[Illustration]




The Works of Edgar Allan Poe

by Edgar Allan Poe

IN FIVE VOLUMES

The Raven Edition


Contents

 VOLUME 1.
 PREFACE
 LIFE OF POE
 DEATH OF POE
 THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURES OF ONE HANS PFAALL
 THE GOLD-BUG
 FOUR BEASTS IN ONE—THE HOMO-CAMELEOPARD
 THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE
 THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET.(*1)
 THE BALLOON-HOAX
 MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE
 THE OVAL PORTRAIT

 VOLUME 2.
 THE PURLOINED LETTER
 THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE
 A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM.
 VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY
 MESMERIC REVELATION
 THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR
 THE BLACK CAT.
 THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER
 SILENCE—A FABLE
 THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.
 THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.
 THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE
 THE ISLAND OF THE FAY
 THE ASSIGNATION
 THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM
 THE PREMATURE BURIAL
 THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM
 LANDOR’S COTTAGE
 WILLIAM WILSO
 THE TELL-TALE HEART.
 BERENICE
 ELEONORA
 NOTES TO THE SECOND VOLUME

 VOLUME 3.
 NARRATIVE OF A. GORDON PYM
 CHAPTER 1
 CHAPTER 2
 CHAPTER 3
 CHAPTER 4
 CHAPTER 5
 CHAPTER 6
 CHAPTER 7
 CHAPTER 8
 CHAPTER 9
 CHAPTER 10
 CHAPTER 11
 CHAPTER 12
 CHAPTER 13
 CHAPTER 14
 CHAPTER 15
 CHAPTER 16
 CHAPTER 17
 CHAPTER 18
 CHAPTER 19
 CHAPTER 20
 CHAPTER 21
 CHAPTER 22
 CHAPTER 23
 CHAPTER 24
 CHAPTER 25
 NOTES TO THE THIRD VOLUME

 LIGEIA
 MORELLA
 A TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS
 THE SPECTACLES
 KING PEST
 THREE SUNDAYS IN A WEEK

 VOLUME 4.
 THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY
 LIONIZING
 X-ING A PARAGRAPH
 METZENGERSTEIN
 THE SYSTEM OF DOCTOR TARR AND PROFESSOR FETHER
 THE LITERARY LIFE OF THINGUM BOB, ESQ.
 HOW TO WRITE A BLACKWOOD ARTICLE
 A PREDICAMENT
 MYSTIFICATION
 DIDDLING
 THE ANGEL OF THE ODD
 MELLONTA TAUTA
 THE DUC DE L’OMELETTE
 THE OBLONG BOX
 LOSS OF BREATH
 THE MAN THAT WAS USED UP
 THE BUSINESS MAN
 THE LANDSCAPE GARDEN
 MAELZEL’S CHESS-PLAYER
 THE POWER OF WORDS
 THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA
 THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION
 SHADOW—A PARABLE

 VOLUME 5.
 PHILOSOPHY OF FURNITURE
 A TALE OF JERUSALEM
 THE SPHINX
 HOP-FROG
 THE MAN OF THE CROWD
 NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD
 THOU ART THE MAN
 WHY THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN WEARS HIS HAND IN A SLING
 BON-BON
 SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY
 THE POETIC PRINCIPLE
 OLD ENGLISH POETRY

 POEMS
 PREFACE
 POEMS OF LATER LIFE
 THE RAVEN
 THE BELLS
 ULALUME
 TO HELEN
 ANNABEL LEE
 A VALENTINE
 AN ENIGMA
 FOR ANNIE
 TO F——
 TO FRANCES S. OSGOOD
 ELDORADO
 TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)
 O MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)
 THE CITY IN THE SEA
 THE SLEEPER
 NOTES

 POEMS OF MANHOOD
 LENORE
 TO ONE IN PARADISE
 THE COLISEUM
 THE HAUNTED PALACE
 THE CONQUEROR WORM
 SILENCE
 DREAM-LAND
 HYMN
 TO ZANTE
 SCENES FROM “POLITIAN”
 POEMS OF YOUTH
 INTRODUCTION TO POEMS—1831
 _LETTER TO MR. B—._
 SONNET—TO SCIENCE
 AL AARAAF
 TAMERLANE
 TO HELEN
 THE VALLEY OF UNREST
 ISRAFEL
 TO ——
 TO ——
 TO THE RIVER——
 SONG
 SPIRITS OF THE DEAD
 A DREAM
 ROMANCE
 FAIRY-LAND
 THE LAKE —— TO——
 EVENING STAR
 “THE HAPPIEST DAY.”
 IMITATION
 HYMN TO ARISTOGEITON AND HARMODIUS
 DREAMS
 “IN YOUTH I HAVE KNOWN ONE”
 NOTES

 DOUBTFUL POEMS
 ALONE
 TO ISADORE
 THE VILLAGE STREET
 THE FOREST REVERIE
 NOTES




VOLUME 1.




EDGAR ALLAN POE
AN APPRECIATION

   Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
   Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
   Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
         Of “never—never more!”

      This stanza from “The Raven” was recommended by James Russell
      Lowell as an inscription upon the Baltimore monument which marks
      the resting place of Edgar Allan Poe, the most interesting and
      original figure in American letters. And, to signify that
      peculiar musical quality of Poe’s genius which inthralls every
      reader, Mr. Lowell suggested this additional verse, from the
      “Haunted Palace”:

   And all with pearl and ruby glowing
    Was the fair palace door,
   Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
    And sparkling ever more,
   A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
    Was but to sing,
   In voices of surpassing beauty,
    The wit and wisdom of their king.

      Born in poverty at Boston, January 19, 1809, dying under painful
      circumstances at Baltimore, October 7, 1849, his whole literary
      career of scarcely fifteen years a pitiful struggle for mere
      subsistence, his memory malignantly misrepresented by his
      earliest biographer, Griswold, how completely has truth at last
      routed falsehood and how magnificently has Poe come into his own.
      For “The Raven,” first published in 1845, and, within a few
      months, read, recited and parodied wherever the English language
      was spoken, the half-starved poet received $10! Less than a year
      later his brother poet, N. P. Willis, issued this touching appeal
      to the admirers of genius on behalf of the neglected author, his
      dying wife and her devoted mother, then living under very
      straitened circumstances in a little cottage at Fordham, N. Y.:

      “Here is one of the finest scholars, one of the most original men
      of genius, and one of the most industrious of the literary
      profession of our country, whose temporary suspension of labor,
      from bodily illness, drops him immediately to a level with the
      common objects of public charity. There is no intermediate
      stopping-place, no respectful shelter, where, with the delicacy
      due to genius and culture, he might secure aid, till, with
      returning health, he would resume his labors, and his unmortified
      sense of independence.”

      And this was the tribute paid by the American public to the
      master who had given to it such tales of conjuring charm, of
      witchery and mystery as “The Fall of the House of Usher” and
      “Ligeia”; such fascinating hoaxes as “The Unparalleled Adventure
      of Hans Pfaall,” “MSS. Found in a Bottle,” “A Descent Into a
      Maelstrom” and “The Balloon-Hoax”; such tales of conscience as
      “William Wilson,” “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-tale Heart,”
      wherein the retributions of remorse are portrayed with an awful
      fidelity; such tales of natural beauty as “The Island of the Fay”
      and “The Domain of Arnheim”; such marvellous studies in
      ratiocination as the “Gold-bug,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,”
      “The Purloined Letter” and “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” the
      latter, a recital of fact, demonstrating the author’s wonderful
      capability of correctly analyzing the mysteries of the human
      mind; such tales of illusion and banter as “The Premature Burial”
      and “The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether”; such bits of
      extravaganza as “The Devil in the Belfry” and “The Angel of the
      Odd”; such tales of adventure as “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon
      Pym”; such papers of keen criticism and review as won for Poe the
      enthusiastic admiration of Charles Dickens, although they made
      him many enemies among the over-puffed minor American writers so
      mercilessly exposed by him; such poems of beauty and melody as
      “The Bells,” “The Haunted Palace,” “Tamerlane,” “The City in the
      Sea” and “The Raven.” What delight for the jaded senses of the
      reader is this enchanted domain of wonder-pieces! What an
      atmosphere of beauty, music, color! What resources of
      imagination, construction, analysis and absolute art! One might
      almost sympathize with Sarah Helen Whitman, who, confessing to a
      half faith in the old superstition of the significance of
      anagrams, found, in the transposed letters of Edgar Poe’s name,
      the words “a God-peer.” His mind, she says, was indeed a “Haunted
      Palace,” echoing to the footfalls of angels and demons.

      “No man,” Poe himself wrote, “has recorded, no man has dared to
      record, the wonders of his inner life.”

      In these twentieth century days—of lavish recognition—artistic,
      popular and material—of genius, what rewards might not a Poe
      claim!

      Edgar’s father, a son of General David Poe, the American
      revolutionary patriot and friend of Lafayette, had married Mrs.
      Hopkins, an English actress, and, the match meeting with parental
      disapproval, had himself taken to the stage as a profession.
      Notwithstanding Mrs. Poe’s beauty and talent the young couple had
      a sorry struggle for existence. When Edgar, at the age of two
      years, was orphaned, the family was in the utmost destitution.
      Apparently the future poet was to be cast upon the world homeless
      and friendless. But fate decreed that a few glimmers of sunshine
      were to illumine his life, for the little fellow was adopted by
      John Allan, a wealthy merchant of Richmond, Va. A brother and
      sister, the remaining children, were cared for by others.

      In his new home Edgar found all the luxury and advantages money
      could provide. He was petted, spoiled and shown off to strangers.
      In Mrs. Allan he found all the affection a childless wife could
      bestow. Mr. Allan took much pride in the captivating, precocious
      lad. At the age of five the boy recited, with fine effect,
      passages of English poetry to the visitors at the Allan house.

      From his eighth to his thirteenth year he attended the Manor
      House school, at Stoke-Newington, a suburb of London. It was the
      Rev. Dr. Bransby, head of the school, whom Poe so quaintly
      portrayed in “William Wilson.” Returning to Richmond in 1820
      Edgar was sent to the school of Professor Joseph H. Clarke. He
      proved an apt pupil. Years afterward Professor Clarke thus wrote:

      “While the other boys wrote mere mechanical verses, Poe wrote
      genuine poetry; the boy was a born poet. As a scholar he was
      ambitious to excel. He was remarkable for self-respect, without
      haughtiness. He had a sensitive and tender heart and would do
      anything for a friend. His nature was entirely free from
      selfishness.”

      At the age of seventeen Poe entered the University of Virginia at
      Charlottesville. He left that institution after one session.
      Official records prove that he was not expelled. On the contrary,
      he gained a creditable record as a student, although it is
      admitted that he contracted debts and had “an ungovernable
      passion for card-playing.” These debts may have led to his
      quarrel with Mr. Allan which eventually compelled him to make his
      own way in the world.

      Early in 1827 Poe made his first literary venture. He induced
      Calvin Thomas, a poor and youthful printer, to publish a small
      volume of his verses under the title “Tamerlane and Other Poems.”
      In 1829 we find Poe in Baltimore with another manuscript volume
      of verses, which was soon published. Its title was “Al Aaraaf,
      Tamerlane and Other Poems.” Neither of these ventures seems to
      have attracted much attention.

      Soon after Mrs. Allan’s death, which occurred in 1829, Poe,
      through the aid of Mr. Allan, secured admission to the United
      States Military Academy at West Point. Any glamour which may have
      attached to cadet life in Poe’s eyes was speedily lost, for
      discipline at West Point was never so severe nor were the
      accommodations ever so poor. Poe’s bent was more and more toward
      literature. Life at the academy daily became increasingly
      distasteful. Soon he began to purposely neglect his studies and
      to disregard his duties, his aim being to secure his dismissal
      from the United States service. In this he succeeded. On March 7,
      1831, Poe found himself free. Mr. Allan’s second marriage had
      thrown the lad on his own resources. His literary career was to
      begin.

      Poe’s first genuine victory was won in 1833, when he was the
      successful competitor for a prize of $100 offered by a Baltimore
      periodical for the best prose story. “A MSS. Found in a Bottle”
      was the winning tale. Poe had submitted six stories in a volume.
      “Our only difficulty,” says Mr. Latrobe, one of the judges, “was
      in selecting from the rich contents of the volume.”

      During the fifteen years of his literary life Poe was connected
      with various newspapers and magazines in Richmond, Philadelphia
      and New York. He was faithful, punctual, industrious, thorough.
      N. P. Willis, who for some time employed Poe as critic and
      sub-editor on the “Evening Mirror,” wrote thus:

      “With the highest admiration for Poe’s genius, and a willingness
      to let it alone for more than ordinary irregularity, we were led
      by common report to expect a very capricious attention to his
      duties, and occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time
      went on, however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious.
      We saw but one presentiment of the man—a quiet, patient,
      industrious and most gentlemanly person.

      “We heard, from one who knew him well (what should be stated in
      all mention of his lamentable irregularities), that with a single
      glass of wine his whole nature was reversed, the demon became
      uppermost, and, though none of the usual signs of intoxication
      were visible, his will was palpably insane. In this reversed
      character, we repeat, it was never our chance to meet him.”

      On September 22, 1835, Poe married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, in
      Baltimore. She had barely turned thirteen years, Poe himself was
      but twenty-six. He then was a resident of Richmond and a regular
      contributor to the “Southern Literary Messenger.” It was not
      until a year later that the bride and her widowed mother followed
      him thither.

      Poe’s devotion to his child-wife was one of the most beautiful
      features of his life. Many of his famous poetic productions were
      inspired by her beauty and charm. Consumption had marked her for
      its victim, and the constant efforts of husband and mother were
      to secure for her all the comfort and happiness their slender
      means permitted. Virginia died January 30, 1847, when but
      twenty-five years of age. A friend of the family pictures the
      death-bed scene—mother and husband trying to impart warmth to her
      by chafing her hands and her feet, while her pet cat was suffered
      to nestle upon her bosom for the sake of added warmth.

      These verses from “Annabel Lee,” written by Poe in 1849, the last
      year of his life, tell of his sorrow at the loss of his
      child-wife:

     _I_ was a child and _she_ was a child,
    In a kingdom by the sea;
     But we loved with a love that was more than love—
    I and my Annabel Lee;
     With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
    Coveted her and me.
     And this was the reason that, long ago,
    In this kingdom by the sea.
     A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
    My beautiful Annabel Lee;
     So that her high-born kinsmen came
    And bore her away from me,
     To shut her up in a sepulchre
    In this kingdom by the sea.

      Poe was connected at various times and in various capacities with
      the “Southern Literary Messenger” in Richmond, Va.; “Graham’s
      Magazine” and the “Gentleman’s Magazine” in Philadelphia; the
      “Evening Mirror,” the “Broadway Journal,” and “Godey’s Lady’s
      Book” in New York. Everywhere Poe’s life was one of unremitting
      toil. No tales and poems were ever produced at a greater cost of
      brain and spirit.

      Poe’s initial salary with the “Southern Literary Messenger,” to
      which he contributed the first drafts of a number of his
      best-known tales, was $10 a week! Two years later his salary was
      but $600 a year. Even in 1844, when his literary reputation was
      established securely, he wrote to a friend expressing his
      pleasure because a magazine to which he was to contribute had
      agreed to pay him $20 monthly for two pages of criticism.

      Those were discouraging times in American literature, but Poe
      never lost faith. He was finally to triumph wherever pre-eminent
      talents win admirers. His genius has had no better description
      than in this stanza from William Winter’s poem, read at the
      dedication exercises of the Actors’ Monument to Poe, May 4, 1885,
      in New York:

     He was the voice of beauty and of woe,
     Passion and mystery and the dread unknown;
     Pure as the mountains of perpetual snow,
     Cold as the icy winds that round them moan,
     Dark as the caves wherein earth’s thunders groan,
     Wild as the tempests of the upper sky,
     Sweet as the faint, far-off celestial tone of angel whispers,
     fluttering from on high,
     And tender as love’s tear when youth and beauty die.

      In the two and a half score years that have elapsed since Poe’s
      death he has come fully into his own. For a while Griswold’s
      malignant misrepresentations colored the public estimate of Poe
      as man and as writer. But, thanks to J. H. Ingram, W. F. Gill,
      Eugene Didier, Sarah Helen Whitman and others these scandals have
      been dispelled and Poe is seen as he actually was—not as a man
      without failings, it is true, but as the finest and most original
      genius in American letters. As the years go on his fame
      increases. His works have been translated into many foreign
      languages. His is a household name in France and England—in fact,
      the latter nation has often uttered the reproach that Poe’s own
      country has been slow to appreciate him. But that reproach, if it
      ever was warranted, certainly is untrue.

W. H. R.




EDGAR ALLAN POE


By James Russell Lowell

      The situation of American literature is anomalous. It has no
      centre, or, if it have, it is like that of the sphere of Hermes.
      It is divided into many systems, each revolving round its several
      suns, and often presenting to the rest only the faint glimmer of
      a milk-and-water way. Our capital city, unlike London or Paris,
      is not a great central heart from which life and vigor radiate to
      the extremities, but resembles more an isolated umbilicus stuck
      down as near as may be to the centre of the land, and seeming
      rather to tell a legend of former usefulness than to serve any
      present need. Boston, New York, Philadelphia, each has its
      literature almost more distinct than those of the different
      dialects of Germany; and the Young Queen of the West has also one
      of her own, of which some articulate rumor barely has reached us
      dwellers by the Atlantic.

      Perhaps there is no task more difficult than the just criticism
      of contemporary literature. It is even more grateful to give
      praise where it is needed than where it is deserved, and
      friendship so often seduces the iron stylus of justice into a
      vague flourish, that she writes what seems rather like an epitaph
      than a criticism. Yet if praise be given as an alms, we could not
      drop so poisonous a one into any man’s hat. The critic’s ink may
      suffer equally from too large an infusion of nutgalls or of
      sugar. But it is easier to be generous than to be just, and we
      might readily put faith in that fabulous direction to the hiding
      place of truth, did we judge from the amount of water which we
      usually find mixed with it.

      Remarkable experiences are usually confined to the inner life of
      imaginative men, but Mr. Poe’s biography displays a vicissitude
      and peculiarity of interest such as is rarely met with. The
      offspring of a romantic marriage, and left an orphan at an early
      age, he was adopted by Mr. Allan, a wealthy Virginian, whose
      barren marriage-bed seemed the warranty of a large estate to the
      young poet.

      Having received a classical education in England, he returned
      home and entered the University of Virginia, where, after an
      extravagant course, followed by reformation at the last
      extremity, he was graduated with the highest honors of his class.
      Then came a boyish attempt to join the fortunes of the insurgent
      Greeks, which ended at St. Petersburg, where he got into
      difficulties through want of a passport, from which he was
      rescued by the American consul and sent home. He now entered the
      military academy at West Point, from which he obtained a
      dismissal on hearing of the birth of a son to his adopted father,
      by a second marriage, an event which cut off his expectations as
      an heir. The death of Mr. Allan, in whose will his name was not
      mentioned, soon after relieved him of all doubt in this regard,
      and he committed himself at once to authorship for a support.
      Previously to this, however, he had published (in 1827) a small
      volume of poems, which soon ran through three editions, and
      excited high expectations of its author’s future distinction in
      the minds of many competent judges.

      That no certain augury can be drawn from a poet’s earliest
      lispings there are instances enough to prove. Shakespeare’s first
      poems, though brimful of vigor and youth and picturesqueness,
      give but a very faint promise of the directness, condensation and
      overflowing moral of his maturer works. Perhaps, however,
      Shakespeare is hardly a case in point, his “Venus and Adonis”
      having been published, we believe, in his twenty-sixth year.
      Milton’s Latin verses show tenderness, a fine eye for nature, and
      a delicate appreciation of classic models, but give no hint of
      the author of a new style in poetry. Pope’s youthful pieces have
      all the sing-song, wholly unrelieved by the glittering malignity
      and eloquent irreligion of his later productions. Collins’ callow
      namby-pamby died and gave no sign of the vigorous and original
      genius which he afterward displayed. We have never thought that
      the world lost more in the “marvellous boy,” Chatterton, than a
      very ingenious imitator of obscure and antiquated dulness. Where
      he becomes original (as it is called), the interest of ingenuity
      ceases and he becomes stupid. Kirke White’s promises were
      indorsed by the respectable name of Mr. Southey, but surely with
      no authority from Apollo. They have the merit of a traditional
      piety, which to our mind, if uttered at all, had been less
      objectionable in the retired closet of a diary, and in the sober
      raiment of prose. They do not clutch hold of the memory with the
      drowning pertinacity of Watts; neither have they the interest of
      his occasional simple, lucky beauty. Burns having fortunately
      been rescued by his humble station from the contaminating society
      of the “Best models,” wrote well and naturally from the first.
      Had he been unfortunate enough to have had an educated taste, we
      should have had a series of poems from which, as from his
      letters, we could sift here and there a kernel from the mass of
      chaff. Coleridge’s youthful efforts give no promise whatever of
      that poetical genius which produced at once the wildest,
      tenderest, most original and most purely imaginative poems of
      modern times. Byron’s “Hours of Idleness” would never find a
      reader except from an intrepid and indefatigable curiosity. In
      Wordsworth’s first preludings there is but a dim foreboding of
      the creator of an era. From Southey’s early poems, a safer augury
      might have been drawn. They show the patient investigator, the
      close student of history, and the unwearied explorer of the
      beauties of predecessors, but they give no assurances of a man
      who should add aught to stock of household words, or to the rarer
      and more sacred delights of the fireside or the arbor. The
      earliest specimens of Shelley’s poetic mind already, also, give
      tokens of that ethereal sublimation in which the spirit seems to
      soar above the regions of words, but leaves its body, the verse,
      to be entombed, without hope of resurrection, in a mass of them.
      Cowley is generally instanced as a wonder of precocity. But his
      early insipidities show only a capacity for rhyming and for the
      metrical arrangement of certain conventional combinations of
      words, a capacity wholly dependent on a delicate physical
      organization, and an unhappy memory. An early poem is only
      remarkable when it displays an effort of _reason,_ and the rudest
      verses in which we can trace some conception of the ends of
      poetry, are worth all the miracles of smooth juvenile
      versification. A school-boy, one would say, might acquire the
      regular see-saw of Pope merely by an association with the motion
      of the play-ground tilt.

      Mr. Poe’s early productions show that he could see through the
      verse to the spirit beneath, and that he already had a feeling
      that all the life and grace of the one must depend on and be
      modulated by the will of the other. We call them the most
      remarkable boyish poems that we have ever read. We know of none
      that can compare with them for maturity of purpose, and a nice
      understanding of the effects of language and metre. Such pieces
      are only valuable when they display what we can only express by
      the contradictory phrase of _innate experience._ We copy one of
      the shorter poems, written when the author was only fourteen.
      There is a little dimness in the filling up, but the grace and
      symmetry of the outline are such as few poets ever attain. There
      is a smack of ambrosia about it.

     TO HELEN

Helen, thy beauty is to me
    Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
    The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
    Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
    To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
    How statue-like I see thee stand!
The agate lamp within thy hand,
    Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

      It is the tendency of the young poet that impresses us. Here is
      no “withering scorn,” no heart “blighted” ere it has safely got
      into its teens, none of the drawing-room sansculottism which
      Byron had brought into vogue. All is limpid and serene, with a
      pleasant dash of the Greek Helicon in it. The melody of the
      whole, too, is remarkable. It is not of that kind which can be
      demonstrated arithmetically upon the tips of the fingers. It is
      of that finer sort which the inner ear alone _can_ estimate. It
      seems simple, like a Greek column, because of its perfection. In
      a poem named “Ligeia,” under which title he intended to personify
      the music of nature, our boy-poet gives us the following
      exquisite picture:

    Ligeia! Ligeia!
My beautiful one,
    Whose harshest idea
Will to melody run,
    Say, is it thy will,
On the breezes to toss,
    Or, capriciously still,
Like the lone albatross,
    Incumbent on night,
As she on the air,
    To keep watch with delight
On the harmony there?

      John Neal, himself a man of genius, and whose lyre has been too
      long capriciously silent, appreciated the high merit of these and
      similar passages, and drew a proud horoscope for their author.

      Mr. Poe had that indescribable something which men have agreed to
      call _genius_. No man could ever tell us precisely what it is,
      and yet there is none who is not inevitably aware of its presence
      and its power. Let talent writhe and contort itself as it may, it
      has no such magnetism. Larger of bone and sinew it may be, but
      the wings are wanting. Talent sticks fast to earth, and its most
      perfect works have still one foot of clay. Genius claims kindred
      with the very workings of Nature herself, so that a sunset shall
      seem like a quotation from Dante, and if Shakespeare be read in
      the very presence of the sea itself, his verses shall but seem
      nobler for the sublime criticism of ocean. Talent may make
      friends for itself, but only genius can give to its creations the
      divine power of winning love and veneration. Enthusiasm cannot
      cling to what itself is unenthusiastic, nor will he ever have
      disciples who has not himself impulsive zeal enough to be a
      disciple. Great wits are allied to madness only inasmuch as they
      are possessed and carried away by their demon, while talent keeps
      him, as Paracelsus did, securely prisoned in the pommel of his
      sword. To the eye of genius, the veil of the spiritual world is
      ever rent asunder that it may perceive the ministers of good and
      evil who throng continually around it. No man of mere talent ever
      flung his inkstand at the devil.

      When we say that Mr. Poe had genius, we do not mean to say that
      he has produced evidence of the highest. But to say that he
      possesses it at all is to say that he needs only zeal, industry,
      and a reverence for the trust reposed in him, to achieve the
      proudest triumphs and the greenest laurels. If we may believe the
      Longinuses and Aristotles of our newspapers, we have quite too
      many geniuses of the loftiest order to render a place among them
      at all desirable, whether for its hardness of attainment or its
      seclusion. The highest peak of our Parnassus is, according to
      these gentlemen, by far the most thickly settled portion of the
      country, a circumstance which must make it an uncomfortable
      residence for individuals of a poetical temperament, if love of
      solitude be, as immemorial tradition asserts, a necessary part of
      their idiosyncrasy.

      Mr. Poe has two of the prime qualities of genius, a faculty of
      vigorous yet minute analysis, and a wonderful fecundity of
      imagination. The first of these faculties is as needful to the
      artist in words, as a knowledge of anatomy is to the artist in
      colors or in stone. This enables him to conceive truly, to
      maintain a proper relation of parts, and to draw a correct
      outline, while the second groups, fills up and colors. Both of
      these Mr. Poe has displayed with singular distinctness in his
      prose works, the last predominating in his earlier tales, and the
      first in his later ones. In judging of the merit of an author,
      and assigning him his niche among our household gods, we have a
      right to regard him from our own point of view, and to measure
      him by our own standard. But, in estimating the amount of power
      displayed in his works, we must be governed by his own design,
      and placing them by the side of his own ideal, find how much is
      wanting. We differ from Mr. Poe in his opinions of the objects of
      art. He esteems that object to be the creation of Beauty, and
      perhaps it is only in the definition of that word that we
      disagree with him. But in what we shall say of his writings, we
      shall take his own standard as our guide. The temple of the god
      of song is equally accessible from every side, and there is room
      enough in it for all who bring offerings, or seek in oracle.

      In his tales, Mr. Poe has chosen to exhibit his power chiefly in
      that dim region which stretches from the very utmost limits of
      the probable into the weird confines of superstition and
      unreality. He combines in a very remarkable manner two faculties
      which are seldom found united; a power of influencing the mind of
      the reader by the impalpable shadows of mystery, and a minuteness
      of detail which does not leave a pin or a button unnoticed. Both
      are, in truth, the natural results of the predominating quality
      of his mind, to which we have before alluded, analysis. It is
      this which distinguishes the artist. His mind at once reaches
      forward to the effect to be produced. Having resolved to bring
      about certain emotions in the reader, he makes all subordinate
      parts tend strictly to the common centre. Even his mystery is
      mathematical to his own mind. To him X is a known quantity all
      along. In any picture that he paints he understands the chemical
      properties of all his colors. However vague some of his figures
      may seem, however formless the shadows, to him the outline is as
      clear and distinct as that of a geometrical diagram. For this
      reason Mr. Poe has no sympathy with Mysticism. The Mystic dwells
      in the mystery, is enveloped with it; it colors all his thoughts;
      it affects his optic nerve especially, and the commonest things
      get a rainbow edging from it. Mr. Poe, on the other hand, is a
      spectator _ab extra_. He analyzes, he dissects, he watches

    “with an eye serene,
     The very pulse of the machine,”

      for such it practically is to him, with wheels and cogs and
      piston-rods, all working to produce a certain end.

      This analyzing tendency of his mind balances the poetical, and by
      giving him the patience to be minute, enables him to throw a
      wonderful reality into his most unreal fancies. A monomania he
      paints with great power. He loves to dissect one of these cancers
      of the mind, and to trace all the subtle ramifications of its
      roots. In raising images of horror, also, he has strange success,
      conveying to us sometimes by a dusky hint some terrible _doubt_
      which is the secret of all horror. He leaves to imagination the
      task of finishing the picture, a task to which only she is
      competent.

     “For much imaginary work was there;
     Conceit deceitful, so compact, so kind,
     That for Achilles’ image stood his spear
     Grasped in an armed hand; himself behind
     Was left unseen, save to the eye of mind.”

      Besides the merit of conception, Mr. Poe’s writings have also
      that of form.

      His style is highly finished, graceful and truly classical. It
      would be hard to find a living author who had displayed such
      varied powers. As an example of his style we would refer to one
      of his tales, “The House of Usher,” in the first volume of his
      “Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque.” It has a singular charm
      for us, and we think that no one could read it without being
      strongly moved by its serene and sombre beauty. Had its author
      written nothing else, it would alone have been enough to stamp
      him as a man of genius, and the master of a classic style. In
      this tale occurs, perhaps, the most beautiful of his poems.

      The great masters of imagination have seldom resorted to the
      vague and the unreal as sources of effect. They have not used
      dread and horror alone, but only in combination with other
      qualities, as means of subjugating the fancies of their readers.
      The loftiest muse has ever a household and fireside charm about
      her. Mr. Poe’s secret lies mainly in the skill with which he has
      employed the strange fascination of mystery and terror. In this
      his success is so great and striking as to deserve the name of
      art, not artifice. We cannot call his materials the noblest or
      purest, but we must concede to him the highest merit of
      construction.

      As a critic, Mr. Poe was aesthetically deficient. Unerring in his
      analysis of dictions, metres and plots, he seemed wanting in the
      faculty of perceiving the profounder ethics of art. His
      criticisms are, however, distinguished for scientific precision
      and coherence of logic. They have the exactness, and at the same
      time, the coldness of mathematical demonstrations. Yet they stand
      in strikingly refreshing contrast with the vague generalisms and
      sharp personalities of the day. If deficient in warmth, they are
      also without the heat of partisanship. They are especially
      valuable as illustrating the great truth, too generally
      overlooked, that analytic power is a subordinate quality of the
      critic.

      On the whole, it may be considered certain that Mr. Poe has
      attained an individual eminence in our literature which he will
      keep. He has given proof of power and originality. He has done
      that which could only be done once with success or safety, and
      the imitation or repetition of which would produce weariness.




DEATH OF EDGAR A. POE


By N. P. Willis

      The ancient fable of two antagonistic spirits imprisoned in one
      body, equally powerful and having the complete mastery by
      turns-of one man, that is to say, inhabited by both a devil and
      an angel seems to have been realized, if all we hear is true, in
      the character of the extraordinary man whose name we have written
      above. Our own impression of the nature of Edgar A. Poe, differs
      in some important degree, however, from that which has been
      generally conveyed in the notices of his death. Let us, before
      telling what we personally know of him, copy a graphic and highly
      finished portraiture, from the pen of Dr. Rufus W. Griswold,
      which appeared in a recent number of the “Tribune”:

      “Edgar Allen Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore on Sunday, October
      7th. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved
      by it. The poet was known, personally or by reputation, in all
      this country; he had readers in England and in several of the
      states of Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends; and
      the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the
      consideration that in him literary art has lost one of its most
      brilliant but erratic stars.

      “His conversation was at times almost supramortal in its
      eloquence. His voice was modulated with astonishing skill, and
      his large and variably expressive eyes looked repose or shot
      fiery tumult into theirs who listened, while his own face glowed,
      or was changeless in pallor, as his imagination quickened his
      blood or drew it back frozen to his heart. His imagery was from
      the worlds which no mortals can see but with the vision of
      genius. Suddenly starting from a proposition, exactly and sharply
      defined, in terms of utmost simplicity and clearness, he rejected
      the forms of customary logic, and by a crystalline process of
      accretion, built up his ocular demonstrations in forms of
      gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur, or in those of the most airy
      and delicious beauty, so minutely and distinctly, yet so rapidly,
      that the attention which was yielded to him was chained till it
      stood among his wonderful creations, till he himself dissolved
      the spell, and brought his hearers back to common and base
      existence, by vulgar fancies or exhibitions of the ignoblest
      passion.

      “He was at all times a dreamer dwelling in ideal realms in heaven
      or hell peopled with the creatures and the accidents of his
      brain. He walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips
      moving in indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate
      prayer (never for himself, for he felt, or professed to feel,
      that he was already damned, but) for their happiness who at the
      moment were objects of his idolatry; or with his glances
      introverted to a heart gnawed with anguish, and with a face
      shrouded in gloom, he would brave the wildest storms, and all
      night, with drenched garments and arms beating the winds and
      rains, would speak as if the spirits that at such times only
      could be evoked by him from the Aidenn, close by whose portals
      his disturbed soul sought to forget the ills to which his
      constitution subjected him—close by the Aidenn where were those
      he loved—the Aidenn which he might never see, but in fitful
      glimpses, as its gates opened to receive the less fiery and more
      happy natures whose destiny to sin did not involve the doom of
      death.

      “He seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subjugated his will
      and engrossed his faculties, always to bear the memory of some
      controlling sorrow. The remarkable poem of ‘The Raven’ was
      probably much more nearly than has been supposed, even by those
      who were very intimate with him, a reflection and an echo of his
      own history. _He_ was that bird’s

    “‘Unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
    Of ‘Never—never more.’

      “Every genuine author in a greater or less degree leaves in his
      works, whatever their design, traces of his personal character:
      elements of his immortal being, in which the individual survives
      the person. While we read the pages of the ‘Fall of the House of
      Usher,’ or of ‘Mesmeric Revelations,’ we see in the solemn and
      stately gloom which invests one, and in the subtle metaphysical
      analysis of both, indications of the idiosyncrasies of what was
      most remarkable and peculiar in the author’s intellectual nature.
      But we see here only the better phases of his nature, only the
      symbols of his juster action, for his harsh experience had
      deprived him of all faith in man or woman. He had made up his
      mind upon the numberless complexities of the social world, and
      the whole system with him was an imposture. This conviction gave
      a direction to his shrewd and naturally unamiable character.
      Still, though he regarded society as composed altogether of
      villains, the sharpness of his intellect was not of that kind
      which enabled him to cope with villany, while it continually
      caused him by overshots to fail of the success of honesty. He was
      in many respects like Francis Vivian in Bulwer’s novel of ‘The
      Caxtons.’ Passion, in him, comprehended many of the worst
      emotions which militate against human happiness. You could not
      contradict him, but you raised quick choler; you could not speak
      of wealth, but his cheek paled with gnawing envy. The astonishing
      natural advantages of this poor boy—his beauty, his readiness,
      the daring spirit that breathed around him like a fiery
      atmosphere—had raised his constitutional self-confidence into an
      arrogance that turned his very claims to admiration into
      prejudices against him. Irascible, envious—bad enough, but not
      the worst, for these salient angles were all varnished over with
      a cold, repellant cynicism, his passions vented themselves in
      sneers. There seemed to him no moral susceptibility; and, what
      was more remarkable in a proud nature, little or nothing of the
      true point of honor. He had, to a morbid excess, that, desire to
      rise which is vulgarly called ambition, but no wish for the
      esteem or the love of his species; only the hard wish to
      succeed—not shine, not serve—succeed, that he might have the
      right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit.

      “We have suggested the influence of his aims and vicissitudes
      upon his literature. It was more conspicuous in his later than in
      his earlier writings. Nearly all that he wrote in the last two or
      three years—including much of his best poetry—was in some sense
      biographical; in draperies of his imagination, those who had
      taken the trouble to trace his steps, could perceive, but
      slightly concealed, the figure of himself.”

      Apropos of the disparaging portion of the above well-written
      sketch, let us truthfully say:

      Some four or five years since, when editing a daily paper in this
      city, Mr. Poe was employed by us, for several months, as critic
      and sub-editor. This was our first personal acquaintance with
      him. He resided with his wife and mother at Fordham, a few miles
      out of town, but was at his desk in the office, from nine in the
      morning till the evening paper went to press. With the highest
      admiration for his genius, and a willingness to let it atone for
      more than ordinary irregularity, we were led by common report to
      expect a very capricious attention to his duties, and
      occasionally a scene of violence and difficulty. Time went on,
      however, and he was invariably punctual and industrious. With his
      pale, beautiful, and intellectual face, as a reminder of what
      genius was in him, it was impossible, of course, not to treat him
      always with deferential courtesy, and, to our occasional request
      that he would not probe too deep in a criticism, or that he would
      erase a passage colored too highly with his resentments against
      society and mankind, he readily and courteously assented—far more
      yielding than most men, we thought, on points so excusably
      sensitive. With a prospect of taking the lead in another
      periodical, he, at last, voluntarily gave up his employment with
      us, and, through all this considerable period, we had seen but
      one presentment of the man—a quiet, patient, industrious, and
      most gentlemanly person, commanding the utmost respect and good
      feeling by his unvarying deportment and ability.

      Residing as he did in the country, we never met Mr. Poe in hours
      of leisure; but he frequently called on us afterward at our place
      of business, and we met him often in the street—invariably the
      same sad mannered, winning and refined gentleman, such as we had
      always known him. It was by rumor only, up to the day of his
      death, that we knew of any other development of manner or
      character. We heard, from one who knew him well (what should be
      stated in all mention of his lamentable irregularities), that,
      with a single glass of wine, his whole nature was reversed, the
      demon became uppermost, and, though none of the usual signs of
      intoxication were visible, his will was palpably insane.
      Possessing his reasoning faculties in excited activity, at such
      times, and seeking his acquaintances with his wonted look and
      memory, he easily seemed personating only another phase of his
      natural character, and was accused, accordingly, of insulting
      arrogance and bad-heartedness. In this reversed character, we
      repeat, it was never our chance to see him. We know it from
      hearsay, and we mention it in connection with this sad infirmity
      of physical constitution; which puts it upon very nearly the
      ground of a temporary and almost irresponsible insanity.

      The arrogance, vanity, and depravity of heart, of which Mr. Poe
      was generally accused, seem to us referable altogether to this
      reversed phase of his character. Under that degree of
      intoxication which only acted upon him by demonizing his sense of
      truth and right, he doubtless said and did much that was wholly
      irreconcilable with his better nature; but, when himself, and as
      we knew him only, his modesty and unaffected humility, as to his
      own deservings, were a constant charm to his character. His
      letters, of which the constant application for autographs has
      taken from us, we are sorry to confess, the greater portion,
      exhibited this quality very strongly. In one of the carelessly
      written notes of which we chance still to retain possession, for
      instance, he speaks of “The Raven”—that extraordinary poem which
      electrified the world of imaginative readers, and has become the
      type of a school of poetry of its own—and, in evident earnest,
      attributes its success to the few words of commendation with
      which we had prefaced it in this paper. It will throw light on
      his sane character to give a literal copy of the note:

“FORDHAM, _April_ 20, 1849

      “MY DEAR WILLIS—The poem which I inclose, and which I am so vain
      as to hope you will like, in some respects, has been just
      published in a paper for which sheer necessity compels me to
      write, now and then. It pays well as times go-but unquestionably
      it ought to pay ten prices; for whatever I send it I feel I am
      consigning to the tomb of the Capulets. The verses accompanying
      this, may I beg you to take out of the tomb, and bring them to
      light in the ‘Home Journal?’ If you can oblige me so far as to
      copy them, I do not think it will be necessary to say ‘From the
      ——,’ that would be too bad; and, perhaps, ‘From a late —— paper,’
      would do.

      “I have not forgotten how a ‘good word in season’ from you made
      ‘The Raven,’ and made ‘Ulalume’ (which by-the-way, people have
      done me the honor of attributing to you), therefore, I _would_
      ask you (if I dared) to say something of these lines if they
      please you.

“Truly yours ever,
“EDGAR A. POE.”

      In double proof of his earnest disposition to do the best for
      himself, and of the trustful and grateful nature which has been
      denied him, we give another of the only three of his notes which
      we chance to retain:

“FORDHAM, _January_ 22, 1848.

      “MY DEAR MR. WILLIS—I am about to make an effort at
      re-establishing myself in the literary world, and _feel_ that I
      may depend upon your aid.

      “My general aim is to start a Magazine, to be called ‘The
      Stylus,’ but it would be useless to me, even when established, if
      not entirely out of the control of a publisher. I mean,
      therefore, to get up a journal which shall be _my own_ at all
      points. With this end in view, I must get a list of at least five
      hundred subscribers to begin with; nearly two hundred I have
      already. I propose, however, to go South and West, among my
      personal and literary friends—old college and West Point
      acquaintances—and see what I can do. In order to get the means of
      taking the first step, I propose to lecture at the Society
      Library, on Thursday, the 3d of February, and, that there may be
      no cause of _squabbling_, my subject shall _not be literary_ at
      all. I have chosen a broad text: ‘The Universe.’

      “Having thus given you _the facts_ of the case, I leave all the
      rest to the suggestions of your own tact and generosity.
      Gratefully, _most gratefully,_

“Your friend always,
“EDGAR A. POE.”

      Brief and chance-taken as these letters are, we think they
      sufficiently prove the existence of the very qualities denied to
      Mr. Poe-humility, willingness to persevere, belief in another’s
      friendship, and capability of cordial and grateful friendship!
      Such he assuredly was when sane. Such only he has invariably
      seemed to us, in all we have happened personally to know of him,
      through a friendship of five or six years. And so much easier is
      it to believe what we have seen and known, than what we hear of
      only, that we remember him but with admiration and respect; these
      descriptions of him, when morally insane, seeming to us like
      portraits, painted in sickness, of a man we have only known in
      health.

      But there is another, more touching, and far more forcible
      evidence that there was _goodness_ in Edgar A. Poe. To reveal it
      we are obliged to venture upon the lifting of the veil which
      sacredly covers grief and refinement in poverty; but we think it
      may be excused, if so we can brighten the memory of the poet,
      even were there not a more needed and immediate service which it
      may render to the nearest link broken by his death.

      Our first knowledge of Mr. Poe’s removal to this city was by a
      call which we received from a lady who introduced herself to us
      as the mother of his wife. She was in search of employment for
      him, and she excused her errand by mentioning that he was ill,
      that her daughter was a confirmed invalid, and that their
      circumstances were such as compelled her taking it upon herself.
      The countenance of this lady, made beautiful and saintly with an
      evidently complete giving up of her life to privation and
      sorrowful tenderness, her gentle and mournful voice urging its
      plea, her long-forgotten but habitually and unconsciously refined
      manners, and her appealing and yet appreciative mention of the
      claims and abilities of her son, disclosed at once the presence
      of one of those angels upon earth that women in adversity can be.
      It was a hard fate that she was watching over. Mr. Poe wrote with
      fastidious difficulty, and in a style too much above the popular
      level to be well paid. He was always in pecuniary difficulty,
      and, with his sick wife, frequently in want of the merest
      necessaries of life. Winter after winter, for years, the most
      touching sight to us, in this whole city, has been that tireless
      minister to genius, thinly and insufficiently clad, going from
      office to office with a poem, or an article on some literary
      subject, to sell, sometimes simply pleading in a broken voice
      that he was ill, and begging for him, mentioning nothing but that
      “he was ill,” whatever might be the reason for his writing
      nothing, and never, amid all her tears and recitals of distress,
      suffering one syllable to escape her lips that could convey a
      doubt of him, or a complaint, or a lessening of pride in his
      genius and good intentions. Her daughter died a year and a half
      since, but she did not desert him. She continued his ministering
      angel—living with him, caring for him, guarding him against
      exposure, and when he was carried away by temptation, amid grief
      and the loneliness of feelings unreplied to, and awoke from his
      self abandonment prostrated in destitution and suffering,
      _begging_ for him still. If woman’s devotion, born with a first
      love, and fed with human passion, hallow its object, as it is
      allowed to do, what does not a devotion like this—pure,
      disinterested and holy as the watch of an invisible spirit—say
      for him who inspired it?

      We have a letter before us, written by this lady, Mrs. Clemm, on
      the morning in which she heard of the death of this object of her
      untiring care. It is merely a request that we would call upon
      her, but we will copy a few of its words—sacred as its privacy
      is—to warrant the truth of the picture we have drawn above, and
      add force to the appeal we wish to make for her:

      “I have this morning heard of the death of my darling Eddie....
      Can you give me any circumstances or particulars?... Oh! do not
      desert your poor friend in his bitter affliction!... Ask Mr. ——
      to come, as I must deliver a message to him from my poor
      Eddie.... I need not ask you to notice his death and to speak
      well of him. I know you will. But say what an affectionate son he
      was to me, his poor desolate mother...”

      To hedge round a grave with respect, what choice is there,
      between the relinquished wealth and honors of the world, and the
      story of such a woman’s unrewarded devotion! Risking what we do,
      in delicacy, by making it public, we feel—other reasons
      aside—that it betters the world to make known that there are such
      ministrations to its erring and gifted. What we have said will
      speak to some hearts. There are those who will be glad to know
      how the lamp, whose light of poetry has beamed on their far-away
      recognition, was watched over with care and pain, that they may
      send to her, who is more darkened than they by its extinction,
      some token of their sympathy. She is destitute and alone. If any,
      far or near, will send to us what may aid and cheer her through
      the remainder of her life, we will joyfully place it in her
      hands.




THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURES OF ONE HANS PFAAL (*1)


      By late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high
      state of philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there
      occurred of a nature so completely unexpected—so entirely
      novel—so utterly at variance with preconceived opinions—as to
      leave no doubt on my mind that long ere this all Europe is in an
      uproar, all physics in a ferment, all reason and astronomy
      together by the ears.

      It appears that on the—— day of—— (I am not positive about the
      date), a vast crowd of people, for purposes not specifically
      mentioned, were assembled in the great square of the Exchange in
      the well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was
      warm—unusually so for the season—there was hardly a breath of air
      stirring; and the multitude were in no bad humor at being now and
      then besprinkled with friendly showers of momentary duration,
      that fell from large white masses of cloud which chequered in a
      fitful manner the blue vault of the firmament. Nevertheless,
      about noon, a slight but remarkable agitation became apparent in
      the assembly: the clattering of ten thousand tongues succeeded;
      and, in an instant afterward, ten thousand faces were upturned
      toward the heavens, ten thousand pipes descended simultaneously
      from the corners of ten thousand mouths, and a shout, which could
      be compared to nothing but the roaring of Niagara, resounded
      long, loudly, and furiously, through all the environs of
      Rotterdam.

      The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From
      behind the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of
      cloud already mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open
      area of blue space, a queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid
      substance, so oddly shaped, so whimsically put together, as not
      to be in any manner comprehended, and never to be sufficiently
      admired, by the host of sturdy burghers who stood open-mouthed
      below. What could it be? In the name of all the vrows and devils
      in Rotterdam, what could it possibly portend? No one knew, no one
      could imagine; no one—not even the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus
      Von Underduk—had the slightest clew by which to unravel the
      mystery; so, as nothing more reasonable could be done, every one
      to a man replaced his pipe carefully in the corner of his mouth,
      and cocking up his right eye towards the phenomenon, puffed,
      paused, waddled about, and grunted significantly—then waddled
      back, grunted, paused, and finally—puffed again.

      In the meantime, however, lower and still lower toward the goodly
      city, came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so
      much smoke. In a very few minutes it arrived near enough to be
      accurately discerned. It appeared to be—yes! it was undoubtedly a
      species of balloon; but surely no such balloon had ever been seen
      in Rotterdam before. For who, let me ask, ever heard of a balloon
      manufactured entirely of dirty newspapers? No man in Holland
      certainly; yet here, under the very noses of the people, or
      rather at some distance above their noses was the identical thing
      in question, and composed, I have it on the best authority, of
      the precise material which no one had ever before known to be
      used for a similar purpose. It was an egregious insult to the
      good sense of the burghers of Rotterdam. As to the shape of the
      phenomenon, it was even still more reprehensible. Being little or
      nothing better than a huge foolscap turned upside down. And this
      similitude was regarded as by no means lessened when, upon nearer
      inspection, there was perceived a large tassel depending from its
      apex, and, around the upper rim or base of the cone, a circle of
      little instruments, resembling sheep-bells, which kept up a
      continual tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But still worse.
      Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this fantastic machine,
      there hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver hat, with a
      brim superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black
      band and a silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable
      that many citizens of Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat
      repeatedly before; and indeed the whole assembly seemed to regard
      it with eyes of familiarity; while the vrow Grettel Pfaall, upon
      sight of it, uttered an exclamation of joyful surprise, and
      declared it to be the identical hat of her good man himself. Now
      this was a circumstance the more to be observed, as Pfaall, with
      three companions, had actually disappeared from Rotterdam about
      five years before, in a very sudden and unaccountable manner, and
      up to the date of this narrative all attempts had failed of
      obtaining any intelligence concerning them whatsoever. To be
      sure, some bones which were thought to be human, mixed up with a
      quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately discovered in a
      retired situation to the east of Rotterdam, and some people went
      so far as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had been
      committed, and that the sufferers were in all probability Hans
      Pfaall and his associates. But to return.

      The balloon (for such no doubt it was) had now descended to
      within a hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a
      sufficiently distinct view of the person of its occupant. This
      was in truth a very droll little somebody. He could not have been
      more than two feet in height; but this altitude, little as it
      was, would have been sufficient to destroy his equilibrium, and
      tilt him over the edge of his tiny car, but for the intervention
      of a circular rim reaching as high as the breast, and rigged on
      to the cords of the balloon. The body of the little man was more
      than proportionately broad, giving to his entire figure a
      rotundity highly absurd. His feet, of course, could not be seen
      at all, although a horny substance of suspicious nature was
      occasionally protruded through a rent in the bottom of the car,
      or to speak more properly, in the top of the hat. His hands were
      enormously large. His hair was extremely gray, and collected into
      a queue behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and
      inflammatory; his eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and
      cheeks, although wrinkled with age, were broad, puffy, and
      double; but of ears of any kind or character there was not a
      semblance to be discovered upon any portion of his head. This odd
      little gentleman was dressed in a loose surtout of sky-blue
      satin, with tight breeches to match, fastened with silver buckles
      at the knees. His vest was of some bright yellow material; a
      white taffety cap was set jauntily on one side of his head; and,
      to complete his equipment, a blood-red silk handkerchief
      enveloped his throat, and fell down, in a dainty manner, upon his
      bosom, in a fantastic bow-knot of super-eminent dimensions.

      Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet
      from the surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was
      suddenly seized with a fit of trepidation, and appeared
      disinclined to make any nearer approach to terra firma. Throwing
      out, therefore, a quantity of sand from a canvas bag, which, he
      lifted with great difficulty, he became stationary in an instant.
      He then proceeded, in a hurried and agitated manner, to extract
      from a side-pocket in his surtout a large morocco pocket-book.
      This he poised suspiciously in his hand, then eyed it with an air
      of extreme surprise, and was evidently astonished at its weight.
      He at length opened it, and drawing there from a huge letter
      sealed with red sealing-wax and tied carefully with red tape, let
      it fall precisely at the feet of the burgomaster, Superbus Von
      Underduk. His Excellency stooped to take it up. But the aeronaut,
      still greatly discomposed, and having apparently no farther
      business to detain him in Rotterdam, began at this moment to make
      busy preparations for departure; and it being necessary to
      discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to reascend, the
      half dozen bags which he threw out, one after another, without
      taking the trouble to empty their contents, tumbled, every one of
      them, most unfortunately upon the back of the burgomaster, and
      rolled him over and over no less than one-and-twenty times, in
      the face of every man in Rotterdam. It is not to be supposed,
      however, that the great Underduk suffered this impertinence on
      the part of the little old man to pass off with impunity. It is
      said, on the contrary, that during each and every one of his
      one-and twenty circumvolutions he emitted no less than
      one-and-twenty distinct and furious whiffs from his pipe, to
      which he held fast the whole time with all his might, and to
      which he intends holding fast until the day of his death.

      In the meantime the balloon arose like a lark, and, soaring far
      away above the city, at length drifted quietly behind a cloud
      similar to that from which it had so oddly emerged, and was thus
      lost forever to the wondering eyes of the good citizens of
      Rotterdam. All attention was now directed to the letter, the
      descent of which, and the consequences attending thereupon, had
      proved so fatally subversive of both person and personal dignity
      to his Excellency, the illustrious Burgomaster Mynheer Superbus
      Von Underduk. That functionary, however, had not failed, during
      his circumgyratory movements, to bestow a thought upon the
      important subject of securing the packet in question, which was
      seen, upon inspection, to have fallen into the most proper hands,
      being actually addressed to himself and Professor Rub-a-dub, in
      their official capacities of President and Vice-President of the
      Rotterdam College of Astronomy. It was accordingly opened by
      those dignitaries upon the spot, and found to contain the
      following extraordinary, and indeed very serious, communication:

      “To their Excellencies Von Underduk and Rub-a-dub, President and
      Vice-President of the States’ College of Astronomers, in the city
      of Rotterdam.

      “Your Excellencies may perhaps be able to remember an humble
      artizan, by name Hans Pfaall, and by occupation a mender of
      bellows, who, with three others, disappeared from Rotterdam,
      about five years ago, in a manner which must have been considered
      by all parties at once sudden, and extremely unaccountable. If,
      however, it so please your Excellencies, I, the writer of this
      communication, am the identical Hans Pfaall himself. It is well
      known to most of my fellow citizens, that for the period of forty
      years I continued to occupy the little square brick building, at
      the head of the alley called Sauerkraut, in which I resided at
      the time of my disappearance. My ancestors have also resided
      therein time out of mind—they, as well as myself, steadily
      following the respectable and indeed lucrative profession of
      mending of bellows. For, to speak the truth, until of late years,
      that the heads of all the people have been set agog with
      politics, no better business than my own could an honest citizen
      of Rotterdam either desire or deserve. Credit was good,
      employment was never wanting, and on all hands there was no lack
      of either money or good-will. But, as I was saying, we soon began
      to feel the effects of liberty and long speeches, and radicalism,
      and all that sort of thing. People who were formerly, the very
      best customers in the world, had now not a moment of time to
      think of us at all. They had, so they said, as much as they could
      do to read about the revolutions, and keep up with the march of
      intellect and the spirit of the age. If a fire wanted fanning, it
      could readily be fanned with a newspaper, and as the government
      grew weaker, I have no doubt that leather and iron acquired
      durability in proportion, for, in a very short time, there was
      not a pair of bellows in all Rotterdam that ever stood in need of
      a stitch or required the assistance of a hammer. This was a state
      of things not to be endured. I soon grew as poor as a rat, and,
      having a wife and children to provide for, my burdens at length
      became intolerable, and I spent hour after hour in reflecting
      upon the most convenient method of putting an end to my life.
      Duns, in the meantime, left me little leisure for contemplation.
      My house was literally besieged from morning till night, so that
      I began to rave, and foam, and fret like a caged tiger against
      the bars of his enclosure. There were three fellows in particular
      who worried me beyond endurance, keeping watch continually about
      my door, and threatening me with the law. Upon these three I
      internally vowed the bitterest revenge, if ever I should be so
      happy as to get them within my clutches; and I believe nothing in
      the world but the pleasure of this anticipation prevented me from
      putting my plan of suicide into immediate execution, by blowing
      my brains out with a blunderbuss. I thought it best, however, to
      dissemble my wrath, and to treat them with promises and fair
      words, until, by some good turn of fate, an opportunity of
      vengeance should be afforded me.

      “One day, having given my creditors the slip, and feeling more
      than usually dejected, I continued for a long time to wander
      about the most obscure streets without object whatever, until at
      length I chanced to stumble against the corner of a bookseller’s
      stall. Seeing a chair close at hand, for the use of customers, I
      threw myself doggedly into it, and, hardly knowing why, opened
      the pages of the first volume which came within my reach. It
      proved to be a small pamphlet treatise on Speculative Astronomy,
      written either by Professor Encke of Berlin or by a Frenchman of
      somewhat similar name. I had some little tincture of information
      on matters of this nature, and soon became more and more absorbed
      in the contents of the book, reading it actually through twice
      before I awoke to a recollection of what was passing around me.
      By this time it began to grow dark, and I directed my steps
      toward home. But the treatise had made an indelible impression on
      my mind, and, as I sauntered along the dusky streets, I revolved
      carefully over in my memory the wild and sometimes unintelligible
      reasonings of the writer. There are some particular passages
      which affected my imagination in a powerful and extraordinary
      manner. The longer I meditated upon these the more intense grew
      the interest which had been excited within me. The limited nature
      of my education in general, and more especially my ignorance on
      subjects connected with natural philosophy, so far from rendering
      me diffident of my own ability to comprehend what I had read, or
      inducing me to mistrust the many vague notions which had arisen
      in consequence, merely served as a farther stimulus to
      imagination; and I was vain enough, or perhaps reasonable enough,
      to doubt whether those crude ideas which, arising in
      ill-regulated minds, have all the appearance, may not often in
      effect possess all the force, the reality, and other inherent
      properties, of instinct or intuition; whether, to proceed a step
      farther, profundity itself might not, in matters of a purely
      speculative nature, be detected as a legitimate source of falsity
      and error. In other words, I believed, and still do believe, that
      truth, is frequently of its own essence, superficial, and that,
      in many cases, the depth lies more in the abysses where we seek
      her, than in the actual situations wherein she may be found.
      Nature herself seemed to afford me corroboration of these ideas.
      In the contemplation of the heavenly bodies it struck me forcibly
      that I could not distinguish a star with nearly as much
      precision, when I gazed on it with earnest, direct and
      undeviating attention, as when I suffered my eye only to glance
      in its vicinity alone. I was not, of course, at that time aware
      that this apparent paradox was occasioned by the center of the
      visual area being less susceptible of feeble impressions of light
      than the exterior portions of the retina. This knowledge, and
      some of another kind, came afterwards in the course of an
      eventful five years, during which I have dropped the prejudices
      of my former humble situation in life, and forgotten the
      bellows-mender in far different occupations. But at the epoch of
      which I speak, the analogy which a casual observation of a star
      offered to the conclusions I had already drawn, struck me with
      the force of positive conformation, and I then finally made up my
      mind to the course which I afterwards pursued.

      “It was late when I reached home, and I went immediately to bed.
      My mind, however, was too much occupied to sleep, and I lay the
      whole night buried in meditation. Arising early in the morning,
      and contriving again to escape the vigilance of my creditors, I
      repaired eagerly to the bookseller’s stall, and laid out what
      little ready money I possessed, in the purchase of some volumes
      of Mechanics and Practical Astronomy. Having arrived at home
      safely with these, I devoted every spare moment to their perusal,
      and soon made such proficiency in studies of this nature as I
      thought sufficient for the execution of my plan. In the intervals
      of this period, I made every endeavor to conciliate the three
      creditors who had given me so much annoyance. In this I finally
      succeeded—partly by selling enough of my household furniture to
      satisfy a moiety of their claim, and partly by a promise of
      paying the balance upon completion of a little project which I
      told them I had in view, and for assistance in which I solicited
      their services. By these means—for they were ignorant men—I found
      little difficulty in gaining them over to my purpose.

      “Matters being thus arranged, I contrived, by the aid of my wife
      and with the greatest secrecy and caution, to dispose of what
      property I had remaining, and to borrow, in small sums, under
      various pretences, and without paying any attention to my future
      means of repayment, no inconsiderable quantity of ready money.
      With the means thus accruing I proceeded to procure at intervals,
      cambric muslin, very fine, in pieces of twelve yards each; twine;
      a lot of the varnish of caoutchouc; a large and deep basket of
      wicker-work, made to order; and several other articles necessary
      in the construction and equipment of a balloon of extraordinary
      dimensions. This I directed my wife to make up as soon as
      possible, and gave her all requisite information as to the
      particular method of proceeding. In the meantime I worked up the
      twine into a net-work of sufficient dimensions; rigged it with a
      hoop and the necessary cords; bought a quadrant, a compass, a
      spy-glass, a common barometer with some important modifications,
      and two astronomical instruments not so generally known. I then
      took opportunities of conveying by night, to a retired situation
      east of Rotterdam, five iron-bound casks, to contain about fifty
      gallons each, and one of a larger size; six tinned ware tubes,
      three inches in diameter, properly shaped, and ten feet in
      length; a quantity of a particular metallic substance, or
      semi-metal, which I shall not name, and a dozen demijohns of a
      very common acid. The gas to be formed from these latter
      materials is a gas never yet generated by any other person than
      myself—or at least never applied to any similar purpose. The
      secret I would make no difficulty in disclosing, but that it of
      right belongs to a citizen of Nantz, in France, by whom it was
      conditionally communicated to myself. The same individual
      submitted to me, without being at all aware of my intentions, a
      method of constructing balloons from the membrane of a certain
      animal, through which substance any escape of gas was nearly an
      impossibility. I found it, however, altogether too expensive, and
      was not sure, upon the whole, whether cambric muslin with a
      coating of gum caoutchouc, was not equally as good. I mention
      this circumstance, because I think it probable that hereafter the
      individual in question may attempt a balloon ascension with the
      novel gas and material I have spoken of, and I do not wish to
      deprive him of the honor of a very singular invention.

      “On the spot which I intended each of the smaller casks to occupy
      respectively during the inflation of the balloon, I privately dug
      a hole two feet deep; the holes forming in this manner a circle
      twenty-five feet in diameter. In the centre of this circle, being
      the station designed for the large cask, I also dug a hole three
      feet in depth. In each of the five smaller holes, I deposited a
      canister containing fifty pounds, and in the larger one a keg
      holding one hundred and fifty pounds, of cannon powder. These—the
      keg and canisters—I connected in a proper manner with covered
      trains; and having let into one of the canisters the end of about
      four feet of slow match, I covered up the hole, and placed the
      cask over it, leaving the other end of the match protruding about
      an inch, and barely visible beyond the cask. I then filled up the
      remaining holes, and placed the barrels over them in their
      destined situation.

      “Besides the articles above enumerated, I conveyed to the depot,
      and there secreted, one of M. Grimm’s improvements upon the
      apparatus for condensation of the atmospheric air. I found this
      machine, however, to require considerable alteration before it
      could be adapted to the purposes to which I intended making it
      applicable. But, with severe labor and unremitting perseverance,
      I at length met with entire success in all my preparations. My
      balloon was soon completed. It would contain more than forty
      thousand cubic feet of gas; would take me up easily, I
      calculated, with all my implements, and, if I managed rightly,
      with one hundred and seventy-five pounds of ballast into the
      bargain. It had received three coats of varnish, and I found the
      cambric muslin to answer all the purposes of silk itself, quite
      as strong and a good deal less expensive.

      “Everything being now ready, I exacted from my wife an oath of
      secrecy in relation to all my actions from the day of my first
      visit to the bookseller’s stall; and promising, on my part, to
      return as soon as circumstances would permit, I gave her what
      little money I had left, and bade her farewell. Indeed I had no
      fear on her account. She was what people call a notable woman,
      and could manage matters in the world without my assistance. I
      believe, to tell the truth, she always looked upon me as an idle
      boy, a mere make-weight, good for nothing but building castles in
      the air, and was rather glad to get rid of me. It was a dark
      night when I bade her good-bye, and taking with me, as
      aides-de-camp, the three creditors who had given me so much
      trouble, we carried the balloon, with the car and accoutrements,
      by a roundabout way, to the station where the other articles were
      deposited. We there found them all unmolested, and I proceeded
      immediately to business.

      “It was the first of April. The night, as I said before, was
      dark; there was not a star to be seen; and a drizzling rain,
      falling at intervals, rendered us very uncomfortable. But my
      chief anxiety was concerning the balloon, which, in spite of the
      varnish with which it was defended, began to grow rather heavy
      with the moisture; the powder also was liable to damage. I
      therefore kept my three duns working with great diligence,
      pounding down ice around the central cask, and stirring the acid
      in the others. They did not cease, however, importuning me with
      questions as to what I intended to do with all this apparatus,
      and expressed much dissatisfaction at the terrible labor I made
      them undergo. They could not perceive, so they said, what good
      was likely to result from their getting wet to the skin, merely
      to take a part in such horrible incantations. I began to get
      uneasy, and worked away with all my might, for I verily believe
      the idiots supposed that I had entered into a compact with the
      devil, and that, in short, what I was now doing was nothing
      better than it should be. I was, therefore, in great fear of
      their leaving me altogether. I contrived, however, to pacify them
      by promises of payment of all scores in full, as soon as I could
      bring the present business to a termination. To these speeches
      they gave, of course, their own interpretation; fancying, no
      doubt, that at all events I should come into possession of vast
      quantities of ready money; and provided I paid them all I owed,
      and a trifle more, in consideration of their services, I dare say
      they cared very little what became of either my soul or my
      carcass.

      “In about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently
      inflated. I attached the car, therefore, and put all my
      implements in it—not forgetting the condensing apparatus, a
      copious supply of water, and a large quantity of provisions, such
      as pemmican, in which much nutriment is contained in
      comparatively little bulk. I also secured in the car a pair of
      pigeons and a cat. It was now nearly daybreak, and I thought it
      high time to take my departure. Dropping a lighted cigar on the
      ground, as if by accident, I took the opportunity, in stooping to
      pick it up, of igniting privately the piece of slow match, whose
      end, as I said before, protruded a very little beyond the lower
      rim of one of the smaller casks. This manoeuvre was totally
      unperceived on the part of the three duns; and, jumping into the
      car, I immediately cut the single cord which held me to the
      earth, and was pleased to find that I shot upward, carrying with
      all ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of leaden ballast,
      and able to have carried up as many more.

      “Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards,
      when, roaring and rumbling up after me in the most horrible and
      tumultuous manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire, and smoke,
      and sulphur, and legs and arms, and gravel, and burning wood, and
      blazing metal, that my very heart sunk within me, and I fell down
      in the bottom of the car, trembling with unmitigated terror.
      Indeed, I now perceived that I had entirely overdone the
      business, and that the main consequences of the shock were yet to
      be experienced. Accordingly, in less than a second, I felt all
      the blood in my body rushing to my temples, and immediately
      thereupon, a concussion, which I shall never forget, burst
      abruptly through the night and seemed to rip the very firmament
      asunder. When I afterward had time for reflection, I did not fail
      to attribute the extreme violence of the explosion, as regarded
      myself, to its proper cause—my situation directly above it, and
      in the line of its greatest power. But at the time, I thought
      only of preserving my life. The balloon at first collapsed, then
      furiously expanded, then whirled round and round with horrible
      velocity, and finally, reeling and staggering like a drunken man,
      hurled me with great force over the rim of the car, and left me
      dangling, at a terrific height, with my head downward, and my
      face outwards, by a piece of slender cord about three feet in
      length, which hung accidentally through a crevice near the bottom
      of the wicker-work, and in which, as I fell, my left foot became
      most providentially entangled. It is impossible—utterly
      impossible—to form any adequate idea of the horror of my
      situation. I gasped convulsively for breath—a shudder resembling
      a fit of the ague agitated every nerve and muscle of my frame—I
      felt my eyes starting from their sockets—a horrible nausea
      overwhelmed me—and at length I fainted away.

      “How long I remained in this state it is impossible to say. It
      must, however, have been no inconsiderable time, for when I
      partially recovered the sense of existence, I found the day
      breaking, the balloon at a prodigious height over a wilderness of
      ocean, and not a trace of land to be discovered far and wide
      within the limits of the vast horizon. My sensations, however,
      upon thus recovering, were by no means so rife with agony as
      might have been anticipated. Indeed, there was much of incipient
      madness in the calm survey which I began to take of my situation.
      I drew up to my eyes each of my hands, one after the other, and
      wondered what occurrence could have given rise to the swelling of
      the veins, and the horrible blackness of the fingernails. I
      afterward carefully examined my head, shaking it repeatedly, and
      feeling it with minute attention, until I succeeded in satisfying
      myself that it was not, as I had more than half suspected, larger
      than my balloon. Then, in a knowing manner, I felt in both my
      breeches pockets, and, missing therefrom a set of tablets and a
      toothpick case, endeavored to account for their disappearance,
      and not being able to do so, felt inexpressibly chagrined. It now
      occurred to me that I suffered great uneasiness in the joint of
      my left ankle, and a dim consciousness of my situation began to
      glimmer through my mind. But, strange to say! I was neither
      astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt any emotion at all, it
      was a kind of chuckling satisfaction at the cleverness I was
      about to display in extricating myself from this dilemma; and I
      never, for a moment, looked upon my ultimate safety as a question
      susceptible of doubt. For a few minutes I remained wrapped in the
      profoundest meditation. I have a distinct recollection of
      frequently compressing my lips, putting my forefinger to the side
      of my nose, and making use of other gesticulations and grimaces
      common to men who, at ease in their arm-chairs, meditate upon
      matters of intricacy or importance. Having, as I thought,
      sufficiently collected my ideas, I now, with great caution and
      deliberation, put my hands behind my back, and unfastened the
      large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my
      inexpressibles. This buckle had three teeth, which, being
      somewhat rusty, turned with great difficulty on their axis. I
      brought them, however, after some trouble, at right angles to the
      body of the buckle, and was glad to find them remain firm in that
      position. Holding the instrument thus obtained within my teeth, I
      now proceeded to untie the knot of my cravat. I had to rest
      several times before I could accomplish this manoeuvre, but it
      was at length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then made
      fast the buckle, and the other end I tied, for greater security,
      tightly around my wrist. Drawing now my body upwards, with a
      prodigious exertion of muscular force, I succeeded, at the very
      first trial, in throwing the buckle over the car, and entangling
      it, as I had anticipated, in the circular rim of the wicker-work.

      “My body was now inclined towards the side of the car, at an
      angle of about forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood
      that I was therefore only forty-five degrees below the
      perpendicular. So far from it, I still lay nearly level with the
      plane of the horizon; for the change of situation which I had
      acquired, had forced the bottom of the car considerably outwards
      from my position, which was accordingly one of the most imminent
      and deadly peril. It should be remembered, however, that when I
      fell in the first instance, from the car, if I had fallen with my
      face turned toward the balloon, instead of turned outwardly from
      it, as it actually was; or if, in the second place, the cord by
      which I was suspended had chanced to hang over the upper edge,
      instead of through a crevice near the bottom of the car,—I say it
      may be readily conceived that, in either of these supposed cases,
      I should have been unable to accomplish even as much as I had now
      accomplished, and the wonderful adventures of Hans Pfaall would
      have been utterly lost to posterity, I had therefore every reason
      to be grateful; although, in point of fact, I was still too
      stupid to be anything at all, and hung for, perhaps, a quarter of
      an hour in that extraordinary manner, without making the
      slightest farther exertion whatsoever, and in a singularly
      tranquil state of idiotic enjoyment. But this feeling did not
      fail to die rapidly away, and thereunto succeeded horror, and
      dismay, and a chilling sense of utter helplessness and ruin. In
      fact, the blood so long accumulating in the vessels of my head
      and throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my spirits with
      madness and delirium, had now begun to retire within their proper
      channels, and the distinctness which was thus added to my
      perception of the danger, merely served to deprive me of the
      self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this weakness
      was, luckily for me, of no very long duration. In good time came
      to my rescue the spirit of despair, and, with frantic cries and
      struggles, I jerked my way bodily upwards, till at length,
      clutching with a vise-like grip the long-desired rim, I writhed
      my person over it, and fell headlong and shuddering within the
      car.

      “It was not until some time afterward that I recovered myself
      sufficiently to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon. I
      then, however, examined it with attention, and found it, to my
      great relief, uninjured. My implements were all safe, and,
      fortunately, I had lost neither ballast nor provisions. Indeed, I
      had so well secured them in their places, that such an accident
      was entirely out of the question. Looking at my watch, I found it
      six o’clock. I was still rapidly ascending, and my barometer gave
      a present altitude of three and three-quarter miles. Immediately
      beneath me in the ocean, lay a small black object, slightly
      oblong in shape, seemingly about the size, and in every way
      bearing a great resemblance to one of those childish toys called
      a domino. Bringing my telescope to bear upon it, I plainly
      discerned it to be a British ninety four-gun ship, close-hauled,
      and pitching heavily in the sea with her head to the W.S.W.
      Besides this ship, I saw nothing but the ocean and the sky, and
      the sun, which had long arisen.

      “It is now high time that I should explain to your Excellencies
      the object of my perilous voyage. Your Excellencies will bear in
      mind that distressed circumstances in Rotterdam had at length
      driven me to the resolution of committing suicide. It was not,
      however, that to life itself I had any positive disgust, but that
      I was harassed beyond endurance by the adventitious miseries
      attending my situation. In this state of mind, wishing to live,
      yet wearied with life, the treatise at the stall of the
      bookseller opened a resource to my imagination. I then finally
      made up my mind. I determined to depart, yet live—to leave the
      world, yet continue to exist—in short, to drop enigmas, I
      resolved, let what would ensue, to force a passage, if I could,
      to the moon. Now, lest I should be supposed more of a madman than
      I actually am, I will detail, as well as I am able, the
      considerations which led me to believe that an achievement of
      this nature, although without doubt difficult, and incontestably
      full of danger, was not absolutely, to a bold spirit, beyond the
      confines of the possible.

      “The moon’s actual distance from the earth was the first thing to
      be attended to. Now, the mean or average interval between the
      centres of the two planets is 59.9643 of the earth’s equatorial
      radii, or only about 237,000 miles. I say the mean or average
      interval, but it must be borne in mind that the form of the
      moon’s orbit being an ellipse of eccentricity amounting to no
      less than 0.05484 of the major semi-axis of the ellipse itself,
      and the earth’s centre being situated in its focus, if I could,
      in any manner, contrive to meet the moon, as it were, in its
      perigee, the above mentioned distance would be materially
      diminished. But, to say nothing at present of this possibility,
      it was very certain that, at all events, from the 237,000 miles I
      would have to deduct the radius of the earth, say 4,000, and the
      radius of the moon, say 1,080, in all 5,080, leaving an actual
      interval to be traversed, under average circumstances, of 231,920
      miles. Now this, I reflected, was no very extraordinary distance.
      Travelling on land has been repeatedly accomplished at the rate
      of thirty miles per hour, and indeed a much greater speed may be
      anticipated. But even at this velocity, it would take me no more
      than 322 days to reach the surface of the moon. There were,
      however, many particulars inducing me to believe that my average
      rate of travelling might possibly very much exceed that of thirty
      miles per hour, and, as these considerations did not fail to make
      a deep impression upon my mind, I will mention them more fully
      hereafter.

      “The next point to be regarded was a matter of far greater
      importance. From indications afforded by the barometer, we find
      that, in ascensions from the surface of the earth we have, at the
      height of 1,000 feet, left below us about one-thirtieth of the
      entire mass of atmospheric air, that at 10,600 we have ascended
      through nearly one-third; and that at 18,000, which is not far
      from the elevation of Cotopaxi, we have surmounted one-half the
      material, or, at all events, one-half the ponderable, body of air
      incumbent upon our globe. It is also calculated that at an
      altitude not exceeding the hundredth part of the earth’s
      diameter—that is, not exceeding eighty miles—the rarefaction
      would be so excessive that animal life could in no manner be
      sustained, and, moreover, that the most delicate means we possess
      of ascertaining the presence of the atmosphere would be
      inadequate to assure us of its existence. But I did not fail to
      perceive that these latter calculations are founded altogether on
      our experimental knowledge of the properties of air, and the
      mechanical laws regulating its dilation and compression, in what
      may be called, comparatively speaking, the immediate vicinity of
      the earth itself; and, at the same time, it is taken for granted
      that animal life is and must be essentially incapable of
      modification at any given unattainable distance from the surface.
      Now, all such reasoning and from such data must, of course, be
      simply analogical. The greatest height ever reached by man was
      that of 25,000 feet, attained in the aeronautic expedition of
      Messieurs Gay-Lussac and Biot. This is a moderate altitude, even
      when compared with the eighty miles in question; and I could not
      help thinking that the subject admitted room for doubt and great
      latitude for speculation.

      “But, in point of fact, an ascension being made to any given
      altitude, the ponderable quantity of air surmounted in any
      farther ascension is by no means in proportion to the additional
      height ascended (as may be plainly seen from what has been stated
      before), but in a ratio constantly decreasing. It is therefore
      evident that, ascend as high as we may, we cannot, literally
      speaking, arrive at a limit beyond which no atmosphere is to be
      found. It must exist, I argued; although it may exist in a state
      of infinite rarefaction.

      “On the other hand, I was aware that arguments have not been
      wanting to prove the existence of a real and definite limit to
      the atmosphere, beyond which there is absolutely no air
      whatsoever. But a circumstance which has been left out of view by
      those who contend for such a limit seemed to me, although no
      positive refutation of their creed, still a point worthy very
      serious investigation. On comparing the intervals between the
      successive arrivals of Encke’s comet at its perihelion, after
      giving credit, in the most exact manner, for all the disturbances
      due to the attractions of the planets, it appears that the
      periods are gradually diminishing; that is to say, the major axis
      of the comet’s ellipse is growing shorter, in a slow but
      perfectly regular decrease. Now, this is precisely what ought to
      be the case, if we suppose a resistance experienced from the
      comet from an extremely rare ethereal medium pervading the
      regions of its orbit. For it is evident that such a medium must,
      in retarding the comet’s velocity, increase its centripetal, by
      weakening its centrifugal force. In other words, the sun’s
      attraction would be constantly attaining greater power, and the
      comet would be drawn nearer at every revolution. Indeed, there is
      no other way of accounting for the variation in question. But
      again:—The real diameter of the same comet’s nebulosity is
      observed to contract rapidly as it approaches the sun, and dilate
      with equal rapidity in its departure towards its aphelion. Was I
      not justifiable in supposing with M. Valz, that this apparent
      condensation of volume has its origin in the compression of the
      same ethereal medium I have spoken of before, and which is only
      denser in proportion to its solar vicinity? The lenticular-shaped
      phenomenon, also called the zodiacal light, was a matter worthy
      of attention. This radiance, so apparent in the tropics, and
      which cannot be mistaken for any meteoric lustre, extends from
      the horizon obliquely upward, and follows generally the direction
      of the sun’s equator. It appeared to me evidently in the nature
      of a rare atmosphere extending from the sun outward, beyond the
      orbit of Venus at least, and I believed indefinitely farther.(*2)
      Indeed, this medium I could not suppose confined to the path of
      the comet’s ellipse, or to the immediate neighborhood of the sun.
      It was easy, on the contrary, to imagine it pervading the entire
      regions of our planetary system, condensed into what we call
      atmosphere at the planets themselves, and perhaps at some of them
      modified by considerations, so to speak, purely geological.

      “Having adopted this view of the subject, I had little further
      hesitation. Granting that on my passage I should meet with
      atmosphere essentially the same as at the surface of the earth, I
      conceived that, by means of the very ingenious apparatus of M.
      Grimm, I should readily be enabled to condense it in sufficient
      quantity for the purposes of respiration. This would remove the
      chief obstacle in a journey to the moon. I had indeed spent some
      money and great labor in adapting the apparatus to the object
      intended, and confidently looked forward to its successful
      application, if I could manage to complete the voyage within any
      reasonable period. This brings me back to the rate at which it
      might be possible to travel.

      “It is true that balloons, in the first stage of their ascensions
      from the earth, are known to rise with a velocity comparatively
      moderate. Now, the power of elevation lies altogether in the
      superior lightness of the gas in the balloon compared with the
      atmospheric air; and, at first sight, it does not appear probable
      that, as the balloon acquires altitude, and consequently arrives
      successively in atmospheric strata of densities rapidly
      diminishing—I say, it does not appear at all reasonable that, in
      this its progress upwards, the original velocity should be
      accelerated. On the other hand, I was not aware that, in any
      recorded ascension, a diminution was apparent in the absolute
      rate of ascent; although such should have been the case, if on
      account of nothing else, on account of the escape of gas through
      balloons ill-constructed, and varnished with no better material
      than the ordinary varnish. It seemed, therefore, that the effect
      of such escape was only sufficient to counterbalance the effect
      of some accelerating power. I now considered that, provided in my
      passage I found the medium I had imagined, and provided that it
      should prove to be actually and essentially what we denominate
      atmospheric air, it could make comparatively little difference at
      what extreme state of rarefaction I should discover it—that is to
      say, in regard to my power of ascending—for the gas in the
      balloon would not only be itself subject to rarefaction partially
      similar (in proportion to the occurrence of which, I could suffer
      an escape of so much as would be requisite to prevent explosion),
      but, being what it was, would, at all events, continue
      specifically lighter than any compound whatever of mere nitrogen
      and oxygen. In the meantime, the force of gravitation would be
      constantly diminishing, in proportion to the squares of the
      distances, and thus, with a velocity prodigiously accelerating, I
      should at length arrive in those distant regions where the force
      of the earth’s attraction would be superseded by that of the
      moon. In accordance with these ideas, I did not think it worth
      while to encumber myself with more provisions than would be
      sufficient for a period of forty days.

      “There was still, however, another difficulty, which occasioned
      me some little disquietude. It has been observed, that, in
      balloon ascensions to any considerable height, besides the pain
      attending respiration, great uneasiness is experienced about the
      head and body, often accompanied with bleeding at the nose, and
      other symptoms of an alarming kind, and growing more and more
      inconvenient in proportion to the altitude attained.(*3) This was
      a reflection of a nature somewhat startling. Was it not probable
      that these symptoms would increase indefinitely, or at least
      until terminated by death itself? I finally thought not. Their
      origin was to be looked for in the progressive removal of the
      customary atmospheric pressure upon the surface of the body, and
      consequent distention of the superficial blood-vessels—not in any
      positive disorganization of the animal system, as in the case of
      difficulty in breathing, where the atmospheric density is
      chemically insufficient for the due renovation of blood in a
      ventricle of the heart. Unless for default of this renovation, I
      could see no reason, therefore, why life could not be sustained
      even in a vacuum; for the expansion and compression of chest,
      commonly called breathing, is action purely muscular, and the
      cause, not the effect, of respiration. In a word, I conceived
      that, as the body should become habituated to the want of
      atmospheric pressure, the sensations of pain would gradually
      diminish—and to endure them while they continued, I relied with
      confidence upon the iron hardihood of my constitution.

      “Thus, may it please your Excellencies, I have detailed some,
      though by no means all, the considerations which led me to form
      the project of a lunar voyage. I shall now proceed to lay before
      you the result of an attempt so apparently audacious in
      conception, and, at all events, so utterly unparalleled in the
      annals of mankind.

      “Having attained the altitude before mentioned, that is to say
      three miles and three-quarters, I threw out from the car a
      quantity of feathers, and found that I still ascended with
      sufficient rapidity; there was, therefore, no necessity for
      discharging any ballast. I was glad of this, for I wished to
      retain with me as much weight as I could carry, for reasons which
      will be explained in the sequel. I as yet suffered no bodily
      inconvenience, breathing with great freedom, and feeling no pain
      whatever in the head. The cat was lying very demurely upon my
      coat, which I had taken off, and eyeing the pigeons with an air
      of nonchalance. These latter being tied by the leg, to prevent
      their escape, were busily employed in picking up some grains of
      rice scattered for them in the bottom of the car.

      “At twenty minutes past six o’clock, the barometer showed an
      elevation of 26,400 feet, or five miles to a fraction. The
      prospect seemed unbounded. Indeed, it is very easily calculated
      by means of spherical geometry, what a great extent of the
      earth’s area I beheld. The convex surface of any segment of a
      sphere is, to the entire surface of the sphere itself, as the
      versed sine of the segment to the diameter of the sphere. Now, in
      my case, the versed sine—that is to say, the thickness of the
      segment beneath me—was about equal to my elevation, or the
      elevation of the point of sight above the surface. ‘As five
      miles, then, to eight thousand,’ would express the proportion of
      the earth’s area seen by me. In other words, I beheld as much as
      a sixteen-hundredth part of the whole surface of the globe. The
      sea appeared unruffled as a mirror, although, by means of the
      spy-glass, I could perceive it to be in a state of violent
      agitation. The ship was no longer visible, having drifted away,
      apparently to the eastward. I now began to experience, at
      intervals, severe pain in the head, especially about the
      ears—still, however, breathing with tolerable freedom. The cat
      and pigeons seemed to suffer no inconvenience whatsoever.

      “At twenty minutes before seven, the balloon entered a long
      series of dense cloud, which put me to great trouble, by damaging
      my condensing apparatus and wetting me to the skin. This was, to
      be sure, a singular recontre, for I had not believed it possible
      that a cloud of this nature could be sustained at so great an
      elevation. I thought it best, however, to throw out two
      five-pound pieces of ballast, reserving still a weight of one
      hundred and sixty-five pounds. Upon so doing, I soon rose above
      the difficulty, and perceived immediately, that I had obtained a
      great increase in my rate of ascent. In a few seconds after my
      leaving the cloud, a flash of vivid lightning shot from one end
      of it to the other, and caused it to kindle up, throughout its
      vast extent, like a mass of ignited and glowing charcoal. This,
      it must be remembered, was in the broad light of day. No fancy
      may picture the sublimity which might have been exhibited by a
      similar phenomenon taking place amid the darkness of the night.
      Hell itself might have been found a fitting image. Even as it
      was, my hair stood on end, while I gazed afar down within the
      yawning abysses, letting imagination descend, as it were, and
      stalk about in the strange vaulted halls, and ruddy gulfs, and
      red ghastly chasms of the hideous and unfathomable fire. I had
      indeed made a narrow escape. Had the balloon remained a very
      short while longer within the cloud—that is to say—had not the
      inconvenience of getting wet, determined me to discharge the
      ballast, inevitable ruin would have been the consequence. Such
      perils, although little considered, are perhaps the greatest
      which must be encountered in balloons. I had by this time,
      however, attained too great an elevation to be any longer uneasy
      on this head.

      “I was now rising rapidly, and by seven o’clock the barometer
      indicated an altitude of no less than nine miles and a half. I
      began to find great difficulty in drawing my breath. My head,
      too, was excessively painful; and, having felt for some time a
      moisture about my cheeks, I at length discovered it to be blood,
      which was oozing quite fast from the drums of my ears. My eyes,
      also, gave me great uneasiness. Upon passing the hand over them
      they seemed to have protruded from their sockets in no
      inconsiderable degree; and all objects in the car, and even the
      balloon itself, appeared distorted to my vision. These symptoms
      were more than I had expected, and occasioned me some alarm. At
      this juncture, very imprudently, and without consideration, I
      threw out from the car three five-pound pieces of ballast. The
      accelerated rate of ascent thus obtained, carried me too rapidly,
      and without sufficient gradation, into a highly rarefied stratum
      of the atmosphere, and the result had nearly proved fatal to my
      expedition and to myself. I was suddenly seized with a spasm
      which lasted for more than five minutes, and even when this, in a
      measure, ceased, I could catch my breath only at long intervals,
      and in a gasping manner—bleeding all the while copiously at the
      nose and ears, and even slightly at the eyes. The pigeons
      appeared distressed in the extreme, and struggled to escape;
      while the cat mewed piteously, and, with her tongue hanging out
      of her mouth, staggered to and fro in the car as if under the
      influence of poison. I now too late discovered the great rashness
      of which I had been guilty in discharging the ballast, and my
      agitation was excessive. I anticipated nothing less than death,
      and death in a few minutes. The physical suffering I underwent
      contributed also to render me nearly incapable of making any
      exertion for the preservation of my life. I had, indeed, little
      power of reflection left, and the violence of the pain in my head
      seemed to be greatly on the increase. Thus I found that my senses
      would shortly give way altogether, and I had already clutched one
      of the valve ropes with the view of attempting a descent, when
      the recollection of the trick I had played the three creditors,
      and the possible consequences to myself, should I return,
      operated to deter me for the moment. I lay down in the bottom of
      the car, and endeavored to collect my faculties. In this I so far
      succeeded as to determine upon the experiment of losing blood.
      Having no lancet, however, I was constrained to perform the
      operation in the best manner I was able, and finally succeeded in
      opening a vein in my right arm, with the blade of my penknife.
      The blood had hardly commenced flowing when I experienced a
      sensible relief, and by the time I had lost about half a moderate
      basin full, most of the worst symptoms had abandoned me entirely.
      I nevertheless did not think it expedient to attempt getting on
      my feet immediately; but, having tied up my arm as well as I
      could, I lay still for about a quarter of an hour. At the end of
      this time I arose, and found myself freer from absolute pain of
      any kind than I had been during the last hour and a quarter of my
      ascension. The difficulty of breathing, however, was diminished
      in a very slight degree, and I found that it would soon be
      positively necessary to make use of my condenser. In the
      meantime, looking toward the cat, who was again snugly stowed
      away upon my coat, I discovered to my infinite surprise, that she
      had taken the opportunity of my indisposition to bring into light
      a litter of three little kittens. This was an addition to the
      number of passengers on my part altogether unexpected; but I was
      pleased at the occurrence. It would afford me a chance of
      bringing to a kind of test the truth of a surmise, which, more
      than anything else, had influenced me in attempting this
      ascension. I had imagined that the habitual endurance of the
      atmospheric pressure at the surface of the earth was the cause,
      or nearly so, of the pain attending animal existence at a
      distance above the surface. Should the kittens be found to suffer
      uneasiness in an equal degree with their mother, I must consider
      my theory in fault, but a failure to do so I should look upon as
      a strong confirmation of my idea.

      “By eight o’clock I had actually attained an elevation of
      seventeen miles above the surface of the earth. Thus it seemed to
      me evident that my rate of ascent was not only on the increase,
      but that the progression would have been apparent in a slight
      degree even had I not discharged the ballast which I did. The
      pains in my head and ears returned, at intervals, with violence,
      and I still continued to bleed occasionally at the nose; but,
      upon the whole, I suffered much less than might have been
      expected. I breathed, however, at every moment, with more and
      more difficulty, and each inhalation was attended with a
      troublesome spasmodic action of the chest. I now unpacked the
      condensing apparatus, and got it ready for immediate use.

      “The view of the earth, at this period of my ascension, was
      beautiful indeed. To the westward, the northward, and the
      southward, as far as I could see, lay a boundless sheet of
      apparently unruffled ocean, which every moment gained a deeper
      and a deeper tint of blue and began already to assume a slight
      appearance of convexity. At a vast distance to the eastward,
      although perfectly discernible, extended the islands of Great
      Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France and Spain, with a
      small portion of the northern part of the continent of Africa. Of
      individual edifices not a trace could be discovered, and the
      proudest cities of mankind had utterly faded away from the face
      of the earth. From the rock of Gibraltar, now dwindled into a dim
      speck, the dark Mediterranean sea, dotted with shining islands as
      the heaven is dotted with stars, spread itself out to the
      eastward as far as my vision extended, until its entire mass of
      waters seemed at length to tumble headlong over the abyss of the
      horizon, and I found myself listening on tiptoe for the echoes of
      the mighty cataract. Overhead, the sky was of a jetty black, and
      the stars were brilliantly visible.

      “The pigeons about this time seeming to undergo much suffering, I
      determined upon giving them their liberty. I first untied one of
      them, a beautiful gray-mottled pigeon, and placed him upon the
      rim of the wicker-work. He appeared extremely uneasy, looking
      anxiously around him, fluttering his wings, and making a loud
      cooing noise, but could not be persuaded to trust himself from
      off the car. I took him up at last, and threw him to about half a
      dozen yards from the balloon. He made, however, no attempt to
      descend as I had expected, but struggled with great vehemence to
      get back, uttering at the same time very shrill and piercing
      cries. He at length succeeded in regaining his former station on
      the rim, but had hardly done so when his head dropped upon his
      breast, and he fell dead within the car. The other one did not
      prove so unfortunate. To prevent his following the example of his
      companion, and accomplishing a return, I threw him downward with
      all my force, and was pleased to find him continue his descent,
      with great velocity, making use of his wings with ease, and in a
      perfectly natural manner. In a very short time he was out of
      sight, and I have no doubt he reached home in safety. Puss, who
      seemed in a great measure recovered from her illness, now made a
      hearty meal of the dead bird and then went to sleep with much
      apparent satisfaction. Her kittens were quite lively, and so far
      evinced not the slightest sign of any uneasiness whatever.

      “At a quarter-past eight, being no longer able to draw breath
      without the most intolerable pain, I proceeded forthwith to
      adjust around the car the apparatus belonging to the condenser.
      This apparatus will require some little explanation, and your
      Excellencies will please to bear in mind that my object, in the
      first place, was to surround myself and cat entirely with a
      barricade against the highly rarefied atmosphere in which I was
      existing, with the intention of introducing within this
      barricade, by means of my condenser, a quantity of this same
      atmosphere sufficiently condensed for the purposes of
      respiration. With this object in view I had prepared a very
      strong perfectly air-tight, but flexible gum-elastic bag. In this
      bag, which was of sufficient dimensions, the entire car was in a
      manner placed. That is to say, it (the bag) was drawn over the
      whole bottom of the car, up its sides, and so on, along the
      outside of the ropes, to the upper rim or hoop where the net-work
      is attached. Having pulled the bag up in this way, and formed a
      complete enclosure on all sides, and at bottom, it was now
      necessary to fasten up its top or mouth, by passing its material
      over the hoop of the net-work—in other words, between the
      net-work and the hoop. But if the net-work were separated from
      the hoop to admit this passage, what was to sustain the car in
      the meantime? Now the net-work was not permanently fastened to
      the hoop, but attached by a series of running loops or nooses. I
      therefore undid only a few of these loops at one time, leaving
      the car suspended by the remainder. Having thus inserted a
      portion of the cloth forming the upper part of the bag, I
      refastened the loops—not to the hoop, for that would have been
      impossible, since the cloth now intervened—but to a series of
      large buttons, affixed to the cloth itself, about three feet
      below the mouth of the bag, the intervals between the buttons
      having been made to correspond to the intervals between the
      loops. This done, a few more of the loops were unfastened from
      the rim, a farther portion of the cloth introduced, and the
      disengaged loops then connected with their proper buttons. In
      this way it was possible to insert the whole upper part of the
      bag between the net-work and the hoop. It is evident that the
      hoop would now drop down within the car, while the whole weight
      of the car itself, with all its contents, would be held up merely
      by the strength of the buttons. This, at first sight, would seem
      an inadequate dependence; but it was by no means so, for the
      buttons were not only very strong in themselves, but so close
      together that a very slight portion of the whole weight was
      supported by any one of them. Indeed, had the car and contents
      been three times heavier than they were, I should not have been
      at all uneasy. I now raised up the hoop again within the covering
      of gum-elastic, and propped it at nearly its former height by
      means of three light poles prepared for the occasion. This was
      done, of course, to keep the bag distended at the top, and to
      preserve the lower part of the net-work in its proper situation.
      All that now remained was to fasten up the mouth of the
      enclosure; and this was readily accomplished by gathering the
      folds of the material together, and twisting them up very tightly
      on the inside by means of a kind of stationary tourniquet.

      “In the sides of the covering thus adjusted round the car, had
      been inserted three circular panes of thick but clear glass,
      through which I could see without difficulty around me in every
      horizontal direction. In that portion of the cloth forming the
      bottom, was likewise, a fourth window, of the same kind, and
      corresponding with a small aperture in the floor of the car
      itself. This enabled me to see perpendicularly down, but having
      found it impossible to place any similar contrivance overhead, on
      account of the peculiar manner of closing up the opening there,
      and the consequent wrinkles in the cloth, I could expect to see
      no objects situated directly in my zenith. This, of course, was a
      matter of little consequence; for had I even been able to place a
      window at top, the balloon itself would have prevented my making
      any use of it.

      “About a foot below one of the side windows was a circular
      opening, eight inches in diameter, and fitted with a brass rim
      adapted in its inner edge to the windings of a screw. In this rim
      was screwed the large tube of the condenser, the body of the
      machine being, of course, within the chamber of gum-elastic.
      Through this tube a quantity of the rare atmosphere circumjacent
      being drawn by means of a vacuum created in the body of the
      machine, was thence discharged, in a state of condensation, to
      mingle with the thin air already in the chamber. This operation
      being repeated several times, at length filled the chamber with
      atmosphere proper for all the purposes of respiration. But in so
      confined a space it would, in a short time, necessarily become
      foul, and unfit for use from frequent contact with the lungs. It
      was then ejected by a small valve at the bottom of the car—the
      dense air readily sinking into the thinner atmosphere below. To
      avoid the inconvenience of making a total vacuum at any moment
      within the chamber, this purification was never accomplished all
      at once, but in a gradual manner—the valve being opened only for
      a few seconds, then closed again, until one or two strokes from
      the pump of the condenser had supplied the place of the
      atmosphere ejected. For the sake of experiment I had put the cat
      and kittens in a small basket, and suspended it outside the car
      to a button at the bottom, close by the valve, through which I
      could feed them at any moment when necessary. I did this at some
      little risk, and before closing the mouth of the chamber, by
      reaching under the car with one of the poles before mentioned to
      which a hook had been attached.

      “By the time I had fully completed these arrangements and filled
      the chamber as explained, it wanted only ten minutes of nine
      o’clock. During the whole period of my being thus employed, I
      endured the most terrible distress from difficulty of
      respiration, and bitterly did I repent the negligence or rather
      fool-hardiness, of which I had been guilty, of putting off to the
      last moment a matter of so much importance. But having at length
      accomplished it, I soon began to reap the benefit of my
      invention. Once again I breathed with perfect freedom and
      ease—and indeed why should I not? I was also agreeably surprised
      to find myself, in a great measure, relieved from the violent
      pains which had hitherto tormented me. A slight headache,
      accompanied with a sensation of fulness or distention about the
      wrists, the ankles, and the throat, was nearly all of which I had
      now to complain. Thus it seemed evident that a greater part of
      the uneasiness attending the removal of atmospheric pressure had
      actually worn off, as I had expected, and that much of the pain
      endured for the last two hours should have been attributed
      altogether to the effects of a deficient respiration.

      “At twenty minutes before nine o’clock—that is to say, a short
      time prior to my closing up the mouth of the chamber, the mercury
      attained its limit, or ran down, in the barometer, which, as I
      mentioned before, was one of an extended construction. It then
      indicated an altitude on my part of 132,000 feet, or
      five-and-twenty miles, and I consequently surveyed at that time
      an extent of the earth’s area amounting to no less than the three
      hundred-and-twentieth part of its entire superficies. At nine
      o’clock I had again lost sight of land to the eastward, but not
      before I became aware that the balloon was drifting rapidly to
      the N. N. W. The convexity of the ocean beneath me was very
      evident indeed, although my view was often interrupted by the
      masses of cloud which floated to and fro. I observed now that
      even the lightest vapors never rose to more than ten miles above
      the level of the sea.

      “At half past nine I tried the experiment of throwing out a
      handful of feathers through the valve. They did not float as I
      had expected; but dropped down perpendicularly, like a bullet, en
      masse, and with the greatest velocity—being out of sight in a
      very few seconds. I did not at first know what to make of this
      extraordinary phenomenon; not being able to believe that my rate
      of ascent had, of a sudden, met with so prodigious an
      acceleration. But it soon occurred to me that the atmosphere was
      now far too rare to sustain even the feathers; that they actually
      fell, as they appeared to do, with great rapidity; and that I had
      been surprised by the united velocities of their descent and my
      own elevation.

      “By ten o’clock I found that I had very little to occupy my
      immediate attention. Affairs went swimmingly, and I believed the
      balloon to be going upward with a speed increasing momently
      although I had no longer any means of ascertaining the
      progression of the increase. I suffered no pain or uneasiness of
      any kind, and enjoyed better spirits than I had at any period
      since my departure from Rotterdam, busying myself now in
      examining the state of my various apparatus, and now in
      regenerating the atmosphere within the chamber. This latter point
      I determined to attend to at regular intervals of forty minutes,
      more on account of the preservation of my health, than from so
      frequent a renovation being absolutely necessary. In the
      meanwhile I could not help making anticipations. Fancy revelled
      in the wild and dreamy regions of the moon. Imagination, feeling
      herself for once unshackled, roamed at will among the
      ever-changing wonders of a shadowy and unstable land. Now there
      were hoary and time-honored forests, and craggy precipices, and
      waterfalls tumbling with a loud noise into abysses without a
      bottom. Then I came suddenly into still noonday solitudes, where
      no wind of heaven ever intruded, and where vast meadows of
      poppies, and slender, lily-looking flowers spread themselves out
      a weary distance, all silent and motionless forever. Then again I
      journeyed far down away into another country where it was all one
      dim and vague lake, with a boundary line of clouds. And out of
      this melancholy water arose a forest of tall eastern trees, like
      a wilderness of dreams. And I have in mind that the shadows of
      the trees which fell upon the lake remained not on the surface
      where they fell, but sunk slowly and steadily down, and
      commingled with the waves, while from the trunks of the trees
      other shadows were continually coming out, and taking the place
      of their brothers thus entombed. “This then,” I said
      thoughtfully, “is the very reason why the waters of this lake
      grow blacker with age, and more melancholy as the hours run on.”
      But fancies such as these were not the sole possessors of my
      brain. Horrors of a nature most stern and most appalling would
      too frequently obtrude themselves upon my mind, and shake the
      innermost depths of my soul with the bare supposition of their
      possibility. Yet I would not suffer my thoughts for any length of
      time to dwell upon these latter speculations, rightly judging the
      real and palpable dangers of the voyage sufficient for my
      undivided attention.

      “At five o’clock, p.m., being engaged in regenerating the
      atmosphere within the chamber, I took that opportunity of
      observing the cat and kittens through the valve. The cat herself
      appeared to suffer again very much, and I had no hesitation in
      attributing her uneasiness chiefly to a difficulty in breathing;
      but my experiment with the kittens had resulted very strangely. I
      had expected, of course, to see them betray a sense of pain,
      although in a less degree than their mother, and this would have
      been sufficient to confirm my opinion concerning the habitual
      endurance of atmospheric pressure. But I was not prepared to find
      them, upon close examination, evidently enjoying a high degree of
      health, breathing with the greatest ease and perfect regularity,
      and evincing not the slightest sign of any uneasiness whatever. I
      could only account for all this by extending my theory, and
      supposing that the highly rarefied atmosphere around might
      perhaps not be, as I had taken for granted, chemically
      insufficient for the purposes of life, and that a person born in
      such a medium might, possibly, be unaware of any inconvenience
      attending its inhalation, while, upon removal to the denser
      strata near the earth, he might endure tortures of a similar
      nature to those I had so lately experienced. It has since been to
      me a matter of deep regret that an awkward accident, at this
      time, occasioned me the loss of my little family of cats, and
      deprived me of the insight into this matter which a continued
      experiment might have afforded. In passing my hand through the
      valve, with a cup of water for the old puss, the sleeves of my
      shirt became entangled in the loop which sustained the basket,
      and thus, in a moment, loosened it from the bottom. Had the whole
      actually vanished into air, it could not have shot from my sight
      in a more abrupt and instantaneous manner. Positively, there
      could not have intervened the tenth part of a second between the
      disengagement of the basket and its absolute and total
      disappearance with all that it contained. My good wishes followed
      it to the earth, but of course, I had no hope that either cat or
      kittens would ever live to tell the tale of their misfortune.

      “At six o’clock, I perceived a great portion of the earth’s
      visible area to the eastward involved in thick shadow, which
      continued to advance with great rapidity, until, at five minutes
      before seven, the whole surface in view was enveloped in the
      darkness of night. It was not, however, until long after this
      time that the rays of the setting sun ceased to illumine the
      balloon; and this circumstance, although of course fully
      anticipated, did not fail to give me an infinite deal of
      pleasure. It was evident that, in the morning, I should behold
      the rising luminary many hours at least before the citizens of
      Rotterdam, in spite of their situation so much farther to the
      eastward, and thus, day after day, in proportion to the height
      ascended, would I enjoy the light of the sun for a longer and a
      longer period. I now determined to keep a journal of my passage,
      reckoning the days from one to twenty-four hours continuously,
      without taking into consideration the intervals of darkness.

      “At ten o’clock, feeling sleepy, I determined to lie down for the
      rest of the night; but here a difficulty presented itself, which,
      obvious as it may appear, had escaped my attention up to the very
      moment of which I am now speaking. If I went to sleep as I
      proposed, how could the atmosphere in the chamber be regenerated
      in the interim? To breathe it for more than an hour, at the
      farthest, would be a matter of impossibility, or, if even this
      term could be extended to an hour and a quarter, the most ruinous
      consequences might ensue. The consideration of this dilemma gave
      me no little disquietude; and it will hardly be believed, that,
      after the dangers I had undergone, I should look upon this
      business in so serious a light, as to give up all hope of
      accomplishing my ultimate design, and finally make up my mind to
      the necessity of a descent. But this hesitation was only
      momentary. I reflected that man is the veriest slave of custom,
      and that many points in the routine of his existence are deemed
      essentially important, which are only so at all by his having
      rendered them habitual. It was very certain that I could not do
      without sleep; but I might easily bring myself to feel no
      inconvenience from being awakened at intervals of an hour during
      the whole period of my repose. It would require but five minutes
      at most to regenerate the atmosphere in the fullest manner, and
      the only real difficulty was to contrive a method of arousing
      myself at the proper moment for so doing. But this was a question
      which, I am willing to confess, occasioned me no little trouble
      in its solution. To be sure, I had heard of the student who, to
      prevent his falling asleep over his books, held in one hand a
      ball of copper, the din of whose descent into a basin of the same
      metal on the floor beside his chair, served effectually to
      startle him up, if, at any moment, he should be overcome with
      drowsiness. My own case, however, was very different indeed, and
      left me no room for any similar idea; for I did not wish to keep
      awake, but to be aroused from slumber at regular intervals of
      time. I at length hit upon the following expedient, which, simple
      as it may seem, was hailed by me, at the moment of discovery, as
      an invention fully equal to that of the telescope, the
      steam-engine, or the art of printing itself.

      “It is necessary to premise, that the balloon, at the elevation
      now attained, continued its course upward with an even and
      undeviating ascent, and the car consequently followed with a
      steadiness so perfect that it would have been impossible to
      detect in it the slightest vacillation whatever. This
      circumstance favored me greatly in the project I now determined
      to adopt. My supply of water had been put on board in kegs
      containing five gallons each, and ranged very securely around the
      interior of the car. I unfastened one of these, and taking two
      ropes tied them tightly across the rim of the wicker-work from
      one side to the other; placing them about a foot apart and
      parallel so as to form a kind of shelf, upon which I placed the
      keg, and steadied it in a horizontal position. About eight inches
      immediately below these ropes, and four feet from the bottom of
      the car I fastened another shelf—but made of thin plank, being
      the only similar piece of wood I had. Upon this latter shelf, and
      exactly beneath one of the rims of the keg, a small earthern
      pitcher was deposited. I now bored a hole in the end of the keg
      over the pitcher, and fitted in a plug of soft wood, cut in a
      tapering or conical shape. This plug I pushed in or pulled out,
      as might happen, until, after a few experiments, it arrived at
      that exact degree of tightness, at which the water, oozing from
      the hole, and falling into the pitcher below, would fill the
      latter to the brim in the period of sixty minutes. This, of
      course, was a matter briefly and easily ascertained, by noticing
      the proportion of the pitcher filled in any given time. Having
      arranged all this, the rest of the plan is obvious. My bed was so
      contrived upon the floor of the car, as to bring my head, in
      lying down, immediately below the mouth of the pitcher. It was
      evident, that, at the expiration of an hour, the pitcher, getting
      full, would be forced to run over, and to run over at the mouth,
      which was somewhat lower than the rim. It was also evident, that
      the water thus falling from a height of more than four feet,
      could not do otherwise than fall upon my face, and that the sure
      consequences would be, to waken me up instantaneously, even from
      the soundest slumber in the world.

      “It was fully eleven by the time I had completed these
      arrangements, and I immediately betook myself to bed, with full
      confidence in the efficiency of my invention. Nor in this matter
      was I disappointed. Punctually every sixty minutes was I aroused
      by my trusty chronometer, when, having emptied the pitcher into
      the bung-hole of the keg, and performed the duties of the
      condenser, I retired again to bed. These regular interruptions to
      my slumber caused me even less discomfort than I had anticipated;
      and when I finally arose for the day, it was seven o’clock, and
      the sun had attained many degrees above the line of my horizon.

      “April 3d. I found the balloon at an immense height indeed, and
      the earth’s apparent convexity increased in a material degree.
      Below me in the ocean lay a cluster of black specks, which
      undoubtedly were islands. Far away to the northward I perceived a
      thin, white, and exceedingly brilliant line, or streak, on the
      edge of the horizon, and I had no hesitation in supposing it to
      be the southern disk of the ices of the Polar Sea. My curiosity
      was greatly excited, for I had hopes of passing on much farther
      to the north, and might possibly, at some period, find myself
      placed directly above the Pole itself. I now lamented that my
      great elevation would, in this case, prevent my taking as
      accurate a survey as I could wish. Much, however, might be
      ascertained. Nothing else of an extraordinary nature occurred
      during the day. My apparatus all continued in good order, and the
      balloon still ascended without any perceptible vacillation. The
      cold was intense, and obliged me to wrap up closely in an
      overcoat. When darkness came over the earth, I betook myself to
      bed, although it was for many hours afterward broad daylight all
      around my immediate situation. The water-clock was punctual in
      its duty, and I slept until next morning soundly, with the
      exception of the periodical interruption.

      “April 4th. Arose in good health and spirits, and was astonished
      at the singular change which had taken place in the appearance of
      the sea. It had lost, in a great measure, the deep tint of blue
      it had hitherto worn, being now of a grayish-white, and of a
      lustre dazzling to the eye. The islands were no longer visible;
      whether they had passed down the horizon to the southeast, or
      whether my increasing elevation had left them out of sight, it is
      impossible to say. I was inclined, however, to the latter
      opinion. The rim of ice to the northward was growing more and
      more apparent. Cold by no means so intense. Nothing of importance
      occurred, and I passed the day in reading, having taken care to
      supply myself with books.

      “April 5th. Beheld the singular phenomenon of the sun rising
      while nearly the whole visible surface of the earth continued to
      be involved in darkness. In time, however, the light spread
      itself over all, and I again saw the line of ice to the
      northward. It was now very distinct, and appeared of a much
      darker hue than the waters of the ocean. I was evidently
      approaching it, and with great rapidity. Fancied I could again
      distinguish a strip of land to the eastward, and one also to the
      westward, but could not be certain. Weather moderate. Nothing of
      any consequence happened during the day. Went early to bed.

      “April 6th. Was surprised at finding the rim of ice at a very
      moderate distance, and an immense field of the same material
      stretching away off to the horizon in the north. It was evident
      that if the balloon held its present course, it would soon arrive
      above the Frozen Ocean, and I had now little doubt of ultimately
      seeing the Pole. During the whole of the day I continued to near
      the ice. Toward night the limits of my horizon very suddenly and
      materially increased, owing undoubtedly to the earth’s form being
      that of an oblate spheroid, and my arriving above the flattened
      regions in the vicinity of the Arctic circle. When darkness at
      length overtook me, I went to bed in great anxiety, fearing to
      pass over the object of so much curiosity when I should have no
      opportunity of observing it.

      “April 7th. Arose early, and, to my great joy, at length beheld
      what there could be no hesitation in supposing the northern Pole
      itself. It was there, beyond a doubt, and immediately beneath my
      feet; but, alas! I had now ascended to so vast a distance, that
      nothing could with accuracy be discerned. Indeed, to judge from
      the progression of the numbers indicating my various altitudes,
      respectively, at different periods, between six A.M. on the
      second of April, and twenty minutes before nine A.M. of the same
      day (at which time the barometer ran down), it might be fairly
      inferred that the balloon had now, at four o’clock in the morning
      of April the seventh, reached a height of not less, certainly,
      than 7,254 miles above the surface of the sea. This elevation may
      appear immense, but the estimate upon which it is calculated gave
      a result in all probability far inferior to the truth. At all
      events I undoubtedly beheld the whole of the earth’s major
      diameter; the entire northern hemisphere lay beneath me like a
      chart orthographically projected: and the great circle of the
      equator itself formed the boundary line of my horizon. Your
      Excellencies may, however, readily imagine that the confined
      regions hitherto unexplored within the limits of the Arctic
      circle, although situated directly beneath me, and therefore seen
      without any appearance of being foreshortened, were still, in
      themselves, comparatively too diminutive, and at too great a
      distance from the point of sight, to admit of any very accurate
      examination. Nevertheless, what could be seen was of a nature
      singular and exciting. Northwardly from that huge rim before
      mentioned, and which, with slight qualification, may be called
      the limit of human discovery in these regions, one unbroken, or
      nearly unbroken, sheet of ice continues to extend. In the first
      few degrees of this its progress, its surface is very sensibly
      flattened, farther on depressed into a plane, and finally,
      becoming not a little concave, it terminates, at the Pole itself,
      in a circular centre, sharply defined, whose apparent diameter
      subtended at the balloon an angle of about sixty-five seconds,
      and whose dusky hue, varying in intensity, was, at all times,
      darker than any other spot upon the visible hemisphere, and
      occasionally deepened into the most absolute and impenetrable
      blackness. Farther than this, little could be ascertained. By
      twelve o’clock the circular centre had materially decreased in
      circumference, and by seven P.M. I lost sight of it entirely; the
      balloon passing over the western limb of the ice, and floating
      away rapidly in the direction of the equator.

      “April 8th. Found a sensible diminution in the earth’s apparent
      diameter, besides a material alteration in its general color and
      appearance. The whole visible area partook in different degrees
      of a tint of pale yellow, and in some portions had acquired a
      brilliancy even painful to the eye. My view downward was also
      considerably impeded by the dense atmosphere in the vicinity of
      the surface being loaded with clouds, between whose masses I
      could only now and then obtain a glimpse of the earth itself.
      This difficulty of direct vision had troubled me more or less for
      the last forty-eight hours; but my present enormous elevation
      brought closer together, as it were, the floating bodies of
      vapor, and the inconvenience became, of course, more and more
      palpable in proportion to my ascent. Nevertheless, I could easily
      perceive that the balloon now hovered above the range of great
      lakes in the continent of North America, and was holding a
      course, due south, which would bring me to the tropics. This
      circumstance did not fail to give me the most heartful
      satisfaction, and I hailed it as a happy omen of ultimate
      success. Indeed, the direction I had hitherto taken, had filled
      me with uneasiness; for it was evident that, had I continued it
      much longer, there would have been no possibility of my arriving
      at the moon at all, whose orbit is inclined to the ecliptic at
      only the small angle of 5° 8′ 48″.

      “April 9th. To-day the earth’s diameter was greatly diminished,
      and the color of the surface assumed hourly a deeper tint of
      yellow. The balloon kept steadily on her course to the southward,
      and arrived, at nine P.M., over the northern edge of the Mexican
      Gulf.

      “April 10th. I was suddenly aroused from slumber, about five
      o’clock this morning, by a loud, crackling, and terrific sound,
      for which I could in no manner account. It was of very brief
      duration, but, while it lasted resembled nothing in the world of
      which I had any previous experience. It is needless to say that I
      became excessively alarmed, having, in the first instance,
      attributed the noise to the bursting of the balloon. I examined
      all my apparatus, however, with great attention, and could
      discover nothing out of order. Spent a great part of the day in
      meditating upon an occurrence so extraordinary, but could find no
      means whatever of accounting for it. Went to bed dissatisfied,
      and in a state of great anxiety and agitation.

      “April 11th. Found a startling diminution in the apparent
      diameter of the earth, and a considerable increase, now
      observable for the first time, in that of the moon itself, which
      wanted only a few days of being full. It now required long and
      excessive labor to condense within the chamber sufficient
      atmospheric air for the sustenance of life.

      “April 12th. A singular alteration took place in regard to the
      direction of the balloon, and although fully anticipated,
      afforded me the most unequivocal delight. Having reached, in its
      former course, about the twentieth parallel of southern latitude,
      it turned off suddenly, at an acute angle, to the eastward, and
      thus proceeded throughout the day, keeping nearly, if not
      altogether, in the exact plane of the lunar ellipse. What was
      worthy of remark, a very perceptible vacillation in the car was a
      consequence of this change of route—a vacillation which
      prevailed, in a more or less degree, for a period of many hours.

      “April 13th. Was again very much alarmed by a repetition of the
      loud, crackling noise which terrified me on the tenth. Thought
      long upon the subject, but was unable to form any satisfactory
      conclusion. Great decrease in the earth’s apparent diameter,
      which now subtended from the balloon an angle of very little more
      than twenty-five degrees. The moon could not be seen at all,
      being nearly in my zenith. I still continued in the plane of the
      ellipse, but made little progress to the eastward.

      “April 14th. Extremely rapid decrease in the diameter of the
      earth. To-day I became strongly impressed with the idea, that the
      balloon was now actually running up the line of apsides to the
      point of perigee—in other words, holding the direct course which
      would bring it immediately to the moon in that part of its orbit
      the nearest to the earth. The moon itself was directly overhead,
      and consequently hidden from my view. Great and long-continued
      labor necessary for the condensation of the atmosphere.

      “April 15th. Not even the outlines of continents and seas could
      now be traced upon the earth with anything approaching
      distinctness. About twelve o’clock I became aware, for the third
      time, of that appalling sound which had so astonished me before.
      It now, however, continued for some moments, and gathered
      intensity as it continued. At length, while, stupefied and
      terror-stricken, I stood in expectation of I knew not what
      hideous destruction, the car vibrated with excessive violence,
      and a gigantic and flaming mass of some material which I could
      not distinguish, came with a voice of a thousand thunders,
      roaring and booming by the balloon. When my fears and
      astonishment had in some degree subsided, I had little difficulty
      in supposing it to be some mighty volcanic fragment ejected from
      that world to which I was so rapidly approaching, and, in all
      probability, one of that singular class of substances
      occasionally picked up on the earth, and termed meteoric stones
      for want of a better appellation.

      “April 16th. To-day, looking upward as well as I could, through
      each of the side windows alternately, I beheld, to my great
      delight, a very small portion of the moon’s disk protruding, as
      it were, on all sides beyond the huge circumference of the
      balloon. My agitation was extreme; for I had now little doubt of
      soon reaching the end of my perilous voyage. Indeed, the labor
      now required by the condenser had increased to a most oppressive
      degree, and allowed me scarcely any respite from exertion. Sleep
      was a matter nearly out of the question. I became quite ill, and
      my frame trembled with exhaustion. It was impossible that human
      nature could endure this state of intense suffering much longer.
      During the now brief interval of darkness a meteoric stone again
      passed in my vicinity, and the frequency of these phenomena began
      to occasion me much apprehension.

      “April 17th. This morning proved an epoch in my voyage. It will
      be remembered that, on the thirteenth, the earth subtended an
      angular breadth of twenty-five degrees. On the fourteenth this
      had greatly diminished; on the fifteenth a still more remarkable
      decrease was observable; and, on retiring on the night of the
      sixteenth, I had noticed an angle of no more than about seven
      degrees and fifteen minutes. What, therefore, must have been my
      amazement, on awakening from a brief and disturbed slumber, on
      the morning of this day, the seventeenth, at finding the surface
      beneath me so suddenly and wonderfully augmented in volume, as to
      subtend no less than thirty-nine degrees in apparent angular
      diameter! I was thunderstruck! No words can give any adequate
      idea of the extreme, the absolute horror and astonishment, with
      which I was seized possessed, and altogether overwhelmed. My
      knees tottered beneath me—my teeth chattered—my hair started up
      on end. ‘The balloon, then, had actually burst!’ These were the
      first tumultuous ideas that hurried through my mind: ‘The balloon
      had positively burst!—I was falling—falling with the most
      impetuous, the most unparalleled velocity! To judge by the
      immense distance already so quickly passed over, it could not be
      more than ten minutes, at the farthest, before I should meet the
      surface of the earth, and be hurled into annihilation!’ But at
      length reflection came to my relief. I paused; I considered; and
      I began to doubt. The matter was impossible. I could not in any
      reason have so rapidly come down. Besides, although I was
      evidently approaching the surface below me, it was with a speed
      by no means commensurate with the velocity I had at first so
      horribly conceived. This consideration served to calm the
      perturbation of my mind, and I finally succeeded in regarding the
      phenomenon in its proper point of view. In fact, amazement must
      have fairly deprived me of my senses, when I could not see the
      vast difference, in appearance, between the surface below me, and
      the surface of my mother earth. The latter was indeed over my
      head, and completely hidden by the balloon, while the moon—the
      moon itself in all its glory—lay beneath me, and at my feet.

      “The stupor and surprise produced in my mind by this
      extraordinary change in the posture of affairs was perhaps, after
      all, that part of the adventure least susceptible of explanation.
      For the bouleversement in itself was not only natural and
      inevitable, but had been long actually anticipated as a
      circumstance to be expected whenever I should arrive at that
      exact point of my voyage where the attraction of the planet
      should be superseded by the attraction of the satellite—or, more
      precisely, where the gravitation of the balloon toward the earth
      should be less powerful than its gravitation toward the moon. To
      be sure I arose from a sound slumber, with all my senses in
      confusion, to the contemplation of a very startling phenomenon,
      and one which, although expected, was not expected at the moment.
      The revolution itself must, of course, have taken place in an
      easy and gradual manner, and it is by no means clear that, had I
      even been awake at the time of the occurrence, I should have been
      made aware of it by any internal evidence of an inversion—that is
      to say, by any inconvenience or disarrangement, either about my
      person or about my apparatus.

      “It is almost needless to say that, upon coming to a due sense of
      my situation, and emerging from the terror which had absorbed
      every faculty of my soul, my attention was, in the first place,
      wholly directed to the contemplation of the general physical
      appearance of the moon. It lay beneath me like a chart—and
      although I judged it to be still at no inconsiderable distance,
      the indentures of its surface were defined to my vision with a
      most striking and altogether unaccountable distinctness. The
      entire absence of ocean or sea, and indeed of any lake or river,
      or body of water whatsoever, struck me, at first glance, as the
      most extraordinary feature in its geological condition. Yet,
      strange to say, I beheld vast level regions of a character
      decidedly alluvial, although by far the greater portion of the
      hemisphere in sight was covered with innumerable volcanic
      mountains, conical in shape, and having more the appearance of
      artificial than of natural protuberance. The highest among them
      does not exceed three and three-quarter miles in perpendicular
      elevation; but a map of the volcanic districts of the Campi
      Phlegraei would afford to your Excellencies a better idea of
      their general surface than any unworthy description I might think
      proper to attempt. The greater part of them were in a state of
      evident eruption, and gave me fearfully to understand their fury
      and their power, by the repeated thunders of the miscalled
      meteoric stones, which now rushed upward by the balloon with a
      frequency more and more appalling.

      “April 18th. To-day I found an enormous increase in the moon’s
      apparent bulk—and the evidently accelerated velocity of my
      descent began to fill me with alarm. It will be remembered, that,
      in the earliest stage of my speculations upon the possibility of
      a passage to the moon, the existence, in its vicinity, of an
      atmosphere, dense in proportion to the bulk of the planet, had
      entered largely into my calculations; this too in spite of many
      theories to the contrary, and, it may be added, in spite of a
      general disbelief in the existence of any lunar atmosphere at
      all. But, in addition to what I have already urged in regard to
      Encke’s comet and the zodiacal light, I had been strengthened in
      my opinion by certain observations of Mr. Schroeter, of
      Lilienthal. He observed the moon when two days and a half old, in
      the evening soon after sunset, before the dark part was visible,
      and continued to watch it until it became visible. The two cusps
      appeared tapering in a very sharp faint prolongation, each
      exhibiting its farthest extremity faintly illuminated by the
      solar rays, before any part of the dark hemisphere was visible.
      Soon afterward, the whole dark limb became illuminated. This
      prolongation of the cusps beyond the semicircle, I thought, must
      have arisen from the refraction of the sun’s rays by the moon’s
      atmosphere. I computed, also, the height of the atmosphere (which
      could refract light enough into its dark hemisphere to produce a
      twilight more luminous than the light reflected from the earth
      when the moon is about 32° from the new) to be 1,356 Paris feet;
      in this view, I supposed the greatest height capable of
      refracting the solar ray, to be 5,376 feet. My ideas on this
      topic had also received confirmation by a passage in the
      eighty-second volume of the Philosophical Transactions, in which
      it is stated that at an occultation of Jupiter’s satellites, the
      third disappeared after having been about 1″ or 2″ of time
      indistinct, and the fourth became indiscernible near the
      limb.(*4)

      “Upon the resistance or, more properly, upon the support of an
      atmosphere, existing in the state of density imagined, I had, of
      course, entirely depended for the safety of my ultimate descent.
      Should I then, after all, prove to have been mistaken, I had in
      consequence nothing better to expect, as a finale to my
      adventure, than being dashed into atoms against the rugged
      surface of the satellite. And, indeed, I had now every reason to
      be terrified. My distance from the moon was comparatively
      trifling, while the labor required by the condenser was
      diminished not at all, and I could discover no indication
      whatever of a decreasing rarity in the air.

      “April 19th. This morning, to my great joy, about nine o’clock,
      the surface of the moon being frightfully near, and my
      apprehensions excited to the utmost, the pump of my condenser at
      length gave evident tokens of an alteration in the atmosphere. By
      ten, I had reason to believe its density considerably increased.
      By eleven, very little labor was necessary at the apparatus; and
      at twelve o’clock, with some hesitation, I ventured to unscrew
      the tourniquet, when, finding no inconvenience from having done
      so, I finally threw open the gum-elastic chamber, and unrigged it
      from around the car. As might have been expected, spasms and
      violent headache were the immediate consequences of an experiment
      so precipitate and full of danger. But these and other
      difficulties attending respiration, as they were by no means so
      great as to put me in peril of my life, I determined to endure as
      I best could, in consideration of my leaving them behind me
      momently in my approach to the denser strata near the moon. This
      approach, however, was still impetuous in the extreme; and it
      soon became alarmingly certain that, although I had probably not
      been deceived in the expectation of an atmosphere dense in
      proportion to the mass of the satellite, still I had been wrong
      in supposing this density, even at the surface, at all adequate
      to the support of the great weight contained in the car of my
      balloon. Yet this should have been the case, and in an equal
      degree as at the surface of the earth, the actual gravity of
      bodies at either planet supposed in the ratio of the atmospheric
      condensation. That it was not the case, however, my precipitous
      downfall gave testimony enough; why it was not so, can only be
      explained by a reference to those possible geological
      disturbances to which I have formerly alluded. At all events I
      was now close upon the planet, and coming down with the most
      terrible impetuosity. I lost not a moment, accordingly, in
      throwing overboard first my ballast, then my water-kegs, then my
      condensing apparatus and gum-elastic chamber, and finally every
      article within the car. But it was all to no purpose. I still
      fell with horrible rapidity, and was now not more than half a
      mile from the surface. As a last resource, therefore, having got
      rid of my coat, hat, and boots, I cut loose from the balloon the
      car itself, which was of no inconsiderable weight, and thus,
      clinging with both hands to the net-work, I had barely time to
      observe that the whole country, as far as the eye could reach,
      was thickly interspersed with diminutive habitations, ere I
      tumbled headlong into the very heart of a fantastical-looking
      city, and into the middle of a vast crowd of ugly little people,
      who none of them uttered a single syllable, or gave themselves
      the least trouble to render me assistance, but stood, like a
      parcel of idiots, grinning in a ludicrous manner, and eyeing me
      and my balloon askant, with their arms set a-kimbo. I turned from
      them in contempt, and, gazing upward at the earth so lately left,
      and left perhaps for ever, beheld it like a huge, dull, copper
      shield, about two degrees in diameter, fixed immovably in the
      heavens overhead, and tipped on one of its edges with a crescent
      border of the most brilliant gold. No traces of land or water
      could be discovered, and the whole was clouded with variable
      spots, and belted with tropical and equatorial zones.

      “Thus, may it please your Excellencies, after a series of great
      anxieties, unheard of dangers, and unparalleled escapes, I had,
      at length, on the nineteenth day of my departure from Rotterdam,
      arrived in safety at the conclusion of a voyage undoubtedly the
      most extraordinary, and the most momentous, ever accomplished,
      undertaken, or conceived by any denizen of earth. But my
      adventures yet remain to be related. And indeed your Excellencies
      may well imagine that, after a residence of five years upon a
      planet not only deeply interesting in its own peculiar character,
      but rendered doubly so by its intimate connection, in capacity of
      satellite, with the world inhabited by man, I may have
      intelligence for the private ear of the States’ College of
      Astronomers of far more importance than the details, however
      wonderful, of the mere voyage which so happily concluded. This
      is, in fact, the case. I have much—very much which it would give
      me the greatest pleasure to communicate. I have much to say of
      the climate of the planet; of its wonderful alternations of heat
      and cold, of unmitigated and burning sunshine for one fortnight,
      and more than polar frigidity for the next; of a constant
      transfer of moisture, by distillation like that in vacuo, from
      the point beneath the sun to the point the farthest from it; of a
      variable zone of running water; of the people themselves; of
      their manners, customs, and political institutions; of their
      peculiar physical construction; of their ugliness; of their want
      of ears, those useless appendages in an atmosphere so peculiarly
      modified; of their consequent ignorance of the use and properties
      of speech; of their substitute for speech in a singular method of
      inter-communication; of the incomprehensible connection between
      each particular individual in the moon with some particular
      individual on the earth—a connection analogous with, and
      depending upon, that of the orbs of the planet and the
      satellites, and by means of which the lives and destinies of the
      inhabitants of the one are interwoven with the lives and
      destinies of the inhabitants of the other; and above all, if it
      so please your Excellencies—above all, of those dark and hideous
      mysteries which lie in the outer regions of the moon—regions
      which, owing to the almost miraculous accordance of the
      satellite’s rotation on its own axis with its sidereal revolution
      about the earth, have never yet been turned, and, by God’s mercy,
      never shall be turned, to the scrutiny of the telescopes of man.
      All this, and more—much more—would I most willingly detail. But,
      to be brief, I must have my reward. I am pining for a return to
      my family and to my home; and as the price of any farther
      communication on my part—in consideration of the light which I
      have it in my power to throw upon many very important branches of
      physical and metaphysical science—I must solicit, through the
      influence of your honorable body, a pardon for the crime of which
      I have been guilty in the death of the creditors upon my
      departure from Rotterdam. This, then, is the object of the
      present paper. Its bearer, an inhabitant of the moon, whom I have
      prevailed upon, and properly instructed, to be my messenger to
      the earth, will await your Excellencies’ pleasure, and return to
      me with the pardon in question, if it can, in any manner, be
      obtained.

      “I have the honor to be, etc., your Excellencies’ very humble
      servant,

      “HANS PFAALL.”

      Upon finishing the perusal of this very extraordinary document,
      Professor Rub-a-dub, it is said, dropped his pipe upon the ground
      in the extremity of his surprise, and Mynheer Superbus Von
      Underduk having taken off his spectacles, wiped them, and
      deposited them in his pocket, so far forgot both himself and his
      dignity, as to turn round three times upon his heel in the
      quintessence of astonishment and admiration. There was no doubt
      about the matter—the pardon should be obtained. So at least
      swore, with a round oath, Professor Rub-a-dub, and so finally
      thought the illustrious Von Underduk, as he took the arm of his
      brother in science, and without saying a word, began to make the
      best of his way home to deliberate upon the measures to be
      adopted. Having reached the door, however, of the burgomaster’s
      dwelling, the professor ventured to suggest that as the messenger
      had thought proper to disappear—no doubt frightened to death by
      the savage appearance of the burghers of Rotterdam—the pardon
      would be of little use, as no one but a man of the moon would
      undertake a voyage to so vast a distance. To the truth of this
      observation the burgomaster assented, and the matter was
      therefore at an end. Not so, however, rumors and speculations.
      The letter, having been published, gave rise to a variety of
      gossip and opinion. Some of the over-wise even made themselves
      ridiculous by decrying the whole business; as nothing better than
      a hoax. But hoax, with these sort of people, is, I believe, a
      general term for all matters above their comprehension. For my
      part, I cannot conceive upon what data they have founded such an
      accusation. Let us see what they say:

      Imprimus. That certain wags in Rotterdam have certain especial
      antipathies to certain burgomasters and astronomers.

      Don’t understand at all.

      Secondly. That an odd little dwarf and bottle conjurer, both of
      whose ears, for some misdemeanor, have been cut off close to his
      head, has been missing for several days from the neighboring city
      of Bruges.

      Well—what of that?

      Thirdly. That the newspapers which were stuck all over the little
      balloon were newspapers of Holland, and therefore could not have
      been made in the moon. They were dirty papers—very dirty—and
      Gluck, the printer, would take his Bible oath to their having
      been printed in Rotterdam.

      He was mistaken—undoubtedly—mistaken.

      Fourthly, That Hans Pfaall himself, the drunken villain, and the
      three very idle gentlemen styled his creditors, were all seen, no
      longer than two or three days ago, in a tippling house in the
      suburbs, having just returned, with money in their pockets, from
      a trip beyond the sea.

      Don’t believe it—don’t believe a word of it.

      Lastly. That it is an opinion very generally received, or which
      ought to be generally received, that the College of Astronomers
      in the city of Rotterdam, as well as other colleges in all other
      parts of the world,—not to mention colleges and astronomers in
      general,—are, to say the least of the matter, not a whit better,
      nor greater, nor wiser than they ought to be.

      ~~~ End of Text ~~~

Notes to Hans Pfaal

      (*1) NOTE—Strictly speaking, there is but little similarity
      between the above sketchy trifle and the celebrated “Moon-Story”
      of Mr. Locke; but as both have the character of _hoaxes_
      (although the one is in a tone of banter, the other of downright
      earnest), and as both hoaxes are on the same subject, the
      moon—moreover, as both attempt to give plausibility by scientific
      detail—the author of “Hans Pfaall” thinks it necessary to say, in
      _self-defence,_ that his own _jeu d’esprit_ was published in the
      “Southern Literary Messenger” about three weeks before the
      commencement of Mr. L’s in the “New York Sun.” Fancying a
      likeness which, perhaps, does not exist, some of the New York
      papers copied “Hans Pfaall,” and collated it with the
      “Moon-Hoax,” by way of detecting the writer of the one in the
      writer of the other.

      As many more persons were actually gulled by the “Moon-Hoax” than
      would be willing to acknowledge the fact, it may here afford some
      little amusement to show why no one should have been deceived-to
      point out those particulars of the story which should have been
      sufficient to establish its real character. Indeed, however rich
      the imagination displayed in this ingenious fiction, it wanted
      much of the force which might have been given it by a more
      scrupulous attention to facts and to general analogy. That the
      public were misled, even for an instant, merely proves the gross
      ignorance which is so generally prevalent upon subjects of an
      astronomical nature.

      The moon’s distance from the earth is, in round numbers, 240,000
      miles. If we desire to ascertain how near, apparently, a lens
      would bring the satellite (or any distant object), we, of course,
      have but to divide the distance by the magnifying or, more
      strictly, by the space-penetrating power of the glass. Mr. L.
      makes his lens have a power of 42,000 times. By this divide
      240,000 (the moon’s real distance), and we have five miles and
      five sevenths, as the apparent distance. No animal at all could
      be seen so far; much less the minute points particularized in the
      story. Mr. L. speaks about Sir John Herschel’s perceiving flowers
      (the Papaver rheas, etc.), and even detecting the color and the
      shape of the eyes of small birds. Shortly before, too, he has
      himself observed that the lens would not render perceptible
      objects of less than eighteen inches in diameter; but even this,
      as I have said, is giving the glass by far too great power. It
      may be observed, in passing, that this prodigious glass is said
      to have been molded at the glasshouse of Messrs. Hartley and
      Grant, in Dumbarton; but Messrs. H. and G.‘s establishment had
      ceased operations for many years previous to the publication of
      the hoax.

      On page 13, pamphlet edition, speaking of “a hairy veil” over the
      eyes of a species of bison, the author says: “It immediately
      occurred to the acute mind of Dr. Herschel that this was a
      providential contrivance to protect the eyes of the animal from
      the great extremes of light and darkness to which all the
      inhabitants of our side of the moon are periodically subjected.”
      But this cannot be thought a very “acute” observation of the
      Doctor’s. The inhabitants of our side of the moon have,
      evidently, no darkness at all, so there can be nothing of the
      “extremes” mentioned. In the absence of the sun they have a light
      from the earth equal to that of thirteen full unclouded moons.

      The topography throughout, even when professing to accord with
      Blunt’s Lunar Chart, is entirely at variance with that or any
      other lunar chart, and even grossly at variance with itself. The
      points of the compass, too, are in inextricable confusion; the
      writer appearing to be ignorant that, on a lunar map, these are
      not in accordance with terrestrial points; the east being to the
      left, etc.

      Deceived, perhaps, by the vague titles, Mare Nubium, Mare
      Tranquillitatis, Mare Faecunditatis, etc., given to the dark
      spots by former astronomers, Mr. L. has entered into details
      regarding oceans and other large bodies of water in the moon;
      whereas there is no astronomical point more positively
      ascertained than that no such bodies exist there. In examining
      the boundary between light and darkness (in the crescent or
      gibbous moon) where this boundary crosses any of the dark places,
      the line of division is found to be rough and jagged; but, were
      these dark places liquid, it would evidently be even.

      The description of the wings of the man-bat, on page 21, is but a
      literal copy of Peter Wilkins’ account of the wings of his flying
      islanders. This simple fact should have induced suspicion, at
      least, it might be thought.

      On page 23, we have the following: “What a prodigious influence
      must our thirteen times larger globe have exercised upon this
      satellite when an embryo in the womb of time, the passive subject
      of chemical affinity!” This is very fine; but it should be
      observed that no astronomer would have made such remark,
      especially to any journal of Science; for the earth, in the sense
      intended, is not only thirteen, but forty-nine times larger than
      the moon. A similar objection applies to the whole of the
      concluding pages, where, by way of introduction to some
      discoveries in Saturn, the philosophical correspondent enters
      into a minute schoolboy account of that planet—this to the
      “Edinburgh Journal of Science!”

      But there is one point, in particular, which should have betrayed
      the fiction. Let us imagine the power actually possessed of
      seeing animals upon the moon’s surface—what would first arrest
      the attention of an observer from the earth? Certainly neither
      their shape, size, nor any other such peculiarity, so soon as
      their remarkable _situation_. They would appear to be walking,
      with heels up and head down, in the manner of flies on a ceiling.
      The _real_ observer would have uttered an instant ejaculation of
      surprise (however prepared by previous knowledge) at the
      singularity of their position; the _fictitious_ observer has not
      even mentioned the subject, but speaks of seeing the entire
      bodies of such creatures, when it is demonstrable that he could
      have seen only the diameter of their heads!

      It might as well be remarked, in conclusion, that the size, and
      particularly the powers of the man-bats (for example, their
      ability to fly in so rare an atmosphere—if, indeed, the moon have
      any), with most of the other fancies in regard to animal and
      vegetable existence, are at variance, generally, with all
      analogical reasoning on these themes; and that analogy here will
      often amount to conclusive demonstration. It is, perhaps,
      scarcely necessary to add, that all the suggestions attributed to
      Brewster and Herschel, in the beginning of the article, about “a
      transfusion of artificial light through the focal object of
      vision,” etc., etc., belong to that species of figurative writing
      which comes, most properly, under the denomination of rigmarole.

      There is a real and very definite limit to optical discovery
      among the stars—a limit whose nature need only be stated to be
      understood. If, indeed, the casting of large lenses were all that
      is required, man’s ingenuity would ultimately prove equal to the
      task, and we might have them of any size demanded. But,
      unhappily, in proportion to the increase of size in the lens, and
      consequently of space-penetrating power, is the diminution of
      light from the object, by diffusion of its rays. And for this
      evil there is no remedy within human ability; for an object is
      seen by means of that light alone which proceeds from itself,
      whether direct or reflected. Thus the only “artificial” light
      which could avail Mr. Locke, would be some artificial light which
      he should be able to throw—not upon the “focal object of vision,”
      but upon the real object to be viewed—to wit: upon the moon. It
      has been easily calculated that, when the light proceeding from a
      star becomes so diffused as to be as weak as the natural light
      proceeding from the whole of the stars, in a clear and moonless
      night, then the star is no longer visible for any practical
      purpose.

      The Earl of Ross’s telescope, lately constructed in England, has
      a _speculum_ with a reflecting surface of 4,071 square inches;
      the Herschel telescope having one of only 1,811. The metal of the
      Earl of Ross’s is 6 feet diameter; it is 5 1/2 inches thick at
      the edges, and 5 at the centre. The weight is 3 tons. The focal
      length is 50 feet.

      I have lately read a singular and somewhat ingenious little book,
      whose title-page runs thus: “L’Homme dans la lvne ou le Voyage
      Chimerique fait au Monde de la Lvne, nouellement decouvert par
      Dominique Gonzales, Aduanturier Espagnol, autrem?t dit le Courier
      volant. Mis en notre langve par J. B. D. A. Paris, chez Francois
      Piot, pres la Fontaine de Saint Benoist. Et chez J. Goignard, au
      premier pilier de la grand’salle du Palais, proche les
      Consultations, MDCXLVII.” Pp. 76.

      The writer professes to have translated his work from the English
      of one Mr. D’Avisson (Davidson?) although there is a terrible
      ambiguity in the statement. “J’ en ai eu,” says he “l’original de
      Monsieur D’Avisson, medecin des mieux versez qui soient
      aujourd’huy dans la cõnoissance des Belles Lettres, et sur tout
      de la Philosophic Naturelle. Je lui ai cette obligation entre les
      autres, de m’ auoir non seulement mis en main ce Livre en
      anglois, mais encore le Manuscrit du Sieur Thomas D’Anan,
      gentilhomme Eccossois, recommandable pour sa vertu, sur la
      version duquel j’ advoue que j’ ay tiré le plan de la mienne.”

      After some irrelevant adventures, much in the manner of Gil Blas,
      and which occupy the first thirty pages, the author relates that,
      being ill during a sea voyage, the crew abandoned him, together
      with a negro servant, on the island of St. Helena. To increase
      the chances of obtaining food, the two separate, and live as far
      apart as possible. This brings about a training of birds, to
      serve the purpose of carrier-pigeons between them. By and by
      these are taught to carry parcels of some weight—and this weight
      is gradually increased. At length the idea is entertained of
      uniting the force of a great number of the birds, with a view to
      raising the author himself. A machine is contrived for the
      purpose, and we have a minute description of it, which is
      materially helped out by a steel engraving. Here we perceive the
      Signor Gonzales, with point ruffles and a huge periwig, seated
      astride something which resembles very closely a broomstick, and
      borne aloft by a multitude of wild swans _(ganzas)_ who had
      strings reaching from their tails to the machine.

      The main event detailed in the Signor’s narrative depends upon a
      very important fact, of which the reader is kept in ignorance
      until near the end of the book. The _ganzas,_ with whom he had
      become so familiar, were not really denizens of St. Helena, but
      of the moon. Thence it had been their custom, time out of mind,
      to migrate annually to some portion of the earth. In proper
      season, of course, they would return home; and the author,
      happening, one day, to require their services for a short voyage,
      is unexpectedly carried straight tip, and in a very brief period
      arrives at the satellite. Here he finds, among other odd things,
      that the people enjoy extreme happiness; that they have no _law;_
      that they die without pain; that they are from ten to thirty feet
      in height; that they live five thousand years; that they have an
      emperor called Irdonozur; and that they can jump sixty feet high,
      when, being out of the gravitating influence, they fly about with
      fans.

      I cannot forbear giving a specimen of the general _philosophy_ of
      the volume.

“I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of
the globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it
the larger they seemed. I have also me and the earth. As to the stars,
_since there was no night where I was, they always had the same
appearance; not brilliant, as usual, but pale, and very nearly like the
moon of a morning. _But few of them were visible, and these ten times
larger (as well as I could judge) than they seem to the inhabitants of
the earth. The moon, which wanted two days of being full, was of a
terrible bigness.

“I must not forget here, that the stars appeared only on that side of
the globe turned toward the moon, and that the closer they were to it
the larger they seemed. I have also to inform you that, whether it was
calm weather or stormy, I found myself _always immediately between the
moon and the earth._ I_ _was convinced of this for two reasons-because
my birds always flew in a straight line; and because whenever we
attempted to rest, _we were carried insensibly around the globe of the
earth. _For I admit the opinion of Copernicus, who maintains that it
never ceases to revolve _from the east to the west, _not upon the poles
of the Equinoctial, commonly called the poles of the world, but upon
those of the Zodiac, a question of which I propose to speak more at
length here-after, when I shall have leisure to refresh my memory in
regard to the astrology which I learned at Salamanca when young, and
have since forgotten.”

      Notwithstanding the blunders italicized, the book is not without
      some claim to attention, as affording a naive specimen of the
      current astronomical notions of the time. One of these assumed,
      that the “gravitating power” extended but a short distance from
      the earth’s surface, and, accordingly, we find our voyager
      “carried insensibly around the globe,” etc.

      There have been other “voyages to the moon,” but none of higher
      merit than the one just mentioned. That of Bergerac is utterly
      meaningless. In the third volume of the “American Quarterly
      Review” will be found quite an elaborate criticism upon a certain
      “journey” of the kind in question—a criticism in which it is
      difficult to say whether the critic most exposes the stupidity of
      the book, or his own absurd ignorance of astronomy. I forget the
      title of the work; but the _means_ of the voyage are more
      deplorably ill conceived than are even the _ganzas_ of our friend
      the Signor Gonzales. The adventurer, in digging the earth,
      happens to discover a peculiar metal for which the moon has a
      strong attraction, and straightway constructs of it a box, which,
      when cast loose from its terrestrial fastenings, flies with him,
      forthwith, to the satellite. The “Flight of Thomas O’Rourke,” is
      a _jeu d’ esprit_ not altogether contemptible, and has been
      translated into German. Thomas, the hero, was, in fact, the
      gamekeeper of an Irish peer, whose eccentricities gave rise to
      the tale. The “flight” is made on an eagle’s back, from Hungry
      Hill, a lofty mountain at the end of Bantry Bay.

