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+<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Monsieur du Miroir, by Nathaniel Hawthorne</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
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+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Monsieur du Miroir</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: September 6, 2003 [eBook #9225]<br />
+[Most recently updated: November 9, 2022]</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div>
+<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: David Widger and Al Haines</div>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MONSIEUR DU MIROIR ***</div>
+
+<h1>Monsieur du Miroir</h1>
+
+<h2 class="no-break">by Nathaniel Hawthorne</h2>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p>
+Than the gentleman above named, there is nobody, in the whole circle of my
+acquaintance, whom I have more attentively studied, yet of whom I have less
+real knowledge, beneath the surface which it pleases him to present. Being
+anxious to discover who and what he really is, and how connected with me, and
+what are to be the results to him and to myself of the joint interest which,
+without any choice on my part, seems to be permanently established between us,
+and incited, furthermore, by the propensities of a student of human nature,
+though doubtful whether Monsieur du Miroir have aught of humanity but the
+figure,&mdash;I have determined to place a few of his remarkable points before
+the public, hoping to be favored with some clew to the explanation of his
+character. Nor let the reader condemn any part of the narrative as frivolous,
+since a subject of such grave reflection diffuses its importance through the
+minutest particulars; and there is no judging beforehand what odd little
+circumstance may do the office of a blind man’s dog among the perplexities of
+this dark investigation; and however extraordinary, marvellous, preternatural,
+and utterly incredible some of the meditated disclosures may appear, I pledge
+my honor to maintain as sacred a regard to fact as if my testimony were given
+on oath and involved the dearest interests of the personage in question. Not
+that there is matter for a criminal accusation against Monsieur du Miroir, nor
+am I the man to bring it forward if there were. The chief that I complain of is
+his impenetrable mystery, which is no better than nonsense if it conceal
+anything good, and much worse in the contrary case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, if undue partialities could be supposed to influence me, Monsieur du
+Miroir might hope to profit rather than to suffer by them, for in the whole of
+our long intercourse we have seldom had the slightest disagreement; and,
+moreover, there are reasons for supposing him a near relative of mine, and
+consequently entitled to the best word that I can give him. He bears
+indisputably a strong personal resemblance to myself, and generally puts on
+mourning at the funerals of the family. On the other hand, his name would
+indicate a French descent; in which case, infinitely preferring that my blood
+should flow from a bold British and pure Puritan source, I beg leave to
+disclaim all kindred with Monsieur du Miroir. Some genealogists trace his
+origin to Spain, and dub him a knight of the order of the C<small>ABALLEROS DE
+LOS</small> E<small>SPEJOZ</small>, one of whom was overthrown by Don Quixote.
+But what says Monsieur du Miroir himself of his paternity and his fatherland?
+Not a word did he ever say about the matter; and herein, perhaps, lies one of
+his most especial reasons for maintaining such a vexatious mystery, that he
+lacks the faculty of speech to expound it. His lips are sometimes seen to move;
+his eyes and countenance are alive with shifting expression, as if
+corresponding by visible hieroglyphics to his modulated breath; and anon he
+will seem to pause with as satisfied an air as if he had been talking excellent
+sense. Good sense or bad, Monsieur du Miroir is the sole judge of his own
+conversational powers, never having whispered so much as a syllable that
+reached the ears of any other auditor. Is he really dumb? or is all the world
+deaf? or is it merely a piece of my friend’s waggery, meant for nothing but to
+make fools of us? If so, he has the joke all to himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This dumb devil which possesses Monsieur do Miroir is, I am persuaded, the sole
+reason that he does not make me the most flattering protestations of
+friendship. In many particulars&mdash;indeed, as to all his cognizable and not
+preternatural points, except that, once in a great while, I speak a word or
+two&mdash;there exists the greatest apparent sympathy between us. Such is his
+confidence in my taste that he goes astray from the general fashion and copies
+all his dresses after mine. I never try on a new garment without expecting to
+meet, Monsieur du Miroir in one of the same pattern. He has duplicates of all
+my waistcoats and cravats, shirt-bosoms of precisely a similar plait, and an
+old coat for private wear, manufactured, I suspect, by a Chinese tailor, in
+exact imitation of a beloved old coat of mine, with a facsimile, stitch by
+stitch, of a patch upon the elbow. In truth, the singular and minute
+coincidences that occur, both in the accidents of the passing day and the
+serious events of our lives, remind me of those doubtful legends of lovers, or
+twin children, twins of fate, who have lived, enjoyed, suffered, and died in
+unison, each faithfully repeating the last tremor of the other’s breath, though
+separated by vast tracts of sea and land. Strange to say, my incommodities
+belong equally to my companion, though the burden is nowise alleviated by his
+participation. The other morning, after a night of torment from the toothache,
+I met Monsieur du Miroir with such a swollen anguish in his cheek that my own
+pangs were redoubled, as were also his, if I might judge by a fresh contortion
+of his visage. All the inequalities of my spirits are communicated to him,
+causing the unfortunate Monsieur du Miroir to mope and scowl through a whole
+summer’s day, or to laugh as long, for no better reason than the gay or gloomy
+crotchets of my brain. Once we were joint sufferers of a three months’
+sickness, and met like mutual ghosts in the first days of convalescence.
