad experience which it took mankind so many ages to +accumulate, and from which they never drew a moral for their future guidance, +the whole heap of this disastrous lore would have tumbled at once upon Adam’s +head. There would have been nothing left for him but to take up the already +abortive experiment of life where he had dropped it, and toil onward with it a +little farther. +</p> + +<p> +But, blessed in his ignorance, he may still enjoy a new world in our worn-out +one. Should he fall short of good, even as far as we did, he has at least the +freedom—no worthless one—to make errors for himself. And his +literature, when the progress of centuries shall create it, will be no +interminably repeated echo of our own poetry and reproduction of the images +that were moulded by our great fathers of song and fiction, but a melody never +yet heard on earth, and intellectual forms unbreathed upon by our conceptions. +Therefore let the dust of ages gather upon the volumes of the library, and in +due season the roof of the edifice crumble down upon the whole. When the second +Adam’s descendants shall have collected as much rubbish of their own, it will +be time enough to dig into our ruins and compare the literary advancement of +two independent races. +</p> + +<p> +But we are looking forward too far. It seems to be the vice of those who have a +long past behind them. We will return to the new Adam and Eve, who, having no +reminiscences save dim and fleeting visions of a pre-existence, are content to +live and be happy in the present. +</p> + +<p> +The day is near its close when these pilgrims, who derive their being from no +dead progenitors, reach the cemetery of Mount Auburn. With light +hearts—for earth and sky now gladden each other with beauty—they +tread along the winding paths, among marble pillars, mimic temples, urns, +obelisks, and sarcophagi, sometimes pausing to contemplate these fantasies of +human growth, and sometimes to admire the flowers wherewith nature converts +decay to loveliness. Can Death, in the midst of his old triumphs, make them +sensible that they have taken up the heavy burden of mortality which a whole +species had thrown down? Dust kindred to their own has never lain in the grave. +Will they then recognize, and so soon, that Time and the elements have an +indefeasible claim upon their bodies? Not improbably they may. There must have +been shadows enough, even amid the primal sunshine of their existence, to +suggest the thought of the soul’s incongruity with its circumstances. They have +already learned that something is to be thrown aside. The idea of Death is in +them, or not far off. But, were they to choose a symbol for him, it would be +the butterfly soaring upward, or the bright angel beckoning them aloft, or the +child asleep, with soft dreams visible through her transparent purity. +</p> + +<p> +Such a Child, in whitest marble, they have found among the monuments of Mount +Auburn. +</p> + +<p> +“Sweetest Eve,” observes Adam, while hand in hand they contemplate this +beautiful object, “yonder sun has left us, and the whole world is fading from +our sight. Let us sleep as this lovely little figure is sleeping. Our Father +only knows whether what outward things we have possessed to-day are to be +snatched from us forever. But should our earthly life be leaving us with the +departing light, we need not doubt that another morn will find us somewhere +beneath the smile of God. I feel that he has imparted the boon of existence +never to be resumed.” +</p> + +<p> +“And no matter where we exist,” replies Eve, “for we shall always be together.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a> +EGOTISM; OR, THE BOSOM SERPENT</h2> + +<p> +“Here he comes!” shouted the boys along the street. “Here comes the man with a +snake in his bosom!” +</p> + +<p> +This outcry, saluting Herkimer’s ears as he was about to enter the iron gate of +the Elliston mansion, made him pause. It was not without a shudder that he +found himself on the point of meeting his former acquaintance, whom he had +known in the glory of youth, and whom now after an interval of five years, he +was to find the victim either of a diseased fancy or a horrible physical +misfortune. +</p> + +<p> +“A snake in his bosom!” repeated the young sculptor to himself. “It must be he. +No second man on earth has such a bosom friend. And now, my poor Rosina, Heaven +grant me wisdom to discharge my errand aright! Woman’s faith must be strong +indeed since thine has not yet failed.” +</p> + +<p> +Thus musing, he took his stand at the entrance of the gate and waited until the +personage so singularly announced should make his appearance. After an instant +or two he beheld the figure of a lean man, of unwholesome look, with glittering +eyes and long black hair, who seemed to imitate the motion of a snake; for, +instead of walking straight forward with open front, he undulated along the +pavement in a curved line. It may be too fanciful to say that something, either +in his moral or material aspect, suggested the idea that a miracle had been +wrought by transforming a serpent into a man, but so imperfectly that the snaky +nature was yet hidden, and scarcely hidden, under the mere outward guise of +humanity. Herkimer remarked that his complexion had a greenish tinge over its +sickly white, reminding him of a species of marble out of which he had once +wrought a head of Envy, with her snaky locks. +</p> + +<p> +The wretched being approached the gate, but, instead of entering, stopped short +and fixed the glitter of his eye full upon the compassionate yet steady +countenance of the sculptor. +</p> + +<p> +“It gnaws me! It gnaws me!” he exclaimed. +</p> + +<p> +And then there was an audible hiss, but whether it came from the apparent +lunatic’s own lips, or was the real hiss of a serpent, might admit of a +discussion. At all events, it made Herkimer shudder to his heart’s core. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you know me, George Herkimer?” asked the snake-possessed. +</p> + +<p> +Herkimer did know him; but it demanded all the intimate and practical +acquaintance with the human face, acquired by modelling actual likenesses in +clay, to recognize the features of Roderick Elliston in the visage that now met +the sculptor’s gaze. Yet it was he. It added nothing to the wonder to reflect +that the once brilliant young man had undergone this odious and fearful change +during the no more than five brief years of Herkimer’s abode at Florence. The +possibility of such a transformation being granted, it was as easy to conceive +it effected in a moment as in an age. Inexpressibly shocked and startled, it +was still the keenest pang when Herkimer remembered that the fate of his cousin +Rosina, the ideal of gentle womanhood, was indissolubly interwoven with that of +a being whom Providence seemed to have unhumanized. +</p> + +<p> +“Elliston! Roderick!” cried he, “I had heard of this; but my conception came +far short of the truth. What has befallen you? Why do I find you thus?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, ’tis a mere nothing! A snake! A snake! The commonest thing in the world. A +snake in the bosom—that’s all,” answered Roderick Elliston. “But how is +your own breast?” continued he, looking the sculptor in the eye with the most +acute and penetrating glance that it had ever been his fortune to encounter. +“All pure and wholesome? No reptile there? By my faith and conscience, and by +the devil within me, here is a wonder! A man without a serpent in his bosom!” +</p> + +<p> +“Be calm, Elliston,” whispered George Herkimer, laying his hand upon the +shoulder of the snake-possessed. “I have crossed the ocean to meet you. Listen! +Let us be private. I bring a message from Rosina—from your wife!” +</p> + +<p> +“It gnaws me! It gnaws me!” muttered Roderick. +</p> + +<p> +With this exclamation, the most frequent in his mouth, the unfortunate man +clutched both hands upon his breast as if an intolerable sting or torture +impelled him to rend it open and let out the living mischief, even should it be +intertwined with his own life. He then freed himself from Herkimer’s grasp by a +subtle motion, and, gliding through the gate, took refuge in his antiquated +family residence. The sculptor did not pursue him. He saw that no available +intercourse could be expected at such a moment, and was desirous, before +another meeting, to inquire closely into the nature of Roderick’s disease and +the circumstances that had reduced him to so lamentable a condition. He +succeeded in obtaining the necessary information from an eminent medical +gentleman. +</p> + +<p> +Shortly after Elliston’s separation from his wife—now nearly four years +ago—his associates had observed a singular gloom spreading over his daily +life, like those chill, gray mists that sometimes steal away the sunshine from +a summer’s morning. The symptoms caused them endless perplexity. They knew not +whether ill health were robbing his spirits of elasticity, or whether a canker +of the mind was gradually eating, as such cankers do, from his moral system +into the physical frame, which is but the shadow of the former. They looked for +the root of this trouble in his shattered schemes of domestic +bliss,—wilfully shattered by himself,—but could not be satisfied of +its existence there. Some thought that their once brilliant friend was in an +incipient stage of insanity, of which his passionate impulses had perhaps been +the forerunners; others prognosticated a general blight and gradual decline. +From Roderick’s own lips they could learn nothing. More than once, it is true, +he had been heard to say, clutching his hands convulsively upon his +breast,—“It gnaws me! It gnaws me!”—but, by different auditors, a +great diversity of explanation was assigned to this ominous expression. What +could it be that gnawed the breast of Roderick Elliston? Was it sorrow? Was it +merely the tooth of physical disease? Or, in his reckless course, often verging +upon profligacy, if not plunging into its depths, had he been guilty of some +deed which made his bosom a prey to the deadlier fangs of remorse? There was +plausible ground for each of these conjectures; but it must not be concealed +that more than one elderly gentleman, the victim of good cheer and slothful +habits, magisterially pronounced the secret of the whole matter to be +Dyspepsia! +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, Roderick seemed aware how generally he had become the subject of +curiosity and conjecture, and, with a morbid repugnance to such notice, or to +any notice whatsoever, estranged himself from all companionship. Not merely the +eye of man was a horror to him; not merely the light of a friend’s countenance; +but even the blessed sunshine, likewise, which in its universal beneficence +typifies the radiance of the Creator’s face, expressing his love for all the +creatures of his hand. The dusky twilight was now too transparent for Roderick +Elliston; the blackest midnight was his chosen hour to steal abroad; and if +ever he were seen, it was when the watchman’s lantern gleamed upon his figure, +gliding along the street, with his hands clutched upon his bosom, still +muttering, “It gnaws me! It gnaws me!” What could it be that gnawed him? +</p> + +<p> +After a time, it became known that Elliston was in the habit of resorting to +all the noted quacks that infested the city, or whom money would tempt to +journey thither from a distance. By one of these persons, in the exultation of +a supposed cure, it was proclaimed far and wide, by dint of handbills and +little pamphlets on dingy paper, that a distinguished gentleman, Roderick +Elliston, Esq., had been relieved of a SNAKE in his stomach! So here was the +monstrous secret, ejected from its lurking place into public view, in all its +horrible deformity. The mystery was out; but not so the bosom serpent. He, if +it were anything but a delusion, still lay coiled in his living den. The +empiric’s cure had been a sham, the effect, it was supposed, of some stupefying +drug which more nearly caused the death of the patient than of the odious +reptile that possessed him. When Roderick Elliston regained entire sensibility, +it was to find his misfortune the town talk—the more than nine days’ +wonder and horror—while, at his bosom, he felt the sickening motion of a +thing alive, and the gnawing of that restless fang which seemed to gratify at +once a physical appetite and a fiendish spite. +</p> + +<p> +He summoned the old black servant, who had been bred up in his father’s house, +and was a middle-aged man while Roderick lay in his cradle. +</p> + +<p> +“Scipio!” he began; and then paused, with his arms folded over his heart. “What +do people say of me, Scipio.” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir! my poor master! that you had a serpent in your bosom,” answered the +servant with hesitation. +</p> + +<p> +“And what else?” asked Roderick, with a ghastly look at the man. +</p> + +<p> +“Nothing else, dear master,” replied Scipio, “only that the doctor gave you a +powder, and that the snake leaped out upon the floor.” +</p> + +<p> +“No, no!” muttered Roderick to himself, as he shook his head, and pressed his +hands with a more convulsive force upon his breast, “I feel him still. It gnaws +me! It gnaws me!” +</p> + +<p> +From this time the miserable sufferer ceased to shun the world, but rather +solicited and forced himself upon the notice of acquaintances and strangers. It +was partly the result of desperation on finding that the cavern of his own +bosom had not proved deep and dark enough to hide the secret, even while it was +so secure a fortress for the loathsome fiend that had crept into it. But still +more, this craving for notoriety was a symptom of the intense morbidness which +now pervaded his nature. All persons chronically diseased are egotists, whether +the disease be of the mind or body; whether it be sin, sorrow, or merely the +more tolerable calamity of some endless pain, or mischief among the cords of +mortal life. Such individuals are made acutely conscious of a self, by the +torture in which it dwells. Self, therefore, grows to be so prominent an object +with them that they cannot but present it to the face of every casual +passer-by. There is a pleasure—perhaps the greatest of which the sufferer +is susceptible—in displaying the wasted or ulcerated limb, or the cancer +in the breast; and the fouler the crime, with so much the more difficulty does +the perpetrator prevent it from thrusting up its snake-like head to frighten +the world; for it is that cancer, or that crime, which constitutes their +respective individuality. Roderick Elliston, who, a little while before, had +held himself so scornfully above the common lot of men, now paid full +allegiance to this humiliating law. The snake in his bosom seemed the symbol of +a monstrous egotism to which everything was referred, and which he pampered, +night and day, with a continual and exclusive sacrifice of devil worship. +</p> + +<p> +He soon exhibited what most people considered indubitable tokens of insanity. +In some of his moods, strange to say, he prided and gloried himself on being +marked out from the ordinary experience of mankind, by the possession of a +double nature, and a life within a life. He appeared to imagine that the snake +was a divinity,—not celestial, it is true, but darkly infernal,—and +that he thence derived an eminence and a sanctity, horrid, indeed, yet more +desirable than whatever ambition aims at. Thus he drew his misery around him +like a regal mantle, and looked down triumphantly upon those whose vitals +nourished no deadly monster. Oftener, however, his human nature asserted its +empire over him in the shape of a yearning for fellowship. It grew to be his +custom to spend the whole day in wandering about the streets, aimlessly, unless +it might be called an aim to establish a species of brotherhood between himself +and the world. With cankered ingenuity, he sought out his own disease in every +breast. Whether insane or not, he showed so keen a perception of frailty, +error, and vice, that many persons gave him credit for being possessed not +merely with a serpent, but with an actual fiend, who imparted this evil faculty +of recognizing whatever was ugliest in man’s heart. +</p> + +<p> +For instance, he met an individual, who, for thirty years, had cherished a +hatred against his own brother. Roderick, amidst the throng of the street, laid +his hand on this man’s chest, and looking full into his forbidding face, “How +is the snake to-day?” he inquired, with a mock expression of sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +“The snake!” exclaimed the brother hater—“what do you mean?” +</p> + +<p> +“The snake! The snake! Does it gnaw you?” persisted Roderick. “Did you take +counsel with him this morning when you should have been saying your prayers? +Did he sting, when you thought of your brother’s health, wealth, and good +repute? Did he caper for joy, when you remembered the profligacy of his only +son? And whether he stung, or whether he frolicked, did you feel his poison +throughout your body and soul, converting everything to sourness and +bitterness? That is the way of such serpents. I have learned the whole nature +of them from my own!” +</p> + +<p> +“Where is the police?” roared the object of Roderick’s persecution, at the same +time giving an instinctive clutch to his breast. “Why is this lunatic allowed +to go at large?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ha, ha!” chuckled Roderick, releasing his grasp of the man.— “His bosom +serpent has stung him then!” +</p> + +<p> +Often it pleased the unfortunate young man to vex people with a lighter satire, +yet still characterized by somewhat of snake-like virulence. One day he +encountered an ambitious statesman, and gravely inquired after the welfare of +his boa constrictor; for of that species, Roderick affirmed, this gentleman’s +serpent must needs be, since its appetite was enormous enough to devour the +whole country and constitution. At another time, he stopped a close-fisted old +fellow, of great wealth, but who skulked about the city in the guise of a +scarecrow, with a patched blue surtout, brown hat, and mouldy boots, scraping +pence together, and picking up rusty nails. Pretending to look earnestly at +this respectable person’s stomach, Roderick assured him that his snake was a +copper-head and had been generated by the immense quantities of that base metal +with which he daily defiled his fingers. Again, he assaulted a man of rubicund +visage, and told him that few bosom serpents had more of the devil in them than +those that breed in the vats of a distillery. The next whom Roderick honored +with his attention was a distinguished clergyman, who happened just then to be +engaged in a theological controversy, where human wrath was more perceptible +than divine inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +“You have swallowed a snake in a cup of sacramental wine,” quoth he. +</p> + +<p> +“Profane wretch!” exclaimed the divine; but, nevertheless, his hand stole to +his breast. +</p> + +<p> +He met a person of sickly sensibility, who, on some early disappointment, had +retired from the world, and thereafter held no intercourse with his fellow-men, +but brooded sullenly or passionately over the irrevocable past. This man’s very +heart, if Roderick might be believed, had been changed into a serpent, which +would finally torment both him and itself to death. Observing a married couple, +whose domestic troubles were matter of notoriety, he condoled with both on +having mutually taken a house adder to their bosoms. To an envious author, who +depreciated works which he could never equal, he said that his snake was the +slimiest and filthiest of all the reptile tribe, but was fortunately without a +sting. A man of impure life, and a brazen face, asking Roderick if there were +any serpent in his breast, he told him that there was, and of the same species +that once tortured Don Rodrigo, the Goth. He took a fair young girl by the +hand, and gazing sadly into her eyes, warned her that she cherished a serpent +of the deadliest kind within her gentle breast; and the world found the truth +of those ominous words, when, a few months afterwards, the poor girl died of +love and shame. Two ladies, rivals in fashionable life who tormented one +another with a thousand little stings of womanish spite, were given to +understand that each of their hearts was a nest of diminutive snakes, which did +quite as much mischief as one great one. +</p> + +<p> +But nothing seemed to please Roderick better than to lay hold of a person +infected with jealousy, which he represented as an enormous green reptile, with +an ice-cold length of body, and the sharpest sting of any snake save one. +</p> + +<p> +“And what one is that?” asked a by-stander, overhearing him. +</p> + +<p> +It was a dark-browed man who put the question; he had an evasive eye, which in +the course of a dozen years had looked no mortal directly in the face. There +was an ambiguity about this person’s character,—a stain upon his +reputation,—yet none could tell precisely of what nature, although the +city gossips, male and female, whispered the most atrocious surmises. Until a +recent period he had followed the sea, and was, in fact, the very shipmaster +whom George Herkimer had encountered, under such singular circumstances, in the +Grecian Archipelago. +</p> + +<p> +“What bosom serpent has the sharpest sting?” repeated this man; but he put the +question as if by a reluctant necessity, and grew pale while he was uttering +it. +</p> + +<p> +“Why need you ask?” replied Roderick, with a look of dark intelligence. “Look +into your own breast. Hark! my serpent bestirs himself! He acknowledges the +presence of a master fiend!” +</p> + +<p> +And then, as the by-standers afterwards affirmed, a hissing sound was heard, +apparently in Roderick Elliston’s breast. It was said, too, that an answering +hiss came from the vitals of the shipmaster, as if a snake were actually +lurking there and had been aroused by the call of its brother reptile. If there +were in fact any such sound, it might have been caused by a malicious exercise +of ventriloquism on the part of Roderick. +</p> + +<p> +Thus making his own actual serpent—if a serpent there actually was in his +bosom—the type of each man’s fatal error, or hoarded sin, or unquiet +conscience, and striking his sting so unremorsefully into the sorest spot, we +may well imagine that Roderick became the pest of the city. Nobody could elude +him—none could withstand him. He grappled with the ugliest truth that he +could lay his hand on, and compelled his adversary to do the same. Strange +spectacle in human life where it is the instinctive effort of one and all to +hide those sad realities, and leave them undisturbed beneath a heap of +superficial topics which constitute the materials of intercourse between man +and man! It was not to be tolerated that Roderick Elliston should break through +the tacit compact by which the world has done its best to secure repose without +relinquishing evil. The victims of his malicious remarks, it is true, had +brothers enough to keep them in countenance; for, by Roderick’s theory, every +mortal bosom harbored either a brood of small serpents or one overgrown monster +that had devoured all the rest. Still the city could not bear this new apostle. +It was demanded by nearly all, and particularly by the most respectable +inhabitants, that Roderick should no longer be permitted to violate the +received rules of decorum by obtruding his own bosom serpent to the public +gaze, and dragging those of decent people from their lurking places. +</p> + +<p> +Accordingly, his relatives interfered and placed him in a private asylum for +the insane. When the news was noised abroad, it was observed that many persons +walked the streets with freer countenances and covered their breasts less +carefully with their hands. +</p> + +<p> +His confinement, however, although it contributed not a little to the peace of +the town, operated unfavorably upon Roderick himself. In solitude his +melancholy grew more black and sullen. He spent whole days—indeed, it was +his sole occupation—in communing with the serpent. A conversation was +sustained, in which, as it seemed, the hidden monster bore a part, though +unintelligibly to the listeners, and inaudible except in a hiss. Singular as it +may appear, the sufferer had now contracted a sort of affection for his +tormentor, mingled, however, with the intensest loathing and horror. Nor were +such discordant emotions incompatible. Each, on the contrary, imparted strength +and poignancy to its opposite. Horrible love—horrible +antipathy—embracing one another in his bosom, and both concentrating +themselves upon a being that had crept into his vitals or been engendered +there, and which was nourished with his food, and lived upon his life, and was +as intimate with him as his own heart, and yet was the foulest of all created +things! But not the less was it the true type of a morbid nature. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes, in his moments of rage and bitter hatred against the snake and +himself, Roderick determined to be the death of him, even at the expense of his +own life. Once he attempted it by starvation; but, while the wretched man was +on the point of famishing, the monster seemed to feed upon his heart, and to +thrive and wax gamesome, as if it were his sweetest and most congenial diet. +Then he privily took a dose of active poison, imagining that it would not fail +to kill either himself or the devil that possessed him, or both together. +Another mistake; for if Roderick had not yet been destroyed by his own poisoned +heart nor the snake by gnawing it, they had little to fear from arsenic or +corrosive sublimate. Indeed, the venomous pest appeared to operate as an +antidote against all other poisons. The physicians tried to suffocate the fiend +with tobacco smoke. He breathed it as freely as if it were his native +atmosphere. Again, they drugged their patient with opium and drenched him with +intoxicating liquors, hoping that the snake might thus be reduced to stupor and +perhaps be ejected from the stomach. They succeeded in rendering Roderick +insensible; but, placing their hands upon his breast, they were inexpressibly +horror stricken to feel the monster wriggling, twining, and darting to and fro +within his narrow limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and +incited to unusual feats of activity. Thenceforth they gave up all attempts at +cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer submitted to his fate, resumed his +former loathsome affection for the bosom fiend, and spent whole miserable days +before a looking-glass, with his mouth wide open, watching, in hope and horror, +to catch a glimpse of the snake’s head far down within his throat. It is +supposed that he succeeded; for the attendants once heard a frenzied shout, +and, rushing into the room, found Roderick lifeless upon the floor. +</p> + +<p> +He was kept but little longer under restraint. After minute investigation, the +medical directors of the asylum decided that his mental disease did not amount +to insanity, nor would warrant his confinement, especially as its influence +upon his spirits was unfavorable, and might produce the evil which it was meant +to remedy. His eccentricities were doubtless great; he had habitually violated +many of the customs and prejudices of society; but the world was not, without +surer ground, entitled to treat him as a madman. On this decision of such +competent authority Roderick was released, and had returned to his native city +the very day before his encounter with George Herkimer. +</p> + +<p> +As soon as possible after learning these particulars the sculptor, together +with a sad and tremulous companion, sought Elliston at his own house. It was a +large, sombre edifice of wood, with pilasters and a balcony, and was divided +from one of the principal streets by a terrace of three elevations, which was +ascended by successive flights of stone steps. Some immense old elms almost +concealed the front of the mansion. This spacious and once magnificent family +residence was built by a grandee of the race early in the past century, at +which epoch, land being of small comparative value, the garden and other +grounds had formed quite an extensive domain. Although a portion of the +ancestral heritage had been alienated, there was still a shadowy enclosure in +the rear of the mansion where a student, or a dreamer, or a man of stricken +heart might lie all day upon the grass, amid the solitude of murmuring boughs, +and forget that a city had grown up around him. +</p> + +<p> +Into this retirement the sculptor and his companion were ushered by Scipio, the +old black servant, whose wrinkled visage grew almost sunny with intelligence +and joy as he paid his humble greetings to one of the two visitors. +</p> + +<p> +“Remain in the arbor,” whispered the sculptor to the figure that leaned upon +his arm. “You will know whether, and when, to make your appearance.” +</p> + +<p> +“God will teach me,” was the reply. “May He support me too!” +</p> + +<p> +Roderick was reclining on the margin of a fountain which gushed into the +fleckered sunshine with the same clear sparkle and the same voice of airy +quietude as when trees of primeval growth flung their shadows cross its bosom. +How strange is the life of a fountain!—born at every moment, yet of an +age coeval with the rocks, and far surpassing the venerable antiquity of a +forest. +</p> + +<p> +“You are come! I have expected you,” said Elliston, when he became aware of the +sculptor’s presence. +</p> + +<p> +His manner was very different from that of the preceding day—quiet, +courteous, and, as Herkimer thought, watchful both over his guest and himself. +This unnatural restraint was almost the only trait that betokened anything +amiss. He had just thrown a book upon the grass, where it lay half opened, thus +disclosing itself to be a natural history of the serpent tribe, illustrated by +lifelike plates. Near it lay that bulky volume, the Ductor Dubitantium of +Jeremy Taylor, full of cases of conscience, and in which most men, possessed of +a conscience, may find something applicable to their purpose. +</p> + +<p> +“You see,” observed Elliston, pointing to the book of serpents, while a smile +gleamed upon his lips, “I am making an effort to become better acquainted with +my bosom friend; but I find nothing satisfactory in this volume. If I mistake +not, he will prove to be sui generis, and akin to no other reptile in +creation.” +</p> + +<p> +“Whence came this strange calamity?” inquired the sculptor. +</p> + +<p> +“My sable friend Scipio has a story,” replied Roderick, “of a snake that had +lurked in this fountain—pure and innocent as it looks—ever since it +was known to the first settlers. This insinuating personage once crept into the +vitals of my great grandfather and dwelt there many years, tormenting the old +gentleman beyond mortal endurance. In short it is a family peculiarity. But, to +tell you the truth, I have no faith in this idea of the snake’s being an +heirloom. He is my own snake, and no man’s else.” +</p> + +<p> +“But what was his origin?” demanded Herkimer. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, there is poisonous stuff in any man’s heart sufficient to generate a brood +of serpents,” said Elliston with a hollow laugh. “You should have heard my +homilies to the good town’s-people. Positively, I deem myself fortunate in +having bred but a single serpent. You, however, have none in your bosom, and +therefore cannot sympathize with the rest of the world. It gnaws me! It gnaws +me!” +</p> + +<p> +With this exclamation Roderick lost his self-control and threw himself upon the +grass, testifying his agony by intricate writhings, in which Herkimer could not +but fancy a resemblance to the motions of a snake. Then, likewise, was heard +that frightful hiss, which often ran through the sufferer’s speech, and crept +between the words and syllables without interrupting their succession. +</p> + +<p> +“This is awful indeed!” exclaimed the sculptor—“an awful infliction, +whether it be actual or imaginary. Tell me, Roderick Elliston, is there any +remedy for this loathsome evil?” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, but an impossible one,” muttered Roderick, as he lay wallowing with his +face in the grass. “Could I for one moment forget myself, the serpent might not +abide within me. It is my diseased self-contemplation that has engendered and +nourished him.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then forget yourself, my husband,” said a gentle voice above him; “forget +yourself in the idea of another!” +</p> + +<p> +Rosina had emerged from the arbor, and was bending over him with the shadow of +his anguish reflected in her countenance, yet so mingled with hope and +unselfish love that all anguish seemed but an earthly shadow and a dream. She +touched Roderick with her hand. A tremor shivered through his frame. At that +moment, if report be trustworthy, the sculptor beheld a waving motion through +the grass, and heard a tinkling sound, as if something had plunged into the +fountain. Be the truth as it might, it is certain that Roderick Elliston sat up +like a man renewed, restored to his right mind, and rescued from the fiend +which had so miserably overcome him in the battle-field of his own breast. +</p> + +<p> +“Rosina!” cried he, in broken and passionate tones, but with nothing of the +wild wail that had haunted his voice so long, “forgive! forgive!” +</p> + +<p> +Her happy tears bedewed his face. +</p> + +<p> +“The punishment has been severe,” observed the sculptor. “Even Justice might +now forgive; how much more a woman’s tenderness! Roderick Elliston, whether the +serpent was a physical reptile, or whether the morbidness of your nature +suggested that symbol to your fancy, the moral of the story is not the less +true and strong. A tremendous Egotism, manifesting itself in your case in the +form of jealousy, is as fearful a fiend as ever stole into the human heart. Can +a breast, where it has dwelt so long, be purified?” +</p> + +<p> +“Oh yes,” said Rosina with a heavenly smile. “The serpent was but a dark +fantasy, and what it typified was as shadowy as itself. The past, dismal as it +seems, shall fling no gloom upon the future. To give it its due importance we +must think of it but as an anecdote in our Eternity.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a> +THE CHRISTMAS BANQUET</h2> + +<h4>FROM THE UNPUBLISHED “ALLEGORIES OF THE HEART.”</h4> + +<p> +“I have here attempted,” said Roderick, unfolding a few sheets of manuscript, +as he sat with Rosina and the sculptor in the summer-house,—“I have +attempted to seize hold of a personage who glides past me, occasionally, in my +walk through life. My former sad experience, as you know, has gifted me with +some degree of insight into the gloomy mysteries of the human heart, through +which I have wandered like one astray in a dark cavern, with his torch fast +flickering to extinction. But this man, this class of men, is a hopeless +puzzle.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but propound him,” said the sculptor. “Let us have an idea of hint, to +begin with.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, indeed,” replied Roderick, “he is such a being as I could conceive you to +carve out of marble, and some yet unrealized perfection of human science to +endow with an exquisite mockery of intellect; but still there lacks the last +inestimable touch of a divine Creator. He looks like a man; and, perchance, +like a better specimen of man than you ordinarily meet. You might esteem him +wise; he is capable of cultivation and refinement, and has at least an external +conscience; but the demands that spirit makes upon spirit are precisely those +to which he cannot respond. When at last you come close to him you find him +chill and unsubstantial,—a mere vapor.” +</p> + +<p> +“I believe,” said Rosina, “I have a glimmering idea of what you mean.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then be thankful,” answered her husband, smiling; “but do not anticipate any +further illumination from what I am about to read. I have here imagined such a +man to be—what, probably, he never is—conscious of the deficiency +in his spiritual organization. Methinks the result would be a sense of cold +unreality wherewith he would go shivering through the world, longing to +exchange his load of ice for any burden of real grief that fate could fling +upon a human being.” +</p> + +<p> +Contenting himself with this preface, Roderick began to read. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> + +In a certain old gentleman’s last will and testament there appeared a bequest, +which, as his final thought and deed, was singularly in keeping with a long +life of melancholy eccentricity. He devised a considerable sum for establishing +a fund, the interest of which was to be expended, annually forever, in +preparing a Christmas Banquet for ten of the most miserable persons that could +be found. It seemed not to be the testator’s purpose to make these half a score +of sad hearts merry, but to provide that the stern or fierce expression of +human discontent should not be drowned, even for that one holy and joyful day, +amid the acclamations of festal gratitude which all Christendom sends up. And +he desired, likewise, to perpetuate his own remonstrance against the earthly +course of Providence, and his sad and sour dissent from those systems of +religion or philosophy which either find sunshine in the world or draw it down +from heaven. +</p> + +<p> +The task of inviting the guests, or of selecting among such as might advance +their claims to partake of this dismal hospitality, was confided to the two +trustees or stewards of the fund. These gentlemen, like their deceased friend, +were sombre humorists, who made it their principal occupation to number the +sable threads in the web of human life, and drop all the golden ones out of the +reckoning. They performed their present office with integrity and judgment. The +aspect of the assembled company, on the day of the first festival, might not, +it is true, have satisfied every beholder that these were especially the +individuals, chosen forth from all the world, whose griefs were worthy to stand +as indicators of the mass of human suffering. Yet, after due consideration, it +could not be disputed that here was a variety of hopeless discomfort, which, if +it sometimes arose from causes apparently inadequate, was thereby only the +shrewder imputation against the nature and mechanism of life. +</p> + +<p> +The arrangements and decorations of the banquet were probably intended to +signify that death in life which had been the testator’s definition of +existence. The hall, illuminated by torches, was hung round with curtains of +deep and dusky purple, and adorned with branches of cypress and wreaths of +artificial flowers, imitative of such as used to be strewn over the dead. A +sprig of parsley was laid by every plate. The main reservoir of wine, was a +sepulchral urn of silver, whence the liquor was distributed around the table in +small vases, accurately copied from those that held the tears of ancient +mourners. Neither had the stewards—if it were their taste that arranged +these details—forgotten the fantasy of the old Egyptians, who seated a +skeleton at every festive board, and mocked their own merriment with the +imperturbable grin of a death’s-head. Such a fearful guest, shrouded in a black +mantle, sat now at the head of the table. It was whispered, I know not with +what truth, that the testator himself had once walked the visible world with +the machinery of that sane skeleton, and that it was one of the stipulations of +his will, that he should thus be permitted to sit, from year to year, at the +banquet which he had instituted. If so, it was perhaps covertly implied that he +had cherished no hopes of bliss beyond the grave to compensate for the evils +which he felt or imagined here. And if, in their bewildered conjectures as to +the purpose of earthly existence, the banqueters should throw aside the veil, +and cast an inquiring glance at this figure of death, as seeking thence the +solution otherwise unattainable, the only reply would be a stare of the vacant +eye-caverns and a grin of the skeleton jaws. Such was the response that the +dead man had fancied himself to receive when he asked of Death to solve the +riddle of his life; and it was his desire to repeat it when the guests of his +dismal hospitality should find themselves perplexed with the same question. +</p> + +<p> +“What means that wreath?” asked several of the company, while viewing the +decorations of the table. +</p> + +<p> +They alluded to a wreath of cypress, which was held on high by a skeleton arm, +protruding from within the black mantle. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a crown,” said one of the stewards, “not for the worthiest, but for the +wofulest, when he shall prove his claim to it.” +</p> + +<p> +The guest earliest bidden to the festival was a man of soft and gentle +character, who had not energy to struggle against the heavy despondency to +which his temperament rendered him liable; and therefore with nothing outwardly +to excuse him from happiness, he had spent a life of quiet misery that made his +blood torpid, and weighed upon his breath, and sat like a ponderous night-fiend +upon every throb of his unresisting heart. His wretchedness seemed as deep as +his original nature, if not identical with it. It was the misfortune of a +second guest to cherish within his bosom a diseased heart, which had become so +wretchedly sore that the continual and unavoidable rubs of the world, the blow +of an enemy, the careless jostle of a stranger, and even the faithful and +loving touch of a friend, alike made ulcers in it. As is the habit of people +thus afflicted, he found his chief employment in exhibiting these miserable +sores to any who would give themselves the pain of viewing them. A third guest +was a hypochondriac, whose imagination wrought necromancy in his outward and +inward world, and caused him to see monstrous faces in the household fire, and +dragons in the clouds of sunset, and fiends in the guise of beautiful women, +and something ugly or wicked beneath all the pleasant surfaces of nature. His +neighbor at table was one who, in his early youth, had trusted mankind too +much, and hoped too highly in their behalf, and, in meeting with many +disappointments, had become desperately soured. For several years back this +misanthrope bad employed himself in accumulating motives for hating and +despising his race,—such as murder, lust, treachery, ingratitude, +faithlessness of trusted friends, instinctive vices of children, impurity of +women, hidden guilt in men of saint-like aspect,—and, in short, all +manner of black realities that sought to decorate themselves with outward grace +or glory. But at every atrocious fact that was added to his catalogue, at every +increase of the sad knowledge which he spent his life to collect, the native +impulses of the poor man’s loving and confiding heart made him groan with +anguish. Next, with his heavy brow bent downward, there stole into the hall a +man naturally earnest and impassioned, who, from his immemorial infancy, had +felt the consciousness of a high message to the world; but, essaying to deliver +it, had found either no voice or form of speech, or else no ears to listen. +Therefore his whole life was a bitter questioning of himself: “Why have not men +acknowledged my mission? Am I not a self-deluding fool? What business have I on +earth? Where is my grave?” Throughout the festival, he quaffed frequent +draughts from the sepulchral urn of wine, hoping thus to quench the celestial +fire that tortured his own breast and could not benefit his race. +</p> + +<p> +Then there entered, having flung away a ticket for a ball, a gay gallant of +yesterday, who had found four or five wrinkles in his brow, and more gray hairs +than he could well number on his head. Endowed with sense and feeling, he had +nevertheless spent his youth in folly, but had reached at last that dreary +point in life where Folly quits us of her own accord, leaving us to make +friends with Wisdom if we can. Thus, cold and desolate, he had come to seek +Wisdom at the banquet, and wondered if the skeleton were she. To eke out the +company, the stewards had invited a distressed poet from his home in the +almshouse, and a melancholy idiot from the street-corner. The latter had just +the glimmering of sense that was sufficient to make him conscious of a vacancy, +which the poor fellow, all his life long, had mistily sought to fill up with +intelligence, wandering up and down the streets, and groaning miserably because +his attempts were ineffectual. The only lady in the hall was one who had fallen +short of absolute and perfect beauty, merely by the trifling defect of a slight +cast in her left eye. But this blemish, minute as it was, so shocked the pure +ideal of her soul, rather than her vanity, that she passed her life in +solitude, and veiled her countenance even from her own gaze. So the skeleton +sat shrouded at one end of the table, and this poor lady at the other. +</p> + +<p> +One other guest remains to be described. He was a young man of smooth brow, +fair cheek, and fashionable mien. So far as his exterior developed him, he +might much more suitably have found a place at some merry Christmas table, than +have been numbered among the blighted, fate-stricken, fancy-tortured set of +ill-starred banqueters. Murmurs arose among the guests as they noted, the +glance of general scrutiny which the intruder threw over his companions. What +had he to do among them? Why did not the skeleton of the dead founder of the +feast unbend its rattling joints, arise, and motion the unwelcome stranger from +the board? +</p> + +<p> +“Shameful!” said the morbid man, while a new ulcer broke out in his heart. “He +comes to mock us! we shall be the jest of his tavern friends I—he will +make a farce of our miseries, and bring it out upon the stage!” +</p> + +<p> +“O, never mind him!” said the hypochondriac, smiling sourly. “He shall feast +from yonder tureen of viper-soup; and if there is a fricassee of scorpions on +the table, pray let him have his share of it. For the dessert, he shall taste +the apples of Sodom, then, if he like our Christmas fare, let him return again +next year!” +</p> + +<p> +“Trouble him not,” murmured the melancholy man, with gentleness. “What matters +it whether the consciousness of misery come a few years sooner or later? If +this youth deem himself happy now, yet let him sit with us for the sake of the +wretchedness to come.” +</p> + +<p> +The poor idiot approached the young man with that mournful aspect of vacant +inquiry which his face continually wore, and which caused people to say that he +was always in search of his missing wits. After no little examination he +touched the stranger’s hand, but immediately drew back his own, shaking his +head and shivering. +</p> + +<p> +“Cold, cold, cold!” muttered the idiot. +</p> + +<p> +The young man shivered too, and smiled. +</p> + +<p> +“Gentlemen, and you, madam,” said one of the stewards of the festival, “do not +conceive so ill either of our caution or judgment, as to imagine that we have +admitted this young stranger—Gervayse Hastings by name—without a +full investigation and thoughtful balance of his claims. Trust me, not a guest +at the table is better entitled to his seat.” +</p> + +<p> +The steward’s guaranty was perforce satisfactory. The company, therefore, took +their places, and addressed themselves to the serious business of the feast, +but were soon disturbed by the hypochondriac, who thrust back his chair, +complaining that a dish of stewed toads and vipers was set before him, and that +there was green ditchwater in his cup of wine. This mistake being amended, he +quietly resumed his seat. The wine, as it flowed freely from the sepulchral +urn, seemed to come imbued with all gloomy inspirations; so that its influence +was not to cheer, but either to sink the revellers into a deeper melancholy, or +elevate their spirits to an enthusiasm of wretchedness. The conversation was +various. They told sad stories about people who might have been Worthy guests +at such a festival as the present. They talked of grisly incidents in human +history; of strange crimes, which, if truly considered, were but convulsions of +agony; of some lives that had been altogether wretched, and of others, which, +wearing a general semblance of happiness, had yet been deformed, sooner or +later, by misfortune, as by the intrusion of a grim face at a banquet; of +death-bed scenes, and what dark intimations might be gathered from the words of +dying men; of suicide, and whether the more eligible mode were by halter, +knife, poison, drowning, gradual starvation, or the fumes of charcoal. The +majority of the guests, as is the custom with people thoroughly and profoundly +sick at heart, were anxious to make their own woes the theme of discussion, and +prove themselves most excellent in anguish. The misanthropist went deep into +the philosophy of evil, and wandered about in the darkness, with now and then a +gleam of discolored light hovering on ghastly shapes and horrid scenery. Many a +miserable thought, such as men have stumbled upon from age to age, did he now +rake up again, and gloat over it as an inestimable gem, a diamond, a treasure +far preferable to those bright, spiritual revelations of a better world, which +are like precious stones from heaven’s pavement. And then, amid his lore of +wretchedness he hid his face and wept. +</p> + +<p> +It was a festival at which the woful man of Uz might suitably have been a +guest, together with all, in each succeeding age, who have tasted deepest of +the bitterness of life. And be it said, too, that every son or daughter of +woman, however favored with happy fortune, might, at one sad moment or another, +have claimed the privilege of a stricken heart, to sit down at this table. But, +throughout the feast, it was remarked that the young stranger, Gervayse +Hastings, was unsuccessful in his attempts to catch its pervading spirit. At +any deep, strong thought that found utterance, and which was torn out, as it +were, from the saddest recesses of human consciousness, he looked mystified and +bewildered; even more than the poor idiot, who seemed to grasp at such things +with his earnest heart, and thus occasionally to comprehend them. The young +man’s conversation was of a colder and lighter kind, often brilliant, but +lacking the powerful characteristics of a nature that had been developed by +suffering. +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” said the misanthropist, bluntly, in reply to some observation by +Gervayse Hastings, “pray do not address me again. We have no right to talk +together. Our minds have nothing in common. By what claim you appear at this +banquet I cannot guess; but methinks, to a man who could say what you have just +now said, my companions and myself must seem no more than shadows flickering on +the wall. And precisely such a shadow are you to us.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man smiled and bowed, but, drawing himself back in his chair, he +buttoned his coat over his breast, as if the banqueting-ball were growing +chill. Again the idiot fixed his melancholy stare upon the youth, and murmured, +“Cold! cold! cold!” +</p> + +<p> +The banquet drew to its conclusion, and the guests departed. Scarcely had they +stepped across the threshold of the hall, when the scene that had there passed +seemed like the vision of a sick fancy, or an exhalation from a stagnant heart. +Now and then, however, during the year that ensued, these melancholy people +caught glimpses of one another, transient, indeed, but enough to prove that +they walked the earth with the ordinary allotment of reality. Sometimes a pair +of them came face to face, while stealing through the evening twilight, +enveloped in their sable cloaks. Sometimes they casually met in churchyards. +Once, also, it happened that two of the dismal banqueters mutually started at +recognizing each other in the noonday sunshine of a crowded street, stalking +there like ghosts astray. Doubtless they wondered why the skeleton did not come +abroad at noonday too. +</p> + +<p> +But whenever the necessity of their affairs compelled these Christmas guests +into the bustling world, they were sure to encounter the young man who had so +unaccountably been admitted to the festival. They saw him among the gay and +fortunate; they caught the sunny sparkle of his eye; they heard the light and +careless tones of his voice, and muttered to themselves with such indignation +as only the aristocracy of wretchedness could kindle, “The traitor! The vile +impostor! Providence, in its own good time, may give him a right to feast among +us!” But the young man’s unabashed eye dwelt upon their gloomy figures as they +passed him, seeming to say, perchance with somewhat of a sneer, “First, know my +secret then, measure your claims with mine!” +</p> + +<p> +The step of Time stole onward, and soon brought merry Christmas round again, +with glad and solemn worship in the churches, and sports, games, festivals, and +everywhere the bright face of Joy beside the household fire. Again likewise the +hall, with its curtains of dusky purple, was illuminated by the death-torches +gleaming on the sepulchral decorations of the banquet. The veiled, skeleton sat +in state, lifting the cypress-wreath above its head, as the guerdon of some +guest illustrious in the qualifications which there claimed precedence. As the +stewards deemed the world inexhaustible in misery, and were desirous of +recognizing it in all its forms, they had not seen fit to reassemble the +company of the former year. New faces now threw their gloom across the table. +</p> + +<p> +There was a man of nice conscience, who bore a blood-stain in his +heart—the death of a fellow-creature—which, for his more exquisite +torture, had chanced with such a peculiarity of circumstances, that he could +not absolutely determine whether his will had entered into the deed or not. +Therefore, his whole life was spent in the agony of an inward trial for murder, +with a continual sifting of the details of his terrible calamity, until his +mind had no longer any thought, nor his soul any emotion, disconnected with it, +There was a mother, too,—a mother once, but a desolation now,—who, +many years before, had gone out on a pleasure-party, and, returning, found her +infant smothered in its little bed. And ever since she has been tortured with +the fantasy that her buried baby lay smothering in its coffin. Then there was +an aged lady, who had lived from time immemorial with a constant tremor +quivering through her-frame. It was terrible to discern her dark shadow +tremulous upon the wall; her lips, likewise, were tremulous; and the expression +of her eye seemed to indicate that her soul was trembling too. Owing to the +bewilderment and confusion which made almost a chaos of her intellect, it was +impossible to discover what dire misfortune had thus shaken her nature to its +depths; so that the stewards had admitted her to the table, not from any +acquaintance with her history, but on the safe testimony of her miserable +aspect. Some surprise was expressed at the presence of a bluff, red-faced +gentleman, a certain Mr. Smith, who had evidently the fat of many a rich feast +within him, and the habitual twinkle of whose eye betrayed a disposition to +break forth into uproarious laughter for little cause or none. It turned out, +however, that, with the best possible flow of spirits, our poor friend was +afflicted with a physical disease of the heart, which threatened instant death +on the slightest cachinnatory indulgence, or even that titillation of the +bodily frame produced by merry thoughts. In this dilemma he had sought +admittance to the banquet, on the ostensible plea of his irksome and miserable +state, but, in reality, with the hope of imbibing a life-preserving melancholy. +</p> + +<p> +A married couple had been invited from a motive of bitter humor, it being well +understood that they rendered each other unutterably miserable whenever they +chanced to meet, and therefore must necessarily be fit associates at the +festival. In contrast with these was another couple still unmarried, who had +interchanged their hearts in early life, but had been divided by circumstances +as impalpable as morning mist, and kept apart so long that their spirits now +found it impossible to meet, Therefore, yearning for communion, yet shrinking +from one another and choosing none beside, they felt themselves companionless +in life, and looked upon eternity as a boundless desert. Next to the skeleton +sat a mere son of earth,—a hunter of the Exchange,—a gatherer of +shining dust,—a man whose life’s record was in his ledger, and whose +soul’s prison-house the vaults of the bank where he kept his deposits. This +person had been greatly perplexed at his invitation, deeming himself one of the +most fortunate men in the city; but the stewards persisted in demanding his +presence, assuring him that he had no conception how miserable he was. +</p> + +<p> +And now appeared a figure which we must acknowledge as our acquaintance of the +former festival. It was Gervayse Hastings, whose presence had then caused so +much question and criticism, and who now took his place with the composure of +one whose claims were satisfactory to himself and must needs be allowed by +others. Yet his easy and unruffled face betrayed no sorrow. +</p> + +<p> +The well-skilled beholders gazed a moment into his eyes and shook their heads, +to miss the unuttered sympathy—the countersign never to be +falsified—of those whose hearts are cavern-mouths through which they +descend into a region of illimitable woe and recognize other wanderers there. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is this youth?” asked the man with a bloodstain on his conscience. “Surely +he has never gone down into the depths! I know all the aspects of those who +have passed through the dark valley. By what right is he among us?” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, it is a sinful thing to come hither without a sorrow,” murmured the aged +lady, in accents that partook of the eternal tremor which pervaded her whole +being “Depart, young man! Your soul has never been shaken, and, therefore, I +tremble so much the more to look at you.” +</p> + +<p> +“His soul shaken! No; I’ll answer for it,” said bluff Mr. Smith, pressing his +hand upon his heart and making himself as melancholy as he could, for fear of a +fatal explosion of laughter. “I know the lad well; he has as fair prospects as +any young man about town, and has no more right among us miserable creatures +than the child unborn. He never was miserable and probably never will be!” +</p> + +<p> +“Our honored guests,” interposed the stewards, “pray have patience with us, and +believe, at least, that our deep veneration for the sacredness of this +solemnity would preclude any wilful violation of it. Receive this young man to +your table. It may not be too much to say, that no guest here would exchange +his own heart for the one that beats within that youthful bosom!” +</p> + +<p> +“I’d call it a bargain, and gladly, too,” muttered Mr. Smith, with a perplexing +mixture of sadness and mirthful conceit. “A plague upon their nonsense! My own +heart is the only really miserable one in the company; it will certainly be the +death of me at last!” +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless, as on the former occasion, the judgment of the stewards being +without appeal, the company sat down. The obnoxious guest made no more attempt +to obtrude his conversation on those about him, but appeared to listen to the +table-talk with peculiar assiduity, as if some inestimable secret, otherwise +beyond his reach, might be conveyed in a casual word. And in truth, to those +who could understand and value it, there was rich matter in the upgushings and +outpourings of these initiated souls to whom sorrow had been a talisman, +admitting them into spiritual depths which no other spell can open. Sometimes +out of the midst of densest gloom there flashed a momentary radiance, pure as +crystal, bright as the flame of stars, and shedding such a glow upon the +mysteries of life, that the guests were ready to exclaim, “Surely the riddle is +on the point of being solved!” At such illuminated intervals the saddest +mourners felt it to be revealed that mortal griefs are but shadowy and +external; no more than the sable robes voluminously shrouding a certain divine +reality, and thus indicating what might otherwise be altogether invisible to +mortal eye. +</p> + +<p> +“Just now,” remarked the trembling old woman, “I seemed to see beyond the +outside. And then my everlasting tremor passed away!” +</p> + +<p> +“Would that I could dwell always in these momentary gleams of light!” said the +man of stricken conscience. “Then the blood-stain in my heart would be washed +clean away.” +</p> + +<p> +This strain of conversation appeared so unintelligibly absurd to good Mr. +Smith, that he burst into precisely the fit of laughter which his physicians +had warned him against, as likely to prove instantaneously fatal. In effect, he +fell back in his chair a corpse, with a broad grin upon his face, while his +ghost, perchance, remained beside it bewildered at its unpremeditated exit. +This catastrophe of course broke up the festival. +</p> + +<p> +“How is this? You do not tremble!” observed the tremulous old woman to Gervayse +Hastings, who was gazing at the dead man with singular intentness. “Is it not +awful to see him so suddenly vanish out of the midst of life,—this man of +flesh and blood, whose earthly nature was so warm and strong? There is a +never-ending tremor in my soul, but it trembles afresh at, this! And you are +calm!” +</p> + +<p> +“Would that he could teach me somewhat!” said Gervayse Hastings, drawing a long +breath. “Men pass before me like shadows on the wall; their actions, passions, +feelings, are flickerings of the light, and then they vanish! Neither the +corpse, nor yonder skeleton, nor this old woman’s everlasting tremor, can give +me what I seek.” +</p> + +<p> +And then the company departed. +</p> + +<p> +We cannot linger to narrate, in such detail, more circumstances of these +singular festivals, which, in accordance with the founder’s will, continued to +be kept with the regularity of an established institution. In process of time +the stewards adopted the custom of inviting, from far and near, those +individuals whose misfortunes were prominent above other men’s, and whose +mental and moral development might, therefore, be supposed to possess a +corresponding interest. The exiled noble of the French Revolution, and the +broken soldier of the Empire, were alike represented at the table. Fallen +monarchs, wandering about the earth, have found places at that forlorn and +miserable feast. The statesman, when his party flung him off, might, if he +chose it, be once more a great man for the space of a single banquet. Aaron +Burr’s name appears on the record at a period when his ruin—the +profoundest and most striking, with more of moral circumstance in it than that +of almost any other man—was complete in his lonely age. Stephen Guard, +when his wealth weighed upon him like a mountain, once sought admittance of his +own accord. It is not probable, however, that these men had any lesson to teach +in the lore of discontent and misery which might not equally well have been +studied in the common walks of life. Illustrious unfortunates attract a wider +sympathy, not because their griefs are more intense, but because, being set on +lofty pedestals, they the better serve mankind as instances and bywords of +calamity. +</p> + +<p> +It concerns our present purpose to say that, at each successive festival, +Gervayse Hastings showed his face, gradually changing from the smooth beauty of +his youth to the thoughtful comeliness of manhood, and thence to the bald, +impressive dignity of age. He was the only individual invariably present. Yet +on every occasion there were murmurs, both from those who knew his character +and position, and from them whose hearts shrank back as denying his +companionship in their mystic fraternity. +</p> + +<p> +“Who is this impassive man?” had been asked a hundred times. “Has he suffered? +Has he sinned? There are no traces of either. Then wherefore is he here?” +</p> + +<p> +“You must inquire of the stewards or of himself,” was the constant reply. “We +seem to know him well here in our city, and know nothing of him but what is +creditable and fortunate. Yet hither he comes, year after year, to this gloomy +banquet, and sits among the guests like a marble statue. Ask yonder skeleton, +perhaps that may solve the riddle!” +</p> + +<p> +It was in truth a wonder. The life of Gervayse Hastings was not merely a +prosperous, but a brilliant one. Everything had gone well with him. He was +wealthy, far beyond the expenditure that was required by habits of +magnificence, a taste of rare purity and cultivation, a love of travel, a +scholar’s instinct to collect a splendid library, and, moreover, what seemed a +magnificent liberality to the distressed. He had sought happiness, and not +vainly, if a lovely and tender wife, and children of fair promise, could insure +it. He had, besides, ascended above the limit which separates the obscure from +the distinguished, and had won a stainless reputation in affairs of the widest +public importance. Not that he was a popular character, or had within him the +mysterious attributes which are essential to that species of success. To the +public he was a cold abstraction, wholly destitute of those rich lines of +personality, that living warmth, and the peculiar faculty of stamping his own +heart’s impression on a multitude of hearts, by which the people recognize +their favorites. And it must be owned that, after his most intimate associates +had done their best to know him thoroughly, and love him warmly, they were +startled to find how little hold he had upon their affections. They approved, +they admired, but still in those moments when the human spirit most craves +reality, they shrank back from Gervayse Hastings, as powerless to give them +what they sought. It was the feeling of distrustful regret with which we should +draw back the hand after extending it, in an illusive twilight, to grasp the +hand of a shadow upon the wall. +</p> + +<p> +As the superficial fervency of youth decayed, this peculiar effect of Gervayse +Hastings’s character grew more perceptible. His children, when he extended his +arms, came coldly to his knees, but never climbed them of their own accord. His +wife wept secretly, and almost adjudged herself a criminal because she shivered +in the chill of his bosom. He, too, occasionally appeared not unconscious of +the chillness of his moral atmosphere, and willing, if it might be so, to warm +himself at a kindly fire. But age stole onward and benumbed him snore and more. +As the hoar-frost began to gather on him his wife went to her grave, and was +doubtless warmer there; his children either died or were scattered to different +homes of their own; and old Gervayse Hastings, unscathed by grief,—alone, +but needing no companionship,—continued his steady walk through life, and +still one very Christmas day attended at the dismal banquet. His privilege as a +guest had become prescriptive now. Had he claimed the head of the table, even +the skeleton would have been ejected from its seat. +</p> + +<p> +Finally, at the merry Christmas-tide, when he had numbered fourscore years +complete, this pale, highbrowed, marble-featured old man once more entered the +long-frequented hall, with the same impassive aspect that had called forth so +much dissatisfied remark at his first attendance. Time, except in matters +merely external, had done nothing for him, either of good or evil. As he took +his place he threw a calm, inquiring glance around the table, as if to +ascertain whether any guest had yet appeared, after so many unsuccessful +banquets, who might impart to him the mystery—the deep, warm +secret—the life within the life—which, whether manifested in joy or +sorrow, is what gives substance to a world of shadows. +</p> + +<p> +“My friends,” said Gervayse Hastings, assuming a position which his long +conversance with the festival caused to appear natural, “you are welcome! I +drink to you all in this cup of sepulchral wine.” +</p> + +<p> +The guests replied courteously, but still in a manner that proved them unable +to receive the old man as a member of their sad fraternity. It may be well to +give the reader an idea of the present company at the banquet. +</p> + +<p> +One was formerly a clergyman, enthusiastic in his profession, and apparently of +the genuine dynasty of those old Puritan divines whose faith in their calling, +and stern exercise of it, had placed them among the mighty of the earth. But +yielding to the speculative tendency of the age, he had gone astray from the +firm foundation of an ancient faith, and wandered into a cloud-region, where +everything was misty and deceptive, ever mocking him with a semblance of +reality, but still dissolving when he flung himself upon it for support and +rest. His instinct and early training demanded something steadfast; but, +looking forward, he beheld vapors piled on vapors, and behind him an impassable +gulf between the man of yesterday and to-day, on the borders of which he paced +to and fro, sometimes wringing his hands in agony, and often making his own woe +a theme of scornful merriment. This surely was a miserable man. Next, there was +a theorist,—one of a numerous tribe, although he deemed himself unique +since the creation,—a theorist, who had conceived a plan by which all the +wretchedness of earth, moral and physical, might be done away, and the bliss of +the millennium at once accomplished. But, the incredulity of mankind debarring +him from action, he was smitten with as much grief as if the whole mass of woe +which he was denied the opportunity to remedy were crowded into his own bosom. +A plain old man in black attracted much of the company’s notice, on the +supposition that he was no other than Father Miller, who, it seemed, had given +himself up to despair at the tedious delay of the final conflagration. Then +there was a man distinguished for native pride and obstinacy, who, a little +while before, had possessed immense wealth, and held the control of a vast +moneyed interest which he had wielded in the same spirit as a despotic monarch +would wield the power of his empire, carrying on a tremendous moral warfare, +the roar and tremor of which was felt at every fireside in the land. At length +came a crushing ruin,—a total overthrow of fortune, power, and +character,—the effect of which on his imperious and, in many respects, +noble and lofty nature might have entitled him to a place, not merely at our +festival, but among the peers of Pandemonium. +</p> + +<p> +There was a modern philanthropist, who had become so deeply sensible of the +calamities of thousands and millions of his fellow-creatures, and of the +impracticableness of any general measures for their relief, that he had no +heart to do what little good lay immediately within his power, but contented +himself with being miserable for sympathy. Near him sat a gentleman in a +predicament hitherto unprecedented, but of which the present epoch probably +affords numerous examples. Ever since he was of capacity to read a newspaper, +this person had prided himself on his consistent adherence to one political +party, but, in the confusion of these latter days, had got bewildered and knew +not whereabouts his party was. This wretched condition, so morally desolate and +disheartening to a man who has long accustomed himself to merge his +individuality in the mass of a great body, can only be conceived by such as +have experienced it. His next companion was a popular orator who had lost his +voice, and—as it was pretty much all that he had to lose—had fallen +into a state of hopeless melancholy. The table was likewise graced by two of +the gentler sex,—one, a half-starved, consumptive seamstress, the +representative of thousands just as wretched; the other, a woman of unemployed +energy, who found herself in the world with nothing to achieve, nothing to +enjoy, and nothing even to suffer. She had, therefore, driven herself to the +verge of madness by dark broodings over the wrongs of her sex, and its +exclusion from a proper field of action. The roll of guests being thus +complete, a side-table had been set for three or four disappointed +office-seekers, with hearts as sick as death, whom the stewards had admitted +partly because their calamities really entitled them to entrance here, and +partly that they were in especial need of a good dinner. There was likewise a +homeless dog, with his tail between his legs, licking up the crumbs and gnawing +the fragments of the feast,—such a melancholy cur as one sometimes sees +about the streets without a master, and willing to follow the first that will +accept his service. +</p> + +<p> +In their own way, these were as wretched a set of people as ever had assembled +at the festival. There they sat, with the veiled skeleton of the founder +holding aloft the cypress-wreath, at one end of the table, and at the other, +wrapped in furs, the withered figure of Gervayse Hastings, stately, calm, and +cold, impressing the company with awe, yet so little interesting their sympathy +that he might have vanished into thin air without their once exclaiming, +“Whither is he gone?” +</p> + +<p> +“Sir,” said the philanthropist, addressing the old man, “you have been so long +a guest at this annual festival, and have thus been conversant with so many +varieties of human affliction, that, not improbably, you have thence derived +some great and important lessons. How blessed were your lot could you reveal a +secret by which all this mass of woe might be removed!” +</p> + +<p> +“I know of but one misfortune,” answered Gervayse Hastings, quietly, “and that +is my own.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your own!” rejoined the philanthropist. “And looking back on your serene and +prosperous life, how can you claim to be the sole unfortunate of the human +race?” +</p> + +<p> +“You will not understand it,” replied Gervayse Hastings, feebly, and with a +singular inefficiency of pronunciation, and sometimes putting one word for +another. “None have understood it, not even those who experience the like. It +is a chillness, a want of earnestness, a feeling as if what should be my heart +were a thing of vapor, a haunting perception of unreality! Thus seeming to +possess all that other men have, all that men aim at, I have really possessed +nothing, neither joy nor griefs. All things, all persons,—as was truly +said to me at this table long and long ago,—have been like shadows +flickering on the wall. It was so with my wife and children, with those who +seemed my friends: it is so with yourselves, whom I see now before one. Neither +have I myself any real existence, but am a shadow like the rest.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how is it with your views of a future life?” inquired the speculative +clergyman. +</p> + +<p> +“Worse than with you,” said the old man, in a hollow and feeble tone; “for I +cannot conceive it earnestly enough to feel either hope or fear. +Mine,—mine is the wretchedness! This cold heart,—this unreal life! +Ah! it grows colder still.” +</p> + +<p> +It so chanced that at this juncture the decayed ligaments of the skeleton gave +way, and the dry hones fell together in a heap, thus causing the dusty wreath +of cypress to drop upon the table. The attention of the company being thus +diverted for a single instant from Gervayse Hastings, they perceived, on +turning again towards him, that the old man had undergone a change. His shadow +had ceased to flicker on the wall. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> + +“Well, Rosina, what is your criticism?” asked Roderick, as he rolled up the +manuscript. +</p> + +<p> +“Frankly, your success is by no means complete,” replied she. “It is true, I +have an idea of the character you endeavor to describe; but it is rather by +dint of my own thought than your expression.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is unavoidable,” observed the sculptor, “because the characteristics are +all negative. If Gervayse Hastings could have imbibed one human grief at the +gloomy banquet, the task of describing him would have been infinitely easier. +Of such persons—and we do meet with these moral monsters now and +then—it is difficult to conceive how they came to exist here, or what +there is in them capable of existence hereafter. They seem to be on the outside +of everything; and nothing wearies the soul more than an attempt to comprehend +them within its grasp.” +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a> +DROWNE’S WOODEN IMAGE</h2> + +<p> +One sunshiny morning, in the good old times of the town of Boston, a young +carver in wood, well known by the name of Drowne, stood contemplating a large +oaken log, which it was his purpose to convert into the figure-head of a +vessel. And while he discussed within his own mind what sort of shape or +similitude it were well to bestow upon this excellent piece of timber, there +came into Drowne’s workshop a certain Captain Hunnewell, owner and commander of +the good brig called the Cynosure, which had just returned from her first +voyage to Fayal. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah! that will do, Drowne, that will do!” cried the jolly captain, tapping the +log with his rattan. “I bespeak this very piece of oak for the figure-head of +the Cynosure. She has shown herself the sweetest craft that ever floated, and I +mean to decorate her prow with the handsomest image that the skill of man can +cut out of timber. And, Drowne, you are the fellow to execute it.” +</p> + +<p> +“You give me more credit than I deserve, Captain Hunnewell,” said the carver, +modestly, yet as one conscious of eminence in his art. “But, for the sake of +the good brig, I stand ready to do my best. And which of these designs do you +prefer? Here,”—pointing to a staring, half-length figure, in a white wig +and scarlet coat,—“here is an excellent model, the likeness of our +gracious king. Here is the valiant Admiral Vernon. Or, if you prefer a female +figure, what say you to Britannia with the trident?” +</p> + +<p> +“All very fine, Drowne; all very fine,” answered the mariner. “But as nothing +like the brig ever swam the ocean, so I am determined she shall have such a +figure-head as old Neptune never saw in his life. And what is more, as there is +a secret in the matter, you must pledge your credit not to betray it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Certainly,” said Drowne, marvelling, however, what possible mystery there +could be in reference to an affair so open, of necessity, to the inspection of +all the world as the figure-head of a vessel. “You may depend, captain, on my +being as secret as the nature of the case will permit.” +</p> + +<p> +Captain Hunnewell then took Drowne by the button, and communicated his wishes +in so low a tone that it would be unmannerly to repeat what was evidently +intended for the carver’s private ear. We shall, therefore, take the +opportunity to give the reader a few desirable particulars about Drowne +himself. +</p> + +<p> +He was the first American who is known to have attempted—in a very humble +line, it is true—that art in which we can now reckon so many names +already distinguished, or rising to distinction. From his earliest boyhood he +had exhibited a knack—for it would be too proud a word to call it +genius—a knack, therefore, for the imitation of the human figure in +whatever material came most readily to hand. The snows of a New England winter +had often supplied him with a species of marble as dazzingly white, at least, +as the Parian or the Carrara, and if less durable, yet sufficiently so to +correspond with any claims to permanent existence possessed by the boy’s frozen +statues. Yet they won admiration from maturer judges than his school-fellows, +and were indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth that +might have made the snow melt beneath his hand. As he advanced in life, the +young man adopted pine and oak as eligible materials for the display of his +skill, which now began to bring him a return of solid silver as well as the +empty praise that had been an apt reward enough for his productions of +evanescent snow. He became noted for carving ornamental pump heads, and wooden +urns for gate posts, and decorations, more grotesque than fanciful, for +mantelpieces. No apothecary would have deemed himself in the way of obtaining +custom without setting up a gilded mortar, if not a head of Galen or +Hippocrates, from the skilful hand of Drowne. +</p> + +<p> +But the great scope of his business lay in the manufacture of figure-heads for +vessels. Whether it were the monarch himself, or some famous British admiral or +general, or the governor of the province, or perchance the favorite daughter of +the ship-owner, there the image stood above the prow, decked out in gorgeous +colors, magnificently gilded, and staring the whole world out of countenance, +as if from an innate consciousness of its own superiority. These specimens of +native sculpture had crossed the sea in all directions, and been not ignobly +noticed among the crowded shipping of the Thames and wherever else the hardy +mariners of New England had pushed their adventures. It must be confessed that +a family likeness pervaded these respectable progeny of Drowne’s skill; that +the benign countenance of the king resembled those of his subjects, and that +Miss Peggy Hobart, the merchant’s daughter, bore a remarkable similitude to +Britannia, Victory, and other ladies of the allegoric sisterhood; and, finally, +that they all had a kind of wooden aspect which proved an intimate relationship +with the unshaped blocks of timber in the carver’s workshop. But at least there +was no inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any attribute to +render them really works of art, except that deep quality, be it of soul or +intellect, which bestows life upon the lifeless and warmth upon the cold, and +which, had it been present, would have made Drowne’s wooden image instinct with +spirit. +</p> + +<p> +The captain of the Cynosure had now finished his instructions. +</p> + +<p> +“And Drowne,” said he, impressively, “you must lay aside all other business and +set about this forthwith. And as to the price, only do the job in first-rate +style, and you shall settle that point yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +“Very well, captain,” answered the carver, who looked grave and somewhat +perplexed, yet had a sort of smile upon his visage; “depend upon it, I’ll do my +utmost to satisfy you.” +</p> + +<p> +From that moment the men of taste about Long Wharf and the Town Dock who were +wont to show their love for the arts by frequent visits to Drowne’s workshop, +and admiration of his wooden images, began to be sensible of a mystery in the +carver’s conduct. Often he was absent in the daytime. Sometimes, as might be +judged by gleams of light from the shop windows, he was at work until a late +hour of the evening; although neither knock nor voice, on such occasions, could +gain admittance for a visitor, or elicit any word of response. Nothing +remarkable, however, was observed in the shop at those late hours when it was +thrown open. A fine piece of timber, indeed, which Drowne was known to have +reserved for some work of especial dignity, was seen to be gradually assuming +shape. What shape it was destined ultimately to take was a problem to his +friends and a point on which the carver himself preserved a rigid silence. But +day after day, though Drowne was seldom noticed in the act of working upon it, +this rude form began to be developed until it became evident to all observers +that a female figure was growing into mimic life. At each new visit they beheld +a larger pile of wooden chips and a nearer approximation to something +beautiful. It seemed as if the hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself from +the unimaginative world within the heart of her native tree, and that it was +only necessary to remove the strange shapelessness that had incrusted her, and +reveal the grace and loveliness of a divinity. Imperfect as the design, the +attitude, the costume, and especially the face of the image still remained, +there was already an effect that drew the eye from the wooden cleverness of +Drowne’s earlier productions and fixed it upon the tantalizing mystery of this +new project. +</p> + +<p> +Copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man and a resident of Boston, came +one day to visit Drowne; for he had recognized so much of moderate ability in +the carver as to induce him, in the dearth of professional sympathy, to +cultivate his acquaintance. On entering the shop, the artist glanced at the +inflexible image of king, commander, dame, and allegory, that stood around, on +the best of which might have been bestowed the questionable praise that it +looked as if a living man had here been changed to wood, and that not only the +physical, but the intellectual and spiritual part, partook of the stolid +transformation. But in not a single instance did it seem as if the wood were +imbibing the ethereal essence of humanity. What a wide distinction is here! and +how far the slightest portion of the latter merit have outvalued the utmost +degree of the former! +</p> + +<p> +“My friend Drowne;” said Copley, smiling to himself, but alluding to the +mechanical and wooden cleverness that so invariably distinguished the images, +“you are really a remarkable person! I have seldom met with a man in your line +of business that could do so much; for one other touch might make this figure +of General Wolfe, for instance, a breathing and intelligent human creature.” +</p> + +<p> +“You would have me think that you are praising me highly, Mr. Copley,” answered +Drowne, turning his back upon Wolfe’s image in apparent disgust. “But there has +come a light into my mind. I know what you know as well, that the one touch +which you speak of as deficient is the only one that would be truly valuable, +and that without it these works of mine are no better than worthless abortions. +There is the same difference between them and the works of an inspired artist +as between a sign-post daub and one of your best pictures.” +</p> + +<p> +“This is strange,” cried Copley, looking him in the face, which now, as the +painter fancied, had a singular depth of intelligence, though hitherto it had +not given him greatly the advantage over his own family of wooden images. “What +has come over you? How is it that, possessing the idea which you have now +uttered, you should produce only such works as these?” +</p> + +<p> +The carver smiled, but made no reply. Copley turned again to the images, +conceiving that the sense of deficiency which Drowne had just expressed, and +which is so rare in a merely mechanical character, must surely imply a genius, +the tokens of which had heretofore been overlooked. But no; there was not a +trace of it. He was about to withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a +half-developed figure which lay in a corner of the workshop, surrounded by +scattered chips of oak. It arrested him at once. +</p> + +<p> +“What is here? Who has done this?” he broke out, after contemplating it in +speechless astonishment for an instant. “Here is the divine, the lifegiving +touch. What inspired hand is beckoning this wood to arise and live? Whose work +is this?” +</p> + +<p> +“No man’s work,” replied Drowne. “The figure lies within that block of oak, and +it is my business to find it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Drowne,” said the true artist, grasping the carver fervently by the hand, “you +are a man of genius!” +</p> + +<p> +As Copley departed, happening to glance backward from the threshold, he beheld +Drowne bending over the half-created shape, and stretching forth his arms as if +he would have embraced and drawn it to his heart; while, had such a miracle +been possible, his countenance expressed passion enough to communicate warmth +and sensibility to the lifeless oak. +</p> + +<p> +“Strange enough!” said the artist to himself. “Who would have looked for a +modern Pygmalion in the person of a Yankee mechanic!” +</p> + +<p> +As yet, the image was but vague in its outward presentment; so that, as in the +cloud shapes around the western sun, the observer rather felt, or was led to +imagine, than really saw what was intended by it. Day by day, however, the work +assumed greater precision, and settled its irregular and misty outline into +distincter grace and beauty. The general design was now obvious to the common +eye. It was a female figure, in what appeared to be a foreign dress; the gown +being laced over the bosom, and opening in front so as to disclose a skirt or +petticoat, the folds and inequalities of which were admirably represented in +the oaken substance. She wore a hat of singular gracefulness, and abundantly +laden with flowers, such as never grew in the rude soil of New England, but +which, with all their fanciful luxuriance, had a natural truth that it seemed +impossible for the most fertile imagination to have attained without copying +from real prototypes. There were several little appendages to this dress, such +as a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain about the neck, a watch in the bosom, and +a ring upon the finger, all of which would have been deemed beneath the dignity +of sculpture. They were put on, however, with as much taste as a lovely woman +might have shown in her attire, and could therefore have shocked none but a +judgment spoiled by artistic rules. +</p> + +<p> +The face was still imperfect; but gradually, by a magic touch, intelligence and +sensibility brightened through the features, with all the effect of light +gleaming forth from within the solid oak. The face became alive. It was a +beautiful, though not precisely regular and somewhat haughty aspect, but with a +certain piquancy about the eyes and mouth, which, of all expressions, would +have seemed the most impossible to throw over a wooden countenance. And now, so +far as carving went, this wonderful production was complete. +</p> + +<p> +“Drowne,” said Copley, who had hardly missed a single day in his visits to the +carver’s workshop, “if this work were in marble it would make you famous at +once; nay, I would almost affirm that it would make an era in the art. It is as +ideal as an antique statue, and yet as real as any lovely woman whom one meets +at a fireside or in the street. But I trust you do not mean to desecrate this +exquisite creature with paint, like those staring kings and admirals yonder?” +</p> + +<p> +“Not paint her!” exclaimed Captain Hunnewell, who stood by; “not paint the +figure-head of the Cynosure! And what sort of a figure should I cut in a +foreign port with such an unpainted oaken stick as this over my prow! She must, +and she shall, be painted to the life, from the topmost flower in her hat down +to the silver spangles on her slippers.” +</p> + +<p> +“Mr. Copley,” said Drowne, quietly, “I know nothing of marble statuary, and +nothing of the sculptor’s rules of art; but of this wooden image, this work of +my hands, this creature of my heart,”—and here his voice faltered and +choked in a very singular manner,—“of this—of her—I may say +that I know something. A well-spring of inward wisdom gushed within me as I +wrought upon the oak with my whole strength, and soul, and faith. Let others do +what they may with marble, and adopt what rules they choose. If I can produce +my desired effect by painted wood, those rules are not for me, and I have a +right to disregard them.” +</p> + +<p> +“The very spirit of genius,” muttered Copley to himself. “How otherwise should +this carver feel himself entitled to transcend all rules, and make me ashamed +of quoting them?” +</p> + +<p> +He looked earnestly at Drowne, and again saw that expression of human love +which, in a spiritual sense, as the artist could not help imagining, was the +secret of the life that had been breathed into this block of wood. +</p> + +<p> +The carver, still in the same secrecy that marked all his operations upon this +mysterious image, proceeded to paint the habiliments in their proper colors, +and the countenance with Nature’s red and white. When all was finished he threw +open his workshop, and admitted the towns people to behold what he had done. +Most persons, at their first entrance, felt impelled to remove their hats, and +pay such reverence as was due to the richly-dressed and beautiful young lady +who seemed to stand in a corner of the room, with oaken chips and shavings +scattered at her feet. Then came a sensation of fear; as if, not being actually +human, yet so like humanity, she must therefore be something preternatural. +There was, in truth, an indefinable air and expression that might reasonably +induce the query, Who and from what sphere this daughter of the oak should be? +The strange, rich flowers of Eden on her head; the complexion, so much deeper +and more brilliant than those of our native beauties; the foreign, as it +seemed, and fantastic garb, yet not too fantastic to be worn decorously in the +street; the delicately-wrought embroidery of the skirt; the broad gold chain +about her neck; the curious ring upon her finger; the fan, so exquisitely +sculptured in open work, and painted to resemble pearl and ebony;—where +could Drowne, in his sober walk of life, have beheld the vision here so +matchlessly embodied! And then her face! In the dark eyes, and around the +voluptuous mouth, there played a look made up of pride, coquetry, and a gleam +of mirthfulness, which impressed Copley with the idea that the image was +secretly enjoying the perplexing admiration of himself and other beholders. +</p> + +<p> +“And will you,” said he to the carver, “permit this masterpiece to become the +figure-head of a vessel? Give the honest captain yonder figure of +Britannia—it will answer his purpose far better—and send this fairy +queen to England, where, for aught I know, it may bring you a thousand pounds.” +</p> + +<p> +“I have not wrought it for money,” said Drowne. +</p> + +<p> +“What sort of a fellow is this!” thought Copley. “A Yankee, and throw away the +chance of making his fortune! He has gone mad; and thence has come this gleam +of genius.” +</p> + +<p> +There was still further proof of Drowne’s lunacy, if credit were due to the +rumor that he had been seen kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady, and gazing +with a lover’s passionate ardor into the face that his own hands had created. +The bigots of the day hinted that it would be no matter of surprise if an evil +spirit were allowed to enter this beautiful form, and seduce the carver to +destruction. +</p> + +<p> +The fame of the image spread far and wide. The inhabitants visited it so +universally, that after a few days of exhibition there was hardly an old man or +a child who had not become minutely familiar with its aspect. Even had the +story of Drowne’s wooden image ended here, its celebrity might have been +prolonged for many years by the reminiscences of those who looked upon it in +their childhood, and saw nothing else so beautiful in after life. But the town +was now astounded by an event, the narrative of which has formed itself into +one of the most singular legends that are yet to be met with in the +traditionary chimney corners of the New England metropolis, where old men and +women sit dreaming of the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the +present and the future. +</p> + +<p> +One fine morning, just before the departure of the Cynosure on her second +voyage to Fayal, the commander of that gallant vessel was seen to issue from +his residence in Hanover Street. He was stylishly dressed in a blue broadcloth +coat, with gold lace at the seams and button-holes, an embroidered scarlet +waistcoat, a triangular hat, with a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore a +silver-hilted hanger at his side. But the good captain might have been arrayed +in the robes of a prince or the rags of a beggar, without in either case +attracting notice, while obscured by such a companion as now leaned on his arm. +The people in the street started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped aside +from their path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or marble in astonishment. +</p> + +<p> +“Do you see it?—do you see it?” cried one, with tremulous eagerness. “It +is the very same!” +</p> + +<p> +“The same?” answered another, who had arrived in town only the night before. +“Who do you mean? I see only a sea-captain in his shoregoing clothes, and a +young lady in a foreign habit, with a bunch of beautiful flowers in her hat. On +my word, she is as fair and bright a damsel as my eyes have looked on this many +a day!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; the same!—the very same!” repeated the other. “Drowne’s wooden +image has come to life!” +</p> + +<p> +Here was a miracle indeed! Yet, illuminated by the sunshine, or darkened by the +alternate shade of the houses, and with its garments fluttering lightly in the +morning breeze, there passed the image along the street. It was exactly and +minutely the shape, the garb, and the face which the towns-people had so +recently thronged to see and admire. Not a rich flower upon her head, not a +single leaf, but had had its prototype in Drowne’s wooden workmanship, although +now their fragile grace had become flexible, and was shaken by every footstep +that the wearer made. The broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the +one represented on the image, and glistened with the motion imparted by the +rise and fall of the bosom which it decorated. A real diamond sparkled on her +finger. In her right hand she bore a pearl and ebony fan, which she flourished +with a fantastic and bewitching coquetry, that was likewise expressed in all +her movements as well as in the style of her beauty and the attire that so well +harmonized with it. The face with its brilliant depth of complexion had the +same piquancy of mirthful mischief that was fixed upon the countenance of the +image, but which was here varied and continually shifting, yet always +essentially the same, like the sunny gleam upon a bubbling fountain. On the +whole, there was something so airy and yet so real in the figure, and withal so +perfectly did it represent Drowne’s image, that people knew not whether to +suppose the magic wood etherealized into a spirit or warmed and softened into +an actual woman. +</p> + +<p> +“One thing is certain,” muttered a Puritan of the old stamp, “Drowne has sold +himself to the devil; and doubtless this gay Captain Hunnewell is a party to +the bargain.” +</p> + +<p> +“And I,” said a young man who overheard him, “would almost consent to be the +third victim, for the liberty of saluting those lovely lips.” +</p> + +<p> +“And so would I,” said Copley, the painter, “for the privilege of taking her +picture.” +</p> + +<p> +The image, or the apparition, whichever it might be, still escorted by the bold +captain, proceeded from Hanover Street through some of the cross lanes that +make this portion of the town so intricate, to Ann Street, thence into Dock +Square, and so downward to Drowne’s shop, which stood just on the water’s edge. +The crowd still followed, gathering volume as it rolled along. Never had a +modern miracle occurred in such broad daylight, nor in the presence of such a +multitude of witnesses. The airy image, as if conscious that she was the object +of the murmurs and disturbance that swelled behind her, appeared slightly vexed +and flustered, yet still in a manner consistent with the light vivacity and +sportive mischief that were written in her countenance. She was observed to +flutter her fan with such vehement rapidity that the elaborate delicacy of its +workmanship gave way, and it remained broken in her hand. +</p> + +<p> +Arriving at Drowne’s door, while the captain threw it open, the marvellous +apparition paused an instant on the threshold, assuming the very attitude of +the image, and casting over the crowd that glance of sunny coquetry which all +remembered on the face of the oaken lady. She and her cavalier then +disappeared. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah!” murmured the crowd, drawing a deep breath, as with one vast pair of +lungs. +</p> + +<p> +“The world looks darker now that she has vanished,” said some of the young men. +</p> + +<p> +But the aged, whose recollections dated as far back as witch times, shook their +heads, and hinted that our forefathers would have thought it a pious deed to +burn the daughter of the oak with fire. +</p> + +<p> +“If she be other than a bubble of the elements,” exclaimed Copley, “I must look +upon her face again.” +</p> + +<p> +He accordingly entered the shop; and there, in her usual corner, stood the +image, gazing at him, as it might seem, with the very same expression of +mirthful mischief that had been the farewell look of the apparition when, but a +moment before, she turned her face towards the crowd. The carver stood beside +his creation mending the beautiful fan, which by some accident was broken in +her hand. But there was no longer any motion in the lifelike image, nor any +real woman in the workshop, nor even the witchcraft of a sunny shadow, that +might have deluded people’s eyes as it flitted along the street. Captain +Hunnewell, too, had vanished. His hoarse sea-breezy tones, however, were +audible on the other side of a door that opened upon the water. +</p> + +<p> +“Sit down in the stern sheets, my lady,” said the gallant captain. “Come, bear +a hand, you lubbers, and set us on board in the turning of a minute-glass.” +</p> + +<p> +And then was heard the stroke of oars. +</p> + +<p> +“Drowne,” said Copley with a smile of intelligence, “you have been a truly +fortunate man. What painter or statuary ever had such a subject! No wonder that +she inspired a genius into you, and first created the artist who afterwards +created her image.” +</p> + +<p> +Drowne looked at him with a visage that bore the traces of tears, but from +which the light of imagination and sensibility, so recently illuminating it, +had departed. He was again the mechanical carver that he had been known to be +all his lifetime. +</p> + +<p> +“I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. Copley,” said he, putting his hand to +his brow. “This image! Can it have been my work? Well, I have wrought it in a +kind of dream; and now that I am broad awake I must set about finishing yonder +figure of Admiral Vernon.” +</p> + +<p> +And forthwith he employed himself on the stolid countenance of one of his +wooden progeny, and completed it in his own mechanical style, from which he was +never known afterwards to deviate. He followed his business industriously for +many years, acquired a competence, and in the latter part of his life attained +to a dignified station in the church, being remembered in records and +traditions as Deacon Drowne, the carver. One of his productions, an Indian +chief, gilded all over, stood during the better part of a century on the cupola +of the Province House, bedazzling the eyes of those who looked upward, like an +angel of the sun. Another work of the good deacon’s hand—a reduced +likeness of his friend Captain Hunnewell, holding a telescope and +quadrant—may be seen to this day, at the corner of Broad and State +streets, serving in the useful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical +instrument maker. We know not how to account for the inferiority of this quaint +old figure, as compared with the recorded excellence of the Oaken Lady, unless +on the supposition that in every human spirit there is imagination, +sensibility, creative power, genius, which, according to circumstances, may +either be developed in this world, or shrouded in a mask of dulness until +another state of being. To our friend Drowne there came a brief season of +excitement, kindled by love. It rendered him a genius for that one occasion, +but, quenched in disappointment, left him again the mechanical carver in wood, +without the power even of appreciating the work that his own hands had wrought. +Yet who can doubt that the very highest state to which a human spirit can +attain, in its loftiest aspirations, is its truest and most natural state, and +that Drowne was more consistent with himself when he wrought the admirable +figure of the mysterious lady, than when he perpetrated a whole progeny of +blockheads? +</p> + +<p> +There was a rumor in Boston, about this period, that a young Portuguese lady of +rank, on some occasion of political or domestic disquietude, had fled from her +home in Fayal and put herself under the protection of Captain Hunnewell, on +board of whose vessel, and at whose residence, she was sheltered until a change +of affairs. This fair stranger must have been the original of Drowne’s Wooden +Image. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a> +THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE</h2> + +<p> +Grave figure, with a pair of mysterious spectacles on his nose and a pen behind +his ear, was seated at a desk in the corner of a metropolitan office. The +apartment was fitted up with a counter, and furnished with an oaken cabinet and +a Chair or two, in simple and business-like style. Around the walls were stuck +advertisements of articles lost, or articles wanted, or articles to be disposed +of; in one or another of which classes were comprehended nearly all the +Conveniences, or otherwise, that the imagination of man has contrived. The +interior of the room was thrown into shadow, partly by the tall edifices that +rose on the opposite side of the street, and partly by the immense show-bills +of blue and crimson paper that were expanded over each of the three windows. +Undisturbed by the tramp of feet, the rattle of wheels, the hump of voices, the +shout of the city crier, the scream of the newsboys, and other tokens of the +multitudinous life that surged along in front of the office, the figure at the +desk pored diligently over a folio volume, of ledger-like size and aspect, He +looked like the spirit of a record—the soul of his own great volume made +visible in mortal shape. +</p> + +<p> +But scarcely an instant elapsed without the appearance at the door of some +individual from the busy population whose vicinity was manifested by so much +buzz, and clatter, and outcry. Now, it was a thriving mechanic in quest of a +tenement that should come within his moderate means of rent; now, a ruddy Irish +girl from the banks of Killarney, wandering from kitchen to kitchen of our +land, while her heart still hung in the peat-smoke of her native cottage; now, +a single gentleman looking out for economical board; and now—for this +establishment offered an epitome of worldly pursuits—it was a faded +beauty inquiring for her lost bloom; or Peter Schlemihl, for his lost shadow; +or an author of ten years’ standing, for his vanished reputation; or a moody +man, for yesterday’s sunshine. +</p> + +<p> +At the next lifting of the latch there entered a person with his hat awry upon +his head, his clothes perversely ill-suited to his form, his eyes staring in +directions opposite to their intelligence, and a certain odd unsuitableness +pervading his whole figure. Wherever he might chance to be, whether in palace +or cottage, church or market, on land or sea, or even at his own fireside, he +must have worn the characteristic expression of a man out of his right place. +</p> + +<p> +“This,” inquired he, putting his question in the form of an +assertion,—“this is the Central Intelligence Office?” +</p> + +<p> +“Even so,” answered the figure at the desk, turning another leaf of his volume; +he then looked the applicant in the face and said briefly, “Your business?” +</p> + +<p> +“I want,” said the latter, with tremulous earnestness, “a place!” +</p> + +<p> +“A place! and of what nature?” asked the Intelligencer. “There are many vacant, +or soon to be so, some of which will probably suit, since they range from that +of a footman up to a seat at the council-board, or in the cabinet, or a throne, +or a presidential chair.” +</p> + +<p> +The stranger stood pondering before the desk with an unquiet, dissatisfied +air,—a dull, vague pain of heart, expressed by a slight contortion of the +brow,—an earnestness of glance, that asked and expected, yet continually +wavered, as if distrusting. In short, he evidently wanted, not in a physical or +intellectual sense, but with an urgent moral necessity that is the hardest of +all things to satisfy, since it knows not its own object. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, you mistake me!” said he at length, with a gesture of nervous impatience. +“Either of the places you mention, indeed, might answer my purpose; or, more +probably, none of them. I want my place! my own place! my true place in the +world! my proper sphere! my thing to do, which Nature intended me to perform +when she fashioned me thus awry, and which I have vainly sought all my +lifetime! Whether it be a footman’s duty or a king’s is of little consequence, +so it be naturally mine. Can you help me here?” +</p> + +<p> +“I will enter your application,” answered the Intelligencer, at the same time +writing a few lines in his volume. “But to undertake such a business, I tell +you frankly, is quite apart from the ground covered by my official duties. Ask +for something specific, and it may doubtless be negotiated for you, on your +compliance with the conditions. But were I to go further, I should have the +whole population of the city upon my shoulders; since far the greater +proportion of them are, more or less, in your predicament.” +</p> + +<p> +The applicant sank into a fit of despondency, and passed out of the door +without again lifting his eyes; and, if he died of the disappointment, he was +probably buried in the wrong tomb, inasmuch as the fatality of such people +never deserts them, and, whether alive or dead, they are invariably out of +place. +</p> + +<p> +Almost immediately another foot was heard on the threshold. A youth entered +hastily, and threw a glance around the office to ascertain whether the man of +intelligence was alone. He then approached close to the desk, blushed like a +maiden, and seemed at a loss how to broach his business. +</p> + +<p> +“You come upon an affair of the heart,” said the official personage, looking +into him through his mysterious spectacles. “State it in as few words as may +be.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are right,” replied the youth. “I have a heart to dispose of.” +</p> + +<p> +“You seek an exchange?” said the Intelligencer. “Foolish youth, why not be +contented with your own?” +</p> + +<p> +“Because,” exclaimed the young man, losing his embarrassment in a passionate +glow,—“because my heart burns me with an intolerable fire; it tortures me +all day long with yearnings for I know not what, and feverish throbbings, and +the pangs of a vague sorrow; and it awakens me in the night-time with a quake, +when there is nothing to be feared. I cannot endure it any longer. It were +wiser to throw away such a heart, even if it brings me nothing in return.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, very well,” said the man of office, making an entry in his volume. “Your +affair will be easily transacted. This species of brokerage makes no +inconsiderable part of my business; and there is always a large assortment of +the article to select from. Here, if I mistake not, comes a pretty fair +sample.” +</p> + +<p> +Even as he spoke the door was gently and slowly thrust ajar, affording a +glimpse of the slender figure of a young girl, who, as she timidly entered, +seemed to bring the light and cheerfulness of the outer atmosphere into the +somewhat gloomy apartment. We know not her errand there, nor can we reveal +whether the young man gave up his heart into her custody. If so, the +arrangement was neither better nor worse than in ninety-nine cases out of a +hundred, where the parallel sensibilities of a similar age, importunate +affections, and the easy satisfaction of characters not deeply conscious of +themselves, supply the place of any profounder sympathy. +</p> + +<p> +Not always, however, was the agency of the passions and affections an office of +so little trouble. It happened, rarely, indeed, in proportion to the cases that +came under an ordinary rule, but still it did happen, that a heart was +occasionally brought hither of such exquisite material, so delicately +attempered, and so curiously wrought, that no other heart could be found to +match it. It might almost be considered a misfortune, in a worldly point of +view, to be the possessor of such a diamond of the purest water; since in any +reasonable probability it could only be exchanged for an ordinary pebble, or a +bit of cunningly manufactured glass, or, at least, for a jewel of native +richness, but ill-set, or with some fatal flaw, or an earthy vein running +through its central lustre. To choose another figure, it is sad that hearts +which have their wellspring in the infinite, and contain inexhaustible +sympathies, should ever be doomed to pour themselves into shallow vessels, and +thus lavish their rich affections on the ground. Strange that the finer and +deeper nature, whether in man or woman, while possessed of every other delicate +instinct, should so often lack that most invaluable one of preserving itself +front contamination with what is of a baser kind! Sometimes, it is true, the +spiritual fountain is kept pure by a wisdom within itself, and sparkles into +the light of heaven without a stain from the earthy strata through which it had +gushed upward. And sometimes, even here on earth, the pure mingles with the +pure, and the inexhaustible is recompensed with the infinite. But these +miracles, though he should claim the credit of them, are far beyond the scope +of such a superficial agent in human affairs as the figure in the mysterious +spectacles. +</p> + +<p> +Again the door was opened, admitting the bustle of the city with a fresher +reverberation into the Intelligence Office. Now entered a man of woe-begone and +downcast look; it was such an aspect as if he had lost the very soul out of his +body, and had traversed all the world over, searching in the dust of the +highways, and along the shady footpaths, and beneath the leaves of the forest, +and among the sands of the sea-shore, in hopes to recover it again. He had bent +an anxious glance along the pavement of the street as he came hitherward; he +looked also in the angle of the doorstep, and upon the floor of the room; and, +finally, coming up to the Man of Intelligence, he gazed through the inscrutable +spectacles which the latter wore, as if the lost treasure might be hidden +within his eyes. +</p> + +<p> +“I have lost—” he began; and then he paused. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the Intelligencer, “I see that you have lost,—but what?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have lost a precious jewel!” replied the unfortunate person, “the like of +which is not to be found among any prince’s treasures. While I possessed it, +the contemplation of it was my sole and sufficient happiness. No price should +have purchased it of me; but it has fallen from my bosom where I wore it in my +careless wanderings about the city.” +</p> + +<p> +After causing the stranger to describe the marks of his lost jewel, the +Intelligencer opened a drawer of the oaken cabinet which has been mentioned as +forming a part of the furniture of the room. Here were deposited whatever +articles had been picked up in the streets, until the right owners should claim +them. It was a strange and heterogeneous collection. Not the least remarkable +part of it was a great number of wedding-rings, each one of which had been +riveted upon the finger with holy vows, and all the mystic potency that the +most solemn rites could attain, but had, nevertheless, proved too slippery for +the wearer’s vigilance. The gold of some was worn thin, betokening the +attrition of years of wedlock; others, glittering from the jeweller’s shop, +must have been lost within the honeymoon. There were ivory tablets, the leaves +scribbled over with sentiments that had been the deepest truths of the writer’s +earlier years, but which were now quite obliterated from his memory. So +scrupulously were articles preserved in this depository, that not even withered +flowers were rejected; white roses, and blush-roses, and moss-roses, fit +emblems of virgin purity and shamefacedness, which bad been lost or flung away, +and trampled into the pollution of the streets; locks of hair,—the golden +and the glossy dark,—the long tresses of woman and the crisp curls of +man, signified that lovers were now and then so heedless of the faith intrusted +to them as to drop its symbol from the treasure-place of the bosom. Many of +these things were imbued with perfumes, and perhaps a sweet scent had departed +from the lives of their former possessors ever since they had so wilfully or +negligently lost them. Here were gold pencil-cases, little ruby hearts with +golden arrows through them, bosom-pins, pieces of coin, and small articles of +every description, comprising nearly all that have been lost since a long time +ago. Most of them, doubtless, had a history and a meaning, if there were time +to search it out and room to tell it. Whoever has missed anything valuable, +whether out of his heart, mind, or pocket, would do well to make inquiry at the +Central Intelligence Office. +</p> + +<p> +And in the corner of one of the drawers of the oaken cabinet, after +considerable research, was found a great pearl, looking like the soul of +celestial purity, congealed and polished. +</p> + +<p> +“There is my jewel! my very pearl!” cried the stranger, almost beside himself +with rapture. “It is mine! Give it me this moment! or I shall perish!” +</p> + +<p> +“I perceive,” said the Man of Intelligence, examining it more closely, “that +this is the Pearl of Great Price!” +</p> + +<p> +“The very same,” answered the stranger. “Judge, then, of my misery at losing it +out of my bosom! Restore it to me! I must not live without it an instant to +longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Pardon me,” rejoined the Intelligencer, calmly, “you ask what is beyond my +duty. This pearl, as you well know, is held upon a peculiar tenure; and having +once let it escape from your keeping, you have no greater claim to +it—nay, not so great—as any other person. I cannot give it back.” +</p> + +<p> +Nor could the entreaties of the miserable man—who saw before his eyes the +jewel of his life without the power to reclaim it—soften the heart of +this stern being, impassive to human sympathy, though exercising such an +apparent influence over human fortunes. Finally the loser of the inestimable +pearl clutched his hands among his hair, and ran madly forth into the world, +which was affrighted at his desperate looks. There passed him on the doorstep a +fashionable young gentleman, whose business was to inquire for a damask +rosebud, the gift of his lady-love, which he had lost out of his buttonhole +within a hour after receiving it. So various were the errands of those who +visited this Central Office, where all human wishes seemed to be made known, +and, so far as destiny would allow, negotiated to their fulfilment. +</p> + +<p> +The next that entered was a man beyond the middle age, bearing the look of one +who knew the world and his own course in it. He had just alighted from a +handsome private carriage, which had orders to wait in the street while its +owner transacted his business. This person came up to the desk with a quick, +determined step, and looked the Intelligencer in the face with a resolute eye; +though, at the same time, some secret trouble gleamed from it in red and dusky +light. +</p> + +<p> +“I have an estate to dispose of,” said he, with a brevity that seemed +characteristic. +</p> + +<p> +“Describe it,” said the Intelligencer. +</p> + +<p> +The applicant proceeded to give the boundaries of his property, its nature, +comprising tillage, pasture, woodland, and pleasure-grounds, in ample circuit; +together with a mansion-house, in the construction of which it had been his +object to realize a castle in the air, hardening its shadowy walls into +granite, and rendering its visionary splendor perceptible to the awakened eye. +Judging from his description, it was beautiful enough to vanish like a dream, +yet substantial enough to endure for centuries. He spoke, too, of the gorgeous +furniture, the refinements of upholstery, and all the luxurious artifices that +combined to render this a residence where life might flow onward in a stream of +golden days, undisturbed by the ruggedness which fate loves to fling into it. +</p> + +<p> +“I am a man of strong will,” said he, in conclusion; “and at my first setting +out in life, as a poor, unfriended youth, I resolved to make myself the +possessor of such a mansion and estate as this, together with the abundant +revenue necessary to uphold it. I have succeeded to the extent of my utmost +wish. And this is the estate which I have now concluded to dispose of.” +</p> + +<p> +“And your terms?” asked the Intelligencer, after taking down the particulars +with which the stranger had supplied him. +</p> + +<p> +“Easy, abundantly easy!” answered the successful man, smiling, but with a stern +and almost frightful contraction of the brow, as if to quell an inward pang. “I +have been engaged in various sorts of business,—a distiller, a trader to +Africa, an East India merchant, a speculator in the stocks,—and, in the +course of these affairs, have contracted an encumbrance of a certain nature. +The purchaser of the estate shall merely be required to assume this burden to +himself.” +</p> + +<p> +“I understand you,” said the Man of Intelligence, putting his pen behind his +ear. “I fear that no bargain can be negotiated on these conditions. Very +probably the next possessor may acquire the estate with a similar encumbrance, +but it will be of his own contracting, and will not lighten your burden in the +least.” +</p> + +<p> +“And am I to live on,” fiercely exclaimed the stranger, “with the dirt of these +accursed acres and the granite of this infernal mansion crushing down my soul? +How, if I should turn the edifice into an almshouse or a hospital, or tear it +down and build a church?” +</p> + +<p> +“You can at least make the experiment,” said the Intelligencer; “but the whole +matter is one which you must settle for yourself.” +</p> + +<p> +The man of deplorable success withdrew, and got into his coach, which rattled +off lightly over the wooden pavements, though laden with the weight of much +land, a stately house, and ponderous heaps of gold, all compressed into an evil +conscience. +</p> + +<p> +There now appeared many applicants for places; among the most noteworthy of +whom was a small, smoke-dried figure, who gave himself out to be one of the bad +spirits that had waited upon Dr. Faustus in his laboratory. He pretended to +show a certificate of character, which, he averred, had been given him by that +famous necromancer, and countersigned by several masters whom he had +subsequently served. +</p> + +<p> +“I am afraid, my good friend,” observed the Intelligencer, “that your chance of +getting a service is but poor. Nowadays, men act the evil spirit for themselves +and their neighbors, and play the part more effectually than ninety-nine out of +a hundred of your fraternity.” +</p> + +<p> +But, just as the poor fiend was assuming a vaporous consistency, being about to +vanish through the floor in sad disappointment and chagrin, the editor of a +political newspaper chanced to enter the office in quest of a scribbler of +party paragraphs. The former servant of Dr. Faustus, with some misgivings as to +his sufficiency of venom, was allowed to try his hand in this capacity. Next +appeared, likewise seeking a service, the mysterious man in Red, who had aided +Bonaparte in his ascent to imperial power. He was examined as to his +qualifications by an aspiring politician, but finally rejected, as lacking +familiarity with the cunning tactics of the present day. +</p> + +<p> +People continued to succeed each other with as much briskness as if everybody +turned aside, out of the roar and tumult of the city, to record here some want, +or superfluity, or desire. Some had goods or possessions, of which they wished +to negotiate the sale. A China merchant had lost his health by a long residence +in that wasting climate. He very liberally offered his disease, and his wealth +along with it, to any physician who would rid him of both together. A soldier +offered his wreath of laurels for as good a leg as that which it had cost him +on the battle-field. One poor weary wretch desired nothing but to be +accommodated with any creditable method of laying down his life; for misfortune +and pecuniary troubles had so subdued his spirits that he could no longer +conceive the possibility of happiness, nor had the heart to try for it. +Nevertheless, happening to, overhear some conversation in the Intelligence +Office respecting wealth to be rapidly accumulated by a certain mode of +speculation, he resolved to live out this one other experiment of better +fortune. Many persons desired to exchange their youthful vices for others +better suited to the gravity of advancing age; a few, we are glad to say, made +earnest, efforts to exchange vice for virtue, and, hard as the bargain was, +succeeded in effecting it. But it was remarkable that what all were the least +willing to give up, even on the most advantageous terms, were the habits, the +oddities, the characteristic traits, the little ridiculous indulgences, +somewhere between faults and follies, of which nobody but themselves could +understand the fascination. +</p> + +<p> +The great folio, in which the Man of Intelligence recorded all these freaks of +idle hearts, and aspirations of deep hearts, and desperate longings of +miserable hearts, and evil prayers of perverted hearts, would be curious +reading were it possible to obtain it for publication. Human character in its +individual developments-human nature in the mass—may best be studied in +its wishes; and this was the record of them all. There was an endless diversity +of mode and circumstance, yet withal such a similarity in the real groundwork, +that any one page of the volume-whether written in the days before the Flood, +or the yesterday that is just gone by, or to be written on the morrow that is +close at hand, or a thousand ages hence—might serve as a specimen of the +whole. Not but that there were wild sallies of fantasy that could scarcely +occur to more than one man’s brain, whether reasonable or lunatic. The +strangest wishes—yet most incident to men who had gone deep into +scientific pursuits, and attained a high intellectual stage, though not the +loftiest—were, to contend with Nature, and wrest from her some secret, or +some power, which she had seen fit to withhold from mortal grasp. She loves to +delude her aspiring students, and mock them with mysteries that seem but just +beyond their utmost reach. To concoct new minerals, to produce new forms of +vegetable life, to create an insect, if nothing higher in the living scale, is +a sort of wish that has often revelled in the breast of a man of science. An +astronomer, who lived far more among the distant worlds of space than in this +lower sphere, recorded a wish to behold the opposite side of the moon, which, +unless the system of the firmament be reversed, she can never turn towards the +earth. On the same page of the volume was written the wish of a little child to +have the stars for playthings. +</p> + +<p> +The most ordinary wish, that was written down with wearisome recurrence, was, +of course, for wealth, wealth, wealth, in sums from a few shillings up to +unreckonable thousands. But in reality this often-repeated expression covered +as many different desires. Wealth is the golden essence of the outward world, +embodying almost everything that exists beyond the limits of the soul; and +therefore it is the natural yearning for the life in the midst of which we find +ourselves, and of which gold is the condition of enjoyment, that men abridge +into this general wish. Here and there, it is true, the volume testified to +some heart so perverted as to desire gold for its own sake. Many wished for +power; a strange desire indeed, since it is but another form of slavery. Old +people wished for the delights of youth; a fop for a fashionable coat; an idle +reader, for a new novel; a versifier, for a rhyme to some stubborn word; a +painter, for Titian’s secret of coloring; a prince, for a cottage; a +republican, for a kingdom and a palace; a libertine, for his neighbor’s wife; a +man of palate, for green peas; and a poor man, for a crust of bread. The +ambitious desires of public men, elsewhere so craftily concealed, were here +expressed openly and boldly, side by side with the unselfish wishes of the +philanthropist for the welfare of the race, so beautiful, so comforting, in +contrast with the egotism that continually weighed self against the world. Into +the darker secrets of the Book of Wishes we will not penetrate. +</p> + +<p> +It would be an instructive employment for a student of mankind, perusing this +volume carefully and comparing its records with men’s perfected designs, as +expressed in their deeds and daily life, to ascertain how far the one accorded +with the other. Undoubtedly, in most cases, the correspondence would be found +remote. The holy and generous wish, that rises like incense from a pure heart +towards heaven, often lavishes its sweet perfume on the blast of evil times. +The foul, selfish, murderous wish, that steams forth from a corrupted heart, +often passes into the spiritual atmosphere without being concreted into an +earthly deed. Yet this volume is probably truer, as a representation of the +human heart, than is the living drama of action as it evolves around us. There +is more of good and more of evil in it; more redeeming points of the bad and +more errors of the virtuous; higher upsoarings, and baser degradation of the +soul; in short, a more perplexing amalgamation of vice and virtue than we +witness in the outward world. Decency and external conscience often produce a +far fairer outside than is warranted by the stains within. And be it owned, oil +the other hand, that a man seldom repeats to his nearest friend, any more than +he realizes in act, the purest wishes, which, at some blessed time or other, +have arisen from the depths of his nature and witnessed for him in this volume. +Yet there is enough on every leaf to make the good man shudder for his own wild +and idle wishes, as well as for the sinner, whose whole life is the incarnation +of a wicked desire. +</p> + +<p> +But again the door is opened, and we hear the tumultuous stir of the +world,—a deep and awful sound, expressing in another form some portion of +what is written in the volume that lies before the Man of Intelligence. A +grandfatherly personage tottered hastily into the office, with such an +earnestness in his infirm alacrity that his white hair floated backward as he +hurried up to the desk, while his dim eyes caught a momentary lustre from his +vehemence of purpose. This venerable figure explained that he was in search of +To-morrow. +</p> + +<p> +“I have spent all my life in pursuit of it,” added the sage old gentleman, +“being assured that To-morrow has some vast benefit or other in store for me. +But I am now getting a little in years, and must make haste; for, unless I +overtake To-morrow soon, I begin to be afraid it will finally escape me.” +</p> + +<p> +“This fugitive To-morrow, my venerable friend,” said the Man of Intelligence, +“is a stray child of Time, and is flying from his father into the region of the +infinite. Continue your pursuit, and you will doubtless come up with him; but +as to the earthly gifts which you expect, he has scattered them all among a +throng of Yesterdays.” +</p> + +<p> +Obliged to content himself with this enigmatical response, the grandsire +hastened forth with a quick clatter of his staff upon the floor; and, as he +disappeared, a little boy scampered through the door in chase of a butterfly +which had got astray amid the barren sunshine of the city. Had the old +gentleman been shrewder, he might have detected To-morrow under the semblance +of that gaudy insect. The golden butterfly glistened through the shadowy +apartment, and brushed its wings against the Book of Wishes, and fluttered +forth again with the child still in pursuit. +</p> + +<p> +A man now entered, in neglected attire, with the aspect of a thinker, but +somewhat too rough-hewn and brawny for a scholar. His face was full of sturdy +vigor, with some finer and keener attribute beneath. Though harsh at first, it +was tempered with the glow of a large, warm heart, which had force enough to +heat his powerful intellect through and through. He advanced to the +Intelligencer and looked at him with a glance of such stern sincerity that +perhaps few secrets were beyond its scope. +</p> + +<p> +“I seek for Truth,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“It is precisely the most rare pursuit that has ever come under my cognizance,” +replied the Intelligencer, as he made the new inscription in his volume. “Most +men seek to impose some cunning falsehood upon themselves for truth. But I can +lend no help to your researches. You must achieve the miracle for yourself. At +some fortunate moment you may find Truth at your side, or perhaps she may be +mistily discerned far in advance, or possibly behind you.” +</p> + +<p> +“Not behind me,” said the seeker; “for I have left nothing on my track without +a thorough investigation. She flits before me, passing now through a naked +solitude, and now mingling with the throng of a popular assembly, and now +writing with the pen of a French philosopher, and now standing at the altar of +an old cathedral, in the guise of a Catholic priest, performing the high mass. +O weary search! But I must not falter; and surely my heart-deep quest of Truth +shall avail at last.” +</p> + +<p> +He paused and fixed his eyes upon the Intelligencer with a depth of +investigation that seemed to hold commerce with the inner nature of this being, +wholly regardless of his external development. +</p> + +<p> +“And what are you?” said he. “It will not satisfy me to point to this fantastic +show of an Intelligence Office and this mockery of business. Tell me what is +beneath it, and what your real agency in life and your influence upon mankind.” +</p> + +<p> +“Yours is a mind,” answered the Man of Intelligence, “before which the forms +and fantasies that conceal the inner idea from the multitude vanish at once and +leave the naked reality beneath. Know, then, the secret. My agency in worldly +action, my connection with the press, and tumult, and intermingling, and +development of human affairs, is merely delusive. The desire of man’s heart +does for him whatever I seem to do. I am no minister of action, but the +Recording Spirit.” +</p> + +<p> +What further secrets were then spoken remains a mystery, inasmuch as the roar +of the city, the bustle of human business, the outcry of the jostling masses, +the rush and tumult of man’s life, in its noisy and brief career, arose so high +that it drowned the words of these two talkers; and whether they stood talking +in the moon, or in Vanity Fair, or in a city of this actual world, is more than +I can say. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a> +ROGER MALVIN’S BURIAL</h2> + +<p> +One of the few incidents of Indian warfare naturally susceptible of the +moonlight of romance was that expedition undertaken for the defence of the +frontiers in the year 1725, which resulted in the well-remembered “Lovell’s +Fight.” Imagination, by casting certain circumstances judicially into the +shade, may see much to admire in the heroism of a little band who gave battle +to twice their number in the heart of the enemy’s country. The open bravery +displayed by both parties was in accordance with civilized ideas of valor; and +chivalry itself might not blush to record the deeds of one or two individuals. +The battle, though so fatal to those who fought, was not unfortunate in its +consequences to the country; for it broke the strength of a tribe and conduced +to the peace which subsisted during several ensuing years. History and +tradition are unusually minute in their memorials of their affair; and the +captain of a scouting party of frontier men has acquired as actual a military +renown as many a victorious leader of thousands. Some of the incidents +contained in the following pages will be recognized, notwithstanding the +substitution of fictitious names, by such as have heard, from old men’s lips, +the fate of the few combatants who were in a condition to retreat after +“Lovell’s Fight.” +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +The early sunbeams hovered cheerfully upon the tree-tops, beneath which two +weary and wounded men had stretched their limbs the night before. Their bed of +withered oak leaves was strewn upon the small level space, at the foot of a +rock, situated near the summit of one of the gentle swells by which the face of +the country is there diversified. The mass of granite, rearing its smooth, flat +surface fifteen or twenty feet above their heads, was not unlike a gigantic +gravestone, upon which the veins seemed to form an inscription in forgotten +characters. On a tract of several acres around this rock, oaks and other +hard-wood trees had supplied the place of the pines, which were the usual +growth of the land; and a young and vigorous sapling stood close beside the +travellers. +</p> + +<p> +The severe wound of the elder man had probably deprived him of sleep; for, so +soon as the first ray of sunshine rested on the top of the highest tree, he +reared himself painfully from his recumbent posture and sat erect. The deep +lines of his countenance and the scattered gray of his hair marked him as past +the middle age; but his muscular frame would, but for the effect of his wound, +have been as capable of sustaining fatigue as in the early vigor of life. +Languor and exhaustion now sat upon his haggard features; and the despairing +glance which he sent forward through the depths of the forest proved his own +conviction that his pilgrimage was at an end. He next turned his eyes to the +companion who reclined by his side. The youth—for he had scarcely +attained the years of manhood—lay, with his head upon his arm, in the +embrace of an unquiet sleep, which a thrill of pain from his wounds seemed each +moment on the point of breaking. His right hand grasped a musket; and, to judge +from the violent action of his features, his slumbers were bringing back a +vision of the conflict of which he was one of the few survivors. A shout deep +and loud in his dreaming fancy—found its way in an imperfect murmur to +his lips; and, starting even at the slight sound of his own voice, he suddenly +awoke. The first act of reviving recollection was to make anxious inquiries +respecting the condition of his wounded fellow-traveller. The latter shook his +head. +</p> + +<p> +“Reuben, my boy,” said he, “this rock beneath which we sit will serve for an +old hunter’s gravestone. There is many and many a long mile of howling +wilderness before us yet; nor would it avail me anything if the smoke of my own +chimney were but on the other side of that swell of land. The Indian bullet was +deadlier than I thought.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are weary with our three days’ travel,” replied the youth, “and a little +longer rest will recruit you. Sit you here while I search the woods for the +herbs and roots that must be our sustenance; and, having eaten, you shall lean +on me, and we will turn our faces homeward. I doubt not that, with my help, you +can attain to some one of the frontier garrisons.” +</p> + +<p> +“There is not two days’ life in me, Reuben,” said the other, calmly, “and I +will no longer burden you with my useless body, when you can scarcely support +your own. Your wounds are deep and your strength is failing fast; yet, if you +hasten onward alone, you may be preserved. For me there is no hope, and I will +await death here.” +</p> + +<p> +“If it must be so, I will remain and watch by you,” said Reuben, resolutely. +</p> + +<p> +“No, my son, no,” rejoined his companion. “Let the wish of a dying man have +weight with you; give me one grasp of your hand, and get you hence. Think you +that my last moments will be eased by the thought that I leave you to die a +more lingering death? I have loved you like a father, Reuben; and at a time +like this I should have something of a father’s authority. I charge you to be +gone that I may die in peace.” +</p> + +<p> +“And because you have been a father to me, should I therefore leave you to +perish and to lie unburied in the wilderness?” exclaimed the youth. “No; if +your end be in truth approaching, I will watch by you and receive your parting +words. I will dig a grave here by the rock, in which, if my weakness overcome +me, we will rest together; or, if Heaven gives me strength, I will seek my way +home.” +</p> + +<p> +“In the cities and wherever men dwell,” replied the other, “they bury their +dead in the earth; they hide them from the sight of the living; but here, where +no step may pass perhaps for a hundred years, wherefore should I not rest +beneath the open sky, covered only by the oak leaves when the autumn winds +shall strew them? And for a monument, here is this gray rock, on which my dying +hand shall carve the name of Roger Malvin, and the traveller in days to come +will know that here sleeps a hunter and a warrior. Tarry not, then, for a folly +like this, but hasten away, if not for your own sake, for hers who will else be +desolate.” +</p> + +<p> +Malvin spoke the last few words in a faltering voice, and their effect upon his +companion was strongly visible. They reminded him that there were other and +less questionable duties than that of sharing the fate of a man whom his death +could not benefit. Nor can it be affirmed that no selfish feeling strove to +enter Reuben’s heart, though the consciousness made him more earnestly resist +his companion’s entreaties. +</p> + +<p> +“How terrible to wait the slow approach of death in this solitude!” exclaimed +he. “A brave man does not shrink in the battle; and, when friends stand round +the bed, even women may die composedly; but here—” +</p> + +<p> +“I shall not shrink even here, Reuben Bourne,” interrupted Malvin. “I am a man +of no weak heart, and, if I were, there is a surer support than that of earthly +friends. You are young, and life is dear to you. Your last moments will need +comfort far more than mine; and when you have laid me in the earth, and are +alone, and night is settling on the forest, you will feel all the bitterness of +the death that may now be escaped. But I will urge no selfish motive to your +generous nature. Leave me for my sake, that, having said a prayer for your +safety, I may have space to settle my account undisturbed by worldly sorrows.” +</p> + +<p> +“And your daughter,—how shall I dare to meet her eye?” exclaimed Reuben. +“She will ask the fate of her father, whose life I vowed to defend with my own. +Must I tell her that he travelled three days’ march with me from the field of +battle and that then I left him to perish in the wilderness? Were it not better +to lie down and die by your side than to return safe and say this to Dorcas?” +</p> + +<p> +“Tell my daughter,” said Roger Malvin, “that, though yourself sore wounded, and +weak, and weary, you led my tottering footsteps many a mile, and left me only +at my earnest entreaty, because I would not have your blood upon my soul. Tell +her that through pain and danger you were faithful, and that, if your lifeblood +could have saved me, it would have flowed to its last drop; and tell her that +you will be something dearer than a father, and that my blessing is with you +both, and that my dying eyes can see a long and pleasant path in which you will +journey together.” +</p> + +<p> +As Malvin spoke he almost raised himself from the ground, and the energy of his +concluding words seemed to fill the wild and lonely forest with a vision of +happiness; but, when he sank exhausted upon his bed of oak leaves, the light +which had kindled in Reuben’s eye was quenched. He felt as if it were both sin +and folly to think of happiness at such a moment. His companion watched his +changing countenance, and sought with generous art to wile him to his own good. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps I deceive myself in regard to the time I have to live,” he resumed. +“It may be that, with speedy assistance, I might recover of my wound. The +foremost fugitives must, ere this, have carried tidings of our fatal battle to +the frontiers, and parties will be out to succor those in like condition with +ourselves. Should you meet one of these and guide them hither, who can tell but +that I may sit by my own fireside again?” +</p> + +<p> +A mournful smile strayed across the features of the dying man as he insinuated +that unfounded hope,—which, however, was not without its effect on +Reuben. No merely selfish motive, nor even the desolate condition of Dorcas, +could have induced him to desert his companion at such a moment—but his +wishes seized on the thought that Malvin’s life might be preserved, and his +sanguine nature heightened almost to certainty the remote possibility of +procuring human aid. +</p> + +<p> +“Surely there is reason, weighty reason, to hope that friends are not far +distant,” he said, half aloud. “There fled one coward, unwounded, in the +beginning of the fight, and most probably he made good speed. Every true man on +the frontier would shoulder his musket at the news; and, though no party may +range so far into the woods as this, I shall perhaps encounter them in one +day’s march. Counsel me faithfully,” he added, turning to Malvin, in distrust +of his own motives. “Were your situation mine, would you desert me while life +remained?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is now twenty years,” replied Roger Malvin,—sighing, however, as he +secretly acknowledged the wide dissimilarity between the two cases,—“it +is now twenty years since I escaped with one dear friend from Indian captivity +near Montreal. We journeyed many days through the woods, till at length +overcome with hunger and weariness, my friend lay down and besought me to leave +him; for he knew that, if I remained, we both must perish; and, with but little +hope of obtaining succor, I heaped a pillow of dry leaves beneath his head and +hastened on.” +</p> + +<p> +“And did you return in time to save him?” asked Reuben, hanging on Malvin’s +words as if they were to be prophetic of his own success. +</p> + +<p> +“I did,” answered the other. “I came upon the camp of a hunting party before +sunset of the same day. I guided them to the spot where my comrade was +expecting death; and he is now a hale and hearty man upon his own farm, far +within the frontiers, while I lie wounded here in the depths of the +wilderness.” +</p> + +<p> +This example, powerful in affecting Reuben’s decision, was aided, unconsciously +to himself, by the hidden strength of many another motive. Roger Malvin +perceived that the victory was nearly won. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, go, my son, and Heaven prosper you!” he said. “Turn not back with your +friends when you meet them, lest your wounds and weariness overcome you; but +send hitherward two or three, that may be spared, to search for me; and believe +me, Reuben, my heart will be lighter with every step you take towards home.” +Yet there was, perhaps, a change both in his countenance and voice as he spoke +thus; for, after all, it was a ghastly fate to be left expiring in the +wilderness. +</p> + +<p> +Reuben Bourne, but half convinced that he was acting rightly, at length raised +himself from the ground and prepared himself for his departure. And first, +though contrary to Malvin’s wishes, he collected a stock of roots and herbs, +which had been their only food during the last two days. This useless supply he +placed within reach of the dying man, for whom, also, he swept together a bed +of dry oak leaves. Then climbing to the summit of the rock, which on one side +was rough and broken, he bent the oak sapling downward, and bound his +handkerchief to the topmost branch. This precaution was not unnecessary to +direct any who might come in search of Malvin; for every part of the rock, +except its broad, smooth front, was concealed at a little distance by the dense +undergrowth of the forest. The handkerchief had been the bandage of a wound +upon Reuben’s arm; and, as he bound it to the tree, he vowed by the blood that +stained it that he would return, either to save his companion’s life or to lay +his body in the grave. He then descended, and stood, with downcast eyes, to +receive Roger Malvin’s parting words. +</p> + +<p> +The experience of the latter suggested much and minute advice respecting the +youth’s journey through the trackless forest. Upon this subject he spoke with +calm earnestness, as if he were sending Reuben to the battle or the chase while +he himself remained secure at home, and not as if the human countenance that +was about to leave him were the last he would ever behold. But his firmness was +shaken before he concluded. +</p> + +<p> +“Carry my blessing to Dorcas, and say that my last prayer shall be for her and +you. Bid her to have no hard thoughts because you left me here,”—Reuben’s +heart smote him,—“for that your life would not have weighed with you if +its sacrifice could have done me good. She will marry you after she has mourned +a little while for her father; and Heaven grant you long and happy days, and +may your children’s children stand round your death bed! And, Reuben,” added +he, as the weakness of mortality made its way at last, “return, when your +wounds are healed and your weariness refreshed,—return to this wild rock, +and lay my bones in the grave, and say a prayer over them.” +</p> + +<p> +An almost superstitious regard, arising perhaps from the customs of the +Indians, whose war was with the dead as well as the living, was paid by the +frontier inhabitants to the rites of sepulture; and there are many instances of +the sacrifice of life in the attempt to bury those who had fallen by the “sword +of the wilderness.” Reuben, therefore, felt the full importance of the promise +which he most solemnly made to return and perform Roger Malvin’s obsequies. It +was remarkable that the latter, speaking his whole heart in his parting words, +no longer endeavored to persuade the youth that even the speediest succor might +avail to the preservation of his life. Reuben was internally convinced that he +should see Malvin’s living face no more. His generous nature would fain have +delayed him, at whatever risk, till the dying scene were past; but the desire +of existence and the hope of happiness had strengthened in his heart, and he +was unable to resist them. +</p> + +<p> +“It is enough,” said Roger Malvin, having listened to Reuben’s promise. “Go, +and God speed you!” +</p> + +<p> +The youth pressed his hand in silence, turned, and was departing. His slow and +faltering steps, however, had borne him but a little way before Malvin’s voice +recalled him. +</p> + +<p> +“Reuben, Reuben,” said he, faintly; and Reuben returned and knelt down by the +dying man. +</p> + +<p> +“Raise me, and let me lean against the rock,” was his last request. “My face +will be turned towards home, and I shall see you a moment longer as you pass +among the trees.” +</p> + +<p> +Reuben, having made the desired alteration in his companion’s posture, again +began his solitary pilgrimage. He walked more hastily at first than was +consistent with his strength; for a sort of guilty feeling, which sometimes +torments men in their most justifiable acts, caused him to seek concealment +from Malvin’s eyes; but after he had trodden far upon the rustling forest +leaves he crept back, impelled by a wild and painful curiosity, and, sheltered +by the earthy roots of an uptorn tree, gazed earnestly at the desolate man. The +morning sun was unclouded, and the trees and shrubs imbibed the sweet air of +the month of May; yet there seemed a gloom on Nature’s face, as if she +sympathized with mortal pain and sorrow. Roger Malvin’s hands were uplifted in +a fervent prayer, some of the words of which stole through the stillness of the +woods and entered Reuben’s heart, torturing it with an unutterable pang. They +were the broken accents of a petition for his own happiness and that of Dorcas; +and, as the youth listened, conscience, or something in its similitude, pleaded +strongly with him to return and lie down again by the rock. He felt how hard +was the doom of the kind and generous being whom he had deserted in his +extremity. Death would come like the slow approach of a corpse, stealing +gradually towards him through the forest, and showing its ghastly and +motionless features from behind a nearer and yet a nearer tree. But such must +have been Reuben’s own fate had he tarried another sunset; and who shall impute +blame to him if he shrink from so useless a sacrifice? As he gave a parting +look, a breeze waved the little banner upon the sapling oak and reminded Reuben +of his vow. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Many circumstances combined to retard the wounded traveller in his way to the +frontiers. On the second day the clouds, gathering densely over the sky, +precluded the possibility of regulating his course by the position of the sun; +and he knew not but that every effort of his almost exhausted strength was +removing him farther from the home he sought. His scanty sustenance was +supplied by the berries and other spontaneous products of the forest. Herds of +deer, it is true, sometimes bounded past him, and partridges frequently whirred +up before his footsteps; but his ammunition had been expended in the fight, and +he had no means of slaying them. His wounds, irritated by the constant exertion +in which lay the only hope of life, wore away his strength and at intervals +confused his reason. But, even in the wanderings of intellect, Reuben’s young +heart clung strongly to existence; and it was only through absolute incapacity +of motion that he at last sank down beneath a tree, compelled there to await +death. +</p> + +<p> +In this situation he was discovered by a party who, upon the first intelligence +of the fight, had been despatched to the relief of the survivors. They conveyed +him to the nearest settlement, which chanced to be that of his own residence. +</p> + +<p> +Dorcas, in the simplicity of the olden time, watched by the bedside of her +wounded lover, and administered all those comforts that are in the sole gift of +woman’s heart and hand. During several days Reuben’s recollection strayed +drowsily among the perils and hardships through which he had passed, and he was +incapable of returning definite answers to the inquiries with which many were +eager to harass him. No authentic particulars of the battle had yet been +circulated; nor could mothers, wives, and children tell whether their loved +ones were detained by captivity or by the stronger chain of death. Dorcas +nourished her apprehensions in silence till one afternoon when Reuben awoke +from an unquiet sleep, and seemed to recognize her more perfectly than at any +previous time. She saw that his intellect had become composed, and she could no +longer restrain her filial anxiety. +</p> + +<p> +“My father, Reuben?” she began; but the change in her lover’s countenance made +her pause. +</p> + +<p> +The youth shrank as if with a bitter pain, and the blood gushed vividly into +his wan and hollow cheeks. His first impulse was to cover his face; but, +apparently with a desperate effort, he half raised himself and spoke +vehemently, defending himself against an imaginary accusation. +</p> + +<p> +“Your father was sore wounded in the battle, Dorcas; and he bade me not burden +myself with him, but only to lead him to the lakeside, that he might quench his +thirst and die. But I would not desert the old man in his extremity, and, +though bleeding myself, I supported him; I gave him half my strength, and led +him away with me. For three days we journeyed on together, and your father was +sustained beyond my hopes, but, awaking at sunrise on the fourth day, I found +him faint and exhausted; he was unable to proceed; his life had ebbed away +fast; and—” +</p> + +<p> +“He died!” exclaimed Dorcas, faintly. +</p> + +<p> +Reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his selfish love of life had +hurried him away before her father’s fate was decided. He spoke not; he only +bowed his head; and, between shame and exhaustion, sank back and hid his face +in the pillow. Dorcas wept when her fears were thus confirmed; but the shock, +as it had been long anticipated, was on that account the less violent. +</p> + +<p> +“You dug a grave for my poor father in the wilderness, Reuben?” was the +question by which her filial piety manifested itself. +</p> + +<p> +“My hands were weak; but I did what I could,” replied the youth in a smothered +tone. “There stands a noble tombstone above his head; and I would to Heaven I +slept as soundly as he!” +</p> + +<p> +Dorcas, perceiving the wildness of his latter words, inquired no further at the +time; but her heart found ease in the thought that Roger Malvin had not lacked +such funeral rites as it was possible to bestow. The tale of Reuben’s courage +and fidelity lost nothing when she communicated it to her friends; and the poor +youth, tottering from his sick chamber to breathe the sunny air, experienced +from every tongue the miserable and humiliating torture of unmerited praise. +All acknowledged that he might worthily demand the hand of the fair maiden to +whose father he had been “faithful unto death;” and, as my tale is not of love, +it shall suffice to say that in the space of a few months Reuben became the +husband of Dorcas Malvin. During the marriage ceremony the bride was covered +with blushes, but the bridegroom’s face was pale. +</p> + +<p> +There was now in the breast of Reuben Bourne an incommunicable +thought—something which he was to conceal most heedfully from her whom he +most loved and trusted. He regretted, deeply and bitterly, the moral cowardice +that had restrained his words when he was about to disclose the truth to +Dorcas; but pride, the fear of losing her affection, the dread of universal +scorn, forbade him to rectify this falsehood. He felt that for leaving Roger +Malvin he deserved no censure. His presence, the gratuitous sacrifice of his +own life, would have added only another and a needless agony to the last +moments of the dying man; but concealment had imparted to a justifiable act +much of the secret effect of guilt; and Reuben, while reason told him that he +had done right, experienced in no small degree the mental horrors which punish +the perpetrator of undiscovered crime. By a certain association of ideas, he at +times almost imagined himself a murderer. For years, also, a thought would +occasionally recur, which, though he perceived all its folly and extravagance, +he had not power to banish from his mind. It was a haunting and torturing fancy +that his father-in-law was yet sitting at the foot of the rock, on the withered +forest leaves, alive, and awaiting his pledged assistance. These mental +deceptions, however, came and went, nor did he ever mistake them for realities: +but in the calmest and clearest moods of his mind he was conscious that he had +a deep vow unredeemed, and that an unburied corpse was calling to him out of +the wilderness. Yet such was the consequence of his prevarication that he could +not obey the call. It was now too late to require the assistance of Roger +Malvin’s friends in performing his long-deferred sepulture; and superstitious +fears, of which none were more susceptible than the people of the outward +settlements, forbade Reuben to go alone. Neither did he know where in the +pathless and illimitable forest to seek that smooth and lettered rock at the +base of which the body lay: his remembrance of every portion of his travel +thence was indistinct, and the latter part had left no impression upon his +mind. There was, however, a continual impulse, a voice audible only to himself, +commanding him to go forth and redeem his vow; and he had a strange impression +that, were he to make the trial, he would be led straight to Malvin’s bones. +But year after year that summons, unheard but felt, was disobeyed. His one +secret thought became like a chain binding down his spirit and like a serpent +gnawing into his heart; and he was transformed into a sad and downcast yet +irritable man. +</p> + +<p> +In the course of a few years after their marriage changes began to be visible +in the external prosperity of Reuben and Dorcas. The only riches of the former +had been his stout heart and strong arm; but the latter, her father’s sole +heiress, had made her husband master of a farm, under older cultivation, +larger, and better stocked than most of the frontier establishments. Reuben +Bourne, however, was a neglectful husbandman; and, while the lands of the other +settlers became annually more fruitful, his deteriorated in the same +proportion. The discouragements to agriculture were greatly lessened by the +cessation of Indian war, during which men held the plough in one hand and the +musket in the other, and were fortunate if the products of their dangerous +labor were not destroyed, either in the field or in the barn, by the savage +enemy. But Reuben did not profit by the altered condition of the country; nor +can it be denied that his intervals of industrious attention to his affairs +were but scantily rewarded with success. The irritability by which he had +recently become distinguished was another cause of his declining prosperity, as +it occasioned frequent quarrels in his unavoidable intercourse with the +neighboring settlers. The results of these were innumerable lawsuits; for the +people of New England, in the earliest stages and wildest circumstances of the +country, adopted, whenever attainable, the legal mode of deciding their +differences. To be brief, the world did not go well with Reuben Bourne; and, +though not till many years after his marriage, he was finally a ruined man, +with but one remaining expedient against the evil fate that had pursued him. He +was to throw sunlight into some deep recess of the forest, and seek subsistence +from the virgin bosom of the wilderness. +</p> + +<p> +The only child of Reuben and Dorcas was a son, now arrived at the age of +fifteen years, beautiful in youth, and giving promise of a glorious manhood. He +was peculiarly qualified for, and already began to excel in, the wild +accomplishments of frontier life. His foot was fleet, his aim true, his +apprehension quick, his heart glad and high; and all who anticipated the return +of Indian war spoke of Cyrus Bourne as a future leader in the land. The boy was +loved by his father with a deep and silent strength, as if whatever was good +and happy in his own nature had been transferred to his child, carrying his +affections with it. Even Dorcas, though loving and beloved, was far less dear +to him; for Reuben’s secret thoughts and insulated emotions had gradually made +him a selfish man, and he could no longer love deeply except where he saw or +imagined some reflection or likeness of his own mind. In Cyrus he recognized +what he had himself been in other days; and at intervals he seemed to partake +of the boy’s spirit, and to be revived with a fresh and happy life. Reuben was +accompanied by his son in the expedition, for the purpose of selecting a tract +of land and felling and burning the timber, which necessarily preceded the +removal of the household gods. Two months of autumn were thus occupied, after +which Reuben Bourne and his young hunter returned to spend their last winter in +the settlements. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +It was early in the month of May that the little family snapped asunder +whatever tendrils of affections had clung to inanimate objects, and bade +farewell to the few who, in the blight of fortune, called themselves their +friends. The sadness of the parting moment had, to each of the pilgrims, its +peculiar alleviations. Reuben, a moody man, and misanthropic because unhappy, +strode onward with his usual stern brow and downcast eye, feeling few regrets +and disdaining to acknowledge any. Dorcas, while she wept abundantly over the +broken ties by which her simple and affectionate nature had bound itself to +everything, felt that the inhabitants of her inmost heart moved on with her, +and that all else would be supplied wherever she might go. And the boy dashed +one tear-drop from his eye, and thought of the adventurous pleasures of the +untrodden forest. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, who, in the enthusiasm of a daydream, has not wished that he were a +wanderer in a world of summer wilderness, with one fair and gentle being +hanging lightly on his arm? In youth his free and exulting step would know no +barrier but the rolling ocean or the snow-topped mountains; calmer manhood +would choose a home where Nature had strewn a double wealth in the vale of some +transparent stream; and when hoary age, after long, long years of that pure +life, stole on and found him there, it would find him the father of a race, the +patriarch of a people, the founder of a mighty nation yet to be. When death, +like the sweet sleep which we welcome after a day of happiness, came over him, +his far descendants would mourn over the venerated dust. Enveloped by tradition +in mysterious attributes, the men of future generations would call him godlike; +and remote posterity would see him standing, dimly glorious, far up the valley +of a hundred centuries. +</p> + +<p> +The tangled and gloomy forest through which the personages of my tale were +wandering differed widely from the dreamer’s land of fantasy; yet there was +something in their way of life that Nature asserted as her own, and the gnawing +cares which went with them from the world were all that now obstructed their +happiness. One stout and shaggy steed, the bearer of all their wealth, did not +shrink from the added weight of Dorcas; although her hardy breeding sustained +her, during the latter part of each day’s journey, by her husband’s side. +Reuben and his son, their muskets on their shoulders and their axes slung +behind them, kept an unwearied pace, each watching with a hunter’s eye for the +game that supplied their food. When hunger bade, they halted and prepared their +meal on the bank of some unpolluted forest brook, which, as they knelt down +with thirsty lips to drink, murmured a sweet unwillingness, like a maiden at +love’s first kiss. They slept beneath a hut of branches, and awoke at peep of +light refreshed for the toils of another day. Dorcas and the boy went on +joyously, and even Reuben’s spirit shone at intervals with an outward gladness; +but inwardly there was a cold cold sorrow, which he compared to the snowdrifts +lying deep in the glens and hollows of the rivulets while the leaves were +brightly green above. +</p> + +<p> +Cyrus Bourne was sufficiently skilled in the travel of the woods to observe +that his father did not adhere to the course they had pursued in their +expedition of the preceding autumn. They were now keeping farther to the north, +striking out more directly from the settlements, and into a region of which +savage beasts and savage men were as yet the sole possessors. The boy sometimes +hinted his opinions upon the subject, and Reuben listened attentively, and once +or twice altered the direction of their march in accordance with his son’s +counsel; but, having so done, he seemed ill at ease. His quick and wandering +glances were sent forward apparently in search of enemies lurking behind the +tree trunks, and, seeing nothing there, he would cast his eyes backwards as if +in fear of some pursuer. Cyrus, perceiving that his father gradually resumed +the old direction, forbore to interfere; nor, though something began to weigh +upon his heart, did his adventurous nature permit him to regret the increased +length and the mystery of their way. +</p> + +<p> +On the afternoon of the fifth day they halted, and made their simple encampment +nearly an hour before sunset. The face of the country, for the last few miles, +had been diversified by swells of land resembling huge waves of a petrified +sea; and in one of the corresponding hollows, a wild and romantic spot, had the +family reared their hut and kindled their fire. There is something chilling, +and yet heart-warming, in the thought of these three, united by strong bands of +love and insulated from all that breathe beside. The dark and gloomy pines +looked down upon them, and, as the wind swept through their tops, a pitying +sound was heard in the forest; or did those old trees groan in fear that men +were come to lay the axe to their roots at last? Reuben and his son, while +Dorcas made ready their meal, proposed to wander out in search of game, of +which that day’s march had afforded no supply. The boy, promising not to quit +the vicinity of the encampment, bounded off with a step as light and elastic as +that of the deer he hoped to slay; while his father, feeling a transient +happiness as he gazed after him, was about to pursue an opposite direction. +Dorcas in the meanwhile, had seated herself near their fire of fallen branches +upon the mossgrown and mouldering trunk of a tree uprooted years before. Her +employment, diversified by an occasional glance at the pot, now beginning to +simmer over the blaze, was the perusal of the current year’s Massachusetts +Almanac, which, with the exception of an old black-letter Bible, comprised all +the literary wealth of the family. None pay a greater regard to arbitrary +divisions of time than those who are excluded from society; and Dorcas +mentioned, as if the information were of importance, that it was now the +twelfth of May. Her husband started. +</p> + +<p> +“The twelfth of May! I should remember it well,” muttered he, while many +thoughts occasioned a momentary confusion in his mind. “Where am I? Whither am +I wandering? Where did I leave him?” +</p> + +<p> +Dorcas, too well accustomed to her husband’s wayward moods to note any +peculiarity of demeanor, now laid aside the almanac and addressed him in that +mournful tone which the tender hearted appropriate to griefs long cold and +dead. +</p> + +<p> +“It was near this time of the month, eighteen years ago, that my poor father +left this world for a better. He had a kind arm to hold his head and a kind +voice to cheer him, Reuben, in his last moments; and the thought of the +faithful care you took of him has comforted me many a time since. Oh, death +would have been awful to a solitary man in a wild place like this!” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray Heaven, Dorcas,” said Reuben, in a broken voice,—“pray Heaven that +neither of us three dies solitary and lies unburied in this howling +wilderness!” And he hastened away, leaving her to watch the fire beneath the +gloomy pines. +</p> + +<p> +Reuben Bourne’s rapid pace gradually slackened as the pang, unintentionally +inflicted by the words of Dorcas, became less acute. Many strange reflections, +however, thronged upon him; and, straying onward rather like a sleep walker +than a hunter, it was attributable to no care of his own that his devious +course kept him in the vicinity of the encampment. His steps were imperceptibly +led almost in a circle; nor did he observe that he was on the verge of a tract +of land heavily timbered, but not with pine-trees. The place of the latter was +here supplied by oaks and other of the harder woods; and around their roots +clustered a dense and bushy under-growth, leaving, however, barren spaces +between the trees, thick strewn with withered leaves. Whenever the rustling of +the branches or the creaking of the trunks made a sound, as if the forest were +waking from slumber, Reuben instinctively raised the musket that rested on his +arm, and cast a quick, sharp glance on every side; but, convinced by a partial +observation that no animal was near, he would again give himself up to his +thoughts. He was musing on the strange influence that had led him away from his +premeditated course, and so far into the depths of the wilderness. Unable to +penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay hidden, he +believed that a supernatural voice had called him onward, and that a +supernatural power had obstructed his retreat. He trusted that it was Heaven’s +intent to afford him an opportunity of expiating his sin; he hoped that he +might find the bones so long unburied; and that, having laid the earth over +them, peace would throw its sunlight into the sepulchre of his heart. From +these thoughts he was aroused by a rustling in the forest at some distance from +the spot to which he had wandered. Perceiving the motion of some object behind +a thick veil of undergrowth, he fired, with the instinct of a hunter and the +aim of a practised marksman. A low moan, which told his success, and by which +even animals cars express their dying agony, was unheeded by Reuben Bourne. +What were the recollections now breaking upon him? +</p> + +<p> +The thicket into which Reuben had fired was near the summit of a swell of land, +and was clustered around the base of a rock, which, in the shape and smoothness +of one of its surfaces, was not unlike a gigantic gravestone. As if reflected +in a mirror, its likeness was in Reuben’s memory. He even recognized the veins +which seemed to form an inscription in forgotten characters: everything +remained the same, except that a thick covert of bushes shrouded the lowerpart +of the rock, and would have hidden Roger Malvin had he still been sitting +there. Yet in the next moment Reuben’s eye was caught by another change that +time had effected since he last stood where he was now standing again behind +the earthy roots of the uptorn tree. The sapling to which he had bound the +bloodstained symbol of his vow had increased and strengthened into an oak, far +indeed from its maturity, but with no mean spread of shadowy branches. There +was one singularity observable in this tree which made Reuben tremble. The +middle and lower branches were in luxuriant life, and an excess of vegetation +had fringed the trunk almost to the ground; but a blight had apparently +stricken the upper part of the oak, and the very topmost bough was withered, +sapless, and utterly dead. Reuben remembered how the little banner had +fluttered on that topmost bough, when it was green and lovely, eighteen years +before. Whose guilt had blasted it? +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +Dorcas, after the departure of the two hunters, continued her preparations for +their evening repast. Her sylvan table was the moss-covered trunk of a large +fallen tree, on the broadest part of which she had spread a snow-white cloth +and arranged what were left of the bright pewter vessels that had been her +pride in the settlements. It had a strange aspect that one little spot of +homely comfort in the desolate heart of Nature. The sunshine yet lingered upon +the higher branches of the trees that grew on rising ground; but the shadows of +evening had deepened into the hollow where the encampment was made, and the +firelight began to redden as it gleamed up the tall trunks of the pines or +hovered on the dense and obscure mass of foliage that circled round the spot. +The heart of Dorcas was not sad; for she felt that it was better to journey in +the wilderness with two whom she loved than to be a lonely woman in a crowd +that cared not for her. As she busied herself in arranging seats of mouldering +wood, covered with leaves, for Reuben and her son, her voice danced through the +gloomy forest in the measure of a song that she had learned in youth. The rude +melody, the production of a bard who won no name, was descriptive of a winter +evening in a frontier cottage, when, secured from savage inroad by the +high-piled snow-drifts, the family rejoiced by their own fireside. The whole +song possessed the nameless charm peculiar to unborrowed thought, but four +continually-recurring lines shone out from the rest like the blaze of the +hearth whose joys they celebrated. Into them, working magic with a few simple +words, the poet had instilled the very essence of domestic love and household +happiness, and they were poetry and picture joined in one. As Dorcas sang, the +walls of her forsaken home seemed to encircle her; she no longer saw the gloomy +pines, nor heard the wind which still, as she began each verse, sent a heavy +breath through the branches, and died away in a hollow moan from the burden of +the song. She was aroused by the report of a gun in the vicinity of the +encampment; and either the sudden sound, or her loneliness by the glowing fire, +caused her to tremble violently. The next moment she laughed in the pride of a +mother’s heart. +</p> + +<p> +“My beautiful young hunter! My boy has slain a deer!” she exclaimed, +recollecting that in the direction whence the shot proceeded Cyrus had gone to +the chase. +</p> + +<p> +She waited a reasonable time to hear her son’s light step bounding over the +rustling leaves to tell of his success. But he did not immediately appear; and +she sent her cheerful voice among the trees in search of him. +</p> + +<p> +“Cyrus! Cyrus!” +</p> + +<p> +His coming was still delayed; and she determined, as the report had apparently +been very near, to seek for him in person. Her assistance, also, might be +necessary in bringing home the venison which she flattered herself he had +obtained. She therefore set forward, directing her steps by the long-past +sound, and singing as she went, in order that the boy might be aware of her +approach and run to meet her. From behind the trunk of every tree, and from +every hiding-place in the thick foliage of the undergrowth, she hoped to +discover the countenance of her son, laughing with the sportive mischief that +is born of affection. The sun was now beneath the horizon, and the light that +came down among the leaves was sufficiently dim to create many illusions in her +expecting fancy. Several times she seemed indistinctly to see his face gazing +out from among the leaves; and once she imagined that he stood beckoning to her +at the base of a craggy rock. Keeping her eyes on this object, however, it +proved to be no more than the trunk of an oak fringed to the very ground with +little branches, one of which, thrust out farther than the rest, was shaken by +the breeze. Making her way round the foot of the rock, she suddenly found +herself close to her husband, who had approached in another direction. Leaning +upon the butt of his gun, the muzzle of which rested upon the withered leaves, +he was apparently absorbed in the contemplation of some object at his feet. +</p> + +<p> +“How is this, Reuben? Have you slain the deer and fallen asleep over him?” +exclaimed Dorcas, laughing cheerfully, on her first slight observation of his +posture and appearance. +</p> + +<p> +He stirred not, neither did he turn his eyes towards her; and a cold, +shuddering fear, indefinite in its source and object, began to creep into her +blood. She now perceived that her husband’s face was ghastly pale, and his +features were rigid, as if incapable of assuming any other expression than the +strong despair which had hardened upon them. He gave not the slightest evidence +that he was aware of her approach. +</p> + +<p> +“For the love of Heaven, Reuben, speak to me!” cried Dorcas; and the strange +sound of her own voice affrighted her even more than the dead silence. +</p> + +<p> +Her husband started, stared into her face, drew her to the front of the rock, +and pointed with his finger. +</p> + +<p> +Oh, there lay the boy, asleep, but dreamless, upon the fallen forest leaves! +His cheek rested upon his arm—his curled locks were thrown back from his +brow—his limbs were slightly relaxed. Had a sudden weariness overcome the +youthful hunter? Would his mother’s voice arouse him? She knew that it was +death. +</p> + +<p> +“This broad rock is the gravestone of your near kindred, Dorcas,” said her +husband. “Your tears will fall at once over your father and your son.” +</p> + +<p> +She heard him not. With one wild shriek, that seemed to force its way from the +sufferer’s inmost soul, she sank insensible by the side of her dead boy. At +that moment the withered topmost bough of the oak loosened itself in the stilly +air, and fell in soft, light fragments upon the rock, upon the leaves, upon +Reuben, upon his wife and child, and upon Roger Malvin’s bones. Then Reuben’s +heart was stricken, and the tears gushed out like water from a rock. The vow +that the wounded youth had made the blighted man had come to redeem. His sin +was expiated,—the curse was gone from him; and in the hour when he had +shed blood dearer to him than his own, a prayer, the first for years, went up +to Heaven from the lips of Reuben Bourne. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a> +P.’S CORRESPONDENCE</h2> + +<p> +My unfortunate friend P. has lost the thread of his life by the interposition +of long intervals of partially disordered reason. The past and present are +jumbled together in his mind in a manner often productive of curious results, +and which will be better understood after the perusal of the following letter +than from any description that I could give. The poor fellow, without once +stirring from the little whitewashed, iron-grated room to which he alludes in +his first paragraph, is nevertheless a great traveller, and meets in his +wanderings a variety of personages who have long ceased to be visible to any +eye save his own. In my opinion, all this is not so much a delusion as a partly +wilful and partly involuntary sport of the imagination, to which his disease +has imparted such morbid energy that he beholds these spectral scenes and +characters with no less distinctness than a play upon the stage, and with +somewhat more of illusive credence. Many of his letters are in my possession, +some based upon the same vagary as the present one, and others upon hypotheses +not a whit short of it in absurdity. The whole form a series of correspondence, +which, should fate seasonably remove my poor friend from what is to him a world +of moonshine, I promise myself a pious pleasure in editing for the public eye. +P. had always a hankering after literary reputation, and has made more than one +unsuccessful effort to achieve it. It would not be a little odd, if, after +missing his object while seeking it by the light of reason, he should prove to +have stumbled upon it in his misty excursions beyond the limits of sanity. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +LONDON, February 29, 1845. +</p> + +<p> +MY DEAR FRIEND: Old associations cling to the mind with astonishing tenacity. +Daily custom grows up about us like a stone wall, and consolidates itself into +almost as material an entity as mankind’s strongest architecture. It is +sometimes a serious question with me whether ideas be not really visible and +tangible, and endowed with all the other qualities of matter. Sitting as I do +at this moment in my hired apartment, writing beside the hearth, over which +hangs a print of Queen Victoria, listening to the muffled roar of the world’s +metropolis, and with a window at but five paces distant, through which, +whenever I please, I can gaze out on actual London,—with all this +positive certainty as to my whereabouts, what kind of notion, do you think, is +just now perplexing my brain? Why,—would you believe it?—that all +this time I am still an inhabitant of that wearisome little chamber,—that +whitewashed little chamber,—that little chamber with its one small +window, across which, from some inscrutable reason of taste or convenience, my +landlord had placed a row of iron bars,—that same little chamber, in +short, whither your kindness has so often brought you to visit me! Will no +length of time or breadth of space enfranchise me from that unlovely abode? I +travel; but it seems to be like the snail, with my house upon my head. Ah, +well! I am verging, I suppose, on that period of life when present scenes and +events make but feeble impressions in comparison with those of yore; so that I +must reconcile myself to be more and more the prisoner of Memory, who merely +lets me hop about a little with her chain around my leg. +</p> + +<p> +My letters of introduction have been of the utmost service, enabling me to make +the acquaintance of several distinguished characters who, until now, have +seemed as remote from the sphere of my personal intercourse as the wits of +Queen Anne’s time or Ben Jenson’s compotators at the Mermaid. One of the first +of which I availed myself was the letter to Lord Byron. I found his lordship +looking much older than I had anticipated, although, considering his former +irregularities of life and the various wear and tear of his constitution, not +older than a man on the verge of sixty reasonably may look. But I had invested +his earthly frame, in my imagination, with the poet’s spiritual immortality. He +wears a brown wig, very luxuriantly curled, and extending down over his +forehead. The expression of his eyes is concealed by spectacles. His early +tendency to obesity having increased, Lord Byron is now enormously +fat,—so fat as to give the impression of a person quite overladen with +his own flesh, and without sufficient vigor to diffuse his personal life +through the great mass of corporeal substance which weighs upon him so cruelly. +You gaze at the mortal heap; and, while it fills your eye with what purports to +be Byron, you murmur within yourself, “For Heaven’s sake, where is he?” Were I +disposed to be caustic, I might consider this mass of earthly matter as the +symbol, in a material shape, of those evil habits and carnal vices which +unspiritualize man’s nature and clog up his avenues of communication with the +better life. But this would be too harsh; and, besides, Lord Byron’s morals +have been improving while his outward man has swollen to such unconscionable +circumference. Would that he were leaner; for, though he did me the honor to +present his hand, yet it was so puffed out with alien substance that I could +not feel as if I had touched the hand that wrote Childe Harold. +</p> + +<p> +On my entrance his lordship apologized for not rising to receive me, on the +sufficient plea that the gout for several years past had taken up its constant +residence in his right foot, which accordingly was swathed in many rolls of +flannel and deposited upon a cushion. The other foot was hidden in the drapery +of his chair. Do you recollect whether Byron’s right or left foot was the +deformed one. +</p> + +<p> +The noble poet’s reconciliation with Lady Byron is now, as you are aware, of +ten years’ standing; nor does it exhibit, I am assured, any symptom of breach +or fracture. They are said to be, if not a happy, at least a contented, or at +all events a quiet couple, descending the slope of life with that tolerable +degree of mutual support which will enable them to come easily and comfortably +to the bottom. It is pleasant to reflect how entirely the poet has redeemed his +youthful errors in this particular. Her ladyship’s influence, it rejoices me to +add, has been productive of the happiest results upon Lord Byron in a religious +point of view. He now combines the most rigid tenets of Methodism with the +ultra doctrines of the Puseyites; the former being perhaps due to the +convictions wrought upon his mind by his noble consort, while the latter are +the embroidery and picturesque illumination demanded by his imaginative +character. Much of whatever expenditure his increasing habits of thrift +continue to allow him is bestowed in the reparation or beautifying of places of +worship; and this nobleman, whose name was once considered a synonyme of the +foul fiend, is now all but canonized as a saint in many pulpits of the +metropolis and elsewhere. In politics, Lord Byron is an uncompromising +conservative, and loses no opportunity, whether in the House of Lords or in +private circles, of denouncing and repudiating the mischievous and anarchical +notions of his earlier day. Nor does he fail to visit similar sins in other +people with the sincerest vengeance which his somewhat blunted pen is capable +of inflicting. Southey and he are on the most intimate terms. You are aware +that, some little time before the death of Moore, Byron caused that brilliant +but reprehensible man to be evicted from his house. Moore took the insult so +much to heart that, it is said to have been one great cause of the fit of +illness which brought him to the grave. Others pretend that the lyrist died in +a very happy state of mind, singing one of his own sacred melodies, and +expressing his belief that it would be heard within the gate of paradise, and +gain him instant and honorable admittance. I wish he may have found it so. +</p> + +<p> +I failed not, as you may suppose, in the course of conversation with Lord +Byron, to pay the weed of homage due to a mighty poet, by allusions to passages +in Childe Harold, and Manfred, and Don Juan, which have made so large a portion +of the music of my life. My words, whether apt or otherwise, were at least warm +with the enthusiasm of one worthy to discourse of immortal poesy. It was +evident, however, that they did not go precisely to the right spot. I could +perceive that there was some mistake or other, and was not a little angry with +myself, and ashamed of my abortive attempt to throw back, from my own heart to +the gifted author’s ear, the echo of those strains that have resounded +throughout the world. But by and by the secret peeped quietly out. +Byron,—I have the information from his own lips, so that you need not +hesitate to repeat it in literary circles,—Byron is preparing a new +edition of his complete works, carefully corrected, expurgated, and amended, in +accordance with his present creed of taste, morals, politics, and religion. It +so happened that the very passages of highest inspiration to which I had +alluded were among the condemned and rejected rubbish which it is his purpose +to cast into the gulf of oblivion. To whisper you the truth, it appears to me +that his passions having burned out, the extinction of their vivid and riotous +flame has deprived Lord Byron of the illumination by which he not merely wrote, +but was enabled to feel and comprehend what he had written. Positively he no +longer understands his own poetry. +</p> + +<p> +This became very apparent on his favoring me so far as to read a few specimens +of Don Juan in the moralized version. Whatever is licentious, whatever +disrespectful to the sacred mysteries of our faith, whatever morbidly +melancholic or splenetically sportive, whatever assails settled constitutions +of government or systems of society, whatever could wound the sensibility of +any mortal, except a pagan, a republican, or a dissenter, has been +unrelentingly blotted out, and its place supplied by unexceptionable verses in +his lordship’s later style. You may judge how much of the poem remains as +hitherto published. The result is not so good as might be wished; in plain +terms, it is a very sad affair indeed; for, though the torches kindled in +Tophet have been extinguished, they leave an abominably ill odor, and are +succeeded by no glimpses of hallowed fire. It is to be hoped, nevertheless, +that this attempt on Lord Byron’s part to atone for his youthful errors will at +length induce the Dean of Westminster, or whatever churchman is concerned, to +allow Thorwaldsen’s statue of the poet its due niche in the grand old Abbey. +His bones, you know, when brought from Greece, were denied sepulture among +those of his tuneful brethren there. +</p> + +<p> +What a vile slip of the pen was that! How absurd in me to talk about burying +the bones of Byron, who, I have just seen alive, and incased in a big, round +bulk of flesh! But, to say the truth, a prodigiously fat man always impresses +me as a kind of hobgoblin; in the very extravagance of his mortal system I find +something akin to the immateriality of a ghost. And then that ridiculous old +story darted into my mind, how that Byron died of fever at Missolonghi, above +twenty years ago. More and more I recognize that we dwell in a world of +shadows; and, for my part, I hold it hardly worth the trouble to attempt a +distinction between shadows in the mind and shadows out of it. If there be any +difference, the former are rather the more substantial. +</p> + +<p> +Only think of my good fortune! The venerable Robert Burns—now, if I +mistake not, in his eighty-seventh year—happens to be making a visit to +London, as if on purpose to afford me an opportunity of grasping him by the +hand. For upwards of twenty years past he has hardly left his quiet cottage in +Ayrshire for a single night, and has only been drawn hither now by the +irresistible persuasions of all the distinguished men in England. They wish to +celebrate the patriarch’s birthday by a festival. It will be the greatest +literary triumph on record. Pray Heaven the little spirit of life within the +aged bard’s bosom may not be extinguished in the lustre of that hour! I have +already had the honor of an introduction to him at the British Museum, where he +was examining a collection of his own unpublished letters, interspersed with +songs, which have escaped the notice of all his biographers. +</p> + +<p> +Poh! Nonsense! What am I thinking of? How should Burns have been embalmed in +biography when he is still a hearty old man? +</p> + +<p> +The figure of the bard is tall and in the highest degree reverend, nor the less +so that it is much bent by the burden of time. His white hair floats like a +snowdrift around his face, in which are seen the furrows of intellect and +passion, like the channels of headlong torrents that have foamed themselves +away. The old gentleman is in excellent preservation, considering his time of +life. He has that crickety sort of liveliness,—I mean the cricket’s humor +of chirping for any cause or none,—which is perhaps the most favorable +mood that can befall extreme old age. Our pride forbids us to desire it for +ourselves, although we perceive it to be a beneficence of nature in the case of +others. I was surprised to find it in Burns. It seems as if his ardent heart +and brilliant imagination had both burned down to the last embers, leaving only +a little flickering flame in one corner, which keeps dancing upward and +laughing all by itself. He is no longer capable of pathos. At the request of +Allan Cunningham, he attempted to sing his own song to Mary in Heaven; but it +was evident that the feeling of those verses, so profoundly true and so simply +expressed, was entirely beyond the scope of his present sensibilities; and, +when a touch of it did partially awaken him, the tears immediately gushed into +his eyes and his voice broke into a tremulous cackle. And yet he but +indistinctly knew wherefore he was weeping. Ah, he must not think again of Mary +in Heaven until he shake off the dull impediment of time and ascend to meet her +there. +</p> + +<p> +Burns then began to repeat Tan O’Shanter; but was so tickled with its wit and +humor—of which, however, I suspect he had but a traditionary +sense—that he soon burst into a fit of chirruping laughter, succeeded by +a cough, which brought this not very agreeable exhibition to a close. On the +whole, I would rather not have witnessed it. It is a satisfactory idea, +however, that the last forty years of the peasant poet’s life have been passed +in competence and perfect comfort. Having been cured of his bardic improvidence +for many a day past, and grown as attentive to the main chance as a canny +Scotsman should be, he is now considered to be quite well off as to pecuniary +circumstances. This, I suppose, is worth having lived so long for. +</p> + +<p> +I took occasion to inquire of some of the countrymen of Burns in regard to the +health of Sir Walter Scott. His condition, I am sorry to say, remains the same +as for ten years past; it is that of a hopeless paralytic, palsied not more in +body than in those nobler attributes of which the body is the instrument. And +thus he vegetates from day to day and from year to year at that splendid +fantasy of Abbotsford, which grew out of his brain, and became a symbol of the +great romancer’s tastes, feelings, studies, prejudices, and modes of intellect. +Whether in verse, prose, or architecture, he could achieve but one thing, +although that one in infinite variety. There he reclines, on a couch in his +library, and is said to spend whole hours of every day in dictating tales to an +amanuensis,—to an imaginary amanuensis; for it is not deemed worth any +one’s trouble now to take down what flows from that once brilliant fancy, every +image of which was formerly worth gold and capable of being coined. Yet +Cunningham, who has lately seen him, assures me that there is now and then a +touch of the genius,—a striking combination of incident, or a picturesque +trait of character, such as no other man alive could have bit off,—a +glimmer from that ruined mind, as if the sun had suddenly flashed on a +half-rusted helmet in the gloom of an ancient ball. But the plots of these +romances become inextricably confused; the characters melt into one another; +and the tale loses itself like the course of a stream flowing through muddy and +marshy ground. +</p> + +<p> +For my part, I can hardly regret that Sir Walter Scott had lost his +consciousness of outward things before his works went out of vogue. It was good +that he should forget his fame rather than that fame should first have +forgotten him. Were he still a writer, and as brilliant a one as ever, he could +no longer maintain anything like the same position in literature. The world, +nowadays, requires a more earnest purpose, a deeper moral, and a closer and +homelier truth than he was qualified to supply it with. Yet who can be to the +present generation even what Scott has been to the past? I had expectations +from a young man,—one Dickens,—who published a few magazine +articles, very rich in humor, and not without symptoms of genuine pathos; but +the poor fellow died shortly after commencing an odd series of sketches, +entitled, I think, the Pickwick Papers. Not impossibly the world has lost more +than it dreams of by the untimely death of this Mr. Dickens. +</p> + +<p> +Whom do you think I met in Pall Mall the other day? You would not hit it in ten +guesses. Why, no less a man than Napoleon Bonaparte, or all that is now left of +him,—that is to say, the skin, bones, and corporeal substance, little +cocked hat, green coat, white breeches, and small sword, which are still known +by his redoubtable name. He was attended only by two policemen, who walked +quietly behind the phantasm of the old ex-emperor, appearing to have no duty in +regard to him except to see that none of the light-fingered gentry should +possess themselves of thee star of the Legion of Honor. Nobody save myself so +much as turned to look after him; nor, it grieves me to confess, could even I +contrive to muster up any tolerable interest, even by all that the warlike +spirit, formerly manifested within that now decrepit shape, had wrought upon +our globe. There is no surer method of annihilating the magic influence of a +great renown than by exhibiting the possessor of it in the decline, the +overthrow, the utter degradation of his powers,—buried beneath his own +mortality,—and lacking even the qualities of sense that enable the most +ordinary men to bear themselves decently in the eye of the world. This is the +state to which disease, aggravated by long endurance of a tropical climate, and +assisted by old age,—for he is now above seventy,—has reduced +Bonaparte. The British government has acted shrewdly in retransporting him from +St. Helena to England. They should now restore him to Paris, and there let him +once again review the relics of his armies. His eye is dull and rheumy; his +nether lip hung down upon his chin. While I was observing him there chanced to +be a little extra bustle in the street; and he, the brother of Caesar and +Hannibal,—the great captain who had veiled the world in battle-smoke and +tracked it round with bloody footsteps,—was seized with a nervous +trembling, and claimed the protection of the two policemen by a cracked and +dolorous cry. The fellows winked at one another, laughed aside, and, patting +Napoleon on the back, took each an arm and led him away. +</p> + +<p> +Death and fury! Ha, villain, how came you hither? Avaunt! or I fling my +inkstand at your head. Tush, tusk; it is all a mistake. Pray, my dear friend, +pardon this little outbreak. The fact is, the mention of those two policemen, +and their custody of Bonaparte, had called up the idea of that odious +wretch—you remember him well—who was pleased to take such +gratuitous and impertinent care of my person before I quitted New England. +Forthwith up rose before my mind’s eye that same little whitewashed room, with +the iron-grated window,—strange that it should have been +iron-grated!—where, in too easy compliance with the absurd wishes of my +relatives, I have wasted several good years of my life. Positively it seemed to +me that I was still sitting there, and that the keeper—not that he ever +was my keeper neither, but only a kind of intrusive devil of a +body-servant—had just peeped in at the door. The rascal! I owe him an old +grudge, and will find a time to pay it yet. Fie! fie! The mere thought of him +has exceedingly discomposed me. Even now that hateful chamber—the +iron-grated window, which blasted the blessed sunshine as it fell through the +dusty panes and made it poison to my soul-looks more distinct to my view than +does this my comfortable apartment in the heart of London. The +reality—that which I know to be such—hangs like remnants of +tattered scenery over the intolerably prominent illusion. Let us think of it no +more. +</p> + +<p> +You will be anxious to hear of Shelley. I need not say, what is known to all +the world, that this celebrated poet has for many years past been reconciled to +the Church of England. In his more recent works he has applied his fine powers +to the vindication of the Christian faith, with an especial view to that +particular development. Latterly, as you may not have heard, he has taken +orders, and been inducted to a small country living in the gift of the Lord +Chancellor. Just now, luckily for me, he has come to the metropolis to +superintend the publication of a volume of discourses treating of the +poetico-philosophical proofs of Christianity on the basis of the Thirty-nine +Articles. On my first introduction I felt no little embarrassment as to the +manner of combining what I had to say to the author of <i>Queen Mali</i>, the +<i>Revolt of Islam</i>, and <i>Prometheus Unbound</i> with such acknowledgments +as might be acceptable to a Christian minister and zealous upholder of the +Established Church. But Shelley soon placed me at my ease. Standing where he +now does, and reviewing all his successive productions from a higher point, he +assures me that there is a harmony, an order, a regular procession, which +enables him to lay his hand upon any one of the earlier poems and say, “This is +my work,” with precisely the same complacency of conscience wherewithal he +contemplates the volume of discourses above mentioned. They are like the +successive steps of a staircase, the lowest of which, in the depth of chaos, is +as essential to the support of the whole as the highest and final one resting +upon the threshold of the heavens. I felt half inclined to ask him what would +have been his fate had he perished on the lower steps of his staircase, instead +of building his way aloft into the celestial brightness. +</p> + +<p> +How all this may be I neither pretend to understand nor greatly care, so long +as Shelley has really climbed, as it seems he has, from a lower region to a +loftier one. Without touching upon their religious merits, I consider the +productions of his maturity superior, as poems, to those of his youth. They are +warmer with human love, which has served as an interpreter between his mind and +the multitude. The author has learned to dip his pen oftener into his heart, +and has thereby avoided the faults into which a too exclusive use of fancy and +intellect are wont to betray him. Formerly his page was often little other than +a concrete arrangement of crystallizations, or even of icicles, as cold as they +were brilliant. Now you take it to your heart, and are conscious of a +heart-warmth responsive to your own. In his private character Shelley can +hardly have grown more gentle, kind, and affectionate than his friends always +represented him to be up to that disastrous night when he was drowned in the +Mediterranean. Nonsense, again,—sheer nonsense! What, am I babbling +about? I was thinking of that old figment of his being lost in the Bay of +Spezzia, and washed ashore near Via Reggio, and burned to ashes on a funeral +pyre, with wine, and spices, and frankincense; while Byron stood on the beach +and beheld a flame of marvellous beauty rise heavenward from the dead poet’s +heart, and that his fire-purified relics were finally buried near his child in +Roman earth. If all this happened three-and-twenty years ago, how could I have +met the drowned and burned and buried man here in London only yesterday? +</p> + +<p> +Before quitting the subject, I may mention that Dr. Reginald Heber, heretofore +Bishop of Calcutta, but recently translated to a see in England, called on +Shelley while I was with him. They appeared to be on terms of very cordial +intimacy, and are said to have a joint poem in contemplation. What a strange, +incongruous dream is the life of man! +</p> + +<p> +Coleridge has at last finished his poem of Christabel. It will be issued entire +by old John Murray in the course of the present publishing season. The poet, I +hear, is visited with a troublesome affection of the tongue, which has put a +period, or some lesser stop, to the life-long discourse that has hitherto been +flowing from his lips. He will not survive it above a month, unless his +accumulation of ideas be sluiced off in some other way. Wordsworth died only a +week or two ago. Heaven rest his soul, and grant that he may not have completed +<i>The Excursion</i>! Methinks I am sick of everything he wrote, except his +<i>Laodamia</i>. It is very sad, this inconstancy of the mind to the poets whom +it once worshipped. Southey is as hale as ever, and writes with his usual +diligence. Old Gifford is still alive, in the extremity of age, and with most +pitiable decay of what little sharp and narrow intellect the Devil had gifted +him withal. One hates to allow such a man the privilege of growing old and +infirm. It takes away our speculative license of kicking him. +</p> + +<p> +Keats? No; I have not seen him except across a crowded street, with coaches, +drays, horsemen, cabs, omnibuses, foot-passengers, and divers other sensual +obstructions intervening betwixt his small and slender figure and my eager +glance. I would fain have met him on the sea-shore, or beneath a natural arch +of forest trees, or the Gothic arch of an old cathedral, or among Grecian +ruins, or at a glimmering fireside on the verge of evening, or at the twilight +entrance of a cave, into the dreamy depths of which he would have led me by the +hand; anywhere, in short, save at Temple Bar, where his presence was blotted +out by the porter-swollen bulks of these gross Englishmen. I stood and watched +him fading away, fading away along the pavement, and could hardly tell whether +he were an actual man or a thought that had slipped out of my mind and clothed +itself in human form and habiliments merely to beguile me. At one moment he put +his handkerchief to his lips, and withdrew it, I am almost certain, stained +with blood. You never saw anything so fragile as his person. The truth is, +Keats has all his life felt the effects of that terrible bleeding at the lungs +caused by the article on his Endymion in the Quarterly Review, and which so +nearly brought him to the grave. Ever since he has glided about the world like +a ghost, sighing a melancholy tone in the ear of here and there a friend, but +never sending forth his voice to greet the multitude. I can hardly think him a +great poet. The burden of a mighty genius would never have been imposed upon +shoulders so physically frail and a spirit so infirmly sensitive. Great poets +should have iron sinews. +</p> + +<p> +Yet Keats, though for so many years he has given nothing to the world, is +understood to have devoted himself to the composition of an epic poem. Some +passages of it have been communicated to the inner circle of his admirers, and +impressed them as the loftiest strains that have been audible on earth since +Milton’s days. If I can obtain copies of these specimens, I will ask you to +present them to James Russell Lowell, who seems to be one of the poet’s most +fervent and worthiest worshippers. The information took me by surprise. I had +supposed that all Keats’s poetic incense, without being embodied in human +language, floated up to heaven and mingled with the songs of the immortal +choristers, who perhaps were conscious of an unknown voice among them, and +thought their melody the sweeter for it. But it is not so; he has positively +written a poem on the subject of <i>Paradise Regained</i>, though in another +sense than that which presented itself to the mind of Milton. In compliance, it +may be imagined, with the dogma of those who pretend that all epic +possibilities in the past history of the world are exhausted, Keats has thrown +his poem forward into an indefinitely remote futurity. He pictures mankind amid +the closing circumstances of the time-long warfare between good and evil. Our +race is on the eve of its final triumph. Man is within the last stride of +perfection; Woman, redeemed from the thraldom against which our sibyl uplifts +so powerful and so sad a remonstrance, stands equal by his side or communes for +herself with angels; the Earth, sympathizing with her children’s happier state, +has clothed herself in such luxuriant and loving beauty as no eye ever +witnessed since our first parents saw the sun rise over dewy Eden. Nor then +indeed; for this is the fulfilment of what was then but a golden promise. But +the picture has its shadows. There remains to mankind another peril,—a +last encounter with the evil principle. Should the battle go against us, we +sink back into the slime and misery of ages. If we triumph—But it demands +a poet’s eye to contemplate the splendor of such a consummation and not to be +dazzled. +</p> + +<p> +To this great work Keats is said to have brought so deep and tender a spirit of +humanity that the poem has all the sweet and warm interest of a village tale no +less than the grandeur which befits so high a theme. Such, at least, is the +perhaps partial representation of his friends; for I have not read or heard +even a single line of the performance in question. Keats, I am told, withholds +it from the press, under an idea that the age has not enough of spiritual +insight to receive it worthily. I do not like this distrust; it makes me +distrust the poet. The universe is waiting to respond to the highest word that +the best child of time and immortality can utter. If it refuse to listen, it is +because he mumbles and stammers, or discourses things unseasonable and foreign +to the purpose. +</p> + +<p> +I visited the House of Lords the other day to hear Canning, who, you know, is +now a peer, with I forget what title. He disappointed me. Time blunts both +point and edge, and does great mischief to men of his order of intellect. Then +I stepped into the lower House and listened to a few words from Cobbett, who +looked as earthy as a real clodhopper, or rather as if he had lain a dozen +years beneath the clods. The men whom I meet nowadays often impress me thus; +probably because my spirits are not very good, and lead me to think much about +graves, with the long grass upon them, and weather-worn epitaphs, and dry bones +of people who made noise enough in their day, but now can only clatter, +clatter, clatter, when the sexton’s spade disturbs them. Were it only possible +to find out who are alive and who dead, it would contribute infinitely to my +peace of mind. Every day of my life somebody comes and stares me in the face +whom I had quietly blotted out of the tablet of living men, and trusted +nevermore to be pestered with the sight or sound of him. For instance, going to +Drury Lane Theatre a few evenings since, up rose before me, in the ghost of +Hamlet’s father, the bodily presence of the elder Kean, who did die, or ought +to have died, in some drunken fit or other, so long ago that his fame is +scarcely traditionary now. His powers are quite gone; he was rather the ghost +of himself than the ghost of the Danish king. +</p> + +<p> +In the stage-box sat several elderly and decrepit people, and among them a +stately ruin of a woman on a very large scale, with a profile—for I did +not see her front face—that stamped itself into my brain as a seal +impresses hot wax. By the tragic gesture with which she took a pinch of snuff, +I was sure it must be Mrs. Siddons. Her brother, John Kemble, sat +behind,—a broken-down figure, but still with a kingly majesty about him. +In lieu of all former achievements, Nature enables him to look the part of Lear +far better than in the meridian of his genius. Charles Matthews was likewise +there; but a paralytic affection has distorted his once mobile countenance into +a most disagreeable one-sidedness, from which he could no more wrench it into +proper form than he could rearrange the face of the great globe itself. It +looks as if, for the joke’s sake, the poor man had twisted his features into an +expression at once the most ludicrous and horrible that he could contrive, and +at that very moment, as a judgment for making himself so hideous, an avenging +Providence had seen fit to petrify him. Since it is out of his own power, I +would gladly assist him to change countenance, for his ugly visage haunts me +both at noontide and night-time. Some other players of the past generation were +present, but none that greatly interested me. It behooves actors, more than all +other men of publicity, to vanish from the scene betimes. Being at best but +painted shadows flickering on the wall and empty sounds that echo anther’s +thought, it is a sad disenchantment when the colors begin to fade and the voice +to croak with age. +</p> + +<p> +What is there new in the literary way on your side of the water? Nothing of the +kind has come under any inspection, except a volume of poems published above a +year ago by Dr. Channing. I did not before know that this eminent writer is a +poet; nor does the volume alluded to exhibit any of the characteristics of the +author’s mind as displayed in his prose works; although some of the poems have +a richness that is not merely of the surface, but glows still the brighter the +deeper and more faithfully you look into then. They seem carelessly wrought, +however, like those rings and ornaments of the very purest gold, but of rude, +native manufacture, which are found among the gold-dust from Africa. I doubt +whether the American public will accept them; it looks less to the assay of +metal than to the neat and cunning manufacture. How slowly our literature grows +up! Most of our writers of promise have come to untimely ends. There was that +wild fellow, John Neal, who almost turned my boyish brain with his romances; he +surely has long been dead, else he never could keep himself so quiet. Bryant +has gone to his last sleep, with the <i>Thanatopsis</i> gleaming over him like +a sculptured marble sepulchre by moonlight. Halleck, who used to write queer +verses in the newspapers and published a Don Juanic poem called <i>Fanny</i>, +is defunct as a poet, though averred to be exemplifying the metempsychosis as a +man of business. Somewhat later there was Whittier, a fiery Quaker youth, to +whom the muse had perversely assigned a battle-trumpet, and who got himself +lynched, ten years agone, in South Carolina. I remember, too, a lad just from +college, Longfellow by name, who scattered some delicate verses to the winds, +and went to Germany, and perished, I think, of intense application, at the +University of Gottingen. Willis—what a pity!—was lost, if I +recollect rightly, in 1833, on his voyage to Europe, whither he was going to +give us sketches of the world’s sunny face. If these had lived, they might, one +or all of them, have grown to be famous men. +</p> + +<p> +And yet there is no telling: it may be as well that they have died. I was +myself a young man of promise. O shattered brain, O broken spirit, where is the +fulfilment of that promise? The sad truth is, that, when fate would gently +disappoint the world, it takes away the hopefulest mortals in their youth; when +it would laugh the world’s hopes to scorn, it lets them live. Let me die upon +this apothegm, for I shall never make a truer one. +</p> + +<p> +What a strange substance is the human brain! Or rather,—for there is no +need of generalizing the remark,—what an odd brain is mine! Would you +believe it? Daily and nightly there come scraps of poetry humming in my +intellectual ear—some as airy as birdnotes, and some as delicately neat +as parlor-music, and a few as grand as organ-peals—that seem just such +verses as those departed poets would have written had not an inexorable destiny +snatched them from their inkstands. They visit me in spirit, perhaps desiring +to engage my services as the amanuensis of their posthumous productions, and +thus secure the endless renown that they have forfeited by going hence too +early. But I have my own business to attend to; and besides, a medical +gentleman, who interests himself in some little ailments of mine, advises me +not to make too free use of pen and ink. There are clerks enough out of +employment who would be glad of such a job. +</p> + +<p> +Good by! Are you alive or dead? and what are you about? Still scribbling for +the Democratic? And do those infernal compositors and proof-readers misprint +your unfortunate productions as vilely as ever? It is too bad. Let every man +manufacture his own nonsense, say I. Expect me home soon, and—to whisper +you a secret—in company with the poet Campbell, who purposes to visit +Wyoming and enjoy the shadow of the laurels that he planted there. Campbell is +now an old man. He calls himself well, better than ever in his life, but looks +strangely pale, and so shadow-like that one might almost poke a finger through +his densest material. I tell him, by way of joke, that he is as dim and forlorn +as Memory, though as unsubstantial as Hope. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +Your true friend, P. +</p> + +<p> +P. S.—Pray present my most respectful regards to our venerable and +revered friend Mr. Brockden Brown. +</p> + +<p> +It gratifies me to learn that a complete edition of his works, in a +double-columned octavo volume, is shortly to issue from the press at +Philadelphia. Tell him that no American writer enjoys a more classic reputation +on this side of the water. Is old Joel Barlow yet alive? Unconscionable man! +Why, he must have nearly fulfilled his century. And does he meditate an epic on +the war between Mexico and Texas with machinery contrived on the principle of +the steam-engine, as being the nearest to celestial agency that our epoch can +boast? How can he expect ever to rise again, if, while just sinking into his +grave, he persists in burdening himself with such a ponderosity of leaden +verses? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a> +EARTH’S HOLOCAUST</h2> + +<p> +Once upon a time—but whether in the time past or time to come is a matter +of little or no moment—this wide world had become so overburdened with an +accumulation of worn-out trumpery, that the inhabitants determined to rid +themselves of it by a general bonfire. The site fixed upon at the +representation of the insurance companies, and as being as central a spot as +any other on the globe, was one of the broadest prairies of the West, where no +human habitation would be endangered by the flames, and where a vast assemblage +of spectators might commodiously admire the show. Having a taste for sights of +this kind, and imagining, likewise, that the illumination of the bonfire might +reveal some profundity of moral truth heretofore hidden in mist or darkness, I +made it convenient to journey thither and be present. At my arrival, although +the heap of condemned rubbish was as yet comparatively small, the torch had +already been applied. Amid that boundless plain, in the dusk of the evening, +like a far off star alone in the firmament, there was merely visible one +tremulous gleam, whence none could have anticipated so fierce a blaze as was +destined to ensue. With every moment, however, there came foot-travellers, +women holding up their aprons, men on horseback, wheelbarrows, lumbering +baggage-wagons, and other vehicles, great and small, and from far and near, +laden with articles that were judged fit for nothing but to be burned. +</p> + +<p> +“What materials have been used to kindle the flame?” inquired I of a bystander; +for I was desirous of knowing the whole process of the affair from beginning to +end. +</p> + +<p> +The person whom I addressed was a grave man, fifty years old or thereabout, who +had evidently come thither as a looker-on. He struck me immediately as having +weighed for himself the true value of life and its circumstances, and therefore +as feeling little personal interest in whatever judgment the world might form +of them. Before answering my question, he looked me in the face by the kindling +light of the fire. +</p> + +<p> +“O, some very dry combustibles,” replied he, “and extremely suitable to the +purpose,—no other, in fact, than yesterday’s newspapers, last month’s +magazines, and last year’s withered leaves. Here now comes some antiquated +trash that will take fire like a handful of shavings.” +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke, some rough-looking men advanced to the verge of the bonfire, and +threw in, as it appeared, all the rubbish of the herald’s office,—the +blazonry of coat armor, the crests and devices of illustrious families, +pedigrees that extended back, like lines of light, into the mist of the dark +ages, together with stars, garters, and embroidered collars, each of which, as +paltry a bawble as it might appear to the uninstructed eye, had once possessed +vast significance, and was still, in truth, reckoned among the most precious of +moral or material facts by the worshippers of the gorgeous past. Mingled with +this confused heap, which was tossed into the flames by armfuls at once, were +innumerable badges of knighthood, comprising those of all the European +sovereignties, and Napoleon’s decoration of the Legion of Honor, the ribbons of +which were entangled with those of the ancient order of St. Louis. There, too, +were the medals of our own Society of Cincinnati, by means of which, as history +tells us, an order of hereditary knights came near being constituted out of the +king quellers of the Revolution. And besides, there were the patents of +nobility of German counts and barons, Spanish grandees, and English peers, from +the worm-eaten instruments signed by William the Conqueror down to the bran-new +parchment of the latest lord who has received his honors from the fair hand of +Victoria. +</p> + +<p> +At sight of the dense volumes of smoke, mingled with vivid jets of flame, that +gushed and eddied forth from this immense pile of earthly distinctions, the +multitude of plebeian spectators set up a joyous shout, and clapped their hands +with an emphasis that made the welkin echo. That was their moment of triumph, +achieved, after long ages, over creatures of the same clay and the same +spiritual infirmities, who had dared to assume the privileges due only to +Heaven’s better workmanship. But now there rushed towards the blazing heap a +gray-haired man, of stately presence, wearing a coat, from the breast of which +a star, or other badge of rank, seemed to have been forcibly wrenched away. He +had not the tokens of intellectual power in his face; but still there was the +demeanor, the habitual and almost native dignity, of one who had been born to +the idea of his own social superiority, and had never felt it questioned till +that moment. +</p> + +<p> +“People,” cried he, gazing at the ruin of what was dearest to his eyes with +grief and wonder, but nevertheless with a degree of stateliness,—“people, +what have you done? This fire is consuming all that marked your advance from +barbarism, or that could have prevented your relapse thither. We, the men of +the privileged orders, were those who kept alive from age to age the old +chivalrous spirit; the gentle and generous thought; the higher, the purer, the +more refined and delicate life. With the nobles, too, you cast off the poet, +the painter, the sculptor,—all the beautiful arts; for we were their +patrons, and created the atmosphere in which they flourish. In abolishing the +majestic distinctions of rank, society loses not only its grace, but its +steadfastness—” +</p> + +<p> +More he would doubtless have spoken; but here there arose an outcry, sportive, +contemptuous, and indignant, that altogether drowned the appeal of the fallen +nobleman, insomuch that, casting one look of despair at his own half-burned +pedigree, he shrunk back into the crowd, glad to shelter himself under his +new-found insignificance. +</p> + +<p> +“Let him thank his stars that we have not flung him into the same fire!” +shouted a rude figure, spurning the embers with his foot. “And henceforth let +no man dare to show a piece of musty parchment as his warrant for lording it +over his fellows. If he have strength of arm, well and good; it is one species +of superiority. If he have wit, wisdom, courage, force of character, let these +attributes do for him what they may; but from this day forward no mortal must +hope for place and consideration by reckoning up the mouldy bones of his +ancestors. That nonsense is done away.” +</p> + +<p> +“And in good time,” remarked the grave observer by my side, in a low voice, +however, “if no worse nonsense comes in its place; but, at all events, this +species of nonsense has fairly lived out its life.” +</p> + +<p> +There was little space to muse or moralize over the embers of this time-honored +rubbish; for, before it was half burned out, there came another multitude from +beyond the sea, bearing the purple robes of royalty, and the crowns, globes, +and sceptres of emperors and kings. All these had been condemned as useless +bawbles, playthings at best, fit only for the infancy of the world or rods to +govern and chastise it in its nonage, but with which universal manhood at its +full-grown stature could no longer brook to be insulted. Into such contempt had +these regal insignia now fallen that the gilded crown and tinselled robes of +the player king from Drury Lane Theatre had been thrown in among the rest, +doubtless as a mockery of his brother monarchs on the great stage of the world. +It was a strange sight to discern the crown jewels of England glowing and +flashing in the midst of the fire. Some of them had been delivered down from +the time of the Saxon princes; others were purchased with vast revenues, or +perchance ravished from the dead brows of the native potentates of Hindustan; +and the whole now blazed with a dazzling lustre, as if a star had fallen in +that spot and been shattered into fragments. The splendor of the ruined +monarchy had no reflection save in those inestimable precious stones. But +enough on this subject. It were but tedious to describe how the Emperor of +Austria’s mantle was converted to tinder, and how the posts and pillars of the +French throne became a heap of coals, which it was impossible to distinguish +from those of any other wood. Let me add, however, that I noticed one of the +exiled Poles stirring up the bonfire with the Czar of Russia’s sceptre, which +he afterwards flung into the flames. +</p> + +<p> +“The smell of singed garments is quite intolerable here,” observed my new +acquaintance, as the breeze enveloped us in the smoke of a royal wardrobe. “Let +us get to windward and see what they are doing on the other side of the +bonfire.” +</p> + +<p> +We accordingly passed around, and were just in time to witness the arrival of a +vast procession of Washingtonians,—as the votaries of temperance call +themselves nowadays,—accompanied by thousands of the Irish disciples of +Father Mathew, with that great apostle at their head. They brought a rich +contribution to the bonfire, being nothing less than all the hogsheads and +barrels of liquor in the world, which they rolled before them across the +prairie. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, my children,” cried Father Mathew, when they reached the verge of the +fire, “one shove more, and the work is done. And now let us stand off and see +Satan deal with his own liquor.” +</p> + +<p> +Accordingly, having placed their wooden vessels within reach of the flames, the +procession stood off at a safe distance, and soon beheld them burst into a +blaze that reached the clouds and threatened to set the sky itself on fire. And +well it might; for here was the whole world’s stock of spirituous liquors, +which, instead of kindling a frenzied light in the eyes of individual topers as +of yore, soared upwards with a bewildering gleam that startled all mankind. It +was the aggregate of that fierce fire which would otherwise have scorched the +hearts of millions. Meantime numberless bottles of precious wine were flung +into the blaze, which lapped up the contents as if it loved them, and grew, +like other drunkards, the merrier and fiercer for what it quaffed. Never again +will the insatiable thirst of the fire-fiend be so pampered. Here were the +treasures of famous bon vivants,—liquors that had been tossed on ocean, +and mellowed in the sun, and hoarded long in the recesses of the +earth,—the pale, the gold, the ruddy juice of whatever vineyards were +most delicate,—the entire vintage of Tokay,—all mingling in one +stream with the vile fluids of the common pot house, and contributing to +heighten the self-same blaze. And while it rose in a gigantic spire that seemed +to wave against the arch of the firmament and combine itself with the light of +stars, the multitude gave a shout as if the broad earth were exulting in its +deliverance from the curse of ages. +</p> + +<p> +But the joy was not universal. Many deemed that human life would be gloomier +than ever when that brief illumination should sink down. While the reformers +were at work I overheard muttered expostulations from several respectable +gentlemen with red noses and wearing gouty shoes; and a ragged worthy, whose +face looked like a hearth where the fire is burned out, now expressed his +discontent more openly and boldly. +</p> + +<p> +“What is this world good for,” said the last toper, “now that we can never be +jolly any more? What is to comfort the poor man in sorrow and perplexity? How +is he to keep his heart warm against the cold winds of this cheerless earth? +And what do you propose to give him in exchange for the solace that you take +away? How are old friends to sit together by the fireside without a cheerful +glass between them? A plague upon your reformation! It is a sad world, a cold +world, a selfish world, a low world, not worth an honest fellow’s living in, +now that good fellowship is gone forever!” +</p> + +<p> +This harangue excited great mirth among the bystanders; but, preposterous as +was the sentiment, I could not help commiserating the forlorn condition of the +last toper, whose boon companions had dwindled away from his side, leaving the +poor fellow without a soul to countenance him in sipping his liquor, nor indeed +any liquor to sip. Not that this was quite the true state of the case; for I +had observed him at a critical moment filch a bottle of fourth-proof brandy +that fell beside the bonfire and hide it in his pocket. +</p> + +<p> +The spirituous and fermented liquors being thus disposed of, the zeal of the +reformers next induced them to replenish the fire with all the boxes of tea and +bags of coffee in the world. And now came the planters of Virginia, bringing +their crops of tobacco. These, being cast upon the heap of inutility, +aggregated it to the size of a mountain, and incensed the atmosphere with such +potent fragrance that methought we should never draw pure breath again. The +present sacrifice seemed to startle the lovers of the weed more than any that +they had hitherto witnessed. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, they’ve put my pipe out,” said an old gentleman, flinging it into the +flames in a pet. “What is this world coming to? Everything rich and +racy—all the spice of life—is to be condemned as useless. Now that +they have kindled the bonfire, if these nonsensical reformers would fling +themselves into it, all would be well enough!” +</p> + +<p> +“Be patient,” responded a stanch conservative; “it will come to that in the +end. They will first fling us in, and finally themselves.” +</p> + +<p> +From the general and systematic measures of reform I now turn to consider the +individual contributions to this memorable bonfire. In many instances these +were of a very amusing character. One poor fellow threw in his empty purse, and +another a bundle of counterfeit or insolvable bank-notes. Fashionable ladies +threw in their last season’s bonnets, together with heaps of ribbons, yellow +lace, and much other half-worn milliner’s ware, all of which proved even more +evanescent in the fire than it had been in the fashion. A multitude of lovers +of both sexes—discarded maids or bachelors and couples mutually weary of +one another—tossed in bundles of perfumed letters and enamored sonnets. A +hack politician, being deprived of bread by the loss of office, threw in his +teeth, which happened to be false ones. The Rev. Sydney Smith—having +voyaged across the Atlantic for that sole purpose—came up to the bonfire +with a bitter grin and threw in certain repudiated bonds, fortified though they +were with the broad seal of a sovereign state. A little boy of five years old, +in the premature manliness of the present epoch, threw in his playthings; a +college graduate, his diploma; an apothecary, ruined by the spread of +homeopathy, his whole stock of drugs and medicines; a physician, his library; a +parson, his old sermons; and a fine gentleman of the old school, his code of +manners, which he had formerly written down for the benefit of the next +generation. A widow, resolving on a second marriage, slyly threw in her dead +husband’s miniature. A young man, jilted by his mistress, would willingly have +flung his own desperate heart into the flames, but could find no means to +wrench it out of his bosom. An American author, whose works were neglected by +the public, threw his pen and paper into the bonfire and betook himself to some +less discouraging occupation. It somewhat startled me to overhear a number of +ladies, highly respectable in appearance, proposing to fling their gowns and +petticoats into the flames, and assume the garb, together with the manners, +duties, offices, and responsibilities, of the opposite sex. +</p> + +<p> +What favor was accorded to this scheme I am unable to say, my attention being +suddenly drawn to a poor, deceived, and half-delirious girl, who, exclaiming +that she was the most worthless thing alive or dead, attempted to cast herself +into the fire amid all that wrecked and broken trumpery of the world. A good +man, however, ran to her rescue. +</p> + +<p> +“Patience, my poor girl!” said he, as he drew her back from the fierce embrace +of the destroying angel. “Be patient, and abide Heaven’s will. So long as you +possess a living soul, all may be restored to its first freshness. These things +of matter and creations of human fantasy are fit for nothing but to be burned +when once they have had their day; but your day is eternity!” +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said the wretched girl, whose frenzy seemed now to have sunk down into +deep despondency, “yes, and the sunshine is blotted out of it!” +</p> + +<p> +It was now rumored among the spectators that all the weapons and munitions of +war were to be thrown into the bonfire with the exception of the world’s stock +of gunpowder, which, as the safest mode of disposing of it, had already been +drowned in the sea. This intelligence seemed to awaken great diversity of +opinion. The hopeful philanthropist esteemed it a token that the millennium was +already come; while persons of another stamp, in whose view mankind was a breed +of bulldogs, prophesied that all the old stoutness, fervor, nobleness, +generosity, and magnanimity of the race would disappear,—these qualities, +as they affirmed, requiring blood for their nourishment. They comforted +themselves, however, in the belief that the proposed abolition of war was +impracticable for any length of time together. +</p> + +<p> +Be that as it might, numberless great guns, whose thunder had long been the +voice of battle,—the artillery of the Armada, the battering trains of +Marlborough, and the adverse cannon of Napoleon and Wellington,—were +trundled into the midst of the fire. By the continual addition of dry +combustibles, it had now waxed so intense that neither brass nor iron could +withstand it. It was wonderful to behold how these terrible instruments of +slaughter melted away like playthings of wax. Then the armies of the earth +wheeled around the mighty furnace, with their military music playing triumphant +marches,—and flung in their muskets and swords. The standard-bearers, +likewise, cast one look upward at their banners, all tattered with shot-holes +and inscribed with the names of victorious fields; and, giving them a last +flourish on the breeze, they lowered them into the flame, which snatched them +upward in its rush towards the clouds. This ceremony being over, the world was +left without a single weapon in its hands, except possibly a few old king’s +arms and rusty swords and other trophies of the Revolution in some of our State +armories. And now the drums were beaten and the trumpets brayed all together, +as a prelude to the proclamation of universal and eternal peace and the +announcement that glory was no longer to be won by blood, but that it would +henceforth be the contention of the human race to work out the greatest mutual +good, and that beneficence, in the future annals of the earth, would claim the +praise of valor. The blessed tidings were accordingly promulgated, and caused +infinite rejoicings among those who had stood aghast at the horror and +absurdity of war. +</p> + +<p> +But I saw a grim smile pass over the seared visage of a stately old +commander,—by his war-worn figure and rich military dress, he might have +been one of Napoleon’s famous marshals,—who, with the rest of the world’s +soldiery, had just flung away the sword that had been familiar to his right +hand for half a century. +</p> + +<p> +“Ay! ay!” grumbled he. “Let them proclaim what they please; but, in the end, we +shall find that all this foolery has only made more work for the armorers and +cannon-founders.” +</p> + +<p> +“Why, sir,” exclaimed I, in astonishment, “do you imagine that the human race +will ever so far return on the steps of its past madness as to weld another +sword or cast another cannon?” +</p> + +<p> +“There will be no need,” observed, with a sneer, one who neither felt +benevolence nor had faith in it. “When Cain wished to slay his brother, he was +at no loss for a weapon.” +</p> + +<p> +“We shall see,” replied the veteran commander. “If I am mistaken, so much the +better; but in my opinion, without pretending to philosophize about the matter, +the necessity of war lies far deeper than these honest gentlemen suppose. What! +is there a field for all the petty disputes of individuals? and shall there be +no great law court for the settlement of national difficulties? The +battle-field is the only court where such suits can be tried.” +</p> + +<p> +“You forget, general,” rejoined I, “that, in this advanced stage of +civilization, Reason and Philanthropy combined will constitute just such a +tribunal as is requisite.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, I had forgotten that, indeed!” said the old warrior, as he limped away. +</p> + +<p> +The fire was now to be replenished with materials that had hitherto been +considered of even greater importance to the well-being of society than the +warlike munitions which we had already seen consumed. A body of reformers had +travelled all over the earth in quest of the machinery by which the different +nations were accustomed to inflict the punishment of death. A shudder passed +through the multitude as these ghastly emblems were dragged forward. Even the +flames seemed at first to shrink away, displaying the shape and murderous +contrivance of each in a full blaze of light, which of itself was sufficient to +convince mankind of the long and deadly error of human law. Those old +implements of cruelty; those horrible monsters of mechanism; those inventions +which it seemed to demand something worse than man’s natural heart to contrive, +and which had lurked in the dusky nooks of ancient prisons, the subject of +terror-stricken legend,—were now brought forth to view. Headsmen’s axes, +with the rust of noble and royal blood upon them, and a vast collection of +halters that had choked the breath of plebeian victims, were thrown in +together. A shout greeted the arrival of the guillotine, which was thrust +forward on the same wheels that had borne it from one to another of the +bloodstained streets of Paris. But the loudest roar of applause went up, +telling the distant sky of the triumph of the earth’s redemption, when the +gallows made its appearance. An ill-looking fellow, however, rushed forward, +and, putting himself in the path of the reformers, bellowed hoarsely, and +fought with brute fury to stay their progress. +</p> + +<p> +It was little matter of surprise, perhaps, that the executioner should thus do +his best to vindicate and uphold the machinery by which he himself had his +livelihood and worthier individuals their death; but it deserved special note +that men of a far different sphere—even of that consecrated class in +whose guardianship the world is apt to trust its benevolence—were found +to take the hangman’s view of the question. +</p> + +<p> +“Stay, my brethren!” cried one of them. “You are misled by a false +philanthropy; you know not what you do. The gallows is a Heaven-ordained +instrument. Bear it back, then, reverently, and set it up in its old place, +else the world will fall to speedy ruin and desolation!” +</p> + +<p> +“Onward! onward!” shouted a leader in the reform. “Into the flames with the +accursed instrument of man’s bloody policy! How can human law inculcate +benevolence and love while it persists in setting up the gallows as its chief +symbol? One heave more, good friends, and the world will be redeemed from its +greatest error.” +</p> + +<p> +A thousand hands, that nevertheless loathed the touch, now lent their +assistance, and thrust the ominous burden far, far into the centre of the +raging furnace. There its fatal and abhorred image was beheld, first black, +then a red coal, then ashes. +</p> + +<p> +“That was well done!” exclaimed I. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes, it was well done,” replied, but with less enthusiasm than I expected, the +thoughtful observer, who was still at my side,—“well done, if the world +be good enough for the measure. Death, however, is an idea that cannot easily +be dispensed with in any condition between the primal innocence and that other +purity and perfection which perchance we are destined to attain after +travelling round the full circle; but, at all events, it is well that the +experiment should now be tried.” +</p> + +<p> +“Too cold! too cold!” impatiently exclaimed the young and ardent leader in this +triumph. “Let the heart have its voice here as well as the intellect. And as +for ripeness, and as for progress, let mankind always do the highest, kindest, +noblest thing that, at any given period, it has attained the perception of; and +surely that thing cannot be wrong nor wrongly timed.” +</p> + +<p> +I know not whether it were the excitement of the scene, or whether the good +people around the bonfire were really growing more enlightened every instant; +but they now proceeded to measures in the full length of which I was hardly +prepared to keep them company. For instance, some threw their marriage +certificates into the flames, and declared themselves candidates for a higher, +holier, and more comprehensive union than that which had subsisted from the +birth of time under the form of the connubial tie. Others hastened to the +vaults of banks and to the coffers of the rich—all of which were opened +to the first comer on this fated occasion—and brought entire bales of +paper-money to enliven the blaze, and tons of coin to be melted down by its +intensity. Henceforth, they said, universal benevolence, uncoined and +exhaustless, was to be the golden currency of the world. At this intelligence +the bankers and speculators in the stocks grew pale, and a pickpocket, who had +reaped a rich harvest among the crowd, fell down in a deadly fainting fit. A +few men of business burned their day-books and ledgers, the notes and +obligations of their creditors, and all other evidences of debts due to +themselves; while perhaps a somewhat larger number satisfied their zeal for +reform with the sacrifice of any uncomfortable recollection of their own +indebtment. There was then a cry that the period was arrived when the +title-deeds of landed property should be given to the flames, and the whole +soil of the earth revert to the public, from whom it had been wrongfully +abstracted and most unequally distributed among individuals. Another party +demanded that all written constitutions, set forms of government, legislative +acts, statute-books, and everything else on which human invention had +endeavored to stamp its arbitrary laws, should at once be destroyed, leaving +the consummated world as free as the man first created. +</p> + +<p> +Whether any ultimate action was taken with regard to these propositions is +beyond my knowledge; for, just then, some matters were in progress that +concerned my sympathies more nearly. +</p> + +<p> +“See! see! What heaps of books and pamphlets!” cried a fellow, who did not seem +to be a lover of literature. “Now we shall have a glorious blaze!” +</p> + +<p> +“That’s just the thing!” said a modern philosopher. “Now we shall get rid of +the weight of dead men’s thought, which has hitherto pressed so heavily on the +living intellect that it has been incompetent to any effectual self-exertion. +Well done, my lads! Into the fire with them! Now you are enlightening the world +indeed!” +</p> + +<p> +“But what is to become of the trade?” cried a frantic bookseller. +</p> + +<p> +“O, by all means, let them accompany their merchandise,” coolly observed an +author. “It will be a noble funeral-pile!” +</p> + +<p> +The truth was, that the human race had now reached a stage of progress so far +beyond what the wisest and wittiest men of former ages had ever dreamed of, +that it would have been a manifest absurdity to allow the earth to be any +longer encumbered with their poor achievements in the literary line. +Accordingly a thorough and searching investigation had swept the booksellers’ +shops, hawkers’ stands, public and private libraries, and even the little +book-shelf by the country fireside, and had brought the world’s entire mass of +printed paper, bound or in sheets, to swell the already mountain bulk of our +illustrious bonfire. Thick, heavy folios, containing the labors of +lexicographers, commentators, and encyclopedists, were flung in, and, falling +among the embers with a leaden thump, smouldered away to ashes like rotten +wood. The small, richly gilt French tomes of the last age, with the hundred +volumes of Voltaire among them, went off in a brilliant shower of sparkles and +little jets of flame; while the current literature of the same nation burned +red and blue, and threw an infernal light over the visages of the spectators, +converting them all to the aspect of party-colored fiends. A collection of +German stories emitted a scent of brimstone. The English standard authors made +excellent fuel, generally exhibiting the properties of sound oak logs. Milton’s +works, in particular, sent up a powerful blaze, gradually reddening into a +coal, which promised to endure longer than almost any other material of the +pile. From Shakespeare there gushed a flame of such marvellous splendor that +men shaded their eyes as against the sun’s meridian glory; nor even when the +works of his own elucidators were flung upon him did he cease to flash forth a +dazzling radiance from beneath the ponderous heap. It is my belief that he is +still blazing as fervidly as ever. +</p> + +<p> +“Could a poet but light a lamp at that glorious flame,” remarked I, “he might +then consume the midnight oil to some good purpose.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is the very thing which modern poets have been too apt to do, or at least +to attempt,” answered a critic. “The chief benefit to be expected from this +conflagration of past literature undoubtedly is, that writers will henceforth +be compelled to light their lamps at the sun or stars.” +</p> + +<p> +“If they can reach so high,” said I; “but that task requires a giant, who may +afterwards distribute the light among inferior men. It is not every one that +can steal the fire from heaven like Prometheus; but, when once he had done the +deed, a thousand hearths were kindled by it.” +</p> + +<p> +It amazed me much to observe how indefinite was the proportion between the +physical mass of any given author and the property of brilliant and +long-continued combustion. For instance, there was not a quarto volume of the +last century—nor, indeed, of the present—that could compete in that +particular with a child’s little gilt-covered book, containing _Mother Goose’s +Melodies_. _The Life and Death of Tom Thumb_ outlasted the biography of +Marlborough. An epic, indeed a dozen of them, was converted to white ashes +before the single sheet of an old ballad was half consumed. In more than one +case, too, when volumes of applauded verse proved incapable of anything better +than a stifling smoke, an unregarded ditty of some nameless +bard—perchance in the corner of a newspaper—soared up among the +stars with a flame as brilliant as their own. Speaking of the properties of +flame, methought Shelley’s poetry emitted a purer light than almost any other +productions of his day, contrasting beautifully with the fitful and lurid +gleams and gushes of black vapor that flashed and eddied from the volumes of +Lord Byron. As for Tom Moore, some of his songs diffused an odor like a burning +pastil. +</p> + +<p> +I felt particular interest in watching the combustion of American authors, and +scrupulously noted by my watch the precise number of moments that changed most +of them from shabbily printed books to indistinguishable ashes. It would be +invidious, however, if not perilous, to betray these awful secrets; so that I +shall content myself with observing that it was not invariably the writer most +frequent in the public mouth that made the most splendid appearance in the +bonfire. I especially remember that a great deal of excellent inflammability +was exhibited in a thin volume of poems by Ellery Channing; although, to speak +the truth, there were certain portions that hissed and spluttered in a very +disagreeable fashion. A curious phenomenon occurred in reference to several +writers, native as well as foreign. Their books, though of highly respectable +figure, instead of bursting into a blaze or even smouldering out their +substance in smoke, suddenly melted away in a manner that proved them to be +ice. +</p> + +<p> +If it be no lack of modesty to mention my own works, it must here be confessed +that I looked for them with fatherly interest, but in vain. Too probably they +were changed to vapor by the first action of the heat; at best, I can only hope +that, in their quiet way, they contributed a glimmering spark or two to the +splendor of the evening. +</p> + +<p> +“Alas! and woe is me!” thus bemoaned himself a heavy-looking gentleman in green +spectacles. “The world is utterly ruined, and there is nothing to live for any +longer. The business of my life is snatched from me. Not a volume to be had for +love or money!” +</p> + +<p> +“This,” remarked the sedate observer beside me, “is a bookworm,—one of +those men who are born to gnaw dead thoughts. His clothes, you see, are covered +with the dust of libraries. He has no inward fountain of ideas; and, in good +earnest, now that the old stock is abolished, I do not see what is to become of +the poor fellow. Have you no word of comfort for him?” +</p> + +<p> +“My dear sir,” said I to the desperate bookworm, “is not nature better than a +book? Is not the human heart deeper than any system of philosophy? Is not life +replete with more instruction than past observers have found it possible to +write down in maxims? Be of good cheer. The great book of Time is still spread +wide open before us; and, if we read it aright, it will be to us a volume of +eternal truth.” +</p> + +<p> +“O, my books, my books, my precious printed books!” reiterated the forlorn +bookworm. “My only reality was a bound volume; and now they will not leave me +even a shadowy pamphlet!” +</p> + +<p> +In fact, the last remnant of the literature of all the ages was now descending +upon the blazing heap in the shape of a cloud of pamphlets from the press of +the New World. These likewise were consumed in the twinkling of an eye, leaving +the earth, for the first time since the days of Cadmus, free from the plague of +letters,—an enviable field for the authors of the next generation. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, and does anything remain to be done?” inquired I, somewhat anxiously. +“Unless we set fire to the earth itself, and then leap boldly off into infinite +space, I know not that we can carry reform to any farther point.” +</p> + +<p> +“You are vastly mistaken, my good friend,” said the observer. “Believe me, the +fire will not be allowed to settle down without the addition of fuel that will +startle many persons who have lent a willing hand thus far.” +</p> + +<p> +Nevertheless there appeared to be a relaxation of effort for a little time, +during which, probably, the leaders of the movement were considering what +should be done next. In the interval, a philosopher threw his theory into the +flames,—a sacrifice which, by those who knew how to estimate it, was +pronounced the most remarkable that had yet been made. The combustion, however, +was by no means brilliant. Some indefatigable people, scorning to take a +moment’s ease, now employed themselves in collecting all the withered leaves +and fallen boughs of the forest, and thereby recruited the bonfire to a greater +height than ever. But this was mere by-play. +</p> + +<p> +“Here comes the fresh fuel that I spoke of,” said my companion. +</p> + +<p> +To my astonishment the persons who now advanced into the vacant space around +the mountain fire bore surplices and other priestly garments, mitres, crosiers, +and a confusion of Popish and Protestant emblems with which it seemed their +purpose to consummate the great act of faith. Crosses from the spires of old +cathedrals were cast upon the heap with as little remorse as if the reverence +of centuries passing in long array beneath the lofty towers had not looked up +to them as the holiest of symbols. The font in which infants were consecrated +to God, the sacramental vessels whence piety received the hallowed draught, +were given to the same destruction. Perhaps it most nearly touched my heart to +see among these devoted relics fragments of the humble communion-tables and +undecorated pulpits which I recognized as having been torn from the +meeting-houses of New England. Those simple edifices might have been permitted +to retain all of sacred embellishment that their Puritan founders had bestowed, +even though the mighty structure of St. Peter’s had sent its spoils to the fire +of this terrible sacrifice. Yet I felt that these were but the externals of +religion, and might most safely be relinquished by spirits that best knew their +deep significance. +</p> + +<p> +“All is well,” said I, cheerfully. “The wood-paths shall be the aisles of our +cathedral, the firmament itself shall be its ceiling. What needs an earthly +roof between the Deity and his worshippers? Our faith can well afford to lose +all the drapery that even the holiest men have thrown around it, and be only +the more sublime in its simplicity.” +</p> + +<p> +“True,” said my companion; “but will they pause here?” +</p> + +<p> +The doubt implied in his question was well founded. In the general destruction +of books already described, a holy volume, that stood apart from the catalogue +of human literature, and yet, in one sense, was at its head, had been spared. +But the Titan of innovation,—angel or fiend, double in his nature, and +capable of deeds befitting both characters,—at first shaking down only +the old and rotten shapes of things, had now, as it appeared, laid his terrible +hand upon the main pillars which supported the whole edifice of our moral and +spiritual state. The inhabitants of the earth had grown too enlightened to +define their faith within a form of words, or to limit the spiritual by any +analogy to our material existence. Truths which the heavens trembled at were +now but a fable of the world’s infancy. Therefore, as the final sacrifice of +human error, what else remained to be thrown upon the embers of that awful +pile, except the book which, though a celestial revelation to past ages, was +but a voice from a lower sphere as regarded the present race of man? It was +done! Upon the blazing heap of falsehood and worn-out truth—things that +the earth had never needed, or had ceased to need, or had grown childishly +weary of—fell the ponderous church Bible, the great old volume that had +lain so long on the cushion of the pulpit, and whence the pastor’s solemn voice +had given holy utterance on so many a Sabbath day. There, likewise, fell the +family Bible, which the long-buried patriarch had read to his +children,—in prosperity or sorrow, by the fireside and in the summer +shade of trees,—and had bequeathed downward as the heirloom of +generations. There fell the bosom Bible, the little volume that had been the +soul’s friend of some sorely tried child of dust, who thence took courage, +whether his trial were for life or death, steadfastly confronting both in the +strong assurance of immortality. +</p> + +<p> +All these were flung into the fierce and riotous blaze; and then a mighty wind +came roaring across the plain with a desolate howl, as if it were the angry +lamentation of the earth for the loss of heaven’s sunshine; and it shook the +gigantic pyramid of flame and scattered the cinders of half-consumed +abominations around upon the spectators. +</p> + +<p> +“This is terrible!” said I, feeling that my check grew pale, and seeing a like +change in the visages about me. +</p> + +<p> +“Be of good courage yet,” answered the man with whom I had so often spoken. He +continued to gaze steadily at the spectacle with a singular calmness, as if it +concerned him merely as an observer. “Be of good courage, nor yet exult too +much; for there is far less both of good and evil in the effect of this bonfire +than the world might be willing to believe.” +</p> + +<p> +“How can that be?” exclaimed I, impatiently. “Has it not consumed everything? +Has it not swallowed up or melted down every human or divine appendage of our +mortal state that had substance enough to be acted on by fire? Will there be +anything left us to-morrow morning better or worse than a heap of embers and +ashes?” +</p> + +<p> +“Assuredly there will,” said my grave friend. “Come hither to-morrow morning, +or whenever the combustible portion of the pile shall be quite burned out, and +you will find among the ashes everything really valuable that you have seen +cast into the flames. Trust me, the world of to-morrow will again enrich itself +with the gold and diamonds which have been cast off by the world of today. Not +a truth is destroyed nor buried so deep among the ashes but it will be raked up +at last.” +</p> + +<p> +This was a strange assurance. Yet I felt inclined to credit it, the more +especially as I beheld among the wallowing flames a copy of the Holy +Scriptures, the pages of which, instead of being blackened into tinder, only +assumed a more dazzling whiteness as the fingermarks of human imperfection were +purified away. Certain marginal notes and commentaries, it is true, yielded to +the intensity of the fiery test, but without detriment to the smallest syllable +that had flamed from the pen of inspiration. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes; there is the proof of what you say,” answered I, turning to the observer; +“but if only what is evil can feel the action of the fire, then, surely, the +conflagration has been of inestimable utility. Yet, if I understand aright, you +intimate a doubt whether the world’s expectation of benefit would be realized +by it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Listen to the talk of these worthies,” said he, pointing to a group in front +of the blazing pile; “possibly they may teach you something useful, without +intending it.” +</p> + +<p> +The persons whom he indicated consisted of that brutal and most earthy figure +who had stood forth so furiously in defence of the gallows,—the hangman, +in short,—together with the last thief and the last murderer, all three +of whom were clustered about the last toper. The latter was liberally passing +the brandy bottle, which he had rescued from the general destruction of wines +and spirits. This little convivial party seemed at the lowest pitch of +despondency, as considering that the purified world must needs be utterly +unlike the sphere that they had hitherto known, and therefore but a strange and +desolate abode for gentlemen of their kidney. +</p> + +<p> +“The best counsel for all of us is,” remarked the hangman, “that, as soon as we +have finished the last drop of liquor, I help you, my three friends, to a +comfortable end upon the nearest tree, and then hang myself on the same bough. +This is no world for us any longer.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poh, poh, my good fellows!” said a dark-complexioned personage, who now joined +the group,—his complexion was indeed fearfully dark, and his eyes glowed +with a redder light than that of the bonfire; “be not so cast down, my dear +friends; you shall see good days yet. There is one thing that these wiseacres +have forgotten to throw into the fire, and without which all the rest of the +conflagration is just nothing at all; yes, though they had burned the earth +itself to a cinder.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what may that be?” eagerly demanded the last murderer. +</p> + +<p> +“What but the human heart itself?” said the dark-visaged stranger, with a +portentous grin. “And, unless they hit upon some method of purifying that foul +cavern, forth from it will reissue all the shapes of wrong and misery—the +same old shapes or worse ones—which they have taken such a vast deal of +trouble to consume to ashes. I have stood by this livelong night and laughed in +my sleeve at the whole business. O, take my word for it, it will be the old +world yet!” +</p> + +<p> +This brief conversation supplied me with a theme for lengthened thought. How +sad a truth, if true it were, that man’s age-long endeavor for perfection had +served only to render him the mockery of the evil principle, from the fatal +circumstance of an error at the very root of the matter! The heart, the heart, +there was the little yet boundless sphere wherein existed the original wrong of +which the crime and misery of this outward world were merely types. Purify that +inward sphere, and the many shapes of evil that haunt the outward, and which +now seem almost our only realities, will turn to shadowy phantoms and vanish of +their own accord; but if we go no deeper than the intellect, and strive, with +merely that feeble instrument, to discern and rectify what is wrong, our whole +accomplishment will be a dream, so unsubstantial that it matters little whether +the bonfire, which I have so faithfully described, were what we choose to call +a real event and a flame that would scorch the finger, or only a phosphoric +radiance and a parable of my own brain. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a> +PASSAGES FROM A RELINQUISHED WORK</h2> + +<h3>AT HOME</h3> + +<p> +From infancy I was under the guardianship of a village parson, who made me the +subject of daily prayer and the sufferer of innumerable stripes, using no +distinction, as to these marks of paternal love, between myself and his own +three boys. The result, it must be owned, has been very different in their +cases and mine, they being all respectable men and well settled in life; the +eldest as the successor to his father’s pulpit, the second as a physician, and +the third as a partner in a wholesale shoe-store; while I, with better +prospects than either of them, have run the course which this volume will +describe. Yet there is room for doubt whether I should have been any better +contented with such success as theirs than with my own misfortunes,—at +least, till after my experience of the latter had made it too late for another +trial. +</p> + +<p> +My guardian had a name of considerable eminence, and fitter for the place it +occupies in ecclesiastical history than for so frivolous a page as mine. In his +own vicinity, among the lighter part of his hearers, he was called Parson +Thumpcushion, from the very forcible gestures with which he illustrated his +doctrines. Certainly, if his powers as a preacher were to be estimated by the +damage done to his pulpit-furniture, none of his living brethren, and but few +dead ones, would have been worthy even to pronounce a benediction after him. +Such pounding and expounding the moment he began to grow warm, such slapping +with his open palm, thumping with his closed fist, and banging with the whole +weight of the great Bible, convinced me that he held, in imagination, either +the Old Nick or some Unitarian infidel at bay, and belabored his unhappy +cushion as proxy for those abominable adversaries. Nothing but this exercise of +the body while delivering his sermons could have supported the good parson’s +health under the mental toil which they cost him in composition. +</p> + +<p> +Though Parson Thumpcushion had an upright heart, and some called it a warm one, +he was invariably stern and severe, on principle, I suppose, to me. With late +justice, though early enough, even now, to be tinctured with generosity I +acknowledge him to have been a good and wise man after his own fashion. If his +management failed as to myself, it succeeded with his three sons; nor, I must +frankly say, could any mode of education with which it was possible for him to +be acquainted have made me much better than what I was or led me to a happier +fortune than the present. He could neither change the nature that God gave me +nor adapt his own inflexible mind to my peculiar character. Perhaps it was my +chief misfortune that I had neither father nor mother alive; for parents have +an instinctive sagacity in regard to the welfare of their children, and the +child feels a confidence both in the wisdom and affection of his parents which +he cannot transfer to any delegate of their duties, however conscientious. An +orphan’s fate is hard, be he rich or poor. As for Parson Thumpcushion, whenever +I see the old gentleman in my dreams he looks kindly and sorrowfully at me, +holding out his hand as if each had something to forgive. With such kindness +and such forgiveness, but without the sorrow, may our next meeting be! +</p> + +<p> +I was a youth of gay and happy temperament, with an incorrigible levity of +spirit, of no vicious propensities, sensible enough, but wayward and fanciful. +What a character was this to be brought in contact with the stern old Pilgrim +spirit of my guardian! We were at variance on a thousand points; but our chief +and final dispute arose from the pertinacity with which he insisted on my +adopting a particular profession; while I, being heir to a moderate competence, +had avowed my purpose of keeping aloof from the regular business of life. This +would have been a dangerous resolution anywhere in the world; it was fatal in +New England. There is a grossness in the conceptions of my countrymen; they +will not be convinced that any good thing may consist with what they call +idleness; they can anticipate nothing but evil of a young man who neither +studies physic, law, nor gospel, nor opens a store, nor takes to farming, but +manifests an incomprehensible disposition to be satisfied with what his father +left him. The principle is excellent in its general influence, but most +miserable in its effect on the few that violate it. I had a quick sensitiveness +to public opinion, and felt as if it ranked me with the tavern haunters and +town paupers,—with the drunken poet who hawked his own Fourth of July +odes, and the broken soldier who had been good for nothing since last war. The +consequence of all this was a piece of light-hearted desperation. +</p> + +<p> +I do not over-estimate my notoriety when I take it for granted that many of my +readers must have heard of me in the wild way of life which I adopted. The idea +of becoming a wandering story-teller had been suggested, a year or two before, +by an encounter with several merry vagabonds in a showman’s wagon, where they +and I had sheltered ourselves during a summer shower. The project was not more +extravagant than most which a young man forms. Stranger ones are executed every +day; and, not to mention my prototypes in the East, and the wandering orators +and poets whom my own ears have heard, I had the example of one illustrious +itinerant in the other hemisphere,—of Goldsmith, who planned and +performed his travels through France and Italy on a less promising scheme than +mine. I took credit to myself for various qualifications, mental and personal, +suited to the undertaking. Besides, my mind had latterly tormented me for +employment, keeping up an irregular activity even in sleep, and making me +conscious that I must toil, if it were but in catching butterflies. But my +chief motives were, discontent with home and a bitter grudge against Parson +Thumpcushion, who would rather have laid me in my father’s tomb than seen me +either a novelist or an actor, two characters which I thus hit upon a method of +uniting. After all, it was not half so foolish as if I had written romances +instead of reciting them. +</p> + +<p> +The following pages will contain a picture of my vagrant life, intermixed with +specimens, generally brief and slight, of that great mass of fiction to which I +gave existence, and which has vanished like cloud-shapes. Besides the occasions +when I sought a pecuniary reward, I was accustomed to exercise my narrative +faculty wherever chance had collected a little audience idle enough to listen. +These rehearsals were useful in testing the strong points of my stories; and, +indeed, the flow of fancy soon came upon me so abundantly that its indulgence +was its own reward, though the hope of praise also became a powerful +incitement. Since I shall never feel the warm gush of new thought as I did +then, let me beseech the reader to believe that my tales were not always so +cold as he may find them now. With each specimen will be given a sketch of the +circumstances in which the story was told. Thus my air-drawn pictures will be +set in frames perhaps more valuable than the pictures themselves, since they +will be embossed with groups of characteristic figures, amid the lake and +mountain scenery, the villages and fertile fields, of our native land. But I +write the book for the sake of its moral, which many a dreaming youth may +profit by, though it is the experience of a wandering story-teller. +</p> + +<h3>A FLIGHT IN THE FOG.</h3> + +<p> +I set out on my rambles one morning in June about sunrise. The day promised to +be fair, though at that early hour a heavy mist lay along the earth and settled +in minute globules on the folds of my clothes, so that I looked precisely as if +touched with a hoar-frost. The sky was quite obscured, and the trees and houses +invisible till they grew out of the fog as I came close upon them. There is a +hill towards the west whence the road goes abruptly down, holding a level +course through the village and ascending an eminence on the other side, behind +which it disappears. The whole view comprises an extent of half a mile. Here I +paused; and, while gazing through the misty veil, it partially rose and swept +away with so sudden an effect that a gray cloud seemed to have taken the aspect +of a small white town. A thin vapor being still diffused through the +atmosphere, the wreaths and pillars of fog, whether hung in air or based on +earth, appeared not less substantial than the edifices, and gave their own +indistinctness to the whole. It was singular that such an unromantic scene +should look so visionary. +</p> + +<p> +Half of the parson’s dwelling was a dingy white house, and half of it was a +cloud; but Squire Moody’s mansion, the grandest in the village, was wholly +visible, even the lattice-work of the balcony under the front window; while in +another place only two red chimneys were seen above the mist, appertaining to +my own paternal residence, then tenanted by strangers. I could not remember +those with whom I had dwelt there, not even my mother. The brick edifice of the +bank was in the clouds; the foundations of what was to be a great block of +buildings had vanished, ominously, as it proved; the dry-goods store of Mr. +Nightingale seemed a doubtful concern; and Dominicus Pike’s tobacco manufactory +an affair of smoke, except the splendid image of an Indian chief in front. The +white spire of the meeting-house ascended out of the densest heap of vapor, as +if that shadowy base were its only support: or, to give a truer interpretation, +the steeple was the emblem of Religion, enveloped in mystery below, yet +pointing to a cloudless atmosphere, and catching the brightness of the east on +its gilded vane. +</p> + +<p> +As I beheld these objects, and the dewy street, with grassy intervals and a +border of trees between the wheeltrack and the sidewalks, all so indistinct, +and not to be traced without an effort, the whole seemed more like memory than +reality. I would have imagined that years had already passed, and I was far +away, contemplating that dim picture of my native place, which I should retain +in my mind through the mist of time. No tears fell from my eyes among the +dewdrops of the morning; nor does it occur to me that I heaved a sigh. In +truth, I had never felt such a delicious excitement nor known what freedom was +till that moment when I gave up my home and took the whole world in exchange, +fluttering the wings of my spirit as if I would have flown from one star to +another through the universe. I waved my hand towards the dusky village, bade +it a joyous farewell, and turned away to follow any path but that which might +lead me back. Never was Childe Harold’s sentiment adopted in a spirit more +unlike his own. +</p> + +<p> +Naturally enough, I thought of Don Quixote. Recollecting how the knight and +Sancho had watched for auguries when they took the road to Toboso, I began, +between jest and earnest, to feel a similar anxiety. It was gratified, and by a +more poetical phenomenon than the braying of the dappled ass or the neigh of +Rosinante. The sun, then just above the horizon, shone faintly through the fog, +and formed a species of rainbow in the west, bestriding my intended road like a +gigantic portal. I had never known before that a bow could be generated between +the sunshine and the morning mist. It had no brilliancy, no perceptible hues, +but was a mere unpainted framework, as white and ghostlike as the lunar +rainbow, which is deemed ominous of evil. But, with a light heart, to which all +omens were propitious, I advanced beneath the misty archway of futurity. +</p> + +<p> +I had determined not to enter on my profession within a hundred miles of home, +and then to cover myself with a fictitious name. The first precaution was +reasonable enough, as otherwise Parson Thumpcushion might have put an untimely +catastrophe to my story; but as nobody would be much affected by my disgrace, +and all was to be suffered in my own person, I know not why I cared about a +name. For a week or two I travelled almost at random, seeking hardly any +guidance except the whirling of a leaf at, some turn of the road, or the green +bough that beckoned me, or the naked branch that pointed its withered finger +onward. All my care was to be farther from home each night than the preceding +morning. +</p> + +<h3>A FELLOW-TRAVELLER.</h3> + +<p> +One day at noontide, when the sun had burst suddenly out of a cloud, and +threatened to dissolve me, I looked round for shelter, whether of tavern, +cottage, barn, or shady tree. The first which offered itself was a +wood,—not a forest, but a trim plantation of young oaks, growing just +thick enough to keep the mass of sunshine out, while they admitted a few +straggling beams, and thus produced the most cheerful gloom imaginable. A +brook, so small and clear, and apparently so cool, that I wanted to drink it +up, ran under the road through a little arch of stone without once meeting the +sun in its passage from the shade on one side to the shade on the other. As +there was a stepping-place over the stone wall and a path along the rivulet, I +followed it and discovered its source,—a spring gushing out of an old +barrel. +</p> + +<p> +In this pleasant spot I saw a light pack suspended from the branch of a tree, a +stick leaning against the trunk, and a person seated on the grassy verge of the +spring, with his back towards me. He was a slender figure, dressed in black +broadcloth, which was none of the finest nor very fashionably cut. On hearing +my footsteps he started up rather nervously, and, turning round, showed the +face of a young man about my own age, with his finger in a volume which he had +been reading till my intrusion. His book was evidently a pocket Bible. Though I +piqued myself at that period on my great penetration into people’s characters +and pursuits, I could not decide whether this young man in black were an +unfledged divine from Andover, a college student, or preparing for college at +some academy. In either case I would quite as willingly have found a merrier +companion; such, for instance, as the comedian with whom Gil Blas shared his +dinner beside a fountain in Spain. +</p> + +<p> +After a nod, which was duly returned, I made a goblet of oak-leaves, filled and +emptied it two or three times, and then remarked, to hit the stranger’s +classical associations, that this beautiful fountain ought to flow from an urn +instead of an old barrel. He did not show that he understood the allusion, and +replied very briefly, with a shyness that was quite out of place between +persons who met in such circumstances. Had he treated my next observation in +the same way, we should have parted without another word. +</p> + +<p> +“It is very singular,” said I,—“though doubtless there are good reasons +for it,—that Nature should provide drink so abundantly, and lavish it +everywhere by the roadside, but so seldom anything to eat. Why should not we +find a loaf of bread on this tree as well as a barrel of good liquor at the +foot of it?” +</p> + +<p> +“There is a loaf of bread on the tree,” replied the stranger, without even +smiling—at a coincidence which made me laugh. “I have something to eat in +my bundle; and, if you can make a dinner with me, you shall be welcome.” +</p> + +<p> +“I accept your offer with pleasure,” said I. “A pilgrim such as I am must not +refuse a providential meal.” +</p> + +<p> +The young man had risen to take his bundle from the branch of the tree, but now +turned round and regarded me with great earnestness, coloring deeply at the +same time. However, he said nothing, and produced part of a loaf of bread and +some cheese, the former being evidently home baked, though some days out of the +oven. The fare was good enough, with a real welcome, such as his appeared to +be. After spreading these articles on the stump of a tree, he proceeded to ask +a blessing on our food, an unexpected ceremony, and quite an impressive one at +our woodland table, with the fountain gushing beside us and the bright sky +glimmering through the boughs; nor did his brief petition affect me less +because his embarrassment made his voice tremble. At the end of the meal he +returned thanks with the same tremulous fervor. +</p> + +<p> +He felt a natural kindness for me after thus relieving my necessities, and +showed it by becoming less reserved. On my part, I professed never to have +relished a dinner better; and, in requital of the stranger’s hospitality, +solicited the pleasure of his company to supper. +</p> + +<p> +“Where? At your home?” asked he. +</p> + +<p> +“Yes,” said I, smiling. +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps our roads are not the same,” observed he. +</p> + +<p> +“O, I can take any road but one, and yet not miss my way,” answered I. “This +morning I breakfasted at home; I shall sup at home to-night; and a moment ago I +dined at home. To be sure, there was a certain place which I called home; but I +have resolved not to see it again till I have been quite round the globe and +enter the street on the east as I left it on the west. In the mean time, I have +a home everywhere, or nowhere, just as you please to take it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Nowhere, then; for this transitory world is not our home,” said the young man, +with solemnity. “We are all pilgrims and wanderers; but it is strange that we +two should meet.” +</p> + +<p> +I inquired the meaning of this remark, but could obtain no satisfactory reply. +But we had eaten salt together, and it was right that we should form +acquaintance after that ceremony as the Arabs of the desert do, especially as +he had learned something about myself, and the courtesy of the country entitled +me to as much information in return. I asked whither he was travelling. +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know,” said he; “but God knows.” +</p> + +<p> +“That is strange!” exclaimed I; “not that God should know it, but that you +should not. And how is your road to be pointed out?” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps by an inward conviction,” he replied, looking sideways at me to +discover whether I smiled; “perhaps by an outward sign.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then, believe me,” said I, “the outward sign is already granted you, and the +inward conviction ought to follow. We are told of pious men in old times who +committed themselves to the care of Providence, and saw the manifestation of +its will in the slightest circumstances, as in the shooting of a star, the +flight of a bird, or the course taken by some brute animal. Sometimes even a +stupid ass was their guide. May I not be as good a one?” +</p> + +<p> +“I do not know,” said the pilgrim, with perfect simplicity. +</p> + +<p> +We did, however, follow the same road, and were not overtaken, as I partly +apprehended, by the keepers of any lunatic asylum in pursuit of a stray +patient. Perhaps the stranger felt as much doubt of my sanity as I did of his, +though certainly with less justice, since I was fully aware of my own +extravagances, while he acted as wildly, and deemed it heavenly wisdom. We were +a singular couple, strikingly contrasted, yet curiously assimilated, each of us +remarkable enough by himself, and doubly so in the other’s company. Without any +formal compact, we kept together day after day till our union appeared +permanent. Even had I seen nothing to love and admire in him, I could never +have thought of deserting one who needed me continually; for I never knew a +person; not even a woman, so unfit to roam the world in solitude as he +was,—so painfully shy, so easily discouraged by slight obstacles, and so +often depressed by a weight within himself. +</p> + +<p> +I was now far from my native place, but had not yet stepped before the public. +A slight tremor seized me whenever I thought of relinquishing the immunities of +a private character, and giving every man, and for money too, the right which +no man yet possessed, of treating me with open scorn. But about a week after +contracting the above alliance I made my bow to an audience of nine persons, +seven of whom hissed me in a very disagreeable manner, and not without good +cause. Indeed, the failure was so signal that it would have been mere swindling +to retain the money, which had been paid on my implied contract to give its +value of amusement. So I called in the doorkeeper, bade him refund the whole +receipts, a mighty sum and was gratified with a round of applause by way of +offset to the hisses. This event would have looked most horrible in +anticipation,—a thing to make a man shoot himself, or run amuck, or hide +himself in caverns where he might not see his own burning blush; but the +reality was not so very hard to bear. It is a fact that I was more deeply +grieved by an almost parallel misfortune which happened to my companion on the +same evening. In my own behalf I was angry and excited, not depressed; my blood +ran quick, my spirits rose buoyantly, and I had never felt such a confidence of +future success and determination to achieve it as at that trying moment. I +resolved to persevere, if it were only to wring the reluctant praise from my +enemies. +</p> + +<p> +Hitherto I had immensely underrated the difficulties of my idle trade; now I +recognized that it demanded nothing short of my whole powers cultivated to the +utmost, and exerted with the same prodigality as if I were speaking for a great +party or for the nation at large on the floor of the Capitol. No talent or +attainment could come amiss; everything, indeed, was requisite,—wide +observation, varied knowledge, deep thoughts, and sparkling ones; pathos and +levity, and a mixture of both, like sunshine in a raindrop; lofty imagination, +veiling itself in the garb of common life; and the practised art which alone +could render these gifts, and more than these, available. Not that I ever hoped +to be thus qualified. But my despair was no ignoble one; for, knowing the +impossibility of satisfying myself, even should the world be satisfied, I did +my best to overcome it; investigated the causes of every defect; and strove, +with patient stubbornness, to remove them in the next attempt. It is one of my +few sources of pride, that, ridiculous as the object was, I followed it up with +the firmness and energy of a man. +</p> + +<p> +I manufactured a great variety of plots and skeletons of tales, and kept them +ready for use, leaving the filling up to the inspiration of the moment; though +I cannot remember ever to have told a tale which did not vary considerably from +my preconceived idea, and acquire a novelty of aspect as often as I repeated +it. Oddly enough, my success was generally in proportion to the difference +between the conception and accomplishment. I provided two or more commencements +and catastrophes to many of the tales,—a happy expedient, suggested by +the double sets of sleeves and trimmings which diversified the suits in Sir +Piercy Shafton’s wardrobe. But my best efforts had a unity, a wholeness, and a +separate character that did not admit of this sort of mechanism. +</p> + +<h3>THE VILLAGE THEATRE</h3> + +<p> +About the first of September my fellow-traveller and myself arrived at a +country town, where a small company of actors, on their return from a summer’s +campaign in the British Provinces, were giving a series of dramatic +exhibitions. A moderately sized hall of the tavern had been converted into a +theatre. The performances that evening were, The Heir at Law, and No Song, no +Supper, with the recitation of Alexander’s Feast between the play and farce. +The house was thin and dull. But the next day there appeared to be brighter +prospects, the playbills announcing at every corner, on the town-pump, +and—awful sacrilege!—on the very door of the meeting-house, an +Unprecedented Attraction! After setting forth the ordinary entertainments of a +theatre, the public were informed, in the hugest type that the printing-office +could supply, that the manager had been fortunate enough to accomplish an +engagement with the celebrated Story-Teller. He would make his first appearance +that evening, and recite his famous tale of Mr. Higginbotham’s Catastrophe, +which had been received with rapturous applause by audiences in all the +principal cities. This outrageous flourish of trumpets, be it known, was wholly +unauthorized by me, who had merely made an engagement for a single evening, +without assuming any more celebrity than the little I possessed. As for the +tale, it could hardly have been applauded by rapturous audiences, being as yet +an unfilled plot; nor even when I stepped upon the stage was it decided whether +Mr. Higginbotham should live or die. +</p> + +<p> +In two or three places, underneath the flaming bills which announced the +Story-Teller, was pasted a small slip of paper, giving notice, in tremulous +characters, of a religious meeting to be held at the school-house, where, with +divine permission, Eliakim Abbott would address sinners on the welfare of their +immortal souls. +</p> + +<p> +In the evening, after the commencement of the tragedy of Douglas, I took a +ramble through the town to quicken my ideas by active motion. My spirits were +good, with a certain glow of mind which I had already learned to depend upon as +the sure prognostic of success. Passing a small and solitary school-house, +where a light was burning dimly and a few people were entering the door, I went +in with them, and saw my friend Eliakim at the desk. He had collected about +fifteen hearers, mostly females. Just as I entered he was beginning to pray in +accents so low and interrupted that he seemed to doubt the reception of his +efforts both with God and man. There was room for distrust in regard to the +latter. At the conclusion of the prayer several of the little audience went +out, leaving him to begin his discourse under such discouraging circumstances, +added to his natural and agonizing diffidence. Knowing that my presence on +these occasions increased his embarrassment, I had stationed myself in a dusky +place near the door, and now stole softly out. +</p> + +<p> +On my return to the tavern the tragedy was already concluded; and, being a +feeble one in itself and indifferently performed, it left so much the better +chance for the Story-Teller. The bar was thronged with customers, the +toddy-stick keeping a continual tattoo; while in the hall there was a broad, +deep, buzzing sound, with an occasional peal of impatient thunder,—all +symptoms of all overflowing house and an eager audience. I drank a glass of +wine-and-water, and stood at the side scene conversing with a young person of +doubtful sex. If a gentleman, how could he have performed the singing girl the +night before in No Song, no Supper? Or, if a lady, why did she enact Young +Norval, and now wear a green coat and white pantaloons in the character of +Little Pickle? In either case the dress was pretty and the wearer bewitching; +so that, at the proper moment, I stepped forward with a gay heart and a hold +one; while the orchestra played a tune that had resounded at many a country +ball, and the curtain, as it rose, discovered something like a country +bar-room. Such a scene was well enough adapted to such a tale. +</p> + +<p> +The orchestra of our little theatre consisted of two fiddles and a clarinet; +but, if the whole harmony of the Tremont had been there, it might have swelled +in vain beneath the tumult of applause that greeted me. The good people of the +town, knowing that the world contained innumerable persons of celebrity +undreamed of by them, took it for granted that I was one, and that their roar +of welcome was but a feeble echo of those which had thundered around me in +lofty theatres. Such an enthusiastic uproar was never heard. Each person seemed +a Briarcus clapping a hundred hands, besides keeping his feet and several +cudgels in play with stamping and thumping on the floor; while the ladies +flourished their white cambric handkerchiefs, intermixed with yellow and red +bandanna, like the flags of different nations. After such a salutation, the +celebrated Story-Teller felt almost ashamed to produce so humble an affair as +Mr. Higginbotham’s Catastrophe. +</p> + +<p> +This story was originally more dramatic than as there presented, and afforded +good scope for mimicry and buffoonery, neither of which, to my shame, did I +spare. I never knew the “magic of a name” till I used that of Mr. Higginbotham. +Often as I repeated it, there were louder bursts of merriment than those which +responded to what, in my opinion, were more legitimate strokes of humor. The +success of the piece was incalculably heightened by a stiff cue of horsehair, +which Little Pickle, in the spirit of that mischief-loving character, had +fastened to my collar, where, unknown to me, it kept making the queerest +gestures of its own in correspondence with all mine. The audience, supposing +that some enormous joke was appended to this long tail behind, were ineffably +delighted, and gave way to such a tumult of approbation that, just as the story +closed, the benches broke beneath them and left one whole row of my admirers on +the floor. Even in that predicament they continued their applause. In after +times, when I had grown a bitter moralizer, I took this scene for an example +how much of fame is humbug; how much the meed of what our better nature blushes +at; how much an accident; how much bestowed on mistaken principles; and how +small and poor the remnant. From pit and boxes there was now a universal call +for the Story-Teller. +</p> + +<p> +That celebrated personage came not when they did call to him. As I left the +stage, the landlord, being also the postmaster, had given me a letter with the +postmark of my native village, and directed to my assumed name in the stiff old +handwriting of Parson Thumpcushion. Doubtless he had heard of the rising renown +of the Story-Teller, and conjectured at once that such a nondescript luminary +could be no other than his lost ward. His epistle, though I never read it, +affected me most painfully. I seemed to see the Puritanic figure of my guardian +standing among the fripperies of the theatre and pointing to the +players,—the fantastic and effeminate men, the painted women, the giddy +girl in boy’s clothes, merrier than modest,—pointing to these with solemn +ridicule, and eying me with stern rebuke. His image was a type of the austere +duty, and they of the vanities of life. +</p> + +<p> +I hastened with the letter to my chamber and held it unopened in my hand, while +the applause of my buffoonery yet sounded through the theatre. Another train of +thought came over me. The stern old man appeared again, but now with the +gentleness of sorrow, softening his authority with love as a father might, and +even bending his venerable head, as if to say that my errors had an apology in +his own mistaken discipline. I strode twice across the chamber, then held the +letter in the flame of the candle, and beheld it consume unread. It is fixed in +my mind, and was so at the time, that he had addressed me in a style of +paternal wisdom, and love, and reconciliation which I could not have resisted +had I but risked the trial. The thought still haunts me that then I made my +irrevocable choice between good and evil fate. +</p> + +<p> +Meanwhile, as this occurrence had disturbed my mind and indisposed me to the +present exercise of my profession, I left the town, in spite of a laudatory +critique in the newspaper, and untempted by the liberal offers of the manager. +As we walked onward, following the same road, on two such different errands, +Eliakim groaned in spirit, and labored with tears to convince me of the guilt +and madness of my life. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a> +SKETCHES FROM MEMORY</h2> + +<h3>THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS</h3> + +<p> +It was now the middle of September. We had come since sunrise from Bartlett, +passing up through the valley of the Saco, which extends between mountainous +walls, sometimes with a steep ascent, but often as level as a church-aisle. All +that day and two preceding ones we had been loitering towards the heart of the +White Mountains,—those old crystal hills, whose mysterious brilliancy had +gleamed upon our distant wanderings before we thought of visiting them. Height +after height had risen and towered one above another till the clouds began to +hang below the peaks. Down their slopes were the red pathways of the slides, +those avalanches of earth, stones, and trees, which descend into the hollows, +leaving vestiges of their track hardly to be effaced by the vegetation of ages. +We had mountains behind us and mountains on each side, and a group of mightier +ones ahead. Still our road went up along the Saco, right towards the centre of +that group, as if to climb above the clouds in its passage to the farther +region. +</p> + +<p> +In old times the settlers used to be astounded by the inroads of the Northern +Indians, coming down upon them from this mountain rampart through some defile +known only to themselves. It is, indeed, a wondrous path. A demon, it might be +fancied, or one of the Titans, was travelling up the valley, elbowing the +heights carelessly aside as he passed, till at length a great mountain took its +stand directly across his intended road. He tarries not for such an obstacle, +but, rending it asunder a thousand feet from peak to base, discloses its +treasures of hidden minerals, its sunless waters, all the secrets of the +mountain’s inmost heart, with a mighty fracture of rugged precipices on each +side. This is the Notch of the White Hills. Shame on me that I have attempted +to describe it by so mean an image, feeling, as I do, that it is one of those +symbolic scenes which lead the mind to the sentiment, though not to the +conception, of Omnipotence. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +We had now reached a narrow passage, which showed almost the appearance of +having been cut by human strength and artifice in the solid rock. There was a +wall of granite on each side, high and precipitous, especially on our right, +and so smooth that a few evergreens could hardly find foothold enough to grow +there. This is the entrance, or, in the direction we were going, the extremity, +of the romantic defile of the Notch. Before emerging from it, the rattling of +wheels approached behind us, and a stage-coach rumbled out of the mountain, +with seats on top and trunks behind, and a smart driver, in a drab great-coat, +touching the wheel-horses with the whip-stock and reigning in the leaders. To +my mind there was a sort of poetry in such an incident, hardly inferior to what +would have accompanied the painted array of an Indian war-party gliding forth +from the same wild chasm. All the passengers, except a very fat lady on the +back seat, had alighted. One was a mineralogist, a scientific, green-spectacled +figure in black, bearing a heavy hammer, with which he did great damage to the +precipices, and put the fragments in his pocket. Another was a well-dressed +young man, who carried an operaglass set in gold, and seemed to be making a +quotation from some of Byron’s rhapsodies on mountain scenery. There was also a +trader, returning from Portland to the upper part of Vermont; and a fair young +girl, with a very faint bloom like one of those pale and delicate flowers which +sometimes occur among alpine cliffs. +</p> + +<p> +They disappeared, and we followed them, passing through a deep pine forest, +which for some miles allowed us to see nothing but its own dismal shade. +Towards nightfall we reached a level amphitheatre, surrounded by a great +rampart of hills, which shut out the sunshine long before it left the external +world. It was here that we obtained our first view, except at a distance, of +the principal group of mountains. They are majestic, and even awful, when +contemplated in a proper mood, yet, by their breadth of base and the long +ridges which support them, give the idea of immense bulk rather than of +towering height. Mount Washington, indeed, looked near to Heaven: he was white +with snow a mile downward, and had caught the only cloud that was sailing +through the atmosphere to veil his head. Let us forget the other names of +American statesmen that have been stamped upon these hills, but still call the +loftiest WASHINGTON. Mountains are Earth’s undecaying monuments. They must +stand while she endures, and never should be consecrated to the mere great men +of their own age and country, but to the mighty ones alone, whose glory is +universal, and whom all time will render illustrious. +</p> + +<p> +The air, not often sultry in this elevated region, nearly two thousand feet +above the sea, was now sharp and cold, like that of a clear November evening in +the lowlands. By morning, probably, there would be a frost, if not a snowfall, +on the grass and rye, and an icy surface over the standing water. I was glad to +perceive a prospect of comfortable quarters in a house which we were +approaching, and of pleasant company in the guests who were assembled at the +door. +</p> + +<h3>OUR EVENING PARTY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS</h3> + +<p> +WE stood in front of a good substantial farm-house, of old date in that wild +country. A sign over the door denoted it to be the White Mountain +Post-Office,—an establishment which distributes letters and newspapers to +perhaps a score of persons, comprising the population of two or three townships +among the hills. The broad and weighty antlers of a deer, “a stag of ten,” were +fastened at the corner of the house; a fox’s bushy tail was nailed beneath +them; and a huge black paw lay on the ground, newly severed and still bleeding, +the trophy of a bear-hunt. Among several persons collected about the doorsteps, +the most remarkable was a sturdy mountaineer, of six feet two, and +corresponding bulk, with a heavy set of features, such as might be moulded on +his own blacksmith’s anvil, but yet indicative of mother wit and rough humor. +As we appeared, he uplifted a tin trumpet, four or five feet long, and blew a +tremendous blast, either in honor of our arrival or to awaken an echo from the +opposite hill. +</p> + +<p> +Ethan Crawford’s guests were of such a motley description as to form quite a +picturesque group, seldom seen together except at some place like this, at once +the pleasure-house of fashionable tourists and the homely inn of country +travellers. Among the company at the door were the mineralogist and the owner +of the gold operaglass whom we had encountered in the Notch; two Georgian +gentlemen, who had chilled their Southern blood that morning on the top of +Mount Washington; a physician and his wife from Conway; a trader of Burlington +and an old squire of the Green Mountains; and two young married couples, all +the way from Massachusetts, on the matrimonial jaunt. Besides these strangers, +the rugged county of Coos, in which we were, was represented by half a dozen +wood-cutters, who had slain a bear in the forest and smitten off his paw. +</p> + +<p> +I had joined the party, and had a moment’s leisure to examine them before the +echo of Ethan’s blast returned from the hill. Not one, but many echoes had +caught up the harsh and tuneless sound, untwisted its complicated threads, and +found a thousand aerial harmonies in one stern trumpet-tone. It was a distinct +yet distant and dream-like symphony of melodious instruments, as if an airy +band had been hidden on the hillside and made faint music at the summons. No +subsequent trial produced so clear, delicate, and spiritual a concert as the +first. A field-piece was then discharged from the top of a neighboring hill, +and gave birth to one long reverberation, which ran round the circle of +mountains in an unbroken chain of sound and rolled away without a separate +echo. After these experiments, the cold atmosphere drove us all into the house, +with the keenest appetites for supper. +</p> + +<p> +It did one’s heart good to see the great fires that were kindled in the parlor +and bar-room, especially the latter, where the fireplace was built of rough +stone, and might have contained the trunk of an old tree for a backlog. +</p> + +<p> +A man keeps a comfortable hearth when his own forest is at his very door. In +the parlor, when the evening was fairly set in, we held our hands before our +eyes to shield them from the ruddy glow, and began a pleasant variety of +conversation. The mineralogist and the physician talked about the invigorating +qualities of the mountain air, and its excellent effect on Ethan Crawford’s +father, an old man of seventy-five, with the unbroken frame of middle life. The +two brides and the doctor’s wife held a whispered discussion, which, by their +frequent titterings and a blush or two, seemed to have reference to the trials +or enjoyments of the matrimonial state. The bridegrooms sat together in a +corner, rigidly silent, like Quakers whom the spirit moveth not, being still in +the odd predicament of bashfulness towards their own young wives. The Green +Mountain squire chose me for his companion, and described the difficulties he +had met with half a century ago in travelling from the Connecticut River +through the Notch to Conway, now a single day’s journey, though it had cost him +eighteen. The Georgians held the album between them, and favored us with the +few specimens of its contents, which they considered ridiculous enough to be +worth hearing. One extract met with deserved applause. It was a “Sonnet to the +Snow on Mount Washington,” and had been contributed that very afternoon, +bearing a signature of great distinction in magazines and annuals. The lines +were elegant and full of fancy, but too remote from familiar sentiment, and +cold as their subject, resembling those curious specimens of crystallized vapor +which I observed next day on the mountain-top. The poet was understood to be +the young gentleman of the gold opera-glass, who heard our laudatory remarks +with the composure of a veteran. +</p> + +<p> +Such was our party, and such their ways of amusement. But on a winter evening +another set of guests assembled at the hearth where these summer travellers +were now sitting. I once had it in contemplation to spend a month hereabouts, +in sleighing-time, for the sake of studying the yeomen of New England, who then +elbow each other through the Notch by hundreds, on their way to Portland. There +could be no better school for such a purpose than Ethan Crawford’s inn. Let the +student go thither in December, sit down with the teamsters at their meals, +share their evening merriment, and repose with them at night when every bed has +its three occupants, and parlor, bar-room, and kitchen are strewn with +slumberers around the fire. Then let him rise before daylight, button his +great-coat, muffle up his ears, and stride with the departing caravan a mile or +two, to see how sturdily they make head against the blast. A treasure of +characteristic traits will repay all inconveniences, even should a frozen nose +be of the number. +</p> + +<p> +The conversation of our party soon became more animated and sincere, and we +recounted some traditions of the Indians, who believed that the father and +mother of their race were saved from a deluge by ascending the peak of Mount +Washington. The children of that pair have been overwhelmed, and found no such +refuge. In the mythology of the savage, these mountains were afterwards +considered sacred and inaccessible, full of unearthly wonders, illuminated at +lofty heights by the blaze of precious stones, and inhabited by deities, who +sometimes shrouded themselves in the snow-storm and came down on the lower +world. There are few legends more poetical than that of the “Great Carbuncle” +of the White Mountains. The belief was communicated to the English settlers, +and is hardly yet extinct, that a gem, of such immense size as to be seen +shining miles away, hangs from a rock over a clear, deep lake, high up among +the hills. They who had once beheld its splendor were enthralled with an +unutterable yearning to possess it. But a spirit guarded that inestimable +jewel, and bewildered the adventurer with a dark mist from the enchanted lake. +Thus life was worn away in the vain search for an unearthly treasure, till at +length the deluded one went up the mountain, still sanguine as in youth, but +returned no more. On this theme methinks I could frame a tale with a deep +moral. +</p> + +<p> +The hearts of the palefaces would not thrill to these superstitions of the red +men, though we spoke of them in the centre of their haunted region. The habits +and sentiments of that departed people were too distinct from those of their +successors to find much real sympathy. It has often been a matter of regret to +me that I was shut out from the most peculiar field of American fiction by an +inability to see any romance, or poetry, or grandeur, or beauty in the Indian +character, at least till such traits were pointed out by others. I do abhor an +Indian story. Yet no writer can be more secure of a permanent place in our +literature than the biographer of the Indian chiefs. His subject, as referring +to tribes which have mostly vanished from the earth, gives him a right to be +placed on a classic shelf, apart from the merits which will sustain him there. +</p> + +<p> +I made inquiries whether, in his researches about these parts, our mineralogist +had found the three “Silver Hills” which an Indian sachem sold to an Englishman +nearly two hundred years ago, and the treasure of which the posterity of the +purchaser have been looking for ever since. But the man of science had +ransacked every hill along the Saco, and knew nothing of these prodigious piles +of wealth. By this time, as usual with men on the eve of great adventure, we +had prolonged our session deep into the night, considering how early we were to +set out on our six miles’ ride to the foot of Mount Washington. There was now a +general breaking up. I scrutinized the faces of the two bridegrooms, and saw +but little probability of their leaving the bosom of earthly bliss, in the +first week of the honeymoon and at the frosty hour of three, to climb above the +clouds; nor, when I felt how sharp the wind was as it rushed through a broken +pane and eddied between the chinks of my unplastered chamber, did I anticipate +much alacrity on my own part, though we were to seek for the “Great Carbuncle.” +</p> + +<h3>THE CANAL-BOAT</h3> + +<p> +I was inclined to be poetical about the Grand Canal. In my imagination De Witt +Clinton was an enchanter, who had waved his magic wand from the Hudson to Lake +Erie and united them by a watery highway, crowded with the commerce of two +worlds, till then inaccessible to each other. This simple and mighty conception +had conferred inestimable value on spots which Nature seemed to have thrown +carelessly into the great body of the earth, without foreseeing that they could +ever attain importance. I pictured the surprise of the sleepy Dutchmen when the +new river first glittered by their doors, bringing them hard cash or foreign +commodities in exchange for their hitherto unmarketable produce. Surely the +water of this canal must be the most fertilizing of all fluids; for it causes +towns, with their masses of brick and stone, their churches and theatres, their +business and hubbub, their luxury and refinement, their gay dames and polished +citizens, to spring up, till in time the wondrous stream may flow between two +continuous lines of buildings, through one thronged street, from Buffalo to +Albany. I embarked about thirty miles below Utica, determining to voyage along +the whole extent of the canal at least twice in the course of the summer. +</p> + +<p> +Behold us, then, fairly afloat, with three horses harnessed to our vessel, like +the steeds of Neptune to a huge scallop-shell in mythological pictures. Bound +to a distant port, we had neither chart nor compass, nor cared about the wind, +nor felt the heaving of a billow, nor dreaded shipwreck, however fierce the +tempest, in our adventurous navigation of an interminable mudpuddle; for a +mudpuddle it seemed, and as dark and turbid as if every kennel in the land paid +contribution to it. With an imperceptible current, it holds its drowsy way +through all the dismal swamps and unimpressive scenery that could be found +between the great lakes and the sea-coast. Yet there is variety enough, both on +the surface of the canal and along its banks, to amuse the traveller, if an +overpowering tedium did not deaden his perceptions. +</p> + +<p> +Sometimes we met a black and rusty-looking vessel, laden with lumber, salt from +Syracuse, or Genesee flour, and shaped at both ends like a square-toed boot, as +if it had two sterns, and were fated always to advance backward. On its deck +would be a square hut, and a woman seen through the window at her household +work, with a little tribe of children who perhaps had been born in this strange +dwelling and knew no other home. Thus, while the husband smoked his pipe at the +helm and the eldest son rode one of the horses, on went the family, travelling +hundreds of miles in their own house and carrying their fireside with them. The +most frequent species of craft were the “line-boats,” which had a cabin at each +end, and a great bulk of barrels, bales, and boxes in the midst, or light +packets like our own decked all over with a row of curtained windows from stem +to stern, and a drowsy face at every one. Once we encountered a boat of rude +construction, painted all in gloomy black, and manned by three Indians, who +gazed at us in silence and with a singular fixedness of eye. Perhaps these +three alone, among the ancient possessors of the land, had attempted to derive +benefit from the white mail’s mighty projects and float along the current of +his enterprise. Not long after, in the midst of a swamp and beneath a clouded +sky, we overtook a vessel that seemed full of mirth and sunshine. It contained +a little colony of Swiss on their way to Michigan, clad in garments of strange +fashion and gay colors, scarlet, yellow, and bright blue, singing, laughing, +and making merry in odd tones and a babble of outlandish words. One pretty +damsel, with a beautiful pair of naked white arms, addressed a mirthful remark +to me. She spoke in her native tongue, and I retorted in good English, both of +us laughing heartily at each other’s unintelligible wit. I cannot describe how +pleasantly this incident affected me. These honest Swiss were all itinerant +community of jest and fun journeying through a gloomy land and among a dull +race of money-getting drudges, meeting none to understand their mirth, and only +one to sympathize with it, yet still retaining the happy lightness of their own +spirit. +</p> + +<p> +Had I been on my feet at the time instead of sailing slowly along in a dirty +canal-boat, I should often have paused to contemplate the diversified panorama +along the banks of the canal. Sometimes the scene was a forest, dark, dense, +and impervious, breaking away occasionally and receding from a lonely tract, +covered with dismal black stumps, where, on the verge of the canal, might be +seen a log-cottage and a sallow-faced woman at the window. Lean and aguish, she +looked like poverty personified, half clothed, half fed, and dwelling in a +desert, while a tide of wealth was sweeping by her door. Two or three miles +farther would bring us to a lock, where the slight impediment to navigation had +created a little mart of trade. Here would be found commodities of all sorts, +enumerated in yellow letters on the window-shutters of a small grocery-store, +the owner of which had set his soul to the gathering of coppers and small +change, buying and selling through the week, and counting his gains on the +blessed Sabbath. The next scene might be the dwelling-houses and stores of a +thriving village, built of wood or small gray stones, a church-spire rising in +the midst, and generally two taverns, bearing over their piazzas the pompous +titles of “hotel,” “exchange,” “tontine,” or “coffee-house.” Passing on, we +glide now into the unquiet heart of an inland city,—of Utica, for +instance,—and find ourselves amid piles of brick, crowded docks and +quays, rich warehouses, and a busy population. We feel the eager and hurrying +spirit of the place, like a stream and eddy whirling us along with it. Through +the thickest of the tumult goes the canal, flowing between lofty rows of +buildings and arched bridges of hewn stone. Onward, also, go we, till the hum +and bustle of struggling enterprise die away behind us and we are threading an +avenue of the ancient woods again. +</p> + +<p> +This sounds not amiss in description, but was so tiresome in reality that we +were driven to the most childish expedients for amusement. An English traveller +paraded the deck, with a rifle in his walking-stick, and waged war on squirrels +and woodpeckers, sometimes sending an unsuccessful bullet among flocks of tame +ducks and geese which abound in the dirty water of the canal. I, also, pelted +these foolish birds with apples, and smiled at the ridiculous earnestness of +their scrambles for the prize while the apple bobbed about like a thing of +life. Several little accidents afforded us good-natured diversion. At the +moment of changing horses the tow-rope caught a Massachusetts farmer by the leg +and threw him down in a very indescribable posture, leaving a purple mark +around his sturdy limb. A new passenger fell flat on his back in attempting to +step on deck as the boat emerged from under a bridge. Another, in his Sunday +clothes, as good luck would have it, being told to leap aboard from the bank, +forthwith plunged up to his third waistcoat-button in the canal, and was fished +out in a very pitiable plight, not at all amended by our three rounds of +applause. Anon a Virginia schoolmaster, too intent on a pocket Virgil to heed +the helmsman’s warning, “Bridge! bridge!” was saluted by the said bridge on his +knowledge-box. I had prostrated myself like a pagan before his idol, but heard +the dull, leaden sound of the contact, and fully expected to see the treasures +of the poor man’s cranium scattered about the deck. However, as there was no +harm done, except a large bump on the head, and probably a corresponding dent +in the bridge, the rest of us exchanged glances and laughed quietly. O, bow +pitiless are idle people! +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +The table being now lengthened through the cabin and spread for supper, the +next twenty minutes were the pleasantest I had spent on the canal, the same +space at dinner excepted. At the close of the meal it had become dusky enough +for lamplight. The rain pattered unceasingly on the deck, and sometimes came +with a sullen rush against the windows, driven by the wind as it stirred +through an opening of the forest. The intolerable dulness of the scene +engendered an evil spirit in me. Perceiving that the Englishman was taking +notes in a memorandum-book, with occasional glances round the cabin, I presumed +that we were all to figure in a future volume of travels, and amused my +ill-humor by falling into the probable vein of his remarks. He would hold up an +imaginary mirror, wherein our reflected faces would appear ugly and ridiculous, +yet still retain all undeniable likeness to the originals. Then, with more +sweeping malice, he would make these caricatures the representatives of great +classes of my countrymen. +</p> + +<p> +He glanced at the Virginia schoolmaster, a Yankee by birth, who, to recreate +himself, was examining a freshman from Schenectady College in the conjugation +of a Greek verb. Him the Englishman would portray as the scholar of America, +and compare his erudition to a school-boy’s Latin theme made up of scraps +ill-selected and worse put together. Next the tourist looked at the +Massachusetts farmer, who was delivering a dogmatic harangue on the iniquity of +Sunday mails. Here was the far-famed yeoman of New England; his religion, +writes the Englishman, is gloom on the Sabbath, long prayers every morning and +eventide, and illiberality at all times; his boasted information is merely an +abstract and compound of newspaper paragraphs, Congress debates, caucus +harangues, and the argument and judge’s charge in his own lawsuits. The +book-monger cast his eye at a Detroit merchant, and began scribbling faster +than ever. In this sharp-eyed man, this lean man, of wrinkled brow, we see +daring enterprise and close-fisted avarice combined. Here is the worshipper of +Mammon at noonday; here is the three times bankrupt, richer after every ruin; +here, in one word, (O wicked Englishman to say it!) here is the American. He +lifted his eyeglass to inspect a Western lady, who at once became aware of the +glance, reddened, and retired deeper into the female part of the cabin. Here +was the pure, modest, sensitive, and shrinking woman of +America,—shrinking when no evil is intended, and sensitive like diseased +flesh, that thrills if you but point at it; and strangely modest, without +confidence in the modesty of other people; and admirably pure, with such a +quick apprehension of all impurity. +</p> + +<p> +In this manner I went all through the cabin, hitting everybody as hard a lash +as I could, and laying the whole blame on the infernal Englishman. At length I +caught the eyes of my own image in the looking-glass, where a number of the +party were likewise reflected, and among them the Englishman, who at that +moment was intently observing myself. +</p> + +<hr /> + +<p> +The crimson curtain being let down between the ladies and gentlemen, the cabin +became a bedchamber for twenty persons, who were laid on shelves one above +another. For a long time our various incommodities kept us all awake except +five or six, who were accustomed to sleep nightly amid the uproar of their own +snoring, and had little to dread from any other species of disturbance. It is a +curious fact that these snorers had been the most quiet people in the boat +while awake, and became peace-breakers only when others cease to be so, +breathing tumult out of their repose. Would it were possible to affix a +wind-instrument to the nose, and thus make melody of a snore, so that a +sleeping lover might serenade his mistress or a congregation snore a +psalm-tune! Other, though fainter, sounds than these contributed to my +restlessness. My head was close to the crimson curtain,—the sexual +division of the boat,—behind which I continually heard whispers and +stealthy footsteps; the noise of a comb laid on the table or a slipper dropped +on the floor; the twang, like a broken harp-string, caused by loosening a tight +belt; the rustling of a gown in its descent; and the unlacing of a pair of +stays. My ear seemed to have the properties of an eye; a visible image pestered +my fancy in the darkness; the curtain was withdrawn between me and the Western +lady, who yet disrobed herself without a blush. +</p> + +<p> +Finally all was hushed in that quarter. Still I was more broad awake than +through the whole preceding day, and felt a feverish impulse to toss my limbs +miles apart and appease the unquietness of mind by that of matter. Forgetting +that my berth was hardly so wide as a coffin, I turned suddenly over and fell +like an avalanche on the floor, to the disturbance of the whole community of +sleepers. As there were no bones broken, I blessed the accident and went on +deck. A lantern was burning at each end of the boat, and one of the crew was +stationed at the bows, keeping watch, as mariners do on the ocean. Though the +rain had ceased, the sky was all one cloud, and the darkness so intense that +there seemed to be no world except the little space on which our lanterns +glimmered. Yet it was an impressive scene. +</p> + +<p> +We were traversing the “long level,” a dead flat between Utica and Syracuse, +where the canal has not rise or fall enough to require a lock for nearly +seventy miles. There can hardly be a more dismal tract of country. The forest +which covers it, consisting chiefly of white-cedar, black-ash, and other trees +that live in excessive moisture, is now decayed and death-struck by the partial +draining of the swamp into the great ditch of the canal. Sometimes, indeed, our +lights were reflected from pools of stagnant water which stretched far in among +the trunks of the trees, beneath dense masses of dark foliage. But generally +the tall stems and intermingled branches were naked, and brought into strong +relief amid the surrounding gloom by the whiteness of their decay. Often we +beheld the prostrate form of some old sylvan giant which had fallen and crushed +down smaller trees under its immense ruin. In spots where destruction had been +riotous, the lanterns showed perhaps a hundred trunks, erect, half overthrown, +extended along the ground, resting on their shattered limbs or tossing them +desperately into the darkness, but all of one ashy white, all naked together, +in desolate confusion. Thus growing out of the night as we drew nigh, and +vanishing as we glided on, based on obscurity, and overhung and bounded by it, +the scene was ghostlike,—the very land of unsubstantial things, whither +dreams might betake themselves when they quit the slumberer’s brain. +</p> + +<p> +My fancy found another emblem. The wild nature of America had been driven to +this desert-place by the encroachments of civilized man. And even here, where +the savage queen was throned on the ruins of her empire, did we penetrate, a +vulgar and worldly throng, intruding on her latest solitude. In other lands +decay sits among fallen palaces; but here her home is in the forests. +</p> + +<p> +Looking ahead, I discerned a distant light, announcing the approach of another +boat, which soon passed us, and proved to be a rusty old scow,—just such +a craft as the “Flying Dutchman” would navigate on the canal. Perhaps it was +that celebrated personage himself whom I imperfectly distinguished at the helm +in a glazed cap and rough great-coat, with a pipe in his mouth, leaving the +fumes of tobacco a hundred yards behind. Shortly after our boatman blew a horn, +sending a long and melancholy note through the forest avenue, as a signal for +some watcher in the wilderness to be ready with a change of horses. We had +proceeded a mile or two with our fresh team when the tow-rope got entangled in +a fallen branch on the edge of the canal, and caused a momentary delay, during +which I went to examine the phosphoric light of an old tree a little within the +forest. It was not the first delusive radiance that I had followed. +</p> + +<p> +The tree lay along the ground, and was wholly converted into a mass of diseased +splendor, which threw a ghastliness around. Being full of conceits that night, +I called it a frigid fire, a funeral light, illumining decay and death, an +emblem of fame that gleams around the dead man without warming him, or of +genius when it owes its brilliancy to moral rottenness, and was thinking that +such ghostlike torches were just fit to light up this dead forest or to blaze +coldly in tombs, when, starting from my abstraction, I looked up the canal. I +recollected myself, and discovered the lanterns glimmering far away. +</p> + +<p> +“Boat ahoy!” shouted I, making a trumpet of my closed fists. +</p> + +<p> +Though the cry must have rung for miles along that hollow passage of the woods, +it produced no effect. These packet-boats make up for their snail-like pace by +never loitering day nor night, especially for those who have paid their fare. +Indeed, the captain had an interest in getting rid of me; for I was his +creditor for a breakfast. +</p> + +<p> +“They are gone, Heaven be praised!” ejaculated I; “for I cannot possibly +overtake them. Here am I, on the ‘long level,’ at midnight, with the +comfortable prospect of a walk to Syracuse, where my baggage will be left. And +now to find a house or shed wherein to pass the night.” So thinking aloud, I +took a flambeau from the old tree, burning, but consuming not, to light my +steps withal, and, like a jack-o’-the-lantern, set out on my midnight tour. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a> +THE OLD APPLE DEALER</h2> + +<p> +The lover of the moral picturesque may sometimes find what he, seeks in a +character which is nevertheless of too negative a description to be seized upon +and represented to the imaginative vision by word-painting. As an instance, I +remember an old man who carries on a little trade of gingerbread and apples at +the depot of one of our railroads. While awaiting the departure of the cars, my +observation, flitting to and fro among the livelier characteristics of the +scene, has often settled insensibly upon this almost hueless object. Thus, +unconsciously to myself and unsuspected by him, I have studied the old +apple-dealer until he has become a naturalized citizen of my inner world. How +little would he imagine—poor, neglected, friendless, unappreciated, and +with little that demands appreciation—that the mental eye of an utter +stranger has so often reverted to his figure! Many a noble form, many a +beautiful face, has flitted before me and vanished like a shadow. It is a +strange witchcraft whereby this faded and featureless old apple-dealer has +gained a settlement in my memory. +</p> + +<p> +He is a small man, with gray hair and gray stubble beard, and is invariably +clad in a shabby surtout of snuff-color, closely buttoned, and half concealing +a pair of gray pantaloons; the whole dress, though clean and entire, being +evidently flimsy with much wear. His face, thin, withered, furrowed, and with +features which even age has failed to render impressive, has a frost-bitten +aspect. It is a moral frost which no physical warmth or comfortableness could +counteract. The summer sunshine may fling its white heat upon him or the good +fire of the depot room may slake him the focus of its blaze on a winter’s day; +but all in vain; for still the old roan looks as if he were in a frosty +atmosphere, with scarcely warmth enough to keep life in the region about his +heart. It is a patient, long-suffering, quiet, hopeless, shivering aspect. He +is not desperate,—that, though its etymology implies no more, would be +too positive an expression,—but merely devoid of hope. As all his past +life, probably, offers no spots of brightness to his memory, so he takes his +present poverty and discomfort as entirely a matter of course! he thinks it the +definition of existence, so far as himself is concerned, to be poor, cold, and +uncomfortable. It may be added, that time has not thrown dignity as a mantle +over the old man’s figure: there is nothing venerable about him: you pity him +without a scruple. +</p> + +<p> +He sits on a bench in the depot room; and before him, on the floor, are +deposited two baskets of a capacity to contain his whole stock in trade. Across +from one basket to the other extends a board, on which is displayed a plate of +cakes and gingerbread, some russet and red-cheeked apples, and a box containing +variegated sticks of candy, together with that delectable condiment known by +children as Gibraltar rock, neatly done up in white paper. There is likewise a +half-peck measure of cracked walnuts and two or three tin half-pints or gills +filled with the nut-kernels, ready for purchasers. +</p> + +<p> +Such are the small commodities with which our old friend comes daily before the +world, ministering to its petty needs and little freaks of appetite, and +seeking thence the solid subsistence—so far as he may subsist of his +life. +</p> + +<p> +A slight observer would speak of the old man’s quietude; but, on closer +scrutiny, you discover that there is a continual unrest within him, which +somewhat resembles the fluttering action of the nerves in a corpse from which +life has recently departed. Though he never exhibits any violent action, and, +indeed, might appear to be sitting quite still, yet you perceive, when his +minuter peculiarities begin to be detected, that he is always making some +little movement or other. He looks anxiously at his plate of cakes or pyramid +of apples and slightly alters their arrangement, with an evident idea that a +great deal depends on their being disposed exactly thus and so. Then for a +moment he gazes out of the window; then he shivers quietly and folds his arms +across his breast, as if to draw himself closer within himself, and thus keep a +flicker of warmth in his lonesome heart. Now he turns again to his merchandise +of cakes, apples, and candy, and discovers that this cake or that apple, or +yonder stick of red and white candy, has somehow got out of its proper +position. And is there not a walnut-kernel too many or too few in one of those +small tin measures? Again the whole arrangement appears to be settled to his +mind; but, in the course of a minute or two, there will assuredly be something +to set right. At times, by an indescribable shadow upon his features, too +quiet, however, to be noticed until you are familiar with his ordinary aspect, +the expression of frostbitten, patient despondency becomes very touching. It +seems as if just at that instant the suspicion occurred to him that, in his +chill decline of life, earning scanty bread by selling cakes, apples, and +candy, he is a very miserable old fellow. +</p> + +<p> +But, if he thinks so, it is a mistake. He can never suffer the extreme of +misery, because the tone of his whole being is too much subdued for him to feel +anything acutely. +</p> + +<p> +Occasionally one of the passengers, to while away a tedious interval, +approaches the old man, inspects the articles upon his board, and even peeps +curiously into the two baskets. Another, striding to and fro along the room, +throws a look at the apples and gingerbread at every turn. A third, it may be +of a more sensitive and delicate texture of being, glances shyly thitherward, +cautious not to excite expectations of a purchaser while yet undetermined +whether to buy. But there appears to be no need of such a scrupulous regard to +our old friend’s feelings. True, he is conscious of the remote possibility to +sell a cake or an apple; but innumerable disappointments have rendered him so +far a philosopher, that, even if the purchased article should be returned, he +will consider it altogether in the ordinary train of events. He speaks to none, +and makes no sign of offering his wares to the public: not that he is deterred +by pride, but by the certain conviction that such demonstrations would not +increase his custom. Besides, this activity in business would require an energy +that never could have been a characteristic of his almost passive disposition +even in youth. Whenever an actual customer customer appears the old man looks +up with a patient eye: if the price and the article are approved, he is ready +to make change; otherwise his eyelids droop again sadly enough, but with no +heavier despondency than before. He shivers, perhaps folds his lean arms around +his lean body, and resumes the life-long, frozen patience in which consists his +strength. +</p> + +<p> +Once in a while a school-boy comes hastily up, places cent or two upon the +board, and takes up a cake, or stick of candy, or a measure of walnuts, or an +apple as red-checked as himself. There are no words as to price, that being as +well known to the buyer as to the seller. The old apple-dealer never speaks an +unnecessary word not that he is sullen and morose; but there is none of the +cheeriness and briskness in him that stirs up people to talk. +</p> + +<p> +Not seldom he is greeted by some old neighbor, a man well to do in the world, +who makes a civil, patronizing observation about the weather; and then, by way +of performing a charitable deed, begins to chaffer for an apple. Our friend +presumes not on any past acquaintance; he makes the briefest possible response +to all general remarks, and shrinks quietly into himself again. After every +diminution of his stock he takes care to produce from the basket another cake, +another stick of candy, another apple, or another measure of walnuts, to supply +the place of the article sold. Two or three attempts—or, perchance, half +a dozen—are requisite before the board can be rearranged to his +satisfaction. If he have received a silver coin, he waits till the purchaser is +out of sight, then examines it closely, and tries to bend it with his finger +and thumb: finally he puts it into his waistcoat-pocket with seemingly a gentle +sigh. This sigh, so faint as to be hardly perceptible, and not expressive of +any definite emotion, is the accompaniment and conclusion of all his actions. +It is the symbol of the chillness and torpid melancholy of his old age, which +only make themselves felt sensibly when his repose is slightly disturbed. +</p> + +<p> +Our man of gingerbread and apples is not a specimen of the “needy man who has +seen better days.” Doubtless there have been better and brighter days in the +far-off time of his youth; but none with so much sunshine of prosperity in them +that the chill, the depression, the narrowness of means, in his declining +years, can have come upon him by surprise. His life has all been of a piece. +His subdued and nerveless boyhood prefigured his abortive prime, which likewise +contained within itself the prophecy and image of his lean and torpid age. He +was perhaps a mechanic, who never came to be a master in his craft, or a petty +tradesman, rubbing onward between passably to do and poverty. Possibly he may +look back to some brilliant epoch of his career when there were a hundred or +two of dollars to his credit in the Savings Bank. Such must have been the +extent of his better fortune,—his little measure of this world’s +triumphs,—all that he has known of success. A meek, downcast, humble, +uncomplaining creature, he probably has never felt himself entitled to more +than so much of the gifts of Providence. Is it not still something that he has +never held out his hand for charity, nor has yet been driven to that sad home +and household of Earth’s forlorn and broken-spirited children, the almshouse? +He cherishes no quarrel, therefore, with his destiny, nor with the Author of +it. All is as it should be. +</p> + +<p> +If, indeed, he have been bereaved of a son, a bold, energetic, vigorous young +man, on whom the father’s feeble nature leaned as on a staff of strength, in +that case he may have felt a bitterness that could not otherwise have been +generated in his heart. But methinks the joy of possessing such a son and the +agony of losing him would have developed the old man’s moral and intellectual +nature to a much greater degree than we now find it. Intense grief appears to +be as much out of keeping with his life as fervid happiness. +</p> + +<p> +To confess the truth, it is not the easiest matter in the world to define and +individualize a character like this which we are now handling. The portrait +must be so generally negative that the most delicate pencil is likely to spoil +it by introducing some too positive tint. Every touch must be kept down, or +else you destroy the subdued tone which is absolutely essential to the whole +effect. Perhaps more may be done by contrast than by direct description. For +this purpose I make use of another cake and candy merchant, who, likewise +infests the railroad depot. This latter worthy is a very smart and well-dressed +boy of ten years old or thereabouts, who skips briskly hither and thither, +addressing the passengers in a pert voice, yet with somewhat of good breeding +in his tone and pronunciation. Now he has caught my eye, and skips across the +room with a pretty pertness, which I should like to correct with a box on the +ear. “Any cake, sir? any candy?” +</p> + +<p> +No, none for me, my lad. I did but glance at your brisk figure in order to +catch a reflected light and throw it upon your old rival yonder. +</p> + +<p> +Again, in order to invest my conception of the old man with a more decided +sense of reality, I look at him in the very moment of intensest bustle, on the +arrival of the cars. The shriek of the engine as it rushes into the car-house +is the utterance of the steam fiend, whom man has subdued by magic spells and +compels to serve as a beast of burden. He has skimmed rivers in his headlong +rush, dashed through forests, plunged into the hearts of mountains, and glanced +from the city to the desert-place, and again to a far-off city, with a meteoric +progress, seen and out of sight, while his reverberating roar still fills the +ear. The travellers swarm forth from the cars. All are full of the momentum +which they have caught from their mode of conveyance. It seems as if the whole +world, both morally and physically, were detached from its old standfasts and +set in rapid motion. And, in the midst of this terrible activity, there sits +the old man of gingerbread, so subdued, so hopeless, so without a stake in +life, and yet not positively miserable,—there he sits, the forlorn old +creature, one chill and sombre day after another, gathering scanty coppers for +his cakes, apples, and candy,—there sits the old apple-dealer, in his +threadbare suit of snuff-color and gray and his grizzly stubble heard. See! he +folds his lean arms around his lean figure with that quiet sigh and that +scarcely perceptible shiver which are the tokens of his inward state. I have +him now. He and the steam fiend are each other’s antipodes; the latter is the +type of all that go ahead, and the old man the representative of that +melancholy class who by some sad witchcraft are doomed never to share in the +world’s exulting progress. Thus the contrast between mankind and this desolate +brother becomes picturesque, and even sublime. +</p> + +<p> +And now farewell, old friend! Little do you suspect that a student of human +life has made your character the theme of more than one solitary and thoughtful +hour. Many would say that you have hardly individuality enough to be the object +of your own self-love. How, then, can a stranger’s eye detect anything in your +mind and heart to study and to wonder at? Yet, could I read but a tithe of what +is written there, it would be a volume of deeper and more comprehensive import +than all that the wisest mortals have given to the world; for the soundless +depths of the human soul and of eternity have an opening through your breast. +God be praised, were it only for your sake, that the present shapes of human +existence are not cast in iron nor hewn in everlasting adamant, but moulded of +the vapors that vanish away while the essence flits upward to the infinite. +There is a spiritual essence in this gray and lean old shape that shall flit +upward too. Yes; doubtless there is a region where the life-long shiver will +pass away from his being, and that quiet sigh, which it has taken him so many +years to breathe, will be brought to a close for good and all. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a> +THE ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL</h2> + +<p> +An elderly man, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was passing along the +street, and emerged from the gloom of the cloudy evening into the light that +fell across the pavement from the window of a small shop. It was a projecting +window; and on the inside were suspended a variety of watches, pinchbeck, +silver, and one or two of gold, all with their faces turned from the streets, +as if churlishly disinclined to inform the wayfarers what o’clock it was. +Seated within the shop, sidelong to the window with his pale face bent +earnestly over some delicate piece of mechanism on which was thrown the +concentrated lustre of a shade lamp, appeared a young man. +</p> + +<p> +“What can Owen Warland be about?” muttered old Peter Hovenden, himself a +retired watchmaker, and the former master of this same young man whose +occupation he was now wondering at. “What can the fellow be about? These six +months past I have never come by his shop without seeing him just as steadily +at work as now. It would be a flight beyond his usual foolery to seek for the +perpetual motion; and yet I know enough of my old business to be certain that +what he is now so busy with is no part of the machinery of a watch.” +</p> + +<p> +“Perhaps, father,” said Annie, without showing much interest in the question, +“Owen is inventing a new kind of timekeeper. I am sure he has ingenuity +enough.” +</p> + +<p> +“Poh, child! He has not the sort of ingenuity to invent anything better than a +Dutch toy,” answered her father, who had formerly been put to much vexation by +Owen Warland’s irregular genius. “A plague on such ingenuity! All the effect +that ever I knew of it was to spoil the accuracy of some of the best watches in +my shop. He would turn the sun out of its orbit and derange the whole course of +time, if, as I said before, his ingenuity could grasp anything bigger than a +child’s toy!” +</p> + +<p> +“Hush, father! He hears you!” whispered Annie, pressing the old man’s arm. “His +ears are as delicate as his feelings; and you know how easily disturbed they +are. Do let us move on.” +</p> + +<p> +So Peter Hovenden and his daughter Annie plodded on without further +conversation, until in a by-street of the town they found themselves passing +the open door of a blacksmith’s shop. Within was seen the forge, now blazing up +and illuminating the high and dusky roof, and now confining its lustre to a +narrow precinct of the coal-strewn floor, according as the breath of the +bellows was puffed forth or again inhaled into its vast leathern lungs. In the +intervals of brightness it was easy to distinguish objects in remote corners of +the shop and the horseshoes that hung upon the wall; in the momentary gloom the +fire seemed to be glimmering amidst the vagueness of unenclosed space. Moving +about in this red glare and alternate dusk was the figure of the blacksmith, +well worthy to be viewed in so picturesque an aspect of light and shade, where +the bright blaze struggled with the black night, as if each would have snatched +his comely strength from the other. Anon he drew a white-hot bar of iron from +the coals, laid it on the anvil, uplifted his arm of might, and was soon +enveloped in the myriads of sparks which the strokes of his hammer scattered +into the surrounding gloom. +</p> + +<p> +“Now, that is a pleasant sight,” said the old watchmaker. “I know what it is to +work in gold; but give me the worker in iron after all is said and done. He +spends his labor upon a reality. What say you, daughter Annie?” +</p> + +<p> +“Pray don’t speak so loud, father,” whispered Annie, “Robert Danforth will hear +you.” +</p> + +<p> +“And what if he should hear me?” said Peter Hovenden. “I say again, it is a +good and a wholesome thing to depend upon main strength and reality, and to +earn one’s bread with the bare and brawny arm of a blacksmith. A watchmaker +gets his brain puzzled by his wheels within a wheel, or loses his health or the +nicety of his eyesight, as was my case, and finds himself at middle age, or a +little after, past labor at his own trade and fit for nothing else, yet too +poor to live at his ease. So I say once again, give me main strength for my +money. And then, how it takes the nonsense out of a man! Did you ever hear of a +blacksmith being such a fool as Owen Warland yonder?” +</p> + +<p> +“Well said, uncle Hovenden!” shouted Robert Danforth from the forge, in a full, +deep, merry voice, that made the roof re-echo. “And what says Miss Annie to +that doctrine? She, I suppose, will think it a genteeler business to tinker up +a lady’s watch than to forge a horseshoe or make a gridiron.” +</p> + +<p> +Annie drew her father onward without giving him time for reply. +</p> + +<p> +But we must return to Owen Warland’s shop, and spend more meditation upon his +history and character than either Peter Hovenden, or probably his daughter +Annie, or Owen’s old school-fellow, Robert Danforth, would have thought due to +so slight a subject. From the time that his little fingers could grasp a +penknife, Owen had been remarkable for a delicate ingenuity, which sometimes +produced pretty shapes in wood, principally figures of flowers and birds, and +sometimes seemed to aim at the hidden mysteries of mechanism. But it was always +for purposes of grace, and never with any mockery of the useful. He did not, +like the crowd of school-boy artisans, construct little windmills on the angle +of a barn or watermills across the neighboring brook. Those who discovered such +peculiarity in the boy as to think it worth their while to observe him closely, +sometimes saw reason to suppose that he was attempting to imitate the beautiful +movements of Nature as exemplified in the flight of birds or the activity of +little animals. It seemed, in fact, a new development of the love of the +beautiful, such as might have made him a poet, a painter, or a sculptor, and +which was as completely refined from all utilitarian coarseness as it could +have been in either of the fine arts. He looked with singular distaste at the +stiff and regular processes of ordinary machinery. Being once carried to see a +steam-engine, in the expectation that his intuitive comprehension of mechanical +principles would be gratified, he turned pale and grew sick, as if something +monstrous and unnatural had been presented to him. This horror was partly owing +to the size and terrible energy of the iron laborer; for the character of +Owen’s mind was microscopic, and tended naturally to the minute, in accordance +with his diminutive frame and the marvellous smallness and delicate power of +his fingers. Not that his sense of beauty was thereby diminished into a sense +of prettiness. The beautiful idea has no relation to size, and may be as +perfectly developed in a space too minute for any but microscopic investigation +as within the ample verge that is measured by the arc of the rainbow. But, at +all events, this characteristic minuteness in his objects and accomplishments +made the world even more incapable than it might otherwise have been of +appreciating Owen Warland’s genius. The boy’s relatives saw nothing better to +be done—as perhaps there was not—than to bind him apprentice to a +watchmaker, hoping that his strange ingenuity might thus be regulated and put +to utilitarian purposes. +</p> + +<p> +Peter Hovenden’s opinion of his apprentice has already been expressed. He could +make nothing of the lad. Owen’s apprehension of the professional mysteries, it +is true, was inconceivably quick; but he altogether forgot or despised the +grand object of a watchmaker’s business, and cared no more for the measurement +of time than if it had been merged into eternity. So long, however, as he +remained under his old master’s care, Owen’s lack of sturdiness made it +possible, by strict injunctions and sharp oversight, to restrain his creative +eccentricity within bounds; but when his apprenticeship was served out, and he +had taken the little shop which Peter Hovenden’s failing eyesight compelled him +to relinquish, then did people recognize how unfit a person was Owen Warland to +lead old blind Father Time along his daily course. One of his most rational +projects was to connect a musical operation with the machinery of his watches, +so that all the harsh dissonances of life might be rendered tuneful, and each +flitting moment fall into the abyss of the past in golden drops of harmony. If +a family clock was intrusted to him for repair,—one of those tall, +ancient clocks that have grown nearly allied to human nature by measuring out +the lifetime of many generations,—he would take upon himself to arrange a +dance or funeral procession of figures across its venerable face, representing +twelve mirthful or melancholy hours. Several freaks of this kind quite +destroyed the young watchmaker’s credit with that steady and matter-of-fact +class of people who hold the opinion that time is not to be trifled with, +whether considered as the medium of advancement and prosperity in this world or +preparation for the next. His custom rapidly diminished—a misfortune, +however, that was probably reckoned among his better accidents by Owen Warland, +who was becoming more and more absorbed in a secret occupation which drew all +his science and manual dexterity into itself, and likewise gave full employment +to the characteristic tendencies of his genius. This pursuit had already +consumed many months. +</p> + +<p> +After the old watchmaker and his pretty daughter had gazed at him out of the +obscurity of the street, Owen Warland was seized with a fluttering of the +nerves, which made his hand tremble too violently to proceed with such delicate +labor as he was now engaged upon. +</p> + +<p> +“It was Annie herself!” murmured he. “I should have known it, by this throbbing +of my heart, before I heard her father’s voice. Ah, how it throbs! I shall +scarcely be able to work again on this exquisite mechanism to-night. Annie! +dearest Annie! thou shouldst give firmness to my heart and hand, and not shake +them thus; for if I strive to put the very spirit of beauty into form and give +it motion, it is for thy sake alone. O throbbing heart, be quiet! If my labor +be thus thwarted, there will come vague and unsatisfied dreams which will leave +me spiritless to-morrow.” +</p> + +<p> +As he was endeavoring to settle himself again to his task, the shop door opened +and gave admittance to no other than the stalwart figure which Peter Hovenden +had paused to admire, as seen amid the light and shadow of the blacksmith’s +shop. Robert Danforth had brought a little anvil of his own manufacture, and +peculiarly constructed, which the young artist had recently bespoken. Owen +examined the article and pronounced it fashioned according to his wish. +</p> + +<p> +“Why, yes,” said Robert Danforth, his strong voice filling the shop as with the +sound of a bass viol, “I consider myself equal to anything in the way of my own +trade; though I should have made but a poor figure at yours with such a fist as +this,” added he, laughing, as he laid his vast hand beside the delicate one of +Owen. “But what then? I put more main strength into one blow of my sledge +hammer than all that you have expended since you were a ’prentice. Is not that +the truth?” +</p> + +<p> +“Very probably,” answered the low and slender voice of Owen. “Strength is an +earthly monster. I make no pretensions to it. My force, whatever there may be +of it, is altogether spiritual.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, but, Owen, what are you about?” asked his old school-fellow, still in +such a hearty volume of tone that it made the artist shrink, especially as the +question related to a subject so sacred as the absorbing dream of his +imagination. “Folks do say that you are trying to discover the perpetual +motion.” +</p> + +<p> +“The perpetual motion? Nonsense!” replied Owen Warland, with a movement of +disgust; for he was full of little petulances. “It can never be discovered. It +is a dream that may delude men whose brains are mystified with matter, but not +me. Besides, if such a discovery were possible, it would not be worth my while +to make it only to have the secret turned to such purposes as are now effected +by steam and water power. I am not ambitious to be honored with the paternity +of a new kind of cotton machine.” +</p> + +<p> +“That would be droll enough!” cried the blacksmith, breaking out into such an +uproar of laughter that Owen himself and the bell glasses on his work-board +quivered in unison. “No, no, Owen! No child of yours will have iron joints and +sinews. Well, I won’t hinder you any more. Good night, Owen, and success, and +if you need any assistance, so far as a downright blow of hammer upon anvil +will answer the purpose, I’m your man.” +</p> + +<p> +And with another laugh the man of main strength left the shop. +</p> + +<p> +“How strange it is,” whispered Owen Warland to himself, leaning his head upon +his hand, “that all my musings, my purposes, my passion for the beautiful, my +consciousness of power to create it,—a finer, more ethereal power, of +which this earthly giant can have no conception,—all, all, look so vain +and idle whenever my path is crossed by Robert Danforth! He would drive me mad +were I to meet him often. His hard, brute force darkens and confuses the +spiritual element within me; but I, too, will be strong in my own way. I will +not yield to him.” +</p> + +<p> +He took from beneath a glass a piece of minute machinery, which he set in the +condensed light of his lamp, and, looking intently at it through a magnifying +glass, proceeded to operate with a delicate instrument of steel. In an instant, +however, he fell back in his chair and clasped his hands, with a look of horror +on his face that made its small features as impressive as those of a giant +would have been. +</p> + +<p> +“Heaven! What have I done?” exclaimed he. “The vapor, the influence of that +brute force,—it has bewildered me and obscured my perception. I have made +the very stroke—the fatal stroke—that I have dreaded from the +first. It is all over—the toil of months, the object of my life. I am +ruined!” +</p> + +<p> +And there he sat, in strange despair, until his lamp flickered in the socket +and left the Artist of the Beautiful in darkness. +</p> + +<p> +Thus it is that ideas, which grow up within the imagination and appear so +lovely to it and of a value beyond whatever men call valuable, are exposed to +be shattered and annihilated by contact with the practical. It is requisite for +the ideal artist to possess a force of character that seems hardly compatible +with its delicacy; he must keep his faith in himself while the incredulous +world assails him with its utter disbelief; he must stand up against mankind +and be his own sole disciple, both as respects his genius and the objects to +which it is directed. +</p> + +<p> +For a time Owen Warland succumbed to this severe but inevitable test. He spent +a few sluggish weeks with his head so continually resting in his hands that the +towns-people had scarcely an opportunity to see his countenance. When at last +it was again uplifted to the light of day, a cold, dull, nameless change was +perceptible upon it. In the opinion of Peter Hovenden, however, and that order +of sagacious understandings who think that life should be regulated, like +clockwork, with leaden weights, the alteration was entirely for the better. +Owen now, indeed, applied himself to business with dogged industry. It was +marvellous to witness the obtuse gravity with which he would inspect the wheels +of a great old silver watch thereby delighting the owner, in whose fob it had +been worn till he deemed it a portion of his own life, and was accordingly +jealous of its treatment. In consequence of the good report thus acquired, Owen +Warland was invited by the proper authorities to regulate the clock in the +church steeple. He succeeded so admirably in this matter of public interest +that the merchants gruffly acknowledged his merits on ’Change; the nurse +whispered his praises as she gave the potion in the sick-chamber; the lover +blessed him at the hour of appointed interview; and the town in general thanked +Owen for the punctuality of dinner time. In a word, the heavy weight upon his +spirits kept everything in order, not merely within his own system, but +wheresoever the iron accents of the church clock were audible. It was a +circumstance, though minute, yet characteristic of his present state, that, +when employed to engrave names or initials on silver spoons, he now wrote the +requisite letters in the plainest possible style, omitting a variety of +fanciful flourishes that had heretofore distinguished his work in this kind. +</p> + +<p> +One day, during the era of this happy transformation, old Peter Hovenden came +to visit his former apprentice. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Owen,” said he, “I am glad to hear such good accounts of you from all +quarters, and especially from the town clock yonder, which speaks in your +commendation every hour of the twenty-four. Only get rid altogether of your +nonsensical trash about the beautiful, which I nor nobody else, nor yourself to +boot, could ever understand,—only free yourself of that, and your success +in life is as sure as daylight. Why, if you go on in this way, I should even +venture to let you doctor this precious old watch of mine; though, except my +daughter Annie, I have nothing else so valuable in the world.” +</p> + +<p> +“I should hardly dare touch it, sir,” replied Owen, in a depressed tone; for he +was weighed down by his old master’s presence. +</p> + +<p> +“In time,” said the latter,—“In time, you will be capable of it.” +</p> + +<p> +The old watchmaker, with the freedom naturally consequent on his former +authority, went on inspecting the work which Owen had in hand at the moment, +together with other matters that were in progress. The artist, meanwhile, could +scarcely lift his head. There was nothing so antipodal to his nature as this +man’s cold, unimaginative sagacity, by contact with which everything was +converted into a dream except the densest matter of the physical world. Owen +groaned in spirit and prayed fervently to be delivered from him. +</p> + +<p> +“But what is this?” cried Peter Hovenden abruptly, taking up a dusty bell +glass, beneath which appeared a mechanical something, as delicate and minute as +the system of a butterfly’s anatomy. “What have we here? Owen! Owen! there is +witchcraft in these little chains, and wheels, and paddles. See! with one pinch +of my finger and thumb I am going to deliver you from all future peril.” +</p> + +<p> +“For Heaven’s sake,” screamed Owen Warland, springing up with wonderful energy, +“as you would not drive me mad, do not touch it! The slightest pressure of your +finger would ruin me forever.” +</p> + +<p> +“Aha, young man! And is it so?” said the old watchmaker, looking at him with +just enough penetration to torture Owen’s soul with the bitterness of worldly +criticism. “Well, take your own course; but I warn you again that in this small +piece of mechanism lives your evil spirit. Shall I exorcise him?” +</p> + +<p> +“You are my evil spirit,” answered Owen, much excited,—“you and the hard, +coarse world! The leaden thoughts and the despondency that you fling upon me +are my clogs, else I should long ago have achieved the task that I was created +for.” +</p> + +<p> +Peter Hovenden shook his head, with the mixture of contempt and indignation +which mankind, of whom he was partly a representative, deem themselves entitled +to feel towards all simpletons who seek other prizes than the dusty one along +the highway. He then took his leave, with an uplifted finger and a sneer upon +his face that haunted the artist’s dreams for many a night afterwards. At the +time of his old master’s visit, Owen was probably on the point of taking up the +relinquished task; but, by this sinister event, he was thrown back into the +state whence he had been slowly emerging. +</p> + +<p> +But the innate tendency of his soul had only been accumulating fresh vigor +during its apparent sluggishness. As the summer advanced he almost totally +relinquished his business, and permitted Father Time, so far as the old +gentleman was represented by the clocks and watches under his control, to stray +at random through human life, making infinite confusion among the train of +bewildered hours. He wasted the sunshine, as people said, in wandering through +the woods and fields and along the banks of streams. There, like a child, he +found amusement in chasing butterflies or watching the motions of water +insects. There was something truly mysterious in the intentness with which he +contemplated these living playthings as they sported on the breeze or examined +the structure of an imperial insect whom he had imprisoned. The chase of +butterflies was an apt emblem of the ideal pursuit in which he had spent so +many golden hours; but would the beautiful idea ever be yielded to his hand +like the butterfly that symbolized it? Sweet, doubtless, were these days, and +congenial to the artist’s soul. They were full of bright conceptions, which +gleamed through his intellectual world as the butterflies gleamed through the +outward atmosphere, and were real to him, for the instant, without the toil, +and perplexity, and many disappointments of attempting to make them visible to +the sensual eye. Alas that the artist, whether in poetry, or whatever other +material, may not content himself with the inward enjoyment of the beautiful, +but must chase the flitting mystery beyond the verge of his ethereal domain, +and crush its frail being in seizing it with a material grasp. Owen Warland +felt the impulse to give external reality to his ideas as irresistibly as any +of the poets or painters who have arrayed the world in a dimmer and fainter +beauty, imperfectly copied from the richness of their visions. +</p> + +<p> +The night was now his time for the slow progress of re-creating the one idea to +which all his intellectual activity referred itself. Always at the approach of +dusk he stole into the town, locked himself within his shop, and wrought with +patient delicacy of touch for many hours. Sometimes he was startled by the rap +of the watchman, who, when all the world should be asleep, had caught the gleam +of lamplight through the crevices of Owen Warland’s shutters. Daylight, to the +morbid sensibility of his mind, seemed to have an intrusiveness that interfered +with his pursuits. On cloudy and inclement days, therefore, he sat with his +head upon his hands, muffling, as it were, his sensitive brain in a mist of +indefinite musings, for it was a relief to escape from the sharp distinctness +with which he was compelled to shape out his thoughts during his nightly toil. +</p> + +<p> +From one of these fits of torpor he was aroused by the entrance of Annie +Hovenden, who came into the shop with the freedom of a customer, and also with +something of the familiarity of a childish friend. She had worn a hole through +her silver thimble, and wanted Owen to repair it. +</p> + +<p> +“But I don’t know whether you will condescend to such a task,” said she, +laughing, “now that you are so taken up with the notion of putting spirit into +machinery.” +</p> + +<p> +“Where did you get that idea, Annie?” said Owen, starting in surprise. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, out of my own head,” answered she, “and from something that I heard you +say, long ago, when you were but a boy and I a little child. But come, will you +mend this poor thimble of mine?” +</p> + +<p> +“Anything for your sake, Annie,” said Owen Warland,—“anything, even were +it to work at Robert Danforth’s forge.” +</p> + +<p> +“And that would be a pretty sight!” retorted Annie, glancing with imperceptible +slightness at the artist’s small and slender frame. “Well; here is the +thimble.” +</p> + +<p> +“But that is a strange idea of yours,” said Owen, “about the spiritualization +of matter.” +</p> + +<p> +And then the thought stole into his mind that this young girl possessed the +gift to comprehend him better than all the world besides. And what a help and +strength would it be to him in his lonely toil if he could gain the sympathy of +the only being whom he loved! To persons whose pursuits are insulated from the +common business of life—who are either in advance of mankind or apart +from it—there often comes a sensation of moral cold that makes the spirit +shiver as if it had reached the frozen solitudes around the pole. What the +prophet, the poet, the reformer, the criminal, or any other man with human +yearnings, but separated from the multitude by a peculiar lot, might feel, poor +Owen felt. +</p> + +<p> +“Annie,” cried he, growing pale as death at the thought, “how gladly would I +tell you the secret of my pursuit! You, methinks, would estimate it rightly. +You, I know, would hear it with a reverence that I must not expect from the +harsh, material world.” +</p> + +<p> +“Would I not? to be sure I would!” replied Annie Hovenden, lightly laughing. +“Come; explain to me quickly what is the meaning of this little whirligig, so +delicately wrought that it might be a plaything for Queen Mab. See! I will put +it in motion.” +</p> + +<p> +“Hold!” exclaimed Owen, “hold!” +</p> + +<p> +Annie had but given the slightest possible touch, with the point of a needle, +to the same minute portion of complicated machinery which has been more than +once mentioned, when the artist seized her by the wrist with a force that made +her scream aloud. She was affrighted at the convulsion of intense rage and +anguish that writhed across his features. The next instant he let his head sink +upon his hands. +</p> + +<p> +“Go, Annie,” murmured he; “I have deceived myself, and must suffer for it. I +yearned for sympathy, and thought, and fancied, and dreamed that you might give +it me; but you lack the talisman, Annie, that should admit you into my secrets. +That touch has undone the toil of months and the thought of a lifetime! It was +not your fault, Annie; but you have ruined me!” +</p> + +<p> +Poor Owen Warland! He had indeed erred, yet pardonably; for if any human spirit +could have sufficiently reverenced the processes so sacred in his eyes, it must +have been a woman’s. Even Annie Hovenden, possibly might not have disappointed +him had she been enlightened by the deep intelligence of love. +</p> + +<p> +The artist spent the ensuing winter in a way that satisfied any persons who had +hitherto retained a hopeful opinion of him that he was, in truth, irrevocably +doomed to unutility as regarded the world, and to an evil destiny on his own +part. The decease of a relative had put him in possession of a small +inheritance. Thus freed from the necessity of toil, and having lost the +steadfast influence of a great purpose,—great, at least, to him,—he +abandoned himself to habits from which it might have been supposed the mere +delicacy of his organization would have availed to secure him. But when the +ethereal portion of a man of genius is obscured the earthly part assumes an +influence the more uncontrollable, because the character is now thrown off the +balance to which Providence had so nicely adjusted it, and which, in coarser +natures, is adjusted by some other method. Owen Warland made proof of whatever +show of bliss may be found in riot. He looked at the world through the golden +medium of wine, and contemplated the visions that bubble up so gayly around the +brim of the glass, and that people the air with shapes of pleasant madness, +which so soon grow ghostly and forlorn. Even when this dismal and inevitable +change had taken place, the young man might still have continued to quaff the +cup of enchantments, though its vapor did but shroud life in gloom and fill the +gloom with spectres that mocked at him. There was a certain irksomeness of +spirit, which, being real, and the deepest sensation of which the artist was +now conscious, was more intolerable than any fantastic miseries and horrors +that the abuse of wine could summon up. In the latter case he could remember, +even out of the midst of his trouble, that all was but a delusion; in the +former, the heavy anguish was his actual life. +</p> + +<p> +From this perilous state he was redeemed by an incident which more than one +person witnessed, but of which the shrewdest could not explain or conjecture +the operation on Owen Warland’s mind. It was very simple. On a warm afternoon +of spring, as the artist sat among his riotous companions with a glass of wine +before him, a splendid butterfly flew in at the open window and fluttered about +his head. +</p> + +<p> +“Ah,” exclaimed Owen, who had drank freely, “are you alive again, child of the +sun and playmate of the summer breeze, after your dismal winter’s nap? Then it +is time for me to be at work!” +</p> + +<p> +And, leaving his unemptied glass upon the table, he departed and was never +known to sip another drop of wine. +</p> + +<p> +And now, again, he resumed his wanderings in the woods and fields. It might be +fancied that the bright butterfly, which had come so spirit-like into the +window as Owen sat with the rude revellers, was indeed a spirit commissioned to +recall him to the pure, ideal life that had so etheralized him among men. It +might be fancied that he went forth to seek this spirit in its sunny haunts; +for still, as in the summer time gone by, he was seen to steal gently up +wherever a butterfly had alighted, and lose himself in contemplation of it. +When it took flight his eyes followed the winged vision, as if its airy track +would show the path to heaven. But what could be the purpose of the +unseasonable toil, which was again resumed, as the watchman knew by the lines +of lamplight through the crevices of Owen Warland’s shutters? The towns-people +had one comprehensive explanation of all these singularities. Owen Warland had +gone mad! How universally efficacious—how satisfactory, too, and soothing +to the injured sensibility of narrowness and dulness—is this easy method +of accounting for whatever lies beyond the world’s most ordinary scope! From +St. Paul’s days down to our poor little Artist of the Beautiful, the same +talisman had been applied to the elucidation of all mysteries in the words or +deeds of men who spoke or acted too wisely or too well. In Owen Warland’s case +the judgment of his towns-people may have been correct. Perhaps he was mad. The +lack of sympathy—that contrast between himself and his neighbors which +took away the restraint of example—was enough to make him so. Or possibly +he had caught just so much of ethereal radiance as served to bewilder him, in +an earthly sense, by its intermixture with the common daylight. +</p> + +<p> +One evening, when the artist had returned from a customary ramble and had just +thrown the lustre of his lamp on the delicate piece of work so often +interrupted, but still taken up again, as if his fate were embodied in its +mechanism, he was surprised by the entrance of old Peter Hovenden. Owen never +met this man without a shrinking of the heart. Of all the world he was most +terrible, by reason of a keen understanding which saw so distinctly what it did +see, and disbelieved so uncompromisingly in what it could not see. On this +occasion the old watchmaker had merely a gracious word or two to say. +</p> + +<p> +“Owen, my lad,” said he, “we must see you at my house to-morrow night.” +</p> + +<p> +The artist began to mutter some excuse. +</p> + +<p> +“Oh, but it must be so,” quoth Peter Hovenden, “for the sake of the days when +you were one of the household. What, my boy! don’t you know that my daughter +Annie is engaged to Robert Danforth? We are making an entertainment, in our +humble way, to celebrate the event.” +</p> + +<p> +That little monosyllable was all he uttered; its tone seemed cold and +unconcerned to an ear like Peter Hovenden’s; and yet there was in it the +stifled outcry of the poor artist’s heart, which he compressed within him like +a man holding down an evil spirit. One slight outbreak, however, imperceptible +to the old watchmaker, he allowed himself. Raising the instrument with which he +was about to begin his work, he let it fall upon the little system of machinery +that had, anew, cost him months of thought and toil. It was shattered by the +stroke! +</p> + +<p> +Owen Warland’s story would have been no tolerable representation of the +troubled life of those who strive to create the beautiful, if, amid all other +thwarting influences, love had not interposed to steal the cunning from his +hand. Outwardly he had been no ardent or enterprising lover; the career of his +passion had confined its tumults and vicissitudes so entirely within the +artist’s imagination that Annie herself had scarcely more than a woman’s +intuitive perception of it; but, in Owen’s view, it covered the whole field of +his life. Forgetful of the time when she had shown herself incapable of any +deep response, he had persisted in connecting all his dreams of artistical +success with Annie’s image; she was the visible shape in which the spiritual +power that he worshipped, and on whose altar he hoped to lay a not unworthy +offering, was made manifest to him. Of course he had deceived himself; there +were no such attributes in Annie Hovenden as his imagination had endowed her +with. She, in the aspect which she wore to his inward vision, was as much a +creature of his own as the mysterious piece of mechanism would be were it ever +realized. Had he become convinced of his mistake through the medium of +successful love,—had he won Annie to his bosom, and there beheld her fade +from angel into ordinary woman,—the disappointment might have driven him +back, with concentrated energy, upon his sole remaining object. On the other +hand, had he found Annie what he fancied, his lot would have been so rich in +beauty that out of its mere redundancy he might have wrought the beautiful into +many a worthier type than he had toiled for; but the guise in which his sorrow +came to him, the sense that the angel of his life had been snatched away and +given to a rude man of earth and iron, who could neither need nor appreciate +her ministrations,—this was the very perversity of fate that makes human +existence appear too absurd and contradictory to be the scene of one other hope +or one other fear. There was nothing left for Owen Warland but to sit down like +a man that had been stunned. +</p> + +<p> +He went through a fit of illness. After his recovery his small and slender +frame assumed an obtuser garniture of flesh than it had ever before worn. His +thin cheeks became round; his delicate little hand, so spiritually fashioned to +achieve fairy task-work, grew plumper than the hand of a thriving infant. His +aspect had a childishness such as might have induced a stranger to pat him on +the head—pausing, however, in the act, to wonder what manner of child was +here. It was as if the spirit had gone out of him, leaving the body to flourish +in a sort of vegetable existence. Not that Owen Warland was idiotic. He could +talk, and not irrationally. Somewhat of a babbler, indeed, did people begin to +think him; for he was apt to discourse at wearisome length of marvels of +mechanism that he had read about in books, but which he had learned to consider +as absolutely fabulous. Among them he enumerated the Man of Brass, constructed +by Albertus Magnus, and the Brazen Head of Friar Bacon; and, coming down to +later times, the automata of a little coach and horses, which it was pretended +had been manufactured for the Dauphin of France; together with an insect that +buzzed about the ear like a living fly, and yet was but a contrivance of minute +steel springs. There was a story, too, of a duck that waddled, and quacked, and +ate; though, had any honest citizen purchased it for dinner, he would have +found himself cheated with the mere mechanical apparition of a duck. +</p> + +<p> +“But all these accounts,” said Owen Warland, “I am now satisfied are mere +impositions.” +</p> + +<p> +Then, in a mysterious way, he would confess that he once thought differently. +In his idle and dreamy days he had considered it possible, in a certain sense, +to spiritualize machinery, and to combine with the new species of life and +motion thus produced a beauty that should attain to the ideal which Nature has +proposed to herself in all her creatures, but has never taken pains to realize. +He seemed, however, to retain no very distinct perception either of the process +of achieving this object or of the design itself. +</p> + +<p> +“I have thrown it all aside now,” he would say. “It was a dream such as young +men are always mystifying themselves with. Now that I have acquired a little +common sense, it makes me laugh to think of it.” +</p> + +<p> +Poor, poor and fallen Owen Warland! These were the symptoms that he had ceased +to be an inhabitant of the better sphere that lies unseen around us. He had +lost his faith in the invisible, and now prided himself, as such unfortunates +invariably do, in the wisdom which rejected much that even his eye could see, +and trusted confidently in nothing but what his hand could touch. This is the +calamity of men whose spiritual part dies out of them and leaves the grosser +understanding to assimilate them more and more to the things of which alone it +can take cognizance; but in Owen Warland the spirit was not dead nor passed +away; it only slept. +</p> + +<p> +How it awoke again is not recorded. Perhaps the torpid slumber was broken by a +convulsive pain. Perhaps, as in a former instance, the butterfly came and +hovered about his head and reinspired him,—as indeed this creature of the +sunshine had always a mysterious mission for the artist,—reinspired him +with the former purpose of his life. Whether it were pain or happiness that +thrilled through his veins, his first impulse was to thank Heaven for rendering +him again the being of thought, imagination, and keenest sensibility that he +had long ceased to be. +</p> + +<p> +“Now for my task,” said he. “Never did I feel such strength for it as now.” +</p> + +<p> +Yet, strong as he felt himself, he was incited to toil the more diligently by +an anxiety lest death should surprise him in the midst of his labors. This +anxiety, perhaps, is common to all men who set their hearts upon anything so +high, in their own view of it, that life becomes of importance only as +conditional to its accomplishment. So long as we love life for itself, we +seldom dread the losing it. When we desire life for the attainment of an +object, we recognize the frailty of its texture. But, side by side with this +sense of insecurity, there is a vital faith in our invulnerability to the shaft +of death while engaged in any task that seems assigned by Providence as our +proper thing to do, and which the world would have cause to mourn for should we +leave it unaccomplished. Can the philosopher, big with the inspiration of an +idea that is to reform mankind, believe that he is to be beckoned from this +sensible existence at the very instant when he is mustering his breath to speak +the word of light? Should he perish so, the weary ages may pass away—the +world’s, whose life sand may fall, drop by drop—before another intellect +is prepared to develop the truth that might have been uttered then. But history +affords many an example where the most precious spirit, at any particular epoch +manifested in human shape, has gone hence untimely, without space allowed him, +so far as mortal judgment could discern, to perform his mission on the earth. +The prophet dies, and the man of torpid heart and sluggish brain lives on. The +poet leaves his song half sung, or finishes it, beyond the scope of mortal +ears, in a celestial choir. The painter—as Allston did—leaves half +his conception on the canvas to sadden us with its imperfect beauty, and goes +to picture forth the whole, if it be no irreverence to say so, in the hues of +heaven. But rather such incomplete designs of this life will be perfected +nowhere. This so frequent abortion of man’s dearest projects must be taken as a +proof that the deeds of earth, however etherealized by piety or genius, are +without value, except as exercises and manifestations of the spirit. In heaven, +all ordinary thought is higher and more melodious than Milton’s song. Then, +would he add another verse to any strain that he had left unfinished here? +</p> + +<p> +But to return to Owen Warland. It was his fortune, good or ill, to achieve the +purpose of his life. Pass we over a long space of intense thought, yearning +effort, minute toil, and wasting anxiety, succeeded by an instant of solitary +triumph: let all this be imagined; and then behold the artist, on a winter +evening, seeking admittance to Robert Danforth’s fireside circle. There he +found the man of iron, with his massive substance thoroughly warmed and +attempered by domestic influences. And there was Annie, too, now transformed +into a matron, with much of her husband’s plain and sturdy nature, but imbued, +as Owen Warland still believed, with a finer grace, that might enable her to be +the interpreter between strength and beauty. It happened, likewise, that old +Peter Hovenden was a guest this evening at his daughter’s fireside, and it was +his well-remembered expression of keen, cold criticism that first encountered +the artist’s glance. +</p> + +<p> +“My old friend Owen!” cried Robert Danforth, starting up, and compressing the +artist’s delicate fingers within a hand that was accustomed to gripe bars of +iron. “This is kind and neighborly to come to us at last. I was afraid your +perpetual motion had bewitched you out of the remembrance of old times.” +</p> + +<p> +“We are glad to see you,” said Annie, while a blush reddened her matronly +cheek. “It was not like a friend to stay from us so long.” +</p> + +<p> +“Well, Owen,” inquired the old watchmaker, as his first greeting, “how comes on +the beautiful? Have you created it at last?” +</p> + +<p> +The artist did not immediately reply, being startled by the apparition of a +young child of strength that was tumbling about on the carpet,—a little +personage who had come mysteriously out of the infinite, but with something so +sturdy and real in his composition that he seemed moulded out of the densest +substance which earth could supply. This hopeful infant crawled towards the +new-comer, and setting himself on end, as Robert Danforth expressed the +posture, stared at Owen with a look of such sagacious observation that the +mother could not help exchanging a proud glance with her husband. But the +artist was disturbed by the child’s look, as imagining a resemblance between it +and Peter Hovenden’s habitual expression. He could have fancied that the old +watchmaker was compressed into this baby shape, and looking out of those baby +eyes, and repeating, as he now did, the malicious question: “The beautiful, +Owen! How comes on the beautiful? Have you succeeded in creating the +beautiful?” +</p> + +<p> +“I have succeeded,” replied the artist, with a momentary light of triumph in +his eyes and a smile of sunshine, yet steeped in such depth of thought that it +was almost sadness. “Yes, my friends, it is the truth. I have succeeded.” +</p> + +<p> +“Indeed!” cried Annie, a look of maiden mirthfulness peeping out of her face +again. “And is it lawful, now, to inquire what the secret is?” +</p> + +<p> +“Surely; it is to disclose it that I have come,” answered Owen Warland. “You +shall know, and see, and touch, and possess the secret! For, Annie,—if by +that name I may still address the friend of my boyish years,—Annie, it is +for your bridal gift that I have wrought this spiritualized mechanism, this +harmony of motion, this mystery of beauty. It comes late, indeed; but it is as +we go onward in life, when objects begin to lose their freshness of hue and our +souls their delicacy of perception, that the spirit of beauty is most needed. +If,—forgive me, Annie,—if you know how—to value this gift, it +can never come too late.” +</p> + +<p> +He produced, as he spoke, what seemed a jewel box. It was carved richly out of +ebony by his own hand, and inlaid with a fanciful tracery of pearl, +representing a boy in pursuit of a butterfly, which, elsewhere, had become a +winged spirit, and was flying heavenward; while the boy, or youth, had found +such efficacy in his strong desire that he ascended from earth to cloud, and +from cloud to celestial atmosphere, to win the beautiful. This case of ebony +the artist opened, and bade Annie place her fingers on its edge. She did so, +but almost screamed as a butterfly fluttered forth, and, alighting on her +finger’s tip, sat waving the ample magnificence of its purple and gold-speckled +wings, as if in prelude to a flight. It is impossible to express by words the +glory, the splendor, the delicate gorgeousness which were softened into the +beauty of this object. Nature’s ideal butterfly was here realized in all its +perfection; not in the pattern of such faded insects as flit among earthly +flowers, but of those which hover across the meads of paradise for child-angels +and the spirits of departed infants to disport themselves with. The rich down +was visible upon its wings; the lustre of its eyes seemed instinct with spirit. +The firelight glimmered around this wonder—the candles gleamed upon it; +but it glistened apparently by its own radiance, and illuminated the finger and +outstretched hand on which it rested with a white gleam like that of precious +stones. In its perfect beauty, the consideration of size was entirely lost. Had +its wings overreached the firmament, the mind could not have been more filled +or satisfied. +</p> + +<p> +“Beautiful! beautiful!” exclaimed Annie. “Is it alive? Is it alive?” +</p> + +<p> +“Alive? To be sure it is,” answered her husband. “Do you suppose any mortal has +skill enough to make a butterfly, or would put himself to the trouble of making +one, when any child may catch a score of them in a summer’s afternoon? Alive? +Certainly! But this pretty box is undoubtedly of our friend Owen’s manufacture; +and really it does him credit.” +</p> + +<p> +At this moment the butterfly waved its wings anew, with a motion so absolutely +lifelike that Annie was startled, and even awestricken; for, in spite of her +husband’s opinion, she could not satisfy herself whether it was indeed a living +creature or a piece of wondrous mechanism. +</p> + +<p> +“Is it alive?” she repeated, more earnestly than before. +</p> + +<p> +“Judge for yourself,” said Owen Warland, who stood gazing in her face with +fixed attention. +</p> + +<p> +The butterfly now flung itself upon the air, fluttered round Annie’s head, and +soared into a distant region of the parlor, still making itself perceptible to +sight by the starry gleam in which the motion of its wings enveloped it. The +infant on the floor followed its course with his sagacious little eyes. After +flying about the room, it returned in a spiral curve and settled again on +Annie’s finger. +</p> + +<p> +“But is it alive?” exclaimed she again; and the finger on which the gorgeous +mystery had alighted was so tremulous that the butterfly was forced to balance +himself with his wings. “Tell me if it be alive, or whether you created it.” +</p> + +<p> +“Wherefore ask who created it, so it be beautiful?” replied Owen Warland. +“Alive? Yes, Annie; it may well be said to possess life, for it has absorbed my +own being into itself; and in the secret of that butterfly, and in its +beauty,—which is not merely outward, but deep as its whole +system,—is represented the intellect, the imagination, the sensibility, +the soul of an Artist of the Beautiful! Yes; I created it. But”—and here +his countenance somewhat changed—“this butterfly is not now to me what it +was when I beheld it afar off in the daydreams of my youth.” +</p> + +<p> +“Be it what it may, it is a pretty plaything,” said the blacksmith, grinning +with childlike delight. “I wonder whether it would condescend to alight on such +a great clumsy finger as mine? Hold it hither, Annie.” +</p> + +<p> +By the artist’s direction, Annie touched her finger’s tip to that of her +husband; and, after a momentary delay, the butterfly fluttered from one to the +other. It preluded a second flight by a similar, yet not precisely the same, +waving of wings as in the first experiment; then, ascending from the +blacksmith’s stalwart finger, it rose in a gradually enlarging curve to the +ceiling, made one wide sweep around the room, and returned with an undulating +movement to the point whence it had started. +</p> + +<p> +“Well, that does beat all nature!” cried Robert Danforth, bestowing the +heartiest praise that he could find expression for; and, indeed, had he paused +there, a man of finer words and nicer perception could not easily have said +more. “That goes beyond me, I confess. But what then? There is more real use in +one downright blow of my sledge hammer than in the whole five years’ labor that +our friend Owen has wasted on this butterfly.” +</p> + +<p> +Here the child clapped his hands and made a great babble of indistinct +utterance, apparently demanding that the butterfly should be given him for a +plaything. +</p> + +<p> +Owen Warland, meanwhile, glanced sidelong at Annie, to discover whether she +sympathized in her husband’s estimate of the comparative value of the beautiful +and the practical. There was, amid all her kindness towards himself, amid all +the wonder and admiration with which she contemplated the marvellous work of +his hands and incarnation of his idea, a secret scorn—too secret, +perhaps, for her own consciousness, and perceptible only to such intuitive +discernment as that of the artist. But Owen, in the latter stages of his +pursuit, had risen out of the region in which such a discovery might have been +torture. He knew that the world, and Annie as the representative of the world, +whatever praise might be bestowed, could never say the fitting word nor feel +the fitting sentiment which should be the perfect recompense of an artist who, +symbolizing a lofty moral by a material trifle,—converting what was +earthly to spiritual gold,—had won the beautiful into his handiwork. Not +at this latest moment was he to learn that the reward of all high performance +must be sought within itself, or sought in vain. There was, however, a view of +the matter which Annie and her husband, and even Peter Hovenden, might fully +have understood, and which would have satisfied them that the toil of years had +here been worthily bestowed. Owen Warland might have told them that this +butterfly, this plaything, this bridal gift of a poor watchmaker to a +blacksmith’s wife, was, in truth, a gem of art that a monarch would have +purchased with honors and abundant wealth, and have treasured it among the +jewels of his kingdom as the most unique and wondrous of them all. But the +artist smiled and kept the secret to himself. +</p> + +<p> +“Father,” said Annie, thinking that a word of praise from the old watchmaker +might gratify his former apprentice, “do come and admire this pretty +butterfly.” +</p> + +<p> +“Let us see,” said Peter Hovenden, rising from his chair, with a sneer upon his +face that always made people doubt, as he himself did, in everything but a +material existence. “Here is my finger for it to alight upon. I shall +understand it better when once I have touched it.” +</p> + +<p> +But, to the increased astonishment of Annie, when the tip of her father’s +finger was pressed against that of her husband, on which the butterfly still +rested, the insect drooped its wings and seemed on the point of falling to the +floor. Even the bright spots of gold upon its wings and body, unless her eyes +deceived her, grew dim, and the glowing purple took a dusky hue, and the starry +lustre that gleamed around the blacksmith’s hand became faint and vanished. +</p> + +<p> +“It is dying! it is dying!” cried Annie, in alarm. +</p> + +<p> +“It has been delicately wrought,” said the artist, calmly. “As I told you, it +has imbibed a spiritual essence—call it magnetism, or what you will. In +an atmosphere of doubt and mockery its exquisite susceptibility suffers +torture, as does the soul of him who instilled his own life into it. It has +already lost its beauty; in a few moments more its mechanism would be +irreparably injured.” +</p> + +<p> +“Take away your hand, father!” entreated Annie, turning pale. “Here is my +child; let it rest on his innocent hand. There, perhaps, its life will revive +and its colors grow brighter than ever.” +</p> + +<p> +Her father, with an acrid smile, withdrew his finger. The butterfly then +appeared to recover the power of voluntary motion, while its hues assumed much +of their original lustre, and the gleam of starlight, which was its most +ethereal attribute, again formed a halo round about it. At first, when +transferred from Robert Danforth’s hand to the small finger of the child, this +radiance grew so powerful that it positively threw the little fellow’s shadow +back against the wall. He, meanwhile, extended his plump hand as he had seen +his father and mother do, and watched the waving of the insect’s wings with +infantine delight. Nevertheless, there was a certain odd expression of sagacity +that made Owen Warland feel as if here were old Pete Hovenden, partially, and +but partially, redeemed from his hard scepticism into childish faith. +</p> + +<p> +“How wise the little monkey looks!” whispered Robert Danforth to his wife. +</p> + +<p> +“I never saw such a look on a child’s face,” answered Annie, admiring her own +infant, and with good reason, far more than the artistic butterfly. “The +darling knows more of the mystery than we do.” +</p> + +<p> +As if the butterfly, like the artist, were conscious of something not entirely +congenial in the child’s nature, it alternately sparkled and grew dim. At +length it arose from the small hand of the infant with an airy motion that +seemed to bear it upward without an effort, as if the ethereal instincts with +which its master’s spirit had endowed it impelled this fair vision +involuntarily to a higher sphere. Had there been no obstruction, it might have +soared into the sky and grown immortal. But its lustre gleamed upon the +ceiling; the exquisite texture of its wings brushed against that earthly +medium; and a sparkle or two, as of stardust, floated downward and lay +glimmering on the carpet. Then the butterfly came fluttering down, and, instead +of returning to the infant, was apparently attracted towards the artist’s hand. +</p> + +<p> +“Not so! not so!” murmured Owen Warland, as if his handiwork could have +understood him. “Thou has gone forth out of thy master’s heart. There is no +return for thee.” +</p> + +<p> +With a wavering movement, and emitting a tremulous radiance, the butterfly +struggled, as it were, towards the infant, and was about to alight upon his +finger; but while it still hovered in the air, the little child of strength, +with his grandsire’s sharp and shrewd expression in his face, made a snatch at +the marvellous insect and compressed it in his hand. Annie screamed. Old Peter +Hovenden burst into a cold and scornful laugh. The blacksmith, by main force, +unclosed the infant’s hand, and found within the palm a small heap of +glittering fragments, whence the mystery of beauty had fled forever. And as for +Owen Warland, he looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life’s labor, +and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly than this. When +the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, the symbol by which he +made it perceptible to mortal senses became of little value in his eyes while +his spirit possessed itself in the enjoyment of the reality. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a> +A VIRTUOSO’S COLLECTION</h2> + +<p> +The other day, having a leisure hour at my disposal, I stepped into a new +museum, to which my notice was casually drawn by a small and unobtrusive sign: +“T<small>O BE SEEN HERE, A</small> V<small>IRTUOSO’S</small> +C<small>OLLECTION</small>.” Such was the simple yet not altogether unpromising +announcement that turned my steps aside for a little while from the sunny +sidewalk of our principal thoroughfare. Mounting a sombre staircase, I pushed +open a door at its summit, and found myself in the presence of a person, who +mentioned the moderate sum that would entitle me to admittance. +</p> + +<p> +“Three shillings, Massachusetts tenor,” said he. “No, I mean half a dollar, as +you reckon in these days.” +</p> + +<p> +While searching my pocket for the coin I glanced at the doorkeeper, the marked +character and individuality of whose aspect encouraged me to expect something +not quite in the ordinary way. He wore an old-fashioned great-coat, much faded, +within which his meagre person was so completely enveloped that the rest of his +attire was undistinguishable. But his visage was remarkably wind-flushed, +sunburnt, and weather-worn, and had a most, unquiet, nervous, and apprehensive +expression. It seemed as if this man had some all-important object in view, +some point of deepest interest to be decided, some momentous question to ask, +might he but hope for a reply. As it was evident, however, that I could have +nothing to do with his private affairs, I passed through an open doorway, which +admitted me into the extensive hall of the museum. +</p> + +<p> +Directly in front of the portal was the bronze statue of a youth with winged +feet. He was represented in the act of flitting away from earth, yet wore such +a look of earnest invitation that it impressed me like a summons to enter the +hall. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the original statue of Opportunity, by the ancient sculptor Lysippus,” +said a gentleman who now approached me. “I place it at the entrance of my +museum, because it is not at all times that one can gain admittance to such a +collection.” +</p> + +<p> +The speaker was a middle-aged person, of whom it was not easy to determine +whether he had spent his life as a scholar or as a man of action; in truth, all +outward and obvious peculiarities had been worn away by an extensive and +promiscuous intercourse with the world. There was no mark about him of +profession, individual habits, or scarcely of country; although his dark +complexion and high features made me conjecture that he was a native of some +southern clime of Europe. At all events, he was evidently the virtuoso in +person. +</p> + +<p> +“With your permission,” said he, “as we have no descriptive catalogue, I will +accompany you through the museum and point out whatever may be most worthy of +attention. In the first place, here is a choice collection of stuffed animals.” +</p> + +<p> +Nearest the door stood the outward semblance of a wolf, exquisitely prepared, +it is true, and showing a very wolfish fierceness in the large glass eyes which +were inserted into its wild and crafty head. Still it was merely the skin of a +wolf, with nothing to distinguish it from other individuals of that unlovely +breed. +</p> + +<p> +“How does this animal deserve a place in your collection?” inquired I. +</p> + +<p> +“It is the wolf that devoured Little Red Riding Hood,” answered the virtuoso; +“and by his side—with a milder and more matronly look, as you +perceive—stands the she-wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, indeed!” exclaimed I. “And what lovely lamb is this with the snow-white +fleece, which seems to be of as delicate a texture as innocence itself?” +</p> + +<p> +“Methinks you have but carelessly read Spenser,” replied my guide, “or you +would at once recognize the ‘milk-white lamb’ which Una led. But I set no great +value upon the lamb. The next specimen is better worth our notice.” +</p> + +<p> +“What!” cried I, “this strange animal, with the black head of an ox upon the +body of a white horse? Were it possible to suppose it, I should say that this +was Alexander’s steed Bucephalus.” +</p> + +<p> +“The same,” said the virtuoso. “And can you likewise give a name to the famous +charger that stands beside him?” +</p> + +<p> +Next to the renowned Bucephalus stood the mere skeleton of a horse, with the +white bones peeping through his ill-conditioned hide; but, if my heart had not +warmed towards that pitiful anatomy, I might as well have quitted the museum at +once. Its rarities had not been collected with pain and toil from the four +quarters of the earth, and from the depths of the sea, and from the palaces and +sepulchres of ages, for those who could mistake this illustrious steed. +</p> + +<p> +“It, is Rosinante!” exclaimed I, with enthusiasm. +</p> + +<p> +And so it proved. My admiration for the noble and gallant horse caused me to +glance with less interest at the other animals, although many of them might +have deserved the notice of Cuvier himself. There was the donkey which Peter +Bell cudgelled so soundly, and a brother of the same species who had suffered a +similar infliction from the ancient prophet Balaam. Some doubts were +entertained, however, as to the authenticity of the latter beast. My guide +pointed out the venerable Argus, that faithful dog of Ulysses, and also another +dog (for so the skin bespoke it), which, though imperfectly preserved, seemed +once to have had three heads. It was Cerberus. I was considerably amused at +detecting in an obscure corner the fox that became so famous by the loss of his +tail. There were several stuffed cats, which, as a dear lover of that +comfortable beast, attracted my affectionate regards. One was Dr. Johnson’s cat +Hodge; and in the same row stood the favorite cats of Mahomet, Gray, and Walter +Scott, together with Puss in Boots, and a cat of very noble aspect—who +had once been a deity of ancient Egypt. Byron’s tame bear came next. I must not +forget to mention the Eryruanthean boar, the skin of St. George’s dragon, and +that of the serpent Python; and another skin with beautifully variegated hues, +supposed to have been the garment of the “spirited sly snake,” which tempted +Eve. Against the walls were suspended the horns of the stag that Shakespeare +shot; and on the floor lay the ponderous shell of the tortoise which fell upon +the head of Aeschylus. In one row, as natural as life, stood the sacred bull +Apis, the “cow with the crumpled horn,” and a very wild-looking young heifer, +which I guessed to be the cow that jumped over the moon. She was probably +killed by the rapidity of her descent. As I turned away, my eyes fell upon an +indescribable monster, which proved to be a griffin. +</p> + +<p> +“I look in vain,” observed I, “for the skin of an animal which might well +deserve the closest study of a naturalist,—the winged horse, Pegasus.” +</p> + +<p> +“He is not yet dead,” replied the virtuoso; “but he is so hard ridden by many +young gentlemen of the day that I hope soon to add his skin and skeleton to my +collection.” +</p> + +<p> +We now passed to the next alcove of the hall, in which was a multitude of +stuffed birds. They were very prettily arranged, some upon the branches of +trees, others brooding upon nests, and others suspended by wires so +artificially that they seemed in the very act of flight. Among them was a white +dove, with a withered branch of olive-leaves in her mouth. +</p> + +<p> +“Can this be the very dove,” inquired I, “that brought the message of peace and +hope to the tempest-beaten passengers of the ark?” +</p> + +<p> +“Even so,” said my companion. +</p> + +<p> +“And this raven, I suppose,” continued I, “is the same that fed Elijah in the +wilderness.” +</p> + +<p> +“The raven? No,” said the virtuoso; “it is a bird of modern date. He belonged +to one Barnaby Rudge, and many people fancied that the Devil himself was +disguised under his sable plumage. But poor Grip has drawn his last cork, and +has been forced to ‘say die’ at last. This other raven, hardly less curious, is +that in which the soul of King George I. revisited his lady-love, the Duchess +of Kendall.” +</p> + +<p> +My guide next pointed out Minerva’s owl and the vulture that preyed upon the +liver of Prometheus. There was likewise the sacred ibis of Egypt, and one of +the Stymphalides which Hercules shot in his sixth labor. Shelley’s skylark, +Bryant’s water-fowl, and a pigeon from the belfry of the Old South Church, +preserved by N. P. Willis, were placed on the same perch. I could not but +shudder on beholding Coleridge’s albatross, transfixed with the Ancient +Mariner’s crossbow shaft. Beside this bird of awful poesy stood a gray goose of +very ordinary aspect. +</p> + +<p> +“Stuffed goose is no such rarity,” observed I. “Why do you preserve such a +specimen in your museum?” +</p> + +<p> +“It is one of the flock whose cackling saved the Roman Capitol,” answered the +virtuoso. “Many geese have cackled and hissed both before and since; but none, +like those, have clamored themselves into immortality.” +</p> + +<p> +There seemed to be little else that demanded notice in this department of the +museum, unless we except Robinson Crusoe’s parrot, a live phoenix, a footless +bird of paradise, and a splendid peacock, supposed to be the same that once +contained the soul of Pythagoras. I therefore passed to the next alcove, the +shelves of which were covered with a miscellaneous collection of curiosities +such as are usually found in similar establishments. One of the first things +that took my eye was a strange-looking cap, woven of some substance that +appeared to be neither woollen, cotton, nor linen. +</p> + +<p> +“Is this a magician’s cap?” I asked. +</p> + +<p> +“No,” replied the virtuoso; “it is merely Dr. Franklin’s cap of asbestos. But +here is one which, perhaps, may suit you better. It is the wishing-cap of +Fortunatus. Will you try it on?” +</p> + +<p> +“By no means,” answered I, putting it aside with my hand. “The day of wild +wishes is past with me. I desire nothing that may not come in the ordinary +course of Providence.” +</p> + +<p> +“Then probably,” returned the virtuoso, “you will not be tempted to rub this +lamp?” +</p> + +<p> +While speaking, he took from the shelf an antique brass lamp, curiously wrought +with embossed figures, but so covered with verdigris that the sculpture was +almost eaten away. +</p> + +<p> +“It is a thousand years,” said he, “since the genius of this lamp constructed +Aladdin’s palace in a single night. But he still retains his power; and the man +who rubs Aladdin’s lamp has but to desire either a palace or a cottage.” +</p> + +<p> +“I might desire a cottage,” replied I; “but I would have it founded on sure and +stable truth, not on dreams and fantasies. I have learned to look for the real +and the true.” +</p> + +<p> +My guide next showed me Prospero’s magic wand, broken into three fragments by +the hand of its mighty master. On the same shelf lay the gold ring of ancient +Gyges, which enabled the wearer to walk invisible. On the other side of the +alcove was a tall looking-glass in a frame of ebony, but veiled with a curtain +of purple silk, through the rents of which the gleam of the mirror was +perceptible. +</p> + +<p> +“This is Cornelius Agrippa’s magic glass,” observed the virtuoso. “Draw aside +the curtain, and picture any human form within your mind, and it will be +reflected in the mirror.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is enough if I can picture it within my mind,” answered I. “Why should I +wish it to be repeated in the mirror? But, indeed, these works of magic have +grown wearisome to me. There are so many greater wonders in the world, to those +who keep their eyes open and their sight undimmed by custom, that all the +delusions of the old sorcerers seem flat and stale. Unless you can show me +something really curious, I care not to look further into your museum.” +</p> + +<p> +“Ah, well, then,” said the virtuoso, composedly, “perhaps you may deem some of +my antiquarian rarities deserving of a glance.” +</p> + +<p> +He pointed out the iron mask, now corroded with rust; and my heart grew sick at +the sight of this dreadful relic, which had shut out a human being from +sympathy with his race. There was nothing half so terrible in the axe that +beheaded King Charles, nor in the dagger that slew Henry of Navarre, nor in the +arrow that pierced the heart of William Rufus,—all of which were shown to +me. Many of the articles derived their interest, such as it was, from having +been formerly in the possession of royalty. For instance, here was +Charlemagne’s sheepskin cloak, the flowing wig of Louis Quatorze, the +spinning-wheel of Sardanapalus, and King Stephen’s famous breeches which cost +him but a crown. The heart of the Bloody Mary, with the word “Calais” worn into +its diseased substance, was preserved in a bottle of spirits; and near it lay +the golden case in which the queen of Gustavus Adolphus treasured up that +hero’s heart. Among these relics and heirlooms of kings I must not forget the +long, hairy ears of Midas, and a piece of bread which had been changed to gold +by the touch of that unlucky monarch. And as Grecian Helen was a queen, it may +here be mentioned that I was permitted to take into my hand a lock of her +golden hair and the bowl which a sculptor modelled from the curve of her +perfect breast. Here, likewise, was the robe that smothered Agamemnon, Nero’s +fiddle, the Czar Peter’s brandy-bottle, the crown of Semiramis, and Canute’s +sceptre which he extended over the sea. That my own land may not deem itself +neglected, let me add that I was favored with a sight of the skull of King +Philip, the famous Indian chief, whose head the Puritans smote off and +exhibited upon a pole. +</p> + +<p> +“Show me something else,” said I to the virtuoso. “Kings are in such an +artificial position that people in the ordinary walks of life cannot feel an +interest in their relics. If you could show me the straw hat of sweet little +Nell, I would far rather see it than a king’s golden crown.” +</p> + +<p> +“There it is,” said my guide, pointing carelessly with his staff to the straw +hat in question. “But, indeed, you are hard to please. Here are the +seven-league boots. Will you try them on?” +</p> + +<p> +“Our modern railroads have superseded their use,” answered I; “and as to these +cowhide boots, I could show you quite as curious a pair at the Transcendental +community in Roxbury.” +</p> + +<p> +We next examined a collection of swords and other weapons, belonging to +different epochs, but thrown together without much attempt at arrangement. Here +Was Arthur’s sword Excalibar, and that of the Cid Campeader, and the sword of +Brutus rusted with Caesar’s blood and his own, and the sword of Joan of Arc, +and that of Horatius, and that with which Virginius slew his daughter, and the +one which Dionysius suspended over the head of Damocles. Here also was Arria’s +sword, which she plunged into her own breast, in order to taste of death before +her husband. The crooked blade of Saladin’s cimeter next attracted my notice. I +know not by what chance, but so it happened, that the sword of one of our own +militia generals was suspended between Don Quixote’s lance and the brown blade +of Hudibras. My heart throbbed high at the sight of the helmet of Miltiades and +the spear that was broken in the breast of Epaminondas. I recognized the shield +of Achilles by its resemblance to the admirable cast in the possession of +Professor Felton. Nothing in this apartment interested me more than Major +Pitcairn’s pistol, the discharge of which, at Lexington, began the war of the +Revolution, and was reverberated in thunder around the land for seven long +years. The bow of Ulysses, though unstrung for ages, was placed against the +wall, together with a sheaf of Robin Hood’s arrows and the rifle of Daniel +Boone. +</p> + +<p> +“Enough of weapons,” said I, at length; “although I would gladly have seen the +sacred shield which fell from heaven in the time of Numa. And surely you should +obtain the sword which Washington unsheathed at Cambridge. But the collection +does you much credit. Let us pass on.” +</p> + +<p> +In the next alcove we saw the golden thigh of Pythagoras, which had so divine a +meaning; and, by one of the queer analogies to which the virtuoso seemed to be +addicted, this ancient emblem lay on the same shelf with Peter Stuyvesant’s +wooden leg, that was fabled to be of silver. Here was a remnant of the Golden +Fleece, and a sprig of yellow leaves that resembled the foliage of a +frost-bitten elm, but was duly authenticated as a portion of the golden branch +by which AEneas gained admittance to the realm of Pluto. Atalanta’s golden +apple and one of the apples of discord were wrapped in the napkin of gold which +Rampsinitus brought from Hades; and the whole were deposited in the golden vase +of Bias, with its inscription: “TO THE WISEST.” +</p> + +<p> +“And how did you obtain this vase?” said I to the virtuoso. +</p> + +<p> +“It was given me long ago,” replied he, with a scornful expression in his eye, +“because I had learned to despise all things.” +</p> + +<p> +It had not escaped me that, though the virtuoso was evidently a man of high +cultivation, yet he seemed to lack sympathy with the spiritual, the sublime, +and the tender. Apart from the whim that had led him to devote so much time, +pains, and expense to the collection of this museum, he impressed me as one of +the hardest and coldest men of the world whom I had ever met. +</p> + +<p> +“To despise all things!” repeated I. “This, at best, is the wisdom of the +understanding. It is the creed of a man whose soul, whose better and diviner +part, has never been awakened, or has died out of him.” +</p> + +<p> +“I did not think that you were still so young,” said the virtuoso. “Should you +live to my years, you will acknowledge that the vase of Bias was not ill +bestowed.” +</p> + +<p> +Without further discussion of the point, he directed my attention to other +curiosities. I examined Cinderella’s little glass slipper, and compared it with +one of Diana’s sandals, and with Fanny Elssler’s shoe, which bore testimony to +the muscular character of her illustrious foot. On the same shelf were Thomas +the Rhymer’s green velvet shoes, and the brazen shoe of Empedocles which was +thrown out of Mount AEtna. Anacreon’s drinking-cup was placed in apt +juxtaposition with one of Tom Moore’s wine-glasses and Circe’s magic bowl. +These were symbols of luxury and riot; but near them stood the cup whence +Socrates drank his hemlock, and that which Sir Philip Sidney put from his +death-parched lips to bestow the draught upon a dying soldier. Next appeared a +cluster of tobacco-pipes, consisting of Sir Walter Raleigh’s, the earliest on +record, Dr. Parr’s, Charles Lamb’s, and the first calumet of peace which was +ever smoked between a European and an Indian. Among other musical instruments, +I noticed the lyre of Orpheus and those of Homer and Sappho, Dr. Franklin’s +famous whistle, the trumpet of Anthony Van Corlear, and the flute which +Goldsmith played upon in his rambles through the French provinces. The staff of +Peter the Hermit stood in a corner with that of good old Bishop Jewel, and one +of ivory, which had belonged to Papirius, the Roman senator. The ponderous club +of Hercules was close at hand. The virtuoso showed me the chisel of Phidias, +Claude’s palette, and the brush of Apelles, observing that he intended to +bestow the former either on Greenough, Crawford, or Powers, and the two latter +upon Washington Allston. There was a small vase of oracular gas from Delphos, +which I trust will be submitted to the scientific analysis of Professor +Silliman. I was deeply moved on beholding a vial of the tears into which Niobe +was dissolved; nor less so on learning that a shapeless fragment of salt was a +relic of that victim of despondency and sinful regrets,—Lot’s wife. My +companion appeared to set great value upon some Egyptian darkness in a +blacking-jug. Several of the shelves were covered by a collection of coins, +among which, however, I remember none but the Splendid Shilling, celebrated by +Phillips, and a dollar’s worth of the iron money of Lycurgus, weighing about +fifty pounds. +</p> + +<p> +Walking carelessly onward, I had nearly fallen over a huge bundle, like a +peddler’s pack, done up in sackcloth, and very securely strapped and corded. +</p> + +<p> +“It is Christian’s burden of sin,” said the virtuoso. +</p> + +<p> +“O, pray let us open it!” cried I. “For many a year I have longed to know its +contents.” +</p> + +<p> +“Look into your own consciousness and memory,” replied the virtuoso. “You will +there find a list of whatever it contains.” +</p> + +<p> +As this was all undeniable truth, I threw a melancholy look at the burden and +passed on. A collection of old garments, banging on pegs, was worthy of some +attention, especially the shirt of Nessus, Caesar’s mantle, Joseph’s coat of +many colors, the Vicar of Bray’s cassock, Goldsmith’s peach-bloom suit, a pair +of President Jefferson’s scarlet breeches, John Randolph’s red baize +hunting-shirt, the drab small-clothes of the Stout Gentleman, and the rags of +the “man all tattered and torn.” George Fox’s hat impressed me with deep +reverence as a relic of perhaps the truest apostle that has appeared on earth +for these eighteen hundred years. My eye was next attracted by an old pair of +shears, which I should have taken for a memorial of some famous tailor, only +that the virtuoso pledged his veracity that they were the identical scissors of +Atropos. He also showed me a broken hourglass which had been thrown aside by +Father Time, together with the old gentleman’s gray forelock, tastefully +braided into a brooch. In the hour-glass was the handful of sand, the grains of +which had numbered the years of the Cumeean sibyl. I think it was in this +alcove that I saw the inkstand which Luther threw at the Devil, and the ring +which Essex, while under sentence of death, sent to Queen Elizabeth. And here +was the blood-incrusted pen of steel with which Faust signed away his +salvation. +</p> + +<p> +The virtuoso now opened the door of a closet and showed me a lamp burning, +while three others stood unlighted by its side. One of the three was the lamp +of Diogenes, another that of Guy Fawkes, and the third that which Hero set +forth to the midnight breeze in the high tower of Ahydos. +</p> + +<p> +“See!” said the virtuoso, blowing with all his force at the lighted lamp. +</p> + +<p> +The flame quivered and shrank away from his breath, but clung to the wick, and +resumed its brilliancy as soon as the blast was exhausted. +</p> + +<p> +“It is an undying lamp from the tomb of Charlemagne,” observed my guide. “That +flame was kindled a thousand years ago.” +</p> + +<p> +“How ridiculous to kindle an unnatural light in tombs!” exclaimed I. “We should +seek to behold the dead in the light of heaven. But what is the meaning of this +chafing-dish of glowing coals?” +</p> + +<p> +“That,” answered the virtuoso, “is the original fire which Prometheus stole +from heaven. Look steadfastly into it, and you will discern another curiosity.” +</p> + +<p> +I gazed into that fire,—which, symbolically, was the origin of all that +was bright and glorious in the soul of man,—and in the midst of it, +behold a little reptile, sporting with evident enjoyment of the fervid heat! It +was a salamander. +</p> + +<p> +“What a sacrilege!” cried I, with inexpressible disgust. “Can you find no +better use for this ethereal fire than to cherish a loathsome reptile in it? +Yet there are men who abuse the sacred fire of their own souls to as foul and +guilty a purpose.” +</p> + +<p> +The virtuoso made no answer except by a dry laugh and an assurance that the +salamander was the very same which Benvenuto Cellini had seen in his father’s +household fire. He then proceeded to show me other rarities; for this closet +appeared to be the receptacle of what he considered most valuable in his +collection. +</p> + +<p> +“There,” said he, “is the Great Carbuncle of the White Mountains.” +</p> + +<p> +I gazed with no little interest at this mighty gem, which it had been one of +the wild projects of my youth to discover. Possibly it might have looked +brighter to me in those days than now; at all events, it had not such +brilliancy as to detain me long from the other articles of the museum. The +virtuoso pointed out to me a crystalline stone which hung by a gold chain +against the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“That is the philosopher’s stone,” said he. +</p> + +<p> +“And have you the elixir vita which generally accompanies it?” inquired I. +</p> + +<p> +“Even so; this urn is filled with it,” he replied. “A draught would refresh +you. Here is Hebe’s cup; will you quaff a health from it?” +</p> + +<p> +My heart thrilled within me at the idea of such a reviving draught; for +methought I had great need of it after travelling so far on the dusty road of +life. But I know not whether it were a peculiar glance in the virtuoso’s eye, +or the circumstance that this most precious liquid was contained in an antique +sepulchral urn, that made me pause. Then came many a thought with which, in the +calmer and better hours of life, I had strengthened myself to feel that Death +is the very friend whom, in his due season, even the happiest mortal should be +willing to embrace. +</p> + +<p> +“No; I desire not an earthly immortality,” said I. +</p> + +<p> +“Were man to live longer on the earth, the spiritual would die out of him. The +spark of ethereal fire would be choked by the material, the sensual. There is a +celestial something within us that requires, after a certain time, the +atmosphere of heaven to preserve it from decay and ruin. I will have none of +this liquid. You do well to keep it in a sepulchral urn; for it would produce +death while bestowing the shadow of life.” +</p> + +<p> +“All this is unintelligible to me,” responded my guide, with indifference. +“Life—earthly life—is the only good. But you refuse the draught? +Well, it is not likely to be offered twice within one man’s experience. +Probably you have griefs which you seek to forget in death. I can enable you to +forget them in life. Will you take a draught of Lethe?” +</p> + +<p> +As he spoke, the virtuoso took from the shelf a crystal vase containing a sable +liquor, which caught no reflected image from the objects around. +</p> + +<p> +“Not for the world!” exclaimed I, shrinking back. “I can spare none of my +recollections, not even those of error or sorrow. They are all alike the food +of my spirit. As well never to have lived as to lose them now.” +</p> + +<p> +Without further parley we passed to the next alcove, the shelves of which were +burdened with ancient volumes and with those rolls of papyrus in which was +treasured up the eldest wisdom of the earth. Perhaps the most valuable work in +the collection, to a bibliomaniac, was the Book of Hermes. For my part, +however, I would have given a higher price for those six of the Sibyl’s books +which Tarquin refused to purchase, and which the virtuoso informed me he had +himself found in the cave of Trophonius. Doubtless these old volumes contain +prophecies of the fate of Rome, both as respects the decline and fall of her +temporal empire and the rise of her spiritual one. Not without value, likewise, +was the work of Anaxagoras on Nature, hitherto supposed to be irrecoverably +lost, and the missing treatises of Longinus, by which modern criticism might +profit, and those books of Livy for which the classic student has so long +sorrowed without hope. Among these precious tomes I observed the original +manuscript of the Koran, and also that of the Mormon Bible in Joe Smith’s +authentic autograph. Alexander’s copy of the Iliad was also there, enclosed in +the jewelled casket of Darius, still fragrant of the perfumes which the Persian +kept in it. +</p> + +<p> +Opening an iron-clasped volume, bound in black leather, I discovered it to be +Cornelius Agrippa’s book of magic; and it was rendered still more interesting +by the fact that many flowers, ancient and modern, were pressed between its +leaves. Here was a rose from Eve’s bridal bower, and all those red and white +roses which were plucked in the garden of the Temple by the partisans of York +and Lancaster. Here was Halleck’s Wild Rose of Alloway. Cowper had contributed +a Sensitive Plant, and Wordsworth an Eglantine, and Burns a Mountain Daisy, and +Kirke White a Star of Bethlehem, and Longfellow a Sprig of Fennel, with its +yellow flowers. James Russell Lowell had given a Pressed Flower, but fragrant +still, which had been shadowed in the Rhine. There was also a sprig from +Southey’s Holly Tree. One of the most beautiful specimens was a Fringed +Gentian, which had been plucked and preserved for immortality by Bryant. From +Jones Very, a poet whose voice is scarcely heard among us by reason of its +depth, there was a Wind Flower and a Columbine. +</p> + +<p> +As I closed Cornelius Agrippa’s magic volume, an old, mildewed letter fell upon +the floor. It proved to be an autograph from the Flying Dutchman to his wife. I +could linger no longer among books; for the afternoon was waning, and there was +yet much to see. The bare mention of a few more curiosities must suffice. The +immense skull of Polyphemus was recognizable by the cavernous hollow in the +centre of the forehead where once had blazed the giant’s single eye. The tub of +Diogenes, Medea’s caldron, and Psyche’s vase of beauty were placed one within +another. Pandora’s box, without the lid, stood next, containing nothing but the +girdle of Venus, which had been carelessly flung into it. A bundle of +birch-rods which had been used by Shenstone’s schoolmistress were tied up with +the Countess of Salisbury’s garter. I know not which to value most, a roc’s egg +as big as an ordinary hogshead, or the shell of the egg which Columbus set upon +its end. Perhaps the most delicate article in the whole museum was Queen Mab’s +chariot, which, to guard it from the touch of meddlesome fingers, was placed +under a glass tumbler. +</p> + +<p> +Several of the shelves were occupied by specimens of entomology. Feeling but +little interest in the science, I noticed only Anacreon’s grasshopper, and a +bumblebee which had been presented to the virtuoso by Ralph Waldo Emerson. +</p> + +<p> +In the part of the hall which we had now reached I observed a curtain, that +descended from the ceiling to the floor in voluminous folds, of a depth, +richness, and magnificence which I had never seen equalled. It was not to be +doubted that this splendid though dark and solemn veil concealed a portion of +the museum even richer in wonders than that through which I had already passed; +but, on my attempting to grasp the edge of the curtain and draw it aside, it +proved to be an illusive picture. +</p> + +<p> +“You need not blush,” remarked the virtuoso; “for that same curtain deceived +Zeuxis. It is the celebrated painting of Parrhasius.” +</p> + +<p> +In a range with the curtain there were a number of other choice pictures by +artists of ancient days. Here was the famous cluster of grapes by Zeuxis, so +admirably depicted that it seemed as if the ripe juice were bursting forth. As +to the picture of the old woman by the same illustrious painter, and which was +so ludicrous that he himself died with laughing at it, I cannot say that it +particularly moved my risibility. Ancient humor seems to have little power over +modern muscles. Here, also, was the horse painted by Apelles which living +horses neighed at; his first portrait of Alexander the Great, and his last +unfinished picture of Venus asleep. Each of these works of art, together with +others by Parrhasius, Timanthes, Polygnotus, Apollodorus, Pausias, and +Pamplulus, required more time and study than I could bestow for the adequate +perception of their merits. I shall therefore leave them undescribed and +uncriticised, nor attempt to settle the question of superiority between ancient +and modern art. +</p> + +<p> +For the same reason I shall pass lightly over the specimens of antique +sculpture which this indefatigable and fortunate virtuoso had dug out of the +dust of fallen empires. Here was AEtion’s cedar statue of AEsculapius, much +decayed, and Alcon’s iron statue of Hercules, lamentably rusted. Here was the +statue of Victory, six feet high, which the Jupiter Olympus of Phidias had held +in his hand. Here was a forefinger of the Colossus of Rhodes, seven feet in +length. Here was the Venus Urania of Phidias, and other images of male and +female beauty or grandeur, wrought by sculptors who appeared never to have +debased their souls by the sight of any meaner forms than those of gods or +godlike mortals. But the deep simplicity of these great works was not to be +comprehended by a mind excited and disturbed, as mine was, by the various +objects that had recently been presented to it. I therefore turned away with +merely a passing glance, resolving on some future occasion to brood over each +individual statue and picture until my inmost spirit should feel their +excellence. In this department, again, I noticed the tendency to whimsical +combinations and ludicrous analogies which seemed to influence many of the +arrangements of the museum. The wooden statue so well known as the Palladium of +Troy was placed in close apposition with the wooden head of General Jackson, +which was stolen a few years since from the bows of the frigate Constitution. +</p> + +<p> +We had now completed the circuit of the spacious hall, and found ourselves +again near the door. Feeling somewhat wearied with the survey of so many +novelties and antiquities, I sat down upon Cowper’s sofa, while the virtuoso +threw himself carelessly into Rabelais’s easychair. Casting my eyes upon the +opposite wall, I was surprised to perceive the shadow of a man flickering +unsteadily across the wainscot, and looking as if it were stirred by some +breath of air that found its way through the door or windows. No substantial +figure was visible from which this shadow might be thrown; nor, had there been +such, was there any sunshine that would have caused it to darken upon the wall. +</p> + +<p> +“It is Peter Schlemihl’s shadow,” observed the virtuoso, “and one of the most +valuable articles in my collection.” +</p> + +<p> +“Methinks a shadow would have made a fitting doorkeeper to such a museum,” said +I; “although, indeed, yonder figure has something strange and fantastic about +him, which suits well enough with many of the impressions which I have received +here. Pray, who is he?” +</p> + +<p> +While speaking, I gazed more scrutinizingly than before at the antiquated +presence of the person who had admitted me, and who still sat on his bench with +the same restless aspect, and dim, confused, questioning anxiety that I had +noticed on my first entrance. At this moment he looked eagerly towards us, and, +half starting from his seat, addressed me. +</p> + +<p> +“I beseech you, kind sir,” said he, in a cracked, melancholy tone, “have pity +on the most unfortunate man in the world. For Heaven’s sake, answer me a single +question! Is this the town of Boston?” +</p> + +<p> +“You have recognized him now,” said the virtuoso. “It is Peter Rugg, the +missing man. I chanced to meet him the other day still in search of Boston, and +conducted him hither; and, as he could not succeed in finding his friends, I +have taken him into my service as doorkeeper. He is somewhat too apt to ramble, +but otherwise a man of trust and integrity.” +</p> + +<p> +“And might I venture to ask,” continued I, “to whom am I indebted for this +afternoon’s gratification?” +</p> + +<p> +The virtuoso, before replying, laid his hand upon an antique dart, or javelin, +the rusty steel head of winch seemed to have been blunted, as if it had +encountered the resistance of a tempered shield, or breastplate. +</p> + +<p> +“My name has not been without its distinction in the world for a longer period +than that of any other man alive,” answered he. “Yet many doubt of my +existence; perhaps you will do so to-morrow. This dart which I hold in my hand +was once grim Death’s own weapon. It served him well for the space of four +thousand years; but it fell blunted, as you see, when he directed it against my +breast.” +</p> + +<p> +These words were spoken with the calm and cold courtesy of manner that had +characterized this singular personage throughout our interview. I fancied, it +is true, that there was a bitterness indefinably mingled with his tone, as of +one cut off from natural sympathies and blasted with a doom that had been +inflicted on no other human being, and by the results of which he had ceased to +be human. Yet, withal, it seemed one of the most terrible consequences of that +doom that the victim no longer regarded it as a calamity, but had finally +accepted it as the greatest good that could have befallen him. +</p> + +<p> +“You are the Wandering Jew!” exclaimed I. +</p> + +<p> +The virtuoso bowed without emotion of any kind; for, by centuries of custom, he +had almost lost the sense of strangeness in his fate, and was but imperfectly +conscious of the astonishment and awe with which it affected such as are +capable of death. +</p> + +<p> +“Your doom is indeed a fearful one!” said I, with irrepressible feeling and a +frankness that afterwards startled me; “yet perhaps the ethereal spirit is not +entirely extinct under all this corrupted or frozen mass of earthly life. +Perhaps the immortal spark may yet be rekindled by a breath of heaven. Perhaps +you may yet be permitted to die before it is too late to live eternally. You +have my prayers for such a consummation. Farewell.” +</p> + +<p> +“Your prayers will be in vain,” replied he, with a smile of cold triumph. “My +destiny is linked with the realities of earth. You are welcome to your visions +and shadows of a future state; but give me what I can see, and touch, and +understand, and I ask no more.” +</p> + +<p> +“It is indeed too late,” thought I. “The soul is dead within him.” +</p> + +<p> +Struggling between pity and horror, I extended my hand, to which the virtuoso +gave his own, still with the habitual courtesy of a man of the world, but +without a single heart-throb of human brotherhood. The touch seemed like ice, +yet I know not whether morally or physically. As I departed, he bade me observe +that the inner door of the hall was constructed with the ivory leaves of the +gateway through which Aeneas and the Sibyl had been dismissed from Hades. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..edc0ae0 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #512 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/512) diff --git a/old/512.txt b/old/512.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..544a3f9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/512.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7733 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories, by +Nathaniel Hawthorne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Posting Date: September 13, 2008 [EBook #512] +Release Date: April, 1996 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + +MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE AND OTHER STORIES + + +by + +Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + + +Contents + + + The Birthmark + Young Goodman Brown + Rappaccini's Daughter + Mrs. Bullfrog + The Celestial Railroad + The Procession of Life + Feathertop: A Moralized Legend + Egotism; or, The Bosom Serpent + Drowne's Wooden Image + Roger Malvin's Burial + The Artist of the Beautiful + + + + +FROM MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE + + + +THE BIRTHMARK + +In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an +eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long +before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more +attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the +care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace +smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a +beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when the +comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred +mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it +was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in +its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, +the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment +in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would +ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the +philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and +perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer +possessed this degree of faith in man's ultimate control over Nature. +He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies +ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his +young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by +intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength +of the latter to his own. + +Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly +remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very +soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble +in his countenance that grew stronger until he spoke. + +"Georgiana," said he, "has it never occurred to you that the mark upon +your cheek might be removed?" + +"No, indeed," said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his +manner, she blushed deeply. "To tell you the truth it has been so often +called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so." + +"Ah, upon another face perhaps it might," replied her husband; "but +never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from +the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we +hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the +visible mark of earthly imperfection." + +"Shocks you, my husband!" cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first +reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. "Then why +did you take me from my mother's side? You cannot love what shocks you!" + +To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of +Georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as +it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state +of her complexion--a healthy though delicate bloom--the mark wore a +tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the +surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more +indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that +bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting +motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson +stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful +distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, +though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana's lovers were wont to say +that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the +infant's cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic +endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a +desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing +his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however, +that the impression wrought by this fairy sign manual varied +exceedingly, according to the difference of temperament in the +beholders. Some fastidious persons--but they were exclusively of her +own sex--affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite +destroyed the effect of Georgiana's beauty, and rendered her +countenance even hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that one +of those small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary +marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine +observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, +contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess +one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a +flaw. After his marriage,--for he thought little or nothing of the +matter before,--Aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself. + +Had she been less beautiful,--if Envy's self could have found aught +else to sneer at,--he might have felt his affection heightened by the +prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now +stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of +emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so +perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with +every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity +which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her +productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or +that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson +hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the +highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with +the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible +frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of +his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer's sombre +imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, +causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana's beauty, +whether of soul or sense, had given him delight. + +At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably +and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary, +reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first +appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and +modes of feeling that it became the central point of all. With the +morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face and +recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at +the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and +beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand +that wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana +soon learned to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the +peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her +cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was +brought strongly out, like a bass-relief of ruby on the whitest marble. + +Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray +the stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the first time, +voluntarily took up the subject. + +"Do you remember, my dear Aylmer," said she, with a feeble attempt at a +smile, "have you any recollection of a dream last night about this +odious hand?" + +"None! none whatever!" replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added, in +a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of +his emotion, "I might well dream of it; for before I fell asleep it had +taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy." + +"And you did dream of it?" continued Georgiana, hastily; for she +dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. "A +terrible dream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to +forget this one expression?--'It is in her heart now; we must have it +out!' Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recall +that dream." + +The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot +confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers +them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that +perchance belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He +had fancied himself with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation +for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the +deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have +caught hold of Georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was +inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away. + +When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in +his wife's presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to +the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with +uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an +unconscious self-deception during our waking moments. Until now he had +not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over +his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go for +the sake of giving himself peace. + +"Aylmer," resumed Georgiana, solemnly, "I know not what may be the cost +to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal +may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as +life itself. Again: do we know that there is a possibility, on any +terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little hand which was laid +upon me before I came into the world?" + +"Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject," +hastily interrupted Aylmer. "I am convinced of the perfect +practicability of its removal." + +"If there be the remotest possibility of it," continued Georgiana, "let +the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for +life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and +disgust,--life is a burden which I would fling down with joy. Either +remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep +science. All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great +wonders. Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with +the tips of two small fingers? Is this beyond your power, for the sake +of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?" + +"Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife," cried Aylmer, rapturously, "doubt +not my power. I have already given this matter the deepest +thought--thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a +being less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper +than ever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully competent to +render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most +beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what +Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion, when his +sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will +be." + +"It is resolved, then," said Georgiana, faintly smiling. "And, Aylmer, +spare me not, though you should find the birthmark take refuge in my +heart at last." + +Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek--her right cheek--not that which +bore the impress of the crimson hand. + +The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed +whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant +watchfulness which the proposed operation would require; while +Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its +success. They were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments +occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome +youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of Nature that +had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in Europe. +Seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated +the secrets of the highest cloud region and of the profoundest mines; +he had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive the +fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, and +how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and others +with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth. +Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the +human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Nature +assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from +the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. The +latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling +recognition of the truth--against which all seekers sooner or later +stumble--that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with +apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to +keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us +nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to +mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. Now, +however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, of +course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because +they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his +proposed scheme for the treatment of Georgiana. + +As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold +and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to +reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the +birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could not restrain a +strong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted. + +"Aminadab! Aminadab!" shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the floor. + +Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, +but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was +grimed with the vapors of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer's +underworker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably +fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill +with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he +executed all the details of his master's experiments. With his vast +strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable +earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's physical +nature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, +were no less apt a type of the spiritual element. + +"Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab," said Aylmer, "and burn +a pastil." + +"Yes, master," answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form +of Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, "If she were my wife, +I'd never part with that birthmark." + +When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an +atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had +recalled her from her deathlike faintness. The scene around her looked +like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre +rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, +into a series of beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded +abode of a lovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, +which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no other +species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to +the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and +straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. For +aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And +Aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his +chemical processes, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps, +emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, impurpled +radiance. He now knelt by his wife's side, watching her earnestly, but +without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt that he +could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might intrude. + +"Where am I? Ah, I remember," said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed +her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband's +eyes. + +"Fear not, dearest!" exclaimed he. "Do not shrink from me! Believe me, +Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be +such a rapture to remove it." + +"Oh, spare me!" sadly replied his wife. "Pray do not look at it again. +I never can forget that convulsive shudder." + +In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from +the burden of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice some of the +light and playful secrets which science had taught him among its +profounder lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of +unsubstantial beauty came and danced before her, imprinting their +momentary footsteps on beams of light. Though she had some indistinct +idea of the method of these optical phenomena, still the illusion was +almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessed +sway over the spiritual world. Then again, when she felt a wish to look +forth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were +answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a screen. +The scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented, +but with that bewitching, yet indescribable difference which always +makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much more attractive than the +original. When wearied of this, Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a +vessel containing a quantity of earth. She did so, with little interest +at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant +shooting upward from the soil. Then came the slender stalk; the leaves +gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely +flower. + +"It is magical!" cried Georgiana. "I dare not touch it." + +"Nay, pluck it," answered Aylmer,--"pluck it, and inhale its brief +perfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments and +leave nothing save its brown seed vessels; but thence may be +perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself." + +But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant +suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the agency of +fire. + +"There was too powerful a stimulus," said Aylmer, thoughtfully. + +To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her +portrait by a scientific process of his own invention. It was to be +effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal. +Georgiana assented; but, on looking at the result, was affrighted to +find the features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while the +minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been. +Aylmer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a jar of corrosive +acid. + +Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of +study and chemical experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but +seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of +the resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of the +alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by +which the golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and +base. Aylmer appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific +logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover +this long-sought medium; "but," he added, "a philosopher who should go +deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to +stoop to the exercise of it." Not less singular were his opinions in +regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at his +option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps +interminably; but that it would produce a discord in Nature which all +the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find +cause to curse. + +"Aylmer, are you in earnest?" asked Georgiana, looking at him with +amazement and fear. "It is terrible to possess such power, or even to +dream of possessing it." + +"Oh, do not tremble, my love," said her husband. "I would not wrong +either you or myself by working such inharmonious effects upon our +lives; but I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is +the skill requisite to remove this little hand." + +At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a +redhot iron had touched her cheek. + +Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She could hear his voice in +the distant furnace room giving directions to Aminadab, whose harsh, +uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt +or growl of a brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmer +reappeared and proposed that she should now examine his cabinet of +chemical products and natural treasures of the earth. Among the former +he showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a +gentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the +breezes that blow across a kingdom. They were of inestimable value, the +contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some of the +perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing and invigorating +delight. + +"And what is this?" asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe +containing a gold-colored liquid. "It is so beautiful to the eye that I +could imagine it the elixir of life." + +"In one sense it is," replied Aylmer; "or, rather, the elixir of +immortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in +this world. By its aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at +whom you might point your finger. The strength of the dose would +determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the +midst of a breath. No king on his guarded throne could keep his life if +I, in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions +justified me in depriving him of it." + +"Why do you keep such a terrific drug?" inquired Georgiana in horror. + +"Do not mistrust me, dearest," said her husband, smiling; "its virtuous +potency is yet greater than its harmful one. But see! here is a +powerful cosmetic. With a few drops of this in a vase of water, +freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. A +stronger infusion would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave the +rosiest beauty a pale ghost." + +"Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?" asked +Georgiana, anxiously. + +"Oh, no," hastily replied her husband; "this is merely superficial. +Your case demands a remedy that shall go deeper." + +In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute +inquiries as to her sensations and whether the confinement of the rooms +and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. These questions +had such a particular drift that Georgiana began to conjecture that she +was already subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed +in with the fragrant air or taken with her food. She fancied likewise, +but it might be altogether fancy, that there was a stirring up of her +system--a strange, indefinite sensation creeping through her veins, and +tingling, half painfully, half pleasurably, at her heart. Still, +whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld herself +pale as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon her +cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it so much as she. + +To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary +to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana +turned over the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old +tomes she met with chapters full of romance and poetry. They were the +works of philosophers of the middle ages, such as Albertus Magnus, +Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and the famous friar who created the +prophetic Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists stood in advance +of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and +therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have +acquired from the investigation of Nature a power above Nature, and +from physics a sway over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and +imaginative were the early volumes of the Transactions of the Royal +Society, in which the members, knowing little of the limits of natural +possibility, were continually recording wonders or proposing methods +whereby wonders might be wrought. + +But to Georgiana the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her +husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his +scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its +development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances +to which either event was attributable. The book, in truth, was both +the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet +practical and laborious life. He handled physical details as if there +were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed +himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration towards the +infinite. In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul. +Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more profoundly +than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment than +heretofore. Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that +his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if +compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were +the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with +the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume, +rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as +melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. It was the sad +confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the +composite man, the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and +of the despair that assails the higher nature at finding itself so +miserably thwarted by the earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius in +whatever sphere might recognize the image of his own experience in +Aylmer's journal. + +So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana that she laid her face +upon the open volume and burst into tears. In this situation she was +found by her husband. + +"It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books," said he with a smile, +though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. "Georgiana, there are +pages in that volume which I can scarcely glance over and keep my +senses. Take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you." + +"It has made me worship you more than ever," said she. + +"Ah, wait for this one success," rejoined he, "then worship me if you +will. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But come, I have +sought you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest." + +So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of +his spirit. He then took his leave with a boyish exuberance of gayety, +assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and +that the result was already certain. Scarcely had he departed when +Georgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had forgotten +to inform Aylmer of a symptom which for two or three hours past had +begun to excite her attention. It was a sensation in the fatal +birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout her +system. Hastening after her husband, she intruded for the first time +into the laboratory. + +The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and +feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the +quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning for +ages. There was a distilling apparatus in full operation. Around the +room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of +chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. +The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous +odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. The +severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and +brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become to +the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost +solely, drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself. + +He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace +as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which +it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or +misery. How different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had +assumed for Georgiana's encouragement! + +"Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully, +thou man of clay!" muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. +"Now, if there be a thought too much or too little, it is all over." + +"Ho! ho!" mumbled Aminadab. "Look, master! look!" + +Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler +than ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her and seized her +arm with a gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it. + +"Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?" cried he, +impetuously. "Would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over +my labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman, go!" + +"Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed +no stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right to complain. You +mistrust your wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you watch +the development of this experiment. Think not so unworthily of me, my +husband. Tell me all the risk we run, and fear not that I shall shrink; +for my share in it is far less than your own." + +"No, no, Georgiana!" said Aylmer, impatiently; "it must not be." + +"I submit," replied she calmly. "And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever +draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would +induce me to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand." + +"My noble wife," said Aylmer, deeply moved, "I knew not the height and +depth of your nature until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then, +that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp +into your being with a strength of which I had no previous conception. +I have already administered agents powerful enough to do aught except +to change your entire physical system. Only one thing remains to be +tried. If that fail us we are ruined." + +"Why did you hesitate to tell me this?" asked she. + +"Because, Georgiana," said Aylmer, in a low voice, "there is danger." + +"Danger? There is but one danger--that this horrible stigma shall be +left upon my cheek!" cried Georgiana. "Remove it, remove it, whatever +be the cost, or we shall both go mad!" + +"Heaven knows your words are too true," said Aylmer, sadly. "And now, +dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while all will be tested." + +He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness +which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After +his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the +character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous +moment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love--so +pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection nor +miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had +dreamed of. She felt how much more precious was such a sentiment than +that meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her +sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love by degrading its +perfect idea to the level of the actual; and with her whole spirit she +prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and +deepest conception. Longer than one moment she well knew it could not +be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, and each +instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant +before. + +The sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal +goblet containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be +the draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the +consequence of a highly-wrought state of mind and tension of spirit +than of fear or doubt. + +"The concoction of the draught has been perfect," said he, in answer to +Georgiana's look. "Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot +fail." + +"Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer," observed his wife, "I might +wish to put off this birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality +itself in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession to +those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at +which I stand. Were I weaker and blinder it might be happiness. Were I +stronger, it might be endured hopefully. But, being what I find myself, +methinks I am of all mortals the most fit to die." + +"You are fit for heaven without tasting death!" replied her husband +"But why do we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. Behold its +effect upon this plant." + +On the window seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow +blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a small +quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little +time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the +unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure. + +"There needed no proof," said Georgiana, quietly. "Give me the goblet I +joyfully stake all upon your word." + +"Drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid +admiration. "There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy +sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect." + +She quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand. + +"It is grateful," said she with a placid smile. "Methinks it is like +water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of +unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst +that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My +earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves around the +heart of a rose at sunset." + +She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required +almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and +lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere +she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect +with the emotions proper to a man the whole value of whose existence +was involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood, +however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of +science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of +the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a +hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,--such were the details +which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. +Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that +volume, but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last. + +While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and +not without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse +he pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in the very +act, and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily +and murmured as if in remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed his watch. Nor +was it without avail. The crimson hand, which at first had been +strongly visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana's cheek, now +grew more faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than ever; but +the birthmark with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of +its former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure was +more awful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow fading out the sky, +and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away. + +"By Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!" said Aylmer to himself, in almost +irrepressible ecstasy. "I can scarcely trace it now. Success! success! +And now it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest flush of blood +across her cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!" + +He drew aside the window curtain and suffered the light of natural day +to fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. At the same time he +heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant +Aminadab's expression of delight. + +"Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!" cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of +frenzy, "you have served me well! Matter and spirit--earth and +heaven--have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses! +You have earned the right to laugh." + +These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed her +eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that +purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how +barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed +forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their +happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face with a trouble and +anxiety that he could by no means account for. + +"My poor Aylmer!" murmured she. + +"Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "My +peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!" + +"My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, "you +have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so +high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could +offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!" + +Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of +life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union +with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark--that +sole token of human imperfection--faded from her cheek, the parting +breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her +soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight. +Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the +gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the +immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands +the completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Alymer reached a +profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which +would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the +celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed +to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in +eternity, to find the perfect future in the present. + + + +YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN + +Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem +village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to +exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the wife was +aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, letting the +wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she called to Goodman +Brown. + +"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her lips +were close to his ear, "prithee put off your journey until sunrise and +sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is troubled with such +dreams and such thoughts that she's afeard of herself sometimes. Pray +tarry with me this night, dear husband, of all nights in the year." + +"My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all nights in +the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. My journey, as +thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs be done 'twixt now +and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost thou doubt me already, +and we but three months married?" + +"Then God bless you!" said Faith, with the pink ribbons; "and may you +find all well when you come back." + +"Amen!" cried Goodman Brown. "Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go to +bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee." + +So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being about to +turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and saw the head +of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy air, in spite of her +pink ribbons. + +"Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a +wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, too. +Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if a dream had +warned her what work is to be done tonight. But no, no; 't would kill +her to think it. Well, she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this +one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven." + +With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself +justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had +taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, +which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and +closed immediately behind. It was all as lonely as could be; and there +is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveller knows not +who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs +overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing through +an unseen multitude. + +"There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said Goodman Brown +to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him as he added, "What if +the devil himself should be at my very elbow!" + +His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, looking +forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and decent attire, +seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose at Goodman Brown's approach +and walked onward side by side with him. + +"You are late, Goodman Brown," said he. "The clock of the Old South was +striking as I came through Boston, and that is full fifteen minutes +agone." + +"Faith kept me back a while," replied the young man, with a tremor in +his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his companion, though not +wholly unexpected. + +It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of it +where these two were journeying. As nearly as could be discerned, the +second traveller was about fifty years old, apparently in the same rank +of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing a considerable resemblance to +him, though perhaps more in expression than features. Still they might +have been taken for father and son. And yet, though the elder person +was as simply clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had +an indescribable air of one who knew the world, and who would not have +felt abashed at the governor's dinner table or in King William's court, +were it possible that his affairs should call him thither. But the only +thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, +which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought +that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living +serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted +by the uncertain light. + +"Come, Goodman Brown," cried his fellow-traveller, "this is a dull pace +for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you are so soon +weary." + +"Friend," said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full stop, +"having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my purpose now to +return whence I came. I have scruples touching the matter thou wot'st +of." + +"Sayest thou so?" replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. "Let us +walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if I convince thee not +thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the forest yet." + +"Too far! too far!" exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming his +walk. "My father never went into the woods on such an errand, nor his +father before him. We have been a race of honest men and good +Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the first of +the name of Brown that ever took this path and kept--" + +"Such company, thou wouldst say," observed the elder person, +interpreting his pause. "Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as well +acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the Puritans; and +that's no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, the constable, when +he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through the streets of Salem; and +it was I that brought your father a pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own +hearth, to set fire to an Indian village, in King Philip's war. They +were my good friends, both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along +this path, and returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends +with you for their sake." + +"If it be as thou sayest," replied Goodman Brown, "I marvel they never +spoke of these matters; or, verily, I marvel not, seeing that the least +rumor of the sort would have driven them from New England. We are a +people of prayer, and good works to boot, and abide no such wickedness." + +"Wickedness or not," said the traveller with the twisted staff, "I have +a very general acquaintance here in New England. The deacons of many a +church have drunk the communion wine with me; the selectmen of divers +towns make me their chairman; and a majority of the Great and General +Court are firm supporters of my interest. The governor and I, too--But +these are state secrets." + +"Can this be so?" cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement at his +undisturbed companion. "Howbeit, I have nothing to do with the governor +and council; they have their own ways, and are no rule for a simple +husbandman like me. But, were I to go on with thee, how should I meet +the eye of that good old man, our minister, at Salem village? Oh, his +voice would make me tremble both Sabbath day and lecture day." + +Thus far the elder traveller had listened with due gravity; but now +burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so violently +that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in sympathy. + +"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted he again and again; then composing himself, +"Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, don't kill me with +laughing." + +"Well, then, to end the matter at once," said Goodman Brown, +considerably nettled, "there is my wife, Faith. It would break her dear +little heart; and I'd rather break my own." + +"Nay, if that be the case," answered the other, "e'en go thy ways, +Goodman Brown. I would not for twenty old women like the one hobbling +before us that Faith should come to any harm." + +As he spoke he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, in +whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, who had +taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his moral and +spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon Gookin. + +"A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the wilderness +at nightfall," said he. "But with your leave, friend, I shall take a +cut through the woods until we have left this Christian woman behind. +Being a stranger to you, she might ask whom I was consorting with and +whither I was going." + +"Be it so," said his fellow-traveller. "Betake you to the woods, and +let me keep the path." + +Accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch his +companion, who advanced softly along the road until he had come within +a staff's length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was making the best +of her way, with singular speed for so aged a woman, and mumbling some +indistinct words--a prayer, doubtless--as she went. The traveller put +forth his staff and touched her withered neck with what seemed the +serpent's tail. + +"The devil!" screamed the pious old lady. + +"Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?" observed the traveller, +confronting her and leaning on his writhing stick. + +"Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?" cried the good dame. +"Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, Goodman +Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. But--would your +worship believe it?