      In these various _brochures_ the aim is always satirical; the
      theme being a description of Lunarian customs as compared with
      ours. In none is there any effort at _plausibility_ in the
      details of the voyage itself. The writers seem, in each instance,
      to be utterly uninformed in respect to astronomy. In “Hans
      Pfaall” the design is original, inasmuch as regards an attempt at
      _verisimilitude,_ in the application of scientific principles (so
      far as the whimsical nature of the subject would permit), to the
      actual passage between the earth and the moon.

      (*2) The zodiacal light is probably what the ancients called
      Trabes. Emicant Trabes quos docos vocant.—Pliny, lib. 2, p. 26.

      (*3) Since the original publication of Hans Pfaall, I find that
      Mr. Green, of Nassau balloon notoriety, and other late aeronauts,
      deny the assertions of Humboldt, in this respect, and speak of a
      decreasing inconvenience,—precisely in accordance with the theory
      here urged in a mere spirit of banter.

      (*4) Hevelius writes that he has several times found, in skies
      perfectly clear, when even stars of the sixth and seventh
      magnitude were conspicuous, that, at the same altitude of the
      moon, at the same elongation from the earth, and with one and the
      same excellent telescope, the moon and its maculae did not appear
      equally lucid at all times. From the circumstances of the
      observation, it is evident that the cause of this phenomenon is
      not either in our air, in the tube, in the moon, or in the eye of
      the spectator, but must be looked for in something (an
      atmosphere?) existing about the moon.

      Cassini frequently observed Saturn, Jupiter, and the fixed stars,
      when approaching the moon to occultation, to have their circular
      figure changed into an oval one; and, in other occultations, he
      found no alteration of figure at all. Hence it might be supposed,
      that at some times and not at others, there is a dense matter
      encompassing the moon wherein the rays of the stars are
      refracted.




THE GOLD-BUG


What ho! what ho! this fellow is dancing mad!
He hath been bitten by the Tarantula.

_—All in the Wrong._

      Many years ago, I contracted an intimacy with a Mr. William
      Legrand. He was of an ancient Huguenot family, and had once been
      wealthy; but a series of misfortunes had reduced him to want. To
      avoid the mortification consequent upon his disasters, he left
      New Orleans, the city of his forefathers, and took up his
      residence at Sullivan’s Island, near Charleston, South Carolina.

      This Island is a very singular one. It consists of little else
      than the sea sand, and is about three miles long. Its breadth at
      no point exceeds a quarter of a mile. It is separated from the
      main land by a scarcely perceptible creek, oozing its way through
      a wilderness of reeds and slime, a favorite resort of the marsh
      hen. The vegetation, as might be supposed, is scant, or at least
      dwarfish. No trees of any magnitude are to be seen. Near the
      western extremity, where Fort Moultrie stands, and where are some
      miserable frame buildings, tenanted, during summer, by the
      fugitives from Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed,
      the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of
      this western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the
      seacoast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of the sweet
      myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturists of England. The
      shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet,
      and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening the air with
      its fragrance.

      In the inmost recesses of this coppice, not far from the eastern
      or more remote end of the island, Legrand had built himself a
      small hut, which he occupied when I first, by mere accident, made
      his acquaintance. This soon ripened into friendship—for there was
      much in the recluse to excite interest and esteem. I found him
      well educated, with unusual powers of mind, but infected with
      misanthropy, and subject to perverse moods of alternate
      enthusiasm and melancholy. He had with him many books, but rarely
      employed them. His chief amusements were gunning and fishing, or
      sauntering along the beach and through the myrtles, in quest of
      shells or entomological specimens—his collection of the latter
      might have been envied by a Swammerdamm. In these excursions he
      was usually accompanied by an old negro, called Jupiter, who had
      been manumitted before the reverses of the family, but who could
      be induced, neither by threats nor by promises, to abandon what
      he considered his right of attendance upon the footsteps of his
      young “Massa Will.” It is not improbable that the relatives of
      Legrand, conceiving him to be somewhat unsettled in intellect,
      had contrived to instil this obstinacy into Jupiter, with a view
      to the supervision and guardianship of the wanderer.

      The winters in the latitude of Sullivan’s Island are seldom very
      severe, and in the fall of the year it is a rare event indeed
      when a fire is considered necessary. About the middle of October,
      18—, there occurred, however, a day of remarkable chilliness.
      Just before sunset I scrambled my way through the evergreens to
      the hut of my friend, whom I had not visited for several weeks—my
      residence being, at that time, in Charleston, a distance of nine
      miles from the island, while the facilities of passage and
      re-passage were very far behind those of the present day. Upon
      reaching the hut I rapped, as was my custom, and getting no
      reply, sought for the key where I knew it was secreted, unlocked
      the door and went in. A fine fire was blazing upon the hearth. It
      was a novelty, and by no means an ungrateful one. I threw off an
      overcoat, took an arm-chair by the crackling logs, and awaited
      patiently the arrival of my hosts.

      Soon after dark they arrived, and gave me a most cordial welcome.
      Jupiter, grinning from ear to ear, bustled about to prepare some
      marsh-hens for supper. Legrand was in one of his fits—how else
      shall I term them?—of enthusiasm. He had found an unknown
      bivalve, forming a new genus, and, more than this, he had hunted
      down and secured, with Jupiter’s assistance, a _scarabæus_ which
      he believed to be totally new, but in respect to which he wished
      to have my opinion on the morrow.

      “And why not to-night?” I asked, rubbing my hands over the blaze,
      and wishing the whole tribe of _scarabæi_ at the devil.

      “Ah, if I had only known you were here!” said Legrand, “but it’s
      so long since I saw you; and how could I foresee that you would
      pay me a visit this very night of all others? As I was coming
      home I met Lieutenant G——, from the fort, and, very foolishly, I
      lent him the bug; so it will be impossible for you to see it
      until the morning. Stay here to-night, and I will send Jup down
      for it at sunrise. It is the loveliest thing in creation!”

      “What?—sunrise?”

      “Nonsense! no!—the bug. It is of a brilliant gold color—about the
      size of a large hickory-nut—with two jet black spots near one
      extremity of the back, and another, somewhat longer, at the
      other. The _antennæ_ are—”

      “Dey aint no tin in him, Massa Will, I keep a tellin on you,”
      here interrupted Jupiter; “de bug is a goole bug, solid, ebery
      bit of him, inside and all, sep him wing—neber feel half so hebby
      a bug in my life.”

      “Well, suppose it is, Jup,” replied Legrand, somewhat more
      earnestly, it seemed to me, than the case demanded, “is that any
      reason for your letting the birds burn? The color”—here he turned
      to me—“is really almost enough to warrant Jupiter’s idea. You
      never saw a more brilliant metallic lustre than the scales
      emit—but of this you cannot judge till tomorrow. In the mean time
      I can give you some idea of the shape.” Saying this, he seated
      himself at a small table, on which were a pen and ink, but no
      paper. He looked for some in a drawer, but found none.

      “Never mind,” said he at length, “this will answer;” and he drew
      from his waistcoat pocket a scrap of what I took to be very dirty
      foolscap, and made upon it a rough drawing with the pen. While he
      did this, I retained my seat by the fire, for I was still chilly.
      When the design was complete, he handed it to me without rising.
      As I received it, a loud growl was heard, succeeded by a
      scratching at the door. Jupiter opened it, and a large
      Newfoundland, belonging to Legrand, rushed in, leaped upon my
      shoulders, and loaded me with caresses; for I had shown him much
      attention during previous visits. When his gambols were over, I
      looked at the paper, and, to speak the truth, found myself not a
      little puzzled at what my friend had depicted.

      “Well!” I said, after contemplating it for some minutes, “this
      _is_ a strange _scarabæus_, I must confess: new to me: never saw
      anything like it before—unless it was a skull, or a
      death’s-head—which it more nearly resembles than anything else
      that has come under _my_ observation.”

      “A death’s-head!” echoed Legrand. “Oh—yes—well, it has something
      of that appearance upon paper, no doubt. The two upper black
      spots look like eyes, eh? and the longer one at the bottom like a
      mouth—and then the shape of the whole is oval.”

      “Perhaps so,” said I; “but, Legrand, I fear you are no artist. I
      must wait until I see the beetle itself, if I am to form any idea
      of its personal appearance.”

      “Well, I don’t know,” said he, a little nettled, “I draw
      tolerably—_should_ do it at least—have had good masters, and
      flatter myself that I am not quite a blockhead.”

      “But, my dear fellow, you are joking then,” said I, “this is a
      very passable _skull_—indeed, I may say that it is a very
      _excellent_ skull, according to the vulgar notions about such
      specimens of physiology—and your _scarabæus_ must be the queerest
      _scarabæus_ in the world if it resembles it. Why, we may get up a
      very thrilling bit of superstition upon this hint. I presume you
      will call the bug _scarabæus caput hominis_, or something of that
      kind—there are many similar titles in the Natural Histories. But
      where are the _antennæ_ you spoke of?”

      “The _antennæ!_” said Legrand, who seemed to be getting
      unaccountably warm upon the subject; “I am sure you must see the
      _antennæ_. I made them as distinct as they are in the original
      insect, and I presume that is sufficient.”

      “Well, well,” I said, “perhaps you have—still I don’t see them;”
      and I handed him the paper without additional remark, not wishing
      to ruffle his temper; but I was much surprised at the turn
      affairs had taken; his ill humor puzzled me—and, as for the
      drawing of the beetle, there were positively _no antennæ_
      visible, and the whole _did_ bear a very close resemblance to the
      ordinary cuts of a death’s-head.

      He received the paper very peevishly, and was about to crumple
      it, apparently to throw it in the fire, when a casual glance at
      the design seemed suddenly to rivet his attention. In an instant
      his face grew violently red—in another as excessively pale. For
      some minutes he continued to scrutinize the drawing minutely
      where he sat. At length he arose, took a candle from the table,
      and proceeded to seat himself upon a sea-chest in the farthest
      corner of the room. Here again he made an anxious examination of
      the paper; turning it in all directions. He said nothing,
      however, and his conduct greatly astonished me; yet I thought it
      prudent not to exacerbate the growing moodiness of his temper by
      any comment. Presently he took from his coat pocket a wallet,
      placed the paper carefully in it, and deposited both in a
      writing-desk, which he locked. He now grew more composed in his
      demeanor; but his original air of enthusiasm had quite
      disappeared. Yet he seemed not so much sulky as abstracted. As
      the evening wore away he became more and more absorbed in
      reverie, from which no sallies of mine could arouse him. It had
      been my intention to pass the night at the hut, as I had
      frequently done before, but, seeing my host in this mood, I
      deemed it proper to take leave. He did not press me to remain,
      but, as I departed, he shook my hand with even more than his
      usual cordiality.

      It was about a month after this (and during the interval I had
      seen nothing of Legrand) when I received a visit, at Charleston,
      from his man, Jupiter. I had never seen the good old negro look
      so dispirited, and I feared that some serious disaster had
      befallen my friend.

      “Well, Jup,” said I, “what is the matter now?—how is your
      master?”

      “Why, to speak de troof, massa, him not so berry well as mought
      be.”

      “Not well! I am truly sorry to hear it. What does he complain
      of?”

      “Dar! dat’s it!—him neber ’plain of notin’—but him berry sick for
      all dat.”

      “_Very_ sick, Jupiter!—why didn’t you say so at once? Is he
      confined to bed?”

      “No, dat he aint!—he aint ’fin’d nowhar—dat’s just whar de shoe
      pinch—my mind is got to be berry hebby ’bout poor Massa Will.”

      “Jupiter, I should like to understand what it is you are talking
      about. You say your master is sick. Hasn’t he told you what ails
      him?”

      “Why, massa, ’taint worf while for to git mad about de
      matter—Massa Will say noffin at all aint de matter wid him—but
      den what make him go about looking dis here way, wid he head down
      and he soldiers up, and as white as a gose? And den he keep a
      syphon all de time—”

      “Keeps a what, Jupiter?”

      “Keeps a syphon wid de figgurs on de slate—de queerest figgurs I
      ebber did see. Ise gittin’ to be skeered, I tell you. Hab for to
      keep mighty tight eye ’pon him ’noovers. Todder day he gib me
      slip ’fore de sun up and was gone de whole ob de blessed day. I
      had a big stick ready cut for to gib him deuced good beating when
      he did come—but Ise sich a fool dat I hadn’t de heart arter
      all—he look so berry poorly.”

      “Eh?—what?—ah yes!—upon the whole I think you had better not be
      too severe with the poor fellow—don’t flog him, Jupiter—he can’t
      very well stand it—but can you form no idea of what has
      occasioned this illness, or rather this change of conduct? Has
      anything unpleasant happened since I saw you?”

      “No, massa, dey aint bin noffin onpleasant _since_ den—‘twas
      _’fore_ den I’m feared—‘twas de berry day you was dare.”

      “How? what do you mean?”

      “Why, massa, I mean de bug—dare now.”

      “The what?”

      “De bug,—I’m berry sartain dat Massa Will bin bit somewhere ’bout
      de head by dat goole-bug.”

      “And what cause have you, Jupiter, for such a supposition?”

      “Claws enuff, massa, and mouff too. I nebber did see sick a
      deuced bug—he kick and he bite ebery ting what cum near him.
      Massa Will cotch him fuss, but had for to let him go ’gin mighty
      quick, I tell you—den was de time he must ha’ got de bite. I did
      n’t like de look oh de bug mouff, myself, no how, so I would n’t
      take hold ob him wid my finger, but I cotch him wid a piece ob
      paper dat I found. I rap him up in de paper and stuff piece ob it
      in he mouff—dat was de way.”

      “And you think, then, that your master was really bitten by the
      beetle, and that the bite made him sick?”

      “I do n’t tink noffin about it—I nose it. What make him dream
      ’bout de goole so much, if ’taint cause he bit by de goole-bug?
      Ise heerd ’bout dem goole-bugs fore dis.”

      “But how do you know he dreams about gold?”

      “How I know? why ’cause he talk about it in he sleep—dat’s how I
      nose.”

      “Well, Jup, perhaps you are right; but to what fortunate
      circumstance am I to attribute the honor of a visit from you
      to-day?”

      “What de matter, massa?”

      “Did you bring any message from Mr. Legrand?”

      “No, massa, I bring dis here pissel;” and here Jupiter handed me
      a note which ran thus:

      “MY DEAR ——Why have I not seen you for so long a time? I hope you
      have not been so foolish as to take offence at any little
      _brusquerie_ of mine; but no, that is improbable. Since I saw you
      I have had great cause for anxiety. I have something to tell you,
      yet scarcely know how to tell it, or whether I should tell it at
      all.

      “I have not been quite well for some days past, and poor old Jup
      annoys me, almost beyond endurance, by his well-meant attentions.
      Would you believe it?—he had prepared a huge stick, the other
      day, with which to chastise me for giving him the slip, and
      spending the day, _solus_, among the hills on the main land. I
      verily believe that my ill looks alone saved me a flogging.

      “I have made no addition to my cabinet since we met.

      “If you can, in any way, make it convenient, come over with
      Jupiter. _Do_ come. I wish to see you to-_night_, upon business
      of importance. I assure you that it is of the _highest_
      importance.

“Ever yours,
“WILLIAM LEGRAND”.

      There was something in the tone of this note which gave me great
      uneasiness. Its whole style differed materially from that of
      Legrand. What could he be dreaming of? What new crotchet
      possessed his excitable brain? What “business of the highest
      importance” could he possibly have to transact? Jupiter’s account
      of him boded no good. I dreaded lest the continued pressure of
      misfortune had, at length, fairly unsettled the reason of my
      friend. Without a moment’s hesitation, therefore, I prepared to
      accompany the negro.

      Upon reaching the wharf, I noticed a scythe and three spades, all
      apparently new, lying in the bottom of the boat in which we were
      to embark.

      “What is the meaning of all this, Jup?” I inquired.

      “Him syfe, massa, and spade.”

      “Very true; but what are they doing here?”

      “Him de syfe and de spade what Massa Will sis pon my buying for
      him in de town, and de debbil’s own lot of money I had to gib for
      ’em.”

      “But what, in the name of all that is mysterious, is your ‘Massa
      Will’ going to do with scythes and spades?”

      “Dat’s more dan _I_ know, and debbil take me if I don’t b’lieve
      ’tis more dan he know, too. But it’s all cum ob do bug.”

      Finding that no satisfaction was to be obtained of Jupiter, whose
      whole intellect seemed to be absorbed by “de bug,” I now stepped
      into the boat and made sail. With a fair and strong breeze we
      soon ran into the little cove to the northward of Fort Moultrie,
      and a walk of some two miles brought us to the hut. It was about
      three in the afternoon when we arrived. Legrand had been awaiting
      us in eager expectation. He grasped my hand with a nervous
      empressement which alarmed me and strengthened the suspicions
      already entertained. His countenance was pale even to
      ghastliness, and his deep-set eyes glared with unnatural lustre.
      After some inquiries respecting his health, I asked him, not
      knowing what better to say, if he had yet obtained the
      _scarabæus_ from Lieutenant G——.

      “Oh, yes,” he replied, coloring violently, “I got it from him the
      next morning. Nothing should tempt me to part with that
      _scarabæus_. Do you know that Jupiter is quite right about it?”

      “In what way?” I asked, with a sad foreboding at heart.

      “In supposing it to be a bug of _real gold_.” He said this with
      an air of profound seriousness, and I felt inexpressibly shocked.

      “This bug is to make my fortune,” he continued, with a triumphant
      smile, “to reinstate me in my family possessions. Is it any
      wonder, then, that I prize it? Since Fortune has thought fit to
      bestow it upon me, I have only to use it properly and I shall
      arrive at the gold of which it is the index. Jupiter; bring me
      that _scarabæus!_”

      “What! de bug, massa? I’d rudder not go fer trubble dat bug—you
      mus’ git him for your own self.” Hereupon Legrand arose, with a
      grave and stately air, and brought me the beetle from a glass
      case in which it was enclosed. It was a beautiful scarabæus, and,
      at that time, unknown to naturalists—of course a great prize in a
      scientific point of view. There were two round, black spots near
      one extremity of the back, and a long one near the other. The
      scales were exceedingly hard and glossy, with all the appearance
      of burnished gold. The weight of the insect was very remarkable,
      and, taking all things into consideration, I could hardly blame
      Jupiter for his opinion respecting it; but what to make of
      Legrand’s concordance with that opinion, I could not, for the
      life of me, tell.

      “I sent for you,” said he, in a grandiloquent tone, when I had
      completed my examination of the beetle, “I sent for you, that I
      might have your counsel and assistance in furthering the views of
      Fate and of the bug—”

      “My dear Legrand,” I cried, interrupting him, “you are certainly
      unwell, and had better use some little precautions. You shall go
      to bed, and I will remain with you a few days, until you get over
      this. You are feverish and—”

      “Feel my pulse,” said he.

      I felt it, and, to say the truth, found not the slightest
      indication of fever.

      “But you may be ill and yet have no fever. Allow me this once to
      prescribe for you. In the first place, go to bed. In the next—”

      “You are mistaken,” he interposed, “I am as well as I can expect
      to be under the excitement which I suffer. If you really wish me
      well, you will relieve this excitement.”

      “And how is this to be done?”

      “Very easily. Jupiter and myself are going upon an expedition
      into the hills, upon the main land, and, in this expedition we
      shall need the aid of some person in whom we can confide. You are
      the only one we can trust. Whether we succeed or fail, the
      excitement which you now perceive in me will be equally allayed.”

      “I am anxious to oblige you in any way,” I replied; “but do you
      mean to say that this infernal beetle has any connection with
      your expedition into the hills?”

      “It has.”

      “Then, Legrand, I can become a party to no such absurd
      proceeding.”

      “I am sorry—very sorry—for we shall have to try it by ourselves.”

      “Try it by yourselves! The man is surely mad!—but stay!—how long
      do you propose to be absent?”

      “Probably all night. We shall start immediately, and be back, at
      all events, by sunrise.”

      “And will you promise me, upon your honor, that when this freak
      of yours is over, and the bug business (good God!) settled to
      your satisfaction, you will then return home and follow my advice
      implicitly, as that of your physician?”

      “Yes; I promise; and now let us be off, for we have no time to
      lose.”

      With a heavy heart I accompanied my friend. We started about four
      o’clock—Legrand, Jupiter, the dog, and myself. Jupiter had with
      him the scythe and spades—the whole of which he insisted upon
      carrying—more through fear, it seemed to me, of trusting either
      of the implements within reach of his master, than from any
      excess of industry or complaisance. His demeanor was dogged in
      the extreme, and “dat deuced bug” were the sole words which
      escaped his lips during the journey. For my own part, I had
      charge of a couple of dark lanterns, while Legrand contented
      himself with the _scarabæus_, which he carried attached to the
      end of a bit of whip-cord; twirling it to and fro, with the air
      of a conjuror, as he went. When I observed this last, plain
      evidence of my friend’s aberration of mind, I could scarcely
      refrain from tears. I thought it best, however, to humor his
      fancy, at least for the present, or until I could adopt some more
      energetic measures with a chance of success. In the mean time I
      endeavored, but all in vain, to sound him in regard to the object
      of the expedition. Having succeeded in inducing me to accompany
      him, he seemed unwilling to hold conversation upon any topic of
      minor importance, and to all my questions vouchsafed no other
      reply than “we shall see!”

      We crossed the creek at the head of the island by means of a
      skiff, and, ascending the high grounds on the shore of the main
      land, proceeded in a northwesterly direction, through a tract of
      country excessively wild and desolate, where no trace of a human
      footstep was to be seen. Legrand led the way with decision;
      pausing only for an instant, here and there, to consult what
      appeared to be certain landmarks of his own contrivance upon a
      former occasion.

      In this manner we journeyed for about two hours, and the sun was
      just setting when we entered a region infinitely more dreary than
      any yet seen. It was a species of table land, near the summit of
      an almost inaccessible hill, densely wooded from base to
      pinnacle, and interspersed with huge crags that appeared to lie
      loosely upon the soil, and in many cases were prevented from
      precipitating themselves into the valleys below, merely by the
      support of the trees against which they reclined. Deep ravines,
      in various directions, gave an air of still sterner solemnity to
      the scene.

      The natural platform to which we had clambered was thickly
      overgrown with brambles, through which we soon discovered that it
      would have been impossible to force our way but for the scythe;
      and Jupiter, by direction of his master, proceeded to clear for
      us a path to the foot of an enormously tall tulip-tree, which
      stood, with some eight or ten oaks, upon the level, and far
      surpassed them all, and all other trees which I had then ever
      seen, in the beauty of its foliage and form, in the wide spread
      of its branches, and in the general majesty of its appearance.
      When we reached this tree, Legrand turned to Jupiter, and asked
      him if he thought he could climb it. The old man seemed a little
      staggered by the question, and for some moments made no reply. At
      length he approached the huge trunk, walked slowly around it, and
      examined it with minute attention. When he had completed his
      scrutiny, he merely said,

      “Yes, massa, Jup climb any tree he ebber see in he life.”

      “Then up with you as soon as possible, for it will soon be too
      dark to see what we are about.”

      “How far mus go up, massa?” inquired Jupiter.

      “Get up the main trunk first, and then I will tell you which way
      to go—and here—stop! take this beetle with you.”

      “De bug, Massa Will!—de goole-bug!” cried the negro, drawing back
      in dismay—“what for mus tote de bug way up de tree?—d—n if I do!”

      “If you are afraid, Jup, a great big negro like you, to take hold
      of a harmless little dead beetle, why you can carry it up by this
      string—but, if you do not take it up with you in some way, I
      shall be under the necessity of breaking your head with this
      shovel.”

      “What de matter now, massa?” said Jup, evidently shamed into
      compliance; “always want for to raise fuss wid old nigger. Was
      only funnin any how. _Me_ feered de bug! what I keer for de bug?”
      Here he took cautiously hold of the extreme end of the string,
      and, maintaining the insect as far from his person as
      circumstances would permit, prepared to ascend the tree.

      In youth, the tulip-tree, or _Liriodendron Tulipferum_, the most
      magnificent of American foresters, has a trunk peculiarly smooth,
      and often rises to a great height without lateral branches; but,
      in its riper age, the bark becomes gnarled and uneven, while many
      short limbs make their appearance on the stem. Thus the
      difficulty of ascension, in the present case, lay more in
      semblance than in reality. Embracing the huge cylinder, as
      closely as possible, with his arms and knees, seizing with his
      hands some projections, and resting his naked toes upon others,
      Jupiter, after one or two narrow escapes from falling, at length
      wriggled himself into the first great fork, and seemed to
      consider the whole business as virtually accomplished. The risk
      of the achievement was, in fact, now over, although the climber
      was some sixty or seventy feet from the ground.

      “Which way mus go now, Massa Will?” he asked.

      “Keep up the largest branch—the one on this side,” said Legrand.
      The negro obeyed him promptly, and apparently with but little
      trouble; ascending higher and higher, until no glimpse of his
      squat figure could be obtained through the dense foliage which
      enveloped it. Presently his voice was heard in a sort of halloo.

      “How much fudder is got for go?”

      “How high up are you?” asked Legrand.

      “Ebber so fur,” replied the negro; “can see de sky fru de top ob
      de tree.”

      “Never mind the sky, but attend to what I say. Look down the
      trunk and count the limbs below you on this side. How many limbs
      have you passed?”

      “One, two, tree, four, fibe—I done pass fibe big limb, massa, pon
      dis side.”

      “Then go one limb higher.”

      In a few minutes the voice was heard again, announcing that the
      seventh limb was attained.

      “Now, Jup,” cried Legrand, evidently much excited, “I want you to
      work your way out upon that limb as far as you can. If you see
      anything strange, let me know.” By this time what little doubt I
      might have entertained of my poor friend’s insanity, was put
      finally at rest. I had no alternative but to conclude him
      stricken with lunacy, and I became seriously anxious about
      getting him home. While I was pondering upon what was best to be
      done, Jupiter’s voice was again heard.

      “Mos feerd for to ventur pon dis limb berry far—’tis dead limb
      putty much all de way.”

      “Did you say it was a dead limb, Jupiter?” cried Legrand in a
      quavering voice.

      “Yes, massa, him dead as de door-nail—done up for sartain—done
      departed dis here life.”

      “What in the name heaven shall I do?” asked Legrand, seemingly in
      the greatest distress.

      “Do!” said I, glad of an opportunity to interpose a word, “why
      come home and go to bed. Come now!—that’s a fine fellow. It’s
      getting late, and, besides, you remember your promise.”

      “Jupiter,” cried he, without heeding me in the least, “do you
      hear me?”

      “Yes, Massa Will, hear you ebber so plain.”

      “Try the wood well, then, with your knife, and see if you think
      it very rotten.”

      “Him rotten, massa, sure nuff,” replied the negro in a few
      moments, “but not so berry rotten as mought be. Mought ventur out
      leetle way pon de limb by myself, dat’s true.”

      “By yourself!—what do you mean?”

      “Why I mean de bug. ’Tis _berry_ hebby bug. Spose I drop him down
      fuss, and den de limb won’t break wid just de weight ob one
      nigger.”

      “You infernal scoundrel!” cried Legrand, apparently much
      relieved, “what do you mean by telling me such nonsense as that?
      As sure as you drop that beetle I’ll break your neck. Look here,
      Jupiter, do you hear me?”

      “Yes, massa, needn’t hollo at poor nigger dat style.”

      “Well! now listen!—if you will venture out on the limb as far as
      you think safe, and not let go the beetle, I’ll make you a
      present of a silver dollar as soon as you get down.”

      “I’m gwine, Massa Will—deed I is,” replied the negro very
      promptly—“mos out to the eend now.”

      “_Out to the end!_” here fairly screamed Legrand, “do you say you
      are out to the end of that limb?”

      “Soon be to de eend, massa,—o-o-o-o-oh! Lor-gol-a-marcy! what is
      dis here pon de tree?”

      “Well!” cried Legrand, highly delighted, “what is it?”

      “Why taint noffin but a skull—somebody bin lef him head up de
      tree, and de crows done gobble ebery bit ob de meat off.”

      “A skull, you say!—very well—how is it fastened to the limb?—what
      holds it on?”

      “Sure nuff, massa; mus look. Why dis berry curous sarcumstance,
      pon my word—dare’s a great big nail in de skull, what fastens ob
      it on to de tree.”

      “Well now, Jupiter, do exactly as I tell you—do you hear?”

      “Yes, massa.”

      “Pay attention, then—find the left eye of the skull.”

      “Hum! hoo! dat’s good! why dare aint no eye lef at all.”

      “Curse your stupidity! do you know your right hand from your
      left?”

      “Yes, I knows dat—knows all about dat—’tis my lef hand what I
      chops de wood wid.”

      “To be sure! you are left-handed; and your left eye is on the
      same side as your left hand. Now, I suppose, you can find the
      left eye of the skull, or the place where the left eye has been.
      Have you found it?”

      Here was a long pause. At length the negro asked,

      “Is de lef eye of de skull pon de same side as de lef hand of de
      skull, too?—cause de skull aint got not a bit ob a hand at
      all—nebber mind! I got de lef eye now—here de lef eye! what mus
      do wid it?”

      “Let the beetle drop through it, as far as the string will
      reach—but be careful and not let go your hold of the string.”

      “All dat done, Massa Will; mighty easy ting for to put de bug fru
      de hole—look out for him dare below!”

      During this colloquy no portion of Jupiter’s person could be
      seen; but the beetle, which he had suffered to descend, was now
      visible at the end of the string, and glistened, like a globe of
      burnished gold, in the last rays of the setting sun, some of
      which still faintly illumined the eminence upon which we stood.
      The _scarabæus_ hung quite clear of any branches, and, if allowed
      to fall, would have fallen at our feet. Legrand immediately took
      the scythe, and cleared with it a circular space, three or four
      yards in diameter, just beneath the insect, and, having
      accomplished this, ordered Jupiter to let go the string and come
      down from the tree.

      Driving a peg, with great nicety, into the ground, at the precise
      spot where the beetle fell, my friend now produced from his
      pocket a tape measure. Fastening one end of this at that point of
      the trunk, of the tree which was nearest the peg, he unrolled it
      till it reached the peg, and thence farther unrolled it, in the
      direction already established by the two points of the tree and
      the peg, for the distance of fifty feet—Jupiter clearing away the
      brambles with the scythe. At the spot thus attained a second peg
      was driven, and about this, as a centre, a rude circle, about
      four feet in diameter, described. Taking now a spade himself, and
      giving one to Jupiter and one to me, Legrand begged us to set
      about digging as quickly as possible.

      To speak the truth, I had no especial relish for such amusement
      at any time, and, at that particular moment, would most willingly
      have declined it; for the night was coming on, and I felt much
      fatigued with the exercise already taken; but I saw no mode of
      escape, and was fearful of disturbing my poor friend’s equanimity
      by a refusal. Could I have depended, indeed, upon Jupiter’s aid,
      I would have had no hesitation in attempting to get the lunatic
      home by force; but I was too well assured of the old negro’s
      disposition, to hope that he would assist me, under any
      circumstances, in a personal contest with his master. I made no
      doubt that the latter had been infected with some of the
      innumerable Southern superstitions about money buried, and that
      his phantasy had received confirmation by the finding of the
      _scarabæus_, or, perhaps, by Jupiter’s obstinacy in maintaining
      it to be “a bug of real gold.” A mind disposed to lunacy would
      readily be led away by such suggestions—especially if chiming in
      with favorite preconceived ideas—and then I called to mind the
      poor fellow’s speech about the beetle’s being “the index of his
      fortune.” Upon the whole, I was sadly vexed and puzzled, but, at
      length, I concluded to make a virtue of necessity—to dig with a
      good will, and thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by
      ocular demonstration, of the fallacy of the opinions he
      entertained.

      The lanterns having been lit, we all fell to work with a zeal
      worthy a more rational cause; and, as the glare fell upon our
      persons and implements, I could not help thinking how picturesque
      a group we composed, and how strange and suspicious our labors
      must have appeared to any interloper who, by chance, might have
      stumbled upon our whereabouts.

      We dug very steadily for two hours. Little was said; and our
      chief embarrassment lay in the yelpings of the dog, who took
      exceeding interest in our proceedings. He, at length, became so
      obstreperous that we grew fearful of his giving the alarm to some
      stragglers in the vicinity—or, rather, this was the apprehension
      of Legrand;—for myself, I should have rejoiced at any
      interruption which might have enabled me to get the wanderer
      home. The noise was, at length, very effectually silenced by
      Jupiter, who, getting out of the hole with a dogged air of
      deliberation, tied the brute’s mouth up with one of his
      suspenders, and then returned, with a grave chuckle, to his task.

      When the time mentioned had expired, we had reached a depth of
      five feet, and yet no signs of any treasure became manifest. A
      general pause ensued, and I began to hope that the farce was at
      an end. Legrand, however, although evidently much disconcerted,
      wiped his brow thoughtfully and recommenced. We had excavated the
      entire circle of four feet diameter, and now we slightly enlarged
      the limit, and went to the farther depth of two feet. Still
      nothing appeared. The gold-seeker, whom I sincerely pitied, at
      length clambered from the pit, with the bitterest disappointment
      imprinted upon every feature, and proceeded, slowly and
      reluctantly, to put on his coat, which he had thrown off at the
      beginning of his labor. In the mean time I made no remark.
      Jupiter, at a signal from his master, began to gather up his
      tools. This done, and the dog having been unmuzzled, we turned in
      profound silence towards home.

      We had taken, perhaps, a dozen steps in this direction, when,
      with a loud oath, Legrand strode up to Jupiter, and seized him by
      the collar. The astonished negro opened his eyes and mouth to the
      fullest extent, let fall the spades, and fell upon his knees.

      “You scoundrel,” said Legrand, hissing out the syllables from
      between his clenched teeth—“you infernal black villain!—speak, I
      tell you!—answer me this instant, without
      prevarication!—which—which is your left eye?”

      “Oh, my golly, Massa Will! aint dis here my lef eye for sartain?”
      roared the terrified Jupiter, placing his hand upon his right
      organ of vision, and holding it there with a desperate
      pertinacity, as if in immediate dread of his master’s attempt at
      a gouge.

      “I thought so!—I knew it! hurrah!” vociferated Legrand, letting
      the negro go, and executing a series of curvets and caracols,
      much to the astonishment of his valet, who, arising from his
      knees, looked, mutely, from his master to myself, and then from
      myself to his master.

      “Come! we must go back,” said the latter, “the game’s not up
      yet;” and he again led the way to the tulip-tree.

      “Jupiter,” said he, when we reached its foot, “come here! was the
      skull nailed to the limb with the face outwards, or with the face
      to the limb?”

      “De face was out, massa, so dat de crows could get at de eyes
      good, widout any trouble.”

      “Well, then, was it this eye or that through which you dropped
      the beetle?”—here Legrand touched each of Jupiter’s eyes.

      “’Twas dis eye, massa—de lef eye—jis as you tell me,” and here it
      was his right eye that the negro indicated.

      “That will do—we must try it again.”

      Here my friend, about whose madness I now saw, or fancied that I
      saw, certain indications of method, removed the peg which marked
      the spot where the beetle fell, to a spot about three inches to
      the westward of its former position. Taking, now, the tape
      measure from the nearest point of the trunk to the peg, as
      before, and continuing the extension in a straight line to the
      distance of fifty feet, a spot was indicated, removed, by several
      yards, from the point at which we had been digging.

      Around the new position a circle, somewhat larger than in the
      former instance, was now described, and we again set to work with
      the spades. I was dreadfully weary, but, scarcely understanding
      what had occasioned the change in my thoughts, I felt no longer
      any great aversion from the labor imposed. I had become most
      unaccountably interested—nay, even excited. Perhaps there was
      something, amid all the extravagant demeanor of Legrand—some air
      of forethought, or of deliberation, which impressed me. I dug
      eagerly, and now and then caught myself actually looking, with
      something that very much resembled expectation, for the fancied
      treasure, the vision of which had demented my unfortunate
      companion. At a period when such vagaries of thought most fully
      possessed me, and when we had been at work perhaps an hour and a
      half, we were again interrupted by the violent howlings of the
      dog. His uneasiness, in the first instance, had been, evidently,
      but the result of playfulness or caprice, but he now assumed a
      bitter and serious tone. Upon Jupiter’s again attempting to
      muzzle him, he made furious resistance, and, leaping into the
      hole, tore up the mould frantically with his claws. In a few
      seconds he had uncovered a mass of human bones, forming two
      complete skeletons, intermingled with several buttons of metal,
      and what appeared to be the dust of decayed woollen. One or two
      strokes of a spade upturned the blade of a large Spanish knife,
      and, as we dug farther, three or four loose pieces of gold and
      silver coin came to light.

      At sight of these the joy of Jupiter could scarcely be
      restrained, but the countenance of his master wore an air of
      extreme disappointment. He urged us, however, to continue our
      exertions, and the words were hardly uttered when I stumbled and
      fell forward, having caught the toe of my boot in a large ring of
      iron that lay half buried in the loose earth.

      We now worked in earnest, and never did I pass ten minutes of
      more intense excitement. During this interval we had fairly
      unearthed an oblong chest of wood, which, from its perfect
      preservation and wonderful hardness, had plainly been subjected
      to some mineralizing process—perhaps that of the bi-chloride of
      mercury. This box was three feet and a half long, three feet
      broad, and two and a half feet deep. It was firmly secured by
      bands of wrought iron, riveted, and forming a kind of open
      trelliswork over the whole. On each side of the chest, near the
      top, were three rings of iron—six in all—by means of which a firm
      hold could be obtained by six persons. Our utmost united
      endeavors served only to disturb the coffer very slightly in its
      bed. We at once saw the impossibility of removing so great a
      weight. Luckily, the sole fastenings of the lid consisted of two
      sliding bolts. These we drew back—trembling and panting with
      anxiety. In an instant, a treasure of incalculable value lay
      gleaming before us. As the rays of the lanterns fell within the
      pit, there flashed upwards a glow and a glare, from a confused
      heap of gold and of jewels, that absolutely dazzled our eyes.

      I shall not pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed.
      Amazement was, of course, predominant. Legrand appeared exhausted
      with excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter’s countenance
      wore, for some minutes, as deadly a pallor as it is possible, in
      nature of things, for any negro’s visage to assume. He seemed
      stupefied—thunderstricken. Presently he fell upon his knees in
      the pit, and, burying his naked arms up to the elbows in gold,
      let them there remain, as if enjoying the luxury of a bath. At
      length, with a deep sigh, he exclaimed, as if in a soliloquy:

      “And dis all cum ob de goole-bug! de putty goole-bug! de poor
      little goole-bug, what I boosed in dat sabage kind ob style! Aint
      you shamed ob yourself, nigger?—answer me dat!”

      It became necessary, at last, that I should arouse both master
      and valet to the expediency of removing the treasure. It was
      growing late, and it behooved us to make exertion, that we might
      get every thing housed before daylight. It was difficult to say
      what should be done, and much time was spent in deliberation—so
      confused were the ideas of all. We, finally, lightened the box by
      removing two thirds of its contents, when we were enabled, with
      some trouble, to raise it from the hole. The articles taken out
      were deposited among the brambles, and the dog left to guard
      them, with strict orders from Jupiter neither, upon any pretence,
      to stir from the spot, nor to open his mouth until our return. We
      then hurriedly made for home with the chest; reaching the hut in
      safety, but after excessive toil, at one o’clock in the morning.
      Worn out as we were, it was not in human nature to do more
      immediately. We rested until two, and had supper; starting for
      the hills immediately afterwards, armed with three stout sacks,
      which, by good luck, were upon the premises. A little before four
      we arrived at the pit, divided the remainder of the booty, as
      equally as might be, among us, and, leaving the holes unfilled,
      again set out for the hut, at which, for the second time, we
      deposited our golden burthens, just as the first faint streaks of
      the dawn gleamed from over the tree-tops in the East.

      We were now thoroughly broken down; but the intense excitement of
      the time denied us repose. After an unquiet slumber of some three
      or four hours’ duration, we arose, as if by preconcert, to make
      examination of our treasure.

      The chest had been full to the brim, and we spent the whole day,
      and the greater part of the next night, in a scrutiny of its
      contents. There had been nothing like order or arrangement. Every
      thing had been heaped in promiscuously. Having assorted all with
      care, we found ourselves possessed of even vaster wealth than we
      had at first supposed. In coin there was rather more than four
      hundred and fifty thousand dollars—estimating the value of the
      pieces, as accurately as we could, by the tables of the period.
      There was not a particle of silver. All was gold of antique date
      and of great variety—French, Spanish, and German money, with a
      few English guineas, and some counters, of which we had never
      seen specimens before. There were several very large and heavy
      coins, so worn that we could make nothing of their inscriptions.
      There was no American money. The value of the jewels we found
      more difficulty in estimating. There were diamonds—some of them
      exceedingly large and fine—a hundred and ten in all, and not one
      of them small; eighteen rubies of remarkable brilliancy;—three
      hundred and ten emeralds, all very beautiful; and twenty-one
      sapphires, with an opal. These stones had all been broken from
      their settings and thrown loose in the chest. The settings
      themselves, which we picked out from among the other gold,
      appeared to have been beaten up with hammers, as if to prevent
      identification. Besides all this, there was a vast quantity of
      solid gold ornaments; nearly two hundred massive finger and
      earrings; rich chains—thirty of these, if I remember;
      eighty-three very large and heavy crucifixes; five gold censers
      of great value; a prodigious golden punch bowl, ornamented with
      richly chased vine-leaves and Bacchanalian figures; with two
      sword-handles exquisitely embossed, and many other smaller
      articles which I cannot recollect. The weight of these valuables
      exceeded three hundred and fifty pounds avoirdupois; and in this
      estimate I have not included one hundred and ninety-seven superb
      gold watches; three of the number being worth each five hundred
      dollars, if one. Many of them were very old, and as timekeepers
      valueless; the works having suffered, more or less, from
      corrosion—but all were richly jewelled and in cases of great
      worth. We estimated the entire contents of the chest, that night,
      at a million and a half of dollars; and upon the subsequent
      disposal of the trinkets and jewels (a few being retained for our
      own use), it was found that we had greatly undervalued the
      treasure.

      When, at length, we had concluded our examination, and the
      intense excitement of the time had, in some measure, subsided,
      Legrand, who saw that I was dying with impatience for a solution
      of this most extraordinary riddle, entered into a full detail of
      all the circumstances connected with it.

      “You remember;” said he, “the night when I handed you the rough
      sketch I had made of the _scarabæus_. You recollect also, that I
      became quite vexed at you for insisting that my drawing resembled
      a death’s-head. When you first made this assertion I thought you
      were jesting; but afterwards I called to mind the peculiar spots
      on the back of the insect, and admitted to myself that your
      remark had some little foundation in fact. Still, the sneer at my
      graphic powers irritated me—for I am considered a good
      artist—and, therefore, when you handed me the scrap of parchment,
      I was about to crumple it up and throw it angrily into the fire.”

      “The scrap of paper, you mean,” said I.

      “No; it had much of the appearance of paper, and at first I
      supposed it to be such, but when I came to draw upon it, I
      discovered it, at once, to be a piece of very thin parchment. It
      was quite dirty, you remember. Well, as I was in the very act of
      crumpling it up, my glance fell upon the sketch at which you had
      been looking, and you may imagine my astonishment when I
      perceived, in fact, the figure of a death’s-head just where, it
      seemed to me, I had made the drawing of the beetle. For a moment
      I was too much amazed to think with accuracy. I knew that my
      design was very different in detail from this—although there was
      a certain similarity in general outline. Presently I took a
      candle, and seating myself at the other end of the room,
      proceeded to scrutinize the parchment more closely. Upon turning
      it over, I saw my own sketch upon the reverse, just as I had made
      it. My first idea, now, was mere surprise at the really
      remarkable similarity of outline—at the singular coincidence
      involved in the fact, that unknown to me, there should have been
      a skull upon the other side of the parchment, immediately beneath
      my figure of the _scarabæus_, and that this skull, not only in
      outline, but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I
      say the singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupefied me
      for a time. This is the usual effect of such coincidences. The
      mind struggles to establish a connexion—a sequence of cause and
      effect—and, being unable to do so, suffers a species of temporary
      paralysis. But, when I recovered from this stupor, there dawned
      upon me gradually a conviction which startled me even far more
      than the coincidence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember
      that there had been no drawing upon the parchment when I made my
      sketch of the _scarabæus_. I became perfectly certain of this;
      for I recollected turning up first one side and then the other,
      in search of the cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of
      course I could not have failed to notice it. Here was indeed a
      mystery which I felt it impossible to explain; but, even at that
      early moment, there seemed to glimmer, faintly, within the most
      remote and secret chambers of my intellect, a glow-worm-like
      conception of that truth which last night’s adventure brought to
      so magnificent a demonstration. I arose at once, and putting the
      parchment securely away, dismissed all farther reflection until I
      should be alone.

      “When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I betook
      myself to a more methodical investigation of the affair. In the
      first place I considered the manner in which the parchment had
      come into my possession. The spot where we discovered the
      _scarabæus_ was on the coast of the main land, about a mile
      eastward of the island, and but a short distance above high water
      mark. Upon my taking hold of it, it gave me a sharp bite, which
      caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, with his accustomed caution,
      before seizing the insect, which had flown towards him, looked
      about him for a leaf, or something of that nature, by which to
      take hold of it. It was at this moment that his eyes, and mine
      also, fell upon the scrap of parchment, which I then supposed to
      be paper. It was lying half buried in the sand, a corner sticking
      up. Near the spot where we found it, I observed the remnants of
      the hull of what appeared to have been a ship’s long boat. The
      wreck seemed to have been there for a very great while; for the
      resemblance to boat timbers could scarcely be traced.

      “Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle in it,
      and gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go home, and on
      the way met Lieutenant G——. I showed him the insect, and he
      begged me to let him take it to the fort. Upon my consenting, he
      thrust it forthwith into his waistcoat pocket, without the
      parchment in which it had been wrapped, and which I had continued
      to hold in my hand during his inspection. Perhaps he dreaded my
      changing my mind, and thought it best to make sure of the prize
      at once—you know how enthusiastic he is on all subjects connected
      with Natural History. At the same time, without being conscious
      of it, I must have deposited the parchment in my own pocket.

      “You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of
      making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was
      usually kept. I looked in the drawer, and found none there. I
      searched my pockets, hoping to find an old letter, when my hand
      fell upon the parchment. I thus detail the precise mode in which
      it came into my possession; for the circumstances impressed me
      with peculiar force.

      “No doubt you will think me fanciful—but I had already
      established a kind of connexion. I had put together two links of
      a great chain. There was a boat lying upon a sea-coast, and not
      far from the boat was a parchment—not a paper—with a skull
      depicted upon it. You will, of course, ask ‘where is the
      connexion?’ I reply that the skull, or death’s-head, is the
      well-known emblem of the pirate. The flag of the death’s head is
      hoisted in all engagements.

      “I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper.
      Parchment is durable—almost imperishable. Matters of little
      moment are rarely consigned to parchment; since, for the mere
      ordinary purposes of drawing or writing, it is not nearly so well
      adapted as paper. This reflection suggested some meaning—some
      relevancy—in the death’s-head. I did not fail to observe, also,
      the form of the parchment. Although one of its corners had been,
      by some accident, destroyed, it could be seen that the original
      form was oblong. It was just such a slip, indeed, as might have
      been chosen for a memorandum—for a record of something to be long
      remembered and carefully preserved.”

      “But,” I interposed, “you say that the skull was not upon the
      parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How then do
      you trace any connexion between the boat and the skull—since this
      latter, according to your own admission, must have been designed
      (God only knows how or by whom) at some period subsequent to your
      sketching the _scarabæus?_”

      “Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at
      this point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My
      steps were sure, and could afford but a single result. I
      reasoned, for example, thus: When I drew the _scarabæus_, there
      was no skull apparent upon the parchment. When I had completed
      the drawing I gave it to you, and observed you narrowly until you
      returned it. You, therefore, did not design the skull, and no one
      else was present to do it. Then it was not done by human agency.
      And nevertheless it was done.

      “At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and
      did remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which
      occurred about the period in question. The weather was chilly (oh
      rare and happy accident!), and a fire was blazing upon the
      hearth. I was heated with exercise and sat near the table. You,
      however, had drawn a chair close to the chimney. Just as I placed
      the parchment in your hand, and as you were in the act of
      inspecting it, Wolf, the Newfoundland, entered, and leaped upon
      your shoulders. With your left hand you caressed him and kept him
      off, while your right, holding the parchment, was permitted to
      fall listlessly between your knees, and in close proximity to the
      fire. At one moment I thought the blaze had caught it, and was
      about to caution you, but, before I could speak, you had
      withdrawn it, and were engaged in its examination. When I
      considered all these particulars, I doubted not for a moment that
      heat had been the agent in bringing to light, upon the parchment,
      the skull which I saw designed upon it. You are well aware that
      chemical preparations exist, and have existed time out of mind,
      by means of which it is possible to write upon either paper or
      vellum, so that the characters shall become visible only when
      subjected to the action of fire. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia,
      and diluted with four times its weight of water, is sometimes
      employed; a green tint results. The regulus of cobalt, dissolved
      in spirit of nitre, gives a red. These colors disappear at longer
      or shorter intervals after the material written upon cools, but
      again become apparent upon the re-application of heat.

      “I now scrutinized the death’s-head with care. Its outer
      edges—the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the
      vellum—were far more distinct than the others. It was clear that
      the action of the caloric had been imperfect or unequal. I
      immediately kindled a fire, and subjected every portion of the
      parchment to a glowing heat. At first, the only effect was the
      strengthening of the faint lines in the skull; but, upon
      persevering in the experiment, there became visible, at the
      corner of the slip, diagonally opposite to the spot in which the
      death’s-head was delineated, the figure of what I at first
      supposed to be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me
      that it was intended for a kid.”

      “Ha! ha!” said I, “to be sure I have no right to laugh at you—a
      million and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth—but
      you are not about to establish a third link in your chain—you
      will not find any especial connexion between your pirates and a
      goat—pirates, you know, have nothing to do with goats; they
      appertain to the farming interest.”

      “But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat.”

      “Well, a kid then—pretty much the same thing.”

      “Pretty much, but not altogether,” said Legrand. “You may have
      heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon the figure of
      the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I
      say signature; because its position upon the vellum suggested
      this idea. The death’s-head at the corner diagonally opposite,
      had, in the same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was
      sorely put out by the absence of all else—of the body to my
      imagined instrument—of the text for my context.”

      “I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and
      the signature.”

      “Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly
      impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune
      impending. I can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was
      rather a desire than an actual belief;—but do you know that
      Jupiter’s silly words, about the bug being of solid gold, had a
      remarkable effect upon my fancy? And then the series of accidents
      and coincidences—these were so very extraordinary. Do you observe
      how mere an accident it was that these events should have
      occurred upon the sole day of all the year in which it has been,
      or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that without the fire,
      or without the intervention of the dog at the precise moment in
      which he appeared, I should never have become aware of the
      death’s-head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?”

      “But proceed—I am all impatience.”

      “Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current—the
      thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere upon
      the Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must
      have had some foundation in fact. And that the rumors have
      existed so long and so continuous, could have resulted, it
      appeared to me, only from the circumstance of the buried treasure
      still remaining entombed. Had Kidd concealed his plunder for a
      time, and afterwards reclaimed it, the rumors would scarcely have
      reached us in their present unvarying form. You will observe that
      the stories told are all about money-seekers, not about
      money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his money, there the
      affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some accident—say
      the loss of a memorandum indicating its locality—had deprived him
      of the means of recovering it, and that this accident had become
      known to his followers, who otherwise might never have heard that
      treasure had been concealed at all, and who, busying themselves
      in vain, because unguided attempts, to regain it, had given first
      birth, and then universal currency, to the reports which are now
      so common. Have you ever heard of any important treasure being
      unearthed along the coast?”

      “Never.”

      “But that Kidd’s accumulations were immense, is well known. I
      took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them;
      and you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a
      hope, nearly amounting to certainty, that the parchment so
      strangely found, involved a lost record of the place of deposit.”

      “But how did you proceed?”

      “I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat;
      but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating
      of dirt might have something to do with the failure; so I
      carefully rinsed the parchment by pouring warm water over it,
      and, having done this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull
      downwards, and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In
      a few minutes, the pan having become thoroughly heated, I removed
      the slip, and, to my inexpressible joy, found it spotted, in
      several places, with what appeared to be figures arranged in
      lines. Again I placed it in the pan, and suffered it to remain
      another minute. Upon taking it off, the whole was just as you see
      it now.”

      Here Legrand, having re-heated the parchment, submitted it to my
      inspection. The following characters were rudely traced, in a red
      tint, between the death’s-head and the goat:

     “53‡‡†305))6*;4826)4‡.)4‡);806*;48†8¶60))85;1‡(;:‡*8†83(88)5*†
     ;46(;88*96*?;8)*‡(;485);5*†2:*‡(;4956*2(5*—4)8¶8*;4069285);)
     6†8)4‡‡;1(‡9;48081;8:8‡1;48†85;4)485†528806*81(‡9;48;(88;4(‡?3
     4;48)4‡;161;:188;‡?;”

      “But,” said I, returning him the slip, “I am as much in the dark
      as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me upon my
      solution of this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable
      to earn them.”

      “And yet,” said Legrand, “the solution is by no means so
      difficult as you might be lead to imagine from the first hasty
      inspection of the characters. These characters, as any one might
      readily guess, form a cipher—that is to say, they convey a
      meaning; but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could not
      suppose him capable of constructing any of the more abstruse
      cryptographs. I made up my mind, at once, that this was of a
      simple species—such, however, as would appear, to the crude
      intellect of the sailor, absolutely insoluble without the key.”

      “And you really solved it?”

      “Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand
      times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have
      led me to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be
      doubted whether human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the
      kind which human ingenuity may not, by proper application,
      resolve. In fact, having once established connected and legible
      characters, I scarcely gave a thought to the mere difficulty of
      developing their import.

      “In the present case—indeed in all cases of secret writing—the
      first question regards the language of the cipher; for the
      principles of solution, so far, especially, as the more simple
      ciphers are concerned, depend upon, and are varied by, the genius
      of the particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but
      experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to
      him who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained.
      But, with the cipher now before us, all difficulty was removed by
      the signature. The pun upon the word ‘Kidd’ is appreciable in no
      other language than the English. But for this consideration I
      should have begun my attempts with the Spanish and French, as the
      tongues in which a secret of this kind would most naturally have
      been written by a pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I
      assumed the cryptograph to be English.

      “You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there
      been divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In
      such case I should have commenced with a collation and analysis
      of the shorter words, and, had a word of a single letter
      occurred, as is most likely, (a or I, for example,) I should have
      considered the solution as assured. But, there being no division,
      my first step was to ascertain the predominant letters, as well
      as the least frequent. Counting all, I constructed a table, thus:

      Of the character 8 there are 33.

                          ;        “     26.
                          4        “     19.
                        ‡ )        “     16.
                          *        “     13.
                          5        “     12.
                          6        “     11.
                        † 1        “      8.
                          0        “      6.
                        9 2        “      5.
                        : 3        “      4.
                          ?        “      3.
                          ¶        “      2.
                         -.        “      1.

      “Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is e.
      Afterwards, succession runs thus: _a o i d h n r s t u y c f g l
      m w b k p q x z_. _E_ predominates so remarkably that an
      individual sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is
      not the prevailing character.

      “Here, then, we leave, in the very beginning, the groundwork for
      something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be
      made of the table is obvious—but, in this particular cipher, we
      shall only very partially require its aid. As our predominant
      character is 8, we will commence by assuming it as the _e_ of the
      natural alphabet. To verify the supposition, let us observe if
      the 8 be seen often in couples—for _e_ is doubled with great
      frequency in English—in such words, for example, as ‘meet,’
      ‘.fleet,’ ‘speed,’ ‘seen,’ been,’ ‘agree,’ &c. In the present
      instance we see it doubled no less than five times, although the
      cryptograph is brief.

      “Let us assume 8, then, as _e_. Now, of all _words_ in the
      language, ‘the’ is most usual; let us see, therefore, whether
      there are not repetitions of any three characters, in the same
      order of collocation, the last of them being 8. If we discover
      repetitions of such letters, so arranged, they will most probably
      represent the word ‘the.’ Upon inspection, we find no less than
      seven such arrangements, the characters being ;48. We may,
      therefore, assume that ; represents _t_, 4 represents _h_, and 8
      represents _e_—the last being now well confirmed. Thus a great
      step has been taken.

      “But, having established a single word, we are enabled to
      establish a vastly important point; that is to say, several
      commencements and terminations of other words. Let us refer, for
      example, to the last instance but one, in which the combination
      ;48 occurs—not far from the end of the cipher. We know that the ;
      immediately ensuing is the commencement of a word, and, of the
      six characters succeeding this ‘the,’ we are cognizant of no less
      than five. Let us set these characters down, thus, by the letters
      we know them to represent, leaving a space for the unknown—

      t eeth.

      “Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the ‘th,’ as forming no
      portion of the word commencing with the first t; since, by
      experiment of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the
      vacancy, we perceive that no word can be formed of which this
      _th_ can be a part. We are thus narrowed into

      t ee,

      and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we
      arrive at the word ‘tree,’ as the sole possible reading. We thus
      gain another letter, _r_, represented by (, with the words ‘the
      tree’ in juxtaposition.

      “Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see
      the combination ;48, and employ it by way of termination to what
      immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement:

      the tree ;4(‡?34 the,

      or, substituting the natural letters, where known, it reads thus:

      the tree thr‡?3h the.

      “Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank
      spaces, or substitute dots, we read thus:

      the tree thr...h the,

      when the word ‘_through_’ makes itself evident at once. But this
      discovery gives us three new letters, _o_, _u_ and _g_,
      represented by ‡, ? and 3.

      “Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of
      known characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this
      arrangement,

      83(88, or egree,

      which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word ‘degree,’ and gives
      us another letter, _d_, represented by †.

      “Four letters beyond the word ‘degree,’ we perceive the
      combination

      ;46(;88.

      “Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown
      by dots, as before, we read thus:

      th.rtee,

      an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word ‘thirteen,’ and
      again furnishing us with two new characters, _i_ and _n_,
      represented by 6 and *.

      “Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the
      combination,

      53‡‡†.

      “Translating as before, we obtain

      good,

      which assures us that the first letter is _A_, and that the first
      two words are ‘A good.’

      “It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in
      a tabular form, to avoid confusion. It will stand thus:

                5 represents      a
                †       “         d
                8       “         e
                3       “         g
                4       “         h
                6       “         i
                *       “         n
                ‡       “         o
                (       “         r
                ;       “         t
                ?       “         u

      “We have, therefore, no less than eleven of the most important
      letters represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with
      the details of the solution. I have said enough to convince you
      that ciphers of this nature are readily soluble, and to give you
      some insight into the rationale of their development. But be
      assured that the specimen before us appertains to the very
      simplest species of cryptograph. It now only remains to give you
      the full translation of the characters upon the parchment, as
      unriddled. Here it is:

      “‘_A good glass in the bishop’s hostel in the devil’s seat
      forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by north
      main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left eye of the
      death’s-head a bee line from the tree through the shot fifty feet
      out_.’”

      “But,” said I, “the enigma seems still in as bad a condition as
      ever. How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon
      about ‘devil’s seats,’ ‘death’s heads,’ and ‘bishop’s hotels?’”

      “I confess,” replied Legrand, “that the matter still wears a
      serious aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first
      endeavor was to divide the sentence into the natural division
      intended by the cryptographist.”

      “You mean, to punctuate it?”

      “Something of that kind.”

      “But how was it possible to effect this?”

      “I reflected that it had been a point with the writer to run his
      words together without division, so as to increase the difficulty
      of solution. Now, a not over-acute man, in pursuing such an
      object, would be nearly certain to overdo the matter. When, in
      the course of his composition, he arrived at a break in his
      subject which would naturally require a pause, or a point, he
      would be exceedingly apt to run his characters, at this place,
      more than usually close together. If you will observe the MS., in
      the present instance, you will easily detect five such cases of
      unusual crowding. Acting upon this hint, I made the division
      thus: ‘A good glass in the Bishop’s hostel in the Devil’s
      seat—forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes—northeast and by
      north—main branch seventh limb east side—shoot from the left eye
      of the death’s-head—a bee-line from the tree through the shot
      fifty feet out.’”

      “Even this division,” said I, “leaves me still in the dark.”

      “It left me also in the dark,” replied Legrand, “for a few days;
      during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood of
      Sullivan’s Island, for any building which went by the name of the
      ‘Bishop’s Hotel;’ for, of course, I dropped the obsolete word
      ‘hostel.’ Gaining no information on the subject, I was on the
      point of extending my sphere of search, and proceeding in a more
      systematic manner, when, one morning, it entered into my head,
      quite suddenly, that this ‘Bishop’s Hostel’ might have some
      reference to an old family, of the name of Bessop, which, time
      out of mind, had held possession of an ancient manor-house, about
      four miles to the northward of the island. I accordingly went
      over to the plantation, and re-instituted my inquiries among the
      older negroes of the place. At length one of the most aged of the
      women said that she had heard of such a place as Bessop’s Castle,
      and thought that she could guide me to it, but that it was not a
      castle nor a tavern, but a high rock.

      “I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some
      demur, she consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it
      without much difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to
      examine the place. The ‘castle’ consisted of an irregular
      assemblage of cliffs and rocks—one of the latter being quite
      remarkable for its height as well as for its insulated and
      artificial appearance. I clambered to its apex, and then felt
      much at a loss as to what should be next done.

      “While I was busied in reflection, my eyes fell upon a narrow
      ledge in the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below the
      summit upon which I stood. This ledge projected about eighteen
      inches, and was not more than a foot wide, while a niche in the
      cliff just above it gave it a rude resemblance to one of the
      hollow-backed chairs used by our ancestors. I made no doubt that
      here was the ‘devil’s seat’ alluded to in the MS., and now I
      seemed to grasp the full secret of the riddle.

      “The ‘good glass,’ I knew, could have reference to nothing but a
      telescope; for the word ‘glass’ is rarely employed in any other
      sense by seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a telescope to be
      used, and a definite point of view, admitting no variation, from
      which to use it. Nor did I hesitate to believe that the phrases,
      ‘forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes,’ and ‘northeast and by
      north,’ were intended as directions for the levelling of the
      glass. Greatly excited by these discoveries, I hurried home,
      procured a telescope, and returned to the rock.

      “I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was impossible
      to retain a seat upon it except in one particular position. This
      fact confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded to use the
      glass. Of course, the ‘forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes’
      could allude to nothing but elevation above the visible horizon,
      since the horizontal direction was clearly indicated by the
      words, ‘northeast and by north.’ This latter direction I at once
      established by means of a pocket-compass; then, pointing the
      glass as nearly at an angle of forty-one degrees of elevation as
      I could do it by guess, I moved it cautiously up or down, until
      my attention was arrested by a circular rift or opening in the
      foliage of a large tree that overtopped its fellows in the
      distance. In the centre of this rift I perceived a white spot,
      but could not, at first, distinguish what it was. Adjusting the
      focus of the telescope, I again looked, and now made it out to be
      a human skull.

      “Upon this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the enigma
      solved; for the phrase ‘main branch, seventh limb, east side,’
      could refer only to the position of the skull upon the tree,
      while ‘shoot from the left eye of the death’s head’ admitted,
      also, of but one interpretation, in regard to a search for buried
      treasure. I perceived that the design was to drop a bullet from
      the left eye of the skull, and that a bee-line, or, in other
      words, a straight line, drawn from the nearest point of the trunk
      through ‘the shot,’ (or the spot where the bullet fell,) and
      thence extended to a distance of fifty feet, would indicate a
      definite point—and beneath this point I thought it at least
      possible that a deposit of value lay concealed.”

      “All this,” I said, “is exceedingly clear, and, although
      ingenious, still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop’s
      Hotel, what then?”

      “Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I turned
      homewards. The instant that I left ‘the devil’s seat,’ however,
      the circular rift vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it
      afterwards, turn as I would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity
      in this whole business, is the fact (for repeated experiment has
      convinced me it is a fact) that the circular opening in question
      is visible from no other attainable point of view than that
      afforded by the narrow ledge upon the face of the rock.

      “In this expedition to the ‘Bishop’s Hotel’ I had been attended
      by Jupiter, who had, no doubt, observed, for some weeks past, the
      abstraction of my demeanor, and took especial care not to leave
      me alone. But, on the next day, getting up very early, I
      contrived to give him the slip, and went into the hills in search
      of the tree. After much toil I found it. When I came home at
      night my valet proposed to give me a flogging. With the rest of
      the adventure I believe you are as well acquainted as myself.”

      “I suppose,” said I, “you missed the spot, in the first attempt
      at digging, through Jupiter’s stupidity in letting the bug fall
      through the right instead of through the left eye of the skull.”

      “Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches
      and a half in the ‘shot’—that is to say, in the position of the
      peg nearest the tree; and had the treasure been beneath the
      ‘shot,’ the error would have been of little moment; but ‘the
      shot,’ together with the nearest point of the tree, were merely
      two points for the establishment of a line of direction; of
      course the error, however trivial in the beginning, increased as
      we proceeded with the line, and by the time we had gone fifty
      feet, threw us quite off the scent. But for my deep-seated
      impressions that treasure was here somewhere actually buried, we
      might have had all our labor in vain.”

      “But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the
      beetle—how excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did
      you insist upon letting fall the bug, instead of a bullet, from
      the skull?”

      “Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident
      suspicions touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you
      quietly, in my own way, by a little bit of sober mystification.
      For this reason I swung the beetle, and for this reason I let it
      fall it from the tree. An observation of yours about its great
      weight suggested the latter idea.”

      “Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles
      me. What are we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?”

      “That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself.
      There seems, however, only one plausible way of accounting for
      them—and yet it is dreadful to believe in such atrocity as my
      suggestion would imply. It is clear that Kidd—if Kidd indeed
      secreted this treasure, which I doubt not—it is clear that he
      must have had assistance in the labor. But this labor concluded,
      he may have thought it expedient to remove all participants in
      his secret. Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were
      sufficient, while his coadjutors were busy in the pit; perhaps it
      required a dozen—who shall tell?”




FOUR BEASTS IN ONE—THE HOMO-CAMELEOPARD


Chacun a ses vertus.

—_Crébillon’s Xerxes._

      Antiochus Epiphanes is very generally looked upon as the Gog of
      the prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly
      attributable to Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the
      character of the Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of
      any adventitious embellishment. His accession to the throne, or
      rather his usurpation of the sovereignty, a hundred and
      seventy-one years before the coming of Christ; his attempt to
      plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus; his implacable hostility
      to the Jews; his pollution of the Holy of Holies; and his
      miserable death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of eleven
      years, are circumstances of a prominent kind, and therefore more
      generally noticed by the historians of his time than the impious,
      dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical achievements which make up
      the sum total of his private life and reputation.

      Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the
      world three thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a
      few minutes, imagine ourselves at that most grotesque habitation
      of man, the remarkable city of Antioch. To be sure there were, in
      Syria and other countries, sixteen cities of that appellation,
      besides the one to which I more particularly allude. But ours is
      that which went by the name of Antiochia Epidaphne, from its
      vicinity to the little village of Daphne, where stood a temple to
      that divinity. It was built (although about this matter there is
      some dispute) by Seleucus Nicanor, the first king of the country
      after Alexander the Great, in memory of his father Antiochus, and
      became immediately the residence of the Syrian monarchy. In the
      flourishing times of the Roman Empire, it was the ordinary
      station of the prefect of the eastern provinces; and many of the
      emperors of the queen city (among whom may be mentioned,
      especially, Verus and Valens) spent here the greater part of
      their time. But I perceive we have arrived at the city itself.
      Let us ascend this battlement, and throw our eyes upon the town
      and neighboring country.

      “What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way, with
      innumerable falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and
      finally through the wilderness of buildings?”

      That is the Orontes, and it is the only water in sight, with the
      exception of the Mediterranean, which stretches, like a broad
      mirror, about twelve miles off to the southward. Every one has
      seen the Mediterranean; but let me tell you, there are few who
      have had a peep at Antioch. By few, I mean, few who, like you and
      me, have had, at the same time, the advantages of a modern
      education. Therefore cease to regard that sea, and give your
      whole attention to the mass of houses that lie beneath us. You
      will remember that it is now the year of the world three thousand
      eight hundred and thirty. Were it later—for example, were it the
      year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty-five, we should be
      deprived of this extraordinary spectacle. In the nineteenth
      century Antioch is—that is to say, Antioch will be—in a
      lamentable state of decay. It will have been, by that time,
      totally destroyed, at three different periods, by three
      successive earthquakes. Indeed, to say the truth, what little of
      its former self may then remain, will be found in so desolate and
      ruinous a state that the patriarch shall have removed his
      residence to Damascus. This is well. I see you profit by my
      advice, and are making the most of your time in inspecting the
      premises—in

      —satisfying your eyes
      With the memorials and the things of fame
      That most renown this city.—

      I beg pardon; I had forgotten that Shakespeare will not flourish
      for seventeen hundred and fifty years to come. But does not the
      appearance of Epidaphne justify me in calling it grotesque?

      “It is well fortified; and in this respect is as much indebted to
      nature as to art.”

      Very true.

      “There are a prodigious number of stately palaces.”

      There are.

      “And the numerous temples, sumptuous and magnificent, may bear
      comparison with the most lauded of antiquity.”

      All this I must acknowledge. Still there is an infinity of mud
      huts, and abominable hovels. We cannot help perceiving abundance
      of filth in every kennel, and, were it not for the over-powering
      fumes of idolatrous incense, I have no doubt we should find a
      most intolerable stench. Did you ever behold streets so
      insufferably narrow, or houses so miraculously tall? What gloom
      their shadows cast upon the ground! It is well the swinging lamps
      in those endless colonnades are kept burning throughout the day;
      we should otherwise have the darkness of Egypt in the time of her
      desolation.

      “It is certainly a strange place! What is the meaning of yonder
      singular building? See! it towers above all others, and lies to
      the eastward of what I take to be the royal palace!”

      That is the new Temple of the Sun, who is adored in Syria under
      the title of Elah Gabalah. Hereafter a very notorious Roman
      Emperor will institute this worship in Rome, and thence derive a
      cognomen, Heliogabalus. I dare say you would like to take a peep
      at the divinity of the temple. You need not look up at the
      heavens; his Sunship is not there—at least not the Sunship adored
      by the Syrians. That deity will be found in the interior of
      yonder building. He is worshipped under the figure of a large
      stone pillar terminating at the summit in a cone or pyramid,
      whereby is denoted Fire.

      “Hark—behold!—who can those ridiculous beings be, half naked,
      with their faces painted, shouting and gesticulating to the
      rabble?”

      Some few are mountebanks. Others more particularly belong to the
      race of philosophers. The greatest portion, however—those
      especially who belabor the populace with clubs—are the principal
      courtiers of the palace, executing as in duty bound, some
      laudable comicality of the king’s.

      “But what have we here? Heavens! the town is swarming with wild
      beasts! How terrible a spectacle!—how dangerous a peculiarity!”

      Terrible, if you please; but not in the least degree dangerous.
      Each animal if you will take the pains to observe, is following,
      very quietly, in the wake of its master. Some few, to be sure,
      are led with a rope about the neck, but these are chiefly the
      lesser or timid species. The lion, the tiger, and the leopard are
      entirely without restraint. They have been trained without
      difficulty to their present profession, and attend upon their
      respective owners in the capacity of valets-de-chambre. It is
      true, there are occasions when Nature asserts her violated
      dominions;—but then the devouring of a man-at-arms, or the
      throttling of a consecrated bull, is a circumstance of too little
      moment to be more than hinted at in Epidaphne.

      “But what extraordinary tumult do I hear? Surely this is a loud
      noise even for Antioch! It argues some commotion of unusual
      interest.”

      Yes—undoubtedly. The king has ordered some novel spectacle—some
      gladiatorial exhibition at the hippodrome—or perhaps the massacre
      of the Scythian prisoners—or the conflagration of his new
      palace—or the tearing down of a handsome temple—or, indeed, a
      bonfire of a few Jews. The uproar increases. Shouts of laughter
      ascend the skies. The air becomes dissonant with wind
      instruments, and horrible with clamor of a million throats. Let
      us descend, for the love of fun, and see what is going on! This
      way—be careful! Here we are in the principal street, which is
      called the street of Timarchus. The sea of people is coming this
      way, and we shall find a difficulty in stemming the tide. They
      are pouring through the alley of Heraclides, which leads directly
      from the palace;—therefore the king is most probably among the
      rioters. Yes—I hear the shouts of the herald proclaiming his
      approach in the pompous phraseology of the East. We shall have a
      glimpse of his person as he passes by the temple of Ashimah. Let
      us ensconce ourselves in the vestibule of the sanctuary; he will
      be here anon. In the meantime let us survey this image. What is
      it? Oh! it is the god Ashimah in proper person. You perceive,
      however, that he is neither a lamb, nor a goat, nor a satyr,
      neither has he much resemblance to the Pan of the Arcadians. Yet
      all these appearances have been given—I beg pardon—will be
      given—by the learned of future ages, to the Ashimah of the
      Syrians. Put on your spectacles, and tell me what it is. What is
      it?

      “Bless me! it is an ape!”

      True—a baboon; but by no means the less a deity. His name is a
      derivation of the Greek Simia—what great fools are antiquarians!
      But see!—see!—yonder scampers a ragged little urchin. Where is he
      going? What is he bawling about? What does he say? Oh! he says
      the king is coming in triumph; that he is dressed in state; that
      he has just finished putting to death, with his own hand, a
      thousand chained Israelitish prisoners! For this exploit the
      ragamuffin is lauding him to the skies! Hark! here comes a troop
      of a similar description. They have made a Latin hymn upon the
      valor of the king, and are singing it as they go:

      Mille, mille, mille,
      Mille, mille, mille,
      Decollavimus, unus homo!
      Mille, mille, mille, mille, decollavimus!
      Mille, mille, mille,
      Vivat qui mille mille occidit!
      Tantum vini habet nemo
      Quantum sanguinis effudit!(*1)

      Which may be thus paraphrased:

      A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
      A thousand, a thousand, a thousand,
      We, with one warrior, have slain!
      A thousand, a thousand, a thousand, a thousand.
      Sing a thousand over again!
      Soho!—let us sing
      Long life to our king,
      Who knocked over a thousand so fine!
      Soho!—let us roar,
      He has given us more
      Red gallons of gore
      Than all Syria can furnish of wine!

      “Do you hear that flourish of trumpets?”

      Yes—the king is coming! See! the people are aghast with
      admiration, and lift up their eyes to the heavens in reverence.
      He comes!—he is coming!—there he is!

      “Who?—where?—the king?—do not behold him—cannot say that I
      perceive him.”

      Then you must be blind.

      “Very possible. Still I see nothing but a tumultuous mob of
      idiots and madmen, who are busy in prostrating themselves before
      a gigantic cameleopard, and endeavoring to obtain a kiss of the
      animal’s hoofs. See! the beast has very justly kicked one of the
      rabble over—and another—and another—and another. Indeed, I cannot
      help admiring the animal for the excellent use he is making of
      his feet.”

      Rabble, indeed!—why these are the noble and free citizens of
      Epidaphne! Beasts, did you say?—take care that you are not
      overheard. Do you not perceive that the animal has the visage of
      a man? Why, my dear sir, that cameleopard is no other than
      Antiochus Epiphanes, Antiochus the Illustrious, King of Syria,
      and the most potent of all the autocrats of the East! It is true,
      that he is entitled, at times, Antiochus Epimanes—Antiochus the
      madman—but that is because all people have not the capacity to
      appreciate his merits. It is also certain that he is at present
      ensconced in the hide of a beast, and is doing his best to play
      the part of a cameleopard; but this is done for the better
      sustaining his dignity as king. Besides, the monarch is of
      gigantic stature, and the dress is therefore neither unbecoming
      nor over large. We may, however, presume he would not have
      adopted it but for some occasion of especial state. Such, you
      will allow, is the massacre of a thousand Jews. With how superior
      a dignity the monarch perambulates on all fours! His tail, you
      perceive, is held aloft by his two principal concubines, Elline
      and Argelais; and his whole appearance would be infinitely
      prepossessing, were it not for the protuberance of his eyes,
      which will certainly start out of his head, and the queer color
      of his face, which has become nondescript from the quantity of
      wine he has swallowed. Let us follow him to the hippodrome,
      whither he is proceeding, and listen to the song of triumph which
      he is commencing:

      Who is king but Epiphanes?
      Say—do you know?
      Who is king but Epiphanes?
      Bravo!—bravo!
      There is none but Epiphanes,
      No—there is none:
      So tear down the temples,
      And put out the sun!

      Well and strenuously sung! The populace are hailing him ‘Prince
      of Poets,’ as well as ‘Glory of the East,’ ‘Delight of the
      Universe,’ and ‘Most Remarkable of Cameleopards.’ They have
      encored his effusion, and do you hear?—he is singing it over
      again. When he arrives at the hippodrome, he will be crowned with
      the poetic wreath, in anticipation of his victory at the
      approaching Olympics.

      “But, good Jupiter! what is the matter in the crowd behind us?”

      Behind us, did you say?—oh! ah!—I perceive. My friend, it is well
      that you spoke in time. Let us get into a place of safety as soon
      as possible. Here!—let us conceal ourselves in the arch of this
      aqueduct, and I will inform you presently of the origin of the
      commotion. It has turned out as I have been anticipating. The
      singular appearance of the cameleopard and the head of a man,
      has, it seems, given offence to the notions of propriety
      entertained, in general, by the wild animals domesticated in the
      city. A mutiny has been the result; and, as is usual upon such
      occasions, all human efforts will be of no avail in quelling the
      mob. Several of the Syrians have already been devoured; but the
      general voice of the four-footed patriots seems to be for eating
      up the cameleopard. ‘The Prince of Poets,’ therefore, is upon his
      hinder legs, running for his life. His courtiers have left him in
      the lurch, and his concubines have followed so excellent an
      example. ‘Delight of the Universe,’ thou art in a sad
      predicament! ‘Glory of the East,’ thou art in danger of
      mastication! Therefore never regard so piteously thy tail; it
      will undoubtedly be draggled in the mud, and for this there is no
      help. Look not behind thee, then, at its unavoidable degradation;
      but take courage, ply thy legs with vigor, and scud for the
      hippodrome! Remember that thou art Antiochus Epiphanes. Antiochus
      the Illustrious!—also ‘Prince of Poets,’ ‘Glory of the East,’
      ‘Delight of the Universe,’ and ‘Most Remarkable of Cameleopards!’
      Heavens! what a power of speed thou art displaying! What a
      capacity for leg-bail thou art developing! Run, Prince!—Bravo,
      Epiphanes! Well done, Cameleopard!—Glorious Antiochus!—He
      runs!—he leaps!—he flies! Like an arrow from a catapult he
      approaches the hippodrome! He leaps!—he shrieks!—he is there!
      This is well; for hadst thou, ‘Glory of the East,’ been half a
      second longer in reaching the gates of the Amphitheatre, there is
      not a bear’s cub in Epidaphne that would not have had a nibble at
      thy carcase. Let us be off—let us take our departure!—for we
      shall find our delicate modern ears unable to endure the vast
      uproar which is about to commence in celebration of the king’s
      escape! Listen! it has already commenced. See!—the whole town is
      topsy-turvy.

      “Surely this is the most populous city of the East! What a
      wilderness of people! what a jumble of all ranks and ages! what a
      multiplicity of sects and nations! what a variety of costumes!
      what a Babel of languages! what a screaming of beasts! what a
      tinkling of instruments! what a parcel of philosophers!”

      Come let us be off.

      “Stay a moment! I see a vast hubbub in the hippodrome; what is
      the meaning of it, I beseech you?”

      That?—oh, nothing! The noble and free citizens of Epidaphne
      being, as they declare, well satisfied of the faith, valor,
      wisdom, and divinity of their king, and having, moreover, been
      eye-witnesses of his late superhuman agility, do think it no more
      than their duty to invest his brows (in addition to the poetic
      crown) with the wreath of victory in the footrace—a wreath which
      it is evident he must obtain at the celebration of the next
      Olympiad, and which, therefore, they now give him in advance.

Footnotes—Four Beasts

      (*1) Flavius Vospicus says, that the hymn here introduced was
      sung by the rabble upon the occasion of Aurelian, in the Sarmatic
      war, having slain, with his own hand, nine hundred and fifty of
      the enemy.




THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE


  What song the Syrens sang, or what name Achilles assumed when he hid
  himself among women, although puzzling questions, are not beyond
  _all_ conjecture.

—_Sir Thomas Browne._

      The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in
      themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate
      them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things,
      that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately
      possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man
      exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as
      call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that
      moral activity which _disentangles._ He derives pleasure from
      even the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play.
      He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, of hieroglyphics;
      exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of _acumen_ which
      appears to the ordinary apprehension præternatural. His results,
      brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in
      truth, the whole air of intuition.

      The faculty of re-solution is possibly much invigorated by
      mathematical study, and especially by that highest branch of it
      which, unjustly, and merely on account of its retrograde
      operations, has been called, as if _par excellence_, analysis.
      Yet to calculate is not in itself to analyse. A chess-player, for
      example, does the one without effort at the other. It follows
      that the game of chess, in its effects upon mental character, is
      greatly misunderstood. I am not now writing a treatise, but
      simply prefacing a somewhat peculiar narrative by observations
      very much at random; I will, therefore, take occasion to assert
      that the higher powers of the reflective intellect are more
      decidedly and more usefully tasked by the unostentatious game of
      draughts than by all the elaborate frivolity of chess. In this
      latter, where the pieces have different and _bizarre_ motions,
      with various and variable values, what is only complex is
      mistaken (a not unusual error) for what is profound. The
      _attention_ is here called powerfully into play. If it flag for
      an instant, an oversight is committed resulting in injury or
      defeat. The possible moves being not only manifold but involute,
      the chances of such oversights are multiplied; and in nine cases
      out of ten it is the more concentrative rather than the more
      acute player who conquers. In draughts, on the contrary, where
      the moves are _unique_ and have but little variation, the
      probabilities of inadvertence are diminished, and the mere
      attention being left comparatively unemployed, what advantages
      are obtained by either party are obtained by superior _acumen_.
      To be less abstract, let us suppose a game of draughts where the
      pieces are reduced to four kings, and where, of course, no
      oversight is to be expected. It is obvious that here the victory
      can be decided (the players being at all equal) only by some
      _recherché_ movement, the result of some strong exertion of the
      intellect. Deprived of ordinary resources, the analyst throws
      himself into the spirit of his opponent, identifies himself
      therewith, and not unfrequently sees thus, at a glance, the sole
      methods (sometime indeed absurdly simple ones) by which he may
      seduce into error or hurry into miscalculation.

      Whist has long been noted for its influence upon what is termed
      the calculating power; and men of the highest order of intellect
      have been known to take an apparently unaccountable delight in
      it, while eschewing chess as frivolous. Beyond doubt there is
      nothing of a similar nature so greatly tasking the faculty of
      analysis. The best chess-player in Christendom _may_ be little
      more than the best player of chess; but proficiency in whist
      implies capacity for success in all those more important
      undertakings where mind struggles with mind. When I say
      proficiency, I mean that perfection in the game which includes a
      comprehension of _all_ the sources whence legitimate advantage
      may be derived. These are not only manifold but multiform, and
      lie frequently among recesses of thought altogether inaccessible
      to the ordinary understanding. To observe attentively is to
      remember distinctly; and, so far, the concentrative chess-player
      will do very well at whist; while the rules of Hoyle (themselves
      based upon the mere mechanism of the game) are sufficiently and
      generally comprehensible. Thus to have a retentive memory, and to
      proceed by “the book,” are points commonly regarded as the sum
      total of good playing. But it is in matters beyond the limits of
      mere rule that the skill of the analyst is evinced. He makes, in
      silence, a host of observations and inferences. So, perhaps, do
      his companions; and the difference in the extent of the
      information obtained, lies not so much in the validity of the
      inference as in the quality of the observation. The necessary
      knowledge is that of _what_ to observe. Our player confines
      himself not at all; nor, because the game is the object, does he
      reject deductions from things external to the game. He examines
      the countenance of his partner, comparing it carefully with that
      of each of his opponents. He considers the mode of assorting the
      cards in each hand; often counting trump by trump, and honor by
      honor, through the glances bestowed by their holders upon each.
      He notes every variation of face as the play progresses,
      gathering a fund of thought from the differences in the
      expression of certainty, of surprise, of triumph, or of chagrin.
      From the manner of gathering up a trick he judges whether the
      person taking it can make another in the suit. He recognises what
      is played through feint, by the manner with which it is thrown
      upon the table. A casual or inadvertent word; the accidental
      dropping or turning of a card, with the accompanying anxiety or
      carelessness in regard to its concealment; the counting of the
      tricks, with the order of their arrangement; embarrassment,
      hesitation, eagerness or trepidation—all afford, to his
      apparently intuitive perception, indications of the true state of
      affairs. The first two or three rounds having been played, he is
      in full possession of the contents of each hand, and
      thenceforward puts down his cards with as absolute a precision of
      purpose as if the rest of the party had turned outward the faces
      of their own.

      The analytical power should not be confounded with ample
      ingenuity; for while the analyst is necessarily ingenious, the
      ingenious man is often remarkably incapable of analysis. The
      constructive or combining power, by which ingenuity is usually
      manifested, and to which the phrenologists (I believe
      erroneously) have assigned a separate organ, supposing it a
      primitive faculty, has been so frequently seen in those whose
      intellect bordered otherwise upon idiocy, as to have attracted
      general observation among writers on morals. Between ingenuity
      and the analytic ability there exists a difference far greater,
      indeed, than that between the fancy and the imagination, but of a
      character very strictly analogous. It will be found, in fact,
      that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the _truly_
      imaginative never otherwise than analytic.

      The narrative which follows will appear to the reader somewhat in
      the light of a commentary upon the propositions just advanced.

      Residing in Paris during the spring and part of the summer of
      18—, I there became acquainted with a Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin.
      This young gentleman was of an excellent, indeed of an
      illustrious family, but, by a variety of untoward events, had
      been reduced to such poverty that the energy of his character
      succumbed beneath it, and he ceased to bestir himself in the
      world, or to care for the retrieval of his fortunes. By courtesy
      of his creditors, there still remained in his possession a small
      remnant of his patrimony; and, upon the income arising from this,
      he managed, by means of a rigorous economy, to procure the
      necessaries of life, without troubling himself about its
      superfluities. Books, indeed, were his sole luxuries, and in
      Paris these are easily obtained.

      Our first meeting was at an obscure library in the Rue
      Montmartre, where the accident of our both being in search of the
      same very rare and very remarkable volume, brought us into closer
      communion. We saw each other again and again. I was deeply
      interested in the little family history which he detailed to me
      with all that candor which a Frenchman indulges whenever mere
      self is his theme. I was astonished, too, at the vast extent of
      his reading; and, above all, I felt my soul enkindled within me
      by the wild fervor, and the vivid freshness of his imagination.
      Seeking in Paris the objects I then sought, I felt that the
      society of such a man would be to me a treasure beyond price; and
      this feeling I frankly confided to him. It was at length arranged
      that we should live together during my stay in the city; and as
      my worldly circumstances were somewhat less embarrassed than his
      own, I was permitted to be at the expense of renting, and
      furnishing in a style which suited the rather fantastic gloom of
      our common temper, a time-eaten and grotesque mansion, long
      deserted through superstitions into which we did not inquire, and
      tottering to its fall in a retired and desolate portion of the
      Faubourg St. Germain.

      Had the routine of our life at this place been known to the
      world, we should have been regarded as madmen—although, perhaps,
      as madmen of a harmless nature. Our seclusion was perfect. We
      admitted no visitors. Indeed the locality of our retirement had
      been carefully kept a secret from my own former associates; and
      it had been many years since Dupin had ceased to know or be known
      in Paris. We existed within ourselves alone.

      It was a freak of fancy in my friend (for what else shall I call
      it?) to be enamored of the night for her own sake; and into this
      _bizarrerie_, as into all his others, I quietly fell; giving
      myself up to his wild whims with a perfect _abandon_. The sable
      divinity would not herself dwell with us always; but we could
      counterfeit her presence. At the first dawn of the morning we
      closed all the messy shutters of our old building; lighting a
      couple of tapers which, strongly perfumed, threw out only the
      ghastliest and feeblest of rays. By the aid of these we then
      busied our souls in dreams—reading, writing, or conversing, until
      warned by the clock of the advent of the true Darkness. Then we
      sallied forth into the streets arm in arm, continuing the topics
      of the day, or roaming far and wide until a late hour, seeking,
      amid the wild lights and shadows of the populous city, that
      infinity of mental excitement which quiet observation can afford.

      At such times I could not help remarking and admiring (although
      from his rich ideality I had been prepared to expect it) a
      peculiar analytic ability in Dupin. He seemed, too, to take an
      eager delight in its exercise—if not exactly in its display—and
      did not hesitate to confess the pleasure thus derived. He boasted
      to me, with a low chuckling laugh, that most men, in respect to
      himself, wore windows in their bosoms, and was wont to follow up
      such assertions by direct and very startling proofs of his
      intimate knowledge of my own. His manner at these moments was
      frigid and abstract; his eyes were vacant in expression; while
      his voice, usually a rich tenor, rose into a treble which would
      have sounded petulantly but for the deliberateness and entire
      distinctness of the enunciation. Observing him in these moods, I
      often dwelt meditatively upon the old philosophy of the Bi-Part
      Soul, and amused myself with the fancy of a double Dupin—the
      creative and the resolvent.

      Let it not be supposed, from what I have just said, that I am
      detailing any mystery, or penning any romance. What I have
      described in the Frenchman, was merely the result of an excited,
      or perhaps of a diseased intelligence. But of the character of
      his remarks at the periods in question an example will best
      convey the idea.

      We were strolling one night down a long dirty street in the
      vicinity of the Palais Royal. Being both, apparently, occupied
      with thought, neither of us had spoken a syllable for fifteen
      minutes at least. All at once Dupin broke forth with these words:

      “He is a very little fellow, that’s true, and would do better for
      the _Théâtre des Variétés_.”

      “There can be no doubt of that,” I replied unwittingly, and not
      at first observing (so much had I been absorbed in reflection)
      the extraordinary manner in which the speaker had chimed in with
      my meditations. In an instant afterward I recollected myself, and
      my astonishment was profound.

      “Dupin,” said I, gravely, “this is beyond my comprehension. I do
      not hesitate to say that I am amazed, and can scarcely credit my
      senses. How was it possible you should know I was thinking of
      ——?” Here I paused, to ascertain beyond a doubt whether he really
      knew of whom I thought.

      “—— of Chantilly,” said he, “why do you pause? You were remarking
      to yourself that his diminutive figure unfitted him for tragedy.”

      This was precisely what had formed the subject of my reflections.
      Chantilly was a _quondam_ cobbler of the Rue St. Denis, who,
      becoming stage-mad, had attempted the _rôle_ of Xerxes, in
      Crébillon’s tragedy so called, and been notoriously Pasquinaded
      for his pains.

      “Tell me, for Heaven’s sake,” I exclaimed, “the method—if method
      there is—by which you have been enabled to fathom my soul in this
      matter.” In fact I was even more startled than I would have been
      willing to express.

      “It was the fruiterer,” replied my friend, “who brought you to
      the conclusion that the mender of soles was not of sufficient
      height for Xerxes _et id genus omne_.”

      “The fruiterer!—you astonish me—I know no fruiterer whomsoever.”

      “The man who ran up against you as we entered the street—it may
      have been fifteen minutes ago.”

      I now remembered that, in fact, a fruiterer, carrying upon his
      head a large basket of apples, had nearly thrown me down, by
      accident, as we passed from the Rue C—— into the thoroughfare
      where we stood; but what this had to do with Chantilly I could
      not possibly understand.

      There was not a particle of _charlatânerie_ about Dupin. “I will
      explain,” he said, “and that you may comprehend all clearly, we
      will first retrace the course of your meditations, from the
      moment in which I spoke to you until that of the _rencontre_ with
      the fruiterer in question. The larger links of the chain run
      thus—Chantilly, Orion, Dr. Nichols, Epicurus, Stereotomy, the
      street stones, the fruiterer.”

      There are few persons who have not, at some period of their
      lives, amused themselves in retracing the steps by which
      particular conclusions of their own minds have been attained. The
      occupation is often full of interest; and he who attempts it for
      the first time is astonished by the apparently illimitable
      distance and incoherence between the starting-point and the goal.
      What, then, must have been my amazement when I heard the
      Frenchman speak what he had just spoken, and when I could not
      help acknowledging that he had spoken the truth. He continued:

      “We had been talking of horses, if I remember aright, just before
      leaving the Rue C——. This was the last subject we discussed. As
      we crossed into this street, a fruiterer, with a large basket
      upon his head, brushing quickly past us, thrust you upon a pile
      of paving stones collected at a spot where the causeway is
      undergoing repair. You stepped upon one of the loose fragments,
      slipped, slightly strained your ankle, appeared vexed or sulky,
      muttered a few words, turned to look at the pile, and then
      proceeded in silence. I was not particularly attentive to what
      you did; but observation has become with me, of late, a species
      of necessity.

      “You kept your eyes upon the ground—glancing, with a petulant
      expression, at the holes and ruts in the pavement, (so that I saw
      you were still thinking of the stones,) until we reached the
      little alley called Lamartine, which has been paved, by way of
      experiment, with the overlapping and riveted blocks. Here your
      countenance brightened up, and, perceiving your lips move, I
      could not doubt that you murmured the word ‘stereotomy,’ a term
      very affectedly applied to this species of pavement. I knew that
      you could not say to yourself ‘stereotomy’ without being brought
      to think of atomies, and thus of the theories of Epicurus; and
      since, when we discussed this subject not very long ago, I
      mentioned to you how singularly, yet with how little notice, the
      vague guesses of that noble Greek had met with confirmation in
      the late nebular cosmogony, I felt that you could not avoid
      casting your eyes upward to the great _nebula_ in Orion, and I
      certainly expected that you would do so. You did look up; and I
      was now assured that I had correctly followed your steps. But in
      that bitter _tirade_ upon Chantilly, which appeared in
      yesterday’s ‘_Musée_,’ the satirist, making some disgraceful
      allusions to the cobbler’s change of name upon assuming the
      buskin, quoted a Latin line about which we have often conversed.
      I mean the line

     Perdidit antiquum litera prima sonum.

      “I had told you that this was in reference to Orion, formerly
      written Urion; and, from certain pungencies connected with this
      explanation, I was aware that you could not have forgotten it. It
      was clear, therefore, that you would not fail to combine the two
      ideas of Orion and Chantilly. That you did combine them I saw by
      the character of the smile which passed over your lips. You
      thought of the poor cobbler’s immolation. So far, you had been
      stooping in your gait; but now I saw you draw yourself up to your
      full height. I was then sure that you reflected upon the
      diminutive figure of Chantilly. At this point I interrupted your
      meditations to remark that as, in fact, he was a very little
      fellow—that Chantilly—he would do better at the _Théâtre des
      Variétés_.”

      Not long after this, we were looking over an evening edition of
      the “Gazette des Tribunaux,” when the following paragraphs
      arrested our attention.

      “_Extraordinary Murders_.—This morning, about three o’clock, the
      inhabitants of the Quartier St. Roch were aroused from sleep by a
      succession of terrific shrieks, issuing, apparently, from the
      fourth story of a house in the Rue Morgue, known to be in the
      sole occupancy of one Madame L’Espanaye, and her daughter,
      Mademoiselle Camille L’Espanaye. After some delay, occasioned by
      a fruitless attempt to procure admission in the usual manner, the
      gateway was broken in with a crowbar, and eight or ten of the
      neighbors entered accompanied by two _gendarmes_. By this time
      the cries had ceased; but, as the party rushed up the first
      flight of stairs, two or more rough voices in angry contention
      were distinguished and seemed to proceed from the upper part of
      the house. As the second landing was reached, these sounds, also,
      had ceased and everything remained perfectly quiet. The party
      spread themselves and hurried from room to room. Upon arriving at
      a large back chamber in the fourth story, (the door of which,
      being found locked, with the key inside, was forced open,) a
      spectacle presented itself which struck every one present not
      less with horror than with astonishment.

      “The apartment was in the wildest disorder—the furniture broken
      and thrown about in all directions. There was only one bedstead;
      and from this the bed had been removed, and thrown into the
      middle of the floor. On a chair lay a razor, besmeared with
      blood. On the hearth were two or three long and thick tresses of
      grey human hair, also dabbled in blood, and seeming to have been
      pulled out by the roots. Upon the floor were found four
      Napoleons, an ear-ring of topaz, three large silver spoons, three
      smaller of _métal d’Alger_, and two bags, containing nearly four
      thousand francs in gold. The drawers of a _bureau_, which stood
      in one corner were open, and had been, apparently, rifled,
      although many articles still remained in them. A small iron safe
      was discovered under the _bed_ (not under the bedstead). It was
      open, with the key still in the door. It had no contents beyond a
      few old letters, and other papers of little consequence.

      “Of Madame L’Espanaye no traces were here seen; but an unusual
      quantity of soot being observed in the fire-place, a search was
      made in the chimney, and (horrible to relate!) the corpse of the
      daughter, head downward, was dragged therefrom; it having been
      thus forced up the narrow aperture for a considerable distance.
      The body was quite warm. Upon examining it, many excoriations
      were perceived, no doubt occasioned by the violence with which it
      had been thrust up and disengaged. Upon the face were many severe
      scratches, and, upon the throat, dark bruises, and deep
      indentations of finger nails, as if the deceased had been
      throttled to death.

      “After a thorough investigation of every portion of the house,
      without farther discovery, the party made its way into a small
      paved yard in the rear of the building, where lay the corpse of
      the old lady, with her throat so entirely cut that, upon an
      attempt to raise her, the head fell off. The body, as well as the
      head, was fearfully mutilated—the former so much so as scarcely
      to retain any semblance of humanity.

      “To this horrible mystery there is not as yet, we believe, the
      slightest clew.”

      The next day’s paper had these additional particulars.

      “_The Tragedy in the Rue Morgue._—Many individuals have been
      examined in relation to this most extraordinary and frightful
      affair” [The word ‘affaire’ has not yet, in France, that levity
      of import which it conveys with us], “but nothing whatever has
      transpired to throw light upon it. We give below all the material
      testimony elicited.

      “_Pauline Dubourg_, laundress, deposes that she has known both
      the deceased for three years, having washed for them during that
      period. The old lady and her daughter seemed on good terms—very
      affectionate towards each other. They were excellent pay. Could
      not speak in regard to their mode or means of living. Believed
      that Madame L. told fortunes for a living. Was reputed to have
      money put by. Never met any persons in the house when she called
      for the clothes or took them home. Was sure that they had no
      servant in employ. There appeared to be no furniture in any part
      of the building except in the fourth story.

      “_Pierre Moreau_, tobacconist, deposes that he has been in the
      habit of selling small quantities of tobacco and snuff to Madame
      L’Espanaye for nearly four years. Was born in the neighborhood,
      and has always resided there. The deceased and her daughter had
      occupied the house in which the corpses were found, for more than
      six years. It was formerly occupied by a jeweller, who under-let
      the upper rooms to various persons. The house was the property of
      Madame L. She became dissatisfied with the abuse of the premises
      by her tenant, and moved into them herself, refusing to let any
      portion. The old lady was childish. Witness had seen the daughter
      some five or six times during the six years. The two lived an
      exceedingly retired life—were reputed to have money. Had heard it
      said among the neighbors that Madame L. told fortunes—did not
      believe it. Had never seen any person enter the door except the
      old lady and her daughter, a porter once or twice, and a
      physician some eight or ten times.

      “Many other persons, neighbors, gave evidence to the same effect.
      No one was spoken of as frequenting the house. It was not known
      whether there were any living connexions of Madame L. and her
      daughter. The shutters of the front windows were seldom opened.
      Those in the rear were always closed, with the exception of the
      large back room, fourth story. The house was a good house—not
      very old.

      “_Isidore Musèt_, _gendarme_, deposes that he was called to the
      house about three o’clock in the morning, and found some twenty
      or thirty persons at the gateway, endeavoring to gain admittance.
      Forced it open, at length, with a bayonet—not with a crowbar. Had
      but little difficulty in getting it open, on account of its being
      a double or folding gate, and bolted neither at bottom not top.
      The shrieks were continued until the gate was forced—and then
      suddenly ceased. They seemed to be screams of some person (or
      persons) in great agony—were loud and drawn out, not short and
      quick. Witness led the way up stairs. Upon reaching the first
      landing, heard two voices in loud and angry contention—the one a
      gruff voice, the other much shriller—a very strange voice. Could
      distinguish some words of the former, which was that of a
      Frenchman. Was positive that it was not a woman’s voice. Could
      distinguish the words ‘_sacré_’ and ‘_diable._’ The shrill voice
      was that of a foreigner. Could not be sure whether it was the
      voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make out what was said,
      but believed the language to be Spanish. The state of the room
      and of the bodies was described by this witness as we described
      them yesterday.

      “_Henri Duval_, a neighbor, and by trade a silver-smith, deposes
      that he was one of the party who first entered the house.
      Corroborates the testimony of Musèt in general. As soon as they
      forced an entrance, they reclosed the door, to keep out the
      crowd, which collected very fast, notwithstanding the lateness of
      the hour. The shrill voice, this witness thinks, was that of an
      Italian. Was certain it was not French. Could not be sure that it
      was a man’s voice. It might have been a woman’s. Was not
      acquainted with the Italian language. Could not distinguish the
      words, but was convinced by the intonation that the speaker was
      an Italian. Knew Madame L. and her daughter. Had conversed with
      both frequently. Was sure that the shrill voice was not that of
      either of the deceased.

      “——_Odenheimer, restaurateur._ This witness volunteered his
      testimony. Not speaking French, was examined through an
      interpreter. Is a native of Amsterdam. Was passing the house at
      the time of the shrieks. They lasted for several minutes—probably
      ten. They were long and loud—very awful and distressing. Was one
      of those who entered the building. Corroborated the previous
      evidence in every respect but one. Was sure that the shrill voice
      was that of a man—of a Frenchman. Could not distinguish the words
      uttered. They were loud and quick—unequal—spoken apparently in
      fear as well as in anger. The voice was harsh—not so much shrill
      as harsh. Could not call it a shrill voice. The gruff voice said
      repeatedly ‘_sacré_,’ ‘_diable_,’ and once ‘_mon Dieu._’

      “_Jules Mignaud_, banker, of the firm of Mignaud et Fils, Rue
      Deloraine. Is the elder Mignaud. Madame L’Espanaye had some
      property. Had opened an account with his banking house in the
      spring of the year—(eight years previously). Made frequent
      deposits in small sums. Had checked for nothing until the third
      day before her death, when she took out in person the sum of 4000
      francs. This sum was paid in gold, and a clerk went home with the
      money.

      “_Adolphe Le Bon_, clerk to Mignaud et Fils, deposes that on the
      day in question, about noon, he accompanied Madame L’Espanaye to
      her residence with the 4000 francs, put up in two bags. Upon the
      door being opened, Mademoiselle L. appeared and took from his
      hands one of the bags, while the old lady relieved him of the
      other. He then bowed and departed. Did not see any person in the
      street at the time. It is a by-street—very lonely.

      “_William Bird_, tailor deposes that he was one of the party who
      entered the house. Is an Englishman. Has lived in Paris two
      years. Was one of the first to ascend the stairs. Heard the
      voices in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman.
      Could make out several words, but cannot now remember all. Heard
      distinctly ‘_sacré_’ and ‘_mon Dieu._’ There was a sound at the
      moment as if of several persons struggling—a scraping and
      scuffling sound. The shrill voice was very loud—louder than the
      gruff one. Is sure that it was not the voice of an Englishman.
      Appeared to be that of a German. Might have been a woman’s voice.
      Does not understand German.

      “Four of the above-named witnesses, being recalled, deposed that
      the door of the chamber in which was found the body of
      Mademoiselle L. was locked on the inside when the party reached
      it. Every thing was perfectly silent—no groans or noises of any
      kind. Upon forcing the door no person was seen. The windows, both
      of the back and front room, were down and firmly fastened from
      within. A door between the two rooms was closed, but not locked.
      The door leading from the front room into the passage was locked,
      with the key on the inside. A small room in the front of the
      house, on the fourth story, at the head of the passage was open,
      the door being ajar. This room was crowded with old beds, boxes,
      and so forth. These were carefully removed and searched. There
      was not an inch of any portion of the house which was not
      carefully searched. Sweeps were sent up and down the chimneys.
      The house was a four story one, with garrets (_mansardes._) A
      trap-door on the roof was nailed down very securely—did not
      appear to have been opened for years. The time elapsing between
      the hearing of the voices in contention and the breaking open of
      the room door, was variously stated by the witnesses. Some made
      it as short as three minutes—some as long as five. The door was
      opened with difficulty.

      “_Alfonzo Garcio_, undertaker, deposes that he resides in the Rue
      Morgue. Is a native of Spain. Was one of the party who entered
      the house. Did not proceed up stairs. Is nervous, and was
      apprehensive of the consequences of agitation. Heard the voices
      in contention. The gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Could not
      distinguish what was said. The shrill voice was that of an
      Englishman—is sure of this. Does not understand the English
      language, but judges by the intonation.

      “_Alberto Montani_, confectioner, deposes that he was among the
      first to ascend the stairs. Heard the voices in question. The
      gruff voice was that of a Frenchman. Distinguished several words.
      The speaker appeared to be expostulating. Could not make out the
      words of the shrill voice. Spoke quick and unevenly. Thinks it
      the voice of a Russian. Corroborates the general testimony. Is an
      Italian. Never conversed with a native of Russia.

      “Several witnesses, recalled, here testified that the chimneys of
      all the rooms on the fourth story were too narrow to admit the
      passage of a human being. By ‘sweeps’ were meant cylindrical
      sweeping brushes, such as are employed by those who clean
      chimneys. These brushes were passed up and down every flue in the
      house. There is no back passage by which any one could have
      descended while the party proceeded up stairs. The body of
      Mademoiselle L’Espanaye was so firmly wedged in the chimney that
      it could not be got down until four or five of the party united
      their strength.

      “_Paul Dumas_, physician, deposes that he was called to view the
      bodies about day-break. They were both then lying on the sacking
      of the bedstead in the chamber where Mademoiselle L. was found.
      The corpse of the young lady was much bruised and excoriated. The
      fact that it had been thrust up the chimney would sufficiently
      account for these appearances. The throat was greatly chafed.
      There were several deep scratches just below the chin, together
      with a series of livid spots which were evidently the impression
      of fingers. The face was fearfully discolored, and the eye-balls
      protruded. The tongue had been partially bitten through. A large
      bruise was discovered upon the pit of the stomach, produced,
      apparently, by the pressure of a knee. In the opinion of M.
      Dumas, Mademoiselle L’Espanaye had been throttled to death by
      some person or persons unknown. The corpse of the mother was
      horribly mutilated. All the bones of the right leg and arm were
      more or less shattered. The left _tibia_ much splintered, as well
      as all the ribs of the left side. Whole body dreadfully bruised
      and discolored. It was not possible to say how the injuries had
      been inflicted. A heavy club of wood, or a broad bar of iron—a
      chair—any large, heavy, and obtuse weapon would have produced
      such results, if wielded by the hands of a very powerful man. No
      woman could have inflicted the blows with any weapon. The head of
      the deceased, when seen by witness, was entirely separated from
      the body, and was also greatly shattered. The throat had
      evidently been cut with some very sharp instrument—probably with
      a razor.

      “_Alexandre Etienne_, surgeon, was called with M. Dumas to view
      the bodies. Corroborated the testimony, and the opinions of M.
      Dumas.

      “Nothing farther of importance was elicited, although several
      other persons were examined. A murder so mysterious, and so
      perplexing in all its particulars, was never before committed in
      Paris—if indeed a murder has been committed at all. The police
      are entirely at fault—an unusual occurrence in affairs of this
      nature. There is not, however, the shadow of a clew apparent.”

      The evening edition of the paper stated that the greatest
      excitement still continued in the Quartier St. Roch—that the
      premises in question had been carefully re-searched, and fresh
      examinations of witnesses instituted, but all to no purpose. A
      postscript, however, mentioned that Adolphe Le Bon had been
      arrested and imprisoned—although nothing appeared to criminate
      him, beyond the facts already detailed.

      Dupin seemed singularly interested in the progress of this
      affair—at least so I judged from his manner, for he made no
      comments. It was only after the announcement that Le Bon had been
      imprisoned, that he asked me my opinion respecting the murders.

      I could merely agree with all Paris in considering them an
      insoluble mystery. I saw no means by which it would be possible
      to trace the murderer.

      “We must not judge of the means,” said Dupin, “by this shell of
      an examination. The Parisian police, so much extolled for
      _acumen_, are cunning, but no more. There is no method in their
      proceedings, beyond the method of the moment. They make a vast
      parade of measures; but, not unfrequently, these are so ill
      adapted to the objects proposed, as to put us in mind of Monsieur
      Jourdain’s calling for his _robe-de-chambre—pour mieux entendre
      la musique._ The results attained by them are not unfrequently
      surprising, but, for the most part, are brought about by simple
      diligence and activity. When these qualities are unavailing,
      their schemes fail. Vidocq, for example, was a good guesser and a
      persevering man. But, without educated thought, he erred
      continually by the very intensity of his investigations. He
      impaired his vision by holding the object too close. He might
      see, perhaps, one or two points with unusual clearness, but in so
      doing he, necessarily, lost sight of the matter as a whole. Thus
      there is such a thing as being too profound. Truth is not always
      in a well. In fact, as regards the more important knowledge, I do
      believe that she is invariably superficial. The depth lies in the
      valleys where we seek her, and not upon the mountain-tops where
      she is found. The modes and sources of this kind of error are
      well typified in the contemplation of the heavenly bodies. To
      look at a star by glances—to view it in a side-long way, by
      turning toward it the exterior portions of the _retina_ (more
      susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the interior), is
      to behold the star distinctly—is to have the best appreciation of
      its lustre—a lustre which grows dim just in proportion as we turn
      our vision _fully_ upon it. A greater number of rays actually
      fall upon the eye in the latter case, but, in the former, there
      is the more refined capacity for comprehension. By undue
      profundity we perplex and enfeeble thought; and it is possible to
      make even Venus herself vanish from the firmament by a scrutiny
      too sustained, too concentrated, or too direct.

      “As for these murders, let us enter into some examinations for
      ourselves, before we make up an opinion respecting them. An
      inquiry will afford us amusement,” [I thought this an odd term,
      so applied, but said nothing] “and, besides, Le Bon once rendered
      me a service for which I am not ungrateful. We will go and see
      the premises with our own eyes. I know G——, the Prefect of
      Police, and shall have no difficulty in obtaining the necessary
      permission.”

      The permission was obtained, and we proceeded at once to the Rue
      Morgue. This is one of those miserable thoroughfares which
      intervene between the Rue Richelieu and the Rue St. Roch. It was
      late in the afternoon when we reached it, as this quarter is at a
      great distance from that in which we resided. The house was
      readily found; for there were still many persons gazing up at the
      closed shutters, with an objectless curiosity, from the opposite
      side of the way. It was an ordinary Parisian house, with a
      gateway, on one side of which was a glazed watch-box, with a
      sliding panel in the window, indicating a _loge de concierge._
      Before going in we walked up the street, turned down an alley,
      and then, again turning, passed in the rear of the
      building—Dupin, meanwhile examining the whole neighborhood, as
      well as the house, with a minuteness of attention for which I
      could see no possible object.

      Retracing our steps, we came again to the front of the dwelling,
      rang, and, having shown our credentials, were admitted by the
      agents in charge. We went up stairs—into the chamber where the
      body of Mademoiselle L’Espanaye had been found, and where both
      the deceased still lay. The disorders of the room had, as usual,
      been suffered to exist. I saw nothing beyond what had been stated
      in the “Gazette des Tribunaux.” Dupin scrutinized every thing—not
      excepting the bodies of the victims. We then went into the other
      rooms, and into the yard; a _gendarme_ accompanying us
      throughout. The examination occupied us until dark, when we took
      our departure. On our way home my companion stepped in for a
      moment at the office of one of the daily papers.

      I have said that the whims of my friend were manifold, and that
      _Je les ménageais_:—for this phrase there is no English
      equivalent. It was his humor, now, to decline all conversation on
      the subject of the murder, until about noon the next day. He then
      asked me, suddenly, if I had observed any thing _peculiar_ at the
      scene of the atrocity.

      There was something in his manner of emphasizing the word
      “peculiar,” which caused me to shudder, without knowing why.

      “No, nothing _peculiar_,” I said; “nothing more, at least, than
      we both saw stated in the paper.”

      “The ‘Gazette,’” he replied, “has not entered, I fear, into the
      unusual horror of the thing. But dismiss the idle opinions of
      this print. It appears to me that this mystery is considered
      insoluble, for the very reason which should cause it to be
      regarded as easy of solution—I mean for the _outré_ character of
      its features. The police are confounded by the seeming absence of
      motive—not for the murder itself—but for the atrocity of the
      murder. They are puzzled, too, by the seeming impossibility of
      reconciling the voices heard in contention, with the facts that
      no one was discovered up stairs but the assassinated Mademoiselle
      L’Espanaye, and that there were no means of egress without the
      notice of the party ascending. The wild disorder of the room; the
      corpse thrust, with the head downward, up the chimney; the
      frightful mutilation of the body of the old lady; these
      considerations, with those just mentioned, and others which I
      need not mention, have sufficed to paralyze the powers, by
      putting completely at fault the boasted _acumen_, of the
      government agents. They have fallen into the gross but common
      error of confounding the unusual with the abstruse. But it is by
      these deviations from the plane of the ordinary, that reason
      feels its way, if at all, in its search for the true. In
      investigations such as we are now pursuing, it should not be so
      much asked ‘what has occurred,’ as ‘what has occurred that has
      never occurred before.’ In fact, the facility with which I shall
      arrive, or have arrived, at the solution of this mystery, is in
      the direct ratio of its apparent insolubility in the eyes of the
      police.”

      I stared at the speaker in mute astonishment.

      “I am now awaiting,” continued he, looking toward the door of our
      apartment—“I am now awaiting a person who, although perhaps not
      the perpetrator of these butcheries, must have been in some
      measure implicated in their perpetration. Of the worst portion of
      the crimes committed, it is probable that he is innocent. I hope
      that I am right in this supposition; for upon it I build my
      expectation of reading the entire riddle. I look for the man
      here—in this room—every moment. It is true that he may not
      arrive; but the probability is that he will. Should he come, it
      will be necessary to detain him. Here are pistols; and we both
      know how to use them when occasion demands their use.”

      I took the pistols, scarcely knowing what I did, or believing
      what I heard, while Dupin went on, very much as if in a
      soliloquy. I have already spoken of his abstract manner at such
      times. His discourse was addressed to myself; but his voice,
      although by no means loud, had that intonation which is commonly
      employed in speaking to some one at a great distance. His eyes,
      vacant in expression, regarded only the wall.

      “That the voices heard in contention,” he said, “by the party
      upon the stairs, were not the voices of the women themselves, was
      fully proved by the evidence. This relieves us of all doubt upon
      the question whether the old lady could have first destroyed the
      daughter and afterward have committed suicide. I speak of this
      point chiefly for the sake of method; for the strength of Madame
      L’Espanaye would have been utterly unequal to the task of
      thrusting her daughter’s corpse up the chimney as it was found;
      and the nature of the wounds upon her own person entirely
      preclude the idea of self-destruction. Murder, then, has been
      committed by some third party; and the voices of this third party
      were those heard in contention. Let me now advert—not to the
      whole testimony respecting these voices—but to what was
      _peculiar_ in that testimony. Did you observe any thing peculiar
      about it?”

      I remarked that, while all the witnesses agreed in supposing the
      gruff voice to be that of a Frenchman, there was much
      disagreement in regard to the shrill, or, as one individual
      termed it, the harsh voice.

      “That was the evidence itself,” said Dupin, “but it was not the
      peculiarity of the evidence. You have observed nothing
      distinctive. Yet there _was_ something to be observed. The
      witnesses, as you remark, agreed about the gruff voice; they were
      here unanimous. But in regard to the shrill voice, the
      peculiarity is—not that they disagreed—but that, while an
      Italian, an Englishman, a Spaniard, a Hollander, and a Frenchman
      attempted to describe it, each one spoke of it as that _of a
      foreigner_. Each is sure that it was not the voice of one of his
      own countrymen. Each likens it—not to the voice of an individual
      of any nation with whose language he is conversant—but the
      converse. The Frenchman supposes it the voice of a Spaniard, and
      ‘might have distinguished some words _had he been acquainted with
      the Spanish._’ The Dutchman maintains it to have been that of a
      Frenchman; but we find it stated that ‘_not understanding French
      this witness was examined through an interpreter._’ The
      Englishman thinks it the voice of a German, and ‘_does not
      understand German._’ The Spaniard ‘is sure’ that it was that of
      an Englishman, but ‘judges by the intonation’ altogether, ‘_as he
      has no knowledge of the English._’ The Italian believes it the
      voice of a Russian, but ‘_has never conversed with a native of
      Russia._’ A second Frenchman differs, moreover, with the first,
      and is positive that the voice was that of an Italian; but, _not
      being cognizant of that tongue_, is, like the Spaniard,
      ‘convinced by the intonation.’ Now, how strangely unusual must
      that voice have really been, about which such testimony as this
      _could_ have been elicited!—in whose _tones_, even, denizens of
      the five great divisions of Europe could recognise nothing
      familiar! You will say that it might have been the voice of an
      Asiatic—of an African. Neither Asiatics nor Africans abound in
      Paris; but, without denying the inference, I will now merely call
      your attention to three points. The voice is termed by one
      witness ‘harsh rather than shrill.’ It is represented by two
      others to have been ‘quick and _unequal._’ No words—no sounds
      resembling words—were by any witness mentioned as
      distinguishable.

      “I know not,” continued Dupin, “what impression I may have made,
      so far, upon your own understanding; but I do not hesitate to say
      that legitimate deductions even from this portion of the
      testimony—the portion respecting the gruff and shrill voices—are
      in themselves sufficient to engender a suspicion which should
      give direction to all farther progress in the investigation of
      the mystery. I said ‘legitimate deductions;’ but my meaning is
      not thus fully expressed. I designed to imply that the deductions
      are the _sole_ proper ones, and that the suspicion arises
      _inevitably_ from them as the single result. What the suspicion
      is, however, I will not say just yet. I merely wish you to bear
      in mind that, with myself, it was sufficiently forcible to give a
      definite form—a certain tendency—to my inquiries in the chamber.

      “Let us now transport ourselves, in fancy, to this chamber. What
      shall we first seek here? The means of egress employed by the
      murderers. It is not too much to say that neither of us believe
      in præternatural events. Madame and Mademoiselle L’Espanaye were
      not destroyed by spirits. The doers of the deed were material,
      and escaped materially. Then how? Fortunately, there is but one
      mode of reasoning upon the point, and that mode _must_ lead us to
      a definite decision. Let us examine, each by each, the possible
      means of egress. It is clear that the assassins were in the room
      where Mademoiselle L’Espanaye was found, or at least in the room
      adjoining, when the party ascended the stairs. It is then only
      from these two apartments that we have to seek issues. The police
      have laid bare the floors, the ceilings, and the masonry of the
      walls, in every direction. No _secret_ issues could have escaped
      their vigilance. But, not trusting to _their_ eyes, I examined
      with my own. There were, then, no secret issues. Both doors
      leading from the rooms into the passage were securely locked,
      with the keys inside. Let us turn to the chimneys. These,
      although of ordinary width for some eight or ten feet above the
      hearths, will not admit, throughout their extent, the body of a
      large cat. The impossibility of egress, by means already stated,
      being thus absolute, we are reduced to the windows. Through those
      of the front room no one could have escaped without notice from
      the crowd in the street. The murderers _must_ have passed, then,
      through those of the back room. Now, brought to this conclusion
      in so unequivocal a manner as we are, it is not our part, as
      reasoners, to reject it on account of apparent impossibilities.
      It is only left for us to prove that these apparent
      ‘impossibilities’ are, in reality, not such.

      “There are two windows in the chamber. One of them is
      unobstructed by furniture, and is wholly visible. The lower
      portion of the other is hidden from view by the head of the
      unwieldy bedstead which is thrust close up against it. The former
      was found securely fastened from within. It resisted the utmost
      force of those who endeavored to raise it. A large gimlet-hole
      had been pierced in its frame to the left, and a very stout nail
      was found fitted therein, nearly to the head. Upon examining the
      other window, a similar nail was seen similarly fitted in it; and
      a vigorous attempt to raise this sash, failed also. The police
      were now entirely satisfied that egress had not been in these
      directions. And, _therefore_, it was thought a matter of
      supererogation to withdraw the nails and open the windows.

      “My own examination was somewhat more particular, and was so for
      the reason I have just given—because here it was, I knew, that
      all apparent impossibilities _must_ be proved to be not such in
      reality.

      “I proceeded to think thus—_a posteriori_. The murderers did
      escape from one of these windows. This being so, they could not
      have refastened the sashes from the inside, as they were found
      fastened;—the consideration which put a stop, through its
      obviousness, to the scrutiny of the police in this quarter. Yet
      the sashes _were_ fastened. They _must_, then, have the power of
      fastening themselves. There was no escape from this conclusion. I
      stepped to the unobstructed casement, withdrew the nail with some
      difficulty and attempted to raise the sash. It resisted all my
      efforts, as I had anticipated. A concealed spring must, I now
      know, exist; and this corroboration of my idea convinced me that
      my premises at least, were correct, however mysterious still
      appeared the circumstances attending the nails. A careful search
      soon brought to light the hidden spring. I pressed it, and,
      satisfied with the discovery, forbore to upraise the sash.

      “I now replaced the nail and regarded it attentively. A person
      passing out through this window might have reclosed it, and the
      spring would have caught—but the nail could not have been
      replaced. The conclusion was plain, and again narrowed in the
      field of my investigations. The assassins _must_ have escaped
      through the other window. Supposing, then, the springs upon each
      sash to be the same, as was probable, there _must_ be found a
      difference between the nails, or at least between the modes of
      their fixture. Getting upon the sacking of the bedstead, I looked
      over the head-board minutely at the second casement. Passing my
      hand down behind the board, I readily discovered and pressed the
      spring, which was, as I had supposed, identical in character with
      its neighbor. I now looked at the nail. It was as stout as the
      other, and apparently fitted in the same manner—driven in nearly
      up to the head.

      “You will say that I was puzzled; but, if you think so, you must
      have misunderstood the nature of the inductions. To use a
      sporting phrase, I had not been once ‘at fault.’ The scent had
      never for an instant been lost. There was no flaw in any link of
      the chain. I had traced the secret to its ultimate result,—and
      that result was _the nail._ It had, I say, in every respect, the
      appearance of its fellow in the other window; but this fact was
      an absolute nullity (conclusive us it might seem to be) when
      compared with the consideration that here, at this point,
      terminated the clew. ‘There _must_ be something wrong,’ I said,
      ‘about the nail.’ I touched it; and the head, with about a
      quarter of an inch of the shank, came off in my fingers. The rest
      of the shank was in the gimlet-hole where it had been broken off.
      The fracture was an old one (for its edges were incrusted with
      rust), and had apparently been accomplished by the blow of a
      hammer, which had partially imbedded, in the top of the bottom
      sash, the head portion of the nail. I now carefully replaced this
      head portion in the indentation whence I had taken it, and the
      resemblance to a perfect nail was complete—the fissure was
      invisible. Pressing the spring, I gently raised the sash for a
      few inches; the head went up with it, remaining firm in its bed.
      I closed the window, and the semblance of the whole nail was
      again perfect.

      “The riddle, so far, was now unriddled. The assassin had escaped
      through the window which looked upon the bed. Dropping of its own
      accord upon his exit (or perhaps purposely closed), it had become
      fastened by the spring; and it was the retention of this spring
      which had been mistaken by the police for that of the
      nail,—farther inquiry being thus considered unnecessary.

      “The next question is that of the mode of descent. Upon this
      point I had been satisfied in my walk with you around the
      building. About five feet and a half from the casement in
      question there runs a lightning-rod. From this rod it would have
      been impossible for any one to reach the window itself, to say
      nothing of entering it. I observed, however, that the shutters of
      the fourth story were of the peculiar kind called by Parisian
      carpenters _ferrades_—a kind rarely employed at the present day,
      but frequently seen upon very old mansions at Lyons and Bordeaux.
      They are in the form of an ordinary door (a single, not a folding
      door), except that the lower half is latticed or worked in open
      trellis—thus affording an excellent hold for the hands. In the
      present instance these shutters are fully three feet and a half
      broad. When we saw them from the rear of the house, they were
      both about half open—that is to say, they stood off at right
      angles from the wall. It is probable that the police, as well as
      myself, examined the back of the tenement; but, if so, in looking
      at these _ferrades_ in the line of their breadth (as they must
      have done), they did not perceive this great breadth itself, or,
      at all events, failed to take it into due consideration. In fact,
      having once satisfied themselves that no egress could have been
      made in this quarter, they would naturally bestow here a very
      cursory examination. It was clear to me, however, that the
      shutter belonging to the window at the head of the bed, would, if
      swung fully back to the wall, reach to within two feet of the
      lightning-rod. It was also evident that, by exertion of a very
      unusual degree of activity and courage, an entrance into the
      window, from the rod, might have been thus effected. By reaching
      to the distance of two feet and a half (we now suppose the
      shutter open to its whole extent) a robber might have taken a
      firm grasp upon the trellis-work. Letting go, then, his hold upon
      the rod, placing his feet securely against the wall, and
      springing boldly from it, he might have swung the shutter so as
      to close it, and, if we imagine the window open at the time,
      might even have swung himself into the room.

      “I wish you to bear especially in mind that I have spoken of a
      _very_ unusual degree of activity as requisite to success in so
      hazardous and so difficult a feat. It is my design to show you,
      first, that the thing might possibly have been accomplished:—but,
      secondly and _chiefly_, I wish to impress upon your understanding
      the _very extraordinary_—the almost præternatural character of
      that agility which could have accomplished it.

      “You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that ‘to
      make out my case,’ I should rather undervalue, than insist upon a
      full estimation of the activity required in this matter. This may
      be the practice in law, but it is not the usage of reason. My
      ultimate object is only the truth. My immediate purpose is to
      lead you to place in juxtaposition, that _very unusual_ activity
      of which I have just spoken with that _very peculiar_ shrill (or
      harsh) and _unequal_ voice, about whose nationality no two
      persons could be found to agree, and in whose utterance no
      syllabification could be detected.”

      At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning
      of Dupin flitted over my mind. I seemed to be upon the verge of
      comprehension without power to comprehend—as men, at times, find
      themselves upon the brink of remembrance without being able, in
      the end, to remember. My friend went on with his discourse.

      “You will see,” he said, “that I have shifted the question from
      the mode of egress to that of ingress. It was my design to convey
      the idea that both were effected in the same manner, at the same
      point. Let us now revert to the interior of the room. Let us
      survey the appearances here. The drawers of the bureau, it is
      said, had been rifled, although many articles of apparel still
      remained within them. The conclusion here is absurd. It is a mere
      guess—a very silly one—and no more. How are we to know that the
      articles found in the drawers were not all these drawers had
      originally contained? Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter lived an
      exceedingly retired life—saw no company—seldom went out—had
      little use for numerous changes of habiliment. Those found were
      at least of as good quality as any likely to be possessed by
      these ladies. If a thief had taken any, why did he not take the
      best—why did he not take all? In a word, why did he abandon four
      thousand francs in gold to encumber himself with a bundle of
      linen? The gold _was_ abandoned. Nearly the whole sum mentioned
      by Monsieur Mignaud, the banker, was discovered, in bags, upon
      the floor. I wish you, therefore, to discard from your thoughts
      the blundering idea of _motive_, engendered in the brains of the
      police by that portion of the evidence which speaks of money
      delivered at the door of the house. Coincidences ten times as
      remarkable as this (the delivery of the money, and murder
      committed within three days upon the party receiving it), happen
      to all of us every hour of our lives, without attracting even
      momentary notice. Coincidences, in general, are great
      stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have
      been educated to know nothing of the theory of probabilities—that
      theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are
      indebted for the most glorious of illustration. In the present
      instance, had the gold been gone, the fact of its delivery three
      days before would have formed something more than a coincidence.
      It would have been corroborative of this idea of motive. But,
      under the real circumstances of the case, if we are to suppose
      gold the motive of this outrage, we must also imagine the
      perpetrator so vacillating an idiot as to have abandoned his gold
      and his motive together.

      “Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn
      your attention—that peculiar voice, that unusual agility, and
      that startling absence of motive in a murder so singularly
      atrocious as this—let us glance at the butchery itself. Here is a
      woman strangled to death by manual strength, and thrust up a
      chimney, head downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such modes
      of murder as this. Least of all, do they thus dispose of the
      murdered. In the manner of thrusting the corpse up the chimney,
      you will admit that there was something _excessively
      outré_—something altogether irreconcilable with our common
      notions of human action, even when we suppose the actors the most
      depraved of men. Think, too, how great must have been that
      strength which could have thrust the body _up_ such an aperture
      so forcibly that the united vigor of several persons was found
      barely sufficient to drag it _down!_

      “Turn, now, to other indications of the employment of a vigor
      most marvellous. On the hearth were thick tresses—very thick
      tresses—of grey human hair. These had been torn out by the roots.
      You are aware of the great force necessary in tearing thus from
      the head even twenty or thirty hairs together. You saw the locks
      in question as well as myself. Their roots (a hideous sight!)
      were clotted with fragments of the flesh of the scalp—sure token
      of the prodigious power which had been exerted in uprooting
      perhaps half a million of hairs at a time. The throat of the old
      lady was not merely cut, but the head absolutely severed from the
      body: the instrument was a mere razor. I wish you also to look at
      the _brutal_ ferocity of these deeds. Of the bruises upon the
      body of Madame L’Espanaye I do not speak. Monsieur Dumas, and his
      worthy coadjutor Monsieur Etienne, have pronounced that they were
      inflicted by some obtuse instrument; and so far these gentlemen
      are very correct. The obtuse instrument was clearly the stone
      pavement in the yard, upon which the victim had fallen from the
      window which looked in upon the bed. This idea, however simple it
      may now seem, escaped the police for the same reason that the
      breadth of the shutters escaped them—because, by the affair of
      the nails, their perceptions had been hermetically sealed against
      the possibility of the windows having ever been opened at all.

      “If now, in addition to all these things, you have properly
      reflected upon the odd disorder of the chamber, we have gone so
      far as to combine the ideas of an agility astounding, a strength
      superhuman, a ferocity brutal, a butchery without motive, a
      _grotesquerie_ in horror absolutely alien from humanity, and a
      voice foreign in tone to the ears of men of many nations, and
      devoid of all distinct or intelligible syllabification. What
      result, then, has ensued? What impression have I made upon your
      fancy?”

      I felt a creeping of the flesh as Dupin asked me the question. “A
      madman,” I said, “has done this deed—some raving maniac, escaped
      from a neighboring _Maison de Santé._”

      “In some respects,” he replied, “your idea is not irrelevant. But
      the voices of madmen, even in their wildest paroxysms, are never
      found to tally with that peculiar voice heard upon the stairs.
      Madmen are of some nation, and their language, however incoherent
      in its words, has always the coherence of syllabification.
      Besides, the hair of a madman is not such as I now hold in my
      hand. I disentangled this little tuft from the rigidly clutched
      fingers of Madame L’Espanaye. Tell me what you can make of it.”

      “Dupin!” I said, completely unnerved; “this hair is most
      unusual—this is no _human_ hair.”

      “I have not asserted that it is,” said he; “but, before we decide
      this point, I wish you to glance at the little sketch I have here
      traced upon this paper. It is a _fac-simile_ drawing of what has
      been described in one portion of the testimony as ‘dark bruises,
      and deep indentations of finger nails,’ upon the throat of
      Mademoiselle L’Espanaye, and in another (by Messrs. Dumas and
      Etienne,) as a ‘series of livid spots, evidently the impression
      of fingers.’

      “You will perceive,” continued my friend, spreading out the paper
      upon the table before us, “that this drawing gives the idea of a
      firm and fixed hold. There is no _slipping_ apparent. Each finger
      has retained—possibly until the death of the victim—the fearful
      grasp by which it originally imbedded itself. Attempt, now, to
      place all your fingers, at the same time, in the respective
      impressions as you see them.”

      I made the attempt in vain.

      “We are possibly not giving this matter a fair trial,” he said.
      “The paper is spread out upon a plane surface; but the human
      throat is cylindrical. Here is a billet of wood, the
      circumference of which is about that of the throat. Wrap the
      drawing around it, and try the experiment again.”

      I did so; but the difficulty was even more obvious than before.
      “This,” I said, “is the mark of no human hand.”

      “Read now,” replied Dupin, “this passage from Cuvier.”

      It was a minute anatomical and generally descriptive account of
      the large fulvous Ourang-Outang of the East Indian Islands. The
      gigantic stature, the prodigious strength and activity, the wild
      ferocity, and the imitative propensities of these mammalia are
      sufficiently well known to all. I understood the full horrors of
      the murder at once.

      “The description of the digits,” said I, as I made an end of
      reading, “is in exact accordance with this drawing. I see that no
      animal but an Ourang-Outang, of the species here mentioned, could
      have impressed the indentations as you have traced them. This
      tuft of tawny hair, too, is identical in character with that of
      the beast of Cuvier. But I cannot possibly comprehend the
      particulars of this frightful mystery. Besides, there were _two_
      voices heard in contention, and one of them was unquestionably
      the voice of a Frenchman.”

      “True; and you will remember an expression attributed almost
      unanimously, by the evidence, to this voice,—the expression,
      ‘_mon Dieu!_’ This, under the circumstances, has been justly
      characterized by one of the witnesses (Montani, the
      confectioner,) as an expression of remonstrance or expostulation.
      Upon these two words, therefore, I have mainly built my hopes of
      a full solution of the riddle. A Frenchman was cognizant of the
      murder. It is possible—indeed it is far more than probable—that
      he was innocent of all participation in the bloody transactions
      which took place. The Ourang-Outang may have escaped from him. He
      may have traced it to the chamber; but, under the agitating
      circumstances which ensued, he could never have re-captured it.
      It is still at large. I will not pursue these guesses—for I have
      no right to call them more—since the shades of reflection upon
      which they are based are scarcely of sufficient depth to be
      appreciable by my own intellect, and since I could not pretend to
      make them intelligible to the understanding of another. We will
      call them guesses then, and speak of them as such. If the
      Frenchman in question is indeed, as I suppose, innocent of this
      atrocity, this advertisement which I left last night, upon our
      return home, at the office of ‘Le Monde’ (a paper devoted to the
      shipping interest, and much sought by sailors), will bring him to
      our residence.”

      He handed me a paper, and I read thus:

      CAUGHT—_In the Bois de Boulogne, early in the morning of the
      ——inst.,_ (the morning of the murder),owner _a very large, tawny
      Ourang-Outang of the Bornese species. The owner (who is
      ascertained to be a sailor, belonging to a Maltese vessel) may
      have the animal again, upon identifying it satisfactorily, and
      paying a few charges arising from its capture and keeping. Call
      at No. ——, Rue ——, Faubourg St. Germain—au troisième._

      “How was it possible,” I asked, “that you should know the man to
      be a sailor, and belonging to a Maltese vessel?”

      “I do _not_ know it,” said Dupin. “I am not _sure_ of it. Here,
      however, is a small piece of ribbon, which from its form, and
      from its greasy appearance, has evidently been used in tying the
      hair in one of those long _queues_ of which sailors are so fond.
      Moreover, this knot is one which few besides sailors can tie, and
      is peculiar to the Maltese. I picked the ribbon up at the foot of
      the lightning-rod. It could not have belonged to either of the
      deceased. Now if, after all, I am wrong in my induction from this
      ribbon, that the Frenchman was a sailor belonging to a Maltese
      vessel, still I can have done no harm in saying what I did in the
      advertisement. If I am in error, he will merely suppose that I
      have been misled by some circumstance into which he will not take
      the trouble to inquire. But if I am right, a great point is
      gained. Cognizant although innocent of the murder, the Frenchman
      will naturally hesitate about replying to the advertisement—about
      demanding the Ourang-Outang. He will reason thus:—‘I am innocent;
      I am poor; my Ourang-Outang is of great value—to one in my
      circumstances a fortune of itself—why should I lose it through
      idle apprehensions of danger? Here it is, within my grasp. It was
      found in the Bois de Boulogne—at a vast distance from the scene
      of that butchery. How can it ever be suspected that a brute beast
      should have done the deed? The police are at fault—they have
      failed to procure the slightest clew. Should they even trace the
      animal, it would be impossible to prove me cognizant of the
      murder, or to implicate me in guilt on account of that
      cognizance. Above all, _I am known._ The advertiser designates me
      as the possessor of the beast. I am not sure to what limit his
      knowledge may extend. Should I avoid claiming a property of so
      great value, which it is known that I possess, I will render the
      animal at least, liable to suspicion. It is not my policy to
      attract attention either to myself or to the beast. I will answer
      the advertisement, get the Ourang-Outang, and keep it close until
      this matter has blown over.’”

      At this moment we heard a step upon the stairs.

      “Be ready,” said Dupin, “with your pistols, but neither use them
      nor show them until at a signal from myself.”

      The front door of the house had been left open, and the visitor
      had entered, without ringing, and advanced several steps upon the
      staircase. Now, however, he seemed to hesitate. Presently we
      heard him descending. Dupin was moving quickly to the door, when
      we again heard him coming up. He did not turn back a second time,
      but stepped up with decision, and rapped at the door of our
      chamber.

      “Come in,” said Dupin, in a cheerful and hearty tone.

      A man entered. He was a sailor, evidently,—a tall, stout, and
      muscular-looking person, with a certain dare-devil expression of
      countenance, not altogether unprepossessing. His face, greatly
      sunburnt, was more than half hidden by whisker and _mustachio._
      He had with him a huge oaken cudgel, but appeared to be otherwise
      unarmed. He bowed awkwardly, and bade us “good evening,” in
      French accents, which, although somewhat Neufchatelish, were
      still sufficiently indicative of a Parisian origin.

      “Sit down, my friend,” said Dupin. “I suppose you have called
      about the Ourang-Outang. Upon my word, I almost envy you the
      possession of him; a remarkably fine, and no doubt a very
      valuable animal. How old do you suppose him to be?”

      The sailor drew a long breath, with the air of a man relieved of
      some intolerable burden, and then replied, in an assured tone:

      “I have no way of telling—but he can’t be more than four or five
      years old. Have you got him here?”

      “Oh no, we had no conveniences for keeping him here. He is at a
      livery stable in the Rue Dubourg, just by. You can get him in the
      morning. Of course you are prepared to identify the property?”

      “To be sure I am, sir.”

      “I shall be sorry to part with him,” said Dupin.

      “I don’t mean that you should be at all this trouble for nothing,
      sir,” said the man. “Couldn’t expect it. Am very willing to pay a
      reward for the finding of the animal—that is to say, any thing in
      reason.”

      “Well,” replied my friend, “that is all very fair, to be sure.
      Let me think!—what should I have? Oh! I will tell you. My reward
      shall be this. You shall give me all the information in your
      power about these murders in the Rue Morgue.”

      Dupin said the last words in a very low tone, and very quietly.
      Just as quietly, too, he walked toward the door, locked it and
      put the key in his pocket. He then drew a pistol from his bosom
      and placed it, without the least flurry, upon the table.

      The sailor’s face flushed up as if he were struggling with
      suffocation. He started to his feet and grasped his cudgel, but
      the next moment he fell back into his seat, trembling violently,
      and with the countenance of death itself. He spoke not a word. I
      pitied him from the bottom of my heart.

      “My friend,” said Dupin, in a kind tone, “you are alarming
      yourself unnecessarily—you are indeed. We mean you no harm
      whatever. I pledge you the honor of a gentleman, and of a
      Frenchman, that we intend you no injury. I perfectly well know
      that you are innocent of the atrocities in the Rue Morgue. It
      will not do, however, to deny that you are in some measure
      implicated in them. From what I have already said, you must know
      that I have had means of information about this matter—means of
      which you could never have dreamed. Now the thing stands thus.
      You have done nothing which you could have avoided—nothing,
      certainly, which renders you culpable. You were not even guilty
      of robbery, when you might have robbed with impunity. You have
      nothing to conceal. You have no reason for concealment. On the
      other hand, you are bound by every principle of honor to confess
      all you know. An innocent man is now imprisoned, charged with
      that crime of which you can point out the perpetrator.”

      The sailor had recovered his presence of mind, in a great
      measure, while Dupin uttered these words; but his original
      boldness of bearing was all gone.

      “So help me God!” said he, after a brief pause, “I _will_ tell
      you all I know about this affair;—but I do not expect you to
      believe one half I say—I would be a fool indeed if I did. Still,
      I _am_ innocent, and I will make a clean breast if I die for it.”

      What he stated was, in substance, this. He had lately made a
      voyage to the Indian Archipelago. A party, of which he formed
      one, landed at Borneo, and passed into the interior on an
      excursion of pleasure. Himself and a companion had captured the
      Ourang-Outang. This companion dying, the animal fell into his own
      exclusive possession. After great trouble, occasioned by the
      intractable ferocity of his captive during the home voyage, he at
      length succeeded in lodging it safely at his own residence in
      Paris, where, not to attract toward himself the unpleasant
      curiosity of his neighbors, he kept it carefully secluded, until
      such time as it should recover from a wound in the foot, received
      from a splinter on board ship. His ultimate design was to sell
      it.

      Returning home from some sailors’ frolic the night, or rather in
      the morning of the murder, he found the beast occupying his own
      bed-room, into which it had broken from a closet adjoining, where
      it had been, as was thought, securely confined. Razor in hand,
      and fully lathered, it was sitting before a looking-glass,
      attempting the operation of shaving, in which it had no doubt
      previously watched its master through the key-hole of the closet.
      Terrified at the sight of so dangerous a weapon in the possession
      of an animal so ferocious, and so well able to use it, the man,
      for some moments, was at a loss what to do. He had been
      accustomed, however, to quiet the creature, even in its fiercest
      moods, by the use of a whip, and to this he now resorted. Upon
      sight of it, the Ourang-Outang sprang at once through the door of
      the chamber, down the stairs, and thence, through a window,
      unfortunately open, into the street.

      The Frenchman followed in despair; the ape, razor still in hand,
      occasionally stopping to look back and gesticulate at its
      pursuer, until the latter had nearly come up with it. It then
      again made off. In this manner the chase continued for a long
      time. The streets were profoundly quiet, as it was nearly three
      o’clock in the morning. In passing down an alley in the rear of
      the Rue Morgue, the fugitive’s attention was arrested by a light
      gleaming from the open window of Madame L’Espanaye’s chamber, in
      the fourth story of her house. Rushing to the building, it
      perceived the lightning rod, clambered up with inconceivable
      agility, grasped the shutter, which was thrown fully back against
      the wall, and, by its means, swung itself directly upon the
      headboard of the bed. The whole feat did not occupy a minute. The
      shutter was kicked open again by the Ourang-Outang as it entered
      the room.

      The sailor, in the meantime, was both rejoiced and perplexed. He
      had strong hopes of now recapturing the brute, as it could
      scarcely escape from the trap into which it had ventured, except
      by the rod, where it might be intercepted as it came down. On the
      other hand, there was much cause for anxiety as to what it might
      do in the house. This latter reflection urged the man still to
      follow the fugitive. A lightning rod is ascended without
      difficulty, especially by a sailor; but, when he had arrived as
      high as the window, which lay far to his left, his career was
      stopped; the most that he could accomplish was to reach over so
      as to obtain a glimpse of the interior of the room. At this
      glimpse he nearly fell from his hold through excess of horror.
      Now it was that those hideous shrieks arose upon the night, which
      had startled from slumber the inmates of the Rue Morgue. Madame
      L’Espanaye and her daughter, habited in their night clothes, had
      apparently been occupied in arranging some papers in the iron
      chest already mentioned, which had been wheeled into the middle
      of the room. It was open, and its contents lay beside it on the
      floor. The victims must have been sitting with their backs toward
      the window; and, from the time elapsing between the ingress of
      the beast and the screams, it seems probable that it was not
      immediately perceived. The flapping-to of the shutter would
      naturally have been attributed to the wind.

      As the sailor looked in, the gigantic animal had seized Madame
      L’Espanaye by the hair, (which was loose, as she had been combing
      it,) and was flourishing the razor about her face, in imitation
      of the motions of a barber. The daughter lay prostrate and
      motionless; she had swooned. The screams and struggles of the old
      lady (during which the hair was torn from her head) had the
      effect of changing the probably pacific purposes of the
      Ourang-Outang into those of wrath. With one determined sweep of
      its muscular arm it nearly severed her head from her body. The
      sight of blood inflamed its anger into phrenzy. Gnashing its
      teeth, and flashing fire from its eyes, it flew upon the body of
      the girl, and imbedded its fearful talons in her throat,
      retaining its grasp until she expired. Its wandering and wild
      glances fell at this moment upon the head of the bed, over which
      the face of its master, rigid with horror, was just discernible.
      The fury of the beast, who no doubt bore still in mind the
      dreaded whip, was instantly converted into fear. Conscious of
      having deserved punishment, it seemed desirous of concealing its
      bloody deeds, and skipped about the chamber in an agony of
      nervous agitation; throwing down and breaking the furniture as it
      moved, and dragging the bed from the bedstead. In conclusion, it
      seized first the corpse of the daughter, and thrust it up the
      chimney, as it was found; then that of the old lady, which it
      immediately hurled through the window headlong.

      As the ape approached the casement with its mutilated burden, the
      sailor shrank aghast to the rod, and, rather gliding than
      clambering down it, hurried at once home—dreading the
      consequences of the butchery, and gladly abandoning, in his
      terror, all solicitude about the fate of the Ourang-Outang. The
      words heard by the party upon the staircase were the Frenchman’s
      exclamations of horror and affright, commingled with the fiendish
      jabberings of the brute.