+Whenever I have been in love, Monsieur du Miroir has looked passionate and
+tender; and never did my mistress discard me, but this too susceptible
+gentleman grew lackadaisical. His temper, also, rises to blood heat, fever
+heat, or boiling-water beat, according to the measure of any wrong which might
+seem to have fallen entirely on myself. I have sometimes been calmed down by
+the sight of my own inordinate wrath depicted on his frowning brow. Yet,
+however prompt in taking up my quarrels, I cannot call to mind that he ever
+struck a downright blow in my behalf; nor, in fact, do I perceive that any real
+and tangible good has resulted from his constant interference in my affairs; so
+that, in my distrustful moods, I am apt to suspect Monsieur du Miroir’s
+sympathy to be mere outward show, not a whit better nor worse than other
+people’s sympathy. Nevertheless, as mortal man must have something in the guise
+of sympathy,&mdash;and whether the true metal, or merely copper-washed, is of
+less moment,&mdash;I choose rather to content myself with Monsieur du Miroir’s,
+such as it is, than to seek the sterling coin, and perhaps miss even the
+counterfeit.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In my age of vanities I have often seen him in the ballroom, and might again
+were I to seek him there. We have encountered each other at the Tremont
+Theatre, where, however, he took his seat neither in the dress-circle, pit, nor
+upper regions, nor threw a single glance at the stage, though the brightest
+star, even Fanny Kemble herself, might be culminating there. No; this whimsical
+friend of mine chose to linger in the saloon, near one of the large
+looking-glasses which throw back their pictures of the illuminated room. He is
+so full of these unaccountable eccentricities that I never like to notice
+Monsieur du Miroir, nor to acknowledge the slightest connection with him, in
+places of public resort. He, however, has no scruple about claiming my
+acquaintance, even when his common-sense, if he had any, might teach him that I
+would as willingly exchange a nod with the Old Nick. It was but the other day
+that he got into a large brass kettle at the entrance of a hardware-store, and
+thrust his head, the moment afterwards, into a bright, new warming-pan, whence
+he gave me a most merciless look of recognition. He smiled, and so did I; but
+these childish tricks make decent people rather shy of Monsieur du Miroir, and
+subject him to more dead cuts than any other gentleman in town.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One of this singular person’s most remarkable peculiarities is his fondness for
+water, wherein he excels any temperance man whatever. His pleasure, it must be
+owned, is not so much to drink it (in which respect a very moderate quantity
+will answer his occasions) as to souse himself over head and ears wherever he
+may meet with it. Perhaps he is a merman, or born of a mermaid’s marriage with
+a mortal, and thus amphibious by hereditary right, like the children which the
+old river deities, or nymphs of fountains, gave to earthly love. When no
+cleaner bathing-place happened to be at hand, I have seen the foolish fellow in
+a horse-pond. Some times he refreshes himself in the trough of a town-pump,
+without caring what the people think about him. Often, while carefully picking
+my way along the street after a heavy shower, I have been scandalized to see
+Monsieur du Miroir, in full dress, paddling from one mud-puddle to another, and
+plunging into the filthy depths of each. Seldom have I peeped into a well
+without discerning this ridiculous gentleman at the bottom, whence he gazes up,
+as through a long telescopic tube, and probably makes discoveries among the
+stars by daylight. Wandering along lonesome paths or in pathless forests, when
+I have come to virgin fountains of which it would have been pleasant to deem
+myself the first discoverer, I have started to find Monsieur du Miroir there
+before me. The solitude seemed lonelier for his presence. I have leaned from a
+precipice that frowns over Lake George, which the French call nature’s font of
+sacramental water, and used it in their log-churches here and their cathedrals
+beyond the sea, and seen him far below in that pure element. At Niagara, too,
+where I would gladly have forgotten both myself and him, I could not help
+observing my companion in the smooth water on the very verge of the cataract
+just above the Table Rock. Were I to reach the sources of the Nile, I should
+expect to meet him there. Unless he be another Ladurlad, whose garments the
+depth of ocean could not moisten, it is difficult to conceive how he keeps
+himself in any decent pickle; though I am bound to confess that his clothes