--my broomstick hath strangely disappeared, stolen, +as I suspect, by that unhanged witch, Goody Cory, and that, too, when I +was all anointed with the juice of smallage, and cinquefoil, and wolf's +bane." + +"Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe," said the +shape of old Goodman Brown. + +"Ah, your worship knows the recipe," cried the old lady, cackling +aloud. "So, as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and no +horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell me there +is a nice young man to be taken into communion to-night. But now your +good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be there in a +twinkling." + +"That can hardly be," answered her friend. "I may not spare you my arm, +Goody Cloyse; but here is my staff, if you will." + +So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it assumed +life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly lent to the +Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown could not take +cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in astonishment, and, looking down +again, beheld neither Goody Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his +fellow-traveller alone, who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had +happened. + +"That old woman taught me my catechism," said the young man; and there +was a world of meaning in this simple comment. + +They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted his +companion to make good speed and persevere in the path, discoursing so +aptly that his arguments seemed rather to spring up in the bosom of his +auditor than to be suggested by himself. As they went, he plucked a +branch of maple to serve for a walking stick, and began to strip it of +the twigs and little boughs, which were wet with evening dew. The +moment his fingers touched them they became strangely withered and +dried up as with a week's sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a good +free pace, until suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman +Brown sat himself down on the stump of a tree and refused to go any +farther. + +"Friend," said he, stubbornly, "my mind is made up. Not another step +will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman do choose to +go to the devil when I thought she was going to heaven: is that any +reason why I should quit my dear Faith and go after her?" + +"You will think better of this by and by," said his acquaintance, +composedly. "Sit here and rest yourself a while; and when you feel like +moving again, there is my staff to help you along." + +Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and was as +speedily out of sight as if he had vanished into the deepening gloom. +The young man sat a few moments by the roadside, applauding himself +greatly, and thinking with how clear a conscience he should meet the +minister in his morning walk, nor shrink from the eye of good old +Deacon Gookin. And what calm sleep would be his that very night, which +was to have been spent so wickedly, but so purely and sweetly now, in +the arms of Faith! Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations, +Goodman Brown heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it +advisable to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious +of the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so +happily turned from it. + +On came the hoof tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave old +voices, conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled sounds +appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the young man's +hiding-place; but, owing doubtless to the depth of the gloom at that +particular spot, neither the travellers nor their steeds were visible. +Though their figures brushed the small boughs by the wayside, it could +not be seen that they intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam +from the strip of bright sky athwart which they must have passed. +Goodman Brown alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside +the branches and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst without +discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he could +have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized the voices +of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along quietly, as they were +wont to do, when bound to some ordination or ecclesiastical council. +While yet within hearing, one of the riders stopped to pluck a switch. + +"Of the two, reverend sir," said the voice like the deacon's, "I had +rather miss an ordination dinner than to-night's meeting. They tell me +that some of our community are to be here from Falmouth and beyond, and +others from Connecticut and Rhode Island, besides several of the Indian +powwows, who, after their fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the +best of us. Moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into +communion." + +"Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!" replied the solemn old tones of the +minister. "Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, you know, +until I get on the ground." + +The hoofs clattered again; and the voices, talking so strangely in the +empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church had ever been +gathered or solitary Christian prayed. Whither, then, could these holy +men be journeying so deep into the heathen wilderness? Young Goodman +Brown caught hold of a tree for support, being ready to sink down on +the ground, faint and overburdened with the heavy sickness of his +heart. He looked up to the sky, doubting whether there really was a +heaven above him. Yet there was the blue arch, and the stars +brightening in it. + +"With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against the +devil!" cried Goodman Brown. + +While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament and had +lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was stirring, hurried +across the zenith and hid the brightening stars. The blue sky was still +visible, except directly overhead, where this black mass of cloud was +sweeping swiftly northward. Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of +the cloud, came a confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once the +listener fancied that he could distinguish the accents of towns-people +of his own, men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had +met at the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern. +The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted whether he +had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest, whispering without a +wind. Then came a stronger swell of those familiar tones, heard daily +in the sunshine at Salem village, but never until now from a cloud of +night There was one voice of a young woman, uttering lamentations, yet +with an uncertain sorrow, and entreating for some favor, which, +perhaps, it would grieve her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, +both saints and sinners, seemed to encourage her onward. + +"Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and desperation; +and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, "Faith! Faith!" as if +bewildered wretches were seeking her all through the wilderness. + +The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, when the +unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There was a scream, +drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off +laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent +sky above Goodman Brown. But something fluttered lightly down through +the air and caught on the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, +and beheld a pink ribbon. + +"My Faith is gone!" cried he, after one stupefied moment. "There is no +good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to thee is this +world given." + +And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did +Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate that +he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk or run. The +road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly traced, and vanished at +length, leaving him in the heart of the dark wilderness, still rushing +onward with the instinct that guides mortal man to evil. The whole +forest was peopled with frightful sounds--the creaking of the trees, +the howling of wild beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes +the wind tolled like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad +roar around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to scorn. +But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and shrank not from +its other horrors. + +"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Goodman Brown when the wind laughed at him. + +"Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me with +your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, come devil +himself, and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well fear him as he +fear you." + +In truth, all through the haunted forest there could be nothing more +frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew among the black +pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to +an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such +laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons +around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he +rages in the breast of man. Thus sped the demoniac on his course, +until, quivering among the trees, he saw a red light before him, as +when the felled trunks and branches of a clearing have been set on +fire, and throw up their lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of +midnight. He paused, in a lull of the tempest that had driven him +onward, and heard the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly +from a distance with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune; it +was a familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse +died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human voices, +but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing in awful +harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry was lost to his +own ear by its unison with the cry of the desert. + +In the interval of silence he stole forward until the light glared full +upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, hemmed in by the dark +wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing some rude, natural +resemblance either to an altar or a pulpit, and surrounded by four +blazing pines, their tops aflame, their stems untouched, like candles +at an evening meeting. The mass of foliage that had overgrown the +summit of the rock was all on fire, blazing high into the night and +fitfully illuminating the whole field. Each pendent twig and leafy +festoon was in a blaze. As the red light arose and fell, a numerous +congregation alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and +again grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the +solitary woods at once. + +"A grave and dark-clad company," quoth Goodman Brown. + +In truth they were such. Among them, quivering to and fro between gloom +and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen next day at the council +board of the province, and others which, Sabbath after Sabbath, looked +devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over the crowded pews, from the +holiest pulpits in the land. Some affirm that the lady of the governor +was there. At least there were high dames well known to her, and wives +of honored husbands, and widows, a great multitude, and ancient +maidens, all of excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled +lest their mothers should espy them. Either the sudden gleams of light +flashing over the obscure field bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he +recognized a score of the church members of Salem village famous for +their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, and waited +at the skirts of that venerable saint, his revered pastor. But, +irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, and pious people, +these elders of the church, these chaste dames and dewy virgins, there +were men of dissolute lives and women of spotted fame, wretches given +over to all mean and filthy vice, and suspected even of horrid crimes. +It was strange to see that the good shrank not from the wicked, nor +were the sinners abashed by the saints. Scattered also among their +pale-faced enemies were the Indian priests, or powwows, who had often +scared their native forest with more hideous incantations than any +known to English witchcraft. + +"But where is Faith?" thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came into his +heart, he trembled. + +Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such as +the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that our nature +can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more. Unfathomable to +mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse after verse was sung; and +still the chorus of the desert swelled between like the deepest tone of +a mighty organ; and with the final peal of that dreadful anthem there +came a sound, as if the roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling +beasts, and every other voice of the unconcerted wilderness were +mingling and according with the voice of guilty man in homage to the +prince of all. The four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and +obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke wreaths +above the impious assembly. At the same moment the fire on the rock +shot redly forth and formed a glowing arch above its base, where now +appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, the figure bore no +slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to some grave divine of the +New England churches. + +"Bring forth the converts!" cried a voice that echoed through the field +and rolled into the forest. + +At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the trees +and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a loathful +brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in his heart. He +could have well-nigh sworn that the shape of his own dead father +beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a smoke wreath, while a +woman, with dim features of despair, threw out her hand to warn him +back. Was it his mother? But he had no power to retreat one step, nor +to resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon +Gookin seized his arms and led him to the blazing rock. Thither came +also the slender form of a veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, +that pious teacher of the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had +received the devil's promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was +she. And there stood the proselytes beneath the canopy of fire. + +"Welcome, my children," said the dark figure, "to the communion of your +race. Ye have found thus young your nature and your destiny. My +children, look behind you!" + +They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, the +fiend worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed darkly on +every visage. + +"There," resumed the sable form, "are all whom ye have reverenced from +youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank from your own +sin, contrasting it with their lives of righteousness and prayerful +aspirations heavenward. Yet here are they all in my worshipping +assembly. This night it shall be granted you to know their secret +deeds: how hoary-bearded elders of the church have whispered wanton +words to the young maids of their households; how many a woman, eager +for widows' weeds, has given her husband a drink at bedtime and let him +sleep his last sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste +to inherit their fathers' wealth; and how fair damsels--blush not, +sweet ones--have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, the +sole guest to an infant's funeral. By the sympathy of your human hearts +for sin ye shall scent out all the places--whether in church, +bedchamber, street, field, or forest--where crime has been committed, +and shall exult to behold the whole earth one stain of guilt, one +mighty blood spot. Far more than this. It shall be yours to penetrate, +in every bosom, the deep mystery of sin, the fountain of all wicked +arts, and which inexhaustibly supplies more evil impulses than human +power--than my power at its utmost--can make manifest in deeds. And +now, my children, look upon each other." + +They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, the +wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, trembling +before that unhallowed altar. + +"Lo, there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep and +solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his once +angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. "Depending upon +one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that virtue were not all a +dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the nature of mankind. Evil must +be your only happiness. Welcome again, my children, to the communion of +your race." + +"Welcome," repeated the fiend worshippers, in one cry of despair and +triumph. + +And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet +hesitating on the verge of wickedness in this dark world. A basin was +hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, reddened by the +lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a liquid flame? Herein did +the shape of evil dip his hand and prepare to lay the mark of baptism +upon their foreheads, that they might be partakers of the mystery of +sin, more conscious of the secret guilt of others, both in deed and +thought, than they could now be of their own. The husband cast one look +at his pale wife, and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would the +next glance show them to each other, shuddering alike at what they +disclosed and what they saw! + +"Faith! Faith!" cried the husband, "look up to heaven, and resist the +wicked one." + +Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he spoken when he found +himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar of the wind +which died heavily away through the forest. He staggered against the +rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a hanging twig, that had been +all on fire, besprinkled his cheek with the coldest dew. + +The next morning young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street of +Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The good old +minister was taking a walk along the graveyard to get an appetite for +breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a blessing, as he +passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the venerable saint as if to +avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was at domestic worship, and the +holy words of his prayer were heard through the open window. "What God +doth the wizard pray to?" quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that +excellent old Christian, stood in the early sunshine at her own +lattice, catechizing a little girl who had brought her a pint of +morning's milk. Goodman Brown snatched away the child as from the grasp +of the fiend himself. Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied +the head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and +bursting into such joy at sight of him that she skipped along the +street and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. But +Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and passed on +without a greeting. + +Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a wild +dream of a witch-meeting? + +Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for young +Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a distrustful, if +not a desperate man did he become from the night of that fearful dream. +On the Sabbath day, when the congregation were singing a holy psalm, he +could not listen because an anthem of sin rushed loudly upon his ear +and drowned all the blessed strain. When the minister spoke from the +pulpit with power and fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open +Bible, of the sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives +and triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, then +did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should thunder down +upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, waking suddenly at +midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; and at morning or +eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled and muttered +to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he +had lived long, and was borne to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by +Faith, an aged woman, and children and grandchildren, a goodly +procession, besides neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse +upon his tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom. + + + +RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER [From the Writings of Aubepine.] + +We do not remember to have seen any translated specimens of the +productions of M. de l'Aubepine--a fact the less to be wondered at, as +his very name is unknown to many of his own countrymen as well as to +the student of foreign literature. As a writer, he seems to occupy an +unfortunate position between the Transcendentalists (who, under one +name or another, have their share in all the current literature of the +world) and the great body of pen-and-ink men who address the intellect +and sympathies of the multitude. If not too refined, at all events too +remote, too shadowy, and unsubstantial in his modes of development to +suit the taste of the latter class, and yet too popular to satisfy the +spiritual or metaphysical requisitions of the former, he must +necessarily find himself without an audience, except here and there an +individual or possibly an isolated clique. His writings, to do them +justice, are not altogether destitute of fancy and originality; they +might have won him greater reputation but for an inveterate love of +allegory, which is apt to invest his plots and characters with the +aspect of scenery and people in the clouds, and to steal away the human +warmth out of his conceptions. His fictions are sometimes historical, +sometimes of the present day, and sometimes, so far as can be +discovered, have little or no reference either to time or space. In any +case, he generally contents himself with a very slight embroidery of +outward manners,--the faintest possible counterfeit of real life,--and +endeavors to create an interest by some less obvious peculiarity of the +subject. Occasionally a breath of Nature, a raindrop of pathos and +tenderness, or a gleam of humor, will find its way into the midst of +his fantastic imagery, and make us feel as if, after all, we were yet +within the limits of our native earth. We will only add to this very +cursory notice that M. de l'Aubepine's productions, if the reader +chance to take them in precisely the proper point of view, may amuse a +leisure hour as well as those of a brighter man; if otherwise, they can +hardly fail to look excessively like nonsense. + +Our author is voluminous; he continues to write and publish with as +much praiseworthy and indefatigable prolixity as if his efforts were +crowned with the brilliant success that so justly attends those of +Eugene Sue. His first appearance was by a collection of stories in a +long series of volumes entitled "Contes deux fois racontees." The +titles of some of his more recent works (we quote from memory) are as +follows: "Le Voyage Celeste a Chemin de Fer," 3 tom., 1838; "Le nouveau +Pere Adam et la nouvelle Mere Eve," 2 tom., 1839; "Roderic; ou le +Serpent a l'estomac," 2 tom., 1840; "Le Culte du Feu," a folio volume +of ponderous research into the religion and ritual of the old Persian +Ghebers, published in 1841; "La Soiree du Chateau en Espagne," 1 tom., +8vo, 1842; and "L'Artiste du Beau; ou le Papillon Mecanique," 5 tom., +4to, 1843. Our somewhat wearisome perusal of this startling catalogue +of volumes has left behind it a certain personal affection and +sympathy, though by no means admiration, for M. de l'Aubepine; and we +would fain do the little in our power towards introducing him favorably +to the American public. The ensuing tale is a translation of his +"Beatrice; ou la Belle Empoisonneuse," recently published in "La Revue +Anti-Aristocratique." This journal, edited by the Comte de Bearhaven, +has for some years past led the defence of liberal principles and +popular rights with a faithfulness and ability worthy of all praise. + + +A young man, named Giovanni Guasconti, came, very long ago, from the +more southern region of Italy, to pursue his studies at the University +of Padua. Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of gold ducats in his +pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy chamber of an old edifice +which looked not unworthy to have been the palace of a Paduan noble, +and which, in fact, exhibited over its entrance the armorial bearings +of a family long since extinct. The young stranger, who was not +unstudied in the great poem of his country, recollected that one of the +ancestors of this family, and perhaps an occupant of this very mansion, +had been pictured by Dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of his +Inferno. These reminiscences and associations, together with the +tendency to heartbreak natural to a young man for the first time out of +his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily as he looked around +the desolate and ill-furnished apartment. + +"Holy Virgin, signor!" cried old Dame Lisabetta, who, won by the +youth's remarkable beauty of person, was kindly endeavoring to give the +chamber a habitable air, "what a sigh was that to come out of a young +man's heart! Do you find this old mansion gloomy? For the love of +Heaven, then, put your head out of the window, and you will see as +bright sunshine as you have left in Naples." + +Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not +quite agree with her that the Paduan sunshine was as cheerful as that +of southern Italy. Such as it was, however, it fell upon a garden +beneath the window and expended its fostering influences on a variety +of plants, which seemed to have been cultivated with exceeding care. + +"Does this garden belong to the house?" asked Giovanni. + +"Heaven forbid, signor, unless it were fruitful of better pot herbs +than any that grow there now," answered old Lisabetta. "No; that garden +is cultivated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, the famous +doctor, who, I warrant him, has been heard of as far as Naples. It is +said that he distils these plants into medicines that are as potent as +a charm. Oftentimes you may see the signor doctor at work, and +perchance the signora, his daughter, too, gathering the strange flowers +that grow in the garden." + +The old woman had now done what she could for the aspect of the +chamber; and, commending the young man to the protection of the saints, +took her departure. + +Giovanni still found no better occupation than to look down into the +garden beneath his window. From its appearance, he judged it to be one +of those botanic gardens which were of earlier date in Padua than +elsewhere in Italy or in the world. Or, not improbably, it might once +have been the pleasure-place of an opulent family; for there was the +ruin of a marble fountain in the centre, sculptured with rare art, but +so wofully shattered that it was impossible to trace the original +design from the chaos of remaining fragments. The water, however, +continued to gush and sparkle into the sunbeams as cheerfully as ever. +A little gurgling sound ascended to the young man's window, and made +him feel as if the fountain were an immortal spirit that sung its song +unceasingly and without heeding the vicissitudes around it, while one +century imbodied it in marble and another scattered the perishable +garniture on the soil. All about the pool into which the water subsided +grew various plants, that seemed to require a plentiful supply of +moisture for the nourishment of gigantic leaves, and in some instances, +flowers gorgeously magnificent. There was one shrub in particular, set +in a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of +purple blossoms, each of which had the lustre and richness of a gem; +and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it seemed enough +to illuminate the garden, even had there been no sunshine. Every +portion of the soil was peopled with plants and herbs, which, if less +beautiful, still bore tokens of assiduous care, as if all had their +individual virtues, known to the scientific mind that fostered them. +Some were placed in urns, rich with old carving, and others in common +garden pots; some crept serpent-like along the ground or climbed on +high, using whatever means of ascent was offered them. One plant had +wreathed itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus quite +veiled and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily +arranged that it might have served a sculptor for a study. + +While Giovanni stood at the window he heard a rustling behind a screen +of leaves, and became aware that a person was at work in the garden. +His figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself to be that of no +common laborer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow, and sickly-looking man, +dressed in a scholar's garb of black. He was beyond the middle term of +life, with gray hair, a thin, gray beard, and a face singularly marked +with intellect and cultivation, but which could never, even in his more +youthful days, have expressed much warmth of heart. + +Nothing could exceed the intentness with which this scientific gardener +examined every shrub which grew in his path: it seemed as if he was +looking into their inmost nature, making observations in regard to +their creative essence, and discovering why one leaf grew in this shape +and another in that, and wherefore such and such flowers differed among +themselves in hue and perfume. Nevertheless, in spite of this deep +intelligence on his part, there was no approach to intimacy between +himself and these vegetable existences. On the contrary, he avoided +their actual touch or the direct inhaling of their odors with a caution +that impressed Giovanni most disagreeably; for the man's demeanor was +that of one walking among malignant influences, such as savage beasts, +or deadly snakes, or evil spirits, which, should he allow them one +moment of license, would wreak upon him some terrible fatality. It was +strangely frightful to the young man's imagination to see this air of +insecurity in a person cultivating a garden, that most simple and +innocent of human toils, and which had been alike the joy and labor of +the unfallen parents of the race. Was this garden, then, the Eden of +the present world? And this man, with such a perception of harm in what +his own hands caused to grow,--was he the Adam? + +The distrustful gardener, while plucking away the dead leaves or +pruning the too luxuriant growth of the shrubs, defended his hands with +a pair of thick gloves. Nor were these his only armor. When, in his +walk through the garden, he came to the magnificent plant that hung its +purple gems beside the marble fountain, he placed a kind of mask over +his mouth and nostrils, as if all this beauty did but conceal a +deadlier malice; but, finding his task still too dangerous, he drew +back, removed the mask, and called loudly, but in the infirm voice of a +person affected with inward disease, "Beatrice! Beatrice!" + +"Here am I, my father. What would you?" cried a rich and youthful voice +from the window of the opposite house--a voice as rich as a tropical +sunset, and which made Giovanni, though he knew not why, think of deep +hues of purple or crimson and of perfumes heavily delectable. "Are you +in the garden?" + +"Yes, Beatrice," answered the gardener, "and I need your help." + +Soon there emerged from under a sculptured portal the figure of a young +girl, arrayed with as much richness of taste as the most splendid of +the flowers, beautiful as the day, and with a bloom so deep and vivid +that one shade more would have been too much. She looked redundant with +life, health, and energy; all of which attributes were bound down and +compressed, as it were and girdled tensely, in their luxuriance, by her +virgin zone. Yet Giovanni's fancy must have grown morbid while he +looked down into the garden; for the impression which the fair stranger +made upon him was as if here were another flower, the human sister of +those vegetable ones, as beautiful as they, more beautiful than the +richest of them, but still to be touched only with a glove, nor to be +approached without a mask. As Beatrice came down the garden path, it +was observable that she handled and inhaled the odor of several of the +plants which her father had most sedulously avoided. + +"Here, Beatrice," said the latter, "see how many needful offices +require to be done to our chief treasure. Yet, shattered as I am, my +life might pay the penalty of approaching it so closely as +circumstances demand. Henceforth, I fear, this plant must be consigned +to your sole charge." + +"And gladly will I undertake it," cried again the rich tones of the +young lady, as she bent towards the magnificent plant and opened her +arms as if to embrace it. "Yes, my sister, my splendour, it shall be +Beatrice's task to nurse and serve thee; and thou shalt reward her with +thy kisses and perfumed breath, which to her is as the breath of life." + +Then, with all the tenderness in her manner that was so strikingly +expressed in her words, she busied herself with such attentions as the +plant seemed to require; and Giovanni, at his lofty window, rubbed his +eyes and almost doubted whether it were a girl tending her favorite +flower, or one sister performing the duties of affection to another. +The scene soon terminated. Whether Dr. Rappaccini had finished his +labors in the garden, or that his watchful eye had caught the +stranger's face, he now took his daughter's arm and retired. Night was +already closing in; oppressive exhalations seemed to proceed from the +plants and steal upward past the open window; and Giovanni, closing the +lattice, went to his couch and dreamed of a rich flower and beautiful +girl. Flower and maiden were different, and yet the same, and fraught +with some strange peril in either shape. + +But there is an influence in the light of morning that tends to rectify +whatever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may have incurred +during the sun's decline, or among the shadows of the night, or in the +less wholesome glow of moonshine. Giovanni's first movement, on +starting from sleep, was to throw open the window and gaze down into +the garden which his dreams had made so fertile of mysteries. He was +surprised and a little ashamed to find how real and matter-of-fact an +affair it proved to be, in the first rays of the sun which gilded the +dew-drops that hung upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter +beauty to each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of +ordinary experience. The young man rejoiced that, in the heart of the +barren city, he had the privilege of overlooking this spot of lovely +and luxuriant vegetation. It would serve, he said to himself, as a +symbolic language to keep him in communion with Nature. Neither the +sickly and thoughtworn Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini, it is true, nor his +brilliant daughter, were now visible; so that Giovanni could not +determine how much of the singularity which he attributed to both was +due to their own qualities and how much to his wonder-working fancy; +but he was inclined to take a most rational view of the whole matter. + +In the course of the day he paid his respects to Signor Pietro +Baglioni, professor of medicine in the university, a physician of +eminent repute to whom Giovanni had brought a letter of introduction. +The professor was an elderly personage, apparently of genial nature, +and habits that might almost be called jovial. He kept the young man to +dinner, and made himself very agreeable by the freedom and liveliness +of his conversation, especially when warmed by a flask or two of Tuscan +wine. Giovanni, conceiving that men of science, inhabitants of the same +city, must needs be on familiar terms with one another, took an +opportunity to mention the name of Dr. Rappaccini. But the professor +did not respond with so much cordiality as he had anticipated. + +"Ill would it become a teacher of the divine art of medicine," said +Professor Pietro Baglioni, in answer to a question of Giovanni, "to +withhold due and well-considered praise of a physician so eminently +skilled as Rappaccini; but, on the other hand, I should answer it but +scantily to my conscience were I to permit a worthy youth like +yourself, Signor Giovanni, the son of an ancient friend, to imbibe +erroneous ideas respecting a man who might hereafter chance to hold +your life and death in his hands. The truth is, our worshipful Dr. +Rappaccini has as much science as any member of the faculty--with +perhaps one single exception--in Padua, or all Italy; but there are +certain grave objections to his professional character." + +"And what are they?" asked the young man. + +"Has my friend Giovanni any disease of body or heart, that he is so +inquisitive about physicians?" said the professor, with a smile. "But +as for Rappaccini, it is said of him--and I, who know the man well, can +answer for its truth--that he cares infinitely more for science than +for mankind. His patients are interesting to him only as subjects for +some new experiment. He would sacrifice human life, his own among the +rest, or whatever else was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so +much as a grain of mustard seed to the great heap of his accumulated +knowledge." + +"Methinks he is an awful man indeed," remarked Guasconti, mentally +recalling the cold and purely intellectual aspect of Rappaccini. "And +yet, worshipful professor, is it not a noble spirit? Are there many men +capable of so spiritual a love of science?" + +"God forbid," answered the professor, somewhat testily; "at least, +unless they take sounder views of the healing art than those adopted by +Rappaccini. It is his theory that all medicinal virtues are comprised +within those substances which we term vegetable poisons. These he +cultivates with his own hands, and is said even to have produced new +varieties of poison, more horribly deleterious than Nature, without the +assistance of this learned person, would ever have plagued the world +withal. That the signor doctor does less mischief than might be +expected with such dangerous substances is undeniable. Now and then, it +must be owned, he has effected, or seemed to effect, a marvellous cure; +but, to tell you my private mind, Signor Giovanni, he should receive +little credit for such instances of success,--they being probably the +work of chance,--but should be held strictly accountable for his +failures, which may justly be considered his own work." + +The youth might have taken Baglioni's opinions with many grains of +allowance had he known that there was a professional warfare of long +continuance between him and Dr. Rappaccini, in which the latter was +generally thought to have gained the advantage. If the reader be +inclined to judge for himself, we refer him to certain black-letter +tracts on both sides, preserved in the medical department of the +University of Padua. + +"I know not, most learned professor," returned Giovanni, after musing +on what had been said of Rappaccini's exclusive zeal for science,--"I +know not how dearly this physician may love his art; but surely there +is one object more dear to him. He has a daughter." + +"Aha!" cried the professor, with a laugh. "So now our friend Giovanni's +secret is out. You have heard of this daughter, whom all the young men +in Padua are wild about, though not half a dozen have ever had the good +hap to see her face. I know little of the Signora Beatrice save that +Rappaccini is said to have instructed her deeply in his science, and +that, young and beautiful as fame reports her, she is already qualified +to fill a professor's chair. Perchance her father destines her for +mine! Other absurd rumors there be, not worth talking about or +listening to. So now, Signor Giovanni, drink off your glass of +lachryma." + +Guasconti returned to his lodgings somewhat heated with the wine he had +quaffed, and which caused his brain to swim with strange fantasies in +reference to Dr. Rappaccini and the beautiful Beatrice. On his way, +happening to pass by a florist's, he bought a fresh bouquet of flowers. + +Ascending to his chamber, he seated himself near the window, but within +the shadow thrown by the depth of the wall, so that he could look down +into the garden with little risk of being discovered. All beneath his +eye was a solitude. The strange plants were basking in the sunshine, +and now and then nodding gently to one another, as if in acknowledgment +of sympathy and kindred. In the midst, by the shattered fountain, grew +the magnificent shrub, with its purple gems clustering all over it; +they glowed in the air, and gleamed back again out of the depths of the +pool, which thus seemed to overflow with colored radiance from the rich +reflection that was steeped in it. At first, as we have said, the +garden was a solitude. Soon, however,--as Giovanni had half hoped, half +feared, would be the case,--a figure appeared beneath the antique +sculptured portal, and came down between the rows of plants, inhaling +their various perfumes as if she were one of those beings of old +classic fable that lived upon sweet odors. On again beholding Beatrice, +the young man was even startled to perceive how much her beauty +exceeded his recollection of it; so brilliant, so vivid, was its +character, that she glowed amid the sunlight, and, as Giovanni +whispered to himself, positively illuminated the more shadowy intervals +of the garden path. Her face being now more revealed than on the former +occasion, he was struck by its expression of simplicity and +sweetness,--qualities that had not entered into his idea of her +character, and which made him ask anew what manner of mortal she might +be. Nor did he fail again to observe, or imagine, an analogy between +the beautiful girl and the gorgeous shrub that hung its gemlike flowers +over the fountain,--a resemblance which Beatrice seemed to have +indulged a fantastic humor in heightening, both by the arrangement of +her dress and the selection of its hues. + +Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a passionate +ardor, and drew its branches into an intimate embrace--so intimate that +her features were hidden in its leafy bosom and her glistening ringlets +all intermingled with the flowers. + +"Give me thy breath, my sister," exclaimed Beatrice; "for I am faint +with common air. And give me this flower of thine, which I separate +with gentlest fingers from the stem and place it close beside my heart." + +With these words the beautiful daughter of Rappaccini plucked one of +the richest blossoms of the shrub, and was about to fasten it in her +bosom. But now, unless Giovanni's draughts of wine had bewildered his +senses, a singular incident occurred. A small orange-colored reptile, +of the lizard or chameleon species, chanced to be creeping along the +path, just at the feet of Beatrice. It appeared to Giovanni,--but, at +the distance from which he gazed, he could scarcely have seen anything +so minute,--it appeared to him, however, that a drop or two of moisture +from the broken stem of the flower descended upon the lizard's head. +For an instant the reptile contorted itself violently, and then lay +motionless in the sunshine. Beatrice observed this remarkable +phenomenon and crossed herself, sadly, but without surprise; nor did +she therefore hesitate to arrange the fatal flower in her bosom. There +it blushed, and almost glimmered with the dazzling effect of a precious +stone, adding to her dress and aspect the one appropriate charm which +nothing else in the world could have supplied. But Giovanni, out of the +shadow of his window, bent forward and shrank back, and murmured and +trembled. + +"Am I awake? Have I my senses?" said he to himself. "What is this +being? Beautiful shall I call her, or inexpressibly terrible?" + +Beatrice now strayed carelessly through the garden, approaching closer +beneath Giovanni's window, so that he was compelled to thrust his head +quite out of its concealment in order to gratify the intense and +painful curiosity which she excited. At this moment there came a +beautiful insect over the garden wall; it had, perhaps, wandered +through the city, and found no flowers or verdure among those antique +haunts of men until the heavy perfumes of Dr. Rappaccini's shrubs had +lured it from afar. Without alighting on the flowers, this winged +brightness seemed to be attracted by Beatrice, and lingered in the air +and fluttered about her head. Now, here it could not be but that +Giovanni Guasconti's eyes deceived him. Be that as it might, he fancied +that, while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with childish delight, it +grew faint and fell at her feet; its bright wings shivered; it was +dead--from no cause that he could discern, unless it were the +atmosphere of her breath. Again Beatrice crossed herself and sighed +heavily as she bent over the dead insect. + +An impulsive movement of Giovanni drew her eyes to the window. There +she beheld the beautiful head of the young man--rather a Grecian than +an Italian head, with fair, regular features, and a glistening of gold +among his ringlets--gazing down upon her like a being that hovered in +mid air. Scarcely knowing what he did, Giovanni threw down the bouquet +which he had hitherto held in his hand. + +"Signora," said he, "there are pure and healthful flowers. Wear them +for the sake of Giovanni Guasconti." + +"Thanks, signor," replied Beatrice, with her rich voice, that came +forth as it were like a gush of music, and with a mirthful expression +half childish and half woman-like. "I accept your gift, and would fain +recompense it with this precious purple flower; but if I toss it into +the air it will not reach you. So Signor Guasconti must even content +himself with my thanks." + +She lifted the bouquet from the ground, and then, as if inwardly +ashamed at having stepped aside from her maidenly reserve to respond to +a stranger's greeting, passed swiftly homeward through the garden. But +few as the moments were, it seemed to Giovanni, when she was on the +point of vanishing beneath the sculptured portal, that his beautiful +bouquet was already beginning to wither in her grasp. It was an idle +thought; there could be no possibility of distinguishing a faded flower +from a fresh one at so great a distance. + +For many days after this incident the young man avoided the window that +looked into Dr. Rappaccini's garden, as if something ugly and monstrous +would have blasted his eyesight had he been betrayed into a glance. He +felt conscious of having put himself, to a certain extent, within the +influence of an unintelligible power by the communication which he had +opened with Beatrice. The wisest course would have been, if his heart +were in any real danger, to quit his lodgings and Padua itself at once; +the next wiser, to have accustomed himself, as far as possible, to the +familiar and daylight view of Beatrice--thus bringing her rigidly and +systematically within the limits of ordinary experience. Least of all, +while avoiding her sight, ought Giovanni to have remained so near this +extraordinary being that the proximity and possibility even of +intercourse should give a kind of substance and reality to the wild +vagaries which his imagination ran riot continually in producing. +Guasconti had not a deep heart--or, at all events, its depths were not +sounded now; but he had a quick fancy, and an ardent southern +temperament, which rose every instant to a higher fever pitch. Whether +or no Beatrice possessed those terrible attributes, that fatal breath, +the affinity with those so beautiful and deadly flowers which were +indicated by what Giovanni had witnessed, she had at least instilled a +fierce and subtle poison into his system. It was not love, although her +rich beauty was a madness to him; nor horror, even while he fancied her +spirit to be imbued with the same baneful essence that seemed to +pervade her physical frame; but a wild offspring of both love and +horror that had each parent in it, and burned like one and shivered +like the other. Giovanni knew not what to dread; still less did he know +what to hope; yet hope and dread kept a continual warfare in his +breast, alternately vanquishing one another and starting up afresh to +renew the contest. Blessed are all simple emotions, be they dark or +bright! It is the lurid intermixture of the two that produces the +illuminating blaze of the infernal regions. + +Sometimes he endeavored to assuage the fever of his spirit by a rapid +walk through the streets of Padua or beyond its gates: his footsteps +kept time with the throbbings of his brain, so that the walk was apt to +accelerate itself to a race. One day he found himself arrested; his arm +was seized by a portly personage, who had turned back on recognizing +the young man and expended much breath in overtaking him. + +"Signor Giovanni! Stay, my young friend!" cried he. "Have you forgotten +me? That might well be the case if I were as much altered as yourself." + +It was Baglioni, whom Giovanni had avoided ever since their first +meeting, from a doubt that the professor's sagacity would look too +deeply into his secrets. Endeavoring to recover himself, he stared +forth wildly from his inner world into the outer one and spoke like a +man in a dream. + +"Yes; I am Giovanni Guasconti. You are Professor Pietro Baglioni. Now +let me pass!" + +"Not yet, not yet, Signor Giovanni Guasconti," said the professor, +smiling, but at the same time scrutinizing the youth with an earnest +glance. "What! did I grow up side by side with your father? and shall +his son pass me like a stranger in these old streets of Padua? Stand +still, Signor Giovanni; for we must have a word or two before we part." + +"Speedily, then, most worshipful professor, speedily," said Giovanni, +with feverish impatience. "Does not your worship see that I am in +haste?" + +Now, while he was speaking there came a man in black along the street, +stooping and moving feebly like a person in inferior health. His face +was all overspread with a most sickly and sallow hue, but yet so +pervaded with an expression of piercing and active intellect that an +observer might easily have overlooked the merely physical attributes +and have seen only this wonderful energy. As he passed, this person +exchanged a cold and distant salutation with Baglioni, but fixed his +eyes upon Giovanni with an intentness that seemed to bring out whatever +was within him worthy of notice. Nevertheless, there was a peculiar +quietness in the look, as if taking merely a speculative, not a human +interest, in the young man. + +"It is Dr. Rappaccini!" whispered the professor when the stranger had +passed. "Has he ever seen your face before?" + +"Not that I know," answered Giovanni, starting at the name. + +"He HAS seen you! he must have seen you!" said Baglioni, hastily. "For +some purpose or other, this man of science is making a study of you. I +know that look of his! It is the same that coldly illuminates his face +as he bends over a bird, a mouse, or a butterfly, which, in pursuance +of some experiment, he has killed by the perfume of a flower; a look as +deep as Nature itself, but without Nature's warmth of love. Signor +Giovanni, I will stake my life upon it, you are the subject of one of +Rappaccini's experiments!" + +"Will you make a fool of me?" cried Giovanni, passionately. "THAT, +signor professor, were an untoward experiment." + +"Patience! patience!" replied the imperturbable professor. "I tell +thee, my poor Giovanni, that Rappaccini has a scientific interest in +thee. Thou hast fallen into fearful hands! And the Signora +Beatrice,--what part does she act in this mystery?" + +But Guasconti, finding Baglioni's pertinacity intolerable, here broke +away, and was gone before the professor could again seize his arm. He +looked after the young man intently and shook his head. + +"This must not be," said Baglioni to himself. "The youth is the son of +my old friend, and shall not come to any harm from which the arcana of +medical science can preserve him. Besides, it is too insufferable an +impertinence in Rappaccini, thus to snatch the lad out of my own hands, +as I may say, and make use of him for his infernal experiments. This +daughter of his! It shall be looked to. Perchance, most learned +Rappaccini, I may foil you where you little dream of it!" + +Meanwhile Giovanni had pursued a circuitous route, and at length found +himself at the door of his lodgings. As he crossed the threshold he was +met by old Lisabetta, who smirked and smiled, and was evidently +desirous to attract his attention; vainly, however, as the ebullition +of his feelings had momentarily subsided into a cold and dull vacuity. +He turned his eyes full upon the withered face that was puckering +itself into a smile, but seemed to behold it not. The old dame, +therefore, laid her grasp upon his cloak. + +"Signor! signor!" whispered she, still with a smile over the whole +breadth of her visage, so that it looked not unlike a grotesque carving +in wood, darkened by centuries. "Listen, signor! There is a private +entrance into the garden!" + +"What do you say?" exclaimed Giovanni, turning quickly about, as if an +inanimate thing should start into feverish life. "A private entrance +into Dr. Rappaccini's garden?" + +"Hush! hush! not so loud!" whispered Lisabetta, putting her hand over +his mouth. "Yes; into the worshipful doctor's garden, where you may see +all his fine shrubbery. Many a young man in Padua would give gold to be +admitted among those flowers." + +Giovanni put a piece of gold into her hand. + +"Show me the way," said he. + +A surmise, probably excited by his conversation with Baglioni, crossed +his mind, that this interposition of old Lisabetta might perchance be +connected with the intrigue, whatever were its nature, in which the +professor seemed to suppose that Dr. Rappaccini was involving him. But +such a suspicion, though it disturbed Giovanni, was inadequate to +restrain him. The instant that he was aware of the possibility of +approaching Beatrice, it seemed an absolute necessity of his existence +to do so. It mattered not whether she were angel or demon; he was +irrevocably within her sphere, and must obey the law that whirled him +onward, in ever-lessening circles, towards a result which he did not +attempt to foreshadow; and yet, strange to say, there came across him a +sudden doubt whether this intense interest on his part were not +delusory; whether it were really of so deep and positive a nature as to +justify him in now thrusting himself into an incalculable position; +whether it were not merely the fantasy of a young man's brain, only +slightly or not at all connected with his heart. + +He paused, hesitated, turned half about, but again went on. His +withered guide led him along several obscure passages, and finally +undid a door, through which, as it was opened, there came the sight and +sound of rustling leaves, with the broken sunshine glimmering among +them. Giovanni stepped forth, and, forcing himself through the +entanglement of a shrub that wreathed its tendrils over the hidden +entrance, stood beneath his own window in the open area of Dr. +Rappaccini's garden. + +How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to pass +and dreams have condensed their misty substance into tangible +realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly self-possessed, amid +circumstances which it would have been a delirium of joy or agony to +anticipate! Fate delights to thwart us thus. Passion will choose his +own time to rush upon the scene, and lingers sluggishly behind when an +appropriate adjustment of events would seem to summon his appearance. +So was it now with Giovanni. Day after day his pulses had throbbed with +feverish blood at the improbable idea of an interview with Beatrice, +and of standing with her, face to face, in this very garden, basking in +the Oriental sunshine of her beauty, and snatching from her full gaze +the mystery which he deemed the riddle of his own existence. But now +there was a singular and untimely equanimity within his breast. He +threw a glance around the garden to discover if Beatrice or her father +were present, and, perceiving that he was alone, began a critical +observation of the plants. + +The aspect of one and all of them dissatisfied him; their gorgeousness +seemed fierce, passionate, and even unnatural. There was hardly an +individual shrub which a wanderer, straying by himself through a +forest, would not have been startled to find growing wild, as if an +unearthly face had glared at him out of the thicket. Several also would +have shocked a delicate instinct by an appearance of artificialness +indicating that there had been such commixture, and, as it were, +adultery, of various vegetable species, that the production was no +longer of God's making, but the monstrous offspring of man's depraved +fancy, glowing with only an evil mockery of beauty. They were probably +the result of experiment, which in one or two cases had succeeded in +mingling plants individually lovely into a compound possessing the +questionable and ominous character that distinguished the whole growth +of the garden. In fine, Giovanni recognized but two or three plants in +the collection, and those of a kind that he well knew to be poisonous. +While busy with these contemplations he heard the rustling of a silken +garment, and, turning, beheld Beatrice emerging from beneath the +sculptured portal. + +Giovanni had not considered with himself what should be his deportment; +whether he should apologize for his intrusion into the garden, or +assume that he was there with the privity at least, if not by the +desire, of Dr. Rappaccini or his daughter; but Beatrice's manner placed +him at his ease, though leaving him still in doubt by what agency he +had gained admittance. She came lightly along the path and met him near +the broken fountain. There was surprise in her face, but brightened by +a simple and kind expression of pleasure. + +"You are a connoisseur in flowers, signor," said Beatrice, with a +smile, alluding to the bouquet which he had flung her from the window. +"It is no marvel, therefore, if the sight of my father's rare +collection has tempted you to take a nearer view. If he were here, he +could tell you many strange and interesting facts as to the nature and +habits of these shrubs; for he has spent a lifetime in such studies, +and this garden is his world." + +"And yourself, lady," observed Giovanni, "if fame says true,--you +likewise are deeply skilled in the virtues indicated by these rich +blossoms and these spicy perfumes. Would you deign to be my +instructress, I should prove an apter scholar than if taught by Signor +Rappaccini himself." + +"Are there such idle rumors?" asked Beatrice, with the music of a +pleasant laugh. "Do people say that I am skilled in my father's science +of plants? What a jest is there! No; though I have grown up among these +flowers, I know no more of them than their hues and perfume; and +sometimes methinks I would fain rid myself of even that small +knowledge. There are many flowers here, and those not the least +brilliant, that shock and offend me when they meet my eye. But pray, +signor, do not believe these stories about my science. Believe nothing +of me save what you see with your own eyes." + +"And must I believe all that I have seen with my own eyes?" asked +Giovanni, pointedly, while the recollection of former scenes made him +shrink. "No, signora; you demand too little of me. Bid me believe +nothing save what comes from your own lips." + +It would appear that Beatrice understood him. There came a deep flush +to her cheek; but she looked full into Giovanni's eyes, and responded +to his gaze of uneasy suspicion with a queenlike haughtiness. + +"I do so bid you, signor," she replied. "Forget whatever you may have +fancied in regard to me. If true to the outward senses, still it may be +false in its essence; but the words of Beatrice Rappaccini's lips are +true from the depths of the heart outward. Those you may believe." + +A fervor glowed in her whole aspect and beamed upon Giovanni's +consciousness like the light of truth itself; but while she spoke there +was a fragrance in the atmosphere around her, rich and delightful, +though evanescent, yet which the young man, from an indefinable +reluctance, scarcely dared to draw into his lungs. It might be the odor +of the flowers. Could it be Beatrice's breath which thus embalmed her +words with a strange richness, as if by steeping them in her heart? A +faintness passed like a shadow over Giovanni and flitted away; he +seemed to gaze through the beautiful girl's eyes into her transparent +soul, and felt no more doubt or fear. + +The tinge of passion that had colored Beatrice's manner vanished; she +became gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her communion +with the youth not unlike what the maiden of a lonely island might have +felt conversing with a voyager from the civilized world. Evidently her +experience of life had been confined within the limits of that garden. +She talked now about matters as simple as the daylight or summer +clouds, and now asked questions in reference to the city, or Giovanni's +distant home, his friends, his mother, and his sisters--questions +indicating such seclusion, and such lack of familiarity with modes and +forms, that Giovanni responded as if to an infant. Her spirit gushed +out before him like a fresh rill that was just catching its first +glimpse of the sunlight and wondering at the reflections of earth and +sky which were flung into its bosom. There came thoughts, too, from a +deep source, and fantasies of a gemlike brilliancy, as if diamonds and +rubies sparkled upward among the bubbles of the fountain. Ever and anon +there gleamed across the young man's mind a sense of wonder that he +should be walking side by side with the being who had so wrought upon +his imagination, whom he had idealized in such hues of terror, in whom +he had positively witnessed such manifestations of dreadful +attributes,--that he should be conversing with Beatrice like a brother, +and should find her so human and so maidenlike. But such reflections +were only momentary; the effect of her character was too real not to +make itself familiar at once. + +In this free intercourse they had strayed through the garden, and now, +after many turns among its avenues, were come to the shattered +fountain, beside which grew the magnificent shrub, with its treasury of +glowing blossoms. A fragrance was diffused from it which Giovanni +recognized as identical with that which he had attributed to Beatrice's +breath, but incomparably more powerful. As her eyes fell upon it, +Giovanni beheld her press her hand to her bosom as if her heart were +throbbing suddenly and painfully. + +"For the first time in my life," murmured she, addressing the shrub, "I +had forgotten thee." + +"I remember, signora," said Giovanni, "that you once promised to reward +me with one of these living gems for the bouquet which I had the happy +boldness to fling to your feet. Permit me now to pluck it as a memorial +of this interview." + +He made a step towards the shrub with extended hand; but Beatrice +darted forward, uttering a shriek that went through his heart like a +dagger. She caught his hand and drew it back with the whole force of +her slender figure. Giovanni felt her touch thrilling through his +fibres. + +"Touch it not!" exclaimed she, in a voice of agony. "Not for thy life! +It is fatal!" + +Then, hiding her face, she fled from him and vanished beneath the +sculptured portal. As Giovanni followed her with his eyes, he beheld +the emaciated figure and pale intelligence of Dr. Rappaccini, who had +been watching the scene, he knew not how long, within the shadow of the +entrance. + +No sooner was Guasconti alone in his chamber than the image of Beatrice +came back to his passionate musings, invested with all the witchery +that had been gathering around it ever since his first glimpse of her, +and now likewise imbued with a tender warmth of girlish womanhood. She +was human; her nature was endowed with all gentle and feminine +qualities; she was worthiest to be worshipped; she was capable, surely, +on her part, of the height and heroism of love. Those tokens which he +had hitherto considered as proofs of a frightful peculiarity in her +physical and moral system were now either forgotten, or, by the subtle +sophistry of passion transmitted into a golden crown of enchantment, +rendering Beatrice the more admirable by so much as she was the more +unique. Whatever had looked ugly was now beautiful; or, if incapable of +such a change, it stole away and hid itself among those shapeless half +ideas which throng the dim region beyond the daylight of our perfect +consciousness. Thus did he spend the night, nor fell asleep until the +dawn had begun to awake the slumbering flowers in Dr. Rappaccini's +garden, whither Giovanni's dreams doubtless led him. Up rose the sun in +his due season, and, flinging his beams upon the young man's eyelids, +awoke him to a sense of pain. When thoroughly aroused, he became +sensible of a burning and tingling agony in his hand--in his right +hand--the very hand which Beatrice had grasped in her own when he was +on the point of plucking one of the gemlike flowers. On the back of +that hand there was now a purple print like that of four small fingers, +and the likeness of a slender thumb upon his wrist. + +Oh, how stubbornly does love,--or even that cunning semblance of love +which flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into +the heart,--how stubbornly does it hold its faith until the moment +comes when it is doomed to vanish into thin mist! Giovanni wrapped a +handkerchief about his hand and wondered what evil thing had stung him, +and soon forgot his pain in a reverie of Beatrice. + +After the first interview, a second was in the inevitable course of +what we call fate. A third; a fourth; and a meeting with Beatrice in +the garden was no longer an incident in Giovanni's daily life, but the +whole space in which he might be said to live; for the anticipation and +memory of that ecstatic hour made up the remainder. Nor was it +otherwise with the daughter of Rappaccini. She watched for the youth's +appearance, and flew to his side with confidence as unreserved as if +they had been playmates from early infancy--as if they were such +playmates still. If, by any unwonted chance, he failed to come at the +appointed moment, she stood beneath the window and sent up the rich +sweetness of her tones to float around him in his chamber and echo and +reverberate throughout his heart: "Giovanni! Giovanni! Why tarriest +thou? Come down!" And down he hastened into that Eden of poisonous +flowers. + +But, with all this intimate familiarity, there was still a reserve in +Beatrice's demeanor, so rigidly and invariably sustained that the idea +of infringing it scarcely occurred to his imagination. By all +appreciable signs, they loved; they had looked love with eyes that +conveyed the holy secret from the depths of one soul into the depths of +the other, as if it were too sacred to be whispered by the way; they +had even spoken love in those gushes of passion when their spirits +darted forth in articulated breath like tongues of long-hidden flame; +and yet there had been no seal of lips, no clasp of hands, nor any +slightest caress such as love claims and hallows. He had never touched +one of the gleaming ringlets of her hair; her garment--so marked was +the physical barrier between them--had never been waved against him by +a breeze. On the few occasions when Giovanni had seemed tempted to +overstep the limit, Beatrice grew so sad, so stern, and withal wore +such a look of desolate separation, shuddering at itself, that not a +spoken word was requisite to repel him. At such times he was startled +at the horrible suspicions that rose, monster-like, out of the caverns +of his heart and stared him in the face; his love grew thin and faint +as the morning mist, his doubts alone had substance. But, when +Beatrice's face brightened again after the momentary shadow, she was +transformed at once from the mysterious, questionable being whom he had +watched with so much awe and horror; she was now the beautiful and +unsophisticated girl whom he felt that his spirit knew with a certainty +beyond all other knowledge. + +A considerable time had now passed since Giovanni's last meeting with +Baglioni. One morning, however, he was disagreeably surprised by a +visit from the professor, whom he had scarcely thought of for whole +weeks, and would willingly have forgotten still longer. Given up as he +had long been to a pervading excitement, he could tolerate no +companions except upon condition of their perfect sympathy with his +present state of feeling. Such sympathy was not to be expected from +Professor Baglioni. + +The visitor chatted carelessly for a few moments about the gossip of +the city and the university, and then took up another topic. + +"I have been reading an old classic author lately," said he, "and met +with a story that strangely interested me. Possibly you may remember +it. It is of an Indian prince, who sent a beautiful woman as a present +to Alexander the Great. She was as lovely as the dawn and gorgeous as +the sunset; but what especially distinguished her was a certain rich +perfume in her breath--richer than a garden of Persian roses. +Alexander, as was natural to a youthful conqueror, fell in love at +first sight with this magnificent stranger; but a certain sage +physician, happening to be present, discovered a terrible secret in +regard to her." + +"And what was that?" asked Giovanni, turning his eyes downward to avoid +those of the professor. + +"That this lovely woman," continued Baglioni, with emphasis, "had been +nourished with poisons from her birth upward, until her whole nature +was so imbued with them that she herself had become the deadliest +poison in existence. Poison was her element of life. With that rich +perfume of her breath she blasted the very air. Her love would have +been poison--her embrace death. Is not this a marvellous tale?" + +"A childish fable," answered Giovanni, nervously starting from his +chair. "I marvel how your worship finds time to read such nonsense +among your graver studies." + +"By the by," said the professor, looking uneasily about him, "what +singular fragrance is this in your apartment? Is it the perfume of your +gloves? It is faint, but delicious; and yet, after all, by no means +agreeable. Were I to breathe it long, methinks it would make me ill. It +is like the breath of a flower; but I see no flowers in the chamber." + +"Nor are there any," replied Giovanni, who had turned pale as the +professor spoke; "nor, I think, is there any fragrance except in your +worship's imagination. Odors, being a sort of element combined of the +sensual and the spiritual, are apt to deceive us in this manner. The +recollection of a perfume, the bare idea of it, may easily be mistaken +for a present reality." + +"Ay; but my sober imagination does not often play such tricks," said +Baglioni; "and, were I to fancy any kind of odor, it would be that of +some vile apothecary drug, wherewith my fingers are likely enough to be +imbued. Our worshipful friend Rappaccini, as I have heard, tinctures +his medicaments with odors richer than those of Araby. Doubtless, +likewise, the fair and learned Signora Beatrice would minister to her +patients with draughts as sweet as a maiden's breath; but woe to him +that sips them!" + +Giovanni's face evinced many contending emotions. The tone in which the +professor alluded to the pure and lovely daughter of Rappaccini was a +torture to his soul; and yet the intimation of a view of her character +opposite to his own, gave instantaneous distinctness to a thousand dim +suspicions, which now grinned at him like so many demons. But he strove +hard to quell them and to respond to Baglioni with a true lover's +perfect faith. + +"Signor professor," said he, "you were my father's friend; perchance, +too, it is your purpose to act a friendly part towards his son. I would +fain feel nothing towards you save respect and deference; but I pray +you to observe, signor, that there is one subject on which we must not +speak. You know not the Signora Beatrice. You cannot, therefore, +estimate the wrong--the blasphemy, I may even say--that is offered to +her character by a light or injurious word." + +"Giovanni! my poor Giovanni!" answered the professor, with a calm +expression of pity, "I know this wretched girl far better than +yourself. You shall hear the truth in respect to the poisoner +Rappaccini and his poisonous daughter; yes, poisonous as she is +beautiful. Listen; for, even should you do violence to my gray hairs, +it shall not silence me. That old fable of the Indian woman has become +a truth by the deep and deadly science of Rappaccini and in the person +of the lovely Beatrice." + +Giovanni groaned and hid his face + +"Her father," continued Baglioni, "was not restrained by natural +affection from offering up his child in this horrible manner as the +victim of his insane zeal for science; for, let us do him justice, he +is as true a man of science as ever distilled his own heart in an +alembic. What, then, will be your fate? Beyond a doubt you are selected +as the material of some new experiment. Perhaps the result is to be +death; perhaps a fate more awful still. Rappaccini, with what he calls +the interest of science before his eyes, will hesitate at nothing." + +"It is a dream," muttered Giovanni to himself; "surely it is a dream." + +"But," resumed the professor, "be of good cheer, son of my friend. It +is not yet too late for the rescue. Possibly we may even succeed in +bringing back this miserable child within the limits of ordinary +nature, from which her father's madness has estranged her. Behold this +little silver vase! It was wrought by the hands of the renowned +Benvenuto Cellini, and is well worthy to be a love gift to the fairest +dame in Italy. But its contents are invaluable. One little sip of this +antidote would have rendered the most virulent poisons of the Borgias +innocuous. Doubt not that it will be as efficacious against those of +Rappaccini. Bestow the vase, and the precious liquid within it, on your +Beatrice, and hopefully await the result." + +Baglioni laid a small, exquisitely wrought silver vial on the table and +withdrew, leaving what he had said to produce its effect upon the young +man's mind. + +"We will thwart Rappaccini yet," thought he, chuckling to himself, as +he descended the stairs; "but, let us confess the truth of him, he is a +wonderful man--a wonderful man indeed; a vile empiric, however, in his +practice, and therefore not to be tolerated by those who respect the +good old rules of the medical profession." + +Throughout Giovanni's whole acquaintance with Beatrice, he had +occasionally, as we have said, been haunted by dark surmises as to her +character; yet so thoroughly had she made herself felt by him as a +simple, natural, most affectionate, and guileless creature, that the +image now held up by Professor Baglioni looked as strange and +incredible as if it were not in accordance with his own original +conception. True, there were ugly recollections connected with his +first glimpses of the beautiful girl; he could not quite forget the +bouquet that withered in her grasp, and the insect that perished amid +the sunny air, by no ostensible agency save the fragrance of her +breath. These incidents, however, dissolving in the pure light of her +character, had no longer the efficacy of facts, but were acknowledged +as mistaken fantasies, by whatever testimony of the senses they might +appear to be substantiated. There is something truer and more real than +what we can see with the eyes and touch with the finger. On such better +evidence had Giovanni founded his confidence in Beatrice, though rather +by the necessary force of her high attributes than by any deep and +generous faith on his part. But now his spirit was incapable of +sustaining itself at the height to which the early enthusiasm of +passion had exalted it; he fell down, grovelling among earthly doubts, +and defiled therewith the pure whiteness of Beatrice's image. Not that +he gave her up; he did but distrust. He resolved to institute some +decisive test that should satisfy him, once for all, whether there were +those dreadful peculiarities in her physical nature which could not be +supposed to exist without some corresponding monstrosity of soul. His +eyes, gazing down afar, might have deceived him as to the lizard, the +insect, and the flowers; but if he could witness, at the distance of a +few paces, the sudden blight of one fresh and healthful flower in +Beatrice's hand, there would be room for no further question. With this +idea he hastened to the florist's and purchased a bouquet that was +still gemmed with the morning dew-drops. + +It was now the customary hour of his daily interview with Beatrice. +Before descending into the garden, Giovanni failed not to look at his +figure in the mirror,--a vanity to be expected in a beautiful young +man, yet, as displaying itself at that troubled and feverish moment, +the token of a certain shallowness of feeling and insincerity of +character. He did gaze, however, and said to himself that his features +had never before possessed so rich a grace, nor his eyes such vivacity, +nor his cheeks so warm a hue of superabundant life. + +"At least," thought he, "her poison has not yet insinuated itself into +my system. I am no flower to perish in her grasp." + +With that thought he turned his eyes on the bouquet, which he had never +once laid aside from his hand. A thrill of indefinable horror shot +through his frame on perceiving that those dewy flowers were already +beginning to droop; they wore the aspect of things that had been fresh +and lovely yesterday. Giovanni grew white as marble, and stood +motionless before the mirror, staring at his own reflection there as at +the likeness of something frightful. He remembered Baglioni's remark +about the fragrance that seemed to pervade the chamber. It must have +been the poison in his breath! Then he shuddered--shuddered at himself. +Recovering from his stupor, he began to watch with curious eye a spider +that was busily at work hanging its web from the antique cornice of the +apartment, crossing and recrossing the artful system of interwoven +lines--as vigorous and active a spider as ever dangled from an old +ceiling. Giovanni bent towards the insect, and emitted a deep, long +breath. The spider suddenly ceased its toil; the web vibrated with a +tremor originating in the body of the small artisan. Again Giovanni +sent forth a breath, deeper, longer, and imbued with a venomous feeling +out of his heart: he knew not whether he were wicked, or only +desperate. The spider made a convulsive gripe with his limbs and hung +dead across the window. + +"Accursed! accursed!" muttered Giovanni, addressing himself. "Hast thou +grown so poisonous that this deadly insect perishes by thy breath?" + +At that moment a rich, sweet voice came floating up from the garden. + +"Giovanni! Giovanni! It is past the hour! Why tarriest thou? Come down!" + +"Yes," muttered Giovanni again. "She is the only being whom my breath +may not slay! Would that it might!" + +He rushed down, and in an instant was standing before the bright and +loving eyes of Beatrice. A moment ago his wrath and despair had been so +fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as to wither her by a +glance; but with her actual presence there came influences which had +too real an existence to be at once shaken off: recollections of the +delicate and benign power of her feminine nature, which had so often +enveloped him in a religious calm; recollections of many a holy and +passionate outgush of her heart, when the pure fountain had been +unsealed from its depths and made visible in its transparency to his +mental eye; recollections which, had Giovanni known how to estimate +them, would have assured him that all this ugly mystery was but an +earthly illusion, and that, whatever mist of evil might seem to have +gathered over her, the real Beatrice was a heavenly angel. Incapable as +he was of such high faith, still her presence had not utterly lost its +magic. Giovanni's rage was quelled into an aspect of sullen +insensibility. Beatrice, with a quick spiritual sense, immediately felt +that there was a gulf of blackness between them which neither he nor +she could pass. They walked on together, sad and silent, and came thus +to the marble fountain and to its pool of water on the ground, in the +midst of which grew the shrub that bore gem-like blossoms. Giovanni was +affrighted at the eager enjoyment--the appetite, as it were--with which +he found himself inhaling the fragrance of the flowers. + +"Beatrice," asked he, abruptly, "whence came this shrub?" + +"My father created it," answered she, with simplicity. + +"Created it! created it!" repeated Giovanni. "What mean you, Beatrice?" + +"He is a man fearfully acquainted with the secrets of Nature," replied +Beatrice; "and, at the hour when I first drew breath, this plant sprang +from the soil, the offspring of his science, of his intellect, while I +was but his earthly child. Approach it not!" continued she, observing +with terror that Giovanni was drawing nearer to the shrub. "It has +qualities that you little dream of. But I, dearest Giovanni,--I grew up +and blossomed with the plant and was nourished with its breath. It was +my sister, and I loved it with a human affection; for, alas!--hast thou +not suspected it?--there was an awful doom." + +Here Giovanni frowned so darkly upon her that Beatrice paused and +trembled. But her faith in his tenderness reassured her, and made her +blush that she had doubted for an instant. + +"There was an awful doom," she continued, "the effect of my father's +fatal love of science, which estranged me from all society of my kind. +Until Heaven sent thee, dearest Giovanni, oh, how lonely was thy poor +Beatrice!" + +"Was it a hard doom?" asked Giovanni, fixing his eyes upon her. + +"Only of late have I known how hard it was," answered she, tenderly. +"Oh, yes; but my heart was torpid, and therefore quiet." + +Giovanni's rage broke forth from his sullen gloom like a lightning +flash out of a dark cloud. + +"Accursed one!" cried he, with venomous scorn and anger. "And, finding +thy solitude wearisome, thou hast severed me likewise from all the +warmth of life and enticed me into thy region of unspeakable horror!" + +"Giovanni!" exclaimed Beatrice, turning her large bright eyes upon his +face. The force of his words had not found its way into her mind; she +was merely thunderstruck. + +"Yes, poisonous thing!" repeated Giovanni, beside himself with passion. +"Thou hast done it! Thou hast blasted me! Thou hast filled my veins +with poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as ugly, as loathsome and +deadly a creature as thyself--a world's wonder of hideous monstrosity! +Now, if our breath be happily as fatal to ourselves as to all others, +let us join our lips in one kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!" + +"What has befallen me?" murmured Beatrice, with a low moan out of her +heart. "Holy Virgin, pity me, a poor heart-broken child!" + +"Thou,--dost thou pray?" cried Giovanni, still with the same fiendish +scorn. "Thy very prayers, as they come from thy lips, taint the +atmosphere with death. Yes, yes; let us pray! Let us to church and dip +our fingers in the holy water at the portal! They that come after us +will perish as by a pestilence! Let us sign crosses in the air! It will +be scattering curses abroad in the likeness of holy symbols!" + +"Giovanni," said Beatrice, calmly, for her grief was beyond passion, +"why dost thou join thyself with me thus in those terrible words? I, it +is true, am the horrible thing thou namest me. But thou,--what hast +thou to do, save with one other shudder at my hideous misery to go +forth out of the garden and mingle with thy race, and forget there ever +crawled on earth such a monster as poor Beatrice?" + +"Dost thou pretend ignorance?" asked Giovanni, scowling upon her. +"Behold! this power have I gained from the pure daughter of Rappaccini." + +There was a swarm of summer insects flitting through the air in search +of the food promised by the flower odors of the fatal garden. They +circled round Giovanni's head, and were evidently attracted towards him +by the same influence which had drawn them for an instant within the +sphere of several of the shrubs. He sent forth a breath among them, and +smiled bitterly at Beatrice as at least a score of the insects fell +dead upon the ground. + +"I see it! I see it!" shrieked Beatrice. "It is my father's fatal +science! No, no, Giovanni; it was not I! Never! never! I dreamed only +to love thee and be with thee a little time, and so to let thee pass +away, leaving but thine image in mine heart; for, Giovanni, believe it, +though my body be nourished with poison, my spirit is God's creature, +and craves love as its daily food. But my father,--he has united us in +this fearful sympathy. Yes; spurn me, tread upon me, kill me! Oh, what +is death after such words as thine? But it was not I. Not for a world +of bliss would I have done it." + +Giovanni's passion had exhausted itself in its outburst from his lips. +There now came across him a sense, mournful, and not without +tenderness, of the intimate and peculiar relationship between Beatrice +and himself. They stood, as it were, in an utter solitude, which would +be made none the less solitary by the densest throng of human life. +Ought not, then, the desert of humanity around them to press this +insulated pair closer together? If they should be cruel to one another, +who was there to be kind to them? Besides, thought Giovanni, might +there not still be a hope of his returning within the limits of +ordinary nature, and leading Beatrice, the redeemed Beatrice, by the +hand? O, weak, and selfish, and unworthy spirit, that could dream of an +earthly union and earthly happiness as possible, after such deep love +had been so bitterly wronged as was Beatrice's love by Giovanni's +blighting words! No, no; there could be no such hope. She must pass +heavily, with that broken heart, across the borders of Time--she must +bathe her hurts in some fount of paradise, and forget her grief in the +light of immortality, and THERE be well. + +But Giovanni did not know it. + +"Dear Beatrice," said he, approaching her, while she shrank away as +always at his approach, but now with a different impulse, "dearest +Beatrice, our fate is not yet so desperate. Behold! there is a +medicine, potent, as a wise physician has assured me, and almost divine +in its efficacy. It is composed of ingredients the most opposite to +those by which thy awful father has brought this calamity upon thee and +me. It is distilled of blessed herbs. Shall we not quaff it together, +and thus be purified from evil?" + +"Give it me!" said Beatrice, extending her hand to receive the little +silver vial which Giovanni took from his bosom. She added, with a +peculiar emphasis, "I will drink; but do thou await the result." + +She put Baglioni's antidote to her lips; and, at the same moment, the +figure of Rappaccini emerged from the portal and came slowly towards +the marble fountain. As he drew near, the pale man of science seemed to +gaze with a triumphant expression at the beautiful youth and maiden, as +might an artist who should spend his life in achieving a picture or a +group of statuary and finally be satisfied with his success. He paused; +his bent form grew erect with conscious power; he spread out his hands +over them in the attitude of a father imploring a blessing upon his +children; but those were the same hands that had thrown poison into the +stream of their lives. Giovanni trembled. Beatrice shuddered nervously, +and pressed her hand upon her heart. + +"My daughter," said Rappaccini, "thou art no longer lonely in the +world. Pluck one of those precious gems from thy sister shrub and bid +thy bridegroom wear it in his bosom. It will not harm him now. My +science and the sympathy between thee and him have so wrought within +his system that he now stands apart from common men, as thou dost, +daughter of my pride and triumph, from ordinary women. Pass on, then, +through the world, most dear to one another and dreadful to all +besides!" + +"My father," said Beatrice, feebly,--and still as she spoke she kept +her hand upon her heart,--"wherefore didst thou inflict this miserable +doom upon thy child?" + +"Miserable!" exclaimed Rappaccini. "What mean you, foolish girl? Dost +thou deem it misery to be endowed with marvellous gifts against which +no power nor strength could avail an enemy--misery, to be able to quell +the mightiest with a breath--misery, to be as terrible as thou art +beautiful? Wouldst thou, then, have preferred the condition of a weak +woman, exposed to all evil and capable of none?" + +"I would fain have been loved, not feared," murmured Beatrice, sinking +down upon the ground. "But now it matters not. I am going, father, +where the evil which thou hast striven to mingle with my being will +pass away like a dream-like the fragrance of these poisonous flowers, +which will no longer taint my breath among the flowers of Eden. +Farewell, Giovanni! Thy words of hatred are like lead within my heart; +but they, too, will fall away as I ascend. Oh, was there not, from the +first, more poison in thy nature than in mine?" + +To Beatrice,--so radically had her earthly part been wrought upon by +Rappaccini's skill,--as poison had been life, so the powerful antidote +was death; and thus the poor victim of man's ingenuity and of thwarted +nature, and of the fatality that attends all such efforts of perverted +wisdom, perished there, at the feet of her father and Giovanni. Just at +that moment Professor Pietro Baglioni looked forth from the window, and +called loudly, in a tone of triumph mixed with horror, to the +thunderstricken man of science, "Rappaccini! Rappaccini! and is THIS +the upshot of your experiment!" + + + +MRS. BULLFROG + +It makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible people +act in the matter of choosing wives. They perplex their judgments by a +most undue attention to little niceties of personal appearance, habits, +disposition, and other trifles which concern nobody but the lady +herself. An unhappy gentleman, resolving to wed nothing short of +perfection, keeps his heart and hand till both get so old and withered +that no tolerable woman will accept them. Now this is the very height +of absurdity. A kind Providence has so skilfully adapted sex to sex and +the mass of individuals to each other, that, with certain obvious +exceptions, any male and female may be moderately happy in the married +state. The true rule is to ascertain that the match is fundamentally a +good one, and then to take it for granted that all minor objections, +should there be such, will vanish, if you let them alone. Only put +yourself beyond hazard as to the real basis of matrimonial bliss, and +it is scarcely to be imagined what miracles, in the way of recognizing +smaller incongruities, connubial love will effect. + +For my own part I freely confess that, in my bachelorship, I was +precisely such an over-curious simpleton as I now advise the reader not +to be. My early habits had gifted me with a feminine sensibility and +too exquisite refinement. I was the accomplished graduate of a dry +goods store, where, by dint of ministering to the whims of fine ladies, +and suiting silken hose to delicate limbs, and handling satins, +ribbons, chintzes calicoes, tapes, gauze, and cambric needles, I grew +up a very ladylike sort of a gentleman. It is not assuming too much to +affirm that the ladies themselves were hardly so ladylike as Thomas +Bullfrog. So painfully acute was my sense of female imperfection, and +such varied excellence did I require in the woman whom I could love, +that there was an awful risk of my getting no wife at all, or of being +driven to perpetrate matrimony with my own image in the looking-glass. +Besides the fundamental principle already hinted at, I demanded the +fresh bloom of youth, pearly teeth, glossy ringlets, and the whole list +of lovely items, with the utmost delicacy of habits and sentiments, a +silken texture of mind, and, above all, a virgin heart. In a word, if a +young angel just from paradise, yet dressed in earthly fashion, had +come and offered me her hand, it is by no means certain that I should +have taken it. There was every chance of my becoming a most miserable +old bachelor, when, by the best luck in the world, I made a journey +into another state, and was smitten by, and smote again, and wooed, +won, and married, the present Mrs. Bullfrog, all in the space of a +fortnight. Owing to these extempore measures, I not only gave my bride +credit for certain perfections which have not as yet come to light, but +also overlooked a few trifling defects, which, however, glimmered on my +perception long before the close of the honeymoon. Yet, as there was no +mistake about the fundamental principle aforesaid, I soon learned, as +will be seen, to estimate Mrs. Bullfrog's deficiencies and +superfluities at exactly their proper value. + +The same morning that Mrs. Bullfrog and I came together as a unit, we +took two seats in the stage-coach and began our journey towards my +place of business. There being no other passengers, we were as much +alone and as free to give vent to our raptures as if I had hired a hack +for the matrimonial jaunt. My bride looked charmingly in a green silk +calash and riding habit of pelisse cloth; and whenever her red lips +parted with a smile, each tooth appeared like an inestimable pearl. +Such was my passionate warmth that--we had rattled out of the village, +gentle reader, and were lonely as Adam and Eve in paradise--I plead +guilty to no less freedom than a kiss. The gentle eye of Mrs. Bullfrog +scarcely rebuked me for the profanation. Emboldened by her indulgence, +I threw back the calash from her polished brow, and suffered my +fingers, white and delicate as her own, to stray among those dark and +glossy curls which realized my daydreams of rich hair. + +"My love," said Mrs. Bullfrog tenderly, "you will disarrange my curls." + +"Oh, no, my sweet Laura!" replied I, still playing with the glossy +ringlet. "Even your fair hand could not manage a curl more delicately +than mine. I propose myself the pleasure of doing up your hair in +papers every evening at the same time with my own." + +"Mr. Bullfrog," repeated she, "you must not disarrange my curls." + +This was spoken in a more decided tone than I had happened to hear, +until then, from my gentlest of all gentle brides. At the same time she +put up her hand and took mine prisoner; but merely drew it away from +the forbidden ringlet, and then immediately released it. Now, I am a +fidgety little man, and always love to have something in my fingers; so +that, being debarred from my wife's curls, I looked about me for any +other plaything. On the front seat of the coach there was one of those +small baskets in which travelling ladies who are too delicate to appear +at a public table generally carry a supply of gingerbread, biscuits and +cheese, cold ham, and other light refreshments, merely to sustain +nature to the journey's end. Such airy diet will sometimes keep them in +pretty good flesh for a week together. Laying hold of this same little +basket, I thrust my hand under the newspaper with which it was +carefully covered. + +"What's this, my dear?" cried I; for the black neck of a bottle had +popped out of the basket. + +"A bottle of Kalydor, Mr. Bullfrog," said my wife, coolly taking the +basket from my hands and replacing it on the front seat. + +There was no possibility of doubting my wife's word; but I never knew +genuine Kalydor, such as I use for my own complexion, to smell so much +like cherry brandy. I was about to express my fears that the lotion +would injure her skin, when an accident occurred which threatened more +than a skin-deep injury. Our Jehu had carelessly driven over a heap of +gravel and fairly capsized the coach, with the wheels in the air and +our heels where our heads should have been. What became of my wits I +cannot imagine; they have always had a perverse trick of deserting me +just when they were most needed; but so it chanced, that in the +confusion of our overthrow I quite forgot that there was a Mrs. +Bullfrog in the world. Like many men's wives, the good lady served her +husband as a steppingstone. I had scrambled out of the coach and was +instinctively settling my cravat, when somebody brushed roughly by me, +and I heard a smart thwack upon the coachman's ear. + +"Take that, you villain!" cried a strange, hoarse voice. "You have +ruined me, you blackguard! I shall never be the woman I have been!" + +And then came a second thwack, aimed at the driver's other ear; but +which missed it, and hit him on the nose, causing a terrible effusion +of blood. Now, who or what fearful apparition was inflicting this +punishment on the poor fellow remained an impenetrable mystery to me. +The blows were given by a person of grisly aspect, with a head almost +bald, and sunken cheeks, apparently of the feminine gender, though +hardly to be classed in the gentler sex. There being no teeth to +modulate the voice, it had a mumbled fierceness, not passionate, but +stern, which absolutely made me quiver like calf's-foot jelly. Who +could the phantom be? The most awful circumstance of the affair is yet +to be told: for this ogre, or whatever it was, had a riding habit like +Mrs. Bullfrog's, and also a green silk calash dangling down her back by +the strings. In my terror and turmoil of mind I could imagine nothing +less than that the Old Nick, at the moment of our overturn, had +annihilated my wife and jumped into her petticoats. This idea seemed +the most probable, since I could nowhere perceive Mrs. Bullfrog alive, +nor, though I looked very sharply about the coach, could I detect any +traces of that beloved woman's dead body. There would have been a +comfort in giving her Christian burial. + +"Come, sir, bestir yourself! Help this rascal to set up the coach," +said the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech at three +countrymen at a distance, "Here, you fellows, ain't you ashamed to +stand off when a poor woman is in distress?" + +The countrymen, instead of fleeing for their lives, came running at +full speed, and laid hold of the topsy-turvy coach. I, also, though a +small-sized man, went to work like a son of Anak. The coachman, too, +with the blood still streaming from his nose, tugged and toiled most +manfully, dreading, doubtless, that the next blow might break his head. +And yet, bemauled as the poor fellow had been, he seemed to glance at +me with an eye of pity, as if my case were more deplorable than his. +But I cherished a hope that all would turn out a dream, and seized the +opportunity, as we raised the coach, to jam two of my fingers under the +wheel, trusting that the pain would awaken me. + +"Why, here we are, all to rights again!" exclaimed a sweet voice +behind. "Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. My dear Mr. +Bullfrog, how you perspire! Do let me wipe your face. Don't take this +little accident too much to heart, good driver. We ought to be thankful +that none of our necks are broken." + +"We might have spared one neck out of the three," muttered the driver, +rubbing his ear and pulling his nose, to ascertain whether he had been +cuffed or not. "Why, the woman's a witch!" + +I fear that the reader will not believe, yet it is positively a fact, +that there stood Mrs. Bullfrog, with her glossy ringlets curling on her +brow, and two rows of orient pearls gleaming between her parted lips, +which wore a most angelic smile. She had regained her riding habit and +calash from the grisly phantom, and was, in all respects, the lovely +woman who had been sitting by my side at the instant of our overturn. +How she had happened to disappear, and who had supplied her place, and +whence she did now return, were problems too knotty for me to solve. +There stood my wife. That was the one thing certain among a heap of +mysteries. Nothing remained but to help her into the coach, and plod +on, through the journey of the day and the journey of life, as +comfortably as we could. As the driver closed the door upon us, I heard +him whisper to the three countrymen, "How do you suppose a fellow feels +shut up in the cage with a she tiger?" + +Of course this query could have no reference to my situation. Yet, +unreasonable as it may appear, I confess that my feelings were not +altogether so ecstatic as when I first called Mrs. Bullfrog mine. True, +she was a sweet woman and an angel of a wife; but what if a Gorgon +should return, amid the transports of our connubial bliss, and take the +angel's place. I recollected the tale of a fairy, who half the time was +a beautiful woman and half the time a hideous monster. Had I taken that +very fairy to be the wife of my bosom? While such whims and chimeras +were flitting across my fancy I began to look askance at Mrs. Bullfrog, +almost expecting that the transformation would be wrought before my +eyes. + +To divert my mind, I took up the newspaper which had covered the little +basket of refreshments, and which now lay at the bottom of the coach, +blushing with a deep-red stain and emitting a potent spirituous fume +from the contents of the broken bottle of Kalydor. The paper was two or +three years old, but contained an article of several columns, in which +I soon grew wonderfully interested. It was the report of a trial for +breach of promise of marriage, giving the testimony in full, with +fervid extracts from both the gentleman's and lady's amatory +correspondence. The deserted damsel had personally appeared in court, +and had borne energetic evidence to her lover's perfidy and the +strength of her blighted affections. On the defendant's part there had +been an attempt, though insufficiently sustained, to blast the +plaintiff's character, and a plea, in mitigation of damages, on account +of her unamiable temper. A horrible idea was suggested by the lady's +name. + +"Madam," said I, holding the newspaper before Mrs. Bullfrog's +eyes,--and, though a small, delicate, and thin-visaged man, I feel +assured that I looked very terrific,--"madam," repeated I, through my +shut teeth, "were you the plaintiff in this cause?" + +"Oh, my dear Mr. Bullfrog," replied my wife, sweetly, "I thought all +the world knew that!" + +"Horror! horror!" exclaimed I, sinking back on the seat. + +Covering my face with both hands, I emitted a deep and deathlike groan, +as if my tormented soul were rending me asunder--I, the most +exquisitely fastidious of men, and whose wife was to have been the most +delicate and refined of women, with all the fresh dew-drops glittering +on her virgin rosebud of a heart! + +I thought of the glossy ringlets and pearly teeth; I thought of the +Kalydor; I thought of the coachman's bruised ear and bloody nose; I +thought of the tender love secrets which she had whispered to the judge +and jury and a thousand tittering auditors,--and gave another groan! + +"Mr. Bullfrog," said my wife. + +As I made no reply, she gently took my hands within her own, removed +them from my face, and fixed her eyes steadfastly on mine. + +"Mr. Bullfrog," said she, not unkindly, yet with all the decision of +her strong character, "let me advise you to overcome this foolish +weakness, and prove yourself, to the best of your ability, as good a +husband as I will be a wife. You have discovered, perhaps, some little +imperfections in your bride. Well, what did you expect? Women are not +angels. If they were, they would go to heaven for husbands; or, at +least, be more difficult in their choice on earth." + +"But why conceal those imperfections?" interposed I, tremulously. + +"Now, my love, are not you a most unreasonable little man?" said Mrs. +Bullfrog, patting me on the cheek. "Ought a woman to disclose her +frailties earlier than the wedding day? Few husbands, I assure you, +make the discovery in such good season, and still fewer complain that +these trifles are concealed too long. Well, what a strange man you are! +Poh! you are joking." + +"But the suit for breach of promise!" groaned I. + +"Ah, and is that the rub?" exclaimed my wife. "Is it possible that you +view that affair in an objectionable light? Mr. Bullfrog, I never could +have dreamed it! Is it an objection that I have triumphantly defended +myself against slander and vindicated my purity in a court of justice? +Or do you complain because your wife has shown the proper spirit of a +woman, and punished the villain who trifled with her affections?" + +"But," persisted I, shrinking into a corner of the coach, however,--for +I did not know precisely how much contradiction the proper spirit of a +woman would endure,--"but, my love, would it not have been more +dignified to treat the villain with the silent contempt he merited?" + +"That is all very well, Mr. Bullfrog," said my wife, slyly; "but, in +that case, where would have been the five thousand dollars which are to +stock your dry goods store?" + +"Mrs. Bullfrog, upon your honor," demanded I, as if my life hung upon +her words, "is there no mistake about those five thousand dollars?" + +"Upon my word and honor there is none," replied she. "The jury gave me +every cent the rascal had; and I have kept it all for my dear Bullfrog." + +"Then, thou dear woman," cried I, with an overwhelming gush of +tenderness, "let me fold thee to my heart. The basis of matrimonial +bliss is secure, and all thy little defects and frailties are forgiven. +Nay, since the result has been so fortunate, I rejoice at the wrongs +which drove thee to this blessed lawsuit. Happy Bullfrog that I am!" + + + +THE CELESTIAL RAILROAD + +Not a great while ago, passing through the gate of dreams, I visited +that region of the earth in which lies the famous City of Destruction. +It interested me much to learn that by the public spirit of some of the +inhabitants a railroad has recently been established between this +populous and flourishing town and the Celestial City. Having a little +time upon my hands, I resolved to gratify a liberal curiosity by making +a trip thither. Accordingly, one fine morning after paying my bill at +the hotel, and directing the porter to stow my luggage behind a coach, +I took my seat in the vehicle and set out for the station-house. It was +my good fortune to enjoy the company of a gentleman--one Mr. +Smooth-it-away--who, though he had never actually visited the Celestial +City, yet seemed as well acquainted with its laws, customs, policy, and +statistics, as with those of the City of Destruction, of which he was a +native townsman. Being, moreover, a director of the railroad +corporation and one of its largest stockholders, he had it in his power +to give me all desirable information respecting that praiseworthy +enterprise. + +Our coach rattled out of the city, and at a short distance from its +outskirts passed over a bridge of elegant construction, but somewhat +too slight, as I imagined, to sustain any considerable weight. On both +sides lay an extensive quagmire, which could not have been more +disagreeable either to sight or smell, had all the kennels of the earth +emptied their pollution there. + +"This," remarked Mr. Smooth-it-away, "is the famous Slough of +Despond--a disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater that it +might so easily be converted into firm ground." + +"I have understood," said I, "that efforts have been made for that +purpose from time immemorial. Bunyan mentions that above twenty +thousand cartloads of wholesome instructions had been thrown in here +without effect." + +"Very probably! And what effect could be anticipated from such +unsubstantial stuff?" cried Mr. Smooth-it-away. "You observe this +convenient bridge. We obtained a sufficient foundation for it by +throwing into the slough some editions of books of morality, volumes of +French philosophy and German rationalism; tracts, sermons, and essays +of modern clergymen; extracts from Plato, Confucius, and various Hindoo +sages together with a few ingenious commentaries upon texts of +Scripture,--all of which by some scientific process, have been +converted into a mass like granite. The whole bog might be filled up +with similar matter." + +It really seemed to me, however, that the bridge vibrated and heaved up +and down in a very formidable manner; and, in spite of Mr. +Smooth-it-away's testimony to the solidity of its foundation, I should +be loath to cross it in a crowded omnibus, especially if each passenger +were encumbered with as heavy luggage as that gentleman and myself. +Nevertheless we got over without accident, and soon found ourselves at +the stationhouse. This very neat and spacious edifice is erected on the +site of the little wicket gate, which formerly, as all old pilgrims +will recollect, stood directly across the highway, and, by its +inconvenient narrowness, was a great obstruction to the traveller of +liberal mind and expansive stomach The reader of John Bunyan will be +glad to know that Christian's old friend Evangelist, who was accustomed +to supply each pilgrim with a mystic roll, now presides at the ticket +office. Some malicious persons it is true deny the identity of this +reputable character with the Evangelist of old times, and even pretend +to bring competent evidence of an imposture. Without involving myself +in a dispute I shall merely observe that, so far as my experience goes, +the square pieces of pasteboard now delivered to passengers are much +more convenient and useful along the road than the antique roll of +parchment. Whether they will be as readily received at the gate of the +Celestial City I decline giving an opinion. + +A large number of passengers were already at the station-house awaiting +the departure of the cars. By the aspect and demeanor of these persons +it was easy to judge that the feelings of the community had undergone a +very favorable change in reference to the celestial pilgrimage. It +would have done Bunyan's heart good to see it. Instead of a lonely and +ragged man with a huge burden on his back, plodding along sorrowfully +on foot while the whole city hooted after him, here were parties of the +first gentry and most respectable people in the neighborhood setting +forth towards the Celestial City as cheerfully as if the pilgrimage +were merely a summer tour. Among the gentlemen were characters of +deserved eminence--magistrates, politicians, and men of wealth, by +whose example religion could not but be greatly recommended to their +meaner brethren. In the ladies' apartment, too, I rejoiced to +distinguish some of those flowers of fashionable society who are so +well fitted to adorn the most elevated circles of the Celestial City. +There was much pleasant conversation about the news of the day, topics +of business and politics, or the lighter matters of amusement; while +religion, though indubitably the main thing at heart, was thrown +tastefully into the background. Even an infidel would have heard little +or nothing to shock his sensibility. + +One great convenience of the new method of going on pilgrimage I must +not forget to mention. Our enormous burdens, instead of being carried +on our shoulders as had been the custom of old, were all snugly +deposited in the baggage car, and, as I was assured, would be delivered +to their respective owners at the journey's end. Another thing, +likewise, the benevolent reader will be delighted to understand. It may +be remembered that there was an ancient feud between Prince Beelzebub +and the keeper of the wicket gate, and that the adherents of the former +distinguished personage were accustomed to shoot deadly arrows at +honest pilgrims while knocking at the door. This dispute, much to the +credit as well of the illustrious potentate above mentioned as of the +worthy and enlightened directors of the railroad, has been pacifically +arranged on the principle of mutual compromise. The prince's subjects +are now pretty numerously employed about the station-house, some in +taking care of the baggage, others in collecting fuel, feeding the +engines, and such congenial occupations; and I can conscientiously +affirm that persons more attentive to their business, more willing to +accommodate, or more generally agreeable to the passengers, are not to +be found on any railroad. Every good heart must surely exult at so +satisfactory an arrangement of an immemorial difficulty. + +"Where is Mr. Greatheart?" inquired I. "Beyond a doubt the directors +have engaged that famous old champion to be chief conductor on the +railroad?" + +"Why, no," said Mr. Smooth-it-away, with a dry cough. "He was offered +the situation of brakeman; but, to tell you the truth, our friend +Greatheart has grown preposterously stiff and narrow in his old age. He +has so often guided pilgrims over the road on foot that he considers it +a sin to travel in any other fashion. Besides, the old fellow had +entered so heartily into the ancient feud with Prince Beelzebub that he +would have been perpetually at blows or ill language with some of the +prince's subjects, and thus have embroiled us anew. So, on the whole, +we were not sorry when honest Greatheart went off to the Celestial City +in a huff and left us at liberty to choose a more suitable and +accommodating man. Yonder comes the engineer of the train. You will +probably recognize him at once." + +The engine at this moment took its station in advance of the cars, +looking, I must confess, much more like a sort of mechanical demon that +would hurry us to the infernal regions than a laudable contrivance for +smoothing our way to the Celestial City. On its top sat a personage +almost enveloped in smoke and flame, which, not to startle the reader, +appeared to gush from his own mouth and stomach as well as from the +engine's brazen abdomen. + +"Do my eyes deceive me?" cried I. "What on earth is this! A living +creature? If so, he is own brother to the engine he rides upon!" + +"Poh, poh, you are obtuse!" said Mr. Smooth-it-away, with a hearty +laugh. "Don't you know Apollyon, Christian's old enemy, with whom he +fought so fierce a battle in the Valley of Humiliation? He was the very +fellow to manage the engine; and so we have reconciled him to the +custom of going on pilgrimage, and engaged him as chief engineer." + +"Bravo, bravo!" exclaimed I, with irrepressible enthusiasm; "this shows +the liberality of the age; this proves, if anything can, that all musty +prejudices are in a fair way to be obliterated. And how will Christian +rejoice to hear of this happy transformation of his old antagonist! I +promise myself great pleasure in informing him of it when we reach the +Celestial City." + +The passengers being all comfortably seated, we now rattled away +merrily, accomplishing a greater distance in ten minutes than Christian +probably trudged over in a day. It was laughable, while we glanced +along, as it were, at the tail of a thunderbolt, to observe two dusty +foot travellers in the old pilgrim guise, with cockle shell and staff, +their mystic rolls of parchment in their hands and their intolerable +burdens on their backs. The preposterous obstinacy of these honest +people in persisting to groan and stumble along the difficult pathway +rather than take advantage of modern improvements, excited great mirth +among our wiser brotherhood. We greeted the two pilgrims with many +pleasant gibes and a roar of laughter; whereupon they gazed at us with +such woful and absurdly compassionate visages that our merriment grew +tenfold more obstreperous. Apollyon also entered heartily into the fun, +and contrived to flirt the smoke and flame of the engine, or of his own +breath, into their faces, and envelop them in an atmosphere of scalding +steam. These little practical jokes amused us mightily, and doubtless +afforded the pilgrims the gratification of considering themselves +martyrs. + +At some distance from the railroad Mr. Smooth-it-away pointed to a +large, antique edifice, which, he observed, was a tavern of long +standing, and had formerly been a noted stopping-place for pilgrims. In +Bunyan's road-book it is mentioned as the Interpreter's House. + +"I have long had a curiosity to visit that old mansion," remarked I. + +"It is not one of our stations, as you perceive," said my companion +"The keeper was violently opposed to the railroad; and well he might +be, as the track left his house of entertainment on one side, and thus +was pretty certain to deprive him of all his reputable customers. But +the footpath still passes his door, and the old gentleman now and then +receives a call from some simple traveller, and entertains him with +fare as old-fashioned as himself." + +Before our talk on this subject came to a conclusion we were rushing by +the place where Christian's burden fell from his shoulders at the sight +of the Cross. This served as a theme for Mr. Smooth-it-away, Mr. +Livefor-the-world, Mr. Hide-sin-in-the-heart, Mr. Scaly-conscience, and +a knot of gentlemen from the town of Shun-repentance, to descant upon +the inestimable advantages resulting from the safety of our baggage. +Myself, and all the passengers indeed, joined with great unanimity in +this view of the matter; for our burdens were rich in many things +esteemed precious throughout the world; and, especially, we each of us +possessed a great variety of favorite Habits, which we trusted would +not be out of fashion even in the polite circles of the Celestial City. +It would have been a sad spectacle to see such an assortment of +valuable articles tumbling into the sepulchre. Thus pleasantly +conversing on the favorable circumstances of our position as compared +with those of past pilgrims and of narrow-minded ones at the present +day, we soon found ourselves at the foot of the Hill Difficulty. +Through the very heart of this rocky mountain a tunnel has been +constructed of most admirable architecture, with a lofty arch and a +spacious double track; so that, unless the earth and rocks should +chance to crumble down, it will remain an eternal monument of the +builder's skill and enterprise. It is a great though incidental +advantage that the materials from the heart of the Hill Difficulty have +been employed in filling up the Valley of Humiliation, thus obviating +the necessity of descending into that disagreeable and unwholesome +hollow. + +"This is a wonderful improvement, indeed," said I. "Yet I should have +been glad of an opportunity to visit the Palace Beautiful and be +introduced to the charming young ladies--Miss Prudence, Miss Piety, +Miss Charity, and the rest--who have the kindness to entertain pilgrims +there." + +"Young ladies!" cried Mr. Smooth-it-away, as soon as he could speak for +laughing. "And charming young ladies! Why, my dear fellow, they are old +maids, every soul of them--prim, starched, dry, and angular; and not +one of them, I will venture to say, has altered so much as the fashion +of her gown since the days of Christian's pilgrimage." + +"Ah, well," said I, much comforted, "then I can very readily dispense +with their acquaintance." + +The respectable Apollyon was now putting on the steam at a prodigious +rate, anxious, perhaps, to get rid of the unpleasant reminiscences +connected with the spot where he had so disastrously encountered +Christian. Consulting Mr. Bunyan's road-book, I perceived that we must +now be within a few miles of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, into +which doleful region, at our present speed, we should plunge much +sooner than seemed at all desirable. In truth, I expected nothing +better than to find myself in the ditch on one side or the Quag on the +other; but on communicating my apprehensions to Mr. Smooth-it-away, he +assured me that the difficulties of this passage, even in its worst +condition, had been vastly exaggerated, and that, in its present state +of improvement, I might consider myself as safe as on any railroad in +Christendom. + +Even while we were speaking the train shot into the entrance of this +dreaded Valley. Though I plead guilty to some foolish palpitations of +the heart during our headlong rush over the causeway here constructed, +yet it were unjust to withhold the highest encomiums on the boldness of +its original conception and the ingenuity of those who executed it. It +was gratifying, likewise, to observe how much care had been taken to +dispel the everlasting gloom and supply the defect of cheerful +sunshine, not a ray of which has ever penetrated among these awful +shadows. For this purpose, the inflammable gas which exudes plentifully +from the soil is collected by means of pipes, and thence communicated +to a quadruple row of lamps along the whole extent of the passage. Thus +a radiance has been created even out of the fiery and sulphurous curse +that rests forever upon the valley--a radiance hurtful, however, to the +eyes, and somewhat bewildering, as I discovered by the changes which it +wrought in the visages of my companions. In this respect, as compared +with natural daylight, there is the same difference as between truth +and falsehood, but if the reader have ever travelled through the dark +Valley, he will have learned to be thankful for any light that he could +get--if not from the sky above, then from the blasted soil beneath. +Such was the red brilliancy of these lamps that they appeared to build +walls of fire on both sides of the track, between which we held our +course at lightning speed, while a reverberating thunder filled the +Valley with its echoes. Had the engine run off the track,--a +catastrophe, it is whispered, by no means unprecedented,--the +bottomless pit, if there be any such place, would undoubtedly have +received us. Just as some dismal fooleries of this nature had made my +heart quake there came a tremendous shriek, careering along the valley +as if a thousand devils had burst their lungs to utter it, but which +proved to be merely the whistle of the engine on arriving at a +stopping-place. + +The spot where we had now paused is the same that our friend Bunyan--a +truthful man, but infected with many fantastic notions--has designated, +in terms plainer than I like to repeat, as the mouth of the infernal +region. This, however, must be a mistake, inasmuch as Mr. +Smooth-it-away, while we remained in the smoky and lurid cavern, took +occasion to prove that Tophet has not even a metaphorical existence. +The place, he assured us, is no other than the crater of a half-extinct +volcano, in which the directors had caused forges to be set up for the +manufacture of railroad iron. Hence, also, is obtained a plentiful +supply of fuel for the use of the engines. Whoever had gazed into the +dismal obscurity of the broad cavern mouth, whence ever and anon darted +huge tongues of dusky flame, and had seen the strange, half-shaped +monsters, and visions of faces horribly grotesque, into which the smoke +seemed to wreathe itself, and had heard the awful murmurs, and shrieks, +and deep, shuddering whispers of the blast, sometimes forming +themselves into words almost articulate, would have seized upon Mr. +Smooth-it-away's comfortable explanation as greedily as we did. The +inhabitants of the cavern, moreover, were unlovely personages, dark, +smoke-begrimed, generally deformed, with misshapen feet, and a glow of +dusky redness in their eyes as if their hearts had caught fire and were +blazing out of the upper windows. It struck me as a peculiarity that +the laborers at the forge and those who brought fuel to the engine, +when they began to draw short breath, positively emitted smoke from +their mouth and nostrils. + +Among the idlers about the train, most of whom were puffing cigars +which they had lighted at the flame of the crater, I was perplexed to +notice several who, to my certain knowledge, had heretofore set forth +by railroad for the Celestial City. They looked dark, wild, and smoky, +with a singular resemblance, indeed, to the native inhabitants, like +whom, also, they had a disagreeable propensity to ill-natured gibes and +sneers, the habit of which had wrought a settled contortion of their +visages. Having been on speaking terms with one of these persons,--an +indolent, good-for-nothing fellow, who went by the name of +Take-it-easy,--I called him, and inquired what was his business there. + +"Did you not start," said I, "for the Celestial City?" + +"That's a fact," said Mr. Take-it-easy, carelessly puffing some smoke +into my eyes. "But I heard such bad accounts that I never took pains to +climb the hill on which the city stands. No business doing, no fun +going on, nothing to drink, and no smoking allowed, and a thrumming of +church music from morning till night. I would not stay in such a place +if they offered me house room and living free." + +"But, my good Mr. Take-it-easy," cried I, "why take up your residence +here, of all places in the world?" + +"Oh," said the loafer, with a grin, "it is very warm hereabouts, and I +meet with plenty of old acquaintances, and altogether the place suits +me. I hope to see you back again some day soon. A pleasant journey to +you." + +While he was speaking the bell of the engine rang, and we dashed away +after dropping a few passengers, but receiving no new ones. Rattling +onward through the Valley, we were dazzled with the fiercely gleaming +gas lamps, as before. But sometimes, in the dark of intense brightness, +grim faces, that bore the aspect and expression of individual sins, or +evil passions, seemed to thrust themselves through the veil of light, +glaring upon us, and stretching forth a great, dusky hand, as if to +impede our progress. I almost thought that they were my own sins that +appalled me there. These were freaks of imagination--nothing more, +certainly-mere delusions, which I ought to be heartily ashamed of; but +all through the Dark Valley I was tormented, and pestered, and +dolefully bewildered with the same kind of waking dreams. The mephitic +gases of that region intoxicate the brain. As the light of natural day, +however, began to struggle with the glow of the lanterns, these vain +imaginations lost their vividness, and finally vanished from the first +ray of sunshine that greeted our escape from the Valley of the Shadow +of Death. Ere we had gone a mile beyond it I could well-nigh have taken +my oath that this whole gloomy passage was a dream. + +At the end of the valley, as John Bunyan mentions, is a cavern, where, +in his days, dwelt two cruel giants, Pope and Pagan, who had strown the +ground about their residence with the bones of slaughtered pilgrims. +These vile old troglodytes are no longer there; but into their deserted +cave another terrible giant has thrust himself, and makes it his +business to seize upon honest travellers and fatten them for his table +with plentiful meals of smoke, mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, and +sawdust. He is a German by birth, and is called Giant +Transcendentalist; but as to his form, his features, his substance, and +his nature generally, it is the chief peculiarity of this huge +miscreant that neither he for himself, nor anybody for him, has ever +been able to describe them. As we rushed by the cavern's mouth we +caught a hasty glimpse of him, looking somewhat like an +ill-proportioned figure, but considerably more like a heap of fog and +duskiness. He shouted after us, but in so strange a phraseology that we +knew not what he meant, nor whether to be encouraged or affrighted. + +It was late in the day when the train thundered into the ancient city +of Vanity, where Vanity Fair is still at the height of prosperity, and +exhibits an epitome of whatever is brilliant, gay, and fascinating +beneath the sun. As I purposed to make a considerable stay here, it +gratified me to learn that there is no longer the want of harmony +between the town's-people and pilgrims, which impelled the former to +such lamentably mistaken measures as the persecution of Christian and +the fiery martyrdom of Faithful. On the contrary, as the new railroad +brings with it great trade and a constant influx of strangers, the lord +of Vanity Fair is its chief patron, and the capitalists of the city are +among the largest stockholders. Many passengers stop to take their +pleasure or make their profit in the Fair, instead of going onward to +the Celestial City. Indeed, such are the charms of the place that +people often affirm it to be the true and only heaven; stoutly +contending that there is no other, that those who seek further are mere +dreamers, and that, if the fabled brightness of the Celestial City lay +but a bare mile beyond the gates of Vanity, they would not be fools +enough to go thither. Without subscribing to these perhaps exaggerated +encomiums, I can truly say that my abode in the city was mainly +agreeable, and my intercourse with the inhabitants productive of much +amusement and instruction. + +Being naturally of a serious turn, my attention was directed to the +solid advantages derivable from a residence here, rather than to the +effervescent pleasures which are the grand object with too many +visitants. The Christian reader, if he have had no accounts of the city +later than Bunyan's time, will be surprised to hear that almost every +street has its church, and that the reverend clergy are nowhere held in +higher respect than at Vanity Fair. And well do they deserve such +honorable estimation; for the maxims of wisdom and virtue which fall +from their lips come from as deep a spiritual source, and tend to as +lofty a religious aim, as those of the sagest philosophers of old. In +justification of this high praise I need only mention the names of the +Rev. Mr. Shallow-deep, the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-truth, that fine old +clerical character the Rev. Mr. This-today, who expects shortly to +resign his pulpit to the Rev. Mr. That-tomorrow; together with the Rev. +Mr. Bewilderment, the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit, and, last and greatest, +the Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine. The labors of these eminent divines are +aided by those of innumerable lecturers, who diffuse such a various +profundity, in all subjects of human or celestial science, that any man +may acquire an omnigenous erudition without the trouble of even +learning to read. Thus literature is etherealized by assuming for its +medium the human voice; and knowledge, depositing all its heavier +particles, except, doubtless, its gold becomes exhaled into a sound, +which forthwith steals into the ever-open ear of the community. These +ingenious methods constitute a sort of machinery, by which thought and +study are done to every person's hand without his putting himself to +the slightest inconvenience in the matter. There is another species of +machine for the wholesale manufacture of individual morality. This +excellent result is effected by societies for all manner of virtuous +purposes, with which a man has merely to connect himself, throwing, as +it were, his quota of virtue into the common stock, and the president +and directors will take care that the aggregate amount be well applied. +All these, and other wonderful improvements in ethics, religion, and +literature, being made plain to my comprehension by the ingenious Mr. +Smooth-it-away, inspired me with a vast admiration of Vanity Fair. + +It would fill a volume, in an age of pamphlets, were I to record all my +observations in this great capital of human business and pleasure. +There was an unlimited range of society--the powerful, the wise, the +witty, and the famous in every walk of life; princes, presidents, +poets, generals, artists, actors, and philanthropists,--all making +their own market at the fair, and deeming no price too exorbitant for +such commodities as hit their fancy. It was well worth one's while, +even if he had no idea of buying or selling, to loiter through the +bazaars and observe the various sorts of traffic that were going +forward. + +Some of the purchasers, I thought, made very foolish bargains. For +instance, a young man having inherited a splendid fortune, laid out a +considerable portion of it in the purchase of diseases, and finally +spent all the rest for a heavy lot of repentance and a suit of rags. A +very pretty girl bartered a heart as clear as crystal, and which seemed +her most valuable possession, for another jewel of the same kind, but +so worn and defaced as to be utterly worthless. In one shop there were +a great many crowns of laurel and myrtle, which soldiers, authors, +statesmen, and various other people pressed eagerly to buy; some +purchased these paltry wreaths with their lives, others by a toilsome +servitude of years, and many sacrificed whatever was most valuable, yet +finally slunk away without the crown. There was a sort of stock or +scrip, called Conscience, which seemed to be in great demand, and would +purchase almost anything. Indeed, few rich commodities were to be +obtained without paying a heavy sum in this particular stock, and a +man's business was seldom very lucrative unless he knew precisely when +and how to throw his hoard of conscience into the market. Yet as this +stock was the only thing of permanent value, whoever parted with it was +sure to find himself a loser in the long run. Several of the +speculations were of a questionable character. Occasionally a member of +Congress recruited his pocket by the sale of his constituents; and I +was assured that public officers have often sold their country at very +moderate prices. Thousands sold their happiness for a whim. Gilded +chains were in great demand, and purchased with almost any sacrifice. +In truth, those who desired, according to the old adage, to sell +anything valuable for a song, might find customers all over the Fair; +and there were innumerable messes of pottage, piping hot, for such as +chose to buy them with their birthrights. A few articles, however, +could not be found genuine at Vanity Fair. If a customer wished to +renew his stock of youth the dealers offered him a set of false teeth +and an auburn wig; if he demanded peace of mind, they recommended opium +or a brandy bottle. + +Tracts of land and golden mansions, situate in the Celestial City, were +often exchanged, at very disadvantageous rates, for a few years' lease +of small, dismal, inconvenient tenements in Vanity Fair. Prince +Beelzebub himself took great interest in this sort of traffic, and +sometimes condescended to meddle with smaller matters. I once had the +pleasure to see him bargaining with a miser for his soul, which, after +much ingenious skirmishing on both sides, his highness succeeded in +obtaining at about the value of sixpence. The prince remarked with a +smile, that he was a loser by the transaction. + +Day after day, as I walked the streets of Vanity, my manners and +deportment became more and more like those of the inhabitants. The +place began to seem like home; the idea of pursuing my travels to the +Celestial City was almost obliterated from my mind. I was reminded of +it, however, by the sight of the same pair of simple pilgrims at whom +we had laughed so heartily when Apollyon puffed smoke and steam into +their faces at the commencement of our journey. There they stood amidst +the densest bustle of Vanity; the dealers offering them their purple +and fine linen and jewels, the men of wit and humor gibing at them, a +pair of buxom ladies ogling them askance, while the benevolent Mr. +Smooth-it-away whispered some of his wisdom at their elbows, and +pointed to a newly-erected temple; but there were these worthy +simpletons, making the scene look wild and monstrous, merely by their +sturdy repudiation of all part in its business or pleasures. + +One of them--his name was Stick-to-the-right--perceived in my face, I +suppose, a species of sympathy and almost admiration, which, to my own +great surprise, I could not help feeling for this pragmatic couple. It +prompted him to address me. + +"Sir," inquired he, with a sad, yet mild and kindly voice, "do you call +yourself a pilgrim?" + +"Yes," I replied, "my right to that appellation is indubitable. I am +merely a sojourner here in Vanity Fair, being bound to the Celestial +City by the new railroad." + +"Alas, friend," rejoined Mr. Stick-to-the-truth, "I do assure you, and +beseech you to receive the truth of my words, that that whole concern +is a bubble. You may travel on it all your lifetime, were you to live +thousands of years, and yet never get beyond the limits of Vanity Fair. +Yea, though you should deem yourself entering the gates of the blessed +city, it will be nothing but a miserable delusion." + +"The Lord of the Celestial City," began the other pilgrim, whose name +was Mr. Foot-it-to-heaven, "has refused, and will ever refuse, to grant +an act of incorporation for this railroad; and unless that be obtained, +no passenger can ever hope to enter his dominions. Wherefore every man +who buys a ticket must lay his account with losing the purchase money, +which is the value of his own soul." + +"Poh, nonsense!" said Mr. Smooth-it-away, taking my arm and leading me +off, "these fellows ought to be indicted for a libel. If the law stood +as it once did in Vanity Fair we should see them grinning through the +iron bars of the prison window." + +This incident made a considerable impression on my mind, and +contributed with other circumstances to indispose me to a permanent +residence in the city of Vanity; although, of course, I was not simple +enough to give up my original plan of gliding along easily and +commodiously by railroad. Still, I grew anxious to be gone. There was +one strange thing that troubled me. Amid the occupations or amusements +of the Fair, nothing was more common than for a person--whether at +feast, theatre, or church, or trafficking for wealth and honors, or +whatever he might be doing, to vanish like a soap bubble, and be never +more seen of his fellows; and so accustomed were the latter to such +little accidents that they went on with their business as quietly as if +nothing had happened. But it was otherwise with me. + +Finally, after a pretty long residence at the Fair, I resumed my +journey towards the Celestial City, still with Mr. Smooth-it-away at my +side. At a short distance beyond the suburbs of Vanity we passed the +ancient silver mine, of which Demas was the first discoverer, and which +is now wrought to great advantage, supplying nearly all the coined +currency of the world. A little further onward was the spot where Lot's +wife had stood forever under the semblance of a pillar of salt. Curious +travellers have long since carried it away piecemeal. Had all regrets +been punished as rigorously as this poor dame's were, my yearning for +the relinquished delights of Vanity Fair might have produced a similar +change in my own corporeal substance, and left me a warning to future +pilgrims. + +The next remarkable object was a large edifice, constructed of +moss-grown stone, but in a modern and airy style of architecture. The +engine came to a pause in its vicinity, with the usual tremendous +shriek. + +"This was formerly the castle of the redoubted giant Despair," observed +Mr. Smooth-it-away; "but since his death Mr. Flimsy-faith has repaired +it, and keeps an excellent house of entertainment here. It is one of +our stopping-places." + +"It seems but slightly put together," remarked I, looking at the frail +yet ponderous walls. "I do not envy Mr. Flimsy-faith his habitation. +Some day it will thunder down upon the heads of the occupants." + +"We shall escape at all events," said Mr. Smooth-it-away, "for Apollyon +is putting on the steam again." + +The road now plunged into a gorge of the Delectable Mountains, and +traversed the field where in former ages the blind men wandered and +stumbled among the tombs. One of these ancient tombstones had been +thrust across the track by some malicious person, and gave the train of +cars a terrible jolt. Far up the rugged side of a mountain I perceived +a rusty iron door, half overgrown with bushes and creeping plants, but +with smoke issuing from its crevices. + +"Is that," inquired I, "the very door in the hill-side which the +shepherds assured Christian was a by-way to hell?" + +"That was a joke on the part of the shepherds," said Mr. Smooth-itaway, +with a smile. "It is neither more nor less than the door of a cavern +which they use as a smoke-house for the preparation of mutton hams." + +My recollections of the journey are now, for a little space, dim and +confused, inasmuch as a singular drowsiness here overcame me, owing to +the fact that we were passing over the enchanted ground, the air of +which encourages a disposition to sleep. I awoke, however, as soon as +we crossed the borders of the pleasant land of Beulah. All the +passengers were rubbing their eyes, comparing watches, and +congratulating one another on the prospect of arriving so seasonably at +the journey's end. The sweet breezes of this happy clime came +refreshingly to our nostrils; we beheld the glimmering gush of silver +fountains, overhung by trees of beautiful foliage and delicious fruit, +which were propagated by grafts from the celestial gardens. Once, as we +dashed onward like a hurricane, there was a flutter of wings and the +bright appearance of an angel in the air, speeding forth on some +heavenly mission. The engine now announced the close vicinity of the +final station-house by one last and horrible scream, in which there +seemed to be distinguishable every kind of wailing and woe, and bitter +fierceness of wrath, all mixed up with the wild laughter of a devil or +a madman. Throughout our journey, at every stopping-place, Apollyon had +exercised his ingenuity in screwing the most abominable sounds out of +the whistle of the steam-engine; but in this closing effort he outdid +himself and created an infernal uproar, which, besides disturbing the +peaceful inhabitants of Beulah, must have sent its discord even through +the celestial gates. + +While the horrid clamor was still ringing in our ears we heard an +exulting strain, as if a thousand instruments of music, with height and +depth and sweetness in their tones, at once tender and triumphant, were +struck in unison, to greet the approach of some illustrious hero, who +had fought the good fight and won a glorious victory, and was come to +lay aside his battered arms forever. Looking to ascertain what might be +the occasion of this glad harmony, I perceived, on alighting from the +cars, that a multitude of shining ones had assembled on the other side +of the river, to welcome two poor pilgrims, who were just emerging from +its depths. They were the same whom Apollyon and ourselves had +persecuted with taunts, and gibes, and scalding steam, at the +commencement of our journey--the same whose unworldly aspect and +impressive words had stirred my conscience amid the wild revellers of +Vanity Fair. + +"How amazingly well those men have got on," cried I to Mr. +Smoothit--away. "I wish we were secure of as good a reception." + +"Never fear, never fear!" answered my friend. "Come, make haste; the +ferry boat will be off directly, and in three minutes you will be on +the other side of the river. No doubt you will find coaches to carry +you up to the city gates." + +A steam ferry boat, the last improvement on this important route, lay +at the river side, puffing, snorting, and emitting all those other +disagreeable utterances which betoken the departure to be immediate. I +hurried on board with the rest of the passengers, most of whom were in +great perturbation: some bawling out for their baggage; some tearing +their hair and exclaiming that the boat would explode or sink; some +already pale with the heaving of the stream; some gazing affrighted at +the ugly aspect of the steersman; and some still dizzy with the +slumberous influences of the Enchanted Ground. Looking back to the +shore, I was amazed to discern Mr. Smooth-it-away waving his hand in +token of farewell. + +"Don't you go over to the Celestial City?" exclaimed I. + +"Oh, no!" answered he with a queer smile, and that same disagreeable +contortion of visage which I had remarked in the inhabitants of the +Dark Valley. "Oh, no! I have come thus far only for the sake of your +pleasant company. Good-by! We shall meet again." + +And then did my excellent friend Mr. Smooth-it-away laugh outright, in +the midst of which cachinnation a smoke-wreath issued from his mouth +and nostrils, while a twinkle of lurid flame darted out of either eye, +proving indubitably that his heart was all of a red blaze. The impudent +fiend! To deny the existence of Tophet, when he felt its fiery tortures +raging within his breast. I rushed to the side of the boat, intending +to fling myself on shore; but the wheels, as they began their +revolutions, threw a dash of spray over me so cold--so deadly cold, +with the chill that will never leave those waters until Death be +drowned in his own river--that with a shiver and a heartquake I awoke. +Thank Heaven it was a Dream! + + + +THE PROCESSION OF LIFE + +Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. All of us +have our places, and are to move onward under the direction of the +Chief Marshal. The grand difficulty results from the invariably +mistaken principles on which the deputy marshals seek to arrange this +immense concourse of people, so much more numerous than those that +train their interminable length through streets and highways in times +of political excitement. Their scheme is ancient, far beyond the memory +of man or even the record of history, and has hitherto been very little +modified by the innate sense of something wrong, and the dim perception +of better methods, that have disquieted all the ages through which the +procession has taken its march. Its members are classified by the +merest external circumstances, and thus are more certain to be thrown +out of their true positions than if no principle of arrangement were +attempted. In one part of the procession we see men of landed estate or +moneyed capital gravely keeping each other company, for the +preposterous reason that they chance to have a similar standing in the +tax-gatherer's book. Trades and professions march together with +scarcely a more real bond of union. In this manner, it cannot be +denied, people are disentangled from the mass and separated into +various classes according to certain apparent relations; all have some +artificial badge which the world, and themselves among the first, learn +to consider as a genuine characteristic. Fixing our attention on such +outside shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of those +realities by which nature, fortune, fate, or Providence has constituted +for every man a brotherhood, wherein it is one great office of human +wisdom to classify him. When the mind has once accustomed itself to a +proper arrangement of the Procession of Life, or a true classification +of society, even though merely speculative, there is thenceforth a +satisfaction which pretty well suffices for itself without the aid of +any actual reformation in the order of march. + +For instance, assuming to myself the power of marshalling the aforesaid +procession, I direct a trumpeter to send forth a blast loud enough to +be heard from hence to China; and a herald, with world-pervading voice, +to make proclamation for a certain class of mortals to take their +places. What shall be their principle of union? After all, an external +one, in comparison with many that might be found, yet far more real +than those which the world has selected for a similar purpose. Let all +who are afflicted with like physical diseases form themselves into +ranks. + +Our first attempt at classification is not very successful. It may +gratify the pride of aristocracy to reflect that disease, more than any +other circumstance of human life, pays due observance to the +distinctions which rank and wealth, and poverty and lowliness, have +established among mankind. Some maladies are rich and precious, and +only to be acquired by the right of inheritance or purchased with gold. +Of this kind is the gout, which serves as a bond of brotherhood to the +purple-visaged gentry, who obey the herald's voice, and painfully +hobble from all civilized regions of the globe to take their post in +the grand procession. In mercy to their toes, let us hope that the +march may not be long. The Dyspeptics, too, are people of good standing +in the world. For them the earliest salmon is caught in our eastern +rivers, and the shy woodcock stains the dry leaves with his blood in +his remotest haunts, and the turtle comes from the far Pacific Islands +to be gobbled up in soup. They can afford to flavor all their dishes +with indolence, which, in spite of the general opinion, is a sauce more +exquisitely piquant than appetite won by exercise. Apoplexy is another +highly respectable disease. We will rank together all who have the +symptom of dizziness in the brain, and as fast as any drop by the way +supply their places with new members of the board of aldermen. + +On the other hand, here come whole tribes of people whose physical +lives are but a deteriorated variety of life, and themselves a meaner +species of mankind; so sad an effect has been wrought by the tainted +breath of cities, scanty and unwholesome food, destructive modes of +labor, and the lack of those moral supports that might partially have +counteracted such bad influences. Behold here a train of house +painters, all afflicted with a peculiar sort of colic. Next in place we +will marshal those workmen in cutlery, who have breathed a fatal +disorder into their lungs with the impalpable dust of steel. Tailors +and shoemakers, being sedentary men, will chiefly congregate into one +part of the procession and march under similar banners of disease; but +among them we may observe here and there a sickly student, who has left +his health between the leaves of classic volumes; and clerks, likewise, +who have caught their deaths on high official stools; and men of genius +too, who have written sheet after sheet with pens dipped in their +heart's blood. These are a wretched quaking, short-breathed set. But +what is this cloud of pale-cheeked, slender girls, who disturb the ear +with the multiplicity of their short, dry coughs? They are +seamstresses, who have plied the daily and nightly needle in the +service of master tailors and close-fisted contractors, until now it is +almost time for each to hem the borders of her own shroud. Consumption +points their place in the procession. With their sad sisterhood are +intermingled many youthful maidens who have sickened in aristocratic +mansions, and for whose aid science has unavailingly searched its +volumes, and whom breathless love has watched. In our ranks the rich +maiden and the poor seamstress may walk arm in arm. We might find +innumerable other instances, where the bond of mutual disease--not to +speak of nation-sweeping pestilence--embraces high and low, and makes +the king a brother of the clown. But it is not hard to own that disease +is the natural aristocrat. Let him keep his state, and have his +established orders of rank, and wear his royal mantle of the color of a +fever flush and let the noble and wealthy boast their own physical +infirmities, and display their symptoms as the badges of high station. +All things considered, these are as proper subjects of human pride as +any relations of human rank that men can fix upon. + +Sound again, thou deep-breathed trumpeter! and herald, with thy voice +of might, shout forth another summons that shall reach the old baronial +castles of Europe, and the rudest cabin of our western wilderness! What +class is next to take its place in the procession of mortal life? Let +it be those whom the gifts of intellect have united in a noble +brotherhood. + +Ay, this is a reality, before which the conventional distinctions of +society melt away like a vapor when we would grasp it with the hand. +Were Byron now alive, and Burns, the first would come from his +ancestral abbey, flinging aside, although unwillingly, the inherited +honors of a thousand years, to take the arm of the mighty peasant who +grew immortal while he stooped behind his plough. These are gone; but +the hall, the farmer's fireside, the hut, perhaps the palace, the +counting-room, the workshop, the village, the city, life's high places +and low ones, may all produce their poets, whom a common temperament +pervades like an electric sympathy. Peer or ploughman, we will muster +them pair by pair and shoulder to shoulder. Even society, in its most +artificial state, consents to this arrangement. These factory girls +from Lowell shall mate themselves with the pride of drawing-rooms and +literary circles, the bluebells in fashion's nosegay, the Sapphos, and +Montagues, and Nortons of the age. Other modes of intellect bring +together as strange companies. Silk-gowned professor of languages, give +your arm to this sturdy blacksmith, and deem yourself honored by the +conjunction, though you behold him grimy from the anvil. All varieties +of human speech are like his mother tongue to this rare man. +Indiscriminately let those take their places, of whatever rank they +come, who possess the kingly gifts to lead armies or to sway a +people--Nature's generals, her lawgivers, her kings, and with them also +the deep philosophers who think the thought in one generation that is +to revolutionize society in the next. With the hereditary legislator in +whom eloquence is a far-descended attainment--a rich echo repeated by +powerful voices from Cicero downward--we will match some wondrous +backwoodsman, who has caught a wild power of language from the breeze +among his native forest boughs. But we may safely leave these brethren +and sisterhood to settle their own congenialities. Our ordinary +distinctions become so trifling, so impalpable, so ridiculously +visionary, in comparison with a classification founded on truth, that +all talk about the matter is immediately a common place. + +Yet the longer I reflect the less am I satisfied with the idea of +forming a separate class of mankind on the basis of high intellectual +power. At best it is but a higher development of innate gifts common to +all. Perhaps, moreover, he whose genius appears deepest and truest +excels his fellows in nothing save the knack of expression; he throws +out occasionally a lucky hint at truths of which every human soul is +profoundly, though unutterably, conscious. Therefore, though we suffer +the brotherhood of intellect to march onward together, it may be +doubted whether their peculiar relation will not begin to vanish as +soon as the procession shall have passed beyond the circle of this +present world. But we do not classify for eternity. + +And next, let the trumpet pour forth a funereal wail, and the herald's +voice give breath in one vast cry to all the groans and grievous +utterances that are audible throughout the earth. We appeal now to the +sacred bond of sorrow, and summon the great multitude who labor under +similar afflictions to take their places in the march. + +How many a heart that would have been insensible to any other call has +responded to the doleful accents of that voice! It has gone far and +wide, and high and low, and left scarcely a mortal roof unvisited. +Indeed, the principle is only too universal for our purpose, and, +unless we limit it, will quite break up our classification of mankind, +and convert the whole procession into a funeral train. We will +therefore be at some pains to discriminate. Here comes a lonely rich +man: he has built a noble fabric for his dwelling-house, with a front +of stately architecture and marble floors and doors of precious woods; +the whole structure is as beautiful as a dream and as substantial as +the native rock. But the visionary shapes of a long posterity, for +whose home this mansion was intended, have faded into nothingness since +the death of the founder's only son. The rich man gives a glance at his +sable garb in one of the splendid mirrors of his drawing-room, and +descending a flight of lofty steps instinctively offers his arm to +yonder poverty stricken widow in the rusty black bonnet, and with a +check apron over her patched gown. The sailor boy, who was her sole +earthly stay, was washed overboard in a late tempest. This couple from +the palace and the almshouse are but the types of thousands more who +represent the dark tragedy of life and seldom quarrel for the upper +parts. Grief is such a leveller, with its own dignity and its own +humility, that the noble and the peasant, the beggar and the monarch, +will waive their pretensions to external rank without the officiousness +of interference on our part. If pride--the influence of the world's +false distinctions--remain in the heart, then sorrow lacks the +earnestness which makes it holy and reverend. It loses its reality and +becomes a miserable shadow. On this ground we have an opportunity to +assign over multitudes who would willingly claim places here to other +parts of the procession. If the mourner have anything dearer than his +grief he must seek his true position elsewhere. There are so many +unsubstantial sorrows which the necessity of our mortal state begets on +idleness, that an observer, casting aside sentiment, is sometimes led +to question whether there be any real woe, except absolute physical +suffering and the loss of closest friends. A crowd who exhibit what +they deem to be broken hearts--and among them many lovelorn maids and +bachelors, and men of disappointed ambition in arts or politics, and +the poor who were once rich, or who have sought to be rich in vain--the +great majority of these may ask admittance into some other fraternity. +There is no room here. Perhaps we may institute a separate class where +such unfortunates will naturally fall into the procession. Meanwhile +let them stand aside and patiently await their time. + +If our trumpeter can borrow a note from the doomsday trumpet blast, let +him sound it now. The dread alarum should make the earth quake to its +centre, for the herald is about to address mankind with a summons to +which even the purest mortal may be sensible of some faint responding +echo in his breast. In many bosoms it will awaken a still small voice +more terrible than its own reverberating uproar. + +The hideous appeal has swept around the globe. Come, all ye guilty +ones, and rank yourselves in accordance with the brotherhood of crime. +This, indeed, is an awful summons. I almost tremble to look at the +strange partnerships that begin to be formed, reluctantly, but by the +in vincible necessity of like to like in this part of the procession. A +forger from the state prison seizes the arm of a distinguished +financier. How indignantly does the latter plead his fair reputation +upon 'Change, and insist that his operations, by their magnificence of +scope, were removed into quite another sphere of morality than those of +his pitiful companion! But let him cut the connection if he can. Here +comes a murderer with his clanking chains, and pairs himself--horrible +to tell--with as pure and upright a man, in all observable respects, as +ever partook of the consecrated bread and wine. He is one of those, +perchance the most hopeless of all sinners, who practise such an +exemplary system of outward duties, that even a deadly crime may be +hidden from their own sight and remembrance, under this unreal +frostwork. Yet he now finds his place. Why do that pair of flaunting +girls, with the pert, affected laugh and the sly leer at the +by-standers, intrude themselves into the same rank with yonder decorous +matron, and that somewhat prudish maiden? Surely these poor creatures, +born to vice as their sole and natural inheritance, can be no fit +associates for women who have been guarded round about by all the +proprieties of domestic life, and who could not err unless they first +created the opportunity. Oh no; it must be merely the impertinence of +those unblushing hussies; and we can only wonder how such respectable +ladies should have responded to a summons that was not meant for them. + +We shall make short work of this miserable class, each member of which +is entitled to grasp any other member's hand, by that vile degradation +wherein guilty error has buried all alike. The foul fiend to whom it +properly belongs must relieve us of our loathsome task. Let the bond +servants of sin pass on. But neither man nor woman, in whom good +predominates, will smile or sneer, nor bid the Rogues' March be played, +in derision of their array. Feeling within their breasts a shuddering +sympathy, which at least gives token of the sin that might have been, +they will thank God for any place in the grand procession of human +existence, save among those most wretched ones. Many, however, will be +astonished at the fatal impulse that drags them thitherward. Nothing is +more remarkable than the various deceptions by which guilt conceals +itself from the perpetrator's conscience, and oftenest, perhaps, by the +splendor of its garments. Statesmen, rulers, generals, and all men who +act over an extensive sphere, are most liable to be deluded in this +way; they commit wrong, devastation, and murder, on so grand a scale, +that it impresses them as speculative rather than actual; but in our +procession we find them linked in detestable conjunction with the +meanest criminals whose deeds have the vulgarity of petty details. Here +the effect of circumstance and accident is done away, and a man finds +his rank according to the spirit of his crime, in whatever shape it may +have been developed. + +We have called the Evil; now let us call the Good. The trumpet's brazen +throat should pour heavenly music over the earth, and the herald's +voice go forth with the sweetness of an angel's accents, as if to +summon each upright man to his reward. But how is this? Does none +answer to the call? Not one: for the just, the pure, the true, and an +who might most worthily obey it, shrink sadly back, as most conscious +of error and imperfection. Then let the summons be to those whose +pervading principle is Love. This classification will embrace all the +truly good, and none in whose souls there exists not something that may +expand itself into a heaven, both of well-doing and felicity. + +The first that presents himself is a man of wealth, who has bequeathed +the bulk of his property to a hospital; his ghost, methinks, would have +a better right here than his living body. But here they come, the +genuine benefactors of their race. Some have wandered about the earth +with pictures of bliss in their imagination, and with hearts that +shrank sensitively from the idea of pain and woe, yet have studied all +varieties of misery that human nature can endure. The prison, the +insane asylum, the squalid chamber of the almshouse, the manufactory +where the demon of machinery annihilates the human soul, and the cotton +field where God's image becomes a beast of burden; to these and every +other scene where man wrongs or neglects his brother, the apostles of +humanity have penetrated. This missionary, black with India's burning +sunshine, shall give his arm to a pale-faced brother who has made +himself familiar with the infected alleys and loathsome haunts of vice +in one of our own cities. The generous founder of a college shall be +the partner of a maiden lady of narrow substance, one of whose good +deeds it has been to gather a little school of orphan children. If the +mighty merchant whose benefactions are reckoned by thousands of dollars +deem himself worthy, let him join the procession with her whose love +has proved itself by watchings at the sick-bed, and all those lowly +offices which bring her into actual contact with disease and +wretchedness. And with those whose impulses have guided them to +benevolent actions, we will rank others to whom Providence has assigned +a different tendency and different powers. Men who have spent their +lives in generous and holy contemplation for the human race; those who, +by a certain heavenliness of spirit, have purified the atmosphere +around them, and thus supplied a medium in which good and high things +may be projected and performed--give to these a lofty place among the +benefactors of mankind, although no deed, such as the world calls +deeds, may be recorded of them. There are some individuals of whom we +cannot conceive it proper that they should apply their hands to any +earthly instrument, or work out any definite act; and others, perhaps +not less high, to whom it is an essential attribute to labor in body as +well as spirit for the welfare of their brethren. Thus, if we find a +spiritual sage whose unseen, inestimable influence has exalted the +moral standard of mankind, we will choose for his companion some poor +laborer who has wrought for love in the potato field of a neighbor +poorer than himself. + +We have summoned this various multitude--and, to the credit of our +nature, it is a large one--on the principle of Love. It is singular, +nevertheless, to remark the shyness that exists among many members of +the present class, all of whom we might expect to recognize one another +by the freemasonry of mutual goodness, and to embrace like brethren, +giving God thanks for such various specimens of human excellence. But +it is far otherwise. Each sect surrounds its own righteousness with a +hedge of thorns. It is difficult for the good Christian to acknowledge +the good Pagan; almost impossible for the good Orthodox to grasp the +hand of the good Unitarian, leaving to their Creator to settle the +matters in dispute, and giving their mutual efforts strongly and +trustingly to whatever right thing is too evident to be mistaken. Then +again, though the heart be large, yet the mind is often of such +moderate dimensions as to be exclusively filled up with one idea. When +a good man has long devoted himself to a particular kind of +beneficence--to one species of reform--he is apt to become narrowed +into the limits of the path wherein he treads, and to fancy that there +is no other good to be done on earth but that self-same good to which +he has put his hand, and in the very mode that best suits his own +conceptions. All else is worthless. His scheme must be wrought out by +the united strength of the whole world's stock of love, or the world is +no longer worthy of a position in the universe. Moreover, powerful +Truth, being the rich grape juice expressed from the vineyard of the +ages, has an intoxicating quality, when imbibed by any save a powerful +intellect, and often, as it were, impels the quaffer to quarrel in his +cups. For such reasons, strange to say, it is harder to contrive a +friendly arrangement of these brethren of love and righteousness, in +the procession of life, than to unite even the wicked, who, indeed, are +chained together by their crimes. The fact is too preposterous for +tears, too lugubrious for laughter. + +But, let good men push and elbow one another as they may during their +earthly march, all will be peace among them when the honorable array or +their procession shall tread on heavenly ground. There they will +doubtless find that they have been working each for the other's cause, +and that every well-delivered stroke, which, with an honest purpose any +mortal struck, even for a narrow object, was indeed stricken for the +universal cause of good. Their own view may be bounded by country, +creed, profession, the diversities of individual character--but above +them all is the breadth of Providence. How many who have deemed +themselves antagonists will smile hereafter, when they look back upon +the world's wide harvest field, and perceive that, in unconscious +brotherhood, they were helping to bind the selfsame sheaf! + +But, come! The sun is hastening westward, while the march of human +life, that never paused before, is delayed by our attempt to rearrange +its order. It is desirable to find some comprehensive principle, that +shall render our task easier by bringing thousands into the ranks where +hitherto we have brought one. Therefore let the trumpet, if possible, +split its brazen throat with a louder note than ever, and the herald +summon all mortals, who, from whatever cause, have lost, or never +found, their proper places in the wold. + +Obedient to this call, a great multitude come together, most of them +with a listless gait, betokening weariness of soul, yet with a gleam of +satisfaction in their faces, at a prospect of at length reaching those +positions which, hitherto, they have vainly sought. But here will be +another disappointment; for we can attempt no more than merely to +associate in one fraternity all who are afflicted with the same vague +trouble. Some great mistake in life is the chief condition of +admittance into this class. Here are members of the learned +professions, whom Providence endowed with special gifts for the plough, +the forge, and the wheelbarrow, or for the routine of unintellectual +business. We will assign to them, as partners in the march, those lowly +laborers and handicraftsmen, who have pined, as with a dying thirst, +after the unattainable fountains of knowledge. The latter have lost +less than their companions; yet more, because they deem it infinite. +Perchance the two species of unfortunates may comfort one another. Here +are Quakers with the instinct of battle in them; and men of war who +should have worn the broad brim. Authors shall be ranked here whom some +freak of Nature, making game of her poor children, had imbued with the +confidence of genius and strong desire of fame, but has favored with no +corresponding power; and others, whose lofty gifts were unaccompanied +with the faculty of expression, or any of that earthly machinery by +which ethereal endowments must be manifested to mankind. All these, +therefore, are melancholy laughing-stocks. Next, here are honest and +well intentioned persons, who by a want of tact--by inaccurate +perceptions--by a distorting imagination--have been kept continually at +cross purposes with the world and bewildered upon the path of life. Let +us see if they can confine themselves within the line of our +procession. In this class, likewise, we must assign places to those who +have encountered that worst of ill success, a higher fortune than their +abilities could vindicate; writers, actors, painters, the pets of a +day, but whose laurels wither unrenewed amid their hoary hair; +politicians, whom some malicious contingency of affairs has thrust into +conspicuous station, where, while the world stands gazing at them, the +dreary consciousness of imbecility makes them curse their birth hour. +To such men, we give for a companion him whose rare talents, which +perhaps require a Revolution for their exercise, are buried in the tomb +of sluggish circumstances. + +Not far from these, we must find room for one whose success has been of +the wrong kind; the man who should have lingered in the cloisters of a +university, digging new treasures out of the Herculaneum of antique +lore, diffusing depth and accuracy of literature throughout his +country, and thus making for himself a great and quiet fame. But the +outward tendencies around him have proved too powerful for his inward +nature, and have drawn him into the arena of political tumult, there to +contend at disadvantage, whether front to front, or side by side, with +the brawny giants of actual life. He becomes, it may be, a name for +brawling parties to bandy to and fro, a legislator of the Union; a +governor of his native state; an ambassador to the courts of kings or +queens; and the world may deem him a man of happy stars. But not so the +wise; and not so himself, when he looks through his experience, and +sighs to miss that fitness, the one invaluable touch which makes all +things true and real. So much achieved, yet how abortive is his life! +Whom shall we choose for his companion? Some weak framed blacksmith, +perhaps, whose delicacy of muscle might have suited a tailor's +shopboard better than the anvil. + +Shall we bid the trumpet sound again? It is hardly worth the while. +There remain a few idle men of fortune, tavern and grog-shop loungers, +lazzaroni, old bachelors, decaying maidens, and people of crooked +intellect or temper, all of whom may find their like, or some tolerable +approach to it, in the plentiful diversity of our latter class. There +too, as his ultimate destiny, must we rank the dreamer, who, all his +life long, has cherished the idea that he was peculiarly apt for +something, but never could determine what it was; and there the most +unfortunate of men, whose purpose it has been to enjoy life's +pleasures, but to avoid a manful struggle with its toil and sorrow. The +remainder, if any, may connect themselves with whatever rank of the +procession they shall find best adapted to their tastes and +consciences. The worst possible fate would be to remain behind, +shivering in the solitude of time, while all the world is on the move +towards eternity. Our attempt to classify society is now complete. The +result may be anything but perfect; yet better--to give it the very +lowest praise--than the antique rule of the herald's office, or the +modern one of the tax-gatherer, whereby the accidents and superficial +attributes with which the real nature of individuals has least to do, +are acted upon as the deepest characteristics of mankind. Our task is +done! Now let the grand procession move! + +Yet pause a while! We had forgotten the Chief Marshal. + +Hark! That world-wide swell of solemn music, with the clang of a mighty +bell breaking forth through its regulated uproar, announces his +approach. He comes; a severe, sedate, immovable, dark rider, waving his +truncheon of universal sway, as he passes along the lengthened line, on +the pale horse of the Revelation. It is Death! Who else could assume +the guidance of a procession that comprehends all humanity? And if +some, among these many millions, should deem themselves classed amiss, +yet let them take to their hearts the comfortable truth that Death +levels us all into one great brotherhood, and that another state of +being will surely rectify the wrong of this. Then breathe thy wail upon +the earth's wailing wind, thou band of melancholy music, made up of +every sigh that the human heart, unsatisfied, has uttered! There is yet +triumph in thy tones. And now we move! Beggars in their rags, and Kings +trailing the regal purple in the dust; the Warrior's gleaming helmet; +the Priest in his sable robe; the hoary Grandsire, who has run life's +circle and come back to childhood; the ruddy School-boy with his golden +curls, frisking along the march; the Artisan's stuff jacket; the +Noble's star-decorated coat;--the whole presenting a motley spectacle, +yet with a dusky grandeur brooding over it. Onward, onward, into that +dimness where the lights of Time which have blazed along the +procession, are flickering in their sockets! And whither! We know not; +and Death, hitherto our leader, deserts us by the wayside, as the tramp +of our innumerable footsteps echoes beyond his sphere. He knows not, +more than we, our destined goal. But God, who made us, knows, and will +not leave us on our toilsome and doubtful march, either to wander in +infinite uncertainty, or perish by the way! + + + +FEATHERTOP: A MORALIZED LEGEND + +"Dickon," cried Mother Rigby, "a coal for my pipe!" + +The pipe was in the old dame's mouth when she said these words. She had +thrust it there after filling it with tobacco, but without stooping to +light it at the hearth, where indeed there was no appearance of a fire +having been kindled that morning. Forthwith, however, as soon as the +order was given, there was an intense red glow out of the bowl of the +pipe, and a whiff of smoke came from Mother Rigby's lips. Whence the +coal came, and how brought thither by an invisible hand, I have never +been able to discover. + +"Good!" quoth Mother Rigby, with a nod of her head. "Thank ye, Dickon! +And now for making this scarecrow. Be within call, Dickon, in case I +need you again." + +The good woman had risen thus early (for as yet it was scarcely +sunrise) in order to set about making a scarecrow, which she intended +to put in the middle of her corn-patch. It was now the latter week of +May, and the crows and blackbirds had already discovered the little, +green, rolledup leaf of the Indian corn just peeping out of the soil. +She was determined, therefore, to contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as +ever was seen, and to finish it immediately, from top to toe, so that +it should begin its sentinel's duty that very morning. Now Mother Rigby +(as everybody must have heard) was one of the most cunning and potent +witches in New England, and might, with very little trouble, have made +a scarecrow ugly enough to frighten the minister himself. But on this +occasion, as she had awakened in an uncommonly pleasant humor, and was +further dulcified by her pipe tobacco, she resolved to produce +something fine, beautiful, and splendid, rather than hideous and +horrible. + +"I don't want to set up a hobgoblin in my own corn-patch, and almost at +my own doorstep," said Mother Rigby to herself, puffing out a whiff of +smoke; "I could do it if I pleased, but I'm tired of doing marvellous +things, and so I'll keep within the bounds of every-day business just +for variety's sake. Besides, there is no use in scaring the little +children for a mile roundabout, though 't is true I'm a witch." + +It was settled, therefore, in her own mind, that the scarecrow should +represent a fine gentleman of the period, so far as the materials at +hand would allow. Perhaps it may be as well to enumerate the chief of +the articles that went to the composition of this figure. + +The most important item of all, probably, although it made so little +show, was a certain broomstick, on which Mother Rigby had taken many an +airy gallop at midnight, and which now served the scarecrow by way of a +spinal column, or, as the unlearned phrase it, a backbone. One of its +arms was a disabled flail which used to be wielded by Goodman Rigby, +before his spouse worried him out of this troublesome world; the other, +if I mistake not, was composed of the pudding stick and a broken rung +of a chair, tied loosely together at the elbow. As for its legs, the +right was a hoe handle, and the left an undistinguished and +miscellaneous stick from the woodpile. Its lungs, stomach, and other +affairs of that kind were nothing better than a meal bag stuffed with +straw. Thus we have made out the skeleton and entire corporosity of the +scarecrow, with the exception of its head; and this was admirably +supplied by a somewhat withered and shrivelled pumpkin, in which Mother +Rigby cut two holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth, leaving a +bluish-colored knob in the middle to pass for a nose. It was really +quite a respectable face. + +"I've seen worse ones on human shoulders, at any rate," said Mother +Rigby. "And many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin head, as well as my +scarecrow." + +But the clothes, in this case, were to be the making of the man. So the +good old woman took down from a peg an ancient plum-colored coat of +London make, and with relics of embroidery on its seams, cuffs, +pocket-flaps, and button-holes, but lamentably worn and faded, patched +at the elbows, tattered at the skirts, and threadbare all over. On the +left breast was a round hole, whence either a star of nobility had been +rent away, or else the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it +through and through. The neighbors said that this rich garment belonged +to the Black Man's wardrobe, and that he kept it at Mother Rigby's +cottage for the convenience of slipping it on whenever he wished to +make a grand appearance at the governor's table. To match the coat +there was a velvet waistcoat of very ample size, and formerly +embroidered with foliage that had been as brightly golden as the maple +leaves in October, but which had now quite vanished out of the +substance of the velvet. Next came a pair of scarlet breeches, once +worn by the French governor of Louisbourg, and the knees of which had +touched the lower step of the throne of Louis le Grand. The Frenchman +had given these small-clothes to an Indian powwow, who parted with them +to the old witch for a gill of strong waters, at one of their dances in +the forest. Furthermore, Mother Rigby produced a pair of silk stockings +and put them on the figure's legs, where they showed as unsubstantial +as a dream, with the wooden reality of the two sticks making itself +miserably apparent through the holes. Lastly, she put her dead +husband's wig on the bare scalp of the pumpkin, and surmounted the +whole with a dusty three-cornered hat, in which was stuck the longest +tail feather of a rooster. + +Then the old dame stood the figure up in a corner of her cottage and +chuckled to behold its yellow semblance of a visage, with its nobby +little nose thrust into the air. It had a strangely self-satisfied +aspect, and seemed to say, "Come look at me!" + +"And you are well worth looking at, that's a fact!" quoth Mother Rigby, +in admiration at her own handiwork. "I've made many a puppet since I've +been a witch, but methinks this is the finest of them all. 