      I have scarcely anything to add. The Ourang-Outang must have
      escaped from the chamber, by the rod, just before the breaking of
      the door. It must have closed the window as it passed through it.
      It was subsequently caught by the owner himself, who obtained for
      it a very large sum at the _Jardin des Plantes._ Le Don was
      instantly released, upon our narration of the circumstances (with
      some comments from Dupin) at the bureau of the Prefect of Police.
      This functionary, however well disposed to my friend, could not
      altogether conceal his chagrin at the turn which affairs had
      taken, and was fain to indulge in a sarcasm or two, about the
      propriety of every person minding his own business.

      “Let him talk,” said Dupin, who had not thought it necessary to
      reply. “Let him discourse; it will ease his conscience, I am
      satisfied with having defeated him in his own castle.
      Nevertheless, that he failed in the solution of this mystery, is
      by no means that matter for wonder which he supposes it; for, in
      truth, our friend the Prefect is somewhat too cunning to be
      profound. In his wisdom is no _stamen._ It is all head and no
      body, like the pictures of the Goddess Laverna,—or, at best, all
      head and shoulders, like a codfish. But he is a good creature
      after all. I like him especially for one master stroke of cant,
      by which he has attained his reputation for ingenuity. I mean the
      way he has ‘_de nier ce qui est, et d’expliquer ce qui n’est
      pas._’” (*)

      (*) Rousseau—Nouvelle Heloïse.




THE MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET.(*1)


      A SEQUEL TO “THE MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE.”

  Es giebt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit
  parallel lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und zufalle
  modificiren gewohulich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie
  unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen
  sind. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das
  Lutherthum hervor.
      There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real
      ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally
      modify the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, and
      its consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the
      Reformation; instead of Protestantism came
      Lutheranism.—_Novalis_.(*2) _Moral Ansichten_.

      There are few persons, even among the calmest thinkers, who have
      not occasionally been startled into a vague yet thrilling
      half-credence in the supernatural, by coincidences of so
      seemingly marvellous a character that, as mere coincidences, the
      intellect has been unable to receive them. Such sentiments—for
      the half-credences of which I speak have never the full force of
      thought—such sentiments are seldom thoroughly stifled unless by
      reference to the doctrine of chance, or, as it is technically
      termed, the Calculus of Probabilities. Now this Calculus is, in
      its essence, purely mathematical; and thus we have the anomaly of
      the most rigidly exact in science applied to the shadow and
      spirituality of the most intangible in speculation.

      The extraordinary details which I am now called upon to make
      public, will be found to form, as regards sequence of time, the
      primary branch of a series of scarcely intelligible coincidences,
      whose secondary or concluding branch will be recognized by all
      readers in the late murder of Mary Cecila Rogers, at New York.

      When, in an article entitled “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” I
      endeavored, about a year ago, to depict some very remarkable
      features in the mental character of my friend, the Chevalier C.
      Auguste Dupin, it did not occur to me that I should ever resume
      the subject. This depicting of character constituted my design;
      and this design was thoroughly fulfilled in the wild train of
      circumstances brought to instance Dupin’s idiosyncrasy. I might
      have adduced other examples, but I should have proven no more.
      Late events, however, in their surprising development, have
      startled me into some farther details, which will carry with them
      the air of extorted confession. Hearing what I have lately heard,
      it would be indeed strange should I remain silent in regard to
      what I both heard and saw so long ago.

      Upon the winding up of the tragedy involved in the deaths of
      Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter, the Chevalier dismissed the
      affair at once from his attention, and relapsed into his old
      habits of moody reverie. Prone, at all times, to abstraction, I
      readily fell in with his humor; and, continuing to occupy our
      chambers in the Faubourg Saint Germain, we gave the Future to the
      winds, and slumbered tranquilly in the Present, weaving the dull
      world around us into dreams.

      But these dreams were not altogether uninterrupted. It may
      readily be supposed that the part played by my friend, in the
      drama at the Rue Morgue, had not failed of its impression upon
      the fancies of the Parisian police. With its emissaries, the name
      of Dupin had grown into a household word. The simple character of
      those inductions by which he had disentangled the mystery never
      having been explained even to the Prefect, or to any other
      individual than myself, of course it is not surprising that the
      affair was regarded as little less than miraculous, or that the
      Chevalier’s analytical abilities acquired for him the credit of
      intuition. His frankness would have led him to disabuse every
      inquirer of such prejudice; but his indolent humor forbade all
      farther agitation of a topic whose interest to himself had long
      ceased. It thus happened that he found himself the cynosure of
      the political eyes; and the cases were not few in which attempt
      was made to engage his services at the Prefecture. One of the
      most remarkable instances was that of the murder of a young girl
      named Marie Rogêt.

      This event occurred about two years after the atrocity in the Rue
      Morgue. Marie, whose Christian and family name will at once
      arrest attention from their resemblance to those of the
      unfortunate “cigar girl,” was the only daughter of the widow
      Estelle Rogêt. The father had died during the child’s infancy,
      and from the period of his death, until within eighteen months
      before the assassination which forms the subject of our
      narrative, the mother and daughter had dwelt together in the Rue
      Pavée Saint Andrée; (*3) Madame there keeping a pension, assisted
      by Marie. Affairs went on thus until the latter had attained her
      twenty-second year, when her great beauty attracted the notice of
      a perfumer, who occupied one of the shops in the basement of the
      Palais Royal, and whose custom lay chiefly among the desperate
      adventurers infesting that neighborhood. Monsieur Le Blanc (*4)
      was not unaware of the advantages to be derived from the
      attendance of the fair Marie in his perfumery; and his liberal
      proposals were accepted eagerly by the girl, although with
      somewhat more of hesitation by Madame.

      The anticipations of the shopkeeper were realized, and his rooms
      soon became notorious through the charms of the sprightly
      grisette. She had been in his employ about a year, when her
      admirers were thrown info confusion by her sudden disappearance
      from the shop. Monsieur Le Blanc was unable to account for her
      absence, and Madame Rogêt was distracted with anxiety and terror.
      The public papers immediately took up the theme, and the police
      were upon the point of making serious investigations, when, one
      fine morning, after the lapse of a week, Marie, in good health,
      but with a somewhat saddened air, made her re-appearance at her
      usual counter in the perfumery. All inquiry, except that of a
      private character, was of course immediately hushed. Monsieur Le
      Blanc professed total ignorance, as before. Marie, with Madame,
      replied to all questions, that the last week had been spent at
      the house of a relation in the country. Thus the affair died
      away, and was generally forgotten; for the girl, ostensibly to
      relieve herself from the impertinence of curiosity, soon bade a
      final adieu to the perfumer, and sought the shelter of her
      mother’s residence in the Rue Pavée Saint Andrée.

      It was about five months after this return home, that her friends
      were alarmed by her sudden disappearance for the second time.
      Three days elapsed, and nothing was heard of her. On the fourth
      her corpse was found floating in the Seine, * near the shore
      which is opposite the Quartier of the Rue Saint Andrée, and at a
      point not very far distant from the secluded neighborhood of the
      Barrière du Roule. (*6)

      The atrocity of this murder, (for it was at once evident that
      murder had been committed,) the youth and beauty of the victim,
      and, above all, her previous notoriety, conspired to produce
      intense excitement in the minds of the sensitive Parisians. I can
      call to mind no similar occurrence producing so general and so
      intense an effect. For several weeks, in the discussion of this
      one absorbing theme, even the momentous political topics of the
      day were forgotten. The Prefect made unusual exertions; and the
      powers of the whole Parisian police were, of course, tasked to
      the utmost extent.

      Upon the first discovery of the corpse, it was not supposed that
      the murderer would be able to elude, for more than a very brief
      period, the inquisition which was immediately set on foot. It was
      not until the expiration of a week that it was deemed necessary
      to offer a reward; and even then this reward was limited to a
      thousand francs. In the mean time the investigation proceeded
      with vigor, if not always with judgment, and numerous individuals
      were examined to no purpose; while, owing to the continual
      absence of all clue to the mystery, the popular excitement
      greatly increased. At the end of the tenth day it was thought
      advisable to double the sum originally proposed; and, at length,
      the second week having elapsed without leading to any
      discoveries, and the prejudice which always exists in Paris
      against the Police having given vent to itself in several serious
      émeutes, the Prefect took it upon himself to offer the sum of
      twenty thousand francs “for the conviction of the assassin,” or,
      if more than one should prove to have been implicated, “for the
      conviction of any one of the assassins.” In the proclamation
      setting forth this reward, a full pardon was promised to any
      accomplice who should come forward in evidence against his
      fellow; and to the whole was appended, wherever it appeared, the
      private placard of a committee of citizens, offering ten thousand
      francs, in addition to the amount proposed by the Prefecture. The
      entire reward thus stood at no less than thirty thousand francs,
      which will be regarded as an extraordinary sum when we consider
      the humble condition of the girl, and the great frequency, in
      large cities, of such atrocities as the one described.

      No one doubted now that the mystery of this murder would be
      immediately brought to light. But although, in one or two
      instances, arrests were made which promised elucidation, yet
      nothing was elicited which could implicate the parties suspected;
      and they were discharged forthwith. Strange as it may appear, the
      third week from the discovery of the body had passed, and passed
      without any light being thrown upon the subject, before even a
      rumor of the events which had so agitated the public mind,
      reached the ears of Dupin and myself. Engaged in researches which
      absorbed our whole attention, it had been nearly a month since
      either of us had gone abroad, or received a visitor, or more than
      glanced at the leading political articles in one of the daily
      papers. The first intelligence of the murder was brought us by
      G——, in person. He called upon us early in the afternoon of the
      thirteenth of July, 18—, and remained with us until late in the
      night. He had been piqued by the failure of all his endeavors to
      ferret out the assassins. His reputation—so he said with a
      peculiarly Parisian air—was at stake. Even his honor was
      concerned. The eyes of the public were upon him; and there was
      really no sacrifice which he would not be willing to make for the
      development of the mystery. He concluded a somewhat droll speech
      with a compliment upon what he was pleased to term the tact of
      Dupin, and made him a direct, and certainly a liberal
      proposition, the precise nature of which I do not feel myself at
      liberty to disclose, but which has no bearing upon the proper
      subject of my narrative.

      The compliment my friend rebutted as best he could, but the
      proposition he accepted at once, although its advantages were
      altogether provisional. This point being settled, the Prefect
      broke forth at once into explanations of his own views,
      interspersing them with long comments upon the evidence; of which
      latter we were not yet in possession. He discoursed much, and
      beyond doubt, learnedly; while I hazarded an occasional
      suggestion as the night wore drowsily away. Dupin, sitting
      steadily in his accustomed arm-chair, was the embodiment of
      respectful attention. He wore spectacles, during the whole
      interview; and an occasional signal glance beneath their green
      glasses, sufficed to convince me that he slept not the less
      soundly, because silently, throughout the seven or eight
      leaden-footed hours which immediately preceded the departure of
      the Prefect.

      In the morning, I procured, at the Prefecture, a full report of
      all the evidence elicited, and, at the various newspaper offices,
      a copy of every paper in which, from first to last, had been
      published any decisive information in regard to this sad affair.
      Freed from all that was positively disproved, this mass of
      information stood thus:

      Marie Rogêt left the residence of her mother, in the Rue Pavée
      St. Andrée, about nine o’clock in the morning of Sunday, June the
      twenty-second, 18—. In going out, she gave notice to a Monsieur
      Jacques St. Eustache, (*7) and to him only, of her intent
      intention to spend the day with an aunt who resided in the Rue
      des Drômes. The Rue des Drômes is a short and narrow but populous
      thoroughfare, not far from the banks of the river, and at a
      distance of some two miles, in the most direct course possible,
      from the pension of Madame Rogêt. St. Eustache was the accepted
      suitor of Marie, and lodged, as well as took his meals, at the
      pension. He was to have gone for his betrothed at dusk, and to
      have escorted her home. In the afternoon, however, it came on to
      rain heavily; and, supposing that she would remain all night at
      her aunt’s, (as she had done under similar circumstances before,)
      he did not think it necessary to keep his promise. As night drew
      on, Madame Rogêt (who was an infirm old lady, seventy years of
      age,) was heard to express a fear “that she should never see
      Marie again;” but this observation attracted little attention at
      the time.

      On Monday, it was ascertained that the girl had not been to the
      Rue des Drômes; and when the day elapsed without tidings of her,
      a tardy search was instituted at several points in the city, and
      its environs. It was not, however until the fourth day from the
      period of disappearance that any thing satisfactory was
      ascertained respecting her. On this day, (Wednesday, the
      twenty-fifth of June,) a Monsieur Beauvais, (*8) who, with a
      friend, had been making inquiries for Marie near the Barrière du
      Roule, on the shore of the Seine which is opposite the Rue Pavée
      St. Andrée, was informed that a corpse had just been towed ashore
      by some fishermen, who had found it floating in the river. Upon
      seeing the body, Beauvais, after some hesitation, identified it
      as that of the perfumery-girl. His friend recognized it more
      promptly.

      The face was suffused with dark blood, some of which issued from
      the mouth. No foam was seen, as in the case of the merely
      drowned. There was no discoloration in the cellular tissue. About
      the throat were bruises and impressions of fingers. The arms were
      bent over on the chest and were rigid. The right hand was
      clenched; the left partially open. On the left wrist were two
      circular excoriations, apparently the effect of ropes, or of a
      rope in more than one volution. A part of the right wrist, also,
      was much chafed, as well as the back throughout its extent, but
      more especially at the shoulder-blades. In bringing the body to
      the shore the fishermen had attached to it a rope; but none of
      the excoriations had been effected by this. The flesh of the neck
      was much swollen. There were no cuts apparent, or bruises which
      appeared the effect of blows. A piece of lace was found tied so
      tightly around the neck as to be hidden from sight; it was
      completely buried in the flesh, and was fastened by a knot which
      lay just under the left ear. This alone would have sufficed to
      produce death. The medical testimony spoke confidently of the
      virtuous character of the deceased. She had been subjected, it
      said, to brutal violence. The corpse was in such condition when
      found, that there could have been no difficulty in its
      recognition by friends.

      The dress was much torn and otherwise disordered. In the outer
      garment, a slip, about a foot wide, had been torn upward from the
      bottom hem to the waist, but not torn off. It was wound three
      times around the waist, and secured by a sort of hitch in the
      back. The dress immediately beneath the frock was of fine muslin;
      and from this a slip eighteen inches wide had been torn entirely
      out—torn very evenly and with great care. It was found around her
      neck, fitting loosely, and secured with a hard knot. Over this
      muslin slip and the slip of lace, the strings of a bonnet were
      attached; the bonnet being appended. The knot by which the
      strings of the bonnet were fastened, was not a lady’s, but a slip
      or sailor’s knot.

      After the recognition of the corpse, it was not, as usual, taken
      to the Morgue, (this formality being superfluous,) but hastily
      interred not far from the spot at which it was brought ashore.
      Through the exertions of Beauvais, the matter was industriously
      hushed up, as far as possible; and several days had elapsed
      before any public emotion resulted. A weekly paper, (*9) however,
      at length took up the theme; the corpse was disinterred, and a
      re-examination instituted; but nothing was elicited beyond what
      has been already noted. The clothes, however, were now submitted
      to the mother and friends of the deceased, and fully identified
      as those worn by the girl upon leaving home.

      Meantime, the excitement increased hourly. Several individuals
      were arrested and discharged. St. Eustache fell especially under
      suspicion; and he failed, at first, to give an intelligible
      account of his whereabouts during the Sunday on which Marie left
      home. Subsequently, however, he submitted to Monsieur G——,
      affidavits, accounting satisfactorily for every hour of the day
      in question. As time passed and no discovery ensued, a thousand
      contradictory rumors were circulated, and journalists busied
      themselves in suggestions. Among these, the one which attracted
      the most notice, was the idea that Marie Rogêt still lived—that
      the corpse found in the Seine was that of some other unfortunate.
      It will be proper that I submit to the reader some passages which
      embody the suggestion alluded to. These passages are literal
      translations from L’Etoile, (*10) a paper conducted, in general,
      with much ability.

      “Mademoiselle Rogêt left her mother’s house on Sunday morning,
      June the twenty-second, 18—, with the ostensible purpose of going
      to see her aunt, or some other connexion, in the Rue des Drômes.
      From that hour, nobody is proved to have seen her. There is no
      trace or tidings of her at all.... There has no person, whatever,
      come forward, so far, who saw her at all, on that day, after she
      left her mother’s door.... Now, though we have no evidence that
      Marie Rogêt was in the land of the living after nine o’clock on
      Sunday, June the twenty-second, we have proof that, up to that
      hour, she was alive. On Wednesday noon, at twelve, a female body
      was discovered afloat on the shore of the Barrière de Roule. This
      was, even if we presume that Marie Rogêt was thrown into the
      river within three hours after she left her mother’s house, only
      three days from the time she left her home—three days to an hour.
      But it is folly to suppose that the murder, if murder was
      committed on her body, could have been consummated soon enough to
      have enabled her murderers to throw the body into the river
      before midnight. Those who are guilty of such horrid crimes
      choose darkness rather the light.... Thus we see that if the body
      found in the river was that of Marie Rogêt, it could only have
      been in the water two and a half days, or three at the outside.
      All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown
      into the water immediately after death by violence, require from
      six to ten days for decomposition to take place to bring them to
      the top of the water. Even where a cannon is fired over a corpse,
      and it rises before at least five or six days’ immersion, it
      sinks again, if let alone. Now, we ask, what was there in this
      case to cause a departure from the ordinary course of nature?...
      If the body had been kept in its mangled state on shore until
      Tuesday night, some trace would be found on shore of the
      murderers. It is a doubtful point, also, whether the body would
      be so soon afloat, even were it thrown in after having been dead
      two days. And, furthermore, it is exceedingly improbable that any
      villains who had committed such a murder as is here supposed,
      would have thrown the body in without weight to sink it, when
      such a precaution could have so easily been taken.”

      The editor here proceeds to argue that the body must have been in
      the water “not three days merely, but, at least, five times three
      days,” because it was so far decomposed that Beauvais had great
      difficulty in recognizing it. This latter point, however, was
      fully disproved. I continue the translation:

      “What, then, are the facts on which M. Beauvais says that he has
      no doubt the body was that of Marie Rogêt? He ripped up the gown
      sleeve, and says he found marks which satisfied him of the
      identity. The public generally supposed those marks to have
      consisted of some description of scars. He rubbed the arm and
      found hair upon it—something as indefinite, we think, as can
      readily be imagined—as little conclusive as finding an arm in the
      sleeve. M. Beauvais did not return that night, but sent word to
      Madame Rogêt, at seven o’clock, on Wednesday evening, that an
      investigation was still in progress respecting her daughter. If
      we allow that Madame Rogêt, from her age and grief, could not go
      over, (which is allowing a great deal,) there certainly must have
      been some one who would have thought it worth while to go over
      and attend the investigation, if they thought the body was that
      of Marie. Nobody went over. There was nothing said or heard about
      the matter in the Rue Pavée St. Andrée, that reached even the
      occupants of the same building. M. St. Eustache, the lover and
      intended husband of Marie, who boarded in her mother’s house,
      deposes that he did not hear of the discovery of the body of his
      intended until the next morning, when M. Beauvais came into his
      chamber and told him of it. For an item of news like this, it
      strikes us it was very coolly received.”

      In this way the journal endeavored to create the impression of an
      apathy on the part of the relatives of Marie, inconsistent with
      the supposition that these relatives believed the corpse to be
      hers. Its insinuations amount to this: that Marie, with the
      connivance of her friends, had absented herself from the city for
      reasons involving a charge against her chastity; and that these
      friends, upon the discovery of a corpse in the Seine, somewhat
      resembling that of the girl, had availed themselves of the
      opportunity to impress the public with the belief of her death.
      But L’Etoile was again over-hasty. It was distinctly proved that
      no apathy, such as was imagined, existed; that the old lady was
      exceedingly feeble, and so agitated as to be unable to attend to
      any duty; that St. Eustache, so far from receiving the news
      coolly, was distracted with grief, and bore himself so
      frantically, that M. Beauvais prevailed upon a friend and
      relative to take charge of him, and prevent his attending the
      examination at the disinterment. Moreover, although it was stated
      by L’Etoile, that the corpse was re-interred at the public
      expense—that an advantageous offer of private sculpture was
      absolutely declined by the family—and that no member of the
      family attended the ceremonial;—although, I say, all this was
      asserted by L’Etoile in furtherance of the impression it designed
      to convey—yet all this was satisfactorily disproved. In a
      subsequent number of the paper, an attempt was made to throw
      suspicion upon Beauvais himself. The editor says:

      “Now, then, a change comes over the matter. We are told that on
      one occasion, while a Madame B—— was at Madame Rogêt’s house, M.
      Beauvais, who was going out, told her that a gendarme was
      expected there, and she, Madame B., must not say anything to the
      gendarme until he returned, but let the matter be for him.... In
      the present posture of affairs, M. Beauvais appears to have the
      whole matter locked up in his head. A single step cannot be taken
      without M. Beauvais, for, go which way you will, you run against
      him.... For some reason, he determined that nobody shall have any
      thing to do with the proceedings but himself, and he has elbowed
      the male relatives out of the way, according to their
      representations, in a very singular manner. He seems to have been
      very much averse to permitting the relatives to see the body.”

      By the following fact, some color was given to the suspicion thus
      thrown upon Beauvais. A visitor at his office, a few days prior
      to the girl’s disappearance, and during the absence of its
      occupant, had observed a rose in the key-hole of the door, and
      the name “Marie” inscribed upon a slate which hung near at hand.

      The general impression, so far as we were enabled to glean it
      from the newspapers, seemed to be, that Marie had been the victim
      of a gang of desperadoes—that by these she had been borne across
      the river, maltreated and murdered. Le Commerciel, (*11) however,
      a print of extensive influence, was earnest in combating this
      popular idea. I quote a passage or two from its columns:

      “We are persuaded that pursuit has hitherto been on a false
      scent, so far as it has been directed to the Barrière du Roule.
      It is impossible that a person so well known to thousands as this
      young woman was, should have passed three blocks without some one
      having seen her; and any one who saw her would have remembered
      it, for she interested all who knew her. It was when the streets
      were full of people, when she went out.... It is impossible that
      she could have gone to the Barrière du Roule, or to the Rue des
      Drômes, without being recognized by a dozen persons; yet no one
      has come forward who saw her outside of her mother’s door, and
      there is no evidence, except the testimony concerning her
      expressed intentions, that she did go out at all. Her gown was
      torn, bound round her, and tied; and by that the body was carried
      as a bundle. If the murder had been committed at the Barrière du
      Roule, there would have been no necessity for any such
      arrangement. The fact that the body was found floating near the
      Barrière, is no proof as to where it was thrown into the
      water..... A piece of one of the unfortunate girl’s petticoats,
      two feet long and one foot wide, was torn out and tied under her
      chin around the back of her head, probably to prevent screams.
      This was done by fellows who had no pocket-handkerchief.”

      A day or two before the Prefect called upon us, however, some
      important information reached the police, which seemed to
      overthrow, at least, the chief portion of Le Commerciel’s
      argument. Two small boys, sons of a Madame Deluc, while roaming
      among the woods near the Barrière du Roule, chanced to penetrate
      a close thicket, within which were three or four large stones,
      forming a kind of seat, with a back and footstool. On the upper
      stone lay a white petticoat; on the second a silk scarf. A
      parasol, gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief were also here found.
      The handkerchief bore the name “Marie Rogêt.” Fragments of dress
      were discovered on the brambles around. The earth was trampled,
      the bushes were broken, and there was every evidence of a
      struggle. Between the thicket and the river, the fences were
      found taken down, and the ground bore evidence of some heavy
      burthen having been dragged along it.

      A weekly paper, Le Soleil,(*12) had the following comments upon
      this discovery—comments which merely echoed the sentiment of the
      whole Parisian press:

      “The things had all evidently been there at least three or four
      weeks; they were all mildewed down hard with the action of the
      rain and stuck together from mildew. The grass had grown around
      and over some of them. The silk on the parasol was strong, but
      the threads of it were run together within. The upper part, where
      it had been doubled and folded, was all mildewed and rotten, and
      tore on its being opened..... The pieces of her frock torn out by
      the bushes were about three inches wide and six inches long. One
      part was the hem of the frock, and it had been mended; the other
      piece was part of the skirt, not the hem. They looked like strips
      torn off, and were on the thorn bush, about a foot from the
      ground..... There can be no doubt, therefore, that the spot of
      this appalling outrage has been discovered.”

      Consequent upon this discovery, new evidence appeared. Madame
      Deluc testified that she keeps a roadside inn not far from the
      bank of the river, opposite the Barrière du Roule. The
      neighborhood is secluded—particularly so. It is the usual Sunday
      resort of blackguards from the city, who cross the river in
      boats. About three o’clock, in the afternoon of the Sunday in
      question, a young girl arrived at the inn, accompanied by a young
      man of dark complexion. The two remained here for some time. On
      their departure, they took the road to some thick woods in the
      vicinity. Madame Deluc’s attention was called to the dress worn
      by the girl, on account of its resemblance to one worn by a
      deceased relative. A scarf was particularly noticed. Soon after
      the departure of the couple, a gang of miscreants made their
      appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and drank without making
      payment, followed in the route of the young man and girl,
      returned to the inn about dusk, and re-crossed the river as if in
      great haste.

      It was soon after dark, upon this same evening, that Madame
      Deluc, as well as her eldest son, heard the screams of a female
      in the vicinity of the inn. The screams were violent but brief.
      Madame D. recognized not only the scarf which was found in the
      thicket, but the dress which was discovered upon the corpse. An
      omnibus driver, Valence, (*13) now also testified that he saw
      Marie Rogêt cross a ferry on the Seine, on the Sunday in
      question, in company with a young man of dark complexion. He,
      Valence, knew Marie, and could not be mistaken in her identity.
      The articles found in the thicket were fully identified by the
      relatives of Marie.

      The items of evidence and information thus collected by myself,
      from the newspapers, at the suggestion of Dupin, embraced only
      one more point—but this was a point of seemingly vast
      consequence. It appears that, immediately after the discovery of
      the clothes as above described, the lifeless, or nearly lifeless
      body of St. Eustache, Marie’s betrothed, was found in the
      vicinity of what all now supposed the scene of the outrage. A
      phial labelled “laudanum,” and emptied, was found near him. His
      breath gave evidence of the poison. He died without speaking.
      Upon his person was found a letter, briefly stating his love for
      Marie, with his design of self-destruction.

      “I need scarcely tell you,” said Dupin, as he finished the
      perusal of my notes, “that this is a far more intricate case than
      that of the Rue Morgue; from which it differs in one important
      respect. This is an ordinary, although an atrocious instance of
      crime. There is nothing peculiarly outré about it. You will
      observe that, for this reason, the mystery has been considered
      easy, when, for this reason, it should have been considered
      difficult, of solution. Thus; at first, it was thought
      unnecessary to offer a reward. The myrmidons of G—— were able at
      once to comprehend how and why such an atrocity might have been
      committed. They could picture to their imaginations a mode—many
      modes—and a motive—many motives; and because it was not
      impossible that either of these numerous modes and motives could
      have been the actual one, they have taken it for granted that one
      of them must. But the case with which these variable fancies were
      entertained, and the very plausibility which each assumed, should
      have been understood as indicative rather of the difficulties
      than of the facilities which must attend elucidation. I have
      before observed that it is by prominences above the plane of the
      ordinary, that reason feels her way, if at all, in her search for
      the true, and that the proper question in cases such as this, is
      not so much ‘what has occurred?’ as ‘what has occurred that has
      never occurred before?’ In the investigations at the house of
      Madame L’Espanaye, (*14) the agents of G—— were discouraged and
      confounded by that very unusualness which, to a properly
      regulated intellect, would have afforded the surest omen of
      success; while this same intellect might have been plunged in
      despair at the ordinary character of all that met the eye in the
      case of the perfumery-girl, and yet told of nothing but easy
      triumph to the functionaries of the Prefecture.

      “In the case of Madame L’Espanaye and her daughter there was,
      even at the beginning of our investigation, no doubt that murder
      had been committed. The idea of suicide was excluded at once.
      Here, too, we are freed, at the commencement, from all
      supposition of self-murder. The body found at the Barrière du
      Roule, was found under such circumstances as to leave us no room
      for embarrassment upon this important point. But it has been
      suggested that the corpse discovered, is not that of the Marie
      Rogêt for the conviction of whose assassin, or assassins, the
      reward is offered, and respecting whom, solely, our agreement has
      been arranged with the Prefect. We both know this gentleman well.
      It will not do to trust him too far. If, dating our inquiries
      from the body found, and thence tracing a murderer, we yet
      discover this body to be that of some other individual than
      Marie; or, if starting from the living Marie, we find her, yet
      find her unassassinated—in either case we lose our labor; since
      it is Monsieur G—— with whom we have to deal. For our own
      purpose, therefore, if not for the purpose of justice, it is
      indispensable that our first step should be the determination of
      the identity of the corpse with the Marie Rogêt who is missing.

      “With the public the arguments of L’Etoile have had weight; and
      that the journal itself is convinced of their importance would
      appear from the manner in which it commences one of its essays
      upon the subject—‘Several of the morning papers of the day,’ it
      says, ‘speak of the _conclusive_ article in Monday’s Etoile.’ To
      me, this article appears conclusive of little beyond the zeal of
      its inditer. We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the
      object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation—to make a
      point—than to further the cause of truth. The latter end is only
      pursued when it seems coincident with the former. The print which
      merely falls in with ordinary opinion (however well founded this
      opinion may be) earns for itself no credit with the mob. The mass
      of the people regard as profound only him who suggests _pungent
      contradictions_ of the general idea. In ratiocination, not less
      than in literature, it is the epigram which is the most
      immediately and the most universally appreciated. In both, it is
      of the lowest order of merit.

      “What I mean to say is, that it is the mingled epigram and
      melodrame of the idea, that Marie Rogêt still lives, rather than
      any true plausibility in this idea, which have suggested it to
      L’Etoile, and secured it a favorable reception with the public.
      Let us examine the heads of this journal’s argument; endeavoring
      to avoid the incoherence with which it is originally set forth.

      “The first aim of the writer is to show, from the brevity of the
      interval between Marie’s disappearance and the finding of the
      floating corpse, that this corpse cannot be that of Marie. The
      reduction of this interval to its smallest possible dimension,
      becomes thus, at once, an object with the reasoner. In the rash
      pursuit of this object, he rushes into mere assumption at the
      outset. ‘It is folly to suppose,’ he says, ‘that the murder, if
      murder was committed on her body, could have been consummated
      soon enough to have enabled her murderers to throw the body into
      the river before midnight.’ We demand at once, and very
      naturally, why? Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was
      committed _within five minutes_ after the girl’s quitting her
      mother’s house? Why is it folly to suppose that the murder was
      committed at any given period of the day? There have been
      assassinations at all hours. But, had the murder taken place at
      any moment between nine o’clock in the morning of Sunday, and a
      quarter before midnight, there would still have been time enough
      ‘to throw the body into the river before midnight.’ This
      assumption, then, amounts precisely to this—that the murder was
      not committed on Sunday at all—and, if we allow L’Etoile to
      assume this, we may permit it any liberties whatever. The
      paragraph beginning ‘It is folly to suppose that the murder,
      etc.,’ however it appears as printed in L’Etoile, may be imagined
      to have existed actually thus in the brain of its inditer—‘It is
      folly to suppose that the murder, if murder was committed on the
      body, could have been committed soon enough to have enabled her
      murderers to throw the body into the river before midnight; it is
      folly, we say, to suppose all this, and to suppose at the same
      time, (as we are resolved to suppose,) that the body was not
      thrown in until after midnight’—a sentence sufficiently
      inconsequential in itself, but not so utterly preposterous as the
      one printed.

      “Were it my purpose,” continued Dupin, “merely to _make out a
      case_ against this passage of L’Etoile’s argument, I might safely
      leave it where it is. It is not, however, with L’Etoile that we
      have to do, but with the truth. The sentence in question has but
      one meaning, as it stands; and this meaning I have fairly stated;
      but it is material that we go behind the mere words, for an idea
      which these words have obviously intended, and failed to convey.
      It was the design of the journalist to say that, at whatever
      period of the day or night of Sunday this murder was committed,
      it was improbable that the assassins would have ventured to bear
      the corpse to the river before midnight. And herein lies, really,
      the assumption of which I complain. It is assumed that the murder
      was committed at such a position, and under such circumstances,
      that the bearing it to the river became necessary. Now, the
      assassination might have taken place upon the river’s brink, or
      on the river itself; and, thus, the throwing the corpse in the
      water might have been resorted to, at any period of the day or
      night, as the most obvious and most immediate mode of disposal.
      You will understand that I suggest nothing here as probable, or
      as cöincident with my own opinion. My design, so far, has no
      reference to the facts of the case. I wish merely to caution you
      against the whole tone of L’Etoile’s suggestion, by calling your
      attention to its ex parte character at the outset.

      “Having prescribed thus a limit to suit its own preconceived
      notions; having assumed that, if this were the body of Marie, it
      could have been in the water but a very brief time, the journal
      goes on to say:

      ‘All experience has shown that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown
      into the water immediately after death by violence, require from
      six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to
      bring them to the top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired
      over a corpse, and it rises before at least five or six days’
      immersion, it sinks again if let alone.’

      “These assertions have been tacitly received by every paper in
      Paris, with the exception of Le Moniteur. (*15) This latter print
      endeavors to combat that portion of the paragraph which has
      reference to ‘drowned bodies’ only, by citing some five or six
      instances in which the bodies of individuals known to be drowned
      were found floating after the lapse of less time than is insisted
      upon by L’Etoile. But there is something excessively
      unphilosophical in the attempt on the part of Le Moniteur, to
      rebut the general assertion of L’Etoile, by a citation of
      particular instances militating against that assertion. Had it
      been possible to adduce fifty instead of five examples of bodies
      found floating at the end of two or three days, these fifty
      examples could still have been properly regarded only as
      exceptions to L’Etoile’s rule, until such time as the rule itself
      should be confuted. Admitting the rule, (and this Le Moniteur
      does not deny, insisting merely upon its exceptions,) the
      argument of L’Etoile is suffered to remain in full force; for
      this argument does not pretend to involve more than a question of
      the probability of the body having risen to the surface in less
      than three days; and this probability will be in favor of
      L’Etoile’s position until the instances so childishly adduced
      shall be sufficient in number to establish an antagonistical
      rule.

      “You will see at once that all argument upon this head should be
      urged, if at all, against the rule itself; and for this end we
      must examine the rationale of the rule. Now the human body, in
      general, is neither much lighter nor much heavier than the water
      of the Seine; that is to say, the specific gravity of the human
      body, in its natural condition, is about equal to the bulk of
      fresh water which it displaces. The bodies of fat and fleshy
      persons, with small bones, and of women generally, are lighter
      than those of the lean and large-boned, and of men; and the
      specific gravity of the water of a river is somewhat influenced
      by the presence of the tide from sea. But, leaving this tide out
      of question, it may be said that very few human bodies will sink
      at all, even in fresh water, of their own accord. Almost any one,
      falling into a river, will be enabled to float, if he suffer the
      specific gravity of the water fairly to be adduced in comparison
      with his own—that is to say, if he suffer his whole person to be
      immersed, with as little exception as possible. The proper
      position for one who cannot swim, is the upright position of the
      walker on land, with the head thrown fully back, and immersed;
      the mouth and nostrils alone remaining above the surface. Thus
      circumstanced, we shall find that we float without difficulty and
      without exertion. It is evident, however, that the gravities of
      the body, and of the bulk of water displaced, are very nicely
      balanced, and that a trifle will cause either to preponderate. An
      arm, for instance, uplifted from the water, and thus deprived of
      its support, is an additional weight sufficient to immerse the
      whole head, while the accidental aid of the smallest piece of
      timber will enable us to elevate the head so as to look about.
      Now, in the struggles of one unused to swimming, the arms are
      invariably thrown upwards, while an attempt is made to keep the
      head in its usual perpendicular position. The result is the
      immersion of the mouth and nostrils, and the inception, during
      efforts to breathe while beneath the surface, of water into the
      lungs. Much is also received into the stomach, and the whole body
      becomes heavier by the difference between the weight of the air
      originally distending these cavities, and that of the fluid which
      now fills them. This difference is sufficient to cause the body
      to sink, as a general rule; but is insufficient in the cases of
      individuals with small bones and an abnormal quantity of flaccid
      or fatty matter. Such individuals float even after drowning.

      “The corpse, being supposed at the bottom of the river, will
      there remain until, by some means, its specific gravity again
      becomes less than that of the bulk of water which it displaces.
      This effect is brought about by decomposition, or otherwise. The
      result of decomposition is the generation of gas, distending the
      cellular tissues and all the cavities, and giving the puffed
      appearance which is so horrible. When this distension has so far
      progressed that the bulk of the corpse is materially increased
      without a corresponding increase of mass or weight, its specific
      gravity becomes less than that of the water displaced, and it
      forthwith makes its appearance at the surface. But decomposition
      is modified by innumerable circumstances—is hastened or retarded
      by innumerable agencies; for example, by the heat or cold of the
      season, by the mineral impregnation or purity of the water, by
      its depth or shallowness, by its currency or stagnation, by the
      temperament of the body, by its infection or freedom from disease
      before death. Thus it is evident that we can assign no period,
      with any thing like accuracy, at which the corpse shall rise
      through decomposition. Under certain conditions this result would
      be brought about within an hour; under others, it might not take
      place at all. There are chemical infusions by which the animal
      frame can be preserved forever from corruption; the bi-chloride
      of mercury is one. But, apart from decomposition, there may be,
      and very usually is, a generation of gas within the stomach, from
      the acetous fermentation of vegetable matter (or within other
      cavities from other causes), sufficient to induce a distension
      which will bring the body to the surface. The effect produced by
      the firing of a cannon is that of simple vibration. This may
      either loosen the corpse from the soft mud or ooze in which it is
      imbedded, thus permitting it to rise when other agencies have
      already prepared it for so doing; or it may overcome the tenacity
      of some putrescent portions of the cellular tissue; allowing the
      cavities to distend under the influence of the gas.

      “Having thus before us the whole philosophy of this subject, we
      can easily test by it the assertions of L’Etoile. ‘All experience
      shows,’ says this paper, ‘that drowned bodies, or bodies thrown
      into the water immediately after death by violence, require from
      six to ten days for sufficient decomposition to take place to
      bring them to the top of the water. Even when a cannon is fired
      over a corpse, and it rises before at least five or six days’
      immersion, it sinks again if let alone.’

      “The whole of this paragraph must now appear a tissue of
      inconsequence and incoherence. All experience does not show that
      ‘drowned bodies’ require from six to ten days for sufficient
      decomposition to take place to bring them to the surface. Both
      science and experience show that the period of their rising is,
      and necessarily must be, indeterminate. If, moreover, a body has
      risen to the surface through firing of cannon, it will not ‘sink
      again if let alone,’ until decomposition has so far progressed as
      to permit the escape of the generated gas. But I wish to call
      your attention to the distinction which is made between ‘drowned
      bodies,’ and ‘bodies thrown into the water immediately after
      death by violence.’ Although the writer admits the distinction,
      he yet includes them all in the same category. I have shown how
      it is that the body of a drowning man becomes specifically
      heavier than its bulk of water, and that he would not sink at
      all, except for the struggles by which he elevates his arms above
      the surface, and his gasps for breath while beneath the
      surface—gasps which supply by water the place of the original air
      in the lungs. But these struggles and these gasps would not occur
      in the body ‘thrown into the water immediately after death by
      violence.’ Thus, in the latter instance, the body, as a general
      rule, would not sink at all—a fact of which L’Etoile is evidently
      ignorant. When decomposition had proceeded to a very great
      extent—when the flesh had in a great measure left the bones—then,
      indeed, but not till then, should we lose sight of the corpse.

      “And now what are we to make of the argument, that the body found
      could not be that of Marie Rogêt, because, three days only having
      elapsed, this body was found floating? If drowned, being a woman,
      she might never have sunk; or having sunk, might have reappeared
      in twenty-four hours, or less. But no one supposes her to have
      been drowned; and, dying before being thrown into the river, she
      might have been found floating at any period afterwards whatever.

      “‘But,’ says L’Etoile, ‘if the body had been kept in its mangled
      state on shore until Tuesday night, some trace would be found on
      shore of the murderers.’ Here it is at first difficult to
      perceive the intention of the reasoner. He means to anticipate
      what he imagines would be an objection to his theory—viz.: that
      the body was kept on shore two days, suffering rapid
      decomposition—more rapid than if immersed in water. He supposes
      that, had this been the case, it might have appeared at the
      surface on the Wednesday, and thinks that only under such
      circumstances it could so have appeared. He is accordingly in
      haste to show that it was not kept on shore; for, if so, ‘some
      trace would be found on shore of the murderers.’ I presume you
      smile at the sequitur. You cannot be made to see how the mere
      duration of the corpse on the shore could operate to multiply
      traces of the assassins. Nor can I.

      “‘And furthermore it is exceedingly improbable,’ continues our
      journal, ‘that any villains who had committed such a murder as is
      here supposed, would have thrown the body in without weight to
      sink it, when such a precaution could have so easily been taken.’
      Observe, here, the laughable confusion of thought! No one—not
      even L’Etoile—disputes the murder committed _on the body found_.
      The marks of violence are too obvious. It is our reasoner’s
      object merely to show that this body is not Marie’s. He wishes to
      prove that Marie is not assassinated—not that the corpse was not.
      Yet his observation proves only the latter point. Here is a
      corpse without weight attached. Murderers, casting it in, would
      not have failed to attach a weight. Therefore it was not thrown
      in by murderers. This is all which is proved, if any thing is.
      The question of identity is not even approached, and L’Etoile has
      been at great pains merely to gainsay now what it has admitted
      only a moment before. ‘We are perfectly convinced,’ it says,
      ‘that the body found was that of a murdered female.’

      “Nor is this the sole instance, even in this division of his
      subject, where our reasoner unwittingly reasons against himself.
      His evident object, I have already said, is to reduce, as much as
      possible, the interval between Marie’s disappearance and the
      finding of the corpse. Yet we find him urging the point that no
      person saw the girl from the moment of her leaving her mother’s
      house. ‘We have no evidence,’ he says, ‘that Marie Rogêt was in
      the land of the living after nine o’clock on Sunday, June the
      twenty-second.’ As his argument is obviously an ex parte one, he
      should, at least, have left this matter out of sight; for had any
      one been known to see Marie, say on Monday, or on Tuesday, the
      interval in question would have been much reduced, and, by his
      own ratiocination, the probability much diminished of the corpse
      being that of the grisette. It is, nevertheless, amusing to
      observe that L’Etoile insists upon its point in the full belief
      of its furthering its general argument.

      “Reperuse now that portion of this argument which has reference
      to the identification of the corpse by Beauvais. In regard to the
      hair upon the arm, L’Etoile has been obviously disingenuous. M.
      Beauvais, not being an idiot, could never have urged, in
      identification of the corpse, simply hair upon its arm. No arm is
      without hair. The generality of the expression of L’Etoile is a
      mere perversion of the witness’ phraseology. He must have spoken
      of some peculiarity in this hair. It must have been a peculiarity
      of color, of quantity, of length, or of situation.

      “‘Her foot,’ says the journal, ‘was small—so are thousands of
      feet. Her garter is no proof whatever—nor is her shoe—for shoes
      and garters are sold in packages. The same may be said of the
      flowers in her hat. One thing upon which M. Beauvais strongly
      insists is, that the clasp on the garter found, had been set back
      to take it in. This amounts to nothing; for most women find it
      proper to take a pair of garters home and fit them to the size of
      the limbs they are to encircle, rather than to try them in the
      store where they purchase.’ Here it is difficult to suppose the
      reasoner in earnest. Had M. Beauvais, in his search for the body
      of Marie, discovered a corpse corresponding in general size and
      appearance to the missing girl, he would have been warranted
      (without reference to the question of habiliment at all) in
      forming an opinion that his search had been successful. If, in
      addition to the point of general size and contour, he had found
      upon the arm a peculiar hairy appearance which he had observed
      upon the living Marie, his opinion might have been justly
      strengthened; and the increase of positiveness might well have
      been in the ratio of the peculiarity, or unusualness, of the
      hairy mark. If, the feet of Marie being small, those of the
      corpse were also small, the increase of probability that the body
      was that of Marie would not be an increase in a ratio merely
      arithmetical, but in one highly geometrical, or accumulative. Add
      to all this shoes such as she had been known to wear upon the day
      of her disappearance, and, although these shoes may be ‘sold in
      packages,’ you so far augment the probability as to verge upon
      the certain. What, of itself, would be no evidence of identity,
      becomes through its corroborative position, proof most sure. Give
      us, then, flowers in the hat corresponding to those worn by the
      missing girl, and we seek for nothing farther. If only one
      flower, we seek for nothing farther—what then if two or three, or
      more? Each successive one is multiple evidence—proof not _added_
      to proof, but multiplied by hundreds or thousands. Let us now
      discover, upon the deceased, garters such as the living used, and
      it is almost folly to proceed. But these garters are found to be
      tightened, by the setting back of a clasp, in just such a manner
      as her own had been tightened by Marie, shortly previous to her
      leaving home. It is now madness or hypocrisy to doubt. What
      L’Etoile says in respect to this abbreviation of the garters
      being an usual occurrence, shows nothing beyond its own
      pertinacity in error. The elastic nature of the clasp-garter is
      self-demonstration of the unusualness of the abbreviation. What
      is made to adjust itself, must of necessity require foreign
      adjustment but rarely. It must have been by an accident, in its
      strictest sense, that these garters of Marie needed the
      tightening described. They alone would have amply established her
      identity. But it is not that the corpse was found to have the
      garters of the missing girl, or found to have her shoes, or her
      bonnet, or the flowers of her bonnet, or her feet, or a peculiar
      mark upon the arm, or her general size and appearance—it is that
      the corpse had each, and _all collectively_. Could it be proved
      that the editor of L’Etoile _really_ entertained a doubt, under
      the circumstances, there would be no need, in his case, of a
      commission de lunatico inquirendo. He has thought it sagacious to
      echo the small talk of the lawyers, who, for the most part,
      content themselves with echoing the rectangular precepts of the
      courts. I would here observe that very much of what is rejected
      as evidence by a court, is the best of evidence to the intellect.
      For the court, guiding itself by the general principles of
      evidence—the recognized and _booked_ principles—is averse from
      swerving at particular instances. And this steadfast adherence to
      principle, with rigorous disregard of the conflicting exception,
      is a sure mode of attaining the maximum of attainable truth, in
      any long sequence of time. The practice, in mass, is therefore
      philosophical; but it is not the less certain that it engenders
      vast individual error. (*16)

      “In respect to the insinuations levelled at Beauvais, you will be
      willing to dismiss them in a breath. You have already fathomed
      the true character of this good gentleman. He is a busy-body,
      with much of romance and little of wit. Any one so constituted
      will readily so conduct himself, upon occasion of real
      excitement, as to render himself liable to suspicion on the part
      of the over acute, or the ill-disposed. M. Beauvais (as it
      appears from your notes) had some personal interviews with the
      editor of L’Etoile, and offended him by venturing an opinion that
      the corpse, notwithstanding the theory of the editor, was, in
      sober fact, that of Marie. ‘He persists,’ says the paper, ‘in
      asserting the corpse to be that of Marie, but cannot give a
      circumstance, in addition to those which we have commented upon,
      to make others believe.’ Now, without re-adverting to the fact
      that stronger evidence ‘to make others believe,’ could never have
      been adduced, it may be remarked that a man may very well be
      understood to believe, in a case of this kind, without the
      ability to advance a single reason for the belief of a second
      party. Nothing is more vague than impressions of individual
      identity. Each man recognizes his neighbor, yet there are few
      instances in which any one is prepared to give a reason for his
      recognition. The editor of L’Etoile had no right to be offended
      at M. Beauvais’ unreasoning belief.

      “The suspicious circumstances which invest him, will be found to
      tally much better with my hypothesis of romantic busy-bodyism,
      than with the reasoner’s suggestion of guilt. Once adopting the
      more charitable interpretation, we shall find no difficulty in
      comprehending the rose in the key-hole; the ‘Marie’ upon the
      slate; the ‘elbowing the male relatives out of the way;’ the
      ‘aversion to permitting them to see the body;’ the caution given
      to Madame B——, that she must hold no conversation with the
      gendarme until his return (Beauvais’); and, lastly, his apparent
      determination ‘that nobody should have anything to do with the
      proceedings except himself.’ It seems to me unquestionable that
      Beauvais was a suitor of Marie’s; that she coquetted with him;
      and that he was ambitious of being thought to enjoy her fullest
      intimacy and confidence. I shall say nothing more upon this
      point; and, as the evidence fully rebuts the assertion of
      L’Etoile, touching the matter of apathy on the part of the mother
      and other relatives—an apathy inconsistent with the supposition
      of their believing the corpse to be that of the perfumery-girl—we
      shall now proceed as if the question of identity were settled to
      our perfect satisfaction.”

      “And what,” I here demanded, “do you think of the opinions of Le
      Commerciel?”

      “That, in spirit, they are far more worthy of attention than any
      which have been promulgated upon the subject. The deductions from
      the premises are philosophical and acute; but the premises, in
      two instances, at least, are founded in imperfect observation. Le
      Commerciel wishes to intimate that Marie was seized by some gang
      of low ruffians not far from her mother’s door. ‘It is
      impossible,’ it urges, ‘that a person so well known to thousands
      as this young woman was, should have passed three blocks without
      some one having seen her.’ This is the idea of a man long
      resident in Paris—a public man—and one whose walks to and fro in
      the city, have been mostly limited to the vicinity of the public
      offices. He is aware that he seldom passes so far as a dozen
      blocks from his own bureau, without being recognized and
      accosted. And, knowing the extent of his personal acquaintance
      with others, and of others with him, he compares his notoriety
      with that of the perfumery-girl, finds no great difference
      between them, and reaches at once the conclusion that she, in her
      walks, would be equally liable to recognition with himself in
      his. This could only be the case were her walks of the same
      unvarying, methodical character, and within the same species of
      limited region as are his own. He passes to and fro, at regular
      intervals, within a confined periphery, abounding in individuals
      who are led to observation of his person through interest in the
      kindred nature of his occupation with their own. But the walks of
      Marie may, in general, be supposed discursive. In this particular
      instance, it will be understood as most probable, that she
      proceeded upon a route of more than average diversity from her
      accustomed ones. The parallel which we imagine to have existed in
      the mind of Le Commerciel would only be sustained in the event of
      the two individuals traversing the whole city. In this case,
      granting the personal acquaintances to be equal, the chances
      would be also equal that an equal number of personal rencounters
      would be made. For my own part, I should hold it not only as
      possible, but as very far more than probable, that Marie might
      have proceeded, at any given period, by any one of the many
      routes between her own residence and that of her aunt, without
      meeting a single individual whom she knew, or by whom she was
      known. In viewing this question in its full and proper light, we
      must hold steadily in mind the great disproportion between the
      personal acquaintances of even the most noted individual in
      Paris, and the entire population of Paris itself.

      “But whatever force there may still appear to be in the
      suggestion of Le Commerciel, will be much diminished when we take
      into consideration the hour at which the girl went abroad. ‘It
      was when the streets were full of people,’ says Le Commerciel,
      ‘that she went out.’ But not so. It was at nine o’clock in the
      morning. Now at nine o’clock of every morning in the week, _with
      the exception of Sunday_, the streets of the city are, it is
      true, thronged with people. At nine on Sunday, the populace are
      chiefly within doors _preparing for church_. No observing person
      can have failed to notice the peculiarly deserted air of the
      town, from about eight until ten on the morning of every Sabbath.
      Between ten and eleven the streets are thronged, but not at so
      early a period as that designated.

      “There is another point at which there seems a deficiency of
      observation on the part of Le Commerciel. ‘A piece,’ it says, ‘of
      one of the unfortunate girl’s petticoats, two feet long, and one
      foot wide, was torn out and tied under her chin, and around the
      back of her head, probably to prevent screams. This was done, by
      fellows who had no pocket-handkerchiefs.’ Whether this idea is,
      or is not well founded, we will endeavor to see hereafter; but by
      ‘fellows who have no pocket-handkerchiefs’ the editor intends the
      lowest class of ruffians. These, however, are the very
      description of people who will always be found to have
      handkerchiefs even when destitute of shirts. You must have had
      occasion to observe how absolutely indispensable, of late years,
      to the thorough blackguard, has become the pocket-handkerchief.”

      “And what are we to think,” I asked, “of the article in Le
      Soleil?”

      “That it is a vast pity its inditer was not born a parrot—in
      which case he would have been the most illustrious parrot of his
      race. He has merely repeated the individual items of the already
      published opinion; collecting them, with a laudable industry,
      from this paper and from that. ‘The things had all evidently been
      there,’ he says, ‘at least, three or four weeks, and there can be
      _no doubt_ that the spot of this appalling outrage has been
      discovered.’ The facts here re-stated by Le Soleil, are very far
      indeed from removing my own doubts upon this subject, and we will
      examine them more particularly hereafter in connexion with
      another division of the theme.

      “At present we must occupy ourselves with other investigations.
      You cannot fail to have remarked the extreme laxity of the
      examination of the corpse. To be sure, the question of identity
      was readily determined, or should have been; but there were other
      points to be ascertained. Had the body been in any respect
      despoiled? Had the deceased any articles of jewelry about her
      person upon leaving home? if so, had she any when found? These
      are important questions utterly untouched by the evidence; and
      there are others of equal moment, which have met with no
      attention. We must endeavor to satisfy ourselves by personal
      inquiry. The case of St. Eustache must be re-examined. I have no
      suspicion of this person; but let us proceed methodically. We
      will ascertain beyond a doubt the validity of the affidavits in
      regard to his whereabouts on the Sunday. Affidavits of this
      character are readily made matter of mystification. Should there
      be nothing wrong here, however, we will dismiss St. Eustache from
      our investigations. His suicide, however corroborative of
      suspicion, were there found to be deceit in the affidavits, is,
      without such deceit, in no respect an unaccountable circumstance,
      or one which need cause us to deflect from the line of ordinary
      analysis.

      “In that which I now propose, we will discard the interior points
      of this tragedy, and concentrate our attention upon its
      outskirts. Not the least usual error, in investigations such as
      this, is the limiting of inquiry to the immediate, with total
      disregard of the collateral or circumstantial events. It is the
      mal-practice of the courts to confine evidence and discussion to
      the bounds of apparent relevancy. Yet experience has shown, and a
      true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger
      portion of truth, arises from the seemingly irrelevant. It is
      through the spirit of this principle, if not precisely through
      its letter, that modern science has resolved to calculate upon
      the unforeseen. But perhaps you do not comprehend me. The history
      of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to
      collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are indebted
      for the most numerous and most valuable discoveries, that it has
      at length become necessary, in any prospective view of
      improvement, to make not only large, but the largest allowances
      for inventions that shall arise by chance, and quite out of the
      range of ordinary expectation. It is no longer philosophical to
      base, upon what has been, a vision of what is to be. Accident is
      admitted as a portion of the substructure. We make chance a
      matter of absolute calculation. We subject the unlooked for and
      unimagined to the mathematical _formulae_ of the schools.

      “I repeat that it is no more than fact, that the larger portion
      of all truth has sprung from the collateral; and it is but in
      accordance with the spirit of the principle involved in this
      fact, that I would divert inquiry, in the present case, from the
      trodden and hitherto unfruitful ground of the event itself, to
      the contemporary circumstances which surround it. While you
      ascertain the validity of the affidavits, I will examine the
      newspapers more generally than you have as yet done. So far, we
      have only reconnoitred the field of investigation; but it will be
      strange indeed if a comprehensive survey, such as I propose, of
      the public prints, will not afford us some minute points which
      shall establish a direction for inquiry.”

      In pursuance of Dupin’s suggestion, I made scrupulous examination
      of the affair of the affidavits. The result was a firm conviction
      of their validity, and of the consequent innocence of St.
      Eustache. In the mean time my friend occupied himself, with what
      seemed to me a minuteness altogether objectless, in a scrutiny of
      the various newspaper files. At the end of a week he placed
      before me the following extracts:

      “About three years and a half ago, a disturbance very similar to
      the present, was caused by the disappearance of this same Marie
      Rogêt, from the parfumerie of Monsieur Le Blanc, in the Palais
      Royal. At the end of a week, however, she re-appeared at her
      customary comptoir, as well as ever, with the exception of a
      slight paleness not altogether usual. It was given out by
      Monsieur Le Blanc and her mother, that she had merely been on a
      visit to some friend in the country; and the affair was speedily
      hushed up. We presume that the present absence is a freak of the
      same nature, and that, at the expiration of a week, or perhaps of
      a month, we shall have her among us again.”—Evening Paper—Monday,
      June 23. (*17)

      “An evening journal of yesterday, refers to a former mysterious
      disappearance of Mademoiselle Rogêt. It is well known that,
      during the week of her absence from Le Blanc’s parfumerie, she
      was in the company of a young naval officer, much noted for his
      debaucheries. A quarrel, it is supposed, providentially led to
      her return home. We have the name of the Lothario in question,
      who is, at present, stationed in Paris, but, for obvious reasons,
      forbear to make it public.”—Le Mercurie—Tuesday Morning, June 24.
      (*18)

      “An outrage of the most atrocious character was perpetrated near
      this city the day before yesterday. A gentleman, with his wife
      and daughter, engaged, about dusk, the services of six young men,
      who were idly rowing a boat to and fro near the banks of the
      Seine, to convey him across the river. Upon reaching the opposite
      shore, the three passengers stepped out, and had proceeded so far
      as to be beyond the view of the boat, when the daughter
      discovered that she had left in it her parasol. She returned for
      it, was seized by the gang, carried out into the stream, gagged,
      brutally treated, and finally taken to the shore at a point not
      far from that at which she had originally entered the boat with
      her parents. The villains have escaped for the time, but the
      police are upon their trail, and some of them will soon be
      taken.”—Morning Paper—June 25. (*19)

      “We have received one or two communications, the object of which
      is to fasten the crime of the late atrocity upon Mennais; (*20)
      but as this gentleman has been fully exonerated by a loyal
      inquiry, and as the arguments of our several correspondents
      appear to be more zealous than profound, we do not think it
      advisable to make them public.”—Morning Paper—June 28. (*21)

      “We have received several forcibly written communications,
      apparently from various sources, and which go far to render it a
      matter of certainty that the unfortunate Marie Rogêt has become a
      victim of one of the numerous bands of blackguards which infest
      the vicinity of the city upon Sunday. Our own opinion is
      decidedly in favor of this supposition. We shall endeavor to make
      room for some of these arguments hereafter.”—Evening
      Paper—Tuesday, June 31. (*22)

      “On Monday, one of the bargemen connected with the revenue
      service, saw a empty boat floating down the Seine. Sails were
      lying in the bottom of the boat. The bargeman towed it under the
      barge office. The next morning it was taken from thence, without
      the knowledge of any of the officers. The rudder is now at the
      barge office.”—Le Diligence—Thursday, June 26.

      Upon reading these various extracts, they not only seemed to me
      irrelevant, but I could perceive no mode in which any one of them
      could be brought to bear upon the matter in hand. I waited for
      some explanation from Dupin.

      “It is not my present design,” he said, “to dwell upon the first
      and second of those extracts. I have copied them chiefly to show
      you the extreme remissness of the police, who, as far as I can
      understand from the Prefect, have not troubled themselves, in any
      respect, with an examination of the naval officer alluded to. Yet
      it is mere folly to say that between the first and second
      disappearance of Marie there is no _supposable_ connection. Let
      us admit the first elopement to have resulted in a quarrel
      between the lovers, and the return home of the betrayed. We are
      now prepared to view a second elopement (if we know that an
      elopement has again taken place) as indicating a renewal of the
      betrayer’s advances, rather than as the result of new proposals
      by a second individual—we are prepared to regard it as a ‘making
      up’ of the old amour, rather than as the commencement of a new
      one. The chances are ten to one, that he who had once eloped with
      Marie, would again propose an elopement, rather than that she to
      whom proposals of elopement had been made by one individual,
      should have them made to her by another. And here let me call
      your attention to the fact, that the time elapsing between the
      first ascertained, and the second supposed elopement, is a few
      months more than the general period of the cruises of our
      men-of-war. Had the lover been interrupted in his first villany
      by the necessity of departure to sea, and had he seized the first
      moment of his return to renew the base designs not yet altogether
      accomplished—or not yet altogether accomplished by _him?_ Of all
      these things we know nothing.

      “You will say, however, that, in the second instance, there was
      no elopement as imagined. Certainly not—but are we prepared to
      say that there was not the frustrated design? Beyond St.
      Eustache, and perhaps Beauvais, we find no recognized, no open,
      no honorable suitors of Marie. Of none other is there any thing
      said. Who, then, is the secret lover, of whom the relatives (at
      least most of them) know nothing, but whom Marie meets upon the
      morning of Sunday, and who is so deeply in her confidence, that
      she hesitates not to remain with him until the shades of the
      evening descend, amid the solitary groves of the Barrière du
      Roule? Who is that secret lover, I ask, of whom, at least, most
      of the relatives know nothing? And what means the singular
      prophecy of Madame Rogêt on the morning of Marie’s departure?—‘I
      fear that I shall never see Marie again.’

      “But if we cannot imagine Madame Rogêt privy to the design of
      elopement, may we not at least suppose this design entertained by
      the girl? Upon quitting home, she gave it to be understood that
      she was about to visit her aunt in the Rue des Drômes and St.
      Eustache was requested to call for her at dark. Now, at first
      glance, this fact strongly militates against my suggestion;—but
      let us reflect. That she did meet some companion, and proceed
      with him across the river, reaching the Barrière du Roule at so
      late an hour as three o’clock in the afternoon, is known. But in
      consenting so to accompany this individual, (_for whatever
      purpose—to her mother known or unknown,_) she must have thought
      of her expressed intention when leaving home, and of the surprise
      and suspicion aroused in the bosom of her affianced suitor, St.
      Eustache, when, calling for her, at the hour appointed, in the
      Rue des Drômes, he should find that she had not been there, and
      when, moreover, upon returning to the pension with this alarming
      intelligence, he should become aware of her continued absence
      from home. She must have thought of these things, I say. She must
      have foreseen the chagrin of St. Eustache, the suspicion of all.
      She could not have thought of returning to brave this suspicion;
      but the suspicion becomes a point of trivial importance to her,
      if we suppose her not intending to return.

      “We may imagine her thinking thus—‘I am to meet a certain person
      for the purpose of elopement, or for certain other purposes known
      only to myself. It is necessary that there be no chance of
      interruption—there must be sufficient time given us to elude
      pursuit—I will give it to be understood that I shall visit and
      spend the day with my aunt at the Rue des Drômes—I well tell St.
      Eustache not to call for me until dark—in this way, my absence
      from home for the longest possible period, without causing
      suspicion or anxiety, will be accounted for, and I shall gain
      more time than in any other manner. If I bid St. Eustache call
      for me at dark, he will be sure not to call before; but, if I
      wholly neglect to bid him call, my time for escape will be
      diminished, since it will be expected that I return the earlier,
      and my absence will the sooner excite anxiety. Now, if it were my
      design to return at all—if I had in contemplation merely a stroll
      with the individual in question—it would not be my policy to bid
      St. Eustache call; for, calling, he will be sure to ascertain
      that I have played him false—a fact of which I might keep him for
      ever in ignorance, by leaving home without notifying him of my
      intention, by returning before dark, and by then stating that I
      had been to visit my aunt in the Rue des Drômes. But, as it is my
      design never to return—or not for some weeks—or not until certain
      concealments are effected—the gaining of time is the only point
      about which I need give myself any concern.’

      “You have observed, in your notes, that the most general opinion
      in relation to this sad affair is, and was from the first, that
      the girl had been the victim of a gang of blackguards. Now, the
      popular opinion, under certain conditions, is not to be
      disregarded. When arising of itself—when manifesting itself in a
      strictly spontaneous manner—we should look upon it as analogous
      with that _intuition_ which is the idiosyncrasy of the individual
      man of genius. In ninety-nine cases from the hundred I would
      abide by its decision. But it is important that we find no
      palpable traces of _suggestion_. The opinion must be rigorously
      _the public’s own_; and the distinction is often exceedingly
      difficult to perceive and to maintain. In the present instance,
      it appears to me that this ‘public opinion’ in respect to a gang,
      has been superinduced by the collateral event which is detailed
      in the third of my extracts. All Paris is excited by the
      discovered corpse of Marie, a girl young, beautiful and
      notorious. This corpse is found, bearing marks of violence, and
      floating in the river. But it is now made known that, at the very
      period, or about the very period, in which it is supposed that
      the girl was assassinated, an outrage similar in nature to that
      endured by the deceased, although less in extent, was
      perpetuated, by a gang of young ruffians, upon the person of a
      second young female. Is it wonderful that the one known atrocity
      should influence the popular judgment in regard to the other
      unknown? This judgment awaited direction, and the known outrage
      seemed so opportunely to afford it! Marie, too, was found in the
      river; and upon this very river was this known outrage committed.
      The connexion of the two events had about it so much of the
      palpable, that the true wonder would have been a failure of the
      populace to appreciate and to seize it. But, in fact, the one
      atrocity, known to be so committed, is, if any thing, evidence
      that the other, committed at a time nearly coincident, was not so
      committed. It would have been a miracle indeed, if, while a gang
      of ruffians were perpetrating, at a given locality, a most
      unheard-of wrong, there should have been another similar gang, in
      a similar locality, in the same city, under the same
      circumstances, with the same means and appliances, engaged in a
      wrong of precisely the same aspect, at precisely the same period
      of time! Yet in what, if not in this marvellous train of
      coincidence, does the accidentally suggested opinion of the
      populace call upon us to believe?

      “Before proceeding farther, let us consider the supposed scene of
      the assassination, in the thicket at the Barrière du Roule. This
      thicket, although dense, was in the close vicinity of a public
      road. Within were three or four large stones, forming a kind of
      seat with a back and footstool. On the upper stone was discovered
      a white petticoat; on the second, a silk scarf. A parasol,
      gloves, and a pocket-handkerchief, were also here found. The
      handkerchief bore the name, ‘Marie Rogêt.’ Fragments of dress
      were seen on the branches around. The earth was trampled, the
      bushes were broken, and there was every evidence of a violent
      struggle.

      “Notwithstanding the acclamation with which the discovery of this
      thicket was received by the press, and the unanimity with which
      it was supposed to indicate the precise scene of the outrage, it
      must be admitted that there was some very good reason for doubt.
      That it was the scene, I may or I may not believe—but there was
      excellent reason for doubt. Had the true scene been, as Le
      Commerciel suggested, in the neighborhood of the Rue Pavée St.
      Andrée, the perpetrators of the crime, supposing them still
      resident in Paris, would naturally have been stricken with terror
      at the public attention thus acutely directed into the proper
      channel; and, in certain classes of minds, there would have
      arisen, at once, a sense of the necessity of some exertion to
      redivert this attention. And thus, the thicket of the Barrière du
      Roule having been already suspected, the idea of placing the
      articles where they were found, might have been naturally
      entertained. There is no real evidence, although Le Soleil so
      supposes, that the articles discovered had been more than a very
      few days in the thicket; while there is much circumstantial proof
      that they could not have remained there, without attracting
      attention, during the twenty days elapsing between the fatal
      Sunday and the afternoon upon which they were found by the boys.
      ‘They were all _mildewed_ down hard,’ says Le Soleil, adopting
      the opinions of its predecessors, ‘with the action of the rain,
      and stuck together from _mildew_. The grass had grown around and
      over some of them. The silk of the parasol was strong, but the
      threads of it were run together within. The upper part, where it
      had been doubled and folded, was all _mildewed_ and rotten, and
      tore on being opened.’ In respect to the grass having ‘grown
      around and over some of them,’ it is obvious that the fact could
      only have been ascertained from the words, and thus from the
      recollections, of two small boys; for these boys removed the
      articles and took them home before they had been seen by a third
      party. But grass will grow, especially in warm and damp weather,
      (such as was that of the period of the murder,) as much as two or
      three inches in a single day. A parasol lying upon a newly turfed
      ground, might, in a single week, be entirely concealed from sight
      by the upspringing grass. And touching that mildew upon which the
      editor of Le Soleil so pertinaciously insists, that he employs
      the word no less than three times in the brief paragraph just
      quoted, is he really unaware of the nature of this mildew? Is he
      to be told that it is one of the many classes of fungus, of which
      the most ordinary feature is its upspringing and decadence within
      twenty-four hours?

      “Thus we see, at a glance, that what has been most triumphantly
      adduced in support of the idea that the articles had been ‘for at
      least three or four weeks’ in the thicket, is most absurdly null
      as regards any evidence of that fact. On the other hand, it is
      exceedingly difficult to believe that these articles could have
      remained in the thicket specified, for a longer period than a
      single week—for a longer period than from one Sunday to the next.
      Those who know any thing of the vicinity of Paris, know the
      extreme difficulty of finding seclusion unless at a great
      distance from its suburbs. Such a thing as an unexplored, or even
      an unfrequently visited recess, amid its woods or groves, is not
      for a moment to be imagined. Let any one who, being at heart a
      lover of nature, is yet chained by duty to the dust and heat of
      this great metropolis—let any such one attempt, even during the
      weekdays, to slake his thirst for solitude amid the scenes of
      natural loveliness which immediately surround us. At every second
      step, he will find the growing charm dispelled by the voice and
      personal intrusion of some ruffian or party of carousing
      blackguards. He will seek privacy amid the densest foliage, all
      in vain. Here are the very nooks where the unwashed most
      abound—here are the temples most desecrate. With sickness of the
      heart the wanderer will flee back to the polluted Paris as to a
      less odious because less incongruous sink of pollution. But if
      the vicinity of the city is so beset during the working days of
      the week, how much more so on the Sabbath! It is now especially
      that, released from the claims of labor, or deprived of the
      customary opportunities of crime, the town blackguard seeks the
      precincts of the town, not through love of the rural, which in
      his heart he despises, but by way of escape from the restraints
      and conventionalities of society. He desires less the fresh air
      and the green trees, than the utter license of the country. Here,
      at the road-side inn, or beneath the foliage of the woods, he
      indulges, unchecked by any eye except those of his boon
      companions, in all the mad excess of a counterfeit hilarity—the
      joint offspring of liberty and of rum. I say nothing more than
      what must be obvious to every dispassionate observer, when I
      repeat that the circumstance of the articles in question having
      remained undiscovered, for a longer period than from one Sunday
      to another, in any thicket in the immediate neighborhood of
      Paris, is to be looked upon as little less than miraculous.

      “But there are not wanting other grounds for the suspicion that
      the articles were placed in the thicket with the view of
      diverting attention from the real scene of the outrage. And,
      first, let me direct your notice to the date of the discovery of
      the articles. Collate this with the date of the fifth extract
      made by myself from the newspapers. You will find that the
      discovery followed, almost immediately, the urgent communications
      sent to the evening paper. These communications, although various
      and apparently from various sources, tended all to the same
      point—viz., the directing of attention to a gang as the
      perpetrators of the outrage, and to the neighborhood of the
      Barrière du Roule as its scene. Now here, of course, the
      suspicion is not that, in consequence of these communications, or
      of the public attention by them directed, the articles were found
      by the boys; but the suspicion might and may well have been, that
      the articles were not before found by the boys, for the reason
      that the articles had not before been in the thicket; having been
      deposited there only at so late a period as at the date, or
      shortly prior to the date of the communication, by the guilty
      authors of these communications themselves.

      “This thicket was a singular—an exceedingly singular one. It was
      unusually dense. Within its naturally walled enclosure were three
      extraordinary stones, forming a seat with a back and footstool.
      And this thicket, so full of a natural art, was in the immediate
      vicinity, within a few rods, of the dwelling of Madame Deluc,
      whose boys were in the habit of closely examining the shrubberies
      about them in search of the bark of the sassafras. Would it be a
      rash wager—a wager of one thousand to one—that a day never passed
      over the heads of these boys without finding at least one of them
      ensconced in the umbrageous hall, and enthroned upon its natural
      throne? Those who would hesitate at such a wager, have either
      never been boys themselves, or have forgotten the boyish nature.
      I repeat—it is exceedingly hard to comprehend how the articles
      could have remained in this thicket undiscovered, for a longer
      period than one or two days; and that thus there is good ground
      for suspicion, in spite of the dogmatic ignorance of Le Soleil,
      that they were, at a comparatively late date, deposited where
      found.

      “But there are still other and stronger reasons for believing
      them so deposited, than any which I have as yet urged. And, now,
      let me beg your notice to the highly artificial arrangement of
      the articles. On the _upper_ stone lay a white petticoat; on the
      _second_, a silk scarf; scattered around, were a parasol, gloves,
      and a pocket-handkerchief bearing the name, ‘Marie Rogêt.’ Here
      is just such an arrangement as would naturally be made by a not
      over-acute person wishing to dispose the articles naturally. But
      it is by no means a really natural arrangement. I should rather
      have looked to see the things all lying on the ground and
      trampled under foot. In the narrow limits of that bower, it would
      have been scarcely possible that the petticoat and scarf should
      have retained a position upon the stones, when subjected to the
      brushing to and fro of many struggling persons. ‘There was
      evidence,’ it is said, ‘of a struggle; and the earth was
      trampled, the bushes were broken,’—but the petticoat and the
      scarf are found deposited as if upon shelves. ‘The pieces of the
      frock torn out by the bushes were about three inches wide and six
      inches long. One part was the hem of the frock and it had been
      mended. They looked like strips torn off.’ Here, inadvertently,
      Le Soleil has employed an exceedingly suspicious phrase. The
      pieces, as described, do indeed ‘look like strips torn off;’ but
      purposely and by hand. It is one of the rarest of accidents that
      a piece is ‘torn off,’ from any garment such as is now in
      question, by the agency of a thorn. From the very nature of such
      fabrics, a thorn or nail becoming entangled in them, tears them
      rectangularly—divides them into two longitudinal rents, at right
      angles with each other, and meeting at an apex where the thorn
      enters—but it is scarcely possible to conceive the piece ‘torn
      off.’ I never so knew it, nor did you. To tear a piece off from
      such fabric, two distinct forces, in different directions, will
      be, in almost every case, required. If there be two edges to the
      fabric—if, for example, it be a pocket-handkerchief, and it is
      desired to tear from it a slip, then, and then only, will the one
      force serve the purpose. But in the present case the question is
      of a dress, presenting but one edge. To tear a piece from the
      interior, where no edge is presented, could only be effected by a
      miracle through the agency of thorns, and no one thorn could
      accomplish it. But, even where an edge is presented, two thorns
      will be necessary, operating, the one in two distinct directions,
      and the other in one. And this in the supposition that the edge
      is unhemmed. If hemmed, the matter is nearly out of the question.
      We thus see the numerous and great obstacles in the way of pieces
      being ‘torn off’ through the simple agency of ‘thorns;’ yet we
      are required to believe not only that one piece but that many
      have been so torn. ‘And one part,’ too, ‘was the hem of the
      frock!’ Another piece was ‘part of the skirt, not the hem,’—that
      is to say, was torn completely out through the agency of thorns,
      from the uncaged interior of the dress! These, I say, are things
      which one may well be pardoned for disbelieving; yet, taken
      collectedly, they form, perhaps, less of reasonable ground for
      suspicion, than the one startling circumstance of the articles’
      having been left in this thicket at all, by any murderers who had
      enough precaution to think of removing the corpse. You will not
      have apprehended me rightly, however, if you suppose it my design
      to deny this thicket as the scene of the outrage. There might
      have been a wrong here, or, more possibly, an accident at Madame
      Deluc’s. But, in fact, this is a point of minor importance. We
      are not engaged in an attempt to discover the scene, but to
      produce the perpetrators of the murder. What I have adduced,
      notwithstanding the minuteness with which I have adduced it, has
      been with the view, first, to show the folly of the positive and
      headlong assertions of Le Soleil, but secondly and chiefly, to
      bring you, by the most natural route, to a further contemplation
      of the doubt whether this assassination has, or has not, been the
      work of a gang.

      “We will resume this question by mere allusion to the revolting
      details of the surgeon examined at the inquest. It is only
      necessary to say that his published inferences, in regard to the
      number of ruffians, have been properly ridiculed as unjust and
      totally baseless, by all the reputable anatomists of Paris. Not
      that the matter might not have been as inferred, but that there
      was no ground for the inference:—was there not much for another?

      “Let us reflect now upon ‘the traces of a struggle;’ and let me
      ask what these traces have been supposed to demonstrate. A gang.
      But do they not rather demonstrate the absence of a gang? What
      struggle could have taken place—what struggle so violent and so
      enduring as to have left its ‘traces’ in all directions—between a
      weak and defenceless girl and the gang of ruffians imagined? The
      silent grasp of a few rough arms and all would have been over.
      The victim must have been absolutely passive at their will. You
      will here bear in mind that the arguments urged against the
      thicket as the scene, are applicable in chief part, only against
      it as the scene of an outrage committed by more than a single
      individual. If we imagine but one violator, we can conceive, and
      thus only conceive, the struggle of so violent and so obstinate a
      nature as to have left the ‘traces’ apparent.

      “And again. I have already mentioned the suspicion to be excited
      by the fact that the articles in question were suffered to remain
      at all in the thicket where discovered. It seems almost
      impossible that these evidences of guilt should have been
      accidentally left where found. There was sufficient presence of
      mind (it is supposed) to remove the corpse; and yet a more
      positive evidence than the corpse itself (whose features might
      have been quickly obliterated by decay,) is allowed to lie
      conspicuously in the scene of the outrage—I allude to the
      handkerchief with the name of the deceased. If this was accident,
      it was not the accident of a gang. We can imagine it only the
      accident of an individual. Let us see. An individual has
      committed the murder. He is alone with the ghost of the departed.
      He is appalled by what lies motionless before him. The fury of
      his passion is over, and there is abundant room in his heart for
      the natural awe of the deed. His is none of that confidence which
      the presence of numbers inevitably inspires. He is alone with the
      dead. He trembles and is bewildered. Yet there is a necessity for
      disposing of the corpse. He bears it to the river, but leaves
      behind him the other evidences of guilt; for it is difficult, if
      not impossible to carry all the burthen at once, and it will be
      easy to return for what is left. But in his toilsome journey to
      the water his fears redouble within him. The sounds of life
      encompass his path. A dozen times he hears or fancies the step of
      an observer. Even the very lights from the city bewilder him.
      Yet, in time and by long and frequent pauses of deep agony, he
      reaches the river’s brink, and disposes of his ghastly
      charge—perhaps through the medium of a boat. But now what
      treasure does the world hold—what threat of vengeance could it
      hold out—which would have power to urge the return of that lonely
      murderer over that toilsome and perilous path, to the thicket and
      its blood chilling recollections? He returns not, let the
      consequences be what they may. He could not return if he would.
      His sole thought is immediate escape. He turns his back forever
      upon those dreadful shrubberies and flees as from the wrath to
      come.

      “But how with a gang? Their number would have inspired them with
      confidence; if, indeed confidence is ever wanting in the breast
      of the arrant blackguard; and of arrant blackguards alone are the
      supposed gangs ever constituted. Their number, I say, would have
      prevented the bewildering and unreasoning terror which I have
      imagined to paralyze the single man. Could we suppose an
      oversight in one, or two, or three, this oversight would have
      been remedied by a fourth. They would have left nothing behind
      them; for their number would have enabled them to carry all at
      once. There would have been no need of return.

      “Consider now the circumstance that in the outer garment of the
      corpse when found, ‘a slip, about a foot wide had been torn
      upward from the bottom hem to the waist wound three times round
      the waist, and secured by a sort of hitch in the back.’ This was
      done with the obvious design of affording a handle by which to
      carry the body. But would any number of men have dreamed of
      resorting to such an expedient? To three or four, the limbs of
      the corpse would have afforded not only a sufficient, but the
      best possible hold. The device is that of a single individual;
      and this brings us to the fact that ‘between the thicket and the
      river, the rails of the fences were found taken down, and the
      ground bore evident traces of some heavy burden having been
      dragged along it!’ But would a number of men have put themselves
      to the superfluous trouble of taking down a fence, for the
      purpose of dragging through it a corpse which they might have
      lifted over any fence in an instant? Would a number of men have
      so dragged a corpse at all as to have left evident traces of the
      dragging?

      “And here we must refer to an observation of Le Commerciel; an
      observation upon which I have already, in some measure,
      commented. ‘A piece,’ says this journal, ‘of one of the
      unfortunate girl’s petticoats was torn out and tied under her
      chin, and around the back of her head, probably to prevent
      screams. This was done by fellows who had no
      pocket-handkerchiefs.’

      “I have before suggested that a genuine blackguard is never
      without a pocket-handkerchief. But it is not to this fact that I
      now especially advert. That it was not through want of a
      handkerchief for the purpose imagined by Le Commerciel, that this
      bandage was employed, is rendered apparent by the handkerchief
      left in the thicket; and that the object was not ‘to prevent
      screams’ appears, also, from the bandage having been employed in
      preference to what would so much better have answered the
      purpose. But the language of the evidence speaks of the strip in
      question as ‘found around the neck, fitting loosely, and secured
      with a hard knot.’ These words are sufficiently vague, but differ
      materially from those of Le Commerciel. The slip was eighteen
      inches wide, and therefore, although of muslin, would form a
      strong band when folded or rumpled longitudinally. And thus
      rumpled it was discovered. My inference is this. The solitary
      murderer, having borne the corpse, for some distance (whether
      from the thicket or elsewhere) by means of the bandage hitched
      around its middle, found the weight, in this mode of procedure,
      too much for his strength. He resolved to drag the burthen—the
      evidence goes to show that it was dragged. With this object in
      view, it became necessary to attach something like a rope to one
      of the extremities. It could be best attached about the neck,
      where the head would prevent its slipping off. And, now, the
      murderer bethought him, unquestionably, of the bandage about the
      loins. He would have used this, but for its volution about the
      corpse, the hitch which embarrassed it, and the reflection that
      it had not been ‘torn off’ from the garment. It was easier to
      tear a new slip from the petticoat. He tore it, made it fast
      about the neck, and so dragged his victim to the brink of the
      river. That this ‘bandage,’ only attainable with trouble and
      delay, and but imperfectly answering its purpose—that this
      bandage was employed at all, demonstrates that the necessity for
      its employment sprang from circumstances arising at a period when
      the handkerchief was no longer attainable—that is to say,
      arising, as we have imagined, after quitting the thicket, (if the
      thicket it was), and on the road between the thicket and the
      river.

      “But the evidence, you will say, of Madame Deluc (!) points
      especially to the presence of a gang, in the vicinity of the
      thicket, at or about the epoch of the murder. This I grant. I
      doubt if there were not a dozen gangs, such as described by
      Madame Deluc, in and about the vicinity of the Barrière du Roule
      at or about the period of this tragedy. But the gang which has
      drawn upon itself the pointed animadversion, although the
      somewhat tardy and very suspicious evidence of Madame Deluc, is
      the only gang which is represented by that honest and scrupulous
      old lady as having eaten her cakes and swallowed her brandy,
      without putting themselves to the trouble of making her payment.
      Et hinc illæ iræ?

      “But what is the precise evidence of Madame Deluc? ‘A gang of
      miscreants made their appearance, behaved boisterously, ate and
      drank without making payment, followed in the route of the young
      man and girl, returned to the inn about dusk, and recrossed the
      river as if in great haste.’

      “Now this ‘great haste’ very possibly seemed greater haste in the
      eyes of Madame Deluc, since she dwelt lingeringly and lamentingly
      upon her violated cakes and ale—cakes and ale for which she might
      still have entertained a faint hope of compensation. Why,
      otherwise, since it was about dusk, should she make a point of
      the haste? It is no cause for wonder, surely, that even a gang of
      blackguards should make haste to get home, when a wide river is
      to be crossed in small boats, when storm impends, and when night
      approaches.

      “I say approaches; for the night had not yet arrived. It was only
      about dusk that the indecent haste of these ‘miscreants’ offended
      the sober eyes of Madame Deluc. But we are told that it was upon
      this very evening that Madame Deluc, as well as her eldest son,
      ‘heard the screams of a female in the vicinity of the inn.’ And
      in what words does Madame Deluc designate the period of the
      evening at which these screams were heard? ‘It was soon after
      dark,’ she says. But ‘soon after dark,’ is, at least, dark; and
      ‘about dusk’ is as certainly daylight. Thus it is abundantly
      clear that the gang quitted the Barrière du Roule prior to the
      screams overheard (?) by Madame Deluc. And although, in all the
      many reports of the evidence, the relative expressions in
      question are distinctly and invariably employed just as I have
      employed them in this conversation with yourself, no notice
      whatever of the gross discrepancy has, as yet, been taken by any
      of the public journals, or by any of the myrmidons of police.

      “I shall add but one to the arguments against a gang; but this
      one has, to my own understanding at least, a weight altogether
      irresistible. Under the circumstances of large reward offered,
      and full pardon to any king’s evidence, it is not to be imagined,
      for a moment, that some member of a gang of low ruffians, or of
      any body of men, would not long ago have betrayed his
      accomplices. Each one of a gang so placed, is not so much greedy
      of reward, or anxious for escape, as fearful of betrayal. He
      betrays eagerly and early that he may not himself be betrayed.
      That the secret has not been divulged, is the very best of proof
      that it is, in fact, a secret. The horrors of this dark deed are
      known only to one, or two, living human beings, and to God.

      “Let us sum up now the meagre yet certain fruits of our long
      analysis. We have attained the idea either of a fatal accident
      under the roof of Madame Deluc, or of a murder perpetrated, in
      the thicket at the Barrière du Roule, by a lover, or at least by
      an intimate and secret associate of the deceased. This associate
      is of swarthy complexion. This complexion, the ‘hitch’ in the
      bandage, and the ‘sailor’s knot,’ with which the bonnet-ribbon is
      tied, point to a seaman. His companionship with the deceased, a
      gay, but not an abject young girl, designates him as above the
      grade of the common sailor. Here the well written and urgent
      communications to the journals are much in the way of
      corroboration. The circumstance of the first elopement, as
      mentioned by Le Mercurie, tends to blend the idea of this seaman
      with that of the ‘naval officer’ who is first known to have led
      the unfortunate into crime.

      “And here, most fitly, comes the consideration of the continued
      absence of him of the dark complexion. Let me pause to observe
      that the complexion of this man is dark and swarthy; it was no
      common swarthiness which constituted the sole point of
      remembrance, both as regards Valence and Madame Deluc. But why is
      this man absent? Was he murdered by the gang? If so, why are
      there only traces of the assassinated girl? The scene of the two
      outrages will naturally be supposed identical. And where is his
      corpse? The assassins would most probably have disposed of both
      in the same way. But it may be said that this man lives, and is
      deterred from making himself known, through dread of being
      charged with the murder. This consideration might be supposed to
      operate upon him now—at this late period—since it has been given
      in evidence that he was seen with Marie—but it would have had no
      force at the period of the deed. The first impulse of an innocent
      man would have been to announce the outrage, and to aid in
      identifying the ruffians. This policy would have suggested. He
      had been seen with the girl. He had crossed the river with her in
      an open ferry-boat. The denouncing of the assassins would have
      appeared, even to an idiot, the surest and sole means of
      relieving himself from suspicion. We cannot suppose him, on the
      night of the fatal Sunday, both innocent himself and incognizant
      of an outrage committed. Yet only under such circumstances is it
      possible to imagine that he would have failed, if alive, in the
      denouncement of the assassins.

      “And what means are ours, of attaining the truth? We shall find
      these means multiplying and gathering distinctness as we proceed.
      Let us sift to the bottom this affair of the first elopement. Let
      us know the full history of ‘the officer,’ with his present
      circumstances, and his whereabouts at the precise period of the
      murder. Let us carefully compare with each other the various
      communications sent to the evening paper, in which the object was
      to inculpate a gang. This done, let us compare these
      communications, both as regards style and MS., with those sent to
      the morning paper, at a previous period, and insisting so
      vehemently upon the guilt of Mennais. And, all this done, let us
      again compare these various communications with the known MSS. of
      the officer. Let us endeavor to ascertain, by repeated
      questionings of Madame Deluc and her boys, as well as of the
      omnibus driver, Valence, something more of the personal
      appearance and bearing of the ‘man of dark complexion.’ Queries,
      skilfully directed, will not fail to elicit, from some of these
      parties, information on this particular point (or upon
      others)—information which the parties themselves may not even be
      aware of possessing. And let us now trace the boat picked up by
      the bargeman on the morning of Monday the twenty-third of June,
      and which was removed from the barge-office, without the
      cognizance of the officer in attendance, and without the rudder,
      at some period prior to the discovery of the corpse. With a
      proper caution and perseverance we shall infallibly trace this
      boat; for not only can the bargeman who picked it up identify it,
      but the rudder is at hand. The rudder of a sail-boat would not
      have been abandoned, without inquiry, by one altogether at ease
      in heart. And here let me pause to insinuate a question. There
      was no advertisement of the picking up of this boat. It was
      silently taken to the barge-office, and as silently removed. But
      its owner or employer—how happened he, at so early a period as
      Tuesday morning, to be informed, without the agency of
      advertisement, of the locality of the boat taken up on Monday,
      unless we imagine some connexion with the navy—some personal
      permanent connexion leading to cognizance of its minute in
      interests—its petty local news?

      “In speaking of the lonely assassin dragging his burden to the
      shore, I have already suggested the probability of his availing
      himself of a boat. Now we are to understand that Marie Rogêt was
      precipitated from a boat. This would naturally have been the
      case. The corpse could not have been trusted to the shallow
      waters of the shore. The peculiar marks on the back and shoulders
      of the victim tell of the bottom ribs of a boat. That the body
      was found without weight is also corroborative of the idea. If
      thrown from the shore a weight would have been attached. We can
      only account for its absence by supposing the murderer to have
      neglected the precaution of supplying himself with it before
      pushing off. In the act of consigning the corpse to the water, he
      would unquestionably have noticed his oversight; but then no
      remedy would have been at hand. Any risk would have been
      preferred to a return to that accursed shore. Having rid himself
      of his ghastly charge, the murderer would have hastened to the
      city. There, at some obscure wharf, he would have leaped on land.
      But the boat—would he have secured it? He would have been in too
      great haste for such things as securing a boat. Moreover, in
      fastening it to the wharf, he would have felt as if securing
      evidence against himself. His natural thought would have been to
      cast from him, as far as possible, all that had held connection
      with his crime. He would not only have fled from the wharf, but
      he would not have permitted the boat to remain. Assuredly he
      would have cast it adrift. Let us pursue our fancies.—In the
      morning, the wretch is stricken with unutterable horror at
      finding that the boat has been picked up and detained at a
      locality which he is in the daily habit of frequenting —at a
      locality, perhaps, which his duty compels him to frequent. The
      next night, without daring to ask for the rudder, he removes it.
      Now where is that rudderless boat? Let it be one of our first
      purposes to discover. With the first glimpse we obtain of it, the
      dawn of our success shall begin. This boat shall guide us, with a
      rapidity which will surprise even ourselves, to him who employed
      it in the midnight of the fatal Sabbath. Corroboration will rise
      upon corroboration, and the murderer will be traced.”

      [For reasons which we shall not specify, but which to many
      readers will appear obvious, we have taken the liberty of here
      omitting, from the MSS. placed in our hands, such portion as
      details the following up of the apparently slight clew obtained
      by Dupin. We feel it advisable only to state, in brief, that the
      result desired was brought to pass; and that the Prefect
      fulfilled punctually, although with reluctance, the terms of his
      compact with the Chevalier. Mr. Poe’s article concludes with the
      following words.—Eds. (*23)]

      It will be understood that I speak of coincidences and no more.
      What I have said above upon this topic must suffice. In my own
      heart there dwells no faith in præter-nature. That Nature and its
      God are two, no man who thinks, will deny. That the latter,
      creating the former, can, at will, control or modify it, is also
      unquestionable. I say “at will;” for the question is of will, and
      not, as the insanity of logic has assumed, of power. It is not
      that the Deity cannot modify his laws, but that we insult him in
      imagining a possible necessity for modification. In their origin
      these laws were fashioned to embrace all contingencies which
      could lie in the Future. With God all is Now.

      I repeat, then, that I speak of these things only as of
      coincidences. And farther: in what I relate it will be seen that
      between the fate of the unhappy Mary Cecilia Rogers, so far as
      that fate is known, and the fate of one Marie Rogêt up to a
      certain epoch in her history, there has existed a parallel in the
      contemplation of whose wonderful exactitude the reason becomes
      embarrassed. I say all this will be seen. But let it not for a
      moment be supposed that, in proceeding with the sad narrative of
      Marie from the epoch just mentioned, and in tracing to its
      dénouement the mystery which enshrouded her, it is my covert
      design to hint at an extension of the parallel, or even to
      suggest that the measures adopted in Paris for the discovery of
      the assassin of a grisette, or measures founded in any similar
      ratiocination, would produce any similar result.

      For, in respect to the latter branch of the supposition, it
      should be considered that the most trifling variation in the
      facts of the two cases might give rise to the most important
      miscalculations, by diverting thoroughly the two courses of
      events; very much as, in arithmetic, an error which, in its own
      individuality, may be inappreciable, produces, at length, by dint
      of multiplication at all points of the process, a result
      enormously at variance with truth. And, in regard to the former
      branch, we must not fail to hold in view that the very Calculus
      of Probabilities to which I have referred, forbids all idea of
      the extension of the parallel—forbids it with a positiveness
      strong and decided just in proportion as this parallel has
      already been long-drawn and exact. This is one of those anomalous
      propositions which, seemingly appealing to thought altogether
      apart from the mathematical, is yet one which only the
      mathematician can fully entertain. Nothing, for example, is more
      difficult than to convince the merely general reader that the
      fact of sixes having been thrown twice in succession by a player
      at dice, is sufficient cause for betting the largest odds that
      sixes will not be thrown in the third attempt. A suggestion to
      this effect is usually rejected by the intellect at once. It does
      not appear that the two throws which have been completed, and
      which lie now absolutely in the Past, can have influence upon the
      throw which exists only in the Future. The chance for throwing
      sixes seems to be precisely as it was at any ordinary time—that
      is to say, subject only to the influence of the various other
      throws which may be made by the dice. And this is a reflection
      which appears so exceedingly obvious that attempts to controvert
      it are received more frequently with a derisive smile than with
      anything like respectful attention. The error here involved—a
      gross error redolent of mischief—I cannot pretend to expose
      within the limits assigned me at present; and with the
      philosophical it needs no exposure. It may be sufficient here to
      say that it forms one of an infinite series of mistakes which
      arise in the path of Reason through her propensity for seeking
      truth in detail.

FOOTNOTES—Marie Rogêt

      (*1) Upon the original publication of “Marie Roget,” the
      foot-notes now appended were considered unnecessary; but the
      lapse of several years since the tragedy upon which the tale is
      based, renders it expedient to give them, and also to say a few
      words in explanation of the general design. A young girl, Mary
      Cecilia Rogers, was murdered in the vicinity of New York; and,
      although her death occasioned an intense and long-enduring
      excitement, the mystery attending it had remained unsolved at the
      period when the present paper was written and published
      (November, 1842). Herein, under pretence of relating the fate of
      a Parisian grisette, the author has followed in minute detail,
      the essential, while merely paralleling the inessential facts of
      the real murder of Mary Rogers. Thus all argument founded upon
      the fiction is applicable to the truth: and the investigation of
      the truth was the object. The “Mystery of Marie Roget” was
      composed at a distance from the scene of the atrocity, and with
      no other means of investigation than the newspapers afforded.
      Thus much escaped the writer of which he could have availed
      himself had he been upon the spot, and visited the localities. It
      may not be improper to record, nevertheless, that the confessions
      of two persons, (one of them the Madame Deluc of the narrative)
      made, at different periods, long subsequent to the publication,
      confirmed, in full, not only the general conclusion, but
      absolutely all the chief hypothetical details by which that
      conclusion was attained.

      (*2) The nom de plume of Von Hardenburg.

      (*3) Nassau Street.

      (*4) Anderson.

      (*5) The Hudson.

      (*6) Weehawken.

      (*7) Payne.

      (*8) Crommelin.

      (*9) The New York “Mercury.”

      (*10) The New York “Brother Jonathan,” edited by H. Hastings
      Weld, Esq.

      (*11) New York “Journal of Commerce.”

      (*12) Philadelphia “Saturday Evening Post,” edited by C. I.
      Peterson, Esq.

      (*13) Adam

      (*14) See “Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

      (*15) The New York “Commercial Advertiser,” edited by Col. Stone.

      (*16) “A theory based on the qualities of an object, will prevent
      its being unfolded according to its objects; and he who arranges
      topics in reference to their causes, will cease to value them
      according to their results. Thus the jurisprudence of every
      nation will show that, when law becomes a science and a system,
      it ceases to be justice. The errors into which a blind devotion
      to principles of classification has led the common law, will be
      seen by observing how often the legislature has been obliged to
      come forward to restore the equity its scheme had lost.”—Landor.

      (*17) New York “Express”

      (*18) New York “Herald.”

      (*19) New York “Courier and Inquirer.”

      (*20) Mennais was one of the parties originally suspected and
      arrested, but discharged through total lack of evidence.

      (*21) New York “Courier and Inquirer.”

      (*22) New York “Evening Post.”

      (*23) Of the Magazine in which the article was originally
      published.




THE BALLOON-HOAX


[Astounding News by Express, _via_ Norfolk!—The Atlantic crossed in
Three Days!  Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason’s Flying
Machine!—Arrival at Sullivan’s Island, near Charlestown, S.C., of Mr.
Mason, Mr. Robert Holland, Mr. Henson, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, and four
others, in the Steering Balloon, “Victoria,” after a passage of
Seventy-five Hours from Land to Land!  Full Particulars of the Voyage!
    The subjoined _jeu d’esprit_ with the preceding heading in
    magnificent capitals, well interspersed with notes of admiration,
    was originally published, as matter of fact, in the “New York Sun,”
    a daily newspaper, and therein fully subserved the purpose of
    creating indigestible aliment for the _quidnuncs_ during the few
    hours intervening between a couple of the Charleston mails.  The
    rush for the “sole paper which had the news,” was something beyond
    even the prodigious;  and, in fact, if (as some assert) the
    “Victoria” _did_ not absolutely accomplish the voyage recorded, it
    will be difficult to assign a reason why she _should_ not have
    accomplished it.]

      The great problem is at length solved! The air, as well as the
      earth and the ocean, has been subdued by science, and will become
      a common and convenient highway for mankind. _The Atlantic has
      been actually crossed in a Balloon!_ and this too without
      difficulty—without any great apparent danger—with thorough
      control of the machine—and in the inconceivably brief period of
      seventy-five hours from shore to shore! By the energy of an agent
      at Charleston, S.C., we are enabled to be the first to furnish
      the public with a detailed account of this most extraordinary
      voyage, which was performed between Saturday, the 6th instant, at
      11, A.M., and 2, P.M., on Tuesday, the 9th instant, by Sir
      Everard Bringhurst; Mr. Osborne, a nephew of Lord Bentinck’s; Mr.
      Monck Mason and Mr. Robert Holland, the well-known æronauts; Mr.
      Harrison Ainsworth, author of “Jack Sheppard,” &c.; and Mr.
      Henson, the projector of the late unsuccessful flying
      machine—with two seamen from Woolwich—in all, eight persons. The
      particulars furnished below may be relied on as authentic and
      accurate in every respect, as, with a slight exception, they are
      copied _verbatim_ from the joint diaries of Mr. Monck Mason and
      Mr. Harrison Ainsworth, to whose politeness our agent is also
      indebted for much verbal information respecting the balloon
      itself, its construction, and other matters of interest. The only
      alteration in the MS. received, has been made for the purpose of
      throwing the hurried account of our agent, Mr. Forsyth, into a
      connected and intelligible form.

      “THE BALLOON.

      “Two very decided failures, of late—those of Mr. Henson and Sir
      George Cayley—had much weakened the public interest in the
      subject of aerial navigation. Mr. Henson’s scheme (which at first
      was considered very feasible even by men of science,) was founded
      upon the principle of an inclined plane, started from an eminence
      by an extrinsic force, applied and continued by the revolution of
      impinging vanes, in form and number resembling the vanes of a
      windmill. But, in all the experiments made with models at the
      Adelaide Gallery, it was found that the operation of these fans
      not only did not propel the machine, but actually impeded its
      flight. The only propelling force it ever exhibited, was the mere
      _impetus_ acquired from the descent of the inclined plane; and
      this _impetus_ carried the machine farther when the vanes were at
      rest, than when they were in motion—a fact which sufficiently
      demonstrates their inutility; and in the absence of the
      propelling, which was also the _sustaining_ power, the whole
      fabric would necessarily descend. This consideration led Sir
      George Cayley to think only of adapting a propeller to some
      machine having of itself an independent power of support—in a
      word, to a balloon; the idea, however, being novel, or original,
      with Sir George, only so far as regards the mode of its
      application to practice. He exhibited a model of his invention at
      the Polytechnic Institution. The propelling principle, or power,
      was here, also, applied to interrupted surfaces, or vanes, put in
      revolution. These vanes were four in number, but were found
      entirely ineffectual in moving the balloon, or in aiding its
      ascending power. The whole project was thus a complete failure.

      “It was at this juncture that Mr. Monck Mason (whose voyage from
      Dover to Weilburg in the balloon, “Nassau,” occasioned so much
      excitement in 1837,) conceived the idea of employing the
      principle of the Archimedean screw for the purpose of propulsion
      through the air—rightly attributing the failure of Mr. Henson’s
      scheme, and of Sir George Cayley’s, to the interruption of
      surface in the independent vanes. He made the first public
      experiment at Willis’s Rooms, but afterward removed his model to
      the Adelaide Gallery.

      “Like Sir George Cayley’s balloon, his own was an ellipsoid. Its
      length was thirteen feet six inches—height, six feet eight
      inches. It contained about three hundred and twenty cubic feet of
      gas, which, if pure hydrogen, would support twenty-one pounds
      upon its first inflation, before the gas has time to deteriorate
      or escape. The weight of the whole machine and apparatus was
      seventeen pounds—leaving about four pounds to spare. Beneath the
      centre of the balloon, was a frame of light wood, about nine feet
      long, and rigged on to the balloon itself with a network in the
      customary manner. From this framework was suspended a wicker
      basket or car.

      “The screw consists of an axis of hollow brass tube, eighteen
      inches in length, through which, upon a semi-spiral inclined at
      fifteen degrees, pass a series of steel wire radii, two feet
      long, and thus projecting a foot on either side. These radii are
      connected at the outer extremities by two bands of flattened
      wire—the whole in this manner forming the framework of the screw,
      which is completed by a covering of oiled silk cut into gores,
      and tightened so as to present a tolerably uniform surface. At
      each end of its axis this screw is supported by pillars of hollow
      brass tube descending from the hoop. In the lower ends of these
      tubes are holes in which the pivots of the axis revolve. From the
      end of the axis which is next the car, proceeds a shaft of steel,
      connecting the screw with the pinion of a piece of spring
      machinery fixed in the car. By the operation of this spring, the
      screw is made to revolve with great rapidity, communicating a
      progressive motion to the whole. By means of the rudder, the
      machine was readily turned in any direction. The spring was of
      great power, compared with its dimensions, being capable of
      raising forty-five pounds upon a barrel of four inches diameter,
      after the first turn, and gradually increasing as it was wound
      up. It weighed, altogether, eight pounds six ounces. The rudder
      was a light frame of cane covered with silk, shaped somewhat like
      a battle-door, and was about three feet long, and at the widest,
      one foot. Its weight was about two ounces. It could be turned
      _flat_, and directed upwards or downwards, as well as to the
      right or left; and thus enabled the æronaut to transfer the
      resistance of the air which in an inclined position it must
      generate in its passage, to any side upon which he might desire
      to act; thus determining the balloon in the opposite direction.

      “This model (which, through want of time, we have necessarily
      described in an imperfect manner,) was put in action at the
      Adelaide Gallery, where it accomplished a velocity of five miles
      per hour; although, strange to say, it excited very little
      interest in comparison with the previous complex machine of Mr.
      Henson—so resolute is the world to despise anything which carries
      with it an air of simplicity. To accomplish the great desideratum
      of ærial navigation, it was very generally supposed that some
      exceedingly complicated application must be made of some
      unusually profound principle in dynamics.

      “So well satisfied, however, was Mr. Mason of the ultimate
      success of his invention, that he determined to construct
      immediately, if possible, a balloon of sufficient capacity to
      test the question by a voyage of some extent—the original design
      being to cross the British Channel, as before, in the Nassau
      balloon. To carry out his views, he solicited and obtained the
      patronage of Sir Everard Bringhurst and Mr. Osborne, two
      gentlemen well known for scientific acquirement, and especially
      for the interest they have exhibited in the progress of
      ærostation. The project, at the desire of Mr. Osborne, was kept a
      profound secret from the public—the only persons entrusted with
      the design being those actually engaged in the construction of
      the machine, which was built (under the superintendence of Mr.
      Mason, Mr. Holland, Sir Everard Bringhurst, and Mr. Osborne,) at
      the seat of the latter gentleman near Penstruthal, in Wales. Mr.
      Henson, accompanied by his friend Mr. Ainsworth, was admitted to
      a private view of the balloon, on Saturday last—when the two
      gentlemen made final arrangements to be included in the
      adventure. We are not informed for what reason the two seamen
      were also included in the party—but, in the course of a day or
      two, we shall put our readers in possession of the minutest
      particulars respecting this extraordinary voyage.

      “The balloon is composed of silk, varnished with the liquid gum
      caoutchouc. It is of vast dimensions, containing more than 40,000
      cubic feet of gas; but as coal gas was employed in place of the
      more expensive and inconvenient hydrogen, the supporting power of
      the machine, when fully inflated, and immediately after
      inflation, is not more than about 2500 pounds. The coal gas is
      not only much less costly, but is easily procured and managed.

      “For its introduction into common use for purposes of
      aerostation, we are indebted to Mr. Charles Green. Up to his
      discovery, the process of inflation was not only exceedingly
      expensive, but uncertain. Two, and even three days, have
      frequently been wasted in futile attempts to procure a
      sufficiency of hydrogen to fill a balloon, from which it had
      great tendency to escape, owing to its extreme subtlety, and its
      affinity for the surrounding atmosphere. In a balloon
      sufficiently perfect to retain its contents of coal-gas
      unaltered, in quantity or amount, for six months, an equal
      quantity of hydrogen could not be maintained in equal purity for
      six weeks.

      “The supporting power being estimated at 2500 pounds, and the
      united weights of the party amounting only to about 1200, there
      was left a surplus of 1300, of which again 1200 was exhausted by
      ballast, arranged in bags of different sizes, with their
      respective weights marked upon them—by cordage, barometers,
      telescopes, barrels containing provision for a fortnight,
      water-casks, cloaks, carpet-bags, and various other indispensable
      matters, including a coffee-warmer, contrived for warming coffee
      by means of slack-lime, so as to dispense altogether with fire,
      if it should be judged prudent to do so. All these articles, with
      the exception of the ballast, and a few trifles, were suspended
      from the hoop overhead. The car is much smaller and lighter, in
      proportion, than the one appended to the model. It is formed of a
      light wicker, and is wonderfully strong, for so frail looking a
      machine. Its rim is about four feet deep. The rudder is also very
      much larger, in proportion, than that of the model; and the screw
      is considerably smaller. The balloon is furnished besides with a
      grapnel, and a guide-rope; which latter is of the most
      indispensable importance. A few words, in explanation, will here
      be necessary for such of our readers as are not conversant with
      the details of aerostation.

      “As soon as the balloon quits the earth, it is subjected to the
      influence of many circumstances tending to create a difference in
      its weight; augmenting or diminishing its ascending power. For
      example, there may be a deposition of dew upon the silk, to the
      extent, even, of several hundred pounds; ballast has then to be
      thrown out, or the machine may descend. This ballast being
      discarded, and a clear sunshine evaporating the dew, and at the
      same time expanding the gas in the silk, the whole will again
      rapidly ascend. To check this ascent, the only recourse is, (or
      rather _was_, until Mr. Green’s invention of the guide-rope,) the
      permission of the escape of gas from the valve; but, in the loss
      of gas, is a proportionate general loss of ascending power; so
      that, in a comparatively brief period, the best-constructed
      balloon must necessarily exhaust all its resources, and come to
      the earth. This was the great obstacle to voyages of length.

      “The guide-rope remedies the difficulty in the simplest manner
      conceivable. It is merely a very long rope which is suffered to
      trail from the car, and the effect of which is to prevent the
      balloon from changing its level in any material degree. If, for
      example, there should be a deposition of moisture upon the silk,
      and the machine begins to descend in consequence, there will be
      no necessity for discharging ballast to remedy the increase of
      weight, for it is remedied, or counteracted, in an exactly just
      proportion, by the deposit on the ground of just so much of the
      end of the rope as is necessary. If, on the other hand, any
      circumstances should cause undue levity, and consequent ascent,
      this levity is immediately counteracted by the additional weight
      of rope upraised from the earth. Thus, the balloon can neither
      ascend or descend, except within very narrow limits, and its
      resources, either in gas or ballast, remain comparatively
      unimpaired. When passing over an expanse of water, it becomes
      necessary to employ small kegs of copper or wood, filled with
      liquid ballast of a lighter nature than water. These float, and
      serve all the purposes of a mere rope on land. Another most
      important office of the guide-rope, is to point out the
      _direction_ of the balloon. The rope _drags_, either on land or
      sea, while the balloon is free; the latter, consequently, is
      always in advance, when any progress whatever is made: a
      comparison, therefore, by means of the compass, of the relative
      positions of the two objects, will always indicate the _course_.
      In the same way, the angle formed by the rope with the vertical
      axis of the machine, indicates the _velocity_. When there is _no_
      angle—in other words, when the rope hangs perpendicularly, the
      whole apparatus is stationary; but the larger the angle, that is
      to say, the farther the balloon precedes the end of the rope, the
      greater the velocity; and the converse.

      “As the original design was to cross the British Channel, and
      alight as near Paris as possible, the voyagers had taken the
      precaution to prepare themselves with passports directed to all
      parts of the Continent, specifying the nature of the expedition,
      as in the case of the Nassau voyage, and entitling the
      adventurers to exemption from the usual formalities of office:
      unexpected events, however, rendered these passports superfluous.

      “The inflation was commenced very quietly at daybreak, on
      Saturday morning, the 6th instant, in the Court-Yard of Weal-Vor
      House, Mr. Osborne’s seat, about a mile from Penstruthal, in
      North Wales; and at 7 minutes past 11, every thing being ready
      for departure, the balloon was set free, rising gently but
      steadily, in a direction nearly South; no use being made, for the
      first half hour, of either the screw or the rudder. We proceed
      now with the journal, as transcribed by Mr. Forsyth from the
      joint MSS. of Mr. Monck Mason, and Mr. Ainsworth. The body of the
      journal, as given, is in the hand-writing of Mr. Mason, and a P.
      S. is appended, each day, by Mr. Ainsworth, who has in
      preparation, and will shortly give the public a more minute, and
      no doubt, a thrillingly interesting account of the voyage.

      “THE JOURNAL.

      “_Saturday, April the 6th_.—Every preparation likely to embarrass
      us, having been made over night, we commenced the inflation this
      morning at daybreak; but owing to a thick fog, which encumbered
      the folds of the silk and rendered it unmanageable, we did not
      get through before nearly eleven o’clock. Cut loose, then, in
      high spirits, and rose gently but steadily, with a light breeze
      at North, which bore us in the direction of the British Channel.
      Found the ascending force greater than we had expected; and as we
      arose higher and so got clear of the cliffs, and more in the
      sun’s rays, our ascent became very rapid. I did not wish,
      however, to lose gas at so early a period of the adventure, and
      so concluded to ascend for the present. We soon ran out our
      guide-rope; but even when we had raised it clear of the earth, we
      still went up very rapidly. The balloon was unusually steady, and
      looked beautifully. In about ten minutes after starting, the
      barometer indicated an altitude of 15,000 feet. The weather was
      remarkably fine, and the view of the subjacent country—a most
      romantic one when seen from any point,—was now especially
      sublime. The numerous deep gorges presented the appearance of
      lakes, on account of the dense vapors with which they were
      filled, and the pinnacles and crags to the South East, piled in
      inextricable confusion, resembling nothing so much as the giant
      cities of eastern fable. We were rapidly approaching the
      mountains in the South; but our elevation was more than
      sufficient to enable us to pass them in safety. In a few minutes
      we soared over them in fine style; and Mr. Ainsworth, with the
      seamen, was surprised at their apparent want of altitude when
      viewed from the car, the tendency of great elevation in a balloon
      being to reduce inequalities of the surface below, to nearly a
      dead level. At half-past eleven still proceeding nearly South, we
      obtained our first view of the Bristol Channel; and, in fifteen
      minutes afterward, the line of breakers on the coast appeared
      immediately beneath us, and we were fairly out at sea. We now
      resolved to let off enough gas to bring our guide-rope, with the
      buoys affixed, into the water. This was immediately done, and we
      commenced a gradual descent. In about twenty minutes our first
      buoy dipped, and at the touch of the second soon afterwards, we
      remained stationary as to elevation. We were all now anxious to
      test the efficiency of the rudder and screw, and we put them both
      into requisition forthwith, for the purpose of altering our
      direction more to the eastward, and in a line for Paris. By means
      of the rudder we instantly effected the necessary change of
      direction, and our course was brought nearly at right angles to
      that of the wind; when we set in motion the spring of the screw,
      and were rejoiced to find it propel us readily as desired. Upon
      this we gave nine hearty cheers, and dropped in the sea a bottle,
      enclosing a slip of parchment with a brief account of the
      principle of the invention. Hardly, however, had we done with our
      rejoicings, when an unforeseen accident occurred which
      discouraged us in no little degree. The steel rod connecting the
      spring with the propeller was suddenly jerked out of place, at
      the car end, (by a swaying of the car through some movement of
      one of the two seamen we had taken up,) and in an instant hung
      dangling out of reach, from the pivot of the axis of the screw.
      While we were endeavoring to regain it, our attention being
      completely absorbed, we became involved in a strong current of
      wind from the East, which bore us, with rapidly increasing force,
      towards the Atlantic. We soon found ourselves driving out to sea
      at the rate of not less, certainly, than fifty or sixty miles an
      hour, so that we came up with Cape Clear, at some forty miles to
      our North, before we had secured the rod, and had time to think
      what we were about. It was now that Mr. Ainsworth made an
      extraordinary, but to my fancy, a by no means unreasonable or
      chimerical proposition, in which he was instantly seconded by Mr.
      Holland—viz.: that we should take advantage of the strong gale
      which bore us on, and in place of beating back to Paris, make an
      attempt to reach the coast of North America. After slight
      reflection I gave a willing assent to this bold proposition,
      which (strange to say) met with objection from the two seamen
      only. As the stronger party, however, we overruled their fears,
      and kept resolutely upon our course. We steered due West; but as
      the trailing of the buoys materially impeded our progress, and we
      had the balloon abundantly at command, either for ascent or
      descent, we first threw out fifty pounds of ballast, and then
      wound up (by means of a windlass) so much of the rope as brought
      it quite clear of the sea. We perceived the effect of this
      manoeuvre immediately, in a vastly increased rate of progress;
      and, as the gale freshened, we flew with a velocity nearly
      inconceivable; the guide-rope flying out behind the car, like a
      streamer from a vessel. It is needless to say that a very short
      time sufficed us to lose sight of the coast. We passed over
      innumerable vessels of all kinds, a few of which were endeavoring
      to beat up, but the most of them lying to. We occasioned the
      greatest excitement on board all—an excitement greatly relished
      by ourselves, and especially by our two men, who, now under the
      influence of a dram of Geneva, seemed resolved to give all
      scruple, or fear, to the wind. Many of the vessels fired signal
      guns; and in all we were saluted with loud cheers (which we heard
      with surprising distinctness) and the waving of caps and
      handkerchiefs. We kept on in this manner throughout the day, with
      no material incident, and, as the shades of night closed around
      us, we made a rough estimate of the distance traversed. It could
      not have been less than five hundred miles, and was probably much
      more. The propeller was kept in constant operation, and, no
      doubt, aided our progress materially. As the sun went down, the
      gale freshened into an absolute hurricane, and the ocean beneath
      was clearly visible on account of its phosphorescence. The wind
      was from the East all night, and gave us the brightest omen of
      success. We suffered no little from cold, and the dampness of the
      atmosphere was most unpleasant; but the ample space in the car
      enabled us to lie down, and by means of cloaks and a few
      blankets, we did sufficiently well.

      “P.S. (by Mr. Ainsworth.) The last nine hours have been
      unquestionably the most exciting of my life. I can conceive
      nothing more sublimating than the strange peril and novelty of an
      adventure such as this. May God grant that we succeed! I ask not
      success for mere safety to my insignificant person, but for the
      sake of human knowledge and—for the vastness of the triumph. And
      yet the feat is only so evidently feasible that the sole wonder
      is why men have scrupled to attempt it before. One single gale
      such as now befriends us—let such a tempest whirl forward a
      balloon for four or five days (these gales often last longer) and
      the voyager will be easily borne, in that period, from coast to
      coast. In view of such a gale the broad Atlantic becomes a mere
      lake. I am more struck, just now, with the supreme silence which
      reigns in the sea beneath us, notwithstanding its agitation, than
      with any other phenomenon presenting itself. The waters give up
      no voice to the heavens. The immense flaming ocean writhes and is
      tortured uncomplainingly. The mountainous surges suggest the idea
      of innumerable dumb gigantic fiends struggling in impotent agony.
      In a night such as is this to me, a man _lives_—lives a whole
      century of ordinary life—nor would I forego this rapturous
      delight for that of a whole century of ordinary existence.

      “_Sunday, the seventh_. [Mr. Mason’s MS.] This morning the gale,
      by 10, had subsided to an eight or nine—knot breeze, (for a
      vessel at sea,) and bears us, perhaps, thirty miles per hour, or
      more. It has veered, however, very considerably to the north; and
      now, at sundown, we are holding our course due west, principally
      by the screw and rudder, which answer their purposes to
      admiration. I regard the project as thoroughly successful, and
      the easy navigation of the air in any direction (not exactly in
      the teeth of a gale) as no longer problematical. We could not
      have made head against the strong wind of yesterday; but, by
      ascending, we might have got out of its influence, if requisite.
      Against a pretty stiff breeze, I feel convinced, we can make our
      way with the propeller. At noon, to-day, ascended to an elevation
      of nearly 25,000 feet, by discharging ballast. Did this to search
      for a more direct current, but found none so favorable as the one
      we are now in. We have an abundance of gas to take us across this
      small pond, even should the voyage last three weeks. I have not
      the slightest fear for the result. The difficulty has been
      strangely exaggerated and misapprehended. I can choose my
      current, and should I find _all_ currents against me, I can make
      very tolerable headway with the propeller. We have had no
      incidents worth recording. The night promises fair.

      P.S. [By Mr. Ainsworth.] I have little to record, except the fact
      (to me quite a surprising one) that, at an elevation equal to
      that of Cotopaxi, I experienced neither very intense cold, nor
      headache, nor difficulty of breathing; neither, I find, did Mr.
      Mason, nor Mr. Holland, nor Sir Everard. Mr. Osborne complained
      of constriction of the chest—but this soon wore off. We have
      flown at a great rate during the day, and we must be more than
      half way across the Atlantic. We have passed over some twenty or
      thirty vessels of various kinds, and all seem to be delightfully
      astonished. Crossing the ocean in a balloon is not so difficult a
      feat after all. _Omne ignotum pro magnifico. Mem:_ at 25,000 feet
      elevation the sky appears nearly black, and the stars are
      distinctly visible; while the sea does not seem convex (as one
      might suppose) but absolutely and most unequivocally
      _concave_.(*1)

      “_Monday, the 8th_. [Mr. Mason’s MS.] This morning we had again
      some little trouble with the rod of the propeller, which must be
      entirely remodelled, for fear of serious accident—I mean the
      steel rod—not the vanes. The latter could not be improved. The
      wind has been blowing steadily and strongly from the north-east
      all day and so far fortune seems bent upon favoring us. Just
      before day, we were all somewhat alarmed at some odd noises and
      concussions in the balloon, accompanied with the apparent rapid
      subsidence of the whole machine. These phenomena were occasioned
      by the expansion of the gas, through increase of heat in the
      atmosphere, and the consequent disruption of the minute particles
      of ice with which the network had become encrusted during the
      night. Threw down several bottles to the vessels below. Saw one
      of them picked up by a large ship—seemingly one of the New York
      line packets. Endeavored to make out her name, but could not be
      sure of it. Mr. Osborne’s telescope made it out something like
      “Atalanta.” It is now 12, at night, and we are still going nearly
      west, at a rapid pace. The sea is peculiarly phosphorescent.

      “P.S. [By Mr. Ainsworth.] It is now 2, A.M., and nearly calm, as
      well as I can judge—but it is very difficult to determine this
      point, since we move _with_ the air so completely. I have not
      slept since quitting Wheal-Vor, but can stand it no longer, and
      must take a nap. We cannot be far from the American coast.

      “_Tuesday, the_ 9_th_. [Mr. Ainsworth’s MS.] _One, P.M. We are in
      full view of the low coast of South Carolina_. The great problem
      is accomplished. We have crossed the Atlantic—fairly and _easily_
      crossed it in a balloon! God be praised! Who shall say that
      anything is impossible hereafter?”

      The Journal here ceases. Some particulars of the descent were
      communicated, however, by Mr. Ainsworth to Mr. Forsyth. It was
      nearly dead calm when the voyagers first came in view of the
      coast, which was immediately recognized by both the seamen, and
      by Mr. Osborne. The latter gentleman having acquaintances at Fort
      Moultrie, it was immediately resolved to descend in its vicinity.
      The balloon was brought over the beach (the tide being out and
      the sand hard, smooth, and admirably adapted for a descent,) and
      the grapnel let go, which took firm hold at once. The inhabitants
      of the island, and of the fort, thronged out, of course, to see
      the balloon; but it was with the greatest difficulty that any one
      could be made to credit the actual voyage—_the crossing of the
      Atlantic_. The grapnel caught at 2, P.M., precisely; and thus the
      whole voyage was completed in seventy-five hours; or rather less,
      counting from shore to shore. No serious accident occurred. No
      real danger was at any time apprehended. The balloon was
      exhausted and secured without trouble; and when the MS. from
      which this narrative is compiled was despatched from Charleston,
      the party were still at Fort Moultrie. Their farther intentions
      were not ascertained; but we can safely promise our readers some
      additional information either on Monday or in the course of the
      next day, at farthest.

      This is unquestionably the most stupendous, the most interesting,
      and the most important undertaking, ever accomplished or even
      attempted by man. What magnificent events may ensue, it would be
      useless now to think of determining.

      (*1) _Note_.—Mr. Ainsworth has not attempted to account for this
      phenomenon, which, however, is quite susceptible of explanation.
      A line dropped from an elevation of 25,000 feet, perpendicularly
      to the surface of the earth (or sea), would form the
      perpendicular of a right-angled triangle, of which the base would
      extend from the right angle to the horizon, and the hypothenuse
      from the horizon to the balloon. But the 25,000 feet of altitude
      is little or nothing, in comparison with the extent of the
      prospect. In other words, the base and hypothenuse of the
      supposed triangle would be so long when compared with the
      perpendicular, that the two former may be regarded as nearly
      parallel. In this manner the horizon of the æronaut would appear
      to be _on a level_ with the car. But, as the point immediately
      beneath him seems, and is, at a great distance below him, it
      seems, of course, also, at a great distance below the horizon.
      Hence the impression of _concavity_; and this impression must
      remain, until the elevation shall bear so great a proportion to
      the extent of prospect, that the apparent parallelism of the base
      and hypothenuse disappears—when the earth’s real convexity must
      become apparent.




MS. FOUND IN A BOTTLE


Qui n’a plus qu’un moment a vivre
N’a plus rien a dissimuler.

—Quinault—Atys.

      Of my country and of my family I have little to say. Ill usage
      and length of years have driven me from the one, and estranged me
      from the other. Hereditary wealth afforded me an education of no
      common order, and a contemplative turn of mind enabled me to
      methodize the stores which early study very diligently garnered
      up.—Beyond all things, the study of the German moralists gave me
      great delight; not from any ill-advised admiration of their
      eloquent madness, but from the ease with which my habits of rigid
      thought enabled me to detect their falsities. I have often been
      reproached with the aridity of my genius; a deficiency of
      imagination has been imputed to me as a crime; and the Pyrrhonism
      of my opinions has at all times rendered me notorious. Indeed, a
      strong relish for physical philosophy has, I fear, tinctured my
      mind with a very common error of this age—I mean the habit of
      referring occurrences, even the least susceptible of such
      reference, to the principles of that science. Upon the whole, no
      person could be less liable than myself to be led away from the
      severe precincts of truth by the ignes fatui of superstition. I
      have thought proper to premise thus much, lest the incredible
      tale I have to tell should be considered rather the raving of a
      crude imagination, than the positive experience of a mind to
      which the reveries of fancy have been a dead letter and a
      nullity.

      After many years spent in foreign travel, I sailed in the year
      18— , from the port of Batavia, in the rich and populous island
      of Java, on a voyage to the Archipelago of the Sunda islands. I
      went as passenger—having no other inducement than a kind of
      nervous restlessness which haunted me as a fiend.

      Our vessel was a beautiful ship of about four hundred tons,
      copper-fastened, and built at Bombay of Malabar teak. She was
      freighted with cotton-wool and oil, from the Lachadive islands.
      We had also on board coir, jaggeree, ghee, cocoa-nuts, and a few
      cases of opium. The stowage was clumsily done, and the vessel
      consequently crank.

      We got under way with a mere breath of wind, and for many days
      stood along the eastern coast of Java, without any other incident
      to beguile the monotony of our course than the occasional meeting
      with some of the small grabs of the Archipelago to which we were
      bound.

      One evening, leaning over the taffrail, I observed a very
      singular, isolated cloud, to the N.W. It was remarkable, as well
      for its color, as from its being the first we had seen since our
      departure from Batavia. I watched it attentively until sunset,
      when it spread all at once to the eastward and westward, girting
      in the horizon with a narrow strip of vapor, and looking like a
      long line of low beach. My notice was soon afterwards attracted
      by the dusky-red appearance of the moon, and the peculiar
      character of the sea. The latter was undergoing a rapid change,
      and the water seemed more than usually transparent. Although I
      could distinctly see the bottom, yet, heaving the lead, I found
      the ship in fifteen fathoms. The air now became intolerably hot,
      and was loaded with spiral exhalations similar to those arising
      from heat iron. As night came on, every breath of wind died away,
      an more entire calm it is impossible to conceive. The flame of a
      candle burned upon the poop without the least perceptible motion,
      and a long hair, held between the finger and thumb, hung without
      the possibility of detecting a vibration. However, as the captain
      said he could perceive no indication of danger, and as we were
      drifting in bodily to shore, he ordered the sails to be furled,
      and the anchor let go. No watch was set, and the crew, consisting
      principally of Malays, stretched themselves deliberately upon
      deck. I went below—not without a full presentiment of evil.
      Indeed, every appearance warranted me in apprehending a Simoom. I
      told the captain my fears; but he paid no attention to what I
      said, and left me without deigning to give a reply. My
      uneasiness, however, prevented me from sleeping, and about
      midnight I went upon deck. As I placed my foot upon the upper
      step of the companion-ladder, I was startled by a loud, humming
      noise, like that occasioned by the rapid revolution of a
      mill-wheel, and before I could ascertain its meaning, I found the
      ship quivering to its centre. In the next instant, a wilderness
      of foam hurled us upon our beam-ends, and, rushing over us fore
      and aft, swept the entire decks from stem to stern.

      The extreme fury of the blast proved, in a great measure, the
      salvation of the ship. Although completely water-logged, yet, as
      her masts had gone by the board, she rose, after a minute,
      heavily from the sea, and, staggering awhile beneath the immense
      pressure of the tempest, finally righted.

      By what miracle I escaped destruction, it is impossible to say.
      Stunned by the shock of the water, I found myself, upon recovery,
      jammed in between the stern-post and rudder. With great
      difficulty I gained my feet, and looking dizzily around, was, at
      first, struck with the idea of our being among breakers; so
      terrific, beyond the wildest imagination, was the whirlpool of
      mountainous and foaming ocean within which we were engulfed.
      After a while, I heard the voice of an old Swede, who had shipped
      with us at the moment of our leaving port. I hallooed to him with
      all my strength, and presently he came reeling aft. We soon
      discovered that we were the sole survivors of the accident. All
      on deck, with the exception of ourselves, had been swept
      overboard;—the captain and mates must have perished as they
      slept, for the cabins were deluged with water. Without
      assistance, we could expect to do little for the security of the
      ship, and our exertions were at first paralyzed by the momentary
      expectation of going down. Our cable had, of course, parted like
      pack-thread, at the first breath of the hurricane, or we should
      have been instantaneously overwhelmed. We scudded with frightful
      velocity before the sea, and the water made clear breaches over
      us. The frame-work of our stern was shattered excessively, and,
      in almost every respect, we had received considerable injury; but
      to our extreme joy we found the pumps unchoked, and that we had
      made no great shifting of our ballast. The main fury of the blast
      had already blown over, and we apprehended little danger from the
      violence of the wind; but we looked forward to its total
      cessation with dismay; well believing, that, in our shattered
      condition, we should inevitably perish in the tremendous swell
      which would ensue. But this very just apprehension seemed by no
      means likely to be soon verified. For five entire days and
      nights—during which our only subsistence was a small quantity of
      jaggeree, procured with great difficulty from the forecastle—the
      hulk flew at a rate defying computation, before rapidly
      succeeding flaws of wind, which, without equalling the first
      violence of the Simoom, were still more terrific than any tempest
      I had before encountered. Our course for the first four days was,
      with trifling variations, S.E. and by S.; and we must have run
      down the coast of New Holland. On the fifth day the cold became
      extreme, although the wind had hauled round a point more to the
      northward. The sun arose with a sickly yellow lustre, and
      clambered a very few degrees above the horizon—emitting no
      decisive light. There were no clouds apparent, yet the wind was
      upon the increase, and blew with a fitful and unsteady fury.
      About noon, as nearly as we could guess, our attention was again
      arrested by the appearance of the sun. It gave out no light,
      properly so called, but a dull and sullen glow without
      reflection, as if all its rays were polarized. Just before
      sinking within the turgid sea, its central fires suddenly went
      out, as if hurriedly extinguished by some unaccountable power. It
      was a dim, sliver-like rim, alone, as it rushed down the
      unfathomable ocean.

      We waited in vain for the arrival of the sixth day—that day to me
      has not yet arrived—to the Swede, never did arrive. Thenceforward
      we were enshrouded in patchy darkness, so that we could not have
      seen an object at twenty paces from the ship. Eternal night
      continued to envelop us, all unrelieved by the phosphoric
      sea-brilliancy to which we had been accustomed in the tropics. We
      observed too, that, although the tempest continued to rage with
      unabated violence, there was no longer to be discovered the usual
      appearance of surf, or foam, which had hitherto attended us. All
      around were horror, and thick gloom, and a black sweltering
      desert of ebony. Superstitious terror crept by degrees into the
      spirit of the old Swede, and my own soul was wrapped up in silent
      wonder. We neglected all care of the ship, as worse than useless,
      and securing ourselves, as well as possible, to the stump of the
      mizen-mast, looked out bitterly into the world of ocean. We had
      no means of calculating time, nor could we form any guess of our
      situation. We were, however, well aware of having made farther to
      the southward than any previous navigators, and felt great
      amazement at not meeting with the usual impediments of ice. In
      the meantime every moment threatened to be our last—every
      mountainous billow hurried to overwhelm us. The swell surpassed
      anything I had imagined possible, and that we were not instantly
      buried is a miracle. My companion spoke of the lightness of our
      cargo, and reminded me of the excellent qualities of our ship;
      but I could not help feeling the utter hopelessness of hope
      itself, and prepared myself gloomily for that death which I
      thought nothing could defer beyond an hour, as, with every knot
      of way the ship made, the swelling of the black stupendous seas
      became more dismally appalling. At times we gasped for breath at
      an elevation beyond the albatross—at times became dizzy with the
      velocity of our descent into some watery hell, where the air grew
      stagnant, and no sound disturbed the slumbers of the kraken.

      We were at the bottom of one of these abysses, when a quick
      scream from my companion broke fearfully upon the night. “See!
      see!” cried he, shrieking in my ears, “Almighty God! see! see!”
      As he spoke, I became aware of a dull, sullen glare of red light
      which streamed down the sides of the vast chasm where we lay, and
      threw a fitful brilliancy upon our deck. Casting my eyes upwards,
      I beheld a spectacle which froze the current of my blood. At a
      terrific height directly above us, and upon the very verge of the
      precipitous descent, hovered a gigantic ship of, perhaps, four
      thousand tons. Although upreared upon the summit of a wave more
      than a hundred times her own altitude, her apparent size exceeded
      that of any ship of the line or East Indiaman in existence. Her
      huge hull was of a deep dingy black, unrelieved by any of the
      customary carvings of a ship. A single row of brass cannon
      protruded from her open ports, and dashed from their polished
      surfaces the fires of innumerable battle-lanterns, which swung to
      and fro about her rigging. But what mainly inspired us with
      horror and astonishment, was that she bore up under a press of
      sail in the very teeth of that supernatural sea, and of that
      ungovernable hurricane. When we first discovered her, her bows
      were alone to be seen, as she rose slowly from the dim and
      horrible gulf beyond her. For a moment of intense terror she
      paused upon the giddy pinnacle, as if in contemplation of her own
      sublimity, then trembled and tottered, and—came down.

      At this instant, I know not what sudden self-possession came over
      my spirit. Staggering as far aft as I could, I awaited fearlessly
      the ruin that was to overwhelm. Our own vessel was at length
      ceasing from her struggles, and sinking with her head to the sea.
      The shock of the descending mass struck her, consequently, in
      that portion of her frame which was already under water, and the
      inevitable result was to hurl me, with irresistible violence,
      upon the rigging of the stranger.

      As I fell, the ship hove in stays, and went about; and to the
      confusion ensuing I attributed my escape from the notice of the
      crew. With little difficulty I made my way unperceived to the
      main hatchway, which was partially open, and soon found an
      opportunity of secreting myself in the hold. Why I did so I can
      hardly tell. An indefinite sense of awe, which at first sight of
      the navigators of the ship had taken hold of my mind, was perhaps
      the principle of my concealment. I was unwilling to trust myself
      with a race of people who had offered, to the cursory glance I
      had taken, so many points of vague novelty, doubt, and
      apprehension. I therefore thought proper to contrive a
      hiding-place in the hold. This I did by removing a small portion
      of the shifting-boards, in such a manner as to afford me a
      convenient retreat between the huge timbers of the ship.

      I had scarcely completed my work, when a footstep in the hold
      forced me to make use of it. A man passed by my place of
      concealment with a feeble and unsteady gait. I could not see his
      face, but had an opportunity of observing his general appearance.
      There was about it an evidence of great age and infirmity. His
      knees tottered beneath a load of years, and his entire frame
      quivered under the burthen. He muttered to himself, in a low
      broken tone, some words of a language which I could not
      understand, and groped in a corner among a pile of
      singular-looking instruments, and decayed charts of navigation.
      His manner was a wild mixture of the peevishness of second
      childhood, and the solemn dignity of a God. He at length went on
      deck, and I saw him no more.


      A feeling, for which I have no name, has taken possession of my
      soul —a sensation which will admit of no analysis, to which the
      lessons of bygone times are inadequate, and for which I fear
      futurity itself will offer me no key. To a mind constituted like
      my own, the latter consideration is an evil. I shall never—I know
      that I shall never—be satisfied with regard to the nature of my
      conceptions. Yet it is not wonderful that these conceptions are
      indefinite, since they have their origin in sources so utterly
      novel. A new sense—a new entity is added to my soul.


      It is long since I first trod the deck of this terrible ship, and
      the rays of my destiny are, I think, gathering to a focus.
      Incomprehensible men! Wrapped up in meditations of a kind which I
      cannot divine, they pass me by unnoticed. Concealment is utter
      folly on my part, for the people will not see. It was but just
      now that I passed directly before the eyes of the mate; it was no
      long while ago that I ventured into the captain’s own private
      cabin, and took thence the materials with which I write, and have
      written. I shall from time to time continue this journal. It is
      true that I may not find an opportunity of transmitting it to the
      world, but I will not fall to make the endeavour. At the last
      moment I will enclose the MS. in a bottle, and cast it within the
      sea.


      An incident has occurred which has given me new room for
      meditation. Are such things the operation of ungoverned chance? I
      had ventured upon deck and thrown myself down, without attracting
      any notice, among a pile of ratlin-stuff and old sails in the
      bottom of the yawl. While musing upon the singularity of my fate,
      I unwittingly daubed with a tar-brush the edges of a
      neatly-folded studding-sail which lay near me on a barrel. The
      studding-sail is now bent upon the ship, and the thoughtless
      touches of the brush are spread out into the word DISCOVERY.

      I have made many observations lately upon the structure of the
      vessel. Although well armed, she is not, I think, a ship of war.
      Her rigging, build, and general equipment, all negative a
      supposition of this kind. What she is not, I can easily
      perceive—what she is I fear it is impossible to say. I know not
      how it is, but in scrutinizing her strange model and singular
      cast of spars, her huge size and overgrown suits of canvas, her
      severely simple bow and antiquated stern, there will occasionally
      flash across my mind a sensation of familiar things, and there is
      always mixed up with such indistinct shadows of recollection, an
      unaccountable memory of old foreign chronicles and ages long ago.


      I have been looking at the timbers of the ship. She is built of a
      material to which I am a stranger. There is a peculiar character
      about the wood which strikes me as rendering it unfit for the
      purpose to which it has been applied. I mean its extreme
      porousness, considered independently by the worm-eaten condition
      which is a consequence of navigation in these seas, and apart
      from the rottenness attendant upon age. It will appear perhaps an
      observation somewhat over-curious, but this wood would have every
      characteristic of Spanish oak, if Spanish oak were distended by
      any unnatural means.

      In reading the above sentence a curious apothegm of an old
      weather-beaten Dutch navigator comes full upon my recollection.
      “It is as sure,” he was wont to say, when any doubt was
      entertained of his veracity, “as sure as there is a sea where the
      ship itself will grow in bulk like the living body of the
      seaman.”


      About an hour ago, I made bold to thrust myself among a group of
      the crew. They paid me no manner of attention, and, although I
      stood in the very midst of them all, seemed utterly unconscious
      of my presence. Like the one I had at first seen in the hold,
      they all bore about them the marks of a hoary old age. Their
      knees trembled with infirmity; their shoulders were bent double
      with decrepitude; their shrivelled skins rattled in the wind;
      their voices were low, tremulous and broken; their eyes glistened
      with the rheum of years; and their gray hairs streamed terribly
      in the tempest. Around them, on every part of the deck, lay
      scattered mathematical instruments of the most quaint and
      obsolete construction.


      I mentioned some time ago the bending of a studding-sail. From
      that period the ship, being thrown dead off the wind, has
      continued her terrific course due south, with every rag of canvas
      packed upon her, from her trucks to her lower studding-sail
      booms, and rolling every moment her top-gallant yard-arms into
      the most appalling hell of water which it can enter into the mind
      of a man to imagine. I have just left the deck, where I find it
      impossible to maintain a footing, although the crew seem to
      experience little inconvenience. It appears to me a miracle of
      miracles that our enormous bulk is not swallowed up at once and
      forever. We are surely doomed to hover continually upon the brink
      of eternity, without taking a final plunge into the abyss. From
      billows a thousand times more stupendous than any I have ever
      seen, we glide away with the facility of the arrowy sea-gull; and
      the colossal waters rear their heads above us like demons of the
      deep, but like demons confined to simple threats and forbidden to
      destroy. I am led to attribute these frequent escapes to the only
      natural cause which can account for such effect. I must suppose
      the ship to be within the influence of some strong current, or
      impetuous under-tow.


      I have seen the captain face to face, and in his own cabin—but,
      as I expected, he paid me no attention. Although in his
      appearance there is, to a casual observer, nothing which might
      bespeak him more or less than man, still, a feeling of
      irrepressible reverence and awe mingled with the sensation of
      wonder with which I regarded him. In stature he is nearly my own
      height; that is, about five feet eight inches. He is of a
      well-knit and compact frame of body, neither robust nor
      remarkably otherwise. But it is the singularity of the expression
      which reigns upon the face—it is the intense, the wonderful, the
      thrilling evidence of old age, so utter, so extreme, which
      excites within my spirit a sense—a sentiment ineffable. His
      forehead, although little wrinkled, seems to bear upon it the
      stamp of a myriad of years. His gray hairs are records of the
      past, and his grayer eyes are sibyls of the future. The cabin
      floor was thickly strewn with strange, iron-clasped folios, and
      mouldering instruments of science, and obsolete long-forgotten
      charts. His head was bowed down upon his hands, and he pored,
      with a fiery unquiet eye, over a paper which I took to be a
      commission, and which, at all events, bore the signature of a
      monarch. He muttered to himself, as did the first seaman whom I
      saw in the hold, some low peevish syllables of a foreign tongue,
      and although the speaker was close at my elbow, his voice seemed
      to reach my ears from the distance of a mile.


      The ship and all in it are imbued with the spirit of Eld. The
      crew glide to and fro like the ghosts of buried centuries; their
      eyes have an eager and uneasy meaning; and when their fingers
      fall athwart my path in the wild glare of the battle-lanterns, I
      feel as I have never felt before, although I have been all my
      life a dealer in antiquities, and have imbibed the shadows of
      fallen columns at Balbec, and Tadmor, and Persepolis, until my
      very soul has become a ruin.


      When I look around me I feel ashamed of my former apprehensions.
      If I trembled at the blast which has hitherto attended us, shall
      I not stand aghast at a warring of wind and ocean, to convey any
      idea of which the words tornado and simoom are trivial and
      ineffective? All in the immediate vicinity of the ship is the
      blackness of eternal night, and a chaos of foamless water; but,
      about a league on either side of us, may be seen, indistinctly
      and at intervals, stupendous ramparts of ice, towering away into
      the desolate sky, and looking like the walls of the universe.


      As I imagined, the ship proves to be in a current—if that
      appellation can properly be given to a tide which, howling and
      shrieking by the white ice, thunders on to the southward with a
      velocity like the headlong dashing of a cataract.


      To conceive the horror of my sensations is, I presume, utterly
      impossible; yet a curiosity to penetrate the mysteries of these
      awful regions, predominates even over my despair, and will
      reconcile me to the most hideous aspect of death. It is evident
      that we are hurrying onwards to some exciting knowledge—some
      never-to-be-imparted secret, whose attainment is destruction.
      Perhaps this current leads us to the southern pole itself. It
      must be confessed that a supposition apparently so wild has every
      probability in its favor.


      The crew pace the deck with unquiet and tremulous step; but there
      is upon their countenances an expression more of the eagerness of
      hope than of the apathy of despair.

      In the meantime the wind is still in our poop, and, as we carry a
      crowd of canvas, the ship is at times lifted bodily from out the
      sea! Oh, horror upon horror!—the ice opens suddenly to the right,
      and to the left, and we are whirling dizzily, in immense
      concentric circles, round and round the borders of a gigantic
      amphitheatre, the summit of whose walls is lost in the darkness
      and the distance. But little time will be left me to ponder upon
      my destiny! The circles rapidly grow small—we are plunging madly
      within the grasp of the whirlpool—and amid a roaring, and
      bellowing, and thundering of ocean and of tempest, the ship is
      quivering—oh God! and—going down.

      NOTE.—The “MS. Found in a Bottle,” was originally published in
      1831, and it was not until many years afterwards that I became
      acquainted with the maps of Mercator, in which the ocean is
      represented as rushing, by four mouths, into the (northern) Polar
      Gulf, to be absorbed into the bowels of the earth; the Pole
      itself being represented by a black rock, towering to a
      prodigious height.




THE OVAL PORTRAIT


      The château into which my valet had ventured to make forcible
      entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded
      condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those
      piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned
      among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs.
      Radcliffe. To all appearance it had been temporarily and very
      lately abandoned. We established ourselves in one of the smallest
      and least sumptuously furnished apartments. It lay in a remote
      turret of the building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered
      and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with
      manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an
      unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in
      frames of rich golden arabesque. In these paintings, which
      depended from the walls not only in their main surfaces, but in
      very many nooks which the bizarre architecture of the château
      rendered necessary—in these paintings my incipient delirium,
      perhaps, had caused me to take deep interest; so that I bade
      Pedro to close the heavy shutters of the room—since it was
      already night—to light the tongues of a tall candelabrum which
      stood by the head of my bed, and to throw open far and wide the
      fringed curtains of black velvet which enveloped the bed itself.
      I wished all this done that I might resign myself, if not to
      sleep, at least alternately to the contemplation of these
      pictures, and the perusal of a small volume which had been found
      upon the pillow, and which purported to criticise and describe
      them.

      Long, long I read—and devoutly, devotedly I gazed. Rapidly and
      gloriously the hours flew by and the deep midnight came. The
      position of the candelabrum displeased me, and outreaching my
      hand with difficulty, rather than disturb my slumbering valet, I
      placed it so as to throw its rays more fully upon the book.

      But the action produced an effect altogether unanticipated. The
      rays of the numerous candles (for there were many) now fell
      within a niche of the room which had hitherto been thrown into
      deep shade by one of the bed-posts. I thus saw in vivid light a
      picture all unnoticed before. It was the portrait of a young girl
      just ripening into womanhood. I glanced at the painting
      hurriedly, and then closed my eyes. Why I did this was not at
      first apparent even to my own perception. But while my lids
      remained thus shut, I ran over in my mind my reason for so
      shutting them. It was an impulsive movement to gain time for
      thought—to make sure that my vision had not deceived me—to calm
      and subdue my fancy for a more sober and more certain gaze. In a
      very few moments I again looked fixedly at the painting.

      That I now saw aright I could not and would not doubt; for the
      first flashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to
      dissipate the dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses,
      and to startle me at once into waking life.