+seem always as dry and comfortable as my own. But, as a friend, I could wish
+that he would not so often expose himself in liquor.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+All that I have hitherto related may be classed among those little personal
+oddities which agreeably diversify the surface of society, and, though they may
+sometimes annoy us, yet keep our daily intercourse fresher and livelier than if
+they were done away. By an occasional hint, however, I have endeavored to pave
+the way for stranger things to come, which, had they been disclosed at once,
+Monsieur du Miroir might have been deemed a shadow, and myself a person of no
+veracity, and this truthful history a fabulous legend. But, now that the reader
+knows me worthy of his confidence, I will begin to make him stare.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To speak frankly, then, I could bring the most astounding proofs that Monsieur
+du Miroir is at least a conjurer, if not one of that unearthly tribe with whom
+conjurers deal. He has inscrutable methods of conveying himself from place to
+place with the rapidity of the swiftest steamboat or rail-car. Brick walls and
+oaken doors and iron bolts are no impediment to his passage. Here in my
+chamber, for instance, as the evening deepens into night, I sit
+alone,&mdash;the key turned and withdrawn from the lock, the keyhole stuffed
+with paper to keep out a peevish little blast of wind. Yet, lonely as I seem,
+were I to lift one of the lamps and step five paces eastward, Monsieur du
+Miroir would be sure to meet me with a lamp also in his hand; and were I to
+take the stage-coach to-morrow, without giving him the least hint of my design,
+and post onward till the week’s end, at whatever hotel I might find myself I
+should expect to share my private apartment with this inevitable Monsieur du
+Miroir. Or, out of a mere wayward fantasy, were I to go, by moonlight, and
+stand beside the stone Pout of the Shaker Spring at Canterbury, Monsieur du
+Miroir would set forth on the same fool’s errand, and would not fail to meet me
+there. Shall I heighten the reader’s wonder? While writing these latter
+sentences, I happened to glance towards the large, round globe of one off the
+brass andirons, and lo! a miniature apparition of Monsieur du Miroir, with his
+face widened and grotesquely contorted, as if he were making fun of my
+amazement! But he has played so many of these jokes that they begin to lose
+their effect. Once, presumptuous that he was, he stole into the heaven of a
+young lady’s eyes; so that, while I gazed and was dreaming only of herself, I
+found him also in my dream. Years have so changed him since that he need never
+hope to enter those heavenly orbs again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From these veritable statements it will be readily concluded that, had Monsieur
+du Miroir played such pranks in old witch times, matters might have gone hard
+with him; at least if the constable and posse comitatus could have executed a
+warrant, or the jailer had been cunning enough to keep him. But it has often
+occurred to me as a very singular circumstance, and as betokening either a
+temperament morbidly suspicious or some weighty cause of apprehension, that he
+never trusts himself within the grasp even of his most intimate friend. If you
+step forward to meet him, he readily advances; if you offer him your hand, he
+extends his own with an air of the utmost frankness; but, though you calculate
+upon a hearty shake, you do not get hold of his little finger. Ah, this
+Monsieur du Miroir is a slippery fellow!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+These truly are matters of special admiration. After vainly endeavoring, by the
+strenuous exertion of my own wits, to gain a satisfactory insight into the
+character of Monsieur du Miroir, I had recourse to certain wise men, and also
+to books of abstruse philosophy, seeking who it was that haunted me, and why. I
+heard long lectures and read huge volumes with little profit beyond the
+knowledge that many former instances are recorded, in successive ages, of
+similar connections between ordinary mortals and beings possessing the
+attributes of Monsieur du Miroir. Some now alive, perhaps, besides myself, have
+such attendants. Would that Monsieur du Miroir could be persuaded to transfer
+his attachment to one of those, and allow some other of his race to assume the
+situation that he now holds in regard to me! If I must needs have so intrusive
+an intimate, who stares me in the face in my closest privacy, and follows me
+even to my bedchamber, I should prefer&mdash;scandal apart&mdash;the laughing
+bloom of a young girl to the dark and bearded gravity of my present companion.