'Tis almost +too good for a scarecrow. And, by the by, I'll just fill a fresh pipe +of tobacco and then take him out to the corn-patch." + +While filling her pipe the old woman continued to gaze with almost +motherly affection at the figure in the corner. To say the truth, +whether it were chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, there was +something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with +its tattered finery; and as for the countenance, it appeared to shrivel +its yellow surface into a grin--a funny kind of expression betwixt +scorn and merriment, as if it understood itself to be a jest at +mankind. The more Mother Rigby looked the better she was pleased. + +"Dickon," cried she sharply, "another coal for my pipe!" + +Hardly had she spoken, than, just as before, there was a red-glowing +coal on the top of the tobacco. She drew in a long whiff and puffed it +forth again into the bar of morning sunshine which struggled through +the one dusty pane of her cottage window. Mother Rigby always liked to +flavor her pipe with a coal of fire from the particular chimney corner +whence this had been brought. But where that chimney corner might be, +or who brought the coal from it,--further than that the invisible +messenger seemed to respond to the name of Dickon,--I cannot tell. + +"That puppet yonder," thought Mother Rigby, still with her eyes fixed +on the scarecrow, "is too good a piece of work to stand all summer in a +corn-patch, frightening away the crows and blackbirds. He's capable of +better things. Why, I've danced with a worse one, when partners +happened to be scarce, at our witch meetings in the forest! What if I +should let him take his chance among the other men of straw and empty +fellows who go bustling about the world?" + +The old witch took three or four more whiffs of her pipe and smiled. + +"He'll meet plenty of his brethren at every street corner!" continued +she. "Well; I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft to-day, further than +the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am, and a witch I'm likely to +be, and there's no use trying to shirk it. I'll make a man of my +scarecrow, were it only for the joke's sake!" + +While muttering these words, Mother Rigby took the pipe from her own +mouth and thrust it into the crevice which represented the same feature +in the pumpkin visage of the scarecrow. + +"Puff, darling, puff!" said she. "Puff away, my fine fellow! your life +depends on it!" + +This was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to be addressed to a mere +thing of sticks, straw, and old clothes, with nothing better than a +shrivelled pumpkin for a head,--as we know to have been the scarecrow's +case. Nevertheless, as we must carefully hold in remembrance, Mother +Rigby was a witch of singular power and dexterity; and, keeping this +fact duly before our minds, we shall see nothing beyond credibility in +the remarkable incidents of our story. Indeed, the great difficulty +will be at once got over, if we can only bring ourselves to believe +that, as soon as the old dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of +smoke from the scarecrow's mouth. It was the very feeblest of whiffs, +to be sure; but it was followed by another and another, each more +decided than the preceding one. + +"Puff away, my pet! puff away, my pretty one!" Mother Rigby kept +repeating, with her pleasantest smile. "It is the breath of life to ye; +and that you may take my word for." + +Beyond all question the pipe was bewitched. There must have been a +spell either in the tobacco or in the fiercely-glowing coal that so +mysteriously burned on top of it, or in the pungently-aromatic smoke +which exhaled from the kindled weed. The figure, after a few doubtful +attempts at length blew forth a volley of smoke extending all the way +from the obscure corner into the bar of sunshine. There it eddied and +melted away among the motes of dust. It seemed a convulsive effort; for +the two or three next whiffs were fainter, although the coal still +glowed and threw a gleam over the scarecrow's visage. The old witch +clapped her skinny hands together, and smiled encouragingly upon her +handiwork. She saw that the charm worked well. The shrivelled, yellow +face, which heretofore had been no face at all, had already a thin, +fantastic haze, as it were of human likeness, shifting to and fro +across it; sometimes vanishing entirely, but growing more perceptible +than ever with the next whiff from the pipe. The whole figure, in like +manner, assumed a show of life, such as we impart to ill-defined shapes +among the clouds, and half deceive ourselves with the pastime of our +own fancy. + +If we must needs pry closely into the matter, it may be doubted whether +there was any real change, after all, in the sordid, wornout worthless, +and ill-jointed substance of the scarecrow; but merely a spectral +illusion, and a cunning effect of light and shade so colored and +contrived as to delude the eyes of most men. The miracles of witchcraft +seem always to have had a very shallow subtlety; and, at least, if the +above explanation do not hit the truth of the process, I can suggest no +better. + +"Well puffed, my pretty lad!" still cried old Mother Rigby. "Come, +another good stout whiff, and let it be with might and main. Puff for +thy life, I tell thee! Puff out of the very bottom of thy heart, if any +heart thou hast, or any bottom to it! Well done, again! Thou didst suck +in that mouthful as if for the pure love of it." + +And then the witch beckoned to the scarecrow, throwing so much magnetic +potency into her gesture that it seemed as if it must inevitably be +obeyed, like the mystic call of the loadstone when it summons the iron. + +"Why lurkest thou in the corner, lazy one?" said she. "Step forth! Thou +hast the world before thee!" + +Upon my word, if the legend were not one which I heard on my +grandmother's knee, and which had established its place among things +credible before my childish judgment could analyze its probability, I +question whether I should have the face to tell it now. + +In obedience to Mother Rigby's word, and extending its arm as if to +reach her outstretched hand, the figure made a step forward--a kind of +hitch and jerk, however, rather than a step--then tottered and almost +lost its balance. What could the witch expect? It was nothing, after +all, but a scarecrow stuck upon two sticks. But the strong-willed old +beldam scowled, and beckoned, and flung the energy of her purpose so +forcibly at this poor combination of rotten wood, and musty straw, and +ragged garments, that it was compelled to show itself a man, in spite +of the reality of things. So it stepped into the bar of sunshine. There +it stood, poor devil of a contrivance that it was!--with only the +thinnest vesture of human similitude about it, through which was +evident the stiff, rickety, incongruous, faded, tattered, +good-for-nothing patchwork of its substance, ready to sink in a heap +upon the floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness to be erect. Shall +I confess the truth? At its present point of vivification, the +scarecrow reminds me of some of the lukewarm and abortive characters, +composed of heterogeneous materials, used for the thousandth time, and +never worth using, with which romance writers (and myself, no doubt, +among the rest) have so overpeopled the world of fiction. + +But the fierce old hag began to get angry and show a glimpse of her +diabolic nature (like a snake's head, peeping with a hiss out of her +bosom), at this pusillanimous behavior of the thing which she had taken +the trouble to put together. + +"Puff away, wretch!" cried she, wrathfully. "Puff, puff, puff, thou +thing of straw and emptiness! thou rag or two! thou meal bag! thou +pumpkin head! thou nothing! Where shall I find a name vile enough to +call thee by? Puff, I say, and suck in thy fantastic life with the +smoke! else I snatch the pipe from thy mouth and hurl thee where that +red coal came from." + +Thus threatened, the unhappy scarecrow had nothing for it but to puff +away for dear life. As need was, therefore, it applied itself lustily +to the pipe, and sent forth such abundant volleys of tobacco smoke that +the small cottage kitchen became all vaporous. The one sunbeam +struggled mistily through, and could but imperfectly define the image +of the cracked and dusty window pane on the opposite wall. Mother +Rigby, meanwhile, with one brown arm akimbo and the other stretched +towards the figure, loomed grimly amid the obscurity with such port and +expression as when she was wont to heave a ponderous nightmare on her +victims and stand at the bedside to enjoy their agony. In fear and +trembling did this poor scarecrow puff. But its efforts, it must be +acknowledged, served an excellent purpose; for, with each successive +whiff, the figure lost more and more of its dizzy and perplexing +tenuity and seemed to take denser substance. Its very garments, +moreover, partook of the magical change, and shone with the gloss of +novelty and glistened with the skilfully embroidered gold that had long +ago been rent away. And, half revealed among the smoke, a yellow visage +bent its lustreless eyes on Mother Rigby. + +At last the old witch clinched her fist and shook it at the figure. Not +that she was positively angry, but merely acting on the +principle--perhaps untrue, or not the only truth, though as high a one +as Mother Rigby could be expected to attain--that feeble and torpid +natures, being incapable of better inspiration, must be stirred up by +fear. But here was the crisis. Should she fail in what she now sought +to effect, it was her ruthless purpose to scatter the miserable +simulacre into its original elements. + +"Thou hast a man's aspect," said she, sternly. "Have also the echo and +mockery of a voice! I bid thee speak!" + +The scarecrow gasped, struggled, and at length emitted a murmur, which +was so incorporated with its smoky breath that you could scarcely tell +whether it were indeed a voice or only a whiff of tobacco. Some +narrators of this legend hold the opinion that Mother Rigby's +conjurations and the fierceness of her will had compelled a familiar +spirit into the figure, and that the voice was his. + +"Mother," mumbled the poor stifled voice, "be not so awful with me! I +would fain speak; but being without wits, what can I say?" + +"Thou canst speak, darling, canst thou?" cried Mother Rigby, relaxing +her grim countenance into a smile. "And what shalt thou say, quoth-a! +Say, indeed! Art thou of the brotherhood of the empty skull, and +demandest of me what thou shalt say? Thou shalt say a thousand things, +and saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have said +nothing! Be not afraid, I tell thee! When thou comest into the world +(whither I purpose sending thee forthwith) thou shalt not lack the +wherewithal to talk. Talk! Why, thou shall babble like a mill-stream, +if thou wilt. Thou hast brains enough for that, I trow!" + +"At your service, mother," responded the figure. + +"And that was well said, my pretty one," answered Mother Rigby. "Then +thou speakest like thyself, and meant nothing. Thou shalt have a +hundred such set phrases, and five hundred to the boot of them. And +now, darling, I have taken so much pains with thee and thou art so +beautiful, that, by my troth, I love thee better than any witch's +puppet in the world; and I've made them of all sorts--clay, wax, straw, +sticks, night fog, morning mist, sea foam, and chimney smoke. But thou +art the very best. So give heed to what I say." + +"Yes, kind mother," said the figure, "with all my heart!" + +"With all thy heart!" cried the old witch, setting her hands to her +sides and laughing loudly. "Thou hast such a pretty way of speaking. +With all thy heart! And thou didst put thy hand to the left side of thy +waistcoat as if thou really hadst one!" + +So now, in high good humor with this fantastic contrivance of hers, +Mother Rigby told the scarecrow that it must go and play its part in +the great world, where not one man in a hundred, she affirmed, was +gifted with more real substance than itself. And, that he might hold up +his head with the best of them, she endowed him, on the spot, with an +unreckonable amount of wealth. It consisted partly of a gold mine in +Eldorado, and of ten thousand shares in a broken bubble, and of half a +million acres of vineyard at the North Pole, and of a castle in the +air, and a chateau in Spain, together with all the rents and income +therefrom accruing. She further made over to him the cargo of a certain +ship, laden with salt of Cadiz, which she herself, by her necromantic +arts, had caused to founder, ten years before, in the deepest part of +mid-ocean. If the salt were not dissolved, and could be brought to +market, it would fetch a pretty penny among the fishermen. That he +might not lack ready money, she gave him a copper farthing of +Birmingham manufacture, being all the coin she had about her, and +likewise a great deal of brass, which she applied to his forehead, thus +making it yellower than ever. + +"With that brass alone," quoth Mother Rigby, "thou canst pay thy way +all over the earth. Kiss me, pretty darling! I have done my best for +thee." + +Furthermore, that the adventurer might lack no possible advantage +towards a fair start in life, this excellent old dame gave him a token +by which he was to introduce himself to a certain magistrate, member of +the council, merchant, and elder of the church (the four capacities +constituting but one man), who stood at the head of society in the +neighboring metropolis. The token was neither more nor less than a +single word, which Mother Rigby whispered to the scarecrow, and which +the scarecrow was to whisper to the merchant. + +"Gouty as the old fellow is, he'll run thy errands for thee, when once +thou hast given him that word in his ear," said the old witch. "Mother +Rigby knows the worshipful Justice Gookin, and the worshipful Justice +knows Mother Rigby!" + +Here the witch thrust her wrinkled face close to the puppet's, +chuckling irrepressibly, and fidgeting all through her system, with +delight at the idea which she meant to communicate. + +"The worshipful Master Gookin," whispered she, "hath a comely maiden to +his daughter. And hark ye, my pet! Thou hast a fair outside, and a +pretty wit enough of thine own. Yea, a pretty wit enough! Thou wilt +think better of it when thou hast seen more of other people's wits. +Now, with thy outside and thy inside, thou art the very man to win a +young girl's heart. Never doubt it! I tell thee it shall be so. Put but +a bold face on the matter, sigh, smile, flourish thy hat, thrust forth +thy leg like a dancing-master, put thy right hand to the left side of +thy waistcoat, and pretty Polly Gookin is thine own!" + +All this while the new creature had been sucking in and exhaling the +vapory fragrance of his pipe, and seemed now to continue this +occupation as much for the enjoyment it afforded as because it was an +essential condition of his existence. It was wonderful to see how +exceedingly like a human being it behaved. Its eyes (for it appeared to +possess a pair) were bent on Mother Rigby, and at suitable junctures it +nodded or shook its head. Neither did it lack words proper for the +occasion: "Really! Indeed! Pray tell me! Is it possible! Upon my word! +By no means! Oh! Ah! Hem!" and other such weighty utterances as imply +attention, inquiry, acquiescence, or dissent on the part of the +auditor. Even had you stood by and seen the scarecrow made, you could +scarcely have resisted the conviction that it perfectly understood the +cunning counsels which the old witch poured into its counterfeit of an +ear. The more earnestly it applied its lips to the pipe, the more +distinctly was its human likeness stamped among visible realities, the +more sagacious grew its expression, the more lifelike its gestures and +movements, and the more intelligibly audible its voice. Its garments, +too, glistened so much the brighter with an illusory magnificence. The +very pipe, in which burned the spell of all this wonderwork, ceased to +appear as a smoke-blackened earthen stump, and became a meerschaum, +with painted bowl and amber mouthpiece. + +It might be apprehended, however, that as the life of the illusion +seemed identical with the vapor of the pipe, it would terminate +simultaneously with the reduction of the tobacco to ashes. But the +beldam foresaw the difficulty. + +"Hold thou the pipe, my precious one," said she, "while I fill it for +thee again." + +It was sorrowful to behold how the fine gentleman began to fade back +into a scarecrow while Mother Rigby shook the ashes out of the pipe and +proceeded to replenish it from her tobacco-box. + +"Dickon," cried she, in her high, sharp tone, "another coal for this +pipe!" + +No sooner said than the intensely red speck of fire was glowing within +the pipe-bowl; and the scarecrow, without waiting for the witch's +bidding, applied the tube to his lips and drew in a few short, +convulsive whiffs, which soon, however, became regular and equable. + +"Now, mine own heart's darling," quoth Mother Rigby, "whatever may +happen to thee, thou must stick to thy pipe. Thy life is in it; and +that, at least, thou knowest well, if thou knowest nought besides. +Stick to thy pipe, I say! Smoke, puff, blow thy cloud; and tell the +people, if any question be made, that it is for thy health, and that so +the physician orders thee to do. And, sweet one, when thou shalt find +thy pipe getting low, go apart into some corner, and (first filling +thyself with smoke) cry sharply, 'Dickon, a fresh pipe of tobacco!' +and, 'Dickon, another coal for my pipe!' and have it into thy pretty +mouth as speedily as may be. Else, instead of a gallant gentleman in a +gold-laced coat, thou wilt be but a jumble of sticks and tattered +clothes, and a bag of straw, and a withered pumpkin! Now depart, my +treasure, and good luck go with thee!" + +"Never fear, mother!" said the figure, in a stout voice, and sending +forth a courageous whiff of smoke, "I will thrive, if an honest man and +a gentleman may!" + +"Oh, thou wilt be the death of me!" cried the old witch, convulsed with +laughter. "That was well said. If an honest man and a gentleman may! +Thou playest thy part to perfection. Get along with thee for a smart +fellow; and I will wager on thy head, as a man of pith and substance, +with a brain and what they call a heart, and all else that a man should +have, against any other thing on two legs. I hold myself a better witch +than yesterday, for thy sake. Did not I make thee? And I defy any witch +in New England to make such another! Here; take my staff along with +thee!" + +The staff, though it was but a plain oaken stick, immediately took the +aspect of a gold-headed cane. + +"That gold head has as much sense in it as thine own," said Mother +Rigby, "and it will guide thee straight to worshipful Master Gookin's +door. Get thee gone, my pretty pet, my darling, my precious one, my +treasure; and if any ask thy name, it is Feathertop. For thou hast a +feather in thy hat, and I have thrust a handful of feathers into the +hollow of thy head, and thy wig, too, is of the fashion they call +Feathertop,--so be Feathertop thy name!" + +And, issuing from the cottage, Feathertop strode manfully towards town. +Mother Rigby stood at the threshold, well pleased to see how the +sunbeams glistened on him, as if all his magnificence were real, and +how diligently and lovingly he smoked his pipe, and how handsomely he +walked, in spite of a little stiffness of his legs. She watched him +until out of sight, and threw a witch benediction after her darling, +when a turn of the road snatched him from her view. + +Betimes in the forenoon, when the principal street of the neighboring +town was just at its acme of life and bustle, a stranger of very +distinguished figure was seen on the sidewalk. His port as well as his +garments betokened nothing short of nobility. He wore a +richly-embroidered plum-colored coat, a waistcoat of costly velvet, +magnificently adorned with golden foliage, a pair of splendid scarlet +breeches, and the finest and glossiest of white silk stockings. His +head was covered with a peruke, so daintily powdered and adjusted that +it would have been sacrilege to disorder it with a hat; which, +therefore (and it was a gold-laced hat, set off with a snowy feather), +he carried beneath his arm. On the breast of his coat glistened a star. +He managed his gold-headed cane with an airy grace, peculiar to the +fine gentlemen of the period; and, to give the highest possible finish +to his equipment, he had lace ruffles at his wrist, of a most ethereal +delicacy, sufficiently avouching how idle and aristocratic must be the +hands which they half concealed. + +It was a remarkable point in the accoutrement of this brilliant +personage that he held in his left hand a fantastic kind of a pipe, +with an exquisitely painted bowl and an amber mouthpiece. This he +applied to his lips as often as every five or six paces, and inhaled a +deep whiff of smoke, which, after being retained a moment in his lungs, +might be seen to eddy gracefully from his mouth and nostrils. + +As may well be supposed, the street was all astir to find out the +stranger's name. + +"It is some great nobleman, beyond question," said one of the +townspeople. "Do you see the star at his breast?" + +"Nay; it is too bright to be seen," said another. "Yes; he must needs +be a nobleman, as you say. But by what conveyance, think you, can his +lordship have voyaged or travelled hither? There has been no vessel +from the old country for a month past; and if he have arrived overland +from the southward, pray where are his attendants and equipage?" + +"He needs no equipage to set off his rank," remarked a third. "If he +came among us in rags, nobility would shine through a hole in his +elbow. I never saw such dignity of aspect. He has the old Norman blood +in his veins, I warrant him." + +"I rather take him to be a Dutchman, or one of your high Germans," said +another citizen. "The men of those countries have always the pipe at +their mouths." + +"And so has a Turk," answered his companion. "But, in my judgment, this +stranger hath been bred at the French court, and hath there learned +politeness and grace of manner, which none understand so well as the +nobility of France. That gait, now! A vulgar spectator might deem it +stiff--he might call it a hitch and jerk--but, to my eye, it hath an +unspeakable majesty, and must have been acquired by constant +observation of the deportment of the Grand Monarque. The stranger's +character and office are evident enough. He is a French ambassador, +come to treat with our rulers about the cession of Canada." + +"More probably a Spaniard," said another, "and hence his yellow +complexion; or, most likely, he is from the Havana, or from some port +on the Spanish main, and comes to make investigation about the piracies +which our government is thought to connive at. Those settlers in Peru +and Mexico have skins as yellow as the gold which they dig out of their +mines." + +"Yellow or not," cried a lady, "he is a beautiful man!--so tall, so +slender! such a fine, noble face, with so well-shaped a nose, and all +that delicacy of expression about the mouth! And, bless me, how bright +his star is! It positively shoots out flames!" + +"So do your eyes, fair lady," said the stranger, with a bow and a +flourish of his pipe; for he was just passing at the instant. "Upon my +honor, they have quite dazzled me." + +"Was ever so original and exquisite a compliment?" murmured the lady, +in an ecstasy of delight. + +Amid the general admiration excited by the stranger's appearance, there +were only two dissenting voices. One was that of an impertinent cur, +which, after snuffing at the heels of the glistening figure, put its +tail between its legs and skulked into its master's back yard, +vociferating an execrable howl. The other dissentient was a young +child, who squalled at the fullest stretch of his lungs, and babbled +some unintelligible nonsense about a pumpkin. + +Feathertop meanwhile pursued his way along the street. Except for the +few complimentary words to the lady, and now and then a slight +inclination of the head in requital of the profound reverences of the +bystanders, he seemed wholly absorbed in his pipe. There needed no +other proof of his rank and consequence than the perfect equanimity +with which he comported himself, while the curiosity and admiration of +the town swelled almost into clamor around him. With a crowd gathering +behind his footsteps, he finally reached the mansion-house of the +worshipful Justice Gookin, entered the gate, ascended the steps of the +front door, and knocked. In the interim, before his summons was +answered, the stranger was observed to shake the ashes out of his pipe. + +"What did he say in that sharp voice?" inquired one of the spectators. + +"Nay, I know not," answered his friend. "But the sun dazzles my eyes +strangely. How dim and faded his lordship looks all of a sudden! Bless +my wits, what is the matter with me?" + +"The wonder is," said the other, "that his pipe, which was out only an +instant ago, should be all alight again, and with the reddest coal I +ever saw. There is something mysterious about this stranger. What a +whiff of smoke was that! Dim and faded did you call him? Why, as he +turns about the star on his breast is all ablaze." + +"It is, indeed," said his companion; "and it will go near to dazzle +pretty Polly Gookin, whom I see peeping at it out of the chamber +window." + +The door being now opened, Feathertop turned to the crowd, made a +stately bend of his body like a great man acknowledging the reverence +of the meaner sort, and vanished into the house. There was a mysterious +kind of a smile, if it might not better be called a grin or grimace, +upon his visage; but, of all the throng that beheld him, not an +individual appears to have possessed insight enough to detect the +illusive character of the stranger except a little child and a cur dog. + +Our legend here loses somewhat of its continuity, and, passing over the +preliminary explanation between Feathertop and the merchant, goes in +quest of the pretty Polly Gookin. She was a damsel of a soft, round +figure, with light hair and blue eyes, and a fair, rosy face, which +seemed neither very shrewd nor very simple. This young lady had caught +a glimpse of the glistening stranger while standing on the threshold, +and had forthwith put on a laced cap, a string of beads, her finest +kerchief, and her stiffest damask petticoat in preparation for the +interview. Hurrying from her chamber to the parlor, she had ever since +been viewing herself in the large looking-glass and practising pretty +airs-now a smile, now a ceremonious dignity of aspect, and now a softer +smile than the former, kissing her hand likewise, tossing her head, and +managing her fan; while within the mirror an unsubstantial little maid +repeated every gesture and did all the foolish things that Polly did, +but without making her ashamed of them. In short, it was the fault of +pretty Polly's ability rather than her will if she failed to be as +complete an artifice as the illustrious Feathertop himself; and, when +she thus tampered with her own simplicity, the witch's phantom might +well hope to win her. + +No sooner did Polly hear her father's gouty footsteps approaching the +parlor door, accompanied with the stiff clatter of Feathertop's +high-heeled shoes, than she seated herself bolt upright and innocently +began warbling a song. + +"Polly! daughter Polly!" cried the old merchant. "Come hither, child." + +Master Gookin's aspect, as he opened the door, was doubtful and +troubled. + +"This gentleman," continued he, presenting the stranger, "is the +Chevalier Feathertop,--nay, I beg his pardon, my Lord Feathertop,--who +hath brought me a token of remembrance from an ancient friend of mine. +Pay your duty to his lordship, child, and honor him as his quality +deserves." + +After these few words of introduction, the worshipful magistrate +immediately quitted the room. But, even in that brief moment, had the +fair Polly glanced aside at her father instead of devoting herself +wholly to the brilliant guest, she might have taken warning of some +mischief nigh at hand. The old man was nervous, fidgety, and very pale. +Purposing a smile of courtesy, he had deformed his face with a sort of +galvanic grin, which, when Feathertop's back was turned, he exchanged +for a scowl, at the same time shaking his fist and stamping his gouty +foot--an incivility which brought its retribution along with it. The +truth appears to have been that Mother Rigby's word of introduction, +whatever it might be, had operated far more on the rich merchant's +fears than on his good will. Moreover, being a man of wonderfully acute +observation, he had noticed that these painted figures on the bowl of +Feathertop's pipe were in motion. Looking more closely he became +convinced that these figures were a party of little demons, each duly +provided with horns and a tail, and dancing hand in hand, with gestures +of diabolical merriment, round the circumference of the pipe bowl. As +if to confirm his suspicions, while Master Gookin ushered his guest +along a dusky passage from his private room to the parlor, the star on +Feathertop's breast had scintillated actual flames, and threw a +flickering gleam upon the wall, the ceiling, and the floor. + +With such sinister prognostics manifesting themselves on all hands, it +is not to be marvelled at that the merchant should have felt that he +was committing his daughter to a very questionable acquaintance. He +cursed, in his secret soul, the insinuating elegance of Feathertop's +manners, as this brilliant personage bowed, smiled, put his hand on his +heart, inhaled a long whiff from his pipe, and enriched the atmosphere +with the smoky vapor of a fragrant and visible sigh. Gladly would poor +Master Gookin have thrust his dangerous guest into the street; but +there was a constraint and terror within him. This respectable old +gentleman, we fear, at an earlier period of life, had given some pledge +or other to the evil principle, and perhaps was now to redeem it by the +sacrifice of his daughter. + +It so happened that the parlor door was partly of glass, shaded by a +silken curtain, the folds of which hung a little awry. So strong was +the merchant's interest in witnessing what was to ensue between the +fair Polly and the gallant Feathertop that, after quitting the room, he +could by no means refrain from peeping through the crevice of the +curtain. + +But there was nothing very miraculous to be seen; nothing--except the +trifles previously noticed--to confirm the idea of a supernatural peril +environing the pretty Polly. The stranger it is true was evidently a +thorough and practised man of the world, systematic and self-possessed, +and therefore the sort of a person to whom a parent ought not to +confide a simple, young girl without due watchfulness for the result. +The worthy magistrate who had been conversant with all degrees and +qualities of mankind, could not but perceive every motion and gesture +of the distinguished Feathertop came in its proper place; nothing had +been left rude or native in him; a well-digested conventionalism had +incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and transformed him +into a work of art. Perhaps it was this peculiarity that invested him +with a species of ghastliness and awe. It is the effect of anything +completely and consummately artificial, in human shape, that the person +impresses us as an unreality and as having hardly pith enough to cast a +shadow upon the floor. As regarded Feathertop, all this resulted in a +wild, extravagant, and fantastical impression, as if his life and being +were akin to the smoke that curled upward from his pipe. + +But pretty Polly Gookin felt not thus. The pair were now promenading +the room: Feathertop with his dainty stride and no less dainty grimace, +the girl with a native maidenly grace, just touched, not spoiled, by a +slightly affected manner, which seemed caught from the perfect artifice +of her companion. The longer the interview continued, the more charmed +was pretty Polly, until, within the first quarter of an hour (as the +old magistrate noted by his watch), she was evidently beginning to be +in love. Nor need it have been witchcraft that subdued her in such a +hurry; the poor child's heart, it may be, was so very fervent that it +melted her with its own warmth as reflected from the hollow semblance +of a lover. No matter what Feathertop said, his words found depth and +reverberation in her ear; no matter what he did, his action was heroic +to her eye. And by this time it is to be supposed there was a blush on +Polly's cheek, a tender smile about her mouth and a liquid softness in +her glance; while the star kept coruscating on Feathertop's breast, and +the little demons careered with more frantic merriment than ever about +the circumference of his pipe bowl. O pretty Polly Gookin, why should +these imps rejoice so madly that a silly maiden's heart was about to be +given to a shadow! Is it so unusual a misfortune, so rare a triumph? + +By and by Feathertop paused, and throwing himself into an imposing +attitude, seemed to summon the fair girl to survey his figure and +resist him longer if she could. His star, his embroidery, his buckles +glowed at that instant with unutterable splendor; the picturesque hues +of his attire took a richer depth of coloring; there was a gleam and +polish over his whole presence betokening the perfect witchery of +well-ordered manners. The maiden raised her eyes and suffered them to +linger upon her companion with a bashful and admiring gaze. Then, as if +desirous of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have +side by side with so much brilliancy, she cast a glance towards the +full-length looking-glass in front of which they happened to be +standing. It was one of the truest plates in the world and incapable of +flattery. No sooner did the images therein reflected meet Polly's eye +than she shrieked, shrank from the stranger's side, gazed at him for a +moment in the wildest dismay, and sank insensible upon the floor. +Feathertop likewise had looked towards the mirror, and there beheld, +not the glittering mockery of his outside show, but a picture of the +sordid patchwork of his real composition stripped of all witchcraft. + +The wretched simulacrum! We almost pity him. He threw up his arms with +an expression of despair that went further than any of his previous +manifestations towards vindicating his claims to be reckoned human, for +perchance the only time since this so often empty and deceptive life of +mortals began its course, an illusion had seen and fully recognized +itself. + +Mother Rigby was seated by her kitchen hearth in the twilight of this +eventful day, and had just shaken the ashes out of a new pipe, when she +heard a hurried tramp along the road. Yet it did not seem so much the +tramp of human footsteps as the clatter of sticks or the rattling of +dry bones. + +"Ha!" thought the old witch, "what step is that? Whose skeleton is out +of its grave now, I wonder?" + +A figure burst headlong into the cottage door. It was Feathertop! His +pipe was still alight; the star still flamed upon his breast; the +embroidery still glowed upon his garments; nor had he lost, in any +degree or manner that could be estimated, the aspect that assimilated +him with our mortal brotherhood. But yet, in some indescribable way (as +is the case with all that has deluded us when once found out), the poor +reality was felt beneath the cunning artifice. + +"What has gone wrong?" demanded the witch. "Did yonder sniffling +hypocrite thrust my darling from his door? The villain! I'll set twenty +fiends to torment him till he offer thee his daughter on his bended +knees!" + +"No, mother," said Feathertop despondingly; "it was not that." + +"Did the girl scorn my precious one?" asked Mother Rigby, her fierce +eyes glowing like two coals of Tophet. "I'll cover her face with +pimples! Her nose shall be as red as the coal in thy pipe! Her front +teeth shall drop out! In a week hence she shall not be worth thy +having!" + +"Let her alone, mother," answered poor Feathertop; "the girl was half +won; and methinks a kiss from her sweet lips might have made me +altogether human. But," he added, after a brief pause and then a howl +of self-contempt, "I've seen myself, mother! I've seen myself for the +wretched, ragged, empty thing I am! I'll exist no longer!" + +Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might +against the chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor, a +medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from +the heap, and a shrivelled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now +lustreless; but the rudely-carved gap, that just before had been a +mouth still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin, and was so +far human. + +"Poor fellow!" quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the relics +of her ill-fated contrivance. "My poor, dear, pretty Feathertop! There +are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and charlatans in the world, +made up of just such a jumble of wornout, forgotten, and +good-for-nothing trash as he was! Yet they live in fair repute, and +never see themselves for what they are. And why should my poor puppet +be the only one to know himself and perish for it?" + +While thus muttering, the witch had filled a fresh pipe of tobacco, and +held the stem between her fingers, as doubtful whether to thrust it +into her own mouth or Feathertop's. + +"Poor Feathertop!" she continued. "I could easily give him another +chance and send him forth again tomorrow. But no; his feelings are too +tender, his sensibilities too deep. He seems to have too much heart to +bustle for his own advantage in such an empty and heartless world. +Well! well! I'll make a scarecrow of him after all. 'Tis an innocent +and useful vocation, and will suit my darling well; and, if each of his +human brethren had as fit a one, 't would be the better for mankind; +and as for this pipe of tobacco, I need it more than he." + +So saying Mother Rigby put the stem between her lips. "Dickon!" cried +she, in her high, sharp tone, "another coal for my pipe!" + + + +EGOTISM;[1] OR, THE BOSOM SERPENT + +[From the Unpublished "Allegories of the Heart."] + +[1] The physical fact, to which it is here attempted to give a moral +signification, has been known to occur in more than one instance. + + +"Here he comes!" shouted the boys along the street. "Here comes the man +with a snake in his bosom!" + +This outcry, saluting Herkimer's ears as he was about to enter the iron +gate of the Elliston mansion, made him pause. It was not without a +shudder that he found himself on the point of meeting his former +acquaintance, whom he had known in the glory of youth, and whom now +after an interval of five years, he was to find the victim either of a +diseased fancy or a horrible physical misfortune. + +"A snake in his bosom!" repeated the young sculptor to himself. "It +must be he. No second man on earth has such a bosom friend. And now, my +poor Rosina, Heaven grant me wisdom to discharge my errand aright! +Woman's faith must be strong indeed since thine has not yet failed." + +Thus musing, he took his stand at the entrance of the gate and waited +until the personage so singularly announced should make his appearance. +After an instant or two he beheld the figure of a lean man, of +unwholesome look, with glittering eyes and long black hair, who seemed +to imitate the motion of a snake; for, instead of walking straight +forward with open front, he undulated along the pavement in a curved +line. It may be too fanciful to say that something, either in his moral +or material aspect, suggested the idea that a miracle had been wrought +by transforming a serpent into a man, but so imperfectly that the snaky +nature was yet hidden, and scarcely hidden, under the mere outward +guise of humanity. Herkimer remarked that his complexion had a greenish +tinge over its sickly white, reminding him of a species of marble out +of which he had once wrought a head of Envy, with her snaky locks. + +The wretched being approached the gate, but, instead of entering, +stopped short and fixed the glitter of his eye full upon the +compassionate yet steady countenance of the sculptor. + +"It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" he exclaimed. + +And then there was an audible hiss, but whether it came from the +apparent lunatic's own lips, or was the real hiss of a serpent, might +admit of a discussion. At all events, it made Herkimer shudder to his +heart's core. + +"Do you know me, George Herkimer?" asked the snake-possessed. + +Herkimer did know him; but it demanded all the intimate and practical +acquaintance with the human face, acquired by modelling actual +likenesses in clay, to recognize the features of Roderick Elliston in +the visage that now met the sculptor's gaze. Yet it was he. It added +nothing to the wonder to reflect that the once brilliant young man had +undergone this odious and fearful change during the no more than five +brief years of Herkimer's abode at Florence. The possibility of such a +transformation being granted, it was as easy to conceive it effected in +a moment as in an age. Inexpressibly shocked and startled, it was still +the keenest pang when Herkimer remembered that the fate of his cousin +Rosina, the ideal of gentle womanhood, was indissolubly interwoven with +that of a being whom Providence seemed to have unhumanized. + +"Elliston! Roderick!" cried he, "I had heard of this; but my conception +came far short of the truth. What has befallen you? Why do I find you +thus?" + +"Oh, 'tis a mere nothing! A snake! A snake! The commonest thing in the +world. A snake in the bosom--that's all," answered Roderick Elliston. +"But how is your own breast?" continued he, looking the sculptor in the +eye with the most acute and penetrating glance that it had ever been +his fortune to encounter. "All pure and wholesome? No reptile there? By +my faith and conscience, and by the devil within me, here is a wonder! +A man without a serpent in his bosom!" + +"Be calm, Elliston," whispered George Herkimer, laying his hand upon +the shoulder of the snake-possessed. "I have crossed the ocean to meet +you. Listen! Let us be private. I bring a message from Rosina--from +your wife!" + +"It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" muttered Roderick. + +With this exclamation, the most frequent in his mouth, the unfortunate +man clutched both hands upon his breast as if an intolerable sting or +torture impelled him to rend it open and let out the living mischief, +even should it be intertwined with his own life. He then freed himself +from Herkimer's grasp by a subtle motion, and, gliding through the +gate, took refuge in his antiquated family residence. The sculptor did +not pursue him. He saw that no available intercourse could be expected +at such a moment, and was desirous, before another meeting, to inquire +closely into the nature of Roderick's disease and the circumstances +that had reduced him to so lamentable a condition. He succeeded in +obtaining the necessary information from an eminent medical gentleman. + +Shortly after Elliston's separation from his wife--now nearly four +years ago--his associates had observed a singular gloom spreading over +his daily life, like those chill, gray mists that sometimes steal away +the sunshine from a summer's morning. The symptoms caused them endless +perplexity. They knew not whether ill health were robbing his spirits +of elasticity, or whether a canker of the mind was gradually eating, as +such cankers do, from his moral system into the physical frame, which +is but the shadow of the former. They looked for the root of this +trouble in his shattered schemes of domestic bliss,--wilfully shattered +by himself,--but could not be satisfied of its existence there. Some +thought that their once brilliant friend was in an incipient stage of +insanity, of which his passionate impulses had perhaps been the +forerunners; others prognosticated a general blight and gradual +decline. From Roderick's own lips they could learn nothing. More than +once, it is true, he had been heard to say, clutching his hands +convulsively upon his breast,--"It gnaws me! It gnaws me!"--but, by +different auditors, a great diversity of explanation was assigned to +this ominous expression. What could it be that gnawed the breast of +Roderick Elliston? Was it sorrow? Was it merely the tooth of physical +disease? Or, in his reckless course, often verging upon profligacy, if +not plunging into its depths, had he been guilty of some deed which +made his bosom a prey to the deadlier fangs of remorse? There was +plausible ground for each of these conjectures; but it must not be +concealed that more than one elderly gentleman, the victim of good +cheer and slothful habits, magisterially pronounced the secret of the +whole matter to be Dyspepsia! + +Meanwhile, Roderick seemed aware how generally he had become the +subject of curiosity and conjecture, and, with a morbid repugnance to +such notice, or to any notice whatsoever, estranged himself from all +companionship. Not merely the eye of man was a horror to him; not +merely the light of a friend's countenance; but even the blessed +sunshine, likewise, which in its universal beneficence typifies the +radiance of the Creator's face, expressing his love for all the +creatures of his hand. The dusky twilight was now too transparent for +Roderick Elliston; the blackest midnight was his chosen hour to steal +abroad; and if ever he were seen, it was when the watchman's lantern +gleamed upon his figure, gliding along the street, with his hands +clutched upon his bosom, still muttering, "It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" +What could it be that gnawed him? + +After a time, it became known that Elliston was in the habit of +resorting to all the noted quacks that infested the city, or whom money +would tempt to journey thither from a distance. By one of these +persons, in the exultation of a supposed cure, it was proclaimed far +and wide, by dint of handbills and little pamphlets on dingy paper, +that a distinguished gentleman, Roderick Elliston, Esq., had been +relieved of a SNAKE in his stomach! So here was the monstrous secret, +ejected from its lurking place into public view, in all its horrible +deformity. The mystery was out; but not so the bosom serpent. He, if it +were anything but a delusion, still lay coiled in his living den. The +empiric's cure had been a sham, the effect, it was supposed, of some +stupefying drug which more nearly caused the death of the patient than +of the odious reptile that possessed him. When Roderick Elliston +regained entire sensibility, it was to find his misfortune the town +talk--the more than nine days' wonder and horror--while, at his bosom, +he felt the sickening motion of a thing alive, and the gnawing of that +restless fang which seemed to gratify at once a physical appetite and a +fiendish spite. + +He summoned the old black servant, who had been bred up in his father's +house, and was a middle-aged man while Roderick lay in his cradle. + +"Scipio!" he began; and then paused, with his arms folded over his +heart. "What do people say of me, Scipio." + +"Sir! my poor master! that you had a serpent in your bosom," answered +the servant with hesitation. + +"And what else?" asked Roderick, with a ghastly look at the man. + +"Nothing else, dear master," replied Scipio, "only that the doctor gave +you a powder, and that the snake leaped out upon the floor." + +"No, no!" muttered Roderick to himself, as he shook his head, and +pressed his hands with a more convulsive force upon his breast, "I feel +him still. It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" + +From this time the miserable sufferer ceased to shun the world, but +rather solicited and forced himself upon the notice of acquaintances +and strangers. It was partly the result of desperation on finding that +the cavern of his own bosom had not proved deep and dark enough to hide +the secret, even while it was so secure a fortress for the loathsome +fiend that had crept into it. But still more, this craving for +notoriety was a symptom of the intense morbidness which now pervaded +his nature. All persons chronically diseased are egotists, whether the +disease be of the mind or body; whether it be sin, sorrow, or merely +the more tolerable calamity of some endless pain, or mischief among the +cords of mortal life. Such individuals are made acutely conscious of a +self, by the torture in which it dwells. Self, therefore, grows to be +so prominent an object with them that they cannot but present it to the +face of every casual passer-by. There is a pleasure--perhaps the +greatest of which the sufferer is susceptible--in displaying the wasted +or ulcerated limb, or the cancer in the breast; and the fouler the +crime, with so much the more difficulty does the perpetrator prevent it +from thrusting up its snake-like head to frighten the world; for it is +that cancer, or that crime, which constitutes their respective +individuality. Roderick Elliston, who, a little while before, had held +himself so scornfully above the common lot of men, now paid full +allegiance to this humiliating law. The snake in his bosom seemed the +symbol of a monstrous egotism to which everything was referred, and +which he pampered, night and day, with a continual and exclusive +sacrifice of devil worship. + +He soon exhibited what most people considered indubitable tokens of +insanity. In some of his moods, strange to say, he prided and gloried +himself on being marked out from the ordinary experience of mankind, by +the possession of a double nature, and a life within a life. He +appeared to imagine that the snake was a divinity,--not celestial, it +is true, but darkly infernal,--and that he thence derived an eminence +and a sanctity, horrid, indeed, yet more desirable than whatever +ambition aims at. Thus he drew his misery around him like a regal +mantle, and looked down triumphantly upon those whose vitals nourished +no deadly monster. Oftener, however, his human nature asserted its +empire over him in the shape of a yearning for fellowship. It grew to +be his custom to spend the whole day in wandering about the streets, +aimlessly, unless it might be called an aim to establish a species of +brotherhood between himself and the world. With cankered ingenuity, he +sought out his own disease in every breast. Whether insane or not, he +showed so keen a perception of frailty, error, and vice, that many +persons gave him credit for being possessed not merely with a serpent, +but with an actual fiend, who imparted this evil faculty of recognizing +whatever was ugliest in man's heart. + +For instance, he met an individual, who, for thirty years, had +cherished a hatred against his own brother. Roderick, amidst the throng +of the street, laid his hand on this man's chest, and looking full into +his forbidding face, "How is the snake to-day?" he inquired, with a +mock expression of sympathy. + +"The snake!" exclaimed the brother hater--"what do you mean?" + +"The snake! The snake! Does it gnaw you?" persisted Roderick. "Did you +take counsel with him this morning when you should have been saying +your prayers? Did he sting, when you thought of your brother's health, +wealth, and good repute? Did he caper for joy, when you remembered the +profligacy of his only son? And whether he stung, or whether he +frolicked, did you feel his poison throughout your body and soul, +converting everything to sourness and bitterness? That is the way of +such serpents. I have learned the whole nature of them from my own!" + +"Where is the police?" roared the object of Roderick's persecution, at +the same time giving an instinctive clutch to his breast. "Why is this +lunatic allowed to go at large?" + +"Ha, ha!" chuckled Roderick, releasing his grasp of the man.-- "His +bosom serpent has stung him then!" + +Often it pleased the unfortunate young man to vex people with a lighter +satire, yet still characterized by somewhat of snake-like virulence. +One day he encountered an ambitious statesman, and gravely inquired +after the welfare of his boa constrictor; for of that species, Roderick +affirmed, this gentleman's serpent must needs be, since its appetite +was enormous enough to devour the whole country and constitution. At +another time, he stopped a close-fisted old fellow, of great wealth, +but who skulked about the city in the guise of a scarecrow, with a +patched blue surtout, brown hat, and mouldy boots, scraping pence +together, and picking up rusty nails. Pretending to look earnestly at +this respectable person's stomach, Roderick assured him that his snake +was a copper-head and had been generated by the immense quantities of +that base metal with which he daily defiled his fingers. Again, he +assaulted a man of rubicund visage, and told him that few bosom +serpents had more of the devil in them than those that breed in the +vats of a distillery. The next whom Roderick honored with his attention +was a distinguished clergyman, who happened just then to be engaged in +a theological controversy, where human wrath was more perceptible than +divine inspiration. + +"You have swallowed a snake in a cup of sacramental wine," quoth he. + +"Profane wretch!" exclaimed the divine; but, nevertheless, his hand +stole to his breast. + +He met a person of sickly sensibility, who, on some early +disappointment, had retired from the world, and thereafter held no +intercourse with his fellow-men, but brooded sullenly or passionately +over the irrevocable past. This man's very heart, if Roderick might be +believed, had been changed into a serpent, which would finally torment +both him and itself to death. Observing a married couple, whose +domestic troubles were matter of notoriety, he condoled with both on +having mutually taken a house adder to their bosoms. To an envious +author, who depreciated works which he could never equal, he said that +his snake was the slimiest and filthiest of all the reptile tribe, but +was fortunately without a sting. A man of impure life, and a brazen +face, asking Roderick if there were any serpent in his breast, he told +him that there was, and of the same species that once tortured Don +Rodrigo, the Goth. He took a fair young girl by the hand, and gazing +sadly into her eyes, warned her that she cherished a serpent of the +deadliest kind within her gentle breast; and the world found the truth +of those ominous words, when, a few months afterwards, the poor girl +died of love and shame. Two ladies, rivals in fashionable life who +tormented one another with a thousand little stings of womanish spite, +were given to understand that each of their hearts was a nest of +diminutive snakes, which did quite as much mischief as one great one. + +But nothing seemed to please Roderick better than to lay hold of a +person infected with jealousy, which he represented as an enormous +green reptile, with an ice-cold length of body, and the sharpest sting +of any snake save one. + +"And what one is that?" asked a by-stander, overhearing him. + +It was a dark-browed man who put the question; he had an evasive eye, +which in the course of a dozen years had looked no mortal directly in +the face. There was an ambiguity about this person's character,--a +stain upon his reputation,--yet none could tell precisely of what +nature, although the city gossips, male and female, whispered the most +atrocious surmises. Until a recent period he had followed the sea, and +was, in fact, the very shipmaster whom George Herkimer had encountered, +under such singular circumstances, in the Grecian Archipelago. + +"What bosom serpent has the sharpest sting?" repeated this man; but he +put the question as if by a reluctant necessity, and grew pale while he +was uttering it. + +"Why need you ask?" replied Roderick, with a look of dark intelligence. +"Look into your own breast. Hark! my serpent bestirs himself! He +acknowledges the presence of a master fiend!" + +And then, as the by-standers afterwards affirmed, a hissing sound was +heard, apparently in Roderick Elliston's breast. It was said, too, that +an answering hiss came from the vitals of the shipmaster, as if a snake +were actually lurking there and had been aroused by the call of its +brother reptile. If there were in fact any such sound, it might have +been caused by a malicious exercise of ventriloquism on the part of +Roderick. + +Thus making his own actual serpent--if a serpent there actually was in +his bosom--the type of each man's fatal error, or hoarded sin, or +unquiet conscience, and striking his sting so unremorsefully into the +sorest spot, we may well imagine that Roderick became the pest of the +city. Nobody could elude him--none could withstand him. He grappled +with the ugliest truth that he could lay his hand on, and compelled his +adversary to do the same. Strange spectacle in human life where it is +the instinctive effort of one and all to hide those sad realities, and +leave them undisturbed beneath a heap of superficial topics which +constitute the materials of intercourse between man and man! It was not +to be tolerated that Roderick Elliston should break through the tacit +compact by which the world has done its best to secure repose without +relinquishing evil. The victims of his malicious remarks, it is true, +had brothers enough to keep them in countenance; for, by Roderick's +theory, every mortal bosom harbored either a brood of small serpents or +one overgrown monster that had devoured all the rest. Still the city +could not bear this new apostle. It was demanded by nearly all, and +particularly by the most respectable inhabitants, that Roderick should +no longer be permitted to violate the received rules of decorum by +obtruding his own bosom serpent to the public gaze, and dragging those +of decent people from their lurking places. + +Accordingly, his relatives interfered and placed him in a private +asylum for the insane. When the news was noised abroad, it was observed +that many persons walked the streets with freer countenances and +covered their breasts less carefully with their hands. + +His confinement, however, although it contributed not a little to the +peace of the town, operated unfavorably upon Roderick himself. In +solitude his melancholy grew more black and sullen. He spent whole +days--indeed, it was his sole occupation--in communing with the +serpent. A conversation was sustained, in which, as it seemed, the +hidden monster bore a part, though unintelligibly to the listeners, and +inaudible except in a hiss. Singular as it may appear, the sufferer had +now contracted a sort of affection for his tormentor, mingled, however, +with the intensest loathing and horror. Nor were such discordant +emotions incompatible. Each, on the contrary, imparted strength and +poignancy to its opposite. Horrible love--horrible antipathy--embracing +one another in his bosom, and both concentrating themselves upon a +being that had crept into his vitals or been engendered there, and +which was nourished with his food, and lived upon his life, and was as +intimate with him as his own heart, and yet was the foulest of all +created things! But not the less was it the true type of a morbid +nature. + +Sometimes, in his moments of rage and bitter hatred against the snake +and himself, Roderick determined to be the death of him, even at the +expense of his own life. Once he attempted it by starvation; but, while +the wretched man was on the point of famishing, the monster seemed to +feed upon his heart, and to thrive and wax gamesome, as if it were his +sweetest and most congenial diet. Then he privily took a dose of active +poison, imagining that it would not fail to kill either himself or the +devil that possessed him, or both together. Another mistake; for if +Roderick had not yet been destroyed by his own poisoned heart nor the +snake by gnawing it, they had little to fear from arsenic or corrosive +sublimate. Indeed, the venomous pest appeared to operate as an antidote +against all other poisons. The physicians tried to suffocate the fiend +with tobacco smoke. He breathed it as freely as if it were his native +atmosphere. Again, they drugged their patient with opium and drenched +him with intoxicating liquors, hoping that the snake might thus be +reduced to stupor and perhaps be ejected from the stomach. They +succeeded in rendering Roderick insensible; but, placing their hands +upon his breast, they were inexpressibly horror stricken to feel the +monster wriggling, twining, and darting to and fro within his narrow +limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and incited to +unusual feats of activity. Thenceforth they gave up all attempts at +cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer submitted to his fate, resumed +his former loathsome affection for the bosom fiend, and spent whole +miserable days before a looking-glass, with his mouth wide open, +watching, in hope and horror, to catch a glimpse of the snake's head +far down within his throat. It is supposed that he succeeded; for the +attendants once heard a frenzied shout, and, rushing into the room, +found Roderick lifeless upon the floor. + +He was kept but little longer under restraint. After minute +investigation, the medical directors of the asylum decided that his +mental disease did not amount to insanity, nor would warrant his +confinement, especially as its influence upon his spirits was +unfavorable, and might produce the evil which it was meant to remedy. +His eccentricities were doubtless great; he had habitually violated +many of the customs and prejudices of society; but the world was not, +without surer ground, entitled to treat him as a madman. On this +decision of such competent authority Roderick was released, and had +returned to his native city the very day before his encounter with +George Herkimer. + +As soon as possible after learning these particulars the sculptor, +together with a sad and tremulous companion, sought Elliston at his own +house. It was a large, sombre edifice of wood, with pilasters and a +balcony, and was divided from one of the principal streets by a terrace +of three elevations, which was ascended by successive flights of stone +steps. Some immense old elms almost concealed the front of the mansion. +This spacious and once magnificent family residence was built by a +grandee of the race early in the past century, at which epoch, land +being of small comparative value, the garden and other grounds had +formed quite an extensive domain. Although a portion of the ancestral +heritage had been alienated, there was still a shadowy enclosure in the +rear of the mansion where a student, or a dreamer, or a man of stricken +heart might lie all day upon the grass, amid the solitude of murmuring +boughs, and forget that a city had grown up around him. + +Into this retirement the sculptor and his companion were ushered by +Scipio, the old black servant, whose wrinkled visage grew almost sunny +with intelligence and joy as he paid his humble greetings to one of the +two visitors. + +"Remain in the arbor," whispered the sculptor to the figure that leaned +upon his arm. "You will know whether, and when, to make your +appearance." + +"God will teach me," was the reply. "May He support me too!" + +Roderick was reclining on the margin of a fountain which gushed into +the fleckered sunshine with the same clear sparkle and the same voice +of airy quietude as when trees of primeval growth flung their shadows +cross its bosom. How strange is the life of a fountain!--born at every +moment, yet of an age coeval with the rocks, and far surpassing the +venerable antiquity of a forest. + +"You are come! I have expected you," said Elliston, when he became +aware of the sculptor's presence. + +His manner was very different from that of the preceding day--quiet, +courteous, and, as Herkimer thought, watchful both over his guest and +himself. This unnatural restraint was almost the only trait that +betokened anything amiss. He had just thrown a book upon the grass, +where it lay half opened, thus disclosing itself to be a natural +history of the serpent tribe, illustrated by lifelike plates. Near it +lay that bulky volume, the Ductor Dubitantium of Jeremy Taylor, full of +cases of conscience, and in which most men, possessed of a conscience, +may find something applicable to their purpose. + +"You see," observed Elliston, pointing to the book of serpents, while a +smile gleamed upon his lips, "I am making an effort to become better +acquainted with my bosom friend; but I find nothing satisfactory in +this volume. If I mistake not, he will prove to be sui generis, and +akin to no other reptile in creation." + +"Whence came this strange calamity?" inquired the sculptor. + +"My sable friend Scipio has a story," replied Roderick, "of a snake +that had lurked in this fountain--pure and innocent as it looks--ever +since it was known to the first settlers. This insinuating personage +once crept into the vitals of my great grandfather and dwelt there many +years, tormenting the old gentleman beyond mortal endurance. In short +it is a family peculiarity. But, to tell you the truth, I have no faith +in this idea of the snake's being an heirloom. He is my own snake, and +no man's else." + +"But what was his origin?" demanded Herkimer. + +"Oh, there is poisonous stuff in any man's heart sufficient to generate +a brood of serpents," said Elliston with a hollow laugh. "You should +have heard my homilies to the good town's-people. Positively, I deem +myself fortunate in having bred but a single serpent. You, however, +have none in your bosom, and therefore cannot sympathize with the rest +of the world. It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" + +With this exclamation Roderick lost his self-control and threw himself +upon the grass, testifying his agony by intricate writhings, in which +Herkimer could not but fancy a resemblance to the motions of a snake. +Then, likewise, was heard that frightful hiss, which often ran through +the sufferer's speech, and crept between the words and syllables +without interrupting their succession. + +"This is awful indeed!" exclaimed the sculptor--"an awful infliction, +whether it be actual or imaginary. Tell me, Roderick Elliston, is there +any remedy for this loathsome evil?" + +"Yes, but an impossible one," muttered Roderick, as he lay wallowing +with his face in the grass. "Could I for one moment forget myself, the +serpent might not abide within me. It is my diseased self-contemplation +that has engendered and nourished him." + +"Then forget yourself, my husband," said a gentle voice above him; +"forget yourself in the idea of another!" + +Rosina had emerged from the arbor, and was bending over him with the +shadow of his anguish reflected in her countenance, yet so mingled with +hope and unselfish love that all anguish seemed but an earthly shadow +and a dream. She touched Roderick with her hand. A tremor shivered +through his frame. At that moment, if report be trustworthy, the +sculptor beheld a waving motion through the grass, and heard a tinkling +sound, as if something had plunged into the fountain. Be the truth as +it might, it is certain that Roderick Elliston sat up like a man +renewed, restored to his right mind, and rescued from the fiend which +had so miserably overcome him in the battle-field of his own breast. + +"Rosina!" cried he, in broken and passionate tones, but with nothing of +the wild wail that had haunted his voice so long, "forgive! forgive!" + +Her happy tears bedewed his face. + +"The punishment has been severe," observed the sculptor. "Even Justice +might now forgive; how much more a woman's tenderness! Roderick +Elliston, whether the serpent was a physical reptile, or whether the +morbidness of your nature suggested that symbol to your fancy, the +moral of the story is not the less true and strong. A tremendous +Egotism, manifesting itself in your case in the form of jealousy, is as +fearful a fiend as ever stole into the human heart. Can a breast, where +it has dwelt so long, be purified?" + +"Oh yes," said Rosina with a heavenly smile. "The serpent was but a +dark fantasy, and what it typified was as shadowy as itself. The past, +dismal as it seems, shall fling no gloom upon the future. To give it +its due importance we must think of it but as an anecdote in our +Eternity." + + + +DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE + +One sunshiny morning, in the good old times of the town of Boston, a +young carver in wood, well known by the name of Drowne, stood +contemplating a large oaken log, which it was his purpose to convert +into the figure-head of a vessel. And while he discussed within his own +mind what sort of shape or similitude it were well to bestow upon this +excellent piece of timber, there came into Drowne's workshop a certain +Captain Hunnewell, owner and commander of the good brig called the +Cynosure, which had just returned from her first voyage to Fayal. + +"Ah! that will do, Drowne, that will do!" cried the jolly captain, +tapping the log with his rattan. "I bespeak this very piece of oak for +the figure-head of the Cynosure. She has shown herself the sweetest +craft that ever floated, and I mean to decorate her prow with the +handsomest image that the skill of man can cut out of timber. And, +Drowne, you are the fellow to execute it." + +"You give me more credit than I deserve, Captain Hunnewell," said the +carver, modestly, yet as one conscious of eminence in his art. "But, +for the sake of the good brig, I stand ready to do my best. And which +of these designs do you prefer? Here,"--pointing to a staring, +half-length figure, in a white wig and scarlet coat,--"here is an +excellent model, the likeness of our gracious king. Here is the valiant +Admiral Vernon. Or, if you prefer a female figure, what say you to +Britannia with the trident?" + +"All very fine, Drowne; all very fine," answered the mariner. "But as +nothing like the brig ever swam the ocean, so I am determined she shall +have such a figure-head as old Neptune never saw in his life. And what +is more, as there is a secret in the matter, you must pledge your +credit not to betray it." + +"Certainly," said Drowne, marvelling, however, what possible mystery +there could be in reference to an affair so open, of necessity, to the +inspection of all the world as the figure-head of a vessel. "You may +depend, captain, on my being as secret as the nature of the case will +permit." + +Captain Hunnewell then took Drowne by the button, and communicated his +wishes in so low a tone that it would be unmannerly to repeat what was +evidently intended for the carver's private ear. We shall, therefore, +take the opportunity to give the reader a few desirable particulars +about Drowne himself. + +He was the first American who is known to have attempted--in a very +humble line, it is true--that art in which we can now reckon so many +names already distinguished, or rising to distinction. From his +earliest boyhood he had exhibited a knack--for it would be too proud a +word to call it genius--a knack, therefore, for the imitation of the +human figure in whatever material came most readily to hand. The snows +of a New England winter had often supplied him with a species of marble +as dazzingly white, at least, as the Parian or the Carrara, and if less +durable, yet sufficiently so to correspond with any claims to permanent +existence possessed by the boy's frozen statues. Yet they won +admiration from maturer judges than his school-fellows, and were +indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth that +might have made the snow melt beneath his hand. As he advanced in life, +the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible materials for the +display of his skill, which now began to bring him a return of solid +silver as well as the empty praise that had been an apt reward enough +for his productions of evanescent snow. He became noted for carving +ornamental pump heads, and wooden urns for gate posts, and decorations, +more grotesque than fanciful, for mantelpieces. No apothecary would +have deemed himself in the way of obtaining custom without setting up a +gilded mortar, if not a head of Galen or Hippocrates, from the skilful +hand of Drowne. + +But the great scope of his business lay in the manufacture of +figure-heads for vessels. Whether it were the monarch himself, or some +famous British admiral or general, or the governor of the province, or +perchance the favorite daughter of the ship-owner, there the image +stood above the prow, decked out in gorgeous colors, magnificently +gilded, and staring the whole world out of countenance, as if from an +innate consciousness of its own superiority. These specimens of native +sculpture had crossed the sea in all directions, and been not ignobly +noticed among the crowded shipping of the Thames and wherever else the +hardy mariners of New England had pushed their adventures. It must be +confessed that a family likeness pervaded these respectable progeny of +Drowne's skill; that the benign countenance of the king resembled those +of his subjects, and that Miss Peggy Hobart, the merchant's daughter, +bore a remarkable similitude to Britannia, Victory, and other ladies of +the allegoric sisterhood; and, finally, that they all had a kind of +wooden aspect which proved an intimate relationship with the unshaped +blocks of timber in the carver's workshop. But at least there was no +inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any attribute to +render them really works of art, except that deep quality, be it of +soul or intellect, which bestows life upon the lifeless and warmth upon +the cold, and which, had it been present, would have made Drowne's +wooden image instinct with spirit. + +The captain of the Cynosure had now finished his instructions. + +"And Drowne," said he, impressively, "you must lay aside all other +business and set about this forthwith. And as to the price, only do the +job in first-rate style, and you shall settle that point yourself." + +"Very well, captain," answered the carver, who looked grave and +somewhat perplexed, yet had a sort of smile upon his visage; "depend +upon it, I'll do my utmost to satisfy you." + +From that moment the men of taste about Long Wharf and the Town Dock +who were wont to show their love for the arts by frequent visits to +Drowne's workshop, and admiration of his wooden images, began to be +sensible of a mystery in the carver's conduct. Often he was absent in +the daytime. Sometimes, as might be judged by gleams of light from the +shop windows, he was at work until a late hour of the evening; although +neither knock nor voice, on such occasions, could gain admittance for a +visitor, or elicit any word of response. Nothing remarkable, however, +was observed in the shop at those late hours when it was thrown open. A +fine piece of timber, indeed, which Drowne was known to have reserved +for some work of especial dignity, was seen to be gradually assuming +shape. What shape it was destined ultimately to take was a problem to +his friends and a point on which the carver himself preserved a rigid +silence. But day after day, though Drowne was seldom noticed in the act +of working upon it, this rude form began to be developed until it +became evident to all observers that a female figure was growing into +mimic life. At each new visit they beheld a larger pile of wooden chips +and a nearer approximation to something beautiful. It seemed as if the +hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself from the unimaginative world +within the heart of her native tree, and that it was only necessary to +remove the strange shapelessness that had incrusted her, and reveal the +grace and loveliness of a divinity. Imperfect as the design, the +attitude, the costume, and especially the face of the image still +remained, there was already an effect that drew the eye from the wooden +cleverness of Drowne's earlier productions and fixed it upon the +tantalizing mystery of this new project. + +Copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man and a resident of +Boston, came one day to visit Drowne; for he had recognized so much of +moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, in the dearth of +professional sympathy, to cultivate his acquaintance. On entering the +shop, the artist glanced at the inflexible image of king, commander, +dame, and allegory, that stood around, on the best of which might have +been bestowed the questionable praise that it looked as if a living man +had here been changed to wood, and that not only the physical, but the +intellectual and spiritual part, partook of the stolid transformation. +But in not a single instance did it seem as if the wood were imbibing +the ethereal essence of humanity. What a wide distinction is here! and +how far the slightest portion of the latter merit have outvalued the +utmost degree of the former! + +"My friend Drowne;" said Copley, smiling to himself, but alluding to +the mechanical and wooden cleverness that so invariably distinguished +the images, "you are really a remarkable person! I have seldom met with +a man in your line of business that could do so much; for one other +touch might make this figure of General Wolfe, for instance, a +breathing and intelligent human creature." + +"You would have me think that you are praising me highly, Mr. Copley," +answered Drowne, turning his back upon Wolfe's image in apparent +disgust. "But there has come a light into my mind. I know what you know +as well, that the one touch which you speak of as deficient is the only +one that would be truly valuable, and that without it these works of +mine are no better than worthless abortions. There is the same +difference between them and the works of an inspired artist as between +a sign-post daub and one of your best pictures." + +"This is strange," cried Copley, looking him in the face, which now, as +the painter fancied, had a singular depth of intelligence, though +hitherto it had not given him greatly the advantage over his own family +of wooden images. "What has come over you? How is it that, possessing +the idea which you have now uttered, you should produce only such works +as these?" + +The carver smiled, but made no reply. Copley turned again to the +images, conceiving that the sense of deficiency which Drowne had just +expressed, and which is so rare in a merely mechanical character, must +surely imply a genius, the tokens of which had heretofore been +overlooked. But no; there was not a trace of it. He was about to +withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a half-developed figure +which lay in a corner of the workshop, surrounded by scattered chips of +oak. It arrested him at once. + +"What is here? Who has done this?" he broke out, after contemplating it +in speechless astonishment for an instant. "Here is the divine, the +lifegiving touch. What inspired hand is beckoning this wood to arise +and live? Whose work is this?" + +"No man's work," replied Drowne. "The figure lies within that block of +oak, and it is my business to find it." + +"Drowne," said the true artist, grasping the carver fervently by the +hand, "you are a man of genius!" + +As Copley departed, happening to glance backward from the threshold, he +beheld Drowne bending over the half-created shape, and stretching forth +his arms as if he would have embraced and drawn it to his heart; while, +had such a miracle been possible, his countenance expressed passion +enough to communicate warmth and sensibility to the lifeless oak. + +"Strange enough!" said the artist to himself. "Who would have looked +for a modern Pygmalion in the person of a Yankee mechanic!" + +As yet, the image was but vague in its outward presentment; so that, as +in the cloud shapes around the western sun, the observer rather felt, +or was led to imagine, than really saw what was intended by it. Day by +day, however, the work assumed greater precision, and settled its +irregular and misty outline into distincter grace and beauty. The +general design was now obvious to the common eye. It was a female +figure, in what appeared to be a foreign dress; the gown being laced +over the bosom, and opening in front so as to disclose a skirt or +petticoat, the folds and inequalities of which were admirably +represented in the oaken substance. She wore a hat of singular +gracefulness, and abundantly laden with flowers, such as never grew in +the rude soil of New England, but which, with all their fanciful +luxuriance, had a natural truth that it seemed impossible for the most +fertile imagination to have attained without copying from real +prototypes. There were several little appendages to this dress, such as +a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain about the neck, a watch in the +bosom, and a ring upon the finger, all of which would have been deemed +beneath the dignity of sculpture. They were put on, however, with as +much taste as a lovely woman might have shown in her attire, and could +therefore have shocked none but a judgment spoiled by artistic rules. + +The face was still imperfect; but gradually, by a magic touch, +intelligence and sensibility brightened through the features, with all +the effect of light gleaming forth from within the solid oak. The face +became alive. It was a beautiful, though not precisely regular and +somewhat haughty aspect, but with a certain piquancy about the eyes and +mouth, which, of all expressions, would have seemed the most impossible +to throw over a wooden countenance. And now, so far as carving went, +this wonderful production was complete. + +"Drowne," said Copley, who had hardly missed a single day in his visits +to the carver's workshop, "if this work were in marble it would make +you famous at once; nay, I would almost affirm that it would make an +era in the art. It is as ideal as an antique statue, and yet as real as +any lovely woman whom one meets at a fireside or in the street. But I +trust you do not mean to desecrate this exquisite creature with paint, +like those staring kings and admirals yonder?" + +"Not paint her!" exclaimed Captain Hunnewell, who stood by; "not paint +the figure-head of the Cynosure! And what sort of a figure should I cut +in a foreign port with such an unpainted oaken stick as this over my +prow! She must, and she shall, be painted to the life, from the topmost +flower in her hat down to the silver spangles on her slippers." + +"Mr. Copley," said Drowne, quietly, "I know nothing of marble statuary, +and nothing of the sculptor's rules of art; but of this wooden image, +this work of my hands, this creature of my heart,"--and here his voice +faltered and choked in a very singular manner,--"of this--of her--I may +say that I know something. A well-spring of inward wisdom gushed within +me as I wrought upon the oak with my whole strength, and soul, and +faith. Let others do what they may with marble, and adopt what rules +they choose. If I can produce my desired effect by painted wood, those +rules are not for me, and I have a right to disregard them." + +"The very spirit of genius," muttered Copley to himself. "How otherwise +should this carver feel himself entitled to transcend all rules, and +make me ashamed of quoting them?" + +He looked earnestly at Drowne, and again saw that expression of human +love which, in a spiritual sense, as the artist could not help +imagining, was the secret of the life that had been breathed into this +block of wood. + +The carver, still in the same secrecy that marked all his operations +upon this mysterious image, proceeded to paint the habiliments in their +proper colors, and the countenance with Nature's red and white. When +all was finished he threw open his workshop, and admitted the towns +people to behold what he had done. Most persons, at their first +entrance, felt impelled to remove their hats, and pay such reverence as +was due to the richly-dressed and beautiful young lady who seemed to +stand in a corner of the room, with oaken chips and shavings scattered +at her feet. Then came a sensation of fear; as if, not being actually +human, yet so like humanity, she must therefore be something +preternatural. There was, in truth, an indefinable air and expression +that might reasonably induce the query, Who and from what sphere this +daughter of the oak should be? The strange, rich flowers of Eden on her +head; the complexion, so much deeper and more brilliant than those of +our native beauties; the foreign, as it seemed, and fantastic garb, yet +not too fantastic to be worn decorously in the street; the +delicately-wrought embroidery of the skirt; the broad gold chain about +her neck; the curious ring upon her finger; the fan, so exquisitely +sculptured in open work, and painted to resemble pearl and +ebony;--where could Drowne, in his sober walk of life, have beheld the +vision here so matchlessly embodied! And then her face! In the dark +eyes, and around the voluptuous mouth, there played a look made up of +pride, coquetry, and a gleam of mirthfulness, which impressed Copley +with the idea that the image was secretly enjoying the perplexing +admiration of himself and other beholders. + +"And will you," said he to the carver, "permit this masterpiece to +become the figure-head of a vessel? Give the honest captain yonder +figure of Britannia--it will answer his purpose far better--and send +this fairy queen to England, where, for aught I know, it may bring you +a thousand pounds." + +"I have not wrought it for money," said Drowne. + +"What sort of a fellow is this!" thought Copley. "A Yankee, and throw +away the chance of making his fortune! He has gone mad; and thence has +come this gleam of genius." + +There was still further proof of Drowne's lunacy, if credit were due to +the rumor that he had been seen kneeling at the feet of the oaken lady, +and gazing with a lover's passionate ardor into the face that his own +hands had created. The bigots of the day hinted that it would be no +matter of surprise if an evil spirit were allowed to enter this +beautiful form, and seduce the carver to destruction. + +The fame of the image spread far and wide. The inhabitants visited it +so universally, that after a few days of exhibition there was hardly an +old man or a child who had not become minutely familiar with its +aspect. Even had the story of Drowne's wooden image ended here, its +celebrity might have been prolonged for many years by the reminiscences +of those who looked upon it in their childhood, and saw nothing else so +beautiful in after life. But the town was now astounded by an event, +the narrative of which has formed itself into one of the most singular +legends that are yet to be met with in the traditionary chimney corners +of the New England metropolis, where old men and women sit dreaming of +the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the present and the +future. + +One fine morning, just before the departure of the Cynosure on her +second voyage to Fayal, the commander of that gallant vessel was seen +to issue from his residence in Hanover Street. He was stylishly dressed +in a blue broadcloth coat, with gold lace at the seams and +button-holes, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, a triangular hat, with +a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore a silver-hilted hanger at +his side. But the good captain might have been arrayed in the robes of +a prince or the rags of a beggar, without in either case attracting +notice, while obscured by such a companion as now leaned on his arm. +The people in the street started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped +aside from their path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or marble in +astonishment. + +"Do you see it?--do you see it?" cried one, with tremulous eagerness. +"It is the very same!" + +"The same?" answered another, who had arrived in town only the night +before. "Who do you mean? I see only a sea-captain in his shoregoing +clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit, with a bunch of beautiful +flowers in her hat. On my word, she is as fair and bright a damsel as +my eyes have looked on this many a day!" + +"Yes; the same!--the very same!" repeated the other. "Drowne's wooden +image has come to life!" + +Here was a miracle indeed! Yet, illuminated by the sunshine, or +darkened by the alternate shade of the houses, and with its garments +fluttering lightly in the morning breeze, there passed the image along +the street. It was exactly and minutely the shape, the garb, and the +face which the towns-people had so recently thronged to see and admire. +Not a rich flower upon her head, not a single leaf, but had had its +prototype in Drowne's wooden workmanship, although now their fragile +grace had become flexible, and was shaken by every footstep that the +wearer made. The broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the +one represented on the image, and glistened with the motion imparted by +the rise and fall of the bosom which it decorated. A real diamond +sparkled on her finger. In her right hand she bore a pearl and ebony +fan, which she flourished with a fantastic and bewitching coquetry, +that was likewise expressed in all her movements as well as in the +style of her beauty and the attire that so well harmonized with it. The +face with its brilliant depth of complexion had the same piquancy of +mirthful mischief that was fixed upon the countenance of the image, but +which was here varied and continually shifting, yet always essentially +the same, like the sunny gleam upon a bubbling fountain. On the whole, +there was something so airy and yet so real in the figure, and withal +so perfectly did it represent Drowne's image, that people knew not +whether to suppose the magic wood etherealized into a spirit or warmed +and softened into an actual woman. + +"One thing is certain," muttered a Puritan of the old stamp, "Drowne +has sold himself to the devil; and doubtless this gay Captain Hunnewell +is a party to the bargain." + +"And I," said a young man who overheard him, "would almost consent to +be the third victim, for the liberty of saluting those lovely lips." + +"And so would I," said Copley, the painter, "for the privilege of +taking her picture." + +The image, or the apparition, whichever it might be, still escorted by +the bold captain, proceeded from Hanover Street through some of the +cross lanes that make this portion of the town so intricate, to Ann +Street, thence into Dock Square, and so downward to Drowne's shop, +which stood just on the water's edge. The crowd still followed, +gathering volume as it rolled along. Never had a modern miracle +occurred in such broad daylight, nor in the presence of such a +multitude of witnesses. The airy image, as if conscious that she was +the object of the murmurs and disturbance that swelled behind her, +appeared slightly vexed and flustered, yet still in a manner consistent +with the light vivacity and sportive mischief that were written in her +countenance. She was observed to flutter her fan with such vehement +rapidity that the elaborate delicacy of its workmanship gave way, and +it remained broken in her hand. + +Arriving at Drowne's door, while the captain threw it open, the +marvellous apparition paused an instant on the threshold, assuming the +very attitude of the image, and casting over the crowd that glance of +sunny coquetry which all remembered on the face of the oaken lady. She +and her cavalier then disappeared. + +"Ah!" murmured the crowd, drawing a deep breath, as with one vast pair +of lungs. + +"The world looks darker now that she has vanished," said some of the +young men. + +But the aged, whose recollections dated as far back as witch times, +shook their heads, and hinted that our forefathers would have thought +it a pious deed to burn the daughter of the oak with fire. + +"If she be other than a bubble of the elements," exclaimed Copley, "I +must look upon her face again." + +He accordingly entered the shop; and there, in her usual corner, stood +the image, gazing at him, as it might seem, with the very same +expression of mirthful mischief that had been the farewell look of the +apparition when, but a moment before, she turned her face towards the +crowd. The carver stood beside his creation mending the beautiful fan, +which by some accident was broken in her hand. But there was no longer +any motion in the lifelike image, nor any real woman in the workshop, +nor even the witchcraft of a sunny shadow, that might have deluded +people's eyes as it flitted along the street. Captain Hunnewell, too, +had vanished. His hoarse sea-breezy tones, however, were audible on the +other side of a door that opened upon the water. + +"Sit down in the stern sheets, my lady," said the gallant captain. +"Come, bear a hand, you lubbers, and set us on board in the turning of +a minute-glass." + +And then was heard the stroke of oars. + +"Drowne," said Copley with a smile of intelligence, "you have been a +truly fortunate man. What painter or statuary ever had such a subject! +No wonder that she inspired a genius into you, and first created the +artist who afterwards created her image." + +Drowne looked at him with a visage that bore the traces of tears, but +from which the light of imagination and sensibility, so recently +illuminating it, had departed. He was again the mechanical carver that +he had been known to be all his lifetime. + +"I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. Copley," said he, putting his +hand to his brow. "This image! Can it have been my work? Well, I have +wrought it in a kind of dream; and now that I am broad awake I must set +about finishing yonder figure of Admiral Vernon." + +And forthwith he employed himself on the stolid countenance of one of +his wooden progeny, and completed it in his own mechanical style, from +which he was never known afterwards to deviate. He followed his +business industriously for many years, acquired a competence, and in +the latter part of his life attained to a dignified station in the +church, being remembered in records and traditions as Deacon Drowne, +the carver. One of his productions, an Indian chief, gilded all over, +stood during the better part of a century on the cupola of the Province +House, bedazzling the eyes of those who looked upward, like an angel of +the sun. Another work of the good deacon's hand--a reduced likeness of +his friend Captain Hunnewell, holding a telescope and quadrant--may be +seen to this day, at the corner of Broad and State streets, serving in +the useful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical instrument maker. +We know not how to account for the inferiority of this quaint old +figure, as compared with the recorded excellence of the Oaken Lady, +unless on the supposition that in every human spirit there is +imagination, sensibility, creative power, genius, which, according to +circumstances, may either be developed in this world, or shrouded in a +mask of dulness until another state of being. To our friend Drowne +there came a brief season of excitement, kindled by love. It rendered +him a genius for that one occasion, but, quenched in disappointment, +left him again the mechanical carver in wood, without the power even of +appreciating the work that his own hands had wrought. Yet who can doubt +that the very highest state to which a human spirit can attain, in its +loftiest aspirations, is its truest and most natural state, and that +Drowne was more consistent with himself when he wrought the admirable +figure of the mysterious lady, than when he perpetrated a whole progeny +of blockheads? + +There was a rumor in Boston, about this period, that a young Portuguese +lady of rank, on some occasion of political or domestic disquietude, +had fled from her home in Fayal and put herself under the protection of +Captain Hunnewell, on board of whose vessel, and at whose residence, +she was sheltered until a change of affairs. This fair stranger must +have been the original of Drowne's Wooden Image. + + + +ROGER MALVIN'S BURIAL + +One of the few incidents of Indian warfare naturally susceptible of the +moonlight of romance was that expedition undertaken for the defence of +the frontiers in the year 1725, which resulted in the well-remembered +"Lovell's Fight." Imagination, by casting certain circumstances +judicially into the shade, may see much to admire in the heroism of a +little band who gave battle to twice their number in the heart of the +enemy's country. The open bravery displayed by both parties was in +accordance with civilized ideas of valor; and chivalry itself might not +blush to record the deeds of one or two individuals. The battle, though +so fatal to those who fought, was not unfortunate in its consequences +to the country; for it broke the strength of a tribe and conduced to +the peace which subsisted during several ensuing years. History and +tradition are unusually minute in their memorials of their affair; and +the captain of a scouting party of frontier men has acquired as actual +a military renown as many a victorious leader of thousands. Some of the +incidents contained in the following pages will be recognized, +notwithstanding the substitution of fictitious names, by such as have +heard, from old men's lips, the fate of the few combatants who were in +a condition to retreat after "Lovell's Fight." + + . . . . . . . . . + +The early sunbeams hovered cheerfully upon the tree-tops, beneath which +two weary and wounded men had stretched their limbs the night before. +Their bed of withered oak leaves was strewn upon the small level space, +at the foot of a rock, situated near the summit of one of the gentle +swells by which the face of the country is there diversified. The mass +of granite, rearing its smooth, flat surface fifteen or twenty feet +above their heads, was not unlike a gigantic gravestone, upon which the +veins seemed to form an inscription in forgotten characters. On a tract +of several acres around this rock, oaks and other hard-wood trees had +supplied the place of the pines, which were the usual growth of the +land; and a young and vigorous sapling stood close beside the +travellers. + +The severe wound of the elder man had probably deprived him of sleep; +for, so soon as the first ray of sunshine rested on the top of the +highest tree, he reared himself painfully from his recumbent posture +and sat erect. The deep lines of his countenance and the scattered gray +of his hair marked him as past the middle age; but his muscular frame +would, but for the effect of his wound, have been as capable of +sustaining fatigue as in the early vigor of life. Languor and +exhaustion now sat upon his haggard features; and the despairing glance +which he sent forward through the depths of the forest proved his own +conviction that his pilgrimage was at an end. He next turned his eyes +to the companion who reclined by his side. The youth--for he had +scarcely attained the years of manhood--lay, with his head upon his +arm, in the embrace of an unquiet sleep, which a thrill of pain from +his wounds seemed each moment on the point of breaking. His right hand +grasped a musket; and, to judge from the violent action of his +features, his slumbers were bringing back a vision of the conflict of +which he was one of the few survivors. A shout deep and loud in his +dreaming fancy--found its way in an imperfect murmur to his lips; and, +starting even at the slight sound of his own voice, he suddenly awoke. +The first act of reviving recollection was to make anxious inquiries +respecting the condition of his wounded fellow-traveller. The latter +shook his head. + +"Reuben, my boy," said he, "this rock beneath which we sit will serve +for an old hunter's gravestone. There is many and many a long mile of +howling wilderness before us yet; nor would it avail me anything if the +smoke of my own chimney were but on the other side of that swell of +land. The Indian bullet was deadlier than I thought." + +"You are weary with our three days' travel," replied the youth, "and a +little longer rest will recruit you. Sit you here while I search the +woods for the herbs and roots that must be our sustenance; and, having +eaten, you shall lean on me, and we will turn our faces homeward. I +doubt not that, with my help, you can attain to some one of the +frontier garrisons." + +"There is not two days' life in me, Reuben," said the other, calmly, +"and I will no longer burden you with my useless body, when you can +scarcely support your own. Your wounds are deep and your strength is +failing fast; yet, if you hasten onward alone, you may be preserved. +For me there is no hope, and I will await death here." + +"If it must be so, I will remain and watch by you," said Reuben, +resolutely. + +"No, my son, no," rejoined his companion. "Let the wish of a dying man +have weight with you; give me one grasp of your hand, and get you +hence. Think you that my last moments will be eased by the thought that +I leave you to die a more lingering death? I have loved you like a +father, Reuben; and at a time like this I should have something of a +father's authority. I charge you to be gone that I may die in peace." + +"And because you have been a father to me, should I therefore leave you +to perish and to lie unburied in the wilderness?" exclaimed the youth. +"No; if your end be in truth approaching, I will watch by you and +receive your parting words. I will dig a grave here by the rock, in +which, if my weakness overcome me, we will rest together; or, if Heaven +gives me strength, I will seek my way home." + +"In the cities and wherever men dwell," replied the other, "they bury +their dead in the earth; they hide them from the sight of the living; +but here, where no step may pass perhaps for a hundred years, wherefore +should I not rest beneath the open sky, covered only by the oak leaves +when the autumn winds shall strew them? And for a monument, here is +this gray rock, on which my dying hand shall carve the name of Roger +Malvin, and the traveller in days to come will know that here sleeps a +hunter and a warrior. Tarry not, then, for a folly like this, but +hasten away, if not for your own sake, for hers who will else be +desolate." + +Malvin spoke the last few words in a faltering voice, and their effect +upon his companion was strongly visible. They reminded him that there +were other and less questionable duties than that of sharing the fate +of a man whom his death could not benefit. Nor can it be affirmed that +no selfish feeling strove to enter Reuben's heart, though the +consciousness made him more earnestly resist his companion's entreaties. + +"How terrible to wait the slow approach of death in this solitude!" +exclaimed he. "A brave man does not shrink in the battle; and, when +friends stand round the bed, even women may die composedly; but here--" + +"I shall not shrink even here, Reuben Bourne," interrupted Malvin. "I +am a man of no weak heart, and, if I were, there is a surer support +than that of earthly friends. You are young, and life is dear to you. +Your last moments will need comfort far more than mine; and when you +have laid me in the earth, and are alone, and night is settling on the +forest, you will feel all the bitterness of the death that may now be +escaped. But I will urge no selfish motive to your generous nature. +Leave me for my sake, that, having said a prayer for your safety, I may +have space to settle my account undisturbed by worldly sorrows." + +"And your daughter,--how shall I dare to meet her eye?" exclaimed +Reuben. "She will ask the fate of her father, whose life I vowed to +defend with my own. Must I tell her that he travelled three days' march +with me from the field of battle and that then I left him to perish in +the wilderness? Were it not better to lie down and die by your side +than to return safe and say this to Dorcas?" + +"Tell my daughter," said Roger Malvin, "that, though yourself sore +wounded, and weak, and weary, you led my tottering footsteps many a +mile, and left me only at my earnest entreaty, because I would not have +your blood upon my soul. Tell her that through pain and danger you were +faithful, and that, if your lifeblood could have saved me, it would +have flowed to its last drop; and tell her that you will be something +dearer than a father, and that my blessing is with you both, and that +my dying eyes can see a long and pleasant path in which you will +journey together." + +As Malvin spoke he almost raised himself from the ground, and the +energy of his concluding words seemed to fill the wild and lonely +forest with a vision of happiness; but, when he sank exhausted upon his +bed of oak leaves, the light which had kindled in Reuben's eye was +quenched. He felt as if it were both sin and folly to think of +happiness at such a moment. His companion watched his changing +countenance, and sought with generous art to wile him to his own good. + +"Perhaps I deceive myself in regard to the time I have to live," he +resumed. "It may be that, with speedy assistance, I might recover of my +wound. The foremost fugitives must, ere this, have carried tidings of +our fatal battle to the frontiers, and parties will be out to succor +those in like condition with ourselves. Should you meet one of these +and guide them hither, who can tell but that I may sit by my own +fireside again?" + +A mournful smile strayed across the features of the dying man as he +insinuated that unfounded hope,--which, however, was not without its +effect on Reuben. No merely selfish motive, nor even the desolate +condition of Dorcas, could have induced him to desert his companion at +such a moment--but his wishes seized on the thought that Malvin's life +might be preserved, and his sanguine nature heightened almost to +certainty the remote possibility of procuring human aid. + +"Surely there is reason, weighty reason, to hope that friends are not +far distant," he said, half aloud. "There fled one coward, unwounded, +in the beginning of the fight, and most probably he made good speed. +Every true man on the frontier would shoulder his musket at the news; +and, though no party may range so far into the woods as this, I shall +perhaps encounter them in one day's march. Counsel me faithfully," he +added, turning to Malvin, in distrust of his own motives. "Were your +situation mine, would you desert me while life remained?" + +"It is now twenty years," replied Roger Malvin,--sighing, however, as +he secretly acknowledged the wide dissimilarity between the two +cases,-"it is now twenty years since I escaped with one dear friend +from Indian captivity near Montreal. We journeyed many days through the +woods, till at length overcome with hunger and weariness, my friend lay +down and besought me to leave him; for he knew that, if I remained, we +both must perish; and, with but little hope of obtaining succor, I +heaped a pillow of dry leaves beneath his head and hastened on." + +"And did you return in time to save him?" asked Reuben, hanging on +Malvin's words as if they were to be prophetic of his own success. + +"I did," answered the other. "I came upon the camp of a hunting party +before sunset of the same day. I guided them to the spot where my +comrade was expecting death; and he is now a hale and hearty man upon +his own farm, far within the frontiers, while I lie wounded here in the +depths of the wilderness." + +This example, powerful in affecting Reuben's decision, was aided, +unconsciously to himself, by the hidden strength of many another +motive. Roger Malvin perceived that the victory was nearly won. + +"Now, go, my son, and Heaven prosper you!" he said. "Turn not back with +your friends when you meet them, lest your wounds and weariness +overcome you; but send hitherward two or three, that may be spared, to +search for me; and believe me, Reuben, my heart will be lighter with +every step you take towards home." Yet there was, perhaps, a change +both in his countenance and voice as he spoke thus; for, after all, it +was a ghastly fate to be left expiring in the wilderness. + +Reuben Bourne, but half convinced that he was acting rightly, at length +raised himself from the ground and prepared himself for his departure. +And first, though contrary to Malvin's wishes, he collected a stock of +roots and herbs, which had been their only food during the last two +days. This useless supply he placed within reach of the dying man, for +whom, also, he swept together a bed of dry oak leaves. Then climbing to +the summit of the rock, which on one side was rough and broken, he bent +the oak sapling downward, and bound his handkerchief to the topmost +branch. This precaution was not unnecessary to direct any who might +come in search of Malvin; for every part of the rock, except its broad, +smooth front, was concealed at a little distance by the dense +undergrowth of the forest. The handkerchief had been the bandage of a +wound upon Reuben's arm; and, as he bound it to the tree, he vowed by +the blood that stained it that he would return, either to save his +companion's life or to lay his body in the grave. He then descended, +and stood, with downcast eyes, to receive Roger Malvin's parting words. + +The experience of the latter suggested much and minute advice +respecting the youth's journey through the trackless forest. Upon this +subject he spoke with calm earnestness, as if he were sending Reuben to +the battle or the chase while he himself remained secure at home, and +not as if the human countenance that was about to leave him were the +last he would ever behold. But his firmness was shaken before he +concluded. + +"Carry my blessing to Dorcas, and say that my last prayer shall be for +her and you. Bid her to have no hard thoughts because you left me +here,"--Reuben's heart smote him,--"for that your life would not have +weighed with you if its sacrifice could have done me good. She will +marry you after she has mourned a little while for her father; and +Heaven grant you long and happy days, and may your children's children +stand round your death bed! And, Reuben," added he, as the weakness of +mortality made its way at last, "return, when your wounds are healed +and your weariness refreshed,--return to this wild rock, and lay my +bones in the grave, and say a prayer over them." + +An almost superstitious regard, arising perhaps from the customs of the +Indians, whose war was with the dead as well as the living, was paid by +the frontier inhabitants to the rites of sepulture; and there are many +instances of the sacrifice of life in the attempt to bury those who had +fallen by the "sword of the wilderness." Reuben, therefore, felt the +full importance of the promise which he most solemnly made to return +and perform Roger Malvin's obsequies. It was remarkable that the +latter, speaking his whole heart in his parting words, no longer +endeavored to persuade the youth that even the speediest succor might +avail to the preservation of his life. Reuben was internally convinced +that he should see Malvin's living face no more. His generous nature +would fain have delayed him, at whatever risk, till the dying scene +were past; but the desire of existence and the hope of happiness had +strengthened in his heart, and he was unable to resist them. + +"It is enough," said Roger Malvin, having listened to Reuben's promise. +"Go, and God speed you!" + +The youth pressed his hand in silence, turned, and was departing. His +slow and faltering steps, however, had borne him but a little way +before Malvin's voice recalled him. + +"Reuben, Reuben," said he, faintly; and Reuben returned and knelt down +by the dying man. + +"Raise me, and let me lean against the rock," was his last request. "My +face will be turned towards home, and I shall see you a moment longer +as you pass among the trees." + +Reuben, having made the desired alteration in his companion's posture, +again began his solitary pilgrimage. He walked more hastily at first +than was consistent with his strength; for a sort of guilty feeling, +which sometimes torments men in their most justifiable acts, caused him +to seek concealment from Malvin's eyes; but after he had trodden far +upon the rustling forest leaves he crept back, impelled by a wild and +painful curiosity, and, sheltered by the earthy roots of an uptorn +tree, gazed earnestly at the desolate man. The morning sun was +unclouded, and the trees and shrubs imbibed the sweet air of the month +of May; yet there seemed a gloom on Nature's face, as if she +sympathized with mortal pain and sorrow Roger Malvin's hands were +uplifted in a fervent prayer, some of the words of which stole through +the stillness of the woods and entered Reuben's heart, torturing it +with an unutterable pang. They were the broken accents of a petition +for his own happiness and that of Dorcas; and, as the youth listened, +conscience, or something in its similitude, pleaded strongly with him +to return and lie down again by the rock. He felt how hard was the doom +of the kind and generous being whom he had deserted in his extremity. +Death would come like the slow approach of a corpse, stealing gradually +towards him through the forest, and showing its ghastly and motionless +features from behind a nearer and yet a nearer tree. But such must have +been Reuben's own fate had he tarried another sunset; and who shall +impute blame to him if he shrink from so useless a sacrifice? As he +gave a parting look, a breeze waved the little banner upon the sapling +oak and reminded Reuben of his vow. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +Many circumstances combined to retard the wounded traveller in his way +to the frontiers. On the second day the clouds, gathering densely over +the sky, precluded the possibility of regulating his course by the +position of the sun; and he knew not but that every effort of his +almost exhausted strength was removing him farther from the home he +sought. His scanty sustenance was supplied by the berries and other +spontaneous products of the forest. Herds of deer, it is true, +sometimes bounded past him, and partridges frequently whirred up before +his footsteps; but his ammunition had been expended in the fight, and +he had no means of slaying them. His wounds, irritated by the constant +exertion in which lay the only hope of life, wore away his strength and +at intervals confused his reason. But, even in the wanderings of +intellect, Reuben's young heart clung strongly to existence; and it was +only through absolute incapacity of motion that he at last sank down +beneath a tree, compelled there to await death. + +In this situation he was discovered by a party who, upon the first +intelligence of the fight, had been despatched to the relief of the +survivors. They conveyed him to the nearest settlement, which chanced +to be that of his own residence. + +Dorcas, in the simplicity of the olden time, watched by the bedside of +her wounded lover, and administered all those comforts that are in the +sole gift of woman's heart and hand. During several days Reuben's +recollection strayed drowsily among the perils and hardships through +which he had passed, and he was incapable of returning definite answers +to the inquiries with which many were eager to harass him. No authentic +particulars of the battle had yet been circulated; nor could mothers, +wives, and children tell whether their loved ones were detained by +captivity or by the stronger chain of death. Dorcas nourished her +apprehensions in silence till one afternoon when Reuben awoke from an +unquiet sleep, and seemed to recognize her more perfectly than at any +previous time. She saw that his intellect had become composed, and she +could no longer restrain her filial anxiety. + +"My father, Reuben?" she began; but the change in her lover's +countenance made her pause. + +The youth shrank as if with a bitter pain, and the blood gushed vividly +into his wan and hollow cheeks. His first impulse was to cover his +face; but, apparently with a desperate effort, he half raised himself +and spoke vehemently, defending himself against an imaginary accusation. + +"Your father was sore wounded in the battle, Dorcas; and he bade me not +burden myself with him, but only to lead him to the lakeside, that he +might quench his thirst and die. But I would not desert the old man in +his extremity, and, though bleeding myself, I supported him; I gave him +half my strength, and led him away with me. For three days we journeyed +on together, and your father was sustained beyond my hopes, but, +awaking at sunrise on the fourth day, I found him faint and exhausted; +he was unable to proceed; his life had ebbed away fast; and--" + +"He died!" exclaimed Dorcas, faintly. + +Reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his selfish love of life +had hurried him away before her father's fate was decided. He spoke +not; he only bowed his head; and, between shame and exhaustion, sank +back and hid his face in the pillow. Dorcas wept when her fears were +thus confirmed; but the shock, as it had been long anticipated, was on +that account the less violent. + +"You dug a grave for my poor father in the wilderness, Reuben?" was the +question by which her filial piety manifested itself. + +"My hands were weak; but I did what I could," replied the youth in a +smothered tone. "There stands a noble tombstone above his head; and I +would to Heaven I slept as soundly as he!" + +Dorcas, perceiving the wildness of his latter words, inquired no +further at the time; but her heart found ease in the thought that Roger +Malvin had not lacked such funeral rites as it was possible to bestow. +The tale of Reuben's courage and fidelity lost nothing when she +communicated it to her friends; and the poor youth, tottering from his +sick chamber to breathe the sunny air, experienced from every tongue +the miserable and humiliating torture of unmerited praise. All +acknowledged that he might worthily demand the hand of the fair maiden +to whose father he had been "faithful unto death;" and, as my tale is +not of love, it shall suffice to say that in the space of a few months +Reuben became the husband of Dorcas Malvin. During the marriage +ceremony the bride was covered with blushes, but the bridegroom's face +was pale. + +There was now in the breast of Reuben Bourne an incommunicable +thought--something which he was to conceal most heedfully from her whom +he most loved and trusted. He regretted, deeply and bitterly, the moral +cowardice that had restrained his words when he was about to disclose +the truth to Dorcas; but pride, the fear of losing her affection, the +dread of universal scorn, forbade him to rectify this falsehood. He +felt that for leaving Roger Malvin he deserved no censure. His +presence, the gratuitous sacrifice of his own life, would have added +only another and a needless agony to the last moments of the dying man; +but concealment had imparted to a justifiable act much of the secret +effect of guilt; and Reuben, while reason told him that he had done +right, experienced in no small degree the mental horrors which punish +the perpetrator of undiscovered crime. By a certain association of +ideas, he at times almost imagined himself a murderer. For years, also, +a thought would occasionally recur, which, though he perceived all its +folly and extravagance, he had not power to banish from his mind. It +was a haunting and torturing fancy that his father-in-law was yet +sitting at the foot of the rock, on the withered forest leaves, alive, +and awaiting his pledged assistance. These mental deceptions, however, +came and went, nor did he ever mistake them for realities: but in the +calmest and clearest moods of his mind he was conscious that he had a +deep vow unredeemed, and that an unburied corpse was calling to him out +of the wilderness. Yet such was the consequence of his prevarication +that he could not obey the call. It was now too late to require the +assistance of Roger Malvin's friends in performing his long-deferred +sepulture; and superstitious fears, of which none were more susceptible +than the people of the outward settlements, forbade Reuben to go alone. +Neither did he know where in the pathless and illimitable forest to +seek that smooth and lettered rock at the base of which the body lay: +his remembrance of every portion of his travel thence was indistinct, +and the latter part had left no impression upon his mind. There was, +however, a continual impulse, a voice audible only to himself, +commanding him to go forth and redeem his vow; and he had a strange +impression that, were he to make the trial, he would be led straight to +Malvin's bones. But year after year that summons, unheard but felt, was +disobeyed. His one secret thought became like a chain binding down his +spirit and like a serpent gnawing into his heart; and he was +transformed into a sad and downcast yet irritable man. + +In the course of a few years after their marriage changes began to be +visible in the external prosperity of Reuben and Dorcas. The only +riches of the former had been his stout heart and strong arm; but the +latter, her father's sole heiress, had made her husband master of a +farm, under older cultivation, larger, and better stocked than most of +the frontier establishments. Reuben Bourne, however, was a neglectful +husbandman; and, while the lands of the other settlers became annually +more fruitful, his deteriorated in the same proportion. The +discouragements to agriculture were greatly lessened by the cessation +of Indian war, during which men held the plough in one hand and the +musket in the other, and were fortunate if the products of their +dangerous labor were not destroyed, either in the field or in the barn, +by the savage enemy. But Reuben did not profit by the altered condition +of the country; nor can it be denied that his intervals of industrious +attention to his affairs were but scantily rewarded with success. The +irritability by which he had recently become distinguished was another +cause of his declining prosperity, as it occasioned frequent quarrels +in his unavoidable intercourse with the neighboring settlers. The +results of these were innumerable lawsuits; for the people of New +England, in the earliest stages and wildest circumstances of the +country, adopted, whenever attainable, the legal mode of deciding their +differences. To be brief, the world did not go well with Reuben Bourne; +and, though not till many years after his marriage, he was finally a +ruined man, with but one remaining expedient against the evil fate that +had pursued him. He was to throw sunlight into some deep recess of the +forest, and seek subsistence from the virgin bosom of the wilderness. + +The only child of Reuben and Dorcas was a son, now arrived at the age +of fifteen years, beautiful in youth, and giving promise of a glorious +manhood. He was peculiarly qualified for, and already began to excel +in, the wild accomplishments of frontier life. His foot was fleet, his +aim true, his apprehension quick, his heart glad and high; and all who +anticipated the return of Indian war spoke of Cyrus Bourne as a future +leader in the land. The boy was loved by his father with a deep and +silent strength, as if whatever was good and happy in his own nature +had been transferred to his child, carrying his affections with it. +Even Dorcas, though loving and beloved, was far less dear to him; for +Reuben's secret thoughts and insulated emotions had gradually made him +a selfish man, and he could no longer love deeply except where he saw +or imagined some reflection or likeness of his own mind. In Cyrus he +recognized what he had himself been in other days; and at intervals he +seemed to partake of the boy's spirit, and to be revived with a fresh +and happy life. Reuben was accompanied by his son in the expedition, +for the purpose of selecting a tract of land and felling and burning +the timber, which necessarily preceded the removal of the household +gods. Two months of autumn were thus occupied, after which Reuben +Bourne and his young hunter returned to spend their last winter in the +settlements. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +It was early in the month of May that the little family snapped asunder +whatever tendrils of affections had clung to inanimate objects, and +bade farewell to the few who, in the blight of fortune, called +themselves their friends. The sadness of the parting moment had, to +each of the pilgrims, its peculiar alleviations. Reuben, a moody man, +and misanthropic because unhappy, strode onward with his usual stern +brow and downcast eye, feeling few regrets and disdaining to +acknowledge any. Dorcas, while she wept abundantly over the broken ties +by which her simple and affectionate nature had bound itself to +everything, felt that the inhabitants of her inmost heart moved on with +her, and that all else would be supplied wherever she might go. And the +boy dashed one tear-drop from his eye, and thought of the adventurous +pleasures of the untrodden forest. + +Oh, who, in the enthusiasm of a daydream, has not wished that he were a +wanderer in a world of summer wilderness, with one fair and gentle +being hanging lightly on his arm? In youth his free and exulting step +would know no barrier but the rolling ocean or the snow-topped +mountains; calmer manhood would choose a home where Nature had strewn a +double wealth in the vale of some transparent stream; and when hoary +age, after long, long years of that pure life, stole on and found him +there, it would find him the father of a race, the patriarch of a +people, the founder of a mighty nation yet to be. When death, like the +sweet sleep which we welcome after a day of happiness, came over him, +his far descendants would mourn over the venerated dust. Enveloped by +tradition in mysterious attributes, the men of future generations would +call him godlike; and remote posterity would see him standing, dimly +glorious, far up the valley of a hundred centuries. + +The tangled and gloomy forest through which the personages of my tale +were wandering differed widely from the dreamer's land of fantasy; yet +there was something in their way of life that Nature asserted as her +own, and the gnawing cares which went with them from the world were all +that now obstructed their happiness. One stout and shaggy steed, the +bearer of all their wealth, did not shrink from the added weight of +Dorcas; although her hardy breeding sustained her, during the latter +part of each day's journey, by her husband's side. Reuben and his son, +their muskets on their shoulders and their axes slung behind them, kept +an unwearied pace, each watching with a hunter's eye for the game that +supplied their food. When hunger bade, they halted and prepared their +meal on the bank of some unpolluted forest brook, which, as they knelt +down with thirsty lips to drink, murmured a sweet unwillingness, like a +maiden at love's first kiss. They slept beneath a hut of branches, and +awoke at peep of light refreshed for the toils of another day. Dorcas +and the boy went on joyously, and even Reuben's spirit shone at +intervals with an outward gladness; but inwardly there was a cold cold +sorrow, which he compared to the snowdrifts lying deep in the glens and +hollows of the rivulets while the leaves were brightly green above. + +Cyrus Bourne was sufficiently skilled in the travel of the woods to +observe that his father did not adhere to the course they had pursued +in their expedition of the preceding autumn. They were now keeping +farther to the north, striking out more directly from the settlements, +and into a region of which savage beasts and savage men were as yet the +sole possessors. The boy sometimes hinted his opinions upon the +subject, and Reuben listened attentively, and once or twice altered the +direction of their march in accordance with his son's counsel; but, +having so done, he seemed ill at ease. His quick and wandering glances +were sent forward apparently in search of enemies lurking behind the +tree trunks, and, seeing nothing there, he would cast his eyes +backwards as if in fear of some pursuer. Cyrus, perceiving that his +father gradually resumed the old direction, forbore to interfere; nor, +though something began to weigh upon his heart, did his adventurous +nature permit him to regret the increased length and the mystery of +their way. + +On the afternoon of the fifth day they halted, and made their simple +encampment nearly an hour before sunset. The face of the country, for +the last few miles, had been diversified by swells of land resembling +huge waves of a petrified sea; and in one of the corresponding hollows, +a wild and romantic spot, had the family reared their hut and kindled +their fire. There is something chilling, and yet heart-warming, in the +thought of these three, united by strong bands of love and insulated +from all that breathe beside. The dark and gloomy pines looked down +upon them, and, as the wind swept through their tops, a pitying sound +was heard in the forest; or did those old trees groan in fear that men +were come to lay the axe to their roots at last? Reuben and his son, +while Dorcas made ready their meal, proposed to wander out in search of +game, of which that day's march had afforded no supply. The boy, +promising not to quit the vicinity of the encampment, bounded off with +a step as light and elastic as that of the deer he hoped to slay; while +his father, feeling a transient happiness as he gazed after him, was +about to pursue an opposite direction. Dorcas in the meanwhile, had +seated herself near their fire of fallen branches upon the mossgrown +and mouldering trunk of a tree uprooted years before. Her employment, +diversified by an occasional glance at the pot, now beginning to simmer +over the blaze, was the perusal of the current year's Massachusetts +Almanac, which, with the exception of an old black-letter Bible, +comprised all the literary wealth of the family. None pay a greater +regard to arbitrary divisions of time than those who are excluded from +society; and Dorcas mentioned, as if the information were of +importance, that it was now the twelfth of May. Her husband started. + +"The twelfth of May! I should remember it well," muttered he, while +many thoughts occasioned a momentary confusion in his mind. "Where am +I? Whither am I wandering? Where did I leave him?" + +Dorcas, too well accustomed to her husband's wayward moods to note any +peculiarity of demeanor, now laid aside the almanac and addressed him +in that mournful tone which the tender hearted appropriate to griefs +long cold and dead. + +"It was near this time of the month, eighteen years ago, that my poor +father left this world for a better. He had a kind arm to hold his head +and a kind voice to cheer him, Reuben, in his last moments; and the +thought of the faithful care you took of him has comforted me many a +time since. Oh, death would have been awful to a solitary man in a wild +place like this!" + +"Pray Heaven, Dorcas," said Reuben, in a broken voice,--"pray Heaven +that neither of us three dies solitary and lies unburied in this +howling wilderness!" And he hastened away, leaving her to watch the +fire beneath the gloomy pines. + +Reuben Bourne's rapid pace gradually slackened as the pang, +unintentionally inflicted by the words of Dorcas, became less acute. +Many strange reflections, however, thronged upon him; and, straying +onward rather like a sleep walker than a hunter, it was attributable to +no care of his own that his devious course kept him in the vicinity of +the encampment. His steps were imperceptibly led almost in a circle; +nor did he observe that he was on the verge of a tract of land heavily +timbered, but not with pine-trees. The place of the latter was here +supplied by oaks and other of the harder woods; and around their roots +clustered a dense and bushy under-growth, leaving, however, barren +spaces between the trees, thick strewn with withered leaves. Whenever +the rustling of the branches or the creaking of the trunks made a +sound, as if the forest were waking from slumber, Reuben instinctively +raised the musket that rested on his arm, and cast a quick, sharp +glance on every side; but, convinced by a partial observation that no +animal was near, he would again give himself up to his thoughts. He was +musing on the strange influence that had led him away from his +premeditated course, and so far into the depths of the wilderness. +Unable to penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives +lay hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him +onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat. He +trusted that it was Heaven's intent to afford him an opportunity of +expiating his sin; he hoped that he might find the bones so long +unburied; and that, having laid the earth over them, peace would throw +its sunlight into the sepulchre of his heart. From these thoughts he +was aroused by a rustling in the forest at some distance from the spot +to which he had wandered. Perceiving the motion of some object behind a +thick veil of undergrowth, he fired, with the instinct of a hunter and +the aim of a practised marksman. A low moan, which told his success, +and by which even animals cars express their dying agony, was unheeded +by Reuben Bourne. What were the recollections now breaking upon him? + +The thicket into which Reuben had fired was near the summit of a swell +of land, and was clustered around the base of a rock, which, in the +shape and smoothness of one of its surfaces, was not unlike a gigantic +gravestone. As if reflected in a mirror, its likeness was in Reuben's +memory. He even recognized the veins which seemed to form an +inscription in forgotten characters: everything remained the same, +except that a thick covert of bushes shrouded the lowerpart of the +rock, and would have hidden Roger Malvin had he still been sitting +there. Yet in the next moment Reuben's eye was caught by another change +that time had effected since he last stood where he was now standing +again behind the earthy roots of the uptorn tree. The sapling to which +he had bound the bloodstained symbol of his vow had increased and +strengthened into an oak, far indeed from its maturity, but with no +mean spread of shadowy branches. There was one singularity observable +in this tree which made Reuben tremble. The middle and lower branches +were in luxuriant life, and an excess of vegetation had fringed the +trunk almost to the ground; but a blight had apparently stricken the +upper part of the oak, and the very topmost bough was withered, +sapless, and utterly dead. Reuben remembered how the little banner had +fluttered on that topmost bough, when it was green and lovely, eighteen +years before. Whose guilt had blasted it? + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +Dorcas, after the departure of the two hunters, continued her +preparations for their evening repast. Her sylvan table was the +moss-covered trunk of a large fallen tree, on the broadest part of +which she had spread a snow-white cloth and arranged what were left of +the bright pewter vessels that had been her pride in the settlements. +It had a strange aspect that one little spot of homely comfort in the +desolate heart of Nature. The sunshine yet lingered upon the higher +branches of the trees that grew on rising ground; but the shadows of +evening had deepened into the hollow where the encampment was made, and +the firelight began to redden as it gleamed up the tall trunks of the +pines or hovered on the dense and obscure mass of foliage that circled +round the spot. The heart of Dorcas was not sad; for she felt that it +was better to journey in the wilderness with two whom she loved than to +be a lonely woman in a crowd that cared not for her. As she busied +herself in arranging seats of mouldering wood, covered with leaves, for +Reuben and her son, her voice danced through the gloomy forest in the +measure of a song that she had learned in youth. The rude melody, the +production of a bard who won no name, was descriptive of a winter +evening in a frontier cottage, when, secured from savage inroad by the +high-piled snow-drifts, the family rejoiced by their own fireside. The +whole song possessed the nameless charm peculiar to unborrowed thought, +but four continually-recurring lines shone out from the rest like the +blaze of the hearth whose joys they celebrated. Into them, working +magic with a few simple words, the poet had instilled the very essence +of domestic love and household happiness, and they were poetry and +picture joined in one. As Dorcas sang, the walls of her forsaken home +seemed to encircle her; she no longer saw the gloomy pines, nor heard +the wind which still, as she began each verse, sent a heavy breath +through the branches, and died away in a hollow moan from the burden of +the song. She was aroused by the report of a gun in the vicinity of the +encampment; and either the sudden sound, or her loneliness by the +glowing fire, caused her to tremble violently. The next moment she +laughed in the pride of a mother's heart. + +"My beautiful young hunter! My boy has slain a deer!" she exclaimed, +recollecting that in the direction whence the shot proceeded Cyrus had +gone to the chase. + +She waited a reasonable time to hear her son's light step bounding over +the rustling leaves to tell of his success. But he did not immediately +appear; and she sent her cheerful voice among the trees in search of +him. + +"Cyrus! Cyrus!" + +His coming was still delayed; and she determined, as the report had +apparently been very near, to seek for him in person. Her assistance, +also, might be necessary in bringing home the venison which she +flattered herself he had obtained. She therefore set forward, directing +her steps by the long-past sound, and singing as she went, in order +that the boy might be aware of her approach and run to meet her. From +behind the trunk of every tree, and from every hiding-place in the +thick foliage of the undergrowth, she hoped to discover the countenance +of her son, laughing with the sportive mischief that is born of +affection. The sun was now beneath the horizon, and the light that came +down among the leaves was sufficiently dim to create many illusions in +her expecting fancy. Several times she seemed indistinctly to see his +face gazing out from among the leaves; and once she imagined that he +stood beckoning to her at the base of a craggy rock. Keeping her eyes +on this object, however, it proved to be no more than the trunk of an +oak fringed to the very ground with little branches, one of which, +thrust out farther than the rest, was shaken by the breeze. Making her +way round the foot of the rock, she suddenly found herself close to her +husband, who had approached in another direction. Leaning upon the butt +of his gun, the muzzle of which rested upon the withered leaves, he was +apparently absorbed in the contemplation of some object at his feet. + +"How is this, Reuben? Have you slain the deer and fallen asleep over +him?" exclaimed Dorcas, laughing cheerfully, on her first slight +observation of his posture and appearance. + +He stirred not, neither did he turn his eyes towards her; and a cold, +shuddering fear, indefinite in its source and object, began to creep +into her blood. She now perceived that her husband's face was ghastly +pale, and his features were rigid, as if incapable of assuming any +other expression than the strong despair which had hardened upon them. +He gave not the slightest evidence that he was aware of her approach. + +"For the love of Heaven, Reuben, speak to me!" cried Dorcas; and the +strange sound of her own voice affrighted her even more than the dead +silence. + +Her husband started, stared into her face, drew her to the front of the +rock, and pointed with his finger. + +Oh, there lay the boy, asleep, but dreamless, upon the fallen forest +leaves! His cheek rested upon his arm--his curled locks were thrown +back from his brow--his limbs were slightly relaxed. Had a sudden +weariness overcome the youthful hunter? Would his mother's voice arouse +him? She knew that it was death. + +"This broad rock is the gravestone of your near kindred, Dorcas," said +her husband. "Your tears will fall at once over your father and your +son." + +She heard him not. With one wild shriek, that seemed to force its way +from the sufferer's inmost soul, she sank insensible by the side of her +dead boy. At that moment the withered topmost bough of the oak loosened +itself in the stilly air, and fell in soft, light fragments upon the +rock, upon the leaves, upon Reuben, upon his wife and child, and upon +Roger Malvin's bones. Then Reuben's heart was stricken, and the tears +gushed out like water from a rock. The vow that the wounded youth had +made the blighted man had come to redeem. His sin was expiated,--the +curse was gone from him; and in the hour when he had shed blood dearer +to him than his own, a prayer, the first for years, went up to Heaven +from the lips of Reuben Bourne. + + + +THE ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL + +An elderly man, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was passing along +the street, and emerged from the gloom of the cloudy evening into the +light that fell across the pavement from the window of a small shop. It +was a projecting window; and on the inside were suspended a variety of +watches, pinchbeck, silver, and one or two of gold, all with their +faces turned from the streets, as if churlishly disinclined to inform +the wayfarers what o'clock it was. Seated within the shop, sidelong to +the window with his pale face bent earnestly over some delicate piece +of mechanism on which was thrown the concentrated lustre of a shade +lamp, appeared a young man. + +"What can Owen Warland be about?" muttered old Peter Hovenden, himself +a retired watchmaker, and the former master of this same young man +whose occupation he was now wondering at. "What can the fellow be +about? These six months past I have never come by his shop without +seeing him just as steadily at work as now. It would be a flight beyond +his usual foolery to seek for the perpetual motion; and yet I know +enough of my old business to be certain that what he is now so busy +with is no part of the machinery of a watch." + +"Perhaps, father," said Annie, without showing much interest in the +question, "Owen is inventing a new kind of timekeeper. I am sure he has +ingenuity enough." + +"Poh, child! He has not the sort of ingenuity to invent anything better +than a Dutch toy," answered her father, who had formerly been put to +much vexation by Owen Warland's irregular genius. "A plague on such +ingenuity! All the effect that ever I knew of it was to spoil the +accuracy of some of the best watches in my shop. He would turn the sun +out of its orbit and derange the whole course of time, if, as I said +before, his ingenuity could grasp anything bigger than a child's toy!" + +"Hush, father! He hears you!" whispered Annie, pressing the old man's +arm. "His ears are as delicate as his feelings; and you know how easily +disturbed they are. Do let us move on." + +So Peter Hovenden and his daughter Annie plodded on without further +conversation, until in a by-street of the town they found themselves +passing the open door of a blacksmith's shop. Within was seen the +forge, now blazing up and illuminating the high and dusky roof, and now +confining its lustre to a narrow precinct of the coal-strewn floor, +according as the breath of the bellows was puffed forth or again +inhaled into its vast leathern lungs. In the intervals of brightness it +was easy to distinguish objects in remote corners of the shop and the +horseshoes that hung upon the wall; in the momentary gloom the fire +seemed to be glimmering amidst the vagueness of unenclosed space. +Moving about in this red glare and alternate dusk was the figure of the +blacksmith, well worthy to be viewed in so picturesque an aspect of +light and shade, where the bright blaze struggled with the black night, +as if each would have snatched his comely strength from the other. Anon +he drew a white-hot bar of iron from the coals, laid it on the anvil, +uplifted his arm of might, and was soon enveloped in the myriads of +sparks which the strokes of his hammer scattered into the surrounding +gloom. + +"Now, that is a pleasant sight," said the old watchmaker. "I know what +it is to work in gold; but give me the worker in iron after all is said +and done. He spends his labor upon a reality. What say you, daughter +Annie?" + +"Pray don't speak so loud, father," whispered Annie, "Robert Danforth +will hear you." + +"And what if he should hear me?" said Peter Hovenden. "I say again, it +is a good and a wholesome thing to depend upon main strength and +reality, and to earn one's bread with the bare and brawny arm of a +blacksmith. A watchmaker gets his brain puzzled by his wheels within a +wheel, or loses his health or the nicety of his eyesight, as was my +case, and finds himself at middle age, or a little after, past labor at +his own trade and fit for nothing else, yet too poor to live at his +ease. So I say once again, give me main strength for my money. And +then, how it takes the nonsense out of a man! Did you ever hear of a +blacksmith being such a fool as Owen Warland yonder?" + +"Well said, uncle Hovenden!" shouted Robert Danforth from the forge, in +a full, deep, merry voice, that made the roof re-echo. "And what says +Miss Annie to that doctrine? She, I suppose, will think it a genteeler +business to tinker up a lady's watch than to forge a horseshoe or make +a gridiron." + +Annie drew her father onward without giving him time for reply. + +But we must return to Owen Warland's shop, and spend more meditation +upon his history and character than either Peter Hovenden, or probably +his daughter Annie, or Owen's old school-fellow, Robert Danforth, would +have thought due to so slight a subject. From the time that his little +fingers could grasp a penknife, Owen had been remarkable for a delicate +ingenuity, which sometimes produced pretty shapes in wood, principally +figures of flowers and birds, and sometimes seemed to aim at the hidden +mysteries of mechanism. But it was always for purposes of grace, and +never with any mockery of the useful. He did not, like the crowd of +school-boy artisans, construct little windmills on the angle of a barn +or watermills across the neighboring brook. Those who discovered such +peculiarity in the boy as to think it worth their while to observe him +closely, sometimes saw reason to suppose that he was attempting to +imitate the beautiful movements of Nature as exemplified in the flight +of birds or the activity of little animals. It seemed, in fact, a new +development of the love of the beautiful, such as might have made him a +poet, a painter, or a sculptor, and which was as completely refined +from all utilitarian coarseness as it could have been in either of the +fine arts. He looked with singular distaste at the stiff and regular +processes of ordinary machinery. Being once carried to see a +steam-engine, in the expectation that his intuitive comprehension of +mechanical principles would be gratified, he turned pale and grew sick, +as if something monstrous and unnatural had been presented to him. This +horror was partly owing to the size and terrible energy of the iron +laborer; for the character of Owen's mind was microscopic, and tended +naturally to the minute, in accordance with his diminutive frame and +the marvellous smallness and delicate power of his fingers. Not that +his sense of beauty was thereby diminished into a sense of prettiness. +The beautiful idea has no relation to size, and may be as perfectly +developed in a space too minute for any but microscopic investigation +as within the ample verge that is measured by the arc of the rainbow. +But, at all events, this characteristic minuteness in his objects and +accomplishments made the world even more incapable than it might +otherwise have been of appreciating Owen Warland's genius. The boy's +relatives saw nothing better to be done--as perhaps there was not--than +to bind him apprentice to a watchmaker, hoping that his strange +ingenuity might thus be regulated and put to utilitarian purposes. + +Peter Hovenden's opinion of his apprentice has already been expressed. +He could make nothing of the lad. Owen's apprehension of the +professional mysteries, it is true, was inconceivably quick; but he +altogether forgot or despised the grand object of a watchmaker's +business, and cared no more for the measurement of time than if it had +been merged into eternity. So long, however, as he remained under his +old master's care, Owen's lack of sturdiness made it possible, by +strict injunctions and sharp oversight, to restrain his creative +eccentricity within bounds; but when his apprenticeship was served out, +and he had taken the little shop which Peter Hovenden's failing +eyesight compelled him to relinquish, then did people recognize how +unfit a person was Owen Warland to lead old blind Father Time along his +daily course. One of his most rational projects was to connect a +musical operation with the machinery of his watches, so that all the +harsh dissonances of life might be rendered tuneful, and each flitting +moment fall into the abyss of the past in golden drops of harmony. If a +family clock was intrusted to him for repair,--one of those tall, +ancient clocks that have grown nearly allied to human nature by +measuring out the lifetime of many generations,--he would take upon +himself to arrange a dance or funeral procession of figures across its +venerable face, representing twelve mirthful or melancholy hours. +Several freaks of this kind quite destroyed the young watchmaker's +credit with that steady and matter-of-fact class of people who hold the +opinion that time is not to be trifled with, whether considered as the +medium of advancement and prosperity in this world or preparation for +the next. His custom rapidly diminished--a misfortune, however, that +was probably reckoned among his better accidents by Owen Warland, who +was becoming more and more absorbed in a secret occupation which drew +all his science and manual dexterity into itself, and likewise gave +full employment to the characteristic tendencies of his genius. This +pursuit had already consumed many months. + +After the old watchmaker and his pretty daughter had gazed at him out +of the obscurity of the street, Owen Warland was seized with a +fluttering of the nerves, which made his hand tremble too violently to +proceed with such delicate labor as he was now engaged upon. + +"It was Annie herself!" murmured he. "I should have known it, by this +throbbing of my heart, before I heard her father's voice. Ah, how it +throbs! I shall scarcely be able to work again on this exquisite +mechanism to-night. Annie! dearest Annie! thou shouldst give firmness +to my heart and hand, and not shake them thus; for if I strive to put +the very spirit of beauty into form and give it motion, it is for thy +sake alone. O throbbing heart, be quiet! If my labor be thus thwarted, +there will come vague and unsatisfied dreams which will leave me +spiritless to-morrow." + +As he was endeavoring to settle himself again to his task, the shop +door opened and gave admittance to no other than the stalwart figure +which Peter Hovenden had paused to admire, as seen amid the light and +shadow of the blacksmith's shop. Robert Danforth had brought a little +anvil of his own manufacture, and peculiarly constructed, which the +young artist had recently bespoken. Owen examined the article and +pronounced it fashioned according to his wish. + +"Why, yes," said Robert Danforth, his strong voice filling the shop as +with the sound of a bass viol, "I consider myself equal to anything in +the way of my own trade; though I should have made but a poor figure at +yours with such a fist as this," added he, laughing, as he laid his +vast hand beside the delicate one of Owen. "But what then? I put more +main strength into one blow of my sledge hammer than all that you have +expended since you were a 'prentice. Is not that the truth?" + +"Very probably," answered the low and slender voice of Owen. "Strength +is an earthly monster. I make no pretensions to it. My force, whatever +there may be of it, is altogether spiritual." + +"Well, but, Owen, what are you about?" asked his old school-fellow, +still in such a hearty volume of tone that it made the artist shrink, +especially as the question related to a subject so sacred as the +absorbing dream of his imagination. "Folks do say that you are trying +to discover the perpetual motion." + +"The perpetual motion? Nonsense!" replied Owen Warland, with a movement +of disgust; for he was full of little petulances. "It can never be +discovered. It is a dream that may delude men whose brains are +mystified with matter, but not me. Besides, if such a discovery were +possible, it would not be worth my while to make it only to have the +secret turned to such purposes as are now effected by steam and water +power. I am not ambitious to be honored with the paternity of a new +kind of cotton machine." + +"That would be droll enough!" cried the blacksmith, breaking out into +such an uproar of laughter that Owen himself and the bell glasses on +his work-board quivered in unison. "No, no, Owen! No child of yours +will have iron joints and sinews. Well, I won't hinder you any more. +Good night, Owen, and success, and if you need any assistance, so far +as a downright blow of hammer upon anvil will answer the purpose, I'm +your man." + +And with another laugh the man of main strength left the shop. + +"How strange it is," whispered Owen Warland to himself, leaning his +head upon his hand, "that all my musings, my purposes, my passion for +the beautiful, my consciousness of power to create it,--a finer, more +ethereal power, of which this earthly giant can have no +conception,--all, all, look so vain and idle whenever my path is +crossed by Robert Danforth! He would drive me mad were I to meet him +often. His hard, brute force darkens and confuses the spiritual element +within me; but I, too, will be strong in my own way. I will not yield +to him." + +He took from beneath a glass a piece of minute machinery, which he set +in the condensed light of his lamp, and, looking intently at it through +a magnifying glass, proceeded to operate with a delicate instrument of +steel. In an instant, however, he fell back in his chair and clasped +his hands, with a look of horror on his face that made its small +features as impressive as those of a giant would have been. + +"Heaven! What have I done?" exclaimed he. "The vapor, the influence of +that brute force,--it has bewildered me and obscured my perception. I +have made the very stroke--the fatal stroke--that I have dreaded from +the first. It is all over--the toil of months, the object of my life. I +am ruined!" + +And there he sat, in strange despair, until his lamp flickered in the +socket and left the Artist of the Beautiful in darkness. + +Thus it is that ideas, which grow up within the imagination and appear +so lovely to it and of a value beyond whatever men call valuable, are +exposed to be shattered and annihilated by contact with the practical. +It is requisite for the ideal artist to possess a force of character +that seems hardly compatible with its delicacy; he must keep his faith +in himself while the incredulous world assails him with its utter +disbelief; he must stand up against mankind and be his own sole +disciple, both as respects his genius and the objects to which it is +directed. + +For a time Owen Warland succumbed to this severe but inevitable test. +He spent a few sluggish weeks with his head so continually resting in +his hands that the towns-people had scarcely an opportunity to see his +countenance. When at last it was again uplifted to the light of day, a +cold, dull, nameless change was perceptible upon it. In the opinion of +Peter Hovenden, however, and that order of sagacious understandings who +think that life should be regulated, like clockwork, with leaden +weights, the alteration was entirely for the better. Owen now, indeed, +applied himself to business with dogged industry. It was marvellous to +witness the obtuse gravity with which he would inspect the wheels of a +great old silver watch thereby delighting the owner, in whose fob it +had been worn till he deemed it a portion of his own life, and was +accordingly jealous of its treatment. In consequence of the good report +thus acquired, Owen Warland was invited by the proper authorities to +regulate the clock in the church steeple. He succeeded so admirably in +this matter of public interest that the merchants gruffly acknowledged +his merits on 'Change; the nurse whispered his praises as she gave the +potion in the sick-chamber; the lover blessed him at the hour of +appointed interview; and the town in general thanked Owen for the +punctuality of dinner time. In a word, the heavy weight upon his +spirits kept everything in order, not merely within his own system, but +wheresoever the iron accents of the church clock were audible. It was a +circumstance, though minute, yet characteristic of his present state, +that, when employed to engrave names or initials on silver spoons, he +now wrote the requisite letters in the plainest possible style, +omitting a variety of fanciful flourishes that had heretofore +distinguished his work in this kind. + +One day, during the era of this happy transformation, old Peter +Hovenden came to visit his former apprentice. + +"Well, Owen," said he, "I am glad to hear such good accounts of you +from all quarters, and especially from the town clock yonder, which +speaks in your commendation every hour of the twenty-four. Only get rid +altogether of your nonsensical trash about the beautiful, which I nor +nobody else, nor yourself to boot, could ever understand,--only free +yourself of that, and your success in life is as sure as daylight. Why, +if you go on in this way, I should even venture to let you doctor this +precious old watch of mine; though, except my daughter Annie, I have +nothing else so valuable in the world." + +"I should hardly dare touch it, sir," replied Owen, in a depressed +tone; for he was weighed down by his old master's presence. + +"In time," said the latter,--"In time, you will be capable of it." + +The old watchmaker, with the freedom naturally consequent on his former +authority, went on inspecting the work which Owen had in hand at the +moment, together with other matters that were in progress. The artist, +meanwhile, could scarcely lift his head. There was nothing so antipodal +to his nature as this man's cold, unimaginative sagacity, by contact +with which everything was converted into a dream except the densest +matter of the physical world. Owen groaned in spirit and prayed +fervently to be delivered from him. + +"But what is this?" cried Peter Hovenden abruptly, taking up a dusty +bell glass, beneath which appeared a mechanical something, as delicate +and minute as the system of a butterfly's anatomy. "What have we here? +Owen! Owen! there is witchcraft in these little chains, and wheels, and +paddles. See! with one pinch of my finger and thumb I am going to +deliver you from all future peril." + +"For Heaven's sake," screamed Owen Warland, springing up with wonderful +energy, "as you would not drive me mad, do not touch it! The slightest +pressure of your finger would ruin me forever." + +"Aha, young man! And is it so?" said the old watchmaker, looking at him +with just enough penetration to torture Owen's soul with the bitterness +of worldly criticism. "Well, take your own course; but I warn you again +that in this small piece of mechanism lives your evil spirit. Shall I +exorcise him?" + +"You are my evil spirit," answered Owen, much excited,--"you and the +hard, coarse world! The leaden thoughts and the despondency that you +fling upon me are my clogs, else I should long ago have achieved the +task that I was created for." + +Peter Hovenden shook his head, with the mixture of contempt and +indignation which mankind, of whom he was partly a representative, deem +themselves entitled to feel towards all simpletons who seek other +prizes than the dusty one along the highway. He then took his leave, +with an uplifted finger and a sneer upon his face that haunted the +artist's dreams for many a night afterwards. At the time of his old +master's visit, Owen was probably on the point of taking up the +relinquished task; but, by this sinister event, he was thrown back into +the state whence he had been slowly emerging. + +But the innate tendency of his soul had only been accumulating fresh +vigor during its apparent sluggishness. As the summer advanced he +almost totally relinquished his business, and permitted Father Time, so +far as the old gentleman was represented by the clocks and watches +under his control, to stray at random through human life, making +infinite confusion among the train of bewildered hours. He wasted the +sunshine, as people said, in wandering through the woods and fields and +along the banks of streams. There, like a child, he found amusement in +chasing butterflies or watching the motions of water insects. There was +something truly mysterious in the intentness with which he contemplated +these living playthings as they sported on the breeze or examined the +structure of an imperial insect whom he had imprisoned. The chase of +butterflies was an apt emblem of the ideal pursuit in which he had +spent so many golden hours; but would the beautiful idea ever be +yielded to his hand like the butterfly that symbolized it? Sweet, +doubtless, were these days, and congenial to the artist's soul. They +were full of bright conceptions, which gleamed through his intellectual +world as the butterflies gleamed through the outward atmosphere, and +were real to him, for the instant, without the toil, and perplexity, +and many disappointments of attempting to make them visible to the +sensual eye. Alas that the artist, whether in poetry, or whatever other +material, may not content himself with the inward enjoyment of the +beautiful, but must chase the flitting mystery beyond the verge of his +ethereal domain, and crush its frail being in seizing it with a +material grasp. Owen Warland felt the impulse to give external reality +to his ideas as irresistibly as any of the poets or painters who have +arrayed the world in a dimmer and fainter beauty, imperfectly copied +from the richness of their visions. + +The night was now his time for the slow progress of re-creating the one +idea to which all his intellectual activity referred itself. Always at +the approach of dusk he stole into the town, locked himself within his +shop, and wrought with patient delicacy of touch for many hours. +Sometimes he was startled by the rap of the watchman, who, when all the +world should be asleep, had caught the gleam of lamplight through the +crevices of Owen Warland's shutters. Daylight, to the morbid +sensibility of his mind, seemed to have an intrusiveness that +interfered with his pursuits. On cloudy and inclement days, therefore, +he sat with his head upon his hands, muffling, as it were, his +sensitive brain in a mist of indefinite musings, for it was a relief to +escape from the sharp distinctness with which he was compelled to shape +out his thoughts during his nightly toil. + +From one of these fits of torpor he was aroused by the entrance of +Annie Hovenden, who came into the shop with the freedom of a customer, +and also with something of the familiarity of a childish friend. She +had worn a hole through her silver thimble, and wanted Owen to repair +it. + +"But I don't know whether you will condescend to such a task," said +she, laughing, "now that you are so taken up with the notion of putting +spirit into machinery." + +"Where did you get that idea, Annie?" said Owen, starting in surprise. + +"Oh, out of my own head," answered she, "and from something that I +heard you say, long ago, when you were but a boy and I a little child. +But come, will you mend this poor thimble of mine?" + +"Anything for your sake, Annie," said Owen Warland,--"anything, even +were it to work at Robert Danforth's forge." + +"And that would be a pretty sight!" retorted Annie, glancing with +imperceptible slightness at the artist's small and slender frame. +"Well; here is the thimble." + +"But that is a strange idea of yours," said Owen, "about the +spiritualization of matter." + +And then the thought stole into his mind that this young girl possessed +the gift to comprehend him better than all the world besides. And what +a help and strength would it be to him in his lonely toil if he could +gain the sympathy of the only being whom he loved! To persons whose +pursuits are insulated from the common business of life--who are either +in advance of mankind or apart from it--there often comes a sensation +of moral cold that makes the spirit shiver as if it had reached the +frozen solitudes around the pole. What the prophet, the poet, the +reformer, the criminal, or any other man with human yearnings, but +separated from the multitude by a peculiar lot, might feel, poor Owen +felt. + +"Annie," cried he, growing pale as death at the thought, "how gladly +would I tell you the secret of my pursuit! You, methinks, would +estimate it rightly. You, I know, would hear it with a reverence that I +must not expect from the harsh, material world." + +"Would I not? to be sure I would!" replied Annie Hovenden, lightly +laughing. "Come; explain to me quickly what is the meaning of this +little whirligig, so delicately wrought that it might be a plaything +for Queen Mab. See! I will put it in motion." + +"Hold!" exclaimed Owen, "hold!" + +Annie had but given the slightest possible touch, with the point of a +needle, to the same minute portion of complicated machinery which has +been more than once mentioned, when the artist seized her by the wrist +with a force that made her scream aloud. She was affrighted at the +convulsion of intense rage and anguish that writhed across his +features. The next instant he let his head sink upon his hands. + +"Go, Annie," murmured he; "I have deceived myself, and must suffer for +it. I yearned for sympathy, and thought, and fancied, and dreamed that +you might give it me; but you lack the talisman, Annie, that should +admit you into my secrets. That touch has undone the toil of months and +the thought of a lifetime! It was not your fault, Annie; but you have +ruined me!" + +Poor Owen Warland! He had indeed erred, yet pardonably; for if any +human spirit could have sufficiently reverenced the processes so sacred +in his eyes, it must have been a woman's. Even Annie Hovenden, possibly +might not have disappointed him had she been enlightened by the deep +intelligence of love. + +The artist spent the ensuing winter in a way that satisfied any persons +who had hitherto retained a hopeful opinion of him that he was, in +truth, irrevocably doomed to unutility as regarded the world, and to an +evil destiny on his own part. The decease of a relative had put him in +possession of a small inheritance. Thus freed from the necessity of +toil, and having lost the steadfast influence of a great +purpose,--great, at least, to him,--he abandoned himself to habits from +which it might have been supposed the mere delicacy of his organization +would have availed to secure him. But when the ethereal portion of a +man of genius is obscured the earthly part assumes an influence the +more uncontrollable, because the character is now thrown off the +balance to which Providence had so nicely adjusted it, and which, in +coarser natures, is adjusted by some other method. Owen Warland made +proof of whatever show of bliss may be found in riot. He looked at the +world through the golden medium of wine, and contemplated the visions +that bubble up so gayly around the brim of the glass, and that people +the air with shapes of pleasant madness, which so soon grow ghostly and +forlorn. Even when this dismal and inevitable change had taken place, +the young man might still have continued to quaff the cup of +enchantments, though its vapor did but shroud life in gloom and fill +the gloom with spectres that mocked at him. There was a certain +irksomeness of spirit, which, being real, and the deepest sensation of +which the artist was now conscious, was more intolerable than any +fantastic miseries and horrors that the abuse of wine could summon up. +In the latter case he could remember, even out of the midst of his +trouble, that all was but a delusion; in the former, the heavy anguish +was his actual life. + +From this perilous state he was redeemed by an incident which more than +one person witnessed, but of which the shrewdest could not explain or +conjecture the operation on Owen Warland's mind. It was very simple. On +a warm afternoon of spring, as the artist sat among his riotous +companions with a glass of wine before him, a splendid butterfly flew +in at the open window and fluttered about his head. + +"Ah," exclaimed Owen, who had drank freely, "are you alive again, child +of the sun and playmate of the summer breeze, after your dismal +winter's nap? Then it is time for me to be at work!" + +And, leaving his unemptied glass upon the table, he departed and was +never known to sip another drop of wine. + +And now, again, he resumed his wanderings in the woods and fields. It +might be fancied that the bright butterfly, which had come so +spirit-like into the window as Owen sat with the rude revellers, was +indeed a spirit commissioned to recall him to the pure, ideal life that +had so etheralized him among men. It might be fancied that he went +forth to seek this spirit in its sunny haunts; for still, as in the +summer time gone by, he was seen to steal gently up wherever a +butterfly had alighted, and lose himself in contemplation of it. When +it took flight his eyes followed the winged vision, as if its airy +track would show the path to heaven. But what could be the purpose of +the unseasonable toil, which was again resumed, as the watchman knew by +the lines of lamplight through the crevices of Owen Warland's shutters? +The towns-people had one comprehensive explanation of all these +singularities. Owen Warland had gone mad! How universally +efficacious--how satisfactory, too, and soothing to the injured +sensibility of narrowness and dulness--is this easy method of +accounting for whatever lies beyond the world's most ordinary scope! +From St. Paul's days down to our poor little Artist of the Beautiful, +the same talisman had been applied to the elucidation of all mysteries +in the words or deeds of men who spoke or acted too wisely or too well. +In Owen Warland's case the judgment of his towns-people may have been +correct. Perhaps he was mad. The lack of sympathy--that contrast +between himself and his neighbors which took away the restraint of +example--was enough to make him so. Or possibly he had caught just so +much of ethereal radiance as served to bewilder him, in an earthly +sense, by its intermixture with the common daylight. + +One evening, when the artist had returned from a customary ramble and +had just thrown the lustre of his lamp on the delicate piece of work so +often interrupted, but still taken up again, as if his fate were +embodied in its mechanism, he was surprised by the entrance of old +Peter Hovenden. Owen never met this man without a shrinking of the +heart. Of all the world he was most terrible, by reason of a keen +understanding which saw so distinctly what it did see, and disbelieved +so uncompromisingly in what it could not see. On this occasion the old +watchmaker had merely a gracious word or two to say. + +"Owen, my lad," said he, "we must see you at my house to-morrow night." + +The artist began to mutter some excuse. + +"Oh, but it must be so," quoth Peter Hovenden, "for the sake of the +days when you were one of the household. What, my boy! don't you know +that my daughter Annie is engaged to Robert Danforth? We are making an +entertainment, in our humble way, to celebrate the event." + +That little monosyllable was all he uttered; its tone seemed cold and +unconcerned to an ear like Peter Hovenden's; and yet there was in it +the stifled outcry of the poor artist's heart, which he compressed +within him like a man holding down an evil spirit. One slight outbreak, +however, imperceptible to the old watchmaker, he allowed himself. +Raising the instrument with which he was about to begin his work, he +let it fall upon the little system of machinery that had, anew, cost +him months of thought and toil. It was shattered by the stroke! + +Owen Warland's story would have been no tolerable representation of the +troubled life of those who strive to create the beautiful, if, amid all +other thwarting influences, love had not interposed to steal the +cunning from his hand. Outwardly he had been no ardent or enterprising +lover; the career of his passion had confined its tumults and +vicissitudes so entirely within the artist's imagination that Annie +herself had scarcely more than a woman's intuitive perception of it; +but, in Owen's view, it covered the whole field of his life. Forgetful +of the time when she had shown herself incapable of any deep response, +he had persisted in connecting all his dreams of artistical success +with Annie's image; she was the visible shape in which the spiritual +power that he worshipped, and on whose altar he hoped to lay a not +unworthy offering, was made manifest to him. Of course he had deceived +himself; there were no such attributes in Annie Hovenden as his +imagination had endowed her with. She, in the aspect which she wore to +his inward vision, was as much a creature of his own as the mysterious +piece of mechanism would be were it ever realized. Had he become +convinced of his mistake through the medium of successful love,--had he +won Annie to his bosom, and there beheld her fade from angel into +ordinary woman,--the disappointment might have driven him back, with +concentrated energy, upon his sole remaining object. On the other hand, +had he found Annie what he fancied, his lot would have been so rich in +beauty that out of its mere redundancy he might have wrought the +beautiful into many a worthier type than he had toiled for; but the +guise in which his sorrow came to him, the sense that the angel of his +life had been snatched away and given to a rude man of earth and iron, +who could neither need nor appreciate her ministrations,--this was the +very perversity of fate that makes human existence appear too absurd +and contradictory to be the scene of one other hope or one other fear. +There was nothing left for Owen Warland but to sit down like a man that +had been stunned. + +He went through a fit of illness. After his recovery his small and +slender frame assumed an obtuser garniture of flesh than it had ever +before worn. His thin cheeks became round; his delicate little hand, so +spiritually fashioned to achieve fairy task-work, grew plumper than the +hand of a thriving infant. His aspect had a childishness such as might +have induced a stranger to pat him on the head--pausing, however, in +the act, to wonder what manner of child was here. It was as if the +spirit had gone out of him, leaving the body to flourish in a sort of +vegetable existence. Not that Owen Warland was idiotic. He could talk, +and not irrationally. Somewhat of a babbler, indeed, did people begin +to think him; for he was apt to discourse at wearisome length of +marvels of mechanism that he had read about in books, but which he had +learned to consider as absolutely fabulous. Among them he enumerated +the Man of Brass, constructed by Albertus Magnus, and the Brazen Head +of Friar Bacon; and, coming down to later times, the automata of a +little coach and horses, which it was pretended had been manufactured +for the Dauphin of France; together with an insect that buzzed about +the ear like a living fly, and yet was but a contrivance of minute +steel springs. There was a story, too, of a duck that waddled, and +quacked, and ate; though, had any honest citizen purchased it for +dinner, he would have found himself cheated with the mere mechanical +apparition of a duck. + +"But all these accounts," said Owen Warland, "I am now satisfied are +mere impositions." + +Then, in a mysterious way, he would confess that he once thought +differently. In his idle and dreamy days he had considered it possible, +in a certain sense, to spiritualize machinery, and to combine with the +new species of life and motion thus produced a beauty that should +attain to the ideal which Nature has proposed to herself in all her +creatures, but has never taken pains to realize. He seemed, however, to +retain no very distinct perception either of the process of achieving +this object or of the design itself. + +"I have thrown it all aside now," he would say. "It was a dream such as +young men are always mystifying themselves with. Now that I have +acquired a little common sense, it makes me laugh to think of it." + +Poor, poor and fallen Owen Warland! These were the symptoms that he had +ceased to be an inhabitant of the better sphere that lies unseen around +us. He had lost his faith in the invisible, and now prided himself, as +such unfortunates invariably do, in the wisdom which rejected much that +even his eye could see, and trusted confidently in nothing but what his +hand could touch. This is the calamity of men whose spiritual part dies +out of them and leaves the grosser understanding to assimilate them +more and more to the things of which alone it can take cognizance; but +in Owen Warland the spirit was not dead nor passed away; it only slept. + +How it awoke again is not recorded. Perhaps the torpid slumber was +broken by a convulsive pain. Perhaps, as in a former instance, the +butterfly came and hovered about his head and reinspired him,--as +indeed this creature of the sunshine had always a mysterious mission +for the artist,--reinspired him with the former purpose of his life. +Whether it were pain or happiness that thrilled through his veins, his +first impulse was to thank Heaven for rendering him again the being of +thought, imagination, and keenest sensibility that he had long ceased +to be. + +"Now for my task," said he. "Never did I feel such strength for it as +now." + +Yet, strong as he felt himself, he was incited to toil the more +diligently by an anxiety lest death should surprise him in the midst of +his labors. This anxiety, perhaps, is common to all men who set their +hearts upon anything so high, in their own view of it, that life +becomes of importance only as conditional to its accomplishment. So +long as we love life for itself, we seldom dread the losing it. When we +desire life for the attainment of an object, we recognize the frailty +of its texture. But, side by side with this sense of insecurity, there +is a vital faith in our invulnerability to the shaft of death while +engaged in any task that seems assigned by Providence as our proper +thing to do, and which the world would have cause to mourn for should +we leave it unaccomplished. Can the philosopher, big with the +inspiration of an idea that is to reform mankind, believe that he is to +be beckoned from this sensible existence at the very instant when he is +mustering his breath to speak the word of light? Should he perish so, +the weary ages may pass away--the world's, whose life sand may fall, +drop by drop--before another intellect is prepared to develop the truth +that might have been uttered then. But history affords many an example +where the most precious spirit, at any particular epoch manifested in +human shape, has gone hence untimely, without space allowed him, so far +as mortal judgment could discern, to perform his mission on the earth. +The prophet dies, and the man of torpid heart and sluggish brain lives +on. The poet leaves his song half sung, or finishes it, beyond the +scope of mortal ears, in a celestial choir. The painter--as Allston +did--leaves half his conception on the canvas to sadden us with its +imperfect beauty, and goes to picture forth the whole, if it be no +irreverence to say so, in the hues of heaven. But rather such +incomplete designs of this life will be perfected nowhere. This so +frequent abortion of man's dearest projects must be taken as a proof +that the deeds of earth, however etherealized by piety or genius, are +without value, except as exercises and manifestations of the spirit. In +heaven, all ordinary thought is higher and more melodious than Milton's +song. Then, would he add another verse to any strain that he had left +unfinished here? + +But to return to Owen Warland. It was his fortune, good or ill, to +achieve the purpose of his life. Pass we over a long space of intense +thought, yearning effort, minute toil, and wasting anxiety, succeeded +by an instant of solitary triumph: let all this be imagined; and then +behold the artist, on a winter evening, seeking admittance to Robert +Danforth's fireside circle. There he found the man of iron, with his +massive substance thoroughly warmed and attempered by domestic +influences. And there was Annie, too, now transformed into a matron, +with much of her husband's plain and sturdy nature, but imbued, as Owen +Warland still believed, with a finer grace, that might enable her to be +the interpreter between strength and beauty. It happened, likewise, +that old Peter Hovenden was a guest this evening at his daughter's +fireside, and it was his well-remembered expression of keen, cold +criticism that first encountered the artist's glance. + +"My old friend Owen!" cried Robert Danforth, starting up, and +compressing the artist's delicate fingers within a hand that was +accustomed to gripe bars of iron. "This is kind and neighborly to come +to us at last. I was afraid your perpetual motion had bewitched you out +of the remembrance of old times." + +"We are glad to see you," said Annie, while a blush reddened her +matronly cheek. "It was not like a friend to stay from us so long." + +"Well, Owen," inquired the old watchmaker, as his first greeting, "how +comes on the beautiful? Have you created it at last?" + +The artist did not immediately reply, being startled by the apparition +of a young child of strength that was tumbling about on the carpet,--a +little personage who had come mysteriously out of the infinite, but +with something so sturdy and real in his composition that he seemed +moulded out of the densest substance which earth could supply. This +hopeful infant crawled towards the new-comer, and setting himself on +end, as Robert Danforth expressed the posture, stared at Owen with a +look of such sagacious observation that the mother could not help +exchanging a proud glance with her husband. But the artist was +disturbed by the child's look, as imagining a resemblance between it +and Peter Hovenden's habitual expression. He could have fancied that +the old watchmaker was compressed into this baby shape, and looking out +of those baby eyes, and repeating, as he now did, the malicious +question: "The beautiful, Owen! How comes on the beautiful? Have you +succeeded in creating the beautiful?" + +"I have succeeded," replied the artist, with a momentary light of +triumph in his eyes and a smile of sunshine, yet steeped in such depth +of thought that it was almost sadness. "Yes, my friends, it is the +truth. I have succeeded." + +"Indeed!" cried Annie, a look of maiden mirthfulness peeping out of her +face again. "And is it lawful, now, to inquire what the secret is?" + +"Surely; it is to disclose it that I have come," answered Owen Warland. +"You shall know, and see, and touch, and possess the secret! For, +Annie,--if by that name I may still address the friend of my boyish +years,--Annie, it is for your bridal gift that I have wrought this +spiritualized mechanism, this harmony of motion, this mystery of +beauty. It comes late, indeed; but it is as we go onward in life, when +objects begin to lose their freshness of hue and our souls their +delicacy of perception, that the spirit of beauty is most needed. +If,--forgive me, Annie,--if you know how--to value this gift, it can +never come too late." + +He produced, as he spoke, what seemed a jewel box. It was carved richly +out of ebony by his own hand, and inlaid with a fanciful tracery of +pearl, representing a boy in pursuit of a butterfly, which, elsewhere, +had become a winged spirit, and was flying heavenward; while the boy, +or youth, had found such efficacy in his strong desire that he ascended +from earth to cloud, and from cloud to celestial atmosphere, to win the +beautiful. This case of ebony the artist opened, and bade Annie place +her fingers on its edge. She did so, but almost screamed as a butterfly +fluttered forth, and, alighting on her finger's tip, sat waving the +ample magnificence of its purple and gold-speckled wings, as if in +prelude to a flight. It is impossible to express by words the glory, +the splendor, the delicate gorgeousness which were softened into the +beauty of this object. Nature's ideal butterfly was here realized in +all its perfection; not in the pattern of such faded insects as flit +among earthly flowers, but of those which hover across the meads of +paradise for child-angels and the spirits of departed infants to +disport themselves with. The rich down was visible upon its wings; the +lustre of its eyes seemed instinct with spirit. The firelight glimmered +around this wonder--the candles gleamed upon it; but it glistened +apparently by its own radiance, and illuminated the finger and +outstretched hand on which it rested with a white gleam like that of +precious stones. In its perfect beauty, the consideration of size was +entirely lost. Had its wings overreached the firmament, the mind could +not have been more filled or satisfied. + +"Beautiful! beautiful!" exclaimed Annie. "Is it alive? Is it alive?" + +"Alive? To be sure it is," answered her husband. "Do you suppose any +mortal has skill enough to make a butterfly, or would put himself to +the trouble of making one, when any child may catch a score of them in +a summer's afternoon? Alive? Certainly! But this pretty box is +undoubtedly of our friend Owen's manufacture; and really it does him +credit." + +At this moment the butterfly waved its wings anew, with a motion so +absolutely lifelike that Annie was startled, and even awestricken; for, +in spite of her husband's opinion, she could not satisfy herself +whether it was indeed a living creature or a piece of wondrous +mechanism. + +"Is it alive?" she repeated, more earnestly than before. + +"Judge for yourself," said Owen Warland, who stood gazing in her face +with fixed attention. + +The butterfly now flung itself upon the air, fluttered round Annie's +head, and soared into a distant region of the parlor, still making +itself perceptible to sight by the starry gleam in which the motion of +its wings enveloped it. The infant on the floor followed its course +with his sagacious little eyes. After flying about the room, it +returned in a spiral curve and settled again on Annie's finger. + +"But is it alive?" exclaimed she again; and the finger on which the +gorgeous mystery had alighted was so tremulous that the butterfly was +forced to balance himself with his wings. "Tell me if it be alive, or +whether you created it." + +"Wherefore ask who created it, so it be beautiful?" replied Owen +Warland. "Alive? Yes, Annie; it may well be said to possess life, for +it has absorbed my own being into itself; and in the secret of that +butterfly, and in its beauty,--which is not merely outward, but deep as +its whole system,--is represented the intellect, the imagination, the +sensibility, the soul of an Artist of the Beautiful! Yes; I created it. +But"--and here his countenance somewhat changed--"this butterfly is not +now to me what it was when I beheld it afar off in the daydreams of my +youth." + +"Be it what it may, it is a pretty plaything," said the blacksmith, +grinning with childlike delight. "I wonder whether it would condescend +to alight on such a great clumsy finger as mine? Hold it hither, Annie." + +By the artist's direction, Annie touched her finger's tip to that of +her husband; and, after a momentary delay, the butterfly fluttered from +one to the other. It preluded a second flight by a similar, yet not +precisely the same, waving of wings as in the first experiment; then, +ascending from the blacksmith's stalwart finger, it rose in a gradually +enlarging curve to the ceiling, made one wide sweep around the room, +and returned with an undulating movement to the point whence it had +started. + +"Well, that does beat all nature!" cried Robert Danforth, bestowing the +heartiest praise that he could find expression for; and, indeed, had he +paused there, a man of finer words and nicer perception could not +easily have said more. "That goes beyond me, I confess. But what then? +There is more real use in one downright blow of my sledge hammer than +in the whole five years' labor that our friend Owen has wasted on this +butterfly." + +Here the child clapped his hands and made a great babble of indistinct +utterance, apparently demanding that the butterfly should be given him +for a plaything. + +Owen Warland, meanwhile, glanced sidelong at Annie, to discover whether +she sympathized in her husband's estimate of the comparative value of +the beautiful and the practical. There was, amid all her kindness +towards himself, amid all the wonder and admiration with which she +contemplated the marvellous work of his hands and incarnation of his +idea, a secret scorn--too secret, perhaps, for her own consciousness, +and perceptible only to such intuitive discernment as that of the +artist. But Owen, in the latter stages of his pursuit, had risen out of +the region in which such a discovery might have been torture. He knew +that the world, and Annie as the representative of the world, whatever +praise might be bestowed, could never say the fitting word nor feel the +fitting sentiment which should be the perfect recompense of an artist +who, symbolizing a lofty moral by a material trifle,--converting what +was earthly to spiritual gold,--had won the beautiful into his +handiwork. Not at this latest moment was he to learn that the reward of +all high performance must be sought within itself, or sought in vain. +There was, however, a view of the matter which Annie and her husband, +and even Peter Hovenden, might fully have understood, and which would +have satisfied them that the toil of years had here been worthily +bestowed. Owen Warland might have told them that this butterfly, this +plaything, this bridal gift of a poor watchmaker to a blacksmith's +wife, was, in truth, a gem of art that a monarch would have purchased +with honors and abundant wealth, and have treasured it among the jewels +of his kingdom as the most unique and wondrous of them all. But the +artist smiled and kept the secret to himself. + +"Father," said Annie, thinking that a word of praise from the old +watchmaker might gratify his former apprentice, "do come and admire +this pretty butterfly." + +"Let us see," said Peter Hovenden, rising from his chair, with a sneer +upon his face that always made people doubt, as he himself did, in +everything but a material existence. "Here is my finger for it to +alight upon. I shall understand it better when once I have touched it." + +But, to the increased astonishment of Annie, when the tip of her +father's finger was pressed against that of her husband, on which the +butterfly still rested, the insect drooped its wings and seemed on the +point of falling to the floor. Even the bright spots of gold upon its +wings and body, unless her eyes deceived her, grew dim, and the glowing +purple took a dusky hue, and the starry lustre that gleamed around the +blacksmith's hand became faint and vanished. + +"It is dying! it is dying!" cried Annie, in alarm. + +"It has been delicately wrought," said the artist, calmly. "As I told +you, it has imbibed a spiritual essence--call it magnetism, or what you +will. In an atmosphere of doubt and mockery its exquisite +susceptibility suffers torture, as does the soul of him who instilled +his own life into it. It has already lost its beauty; in a few moments +more its mechanism would be irreparably injured." + +"Take away your hand, father!" entreated Annie, turning pale. "Here is +my child; let it rest on his innocent hand. There, perhaps, its life +will revive and its colors grow brighter than ever." + +Her father, with an acrid smile, withdrew his finger. The butterfly +then appeared to recover the power of voluntary motion, while its hues +assumed much of their original lustre, and the gleam of starlight, +which was its most ethereal attribute, again formed a halo round about +it. At first, when transferred from Robert Danforth's hand to the small +finger of the child, this radiance grew so powerful that it positively +threw the little fellow's shadow back against the wall. He, meanwhile, +extended his plump hand as he had seen his father and mother do, and +watched the waving of the insect's wings with infantine delight. +Nevertheless, there was a certain odd expression of sagacity that made +Owen Warland feel as if here were old Pete Hovenden, partially, and but +partially, redeemed from his hard scepticism into childish faith. + +"How wise the little monkey looks!" whispered Robert Danforth to his +wife. + +"I never saw such a look on a child's face," answered Annie, admiring +her own infant, and with good reason, far more than the artistic +butterfly. "The darling knows more of the mystery than we do." + +As if the butterfly, like the artist, were conscious of something not +entirely congenial in the child's nature, it alternately sparkled and +grew dim. At length it arose from the small hand of the infant with an +airy motion that seemed to bear it upward without an effort, as if the +ethereal instincts with which its master's spirit had endowed it +impelled this fair vision involuntarily to a higher sphere. Had there +been no obstruction, it might have soared into the sky and grown +immortal. But its lustre gleamed upon the ceiling; the exquisite +texture of its wings brushed against that earthly medium; and a sparkle +or two, as of stardust, floated downward and lay glimmering on the +carpet. Then the butterfly came fluttering down, and, instead of +returning to the infant, was apparently attracted towards the artist's +hand. + +"Not so! not so!" murmured Owen Warland, as if his handiwork could have +understood him. "Thou has gone forth out of thy master's heart. There +is no return for thee." + +With a wavering movement, and emitting a tremulous radiance, the +butterfly struggled, as it were, towards the infant, and was about to +alight upon his finger; but while it still hovered in the air, the +little child of strength, with his grandsire's sharp and shrewd +expression in his face, made a snatch at the marvellous insect and +compressed it in his hand. Annie screamed. Old Peter Hovenden burst +into a cold and scornful laugh. The blacksmith, by main force, unclosed +the infant's hand, and found within the palm a small heap of glittering +fragments, whence the mystery of beauty had fled forever. And as for +Owen Warland, he looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life's +labor, and which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly +than this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, +the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses became of +little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed itself in the +enjoyment of the reality. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mosses from an Old Manse and Other +Stories, by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE *** + +***** This file should be named 512.txt or 512.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/1/512/ + +Produced by Charles Keller. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with +OmniPage Professional OCR software +donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. +Contact Mike Lough <Mikel@caere.com> + + + + +From MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE + + + + +Contents + + +The Birthmark +Young Goodman Brown +Rappaccini's Daughter +Mrs. Bullfrog +The Celestial Railroad +The Procession of Life +Feathertop: A Moralized Legend +Egotism; or, The Bosom Serpent +Drowne's Wooden Image +Roger Malvin's Burial +The Artist of the Beautiful + + + + +FROM MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE + + +THE BIRTHMARK + +In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of +science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural +philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made +experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any +chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of an +assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace smoke, +washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a +beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when the +comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred +mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of +miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the +love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher +intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart might +all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of +their ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of +powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher should +lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new +worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer possessed this +degree of faith in man's ultimate control over Nature. He had +devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies +ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for +his young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could +only be by intertwining itself with his love of science, and +uniting the strength of the latter to his own. + +Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly +remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, +very soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife +with a trouble in his countenance that grew stronger until he +spoke. + +"Georgiana," said he, "has it never occurred to you that the mark +upon your cheek might be removed?" + +"No, indeed," said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness +of his manner, she blushed deeply. "To tell you the truth it has +been so often called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine +it might be so." + +"Ah, upon another face perhaps it might," replied her husband; +"but never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly +perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible +defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, +shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection." + +"Shocks you, my husband!" cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first +reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. +"Then why did you take me from my mother's side? You cannot love +what shocks you!" + +To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the +centre of Georgiana's left cheek there was a singular mark, +deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of +her face. In the usual state of her complexion--a healthy though +delicate bloom--the mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which +imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding rosiness. When +she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and finally +vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole +cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting motion caused +her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson stain upon +the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful +distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human +hand, though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana's lovers were +wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny +hand upon the infant's cheek, and left this impress there in +token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway +over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would have risked life +for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. It +must not be concealed, however, that the impression wrought by +this fairy sign manual varied exceedingly, according to the +difference of temperament in the beholders. Some fastidious +persons--but they were exclusively of her own sex--affirmed that +the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the +effect of Georgiana's beauty, and rendered her countenance even +hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that one of those +small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary +marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine +observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, +contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might +possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the +semblance of a flaw. After his marriage,--for he thought little +or nothing of the matter before,--Aylmer discovered that this was +the case with himself. + +Had she been less beautiful,--if Envy's self could have found +aught else to sneer at,--he might have felt his affection +heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely +portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again and glimmering to +and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her +heart; but seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one +defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their +united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in +one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, +either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their +perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson hand +expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the +highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred +with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their +visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as +the symbol of his wife's liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and +death, Aylmer's sombre imagination was not long in rendering the +birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror +than ever Georgiana's beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given +him delight. + +At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he +invariably and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose +to the contrary, reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling +as it at first appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable +trains of thought and modes of feeling that it became the central +point of all. With the morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes +upon his wife's face and recognized the symbol of imperfection; +and when they sat together at the evening hearth his eyes +wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering with the +blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality +where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana soon learned to +shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the peculiar +expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her +cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was +brought strongly out, like a bass-relief of ruby on the whitest +marble. + +Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to +betray the stain on the poor wife's cheek, she herself, for the +first time, voluntarily took up the subject. + +"Do you remember, my dear Aylmer," said she, with a feeble +attempt at a smile, "have you any recollection of a dream last +night about this odious hand?" + +"None! none whatever!" replied Aylmer, starting; but then he +added, in a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing +the real depth of his emotion, "I might well dream of it; for +before I fell asleep it had taken a pretty firm hold of my +fancy." + +"And you did dream of it?" continued Georgiana, hastily; for she +dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to +say. "A terrible dream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it +possible to forget this one expression?--'It is in her heart now; +we must have it out!' Reflect, my husband; for by all means I +would have you recall that dream." + +The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot +confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but +suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with +secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now +remembered his dream. He had fancied himself with his servant +Aminadab, attempting an operation for the removal of the +birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the +hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold +of Georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably +resolved to cut or wrench it away. + +When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer +sat in his wife's presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often +finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and +then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard +to which we practise an unconscious self-deception during our +waking moments. Until now he had not been aware of the +tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over his mind, and of +the lengths which he might find in his heart to go for the sake +of giving himself peace. + +"Aylmer," resumed Georgiana, solemnly, "I know not what may be +the cost to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps +its removal may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain +goes as deep as life itself. Again: do we know that there is a +possibility, on any terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this +little hand which was laid upon me before I came into the world?" + +"Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject," +hastily interrupted Aylmer. "I am convinced of the perfect +practicability of its removal." + +"If there be the remotest possibility of it," continued +Georgiana, "let the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is +nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the +object of your horror and disgust,--life is a burden which I +would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful hand, or +take my wretched life! You have deep science. All the world bears +witness of it. You have achieved great wonders. Cannot you remove +this little, little mark, which I cover with the tips of two +small fingers? Is this beyond your power, for the sake of your +own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?" + +"Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife," cried Aylmer, rapturously, +"doubt not my power. I have already given this matter the deepest +thought--thought which might almost have enlightened me to create +a being less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me +deeper than ever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully +competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; +and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have +corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even +Pygmalion, when his sculptured woman assumed life, felt not +greater ecstasy than mine will be." + +"It is resolved, then," said Georgiana, faintly smiling. "And, +Aylmer, spare me not, though you should find the birthmark take +refuge in my heart at last." + +Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek--her right cheek--not that +which bore the impress of the crimson hand. + +The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had +formed whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought +and constant watchfulness which the proposed operation would +require; while Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect +repose essential to its success. They were to seclude themselves +in the extensive apartments occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, +and where, during his toilsome youth, he had made discoveries in +the elemental powers of Nature that had roused the admiration of +all the learned societies in Europe. Seated calmly in this +laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated the secrets of +the highest cloud region and of the profoundest mines; he had +satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive the +fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, +and how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and +others with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of +the earth. Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the +wonders of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very +process by which Nature assimilates all her precious influences +from earth and air, and from the spiritual world, to create and +foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however, Aylmer +had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the +truth--against which all seekers sooner or later stumble--that +our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently +working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep +her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows +us nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but +seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to +make. Now, however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten +investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or wishes as +first suggested them; but because they involved much +physiological truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme +for the treatment of Georgiana. + +As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was +cold and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with +intent to reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow +of the birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could +not restrain a strong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted. + +"Aminadab! Aminadab!" shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the +floor. + +Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low +stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his +visage, which was grimed with the vapors of the furnace. This +personage had been Aylmer's underworker during his whole +scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that office by +his great mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while +incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all +the details of his master's experiments. With his vast strength, +his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable +earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man's +physical nature; while Aylmer's slender figure, and pale, +intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual +element. + +"Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab," said Aylmer, "and +burn a pastil." + +"Yes, master," answered Aminadab, looking intently at the +lifeless form of Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, "If +she were my wife, I'd never part with that birthmark." + +When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself +breathing an atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle +potency of which had recalled her from her deathlike faintness. +The scene around her looked like enchantment. Aylmer had +converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms, where he had spent +his brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a series of +beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded abode of a +lovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, which +imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no other +species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the +ceiling to the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing +all angles and straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from +infinite space. For aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion +among the clouds. And Aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would +have interfered with his chemical processes, had supplied its +place with perfumed lamps, emitting flames of various hue, but +all uniting in a soft, impurpled radiance. He now knelt by his +wife's side, watching her earnestly, but without alarm; for he +was confident in his science, and felt that he could draw a magic +circle round her within which no evil might intrude. + +"Where am I? Ah, I remember," said Georgiana, faintly; and she +placed her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her +husband's eyes. + +"Fear not, dearest!" exclaimed he. "Do not shrink from me! +Believe me, Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single +imperfection, since it will be such a rapture to remove it." + +"Oh, spare me!" sadly replied his wife. "Pray do not look at it +again. I never can forget that convulsive shudder." + +In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her +mind from the burden of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice +some of the light and playful secrets which science had taught +him among its profounder lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless +ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty came and danced before +her, imprinting their momentary footsteps on beams of light. +Though she had some indistinct idea of the method of these +optical phenomena, still the illusion was almost perfect enough +to warrant the belief that her husband possessed sway over the +spiritual world. Then again, when she felt a wish to look forth +from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were +answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a +screen. The scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly +represented, but with that bewitching, yet indescribable +difference which always makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so +much more attractive than the original. When wearied of this, +Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel containing a quantity +of earth. She did so, with little interest at first; but was soon +startled to perceive the germ of a plant shooting upward from the +soil. Then came the slender stalk; the leaves gradually unfolded +themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely flower. + +"It is magical!" cried Georgiana. "I dare not touch it." + +"Nay, pluck it," answered Aylmer,--"pluck it, and inhale its +brief perfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few +moments and leave nothing save its brown seed vessels; but thence +may be perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself." + +But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole +plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by +the agency of fire. + +"There was too powerful a stimulus," said Aylmer, thoughtfully. + +To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her +portrait by a scientific process of his own invention. It was to +be effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of +metal. Georgiana assented; but, on looking at the result, was +affrighted to find the features of the portrait blurred and +indefinable; while the minute figure of a hand appeared where the +cheek should have been. Aylmer snatched the metallic plate and +threw it into a jar of corrosive acid. + +Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the +intervals of study and chemical experiment he came to her flushed +and exhausted, but seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke +in glowing language of the resources of his art. He gave a +history of the long dynasty of the alchemists, who spent so many +ages in quest of the universal solvent by which the golden +principle might be elicited from all things vile and base. Aylmer +appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific logic, it +was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover this +long-sought medium; "but," he added, "a philosopher who should go +deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom +to stoop to the exercise of it." Not less singular were his +opinions in regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated +that it was at his option to concoct a liquid that should prolong +life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a +discord in Nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer of +the immortal nostrum, would find cause to curse. + +"Aylmer, are you in earnest?" asked Georgiana, looking at him +with amazement and fear. "It is terrible to possess such power, +or even to dream of possessing it." + +"Oh, do not tremble, my love," said her husband. "I would not +wrong either you or myself by working such inharmonious effects +upon our lives; but I would have you consider how trifling, in +comparison, is the skill requisite to remove this little hand." + +At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as +if a redhot iron had touched her cheek. + +Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She could hear his +voice in the distant furnace room giving directions to Aminadab, +whose harsh, uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, +more like the grunt or growl of a brute than human speech. After +hours of absence, Aylmer reappeared and proposed that she should +now examine his cabinet of chemical products and natural +treasures of the earth. Among the former he showed her a small +vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a gentle yet most +powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the breezes that +blow across a kingdom. They were of inestimable value, the +contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some +of the perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing and +invigorating delight. + +"And what is this?" asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal +globe containing a gold-colored liquid. "It is so beautiful to +the eye that I could imagine it the elixir of life." + +"In one sense it is," replied Aylmer; "or, rather, the elixir of +immortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was +concocted in this world. By its aid I could apportion the +lifetime of any mortal at whom you might point your finger. The +strength of the dose would determine whether he were to linger +out years, or drop dead in the midst of a breath. No king on his +guarded throne could keep his life if I, in my private station, +should deem that the welfare of millions justified me in +depriving him of it." + +"Why do you keep such a terrific drug?" inquired Georgiana in +horror. + +"Do not mistrust me, dearest," said her husband, smiling; "its +virtuous potency is yet greater than its harmful one. But see! +here is a powerful cosmetic. With a few drops of this in a vase +of water, freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands are +cleansed. A stronger infusion would take the blood out of the +cheek, and leave the rosiest beauty a pale ghost." + +"Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?" asked +Georgiana, anxiously. + +"Oh, no," hastily replied her husband; "this is merely +superficial. Your case demands a remedy that shall go deeper." + +In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute +inquiries as to her sensations and whether the confinement of the +rooms and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. +These questions had such a particular drift that Georgiana began +to conjecture that she was already subjected to certain physical +influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken +with her food. She fancied likewise, but it might be altogether +fancy, that there was a stirring up of her system--a strange, +indefinite sensation creeping through her veins, and tingling, +half painfully, half pleasurably, at her heart. Still, whenever +she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld herself pale +as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon her +cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it so much as she. + +To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it +necessary to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, +Georgiana turned over the volumes of his scientific library. In +many dark old tomes she met with chapters full of romance and +poetry. They were the works of philosophers of the middle ages, +such as Albertus Magnus, Cornelius Agrippa, Paracelsus, and the +famous friar who created the prophetic Brazen Head. All these +antique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries, yet were +imbued with some of their credulity, and therefore were believed, +and perhaps imagined themselves to have acquired from the +investigation of Nature a power above Nature, and from physics a +sway over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and +imaginative were the early volumes of the Transactions of the +Royal Society, in which the members, knowing little of the limits +of natural possibility, were continually recording wonders or +proposing methods whereby wonders might be wrought. + +But to Georgiana the most engrossing volume was a large folio +from her husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every +experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the +methods adopted for its development, and its final success or +failure, with the circumstances to which either event was +attributable. The book, in truth, was both the history and emblem +of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practical and +laborious life. He handled physical details as if there were +nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed +himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration +towards the infinite. In his grasp the veriest clod of earth +assumed a soul. Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and +loved him more profoundly than ever, but with a less entire +dependence on his judgment than heretofore. Much as he had +accomplished, she could not but observe that his most splendid +successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the +ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merest +pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the +inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume, +rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was +yet as melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. It was +the sad confession and continual exemplification of the +shortcomings of the composite man, the spirit burdened with clay +and working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher +nature at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly +part. Perhaps every man of genius in whatever sphere might +recognize the image of his own experience in Aylmer's journal. + +So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana that she laid +her face upon the open volume and burst into tears. In this +situation she was found by her husband. + +"It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer's books," said he with a +smile, though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. +"Georgiana, there are pages in that volume which I can scarcely +glance over and keep my senses. Take heed lest it prove as +detrimental to you." + +"It has made me worship you more than ever," said she. + +"Ah, wait for this one success," rejoined he, "then worship me if +you will. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But come, I +have sought you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, +dearest." + +So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the +thirst of his spirit. He then took his leave with a boyish +exuberance of gayety, assuring her that her seclusion would +endure but a little longer, and that the result was already +certain. Scarcely had he departed when Georgiana felt +irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had forgotten to inform +Aylmer of a symptom which for two or three hours past had begun +to excite her attention. It was a sensation in the fatal +birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness +throughout her system. Hastening after her husband, she intruded +for the first time into the laboratory. + +The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and +feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the +quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning +for ages. There was a distilling apparatus in full operation. +Around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and +other apparatus of chemical research. An electrical machine stood +ready for immediate use. The atmosphere felt oppressively close, +and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth +by the processes of science. The severe and homely simplicity of +the apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked +strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become to the fantastic +elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost solely, +drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself. + +He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the +furnace as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether +the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of +immortal happiness or misery. How different from the sanguine and +joyous mien that he had assumed for Georgiana's encouragement! + +"Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; +carefully, thou man of clay!" muttered Aylmer, more to himself +than his assistant. "Now, if there be a thought too much or too +little, it is all over." + +"Ho! ho!" mumbled Aminadab. "Look, master! look!" + +Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew +paler than ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her +and seized her arm with a gripe that left the print of his +fingers upon it. + +"Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?" +cried he, impetuously. "Would you throw the blight of that fatal +birthmark over my labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman, +go!" + +"Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana with the firmness of which she +possessed no stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right +to complain. You mistrust your wife; you have concealed the +anxiety with which you watch the development of this experiment. +Think not so unworthily of me, my husband. Tell me all the risk +we run, and fear not that I shall shrink; for my share in it is +far less than your own." + +"No, no, Georgiana!" said Aylmer, impatiently; "it must not be." + +"I submit," replied she calmly. "And, Aylmer, I shall quaff +whatever draught you bring me; but it will be on the same +principle that would induce me to take a dose of poison if +offered by your hand." + +"My noble wife," said Aylmer, deeply moved, "I knew not the +height and depth of your nature until now. Nothing shall be +concealed. Know, then, that this crimson hand, superficial as it +seems, has clutched its grasp into your being with a strength of +which I had no previous conception. I have already administered +agents powerful enough to do aught except to change your entire +physical system. Only one thing remains to be tried. If that fail +us we are ruined." + +"Why did you hesitate to tell me this?" asked she. + +"Because, Georgiana," said Aylmer, in a low voice, "there is +danger." + +"Danger? There is but one danger--that this horrible stigma shall +be left upon my cheek!" cried Georgiana. "Remove it, remove it, +whatever be the cost, or we shall both go mad!" + +"Heaven knows your words are too true," said Aylmer, sadly. "And +now, dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while all will +be tested." + +He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn +tenderness which spoke far more than his words how much was now +at stake. After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. +She considered the character of Aylmer, and did it completer +justice than at any previous moment. Her heart exulted, while it +trembled, at his honorable love--so pure and lofty that it would +accept nothing less than perfection nor miserably make itself +contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. She +felt how much more precious was such a sentiment than that meaner +kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her sake, +and have been guilty of treason to holy love by degrading its +perfect idea to the level of the actual; and with her whole +spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy +his highest and deepest conception. Longer than one moment she +well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, +ever ascending, and each instant required something that was +beyond the scope of the instant before. + +The sound of her husband's footsteps aroused her. He bore a +crystal goblet containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright +enough to be the draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it +seemed rather the consequence of a highly-wrought state of mind +and tension of spirit than of fear or doubt. + +"The concoction of the draught has been perfect," said he, in +answer to Georgiana's look. "Unless all my science have deceived +me, it cannot fail." + +"Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer," observed his wife, "I +might wish to put off this birthmark of mortality by +relinquishing mortality itself in preference to any other mode. +Life is but a sad possession to those who have attained precisely +the degree of moral advancement at which I stand. Were I weaker +and blinder it might be happiness. Were I stronger, it might be +endured hopefully. But, being what I find myself, methinks I am +of all mortals the most fit to die." + +"You are fit for heaven without tasting death!" replied her +husband "But why do we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. +Behold its effect upon this plant." + +On the window seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow +blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a +small quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a +little time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the +moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a +living verdure. + +"There needed no proof," said Georgiana, quietly. "Give me the +goblet I joyfully stake all upon your word." + +"Drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid +admiration. "There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy +sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect." + +She quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand. + +"It is grateful," said she with a placid smile. "Methinks it is +like water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not +what of unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a +feverish thirst that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, +let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing over my spirit like +the leaves around the heart of a rose at sunset." + +She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it +required almost more energy than she could command to pronounce +the faint and lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered +through her lips ere she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her +side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper to a man the +whole value of whose existence was involved in the process now to +be tested. Mingled with this mood, however, was the philosophic +investigation characteristic of the man of science. Not the +minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of the cheek, a +slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a hardly +perceptible tremor through the frame,--such were the details +which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. +Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of +that volume, but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon +the last. + +While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal +hand, and not without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and +unaccountable impulse he pressed it with his lips. His spirit +recoiled, however, in the very act, and Georgiana, out of the +midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily and murmured as if in +remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed his watch. Nor was it without +avail. The crimson hand, which at first had been strongly visible +upon the marble paleness of Georgiana's cheek, now grew more +faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than ever; but the +birthmark with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of +its former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its +departure was more awful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow +fading out the sky, and you will know how that mysterious symbol +passed away. + +"By Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!" said Aylmer to himself, in +almost irrepressible ecstasy. "I can scarcely trace it now. +Success! success! And now it is like the faintest rose color. The +lightest flush of blood across her cheek would overcome it. But +she is so pale!" + +He drew aside the window curtain and suffered the light of +natural day to fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. At the +same time he heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long +known as his servant Aminadab's expression of delight. + +"Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!" cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of +frenzy, "you have served me well! Matter and spirit--earth and +heaven --have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the +senses! You have earned the right to laugh." + +These exclamations broke Georgiana's sleep. She slowly unclosed +her eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged +for that purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she +recognized how barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which +had once blazed forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare +away all their happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer's face +with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no means account for. + +"My poor Aylmer!" murmured she. + +"Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!" exclaimed he. "My +peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!" + +"My poor Aylmer," she repeated, with a more than human +tenderness, "you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not +repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected +the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am +dying!" + +Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the +mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept +itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of +the birthmark--that sole token of human imperfection--faded from +her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed +into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her +husband, took its heavenward flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling +laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth +exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which, +in this dim sphere of half development, demands the completeness +of a higher state. Yet, had Alymer reached a profounder wisdom, +he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have +woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial. +The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to +look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all +in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present. + + + +YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN + +Young Goodman Brown came forth at sunset into the street at Salem +village; but put his head back, after crossing the threshold, to +exchange a parting kiss with his young wife. And Faith, as the +wife was aptly named, thrust her own pretty head into the street, +letting the wind play with the pink ribbons of her cap while she +called to Goodman Brown. + +"Dearest heart," whispered she, softly and rather sadly, when her +lips were close to his ear, "prithee put off your journey until +sunrise and sleep in your own bed to-night. A lone woman is +troubled with such dreams and such thoughts that she's afeard of +herself sometimes. Pray tarry with me this night, dear husband, +of all nights in the year." + +"My love and my Faith," replied young Goodman Brown, "of all +nights in the year, this one night must I tarry away from thee. +My journey, as thou callest it, forth and back again, must needs +be done 'twixt now and sunrise. What, my sweet, pretty wife, dost +thou doubt me already, and we but three months married?" + +"Then God bless youe!" said Faith, with the pink ribbons; "and +may +you find all well whn you come back." + +"Amen!" cried Goodman Brown. "Say thy prayers, dear Faith, and go +to bed at dusk, and no harm will come to thee." + +So they parted; and the young man pursued his way until, being +about to turn the corner by the meeting-house, he looked back and +saw the head of Faith still peeping after him with a melancholy +air, in spite of her pink ribbons. + +"Poor little Faith!" thought he, for his heart smote him. "What a +wretch am I to leave her on such an errand! She talks of dreams, +too. Methought as she spoke there was trouble in her face, as if +a dream had warned her what work is to be done tonight. But no, +no; 't would kill her to think it. Well, she's a blessed angel on +earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and +follow her to heaven." + +With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt +himself justified in making more haste on his present evil +purpose. He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the +gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let +the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind. It +was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in +such a solitude, that the traveller knows not who may be +concealed by the innumerable trunks and the thick boughs +overhead; so that with lonely footsteps he may yet be passing +through an unseen multitude. + +"There may be a devilish Indian behind every tree," said Goodman +Brown to himself; and he glanced fearfully behind him as he +added, "What if the devil himself should be at my very elbow!" + +His head being turned back, he passed a crook of the road, and, +looking forward again, beheld the figure of a man, in grave and +decent attire, seated at the foot of an old tree. He arose at +Goodman Brown's approach and walked onward side by side with him. + +"You are late, Goodman Brown," said he. "The clock of the Old +South was striking as I came through Boston, and that is full +fifteen minutes agone." + +"Faith kept me back a while," replied the young man, with a +tremor in his voice, caused by the sudden appearance of his +companion, though not wholly unexpected. + +It was now deep dusk in the forest, and deepest in that part of +it where these two were journeying. As nearly as could be +discerned, the second traveller was about fifty years old, +apparently in the same rank of life as Goodman Brown, and bearing +a considerable resemblance to him, though perhaps more in +expression than features. Still they might have been taken for +father and son. And yet, though the elder person was as simply +clad as the younger, and as simple in manner too, he had an +indescribable air of one who knew the world, and who would not +have felt abashed at the governor's dinner table or in King +William's court, were it possible that his affairs should call +him thither. But the only thing about him that could be fixed +upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a +great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be +seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of +course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted by the +uncertain light. + +"Come, Goodman Brown," cried his fellow-traveller, "this is a +dull pace for the beginning of a journey. Take my staff, if you +are so soon weary." + +"Friend," said the other, exchanging his slow pace for a full +stop, "having kept covenant by meeting thee here, it is my +purpose now to return whence I came. I have scruples touching the +matter thou wot'st of." + +"Sayest thou so?" replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. "Let +us walk on, nevertheless, reasoning as we go; and if I convince +thee not thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the +forest yet." + +"Too far! too far!" exclaimed the goodman, unconsciously resuming +his walk. "My father never went into the woods on such an errand, +nor his father before him. We have been a race of honest men and +good Christians since the days of the martyrs; and shall I be the +first of the name of Brown that ever took this path and +kept" + +"Such company, thou wouldst say," observed the elder person, +interpreting his pause. "Well said, Goodman Brown! I have been as +well acquainted with your family as with ever a one among the +Puritans; and that's no trifle to say. I helped your grandfather, +the constable, when he lashed the Quaker woman so smartly through +the streets of Salem; and it was I that brought your father a +pitch-pine knot, kindled at my own hearth, to set fire to an +Indian village, in King Philip's war. They were my good friends, +both; and many a pleasant walk have we had along this path, and +returned merrily after midnight. I would fain be friends with you +for their sake." + +"If it be as thou sayest," replied Goodman Brown, "I marvel they +never spoke of these matters; or, verily, I marvel not, seeing +that the least rumor of the sort would have driven them from New +England. We are a people of prayer, and good works to boot, and +abide no such wickedness." + +"Wickedness or not," said the traveller with the twisted staff, +"I have a very general acquaintance here in New England. The +deacons of many a church have drunk the communion wine with me; +the selectmen of divers towns make me their chairman; and a +majority of the Great and General Court are firm supporters of my +interest. The governor and I, too--But these are state secrets." + +"Can this be so?" cried Goodman Brown, with a stare of amazement +at his undisturbed companion. "Howbeit, I have nothing to do with +the governor and council; they have their own ways, and are no +rule for a simple husbandman like me. But, were I to go on with +thee, how should I meet the eye of that good old man, our +minister, at Salem village? Oh, his voice would make me tremble +both Sabbath day and lecture day." + +Thus far the elder traveller had listened with due gravity; but +now burst into a fit of irrepressible mirth, shaking himself so +violently that his snake-like staff actually seemed to wriggle in +sympathy. + +"Ha! ha! ha!" shouted he again and again; then composing himself, +"Well, go on, Goodman Brown, go on; but, prithee, don't kill me +with laughing." + +"Well, then, to end the matter at once," said Goodman Brown, +considerably nettled, "there is my wife, Faith. It would break +her dear little heart; and I'd rather break my own." + +"Nay, if that be the case," answered the other, "e'en go thy +ways, Goodman Brown. I would not for twenty old women like the +one hobbling before us that Faith should come to any harm." + +As he spoke he pointed his staff at a female figure on the path, +in whom Goodman Brown recognized a very pious and exemplary dame, +who had taught him his catechism in youth, and was still his +moral and spiritual adviser, jointly with the minister and Deacon +Gookin. + +"A marvel, truly, that Goody Cloyse should be so far in the +wilderness at nightfall," said he. "But with your leave, friend, +I shall take a cut through the woods until we have left this +Christian woman behind. Being a stranger to you, she might ask +whom I was consorting with and whither I was going." + +"Be it so," said his fellow-traveller. "Betake you to the woods, +and let me keep the path." + +Accordingly the young man turned aside, but took care to watch +his companion, who advanced softly along the road until he had +come within a staff's length of the old dame. She, meanwhile, was +making the best of her way, with singular speed for so aged a +woman, and mumbling some indistinct words--a prayer, +doubtless--as she went. The traveller put forth his staff and +touched her withered neck with what seemed the serpent's tail. + +"The devil!" screamed the pious old lady. + +"Then Goody Cloyse knows her old friend?" observed the traveller, +confronting her and leaning on his writhing stick. + +"Ah, forsooth, and is it your worship indeed?" cried the good +dame. "Yea, truly is it, and in the very image of my old gossip, +Goodman Brown, the grandfather of the silly fellow that now is. +But--would your worship believe it?--my broomstick hath strangely +disappeared, stolen, as I suspect, by that unhanged witch, Goody +Cory, and that, too, when I was all anointed with the juice of +smallage, and cinquefoil, and wolf's bane" + +"Mingled with fine wheat and the fat of a new-born babe," said +the shape of old Goodman Brown. + +"Ah, your worship knows the recipe," cried the old lady, cackling +aloud. "So, as I was saying, being all ready for the meeting, and +no horse to ride on, I made up my mind to foot it; for they tell +me there is a nice young man to be taken into communion to-night. +But now your good worship will lend me your arm, and we shall be +there in a twinkling." + +"That can hardly be," answered her friend. "I may not spare you +my arm, Goody Cloyse; but here is my staff, if you will." + +So saying, he threw it down at her feet, where, perhaps, it +assumed life, being one of the rods which its owner had formerly +lent to the Egyptian magi. Of this fact, however, Goodman Brown +could not take cognizance. He had cast up his eyes in +astonishment, and, looking down again, beheld neither Goody +Cloyse nor the serpentine staff, but his fellow-traveller alone, +who waited for him as calmly as if nothing had happened. + +"That old woman taught me my catechism," said the young man; and +there was a world of meaning in this simple comment. + +They continued to walk onward, while the elder traveller exhorted +his companion to make good speed and persevere in the path, +discoursing so aptly that his arguments seemed rather to spring +up in the bosom of his auditor than to be suggested by himself. +As they went, he plucked a branch of maple to serve for a walking +stick, and began to strip it of the twigs and little boughs, +which were wet with evening dew. The moment his fingers touched +them they became strangely withered and dried up as with a week's +sunshine. Thus the pair proceeded, at a good free pace, until +suddenly, in a gloomy hollow of the road, Goodman Brown sat +himself down on the stump of a tree and refused to go any +farther. + +"Friend," said he, stubbornly, "my mind is made up. Not another +step will I budge on this errand. What if a wretched old woman do +choose to go to the devil when I thought she was going to heaven: +is that any reason why I should quit my dear Faith and go after +her?" + +"You will think better of this by and by," said his acquaintance, +composedly. "Sit here and rest yourself a while; and when you +feel like moving again, there is my staff to help you along." + +Without more words, he threw his companion the maple stick, and +was as speedily out of sight as if he had vanished into the +deepening gloom. The young man sat a few moments by the roadside, +applauding himself greatly, and thinking with how clear a +conscience he should meet the minister in his morning walk, nor +shrink from the eye of good old Deacon Gookin. And what calm +sleep would be his that very night, which was to have been spent +so wickedly, but so purely and sweetly now, in the arms of Faith! +Amidst these pleasant and praiseworthy meditations, Goodman Brown +heard the tramp of horses along the road, and deemed it advisable +to conceal himself within the verge of the forest, conscious of +the guilty purpose that had brought him thither, though now so +happily turned from it. + +On came the hoof tramps and the voices of the riders, two grave +old voices, conversing soberly as they drew near. These mingled +sounds appeared to pass along the road, within a few yards of the +young man's hiding-place; but, owing doubtless to the depth of +the gloom at that particular spot, neither the travellers nor +their steeds were visible. Though their figures brushed the small +boughs by the wayside, it could not be seen that they +intercepted, even for a moment, the faint gleam from the strip of +bright sky athwart which they must have passed. Goodman Brown +alternately crouched and stood on tiptoe, pulling aside the +branches and thrusting forth his head as far as he durst without +discerning so much as a shadow. It vexed him the more, because he +could have sworn, were such a thing possible, that he recognized +the voices of the minister and Deacon Gookin, jogging along +quietly, as they were wont to do, when bound to some ordination +or ecclesiastical council. While yet within hearing, one of the +riders stopped to pluck a switch. + +"Of the two, reverend sir," said the voice like the deacon's, "I +had rather miss an ordination dinner than to-night's meeting. +They tell me that some of our community are to be here from +Falmouth and beyond, and others from Connecticut and Rhode +Island, besides several of the Indian powwows, who, after their +fashion, know almost as much deviltry as the best of us. +Moreover, there is a goodly young woman to be taken into +communion." + +"Mighty well, Deacon Gookin!" replied the solemn old tones of the +minister. "Spur up, or we shall be late. Nothing can be done, you +know, until I get on the ground." + +The hoofs clattered again; and the voices, talking so strangely +in the empty air, passed on through the forest, where no church +had ever been gathered or solitary Christian prayed. Whither, +then, could these holy men be journeying so deep into the heathen +wilderness? Young Goodman Brown caught hold of a tree for +support, being ready to sink down on the ground, faint and +overburdened with the heavy sickness of his heart. He looked up +to the sky, doubting whether there really was a heaven above him. +Yet there was the blue arch, and the stars brightening in it. + +"With heaven above and Faith below, I will yet stand firm against +the devil!" cried Goodman Brown. + +While he still gazed upward into the deep arch of the firmament +and had lifted his hands to pray, a cloud, though no wind was +stirring, hurried across the zenith and hid the brightening +stars. The blue sky was still visible, except directly overhead, +where this black mass of cloud was sweeping swiftly northward. +Aloft in the air, as if from the depths of the cloud, came a +confused and doubtful sound of voices. Once the listener fancied +that he could distinguish the accents of towns-people of his own, +men and women, both pious and ungodly, many of whom he had met at +the communion table, and had seen others rioting at the tavern. +The next moment, so indistinct were the sounds, he doubted +whether he had heard aught but the murmur of the old forest, +whispering without a wind. Then came a stronger swell of those +familiar tones, heard daily in the sunshine at Salem village, but +never until now from a cloud of night There was one voice of a +young woman, uttering lamentations, yet with an uncertain sorrow, +and entreating for some favor, which, perhaps, it would grieve +her to obtain; and all the unseen multitude, both saints and +sinners, seemed to encourage her onward. + +"Faith!" shouted Goodman Brown, in a voice of agony and +desperation; and the echoes of the forest mocked him, crying, +"Faith! Faith!" as if bewildered wretches were seeking her all +through the wilderness. + +The cry of grief, rage, and terror was yet piercing the night, +when the unhappy husband held his breath for a response. There +was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, +fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, +leaving the clear and silent sky above Goodman Brown. But +something fluttered lightly down through the air and caught on +the branch of a tree. The young man seized it, and beheld a pink +ribbon. + +"My Faith is gone!" cried he, after one stupefied moment. "There +is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil; for to +thee is this world given." + +And, maddened with despair, so that he laughed loud and long, did +Goodman Brown grasp his staff and set forth again, at such a rate +that he seemed to fly along the forest path rather than to walk +or run. The road grew wilder and drearier and more faintly +traced, and vanished at length, leaving him in the heart of the +dark wilderness, still rushing onward with the instinct that +guides mortal man to evil. The whole forest was peopled with +frightful sounds--the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild +beasts, and the yell of Indians; while sometimes the wind tolled +like a distant church bell, and sometimes gave a broad roar +around the traveller, as if all Nature were laughing him to +scorn. But he was himself the chief horror of the scene, and +shrank not from its other horrors. + +"Ha! ha! ha!" roared Goodman Brown when the wind laughed at him. + +"Let us hear which will laugh loudest. Think not to frighten me +with your deviltry. Come witch, come wizard, come Indian powwow, +come devil himself, and here comes Goodman Brown. You may as well +fear him as he fear you." + +In truth, all through the haunted forest there could be nothing +more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew among +the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, +now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now +shouting forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest +laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is +less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man. Thus sped +the demoniac on his course, until, quivering among the trees, he +saw a red light before him, as when the felled trunks and +branches of a clearing have been set on fire, and throw up their +lurid blaze against the sky, at the hour of midnight. He paused, +in a lull of the tempest that had driven him onward, and heard +the swell of what seemed a hymn, rolling solemnly from a distance +with the weight of many voices. He knew the tune; it was a +familiar one in the choir of the village meeting-house. The verse +died heavily away, and was lengthened by a chorus, not of human +voices, but of all the sounds of the benighted wilderness pealing +in awful harmony together. Goodman Brown cried out, and his cry +was lost to his own ear by its unison with the cry of the desert. + +In the interval of silence he stole forward until the light +glared full upon his eyes. At one extremity of an open space, +hemmed in by the dark wall of the forest, arose a rock, bearing +some rude, natural resemblance either to an alter or a pulpit, +and surrounded by four blazing pines, their tops aflame, their +stems untouched, like candles at an evening meeting. The mass of +foliage that had overgrown the summit of the rock was all on +fire, blazing high into the night and fitfully illuminating the +whole field. Each pendent twig and leafy festoon was in a blaze. +As the red light arose and fell, a numerous congregation +alternately shone forth, then disappeared in shadow, and again +grew, as it were, out of the darkness, peopling the heart of the +solitary woods at once. + +"A grave and dark-clad company," quoth Goodman Brown. + +In truth they were such. Among them, quivering to and fro between +gloom and splendor, appeared faces that would be seen next day at +the council board of the province, and others which, Sabbath +after Sabbath, looked devoutly heavenward, and benignantly over +the crowded pews, from the holiest pulpits in the land. Some +affirm that the lady of the governor was there. At least there +were high dames well known to her, and wives of honored husbands, +and widows, a great multitude, and ancient maidens, all of +excellent repute, and fair young girls, who trembled lest their +mothers should espy them. Either the sudden gleams of light +flashing over the obscure field bedazzled Goodman Brown, or he +recognized a score of the church members of Salem village famous +for their especial sanctity. Good old Deacon Gookin had arrived, +and waited at the skirts of that venerable saint, his revered +pastor. But, irreverently consorting with these grave, reputable, +and pious people, these elders of the church, these chaste dames +and dewy virgins, there were men of dissolute lives and women of +spotted fame, wretches given over to all mean and filthy vice, +and suspected even of horrid crimes. It was strange to see that +the good shrank not from the wicked, nor were the sinners abashed +by the saints. Scattered also among their pale-faced enemies were +the Indian priests, or powwows, who had often scared their native +forest with more hideous incantations than any known to English +witchcraft. + +"But where is Faith?" thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came +into his heart, he trembled. + +Another verse of the hymn arose, a slow and mournful strain, such +as the pious love, but joined to words which expressed all that +our nature can conceive of sin, and darkly hinted at far more. +Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends. Verse after +verse was sung; and still the chorus of the desert swelled +between like the deepest tone of a mighty organ; and with the +final peal of that dreadful anthem there came a sound, as if the +roaring wind, the rushing streams, the howling beasts, and every +other voice of the unconcerted wilderness were mingling and +according with the voice of guilty man in homage to the prince of +all. The four blazing pines threw up a loftier flame, and +obscurely discovered shapes and visages of horror on the smoke +wreaths above the impious assembly. At the same moment the fire +on the rock shot redly forth and formed a glowing arch above its +base, where now appeared a figure. With reverence be it spoken, +the figure bore no slight similitude, both in garb and manner, to +some grave divine of the New England churches. + +"Bring forth the converts!" cried a voice that echoed through the +field and rolled into the forest. + +At the word, Goodman Brown stepped forth from the shadow of the +trees and approached the congregation, with whom he felt a +loathful brotherhood by the sympathy of all that was wicked in +his heart. He could have well-nigh sworn that the shape of his +own dead father beckoned him to advance, looking downward from a +smoke wreath, while a woman, with dim features of despair, threw +out her hand to warn him back. Was it his mother? But he had no +power to retreat one step, nor to resist, even in thought, when +the minister and good old Deacon Gookin seized his arms and led +him to the blazing rock. Thither came also the slender form of a +veiled female, led between Goody Cloyse, that pious teacher of +the catechism, and Martha Carrier, who had received the devil's +promise to be queen of hell. A rampant hag was she. And there +stood the proselytes beneath the canopy of fire. + +"Welcome, my children," said the dark figure, "to the communion +of your race. Ye have found thus young your nature and your +destiny. My children, look behind you!" + +They turned; and flashing forth, as it were, in a sheet of flame, +the fiend worshippers were seen; the smile of welcome gleamed +darkly on every visage. + +"There," resumed the sable form, "are all whom ye have reverenced +from youth. Ye deemed them holier than yourselves, and shrank +from your own sin, contrasting it with their lives of +righteousness and prayerful aspirations heavenward. Yet here are +they all in my worshipping assembly. This night it shall be +granted you to know their secret deeds: how hoary-bearded elders +of the church have whispered wanton words to the young maids of +their households; how many a woman, eager for widows' weeds, has +given her husband a drink at bedtime and let him sleep his last +sleep in her bosom; how beardless youths have made haste to +inherit their fathers' wealth; and how fair damsels--blush not, +sweet ones--have dug little graves in the garden, and bidden me, +the sole guest to an infant's funeral. By the sympathy of your +human hearts for sin ye shall scent out all the places--whether +in church, bedchamber, street, field, or forest--where crime has +been committed, and shall exult to behold the whole earth one +stain of guilt, one mighty blood spot. Far more than this. It +shall be yours to penetrate, in every bosom, the deep mystery of +sin, the fountain of all wicked arts, and which inexhaustibly +supplies more evil impulses than human power--than my power at +its utmost--can make manifest in deeds. And now, my children, +look upon each other." + +They did so; and, by the blaze of the hell-kindled torches, the +wretched man beheld his Faith, and the wife her husband, +trembling before that unhallowed altar. + +"Lo, there ye stand, my children," said the figure, in a deep and +solemn tone, almost sad with its despairing awfulness, as if his +once angelic nature could yet mourn for our miserable race. +"Depending upon one another's hearts, ye had still hoped that +virtue were not all a dream. Now are ye undeceived. Evil is the +nature of mankind. Evil must be your only happiness. Welcome +again, my children, to the communion of your race." + +"Welcome," repeated the fiend worshippers, in one cry of despair +and triumph. + +And there they stood, the only pair, as it seemed, who were yet +hesitating on the verge of wickedness in this dark world. A basin +was hollowed, naturally, in the rock. Did it contain water, +reddened by the lurid light? or was it blood? or, perchance, a +liquid flame? Herein did the shape of evil dip his hand and +prepare to lay the mark of baptism upon their foreheads, that +they might be partakers of the mystery of sin, more conscious of +the secret guilt of others, both in deed and thought, than they +could now be of their own. The husband cast one look at his pale +wife, and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would the next +glance show them to each other, shuddering alike at what they +disclosed and what they saw! + +"Faith! Faith!" cried the husband, "look up to heaven, and resist +the wicked one." + +Whether Faith obeyed he knew not. Hardly had he spoken when he +found himself amid calm night and solitude, listening to a roar +of the wind which died heavily away through the forest. He +staggered against the rock, and felt it chill and damp; while a +hanging twig, that had been all on fire, besprinkled his cheek +with the coldest dew. + +The next morning young Goodman Brown came slowly into the street +of Salem village, staring around him like a bewildered man. The +good old minister was taking a walk along the graveyard to get an +appetite for breakfast and meditate his sermon, and bestowed a +blessing, as he passed, on Goodman Brown. He shrank from the +venerable saint as if to avoid an anathema. Old Deacon Gookin was +at domestic worship, and the holy words of his prayer were heard +through the open window. "What God doth the wizard pray to?" +quoth Goodman Brown. Goody Cloyse, that excellent old Christian, +stood in the early sunshine at her own lattice, catechizing a +little girl who had brought her a pint of morning's milk. Goodman +Brown snatched away the child as from the grasp of the fiend +himself. Turning the corner by the meeting-house, he spied the +head of Faith, with the pink ribbons, gazing anxiously forth, and +bursting into such joy at sight of him that she skipped along the +street and almost kissed her husband before the whole village. +But Goodman Brown looked sternly and sadly into her face, and +passed on without a greeting. + +Had Goodman Brown fallen asleep in the forest and only dreamed a +wild dream of a witch-meeting? + +Be it so if you will; but, alas! it was a dream of evil omen for +young Goodman Brown. A stern, a sad, a darkly meditative, a +distrustful, if not a desperate man did he become from the night +of that fearful dream. On the Sabbath day, when the congregation +were singing a holy psalm, he could not listen because an anthem +of sin rushed loudly upon his ear and drowned all the blessed +strain. When the minister spoke from the pulpit with power and +fervid eloquence, and, with his hand on the open Bible, of the +sacred truths of our religion, and of saint-like lives and +triumphant deaths, and of future bliss or misery unutterable, +then did Goodman Brown turn pale, dreading lest the roof should +thunder down upon the gray blasphemer and his hearers. Often, +waking suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith; +and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, +he scowled and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his +wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne +to his grave a hoary corpse, followed by Faith, an aged woman, +and children and grandchildren, a goodly procession, besides +neighbors not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his +tombstone, for his dying hour was gloom. + + + +RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER [From the Writings of Aubepine.] + +We do not remember to have seen any translated specimens of the +productions of M. de l'Aubepine--a fact the less to be wondered +at, as his very name is unknown to many of his own countrymen as +well as to the student of foreign literature. As a writer, he +seems to occupy an unfortunate position between the +Transcendentalists (who, under one name or another, have their +share in all the current literature of the world) and the great +body of pen-and-ink men who address the intellect and sympathies +of the multitude. If not too refined, at all events too remote, +too shadowy, and unsubstantial in his modes of development to +suit the taste of the latter class, and yet too popular to +satisfy the spiritual or metaphysical requisitions of the former, +he must necessarily find himself without an audience, except here +and there an individual or possibly an isolated clique. His +writings, to do them justice, are not altogether destitute of +fancy and originality; they might have won him greater reputation +but for an inveterate love of allegory, which is apt to invest +his plots and characters with the aspect of scenery and people in +the clouds, and to steal away the human warmth out of his +conceptions. His fictions are sometimes historical, sometimes of +the present day, and sometimes, so far as can be discovered, have +little or no reference either to time or space. In any case, he +generally contents himself with a very slight embroidery of +outward manners,--the faintest possible counterfeit of real +life,--and endeavors to create an interest by some less obvious +peculiarity of the subject. Occasionally a breath of Nature, a +raindrop of pathos and tenderness, or a gleam of humor, will find +its way into the midst of his fantastic imagery, and make us feel +as if, after all, we were yet within the limits of our native +earth. We will only add to this very cursory notice that M. de +l'Aubepine's productions, if the reader chance to take them in +precisely the proper point of view, may amuse a leisure hour as +well as those of a brighter man; if otherwise, they can hardly +fail to look excessively like nonsense. + +Our author is voluminous; he continues to write and publish with +as much praiseworthy and indefatigable prolixity as if his +efforts were crowned with the brilliant success that so justly +attends those of Eugene Sue. His first appearance was by a +collection of stories in a long series of volumes entitled +"Contes deux fois racontees." The titles of some of his more +recent works (we quote from memory) are as follows: "Le Voyage +Celeste a Chemin de Fer," 3 tom., 1838; "Le nouveau Pere Adam et +la nouvelle Mere Eve," 2 tom., 1839; "Roderic; ou le Serpent a +l'estomac," 2 tom., 1840; "Le Culte du Feu," a folio volume of +ponderous research into the religion and ritual of the old +Persian Ghebers, published in 1841; "La Soiree du Chateau en +Espagne," 1 tom., 8vo, 1842; and "L'Artiste du Beau; ou le +Papillon Mecanique," 5 tom., 4to, 1843. Our somewhat wearisome +perusal of this startling catalogue of volumes has left behind it +a certain personal affection and sympathy, though by no means +admiration, for M. de l'Aubepine; and we would fain do the little +in our power towards introducing him favorably to the American +public. The ensuing tale is a translation of his "Beatrice; ou la +Belle Empoisonneuse," recently published in "La Revue +Anti-Aristocratique." This journal, edited by the Comte de +Bearhaven, has for some years past led the defence of liberal +principles and popular rights with a faithfulness and ability +worthy of all praise. + + +A young man, named Giovanni Guasconti, came, very long ago, from +the more southern region of Italy, to pursue his studies at the +University of Padua. Giovanni, who had but a scanty supply of +gold ducats in his pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy +chamber of an old edifice which looked not unworthy to have been +the palace of a Paduan noble, and which, in fact, exhibited over +its entrance the armorial bearings of a family long since +extinct. The young stranger, who was not unstudied in the great +poem of his country, recollected that one of the ancestors of +this family, and perhaps an occupant of this very mansion, had +been pictured by Dante as a partaker of the immortal agonies of +his Inferno. These reminiscences and associations, together with +the tendency to heartbreak natural to a young man for the first +time out of his native sphere, caused Giovanni to sigh heavily as +he looked around the desolate and ill-furnished apartment. + +"Holy Virgin, signor!" cried old Dame Lisabetta, who, won by the +youth's remarkable beauty of person, was kindly endeavoring to +give the chamber a habitable air, "what a sigh was that to come +out of a young man's heart! Do you find this old mansion gloomy? +For the love of Heaven, then, put your head out of the window, +and you will see as bright sunshine as you have left in Naples." + +Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could +not quite agree with her that the Paduan sunshine was as cheerful +as that of southern Italy. Such as it was, however, it fell upon +a garden beneath the window and expended its fostering influences +on a variety of plants, which seemed to have been cultivated with +exceeding care. + +"Does this garden belong to the house?" asked Giovanni. + +"Heaven forbid, signor, unless it were fruitful of better pot +herbs than any that grow there now," answered old Lisabetta. "No; +that garden is cultivated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo +Rappaccini, the famous doctor, who, I warrant him, has been heard +of as far as Naples. It is said that he distils these plants into +medicines that are as potent as a charm. Oftentimes you may see +the signor doctor at work, and perchance the signora, his +daughter, too, gathering the strange flowers that grow in the +garden." + +The old woman had now done what she could for the aspect of the +chamber; and, commending the young man to the protection of the +saints, took her departure + +Giovanni still found no better occupation than to look down into +the garden beneath his window. From its appearance, he judged it +to be one of those botanic gardens which were of earlier date in +Padua than elsewhere in Italy or in the world. Or, not +improbably, it might once have been the pleasure-place of an +opulent family; for there was the ruin of a marble fountain in +the centre, sculptured with rare art, but so wofully shattered +that it was impossible to trace the original design from the +chaos of remaining fragments. The water, however, continued to +gush and sparkle into the sunbeams as cheerfully as ever. A +little gurgling sound ascended to the young man's window, and +made him feel as if the fountain were an immortal spirit that +sung its song unceasingly and without heeding the vicissitudes +around it, while one century imbodied it in marble and another +scattered the perishable garniture on the soil. All about the +pool into which the water subsided grew various plants, that +seemed to require a plentiful supply of moisture for the +nourishment of gigantic leaves, and in some instances, flowers +gorgeously magnificent. There was one shrub in particular, set in +a marble vase in the midst of the pool, that bore a profusion of +purple blossoms, each of which had the lustre and richness of a +gem; and the whole together made a show so resplendent that it +seemed enough to illuminate the garden, even had there been no +sunshine. Every portion of the soil was peopled with plants and +herbs, which, if less beautiful, still bore tokens of assiduous +care, as if all had their individual virtues, known to the +scientific mind that fostered them. Some were placed in urns, +rich with old carving, and others in common garden pots; some +crept serpent-like along the ground or climbed on high, using +whatever means of ascent was offered them. One plant had wreathed +itself round a statue of Vertumnus, which was thus quite veiled +and shrouded in a drapery of hanging foliage, so happily arranged +that it might have served a sculptor for a study. + +While Giovanni stood at the window he heard a rustling behind a +screen of leaves, and became aware that a person was at work in +the garden. His figure soon emerged into view, and showed itself +to be that of no common laborer, but a tall, emaciated, sallow, +and sickly-looking man, dressed in a scholar's garb of black. He +was beyond the middle term of life, with gray hair, a thin, gray +beard, and a face singularly marked with intellect and +cultivation, but which could never, even in his more youthful +days, have expressed much warmth of heart. + +Nothing could exceed the intentness with which this scientific +gardener examined every shrub which grew in his path: it seemed +as if he was looking into their inmost nature, making +observations in regard to their creative essence, and discovering +why one leaf grew in this shape and another in that, and +wherefore such and such flowers differed among themselves in hue +and perfume. Nevertheless, in spite of this deep intelligence on +his part, there was no approach to intimacy between himself and +these vegetable existences. On the contrary, he avoided their +actual touch or the direct inhaling of their odors with a caution +that impressed Giovanni most disagreeably; for the man's demeanor +was that of one walking among malignant influences, such as +savage beasts, or deadly snakes, or evil spirits, which, should +he allow them one moment of license, would wreak upon him some +terrible fatality. It was strangely frightful to the young man's +imagination to see this air of insecurity in a person cultivating +a garden, that most simple and innocent of human toils, and which +had been alike the joy and labor of the unfallen parents of the +race. Was this garden, then, the Eden of the present world? And +this man, with such a perception of harm in what his own hands +caused to grow,--was he the Adam? + +The distrustful gardener, while plucking away the dead leaves or +pruning the too luxuriant growth of the shrubs, defended his +hands with a pair of thick gloves. Nor were these his only armor. +When, in his walk through the garden, he came to the magnificent +plant that hung its purple gems beside the marble fountain, he +placed a kind of mask over his mouth and nostrils, as if all this +beauty did but conceal a deadlier malice; but, finding his task +still too dangerous, he drew back, removed the mask, and called +loudly, but in the infirm voice of a person affected with inward +disease, "Beatrice! Beatrice!" + +"Here am I, my father. What would you?" cried a rich and youthful +voice from the window of the opposite house--a voice as rich as a +tropical sunset, and which made Giovanni, though he knew not why, +think of deep hues of purple or crimson and of perfumes heavily +delectable. "Are you in the garden?" + +"Yes, Beatrice," answered the gardener, "and I need your help." + +Soon there emerged from under a sculptured portal the figure of a +young girl, arrayed with as much richness of taste as the most +splendid of the flowers, beautiful as the day, and with a bloom +so deep and vivid that one shade more would have been too much. +She looked redundant with life, health, and energy; all of which +attributes were bound down and compressed, as it were and girdled +tensely, in their luxuriance, by her virgin zone. Yet Giovanni's +fancy must have grown morbid while he looked down into the +garden; for the impression which the fair stranger made upon him +was as if here were another flower, the human sister of those +vegetable ones, as beautiful as they, more beautiful than the +richest of them, but still to be touched only with a glove, nor +to be approached without a mask. As Beatrice came down the garden +path, it was observable that she handled and inhaled the odor of +several of the plants which her father had most sedulously +avoided. + +"Here, Beatrice," said the latter, "see how many needful offices +require to be done to our chief treasure. Yet, shattered as I am, +my life might pay the penalty of approaching it so closely as +circumstances demand. Henceforth, I fear, this plant must be +consigned to your sole charge." + +"And gladly will I undertake it," cried again the rich tones of +the young lady, as she bent towards the magnificent plant and +opened her arms as if to embrace it. "Yes, my sister, my +splendour, it shall be Beatrice's task to nurse and serve thee; +and thou shalt reward her with thy kisses and perfumed breath, +which to her is as the breath of life." + +Then, with all the tenderness in her manner that was so +strikingly expressed in her words, she busied herself with such +attentions as the plant seemed to require; and Giovanni, at his +lofty window, rubbed his eyes and almost doubted whether it were +a girl tending her favorite flower, or one sister performing the +duties of affection to another. The scene soon terminated. +Whether Dr. Rappaccini had finished his labors in the garden, or +that his watchful eye had caught the stranger's face, he now took +his daughter's arm and retired. Night was already closing in; +oppressive exhalations seemed to proceed from the plants and +steal upward past the open window; and Giovanni, closing the +lattice, went to his couch and dreamed of a rich flower and +beautiful girl. Flower and maiden were different, and yet the +same, and fraught with some strange peril in either shape. + +But there is an influence in the light of morning that tends to +rectify whatever errors of fancy, or even of judgment, we may +have incurred during the sun's decline, or among the shadows of +the night, or in the less wholesome glow of moonshine. Giovanni's +first movement, on starting from sleep, was to throw open the +window and gaze down into the garden which his dreams had made so +fertile of mysteries. He was surprised and a little ashamed to +find how real and matter-of-fact an affair it proved to be, in +the first rays of the sun which gilded the dew-drops that hung +upon leaf and blossom, and, while giving a brighter beauty to +each rare flower, brought everything within the limits of +ordinary experience. The young man rejoiced that, in the heart of +the barren city, he had the privilege of overlooking this spot of +lovely and luxuriant vegetation. It would serve, he said to +himself, as a symbolic language to keep him in communion with +Nature. Neither the sickly and thoughtworn Dr. Giacomo +Rappaccini, it is true, nor his brilliant daughter, were now +visible; so that Giovanni could not determine how much of the +singularity which he attributed to both was due to their own +qualities and how much to his wonder-working fancy; but he was +inclined to take a most rational view of the whole matter. + +In the course of the day he paid his respects to Signor Pietro +Baglioni, professor of medicine in the university, a physician of +eminent repute to whom Giovanni had brought a letter of +introduction. The professor was an elderly personage, apparently +of genial nature, and habits that might almost be called jovial. +He kept the young man to dinner, and made himself very agreeable +by the freedom and liveliness of his conversation, especially +when warmed by a flask or two of Tuscan wine. Giovanni, +conceiving that men of science, inhabitants of the same city, +must needs be on familiar terms with one another, took an +opportunity to mention the name of Dr. Rappaccini. But the +professor did not respond with so much cordiality as he had +anticipated. + +"Ill would it become a teacher of the divine art of medicine," +said Professor Pietro Baglioni, in answer to a question of +Giovanni, "to withhold due and well-considered praise of a +physician so eminently skilled as Rappaccini; but, on the other +hand, I should answer it but scantily to my conscience were I to +permit a worthy youth like yourself, Signor Giovanni, the son of +an ancient friend, to imbibe erroneous ideas respecting a man who +might hereafter chance to hold your life and death in his hands. +The truth is, our worshipful Dr. Rappaccini has as much science +as any member of the faculty--with perhaps one single +exception--in Padua, or all Italy; but there are certain grave +objections to his professional character." + +"And what are they?" asked the young man. + +"Has my friend Giovanni any disease of body or heart, that he is +so inquisitive about physicians?" said the professor, with a +smile. "But as for Rappaccini, it is said of him--and I, who know +the man well, can answer for its truth--that he cares infinitely +more for science than for mankind. His patients are interesting +to him only as subjects for some new experiment. He would +sacrifice human life, his own among the rest, or whatever else +was dearest to him, for the sake of adding so much as a grain of +mustard seed to the great heap of his accumulated knowledge." + +"Methinks he is an awful man indeed," remarked Guasconti, +mentally recalling the cold and purely intellectual aspect of +Rappaccini. "And yet, worshipful professor, is it not a noble +spirit? Are there many men capable of so spiritual a love of +science?" + +"God forbid," answered the professor, somewhat testily; "at +least, unless they take sounder views of the healing art than +those adopted by Rappaccini. It is his theory that all medicinal +virtues are comprised within those substances which we term +vegetable poisons. These he cultivates with his own hands, and is +said even to have produced new varieties of poison, more horribly +deleterious than Nature, without the assistance of this learned +person, would ever have plagued the world withal. That the signor +doctor does less mischief than might be expected with such +dangerous substances is undeniable. Now and then, it must be +owned, he has effected, or seemed to effect, a marvellous cure; +but, to tell you my private mind, Signor Giovanni, he should +receive little credit for such instances of success,--they being +probably the work of chance, --but should be held strictly +accountable for his failures, which may justly be considered his +own work." + +The youth might have taken Baglioni's opinions with many grains +of allowance had he known that there was a professional warfare +of long continuance between him and Dr. Rappaccini, in which the +latter was generally thought to have gained the advantage. If the +reader be inclined to judge for himself, we refer him to certain +black-letter tracts on both sides, preserved in the medical +department of the University of Padua. + +"I know not, most learned professor," returned Giovanni, after +musing on what had been said of Rappaccini's exclusive zeal for +science,--"I know not how dearly this physician may love his art; +but surely there is one object more dear to him. He has a +daughter." + +"Aha!" cried the professor, with a laugh. "So now our friend +Giovanni's secret is out. You have heard of this daughter, whom +all the young men in Padua are wild about, though not half a +dozen have ever had the good hap to see her face. I know little +of the Signora Beatrice save that Rappaccini is said to have +instructed her deeply in his science, and that, young and +beautiful as fame reports her, she is already qualified to fill a +professor's chair. Perchance her father destines her for mine! +Other absurd rumors there be, not worth talking about or +listening to. So now, Signor Giovanni, drink off your glass of +lachryma." + +Guasconti returned to his lodgings somewhat heated with the wine +he had quaffed, and which caused his brain to swim with strange +fantasies in reference to Dr. Rappaccini and the beautiful +Beatrice. On his way, happening to pass by a florist's, he bought +a fresh bouquet of flowers. + +Ascending to his chamber, he seated himself near the window, but +within the shadow thrown by the depth of the wall, so that he +could look down into the garden with little risk of being +discovered. All beneath his eye was a solitude. The strange +plants were basking in the sunshine, and now and then nodding +gently to one another, as if in acknowledgment of sympathy and +kindred. In the midst, by the shattered fountain, grew the +magnificent shrub, with its purple gems clustering all over it; +they glowed in the air, and gleamed back again out of the depths +of the pool, which thus seemed to overflow with colored radiance +from the rich reflection that was steeped in it. At first, as we +have said, the garden was a solitude. Soon, however,--as Giovanni +had half hoped, half feared, would be the case,--a figure +appeared beneath the antique sculptured portal, and came down +between the rows of plants, inhaling their various perfumes as if +she were one of those beings of old classic fable that lived upon +sweet odors. On again beholding Beatrice, the young man was even +startled to perceive how much her beauty exceeded his +recollection of it; so brilliant, so vivid, was its character, +that she glowed amid the sunlight, and, as Giovanni whispered to +himself, positively illuminated the more shadowy intervals of the +garden path. Her face being now more revealed than on the former +occasion, he was struck by its expression of simplicity and +sweetness,--qualities that had not entered into his idea of her +character, and which made him ask anew what manner of mortal she +might be. Nor did he fail again to observe, or imagine, an +analogy between the beautiful girl and the gorgeous shrub that +hung its gemlike flowers over the fountain,--a resemblance which +Beatrice seemed to have indulged a fantastic humor in +heightening, both by the arrangement of her dress and the +selection of its hues. + +Approaching the shrub, she threw open her arms, as with a +passionate ardor, and drew its branches into an intimate +embrace--so intimate that her features were hidden in its leafy +bosom and her glistening ringlets all intermingled with the +flowers + +"Give me thy breath, my sister," exclaimed Beatrice; "for I am +faint with common air. And give me this flower of thine, which I +separate with gentlest fingers from the stem and place it close +beside my heart." + +With these words the beautiful daughter of Rappaccini plucked one +of the richest blossoms of the shrub, and was about to fasten it +in her bosom. But now, unless Giovanni's draughts of wine had +bewildered his senses, a singular incident occurred. A small +orange-colored reptile, of the lizard or chameleon species, +chanced to be creeping along the path, just at the feet of +Beatrice. It appeared to Giovanni,--but, at the distance from +which he gazed, he could scarcely have seen anything so +minute,--it appeared to him, however, that a drop or two of +moisture from the broken stem of the flower descended upon the +lizard's head. For an instant the reptile contorted itself +violently, and then lay motionless in the sunshine. Beatrice +observed this remarkable phenomenon and crossed herself, sadly, +but without surprise; nor did she therefore hesitate to arrange +the fatal flower in her bosom. There it blushed, and almost +glimmered with the dazzling effect of a precious stone, adding to +her dress and aspect the one appropriate charm which nothing else +in the world could have supplied. But Giovanni, out of the shadow +of his window, bent forward and shrank back, and murmured and +trembled. + +"Am I awake? Have I my senses?" said he to himself. "What is this +being? Beautiful shall I call her, or inexpressibly terrible?" + +Beatrice now strayed carelessly through the garden, approaching +closer beneath Giovanni's window, so that he was compelled to +thrust his head quite out of its concealment in order to gratify +the intense and painful curiosity which she excited. At this +moment there came a beautiful insect over the garden wall; it +had, perhaps, wandered through the city, and found no flowers or +verdure among those antique haunts of men until the heavy +perfumes of Dr. Rappaccini's shrubs had lured it from afar. +Without alighting on the flowers, this winged brightness seemed +to be attracted by Beatrice, and lingered in the air and +fluttered about her head. Now, here it could not be but that +Giovanni Guasconti's eyes deceived him. Be that as it might, he +fancied that, while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with +childish delight, it grew faint and fell at her feet; its bright +wings shivered; it was dead--from no cause that he could discern, +unless it were the atmosphere of her breath. Again Beatrice +crossed herself and sighed heavily as she bent over the dead +insect. + +An impulsive movement of Giovanni drew her eyes to the window. +There she beheld the beautiful head of the young man--rather a +Grecian than an Italian head, with fair, regular features, and a +glistening of gold among his ringlets--gazing down upon her like +a being that hovered in mid air. Scarcely knowing what he did, +Giovanni threw down the bouquet which he had hitherto held in his +hand. + +"Signora," said he, "there are pure and healthful flowers. Wear +them for the sake of Giovanni Guasconti." + +"Thanks, signor," replied Beatrice, with her rich voice, that +came forth as it were like a gush of music, and with a mirthful +expression half childish and half woman-like. "I accept your +gift, and would fain recompense it with this precious purple +flower; but if I toss it into the air it will not reach you. So +Signor Guasconti must even content himself with my thanks." + +She lifted the bouquet from the ground, and then, as if inwardly +ashamed at having stepped aside from her maidenly reserve to +respond to a stranger's greeting, passed swiftly homeward through +the garden. But few as the moments were, it seemed to Giovanni, +when she was on the point of vanishing beneath the sculptured +portal, that his beautiful bouquet was already beginning to +wither in her grasp. It was an idle thought; there could be no +possibility of distinguishing a faded flower from a fresh one at +so great a distance. + +For many days after this incident the young man avoided the +window that looked into Dr. Rappaccini's garden, as if something +ugly and monstrous would have blasted his eyesight had he been +betrayed into a glance. He felt conscious of having put himself, +to a certain extent, within the influence of an unintelligible +power by the communication which he had opened with Beatrice. The +wisest course would have been, if his heart were in any real +danger, to quit his lodgings and Padua itself at once; the next +wiser, to have accustomed himself, as far as possible, to the +familiar and daylight view of Beatrice--thus bringing her rigidly +and systematically within the limits of ordinary experience. +Least of all, while avoiding her sight, ought Giovanni to have +remained so near this extraordinary being that the proximity and +possibility even of intercourse should give a kind of substance +and reality to the wild vagaries which his imagination ran riot +continually in producing. Guasconti had not a deep heart--or, at +all events, its depths were not sounded now; but he had a quick +fancy, and an ardent southern temperament, which rose every +instant to a higher fever pitch. Whether or no Beatrice possessed +those terrible attributes, that fatal breath, the affinity with +those so beautiful and deadly flowers which were indicated by +what Giovanni had witnessed, she had at least instilled a fierce +and subtle poison into his system. It was not love, although her +rich beauty was a madness to him; nor horror, even while he +fancied her spirit to be imbued with the same baneful essence +that seemed to pervade her physical frame; but a wild offspring +of both love and horror that had each parent in it, and burned +like one and shivered like the other. Giovanni knew not what to +dread; still less did he know what to hope; yet hope and dread +kept a continual warfare in his breast, alternately vanquishing +one another and starting up afresh to renew the contest. Blessed +are all simple emotions, be they dark or bright! It is the lurid +intermixture of the two that produces the illuminating blaze of +the infernal regions. + +Sometimes he endeavored to assuage the fever of his spirit by a +rapid walk through the streets of Padua or beyond its gates: his +footsteps kept time with the throbbings of his brain, so that the +walk was apt to accelerate itself to a race. One day he found +himself arrested; his arm was seized by a portly personage, who +had turned back on recognizing the young man and expended much +breath in overtaking him. + +"Signor Giovanni! Stay, my young friend!" cried he. "Have you +forgotten me? That might well be the case if I were as much +altered as yourself." + +It was Baglioni, whom Giovanni had avoided ever since their first +meeting, from a doubt that the professor's sagacity would look +too deeply into his secrets. Endeavoring to recover himself, he +stared forth wildly from his inner world into the outer one and +spoke like a man in a dream. + +"Yes; I am Giovanni Guasconti. You are Professor Pietro Baglioni. +Now let me pass!" + +"Not yet, not yet, Signor Giovanni Guasconti," said the +professor, smiling, but at the same time scrutinizing the youth +with an earnest glance. "What! did I grow up side by side with +your father? and shall his son pass me like a stranger in these +old streets of Padua? Stand still, Signor Giovanni; for we must +have a word or two before we part." + +"Speedily, then, most worshipful professor, speedily," said +Giovanni, with feverish impatience. "Does not your worship see +that I am in haste?" + +Now, while he was speaking there came a man in black along the +street, stooping and moving feebly like a person in inferior +health. His face was all overspread with a most sickly and sallow +hue, but yet so pervaded with an expression of piercing and +active intellect that an observer might easily have overlooked +the merely physical attributes and have seen only this wonderful +energy. As he passed, this person exchanged a cold and distant +salutation with Baglioni, but fixed his eyes upon Giovanni with +an intentness that seemed to bring out whatever was within him +worthy of notice. Nevertheless, there was a peculiar quietness in +the look, as if taking merely a speculative, not a human +interest, in the young man. + +"It is Dr. Rappaccini!" whispered the professor when the stranger +had passed. "Has he ever seen your face before?" + +"Not that I know," answered Giovanni, starting at the name. + +"He HAS seen you! he must have seen you!" said Baglioni, hastily. +"For some purpose or other, this man of science is making a study +of you. I know that look of his! It is the same that coldly +illuminates his face as he bends over a bird, a mouse, or a +butterfly, which, in pursuance of some experiment, he has killed +by the perfume of a flower; a look as deep as Nature itself, but +without Nature's warmth of love. Signor Giovanni, I will stake my +life upon it, you are the subject of one of Rappaccini's +experiments!" + +"Will you make a fool of me?" cried Giovanni, passionately. +"THAT, signor professor, were an untoward experiment." + +"Patience! patience!" replied the imperturbable professor. "I +tell thee, my poor Giovanni, that Rappaccini has a scientific +interest in thee. Thou hast fallen into fearful hands! And the +Signora Beatrice,--what part does she act in this mystery?" + +But Guasconti, finding Baglioni's pertinacity intolerable, here +broke away, and was gone before the professor could again seize +his arm. He looked after the young man intently and shook his +head. + +"This must not be," said Baglioni to himself. "The youth is the +son of my old friend, and shall not come to any harm from which +the arcana of medical science can preserve him. Besides, it is +too insufferable an impertinence in Rappaccini, thus to snatch +the lad out of my own hands, as I may say, and make use of him +for his infernal experiments. This daughter of his! It shall be +looked to. Perchance, most learned Rappaccini, I may foil you +where you little dream of it!" + +Meanwhile Giovanni had pursued a circuitous route, and at length +found himself at the door of his lodgings. As he crossed the +threshold he was met by old Lisabetta, who smirked and smiled, +and was evidently desirous to attract his attention; vainly, +however, as the ebullition of his feelings had momentarily +subsided into a cold and dull vacuity. He turned his eyes full +upon the withered face that was puckering itself into a smile, +but seemed to behold it not. The old dame, therefore, laid her +grasp upon his cloak. + +"Signor! signor!" whispered she, still with a smile over the +whole breadth of her visage, so that it looked not unlike a +grotesque carving in wood, darkened by centuries. "Listen, +signor! There is a private entrance into the garden!" + +"What do you say?" exclaimed Giovanni, turning quickly about, as +if an inanimate thing should start into feverish life. "A private +entrance into Dr. Rappaccini's garden?" + +"Hush! hush! not so loud!" whispered Lisabetta, putting her hand +over his mouth. "Yes; into the worshipful doctor's garden, where +you may see all his fine shrubbery. Many a young man in Padua +would give gold to be admitted among those flowers." + +Giovanni put a piece of gold into her hand. + +"Show me the way," said he. + +A surmise, probably excited by his conversation with Baglioni, +crossed his mind, that this interposition of old Lisabetta might +perchance be connected with the intrigue, whatever were its +nature, in which the professor seemed to suppose that Dr. +Rappaccini was involving him. But such a suspicion, though it +disturbed Giovanni, was inadequate to restrain him. The instant +that he was aware of the possibility of approaching Beatrice, it +seemed an absolute necessity of his existence to do so. It +mattered not whether she were angel or demon; he was