      The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It
      was a mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically termed
      a vignette manner; much in the style of the favorite heads of
      Sully. The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the radiant hair
      melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed
      the back-ground of the whole. The frame was oval, richly gilded
      and filigreed in Moresque. As a thing of art nothing could be
      more admirable than the painting itself. But it could have been
      neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the
      countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me.
      Least of all, could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its
      half slumber, had mistaken the head for that of a living person.
      I saw at once that the peculiarities of the design, of the
      vignetting, and of the frame, must have instantly dispelled such
      idea—must have prevented even its momentary entertainment.
      Thinking earnestly upon these points, I remained, for an hour
      perhaps, half sitting, half reclining, with my vision riveted
      upon the portrait. At length, satisfied with the true secret of
      its effect, I fell back within the bed. I had found the spell of
      the picture in an absolute life-likeliness of expression, which,
      at first startling, finally confounded, subdued, and appalled me.
      With deep and reverent awe I replaced the candelabrum in its
      former position. The cause of my deep agitation being thus shut
      from view, I sought eagerly the volume which discussed the
      paintings and their histories. Turning to the number which
      designated the oval portrait, I there read the vague and quaint
      words which follow:

      “She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full
      of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and
      wedded the painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having
      already a bride in his Art; she a maiden of rarest beauty, and
      not more lovely than full of glee; all light and smiles, and
      frolicsome as the young fawn; loving and cherishing all things;
      hating only the Art which was her rival; dreading only the pallet
      and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her of
      the countenance of her lover. It was thus a terrible thing for
      this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to portray even
      his young bride. But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly
      for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber where the light
      dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he, the
      painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour,
      and from day to day. And he was a passionate, and wild, and moody
      man, who became lost in reveries; so that he would not see that
      the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret withered the
      health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly to all but
      him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she
      saw that the painter (who had high renown) took a fervid and
      burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict
      her who so loved him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and
      weak. And in sooth some who beheld the portrait spoke of its
      resemblance in low words, as of a mighty marvel, and a proof not
      less of the power of the painter than of his deep love for her
      whom he depicted so surpassingly well. But at length, as the
      labor drew nearer to its conclusion, there were admitted none
      into the turret; for the painter had grown wild with the ardor of
      his work, and turned his eyes from canvas merely, even to regard
      the countenance of his wife. And he would not see that the tints
      which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her
      who sate beside him. And when many weeks had passed, and but
      little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint
      upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the
      flame within the socket of the lamp. And then the brush was
      given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the
      painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but
      in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very
      pallid, and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, ‘This is indeed
      Life itself!’ turned suddenly to regard his beloved:—She was
      dead!”




VOLUME 2.

[Redactor’s Note—Some endnotes are by Poe and some were added by
Griswold. In this volume the notes are at the end.]




THE PURLOINED LETTER


Nil sapientiæ odiosius acumine nimio.—_Seneca_.

      At Paris, just after dark one gusty evening in the autumn of 18-,
      I was enjoying the twofold luxury of meditation and a meerschaum,
      in company with my friend C. Auguste Dupin, in his little back
      library, or book-closet, _au troisième_, No. 33, _Rue Dunôt,
      Faubourg St. Germain_. For one hour at least we had maintained a
      profound silence; while each, to any casual observer, might have
      seemed intently and exclusively occupied with the curling eddies
      of smoke that oppressed the atmosphere of the chamber. For
      myself, however, I was mentally discussing certain topics which
      had formed matter for conversation between us at an earlier
      period of the evening; I mean the affair of the Rue Morgue, and
      the mystery attending the murder of Marie Rogêt. I looked upon
      it, therefore, as something of a coincidence, when the door of
      our apartment was thrown open and admitted our old acquaintance,
      Monsieur G——, the Prefect of the Parisian police.

      We gave him a hearty welcome; for there was nearly half as much
      of the entertaining as of the contemptible about the man, and we
      had not seen him for several years. We had been sitting in the
      dark, and Dupin now arose for the purpose of lighting a lamp, but
      sat down again, without doing so, upon G.‘s saying that he had
      called to consult us, or rather to ask the opinion of my friend,
      about some official business which had occasioned a great deal of
      trouble.

      “If it is any point requiring reflection,” observed Dupin, as he
      forebore to enkindle the wick, “we shall examine it to better
      purpose in the dark.”

      “That is another of your odd notions,” said the Prefect, who had
      a fashion of calling every thing “odd” that was beyond his
      comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of
      “oddities.”

      “Very true,” said Dupin, as he supplied his visitor with a pipe,
      and rolled towards him a comfortable chair.

      “And what is the difficulty now?” I asked. “Nothing more in the
      assassination way, I hope?”

      “Oh no; nothing of that nature. The fact is, the business is very
      simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it
      sufficiently well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like
      to hear the details of it, because it is so excessively odd.”

      “Simple and odd,” said Dupin.

      “Why, yes; and not exactly that, either. The fact is, we have all
      been a good deal puzzled because the affair is so simple, and yet
      baffles us altogether.”

      “Perhaps it is the very simplicity of the thing which puts you at
      fault,” said my friend.

      “What nonsense you do talk!” replied the Prefect, laughing
      heartily.

      “Perhaps the mystery is a little too plain,” said Dupin.

      “Oh, good heavens! who ever heard of such an idea?”

      “A little too self-evident.”

      “Ha! ha! ha—ha! ha! ha!—ho! ho! ho!” roared our visitor,
      profoundly amused, “oh, Dupin, you will be the death of me yet!”

      “And what, after all, is the matter on hand?” I asked.

      “Why, I will tell you,” replied the Prefect, as he gave a long,
      steady and contemplative puff, and settled himself in his chair.
      “I will tell you in a few words; but, before I begin, let me
      caution you that this is an affair demanding the greatest
      secrecy, and that I should most probably lose the position I now
      hold, were it known that I confided it to any one.”

      “Proceed,” said I.

      “Or not,” said Dupin.

      “Well, then; I have received personal information, from a very
      high quarter, that a certain document of the last importance has
      been purloined from the royal apartments. The individual who
      purloined it is known; this beyond a doubt; he was seen to take
      it. It is known, also, that it still remains in his possession.”

      “How is this known?” asked Dupin.

      “It is clearly inferred,” replied the Prefect, “from the nature
      of the document, and from the non-appearance of certain results
      which would at once arise from its passing out of the robber’s
      possession; that is to say, from his employing it as he must
      design in the end to employ it.”

      “Be a little more explicit,” I said.

      “Well, I may venture so far as to say that the paper gives its
      holder a certain power in a certain quarter where such power is
      immensely valuable.” The Prefect was fond of the cant of
      diplomacy.

      “Still I do not quite understand,” said Dupin.

      “No? Well; the disclosure of the document to a third person, who
      shall be nameless, would bring in question the honor of a
      personage of most exalted station; and this fact gives the holder
      of the document an ascendancy over the illustrious personage
      whose honor and peace are so jeopardized.”

      “But this ascendancy,” I interposed, “would depend upon the
      robber’s knowledge of the loser’s knowledge of the robber. Who
      would dare—”

      “The thief,” said G., “is the Minister D——, who dares all things,
      those unbecoming as well as those becoming a man. The method of
      the theft was not less ingenious than bold. The document in
      question—a letter, to be frank—had been received by the personage
      robbed while alone in the royal boudoir. During its perusal she
      was suddenly interrupted by the entrance of the other exalted
      personage from whom especially it was her wish to conceal it.
      After a hurried and vain endeavor to thrust it in a drawer, she
      was forced to place it, open as it was, upon a table. The
      address, however, was uppermost, and, the contents thus
      unexposed, the letter escaped notice. At this juncture enters the
      Minister D——. His lynx eye immediately perceives the paper,
      recognises the handwriting of the address, observes the confusion
      of the personage addressed, and fathoms her secret. After some
      business transactions, hurried through in his ordinary manner, he
      produces a letter somewhat similar to the one in question, opens
      it, pretends to read it, and then places it in close
      juxtaposition to the other. Again he converses, for some fifteen
      minutes, upon the public affairs. At length, in taking leave, he
      takes also from the table the letter to which he had no claim.
      Its rightful owner saw, but, of course, dared not call attention
      to the act, in the presence of the third personage who stood at
      her elbow. The minister decamped; leaving his own letter—one of
      no importance—upon the table.”

      “Here, then,” said Dupin to me, “you have precisely what you
      demand to make the ascendancy complete—the robber’s knowledge of
      the loser’s knowledge of the robber.”

      “Yes,” replied the Prefect; “and the power thus attained has, for
      some months past, been wielded, for political purposes, to a very
      dangerous extent. The personage robbed is more thoroughly
      convinced, every day, of the necessity of reclaiming her letter.
      But this, of course, cannot be done openly. In fine, driven to
      despair, she has committed the matter to me.”

      “Than whom,” said Dupin, amid a perfect whirlwind of smoke, “no
      more sagacious agent could, I suppose, be desired, or even
      imagined.”

      “You flatter me,” replied the Prefect; “but it is possible that
      some such opinion may have been entertained.”

      “It is clear,” said I, “as you observe, that the letter is still
      in possession of the minister; since it is this possession, and
      not any employment of the letter, which bestows the power. With
      the employment the power departs.”

      “True,” said G.; “and upon this conviction I proceeded. My first
      care was to make thorough search of the minister’s hotel; and
      here my chief embarrassment lay in the necessity of searching
      without his knowledge. Beyond all things, I have been warned of
      the danger which would result from giving him reason to suspect
      our design.”

      “But,” said I, “you are quite au fait in these investigations.
      The Parisian police have done this thing often before.”

      “Oh, yes; and for this reason I did not despair. The habits of
      the minister gave me, too, a great advantage. He is frequently
      absent from home all night. His servants are by no means
      numerous. They sleep at a distance from their master’s apartment,
      and, being chiefly Neapolitans, are readily made drunk. I have
      keys, as you know, with which I can open any chamber or cabinet
      in Paris. For three months a night has not passed, during the
      greater part of which I have not been engaged, personally, in
      ransacking the D—— Hotel. My honor is interested, and, to mention
      a great secret, the reward is enormous. So I did not abandon the
      search until I had become fully satisfied that the thief is a
      more astute man than myself. I fancy that I have investigated
      every nook and corner of the premises in which it is possible
      that the paper can be concealed.”

      “But is it not possible,” I suggested, “that although the letter
      may be in possession of the minister, as it unquestionably is, he
      may have concealed it elsewhere than upon his own premises?”

      “This is barely possible,” said Dupin. “The present peculiar
      condition of affairs at court, and especially of those intrigues
      in which D—— is known to be involved, would render the instant
      availability of the document—its susceptibility of being produced
      at a moment’s notice—a point of nearly equal importance with its
      possession.”

      “Its susceptibility of being produced?” said I.

      “That is to say, of being destroyed,” said Dupin.

      “True,” I observed; “the paper is clearly then upon the premises.
      As for its being upon the person of the minister, we may consider
      that as out of the question.”

      “Entirely,” said the Prefect. “He has been twice waylaid, as if
      by footpads, and his person rigorously searched under my own
      inspection.”

      “You might have spared yourself this trouble,” said Dupin. “D——,
      I presume, is not altogether a fool, and, if not, must have
      anticipated these waylayings, as a matter of course.”

      “Not altogether a fool,” said G., “but then he’s a poet, which I
      take to be only one remove from a fool.”

      “True,” said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his
      meerschaum, “although I have been guilty of certain doggrel
      myself.”

      “Suppose you detail,” said I, “the particulars of your search.”

      “Why the fact is, we took our time, and we searched _everywhere_.
      I have had long experience in these affairs. I took the entire
      building, room by room; devoting the nights of a whole week to
      each. We examined, first, the furniture of each apartment. We
      opened every possible drawer; and I presume you know that, to a
      properly trained police agent, such a thing as a secret drawer is
      impossible. Any man is a dolt who permits a ‘secret’ drawer to
      escape him in a search of this kind. The thing is so plain. There
      is a certain amount of bulk—of space—to be accounted for in every
      cabinet. Then we have accurate rules. The fiftieth part of a line
      could not escape us. After the cabinets we took the chairs. The
      cushions we probed with the fine long needles you have seen me
      employ. From the tables we removed the tops.”

      “Why so?”

      “Sometimes the top of a table, or other similarly arranged piece
      of furniture, is removed by the person wishing to conceal an
      article; then the leg is excavated, the article deposited within
      the cavity, and the top replaced. The bottoms and tops of
      bedposts are employed in the same way.”

      “But could not the cavity be detected by sounding?” I asked.

      “By no means, if, when the article is deposited, a sufficient
      wadding of cotton be placed around it. Besides, in our case, we
      were obliged to proceed without noise.”

      “But you could not have removed—you could not have taken to
      pieces all articles of furniture in which it would have been
      possible to make a deposit in the manner you mention. A letter
      may be compressed into a thin spiral roll, not differing much in
      shape or bulk from a large knitting-needle, and in this form it
      might be inserted into the rung of a chair, for example. You did
      not take to pieces all the chairs?”

      “Certainly not; but we did better—we examined the rungs of every
      chair in the hotel, and, indeed the jointings of every
      description of furniture, by the aid of a most powerful
      microscope. Had there been any traces of recent disturbance we
      should not have failed to detect it instantly. A single grain of
      gimlet-dust, for example, would have been as obvious as an apple.
      Any disorder in the glueing—any unusual gaping in the
      joints—would have sufficed to insure detection.”

      “I presume you looked to the mirrors, between the boards and the
      plates, and you probed the beds and the bed-clothes, as well as
      the curtains and carpets.”

      “That of course; and when we had absolutely completed every
      particle of the furniture in this way, then we examined the house
      itself. We divided its entire surface into compartments, which we
      numbered, so that none might be missed; then we scrutinized each
      individual square inch throughout the premises, including the two
      houses immediately adjoining, with the microscope, as before.”

      “The two houses adjoining!” I exclaimed; “you must have had a
      great deal of trouble.”

      “We had; but the reward offered is prodigious!”

      “You include the grounds about the houses?”

      “All the grounds are paved with brick. They gave us comparatively
      little trouble. We examined the moss between the bricks, and
      found it undisturbed.”

      “You looked among D——‘s papers, of course, and into the books of
      the library?”

      “Certainly; we opened every package and parcel; we not only
      opened every book, but we turned over every leaf in each volume,
      not contenting ourselves with a mere shake, according to the
      fashion of some of our police officers. We also measured the
      thickness of every book-cover, with the most accurate
      admeasurement, and applied to each the most jealous scrutiny of
      the microscope. Had any of the bindings been recently meddled
      with, it would have been utterly impossible that the fact should
      have escaped observation. Some five or six volumes, just from the
      hands of the binder, we carefully probed, longitudinally, with
      the needles.”

      “You explored the floors beneath the carpets?”

      “Beyond doubt. We removed every carpet, and examined the boards
      with the microscope.”

      “And the paper on the walls?”

      “Yes.”

      “You looked into the cellars?”

      “We did.”

      “Then,” I said, “you have been making a miscalculation, and the
      letter is not upon the premises, as you suppose.”

      “I fear you are right there,” said the Prefect. “And now, Dupin,
      what would you advise me to do?”

      “To make a thorough re-search of the premises.”

      “That is absolutely needless,” replied G——. “I am not more sure
      that I breathe than I am that the letter is not at the Hotel.”

      “I have no better advice to give you,” said Dupin. “You have, of
      course, an accurate description of the letter?”

      “Oh yes!”—And here the Prefect, producing a memorandum-book,
      proceeded to read aloud a minute account of the internal, and
      especially of the external appearance of the missing document.
      Soon after finishing the perusal of this description, he took his
      departure, more entirely depressed in spirits than I had ever
      known the good gentleman before.

      In about a month afterwards he paid us another visit, and found
      us occupied very nearly as before. He took a pipe and a chair and
      entered into some ordinary conversation. At length I said,—

      “Well, but G——, what of the purloined letter? I presume you have
      at last made up your mind that there is no such thing as
      overreaching the Minister?”

      “Confound him, say I—yes; I made the re-examination, however, as
      Dupin suggested—but it was all labor lost, as I knew it would
      be.”

      “How much was the reward offered, did you say?” asked Dupin.

      “Why, a very great deal—a very liberal reward—I don’t like to say
      how much, precisely; but one thing I will say, that I wouldn’t
      mind giving my individual check for fifty thousand francs to any
      one who could obtain me that letter. The fact is, it is becoming
      of more and more importance every day; and the reward has been
      lately doubled. If it were trebled, however, I could do no more
      than I have done.”

      “Why, yes,” said Dupin, drawlingly, between the whiffs of his
      meerschaum, “I really—think, G——, you have not exerted
      yourself—to the utmost in this matter. You might—do a little
      more, I think, eh?”

      “How?—in what way?”

      “Why—puff, puff—you might—puff, puff—employ counsel in the
      matter, eh?—puff, puff, puff. Do you remember the story they tell
      of Abernethy?”

      “No; hang Abernethy!”

      “To be sure! hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a
      certain rich miser conceived the design of spunging upon this
      Abernethy for a medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an
      ordinary conversation in a private company, he insinuated his
      case to the physician, as that of an imaginary individual.

      “‘We will suppose,’ said the miser, ‘that his symptoms are such
      and such; now, doctor, what would you have directed him to take?’

      “‘Take!’ said Abernethy, ‘why, take advice, to be sure.’”

      “But,” said the Prefect, a little discomposed, “I am perfectly
      willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would really give
      fifty thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter.”

      “In that case,” replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing a
      check-book, “you may as well fill me up a check for the amount
      mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter.”

      I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely
      thunder-stricken. For some minutes he remained speechless and
      motionless, looking incredulously at my friend with open mouth,
      and eyes that seemed starting from their sockets; then,
      apparently recovering himself in some measure, he seized a pen,
      and after several pauses and vacant stares, finally filled up and
      signed a check for fifty thousand francs, and handed it across
      the table to Dupin. The latter examined it carefully and
      deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an escritoire,
      took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This functionary
      grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with a trembling
      hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and then, scrambling
      and struggling to the door, rushed at length unceremoniously from
      the room and from the house, without having uttered a syllable
      since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check.

      When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanations.

      “The Parisian police,” he said, “are exceedingly able in their
      way. They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly
      versed in the knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to
      demand. Thus, when G—— detailed to us his mode of searching the
      premises at the Hotel D——, I felt entire confidence in his having
      made a satisfactory investigation—so far as his labors extended.”

      “So far as his labors extended?” said I.

      “Yes,” said Dupin. “The measures adopted were not only the best
      of their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the
      letter been deposited within the range of their search, these
      fellows would, beyond a question, have found it.”

      I merely laughed—but he seemed quite serious in all that he said.

      “The measures, then,” he continued, “were good in their kind, and
      well executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to
      the case, and to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious
      resources are, with the Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to
      which he forcibly adapts his designs. But he perpetually errs by
      being too deep or too shallow for the matter in hand; and many a
      schoolboy is a better reasoner than he. I knew one about eight
      years of age, whose success at guessing in the game of ‘even and
      odd’ attracted universal admiration. This game is simple, and is
      played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a number of
      these toys, and demands of another whether that number is even or
      odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he
      loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the
      school. Of course he had some principle of guessing; and this lay
      in mere observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his
      opponents. For example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and,
      holding up his closed hand, asks, ‘are they even or odd?’ Our
      schoolboy replies, ‘odd,’ and loses; but upon the second trial he
      wins, for he then says to himself, ‘the simpleton had them even
      upon the first trial, and his amount of cunning is just
      sufficient to make him have them odd upon the second; I will
      therefore guess odd;’—he guesses odd, and wins. Now, with a
      simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned thus:
      ‘This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and,
      in the second, he will propose to himself, upon the first
      impulse, a simple variation from even to odd, as did the first
      simpleton; but then a second thought will suggest that this is
      too simple a variation, and finally he will decide upon putting
      it even as before. I will therefore guess even;’—he guesses even,
      and wins. Now this mode of reasoning in the schoolboy, whom his
      fellows termed ‘lucky,’—what, in its last analysis, is it?”

      “It is merely,” I said, “an identification of the reasoner’s
      intellect with that of his opponent.”

      “It is,” said Dupin; “and, upon inquiring of the boy by what
      means he effected the thorough identification in which his
      success consisted, I received answer as follows: ‘When I wish to
      find out how wise, or how stupid, or how good, or how wicked is
      any one, or what are his thoughts at the moment, I fashion the
      expression of my face, as accurately as possible, in accordance
      with the expression of his, and then wait to see what thoughts or
      sentiments arise in my mind or heart, as if to match or
      correspond with the expression.’ This response of the schoolboy
      lies at the bottom of all the spurious profundity which has been
      attributed to Rochefoucault, to La Bougive, to Machiavelli, and
      to Campanella.”

      “And the identification,” I said, “of the reasoner’s intellect
      with that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright,
      upon the accuracy with which the opponent’s intellect is
      admeasured.”

      “For its practical value it depends upon this,” replied Dupin;
      “and the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by
      default of this identification, and, secondly, by
      ill-admeasurement, or rather through non-admeasurement, of the
      intellect with which they are engaged. They consider only their
      own ideas of ingenuity; and, in searching for anything hidden,
      advert only to the modes in which they would have hidden it. They
      are right in this much—that their own ingenuity is a faithful
      representative of that of the mass; but when the cunning of the
      individual felon is diverse in character from their own, the
      felon foils them, of course. This always happens when it is above
      their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no
      variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when
      urged by some unusual emergency—by some extraordinary reward—they
      extend or exaggerate their old modes of practice, without
      touching their principles. What, for example, in this case of
      D——, has been done to vary the principle of action? What is all
      this boring, and probing, and sounding, and scrutinizing with the
      microscope and dividing the surface of the building into
      registered square inches—what is it all but an exaggeration of
      the application of the one principle or set of principles of
      search, which are based upon the one set of notions regarding
      human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine of his
      duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he has taken it for
      granted that all men proceed to conceal a letter,—not exactly in
      a gimlet hole bored in a chair-leg—but, at least, in some
      out-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of
      thought which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a
      gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg? And do you not see also, that
      such recherchés nooks for concealment are adapted only for
      ordinary occasions, and would be adopted only by ordinary
      intellects; for, in all cases of concealment, a disposal of the
      article concealed—a disposal of it in this recherché manner,—is,
      in the very first instance, presumable and presumed; and thus its
      discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen, but altogether
      upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the seekers;
      and where the case is of importance—or, what amounts to the same
      thing in the political eyes, when the reward is of magnitude,—the
      qualities in question have never been known to fail. You will now
      understand what I meant in suggesting that, had the purloined
      letter been hidden any where within the limits of the Prefect’s
      examination—in other words, had the principle of its concealment
      been comprehended within the principles of the Prefect—its
      discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond question.
      This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified; and the
      remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the
      Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All
      fools are poets; this the Prefect feels; and he is merely guilty
      of a non distributio medii in thence inferring that all poets are
      fools.”

      “But is this really the poet?” I asked. “There are two brothers,
      I know; and both have attained reputation in letters. The
      Minister I believe has written learnedly on the Differential
      Calculus. He is a mathematician, and no poet.”

      “You are mistaken; I know him well; he is both. As poet and
      mathematician, he would reason well; as mere mathematician, he
      could not have reasoned at all, and thus would have been at the
      mercy of the Prefect.”

      “You surprise me,” I said, “by these opinions, which have been
      contradicted by the voice of the world. You do not mean to set at
      naught the well-digested idea of centuries. The mathematical
      reason has long been regarded as the reason par excellence.”

      “‘Il y a à parièr,’” replied Dupin, quoting from Chamfort, “‘que
      toute idée publique, toute convention reçue est une sottise, car
      elle a convenue au plus grand nombre.’ The mathematicians, I
      grant you, have done their best to promulgate the popular error
      to which you allude, and which is none the less an error for its
      promulgation as truth. With an art worthy a better cause, for
      example, they have insinuated the term ‘analysis’ into
      application to algebra. The French are the originators of this
      particular deception; but if a term is of any importance—if words
      derive any value from applicability—then ‘analysis’ conveys
      ‘algebra’ about as much as, in Latin, ‘ambitus’ implies
      ‘ambition,’ ‘_religio_’ ‘religion,’ or ‘_homines honesti_’ a set
      of _honorable_ men.”

      “You have a quarrel on hand, I see,” said I, “with some of the
      algebraists of Paris; but proceed.”

      “I dispute the availability, and thus the value, of that reason
      which is cultivated in any especial form other than the
      abstractly logical. I dispute, in particular, the reason educed
      by mathematical study. The mathematics are the science of form
      and quantity; mathematical reasoning is merely logic applied to
      observation upon form and quantity. The great error lies in
      supposing that even the truths of what is called pure algebra,
      are abstract or general truths. And this error is so egregious
      that I am confounded at the universality with which it has been
      received. Mathematical axioms are not axioms of general truth.
      What is true of relation—of form and quantity—is often grossly
      false in regard to morals, for example. In this latter science it
      is very usually untrue that the aggregated parts are equal to the
      whole. In chemistry also the axiom fails. In the consideration of
      motive it fails; for two motives, each of a given value, have
      not, necessarily, a value when united, equal to the sum of their
      values apart. There are numerous other mathematical truths which
      are only truths within the limits of relation. But the
      mathematician argues, from his finite truths, through habit, as
      if they were of an absolutely general applicability—as the world
      indeed imagines them to be. Bryant, in his very learned
      ‘Mythology,’ mentions an analogous source of error, when he says
      that ‘although the Pagan fables are not believed, yet we forget
      ourselves continually, and make inferences from them as existing
      realities.’ With the algebraists, however, who are Pagans
      themselves, the ‘Pagan fables’ are believed, and the inferences
      are made, not so much through lapse of memory, as through an
      unaccountable addling of the brains. In short, I never yet
      encountered the mere mathematician who could be trusted out of
      equal roots, or one who did not clandestinely hold it as a point
      of his faith that x2+px was absolutely and unconditionally equal
      to q. Say to one of these gentlemen, by way of experiment, if you
      please, that you believe occasions may occur where x2+px is not
      altogether equal to q, and, having made him understand what you
      mean, get out of his reach as speedily as convenient, for, beyond
      doubt, he will endeavor to knock you down.

      “I mean to say,” continued Dupin, while I merely laughed at his
      last observations, “that if the Minister had been no more than a
      mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of
      giving me this check. I know him, however, as both mathematician
      and poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with
      reference to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew
      him as a courtier, too, and as a bold intriguant. Such a man, I
      considered, could not fail to be aware of the ordinary policial
      modes of action. He could not have failed to anticipate—and
      events have proved that he did not fail to anticipate—the
      waylayings to which he was subjected. He must have foreseen, I
      reflected, the secret investigations of his premises. His
      frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed by the
      Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as ruses,
      to afford opportunity for thorough search to the police, and thus
      the sooner to impress them with the conviction to which G——, in
      fact, did finally arrive—the conviction that the letter was not
      upon the premises. I felt, also, that the whole train of thought,
      which I was at some pains in detailing to you just now,
      concerning the invariable principle of policial action in
      searches for articles concealed—I felt that this whole train of
      thought would necessarily pass through the mind of the Minister.
      It would imperatively lead him to despise all the ordinary nooks
      of concealment. He could not, I reflected, be so weak as not to
      see that the most intricate and remote recess of his hotel would
      be as open as his commonest closets to the eyes, to the probes,
      to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of the Prefect. I saw, in
      fine, that he would be driven, as a matter of course, to
      simplicity, if not deliberately induced to it as a matter of
      choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the Prefect
      laughed when I suggested, upon our first interview, that it was
      just possible this mystery troubled him so much on account of its
      being so very self-evident.”

      “Yes,” said I, “I remember his merriment well. I really thought
      he would have fallen into convulsions.”

      “The material world,” continued Dupin, “abounds with very strict
      analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has
      been given to the rhetorical dogma, that metaphor, or simile, may
      be made to strengthen an argument, as well as to embellish a
      description. The principle of the vis inertiæ, for example, seems
      to be identical in physics and metaphysics. It is not more true
      in the former, that a large body is with more difficulty set in
      motion than a smaller one, and that its subsequent momentum is
      commensurate with this difficulty, than it is, in the latter,
      that intellects of the vaster capacity, while more forcible, more
      constant, and more eventful in their movements than those of
      inferior grade, are yet the less readily moved, and more
      embarrassed and full of hesitation in the first few steps of
      their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which of the street
      signs, over the shop-doors, are the most attractive of
      attention?”

      “I have never given the matter a thought,” I said.

      “There is a game of puzzles,” he resumed, “which is played upon a
      map. One party playing requires another to find a given word—the
      name of town, river, state or empire—any word, in short, upon the
      motley and perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game
      generally seeks to embarrass his opponents by giving them the
      most minutely lettered names; but the adept selects such words as
      stretch, in large characters, from one end of the chart to the
      other. These, like the over-largely lettered signs and placards
      of the street, escape observation by dint of being excessively
      obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous
      with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to
      pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and
      too palpably self-evident. But this is a point, it appears,
      somewhat above or beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He
      never once thought it probable, or possible, that the Minister
      had deposited the letter immediately beneath the nose of the
      whole world, by way of best preventing any portion of that world
      from perceiving it.

      “But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and
      discriminating ingenuity of D——; upon the fact that the document
      must always have been at hand, if he intended to use it to good
      purpose; and upon the decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect,
      that it was not hidden within the limits of that dignitary’s
      ordinary search—the more satisfied I became that, to conceal this
      letter, the Minister had resorted to the comprehensive and
      sagacious expedient of not attempting to conceal it at all.

      “Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green
      spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at
      the Ministerial hotel. I found D—— at home, yawning, lounging,
      and dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last
      extremity of ennui. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic
      human being now alive—but that is only when nobody sees him.

      “To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented
      the necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I
      cautiously and thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while
      seemingly intent only upon the conversation of my host.

      “I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near which he
      sat, and upon which lay confusedly, some miscellaneous letters
      and other papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few
      books. Here, however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny,
      I saw nothing to excite particular suspicion.

      “At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a
      trumpery fillagree card-rack of pasteboard, that hung dangling by
      a dirty blue ribbon, from a little brass knob just beneath the
      middle of the mantel-piece. In this rack, which had three or four
      compartments, were five or six visiting cards and a solitary
      letter. This last was much soiled and crumpled. It was torn
      nearly in two, across the middle—as if a design, in the first
      instance, to tear it entirely up as worthless, had been altered,
      or stayed, in the second. It had a large black seal, bearing the
      D—— cipher _very_ conspicuously, and was addressed, in a
      diminutive female hand, to D——, the minister, himself. It was
      thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed, contemptuously, into
      one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.

      “No sooner had I glanced at this letter, than I concluded it to
      be that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all
      appearance, radically different from the one of which the Prefect
      had read us so minute a description. Here the seal was large and
      black, with the D—— cipher; there it was small and red, with the
      ducal arms of the S—— family. Here, the address, to the Minister,
      diminutive and feminine; there the superscription, to a certain
      royal personage, was markedly bold and decided; the size alone
      formed a point of correspondence. But, then, the radicalness of
      these differences, which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled and
      torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true
      methodical habits of D——, and so suggestive of a design to delude
      the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the
      document—these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive
      situation of this document, full in the view of every visitor,
      and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I
      had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly
      corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention to
      suspect.

      “I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I
      maintained a most animated discussion with the Minister upon a
      topic which I knew well had never failed to interest and excite
      him, I kept my attention really riveted upon the letter. In this
      examination, I committed to memory its external appearance and
      arrangement in the rack; and also fell, at length, upon a
      discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I might have
      entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper, I observed
      them to be more chafed than seemed necessary. They presented the
      broken appearance which is manifested when a stiff paper, having
      been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded in a
      reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which had formed
      the original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to
      me that the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out,
      re-directed, and re-sealed. I bade the Minister good morning, and
      took my departure at once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the
      table.

      “The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed,
      quite eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus
      engaged, however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard
      immediately beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded
      by a series of fearful screams, and the shoutings of a terrified
      mob. D—— rushed to a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In
      the meantime, I stepped to the card-rack, took the letter, put it
      in my pocket, and replaced it by a fac-simile, (so far as regards
      externals,) which I had carefully prepared at my
      lodgings—imitating the D—— cipher, very readily, by means of a
      seal formed of bread.

      “The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic
      behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of
      women and children. It proved, however, to have been without
      ball, and the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a
      drunkard. When he had gone, D—— came from the window, whither I
      had followed him immediately upon securing the object in view.
      Soon afterwards I bade him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a
      man in my own pay.”

      “But what purpose had you,” I asked, “in replacing the letter by
      a fac-simile? Would it not have been better, at the first visit,
      to have seized it openly, and departed?”

      “D——,” replied Dupin, “is a desperate man, and a man of nerve.
      His hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his
      interests. Had I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never
      have left the Ministerial presence alive. The good people of
      Paris might have heard of me no more. But I had an object apart
      from these considerations. You know my political prepossessions.
      In this matter, I act as a partisan of the lady concerned. For
      eighteen months the Minister has had her in his power. She has
      now him in hers—since, being unaware that the letter is not in
      his possession, he will proceed with his exactions as if it was.
      Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at once, to his political
      destruction. His downfall, too, will not be more precipitate than
      awkward. It is all very well to talk about the facilis descensus
      Averni; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani said of
      singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In the
      present instance I have no sympathy—at least no pity—for him who
      descends. He is that monstrum horrendum, an unprincipled man of
      genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to know
      the precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her
      whom the Prefect terms ‘a certain personage’ he is reduced to
      opening the letter which I left for him in the card-rack.”

      “How? did you put any thing particular in it?”

      “Why—it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior
      blank—that would have been insulting. D——, at Vienna once, did me
      an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I
      should remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in
      regard to the identity of the person who had outwitted him, I
      thought it a pity not to give him a clue. He is well acquainted
      with my MS., and I just copied into the middle of the blank sheet
      the words—

      “‘— — Un dessein si funeste,
      S’il n’est digne d’Atrée, est digne de Thyeste.

      They are to be found in Crébillon’s ‘Atrée.’”




THE THOUSAND-AND-SECOND TALE OF SCHEHERAZADE


Truth is stranger than fiction.—_Old Saying_

      Having had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental
      investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsöornot, a work
      which (like the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at
      all, even in Europe; and which has never been quoted, to my
      knowledge, by any American—if we except, perhaps, the author of
      the “Curiosities of American Literature”;—having had occasion, I
      say, to turn over some pages of the first-mentioned very
      remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to discover that
      the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error
      respecting the fate of the vizier’s daughter, Scheherazade, as
      that fate is depicted in the “Arabian Nights”; and that the
      _dénouement_ there given, if not altogether inaccurate, as far as
      it goes, is at least to blame in not having gone very much
      farther.

      For full information on this interesting topic, I must refer the
      inquisitive reader to the “Isitsöornot” itself; but in the
      meantime, I shall be pardoned for giving a summary of what I
      there discovered.

      It will be remembered, that, in the usual version of the tales, a
      certain monarch having good cause to be jealous of his queen, not
      only puts her to death, but makes a vow, by his beard and the
      prophet, to espouse each night the most beautiful maiden in his
      dominions, and the next morning to deliver her up to the
      executioner.

      Having fulfilled this vow for many years to the letter, and with
      a religious punctuality and method that conferred great credit
      upon him as a man of devout feeling and excellent sense, he was
      interrupted one afternoon (no doubt at his prayers) by a visit
      from his grand vizier, to whose daughter, it appears, there had
      occurred an idea.

      Her name was Scheherazade, and her idea was, that she would
      either redeem the land from the depopulating tax upon its beauty,
      or perish, after the approved fashion of all heroines, in the
      attempt.

      Accordingly, and although we do not find it to be leap-year
      (which makes the sacrifice more meritorious), she deputes her
      father, the grand vizier, to make an offer to the king of her
      hand. This hand the king eagerly accepts—(he had intended to take
      it at all events, and had put off the matter from day to day,
      only through fear of the vizier),—but, in accepting it now, he
      gives all parties very distinctly to understand, that, grand
      vizier or no grand vizier, he has not the slightest design of
      giving up one iota of his vow or of his privileges. When,
      therefore, the fair Scheherazade insisted upon marrying the king,
      and did actually marry him despite her father’s excellent advice
      not to do any thing of the kind—when she would and did marry him,
      I say, will I, nill I, it was with her beautiful black eyes as
      thoroughly open as the nature of the case would allow.

      It seems, however, that this politic damsel (who had been reading
      Machiavelli, beyond doubt), had a very ingenious little plot in
      her mind. On the night of the wedding, she contrived, upon I
      forget what specious pretence, to have her sister occupy a couch
      sufficiently near that of the royal pair to admit of easy
      conversation from bed to bed; and, a little before cock-crowing,
      she took care to awaken the good monarch, her husband (who bore
      her none the worse will because he intended to wring her neck on
      the morrow),—she managed to awaken him, I say, (although on
      account of a capital conscience and an easy digestion, he slept
      well) by the profound interest of a story (about a rat and a
      black cat, I think) which she was narrating (all in an undertone,
      of course) to her sister. When the day broke, it so happened that
      this history was not altogether finished, and that Scheherazade,
      in the nature of things could not finish it just then, since it
      was high time for her to get up and be bowstrung—a thing very
      little more pleasant than hanging, only a trifle more genteel!

      The king’s curiosity, however, prevailing, I am sorry to say,
      even over his sound religious principles, induced him for this
      once to postpone the fulfilment of his vow until next morning,
      for the purpose and with the hope of hearing that night how it
      fared in the end with the black cat (a black cat, I think it was)
      and the rat.

      The night having arrived, however, the lady Scheherazade not only
      put the finishing stroke to the black cat and the rat (the rat
      was blue) but before she well knew what she was about, found
      herself deep in the intricacies of a narration, having reference
      (if I am not altogether mistaken) to a pink horse (with green
      wings) that went, in a violent manner, by clockwork, and was
      wound up with an indigo key. With this history the king was even
      more profoundly interested than with the other—and, as the day
      broke before its conclusion (notwithstanding all the queen’s
      endeavors to get through with it in time for the bowstringing),
      there was again no resource but to postpone that ceremony as
      before, for twenty-four hours. The next night there happened a
      similar accident with a similar result; and then the next—and
      then again the next; so that, in the end, the good monarch,
      having been unavoidably deprived of all opportunity to keep his
      vow during a period of no less than one thousand and one nights,
      either forgets it altogether by the expiration of this time, or
      gets himself absolved of it in the regular way, or (what is more
      probable) breaks it outright, as well as the head of his father
      confessor. At all events, Scheherazade, who, being lineally
      descended from Eve, fell heir, perhaps, to the whole seven
      baskets of talk, which the latter lady, we all know, picked up
      from under the trees in the garden of Eden; Scheherazade, I say,
      finally triumphed, and the tariff upon beauty was repealed.

      Now, this conclusion (which is that of the story as we have it
      upon record) is, no doubt, excessively proper and pleasant—but
      alas! like a great many pleasant things, is more pleasant than
      true, and I am indebted altogether to the “Isitsöornot” for the
      means of correcting the error. “Le mieux,” says a French proverb,
      “est l’ennemi du bien,” and, in mentioning that Scheherazade had
      inherited the seven baskets of talk, I should have added that she
      put them out at compound interest until they amounted to
      seventy-seven.

      “My dear sister,” said she, on the thousand-and-second night, (I
      quote the language of the “Isitsöornot” at this point, verbatim)
      “my dear sister,” said she, “now that all this little difficulty
      about the bowstring has blown over, and that this odious tax is
      so happily repealed, I feel that I have been guilty of great
      indiscretion in withholding from you and the king (who I am sorry
      to say, snores—a thing no gentleman would do) the full conclusion
      of Sinbad the sailor. This person went through numerous other and
      more interesting adventures than those which I related; but the
      truth is, I felt sleepy on the particular night of their
      narration, and so was seduced into cutting them short—a grievous
      piece of misconduct, for which I only trust that Allah will
      forgive me. But even yet it is not too late to remedy my great
      neglect—and as soon as I have given the king a pinch or two in
      order to wake him up so far that he may stop making that horrible
      noise, I will forthwith entertain you (and him if he pleases)
      with the sequel of this very remarkable story.”

      Hereupon the sister of Scheherazade, as I have it from the
      “Isitsöornot,” expressed no very particular intensity of
      gratification; but the king, having been sufficiently pinched, at
      length ceased snoring, and finally said, “Hum!” and then “Hoo!”
      when the queen, understanding these words (which are no doubt
      Arabic) to signify that he was all attention, and would do his
      best not to snore any more—the queen, I say, having arranged
      these matters to her satisfaction, re-entered thus, at once, into
      the history of Sinbad the sailor:

      “‘At length, in my old age,’ [these are the words of Sinbad
      himself, as retailed by Scheherazade]—‘at length, in my old age,
      and after enjoying many years of tranquillity at home, I became
      once more possessed of a desire of visiting foreign countries;
      and one day, without acquainting any of my family with my design,
      I packed up some bundles of such merchandise as was most precious
      and least bulky, and, engaging a porter to carry them, went with
      him down to the sea-shore, to await the arrival of any chance
      vessel that might convey me out of the kingdom into some region
      which I had not as yet explored.

      “‘Having deposited the packages upon the sands, we sat down
      beneath some trees, and looked out into the ocean in the hope of
      perceiving a ship, but during several hours we saw none whatever.
      At length I fancied that I could hear a singular buzzing or
      humming sound; and the porter, after listening awhile, declared
      that he also could distinguish it. Presently it grew louder, and
      then still louder, so that we could have no doubt that the object
      which caused it was approaching us. At length, on the edge of the
      horizon, we discovered a black speck, which rapidly increased in
      size until we made it out to be a vast monster, swimming with a
      great part of its body above the surface of the sea. It came
      toward us with inconceivable swiftness, throwing up huge waves of
      foam around its breast, and illuminating all that part of the sea
      through which it passed, with a long line of fire that extended
      far off into the distance.

      “‘As the thing drew near we saw it very distinctly. Its length
      was equal to that of three of the loftiest trees that grow, and
      it was as wide as the great hall of audience in your palace, O
      most sublime and munificent of the Caliphs. Its body, which was
      unlike that of ordinary fishes, was as solid as a rock, and of a
      jetty blackness throughout all that portion of it which floated
      above the water, with the exception of a narrow blood-red streak
      that completely begirdled it. The belly, which floated beneath
      the surface, and of which we could get only a glimpse now and
      then as the monster rose and fell with the billows, was entirely
      covered with metallic scales, of a color like that of the moon in
      misty weather. The back was flat and nearly white, and from it
      there extended upwards of six spines, about half the length of
      the whole body.

      “‘This horrible creature had no mouth that we could perceive;
      but, as if to make up for this deficiency, it was provided with
      at least four score of eyes, that protruded from their sockets
      like those of the green dragon-fly, and were arranged all around
      the body in two rows, one above the other, and parallel to the
      blood-red streak, which seemed to answer the purpose of an
      eyebrow. Two or three of these dreadful eyes were much larger
      than the others, and had the appearance of solid gold.

      “‘Although this beast approached us, as I have before said, with
      the greatest rapidity, it must have been moved altogether by
      necromancy—for it had neither fins like a fish nor web-feet like
      a duck, nor wings like the seashell which is blown along in the
      manner of a vessel; nor yet did it writhe itself forward as do
      the eels. Its head and its tail were shaped precisely alike,
      only, not far from the latter, were two small holes that served
      for nostrils, and through which the monster puffed out its thick
      breath with prodigious violence, and with a shrieking,
      disagreeable noise.

      “‘Our terror at beholding this hideous thing was very great, but
      it was even surpassed by our astonishment, when upon getting a
      nearer look, we perceived upon the creature’s back a vast number
      of animals about the size and shape of men, and altogether much
      resembling them, except that they wore no garments (as men do),
      being supplied (by nature, no doubt) with an ugly uncomfortable
      covering, a good deal like cloth, but fitting so tight to the
      skin, as to render the poor wretches laughably awkward, and put
      them apparently to severe pain. On the very tips of their heads
      were certain square-looking boxes, which, at first sight, I
      thought might have been intended to answer as turbans, but I soon
      discovered that they were excessively heavy and solid, and I
      therefore concluded they were contrivances designed, by their
      great weight, to keep the heads of the animals steady and safe
      upon their shoulders. Around the necks of the creatures were
      fastened black collars, (badges of servitude, no doubt,) such as
      we keep on our dogs, only much wider and infinitely stiffer, so
      that it was quite impossible for these poor victims to move their
      heads in any direction without moving the body at the same time;
      and thus they were doomed to perpetual contemplation of their
      noses—a view puggish and snubby in a wonderful, if not positively
      in an awful degree.

      “‘When the monster had nearly reached the shore where we stood,
      it suddenly pushed out one of its eyes to a great extent, and
      emitted from it a terrible flash of fire, accompanied by a dense
      cloud of smoke, and a noise that I can compare to nothing but
      thunder. As the smoke cleared away, we saw one of the odd
      man-animals standing near the head of the large beast with a
      trumpet in his hand, through which (putting it to his mouth) he
      presently addressed us in loud, harsh, and disagreeable accents,
      that, perhaps, we should have mistaken for language, had they not
      come altogether through the nose.

      “‘Being thus evidently spoken to, I was at a loss how to reply,
      as I could in no manner understand what was said; and in this
      difficulty I turned to the porter, who was near swooning through
      affright, and demanded of him his opinion as to what species of
      monster it was, what it wanted, and what kind of creatures those
      were that so swarmed upon its back. To this the porter replied,
      as well as he could for trepidation, that he had once before
      heard of this sea-beast; that it was a cruel demon, with bowels
      of sulphur and blood of fire, created by evil genii as the means
      of inflicting misery upon mankind; that the things upon its back
      were vermin, such as sometimes infest cats and dogs, only a
      little larger and more savage; and that these vermin had their
      uses, however evil—for, through the torture they caused the beast
      by their nibbling and stingings, it was goaded into that degree
      of wrath which was requisite to make it roar and commit ill, and
      so fulfil the vengeful and malicious designs of the wicked genii.

      “This account determined me to take to my heels, and, without
      once even looking behind me, I ran at full speed up into the
      hills, while the porter ran equally fast, although nearly in an
      opposite direction, so that, by these means, he finally made his
      escape with my bundles, of which I have no doubt he took
      excellent care—although this is a point I cannot determine, as I
      do not remember that I ever beheld him again.

      “‘For myself, I was so hotly pursued by a swarm of the men-vermin
      (who had come to the shore in boats) that I was very soon
      overtaken, bound hand and foot, and conveyed to the beast, which
      immediately swam out again into the middle of the sea.

      “‘I now bitterly repented my folly in quitting a comfortable home
      to peril my life in such adventures as this; but regret being
      useless, I made the best of my condition, and exerted myself to
      secure the goodwill of the man-animal that owned the trumpet, and
      who appeared to exercise authority over his fellows. I succeeded
      so well in this endeavor that, in a few days, the creature
      bestowed upon me various tokens of his favor, and in the end even
      went to the trouble of teaching me the rudiments of what it was
      vain enough to denominate its language; so that, at length, I was
      enabled to converse with it readily, and came to make it
      comprehend the ardent desire I had of seeing the world.

      “‘Washish squashish squeak, Sinbad, hey-diddle diddle, grunt unt
      grumble, hiss, fiss, whiss,’ said he to me, one day after
      dinner—but I beg a thousand pardons, I had forgotten that your
      majesty is not conversant with the dialect of the Cock-neighs (so
      the man-animals were called; I presume because their language
      formed the connecting link between that of the horse and that of
      the rooster). With your permission, I will translate. ‘Washish
      squashish,’ and so forth:—that is to say, ‘I am happy to find, my
      dear Sinbad, that you are really a very excellent fellow; we are
      now about doing a thing which is called circumnavigating the
      globe; and since you are so desirous of seeing the world, I will
      strain a point and give you a free passage upon back of the
      beast.’”

      When the Lady Scheherazade had proceeded thus far, relates the
      “Isitsöornot,” the king turned over from his left side to his
      right, and said:

      “It is, in fact, very surprising, my dear queen, that you
      omitted, hitherto, these latter adventures of Sinbad. Do you know
      I think them exceedingly entertaining and strange?”

      The king having thus expressed himself, we are told, the fair
      Scheherazade resumed her history in the following words:

      “Sinbad went on in this manner with his narrative—‘I thanked the
      man-animal for its kindness, and soon found myself very much at
      home on the beast, which swam at a prodigious rate through the
      ocean; although the surface of the latter is, in that part of the
      world, by no means flat, but round like a pomegranate, so that we
      went—so to say—either up hill or down hill all the time.’

      “That I think, was very singular,” interrupted the king.

      “Nevertheless, it is quite true,” replied Scheherazade.

      “I have my doubts,” rejoined the king; “but, pray, be so good as
      to go on with the story.”

      “I will,” said the queen. “‘The beast,’ continued Sinbad to the
      caliph, ‘swam, as I have related, up hill and down hill until, at
      length, we arrived at an island, many hundreds of miles in
      circumference, but which, nevertheless, had been built in the
      middle of the sea by a colony of little things like
      caterpillars.’” (*1)

      “Hum!” said the king.

      “‘Leaving this island,’ said Sinbad—(for Scheherazade, it must be
      understood, took no notice of her husband’s ill-mannered
      ejaculation) ‘leaving this island, we came to another where the
      forests were of solid stone, and so hard that they shivered to
      pieces the finest-tempered axes with which we endeavoured to cut
      them down.’” (*2)

      “Hum!” said the king, again; but Scheherazade, paying him no
      attention, continued in the language of Sinbad.

      “‘Passing beyond this last island, we reached a country where
      there was a cave that ran to the distance of thirty or forty
      miles within the bowels of the earth, and that contained a
      greater number of far more spacious and more magnificent palaces
      than are to be found in all Damascus and Bagdad. From the roofs
      of these palaces there hung myriads of gems, like diamonds, but
      larger than men; and in among the streets of towers and pyramids
      and temples, there flowed immense rivers as black as ebony, and
      swarming with fish that had no eyes.’” (*3)

      “Hum!” said the king.

      “‘We then swam into a region of the sea where we found a lofty
      mountain, down whose sides there streamed torrents of melted
      metal, some of which were twelve miles wide and sixty miles long
      (*4); while from an abyss on the summit, issued so vast a
      quantity of ashes that the sun was entirely blotted out from the
      heavens, and it became darker than the darkest midnight; so that
      when we were even at the distance of a hundred and fifty miles
      from the mountain, it was impossible to see the whitest object,
      however close we held it to our eyes.’” (*5)

      “Hum!” said the king.

      “‘After quitting this coast, the beast continued his voyage until
      we met with a land in which the nature of things seemed
      reversed—for we here saw a great lake, at the bottom of which,
      more than a hundred feet beneath the surface of the water, there
      flourished in full leaf a forest of tall and luxuriant trees.’”
      (*6)

      “Hoo!” said the king.

      “Some hundred miles farther on brought us to a climate where the
      atmosphere was so dense as to sustain iron or steel, just as our
      own does feather.’” (*7)

      “Fiddle de dee,” said the king.

      “Proceeding still in the same direction, we presently arrived at
      the most magnificent region in the whole world. Through it there
      meandered a glorious river for several thousands of miles. This
      river was of unspeakable depth, and of a transparency richer than
      that of amber. It was from three to six miles in width; and its
      banks which arose on either side to twelve hundred feet in
      perpendicular height, were crowned with ever-blossoming trees and
      perpetual sweet-scented flowers, that made the whole territory
      one gorgeous garden; but the name of this luxuriant land was the
      Kingdom of Horror, and to enter it was inevitable death.’” (*8)

      “Humph!” said the king.

      “‘We left this kingdom in great haste, and, after some days, came
      to another, where we were astonished to perceive myriads of
      monstrous animals with horns resembling scythes upon their heads.
      These hideous beasts dig for themselves vast caverns in the soil,
      of a funnel shape, and line the sides of them with rocks, so
      disposed one upon the other that they fall instantly, when
      trodden upon by other animals, thus precipitating them into the
      monster’s dens, where their blood is immediately sucked, and
      their carcasses afterwards hurled contemptuously out to an
      immense distance from “the caverns of death."’” (*9)

      “Pooh!” said the king.

      “‘Continuing our progress, we perceived a district with
      vegetables that grew not upon any soil but in the air. (*10)
      There were others that sprang from the substance of other
      vegetables; (*11) others that derived their substance from the
      bodies of living animals; (*12) and then again, there were others
      that glowed all over with intense fire; (*13) others that moved
      from place to place at pleasure, (*14) and what was still more
      wonderful, we discovered flowers that lived and breathed and
      moved their limbs at will and had, moreover, the detestable
      passion of mankind for enslaving other creatures, and confining
      them in horrid and solitary prisons until the fulfillment of
      appointed tasks.’” (*15)

      “Pshaw!” said the king.

      “‘Quitting this land, we soon arrived at another in which the
      bees and the birds are mathematicians of such genius and
      erudition, that they give daily instructions in the science of
      geometry to the wise men of the empire. The king of the place
      having offered a reward for the solution of two very difficult
      problems, they were solved upon the spot—the one by the bees, and
      the other by the birds; but the king keeping their solution a
      secret, it was only after the most profound researches and labor,
      and the writing of an infinity of big books, during a long series
      of years, that the men-mathematicians at length arrived at the
      identical solutions which had been given upon the spot by the
      bees and by the birds.’” (*16)

      “Oh my!” said the king.

      “‘We had scarcely lost sight of this empire when we found
      ourselves close upon another, from whose shores there flew over
      our heads a flock of fowls a mile in breadth, and two hundred and
      forty miles long; so that, although they flew a mile during every
      minute, it required no less than four hours for the whole flock
      to pass over us—in which there were several millions of millions
      of fowl.’” (*17)

      “Oh fy!” said the king.

      “‘No sooner had we got rid of these birds, which occasioned us
      great annoyance, than we were terrified by the appearance of a
      fowl of another kind, and infinitely larger than even the rocs
      which I met in my former voyages; for it was bigger than the
      biggest of the domes on your seraglio, oh, most Munificent of
      Caliphs. This terrible fowl had no head that we could perceive,
      but was fashioned entirely of belly, which was of a prodigious
      fatness and roundness, of a soft-looking substance, smooth,
      shining and striped with various colors. In its talons, the
      monster was bearing away to his eyrie in the heavens, a house
      from which it had knocked off the roof, and in the interior of
      which we distinctly saw human beings, who, beyond doubt, were in
      a state of frightful despair at the horrible fate which awaited
      them. We shouted with all our might, in the hope of frightening
      the bird into letting go of its prey, but it merely gave a snort
      or puff, as if of rage and then let fall upon our heads a heavy
      sack which proved to be filled with sand!’”

      “Stuff!” said the king.

      “‘It was just after this adventure that we encountered a
      continent of immense extent and prodigious solidity, but which,
      nevertheless, was supported entirely upon the back of a sky-blue
      cow that had no fewer than four hundred horns.’” (*18)

      “That, now, I believe,” said the king, “because I have read
      something of the kind before, in a book.”

      “‘We passed immediately beneath this continent, (swimming in
      between the legs of the cow), and, after some hours, found
      ourselves in a wonderful country indeed, which, I was informed by
      the man-animal, was his own native land, inhabited by things of
      his own species. This elevated the man-animal very much in my
      esteem, and in fact, I now began to feel ashamed of the
      contemptuous familiarity with which I had treated him; for I
      found that the man-animals in general were a nation of the most
      powerful magicians, who lived with worms in their brain, (*19)
      which, no doubt, served to stimulate them by their painful
      writhings and wrigglings to the most miraculous efforts of
      imagination!’”

      “Nonsense!” said the king.

      “‘Among the magicians, were domesticated several animals of very
      singular kinds; for example, there was a huge horse whose bones
      were iron and whose blood was boiling water. In place of corn, he
      had black stones for his usual food; and yet, in spite of so hard
      a diet, he was so strong and swift that he would drag a load more
      weighty than the grandest temple in this city, at a rate
      surpassing that of the flight of most birds.’” (*20)

      “Twattle!” said the king.

      “‘I saw, also, among these people a hen without feathers, but
      bigger than a camel; instead of flesh and bone she had iron and
      brick; her blood, like that of the horse, (to whom, in fact, she
      was nearly related,) was boiling water; and like him she ate
      nothing but wood or black stones. This hen brought forth very
      frequently, a hundred chickens in the day; and, after birth, they
      took up their residence for several weeks within the stomach of
      their mother.’” (*21)

      “Fal lal!” said the king.

      “‘One of this nation of mighty conjurors created a man out of
      brass and wood, and leather, and endowed him with such ingenuity
      that he would have beaten at chess, all the race of mankind with
      the exception of the great Caliph, Haroun Alraschid. (*22)
      Another of these magi constructed (of like material) a creature
      that put to shame even the genius of him who made it; for so
      great were its reasoning powers that, in a second, it performed
      calculations of so vast an extent that they would have required
      the united labor of fifty thousand fleshy men for a year. (*23)
      But a still more wonderful conjuror fashioned for himself a
      mighty thing that was neither man nor beast, but which had brains
      of lead, intermixed with a black matter like pitch, and fingers
      that it employed with such incredible speed and dexterity that it
      would have had no trouble in writing out twenty thousand copies
      of the Koran in an hour, and this with so exquisite a precision,
      that in all the copies there should not be found one to vary from
      another by the breadth of the finest hair. This thing was of
      prodigious strength, so that it erected or overthrew the
      mightiest empires at a breath; but its powers were exercised
      equally for evil and for good.’”

      “Ridiculous!” said the king.

      “‘Among this nation of necromancers there was also one who had in
      his veins the blood of the salamanders; for he made no scruple of
      sitting down to smoke his chibouc in a red-hot oven until his
      dinner was thoroughly roasted upon its floor. (*24) Another had
      the faculty of converting the common metals into gold, without
      even looking at them during the process. (*25) Another had such a
      delicacy of touch that he made a wire so fine as to be invisible.
      (*26) Another had such quickness of perception that he counted
      all the separate motions of an elastic body, while it was
      springing backward and forward at the rate of nine hundred
      millions of times in a second.’” (*27)

      “Absurd!” said the king.

      “‘Another of these magicians, by means of a fluid that nobody
      ever yet saw, could make the corpses of his friends brandish
      their arms, kick out their legs, fight, or even get up and dance
      at his will. (*28) Another had cultivated his voice to so great
      an extent that he could have made himself heard from one end of
      the world to the other. (*29) Another had so long an arm that he
      could sit down in Damascus and indite a letter at Bagdad—or
      indeed at any distance whatsoever. (*30) Another commanded the
      lightning to come down to him out of the heavens, and it came at
      his call; and served him for a plaything when it came. Another
      took two loud sounds and out of them made a silence. Another
      constructed a deep darkness out of two brilliant lights. (*31)
      Another made ice in a red-hot furnace. (*32) Another directed the
      sun to paint his portrait, and the sun did. (*33) Another took
      this luminary with the moon and the planets, and having first
      weighed them with scrupulous accuracy, probed into their depths
      and found out the solidity of the substance of which they were
      made. But the whole nation is, indeed, of so surprising a
      necromantic ability, that not even their infants, nor their
      commonest cats and dogs have any difficulty in seeing objects
      that do not exist at all, or that for twenty millions of years
      before the birth of the nation itself had been blotted out from
      the face of creation.’” (*34)

      “Preposterous!” said the king.

      “‘The wives and daughters of these incomparably great and wise
      magi,’” continued Scheherazade, without being in any manner
      disturbed by these frequent and most ungentlemanly interruptions
      on the part of her husband—“‘the wives and daughters of these
      eminent conjurers are every thing that is accomplished and
      refined; and would be every thing that is interesting and
      beautiful, but for an unhappy fatality that besets them, and from
      which not even the miraculous powers of their husbands and
      fathers has, hitherto, been adequate to save. Some fatalities
      come in certain shapes, and some in others—but this of which I
      speak has come in the shape of a crotchet.’”

      “A what?” said the king.

      “‘A crotchet’” said Scheherazade. “‘One of the evil genii, who
      are perpetually upon the watch to inflict ill, has put it into
      the heads of these accomplished ladies that the thing which we
      describe as personal beauty consists altogether in the
      protuberance of the region which lies not very far below the
      small of the back. Perfection of loveliness, they say, is in the
      direct ratio of the extent of this lump. Having been long
      possessed of this idea, and bolsters being cheap in that country,
      the days have long gone by since it was possible to distinguish a
      woman from a dromedary—’”

      “Stop!” said the king—“I can’t stand that, and I won’t. You have
      already given me a dreadful headache with your lies. The day,
      too, I perceive, is beginning to break. How long have we been
      married?—my conscience is getting to be troublesome again. And
      then that dromedary touch—do you take me for a fool? Upon the
      whole, you might as well get up and be throttled.”

      These words, as I learn from the “Isitsöornot,” both grieved and
      astonished Scheherazade; but, as she knew the king to be a man of
      scrupulous integrity, and quite unlikely to forfeit his word, she
      submitted to her fate with a good grace. She derived, however,
      great consolation, (during the tightening of the bowstring,) from
      the reflection that much of the history remained still untold,
      and that the petulance of her brute of a husband had reaped for
      him a most righteous reward, in depriving him of many
      inconceivable adventures.




A DESCENT INTO THE MAELSTROM.


  The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways; 
  nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the
  vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, _which have
  a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus_.

—_Joseph Glanville_.

      We had now reached the summit of the loftiest crag. For some
      minutes the old man seemed too much exhausted to speak.

      “Not long ago,” said he at length, “and I could have guided you
      on this route as well as the youngest of my sons; but, about
      three years past, there happened to me an event such as never
      happened to mortal man—or at least such as no man ever survived
      to tell of—and the six hours of deadly terror which I then
      endured have broken me up body and soul. You suppose me a _very_
      old man—but I am not. It took less than a single day to change
      these hairs from a jetty black to white, to weaken my limbs, and
      to unstring my nerves, so that I tremble at the least exertion,
      and am frightened at a shadow. Do you know I can scarcely look
      over this little cliff without getting giddy?”

      The “little cliff,” upon whose edge he had so carelessly thrown
      himself down to rest that the weightier portion of his body hung
      over it, while he was only kept from falling by the tenure of his
      elbow on its extreme and slippery edge—this “little cliff” arose,
      a sheer unobstructed precipice of black shining rock, some
      fifteen or sixteen hundred feet from the world of crags beneath
      us. Nothing would have tempted me to within half a dozen yards of
      its brink. In truth so deeply was I excited by the perilous
      position of my companion, that I fell at full length upon the
      ground, clung to the shrubs around me, and dared not even glance
      upward at the sky—while I struggled in vain to divest myself of
      the idea that the very foundations of the mountain were in danger
      from the fury of the winds. It was long before I could reason
      myself into sufficient courage to sit up and look out into the
      distance.

      “You must get over these fancies,” said the guide, “for I have
      brought you here that you might have the best possible view of
      the scene of that event I mentioned—and to tell you the whole
      story with the spot just under your eye.”

      “We are now,” he continued, in that particularizing manner which
      distinguished him—“we are now close upon the Norwegian coast—in
      the sixty-eighth degree of latitude—in the great province of
      Nordland—and in the dreary district of Lofoden. The mountain upon
      whose top we sit is Helseggen, the Cloudy. Now raise yourself up
      a little higher—hold on to the grass if you feel giddy—so—and
      look out, beyond the belt of vapor beneath us, into the sea.”

      I looked dizzily, and beheld a wide expanse of ocean, whose
      waters wore so inky a hue as to bring at once to my mind the
      Nubian geographer’s account of the _Mare Tenebrarum_. A panorama
      more deplorably desolate no human imagination can conceive. To
      the right and left, as far as the eye could reach, there lay
      outstretched, like ramparts of the world, lines of horridly black
      and beetling cliff, whose character of gloom was but the more
      forcibly illustrated by the surf which reared high up against its
      white and ghastly crest, howling and shrieking forever. Just
      opposite the promontory upon whose apex we were placed, and at a
      distance of some five or six miles out at sea, there was visible
      a small, bleak-looking island; or, more properly, its position
      was discernible through the wilderness of surge in which it was
      enveloped. About two miles nearer the land, arose another of
      smaller size, hideously craggy and barren, and encompassed at
      various intervals by a cluster of dark rocks.

      The appearance of the ocean, in the space between the more
      distant island and the shore, had something very unusual about
      it. Although, at the time, so strong a gale was blowing landward
      that a brig in the remote offing lay to under a double-reefed
      trysail, and constantly plunged her whole hull out of sight,
      still there was here nothing like a regular swell, but only a
      short, quick, angry cross dashing of water in every direction—as
      well in the teeth of the wind as otherwise. Of foam there was
      little except in the immediate vicinity of the rocks.

      “The island in the distance,” resumed the old man, “is called by
      the Norwegians Vurrgh. The one midway is Moskoe. That a mile to
      the northward is Ambaaren. Yonder are Islesen, Hotholm,
      Keildhelm, Suarven, and Buckholm. Farther off—between Moskoe and
      Vurrgh—are Otterholm, Flimen, Sandflesen, and Stockholm. These
      are the true names of the places—but why it has been thought
      necessary to name them at all, is more than either you or I can
      understand. Do you hear anything? Do you see any change in the
      water?”

      We had now been about ten minutes upon the top of Helseggen, to
      which we had ascended from the interior of Lofoden, so that we
      had caught no glimpse of the sea until it had burst upon us from
      the summit. As the old man spoke, I became aware of a loud and
      gradually increasing sound, like the moaning of a vast herd of
      buffaloes upon an American prairie; and at the same moment I
      perceived that what seamen term the _chopping_ character of the
      ocean beneath us, was rapidly changing into a current which set
      to the eastward. Even while I gazed, this current acquired a
      monstrous velocity. Each moment added to its speed—to its
      headlong impetuosity. In five minutes the whole sea, as far as
      Vurrgh, was lashed into ungovernable fury; but it was between
      Moskoe and the coast that the main uproar held its sway. Here the
      vast bed of the waters, seamed and scarred into a thousand
      conflicting channels, burst suddenly into phrensied
      convulsion—heaving, boiling, hissing—gyrating in gigantic and
      innumerable vortices, and all whirling and plunging on to the
      eastward with a rapidity which water never elsewhere assumes
      except in precipitous descents.

      In a few minutes more, there came over the scene another radical
      alteration. The general surface grew somewhat more smooth, and
      the whirlpools, one by one, disappeared, while prodigious streaks
      of foam became apparent where none had been seen before. These
      streaks, at length, spreading out to a great distance, and
      entering into combination, took unto themselves the gyratory
      motion of the subsided vortices, and seemed to form the germ of
      another more vast. Suddenly—very suddenly—this assumed a distinct
      and definite existence, in a circle of more than a mile in
      diameter. The edge of the whirl was represented by a broad belt
      of gleaming spray; but no particle of this slipped into the mouth
      of the terrific funnel, whose interior, as far as the eye could
      fathom it, was a smooth, shining, and jet-black wall of water,
      inclined to the horizon at an angle of some forty-five degrees,
      speeding dizzily round and round with a swaying and sweltering
      motion, and sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half
      shriek, half roar, such as not even the mighty cataract of
      Niagara ever lifts up in its agony to Heaven.

      The mountain trembled to its very base, and the rock rocked. I
      threw myself upon my face, and clung to the scant herbage in an
      excess of nervous agitation.

      “This,” said I at length, to the old man—“this _can_ be nothing
      else than the great whirlpool of the Maelström.”

      “So it is sometimes termed,” said he. “We Norwegians call it the
      Moskoe-ström, from the island of Moskoe in the midway.”

      The ordinary accounts of this vortex had by no means prepared me
      for what I saw. That of Jonas Ramus, which is perhaps the most
      circumstantial of any, cannot impart the faintest conception
      either of the magnificence, or of the horror of the scene—or of
      the wild bewildering sense of _the novel_ which confounds the
      beholder. I am not sure from what point of view the writer in
      question surveyed it, nor at what time; but it could neither have
      been from the summit of Helseggen, nor during a storm. There are
      some passages of his description, nevertheless, which may be
      quoted for their details, although their effect is exceedingly
      feeble in conveying an impression of the spectacle.

      “Between Lofoden and Moskoe,” he says, “the depth of the water is
      between thirty-six and forty fathoms; but on the other side,
      toward Ver (Vurrgh) this depth decreases so as not to afford a
      convenient passage for a vessel, without the risk of splitting on
      the rocks, which happens even in the calmest weather. When it is
      flood, the stream runs up the country between Lofoden and Moskoe
      with a boisterous rapidity; but the roar of its impetuous ebb to
      the sea is scarce equalled by the loudest and most dreadful
      cataracts; the noise being heard several leagues off, and the
      vortices or pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship
      comes within its attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and
      carried down to the bottom, and there beat to pieces against the
      rocks; and when the water relaxes, the fragments thereof are
      thrown up again. But these intervals of tranquility are only at
      the turn of the ebb and flood, and in calm weather, and last but
      a quarter of an hour, its violence gradually returning. When the
      stream is most boisterous, and its fury heightened by a storm, it
      is dangerous to come within a Norway mile of it. Boats, yachts,
      and ships have been carried away by not guarding against it
      before they were within its reach. It likewise happens
      frequently, that whales come too near the stream, and are
      overpowered by its violence; and then it is impossible to
      describe their howlings and bellowings in their fruitless
      struggles to disengage themselves. A bear once, attempting to
      swim from Lofoden to Moskoe, was caught by the stream and borne
      down, while he roared terribly, so as to be heard on shore. Large
      stocks of firs and pine trees, after being absorbed by the
      current, rise again broken and torn to such a degree as if
      bristles grew upon them. This plainly shows the bottom to consist
      of craggy rocks, among which they are whirled to and fro. This
      stream is regulated by the flux and reflux of the sea—it being
      constantly high and low water every six hours. In the year 1645,
      early in the morning of Sexagesima Sunday, it raged with such
      noise and impetuosity that the very stones of the houses on the
      coast fell to the ground.”

      In regard to the depth of the water, I could not see how this
      could have been ascertained at all in the immediate vicinity of
      the vortex. The “forty fathoms” must have reference only to
      portions of the channel close upon the shore either of Moskoe or
      Lofoden. The depth in the centre of the Moskoe-ström must be
      immeasurably greater; and no better proof of this fact is
      necessary than can be obtained from even the sidelong glance into
      the abyss of the whirl which may be had from the highest crag of
      Helseggen. Looking down from this pinnacle upon the howling
      Phlegethon below, I could not help smiling at the simplicity with
      which the honest Jonas Ramus records, as a matter difficult of
      belief, the anecdotes of the whales and the bears; for it
      appeared to me, in fact, a self-evident thing, that the largest
      ship of the line in existence, coming within the influence of
      that deadly attraction, could resist it as little as a feather
      the hurricane, and must disappear bodily and at once.

      The attempts to account for the phenomenon—some of which, I
      remember, seemed to me sufficiently plausible in perusal—now wore
      a very different and unsatisfactory aspect. The idea generally
      received is that this, as well as three smaller vortices among
      the Ferroe islands, “have no other cause than the collision of
      waves rising and falling, at flux and reflux, against a ridge of
      rocks and shelves, which confines the water so that it
      precipitates itself like a cataract; and thus the higher the
      flood rises, the deeper must the fall be, and the natural result
      of all is a whirlpool or vortex, the prodigious suction of which
      is sufficiently known by lesser experiments.”—These are the words
      of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Kircher and others imagine that
      in the centre of the channel of the Maelström is an abyss
      penetrating the globe, and issuing in some very remote part—the
      Gulf of Bothnia being somewhat decidedly named in one instance.
      This opinion, idle in itself, was the one to which, as I gazed,
      my imagination most readily assented; and, mentioning it to the
      guide, I was rather surprised to hear him say that, although it
      was the view almost universally entertained of the subject by the
      Norwegians, it nevertheless was not his own. As to the former
      notion he confessed his inability to comprehend it; and here I
      agreed with him—for, however conclusive on paper, it becomes
      altogether unintelligible, and even absurd, amid the thunder of
      the abyss.

      “You have had a good look at the whirl now,” said the old man,
      “and if you will creep round this crag, so as to get in its lee,
      and deaden the roar of the water, I will tell you a story that
      will convince you I ought to know something of the Moskoe-ström.”

      I placed myself as desired, and he proceeded.

      “Myself and my two brothers once owned a schooner-rigged smack of
      about seventy tons burthen, with which we were in the habit of
      fishing among the islands beyond Moskoe, nearly to Vurrgh. In all
      violent eddies at sea there is good fishing, at proper
      opportunities, if one has only the courage to attempt it; but
      among the whole of the Lofoden coastmen, we three were the only
      ones who made a regular business of going out to the islands, as
      I tell you. The usual grounds are a great way lower down to the
      southward. There fish can be got at all hours, without much risk,
      and therefore these places are preferred. The choice spots over
      here among the rocks, however, not only yield the finest variety,
      but in far greater abundance; so that we often got in a single
      day, what the more timid of the craft could not scrape together
      in a week. In fact, we made it a matter of desperate
      speculation—the risk of life standing instead of labor, and
      courage answering for capital.

      “We kept the smack in a cove about five miles higher up the coast
      than this; and it was our practice, in fine weather, to take
      advantage of the fifteen minutes’ slack to push across the main
      channel of the Moskoe-ström, far above the pool, and then drop
      down upon anchorage somewhere near Otterholm, or Sandflesen,
      where the eddies are not so violent as elsewhere. Here we used to
      remain until nearly time for slack-water again, when we weighed
      and made for home. We never set out upon this expedition without
      a steady side wind for going and coming—one that we felt sure
      would not fail us before our return—and we seldom made a
      mis-calculation upon this point. Twice, during six years, we were
      forced to stay all night at anchor on account of a dead calm,
      which is a rare thing indeed just about here; and once we had to
      remain on the grounds nearly a week, starving to death, owing to
      a gale which blew up shortly after our arrival, and made the
      channel too boisterous to be thought of. Upon this occasion we
      should have been driven out to sea in spite of everything, (for
      the whirlpools threw us round and round so violently, that, at
      length, we fouled our anchor and dragged it) if it had not been
      that we drifted into one of the innumerable cross currents—here
      to-day and gone to-morrow—which drove us under the lee of Flimen,
      where, by good luck, we brought up.

      “I could not tell you the twentieth part of the difficulties we
      encountered ‘on the grounds’—it is a bad spot to be in, even in
      good weather—but we made shift always to run the gauntlet of the
      Moskoe-ström itself without accident; although at times my heart
      has been in my mouth when we happened to be a minute or so behind
      or before the slack. The wind sometimes was not as strong as we
      thought it at starting, and then we made rather less way than we
      could wish, while the current rendered the smack unmanageable. My
      eldest brother had a son eighteen years old, and I had two stout
      boys of my own. These would have been of great assistance at such
      times, in using the sweeps, as well as afterward in fishing—but,
      somehow, although we ran the risk ourselves, we had not the heart
      to let the young ones get into the danger—for, after all is said
      and done, it _was_ a horrible danger, and that is the truth.

      “It is now within a few days of three years since what I am going
      to tell you occurred. It was on the tenth day of July, 18—, a day
      which the people of this part of the world will never forget—for
      it was one in which blew the most terrible hurricane that ever
      came out of the heavens. And yet all the morning, and indeed
      until late in the afternoon, there was a gentle and steady breeze
      from the south-west, while the sun shone brightly, so that the
      oldest seaman among us could not have foreseen what was to
      follow.

      “The three of us—my two brothers and myself—had crossed over to
      the islands about two o’clock P. M., and had soon nearly loaded
      the smack with fine fish, which, we all remarked, were more
      plenty that day than we had ever known them. It was just seven,
      _by my watch_, when we weighed and started for home, so as to
      make the worst of the Ström at slack water, which we knew would
      be at eight.

      “We set out with a fresh wind on our starboard quarter, and for
      some time spanked along at a great rate, never dreaming of
      danger, for indeed we saw not the slightest reason to apprehend
      it. All at once we were taken aback by a breeze from over
      Helseggen. This was most unusual—something that had never
      happened to us before—and I began to feel a little uneasy,
      without exactly knowing why. We put the boat on the wind, but
      could make no headway at all for the eddies, and I was upon the
      point of proposing to return to the anchorage, when, looking
      astern, we saw the whole horizon covered with a singular
      copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing velocity.

      “In the meantime the breeze that had headed us off fell away, and
      we were dead becalmed, drifting about in every direction. This
      state of things, however, did not last long enough to give us
      time to think about it. In less than a minute the storm was upon
      us—in less than two the sky was entirely overcast—and what with
      this and the driving spray, it became suddenly so dark that we
      could not see each other in the smack.

      “Such a hurricane as then blew it is folly to attempt describing.
      The oldest seaman in Norway never experienced any thing like it.
      We had let our sails go by the run before it cleverly took us;
      but, at the first puff, both our masts went by the board as if
      they had been sawed off—the mainmast taking with it my youngest
      brother, who had lashed himself to it for safety.

      “Our boat was the lightest feather of a thing that ever sat upon
      water. It had a complete flush deck, with only a small hatch near
      the bow, and this hatch it had always been our custom to batten
      down when about to cross the Ström, by way of precaution against
      the chopping seas. But for this circumstance we should have
      foundered at once—for we lay entirely buried for some moments.
      How my elder brother escaped destruction I cannot say, for I
      never had an opportunity of ascertaining. For my part, as soon as
      I had let the foresail run, I threw myself flat on deck, with my
      feet against the narrow gunwale of the bow, and with my hands
      grasping a ring-bolt near the foot of the fore-mast. It was mere
      instinct that prompted me to do this—which was undoubtedly the
      very best thing I could have done—for I was too much flurried to
      think.

      “For some moments we were completely deluged, as I say, and all
      this time I held my breath, and clung to the bolt. When I could
      stand it no longer I raised myself upon my knees, still keeping
      hold with my hands, and thus got my head clear. Presently our
      little boat gave herself a shake, just as a dog does in coming
      out of the water, and thus rid herself, in some measure, of the
      seas. I was now trying to get the better of the stupor that had
      come over me, and to collect my senses so as to see what was to
      be done, when I felt somebody grasp my arm. It was my elder
      brother, and my heart leaped for joy, for I had made sure that he
      was overboard—but the next moment all this joy was turned into
      horror—for he put his mouth close to my ear, and screamed out the
      word ‘_Moskoe-ström!_’

      “No one ever will know what my feelings were at that moment. I
      shook from head to foot as if I had had the most violent fit of
      the ague. I knew what he meant by that one word well enough—I
      knew what he wished to make me understand. With the wind that now
      drove us on, we were bound for the whirl of the Ström, and
      nothing could save us!

      “You perceive that in crossing the Ström _channel_, we always
      went a long way up above the whirl, even in the calmest weather,
      and then had to wait and watch carefully for the slack—but now we
      were driving right upon the pool itself, and in such a hurricane
      as this! ‘To be sure,’ I thought, ‘we shall get there just about
      the slack—there is some little hope in that’—but in the next
      moment I cursed myself for being so great a fool as to dream of
      hope at all. I knew very well that we were doomed, had we been
      ten times a ninety-gun ship.

      “By this time the first fury of the tempest had spent itself, or
      perhaps we did not feel it so much, as we scudded before it, but
      at all events the seas, which at first had been kept down by the
      wind, and lay flat and frothing, now got up into absolute
      mountains. A singular change, too, had come over the heavens.
      Around in every direction it was still as black as pitch, but
      nearly overhead there burst out, all at once, a circular rift of
      clear sky—as clear as I ever saw—and of a deep bright blue—and
      through it there blazed forth the full moon with a lustre that I
      never before knew her to wear. She lit up every thing about us
      with the greatest distinctness—but, oh God, what a scene it was
      to light up!

      “I now made one or two attempts to speak to my brother—but, in
      some manner which I could not understand, the din had so
      increased that I could not make him hear a single word, although
      I screamed at the top of my voice in his ear. Presently he shook
      his head, looking as pale as death, and held up one of his
      fingers, as if to say _‘listen! ‘_

      “At first I could not make out what he meant—but soon a hideous
      thought flashed upon me. I dragged my watch from its fob. It was
      not going. I glanced at its face by the moonlight, and then burst
      into tears as I flung it far away into the ocean. _It had run
      down at seven o’clock! We were behind the time of the slack, and
      the whirl of the Ström was in full fury!_

      “When a boat is well built, properly trimmed, and not deep laden,
      the waves in a strong gale, when she is going large, seem always
      to slip from beneath her—which appears very strange to a
      landsman—and this is what is called _riding_, in sea phrase.

      “Well, so far we had ridden the swells very cleverly; but
      presently a gigantic sea happened to take us right under the
      counter, and bore us with it as it rose—up—up—as if into the sky.
      I would not have believed that any wave could rise so high. And
      then down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made
      me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty
      mountain-top in a dream. But while we were up I had thrown a
      quick glance around—and that one glance was all sufficient. I saw
      our exact position in an instant. The Moskoe-Ström whirlpool was
      about a quarter of a mile dead ahead—but no more like the
      every-day Moskoe-Ström than the whirl as you now see it, is like
      a mill-race. If I had not known where we were, and what we had to
      expect, I should not have recognised the place at all. As it was,
      I involuntarily closed my eyes in horror. The lids clenched
      themselves together as if in a spasm.

      “It could not have been more than two minutes afterward until we
      suddenly felt the waves subside, and were enveloped in foam. The
      boat made a sharp half turn to larboard, and then shot off in its
      new direction like a thunderbolt. At the same moment the roaring
      noise of the water was completely drowned in a kind of shrill
      shriek—such a sound as you might imagine given out by the
      waste-pipes of many thousand steam-vessels, letting off their
      steam all together. We were now in the belt of surf that always
      surrounds the whirl; and I thought, of course, that another
      moment would plunge us into the abyss, down which we could only
      see indistinctly on account of the amazing velocity with which we
      wore borne along. The boat did not seem to sink into the water at
      all, but to skim like an air-bubble upon the surface of the
      surge. Her starboard side was next the whirl, and on the larboard
      arose the world of ocean we had left. It stood like a huge
      writhing wall between us and the horizon.

      “It may appear strange, but now, when we were in the very jaws of
      the gulf, I felt more composed than when we were only approaching
      it. Having made up my mind to hope no more, I got rid of a great
      deal of that terror which unmanned me at first. I suppose it was
      despair that strung my nerves.

      “It may look like boasting—but what I tell you is truth—I began
      to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a
      manner, and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a
      consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful
      a manifestation of God’s power. I do believe that I blushed with
      shame when this idea crossed my mind. After a little while I
      became possessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl
      itself. I positively felt a _wish_ to explore its depths, even at
      the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was
      that I should never be able to tell my old companions on shore
      about the mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were singular
      fancies to occupy a man’s mind in such extremity—and I have often
      thought since, that the revolutions of the boat around the pool
      might have rendered me a little light-headed.

      “There was another circumstance which tended to restore my
      self-possession; and this was the cessation of the wind, which
      could not reach us in our present situation—for, as you saw
      yourself, the belt of surf is considerably lower than the general
      bed of the ocean, and this latter now towered above us, a high,
      black, mountainous ridge. If you have never been at sea in a
      heavy gale, you can form no idea of the confusion of mind
      occasioned by the wind and spray together. They blind, deafen,
      and strangle you, and take away all power of action or
      reflection. But we were now, in a great measure, rid of these
      annoyances—just as death-condemned felons in prison are allowed
      petty indulgences, forbidden them while their doom is yet
      uncertain.

      “How often we made the circuit of the belt it is impossible to
      say. We careered round and round for perhaps an hour, flying
      rather than floating, getting gradually more and more into the
      middle of the surge, and then nearer and nearer to its horrible
      inner edge. All this time I had never let go of the ring-bolt. My
      brother was at the stern, holding on to a small empty water-cask
      which had been securely lashed under the coop of the counter, and
      was the only thing on deck that had not been swept overboard when
      the gale first took us. As we approached the brink of the pit he
      let go his hold upon this, and made for the ring, from which, in
      the agony of his terror, he endeavored to force my hands, as it
      was not large enough to afford us both a secure grasp. I never
      felt deeper grief than when I saw him attempt this act—although I
      knew he was a madman when he did it—a raving maniac through sheer
      fright. I did not care, however, to contest the point with him. I
      knew it could make no difference whether either of us held on at
      all; so I let him have the bolt, and went astern to the cask.
      This there was no great difficulty in doing; for the smack flew
      round steadily enough, and upon an even keel—only swaying to and
      fro, with the immense sweeps and swelters of the whirl. Scarcely
      had I secured myself in my new position, when we gave a wild
      lurch to starboard, and rushed headlong into the abyss. I
      muttered a hurried prayer to God, and thought all was over.

      “As I felt the sickening sweep of the descent, I had
      instinctively tightened my hold upon the barrel, and closed my
      eyes. For some seconds I dared not open them—while I expected
      instant destruction, and wondered that I was not already in my
      death-struggles with the water. But moment after moment elapsed.
      I still lived. The sense of falling had ceased; and the motion of
      the vessel seemed much as it had been before, while in the belt
      of foam, with the exception that she now lay more along. I took
      courage, and looked once again upon the scene.

      “Never shall I forget the sensations of awe, horror, and
      admiration with which I gazed about me. The boat appeared to be
      hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface
      of a funnel vast in circumference, prodigious in depth, and whose
      perfectly smooth sides might have been mistaken for ebony, but
      for the bewildering rapidity with which they spun around, and for
      the gleaming and ghastly radiance they shot forth, as the rays of
      the full moon, from that circular rift amid the clouds which I
      have already described, streamed in a flood of golden glory along
      the black walls, and far away down into the inmost recesses of
      the abyss.

      “At first I was too much confused to observe anything accurately.
      The general burst of terrific grandeur was all that I beheld.
      When I recovered myself a little, however, my gaze fell
      instinctively downward. In this direction I was able to obtain an
      unobstructed view, from the manner in which the smack hung on the
      inclined surface of the pool. She was quite upon an even
      keel—that is to say, her deck lay in a plane parallel with that
      of the water—but this latter sloped at an angle of more than
      forty-five degrees, so that we seemed to be lying upon our
      beam-ends. I could not help observing, nevertheless, that I had
      scarcely more difficulty in maintaining my hold and footing in
      this situation, than if we had been upon a dead level; and this,
      I suppose, was owing to the speed at which we revolved.

      “The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the
      profound gulf; but still I could make out nothing distinctly, on
      account of a thick mist in which everything there was enveloped,
      and over which there hung a magnificent rainbow, like that narrow
      and tottering bridge which Mussulmen say is the only pathway
      between Time and Eternity. This mist, or spray, was no doubt
      occasioned by the clashing of the great walls of the funnel, as
      they all met together at the bottom—but the yell that went up to
      the Heavens from out of that mist, I dare not attempt to
      describe.

      “Our first slide into the abyss itself, from the belt of foam
      above, had carried us a great distance down the slope; but our
      farther descent was by no means proportionate. Round and round we
      swept—not with any uniform movement—but in dizzying swings and
      jerks, that sent us sometimes only a few hundred yards—sometimes
      nearly the complete circuit of the whirl. Our progress downward,
      at each revolution, was slow, but very perceptible.

      “Looking about me upon the wide waste of liquid ebony on which we
      were thus borne, I perceived that our boat was not the only
      object in the embrace of the whirl. Both above and below us were
      visible fragments of vessels, large masses of building timber and
      trunks of trees, with many smaller articles, such as pieces of
      house furniture, broken boxes, barrels and staves. I have already
      described the unnatural curiosity which had taken the place of my
      original terrors. It appeared to grow upon me as I drew nearer
      and nearer to my dreadful doom. I now began to watch, with a
      strange interest, the numerous things that floated in our
      company. I _must_ have been delirious, for I even sought
      _amusement_ in speculating upon the relative velocities of their
      several descents toward the foam below. ‘This fir tree,’ I found
      myself at one time saying, ‘will certainly be the next thing that
      takes the awful plunge and disappears,’—and then I was
      disappointed to find that the wreck of a Dutch merchant ship
      overtook it and went down before. At length, after making several
      guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all—this fact—the
      fact of my invariable miscalculation, set me upon a train of
      reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat
      heavily once more.

      “It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a
      more exciting _hope_. This hope arose partly from memory, and
      partly from present observation. I called to mind the great
      variety of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden,
      having been absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-ström.
      By far the greater number of the articles were shattered in the
      most extraordinary way—so chafed and roughened as to have the
      appearance of being stuck full of splinters—but then I distinctly
      recollected that there were _some_ of them which were not
      disfigured at all. Now I could not account for this difference
      except by supposing that the roughened fragments were the only
      ones which had been _completely absorbed_—that the others had
      entered the whirl at so late a period of the tide, or, for some
      reason, had descended so slowly after entering, that they did not
      reach the bottom before the turn of the flood came, or of the
      ebb, as the case might be. I conceived it possible, in either
      instance, that they might thus be whirled up again to the level
      of the ocean, without undergoing the fate of those which had been
      drawn in more early, or absorbed more rapidly. I made, also,
      three important observations. The first was, that, as a general
      rule, the larger the bodies were, the more rapid their
      descent—the second, that, between two masses of equal extent, the
      one spherical, and the other _of any other shape_, the
      superiority in speed of descent was with the sphere—the third,
      that, between two masses of equal size, the one cylindrical, and
      the other of any other shape, the cylinder was absorbed the more
      slowly. Since my escape, I have had several conversations on this
      subject with an old school-master of the district; and it was
      from him that I learned the use of the words ‘cylinder’ and
      ‘sphere.’ He explained to me—although I have forgotten the
      explanation—how what I observed was, in fact, the natural
      consequence of the forms of the floating fragments—and showed me
      how it happened that a cylinder, swimming in a vortex, offered
      more resistance to its suction, and was drawn in with greater
      difficulty than an equally bulky body, of any form whatever. (*1)

      “There was one startling circumstance which went a great way in
      enforcing these observations, and rendering me anxious to turn
      them to account, and this was that, at every revolution, we
      passed something like a barrel, or else the yard or the mast of a
      vessel, while many of these things, which had been on our level
      when I first opened my eyes upon the wonders of the whirlpool,
      were now high up above us, and seemed to have moved but little
      from their original station.

      “I no longer hesitated what to do. I resolved to lash myself
      securely to the water cask upon which I now held, to cut it loose
      from the counter, and to throw myself with it into the water. I
      attracted my brother’s attention by signs, pointed to the
      floating barrels that came near us, and did everything in my
      power to make him understand what I was about to do. I thought at
      length that he comprehended my design—but, whether this was the
      case or not, he shook his head despairingly, and refused to move
      from his station by the ring-bolt. It was impossible to reach
      him; the emergency admitted of no delay; and so, with a bitter
      struggle, I resigned him to his fate, fastened myself to the cask
      by means of the lashings which secured it to the counter, and
      precipitated myself with it into the sea, without another
      moment’s hesitation.

      “The result was precisely what I had hoped it might be. As it is
      myself who now tell you this tale—as you see that I _did_
      escape—and as you are already in possession of the mode in which
      this escape was effected, and must therefore anticipate all that
      I have farther to say—I will bring my story quickly to
      conclusion. It might have been an hour, or thereabout, after my
      quitting the smack, when, having descended to a vast distance
      beneath me, it made three or four wild gyrations in rapid
      succession, and, bearing my loved brother with it, plunged
      headlong, at once and forever, into the chaos of foam below. The
      barrel to which I was attached sunk very little farther than half
      the distance between the bottom of the gulf and the spot at which
      I leaped overboard, before a great change took place in the
      character of the whirlpool. The slope of the sides of the vast
      funnel became momently less and less steep. The gyrations of the
      whirl grew, gradually, less and less violent. By degrees, the
      froth and the rainbow disappeared, and the bottom of the gulf
      seemed slowly to uprise. The sky was clear, the winds had gone
      down, and the full moon was setting radiantly in the west, when I
      found myself on the surface of the ocean, in full view of the
      shores of Lofoden, and above the spot where the pool of the
      Moskoe-ström _had been_. It was the hour of the slack—but the sea
      still heaved in mountainous waves from the effects of the
      hurricane. I was borne violently into the channel of the Ström,
      and in a few minutes was hurried down the coast into the
      ‘grounds’ of the fishermen. A boat picked me up—exhausted from
      fatigue—and (now that the danger was removed) speechless from the
      memory of its horror. Those who drew me on board were my old
      mates and daily companions—but they knew me no more than they
      would have known a traveller from the spirit-land. My hair which
      had been raven-black the day before, was as white as you see it
      now. They say too that the whole expression of my countenance had
      changed. I told them my story—they did not believe it. I now tell
      it to _you_—and I can scarcely expect you to put more faith in it
      than did the merry fishermen of Lofoden.”




VON KEMPELEN AND HIS DISCOVERY


      After the very minute and elaborate paper by Arago, to say
      nothing of the summary in ‘Silliman’s Journal,’ with the detailed
      statement just published by Lieutenant Maury, it will not be
      supposed, of course, that in offering a few hurried remarks in
      reference to Von Kempelen’s discovery, I have any design to look
      at the subject in a scientific point of view. My object is
      simply, in the first place, to say a few words of Von Kempelen
      himself (with whom, some years ago, I had the honor of a slight
      personal acquaintance), since every thing which concerns him must
      necessarily, at this moment, be of interest; and, in the second
      place, to look in a general way, and speculatively, at the
      results of the discovery.

      It may be as well, however, to premise the cursory observations
      which I have to offer, by denying, very decidedly, what seems to
      be a general impression (gleaned, as usual in a case of this
      kind, from the newspapers), viz.: that this discovery, astounding
      as it unquestionably is, is unanticipated.

      By reference to the ‘Diary of Sir Humphrey Davy’ (Cottle and
      Munroe, London, pp. 150), it will be seen at pp. 53 and 82, that
      this illustrious chemist had not only conceived the idea now in
      question, but had actually made no inconsiderable progress,
      experimentally, in the very identical analysis now so
      triumphantly brought to an issue by Von Kempelen, who although he
      makes not the slightest allusion to it, is, without doubt (I say
      it unhesitatingly, and can prove it, if required), indebted to
      the ‘Diary’ for at least the first hint of his own undertaking.

      The paragraph from the ‘Courier and Enquirer,’ which is now going
      the rounds of the press, and which purports to claim the
      invention for a Mr. Kissam, of Brunswick, Maine, appears to me, I
      confess, a little apocryphal, for several reasons; although there
      is nothing either impossible or very improbable in the statement
      made. I need not go into details. My opinion of the paragraph is
      founded principally upon its manner. It does not look true.
      Persons who are narrating facts, are seldom so particular as Mr.
      Kissam seems to be, about day and date and precise location.
      Besides, if Mr. Kissam actually did come upon the discovery he
      says he did, at the period designated—nearly eight years ago—how
      happens it that he took no steps, on the instant, to reap the
      immense benefits which the merest bumpkin must have known would
      have resulted to him individually, if not to the world at large,
      from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible that any man
      of common understanding could have discovered what Mr. Kissam
      says he did, and yet have subsequently acted so like a baby—so
      like an owl—as Mr. Kissam admits that he did. By-the-way, who is
      Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in the ‘Courier and
      Enquirer’ a fabrication got up to ‘make a talk’? It must be
      confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little
      dependence is to be placed upon it, in my humble opinion; and if
      I were not well aware, from experience, how very easily men of
      science are mystified, on points out of their usual range of
      inquiry, I should be profoundly astonished at finding so eminent
      a chemist as Professor Draper, discussing Mr. Kissam’s (or is it
      Mr. Quizzem’s?) pretensions to the discovery, in so serious a
      tone.

      But to return to the ‘Diary’ of Sir Humphrey Davy. This pamphlet
      was not designed for the public eye, even upon the decease of the
      writer, as any person at all conversant with authorship may
      satisfy himself at once by the slightest inspection of the style.
      At page 13, for example, near the middle, we read, in reference
      to his researches about the protoxide of azote: ‘In less than
      half a minute the respiration being continued, diminished
      gradually and were succeeded by analogous to gentle pressure on
      all the muscles.’ That the respiration was not ‘diminished,’ is
      not only clear by the subsequent context, but by the use of the
      plural, ‘were.’ The sentence, no doubt, was thus intended: ‘In
      less than half a minute, the respiration [being continued, these
      feelings] diminished gradually, and were succeeded by [a
      sensation] analogous to gentle pressure on all the muscles.’ A
      hundred similar instances go to show that the MS. so
      inconsiderately published, was merely a rough note-book, meant
      only for the writer’s own eye, but an inspection of the pamphlet
      will convince almost any thinking person of the truth of my
      suggestion. The fact is, Sir Humphrey Davy was about the last man
      in the world to commit himself on scientific topics. Not only had
      he a more than ordinary dislike to quackery, but he was morbidly
      afraid of appearing empirical; so that, however fully he might
      have been convinced that he was on the right track in the matter
      now in question, he would never have spoken out, until he had
      every thing ready for the most practical demonstration. I verily
      believe that his last moments would have been rendered wretched,
      could he have suspected that his wishes in regard to burning this
      ‘Diary’ (full of crude speculations) would have been unattended
      to; as, it seems, they were. I say ‘his wishes,’ for that he
      meant to include this note-book among the miscellaneous papers
      directed ‘to be burnt,’ I think there can be no manner of doubt.
      Whether it escaped the flames by good fortune or by bad, yet
      remains to be seen. That the passages quoted above, with the
      other similar ones referred to, gave Von Kempelen the hint, I do
      not in the slightest degree question; but I repeat, it yet
      remains to be seen whether this momentous discovery itself
      (momentous under any circumstances) will be of service or
      disservice to mankind at large. That Von Kempelen and his
      immediate friends will reap a rich harvest, it would be folly to
      doubt for a moment. They will scarcely be so weak as not to
      ‘realize,’ in time, by large purchases of houses and land, with
      other property of intrinsic value.

      In the brief account of Von Kempelen which appeared in the ‘Home
      Journal,’ and has since been extensively copied, several
      misapprehensions of the German original seem to have been made by
      the translator, who professes to have taken the passage from a
      late number of the Presburg ‘Schnellpost.’ ‘Viele’ has evidently
      been misconceived (as it often is), and what the translator
      renders by ‘sorrows,’ is probably ‘lieden,’ which, in its true
      version, ‘sufferings,’ would give a totally different complexion
      to the whole account; but, of course, much of this is merely
      guess, on my part.

      Von Kempelen, however, is by no means ‘a misanthrope,’ in
      appearance, at least, whatever he may be in fact. My acquaintance
      with him was casual altogether; and I am scarcely warranted in
      saying that I know him at all; but to have seen and conversed
      with a man of so _prodigious_ a notoriety as he has attained, or
      _will_ attain in a few days, is not a small matter, as times go.

      “The Literary World” speaks of him, confidently, as a native of
      Presburg (misled, perhaps, by the account in “The Home Journal”)
      but I am pleased in being able to state _positively_, since I
      have it from his own lips, that he was born in Utica, in the
      State of New York, although both his parents, I believe, are of
      Presburg descent. The family is connected, in some way, with
      Mäelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In person, he is short
      and stout, with large, _fat_, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers,
      a wide but pleasing mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose.
      There is some defect in one of his feet. His address is frank,
      and his whole manner noticeable for bonhomie. Altogether, he
      looks, speaks, and acts as little like ‘a misanthrope’ as any man
      I ever saw. We were fellow-sojourners for a week about six years
      ago, at Earl’s Hotel, in Providence, Rhode Island; and I presume
      that I conversed with him, at various times, for some three or
      four hours altogether. His principal topics were those of the
      day; and nothing that fell from him led me to suspect his
      scientific attainments. He left the hotel before me, intending to
      go to New York, and thence to Bremen; it was in the latter city
      that his great discovery was first made public; or, rather, it
      was there that he was first suspected of having made it. This is
      about all that I personally know of the now immortal Von
      Kempelen; but I have thought that even these few details would
      have interest for the public.

      There can be little question that most of the marvellous rumors
      afloat about this affair are pure inventions, entitled to about
      as much credit as the story of Aladdin’s lamp; and yet, in a case
      of this kind, as in the case of the discoveries in California, it
      is clear that the truth may be stranger than fiction. The
      following anecdote, at least, is so well authenticated, that we
      may receive it implicitly.

      Von Kempelen had never been even tolerably well off during his
      residence at Bremen; and often, it was well known, he had been
      put to extreme shifts in order to raise trifling sums. When the
      great excitement occurred about the forgery on the house of
      Gutsmuth & Co., suspicion was directed toward Von Kempelen, on
      account of his having purchased a considerable property in
      Gasperitch Lane, and his refusing, when questioned, to explain
      how he became possessed of the purchase money. He was at length
      arrested, but nothing decisive appearing against him, was in the
      end set at liberty. The police, however, kept a strict watch upon
      his movements, and thus discovered that he left home frequently,
      taking always the same road, and invariably giving his watchers
      the slip in the neighborhood of that labyrinth of narrow and
      crooked passages known by the flash name of the ‘Dondergat.’
      Finally, by dint of great perseverance, they traced him to a
      garret in an old house of seven stories, in an alley called
      Flatzplatz,—and, coming upon him suddenly, found him, as they
      imagined, in the midst of his counterfeiting operations. His
      agitation is represented as so excessive that the officers had
      not the slightest doubt of his guilt. After hand-cuffing him,
      they searched his room, or rather rooms, for it appears he
      occupied all the mansarde.

      Opening into the garret where they caught him, was a closet, ten
      feet by eight, fitted up with some chemical apparatus, of which
      the object has not yet been ascertained. In one corner of the
      closet was a very small furnace, with a glowing fire in it, and
      on the fire a kind of duplicate crucible—two crucibles connected
      by a tube. One of these crucibles was nearly full of lead in a
      state of fusion, but not reaching up to the aperture of the tube,
      which was close to the brim. The other crucible had some liquid
      in it, which, as the officers entered, seemed to be furiously
      dissipating in vapor. They relate that, on finding himself taken,
      Kempelen seized the crucibles with both hands (which were encased
      in gloves that afterwards turned out to be asbestic), and threw
      the contents on the tiled floor. It was now that they hand-cuffed
      him; and before proceeding to ransack the premises they searched
      his person, but nothing unusual was found about him, excepting a
      paper parcel, in his coat-pocket, containing what was afterward
      ascertained to be a mixture of antimony and some unknown
      substance, in nearly, but not quite, equal proportions. All
      attempts at analyzing the unknown substance have, so far, failed,
      but that it will ultimately be analyzed, is not to be doubted.

      Passing out of the closet with their prisoner, the officers went
      through a sort of ante-chamber, in which nothing material was
      found, to the chemist’s sleeping-room. They here rummaged some
      drawers and boxes, but discovered only a few papers, of no
      importance, and some good coin, silver and gold. At length,
      looking under the bed, they saw a large, common hair trunk,
      without hinges, hasp, or lock, and with the top lying carelessly
      across the bottom portion. Upon attempting to draw this trunk out
      from under the bed, they found that, with their united strength
      (there were three of them, all powerful men), they ‘could not
      stir it one inch.’ Much astonished at this, one of them crawled
      under the bed, and looking into the trunk, said:

      ‘No wonder we couldn’t move it—why it’s full to the brim of old
      bits of brass!’

      Putting his feet, now, against the wall so as to get a good
      purchase, and pushing with all his force, while his companions
      pulled with all theirs, the trunk, with much difficulty, was slid
      out from under the bed, and its contents examined. The supposed
      brass with which it was filled was all in small, smooth pieces,
      varying from the size of a pea to that of a dollar; but the
      pieces were irregular in shape, although more or less
      flat-looking, upon the whole, “very much as lead looks when
      thrown upon the ground in a molten state, and there suffered to
      grow cool.” Now, not one of these officers for a moment suspected
      this metal to be anything _but_ brass. The idea of its being
      _gold_ never entered their brains, of course; how _could_ such a
      wild fancy have entered it? And their astonishment may be well
      conceived, when the next day it became known, all over Bremen,
      that the “lot of brass” which they had carted so contemptuously
      to the police office, without putting themselves to the trouble
      of pocketing the smallest scrap, was not only gold—real gold—but
      gold far finer than any employed in coinage—gold, in fact,
      absolutely pure, virgin, without the slightest appreciable alloy.

      I need not go over the details of Von Kempelen’s confession (as
      far as it went) and release, for these are familiar to the
      public. That he has actually realized, in spirit and in effect,
      if not to the letter, the old chimaera of the philosopher’s
      stone, no sane person is at liberty to doubt. The opinions of
      Arago are, of course, entitled to the greatest consideration; but
      he is by no means infallible; and what he says of bismuth, in his
      report to the Academy, must be taken _cum grano salis_. The
      simple truth is, that up to this period all analysis has failed;
      and until Von Kempelen chooses to let us have the key to his own
      published enigma, it is more than probable that the matter will
      remain, for years, in statu quo. All that as yet can fairly be
      said to be known is, that ‘Pure gold can be made at will, and
      very readily from lead in connection with certain other
      substances, in kind and in proportions, unknown.’

      Speculation, of course, is busy as to the immediate and ultimate
      results of this discovery—a discovery which few thinking persons
      will hesitate in referring to an increased interest in the matter
      of gold generally, by the late developments in California; and
      this reflection brings us inevitably to another—the exceeding
      inopportuneness of Von Kempelen’s analysis. If many were
      prevented from adventuring to California, by the mere
      apprehension that gold would so materially diminish in value, on
      account of its plentifulness in the mines there, as to render the
      speculation of going so far in search of it a doubtful one—what
      impression will be wrought now, upon the minds of those about to
      emigrate, and especially upon the minds of those actually in the
      mineral region, by the announcement of this astounding discovery
      of Von Kempelen? a discovery which declares, in so many words,
      that beyond its intrinsic worth for manufacturing purposes
      (whatever that worth may be), gold now is, or at least soon will
      be (for it cannot be supposed that Von Kempelen can long retain
      his secret), of no greater value than lead, and of far inferior
      value to silver. It is, indeed, exceedingly difficult to
      speculate prospectively upon the consequences of the discovery,
      but one thing may be positively maintained—that the announcement
      of the discovery six months ago would have had material influence
      in regard to the settlement of California.

      In Europe, as yet, the most noticeable results have been a rise
      of two hundred per cent. in the price of lead, and nearly
      twenty-five per cent. that of silver.




MESMERIC REVELATION


Whatever doubt may still envelop the _rationale_ of mesmerism, its
startling _facts_ are now almost universally admitted. Of these latter,
those who doubt, are your mere doubters by profession—an unprofitable
and disreputable tribe. There can be no more absolute waste of time
than the attempt to _prove_, at the present day, that man, by mere
exercise of will, can so impress his fellow, as to cast him into an
abnormal condition, of which the phenomena resemble very closely those
of _death_, or at least resemble them more nearly than they do the
phenomena of any other normal condition within our cognizance; that,
while in this state, the person so impressed employs only with effort,
and then feebly, the external organs of sense, yet perceives, with
keenly refined perception, and through channels supposed unknown,
matters beyond the scope of the physical organs; that, moreover, his
intellectual faculties are wonderfully exalted and invigorated; that
his sympathies with the person so impressing him are profound; and,
finally, that his susceptibility to the impression increases with its
frequency, while, in the same proportion, the peculiar phenomena
elicited are more extended and more _pronounced_.

I say that these—which are the laws of mesmerism in its general
features—it would be supererogation to demonstrate; nor shall I inflict
upon my readers so needless a demonstration; to-day. My purpose at
present is a very different one indeed. I am impelled, even in the
teeth of a world of prejudice, to detail without comment the very
remarkable substance of a colloquy, occurring between a sleep-waker and
myself.

I had been long in the habit of mesmerizing the person in question (Mr.
Vankirk), and the usual acute susceptibility and exaltation of the
mesmeric perception had supervened. For many months he had been
laboring under confirmed phthisis, the more distressing effects of
which had been relieved by my manipulations; and on the night of
Wednesday, the fifteenth instant, I was summoned to his bedside.

The invalid was suffering with acute pain in the region of the heart,
and breathed with great difficulty, having all the ordinary symptoms of
asthma. In spasms such as these he had usually found relief from the
application of mustard to the nervous centres, but to-night this had
been attempted in vain.

As I entered his room he greeted me with a cheerful smile, and although
evidently in much bodily pain, appeared to be, mentally, quite at ease.

“I sent for you to-night,” he said, “not so much to administer to my
bodily ailment, as to satisfy me concerning certain psychal impressions
which, of late, have occasioned me much anxiety and surprise. I need
not tell you how sceptical I have hitherto been on the topic of the
soul’s immortality. I cannot deny that there has always existed, as if
in that very soul which I have been denying, a vague half-sentiment of
its own existence. But this half-sentiment at no time amounted to
conviction. With it my reason had nothing to do. All attempts at
logical inquiry resulted, indeed, in leaving me more sceptical than
before. I had been advised to study Cousin. I studied him in his own
works as well as in those of his European and American echoes. The
‘Charles Elwood’ of Mr. Brownson, for example, was placed in my hands.
I read it with profound attention. Throughout I found it logical, but
the portions which were not _merely_ logical were unhappily the initial
arguments of the disbelieving hero of the book. In his summing up it
seemed evident to me that the reasoner had not even succeeded in
convincing himself. His end had plainly forgotten his beginning, like
the government of Trinculo. In short, I was not long in perceiving that
if man is to be intellectually convinced of his own immortality, he
will never be so convinced by the mere abstractions which have been so
long the fashion of the moralists of England, of France, and of
Germany. Abstractions may amuse and exercise, but take no hold on the
mind. Here upon earth, at least, philosophy, I am persuaded, will
always in vain call upon us to look upon qualities as things. The will
may assent—the soul—the intellect, never.

“I repeat, then, that I only half felt, and never intellectually
believed. But latterly there has been a certain deepening of the
feeling, until it has come so nearly to resemble the acquiescence of
reason, that I find it difficult to distinguish between the two. I am
enabled, too, plainly to trace this effect to the mesmeric influence. I
cannot better explain my meaning than by the hypothesis that the
mesmeric exaltation enables me to perceive a train of ratiocination
which, in my abnormal existence, convinces, but which, in full
accordance with the mesmeric phenomena, does not extend, except through
its _effect_, into my normal condition. In sleep-waking, the reasoning
and its conclusion—the cause and its effect—are present together. In my
natural state, the cause vanishing, the effect only, and perhaps only
partially, remains.

“These considerations have led me to think that some good results might
ensue from a series of well-directed questions propounded to me while
mesmerized. You have often observed the profound self-cognizance
evinced by the sleep-waker—the extensive knowledge he displays upon all
points relating to the mesmeric condition itself; and from this
self-cognizance may be deduced hints for the proper conduct of a
catechism.”

I consented of course to make this experiment.  A few passes threw Mr.
Vankirk into the mesmeric sleep. His breathing became immediately more
easy, and he seemed to suffer no physical uneasiness. The following
conversation then ensued:—V. in the dialogue representing the patient,
and P. myself.

      _P._ Are you asleep?

      _V._ Yes—no; I would rather sleep more soundly.

      _P._ [_After a few more passes._] Do you sleep now?

      _V._ Yes.

      _P._ How do you think your present illness will result?

      _V._ [_After a long hesitation and speaking as if with effort_.]
      I must die.

      _P._ Does the idea of death afflict you?

      _V._ [_Very quickly_.] No—no!

      _P._ Are you pleased with the prospect?

      _V._ If I were awake I should like to die, but now it is no
      matter. The mesmeric condition is so near death as to content me.

      _P._ I wish you would explain yourself, Mr. Vankirk.

      _V._ I am willing to do so, but it requires more effort than I
      feel able to make. You do not question me properly.

      _P._ What then shall I ask?

      _V._ You must begin at the beginning.

      _P._ The beginning! But where is the beginning?

      _V._ You know that the beginning is GOD. [_This was said in a
      low, fluctuating tone, and with every sign of the most profound
      veneration_.]

      _P._ What then, is God?

      _V._ [_Hesitating for many minutes._] I cannot tell.

      _P._ Is not God spirit?

      _V._ While I was awake I knew what you meant by “spirit,” but now
      it seems only a word—such, for instance, as truth, beauty—a
      quality, I mean.

      _P._ Is not God immaterial?

      _V._ There is no immateriality—it is a mere word. That which is
      not matter, is not at all—unless qualities are things.

      _P._ Is God, then, material?

      _V._ No. [_This reply startled me very much._]

      _P._ What, then, is he?

      _V._ [_After a long pause, and mutteringly._] I see—but it is a
      thing difficult to tell. [_Another long pause._] He is not
      spirit, for he exists. Nor is he matter, as _you understand it_.
      But there are _gradations_ of matter of which man knows nothing;
      the grosser impelling the finer, the finer pervading the grosser.
      The atmosphere, for example, impels the electric principle, while
      the electric principle permeates the atmosphere. These gradations
      of matter increase in rarity or fineness, until we arrive at a
      matter _unparticled_—without particles—indivisible—_one;_ and
      here the law of impulsion and permeation is modified. The
      ultimate, or unparticled matter, not only permeates all things
      but impels all things; and thus _is_ all things within itself.
      This matter is God. What men attempt to embody in the word
      “thought,” is this matter in motion.

      _P._ The metaphysicians maintain that all action is reducible to
      motion and thinking, and that the latter is the origin of the
      former.

      _V._ Yes; and I now see the confusion of idea. Motion is the
      action of _mind_, not of _thinking_. The unparticled matter, or
      God, in quiescence, is (as nearly as we can conceive it) what men
      call mind. And the power of self-movement (equivalent in effect
      to human volition) is, in the unparticled matter, the result of
      its unity and omniprevalence; _how_ I know not, and now clearly
      see that I shall never know. But the unparticled matter, set in
      motion by a law, or quality, existing within itself, is thinking.

      _P._ Can you give me no more precise idea of what you term the
      unparticled matter?

      _V._ The matters of which man is cognizant escape the senses in
      gradation. We have, for example, a metal, a piece of wood, a drop
      of water, the atmosphere, a gas, caloric, electricity, the
      luminiferous ether. Now we call all these things matter, and
      embrace all matter in one general definition; but in spite of
      this, there can be no two ideas more essentially distinct than
      that which we attach to a metal, and that which we attach to the
      luminiferous ether. When we reach the latter, we feel an almost
      irresistible inclination to class it with spirit, or with
      nihility. The only consideration which restrains us is our
      conception of its atomic constitution; and here, even, we have to
      seek aid from our notion of an atom, as something possessing in
      infinite minuteness, solidity, palpability, weight. Destroy the
      idea of the atomic constitution and we should no longer be able
      to regard the ether as an entity, or at least as matter. For want
      of a better word we might term it spirit. Take, now, a step
      beyond the luminiferous ether—conceive a matter as much more rare
      than the ether, as this ether is more rare than the metal, and we
      arrive at once (in spite of all the school dogmas) at a unique
      mass—an unparticled matter. For although we may admit infinite
      littleness in the atoms themselves, the infinitude of littleness
      in the spaces between them is an absurdity. There will be a
      point—there will be a degree of rarity, at which, if the atoms
      are sufficiently numerous, the interspaces must vanish, and the
      mass absolutely coalesce. But the consideration of the atomic
      constitution being now taken away, the nature of the mass
      inevitably glides into what we conceive of spirit. It is clear,
      however, that it is as fully matter as before. The truth is, it
      is impossible to conceive spirit, since it is impossible to
      imagine what is not. When we flatter ourselves that we have
      formed its conception, we have merely deceived our understanding
      by the consideration of infinitely rarified matter.

      _P._ There seems to me an insurmountable objection to the idea of
      absolute coalescence;—and that is the very slight resistance
      experienced by the heavenly bodies in their revolutions through
      space—a resistance now ascertained, it is true, to exist in
      _some_ degree, but which is, nevertheless, so slight as to have
      been quite overlooked by the sagacity even of Newton. We know
      that the resistance of bodies is, chiefly, in proportion to their
      density. Absolute coalescence is absolute density. Where there
      are no interspaces, there can be no yielding. An ether,
      absolutely dense, would put an infinitely more effectual stop to
      the progress of a star than would an ether of adamant or of iron.

      _V._ Your objection is answered with an ease which is nearly in
      the ratio of its apparent unanswerability.—As regards the
      progress of the star, it can make no difference whether the star
      passes through the ether _or the ether through it_. There is no
      astronomical error more unaccountable than that which reconciles
      the known retardation of the comets with the idea of their
      passage through an ether: for, however rare this ether be
      supposed, it would put a stop to all sidereal revolution in a
      very far briefer period than has been admitted by those
      astronomers who have endeavored to slur over a point which they
      found it impossible to comprehend. The retardation actually
      experienced is, on the other hand, about that which might be
      expected from the _friction_ of the ether in the instantaneous
      passage through the orb. In the one case, the retarding force is
      momentary and complete within itself—in the other it is endlessly
      accumulative.

      _P._ But in all this—in this identification of mere matter with
      God—is there nothing of irreverence? [_I was forced to repeat
      this question before the sleep-waker fully comprehended my
      meaning_.]

      _V._ Can you say _why_ matter should be less reverenced than
      mind? But you forget that the matter of which I speak is, in all
      respects, the very “mind” or “spirit” of the schools, so far as
      regards its high capacities, and is, moreover, the “matter” of
      these schools at the same time. God, with all the powers
      attributed to spirit, is but the perfection of matter.

      _P._ You assert, then, that the unparticled matter, in motion, is
      thought?

      _V._ In general, this motion is the universal thought of the
      universal mind. This thought creates. All created things are but
      the thoughts of God.

      _P._ You say, “in general.”

      _V._ Yes. The universal mind is God. For new individualities,
      _matter_ is necessary.

      _P._ But you now speak of “mind” and “matter” as do the
      metaphysicians.

      _V._ Yes—to avoid confusion. When I say “mind,” I mean the
      unparticled or ultimate matter; by “matter,” I intend all else.

      _P._ You were saying that “for new individualities matter is
      necessary.”

      _V._ Yes; for mind, existing unincorporate, is merely God. To
      create individual, thinking beings, it was necessary to incarnate
      portions of the divine mind. Thus man is individualized. Divested
      of corporate investiture, he were God. Now, the particular motion
      of the incarnated portions of the unparticled matter is the
      thought of man; as the motion of the whole is that of God.

      _P._ You say that divested of the body man will be God?

      _V._ [_After much hesitation._] I could not have said this; it is
      an absurdity.

      _P._ [_Referring to my notes._] You _did_ say that “divested of
      corporate investiture man were God.”

      _V._ And this is true. Man thus divested _would be_ God—would be
      unindividualized. But he can never be thus divested—at least
      never _will be_—else we must imagine an action of God returning
      upon itself—a purposeless and futile action. Man is a creature.
      Creatures are thoughts of God. It is the nature of thought to be
      irrevocable.

      _P._ I do not comprehend. You say that man will never put off the
      body?

      _V._ I say that he will never be bodiless.

      _P._ Explain.

      _V._ There are two bodies—the rudimental and the complete;
      corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the
      butterfly. What we call “death,” is but the painful
      metamorphosis. Our present incarnation is progressive,
      preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected, ultimate,
      immortal. The ultimate life is the full design.

      _P._ But of the worm’s metamorphosis we are palpably cognizant.

      _V._ _We_, certainly—but not the worm. The matter of which our
      rudimental body is composed, is within the ken of the organs of
      that body; or, more distinctly, our rudimental organs are adapted
      to the matter of which is formed the rudimental body; but not to
      that of which the ultimate is composed. The ultimate body thus
      escapes our rudimental senses, and we perceive only the shell
      which falls, in decaying, from the inner form; not that inner
      form itself; but this inner form, as well as the shell, is
      appreciable by those who have already acquired the ultimate life.

      _P._ You have often said that the mesmeric state very nearly
      resembles death. How is this?

      _V._ When I say that it resembles death, I mean that it resembles
      the ultimate life; for when I am entranced the senses of my
      rudimental life are in abeyance, and I perceive external things
      directly, without organs, through a medium which I shall employ
      in the ultimate, unorganized life.

      _P._ Unorganized?

      _V._ Yes; organs are contrivances by which the individual is
      brought into sensible relation with particular classes and forms
      of matter, to the exclusion of other classes and forms. The
      organs of man are adapted to his rudimental condition, and to
      that only; his ultimate condition, being unorganized, is of
      unlimited comprehension in all points but one—the nature of the
      volition of God—that is to say, the motion of the unparticled
      matter. You will have a distinct idea of the ultimate body by
      conceiving it to be entire brain. This it is _not_; but a
      conception of this nature will bring you near a comprehension of
      what it _is_. A luminous body imparts vibration to the
      luminiferous ether. The vibrations generate similar ones within
      the retina; these again communicate similar ones to the optic
      nerve. The nerve conveys similar ones to the brain; the brain,
      also, similar ones to the unparticled matter which permeates it.
      The motion of this latter is thought, of which perception is the
      first undulation. This is the mode by which the mind of the
      rudimental life communicates with the external world; and this
      external world is, to the rudimental life, limited, through the
      idiosyncrasy of its organs. But in the ultimate, unorganized
      life, the external world reaches the whole body, (which is of a
      substance having affinity to brain, as I have said,) with no
      other intervention than that of an infinitely rarer ether than
      even the luminiferous; and to this ether—in unison with it—the
      whole body vibrates, setting in motion the unparticled matter
      which permeates it. It is to the absence of idiosyncratic organs,
      therefore, that we must attribute the nearly unlimited perception
      of the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, organs are the cages
      necessary to confine them until fledged.

      _P._ You speak of rudimental “beings.” Are there other rudimental
      thinking beings than man?

      _V._ The multitudinous conglomeration of rare matter into nebulæ,
      planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebulæ, suns,
      nor planets, is for the sole purpose of supplying _pabulum_ for
      the idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity of rudimental
      beings. But for the necessity of the rudimental, prior to the
      ultimate life, there would have been no bodies such as these.
      Each of these is tenanted by a distinct variety of organic,
      rudimental, thinking creatures. In all, the organs vary with the
      features of the place tenanted. At death, or metamorphosis, these
      creatures, enjoying the ultimate life—immortality—and cognizant
      of all secrets but _the one_, act all things and pass everywhere
      by mere volition:—indwelling, not the stars, which to us seem the
      sole palpabilities, and for the accommodation of which we blindly
      deem space created—but that SPACE itself—that infinity of which
      the truly substantive vastness swallows up the
      star-shadows—blotting them out as non-entities from the
      perception of the angels.

      _P._ You say that “but for the _necessity_ of the rudimental
      life” there would have been no stars. But why this necessity?

      _V._ In the inorganic life, as well as in the inorganic matter
      generally, there is nothing to impede the action of one simple
      _unique_ law—the Divine Volition. With the view of producing
      impediment, the organic life and matter, (complex, substantial,
      and law-encumbered,) were contrived.

      _P._ But again—why need this impediment have been produced?

      _V._ The result of law inviolate is perfection—right—negative
      happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong,
      positive pain. Through the impediments afforded by the number,
      complexity, and substantiality of the laws of organic life and
      matter, the violation of law is rendered, to a certain extent,
      practicable. Thus pain, which in the inorganic life is
      impossible, is possible in the organic.

      _P._ But to what good end is pain thus rendered possible?

      _V._ All things are either good or bad by comparison. A
      sufficient analysis will show that pleasure, in all cases, is but
      the contrast of pain. _Positive_ pleasure is a mere idea. To be
      happy at any one point we must have suffered at the same. Never
      to suffer would have been never to have been blessed. But it has
      been shown that, in the inorganic life, pain cannot be thus the
      necessity for the organic. The pain of the primitive life of
      Earth, is the sole basis of the bliss of the ultimate life in
      Heaven.

      _P._ Still, there is one of your expressions which I find it
      impossible to comprehend—“the truly _substantive_ vastness of
      infinity.”

      _V._ This, probably, is because you have no sufficiently generic
      conception of the term “_substance_” itself. We must not regard
      it as a quality, but as a sentiment:—it is the perception, in
      thinking beings, of the adaptation of matter to their
      organization. There are many things on the Earth, which would be
      nihility to the inhabitants of Venus—many things visible and
      tangible in Venus, which we could not be brought to appreciate as
      existing at all. But to the inorganic beings—to the angels—the
      whole of the unparticled matter is substance—that is to say, the
      whole of what we term “space” is to them the truest
      substantiality;—the stars, meantime, through what we consider
      their materiality, escaping the angelic sense, just in proportion
      as the unparticled matter, through what we consider its
      immateriality, eludes the organic.

      As the sleep-waker pronounced these latter words, in a feeble
      tone, I observed on his countenance a singular expression, which
      somewhat alarmed me, and induced me to awake him at once. No
      sooner had I done this, than, with a bright smile irradiating all
      his features, he fell back upon his pillow and expired. I noticed
      that in less than a minute afterward his corpse had all the stern
      rigidity of stone. His brow was of the coldness of ice. Thus,
      ordinarily, should it have appeared, only after long pressure
      from Azrael’s hand. Had the sleep-waker, indeed, during the
      latter portion of his discourse, been addressing me from out the
      region of the shadows?




THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR


      Of course I shall not pretend to consider it any matter for
      wonder, that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar has excited
      discussion. It would have been a miracle had it not—especially
      under the circumstances. Through the desire of all parties
      concerned, to keep the affair from the public, at least for the
      present, or until we had farther opportunities for
      investigation—through our endeavors to effect this—a garbled or
      exaggerated account made its way into society, and became the
      source of many unpleasant misrepresentations; and, very
      naturally, of a great deal of disbelief.

      It is now rendered necessary that I give the facts—as far as I
      comprehend them myself. They are, succinctly, these:

      My attention, for the last three years, had been repeatedly drawn
      to the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine months ago it
      occurred to me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments
      made hitherto, there had been a very remarkable and most
      unaccountable omission:—no person had as yet been mesmerized in
      articulo mortis. It remained to be seen, first, whether, in such
      condition, there existed in the patient any susceptibility to the
      magnetic influence; secondly, whether, if any existed, it was
      impaired or increased by the condition; thirdly, to what extent,
      or for how long a period, the encroachments of Death might be
      arrested by the process. There were other points to be
      ascertained, but these most excited my curiosity—the last in
      especial, from the immensely important character of its
      consequences.

      In looking around me for some subject by whose means I might test
      these particulars, I was brought to think of my friend, M. Ernest
      Valdemar, the well-known compiler of the “Bibliotheca Forensica,”
      and author (under the nom de plume of Issachar Marx) of the
      Polish versions of “Wallenstein” and “Gargantua.” M. Valdemar,
      who has resided principally at Harlem, N.Y., since the year 1839,
      is (or was) particularly noticeable for the extreme spareness of
      his person—his lower limbs much resembling those of John
      Randolph; and, also, for the whiteness of his whiskers, in
      violent contrast to the blackness of his hair—the latter, in
      consequence, being very generally mistaken for a wig. His
      temperament was markedly nervous, and rendered him a good subject
      for mesmeric experiment. On two or three occasions I had put him
      to sleep with little difficulty, but was disappointed in other
      results which his peculiar constitution had naturally led me to
      anticipate. His will was at no period positively, or thoroughly,
      under my control, and in regard to clairvoyance, I could
      accomplish with him nothing to be relied upon. I always
      attributed my failure at these points to the disordered state of
      his health. For some months previous to my becoming acquainted
      with him, his physicians had declared him in a confirmed
      phthisis. It was his custom, indeed, to speak calmly of his
      approaching dissolution, as of a matter neither to be avoided nor
      regretted.

      When the ideas to which I have alluded first occurred to me, it
      was of course very natural that I should think of M. Valdemar. I
      knew the steady philosophy of the man too well to apprehend any
      scruples from him; and he had no relatives in America who would
      be likely to interfere. I spoke to him frankly upon the subject;
      and, to my surprise, his interest seemed vividly excited. I say
      to my surprise, for, although he had always yielded his person
      freely to my experiments, he had never before given me any tokens
      of sympathy with what I did. His disease was of that character
      which would admit of exact calculation in respect to the epoch of
      its termination in death; and it was finally arranged between us
      that he would send for me about twenty-four hours before the
      period announced by his physicians as that of his decease.

      It is now rather more than seven months since I received, from M.
      Valdemar himself, the subjoined note:

      MY DEAR P——,

      You may as well come now. D—— and F—— are agreed that I cannot
      hold out beyond to-morrow midnight; and I think they have hit the
      time very nearly.

      VALDEMAR

      I received this note within half an hour after it was written,
      and in fifteen minutes more I was in the dying man’s chamber. I
      had not seen him for ten days, and was appalled by the fearful
      alteration which the brief interval had wrought in him. His face
      wore a leaden hue; the eyes were utterly lustreless; and the
      emaciation was so extreme that the skin had been broken through
      by the cheek-bones. His expectoration was excessive. The pulse
      was barely perceptible. He retained, nevertheless, in a very
      remarkable manner, both his mental power and a certain degree of
      physical strength. He spoke with distinctness—took some
      palliative medicines without aid—and, when I entered the room,
      was occupied in penciling memoranda in a pocket-book. He was
      propped up in the bed by pillows. Doctors D—— and F—— were in
      attendance.

      After pressing Valdemar’s hand, I took these gentlemen aside, and
      obtained from them a minute account of the patient’s condition.
      The left lung had been for eighteen months in a semi-osseous or
      cartilaginous state, and was, of course, entirely useless for all
      purposes of vitality. The right, in its upper portion, was also
      partially, if not thoroughly, ossified, while the lower region
      was merely a mass of purulent tubercles, running one into
      another. Several extensive perforations existed; and, at one
      point, permanent adhesion to the ribs had taken place. These
      appearances in the right lobe were of comparatively recent date.
      The ossification had proceeded with very unusual rapidity; no
      sign of it had been discovered a month before, and the adhesion
      had only been observed during the three previous days.
      Independently of the phthisis, the patient was suspected of
      aneurism of the aorta; but on this point the osseous symptoms
      rendered an exact diagnosis impossible. It was the opinion of
      both physicians that M. Valdemar would die about midnight on the
      morrow (Sunday). It was then seven o’clock on Saturday evening.

      On quitting the invalid’s bed-side to hold conversation with
      myself, Doctors D—— and F—— had bidden him a final farewell. It
      had not been their intention to return; but, at my request, they
      agreed to look in upon the patient about ten the next night.

      When they had gone, I spoke freely with M. Valdemar on the
      subject of his approaching dissolution, as well as, more
      particularly, of the experiment proposed. He still professed
      himself quite willing and even anxious to have it made, and urged
      me to commence it at once. A male and a female nurse were in
      attendance; but I did not feel myself altogether at liberty to
      engage in a task of this character with no more reliable
      witnesses than these people, in case of sudden accident, might
      prove. I therefore postponed operations until about eight the
      next night, when the arrival of a medical student with whom I had
      some acquaintance, (Mr. Theodore L—l,) relieved me from farther
      embarrassment. It had been my design, originally, to wait for the
      physicians; but I was induced to proceed, first, by the urgent
      entreaties of M. Valdemar, and secondly, by my conviction that I
      had not a moment to lose, as he was evidently sinking fast.

      Mr. L—l was so kind as to accede to my desire that he would take
      notes of all that occurred, and it is from his memoranda that
      what I now have to relate is, for the most part, either condensed
      or copied verbatim.

      It wanted about five minutes of eight when, taking the patient’s
      hand, I begged him to state, as distinctly as he could, to Mr.
      L—l, whether he (M. Valdemar) was entirely willing that I should
      make the experiment of mesmerizing him in his then condition.

      He replied feebly, yet quite audibly, “Yes, I wish to be. I fear
      you have mesmerized”—adding immediately afterwards: “I fear you
      have deferred it too long.”

      While he spoke thus, I commenced the passes which I had already
      found most effectual in subduing him. He was evidently influenced
      with the first lateral stroke of my hand across his forehead; but
      although I exerted all my powers, no further perceptible effect
      was induced until some minutes after ten o’clock, when Doctors
      D—— and F—— called, according to appointment. I explained to
      them, in a few words, what I designed, and as they opposed no
      objection, saying that the patient was already in the death
      agony, I proceeded without hesitation—exchanging, however, the
      lateral passes for downward ones, and directing my gaze entirely
      into the right eye of the sufferer.

      By this time his pulse was imperceptible and his breathing was
      stertorous, and at intervals of half a minute.

      This condition was nearly unaltered for a quarter of an hour. At
      the expiration of this period, however, a natural although a very
      deep sigh escaped the bosom of the dying man, and the stertorous
      breathing ceased—that is to say, its stertorousness was no longer
      apparent; the intervals were undiminished. The patient’s
      extremities were of an icy coldness.

      At five minutes before eleven I perceived unequivocal signs of
      the mesmeric influence. The glassy roll of the eye was changed
      for that expression of uneasy inward examination which is never
      seen except in cases of sleep-waking, and which it is quite
      impossible to mistake. With a few rapid lateral passes I made the
      lids quiver, as in incipient sleep, and with a few more I closed
      them altogether. I was not satisfied, however, with this, but
      continued the manipulations vigorously, and with the fullest
      exertion of the will, until I had completely stiffened the limbs
      of the slumberer, after placing them in a seemingly easy
      position. The legs were at full length; the arms were nearly so,
      and reposed on the bed at a moderate distance from the loin. The
      head was very slightly elevated.

      When I had accomplished this, it was fully midnight, and I
      requested the gentlemen present to examine M. Valdemar’s
      condition. After a few experiments, they admitted him to be an
      unusually perfect state of mesmeric trance. The curiosity of both
      the physicians was greatly excited. Dr. D—— resolved at once to
      remain with the patient all night, while Dr. F—— took leave with
      a promise to return at daybreak. Mr. L—l and the nurses remained.

      We left M. Valdemar entirely undisturbed until about three
      o’clock in the morning, when I approached him and found him in
      precisely the same condition as when Dr. F—— went away—that is to
      say, he lay in the same position; the pulse was imperceptible;
      the breathing was gentle (scarcely noticeable, unless through the
      application of a mirror to the lips); the eyes were closed
      naturally; and the limbs were as rigid and as cold as marble.
      Still, the general appearance was certainly not that of death.

      As I approached M. Valdemar I made a kind of half effort to
      influence his right arm into pursuit of my own, as I passed the
      latter gently to and fro above his person. In such experiments
      with this patient, I had never perfectly succeeded before, and
      assuredly I had little thought of succeeding now; but to my
      astonishment, his arm very readily, although feebly, followed
      every direction I assigned it with mine. I determined to hazard a
      few words of conversation.

      “M. Valdemar,” I said, “are you asleep?” He made no answer, but I
      perceived a tremor about the lips, and was thus induced to repeat
      the question, again and again. At its third repetition, his whole
      frame was agitated by a very slight shivering; the eyelids
      unclosed themselves so far as to display a white line of the
      ball; the lips moved sluggishly, and from between them, in a
      barely audible whisper, issued the words:

      “Yes;—asleep now. Do not wake me!—let me die so!”

      I here felt the limbs and found them as rigid as ever. The right
      arm, as before, obeyed the direction of my hand. I questioned the
      sleep-waker again:

      “Do you still feel pain in the breast, M. Valdemar?”

      The answer now was immediate, but even less audible than before:

      “No pain—I am dying.”

      I did not think it advisable to disturb him farther just then,
      and nothing more was said or done until the arrival of Dr. F——,
      who came a little before sunrise, and expressed unbounded
      astonishment at finding the patient still alive. After feeling
      the pulse and applying a mirror to the lips, he requested me to
      speak to the sleep-waker again. I did so, saying:

      “M. Valdemar, do you still sleep?”

      As before, some minutes elapsed ere a reply was made; and during
      the interval the dying man seemed to be collecting his energies
      to speak. At my fourth repetition of the question, he said very
      faintly, almost inaudibly:

      “Yes; still asleep—dying.”

      It was now the opinion, or rather the wish, of the physicians,
      that M. Valdemar should be suffered to remain undisturbed in his
      present apparently tranquil condition, until death should
      supervene—and this, it was generally agreed, must now take place
      within a few minutes. I concluded, however, to speak to him once
      more, and merely repeated my previous question.

      While I spoke, there came a marked change over the countenance of
      the sleep-waker. The eyes rolled themselves slowly open, the
      pupils disappearing upwardly; the skin generally assumed a
      cadaverous hue, resembling not so much parchment as white paper;
      and the circular hectic spots which, hitherto, had been strongly
      defined in the centre of each cheek, went out at once. I use this
      expression, because the suddenness of their departure put me in
      mind of nothing so much as the extinguishment of a candle by a
      puff of the breath. The upper lip, at the same time, writhed
      itself away from the teeth, which it had previously covered
      completely; while the lower jaw fell with an audible jerk,
      leaving the mouth widely extended, and disclosing in full view
      the swollen and blackened tongue. I presume that no member of the
      party then present had been unaccustomed to death-bed horrors;
      but so hideous beyond conception was the appearance of M.
      Valdemar at this moment, that there was a general shrinking back
      from the region of the bed.

      I now feel that I have reached a point of this narrative at which
      every reader will be startled into positive disbelief. It is my
      business, however, simply to proceed.

      There was no longer the faintest sign of vitality in M. Valdemar;
      and concluding him to be dead, we were consigning him to the
      charge of the nurses, when a strong vibratory motion was
      observable in the tongue. This continued for perhaps a minute. At
      the expiration of this period, there issued from the distended
      and motionless jaws a voice—such as it would be madness in me to
      attempt describing. There are, indeed, two or three epithets
      which might be considered as applicable to it in part; I might
      say, for example, that the sound was harsh, and broken and
      hollow; but the hideous whole is indescribable, for the simple
      reason that no similar sounds have ever jarred upon the ear of
      humanity. There were two particulars, nevertheless, which I
      thought then, and still think, might fairly be stated as
      characteristic of the intonation—as well adapted to convey some
      idea of its unearthly peculiarity. In the first place, the voice
      seemed to reach our ears—at least mine—from a vast distance, or
      from some deep cavern within the earth. In the second place, it
      impressed me (I fear, indeed, that it will be impossible to make
      myself comprehended) as gelatinous or glutinous matters impress
      the sense of touch.

      I have spoken both of “sound” and of “voice.” I mean to say that
      the sound was one of distinct—of even wonderfully, thrillingly
      distinct—syllabification. M. Valdemar spoke—obviously in reply to
      the question I had propounded to him a few minutes before. I had
      asked him, it will be remembered, if he still slept. He now said:

      “Yes;—no;—I have been sleeping—and now—now—I am dead.”

      No person present even affected to deny, or attempted to repress,
      the unutterable, shuddering horror which these few words, thus
      uttered, were so well calculated to convey. Mr. L—l (the student)
      swooned. The nurses immediately left the chamber, and could not
      be induced to return. My own impressions I would not pretend to
      render intelligible to the reader. For nearly an hour, we busied
      ourselves, silently—without the utterance of a word—in endeavors
      to revive Mr. L—l. When he came to himself, we addressed
      ourselves again to an investigation of M. Valdemar’s condition.

      It remained in all respects as I have last described it, with the
      exception that the mirror no longer afforded evidence of
      respiration. An attempt to draw blood from the arm failed. I
      should mention, too, that this limb was no farther subject to my
      will. I endeavored in vain to make it follow the direction of my
      hand. The only real indication, indeed, of the mesmeric
      influence, was now found in the vibratory movement of the tongue,
      whenever I addressed M. Valdemar a question. He seemed to be
      making an effort to reply, but had no longer sufficient volition.
      To queries put to him by any other person than myself he seemed
      utterly insensible—although I endeavored to place each member of
      the company in mesmeric rapport with him. I believe that I have
      now related all that is necessary to an understanding of the
      sleep-waker’s state at this epoch. Other nurses were procured;
      and at ten o’clock I left the house in company with the two
      physicians and Mr. L—l.

      In the afternoon we all called again to see the patient. His
      condition remained precisely the same. We had now some discussion
      as to the propriety and feasibility of awakening him; but we had
      little difficulty in agreeing that no good purpose would be
      served by so doing. It was evident that, so far, death (or what
      is usually termed death) had been arrested by the mesmeric
      process. It seemed clear to us all that to awaken M. Valdemar
      would be merely to insure his instant, or at least his speedy,
      dissolution.

      From this period until the close of last week—an interval of
      nearly seven months—we continued to make daily calls at M.
      Valdemar’s house, accompanied, now and then, by medical and other
      friends. All this time the sleeper-waker remained _exactly_ as I
      have last described him. The nurses’ attentions were continual.

      It was on Friday last that we finally resolved to make the
      experiment of awakening, or attempting to awaken him; and it is
      the (perhaps) unfortunate result of this latter experiment which
      has given rise to so much discussion in private circles—to so
      much of what I cannot help thinking unwarranted popular feeling.

      For the purpose of relieving M. Valdemar from the mesmeric
      trance, I made use of the customary passes. These, for a time,
      were unsuccessful. The first indication of revival was afforded
      by a partial descent of the iris. It was observed, as especially
      remarkable, that this lowering of the pupil was accompanied by
      the profuse out-flowing of a yellowish ichor (from beneath the
      lids) of a pungent and highly offensive odor.

      It was now suggested that I should attempt to influence the
      patient’s arm, as heretofore. I made the attempt and failed. Dr.
      F—— then intimated a desire to have me put a question. I did so,
      as follows:

      “M. Valdemar, can you explain to us what are your feelings or
      wishes now?”

      There was an instant return of the hectic circles on the cheeks;
      the tongue quivered, or rather rolled violently in the mouth
      (although the jaws and lips remained rigid as before), and at
      length the same hideous voice which I have already described,
      broke forth:

      “For God’s sake!—quick!—quick!—put me to sleep—or, quick!—waken
      me!—quick!—I say to you that I am dead!”

      I was thoroughly unnerved, and for an instant remained undecided
      what to do. At first I made an endeavor to recompose the patient;
      but, failing in this through total abeyance of the will, I
      retraced my steps and as earnestly struggled to awaken him. In
      this attempt I soon saw that I should be successful—or at least I
      soon fancied that my success would be complete—and I am sure that
      all in the room were prepared to see the patient awaken.

      For what really occurred, however, it is quite impossible that
      any human being could have been prepared.

      As I rapidly made the mesmeric passes, amid ejaculations of
      “dead! dead!” absolutely bursting from the tongue and not from
      the lips of the sufferer, his whole frame at once—within the
      space of a single minute, or even less,
      shrunk—crumbled—absolutely rotted away beneath my hands. Upon the
      bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of
      loathsome—of detestable putrescence.




THE BLACK CAT.


      For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to
      pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be
      to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own
      evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But
      to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My
      immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly,
      succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household
      events. In their consequences, these events have terrified—have
      tortured—have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound
      them. To me, they have presented little but horror—to many they
      will seem less terrible than _barroques_. Hereafter, perhaps,
      some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the
      common-place—some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less
      excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances
      I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of
      very natural causes and effects.

      From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my
      disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to
      make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of
      animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of
      pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy
      as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character
      grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of
      my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an
      affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at
      the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the
      gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish
      and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the
      heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry
      friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere _Man_.

      I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition
      not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic
      pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most
      agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a
      small monkey, and _a cat_.

      This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely
      black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his
      intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured
      with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular
      notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not
      that she was ever _serious_ upon this point—and I mention the
      matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just
      now, to be remembered.

      Pluto—this was the cat’s name—was my favorite pet and playmate. I
      alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the
      house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from
      following me through the streets.

      Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during
      which my general temperament and character—through the
      instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance—had (I blush to confess
      it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day
      by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the
      feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language
      to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My
      pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition.
      I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I
      still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating
      him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey,
      or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they
      came in my way. But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is
      like Alcohol!—and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old,
      and consequently somewhat peevish—even Pluto began to experience
      the effects of my ill temper.

      One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my
      haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I
      seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a
      slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon
      instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul
      seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than
      fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my
      frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it,
      grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of
      its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen
      the damnable atrocity.

      When reason returned with the morning—when I had slept off the
      fumes of the night’s debauch—I experienced a sentiment half of
      horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been
      guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and
      the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and
      soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

      In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost
      eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no
      longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as
      usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my
      approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first
      grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which
      had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to
      irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable
      overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy
      takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than
      I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the
      human heart—one of the indivisible primary faculties, or
      sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has
      not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly
      action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?
      Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best
      judgment, to violate that which is _Law_, merely because we
      understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say,
      came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of
      the soul _to vex itself_—to offer violence to its own nature—to
      do wrong for the wrong’s sake only—that urged me to continue and
      finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the
      unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose
      about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;—hung it with
      the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse
      at my heart;—hung it _because_ I knew that it had loved me, and
      _because_ I felt it had given me no reason of offence;—hung it
      _because_ I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin—a deadly
      sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it—if
      such a thing wore possible—even beyond the reach of the infinite
      mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

      On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was
      aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed
      were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great
      difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape
      from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire
      worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself
      thenceforward to despair.

      I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of
      cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am
      detailing a chain of facts—and wish not to leave even a possible
      link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the
      ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This
      exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which
      stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested
      the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure,
      resisted the action of the fire—a fact which I attributed to its
      having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were
      collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular
      portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words
      “strange!” “singular!” and other similar expressions, excited my
      curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in _bas relief_
      upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic _cat_. The
      impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was
      a rope about the animal’s neck.

      When I first beheld this apparition—for I could scarcely regard
      it as less—my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length
      reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung
      in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this
      garden had been immediately filled by the crowd—by some one of
      whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown,
      through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been
      done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of
      other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the
      substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with
      the flames, and the _ammonia_ from the carcass, had then
      accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

      Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether
      to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did
      not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For
      months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and,
      during this period, there came back into my spirit a
      half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far
      as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among
      the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another
      pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with
      which to supply its place.

      One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy,
      my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing
      upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of gin, or of rum,
      which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had
      been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some
      minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had
      not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and
      touched it with my hand. It was a black cat—a very large
      one—fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every
      respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of
      his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch
      of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast. Upon my
      touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against
      my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was
      the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to
      purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to
      it—knew nothing of it—had never seen it before.

      I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the
      animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to
      do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When
      it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became
      immediately a great favorite with my wife.

      For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me.
      This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but—I know
      not how or why it was—its evident fondness for myself rather
      disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust
      and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the
      creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my
      former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it.
      I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use
      it; but gradually—very gradually—I came to look upon it with
      unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious
      presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.

      What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the
      discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like
      Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This
      circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I
      have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of
      feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the
      source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures.