+But such desires are never to be gratified. Though the members of Monsieur du
+Miroir’s family have been accused, perhaps justly, of visiting their friends
+often in splendid halls, and seldom in darksome dungeons, yet they exhibit a
+rare constancy to the objects of their first attachment, however unlovely in
+person or unamiable in disposition,&mdash;however unfortunate, or even
+infamous, and deserted by all the world besides. So will it be with my
+associate. Our fates appear inseparably blended. It is my belief, as I find him
+mingling with my earliest recollections, that we came into existence together,
+as my shadow follows me into the sunshine, and that hereafter, as heretofore,
+the brightness or gloom of my fortunes will shine upon, or darken, the face of
+Monsieur du Miroir. As we have been young together, and as it is now near the
+summer noon with both of us, so, if long life be granted, shall each count his
+own wrinkles on the other’s brow and his white hairs on the other’s head. And
+when the coffin-lid shall have closed over me and that face and form, which,
+more truly than the lover swears it to his beloved, are the sole light of his
+existence,&mdash;when they shall be laid in that dark chamber, whither his
+swift and secret footsteps cannot bring him,&mdash;then what is to become of
+poor Monsieur du Miroir? Will he have the fortitude, with my other friends, to
+take a last look at my pale countenance? Will he walk foremost in the funeral
+train? Will he come often and haunt around my grave, and weed away the nettles,
+and plant flowers amid the verdure, and scrape the moss out of the letters of
+my burial-stone? Will he linger where I have lived, to remind the neglectful
+world of one who staked much to win a name, but will not then care whether he
+lost or won?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Not thus will he prove his deep fidelity. O, what terror, if this friend of
+mine, after our last farewell, should step into the crowded street, or roam
+along our old frequented path by the still waters, or sit down in the domestic
+circle where our faces are most familiar and beloved! No; but when the rays of
+heaven shall bless me no more, nor the thoughtful lamplight gleam upon my
+studies, nor the cheerful fireside gladden the meditative man, then, his task
+fulfilled, shall this mysterious being vanish from the earth forever. He will
+pass to the dark realm of nothingness, but will not find me there.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is something fearful in bearing such a relation to a creature so
+imperfectly known, and in the idea that, to a certain extent, all which
+concerns myself will be reflected in its consequences upon him. When we feel
+that another is to share the self-same fortune with ourselves we judge more
+severely of our prospects, and withhold our confidence from that delusive magic
+which appears to shed an infallibility of happiness over our own pathway. Of
+late years, indeed, there has been much to sadden my intercourse with Monsieur
+de Miroir. Had not our union been a necessary condition of our life, we must
+have been estranged ere now. In early youth, when my affections were warm and
+free, I loved him well, and could always spend a pleasant hour in his society,
+chiefly because it gave me an excellent opinion of myself. Speechless as he
+was, Monsieur du Miroir had then a most agreeable way of calling me a handsome
+fellow; and I, of course, returned the compliment; so that, the more we kept
+each other’s company, the greater coxcombs we mutually grew. But neither of us
+need apprehend any such misfortune now. When we chance to meet,&mdash;for it is
+chance oftener than design,&mdash;each glances sadly at the other’s forehead,
+dreading wrinkles there; and at our temples, whence the hair is thinning away
+too early; and at the sunken eyes, which no longer shed a gladsome light over
+the whole face. I involuntarily peruse him as a record of my heavy youth, which
+has been wasted in sluggishness for lack of hope and impulse, or equally thrown
+away in toil that had no wise motive and has accomplished no good end. I
+perceive that the tranquil gloom of a disappointed soul has darkened through
+his countenance, where the blackness of the future seems to mingle with the
+shadows of the past, giving him the aspect of a fated man. Is it too wild a
+thought that my fate may have assumed this image of myself, and therefore
+haunts me with such inevitable pertinacity, originating every act which it
+appears to imitate, while it deludes me by pretending to share the events of
+which it is merely the emblem and the prophecy? I must banish this idea, or it
+will throw too deep an awe round my companion. At our next meeting, especially
+if it be at midnight or in solitude, I fear that I shall glance aside and
+shudder; in which case, as Monsieur du Miroir is extremely sensitive to
+ill-treatment, he also will avert his eyes and express horror or disgust.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But no; this is unworthy of me. As of old I sought his society for the