irrevocably +within her sphere, and must obey the law that whirled him onward, +in ever-lessening circles, towards a result which he did not +attempt to foreshadow; and yet, strange to say, there came across +him a sudden doubt whether this intense interest on his part were +not delusory; whether it were really of so deep and positive a +nature as to justify him in now thrusting himself into an +incalculable position; whether it were not merely the fantasy of +a young man's brain, only slightly or not at all connected with +his heart. + +He paused, hesitated, turned half about, but again went on. His +withered guide led him along several obscure passages, and +finally undid a door, through which, as it was opened, there came +the sight and sound of rustling leaves, with the broken sunshine +glimmering among them. Giovanni stepped forth, and, forcing +himself through the entanglement of a shrub that wreathed its +tendrils over the hidden entrance, stood beneath his own window +in the open area of Dr. Rappaccini's garden. + +How often is it the case that, when impossibilities have come to +pass and dreams have condensed their misty substance into +tangible realities, we find ourselves calm, and even coldly +self-possessed, amid circumstances which it would have been a +delirium of joy or agony to anticipate! Fate delights to thwart +us thus. Passion will choose his own time to rush upon the scene, +and lingers sluggishly behind when an appropriate adjustment of +events would seem to summon his appearance. So was it now with +Giovanni. Day after day his pulses had throbbed with feverish +blood at the improbable idea of an interview with Beatrice, and +of standing with her, face to face, in this very garden, basking +in the Oriental sunshine of her beauty, and snatching from her +full gaze the mystery which he deemed the riddle of his own +existence. But now there was a singular and untimely equanimity +within his breast. He threw a glance around the garden to +discover if Beatrice or her father were present, and, perceiving +that he was alone, began a critical observation of the plants. + +The aspect of one and all of them dissatisfied him; their +gorgeousness seemed fierce, passionate, and even unnatural. There +was hardly an individual shrub which a wanderer, straying by +himself through a forest, would not have been startled to find +growing wild, as if an unearthly face had glared at him out of +the thicket. Several also would have shocked a delicate instinct +by an appearance of artificialness indicating that there had been +such commixture, and, as it were, adultery, of various vegetable +species, that the production was no longer of God's making, but +the monstrous offspring of man's depraved fancy, glowing with +only an evil mockery of beauty. They were probably the result of +experiment, which in one or two cases had succeeded in mingling +plants individually lovely into a compound possessing the +questionable and ominous character that distinguished the whole +growth of the garden. In fine, Giovanni recognized but two or +three plants in the collection, and those of a kind that he well +knew to be poisonous. While busy with these contemplations he +heard the rustling of a silken garment, and, turning, beheld +Beatrice emerging from beneath the sculptured portal. + +Giovanni had not considered with himself what should be his +deportment; whether he should apologize for his intrusion into +the garden, or assume that he was there with the privity at +least, if not by the desire, of Dr. Rappaccini or his daughter; +but Beatrice's manner placed him at his ease, though leaving him +still in doubt by what agency he had gained admittance. She came +lightly along the path and met him near the broken fountain. +There was surprise in her face, but brightened by a simple and +kind expression of pleasure. + +"You are a connoisseur in flowers, signor," said Beatrice, with a +smile, alluding to the bouquet which he had flung her from the +window. "It is no marvel, therefore, if the sight of my father's +rare collection has tempted you to take a nearer view. If he were +here, he could tell you many strange and interesting facts as to +the nature and habits of these shrubs; for he has spent a +lifetime in such studies, and this garden is his world." + +"And yourself, lady," observed Giovanni, "if fame says true,--you +likewise are deeply skilled in the virtues indicated by these +rich blossoms and these spicy perfumes. Would you deign to be my +instructress, I should prove an apter scholar than if taught by +Signor Rappaccini himself." + +"Are there such idle rumors?" asked Beatrice, with the music of a +pleasant laugh. "Do people say that I am skilled in my father's +science of plants? What a jest is there! No; though I have grown +up among these flowers, I know no more of them than their hues +and perfume; and sometimes methinks I would fain rid myself of +even that small knowledge. There are many flowers here, and those +not the least brilliant, that shock and offend me when they meet +my eye. But pray, signor, do not believe these stories about my +science. Believe nothing of me save what you see with your own +eyes." + +"And must I believe all that I have seen with my own eyes?" asked +Giovanni, pointedly, while the recollection of former scenes made +him shrink. "No, signora; you demand too little of me. Bid me +believe nothing save what comes from your own lips." + +It would appear that Beatrice understood him. There came a deep +flush to her cheek; but she looked full into Giovanni's eyes, and +responded to his gaze of uneasy suspicion with a queenlike +haughtiness. + +"I do so bid you, signor," she replied. "Forget whatever you may +have fancied in regard to me. If true to the outward senses, +still it may be false in its essence; but the words of Beatrice +Rappaccini's lips are true from the depths of the heart outward. +Those you may believe." + +A fervor glowed in her whole aspect and beamed upon Giovanni's +consciousness like the light of truth itself; but while she spoke +there was a fragrance in the atmosphere around her, rich and +delightful, though evanescent, yet which the young man, from an +indefinable reluctance, scarcely dared to draw into his lungs. It +might be the odor of the flowers. Could it be Beatrice's breath +which thus embalmed her words with a strange richness, as if by +steeping them in her heart? A faintness passed like a shadow over +Giovanni and flitted away; he seemed to gaze through the +beautiful girl's eyes into her transparent soul, and felt no more +doubt or fear. + +The tinge of passion that had colored Beatrice's manner vanished; +she became gay, and appeared to derive a pure delight from her +communion with the youth not unlike what the maiden of a lonely +island might have felt conversing with a voyager from the +civilized world. Evidently her experience of life had been +confined within the limits of that garden. She talked now about +matters as simple as the daylight or summer clouds, and now asked +questions in reference to the city, or Giovanni's distant home, +his friends, his mother, and his sisters--questions indicating +such seclusion, and such lack of familiarity with modes and +forms, that Giovanni responded as if to an infant. Her spirit +gushed out before him like a fresh rill that was just catching +its first glimpse of the sunlight and wondering at the +reflections of earth and sky which were flung into its bosom. +There came thoughts, too, from a deep source, and fantasies of a +gemlike brilliancy, as if diamonds and rubies sparkled upward +among the bubbles of the fountain. Ever and anon there gleamed +across the young man's mind a sense of wonder that he should be +walking side by side with the being who had so wrought upon his +imagination, whom he had idealized in such hues of terror, in +whom he had positively witnessed such manifestations of dreadful +attributes,--that he should be conversing with Beatrice like a +brother, and should find her so human and so maidenlike. But such +reflections were only momentary; the effect of her character was +too real not to make itself familiar at once. + +In this free intercourse they had strayed through the garden, and +now, after many turns among its avenues, were come to the +shattered fountain, beside which grew the magnificent shrub, with +its treasury of glowing blossoms. A fragrance was diffused from +it which Giovanni recognized as identical with that which he had +attributed to Beatrice's breath, but incomparably more powerful. +As her eyes fell upon it, Giovanni beheld her press her hand to +her bosom as if her heart were throbbing suddenly and painfully. + +"For the first time in my life," murmured she, addressing the +shrub, "I had forgotten thee." + +"I remember, signora," said Giovanni, "that you once promised to +reward me with one of these living gems for the bouquet which I +had the happy boldness to fling to your feet. Permit me now to +pluck it as a memorial of this interview." + +He made a step towards the shrub with extended hand; but Beatrice +darted forward, uttering a shriek that went through his heart +like a dagger. She caught his hand and drew it back with the +whole force of her slender figure. Giovanni felt her touch +thrilling through his fibres. + +"Touch it not!" exclaimed she, in a voice of agony. "Not for thy +life! It is fatal!" + +Then, hiding her face, she fled from him and vanished beneath the +sculptured portal. As Giovanni followed her with his eyes, he +beheld the emaciated figure and pale intelligence of Dr. +Rappaccini, who had been watching the scene, he knew not how +long, within the shadow of the entrance. + +No sooner was Guasconti alone in his chamber than the image of +Beatrice came back to his passionate musings, invested with all +the witchery that had been gathering around it ever since his +first glimpse of her, and now likewise imbued with a tender +warmth of girlish womanhood. She was human; her nature was +endowed with all gentle and feminine qualities; she was worthiest +to be worshipped; she was capable, surely, on her part, of the +height and heroism of love. Those tokens which he had hitherto +considered as proofs of a frightful peculiarity in her physical +and moral system were now either forgotten, or, by the subtle +sophistry of passion transmitted into a golden crown of +enchantment, rendering Beatrice the more admirable by so much as +she was the more unique. Whatever had looked ugly was now +beautiful; or, if incapable of such a change, it stole away and +hid itself among those shapeless half ideas which throng the dim +region beyond the daylight of our perfect consciousness. Thus did +he spend the night, nor fell asleep until the dawn had begun to +awake the slumbering flowers in Dr. Rappaccini's garden, whither +Giovanni's dreams doubtless led him. Up rose the sun in his due +season, and, flinging his beams upon the young man's eyelids, +awoke him to a sense of pain. When thoroughly aroused, he became +sensible of a burning and tingling agony in his hand--in his +right hand--the very hand which Beatrice had grasped in her own +when he was on the point of plucking one of the gemlike flowers. +On the back of that hand there was now a purple print like that +of four small fingers, and the likeness of a slender thumb upon +his wrist. + +Oh, how stubbornly does love,--or even that cunning semblance of +love which flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of +root into the heart,--how stubbornly does it hold its faith until +the moment comes when it is doomed to vanish into thin mist! +Giovanni wrapped a handkerchief about his hand and wondered what +evil thing had stung him, and soon forgot his pain in a reverie +of Beatrice. + +After the first interview, a second was in the inevitable course +of what we call fate. A third; a fourth; and a meeting with +Beatrice in the garden was no longer an incident in Giovanni's +daily life, but the whole space in which he might be said to +live; for the anticipation and memory of that ecstatic hour made +up the remainder. Nor was it otherwise with the daughter of +Rappaccini. She watched for the youth's appearance, and flew to +his side with confidence as unreserved as if they had been +playmates from early infancy--as if they were such playmates +still. If, by any unwonted chance, he failed to come at the +appointed moment, she stood beneath the window and sent up the +rich sweetness of her tones to float around him in his chamber +and echo and reverberate throughout his heart: "Giovanni! +Giovanni! Why tarriest thou? Come down!" And down he hastened +into that Eden of poisonous flowers. + +But, with all this intimate familiarity, there was still a +reserve in Beatrice's demeanor, so rigidly and invariably +sustained that the idea of infringing it scarcely occurred to his +imagination. By all appreciable signs, they loved; they had +looked love with eyes that conveyed the holy secret from the +depths of one soul into the depths of the other, as if it were +too sacred to be whispered by the way; they had even spoken love +in those gushes of passion when their spirits darted forth in +articulated breath like tongues of long-hidden flame; and yet +there had been no seal of lips, no clasp of hands, nor any +slightest caress such as love claims and hallows. He had never +touched one of the gleaming ringlets of her hair; her garment--so +marked was the physical barrier between them--had never been +waved against him by a breeze. On the few occasions when Giovanni +had seemed tempted to overstep the limit, Beatrice grew so sad, +so stern, and withal wore such a look of desolate separation, +shuddering at itself, that not a spoken word was requisite to +repel him. At such times he was startled at the horrible +suspicions that rose, monster-like, out of the caverns of his +heart and stared him in the face; his love grew thin and faint as +the morning mist, his doubts alone had substance. But, when +Beatrice's face brightened again after the momentary shadow, she +was transformed at once from the mysterious, questionable being +whom he had watched with so much awe and horror; she was now the +beautiful and unsophisticated girl whom he felt that his spirit +knew with a certainty beyond all other knowledge. + +A considerable time had now passed since Giovanni's last meeting +with Baglioni. One morning, however, he was disagreeably +surprised by a visit from the professor, whom he had scarcely +thought of for whole weeks, and would willingly have forgotten +still longer. Given up as he had long been to a pervading +excitement, he could tolerate no companions except upon condition +of their perfect sympathy with his present state of feeling. Such +sympathy was not to be expected from Professor Baglioni. + +The visitor chatted carelessly for a few moments about the gossip +of the city and the university, and then took up another topic. + +"I have been reading an old classic author lately," said he, "and +met with a story that strangely interested me. Possibly you may +remember it. It is of an Indian prince, who sent a beautiful +woman as a present to Alexander the Great. She was as lovely as +the dawn and gorgeous as the sunset; but what especially +distinguished her was a certain rich perfume in her +breath--richer than a garden of Persian roses. Alexander, as was +natural to a youthful conqueror, fell in love at first sight with +this magnificent stranger; but a certain sage physician, +happening to be present, discovered a terrible secret in regard +to her." + +"And what was that?" asked Giovanni, turning his eyes downward to +avoid those of the professor + +"That this lovely woman," continued Baglioni, with emphasis, "had +been nourished with poisons from her birth upward, until her +whole nature was so imbued with them that she herself had become +the deadliest poison in existence. Poison was her element of +life. With that rich perfume of her breath she blasted the very +air. Her love would have been poison--her embrace death. Is not +this a marvellous tale?" + +"A childish fable," answered Giovanni, nervously starting from +his chair. "I marvel how your worship finds time to read such +nonsense among your graver studies." + +"By the by," said the professor, looking uneasily about him, +"what singular fragrance is this in your apartment? Is it the +perfume of your gloves? It is faint, but delicious; and yet, +after all, by no means agreeable. Were I to breathe it long, +methinks it would make me ill. It is like the breath of a flower; +but I see no flowers in the chamber." + +"Nor are there any," replied Giovanni, who had turned pale as the +professor spoke; "nor, I think, is there any fragrance except in +your worship's imagination. Odors, being a sort of element +combined of the sensual and the spiritual, are apt to deceive us +in this manner. The recollection of a perfume, the bare idea of +it, may easily be mistaken for a present reality." + +"Ay; but my sober imagination does not often play such tricks," +said Baglioni; "and, were I to fancy any kind of odor, it would +be that of some vile apothecary drug, wherewith my fingers are +likely enough to be imbued. Our worshipful friend Rappaccini, as +I have heard, tinctures his medicaments with odors richer than +those of Araby. Doubtless, likewise, the fair and learned Signora +Beatrice would minister to her patients with draughts as sweet as +a maiden's breath; but woe to him that sips them!" + +Giovanni's face evinced many contending emotions. The tone in +which the professor alluded to the pure and lovely daughter of +Rappaccini was a torture to his soul; and yet the intimation of a +view of her character opposite to his own, gave instantaneous +distinctness to a thousand dim suspicions, which now grinned at +him like so many demons. But he strove hard to quell them and to +respond to Baglioni with a true lover's perfect faith. + +"Signor professor," said he, "you were my father's friend; +perchance, too, it is your purpose to act a friendly part towards +his son. I would fain feel nothing towards you save respect and +deference; but I pray you to observe, signor, that there is one +subject on which we must not speak. You know not the Signora +Beatrice. You cannot, therefore, estimate the wrong--the +blasphemy, I may even say--that is offered to her character by a +light or injurious word." + +"Giovanni! my poor Giovanni!" answered the professor, with a calm +expression of pity, "I know this wretched girl far better than +yourself. You shall hear the truth in respect to the poisoner +Rappaccini and his poisonous daughter; yes, poisonous as she is +beautiful. Listen; for, even should you do violence to my gray +hairs, it shall not silence me. That old fable of the Indian +woman has become a truth by the deep and deadly science of +Rappaccini and in the person of the lovely Beatrice." + +Giovanni groaned and hid his face + +"Her father," continued Baglioni, "was not restrained by natural +affection from offering up his child in this horrible manner as +the victim of his insane zeal for science; for, let us do him +justice, he is as true a man of science as ever distilled his own +heart in an alembic. What, then, will be your fate? Beyond a +doubt you are selected as the material of some new experiment. +Perhaps the result is to be death; perhaps a fate more awful +still. Rappaccini, with what he calls the interest of science +before his eyes, will hesitate at nothing." + +"It is a dream," muttered Giovanni to himself; "surely it is a +dream." + +"But," resumed the professor, "be of good cheer, son of my +friend. It is not yet too late for the rescue. Possibly we may +even succeed in bringing back this miserable child within the +limits of ordinary nature, from which her father's madness has +estranged her. Behold this little silver vase! It was wrought by +the hands of the renowned Benvenuto Cellini, and is well worthy +to be a love gift to the fairest dame in Italy. But its contents +are invaluable. One little sip of this antidote would have +rendered the most virulent poisons of the Borgias innocuous. +Doubt not that it will be as efficacious against those of +Rappaccini. Bestow the vase, and the precious liquid within it, +on your Beatrice, and hopefully await the result." + +Baglioni laid a small, exquisitely wrought silver vial on the +table and withdrew, leaving what he had said to produce its +effect upon the young man's mind. + +"We will thwart Rappaccini yet," thought he, chuckling to +himself, as he descended the stairs; "but, let us confess the +truth of him, he is a wonderful man--a wonderful man indeed; a +vile empiric, however, in his practice, and therefore not to be +tolerated by those who respect the good old rules of the medical +profession." + +Throughout Giovanni's whole acquaintance with Beatrice, he had +occasionally, as we have said, been haunted by dark surmises as +to her character; yet so thoroughly had she made herself felt by +him as a simple, natural, most affectionate, and guileless +creature, that the image now held up by Professor Baglioni looked +as strange and incredible as if it were not in accordance with +his own original conception. True, there were ugly recollections +connected with his first glimpses of the beautiful girl; he could +not quite forget the bouquet that withered in her grasp, and the +insect that perished amid the sunny air, by no ostensible agency +save the fragrance of her breath. These incidents, however, +dissolving in the pure light of her character, had no longer the +efficacy of facts, but were acknowledged as mistaken fantasies, +by whatever testimony of the senses they might appear to be +substantiated. There is something truer and more real than what +we can see with the eyes and touch with the finger. On such +better evidence had Giovanni founded his confidence in Beatrice, +though rather by the necessary force of her high attributes than +by any deep and generous faith on his part. But now his spirit +was incapable of sustaining itself at the height to which the +early enthusiasm of passion had exalted it; he fell down, +grovelling among earthly doubts, and defiled therewith the pure +whiteness of Beatrice's image. Not that he gave her up; he did +but distrust. He resolved to institute some decisive test that +should satisfy him, once for all, whether there were those +dreadful peculiarities in her physical nature which could not be +supposed to exist without some corresponding monstrosity of soul. +His eyes, gazing down afar, might have deceived him as to the +lizard, the insect, and the flowers; but if he could witness, at +the distance of a few paces, the sudden blight of one fresh and +healthful flower in Beatrice's hand, there would be room for no +further question. With this idea he hastened to the florist's and +purchased a bouquet that was still gemmed with the morning +dew-drops. + +It was now the customary hour of his daily interview with +Beatrice. Before descending into the garden, Giovanni failed not +to look at his figure in the mirror,--a vanity to be expected in +a beautiful young man, yet, as displaying itself at that troubled +and feverish moment, the token of a certain shallowness of +feeling and insincerity of character. He did gaze, however, and +said to himself that his features had never before possessed so +rich a grace, nor his eyes such vivacity, nor his cheeks so warm +a hue of superabundant life. + +"At least," thought he, "her poison has not yet insinuated itself +into my system. I am no flower to perish in her grasp." + +With that thought he turned his eyes on the bouquet, which he had +never once laid aside from his hand. A thrill of indefinable +horror shot through his frame on perceiving that those dewy +flowers were already beginning to droop; they wore the aspect of +things that had been fresh and lovely yesterday. Giovanni grew +white as marble, and stood motionless before the mirror, staring +at his own reflection there as at the likeness of something +frightful. He remembered Baglioni's remark about the fragrance +that seemed to pervade the chamber. It must have been the poison +in his breath! Then he shuddered--shuddered at himself. +Recovering from his stupor, he began to watch with curious eye a +spider that was busily at work hanging its web from the antique +cornice of the apartment, crossing and recrossing the artful +system of interwoven lines--as vigorous and active a spider as +ever dangled from an old ceiling. Giovanni bent towards the +insect, and emitted a deep, long breath. The spider suddenly +ceased its toil; the web vibrated with a tremor originating in +the body of the small artisan. Again Giovanni sent forth a +breath, deeper, longer, and imbued with a venomous feeling out of +his heart: he knew not whether he were wicked, or only desperate. +The spider made a convulsive gripe with his limbs and hung dead +across the window. + +"Accursed! accursed!" muttered Giovanni, addressing himself. +"Hast thou grown so poisonous that this deadly insect perishes by +thy breath?" + +At that moment a rich, sweet voice came floating up from the +garden + +"Giovanni! Giovanni! It is past the hour! Why tarriest thou? Come +down!" + +"Yes," muttered Giovanni again. "She is the only being whom my +breath may not slay! Would that it might!" + +He rushed down, and in an instant was standing before the bright +and loving eyes of Beatrice. A moment ago his wrath and despair +had been so fierce that he could have desired nothing so much as +to wither her by a glance; but with her actual presence there +came influences which had too real an existence to be at once +shaken off: recollections of the delicate and benign power of her +feminine nature, which had so often enveloped him in a religious +calm; recollections of many a holy and passionate outgush of her +heart, when the pure fountain had been unsealed from its depths +and made visible in its transparency to his mental eye; +recollections which, had Giovanni known how to estimate them, +would have assured him that all this ugly mystery was but an +earthly illusion, and that, whatever mist of evil might seem to +have gathered over her, the real Beatrice was a heavenly angel. +Incapable as he was of such high faith, still her presence had +not utterly lost its magic. Giovanni's rage was quelled into an +aspect of sullen insensibility. Beatrice, with a quick spiritual +sense, immediately felt that there was a gulf of blackness +between them which neither he nor she could pass. They walked on +together, sad and silent, and came thus to the marble fountain +and to its pool of water on the ground, in the midst of which +grew the shrub that bore gem-like blossoms. Giovanni was +affrighted at the eager enjoyment--the appetite, as it were--with +which he found himself inhaling the fragrance of the flowers. + +"Beatrice," asked he, abruptly, "whence came this shrub?" + +"My father created it," answered she, with simplicity. + +"Created it! created it!" repeated Giovanni. "What mean you, +Beatrice?" + +"He is a man fearfully acquainted with the secrets of Nature," +replied Beatrice; "and, at the hour when I first drew breath, +this plant sprang from the soil, the offspring of his science, of +his intellect, while I was but his earthly child. Approach it +not!" continued she, observing with terror that Giovanni was +drawing nearer to the shrub. "It has qualities that you little +dream of. But I, dearest Giovanni,--I grew up and blossomed with +the plant and was nourished with its breath. It was my sister, +and I loved it with a human affection; for, alas!--hast thou not +suspected it?--there was an awful doom." + +Here Giovanni frowned so darkly upon her that Beatrice paused and +trembled. But her faith in his tenderness reassured her, and made +her blush that she had doubted for an instant. + +"There was an awful doom," she continued, "the effect of my +father's fatal love of science, which estranged me from all +society of my kind. Until Heaven sent thee, dearest Giovanni, oh, +how lonely was thy poor Beatrice!" + +"Was it a hard doom?" asked Giovanni, fixing his eyes upon her. + +"Only of late have I known how hard it was," answered she, +tenderly. "Oh, yes; but my heart was torpid, and therefore +quiet." + +Giovanni's rage broke forth from his sullen gloom like a +lightning flash out of a dark cloud. + +"Accursed one!" cried he, with venomous scorn and anger. "And, +finding thy solitude wearisome, thou hast severed me likewise +from all the warmth of life and enticed me into thy region of +unspeakable horror!" + +"Giovanni!" exclaimed Beatrice, turning her large bright eyes +upon his face. The force of his words had not found its way into +her mind; she was merely thunderstruck. + +"Yes, poisonous thing!" repeated Giovanni, beside himself with +passion. "Thou hast done it! Thou hast blasted me! Thou hast +filled my veins with poison! Thou hast made me as hateful, as +ugly, as loathsome and deadly a creature as thyself--a world's +wonder of hideous monstrosity! Now, if our breath be happily as +fatal to ourselves as to all others, let us join our lips in one +kiss of unutterable hatred, and so die!" + +"What has befallen me?" murmured Beatrice, with a low moan out of +her heart. "Holy Virgin, pity me, a poor heart-broken child!" + +"Thou,--dost thou pray?" cried Giovanni, still with the same +fiendish scorn. "Thy very prayers, as they come from thy lips, +taint the atmosphere with death. Yes, yes; let us pray! Let us to +church and dip our fingers in the holy water at the portal! They +that come after us will perish as by a pestilence! Let us sign +crosses in the air! It will be scattering curses abroad in the +likeness of holy symbols!" + +"Giovanni," said Beatrice, calmly, for her grief was beyond +passion, "why dost thou join thyself with me thus in those +terrible words? I, it is true, am the horrible thing thou namest +me. But thou,--what hast thou to do, save with one other shudder +at my hideous misery to go forth out of the garden and mingle +with thy race, and forget there ever crawled on earth such a +monster as poor Beatrice?" + +"Dost thou pretend ignorance?" asked Giovanni, scowling upon her. +"Behold! this power have I gained from the pure daughter of +Rappaccini. + +There was a swarm of summer insects flitting through the air in +search of the food promised by the flower odors of the fatal +garden. They circled round Giovanni's head, and were evidently +attracted towards him by the same influence which had drawn them +for an instant within the sphere of several of the shrubs. He +sent forth a breath among them, and smiled bitterly at Beatrice +as at least a score of the insects fell dead upon the ground. + +"I see it! I see it!" shrieked Beatrice. "It is my father's fatal +science! No, no, Giovanni; it was not I! Never! never! I dreamed +only to love thee and be with thee a little time, and so to let +thee pass away, leaving but thine image in mine heart; for, +Giovanni, believe it, though my body be nourished with poison, my +spirit is God's creature, and craves love as its daily food. But +my father,--he has united us in this fearful sympathy. Yes; spurn +me, tread upon me, kill me! Oh, what is death after such words as +thine? But it was not I. Not for a world of bliss would I have +done it." + +Giovanni's passion had exhausted itself in its outburst from his +lips. There now came across him a sense, mournful, and not +without tenderness, of the intimate and peculiar relationship +between Beatrice and himself. They stood, as it were, in an utter +solitude, which would be made none the less solitary by the +densest throng of human life. Ought not, then, the desert of +humanity around them to press this insulated pair closer +together? If they should be cruel to one another, who was there +to be kind to them? Besides, thought Giovanni, might there not +still be a hope of his returning within the limits of ordinary +nature, and leading Beatrice, the redeemed Beatrice, by the hand? +O, weak, and selfish, and unworthy spirit, that could dream of an +earthly union and earthly happiness as possible, after such deep +love had been so bitterly wronged as was Beatrice's love by +Giovanni's blighting words! No, no; there could be no such hope. +She must pass heavily, with that broken heart, across the borders +of Time--she must bathe her hurts in some fount of paradise, and +forget her grief in the light of immortality, and THERE be well. + +But Giovanni did not know it. + +"Dear Beatrice," said he, approaching her, while she shrank away +as always at his approach, but now with a different impulse, +"dearest Beatrice, our fate is not yet so desperate. Behold! +there is a medicine, potent, as a wise physician has assured me, +and almost divine in its efficacy. It is composed of ingredients +the most opposite to those by which thy awful father has brought +this calamity upon thee and me. It is distilled of blessed herbs. +Shall we not quaff it together, and thus be purified from evil?" + +"Give it me!" said Beatrice, extending her hand to receive the +little silver vial which Giovanni took from his bosom. She added, +with a peculiar emphasis, "I will drink; but do thou await the +result." + +She put Baglioni's antidote to her lips; and, at the same moment, +the figure of Rappaccini emerged from the portal and came slowly +towards the marble fountain. As he drew near, the pale man of +science seemed to gaze with a triumphant expression at the +beautiful youth and maiden, as might an artist who should spend +his life in achieving a picture or a group of statuary and +finally be satisfied with his success. He paused; his bent form +grew erect with conscious power; he spread out his hands over +them in the attitude of a father imploring a blessing upon his +children; but those were the same hands that had thrown poison +into the stream of their lives. Giovanni trembled. Beatrice +shuddered nervously, and pressed her hand upon her heart. + +"My daughter," said Rappaccini, "thou art no longer lonely in the +world. Pluck one of those precious gems from thy sister shrub and +bid thy bridegroom wear it in his bosom. It will not harm him +now. My science and the sympathy between thee and him have so +wrought within his system that he now stands apart from common +men, as thou dost, daughter of my pride and triumph, from +ordinary women. Pass on, then, through the world, most dear to +one another and dreadful to all besides!" + +"My father," said Beatrice, feebly,--and still as she spoke she +kept her hand upon her heart,--"wherefore didst thou inflict this +miserable doom upon thy child?" + +"Miserable!" exclaimed Rappaccini. "What mean you, foolish girl? +Dost thou deem it misery to be endowed with marvellous gifts +against which no power nor strength could avail an enemy--misery, +to be able to quell the mightiest with a breath--misery, to be as +terrible as thou art beautiful? Wouldst thou, then, have +preferred the condition of a weak woman, exposed to all evil and +capable of none?" + +"I would fain have been loved, not feared," murmured Beatrice, +sinking down upon the ground. "But now it matters not. I am +going, father, where the evil which thou hast striven to mingle +with my being will pass away like a dream-like the fragrance of +these poisonous flowers, which will no longer taint my breath +among the flowers of Eden. Farewell, Giovanni! Thy words of +hatred are like lead within my heart; but they, too, will fall +away as I ascend. Oh, was there not, from the first, more poison +in thy nature than in mine?" + +To Beatrice,--so radically had her earthly part been wrought upon +by Rappaccini's skill,--as poison had been life, so the powerful +antidote was death; and thus the poor victim of man's ingenuity +and of thwarted nature, and of the fatality that attends all such +efforts of perverted wisdom, perished there, at the feet of her +father and Giovanni. Just at that moment Professor Pietro +Baglioni looked forth from the window, and called loudly, in a +tone of triumph mixed with horror, to the thunderstricken man of +science,"Rappaccini! Rappaccini! and is THIS the upshot of your +experiment!" + + + +MRS. BULLFROG + +It makes me melancholy to see how like fools some very sensible +people act in the matter of choosing wives. They perplex their +judgments by a most undue attention to little niceties of +personal appearance, habits, disposition, and other trifles which +concern nobody but the lady herself. An unhappy gentleman, +resolving to wed nothing short of perfection, keeps his heart and +hand till both get so old and withered that no tolerable woman +will accept them. Now this is the very height of absurdity. A +kind Providence has so skilfully adapted sex to sex and the mass +of individuals to each other, that, with certain obvious +exceptions, any male and female may be moderately happy in the +married state. The true rule is to ascertain that the match is +fundamentally a good one, and then to take it for granted that +all minor objections, should there be such, will vanish, if you +let them alone. Only put yourself beyond hazard as to the real +basis of matrimonial bliss, and it is scarcely to be imagined +what miracles, in the way of recognizing smaller incongruities, +connubial love will effect. + +For my own part I freely confess that, in my bachelorship, I was +precisely such an over-curious simpleton as I now advise the +reader not to be. My early habits had gifted me with a feminine +sensibility and too exquisite refinement. I was the accomplished +graduate of a dry goods store, where, by dint of ministering to +the whims of fine ladies, and suiting silken hose to delicate +limbs, and handling satins, ribbons, chintzes calicoes, tapes, +gauze, and cambric needles, I grew up a very ladylike sort of a +gentleman. It is not assuming too much to affirm that the ladies +themselves were hardly so ladylike as Thomas Bullfrog. So +painfully acute was my sense of female imperfection, and such +varied excellence did I require in the woman whom I could love, +that there was an awful risk of my getting no wife at all, or of +being driven to perpetrate matrimony with my own image in the +looking-glass. Besides the fundamental principle already hinted +at, I demanded the fresh bloom of youth, pearly teeth, glossy +ringlets, and the whole list of lovely items, with the utmost +delicacy of habits and sentiments, a silken texture of mind, and, +above all, a virgin heart. In a word, if a young angel just from +paradise, yet dressed in earthly fashion, had come and offered me +her hand, it is by no means certain that I should have taken it. +There was every chance of my becoming a most miserable old +bachelor, when, by the best luck in the world, I made a journey +into another state, and was smitten by, and smote again, and +wooed, won, and married, the present Mrs. Bullfrog, all in the +space of a fortnight. Owing to these extempore measures, I not +only gave my bride credit for certain perfections which have not +as yet come to light, but also overlooked a few trifling defects, +which, however, glimmered on my perception long before the close +of the honeymoon. Yet, as there was no mistake about the +fundamental principle aforesaid, I soon learned, as will be +seen, to estimate Mrs. Bullfrog's deficiencies and superfluities +at exactly their proper value. + +The same morning that Mrs. Bullfrog and I came together as a +unit, we took two seats in the stage-coach and began our journey +towards my place of business. There being no other passengers, we +were as much alone and as free to give vent to our raptures as if +I had hired a hack for the matrimonial jaunt. My bride looked +charmingly in a green silk calash and riding habit of pelisse +cloth; and whenever her red lips parted with a smile, each tooth +appeared like an inestimable pearl. Such was my passionate warmth +that--we had rattled out of the village, gentle reader, and were +lonely as Adam and Eve in paradise--I plead guilty to no less +freedom than a kiss. The gentle eye of Mrs. Bullfrog scarcely +rebuked me for the profanation. Emboldened by her indulgence, I +threw back the calash from her polished brow, and suffered my +fingers, white and delicate as her own, to stray among those dark +and glossy curls which realized my daydreams of rich hair. + +"My love," said Mrs. Bullfrog tenderly, "you will disarrange my +curls." + +"Oh, no, my sweet Laura!" replied I, still playing with the +glossy ringlet. "Even your fair hand could not manage a curl more +delicately than mine. I propose myself the pleasure of doing up +your hair in papers every evening at the same time with my own." + +"Mr. Bullfrog," repeated she, "you must not disarrange my curls." + +This was spoken in a more decided tone than I had happened to +hear, until then, from my gentlest of all gentle brides. At the +same time she put up her hand and took mine prisoner; but merely +drew it away from the forbidden ringlet, and then immediately +released it. Now, I am a fidgety little man, and always love to +have something in my fingers; so that, being debarred from my +wife's curls, I looked about me for any other plaything. On the +front seat of the coach there was one of those small baskets in +which travelling ladies who are too delicate to appear at a +public table generally carry a supply of gingerbread, biscuits +and cheese, cold ham, and other light refreshments, merely to +sustain nature to the journey's end. Such airy diet will +sometimes keep them in pretty good flesh for a week together. +Laying hold of this same little basket, I thrust my hand under +the newspaper with which it was carefully covered. + +"What's this, my dear?" cried I; for the black neck of a bottle +had popped out of the basket. + +"A bottle of Kalydor, Mr. Bullfrog," said my wife, coolly taking +the basket from my hands and replacing it on the front seat. + +There was no possibility of doubting my wife's word; but I never +knew genuine Kalydor, such as I use for my own complexion, to +smell so much like cherry brandy. I was about to express my fears +that the lotion would injure her skin, when an accident occurred +which threatened more than a skin-deep injury. Our Jehu had +carelessly driven over a heap of gravel and fairly capsized the +coach, with the wheels in the air and our heels where our heads +should have been. What became of my wits I cannot imagine; they +have always had a perverse trick of deserting me just when they +were most needed; but so it chanced, that in the confusion of our +overthrow I quite forgot that there was a Mrs. Bullfrog in the +world. Like many men's wives, the good lady served her husband as +a steppingstone. I had scrambled out of the coach and was +instinctively settling my cravat, when somebody brushed roughly +by me, and I heard a smart thwack upon the coachman's ear. + +"Take that, you villain!" cried a strange, hoarse voice. "You +have ruined me, you blackguard! I shall never be the woman I have +been!" + +And then came a second thwack, aimed at the driver's other ear; +but which missed it, and hit him on the nose, causing a terrible +effusion of blood. Now, who or what fearful apparition was +inflicting this punishment on the poor fellow remained an +impenetrable mystery to me. The blows were given by a person of +grisly aspect, with a head almost bald, and sunken cheeks, +apparently of the feminine gender, though hardly to be classed in +the gentler sex. There being no teeth to modulate the voice, it +had a mumbled fierceness, not passionate, but stern, which +absolutely made me quiver like calf's-foot jelly. Who could the +phantom be? The most awful circumstance of the affair is yet to +be told: for this ogre, or whatever it was, had a riding habit +like Mrs. Bullfrog's, and also a green silk calash dangling down +her back by the strings. In my terror and turmoil of mind I could +imagine nothing less than that the Old Nick, at the moment of our +overturn, had annihilated my wife and jumped into her petticoats. +This idea seemed the most probable, since I could nowhere +perceive Mrs. Bullfrog alive, nor, though I looked very sharply +about the coach, could I detect any traces of that beloved +woman's dead body. There would have been a comfort in giving her +Christian burial. + +"Come, sir, bestir yourself! Help this rascal to set up the +coach," sai the hobgoblin to me; then, with a terrific screech at +three countrymen at a distance, "Here, you fellows, ain't you +ashamed to stand off when a poor woman is in distress?" + +The countrymen, instead of fleeing for their lives, came running +at full speed, and laid hold of the topsy-turvy coach. I, also, +though a small-sized man, went to work like a son of Anak. The +coachman, too, with the blood still streaming from his nose, +tugged and toiled most manfully, dreading, doubtless, that the +next blow might break his head. And yet, bemauled as the poor +fellow had been, he seemed to glance at me with an eye of pity, +as if my case were more deplorable than his. But I cherished a +hope that all would turn out a dream, and seized the opportunity, +as we raised the coach, to jam two of my fingers under the wheel, +trusting that the pain would awaken me. + +"Why, here we are, all to rights again!" exclaimed a sweet voice +behind. "Thank you for your assistance, gentlemen. My dear Mr. +Bullfrog, how you perspire! Do let me wipe your face. Don't take +this little accident too much to heart, good driver. We ought to +be thankful that none of our necks are broken." + +"We might have spared one neck out of the three," muttered the +driver, rubbing his ear and pulling his nose, to ascertain +whether he had been cuffed or not. "Why, the woman's a witch!" + +I fear that the reader will not believe, yet it is positively a +fact, that there stood Mrs. Bullfrog, with her glossy ringlets +curling on her brow, and two rows of orient pearls gleaming +between her parted lips, which wore a most angelic smile. She had +regained her riding habit and calash from the grisly phantom, and +was, in all respects, the lovely woman who had been sitting by my +side at the instant of our overturn. How she had happened to +disappear, and who had supplied her place, and whence she did now +return, were problems too knotty for me to solve. There stood my +wife. That was the one thing certain among a heap of mysteries. +Nothing remained but to help her into the coach, and plod on, +through the journey of the day and the journey of life, as +comfortably as we could. As the driver closed the door upon us, I +heard him whisper to the three countrymen,"How do you suppose a +fellow feels shut up in the cage with a she tiger?" + +Of course this query could have no reference to my situation. +Yet, unreasonable as it may appear, I confess that my feelings +were not altogether so ecstatic as when I first called Mrs. +Bullfrog mine. True, she was a sweet woman and an angel of a +wife; but what if a Gorgon should return, amid the transports of +our connubial bliss, and take the angel's place. I recollected +the tale of a fairy, who half the time was a beautiful woman and +half the time a hideous monster. Had I taken that very fairy to +be the wife of my bosom? While such whims and chimeras were +flitting across my fancy I began to look askance at Mrs. +Bullfrog, almost expecting that the transformation would be +wrought before my eyes. + +To divert my mind, I took up the newspaper which had covered the +little basket of refreshments, and which now lay at the bottom of +the coach, blushing with a deep-red stain and emitting a potent +spirituous fume from the contents of the broken bottle of +Kalydor. The paper was two or three years old, but contained an +article of several columns, in which I soon grew wonderfully +interested. It was the report of a trial for breach of promise of +marriage, giving the testimony in full, with fervid extracts from +both the gentleman's and lady's amatory correspondence. The +deserted damsel had personally appeared in court, and had borne +energetic evidence to her lover's perfidy and the strength of her +blighted affections. On the defendant's part there had been an +attempt, though insufficiently sustained, to blast the +plaintiff's character, and a plea, in mitigation of damages, on +account of her unamiable temper. A horrible idea was suggested by +the lady's name. + +"Madam," said I, holding the newspaper before Mrs. Bullfrog's +eyes,--and, though a small, delicate, and thin-visaged man, I +feel assured that I looked very terrific,--"madam," repeated I, +through my shut teeth, "were you the plaintiff in this cause?" + +"Oh, my dear Mr. Bullfrog," replied my wife, sweetly, "I thought +all the world knew that!" + +"Horror! horror!" exclaimed I, sinking back on the seat. + +Covering my face with both hands, I emitted a deep and deathlike +groan, as if my tormented soul were rending me asunder--I, the +most exquisitely fastidious of men, and whose wife was to have +been the most delicate and refined of women, with all the fresh +dew-drops glittering on her virgin rosebud of a heart! + +I thought of the glossy ringlets and pearly teeth; I thought of +the Kalydor; I thought of the coachman's bruised ear and bloody +nose; I thought of the tender love secrets which she had +whispered to the judge and jury and a thousand tittering +auditors,--and gave another groan! + +"Mr. Bullfrog," said my wife. + +As I made no reply, she gently took my hands within her own, +removed them from my face, and fixed her eyes steadfastly on +mine. + +"Mr. Bullfrog," said she, not unkindly, yet with all the decision +of her strong character, "let me advise you to overcome this +foolish weakness, and prove yourself, to the best of your +ability, as good a husband as I will be a wife. You have +discovered, perhaps, some little imperfections in your bride. +Well, what did you expect? Women are not angels. If they were, +they would go to heaven for husbands; or, at least, be more +difficult in their choice on earth." + +"But why conceal those imperfections?" interposed I, tremulously. + +"Now, my love, are not you a most unreasonable little man?" said +Mrs. Bullfrog, patting me on the cheek. "Ought a woman to +disclose her frailties earlier than the wedding day? Few +husbands, I assure you, make the discovery in such good season, +and still fewer complain that these trifles are concealed too +long. Well, what a strange man you are! Poh! you are joking." + +"But the suit for breach of promise!" groaned I. + +"Ah, and is that the rub?" exclaimed my wife. "Is it possible +that you view that affair in an objectionable light? Mr. +Bullfrog, I never could have dreamed it! Is it an objection that +I have triumphantly defended myself against slander and +vindicated my purity in a court of justice? Or do you complain +because your wife has shown the proper spirit of a woman, and +punished the villain who trifled with her affections?" + +"But," persisted I, shrinking into a corner of the coach, +however,--for I did not know precisely how much contradiction the +proper spirit of a woman would endure,--"but, my love, would it +not have been more dignified to treat the villain with the silent +contempt he merited?" + +"That is all very well, Mr. Bullfrog," said my wife, slyly; "but, +in that case, where would have been the five thousand dollars +which are to stock your dry goods store?" + +"Mrs. Bullfrog, upon your honor," demanded I, as if my life hung +upon her words, "is there no mistake about those five thousand +dollars?" + +"Upon my word and honor there is none," replied she. "The jury +gave me every cent the rascal had; and I have kept it all for my +dear Bullfrog." + +"Then, thou dear woman," cried I, with an overwhelming gush of +tenderness, "let me fold thee to my heart. The basis of +matrimonial bliss is secure, and all thy little defects and +frailties are forgiven. Nay, since the result has been so +fortunate, I rejoice at the wrongs which drove thee to this +blessed lawsuit. Happy Bullfrog that I am!" + + + +THE CELESTIAL RAILROAD + +Not a great while ago, passing through the gate of dreams, I +visited that region of the earth in which lies the famous City of +Destruction. It interested me much to learn that by the public +spirit of some of the inhabitants a railroad has recently been +established between this populous and flourishing town and the +Celestial City. Having a little time upon my hands, I resolved to +gratify a liberal curiosity by making a trip thither. +Accordingly, one fine morning after paying my bill at the hotel, +and directing the porter to stow my luggage behind a coach, I +took my seat in the vehicle and set out for the station-house. It +was my good fortune to enjoy the company of a gentleman--one Mr. +Smooth-it-away--who, though he had never actually visited the +Celestial City, yet seemed as well acquainted with its laws, +customs, policy, and statistics, as with those of the City of +Destruction, of which he was a native townsman. Being, moreover, +a director of the railroad corporation and one of its largest +stockholders, he had it in his power to give me all desirable +information respecting that praiseworthy enterprise. + +Our coach rattled out of the city, and at a short distance from +its outskirts passed over a bridge of elegant construction, but +somewhat too slight, as I imagined, to sustain any considerable +weight. On both sides lay an extensive quagmire, which could not +have been more disagreeable either to sight or smell, had all the +kennels of the earth emptied their pollution there. + +"This," remarked Mr. Smooth-it-away, "is the famous Slough of +Despond--a disgrace to all the neighborhood; and the greater that +it might so easily be converted into firm ground." + +"I have understood," said I, "that efforts have been made for +that purpose from time immemorial. Bunyan mentions that above +twenty thousand cartloads of wholesome instructions had been +thrown in here without effect." + +"Very probably! And what effect could be anticipated from such +unsubstantial stuff?" cried Mr. Smooth-it-away. "You observe this +convenient bridge. We obtained a sufficient foundation for it by +throwing into the slough some editions of books of morality, +volumes of French philosophy and German rationalism; tracts, +sermons, and essays of modern clergymen; extracts from Plato, +Confucius, and various Hindoo sages together with a few ingenious +commentaries upon texts of Scripture,--all of which by some +scientific process, have been converted into a mass like granite. +The whole bog might be filled up with similar matter." + +It really seemed to me, however, that the bridge vibrated and +heaved up and down in a very formidable manner; and, in spite of +Mr. Smooth-it-away's testimony to the solidity of its foundation, +I should be loath to cross it in a crowded omnibus, especially if +each passenger were encumbered with as heavy luggage as that +gentleman and myself. Nevertheless we got over without accident, +and soon found ourselves at the stationhouse. This very neat and +spacious edifice is erected on the site of the little wicket +gate, which formerly, as all old pilgrims will recollect, stood +directly across the highway, and, by its inconvenient narrowness, +was a great obstruction to the traveller of liberal mind and +expansive stomach The reader of John Bunyan will be glad to know +that Christian's old friend Evangelist, who was accustomed to +supply each pilgrim with a mystic roll, now presides at the +ticket office. Some malicious persons it is true deny the +identity of this reputable character with the Evangelist of old +times, and even pretend to bring competent evidence of an +imposture. Without involving myself in a dispute I shall merely +observe that, so far as my experience goes, the square pieces of +pasteboard now delivered to passengers are much more convenient +and useful along the road than the antique roll of parchment. +Whether they will be as readily received at the gate of the +Celestial City I decline giving an opinion. + +A large number of passengers were already at the station-house +awaiting the departure of the cars. By the aspect and demeanor of +these persons it was easy to judge that the feelings of the +community had undergone a very favorable change in reference to +the celestial pilgrimage. It would have done Bunyan's heart good +to see it. Instead of a lonely and ragged man with a huge burden +on his back, plodding along sorrowfully on foot while the whole +city hooted after him, here were parties of the first gentry and +most respectable people in the neighborhood setting forth towards +the Celestial City as cheerfully as if the pilgrimage were merely +a summer tour. Among the gentlemen were characters of deserved +eminence--magistrates, politicians, and men of wealth, by whose +example religion could not but be greatly recommended to their +meaner brethren. In the ladies' apartment, too, I rejoiced to +distinguish some of those flowers of fashionable society who are +so well fitted to adorn the most elevated circles of the +Celestial City. There was much pleasant conversation about the +news of the day, topics of business and politics, or the lighter +matters of amusement; while religion, though indubitably the main +thing at heart, was thrown tastefully into the background. Even +an infidel would have heard little or nothing to shock his +sensibility. + +One great convenience of the new method of going on pilgrimage I +must not forget to mention. Our enormous burdens, instead of +being carried on our shoulders as had been the custom of old, +were all snugly deposited in the baggage car, and, as I was +assured, would be delivered to their respective owners at the +journey's end. Another thing, likewise, the benevolent reader +will be delighted to understand. It may be remembered that there +was an ancient feud between Prince Beelzebub and the keeper of +the wicket gate, and that the adherents of the former +distinguished personage were accustomed to shoot deadly arrows at +honest pilgrims while knocking at the door. This dispute, much to +the credit as well of the illustrious potentate above mentioned +as of the worthy and enlightened directors of the railroad, has +been pacifically arranged on the principle of mutual compromise. +The prince's subjects are now pretty numerously employed about +the station-house, some in taking care of the baggage, others in +collecting fuel, feeding the engines, and such congenial +occupations; and I can conscientiously affirm that persons more +attentive to their business, more willing to accommodate, or more +generally agreeable to the passengers, are not to be found on any +railroad. Every good heart must surely exult at so satisfactory +an arrangement of an immemorial difficulty. + +"Where is Mr. Greatheart?" inquired I. "Beyond a doubt the +directors have engaged that famous old champion to be chief +conductor on the railroad?" + +"Why, no," said Mr. Smooth-it-away, with a dry cough. "He was +offered the situation of brakeman; but, to tell you the truth, +our friend Greatheart has grown preposterously stiff and narrow +in his old age. He has so often guided pilgrims over the road on +foot that he considers it a sin to travel in any other fashion. +Besides, the old fellow had entered so heartily into the ancient +feud with Prince Beelzebub that he would have been perpetually at +blows or ill language with some of the prince's subjects, and +thus have embroiled us anew. So, on the whole, we were not sorry +when honest Greatheart went off to the Celestial City in a huff +and left us at liberty to choose a more suitable and +accommodating man. Yonder comes the engineer of the train. You +will probably recognize him at once." + +The engine at this moment took its station in advance of the +cars, looking, I must confess, much more like a sort of +mechanical demon that would hurry us to the infernal regions than +a laudable contrivance for smoothing our way to the Celestial +City. On its top sat a personage almost enveloped in smoke and +flame, which, not to startle the reader, appeared to gush from +his own mouth and stomach as well as from the engine's brazen +abdomen. + +"Do my eyes deceive me?" cried I. "What on earth is this! A +living creature? If so, he is own brother to the engine he rides +upon!" + +"Poh, poh, you are obtuse!" said Mr. Smooth-it-away, with a +hearty laugh. "Don't you know Apollyon, Christian's old enemy, +with whom he fought so fierce a battle in the Valley of +Humiliation? He was the very fellow to manage the engine; and so +we have reconciled him to the custom of going on pilgrimage, and +engaged him as chief engineer." + +"Bravo, bravo!" exclaimed I, with irrepressible enthusiasm; "this +shows the liberality of the age; this proves, if anything can, +that all musty prejudices are in a fair way to be obliterated. +And how will Christian rejoice to hear of this happy +transformation of his old antagonist! I promise myself great +pleasure in informing him of it when we reach the Celestial +City." + +The passengers being all comfortably seated, we now rattled away +merrily, accomplishing a greater distance in ten minutes than +Christian probably trudged over in a day. It was laughable, while +we glanced along, as it were, at the tail of a thunderbolt, to +observe two dusty foot travellers in the old pilgrim guise, with +cockle shell and staff, their mystic rolls of parchment in their +hands and their intolerable burdens on their backs. The +preposterous obstinacy of these honest people in persisting to +groan and stumble along the difficult pathway rather than take +advantage of modern improvements, excited great mirth among our +wiser brotherhood. We greeted the two pilgrims with many pleasant +gibes and a roar of laughter; whereupon they gazed at us with +such woful and absurdly compassionate visages that our merriment +grew tenfold more obstreperous. Apollyon also entered heartily +into the fun, and contrived to flirt the smoke and flame of the +engine, or of his own breath, into their faces, and envelop them +in an atmosphere of scalding steam. These little practical jokes +amused us mightily, and doubtless afforded the pilgrims the +gratification of considering themselves martyrs. + +At some distance from the railroad Mr. Smooth-it-away pointed to +a large, antique edifice, which, he observed, was a tavern of +long standing, and had formerly been a noted stopping-place for +pilgrims. In Bunyan's road-book it is mentioned as the +Interpreter's House. + +"I have long had a curiosity to visit that old mansion," remarked +I. + +"It is not one of our stations, as you perceive," said my +companion "The keeper was violently opposed to the railroad; and +well he might be, as the track left his house of entertainment on +one side, and thus was pretty certain to deprive him of all his +reputable customers. But the footpath still passes his door, and +the old gentleman now and then receives a call from some simple +traveller, and entertains him with fare as old-fashioned as +himself." + +Before our talk on this subject came to a conclusion we were +rushing by the place where Christian's burden fell from his +shoulders at the sight of the Cross. This served as a theme for +Mr. Smooth-it-away, Mr. Livefor-the-world, Mr. +Hide-sin-in-the-heart, Mr. Scaly-conscience, and a knot of +gentlemen from the town of Shun-repentance, to descant upon the +inestimable advantages resulting from the safety of our baggage. +Myself, and all the passengers indeed, joined with great +unanimity in this view of the matter; for our burdens were rich +in many things esteemed precious throughout the world; and, +especially, we each of us possessed a great variety of favorite +Habits, which we trusted would not be out of fashion even in the +polite circles of the Celestial City. It would have been a sad +spectacle to see such an assortment of valuable articles tumbling +into the sepulchre. Thus pleasantly conversing on the favorable +circumstances of our position as compared with those of past +pilgrims and of narrow-minded ones at the present day, we soon +found ourselves at the foot of the Hill Difficulty. Through the +very heart of this rocky mountain a tunnel has been constructed +of most admirable architecture, with a lofty arch and a spacious +double track; so that, unless the earth and rocks should chance +to crumble down, it will remain an eternal monument of the +builder's skill and enterprise. It is a great though incidental +advantage that the materials from the heart of the Hill +Difficulty have been employed in filling up the Valley of +Humiliation, thus obviating the necessity of descending into that +disagreeable and unwholesome hollow. + +"This is a wonderful improvement, indeed," said I. "Yet I should +have been glad of an opportunity to visit the Palace Beautiful +and be introduced to the charming young ladies--Miss Prudence, +Miss Piety, Miss Charity, and the rest--who have the kindness to +entertain pilgrims there." + +"Young ladies!" cried Mr. Smooth-it-away, as soon as he could +speak for laughing. "And charming young ladies! Why, my dear +fellow, they are old maids, every soul of them--prim, starched, +dry, and angular; and not one of them, I will venture to say, has +altered so much as the fashion of her gown since the days of +Christian's pilgrimage." + +"Ah, well," said I, much comforted, "then I can very readily +dispense with their acquaintance." + +The respectable Apollyon was now putting on the steam at a +prodigious rate, anxious, perhaps, to get rid of the unpleasant +reminiscences connected with the spot where he had so +disastrously encountered Christian. Consulting Mr. Bunyan's +road-book, I perceived that we must now be within a few miles of +the Valley of the Shadow of Death, into which doleful region, at +our present speed, we should plunge much sooner than seemed at +all desirable. In truth, I expected nothing better than to find +myself in the ditch on one side or the Quag on the other; but on +communicating my apprehensions to Mr. Smooth-it-away, he assured +me that the difficulties of this passage, even in its worst +condition, had been vastly exaggerated, and that, in its present +state of improvement, I might consider myself as safe as on any +railroad in Christendom. + +Even while we were speaking the train shot into the entrance of +this dreaded Valley. Though I plead guilty to some foolish +palpitations of the heart during our headlong rush over the +causeway here constructed, yet it were unjust to withhold the +highest encomiums on the boldness of its original conception and +the ingenuity of those who executed it. It was gratifying, +likewise, to observe how much care had been taken to dispel the +everlasting gloom and supply the defect of cheerful sunshine, not +a ray of which has ever penetrated among these awful shadows. For +this purpose, the inflammable gas which exudes plentifully from +the soil is collected by means of pipes, and thence communicated +to a quadruple row of lamps along the whole extent of the +passage. Thus a radiance has been created even out of the fiery +and sulphurous curse that rests forever upon the valley--a +radiance hurtful, however, to the eyes, and somewhat bewildering, +as I discovered by the changes which it wrought in the visages of +my companions. In this respect, as compared with natural +daylight, there is the same difference as between truth and +falsehood, but if the reader have ever travelled through the dark +Valley, he will have learned to be thankful for any light that he +could get--if not from the sky above, then from the blasted soil +beneath. Such was the red brilliancy of these lamps that they +appeared to build walls of fire on both sides of the track, +between which we held our course at lightning speed, while a +reverberating thunder filled the Valley with its echoes. Had the +engine run off the track,--a catastrophe, it is whispered, by no +means unprecedented,--the bottomless pit, if there be any such +place, would undoubtedly have received us. Just as some dismal +fooleries of this nature had made my heart quake there came a +tremendous shriek, careering along the valley as if a thousand +devils had burst their lungs to utter it, but which proved to be +merely the whistle of the engine on arriving at a stopping-place. + +The spot where we had now paused is the same that our friend +Bunyan--a truthful man, but infected with many fantastic +notions--has designated, in terms plainer than I like to repeat, +as the mouth of the infernal region. This, however, must be a +mistake, inasmuch as Mr. Smooth-it-away, while we remained in the +smoky and lurid cavern, took occasion to prove that Tophet has +not even a metaphorical existence. The place, he assured us, is +no other than the crater of a half-extinct volcano, in which the +directors had caused forges to be set up for the manufacture of +railroad iron. Hence, also, is obtained a plentiful supply of +fuel for the use of the engines. Whoever had gazed into the +dismal obscurity of the broad cavern mouth, whence ever and anon +darted huge tongues of dusky flame, and had seen the strange, +half-shaped monsters, and visions of faces horribly grotesque, +into which the smoke seemed to wreathe itself, and had heard the +awful murmurs, and shrieks, and deep, shuddering whispers of the +blast, sometimes forming themselves into words almost articulate, +would have seized upon Mr. Smooth-it-away's comfortable +explanation as greedily as we did. The inhabitants of the cavern, +moreover, were unlovely personages, dark, smoke-begrimed, +generally deformed, with misshapen feet, and a glow of dusky +redness in their eyes as if their hearts had caught fire and were +blazing out of the upper windows. It struck me as a peculiarity +that the laborers at the forge and those who brought fuel to the +engine, when they began to draw short breath, positively emitted +smoke from their mouth and nostrils. + +Among the idlers about the train, most of whom were puffing +cigars which they had lighted at the flame of the crater, I was +perplexed to notice several who, to my certain knowledge, had +heretofore set forth by railroad for the Celestial City. They +looked dark, wild, and smoky, with a singular resemblance, +indeed, to the native inhabitants, like whom, also, they had a +disagreeable propensity to ill-natured gibes and sneers, the +habit of which had wrought a settled contortion of their visages. +Having been on speaking terms with one of these persons,--an +indolent, good-for-nothing fellow, who went by the name of +Take-it-easy,--I called him, and inquired what was his business +there. + +"Did you not start," said I, "for the Celestial City?" + +"That's a fact," said Mr. Take-it-easy, carelessly puffing some +smoke into my eyes. "But I heard such bad accounts that I never +took pains to climb the hill on which the city stands. No +business doing, no fun going on, nothing to drink, and no smoking +allowed, and a thrumming of church music from morning till night. +I would not stay in such a place if they offered me house room +and living free." + +"But, my good Mr. Take-it-easy," cried I, "why take up your +residence here, of all places in the world?" + +"Oh," said the loafer, with a grin, "it is very warm hereabouts, +and I meet with plenty of old acquaintances, and altogether the +place suits me. I hope to see you back again some day soon. A +pleasant journey to you." + +While he was speaking the bell of the engine rang, and we dashed +away after dropping a few passengers, but receiving no new ones. +Rattling onward through the Valley, we were dazzled with the +fiercely gleaming gas lamps, as before. But sometimes, in the +dark of intense brightness, grim faces, that bore the aspect and +expression of individual sins, or evil passions, seemed to thrust +themselves through the veil of light, glaring upon us, and +stretching forth a great, dusky hand, as if to impede our +progress. I almost thought that they were my own sins that +appalled me there. These were freaks of imagination--nothing +more, certainly-mere delusions, which I ought to be heartily +ashamed of; but all through the Dark Valley I was tormented, and +pestered, and dolefully bewildered with the same kind of waking +dreams. The mephitic gases of that region intoxicate the brain. +As the light of natural day, however, began to struggle with the +glow of the lanterns, these vain imaginations lost their +vividness, and finally vanished from the first ray of sunshine +that greeted our escape from the Valley of the Shadow of Death. +Ere we had gone a mile beyond it I could well-nigh have taken my +oath that this whole gloomy passage was a dream. + +At the end of the valley, as John Bunyan mentions, is a cavern, +where, in his days, dwelt two cruel giants, Pope and Pagan, who +had strown the ground about their residence with the bones of +slaughtered pilgrims. These vile old troglodytes are no longer +there; but into their deserted cave another terrible giant has +thrust himself, and makes it his business to seize upon honest +travellers and fatten them for his table with plentiful meals of +smoke, mist, moonshine, raw potatoes, and sawdust. He is a German +by birth, and is called Giant Transcendentalist; but as to his +form, his features, his substance, and his nature generally, it +is the chief peculiarity of this huge miscreant that neither he +for himself, nor anybody for him, has ever been able to describe +them. As we rushed by the cavern's mouth we caught a hasty +glimpse of him, looking somewhat like an ill-proportioned figure, +but considerably more like a heap of fog and duskiness. He +shouted after us, but in so strange a phraseology that we knew +not what he meant, nor whether to be encouraged or affrighted. + +It was late in the day when the train thundered into the ancient +city of Vanity, where Vanity Fair is still at the height of +prosperity, and exhibits an epitome of whatever is brilliant, +gay, and fascinating beneath the sun. As I purposed to make a +considerable stay here, it gratified me to learn that there is no +longer the want of harmony between the town's-people and +pilgrims, which impelled the former to such lamentably mistaken +measures as the persecution of Christian and the fiery martyrdom +of Faithful. On the contrary, as the new railroad brings with it +great trade and a constant influx of strangers, the lord of +Vanity Fair is its chief patron, and the capitalists of the city +are among the largest stockholders. Many passengers stop to take +their pleasure or make their profit in the Fair, instead of going +onward to the Celestial City. Indeed, such are the charms of the +place that people often affirm it to be the true and only heaven; +stoutly contending that there is no other, that those who seek +further are mere dreamers, and that, if the fabled brightness of +the Celestial City lay but a bare mile beyond the gates of +Vanity, they would not be fools enough to go thither. Without +subscribing to these perhaps exaggerated encomiums, I can truly +say that my abode in the city was mainly agreeable, and my +intercourse with the inhabitants productive of much amusement and +instruction. + +Being naturally of a serious turn, my attention was directed to +the solid advantages derivable from a residence here, rather than +to the effervescent pleasures which are the grand object with too +many visitants. The Christian reader, if he have had no accounts +of the city later than Bunyan's time, will be surprised to hear +that almost every street has its church, and that the reverend +clergy are nowhere held in higher respect than at Vanity Fair. +And well do they deserve such honorable estimation; for the +maxims of wisdom and virtue which fall from their lips come from +as deep a spiritual source, and tend to as lofty a religious aim, +as those of the sagest philosophers of old. In justification of +this high praise I need only mention the names of the Rev. Mr. +Shallow-deep, the Rev. Mr. Stumble-at-truth, that fine old +clerical character the Rev. Mr. This-today, who expects shortly +to resign his pulpit to the Rev. Mr. That-tomorrow; together with +the Rev. Mr. Bewilderment, the Rev. Mr. Clog-the-spirit, and, +last and greatest, the Rev. Dr. Wind-of-doctrine. The labors of +these eminent divines are aided by those of innumerable +lecturers, who diffuse such a various profundity, in all subjects +of human or celestial science, that any man may acquire an +omnigenous erudition without the trouble of even learning to +read. Thus literature is etherealized by assuming for its medium +the human voice; and knowledge, depositing all its heavier +particles, except, doubtless, its gold becomes exhaled into a +sound, which forthwith steals into the ever-open ear of the +community. These ingenious methods constitute a sort of +machinery, by which thought and study are done to every person's +hand without his putting himself to the slightest inconvenience +in the matter. There is another species of machine for the +wholesale manufacture of individual morality. This excellent +result is effected by societies for all manner of virtuous +purposes, with which a man has merely to connect himself, +throwing, as it were, his quota of virtue into the common stock, +and the president and directors will take care that the aggregate +amount be well applied. All these, and other wonderful +improvements in ethics, religion, and literature, being made +plain to my comprehension by the ingenious Mr. Smooth-it-away, +inspired me with a vast admiration of Vanity Fair. + +It would fill a volume, in an age of pamphlets, were I to record +all my observations in this great capital of human business and +pleasure. There was an unlimited range of society--the powerful, +the wise, the witty, and the famous in every walk of life; +princes, presidents, poets, generals, artists, actors, and +philanthropists,--all making their own market at the fair, and +deeming no price too exorbitant for such commodities as hit their +fancy. It was well worth one's while, even if he had no idea of +buying or selling, to loiter through the bazaars and observe the +various sorts of traffic that were going forward. + +Some of the purchasers, I thought, made very foolish bargains. +For instance, a young man having inherited a splendid fortune, +laid out a considerable portion of it in the purchase of +diseases, and finally spent all the rest for a heavy lot of +repentance and a suit of rags. A very pretty girl bartered a +heart as clear as crystal, and which seemed her most valuable +possession, for another jewel of the same kind, but so worn and +defaced as to be utterly worthless. In one shop there were a +great many crowns of laurel and myrtle, which soldiers, authors, +statesmen, and various other people pressed eagerly to buy; some +purchased these paltry wreaths with their lives, others by a +toilsome servitude of years, and many sacrificed whatever was +most valuable, yet finally slunk away without the crown. There +was a sort of stock or scrip, called Conscience, which seemed to +be in great demand, and would purchase almost anything. Indeed, +few rich commodities were to be obtained without paying a heavy +sum in this particular stock, and a man's business was seldom +very lucrative unless he knew precisely when and how to throw his +hoard of conscience into the market. Yet as this stock was the +only thing of permanent value, whoever parted with it was sure to +find himself a loser in the long run. Several of the speculations +were of a questionable character. Occasionally a member of +Congress recruited his pocket by the sale of his constituents; +and I was assured that public officers have often sold their +country at very moderate prices. Thousands sold their happiness +for a whim. Gilded chains were in great demand, and purchased +with almost any sacrifice. In truth, those who desired, according +to the old adage, to sell anything valuable for a song, might +find customers all over the Fair; and there were innumerable +messes of pottage, piping hot, for such as chose to buy them with +their birthrights. A few articles, however, could not be found +genuine at Vanity Fair. If a customer wished to renew his stock +of youth the dealers offered him a set of false teeth and an +auburn wig; if he demanded peace of mind, they recommended opium +or a brandy bottle. + +Tracts of land and golden mansions, situate in the Celestial +City, were often exchanged, at very disadvantageous rates, for a +few years' lease of small, dismal, inconvenient tenements in +Vanity Fair. Prince Beelzebub himself took great interest in this +sort of traffic, and sometimes condescended to meddle with +smaller matters. I once had the pleasure to see him bargaining +with a miser for his soul, which, after much ingenious +skirmishing on both sides, his highness succeeded in obtaining at +about the value of sixpence. The prince remarked with a smile, +that he was a loser by the transaction. + +Day after day, as I walked the streets of Vanity, my manners and +deportment became more and more like those of the inhabitants. +The place began to seem like home; the idea of pursuing my +travels to the Celestial City was almost obliterated from my +mind. I was reminded of it, however, by the sight of the same +pair of simple pilgrims at whom we had laughed so heartily when +Apollyon puffed smoke and steam into their faces at the +commencement of our journey. There they stood amidst the densest +bustle of Vanity; the dealers offering them their purple and fine +linen and jewels, the men of wit and humor gibing at them, a pair +of buxom ladies ogling them askance, while the benevolent Mr. +Smooth-it-away whispered some of his wisdom at their elbows, and +pointed to a newly-erected temple; but there were these worthy +simpletons, making the scene look wild and monstrous, merely by +their sturdy repudiation of all part in its business or +pleasures. + +One of them--his name was Stick-to-the-right--perceived in my +face, I suppose, a species of sympathy and almost admiration, +which, to my own great surprise, I could not help feeling for +this pragmatic couple. It prompted him to address me. + +"Sir," inquired he, with a sad, yet mild and kindly voice. "do +you call yourself a pilgrim?" + +"Yes," I replied, "my right to that appellation is indubitable. I +am merely a sojourner here in Vanity Fair, being bound to the +Celestial City by the new railroad." + +"Alas, friend," rejoined Mr. Stick-to-the-truth, "I do assure +you, and beseech you to receive the truth of my words, that that +whole concern is a bubble. You may travel on it all your +lifetime, were you to live thousands of years, and yet never get +beyond the limits of Vanity Fair. Yea, though you should deem +yourself entering the gates of the blessed city, it will be +nothing but a miserable delusion." + +"The Lord of the Celestial City," began the other pilgrim, whose +name was Mr. Foot-it-to-heaven, "has refused, and will ever +refuse, to grant an act of incorporation for this railroad; and +unless that be obtained, no passenger can ever hope to enter his +dominions. Wherefore every man who buys a ticket must lay his +account with losing the purchase money, which is the value of his +own soul." + +"Poh, nonsense!" said Mr. Smooth-it-away, taking my arm and +leading me off, "these fellows ought to be indicted for a libel. +If the law stood as it once did in Vanity Fair we should see them +grinning through the iron bars of the prison window." + +This incident made a considerable impression on my mind, and +contributed with other circumstances to indispose me to a +permanent residence in the city of Vanity; although, of course, I +was not simple enough to give up my original plan of gliding +along easily and commodiously by railroad. Still, I grew anxious +to be gone. There was one strange thing that troubled me. Amid +the occupations or amusements of the Fair, nothing was more +common than for a person--whether at feast, theatre, or church, +or trafficking for wealth and honors, or whatever he might be +doing, to vanish like a soap bubble, and be never more seen of +his fellows; and so accustomed were the latter to such little +accidents that they went on with their business as quietly as if +nothing had happened. But it was otherwise with me. + +Finally, after a pretty long residence at the Fair, I resumed my +journey towards the Celestial City, still with Mr. Smooth-it-away +at my side. At a short distance beyond the suburbs of Vanity we +passed the ancient silver mine, of which Demas was the first +discoverer, and which is now wrought to great advantage, +supplying nearly all the coined currency of the world. A little +further onward was the spot where Lot's wife had stood forever +under the semblance of a pillar of salt. Curious travellers have +long since carried it away piecemeal. Had all regrets been +punished as rigorously as this poor dame's were, my yearning for +the relinquished delights of Vanity Fair might have produced a +similar change in my own corporeal substance, and left me a +warning to future pilgrims. + +The next remarkable object was a large edifice, constructed of +moss-grown stone, but in a modern and airy style of architecture. +The engine came to a pause in its vicinity, with the usual +tremendous shriek. + +"This was formerly the castle of the redoubted giant Despair," +observed Mr. Smooth-it-away; "but since his death Mr. +Flimsy-faith has repaired it, and keeps an excellent house of +entertainment here. It is one of our stopping-places." + +"It seems but slightly put together," remarked I, looking at the +frail yet ponderous walls. "I do not envy Mr. Flimsy-faith his +habitation. Some day it will thunder down upon the heads of the +occupants." + +"We shall escape at all events," said Mr. Smooth-it-away, "for +Apollyon is putting on the steam again." + +The road now plunged into a gorge of the Delectable Mountains, +and traversed the field where in former ages the blind men +wandered and stumbled among the tombs. One of these ancient +tombstones had been thrust across the track by some malicious +person, and gave the train of cars a terrible jolt. Far up the +rugged side of a mountain I perceived a rusty iron door, half +overgrown with bushes and creeping plants, but with smoke issuing +from its crevices. + +"Is that," inquired I, "the very door in the hill-side which the +shepherds assured Christian was a by-way to hell?" + +"That was a joke on the part of the shepherds," said Mr. +Smooth-itaway, with a smile. "It is neither more nor less than +the door of a cavern which they use as a smoke-house for the +preparation of mutton hams." + +My recollections of the journey are now, for a little space, dim +and confused, inasmuch as a singular drowsiness here overcame me, +owing to the fact that we were passing over the enchanted ground, +the air of which encourages a disposition to sleep. I awoke, +however, as soon as we crossed the borders of the pleasant land +of Beulah. All the passengers were rubbing their eyes, comparing +watches, and congratulating one another on the prospect of +arriving so seasonably at the journey's end. The sweet breezes of +this happy clime came refreshingly to our nostrils; we beheld the +glimmering gush of silver fountains, overhung by trees of +beautiful foliage and delicious fruit, which were propagated by +grafts from the celestial gardens. Once, as we dashed onward like +a hurricane, there was a flutter of wings and the bright +appearance of an angel in the air, speeding forth on some +heavenly mission. The engine now announced the close vicinity of +the final station-house by one last and horrible scream, in which +there seemed to be distinguishable every kind of wailing and woe, +and bitter fierceness of wrath, all mixed up with the wild +laughter of a devil or a madman. Throughout our journey, at every +stopping-place, Apollyon had exercised his ingenuity in screwing +the most abominable sounds out of the whistle of the +steam-engine; but in this closing effort he outdid himself and +created an infernal uproar, which, besides disturbing the +peaceful inhabitants of Beulah, must have sent its discord even +through the celestial gates. + +While the horrid clamor was still ringing in our ears we heard an +exulting strain, as if a thousand instruments of music, with +height and depth and sweetness in their tones, at once tender and +triumphant, were struck in unison, to greet the approach of some +illustrious hero, who had fought the good fight and won a +glorious victory, and was come to lay aside his battered arms +forever. Looking to ascertain what might be the occasion of this +glad harmony, I perceived, on alighting from the cars, that a +multitude of shining ones had assembled on the other side of the +river, to welcome two poor pilgrims, who were just emerging from +its depths. They were the same whom Apollyon and ourselves had +persecuted with taunts, and gibes, and scalding steam, at the +commencement of our journey--the same whose unworldly aspect and +impressive words had stirred my conscience amid the wild +revellers of Vanity Fair. + +"How amazingly well those men have got on," cried I to Mr. +Smoothit--away. "I wish we were secure of as good a reception." + +"Never fear, never fear!" answered my friend. "Come, make haste; +the ferry boat will be off directly, and in three minutes you +will be on the other side of the river. No doubt you will find +coaches to carry you up to the city gates." + +A steam ferry boat, the last improvement on this important route, +lay at the river side, puffing, snorting, and emitting all those +other disagreeable utterances which betoken the departure to be +immediate. I hurried on board with the rest of the passengers, +most of whom were in great perturbation: some bawling out for +their baggage; some tearing their hair and exclaiming that the +boat would explode or sink; some already pale with the heaving of +the stream; some gazing affrighted at the ugly aspect of the +steersman; and some still dizzy with the slumberous influences of +the Enchanted Ground. Looking back to the shore, I was amazed to +discern Mr. Smooth-it-away waving his hand in token of farewell. + +"Don't you go over to the Celestial City?" exclaimed I. + +"Oh, no!" answered he with a queer smile, and that same +disagreeable contortion of visage which I had remarked in the +inhabitants of the Dark Valley. "Oh, no! I have come thus far +only for the sake of your pleasant company. Good-by! We shall +meet again." + +And then did my excellent friend Mr. Smooth-it-away laugh +outright, in the midst of which cachinnation a smoke-wreath +issued from his mouth and nostrils, while a twinkle of lurid +flame darted out of either eye, proving indubitably that his +heart was all of a red blaze. The impudent fiend! To deny the +existence of Tophet, when he felt its fiery tortures raging +within his breast. I rushed to the side of the boat, intending to +fling myself on shore; but the wheels, as they began their +revolutions, threw a dash of spray over me so cold--so deadly +cold, with the chill that will never leave those waters until +Death be drowned in his own river--that with a shiver and a +heartquake I awoke. Thank Heaven it was a Dream! + + + +THE PROCESSION OF LIFE + +Life figures itself to me as a festal or funereal procession. All +of us have our places, and are to move onward under the direction +of the Chief Marshal. The grand difficulty results from the +invariably mistaken principles on which the deputy marshals seek +to arrange this immense concourse of people, so much more +numerous than those that train their interminable length through +streets and highways in times of political excitement. Their +scheme is ancient, far beyond the memory of man or even the +record of history, and has hitherto been very little modified by +the innate sense of something wrong, and the dim perception of +better methods, that have disquieted all the ages through which +the procession has taken its march. Its members are classified by +the merest external circumstances, and thus are more certain to +be thrown out of their true positions than if no principle of +arrangement were attempted. In one part of the procession we see +men of landed estate or moneyed capital gravely keeping each +other company, for the preposterous reason that they chance to +have a similar standing in the tax-gatherer's book. Trades and +professions march together with scarcely a more real bond of +union. In this manner, it cannot be denied, people are +disentangled from the mass and separated into various classes +according to certain apparent relations; all have some artificial +badge which the world, and themselves among the first, learn to +consider as a genuine characteristic. Fixing our attention on +such outside shows of similarity or difference, we lose sight of +those realities by which nature, fortune, fate, or Providence has +constituted for every man a brotherhood, wherein it is one great +office of human wisdom to classify him. When the mind has once +accustomed itself to a proper arrangement of the Procession of +Life, or a true classification of society, even though merely +speculative, there is thenceforth a satisfaction which pretty +well suffices for itself without the aid of any actual +reformation in the order of march. + +For instance, assuming to myself the power of marshalling the +aforesaid procession, I direct a trumpeter to send forth a blast +loud enough to be heard from hence to China; and a herald, with +world-pervading voice, to make proclamation for a certain class +of mortals to take their places. What shall be their principle of +union? After all, an external one, in comparison with many that +might be found, yet far more real than those which the world has +selected for a similar purpose. Let all who are afflicted with +like physical diseases form themselves into ranks. + +Our first attempt at classification is not very successful. It +may gratify the pride of aristocracy to reflect that disease, +more than any other circumstance of human life, pays due +observance to the distinctions which rank and wealth, and poverty +and lowliness, have established among mankind. Some maladies are +rich and precious, and only to be acquired by the right of +inheritance or purchased with gold. Of this kind is the gout, +which serves as a bond of brotherhood to the purple-visaged +gentry, who obey the herald's voice, and painfully hobble from +all civilized regions of the globe to take their post in the +grand procession. In mercy to their toes, let us hope that the +march may not be long. The Dyspeptics, too, are people of good +standing in the world. For them the earliest salmon is caught in +our eastern rivers, and the shy woodcock stains the dry leaves +with his blood in his remotest haunts, and the turtle comes from +the far Pacific Islands to be gobbled up in soup. They can afford +to flavor all their dishes with indolence, which, in spite of the +general opinion, is a sauce more exquisitely piquant than +appetite won by exercise. Apoplexy is another highly respectable +disease. We will rank together all who have the symptom of +dizziness in the brain, and as fast as any drop by the way supply +their places with new members of the board of aldermen. + +On the other hand, here come whole tribes of people whose +physical lives are but a deteriorated variety of life, and +themselves a meaner species of mankind; so sad an effect has been +wrought by the tainted breath of cities, scanty and unwholesome +food, destructive modes of labor, and the lack of those moral +supports that might partially have counteracted such bad +influences. Behold here a train of house painters, all afflicted +with a peculiar sort of colic. Next in place we will marshal +those workmen in cutlery, who have breathed a fatal disorder into +their lungs with the impalpable dust of steel. Tailors and +shoemakers, being sedentary men, will chiefly congregate into one +part of the procession and march under similar banners of +disease; but among them we may observe here and there a sickly +student, who has left his health between the leaves of classic +volumes; and clerks, likewise, who have caught their deaths on +high official stools; and men of genius too, who have written +sheet after sheet with pens dipped in their heart's blood. These +are a wretched quaking, short-breathed set. But what is this +cloud of pale-cheeked, slender girls, who disturb the ear with +the multiplicity of their short, dry coughs? They are +seamstresses, who have plied the daily and nightly needle in the +service of master tailors and close-fisted contractors, until now +it is almost time for each to hem the borders of her own shroud. +Consumption points their place in the procession. With their sad +sisterhood are intermingled many youthful maidens who have +sickened in aristocratic mansions, and for whose aid science has +unavailingly searched its volumes, and whom breathless love has +watched. In our ranks the rich maiden and the poor seamstress may +walk arm in arm. We might find innumerable other instances, where +the bond of mutual disease--not to speak of nation-sweeping +pestilence--embraces high and low, and makes the king a brother +of the clown. But it is not hard to own that disease is the +natural aristocrat. Let him keep his state, and have his +established orders of rank, and wear his royal mantle of the +color of a fever flush and let the noble and wealthy boast their +own physical infirmities, and display their symptoms as the +badges of high station. All things considered, these are as +proper subjects of human pride as any relations of human rank +that men can fix upon. + +Sound again, thou deep-breathed trumpeter! and herald, with thy +voice of might, shout forth another summons that shall reach the +old baronial castles of Europe, and the rudest cabin of our +western wilderness! What class is next to take its place in the +procession of mortal life? Let it be those whom the gifts of +intellect have united in a noble brotherhood. + +Ay, this is a reality, before which the conventional distinctions +of society melt away like a vapor when we would grasp it with the +hand. Were Byron now alive, and Burns, the first would come from +his ancestral abbey, flinging aside, although unwillingly, the +inherited honors of a thousand years, to take the arm of the +mighty peasant who grew immortal while he stooped behind his +plough. These are gone; but the hall, the farmer's fireside, the +hut, perhaps the palace, the counting-room, the workshop, the +village, the city, life's high places and low ones, may all +produce their poets, whom a common temperament pervades like an +electric sympathy. Peer or ploughman, we will muster them pair by +pair and shoulder to shoulder. Even society, in its most +artificial state, consents to this arrangement. These factory +girls from Lowell shall mate themselves with the pride of +drawing-rooms and literary circles, the bluebells in fashion's +nosegay, the Sapphos, and Montagues, and Nortons of the age. +Other modes of intellect bring together as strange companies. +Silk-gowned professor of languages, give your arm to this sturdy +blacksmith, and deem yourself honored by the conjunction, though +you behold him grimy from the anvil. All varieties of human +speech are like his mother tongue to this rare man. +Indiscriminately let those take their places, of whatever rank +they come, who possess the kingly gifts to lead armies or to sway +a people--Nature's generals, her lawgivers, her kings, and with +them also the deep philosophers who think the thought in one +generation that is to revolutionize society in the next. With the +hereditary legislator in whom eloquence is a far-descended +attainment--a rich echo repeated by powerful voices from Cicero +downward--we will match some wondrous backwoodsman, who has +caught a wild power of language from the breeze among his native +forest boughs. But we may safely leave these brethren and +sisterhood to settle their own congenialities. Our ordinary +distinctions become so trifling, so impalpable, so ridiculously +visionary, in comparison with a classification founded on truth, +that all talk about the matter is immediately a common place. + +Yet the longer I reflect the less am I satisfied with the idea of +forming a separate class of mankind on the basis of high +intellectual power. At best it is but a higher development of +innate gifts common to all. Perhaps, moreover, he whose genius +appears deepest and truest excels his fellows in nothing save the +knack of expression; he throws out occasionally a lucky hint at +truths of which every human soul is profoundly, though +unutterably, conscious. Therefore, though we suffer the +brotherhood of intellect to march onward together, it may be +doubted whether their peculiar relation will not begin to vanish +as soon as the procession shall have passed beyond the circle of +this present world. But we do not classify for eternity. + +And next, let the trumpet pour forth a funereal wail, and the +herald's voice give breath in one vast cry to all the groans and +grievous utterances that are audible throughout the earth. We +appeal now to the sacred bond of sorrow, and summon the great +multitude who labor under similar afflictions to take their +places in the march. + +How many a heart that would have been insensible to any other +call has responded to the doleful accents of that voice! It has +gone far and wide, and high and low, and left scarcely a mortal +roof unvisited. Indeed, the principle is only too universal for +our purpose, and, unless we limit it, will quite break up our +classification of mankind, and convert the whole procession into +a funeral train. We will therefore be at some pains to +discriminate. Here comes a lonely rich man: he has built a noble +fabric for his dwelling-house, with a front of stately +architecture and marble floors and doors of precious woods; the +whole structure is as beautiful as a dream and as substantial as +the native rock. But the visionary shapes of a long posterity, +for whose home this mansion was intended, have faded into +nothingness since the death of the founder's only son. The rich +man gives a glance at his sable garb in one of the splendid +mirrors of his drawing-room, and descending a flight of lofty +steps instinctively offers his arm to yonder poverty stricken +widow in the rusty black bonnet, and with a check apron over her +patched gown. The sailor boy, who was her sole earthly stay, was +washed overboard in a late tempest. This couple from the palace +and the almshouse are but the types of thousands more who +represent the dark tragedy of life and seldom quarrel for the +upper parts. Grief is such a leveller, with its own dignity and +its own humility, that the noble and the peasant, the beggar and +the monarch, will waive their pretensions to external rank +without the officiousness of interference on our part. If +pride--the influence of the world's false distinctions--remain in +the heart, then sorrow lacks the earnestness which makes it holy +and reverend. It loses its reality and becomes a miserable +shadow. On this ground we have an opportunity to assign over +multitudes who would willingly claim places here to other parts +of the procession. If the mourner have anything dearer than his +grief he must seek his true position elsewhere. There are so many +unsubstantial sorrows which the necessity of our mortal state +begets on idleness, that an observer, casting aside sentiment, is +sometimes led to question whether there be any real woe, except +absolute physical suffering and the loss of closest friends. A +crowd who exhibit what they deem to be broken hearts--and among +them many lovelorn maids and bachelors, and men of disappointed +ambition in arts or politics, and the poor who were once rich, or +who have sought to be rich in vain--the great majority of these +may ask admittance into some other fraternity. There is no room +here. Perhaps we may institute a separate class where such +unfortunates will naturally fall into the procession. Meanwhile +let them stand aside and patiently await their time. + +If our trumpeter can borrow a note from the doomsday trumpet +blast, let him sound it now. The dread alarum should make the +earth quake to its centre, for the herald is about to address +mankind with a summons to which even the purest mortal may be +sensible of some faint responding echo in his breast. In many +bosoms it will awaken a still small voice more terrible than its +own reverberating uproar. + +The hideous appeal has swept around the globe. Come, all ye +guilty ones, and rank yourselves in accordance with the +brotherhood of crime. This, indeed, is an awful summons. I almost +tremble to look at the strange partnerships that begin to be +formed, reluctantly, but by the in vincible necessity of like to +like in this part of the procession. A forger from the state +prison seizes the arm of a distinguished financier. How +indignantly does the latter plead his fair reputation upon +'Change, and insist that his operations, by their magnificence of +scope, were removed into quite another sphere of morality than +those of his pitiful companion! But let him cut the connection if +he can. Here comes a murderer with his clanking chains, and pairs +himself--horrible to tell--with as pure and upright a man, in all +observable respects, as ever partook of the consecrated bread and +wine. He is one of those, perchance the most hopeless of all +sinners, who practise such an exemplary system of outward duties, +that even a deadly crime may be hidden from their own sight and +remembrance, under this unreal frostwork. Yet he now finds his +place. Why do that pair of flaunting girls, with the pert, +affected laugh and the sly leer at the by-standers, intrude +themselves into the same rank with yonder decorous matron, and +that somewhat prudish maiden? Surely these poor creatures, born +to vice as their sole and natural inheritance, can be no fit +associates for women who have been guarded round about by all the +proprieties of domestic life, and who could not err unless they +first created the opportunity. Oh no; it must be merely the +impertinence of those unblushing hussies; and we can only wonder +how such respectable ladies should have responded to a summons +that was not meant for them. + +We shall make short work of this miserable class, each member of +which is entitled to grasp any other member's hand, by that vile +degradation wherein guilty error has buried all alike. The foul +fiend to whom it properly belongs must relieve us of our +loathsome task. Let the bond servants of sin pass on. But neither +man nor woman, in whom good predominates, will smile or sneer, +nor bid the Rogues' March be played, in derision of their array. +Feeling within their breasts a shuddering sympathy, which at +least gives token of the sin that might have been, they will +thank God for any place in the grand procession of human +existence, save among those most wretched ones. Many, however, +will be astonished at the fatal impulse that drags them +thitherward. Nothing is more remarkable than the various +deceptions by which guilt conceals itself from the perpetrator's +conscience, and oftenest, perhaps, by the splendor of its +garments. Statesmen, rulers, generals, and all men who act over +an extensive sphere, are most liable to be deluded in this way; +they commit wrong, devastation, and murder, on so grand a scale, +that it impresses them as speculative rather than actual; but in +our procession we find them linked in detestable conjunction with +the meanest criminals whose deeds have the vulgarity of petty +details. Here the effect of circumstance and accident is done +away, and a man finds his rank according to the spirit of his +crime, in whatever shape it may have been developed. + +We have called the Evil; now let us call the Good. The trumpet's +brazen throat should pour heavenly music over the earth, and the +herald's voice go forth with the sweetness of an angel's accents, +as if to summon each upright man to his reward. But how is this? +Does none answer to the call? Not one: for the just, the pure, +the true, and an who might most worthily obey it, shrink sadly +back, as most conscious of error and imperfection. Then let the +summons be to those whose pervading principle is Love. This +classification will embrace all the truly good, and none in whose +souls there exists not something that may expand itself into a +heaven, both of well-doing and felicity. + +The first that presents himself is a man of wealth, who has +bequeathed the bulk of his property to a hospital; his ghost, +methinks, would have a better right here than his living body. +But here they come, the genuine benefactors of their race. Some +have wandered about the earth with pictures of bliss in their +imagination, and with hearts that shrank sensitively from the +idea of pain and woe, yet have studied all varieties of misery +that human nature can endure. The prison, the insane asylum, the +squalid chamber of the almshouse, the manufactory where the demon +of machinery annihilates the human soul, and the cotton field +where God's image becomes a beast of burden; to these and every +other scene where man wrongs or neglects his brother, the +apostles of humanity have penetrated. This missionary, black with +India's burning sunshine, shall give his arm to a pale-faced +brother who has made himself familiar with the infected alleys +and loathsome haunts of vice in one of our own cities. The +generous founder of a college shall be the partner of a maiden +lady of narrow substance, one of whose good deeds it has been to +gather a little school of orphan children. If the mighty merchant +whose benefactions are reckoned by thousands of dollars deem +himself worthy, let him join the procession with her whose love +has proved itself by watchings at the sick-bed, and all those +lowly offices which bring her into actual contact with disease +and wretchedness. And with those whose impulses have guided them +to benevolent actions, we will rank others to whom Providence has +assigned a different tendency and different powers. Men who have +spent their lives in generous and holy contemplation for the +human race; those who, by a certain heavenliness of spirit, have +purified the atmosphere around them, and thus supplied a medium +in which good and high things may be projected and +performed--give to these a lofty place among the benefactors of +mankind, although no deed, such as the world calls deeds, may be +recorded of them. There are some individuals of whom we cannot +conceive it proper that they should apply their hands to any +earthly instrument, or work out any definite act; and others, +perhaps not less high, to whom it is an essential attribute to +labor in body as well as spirit for the welfare of their +brethren. Thus, if we find a spiritual sage whose unseen, +inestimable influence has exalted the moral standard of mankind, +we will choose for his companion some poor laborer who has +wrought for love in the potato field of a neighbor poorer than +himself. + +We have summoned this various multitude--and, to the credit of +our nature, it is a large one--on the principle of Love. It is +singular, nevertheless, to remark the shyness that exists among +many members of the present class, all of whom we might expect to +recognize one another by the freemasonry of mutual goodness, and +to embrace like brethren, giving God thanks for such various +specimens of human excellence. But it is far otherwise. Each sect +surrounds its own righteousness with a hedge of thorns. It is +difficult for the good Christian to acknowledge the good Pagan; +almost impossible for the good Orthodox to grasp the hand of the +good Unitarian, leaving to their Creator to settle the matters in +dispute, and giving their mutual efforts strongly and trustingly +to whatever right thing is too evident to be mistaken. Then +again, though the heart be large, yet the mind is often of such +moderate dimensions as to be exclusively filled up with one idea. +When a good man has long devoted himself to a particular kind of +beneficence--to one species of reform--he is apt to become +narrowed into the limits of the path wherein he treads, and to +fancy that there is no other good to be done on earth but that +self-same good to which he has put his hand, and in the very mode +that best suits his own conceptions. All else is worthless. His +scheme must be wrought out by the united strength of the whole +world's stock of love, or the world is no longer worthy of a +position in the universe. Moreover, powerful Truth, being the +rich grape juice expressed from the vineyard of the ages, has an +intoxicating quality, when imbibed by any save a powerful +intellect, and often, as it were, impels the quaffer to quarrel +in his cups. For such reasons, strange to say, it is harder to +contrive a friendly arrangement of these brethren of love and +righteousness, in the procession of life. than to unite even the +wicked, who, indeed, are chained together by their crimes. The +fact is too preposterous for tears, too lugubrious for laughter. + +But, let good men push and elbow one another as they may during +their earthly march, all will be peace among them when the +honorable array or their procession shall tread on heavenly +ground. There they will doubtless find that they have been +working each for the other's cause, and that every well-delivered +stroke, which, with an honest purpose any mortal struck, even for +a narrow object, was indeed stricken for the universal cause of +good. Their own view may be bounded by country, creed, +profession, the diversities of individual character--but above +them all is the breadth of Providence. How many who have deemed +themselves antagonists will smile hereafter, when they look back +upon the world's wide harvest field, and perceive that, in +unconscious brotherhood, they were helping to bind the selfsame +sheaf! + +But, come! The sun is hastening westward, while the march of +human life, that never paused before, is delayed by our attempt +to rearrange its order. It is desirable to find some +comprehensive principle, that shall render our task easier by +bringing thousands into the ranks where hitherto we have brought +one. Therefore let the trumpet, if possible, split its brazen +throat with a louder note than ever, and the herald summon all +mortals, who, from whatever cause, have lost, or never found, +their proper places in the wold. + +Obedient to this call, a great multitude come together, most of +them with a listless gait, betokening weariness of soul, yet with +a gleam of satisfaction in their faces, at a prospect of at +length reaching those positions which, hitherto, they have vainly +sought. But here will be another disappointment; for we can +attempt no more than merely to associate in one fraternity all +who are afflicted with the same vague trouble. Some great mistake +in life is the chief condition of admittance into this class. +Here are members of the learned professions, whom Providence +endowed with special gifts for the plough, the forge, and the +wheelbarrow, or for the routine of unintellectual business. We +will assign to them, as partners in the march, those lowly +laborers and handicraftsmen, who have pined, as with a dying +thirst, after the unattainable fountains of knowledge. The latter +have lost less than their companions; yet more, because they deem +it infinite. Perchance the two species of unfortunates may +comfort one another. Here are Quakers with the instinct of battle +in them; and men of war who should have worn the broad brim. +Authors shall be ranked here whom some freak of Nature, making +game of her poor children, had imbued with the confidence of +genius and strong desire of fame, but has favored with no +corresponding power; and others, whose lofty gifts were +unaccompanied with the faculty of expression, or any of that +earthly machinery by which ethereal endowments must be manifested +to mankind. All these, therefore, are melancholy laughing-stocks. +Next, here are honest and well intentioned persons, who by a want +of tact--by inaccurate perceptions--by a distorting +imagination--have been kept continually at cross purposes with +the world and bewildered upon the path of life. Let us see if +they can confine themselves within the line of our procession. In +this class, likewise, we must assign places to those who have +encountered that worst of ill success, a higher fortune than +their abilities could vindicate; writers, actors, painters, the +pets of a day, but whose laurels wither unrenewed amid their +hoary hair; politicians, whom some malicious contingency of +affairs has thrust into conspicuous station, where, while the +world stands gazing at them, the dreary consciousness of +imbecility makes them curse their birth hour. To such men, we +give for a companion him whose rare talents, which perhaps +require a Revolution for their exercise, are buried in the tomb +of sluggish circumstances. + +Not far from these, we must find room for one whose success has +been of the wrong kind; the man who should have lingered in the +cloisters of a university, digging new treasures out of the +Herculaneum of antique lore, diffusing depth and accuracy of +literature throughout his country, and thus making for himself a +great and quiet fame. But the outward tendencies around him have +proved too powerful for his inward nature, and have drawn him +into the arena of political tumult, there to contend at +disadvantage, whether front to front, or side by side, with the +brawny giants of actual life. He becomes, it may be, a name for +brawling parties to bandy to and fro, a legislator of the Union; +a governor of his native state; an ambassador to the courts of +kings or queens; and the world may deem him a man of happy stars. +But not so the wise; and not so himself, when he looks through +his experience, and sighs to miss that fitness, the one +invaluable touch which makes all things true and real. So much +achieved, yet how abortive is his life! Whom shall we choose for +his companion? Some weak framed blacksmith, perhaps, whose +delicacy of muscle might have suited a tailor's shopboard better +than the anvil. + +Shall we bid the trumpet sound again? It is hardly worth the +while. There remain a few idle men of fortune, tavern and +grog-shop loungers, lazzaroni, old bachelors, decaying maidens, +and people of crooked intellect or temper, all of whom may find +their like, or some tolerable approach to it, in the plentiful +diversity of our latter class. There too, as his ultimate +destiny, must we rank the dreamer, who, all his life long, has +cherished the idea that he was peculiarly apt for something, but +never could determine what it was; and there the most unfortunate +of men, whose purpose it has been to enjoy life's pleasures, but +to avoid a manful struggle with its toil and sorrow. The +remainder, if any, may connect themselves with whatever rank of +the procession they shall find best adapted to their tastes and +consciences. The worst possible fate would be to remain behind, +shivering in the solitude of time, while all the world is on the +move towards eternity. Our attempt to classify society is now +complete. The result may be anything but perfect; yet better--to +give it the very lowest praise--than the antique rule of the +herald's office, or the modern one of the tax-gatherer, whereby +the accidents and superficial attributes with which the real +nature of individuals has least to do, are acted upon as the +deepest characteristics of mankind. Our task is done! Now let the +grand procession move! + +Yet pause a while! We had forgotten the Chief Marshal. + +Hark! That world-wide swell of solemn music, with the clang of a +mighty bell breaking forth through its regulated uproar, +announces his approach. He comes; a severe, sedate, immovable, +dark rider, waving his truncheon of universal sway, as he passes +along the lengthened line, on the pale horse of the Revelation. +It is Death! Who else could assume the guidance of a procession +that comprehends all humanity? And if some, among these many +millions, should deem themselves classed amiss, yet let them take +to their hearts the comfortable truth that Death levels us all +into one great brotherhood, and that another state of being will +surely rectify the wrong of this. Then breathe thy wail upon the +earth's wailing wind, thou band of melancholy music, made up of +every sigh that the human heart, unsatisfied, has uttered! There +is yet triumph in thy tones. And now we move! Beggars in their +rags, and Kings trailing the regal purple in the dust; the +Warrior's gleaming helmet; the Priest in his sable robe; the +hoary Grandsire, who has run life's circle and come back to +childhood; the ruddy School-boy with his golden curls, frisking +along the march; the Artisan's stuff jacket; the Noble's +star-decorated coat;--the whole presenting a motley spectacle, +yet with a dusky grandeur brooding over it. Onward, onward, into +that dimness where the lights of Time which have blazed along the +procession, are flickering in their sockets! And whither! We know +not; and Death, hitherto our leader, deserts us by the wayside, +as the tramp of our innumerable footsteps echoes beyond his +sphere. He knows not, more than we, our destined goal. But God, +who made us, knows, and will not leave us on our toilsome and +doubtful march, either to wander in infinite uncertainty, or +perish by the way! + + + +FEATHERTOP: A MORALIZED LEGEND + + +"Dickon," cried Mother Rigby, "a coal for my pipe!" + +The pipe was in the old dame's mouth when she said these words. +She had thrust it there after filling it with tobacco, but +without stooping to light it at the hearth, where indeed there +was no appearance of a fire having been kindled that morning. +Forthwith, however, as soon as the order was given, there was an +intense red glow out of the bowl of the pipe, and a whiff of +smoke came from Mother Rigby's lips. Whence the coal came, and +how brought thither by an invisible hand, I have never been able +to discover. + +"Good!" quoth Mother Rigby, with a nod of her head. "Thank ye, +Dickon! And now for making this scarecrow. Be within call, +Dickon, in case I need you again." + +The good woman had risen thus early (for as yet it was scarcely +sunrise) in order to set about making a scarecrow, which she +intended to put in the middle of her corn-patch. It was now the +latter week of May, and the crows and blackbirds had already +discovered the little, green, rolledup leaf of the Indian corn +just peeping out of the soil. She was determined, therefore, to +contrive as lifelike a scarecrow as ever was seen, and to finish +it immediately, from top to toe, so that it should begin its +sentinel's duty that very morning. Now Mother Rigby (as +everybody must have heard) was one of the most cunning and potent +witches in New England, and might, with very little trouble, have +made a scarecrow ugly enough to frighten the minister himself. +But on this occasion, as she had awakened in an uncommonly +pleasant humor, and was further dulcified by her pipe tobacco, +she resolved to produce something fine, beautiful, and splendid, +rather than hideous and horrible. + +"I don't want to set up a hobgoblin in my own corn-patch, and +almost at my own doorstep," said Mother Rigby to herself, puffing +out a whiff of smoke; "I could do it if I pleased, but I'm tired +of doing marvellous things, and so I'll keep within the bounds of +every-day business just for variety's sake. Besides, there is no +use in scaring the little children for a mile roundabout, though +'t is true I'm a witch." + +It was settled, therefore, in her own mind, that the scarecrow +should represent a fine gentleman of the period, so far as the +materials at hand would allow. Perhaps it may be as well to +enumerate the chief of the articles that went to the composition +of this figure. + +The most important item of all, probably, although it made so +little show, was a certain broomstick, on which Mother Rigby had +taken many an airy gallop at midnight, and which now served the +scarecrow by way of a spinal column, or, as the unlearned phrase +it, a backbone. One of its arms was a disabled flail which used +to be wielded by Goodman Rigby, before his spouse worried him out +of this troublesome world; the other, if I mistake not, was +composed of the pudding stick and a broken rung of a chair, tied +loosely together at the elbow. As for its legs, the right was a +hoe handle, and the left an undistinguished and miscellaneous +stick from the woodpile. Its lungs, stomach, and other affairs of +that kind were nothing better than a meal bag stuffed with straw. +Thus we have made out the skeleton and entire corporosity of the +scarecrow, with the exception of its head; and this was admirably +supplied by a somewhat withered and shrivelled pumpkin, in which +Mother Rigby cut two holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth, +leaving a bluish-colored knob in the middle to pass for a nose. +It was really quite a respectable face. + +"I've seen worse ones on human shoulders, at any rate," said +Mother Rigby. "And many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin head, as +well as my scarecrow." + +But the clothes, in this case, were to be the making of the man. +So the good old woman took down from a peg an ancient +plum-colored coat of London make, and with relics of embroidery +on its seams, cuffs, pocket-flaps, and button-holes, but +lamentably worn and faded, patched at the elbows, tattered at the +skirts, and threadbare all over. On the left breast was a round +hole, whence either a star of nobility had been rent away, or +else the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it through +and through. The neighbors said that this rich garment belonged +to the Black Man's wardrobe, and that he kept it at Mother +Rigby's cottage for the convenience of slipping it on whenever he +wished to make a grand appearance at the governor's table. To +match the coat there was a velvet waistcoat of very ample size, +and formerly embroidered with foliage that had been as brightly +golden as the maple leaves in October, but which had now quite +vanished out of the substance of the velvet. Next came a pair of +scarlet breeches, once worn by the French governor of Louisbourg, +and the knees of which had touched the lower step of the throne +of Louis le Grand. The Frenchman had given these +small-clothes to an Indian powwow, who parted with them to +the old witch for a gill of strong waters, at one of their dances +in the forest. Furthermore, Mother Rigby produced a pair of silk +stockings and put them on the figure's legs, where they showed as +unsubstantial as a dream, with the wooden reality of the two +sticks making itself miserably apparent through the holes. +Lastly, she put her dead husband's wig on the bare scalp of the +pumpkin, and surmounted the whole with a dusty three-cornered +hat, in which was stuck the longest tail feather of a rooster. + +Then the old dame stood the figure up in a corner of her cottage +and chuckled to behold its yellow semblance of a visage, with its +nobby little nose thrust into the air. It had a strangely +self-satisfied aspect, and seemed to say, "Come look at me!" + +"And you are well worth looking at, that's a fact!" quoth Mother +Rigby, in admiration at her own handiwork. "I've made many a +puppet since I've been a witch, but methinks this is the finest +of them all. 'Tis almost too good for a scarecrow. And, by the +by, I'll just fill a fresh pipe of tobacco and then take him out +to the corn-patch." + +While filling her pipe the old woman continued to gaze with +almost motherly affection at the figure in the corner. To say the +truth, whether it were chance, or skill, or downright witchcraft, +there was something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, +bedizened with its tattered finery; and as for the countenance, +it appeared to shrivel its yellow surface into a grin--a funny +kind of expression betwixt scorn and merriment, as if it +understood itself to be a jest at mankind. The more Mother Rigby +looked the better she was pleased. + +"Dickon," cried she sharply, "another coal for my pipe!" + +Hardly had she spoken, than, just as before, there was a +red-glowing coal on the top of the tobacco. She drew in a long +whiff and puffed it forth again into the bar of morning sunshine +which struggled through the one dusty pane of her cottage window. +Mother Rigby always liked to flavor her pipe with a coal of fire +from the particular chimney corner whence this had been brought. +But where that chimney corner might be, or who brought the coal +from it,--further than that the invisible messenger seemed to +respond to the name of Dickon,--I cannot tell. + +"That puppet yonder," thought Mother Rigby, still with her eyes +fixed on the scarecrow, "is too good a piece of work to stand all +summer in a corn-patch, frightening away the crows and +blackbirds. He's capable of better things. Why, I've danced with +a worse one, when partners happened to be scarce, at our witch +meetings in the forest! What if I should let him take his chance +among the other men of straw and empty fellows who go bustling +about the world?" + +The old witch took three or four more whiffs of her pipe and +smiled. + +"He'll meet plenty of his brethren at every street corner!" +continued she. "Well; I didn't mean to dabble in witchcraft +to-day, further than the lighting of my pipe, but a witch I am, +and a witch I'm likely to be, and there's no use trying to shirk +it. I'll make a man of my scarecrow, were it only for the joke's +sake!" + +While muttering these words, Mother Rigby took the pipe from her +own mouth and thrust it into the crevice which represented the +same feature in the pumpkin visage of the scarecrow. + +"Puff, darling, puff!" said she. "Puff away, my fine fellow! your +life depends on it!" + +This was a strange exhortation, undoubtedly, to be addressed to a +mere thing of sticks, straw, and old clothes, with nothing better +than a shrivelled pumpkin for a head,--as we know to have been +the scarecrow's case. Nevertheless, as we must carefully hold in +remembrance, Mother Rigby was a witch of singular power and +dexterity; and, keeping this fact duly before our minds, we shall +see nothing beyond credibility in the remarkable incidents of our +story. Indeed, the great difficulty will be at once got over, if +we can only bring ourselves to believe that, as soon as the old +dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of smoke from the +scarecrow's mouth. It was the very feeblest of whiffs, to be +sure; but it was followed by another and another, each more +decided than the preceding one. + +"Puff away, my pet! puff away, my pretty one!" Mother Rigby kept +repeating, with her pleasantest smile. "It is the breath of life +to ye; and that you may take my word for." + +Beyond all question the pipe was bewitched. There must have been +a spell either in the tobacco or in the fiercely-glowing coal +that so mysteriously burned on top of it, or in the +pungently-aromatic smoke which exhaled from the kindled weed. The +figure, after a few doubtful attempts at length blew forth a +volley of smoke extending all the way from the obscure corner +into the bar of sunshine. There it eddied and melted away among +the motes of dust. It seemed a convulsive effort; for the two or +three next whiffs were fainter, although the coal still glowed +and threw a gleam over the scarecrow's visage. The old witch +clapped her skinny hands together, and smiled encouragingly upon +her handiwork. She saw that the charm worked well. The +shrivelled, yellow face, which heretofore had been no face at +all, had already a thin, fantastic haze, as it were of human +likeness, shifting to and fro across it; sometimes vanishing +entirely, but growing more perceptible than ever with the next +whiff from the pipe. The whole figure, in like manner, assumed a +show of life, such as we impart to ill-defined shapes among the +clouds, and half deceive ourselves with the pastime of our own +fancy. + +If we must needs pry closely into the matter, it may be doubted +whether there was any real change, after all, in the sordid, +wornout worthless, and ill-jointed substance of the scarecrow; +but merely a spectral illusion, and a cunning effect of light and +shade so colored and contrived as to delude the eyes of most men. +The miracles of witchcraft seem always to have had a very shallow +subtlety; and, at least, if the above explanation do not hit the +truth of the process, I can suggest no better. + +"Well puffed, my pretty lad!" still cried old Mother Rigby. +"Come, another good stout whiff, and let it be with might and +main. Puff for thy life, I tell thee! Puff out of the very bottom +of thy heart, if any heart thou hast, or any bottom to it! Well +done, again! Thou didst suck in that mouthful as if for the pure +love of it." + +And then the witch beckoned to the scarecrow, throwing so much +magnetic potency into her gesture that it seemed as if it must +inevitably be obeyed, like the mystic call of the loadstone when +it summons the iron. + +"Why lurkest thou in the corner, lazy one?" said she. "Step +forth! Thou hast the world before thee!" + +Upon my word, if the legend were not one which I heard on my +grandmother's knee, and which had established its place among +things credible before my childish judgment could analyze its +probability, I question whether I should have the face to tell it +now. + +In obedience to Mother Rigby's word, and extending its arm as if +to reach her outstretched hand, the figure made a step forward--a +kind of hitch and jerk, however, rather than a step--then +tottered and almost lost its balance. What could the witch +expect? It was nothing, after all, but a scarecrow stuck upon two +sticks. But the strong-willed old beldam scowled, and beckoned, +and flung the energy of her purpose so forcibly at this poor +combination of rotten wood, and musty straw, and ragged garments, +that it was compelled to show itself a man, in spite of the +reality of things. So it stepped into the bar of sunshine. There +it stood, poor devil of a contrivance that it was!--with only the +thinnest vesture of human similitude about it, through which was +evident the stiff, rickety, incongruous, faded, tattered, +good-for-nothing patchwork of its substance, ready to sink in a +heap upon the floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness to be +erect. Shall I confess the truth? At its present point of +vivification, the scarecrow reminds me of some of the lukewarm +and abortive characters, composed of heterogeneous materials, +used for the thousandth time, and never worth using, with which +romance writers (and myself, no doubt, among the rest) have so +overpeopled the world of fiction. + +But the fierce old hag began to get angry and show a glimpse of +her diabolic nature (like a snake's head, peeping with a hiss out +of her bosom), at this pusillanimous behavior of the thing which +she had taken the trouble to put together. + +"Puff away, wretch!" cried she, wrathfully. "Puff, puff, puff, +thou thing of straw and emptiness! thou rag or two! thou meal +bag! thou pumpkin head! thou nothing! Where shall I find a name +vile enough to call thee by? Puff, I say, and suck in thy +fantastic life with the smoke! else I snatch the pipe from thy +mouth and hurl thee where that red coal came from." + +Thus threatened, the unhappy scarecrow had nothing for it but to +puff away for dear life. As need was, therefore, it applied +itself lustily to the pipe, and sent forth such abundant volleys +of tobacco smoke that the small cottage kitchen became all +vaporous. The one sunbeam struggled mistily through, and could +but imperfectly define the image of the cracked and dusty window +pane on the opposite wall. Mother Rigby, meanwhile, with one +brown arm akimbo and the other stretched towards the figure, +loomed grimly amid the obscurity with such port and expression as +when she was wont to heave a ponderous nightmare on her victims +and stand at the bedside to enjoy their agony. In fear and +trembling did this poor scarecrow puff. But its efforts, it must +be acknowledged, served an excellent purpose; for, with each +successive whiff, the figure lost more and more of its dizzy and +perplexing tenuity and seemed to take denser substance. Its very +garments, moreover, partook of the magical change, and shone with +the gloss of novelty and glistened with the skilfully embroidered +gold that had long ago been rent away. And, half revealed among +the smoke, a yellow visage bent its lustreless eyes on Mother +Rigby. + +At last the old witch clinched her fist and shook it at the +figure. Not that she was positively angry, but merely acting on +the principle--perhaps untrue, or not the only truth, though as +high a one as Mother Rigby could be expected to attain--that +feeble and torpid natures, being incapable of better inspiration, +must be stirred up by fear. But here was the crisis. Should she +fail in what she now sought to effect, it was her ruthless +purpose to scatter the miserable simulacre into its original +elements. + +"Thou hast a man's aspect," said she, sternly. "Have also the +echo and mockery of a voice! I bid thee speak!" + +The scarecrow gasped, struggled, and at length emitted a murmur, +which was so incorporated with its smoky breath that you could +scarcely tell whether it were indeed a voice or only a whiff of +tobacco. Some narrators of this legend hold the opinion that +Mother Rigby's conjurations and the fierceness of her will had +compelled a familiar spirit into the figure, and that the voice +was his. + +"Mother," mumbled the poor stifled voice, "be not so awful with +me! I would fain speak; but being without wits, what can I say?" + +"Thou canst speak, darling, canst thou?" cried Mother Rigby, +relaxing her grim countenance into a smile. "And what shalt thou +say, quoth-a! Say, indeed! Art thou of the brotherhood of the +empty skull, and demandest of me what thou shalt say? Thou shalt +say a thousand things, and saying them a thousand times over, +thou shalt still have said nothing! Be not afraid, I tell thee! +When thou comest into the world (whither I purpose sending thee +forthwith) thou shalt not lack the wherewithal to talk. Talk! +Why, thou shall babble like a mill-stream, if thou wilt. Thou +hast brains enough for that, I trow!" + +"At your service, mother," responded the figure. + +"And that was well said, my pretty one," answered Mother Rigby. +"Then thou speakest like thyself, and meant nothing. Thou shalt +have a hundred such set phrases, and five hundred to the boot of +them. And now, darling, I have taken so much pains with thee and +thou art so beautiful, that, by my troth, I love thee better than +any witch's puppet in the world; and I've made them of all +sorts--clay, wax, straw, sticks, night fog, morning mist, sea +foam, and chimney smoke. But thou art the very best. So give heed +to what I say." + +"Yes, kind mother," said the figure, "with all my heart!" + +"With all thy heart!" cried the old witch, setting her hands to +her sides and laughing loudly. "Thou hast such a pretty way of +speaking. With all thy heart! And thou didst put thy hand to the +left side of thy waistcoat as if thou really hadst one!" + +So now, in high good humor with this fantastic contrivance of +hers, Mother Rigby told the scarecrow that it must go and play +its part in the great world, where not one man in a hundred, she +affirmed, was gifted with more real substance than itself. And, +that he might hold up his head with the best of them, she endowed +him, on the spot, with an unreckonable amount of wealth. It +consisted partly of a gold mine in Eldorado, and of ten thousand +shares in a broken bubble, and of half a million acres of +vineyard at the North Pole, and of a castle in the air, and a +chateau in Spain, together with all the rents and income +therefrom accruing. She further made over to him the cargo of a +certain ship, laden with salt of Cadiz, which she herself, by her +necromantic arts, had caused to founder, ten years before, in the +deepest part of mid-ocean. If the salt were not dissolved, and +could be brought to market, it would fetch a pretty penny among +the fishermen. That he might not lack ready money, she gave him a +copper farthing of Birmingham manufacture, being all the coin she +had about her, and likewise a great deal of brass, which she +applied to his forehead, thus making it yellower than ever. + +"With that brass alone," quoth Mother Rigby, "thou canst pay thy +way all over the earth. Kiss me, pretty darling! I have done my +best for thee." + +Furthermore, that the adventurer might lack no possible advantage +towards a fair start in life, this excellent old dame gave him a +token by which he was to introduce himself to a certain +magistrate, member of the council, merchant, and elder of the +church (the four capacities constituting but one man), who stood +at the head of society in the neighboring metropolis. The token +was neither more nor less than a single word, which Mother Rigby +whispered to the scarecrow, and which the scarecrow was to +whisper to the merchant. + +"Gouty as the old fellow is, he'll run thy errands for thee, when +once thou hast given him that word in his ear," said the old +witch. "Mother Rigby knows the worshipful Justice Gookin, and the +worshipful Justice knows Mother Rigby!" + +Here the witch thrust her wrinkled face close to the puppet's, +chuckling irrepressibly, and fidgeting all through her system, +with delight at the idea which she meant to communicate. + +"The worshipful Master Gookin," whispered she, "hath a comely +maiden to his daughter. And hark ye, my pet! Thou hast a fair +outside, and a pretty wit enough of thine own. Yea, a pretty wit +enough! Thou wilt think better of it when thou hast seen more of +other people's wits. Now, with thy outside and thy inside, thou +art the very man to win a young girl's heart. Never doubt it! I +tell thee it shall be so. Put but a bold face on the matter, +sigh, smile, flourish thy hat, thrust forth thy leg like a +dancing-master, put thy right hand to the left side of thy +waistcoat, and pretty Polly Gookin is thine own!" + +All this while the new creature had been sucking in and exhaling +the vapory fragrance of his pipe, and seemed now to continue this +occupation as much for the enjoyment it afforded as because it +was an essential condition of his existence. It was wonderful to +see how exceedingly like a human being it behaved. Its eyes (for +it appeared to possess a pair) were bent on Mother Rigby, and at +suitable junctures it nodded or shook its head. Neither did it +lack words proper for the occasion: "Really! Indeed! Pray tell +me! Is it possible! Upon my word! By no means! Oh! Ah! Hem!" and +other such weighty utterances as imply attention, inquiry, +acquiescence, or dissent on the part of the auditor. Even had you +stood by and seen the scarecrow made, you could scarcely have +resisted the conviction that it perfectly understood the cunning +counsels which the old witch poured into its counterfeit of an +ear. The more earnestly it applied its lips to the pipe, the more +distinctly was its human likeness stamped among visible +realities, the more sagacious grew its expression, the more +lifelike its gestures and movements, and the more intelligibly +audible its voice. Its garments, too, glistened so much the +brighter with an illusory magnificence. The very pipe, in which +burned the spell of all this wonderwork, ceased to appear as a +smoke-blackened earthen stump, and became a meerschaum, with +painted bowl and amber mouthpiece. + +It might be apprehended, however, that as the life of the +illusion seemed identical with the vapor of the pipe, it would +terminate simultaneously with the reduction of the tobacco to +ashes. But the beldam foresaw the difficulty. + +"Hold thou the pipe, my precious one," said she, "while I fill it +for thee again. + +It was sorrowful to behold how the fine gentleman began to fade +back into a scarecrow while Mother Rigby shook the ashes out of +the pipe and proceeded to replenish it from her tobacco-box. + +"Dickon," cried she, in her high, sharp tone, "another coal for +this pipe!" + +No sooner said than the intensely red speck of fire was glowing +within the pipe-bowl; and the scarecrow, without waiting for the +witch's bidding, applied the tube to his lips and drew in a few +short, convulsive whiffs, which soon, however, became regular and +equable. + +"Now, mine own heart's darling," quoth Mother Rigby, "whatever +may happen to thee, thou must stick to thy pipe. Thy life is in +it; and that, at least, thou knowest well, if thou knowest nought +besides. Stick to thy pipe, I say! Smoke, puff, blow thy cloud; +and tell the people, if any question be made, that it is for thy +health, and that so the physician orders thee to do. And, sweet +one, when thou shalt find thy pipe getting low, go apart into +some corner, and (first filling thyself with smoke) cry sharply, +'Dickon, a fresh pipe of tobacco!' and, 'Dickon, another coal for +my pipe!' and have it into thy pretty mouth as speedily as may +be. Else, instead of a gallant gentleman in a gold-laced coat, +thou wilt be but a jumble of sticks and tattered clothes, and a +bag of straw, and a withered pumpkin! Now depart, my treasure, +and good luck go with thee!" + +"Never fear, mother!" said the figure, in a stout voice, and +sending forth a courageous whiff of smoke, "I will thrive, if an +honest man and a gentleman may!" + +"Oh, thou wilt be the death of me!" cried the old witch, +convulsed with laughter. "That was well said. If an honest man +and a gentleman may! Thou playest thy part to perfection. Get +along with thee for a smart fellow; and I will wager on thy head, +as a man of pith and substance, with a brain and what they call a +heart, and all else that a man should have, against any other +thing on two legs. I hold myself a better witch than yesterday, +for thy sake. Did not I make thee? And I defy any witch in New +England to make such another! Here; take my staff along with +thee!" + +The staff, though it was but a plain oaken stick, immediately +took the aspect of a gold-headed cane. + +"That gold head has as much sense in it as thine own," said +Mother Rigby, "and it will guide thee straight to worshipful +Master Gookin's door. Get thee gone, my pretty pet, my darling, +my precious one, my treasure; and if any ask thy name, it is +Feathertop. For thou hast a feather in thy hat, and I have thrust +a handful of feathers into the hollow of thy head, and thy wig, +too, is of the fashion they call Feathertop,--so be Feathertop +thy name!" + +And, issuing from the cottage, Feathertop strode manfully towards +town. Mother Rigby stood at the threshold, well pleased to see +how the sunbeams glistened on him, as if all his magnificence +were real, and how diligently and lovingly he smoked his pipe, +and how handsomely he walked, in spite of a little stiffness of +his legs. She watched him until out of sight, and threw a witch +benediction after her darling, when a turn of the road snatched +him from her view. + +Betimes in the forenoon, when the principal street of the +neighboring town was just at its acme of life and bustle, a +stranger of very distinguished figure was seen on the sidewalk. +His port as well as his garments betokened nothing short of +nobility. He wore a richly-embroidered plum-colored coat, a +waistcoat of costly velvet, magnificently adorned with golden +foliage, a pair of splendid scarlet breeches, and the finest and +glossiest of white silk stockings. His head was covered with a +peruke, so daintily powdered and adjusted that it would have been +sacrilege to disorder it with a hat; which, therefore (and it was +a gold-laced hat, set off with a snowy feather), he carried +beneath his arm. On the breast of his coat glistened a star. He +managed his gold-headed cane with an airy grace, peculiar to the +fine gentlemen of the period; and, to give the highest possible +finish to his equipment, he had lace ruffles at his wrist, of a +most ethereal delicacy, sufficiently avouching how idle and +aristocratic must be the hands which they half concealed. + +It was a remarkable point in the accoutrement of this brilliant +personage that he held in his left hand a fantastic kind of a +pipe, with an exquisitely painted bowl and an amber mouthpiece. +This he applied to his lips as often as every five or six paces, +and inhaled a deep whiff of smoke, which, after being retained a +moment in his lungs, might be seen to eddy gracefully from his +mouth and nostrils. + +As may well be supposed, the street was all astir to find out the +stranger's name. + +"It is some great nobleman, beyond question," said one of the +townspeople. "Do you see the star at his breast?" + +"Nay; it is too bright to be seen," said another. "Yes; he must +needs be a nobleman, as you say. But by what conveyance, think +you, can his lordship have voyaged or travelled hither? There has +been no vessel from the old country for a month past; and if he +have arrived overland from the southward, pray where are his +attendants and equipage?" + +"He needs no equipage to set off his rank," remarked a third. "If +he came among us in rags, nobility would shine through a hole in +his elbow. I never saw such dignity of aspect. He has the old +Norman blood in his veins, I warrant him." + +"I rather take him to be a Dutchman, or one of your high +Germans," said another citizen. "The men of those countries have +always the pipe at their mouths." + +"And so has a Turk," answered his companion. "But, in my +judgment, this stranger hath been bred at the French court, and +hath there learned politeness and grace of manner, which none +understand so well as the nobility of France. That gait, now! A +vulgar spectator might deem it stiff--he might call it a hitch +and jerk--but, to my eye, it hath an unspeakable majesty, and +must have been acquired by constant observation of the deportment +of the Grand Monarque. The stranger's character and office are +evident enough. He is a French ambassador, come to treat with our +rulers about the cession of Canada." + +"More probably a Spaniard," said another, "and hence his yellow +complexion; or, most likely, he is from the Havana, or from some +port on the Spanish main, and comes to make investigation about +the piracies which our government is thought to connive at. Those +settlers in Peru and Mexico have skins as yellow as the gold +which they dig out of their mines." + +"Yellow or not," cried a lady, "he is a beautiful man!--so tall, +so slender! such a fine, noble face, with so well-shaped a nose, +and all that delicacy of expression about the mouth! And, bless +me, how bright his star is! It positively shoots out flames!" + +"So do your eyes, fair lady," said the stranger, with a bow and a +flourish of his pipe; for he was just passing at the instant. +"Upon my honor, they have quite dazzled me." + +"Was ever so original and exquisite a compliment?" murmured the +lady, in an ecstasy of delight. + +Amid the general admiration excited by the stranger's appearance, +there were only two dissenting voices. One was that of an +impertinent cur, which, after snuffing at the heels of the +glistening figure, put its tail between its legs and skulked into +its master's back yard, vociferating an execrable howl. The other +dissentient was a young child, who squalled at the fullest +stretch of his lungs, and babbled some unintelligible nonsense +about a pumpkin. + +Feathertop meanwhile pursued his way along the street. Except for +the few complimentary words to the lady, and now and then a +slight inclination of the head in requital of the profound +reverences of the bystanders, he seemed wholly absorbed in his +pipe. There needed no other proof of his rank and consequence +than the perfect equanimity with which he comported himself, +while the curiosity and admiration of the town swelled almost +into clamor around him. With a crowd gathering behind his +footsteps, he finally reached the mansion-house of the worshipful +Justice Gookin, entered the gate, ascended the steps of the front +door, and knocked. In the interim, before his summons was +answered, the stranger was observed to shake the ashes out of his +pipe. + +"What did he say in that sharp voice?" inquired one of the +spectators. + +"Nay, I know not," answered his friend. "But the sun dazzles my +eyes strangely. How dim and faded his lordship looks all of a +sudden! Bless my wits, what is the matter with me?" + +"The wonder is," said the other, "that his pipe, which was out +only an instant ago, should be all alight again, and with the +reddest coal I ever saw. There is something mysterious about this +stranger. What a whiff of smoke was that! Dim and faded did you +call him? Why, as he turns about the star on his breast is all +ablaze." + +"It is, indeed," said his companion; "and it will go near to +dazzle pretty Polly Gookin, whom I see peeping at it out of the +chamber window." + +The door being now opened, Feathertop turned to the crowd, made a +stately bend of his body like a great man acknowledging the +reverence of the meaner sort, and vanished into the house. There +was a mysterious kind of a smile, if it might not better be +called a grin or grimace, upon his visage; but, of all the throng +that beheld him, not an individual appears to have possessed +insight enough to detect the illusive character of the stranger +except a little child and a cur dog. + +Our legend here loses somewhat of its continuity, and, passing +over the preliminary explanation between Feathertop and the +merchant, goes in quest of the pretty Polly Gookin. She was a +damsel of a soft, round figure, with light hair and blue eyes, +and a fair, rosy face, which seemed neither very shrewd nor very +simple. This young lady had caught a glimpse of the glistening +stranger while standing on the threshold, and had forthwith put +on a laced cap, a string of beads, her finest kerchief, and her +stiffest damask petticoat in preparation for the interview. +Hurrying from her chamber to the parlor, she had ever since been +viewing herself in the large looking-glass and practising pretty +airs-now a smile, now a ceremonious dignity of aspect, and now a +softer smile than the former, kissing her hand likewise, tossing +her head, and managing her fan; while within the mirror an +unsubstantial little maid repeated every gesture and did all the +foolish things that Polly did, but without making her ashamed of +them. In short, it was the fault of pretty Polly's ability rather +than her will if she failed to be as complete an artifice as the +illustrious Feathertop himself; and, when she thus tampered with +her own simplicity, the witch's phantom might well hope to win +her. + +No sooner did Polly hear her father's gouty footsteps approaching +the parlor door, accompanied with the stiff clatter of +Feathertop's high-heeled shoes, than she seated herself bolt +upright and innocently began warbling a song. + +"Polly! daughter Polly!" cried the old merchant. "Come hither, +child." + +Master Gookin's aspect, as he opened the door, was doubtful and +troubled. + +"This gentleman," continued he, presenting the stranger, "is the +Chevalier Feathertop,--nay, I beg his pardon, my Lord Feathertop, +--who hath brought me a token of remembrance from an ancient +friend of mine. Pay your duty to his lordship, child, and honor +him as his quality deserves." + +After these few words of introduction, the worshipful magistrate +immediately quitted the room. But, even in that brief moment, had +the fair Polly glanced aside at her father instead of devoting +herself wholly to the brilliant guest, she might have taken +warning of some mischief nigh at hand. The old man was nervous, +fidgety, and very pale. Purposing a smile of courtesy, he had +deformed his face with a sort of galvanic grin, which, when +Feathertop's back was turned, he exchanged for a scowl, at the +same time shaking his fist and stamping his gouty foot--an +incivility which brought its retribution along with it. The truth +appears to have been that Mother Rigby's word of introduction, +whatever it might be, had operated far more on the rich +merchant's fears than on his good will. Moreover, being a man of +wonderfully acute observation, he had noticed that these painted +figures on the bowl of Feathertop's pipe were in motion. Looking +more closely he became convinced that these figures were a party +of little demons, each duly provided with horns and a tail, and +dancing hand in hand, with gestures of diabolical merriment, +round the circumference of the pipe bowl. As if to confirm his +suspicions, while Master Gookin ushered his guest along a dusky +passage from his private room to the parlor, the star on +Feathertop's breast had scintillated actual flames, and threw a +flickering gleam upon the wall, the ceiling, and the floor. + +With such sinister prognostics manifesting themselves on all +hands, it is not to be marvelled at that the merchant should have +felt that he was committing his daughter to a very questionable +acquaintance. He cursed, in his secret soul, the insinuating +elegance of Feathertop's manners, as this brilliant personage +bowed, smiled, put his hand on his heart, inhaled a long whiff +from his pipe, and enriched the atmosphere with the smoky vapor +of a fragrant and visible sigh. Gladly would poor Master Gookin +have thrust his dangerous guest into the street; but there was a +constraint and terror within him. This respectable old gentleman, +we fear, at an earlier period of life, had given some pledge or +other to the evil principle, and perhaps was now to redeem it by +the sacrifice of his daughter. + +It so happened that the parlor door was partly of glass, shaded +by a silken curtain, the folds of which hung a little awry. So +strong was the merchant's interest in witnessing what was to +ensue between the fair Polly and the gallant Feathertop that, +after quitting the room, he could by no means refrain from +peeping through the crevice of the curtain. + +But there was nothing very miraculous to be seen; nothing--except +the trifles previously noticed--to confirm the idea of a +supernatural peril environing the pretty Polly. The stranger it +is true was evidently a thorough and practised man of the world, +systematic and self-possessed, and therefore the sort of a person +to whom a parent ought not to confide a simple, young girl +without due watchfulness for the result. The worthy magistrate +who had been conversant with all degrees and qualities of +mankind, could not but perceive every motion and gesture of the +distinguished Feathertop came in its proper place; nothing had +been left rude or native in him; a well-digested conventionalism +had incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and +transformed him into a work of art. Perhaps it was this +peculiarity that invested him with a species of ghastliness and +awe. It is the effect of anything completely and consummately +artificial, in human shape, that the person impresses us as an +unreality and as having hardly pith enough to cast a shadow upon +the floor. As regarded Feathertop, all this resulted in a wild, +extravagant, and fantastical impression, as if his life and being +were akin to the smoke that curled upward from his pipe. + +But pretty Polly Gookin felt not thus. The pair were now +promenading the room: Feathertop with his dainty stride and no +less dainty grimace, the girl with a native maidenly grace, just +touched, not spoiled, by a slightly affected manner, which seemed +caught from the perfect artifice of her companion. The longer the +interview continued, the more charmed was pretty Polly, until, +within the first quarter of an hour (as the old magistrate noted +by his watch), she was evidently beginning to be in love. Nor +need it have been witchcraft that subdued her in such a hurry; +the poor child's heart, it may be, was so very fervent that it +melted her with its own warmth as reflected from the hollow +semblance of a lover. No matter what Feathertop said, his words +found depth and reverberation in her ear; no matter what he did, +his action was heroic to her eye. And by this time it is to be +supposed there was a blush on Polly's cheek, a tender smile about +her mouth and a liquid softness in her glance; while the star +kept coruscating on Feathertop's breast, and the little demons +careered with more frantic merriment than ever about the +circumference of his pipe bowl. O pretty Polly Gookin, why should +these imps rejoice so madly that a silly maiden's heart was about +to be given to a shadow! Is it so unusual a misfortune, so rare a +triumph? + +By and by Feathertop paused, and throwing himself into an +imposing attitude, seemed to summon the fair girl to survey his +figure and resist him longer if she could. His star, his +embroidery, his buckles glowed at that instant with unutterable +splendor; the picturesque hues of his attire took a richer depth +of coloring; there was a gleam and polish over his whole presence +betokening the perfect witchery of well-ordered manners. The +maiden raised her eyes and suffered them to linger upon her +companion with a bashful and admiring gaze. Then, as if desirous +of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have side +by side with so much brilliancy, she cast a glance towards the +full-length looking-glass in front of which they happened to be +standing. It was one of the truest plates in the world and +incapable of flattery. No sooner did the images therein reflected +meet Polly's eye than she shrieked, shrank from the stranger's +side, gazed at him for a moment in the wildest dismay, and sank +insensible upon the floor. Feathertop likewise had looked towards +the mirror, and there beheld, not the glittering mockery of his +outside show, but a picture of the sordid patchwork of his real +composition stripped of all witchcraft. + +The wretched simulacrum! We almost pity him. He threw up his arms +with an expression of despair that went further than any of his +previous manifestations towards vindicating his claims to be +reckoned human, for perchance the only time since this so often +empty and deceptive life of mortals began its course, an illusion +had seen and fully recognized itself. + +Mother Rigby was seated by her kitchen hearth in the twilight of +this eventful day, and had just shaken the ashes out of a new +pipe, when she heard a hurried tramp along the road. Yet it did +not seem so much the tramp of human footsteps as the clatter of +sticks or the rattling of dry bones. + +"Ha!" thought the old witch, "what step is that? Whose skeleton +is out of its grave now, I wonder?" + +A figure burst headlong into the cottage door. It was Feathertop! +His pipe was still alight; the star still flamed upon his breast; +the embroidery still glowed upon his garments; nor had he lost, +in any degree or manner that could be estimated, the aspect that +assimilated him with our mortal brotherhood. But yet, in some +indescribable way (as is the case with all that has deluded us +when once found out), the poor reality was felt beneath the +cunning artifice. + +"What has gone wrong?" demanded the witch. "Did yonder sniffling +hypocrite thrust my darling from his door? The villain! I'll set +twenty fiends to torment him till he offer thee his daughter on +his bended knees!" + +"No, mother," said Feathertop despondingly; "it was not that." + +"Did the girl scorn my precious one?" asked Mother Rigby, her +fierce eyes glowing like two coals of Tophet. "I'll cover her +face with pimples! Her nose shall be as red as the coal in thy +pipe! Her front teeth shall drop out! In a week hence she shall +not be worth thy having!" + +"Let her alone, mother," answered poor Feathertop; "the girl was +half won; and methinks a kiss from her sweet lips might have made +me altogether human. But," he added, after a brief pause and then +a howl of self-contempt, "I've seen myself, mother! I've seen +myself for the wretched, ragged, empty thing I am! I'll exist no +longer!" + +Snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with all his might +against the chimney, and at the same instant sank upon the floor, +a medley of straw and tattered garments, with some sticks +protruding from the heap, and a shrivelled pumpkin in the midst. +The eyeholes were now lustreless; but the rudely-carved gap, that +just before had been a mouth still seemed to twist itself into a +despairing grin, and was so far human. + +"Poor fellow!" quoth Mother Rigby, with a rueful glance at the +relics of her ill-fated contrivance. "My poor, dear, pretty +Feathertop! There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and +charlatans in the world, made up of just such a jumble of +wornout, forgotten, and good-for-nothing trash as he was! Yet +they live in fair repute, and never see themselves for what they +are. And why should my poor puppet be the only one to know +himself and perish for it?" + +While thus muttering, the witch had filled a fresh pipe of +tobacco, and held the stem between her fingers, as doubtful +whether to thrust it into her own mouth or Feathertop's. + +"Poor Feathertop!" she continued. "I could easily give him +another chance and send him forth again tomorrow. But no; his +feelings are too tender, his sensibilities too deep. He seems to +have too much heart to bustle for his own advantage in such an +empty and heartless world. Well! well! I'll make a scarecrow of +him after all. 