      With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself
      seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity
      which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend.
      Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon
      my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to
      walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down,
      or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in
      this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to
      destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly
      by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly—let me confess it at
      once—by absolute dread of the beast.

      This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil—and yet I
      should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost
      ashamed to own—yes, even in this felon’s cell, I am almost
      ashamed to own—that the terror and horror with which the animal
      inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimaeras
      it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my
      attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white
      hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole
      visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had
      destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although
      large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow
      degrees—degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time
      my reason struggled to reject as fanciful—it had, at length,
      assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the
      representation of an object that I shudder to name—and for this,
      above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of
      the monster _had I dared_—it was now, I say, the image of a
      hideous—of a ghastly thing—of the GALLOWS!—oh, mournful and
      terrible engine of Horror and of Crime—of Agony and of Death!

      And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere
      Humanity. And _a brute beast _—whose fellow I had contemptuously
      destroyed—_a brute beast_ to work out for _me_—for me a man,
      fashioned in the image of the High God—so much of insufferable
      woe! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of
      rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment
      alone, and in the latter I started hourly from dreams of
      unutterable fear to find the hot breath of _the thing_ upon my
      face, and its vast weight—an incarnate nightmare that I had no
      power to shake off—incumbent eternally upon my _heart!_

      Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble
      remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my
      sole intimates—the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The
      moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things
      and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and
      ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned
      myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas, was the most usual and the
      most patient of sufferers.

      One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the
      cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to
      inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly
      throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an
      axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had
      hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of
      course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I
      wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife.
      Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I
      withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain.
      She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.

      This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and
      with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I
      knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or
      by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors.
      Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting
      the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At
      another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the
      cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the
      yard—about packing it in a box, as if merchandise, with the usual
      arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house.
      Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than
      either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar—as the
      monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their
      victims.

      For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls
      were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered
      throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the
      atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the
      walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace,
      that had been filled up, and made to resemble the red of the
      cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks
      at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as
      before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious. And in
      this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I
      easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the
      body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position,
      while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it
      originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with
      every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not
      be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully
      went over the new brickwork. When I had finished, I felt
      satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the
      slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the
      floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around
      triumphantly, and said to myself: “Here at least, then, my labor
      has not been in vain.”

      My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause
      of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to
      put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment,
      there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that
      the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous
      anger, and forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is
      impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful
      sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature
      occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the
      night; and thus for one night at least, since its introduction
      into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even
      with the burden of murder upon my soul!

      The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came
      not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror,
      had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My
      happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but
      little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been
      readily answered. Even a search had been instituted—but of course
      nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as
      secured.

      Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police
      came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to
      make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in
      the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no
      embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in
      their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length,
      for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I
      quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who
      slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I
      folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The
      police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee
      at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if
      but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their
      assurance of my guiltlessness.

      “Gentlemen,” I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, “I
      delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health,
      and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this—this is a
      very well-constructed house.” (In the rabid desire to say
      something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.)—“I may
      say an _excellently_ well-constructed house. These walls—are you
      going, gentlemen?—these walls are solidly put together;” and
      here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with
      a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the
      brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.

      But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the
      Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into
      silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb!—by
      a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child,
      and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous
      scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman—a howl—a wailing shriek,
      half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen
      only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in
      their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.

      Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to
      the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs
      remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In
      the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell
      bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with
      gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its
      head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the
      hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose
      informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the
      monster up within the tomb!




THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER


     Son cœur est un luth suspendu;
     Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne..

—_De Béranger_.

      During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn
      of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the
      heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a
      singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself,
      as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the
      melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was—but, with the
      first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom
      pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was
      unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic,
      sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest
      natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the
      scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape
      features of the domain—upon the bleak walls—upon the vacant
      eye-like windows—upon a few rank sedges—and upon a few white
      trunks of decayed trees—with an utter depression of soul which I
      can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the
      after-dream of the reveller upon opium—the bitter lapse into
      everyday life—the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an
      iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart—an unredeemed
      dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could
      torture into aught of the sublime. What was it—I paused to
      think—what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the
      House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I
      grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I
      pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory
      conclusion, that while, beyond doubt, there _are_ combinations of
      very simple natural objects which have the power of thus
      affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among
      considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected,
      that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the
      scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to
      modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful
      impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the
      precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled
      lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down—but with a shudder even
      more thrilling than before—upon the remodelled and inverted
      images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems, and the
      vacant and eye-like windows.

      Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a
      sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been
      one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed
      since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me
      in a distant part of the country—a letter from him—which, in its
      wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a
      personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The
      writer spoke of acute bodily illness—of a mental disorder which
      oppressed him—and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best,
      and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting,
      by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his
      malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was
      said—it was the apparent _heart_ that went with his request—which
      allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed
      forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.

      Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I
      really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always
      excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very
      ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar
      sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages,
      in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in
      repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity, as well as
      in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more
      than to the orthodox and easily recognisable beauties, of musical
      science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the
      stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put
      forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that
      the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had
      always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain.
      It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in
      thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with
      the accredited character of the people, and while speculating
      upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of
      centuries, might have exercised upon the other—it was this
      deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent
      undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with
      the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge
      the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal
      appellation of the “House of Usher”—an appellation which seemed
      to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the
      family and the family mansion.

      I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish
      experiment—that of looking down within the tarn—had been to
      deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that
      the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition—for
      why should I not so term it?—served mainly to accelerate the
      increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law
      of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have
      been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to
      the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my
      mind a strange fancy—a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but
      mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which
      oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to
      believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an
      atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity—an
      atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but
      which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall,
      and the silent tarn—a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish,
      faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.

      Shaking off from my spirit what _must_ have been a dream, I
      scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its
      principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity.
      The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungi overspread
      the whole exterior, hanging in a fine tangled web-work from the
      eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary
      dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there
      appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect
      adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the
      individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the
      specious totality of old wood-work which has rotted for long
      years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the
      breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive
      decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability.
      Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered
      a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of
      the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag
      direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.

      Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house.
      A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic
      archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted
      me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my
      progress to the _studio_ of his master. Much that I encountered
      on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague
      sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects
      around me—while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre
      tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and
      the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode,
      were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been
      accustomed from my infancy—while I hesitated not to acknowledge
      how familiar was all this—I still wondered to find how unfamiliar
      were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. On one
      of the staircases, I met the physician of the family. His
      countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning
      and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation and passed on.
      The valet now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence
      of his master.

      The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The
      windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance
      from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from
      within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through
      the trellissed panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct
      the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in
      vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses
      of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the
      walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique,
      and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered
      about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that
      I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and
      irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.

      Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been
      lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth
      which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone
      cordiality—of the constrained effort of the _ennuyé_ man of the
      world. A glance, however, at his countenance, convinced me of his
      perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he
      spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of
      awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so
      brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty
      that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being
      before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the
      character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A
      cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous
      beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a
      surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model,
      but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a
      finely moulded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a
      want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and
      tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the
      regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not
      easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the
      prevailing character of these features, and of the expression
      they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to
      whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now
      miraculous lustre of the eye, above all things startled and even
      awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all
      unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather
      than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect
      its Arabesque expression with any idea of simple humanity.

      In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an
      incoherence—an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from
      a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual
      trepidancy—an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this
      nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter, than by
      reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions
      deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament.
      His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied
      rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits
      seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic
      concision—that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding
      enunciation—that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated
      guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard,
      or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his
      most intense excitement.

      It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his
      earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to
      afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to
      be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional
      and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a
      remedy—a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which
      would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of
      unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them,
      interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms, and
      the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered
      much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food
      was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain
      texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were
      tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar
      sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not
      inspire him with horror.

      To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. “I
      shall perish,” said he, “I must perish in this deplorable folly.
      Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the
      events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I
      shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident,
      which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I
      have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute
      effect—in terror. In this unnerved—in this pitiable condition—I
      feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must
      abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim
      phantasm, FEAR.”

      I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and
      equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental
      condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions
      in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many
      years, he had never ventured forth—in regard to an influence
      whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here
      to be re-stated—an influence which some peculiarities in the mere
      form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long
      sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit—an effect which the
      _physique_ of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn
      into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about
      upon the _morale_ of his existence.

      He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the
      peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more
      natural and far more palpable origin—to the severe and
      long-continued illness—indeed to the evidently approaching
      dissolution—of a tenderly beloved sister—his sole companion for
      long years—his last and only relative on earth. “Her decease,” he
      said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, “would leave
      him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race
      of the Ushers.” While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she
      called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment,
      and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded
      her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread—and yet I
      found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of
      stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps.
      When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought
      instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother—but he
      had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that
      a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated
      fingers through which trickled many passionate tears.

      The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of
      her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the
      person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially
      cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she
      had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had
      not betaken herself finally to bed; but, on the closing in of the
      evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother
      told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating
      power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had
      obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should
      obtain—that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me
      no more.

      For several days ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either
      Usher or myself; and during this period I was busied in earnest
      endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted
      and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild
      improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and
      still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the
      recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the
      futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness,
      as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects
      of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of
      gloom.

      I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I
      thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I
      should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact
      character of the studies, or of the occupations, in which he
      involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly distempered
      ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all. His long improvised
      dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other things, I hold
      painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification
      of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the
      paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew,
      touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shuddered the more
      thrillingly, because I shuddered knowing not why—from these
      paintings (vivid as their images now are before me) I would in
      vain endeavor to educe more than a small portion which should lie
      within the compass of merely written words. By the utter
      simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and
      overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal
      was Roderick Usher. For me at least—in the circumstances then
      surrounding me—there arose out of the pure abstractions which the
      hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvass, an intensity
      of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the
      contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries
      of Fuseli.

      One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not
      so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth,
      although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the interior
      of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low
      walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device. Certain
      accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea
      that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface
      of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast
      extent, and no torch, or other artificial source of light was
      discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and
      bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate splendor.

      I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve
      which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the
      exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was,
      perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon
      the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic
      character of his performances. But the fervid _facility_ of his
      _impromptus_ could not be so accounted for. They must have been,
      and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild
      fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with
      rhymed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense mental
      collectedness and concentration to which I have previously
      alluded as observable only in particular moments of the highest
      artificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I
      have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly
      impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under or mystic
      current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the
      first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher of the
      tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, which
      were entitled “The Haunted Palace,” ran very nearly, if not
      accurately, thus:

                        I.
     In the greenest of our valleys,
    By good angels tenanted,
     Once a fair and stately palace—
    Radiant palace—reared its head.
     In the monarch Thought’s dominion—
    It stood there!
     Never seraph spread a pinion
    Over fabric half so fair.

                        II.
     Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
    On its roof did float and flow;
     (This—all this—was in the olden
    Time long ago)
     And every gentle air that dallied,
    In that sweet day,
     Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
    A winged odor went away.

                        III.
     Wanderers in that happy valley
    Through two luminous windows saw
     Spirits moving musically
    To a lute’s well-tunéd law,
     Round about a throne, where sitting
    (Porphyrogene!)
     In state his glory well befitting,
    The ruler of the realm was seen.

                        IV.
     And all with pearl and ruby glowing
    Was the fair palace door,
     Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
    And sparkling evermore,
     A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty
    Was but to sing,
     In voices of surpassing beauty,
    The wit and wisdom of their king.

                        V.
     But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
    Assailed the monarch’s high estate;
     (Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow
    Shall dawn upon him, desolate!)
     And, round about his home, the glory
    That blushed and bloomed
     Is but a dim-remembered story
    Of the old time entombed.

                        VI.
     And travellers now within that valley,
    Through the red-litten windows, see
     Vast forms that move fantastically
    To a discordant melody;
     While, like a rapid ghastly river,
    Through the pale door,
     A hideous throng rush out forever,
    And laugh—but smile no more.

      I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad, led us
      into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion
      of Usher’s which I mention not so much on account of its novelty,
      (for other men * have thought thus,) as on account of the
      pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its
      general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things.
      But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring
      character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the
      kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full
      extent, or the earnest _abandon_ of his persuasion. The belief,
      however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with the
      gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions of the
      sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of
      collocation of these stones—in the order of their arrangement, as
      well as in that of the many _fungi_ which overspread them, and of
      the decayed trees which stood around—above all, in the long
      undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its
      reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidence—the
      evidence of the sentience—was to be seen, he said, (and I here
      started as he spoke,) in the gradual yet certain condensation of
      an atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls. The
      result was discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet
      importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had
      moulded the destinies of his family, and which made _him_ what I
      now saw him—what he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I
      will make none.

      * Watson, Dr. Percival, Spallanzani, and especially the Bishop of
      Landaff.—See “Chemical Essays,” vol v.

      Our books—the books which, for years, had formed no small portion
      of the mental existence of the invalid—were, as might be
      supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We
      pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of
      Gresset; the Belphegor of Machiavelli; the Heaven and Hell of
      Swedenborg; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg;
      the Chiromancy of Robert Flud, of Jean D’Indaginé, and of De la
      Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck; and the
      City of the Sun of Campanella. One favorite volume was a small
      octavo edition of the _Directorium Inquisitorium_, by the
      Dominican Eymeric de Gironne; and there were passages in
      Pomponius Mela, about the old African Satyrs and OEgipans, over
      which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight,
      however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and
      curious book in quarto Gothic—the manual of a forgotten
      church—the _Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae
      Maguntinae_.

      I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of
      its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening,
      having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more,
      he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight,
      (previously to its final interment,) in one of the numerous
      vaults within the main walls of the building. The worldly reason,
      however, assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I
      did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led to
      his resolution (so he told me) by consideration of the unusual
      character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and
      eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote
      and exposed situation of the burial-ground of the family. I will
      not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of
      the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my
      arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded
      as at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural,
      precaution.

      At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the
      arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been
      encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which
      we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our
      torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us
      little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and
      entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great
      depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which
      was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in
      remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep,
      and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some
      other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor,
      and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached
      it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive
      iron, had been, also, similarly protected. Its immense weight
      caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its
      hinges.

      Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this
      region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid
      of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking
      similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my
      attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured
      out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and
      himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely
      intelligible nature had always existed between them. Our glances,
      however, rested not long upon the dead—for we could not regard
      her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the
      maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a
      strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush
      upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering
      smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and
      screwed down the lid, and, having secured the door of iron, made
      our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of
      the upper portion of the house.

      And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable
      change came over the features of the mental disorder of my
      friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary
      occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber
      to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor
      of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly
      hue—but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The
      once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a
      tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually
      characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I
      thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some
      oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the
      necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all
      into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him
      gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the
      profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound.
      It was no wonder that his condition terrified—that it infected
      me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the
      wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive
      superstitions.

      It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the
      seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline
      within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such
      feelings. Sleep came not near my couch—while the hours waned and
      waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had
      dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that much, if not all
      of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the
      gloomy furniture of the room—of the dark and tattered draperies,
      which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest,
      swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily
      about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were fruitless.
      An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at
      length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly
      causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I
      uplifted myself upon the pillows, and, peering earnestly within
      the intense darkness of the chamber, harkened—I know not why,
      except that an instinctive spirit prompted me—to certain low and
      indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at
      long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense
      sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my
      clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more during
      the night), and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable
      condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro
      through the apartment.

      I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an
      adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognised
      it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a
      gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His
      countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan—but, moreover, there
      was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes—an evidently restrained
      _hysteria_ in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me—but
      anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long
      endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.

      “And you have not seen it?” he said abruptly, after having stared
      about him for some moments in silence—“you have not then seen
      it?—but, stay! you shall.” Thus speaking, and having carefully
      shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and threw it
      freely open to the storm.

      The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our
      feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night,
      and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind
      had apparently collected its force in our vicinity; for there
      were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the
      wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low
      as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our
      perceiving the life-like velocity with which they flew careering
      from all points against each other, without passing away into the
      distance. I say that even their exceeding density did not prevent
      our perceiving this—yet we had no glimpse of the moon or
      stars—nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning. But the
      under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well as
      all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in
      the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible
      gaseous exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion.

      “You must not—you shall not behold this!” said I, shudderingly,
      to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window
      to a seat. “These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely
      electrical phenomena not uncommon—or it may be that they have
      their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close
      this casement;—the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame.
      Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read, and you shall
      listen;—and so we will pass away this terrible night together.”

      The antique volume which I had taken up was the “Mad Trist” of
      Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favorite of Usher’s
      more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little
      in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had
      interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It
      was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a
      vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the
      hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental
      disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of
      the folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by
      the wild overstrained air of vivacity with which he harkened, or
      apparently harkened, to the words of the tale, I might well have
      congratulated myself upon the success of my design.

      I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where
      Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for
      peaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to
      make good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the
      words of the narrative run thus:

      “And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was
      now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine
      which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the
      hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn,
      but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising
      of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made
      quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted
      hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and
      ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and
      hollow-sounding wood alarummed and reverberated throughout the
      forest.”

      At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment,
      paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that
      my excited fancy had deceived me)—it appeared to me that, from
      some very remote portion of the mansion, there came,
      indistinctly, to my ears, what might have been, in its exact
      similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one
      certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir
      Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt,
      the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid
      the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary
      commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in
      itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or
      disturbed me. I continued the story:

      “But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door,
      was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the
      maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly
      and prodigious demeanor, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in
      guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and upon
      the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend
      enwritten—

     Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin;
     Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;

      And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the
      dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with
      a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that
      Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the
      dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard.”

      Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild
      amazement—for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this
      instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it
      proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently
      distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or
      grating sound—the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already
      conjured up for the dragon’s unnatural shriek as described by the
      romancer.

      Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second
      and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting
      sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant,
      I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting,
      by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I
      was by no means certain that he had noticed the sounds in
      question; although, assuredly, a strange alteration had, during
      the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanor. From a
      position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his
      chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber; and
      thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I saw
      that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His
      head had dropped upon his breast—yet I knew that he was not
      asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a
      glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at
      variance with this idea—for he rocked from side to side with a
      gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice
      of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus
      proceeded:

      “And now, the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of
      the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the
      breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the
      carcass from out of the way before him, and approached valorously
      over the silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was
      upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his full coming,
      but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty
      great and terrible ringing sound.”

      No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than—as if a shield
      of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor
      of silver—I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic, and
      clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely
      unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement
      of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat.
      His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole
      countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my
      hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his
      whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw
      that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if
      unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at length
      drank in the hideous import of his words.

      “Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and _have_ heard it.
      Long—long—long—many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard
      it—yet I dared not—oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I
      dared not—I _dared_ not speak! _We have put her living in the
      tomb!_ Said I not that my senses were acute? I _now_ tell you
      that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I
      heard them—many, many days ago—yet I dared not—_I dared not
      speak!_ And now—to-night—Ethelred—ha! ha!—the breaking of the
      hermit’s door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangor
      of the shield!—say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the
      grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles
      within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh whither shall I fly?
      Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for
      my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not
      distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart?
      Madman!”—here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out
      his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his
      soul—“_Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!_”

      As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been
      found the potency of a spell—the huge antique pannels to which
      the speaker pointed, threw slowly back, upon the instant, their
      ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust—but
      then without those doors there _did_ stand the lofty and
      enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood
      upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle
      upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she
      remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the
      threshold—then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon
      the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final
      death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to
      the terrors he had anticipated.

      From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The
      storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself
      crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a
      wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could
      have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind
      me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red
      moon, which now shone vividly through that once
      barely-discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as
      extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction,
      to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened—there
      came a fierce breath of the whirlwind—the entire orb of the
      satellite burst at once upon my sight—my brain reeled as I saw
      the mighty walls rushing asunder—there was a long tumultuous
      shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—and the deep
      and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the
      fragments of the “_House of Usher_.”




SILENCE—A FABLE


     “The mountain pinnacles slumber; valleys, crags and caves _are
     silent_.”

      “Listen to me,” said the Demon as he placed his hand upon my
      head. “The region of which I speak is a dreary region in Libya,
      by the borders of the river Zaire. And there is no quiet there,
      nor silence.

      “The waters of the river have a saffron and sickly hue; and they
      flow not onwards to the sea, but palpitate forever and forever
      beneath the red eye of the sun with a tumultuous and convulsive
      motion. For many miles on either side of the river’s oozy bed is
      a pale desert of gigantic water-lilies. They sigh one unto the
      other in that solitude, and stretch towards the heaven their long
      and ghastly necks, and nod to and fro their everlasting heads.
      And there is an indistinct murmur which cometh out from among
      them like the rushing of subterrene water. And they sigh one unto
      the other.

      “But there is a boundary to their realm—the boundary of the dark,
      horrible, lofty forest. There, like the waves about the Hebrides,
      the low underwood is agitated continually. But there is no wind
      throughout the heaven. And the tall primeval trees rock eternally
      hither and thither with a crashing and mighty sound. And from
      their high summits, one by one, drop everlasting dews. And at the
      roots strange poisonous flowers lie writhing in perturbed
      slumber. And overhead, with a rustling and loud noise, the gray
      clouds rush westwardly forever, until they roll, a cataract, over
      the fiery wall of the horizon. But there is no wind throughout
      the heaven. And by the shores of the river Zaire there is neither
      quiet nor silence.

      “It was night, and the rain fell; and falling, it was rain, but,
      having fallen, it was blood. And I stood in the morass among the
      tall and the rain fell upon my head—and the lilies sighed one
      unto the other in the solemnity of their desolation.

      “And, all at once, the moon arose through the thin ghastly mist,
      and was crimson in color. And mine eyes fell upon a huge gray
      rock which stood by the shore of the river, and was lighted by
      the light of the moon. And the rock was gray, and ghastly, and
      tall,—and the rock was gray. Upon its front were characters
      engraven in the stone; and I walked through the morass of
      water-lilies, until I came close unto the shore, that I might
      read the characters upon the stone. But I could not decypher
      them. And I was going back into the morass, when the moon shone
      with a fuller red, and I turned and looked again upon the rock,
      and upon the characters, and the characters were DESOLATION.

      “And I looked upwards, and there stood a man upon the summit of
      the rock; and I hid myself among the water-lilies that I might
      discover the actions of the man. And the man was tall and stately
      in form, and was wrapped up from his shoulders to his feet in the
      toga of old Rome. And the outlines of his figure were
      indistinct—but his features were the features of a deity; for the
      mantle of the night, and of the mist, and of the moon, and of the
      dew, had left uncovered the features of his face. And his brow
      was lofty with thought, and his eye wild with care; and, in the
      few furrows upon his cheek I read the fables of sorrow, and
      weariness, and disgust with mankind, and a longing after
      solitude.

      “And the man sat upon the rock, and leaned his head upon his
      hand, and looked out upon the desolation. He looked down into the
      low unquiet shrubbery, and up into the tall primeval trees, and
      up higher at the rustling heaven, and into the crimson moon. And
      I lay close within shelter of the lilies, and observed the
      actions of the man. And the man trembled in the solitude;—but the
      night waned, and he sat upon the rock.

      “And the man turned his attention from the heaven, and looked out
      upon the dreary river Zaire, and upon the yellow ghastly waters,
      and upon the pale legions of the water-lilies. And the man
      listened to the sighs of the water-lilies, and to the murmur that
      came up from among them. And I lay close within my covert and
      observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the
      solitude;—but the night waned and he sat upon the rock.

      “Then I went down into the recesses of the morass, and waded afar
      in among the wilderness of the lilies, and called unto the
      hippopotami which dwelt among the fens in the recesses of the
      morass. And the hippopotami heard my call, and came, with the
      behemoth, unto the foot of the rock, and roared loudly and
      fearfully beneath the moon. And I lay close within my covert and
      observed the actions of the man. And the man trembled in the
      solitude;—but the night waned and he sat upon the rock.

      “Then I cursed the elements with the curse of tumult; and a
      frightful tempest gathered in the heaven where, before, there had
      been no wind. And the heaven became livid with the violence of
      the tempest—and the rain beat upon the head of the man—and the
      floods of the river came down—and the river was tormented into
      foam—and the water-lilies shrieked within their beds—and the
      forest crumbled before the wind—and the thunder rolled—and the
      lightning fell—and the rock rocked to its foundation. And I lay
      close within my covert and observed the actions of the man. And
      the man trembled in the solitude;—but the night waned and he sat
      upon the rock.

      “Then I grew angry and cursed, with the curse of silence, the
      river, and the lilies, and the wind, and the forest, and the
      heaven, and the thunder, and the sighs of the water-lilies. And
      they became accursed, and were still. And the moon ceased to
      totter up its pathway to heaven—and the thunder died away—and the
      lightning did not flash—and the clouds hung motionless—and the
      waters sunk to their level and remained—and the trees ceased to
      rock—and the water-lilies sighed no more—and the murmur was heard
      no longer from among them, nor any shadow of sound throughout the
      vast illimitable desert. And I looked upon the characters of the
      rock, and they were changed; and the characters were SILENCE.

      “And mine eyes fell upon the countenance of the man, and his
      countenance was wan with terror. And, hurriedly, he raised his
      head from his hand, and stood forth upon the rock and listened.
      But there was no voice throughout the vast illimitable desert,
      and the characters upon the rock were SILENCE. And the man
      shuddered, and turned his face away, and fled afar off, in haste,
      so that I beheld him no more.”

      Now there are fine tales in the volumes of the Magi—in the
      iron-bound, melancholy volumes of the Magi. Therein, I say, are
      glorious histories of the Heaven, and of the Earth, and of the
      mighty sea—and of the Genii that over-ruled the sea, and the
      earth, and the lofty heaven. There was much lore too in the
      sayings which were said by the Sybils; and holy, holy things were
      heard of old by the dim leaves that trembled around Dodona—but,
      as Allah liveth, that fable which the Demon told me as he sat by
      my side in the shadow of the tomb, I hold to be the most
      wonderful of all! And as the Demon made an end of his story, he
      fell back within the cavity of the tomb and laughed. And I could
      not laugh with the Demon, and he cursed me because I could not
      laugh. And the lynx which dwelleth forever in the tomb, came out
      therefrom, and lay down at the feet of the Demon, and looked at
      him steadily in the face.




THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH.


      The “Red Death” had long devastated the country. No pestilence
      had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and
      its seal—the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp
      pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the
      pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and
      especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which
      shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his
      fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of
      the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

      But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious.
      When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his
      presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the
      knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the
      deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an
      extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s
      own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled
      it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having
      entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts.
      They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the
      sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey
      was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might
      bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of
      itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The
      prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were
      buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers,
      there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these
      and security were within. Without was the “Red Death.”

      It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his
      seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad,
      that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a
      masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

      It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell
      of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven—an imperial
      suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and
      straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the
      walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is
      scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have
      been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre. The apartments
      were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little
      more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty
      or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right
      and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic
      window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the
      windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose
      color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the
      decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the
      eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue—and vividly blue
      were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments
      and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was
      green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was
      furnished and lighted with orange—the fifth with white—the sixth
      with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black
      velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the
      walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material
      and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows
      failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were
      scarlet—a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments
      was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden
      ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the
      roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or
      candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that
      followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy
      tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that projected its rays through
      the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus
      were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But
      in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that
      streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes,
      was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the
      countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the
      company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

      It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the
      western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to
      and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the
      minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be
      stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound
      which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of
      so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour,
      the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause,
      momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and
      thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was
      a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the
      chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest
      grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over
      their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the
      echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the
      assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at
      their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each
      to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce
      in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty
      minutes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of
      the Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the
      clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and
      meditation as before.

      But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent
      revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye
      for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere
      fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions
      glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have
      thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was
      necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was
      not.

      He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of
      the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fête; and it was
      his own guiding taste which had given character to the
      masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare
      and glitter and piquancy and phantasm—much of what has been since
      seen in “Hernani.” There were arabesque figures with unsuited
      limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the
      madman fashions. There was much of the beautiful, much of the
      wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a
      little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in
      the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams.
      And these—the dreams—writhed in and about, taking hue from the
      rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the
      echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock
      which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment,
      all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The
      dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the
      chime die away—they have endured but an instant—and a light,
      half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now
      again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and
      fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted
      windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to
      the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are
      now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning
      away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored
      panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appals; and to him
      whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near
      clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any
      which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties
      of the other apartments.

      But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat
      feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on,
      until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the
      clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the
      evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy
      cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve
      strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it
      happened, perhaps, that more of thought crept, with more of time,
      into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled.
      And thus, too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes
      of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many
      individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of
      the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention
      of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new
      presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at
      length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of
      disapprobation and surprise—then, finally, of terror, of horror,
      and of disgust.

      In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well
      be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such
      sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was
      nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded
      Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite
      decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless
      which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly
      lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters
      of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed
      now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the
      stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall
      and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of
      the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly
      to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the
      closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat.
      And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the
      mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume
      the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood—and
      his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was
      besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

      When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image
      (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to
      sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was
      seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder
      either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened
      with rage.

      “Who dares?” he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near
      him—“who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him
      and unmask him—that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise,
      from the battlements!”

      It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince
      Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the
      seven rooms loudly and clearly—for the prince was a bold and
      robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his
      hand.

      It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of
      pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a
      slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the
      intruder, who at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with
      deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker.
      But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of
      the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none
      who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed
      within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast
      assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the
      rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the
      same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from
      the first, through the blue chamber to the purple—through the
      purple to the green—through the green to the orange—through this
      again to the white—and even thence to the violet, ere a decided
      movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that
      the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own
      momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers,
      while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had
      seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had
      approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of
      the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the
      extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted
      his pursuer. There was a sharp cry—and the dagger dropped
      gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards,
      fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the
      wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw
      themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer,
      whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of
      the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the
      grave-cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so
      violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

      And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had
      come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the
      revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died
      each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the
      ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the
      flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red
      Death held illimitable dominion over all.




THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO.


      The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could;
      but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so
      well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that
      I gave utterance to a threat. _At length_ I would be avenged;
      this was a point definitively settled—but the very definitiveness
      with which it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk. I must
      not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed
      when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally
      unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such
      to him who has done the wrong.

      It must be understood, that neither by word nor deed had I given
      Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my
      wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile
      _now_ was at the thought of his immolation.

      He had a weak point—this Fortunato—although in other regards he
      was a man to be respected and even feared. He prided himself on
      his connoisseurship in wine. Few Italians have the true virtuoso
      spirit. For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the
      time and opportunity—to practise imposture upon the British and
      Austrian _millionaires_. In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like
      his countrymen, was a quack—but in the matter of old wines he was
      sincere. In this respect I did not differ from him materially: I
      was skilful in the Italian vintages myself, and bought largely
      whenever I could.

      It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the
      carnival season, that I encountered my friend. He accosted me
      with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much. The man
      wore motley. He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and
      his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells. I was so
      pleased to see him, that I thought I should never have done
      wringing his hand.

      I said to him: “My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met. How
      remarkably well you are looking to-day! But I have received a
      pipe of what passes for Amontillado, and I have my doubts.”

      “How?” said he. “Amontillado? A pipe? Impossible! And in the
      middle of the carnival!”

      “I have my doubts,” I replied; “and I was silly enough to pay the
      full Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You
      were not to be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain.”

      “Amontillado!”

      “I have my doubts.”

      “Amontillado!”

      “And I must satisfy them.”

      “Amontillado!”

      “As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi. If any one has a
      critical turn, it is he. He will tell me—”

      “Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry.”

      “And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for
      your own.”

      “Come, let us go.”

      “Whither?”

      “To your vaults.”

      “My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature. I
      perceive you have an engagement. Luchesi—”

      “I have no engagement;—come.”

      “My friend, no. It is not the engagement, but the severe cold
      with which I perceive you are afflicted. The vaults are
      insufferably damp. They are encrusted with nitre.”

      “Let us go, nevertheless. The cold is merely nothing.
      Amontillado! You have been imposed upon. And as for Luchesi, he
      cannot distinguish Sherry from Amontillado.”

      Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm. Putting on
      a mask of black silk, and drawing a _roquelaire_ closely about my
      person, I suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.

      There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make
      merry in honor of the time. I had told them that I should not
      return until the morning, and had given them explicit orders not
      to stir from the house. These orders were sufficient, I well
      knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as
      soon as my back was turned.

      I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to
      Fortunato, bowed him through several suites of rooms to the
      archway that led into the vaults. I passed down a long and
      winding staircase, requesting him to be cautious as he followed.
      We came at length to the foot of the descent, and stood together
      on the damp ground of the catacombs of the Montresors.

      The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap
      jingled as he strode.

      “The pipe,” said he.

      “It is farther on,” said I; “but observe the white web-work which
      gleams from these cavern walls.”

      He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs
      that distilled the rheum of intoxication.

      “Nitre?” he asked, at length.

      “Nitre,” I replied. “How long have you had that cough?”

      “Ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh!
      ugh! ugh!”

      My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.

      “It is nothing,” he said, at last.

      “Come,” I said, with decision, “we will go back; your health is
      precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are
      happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no
      matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be
      responsible. Besides, there is Luchesi—”

      “Enough,” he said; “the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill
      me. I shall not die of a cough.”

      “True—true,” I replied; “and, indeed, I had no intention of
      alarming you unnecessarily—but you should use all proper caution.
      A draught of this Medoc will defend us from the damps.”

      Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long
      row of its fellows that lay upon the mould.

      “Drink,” I said, presenting him the wine.

      He raised it to his lips with a leer. He paused and nodded to me
      familiarly, while his bells jingled.

      “I drink,” he said, “to the buried that repose around us.”

      “And I to your long life.”

      He again took my arm, and we proceeded.

      “These vaults,” he said, “are extensive.”

      “The Montresors,” I replied, “were a great and numerous family.”

      “I forget your arms.”

      “A huge human foot d’or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a
      serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.”

      “And the motto?”

      “_Nemo me impune lacessit_.”

      “Good!” he said.

      The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled. My own fancy
      grew warm with the Medoc. We had passed through walls of piled
      bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost
      recesses of the catacombs. I paused again, and this time I made
      bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

      “The nitre!” I said: “see, it increases. It hangs like moss upon
      the vaults. We are below the river’s bed. The drops of moisture
      trickle among the bones. Come, we will go back ere it is too
      late. Your cough—”

      “It is nothing,” he said; “let us go on. But first, another
      draught of the Medoc.”

      I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grâve. He emptied it at a
      breath. His eyes flashed with a fierce light. He laughed and
      threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not
      understand.

      I looked at him in surprise. He repeated the movement—a grotesque
      one.

      “You do not comprehend?” he said.

      “Not I,” I replied.

      “Then you are not of the brotherhood.”

      “How?”

      “You are not of the masons.”

      “Yes, yes,” I said, “yes, yes.”

      “You? Impossible! A mason?”

      “A mason,” I replied.

      “A sign,” he said.

      “It is this,” I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the
      folds of my _roquelaire_.

      “You jest,” he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces. “But let us
      proceed to the Amontillado.”

      “Be it so,” I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak, and
      again offering him my arm. He leaned upon it heavily. We
      continued our route in search of the Amontillado. We passed
      through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and
      descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness
      of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.

      At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less
      spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to
      the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of
      Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented
      in this manner. From the fourth the bones had been thrown down,
      and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a
      mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the
      displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior recess, in
      depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It
      seemed to have been constructed for no especial use in itself,
      but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal
      supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of
      their circumscribing walls of solid granite.

      It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch,
      endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination
      the feeble light did not enable us to see.

      “Proceed,” I said; “herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi—”

      “He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend, as he stepped
      unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In
      an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding
      his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A
      moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface
      were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet,
      horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the
      other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but
      the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded
      to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.

      “Pass your hand,” I said, “over the wall; you cannot help feeling
      the nitre. Indeed it is _very_ damp. Once more let me _implore_
      you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must
      first render you all the little attentions in my power.”

      “The Amontillado!” ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from
      his astonishment.

      “True,” I replied; “the Amontillado.”

      As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of
      which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered
      a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and
      with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the
      entrance of the niche.

      I had scarcely laid the first tier of my masonry when I
      discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great
      measure worn off. The earliest indication I had of this was a low
      moaning cry from the depth of the recess. It was _not_ the cry of
      a drunken man. There was then a long and obstinate silence. I
      laid the second tier, and the third, and the fourth; and then I
      heard the furious vibrations of the chain. The noise lasted for
      several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to it with
      the more satisfaction, I ceased my labors and sat down upon the
      bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel,
      and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the
      seventh tier. The wall was now nearly upon a level with my
      breast. I again paused, and holding the flambeaux over the
      mason-work, threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.

      A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from
      the throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently
      back. For a brief moment I hesitated—I trembled. Unsheathing my
      rapier, I began to grope with it about the recess; but the
      thought of an instant reassured me. I placed my hand upon the
      solid fabric of the catacombs, and felt satisfied. I reapproached
      the wall. I replied to the yells of him who clamored. I
      re-echoed—I aided—I surpassed them in volume and in strength. I
      did this, and the clamorer grew still.

      It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close. I had
      completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier. I had
      finished a portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained
      but a single stone to be fitted and plastered in. I struggled
      with its weight; I placed it partially in its destined position.
      But now there came from out the niche a low laugh that erected
      the hairs upon my head. It was succeeded by a sad voice, which I
      had difficulty in recognising as that of the noble Fortunato. The
      voice said—

      “Ha! ha! ha!—he! he!—a very good joke indeed—an excellent jest.
      We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo—he! he!
      he!—over our wine—he! he! he!”

      “The Amontillado!” I said.

      “He! he! he!—he! he! he!—yes, the Amontillado. But is it not
      getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the
      Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone.”

      “Yes,” I said, “let us be gone.”

      “_For the love of God, Montressor!_”

      “Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”

      But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply. I grew
      impatient. I called aloud—

      “Fortunato!”

      No answer. I called again—

      “Fortunato!”

      No answer still. I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture
      and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a
      jingling of the bells. My heart grew sick—on account of the
      dampness of the catacombs. I hastened to make an end of my labor.
      I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up.
      Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones.
      For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. _In pace
      requiescat!_




THE IMP OF THE PERVERSE


      In the consideration of the faculties and impulses—of the prima
      mobilia of the human soul, the phrenologists have failed to make
      room for a propensity which, although obviously existing as a
      radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment, has been equally
      overlooked by all the moralists who have preceded them. In the
      pure arrogance of the reason, we have all overlooked it. We have
      suffered its existence to escape our senses, solely through want
      of belief—of faith;—whether it be faith in Revelation, or faith
      in the Kabbala. The idea of it has never occurred to us, simply
      because of its supererogation. We saw no need of the impulse—for
      the propensity. We could not perceive its necessity. We could not
      understand, that is to say, we could not have understood, had the
      notion of this primum mobile ever obtruded itself;—we could not
      have understood in what manner it might be made to further the
      objects of humanity, either temporal or eternal. It cannot be
      denied that phrenology and, in great measure, all
      metaphysicianism have been concocted a priori. The intellectual
      or logical man, rather than the understanding or observant man,
      set himself to imagine designs—to dictate purposes to God. Having
      thus fathomed, to his satisfaction, the intentions of Jehovah,
      out of these intentions he built his innumerable systems of mind.
      In the matter of phrenology, for example, we first determined,
      naturally enough, that it was the design of the Deity that man
      should eat. We then assigned to man an organ of alimentiveness,
      and this organ is the scourge with which the Deity compels man,
      will-I nill-I, into eating. Secondly, having settled it to be
      God’s will that man should continue his species, we discovered an
      organ of amativeness, forthwith. And so with combativeness, with
      ideality, with causality, with constructiveness,—so, in short,
      with every organ, whether representing a propensity, a moral
      sentiment, or a faculty of the pure intellect. And in these
      arrangements of the Principia of human action, the Spurzheimites,
      whether right or wrong, in part, or upon the whole, have but
      followed, in principle, the footsteps of their predecessors;
      deducing and establishing every thing from the preconceived
      destiny of man, and upon the ground of the objects of his
      Creator.

      It would have been wiser, it would have been safer, to classify
      (if classify we must) upon the basis of what man usually or
      occasionally did, and was always occasionally doing, rather than
      upon the basis of what we took it for granted the Deity intended
      him to do. If we cannot comprehend God in his visible works, how
      then in his inconceivable thoughts, that call the works into
      being? If we cannot understand him in his objective creatures,
      how then in his substantive moods and phases of creation?

      Induction, _a posteriori_, would have brought phrenology to
      admit, as an innate and primitive principle of human action, a
      paradoxical something, which we may call _perverseness_, for want
      of a more characteristic term. In the sense I intend, it is, in
      fact, a _mobile_ without motive, a motive not _motivirt_. Through
      its promptings we act without comprehensible object; or, if this
      shall be understood as a contradiction in terms, we may so far
      modify the proposition as to say, that through its promptings we
      act, for the reason that we should _not_. In theory, no reason
      can be more unreasonable, but, in fact, there is none more
      strong. With certain minds, under certain conditions, it becomes
      absolutely irresistible. I am not more certain that I breathe,
      than that the assurance of the wrong or error of any action is
      often the one unconquerable _force_ which impels us, and alone
      impels us to its prosecution. Nor will this overwhelming tendency
      to do wrong for the wrong’s sake, admit of analysis, or
      resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive
      impulse—elementary. It will be said, I am aware, that when we
      persist in acts because we feel we should not persist in them,
      our conduct is but a modification of that which ordinarily
      springs from the combativeness of phrenology. But a glance will
      show the fallacy of this idea. The phrenological combativeness
      has for its essence, the necessity of self-defence. It is our
      safeguard against injury. Its principle regards our well-being;
      and thus the desire to be well is excited simultaneously with its
      development. It follows, that the desire to be well must be
      excited simultaneously with any principle which shall be merely a
      modification of combativeness, but in the case of that something
      which I term perverseness, the desire to be well is not only not
      aroused, but a strongly antagonistical sentiment exists.

      An appeal to one’s own heart is, after all, the best reply to the
      sophistry just noticed. No one who trustingly consults and
      thoroughly questions his own soul, will be disposed to deny the
      entire radicalness of the propensity in question. It is not more
      incomprehensible than distinctive. There lives no man who at some
      period has not been tormented, for example, by an earnest desire
      to tantalize a listener by circumlocution. The speaker is aware
      that he displeases; he has every intention to please, he is
      usually curt, precise, and clear; the most laconic and luminous
      language is struggling for utterance upon his tongue; it is only
      with difficulty that he restrains himself from giving it flow; he
      dreads and deprecates the anger of him whom he addresses; yet,
      the thought strikes him, that by certain involutions and
      parentheses this anger may be engendered. That single thought is
      enough. The impulse increases to a wish, the wish to a desire,
      the desire to an uncontrollable longing, and the longing (to the
      deep regret and mortification of the speaker, and in defiance of
      all consequences) is indulged.

      We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We
      know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important
      crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy
      and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence
      the work, with the anticipation of whose glorious result our
      whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken to-day,
      and yet we put it off until to-morrow; and why? There is no
      answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no
      comprehension of the principle. To-morrow arrives, and with it a
      more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but with this very
      increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a positively
      fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay. This craving
      gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action is
      at hand. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within
      us,—of the definite with the indefinite—of the substance with the
      shadow. But, if the contest have proceeded thus far, it is the
      shadow which prevails,—we struggle in vain. The clock strikes,
      and is the knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the
      chanticleer-note to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It
      flies—it disappears—we are free. The old energy returns. We will
      labor now. Alas, it is too late!

      We stand upon the brink of a precipice. We peer into the abyss—we
      grow sick and dizzy. Our first impulse is to shrink from the
      danger. Unaccountably we remain. By slow degrees our sickness and
      dizziness and horror become merged in a cloud of unnamable
      feeling. By gradations, still more imperceptible, this cloud
      assumes shape, as did the vapor from the bottle out of which
      arose the genius in the Arabian Nights. But out of this our cloud
      upon the precipice’s edge, there grows into palpability, a shape,
      far more terrible than any genius or any demon of a tale, and yet
      it is but a thought, although a fearful one, and one which chills
      the very marrow of our bones with the fierceness of the delight
      of its horror. It is merely the idea of what would be our
      sensations during the sweeping precipitancy of a fall from such a
      height. And this fall—this rushing annihilation—for the very
      reason that it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of
      all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering
      which have ever presented themselves to our imagination—for this
      very cause do we now the most vividly desire it. And because our
      reason violently deters us from the brink, therefore do we the
      most impetuously approach it. There is no passion in nature so
      demoniacally impatient, as that of him who, shuddering upon the
      edge of a precipice, thus meditates a plunge. To indulge, for a
      moment, in any attempt at thought, is to be inevitably lost; for
      reflection but urges us to forbear, and therefore it is, I say,
      that we cannot. If there be no friendly arm to check us, or if we
      fail in a sudden effort to prostrate ourselves backward from the
      abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed.

      Examine these similar actions as we will, we shall find them
      resulting solely from the spirit of the Perverse. We perpetrate
      them because we feel that we should not. Beyond or behind this
      there is no intelligible principle; and we might, indeed, deem
      this perverseness a direct instigation of the Arch-Fiend, were it
      not occasionally known to operate in furtherance of good.

      I have said thus much, that in some measure I may answer your
      question—that I may explain to you why I am here—that I may
      assign to you something that shall have at least the faint aspect
      of a cause for my wearing these fetters, and for my tenanting
      this cell of the condemned. Had I not been thus prolix, you might
      either have misunderstood me altogether, or, with the rabble,
      have fancied me mad. As it is, you will easily perceive that I am
      one of the many uncounted victims of the Imp of the Perverse.

      It is impossible that any deed could have been wrought with a
      more thorough deliberation. For weeks, for months, I pondered
      upon the means of the murder. I rejected a thousand schemes,
      because their accomplishment involved a _chance_ of detection. At
      length, in reading some French memoirs, I found an account of a
      nearly fatal illness that occurred to Madame Pilau, through the
      agency of a candle accidentally poisoned. The idea struck my
      fancy at once. I knew my victim’s habit of reading in bed. I
      knew, too, that his apartment was narrow and ill-ventilated. But
      I need not vex you with impertinent details. I need not describe
      the easy artifices by which I substituted, in his bed-room
      candle-stand, a wax-light of my own making for the one which I
      there found. The next morning he was discovered dead in his bed,
      and the coroner’s verdict was—“Death by the visitation of God.”

      Having inherited his estate, all went well with me for years. The
      idea of detection never once entered my brain. Of the remains of
      the fatal taper I had myself carefully disposed. I had left no
      shadow of a clew by which it would be possible to convict, or
      even to suspect me of the crime. It is inconceivable how rich a
      sentiment of satisfaction arose in my bosom as I reflected upon
      my absolute security. For a very long period of time I was
      accustomed to revel in this sentiment. It afforded me more real
      delight than all the mere worldly advantages accruing from my
      sin. But there arrived at length an epoch, from which the
      pleasurable feeling grew, by scarcely perceptible gradations,
      into a haunting and harassing thought. It harassed because it
      haunted. I could scarcely get rid of it for an instant. It is
      quite a common thing to be thus annoyed with the ringing in our
      ears, or rather in our memories, of the burthen of some ordinary
      song, or some unimpressive snatches from an opera. Nor will we be
      the less tormented if the song in itself be good, or the opera
      air meritorious. In this manner, at last, I would perpetually
      catch myself pondering upon my security, and repeating, in a low
      undertone, the phrase, “I am safe.”

      One day, whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested myself
      in the act of murmuring, half aloud, these customary syllables.
      In a fit of petulance, I remodelled them thus: “I am safe—I am
      safe—yes—if I be not fool enough to make open confession!”

      No sooner had I spoken these words, than I felt an icy chill
      creep to my heart. I had had some experience in these fits of
      perversity (whose nature I have been at some trouble to explain),
      and I remembered well that in no instance I had successfully
      resisted their attacks. And now my own casual self-suggestion
      that I might possibly be fool enough to confess the murder of
      which I had been guilty, confronted me, as if the very ghost of
      him whom I had murdered—and beckoned me on to death.

      At first, I made an effort to shake off this nightmare of the
      soul. I walked vigorously—faster—still faster—at length I ran. I
      felt a maddening desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of
      thought overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas! I well, too
      well understood that to think, in my situation, was to be lost. I
      still quickened my pace. I bounded like a madman through the
      crowded thoroughfares. At length, the populace took the alarm,
      and pursued me. I felt then the consummation of my fate. Could I
      have torn out my tongue, I would have done it, but a rough voice
      resounded in my ears—a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder. I
      turned—I gasped for breath. For a moment I experienced all the
      pangs of suffocation; I became blind, and deaf, and giddy; and
      then some invisible fiend, I thought, struck me with his broad
      palm upon the back. The long imprisoned secret burst forth from
      my soul.

      They say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with
      marked emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of
      interruption before concluding the brief but pregnant sentences
      that consigned me to the hangman and to hell.

      Having related all that was necessary for the fullest judicial
      conviction, I fell prostrate in a swoon.

      But why shall I say more? To-day I wear these chains, and am
      _here!_ To-morrow I shall be fetterless!—_but where?_




THE ISLAND OF THE FAY


Nullus enim locus sine genio est.—_Servius_.

      “La musique,” says Marmontel, in those “Contes Moraux” (*1) which
      in all our translations, we have insisted upon calling “Moral
      Tales,” as if in mockery of their spirit—“la musique est le seul
      des talents qui jouissent de lui-même; tous les autres veulent
      des temoins.” He here confounds the pleasure derivable from sweet
      sounds with the capacity for creating them. No more than any
      other talent, is that for music susceptible of complete
      enjoyment, where there is no second party to appreciate its
      exercise. And it is only in common with other talents that it
      produces effects which may be fully enjoyed in solitude. The idea
      which the raconteur has either failed to entertain clearly, or
      has sacrificed in its expression to his national love of point,
      is, doubtless, the very tenable one that the higher order of
      music is the most thoroughly estimated when we are exclusively
      alone. The proposition, in this form, will be admitted at once by
      those who love the lyre for its own sake, and for its spiritual
      uses. But there is one pleasure still within the reach of fallen
      mortality and perhaps only one—which owes even more than does
      music to the accessory sentiment of seclusion. I mean the
      happiness experienced in the contemplation of natural scenery. In
      truth, the man who would behold aright the glory of God upon
      earth must in solitude behold that glory. To me, at least, the
      presence—not of human life only, but of life in any other form
      than that of the green things which grow upon the soil and are
      voiceless—is a stain upon the landscape—is at war with the genius
      of the scene. I love, indeed, to regard the dark valleys, and the
      gray rocks, and the waters that silently smile, and the forests
      that sigh in uneasy slumbers, and the proud watchful mountains
      that look down upon all,—I love to regard these as themselves but
      the colossal members of one vast animate and sentient whole—a
      whole whose form (that of the sphere) is the most perfect and
      most inclusive of all; whose path is among associate planets;
      whose meek handmaiden is the moon, whose mediate sovereign is the
      sun; whose life is eternity, whose thought is that of a God;
      whose enjoyment is knowledge; whose destinies are lost in
      immensity, whose cognizance of ourselves is akin with our own
      cognizance of the animalculae which infest the brain—a being
      which we, in consequence, regard as purely inanimate and material
      much in the same manner as these animalculae must thus regard us.

      Our telescopes and our mathematical investigations assure us on
      every hand—notwithstanding the cant of the more ignorant of the
      priesthood—that space, and therefore that bulk, is an important
      consideration in the eyes of the Almighty. The cycles in which
      the stars move are those best adapted for the evolution, without
      collision, of the greatest possible number of bodies. The forms
      of those bodies are accurately such as, within a given surface,
      to include the greatest possible amount of matter;—while the
      surfaces themselves are so disposed as to accommodate a denser
      population than could be accommodated on the same surfaces
      otherwise arranged. Nor is it any argument against bulk being an
      object with God, that space itself is infinite; for there may be
      an infinity of matter to fill it. And since we see clearly that
      the endowment of matter with vitality is a principle—indeed, as
      far as our judgments extend, the leading principle in the
      operations of Deity,—it is scarcely logical to imagine it
      confined to the regions of the minute, where we daily trace it,
      and not extending to those of the august. As we find cycle within
      cycle without end,—yet all revolving around one far-distant
      centre which is the God-head, may we not analogically suppose in
      the same manner, life within life, the less within the greater,
      and all within the Spirit Divine? In short, we are madly erring,
      through self-esteem, in believing man, in either his temporal or
      future destinies, to be of more moment in the universe than that
      vast “clod of the valley” which he tills and contemns, and to
      which he denies a soul for no more profound reason than that he
      does not behold it in operation. (*2)

      These fancies, and such as these, have always given to my
      meditations among the mountains and the forests, by the rivers
      and the ocean, a tinge of what the everyday world would not fail
      to term fantastic. My wanderings amid such scenes have been many,
      and far-searching, and often solitary; and the interest with
      which I have strayed through many a dim, deep valley, or gazed
      into the reflected Heaven of many a bright lake, has been an
      interest greatly deepened by the thought that I have strayed and
      gazed alone. What flippant Frenchman was it who said in allusion
      to the well-known work of Zimmerman, that, “la solitude est une
      belle chose; mais il faut quelqu’un pour vous dire que la
      solitude est une belle chose?” The epigram cannot be gainsayed;
      but the necessity is a thing that does not exist.

      It was during one of my lonely journeyings, amid a far distant
      region of mountain locked within mountain, and sad rivers and
      melancholy tarn writhing or sleeping within all—that I chanced
      upon a certain rivulet and island. I came upon them suddenly in
      the leafy June, and threw myself upon the turf, beneath the
      branches of an unknown odorous shrub, that I might doze as I
      contemplated the scene. I felt that thus only should I look upon
      it—such was the character of phantasm which it wore.

      On all sides—save to the west, where the sun was about
      sinking—arose the verdant walls of the forest. The little river
      which turned sharply in its course, and was thus immediately lost
      to sight, seemed to have no exit from its prison, but to be
      absorbed by the deep green foliage of the trees to the east—while
      in the opposite quarter (so it appeared to me as I lay at length
      and glanced upward) there poured down noiselessly and
      continuously into the valley, a rich golden and crimson waterfall
      from the sunset fountains of the sky.

      About midway in the short vista which my dreamy vision took in,
      one small circular island, profusely verdured, reposed upon the
      bosom of the stream.

      So blended bank and shadow there
      That each seemed pendulous in air—

      so mirror-like was the glassy water, that it was scarcely
      possible to say at what point upon the slope of the emerald turf
      its crystal dominion began.

      My position enabled me to include in a single view both the
      eastern and western extremities of the islet; and I observed a
      singularly-marked difference in their aspects. The latter was all
      one radiant harem of garden beauties. It glowed and blushed
      beneath the eyes of the slant sunlight, and fairly laughed with
      flowers. The grass was short, springy, sweet-scented, and
      asphodel-interspersed. The trees were lithe, mirthful,
      erect—bright, slender, and graceful,—of Eastern figure and
      foliage, with bark smooth, glossy, and parti-colored. There
      seemed a deep sense of life and joy about all; and although no
      airs blew from out the heavens, yet every thing had motion
      through the gentle sweepings to and fro of innumerable
      butterflies, that might have been mistaken for tulips with wings.
      (*4)

      The other or eastern end of the isle was whelmed in the blackest
      shade. A sombre, yet beautiful and peaceful gloom here pervaded
      all things. The trees were dark in color, and mournful in form
      and attitude, wreathing themselves into sad, solemn, and spectral
      shapes that conveyed ideas of mortal sorrow and untimely death.
      The grass wore the deep tint of the cypress, and the heads of its
      blades hung droopingly, and hither and thither among it were many
      small unsightly hillocks, low and narrow, and not very long, that
      had the aspect of graves, but were not; although over and all
      about them the rue and the rosemary clambered. The shade of the
      trees fell heavily upon the water, and seemed to bury itself
      therein, impregnating the depths of the element with darkness. I
      fancied that each shadow, as the sun descended lower and lower,
      separated itself sullenly from the trunk that gave it birth, and
      thus became absorbed by the stream; while other shadows issued
      momently from the trees, taking the place of their predecessors
      thus entombed.

      This idea, having once seized upon my fancy, greatly excited it,
      and I lost myself forthwith in revery. “If ever island were
      enchanted,” said I to myself, “this is it. This is the haunt of
      the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. Are
      these green tombs theirs?—or do they yield up their sweet lives
      as mankind yield up their own? In dying, do they not rather waste
      away mournfully, rendering unto God, little by little, their
      existence, as these trees render up shadow after shadow,
      exhausting their substance unto dissolution? What the wasting
      tree is to the water that imbibes its shade, growing thus blacker
      by what it preys upon, may not the life of the Fay be to the
      death which engulfs it?”

      As I thus mused, with half-shut eyes, while the sun sank rapidly
      to rest, and eddying currents careered round and round the
      island, bearing upon their bosom large, dazzling, white flakes of
      the bark of the sycamore—flakes which, in their multiform
      positions upon the water, a quick imagination might have
      converted into anything it pleased—while I thus mused, it
      appeared to me that the form of one of those very Fays about whom
      I had been pondering made its way slowly into the darkness from
      out the light at the western end of the island. She stood erect
      in a singularly fragile canoe, and urged it with the mere phantom
      of an oar. While within the influence of the lingering sunbeams,
      her attitude seemed indicative of joy—but sorrow deformed it as
      she passed within the shade. Slowly she glided along, and at
      length rounded the islet and re-entered the region of light. “The
      revolution which has just been made by the Fay,” continued I,
      musingly, “is the cycle of the brief year of her life. She has
      floated through her winter and through her summer. She is a year
      nearer unto Death; for I did not fail to see that, as she came
      into the shade, her shadow fell from her, and was swallowed up in
      the dark water, making its blackness more black.”

      And again the boat appeared and the Fay; but about the attitude
      of the latter there was more of care and uncertainty and less of
      elastic joy. She floated again from out the light and into the
      gloom (which deepened momently) and again her shadow fell from
      her into the ebony water, and became absorbed into its blackness.
      And again and again she made the circuit of the island, (while
      the sun rushed down to his slumbers), and at each issuing into
      the light there was more sorrow about her person, while it grew
      feebler and far fainter and more indistinct, and at each passage
      into the gloom there fell from her a darker shade, which became
      whelmed in a shadow more black. But at length when the sun had
      utterly departed, the Fay, now the mere ghost of her former self,
      went disconsolately with her boat into the region of the ebony
      flood—and that she issued thence at all I cannot say, for
      darkness fell over all things and I beheld her magical figure no
      more.




THE ASSIGNATION


     Stay for me there! I will not fail.
     To meet thee in that hollow vale.

(_Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King, Bishop of
Chichester_.)

      Ill-fated and mysterious man!—bewildered in the brilliancy of
      thine own imagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own
      youth! Again in fancy I behold thee! Once more thy form hath
      risen before me!—not—oh! not as thou art—in the cold valley and
      shadow—but as thou _shouldst be_—squandering away a life of
      magnificent meditation in that city of dim visions, thine own
      Venice—which is a star-beloved Elysium of the sea, and the wide
      windows of whose Palladian palaces look down with a deep and
      bitter meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes! I
      repeat it—as thou _shouldst be_. There are surely other worlds
      than this—other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude—other
      speculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall
      call thy conduct into question? who blame thee for thy visionary
      hours, or denounce those occupations as a wasting away of life,
      which were but the overflowings of thine everlasting energies?

      It was at Venice, beneath the covered archway there called the
      _Ponte di Sospiri_, that I met for the third or fourth time the
      person of whom I speak. It is with a confused recollection that I
      bring to mind the circumstances of that meeting. Yet I
      remember—ah! how should I forget?—the deep midnight, the Bridge
      of Sighs, the beauty of woman, and the Genius of Romance that
      stalked up and down the narrow canal.

      It was a night of unusual gloom. The great clock of the Piazza
      had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening. The square of
      the Campanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights in the old
      Ducal Palace were dying fast away. I was returning home from the
      Piazetta, by way of the Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived
      opposite the mouth of the canal San Marco, a female voice from
      its recesses broke suddenly upon the night, in one wild,
      hysterical, and long continued shriek. Startled at the sound, I
      sprang upon my feet: while the gondolier, letting slip his single
      oar, lost it in the pitchy darkness beyond a chance of recovery,
      and we were consequently left to the guidance of the current
      which here sets from the greater into the smaller channel. Like
      some huge and sable-feathered condor, we were slowly drifting
      down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when a thousand flambeaux
      flashing from the windows, and down the staircases of the Ducal
      Palace, turned all at once that deep gloom into a livid and
      preternatural day.

      A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen
      from an upper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim
      canal. The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim;
      and, although my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a
      stout swimmer, already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon
      the surface, the treasure which was to be found, alas! only
      within the abyss. Upon the broad black marble flagstones at the
      entrance of the palace, and a few steps above the water, stood a
      figure which none who then saw can have ever since forgotten. It
      was the Marchesa Aphrodite—the adoration of all Venice—the gayest
      of the gay—the most lovely where all were beautiful—but still the
      young wife of the old and intriguing Mentoni, and the mother of
      that fair child, her first and only one, who now, deep beneath
      the murky water, was thinking in bitterness of heart upon her
      sweet caresses, and exhausting its little life in struggles to
      call upon her name.

      She stood alone. Her small, bare, and silvery feet gleamed in the
      black mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet more
      than half loosened for the night from its ball-room array,
      clustered, amid a shower of diamonds, round and round her
      classical head, in curls like those of the young hyacinth. A
      snowy-white and gauze-like drapery seemed to be nearly the sole
      covering to her delicate form; but the mid-summer and midnight
      air was hot, sullen, and still, and no motion in the statue-like
      form itself, stirred even the folds of that raiment of very vapor
      which hung around it as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe.
      Yet—strange to say!—her large lustrous eyes were not turned
      downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay
      buried—but riveted in a widely different direction! The prison of
      the Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in all
      Venice—but how could that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when
      beneath her lay stifling her only child? Yon dark, gloomy niche,
      too, yawns right opposite her chamber window—what, then, _could_
      there be in its shadows—in its architecture—in its ivy-wreathed
      and solemn cornices—that the Marchesa di Mentoni had not wondered
      at a thousand times before? Nonsense!—Who does not remember that,
      at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror,
      multiplies the images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable
      far-off places, the woe which is close at hand?

      Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the
      water-gate, stood, in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of
      Mentoni himself. He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a
      guitar, and seemed _ennuye_ to the very death, as at intervals he
      gave directions for the recovery of his child. Stupefied and
      aghast, I had myself no power to move from the upright position I
      had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and must have
      presented to the eyes of the agitated group a spectral and
      ominous appearance, as with pale countenance and rigid limbs, I
      floated down among them in that funereal gondola.

      All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the
      search were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy
      sorrow. There seemed but little hope for the child; (how much
      less than for the mother!) but now, from the interior of that
      dark niche which has been already mentioned as forming a part of
      the Old Republican prison, and as fronting the lattice of the
      Marchesa, a figure muffled in a cloak, stepped out within reach
      of the light, and, pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy
      descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As, in an instant
      afterwards, he stood with the still living and breathing child
      within his grasp, upon the marble flagstones by the side of the
      Marchesa, his cloak, heavy with the drenching water, became
      unfastened, and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to
      the wonder-stricken spectators the graceful person of a very
      young man, with the sound of whose name the greater part of
      Europe was then ringing.

      No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa! She will now
      receive her child—she will press it to her heart—she will cling
      to its little form, and smother it with her caresses. Alas!
      _another’s_ arms have taken it from the stranger—_another’s_ arms
      have taken it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the
      palace! And the Marchesa! Her lip—her beautiful lip trembles;
      tears are gathering in her eyes—those eyes which, like Pliny’s
      acanthus, are “soft and almost liquid.” Yes! tears are gathering
      in those eyes—and see! the entire woman thrills throughout the
      soul, and the statue has started into life! The pallor of the
      marble countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom, the very
      purity of the marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed over with a
      tide of ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder quivers about
      her delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the rich
      silver lilies in the grass.

      Why _should_ that lady blush! To this demand there is no
      answer—except that, having left, in the eager haste and terror of
      a mother’s heart, the privacy of her own _boudoir_, she has
      neglected to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers, and utterly
      forgotten to throw over her Venetian shoulders that drapery which
      is their due. What other possible reason could there have been
      for her so blushing?—for the glance of those wild appealing
      eyes?—for the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom?—for the
      convulsive pressure of that trembling hand?—that hand which fell,
      as Mentoni turned into the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of
      the stranger. What reason could there have been for the low—the
      singularly low tone of those unmeaning words which the lady
      uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu? “Thou hast conquered,”
      she said, or the murmurs of the water deceived me; “thou hast
      conquered—one hour after sunrise—we shall meet—so let it be!”

      The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the
      palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon
      the flags. He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye
      glanced around in search of a gondola. I could not do less than
      offer him the service of my own; and he accepted the civility.
      Having obtained an oar at the water-gate, we proceeded together
      to his residence, while he rapidly recovered his self-possession,
      and spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms of great
      apparent cordiality.

      There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being
      minute. The person of the stranger—let me call him by this title,
      who to all the world was still a stranger—the person of the
      stranger is one of these subjects. In height he might have been
      below rather than above the medium size: although there were
      moments of intense passion when his frame actually _expanded_ and
      belied the assertion. The light, almost slender symmetry of his
      figure, promised more of that ready activity which he evinced at
      the Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strength which he has
      been known to wield without an effort, upon occasions of more
      dangerous emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity—singular,
      wild, full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to
      intense and brilliant jet—and a profusion of curling, black hair,
      from which a forehead of unusual breadth gleamed forth at
      intervals all light and ivory—his were features than which I have
      seen none more classically regular, except, perhaps, the marble
      ones of the Emperor Commodus. Yet his countenance was,
      nevertheless, one of those which all men have seen at some period
      of their lives, and have never afterwards seen again. It had no
      peculiar, it had no settled predominant expression to be fastened
      upon the memory; a countenance seen and instantly forgotten, but
      forgotten with a vague and never-ceasing desire of recalling it
      to mind. Not that the spirit of each rapid passion failed, at any
      time, to throw its own distinct image upon the mirror of that
      face—but that the mirror, mirror-like, retained no vestige of the
      passion, when the passion had departed.

      Upon leaving him on the night of our adventure, he solicited me,
      in what I thought an urgent manner, to call upon him _very_ early
      the next morning. Shortly after sunrise, I found myself
      accordingly at his Palazzo, one of those huge structures of
      gloomy, yet fantastic pomp, which tower above the waters of the
      Grand Canal in the vicinity of the Rialto. I was shown up a broad
      winding staircase of mosaics, into an apartment whose
      unparalleled splendor burst through the opening door with an
      actual glare, making me blind and dizzy with luxuriousness.

      I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy. Report had spoken of his
      possessions in terms which I had even ventured to call terms of
      ridiculous exaggeration. But as I gazed about me, I could not
      bring myself to believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe
      could have supplied the princely magnificence which burned and
      blazed around.

      Although, as I say, the sun had arisen, yet the room was still
      brilliantly lighted up. I judge from this circumstance, as well
      as from an air of exhaustion in the countenance of my friend,
      that he had not retired to bed during the whole of the preceding
      night. In the architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the
      evident design had been to dazzle and astound. Little attention
      had been paid to the _decora_ of what is technically called
      _keeping_, or to the proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered
      from object to object, and rested upon none—neither the
      _grotesques_ of the Greek painters, nor the sculptures of the
      best Italian days, nor the huge carvings of untutored Egypt. Rich
      draperies in every part of the room trembled to the vibration of
      low, melancholy music, whose origin was not to be discovered. The
      senses were oppressed by mingled and conflicting perfumes,
      reeking up from strange convolute censers, together with
      multitudinous flaring and flickering tongues of emerald and
      violet fire. The rays of the newly risen sun poured in upon the
      whole, through windows, formed each of a single pane of
      crimson-tinted glass. Glancing to and fro, in a thousand
      reflections, from curtains which rolled from their cornices like
      cataracts of molten silver, the beams of natural glory mingled at
      length fitfully with the artificial light, and lay weltering in
      subdued masses upon a carpet of rich, liquid-looking cloth of
      Chili gold.

      “Ha! ha! ha!—ha! ha! ha!”—laughed the proprietor, motioning me to
      a seat as I entered the room, and throwing himself back at
      full-length upon an ottoman. “I see,” said he, perceiving that I
      could not immediately reconcile myself to the _bienseance_ of so
      singular a welcome—“I see you are astonished at my apartment—at
      my statues—my pictures—my originality of conception in
      architecture and upholstery! absolutely drunk, eh, with my
      magnificence? But pardon me, my dear sir, (here his tone of voice
      dropped to the very spirit of cordiality,) pardon me for my
      uncharitable laughter. You appeared so _utterly_ astonished.
      Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous, that a man
      _must_ laugh or die. To die laughing, must be the most glorious
      of all glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More—a very fine man was Sir
      Thomas More—Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also in
      the _Absurdities_ of Ravisius Textor, there is a long list of
      characters who came to the same magnificent end. Do you know,
      however,” continued he musingly, “that at Sparta (which is now
      Palæochori,) at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel, among
      a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, is a kind of _socle_, upon
      which are still legible the letters ΛΑΞΜ. They are undoubtedly
      part of ΓΕΛΑΞΜΑ. Now, at Sparta were a thousand temples and
      shrines to a thousand different divinities. How exceedingly
      strange that the altar of Laughter should have survived all the
      others! But in the present instance,” he resumed, with a singular
      alteration of voice and manner, “I have no right to be merry at
      your expense. You might well have been amazed. Europe cannot
      produce anything so fine as this, my little regal cabinet. My
      other apartments are by no means of the same order—mere _ultras_
      of fashionable insipidity. This is better than fashion—is it not?
      Yet this has but to be seen to become the rage—that is, with
      those who could afford it at the cost of their entire patrimony.
      I have guarded, however, against any such profanation. With one
      exception, you are the only human being besides myself and my
      _valet_, who has been admitted within the mysteries of these
      imperial precincts, since they have been bedizened as you see!”

      I bowed in acknowledgment—for the overpowering sense of splendor
      and perfume, and music, together with the unexpected eccentricity
      of his address and manner, prevented me from expressing, in
      words, my appreciation of what I might have construed into a
      compliment.

      “Here,” he resumed, arising and leaning on my arm as he sauntered
      around the apartment, “here are paintings from the Greeks to
      Cimabue, and from Cimabue to the present hour. Many are chosen,
      as you see, with little deference to the opinions of Virtu. They
      are all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this.
      Here, too, are some _chefs d’oeuvre_ of the unknown great; and
      here, unfinished designs by men, celebrated in their day, whose
      very names the perspicacity of the academies has left to silence
      and to me. What think you,” said he, turning abruptly as he
      spoke—“what think you of this Madonna della Pieta?”

      “It is Guido’s own!” I said, with all the enthusiasm of my
      nature, for I had been poring intently over its surpassing
      loveliness. “It is Guido’s own!—how _could_ you have obtained
      it?—she is undoubtedly in painting what the Venus is in
      sculpture.”

      “Ha!” said he thoughtfully, “the Venus—the beautiful Venus?—the
      Venus of the Medici?—she of the diminutive head and the gilded
      hair? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be
      heard with difficulty,) and all the right, are restorations; and
      in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence
      of all affectation. Give _me_ the Canova! The Apollo, too, is a
      copy—there can be no doubt of it—blind fool that I am, who cannot
      behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot help—pity
      me!—I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was it not Socrates
      who said that the statuary found his statue in the block of
      marble? Then Michael Angelo was by no means original in his
      couplet—

     ‘Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto
     Che un marmo solo in se non circunscriva.’”

      It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the manner of the
      true gentleman, we are always aware of a difference from the
      bearing of the vulgar, without being at once precisely able to
      determine in what such difference consists. Allowing the remark
      to have applied in its full force to the outward demeanor of my
      acquaintance, I felt it, on that eventful morning, still more
      fully applicable to his moral temperament and character. Nor can
      I better define that peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place
      him so essentially apart from all other human beings, than by
      calling it a _habit_ of intense and continual thought, pervading
      even his most trivial actions—intruding upon his moments of
      dalliance—and interweaving itself with his very flashes of
      merriment—like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the
      grinning masks in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis.

      I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the
      mingled tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly
      descanted upon matters of little importance, a certain air of
      trepidation—a degree of nervous _unction_ in action and in
      speech—an unquiet excitability of manner which appeared to me at
      all times unaccountable, and upon some occasions even filled me
      with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing in the middle of a sentence
      whose commencement he had apparently forgotten, he seemed to be
      listening in the deepest attention, as if either in momentary
      expectation of a visitor, or to sounds which must have had
      existence in his imagination alone.

      It was during one of these reveries or pauses of apparent
      abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar
      Politian’s beautiful tragedy “The Orfeo,” (the first native
      Italian tragedy,) which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered
      a passage underlined in pencil. It was a passage towards the end
      of the third act—a passage of the most heart-stirring
      excitement—a passage which, although tainted with impurity, no
      man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion—no woman without
      a sigh. The whole page was blotted with fresh tears; and, upon
      the opposite interleaf, were the following English lines, written
      in a hand so very different from the peculiar characters of my
      acquaintance, that I had some difficulty in recognising it as his
      own:—

Thou wast that all to me, love,
    For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
    A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers;
    And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
    Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise
But to be overcast!
    A voice from out the Future cries,
“Onward!”—but o’er the Past
    (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,
Mute—motionless—aghast!

For alas!  alas!  with me
    The light of life is o’er.
“No more—no more—no more,”
    (Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore,)
    Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!

Now all my hours are trances;
    And all my nightly dreams
Are where the dark eye glances,
    And where thy footstep gleams,
In what ethereal dances,
    By what Italian streams.

Alas!  for that accursed time
    They bore thee o’er the billow,
From Love to titled age and crime,
    And an unholy pillow!—
From me, and from our misty clime,
    Where weeps the silver willow!

      That these lines were written in English—a language with which I
      had not believed their author acquainted—afforded me little
      matter for surprise. I was too well aware of the extent of his
      acquirements, and of the singular pleasure he took in concealing
      them from observation, to be astonished at any similar discovery;
      but the place of date, I must confess, occasioned me no little
      amazement. It had been originally written _London_, and
      afterwards carefully overscored—not, however, so effectually as
      to conceal the word from a scrutinizing eye. I say, this
      occasioned me no little amazement; for I well remember that, in a
      former conversation with a friend, I particularly inquired if he
      had at any time met in London the Marchesa di Mentoni, (who for
      some years previous to her marriage had resided in that city,)
      when his answer, if I mistake not, gave me to understand that he
      had never visited the metropolis of Great Britain. I might as
      well here mention, that I have more than once heard, (without, of
      course, giving credit to a report involving so many
      improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak, was not only
      by birth, but in education, an _Englishman_.

“There is one painting,” said he, without being aware of my notice of
the tragedy—“there is still one painting which you have not seen.” And
throwing aside a drapery, he discovered a full-length portrait of the
Marchesa Aphrodite.

Human art could have done no more in the delineation of her superhuman
beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before me the preceding
night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me once again.
But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming all over
with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!) that fitful
stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from the
perfection of the beautiful. Her right arm lay folded over her bosom.
With her left she pointed downward to a curiously fashioned vase. One
small, fairy foot, alone visible, barely touched the earth; and,
scarcely discernible in the brilliant atmosphere which seemed to
encircle and enshrine her loveliness, floated a pair of the most
delicately imagined wings. My glance fell from the painting to the
figure of my friend, and the vigorous words of Chapman’s _Bussy
D’Ambois_, quivered instinctively upon my lips:

    “He is up
There like a Roman statue!  He will stand
Till Death hath made him marble!”

      “Come,” he said at length, turning towards a table of richly
      enamelled and massive silver, upon which were a few goblets
      fantastically stained, together with two large Etruscan vases,
      fashioned in the same extraordinary model as that in the
      foreground of the portrait, and filled with what I supposed to be
      Johannisberger. “Come,” he said, abruptly, “let us drink! It is
      early—but let us drink. It is _indeed_ early,” he continued,
      musingly, as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer made the
      apartment ring with the first hour after sunrise: “It is _indeed_
      early—but what matters it? let us drink! Let us pour out an
      offering to yon solemn sun which these gaudy lamps and censers
      are so eager to subdue!” And, having made me pledge him in a
      bumper, he swallowed in rapid succession several goblets of the
      wine.

      “To dream,” he continued, resuming the tone of his desultory
      conversation, as he held up to the rich light of a censer one of
      the magnificent vases—“to dream has been the business of my life.
      I have therefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of
      dreams. In the heart of Venice could I have erected a better? You
      behold around you, it is true, a medley of architectural
      embellishments. The chastity of Ionia is offended by antediluvian
      devices, and the sphynxes of Egypt are outstretched upon carpets
      of gold. Yet the effect is incongruous to the timid alone.
      Proprieties of place, and especially of time, are the bugbears
      which terrify mankind from the contemplation of the magnificent.
      Once I was myself a decorist; but that sublimation of folly has
      palled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter for my purpose.
      Like these arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire, and
      the delirium of this scene is fashioning me for the wilder
      visions of that land of real dreams whither I am now rapidly
      departing.” He here paused abruptly, bent his head to his bosom,
      and seemed to listen to a sound which I could not hear. At
      length, erecting his frame, he looked upwards, and ejaculated the
      lines of the Bishop of Chichester:

     _“Stay for me there!  I will not fail_
     _To meet thee in that hollow vale.”_

      In the next instant, confessing the power of the wine, he threw
      himself at full-length upon an ottoman.

      A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock
      at the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to anticipate a
      second disturbance, when a page of Mentoni’s household burst into
      the room, and faltered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the
      incoherent words, “My mistress!—my mistress!—Poisoned!—poisoned!
      Oh, beautiful—oh, beautiful Aphrodite!”

      Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to arouse the
      sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence. But his limbs
      were rigid—his lips were livid—his lately beaming eyes were
      riveted in _death_. I staggered back towards the table—my hand
      fell upon a cracked and blackened goblet—and a consciousness of
      the entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly over my soul.




THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM


     Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
     Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
     Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
     Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

[_Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the
site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris_.]

      I was sick—sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at
      length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my
      senses were leaving me. The sentence—the dread sentence of
      death—was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my
      ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed
      merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul
      the idea of _revolution_—perhaps from its association in fancy
      with the burr of a mill wheel. This only for a brief period, for
      presently I heard no more. Yet, for a while, I saw—but with how
      terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed
      judges. They appeared to me white—whiter than the sheet upon
      which I trace these words—and thin even to grotesqueness; thin
      with the intensity of their expression of firmness—of immoveable
      resolution—of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the
      decrees of what to me was Fate, were still issuing from those
      lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them
      fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no
      sound succeeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious
      horror, the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable
      draperies which enwrapped the walls of the apartment. And then my
      vision fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At first
      they wore the aspect of charity, and seemed white and slender
      angels who would save me; but then, all at once, there came a
      most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in my
      frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery,
      while the angel forms became meaningless spectres, with heads of
      flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help. And then
      there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought
      of what sweet rest there must be in the grave. The thought came
      gently and stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained full
      appreciation; but just as my spirit came at length properly to
      feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges vanished, as if
      magically, from before me; the tall candles sank into
      nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of
      darkness supervened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a
      mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and
      stillness, night were the universe.

      I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness
      was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define,
      or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest
      slumber—no! In delirium—no! In a swoon—no! In death—no! even in
      the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man.
      Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the
      gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail
      may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed. In
      the return to life from the swoon there are two stages; first,
      that of the sense of mental or spiritual; secondly, that of the
      sense of physical, existence. It seems probable that if, upon
      reaching the second stage, we could recall the impressions of the
      first, we should find these impressions eloquent in memories of
      the gulf beyond. And that gulf is—what? How at least shall we
      distinguish its shadows from those of the tomb? But if the
      impressions of what I have termed the first stage are not, at
      will, recalled, yet, after long interval, do they not come
      unbidden, while we marvel whence they come? He who has never
      swooned, is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar
      faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in
      mid-air the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who
      ponders over the perfume of some novel flower; is not he whose
      brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence
      which has never before arrested his attention.

      Amid frequent and thoughtful endeavors to remember; amid earnest
      struggles to regather some token of the state of seeming
      nothingness into which my soul had lapsed, there have been
      moments when I have dreamed of success; there have been brief,
      very brief periods when I have conjured up remembrances which the
      lucid reason of a later epoch assures me could have had reference
      only to that condition of seeming unconsciousness. These shadows
      of memory tell, indistinctly, of tall figures that lifted and
      bore me in silence down—down—still down—till a hideous dizziness
      oppressed me at the mere idea of the interminableness of the
      descent. They tell also of a vague horror at my heart, on account
      of that heart’s unnatural stillness. Then comes a sense of sudden
      motionlessness throughout all things; as if those who bore me (a
      ghastly train!) had outrun, in their descent, the limits of the
      limitless, and paused from the wearisomeness of their toil. After
      this I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is
      madness—the madness of a memory which busies itself among
      forbidden things.

      Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and sound—the
      tumultuous motion of the heart, and, in my ears, the sound of its
      beating. Then a pause in which all is blank. Then again sound,
      and motion, and touch—a tingling sensation pervading my frame.
      Then the mere consciousness of existence, without thought—a
      condition which lasted long. Then, very suddenly, thought, and
      shuddering terror, and earnest endeavor to comprehend my true
      state. Then a strong desire to lapse into insensibility. Then a
      rushing revival of soul and a successful effort to move. And now
      a full memory of the trial, of the judges, of the sable
      draperies, of the sentence, of the sickness, of the swoon. Then
      entire forgetfulness of all that followed; of all that a later
      day and much earnestness of endeavor have enabled me vaguely to
      recall.

      So far, I had not opened my eyes. I felt that I lay upon my back,
      unbound. I reached out my hand, and it fell heavily upon
      something damp and hard. There I suffered it to remain for many
      minutes, while I strove to imagine where and what I could be. I
      longed, yet dared not to employ my vision. I dreaded the first
      glance at objects around me. It was not that I feared to look
      upon things horrible, but that I grew aghast lest there should be
      nothing to see. At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I
      quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst thoughts, then, were
      confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I
      struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to
      oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably close. I
      still lay quietly, and made effort to exercise my reason. I
      brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from
      that point to deduce my real condition. The sentence had passed;
      and it appeared to me that a very long interval of time had since
      elapsed. Yet not for a moment did I suppose myself actually dead.
      Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in fiction, is
      altogether inconsistent with real existence;—but where and in
      what state was I? The condemned to death, I knew, perished
      usually at the autos-da-fe, and one of these had been held on the
      very night of the day of my trial. Had I been remanded to my
      dungeon, to await the next sacrifice, which would not take place
      for many months? This I at once saw could not be. Victims had
      been in immediate demand. Moreover, my dungeon, as well as all
      the condemned cells at Toledo, had stone floors, and light was
      not altogether excluded.

      A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my
      heart, and for a brief period, I once more relapsed into
      insensibility. Upon recovering, I at once started to my feet,
      trembling convulsively in every fibre. I thrust my arms wildly
      above and around me in all directions. I felt nothing; yet
      dreaded to move a step, lest I should be impeded by the walls of
      a tomb. Perspiration burst from every pore, and stood in cold big
      beads upon my forehead. The agony of suspense grew at length
      intolerable, and I cautiously moved forward, with my arms
      extended, and my eyes straining from their sockets, in the hope
      of catching some faint ray of light. I proceeded for many paces;
      but still all was blackness and vacancy. I breathed more freely.
      It seemed evident that mine was not, at least, the most hideous
      of fates.

      And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, there
      came thronging upon my recollection a thousand vague rumors of
      the horrors of Toledo. Of the dungeons there had been strange
      things narrated—fables I had always deemed them—but yet strange,
      and too ghastly to repeat, save in a whisper. Was I left to
      perish of starvation in this subterranean world of darkness; or
      what fate, perhaps even more fearful, awaited me? That the result
      would be death, and a death of more than customary bitterness, I
      knew too well the character of my judges to doubt. The mode and
      the hour were all that occupied or distracted me.

      My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid
      obstruction. It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry—very
      smooth, slimy, and cold. I followed it up; stepping with all the
      careful distrust with which certain antique narratives had
      inspired me. This process, however, afforded me no means of
      ascertaining the dimensions of my dungeon; as I might make its
      circuit, and return to the point whence I set out, without being
      aware of the fact; so perfectly uniform seemed the wall. I
      therefore sought the knife which had been in my pocket, when led
      into the inquisitorial chamber; but it was gone; my clothes had
      been exchanged for a wrapper of coarse serge. I had thought of
      forcing the blade in some minute crevice of the masonry, so as to
      identify my point of departure. The difficulty, nevertheless, was
      but trivial; although, in the disorder of my fancy, it seemed at
      first insuperable. I tore a part of the hem from the robe and
      placed the fragment at full length, and at right angles to the
      wall. In groping my way around the prison, I could not fail to
      encounter this rag upon completing the circuit. So, at least I
      thought: but I had not counted upon the extent of the dungeon, or
      upon my own weakness. The ground was moist and slippery. I
      staggered onward for some time, when I stumbled and fell. My
      excessive fatigue induced me to remain prostrate; and sleep soon
      overtook me as I lay.

      Upon awaking, and stretching forth an arm, I found beside me a
      loaf and a pitcher with water. I was too much exhausted to
      reflect upon this circumstance, but ate and drank with avidity.
      Shortly afterward, I resumed my tour around the prison, and with
      much toil came at last upon the fragment of the serge. Up to the
      period when I fell I had counted fifty-two paces, and upon
      resuming my walk, I had counted forty-eight more—when I arrived
      at the rag. There were in all, then, a hundred paces; and,
      admitting two paces to the yard, I presumed the dungeon to be
      fifty yards in circuit. I had met, however, with many angles in
      the wall, and thus I could form no guess at the shape of the
      vault, for vault I could not help supposing it to be.

      I had little object—certainly no hope—in these researches; but a
      vague curiosity prompted me to continue them. Quitting the wall,
      I resolved to cross the area of the enclosure. At first I
      proceeded with extreme caution, for the floor, although seemingly
      of solid material, was treacherous with slime. At length,
      however, I took courage, and did not hesitate to step firmly;
      endeavoring to cross in as direct a line as possible. I had
      advanced some ten or twelve paces in this manner, when the
      remnant of the torn hem of my robe became entangled between my
      legs. I stepped on it, and fell violently on my face.

      In the confusion attending my fall, I did not immediately
      apprehend a somewhat startling circumstance, which yet, in a few
      seconds afterward, and while I still lay prostrate, arrested my
      attention. It was this: my chin rested upon the floor of the
      prison, but my lips and the upper portion of my head, although
      seemingly at a less elevation than the chin, touched nothing. At
      the same time my forehead seemed bathed in a clammy vapor, and
      the peculiar smell of decayed fungus arose to my nostrils. I put
      forward my arm, and shuddered to find that I had fallen at the
      very brink of a circular pit, whose extent, of course, I had no
      means of ascertaining at the moment. Groping about the masonry
      just below the margin, I succeeded in dislodging a small
      fragment, and let it fall into the abyss. For many seconds I
      hearkened to its reverberations as it dashed against the sides of
      the chasm in its descent; at length there was a sullen plunge
      into water, succeeded by loud echoes. At the same moment there
      came a sound resembling the quick opening, and as rapid closing
      of a door overhead, while a faint gleam of light flashed suddenly
      through the gloom, and as suddenly faded away.

      I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and
      congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which I had
      escaped. Another step before my fall, and the world had seen me
      no more. And the death just avoided, was of that very character
      which I had regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales
      respecting the Inquisition. To the victims of its tyranny, there
      was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or
      death with its most hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved
      for the latter. By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung,
      until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in
      every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which
      awaited me.

      Shaking in every limb, I groped my way back to the wall—resolving
      there to perish rather than risk the terrors of the wells, of
      which my imagination now pictured many in various positions about
      the dungeon. In other conditions of mind I might have had courage
      to end my misery at once by a plunge into one of these abysses;
      but now I was the veriest of cowards. Neither could I forget what
      I had read of these pits—that the sudden extinction of life
      formed no part of their most horrible plan.

      Agitation of spirit kept me awake for many long hours, but at
      length I again slumbered. Upon arousing, I found by my side, as
      before, a loaf and a pitcher of water. A burning thirst consumed
      me, and I emptied the vessel at a draught. It must have been
      drugged—for scarcely had I drunk, before I became irresistibly
      drowsy. A deep sleep fell upon me—a sleep like that of death. How
      long it lasted of course, I know not; but when, once again, I
      unclosed my eyes, the objects around me were visible. By a wild
      sulphurous lustre, the origin of which I could not at first
      determine, I was enabled to see the extent and aspect of the
      prison.

      In its size I had been greatly mistaken. The whole circuit of its
      walls did not exceed twenty-five yards. For some minutes this
      fact occasioned me a world of vain trouble; vain indeed! for what
      could be of less importance, under the terrible circumstances
      which environed me, then the mere dimensions of my dungeon? But
      my soul took a wild interest in trifles, and I busied myself in
      endeavors to account for the error I had committed in my
      measurement. The truth at length flashed upon me. In my first
      attempt at exploration I had counted fifty-two paces, up to the
      period when I fell; I must then have been within a pace or two of
      the fragment of serge; in fact, I had nearly performed the
      circuit of the vault. I then slept—and, upon awaking, I must have
      returned upon my steps—thus supposing the circuit nearly double
      what it actually was. My confusion of mind prevented me from
      observing that I began my tour with the wall to the left, and
      ended it with the wall to the right.

      I had been deceived, too, in respect to the shape of the
      enclosure. In feeling my way I had found many angles, and thus
      deduced an idea of great irregularity; so potent is the effect of
      total darkness upon one arousing from lethargy or sleep! The
      angles were simply those of a few slight depressions, or niches,
      at odd intervals. The general shape of the prison was square.
      What I had taken for masonry seemed now to be iron, or some other
      metal, in huge plates, whose sutures or joints occasioned the
      depression. The entire surface of this metallic enclosure was
      rudely daubed in all the hideous and repulsive devices to which
      the charnel superstition of the monks has given rise. The figures
      of fiends in aspects of menace, with skeleton forms, and other
      more really fearful images, overspread and disfigured the walls.
      I observed that the outlines of these monstrosities were
      sufficiently distinct, but that the colors seemed faded and
      blurred, as if from the effects of a damp atmosphere. I now
      noticed the floor, too, which was of stone. In the centre yawned
      the circular pit from whose jaws I had escaped; but it was the
      only one in the dungeon.

      All this I saw indistinctly and by much effort—for my personal
      condition had been greatly changed during slumber. I now lay upon
      my back, and at full length, on a species of low framework of
      wood. To this I was securely bound by a long strap resembling a
      surcingle. It passed in many convolutions about my limbs and
      body, leaving at liberty only my head, and my left arm to such
      extent that I could, by dint of much exertion, supply myself with
      food from an earthen dish which lay by my side on the floor. I
      saw, to my horror, that the pitcher had been removed. I say to my
      horror—for I was consumed with intolerable thirst. This thirst it
      appeared to be the design of my persecutors to stimulate—for the
      food in the dish was meat pungently seasoned.

      Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling of my prison. It was some
      thirty or forty feet overhead, and constructed much as the side
      walls. In one of its panels a very singular figure riveted my
      whole attention. It was the painted figure of Time as he is
      commonly represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he held
      what, at a casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of
      a huge pendulum such as we see on antique clocks. There was
      something, however, in the appearance of this machine which
      caused me to regard it more attentively. While I gazed directly
      upward at it (for its position was immediately over my own) I
      fancied that I saw it in motion. In an instant afterward the
      fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief, and of course slow. I
      watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but more in
      wonder. Wearied at length with observing its dull movement, I
      turned my eyes upon the other objects in the cell.

      A slight noise attracted my notice, and, looking to the floor, I
      saw several enormous rats traversing it. They had issued from the
      well, which lay just within view to my right. Even then, while I
      gazed, they came up in troops, hurriedly, with ravenous eyes,
      allured by the scent of the meat. From this it required much
      effort and attention to scare them away.

      It might have been half an hour, perhaps even an hour, (for I
      could take but imperfect note of time) before I again cast my
      eyes upward. What I then saw confounded and amazed me. The sweep
      of the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard. As a
      natural consequence, its velocity was also much greater. But what
      mainly disturbed me was the idea that had perceptibly descended.
      I now observed—with what horror it is needless to say—that its
      nether extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering steel,
      about a foot in length from horn to horn; the horns upward, and
      the under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor
      also, it seemed massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into a
      solid and broad structure above. It was appended to a weighty rod
      of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through the air.

      I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by monkish
      ingenuity in torture. My cognizance of the pit had become known
      to the inquisitorial agents—_the pit_, whose horrors had been
      destined for so bold a recusant as myself—the pit, typical of
      hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule of all their
      punishments. The plunge into this pit I had avoided by the merest
      of accidents, I knew that surprise, or entrapment into torment,
      formed an important portion of all the grotesquerie of these
      dungeon deaths. Having failed to fall, it was no part of the
      demon plan to hurl me into the abyss; and thus (there being no
      alternative) a different and a milder destruction awaited me.
      Milder! I half smiled in my agony as I thought of such
      application of such a term.

      What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of horror more than
      mortal, during which I counted the rushing vibrations of the
      steel! Inch by inch—line by line—with a descent only appreciable
      at intervals that seemed ages—down and still down it came! Days
      passed—it might have been that many days passed—ere it swept so
      closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odor of
      the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prayed—I
      wearied heaven with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew
      frantically mad, and struggled to force myself upward against the
      sweep of the fearful scimitar. And then I fell suddenly calm, and
      lay smiling at the glittering death, as a child at some rare
      bauble.

      There was another interval of utter insensibility; it was brief;
      for, upon again lapsing into life there had been no perceptible
      descent in the pendulum. But it might have been long; for I knew
      there were demons who took note of my swoon, and who could have
      arrested the vibration at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt
      very—oh! inexpressibly—sick and weak, as if through long
      inanition. Even amid the agonies of that period, the human nature
      craved food. With painful effort I outstretched my left arm as
      far as my bonds permitted, and took possession of the small
      remnant which had been spared me by the rats. As I put a portion
      of it within my lips, there rushed to my mind a half formed
      thought of joy—of hope. Yet what business had _I_ with hope? It
      was, as I say, a half formed thought—man has many such, which are
      never completed. I felt that it was of joy—of hope; but felt also
      that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to
      perfect—to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all
      my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile—an idiot.

      The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my length. I
      saw that the crescent was designed to cross the region of the
      heart. It would fray the serge of my robe—it would return and
      repeat its operations—again—and again. Notwithstanding its
      terrifically wide sweep (some thirty feet or more) and the
      hissing vigor of its descent, sufficient to sunder these very
      walls of iron, still the fraying of my robe would be all that,
      for several minutes, it would accomplish. And at this thought I
      paused. I dared not go farther than this reflection. I dwelt upon
      it with a pertinacity of attention—as if, in so dwelling, I could
      arrest here the descent of the steel. I forced myself to ponder
      upon the sound of the crescent as it should pass across the
      garment—upon the peculiar thrilling sensation which the friction
      of cloth produces on the nerves. I pondered upon all this
      frivolity until my teeth were on edge.

      Down—steadily down it crept. I took a frenzied pleasure in
      contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity. To the
      right—to the left—far and wide—with the shriek of a damned
      spirit! to my heart with the stealthy pace of the tiger! I
      alternately laughed and howled as the one or the other idea grew
      predominant.

      Down—certainly, relentlessly down! It vibrated within three
      inches of my bosom! I struggled violently, furiously, to free my
      left arm. This was free only from the elbow to the hand. I could
      reach the latter, from the platter beside me, to my mouth, with
      great effort, but no farther. Could I have broken the fastenings
      above the elbow, I would have seized and attempted to arrest the
      pendulum. I might as well have attempted to arrest an avalanche!

      Down—still unceasingly—still inevitably down! I gasped and
      struggled at each vibration. I shrunk convulsively at its every
      sweep. My eyes followed its outward or upward whirls with the
      eagerness of the most unmeaning despair; they closed themselves
      spasmodically at the descent, although death would have been a
      relief, oh, how unspeakable! Still I quivered in every nerve to
      think how slight a sinking of the machinery would precipitate
      that keen, glistening axe upon my bosom. It was hope that
      prompted the nerve to quiver—the frame to shrink. It was hope—the
      hope that triumphs on the rack—that whispers to the
      death-condemned even in the dungeons of the Inquisition.

      I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would bring the steel in
      actual contact with my robe, and with this observation there
      suddenly came over my spirit all the keen, collected calmness of
      despair. For the first time during many hours—or perhaps days—I
      thought. It now occurred to me that the bandage, or surcingle,
      which enveloped me, was unique. I was tied by no separate cord.
      The first stroke of the razorlike crescent athwart any portion of
      the band, would so detach it that it might be unwound from my
      person by means of my left hand. But how fearful, in that case,
      the proximity of the steel! The result of the slightest struggle
      how deadly! Was it likely, moreover, that the minions of the
      torturer had not foreseen and provided for this possibility? Was
      it probable that the bandage crossed my bosom in the track of the
      pendulum? Dreading to find my faint, and, as it seemed, my last
      hope frustrated, I so far elevated my head as to obtain a
      distinct view of my breast. The surcingle enveloped my limbs and
      body close in all directions—save in the path of the destroying
      crescent.

      Scarcely had I dropped my head back into its original position,
      when there flashed upon my mind what I cannot better describe
      than as the unformed half of that idea of deliverance to which I
      have previously alluded, and of which a moiety only floated
      indeterminately through my brain when I raised food to my burning
      lips. The whole thought was now present—feeble, scarcely sane,
      scarcely definite,—but still entire. I proceeded at once, with
      the nervous energy of despair, to attempt its execution.

      For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low framework upon
      which I lay had been literally swarming with rats. They were
      wild, bold, ravenous—their red eyes glaring upon me as if they
      waited but for motionlessness on my part to make me their prey.
      “To what food,” I thought, “have they been accustomed in the
      well?”

      They had devoured, in spite of all my efforts to prevent them,
      all but a small remnant of the contents of the dish. I had fallen
      into an habitual see-saw, or wave of the hand about the platter;
      and, at length, the unconscious uniformity of the movement
      deprived it of effect. In their voracity the vermin frequently
      fastened their sharp fangs in my fingers. With the particles of
      the oily and spicy viand which now remained, I thoroughly rubbed
      the bandage wherever I could reach it; then, raising my hand from
      the floor, I lay breathlessly still.

      At first the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at the
      change—at the cessation of movement. They shrank alarmedly back;
      many sought the well. But this was only for a moment. I had not
      counted in vain upon their voracity. Observing that I remained
      without motion, one or two of the boldest leaped upon the
      frame-work, and smelt at the surcingle. This seemed the signal
      for a general rush. Forth from the well they hurried in fresh
      troops. They clung to the wood—they overran it, and leaped in
      hundreds upon my person. The measured movement of the pendulum
      disturbed them not at all. Avoiding its strokes they busied
      themselves with the anointed bandage. They pressed—they swarmed
      upon me in ever accumulating heaps. They writhed upon my throat;
      their cold lips sought my own; I was half stifled by their
      thronging pressure; disgust, for which the world has no name,
      swelled my bosom, and chilled, with a heavy clamminess, my heart.
      Yet one minute, and I felt that the struggle would be over.
      Plainly I perceived the loosening of the bandage. I knew that in
      more than one place it must be already severed. With a more than
      human resolution I lay still.

      Nor had I erred in my calculations—nor had I endured in vain. I
      at length felt that I was free. The surcingle hung in ribands
      from my body. But the stroke of the pendulum already pressed upon
      my bosom. It had divided the serge of the robe. It had cut
      through the linen beneath. Twice again it swung, and a sharp
      sense of pain shot through every nerve. But the moment of escape
      had arrived. At a wave of my hand my deliverers hurried
      tumultuously away. With a steady movement—cautious, sidelong,
      shrinking, and slow—I slid from the embrace of the bandage and
      beyond the reach of the scimitar. For the moment, at least, I was
      free.

      Free!—and in the grasp of the Inquisition! I had scarcely stepped
      from my wooden bed of horror upon the stone floor of the prison,
      when the motion of the hellish machine ceased and I beheld it
      drawn up, by some invisible force, through the ceiling. This was
      a lesson which I took desperately to heart. My every motion was
      undoubtedly watched. Free!—I had but escaped death in one form of
      agony, to be delivered unto worse than death in some other. With
      that thought I rolled my eves nervously around on the barriers of
      iron that hemmed me in. Something unusual—some change which, at
      first, I could not appreciate distinctly—it was obvious, had
      taken place in the apartment. For many minutes of a dreamy and
      trembling abstraction, I busied myself in vain, unconnected
      conjecture. During this period, I became aware, for the first
      time, of the origin of the sulphurous light which illumined the
      cell. It proceeded from a fissure, about half an inch in width,
      extending entirely around the prison at the base of the walls,
      which thus appeared, and were, completely separated from the
      floor. I endeavored, but of course in vain, to look through the
      aperture.

      As I arose from the attempt, the mystery of the alteration in the
      chamber broke at once upon my understanding. I have observed
      that, although the outlines of the figures upon the walls were
      sufficiently distinct, yet the colors seemed blurred and
      indefinite. These colors had now assumed, and were momentarily
      assuming, a startling and most intense brilliancy, that gave to
      the spectral and fiendish portraitures an aspect that might have
      thrilled even firmer nerves than my own. Demon eyes, of a wild
      and ghastly vivacity, glared upon me in a thousand directions,
      where none had been visible before, and gleamed with the lurid
      lustre of a fire that I could not force my imagination to regard
      as unreal.

      _Unreal!_—Even while I breathed there came to my nostrils the
      breath of the vapour of heated iron! A suffocating odour pervaded
      the prison! A deeper glow settled each moment in the eyes that
      glared at my agonies! A richer tint of crimson diffused itself
      over the pictured horrors of blood. I panted! I gasped for
      breath! There could be no doubt of the design of my
      tormentors—oh! most unrelenting! oh! most demoniac of men! I
      shrank from the glowing metal to the centre of the cell. Amid the
      thought of the fiery destruction that impended, the idea of the
      coolness of the well came over my soul like balm. I rushed to its
      deadly brink. I threw my straining vision below. The glare from
      the enkindled roof illumined its inmost recesses. Yet, for a wild
      moment, did my spirit refuse to comprehend the meaning of what I
      saw. At length it forced—it wrestled its way into my soul—it
      burned itself in upon my shuddering reason. Oh! for a voice to
      speak!—oh! horror!—oh! any horror but this! With a shriek, I
      rushed from the margin, and buried my face in my hands—weeping
      bitterly.

      The heat rapidly increased, and once again I looked up,
      shuddering as with a fit of the ague. There had been a second
      change in the cell—and now the change was obviously in the form.
      As before, it was in vain that I, at first, endeavoured to
      appreciate or understand what was taking place. But not long was
      I left in doubt. The Inquisitorial vengeance had been hurried by
      my two-fold escape, and there was to be no more dallying with the
      King of Terrors. The room had been square. I saw that two of its
      iron angles were now acute—two, consequently, obtuse. The fearful
      difference quickly increased with a low rumbling or moaning
      sound. In an instant the apartment had shifted its form into that
      of a lozenge. But the alteration stopped not here—I neither hoped
      nor desired it to stop. I could have clasped the red walls to my
      bosom as a garment of eternal peace. “Death,” I said, “any death
      but that of the pit!” Fool! might I have not known that into the
      pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me? Could I
      resist its glow? or, if even that, could I withstand its
      pressure? And now, flatter and flatter grew the lozenge, with a
      rapidity that left me no time for contemplation. Its centre, and
      of course, its greatest width, came just over the yawning gulf. I
      shrank back—but the closing walls pressed me resistlessly onward.
      At length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an
      inch of foothold on the firm floor of the prison. I struggled no
      more, but the agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long, and
      final scream of despair. I felt that I tottered upon the brink—I
      averted my eyes—

      There was a discordant hum of human voices! There was a loud
      blast as of many trumpets! There was a harsh grating as of a
      thousand thunders! The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched
      arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was
      that of General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The
      Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.




THE PREMATURE BURIAL


      There are certain themes of which the interest is all-absorbing,
      but which are too entirely horrible for the purposes of
      legitimate fiction. These the mere romanticist must eschew, if he
      do not wish to offend or to disgust. They are with propriety
      handled only when the severity and majesty of Truth sanctify and
      sustain them. We thrill, for example, with the most intense of
      “pleasurable pain” over the accounts of the Passage of the
      Beresina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon, of the Plague at London,
      of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of the stifling of the
      hundred and twenty-three prisoners in the Black Hole at Calcutta.
      But in these accounts it is the fact——it is the reality——it is
      the history which excites. As inventions, we should regard them
      with simple abhorrence.

      I have mentioned some few of the more prominent and august
      calamities on record; but in these it is the extent, not less
      than the character of the calamity, which so vividly impresses
      the fancy. I need not remind the reader that, from the long and
      weird catalogue of human miseries, I might have selected many
      individual instances more replete with essential suffering than
      any of these vast generalities of disaster. The true
      wretchedness, indeed—the ultimate woe——is particular, not
      diffuse. That the ghastly extremes of agony are endured by man
      the unit, and never by man the mass——for this let us thank a
      merciful God!

      To be buried while alive is, beyond question, the most terrific
      of these extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere
      mortality. That it has frequently, very frequently, so fallen
      will scarcely be denied by those who think. The boundaries which
      divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall
      say where the one ends, and where the other begins? We know that
      there are diseases in which occur total cessations of all the
      apparent functions of vitality, and yet in which these cessations
      are merely suspensions, properly so called. They are only
      temporary pauses in the incomprehensible mechanism. A certain
      period elapses, and some unseen mysterious principle again sets
      in motion the magic pinions and the wizard wheels. The silver
      cord was not for ever loosed, nor the golden bowl irreparably
      broken. But where, meantime, was the soul?

      Apart, however, from the inevitable conclusion, _a priori_ that
      such causes must produce such effects——that the well-known
      occurrence of such cases of suspended animation must naturally
      give rise, now and then, to premature interments—apart from this
      consideration, we have the direct testimony of medical and
      ordinary experience to prove that a vast number of such
      interments have actually taken place. I might refer at once, if
      necessary, to a hundred well-authenticated instances. One of very
      remarkable character, and of which the circumstances may be fresh
      in the memory of some of my readers, occurred, not very long ago,
      in the neighboring city of Baltimore, where it occasioned a
      painful, intense, and widely-extended excitement. The wife of one
      of the most respectable citizens—a lawyer of eminence and a
      member of Congress—was seized with a sudden and unaccountable
      illness, which completely baffled the skill of her physicians.
      After much suffering she died, or was supposed to die. No one
      suspected, indeed, or had reason to suspect, that she was not
      actually dead. She presented all the ordinary appearances of
      death. The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The
      lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lustreless.
      There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the
      body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony
      rigidity. The funeral, in short, was hastened, on account of the
      rapid advance of what was supposed to be decomposition.

      The lady was deposited in her family vault, which, for three
      subsequent years, was undisturbed. At the expiration of this term
      it was opened for the reception of a sarcophagus; but, alas! how
      fearful a shock awaited the husband, who, personally, threw open
      the door! As its portals swung outwardly back, some
      white-apparelled object fell rattling within his arms. It was the
      skeleton of his wife in her yet unmoulded shroud.

      A careful investigation rendered it evident that she had revived
      within two days after her entombment; that her struggles within
      the coffin had caused it to fall from a ledge, or shelf to the
      floor, where it was so broken as to permit her escape. A lamp
      which had been accidentally left, full of oil, within the tomb,
      was found empty; it might have been exhausted, however, by
      evaporation. On the uttermost of the steps which led down into
      the dread chamber was a large fragment of the coffin, with which,
      it seemed, that she had endeavored to arrest attention by
      striking the iron door. While thus occupied, she probably
      swooned, or possibly died, through sheer terror; and, in failing,
      her shroud became entangled in some iron-work which projected
      interiorly. Thus she remained, and thus she rotted, erect.

      In the year 1810, a case of living inhumation happened in France,
      attended with circumstances which go far to warrant the assertion
      that truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction. The heroine of the
      story was a Mademoiselle Victorine Lafourcade, a young girl of
      illustrious family, of wealth, and of great personal beauty.
      Among her numerous suitors was Julien Bossuet, a poor
      _litterateur_, or journalist of Paris. His talents and general
      amiability had recommended him to the notice of the heiress, by
      whom he seems to have been truly beloved; but her pride of birth
      decided her, finally, to reject him, and to wed a Monsieur
      Renelle, a banker and a diplomatist of some eminence. After
      marriage, however, this gentleman neglected, and, perhaps, even
      more positively ill-treated her. Having passed with him some
      wretched years, she died—at least her condition so closely
      resembled death as to deceive every one who saw her. She was
      buried——not in a vault, but in an ordinary grave in the village
      of her nativity. Filled with despair, and still inflamed by the
      memory of a profound attachment, the lover journeys from the
      capital to the remote province in which the village lies, with
      the romantic purpose of disinterring the corpse, and possessing
      himself of its luxuriant tresses. He reaches the grave. At
      midnight he unearths the coffin, opens it, and is in the act of
      detaching the hair, when he is arrested by the unclosing of the
      beloved eyes. In fact, the lady had been buried alive. Vitality
      had not altogether departed, and she was aroused by the caresses
      of her lover from the lethargy which had been mistaken for death.
      He bore her frantically to his lodgings in the village. He
      employed certain powerful restoratives suggested by no little
      medical learning. In fine, she revived. She recognized her
      preserver. She remained with him until, by slow degrees, she
      fully recovered her original health. Her woman’s heart was not
      adamant, and this last lesson of love sufficed to soften it. She
      bestowed it upon Bossuet. She returned no more to her husband,
      but, concealing from him her resurrection, fled with her lover to
      America. Twenty years afterward, the two returned to France, in
      the persuasion that time had so greatly altered the lady’s
      appearance that her friends would be unable to recognize her.
      They were mistaken, however, for, at the first meeting, Monsieur
      Renelle did actually recognize and make claim to his wife. This
      claim she resisted, and a judicial tribunal sustained her in her
      resistance, deciding that the peculiar circumstances, with the
      long lapse of years, had extinguished, not only equitably, but
      legally, the authority of the husband.

      The “Chirurgical Journal” of Leipsic, a periodical of high
      authority and merit, which some American bookseller would do well
      to translate and republish, records in a late number a very
      distressing event of the character in question.

      An officer of artillery, a man of gigantic stature and of robust
      health, being thrown from an unmanageable horse, received a very
      severe contusion upon the head, which rendered him insensible at
      once; the skull was slightly fractured, but no immediate danger
      was apprehended. Trepanning was accomplished successfully. He was
      bled, and many other of the ordinary means of relief were
      adopted. Gradually, however, he fell into a more and more
      hopeless state of stupor, and, finally, it was thought that he
      died.

      The weather was warm, and he was buried with indecent haste in
      one of the public cemeteries. His funeral took place on Thursday.
      On the Sunday following, the grounds of the cemetery were, as
      usual, much thronged with visitors, and about noon an intense
      excitement was created by the declaration of a peasant that,
      while sitting upon the grave of the officer, he had distinctly
      felt a commotion of the earth, as if occasioned by some one
      struggling beneath. At first little attention was paid to the
      man’s asseveration; but his evident terror, and the dogged
      obstinacy with which he persisted in his story, had at length
      their natural effect upon the crowd. Spades were hurriedly
      procured, and the grave, which was shamefully shallow, was in a
      few minutes so far thrown open that the head of its occupant
      appeared. He was then seemingly dead; but he sat nearly erect
      within his coffin, the lid of which, in his furious struggles, he
      had partially uplifted.

      He was forthwith conveyed to the nearest hospital, and there
      pronounced to be still living, although in an asphytic condition.
      After some hours he revived, recognized individuals of his
      acquaintance, and, in broken sentences spoke of his agonies in
      the grave.

      From what he related, it was clear that he must have been
      conscious of life for more than an hour, while inhumed, before
      lapsing into insensibility. The grave was carelessly and loosely
      filled with an exceedingly porous soil; and thus some air was
      necessarily admitted. He heard the footsteps of the crowd
      overhead, and endeavored to make himself heard in turn. It was
      the tumult within the grounds of the cemetery, he said, which
      appeared to awaken him from a deep sleep, but no sooner was he
      awake than he became fully aware of the awful horrors of his
      position.

      This patient, it is recorded, was doing well and seemed to be in
      a fair way of ultimate recovery, but fell a victim to the
      quackeries of medical experiment. The galvanic battery was
      applied, and he suddenly expired in one of those ecstatic
      paroxysms which, occasionally, it superinduces.

      The mention of the galvanic battery, nevertheless, recalls to my
      memory a well known and very extraordinary case in point, where
      its action proved the means of restoring to animation a young
      attorney of London, who had been interred for two days. This
      occurred in 1831, and created, at the time, a very profound
      sensation wherever it was made the subject of converse.

      The patient, Mr. Edward Stapleton, had died, apparently of typhus
      fever, accompanied with some anomalous symptoms which had excited
      the curiosity of his medical attendants. Upon his seeming
      decease, his friends were requested to sanction a post-mortem
      examination, but declined to permit it. As often happens, when
      such refusals are made, the practitioners resolved to disinter
      the body and dissect it at leisure, in private. Arrangements were
      easily effected with some of the numerous corps of
      body-snatchers, with which London abounds; and, upon the third
      night after the funeral, the supposed corpse was unearthed from a
      grave eight feet deep, and deposited in the opening chamber of
      one of the private hospitals.

      An incision of some extent had been actually made in the abdomen,
      when the fresh and undecayed appearance of the subject suggested
      an application of the battery. One experiment succeeded another,
      and the customary effects supervened, with nothing to
      characterize them in any respect, except, upon one or two
      occasions, a more than ordinary degree of life-likeness in the
      convulsive action.

      It grew late. The day was about to dawn; and it was thought
      expedient, at length, to proceed at once to the dissection. A
      student, however, was especially desirous of testing a theory of
      his own, and insisted upon applying the battery to one of the
      pectoral muscles. A rough gash was made, and a wire hastily
      brought in contact, when the patient, with a hurried but quite
      unconvulsive movement, arose from the table, stepped into the
      middle of the floor, gazed about him uneasily for a few seconds,
      and then—spoke. What he said was unintelligible, but words were
      uttered; the syllabification was distinct. Having spoken, he fell
      heavily to the floor.

      For some moments all were paralyzed with awe—but the urgency of
      the case soon restored them their presence of mind. It was seen
      that Mr. Stapleton was alive, although in a swoon. Upon
      exhibition of ether he revived and was rapidly restored to
      health, and to the society of his friends—from whom, however, all
      knowledge of his resuscitation was withheld, until a relapse was
      no longer to be apprehended. Their wonder—their rapturous
      astonishment—may be conceived.

      The most thrilling peculiarity of this incident, nevertheless, is
      involved in what Mr. S. himself asserts. He declares that at no
      period was he altogether insensible—that, dully and confusedly,
      he was aware of everything which happened to him, from the moment
      in which he was pronounced dead by his physicians, to that in
      which he fell swooning to the floor of the hospital. “I am
      alive,” were the uncomprehended words which, upon recognizing the
      locality of the dissecting-room, he had endeavored, in his
      extremity, to utter.

      It were an easy matter to multiply such histories as these—but I
      forbear—for, indeed, we have no need of such to establish the
      fact that premature interments occur. When we reflect how very
      rarely, from the nature of the case, we have it in our power to
      detect them, we must admit that they may frequently occur without
      our cognizance. Scarcely, in truth, is a graveyard ever
      encroached upon, for any purpose, to any great extent, that
      skeletons are not found in postures which suggest the most
      fearful of suspicions.

      Fearful indeed the suspicion—but more fearful the doom! It may be
      asserted, without hesitation, that no event is so terribly well
      adapted to inspire the supremeness of bodily and of mental
      distress, as is burial before death. The unendurable oppression
      of the lungs—the stifling fumes from the damp earth—the clinging
      to the death garments—the rigid embrace of the narrow house—the
      blackness of the absolute Night—the silence like a sea that
      overwhelms—the unseen but palpable presence of the Conqueror
      Worm—these things, with the thoughts of the air and grass above,
      with memory of dear friends who would fly to save us if but
      informed of our fate, and with consciousness that of this fate
      they can never be informed—that our hopeless portion is that of
      the really dead—these considerations, I say, carry into the
      heart, which still palpitates, a degree of appalling and
      intolerable horror from which the most daring imagination must
      recoil. We know of nothing so agonizing upon Earth—we can dream
      of nothing half so hideous in the realms of the nethermost Hell.
      And thus all narratives upon this topic have an interest
      profound; an interest, nevertheless, which, through the sacred
      awe of the topic itself, very properly and very peculiarly
      depends upon our conviction of the truth of the matter narrated.
      What I have now to tell is of my own actual knowledge—of my own
      positive and personal experience.

      For several years I had been subject to attacks of the singular
      disorder which physicians have agreed to term catalepsy, in
      default of a more definitive title. Although both the immediate
      and the predisposing causes, and even the actual diagnosis, of
      this disease are still mysterious, its obvious and apparent
      character is sufficiently well understood. Its variations seem to
      be chiefly of degree. Sometimes the patient lies, for a day only,
      or even for a shorter period, in a species of exaggerated
      lethargy. He is senseless and externally motionless; but the
      pulsation of the heart is still faintly perceptible; some traces
      of warmth remain; a slight color lingers within the centre of the
      cheek; and, upon application of a mirror to the lips, we can
      detect a torpid, unequal, and vacillating action of the lungs.
      Then again the duration of the trance is for weeks—even for
      months; while the closest scrutiny, and the most rigorous medical
      tests, fail to establish any material distinction between the
      state of the sufferer and what we conceive of absolute death.
      Very usually he is saved from premature interment solely by the
      knowledge of his friends that he has been previously subject to
      catalepsy, by the consequent suspicion excited, and, above all,
      by the non-appearance of decay. The advances of the malady are,
      luckily, gradual. The first manifestations, although marked, are
      unequivocal. The fits grow successively more and more
      distinctive, and endure each for a longer term than the
      preceding. In this lies the principal security from inhumation.
      The unfortunate whose first attack should be of the extreme
      character which is occasionally seen, would almost inevitably be
      consigned alive to the tomb.

      My own case differed in no important particular from those
      mentioned in medical books. Sometimes, without any apparent
      cause, I sank, little by little, into a condition of
      semi-syncope, or half swoon; and, in this condition, without
      pain, without ability to stir, or, strictly speaking, to think,
      but with a dull lethargic consciousness of life and of the
      presence of those who surrounded my bed, I remained, until the
      crisis of the disease restored me, suddenly, to perfect
      sensation. At other times I was quickly and impetuously smitten.
      I grew sick, and numb, and chilly, and dizzy, and so fell
      prostrate at once. Then, for weeks, all was void, and black, and
      silent, and Nothing became the universe. Total annihilation could
      be no more. From these latter attacks I awoke, however, with a
      gradation slow in proportion to the suddenness of the seizure.
      Just as the day dawns to the friendless and houseless beggar who
      roams the streets throughout the long desolate winter night—just
      so tardily—just so wearily—just so cheerily came back the light
      of the Soul to me.

      Apart from the tendency to trance, however, my general health
      appeared to be good; nor could I perceive that it was at all
      affected by the one prevalent malady—unless, indeed, an
      idiosyncrasy in my ordinary sleep may be looked upon as
      superinduced. Upon awaking from slumber, I could never gain, at
      once, thorough possession of my senses, and always remained, for
      many minutes, in much bewilderment and perplexity—the mental
      faculties in general, but the memory in especial, being in a
      condition of absolute abeyance.

      In all that I endured there was no physical suffering but of
      moral distress an infinitude. My fancy grew charnel, I talked “of
      worms, of tombs, and epitaphs.” I was lost in reveries of death,
      and the idea of premature burial held continual possession of my
      brain. The ghastly Danger to which I was subjected haunted me day
      and night. In the former, the torture of meditation was
      excessive—in the latter, supreme. When the grim Darkness
      overspread the Earth, then, with every horror of thought, I
      shook—shook as the quivering plumes upon the hearse. When Nature
      could endure wakefulness no longer, it was with a struggle that I
      consented to sleep—for I shuddered to reflect that, upon awaking,
      I might find myself the tenant of a grave. And when, finally, I
      sank into slumber, it was only to rush at once into a world of
      phantasms, above which, with vast, sable, overshadowing wing,
      hovered, predominant, the one sepulchral Idea.

      From the innumerable images of gloom which thus oppressed me in
      dreams, I select for record but a solitary vision. Methought I
      was immersed in a cataleptic trance of more than usual duration
      and profundity. Suddenly there came an icy hand upon my forehead,
      and an impatient, gibbering voice whispered the word “Arise!”
      within my ear.

      I sat erect. The darkness was total. I could not see the figure
      of him who had aroused me. I could call to mind neither the
      period at which I had fallen into the trance, nor the locality in
      which I then lay. While I remained motionless, and busied in
      endeavors to collect my thought, the cold hand grasped me
      fiercely by the wrist, shaking it petulantly, while the gibbering
      voice said again:

      “Arise! did I not bid thee arise?”

      “And who,” I demanded, “art thou?”

      “I have no name in the regions which I inhabit,” replied the
      voice, mournfully; “I was mortal, but am fiend. I was merciless,
      but am pitiful. Thou dost feel that I shudder. My teeth chatter
      as I speak, yet it is not with the chilliness of the night—of the
      night without end. But this hideousness is insufferable. How
      canst thou tranquilly sleep? I cannot rest for the cry of these
      great agonies. These sights are more than I can bear. Get thee
      up! Come with me into the outer Night, and let me unfold to thee
      the graves. Is not this a spectacle of woe?—Behold!”

      I looked; and the unseen figure, which still grasped me by the
      wrist, had caused to be thrown open the graves of all mankind;
      and from each issued the faint phosphoric radiance of decay; so
      that I could see into the innermost recesses, and there view the
      shrouded bodies in their sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.
      But alas! the real sleepers were fewer, by many millions, than
      those who slumbered not at all; and there was a feeble
      struggling; and there was a general sad unrest; and from out the
      depths of the countless pits there came a melancholy rustling
      from the garments of the buried. And of those who seemed
      tranquilly to repose, I saw that a vast number had changed, in a
      greater or less degree, the rigid and uneasy position in which
      they had originally been entombed. And the voice again said to me
      as I gazed:

      “Is it not—oh! is it _not_ a pitiful sight?” But, before I could
      find words to reply, the figure had ceased to grasp my wrist, the
      phosphoric lights expired, and the graves were closed with a
      sudden violence, while from out them arose a tumult of despairing
      cries, saying again: “Is it not—O, God, is it _not_ a very
      pitiful sight?”

      Phantasies such as these, presenting themselves at night,
      extended their terrific influence far into my waking hours. My
      nerves became thoroughly unstrung, and I fell a prey to perpetual
      horror. I hesitated to ride, or to walk, or to indulge in any
      exercise that would carry me from home. In fact, I no longer
      dared trust myself out of the immediate presence of those who
      were aware of my proneness to catalepsy, lest, falling into one
      of my usual fits, I should be buried before my real condition
      could be ascertained. I doubted the care, the fidelity of my
      dearest friends. I dreaded that, in some trance of more than
      customary duration, they might be prevailed upon to regard me as
      irrecoverable. I even went so far as to fear that, as I
      occasioned much trouble, they might be glad to consider any very
      protracted attack as sufficient excuse for getting rid of me
      altogether. It was in vain they endeavored to reassure me by the
      most solemn promises. I exacted the most sacred oaths, that under
      no circumstances they would bury me until decomposition had so
      materially advanced as to render farther preservation impossible.
      And, even then, my mortal terrors would listen to no reason—would
      accept no consolation. I entered into a series of elaborate
      precautions. Among other things, I had the family vault so
      remodelled as to admit of being readily opened from within. The
      slightest pressure upon a long lever that extended far into the
      tomb would cause the iron portal to fly back. There were
      arrangements also for the free admission of air and light, and
      convenient receptacles for food and water, within immediate reach
      of the coffin intended for my reception. This coffin was warmly
      and softly padded, and was provided with a lid, fashioned upon
      the principle of the vault-door, with the addition of springs so
      contrived that the feeblest movement of the body would be
      sufficient to set it at liberty. Besides all this, there was
      suspended from the roof of the tomb, a large bell, the rope of
      which, it was designed, should extend through a hole in the
      coffin, and so be fastened to one of the hands of the corpse.
      But, alas? what avails the vigilance against the Destiny of man?
      Not even these well-contrived securities sufficed to save from
      the uttermost agonies of living inhumation, a wretch to these
      agonies foredoomed!

      There arrived an epoch—as often before there had arrived—in which
      I found myself emerging from total unconsciousness into the first
      feeble and indefinite sense of existence. Slowly—with a tortoise
      gradation—approached the faint gray dawn of the psychal day. A
      torpid uneasiness. An apathetic endurance of dull pain. No
      care—no hope—no effort. Then, after a long interval, a ringing in
      the ears; then, after a lapse still longer, a prickling or
      tingling sensation in the extremities; then a seemingly eternal
      period of pleasurable quiescence, during which the awakening
      feelings are struggling into thought; then a brief re-sinking
      into non-entity; then a sudden recovery. At length the slight
      quivering of an eyelid, and immediately thereupon, an electric
      shock of a terror, deadly and indefinite, which sends the blood
      in torrents from the temples to the heart. And now the first
      positive effort to think. And now the first endeavor to remember.
      And now a partial and evanescent success. And now the memory has
      so far regained its dominion, that, in some measure, I am
      cognizant of my state. I feel that I am not awaking from ordinary
      sleep. I recollect that I have been subject to catalepsy. And
      now, at last, as if by the rush of an ocean, my shuddering spirit
      is overwhelmed by the one grim Danger—by the one spectral and
      ever-prevalent idea.

      For some minutes after this fancy possessed me, I remained
      without motion. And why? I could not summon courage to move. I
      dared not make the effort which was to satisfy me of my fate—and
      yet there was something at my heart which whispered me it was
      sure. Despair—such as no other species of wretchedness ever calls
      into being—despair alone urged me, after long irresolution, to
      uplift the heavy lids of my eyes. I uplifted them. It was
      dark—all dark. I knew that the fit was over. I knew that the
      crisis of my disorder had long passed. I knew that I had now
      fully recovered the use of my visual faculties—and yet it was
      dark—all dark—the intense and utter raylessness of the Night that
      endureth for evermore.

      I endeavored to shriek; and my lips and my parched tongue moved
      convulsively together in the attempt—but no voice issued from the
      cavernous lungs, which oppressed as if by the weight of some
      incumbent mountain, gasped and palpitated, with the heart, at
      every elaborate and struggling inspiration.

      The movement of the jaws, in this effort to cry aloud, showed me
      that they were bound up, as is usual with the dead. I felt, too,
      that I lay upon some hard substance; and by something similar my
      sides were, also, closely compressed. So far, I had not ventured
      to stir any of my limbs—but now I violently threw up my arms,
      which had been lying at length, with the wrists crossed. They
      struck a solid wooden substance, which extended above my person
      at an elevation of not more than six inches from my face. I could
      no longer doubt that I reposed within a coffin at last.

      And now, amid all my infinite miseries, came sweetly the cherub
      Hope—for I thought of my precautions. I writhed, and made
      spasmodic exertions to force open the lid: it would not move. I
      felt my wrists for the bell-rope: it was not to be found. And now
      the Comforter fled for ever, and a still sterner Despair reigned
      triumphant; for I could not help perceiving the absence of the
      paddings which I had so carefully prepared—and then, too, there
      came suddenly to my nostrils the strong peculiar odor of moist
      earth. The conclusion was irresistible. I was not within the
      vault. I had fallen into a trance while absent from home—while
      among strangers—when, or how, I could not remember—and it was
      they who had buried me as a dog—nailed up in some common
      coffin—and thrust deep, deep, and for ever, into some ordinary
      and nameless grave.

      As this awful conviction forced itself, thus, into the innermost
      chambers of my soul, I once again struggled to cry aloud. And in
      this second endeavor I succeeded. A long, wild, and continuous
      shriek, or yell of agony, resounded through the realms of the
      subterranean Night.

      “Hillo! hillo, there!” said a gruff voice, in reply.

      “What the devil’s the matter now!” said a second.

      “Get out o’ that!” said a third.

      “What do you mean by yowling in that ere kind of style, like a
      cattymount?” said a fourth; and hereupon I was seized and shaken
      without ceremony, for several minutes, by a junto of very
      rough-looking individuals. They did not arouse me from my
      slumber—for I was wide awake when I screamed—but they restored me
      to the full possession of my memory.

      This adventure occurred near Richmond, in Virginia. Accompanied
      by a friend, I had proceeded, upon a gunning expedition, some
      miles down the banks of the James River. Night approached, and we
      were overtaken by a storm. The cabin of a small sloop lying at
      anchor in the stream, and laden with garden mould, afforded us
      the only available shelter. We made the best of it, and passed
      the night on board. I slept in one of the only two berths in the
      vessel—and the berths of a sloop of sixty or twenty tons need
      scarcely be described. That which I occupied had no bedding of
      any kind. Its extreme width was eighteen inches. The distance of
      its bottom from the deck overhead was precisely the same. I found
      it a matter of exceeding difficulty to squeeze myself in.
      Nevertheless, I slept soundly, and the whole of my vision—for it
      was no dream, and no nightmare—arose naturally from the
      circumstances of my position—from my ordinary bias of thought—and
      from the difficulty, to which I have alluded, of collecting my
      senses, and especially of regaining my memory, for a long time
      after awaking from slumber. The men who shook me were the crew of
      the sloop, and some laborers engaged to unload it. From the load
      itself came the earthly smell. The bandage about the jaws was a
      silk handkerchief in which I had bound up my head, in default of
      my customary nightcap.

      The tortures endured, however, were indubitably quite equal for
      the time, to those of actual sepulture. They were fearfully—they
      were inconceivably hideous; but out of Evil proceeded Good; for
      their very excess wrought in my spirit an inevitable revulsion.
      My soul acquired tone—acquired temper. I went abroad. I took
      vigorous exercise. I breathed the free air of Heaven. I thought
      upon other subjects than Death. I discarded my medical books.
      “Buchan” I burned. I read no “Night Thoughts”—no fustian about
      churchyards—no bugaboo tales—such as this. In short, I became a
      new man, and lived a man’s life. From that memorable night, I
      dismissed forever my charnel apprehensions, and with them
      vanished the cataleptic disorder, of which, perhaps, they had
      been less the consequence than the cause.

      There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the
      world of our sad Humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell—but
      the imagination of man is no Carathis, to explore with impunity
      its every cavern. Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors
      cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful—but, like the Demons in
      whose company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must
      sleep, or they will devour us—they must be suffered to slumber,
      or we perish.




THE DOMAIN OF ARNHEIM


The garden like a lady fair was cut,
    That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
And to the open skies her eyes did shut.
    The azure fields of Heaven were ’sembled right
    In a large round, set with the flowers of light.
The flowers de luce, and the round sparks of dew
That hung upon their azure leaves did shew
Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the evening blue.
                    —_Giles Fletcher_.

      From his cradle to his grave a gale of prosperity bore my friend
      Ellison along. Nor do I use the word prosperity in its mere
      worldly sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person
      of whom I speak seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing the
      doctrines of Turgot, Price, Priestley, and Condorcet—of
      exemplifying by individual instance what has been deemed the
      chimera of the perfectionists. In the brief existence of Ellison
      I fancy that I have seen refuted the dogma, that in man’s very
      nature lies some hidden principle, the antagonist of bliss. An
      anxious examination of his career has given me to understand that
      in general, from the violation of a few simple laws of humanity
      arises the wretchedness of mankind—that as a species we have in
      our possession the as yet unwrought elements of content—and that,
      even now, in the present darkness and madness of all thought on
      the great question of the social condition, it is not impossible
      that man, the individual, under certain unusual and highly
      fortuitous conditions, may be happy.

      With opinions such as these my young friend, too, was fully
      imbued, and thus it is worthy of observation that the
      uninterrupted enjoyment which distinguished his life was, in
      great measure, the result of preconcert. It is indeed evident
      that with less of the instinctive philosophy which, now and then,
      stands so well in the stead of experience, Mr. Ellison would have
      found himself precipitated, by the very extraordinary success of
      his life, into the common vortex of unhappiness which yawns for
      those of pre-eminent endowments. But it is by no means my object
      to pen an essay on happiness. The ideas of my friend may be
      summed up in a few words. He admitted but four elementary
      principles, or more strictly, conditions of bliss. That which he
      considered chief was (strange to say!) the simple and purely
      physical one of free exercise in the open air. “The health,” he
      said, “attainable by other means is scarcely worth the name.” He
      instanced the ecstasies of the fox-hunter, and pointed to the
      tillers of the earth, the only people who, as a class, can be
      fairly considered happier than others. His second condition was
      the love of woman. His third, and most difficult of realization,
      was the contempt of ambition. His fourth was an object of
      unceasing pursuit; and he held that, other things being equal,
      the extent of attainable happiness was in proportion to the
      spirituality of this object.

      Ellison was remarkable in the continuous profusion of good gifts
      lavished upon him by fortune. In personal grace and beauty he
      exceeded all men. His intellect was of that order to which the
      acquisition of knowledge is less a labor than an intuition and a
      necessity. His family was one of the most illustrious of the
      empire. His bride was the loveliest and most devoted of women.
      His possessions had been always ample; but on the attainment of
      his majority, it was discovered that one of those extraordinary
      freaks of fate had been played in his behalf which startle the
      whole social world amid which they occur, and seldom fail
      radically to alter the moral constitution of those who are their
      objects.

      It appears that about a hundred years before Mr. Ellison’s coming
      of age, there had died, in a remote province, one Mr. Seabright
      Ellison. This gentleman had amassed a princely fortune, and,
      having no immediate connections, conceived the whim of suffering
      his wealth to accumulate for a century after his decease.
      Minutely and sagaciously directing the various modes of
      investment, he bequeathed the aggregate amount to the nearest of
      blood, bearing the name of Ellison, who should be alive at the
      end of the hundred years. Many attempts had been made to set
      aside this singular bequest; their ex post facto character
      rendered them abortive; but the attention of a jealous government
      was aroused, and a legislative act finally obtained, forbidding
      all similar accumulations. This act, however, did not prevent
      young Ellison from entering into possession, on his twenty-first
      birthday, as the heir of his ancestor Seabright, of a fortune of
      four hundred and fifty millions of dollars. (*1)

      When it had become known that such was the enormous wealth
      inherited, there were, of course, many speculations as to the
      mode of its disposal. The magnitude and the immediate
      availability of the sum bewildered all who thought on the topic.
      The possessor of any appreciable amount of money might have been
      imagined to perform any one of a thousand things. With riches
      merely surpassing those of any citizen, it would have been easy
      to suppose him engaging to supreme excess in the fashionable
      extravagances of his time—or busying himself with political
      intrigue—or aiming at ministerial power—or purchasing increase of
      nobility—or collecting large museums of virtu—or playing the
      munificent patron of letters, of science, of art—or endowing, and
      bestowing his name upon extensive institutions of charity. But
      for the inconceivable wealth in the actual possession of the
      heir, these objects and all ordinary objects were felt to afford
      too limited a field. Recourse was had to figures, and these but
      sufficed to confound. It was seen that, even at three per cent.,
      the annual income of the inheritance amounted to no less than
      thirteen millions and five hundred thousand dollars; which was
      one million and one hundred and twenty-five thousand per month;
      or thirty-six thousand nine hundred and eighty-six per day; or
      one thousand five hundred and forty-one per hour; or six and
      twenty dollars for every minute that flew. Thus the usual track
      of supposition was thoroughly broken up. Men knew not what to
      imagine. There were some who even conceived that Mr. Ellison
      would divest himself of at least one-half of his fortune, as of
      utterly superfluous opulence—enriching whole troops of his
      relatives by division of his superabundance. To the nearest of
      these he did, in fact, abandon the very unusual wealth which was
      his own before the inheritance.

      I was not surprised, however, to perceive that he had long made
      up his mind on a point which had occasioned so much discussion to
      his friends. Nor was I greatly astonished at the nature of his
      decision. In regard to individual charities he had satisfied his
      conscience. In the possibility of any improvement, properly so
      called, being effected by man himself in the general condition of
      man, he had (I am sorry to confess it) little faith. Upon the
      whole, whether happily or unhappily, he was thrown back, in very
      great measure, upon self.

      In the widest and noblest sense he was a poet. He comprehended,
      moreover, the true character, the august aims, the supreme
      majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment. The fullest, if not
      the sole proper satisfaction of this sentiment he instinctively
      felt to lie in the creation of novel forms of beauty. Some
      peculiarities, either in his early education, or in the nature of
      his intellect, had tinged with what is termed materialism all his
      ethical speculations; and it was this bias, perhaps, which led
      him to believe that the most advantageous at least, if not the
      sole legitimate field for the poetic exercise, lies in the
      creation of novel moods of purely physical loveliness. Thus it
      happened he became neither musician nor poet—if we use this
      latter term in its every-day acceptation. Or it might have been
      that he neglected to become either, merely in pursuance of his
      idea that in contempt of ambition is to be found one of the
      essential principles of happiness on earth. Is it not indeed,
      possible that, while a high order of genius is necessarily
      ambitious, the highest is above that which is termed ambition?
      And may it not thus happen that many far greater than Milton have
      contentedly remained “mute and inglorious?” I believe that the
      world has never seen—and that, unless through some series of
      accidents goading the noblest order of mind into distasteful
      exertion, the world will never see—that full extent of triumphant
      execution, in the richer domains of art, of which the human
      nature is absolutely capable.

      Ellison became neither musician nor poet; although no man lived
      more profoundly enamored of music and poetry. Under other
      circumstances than those which invested him, it is not impossible
      that he would have become a painter. Sculpture, although in its
      nature rigorously poetical was too limited in its extent and
      consequences, to have occupied, at any time, much of his
      attention. And I have now mentioned all the provinces in which
      the common understanding of the poetic sentiment has declared it
      capable of expatiating. But Ellison maintained that the richest,
      the truest, and most natural, if not altogether the most
      extensive province, had been unaccountably neglected. No
      definition had spoken of the landscape-gardener as of the poet;
      yet it seemed to my friend that the creation of the
      landscape-garden offered to the proper Muse the most magnificent
      of opportunities. Here, indeed, was the fairest field for the
      display of imagination in the endless combining of forms of novel
      beauty; the elements to enter into combination being, by a vast
      superiority, the most glorious which the earth could afford. In
      the multiform and multicolor of the flowers and the trees, he
      recognised the most direct and energetic efforts of Nature at
      physical loveliness. And in the direction or concentration of
      this effort—or, more properly, in its adaptation to the eyes
      which were to behold it on earth—he perceived that he should be
      employing the best means—laboring to the greatest advantage—in
      the fulfilment, not only of his own destiny as poet, but of the
      august purposes for which the Deity had implanted the poetic
      sentiment in man.

      “Its adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it on earth.” In
      his explanation of this phraseology, Mr. Ellison did much toward
      solving what has always seemed to me an enigma:—I mean the fact
      (which none but the ignorant dispute) that no such combination of
      scenery exists in nature as the painter of genius may produce. No
      such paradises are to be found in reality as have glowed on the
      canvas of Claude. In the most enchanting of natural landscapes,
      there will always be found a defect or an excess—many excesses
      and defects. While the component parts may defy, individually,
      the highest skill of the artist, the arrangement of these parts
      will always be susceptible of improvement. In short, no position
      can be attained on the wide surface of the natural earth, from
      which an artistical eye, looking steadily, will not find matter
      of offence in what is termed the “composition” of the landscape.
      And yet how unintelligible is this! In all other matters we are
      justly instructed to regard nature as supreme. With her details
      we shrink from competition. Who shall presume to imitate the
      colors of the tulip, or to improve the proportions of the lily of
      the valley? The criticism which says, of sculpture or
      portraiture, that here nature is to be exalted or idealized
      rather than imitated, is in error. No pictorial or sculptural
      combinations of points of human liveliness do more than approach
      the living and breathing beauty. In landscape alone is the
      principle of the critic true; and, having felt its truth here, it
      is but the headlong spirit of generalization which has led him to
      pronounce it true throughout all the domains of art. Having, I
      say, felt its truth here; for the feeling is no affectation or
      chimera. The mathematics afford no more absolute demonstrations
      than the sentiments of his art yields the artist. He not only
      believes, but positively knows, that such and such apparently
      arbitrary arrangements of matter constitute and alone constitute
      the true beauty. His reasons, however, have not yet been matured
      into expression. It remains for a more profound analysis than the
      world has yet seen, fully to investigate and express them.
      Nevertheless he is confirmed in his instinctive opinions by the
      voice of all his brethren. Let a “composition” be defective; let
      an emendation be wrought in its mere arrangement of form; let
      this emendation be submitted to every artist in the world; by
      each will its necessity be admitted. And even far more than this;
      in remedy of the defective composition, each insulated member of
      the fraternity would have suggested the identical emendation.

      I repeat that in landscape arrangements alone is the physical
      nature susceptible of exaltation, and that, therefore, her
      susceptibility of improvement at this one point, was a mystery I
      had been unable to solve. My own thoughts on the subject had
      rested in the idea that the primitive intention of nature would
      have so arranged the earth’s surface as to have fulfilled at all
      points man’s sense of perfection in the beautiful, the sublime,
      or the picturesque; but that this primitive intention had been
      frustrated by the known geological disturbances—disturbances of
      form and color—grouping, in the correction or allaying of which
      lies the soul of art. The force of this idea was much weakened,
      however, by the necessity which it involved of considering the
      disturbances abnormal and unadapted to any purpose. It was
      Ellison who suggested that they were prognostic of death. He thus
      explained:—Admit the earthly immortality of man to have been the
      first intention. We have then the primitive arrangement of the
      earth’s surface adapted to his blissful estate, as not existent
      but designed. The disturbances were the preparations for his
      subsequently conceived deathful condition.

      “Now,” said my friend, “what we regard as exaltation of the
      landscape may be really such, as respects only the moral or human
      point of view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may
      possibly effect a blemish in the picture, if we can suppose this
      picture viewed at large—in mass—from some point distant from the
      earth’s surface, although not beyond the limits of its
      atmosphere. It is easily understood that what might improve a
      closely scrutinized detail, may at the same time injure a general
      or more distantly observed effect. There may be a class of
      beings, human once, but now invisible to humanity, to whom, from
      afar, our disorder may seem order—our unpicturesqueness
      picturesque; in a word, the earth-angels, for whose scrutiny more
      especially than our own, and for whose death-refined appreciation
      of the beautiful, may have been set in array by God the wide
      landscape-gardens of the hemispheres.”

      In the course of discussion, my friend quoted some passages from
      a writer on landscape-gardening who has been supposed to have
      well treated his theme:

      “There are properly but two styles of landscape-gardening, the
      natural and the artificial. One seeks to recall the original
      beauty of the country, by adapting its means to the surrounding
      scenery, cultivating trees in harmony with the hills or plain of
      the neighboring land; detecting and bringing into practice those
      nice relations of size, proportion, and color which, hid from the
      common observer, are revealed everywhere to the experienced
      student of nature. The result of the natural style of gardening,
      is seen rather in the absence of all defects and incongruities—in
      the prevalence of a healthy harmony and order—than in the
      creation of any special wonders or miracles. The artificial style
      has as many varieties as there are different tastes to gratify.
      It has a certain general relation to the various styles of
      building. There are the stately avenues and retirements of
      Versailles; Italian terraces; and a various mixed old English
      style, which bears some relation to the domestic Gothic or
      English Elizabethan architecture. Whatever may be said against
      the abuses of the artificial landscape-gardening, a mixture of
      pure art in a garden scene adds to it a great beauty. This is
      partly pleasing to the eye, by the show of order and design, and
      partly moral. A terrace, with an old moss-covered balustrade,
      calls up at once to the eye the fair forms that have passed there
      in other days. The slightest exhibition of art is an evidence of
      care and human interest.”

      “From what I have already observed,” said Ellison, “you will
      understand that I reject the idea, here expressed, of recalling
      the original beauty of the country. The original beauty is never
      so great as that which may be introduced. Of course, every thing
      depends on the selection of a spot with capabilities. What is
      said about detecting and bringing into practice nice relations of
      size, proportion, and color, is one of those mere vaguenesses of
      speech which serve to veil inaccuracy of thought. The phrase
      quoted may mean any thing, or nothing, and guides in no degree.
      That the true result of the natural style of gardening is seen
      rather in the absence of all defects and incongruities than in
      the creation of any special wonders or miracles, is a proposition
      better suited to the grovelling apprehension of the herd than to
      the fervid dreams of the man of genius. The negative merit
      suggested appertains to that hobbling criticism which, in
      letters, would elevate Addison into apotheosis. In truth, while
      that virtue which consists in the mere avoidance of vice appeals
      directly to the understanding, and can thus be circumscribed in
      rule, the loftier virtue, which flames in creation, can be
      apprehended in its results alone. Rule applies but to the merits
      of denial—to the excellencies which refrain. Beyond these, the
      critical art can but suggest. We may be instructed to build a
      “Cato,” but we are in vain told how to conceive a Parthenon or an
      “Inferno.” The thing done, however; the wonder accomplished; and
      the capacity for apprehension becomes universal. The sophists of
      the negative school who, through inability to create, have
      scoffed at creation, are now found the loudest in applause. What,
      in its chrysalis condition of principle, affronted their demure
      reason, never fails, in its maturity of accomplishment, to extort
      admiration from their instinct of beauty.