+bewitching dreams of woman’s love which he inspired, and because I fancied a
+bright fortune in his aspect, so now will I hold daily and long communion with
+hint for the sake of the stern lessons that he will teach my manhood. With
+folded arms we will sit face to face, and lengthen out our silent converse till
+a wiser cheerfulness shall have been wrought from the very texture of
+despondency. He will say, perhaps indignantly, that it befits only him to mourn
+for the decay of outward grace, which, while he possessed it, was his all. But
+have not you, he will ask, a treasure in reserve, to which every year may add
+far more value than age or death itself can snatch from that miserable clay? He
+will tell me that though the bloom of life has been nipped with a frost, yet
+the soul must not sit shivering in its cell, but bestir itself manfully, and
+kindle a genial warmth from its own exercise against; the autumnal and the
+wintry atmosphere. And I, in return, will bid him be of good cheer, nor take it
+amiss that I must blanch his locks and wrinkle him up like a wilted apple,
+since it shall be my endeavor so to beautify his face with intellect and mild
+benevolence that he shall profit immensely by the change. But here a smile will
+glimmer somewhat sadly over Monsieur du Miroir’s visage.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When this subject shall have been sufficiently discussed we may take up others
+as important. Reflecting upon his power of following me to the remotest regions
+and into the deepest privacy, I will compare the attempt to escape him to the
+hopeless race that men sometimes run with memory, or their own hearts, or their
+moral selves, which, though burdened with cares enough to crush an elephant,
+will never be one step behind. I will be self-contemplative, as nature bids me,
+and make him the picture or visible type of what I muse upon, that my mind may
+not wander so vaguely as heretofore, chasing its own shadow through a chaos and
+catching only the monsters that abide there. Then will we turn our thoughts to
+the spiritual world, of the reality of which my companions shall furnish me an
+illustration, if not an argument; for, as we have only the testimony of the eye
+to Monsieur du Miroir’s existence, while all the other senses would fail to
+inform us that such a figure stands within arm’s-length, wherefore should there
+not be beings innumerable close beside us, and filling heaven and earth with
+their multitude, yet of whom no corporeal perception can take cognizance? A
+blind man might as reasonably deny that Monsieur du Miroir exists, as we,
+because the Creator has hitherto withheld the spiritual perception, can
+therefore contend that there are no spirits. O, there are! And, at this moment,
+when the subject of which I write has grown strong within me and surrounded
+itself with those solemn and awful associations which might have seemed most
+alien to it, I could fancy that Monsieur du Miroir himself is a wanderer from
+the spiritual world, with nothing human except his delusive garment of
+visibility. Methinks I should tremble now were his wizard power of gliding
+through all impediments in search of me to place him suddenly before my eyes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Ha! What is yonder? Shape of mystery, did the tremor of my heartstrings vibrate
+to thine own, and call thee from thy home among the dancers of the northern
+lights, and shadows flung from departed sunshine, and giant spectres that
+appear on clouds at daybreak and affright the climber of the Alps? In truth it
+startled me, as I threw a wary glance eastward across the chamber, to discern
+an unbidden guest with his eyes bent on mine. The identical MONSIEUR DU MIROIR!
+Still there he sits and returns my gaze with as much of awe and curiosity as if
+he, too, had spent a solitary evening in fantastic musings and made me his
+theme. So inimitably does he counterfeit that I could almost doubt which of us
+is the visionary form, or whether each be not the other’s mystery, and both
+twin brethren of one fate, in mutually reflected spheres. O friend, canst thou
+not hear and answer me? Break down the barrier between us! Grasp my hand!
+Speak! Listen! A few words, perhaps, might satisfy the feverish yearning of my
+soul for some master-thought that should guide me through this labyrinth of
+life, teaching wherefore I was born, and how to do my task on earth, and what
+is death. Alas! Even that unreal image should forget to ape me and smile at
+these vain questions. Thus do mortals deify, as it were, a mere shadow of
+themselves, a spectre of human reason, and ask of that to unveil the mysteries
+which Divine Intelligence has revealed so far as needful to our guidance, and
+hid the rest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Farewell, Monsieur du Miroir. Of you, perhaps, as of many men, it may be
+doubted whether you are the wiser, though your whole business is
+<small>REFLECTION</small>.
+</p>
+
+</div><!--end chapter-->
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