'Tis an innocent and useful vocation, and will +suit my darling well; and, if each of his human brethren had as +fit a one, 't would be the better for mankind; and as for this +pipe of tobacco, I need it more than he." + +So saying Mother Rigby put the stem between her lips. "Dickon!" +cried she, in her high, sharp tone, "another coal for my pipe!" + + + +EGOTISM;[1] OR, THE BOSOM SERPENT + +[From the Unpublished "Allegories of the Heart."] + +[1] The physical fact, to which it is here attempted to give a +moral signification, has been known to occur in more than one +instance. + + +"Here he comes!" shouted the boys along the street. "Here comes +the man with a snake in his bosom!" + +This outcry, saluting Herkimer's ears as he was about to enter +the iron gate of the Elliston mansion, made him pause. It was not +without a shudder that he found himself on the point of meeting +his former acquaintance, whom he had known in the glory of youth, +and whom now after an interval of five years, he was to find the +victim either of a diseased fancy or a horrible physical +misfortune. + +"A snake in his bosom!" repeated the young sculptor to himself. +"It must be he. No second man on earth has such a bosom friend. +And now, my poor Rosina, Heaven grant me wisdom to discharge my +errand aright! Woman's faith must be strong indeed since thine +has not yet failed." + +Thus musing, he took his stand at the entrance of the gate and +waited until the personage so singularly announced should make +his appearance. After an instant or two he beheld the figure of a +lean man, of unwholesome look, with glittering eyes and long +black hair, who seemed to imitate the motion of a snake; for, +instead of walking straight forward with open front, he undulated +along the pavement in a curved line. It may be too fanciful to +say that something, either in his moral or material aspect, +suggested the idea that a miracle had been wrought by +transforming a serpent into a man, but so imperfectly that the +snaky nature was yet hidden, and scarcely hidden, under the mere +outward guise of humanity. Herkimer remarked that his complexion +had a greenish tinge over its sickly white, reminding him of a +species of marble out of which he had once wrought a head of +Envy, with her snaky locks. + +The wretched being approached the gate, but, instead of entering, +stopped short and fixed the glitter of his eye full upon the +compassionate yet steady countenance of the sculptor. + +"It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" he exclaimed. + +And then there was an audible hiss, but whether it came from the +apparent lunatic's own lips, or was the real hiss of a serpent, +might admit of a discussion. At all events, it made Herkimer +shudder to his heart's core. + +"Do you know me, George Herkimer?" asked the snake-possessed. + +Herkimer did know him; but it demanded all the intimate and +practical acquaintance with the human face, acquired by modelling +actual likenesses in clay, to recognize the features of Roderick +Elliston in the visage that now met the sculptor's gaze. Yet it +was he. It added nothing to the wonder to reflect that the once +brilliant young man had undergone this odious and fearful change +during the no more than five brief years of Herkimer's abode at +Florence. The possibility of such a transformation being granted, +it was as easy to conceive it effected in a moment as in an age. +Inexpressibly shocked and startled, it was still the keenest pang +when Herkimer remembered that the fate of his cousin Rosina, the +ideal of gentle womanhood, was indissolubly interwoven with that +of a being whom Providence seemed to have unhumanized. + +"Elliston! Roderick!" cried he, "I had heard of this; but my +conception came far short of the truth. What has befallen you? +Why do I find you thus?" + +"Oh, 'tis a mere nothing! A snake! A snake! The commonest thing +in the world. A snake in the bosom--that's all," answered +Roderick Elliston. "But how is your own breast?" continued he, +looking the sculptor in the eye with the most acute and +penetrating glance that it had ever been his fortune to +encounter. "All pure and wholesome? No reptile there? By my faith +and conscience, and by the devil within me, here is a wonder! A +man without a serpent in his bosom!" + +"Be calm, Elliston," whispered George Herkimer, laying his hand +upon the shoulder of the snake-possessed. "I have crossed the +ocean to meet you. Listen! Let us be private. I bring a message +from Rosina--from your wife!" + +"It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" muttered Roderick. + +With this exclamation, the most frequent in his mouth, the +unfortunate man clutched both hands upon his breast as if an +intolerable sting or torture impelled him to rend it open and let +out the living mischief, even should it be intertwined with his +own life. He then freed himself from Herkimer's grasp by a subtle +motion, and, gliding through the gate, took refuge in his +antiquated family residence. The sculptor did not pursue him. He +saw that no available intercourse could be expected at such a +moment, and was desirous, before another meeting, to inquire +closely into the nature of Roderick's disease and the +circumstances that had reduced him to so lamentable a condition. +He succeeded in obtaining the necessary information from an +eminent medical gentleman. + +Shortly after Elliston's separation from his wife--now nearly +four years ago--his associates had observed a singular gloom +spreading over his daily life, like those chill, gray mists that +sometimes steal away the sunshine from a summer's morning. The +symptoms caused them endless perplexity. They knew not whether +ill health were robbing his spirits of elasticity, or whether a +canker of the mind was gradually eating, as such cankers do, from +his moral system into the physical frame, which is but the shadow +of the former. They looked for the root of this trouble in his +shattered schemes of domestic bliss,--wilfully shattered by +himself,--but could not be satisfied of its existence there. Some +thought that their once brilliant friend was in an incipient +stage of insanity, of which his passionate impulses had perhaps +been the forerunners; others prognosticated a general blight and +gradual decline. From Roderick's own lips they could learn +nothing. More than once, it is true, he had been heard to say, +clutching his hands convulsively upon his breast,--"It gnaws me! +It gnaws me!"--but, by different auditors, a great diversity of +explanation was assigned to this ominous expression. What could +it be that gnawed the breast of Roderick Elliston? Was it sorrow? +Was it merely the tooth of physical disease? Or, in his reckless +course, often verging upon profligacy, if not plunging into its +depths, had he been guilty of some deed which made his bosom a +prey to the deadlier fangs of remorse? There was plausible ground +for each of these conjectures; but it must not be concealed that +more than one elderly gentleman, the victim of good cheer and +slothful habits, magisterially pronounced the secret of the whole +matter to be Dyspepsia! + +Meanwhile, Roderick seemed aware how generally he had become the +subject of curiosity and conjecture, and, with a morbid +repugnance to such notice, or to any notice whatsoever, estranged +himself from all companionship. Not merely the eye of man was a +horror to him; not merely the light of a friend's countenance; +but even the blessed sunshine, likewise, which in its universal +beneficence typifies the radiance of the Creator's face, +expressing his love for all the creatures of his hand. The dusky +twilight was now too transparent for Roderick Elliston; the +blackest midnight was his chosen hour to steal abroad; and if +ever he were seen, it was when the watchman's lantern gleamed +upon his figure, gliding along the street, with his hands +clutched upon his bosom, still muttering, "It gnaws me! It gnaws +me!" What could it be that gnawed him? + +After a time, it became known that Elliston was in the habit of +resorting to all the noted quacks that infested the city, or whom +money would tempt to journey thither from a distance. By one of +these persons, in the exultation of a supposed cure, it was +proclaimed far and wide, by dint of handbills and little +pamphlets on dingy paper, that a distinguished gentleman, +Roderick Elliston, Esq., had been relieved of a SNAKE in his +stomach! So here was the monstrous secret, ejected from its +lurking place into public view, in all its horrible deformity. +The mystery was out; but not so the bosom serpent. He, if it were +anything but a delusion, still lay coiled in his living den. The +empiric's cure had been a sham, the effect, it was supposed, of +some stupefying drug which more nearly caused the death of the +patient than of the odious reptile that possessed him. When +Roderick Elliston regained entire sensibility, it was to find his +misfortune the town talk--the more than nine days' wonder and +horror--while, at his bosom, he felt the sickening motion of a +thing alive, and the gnawing of that restless fang which seemed +to gratify at once a physical appetite and a fiendish spite. + +He summoned the old black servant, who had been bred up in his +father's house, and was a middle-aged man while Roderick lay in +his cradle. + +"Scipio!" he began; and then paused, with his arms folded over +his heart. "What do people say of me, Scipio." + +"Sir! my poor master! that you had a serpent in your bosom," +answered the servant with hesitation. + +"And what else?" asked Roderick, with a ghastly look at the man. + +"Nothing else, dear master," replied Scipio, "only that the +doctor gave you a powder, and that the snake leaped out upon the +floor." + +"No, no!" muttered Roderick to himself, as he shook his head, and +pressed his hands with a more convulsive force upon his breast, +"I feel him still. It gnaws me! It gnaws me!" + +From this time the miserable sufferer ceased to shun the world, +but rather solicited and forced himself upon the notice of +acquaintances and strangers. It was partly the result of +desperation on finding that the cavern of his own bosom had not +proved deep and dark enough to hide the secret, even while it was +so secure a fortress for the loathsome fiend that had crept into +it. But still more, this craving for notoriety was a symptom of +the intense morbidness which now pervaded his nature. All persons +chronically diseased are egotists, whether the disease be of the +mind or body; whether it be sin, sorrow, or merely the more +tolerable calamity of some endless pain, or mischief among the +cords of mortal life. Such individuals are made acutely conscious +of a self, by the torture in which it dwells. Self, therefore, +grows to be so prominent an object with them that they cannot but +present it to the face of every casual passer-by. There is a +pleasure--perhaps the greatest of which the sufferer is +susceptible--in displaying the wasted or ulcerated limb, or the +cancer in the breast; and the fouler the crime, with so much the +more difficulty does the perpetrator prevent it from thrusting up +its snake-like head to frighten the world; for it is that cancer, +or that crime, which constitutes their respective individuality. +Roderick Elliston, who, a little while before, had held himself +so scornfully above the common lot of men, now paid full +allegiance to this humiliating law. The snake in his bosom seemed +the symbol of a monstrous egotism to which everything was +referred, and which he pampered, night and day, with a continual +and exclusive sacrifice of devil worship. + +He soon exhibited what most people considered indubitable tokens +of insanity. In some of his moods, strange to say, he prided and +gloried himself on being marked out from the ordinary experience +of mankind, by the possession of a double nature, and a life +within a life. He appeared to imagine that the snake was a +divinity,--not celestial, it is true, but darkly infernal,--and +that he thence derived an eminence and a sanctity, horrid, +indeed, yet more desirable than whatever ambition aims at. Thus +he drew his misery around him like a regal mantle, and looked +down triumphantly upon those whose vitals nourished no deadly +monster. Oftener, however, his human nature asserted its empire +over him in the shape of a yearning for fellowship. It grew to be +his custom to spend the whole day in wandering about the streets, +aimlessly, unless it might be called an aim to establish a +species of brotherhood between himself and the world. With +cankered ingenuity, he sought out his own disease in every +breast. Whether insane or not, he showed so keen a perception of +frailty, error, and vice, that many persons gave him credit for +being possessed not merely with a serpent, but with an actual +fiend, who imparted this evil faculty of recognizing whatever was +ugliest in man's heart. + +For instance, he met an individual, who, for thirty years, had +cherished a hatred against his own brother. Roderick, amidst the +throng of the street, laid his hand on this man's chest, and +looking full into his forbidding face,"How is the snake to-day?" +he inquired, with a mock expression of sympathy. + +"The snake!" exclaimed the brother hater--"what do you mean?" + +"The snake! The snake! Does it gnaw you?" persisted Roderick. +"Did you take counsel with him this morning when you should have +been saying your prayers? Did he sting, when you thought of your +brother's health, wealth, and good repute? Did he caper for joy, +when you remembered the profligacy of his only son? And whether +he stung, or whether he frolicked, did you feel his poison +throughout your body and soul, converting everything to sourness +and bitterness? That is the way of such serpents. I have learned +the whole nature of them from my own!" + +"Where is the police?" roared the object of Roderick's +persecution, at the same time giving an instinctive clutch to his +breast. "Why is this lunatic allowed to go at large?" + +"Ha, ha!" chuckled Roderick, releasing his grasp of the man.-- +"His bosom serpent has stung him then!" + +Often it pleased the unfortunate young man to vex people with a +lighter satire, yet still characterized by somewhat of snake-like +virulence. One day he encountered an ambitious statesman, and +gravely inquired after the welfare of his boa constrictor; for of +that species, Roderick affirmed, this gentleman's serpent must +needs be, since its appetite was enormous enough to devour the +whole country and constitution. At another time, he stopped a +close-fisted old fellow, of great wealth, but who skulked about +the city in the guise of a scarecrow, with a patched blue +surtout, brown hat, and mouldy boots, scraping pence together, +and picking up rusty nails. Pretending to look earnestly at this +respectable person's stomach, Roderick assured him that his snake +was a copper-head and had been generated by the immense +quantities of that base metal with which he daily defiled his +fingers. Again, he assaulted a man of rubicund visage, and told +him that few bosom serpents had more of the devil in them than +those that breed in the vats of a distillery. The next whom +Roderick honored with his attention was a distinguished +clergyman, who happened just then to be engaged in a theological +controversy, where human wrath was more perceptible than divine +inspiration. + +"You have swallowed a snake in a cup of sacramental wine," quoth +he. + +"Profane wretch!" exclaimed the divine; but, nevertheless, his +hand stole to his breast. + +He met a person of sickly sensibility, who, on some early +disappointment, had retired from the world, and thereafter held +no intercourse with his fellow-men, but brooded sullenly or +passionately over the irrevocable past. This man's very heart, if +Roderick might be believed, had been changed into a serpent, +which would finally torment both him and itself to death. +Observing a married couple, whose domestic troubles were matter +of notoriety, he condoled with both on having mutually taken a +house adder to their bosoms. To an envious author, who +depreciated works which he could never equal, he said that his +snake was the slimiest and filthiest of all the reptile tribe, +but was fortunately without a sting. A man of impure life, and a +brazen face, asking Roderick if there were any serpent in his +breast, he told him that there was, and of the same species that +once tortured Don Rodrigo, the Goth. He took a fair young girl by +the hand, and gazing sadly into her eyes, warned her that she +cherished a serpent of the deadliest kind within her gentle +breast; and the world found the truth of those ominous words, +when, a few months afterwards, the poor girl died of love and +shame. Two ladies, rivals in fashionable life who tormented one +another with a thousand little stings of womanish spite, were +given to understand that each of their hearts was a nest of +diminutive snakes, which did quite as much mischief as one great +one. + +But nothing seemed to please Roderick better than to lay hold of +a person infected with jealousy, which he represented as an +enormous green reptile, with an ice-cold length of body, and the +sharpest sting of any snake save one. + +"And what one is that?" asked a by-stander, overhearing him. + +It was a dark-browed man who put the question; he had an evasive +eye, which in the course of a dozen years had looked no mortal +directly in the face. There was an ambiguity about this person's +character,--a stain upon his reputation,--yet none could tell +precisely of what nature, although the city gossips, male and +female, whispered the most atrocious surmises. Until a recent +period he had followed the sea, and was, in fact, the very +shipmaster whom George Herkimer had encountered, under such +singular circumstances, in the Grecian Archipelago. + +"What bosom serpent has the sharpest sting?" repeated this man; +but he put the question as if by a reluctant necessity, and grew +pale while he was uttering it. + +"Why need you ask?" replied Roderick, with a look of dark +intelligence. "Look into your own breast. Hark! my serpent +bestirs himself! He acknowledges the presence of a master fiend!" + +And then, as the by-standers afterwards affirmed, a hissing sound +was heard, apparently in Roderick Elliston's breast. It was said, +too, that an answering hiss came from the vitals of the +shipmaster, as if a snake were actually lurking there and had +been aroused by the call of its brother reptile. If there were in +fact any such sound, it might have been caused by a malicious +exercise of ventriloquism on the part of Roderick. + +Thus making his own actual serpent--if a serpent there actually +was in his bosom--the type of each man's fatal error, or hoarded +sin, or unquiet conscience, and striking his sting so +unremorsefully into the sorest spot, we may well imagine that +Roderick became the pest of the city. Nobody could elude +him--none could withstand him. He grappled with the ugliest truth +that he could lay his hand on, and compelled his adversary to do +the same. Strange spectacle in human life where it is the +instinctive effort of one and all to hide those sad realities, +and leave them undisturbed beneath a heap of superficial topics +which constitute the materials of intercourse between man and +man! It was not to be tolerated that Roderick Elliston should +break through the tacit compact by which the world has done its +best to secure repose without relinquishing evil. The victims of +his malicious remarks, it is true, had brothers enough to keep +them in countenance; for, by Roderick's theory, every mortal +bosom harbored either a brood of small serpents or one overgrown +monster that had devoured all the rest. Still the city could not +bear this new apostle. It was demanded by nearly all, and +particularly by the most respectable inhabitants, that Roderick +should no longer be permitted to violate the received rules of +decorum by obtruding his own bosom serpent to the public gaze, +and dragging those of decent people from their lurking places. + +Accordingly, his relatives interfered and placed him in a private +asylum for the insane. When the news was noised abroad, it was +observed that many persons walked the streets with freer +countenances and covered their breasts less carefully with their +hands. + +His confinement, however, although it contributed not a little to +the peace of the town, operated unfavorably upon Roderick +himself. In solitude his melancholy grew more black and sullen. +He spent whole days--indeed, it was his sole occupation--in +communing with the serpent. A conversation was sustained, in +which, as it seemed, the hidden monster bore a part, though +unintelligibly to the listeners, and inaudible except in a hiss. +Singular as it may appear, the sufferer had now contracted a sort +of affection for his tormentor, mingled, however, with the +intensest loathing and horror. Nor were such discordant emotions +incompatible. Each, on the contrary, imparted strength and +poignancy to its opposite. Horrible love--horrible +antipathy--embracing one another in his bosom, and both +concentrating themselves upon a being that had crept into his +vitals or been engendered there, and which was nourished with his +food, and lived upon his life, and was as intimate with him as +his own heart, and yet was the foulest of all created things! But +not the less was it the true type of a morbid nature. + +Sometimes, in his moments of rage and bitter hatred against the +snake and himself, Roderick determined to be the death of him, +even at the expense of his own life. Once he attempted it by +starvation; but, while the wretched man was on the point of +famishing, the monster seemed to feed upon his heart, and to +thrive and wax gamesome, as if it were his sweetest and most +congenial diet. Then he privily took a dose of active poison, +imagining that it would not fail to kill either himself or the +devil that possessed him, or both together. Another mistake; for +if Roderick had not yet been destroyed by his own poisoned heart +nor the snake by gnawing it, they had little to fear from arsenic +or corrosive sublimate. Indeed, the venomous pest appeared to +operate as an antidote against all other poisons. The physicians +tried to suffocate the fiend with tobacco smoke. He breathed it +as freely as if it were his native atmosphere. Again, they +drugged their patient with opium and drenched him with +intoxicating liquors, hoping that the snake might thus be reduced +to stupor and perhaps be ejected from the stomach. They succeeded +in rendering Roderick insensible; but, placing their hands upon +his breast, they were inexpressibly horror stricken to feel the +monster wriggling, twining, and darting to and fro within his +narrow limits, evidently enlivened by the opium or alcohol, and +incited to unusual feats of activity. Thenceforth they gave up +all attempts at cure or palliation. The doomed sufferer submitted +to his fate, resumed his former loathsome affection for the bosom +fiend, and spent whole miserable days before a looking-glass, +with his mouth wide open, watching, in hope and horror, to catch +a glimpse of the snake's head far down within his throat. It is +supposed that he succeeded; for the attendants once heard a +frenzied shout, and, rushing into the room, found Roderick +lifeless upon the floor. + +He was kept but little longer under restraint. After minute +investigation, the medical directors of the asylum decided that +his mental disease did not amount to insanity, nor would warrant +his confinement, especially as its influence upon his spirits was +unfavorable, and might produce the evil which it was meant to +remedy. His eccentricities were doubtless great; he had +habitually violated many of the customs and prejudices of +society; but the world was not, without surer ground, entitled to +treat him as a madman. On this decision of such competent +authority Roderick was released, and had returned to his native +city the very day before his encounter with George Herkimer. + +As soon as possible after learning these particulars the +sculptor, together with a sad and tremulous companion, sought +Elliston at his own house. It was a large, sombre edifice of +wood, with pilasters and a balcony, and was divided from one of +the principal streets by a terrace of three elevations, which was +ascended by successive flights of stone steps. Some immense old +elms almost concealed the front of the mansion. This spacious and +once magnificent family residence was built by a grandee of the +race early in the past century, at which epoch, land being of +small comparative value, the garden and other grounds had formed +quite an extensive domain. Although a portion of the ancestral +heritage had been alienated, there was still a shadowy enclosure +in the rear of the mansion where a student, or a dreamer, or a +man of stricken heart might lie all day upon the grass, amid the +solitude of murmuring boughs, and forget that a city had grown up +around him. + +Into this retirement the sculptor and his companion were ushered +by Scipio, the old black servant, whose wrinkled visage grew +almost sunny with intelligence and joy as he paid his humble +greetings to one of the two visitors. + +"Remain in the arbor," whispered the sculptor to the figure that +leaned upon his arm. "You will know whether, and when, to make +your appearance." + +"God will teach me," was the reply. "May He support me too!" + +Roderick was reclining on the margin of a fountain which gushed +into the fleckered sunshine with the same clear sparkle and the +same voice of airy quietude as when trees of primeval growth +flung their shadows cross its bosom. How strange is the life of a +fountain!--born at every moment, yet of an age coeval with the +rocks, and far surpassing the venerable antiquity of a forest. + +"You are come! I have expected you," said Elliston, when he +became aware of the sculptor's presence. + +His manner was very different from that of the preceding +day--quiet, courteous, and, as Herkimer thought, watchful both +over his guest and himself. This unnatural restraint was almost +the only trait that betokened anything amiss. He had just thrown +a book upon the grass, where it lay half opened, thus disclosing +itself to be a natural history of the serpent tribe, illustrated +by lifelike plates. Near it lay that bulky volume, the Ductor +Dubitantium of Jeremy Taylor, full of cases of conscience, and in +which most men, possessed of a conscience, may find something +applicable to their purpose. + +"You see," observed Elliston, pointing to the book of serpents, +while a smile gleamed upon his lips, "I am making an effort to +become better acquainted with my bosom friend; but I find nothing +satisfactory in this volume. If I mistake not, he will prove to +be sui generis, and akin to no other reptile in creation." + +"Whence came this strange calamity?" inquired the sculptor. + +"My sable friend Scipio has a story," replied Roderick, "of a +snake that had lurked in this fountain--pure and innocent as it +looks--ever since it was known to the first settlers. This +insinuating personage once crept into the vitals of my great +grandfather and dwelt there many years, tormenting the old +gentleman beyond mortal endurance. In short it is a family +peculiarity. But, to tell you the truth, I have no faith in this +idea of the snake's being an heirloom. He is my own snake, and no +man's else." + +"But what was his origin?" demanded Herkimer. + +"Oh, there is poisonous stuff in any man's heart sufficient to +generate a brood of serpents," said Elliston with a hollow laugh. +"You should have heard my homilies to the good town's-people. +Positively, I deem myself fortunate in having bred but a single +serpent. You, however, have none in your bosom, and therefore +cannot sympathize with the rest of the world. It gnaws me! It +gnaws me!" + +With this exclamation Roderick lost his self-control and threw +himself upon the grass, testifying his agony by intricate +writhings, in which Herkimer could not but fancy a resemblance to +the motions of a snake. Then, likewise, was heard that frightful +hiss, which often ran through the sufferer's speech, and crept +between the words and syllables without interrupting their +succession. + +"This is awful indeed!" exclaimed the sculptor--"an awful +infliction, whether it be actual or imaginary. Tell me, Roderick +Elliston, is there any remedy for this loathsome evil?" + +"Yes, but an impossible one," muttered Roderick, as he lay +wallowing with his face in the grass. "Could I for one moment +forget myself, the serpent might not abide within me. It is my +diseased self-contemplation that has engendered and nourished +him." + +"Then forget yourself, my husband," said a gentle voice above +him; "forget yourself in the idea of another!" + +Rosina had emerged from the arbor, and was bending over him with +the shadow of his anguish reflected in her countenance, yet so +mingled with hope and unselfish love that all anguish seemed but +an earthly shadow and a dream. She touched Roderick with her +hand. A tremor shivered through his frame. At that moment, if +report be trustworthy, the sculptor beheld a waving motion +through the grass, and heard a tinkling sound, as if something +had plunged into the fountain. Be the truth as it might, it is +certain that Roderick Elliston sat up like a man renewed, +restored to his right mind, and rescued from the fiend which had +so miserably overcome him in the battle-field of his own breast. + +"Rosina!" cried he, in broken and passionate tones, but with +nothing of the wild wail that had haunted his voice so long, +"forgive! forgive!" + +Her happy tears bedewed his face. + +"The punishment has been severe," observed the sculptor. "Even +Justice might now forgive; how much more a woman's tenderness! +Roderick Elliston, whether the serpent was a physical reptile, or +whether the morbidness of your nature suggested that symbol to +your fancy, the moral of the story is not the less true and +strong. A tremendous Egotism, manifesting itself in your case in +the form of jealousy, is as fearful a fiend as ever stole into +the human heart. Can a breast, where it has dwelt so long, be +purified?" + +"Oh yes," said Rosina with a heavenly smile. "The serpent was but +a dark fantasy, and what it typified was as shadowy as itself. +The past, dismal as it seems, shall fling no gloom upon the +future. To give it its due importance we must think of it but as +an anecdote in our Eternity." + + + +DROWNE'S WOODEN IMAGE + +One sunshiny morning, in the good old times of the town of +Boston, a young carver in wood, well known by the name of Drowne, +stood contemplating a large oaken log, which it was his purpose +to convert into the figure-head of a vessel. And while he +discussed within his own mind what sort of shape or similitude it +were well to bestow upon this excellent piece of timber, there +came into Drowne's workshop a certain Captain Hunnewell, owner +and commander of the good brig called the Cynosure, which had +just returned from her first voyage to Fayal. + +"Ah! that will do, Drowne, that will do!" cried the jolly +captain, tapping the log with his rattan. "I bespeak this very +piece of oak for the figure-head of the Cynosure. She has shown +herself the sweetest craft that ever floated, and I mean to +decorate her prow with the handsomest image that the skill of man +can cut out of timber. And, Drowne, you are the fellow to execute +it." + +"You give me more credit than I deserve, Captain Hunnewell," said +the carver, modestly, yet as one conscious of eminence in his +art. "But, for the sake of the good brig, I stand ready to do my +best. And which of these designs do you prefer? Here,"--pointing +to a staring, half-length figure, in a white wig and scarlet +coat,--"here is an excellent model, the likeness of our gracious +king. Here is the valiant Admiral Vernon. Or, if you prefer a +female figure, what say you to Britannia with the trident?" + +"All very fine, Drowne; all very fine," answered the mariner. +"But as nothing like the brig ever swam the ocean, so I am +determined she shall have such a figure-head as old Neptune never +saw in his life. And what is more, as there is a secret in the +matter, you must pledge your credit not to betray it." + +"Certainly," said Drowne, marvelling, however, what possible +mystery there could be in reference to an affair so open, of +necessity, to the inspection of all the world as the figure-head +of a vessel. "You may depend, captain, on my being as secret as +the nature of the case will permit." + +Captain Hunnewell then took Drowne by the button, and +communicated his wishes in so low a tone that it would be +unmannerly to repeat what was evidently intended for the carver's +private ear. We shall, therefore, take the opportunity to give +the reader a few desirable particulars about Drowne himself. + +He was the first American who is known to have attempted--in a +very humble line, it is true--that art in which we can now reckon +so many names already distinguished, or rising to distinction. +From his earliest boyhood he had exhibited a knack--for it would +be too proud a word to call it genius--a knack, therefore, for +the imitation of the human figure in whatever material came most +readily to hand. The snows of a New England winter had often +supplied him with a species of marble as dazzingly white, at +least, as the Parian or the Carrara, and if less durable, yet +sufficiently so to correspond with any claims to permanent +existence possessed by the boy's frozen statues. Yet they won +admiration from maturer judges than his school-fellows, and were +indeed, remarkably clever, though destitute of the native warmth +that might have made the snow melt beneath his hand. As he +advanced in life, the young man adopted pine and oak as eligible +materials for the display of his skill, which now began to bring +him a return of solid silver as well as the empty praise that had +been an apt reward enough for his productions of evanescent snow. +He became noted for carving ornamental pump heads, and wooden +urns for gate posts, and decorations, more grotesque than +fanciful, for mantelpieces. No apothecary would have deemed +himself in the way of obtaining custom without setting up a +gilded mortar, if not a head of Galen or Hippocrates, from the +skilful hand of Drowne. + +But the great scope of his business lay in the manufacture of +figure-heads for vessels. Whether it were the monarch himself, or +some famous British admiral or general, or the governor of the +province, or perchance the favorite daughter of the ship-owner, +there the image stood above the prow, decked out in gorgeous +colors, magnificently gilded, and staring the whole world out of +countenance, as if from an innate consciousness of its own +superiority. These specimens of native sculpture had crossed the +sea in all directions, and been not ignobly noticed among the +crowded shipping of the Thames and wherever else the hardy +mariners of New England had pushed their adventures. It must be +confessed that a family likeness pervaded these respectable +progeny of Drowne's skill; that the benign countenance of the +king resembled those of his subjects, and that Miss Peggy Hobart, +the merchant's daughter, bore a remarkable similitude to +Britannia, Victory, and other ladies of the allegoric sisterhood; +and, finally, that they all had a kind of wooden aspect which +proved an intimate relationship with the unshaped blocks of +timber in the carver's workshop. But at least there was no +inconsiderable skill of hand, nor a deficiency of any attribute +to render them really works of art, except that deep quality, be +it of soul or intellect, which bestows life upon the lifeless and +warmth upon the cold, and which, had it been present, would have +made Drowne's wooden image instinct with spirit. + +The captain of the Cynosure had now finished his instructions. + +"And Drowne," said he, impressively, "you must lay aside all +other business and set about this forthwith. And as to the price, +only do the job in first-rate style, and you shall settle that +point yourself." + +"Very well, captain," answered the carver, who looked grave and +somewhat perplexed, yet had a sort of smile upon his visage; +"depend upon it, I'll do my utmost to satisfy you." + +From that moment the men of taste about Long Wharf and the Town +Dock who were wont to show their love for the arts by frequent +visits to Drowne's workshop, and admiration of his wooden images, +began to be sensible of a mystery in the carver's conduct. Often +he was absent in the daytime. Sometimes, as might be judged by +gleams of light from the shop windows, he was at work until a +late hour of the evening; although neither knock nor voice, on +such occasions, could gain admittance for a visitor, or elicit +any word of response. Nothing remarkable, however, was observed +in the shop at those late hours when it was thrown open. A fine +piece of timber, indeed, which Drowne was known to have reserved +for some work of especial dignity, was seen to be gradually +assuming shape. What shape it was destined ultimately to take was +a problem to his friends and a point on which the carver himself +preserved a rigid silence. But day after day, though Drowne was +seldom noticed in the act of working upon it, this rude form +began to be developed until it became evident to all observers +that a female figure was growing into mimic life. At each new +visit they beheld a larger pile of wooden chips and a nearer +approximation to something beautiful. It seemed as if the +hamadryad of the oak had sheltered herself from the unimaginative +world within the heart of her native tree, and that it was only +necessary to remove the strange shapelessness that had incrusted +her, and reveal the grace and loveliness of a divinity. Imperfect +as the design, the attitude, the costume, and especially the face +of the image still remained, there was already an effect that +drew the eye from the wooden cleverness of Drowne's earlier +productions and fixed it upon the tantalizing mystery of this new +project. + +Copley, the celebrated painter, then a young man and a resident +of Boston, came one day to visit Drowne; for he had recognized so +much of moderate ability in the carver as to induce him, in the +dearth of professional sympathy, to cultivate his acquaintance. +On entering the shop, the artist glanced at the inflexible image +of king, commander, dame, and allegory, that stood around, on the +best of which might have been bestowed the questionable praise +that it looked as if a living man had here been changed to wood, +and that not only the physical, but the intellectual and +spiritual part, partook of the stolid transformation. But in not +a single instance did it seem as if the wood were imbibing the +ethereal essence of humanity. What a wide distinction is here! +and how far the slightest portion of the latter merit have +outvalued the utmost degree of the former! + +"My friend Drowne;" said Copley, smiling to himself, but alluding +to the mechanical and wooden cleverness that so invariably +distinguished the images, "you are really a remarkable person! I +have seldom met with a man in your line of business that could do +so much; for one other touch might make this figure of General +Wolfe, for instance, a breathing and intelligent human creature." + +"You would have me think that you are praising me highly, Mr. +Copley," answered Drowne, turning his back upon Wolfe's image in +apparent disgust. "But there has come a light into my mind. I +know what you know as well, that the one touch which you speak of +as deficient is the only one that would be truly valuable, and +that without it these works of mine are no better than worthless +abortions. There is the same difference between them and the +works of an inspired artist as between a sign-post daub and one +of your best pictures." + +"This is strange," cried Copley, looking him in the face, which +now, as the painter fancied, had a singular depth of +intelligence, though hitherto it had not given him greatly the +advantage over his own family of wooden images. "What has come +over you? How is it that, possessing the idea which you have now +uttered, you should produce only such works as these?" + +The carver smiled, but made no reply. Copley turned again to the +images, conceiving that the sense of deficiency which Drowne had +just expressed, and which is so rare in a merely mechanical +character, must surely imply a genius, the tokens of which had +heretofore been overlooked. But no; there was not a trace of it. +He was about to withdraw when his eyes chanced to fall upon a +half-developed figure which lay in a corner of the workshop, +surrounded by scattered chips of oak. It arrested him at once. + +"What is here? Who has done this?" he broke out, after +contemplating it in speechless astonishment for an instant. "Here +is the divine, the lifegiving touch. What inspired hand is +beckoning this wood to arise and live? Whose work is this?" + +"No man's work," replied Drowne. "The figure lies within that +block of oak, and it is my business to find it." + +"Drowne," said the true artist, grasping the carver fervently by +the hand, "you are a man of genius!" + +As Copley departed, happening to glance backward from the +threshold, he beheld Drowne bending over the half-created shape, +and stretching forth his arms as if he would have embraced and +drawn it to his heart; while, had such a miracle been possible, +his countenance expressed passion enough to communicate warmth +and sensibility to the lifeless oak. + +"Strange enough!" said the artist to himself. "Who would have +looked for a modern Pygmalion in the person of a Yankee +mechanic!" + +As yet, the image was but vague in its outward presentment; so +that, as in the cloud shapes around the western sun, the observer +rather felt, or was led to imagine, than really saw what was +intended by it. Day by day, however, the work assumed greater +precision, and settled its irregular and misty outline into +distincter grace and beauty. The general design was now obvious +to the common eye. It was a female figure, in what appeared to be +a foreign dress; the gown being laced over the bosom, and opening +in front so as to disclose a skirt or petticoat, the folds and +inequalities of which were admirably represented in the oaken +substance. She wore a hat of singular gracefulness, and +abundantly laden with flowers, such as never grew in the rude +soil of New England, but which, with all their fanciful +luxuriance, had a natural truth that it seemed impossible for the +most fertile imagination to have attained without copying from +real prototypes. There were several little appendages to this +dress, such as a fan, a pair of earrings, a chain about the neck, +a watch in the bosom, and a ring upon the finger, all of which +would have been deemed beneath the dignity of sculpture. They +were put on, however, with as much taste as a lovely woman might +have shown in her attire, and could therefore have shocked none +but a judgment spoiled by artistic rules. + +The face was still imperfect; but gradually, by a magic touch, +intelligence and sensibility brightened through the features, +with all the effect of light gleaming forth from within the solid +oak. The face became alive. It was a beautiful, though not +precisely regular and somewhat haughty aspect, but with a certain +piquancy about the eyes and mouth, which, of all expressions, +would have seemed the most impossible to throw over a wooden +countenance. And now, so far as carving went, this wonderful +production was complete. + +"Drowne," said Copley, who had hardly missed a single day in his +visits to the carver's workshop, "if this work were in marble it +would make you famous at once; nay, I would almost affirm that it +would make an era in the art. It is as ideal as an antique +statue, and yet as real as any lovely woman whom one meets at a +fireside or in the street. But I trust you do not mean to +desecrate this exquisite creature with paint, like those staring +kings and admirals yonder?" + +"Not paint her!" exclaimed Captain Hunnewell, who stood by; "not +paint the figure-head of the Cynosure! And what sort of a figure +should I cut in a foreign port with such an unpainted oaken stick +as this over my prow! She must, and she shall, be painted to the +life, from the topmost flower in her hat down to the silver +spangles on her slippers." + +"Mr. Copley," said Drowne, quietly, "I know nothing of marble +statuary, and nothing of the sculptor's rules of art; but of this +wooden image, this work of my hands, this creature of my +heart,"--and here his voice faltered and choked in a very +singular manner,--"of this--of her --I may say that I know +something. A well-spring of inward wisdom gushed within me as I +wrought upon the oak with my whole strength, and soul, and faith. +Let others do what they may with marble, and adopt what rules +they choose. If I can produce my desired effect by painted wood, +those rules are not for me, and I have a right to disregard +them." + +"The very spirit of genius," muttered Copley to himself. "How +otherwise should this carver feel himself entitled to transcend +all rules, and make me ashamed of quoting them?" + +He looked earnestly at Drowne, and again saw that expression of +human love which, in a spiritual sense, as the artist could not +help imagining, was the secret of the life that had been breathed +into this block of wood. + +The carver, still in the same secrecy that marked all his +operations upon this mysterious image, proceeded to paint the +habiliments in their proper colors, and the countenance with +Nature's red and white. When all was finished he threw open his +workshop, and admitted the towns people to behold what he had +done. Most persons, at their first entrance, felt impelled to +remove their hats, and pay such reverence as was due to the +richly-dressed and beautiful young lady who seemed to stand in a +corner of the room, with oaken chips and shavings scattered at +her feet. Then came a sensation of fear; as if, not being +actually human, yet so like humanity, she must therefore be +something preternatural. There was, in truth, an indefinable air +and expression that might reasonably induce the query, Who and +from what sphere this daughter of the oak should be? The strange, +rich flowers of Eden on her head; the complexion, so much deeper +and more brilliant than those of our native beauties; the +foreign, as it seemed, and fantastic garb, yet not too fantastic +to be worn decorously in the street; the delicately-wrought +embroidery of the skirt; the broad gold chain about her neck; the +curious ring upon her finger; the fan, so exquisitely sculptured +in open work, and painted to resemble pearl and ebony;--where +could Drowne, in his sober walk of life, have beheld the vision +here so matchlessly embodied! And then her face! In the dark +eyes, and around the voluptuous mouth, there played a look made +up of pride, coquetry, and a gleam of mirthfulness, which +impressed Copley with the idea that the image was secretly +enjoying the perplexing admiration of himself and other +beholders. + +"And will you," said he to the carver, "permit this masterpiece +to become the figure-head of a vessel? Give the honest captain +yonder figure of Britannia--it will answer his purpose far +better--and send this fairy queen to England, where, for aught I +know, it may bring you a thousand pounds." + +"I have not wrought it for money," said Drowne. + +"What sort of a fellow is this!" thought Copley. "A Yankee, and +throw away the chance of making his fortune! He has gone mad; and +thence has come this gleam of genius." + +There was still further proof of Drowne's lunacy, if credit were +due to the rumor that he had been seen kneeling at the feet of +the oaken lady, and gazing with a lover's passionate ardor into +the face that his own hands had created. The bigots of the day +hinted that it would be no matter of surprise if an evil spirit +were allowed to enter this beautiful form, and seduce the carver +to destruction. + +The fame of the image spread far and wide. The inhabitants +visited it so universally, that after a few days of exhibition +there was hardly an old man or a child who had not become +minutely familiar with its aspect. Even had the story of Drowne's +wooden image ended here, its celebrity might have been prolonged +for many years by the reminiscences of those who looked upon it +in their childhood, and saw nothing else so beautiful in after +life. But the town was now astounded by an event, the narrative +of which has formed itself into one of the most singular legends +that are yet to be met with in the traditionary chimney corners +of the New England metropolis, where old men and women sit +dreaming of the past, and wag their heads at the dreamers of the +present and the future. + +One fine morning, just before the departure of the Cynosure on +her second voyage to Fayal, the commander of that gallant vessel +was seen to issue from his residence in Hanover Street. He was +stylishly dressed in a blue broadcloth coat, with gold lace at +the seams and button-holes, an embroidered scarlet waistcoat, a +triangular hat, with a loop and broad binding of gold, and wore a +silver-hilted hanger at his side. But the good captain might have +been arrayed in the robes of a prince or the rags of a beggar, +without in either case attracting notice, while obscured by such +a companion as now leaned on his arm. The people in the street +started, rubbed their eyes, and either leaped aside from their +path, or stood as if transfixed to wood or marble in +astonishment. + +"Do you see it?--do you see it?" cried one, with tremulous +eagerness. "It is the very same!" + +"The same?" answered another, who had arrived in town only the +night before. "Who do you mean? I see only a sea-captain in his +shoregoing clothes, and a young lady in a foreign habit, with a +bunch of beautiful flowers in her hat. On my word, she is as fair +and bright a damsel as my eyes have looked on this many a day!" + +"Yes; the same!--the very same!" repeated the other. "Drowne's +wooden image has come to life!" + +Here was a miracle indeed! Yet, illuminated by the sunshine, or +darkened by the alternate shade of the houses, and with its +garments fluttering lightly in the morning breeze, there passed +the image along the street. It was exactly and minutely the +shape, the garb, and the face which the towns-people had so +recently thronged to see and admire. Not a rich flower upon her +head, not a single leaf, but had had its prototype in Drowne's +wooden workmanship, although now their fragile grace had become +flexible, and was shaken by every footstep that the wearer made. +The broad gold chain upon the neck was identical with the one +represented on the image, and glistened with the motion imparted +by the rise and fall of the bosom which it decorated. A real +diamond sparkled on her finger. In her right hand she bore a +pearl and ebony fan, which she flourished with a fantastic and +bewitching coquetry, that was likewise expressed in all her +movements as well as in the style of her beauty and the attire +that so well harmonized with it. The face with its brilliant +depth of complexion had the same piquancy of mirthful mischief +that was fixed upon the countenance of the image, but which was +here varied and continually shifting, yet always essentially the +same, like the sunny gleam upon a bubbling fountain. On the +whole, there was something so airy and yet so real in the figure, +and withal so perfectly did it represent Drowne's image, that +people knew not whether to suppose the magic wood etherealized +into a spirit or warmed and softened into an actual woman. + +"One thing is certain," muttered a Puritan of the old stamp, +"Drowne has sold himself to the devil; and doubtless this gay +Captain Hunnewell is a party to the bargain." + +"And I," said a young man who overheard him, "would almost +consent to be the third victim, for the liberty of saluting those +lovely lips." + +"And so would I," said Copley, the painter, "for the privilege of +taking her picture." + +The image, or the apparition, whichever it might be, still +escorted by the bold captain, proceeded from Hanover Street +through some of the cross lanes that make this portion of the +town so intricate, to Ann Street, thence into Dock Square, and so +downward to Drowne's shop, which stood just on the water's edge. +The crowd still followed, gathering volume as it rolled along. +Never had a modern miracle occurred in such broad daylight, nor +in the presence of such a multitude of witnesses. The airy image, +as if conscious that she was the object of the murmurs and +disturbance that swelled behind her, appeared slightly vexed and +flustered, yet still in a manner consistent with the light +vivacity and sportive mischief that were written in her +countenance. She was observed to flutter her fan with such +vehement rapidity that the elaborate delicacy of its workmanship +gave way, and it remained broken in her hand. + +Arriving at Drowne's door, while the captain threw it open, the +marvellous apparition paused an instant on the threshold, +assuming the very attitude of the image, and casting over the +crowd that glance of sunny coquetry which all remembered on the +face of the oaken lady. She and her cavalier then disappeared. + +"Ah!" murmured the crowd, drawing a deep breath, as with one vast +pair of lungs. + +"The world looks darker now that she has vanished," said some of +the young men. + +But the aged, whose recollections dated as far back as witch +times, shook their heads, and hinted that our forefathers would +have thought it a pious deed to burn the daughter of the oak with +fire. + +"If she be other than a bubble of the elements," exclaimed +Copley, "I must look upon her face again." + +He accordingly entered the shop; and there, in her usual corner, +stood the image, gazing at him, as it might seem, with the very +same expression of mirthful mischief that had been the farewell +look of the apparition when, but a moment before, she turned her +face towards the crowd. The carver stood beside his creation +mending the beautiful fan, which by some accident was broken in +her hand. But there was no longer any motion in the lifelike +image, nor any real woman in the workshop, nor even the +witchcraft of a sunny shadow, that might have deluded people's +eyes as it flitted along the street. Captain Hunnewell, too, had +vanished. His hoarse sea-breezy tones, however, were audible on +the other side of a door that opened upon the water. + +"Sit down in the stern sheets, my lady," said the gallant +captain. "Come, bear a hand, you lubbers, and set us on board in +the turning of a minute-glass." + +And then was heard the stroke of oars. + +"Drowne," said Copley with a smile of intelligence, "you have +been a truly fortunate man. What painter or statuary ever had +such a subject! No wonder that she inspired a genius into you, +and first created the artist who afterwards created her image." + +Drowne looked at him with a visage that bore the traces of tears, +but from which the light of imagination and sensibility, so +recently illuminating it, had departed. He was again the +mechanical carver that he had been known to be all his lifetime. + +"I hardly understand what you mean, Mr. Copley," said he, putting +his hand to his brow. "This image! Can it have been my work? +Well, I have wrought it in a kind of dream; and now that I am +broad awake I must set about finishing yonder figure of Admiral +Vernon." + +And forthwith he employed himself on the stolid countenance of +one of his wooden progeny, and completed it in his own mechanical +style, from which he was never known afterwards to deviate. He +followed his business industriously for many years, acquired a +competence, and in the latter part of his life attained to a +dignified station in the church, being remembered in records and +traditions as Deacon Drowne, the carver. One of his productions, +an Indian chief, gilded all over, stood during the better part of +a century on the cupola of the Province House, bedazzling the +eyes of those who looked upward, like an angel of the sun. +Another work of the good deacon's hand--a reduced likeness of his +friend Captain Hunnewell, holding a telescope and quadrant--may +be seen to this day, at the corner of Broad and State streets, +serving in the useful capacity of sign to the shop of a nautical +instrument maker. We know not how to account for the inferiority +of this quaint old figure, as compared with the recorded +excellence of the Oaken Lady, unless on the supposition that in +every human spirit there is imagination, sensibility, creative +power, genius, which, according to circumstances, may either be +developed in this world, or shrouded in a mask of dulness until +another state of being. To our friend Drowne there came a brief +season of excitement, kindled by love. It rendered him a genius +for that one occasion, but, quenched in disappointment, left him +again the mechanical carver in wood, without the power even of +appreciating the work that his own hands had wrought. Yet who can +doubt that the very highest state to which a human spirit can +attain, in its loftiest aspirations, is its truest and most +natural state, and that Drowne was more consistent with himself +when he wrought the admirable figure of the mysterious lady, than +when he perpetrated a whole progeny of blockheads? + +There was a rumor in Boston, about this period, that a young +Portuguese lady of rank, on some occasion of political or +domestic disquietude, had fled from her home in Fayal and put +herself under the protection of Captain Hunnewell, on board of +whose vessel, and at whose residence, she was sheltered until a +change of affairs. This fair stranger must have been the original +of Drowne's Wooden Image. + + + +ROGER MALVIN'S BURIAL + +One of the few incidents of Indian warfare naturally susceptible +of the moonlight of romance was that expedition undertaken for +the defence of the frontiers in the year 1725, which resulted in +the well-remembered "Lovell's Fight." Imagination, by casting +certain circumstances judicially into the shade, may see much to +admire in the heroism of a little band who gave battle to twice +their number in the heart of the enemy's country. The open +bravery displayed by both parties was in accordance with +civilized ideas of valor; and chivalry itself might not blush to +record the deeds of one or two individuals. The battle, though so +fatal to those who fought, was not unfortunate in its +consequences to the country; for it broke the strength of a tribe +and conduced to the peace which subsisted during several ensuing +years. History and tradition are unusually minute in their +memorials of their affair; and the captain of a scouting party of +frontier men has acquired as actual a military renown as many a +victorious leader of thousands. Some of the incidents contained +in the following pages will be recognized, notwithstanding the +substitution of fictitious names, by such as have heard, from old +men's lips, the fate of the few combatants who were in a +condition to retreat after "Lovell's Fight." + + . . . . . . . . . + +The early sunbeams hovered cheerfully upon the tree-tops, beneath +which two weary and wounded men had stretched their limbs the +night before. Their bed of withered oak leaves was strewn upon +the small level space, at the foot of a rock, situated near the +summit of one of the gentle swells by which the face of the +country is there diversified. The mass of granite, rearing its +smooth, flat surface fifteen or twenty feet above their heads, +was not unlike a gigantic gravestone, upon which the veins seemed +to form an inscription in forgotten characters. On a tract of +several acres around this rock, oaks and other hard-wood trees +had supplied the place of the pines, which were the usual growth +of the land; and a young and vigorous sapling stood close beside +the travellers. + +The severe wound of the elder man had probably deprived him of +sleep; for, so soon as the first ray of sunshine rested on the +top of the highest tree, he reared himself painfully from his +recumbent posture and sat erect. The deep lines of his +countenance and the scattered gray of his hair marked him as past +the middle age; but his muscular frame would, but for the effect +of his wound, have been as capable of sustaining fatigue as in +the early vigor of life. Languor and exhaustion now sat upon his +haggard features; and the despairing glance which he sent forward +through the depths of the forest proved his own conviction that +his pilgrimage was at an end. He next turned his eyes to the +companion who reclined by his side. The youth--for he had +scarcely attained the years of manhood--lay, with his head upon +his arm, in the embrace of an unquiet sleep, which a thrill of +pain from his wounds seemed each moment on the point of breaking. +His right hand grasped a musket; and, to judge from the violent +action of his features, his slumbers were bringing back a vision +of the conflict of which he was one of the few survivors. A +shout deep and loud in his dreaming fancy--found its way in an +imperfect murmur to his lips; and, starting even at the slight +sound of his own voice, he suddenly awoke. The first act of +reviving recollection was to make anxious inquiries respecting +the condition of his wounded fellow-traveller. The latter shook +his head. + +"Reuben, my boy," said he, "this rock beneath which we sit will +serve for an old hunter's gravestone. There is many and many a +long mile of howling wilderness before us yet; nor would it avail +me anything if the smoke of my own chimney were but on the other +side of that swell of land. The Indian bullet was deadlier than I +thought." + +"You are weary with our three days' travel," replied the youth, +"and a little longer rest will recruit you. Sit you here while I +search the woods for the herbs and roots that must be our +sustenance; and, having eaten, you shall lean on me, and we will +turn our faces homeward. I doubt not that, with my help, you can +attain to some one of the frontier garrisons." + +"There is not two days' life in me, Reuben," said the other, +calmly, "and I will no longer burden you with my useless body, +when you can scarcely support your own. Your wounds are deep and +your strength is failing fast; yet, if you hasten onward alone, +you may be preserved. For me there is no hope, and I will await +death here." + +"If it must be so, I will remain and watch by you," said Reuben, +resolutely + +"No, my son, no," rejoined his companion. "Let the wish of a +dying man have weight with you; give me one grasp of your hand, +and get you hence. Think you that my last moments will be eased +by the thought that I leave you to die a more lingering death? I +have loved you like a father, Reuben; and at a time like this I +should have something of a father's authority. I charge you to be +gone that I may die in peace." + +"And because you have been a father to me, should I therefore +leave you to perish and to lie unburied in the wilderness?" +exclaimed the youth. "No; if your end be in truth approaching, I +will watch by you and receive your parting words. I will dig a +grave here by the rock, in which, if my weakness overcome me, we +will rest together; or, if Heaven gives me strength, I will seek +my way home." + +"In the cities and wherever men dwell," replied the other, "they +bury their dead in the earth; they hide them from the sight of +the living; but here, where no step may pass perhaps for a +hundred years, wherefore should I not rest beneath the open sky, +covered only by the oak leaves when the autumn winds shall strew +them? And for a monument, here is this gray rock, on which my +dying hand shall carve the name of Roger Malvin, and the +traveller in days to come will know that here sleeps a hunter and +a warrior. Tarry not, then, for a folly like this, but hasten +away, if not for your own sake, for hers who will else be +desolate.' + +Malvin spoke the last few words in a faltering voice, and their +effect upon his companion was strongly visible. They reminded him +that there were other and less questionable duties than that of +sharing the fate of a man whom his death could not benefit. Nor +can it be affirmed that no selfish feeling strove to enter +Reuben's heart, though the consciousness made him more earnestly +resist his companion's entreaties. + +"How terrible to wait the slow approach of death in this +solitude!" exclaimed he. "A brave man does not shrink in the +battle; and, when friends stand round the bed, even women may die +composedly; but here--" + +"I shall not shrink even here, Reuben Bourne," interrupted +Malvin. "I am a man of no weak heart, and, if I were, there is a +surer support than that of earthly friends. You are young, and +life is dear to you. Your last moments will need comfort far more +than mine; and when you have laid me in the earth, and are alone, +and night is settling on the forest, you will feel all the +bitterness of the death that may now be escaped. But I will urge +no selfish motive to your generous nature. Leave me for my sake, +that, having said a prayer for your safety, I may have space to +settle my account undisturbed by worldly sorrows." + +"And your daughter,--how shall I dare to meet her eye?" exclaimed +Reuben. "She will ask the fate of her father, whose life I vowed +to defend with my own. Must I tell her that he travelled three +days' march with me from the field of battle and that then I left +him to perish in the wilderness? Were it not better to lie down +and die by your side than to return safe and say this to Dorcas?" + +"Tell my daughter," said Roger Malvin, "that, though yourself +sore wounded, and weak, and weary, you led my tottering footsteps +many a mile, and left me only at my earnest entreaty, because I +would not have your blood upon my soul. Tell her that through +pain and danger you were faithful, and that, if your lifeblood +could have saved me, it would have flowed to its last drop; and +tell her that you will be something dearer than a father, and +that my blessing is with you both, and that my dying eyes can see +a long and pleasant path in which you will journey together." + +As Malvin spoke he almost raised himself from the ground, and the +energy of his concluding words seemed to fill the wild and lonely +forest with a vision of happiness; but, when he sank exhausted +upon his bed of oak leaves, the light which had kindled in +Reuben's eye was quenched. He felt as if it were both sin and +folly to think of happiness at such a moment. His companion +watched his changing countenance, and sought with generous art to +wile him to his own good. + +"Perhaps I deceive myself in regard to the time I have to live," +he resumed. "It may be that, with speedy assistance, I might +recover of my wound. The foremost fugitives must, ere this, have +carried tidings of our fatal battle to the frontiers, and parties +will be out to succor those in like condition with ourselves. +Should you meet one of these and guide them hither, who can tell +but that I may sit by my own fireside again?" + +A mournful smile strayed across the features of the dying man as +he insinuated that unfounded hope,--which, however, was not +without its effect on Reuben. No merely selfish motive, nor even +the desolate condition of Dorcas, could have induced him to +desert his companion at such a moment--but his wishes seized on +the thought that Malvin's life might be preserved, and his +sanguine nature heightened almost to certainty the remote +possibility of procuring human aid. + +"Surely there is reason, weighty reason, to hope that friends are +not far distant," he said, half aloud. "There fled one coward, +unwounded, in the beginning of the fight, and most probably he +made good speed. Every true man on the frontier would shoulder +his musket at the news; and, though no party may range so far +into the woods as this, I shall perhaps encounter them in one +day's march. Counsel me faithfully," he added, turning to Malvin, +in distrust of his own motives. "Were your situation mine, would +you desert me while life remained?" + +"It is now twenty years," replied Roger Malvin,--sighing, +however, as he secretly acknowledged the wide dissimilarity +between the two cases,-"it is now twenty years since I escaped +with one dear friend from Indian captivity near Montreal. We +journeyed many days through the woods, till at length overcome +with hunger and weariness, my friend lay down and besought me to +leave him; for he knew that, if I remained, we both must perish; +and, with but little hope of obtaining succor, I heaped a pillow +of dry leaves beneath his head and hastened on." + +"And did you return in time to save him?" asked Reuben, hanging +on Malvin's words as if they were to be prophetic of his own +success. + +"I did," answered the other. "I came upon the camp of a hunting +party before sunset of the same day. I guided them to the spot +where my comrade was expecting death; and he is now a hale and +hearty man upon his own farm, far within the frontiers, while I +lie wounded here in the depths of the wilderness." + +This example, powerful in affecting Reuben's decision, was aided, +unconsciously to himself, by the hidden strength of many another +motive. Roger Malvin perceived that the victory was nearly won. + +"Now, go, my son, and Heaven prosper you!" he said. "Turn not +back with your friends when you meet them, lest your wounds and +weariness overcome you; but send hitherward two or three, that +may be spared, to search for me; and believe me, Reuben, my heart +will be lighter with every step you take towards home." Yet there +was, perhaps, a change both in his countenance and voice as he +spoke thus; for, after all, it was a ghastly fate to be left +expiring in the wilderness. + +Reuben Bourne, but half convinced that he was acting rightly, at +length raised himself from the ground and prepared himself for +his departure. And first, though contrary to Malvin's wishes, he +collected a stock of roots and herbs, which had been their only +food during the last two days. This useless supply he placed +within reach of the dying man, for whom, also, he swept together +a bed of dry oak leaves. Then climbing to the summit of the rock, +which on one side was rough and broken, he bent the oak sapling +downward, and bound his handkerchief to the topmost branch. This +precaution was not unnecessary to direct any who might come in +search of Malvin; for every part of the rock, except its broad, +smooth front, was concealed at a little distance by the dense +undergrowth of the forest. The handkerchief had been the bandage +of a wound upon Reuben's arm; and, as he bound it to the tree, he +vowed by the blood that stained it that he would return, either +to save his companion's life or to lay his body in the grave. He +then descended, and stood, with downcast eyes, to receive Roger +Malvin's parting words. + +The experience of the latter suggested much and minute advice +respecting the youth's journey through the trackless forest. Upon +this subject he spoke with calm earnestness, as if he were +sending Reuben to the battle or the chase while he himself +remained secure at home, and not as if the human countenance that +was about to leave him were the last he would ever behold. But +his firmness was shaken before he concluded. + +"Carry my blessing to Dorcas, and say that my last prayer shall +be for her and you. Bid her to have no hard thoughts because you +left me here," --Reuben's heart smote him,--"for that your life +would not have weighed with you if its sacrifice could have done +me good. She will marry you after she has mourned a little while +for her father; and Heaven grant you long and happy days, and may +your children's children stand round your death bed! And, +Reuben," added he, as the weakness of mortality made its way at +last, "return, when your wounds are healed and your weariness +refreshed,--return to this wild rock, and lay my bones in the +grave, and say a prayer over them." + +An almost superstitious regard, arising perhaps from the customs +of the Indians, whose war was with the dead as well as the +living, was paid by the frontier inhabitants to the rites of +sepulture; and there are many instances of the sacrifice of life +in the attempt to bury those who had fallen by the "sword of the +wilderness." Reuben, therefore, felt the full importance of the +promise which he most solemnly made to return and perform Roger +Malvin's obsequies. It was remarkable that the latter, speaking +his whole heart in his parting words, no longer endeavored to +persuade the youth that even the speediest succor might avail to +the preservation of his life. Reuben was internally convinced +that he should see Malvin's living face no more. His generous +nature would fain have delayed him, at whatever risk, till the +dying scene were past; but the desire of existence and the hope +of happiness had strengthened in his heart, and he was unable to +resist them. + +"It is enough," said Roger Malvin, having listened to Reuben's +promise. "Go, and God speed you!" + +The youth pressed his hand in silence, turned, and was departing. +His slow and faltering steps, however, had borne him but a little +way before Malvin's voice recalled him. + +"Reuben, Reuben," said he, faintly; and Reuben returned and knelt +down by the dying man. + +"Raise me, and let me lean against the rock," was his last +request. "My face will be turned towards home, and I shall see +you a moment longer as you pass among the trees." + +Reuben, having made the desired alteration in his companion's +posture, again began his solitary pilgrimage. He walked more +hastily at first than was consistent with his strength; for a +sort of guilty feeling, which sometimes torments men in their +most justifiable acts, caused him to seek concealment from +Malvin's eyes; but after he had trodden far upon the rustling +forest leaves he crept back, impelled by a wild and painful +curiosity, and, sheltered by the earthy roots of an uptorn tree, +gazed earnestly at the desolate man. The morning sun was +unclouded, and the trees and shrubs imbibed the sweet air of the +month of May; yet there seemed a gloom on Nature's face, as if +she sympathized with mortal pain and sorrow Roger Malvin's hands +were uplifted in a fervent prayer, some of the words of which +stole through the stillness of the woods and entered Reuben's +heart, torturing it with an unutterable pang. They were the +broken accents of a petition for his own happiness and that of +Dorcas; and, as the youth listened, conscience, or something in +its similitude, pleaded strongly with him to return and lie down +again by the rock. He felt how hard was the doom of the kind and +generous being whom he had deserted in his extremity. Death would +come like the slow approach of a corpse, stealing gradually +towards him through the forest, and showing its ghastly and +motionless features from behind a nearer and yet a nearer tree. +But such must have been Reuben's own fate had he tarried another +sunset; and who shall impute blame to him if he shrink from so +useless a sacrifice? As he gave a parting look, a breeze waved +the little banner upon the sapling oak and reminded Reuben of his +vow. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +Many circumstances combined to retard the wounded traveller in +his way to the frontiers. On the second day the clouds, gathering +densely over the sky, precluded the possibility of regulating his +course by the position of the sun; and he knew not but that every +effort of his almost exhausted strength was removing him farther +from the home he sought. His scanty sustenance was supplied by +the berries and other spontaneous products of the forest. Herds +of deer, it is true, sometimes bounded past him, and partridges +frequently whirred up before his footsteps; but his ammunition +had been expended in the fight, and he had no means of slaying +them. His wounds, irritated by the constant exertion in which lay +the only hope of life, wore away his strength and at intervals +confused his reason. But, even in the wanderings of intellect, +Reuben's young heart clung strongly to existence; and it was only +through absolute incapacity of motion that he at last sank down +beneath a tree, compelled there to await death. + +In this situation he was discovered by a party who, upon the +first intelligence of the fight, had been despatched to the +relief of the survivors. They conveyed him to the nearest +settlement, which chanced to be that of his own residence. + +Dorcas, in the simplicity of the olden time, watched by the +bedside of her wounded lover, and administered all those comforts +that are in the sole gift of woman's heart and hand. During +several days Reuben's recollection strayed drowsily among the +perils and hardships through which he had passed, and he was +incapable of returning definite answers to the inquiries with +which many were eager to harass him. No authentic particulars of +the battle had yet been circulated; nor could mothers, wives, and +children tell whether their loved ones were detained by captivity +or by the stronger chain of death. Dorcas nourished her +apprehensions in silence till one afternoon when Reuben awoke +from an unquiet sleep, and seemed to recognize her more perfectly +than at any previous time. She saw that his intellect had become +composed, and she could no longer restrain her filial anxiety. + +"My father, Reuben?" she began; but the change in her lover's +countenance made her pause. + +The youth shrank as if with a bitter pain, and the blood gushed +vividly into his wan and hollow cheeks. His first impulse was to +cover his face; but, apparently with a desperate effort, he half +raised himself and spoke vehemently, defending himself against an +imaginary accusation. + +"Your father was sore wounded in the battle, Dorcas; and he bade +me not burden myself with him, but only to lead him to the +lakeside, that he might quench his thirst and die. But I would +not desert the old man in his extremity, and, though bleeding +myself, I supported him; I gave him half my strength, and led him +away with me. For three days we journeyed on together, and your +father was sustained beyond my hopes, but, awaking at sunrise on +the fourth day, I found him faint and exhausted; he was unable to +proceed; his life had ebbed away fast; and--" + +"He died!" exclaimed Dorcas, faintly. + +Reuben felt it impossible to acknowledge that his selfish love of +life had hurried him away before her father's fate was decided. +He spoke not; he only bowed his head; and, between shame and +exhaustion, sank back and hid his face in the pillow. Dorcas wept +when her fears were thus confirmed; but the shock, as it had been +long anticipated. was on that account the less violent. + +"You dug a grave for my poor father in the wilderness, Reuben?" +was the question by which her filial piety manifested itself. + +"My hands were weak; but I did what I could," replied the youth +in a smothered tone. "There stands a noble tombstone above his +head; and I would to Heaven I slept as soundly as he!" + +Dorcas, perceiving the wildness of his latter words, inquired no +further at the time; but her heart found ease in the thought that +Roger Malvin had not lacked such funeral rites as it was possible +to bestow. The tale of Reuben's courage and fidelity lost nothing +when she communicated it to her friends; and the poor youth, +tottering from his sick chamber to breathe the sunny air, +experienced from every tongue the miserable and humiliating +torture of unmerited praise. All acknowledged that he might +worthily demand the hand of the fair maiden to whose father he +had been "faithful unto death;" and, as my tale is not of love, +it shall suffice to say that in the space of a few months Reuben +became the husband of Dorcas Malvin. During the marriage ceremony +the bride was covered with blushes, but the bridegroom's face was +pale. + +There was now in the breast of Reuben Bourne an incommunicable +thought--something which he was to conceal most heedfully from +her whom he most loved and trusted. He regretted, deeply and +bitterly, the moral cowardice that had restrained his words when +he was about to disclose the truth to Dorcas; but pride, the fear +of losing her affection, the dread of universal scorn, forbade +him to rectify this falsehood. He felt that for leaving Roger +Malvin he deserved no censure. His presence, the gratuitous +sacrifice of his own life, would have added only another and a +needless agony to the last moments of the dying man; but +concealment had imparted to a justifiable act much of the secret +effect of guilt; and Reuben, while reason told him that he had +done right, experienced in no small degree the mental horrors +which punish the perpetrator of undiscovered crime. By a certain +association of ideas, he at times almost imagined himself a +murderer. For years, also, a thought would occasionally recur, +which, though he perceived all its folly and extravagance, he had +not power to banish from his mind. It was a haunting and +torturing fancy that his father-in-law was yet sitting at the +foot of the rock, on the withered forest leaves, alive, and +awaiting his pledged assistance. These mental deceptions, +however, came and went, nor did he ever mistake them for +realities: but in the calmest and clearest moods of his mind he +was conscious that he had a deep vow unredeemed, and that an +unburied corpse was calling to him out of the wilderness. Yet +such was the consequence of his prevarication that he could not +obey the call. It was now too late to require the assistance of +Roger Malvin's friends in performing his long-deferred sepulture; +and superstitious fears, of which none were more susceptible than +the people of the outward settlements, forbade Reuben to go +alone. Neither did he know where in the pathless and illimitable +forest to seek that smooth and lettered rock at the base of which +the body lay: his remembrance of every portion of his travel +thence was indistinct, and the latter part had left no impression +upon his mind. There was, however, a continual impulse, a voice +audible only to himself, commanding him to go forth and redeem +his vow; and he had a strange impression that, were he to make +the trial, he would be led straight to Malvin's bones. But year +after year that summons, unheard but felt, was disobeyed. His one +secret thought became like a chain binding down his spirit and +like a serpent gnawing into his heart; and he was transformed +into a sad and downcast yet irritable man. + +In the course of a few years after their marriage changes began +to be visible in the external prosperity of Reuben and Dorcas. +The only riches of the former had been his stout heart and strong +arm; but the latter, her father's sole heiress, had made her +husband master of a farm, under older cultivation, larger, and +better stocked than most of the frontier establishments. Reuben +Bourne, however, was a neglectful husbandman; and, while the +lands of the other settlers became annually more fruitful, his +deteriorated in the same proportion. The discouragements to +agriculture were greatly lessened by the cessation of Indian war, +during which men held the plough in one hand and the musket in +the other, and were fortunate if the products of their dangerous +labor were not destroyed, either in the field or in the barn, by +the savage enemy. But Reuben did not profit by the altered +condition of the country; nor can it be denied that his intervals +of industrious attention to his affairs were but scantily +rewarded with success. The irritability by which he had recently +become distinguished was another cause of his declining +prosperity, as it occasioned frequent quarrels in his unavoidable +intercourse with the neighboring settlers. The results of these +were innumerable lawsuits; for the people of New England, in the +earliest stages and wildest circumstances of the country, +adopted, whenever attainable, the legal mode of deciding their +differences. To be brief, the world did not go well with Reuben +Bourne; and, though not till many years after his marriage, he +was finally a ruined man, with but one remaining expedient +against the evil fate that had pursued him. He was to throw +sunlight into some deep recess of the forest, and seek +subsistence from the virgin bosom of the wilderness. + +The only child of Reuben and Dorcas was a son, now arrived at the +age of fifteen years, beautiful in youth, and giving promise of a +glorious manhood. He was peculiarly qualified for, and already +began to excel in, the wild accomplishments of frontier life. His +foot was fleet, his aim true, his apprehension quick, his heart +glad and high; and all who anticipated the return of Indian war +spoke of Cyrus Bourne as a future leader in the land. The boy was +loved by his father with a deep and silent strength, as if +whatever was good and happy in his own nature had been +transferred to his child, carrying his affections with it. Even +Dorcas, though loving and beloved, was far less dear to him; for +Reuben's secret thoughts and insulated emotions had gradually +made him a selfish man, and he could no longer love deeply except +where he saw or imagined some reflection or likeness of his own +mind. In Cyrus he recognized what he had himself been in other +days; and at intervals he seemed to partake of the boy's spirit, +and to be revived with a fresh and happy life. Reuben was +accompanied by his son in the expedition, for the purpose of +selecting a tract of land and felling and burning the timber, +which necessarily preceded the removal of the household gods. Two +months of autumn were thus occupied, after which Reuben Bourne +and his young hunter returned to spend their last winter in the +settlements. + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +It was early in the month of May that the little family snapped +asunder whatever tendrils of affections had clung to inanimate +objects, and bade farewell to the few who, in the blight of +fortune, called themselves their friends. The sadness of the +parting moment had, to each of the pilgrims, its peculiar +alleviations. Reuben, a moody man, and misanthropic because +unhappy, strode onward with his usual stern brow and downcast +eye, feeling few regrets and disdaining to acknowledge any. +Dorcas, while she wept abundantly over the broken ties by which +her simple and affectionate nature had bound itself to +everything, felt that the inhabitants of her inmost heart moved +on with her, and that all else would be supplied wherever she +might go. And the boy dashed one tear-drop from his eye, and +thought of the adventurous pleasures of the untrodden forest. + +Oh, who, in the enthusiasm of a daydream, has not wished that he +were a wanderer in a world of summer wilderness, with one fair +and gentle being hanging lightly on his arm? In youth his free +and exulting step would know no barrier but the rolling ocean or +the snow-topped mountains; calmer manhood would choose a home +where Nature had strewn a double wealth in the vale of some +transparent stream; and when hoary age, after long, long years of +that pure life, stole on and found him there, it would find him +the father of a race, the patriarch of a people, the founder of a +mighty nation yet to be. When death, like the sweet sleep which +we welcome after a day of happiness, came over him, his far +descendants would mourn over the venerated dust. Enveloped by +tradition in mysterious attributes, the men of future generations +would call him godlike; and remote posterity would see him +standing, dimly glorious, far up the valley of a hundred +centuries. + +The tangled and gloomy forest through which the personages of my +tale were wandering differed widely from the dreamer's land of +fantasy; yet there was something in their way of life that Nature +asserted as her own, and the gnawing cares which went with them +from the world were all that now obstructed their happiness. One +stout and shaggy steed, the bearer of all their wealth, did not +shrink from the added weight of Dorcas; although her hardy +breeding sustained her, during the latter part of each day's +journey, by her husband's side. Reuben and his son, their muskets +on their shoulders and their axes slung behind them, kept an +unwearied pace, each watching with a hunter's eye for the game +that supplied their food. When hunger bade, they halted and +prepared their meal on the bank of some unpolluted forest brook, +which, as they knelt down with thirsty lips to drink, murmured a +sweet unwillingness, like a maiden at love's first kiss. They +slept beneath a hut of branches, and awoke at peep of light +refreshed for the toils of another day. Dorcas and the boy went +on joyously, and even Reuben's spirit shone at intervals with an +outward gladness; but inwardly there was a cold cold sorrow, +which he compared to the snowdrifts lying deep in the glens and +hollows of the rivulets while the leaves were brightly green +above. + +Cyrus Bourne was sufficiently skilled in the travel of the woods +to observe that his father did not adhere to the course they had +pursued in their expedition of the preceding autumn. They were +now keeping farther to the north, striking out more directly from +the settlements, and into a region of which savage beasts and +savage men were as yet the sole possessors. The boy sometimes +hinted his opinions upon the subject, and Reuben listened +attentively, and once or twice altered the direction of their +march in accordance with his son's counsel; but, having so done, +he seemed ill at ease. His quick and wandering glances were sent +forward apparently in search of enemies lurking behind the tree +trunks, and, seeing nothing there, he would cast his eyes +backwards as if in fear of some pursuer. Cyrus, perceiving that +his father gradually resumed the old direction, forbore to +interfere; nor, though something began to weigh upon his heart, +did his adventurous nature permit him to regret the increased +length and the mystery of their way. + +On the afternoon of the fifth day they halted, and made their +simple encampment nearly an hour before sunset. The face of the +country, for the last few miles, had been diversified by swells +of land resembling huge waves of a petrified sea; and in one of +the corresponding hollows, a wild and romantic spot, had the +family reared their hut and kindled their fire. There is +something chilling, and yet heart-warming, in the thought of +these three, united by strong bands of love and insulated from +all that breathe beside. The dark and gloomy pines looked down +upon them, and, as the wind swept through their tops, a pitying +sound was heard in the forest; or did those old trees groan in +fear that men were come to lay the axe to their roots at last? +Reuben and his son, while Dorcas made ready their meal, proposed +to wander out in search of game, of which that day's march had +afforded no supply. The boy, promising not to quit the vicinity +of the encampment, bounded off with a step as light and elastic +as that of the deer he hoped to slay; while his father, feeling a +transient happiness as he gazed after him, was about to pursue an +opposite direction. Dorcas in the meanwhile, had seated herself +near their fire of fallen branches upon the mossgrown and +mouldering trunk of a tree uprooted years before. Her employment, +diversified by an occasional glance at the pot, now beginning to +simmer over the blaze, was the perusal of the current year's +Massachusetts Almanac, which, with the exception of an old +black-letter Bible, comprised all the literary wealth of the +family. None pay a greater regard to arbitrary divisions of time +than those who are excluded from society; and Dorcas mentioned, +as if the information were of importance, that it was now the +twelfth of May. Her husband started. + +"The twelfth of May! I should remember it well," muttered he, +while many thoughts occasioned a momentary confusion in his mind. +"Where am I? Whither am I wandering? Where did I leave him?" + +Dorcas, too well accustomed to her husband's wayward moods to +note any peculiarity of demeanor, now laid aside the almanac and +addressed him in that mournful tone which the tender hearted +appropriate to griefs long cold and dead. + +"It was near this time of the month, eighteen years ago, that my +poor father left this world for a better. He had a kind arm to +hold his head and a kind voice to cheer him, Reuben, in his last +moments; and the thought of the faithful care you took of him has +comforted me many a time since. Oh, death would have been awful +to a solitary man in a wild place like this!" + +"Pray Heaven, Dorcas," said Reuben, in a broken voice,--"pray +Heaven that neither of us three dies solitary and lies unburied +in this howling wilderness!" And he hastened away, leaving her to +watch the fire beneath the gloomy pines. + +Reuben Bourne's rapid pace gradually slackened as the pang, +unintentionally inflicted by the words of Dorcas, became less +acute. Many strange reflections, however, thronged upon him; and, +straying onward rather like a sleep walker than a hunter, it was +attributable to no care of his own that his devious course kept +him in the vicinity of the encampment. His steps were +imperceptibly led almost in a circle; nor did he observe that he +was on the verge of a tract of land heavily timbered, but not +with pine-trees. The place of the latter was here supplied by +oaks and other of the harder woods; and around their roots +clustered a dense and bushy under-growth, leaving, however, +barren spaces between the trees, thick strewn with withered +leaves. Whenever the rustling of the branches or the creaking of +the trunks made a sound, as if the forest were waking from +slumber, Reuben instinctively raised the musket that rested on +his arm, and cast a quick, sharp glance on every side; but, +convinced by a partial observation that no animal was near, he +would again give himself up to his thoughts. He was musing on the +strange influence that had led him away from his premeditated +course, and so far into the depths of the wilderness. Unable to +penetrate to the secret place of his soul where his motives lay +hidden, he believed that a supernatural voice had called him +onward, and that a supernatural power had obstructed his retreat. +He trusted that it was Heaven's intent to afford him an +opportunity of expiating his sin; he hoped that he might find the +bones so long unburied; and that, having laid the earth over +them, peace would throw its sunlight into the sepulchre of his +heart. From these thoughts he was aroused by a rustling in the +forest at some distance from the spot to which he had wandered. +Perceiving the motion of some object behind a thick veil of +undergrowth, he fired, with the instinct of a hunter and the aim +of a practised marksman. A low moan, which told his success, and +by which even animals cars express their dying agony, was +unheeded by Reuben Bourne. What were the recollections now +breaking upon him? + +The thicket into which Reuben had fired was near the summit of a +swell of land, and was clustered around the base of a rock, +which, in the shape and smoothness of one of its surfaces, was +not unlike a gigantic gravestone. As if reflected in a mirror, +its likeness was in Reuben's memory. He even recognized the veins +which seemed to form an inscription in forgotten characters: +everything remained the same, except that a thick covert of +bushes shrouded the lowerpart of the rock, and would have hidden +Roger Malvin had he still been sitting there. Yet in the next +moment Reuben's eye was caught by another change that time had +effected since he last stood where he was now standing again +behind the earthy roots of the uptorn tree. The sapling to which +he had bound the bloodstained symbol of his vow had increased and +strengthened into an oak, far indeed from its maturity, but with +no mean spread of shadowy branches. There was one singularity +observable in this tree which made Reuben tremble. The middle and +lower branches were in luxuriant life, and an excess of +vegetation had fringed the trunk almost to the ground; but a +blight had apparently stricken the upper part of the oak, and the +very topmost bough was withered, sapless, and utterly dead. +Reuben remembered how the little banner had fluttered on that +topmost bough, when it was green and lovely, eighteen years +before. Whose guilt had blasted it? + + . . . . . . . . . . . + +Dorcas, after the departure of the two hunters, continued her +preparations for their evening repast. Her sylvan table was the +moss-covered trunk of a large fallen tree, on the broadest part +of which she had spread a snow-white cloth and arranged what were +left of the bright pewter vessels that had been her pride in the +settlements. It had a strange aspect that one little spot of +homely comfort in the desolate heart of Nature. The sunshine yet +lingered upon the higher branches of the trees that grew on +rising ground; but the shadows of evening had deepened into the +hollow where the encampment was made, and the firelight began to +redden as it gleamed up the tall trunks of the pines or hovered +on the dense and obscure mass of foliage that circled round the +spot. The heart of Dorcas was not sad; for she felt that it was +better to journey in the wilderness with two whom she loved than +to be a lonely woman in a crowd that cared not for her. As she +busied herself in arranging seats of mouldering wood, covered +with leaves, for Reuben and her son, her voice danced through the +gloomy forest in the measure of a song that she had learned in +youth. The rude melody, the production of a bard who won no name, +was descriptive of a winter evening in a frontier cottage, when, +secured from savage inroad by the high-piled snow-drifts, the +family rejoiced by their own fireside. The whole song possessed +the nameless charm peculiar to unborrowed thought, but four +continually-recurring lines shone out from the rest like the +blaze of the hearth whose joys they celebrated. Into them, +working magic with a few simple words, the poet had instilled the +very essence of domestic love and household happiness, and they +were poetry and picture joined in one. As Dorcas sang, the walls +of her forsaken home seemed to encircle her; she no longer saw +the gloomy pines, nor heard the wind which still, as she began +each verse, sent a heavy breath through the branches, and died +away in a hollow moan from the burden of the song. She was +aroused by the report of a gun in the vicinity of the encampment; +and either the sudden sound, or her loneliness by the glowing +fire, caused her to tremble violently. The next moment she +laughed in the pride of a mother's heart. + +"My beautiful young hunter! My boy has slain a deer!" she +exclaimed, recollecting that in the direction whence the shot +proceeded Cyrus had gone to the chase. + +She waited a reasonable time to hear her son's light step +bounding over the rustling leaves to tell of his success. But he +did not immediately appear; and she sent her cheerful voice among +the trees in search of him. + +"Cyrus! Cyrus!" + +His coming was still delayed; and she determined, as the report +had apparently been very near, to seek for him in person. Her +assistance, also, might be necessary in bringing home the venison +which she flattered herself he had obtained. She therefore set +forward, directing her steps by the long-past sound, and singing +as she went, in order that the boy might be aware of her approach +and run to meet her. From behind the trunk of every tree, and +from every hiding-place in the thick foliage of the undergrowth, +she hoped to discover the countenance of her son, laughing with +the sportive mischief that is born of affection. The sun was now +beneath the horizon, and the light that came down among the +leaves was sufficiently dim to create many illusions in her +expecting fancy. Several times she seemed indistinctly to see his +face gazing out from among the leaves; and once she imagined that +he stood beckoning to her at the base of a craggy rock. Keeping +her eyes on this object, however, it proved to be no more than +the trunk of an oak fringed to the very ground with little +branches, one of which, thrust out farther than the rest, was +shaken by the breeze. Making her way round the foot of the rock, +she suddenly found herself close to her husband, who had +approached in another direction. Leaning upon the butt of his +gun, the muzzle of which rested upon the withered leaves, he was +apparently absorbed in the contemplation of some object at his +feet. + +"How is this, Reuben? Have you slain the deer and fallen asleep +over him?" exclaimed Dorcas, laughing cheerfully, on her first +slight observation of his posture and appearance. + +He stirred not, neither did he turn his eyes towards her; and a +cold, shuddering fear, indefinite in its source and object, began +to creep into her blood. She now perceived that her husband's +face was ghastly pale, and his features were rigid, as if +incapable of assuming any other expression than the strong +despair which had hardened upon them. He gave not the slightest +evidence that he was aware of her approach. + +"For the love of Heaven, Reuben, speak to me!" cried Dorcas; and +the strange sound of her own voice affrighted her even more than +the dead silence. + +Her husband started, stared into her face, drew her to the front +of the rock, and pointed with his finger. + +Oh, there lay the boy, asleep, but dreamless, upon the fallen +forest leaves! His cheek rested upon his arm--his curled locks +were thrown back from his brow--his limbs were slightly relaxed. +Had a sudden weariness overcome the youthful hunter? Would his +mother's voice arouse him? She knew that it was death. + +"This broad rock is the gravestone of your near kindred, Dorcas," +said her husband. "Your tears will fall at once over your father +and your son." + +She heard him not. With one wild shriek, that seemed to force its +way from the sufferer's inmost soul, she sank insensible by the +side of her dead boy. At that moment the withered topmost bough +of the oak loosened itself in the stilly air, and fell in soft, +light fragments upon the rock, upon the leaves, upon Reuben, upon +his wife and child, and upon Roger Malvin's bones. Then Reuben's +heart was stricken, and the tears gushed out like water from a +rock. The vow that the wounded youth had made the blighted man +had come to redeem. His sin was expiated,--the curse was gone +from him; and in the hour when he had shed blood dearer to him +than his own, a prayer, the first for years, went up to Heaven +from the lips of Reuben Bourne. + + + +THE ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL + +An elderly man, with his pretty daughter on his arm, was passing +along the street, and emerged from the gloom of the cloudy +evening into the light that fell across the pavement from the +window of a small shop. It was a projecting window; and on the +inside were suspended a variety of watches, pinchbeck, silver, +and one or two of gold, all with their faces turned from the +streets, as if churlishly disinclined to inform the wayfarers +what o'clock it was. Seated within the shop, sidelong to the +window with his pale face bent earnestly over some delicate piece +of mechanism on which was thrown the concentrated lustre of a +shade lamp, appeared a young man. + +"What can Owen Warland be about?" muttered old Peter Hovenden, +himself a retired watchmaker, and the former master of this same +young man whose occupation he was now wondering at. "What can the +fellow be about? These six months past I have never come by his +shop without seeing him just as steadily at work as now. It would +be a flight beyond his usual foolery to seek for the perpetual +motion; and yet I know enough of my old business to be certain +that what he is now so busy with is no part of the machinery of a +watch." + +"Perhaps, father," said Annie, without showing much interest in +the question, "Owen is inventing a new kind of timekeeper. I am +sure he has ingenuity enough." + +"Poh, child! He has not the sort of ingenuity to invent anything +better than a Dutch toy," answered her father, who had formerly +been put to much vexation by Owen Warland's irregular genius. "A +plague on such ingenuity! All the effect that ever I knew of it +was to spoil the accuracy of some of the best watches in my shop. +He would turn the sun out of its orbit and derange the whole +course of time, if, as I said before, his ingenuity could grasp +anything bigger than a child's toy!" + +"Hush, father! He hears you!" whispered Annie, pressing the old +man's arm. "His ears are as delicate as his feelings; and you +know how easily disturbed they are. Do let us move on." + +So Peter Hovenden and his daughter Annie plodded on without +further conversation, until in a by-street of the town they found +themselves passing the open door of a blacksmith's shop. Within +was seen the forge, now blazing up and illuminating the high and +dusky roof, and now confining its lustre to a narrow precinct of +the coal-strewn floor, according as the breath of the bellows was +puffed forth or again inhaled into its vast leathern lungs. In +the intervals of brightness it was easy to distinguish objects in +remote corners of the shop and the horseshoes that hung upon the +wall; in the momentary gloom the fire seemed to be glimmering +amidst the vagueness of unenclosed space. Moving about in this +red glare and alternate dusk was the figure of the blacksmith, +well worthy to be viewed in so picturesque an aspect of light and +shade, where the bright blaze struggled with the black night, as +if each would have snatched his comely strength from the other. +Anon he drew a white-hot bar of iron from the coals, laid it on +the anvil, uplifted his arm of might, and was soon enveloped in +the myriads of sparks which the strokes of his hammer scattered +into the surrounding gloom. + +"Now, that is a pleasant sight," said the old watchmaker. "I know +what it is to work in gold; but give me the worker in iron after +all is said and done. He spends his labor upon a reality. What +say you, daughter Annie?" + +"Pray don't speak so loud, father," whispered Annie, "Robert +Danforth will hear you." + +"And what if he should hear me?" said Peter Hovenden. "I say +again, it is a good and a wholesome thing to depend upon main +strength and reality, and to earn one's bread with the bare and +brawny arm of a blacksmith. A watchmaker gets his brain puzzled +by his wheels within a wheel, or loses his health or the nicety +of his eyesight, as was my case, and finds himself at middle age, +or a little after, past labor at his own trade and fit for +nothing else, yet too poor to live at his ease. So I say once +again, give me main strength for my money. And then, how it takes +the nonsense out of a man! Did you ever hear of a blacksmith +being such a fool as Owen Warland yonder?" + +"Well said, uncle Hovenden!" shouted Robert Danforth from the +forge, in a full, deep, merry voice, that made the roof re-echo. +"And what says Miss Annie to that doctrine? She, I suppose, will +think it a genteeler business to tinker up a lady's watch than to +forge a horseshoe or make a gridiron." + +Annie drew her father onward without giving him time for reply. + +But we must return to Owen Warland's shop, and spend more +meditation upon his history and character than either Peter +Hovenden, or probably his daughter Annie, or Owen's old +school-fellow, Robert Danforth, would have thought due to so +slight a subject. From the time that his little fingers could +grasp a penknife, Owen had been remarkable for a delicate +ingenuity, which sometimes produced pretty shapes in wood, +principally figures of flowers and birds, and sometimes seemed to +aim at the hidden mysteries of mechanism. But it was always for +purposes of grace, and never with any mockery of the useful. He +did not, like the crowd of school-boy artisans, construct little +windmills on the angle of a barn or watermills across the +neighboring brook. Those who discovered such peculiarity in the +boy as to think it worth their while to observe him closely, +sometimes saw reason to suppose that he was attempting to imitate +the beautiful movements of Nature as exemplified in the flight of +birds or the activity of little animals. It seemed, in fact, a +new development of the love of the beautiful, such as might have +made him a poet, a painter, or a sculptor, and which was as +completely refined from all utilitarian coarseness as it could +have been in either of the fine arts. He looked with singular +distaste at the stiff and regular processes of ordinary +machinery. Being once carried to see a steam-engine, in the +expectation that his intuitive comprehension of mechanical +principles would be gratified, he turned pale and grew sick, as +if something monstrous and unnatural had been presented to him. +This horror was partly owing to the size and terrible energy of +the iron laborer; for the character of Owen's mind was +microscopic, and tended naturally to the minute, in accordance +with his diminutive frame and the marvellous smallness and +delicate power of his fingers. Not that his sense of beauty was +thereby diminished into a sense of prettiness. The beautiful idea +has no relation to size, and may be as perfectly developed in a +space too minute for any but microscopic investigation as within +the ample verge that is measured by the arc of the rainbow. But, +at all events, this characteristic minuteness in his objects and +accomplishments made the world even more incapable than it might +otherwise have been of appreciating Owen Warland's genius. The +boy's relatives saw nothing better to be done--as perhaps there +was not--than to bind him apprentice to a watchmaker, hoping that +his strange ingenuity might thus be regulated and put to +utilitarian purposes. + +Peter Hovenden's opinion of his apprentice has already been +expressed. He could make nothing of the lad. Owen's apprehension +of the professional mysteries, it is true, was inconceivably +quick; but he altogether forgot or despised the grand object of a +watchmaker's business, and cared no more for the measurement of +time than if it had been merged into eternity. So long, however, +as he remained under his old master's care, Owen's lack of +sturdiness made it possible, by strict injunctions and sharp +oversight, to restrain his creative eccentricity within bounds; +but when his apprenticeship was served out, and he had taken the +little shop which Peter Hovenden's failing eyesight compelled him +to relinquish, then did people recognize how unfit a person was +Owen Warland to lead old blind Father Time along his daily +course. One of his most rational projects was to connect a +musical operation with the machinery of his watches, so that all +the harsh dissonances of life might be rendered tuneful, and each +flitting moment fall into the abyss of the past in golden drops +of harmony. If a family clock was intrusted to him for +repair,--one of those tall, ancient clocks that have grown nearly +allied to human nature by measuring out the lifetime of many +generations,--he would take upon himself to arrange a dance or +funeral procession of figures across its venerable face, +representing twelve mirthful or melancholy hours. Several freaks +of this kind quite destroyed the young watchmaker's credit with +that steady and matter-of-fact class of people who hold the +opinion that time is not to be trifled with, whether considered +as the medium of advancement and prosperity in this world or +preparation for the next. His custom rapidly diminished--a +misfortune, however, that was probably reckoned among his better +accidents by Owen Warland, who was becoming more and more +absorbed in a secret occupation which drew all his science and +manual dexterity into itself, and likewise gave full employment +to the characteristic tendencies of his genius. This pursuit had +already consumed many months. + +After the old watchmaker and his pretty daughter had gazed at him +out of the obscurity of the street, Owen Warland was seized with +a fluttering of the nerves, which made his hand tremble too +violently to proceed with such delicate labor as he was now +engaged upon. + +"It was Annie herself!" murmured he. "I should have known it, by +this throbbing of my heart, before I heard her father's voice. +Ah, how it throbs! I shall scarcely be able to work again on this +exquisite mechanism to-night. Annie! dearest Annie! thou shouldst +give firmness to my heart and hand, and not shake them thus; for +if I strive to put the very spirit of beauty into form and give +it motion, it is for thy sake alone. O throbbing heart, be quiet! +If my labor be thus thwarted, there will come vague and +unsatisfied dreams which will leave me spiritless to-morrow." + +As he was endeavoring to settle himself again to his task, the +shop door opened and gave admittance to no other than the +stalwart figure which Peter Hovenden had paused to admire, as +seen amid the light and shadow of the blacksmith's shop. Robert +Danforth had brought a little anvil of his own manufacture, and +peculiarly constructed, which the young artist had recently +bespoken. Owen examined the article and pronounced it fashioned +according to his wish. + +"Why, yes," said Robert Danforth, his strong voice filling the +shop as with the sound of a bass viol, "I consider myself equal +to anything in the way of my own trade; though I should have made +but a poor figure at yours with such a fist as this," added he, +laughing, as he laid his vast hand beside the delicate one of +Owen. "But what then? I put more main strength into one blow of +my sledge hammer than all that you have expended since you were a +'prentice. Is not that the truth?" + +"Very probably," answered the low and slender voice of Owen. +"Strength is an earthly monster. I make no pretensions to it. My +force, whatever there may be of it, is altogether spiritual." + +"Well, but, Owen, what are you about?" asked his old +school-fellow, still in such a hearty volume of tone that it made +the artist shrink, especially as the question related to a +subject so sacred as the absorbing dream of his imagination. +"Folks do say that you are trying to discover the perpetual +motion." + +"The perpetual motion? Nonsense!" replied Owen Warland, with a +movement of disgust; for he was full of little petulances. "It +can never be discovered. It is a dream that may delude men whose +brains are mystified with matter, but not me. Besides, if such a +discovery were possible, it would not be worth my while to make +it only to have the secret turned to such purposes as are now +effected by steam and water power. I am not ambitious to be +honored with the paternity of a new kind of cotton machine." + +"That would be droll enough!" cried the blacksmith, breaking out +into such an uproar of laughter that Owen himself and the bell +glasses on his work-board quivered in unison. "No, no, Owen! No +child of yours will have iron joints and sinews. Well, I won't +hinder you any more. Good night, Owen, and success, and if you +need any assistance, so far as a downright blow of hammer upon +anvil will answer the purpose, I'm your man." + +And with another laugh the man of main strength left the shop. + +"How strange it is," whispered Owen Warland to himself, leaning +his head upon his hand, "that all my musings, my purposes, my +passion for the beautiful, my consciousness of power to create +it,--a finer, more ethereal power, of which this earthly giant +can have no conception,--all, all, look so vain and idle whenever +my path is crossed by Robert Danforth! He would drive me mad were +I to meet him often. His hard, brute force darkens and confuses +the spiritual element within me; but I, too, will be strong in my +own way. I will not yield to him." + +He took from beneath a glass a piece of minute machinery, which +he set in the condensed light of his lamp, and, looking intently +at it through a magnifying glass, proceeded to operate with a +delicate instrument of steel. In an instant, however, he fell +back in his chair and clasped his hands, with a look of horror on +his face that made its small features as impressive as those of a +giant would have been. + +"Heaven! What have I done?" exclaimed he. "The vapor, the +influence of that brute force,--it has bewildered me and obscured +my perception. I have made the very stroke--the fatal +stroke--that I have dreaded from the first. It is all over--the +toil of months, the object of my life. I am ruined!" + +And there he sat, in strange despair, until his lamp flickered in +the socket and left the Artist of the Beautiful in darkness. + +Thus it is that ideas, which grow up within the imagination and +appear so lovely to it and of a value beyond whatever men call +valuable, are exposed to be shattered and annihilated by contact +with the practical. It is requisite for the ideal artist to +possess a force of character that seems hardly compatible with +its delicacy; he must keep his faith in himself while the +incredulous world assails him with its utter disbelief; he must +stand up against mankind and be his own sole disciple, both as +respects his genius and the objects to which it is directed. + +For a time Owen Warland succumbed to this severe but inevitable +test. He spent a few sluggish weeks with his head so continually +resting in his hands that the towns-people had scarcely an +opportunity to see his countenance. When at last it was again +uplifted to the light of day, a cold, dull, nameless change was +perceptible upon it. In the opinion of Peter Hovenden, however, +and that order of sagacious understandings who think that life +should be regulated, like clockwork, with leaden weights, the +alteration was entirely for the better. Owen now, indeed, applied +himself to business with dogged industry. It was marvellous to +witness the obtuse gravity with which he would inspect the wheels +of a great old silver watch thereby delighting the owner, in +whose fob it had been worn till he deemed it a portion of his own +life, and was accordingly jealous of its treatment. In +consequence of the good report thus acquired, Owen Warland was +invited by the proper authorities to regulate the clock in the +church steeple. He succeeded so admirably in this matter of +public interest that the merchants gruffly acknowledged his +merits on 'Change; the nurse whispered his praises as she gave +the potion in the sick-chamber; the lover blessed him at the hour +of appointed interview; and the town in general thanked Owen for +the punctuality of dinner time. In a word, the heavy weight upon +his spirits kept everything in order, not merely within his own +system, but wheresoever the iron accents of the church clock were +audible. It was a circumstance, though minute, yet characteristic +of his present state, that, when employed to engrave names or +initials on silver spoons, he now wrote the requisite letters in +the plainest possible style, omitting a variety of fanciful +flourishes that had heretofore distinguished his work in this +kind. + +One day, during the era of this happy transformation, old Peter +Hovenden came to visit his former apprentice. + +"Well, Owen," said he, "I am glad to hear such good accounts of +you from all quarters, and especially from the town clock yonder, +which speaks in your commendation every hour of the twenty-four. +Only get rid altogether of your nonsensical trash about the +beautiful, which I nor nobody else, nor yourself to boot, could +ever understand,--only free yourself of that, and your success in +life is as sure as daylight. Why, if you go on in this way, I +should even venture to let you doctor this precious old watch of +mine; though, except my daughter Annie, I have nothing else so +valuable in the world." + +"I should hardly dare touch it, sir," replied Owen, in a +depressed tone; for he was weighed down by his old master's +presence. + +"In time," said the latter,--"In time, you will be capable of +it." + +The old watchmaker, with the freedom naturally consequent on his +former authority, went on inspecting the work which Owen had in +hand at the moment, together with other matters that were in +progress. The artist, meanwhile, could scarcely lift his head. +There was nothing so antipodal to his nature as this man's cold, +unimaginative sagacity, by contact with which everything was +converted into a dream except the densest matter of the physical +world. Owen groaned in spirit and prayed fervently to be +delivered from him. + +"But what is this?" cried Peter Hovenden abruptly, taking up a +dusty bell glass, beneath which appeared a mechanical something, +as delicate and minute as the system of a butterfly's anatomy. +"What have we here? Owen! Owen! there is witchcraft in these +little chains, and wheels, and paddles. See! with one pinch of my +finger and thumb I am going to deliver you from all future +peril." + +"For Heaven's sake," screamed Owen Warland, springing up with +wonderful energy, "as you would not drive me mad, do not touch +it! The slightest pressure of your finger would ruin me forever." + +"Aha, young man! And is it so?" said the old watchmaker, looking +at him with just enough penetration to torture Owen's soul with +the bitterness of worldly criticism. "Well, take your own course; +but I warn you again that in this small piece of mechanism lives +your evil spirit. Shall I exorcise him?" + +"You are my evil spirit," answered Owen, much excited,--"you and +the hard, coarse world! The leaden thoughts and the despondency +that you fling upon me are my clogs, else I should long ago have +achieved the task that I was created for." + +Peter Hovenden shook his head, with the mixture of contempt and +indignation which mankind, of whom he was partly a +representative, deem themselves entitled to feel towards all +simpletons who seek other prizes than the dusty one along the +highway. He then took his leave, with an uplifted finger and a +sneer upon his face that haunted the artist's dreams for many a +night afterwards. At the time of his old master's visit, Owen was +probably on the point of taking up the relinquished task; but, by +this sinister event, he was thrown back into the state whence he +had been slowly emerging. + +But the innate tendency of his soul had only been accumulating +fresh vigor during its apparent sluggishness. As the summer +advanced he almost totally relinquished his business, and +permitted Father Time, so far as the old gentleman was +represented by the clocks and watches under his control, to stray +at random through human life, making infinite confusion among the +train of bewildered hours. He wasted the sunshine, as people +said, in wandering through the woods and fields and along the +banks of streams. There, like a child, he found amusement in +chasing butterflies or watching the motions of water insects. +There was something truly mysterious in the intentness with which +he contemplated these living playthings as they sported on the +breeze or examined the structure of an imperial insect whom he +had imprisoned. The chase of butterflies was an apt emblem of the +ideal pursuit in which he had spent so many golden hours; but +would the beautiful idea ever be yielded to his hand like the +butterfly that symbolized it? Sweet, doubtless, were these days, +and congenial to the artist's soul. They were full of bright +conceptions, which gleamed through his intellectual world as the +butterflies gleamed through the outward atmosphere, and were real +to him, for the instant, without the toil, and perplexity, and +many disappointments of attempting to make them visible to the +sensual eye. Alas that the artist, whether in poetry, or whatever +other material, may not content himself with the inward enjoyment +of the beautiful, but must chase the flitting mystery beyond the +verge of his ethereal domain, and crush its frail being in +seizing it with a material grasp. Owen Warland felt the impulse +to give external reality to his ideas as irresistibly as any of +the poets or painters who have arrayed the world in a dimmer and +fainter beauty, imperfectly copied from the richness of their +visions. + +The night was now his time for the slow progress of re-creating +the one idea to which all his intellectual activity referred +itself. Always at the approach of dusk he stole into the town, +locked himself within his shop, and wrought with patient delicacy +of touch for many hours. Sometimes he was startled by the rap of +the watchman, who, when all the world should be asleep, had +caught the gleam of lamplight through the crevices of Owen +Warland's shutters. Daylight, to the morbid sensibility of his +mind, seemed to have an intrusiveness that interfered with his +pursuits. On cloudy and inclement days, therefore, he sat with +his head upon his hands, muffling, as it were, his sensitive +brain in a mist of indefinite musings, for it was a relief to +escape from the sharp distinctness with which he was compelled to +shape out his thoughts during his nightly toil. + +From one of these fits of torpor he was aroused by the entrance +of Annie Hovenden, who came into the shop with the freedom of a +customer, and also with something of the familiarity of a +childish friend. She had worn a hole through her silver thimble, +and wanted Owen to repair it. + +"But I don't know whether you will condescend to such a task," +said she, laughing, "now that you are so taken up with the notion +of putting spirit into machinery." + +"Where did you get that idea, Annie?" said Owen, starting in +surprise. + +"Oh, out of my own head," answered she, "and from something that +I heard you say, long ago, when you were but a boy and I a little +child. But come, will you mend this poor thimble of mine?" + +"Anything for your sake, Annie," said Owen Warland,--"anything, +even were it to work at Robert Danforth's forge." + +"And that would be a pretty sight!" retorted Annie, glancing with +imperceptible slightness at the artist's small and slender frame. +"Well; here is the thimble." + +"But that is a strange idea of yours," said Owen, "about the +spiritualization of matter." + +And then the thought stole into his mind that this young girl +possessed the gift to comprehend him better than all the world +besides. And what a help and strength would it be to him in his +lonely toil if he could gain the sympathy of the only being whom +he loved! To persons whose pursuits are insulated from the common +business of life--who are either in advance of mankind or apart +from it--there often comes a sensation of moral cold that makes +the spirit shiver as if it had reached the frozen solitudes +around the pole. What the prophet, the poet, the reformer, the +criminal, or any other man with human yearnings, but separated +from the multitude by a peculiar lot, might feel, poor Owen felt. + +"Annie," cried he, growing pale as death at the thought, "how +gladly would I tell you the secret of my pursuit! You, methinks, +would estimate it rightly. You, I know, would hear it with a +reverence that I must not expect from the harsh, material world." + +"Would I not? to be sure I would!" replied Annie Hovenden, +lightly laughing. "Come; explain to me quickly what is the +meaning of this little whirligig, so delicately wrought that it +might be a plaything for Queen Mab. See! I will put it in +motion." + +"Hold!" exclaimed Owen, "hold!" + +Annie had but given the slightest possible touch, with the point +of a needle, to the same minute portion of complicated machinery +which has been more than once mentioned, when the artist seized +her by the wrist with a force that made her scream aloud. She was +affrighted at the convulsion of intense rage and anguish that +writhed across his features. The next instant he let his head +sink upon his hands. + +"Go, Annie," murmured he; "I have deceived myself, and must +suffer for it. I yearned for sympathy, and thought, and fancied, +and dreamed that you might give it me; but you lack the talisman, +Annie, that should admit you into my secrets. That touch has +undone the toil of months and the thought of a lifetime! It was +not your fault, Annie; but you have ruined me!" + +Poor Owen Warland! He had indeed erred, yet pardonably; for if +any human spirit could have sufficiently reverenced the processes +so sacred in his eyes, it must have been a woman's. Even Annie +Hovenden, possibly might not have disappointed him had she been +enlightened by the deep intelligence of love. + +The artist spent the ensuing winter in a way that satisfied any +persons who had hitherto retained a hopeful opinion of him that +he was, in truth, irrevocably doomed to unutility as regarded the +world, and to an evil destiny on his own part. The decease of a +relative had put him in possession of a small inheritance. Thus +freed from the necessity of toil, and having lost the steadfast +influence of a great purpose,--great, at least, to him,--he +abandoned himself to habits from which it might have been +supposed the mere delicacy of his organization would have availed +to secure him. But when the ethereal portion of a man of genius +is obscured the earthly part assumes an influence the more +uncontrollable, because the character is now thrown off the +balance to which Providence had so nicely adjusted it, and which, +in coarser natures, is adjusted by some other method. Owen +Warland made proof of whatever show of bliss may be found in +riot. He looked at the world through the golden medium of wine, +and contemplated the visions that bubble up so gayly around the +brim of the glass, and that people the air with shapes of +pleasant madness, which so soon grow ghostly and forlorn. Even +when this dismal and inevitable change had taken place, the young +man might still have continued to quaff the cup of enchantments, +though its vapor did but shroud life in gloom and fill the gloom +with spectres that mocked at him. There was a certain irksomeness +of spirit, which, being real, and the deepest sensation of which +the artist was now conscious, was more intolerable than any +fantastic miseries and horrors that the abuse of wine could +summon up. In the latter case he could remember, even out of the +midst of his trouble, that all was but a delusion; in the former, +the heavy anguish was his actual life. + +From this perilous state he was redeemed by an incident which +more than one person witnessed, but of which the shrewdest could +not explain or conjecture the operation on Owen Warland's mind. +It was very simple. On a warm afternoon of spring, as the artist +sat among his riotous companions with a glass of wine before him, +a splendid butterfly flew in at the open window and fluttered +about his head. + +"Ah," exclaimed Owen, who had drank freely, "are you alive again, +child of the sun and playmate of the summer breeze, after your +dismal winter's nap? Then it is time for me to be at work!" + +And, leaving his unemptied glass upon the table, he departed and +was never known to sip another drop of wine. + +And now, again, he resumed his wanderings in the woods and +fields. It might be fancied that the bright butterfly, which had +come so spirit-like into the window as Owen sat with the rude +revellers, was indeed a spirit commissioned to recall him to the +pure, ideal life that had so etheralized him among men. It might +be fancied that he went forth to seek this spirit in its sunny +haunts; for still, as in the summer time gone by, he was seen to +steal gently up wherever a butterfly had alighted, and lose +himself in contemplation of it. When it took flight his eyes +followed the winged vision, as if its airy track would show the +path to heaven. But what could be the purpose of the unseasonable +toil, which was again resumed, as the watchman knew by the lines +of lamplight through the crevices of Owen Warland's shutters? The +towns-people had one comprehensive explanation of all these +singularities. Owen Warland had gone mad! How universally +efficacious--how satisfactory, too, and soothing to the injured +sensibility of narrowness and dulness--is this easy method of +accounting for whatever lies beyond the world's most ordinary +scope! From St. Paul's days down to our poor little Artist of the +Beautiful, the same talisman had been applied to the elucidation +of all mysteries in the words or deeds of men who spoke or acted +too wisely or too well. In Owen Warland's case the judgment of +his towns-people may have been correct. Perhaps he was mad. The +lack of sympathy--that contrast between himself and his neighbors +which took away the restraint of example--was enough to make him +so. Or possibly he had caught just so much of ethereal radiance +as served to bewilder him, in an earthly sense, by its +intermixture with the common daylight. + +One evening, when the artist had returned from a customary ramble +and had just thrown the lustre of his lamp on the delicate piece +of work so often interrupted, but still taken up again, as if his +fate were embodied in its mechanism, he was surprised by the +entrance of old Peter Hovenden. Owen never met this man without a +shrinking of the heart. Of all the world he was most terrible, by +reason of a keen understanding which saw so distinctly what it +did see, and disbelieved so uncompromisingly in what it could not +see. On this occasion the old watchmaker had merely a gracious +word or two to say. + +"Owen, my lad," said he, "we must see you at my house to-morrow +night." + +The artist began to mutter some excuse. + +"Oh, but it must be so," quoth Peter Hovenden, "for the sake of +the days when you were one of the household. What, my boy! don't +you know that my daughter Annie is engaged to Robert Danforth? +We are making an entertainment, in our humble way, to celebrate +the event." + +That little monosyllable was all he uttered; its tone seemed cold +and unconcerned to an ear like Peter Hovenden's; and yet there +was in it the stifled outcry of the poor artist's heart, which he +compressed within him like a man holding down an evil spirit. One +slight outbreak. however, imperceptible to the old watchmaker, he +allowed himself. Raising the instrument with which he was about +to begin his work, he let it fall upon the little system of +machinery that had, anew, cost him months of thought and toil. It +was shattered by the stroke! + +Owen Warland's story would have been no tolerable representation +of the troubled life of those who strive to create the beautiful, +if, amid all other thwarting influences, love had not interposed +to steal the cunning from his hand. Outwardly he had been no +ardent or enterprising lover; the career of his passion had +confined its tumults and vicissitudes so entirely within the +artist's imagination that Annie herself had scarcely more than a +woman's intuitive perception of it; but, in Owen's view, it +covered the whole field of his life. Forgetful of the time when +she had shown herself incapable of any deep response, he had +persisted in connecting all his dreams of artistical success with +Annie's image; she was the visible shape in which the spiritual +power that he worshipped, and on whose altar he hoped to lay a +not unworthy offering, was made manifest to him. Of course he had +deceived himself; there were no such attributes in Annie Hovenden +as his imagination had endowed her with. She, in the aspect which +she wore to his inward vision, was as much a creature of his own +as the mysterious piece of mechanism would be were it ever +realized. Had he become convinced of his mistake through the +medium of successful love,--had he won Annie to his bosom, and +there beheld her fade from angel into ordinary woman,--the +disappointment might have driven him back, with concentrated +energy, upon his sole remaining object. On the other hand, had he +found Annie what he fancied, his lot would have been so rich in +beauty that out of its mere redundancy he might have wrought the +beautiful into many a worthier type than he had toiled for; but +the guise in which his sorrow came to him, the sense that the +angel of his life had been snatched away and given to a rude man +of earth and iron, who could neither need nor appreciate her +ministrations,--this was the very perversity of fate that makes +human existence appear too absurd and contradictory to be the +scene of one other hope or one other fear. There was nothing left +for Owen Warland but to sit down like a man that had been +stunned. + +He went through a fit of illness. After his recovery his small +and slender frame assumed an obtuser garniture of flesh than it +had ever before worn. His thin cheeks became round; his delicate +little hand, so spiritually fashioned to achieve fairy task-work, +grew plumper than the hand of a thriving infant. His aspect had a +childishness such as might have induced a stranger to pat him on +the head--pausing, however, in the act, to wonder what manner of +child was here. It was as if the spirit had gone out of him, +leaving the body to flourish in a sort of vegetable existence. +Not that Owen Warland was idiotic. He could talk, and not +irrationally. Somewhat of a babbler, indeed, did people begin to +think him; for he was apt to discourse at wearisome length of +marvels of mechanism that he had read about in books, but which +he had learned to consider as absolutely fabulous. Among them he +enumerated the Man of Brass, constructed by Albertus Magnus, and +the Brazen Head of Friar Bacon; and, coming down to later times, +the automata of a little coach and horses, which it was pretended +had been manufactured for the Dauphin of France; together with an +insect that buzzed about the ear like a living fly, and yet was +but a contrivance of minute steel springs. There was a story, +too, of a duck that waddled, and quacked, and ate; though, had +any honest citizen purchased it for dinner, he would have found +himself cheated with the mere mechanical apparition of a duck. + +"But all these accounts," said Owen Warland, "I am now satisfied +are mere impositions." + +Then, in a mysterious way, he would confess that he once thought +differently. In his idle and dreamy days he had considered it +possible, in a certain sense, to spiritualize machinery, and to +combine with the new species of life and motion thus produced a +beauty that should attain to the ideal which Nature has proposed +to herself in all her creatures, but has never taken pains to +realize. He seemed, however, to retain no very distinct +perception either of the process of achieving this object or of +the design itself. + +"I have thrown it all aside now," he would say. "It was a dream +such as young men are always mystifying themselves with. Now that +I have acquired a little common sense, it makes me laugh to think +of it." + +Poor, poor and fallen Owen Warland! These were the symptoms that +he had ceased to be an inhabitant of the better sphere that lies +unseen around us. He had lost his faith in the invisible, and now +prided himself, as such unfortunates invariably do, in the wisdom +which rejected much that even his eye could see, and trusted +confidently in nothing but what his hand could touch. This is the +calamity of men whose spiritual part dies out of them and leaves +the grosser understanding to assimilate them more and more to the +things of which alone it can take cognizance; but in Owen Warland +the spirit was not dead nor passed away; it only slept. + +How it awoke again is not recorded. Perhaps the torpid slumber +was broken by a convulsive pain. Perhaps, as in a former +instance, the butterfly came and hovered about his head and +reinspired him,--as indeed this creature of the sunshine had +always a mysterious mission for the artist,--reinspired him with +the former purpose of his life. Whether it were pain or happiness +that thrilled through his veins, his first impulse was to thank +Heaven for rendering him again the being of thought, imagination, +and keenest sensibility that he had long ceased to be. + +"Now for my task," said he. "Never did I feel such strength for +it as now." + +Yet, strong as he felt himself, he was incited to toil the more +diligently by an anxiety lest death should surprise him in the +midst of his labors. This anxiety, perhaps, is common to all men +who set their hearts upon anything so high, in their own view of +it, that life becomes of importance only as conditional to its +accomplishment. So long as we love life for itself, we seldom +dread the losing it. When we desire life for the attainment of an +object, we recognize the frailty of its texture. But, side by +side with this sense of insecurity, there is a vital faith in our +invulnerability to the shaft of death while engaged in any task +that seems assigned by Providence as our proper thing to do, and +which the world would have cause to mourn for should we leave it +unaccomplished. Can the philosopher, big with the inspiration of +an idea that is to reform mankind, believe that he is to be +beckoned from this sensible existence at the very instant when he +is mustering his breath to speak the word of light? Should he +perish so, the weary ages may pass away--the world's, whose life +sand may fall, drop by drop--before another intellect is prepared +to develop the truth that might have been uttered then. But +history affords many an example where the most precious spirit, +at any particular epoch manifested in human shape, has gone hence +untimely, without space allowed him, so far as mortal judgment +could discern, to perform his mission on the earth. The prophet +dies, and the man of torpid heart and sluggish brain lives on. +The poet leaves his song half sung, or finishes it, beyond the +scope of mortal ears, in a celestial choir. The painter--as +Allston did--leaves half his conception on the canvas to sadden +us with its imperfect beauty, and goes to picture forth the +whole, if it be no irreverence to say so, in the hues of heaven. +But rather such incomplete designs of this life will be perfected +nowhere. This so frequent abortion of man's dearest projects must +be taken as a proof that the deeds of earth, however etherealized +by piety or genius, are without value, except as exercises and +manifestations of the spirit. In heaven, all ordinary thought is +higher and more melodious than Milton's song. Then, would he add +another verse to any strain that he had left unfinished here? + +But to return to Owen Warland. It was his fortune, good or ill, +to achieve the purpose of his life. Pass we over a long space of +intense thought, yearning effort, minute toil, and wasting +anxiety, succeeded by an instant of solitary triumph: let all +this be imagined; and then behold the artist, on a winter +evening, seeking admittance to Robert Danforth's fireside circle. +There he found the man of iron, with his massive substance +thoroughly warmed and attempered by domestic influences. And +there was Annie, too, now transformed into a matron, with much of +her husband's plain and sturdy nature, but imbued, as Owen +Warland still believed, with a finer grace, that might enable her +to be the interpreter between strength and beauty. It happened, +likewise, that old Peter Hovenden was a guest this evening at his +daughter's fireside, and it was his well-remembered expression of +keen, cold criticism that first encountered the artist's glance. + +"My old friend Owen!" cried Robert Danforth, starting up, and +compressing the artist's delicate fingers within a hand that was +accustomed to gripe bars of iron. "This is kind and neighborly to +come to us at last. I was afraid your perpetual motion had +bewitched you out of the remembrance of old times." + +"We are glad to see you," said Annie, while a blush reddened her +matronly cheek. "It was not like a friend to stay from us so +long." + +"Well, Owen," inquired the old watchmaker, as his first greeting, +"how comes on the beautiful? Have you created it at last?" + +The artist did not immediately reply, being startled by the +apparition of a young child of strength that was tumbling about +on the carpet,--a little personage who had come mysteriously out +of the infinite, but with something so sturdy and real in his +composition that he seemed moulded out of the densest substance +which earth could supply. This hopeful infant crawled towards the +new-comer, and setting himself on end, as Robert Danforth +expressed the posture, stared at Owen with a look of such +sagacious observation that the mother could not help exchanging a +proud glance with her husband. But the artist was disturbed by +the child's look, as imagining a resemblance between it and Peter +Hovenden's habitual expression. He could have fancied that the +old watchmaker was compressed into this baby shape, and looking +out of those baby eyes, and repeating, as he now did, the +malicious question: "The beautiful, Owen! How comes on the +beautiful? Have you succeeded in creating the beautiful?" + +"I have succeeded," replied the artist, with a momentary light of +triumph in his eyes and a smile of sunshine, yet steeped in such +depth of thought that it was almost sadness. "Yes, my friends, it +is the truth. I have succeeded." + +"Indeed!" cried Annie, a look of maiden mirthfulness peeping out +of her face again. "And is it lawful, now, to inquire what the +secret is?" + +"Surely; it is to disclose it that I have come," answered Owen +Warland. "You shall know, and see, and touch, and possess the +secret! For, Annie,--if by that name I may still address the +friend of my boyish years,--Annie, it is for your bridal gift +that I have wrought this spiritualized mechanism, this harmony of +motion, this mystery of beauty. It comes late, indeed; but it is +as we go onward in life, when objects begin to lose their +freshness of hue and our souls their delicacy of perception, that +the spirit of beauty is most needed. If,--forgive me, Annie,--if +you know how--to value this gift, it can never come too late." + +He produced, as he spoke, what seemed a jewel box. It was carved +richly out of ebony by his own hand, and inlaid with a fanciful +tracery of pearl, representing a boy in pursuit of a butterfly, +which, elsewhere, had become a winged spirit, and was flying +heavenward; while the boy, or youth, had found such efficacy in +his strong desire that he ascended from earth to cloud, and from +cloud to celestial atmosphere, to win the beautiful. This case of +ebony the artist opened, and bade Annie place her fingers on its +edge. She did so, but almost screamed as a butterfly fluttered +forth, and, alighting on her finger's tip, sat waving the ample +magnificence of its purple and gold-speckled wings, as if in +prelude to a flight. It is impossible to express by words the +glory, the splendor, the delicate gorgeousness which were +softened into the beauty of this object. Nature's ideal butterfly +was here realized in all its perfection; not in the pattern of +such faded insects as flit among earthly flowers, but of those +which hover across the meads of paradise for child-angels and the +spirits of departed infants to disport themselves with. The rich +down was visible upon its wings; the lustre of its eyes seemed +instinct with spirit. The firelight glimmered around this +wonder--the candles gleamed upon it; but it glistened apparently +by its own radiance, and illuminated the finger and outstretched +hand on which it rested with a white gleam like that of precious +stones. In its perfect beauty, the consideration of size was +entirely lost. Had its wings overreached the firmament, the mind +could not have been more filled or satisfied. + +"Beautiful! beautiful!" exclaimed Annie. "Is it alive? Is it +alive?" + +"Alive? To be sure it is," answered her husband. "Do you suppose +any mortal has skill enough to make a butterfly, or would put +himself to the trouble of making one, when any child may catch a +score of them in a summer's afternoon? Alive? Certainly! But this +pretty box is undoubtedly of our friend Owen's manufacture; and +really it does him credit." + +At this moment the butterfly waved its wings anew, with a motion +so absolutely lifelike that Annie was startled, and even +awestricken; for, in spite of her husband's opinion, she could +not satisfy herself whether it was indeed a living creature or a +piece of wondrous mechanism. + +"Is it alive?" she repeated, more earnestly than before. + +"Judge for yourself," said Owen Warland, who stood gazing in her +face with fixed attention. + +The butterfly now flung itself upon the air, fluttered round +Annie's head, and soared into a distant region of the parlor, +still making itself perceptible to sight by the starry gleam in +which the motion of its wings enveloped it. The infant on the +floor followed its course with his sagacious little eyes. After +flying about the room, it returned in a spiral curve and settled +again on Annie's finger. + +"But is it alive?" exclaimed she again; and the finger on which +the gorgeous mystery had alighted was so tremulous that the +butterfly was forced to balance himself with his wings. "Tell me +if it be alive, or whether you created it." + +"Wherefore ask who created it, so it be beautiful?" replied Owen +Warland. "Alive? Yes, Annie; it may well be said to possess +life, for it has absorbed my own being into itself; and in the +secret of that butterfly, and in its beauty,--which is not merely +outward, but deep as its whole system,--is represented the +intellect, the imagination, the sensibility, the soul of an +Artist of the Beautiful! Yes; I created it. But"--and here his +countenance somewhat changed--"this butterfly is not now to me +what it was when I beheld it afar off in the daydreams of my +youth." + +"Be it what it may, it is a pretty plaything," said the +blacksmith, grinning with childlike delight. "I wonder whether it +would condescend to alight on such a great clumsy finger as mine? +Hold it hither, Annie." + +By the artist's direction, Annie touched her finger's tip to that +of her husband; and, after a momentary delay, the butterfly +fluttered from one to the other. It preluded a second flight by a +similar, yet not precisely the same, waving of wings as in the +first experiment; then, ascending from the blacksmith's stalwart +finger, it rose in a gradually enlarging curve to the ceiling, +made one wide sweep around the room, and returned with an +undulating movement to the point whence it had started. + +"Well, that does beat all nature!" cried Robert Danforth, +bestowing the heartiest praise that he could find expression for; +and, indeed, had he paused there, a man of finer words and nicer +perception could not easily have said more. "That goes beyond me, +I confess. But what then? There is more real use in one downright +blow of my sledge hammer than in the whole five years' labor that +our friend Owen has wasted on this butterfly." + +Here the child clapped his hands and made a great babble of +indistinct utterance, apparently demanding that the butterfly +should be given him for a plaything. + +Owen Warland, meanwhile, glanced sidelong at Annie, to discover +whether she sympathized in her husband's estimate of the +comparative value of the beautiful and the practical. There was, +amid all her kindness towards himself, amid all the wonder and +admiration with which she contemplated the marvellous work of his +hands and incarnation of his idea, a secret scorn--too secret, +perhaps, for her own consciousness, and perceptible only to such +intuitive discernment as that of the artist. But Owen, in the +latter stages of his pursuit, had risen out of the region in +which such a discovery might have been torture. He knew that the +world, and Annie as the representative of the world, whatever +praise might be bestowed, could never say the fitting word nor +feel the fitting sentiment which should be the perfect recompense +of an artist who, symbolizing a lofty moral by a material +trifle,--converting what was earthly to spiritual gold,--had won +the beautiful into his handiwork. Not at this latest moment was +he to learn that the reward of all high performance must be +sought within itself, or sought in vain. There was, however, a +view of the matter which Annie and her husband, and even Peter +Hovenden, might fully have understood, and which would have +satisfied them that the toil of years had here been worthily +bestowed. Owen Warland might have told them that this butterfly, +this plaything, this bridal gift of a poor watchmaker to a +blacksmith's wife, was, in truth, a gem of art that a monarch +would have purchased with honors and abundant wealth, and have +treasured it among the jewels of his kingdom as the most unique +and wondrous of them all. But the artist smiled and kept the +secret to himself . + +"Father," said Annie, thinking that a word of praise from the old +watchmaker might gratify his former apprentice, "do come and +admire this pretty butterfly." + +"Let us see," said Peter Hovenden, rising from his chair, with a +sneer upon his face that always made people doubt, as he himself +did, in everything but a material existence. "Here is my finger +for it to alight upon. I shall understand it better when once I +have touched it." + +But, to the increased astonishment of Annie, when the tip of her +father's finger was pressed against that of her husband, on which +the butterfly still rested, the insect drooped its wings and +seemed on the point of falling to the floor. Even the bright +spots of gold upon its wings and body, unless her eyes deceived +her, grew dim, and the glowing purple took a dusky hue, and the +starry lustre that gleamed around the blacksmith's hand became +faint and vanished. + +"It is dying! it is dying!" cried Annie, in alarm. + +"It has been delicately wrought," said the artist, calmly. "As I +told you, it has imbibed a spiritual essence--call it magnetism, +or what you will. In an atmosphere of doubt and mockery its +exquisite susceptibility suffers torture, as does the soul of him +who instilled his own life into it. It has already lost its +beauty; in a few moments more its mechanism would be irreparably +injured." + +"Take away your hand, father!" entreated Annie, turning pale. +"Here is my child; let it rest on his innocent hand. There, +perhaps, its life will revive and its colors grow brighter than +ever." + +Her father, with an acrid smile, withdrew his finger. The +butterfly then appeared to recover the power of voluntary motion, +while its hues assumed much of their original lustre, and the +gleam of starlight, which was its most ethereal attribute, again +formed a halo round about it. At first, when transferred from +Robert Danforth's hand to the small finger of the child, this +radiance grew so powerful that it positively threw the little +fellow's shadow back against the wall. He, meanwhile, extended +his plump hand as he had seen his father and mother do, and +watched the waving of the insect's wings with infantine delight. +Nevertheless, there was a certain odd expression of sagacity that +made Owen Warland feel as if here were old Pete Hovenden, +partially, and but partially, redeemed from his hard scepticism +into childish faith. + +"How wise the little monkey looks!" whispered Robert Danforth to +his wife. + +"I never saw such a look on a child's face," answered Annie, +admiring her own infant, and with good reason, far more than the +artistic butterfly. "The darling knows more of the mystery than +we do." + +As if the butterfly, like the artist, were conscious of something +not entirely congenial in the child's nature, it alternately +sparkled and grew dim. At length it arose from the small hand of +the infant with an airy motion that seemed to bear it upward +without an effort, as if the ethereal instincts with which its +master's spirit had endowed it impelled this fair vision +involuntarily to a higher sphere. Had there been no obstruction, +it might have soared into the sky and grown immortal. But its +lustre gleamed upon the ceiling; the exquisite texture of its +wings brushed against that earthly medium; and a sparkle or two, +as of stardust, floated downward and lay glimmering on the +carpet. Then the butterfly came fluttering down, and, instead of +returning to the infant, was apparently attracted towards the +artist's hand. + +"Not so! not so!" murmured Owen Warland, as if his handiwork +could have understood him. "Thou has gone forth out of thy +master's heart. There is no return for thee." + +With a wavering movement, and emitting a tremulous radiance, the +butterfly struggled, as it were, towards the infant, and was +about to alight upon his finger; but while it still hovered in +the air, the little child of strength, with his grandsire's sharp +and shrewd expression in his face, made a snatch at the +marvellous insect and compressed it in his hand. Annie screamed. +Old Peter Hovenden burst into a cold and scornful laugh. The +blacksmith, by main force, unclosed the infant's hand, and found +within the palm a small heap of glittering fragments, whence the +mystery of beauty had fled forever. And as for Owen Warland, he +looked placidly at what seemed the ruin of his life's labor, and +which was yet no ruin. He had caught a far other butterfly than +this. When the artist rose high enough to achieve the beautiful, +the symbol by which he made it perceptible to mortal senses +became of little value in his eyes while his spirit possessed +itself in the enjoyment of the reality. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etexts from From Mosses From An Old Manse + diff --git a/old/manse10.zip b/old/manse10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7d82672 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/manse10.zip |