      “The author’s observations on the artificial style,” continued
      Ellison, “are less objectionable. A mixture of pure art in a
      garden scene adds to it a great beauty. This is just; as also is
      the reference to the sense of human interest. The principle
      expressed is incontrovertible—but there may be something beyond
      it. There may be an object in keeping with the principle—an
      object unattainable by the means ordinarily possessed by
      individuals, yet which, if attained, would lend a charm to the
      landscape-garden far surpassing that which a sense of merely
      human interest could bestow. A poet, having very unusual
      pecuniary resources, might, while retaining the necessary idea of
      art or culture, or, as our author expresses it, of interest, so
      imbue his designs at once with extent and novelty of beauty, as
      to convey the sentiment of spiritual interference. It will be
      seen that, in bringing about such result, he secures all the
      advantages of interest or design, while relieving his work of the
      harshness or technicality of the worldly art. In the most rugged
      of wildernesses—in the most savage of the scenes of pure
      nature—there is apparent the art of a creator; yet this art is
      apparent to reflection only; in no respect has it the obvious
      force of a feeling. Now let us suppose this sense of the Almighty
      design to be one step depressed—to be brought into something like
      harmony or consistency with the sense of human art—to form an
      intermedium between the two:—let us imagine, for example, a
      landscape whose combined vastness and definitiveness—whose united
      beauty, magnificence, and strangeness, shall convey the idea of
      care, or culture, or superintendence, on the part of beings
      superior, yet akin to humanity—then the sentiment of interest is
      preserved, while the art intervolved is made to assume the air of
      an intermediate or secondary nature—a nature which is not God,
      nor an emanation from God, but which still is nature in the sense
      of the handiwork of the angels that hover between man and God.”

      It was in devoting his enormous wealth to the embodiment of a
      vision such as this—in the free exercise in the open air ensured
      by the personal superintendence of his plans—in the unceasing
      object which these plans afforded—in the high spirituality of the
      object—in the contempt of ambition which it enabled him truly to
      feel—in the perennial springs with which it gratified, without
      possibility of satiating, that one master passion of his soul,
      the thirst for beauty, above all, it was in the sympathy of a
      woman, not unwomanly, whose loveliness and love enveloped his
      existence in the purple atmosphere of Paradise, that Ellison
      thought to find, and found, exemption from the ordinary cares of
      humanity, with a far greater amount of positive happiness than
      ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams of De Staël.

      I despair of conveying to the reader any distinct conception of
      the marvels which my friend did actually accomplish. I wish to
      describe, but am disheartened by the difficulty of description,
      and hesitate between detail and generality. Perhaps the better
      course will be to unite the two in their extremes.

      Mr. Ellison’s first step regarded, of course, the choice of a
      locality, and scarcely had he commenced thinking on this point,
      when the luxuriant nature of the Pacific Islands arrested his
      attention. In fact, he had made up his mind for a voyage to the
      South Seas, when a night’s reflection induced him to abandon the
      idea. “Were I misanthropic,” he said, “such a locale would suit
      me. The thoroughness of its insulation and seclusion, and the
      difficulty of ingress and egress, would in such case be the charm
      of charms; but as yet I am not Timon. I wish the composure but
      not the depression of solitude. There must remain with me a
      certain control over the extent and duration of my repose. There
      will be frequent hours in which I shall need, too, the sympathy
      of the poetic in what I have done. Let me seek, then, a spot not
      far from a populous city—whose vicinity, also, will best enable
      me to execute my plans.”

      In search of a suitable place so situated, Ellison travelled for
      several years, and I was permitted to accompany him. A thousand
      spots with which I was enraptured he rejected without hesitation,
      for reasons which satisfied me, in the end, that he was right. We
      came at length to an elevated table-land of wonderful fertility
      and beauty, affording a panoramic prospect very little less in
      extent than that of Aetna, and, in Ellison’s opinion as well as
      my own, surpassing the far-famed view from that mountain in all
      the true elements of the picturesque.

      “I am aware,” said the traveller, as he drew a sigh of deep
      delight after gazing on this scene, entranced, for nearly an
      hour, “I know that here, in my circumstances, nine-tenths of the
      most fastidious of men would rest content. This panorama is
      indeed glorious, and I should rejoice in it but for the excess of
      its glory. The taste of all the architects I have ever known
      leads them, for the sake of ‘prospect,’ to put up buildings on
      hill-tops. The error is obvious. Grandeur in any of its moods,
      but especially in that of extent, startles, excites—and then
      fatigues, depresses. For the occasional scene nothing can be
      better—for the constant view nothing worse. And, in the constant
      view, the most objectionable phase of grandeur is that of extent;
      the worst phase of extent, that of distance. It is at war with
      the sentiment and with the sense of seclusion—the sentiment and
      sense which we seek to humor in ‘retiring to the country.’ In
      looking from the summit of a mountain we cannot help feeling
      abroad in the world. The heart-sick avoid distant prospects as a
      pestilence.”

      It was not until toward the close of the fourth year of our
      search that we found a locality with which Ellison professed
      himself satisfied. It is, of course, needless to say where was
      the locality. The late death of my friend, in causing his domain
      to be thrown open to certain classes of visitors, has given to
      Arnheim a species of secret and subdued if not solemn celebrity,
      similar in kind, although infinitely superior in degree, to that
      which so long distinguished Fonthill.

      The usual approach to Arnheim was by the river. The visitor left
      the city in the early morning. During the forenoon he passed
      between shores of a tranquil and domestic beauty, on which grazed
      innumerable sheep, their white fleeces spotting the vivid green
      of rolling meadows. By degrees the idea of cultivation subsided
      into that of merely pastoral care. This slowly became merged in a
      sense of retirement—this again in a consciousness of solitude. As
      the evening approached, the channel grew more narrow; the banks
      more and more precipitous; and these latter were clothed in rich,
      more profuse, and more sombre foliage. The water increased in
      transparency. The stream took a thousand turns, so that at no
      moment could its gleaming surface be seen for a greater distance
      than a furlong. At every instant the vessel seemed imprisoned
      within an enchanted circle, having insuperable and impenetrable
      walls of foliage, a roof of ultramarine satin, and no floor—the
      keel balancing itself with admirable nicety on that of a phantom
      bark which, by some accident having been turned upside down,
      floated in constant company with the substantial one, for the
      purpose of sustaining it. The channel now became a gorge—although
      the term is somewhat inapplicable, and I employ it merely because
      the language has no word which better represents the most
      striking—not the most distinctive—feature of the scene. The
      character of gorge was maintained only in the height and
      parallelism of the shores; it was lost altogether in their other
      traits. The walls of the ravine (through which the clear water
      still tranquilly flowed) arose to an elevation of a hundred and
      occasionally of a hundred and fifty feet, and inclined so much
      toward each other as, in a great measure, to shut out the light
      of day; while the long plume-like moss which depended densely
      from the intertwining shrubberies overhead, gave the whole chasm
      an air of funereal gloom. The windings became more frequent and
      intricate, and seemed often as if returning in upon themselves,
      so that the voyager had long lost all idea of direction. He was,
      moreover, enwrapt in an exquisite sense of the strange. The
      thought of nature still remained, but her character seemed to
      have undergone modification, there was a weird symmetry, a
      thrilling uniformity, a wizard propriety in these her works. Not
      a dead branch—not a withered leaf—not a stray pebble—not a patch
      of the brown earth was anywhere visible. The crystal water welled
      up against the clean granite, or the unblemished moss, with a
      sharpness of outline that delighted while it bewildered the eye.

      Having threaded the mazes of this channel for some hours, the
      gloom deepening every moment, a sharp and unexpected turn of the
      vessel brought it suddenly, as if dropped from heaven, into a
      circular basin of very considerable extent when compared with the
      width of the gorge. It was about two hundred yards in diameter,
      and girt in at all points but one—that immediately fronting the
      vessel as it entered—by hills equal in general height to the
      walls of the chasm, although of a thoroughly different character.
      Their sides sloped from the water’s edge at an angle of some
      forty-five degrees, and they were clothed from base to summit—not
      a perceptible point escaping—in a drapery of the most gorgeous
      flower-blossoms; scarcely a green leaf being visible among the
      sea of odorous and fluctuating color. This basin was of great
      depth, but so transparent was the water that the bottom, which
      seemed to consist of a thick mass of small round alabaster
      pebbles, was distinctly visible by glimpses—that is to say,
      whenever the eye could permit itself not to see, far down in the
      inverted heaven, the duplicate blooming of the hills. On these
      latter there were no trees, nor even shrubs of any size. The
      impressions wrought on the observer were those of richness,
      warmth, color, quietude, uniformity, softness, delicacy,
      daintiness, voluptuousness, and a miraculous extremeness of
      culture that suggested dreams of a new race of fairies,
      laborious, tasteful, magnificent, and fastidious; but as the eye
      traced upward the myriad-tinted slope, from its sharp junction
      with the water to its vague termination amid the folds of
      overhanging cloud, it became, indeed, difficult not to fancy a
      panoramic cataract of rubies, sapphires, opals, and golden
      onyxes, rolling silently out of the sky.

      The visitor, shooting suddenly into this bay from out the gloom
      of the ravine, is delighted but astounded by the full orb of the
      declining sun, which he had supposed to be already far below the
      horizon, but which now confronts him, and forms the sole
      termination of an otherwise limitless vista seen through another
      chasm-like rift in the hills.

      But here the voyager quits the vessel which has borne him so far,
      and descends into a light canoe of ivory, stained with arabesque
      devices in vivid scarlet, both within and without. The poop and
      beak of this boat arise high above the water, with sharp points,
      so that the general form is that of an irregular crescent. It
      lies on the surface of the bay with the proud grace of a swan. On
      its ermined floor reposes a single feathery paddle of satin-wood;
      but no oarsmen or attendant is to be seen. The guest is bidden to
      be of good cheer—that the fates will take care of him. The larger
      vessel disappears, and he is left alone in the canoe, which lies
      apparently motionless in the middle of the lake. While he
      considers what course to pursue, however, he becomes aware of a
      gentle movement in the fairy bark. It slowly swings itself around
      until its prow points toward the sun. It advances with a gentle
      but gradually accelerated velocity, while the slight ripples it
      creates seem to break about the ivory side in divinest
      melody—seem to offer the only possible explanation of the
      soothing yet melancholy music for whose unseen origin the
      bewildered voyager looks around him in vain.

      The canoe steadily proceeds, and the rocky gate of the vista is
      approached, so that its depths can be more distinctly seen. To
      the right arise a chain of lofty hills rudely and luxuriantly
      wooded. It is observed, however, that the trait of exquisite
      cleanness where the bank dips into the water, still prevails.
      There is not one token of the usual river _débris_. To the left
      the character of the scene is softer and more obviously
      artificial. Here the bank slopes upward from the stream in a very
      gentle ascent, forming a broad sward of grass of a texture
      resembling nothing so much as velvet, and of a brilliancy of
      green which would bear comparison with the tint of the purest
      emerald. This plateau varies in width from ten to three hundred
      yards; reaching from the river-bank to a wall, fifty feet high,
      which extends, in an infinity of curves, but following the
      general direction of the river, until lost in the distance to the
      westward. This wall is of one continuous rock, and has been
      formed by cutting perpendicularly the once rugged precipice of
      the stream’s southern bank, but no trace of the labor has been
      suffered to remain. The chiselled stone has the hue of ages, and
      is profusely overhung and overspread with the ivy, the coral
      honeysuckle, the eglantine, and the clematis. The uniformity of
      the top and bottom lines of the wall is fully relieved by
      occasional trees of gigantic height, growing singly or in small
      groups, both along the plateau and in the domain behind the wall,
      but in close proximity to it; so that frequent limbs (of the
      black walnut especially) reach over and dip their pendent
      extremities into the water. Farther back within the domain, the
      vision is impeded by an impenetrable screen of foliage.

      These things are observed during the canoe’s gradual approach to
      what I have called the gate of the vista. On drawing nearer to
      this, however, its chasm-like appearance vanishes; a new outlet
      from the bay is discovered to the left—in which direction the
      wall is also seen to sweep, still following the general course of
      the stream. Down this new opening the eye cannot penetrate very
      far; for the stream, accompanied by the wall, still bends to the
      left, until both are swallowed up by the leaves.

      The boat, nevertheless, glides magically into the winding
      channel; and here the shore opposite the wall is found to
      resemble that opposite the wall in the straight vista. Lofty
      hills, rising occasionally into mountains, and covered with
      vegetation in wild luxuriance, still shut in the scene.

      Floating gently onward, but with a velocity slightly augmented,
      the voyager, after many short turns, finds his progress
      apparently barred by a gigantic gate or rather door of burnished
      gold, elaborately carved and fretted, and reflecting the direct
      rays of the now fast-sinking sun with an effulgence that seems to
      wreath the whole surrounding forest in flames. This gate is
      inserted in the lofty wall; which here appears to cross the river
      at right angles. In a few moments, however, it is seen that the
      main body of the water still sweeps in a gentle and extensive
      curve to the left, the wall following it as before, while a
      stream of considerable volume, diverging from the principal one,
      makes its way, with a slight ripple, under the door, and is thus
      hidden from sight. The canoe falls into the lesser channel and
      approaches the gate. Its ponderous wings are slowly and musically
      expanded. The boat glides between them, and commences a rapid
      descent into a vast amphitheatre entirely begirt with purple
      mountains, whose bases are laved by a gleaming river throughout
      the full extent of their circuit. Meantime the whole Paradise of
      Arnheim bursts upon the view. There is a gush of entrancing
      melody; there is an oppressive sense of strange sweet odor;—there
      is a dream-like intermingling to the eye of tall slender Eastern
      trees—bosky shrubberies—flocks of golden and crimson
      birds—lily-fringed lakes—meadows of violets, tulips, poppies,
      hyacinths, and tuberoses—long intertangled lines of silver
      streamlets—and, upspringing confusedly from amid all, a mass of
      semi-Gothic, semi-Saracenic architecture sustaining itself by
      miracle in mid-air, glittering in the red sunlight with a hundred
      oriels, minarets, and pinnacles; and seeming the phantom
      handiwork, conjointly, of the Sylphs, of the Fairies, of the
      Genii and of the Gnomes.




LANDOR’S COTTAGE


A Pendant to “The Domain of Arnheim”

      During A pedestrian trip last summer, through one or two of the
      river counties of New York, I found myself, as the day declined,
      somewhat embarrassed about the road I was pursuing. The land
      undulated very remarkably; and my path, for the last hour, had
      wound about and about so confusedly, in its effort to keep in the
      valleys, that I no longer knew in what direction lay the sweet
      village of B——, where I had determined to stop for the night. The
      sun had scarcely shone—strictly speaking—during the day, which
      nevertheless, had been unpleasantly warm. A smoky mist,
      resembling that of the Indian summer, enveloped all things, and
      of course, added to my uncertainty. Not that I cared much about
      the matter. If I did not hit upon the village before sunset, or
      even before dark, it was more than possible that a little Dutch
      farmhouse, or something of that kind, would soon make its
      appearance—although, in fact, the neighborhood (perhaps on
      account of being more picturesque than fertile) was very sparsely
      inhabited. At all events, with my knapsack for a pillow, and my
      hound as a sentry, a bivouac in the open air was just the thing
      which would have amused me. I sauntered on, therefore, quite at
      ease—Ponto taking charge of my gun—until at length, just as I had
      begun to consider whether the numerous little glades that led
      hither and thither, were intended to be paths at all, I was
      conducted by one of them into an unquestionable carriage track.
      There could be no mistaking it. The traces of light wheels were
      evident; and although the tall shrubberies and overgrown
      undergrowth met overhead, there was no obstruction whatever
      below, even to the passage of a Virginian mountain wagon—the most
      aspiring vehicle, I take it, of its kind. The road, however,
      except in being open through the wood—if wood be not too weighty
      a name for such an assemblage of light trees—and except in the
      particulars of evident wheel-tracks—bore no resemblance to any
      road I had before seen. The tracks of which I speak were but
      faintly perceptible—having been impressed upon the firm, yet
      pleasantly moist surface of—what looked more like green Genoese
      velvet than any thing else. It was grass, clearly—but grass such
      as we seldom see out of England—so short, so thick, so even, and
      so vivid in color. Not a single impediment lay in the
      wheel-route—not even a chip or dead twig. The stones that once
      obstructed the way had been carefully _placed_—not thrown—along
      the sides of the lane, so as to define its boundaries at bottom
      with a kind of half-precise, half-negligent, and wholly
      picturesque definition. Clumps of wild flowers grew everywhere,
      luxuriantly, in the interspaces.

      What to make of all this, of course I knew not. Here was art
      undoubtedly—that did not surprise me—all roads, in the ordinary
      sense, are works of art; nor can I say that there was much to
      wonder at in the mere excess of art manifested; all that seemed
      to have been done, might have been done here—with such natural
      “capabilities” (as they have it in the books on Landscape
      Gardening)—with very little labor and expense. No; it was not the
      amount but the character of the art which caused me to take a
      seat on one of the blossomy stones and gaze up and down this
      fairy-like avenue for half an hour or more in bewildered
      admiration. One thing became more and more evident the longer I
      gazed: an artist, and one with a most scrupulous eye for form,
      had superintended all these arrangements. The greatest care had
      been taken to preserve a due medium between the neat and graceful
      on the one hand, and the pittoresque, in the true sense of the
      Italian term, on the other. There were few straight, and no long
      uninterrupted lines. The same effect of curvature or of color
      appeared twice, usually, but not oftener, at any one point of
      view. Everywhere was variety in uniformity. It was a piece of
      “composition,” in which the most fastidiously critical taste
      could scarcely have suggested an emendation.

      I had turned to the right as I entered this road, and now,
      arising, I continued in the same direction. The path was so
      serpentine, that at no moment could I trace its course for more
      than two or three paces in advance. Its character did not undergo
      any material change.

      Presently the murmur of water fell gently upon my ear—and in a
      few moments afterward, as I turned with the road somewhat more
      abruptly than hitherto, I became aware that a building of some
      kind lay at the foot of a gentle declivity just before me. I
      could see nothing distinctly on account of the mist which
      occupied all the little valley below. A gentle breeze, however,
      now arose, as the sun was about descending; and while I remained
      standing on the brow of the slope, the fog gradually became
      dissipated into wreaths, and so floated over the scene.

      As it came fully into view—thus gradually as I describe it—piece
      by piece, here a tree, there a glimpse of water, and here again
      the summit of a chimney, I could scarcely help fancying that the
      whole was one of the ingenious illusions sometimes exhibited
      under the name of “vanishing pictures.”

      By the time, however, that the fog had thoroughly disappeared,
      the sun had made its way down behind the gentle hills, and
      thence, as if with a slight chassez to the south, had come again
      fully into sight, glaring with a purplish lustre through a chasm
      that entered the valley from the west. Suddenly, therefore—and as
      if by the hand of magic—this whole valley and every thing in it
      became brilliantly visible.

      The first _coup d’œil_, as the sun slid into the position
      described, impressed me very much as I have been impressed, when
      a boy, by the concluding scene of some well-arranged theatrical
      spectacle or melodrama. Not even the monstrosity of color was
      wanting; for the sunlight came out through the chasm, tinted all
      orange and purple; while the vivid green of the grass in the
      valley was reflected more or less upon all objects from the
      curtain of vapor that still hung overhead, as if loth to take its
      total departure from a scene so enchantingly beautiful.

      The little vale into which I thus peered down from under the fog
      canopy could not have been more than four hundred yards long;
      while in breadth it varied from fifty to one hundred and fifty or
      perhaps two hundred. It was most narrow at its northern
      extremity, opening out as it tended southwardly, but with no very
      precise regularity. The widest portion was within eighty yards of
      the southern extreme. The slopes which encompassed the vale could
      not fairly be called hills, unless at their northern face. Here a
      precipitous ledge of granite arose to a height of some ninety
      feet; and, as I have mentioned, the valley at this point was not
      more than fifty feet wide; but as the visitor proceeded
      southwardly from the cliff, he found on his right hand and on his
      left, declivities at once less high, less precipitous, and less
      rocky. All, in a word, sloped and softened to the south; and yet
      the whole vale was engirdled by eminences, more or less high,
      except at two points. One of these I have already spoken of. It
      lay considerably to the north of west, and was where the setting
      sun made its way, as I have before described, into the
      amphitheatre, through a cleanly cut natural cleft in the granite
      embankment; this fissure might have been ten yards wide at its
      widest point, so far as the eye could trace it. It seemed to lead
      up, up like a natural causeway, into the recesses of unexplored
      mountains and forests. The other opening was directly at the
      southern end of the vale. Here, generally, the slopes were
      nothing more than gentle inclinations, extending from east to
      west about one hundred and fifty yards. In the middle of this
      extent was a depression, level with the ordinary floor of the
      valley. As regards vegetation, as well as in respect to every
      thing else, the scene softened and sloped to the south. To the
      north—on the craggy precipice—a few paces from the verge—up
      sprang the magnificent trunks of numerous hickories, black
      walnuts, and chestnuts, interspersed with occasional oak; and the
      strong lateral branches thrown out by the walnuts especially,
      spread far over the edge of the cliff. Proceeding southwardly,
      the explorer saw, at first, the same class of trees, but less and
      less lofty and Salvatorish in character; then he saw the gentler
      elm, succeeded by the sassafras and locust—these again by the
      softer linden, red-bud, catalpa, and maple—these yet again by
      still more graceful and more modest varieties. The whole face of
      the southern declivity was covered with wild shrubbery alone—an
      occasional silver willow or white poplar excepted. In the bottom
      of the valley itself—(for it must be borne in mind that the
      vegetation hitherto mentioned grew only on the cliffs or
      hillsides)—were to be seen three insulated trees. One was an elm
      of fine size and exquisite form: it stood guard over the southern
      gate of the vale. Another was a hickory, much larger than the
      elm, and altogether a much finer tree, although both were
      exceedingly beautiful: it seemed to have taken charge of the
      northwestern entrance, springing from a group of rocks in the
      very jaws of the ravine, and throwing its graceful body, at an
      angle of nearly forty-five degrees, far out into the sunshine of
      the amphitheatre. About thirty yards east of this tree stood,
      however, the pride of the valley, and beyond all question the
      most magnificent tree I have ever seen, unless, perhaps, among
      the cypresses of the Itchiatuckanee. It was a triple-stemmed
      tulip-tree—the Liriodendron Tulipiferum—one of the natural order
      of magnolias. Its three trunks separated from the parent at about
      three feet from the soil, and diverging very slightly and
      gradually, were not more than four feet apart at the point where
      the largest stem shot out into foliage: this was at an elevation
      of about eighty feet. The whole height of the principal division
      was one hundred and twenty feet. Nothing can surpass in beauty
      the form, or the glossy, vivid green of the leaves of the
      tulip-tree. In the present instance they were fully eight inches
      wide; but their glory was altogether eclipsed by the gorgeous
      splendor of the profuse blossoms. Conceive, closely congregated,
      a million of the largest and most resplendent tulips! Only thus
      can the reader get any idea of the picture I would convey. And
      then the stately grace of the clean, delicately-granulated
      columnar stems, the largest four feet in diameter, at twenty from
      the ground. The innumerable blossoms, mingling with those of
      other trees scarcely less beautiful, although infinitely less
      majestic, filled the valley with more than Arabian perfumes.

      The general floor of the amphitheatre was grass of the same
      character as that I had found in the road; if anything, more
      deliciously soft, thick, velvety, and miraculously green. It was
      hard to conceive how all this beauty had been attained.

      I have spoken of two openings into the vale. From the one to the
      northwest issued a rivulet, which came, gently murmuring and
      slightly foaming, down the ravine, until it dashed against the
      group of rocks out of which sprang the insulated hickory. Here,
      after encircling the tree, it passed on a little to the north of
      east, leaving the tulip tree some twenty feet to the south, and
      making no decided alteration in its course until it came near the
      midway between the eastern and western boundaries of the valley.
      At this point, after a series of sweeps, it turned off at right
      angles and pursued a generally southern direction meandering as
      it went—until it became lost in a small lake of irregular figure
      (although roughly oval), that lay gleaming near the lower
      extremity of the vale. This lakelet was, perhaps, a hundred yards
      in diameter at its widest part. No crystal could be clearer than
      its waters. Its bottom, which could be distinctly seen, consisted
      altogether, of pebbles brilliantly white. Its banks, of the
      emerald grass already described, rounded, rather than sloped, off
      into the clear heaven below; and so clear was this heaven, so
      perfectly, at times, did it reflect all objects above it, that
      where the true bank ended and where the mimic one commenced, it
      was a point of no little difficulty to determine. The trout, and
      some other varieties of fish, with which this pond seemed to be
      almost inconveniently crowded, had all the appearance of
      veritable flying-fish. It was almost impossible to believe that
      they were not absolutely suspended in the air. A light birch
      canoe that lay placidly on the water, was reflected in its
      minutest fibres with a fidelity unsurpassed by the most
      exquisitely polished mirror. A small island, fairly laughing with
      flowers in full bloom, and affording little more space than just
      enough for a picturesque little building, seemingly a
      fowl-house—arose from the lake not far from its northern shore—to
      which it was connected by means of an inconceivably light-looking
      and yet very primitive bridge. It was formed of a single, broad
      and thick plank of the tulip wood. This was forty feet long, and
      spanned the interval between shore and shore with a slight but
      very perceptible arch, preventing all oscillation. From the
      southern extreme of the lake issued a continuation of the
      rivulet, which, after meandering for, perhaps, thirty yards,
      finally passed through the “depression” (already described) in
      the middle of the southern declivity, and tumbling down a sheer
      precipice of a hundred feet, made its devious and unnoticed way
      to the Hudson.

      The lake was deep—at some points thirty feet—but the rivulet
      seldom exceeded three, while its greatest width was about eight.
      Its bottom and banks were as those of the pond—if a defect could
      have been attributed, in point of picturesqueness, it was that of
      excessive neatness.

      The expanse of the green turf was relieved, here and there, by an
      occasional showy shrub, such as the hydrangea, or the common
      snowball, or the aromatic seringa; or, more frequently, by a
      clump of geraniums blossoming gorgeously in great varieties.
      These latter grew in pots which were carefully buried in the
      soil, so as to give the plants the appearance of being
      indigenous. Besides all this, the lawn’s velvet was exquisitely
      spotted with sheep—a considerable flock of which roamed about the
      vale, in company with three tamed deer, and a vast number of
      brilliantly-plumed ducks. A very large mastiff seemed to be in
      vigilant attendance upon these animals, each and all.

      Along the eastern and western cliffs—where, toward the upper
      portion of the amphitheatre, the boundaries were more or less
      precipitous—grew ivy in great profusion—so that only here and
      there could even a glimpse of the naked rock be obtained. The
      northern precipice, in like manner, was almost entirely clothed
      by grape-vines of rare luxuriance; some springing from the soil
      at the base of the cliff, and others from ledges on its face.

      The slight elevation which formed the lower boundary of this
      little domain, was crowned by a neat stone wall, of sufficient
      height to prevent the escape of the deer. Nothing of the fence
      kind was observable elsewhere; for nowhere else was an artificial
      enclosure needed:—any stray sheep, for example, which should
      attempt to make its way out of the vale by means of the ravine,
      would find its progress arrested, after a few yards’ advance, by
      the precipitous ledge of rock over which tumbled the cascade that
      had arrested my attention as I first drew near the domain. In
      short, the only ingress or egress was through a gate occupying a
      rocky pass in the road, a few paces below the point at which I
      stopped to reconnoitre the scene.

      I have described the brook as meandering very irregularly through
      the whole of its course. Its two general directions, as I have
      said, were first from west to east, and then from north to south.
      At the turn, the stream, sweeping backward, made an almost
      circular loop, so as to form a peninsula which was very nearly an
      island, and which included about the sixteenth of an acre. On
      this peninsula stood a dwelling-house—and when I say that this
      house, like the infernal terrace seen by Vathek, “etait d’une
      architecture inconnue dans les annales de la terre,” I mean,
      merely, that its tout ensemble struck me with the keenest sense
      of combined novelty and propriety—in a word, of poetry—(for, than
      in the words just employed, I could scarcely give, of poetry in
      the abstract, a more rigorous definition)—and I do not mean that
      merely outre was perceptible in any respect.

      In fact nothing could well be more simple—more utterly
      unpretending than this cottage. Its marvellous effect lay
      altogether in its artistic arrangement as a picture. I could have
      fancied, while I looked at it, that some eminent
      landscape-painter had built it with his brush.

      The point of view from which I first saw the valley, was not
      altogether, although it was nearly, the best point from which to
      survey the house. I will therefore describe it as I afterwards
      saw it—from a position on the stone wall at the southern extreme
      of the amphitheatre.

      The main building was about twenty-four feet long and sixteen
      broad—certainly not more. Its total height, from the ground to
      the apex of the roof, could not have exceeded eighteen feet. To
      the west end of this structure was attached one about a third
      smaller in all its proportions:—the line of its front standing
      back about two yards from that of the larger house, and the line
      of its roof, of course, being considerably depressed below that
      of the roof adjoining. At right angles to these buildings, and
      from the rear of the main one—not exactly in the middle—extended
      a third compartment, very small—being, in general, one-third less
      than the western wing. The roofs of the two larger were very
      steep—sweeping down from the ridge-beam with a long concave
      curve, and extending at least four feet beyond the walls in
      front, so as to form the roofs of two piazzas. These latter
      roofs, of course, needed no support; but as they had the air of
      needing it, slight and perfectly plain pillars were inserted at
      the corners alone. The roof of the northern wing was merely an
      extension of a portion of the main roof. Between the chief
      building and western wing arose a very tall and rather slender
      square chimney of hard Dutch bricks, alternately black and red:—a
      slight cornice of projecting bricks at the top. Over the gables
      the roofs also projected very much:—in the main building about
      four feet to the east and two to the west. The principal door was
      not exactly in the main division, being a little to the
      east—while the two windows were to the west. These latter did not
      extend to the floor, but were much longer and narrower than
      usual—they had single shutters like doors—the panes were of
      lozenge form, but quite large. The door itself had its upper half
      of glass, also in lozenge panes—a movable shutter secured it at
      night. The door to the west wing was in its gable, and quite
      simple—a single window looked out to the south. There was no
      external door to the north wing, and it also had only one window
      to the east.

      The blank wall of the eastern gable was relieved by stairs (with
      a balustrade) running diagonally across it—the ascent being from
      the south. Under cover of the widely projecting eave these steps
      gave access to a door leading to the garret, or rather loft—for
      it was lighted only by a single window to the north, and seemed
      to have been intended as a store-room.

      The piazzas of the main building and western wing had no floors,
      as is usual; but at the doors and at each window, large, flat
      irregular slabs of granite lay imbedded in the delicious turf,
      affording comfortable footing in all weather. Excellent paths of
      the same material—not nicely adapted, but with the velvety sod
      filling frequent intervals between the stones, led hither and
      thither from the house, to a crystal spring about five paces off,
      to the road, or to one or two out-houses that lay to the north,
      beyond the brook, and were thoroughly concealed by a few locusts
      and catalpas.

      Not more than six steps from the main door of the cottage stood
      the dead trunk of a fantastic pear-tree, so clothed from head to
      foot in the gorgeous bignonia blossoms that one required no
      little scrutiny to determine what manner of sweet thing it could
      be. From various arms of this tree hung cages of different kinds.
      In one, a large wicker cylinder with a ring at top, revelled a
      mocking bird; in another an oriole; in a third the impudent
      bobolink—while three or four more delicate prisons were loudly
      vocal with canaries.

      The pillars of the piazza were enwreathed in jasmine and sweet
      honeysuckle; while from the angle formed by the main structure
      and its west wing, in front, sprang a grape-vine of unexampled
      luxuriance. Scorning all restraint, it had clambered first to the
      lower roof—then to the higher; and along the ridge of this latter
      it continued to writhe on, throwing out tendrils to the right and
      left, until at length it fairly attained the east gable, and fell
      trailing over the stairs.

      The whole house, with its wings, was constructed of the
      old-fashioned Dutch shingles—broad, and with unrounded corners.
      It is a peculiarity of this material to give houses built of it
      the appearance of being wider at bottom than at top—after the
      manner of Egyptian architecture; and in the present instance,
      this exceedingly picturesque effect was aided by numerous pots of
      gorgeous flowers that almost encompassed the base of the
      buildings.

      The shingles were painted a dull gray; and the happiness with
      which this neutral tint melted into the vivid green of the tulip
      tree leaves that partially overshadowed the cottage, can readily
      be conceived by an artist.

      From the position near the stone wall, as described, the
      buildings were seen at great advantage—for the southeastern angle
      was thrown forward—so that the eye took in at once the whole of
      the two fronts, with the picturesque eastern gable, and at the
      same time obtained just a sufficient glimpse of the northern
      wing, with parts of a pretty roof to the spring-house, and nearly
      half of a light bridge that spanned the brook in the near
      vicinity of the main buildings.

      I did not remain very long on the brow of the hill, although long
      enough to make a thorough survey of the scene at my feet. It was
      clear that I had wandered from the road to the village, and I had
      thus good traveller’s excuse to open the gate before me, and
      inquire my way, at all events; so, without more ado, I proceeded.

      The road, after passing the gate, seemed to lie upon a natural
      ledge, sloping gradually down along the face of the north-eastern
      cliffs. It led me on to the foot of the northern precipice, and
      thence over the bridge, round by the eastern gable to the front
      door. In this progress, I took notice that no sight of the
      out-houses could be obtained.

      As I turned the corner of the gable, the mastiff bounded towards
      me in stern silence, but with the eye and the whole air of a
      tiger. I held him out my hand, however, in token of amity—and I
      never yet knew the dog who was proof against such an appeal to
      his courtesy. He not only shut his mouth and wagged his tail, but
      absolutely offered me his paw—afterward extending his civilities
      to Ponto.

      As no bell was discernible, I rapped with my stick against the
      door, which stood half open. Instantly a figure advanced to the
      threshold—that of a young woman about twenty-eight years of
      age—slender, or rather slight, and somewhat above the medium
      height. As she approached, with a certain modest decision of step
      altogether indescribable. I said to myself, “Surely here I have
      found the perfection of natural, in contradistinction from
      artificial grace.” The second impression which she made on me,
      but by far the more vivid of the two, was that of enthusiasm. So
      intense an expression of romance, perhaps I should call it, or of
      unworldliness, as that which gleamed from her deep-set eyes, had
      never so sunk into my heart of hearts before. I know not how it
      is, but this peculiar expression of the eye, wreathing itself
      occasionally into the lips, is the most powerful, if not
      absolutely the sole spell, which rivets my interest in woman.
      “Romance,” provided my readers fully comprehended what I would
      here imply by the word—“romance” and “womanliness” seem to me
      convertible terms: and, after all, what man truly loves in woman,
      is simply her womanhood. The eyes of Annie (I heard some one from
      the interior call her “Annie, darling!”) were “spiritual grey;”
      her hair, a light chestnut: this is all I had time to observe of
      her.

      At her most courteous of invitations, I entered—passing first
      into a tolerably wide vestibule. Having come mainly to observe, I
      took notice that to my right as I stepped in, was a window, such
      as those in front of the house; to the left, a door leading into
      the principal room; while, opposite me, an open door enabled me
      to see a small apartment, just the size of the vestibule,
      arranged as a study, and having a large bow window looking out to
      the north.

      Passing into the parlor, I found myself with Mr. Landor—for this,
      I afterwards found, was his name. He was civil, even cordial in
      his manner, but just then, I was more intent on observing the
      arrangements of the dwelling which had so much interested me,
      than the personal appearance of the tenant.

      The north wing, I now saw, was a bed-chamber, its door opened
      into the parlor. West of this door was a single window, looking
      toward the brook. At the west end of the parlor, were a
      fireplace, and a door leading into the west wing—probably a
      kitchen.

      Nothing could be more rigorously simple than the furniture of the
      parlor. On the floor was an ingrain carpet, of excellent
      texture—a white ground, spotted with small circular green
      figures. At the windows were curtains of snowy white jaconet
      muslin: they were tolerably full, and hung decisively, perhaps
      rather formally in sharp, parallel plaits to the floor—just to
      the floor. The walls were prepared with a French paper of great
      delicacy, a silver ground, with a faint green cord running
      zig-zag throughout. Its expanse was relieved merely by three of
      Julien’s exquisite lithographs a trois crayons, fastened to the
      wall without frames. One of these drawings was a scene of
      Oriental luxury, or rather voluptuousness; another was a
      “carnival piece,” spirited beyond compare; the third was a Greek
      female head—a face so divinely beautiful, and yet of an
      expression so provokingly indeterminate, never before arrested my
      attention.

      The more substantial furniture consisted of a round table, a few
      chairs (including a large rocking-chair), and a sofa, or rather
      “settee;” its material was plain maple painted a creamy white,
      slightly interstriped with green; the seat of cane. The chairs
      and table were “to match,” but the forms of all had evidently
      been designed by the same brain which planned “the grounds;” it
      is impossible to conceive anything more graceful.

      On the table were a few books; a large, square, crystal bottle of
      some novel perfume; a plain ground glass _astral_ (not solar)
      lamp with an Italian shade; and a large vase of
      resplendently-blooming flowers. Flowers, indeed, of gorgeous
      colours and delicate odour formed the sole mere decoration of the
      apartment. The fire-place was nearly filled with a vase of
      brilliant geranium. On a triangular shelf in each angle of the
      room stood also a similar vase, varied only as to its lovely
      contents. One or two smaller bouquets adorned the mantel, and
      late violets clustered about the open windows.

      It is not the purpose of this work to do more than give in
      detail, a picture of Mr. Landor’s residence—as I found it. How he
      made it what it was—and why—with some particulars of Mr. Landor
      himself—may, possibly form the subject of another article.




WILLIAM WILSON


    What say of it? what say of CONSCIENCE grim,
    That spectre in my path?
                    —_Chamberlayne’s Pharronida._

      Let me call myself, for the present, William Wilson. The fair
      page now lying before me need not be sullied with my real
      appellation. This has been already too much an object for the
      scorn—for the horror—for the detestation of my race. To the
      uttermost regions of the globe have not the indignant winds
      bruited its unparalleled infamy? Oh, outcast of all outcasts most
      abandoned!—to the earth art thou not forever dead? to its honors,
      to its flowers, to its golden aspirations?—and a cloud, dense,
      dismal, and limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy
      hopes and heaven?

      I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody a record of my
      later years of unspeakable misery, and unpardonable crime. This
      epoch—these later years—took unto themselves a sudden elevation
      in turpitude, whose origin alone it is my present purpose to
      assign. Men usually grow base by degrees. From me, in an instant,
      all virtue dropped bodily as a mantle. From comparatively trivial
      wickedness I passed, with the stride of a giant, into more than
      the enormities of an Elah-Gabalus. What chance—what one event
      brought this evil thing to pass, bear with me while I relate.
      Death approaches; and the shadow which foreruns him has thrown a
      softening influence over my spirit. I long, in passing through
      the dim valley, for the sympathy—I had nearly said for the
      pity—of my fellow men. I would fain have them believe that I have
      been, in some measure, the slave of circumstances beyond human
      control. I would wish them to seek out for me, in the details I
      am about to give, some little oasis of fatality amid a wilderness
      of error. I would have them allow—what they cannot refrain from
      allowing—that, although temptation may have erewhile existed as
      great, man was never thus, at least, tempted before—certainly,
      never thus fell. And is it therefore that he has never thus
      suffered? Have I not indeed been living in a dream? And am I not
      now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest
      of all sublunary visions?

      I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative and easily
      excitable temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable;
      and, in my earliest infancy, I gave evidence of having fully
      inherited the family character. As I advanced in years it was
      more strongly developed; becoming, for many reasons, a cause of
      serious disquietude to my friends, and of positive injury to
      myself. I grew self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, and
      a prey to the most ungovernable passions. Weak-minded, and beset
      with constitutional infirmities akin to my own, my parents could
      do but little to check the evil propensities which distinguished
      me. Some feeble and ill-directed efforts resulted in complete
      failure on their part, and, of course, in total triumph on mine.
      Thenceforward my voice was a household law; and at an age when
      few children have abandoned their leading-strings, I was left to
      the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but name, the
      master of my own actions.

      My earliest recollections of a school-life, are connected with a
      large, rambling, Elizabethan house, in a misty-looking village of
      England, where were a vast number of gigantic and gnarled trees,
      and where all the houses were excessively ancient. In truth, it
      was a dream-like and spirit-soothing place, that venerable old
      town. At this moment, in fancy, I feel the refreshing chilliness
      of its deeply-shadowed avenues, inhale the fragrance of its
      thousand shrubberies, and thrill anew with undefinable delight,
      at the deep hollow note of the church-bell, breaking, each hour,
      with sullen and sudden roar, upon the stillness of the dusky
      atmosphere in which the fretted Gothic steeple lay imbedded and
      asleep.

      It gives me, perhaps, as much of pleasure as I can now in any
      manner experience, to dwell upon minute recollections of the
      school and its concerns. Steeped in misery as I am—misery, alas!
      only too real—I shall be pardoned for seeking relief, however
      slight and temporary, in the weakness of a few rambling details.
      These, moreover, utterly trivial, and even ridiculous in
      themselves, assume, to my fancy, adventitious importance, as
      connected with a period and a locality when and where I recognise
      the first ambiguous monitions of the destiny which afterwards so
      fully overshadowed me. Let me then remember.

      The house, I have said, was old and irregular. The grounds were
      extensive, and a high and solid brick wall, topped with a bed of
      mortar and broken glass, encompassed the whole. This prison-like
      rampart formed the limit of our domain; beyond it we saw but
      thrice a week—once every Saturday afternoon, when, attended by
      two ushers, we were permitted to take brief walks in a body
      through some of the neighbouring fields—and twice during Sunday,
      when we were paraded in the same formal manner to the morning and
      evening service in the one church of the village. Of this church
      the principal of our school was pastor. With how deep a spirit of
      wonder and perplexity was I wont to regard him from our remote
      pew in the gallery, as, with step solemn and slow, he ascended
      the pulpit! This reverend man, with countenance so demurely
      benign, with robes so glossy and so clerically flowing, with wig
      so minutely powdered, so rigid and so vast,—-could this be he
      who, of late, with sour visage, and in snuffy habiliments,
      administered, ferule in hand, the Draconian laws of the academy?
      Oh, gigantic paradox, too utterly monstrous for solution!

      At an angle of the ponderous wall frowned a more ponderous gate.
      It was riveted and studded with iron bolts, and surmounted with
      jagged iron spikes. What impressions of deep awe did it inspire!
      It was never opened save for the three periodical egressions and
      ingressions already mentioned; then, in every creak of its mighty
      hinges, we found a plenitude of mystery—a world of matter for
      solemn remark, or for more solemn meditation.

      The extensive enclosure was irregular in form, having many
      capacious recesses. Of these, three or four of the largest
      constituted the play-ground. It was level, and covered with fine
      hard gravel. I well remember it had no trees, nor benches, nor
      anything similar within it. Of course it was in the rear of the
      house. In front lay a small parterre, planted with box and other
      shrubs, but through this sacred division we passed only upon rare
      occasions indeed—such as a first advent to school or final
      departure thence, or perhaps, when a parent or friend having
      called for us, we joyfully took our way home for the Christmas or
      Midsummer holidays.

      But the house!—how quaint an old building was this!—to me how
      veritably a palace of enchantment! There was really no end to its
      windings—to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult,
      at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its two
      stories one happened to be. From each room to every other there
      were sure to be found three or four steps either in ascent or
      descent. Then the lateral branches were
      innumerable—inconceivable—and so returning in upon themselves,
      that our most exact ideas in regard to the whole mansion were not
      very far different from those with which we pondered upon
      infinity. During the five years of my residence here, I was never
      able to ascertain with precision, in what remote locality lay the
      little sleeping apartment assigned to myself and some eighteen or
      twenty other scholars.

      The school-room was the largest in the house—I could not help
      thinking, in the world. It was very long, narrow, and dismally
      low, with pointed Gothic windows and a ceiling of oak. In a
      remote and terror-inspiring angle was a square enclosure of eight
      or ten feet, comprising the sanctum, “during hours,” of our
      principal, the Reverend Dr. Bransby. It was a solid structure,
      with massy door, sooner than open which in the absence of the
      “Dominie,” we would all have willingly perished by the _peine
      forte et dure_. In other angles were two other similar boxes, far
      less reverenced, indeed, but still greatly matters of awe. One of
      these was the pulpit of the “classical” usher, one of the
      “English and mathematical.” Interspersed about the room, crossing
      and recrossing in endless irregularity, were innumerable benches
      and desks, black, ancient, and time-worn, piled desperately with
      much-bethumbed books, and so beseamed with initial letters, names
      at full length, grotesque figures, and other multiplied efforts
      of the knife, as to have entirely lost what little of original
      form might have been their portion in days long departed. A huge
      bucket with water stood at one extremity of the room, and a clock
      of stupendous dimensions at the other.

      Encompassed by the massy walls of this venerable academy, I
      passed, yet not in tedium or disgust, the years of the third
      lustrum of my life. The teeming brain of childhood requires no
      external world of incident to occupy or amuse it; and the
      apparently dismal monotony of a school was replete with more
      intense excitement than my riper youth has derived from luxury,
      or my full manhood from crime. Yet I must believe that my first
      mental development had in it much of the uncommon—even much of
      the _outré_. Upon mankind at large the events of very early
      existence rarely leave in mature age any definite impression. All
      is gray shadow—a weak and irregular remembrance—an indistinct
      regathering of feeble pleasures and phantasmagoric pains. With me
      this is not so. In childhood I must have felt with the energy of
      a man what I now find stamped upon memory in lines as vivid, as
      deep, and as durable as the _exergues_ of the Carthaginian
      medals.

      Yet in fact—in the fact of the world’s view—how little was there
      to remember! The morning’s awakening, the nightly summons to bed;
      the connings, the recitations; the periodical half-holidays, and
      perambulations; the play-ground, with its broils, its pastimes,
      its intrigues;—these, by a mental sorcery long forgotten, were
      made to involve a wilderness of sensation, a world of rich
      incident, an universe of varied emotion, of excitement the most
      passionate and spirit-stirring. “_Oh, le bon temps, que ce siècle
      de fer!_”

      In truth, the ardor, the enthusiasm, and the imperiousness of my
      disposition, soon rendered me a marked character among my
      schoolmates, and by slow, but natural gradations, gave me an
      ascendancy over all not greatly older than myself;—over all with
      a single exception. This exception was found in the person of a
      scholar, who, although no relation, bore the same Christian and
      surname as myself;—a circumstance, in fact, little remarkable;
      for, notwithstanding a noble descent, mine was one of those
      everyday appellations which seem, by prescriptive right, to have
      been, time out of mind, the common property of the mob. In this
      narrative I have therefore designated myself as William Wilson,—a
      fictitious title not very dissimilar to the real. My namesake
      alone, of those who in school phraseology constituted “our set,”
      presumed to compete with me in the studies of the class—in the
      sports and broils of the play-ground—to refuse implicit belief in
      my assertions, and submission to my will—indeed, to interfere
      with my arbitrary dictation in any respect whatsoever. If there
      is on earth a supreme and unqualified despotism, it is the
      despotism of a master-mind in boyhood over the less energetic
      spirits of its companions.

      Wilson’s rebellion was to me a source of the greatest
      embarrassment; the more so as, in spite of the bravado with which
      in public I made a point of treating him and his pretensions, I
      secretly felt that I feared him, and could not help thinking the
      equality which he maintained so easily with myself, a proof of
      his true superiority; since not to be overcome cost me a
      perpetual struggle. Yet this superiority—even this equality—was
      in truth acknowledged by no one but myself; our associates, by
      some unaccountable blindness, seemed not even to suspect it.
      Indeed, his competition, his resistance, and especially his
      impertinent and dogged interference with my purposes, were not
      more pointed than private. He appeared to be destitute alike of
      the ambition which urged, and of the passionate energy of mind
      which enabled me to excel. In his rivalry he might have been
      supposed actuated solely by a whimsical desire to thwart,
      astonish, or mortify myself; although there were times when I
      could not help observing, with a feeling made up of wonder,
      abasement, and pique, that he mingled with his injuries, his
      insults, or his contradictions, a certain most inappropriate, and
      assuredly most unwelcome affectionateness of manner. I could only
      conceive this singular behavior to arise from a consummate
      self-conceit assuming the vulgar airs of patronage and
      protection.

      Perhaps it was this latter trait in Wilson’s conduct, conjoined
      with our identity of name, and the mere accident of our having
      entered the school upon the same day, which set afloat the notion
      that we were brothers, among the senior classes in the academy.
      These do not usually inquire with much strictness into the
      affairs of their juniors. I have before said, or should have
      said, that Wilson was not, in the most remote degree, connected
      with my family. But assuredly if we had been brothers we must
      have been twins; for, after leaving Dr. Bransby’s, I casually
      learned that my namesake was born on the nineteenth of January,
      1813—and this is a somewhat remarkable coincidence; for the day
      is precisely that of my own nativity.

      It may seem strange that in spite of the continual anxiety
      occasioned me by the rivalry of Wilson, and his intolerable
      spirit of contradiction, I could not bring myself to hate him
      altogether. We had, to be sure, nearly every day a quarrel in
      which, yielding me publicly the palm of victory, he, in some
      manner, contrived to make me feel that it was he who had deserved
      it; yet a sense of pride on my part, and a veritable dignity on
      his own, kept us always upon what are called “speaking terms,”
      while there were many points of strong congeniality in our
      tempers, operating to awake me in a sentiment which our position
      alone, perhaps, prevented from ripening into friendship. It is
      difficult, indeed, to define, or even to describe, my real
      feelings towards him. They formed a motley and heterogeneous
      admixture;—some petulant animosity, which was not yet hatred,
      some esteem, more respect, much fear, with a world of uneasy
      curiosity. To the moralist it will be unnecessary to say, in
      addition, that Wilson and myself were the most inseparable of
      companions.

      It was no doubt the anomalous state of affairs existing between
      us, which turned all my attacks upon him, (and they were many,
      either open or covert) into the channel of banter or practical
      joke (giving pain while assuming the aspect of mere fun) rather
      than into a more serious and determined hostility. But my
      endeavours on this head were by no means uniformly successful,
      even when my plans were the most wittily concocted; for my
      namesake had much about him, in character, of that unassuming and
      quiet austerity which, while enjoying the poignancy of its own
      jokes, has no heel of Achilles in itself, and absolutely refuses
      to be laughed at. I could find, indeed, but one vulnerable point,
      and that, lying in a personal peculiarity, arising, perhaps, from
      constitutional disease, would have been spared by any antagonist
      less at his wit’s end than myself;—my rival had a weakness in the
      faucal or guttural organs, which precluded him from raising his
      voice at any time above a very low whisper. Of this defect I did
      not fail to take what poor advantage lay in my power.

      Wilson’s retaliations in kind were many; and there was one form
      of his practical wit that disturbed me beyond measure. How his
      sagacity first discovered at all that so petty a thing would vex
      me, is a question I never could solve; but, having discovered, he
      habitually practised the annoyance. I had always felt aversion to
      my uncourtly patronymic, and its very common, if not plebeian
      praenomen. The words were venom in my ears; and when, upon the
      day of my arrival, a second William Wilson came also to the
      academy, I felt angry with him for bearing the name, and doubly
      disgusted with the name because a stranger bore it, who would be
      the cause of its twofold repetition, who would be constantly in
      my presence, and whose concerns, in the ordinary routine of the
      school business, must inevitably, on account of the detestable
      coincidence, be often confounded with my own.

      The feeling of vexation thus engendered grew stronger with every
      circumstance tending to show resemblance, moral or physical,
      between my rival and myself. I had not then discovered the
      remarkable fact that we were of the same age; but I saw that we
      were of the same height, and I perceived that we were even
      singularly alike in general contour of person and outline of
      feature. I was galled, too, by the rumor touching a relationship,
      which had grown current in the upper forms. In a word, nothing
      could more seriously disturb me, (although I scrupulously
      concealed such disturbance,) than any allusion to a similarity of
      mind, person, or condition existing between us. But, in truth, I
      had no reason to believe that (with the exception of the matter
      of relationship, and in the case of Wilson himself,) this
      similarity had ever been made a subject of comment, or even
      observed at all by our schoolfellows. That he observed it in all
      its bearings, and as fixedly as I, was apparent; but that he
      could discover in such circumstances so fruitful a field of
      annoyance, can only be attributed, as I said before, to his more
      than ordinary penetration.

      His cue, which was to perfect an imitation of myself, lay both in
      words and in actions; and most admirably did he play his part. My
      dress it was an easy matter to copy; my gait and general manner
      were, without difficulty, appropriated; in spite of his
      constitutional defect, even my voice did not escape him. My
      louder tones were, of course, unattempted, but then the key—it
      was identical; _and his singular whisper, it grew the very echo
      of my own_.

      How greatly this most exquisite portraiture harassed me, (for it
      could not justly be termed a caricature,) I will not now venture
      to describe. I had but one consolation—in the fact that the
      imitation, apparently, was noticed by myself alone, and that I
      had to endure only the knowing and strangely sarcastic smiles of
      my namesake himself. Satisfied with having produced in my bosom
      the intended effect, he seemed to chuckle in secret over the
      sting he had inflicted, and was characteristically disregardful
      of the public applause which the success of his witty endeavours
      might have so easily elicited. That the school, indeed, did not
      feel his design, perceive its accomplishment, and participate in
      his sneer, was, for many anxious months, a riddle I could not
      resolve. Perhaps the gradation of his copy rendered it not so
      readily perceptible; or, more possibly, I owed my security to the
      master air of the copyist, who, disdaining the letter, (which in
      a painting is all the obtuse can see,) gave but the full spirit
      of his original for my individual contemplation and chagrin.

      I have already more than once spoken of the disgusting air of
      patronage which he assumed toward me, and of his frequent
      officious interference with my will. This interference often took
      the ungracious character of advice; advice not openly given, but
      hinted or insinuated. I received it with a repugnance which
      gained strength as I grew in years. Yet, at this distant day, let
      me do him the simple justice to acknowledge that I can recall no
      occasion when the suggestions of my rival were on the side of
      those errors or follies so usual to his immature age and seeming
      inexperience; that his moral sense, at least, if not his general
      talents and worldly wisdom, was far keener than my own; and that
      I might, to-day, have been a better, and thus a happier man, had
      I less frequently rejected the counsels embodied in those meaning
      whispers which I then but too cordially hated and too bitterly
      despised.

      As it was, I at length grew restive in the extreme under his
      distasteful supervision, and daily resented more and more openly
      what I considered his intolerable arrogance. I have said that, in
      the first years of our connexion as schoolmates, my feelings in
      regard to him might have been easily ripened into friendship;
      but, in the latter months of my residence at the academy,
      although the intrusion of his ordinary manner had, beyond doubt,
      in some measure, abated, my sentiments, in nearly similar
      proportion, partook very much of positive hatred. Upon one
      occasion he saw this, I think, and afterwards avoided, or made a
      show of avoiding me.

      It was about the same period, if I remember aright, that, in an
      altercation of violence with him, in which he was more than
      usually thrown off his guard, and spoke and acted with an
      openness of demeanor rather foreign to his nature, I discovered,
      or fancied I discovered, in his accent, his air, and general
      appearance, a something which first startled, and then deeply
      interested me, by bringing to mind dim visions of my earliest
      infancy—wild, confused and thronging memories of a time when
      memory herself was yet unborn. I cannot better describe the
      sensation which oppressed me than by saying that I could with
      difficulty shake off the belief of my having been acquainted with
      the being who stood before me, at some epoch very long ago—some
      point of the past even infinitely remote. The delusion, however,
      faded rapidly as it came; and I mention it at all but to define
      the day of the last conversation I there held with my singular
      namesake.

      The huge old house, with its countless subdivisions, had several
      large chambers communicating with each other, where slept the
      greater number of the students. There were, however, (as must
      necessarily happen in a building so awkwardly planned,) many
      little nooks or recesses, the odds and ends of the structure; and
      these the economic ingenuity of Dr. Bransby had also fitted up as
      dormitories; although, being the merest closets, they were
      capable of accommodating but a single individual. One of these
      small apartments was occupied by Wilson.

      One night, about the close of my fifth year at the school, and
      immediately after the altercation just mentioned, finding every
      one wrapped in sleep, I arose from bed, and, lamp in hand, stole
      through a wilderness of narrow passages from my own bedroom to
      that of my rival. I had long been plotting one of those
      ill-natured pieces of practical wit at his expense in which I had
      hitherto been so uniformly unsuccessful. It was my intention,
      now, to put my scheme in operation, and I resolved to make him
      feel the whole extent of the malice with which I was imbued.
      Having reached his closet, I noiselessly entered, leaving the
      lamp, with a shade over it, on the outside. I advanced a step,
      and listened to the sound of his tranquil breathing. Assured of
      his being asleep, I returned, took the light, and with it again
      approached the bed. Close curtains were around it, which, in the
      prosecution of my plan, I slowly and quietly withdrew, when the
      bright rays fell vividly upon the sleeper, and my eyes, at the
      same moment, upon his countenance. I looked;—and a numbness, an
      iciness of feeling instantly pervaded my frame. My breast heaved,
      my knees tottered, my whole spirit became possessed with an
      objectless yet intolerable horror. Gasping for breath, I lowered
      the lamp in still nearer proximity to the face. Were these—these
      the lineaments of William Wilson? I saw, indeed, that they were
      his, but I shook as if with a fit of the ague in fancying they
      were not. What was there about them to confound me in this
      manner? I gazed;—while my brain reeled with a multitude of
      incoherent thoughts. Not thus he appeared—assuredly not thus—in
      the vivacity of his waking hours. The same name! the same contour
      of person! the same day of arrival at the academy! And then his
      dogged and meaningless imitation of my gait, my voice, my habits,
      and my manner! Was it, in truth, within the bounds of human
      possibility, that what I now saw was the result, merely, of the
      habitual practice of this sarcastic imitation? Awe-stricken, and
      with a creeping shudder, I extinguished the lamp, passed silently
      from the chamber, and left, at once, the halls of that old
      academy, never to enter them again.

      After a lapse of some months, spent at home in mere idleness, I
      found myself a student at Eton. The brief interval had been
      sufficient to enfeeble my remembrance of the events at Dr.
      Bransby’s, or at least to effect a material change in the nature
      of the feelings with which I remembered them. The truth—the
      tragedy—of the drama was no more. I could now find room to doubt
      the evidence of my senses; and seldom called up the subject at
      all but with wonder at extent of human credulity, and a smile at
      the vivid force of the imagination which I hereditarily
      possessed. Neither was this species of scepticism likely to be
      diminished by the character of the life I led at Eton. The vortex
      of thoughtless folly into which I there so immediately and so
      recklessly plunged, washed away all but the froth of my past
      hours, engulfed at once every solid or serious impression, and
      left to memory only the veriest levities of a former existence.

      I do not wish, however, to trace the course of my miserable
      profligacy here—a profligacy which set at defiance the laws,
      while it eluded the vigilance of the institution. Three years of
      folly, passed without profit, had but given me rooted habits of
      vice, and added, in a somewhat unusual degree, to my bodily
      stature, when, after a week of soulless dissipation, I invited a
      small party of the most dissolute students to a secret carousal
      in my chambers. We met at a late hour of the night; for our
      debaucheries were to be faithfully protracted until morning. The
      wine flowed freely, and there were not wanting other and perhaps
      more dangerous seductions; so that the gray dawn had already
      faintly appeared in the east, while our delirious extravagance
      was at its height. Madly flushed with cards and intoxication, I
      was in the act of insisting upon a toast of more than wonted
      profanity, when my attention was suddenly diverted by the
      violent, although partial unclosing of the door of the apartment,
      and by the eager voice of a servant from without. He said that
      some person, apparently in great haste, demanded to speak with me
      in the hall.

      Wildly excited with wine, the unexpected interruption rather
      delighted than surprised me. I staggered forward at once, and a
      few steps brought me to the vestibule of the building. In this
      low and small room there hung no lamp; and now no light at all
      was admitted, save that of the exceedingly feeble dawn which made
      its way through the semi-circular window. As I put my foot over
      the threshold, I became aware of the figure of a youth about my
      own height, and habited in a white kerseymere morning frock, cut
      in the novel fashion of the one I myself wore at the moment. This
      the faint light enabled me to perceive; but the features of his
      face I could not distinguish. Upon my entering he strode
      hurriedly up to me, and, seizing me by the arm with a gesture of
      petulant impatience, whispered the words “William Wilson!” in my
      ear.

      I grew perfectly sober in an instant.

      There was that in the manner of the stranger, and in the
      tremulous shake of his uplifted finger, as he held it between my
      eyes and the light, which filled me with unqualified amazement;
      but it was not this which had so violently moved me. It was the
      pregnancy of solemn admonition in the singular, low, hissing
      utterance; and, above all, it was the character, the tone, the
      key, of those few, simple, and familiar, yet whispered syllables,
      which came with a thousand thronging memories of bygone days, and
      struck upon my soul with the shock of a galvanic battery. Ere I
      could recover the use of my senses he was gone.

      Although this event failed not of a vivid effect upon my
      disordered imagination, yet was it evanescent as vivid. For some
      weeks, indeed, I busied myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped
      in a cloud of morbid speculation. I did not pretend to disguise
      from my perception the identity of the singular individual who
      thus perseveringly interfered with my affairs, and harassed me
      with his insinuated counsel. But who and what was this
      Wilson?—and whence came he?—and what were his purposes? Upon
      neither of these points could I be satisfied; merely
      ascertaining, in regard to him, that a sudden accident in his
      family had caused his removal from Dr. Bransby’s academy on the
      afternoon of the day in which I myself had eloped. But in a brief
      period I ceased to think upon the subject; my attention being all
      absorbed in a contemplated departure for Oxford. Thither I soon
      went; the uncalculating vanity of my parents furnishing me with
      an outfit and annual establishment, which would enable me to
      indulge at will in the luxury already so dear to my heart,—to vie
      in profuseness of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the
      wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain.

      Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional temperament
      broke forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned even the common
      restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of my revels. But it
      were absurd to pause in the detail of my extravagance. Let it
      suffice, that among spendthrifts I out-Heroded Herod, and that,
      giving name to a multitude of novel follies, I added no brief
      appendix to the long catalogue of vices then usual in the most
      dissolute university of Europe.

      It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so
      utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate, as to seek
      acquaintance with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession,
      and, having become an adept in his despicable science, to
      practise it habitually as a means of increasing my already
      enormous income at the expense of the weak-minded among my
      fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the fact. And the very
      enormity of this offence against all manly and honourable
      sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole reason
      of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed, among
      my most abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed the
      clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such
      courses, the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson—the
      noblest and most liberal commoner at Oxford—him whose follies
      (said his parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled
      fancy—whose errors but inimitable whim—whose darkest vice but a
      careless and dashing extravagance?

      I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when
      there came to the university a young parvenu nobleman,
      Glendinning—rich, said report, as Herodes Atticus—his riches,
      too, as easily acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and,
      of course, marked him as a fitting subject for my skill. I
      frequently engaged him in play, and contrived, with the gambler’s
      usual art, to let him win considerable sums, the more effectually
      to entangle him in my snares. At length, my schemes being ripe, I
      met him (with the full intention that this meeting should be
      final and decisive) at the chambers of a fellow-commoner, (Mr.
      Preston,) equally intimate with both, but who, to do him justice,
      entertained not even a remote suspicion of my design. To give to
      this a better coloring, I had contrived to have assembled a party
      of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful that the
      introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in
      the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a
      vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary
      upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how
      any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.

      We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at
      length effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole
      antagonist. The game, too, was my favorite _écarté!_ The rest of
      the company, interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned
      their own cards, and were standing around us as spectators. The
      _parvenu_, who had been induced by my artifices in the early part
      of the evening, to drink deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played,
      with a wild nervousness of manner for which his intoxication, I
      thought, might partially, but could not altogether account. In a
      very short period he had become my debtor to a large amount,
      when, having taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what
      I had been coolly anticipating—he proposed to double our already
      extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance, and
      not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him into some
      angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I
      finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely
      the prey was in my toils: in less than an hour he had quadrupled
      his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing the
      florid tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I
      perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say to
      my astonishment. Glendinning had been represented to my eager
      inquiries as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had as
      yet lost, although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed,
      very seriously annoy, much less so violently affect him. That he
      was overcome by the wine just swallowed, was the idea which most
      readily presented itself; and, rather with a view to the
      preservation of my own character in the eyes of my associates,
      than from any less interested motive, I was about to insist,
      peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of the play, when some
      expressions at my elbow from among the company, and an
      ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning,
      gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under
      circumstances which, rendering him an object for the pity of all,
      should have protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.

      What now might have been my conduct it is difficult to say. The
      pitiable condition of my dupe had thrown an air of embarrassed
      gloom over all; and, for some moments, a profound silence was
      maintained, during which I could not help feeling my cheeks
      tingle with the many burning glances of scorn or reproach cast
      upon me by the less abandoned of the party. I will even own that
      an intolerable weight of anxiety was for a brief instant lifted
      from my bosom by the sudden and extraordinary interruption which
      ensued. The wide, heavy folding doors of the apartment were all
      at once thrown open, to their full extent, with a vigorous and
      rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as if by magic, every
      candle in the room. Their light, in dying, enabled us just to
      perceive that a stranger had entered, about my own height, and
      closely muffled in a cloak. The darkness, however, was now total;
      and we could only feel that he was standing in our midst. Before
      any one of us could recover from the extreme astonishment into
      which this rudeness had thrown all, we heard the voice of the
      intruder.

      “Gentlemen,” he said, in a low, distinct, and
      never-to-be-forgotten whisper which thrilled to the very marrow
      of my bones, “Gentlemen, I make no apology for this behaviour,
      because in thus behaving, I am but fulfilling a duty. You are,
      beyond doubt, uninformed of the true character of the person who
      has to-night won at _écarté_ a large sum of money from Lord
      Glendinning. I will therefore put you upon an expeditious and
      decisive plan of obtaining this very necessary information.
      Please to examine, at your leisure, the inner linings of the cuff
      of his left sleeve, and the several little packages which may be
      found in the somewhat capacious pockets of his embroidered
      morning wrapper.”

      While he spoke, so profound was the stillness that one might have
      heard a pin drop upon the floor. In ceasing, he departed at once,
      and as abruptly as he had entered. Can I—shall I describe my
      sensations? Must I say that I felt all the horrors of the damned?
      Most assuredly I had little time given for reflection. Many hands
      roughly seized me upon the spot, and lights were immediately
      reprocured. A search ensued. In the lining of my sleeve were
      found all the court cards essential in _écarté_, and, in the
      pockets of my wrapper, a number of packs, facsimiles of those
      used at our sittings, with the single exception that mine were of
      the species called, technically, arrondees; the honours being
      slightly convex at the ends, the lower cards slightly convex at
      the sides. In this disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary,
      at the length of the pack, will invariably find that he cuts his
      antagonist an honor; while the gambler, cutting at the breadth,
      will, as certainly, cut nothing for his victim which may count in
      the records of the game.

      Any burst of indignation upon this discovery would have affected
      me less than the silent contempt, or the sarcastic composure,
      with which it was received.

      “Mr. Wilson,” said our host, stooping to remove from beneath his
      feet an exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare furs, “Mr. Wilson,
      this is your property.” (The weather was cold; and, upon quitting
      my own room, I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper,
      putting it off upon reaching the scene of play.) “I presume it is
      supererogatory to seek here (eyeing the folds of the garment with
      a bitter smile) for any farther evidence of your skill. Indeed,
      we have had enough. You will see the necessity, I hope, of
      quitting Oxford—at all events, of quitting instantly my
      chambers.”

      Abased, humbled to the dust as I then was, it is probable that I
      should have resented this galling language by immediate personal
      violence, had not my whole attention been at the moment arrested
      by a fact of the most startling character. The cloak which I had
      worn was of a rare description of fur; how rare, how
      extravagantly costly, I shall not venture to say. Its fashion,
      too, was of my own fantastic invention; for I was fastidious to
      an absurd degree of coxcombry, in matters of this frivolous
      nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston reached me that which he had
      picked up upon the floor, and near the folding doors of the
      apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly bordering upon
      terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my arm, (where
      I had no doubt unwittingly placed it,) and that the one presented
      me was but its exact counterpart in every, in even the minutest
      possible particular. The singular being who had so disastrously
      exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a cloak; and none
      had been worn at all by any of the members of our party with the
      exception of myself. Retaining some presence of mind, I took the
      one offered me by Preston; placed it, unnoticed, over my own;
      left the apartment with a resolute scowl of defiance; and, next
      morning ere dawn of day, commenced a hurried journey from Oxford
      to the continent, in a perfect agony of horror and of shame.

      I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation,
      and proved, indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion
      had as yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had
      fresh evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in
      my concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief.
      Villain!—at Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an
      officiousness, stepped he in between me and my ambition! At
      Vienna, too—at Berlin—and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not
      bitter cause to curse him within my heart? From his inscrutable
      tyranny did I at length flee, panic-stricken, as from a
      pestilence; and to the very ends of the earth I fled in vain.

      And again, and again, in secret communion with my own spirit,
      would I demand the questions “Who is he?—whence came he?—and what
      are his objects?” But no answer was there found. And then I
      scrutinized, with a minute scrutiny, the forms, and the methods,
      and the leading traits of his impertinent supervision. But even
      here there was very little upon which to base a conjecture. It
      was noticeable, indeed, that, in no one of the multiplied
      instances in which he had of late crossed my path, had he so
      crossed it except to frustrate those schemes, or to disturb those
      actions, which, if fully carried out, might have resulted in
      bitter mischief. Poor justification this, in truth, for an
      authority so imperiously assumed! Poor indemnity for natural
      rights of self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly denied!

      I had also been forced to notice that my tormentor, for a very
      long period of time, (while scrupulously and with miraculous
      dexterity maintaining his whim of an identity of apparel with
      myself,) had so contrived it, in the execution of his varied
      interference with my will, that I saw not, at any moment, the
      features of his face. Be Wilson what he might, this, at least,
      was but the veriest of affectation, or of folly. Could he, for an
      instant, have supposed that, in my admonisher at Eton—in the
      destroyer of my honor at Oxford,—in him who thwarted my ambition
      at Rome, my revenge at Paris, my passionate love at Naples, or
      what he falsely termed my avarice in Egypt,—that in this, my
      arch-enemy and evil genius, could fail to recognise the William
      Wilson of my school boy days,—the namesake, the companion, the
      rival,—the hated and dreaded rival at Dr. Bransby’s?
      Impossible!—But let me hasten to the last eventful scene of the
      drama.

      Thus far I had succumbed supinely to this imperious domination.
      The sentiment of deep awe with which I habitually regarded the
      elevated character, the majestic wisdom, the apparent
      omnipresence and omnipotence of Wilson, added to a feeling of
      even terror, with which certain other traits in his nature and
      assumptions inspired me, had operated, hitherto, to impress me
      with an idea of my own utter weakness and helplessness, and to
      suggest an implicit, although bitterly reluctant submission to
      his arbitrary will. But, of late days, I had given myself up
      entirely to wine; and its maddening influence upon my hereditary
      temper rendered me more and more impatient of control. I began to
      murmur,—to hesitate,—to resist. And was it only fancy which
      induced me to believe that, with the increase of my own firmness,
      that of my tormentor underwent a proportional diminution? Be this
      as it may, I now began to feel the inspiration of a burning hope,
      and at length nurtured in my secret thoughts a stern and
      desperate resolution that I would submit no longer to be
      enslaved.

      It was at Rome, during the Carnival of 18—, that I attended a
      masquerade in the palazzo of the Neapolitan Duke Di Broglio. I
      had indulged more freely than usual in the excesses of the
      wine-table; and now the suffocating atmosphere of the crowded
      rooms irritated me beyond endurance. The difficulty, too, of
      forcing my way through the mazes of the company contributed not a
      little to the ruffling of my temper; for I was anxiously seeking,
      (let me not say with what unworthy motive) the young, the gay,
      the beautiful wife of the aged and doting Di Broglio. With a too
      unscrupulous confidence she had previously communicated to me the
      secret of the costume in which she would be habited, and now,
      having caught a glimpse of her person, I was hurrying to make my
      way into her presence. At this moment I felt a light hand placed
      upon my shoulder, and that ever-remembered, low, damnable
      _whisper_ within my ear.

      In an absolute phrenzy of wrath, I turned at once upon him who
      had thus interrupted me, and seized him violently by the collar.
      He was attired, as I had expected, in a costume altogether
      similar to my own; wearing a Spanish cloak of blue velvet, begirt
      about the waist with a crimson belt sustaining a rapier. A mask
      of black silk entirely covered his face.

      “Scoundrel!” I said, in a voice husky with rage, while every
      syllable I uttered seemed as new fuel to my fury, “scoundrel!
      impostor! accursed villain! you shall not—you shall not dog me
      unto death! Follow me, or I stab you where you stand!”—and I
      broke my way from the ball-room into a small ante-chamber
      adjoining, dragging him unresistingly with me as I went.

      Upon entering, I thrust him furiously from me. He staggered
      against the wall, while I closed the door with an oath, and
      commanded him to draw. He hesitated but for an instant; then,
      with a slight sigh, drew in silence, and put himself upon his
      defence.

      The contest was brief indeed. I was frantic with every species of
      wild excitement, and felt within my single arm the energy and
      power of a multitude. In a few seconds I forced him by sheer
      strength against the wainscoting, and thus, getting him at mercy,
      plunged my sword, with brute ferocity, repeatedly through and
      through his bosom.

      At that instant some person tried the latch of the door. I
      hastened to prevent an intrusion, and then immediately returned
      to my dying antagonist. But what human language can adequately
      portray that astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the
      spectacle then presented to view? The brief moment in which I
      averted my eyes had been sufficient to produce, apparently, a
      material change in the arrangements at the upper or farther end
      of the room. A large mirror,—so at first it seemed to me in my
      confusion—now stood where none had been perceptible before; and,
      as I stepped up to it in extremity of terror, mine own image, but
      with features all pale and dabbled in blood, advanced to meet me
      with a feeble and tottering gait.

      Thus it appeared, I say, but was not. It was my antagonist—it was
      Wilson, who then stood before me in the agonies of his
      dissolution. His mask and cloak lay, where he had thrown them,
      upon the floor. Not a thread in all his raiment—not a line in all
      the marked and singular lineaments of his face which was not,
      even in the most absolute identity, mine own!

      It was Wilson; but he spoke no longer in a whisper, and I could
      have fancied that I myself was speaking while he said:

      _“You have conquered, and I yield. Yet, henceforward art thou
      also dead—dead to the World, to Heaven and to Hope! In me didst
      thou exist—and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine
      own, how utterly thou hast murdered thyself.”_




THE TELL-TALE HEART.


      True!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am;
      but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my
      senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above all was the sense of
      hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.
      I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and
      observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

      It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but
      once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was
      none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never
      wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no
      desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye
      of a vulture—a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it
      fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—very
      gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and
      thus rid myself of the eye forever.

      Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But
      you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I
      proceeded—with what caution—with what foresight—with what
      dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man
      than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night,
      about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it—oh,
      so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my
      head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, that no light
      shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have
      laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it
      slowly—very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old
      man’s sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the
      opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed.
      Ha!—would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my
      head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously—oh, so
      cautiously—cautiously (for the hinges creaked)—I undid it just so
      much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I
      did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but I
      found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the
      work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye.
      And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the
      chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a
      hearty tone, and inquiring how he has passed the night. So you
      see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to
      suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him
      while he slept.

      Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening
      the door. A watch’s minute hand moves more quickly than did mine.
      Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers—of
      my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To
      think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and
      he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly
      chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on
      the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew
      back—but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick
      darkness, (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of
      robbers,) and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the
      door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

      I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my
      thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up
      in bed, crying out—“Who’s there?”

      I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not
      move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down.
      He was still sitting up in the bed listening;—just as I have
      done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the
      wall.

      Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of
      mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief—oh, no!—it
      was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul
      when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night,
      just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from
      my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that
      distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man
      felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that
      he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when
      he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever since growing
      upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could
      not. He had been saying to himself—“It is nothing but the wind in
      the chimney—it is only a mouse crossing the floor,” or “It is
      merely a cricket which has made a single chirp.” Yes, he had been
      trying to comfort himself with these suppositions: but he had
      found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him
      had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the
      victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived
      shadow that caused him to feel—although he neither saw nor
      heard—to feel the presence of my head within the room.

      When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing
      him lie down, I resolved to open a little—a very, very little
      crevice in the lantern. So I opened it—you cannot imagine how
      stealthily, stealthily—until, at length a simple dim ray, like
      the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and fell full
      upon the vulture eye.

      It was open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I gazed upon
      it. I saw it with perfect distinctness—all a dull blue, with a
      hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones;
      but I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person: for
      I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the
      damned spot.

      And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but
      over-acuteness of the sense?—now, I say, there came to my ears a
      low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in
      cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the beating of the
      old man’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum
      stimulates the soldier into courage.

      But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I
      held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could
      maintain the ray upon the eve. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the
      heart increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and
      louder every instant. The old man’s terror must have been
      extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment!—do you mark
      me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at
      the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old
      house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable
      terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still.
      But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must
      burst. And now a new anxiety seized me—the sound would be heard
      by a neighbour! The old man’s hour had come! With a loud yell, I
      threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked
      once—once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and
      pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the
      deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a
      muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be
      heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was
      dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was
      stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it
      there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead.
      His eye would trouble me no more.

      If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I
      describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the
      body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence.
      First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the
      arms and the legs.

      I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and
      deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards
      so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye—not even his—could
      have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out—no
      stain of any kind—no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for
      that. A tub had caught all—ha! ha!

      When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o’clock—still
      dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a
      knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light
      heart,—for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who
      introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the
      police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbour during the night;
      suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been
      lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been
      deputed to search the premises.

      I smiled,—for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome.
      The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I
      mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over
      the house. I bade them search—search well. I led them, at length,
      to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed.
      In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the
      room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I
      myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own
      seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the
      victim.

      The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was
      singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they
      chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting
      pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing
      in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing
      became more distinct:—it continued and became more distinct: I
      talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued
      and gained definiteness—until, at length, I found that the noise
      was not within my ears.

      No doubt I now grew _very_ pale;—but I talked more fluently, and
      with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased—and what could I
      do? It was a low, dull, quick sound—much such a sound as a watch
      makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath—and yet the
      officers heard it not. I talked more quickly—more vehemently; but
      the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles,
      in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise
      steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor
      to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the
      observations of the men—but the noise steadily increased. Oh God!
      what could I do? I foamed—I raved—I swore! I swung the chair upon
      which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the
      noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew
      louder—louder—louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and
      smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!—no, no!
      They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery
      of my horror!—this I thought, and this I think. But anything was
      better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this
      derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I
      felt that I must scream or die! and now—again!—hark! louder!
      louder! louder! _louder!_

      “Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble no more! I admit the
      deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—It is the beating of his
      hideous heart!”




BERENICE


     Dicebant mihi sodales, si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas
     aliquar tulum fore levatas.—_Ebn Zaiat_.

      Misery is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform.
      Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as
      various as the hues of that arch—as distinct too, yet as
      intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow!
      How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of
      unloveliness?—from the covenant of peace, a simile of sorrow? But
      as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of
      joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the
      anguish of to-day, or the agonies which _are_, have their origin
      in the ecstasies which _might have been_.

      My baptismal name is Egaeus; that of my family I will not
      mention. Yet there are no towers in the land more time-honored
      than my gloomy, gray, hereditary halls. Our line has been called
      a race of visionaries; and in many striking particulars—in the
      character of the family mansion—in the frescos of the chief
      saloon—in the tapestries of the dormitories—in the chiselling of
      some buttresses in the armory—but more especially in the gallery
      of antique paintings—in the fashion of the library chamber—and,
      lastly, in the very peculiar nature of the library’s
      contents—there is more than sufficient evidence to warrant the
      belief.

      The recollections of my earliest years are connected with that
      chamber, and with its volumes—of which latter I will say no more.
      Here died my mother. Herein was I born. But it is mere idleness
      to say that I had not lived before—that the soul has no previous
      existence. You deny it?—let us not argue the matter. Convinced
      myself, I seek not to convince. There is, however, a remembrance
      of aerial forms—of spiritual and meaning eyes—of sounds, musical
      yet sad—a remembrance which will not be excluded; a memory like a
      shadow—vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like a shadow,
      too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the
      sunlight of my reason shall exist.

      In that chamber was I born. Thus awaking from the long night of
      what seemed, but was not, nonentity, at once into the very
      regions of fairy land—into a palace of imagination—into the wild
      dominions of monastic thought and erudition—it is not singular
      that I gazed around me with a startled and ardent eye—that I
      loitered away my boyhood in books, and dissipated my youth in
      reverie; but it _is_ singular that as years rolled away, and the
      noon of manhood found me still in the mansion of my fathers—it
      _is_ wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the springs of my
      life—wonderful how total an inversion took place in the character
      of my commonest thought. The realities of the world affected me
      as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land
      of dreams became, in turn, not the material of my every-day
      existence, but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in
      itself.

      Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my
      paternal halls. Yet differently we grew—I, ill of health, and
      buried in gloom—she, agile, graceful, and overflowing with
      energy; hers, the ramble on the hill-side—mine the studies of the
      cloister; I, living within my own heart, and addicted, body and
      soul, to the most intense and painful meditation—she, roaming
      carelessly through life, with no thought of the shadows in her
      path, or the silent flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice!—I
      call upon her name—Berenice!—and from the gray ruins of memory a
      thousand tumultuous recollections are startled at the sound! Ah,
      vividly is her image before me now, as in the early days of her
      light-heartedness and joy! Oh, gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh,
      sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! Oh, Naiad among its
      fountains! And then—then all is mystery and terror, and a tale
      which should not be told. Disease—a fatal disease, fell like the
      simoon upon her frame; and, even while I gazed upon her, the
      spirit of change swept over her, pervading her mind, her habits,
      and her character, and, in a manner the most subtle and terrible,
      disturbing even the identity of her person! Alas! the destroyer
      came and went!—and the victim—where is she? I knew her not—or
      knew her no longer as Berenice.

      Among the numerous train of maladies superinduced by that fatal
      and primary one which effected a revolution of so horrible a kind
      in the moral and physical being of my cousin, may be mentioned as
      the most distressing and obstinate in its nature, a species of
      epilepsy not unfrequently terminating in _trance_ itself—trance
      very nearly resembling positive dissolution, and from which her
      manner of recovery was in most instances, startlingly abrupt. In
      the mean time my own disease—for I have been told that I should
      call it by no other appellation—my own disease, then, grew
      rapidly upon me, and assumed finally a monomaniac character of a
      novel and extraordinary form—hourly and momently gaining
      vigor—and at length obtaining over me the most incomprehensible
      ascendancy. This monomania, if I must so term it, consisted in a
      morbid irritability of those properties of the mind in
      metaphysical science termed the _attentive_. It is more than
      probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is
      in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general
      reader, an adequate idea of that nervous _intensity of interest_
      with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak
      technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation
      of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.

      To muse for long unwearied hours, with my attention riveted to
      some frivolous device on the margin, or in the typography of a
      book; to become absorbed, for the better part of a summer’s day,
      in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry or upon the
      floor; to lose myself, for an entire night, in watching the
      steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire; to dream away
      whole days over the perfume of a flower; to repeat, monotonously,
      some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent
      repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind; to
      lose all sense of motion or physical existence, by means of
      absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in:
      such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries
      induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed,
      altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to
      anything like analysis or explanation.

      Yet let me not be misapprehended. The undue, earnest, and morbid
      attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous,
      must not be confounded in character with that ruminating
      propensity common to all mankind, and more especially indulged in
      by persons of ardent imagination. It was not even, as might be at
      first supposed, an extreme condition, or exaggeration of such
      propensity, but primarily and essentially distinct and different.
      In the one instance, the dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested
      by an object usually _not_ frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight
      of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestions
      issuing therefrom, until, at the conclusion of a day-dream _often
      replete with luxury_, he finds the _incitamentum_, or first cause
      of his musings, entirely vanished and forgotten. In my case, the
      primary object was _invariably frivolous_, although assuming,
      through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and
      unreal importance. Few deductions, if any, were made; and those
      few pertinaciously returning in upon the original object as a
      centre. The meditations were _never_ pleasurable; and, at the
      termination of the reverie, the first cause, so far from being
      out of sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated
      interest which was the prevailing feature of the disease. In a
      word, the powers of mind more particularly exercised were, with
      me, as I have said before, the _attentive_, and are, with the
      day-dreamer, the _speculative_.

      My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to
      irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in
      their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the
      characteristic qualities of the disorder itself. I well remember,
      among others, the treatise of the noble Italian, Coelius Secundus
      Curio, “_De Amplitudine Beati Regni Dei;_” St. Austin’s great
      work, the “City of God;” and Tertullian’s “_De Carne Christi_,”
      in which the paradoxical sentence “_Mortuus est Dei filius;
      credible est quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certum est
      quia impossibile est,_” occupied my undivided time, for many
      weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation.

      Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivial
      things, my reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of
      by Ptolemy Hephestion, which steadily resisting the attacks of
      human violence, and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds,
      trembled only to the touch of the flower called Asphodel. And
      although, to a careless thinker, it might appear a matter beyond
      doubt, that the alteration produced by her unhappy malady, in the
      _moral_ condition of Berenice, would afford me many objects for
      the exercise of that intense and abnormal meditation whose nature
      I have been at some trouble in explaining, yet such was not in
      any degree the case. In the lucid intervals of my infirmity, her
      calamity, indeed, gave me pain, and, taking deeply to heart that
      total wreck of her fair and gentle life, I did not fail to
      ponder, frequently and bitterly, upon the wonder-working means by
      which so strange a revolution had been so suddenly brought to
      pass. But these reflections partook not of the idiosyncrasy of my
      disease, and were such as would have occurred, under similar
      circumstances, to the ordinary mass of mankind. True to its own
      character, my disorder revelled in the less important but more
      startling changes wrought in the _physical_ frame of Berenice—in
      the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal
      identity.

      During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely
      I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence,
      feelings with me, _had never been_ of the heart, and my passions
      _always were_ of the mind. Through the gray of the early
      morning—among the trellised shadows of the forest at noonday—and
      in the silence of my library at night—she had flitted by my eyes,
      and I had seen her—not as the living and breathing Berenice, but
      as the Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the earth, earthy,
      but as the abstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire,
      but to analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the
      most abstruse although desultory speculation. And _now_—now I
      shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet,
      bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to
      mind that she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke
      to her of marriage.

      And at length the period of our nuptials was approaching, when,
      upon an afternoon in the winter of the year—one of those
      unseasonably warm, calm, and misty days which are the nurse of
      the beautiful Halcyon (*1),—I sat, (and sat, as I thought,
      alone,) in the inner apartment of the library. But, uplifting my
      eyes, I saw that Berenice stood before me.

      Was it my own excited imagination—or the misty influence of the
      atmosphere—or the uncertain twilight of the chamber—or the gray
      draperies which fell around her figure—that caused in it so
      vacillating and indistinct an outline? I could not tell. She
      spoke no word; and I—not for worlds could I have uttered a
      syllable. An icy chill ran through my frame; a sense of
      insufferable anxiety oppressed me; a consuming curiosity pervaded
      my soul; and sinking back upon the chair, I remained for some
      time breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her
      person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestige
      of the former being lurked in any single line of the contour. My
      burning glances at length fell upon the face.

      The forehead was high, and very pale, and singularly placid; and
      the once jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed the
      hollow temples with innumerable ringlets, now of a vivid yellow,
      and jarring discordantly, in their fantastic character, with the
      reigning melancholy of the countenance. The eyes were lifeless,
      and lustreless, and seemingly pupilless, and I shrank
      involuntarily from their glassy stare to the contemplation of the
      thin and shrunken lips. They parted; and in a smile of peculiar
      meaning, _the teeth_ of the changed Berenice disclosed themselves
      slowly to my view. Would to God that I had never beheld them, or
      that, having done so, I had died!

      The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found
      that my cousin had departed from the chamber. But from the
      disordered chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and
      would not be driven away, the white and ghastly _spectrum_ of the
      teeth. Not a speck on their surface—not a shade on their
      enamel—not an indenture in their edges—but what that period of
      her smile had sufficed to brand in upon my memory. I saw them
      _now_ even more unequivocally than I beheld them _then_. The
      teeth!—the teeth!—they were here, and there, and everywhere, and
      visibly and palpably before me; long, narrow, and excessively
      white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in the very
      moment of their first terrible development. Then came the full
      fury of my _monomania_, and I struggled in vain against its
      strange and irresistible influence. In the multiplied objects of
      the external world I had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these
      I longed with a phrenzied desire. All other matters and all
      different interests became absorbed in their single
      contemplation. They—they alone were present to the mental eye,
      and they, in their sole individuality, became the essence of my
      mental life. I held them in every light. I turned them in every
      attitude. I surveyed their characteristics. I dwelt upon their
      peculiarities. I pondered upon their conformation. I mused upon
      the alteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them
      in imagination a sensitive and sentient power, and even when
      unassisted by the lips, a capability of moral expression. Of
      Mademoiselle Salle it has been well said, “_Que tous ses pas
      etaient des sentiments_,” and of Berenice I more seriously
      believed _que toutes ses dents etaient des idées_. _Des
      idées!_—ah here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me! _Des
      idées!_—ah, _therefore_ it was that I coveted them so madly! I
      felt that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace,
      in giving me back to reason.

      And the evening closed in upon me thus—and then the darkness
      came, and tarried, and went—and the day again dawned—and the
      mists of a second night were now gathering around—and still I sat
      motionless in that solitary room—and still I sat buried in
      meditation—and still the _phantasma_ of the teeth maintained its
      terrible ascendancy, as, with the most vivid hideous
      distinctness, it floated about amid the changing lights and
      shadows of the chamber. At length there broke in upon my dreams a
      cry as of horror and dismay; and thereunto, after a pause,
      succeeded the sound of troubled voices, intermingled with many
      low moanings of sorrow or of pain. I arose from my seat, and
      throwing open one of the doors of the library, saw standing out
      in the ante-chamber a servant maiden, all in tears, who told me
      that Berenice was—no more! She had been seized with epilepsy in
      the early morning, and now, at the closing in of the night, the
      grave was ready for its tenant, and all the preparations for the
      burial were completed.

      I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there
      alone. It seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and
      exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well
      aware, that since the setting of the sun, Berenice had been
      interred. But of that dreary period which intervened I had no
      positive, at least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was
      replete with horror—horror more horrible from being vague, and
      terror more terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the
      record my existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and
      unintelligible recollections. I strived to decypher them, but in
      vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound,
      the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be
      ringing in my ears. I had done a deed—what was it? I asked myself
      the question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber
      answered me,—“_What was it?_”

      On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little
      box. It was of no remarkable character, and I had seen it
      frequently before, for it was the property of the family
      physician; but how came it _there_, upon my table, and why did I
      shudder in regarding it? These things were in no manner to be
      accounted for, and my eyes at length dropped to the open pages of
      a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The words were the
      singular but simple ones of the poet Ebn Zaiat:—“_Dicebant mihi
      sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum
      fore levatas_.” Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my
      head erect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become
      congealed within my veins?

      There came a light tap at the library door—and, pale as the
      tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were
      wild with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky,
      and very low. What said he?—some broken sentences I heard. He
      told of a wild cry disturbing the silence of the night—of the
      gathering together of the household—of a search in the direction
      of the sound; and then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he
      whispered me of a violated grave—of a disfigured body enshrouded,
      yet still breathing—still palpitating—_still alive_!

      He pointed to garments;—they were muddy and clotted with gore. I
      spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand: it was indented
      with the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some
      object against the wall. I looked at it for some minutes: it was
      a spade. With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the
      box that lay upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my
      tremor, it slipped from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst
      into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there rolled out
      some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two
      small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to
      and fro about the floor.




ELEONORA


     Sub conservatione formæ specificæ salva anima.
                    —_Raymond Lully_.

      I am come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of
      passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet
      settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest
      intelligence—whether much that is glorious—whether all that is
      profound—does not spring from disease of thought—from moods of
      mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who
      dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who
      dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses
      of eternity, and thrill, in awakening, to find that they have
      been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn
      something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere
      knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however, rudderless
      or compassless into the vast ocean of the “light ineffable,” and
      again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer, “agressi
      sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi.”

      We will say, then, that I am mad. I grant, at least, that there
      are two distinct conditions of my mental existence—the condition
      of a lucid reason, not to be disputed, and belonging to the
      memory of events forming the first epoch of my life—and a
      condition of shadow and doubt, appertaining to the present, and
      to the recollection of what constitutes the second great era of
      my being. Therefore, what I shall tell of the earlier period,
      believe; and to what I may relate of the later time, give only
      such credit as may seem due, or doubt it altogether, or, if doubt
      it ye cannot, then play unto its riddle the Oedipus.

      She whom I loved in youth, and of whom I now pen calmly and
      distinctly these remembrances, was the sole daughter of the only
      sister of my mother long departed. Eleonora was the name of my
      cousin. We had always dwelled together, beneath a tropical sun,
      in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. No unguided footstep
      ever came upon that vale; for it lay away up among a range of
      giant hills that hung beetling around about it, shutting out the
      sunlight from its sweetest recesses. No path was trodden in its
      vicinity; and, to reach our happy home, there was need of putting
      back, with force, the foliage of many thousands of forest trees,
      and of crushing to death the glories of many millions of fragrant
      flowers. Thus it was that we lived all alone, knowing nothing of
      the world without the valley—I, and my cousin, and her mother.

      From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our
      encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river,
      brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and, winding
      stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away, at length,
      through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those
      whence it had issued. We called it the “River of Silence”; for
      there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur
      arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along, that the
      pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its
      bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each
      in its own old station, shining on gloriously forever.

      The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets that
      glided through devious ways into its channel, as well as the
      spaces that extended from the margins away down into the depths
      of the streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the
      bottom,—these spots, not less than the whole surface of the
      valley, from the river to the mountains that girdled it in, were
      carpeted all by a soft green grass, thick, short, perfectly even,
      and vanilla-perfumed, but so besprinkled throughout with the
      yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the purple violet, and the
      ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding beauty spoke to our hearts
      in loud tones, of the love and of the glory of God.

      And, here and there, in groves about this grass, like
      wildernesses of dreams, sprang up fantastic trees, whose tall
      slender stems stood not upright, but slanted gracefully toward
      the light that peered at noon-day into the centre of the valley.
      Their mark was speckled with the vivid alternate splendor of
      ebony and silver, and was smoother than all save the cheeks of
      Eleonora; so that, but for the brilliant green of the huge leaves
      that spread from their summits in long, tremulous lines, dallying
      with the Zephyrs, one might have fancied them giant serpents of
      Syria doing homage to their sovereign the Sun.

      Hand in hand about this valley, for fifteen years, roamed I with
      Eleonora before Love entered within our hearts. It was one
      evening at the close of the third lustrum of her life, and of the
      fourth of my own, that we sat, locked in each other’s embrace,
      beneath the serpent-like trees, and looked down within the water
      of the River of Silence at our images therein. We spoke no words
      during the rest of that sweet day, and our words even upon the
      morrow were tremulous and few. We had drawn the God Eros from
      that wave, and now we felt that he had enkindled within us the
      fiery souls of our forefathers. The passions which had for
      centuries distinguished our race, came thronging with the fancies
      for which they had been equally noted, and together breathed a
      delirious bliss over the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. A
      change fell upon all things. Strange, brilliant flowers,
      star-shaped, burn out upon the trees where no flowers had been
      known before. The tints of the green carpet deepened; and when,
      one by one, the white daisies shrank away, there sprang up in
      place of them, ten by ten of the ruby-red asphodel. And life
      arose in our paths; for the tall flamingo, hitherto unseen, with
      all gay glowing birds, flaunted his scarlet plumage before us.
      The golden and silver fish haunted the river, out of the bosom of
      which issued, little by little, a murmur that swelled, at length,
      into a lulling melody more divine than that of the harp of
      Æolus—sweeter than all save the voice of Eleonora. And now, too,
      a voluminous cloud, which we had long watched in the regions of
      Hesper, floated out thence, all gorgeous in crimson and gold, and
      settling in peace above us, sank, day by day, lower and lower,
      until its edges rested upon the tops of the mountains, turning
      all their dimness into magnificence, and shutting us up, as if
      forever, within a magic prison-house of grandeur and of glory.

      The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but she was
      a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among
      the flowers. No guile disguised the fervor of love which animated
      her heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we
      walked together in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, and
      discoursed of the mighty changes which had lately taken place
      therein.

      At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad
      change which must befall Humanity, she thenceforward dwelt only
      upon this one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all our
      converse, as, in the songs of the bard of Schiraz, the same
      images are found occurring, again and again, in every impressive
      variation of phrase.

      She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosom—that,
      like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in loveliness only
      to die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay solely in a
      consideration which she revealed to me, one evening at twilight,
      by the banks of the River of Silence. She grieved to think that,
      having entombed her in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, I
      would quit forever its happy recesses, transferring the love
      which now was so passionately her own to some maiden of the outer
      and everyday world. And, then and there, I threw myself hurriedly
      at the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow, to herself and to
      Heaven, that I would never bind myself in marriage to any
      daughter of Earth—that I would in no manner prove recreant to her
      dear memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which
      she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe
      to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I
      invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Helusion should I prove
      traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the exceeding
      great horror of which will not permit me to make record of it
      here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at my words;
      and she sighed as if a deadly burthen had been taken from her
      breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made
      acceptance of the vow, (for what was she but a child?) and it
      made easy to her the bed of her death. And she said to me, not
      many days afterward, tranquilly dying, that, because of what I
      had done for the comfort of her spirit she would watch over me in
      that spirit when departed, and, if so it were permitted her
      return to me visibly in the watches of the night; but, if this
      thing were, indeed, beyond the power of the souls in Paradise,
      that she would, at least, give me frequent indications of her
      presence, sighing upon me in the evening winds, or filling the
      air which I breathed with perfume from the censers of the angels.
      And, with these words upon her lips, she yielded up her innocent
      life, putting an end to the first epoch of my own.

      Thus far I have faithfully said. But as I pass the barrier in
      Time’s path, formed by the death of my beloved, and proceed with
      the second era of my existence, I feel that a shadow gathers over
      my brain, and I mistrust the perfect sanity of the record. But
      let me on.—Years dragged themselves along heavily, and still I
      dwelled within the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass; but a second
      change had come upon all things. The star-shaped flowers shrank
      into the stems of the trees, and appeared no more. The tints of
      the green carpet faded; and, one by one, the ruby-red asphodels
      withered away; and there sprang up, in place of them, ten by ten,
      dark, eye-like violets, that writhed uneasily and were ever
      encumbered with dew. And Life departed from our paths; for the
      tall flamingo flaunted no longer his scarlet plumage before us,
      but flew sadly from the vale into the hills, with all the gay
      glowing birds that had arrived in his company. And the golden and
      silver fish swam down through the gorge at the lower end of our
      domain and bedecked the sweet river never again. And the lulling
      melody that had been softer than the wind-harp of Æolus, and more
      divine than all save the voice of Eleonora, it died little by
      little away, in murmurs growing lower and lower, until the stream
      returned, at length, utterly, into the solemnity of its original
      silence. And then, lastly, the voluminous cloud uprose, and,
      abandoning the tops of the mountains to the dimness of old, fell
      back into the regions of Hesper, and took away all its manifold
      golden and gorgeous glories from the Valley of the Many-Colored
      Grass.

      Yet the promises of Eleonora were not forgotten; for I heard the
      sounds of the swinging of the censers of the angels; and streams
      of a holy perfume floated ever and ever about the valley; and at
      lone hours, when my heart beat heavily, the winds that bathed my
      brow came unto me laden with soft sighs; and indistinct murmurs
      filled often the night air, and once—oh, but once only! I was
      awakened from a slumber, like the slumber of death, by the
      pressing of spiritual lips upon my own.

      But the void within my heart refused, even thus, to be filled. I
      longed for the love which had before filled it to overflowing. At
      length the valley pained me through its memories of Eleonora, and
      I left it for ever for the vanities and the turbulent triumphs of
      the world.

      I found myself within a strange city, where all things might have
      served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams I had dreamed
      so long in the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass. The pomps and
      pageantries of a stately court, and the mad clangor of arms, and
      the radiant loveliness of women, bewildered and intoxicated my
      brain. But as yet my soul had proved true to its vows, and the
      indications of the presence of Eleonora were still given me in
      the silent hours of the night. Suddenly these manifestations they
      ceased, and the world grew dark before mine eyes, and I stood
      aghast at the burning thoughts which possessed, at the terrible
      temptations which beset me; for there came from some far, far
      distant and unknown land, into the gay court of the king I
      served, a maiden to whose beauty my whole recreant heart yielded
      at once—at whose footstool I bowed down without a struggle, in
      the most ardent, in the most abject worship of love. What,
      indeed, was my passion for the young girl of the valley in
      comparison with the fervor, and the delirium, and the
      spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration with which I poured out my
      whole soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde?—Oh,
      bright was the seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had
      room for none other. Oh, divine was the angel Ermengarde! and as
      I looked down into the depths of her memorial eyes, I thought
      only of them—and of her.

      I wedded—nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness
      was not visited upon me. And once—but once again in the silence
      of the night; there came through my lattice the soft sighs which
      had forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into familiar and
      sweet voice, saying:

      “Sleep in peace! for the Spirit of Love reigneth and ruleth, and,
      in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Ermengarde, thou art
      absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in
      Heaven, of thy vows unto Eleonora.”




NOTES TO THE SECOND VOLUME


Notes — Scheherazade

      (*1) The coralites.

      (*2) “One of the most remarkable natural curiosities in Texas is
      a petrified forest, near the head of Pasigno river. It consists
      of several hundred trees, in an erect position, all turned to
      stone. Some trees, now growing, are partly petrified. This is a
      startling fact for natural philosophers, and must cause them to
      modify the existing theory of petrification.—_Kennedy_.

      This account, at first discredited, has since been corroborated
      by the discovery of a completely petrified forest, near the head
      waters of the Cheyenne, or Chienne river, which has its source in
      the Black Hills of the rocky chain.

      There is scarcely, perhaps, a spectacle on the surface of the
      globe more remarkable, either in a geological or picturesque
      point of view than that presented by the petrified forest, near
      Cairo. The traveller, having passed the tombs of the caliphs,
      just beyond the gates of the city, proceeds to the southward,
      nearly at right angles to the road across the desert to Suez, and
      after having travelled some ten miles up a low barren valley,
      covered with sand, gravel, and sea shells, fresh as if the tide
      had retired but yesterday, crosses a low range of sandhills,
      which has for some distance run parallel to his path. The scene
      now presented to him is beyond conception singular and desolate.
      A mass of fragments of trees, all converted into stone, and when
      struck by his horse’s hoof ringing like cast iron, is seen to
      extend itself for miles and miles around him, in the form of a
      decayed and prostrate forest. The wood is of a dark brown hue,
      but retains its form in perfection, the pieces being from one to
      fifteen feet in length, and from half a foot to three feet in
      thickness, strewed so closely together, as far as the eye can
      reach, that an Egyptian donkey can scarcely thread its way
      through amongst them, and so natural that, were it in Scotland or
      Ireland, it might pass without remark for some enormous drained
      bog, on which the exhumed trees lay rotting in the sun. The roots
      and rudiments of the branches are, in many cases, nearly perfect,
      and in some the worm-holes eaten under the bark are readily
      recognizable. The most delicate of the sap vessels, and all the
      finer portions of the centre of the wood, are perfectly entire,
      and bear to be examined with the strongest magnifiers. The whole
      are so thoroughly silicified as to scratch glass and are capable
      of receiving the highest polish.— _Asiatic Magazine_.

      (*3) The Mammoth Cave of Kentucky.

      (*4) In Iceland, 1783.

      (*5) “During the eruption of Hecla, in 1766, clouds of this kind
      produced such a degree of darkness that, at Glaumba, which is
      more than fifty leagues from the mountain, people could only find
      their way by groping. During the eruption of Vesuvius, in 1794,
      at Caserta, four leagues distant, people could only walk by the
      light of torches. On the first of May, 1812, a cloud of volcanic
      ashes and sand, coming from a volcano in the island of St.
      Vincent, covered the whole of Barbadoes, spreading over it so
      intense a darkness that, at mid-day, in the open air, one could
      not perceive the trees or other objects near him, or even a white
      handkerchief placed at the distance of six inches from the
      eye._“—Murray, p. 215, Phil. edit._

      (*6) In the year 1790, in the Caraccas during an earthquake a
      portion of the granite soil sank and left a lake eight hundred
      yards in diameter, and from eighty to a hundred feet deep. It was
      a part of the forest of Aripao which sank, and the trees remained
      green for several months under the water.”—_Murray_, p. 221

      (*7) The hardest steel ever manufactured may, under the action of
      a blowpipe, be reduced to an impalpable powder, which will float
      readily in the atmospheric air.

      (*8) The region of the Niger. See Simmona’s _Colonial Magazine_.

      (*9) The _Myrmeleon_—lion-ant. The term “monster” is equally
      applicable to small abnormal things and to great, while such
      epithets as “vast” are merely comparative. The cavern of the
      myrmeleon is vast in comparison with the hole of the common red
      ant. A grain of silex is also a “rock.”

      (*10) The _Epidendron, Flos Aeris,_ of the family of the
      _Orchideae_, grows with merely the surface of its roots attached
      to a tree or other object, from which it derives no
      nutriment—subsisting altogether upon air.

      (*11) The _Parasites,_ such as the wonderful _Rafflesia
      Arnaldii_.

      (*12) _Schouw_ advocates a class of plants that grow upon living
      animals—the _Plantae_ _Epizoae_. Of this class are the _Fuci_ and
      _Algae_.

      _Mr. J. B. Williams, of Salem, Mass._, presented the “National
      Institute” with an insect from New Zealand, with the following
      description: “‘_The Hotte_, a decided caterpillar, or worm, is
      found gnawing at the root of the _Rota_ tree, with a plant
      growing out of its head. This most peculiar and extraordinary
      insect travels up both the _Rota_ and _Ferriri_ trees, and
      entering into the top, eats its way, perforating the trunk of the
      trees until it reaches the root, and dies, or remains dormant,
      and the plant propagates out of its head; the body remains
      perfect and entire, of a harder substance than when alive. From
      this insect the natives make a coloring for tattooing.

      (*13) In mines and natural caves we find a species of
      cryptogamous _fungus_ that emits an intense phosphorescence.

      (*14) The orchis, scabius and valisneria.

      (*15) The corolla of this flower (_Aristolochia Clematitis_),
      which is tubular, but terminating upwards in a ligulate limb, is
      inflated into a globular figure at the base. The tubular part is
      internally beset with stiff hairs, pointing downwards. The
      globular part contains the pistil, which consists merely of a
      germen and stigma, together with the surrounding stamens. But the
      stamens, being shorter than the germen, cannot discharge the
      pollen so as to throw it upon the stigma, as the flower stands
      always upright till after impregnation. And hence, without some
      additional and peculiar aid, the pollen must necessarily fan down
      to the bottom of the flower. Now, the aid that nature has
      furnished in this case, is that of the _Tiputa Pennicornis_, a
      small insect, which entering the tube of the corrolla in quest of
      honey, descends to the bottom, and rummages about till it becomes
      quite covered with pollen; but not being able to force its way
      out again, owing to the downward position of the hairs, which
      converge to a point like the wires of a mouse-trap, and being
      somewhat impatient of its confinement it brushes backwards and
      forwards, trying every corner, till, after repeatedly traversing
      the stigma, it covers it with pollen sufficient for its
      impregnation, in consequence of which the flower soon begins to
      droop, and the hairs to shrink to the sides of the tube,
      effecting an easy passage for the escape of the insect.”—_Rev. P.
      Keith-System of Physiological Botany_.

      (*16) The bees—ever since bees were—have been constructing their
      cells with just such sides, in just such number, and at just such
      inclinations, as it has been demonstrated (in a problem involving
      the profoundest mathematical principles) are the very sides, in
      the very number, and at the very angles, which will afford the
      creatures the most room that is compatible with the greatest
      stability of structure.

      During the latter part of the last century, the question arose
      among mathematicians—“to determine the best form that can be
      given to the sails of a windmill, according to their varying
      distances from the revolving vanes, and likewise from the centres
      of the revolution.” This is an excessively complex problem, for
      it is, in other words, to find the best possible position at an
      infinity of varied distances and at an infinity of points on the
      arm. There were a thousand futile attempts to answer the query on
      the part of the most illustrious mathematicians, and when at
      length, an undeniable solution was discovered, men found that the
      wings of a bird had given it with absolute precision ever since
      the first bird had traversed the air.

      (*17) He observed a flock of pigeons passing betwixt Frankfort
      and the Indian territory, one mile at least in breadth; it took
      up four hours in passing, which, at the rate of one mile per
      minute, gives a length of 240 miles; and, supposing three pigeons
      to each square yard, gives 2,230,272,000 Pigeons.—“_Travels in
      Canada and the United States,” by Lieut. F. Hall._

      (*18) The earth is upheld by a cow of a blue color, having horns
      four hundred in number.”—_Sale’s Koran_.

      (*19) “The _Entozoa_, or intestinal worms, have repeatedly been
      observed in the muscles, and in the cerebral substance of
      men.”—See Wyatt’s Physiology, p. 143.

      (*20) On the Great Western Railway, between London and Exeter, a
      speed of 71 miles per hour has been attained. A train weighing 90
      tons was whirled from Paddington to Didcot (53 miles) in 51
      minutes.

      (*21) The _Eccalobeion_

      (*22) Mäelzel’s Automaton Chess-player.

      (*23) Babbage’s Calculating Machine.

      (*24) _Chabert_, and since him, a hundred others.

      (*25) The Electrotype.

      (*26) _Wollaston_ made of platinum for the field of views in a
      telescope a wire one eighteen-thousandth part of an inch in
      thickness. It could be seen only by means of the microscope.

      (*27) Newton demonstrated that the retina beneath the influence
      of the violet ray of the spectrum, vibrated 900,000,000 of times
      in a second.

      (*28) Voltaic pile.

      (*29) The Electro Telegraph Printing Apparatus.

      (*30) The Electro telegraph transmits intelligence
      instantaneously—at least at so far as regards any distance upon
      the earth.

      (*31) Common experiments in Natural Philosophy. If two red rays
      from two luminous points be admitted into a dark chamber so as to
      fall on a white surface, and differ in their length by 0.0000258
      of an inch, their intensity is doubled. So also if the difference
      in length be any whole-number multiple of that fraction. A
      multiple by 2 1/4, 3 1/4, &c., gives an intensity equal to one
      ray only; but a multiple by 2 1/2, 3 1/2, &c., gives the result
      of total darkness. In violet rays similar effects arise when the
      difference in length is 0.000157 of an inch; and with all other
      rays the results are the same—the difference varying with a
      uniform increase from the violet to the red.

      “Analogous experiments in respect to sound produce analogous
      results.”

      (*32) Place a platina crucible over a spirit lamp, and keep it a
      red heat; pour in some sulphuric acid, which, though the most
      volatile of bodies at a common temperature, will be found to
      become completely fixed in a hot crucible, and not a drop
      evaporates—being surrounded by an atmosphere of its own, it does
      not, in fact, touch the sides. A few drops of water are now
      introduced, when the acid, immediately coming in contact with the
      heated sides of the crucible, flies off in sulphurous acid vapor,
      and so rapid is its progress, that the caloric of the water
      passes off with it, which falls a lump of ice to the bottom; by
      taking advantage of the moment before it is allowed to remelt, it
      may be turned out a lump of ice from a red-hot vessel.

      (*33) The Daguerreotype.

      (*34) Although light travels 167,000 miles in a second, the
      distance of 61 Cygni (the only star whose distance is
      ascertained) is so inconceivably great, that its rays would
      require more than ten years to reach the earth. For stars beyond
      this, 20—or even 1000 years—would be a moderate estimate. Thus,
      if they had been annihilated 20, or 1000 years ago, we might
      still see them to-day by the light which started from their
      surfaces 20 or 1000 years in the past time. That many which we
      see daily are really extinct, is not impossible—not even
      improbable.

Notes—Maelstrom

      (*1) See Archimedes, “_De Incidentibus in Fluido_.”—lib. 2.

Notes—Island of the Fay

      (*1) Moraux is here derived from moeurs, and its meaning is
      “fashionable” or more strictly “of manners.”

      (*2) Speaking of the tides, Pomponius Mela, in his treatise “De
      Situ Orbis,” says “either the world is a great animal, or” etc

      (*3) Balzac—in substance—I do not remember the words

      (*4) Florem putares nare per liquidum aethera.—P. Commire.

Notes — Domain of Arnheim

      (*1) An incident, similar in outline to the one here imagined,
      occurred, not very long ago, in England. The name of the
      fortunate heir was Thelluson. I first saw an account of this
      matter in the “Tour” of Prince Puckler Muskau, who makes the sum
      inherited _ninety millions of pounds_, and justly observes that
      “in the contemplation of so vast a sum, and of the services to
      which it might be applied, there is something even of the
      sublime.” To suit the views of this article I have followed the
      Prince’s statement, although a grossly exaggerated one. The germ,
      and in fact, the commencement of the present paper was published
      many years ago—previous to the issue of the first number of Sue’s
      admirable _Juif Errant_, which may possibly have been suggested
      to him by Muskau’s account.

Notes—Berenice

      (*1) For as Jove, during the winter season, gives twice seven
      days of warmth, men have called this element and temperate time
      the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon—_Simonides_




VOLUME 3.




NARRATIVE OF A. GORDON PYM

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

      Upon my return to the United States a few months ago, after the
      extraordinary series of adventure in the South Seas and
      elsewhere, of which an account is given in the following pages,
      accident threw me into the society of several gentlemen in
      Richmond, Va., who felt deep interest in all matters relating to
      the regions I had visited, and who were constantly urging it upon
      me, as a duty, to give my narrative to the public. I had several
      reasons, however, for declining to do so, some of which were of a
      nature altogether private, and concern no person but myself;
      others not so much so. One consideration which deterred me was
      that, having kept no journal during a greater portion of the time
      in which I was absent, I feared I should not be able to write,
      from mere memory, a statement so minute and connected as to have
      the _appearance_of that truth it would really possess, barring
      only the natural and unavoidable exaggeration to which all of us
      are prone when detailing events which have had powerful influence
      in exciting the imaginative faculties. Another reason was, that
      the incidents to be narrated were of a nature so positively
      marvellous that, unsupported as my assertions must necessarily be
      (except by the evidence of a single individual, and he a
      half-breed Indian), I could only hope for belief among my family,
      and those of my friends who have had reason, through life, to put
      faith in my veracity—the probability being that the public at
      large would regard what I should put forth as merely an impudent
      and ingenious fiction. A distrust in my own abilities as a writer
      was, nevertheless, one of the principal causes which prevented me
      from complying with the suggestions of my advisers.

      Among those gentlemen in Virginia who expressed the greatest
      interest in my statement, more particularly in regard to that
      portion of it which related to the Antarctic Ocean, was Mr. Poe,
      lately editor of the “Southern Literary Messenger,” a monthly
      magazine, published by Mr. Thomas W. White, in the city of
      Richmond. He strongly advised me, among others, to prepare at
      once a full account of what I had seen and undergone, and trust
      to the shrewdness and common-sense of the public—insisting, with
      great plausibility, that however roughly, as regards mere
      authorship, my book should be got up, its very uncouthness, if
      there were any, would give it all the better chance of being
      received as truth.

      Notwithstanding this representation, I did not make up my mind to
      do as he suggested. He afterward proposed (finding that I would
      not stir in the matter) that I should allow him to draw up, in
      his own words, a narrative of the earlier portion of my
      adventures, from facts afforded by myself, publishing it in the
      “Southern Messenger” _under the garb of fiction. _To this,
      perceiving no objection, I consented, stipulating only that my
      real name should be retained. Two numbers of the pretended
      fiction appeared, consequently, in the “Messenger” for January
      and February (1837), and, in order that it might certainly be
      regarded as fiction, the name of Mr. Poe was affixed to the
      articles in the table of contents of the magazine.

      The manner in which this ruse was received has induced me at
      length to undertake a regular compilation and publication of the
      adventures in question; for I found that, in spite of the air of
      fable which had been so ingeniously thrown around that portion of
      my statement which appeared in the “Messenger” (without altering
      or distorting a single fact), the public were still not at all
      disposed to receive it as fable, and several letters were sent to
      Mr. P.’s address, distinctly expressing a conviction to the
      contrary. I thence concluded that the facts of my narrative would
      prove of such a nature as to carry with them sufficient evidence
      of their own authenticity, and that I had consequently little to
      fear on the score of popular incredulity.

      This _exposé_being made, it will be seen at once how much of what
      follows I claim to be my own writing; and it will also be
      understood that no fact is misrepresented in the first few pages
      which were written by Mr. Poe. Even to those readers who have not
      seen the “Messenger,” it will be unnecessary to point out where
      his portion ends and my own commences; the difference in point of
      style will be readily perceived.

A. G. PYM.




CHAPTER 1


      My name is Arthur Gordon Pym. My father was a respectable trader
      in sea-stores at Nantucket, where I was born. My maternal
      grandfather was an attorney in good practice. He was fortunate in
      every thing, and had speculated very successfully in stocks of
      the Edgarton New Bank, as it was formerly called. By these and
      other means he had managed to lay by a tolerable sum of money. He
      was more attached to myself, I believe, than to any other person
      in the world, and I expected to inherit the most of his property
      at his death. He sent me, at six years of age, to the school of
      old Mr. Ricketts, a gentleman with only one arm and of eccentric
      manners—he is well known to almost every person who has visited
      New Bedford. I stayed at his school until I was sixteen, when I
      left him for Mr. E. Ronald’s academy on the hill. Here I became
      intimate with the son of Mr. Barnard, a sea-captain, who
      generally sailed in the employ of Lloyd and Vredenburgh—Mr.
      Barnard is also very well known in New Bedford, and has many
      relations, I am certain, in Edgarton. His son was named Augustus,
      and he was nearly two years older than myself. He had been on a
      whaling voyage with his father in the John Donaldson, and was
      always talking to me of his adventures in the South Pacific
      Ocean. I used frequently to go home with him, and remain all day,
      and sometimes all night. We occupied the same bed, and he would
      be sure to keep me awake until almost light, telling me stories
      of the natives of the Island of Tinian, and other places he had
      visited in his travels. At last I could not help being interested
      in what he said, and by degrees I felt the greatest desire to go
      to sea. I owned a sailboat called the Ariel, and worth about
      seventy-five dollars. She had a half-deck or cuddy, and was
      rigged sloop-fashion—I forget her tonnage, but she would hold ten
      persons without much crowding. In this boat we were in the habit
      of going on some of the maddest freaks in the world; and, when I
      now think of them, it appears to me a thousand wonders that I am
      alive to-day.

      I will relate one of these adventures by way of introduction to a
      longer and more momentous narrative. One night there was a party
      at Mr. Barnard’s, and both Augustus and myself were not a little
      intoxicated toward the close of it. As usual, in such cases, I
      took part of his bed in preference to going home. He went to
      sleep, as I thought, very quietly (it being near one when the
      party broke up), and without saying a word on his favorite topic.
      It might have been half an hour from the time of our getting in
      bed, and I was just about falling into a doze, when he suddenly
      started up, and swore with a terrible oath that he would not go
      to sleep for any Arthur Pym in Christendom, when there was so
      glorious a breeze from the southwest. I never was so astonished
      in my life, not knowing what he intended, and thinking that the
      wines and liquors he had drunk had set him entirely beside
      himself. He proceeded to talk very coolly, however, saying he
      knew that I supposed him intoxicated, but that he was never more
      sober in his life. He was only tired, he added, of lying in bed
      on such a fine night like a dog, and was determined to get up and
      dress, and go out on a frolic with the boat. I can hardly tell
      what possessed me, but the words were no sooner out of his mouth
      than I felt a thrill of the greatest excitement and pleasure, and
      thought his mad idea one of the most delightful and most
      reasonable things in the world. It was blowing almost a gale, and
      the weather was very cold—it being late in October. I sprang out
      of bed, nevertheless, in a kind of ecstasy, and told him I was
      quite as brave as himself, and quite as tired as he was of lying
      in bed like a dog, and quite as ready for any fun or frolic as
      any Augustus Barnard in Nantucket.

      We lost no time in getting on our clothes and hurrying down to
      the boat. She was lying at the old decayed wharf by the
      lumber-yard of Pankey & Co., and almost thumping her side out
      against the rough logs. Augustus got into her and bailed her, for
      she was nearly half full of water. This being done, we hoisted
      jib and mainsail, kept full, and started boldly out to sea.

      The wind, as I before said, blew freshly from the southwest. The
      night was very clear and cold. Augustus had taken the helm, and I
      stationed myself by the mast, on the deck of the cuddy. We flew
      along at a great rate—neither of us having said a word since
      casting loose from the wharf. I now asked my companion what
      course he intended to steer, and what time he thought it probable
      we should get back. He whistled for a few minutes, and then said
      crustily: “_I_ am going to sea—_you_ may go home if you think
      proper.” Turning my eyes upon him, I perceived at once that, in
      spite of his assumed _nonchalance_, he was greatly agitated. I
      could see him distinctly by the light of the moon—his face was
      paler than any marble, and his hand shook so excessively that he
      could scarcely retain hold of the tiller. I found that something
      had gone wrong, and became seriously alarmed. At this period I
      knew little about the management of a boat, and was now depending
      entirely upon the nautical skill of my friend. The wind, too, had
      suddenly increased, as we were fast getting out of the lee of the
      land—still I was ashamed to betray any trepidation, and for
      almost half an hour maintained a resolute silence. I could stand
      it no longer, however, and spoke to Augustus about the propriety
      of turning back. As before, it was nearly a minute before he made
      answer, or took any notice of my suggestion. “By-and-by,” said he
      at length—“time enough—home by-and-by.” I had expected a similar
      reply, but there was something in the tone of these words which
      filled me with an indescribable feeling of dread. I again looked
      at the speaker attentively. His lips were perfectly livid, and
      his knees shook so violently together that he seemed scarcely
      able to stand. “For God’s sake, Augustus,” I screamed, now
      heartily frightened, “what ails you?—what is the matter?—what
      _are_ you going to do?” “Matter!” he stammered, in the greatest
      apparent surprise, letting go the tiller at the same moment, and
      falling forward into the bottom of the boat—“matter—why, nothing
      is the—matter—going home—d—d—don’t you see?” The whole truth now
      flashed upon me. I flew to him and raised him up. He was
      drunk—beastly drunk—he could no longer either stand, speak, or
      see. His eyes were perfectly glazed; and as I let him go in the
      extremity of my despair, he rolled like a mere log into the
      bilge-water, from which I had lifted him. It was evident that,
      during the evening, he had drunk far more than I suspected, and
      that his conduct in bed had been the result of a
      highly-concentrated state of intoxication—a state which, like
      madness, frequently enables the victim to imitate the outward
      demeanour of one in perfect possession of his senses. The
      coolness of the night air, however, had had its usual effect—the
      mental energy began to yield before its influence—and the
      confused perception which he no doubt then had of his perilous
      situation had assisted in hastening the catastrophe. He was now
      thoroughly insensible, and there was no probability that he would
      be otherwise for many hours.

      It is hardly possible to conceive the extremity of my terror. The
      fumes of the wine lately taken had evaporated, leaving me doubly
      timid and irresolute. I knew that I was altogether incapable of
      managing the boat, and that a fierce wind and strong ebb tide
      were hurrying us to destruction. A storm was evidently gathering
      behind us; we had neither compass nor provisions; and it was
      clear that, if we held our present course, we should be out of
      sight of land before daybreak. These thoughts, with a crowd of
      others equally fearful, flashed through my mind with a
      bewildering rapidity, and for some moments paralyzed me beyond
      the possibility of making any exertion. The boat was going
      through the water at a terrible rate—full before the wind—no reef
      in either jib or mainsail—running her bows completely under the
      foam. It was a thousand wonders she did not broach to—Augustus
      having let go the tiller, as I said before, and I being too much
      agitated to think of taking it myself. By good luck, however, she
      kept steady, and gradually I recovered some degree of presence of
      mind. Still the wind was increasing fearfully, and whenever we
      rose from a plunge forward, the sea behind fell combing over our
      counter, and deluged us with water. I was so utterly benumbed,
      too, in every limb, as to be nearly unconscious of sensation. At
      length I summoned up the resolution of despair, and rushing to
      the mainsail let it go by the run. As might have been expected,
      it flew over the bows, and, getting drenched with water, carried
      away the mast short off by the board. This latter accident alone
      saved me from instant destruction. Under the jib only, I now
      boomed along before the wind, shipping heavy seas occasionally
      over the counter, but relieved from the terror of immediate
      death. I took the helm, and breathed with greater freedom as I
      found that there yet remained to us a chance of ultimate escape.
      Augustus still lay senseless in the bottom of the boat; and as
      there was imminent danger of his drowning (the water being nearly
      a foot deep just where he fell), I contrived to raise him
      partially up, and keep him in a sitting position, by passing a
      rope round his waist, and lashing it to a ringbolt in the deck of
      the cuddy. Having thus arranged every thing as well as I could in
      my chilled and agitated condition, I recommended myself to God,
      and made up my mind to bear whatever might happen with all the
      fortitude in my power.

      Hardly had I come to this resolution, when, suddenly, a loud and
      long scream or yell, as if from the throats of a thousand demons,
      seemed to pervade the whole atmosphere around and above the boat.
      Never while I live shall I forget the intense agony of terror I
      experienced at that moment. My hair stood erect on my head—I felt
      the blood congealing in my veins—my heart ceased utterly to beat,
      and without having once raised my eyes to learn the source of my
      alarm, I tumbled headlong and insensible upon the body of my
      fallen companion.

      I found myself, upon reviving, in the cabin of a large
      whaling-ship (the Penguin) bound to Nantucket. Several persons
      were standing over me, and Augustus, paler than death, was busily
      occupied in chafing my hands. Upon seeing me open my eyes, his
      exclamations of gratitude and joy excited alternate laughter and
      tears from the rough-looking personages who were present. The
      mystery of our being in existence was now soon explained. We had
      been run down by the whaling-ship, which was close-hauled,
      beating up to Nantucket with every sail she could venture to set,
      and consequently running almost at right angles to our own
      course. Several men were on the look-out forward, but did not
      perceive our boat until it was an impossibility to avoid coming
      in contact—their shouts of warning upon seeing us were what so
      terribly alarmed me. The huge ship, I was told, rode immediately
      over us with as much ease as our own little vessel would have
      passed over a feather, and without the least perceptible
      impediment to her progress. Not a scream arose from the deck of
      the victim—there was a slight grating sound to be heard mingling
      with the roar of wind and water, as the frail bark which was
      swallowed up rubbed for a moment along the keel of her
      destroyer—but this was all. Thinking our boat (which it will be
      remembered was dismasted) some mere shell cut adrift as useless,
      the captain (Captain E. T. V. Block, of New London) was for
      proceeding on his course without troubling himself further about
      the matter. Luckily, there were two of the look-out who swore
      positively to having seen some person at our helm, and
      represented the possibility of yet saving him. A discussion
      ensued, when Block grew angry, and, after a while, said that “it
      was no business of his to be eternally watching for egg-shells;
      that the ship should not put about for any such nonsense; and if
      there was a man run down, it was nobody’s fault but his own, he
      might drown and be dammed” or some language to that effect.
      Henderson, the first mate, now took the matter up, being justly
      indignant, as well as the whole ship’s crew, at a speech evincing
      so base a degree of heartless atrocity. He spoke plainly, seeing
      himself upheld by the men, told the captain he considered him a
      fit subject for the gallows, and that he would disobey his orders
      if he were hanged for it the moment he set his foot on shore. He
      strode aft, jostling Block (who turned pale and made no answer)
      on one side, and seizing the helm, gave the word, in a firm
      voice, Hard-a-lee! The men flew to their posts, and the ship went
      cleverly about. All this had occupied nearly five minutes, and it
      was supposed to be hardly within the bounds of possibility that
      any individual could be saved—allowing any to have been on board
      the boat. Yet, as the reader has seen, both Augustus and myself
      were rescued; and our deliverance seemed to have been brought
      about by two of those almost inconceivable pieces of good fortune
      which are attributed by the wise and pious to the special
      interference of Providence.

      While the ship was yet in stays, the mate lowered the jolly-boat
      and jumped into her with the very two men, I believe, who spoke
      up as having seen me at the helm. They had just left the lee of
      the vessel (the moon still shining brightly) when she made a long
      and heavy roll to windward, and Henderson, at the same moment,
      starting up in his seat bawled out to his crew to back water. He
      would say nothing else—repeating his cry impatiently, back water!
      back water! The men put back as speedily as possible, but by this
      time the ship had gone round, and gotten fully under headway,
      although all hands on board were making great exertions to take
      in sail. In despite of the danger of the attempt, the mate clung
      to the main-chains as soon as they came within his reach. Another
      huge lurch now brought the starboard side of the vessel out of
      water nearly as far as her keel, when the cause of his anxiety
      was rendered obvious enough. The body of a man was seen to be
      affixed in the most singular manner to the smooth and shining
      bottom (the Penguin was coppered and copper-fastened), and
      beating violently against it with every movement of the hull.
      After several ineffectual efforts, made during the lurches of the
      ship, and at the imminent risk of swamping the boat I was finally
      disengaged from my perilous situation and taken on board—for the
      body proved to be my own. It appeared that one of the
      timber-bolts having started and broken a passage through the
      copper, it had arrested my progress as I passed under the ship,
      and fastened me in so extraordinary a manner to her bottom. The
      head of the bolt had made its way through the collar of the green
      baize jacket I had on, and through the back part of my neck,
      forcing itself out between two sinews and just below the right
      ear. I was immediately put to bed—although life seemed to be
      totally extinct. There was no surgeon on board. The captain,
      however, treated me with every attention—to make amends, I
      presume, in the eyes of his crew, for his atrocious behaviour in
      the previous portion of the adventure.

      In the meantime, Henderson had again put off from the ship,
      although the wind was now blowing almost a hurricane. He had not
      been gone many minutes when he fell in with some fragments of our
      boat, and shortly afterward one of the men with him asserted that
      he could distinguish a cry for help at intervals amid the roaring
      of the tempest. This induced the hardy seamen to persevere in
      their search for more than half an hour, although repeated
      signals to return were made them by Captain Block, and although
      every moment on the water in so frail a boat was fraught to them
      with the most imminent and deadly peril. Indeed, it is nearly
      impossible to conceive how the small jolly they were in could
      have escaped destruction for a single instant. She was built,
      however, for the whaling service, and was fitted, as I have since
      had reason to believe, with air-boxes, in the manner of some
      life-boats used on the coast of Wales.

      After searching in vain for about the period of time just
      mentioned, it was determined to get back to the ship. They had
      scarcely made this resolve when a feeble cry arose from a dark
      object that floated rapidly by. They pursued and soon overtook
      it. It proved to be the entire deck of the Ariel’s cuddy.
      Augustus was struggling near it, apparently in the last agonies.
      Upon getting hold of him it was found that he was attached by a
      rope to the floating timber. This rope, it will be remembered, I
      had myself tied around his waist, and made fast to a ringbolt,
      for the purpose of keeping him in an upright position, and my so
      doing, it appeared, had been ultimately the means of preserving
      his life. The Ariel was slightly put together, and in going down
      her frame naturally went to pieces; the deck of the cuddy, as
      might have been expected, was lifted, by the force of the water
      rushing in, entirely from the main timbers, and floated (with
      other fragments, no doubt) to the surface—Augustus was buoyed up
      with it, and thus escaped a terrible death.

      It was more than an hour after being taken on board the Penguin
      before he could give any account of himself, or be made to
      comprehend the nature of the accident which had befallen our
      boat. At length he became thoroughly aroused, and spoke much of
      his sensations while in the water. Upon his first attaining any
      degree of consciousness, he found himself beneath the surface,
      whirling round and round with inconceivable rapidity, and with a
      rope wrapped in three or four folds tightly about his neck. In an
      instant afterward he felt himself going rapidly upward, when, his
      head striking violently against a hard substance, he again
      relapsed into insensibility. Upon once more reviving he was in
      fuller possession of his reason—this was still, however, in the
      greatest degree clouded and confused. He now knew that some
      accident had occurred, and that he was in the water, although his
      mouth was above the surface, and he could breathe with some
      freedom. Possibly, at this period the deck was drifting rapidly
      before the wind, and drawing him after it, as he floated upon his
      back. Of course, as long as he could have retained this position,
      it would have been nearly impossible that he should be drowned.
      Presently a surge threw him directly athwart the deck, and this
      post he endeavored to maintain, screaming at intervals for help.
      Just before he was discovered by Mr. Henderson, he had been
      obliged to relax his hold through exhaustion, and, falling into
      the sea, had given himself up for lost. During the whole period
      of his struggles he had not the faintest recollection of the
      Ariel, nor of the matters in connexion with the source of his
      disaster. A vague feeling of terror and despair had taken entire
      possession of his faculties. When he was finally picked up, every
      power of his mind had failed him; and, as before said, it was
      nearly an hour after getting on board the Penguin before he
      became fully aware of his condition. In regard to myself—I was
      resuscitated from a state bordering very nearly upon death (and
      after every other means had been tried in vain for three hours
      and a half) by vigorous friction with flannels bathed in hot
      oil—a proceeding suggested by Augustus. The wound in my neck,
      although of an ugly appearance, proved of little real
      consequence, and I soon recovered from its effects.

      The Penguin got into port about nine o’clock in the morning,
      after encountering one of the severest gales ever experienced off
      Nantucket. Both Augustus and myself managed to appear at Mr.
      Barnard’s in time for breakfast—which, luckily, was somewhat
      late, owing to the party over night. I suppose all at the table
      were too much fatigued themselves to notice our jaded
      appearance—of course, it would not have borne a very rigid
      scrutiny. Schoolboys, however, can accomplish wonders in the way
      of deception, and I verily believe not one of our friends in
      Nantucket had the slightest suspicion that the terrible story
      told by some sailors in town of their having run down a vessel at
      sea and drowned some thirty or forty poor devils, had reference
      either to the Ariel, my companion, or myself. We two have since
      very frequently talked the matter over—but never without a
      shudder. In one of our conversations Augustus frankly confessed
      to me, that in his whole life he had at no time experienced so
      excruciating a sense of dismay, as when on board our little boat
      he first discovered the extent of his intoxication, and felt
      himself sinking beneath its influence.




CHAPTER 2


      In no affairs of mere prejudice, pro or con, do we deduce
      inferences with entire certainty, even from the most simple data.
      It might be supposed that a catastrophe such as I have just
      related would have effectually cooled my incipient passion for
      the sea. On the contrary, I never experienced a more ardent
      longing for the wild adventures incident to the life of a
      navigator than within a week after our miraculous deliverance.
      This short period proved amply long enough to erase from my
      memory the shadows, and bring out in vivid light all the
      pleasurably exciting points of color, all the picturesqueness, of
      the late perilous accident. My conversations with Augustus grew
      daily more frequent and more intensely full of interest. He had a
      manner of relating his stories of the ocean (more than one half
      of which I now suspect to have been sheer fabrications) well
      adapted to have weight with one of my enthusiastic temperament
      and somewhat gloomy although glowing imagination. It is strange,
      too, that he most strongly enlisted my feelings in behalf of the
      life of a seaman, when he depicted his more terrible moments of
      suffering and despair. For the bright side of the painting I had
      a limited sympathy. My visions were of shipwreck and famine; of
      death or captivity among barbarian hordes; of a lifetime dragged
      out in sorrow and tears, upon some gray and desolate rock, in an
      ocean unapproachable and unknown. Such visions or desires—for
      they amounted to desires—are common, I have since been assured,
      to the whole numerous race of the melancholy among men—at the
      time of which I speak I regarded them only as prophetic glimpses
      of a destiny which I felt myself in a measure bound to fulfil.
      Augustus thoroughly entered into my state of mind. It is
      probable, indeed, that our intimate communion had resulted in a
      partial interchange of character.

      About eighteen months after the period of the Ariel’s disaster,
      the firm of Lloyd and Vredenburgh (a house connected in some
      manner with the Messieurs Enderby, I believe, of Liverpool) were
      engaged in repairing and fitting out the brig Grampus for a
      whaling voyage. She was an old hulk, and scarcely seaworthy when
      all was done to her that could be done. I hardly know why she was
      chosen in preference to other good vessels belonging to the same
      owners—but so it was. Mr. Barnard was appointed to command her,
      and Augustus was going with him. While the brig was getting
      ready, he frequently urged upon me the excellency of the
      opportunity now offered for indulging my desire of travel. He
      found me by no means an unwilling listener—yet the matter could
      not be so easily arranged. My father made no direct opposition;
      but my mother went into hysterics at the bare mention of the
      design; and, more than all, my grandfather, from whom I expected
      much, vowed to cut me off with a shilling if I should ever broach
      the subject to him again. These difficulties, however, so far
      from abating my desire, only added fuel to the flame. I
      determined to go at all hazards; and, having made known my
      intentions to Augustus, we set about arranging a plan by which it
      might be accomplished. In the meantime I forbore speaking to any
      of my relations in regard to the voyage, and, as I busied myself
      ostensibly with my usual studies, it was supposed that I had
      abandoned the design. I have since frequently examined my conduct
      on this occasion with sentiments of displeasure as well as of
      surprise. The intense hypocrisy I made use of for the furtherance
      of my project—an hypocrisy pervading every word and action of my
      life for so long a period of time—could only have been rendered
      tolerable to myself by the wild and burning expectation with
      which I looked forward to the fulfilment of my long-cherished
      visions of travel.

      In pursuance of my scheme of deception, I was necessarily obliged
      to leave much to the management of Augustus, who was employed for
      the greater part of every day on board the Grampus, attending to
      some arrangements for his father in the cabin and cabin hold. At
      night, however, we were sure to have a conference and talk over
      our hopes. After nearly a month passed in this manner, without
      our hitting upon any plan we thought likely to succeed, he told
      me at last that he had determined upon everything necessary. I
      had a relation living in New Bedford, a Mr. Ross, at whose house
      I was in the habit of spending occasionally two or three weeks at
      a time. The brig was to sail about the middle of June (June,
      1827), and it was agreed that, a day or two before her putting to
      sea, my father was to receive a note, as usual, from Mr. Ross,
      asking me to come over and spend a fortnight with Robert and
      Emmet (his sons). Augustus charged himself with the inditing of
      this note and getting it delivered. Having set out as supposed,
      for New Bedford, I was then to report myself to my companion, who
      would contrive a hiding-place for me in the Grampus. This
      hiding-place, he assured me, would be rendered sufficiently
      comfortable for a residence of many days, during which I was not
      to make my appearance. When the brig had proceeded so far on her
      course as to make any turning back a matter out of question, I
      should then, he said, be formally installed in all the comforts
      of the cabin; and as to his father, he would only laugh heartily
      at the joke. Vessels enough would be met with by which a letter
      might be sent home explaining the adventure to my parents.

      The middle of June at length arrived, and every thing had been
      matured. The note was written and delivered, and on a Monday
      morning I left the house for the New Bedford packet, as supposed.
      I went, however, straight to Augustus, who was waiting for me at
      the corner of a street. It had been our original plan that I
      should keep out of the way until dark, and then slip on board the
      brig; but, as there was now a thick fog in our favor, it was
      agreed to lose no time in secreting me. Augustus led the way to
      the wharf, and I followed at a little distance, enveloped in a
      thick seaman’s cloak, which he had brought with him, so that my
      person might not be easily recognized. Just as we turned the
      second corner, after passing Mr. Edmund’s well, who should
      appear, standing right in front of me, and looking me full in the
      face, but old Mr. Peterson, my grandfather. “Why, bless my soul,
      Gordon,” said he, after a long pause, “why, why,—whose dirty
      cloak is that you have on?” “Sir!” I replied, assuming, as well
      as I could, in the exigency of the moment, an air of offended
      surprise, and talking in the gruffest of all imaginable
      tones—“sir! you are a sum’mat mistaken—my name, in the first
      place, bee’nt nothing at all like Goddin, and I’d want you for to
      know better, you blackguard, than to call my new obercoat a darty
      one.” For my life I could hardly refrain from screaming with
      laughter at the odd manner in which the old gentleman received
      this handsome rebuke. He started back two or three steps, turned
      first pale and then excessively red, threw up his spectacles,
      then, putting them down, ran full tilt at me, with his umbrella
      uplifted. He stopped short, however, in his career, as if struck
      with a sudden recollection; and presently, turning round, hobbled
      off down the street, shaking all the while with rage, and
      muttering between his teeth: “Won’t do—new glasses—thought it was
      Gordon—d—d good-for-nothing salt water Long Tom.”

      After this narrow escape we proceeded with greater caution, and
      arrived at our point of destination in safety. There were only
      one or two of the hands on board, and these were busy forward,
      doing something to the forecastle combings. Captain Barnard, we
      knew very well, was engaged at Lloyd and Vredenburgh’s, and would
      remain there until late in the evening, so we had little to
      apprehend on his account. Augustus went first up the vessel’s
      side, and in a short while I followed him, without being noticed
      by the men at work. We proceeded at once into the cabin, and
      found no person there. It was fitted up in the most comfortable
      style—a thing somewhat unusual in a whaling-vessel. There were
      four very excellent staterooms, with wide and convenient berths.
      There was also a large stove, I took notice, and a remarkably
      thick and valuable carpet covering the floor of both the cabin
      and staterooms. The ceiling was full seven feet high, and, in
      short, every thing appeared of a more roomy and agreeable nature
      than I had anticipated. Augustus, however, would allow me but
      little time for observation, insisting upon the necessity of my
      concealing myself as soon as possible. He led the way into his
      own stateroom, which was on the starboard side of the brig, and
      next to the bulkheads. Upon entering, he closed the door and
      bolted it. I thought I had never seen a nicer little room than
      the one in which I now found myself. It was about ten feet long,
      and had only one berth, which, as I said before, was wide and
      convenient. In that portion of the closet nearest the bulkheads
      there was a space of four feet square, containing a table, a
      chair, and a set of hanging shelves full of books, chiefly books
      of voyages and travels. There were many other little comforts in
      the room, among which I ought not to forget a kind of safe or
      refrigerator, in which Augustus pointed out to me a host of
      delicacies, both in the eating and drinking department.

      He now pressed with his knuckles upon a certain spot of the
      carpet in one corner of the space just mentioned, letting me know
      that a portion of the flooring, about sixteen inches square, had
      been neatly cut out and again adjusted. As he pressed, this
      portion rose up at one end sufficiently to allow the passage of
      his finger beneath. In this manner he raised the mouth of the
      trap (to which the carpet was still fastened by tacks), and I
      found that it led into the after hold. He next lit a small taper
      by means of a phosphorous match, and, placing the light in a dark
      lantern, descended with it through the opening, bidding me
      follow. I did so, and he then pulled the cover upon the hole, by
      means of a nail driven into the under side—the carpet, of course,
      resuming its original position on the floor of the stateroom, and
      all traces of the aperture being concealed.

      The taper gave out so feeble a ray that it was with the greatest
      difficulty I could grope my way through the confused mass of
      lumber among which I now found myself. By degrees, however, my
      eyes became accustomed to the gloom, and I proceeded with less
      trouble, holding on to the skirts of my friend’s coat. He brought
      me, at length, after creeping and winding through innumerable
      narrow passages, to an iron-bound box, such as is used sometimes
      for packing fine earthenware. It was nearly four feet high, and
      full six long, but very narrow. Two large empty oil-casks lay on
      the top of it, and above these, again, a vast quantity of straw
      matting, piled up as high as the floor of the cabin. In every
      other direction around was wedged as closely as possible, even up
      to the ceiling, a complete chaos of almost every species of
      ship-furniture, together with a heterogeneous medley of crates,
      hampers, barrels, and bales, so that it seemed a matter no less
      than miraculous that we had discovered any passage at all to the
      box. I afterward found that Augustus had purposely arranged the
      stowage in this hold with a view to affording me a thorough
      concealment, having had only one assistant in the labour, a man
      not going out in the brig.

      My companion now showed me that one of the ends of the box could
      be removed at pleasure. He slipped it aside and displayed the
      interior, at which I was excessively amused. A mattress from one
      of the cabin berths covered the whole of its bottom, and it
      contained almost every article of mere comfort which could be
      crowded into so small a space, allowing me, at the same time,
      sufficient room for my accommodation, either in a sitting
      position or lying at full length. Among other things, there were
      some books, pen, ink, and paper, three blankets, a large jug full
      of water, a keg of sea-biscuit, three or four immense Bologna
      sausages, an enormous ham, a cold leg of roast mutton, and half a
      dozen bottles of cordials and liqueurs. I proceeded immediately
      to take possession of my little apartment, and this with feelings
      of higher satisfaction, I am sure, than any monarch ever
      experienced upon entering a new palace. Augustus now pointed out
      to me the method of fastening the open end of the box, and then,
      holding the taper close to the deck, showed me a piece of dark
      whipcord lying along it. This, he said, extended from my
      hiding-place throughout all the necessary windings among the
      lumber, to a nail which was driven into the deck of the hold,
      immediately beneath the trap-door leading into his stateroom. By
      means of this cord I should be enabled readily to trace my way
      out without his guidance, provided any unlooked-for accident
      should render such a step necessary. He now took his departure,
      leaving with me the lantern, together with a copious supply of
      tapers and phosphorous, and promising to pay me a visit as often
      as he could contrive to do so without observation. This was on
      the seventeenth of June.

