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diff --git a/old/manse10.txt b/old/manse10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b4d672c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/manse10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8197 @@ +*****Project Gutenberg Etexts from Mosses From An Old Manse***** +#4 in our series by Nathaniel Hawthorne + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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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 + |