      I remained three days and nights (as nearly as I could guess) in
      my hiding-place without getting out of it at all, except twice
      for the purpose of stretching my limbs by standing erect between
      two crates just opposite the opening. During the whole period I
      saw nothing of Augustus; but this occasioned me little
      uneasiness, as I knew the brig was expected to put to sea every
      hour, and in the bustle he would not easily find opportunities of
      coming down to me. At length I heard the trap open and shut, and
      presently he called in a low voice, asking if all was well, and
      if there was any thing I wanted. “Nothing,” I replied; “I am as
      comfortable as can be; when will the brig sail?” “She will be
      under weigh in less than half an hour,” he answered. “I came to
      let you know, and for fear you should be uneasy at my absence. I
      shall not have a chance of coming down again for some
      time—perhaps for three or four days more. All is going on right
      aboveboard. After I go up and close the trap, do you creep along
      by the whipcord to where the nail is driven in. You will find my
      watch there—it may be useful to you, as you have no daylight to
      keep time by. I suppose you can’t tell how long you have been
      buried—only three days—this is the twentieth. I would bring the
      watch to your box, but am afraid of being missed.” With this he
      went up.

      In about an hour after he had gone I distinctly felt the brig in
      motion, and congratulated myself upon having at length fairly
      commenced a voyage. Satisfied with this idea, I determined to
      make my mind as easy as possible, and await the course of events
      until I should be permitted to exchange the box for the more
      roomy, although hardly more comfortable, accommodations of the
      cabin. My first care was to get the watch. Leaving the taper
      burning, I groped along in the dark, following the cord through
      windings innumerable, in some of which I discovered that, after
      toiling a long distance, I was brought back within a foot or two
      of a former position. At length I reached the nail, and securing
      the object of my journey, returned with it in safety. I now
      looked over the books which had been so thoughtfully provided,
      and selected the expedition of Lewis and Clarke to the mouth of
      the Columbia. With this I amused myself for some time, when,
      growing sleepy, I extinguished the light with great care, and
      soon fell into a sound slumber.

      Upon awakening I felt strangely confused in mind, and some time
      elapsed before I could bring to recollection all the various
      circumstances of my situation. By degrees, however, I remembered
      all. Striking a light, I looked at the watch; but it was run
      down, and there were, consequently, no means of determining how
      long I slept. My limbs were greatly cramped, and I was forced to
      relieve them by standing between the crates. Presently feeling an
      almost ravenous appetite, I bethought myself of the cold mutton,
      some of which I had eaten just before going to sleep, and found
      excellent. What was my astonishment in discovering it to be in a
      state of absolute putrefaction! This circumstance occasioned me
      great disquietude; for, connecting it with the disorder of mind I
      experienced upon awakening, I began to suppose that I must have
      slept for an inordinately long period of time. The close
      atmosphere of the hold might have had something to do with this,
      and might, in the end, be productive of the most serious results.
      My head ached excessively; I fancied that I drew every breath
      with difficulty; and, in short, I was oppressed with a multitude
      of gloomy feelings. Still I could not venture to make any
      disturbance by opening the trap or otherwise, and, having wound
      up the watch, contented myself as well as possible.

      Throughout the whole of the next tedious twenty-four hours no
      person came to my relief, and I could not help accusing Augustus
      of the grossest inattention. What alarmed me chiefly was, that
      the water in my jug was reduced to about half a pint, and I was
      suffering much from thirst, having eaten freely of the Bologna
      sausages after the loss of my mutton. I became very uneasy, and
      could no longer take any interest in my books. I was overpowered,
      too, with a desire to sleep, yet trembled at the thought of
      indulging it, lest there might exist some pernicious influence,
      like that of burning charcoal, in the confined air of the hold.
      In the meantime the roll of the brig told me that we were far in
      the main ocean, and a dull humming sound, which reached my ears
      as if from an immense distance, convinced me no ordinary gale was
      blowing. I could not imagine a reason for the absence of
      Augustus. We were surely far enough advanced on our voyage to
      allow of my going up. Some accident might have happened to
      him—but I could think of none which would account for his
      suffering me to remain so long a prisoner, except, indeed, his
      having suddenly died or fallen overboard, and upon this idea I
      could not dwell with any degree of patience. It was possible that
      we had been baffled by head winds, and were still in the near
      vicinity of Nantucket. This notion, however, I was forced to
      abandon; for such being the case, the brig must have frequently
      gone about; and I was entirely satisfied, from her continual
      inclination to the larboard, that she had been sailing all along
      with a steady breeze on her starboard quarter. Besides, granting
      that we were still in the neighborhood of the island, why should
      not Augustus have visited me and informed me of the circumstance?
      Pondering in this manner upon the difficulties of my solitary and
      cheerless condition, I resolved to wait yet another twenty-four
      hours, when, if no relief were obtained, I would make my way to
      the trap, and endeavour either to hold a parley with my friend,
      or get at least a little fresh air through the opening, and a
      further supply of water from the stateroom. While occupied with
      this thought, however, I fell in spite of every exertion to the
      contrary, into a state of profound sleep, or rather stupor. My
      dreams were of the most terrific description. Every species of
      calamity and horror befell me. Among other miseries I was
      smothered to death between huge pillows, by demons of the most
      ghastly and ferocious aspect. Immense serpents held me in their
      embrace, and looked earnestly in my face with their fearfully
      shining eyes. Then deserts, limitless, and of the most forlorn
      and awe-inspiring character, spread themselves out before me.
      Immensely tall trunks of trees, gray and leafless, rose up in
      endless succession as far as the eye could reach. Their roots
      were concealed in wide-spreading morasses, whose dreary water lay
      intensely black, still, and altogether terrible, beneath. And the
      strange trees seemed endowed with a human vitality, and waving to
      and fro their skeleton arms, were crying to the silent waters for
      mercy, in the shrill and piercing accents of the most acute agony
      and despair. The scene changed; and I stood, naked and alone,
      amidst the burning sand-plains of Sahara. At my feet lay crouched
      a fierce lion of the tropics. Suddenly his wild eyes opened and
      fell upon me. With a conclusive bound he sprang to his feet, and
      laid bare his horrible teeth. In another instant there burst from
      his red throat a roar like the thunder of the firmament, and I
      fell impetuously to the earth. Stifling in a paroxysm of terror,
      I at last found myself partially awake. My dream, then, was not
      all a dream. Now, at least, I was in possession of my senses. The
      paws of some huge and real monster were pressing heavily upon my
      bosom—his hot breath was in my ear—and his white and ghastly
      fangs were gleaming upon me through the gloom.

      Had a thousand lives hung upon the movement of a limb or the
      utterance of a syllable, I could have neither stirred nor spoken.
      The beast, whatever it was, retained his position without
      attempting any immediate violence, while I lay in an utterly
      helpless, and, I fancied, a dying condition beneath him. I felt
      that my powers of body and mind were fast leaving me—in a word,
      that I was perishing, and perishing of sheer fright. My brain
      swam—I grew deadly sick—my vision failed—even the glaring
      eyeballs above me grew dim. Making a last strong effort, I at
      length breathed a faint ejaculation to God, and resigned myself
      to die. The sound of my voice seemed to arouse all the latent
      fury of the animal. He precipitated himself at full length upon
      my body; but what was my astonishment, when, with a long and low
      whine, he commenced licking my face and hands with the greatest
      eagerness, and with the most extravagant demonstration of
      affection and joy! I was bewildered, utterly lost in
      amazement—but I could not forget the peculiar whine of my
      Newfoundland dog Tiger, and the odd manner of his caresses I well
      knew. It was he. I experienced a sudden rush of blood to my
      temples—a giddy and overpowering sense of deliverance and
      reanimation. I rose hurriedly from the mattress upon which I had
      been lying, and, throwing myself upon the neck of my faithful
      follower and friend, relieved the long oppression of my bosom in
      a flood of the most passionate tears.

      As upon a former occasion my conceptions were in a state of the
      greatest indistinctness and confusion after leaving the mattress.
      For a long time I found it nearly impossible to connect any
      ideas; but, by very slow degrees, my thinking faculties returned,
      and I again called to memory the several incidents of my
      condition. For the presence of Tiger I tried in vain to account;
      and after busying myself with a thousand different conjectures
      respecting him, was forced to content myself with rejoicing that
      he was with me to share my dreary solitude, and render me comfort
      by his caresses. Most people love their dogs—but for Tiger I had
      an affection far more ardent than common; and never, certainly,
      did any creature more truly deserve it. For seven years he had
      been my inseparable companion, and in a multitude of instances
      had given evidence of all the noble qualities for which we value
      the animal. I had rescued him, when a puppy, from the clutches of
      a malignant little villain in Nantucket who was leading him, with
      a rope around his neck, to the water; and the grown dog repaid
      the obligation, about three years afterward, by saving me from
      the bludgeon of a street robber.

      Getting now hold of the watch, I found, upon applying it to my
      ear, that it had again run down; but at this I was not at all
      surprised, being convinced, from the peculiar state of my
      feelings, that I had slept, as before, for a very long period of
      time, how long, it was of course impossible to say. I was burning
      up with fever, and my thirst was almost intolerable. I felt about
      the box for my little remaining supply of water, for I had no
      light, the taper having burnt to the socket of the lantern, and
      the phosphorus-box not coming readily to hand. Upon finding the
      jug, however, I discovered it to be empty—Tiger, no doubt, having
      been tempted to drink it, as well as to devour the remnant of
      mutton, the bone of which lay, well picked, by the opening of the
      box. The spoiled meat I could well spare, but my heart sank as I
      thought of the water. I was feeble in the extreme—so much so that
      I shook all over, as with an ague, at the slightest movement or
      exertion. To add to my troubles, the brig was pitching and
      rolling with great violence, and the oil-casks which lay upon my
      box were in momentary danger of falling down, so as to block up
      the only way of ingress or egress. I felt, also, terrible
      sufferings from sea-sickness. These considerations determined me
      to make my way, at all hazards, to the trap, and obtain immediate
      relief, before I should be incapacitated from doing so
      altogether. Having come to this resolve, I again felt about for
      the phosphorus-box and tapers. The former I found after some
      little trouble; but, not discovering the tapers as soon as I had
      expected (for I remembered very nearly the spot in which I had
      placed them), I gave up the search for the present, and bidding
      Tiger lie quiet, began at once my journey toward the trap.

      In this attempt my great feebleness became more than ever
      apparent. It was with the utmost difficulty I could crawl along
      at all, and very frequently my limbs sank suddenly from beneath
      me; when, falling prostrate on my face, I would remain for some
      minutes in a state bordering on insensibility. Still I struggled
      forward by slow degrees, dreading every moment that I should
      swoon amid the narrow and intricate windings of the lumber, in
      which event I had nothing but death to expect as the result. At
      length, upon making a push forward with all the energy I could
      command, I struck my forehead violently against the sharp corner
      of an iron-bound crate. The accident only stunned me for a few
      moments; but I found, to my inexpressible grief, that the quick
      and violent roll of the vessel had thrown the crate entirely
      across my path, so as effectually to block up the passage. With
      my utmost exertions I could not move it a single inch from its
      position, it being closely wedged in among the surrounding boxes
      and ship-furniture. It became necessary, therefore, enfeebled as
      I was, either to leave the guidance of the whipcord and seek out
      a new passage, or to climb over the obstacle, and resume the path
      on the other side. The former alternative presented too many
      difficulties and dangers to be thought of without a shudder. In
      my present weak state of both mind and body, I should infallibly
      lose my way if I attempted it, and perish miserably amid the
      dismal and disgusting labyrinths of the hold. I proceeded,
      therefore, without hesitation, to summon up all my remaining
      strength and fortitude, and endeavour, as I best might, to
      clamber over the crate.

      Upon standing erect, with this end in view, I found the
      undertaking even a more serious task than my fears had led me to
      imagine. On each side of the narrow passage arose a complete wall
      of various heavy lumber, which the least blunder on my part might
      be the means of bringing down upon my head; or, if this accident
      did not occur, the path might be effectually blocked up against
      my return by the descending mass, as it was in front by the
      obstacle there. The crate itself was a long and unwieldy box,
      upon which no foothold could be obtained. In vain I attempted, by
      every means in my power, to reach the top, with the hope of being
      thus enabled to draw myself up. Had I succeeded in reaching it,
      it is certain that my strength would have proved utterly
      inadequate to the task of getting over, and it was better in
      every respect that I failed. At length, in a desperate effort to
      force the crate from its ground, I felt a strong vibration in the
      side next me. I thrust my hand eagerly to the edge of the planks,
      and found that a very large one was loose. With my pocket-knife,
      which, luckily, I had with me, I succeeded, after great labour,
      in prying it entirely off; and getting it through the aperture,
      discovered, to my exceeding joy, that there were no boards on the
      opposite side—in other words, that the top was wanting, it being
      the bottom through which I had forced my way. I now met with no
      important difficulty in proceeding along the line until I finally
      reached the nail. With a beating heart I stood erect, and with a
      gentle touch pressed against the cover of the trap. It did not
      rise as soon as I had expected, and I pressed it with somewhat
      more determination, still dreading lest some other person than
      Augustus might be in his state-room. The door, however, to my
      astonishment, remained steady, and I became somewhat uneasy, for
      I knew that it had formerly required but little or no effort to
      remove it. I pushed it strongly—it was nevertheless firm: with
      all my strength—it still did not give way: with rage, with fury,
      with despair—it set at defiance my utmost efforts; and it was
      evident, from the unyielding nature of the resistance, that the
      hole had either been discovered and effectually nailed up, or
      that some immense weight had been placed upon it, which it was
      useless to think of removing.

      My sensations were those of extreme horror and dismay. In vain I
      attempted to reason on the probable cause of my being thus
      entombed. I could summon up no connected chain of reflection,
      and, sinking on the floor, gave way, unresistingly, to the most
      gloomy imaginings, in which the dreadful deaths of thirst,
      famine, suffocation, and premature interment crowded upon me as
      the prominent disasters to be encountered. At length there
      returned to me some portion of presence of mind. I arose, and
      felt with my fingers for the seams or cracks of the aperture.
      Having found them, I examined them closely to ascertain if they
      emitted any light from the state-room; but none was visible. I
      then forced the blade of my pen-knife through them, until I met
      with some hard obstacle. Scraping against it, I discovered it to
      be a solid mass of iron, which, from its peculiar wavy feel as I
      passed the blade along it, I concluded to be a chain-cable. The
      only course now left me was to retrace my way to the box, and
      there either yield to my sad fate, or try so to tranquilize my
      mind as to admit of my arranging some plan of escape. I
      immediately set about the attempt, and succeeded, after
      innumerable difficulties, in getting back. As I sank, utterly
      exhausted, upon the mattress, Tiger threw himself at full length
      by my side, and seemed as if desirous, by his caresses, of
      consoling me in my troubles, and urging me to bear them with
      fortitude.

      The singularity of his behavior at length forcibly arrested my
      attention. After licking my face and hands for some minutes, he
      would suddenly cease doing so, and utter a low whine. Upon
      reaching out my hand toward him, I then invariably found him
      lying on his back, with his paws uplifted. This conduct, so
      frequently repeated, appeared strange, and I could in no manner
      account for it. As the dog seemed distressed, I concluded that he
      had received some injury; and, taking his paws in my hands, I
      examined them one by one, but found no sign of any hurt. I then
      supposed him hungry, and gave him a large piece of ham, which he
      devoured with avidity—afterward, however, resuming his
      extraordinary manoeuvres. I now imagined that he was suffering,
      like myself, the torments of thirst, and was about adopting this
      conclusion as the true one, when the idea occurred to me that I
      had as yet only examined his paws, and that there might possibly
      be a wound upon some portion of his body or head. The latter I
      felt carefully over, but found nothing. On passing my hand,
      however, along his back, I perceived a slight erection of the
      hair extending completely across it. Probing this with my finger,
      I discovered a string, and tracing it up, found that it encircled
      the whole body. Upon a closer scrutiny, I came across a small
      slip of what had the feeling of letter paper, through which the
      string had been fastened in such a manner as to bring it
      immediately beneath the left shoulder of the animal.




CHAPTER 3


      The thought instantly occurred to me that the paper was a note
      from Augustus, and that some unaccountable accident having
      happened to prevent his relieving me from my dungeon, he had
      devised this method of acquainting me with the true state of
      affairs. Trembling with eagerness, I now commenced another search
      for my phosphorus matches and tapers. I had a confused
      recollection of having put them carefully away just before
      falling asleep; and, indeed, previously to my last journey to the
      trap, I had been able to remember the exact spot where I had
      deposited them. But now I endeavored in vain to call it to mind,
      and busied myself for a full hour in a fruitless and vexatious
      search for the missing articles; never, surely, was there a more
      tantalizing state of anxiety and suspense. At length, while
      groping about, with my head close to the ballast, near the
      opening of the box, and outside of it, I perceived a faint
      glimmering of light in the direction of the steerage. Greatly
      surprised, I endeavored to make my way toward it, as it appeared
      to be but a few feet from my position. Scarcely had I moved with
      this intention, when I lost sight of the glimmer entirely, and,
      before I could bring it into view again, was obliged to feel
      along by the box until I had exactly resumed my original
      situation. Now, moving my head with caution to and fro, I found
      that, by proceeding slowly, with great care, in an opposite
      direction to that in which I had at first started, I was enabled
      to draw near the light, still keeping it in view. Presently I
      came directly upon it (having squeezed my way through innumerable
      narrow windings), and found that it proceeded from some fragments
      of my matches lying in an empty barrel turned upon its side. I
      was wondering how they came in such a place, when my hand fell
      upon two or three pieces of taper wax, which had been evidently
      mumbled by the dog. I concluded at once that he had devoured the
      whole of my supply of candles, and I felt hopeless of being ever
      able to read the note of Augustus. The small remnants of the wax
      were so mashed up among other rubbish in the barrel, that I
      despaired of deriving any service from them, and left them as
      they were. The phosphorus, of which there was only a speck or
      two, I gathered up as well as I could, and returned with it,
      after much difficulty, to my box, where Tiger had all the while
      remained.

      What to do next I could not tell. The hold was so intensely dark
      that I could not see my hand, however close I would hold it to my
      face. The white slip of paper could barely be discerned, and not
      even that when I looked at it directly; by turning the exterior
      portions of the retina toward it—that is to say, by surveying it
      slightly askance, I found that it became in some measure
      perceptible. Thus the gloom of my prison may be imagined, and the
      note of my friend, if indeed it were a note from him, seemed only
      likely to throw me into further trouble, by disquieting to no
      purpose my already enfeebled and agitated mind. In vain I
      revolved in my brain a multitude of absurd expedients for
      procuring light—such expedients precisely as a man in the
      perturbed sleep occasioned by opium would be apt to fall upon for
      a similar purpose—each and all of which appear by turns to the
      dreamer the most reasonable and the most preposterous of
      conceptions, just as the reasoning or imaginative faculties
      flicker, alternately, one above the other. At last an idea
      occurred to me which seemed rational, and which gave me cause to
      wonder, very justly, that I had not entertained it before. I
      placed the slip of paper on the back of a book, and, collecting
      the fragments of the phosphorus matches which I had brought from
      the barrel, laid them together upon the paper. I then, with the
      palm of my hand, rubbed the whole over quickly, yet steadily. A
      clear light diffused itself immediately throughout the whole
      surface; and had there been any writing upon it, I should not
      have experienced the least difficulty, I am sure, in reading it.
      Not a syllable was there, however—nothing but a dreary and
      unsatisfactory blank; the illumination died away in a few
      seconds, and my heart died away within me as it went.

      I have before stated more than once that my intellect, for some
      period prior to this, had been in a condition nearly bordering on
      idiocy. There were, to be sure, momentary intervals of perfect
      sanity, and, now and then, even of energy; but these were few. It
      must be remembered that I had been, for many days certainly,
      inhaling the almost pestilential atmosphere of a close hold in a
      whaling vessel, and for a long portion of that time but scantily
      supplied with water. For the last fourteen or fifteen hours I had
      none—nor had I slept during that time. Salt provisions of the
      most exciting kind had been my chief, and, indeed, since the loss
      of the mutton, my only supply of food, with the exception of the
      sea-biscuit; and these latter were utterly useless to me, as they
      were too dry and hard to be swallowed in the swollen and parched
      condition of my throat. I was now in a high state of fever, and
      in every respect exceedingly ill. This will account for the fact
      that many miserable hours of despondency elapsed after my last
      adventure with the phosphorus, before the thought suggested
      itself that I had examined only one side of the paper. I shall
      not attempt to describe my feelings of rage (for I believe I was
      more angry than any thing else) when the egregious oversight I
      had committed flashed suddenly upon my perception. The blunder
      itself would have been unimportant, had not my own folly and
      impetuosity rendered it otherwise—in my disappointment at not
      finding some words upon the slip, I had childishly torn it in
      pieces and thrown it away, it was impossible to say where.

      From the worst part of this dilemma I was relieved by the
      sagacity of Tiger. Having got, after a long search, a small piece
      of the note, I put it to the dog’s nose, and endeavored to make
      him understand that he must bring me the rest of it. To my
      astonishment, (for I had taught him none of the usual tricks for
      which his breed are famous,) he seemed to enter at once into my
      meaning, and, rummaging about for a few moments, soon found
      another considerable portion. Bringing me this, he paused awhile,
      and, rubbing his nose against my hand, appeared to be waiting for
      my approval of what he had done. I patted him on the head, when
      he immediately made off again. It was now some minutes before he
      came back—but when he did come, he brought with him a large slip,
      which proved to be all the paper missing—it having been torn, it
      seems, only into three pieces. Luckily, I had no trouble in
      finding what few fragments of the phosphorus were left—being
      guided by the indistinct glow one or two of the particles still
      emitted. My difficulties had taught me the necessity of caution,
      and I now took time to reflect upon what I was about to do. It
      was very probable, I considered, that some words were written
      upon that side of the paper which had not been examined—but which
      side was that? Fitting the pieces together gave me no clew in
      this respect, although it assured me that the words (if there
      were any) would be found all on one side, and connected in a
      proper manner, as written. There was the greater necessity of
      ascertaining the point in question beyond a doubt, as the
      phosphorus remaining would be altogether insufficient for a third
      attempt, should I fail in the one I was now about to make. I
      placed the paper on a book as before, and sat for some minutes
      thoughtfully revolving the matter over in my mind. At last I
      thought it barely possible that the written side might have some
      unevenness on its surface, which a delicate sense of feeling
      might enable me to detect. I determined to make the experiment
      and passed my finger very carefully over the side which first
      presented itself. Nothing, however, was perceptible, and I turned
      the paper, adjusting it on the book. I now again carried my
      forefinger cautiously along, when I was aware of an exceedingly
      slight, but still discernable glow, which followed as it
      proceeded. This, I knew, must arise from some very minute
      remaining particles of the phosphorus with which I had covered
      the paper in my previous attempt. The other, or under side, then,
      was that on which lay the writing, if writing there should
      finally prove to be. Again I turned the note, and went to work as
      I had previously done. Having rubbed in the phosphorus, a
      brilliancy ensued as before—but this time several lines of MS. in
      a large hand, and apparently in red ink, became distinctly
      visible. The glimmer, although sufficiently bright, was but
      momentary. Still, had I not been too greatly excited, there would
      have been ample time enough for me to peruse the whole three
      sentences before me—for I saw there were three. In my anxiety,
      however, to read all at once, I succeeded only in reading the
      seven concluding words, which thus appeared—“blood—your life
      depends upon lying close.”

      Had I been able to ascertain the entire contents of the note—the
      full meaning of the admonition which my friend had thus attempted
      to convey, that admonition, even although it should have revealed
      a story of disaster the most unspeakable, could not, I am firmly
      convinced, have imbued my mind with one tithe of the harrowing
      and yet indefinable horror with which I was inspired by the
      fragmentary warning thus received. And “blood,” too, that word of
      all words—so rife at all times with mystery, and suffering, and
      terror—how trebly full of import did it now appear—how chilly and
      heavily (disjointed, as it thus was, from any foregoing words to
      qualify or render it distinct) did its vague syllables fall, amid
      the deep gloom of my prison, into the innermost recesses of my
      soul!

      Augustus had, undoubtedly, good reasons for wishing me to remain
      concealed, and I formed a thousand surmises as to what they could
      be—but I could think of nothing affording a satisfactory solution
      of the mystery. Just after returning from my last journey to the
      trap, and before my attention had been otherwise directed by the
      singular conduct of Tiger, I had come to the resolution of making
      myself heard at all events by those on board, or, if I could not
      succeed in this directly, of trying to cut my way through the
      orlop deck. The half certainty which I felt of being able to
      accomplish one of these two purposes in the last emergency, had
      given me courage (which I should not otherwise have had) to
      endure the evils of my situation. The few words I had been able
      to read, however, had cut me off from these final resources, and
      I now, for the first time, felt all the misery of my fate. In a
      paroxysm of despair I threw myself again upon the mattress,
      where, for about the period of a day and night, I lay in a kind
      of stupor, relieved only by momentary intervals of reason and
      recollection.

      At length I once more arose, and busied myself in reflection upon
      the horrors which encompassed me. For another twenty-four hours
      it was barely possible that I might exist without water—for a
      longer time I could not do so. During the first portion of my
      imprisonment I had made free use of the cordials with which
      Augustus had supplied me, but they only served to excite fever,
      without in the least degree assuaging thirst. I had now only
      about a gill left, and this was of a species of strong peach
      liqueur at which my stomach revolted. The sausages were entirely
      consumed; of the ham nothing remained but a small piece of the
      skin; and all the biscuit, except a few fragments of one, had
      been eaten by Tiger. To add to my troubles, I found that my
      headache was increasing momentarily, and with it the species of
      delirium which had distressed me more or less since my first
      falling asleep. For some hours past it had been with the greatest
      difficulty I could breathe at all, and now each attempt at so
      doing was attended with the most depressing spasmodic action of
      the chest. But there was still another and very different source
      of disquietude, and one, indeed, whose harassing terrors had been
      the chief means of arousing me to exertion from my stupor on the
      mattress. It arose from the demeanor of the dog.

      I first observed an alteration in his conduct while rubbing in
      the phosphorus on the paper in my last attempt. As I rubbed, he
      ran his nose against my hand with a slight snarl; but I was too
      greatly excited at the time to pay much attention to the
      circumstance. Soon afterward, it will be remembered, I threw
      myself on the mattress, and fell into a species of lethargy.
      Presently I became aware of a singular hissing sound close at my
      ears, and discovered it to proceed from Tiger, who was panting
      and wheezing in a state of the greatest apparent excitement, his
      eyeballs flashing fiercely through the gloom. I spoke to him,
      when he replied with a low growl, and then remained quiet.
      Presently I relapsed into my stupor, from which I was again
      awakened in a similar manner. This was repeated three or four
      times, until finally his behaviour inspired me with so great a
      degree of fear, that I became fully aroused. He was now lying
      close by the door of the box, snarling fearfully, although in a
      kind of undertone, and grinding his teeth as if strongly
      convulsed. I had no doubt whatever that the want of water or the
      confined atmosphere of the hold had driven him mad, and I was at
      a loss what course to pursue. I could not endure the thought of
      killing him, yet it seemed absolutely necessary for my own
      safety. I could distinctly perceive his eyes fastened upon me
      with an expression of the most deadly animosity, and I expected
      every instant that he would attack me. At last I could endure my
      terrible situation no longer, and determined to make my way from
      the box at all hazards, and dispatch him, if his opposition
      should render it necessary for me to do so. To get out, I had to
      pass directly over his body, and he already seemed to anticipate
      my design—missing himself upon his fore-legs (as I perceived by
      the altered position of his eyes), and displayed the whole of his
      white fangs, which were easily discernible. I took the remains of
      the ham-skin, and the bottle containing the liqueur, and secured
      them about my person, together with a large carving-knife which
      Augustus had left me—then, folding my cloak around me as closely
      as possible, I made a movement toward the mouth of the box. No
      sooner did I do this, than the dog sprang with a loud growl
      toward my throat. The whole weight of his body struck me on the
      right shoulder, and I fell violently to the left, while the
      enraged animal passed entirely over me. I had fallen upon my
      knees, with my head buried among the blankets, and these
      protected me from a second furious assault, during which I felt
      the sharp teeth pressing vigorously upon the woollen which
      enveloped my neck—yet, luckily, without being able to penetrate
      all the folds. I was now beneath the dog, and a few moments would
      place me completely in his power. Despair gave me strength, and I
      rose boldly up, shaking him from me by main force, and dragging
      with me the blankets from the mattress. These I now threw over
      him, and before he could extricate himself, I had got through the
      door and closed it effectually against his pursuit. In this
      struggle, however, I had been forced to drop the morsel of
      ham-skin, and I now found my whole stock of provisions reduced to
      a single gill of liqueur. As this reflection crossed my mind, I
      felt myself actuated by one of those fits of perverseness which
      might be supposed to influence a spoiled child in similar
      circumstances, and, raising the bottle to my lips, I drained it
      to the last drop, and dashed it furiously upon the floor.

      Scarcely had the echo of the crash died away, when I heard my
      name pronounced in an eager but subdued voice, issuing from the
      direction of the steerage. So unexpected was anything of the
      kind, and so intense was the emotion excited within me by the
      sound, that I endeavoured in vain to reply. My powers of speech
      totally failed, and in an agony of terror lest my friend should
      conclude me dead, and return without attempting to reach me, I
      stood up between the crates near the door of the box, trembling
      convulsively, and gasping and struggling for utterance. Had a
      thousand words depended upon a syllable, I could not have spoken
      it. There was a slight movement now audible among the lumber
      somewhere forward of my station. The sound presently grew less
      distinct, then again less so, and still less. Shall I ever forget
      my feelings at this moment? He was going—my friend, my companion,
      from whom I had a right to expect so much—he was going—he would
      abandon me—he was gone! He would leave me to perish miserably, to
      expire in the most horrible and loathesome of dungeons—and one
      word, one little syllable, would save me—yet that single syllable
      I could not utter! I felt, I am sure, more than ten thousand
      times the agonies of death itself. My brain reeled, and I fell,
      deadly sick, against the end of the box.

      As I fell the carving-knife was shaken out from the waist-band of
      my pantaloons, and dropped with a rattling sound to the floor.
      Never did any strain of the richest melody come so sweetly to my
      ears! With the intensest anxiety I listened to ascertain the
      effect of the noise upon Augustus—for I knew that the person who
      called my name could be no one but himself. All was silent for
      some moments. At length I again heard the word “Arthur!” repeated
      in a low tone, and one full of hesitation. Reviving hope loosened
      at once my powers of speech, and I now screamed at the top of my
      voice, “Augustus! oh, Augustus!” “Hush! for God’s sake be
      silent!” he replied, in a voice trembling with agitation; “I will
      be with you immediately—as soon as I can make my way through the
      hold.” For a long time I heard him moving among the lumber, and
      every moment seemed to me an age. At length I felt his hand upon
      my shoulder, and he placed, at the same moment, a bottle of water
      to my lips. Those only who have been suddenly redeemed from the
      jaws of the tomb, or who have known the insufferable torments of
      thirst under circumstances as aggravated as those which
      encompassed me in my dreary prison, can form any idea of the
      unutterable transports which that one long draught of the richest
      of all physical luxuries afforded.

      When I had in some degree satisfied my thirst, Augustus produced
      from his pocket three or four boiled potatoes, which I devoured
      with the greatest avidity. He had brought with him a light in a
      dark lantern, and the grateful rays afforded me scarcely less
      comfort than the food and drink. But I was impatient to learn the
      cause of his protracted absence, and he proceeded to recount what
      had happened on board during my incarceration.




CHAPTER 4


      The brig put to sea, as I had supposed, in about an hour after he
      had left the watch. This was on the twentieth of June. It will be
      remembered that I had then been in the hold for three days; and,
      during this period, there was so constant a bustle on board, and
      so much running to and fro, especially in the cabin and
      staterooms, that he had had no chance of visiting me without the
      risk of having the secret of the trap discovered. When at length
      he did come, I had assured him that I was doing as well as
      possible; and, therefore, for the two next days he felt but
      little uneasiness on my account—still, however, watching an
      opportunity of going down. It was not until the fourth day that
      he found one. Several times during this interval he had made up
      his mind to let his father know of the adventure, and have me
      come up at once; but we were still within reaching distance of
      Nantucket, and it was doubtful, from some expressions which had
      escaped Captain Barnard, whether he would not immediately put
      back if he discovered me to be on board. Besides, upon thinking
      the matter over, Augustus, so he told me, could not imagine that
      I was in immediate want, or that I would hesitate, in such case,
      to make myself heard at the trap. When, therefore, he considered
      everything he concluded to let me stay until he could meet with
      an opportunity of visiting me unobserved. This, as I said before,
      did not occur until the fourth day after his bringing me the
      watch, and the seventh since I had first entered the hold. He
      then went down without taking with him any water or provisions,
      intending in the first place merely to call my attention, and get
      me to come from the box to the trap,—when he would go up to the
      stateroom and thence hand me down a supply. When he descended for
      this purpose he found that I was asleep, for it seems that I was
      snoring very loudly. From all the calculations I can make on the
      subject, this must have been the slumber into which I fell just
      after my return from the trap with the watch, and which,
      consequently, must have lasted for more than three entire days
      and nights at the very least. Latterly, I have had reason both
      from my own experience and the assurance of others, to be
      acquainted with the strong soporific effects of the stench
      arising from old fish-oil when closely confined; and when I think
      of the condition of the hold in which I was imprisoned, and the
      long period during which the brig had been used as a whaling
      vessel, I am more inclined to wonder that I awoke at all, after
      once falling asleep, than that I should have slept
      uninterruptedly for the period specified above.

      Augustus called to me at first in a low voice and without closing
      the trap—but I made him no reply. He then shut the trap, and
      spoke to me in a louder, and finally in a very loud tone—still I
      continued to snore. He was now at a loss what to do. It would
      take him some time to make his way through the lumber to my box,
      and in the meanwhile his absence would be noticed by Captain
      Barnard, who had occasion for his services every minute, in
      arranging and copying papers connected with the business of the
      voyage. He determined, therefore, upon reflection, to ascend, and
      await another opportunity of visiting me. He was the more easily
      induced to this resolve, as my slumber appeared to be of the most
      tranquil nature, and he could not suppose that I had undergone
      any inconvenience from my incarceration. He had just made up his
      mind on these points when his attention was arrested by an
      unusual bustle, the sound of which proceeded apparently from the
      cabin. He sprang through the trap as quickly as possible, closed
      it, and threw open the door of his stateroom. No sooner had he
      put his foot over the threshold than a pistol flashed in his
      face, and he was knocked down, at the same moment, by a blow from
      a handspike.

      A strong hand held him on the cabin floor, with a tight grasp
      upon his throat; still he was able to see what was going on
      around him. His father was tied hand and foot, and lying along
      the steps of the companion-way, with his head down, and a deep
      wound in the forehead, from which the blood was flowing in a
      continued stream. He spoke not a word, and was apparently dying.
      Over him stood the first mate, eyeing him with an expression of
      fiendish derision, and deliberately searching his pockets, from
      which he presently drew forth a large wallet and a chronometer.
      Seven of the crew (among whom was the cook, a negro) were
      rummaging the staterooms on the larboard for arms, where they
      soon equipped themselves with muskets and ammunition. Besides
      Augustus and Captain Barnard, there were nine men altogether in
      the cabin, and these among the most ruffianly of the brig’s
      company. The villains now went upon deck, taking my friend with
      them after having secured his arms behind his back. They
      proceeded straight to the forecastle, which was fastened down—two
      of the mutineers standing by it with axes—two also at the main
      hatch. The mate called out in a loud voice: “Do you hear there
      below? tumble up with you, one by one—now, mark that—and no
      grumbling!” It was some minutes before any one appeared:—at last
      an Englishman, who had shipped as a raw hand, came up, weeping
      piteously, and entreating the mate, in the most humble manner, to
      spare his life. The only reply was a blow on the forehead from an
      axe. The poor fellow fell to the deck without a groan, and the
      black cook lifted him up in his arms as he would a child, and
      tossed him deliberately into the sea. Hearing the blow and the
      plunge of the body, the men below could now be induced to venture
      on deck neither by threats nor promises, until a proposition was
      made to smoke them out. A general rush then ensued, and for a
      moment it seemed possible that the brig might be retaken. The
      mutineers, however, succeeded at last in closing the forecastle
      effectually before more than six of their opponents could get up.
      These six, finding themselves so greatly outnumbered and without
      arms, submitted after a brief struggle. The mate gave them fair
      words—no doubt with a view of inducing those below to yield, for
      they had no difficulty in hearing all that was said on deck. The
      result proved his sagacity, no less than his diabolical villainy.
      All in the forecastle presently signified their intention of
      submitting, and, ascending one by one, were pinioned and then
      thrown on their backs, together with the first six—there being in
      all, of the crew who were not concerned in the mutiny,
      twenty-seven.

      A scene of the most horrible butchery ensued. The bound seamen
      were dragged to the gangway. Here the cook stood with an axe,
      striking each victim on the head as he was forced over the side
      of the vessel by the other mutineers. In this manner twenty-two
      perished, and Augustus had given himself up for lost, expecting
      every moment his own turn to come next. But it seemed that the
      villains were now either weary, or in some measure disgusted with
      their bloody labour; for the four remaining prisoners, together
      with my friend, who had been thrown on the deck with the rest,
      were respited while the mate sent below for rum, and the whole
      murderous party held a drunken carouse, which lasted until
      sunset. They now fell to disputing in regard to the fate of the
      survivors, who lay not more than four paces off, and could
      distinguish every word said. Upon some of the mutineers the
      liquor appeared to have a softening effect, for several voices
      were heard in favor of releasing the captives altogether, on
      condition of joining the mutiny and sharing the profits. The
      black cook, however (who in all respects was a perfect demon, and
      who seemed to exert as much influence, if not more, than the mate
      himself), would listen to no proposition of the kind, and rose
      repeatedly for the purpose of resuming his work at the gangway.
      Fortunately he was so far overcome by intoxication as to be
      easily restrained by the less bloodthirsty of the party, among
      whom was a line-manager, who went by the name of Dirk Peters.
      This man was the son of an Indian squaw of the tribe of
      Upsarokas, who live among the fastnesses of the Black Hills, near
      the source of the Missouri. His father was a fur-trader, I
      believe, or at least connected in some manner with the Indian
      trading-posts on Lewis river. Peters himself was one of the most
      ferocious-looking men I ever beheld. He was short in stature, not
      more than four feet eight inches high, but his limbs were of
      Herculean mould. His hands, especially, were so enormously thick
      and broad as hardly to retain a human shape. His arms, as well as
      legs, were bowed in the most singular manner, and appeared to
      possess no flexibility whatever. His head was equally deformed,
      being of immense size, with an indentation on the crown (like
      that on the head of most negroes), and entirely bald. To conceal
      this latter deficiency, which did not proceed from old age, he
      usually wore a wig formed of any hair-like material which
      presented itself—occasionally the skin of a Spanish dog or
      American grizzly bear. At the time spoken of, he had on a portion
      of one of these bearskins; and it added no little to the natural
      ferocity of his countenance, which betook of the Upsaroka
      character. The mouth extended nearly from ear to ear, the lips
      were thin, and seemed, like some other portions of his frame, to
      be devoid of natural pliancy, so that the ruling expression never
      varied under the influence of any emotion whatever. This ruling
      expression may be conceived when it is considered that the teeth
      were exceedingly long and protruding, and never even partially
      covered, in any instance, by the lips. To pass this man with a
      casual glance, one might imagine him to be convulsed with
      laughter, but a second look would induce a shuddering
      acknowledgment, that if such an expression were indicative of
      merriment, the merriment must be that of a demon. Of this
      singular being many anecdotes were prevalent among the seafaring
      men of Nantucket. These anecdotes went to prove his prodigious
      strength when under excitement, and some of them had given rise
      to a doubt of his sanity. But on board the Grampus, it seems, he
      was regarded, at the time of the mutiny, with feelings more of
      derision than of anything else. I have been thus particular in
      speaking of Dirk Peters, because, ferocious as he appeared, he
      proved the main instrument in preserving the life of Augustus,
      and because I shall have frequent occasion to mention him
      hereafter in the course of my narrative—a narrative, let me here
      say, which, in its latter portions, will be found to include
      incidents of a nature so entirely out of the range of human
      experience, and for this reason so far beyond the limits of human
      credulity, that I proceed in utter hopelessness of obtaining
      credence for all that I shall tell, yet confidently trusting in
      time and progressing science to verify some of the most important
      and most improbable of my statements.

      After much indecision and two or three violent quarrels, it was
      determined at last that all the prisoners (with the exception of
      Augustus, whom Peters insisted in a jocular manner upon keeping
      as his clerk) should be set adrift in one of the smallest
      whaleboats. The mate went down into the cabin to see if Captain
      Barnard was still living—for, it will be remembered, he was left
      below when the mutineers came up. Presently the two made their
      appearance, the captain pale as death, but somewhat recovered
      from the effects of his wound. He spoke to the men in a voice
      hardly articulate, entreated them not to set him adrift, but to
      return to their duty, and promising to land them wherever they
      chose, and to take no steps for bringing them to justice. He
      might as well have spoken to the winds. Two of the ruffians
      seized him by the arms and hurled him over the brig’s side into
      the boat, which had been lowered while the mate went below. The
      four men who were lying on the deck were then untied and ordered
      to follow, which they did without attempting any
      resistance—Augustus being still left in his painful position,
      although he struggled and prayed only for the poor satisfaction
      of being permitted to bid his father farewell. A handful of
      sea-biscuit and a jug of water were now handed down; but neither
      mast, sail, oar, nor compass. The boat was towed astern for a few
      minutes, during which the mutineers held another consultation—it
      was then finally cut adrift. By this time night had come on—there
      were neither moon nor stars visible—and a short and ugly sea was
      running, although there was no great deal of wind. The boat was
      instantly out of sight, and little hope could be entertained for
      the unfortunate sufferers who were in it. This event happened,
      however, in latitude 35 degrees 30’ north, longitude 61 degrees
      20’ west, and consequently at no very great distance from the
      Bermuda Islands. Augustus therefore endeavored to console himself
      with the idea that the boat might either succeed in reaching the
      land, or come sufficiently near to be fallen in with by vessels
      off the coast.

      All sail was now put upon the brig, and she continued her
      original course to the southwest—the mutineers being bent upon
      some piratical expedition, in which, from all that could be
      understood, a ship was to be intercepted on her way from the Cape
      Verd Islands to Porto Rico. No attention was paid to Augustus,
      who was untied and suffered to go about anywhere forward of the
      cabin companion-way. Dirk Peters treated him with some degree of
      kindness, and on one occasion saved him from the brutality of the
      cook. His situation was still one of the most precarious, as the
      men were continually intoxicated, and there was no relying upon
      their continued good-humor or carelessness in regard to himself.
      His anxiety on my account he represented, however, as the most
      distressing result of his condition; and, indeed, I had never
      reason to doubt the sincerity of his friendship. More than once
      he had resolved to acquaint the mutineers with the secret of my
      being on board, but was restrained from so doing, partly through
      recollection of the atrocities he had already beheld, and partly
      through a hope of being able soon to bring me relief. For the
      latter purpose he was constantly on the watch; but, in spite of
      the most constant vigilance, three days elapsed after the boat
      was cut adrift before any chance occurred. At length, on the
      night of the third day, there came on a heavy blow from the
      eastward, and all hands were called up to take in sail. During
      the confusion which ensued, he made his way below unobserved, and
      into the stateroom. What was his grief and horror in discovering
      that the latter had been rendered a place of deposit for a
      variety of sea-stores and ship-furniture, and that several
      fathoms of old chain-cable, which had been stowed away beneath
      the companion-ladder, had been dragged thence to make room for a
      chest, and were now lying immediately upon the trap! To remove it
      without discovery was impossible, and he returned on deck as
      quickly as he could. As he came up, the mate seized him by the
      throat, and demanding what he had been doing in the cabin, was
      about flinging him over the larboard bulwark, when his life was
      again preserved through the interference of Dirk Peters. Augustus
      was now put in handcuffs (of which there were several pairs on
      board), and his feet lashed tightly together. He was then taken
      into the steerage, and thrown into a lower berth next to the
      forecastle bulkheads, with the assurance that he should never put
      his foot on deck again “until the brig was no longer a brig.”
      This was the expression of the cook, who threw him into the
      berth—it is hardly possible to say what precise meaning intended
      by the phrase. The whole affair, however, proved the ultimate
      means of my relief, as will presently appear.




CHAPTER 5


      For some minutes after the cook had left the forecastle, Augustus
      abandoned himself to despair, never hoping to leave the berth
      alive. He now came to the resolution of acquainting the first of
      the men who should come down with my situation, thinking it
      better to let me take my chance with the mutineers than perish of
      thirst in the hold,—for it had been ten days since I was first
      imprisoned, and my jug of water was not a plentiful supply even
      for four. As he was thinking on this subject, the idea came all
      at once into his head that it might be possible to communicate
      with me by the way of the main hold. In any other circumstances,
      the difficulty and hazard of the undertaking would have prevented
      him from attempting it; but now he had, at all events, little
      prospect of life, and consequently little to lose, he bent his
      whole mind, therefore, upon the task.

      His handcuffs were the first consideration. At first he saw no
      method of removing them, and feared that he should thus be
      baffled in the very outset; but upon a closer scrutiny he
      discovered that the irons could be slipped off and on at
      pleasure, with very little effort or inconvenience, merely by
      squeezing his hands through them,—this species of manacle being
      altogether ineffectual in confining young persons, in whom the
      smaller bones readily yield to pressure. He now untied his feet,
      and, leaving the cord in such a manner that it could easily be
      readjusted in the event of any person’s coming down, proceeded to
      examine the bulkhead where it joined the berth. The partition
      here was of soft pine board, an inch thick, and he saw that he
      should have little trouble in cutting his way through. A voice
      was now heard at the forecastle companion-way, and he had just
      time to put his right hand into its handcuff (the left had not
      been removed) and to draw the rope in a slipknot around his
      ankle, when Dirk Peters came below, followed by Tiger, who
      immediately leaped into the berth and lay down. The dog had been
      brought on board by Augustus, who knew my attachment to the
      animal, and thought it would give me pleasure to have him with me
      during the voyage. He went up to our house for him immediately
      after first taking me into the hold, but did not think of
      mentioning the circumstance upon his bringing the watch. Since
      the mutiny, Augustus had not seen him before his appearance with
      Dirk Peters, and had given him up for lost, supposing him to have
      been thrown overboard by some of the malignant villains belonging
      to the mate’s gang. It appeared afterward that he had crawled
      into a hole beneath a whale-boat, from which, not having room to
      turn round, he could not extricate himself. Peters at last let
      him out, and, with a species of good feeling which my friend knew
      well how to appreciate, had now brought him to him in the
      forecastle as a companion, leaving at the same time some salt
      junk and potatoes, with a can of water, he then went on deck,
      promising to come down with something more to eat on the next
      day.

      When he had gone, Augustus freed both hands from the manacles and
      unfastened his feet. He then turned down the head of the mattress
      on which he had been lying, and with his penknife (for the
      ruffians had not thought it worth while to search him) commenced
      cutting vigorously across one of the partition planks, as closely
      as possible to the floor of the berth. He chose to cut here,
      because, if suddenly interrupted, he would be able to conceal
      what had been done by letting the head of the mattress fall into
      its proper position. For the remainder of the day, however, no
      disturbance occurred, and by night he had completely divided the
      plank. It should here be observed that none of the crew occupied
      the forecastle as a sleeping-place, living altogether in the
      cabin since the mutiny, drinking the wines and feasting on the
      sea-stores of Captain Barnard, and giving no more heed than was
      absolutely necessary to the navigation of the brig. These
      circumstances proved fortunate both for myself and Augustus; for,
      had matters been otherwise, he would have found it impossible to
      reach me. As it was, he proceeded with confidence in his design.
      It was near daybreak, however, before he completed the second
      division of the board (which was about a foot above the first
      cut), thus making an aperture quite large enough to admit his
      passage through with facility to the main orlop deck. Having got
      here, he made his way with but little trouble to the lower main
      hatch, although in so doing he had to scramble over tiers of
      oil-casks piled nearly as high as the upper deck, there being
      barely room enough left for his body. Upon reaching the hatch he
      found that Tiger had followed him below, squeezing between two
      rows of the casks. It was now too late, however, to attempt
      getting to me before dawn, as the chief difficulty lay in passing
      through the close stowage in the lower hold. He therefore
      resolved to return, and wait till the next night. With this
      design, he proceeded to loosen the hatch, so that he might have
      as little detention as possible when he should come again. No
      sooner had he loosened it than Tiger sprang eagerly to the small
      opening produced, snuffed for a moment, and then uttered a long
      whine, scratching at the same time, as if anxious to remove the
      covering with his paws. There could be no doubt, from his
      behaviour, that he was aware of my being in the hold, and
      Augustus thought it possible that he would be able to get to me
      if he put him down. He now hit upon the expedient of sending the
      note, as it was especially desirable that I should make no
      attempt at forcing my way out at least under existing
      circumstances, and there could be no certainty of his getting to
      me himself on the morrow as he intended. After-events proved how
      fortunate it was that the idea occurred to him as it did; for,
      had it not been for the receipt of the note, I should undoubtedly
      have fallen upon some plan, however desperate, of alarming the
      crew, and both our lives would most probably have been sacrificed
      in consequence.

      Having concluded to write, the difficulty was now to procure the
      materials for so doing. An old toothpick was soon made into a
      pen; and this by means of feeling altogether, for the
      between-decks was as dark as pitch. Paper enough was obtained
      from the back of a letter—a duplicate of the forged letter from
      Mr. Ross. This had been the original draught; but the handwriting
      not being sufficiently well imitated, Augustus had written
      another, thrusting the first, by good fortune, into his
      coat-pocket, where it was now most opportunely discovered. Ink
      alone was thus wanting, and a substitute was immediately found
      for this by means of a slight incision with the pen-knife on the
      back of a finger just above the nail—a copious flow of blood
      ensuing, as usual, from wounds in that vicinity. The note was now
      written, as well as it could be in the dark and under the
      circumstances. It briefly explained that a mutiny had taken
      place; that Captain Barnard was set adrift; and that I might
      expect immediate relief as far as provisions were concerned, but
      must not venture upon making any disturbance. It concluded with
      these words: “_I have scrawled this with blood—your life depends
      upon lying close._”

      This slip of paper being tied upon the dog, he was now put down
      the hatchway, and Augustus made the best of his way back to the
      forecastle, where he found no reason to believe that any of the
      crew had been in his absence. To conceal the hole in the
      partition, he drove his knife in just above it, and hung up a
      pea-jacket which he found in the berth. His handcuffs were then
      replaced, and also the rope around his ankles.

      These arrangements were scarcely completed when Dirk Peters came
      below, very drunk, but in excellent humour, and bringing with him
      my friend’s allowance of provision for the day. This consisted of
      a dozen large Irish potatoes roasted, and a pitcher of water. He
      sat for some time on a chest by the berth, and talked freely
      about the mate and the general concerns of the brig. His
      demeanour was exceedingly capricious, and even grotesque. At one
      time Augustus was much alarmed by odd conduct. At last, however,
      he went on deck, muttering a promise to bring his prisoner a good
      dinner on the morrow. During the day two of the crew (harpooners)
      came down, accompanied by the cook, all three in nearly the last
      stage of intoxication. Like Peters, they made no scruple of
      talking unreservedly about their plans. It appeared that they
      were much divided among themselves as to their ultimate course,
      agreeing in no point, except the attack on the ship from the Cape
      Verd Islands, with which they were in hourly expectation of
      meeting. As far as could be ascertained, the mutiny had not been
      brought about altogether for the sake of booty; a private pique
      of the chief mate’s against Captain Barnard having been the main
      instigation. There now seemed to be two principal factions among
      the crew—one headed by the mate, the other by the cook. The
      former party were for seizing the first suitable vessel which
      should present itself, and equipping it at some of the West India
      Islands for a piratical cruise. The latter division, however,
      which was the stronger, and included Dirk Peters among its
      partisans, were bent upon pursuing the course originally laid out
      for the brig into the South Pacific; there either to take whale,
      or act otherwise, as circumstances should suggest. The
      representations of Peters, who had frequently visited these
      regions, had great weight, apparently, with the mutineers,
      wavering, as they were, between half-engendered notions of profit
      and pleasure. He dwelt on the world of novelty and amusement to
      be found among the innumerable islands of the Pacific, on the
      perfect security and freedom from all restraint to be enjoyed,
      but, more particularly, on the deliciousness of the climate, on
      the abundant means of good living, and on the voluptuous beauty
      of the women. As yet, nothing had been absolutely determined
      upon; but the pictures of the hybrid line-manager were taking
      strong hold upon the ardent imaginations of the seamen, and there
      was every possibility that his intentions would be finally
      carried into effect.

      The three men went away in about an hour, and no one else entered
      the forecastle all day. Augustus lay quiet until nearly night. He
      then freed himself from the rope and irons, and prepared for his
      attempt. A bottle was found in one of the berths, and this he
      filled with water from the pitcher left by Peters, storing his
      pockets at the same time with cold potatoes. To his great joy he
      also came across a lantern, with a small piece of tallow candle
      in it. This he could light at any moment, as he had in his
      possession a box of phosphorus matches. When it was quite dark,
      he got through the hole in the bulkhead, having taken the
      precaution to arrange the bedclothes in the berth so as to convey
      the idea of a person covered up. When through, he hung up the
      pea-jacket on his knife, as before, to conceal the aperture—this
      manoeuvre being easily effected, as he did not readjust the piece
      of plank taken out until afterward. He was now on the main orlop
      deck, and proceeded to make his way, as before, between the upper
      deck and the oil-casks to the main hatchway. Having reached this,
      he lit the piece of candle, and descended, groping with extreme
      difficulty among the compact stowage of the hold. In a few
      moments he became alarmed at the insufferable stench and the
      closeness of the atmosphere. He could not think it possible that
      I had survived my confinement for so long a period breathing so
      oppressive an air. He called my name repeatedly, but I made him
      no reply, and his apprehensions seemed thus to be confirmed. The
      brig was rolling violently, and there was so much noise in
      consequence, that it was useless to listen for any weak sound,
      such as those of my breathing or snoring. He threw open the
      lantern, and held it as high as possible, whenever an opportunity
      occurred, in order that, by observing the light, I might, if
      alive, be aware that succor was approaching. Still nothing was
      heard from me, and the supposition of my death began to assume
      the character of certainty. He determined, nevertheless, to force
      a passage, if possible, to the box, and at least ascertain beyond
      a doubt the truth of his surmises. He pushed on for some time in
      a most pitiable state of anxiety, until, at length, he found the
      pathway utterly blocked up, and that there was no possibility of
      making any farther way by the course in which he had set out.
      Overcome now by his feelings, he threw himself among the lumber
      in despair, and wept like a child. It was at this period that he
      heard the crash occasioned by the bottle which I had thrown down.
      Fortunate, indeed, was it that the incident occurred—for, upon
      this incident, trivial as it appears, the thread of my destiny
      depended. Many years elapsed, however, before I was aware of this
      fact. A natural shame and regret for his weakness and indecision
      prevented Augustus from confiding to me at once what a more
      intimate and unreserved communion afterward induced him to
      reveal. Upon finding his further progress in the hold impeded by
      obstacles which he could not overcome, he had resolved to abandon
      his attempt at reaching me, and return at once to the forecastle.
      Before condemning him entirely on this head, the harassing
      circumstances which embarrassed him should be taken into
      consideration. The night was fast wearing away, and his absence
      from the forecastle might be discovered; and indeed would
      necessarily be so, if he should fail to get back to the berth by
      daybreak. His candle was expiring in the socket, and there would
      be the greatest difficulty in retracing his way to the hatchway
      in the dark. It must be allowed, too, that he had every good
      reason to believe me dead; in which event no benefit could result
      to me from his reaching the box, and a world of danger would be
      encountered to no purpose by himself. He had repeatedly called,
      and I had made him no answer. I had been now eleven days and
      nights with no more water than that contained in the jug which he
      had left with me—a supply which it was not at all probable I had
      hoarded in the beginning of my confinement, as I had every cause
      to expect a speedy release. The atmosphere of the hold, too, must
      have appeared to him, coming from the comparatively open air of
      the steerage, of a nature absolutely poisonous, and by far more
      intolerable than it had seemed to me upon my first taking up my
      quarters in the box—the hatchways at that time having been
      constantly open for many months previous. Add to these
      considerations that of the scene of bloodshed and terror so
      lately witnessed by my friend; his confinement, privations, and
      narrow escapes from death, together with the frail and equivocal
      tenure by which he still existed—circumstances all so well
      calculated to prostrate every energy of mind—and the reader will
      be easily brought, as I have been, to regard his apparent falling
      off in friendship and in faith with sentiments rather of sorrow
      than of anger.

      The crash of the bottle was distinctly heard, yet Augustus was
      not sure that it proceeded from the hold. The doubt, however, was
      sufficient inducement to persevere. He clambered up nearly to the
      orlop deck by means of the stowage, and then, watching for a lull
      in the pitchings of the vessel, he called out to me in as loud a
      tone as he could command, regardless, for the moment, of being
      overheard by the crew. It will be remembered that on this
      occasion the voice reached me, but I was so entirely overcome by
      violent agitation as to be incapable of reply. Confident, now,
      that his worst apprehensions were well founded, he descended,
      with a view of getting back to the forecastle without loss of
      time. In his haste some small boxes were thrown down, the noise
      occasioned by which I heard, as will be recollected. He had made
      considerable progress on his return when the fall of the knife
      again caused him to hesitate. He retraced his steps immediately,
      and, clambering up the stowage a second time, called out my name,
      loudly as before, having watched for a lull. This time I found
      voice to answer. Overjoyed at discovering me to be still alive,
      he now resolved to brave every difficulty and danger in reaching
      me. Having extricated himself as quickly as possible from the
      labyrinth of lumber by which he was hemmed in, he at length
      struck into an opening which promised better, and finally, after
      a series of struggles, arrived at the box in a state of utter
      exhaustion.




CHAPTER 6


      The leading particulars of this narration were all that Augustus
      communicated to me while we remained near the box. It was not
      until afterward that he entered fully into all the details. He
      was apprehensive of being missed, and I was wild with impatience
      to leave my detested place of confinement. We resolved to make
      our way at once to the hole in the bulkhead, near which I was to
      remain for the present, while he went through to reconnoiter. To
      leave Tiger in the box was what neither of us could endure to
      think of, yet, how to act otherwise was the question. He now
      seemed to be perfectly quiet, and we could not even distinguish
      the sound of his breathing upon applying our ears closely to the
      box. I was convinced that he was dead, and determined to open the
      door. We found him lying at full length, apparently in a deep
      stupor, yet still alive. No time was to be lost, yet I could not
      bring myself to abandon an animal who had now been twice
      instrumental in saving my life, without some attempt at
      preserving him. We therefore dragged him along with us as well as
      we could, although with the greatest difficulty and fatigue;
      Augustus, during part of the time, being forced to clamber over
      the impediments in our way with the huge dog in his arms—a feat
      to which the feebleness of my frame rendered me totally
      inadequate. At length we succeeded in reaching the hole, when
      Augustus got through, and Tiger was pushed in afterward. All was
      found to be safe, and we did not fail to return sincere thanks to
      God for our deliverance from the imminent danger we had escaped.
      For the present, it was agreed that I should remain near the
      opening, through which my companion could readily supply me with
      a part of his daily provision, and where I could have the
      advantages of breathing an atmosphere comparatively pure.

      In explanation of some portions of this narrative, wherein I have
      spoken of the stowage of the brig, and which may appear ambiguous
      to some of my readers who may have seen a proper or regular
      stowage, I must here state that the manner in which this most
      important duty had been performed on board the Grampus was a most
      shameful piece of neglect on the part of Captain Barnard, who was
      by no means as careful or as experienced a seaman as the
      hazardous nature of the service on which he was employed would
      seem necessarily to demand. A proper stowage cannot be
      accomplished in a careless manner, and many most disastrous
      accidents, even within the limits of my own experience, have
      arisen from neglect or ignorance in this particular. Coasting
      vessels, in the frequent hurry and bustle attendant upon taking
      in or discharging cargo, are the most liable to mishap from the
      want of a proper attention to stowage. The great point is to
      allow no possibility of the cargo or ballast shifting position
      even in the most violent rollings of the vessel. With this end,
      great attention must be paid, not only to the bulk taken in, but
      to the nature of the bulk, and whether there be a full or only a
      partial cargo. In most kinds of freight the stowage is
      accomplished by means of a screw. Thus, in a load of tobacco or
      flour, the whole is screwed so tightly into the hold of the
      vessel that the barrels or hogsheads, upon discharging, are found
      to be completely flattened, and take some time to regain their
      original shape. This screwing, however, is resorted to
      principally with a view of obtaining more room in the hold; for
      in a full load of any such commodities as flour or tobacco, there
      can be no danger of any shifting whatever, at least none from
      which inconvenience can result. There have been instances,
      indeed, where this method of screwing has resulted in the most
      lamentable consequences, arising from a cause altogether distinct
      from the danger attendant upon a shifting of cargo. A load of
      cotton, for example, tightly screwed while in certain conditions,
      has been known, through the expansion of its bulk, to rend a
      vessel asunder at sea. There can be no doubt either that the same
      result would ensue in the case of tobacco, while undergoing its
      usual course of fermentation, were it not for the interstices
      consequent upon the rotundity of the hogsheads.

      It is when a partial cargo is received that danger is chiefly to
      be apprehended from shifting, and that precautions should be
      always taken to guard against such misfortune. Only those who
      have encountered a violent gale of wind, or rather who have
      experienced the rolling of a vessel in a sudden calm after the
      gale, can form an idea of the tremendous force of the plunges,
      and of the consequent terrible impetus given to all loose
      articles in the vessel. It is then that the necessity of a
      cautious stowage, when there is a partial cargo, becomes obvious.
      When lying-to (especially with a small head sail), a vessel which
      is not properly modelled in the bows is frequently thrown upon
      her beam-ends; this occurring even every fifteen or twenty
      minutes upon an average, yet without any serious consequences
      resulting, provided there be a proper stowage. If this, however,
      has not been strictly attended to, in the first of these heavy
      lurches the whole of the cargo tumbles over to the side of the
      vessel which lies upon the water, and, being thus prevented from
      regaining her equilibrium, as she would otherwise necessarily do,
      she is certain to fill in a few seconds and go down. It is not
      too much to say that at least one-half of the instances in which
      vessels have foundered in heavy gales at sea may be attributed to
      a shifting of cargo or of ballast.

      When a partial cargo of any kind is taken on board, the whole,
      after being first stowed as compactly as may be, should be
      covered with a layer of stout shifting-boards, extending
      completely across the vessel. Upon these boards strong temporary
      stanchions should be erected, reaching to the timbers above, and
      thus securing every thing in its place. In cargoes consisting of
      grain, or any similar matter, additional precautions are
      requisite. A hold filled entirely with grain upon leaving port
      will be found not more than three fourths full upon reaching its
      destination—this, too, although the freight, when measured bushel
      by bushel by the consignee, will overrun by a vast deal (on
      account of the swelling of the grain) the quantity consigned.
      This result is occasioned by settling during the voyage, and is
      the more perceptible in proportion to the roughness of the
      weather experienced. If grain loosely thrown in a vessel, then,
      is ever so well secured by shifting-boards and stanchions, it
      will be liable to shift in a long passage so greatly as to bring
      about the most distressing calamities. To prevent these, every
      method should be employed before leaving port to settle the cargo
      as much as possible; and for this there are many contrivances,
      among which may be mentioned the driving of wedges into the
      grain. Even after all this is done, and unusual pains taken to
      secure the shifting-boards, no seaman who knows what he is about
      will feel altogether secure in a gale of any violence with a
      cargo of grain on board, and, least of all, with a partial cargo.
      Yet there are hundreds of our coasting vessels, and, it is
      likely, many more from the ports of Europe, which sail daily with
      partial cargoes, even of the most dangerous species, and without
      any precaution whatever. The wonder is that no more accidents
      occur than do actually happen. A lamentable instance of this
      heedlessness occurred to my knowledge in the case of Captain Joel
      Rice of the schooner Firefly, which sailed from Richmond,
      Virginia, to Madeira, with a cargo of corn, in the year 1825. The
      captain had gone many voyages without serious accident, although
      he was in the habit of paying no attention whatever to his
      stowage, more than to secure it in the ordinary manner. He had
      never before sailed with a cargo of grain, and on this occasion
      had the corn thrown on board loosely, when it did not much more
      than half fill the vessel. For the first portion of the voyage he
      met with nothing more than light breezes; but when within a day’s
      sail of Madeira there came on a strong gale from the N. N. E.
      which forced him to lie-to. He brought the schooner to the wind
      under a double-reefed foresail alone, when she rode as well as
      any vessel could be expected to do, and shipped not a drop of
      water. Toward night the gale somewhat abated, and she rolled with
      more unsteadiness than before, but still did very well, until a
      heavy lurch threw her upon her beam-ends to starboard. The corn
      was then heard to shift bodily, the force of the movement
      bursting open the main hatchway. The vessel went down like a
      shot. This happened within hail of a small sloop from Madeira,
      which picked up one of the crew (the only person saved), and
      which rode out the gale in perfect security, as indeed a jolly
      boat might have done under proper management.

      The stowage on board the Grampus was most clumsily done, if
      stowage that could be called which was little better than a
      promiscuous huddling together of oil-casks {*1} and ship
      furniture. I have already spoken of the condition of articles in
      the hold. On the orlop deck there was space enough for my body
      (as I have stated) between the oil-casks and the upper deck; a
      space was left open around the main hatchway; and several other
      large spaces were left in the stowage. Near the hole cut through
      the bulkhead by Augustus there was room enough for an entire
      cask, and in this space I found myself comfortably situated for
      the present.

      By the time my friend had got safely into the berth, and
      readjusted his handcuffs and the rope, it was broad daylight. We
      had made a narrow escape indeed; for scarcely had he arranged all
      matters, when the mate came below, with Dirk Peters and the cook.
      They talked for some time about the vessel from the Cape Verds,
      and seemed to be excessively anxious for her appearance. At
      length the cook came to the berth in which Augustus was lying,
      and seated himself in it near the head. I could see and hear
      every thing from my hiding-place, for the piece cut out had not
      been put back, and I was in momentary expectation that the negro
      would fall against the pea-jacket, which was hung up to conceal
      the aperture, in which case all would have been discovered, and
      our lives would, no doubt, have been instantly sacrificed. Our
      good fortune prevailed, however; and although he frequently
      touched it as the vessel rolled, he never pressed against it
      sufficiently to bring about a discovery. The bottom of the jacket
      had been carefully fastened to the bulkhead, so that the hole
      might not be seen by its swinging to one side. All this time
      Tiger was lying in the foot of the berth, and appeared to have
      recovered in some measure his faculties, for I could see him
      occasionally open his eyes and draw a long breath.

      After a few minutes the mate and cook went above, leaving Dirk
      Peters behind, who, as soon as they were gone, came and sat
      himself down in the place just occupied by the mate. He began to
      talk very sociably with Augustus, and we could now see that the
      greater part of his apparent intoxication, while the two others
      were with him, was a feint. He answered all my companion’s
      questions with perfect freedom; told him that he had no doubt of
      his father’s having been picked up, as there were no less than
      five sail in sight just before sundown on the day he was cut
      adrift; and used other language of a consolatory nature, which
      occasioned me no less surprise than pleasure. Indeed, I began to
      entertain hopes, that through the instrumentality of Peters we
      might be finally enabled to regain possession of the brig, and
      this idea I mentioned to Augustus as soon as I found an
      opportunity. He thought the matter possible, but urged the
      necessity of the greatest caution in making the attempt, as the
      conduct of the hybrid appeared to be instigated by the most
      arbitrary caprice alone; and, indeed, it was difficult to say if
      he was at any moment of sound mind. Peters went upon deck in
      about an hour, and did not return again until noon, when he
      brought Augustus a plentiful supply of junk beef and pudding. Of
      this, when we were left alone, I partook heartily, without
      returning through the hole. No one else came down into the
      forecastle during the day, and at night, I got into Augustus’
      berth, where I slept soundly and sweetly until nearly daybreak,
      when he awakened me upon hearing a stir upon deck, and I regained
      my hiding-place as quickly as possible. When the day was fully
      broke, we found that Tiger had recovered his strength almost
      entirely, and gave no indications of hydrophobia, drinking a
      little water that was offered him with great apparent eagerness.
      During the day he regained all his former vigour and appetite.
      His strange conduct had been brought on, no doubt, by the
      deleterious quality of the air of the hold, and had no connexion
      with canine madness. I could not sufficiently rejoice that I had
      persisted in bringing him with me from the box. This day was the
      thirtieth of June, and the thirteenth since the Grampus made sail
      from Nantucket.

      On the second of July the mate came below drunk as usual, and in
      an excessively good-humor. He came to Augustus’s berth, and,
      giving him a slap on the back, asked him if he thought he could
      behave himself if he let him loose, and whether he would promise
      not to be going into the cabin again. To this, of course, my
      friend answered in the affirmative, when the ruffian set him at
      liberty, after making him drink from a flask of rum which he drew
      from his coat-pocket. Both now went on deck, and I did not see
      Augustus for about three hours. He then came below with the good
      news that he had obtained permission to go about the brig as he
      pleased anywhere forward of the mainmast, and that he had been
      ordered to sleep, as usual, in the forecastle. He brought me,
      too, a good dinner, and a plentiful supply of water. The brig was
      still cruising for the vessel from the Cape Verds, and a sail was
      now in sight, which was thought to be the one in question. As the
      events of the ensuing eight days were of little importance, and
      had no direct bearing upon the main incidents of my narrative, I
      will here throw them into the form of a journal, as I do not wish
      to omit them altogether.

      July 3. Augustus furnished me with three blankets, with which I
      contrived a comfortable bed in my hiding-place. No one came
      below, except my companion, during the day. Tiger took his
      station in the berth just by the aperture, and slept heavily, as
      if not yet entirely recovered from the effects of his sickness.
      Toward night a flaw of wind struck the brig before sail could be
      taken in, and very nearly capsized her. The puff died away
      immediately, however, and no damage was done beyond the splitting
      of the foretopsail. Dirk Peters treated Augustus all this day
      with great kindness and entered into a long conversation with him
      respecting the Pacific Ocean, and the islands he had visited in
      that region. He asked him whether he would not like to go with
      the mutineers on a kind of exploring and pleasure voyage in those
      quarters, and said that the men were gradually coming over to the
      mate’s views. To this Augustus thought it best to reply that he
      would be glad to go on such an adventure, since nothing better
      could be done, and that any thing was preferable to a piratical
      life.

      July 4th. The vessel in sight proved to be a small brig from
      Liverpool, and was allowed to pass unmolested. Augustus spent
      most of his time on deck, with a view of obtaining all the
      information in his power respecting the intentions of the
      mutineers. They had frequent and violent quarrels among
      themselves, in one of which a harpooner, Jim Bonner, was thrown
      overboard. The party of the mate was gaining ground. Jim Bonner
      belonged to the cook’s gang, of which Peters was a partisan.

      July 5th. About daybreak there came on a stiff breeze from the
      west, which at noon freshened into a gale, so that the brig could
      carry nothing more than her trysail and foresail. In taking in
      the foretopsail, Simms, one of the common hands, and belonging
      also to the cook’s gang, fell overboard, being very much in
      liquor, and was drowned—no attempt being made to save him. The
      whole number of persons on board was now thirteen, to wit: Dirk
      Peters; Seymour, the black cook; Jones, Greely, Hartman Rogers
      and William Allen, all of the cook’s party; the mate, whose name
      I never learned; Absalom Hicks, Wilson, John Hunty Richard
      Parker, of the mate’s party;—besides Augustus and myself.

      July 6th. The gale lasted all this day, blowing in heavy squalls,
      accompanied with rain. The brig took in a good deal of water
      through her seams, and one of the pumps was kept continually
      going, Augustus being forced to take his turn. Just at twilight a
      large ship passed close by us, without having been discovered
      until within hail. The ship was supposed to be the one for which
      the mutineers were on the lookout. The mate hailed her, but the
      reply was drowned in the roaring of the gale. At eleven, a sea
      was shipped amidships, which tore away a great portion of the
      larboard bulwarks, and did some other slight damage. Toward
      morning the weather moderated, and at sunrise there was very
      little wind.

      July 7th. There was a heavy swell running all this day, during
      which the brig, being light, rolled excessively, and many
      articles broke loose in the hold, as I could hear distinctly from
      my hiding-place. I suffered a great deal from sea-sickness.
      Peters had a long conversation this day with Augustus, and told
      him that two of his gang, Greely and Allen, had gone over to the
      mate, and were resolved to turn pirates. He put several questions
      to Augustus which he did not then exactly understand. During a
      part of this evening the leak gained upon the vessel; and little
      could be done to remedy it, as it was occasioned by the brig's
      straining, and taking in the water through her seams. A sail was
      thrummed, and got under the bows, which aided us in some measure,
      so that we began to gain upon the leak.

      July 8th. A light breeze sprang up at sunrise from the eastward,
      when the mate headed the brig to the southwest, with the
      intention of making some of the West India islands in pursuance
      of his piratical designs. No opposition was made by Peters or the
      cook—at least none in the hearing of Augustus. All idea of taking
      the vessel from the Cape Verds was abandoned. The leak was now
      easily kept under by one pump going every three quarters of an
      hour. The sail was drawn from beneath the bows. Spoke two small
      schooners during the day.

      July 9th. Fine weather. All hands employed in repairing bulwarks.
      Peters had again a long conversation with Augustus, and spoke
      more plainly than he had done heretofore. He said nothing should
      induce him to come into the mate’s views, and even hinted his
      intention of taking the brig out of his hands. He asked my friend
      if he could depend upon his aid in such case, to which Augustus
      said, “Yes,” without hesitation. Peters then said he would sound
      the others of his party upon the subject, and went away. During
      the remainder of the day Augustus had no opportunity of speaking
      with him privately.




CHAPTER 7


      July 10. Spoke a brig from Rio, bound to Norfolk. Weather hazy,
      with a light baffling wind from the eastward. To-day Hartman
      Rogers died, having been attacked on the eighth with spasms after
      drinking a glass of grog. This man was of the cook’s party, and
      one upon whom Peters placed his main reliance. He told Augustus
      that he believed the mate had poisoned him, and that he expected,
      if he did not be on the look-out, his own turn would come
      shortly. There were now only himself, Jones, and the cook
      belonging to his own gang—on the other side there were five. He
      had spoken to Jones about taking the command from the mate; but
      the project having been coolly received, he had been deterred
      from pressing the matter any further, or from saying any thing to
      the cook. It was well, as it happened, that he was so prudent,
      for in the afternoon the cook expressed his determination of
      siding with the mate, and went over formally to that party; while
      Jones took an opportunity of quarrelling with Peters, and hinted
      that he would let the mate know of the plan in agitation. There
      was now, evidently, no time to be lost, and Peters expressed his
      determination of attempting to take the vessel at all hazards,
      provided Augustus would lend him his aid. My friend at once
      assured him of his willingness to enter into any plan for that
      purpose, and, thinking the opportunity a favourable one, made
      known the fact of my being on board. At this the hybrid was not
      more astonished than delighted, as he had no reliance whatever
      upon Jones, whom he already considered as belonging to the party
      of the mate. They went below immediately, when Augustus called to
      me by name, and Peters and myself were soon made acquainted. It
      was agreed that we should attempt to retake the vessel upon the
      first good opportunity, leaving Jones altogether out of our
      councils. In the event of success, we were to run the brig into
      the first port that offered, and deliver her up. The desertion of
      his party had frustrated Peters’ design of going into the
      Pacific—an adventure which could not be accomplished without a
      crew, and he depended upon either getting acquitted upon trial,
      on the score of insanity (which he solemnly avowed had actuated
      him in lending his aid to the mutiny), or upon obtaining a
      pardon, if found guilty, through the representations of Augustus
      and myself. Our deliberations were interrupted for the present by
      the cry of, “All hands take in sail,” and Peters and Augustus ran
      up on deck.

      As usual, the crew were nearly all drunk; and, before sail could
      be properly taken in, a violent squall laid the brig on her
      beam-ends. By keeping her away, however, she righted, having
      shipped a good deal of water. Scarcely was everything secure,
      when another squall took the vessel, and immediately afterward
      another—no damage being done. There was every appearance of a
      gale of wind, which, indeed, shortly came on, with great fury,
      from the northward and westward. All was made as snug as
      possible, and we laid-to, as usual, under a close-reefed
      foresail. As night drew on, the wind increased in violence, with
      a remarkably heavy sea. Peters now came into the forecastle with
      Augustus, and we resumed our deliberations.

      We agreed that no opportunity could be more favourable than the
      present for carrying our designs into effect, as an attempt at
      such a moment would never be anticipated. As the brig was snugly
      laid-to, there would be no necessity of manoeuvring her until
      good weather, when, if we succeeded in our attempt, we might
      liberate one, or perhaps two of the men, to aid us in taking her
      into port. The main difficulty was the great disproportion in our
      forces. There were only three of us, and in the cabin there were
      nine. All the arms on board, too, were in their possession, with
      the exception of a pair of small pistols which Peters had
      concealed about his person, and the large seaman’s knife which he
      always wore in the waistband of his pantaloons. From certain
      indications, too—such, for example, as there being no such thing
      as an axe or a handspike lying in their customary places—we began
      to fear that the mate had his suspicions, at least in regard to
      Peters, and that he would let slip no opportunity of getting rid
      of him. It was clear, indeed, that what we should determine to do
      could not be done too soon. Still the odds were too much against
      us to allow of our proceeding without the greatest caution.

      Peters proposed that he should go up on deck, and enter into
      conversation with the watch (Allen), when he would be able to
      throw him into the sea without trouble, and without making any
      disturbance, by seizing a good opportunity, that Augustus and
      myself should then come up, and endeavour to provide ourselves
      with some kind of weapons from the deck, and that we should then
      make a rush together, and secure the companion-way before any
      opposition could be offered. I objected to this, because I could
      not believe that the mate (who was a cunning fellow in all
      matters which did not affect his superstitious prejudices) would
      suffer himself to be so easily entrapped. The very fact of there
      being a watch on deck at all was sufficient proof that he was
      upon the alert,—it not being usual except in vessels where
      discipline is most rigidly enforced, to station a watch on deck
      when a vessel is lying-to in a gale of wind. As I address myself
      principally, if not altogether, to persons who have never been to
      sea, it may be as well to state the exact condition of a vessel
      under such circumstances. Lying-to, or, in sea-parlance,
      “laying-to,” is a measure resorted to for various purposes, and
      effected in various manners. In moderate weather it is frequently
      done with a view of merely bringing the vessel to a stand-still,
      to wait for another vessel or any similar object. If the vessel
      which lies-to is under full sail, the manoeuvre is usually
      accomplished by throwing round some portion of her sails, so as
      to let the wind take them aback, when she becomes stationary. But
      we are now speaking of lying-to in a gale of wind. This is done
      when the wind is ahead, and too violent to admit of carrying sail
      without danger of capsizing; and sometimes even when the wind is
      fair, but the sea too heavy for the vessel to be put before it.
      If a vessel be suffered to scud before the wind in a very heavy
      sea, much damage is usually done her by the shipping of water
      over her stern, and sometimes by the violent plunges she makes
      forward. This manoeuvre, then, is seldom resorted to in such
      case, unless through necessity. When the vessel is in a leaky
      condition she is often put before the wind even in the heaviest
      seas; for, when lying-to, her seams are sure to be greatly opened
      by her violent straining, and it is not so much the case when
      scudding. Often, too, it becomes necessary to scud a vessel,
      either when the blast is so exceedingly furious as to tear in
      pieces the sail which is employed with a view of bringing her
      head to the wind, or when, through the false modelling of the
      frame or other causes, this main object cannot be effected.

      Vessels in a gale of wind are laid-to in different manners,
      according to their peculiar construction. Some lie-to best under
      a foresail, and this, I believe, is the sail most usually
      employed. Large square-rigged vessels have sails for the express
      purpose, called storm-staysails. But the jib is occasionally
      employed by itself,—sometimes the jib and foresail, or a
      double-reefed foresail, and not unfrequently the after-sails, are
      made use of. Foretopsails are very often found to answer the
      purpose better than any other species of sail. The Grampus was
      generally laid-to under a close-reefed foresail.

      When a vessel is to be laid-to, her head is brought up to the
      wind just so nearly as to fill the sail under which she lies when
      hauled flat aft, that is, when brought diagonally across the
      vessel. This being done, the bows point within a few degrees of
      the direction from which the wind issues, and the windward bow of
      course receives the shock of the waves. In this situation a good
      vessel will ride out a very heavy gale of wind without shipping a
      drop of water, and without any further attention being requisite
      on the part of the crew. The helm is usually lashed down, but
      this is altogether unnecessary (except on account of the noise it
      makes when loose), for the rudder has no effect upon the vessel
      when lying-to. Indeed, the helm had far better be left loose than
      lashed very fast, for the rudder is apt to be torn off by heavy
      seas if there be no room for the helm to play. As long as the
      sail holds, a well modelled vessel will maintain her situation,
      and ride every sea, as if instinct with life and reason. If the
      violence of the wind, however, should tear the sail into pieces
      (a feat which it requires a perfect hurricane to accomplish under
      ordinary circumstances), there is then imminent danger. The
      vessel falls off from the wind, and, coming broadside to the sea,
      is completely at its mercy: the only resource in this case is to
      put her quietly before the wind, letting her scud until some
      other sail can be set. Some vessels will lie-to under no sail
      whatever, but such are not to be trusted at sea.

      But to return from this digression. It had never been customary
      with the mate to have any watch on deck when lying-to in a gale
      of wind, and the fact that he had now one, coupled with the
      circumstance of the missing axes and handspikes, fully convinced
      us that the crew were too well on the watch to be taken by
      surprise in the manner Peters had suggested. Something, however,
      was to be done, and that with as little delay as practicable, for
      there could be no doubt that a suspicion having been once
      entertained against Peters, he would be sacrificed upon the
      earliest occasion, and one would certainly be either found or
      made upon the breaking of the gale.

      Augustus now suggested that if Peters could contrive to remove,
      under any pretext, the piece of chain-cable which lay over the
      trap in the stateroom, we might possibly be able to come upon
      them unawares by means of the hold; but a little reflection
      convinced us that the vessel rolled and pitched too violently for
      any attempt of that nature.

      By good fortune I at length hit upon the idea of working upon the
      superstitious terrors and guilty conscience of the mate. It will
      be remembered that one of the crew, Hartman Rogers, had died
      during the morning, having been attacked two days before with
      spasms after drinking some spirits and water. Peters had
      expressed to us his opinion that this man had been poisoned by
      the mate, and for this belief he had reasons, so he said, which
      were incontrovertible, but which he could not be prevailed upon
      to explain to us—this wayward refusal being only in keeping with
      other points of his singular character. But whether or not he had
      any better grounds for suspecting the mate than we had ourselves,
      we were easily led to fall in with his suspicion, and determined
      to act accordingly.

      Rogers had died about eleven in the forenoon, in violent
      convulsions; and the corpse presented in a few minutes after
      death one of the most horrid and loathsome spectacles I ever
      remember to have seen. The stomach was swollen immensely, like
      that of a man who has been drowned and lain under water for many
      weeks. The hands were in the same condition, while the face was
      shrunken, shrivelled, and of a chalky whiteness, except where
      relieved by two or three glaring red blotches like those
      occasioned by the erysipelas: one of these blotches extended
      diagonally across the face, completely covering up an eye as if
      with a band of red velvet. In this disgusting condition the body
      had been brought up from the cabin at noon to be thrown
      overboard, when the mate getting a glimpse of it (for he now saw
      it for the first time), and being either touched with remorse for
      his crime or struck with terror at so horrible a sight, ordered
      the men to sew the body up in its hammock, and allow it the usual
      rites of sea-burial. Having given these directions, he went
      below, as if to avoid any further sight of his victim. While
      preparations were making to obey his orders, the gale came on
      with great fury, and the design was abandoned for the present.
      The corpse, left to itself, was washed into the larboard
      scuppers, where it still lay at the time of which I speak,
      floundering about with the furious lurches of the brig.

      Having arranged our plan, we set about putting it in execution as
      speedily as possible. Peters went upon deck, and, as he had
      anticipated, was immediately accosted by Allen, who appeared to
      be stationed more as a watch upon the forecastle than for any
      other purpose. The fate of this villain, however, was speedily
      and silently decided; for Peters, approaching him in a careless
      manner, as if about to address him, seized him by the throat,
      and, before he could utter a single cry, tossed him over the
      bulwarks. He then called to us, and we came up. Our first
      precaution was to look about for something with which to arm
      ourselves, and in doing this we had to proceed with great care,
      for it was impossible to stand on deck an instant without holding
      fast, and violent seas broke over the vessel at every plunge
      forward. It was indispensable, too, that we should be quick in
      our operations, for every minute we expected the mate to be up to
      set the pumps going, as it was evident the brig must be taking in
      water very fast. After searching about for some time, we could
      find nothing more fit for our purpose than the two pump-handles,
      one of which Augustus took, and I the other. Having secured
      these, we stripped off the shirt of the corpse and dropped the
      body overboard. Peters and myself then went below, leaving
      Augustus to watch upon deck, where he took his station just where
      Allen had been placed, and with his back to the cabin
      companionway, so that, if any of the mate's gang should come up,
      he might suppose it was the watch.

      As soon as I got below I commenced disguising myself so as to
      represent the corpse of Rogers. The shirt which we had taken from
      the body aided us very much, for it was of singular form and
      character, and easily recognizable—a kind of smock, which the
      deceased wore over his other clothing. It was a blue stockinett,
      with large white stripes running across. Having put this on, I
      proceeded to equip myself with a false stomach, in imitation of
      the horrible deformity of the swollen corpse. This was soon
      effected by means of stuffing with some bedclothes. I then gave
      the same appearance to my hands by drawing on a pair of white
      woollen mittens, and filling them in with any kind of rags that
      offered themselves. Peters then arranged my face, first rubbing
      it well over with white chalk, and afterward blotching it with
      blood, which he took from a cut in his finger. The streak across
      the eye was not forgotten and presented a most shocking
      appearance.




CHAPTER 8


      As I viewed myself in a fragment of looking-glass which hung up
      in the cabin, and by the dim light of a kind of battle-lantern, I
      was so impressed with a sense of vague awe at my appearance, and
      at the recollection of the terrific reality which I was thus
      representing, that I was seized with a violent tremour, and could
      scarcely summon resolution to go on with my part. It was
      necessary, however, to act with decision, and Peters and myself
      went upon deck.

      We there found everything safe, and, keeping close to the
      bulwarks, the three of us crept to the cabin companion-way. It
      was only partially closed, precautions having been taken to
      prevent its being suddenly pushed to from without, by means of
      placing billets of wood on the upper step so as to interfere with
      the shutting. We found no difficulty in getting a full view of
      the interior of the cabin through the cracks where the hinges
      were placed. It now proved to have been very fortunate for us
      that we had not attempted to take them by surprise, for they were
      evidently on the alert. Only one was asleep, and he lying just at
      the foot of the companion-ladder, with a musket by his side. The
      rest were seated on several mattresses, which had been taken from
      the berths and thrown on the floor. They were engaged in earnest
      conversation; and although they had been carousing, as appeared
      from two empty jugs, with some tin tumblers which lay about, they
      were not as much intoxicated as usual. All had knives, one or two
      of them pistols, and a great many muskets were lying in a berth
      close at hand.

      We listened to their conversation for some time before we could
      make up our minds how to act, having as yet resolved on nothing
      determinate, except that we would attempt to paralyze their
      exertions, when we should attack them, by means of the apparition
      of Rogers. They were discussing their piratical plans, in which
      all we could hear distinctly was, that they would unite with the
      crew of a schooner _Hornet_, and, if possible, get the schooner
      herself into their possession preparatory to some attempt on a
      large scale, the particulars of which could not be made out by
      either of us.

      One of the men spoke of Peters, when the mate replied to him in a
      low voice which could not be distinguished, and afterward added
      more loudly, that “he could not understand his being so much
      forward with the captain’s brat in the forecastle, and he thought
      the sooner both of them were overboard the better.” To this no
      answer was made, but we could easily perceive that the hint was
      well received by the whole party, and more particularly by Jones.
      At this period I was excessively agitated, the more so as I could
      see that neither Augustus nor Peters could determine how to act.
      I made up my mind, however, to sell my life as dearly as
      possible, and not to suffer myself to be overcome by any feelings
      of trepidation.

      The tremendous noise made by the roaring of the wind in the
      rigging, and the washing of the sea over the deck, prevented us
      from hearing what was said, except during momentary lulls. In one
      of these, we all distinctly heard the mate tell one of the men to
      “go forward, have an eye upon them, for he wanted no such secret
      doings on board the brig.” It was well for us that the pitching
      of the vessel at this moment was so violent as to prevent this
      order from being carried into instant execution. The cook got up
      from his mattress to go for us, when a tremendous lurch, which I
      thought would carry away the masts, threw him headlong against
      one of the larboard stateroom doors, bursting it open, and
      creating a good deal of other confusion. Luckily, neither of our
      party was thrown from his position, and we had time to make a
      precipitate retreat to the forecastle, and arrange a hurried plan
      of action before the messenger made his appearance, or rather
      before he put his head out of the companion-hatch, for he did not
      come on deck. From this station he could not notice the absence
      of Allen, and he accordingly bawled out, as if to him, repeating
      the orders of the mate. Peters cried out, “Ay, ay,” in a
      disguised voice, and the cook immediately went below, without
      entertaining a suspicion that all was not right.

      My two companions now proceeded boldly aft and down into the
      cabin, Peters closing the door after him in the same manner he
      had found it. The mate received them with feigned cordiality, and
      told Augustus that, since he had behaved himself so well of late,
      he might take up his quarters in the cabin and be one of them for
      the future. He then poured him out a tumbler half full of rum,
      and made him drink it. All this I saw and heard, for I followed
      my friends to the cabin as soon as the door was shut, and took up
      my old point of observation. I had brought with me the two
      pump-handles, one of which I secured near the companion-way, to
      be ready for use when required.

      I now steadied myself as well as possible so as to have a good
      view of all that was passing within, and endeavoured to nerve
      myself to the task of descending among the mutineers when Peters
      should make a signal to me, as agreed upon. Presently he
      contrived to turn the conversation upon the bloody deeds of the
      mutiny, and by degrees led the men to talk of the thousand
      superstitions which are so universally current among seamen. I
      could not make out all that was said, but I could plainly see the
      effects of the conversation in the countenances of those present.
      The mate was evidently much agitated, and presently, when some
      one mentioned the terrific appearance of Rogers’ corpse, I
      thought he was upon the point of swooning. Peters now asked him
      if he did not think it would be better to have the body thrown
      overboard at once as it was too horrible a sight to see it
      floundering about in the scuppers. At this the villain absolutely
      gasped for breath, and turned his head slowly round upon his
      companions, as if imploring some one to go up and perform the
      task. No one, however, stirred, and it was quite evident that the
      whole party were wound up to the highest pitch of nervous
      excitement. Peters now made me the signal. I immediately threw
      open the door of the companion-way, and, descending, without
      uttering a syllable, stood erect in the midst of the party.

      The intense effect produced by this sudden apparition is not at
      all to be wondered at when the various circumstances are taken
      into consideration. Usually, in cases of a similar nature, there
      is left in the mind of the spectator some glimmering of doubt as
      to the reality of the vision before his eyes; a degree of hope,
      however feeble, that he is the victim of chicanery, and that the
      apparition is not actually a visitant from the old world of
      shadows. It is not too much to say that such remnants of doubt
      have been at the bottom of almost every such visitation, and that
      the appalling horror which has sometimes been brought about, is
      to be attributed, even in the cases most in point, and where most
      suffering has been experienced, more to a kind of anticipative
      horror, lest the apparition might possibly be real, than to an
      unwavering belief in its reality. But, in the present instance,
      it will be seen immediately, that in the minds of the mutineers
      there was not even the shadow of a basis upon which to rest a
      doubt that the apparition of Rogers was indeed a revivification
      of his disgusting corpse, or at least its spiritual image. The
      isolated situation of the brig, with its entire inaccessibility
      on account of the gale, confined the apparently possible means of
      deception within such narrow and definite limits, that they must
      have thought themselves enabled to survey them all at a glance.
      They had now been at sea twenty-four days, without holding more
      than a speaking communication with any vessel whatever. The whole
      of the crew, too—at least all whom they had the most remote
      reason for suspecting to be on board—were assembled in the cabin,
      with the exception of Allen, the watch; and his gigantic stature
      (he was six feet six inches high) was too familiar in their eyes
      to permit the notion that he was the apparition before them to
      enter their minds even for an instant. Add to these
      considerations the awe-inspiring nature of the tempest, and that
      of the conversation brought about by Peters; the deep impression
      which the loathsomeness of the actual corpse had made in the
      morning upon the imaginations of the men; the excellence of the
      imitation in my person, and the uncertain and wavering light in
      which they beheld me, as the glare of the cabin lantern, swinging
      violently to and fro, fell dubiously and fitfully upon my figure,
      and there will be no reason to wonder that the deception had even
      more than the entire effect which we had anticipated. The mate
      sprang up from the mattress on which he was lying, and, without
      uttering a syllable, fell back, stone dead, upon the cabin floor,
      and was hurled to the leeward like a log by a heavy roll of the
      brig. Of the remaining seven, there were but three who had at
      first any degree of presence of mind. The four others sat for
      some time rooted apparently to the floor, the most pitiable
      objects of horror and utter despair my eyes ever encountered. The
      only opposition we experienced at all was from the cook, John
      Hunt, and Richard Parker; but they made but a feeble and
      irresolute defence. The two former were shot instantly by Peters,
      and I felled Parker with a blow on the head from the pump-handle
      which I had brought with me. In the meantime, Augustus seized one
      of the muskets lying on the floor and shot another mutineer
      Wilson through the breast. There were now but three remaining;
      but by this time they had become aroused from their lethargy, and
      perhaps began to see that a deception had been practised upon
      them, for they fought with great resolution and fury, and, but
      for the immense muscular strength of Peters, might have
      ultimately got the better of us. These three men were—Jones,
      Greely, and Absolom Hicks. Jones had thrown Augustus to the
      floor, stabbed him in several places along the right arm, and
      would no doubt have soon dispatched him (as neither Peters nor
      myself could immediately get rid of our own antagonists), had it
      not been for the timely aid of a friend, upon whose assistance
      we, surely, had never depended. This friend was no other than
      Tiger. With a low growl, he bounded into the cabin, at a most
      critical moment for Augustus, and throwing himself upon Jones,
      pinned him to the floor in an instant. My friend, however, was
      now too much injured to render us any aid whatever, and I was so
      encumbered with my disguise that I could do but little. The dog
      would not leave his hold upon the throat of Jones—Peters,
      nevertheless, was far more than a match for the two men who
      remained, and would, no doubt, have dispatched them sooner, had
      it not been for the narrow space in which he had to act, and the
      tremendous lurches of the vessel. Presently he was enabled to get
      hold of a heavy stool, several of which lay about the floor. With
      this he beat out the brains of Greely as he was in the act of
      discharging a musket at me, and immediately afterward a roll of
      the brig throwing him in contact with Hicks, he seized him by the
      throat, and, by dint of sheer strength, strangled him
      instantaneously. Thus, in far less time than I have taken to tell
      it, we found ourselves masters of the brig.

      The only person of our opponents who was left alive was Richard
      Parker. This man, it will be remembered, I had knocked down with
      a blow from the pump-handle at the commencement of the attack. He
      now lay motionless by the door of the shattered stateroom; but,
      upon Peters touching him with his foot, he spoke, and entreated
      for mercy. His head was only slightly cut, and otherwise he had
      received no injury, having been merely stunned by the blow. He
      now got up, and, for the present, we secured his hands behind his
      back. The dog was still growling over Jones; but, upon
      examination, we found him completely dead, the blood issuing in a
      stream from a deep wound in the throat, inflicted, no doubt, by
      the sharp teeth of the animal.

      It was now about one o’clock in the morning, and the wind was
      still blowing tremendously. The brig evidently laboured much more
      than usual, and it became absolutely necessary that something
      should be done with a view of easing her in some measure. At
      almost every roll to leeward she shipped a sea, several of which
      came partially down into the cabin during our scuffle, the
      hatchway having been left open by myself when I descended. The
      entire range of bulwarks to larboard had been swept away, as well
      as the caboose, together with the jollyboat from the counter. The
      creaking and working of the mainmast, too, gave indication that
      it was nearly sprung. To make room for more stowage in the
      afterhold, the heel of this mast had been stepped between decks
      (a very reprehensible practice, occasionally resorted to by
      ignorant ship-builders), so that it was in imminent danger of
      working from its step. But, to crown all our difficulties, we
      plummed the well, and found no less than seven feet of water.

      Leaving the bodies of the crew lying in the cabin, we got to work
      immediately at the pumps—Parker, of course, being set at liberty
      to assist us in the labour. Augustus’s arm was bound up as well
      as we could effect it, and he did what he could, but that was not
      much. However, we found that we could just manage to keep the
      leak from gaining upon us by having one pump constantly going. As
      there were only four of us, this was severe labour; but we
      endeavoured to keep up our spirits, and looked anxiously for
      daybreak, when we hoped to lighten the brig by cutting away the
      mainmast.

      In this manner we passed a night of terrible anxiety and fatigue,
      and, when the day at length broke, the gale had neither abated in
      the least, nor were there any signs of its abating. We now
      dragged the bodies on deck and threw them overboard. Our next
      care was to get rid of the mainmast. The necessary preparations
      having been made, Peters cut away at the mast (having found axes
      in the cabin), while the rest of us stood by the stays and
      lanyards. As the brig gave a tremendous lee-lurch, the word was
      given to cut away the weather-lanyards, which being done, the
      whole mass of wood and rigging plunged into the sea, clear of the
      brig, and without doing any material injury. We now found that
      the vessel did not labour quite as much as before, but our
      situation was still exceedingly precarious, and in spite of the
      utmost exertions, we could not gain upon the leak without the aid
      of both pumps. The little assistance which Augustus could render
      us was not really of any importance. To add to our distress, a
      heavy sea, striking the brig to the windward, threw her off
      several points from the wind, and, before she could regain her
      position, another broke completely over her, and hurled her full
      upon her beam-ends. The ballast now shifted in a mass to leeward
      (the stowage had been knocking about perfectly at random for some
      time), and for a few moments we thought nothing could save us
      from capsizing. Presently, however, we partially righted; but the
      ballast still retaining its place to larboard, we lay so much
      along that it was useless to think of working the pumps, which
      indeed we could not have done much longer in any case, as our
      hands were entirely raw with the excessive labour we had
      undergone, and were bleeding in the most horrible manner.

      Contrary to Parker’s advice, we now proceeded to cut away the
      foremast, and at length accomplished it after much difficulty,
      owing to the position in which we lay. In going overboard the
      wreck took with it the bowsprit, and left us a complete hulk.

      So far we had had reason to rejoice in the escape of our
      longboat, which had received no damage from any of the huge seas
      which had come on board. But we had not long to congratulate
      ourselves; for the foremast having gone, and, of course, the
      foresail with it, by which the brig had been steadied, every sea
      now made a complete breach over us, and in five minutes our deck
      was swept from stem to stern, the longboat and starboard bulwarks
      torn off, and even the windlass shattered into fragments. It was,
      indeed, hardly possible for us to be in a more pitiable
      condition.

      At noon there seemed to be some slight appearance of the gale’s
      abating, but in this we were sadly disappointed, for it only
      lulled for a few minutes to blow with redoubled fury. About four
      in the afternoon it was utterly impossible to stand up against
      the violence of the blast; and, as the night closed in upon us, I
      had not a shadow of hope that the vessel would hold together
      until morning.

      By midnight we had settled very deep in the water, which was now
      up to the orlop deck. The rudder went soon afterward, the sea
      which tore it away lifting the after portion of the brig entirely
      from the water, against which she thumped in her descent with
      such a concussion as would be occasioned by going ashore. We had
      all calculated that the rudder would hold its own to the last, as
      it was unusually strong, being rigged as I have never seen one
      rigged either before or since. Down its main timber there ran a
      succession of stout iron hooks, and others in the same manner
      down the stern-post. Through these hooks there extended a very
      thick wrought-iron rod, the rudder being thus held to the
      stern-post and swinging freely on the rod. The tremendous force
      of the sea which tore it off may be estimated by the fact, that
      the hooks in the stern-post, which ran entirely through it, being
      clinched on the inside, were drawn every one of them completely
      out of the solid wood.

      We had scarcely time to draw breath after the violence of this
      shock, when one of the most tremendous waves I had then ever
      known broke right on board of us, sweeping the companion-way
      clear off, bursting in the hatchways, and filling every inch of
      the vessel with water.




CHAPTER 9


      Luckily, just before night, all four of us had lashed ourselves
      firmly to the fragments of the windlass, lying in this manner as
      flat upon the deck as possible. This precaution alone saved us
      from destruction. As it was, we were all more or less stunned by
      the immense weight of water which tumbled upon us, and which did
      not roll from above us until we were nearly exhausted. As soon as
      I could recover breath, I called aloud to my companions. Augustus
      alone replied, saying: “It is all over with us, and may God have
      mercy upon our souls!” By-and-by both the others were enabled to
      speak, when they exhorted us to take courage, as there was still
      hope; it being impossible, from the nature of the cargo, that the
      brig could go down, and there being every chance that the gale
      would blow over by the morning. These words inspired me with new
      life; for, strange as it may seem, although it was obvious that a
      vessel with a cargo of empty oil-casks would not sink, I had been
      hitherto so confused in mind as to have overlooked this
      consideration altogether; and the danger which I had for some
      time regarded as the most imminent was that of foundering. As
      hope revived within me, I made use of every opportunity to
      strengthen the lashings which held me to the remains of the
      windlass, and in this occupation I soon discovered that my
      companions were also busy. The night was as dark as it could
      possibly be, and the horrible shrieking din and confusion which
      surrounded us it is useless to attempt describing. Our deck lay
      level with the sea, or rather we were encircled with a towering
      ridge of foam, a portion of which swept over us every instant. It
      is not too much to say that our heads were not fairly out of the
      water more than one second in three. Although we lay close
      together, no one of us could see the other, or, indeed, any
      portion of the brig itself, upon which we were so tempestuously
      hurled about. At intervals we called one to the other, thus
      endeavouring to keep alive hope, and render consolation and
      encouragement to such of us as stood most in need of it. The
      feeble condition of Augustus made him an object of solicitude
      with us all; and as, from the lacerated condition of his right
      arm, it must have been impossible for him to secure his lashings
      with any degree of firmness, we were in momentary expectation of
      finding that he had gone overboard—yet to render him aid was a
      thing altogether out of the question. Fortunately, his station
      was more secure than that of any of the rest of us; for the upper
      part of his body lying just beneath a portion of the shattered
      windlass, the seas, as they tumbled in upon him, were greatly
      broken in their violence. In any other situation than this (into
      which he had been accidentally thrown after having lashed himself
      in a very exposed spot) he must inevitably have perished before
      morning. Owing to the brig’s lying so much along, we were all
      less liable to be washed off than otherwise would have been the
      case. The heel, as I have before stated, was to larboard, about
      one half of the deck being constantly under water. The seas,
      therefore, which struck us to starboard were much broken, by the
      vessel’s side, only reaching us in fragments as we lay flat on
      our faces; while those which came from larboard being what are
      called back-water seas, and obtaining little hold upon us on
      account of our posture, had not sufficient force to drag us from
      our fastenings.

      In this frightful situation we lay until the day broke so as to
      show us more fully the horrors which surrounded us. The brig was
      a mere log, rolling about at the mercy of every wave; the gale
      was upon the increase, if any thing, blowing indeed a complete
      hurricane, and there appeared to us no earthly prospect of
      deliverance. For several hours we held on in silence, expecting
      every moment that our lashings would either give way, that the
      remains of the windlass would go by the board, or that some of
      the huge seas, which roared in every direction around us and
      above us, would drive the hulk so far beneath the water that we
      should be drowned before it could regain the surface. By the
      mercy of God, however, we were preserved from these imminent
      dangers, and about midday were cheered by the light of the
      blessed sun. Shortly afterward we could perceive a sensible
      diminution in the force of the wind, when, now for the first time
      since the latter part of the evening before, Augustus spoke,
      asking Peters, who lay closest to him, if he thought there was
      any possibility of our being saved. As no reply was at first made
      to this question, we all concluded that the hybrid had been
      drowned where he lay; but presently, to our great joy, he spoke,
      although very feebly, saying that he was in great pain, being so
      cut by the tightness of his lashings across the stomach, that he
      must either find means of loosening them or perish, as it was
      impossible that he could endure his misery much longer. This
      occasioned us great distress, as it was altogether useless to
      think of aiding him in any manner while the sea continued washing
      over us as it did. We exhorted him to bear his sufferings with
      fortitude, and promised to seize the first opportunity which
      should offer itself to relieve him. He replied that it would soon
      be too late; that it would be all over with him before we could
      help him; and then, after moaning for some minutes, lay silent,
      when we concluded that he had perished.

      As the evening drew on, the sea had fallen so much that scarcely
      more than one wave broke over the hulk from windward in the
      course of five minutes, and the wind had abated a great deal,
      although still blowing a severe gale. I had not heard any of my
      companions speak for hours, and now called to Augustus. He
      replied, although very feebly, so that I could not distinguish
      what he said. I then spoke to Peters and to Parker, neither of
      whom returned any answer.

      Shortly after this period I fell into a state of partial
      insensibility, during which the most pleasing images floated in
      my imagination; such as green trees, waving meadows of ripe
      grain, processions of dancing girls, troops of cavalry, and other
      phantasies. I now remember that, in all which passed before my
      mind’s eye, motion was a predominant idea. Thus, I never fancied
      any stationary object, such as a house, a mountain, or any thing
      of that kind; but windmills, ships, large birds, balloons, people
      on horseback, carriages driving furiously, and similar moving
      objects, presented themselves in endless succession. When I
      recovered from this state, the sun was, as near as I could guess,
      an hour high. I had the greatest difficulty in bringing to
      recollection the various circumstances connected with my
      situation, and for some time remained firmly convinced that I was
      still in the hold of the brig, near the box, and that the body of
      Parker was that of Tiger.

      When I at length completely came to my senses, I found that the
      wind blew no more than a moderate breeze, and that the sea was
      comparatively calm; so much so that it only washed over the brig
      amidships. My left arm had broken loose from its lashings, and
      was much cut about the elbow; my right was entirely benumbed, and
      the hand and wrist swollen prodigiously by the pressure of the
      rope, which had worked from the shoulder downward. I was also in
      great pain from another rope which went about my waist, and had
      been drawn to an insufferable degree of tightness. Looking round
      upon my companions, I saw that Peters still lived, although a
      thick line was pulled so forcibly around his loins as to give him
      the appearance of being cut nearly in two; as I stirred, he made
      a feeble motion to me with his hand, pointing to the rope.
      Augustus gave no indication of life whatever, and was bent nearly
      double across a splinter of the windlass. Parker spoke to me when
      he saw me moving, and asked me if I had not sufficient strength
      to release him from his situation, saying that if I would summon
      up what spirits I could, and contrive to untie him, we might yet
      save our lives; but that otherwise we must all perish. I told him
      to take courage, and I would endeavor to free him. Feeling in my
      pantaloons’ pocket, I got hold of my penknife, and, after several
      ineffectual attempts, at length succeeded in opening it. I then,
      with my left hand, managed to free my right from its fastenings,
      and afterward cut the other ropes which held me. Upon attempting,
      however, to move from my position, I found that my legs failed me
      altogether, and that I could not get up; neither could I move my
      right arm in any direction. Upon mentioning this to Parker, he
      advised me to lie quiet for a few minutes, holding on to the
      windlass with my left hand, so as to allow time for the blood to
      circulate. Doing this, the numbness presently began to die away
      so that I could move first one of my legs, and then the other,
      and, shortly afterward I regained the partial use of my right
      arm. I now crawled with great caution toward Parker, without
      getting on my legs, and soon cut loose all the lashings about
      him, when, after a short delay, he also recovered the partial use
      of his limbs. We now lost no time in getting loose the rope from
      Peters. It had cut a deep gash through the waistband of his
      woollen pantaloons, and through two shirts, and made its way into
      his groin, from which the blood flowed out copiously as we
      removed the cordage. No sooner had we removed it, however, than
      he spoke, and seemed to experience instant relief—being able to
      move with much greater ease than either Parker or myself—this was
      no doubt owing to the discharge of blood.

      We had little hopes that Augustus would recover, as he evinced no
      signs of life; but, upon getting to him, we discovered that he
      had merely swooned from the loss of blood, the bandages we had
      placed around his wounded arm having been torn off by the water;
      none of the ropes which held him to the windlass were drawn
      sufficiently tight to occasion his death. Having relieved him
      from the fastenings, and got him clear of the broken wood about
      the windlass, we secured him in a dry place to windward, with his
      head somewhat lower than his body, and all three of us busied
      ourselves in chafing his limbs. In about half an hour he came to
      himself, although it was not until the next morning that he gave
      signs of recognizing any of us, or had sufficient strength to
      speak. By the time we had thus got clear of our lashings it was
      quite dark, and it began to cloud up, so that we were again in
      the greatest agony lest it should come on to blow hard, in which
      event nothing could have saved us from perishing, exhausted as we
      were. By good fortune it continued very moderate during the
      night, the sea subsiding every minute, which gave us great hopes
      of ultimate preservation. A gentle breeze still blew from the N.
      W., but the weather was not at all cold. Augustus was lashed
      carefully to windward in such a manner as to prevent him from
      slipping overboard with the rolls of the vessel, as he was still
      too weak to hold on at all. For ourselves there was no such
      necessity. We sat close together, supporting each other with the
      aid of the broken ropes about the windlass, and devising methods
      of escape from our frightful situation. We derived much comfort
      from taking off our clothes and wringing the water from them.
      When we put them on after this, they felt remarkably warm and
      pleasant, and served to invigorate us in no little degree. We
      helped Augustus off with his, and wrung them for him, when he
      experienced the same comfort.

      Our chief sufferings were now those of hunger and thirst, and
      when we looked forward to the means of relief in this respect,
      our hearts sunk within us, and we were induced to regret that we
      had escaped the less dreadful perils of the sea. We endeavoured,
      however, to console ourselves with the hope of being speedily
      picked up by some vessel and encouraged each other to bear with
      fortitude the evils that might happen.

      The morning of the fourteenth at length dawned, and the weather
      still continued clear and pleasant, with a steady but very light
      breeze from the N. W. The sea was now quite smooth, and as, from
      some cause which we could not determine, the brig did not lie so
      much along as she had done before, the deck was comparatively
      dry, and we could move about with freedom. We had now been better
      than three entire days and nights without either food or drink,
      and it became absolutely necessary that we should make an attempt
      to get up something from below. As the brig was completely full
      of water, we went to this work despondently, and with but little
      expectation of being able to obtain anything. We made a kind of
      drag by driving some nails which we broke out from the remains of
      the companion-hatch into two pieces of wood. Tying these across
      each other, and fastening them to the end of a rope, we threw
      them into the cabin, and dragged them to and fro, in the faint
      hope of being thus able to entangle some article which might be
      of use to us for food, or which might at least render us
      assistance in getting it. We spent the greater part of the
      morning in this labour without effect, fishing up nothing more
      than a few bedclothes, which were readily caught by the nails.
      Indeed, our contrivance was so very clumsy that any greater
      success was hardly to be anticipated.

      We now tried the forecastle, but equally in vain, and were upon
      the brink of despair, when Peters proposed that we should fasten
      a rope to his body, and let him make an attempt to get up
      something by diving into the cabin. This proposition we hailed
      with all the delight which reviving hope could inspire. He
      proceeded immediately to strip off his clothes with the exception
      of his pantaloons; and a strong rope was then carefully fastened
      around his middle, being brought up over his shoulders in such a
      manner that there was no possibility of its slipping. The
      undertaking was one of great difficulty and danger; for, as we
      could hardly expect to find much, if any, provision in the cabin
      itself, it was necessary that the diver, after letting himself
      down, should make a turn to the right, and proceed under water a
      distance of ten or twelve feet, in a narrow passage, to the
      storeroom, and return, without drawing breath.

      Everything being ready, Peters now descended in the cabin, going
      down the companion-ladder until the water reached his chin. He
      then plunged in, head first, turning to the right as he plunged,
      and endeavouring to make his way to the storeroom. In this first
      attempt, however, he was altogether unsuccessful. In less than
      half a minute after his going down we felt the rope jerked
      violently (the signal we had agreed upon when he desired to be
      drawn up). We accordingly drew him up instantly, but so
      incautiously as to bruise him badly against the ladder. He had
      brought nothing with him, and had been unable to penetrate more
      than a very little way into the passage, owing to the constant
      exertions he found it necessary to make in order to keep himself
      from floating up against the deck. Upon getting out he was very
      much exhausted, and had to rest full fifteen minutes before he
      could again venture to descend.

      The second attempt met with even worse success; for he remained
      so long under water without giving the signal, that, becoming
      alarmed for his safety, we drew him out without it, and found
      that he was almost at the last gasp, having, as he said,
      repeatedly jerked at the rope without our feeling it. This was
      probably owing to a portion of it having become entangled in the
      balustrade at the foot of the ladder. This balustrade was,
      indeed, so much in the way, that we determined to remove it, if
      possible, before proceeding with our design. As we had no means
      of getting it away except by main force, we all descended into
      the water as far as we could on the ladder, and giving a pull
      against it with our united strength, succeeded in breaking it
      down.

      The third attempt was equally unsuccessful with the two first,
      and it now became evident that nothing could be done in this
      manner without the aid of some weight with which the diver might
      steady himself, and keep to the floor of the cabin while making
      his search. For a long time we looked about in vain for something
      which might answer this purpose; but at length, to our great joy,
      we discovered one of the weather-forechains so loose that we had
      not the least difficulty in wrenching it off. Having fastened
      this securely to one of his ankles, Peters now made his fourth
      descent into the cabin, and this time succeeded in making his way
      to the door of the steward’s room. To his inexpressible grief,
      however, he found it locked, and was obliged to return without
      effecting an entrance, as, with the greatest exertion, he could
      remain under water not more, at the utmost extent, than a single
      minute. Our affairs now looked gloomy indeed, and neither
      Augustus nor myself could refrain from bursting into tears, as we
      thought of the host of difficulties which encompassed us, and the
      slight probability which existed of our finally making an escape.
      But this weakness was not of long duration. Throwing ourselves on
      our knees to God, we implored His aid in the many dangers which
      beset us; and arose with renewed hope and vigor to think what
      could yet be done by mortal means toward accomplishing our
      deliverance.




CHAPTER 10


      Shortly afterward an incident occurred which I am induced to look
      upon as more intensely productive of emotion, as far more replete
      with the extremes first of delight and then of horror, than even
      any of the thousand chances which afterward befell me in nine
      long years, crowded with events of the most startling and, in
      many cases, of the most unconceived and unconceivable character.
      We were lying on the deck near the companion-way, and debating
      the possibility of yet making our way into the storeroom, when,
      looking toward Augustus, who lay fronting myself, I perceived
      that he had become all at once deadly pale, and that his lips
      were quivering in the most singular and unaccountable manner.
      Greatly alarmed, I spoke to him, but he made me no reply, and I
      was beginning to think that he was suddenly taken ill, when I
      took notice of his eyes, which were glaring apparently at some
      object behind me. I turned my head, and shall never forget the
      ecstatic joy which thrilled through every particle of my frame,
      when I perceived a large brig bearing down upon us, and not more
      than a couple of miles off. I sprung to my feet as if a musket
      bullet had suddenly struck me to the heart; and, stretching out
      my arms in the direction of the vessel, stood in this manner,
      motionless, and unable to articulate a syllable. Peters and
      Parker were equally affected, although in different ways. The
      former danced about the deck like a madman, uttering the most
      extravagant rhodomontades, intermingled with howls and
      imprecations, while the latter burst into tears, and continued
      for many minutes weeping like a child.

      The vessel in sight was a large hermaphrodite brig, of a Dutch
      build, and painted black, with a tawdry gilt figure-head. She had
      evidently seen a good deal of rough weather, and, we supposed,
      had suffered much in the gale which had proved so disastrous to
      ourselves; for her foretopmast was gone, and some of her
      starboard bulwarks. When we first saw her, she was, as I have
      already said, about two miles off and to windward, bearing down
      upon us. The breeze was very gentle, and what astonished us
      chiefly was, that she had no other sails set than her foremast
      and mainsail, with a flying jib—of course she came down but
      slowly, and our impatience amounted nearly to phrensy. The
      awkward manner in which she steered, too, was remarked by all of
      us, even excited as we were. She yawed about so considerably,
      that once or twice we thought it impossible she could see us, or
      imagined that, having seen us, and discovered no person on board,
      she was about to tack and make off in another direction. Upon
      each of these occasions we screamed and shouted at the top of our
      voices, when the stranger would appear to change for a moment her
      intention, and again hold on toward us—this singular conduct
      being repeated two or three times, so that at last we could think
      of no other manner of accounting for it than by supposing the
      helmsman to be in liquor.

      No person was seen upon her decks until she arrived within about
      a quarter of a mile of us. We then saw three seamen, whom by
      their dress we took to be Hollanders. Two of these were lying on
      some old sails near the forecastle, and the third, who appeared
      to be looking at us with great curiosity, was leaning over the
      starboard bow near the bowsprit. This last was a stout and tall
      man, with a very dark skin. He seemed by his manner to be
      encouraging us to have patience, nodding to us in a cheerful
      although rather odd way, and smiling constantly, so as to display
      a set of the most brilliantly white teeth. As his vessel drew
      nearer, we saw a red flannel cap which he had on fall from his
      head into the water; but of this he took little or no notice,
      continuing his odd smiles and gesticulations. I relate these
      things and circumstances minutely, and I relate them, it must be
      understood, precisely as they _appeared_to us.

      The brig came on slowly, and now more steadily than before, and—I
      cannot speak calmly of this event—our hearts leaped up wildly
      within us, and we poured out our whole souls in shouts and
      thanksgiving to God for the complete, unexpected, and glorious
      deliverance that was so palpably at hand. Of a sudden, and all at
      once, there came wafted over the ocean from the strange vessel
      (which was now close upon us) a smell, a stench, such as the
      whole world has no name for—no conception of—hellish—utterly
      suffocating—insufferable, inconceivable. I gasped for breath, and
      turning to my companions, perceived that they were paler than
      marble. But we had now no time left for question or surmise—the
      brig was within fifty feet of us, and it seemed to be her
      intention to run under our counter, that we might board her
      without putting out a boat. We rushed aft, when, suddenly, a wide
      yaw threw her off full five or six points from the course she had
      been running, and, as she passed under our stern at the distance
      of about twenty feet, we had a full view of her decks. Shall I
      ever forget the triple horror of that spectacle? Twenty-five or
      thirty human bodies, among whom were several females, lay
      scattered about between the counter and the galley in the last
      and most loathsome state of putrefaction. We plainly saw that not
      a soul lived in that fated vessel! Yet we could not help shouting
      to the dead for help! Yes, long and loudly did we beg, in the
      agony of the moment, that those silent and disgusting images
      would stay for us, would not abandon us to become like them,
      would receive us among their goodly company! We were raving with
      horror and despair—thoroughly mad through the anguish of our
      grievous disappointment.

      As our first loud yell of terror broke forth, it was replied to
      by something, from near the bowsprit of the stranger, so closely
      resembling the scream of a human voice that the nicest ear might
      have been startled and deceived. At this instant another sudden
      yaw brought the region of the forecastle for a moment into view,
      and we beheld at once the origin of the sound. We saw the tall
      stout figure still leaning on the bulwark, and still nodding his
      head to and fro, but his face was now turned from us so that we
      could not behold it. His arms were extended over the rail, and
      the palms of his hands fell outward. His knees were lodged upon a
      stout rope, tightly stretched, and reaching from the heel of the
      bowsprit to a cathead. On his back, from which a portion of the
      shirt had been torn, leaving it bare, there sat a huge sea-gull,
      busily gorging itself with the horrible flesh, its bill and
      talons deep buried, and its white plumage spattered all over with
      blood. As the brig moved farther round so as to bring us close in
      view, the bird, with much apparent difficulty, drew out its
      crimsoned head, and, after eyeing us for a moment as if
      stupefied, arose lazily from the body upon which it had been
      feasting, and, flying directly above our deck, hovered there a
      while with a portion of clotted and liver-like substance in its
      beak. The horrid morsel dropped at length with a sullen splash
      immediately at the feet of Parker. May God forgive me, but now,
      for the first time, there flashed through my mind a thought, a
      thought which I will not mention, and I felt myself making a step
      toward the ensanguined spot. I looked upward, and the eyes of
      Augustus met my own with a degree of intense and eager meaning
      which immediately brought me to my senses. I sprang forward
      quickly, and, with a deep shudder, threw the frightful thing into
      the sea.

      The body from which it had been taken, resting as it did upon the
      rope, had been easily swayed to and fro by the exertions of the
      carnivorous bird, and it was this motion which had at first
      impressed us with the belief of its being alive. As the gull
      relieved it of its weight, it swung round and fell partially
      over, so that the face was fully discovered. Never, surely, was
      any object so terribly full of awe! The eyes were gone, and the
      whole flesh around the mouth, leaving the teeth utterly naked.
      This, then, was the smile which had cheered us on to hope! this
      the—but I forbear. The brig, as I have already told, passed under
      our stern, and made its way slowly but steadily to leeward. With
      her and with her terrible crew went all our gay visions of
      deliverance and joy. Deliberately as she went by, we might
      possibly have found means of boarding her, had not our sudden
      disappointment and the appalling nature of the discovery which
      accompanied it laid entirely prostrate every active faculty of
      mind and body. We had seen and felt, but we could neither think
      nor act, until, alas! too late. How much our intellects had been
      weakened by this incident may be estimated by the fact, that when
      the vessel had proceeded so far that we could perceive no more
      than the half of her hull, the proposition was seriously
      entertained of attempting to overtake her by swimming!

      I have, since this period, vainly endeavoured to obtain some clew
      to the hideous uncertainty which enveloped the fate of the
      stranger. Her build and general appearance, as I have before
      stated, led us to the belief that she was a Dutch trader, and the
      dresses of the crew also sustained this opinion. We might have
      easily seen the name upon her stern, and, indeed, taken other
      observations, which would have guided us in making out her
      character; but the intense excitement of the moment blinded us to
      every thing of that nature. From the saffron-like hue of such of
      the corpses as were not entirely decayed, we concluded that the
      whole of her company had perished by the yellow fever, or some
      other virulent disease of the same fearful kind. If such were the
      case (and I know not what else to imagine), death, to judge from
      the positions of the bodies, must have come upon them in a manner
      awfully sudden and overwhelming, in a way totally distinct from
      that which generally characterizes even the most deadly
      pestilences with which mankind are acquainted. It is possible,
      indeed, that poison, accidentally introduced into some of their
      sea-stores, may have brought about the disaster, or that the
      eating of some unknown venomous species of fish, or other marine
      animal, or oceanic bird, might have induced it—but it is utterly
      useless to form conjectures where all is involved, and will, no
      doubt, remain for ever involved, in the most appalling and
      unfathomable mystery.




CHAPTER 11


      We spent the remainder of the day in a condition of stupid
      lethargy, gazing after the retreating vessel until the darkness,
      hiding her from our sight, recalled us in some measure to our
      senses. The pangs of hunger and thirst then returned, absorbing
      all other cares and considerations. Nothing, however, could be
      done until the morning, and, securing ourselves as well as
      possible, we endeavoured to snatch a little repose. In this I
      succeeded beyond my expectations, sleeping until my companions,
      who had not been so fortunate, aroused me at daybreak to renew
      our attempts at getting up provisions from the hull.

      It was now a dead calm, with the sea as smooth as I have ever
      known it,—the weather warm and pleasant. The brig was out of
      sight. We commenced our operations by wrenching off, with some
      trouble, another of the forechains; and having fastened both to
      Peters’ feet, he again made an endeavour to reach the door of the
      storeroom, thinking it possible that he might be able to force it
      open, provided he could get at it in sufficient time; and this he
      hoped to do, as the hulk lay much more steadily than before.

      He succeeded very quickly in reaching the door, when, loosening
      one of the chains from his ankle, he made every exertion to force
      the passage with it, but in vain, the framework of the room being
      far stronger than was anticipated. He was quite exhausted with
      his long stay under water, and it became absolutely necessary
      that some other one of us should take his place. For this service
      Parker immediately volunteered; but, after making three
      ineffectual efforts, found that he could never even succeed in
      getting near the door. The condition of Augustus’s wounded arm
      rendered it useless for him to attempt going down, as he would be
      unable to force the room open should he reach it, and it
      accordingly now devolved upon me to exert myself for our common
      deliverance.

      Peters had left one of the chains in the passage, and I found,
      upon plunging in, that I had not sufficient balance to keep me
      firmly down. I determined, therefore, to attempt no more, in my
      first effort, than merely to recover the other chain. In groping
      along the floor of the passage for this, I felt a hard substance,
      which I immediately grasped, not having time to ascertain what it
      was, but returning and ascending instantly to the surface. The
      prize proved to be a bottle, and our joy may be conceived when I
      say that it was found to be full of port wine. Giving thanks to
      God for this timely and cheering assistance, we immediately drew
      the cork with my penknife, and, each taking a moderate sup, felt
      the most indescribable comfort from the warmth, strength, and
      spirits with which it inspired us. We then carefully recorked the
      bottle, and, by means of a handkerchief, swung it in such a
      manner that there was no possibility of its getting broken.

      Having rested a while after this fortunate discovery, I again
      descended, and now recovered the chain, with which I instantly
      came up. I then fastened it on and went down for the third time,
      when I became fully satisfied that no exertions whatever, in that
      situation, would enable me to force open the door of the
      storeroom. I therefore returned in despair.

      There seemed now to be no longer any room for hope, and I could
      perceive in the countenances of my companions that they had made
      up their minds to perish. The wine had evidently produced in them
      a species of delirium, which, perhaps, I had been prevented from
      feeling by the immersion I had undergone since drinking it. They
      talked incoherently, and about matters unconnected with our
      condition, Peters repeatedly asking me questions about Nantucket.
      Augustus, too, I remember, approached me with a serious air, and
      requested me to lend him a pocket-comb, as his hair was full of
      fish-scales, and he wished to get them out before going on shore.
      Parker appeared somewhat less affected, and urged me to dive at
      random into the cabin, and bring up any article which might come
      to hand. To this I consented, and, in the first attempt, after
      staying under a full minute, brought up a small leather trunk
      belonging to Captain Barnard. This was immediately opened in the
      faint hope that it might contain something to eat or drink. We
      found nothing, however, except a box of razors and two linen
      shirts. I now went down again, and returned without any success.
      As my head came above water I heard a crash on deck, and, upon
      getting up, saw that my companions had ungratefully taken
      advantage of my absence to drink the remainder of the wine,
      having let the bottle fall in the endeavour to replace it before
      I saw them. I remonstrated with them on the heartlessness of
      their conduct, when Augustus burst into tears. The other two
      endeavoured to laugh the matter off as a joke, but I hope never
      again to behold laughter of such a species: the distortion of
      countenance was absolutely frightful. Indeed, it was apparent
      that the stimulus, in the empty state of their stomachs, had
      taken instant and violent effect, and that they were all
      exceedingly intoxicated. With great difficulty I prevailed upon
      them to lie down, when they fell very soon into a heavy slumber,
      accompanied with loud stertorous breathing.

      I now found myself, as it were, alone in the brig, and my
      reflections, to be sure, were of the most fearful and gloomy
      nature. No prospect offered itself to my view but a lingering
      death by famine, or, at the best, by being overwhelmed in the
      first gale which should spring up, for in our present exhausted
      condition we could have no hope of living through another.

      The gnawing hunger which I now experienced was nearly
      insupportable, and I felt myself capable of going to any lengths
      in order to appease it. With my knife I cut off a small portion
      of the leather trunk, and endeavoured to eat it, but found it
      utterly impossible to swallow a single morsel, although I fancied
      that some little alleviation of my suffering was obtained by
      chewing small pieces of it and spitting them out. Toward night my
      companions awoke, one by one, each in an indescribable state of
      weakness and horror, brought on by the wine, whose fumes had now
      evaporated. They shook as if with a violent ague, and uttered the
      most lamentable cries for water. Their condition affected me in
      the most lively degree, at the same time causing me to rejoice in
      the fortunate train of circumstances which had prevented me from
      indulging in the wine, and consequently from sharing their
      melancholy and most distressing sensations. Their conduct,
      however, gave me great uneasiness and alarm; for it was evident
      that, unless some favourable change took place, they could afford
      me no assistance in providing for our common safety. I had not
      yet abandoned all idea of being able to get up something from
      below; but the attempt could not possibly be resumed until some
      one of them was sufficiently master of himself to aid me by
      holding the end of the rope while I went down. Parker appeared to
      be somewhat more in possession of his senses than the others, and
      I endeavoured, by every means in my power, to rouse him. Thinking
      that a plunge in the sea-water might have a beneficial effect, I
      contrived to fasten the end of a rope around his body, and then,
      leading him to the companion-way (he remaining quite passive all
      the while), pushed him in, and immediately drew him out. I had
      good reason to congratulate myself upon having made this
      experiment; for he appeared much revived and invigorated, and,
      upon getting out, asked me, in a rational manner, why I had so
      served him. Having explained my object, he expressed himself
      indebted to me, and said that he felt greatly better from the
      immersion, afterward conversing sensibly upon our situation. We
      then resolved to treat Augustus and Peters in the same way, which
      we immediately did, when they both experienced much benefit from
      the shock. This idea of sudden immersion had been suggested to me
      by reading in some medical work the good effect of the
      shower-bath in a case where the patient was suffering from _mania
      a potu_.

      Finding that I could now trust my companions to hold the end of
      the rope, I again made three or four plunges into the cabin,
      although it was now quite dark, and a gentle but long swell from
      the northward rendered the hulk somewhat unsteady. In the course
      of these attempts I succeeded in bringing up two case-knives, a
      three-gallon jug, empty, and a blanket, but nothing which could
      serve us for food. I continued my efforts, after getting these
      articles, until I was completely exhausted, but brought up
      nothing else. During the night Parker and Peters occupied
      themselves by turns in the same manner; but nothing coming to
      hand, we now gave up this attempt in despair, concluding that we
      were exhausting ourselves in vain.

      We passed the remainder of this night in a state of the most
      intense mental and bodily anguish that can possibly be imagined.
      The morning of the sixteenth at length dawned, and we looked
      eagerly around the horizon for relief, but to no purpose. The sea
      was still smooth, with only a long swell from the northward, as
      on yesterday. This was the sixth day since we had tasted either
      food or drink, with the exception of the bottle of port wine, and
      it was clear that we could hold out but a very little while
      longer unless something could be obtained. I never saw before,
      nor wish to see again, human beings so utterly emaciated as
      Peters and Augustus. Had I met them on shore in their present
      condition I should not have had the slightest suspicion that I
      had ever beheld them. Their countenances were totally changed in
      character, so that I could not bring myself to believe them
      really the same individuals with whom I had been in company but a
      few days before. Parker, although sadly reduced, and so feeble
      that he could not raise his head from his bosom, was not so far
      gone as the other two. He suffered with great patience, making no
      complaint, and endeavouring to inspire us with hope in every
      manner he could devise. For myself, although at the commencement
      of the voyage I had been in bad health, and was at all times of a
      delicate constitution, I suffered less than any of us, being much
      less reduced in frame, and retaining my powers of mind in a
      surprising degree, while the rest were completely prostrated in
      intellect, and seemed to be brought to a species of second
      childhood, generally simpering in their expressions, with idiotic
      smiles, and uttering the most absurd platitudes. At intervals,
      however, they would appear to revive suddenly, as if inspired all
      at once with a consciousness of their condition, when they would
      spring upon their feet in a momentary flash of vigour, and speak,
      for a short period, of their prospects, in a manner altogether
      rational, although full of the most intense despair. It is
      possible, however, that my companions may have entertained the
      same opinion of their own condition as I did of mine, and that I
      may have unwittingly been guilty of the same extravagances and
      imbecilities as themselves—this is a matter which cannot be
      determined.

      About noon Parker declared that he saw land off the larboard
      quarter, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could restrain
      him from plunging into the sea with the view of swimming toward
      it. Peters and Augustus took little notice of what he said, being
      apparently wrapped up in moody contemplation. Upon looking in the
      direction pointed out, I could not perceive the faintest
      appearance of the shore—indeed, I was too well aware that we were
      far from any land to indulge in a hope of that nature. It was a
      long time, nevertheless, before I could convince Parker of his
      mistake. He then burst into a flood of tears, weeping like a
      child, with loud cries and sobs, for two or three hours, when
      becoming exhausted, he fell asleep.

      Peters and Augustus now made several ineffectual efforts to
      swallow portions of the leather. I advised them to chew it and
      spit it out; but they were too excessively debilitated to be able
      to follow my advice. I continued to chew pieces of it at
      intervals, and found some relief from so doing; my chief distress
      was for water, and I was only prevented from taking a draught
      from the sea by remembering the horrible consequences which thus
      have resulted to others who were similarly situated with
      ourselves.

      The day wore on in this manner, when I suddenly discovered a sail
      to the eastward, and on our larboard bow. She appeared to be a
      large ship, and was coming nearly athwart us, being probably
      twelve or fifteen miles distant. None of my companions had as yet
      discovered her, and I forbore to tell them of her for the
      present, lest we might again be disappointed of relief. At length
      upon her getting nearer, I saw distinctly that she was heading
      immediately for us, with her light sails filled. I could now
      contain myself no longer, and pointed her out to my
      fellow-sufferers. They immediately sprang to their feet, again
      indulging in the most extravagant demonstrations of joy, weeping,
      laughing in an idiotic manner, jumping, stamping upon the deck,
      tearing their hair, and praying and cursing by turns. I was so
      affected by their conduct, as well as by what I considered a sure
      prospect of deliverance, that I could not refrain from joining in
      with their madness, and gave way to the impulses of my gratitude
      and ecstasy by lying and rolling on the deck, clapping my hands,
      shouting, and other similar acts, until I was suddenly called to
      my recollection, and once more to the extreme human misery and
      despair, by perceiving the ship all at once with her stern fully
      presented toward us, and steering in a direction nearly opposite
      to that in which I had at first perceived her.

      It was some time before I could induce my poor companions to
      believe that this sad reverse in our prospects had actually taken
      place. They replied to all my assertions with a stare and a
      gesture implying that they were not to be deceived by such
      misrepresentations. The conduct of Augustus most sensibly
      affected me. In spite of all I could say or do to the contrary,
      he persisted in saying that the ship was rapidly nearing us, and
      in making preparations to go on board of her. Some seaweed
      floating by the brig, he maintained that it was the ship’s boat,
      and endeavoured to throw himself upon it, howling and shrieking
      in the most heartrending manner, when I forcibly restrained him
      from thus casting himself into the sea.

      Having become in some degree pacified, we continued to watch the
      ship until we finally lost sight of her, the weather becoming
      hazy, with a light breeze springing up. As soon as she was
      entirely gone, Parker turned suddenly toward me with an
      expression of countenance which made me shudder. There was about
      him an air of self-possession which I had not noticed in him
      until now, and before he opened his lips my heart told me what he
      would say. He proposed, in a few words, that one of us should die
      to preserve the existence of the others.




CHAPTER 12


      I had for some time past, dwelt upon the prospect of our being
      reduced to this last horrible extremity, and had secretly made up
      my mind to suffer death in any shape or under any circumstances
      rather than resort to such a course. Nor was this resolution in
      any degree weakened by the present intensity of hunger under
      which I laboured. The proposition had not been heard by either
      Peters or Augustus. I therefore took Parker aside; and mentally
      praying to God for power to dissuade him from the horrible
      purpose he entertained, I expostulated with him for a long time,
      and in the most supplicating manner, begging him in the name of
      every thing which he held sacred, and urging him by every species
      of argument which the extremity of the case suggested, to abandon
      the idea, and not to mention it to either of the other two.

      He heard all I said without attempting to controvert any of my
      arguments, and I had begun to hope that he would be prevailed
      upon to do as I desired. But when I had ceased speaking, he said
      that he knew very well all I had said was true, and that to
      resort to such a course was the most horrible alternative which
      could enter into the mind of man; but that he had now held out as
      long as human nature could be sustained; that it was unnecessary
      for all to perish, when, by the death of one, it was possible,
      and even probable, that the rest might be finally preserved;
      adding that I might save myself the trouble of trying to turn him
      from his purpose, his mind having been thoroughly made up on the
      subject even before the appearance of the ship, and that only her
      heaving in sight had prevented him from mentioning his intention
      at an earlier period.

      I now begged him, if he would not be prevailed upon to abandon
      his design, at least to defer it for another day, when some
      vessel might come to our relief; again reiterating every argument
      I could devise, and which I thought likely to have influence with
      one of his rough nature. He said, in reply, that he had not
      spoken until the very last possible moment, that he could exist
      no longer without sustenance of some kind, and that therefore in
      another day his suggestion would be too late, as regarded himself
      at least.

      Finding that he was not to be moved by anything I could say in a
      mild tone, I now assumed a different demeanor, and told him that
      he must be aware I had suffered less than any of us from our
      calamities; that my health and strength, consequently, were at
      that moment far better than his own, or than that either of
      Peters or Augustus; in short, that I was in a condition to have
      my own way by force if I found it necessary; and that if he
      attempted in any manner to acquaint the others with his bloody
      and cannibal designs, I would not hesitate to throw him into the
      sea. Upon this he immediately seized me by the throat, and
      drawing a knife, made several ineffectual efforts to stab me in
      the stomach; an atrocity which his excessive debility alone
      prevented him from accomplishing. In the meantime, being roused
      to a high pitch of anger, I forced him to the vessel’s side, with
      the full intention of throwing him overboard. He was saved from
      his fate, however, by the interference of Peters, who now
      approached and separated us, asking the cause of the disturbance.
      This Parker told before I could find means in any manner to
      prevent him.

      The effect of his words was even more terrible than what I had
      anticipated. Both Augustus and Peters, who, it seems, had long
      secretly entertained the same fearful idea which Parker had been
      merely the first to broach, joined with him in his design and
      insisted upon its immediately being carried into effect. I had
      calculated that one at least of the two former would be found
      still possessed of sufficient strength of mind to side with
      myself in resisting any attempt to execute so dreadful a purpose,
      and, with the aid of either one of them, I had no fear of being
      able to prevent its accomplishment. Being disappointed in this
      expectation, it became absolutely necessary that I should attend
      to my own safety, as a further resistance on my part might
      possibly be considered by men in their frightful condition a
      sufficient excuse for refusing me fair play in the tragedy that I
      knew would speedily be enacted.

      I now told them I was willing to submit to the proposal, merely
      requesting a delay of about one hour, in order that the fog which
      had gathered around us might have an opportunity of lifting, when
      it was possible that the ship we had seen might be again in
      sight. After great difficulty I obtained from them a promise to
      wait thus long; and, as I had anticipated (a breeze rapidly
      coming in), the fog lifted before the hour had expired, when, no
      vessel appearing in sight, we prepared to draw lots.

      It is with extreme reluctance that I dwell upon the appalling
      scene which ensued; a scene which, with its minutest details, no
      after events have been able to efface in the slightest degree
      from my memory, and whose stern recollection will embitter every
      future moment of my existence. Let me run over this portion of my
      narrative with as much haste as the nature of the events to be
      spoken of will permit. The only method we could devise for the
      terrific lottery, in which we were to take each a chance, was
      that of drawing straws. Small splinters of wood were made to
      answer our purpose, and it was agreed that I should be the
      holder. I retired to one end of the hulk, while my poor
      companions silently took up their station in the other with their
      backs turned toward me. The bitterest anxiety which I endured at
      any period of this fearful drama was while I occupied myself in
      the arrangement of the lots. There are few conditions into which
      man can possibly fall where he will not feel a deep interest in
      the preservation of his existence; an interest momentarily
      increasing with the frailness of the tenure by which that
      existence may be held. But now that the silent, definite, and
      stern nature of the business in which I was engaged (so different
      from the tumultuous dangers of the storm or the gradually
      approaching horrors of famine) allowed me to reflect on the few
      chances I had of escaping the most appalling of deaths—a death
      for the most appalling of purposes—every particle of that energy
      which had so long buoyed me up departed like feathers before the
      wind, leaving me a helpless prey to the most abject and pitiable
      terror. I could not, at first, even summon up sufficient strength
      to tear and fit together the small splinters of wood, my fingers
      absolutely refusing their office, and my knees knocking violently
      against each other. My mind ran over rapidly a thousand absurd
      projects by which to avoid becoming a partner in the awful
      speculation. I thought of falling on my knees to my companions,
      and entreating them to let me escape this necessity; of suddenly
      rushing upon them, and, by putting one of them to death, of
      rendering the decision by lot useless—in short, of every thing
      but of going through with the matter I had in hand. At last,
      after wasting a long time in this imbecile conduct, I was
      recalled to my senses by the voice of Parker, who urged me to
      relieve them at once from the terrible anxiety they were
      enduring. Even then I could not bring myself to arrange the
      splinters upon the spot, but thought over every species of
      finesse by which I could trick some one of my fellow-sufferers to
      draw the short straw, as it had been agreed that whoever drew the
      shortest of four splinters from my hand was to die for the
      preservation of the rest. Before any one condemn me for this
      apparent heartlessness, let him be placed in a situation
      precisely similar to my own.

      At length delay was no longer possible, and, with a heart almost
      bursting from my bosom, I advanced to the region of the
      forecastle, where my companions were awaiting me. I held out my
      hand with the splinters, and Peters immediately drew. He was
      free—his, at least, was not the shortest; and there was now
      another chance against my escape. I summoned up all my strength,
      and passed the lots to Augustus. He also drew immediately, and he
      also was free; and now, whether I should live or die, the chances
      were no more than precisely even. At this moment all the
      fierceness of the tiger possessed my bosom, and I felt toward my
      poor fellow-creature, Parker, the most intense, the most
      diabolical hatred. But the feeling did not last; and, at length,
      with a convulsive shudder and closed eyes, I held out the two
      remaining splinters toward him. It was fully five minutes before
      he could summon resolution to draw, during which period of
      heartrending suspense I never once opened my eyes. Presently one
      of the two lots was quickly drawn from my hand. The decision was
      then over, yet I knew not whether it was for me or against me. No
      one spoke, and still I dared not satisfy myself by looking at the
      splinter I held. Peters at length took me by the hand, and I
      forced myself to look up, when I immediately saw by the
      countenance of Parker that I was safe, and that he it was who had
      been doomed to suffer. Gasping for breath, I fell senseless to
      the deck.

      I recovered from my swoon in time to behold the consummation of
      the tragedy in the death of him who had been chiefly instrumental
      in bringing it about. He made no resistance whatever, and was
      stabbed in the back by Peters, when he fell instantly dead. I
      must not dwell upon the fearful repast which immediately ensued.
      Such things may be imagined, but words have no power to impress
      the mind with the exquisite horror of their reality. Let it
      suffice to say that, having in some measure appeased the raging
      thirst which consumed us by the blood of the victim, and having
      by common consent taken off the hands, feet, and head, throwing
      them together with the entrails, into the sea, we devoured the
      rest of the body, piecemeal, during the four ever memorable days
      of the seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth of the
      month.

      On the nineteenth, there coming on a smart shower which lasted
      fifteen or twenty minutes, we contrived to catch some water by
      means of a sheet which had been fished up from the cabin by our
      drag just after the gale. The quantity we took in all did not
      amount to more than half a gallon; but even this scanty allowance
      supplied us with comparative strength and hope.

      On the twenty-first we were again reduced to the last necessity.
      The weather still remained warm and pleasant, with occasional
      fogs and light breezes, most usually from N. to W.

      On the twenty-second, as we were sitting close huddled together,
      gloomily revolving over our lamentable condition, there flashed
      through my mind all at once an idea which inspired me with a
      bright gleam of hope. I remembered that, when the foremast had
      been cut away, Peters, being in the windward chains, passed one
      of the axes into my hand, requesting me to put it, if possible,
      in a place of security, and that a few minutes before the last
      heavy sea struck the brig and filled her I had taken this axe
      into the forecastle and laid it in one of the larboard berths. I
      now thought it possible that, by getting at this axe, we might
      cut through the deck over the storeroom, and thus readily supply
      ourselves with provisions.

      When I communicated this object to my companions, they uttered a
      feeble shout of joy, and we all proceeded forthwith to the
      forecastle. The difficulty of descending here was greater than
      that of going down in the cabin, the opening being much smaller,
      for it will be remembered that the whole framework about the
      cabin companion-hatch had been carried away, whereas the
      forecastle-way, being a simple hatch of only about three feet
      square, had remained uninjured. I did not hesitate, however, to
      attempt the descent; and a rope being fastened round my body as
      before, I plunged boldly in, feet foremost, made my way quickly
      to the berth, and at the first attempt brought up the axe. It was
      hailed with the most ecstatic joy and triumph, and the ease with
      which it had been obtained was regarded as an omen of our
      ultimate preservation.

      We now commenced cutting at the deck with all the energy of
      rekindled hope, Peters and myself taking the axe by turns,
      Augustus’s wounded arm not permitting him to aid us in any
      degree. As we were still so feeble as to be scarcely able to
      stand unsupported, and could consequently work but a minute or
      two without resting, it soon became evident that many long hours
      would be necessary to accomplish our task—that is, to cut an
      opening sufficiently large to admit of a free access to the
      storeroom. This consideration, however, did not discourage us;
      and, working all night by the light of the moon, we succeeded in
      effecting our purpose by daybreak on the morning of the
      twenty-third.

      Peters now volunteered to go down; and, having made all
      arrangements as before, he descended, and soon returned bringing
      up with him a small jar, which, to our great joy, proved to be
      full of olives. Having shared these among us, and devoured them
      with the greatest avidity, we proceeded to let him down again.
      This time he succeeded beyond our utmost expectations, returning
      instantly with a large ham and a bottle of Madeira wine. Of the
      latter we each took a moderate sup, having learned by experience
      the pernicious consequences of indulging too freely. The ham,
      except about two pounds near the bone, was not in a condition to
      be eaten, having been entirely spoiled by the salt water. The
      sound part was divided among us. Peters and Augustus, not being
      able to restrain their appetite, swallowed theirs upon the
      instant; but I was more cautious, and ate but a small portion of
      mine, dreading the thirst which I knew would ensue. We now rested
      a while from our labors, which had been intolerably severe.

      By noon, feeling somewhat strengthened and refreshed, we again
      renewed our attempt at getting up provisions, Peters and myself
      going down alternately, and always with more or less success,
      until sundown. During this interval we had the good fortune to
      bring up, altogether, four more small jars of olives, another
      ham, a carboy containing nearly three gallons of excellent Cape
      Madeira wine, and, what gave us still more delight, a small
      tortoise of the Gallipago breed, several of which had been taken
      on board by Captain Barnard, as the _Grampus_ was leaving port,
      from the schooner _Mary Pitts_, just returned from a sealing
      voyage in the Pacific.

      In a subsequent portion of this narrative I shall have frequent
      occasion to mention this species of tortoise. It is found
      principally, as most of my readers may know, in the group of
      islands called the Gallipagos, which, indeed, derive their name
      from the animal—the Spanish word Gallipago meaning a fresh-water
      terrapin. From the peculiarity of their shape and action they
      have been sometimes called the elephant tortoise. They are
      frequently found of an enormous size. I have myself seen several
      which would weigh from twelve to fifteen hundred pounds, although
      I do not remember that any navigator speaks of having seen them
      weighing more than eight hundred. Their appearance is singular,
      and even disgusting. Their steps are very slow, measured, and
      heavy, their bodies being carried about a foot from the ground.
      Their neck is long, and exceedingly slender, from eighteen inches
      to two feet is a very common length, and I killed one, where the
      distance from the shoulder to the extremity of the head was no
      less than three feet ten inches. The head has a striking
      resemblance to that of a serpent. They can exist without food for
      an almost incredible length of time, instances having been known
      where they have been thrown into the hold of a vessel and lain
      two years without nourishment of any kind—being as fat, and, in
      every respect, in as good order at the expiration of the time as
      when they were first put in. In one particular these
      extraordinary animals bear a resemblance to the dromedary, or
      camel of the desert. In a bag at the root of the neck they carry
      with them a constant supply of water. In some instances, upon
      killing them after a full year’s deprivation of all nourishment,
      as much as three gallons of perfectly sweet and fresh water have
      been found in their bags. Their food is chiefly wild parsley and
      celery, with purslain, sea-kelp, and prickly pears, upon which
      latter vegetable they thrive wonderfully, a great quantity of it
      being usually found on the hillsides near the shore wherever the
      animal itself is discovered. They are excellent and highly
      nutritious food, and have, no doubt, been the means of preserving
      the lives of thousands of seamen employed in the whale-fishery
      and other pursuits in the Pacific.

      The one which we had the good fortune to bring up from the
      storeroom was not of a large size, weighing probably sixty-five
      or seventy pounds. It was a female, and in excellent condition,
      being exceedingly fat, and having more than a quart of limpid and
      sweet water in its bag. This was indeed a treasure; and, falling
      on our knees with one accord, we returned fervent thanks to God
      for so seasonable a relief.

      We had great difficulty in getting the animal up through the
      opening, as its struggles were fierce and its strength
      prodigious. It was upon the point of making its escape from
      Peter’s grasp, and slipping back into the water, when Augustus,
      throwing a rope with a slipknot around its throat, held it up in
      this manner until I jumped into the hole by the side of Peters,
      and assisted him in lifting it out.

      The water we drew carefully from the bag into the jug; which, it
      will be remembered, had been brought up before from the cabin.
      Having done this, we broke off the neck of a bottle so as to
      form, with the cork, a kind of glass, holding not quite half a
      gill. We then each drank one of these measures full, and resolved
      to limit ourselves to this quantity per day as long as it should
      hold out.

      During the last two or three days, the weather having been dry
      and pleasant, the bedding we had obtained from the cabin, as well
      as our clothing, had become thoroughly dry, so that we passed
      this night (that of the twenty-third) in comparative comfort,
      enjoying a tranquil repose, after having supped plentifully on
      olives and ham, with a small allowance of the wine. Being afraid
      of losing some of our stores overboard during the night, in the
      event of a breeze springing up, we secured them as well as
      possible with cordage to the fragments of the windlass. Our
      tortoise, which we were anxious to preserve alive as long as we
      could, we threw on its back, and otherwise carefully fastened.




CHAPTER 13


      July 24. This morning saw us wonderfully recruited in spirits and
      strength. Notwithstanding the perilous situation in which we were
      still placed, ignorant of our position, although certainly at a
      great distance from land, without more food than would last us
      for a fortnight even with great care, almost entirely without
      water, and floating about at the mercy of every wind and wave on
      the merest wreck in the world, still the infinitely more terrible
      distresses and dangers from which we had so lately and so
      providentially been delivered caused us to regard what we now
      endured as but little more than an ordinary evil—so strictly
      comparative is either good or ill.

      At sunrise we were preparing to renew our attempts at getting up
      something from the storeroom, when, a smart shower coming on,
      with some lightning, we turn our attention to the catching of
      water by means of the sheet we had used before for this purpose.
      We had no other means of collecting the rain than by holding the
      sheet spread out with one of the forechain-plates in the middle
      of it. The water, thus conducted to the centre, was drained
      through into our jug. We had nearly filled it in this manner,
      when, a heavy squall coming on from the northward, obliged us to
      desist, as the hulk began once more to roll so violently that we
      could no longer keep our feet. We now went forward, and, lashing
      ourselves securely to the remnant of the windlass as before,
      awaited the event with far more calmness than could have been
      anticipated or would have been imagined possible under the
      circumstances. At noon the wind had freshened into a two-reef
      breeze, and by night into a stiff gale, accompanied with a
      tremendously heavy swell. Experience having taught us, however,
      the best method of arranging our lashings, we weathered this
      dreary night in tolerable security, although thoroughly drenched
      at almost every instant by the sea, and in momentary dread of
      being washed off. Fortunately, the weather was so warm as to
      render the water rather grateful than otherwise.

      July 25. This morning the gale had diminished to a mere ten-knot
      breeze, and the sea had gone down with it so considerably that we
      were able to keep ourselves dry upon the deck. To our great
      grief, however, we found that two jars of our olives, as well as
      the whole of our ham, had been washed overboard, in spite of the
      careful manner in which they had been fastened. We determined not
      to kill the tortoise as yet, and contented ourselves for the
      present with a breakfast on a few of the olives, and a measure of
      water each, which latter we mixed half and half, with wine,
      finding great relief and strength from the mixture, without the
      distressing intoxication which had ensued upon drinking the port.
      The sea was still far too rough for the renewal of our efforts at
      getting up provision from the storeroom. Several articles, of no
      importance to us in our present situation, floated up through the
      opening during the day, and were immediately washed overboard. We
      also now observed that the hulk lay more along than ever, so that
      we could not stand an instant without lashing ourselves. On this
      account we passed a gloomy and uncomfortable day. At noon the sun
      appeared to be nearly vertical, and we had no doubt that we had
      been driven down by the long succession of northward and
      northwesterly winds into the near vicinity of the equator. Toward
      evening we saw several sharks, and were somewhat alarmed by the
      audacious manner in which an enormously large one approached us.
      At one time, a lurch throwing the deck very far beneath the
      water, the monster actually swam in upon us, floundering for some
      moments just over the companion-hatch, and striking Peters
      violently with his tail. A heavy sea at length hurled him
      overboard, much to our relief. In moderate weather we might have
      easily captured him.

      July 26. This morning, the wind having greatly abated, and the
      sea not being very rough, we determined to renew our exertions in
      the storeroom. After a great deal of hard labor during the whole
      day, we found that nothing further was to be expected from this
      quarter, the partitions of the room having been stove during the
      night, and its contents swept into the hold. This discovery, as
      may be supposed, filled us with despair.

      July 27. The sea nearly smooth, with a light wind, and still from
      the northward and westward. The sun coming out hotly in the
      afternoon, we occupied ourselves in drying our clothes. Found
      great relief from thirst, and much comfort otherwise, by bathing
      in the sea; in this, however, we were forced to use great
      caution, being afraid of sharks, several of which were seen
      swimming around the brig during the day.

      July 28. Good weather still. The brig now began to lie along so
      alarmingly that we feared she would eventually roll bottom up.
      Prepared ourselves as well as we could for this emergency,
      lashing our tortoise, waterjug, and two remaining jars of olives
      as far as possible over to the windward, placing them outside the
      hull below the main-chains. The sea very smooth all day, with
      little or no wind.

      July 29. A continuance of the same weather. Augustus’s wounded
      arm began to evince symptoms of mortification. He complained of
      drowsiness and excessive thirst, but no acute pain. Nothing could
      be done for his relief beyond rubbing his wounds with a little of
      the vinegar from the olives, and from this no benefit seemed to
      be experienced. We did every thing in our power for his comfort,
      and trebled his allowance of water.

      July 30. An excessively hot day, with no wind. An enormous shark
      kept close by the hulk during the whole of the forenoon. We made
      several unsuccessful attempts to capture him by means of a noose.
      Augustus much worse, and evidently sinking as much from want of
      proper nourishment as from the effect of his wounds. He
      constantly prayed to be relieved from his sufferings, wishing for
      nothing but death. This evening we ate the last of our olives,
      and found the water in our jug so putrid that we could not
      swallow it at all without the addition of wine. Determined to
      kill our tortoise in the morning.

      July 31. After a night of excessive anxiety and fatigue, owing to
      the position of the hulk, we set about killing and cutting up our
      tortoise. He proved to be much smaller than we had supposed,
      although in good condition,—the whole meat about him not
      amounting to more than ten pounds. With a view of preserving a
      portion of this as long as possible, we cut it into fine pieces,
      and filled with them our three remaining olive jars and the
      wine-bottle (all of which had been kept), pouring in afterward
      the vinegar from the olives. In this manner we put away about
      three pounds of the tortoise, intending not to touch it until we
      had consumed the rest. We concluded to restrict ourselves to
      about four ounces of the meat per day; the whole would thus last
      us thirteen days. A brisk shower, with severe thunder and
      lightning, came on about dusk, but lasted so short a time that we
      only succeeded in catching about half a pint of water. The whole
      of this, by common consent, was given to Augustus, who now
      appeared to be in the last extremity. He drank the water from the
      sheet as we caught it (we holding it above him as he lay so as to
      let it run into his mouth), for we had now nothing left capable
      of holding water, unless we had chosen to empty out our wine from
      the carboy, or the stale water from the jug. Either of these
      expedients would have been resorted to had the shower lasted.

      The sufferer seemed to derive but little benefit from the
      draught. His arm was completely black from the wrist to the
      shoulder, and his feet were like ice. We expected every moment to
      see him breathe his last. He was frightfully emaciated; so much
      so that, although he weighed a hundred and twenty-seven pounds
      upon his leaving Nantucket, he now did not weigh more than forty
      or fifty at the farthest. His eyes were sunk far in his head,
      being scarcely perceptible, and the skin of his cheeks hung so
      loosely as to prevent his masticating any food, or even
      swallowing any liquid, without great difficulty.

      August 1. A continuance of the same calm weather, with an
      oppressively hot sun. Suffered exceedingly from thirst, the water
      in the jug being absolutely putrid and swarming with vermin. We
      contrived, nevertheless, to swallow a portion of it by mixing it
      with wine; our thirst, however, was but little abated. We found
      more relief by bathing in the sea, but could not avail ourselves
      of this expedient except at long intervals, on account of the
      continual presence of sharks. We now saw clearly that Augustus
      could not be saved; that he was evidently dying. We could do
      nothing to relieve his sufferings, which appeared to be great.
      About twelve o’clock he expired in strong convulsions, and
      without having spoken for several hours. His death filled us with
      the most gloomy forebodings, and had so great an effect upon our
      spirits that we sat motionless by the corpse during the whole
      day, and never addressed each other except in a whisper. It was
      not until some time after dark that we took courage to get up and
      throw the body overboard. It was then loathsome beyond
      expression, and so far decayed that, as Peters attempted to lift
      it, an entire leg came off in his grasp. As the mass of
      putrefaction slipped over the vessel’s side into the water, the
      glare of phosphoric light with which it was surrounded plainly
      discovered to us seven or eight large sharks, the clashing of
      whose horrible teeth, as their prey was torn to pieces among
      them, might have been heard at the distance of a mile. We shrunk
      within ourselves in the extremity of horror at the sound.

      August 2. The same fearfully calm and hot weather. The dawn found
      us in a state of pitiable dejection as well as bodily exhaustion.
      The water in the jug was now absolutely useless, being a thick
      gelatinous mass; nothing but frightful-looking worms mingled with
      slime. We threw it out, and washed the jug well in the sea,
      afterward pouring a little vinegar in it from our bottles of
      pickled tortoise. Our thirst could now scarcely be endured, and
      we tried in vain to relieve it by wine, which seemed only to add
      fuel to the flame, and excited us to a high degree of
      intoxication. We afterward endeavoured to relieve our sufferings
      by mixing the wine with seawater; but this instantly brought
      about the most violent retchings, so that we never again
      attempted it. During the whole day we anxiously sought an
      opportunity of bathing, but to no purpose; for the hulk was now
      entirely besieged on all sides with sharks—no doubt the identical
      monsters who had devoured our poor companion on the evening
      before, and who were in momentary expectation of another similar
      feast. This circumstance occasioned us the most bitter regret and
      filled us with the most depressing and melancholy forebodings. We
      had experienced indescribable relief in bathing, and to have this
      resource cut off in so frightful a manner was more than we could
      bear. Nor, indeed, were we altogether free from the apprehension
      of immediate danger, for the least slip or false movement would
      have thrown us at once within reach of those voracious fish, who
      frequently thrust themselves directly upon us, swimming up to
      leeward. No shouts or exertions on our part seemed to alarm them.
      Even when one of the largest was struck with an axe by Peters and
      much wounded, he persisted in his attempts to push in where we
      were. A cloud came up at dusk, but, to our extreme anguish,
      passed over without discharging itself. It is quite impossible to
      conceive our sufferings from thirst at this period. We passed a
      sleepless night, both on this account and through dread of the
      sharks.

      August 3. No prospect of relief, and the brig lying still more
      and more along, so that now we could not maintain a footing upon
      deck at all. Busied ourselves in securing our wine and
      tortoise-meat, so that we might not lose them in the event of our
      rolling over. Got out two stout spikes from the forechains, and,
      by means of the axe, drove them into the hull to windward within
      a couple of feet of the water, this not being very far from the
      keel, as we were nearly upon our beam-ends. To these spikes we
      now lashed our provisions, as being more secure than their former
      position beneath the chains. Suffered great agony from thirst
      during the whole day—no chance of bathing on account of the
      sharks, which never left us for a moment. Found it impossible to
      sleep.

      August 4. A little before daybreak we perceived that the hulk was
      heeling over, and aroused ourselves to prevent being thrown off
      by the movement. At first the roll was slow and gradual, and we
      contrived to clamber over to windward very well, having taken the
      precaution to leave ropes hanging from the spikes we had driven
      in for the provision. But we had not calculated sufficiently upon
      the acceleration of the impetus; for, presently the heel became
      too violent to allow of our keeping pace with it; and, before
      either of us knew what was to happen, we found ourselves hurled
      furiously into the sea, and struggling several fathoms beneath
      the surface, with the huge hull immediately above us.

      In going under the water I had been obliged to let go my hold
      upon the rope; and finding that I was completely beneath the
      vessel, and my strength nearly exhausted, I scarcely made a
      struggle for life, and resigned myself, in a few seconds, to die.
      But here again I was deceived, not having taken into
      consideration the natural rebound of the hull to windward. The
      whirl of the water upward, which the vessel occasioned in rolling
      partially back, brought me to the surface still more violently
      than I had been plunged beneath. Upon coming up I found myself
      about twenty yards from the hulk, as near as I could judge. She
      was lying keel up, rocking furiously from side to side, and the
      sea in all directions around was much agitated, and full of
      strong whirlpools. I could see nothing of Peters. An oil-cask was
      floating within a few feet of me, and various other articles from
      the brig were scattered about.

      My principal terror was now on account of the sharks, which I
      knew to be in my vicinity. In order to deter these, if possible,
      from approaching me, I splashed the water vigorously with both
      hands and feet as I swam towards the hulk, creating a body of
      foam. I have no doubt that to this expedient, simple as it was, I
      was indebted for my preservation; for the sea all round the brig,
      just before her rolling over, was so crowded with these monsters,
      that I must have been, and really was, in actual contact with
      some of them during my progress. By great good fortune, however,
      I reached the side of the vessel in safety, although so utterly
      weakened by the violent exertion I had used that I should never
      have been able to get upon it but for the timely assistance of
      Peters, who, now, to my great joy, made his appearance (having
      scrambled up to the keel from the opposite side of the hull), and
      threw me the end of a rope—one of those which had been attached
      to the spikes.

      Having barely escaped this danger, our attention was now directed
      to the dreadful imminency of another—that of absolute starvation.
      Our whole stock of provision had been swept overboard in spite of
      all our care in securing it; and seeing no longer the remotest
      possibility of obtaining more, we gave way both of us to despair,
      weeping aloud like children, and neither of us attempting to
      offer consolation to the other. Such weakness can scarcely be
      conceived, and to those who have never been similarly situated
      will, no doubt, appear unnatural; but it must be remembered that
      our intellects were so entirely disordered by the long course of
      privation and terror to which we had been subjected, that we
      could not justly be considered, at that period, in the light of
      rational beings. In subsequent perils, nearly as great, if not
      greater, I bore up with fortitude against all the evils of my
      situation, and Peters, it will be seen, evinced a stoical
      philosophy nearly as incredible as his present childlike
      supineness and imbecility—the mental condition made the
      difference.

      The overturning of the brig, even with the consequent loss of the
      wine and turtle, would not, in fact, have rendered our situation
      more deplorable than before, except for the disappearance of the
      bedclothes by which we had been hitherto enabled to catch
      rainwater, and of the jug in which we had kept it when caught;
      for we found the whole bottom, from within two or three feet of
      the bends as far as the keel, together with the keel itself,
      thickly covered with large barnacles, which proved to be
      excellent and highly nutritious food. Thus, in two important
      respects, the accident we had so greatly dreaded proved to be a
      benefit rather than an injury; it had opened to us a supply of
      provisions which we could not have exhausted, using it
      moderately, in a month; and it had greatly contributed to our
      comfort as regards position, we being much more at ease, and in
      infinitely less danger, than before.

      The difficulty, however, of now obtaining water blinded us to all
      the benefits of the change in our condition. That we might be
      ready to avail ourselves, as far as possible, of any shower which
      might fall we took off our shirts, to make use of them as we had
      of the sheets—not hoping, of course, to get more in this way,
      even under the most favorable circumstances, than half a gill at
      a time. No signs of a cloud appeared during the day, and the
      agonies of our thirst were nearly intolerable. At night, Peters
      obtained about an hour’s disturbed sleep, but my intense
      sufferings would not permit me to close my eyes for a single
      moment.

      August 5. To-day, a gentle breeze springing up carried us through
      a vast quantity of seaweed, among which we were so fortunate as
      to find eleven small crabs, which afforded us several delicious
      meals. Their shells being quite soft, we ate them entire, and
      found that they irritated our thirst far less than the barnacles.
      Seeing no trace of sharks among the seaweed, we also ventured to
      bathe, and remained in the water for four or five hours, during
      which we experienced a very sensible diminution of our thirst.
      Were greatly refreshed, and spent the night somewhat more
      comfortably than before, both of us snatching a little sleep.

      August 6. This day we were blessed by a brisk and continual rain,
      lasting from about noon until after dark. Bitterly did we now
      regret the loss of our jug and carboy; for, in spite of the
      little means we had of catching the water, we might have filled
      one, if not both of them. As it was, we contrived to satisfy the
      cravings of thirst by suffering the shirts to become saturated,
      and then wringing them so as to let the grateful fluid trickle
      into our mouths. In this occupation we passed the entire day.

      August 7. Just at daybreak we both at the same instant descried a
      sail to the eastward, and _evidently coming towards us!_ We
      hailed the glorious sight with a long, although feeble shout of
      rapture; and began instantly to make every signal in our power,
      by flaring the shirts in the air, leaping as high as our weak
      condition would permit, and even by hallooing with all the
      strength of our lungs, although the vessel could not have been
      less than fifteen miles distant. However, she still continued to
      near our hulk, and we felt that, if she but held her present
      course, she must eventually come so close as to perceive us. In
      about an hour after we first discovered her, we could clearly see
      the people on her decks. She was a long, low, and rakish-looking
      topsail schooner, with a black ball in her foretopsail, and had,
      apparently, a full crew. We now became alarmed, for we could
      hardly imagine it possible that she did not observe us, and were
      apprehensive that she meant to leave us to perish as we were—an
      act of fiendish barbarity, which, however incredible it may
      appear, has been repeatedly perpetuated at sea, under
      circumstances very nearly similar, and by beings who were
      regarded as belonging to the human species. {*2} In this
      instance, however, by the mercy of God, we were destined to be
      most happily deceived; for, presently we were aware of a sudden
      commotion on the deck of the stranger, who immediately afterward
      ran up a British flag, and, hauling her wind, bore up directly
      upon us. In half an hour more we found ourselves in her cabin.
      She proved to be the Jane Guy, of Liverpool, Captain Guy, bound
      on a sealing and trading voyage to the South Seas and Pacific.




CHAPTER 14


      The _Jane Guy_ was a fine-looking topsail schooner of a hundred
      and eighty tons burden. She was unusually sharp in the bows, and
      on a wind, in moderate weather, the fastest sailer I have ever
      seen. Her qualities, however, as a rough sea-boat, were not so
      good, and her draught of water was by far too great for the trade
      to which she was destined. For this peculiar service, a larger
      vessel, and one of a light proportionate draught, is
      desirable—say a vessel of from three hundred to three hundred and
      fifty tons. She should be bark-rigged, and in other respects of a
      different construction from the usual South Sea ships. It is
      absolutely necessary that she should be well armed. She should
      have, say ten or twelve twelve-pound carronades, and two or three
      long twelves, with brass blunderbusses, and water-tight
      arm-chests for each top. Her anchors and cables should be of far
      greater strength than is required for any other species of trade,
      and, above all, her crew should be numerous and efficient—not
      less, for such a vessel as I have described, than fifty or sixty
      able-bodied men. The Jane Guy had a crew of thirty-five, all able
      seamen, besides the captain and mate, but she was not altogether
      as well armed or otherwise equipped, as a navigator acquainted
      with the difficulties and dangers of the trade could have
      desired.

      Captain Guy was a gentleman of great urbanity of manner, and of
      considerable experience in the southern traffic, to which he had
      devoted a great portion of his life. He was deficient, however,
      in energy, and, consequently, in that spirit of enterprise which
      is here so absolutely requisite. He was part owner of the vessel
      in which he sailed, and was invested with discretionary powers to
      cruise in the South Seas for any cargo which might come most
      readily to hand. He had on board, as usual in such voyages,
      beads, looking-glasses, tinder-works, axes, hatchets, saws,
      adzes, planes, chisels, gouges, gimlets, files, spokeshaves,
      rasps, hammers, nails, knives, scissors, razors, needles, thread,
      crockery-ware, calico, trinkets, and other similar articles.

      The schooner sailed from Liverpool on the tenth of July, crossed
      the Tropic of Cancer on the twenty-fifth, in longitude twenty
      degrees west, and reached Sal, one of the Cape Verd islands, on
      the twenty-ninth, where she took in salt and other necessaries
      for the voyage. On the third of August, she left the Cape Verds
      and steered southwest, stretching over toward the coast of
      Brazil, so as to cross the equator between the meridians of
      twenty-eight and thirty degrees west longitude. This is the
      course usually taken by vessels bound from Europe to the Cape of
      Good Hope, or by that route to the East Indies. By proceeding
      thus they avoid the calms and strong contrary currents which
      continually prevail on the coast of Guinea, while, in the end, it
      is found to be the shortest track, as westerly winds are never
      wanting afterward by which to reach the Cape. It was Captain
      Guy’s intention to make his first stoppage at Kerguelen’s Land—I
      hardly know for what reason. On the day we were picked up the
      schooner was off Cape St. Roque, in longitude thirty-one degrees
      west; so that, when found, we had drifted probably, from north to
      south, _not less than five-and-twenty degrees!_

      On board the Jane Guy we were treated with all the kindness our
      distressed situation demanded. In about a fortnight, during which
      time we continued steering to the southeast, with gentle breezes
      and fine weather, both Peters and myself recovered entirely from
      the effects of our late privation and dreadful sufferings, and we
      began to remember what had passed rather as a frightful dream
      from which we had been happily awakened, than as events which had
      taken place in sober and naked reality. I have since found that
      this species of partial oblivion is usually brought about by
      sudden transition, whether from joy to sorrow or from sorrow to
      joy—the degree of forgetfulness being proportioned to the degree
      of difference in the exchange. Thus, in my own case, I now feel
      it impossible to realize the full extent of the misery which I
      endured during the days spent upon the hulk. The incidents are
      remembered, but not the feelings which the incidents elicited at
      the time of their occurrence. I only know, that when they did
      occur, I then thought human nature could sustain nothing more of
      agony.

      We continued our voyage for some weeks without any incidents of
      greater moment than the occasional meeting with whaling-ships,
      and more frequently with the black or right whale, so called in
      contradistinction to the spermaceti. These, however, were chiefly
      found south of the twenty-fifth parallel. On the sixteenth of
      September, being in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope, the
      schooner encountered her first gale of any violence since leaving
      Liverpool. In this neighborhood, but more frequently to the south
      and east of the promontory (we were to the westward), navigators
      have often to contend with storms from the northward, which rage
      with great fury. They always bring with them a heavy sea, and one
      of their most dangerous features is the instantaneous chopping
      round of the wind, an occurrence almost certain to take place
      during the greatest force of the gale. A perfect hurricane will
      be blowing at one moment from the northward or northeast, and in
      the next not a breath of wind will be felt in that direction,
      while from the southwest it will come out all at once with a
      violence almost inconceivable. A bright spot to the southward is
      the sure forerunner of the change, and vessels are thus enabled
      to take the proper precautions.

      It was about six in the morning when the blow came on with a
      white squall, and, as usual, from the northward. By eight it had
      increased very much, and brought down upon us one of the most
      tremendous seas I had then ever beheld. Every thing had been made
      as snug as possible, but the schooner laboured excessively, and
      gave evidence of her bad qualities as a seaboat, pitching her
      forecastle under at every plunge and with the greatest difficulty
      struggling up from one wave before she was buried in another.
      Just before sunset the bright spot for which we had been on the
      look-out made its appearance in the southwest, and in an hour
      afterward we perceived the little headsail we carried flapping
      listlessly against the mast. In two minutes more, in spite of
      every preparation, we were hurled on our beam-ends, as if by
      magic, and a perfect wilderness of foam made a clear breach over
      us as we lay. The blow from the southwest, however, luckily
      proved to be nothing more than a squall, and we had the good
      fortune to right the vessel without the loss of a spar. A heavy
      cross sea gave us great trouble for a few hours after this, but
      toward morning we found ourselves in nearly as good condition as
      before the gale. Captain Guy considered that he had made an
      escape little less than miraculous.

      On the thirteenth of October we came in sight of Prince Edward’s
      Island, in latitude 46 degrees 53’ S., longitude 37 degrees 46’
      E. Two days afterward we found ourselves near Possession Island,
      and presently passed the islands of Crozet, in latitude 42
      degrees 59’ S., longitude 48 degrees E. On the eighteenth we made
      Kerguelen’s or Desolation Island, in the Southern Indian Ocean,
      and came to anchor in Christmas Harbour, having four fathoms of
      water.

      This island, or rather group of islands, bears southeast from the
      Cape of Good Hope, and is distant therefrom nearly eight hundred
      leagues. It was first discovered in 1772, by the Baron de
      Kergulen, or Kerguelen, a Frenchman, who, thinking the land to
      form a portion of an extensive southern continent carried home
      information to that effect, which produced much excitement at the
      time. The government, taking the matter up, sent the baron back
      in the following year for the purpose of giving his new discovery
      a critical examination, when the mistake was discovered. In 1777,
      Captain Cook fell in with the same group, and gave to the
      principal one the name of Desolation Island, a title which it
      certainly well deserves. Upon approaching the land, however, the
      navigator might be induced to suppose otherwise, as the sides of
      most of the hills, from September to March, are clothed with very
      brilliant verdure. This deceitful appearance is caused by a small
      plant resembling saxifrage, which is abundant, growing in large
      patches on a species of crumbling moss. Besides this plant there
      is scarcely a sign of vegetation on the island, if we except some
      coarse rank grass near the harbor, some lichen, and a shrub which
      bears resemblance to a cabbage shooting into seed, and which has
      a bitter and acrid taste.

      The face of the country is hilly, although none of the hills can
      be called lofty. Their tops are perpetually covered with snow.
      There are several harbors, of which Christmas Harbour is the most
      convenient. It is the first to be met with on the northeast side
      of the island after passing Cape Francois, which forms the
      northern shore, and, by its peculiar shape, serves to distinguish
      the harbour. Its projecting point terminates in a high rock,
      through which is a large hole, forming a natural arch. The
      entrance is in latitude 48 degrees 40’ S., longitude 69 degrees
      6’ E. Passing in here, good anchorage may be found under the
      shelter of several small islands, which form a sufficient
      protection from all easterly winds. Proceeding on eastwardly from
      this anchorage you come to Wasp Bay, at the head of the harbour.
      This is a small basin, completely landlocked, into which you can
      go with four fathoms, and find anchorage in from ten to three,
      hard clay bottom. A ship might lie here with her best bower ahead
      all the year round without risk. To the westward, at the head of
      Wasp Bay, is a small stream of excellent water, easily procured.

      Some seal of the fur and hair species are still to be found on
      Kerguelen’s Island, and sea elephants abound. The feathered
      tribes are discovered in great numbers. Penguins are very plenty,
      and of these there are four different kinds. The royal penguin,
      so called from its size and beautiful plumage, is the largest.
      The upper part of the body is usually gray, sometimes of a lilac
      tint; the under portion of the purest white imaginable. The head
      is of a glossy and most brilliant black, the feet also. The chief
      beauty of plumage, however, consists in two broad stripes of a
      gold color, which pass along from the head to the breast. The
      bill is long, and either pink or bright scarlet. These birds walk
      erect; with a stately carriage. They carry their heads high with
      their wings drooping like two arms, and, as their tails project
      from their body in a line with the legs, the resemblance to a
      human figure is very striking, and would be apt to deceive the
      spectator at a casual glance or in the gloom of the evening. The
      royal penguins which we met with on Kerguelen’s Land were rather
      larger than a goose. The other kinds are the macaroni, the
      jackass, and the rookery penguin. These are much smaller, less
      beautiful in plumage, and different in other respects.

      Besides the penguin many other birds are here to be found, among
      which may be mentioned sea-hens, blue peterels, teal, ducks, Port
      Egmont hens, shags, Cape pigeons, the nelly, sea swallows, terns,
      sea gulls, Mother Carey’s chickens, Mother Carey’s geese, or the
      great peterel, and, lastly, the albatross.

      The great peterel is as large as the common albatross, and is
      carnivorous. It is frequently called the break-bones, or osprey
      peterel. They are not at all shy, and, when properly cooked, are
      palatable food. In flying they sometimes sail very close to the
      surface of the water, with the wings expanded, without appearing
      to move them in the least degree, or make any exertion with them
      whatever.

      The albatross is one of the largest and fiercest of the South Sea
      birds. It is of the gull species, and takes its prey on the wing,
      never coming on land except for the purpose of breeding. Between
      this bird and the penguin the most singular friendship exists.
      Their nests are constructed with great uniformity upon a plan
      concerted between the two species—that of the albatross being
      placed in the centre of a little square formed by the nests of
      four penguins. Navigators have agreed in calling an assemblage of
      such encampments a rookery. These rookeries have been often
      described, but as my readers may not all have seen these
      descriptions, and as I shall have occasion hereafter to speak of
      the penguin and albatross, it will not be amiss to say something
      here of their mode of building and living.

      When the season for incubation arrives, the birds assemble in
      vast numbers, and for some days appear to be deliberating upon
      the proper course to be pursued. At length they proceed to
      action. A level piece of ground is selected, of suitable extent,
      usually comprising three or four acres, and situated as near the
      sea as possible, being still beyond its reach. The spot is chosen
      with reference to its evenness of surface, and that is preferred
      which is the least encumbered with stones. This matter being
      arranged, the birds proceed, with one accord, and actuated
      apparently by one mind, to trace out, with mathematical accuracy,
      either a square or other parallelogram, as may best suit the
      nature of the ground, and of just sufficient size to accommodate
      easily all the birds assembled, and no more—in this particular
      seeming determined upon preventing the access of future
      stragglers who have not participated in the labor of the
      encampment. One side of the place thus marked out runs parallel
      with the water’s edge, and is left open for ingress or egress.

      Having defined the limits of the rookery, the colony now begin to
      clear it of every species of rubbish, picking up stone by stone,
      and carrying them outside of the lines, and close by them, so as
      to form a wall on the three inland sides. Just within this wall a
      perfectly level and smooth walk is formed, from six to eight feet
      wide, and extending around the encampment—thus serving the
      purpose of a general promenade.

      The next process is to partition out the whole area into small
      squares exactly equal in size. This is done by forming narrow
      paths, very smooth, and crossing each other at right angles
      throughout the entire extent of the rookery. At each intersection
      of these paths the nest of an albatross is constructed, and a
      penguin’s nest in the centre of each square—thus every penguin is
      surrounded by four albatrosses, and each albatross by a like
      number of penguins. The penguin’s nest consists of a hole in the
      earth, very shallow, being only just of sufficient depth to keep
      her single egg from rolling. The albatross is somewhat less
      simple in her arrangements, erecting a hillock about a foot high
      and two in diameter. This is made of earth, seaweed, and shells.
      On its summit she builds her nest.

      The birds take especial care never to leave their nests
      unoccupied for an instant during the period of incubation, or,
      indeed, until the young progeny are sufficiently strong to take
      care of themselves. While the male is absent at sea in search of
      food, the female remains on duty, and it is only upon the return
      of her partner that she ventures abroad. The eggs are never left
      uncovered at all—while one bird leaves the nest the other
      nestling in by its side. This precaution is rendered necessary by
      the thieving propensities prevalent in the rookery, the
      inhabitants making no scruple to purloin each other’s eggs at
      every good opportunity.

      Although there are some rookeries in which the penguin and
      albatross are the sole population, yet in most of them a variety
      of oceanic birds are to be met with, enjoying all the privileges
      of citizenship, and scattering their nests here and there,
      wherever they can find room, never interfering, however, with the
      stations of the larger species. The appearance of such
      encampments, when seen from a distance, is exceedingly singular.
      The whole atmosphere just above the settlement is darkened with
      the immense number of the albatross (mingled with the smaller
      tribes) which are continually hovering over it, either going to
      the ocean or returning home. At the same time a crowd of penguins
      are to be observed, some passing to and fro in the narrow alleys,
      and some marching with the military strut so peculiar to them,
      around the general promenade ground which encircles the rookery.
      In short, survey it as we will, nothing can be more astonishing
      than the spirit of reflection evinced by these feathered beings,
      and nothing surely can be better calculated to elicit reflection
      in every well-regulated human intellect.

      On the morning after our arrival in Christmas Harbour the chief
      mate, Mr. Patterson, took the boats, and (although it was
      somewhat early in the season) went in search of seal, leaving the
      captain and a young relation of his on a point of barren land to
      the westward, they having some business, whose nature I could not
      ascertain, to transact in the interior of the island. Captain Guy
      took with him a bottle, in which was a sealed letter, and made
      his way from the point on which he was set on shore toward one of
      the highest peaks in the place. It is probable that his design
      was to leave the letter on that height for some vessel which he
      expected to come after him. As soon as we lost sight of him we
      proceeded (Peters and myself being in the mate’s boat) on our
      cruise around the coast, looking for seal. In this business we
      were occupied about three weeks, examining with great care every
      nook and corner, not only of Kerguelen’s Land, but of the several
      small islands in the vicinity. Our labours, however, were not
      crowned with any important success. We saw a great many fur seal,
      but they were exceedingly shy, and with the greatest exertions,
      we could only procure three hundred and fifty skins in all. Sea
      elephants were abundant, especially on the western coast of the
      mainland, but of these we killed only twenty, and this with great
      difficulty. On the smaller islands we discovered a good many of
      the hair seal, but did not molest them. We returned to the
      schooner on the eleventh, where we found Captain Guy and his
      nephew, who gave a very bad account of the interior, representing
      it as one of the most dreary and utterly barren countries in the
      world. They had remained two nights on the island, owing to some
      misunderstanding, on the part of the second mate, in regard to
      the sending a jollyboat from the schooner to take them off.




CHAPTER 15


      On the twelfth we made sail from Christmas Harbour retracing our
      way to the westward, and leaving Marion’s Island, one of Crozet’s
      group, on the larboard. We afterward passed Prince Edward’s
      Island, leaving it also on our left, then, steering more to the
      northward, made, in fifteen days, the islands of Tristan
      d’Acunha, in latitude 37 degrees 8’ S, longitude 12 degrees 8’ W.

      This group, now so well known, and which consists of three
      circular islands, was first discovered by the Portuguese, and was
      visited afterward by the Dutch in 1643, and by the French in
      1767. The three islands together form a triangle, and are distant
      from each other about ten miles, there being fine open passages
      between. The land in all of them is very high, especially in
      Tristan d’Acunha, properly so called. This is the largest of the
      group, being fifteen miles in circumference, and so elevated that
      it can be seen in clear weather at the distance of eighty or
      ninety miles. A part of the land toward the north rises more than
      a thousand feet perpendicularly from the sea. A tableland at this
      height extends back nearly to the centre of the island, and from
      this tableland arises a lofty cone like that of Teneriffe. The
      lower half of this cone is clothed with trees of good size, but
      the upper region is barren rock, usually hidden among the clouds,
      and covered with snow during the greater part of the year. There
      are no shoals or other dangers about the island, the shores being
      remarkably bold and the water deep. On the northwestern coast is
      a bay, with a beach of black sand where a landing with boats can
      be easily effected, provided there be a southerly wind. Plenty of
      excellent water may here be readily procured; also cod and other
      fish may be taken with hook and line.

      The next island in point of size, and the most westwardly of the
      group, is that called the Inaccessible. Its precise situation is
      37 degrees 17’ S. latitude, longitude 12 degrees 24’ W. It is
      seven or eight miles in circumference, and on all sides presents
      a forbidding and precipitous aspect. Its top is perfectly flat,
      and the whole region is sterile, nothing growing upon it except a
      few stunted shrubs.

      Nightingale Island, the smallest and most southerly, is in
      latitude 37 degrees 26’ S., longitude 12 degrees 12’ W. Off its
      southern extremity is a high ledge of rocky islets; a few also of
      a similar appearance are seen to the northeast. The ground is
      irregular and sterile, and a deep valley partially separates it.

      The shores of these islands abound, in the proper season, with
      sea lions, sea elephants, the hair and fur seal, together with a
      great variety of oceanic birds. Whales are also plenty in their
      vicinity. Owing to the ease with which these various animals were
      here formerly taken, the group has been much visited since its
      discovery. The Dutch and French frequented it at a very early
      period. In 1790, Captain Patten, of the ship Industry, of
      Philadelphia, made Tristan d’Acunha, where he remained seven
      months (from August, 1790, to April, 1791) for the purpose of
      collecting sealskins. In this time he gathered no less than five
      thousand six hundred, and says that he would have had no
      difficulty in loading a large ship with oil in three weeks. Upon
      his arrival he found no quadrupeds, with the exception of a few
      wild goats; the island now abounds with all our most valuable
      domestic animals, which have been introduced by subsequent
      navigators.

      I believe it was not long after Captain Patten’s visit that
      Captain Colquhoun, of the American brig Betsey, touched at the
      largest of the islands for the purpose of refreshment. He planted
      onions, potatoes, cabbages, and a great many other vegetables, an
      abundance of all which is now to be met with.

      In 1811, a Captain Haywood, in the Nereus, visited Tristan. He
      found there three Americans, who were residing upon the island to
      prepare sealskins and oil. One of these men was named Jonathan
      Lambert, and he called himself the sovereign of the country. He
      had cleared and cultivated about sixty acres of land, and turned
      his attention to raising the coffee-plant and sugar-cane, with
      which he had been furnished by the American Minister at Rio
      Janeiro. This settlement, however, was finally abandoned, and in
      1817 the islands were taken possession of by the British
      Government, who sent a detachment for that purpose from the Cape
      of Good Hope. They did not, however, retain them long; but, upon
      the evacuation of the country as a British possession, two or
      three English families took up their residence there
      independently of the Government. On the twenty-fifth of March,
      1824, the Berwick, Captain Jeffrey, from London to Van Diemen’s
      Land, arrived at the place, where they found an Englishman of the
      name of Glass, formerly a corporal in the British artillery. He
      claimed to be supreme governor of the islands, and had under his
      control twenty-one men and three women. He gave a very favourable
      account of the salubrity of the climate and of the productiveness
      of the soil. The population occupied themselves chiefly in
      collecting sealskins and sea elephant oil, with which they traded
      to the Cape of Good Hope, Glass owning a small schooner. At the
      period of our arrival the governor was still a resident, but his
      little community had multiplied, there being fifty-six persons
      upon Tristan, besides a smaller settlement of seven on
      Nightingale Island. We had no difficulty in procuring almost
      every kind of refreshment which we required—sheep, hogs,
      bullocks, rabbits, poultry, goats, fish in great variety, and
      vegetables were abundant. Having come to anchor close in with the
      large island, in eighteen fathoms, we took all we wanted on board
      very conveniently. Captain Guy also purchased of Glass five
      hundred sealskins and some ivory. We remained here a week, during
      which the prevailing winds were from the northward and westward,
      and the weather somewhat hazy. On the fifth of November we made
      sail to the southward and westward, with the intention of having
      a thorough search for a group of islands called the Auroras,
      respecting whose existence a great diversity of opinion has
      existed.

      These islands are said to have been discovered as early as 1762,
      by the commander of the ship Aurora. In 1790, Captain Manuel de
      Oyarvido, in the ship Princess, belonging to the Royal Philippine
      Company, sailed, as he asserts, directly among them. In 1794, the
      Spanish corvette Atrevida went with the determination of
      ascertaining their precise situation, and, in a paper published
      by the Royal Hydrographical Society of Madrid in the year 1809,
      the following language is used respecting this expedition: “The
      corvette Atrevida practised, in their immediate vicinity, from
      the twenty-first to the twenty-seventh of January, all the
      necessary observations, and measured by chronometers the
      difference of longitude between these islands and the port of
      Soledad in the Manillas. The islands are three, they are very
      nearly in the same meridian; the centre one is rather low, and
      the other two may be seen at nine leagues’ distance.” The
      observations made on board the Atrevida give the following
      results as the precise situation of each island. The most
      northern is in latitude 52 degrees 37’ 24” S., longitude 47
      degrees, 43’ 15” W.; the middle one in latitude 53 degrees 2’ 40”
      S., longitude 47 degrees 55’ 15” W.; and the most southern in
      latitude 53 degrees 15’ 22” S., longitude 47 degrees 57’ 15” W.

      On the twenty-seventh of January, 1820, Captain James Weddel, of
      the British navy, sailed from Staten Land also in search of the
      Auroras. He reports that, having made the most diligent search
      and passed not only immediately over the spots indicated by the
      commander of the Atrevida, but in every direction throughout the
      vicinity of these spots, he could discover no indication of land.
      These conflicting statements have induced other navigators to
      look out for the islands; and, strange to say, while some have
      sailed through every inch of sea where they are supposed to lie
      without finding them, there have been not a few who declare
      positively that they have seen them; and even been close in with
      their shores. It was Captain Guy’s intention to make every
      exertion within his power to settle the question so oddly in
      dispute. {*3}

      We kept on our course, between the south and west, with variable
      weather, until the twentieth of the month, when we found
      ourselves on the debated ground, being in latitude 53 degrees 15’
      S., longitude 47 degrees 58’ W.—that is to say, very nearly upon
      the spot indicated as the situation of the most southern of the
      group. Not perceiving any sign of land, we continued to the
      westward of the parallel of fifty-three degrees south, as far as
      the meridian of fifty degrees west. We then stood to the north as
      far as the parallel of fifty-two degrees south, when we turned to
      the eastward, and kept our parallel by double altitudes, morning
      and evening, and meridian altitudes of the planets and moon.
      Having thus gone eastwardly to the meridian of the western coast
      of Georgia, we kept that meridian until we were in the latitude
      from which we set out. We then took diagonal courses throughout
      the entire extent of sea circumscribed, keeping a lookout
      constantly at the masthead, and repeating our examination with
      the greatest care for a period of three weeks, during which the
      weather was remarkably pleasant and fair, with no haze
      whatsoever. Of course we were thoroughly satisfied that, whatever
      islands might have existed in this vicinity at any former period,
      no vestige of them remained at the present day. Since my return
      home I find that the same ground was traced over, with equal
      care, in 1822, by Captain Johnson, of the American schooner
      Henry, and by Captain Morrell in the American schooner Wasp—in
      both cases with the same result as in our own.




CHAPTER 16


      It had been Captain Guy’s original intention, after satisfying
      himself about the Auroras, to proceed through the Strait of
      Magellan, and up along the western coast of Patagonia; but
      information received at Tristan d’Acunha induced him to steer to
      the southward, in the hope of falling in with some small islands
      said to lie about the parallel of 60 degrees S., longitude 41
      degrees 20’ W. In the event of his not discovering these lands,
      he designed, should the season prove favourable, to push on
      toward the pole. Accordingly, on the twelfth of December, we made
      sail in that direction. On the eighteenth we found ourselves
      about the station indicated by Glass, and cruised for three days
      in that neighborhood without finding any traces of the islands he
      had mentioned. On the twenty-first, the weather being unusually
      pleasant, we again made sail to the southward, with the
      resolution of penetrating in that course as far as possible.
      Before entering upon this portion of my narrative, it may be as
      well, for the information of those readers who have paid little
      attention to the progress of discovery in these regions, to give
      some brief account of the very few attempts at reaching the
      southern pole which have hitherto been made.

      That of Captain Cook was the first of which we have any distinct
      account. In 1772 he sailed to the south in the Resolution,
      accompanied by Lieutenant Furneaux in the Adventure. In December
      he found himself as far as the fifty-eighth parallel of south
      latitude, and in longitude 26 degrees 57’ E. Here he met with
      narrow fields of ice, about eight or ten inches thick, and
      running northwest and southeast. This ice was in large cakes, and
      usually it was packed so closely that the vessel had great
      difficulty in forcing a passage. At this period Captain Cook
      supposed, from the vast number of birds to be seen, and from
      other indications, that he was in the near vicinity of land. He
      kept on to the southward, the weather being exceedingly cold,
      until he reached the sixty-fourth parallel, in longitude 38
      degrees 14’ E. Here he had mild weather, with gentle breezes, for
      five days, the thermometer being at thirty-six. In January, 1773,
      the vessels crossed the Antarctic circle, but did not succeed in
      penetrating much farther; for upon reaching latitude 67 degrees
      15’ they found all farther progress impeded by an immense body of
      ice, extending all along the southern horizon as far as the eye
      could reach. This ice was of every variety—and some large floes
      of it, miles in extent, formed a compact mass, rising eighteen or
      twenty feet above the water. It being late in the season, and no
      hope entertained of rounding these obstructions, Captain Cook now
      reluctantly turned to the northward.

      In the November following he renewed his search in the Antarctic.
      In latitude 59 degrees 40’ he met with a strong current setting
      to the southward. In December, when the vessels were in latitude
      67 degrees 31’, longitude 142 degrees 54’ W., the cold was
      excessive, with heavy gales and fog. Here also birds were
      abundant; the albatross, the penguin, and the peterel especially.
      In latitude 70 degrees 23’ some large islands of ice were
      encountered, and shortly afterward the clouds to the southward
      were observed to be of a snowy whiteness, indicating the vicinity
      of field ice. In latitude 71 degrees 10’, longitude 106 degrees
      54’ W., the navigators were stopped, as before, by an immense
      frozen expanse, which filled the whole area of the southern
      horizon. The northern edge of this expanse was ragged and broken,
      so firmly wedged together as to be utterly impassible, and
      extending about a mile to the southward. Behind it the frozen
      surface was comparatively smooth for some distance, until
      terminated in the extreme background by gigantic ranges of ice
      mountains, the one towering above the other. Captain Cook
      concluded that this vast field reached the southern pole or was
      joined to a continent. Mr. J. N. Reynolds, whose great exertions
      and perseverance have at length succeeded in getting set on foot
      a national expedition, partly for the purpose of exploring these
      regions, thus speaks of the attempt of the Resolution. “We are
      not surprised that Captain Cook was unable to go beyond 71
      degrees 10’, but we are astonished that he did attain that point
      on the meridian of 106 degrees 54’ west longitude. Palmer’s Land
      lies south of the Shetland, latitude sixty-four degrees, and
      tends to the southward and westward farther than any navigator
      has yet penetrated. Cook was standing for this land when his
      progress was arrested by the ice; which, we apprehend, must
      always be the case in that point, and so early in the season as
      the sixth of January—and we should not be surprised if a portion
      of the icy mountains described was attached to the main body of
      Palmer’s Land, or to some other portions of land lying farther to
      the southward and westward.”

      In 1803, Captains Kreutzenstern and Lisiausky were dispatched by
      Alexander of Russia for the purpose of circumnavigating the
      globe. In endeavouring to get south, they made no farther than 59
      degrees 58’, in longitude 70 degrees 15’ W. They here met with
      strong currents setting eastwardly. Whales were abundant, but
      they saw no ice. In regard to this voyage, Mr. Reynolds observes
      that, if Kreutzenstern had arrived where he did earlier in the
      season, he must have encountered ice—it was March when he reached
      the latitude specified. The winds, prevailing, as they do, from
      the southward and westward, had carried the floes, aided by
      currents, into that icy region bounded on the north by Georgia,
      east by Sandwich Land and the South Orkneys, and west by the
      South Shetland islands.

      In 1822, Captain James Weddell, of the British navy, with two
      very small vessels, penetrated farther to the south than any
      previous navigator, and this, too, without encountering
      extraordinary difficulties. He states that although he was
      frequently hemmed in by ice before reaching the seventy-second
      parallel, yet, upon attaining it, not a particle was to be
      discovered, and that, upon arriving at the latitude of 74 degrees
      15’, no fields, and only three islands of ice were visible. It is
      somewhat remarkable that, although vast flocks of birds were
      seen, and other usual indications of land, and although, south of
      the Shetlands, unknown coasts were observed from the masthead
      tending southwardly, Weddell discourages the idea of land
      existing in the polar regions of the south.

      On the 11th of January, 1823, Captain Benjamin Morrell, of the
      American schooner Wasp, sailed from Kerguelen’s Land with a view
      of penetrating as far south as possible. On the first of February
      he found himself in latitude 64 degrees 52’ S., longitude 118
      degrees 27’ E. The following passage is extracted from his
      journal of that date. “The wind soon freshened to an eleven-knot
      breeze, and we embraced this opportunity of making to the west;
      being however convinced that the farther we went south beyond
      latitude sixty-four degrees, the less ice was to be apprehended,
      we steered a little to the southward, until we crossed the
      Antarctic circle, and were in latitude 69 degrees 15’ E. In this
      latitude there was no field ice, and very few ice islands in
      sight.”

      Under the date of March fourteenth I find also this entry. “The
      sea was now entirely free of field ice, and there were not more
      than a dozen ice islands in sight. At the same time the
      temperature of the air and water was at least thirteen degrees
      higher (more mild) than we had ever found it between the
      parallels of sixty and sixty-two south. We were now in latitude
      70 degrees 14’ S., and the temperature of the air was
      forty-seven, and that of the water forty-four. In this situation
      I found the variation to be 14 degrees 27’ easterly, per
      azimuth.... I have several times passed within the Antarctic
      circle, on different meridians, and have uniformly found the
      temperature, both of the air and the water, to become more and
      more mild the farther I advanced beyond the sixty-fifth degree of
      south latitude, and that the variation decreases in the same
      proportion. While north of this latitude, say between sixty and
      sixty-five south, we frequently had great difficulty in finding a
      passage for the vessel between the immense and almost innumerable
      ice islands, some of which were from one to two miles in
      circumference, and more than five hundred feet above the surface
      of the water.”

      Being nearly destitute of fuel and water, and without proper
      instruments, it being also late in the season, Captain Morrell
      was now obliged to put back, without attempting any further
      progress to the westward, although an entirely open, sea lay
      before him. He expresses the opinion that, had not these
      overruling considerations obliged him to retreat, he could have
      penetrated, if not to the pole itself, at least to the
      eighty-fifth parallel. I have given his ideas respecting these
      matters somewhat at length, that the reader may have an
      opportunity of seeing how far they were borne out by my own
      subsequent experience.

      In 1831, Captain Briscoe, in the employ of the Messieurs Enderby,
      whale-ship owners of London, sailed in the brig Lively for the
      South Seas, accompanied by the cutter Tula. On the twenty-eighth
      of February, being in latitude 66 degrees 30’ S., longitude 47
      degrees 31’ E., he descried land, and “clearly discovered through
      the snow the black peaks of a range of mountains running E. S.
      E.” He remained in this neighbourhood during the whole of the
      following month, but was unable to approach the coast nearer than
      within ten leagues, owing to the boisterous state of the weather.
      Finding it impossible to make further discovery during this
      season, he returned northward to winter in Van Diemen’s Land.

      In the beginning of 1832 he again proceeded southwardly, and on
      the fourth of February land was seen to the southeast in latitude
      67 degrees 15’ longitude 69 degrees 29’ W. This was soon found to
      be an island near the headland of the country he had first
      discovered. On the twenty-first of the month he succeeded in
      landing on the latter, and took possession of it in the name of
      William IV, calling it Adelaide’s Island, in honour of the
      English queen. These particulars being made known to the Royal
      Geographical Society of London, the conclusion was drawn by that
      body “that there is a continuous tract of land extending from 47
      degrees 30’ E. to 69 degrees 29’ W. longitude, running the
      parallel of from sixty-six to sixty-seven degrees south
      latitude.” In respect to this conclusion Mr. Reynolds observes:
      “In the correctness of it we by no means concur; nor do the
      discoveries of Briscoe warrant any such indifference. It was
      within these limits that Weddel proceeded south on a meridian to
      the east of Georgia, Sandwich Land, and the South Orkney and
      Shetland islands.” My own experience will be found to testify
      most directly to the falsity of the conclusion arrived at by the
      society.

      These are the principal attempts which have been made at
      penetrating to a high southern latitude, and it will now be seen
      that there remained, previous to the voyage of the Jane, nearly
      three hundred degrees of longitude in which the Antarctic circle
      had not been crossed at all. Of course a wide field lay before us
      for discovery, and it was with feelings of most intense interest
      that I heard Captain Guy express his resolution of pushing boldly
      to the southward.




CHAPTER 17


      We kept our course southwardly for four days after giving up the
      search for Glass’s islands, without meeting with any ice at all.
      On the twenty-sixth, at noon, we were in latitude 63 degrees 23’
      S., longitude 41 degrees 25’ W. We now saw several large ice
      islands, and a floe of field ice, not, however, of any great
      extent. The winds generally blew from the southeast, or the
      northeast, but were very light. Whenever we had a westerly wind,
      which was seldom, it was invariably attended with a rain squall.
      Every day we had more or less snow. The thermometer, on the
      twenty-seventh stood at thirty-five.

      January 1, 1828.—This day we found ourselves completely hemmed in
      by the ice, and our prospects looked cheerless indeed. A strong
      gale blew, during the whole forenoon, from the northeast, and
      drove large cakes of the drift against the rudder and counter
      with such violence that we all trembled for the consequences.
      Toward evening, the gale still blowing with fury, a large field
      in front separated, and we were enabled, by carrying a press of
      sail to force a passage through the smaller flakes into some open
      water beyond. As we approached this space we took in sail by
      degrees, and having at length got clear, lay-to under a single
      reefed foresail.

      January 2.—We had now tolerably pleasant weather. At noon we
      found ourselves in latitude 69 degrees 10’ S, longitude 42
      degrees 20’ W, having crossed the Antarctic circle. Very little
      ice was to be seen to the southward, although large fields of it
      lay behind us. This day we rigged some sounding gear, using a
      large iron pot capable of holding twenty gallons, and a line of
      two hundred fathoms. We found the current setting to the north,
      about a quarter of a mile per hour. The temperature of the air
      was now about thirty-three. Here we found the variation to be 14
      degrees 28’ easterly, per azimuth.

      January 5.—We had still held on to the southward without any very
      great impediments. On this morning, however, being in latitude 73
      degrees 15’ E., longitude 42 degrees 10’ W, we were again brought
      to a stand by an immense expanse of firm ice. We saw,
      nevertheless, much open water to the southward, and felt no doubt
      of being able to reach it eventually. Standing to the eastward
      along the edge of the floe, we at length came to a passage of
      about a mile in width, through which we warped our way by
      sundown. The sea in which we now were was thickly covered with
      ice islands, but had no field ice, and we pushed on boldly as
      before. The cold did not seem to increase, although we had snow
      very frequently, and now and then hail squalls of great violence.
      Immense flocks of the albatross flew over the schooner this day,
      going from southeast to northwest.

      January 7.—The sea still remained pretty well open, so that we
      had no difficulty in holding on our course. To the westward we
      saw some icebergs of incredible size, and in the afternoon passed
      very near one whose summit could not have been less than four
      hundred fathoms from the surface of the ocean. Its girth was
      probably, at the base, three-quarters of a league, and several
      streams of water were running from crevices in its sides. We
      remained in sight of this island two days, and then only lost it
      in a fog.

      January 10.—Early this morning we had the misfortune to lose a
      man overboard. He was an American named Peter Vredenburgh, a
      native of New York, and was one of the most valuable hands on
      board the schooner. In going over the bows his foot slipped, and
      he fell between two cakes of ice, never rising again. At noon of
      this day we were in latitude 78 degrees 30’, longitude 40 degrees
      15’ W. The cold was now excessive, and we had hail squalls
      continually from the northward and eastward. In this direction
      also we saw several more immense icebergs, and the whole horizon
      to the eastward appeared to be blocked up with field ice, rising
      in tiers, one mass above the other. Some driftwood floated by
      during the evening, and a great quantity of birds flew over,
      among which were nellies, peterels, albatrosses, and a large bird
      of a brilliant blue plumage. The variation here, per azimuth, was
      less than it had been previously to our passing the Antarctic
      circle.

      January 12.—Our passage to the south again looked doubtful, as
      nothing was to be seen in the direction of the pole but one
      apparently limitless floe, backed by absolute mountains of ragged
      ice, one precipice of which arose frowningly above the other. We
      stood to the westward until the fourteenth, in the hope of
      finding an entrance.

      January 14.—This morning we reached the western extremity of the
      field which had impeded us, and, weathering it, came to an open
      sea, without a particle of ice. Upon sounding with two hundred
      fathoms, we here found a current setting southwardly at the rate
      of half a mile per hour. The temperature of the air was
      forty-seven, that of the water thirty-four. We now sailed to the
      southward without meeting any interruption of moment until the
      sixteenth, when, at noon, we were in latitude 81 degrees 21’,
      longitude 42 degrees W. We here again sounded, and found a
      current setting still southwardly, and at the rate of three
      quarters of a mile per hour. The variation per azimuth had
      diminished, and the temperature of the air was mild and pleasant,
      the thermometer being as high as fifty-one. At this period not a
      particle of ice was to be discovered. All hands on board now felt
      certain of attaining the pole.

      January 17.—This day was full of incident. Innumerable flights of
      birds flew over us from the southward, and several were shot from
      the deck, one of them, a species of pelican, proved to be
      excellent eating. About midday a small floe of ice was seen from
      the masthead off the larboard bow, and upon it there appeared to
      be some large animal. As the weather was good and nearly calm,
      Captain Guy ordered out two of the boats to see what it was. Dirk
      Peters and myself accompanied the mate in the larger boat. Upon
      coming up with the floe, we perceived that it was in the
      possession of a gigantic creature of the race of the Arctic bear,
      but far exceeding in size the largest of these animals. Being
      well armed, we made no scruple of attacking it at once. Several
      shots were fired in quick succession, the most of which took
      effect, apparently, in the head and body. Nothing discouraged,
      however, the monster threw himself from the ice, and swam with
      open jaws, to the boat in which were Peters and myself. Owing to
      the confusion which ensued among us at this unexpected turn of
      the adventure, no person was ready immediately with a second
      shot, and the bear had actually succeeded in getting half his
      vast bulk across our gunwale, and seizing one of the men by the
      small of his back, before any efficient means were taken to repel
      him. In this extremity nothing but the promptness and agility of
      Peters saved us from destruction. Leaping upon the back of the
      huge beast, he plunged the blade of a knife behind the neck,
      reaching the spinal marrow at a blow. The brute tumbled into the
      sea lifeless, and without a struggle, rolling over Peters as he
      fell. The latter soon recovered himself, and a rope being thrown
      him, he secured the carcass before entering the boat. We then
      returned in triumph to the schooner, towing our trophy behind us.
      This bear, upon admeasurement, proved to be full fifteen feet in
      his greatest length. His wool was perfectly white, and very
      coarse, curling tightly. The eyes were of a blood red, and larger
      than those of the Arctic bear, the snout also more rounded,
      rather resembling the snout of the bulldog. The meat was tender,
      but excessively rank and fishy, although the men devoured it with
      avidity, and declared it excellent eating.

      Scarcely had we got our prize alongside, when the man at the
      masthead gave the joyful shout of “land on the starboard bow!”
      All hands were now upon the alert, and, a breeze springing up
      very opportunely from the northward and eastward, we were soon
      close in with the coast. It proved to be a low rocky islet, of
      about a league in circumference, and altogether destitute of
      vegetation, if we except a species of prickly pear. In
      approaching it from the northward, a singular ledge of rock is
      seen projecting into the sea, and bearing a strong resemblance to
      corded bales of cotton. Around this ledge to the westward is a
      small bay, at the bottom of which our boats effected a convenient
      landing.

      It did not take us long to explore every portion of the island,
      but, with one exception, we found nothing worthy of our
      observation. In the southern extremity, we picked up near the
      shore, half buried in a pile of loose stones, a piece of wood,
      which seemed to have formed the prow of a canoe. There had been
      evidently some attempt at carving upon it, and Captain Guy
      fancied that he made out the figure of a tortoise, but the
      resemblance did not strike me very forcibly. Besides this prow,
      if such it were, we found no other token that any living creature
      had ever been here before. Around the coast we discovered
      occasional small floes of ice—but these were very few. The exact
      situation of the islet (to which Captain Guy gave the name of
      Bennet’s Islet, in honour of his partner in the ownership of the
      schooner) is 82 degrees 50’ S. latitude, 42 degrees 20’ W.
      longitude.

      We had now advanced to the southward more than eight degrees
      farther than any previous navigators, and the sea still lay
      perfectly open before us. We found, too, that the variation
      uniformly decreased as we proceeded, and, what was still more
      surprising, that the temperature of the air, and latterly of the
      water, became milder. The weather might even be called pleasant,
      and we had a steady but very gentle breeze always from some
      northern point of the compass. The sky was usually clear, with
      now and then a slight appearance of thin vapour in the southern
      horizon—this, however, was invariably of brief duration. Two
      difficulties alone presented themselves to our view; we were
      getting short of fuel, and symptoms of scurvy had occurred among
      several of the crew. These considerations began to impress upon
      Captain Guy the necessity of returning, and he spoke of it
      frequently. For my own part, confident as I was of soon arriving
      at land of some description upon the course we were pursuing, and
      having every reason to believe, from present appearances, that we
      should not find it the sterile soil met with in the higher Arctic
      latitudes, I warmly pressed upon him the expediency of
      persevering, at least for a few days longer, in the direction we
      were now holding. So tempting an opportunity of solving the great
      problem in regard to an Antarctic continent had never yet been
      afforded to man, and I confess that I felt myself bursting with
      indignation at the timid and ill-timed suggestions of our
      commander. I believe, indeed, that what I could not refrain from
      saying to him on this head had the effect of inducing him to push
      on. While, therefore, I cannot but lament the most unfortunate
      and bloody events which immediately arose from my advice, I must
      still be allowed to feel some degree of gratification at having
      been instrumental, however remotely, in opening to the eye of
      science one of the most intensely exciting secrets which has ever
      engrossed its attention.




CHAPTER 18


      January 18.—This morning {*4} we continued to the southward, with
      the same pleasant weather as before. The sea was entirely smooth,
      the air tolerably warm and from the northeast, the temperature of
      the water fifty-three. We now again got our sounding-gear in
      order, and, with a hundred and fifty fathoms of line, found the
      current setting toward the pole at the rate of a mile an hour.
      This constant tendency to the southward, both in the wind and
      current, caused some degree of speculation, and even of alarm, in
      different quarters of the schooner, and I saw distinctly that no
      little impression had been made upon the mind of Captain Guy. He
      was exceedingly sensitive to ridicule, however, and I finally
      succeeded in laughing him out of his apprehensions. The variation
      was now very trivial. In the course of the day we saw several
      large whales of the right species, and innumerable flights of the
      albatross passed over the vessel. We also picked up a bush, full
      of red berries, like those of the hawthorn, and the carcass of a
      singular-looking land-animal. It was three feet in length, and
      but six inches in height, with four very short legs, the feet
      armed with long claws of a brilliant scarlet, and resembling
      coral in substance. The body was covered with a straight silky
      hair, perfectly white. The tail was peaked like that of a rat,
      and about a foot and a half long. The head resembled a cat’s,
      with the exception of the ears—these were flopped like the ears
      of a dog. The teeth were of the same brilliant scarlet as the
      claws.

      January 19.—To-day, being in latitude 83 degrees 20’, longitude
      43 degrees 5’ W. (the sea being of an extraordinarily dark
      colour), we again saw land from the masthead, and, upon a closer
      scrutiny, found it to be one of a group of very large islands.
      The shore was precipitous, and the interior seemed to be well
      wooded, a circumstance which occasioned us great joy. In about
      four hours from our first discovering the land we came to anchor
      in ten fathoms, sandy bottom, a league from the coast, as a high
      surf, with strong ripples here and there, rendered a nearer
      approach of doubtful expediency. The two largest boats were now
      ordered out, and a party, well armed (among whom were Peters and
      myself), proceeded to look for an opening in the reef which
      appeared to encircle the island. After searching about for some
      time, we discovered an inlet, which we were entering, when we saw
      four large canoes put off from the shore, filled with men who
      seemed to be well armed. We waited for them to come up, and, as
      they moved with great rapidity, they were soon within hail.
      Captain Guy now held up a white handkerchief on the blade of an
      oar, when the strangers made a full stop, and commenced a loud
      jabbering all at once, intermingled with occasional shouts, in
      which we could distinguish the words Anamoo-moo! and Lama-Lama!
      They continued this for at least half an hour, during which we
      had a good opportunity of observing their appearance.

      In the four canoes, which might have been fifty feet long and
      five broad, there were a hundred and ten savages in all. They
      were about the ordinary stature of Europeans, but of a more
      muscular and brawny frame. Their complexion a jet black, with
      thick and long woolly hair. They were clothed in skins of an
      unknown black animal, shaggy and silky, and made to fit the body
      with some degree of skill, the hair being inside, except where
      turned out about the neck, wrists, and ankles. Their arms
      consisted principally of clubs, of a dark, and apparently very
      heavy wood. Some spears, however, were observed among them,
      headed with flint, and a few slings. The bottoms of the canoes
      were full of black stones about the size of a large egg.

      When they had concluded their harangue (for it was clear they
      intended their jabbering for such), one of them who seemed to be
      the chief stood up in the prow of his canoe, and made signs for
      us to bring our boats alongside of him. This hint we pretended
      not to understand, thinking it the wiser plan to maintain, if
      possible, the interval between us, as their number more than
      quadrupled our own. Finding this to be the case, the chief
      ordered the three other canoes to hold back, while he advanced
      toward us with his own. As soon as he came up with us he leaped
      on board the largest of our boats, and seated himself by the side
      of Captain Guy, pointing at the same time to the schooner, and
      repeating the word Anamoo-moo! and Lama-Lama! We now put back to
      the vessel, the four canoes following at a little distance.

      Upon getting alongside, the chief evinced symptoms of extreme
      surprise and delight, clapping his hands, slapping his thighs and
      breast, and laughing obstreperously. His followers behind joined
      in his merriment, and for some minutes the din was so excessive
      as to be absolutely deafening. Quiet being at length restored,
      Captain Guy ordered the boats to be hoisted up, as a necessary
      precaution, and gave the chief (whose name we soon found to be
      Too-wit) to understand that we could admit no more than twenty of
      his men on deck at one time. With this arrangement he appeared
      perfectly satisfied, and gave some directions to the canoes, when
      one of them approached, the rest remaining about fifty yards off.
      Twenty of the savages now got on board, and proceeded to ramble
      over every part of the deck, and scramble about among the
      rigging, making themselves much at home, and examining every
      article with great inquisitiveness.

      It was quite evident that they had never before seen any of the
      white race—from whose complexion, indeed, they appeared to
      recoil. They believed the Jane to be a living creature, and
      seemed to be afraid of hurting it with the points of their
      spears, carefully turning them up. Our crew were much amused with
      the conduct of Too-wit in one instance. The cook was splitting
      some wood near the galley, and, by accident, struck his axe into
      the deck, making a gash of considerable depth. The chief
      immediately ran up, and pushing the cook on one side rather
      roughly, commenced a half whine, half howl, strongly indicative
      of sympathy in what he considered the sufferings of the schooner,
      patting and smoothing the gash with his hand, and washing it from
      a bucket of seawater which stood by. This was a degree of
      ignorance for which we were not prepared, and for my part I could
      not help thinking some of it affected.

      When the visitors had satisfied, as well as they could, their
      curiosity in regard to our upper works, they were admitted below,
      when their amazement exceeded all bounds. Their astonishment now
      appeared to be far too deep for words, for they roamed about in
      silence, broken only by low ejaculations. The arms afforded them
      much food for speculation, and they were suffered to handle and
      examine them at leisure. I do not believe that they had the least
      suspicion of their actual use, but rather took them for idols,
      seeing the care we had of them, and the attention with which we
      watched their movements while handling them. At the great guns
      their wonder was redoubled. They approached them with every mark
      of the profoundest reverence and awe, but forbore to examine them
      minutely. There were two large mirrors in the cabin, and here was
      the acme of their amazement. Too-wit was the first to approach
      them, and he had got in the middle of the cabin, with his face to
      one and his back to the other, before he fairly perceived them.
      Upon raising his eyes and seeing his reflected self in the glass,
      I thought the savage would go mad; but, upon turning short round
      to make a retreat, and beholding himself a second time in the
      opposite direction, I was afraid he would expire upon the spot.
      No persuasion could prevail upon him to take another look;
      throwing himself upon the floor, with his face buried in his
      hands, he remained thus until we were obliged to drag him upon
      deck.

      The whole of the savages were admitted on board in this manner,
      twenty at a time, Too-wit being suffered to remain during the
      entire period. We saw no disposition to thievery among them, nor
      did we miss a single article after their departure. Throughout
      the whole of their visit they evinced the most friendly manner.
      There were, however, some points in their demeanour which we
      found it impossible to understand; for example, we could not get
      them to approach several very harmless objects—such as the
      schooner’s sails, an egg, an open book, or a pan of flour. We
      endeavoured to ascertain if they had among them any articles
      which might be turned to account in the way of traffic, but found
      great difficulty in being comprehended. We made out,
      nevertheless, what greatly astonished us, that the islands
      abounded in the large tortoise of the Gallipagos, one of which we
      saw in the canoe of Too-wit. We saw also some biche de mer in the
      hands of one of the savages, who was greedily devouring it in its
      natural state. These anomalies—for they were such when considered
      in regard to the latitude—induced Captain Guy to wish for a
      thorough investigation of the country, in the hope of making a
      profitable speculation in his discovery. For my own part, anxious
      as I was to know something more of these islands, I was still
      more earnestly bent on prosecuting the voyage to the southward
      without delay. We had now fine weather, but there was no telling
      how long it would last; and being already in the eighty-fourth
      parallel, with an open sea before us, a current setting strongly
      to the southward, and the wind fair, I could not listen with any
      patience to a proposition of stopping longer than was absolutely
      necessary for the health of the crew and the taking on board a
      proper supply of fuel and fresh provisions. I represented to the
      captain that we might easily make this group on our return, and
      winter here in the event of being blocked up by the ice. He at
      length came into my views (for in some way, hardly known to
      myself, I had acquired much influence over him), and it was
      finally resolved that, even in the event of our finding biche de
      mer, we should only stay here a week to recruit, and then push on
      to the southward while we might. Accordingly we made every
      necessary preparation, and, under the guidance of Too-wit, got
      the Jane through the reef in safety, coming to anchor about a
      mile from the shore, in an excellent bay, completely landlocked,
      on the southeastern coast of the main island, and in ten fathoms
      of water, black sandy bottom. At the head of this bay there were
      three fine springs (we were told) of good water, and we saw
      abundance of wood in the vicinity. The four canoes followed us
      in, keeping, however, at a respectful distance. Too-wit himself
      remained on board, and, upon our dropping anchor, invited us to
      accompany him on shore, and visit his village in the interior. To
      this Captain Guy consented; and ten savages being left on board
      as hostages, a party of us, twelve in all, got in readiness to
      attend the chief. We took care to be well armed, yet without
      evincing any distrust. The schooner had her guns run out, her
      boarding-nettings up, and every other proper precaution was taken
      to guard against surprise. Directions were left with the chief
      mate to admit no person on board during our absence, and, in the
      event of our not appearing in twelve hours, to send the cutter,
      with a swivel, around the island in search of us.

      At every step we took inland the conviction forced itself upon us
      that we were in a country differing essentially from any hitherto
      visited by civilized men. We saw nothing with which we had been
      formerly conversant. The trees resembled no growth of either the
      torrid, the temperate, or the northern frigid zones, and were
      altogether unlike those of the lower southern latitudes we had
      already traversed. The very rocks were novel in their mass, their
      color, and their stratification; and the streams themselves,
      utterly incredible as it may appear, had so little in common with
      those of other climates, that we were scrupulous of tasting them,
      and, indeed, had difficulty in bringing ourselves to believe that
      their qualities were purely those of nature. At a small brook
      which crossed our path (the first we had reached) Too-wit and his
      attendants halted to drink. On account of the singular character
      of the water, we refused to taste it, supposing it to be
      polluted; and it was not until some time afterward we came to
      understand that such was the appearance of the streams throughout
      the whole group. I am at a loss to give a distinct idea of the
      nature of this liquid, and cannot do so without many words.
      Although it flowed with rapidity in all declivities where common
      water would do so, yet never, except when falling in a cascade,
      had it the customary appearance of limpidity. It was,
      nevertheless, in point of fact, as perfectly limpid as any
      limestone water in existence, the difference being only in
      appearance. At first sight, and especially in cases where little
      declivity was found, it bore resemblance, as regards consistency,
      to a thick infusion of gum arabic in common water. But this was
      only the least remarkable of its extraordinary qualities. It was
      not colourless, nor was it of any one uniform colour—presenting
      to the eye, as it flowed, every possible shade of purple; like
      the hues of a changeable silk. This variation in shade was
      produced in a manner which excited as profound astonishment in
      the minds of our party as the mirror had done in the case of
      Too-wit. Upon collecting a basinful, and allowing it to settle
      thoroughly, we perceived that the whole mass of liquid was made
      up of a number of distinct veins, each of a distinct hue; that
      these veins did not commingle; and that their cohesion was
      perfect in regard to their own particles among themselves, and
      imperfect in regard to neighbouring veins. Upon passing the blade
      of a knife athwart the veins, the water closed over it
      immediately, as with us, and also, in withdrawing it, all traces
      of the passage of the knife were instantly obliterated. If,
      however, the blade was passed down accurately between the two
      veins, a perfect separation was effected, which the power of
      cohesion did not immediately rectify. The phenomena of this water
      formed the first definite link in that vast chain of apparent
      miracles with which I was destined to be at length encircled.




CHAPTER 19


      We were nearly three hours in reaching the village, it being more
      than nine miles in the interior, and the path lying through a
      rugged country. As we passed along, the party of Too-wit (the
      whole hundred and ten savages of the canoes) was momentarily
      strengthened by smaller detachments, of from two to six or seven,
      which joined us, as if by accident, at different turns of the
      road. There appeared so much of system in this that I could not
      help feeling distrust, and I spoke to Captain Guy of my
      apprehensions. It was now too late, however, to recede, and we
      concluded that our best security lay in evincing a perfect
      confidence in the good faith of Too-wit. We accordingly went on,
      keeping a wary eye upon the manoeuvres of the savages, and not
      permitting them to divide our numbers by pushing in between. In
      this way, passing through a precipitous ravine, we at length
      reached what we were told was the only collection of habitations
      upon the island. As we came in sight of them, the chief set up a
      shout, and frequently repeated the word Klock-klock, which we
      supposed to be the name of the village, or perhaps the generic
      name for villages.

      The dwellings were of the most miserable description imaginable,
      and, unlike those of even the lowest of the savage races with
      which mankind are acquainted, were of no uniform plan. Some of
      them (and these we found belonged to the Wampoos or Yampoos, the
      great men of the land) consisted of a tree cut down at about four
      feet from the root, with a large black skin thrown over it, and
      hanging in loose folds upon the ground. Under this the savage
      nestled. Others were formed by means of rough limbs of trees,
      with the withered foliage upon them, made to recline, at an angle
      of forty-five degrees, against a bank of clay, heaped up, without
      regular form, to the height of five or six feet. Others, again,
      were mere holes dug in the earth perpendicularly, and covered
      over with similar branches, these being removed when the tenant
      was about to enter, and pulled on again when he had entered. A
      few were built among the forked limbs of trees as they stood, the
      upper limbs being partially cut through, so as to bend over upon
      the lower, thus forming thicker shelter from the weather. The
      greater number, however, consisted of small shallow caverns,
      apparently scratched in the face of a precipitous ledge of dark
      stone, resembling fuller’s earth, with which three sides of the
      village were bounded. At the door of each of these primitive
      caverns was a small rock, which the tenant carefully placed
      before the entrance upon leaving his residence, for what purpose
      I could not ascertain, as the stone itself was never of
      sufficient size to close up more than a third of the opening.

      This village, if it were worthy of the name, lay in a valley of
      some depth, and could only be approached from the southward, the
      precipitous ledge of which I have already spoken cutting off all
      access in other directions. Through the middle of the valley ran
      a brawling stream of the same magical-looking water which has
      been described. We saw several strange animals about the
      dwellings, all appearing to be thoroughly domesticated. The
      largest of these creatures resembled our common hog in the
      structure of the body and snout; the tail, however, was bushy,
      and the legs slender as those of the antelope. Its motion was
      exceedingly awkward and indecisive, and we never saw it attempt
      to run. We noticed also several animals very similar in
      appearance, but of a greater length of body, and covered with a
      black wool. There were a great variety of tame fowls running
      about, and these seemed to constitute the chief food of the
      natives. To our astonishment we saw black albatross among these
      birds in a state of entire domestication, going to sea
      periodically for food, but always returning to the village as a
      home, and using the southern shore in the vicinity as a place of
      incubation. There they were joined by their friends the pelicans
      as usual, but these latter never followed them to the dwellings
      of the savages. Among the other kinds of tame fowls were ducks,
      differing very little from the canvass-back of our own country,
      black gannets, and a large bird not unlike the buzzard in
      appearance, but not carnivorous. Of fish there seemed to be a
      great abundance. We saw, during our visit, a quantity of dried
      salmon, rock cod, blue dolphins, mackerel, blackfish, skate,
      conger eels, elephantfish, mullets, soles, parrotfish,
      leather-jackets, gurnards, hake, flounders, paracutas, and
      innumerable other varieties. We noticed, too, that most of them
      were similar to the fish about the group of Lord Auckland
      Islands, in a latitude as low as fifty-one degrees south. The
      Gallipago tortoise was also very plentiful. We saw but few wild
      animals, and none of a large size, or of a species with which we
      were familiar. One or two serpents of a formidable aspect crossed
      our path, but the natives paid them little attention, and we
      concluded that they were not venomous.

      As we approached the village with Too-wit and his party, a vast
      crowd of the people rushed out to meet us, with loud shouts,
      among which we could only distinguish the everlasting Anamoo-moo!
      and Lama-Lama! We were much surprised at perceiving that, with
      one or two exceptions, these new comers were entirely naked, and
      skins being used only by the men of the canoes. All the weapons
      of the country seemed also to be in the possession of the latter,
      for there was no appearance of any among the villagers. There
      were a great many women and children, the former not altogether
      wanting in what might be termed personal beauty. They were
      straight, tall, and well formed, with a grace and freedom of
      carriage not to be found in civilized society. Their lips,
      however, like those of the men, were thick and clumsy, so that,
      even when laughing, the teeth were never disclosed. Their hair
      was of a finer texture than that of the males. Among these naked
      villagers there might have been ten or twelve who were clothed,
      like the party of Too-wit, in dresses of black skin, and armed
      with lances and heavy clubs. These appeared to have great
      influence among the rest, and were always addressed by the title
      Wampoo. These, too, were the tenants of the black skin palaces.
      That of Too-wit was situated in the centre of the village, and
      was much larger and somewhat better constructed than others of
      its kind. The tree which formed its support was cut off at a
      distance of twelve feet or thereabouts from the root, and there
      were several branches left just below the cut, these serving to
      extend the covering, and in this way prevent its flapping about
      the trunk. The covering, too, which consisted of four very large
      skins fastened together with wooden skewers, was secured at the
      bottom with pegs driven through it and into the ground. The floor
      was strewed with a quantity of dry leaves by way of carpet.

      To this hut we were conducted with great solemnity, and as many
      of the natives crowded in after us as possible. Too-wit seated
      himself on the leaves, and made signs that we should follow his
      example. This we did, and presently found ourselves in a
      situation peculiarly uncomfortable, if not indeed critical. We
      were on the ground, twelve in number, with the savages, as many
      as forty, sitting on their hams so closely around us that, if any
      disturbance had arisen, we should have found it impossible to
      make use of our arms, or indeed to have risen to our feet. The
      pressure was not only inside the tent, but outside, where
      probably was every individual on the whole island, the crowd
      being prevented from trampling us to death only by the incessant
      exertions and vociferations of Too-wit. Our chief security lay,
      however, in the presence of Too-wit himself among us, and we
      resolved to stick by him closely, as the best chance of
      extricating ourselves from the dilemma, sacrificing him
      immediately upon the first appearance of hostile design.

      After some trouble a certain degree of quiet was restored, when
      the chief addressed us in a speech of great length, and very
      nearly resembling the one delivered in the canoes, with the
      exception that the Anamoo-moos! were now somewhat more
      strenuously insisted upon than the Lama-Lamas! We listened in
      profound silence until the conclusion of this harangue, when
      Captain Guy replied by assuring the chief of his eternal
      friendship and goodwill, concluding what he had to say by a
      present of several strings of blue beads and a knife. At the
      former the monarch, much to our surprise, turned up his nose with
      some expression of contempt, but the knife gave him the most
      unlimited satisfaction, and he immediately ordered dinner. This
      was handed into the tent over the heads of the attendants, and
      consisted of the palpitating entrails of a specialis of unknown
      animal, probably one of the slim-legged hogs which we had
      observed in our approach to the village. Seeing us at a loss how
      to proceed, he began, by way of setting us an example, to devour
      yard after yard of the enticing food, until we could positively
      stand it no longer, and evinced such manifest symptoms of
      rebellion of stomach as inspired his majesty with a degree of
      astonishment only inferior to that brought about by the
      looking-glasses. We declined, however, partaking of the
      delicacies before us, and endeavoured to make him understand that
      we had no appetite whatever, having just finished a hearty
      dejeuner.

      When the monarch had made an end of his meal, we commenced a
      series of cross-questioning in every ingenious manner we could
      devise, with a view of discovering what were the chief
      productions of the country, and whether any of them might be
      turned to profit. At length he seemed to have some idea of our
      meaning, and offered to accompany us to a part of coast where he
      assured us the biche de mer (pointing to a specimen of that
      animal) was to be found in great abundance. We were glad of this
      early opportunity of escaping from the oppression of the crowd,
      and signified our eagerness to proceed. We now left the tent,
      and, accompanied by the whole population of the village, followed
      the chief to the southeastern extremity of the island, nor far
      from the bay where our vessel lay at anchor. We waited here for
      about an hour, until the four canoes were brought around by some
      of the savages to our station. The whole of our party then
      getting into one of them, we were paddled along the edge of the
      reef before mentioned, and of another still farther out, where we
      saw a far greater quantity of biche de mer than the oldest seamen
      among us had ever seen in those groups of the lower latitudes
      most celebrated for this article of commerce. We stayed near
      these reefs only long enough to satisfy ourselves that we could
      easily load a dozen vessels with the animal if necessary, when we
      were taken alongside the schooner, and parted with Too-wit, after
      obtaining from him a promise that he would bring us, in the
      course of twenty-four hours, as many of the canvass-back ducks
      and Gallipago tortoises as his canoes would hold. In the whole of
      this adventure we saw nothing in the demeanour of the natives
      calculated to create suspicion, with the single exception of the
      systematic manner in which their party was strengthened during
      our route from the schooner to the village.




CHAPTER 20


      The chief was as good as his word, and we were soon plentifully
      supplied with fresh provisions. We found the tortoises as fine as
      we had ever seen, and the ducks surpassed our best species of
      wild fowl, being exceedingly tender, juicy, and well-flavoured.
      Besides these, the savages brought us, upon our making them
      comprehend our wishes, a vast quantity of brown celery and scurvy
      grass, with a canoe-load of fresh fish and some dried. The celery
      was a treat indeed, and the scurvy grass proved of incalculable
      benefit in restoring those of our men who had shown symptoms of
      disease. In a very short time we had not a single person on the
      sick-list. We had also plenty of other kinds of fresh provisions,
      among which may be mentioned a species of shellfish resembling
      the mussel in shape, but with the taste of an oyster. Shrimps,
      too, and prawns were abundant, and albatross and other birds’
      eggs with dark shells. We took in, too, a plentiful stock of the
      flesh of the hog which I have mentioned before. Most of the men
      found it a palatable food, but I thought it fishy and otherwise
      disagreeable. In return for these good things we presented the
      natives with blue beads, brass trinkets, nails, knives, and
      pieces of red cloth, they being fully delighted in the exchange.
      We established a regular market on shore, just under the guns of
      the schooner, where our barterings were carried on with every
      appearance of good faith, and a degree of order which their
      conduct at the village of _Klock-klock_ had not led us to expect
      from the savages.

      Matters went on thus very amicably for several days, during which
      parties of the natives were frequently on board the schooner, and
      parties of our men frequently on shore, making long excursions
      into the interior, and receiving no molestation whatever. Finding
      the ease with which the vessel might be loaded with _biche de
      mer_, owing to the friendly disposition of the islanders, and the
      readiness with which they would render us assistance in
      collecting it, Captain Guy resolved to enter into negotiations
      with Too-wit for the erection of suitable houses in which to cure
      the article, and for the services of himself and tribe in
      gathering as much as possible, while he himself took advantage of
      the fine weather to prosecute his voyage to the southward. Upon
      mentioning this project to the chief he seemed very willing to
      enter into an agreement. A bargain was accordingly struck,
      perfectly satisfactory to both parties, by which it was arranged
      that, after making the necessary preparations, such as laying off
      the proper grounds, erecting a portion of the buildings, and
      doing some other work in which the whole of our crew would be
      required, the schooner should proceed on her route, leaving three
      of her men on the island to superintend the fulfilment of the
      project, and instruct the natives in drying the _biche de mer_.
      In regard to terms, these were made to depend upon the exertions
      of the savages in our absence. They were to receive a stipulated
      quantity of blue beads, knives, red cloth, and so forth, for
      every certain number of piculs of the _biche de mer_ which should
      be ready on our return.

      A description of the nature of this important article of
      commerce, and the method of preparing it, may prove of some
      interest to my readers, and I can find no more suitable place
      than this for introducing an account of it. The following
      comprehensive notice of the substance is taken from a modern
      history of a voyage to the South Seas.

      “It is that _mollusca_ from the Indian Seas which is known to
      commerce by the French name _bouche de mer_ (a nice morsel from
      the sea). If I am not much mistaken, the celebrated Cuvier calls
      it _gasteropeda pulmonifera_. It is abundantly gathered in the
      coasts of the Pacific islands, and gathered especially for the
      Chinese market, where it commands a great price, perhaps as much
      as their much-talked-of edible birds’ nests, which are properly
      made up of the gelatinous matter picked up by a species of
      swallow from the body of these molluscae. They have no shell, no
      legs, nor any prominent part, except an _absorbing_ and an
      _excretory_, opposite organs; but, by their elastic wings, like
      caterpillars or worms, they creep in shallow waters, in which,
      when low, they can be seen by a kind of swallow, the sharp bill
      of which, inserted in the soft animal, draws a gummy and
      filamentous substance, which, by drying, can be wrought into the
      solid walls of their nest. Hence the name of _gasteropeda
      pulmonifera_.

      “This mollusca is oblong, and of different sizes, from three to
      eighteen inches in length; and I have seen a few that were not
      less than two feet long. They were nearly round, a little
      flattish on one side, which lies next to the bottom of the sea;
      and they are from one to eight inches thick. They crawl up into
      shallow water at particular seasons of the year, probably for the
      purpose of gendering, as we often find them in pairs. It is when
      the sun has the most power on the water, rendering it tepid, that
      they approach the shore; and they often go up into places so
      shallow that, on the tide’s receding, they are left dry, exposed
      to the beat of the sun. But they do not bring forth their young
      in shallow water, as we never see any of their progeny, and
      full-grown ones are always observed coming in from deep water.
      They feed principally on that class of zoophytes which produce
      the coral.

      “The _biche de mer_ is generally taken in three or four feet of
      water; after which they are brought on shore, and split at one
      end with a knife, the incision being one inch or more, according
      to the size of the mollusca. Through this opening the entrails
      are forced out by pressure, and they are much like those of any
      other small tenant of the deep. The article is then washed, and
      afterward boiled to a certain degree, which must not be too much
      or too little. They are then buried in the ground for four hours,
      then boiled again for a short time, after which they are dried,
      either by the fire or the sun. Those cured by the sun are worth
      the most; but where one picul (133 1/3 lbs.) can be cured that
      way, I can cure thirty piculs by the fire. When once properly
      cured, they can be kept in a dry place for two or three years
      without any risk; but they should be examined once in every few
      months, say four times a year, to see if any dampness is likely
      to affect them.

      “The Chinese, as before stated, consider _biche de mer_ a very
      great luxury, believing that it wonderfully strengthens and
      nourishes the system, and renews the exhausted system of the
      immoderate voluptuary. The first quality commands a high price in
      Canton, being worth ninety dollars a picul; the second quality,
      seventy-five dollars; the third, fifty dollars; the fourth,
      thirty dollars; the fifth, twenty dollars; the sixth, twelve
      dollars; the seventh, eight dollars; and the eighth, four
      dollars; small cargoes, however, will often bring more in
      Manilla, Singapore, and Batavia.”

      An agreement having been thus entered into, we proceeded
      immediately to land everything necessary for preparing the
      buildings and clearing the ground. A large flat space near the
      eastern shore of the bay was selected, where there was plenty of
      both wood and water, and within a convenient distance of the
      principal reefs on which the _biche de mer_ was to be procured.
      We now all set to work in good earnest, and soon, to the great
      astonishment of the savages, had felled a sufficient number of
      trees for our purpose, getting them quickly in order for the
      framework of the houses, which in two or three days were so far
      under way that we could safely trust the rest of the work to the
      three men whom we intended to leave behind. These were John
      Carson, Alfred Harris, and ___ Peterson (all natives of London, I
      believe), who volunteered their services in this respect.

      By the last of the month we had everything in readiness for
      departure. We had agreed, however, to pay a formal visit of
      leave-taking to the village, and Too-wit insisted so
      pertinaciously upon our keeping the promise that we did not think
      it advisable to run the risk of offending him by a final refusal.
      I believe that not one of us had at this time the slightest
      suspicion of the good faith of the savages. They had uniformly
      behaved with the greatest decorum, aiding us with alacrity in our
      work, offering us their commodities, frequently without price,
      and never, in any instance, pilfering a single article, although
      the high value they set upon the goods we had with us was evident
      by the extravagant demonstrations of joy always manifested upon
      our making them a present. The women especially were most
      obliging in every respect, and, upon the whole, we should have
      been the most suspicious of human beings had we entertained a
      single thought of perfidy on the part of a people who treated us
      so well. A very short while sufficed to prove that this apparent
      kindness of disposition was only the result of a deeply laid plan
      for our destruction, and that the islanders for whom we
      entertained such inordinate feelings of esteem, were among the
      most barbarous, subtle, and bloodthirsty wretches that ever
      contaminated the face of the globe.

      It was on the first of February that we went on shore for the
      purpose of visiting the village. Although, as said before, we
      entertained not the slightest suspicion, still no proper
      precaution was neglected. Six men were left in the schooner, with
      instructions to permit none of the savages to approach the vessel
      during our absence, under any pretence whatever, and to remain
      constantly on deck. The boarding-nettings were up, the guns
      double-shotted with grape and canister, and the swivels loaded
      with canisters of musket-balls. She lay, with her anchor apeak,
      about a mile from the shore, and no canoe could approach her in
      any direction without being distinctly seen and exposed to the
      full fire of our swivels immediately.

      The six men being left on board, our shore-party consisted of
      thirty-two persons in all. We were armed to the teeth, having
      with us muskets, pistols, and cutlasses; besides, each had a long
      kind of seaman’s knife, somewhat resembling the bowie knife now
      so much used throughout our western and southern country. A
      hundred of the black skin warriors met us at the landing for the
      purpose of accompanying us on our way. We noticed, however, with
      some surprise, that they were now entirely without arms; and,
      upon questioning Too-wit in relation to this circumstance, he
      merely answered that _Mattee non we pa pa si_—meaning that there
      was no need of arms where all were brothers. We took this in good
      part, and proceeded.

      We had passed the spring and rivulet of which I before spoke, and
      were now entering upon a narrow gorge leading through the chain
      of soapstone hills among which the village was situated. This
      gorge was very rocky and uneven, so much so that it was with no
      little difficulty we scrambled through it on our first visit to
      Klock-klock. The whole length of the ravine might have been a
      mile and a half, or probably two miles. It wound in every
      possible direction through the hills (having apparently formed,
      at some remote period, the bed of a torrent), in no instance
      proceeding more than twenty yards without an abrupt turn. The
      sides of this dell would have averaged, I am sure, seventy or
      eighty feet in perpendicular altitude throughout the whole of
      their extent, and in some portions they arose to an astonishing
      height, overshadowing the pass so completely that but little of
      the light of day could penetrate. The general width was about
      forty feet, and occasionally it diminished so as not to allow the
      passage of more than five or six persons abreast. In short, there
      could be no place in the world better adapted for the
      consummation of an ambuscade, and it was no more than natural
      that we should look carefully to our arms as we entered upon it.
      When I now think of our egregious folly, the chief subject of
      astonishment seems to be, that we should have ever ventured,
      under any circumstances, so completely into the power of unknown
      savages as to permit them to march both before and behind us in
      our progress through this ravine. Yet such was the order we
      blindly took up, trusting foolishly to the force of our party,
      the unarmed condition of Too-wit and his men, the certain
      efficacy of our firearms (whose effect was yet a secret to the
      natives), and, more than all, to the long-sustained pretension of
      friendship kept up by these infamous wretches. Five or six of
      them went on before, as if to lead the way, ostentatiously
      busying themselves in removing the larger stones and rubbish from
      the path. Next came our own party. We walked closely together,
      taking care only to prevent separation. Behind followed the main
      body of the savages, observing unusual order and decorum.

      Dirk Peters, a man named Wilson Allen, and myself were on the
      right of our companions, examining, as we went along, the
      singular stratification of the precipice which overhung us. A
      fissure in the soft rock attracted our attention. It was about
      wide enough for one person to enter without squeezing, and
      extended back into the hill some eighteen or twenty feet in a
      straight course, sloping afterward to the left. The height of the
      opening, is far as we could see into it from the main gorge, was
      perhaps sixty or seventy feet. There were one or two stunted
      shrubs growing from the crevices, bearing a species of filbert
      which I felt some curiosity to examine, and pushed in briskly for
      that purpose, gathering five or six of the nuts at a grasp, and
      then hastily retreating. As I turned, I found that Peters and
      Allen had followed me. I desired them to go back, as there was
      not room for two persons to pass, saying they should have some of
      my nuts. They accordingly turned, and were scrambling back, Allen
      being close to the mouth of the fissure, when I was suddenly
      aware of a concussion resembling nothing I had ever before
      experienced, and which impressed me with a vague conception, if
      indeed I then thought of anything, that the whole foundations of
      the solid globe were suddenly rent asunder, and that the day of
      universal dissolution was at hand.




CHAPTER 21


      As soon as I could collect my scattered senses, I found myself
      nearly suffocated, and grovelling in utter darkness among a
      quantity of loose earth, which was also falling upon me heavily
      in every direction, threatening to bury me entirely. Horribly
      alarmed at this idea, I struggled to gain my feet, and at last
      succeeded. I then remained motionless for some moments,
      endeavouring to conceive what had happened to me, and where I
      was. Presently I heard a deep groan just at my ear, and afterward
      the smothered voice of Peters calling to me for aid in the name
      of God. I scrambled one or two paces forward, when I fell
      directly over the head and shoulders of my companion, who, I soon
      discovered, was buried in a loose mass of earth as far as his
      middle, and struggling desperately to free himself from the
      pressure. I tore the dirt from around him with all the energy I
      could command, and at length succeeded in getting him out.

      As soon as we sufficiently recovered from our fright and surprise
      to be capable of conversing rationally, we both came to the
      conclusion that the walls of the fissure in which we had ventured
      had, by some convulsion of nature, or probably from their own
      weight, caved in overhead, and that we were consequently lost for
      ever, being thus entombed alive. For a long time we gave up
      supinely to the most intense agony and despair, such as cannot be
      adequately imagined by those who have never been in a similar
      position. I firmly believed that no incident ever occurring in
      the course of human events is more adapted to inspire the
      supremeness of mental and bodily distress than a case like our
      own, of living inhumation. The blackness of darkness which
      envelops the victim, the terrific oppression of lungs, the
      stifling fumes from the damp earth, unite with the ghastly
      considerations that we are beyond the remotest confines of hope,
      and that such is the allotted portion of the dead, to carry into
      the human heart a degree of appalling awe and horror not to be
      tolerated—never to be conceived.

      At length Peters proposed that we should endeavour to ascertain
      precisely the extent of our calamity, and grope about our prison;
      it being barely possible, he observed, that some opening might
      yet be left us for escape. I caught eagerly at this hope, and,
      arousing myself to exertion, attempted to force my way through
      the loose earth. Hardly had I advanced a single step before a
      glimmer of light became perceptible, enough to convince me that,
      at all events, we should not immediately perish for want of air.
      We now took some degree of heart, and encouraged each other to
      hope for the best. Having scrambled over a bank of rubbish which
      impeded our farther progress in the direction of the light, we
      found less difficulty in advancing and also experienced some
      relief from the excessive oppression of lungs which had tormented
      us. Presently we were enabled to obtain a glimpse of the objects
      around, and discovered that we were near the extremity of the
      straight portion of the fissure, where it made a turn to the
      left. A few struggles more, and we reached the bend, when to our
      inexpressible joy, there appeared a long seam or crack extending
      upward a vast distance, generally at an angle of about forty-five
      degrees, although sometimes much more precipitous. We could not
      see through the whole extent of this opening; but, as a good deal
      of light came down it, we had little doubt of finding at the top
      of it (if we could by any means reach the top) a clear passage
      into the open air.

      I now called to mind that three of us had entered the fissure
      from the main gorge, and that our companion, Allen, was still
      missing; we determined at once to retrace our steps and look for
      him. After a long search, and much danger from the farther caving
      in of the earth above us, Peters at length cried out to me that
      he had hold of our companion’s foot, and that his whole body was
      deeply buried beneath the rubbish beyond the possibility of
      extricating him. I soon found that what he said was too true, and
      that, of course, life had been long extinct. With sorrowful
      hearts, therefore, we left the corpse to its fate, and again made
      our way to the bend.

      The breadth of the seam was barely sufficient to admit us, and,
      after one or two ineffectual efforts at getting up, we began once
      more to despair. I have before said that the chain of hills
      through which ran the main gorge was composed of a species of
      soft rock resembling soapstone. The sides of the cleft we were
      now attempting to ascend were of the same material, and so
      excessively slippery, being wet, that we could get but little
      foothold upon them even in their least precipitous parts; in some
      places, where the ascent was nearly perpendicular, the difficulty
      was, of course, much aggravated; and, indeed, for some time we
      thought insurmountable. We took courage, however, from despair,
      and what, by dint of cutting steps in the soft stone with our
      bowie knives, and swinging at the risk of our lives, to small
      projecting points of a harder species of slaty rock which now and
      then protruded from the general mass, we at length reached a
      natural platform, from which was perceptible a patch of blue sky,
      at the extremity of a thickly-wooded ravine. Looking back now,
      with somewhat more leisure, at the passage through which we had
      thus far proceeded, we clearly saw from the appearance of its
      sides, that it was of late formation, and we concluded that the
      concussion, whatever it was, which had so unexpectedly
      overwhelmed us, had also, at the same moment, laid open this path
      for escape. Being quite exhausted with exertion, and indeed, so
      weak that we were scarcely able to stand or articulate, Peters
      now proposed that we should endeavour to bring our companions to
      the rescue by firing the pistols which still remained in our
      girdles—the muskets as well as cutlasses had been lost among the
      loose earth at the bottom of the chasm. Subsequent events proved
      that, had we fired, we should have sorely repented it, but
      luckily a half suspicion of foul play had by this time arisen in
      my mind, and we forbore to let the savages know of our
      whereabouts.

      After having reposed for about an hour, we pushed on slowly up
      the ravine, and had gone no great way before we heard a
      succession of tremendous yells. At length we reached what might
      be called the surface of the ground; for our path hitherto, since
      leaving the platform, had lain beneath an archway of high rock
      and foliage, at a vast distance overhead. With great caution we
      stole to a narrow opening, through which we had a clear sight of
      the surrounding country, when the whole dreadful secret of the
      concussion broke upon us in one moment and at one view.

      The spot from which we looked was not far from the summit of the
      highest peak in the range of the soapstone hills. The gorge in
      which our party of thirty-two had entered ran within fifty feet
      to the left of us. But, for at least one hundred yards, the
      channel or bed of this gorge was entirely filled up with the
      chaotic ruins of more than a million tons of earth and stone that
      had been artificially tumbled within it. The means by which the
      vast mass had been precipitated were not more simple than
      evident, for sure traces of the murderous work were yet
      remaining. In several spots along the top of the eastern side of
      the gorge (we were now on the western) might be seen stakes of
      wood driven into the earth. In these spots the earth had not
      given way, but throughout the whole extent of the face of the
      precipice from which the mass had fallen, it was clear, from
      marks left in the soil resembling those made by the drill of the
      rock blaster, that stakes similar to those we saw standing had
      been inserted, at not more than a yard apart, for the length of
      perhaps three hundred feet, and ranging at about ten feet back
      from the edge of the gulf. Strong cords of grape vine were
      attached to the stakes still remaining on the hill, and it was
      evident that such cords had also been attached to each of the
      other stakes. I have already spoken of the singular
      stratification of these soapstone hills; and the description just
      given of the narrow and deep fissure through which we effected
      our escape from inhumation will afford a further conception of
      its nature. This was such that almost every natural convulsion
      would be sure to split the soil into perpendicular layers or
      ridges running parallel with one another, and a very moderate
      exertion of art would be sufficient for effecting the same
      purpose. Of this stratification the savages had availed
      themselves to accomplish their treacherous ends. There can be no
      doubt that, by the continuous line of stakes, a partial rupture
      of the soil had been brought about probably to the depth of one
      or two feet, when by means of a savage pulling at the end of each
      of the cords (these cords being attached to the tops of the
      stakes, and extending back from the edge of the cliff), a vast
      leverage power was obtained, capable of hurling the whole face of
      the hill, upon a given signal, into the bosom of the abyss below.
      The fate of our poor companions was no longer a matter of
      uncertainty. We alone had escaped from the tempest of that
      overwhelming destruction. We were the only living white men upon
      the island.




CHAPTER 22


      Our situation, as it now appeared, was scarcely less dreadful
      than when we had conceived ourselves entombed forever. We saw
      before us no prospect but that of being put to death by the
      savages, or of dragging out a miserable existence in captivity
      among them. We might, to be sure, conceal ourselves for a time
      from their observation among the fastnesses of the hills, and, as
      a final resort, in the chasm from which we had just issued; but
      we must either perish in the long polar winter through cold and
      famine, or be ultimately discovered in our efforts to obtain
      relief.

      The whole country around us seemed to be swarming with savages,
      crowds of whom, we now perceived, had come over from the islands
      to the southward on flat rafts, doubtless with a view of lending
      their aid in the capture and plunder of the Jane. The vessel
      still lay calmly at anchor in the bay, those on board being
      apparently quite unconscious of any danger awaiting them. How we
      longed at that moment to be with them! either to aid in effecting
      their escape, or to perish with them in attempting a defence. We
      saw no chance even of warning them of their danger without
      bringing immediate destruction upon our own heads, with but a
      remote hope of benefit to them. A pistol fired might suffice to
      apprise them that something wrong had occurred; but the report
      could not possibly inform them that their only prospect of safety
      lay in getting out of the harbour forthwith—it could not tell
      them that no principles of honour now bound them to remain, that
      their companions were no longer among the living. Upon hearing
      the discharge they could not be more thoroughly prepared to meet
      the foe, who were now getting ready to attack, than they already
      were, and always had been. No good, therefore, and infinite harm,
      would result from our firing, and after mature deliberation, we
      forbore.

      Our next thought was to attempt to rush toward the vessel, to
      seize one of the four canoes which lay at the head of the bay,
      and endeavour to force a passage on board. But the utter
      impossibility of succeeding in this desperate task soon became
      evident. The country, as I said before, was literally swarming
      with the natives, skulking among the bushes and recesses of the
      hills, so as not to be observed from the schooner. In our
      immediate vicinity especially, and blockading the sole path by
      which we could hope to attain the shore at the proper point were
      stationed the whole party of the black skin warriors, with
      Too-wit at their head, and apparently only waiting for some
      re-enforcement to commence his onset upon the Jane. The canoes,
      too, which lay at the head of the bay, were manned with savages,
      unarmed, it is true, but who undoubtedly had arms within reach.
      We were forced, therefore, however unwillingly, to remain in our
      place of concealment, mere spectators of the conflict which
      presently ensued.

      In about half an hour we saw some sixty or seventy rafts, or
      flatboats, without riggers, filled with savages, and coming round
      the southern bight of the harbor. They appeared to have no arms
      except short clubs, and stones which lay in the bottom of the
      rafts. Immediately afterward another detachment, still larger,
      appeared in an opposite direction, and with similar weapons. The
      four canoes, too, were now quickly filled with natives, starting
      up from the bushes at the head of the bay, and put off swiftly to
      join the other parties. Thus, in less time than I have taken to
      tell it, and as if by magic, the Jane saw herself surrounded by
      an immense multitude of desperadoes evidently bent upon capturing
      her at all hazards.

      That they would succeed in so doing could not be doubted for an
      instant. The six men left in the vessel, however resolutely they
      might engage in her defence, were altogether unequal to the
      proper management of the guns, or in any manner to sustain a
      contest at such odds. I could hardly imagine that they would make
      resistance at all, but in this was deceived; for presently I saw
      them get springs upon the cable, and bring the vessel’s starboard
      broadside to bear upon the canoes, which by this time were within
      pistol range, the rafts being nearly a quarter of a mile to
      windward. Owing to some cause unknown, but most probably to the
      agitation of our poor friends at seeing themselves in so hopeless
      a situation, the discharge was an entire failure. Not a canoe was
      hit or a single savage injured, the shots striking short and
      ricocheting over their heads. The only effect produced upon them
      was astonishment at the unexpected report and smoke, which was so
      excessive that for some moments I almost thought they would
      abandon their design entirely, and return to the shore. And this
      they would most likely have done had our men followed up their
      broadside by a discharge of small arms, in which, as the canoes
      were now so near at hand, they could not have failed in doing
      some execution, sufficient, at least, to deter this party from a
      farther advance, until they could have given the rafts also a
      broadside. But, in place of this, they left the canoe party to
      recover from their panic, and, by looking about them, to see that
      no injury had been sustained, while they flew to the larboard to
      get ready for the rafts.

      The discharge to larboard produced the most terrible effect. The
      star and double-headed shot of the large guns cut seven or eight
      of the rafts completely asunder, and killed, perhaps, thirty or
      forty of the savages outright, while a hundred of them, at least,
      were thrown into the water, the most of them dreadfully wounded.
      The remainder, frightened out of their senses, commenced at once
      a precipitate retreat, not even waiting to pick up their maimed
      companions, who were swimming about in every direction, screaming
      and yelling for aid. This great success, however, came too late
      for the salvation of our devoted people. The canoe party were
      already on board the schooner to the number of more than a
      hundred and fifty, the most of them having succeeded in
      scrambling up the chains and over the boarding-netting even
      before the matches had been applied to the larboard guns. Nothing
      now could withstand their brute rage. Our men were borne down at
      once, overwhelmed, trodden under foot, and absolutely torn to
      pieces in an instant.

      Seeing this, the savages on the rafts got the better of their
      fears, and came up in shoals to the plunder. In five minutes the
      Jane was a pitiable scene indeed of havoc and tumultuous outrage.
      The decks were split open and ripped up; the cordage, sails, and
      everything movable on deck demolished as if by magic, while, by
      dint of pushing at the stern, towing with the canoes, and hauling
      at the sides, as they swam in thousands around the vessel, the
      wretches finally forced her on shore (the cable having been
      slipped), and delivered her over to the good offices of Too-wit,
      who, during the whole of the engagement, had maintained, like a
      skilful general, his post of security and reconnaissance among
      the hills, but, now that the victory was completed to his
      satisfaction, condescended to scamper down with his warriors of
      the black skin, and become a partaker in the spoils.

      Too-wit’s descent left us at liberty to quit our hiding place and
      reconnoitre the hill in the vicinity of the chasm. At about fifty
      yards from the mouth of it we saw a small spring of water, at
      which we slaked the burning thirst that now consumed us. Not far
      from the spring we discovered several of the filbert-bushes which
      I mentioned before. Upon tasting the nuts we found them
      palatable, and very nearly resembling in flavour the common
      English filbert. We collected our hats full immediately,
      deposited them within the ravine, and returned for more. While we
      were busily employed in gathering these, a rustling in the bushes
      alarmed us, and we were upon the point of stealing back to our
      covert, when a large black bird of the bittern species
      strugglingly and slowly arose above the shrubs. I was so much
      startled that I could do nothing, but Peters had sufficient
      presence of mind to run up to it before it could make its escape,
      and seize it by the neck. Its struggles and screams were
      tremendous, and we had thoughts of letting it go, lest the noise
      should alarm some of the savages who might be still lurking in
      the neighbourhood. A stab with a bowie knife, however, at length
      brought it to the ground, and we dragged it into the ravine,
      congratulating ourselves that, at all events, we had thus
      obtained a supply of food enough to last us for a week.

      We now went out again to look about us, and ventured a
      considerable distance down the southern declivity of the hill,
      but met with nothing else which could serve us for food. We
      therefore collected a quantity of dry wood and returned, seeing
      one or two large parties of the natives on their way to the
      village, laden with the plunder of the vessel, and who, we were
      apprehensive, might discover us in passing beneath the hill.

      Our next care was to render our place of concealment as secure as
      possible, and with this object, we arranged some brushwood over
      the aperture which I have before spoken of as the one through
      which we saw the patch of blue sky, on reaching the platform from
      the interior of the chasm. We left only a very small opening just
      wide enough to admit of our seeing the bay, without the risk of
      being discovered from below. Having done this, we congratulated
      ourselves upon the security of the position; for we were now
      completely excluded from observation, as long as we chose to
      remain within the ravine itself, and not venture out upon the
      hill, We could perceive no traces of the savages having ever been
      within this hollow; but, indeed, when we came to reflect upon the
      probability that the fissure through which we attained it had
      been only just now created by the fall of the cliff opposite, and
      that no other way of attaining it could be perceived, we were not
      so much rejoiced at the thought of being secure from molestation
      as fearful lest there should be absolutely no means left us for
      descent. We resolved to explore the summit of the hill
      thoroughly, when a good opportunity should offer. In the meantime
      we watched the motions of the savages through our loophole.

      They had already made a complete wreck of the vessel, and were
      now preparing to set her on fire. In a little while we saw the
      smoke ascending in huge volumes from her main hatchway, and,
      shortly afterward, a dense mass of flame burst up from the
      forecastle. The rigging, masts and what remained of the sails
      caught immediately, and the fire spread rapidly along the decks.
      Still a great many of the savages retained their stations about
      her, hammering with large stones, axes, and cannon balls at the
      bolts and other iron and copper work. On the beach, and in canoes
      and rafts, there were not less, altogether, in the immediate
      vicinity of the schooner, than ten thousand natives, besides the
      shoals of them who, laden with booty, were making their way
      inland and over to the neighbouring islands. We now anticipated a
      catastrophe, and were not disappointed. First of all there came a
      smart shock (which we felt as distinctly where we were as if we
      had been slightly galvanized), but unattended with any visible
      signs of an explosion. The savages were evidently startled, and
      paused for an instant from their labours and yellings. They were
      upon the point of recommencing, when suddenly a mass of smoke
      puffed up from the decks, resembling a black and heavy
      thundercloud—then, as if from its bowels, arose a tall stream of
      vivid fire to the height, apparently, of a quarter of a mile—then
      there came a sudden circular expansion of the flame—then the
      whole atmosphere was magically crowded, in a single instant, with
      a wild chaos of wood, and metal, and human limbs—and, lastly,
      came the concussion in its fullest fury, which hurled us
      impetuously from our feet, while the hills echoed and re-echoed
      the tumult, and a dense shower of the minutest fragments of the
      ruins tumbled headlong in every direction around us.

      The havoc among the savages far exceeded our utmost expectation,
      and they had now, indeed, reaped the full and perfect fruits of
      their treachery. Perhaps a thousand perished by the explosion,
      while at least an equal number were desperately mangled. The
      whole surface of the bay was literally strewn with the struggling
      and drowning wretches, and on shore matters were even worse. They
      seemed utterly appalled by the suddenness and completeness of
      their discomfiture, and made no efforts at assisting one another.
      At length we observed a total change in their demeanour. From
      absolute stupor, they appeared to be, all at once, aroused to the
      highest pitch of excitement, and rushed wildly about, going to
      and from a certain point on the beach, with the strangest
      expressions of mingled horror, rage, and intense curiosity
      depicted on their countenances, and shouting, at the top of their
      voices, “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”

      Presently we saw a large body go off into the hills, whence they
      returned in a short time, carrying stakes of wood. These they
      brought to the station where the crowd was the thickest, which
      now separated so as to afford us a view of the object of all this
      excitement. We perceived something white lying upon the ground,
      but could not immediately make out what it was. At length we saw
      that it was the carcass of the strange animal with the scarlet
      teeth and claws which the schooner had picked up at sea on the
      eighteenth of January. Captain Guy had had the body preserved for
      the purpose of stuffing the skin and taking it to England. I
      remember he had given some directions about it just before our
      making the island, and it had been brought into the cabin and
      stowed away in one of the lockers. It had now been thrown on
      shore by the explosion; but why it had occasioned so much concern
      among the savages was more than we could comprehend. Although
      they crowded around the carcass at a little distance, none of
      them seemed willing to approach it closely. By-and-by the men
      with the stakes drove them in a circle around it, and no sooner
      was this arrangement completed, than the whole of the vast
      assemblage rushed into the interior of the island, with loud
      screams of “Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!”




CHAPTER 23


      During the six or seven days immediately following we remained in
      our hiding-place upon the hill, going out only occasionally, and
      then with the greatest precaution, for water and filberts. We had
      made a kind of penthouse on the platform, furnishing it with a
      bed of dry leaves, and placing in it three large flat stones,
      which served us for both fireplace and table. We kindled a fire
      without difficulty by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together,
      the one soft, the other hard. The bird we had taken in such good
      season proved excellent eating, although somewhat tough. It was
      not an oceanic fowl, but a species of bittern, with jet black and
      grizzly plumage, and diminutive wings in proportion to its bulk.
      We afterward saw three of the same kind in the vicinity of the
      ravine, apparently seeking for the one we had captured; but, as
      they never alighted, we had no opportunity of catching them.

      As long as this fowl lasted we suffered nothing from our
      situation, but it was now entirely consumed, and it became
      absolutely necessary that we should look out for provision. The
      filberts would not satisfy the cravings of hunger, afflicting us,
      too, with severe gripings of the bowels, and, if freely indulged
      in, with violent headache. We had seen several large tortoises
      near the seashore to the eastward of the hill, and perceived they
      might be easily taken, if we could get at them without the
      observation of the natives. It was resolved, therefore, to make
      an attempt at descending.

      We commenced by going down the southern declivity, which seemed
      to offer the fewest difficulties, but had not proceeded a hundred
      yards before (as we had anticipated from appearances on the
      hilltop) our progress was entirely arrested by a branch of the
      gorge in which our companions had perished. We now passed along
      the edge of this for about a quarter of a mile, when we were
      again stopped by a precipice of immense depth, and, not being
      able to make our way along the brink of it, we were forced to
      retrace our steps by the main ravine.

      We now pushed over to the eastward, but with precisely similar
      fortune. After an hour’s scramble, at the risk of breaking our
      necks, we discovered that we had merely descended into a vast pit
      of black granite, with fine dust at the bottom, and whence the
      only egress was by the rugged path in which we had come down.
      Toiling again up this path, we now tried the northern edge of the
      hill. Here we were obliged to use the greatest possible caution
      in our maneuvers, as the least indiscretion would expose us to
      the full view of the savages in the village. We crawled along,
      therefore, on our hands and knees, and, occasionally, were even
      forced to throw ourselves at full length, dragging our bodies
      along by means of the shrubbery. In this careful manner we had
      proceeded but a little way, when we arrived at a chasm far deeper
      than any we had yet seen, and leading directly into the main
      gorge. Thus our fears were fully confirmed, and we found
      ourselves cut off entirely from access to the world below.
      Thoroughly exhausted by our exertions, we made the best of our
      way back to the platform, and throwing ourselves upon the bed of
      leaves, slept sweetly and soundly for some hours.

      For several days after this fruitless search we were occupied in
      exploring every part of the summit of the hill, in order to
      inform ourselves of its actual resources. We found that it would
      afford us no food, with the exception of the unwholesome
      filberts, and a rank species of scurvy grass, which grew in a
      little patch of not more than four rods square, and would be soon
      exhausted. On the fifteenth of February, as near as I can
      remember, there was not a blade of this left, and the nuts were
      growing scarce; our situation, therefore, could hardly be more
      lamentable. {*5} On the sixteenth we again went round the walls
      of our prison, in hope of finding some avenue of escape; but to
      no purpose. We also descended the chasm in which we had been
      overwhelmed, with the faint expectation of discovering, through
      this channel, some opening to the main ravine. Here, too, we were
      disappointed, although we found and brought up with us a musket.

      On the seventeenth we set out with the determination of examining
      more thoroughly the chasm of black granite into which we had made
      our way in the first search. We remembered that one of the
      fissures in the sides of this pit had been but partially looked
      into, and we were anxious to explore it, although with no
      expectation of discovering here any opening.

      We found no great difficulty in reaching the bottom of the hollow
      as before, and were now sufficiently calm to survey it with some
      attention. It was, indeed, one of the most singular-looking
      places imaginable, and we could scarcely bring ourselves to
      believe it altogether the work of nature. The pit, from its
      eastern to its western extremity, was about five hundred yards in
      length, when all its windings were threaded; the distance from
      east to west in a straight line not being more (I should suppose,
      having no means of accurate examination) than forty or fifty
      yards. Upon first descending into the chasm, that is to say, for
      a hundred feet downward from the summit of the hill, the sides of
      the abyss bore little resemblance to each other, and, apparently,
      had at no time been connected, the one surface being of the
      soapstone, and the other of marl, granulated with some metallic
      matter. The average breadth or interval between the two cliffs
      was probably here sixty feet, but there seemed to be no
      regularity of formation. Passing down, however, beyond the limit
      spoken of, the interval rapidly contracted, and the sides began
      to run parallel, although, for some distance farther, they were
      still dissimilar in their material and form of surface. Upon
      arriving within fifty feet of the bottom, a perfect regularity
      commenced. The sides were now entirely uniform in substance, in
      colour, and in lateral direction, the material being a very black
      and shining granite, and the distance between the two sides, at
      all points facing each other, exactly twenty yards. The precise
      formation of the chasm will be best understood by means of a
      delineation taken upon the spot; for I had luckily with me a
      pocketbook and pencil, which I preserved with great care through
      a long series of subsequent adventure, and to which I am indebted
      for memoranda of many subjects which would otherwise have been
      crowded from my remembrance.

      This figure [No figures in text] gives the general outlines of
      the chasm, without the minor cavities in the sides, of which
      there were several, each cavity having a corresponding
      protuberance opposite. The bottom of the gulf was covered to the
      depth of three or four inches with a powder almost impalpable,
      beneath which we found a continuation of the black granite. To
      the right, at the lower extremity, will be noticed the appearance
      of a small opening; this is the fissure alluded to above, and to
      examine which more minutely than before was the object of our
      second visit. We now pushed into it with vigor, cutting away a
      quantity of brambles which impeded us, and removing a vast heap
      of sharp flints somewhat resembling arrowheads in shape. We were
      encouraged to persevere, however, by perceiving some little light
      proceeding from the farther end. We at length squeezed our way
      for about thirty feet, and found that the aperture was a low and
      regularly formed arch, having a bottom of the same impalpable
      powder as that in the main chasm. A strong light now broke upon
      us, and, turning a short bend, we found ourselves in another
      lofty chamber, similar to the one we had left in every respect
      but longitudinal form. Its general figure is here given.

      The total length of this chasm, commencing at the opening _a_ and
      proceeding round the curve _b_ to the extremity _d_, is five
      hundred and fifty yards. At _c_ we discovered a small aperture
      similar to the one through which we had issued from the other
      chasm, and this was choked up in the same manner with brambles
      and a quantity of the white arrowhead flints. We forced our way
      through it, finding it about forty feet long, and emerged into a
      third chasm. This, too, was precisely like the first, except in
      its longitudinal shape, which was thus.

      We found the entire length of the third chasm three hundred and
      twenty yards. At the point _a_ was an opening about six feet
      wide, and extending fifteen feet into the rock, where it
      terminated in a bed of marl, there being no other chasm beyond,
      as we had expected. We were about leaving this fissure, into
      which very little light was admitted, when Peters called my
      attention to a range of singular-looking indentures in the
      surface of the marl forming the termination of the _cul-de-sac_.
      With a very slight exertion of the imagination, the left, or most
      northern of these indentures might have been taken for the
      intentional, although rude, representation of a human figure
      standing erect, with outstretched arm. The rest of them bore also
      some little resemblance to alphabetical characters, and Peters
      was willing, at all events, to adopt the idle opinion that they
      were really such. I convinced him of his error, finally, by
      directing his attention to the floor of the fissure, where, among
      the powder, we picked up, piece by piece, several large flakes of
      the marl, which had evidently been broken off by some convulsion
      from the surface where the indentures were found, and which had
      projecting points exactly fitting the indentures; thus proving
      them to have been the work of nature.

      After satisfying ourselves that these singular caverns afforded
      us no means of escape from our prison, we made our way back,
      dejected and dispirited, to the summit of the hill. Nothing worth
      mentioning occurred during the next twenty-four hours, except
      that, in examining the ground to the eastward of the third chasm,
      we found two triangular holes of great depth, and also with black
      granite sides. Into these holes we did not think it worth while
      to attempt descending, as they had the appearance of mere natural
      wells, without outlet. They were each about twenty yards in
      circumference, and their shape, as well as relative position in
      regard to the third chasm, is shown in figure 5. {image}




CHAPTER 24


      On the twentieth of the month, finding it altogether impossible
      to subsist any longer upon the filberts, the use of which
      occasioned us the most excruciating torment, we resolved to make
      a desperate attempt at descending the southern declivity of the
      hill. The face of the precipice was here of the softest species
      of soapstone, although nearly perpendicular throughout its whole
      extent (a depth of a hundred and fifty feet at the least), and in
      many places even overarching. After a long search we discovered a
      narrow ledge about twenty feet below the brink of the gulf; upon
      this Peters contrived to leap, with what assistance I could
      render him by means of our pocket-handkerchiefs tied together.
      With somewhat more difficulty I also got down; and we then saw
      the possibility of descending the whole way by the process in
      which we had clambered up from the chasm when we had been buried
      by the fall of the hill—that is, by cutting steps in the face of
      the soapstone with our knives. The extreme hazard of the attempt
      can scarcely be conceived; but, as there was no other resource,
      we determined to undertake it.

      Upon the ledge where we stood there grew some filbert-bushes; and
      to one of these we made fast an end of our rope of handkerchiefs.
      The other end being tied round Peters’ waist, I lowered him down
      over the edge of the precipice until the handkerchiefs were
      stretched tight. He now proceeded to dig a deep hole in the
      soapstone (as far in as eight or ten inches), sloping away the
      rock above to the height of a foot, or thereabout, so as to allow
      of his driving, with the butt of a pistol, a tolerably strong peg
      into the levelled surface. I then drew him up for about four
      feet, when he made a hole similar to the one below, driving in a
      peg as before, and having thus a resting-place for both feet and
      hands. I now unfastened the handkerchiefs from the bush, throwing
      him the end, which he tied to the peg in the uppermost hole,
      letting himself down gently to a station about three feet lower
      than he had yet been that is, to the full extent of the
      handkerchiefs. Here he dug another hole, and drove another peg.
      He then drew himself up, so as to rest his feet in the hole just
      cut, taking hold with his hands upon the peg in the one above. It
      was now necessary to untie the handkerchiefs from the topmost
      peg, with the view of fastening them to the second; and here he
      found that an error had been committed in cutting the holes at so
      great a distance apart. However, after one or two unsuccessful
      and dangerous attempts at reaching the knot (having to hold on
      with his left hand while he labored to undo the fastening with
      his right), he at length cut the string, leaving six inches of it
      affixed to the peg. Tying the handkerchiefs now to the second
      peg, he descended to a station below the third, taking care not
      to go too far down. By these means (means which I should never
      have conceived of myself, and for which we were indebted
      altogether to Peters’ ingenuity and resolution) my companion
      finally succeeded, with the occasional aid of projections in the
      cliff, in reaching the bottom without accident.

      It was some time before I could summon sufficient resolution to
      follow him; but I did at length attempt it. Peters had taken off
      his shirt before descending, and this, with my own, formed the
      rope necessary for the adventure. After throwing down the musket
      found in the chasm, I fastened this rope to the bushes, and let
      myself down rapidly, striving, by the vigor of my movements, to
      banish the trepidation which I could overcome in no other manner.
      This answered sufficiently well for the first four or five steps;
      but presently I found my imagination growing terribly excited by
      thoughts of the vast depths yet to be descended, and the
      precarious nature of the pegs and soapstone holes which were my
      only support. It was in vain I endeavored to banish these
      reflections, and to keep my eyes steadily bent upon the flat
      surface of the cliff before me. The more earnestly I struggled
      _not to think,_the more intensely vivid became my conceptions,
      and the more horribly distinct. At length arrived that crisis of
      fancy, so fearful in all similar cases, the crisis in which we
      began to anticipate the feelings with which we _shall_fall—to
      picture to ourselves the sickness, and dizziness, and the last
      struggle, and the half swoon, and the final bitterness of the
      rushing and headlong descent. And now I found these fancies
      creating their own realities, and all imagined horrors crowding
      upon me in fact. I felt my knees strike violently together, while
      my fingers were gradually but certainly relaxing their grasp.
      There was a ringing in my ears, and I said, “This is my knell of
      death!” And now I was consumed with the irrepressible desire of
      looking below. I could not, I would not, confine my glances to
      the cliff; and, with a wild, indefinable emotion, half of horror,
      half of a relieved oppression, I threw my vision far down into
      the abyss. For one moment my fingers clutched convulsively upon
      their hold, while, with the movement, the faintest possible idea
      of ultimate escape wandered, like a shadow, through my mind—in
      the next my whole soul was pervaded with a longing to fall; a
      desire, a yearning, a passion utterly uncontrollable. I let go at
      once my grasp upon the peg, and, turning half round from the
      precipice, remained tottering for an instant against its naked
      face. But now there came a spinning of the brain; a
      shrill-sounding and phantom voice screamed within my ears; a
      dusky, fiendish, and filmy figure stood immediately beneath me;
      and, sighing, I sunk down with a bursting heart, and plunged
      within its arms.

      I had swooned, and Peters had caught me as I fell. He had
      observed my proceedings from his station at the bottom of the
      cliff; and perceiving my imminent danger, had endeavored to
      inspire me with courage by every suggestion he could devise;
      although my confusion of mind had been so great as to prevent my
      hearing what he said, or being conscious that he had even spoken
      to me at all. At length, seeing me totter, he hastened to ascend
      to my rescue, and arrived just in time for my preservation. Had I
      fallen with my full weight, the rope of linen would inevitably
      have snapped, and I should have been precipitated into the abyss;
      as it was, he contrived to let me down gently, so as to remain
      suspended without danger until animation returned. This was in
      about fifteen minutes. On recovery, my trepidation had entirely
      vanished; I felt a new being, and, with some little further aid
      from my companion, reached the bottom also in safety.

      We now found ourselves not far from the ravine which had proved
      the tomb of our friends, and to the southward of the spot where
      the hill had fallen. The place was one of singular wildness, and
      its aspect brought to my mind the descriptions given by
      travellers of those dreary regions marking the site of degraded
      Babylon. Not to speak of the ruins of the disrupted cliff, which
      formed a chaotic barrier in the vista to the northward, the
      surface of the ground in every other direction was strewn with
      huge tumuli, apparently the wreck of some gigantic structures of
      art; although, in detail, no semblance of art could be detected.
      Scoria were abundant, and large shapeless blocks of the black
      granite, intermingled with others of marl, {*6} and both
      granulated with metal. Of vegetation there were no traces
      whatsoever throughout the whole of the desolate area within
      sight. Several immense scorpions were seen, and various reptiles
      not elsewhere to be found in the high latitudes. As food was our
      most immediate object, we resolved to make our way to the
      seacoast, distant not more than half a mile, with a view of
      catching turtle, several of which we had observed from our place
      of concealment on the hill. We had proceeded some hundred yards,
      threading our route cautiously between the huge rocks and tumuli,
      when, upon turning a corner, five savages sprung upon us from a
      small cavern, felling Peters to the ground with a blow from a
      club. As he fell the whole party rushed upon him to secure their
      victim, leaving me time to recover from my astonishment. I still
      had the musket, but the barrel had received so much injury in
      being thrown from the precipice that I cast it aside as useless,
      preferring to trust my pistols, which had been carefully
      preserved in order. With these I advanced upon the assailants,
      firing one after the other in quick succession. Two savages fell,
      and one, who was in the act of thrusting a spear into Peters,
      sprung to his feet without accomplishing his purpose. My
      companion being thus released, we had no further difficulty. He
      had his pistols also, but prudently declined using them,
      confiding in his great personal strength, which far exceeded that
      of any person I have ever known. Seizing a club from one of the
      savages who had fallen, he dashed out the brains of the three who
      remained, killing each instantaneously with a single blow of the
      weapon, and leaving us completely masters of the field.

      So rapidly had these events passed, that we could scarcely
      believe in their reality, and were standing over the bodies of
      the dead in a species of stupid contemplation, when we were
      brought to recollection by the sound of shouts in the distance.
      It was clear that the savages had been alarmed by the firing, and
      that we had little chance of avoiding discovery. To regain the
      cliff, it would be necessary to proceed in the direction of the
      shouts, and even should we succeed in arriving at its base, we
      should never be able to ascend it without being seen. Our
      situation was one of the greatest peril, and we were hesitating
      in which path to commence a flight, when one of the savages
      _whom_I had shot, and supposed dead, sprang briskly to his feet,
      and attempted to make his escape. We overtook _him,_however,
      before he had advanced many paces, and were about to put him to
      death, when Peters suggested that we might derive some benefit
      from forcing him to accompany us in our attempt to escape. We
      therefore dragged him with us, making him understand that we
      would shoot him if he offered resistance. In a few minutes he was
      perfectly submissive, and ran by our sides as we pushed in among
      the rocks, making for the seashore.

      So far, the irregularities of the ground we had been traversing
      hid the sea, except at intervals, from our sight, and, when we
      first had it fairly in view, it was perhaps two hundred yards
      distant. As we emerged into the open beach we saw, to our great
      dismay, an immense crowd of the natives pouring from the village,
      and from all visible quarters of the island, making toward us
      with gesticulations of extreme fury, and howling like wild
      beasts. We were upon the point of turning upon our steps, and
      trying to secure a retreat among the fastnesses of the rougher
      ground, when I discovered the bows of two canoes projecting from
      behind a large rock which ran out into the water. Toward these we
      now ran with all speed, and, reaching them, found them unguarded,
      and without any other freight than three of the large Gallipago
      turtles and the usual supply of paddles for sixty rowers. We
      instantly took possession of one of them, and, forcing our
      captive on board, pushed out to sea with all the strength we
      could command.

      We had not made, however, more than fifty yards from the shore
      before we became sufficiently calm to perceive the great
      oversight of which we had been guilty in leaving the other canoe
      in the power of the savages, who, by this time, were not more
      than twice as far from the beach as ourselves, and were rapidly
      advancing to the pursuit. No time was now to be lost. Our hope
      was, at best, a forlorn one, but we had none other. It was very
      doubtful whether, with the utmost exertion, we could get back in
      time to anticipate them in taking possession of the canoe; but
      yet there was a chance that we could. We might save ourselves if
      we succeeded, while not to make the attempt was to resign
      ourselves to inevitable butchery.

      The canoe was modelled with the bow and stern alike, and, in
      place of turning it around, we merely changed our position in
      paddling. As soon as the savages perceived this they redoubled
      their yells, as well as their speed, and approached with
      inconceivable rapidity. We pulled, however, with all the energy
      of desperation, and arrived at the contested point before more
      than one of the natives had attained it. This man paid dearly for
      his superior agility, Peters shooting him through the head with a
      pistol as he approached the shore. The foremost among the rest of
      his party were probably some twenty or thirty paces distant as we
      seized upon the canoe. We at first endeavored to pull her into
      the deep water, beyond the reach of the savages, but, finding her
      too firmly aground, and there being no time to spare, Peters,
      with one or two heavy strokes from the butt of the musket,
      succeeded in dashing out a large portion of the bow and of one
      side. We then pushed off. Two of the natives by this time had got
      hold of our boat, obstinately refusing to let go, until we were
      forced to despatch them with our knives. We were now clear off,
      and making great way out to sea. The main body of the savages,
      upon reaching the broken canoe, set up the most tremendous yell
      of rage and disappointment conceivable. In truth, from everything
      I could see of these wretches, they appeared to be the most
      wicked, hypocritical, vindictive, bloodthirsty, and altogether
      fiendish race of men upon the face of the globe. It is clear we
      should have had no mercy had we fallen into their hands. They
      made a mad attempt at following us in the fractured canoe, but,
      finding it useless, again vented their rage in a series of
      hideous vociferations, and rushed up into the hills.

      We were thus relieved from immediate danger, but our situation
      was still sufficiently gloomy. We knew that four canoes of the
      kind we had were at one time in the possession of the savages,
      and were not aware of the fact (afterward ascertained from our
      captive) that two of these had been blown to pieces in the
      explosion of the _Jane Guy._We calculated, therefore, upon being
      yet pursued, as soon as our enemies could get round to the bay
      (distant about three miles) where the boats were usually laid up.
      Fearing this, we made every exertion to leave the island behind
      us, and went rapidly through the water, forcing the prisoner to
      take a paddle. In about half an hour, when we had gained probably
      five or six miles to the southward, a large fleet of the
      flat-bottomed canoes or rafts were seen to emerge from the bay
      evidently with the design of pursuit. Presently they put back,
      despairing to overtake us.




CHAPTER 25


      We now found ourselves in the wide and desolate Antarctic Ocean,
      in a latitude exceeding eighty-four degrees, in a frail canoe,
      and with no provision but the three turtles. The long polar
      winter, too, could not be considered as far distant, and it
      became necessary that we should deliberate well upon the course
      to be pursued. There were six or seven islands in sight belonging
      to the same group, and distant from each other about five or six
      leagues; but upon neither of these had we any intention to
      venture. In coming from the northward in the _Jane Guy_ we had
      been gradually leaving behind us the severest regions of
      ice—this, however little it maybe in accordance with the
      generally received notions respecting the Antarctic, was a
      fact—experience would not permit us to deny. To attempt,
      therefore, getting back would be folly—especially at so late a
      period of the season. Only one course seemed to be left open for
      hope. We resolved to steer boldly to the southward, where there
      was at least a probability of discovering other lands, and more
      than a probability of finding a still milder climate.

      So far we had found the Antarctic, like the Arctic Ocean,
      peculiarly free from violent storms or immoderately rough water;
      but our canoe was, at best, of frail structure, although large,
      and we set busily to work with a view of rendering her as safe as
      the limited means in our possession would admit. The body of the
      boat was of no better material than bark—the bark of a tree
      unknown. The ribs were of a tough osier, well adapted to the
      purpose for which it was used. We had fifty feet room from stem
      to stern, from four to six in breadth, and in depth throughout
      four feet and a half-the boats thus differing vastly in shape
      from those of any other inhabitants of the Southern Ocean with
      whom civilized nations are acquainted. We never did believe them
      the workmanship of the ignorant islanders who owned them; and
      some days after this period discovered, by questioning our
      captive, that they were in fact made by the natives of a group to
      the southwest of the country where we found them, having fallen
      accidentally into the hands of our barbarians. What we could do
      for the security of our boat was very little indeed. Several wide
      rents were discovered near both ends, and these we contrived to
      patch up with pieces of woollen jacket. With the help of the
      superfluous paddles, of which there were a great many, we erected
      a kind of framework about the bow, so as to break the force of
      any seas which might threaten to fill us in that quarter. We also
      set up two paddle-blades for masts, placing them opposite each
      other, one by each gunwale, thus saving the necessity of a yard.
      To these masts we attached a sail made of our shirts-doing this
      with some difficulty, as here we could get no assistance from our
      prisoner whatever, although he had been willing enough to labor
      in all the other operations. The sight of the linen seemed to
      affect him in a very singular manner. He could not be prevailed
      upon to touch it or go near it, shuddering when we attempted to
      force him, and shrieking out, _“Tekeli-li!”_

      Having completed our arrangements in regard to the security of
      the canoe, we now set sail to the south-southeast for the
      present, with the view of weathering the most southerly of the
      group in sight. This being done, we turned the bow full to the
      southward. The weather could by no means be considered
      disagreeable. We had a prevailing and very gentle wind from the
      northward, a smooth sea, and continual daylight. No ice whatever
      was to be seen; _nor did I ever see one particle of this after
      leaving the parallel of Bennet’s Islet._Indeed, the temperature
      of the water was here far too warm for its existence in any
      quantity. Having killed the largest of our tortoises, and
      obtained from him not only food but a copious supply of water, we
      continued on our course, without any incident of moment, for
      perhaps seven or eight days, during which period we must have
      proceeded a vast distance to the southward, as the wind blew
      constantly with us, and a very strong current set continually in
      the direction we were pursuing.

      _March 1st_. {*7}-Many unusual phenomena now—indicated that we
      were entering upon a region of novelty and wonder. A high range
      of light gray vapor appeared constantly in the southern horizon,
      flaring up occasionally in lofty streaks, now darting from east
      to west, now from west to east, and again presenting a level and
      uniform summit—in short, having all the wild variations of the
      Aurora Borealis. The average height of this vapor, as apparent
      from our station, was about twenty-five degrees. The temperature
      of the sea seemed to be increasing momentarily, and there was a
      very perceptible alteration in its color.

      _March 2d._-To-day by repeated questioning of our captive, we
      came to the knowledge of many particulars in regard to the island
      of the massacre, its inhabitants, and customs—but with these how
      can I now detain the reader? I may say, however, that we learned
      there were eight islands in the group—that they were governed by
      a common king, named _Tsalemon_or _Psalemoun,_who resided in one
      of the smallest of the islands; that the black skins forming the
      dress of the warriors came from an animal of huge size to be
      found only in a valley near the court of the king—that the
      inhabitants of the group fabricated no other boats than the
      flat-bottomed rafts; the four canoes being all of the kind in
      their possession, and, these having been obtained, by mere
      accident, from some large island in the southwest—that his own
      name was Nu-Nu—that he had no knowledge of Bennet’s Islet—and
      that the appellation of the island he had left was Tsalal. The
      commencement of the words _Tsalemon_and Tsalal was given with a
      prolonged hissing sound, which we found it impossible to imitate,
      even after repeated endeavors, and which was precisely the same
      with the note of the black bittern we had eaten up on the summit
      of the hill.

      _March 3d._-The heat of the water was now truly remarkable, and
      in color was undergoing a rapid change, being no longer
      transparent, but of a milky consistency and hue. In our immediate
      vicinity it was usually smooth, never so rough as to endanger the
      canoe—but we were frequently surprised at perceiving, to our
      right and left, at different distances, sudden and extensive
      agitations of the surface; these, we at length noticed, were
      always preceded by wild flickerings in the region of vapor to the
      southward.

      _March 4th._-To-day, with the view of widening our sail, the
      breeze from the northward dying away perceptibly, I took from my
      coat-pocket a white handkerchief. Nu-Nu was seated at my elbow,
      and the linen accidentally flaring in his face, he became
      violently affected with convulsions. These were succeeded by
      drowsiness and stupor, and low murmurings of _“‘Tekeli-li!
      Tekeli-li!”_

      _March_5th.-The wind had entirely ceased, but it was evident that
      we were still hurrying on to the southward, under the influence
      of a powerful current. And now,—indeed, it would seem reasonable
      that we should experience some alarm at the turn events were
      taking—but we felt none. The countenance of Peters indicated
      nothing of this nature, although it wore at times an expression I
      could not fathom. The polar winter appeared to be coming on—but
      coming without its terrors. I felt a numbness of body and mind—a
      dreaminess of sensation but this was all.

      _March 6th._-The gray vapor had now arisen many more degrees
      above the horizon, and was gradually losing its grayness of tint.
      The heat of the water was extreme, even unpleasant to the touch,
      and its milky hue was more evident than ever. Today a violent
      agitation of the water occurred very close to the canoe. It was
      attended, as usual, with a wild flaring up of the vapor at its
      summit, and a momentary division at its base. A fine white
      powder, resembling ashes—but certainly not such—fell over the
      canoe and over a large surface of the water, as the flickering
      died away among the vapor and the commotion subsided in the sea.
      Nu-Nu now threw himself on his face in the bottom of the boat,
      and no persuasions could induce him to arise.

      _March 7th._-This day we questioned Nu-Nu concerning the motives
      of his countrymen in destroying our companions; but he appeared
      to be too utterly overcome by terror to afford us any rational
      reply. He still obstinately lay in the bottom of the boat; and,
      upon reiterating the questions as to the motive, made use only of
      idiotic gesticulations, such as raising with his forefinger the
      upper lip, and displaying the teeth which lay beneath it. These
      were black. We had never before seen the teeth of an inhabitant
      of Tsalal.

      _March 8th._-To-day there floated by us one of the white animals
      whose appearance upon the beach at Tsalal had occasioned so wild
      a commotion among the savages. I would have picked it up, but
      there came over me a sudden listlessness, and I forbore. The heat
      of the water still increased, and the hand could no longer be
      endured within it. Peters spoke little, and I knew not what to
      think of his apathy. Nu-Nu breathed, and no more.

      _March 9th._-The whole ashy material fell now continually around
      us, and in vast quantities. The range of vapor to the southward
      had arisen prodigiously in the horizon, and began to assume more
      distinctness of form. I can liken it to nothing but a limitless
      cataract, rolling silently into the sea from some immense and
      far-distant rampart in the heaven. The gigantic curtain ranged
      along the whole extent of the southern horizon. It emitted no
      sound.

      _March 21st._-A sullen darkness now hovered above us—but from out
      the milky depths of the ocean a luminous glare arose, and stole
      up along the bulwarks of the boat. We were nearly overwhelmed by
      the white ashy shower which settled upon us and upon the canoe,
      but melted into the water as it fell. The summit of the cataract
      was utterly lost in the dimness and the distance. Yet we were
      evidently approaching it with a hideous velocity. At intervals
      there were visible in it wide, yawning, but momentary rents, and
      from out these rents, within which was a chaos of flitting and
      indistinct images, there came rushing and mighty, but soundless
      winds, tearing up the enkindled ocean in their course.

      _March 22d._-The darkness had materially increased, relieved only
      by the glare of the water thrown back from the white curtain
      before us. Many gigantic and pallidly white birds flew
      continuously now from beyond the veil, and their scream was the
      eternal _Tekeli-li!_as they retreated from our vision. Hereupon
      Nu-Nu stirred in the bottom of the boat; but upon touching him we
      found his spirit departed. And now we rushed into the embraces of
      the cataract, where a chasm threw itself open to receive us. But
      there arose in our pathway a shrouded human figure, very far
      larger in its proportions than any dweller among men. And the hue
      of the skin of the figure was of the perfect whiteness of the
      snow.

      NOTE

      THE circumstances connected with the late sudden and distressing
      death of Mr. Pym are already well known to the public through the
      medium of the daily press. It is feared that the few remaining
      chapters which were to have completed his narrative, and which
      were retained by him, while the above were in type, for the
      purpose of revision, have been irrecoverably lost through the
      accident by which he perished himself. This, however, may prove
      not to be the case, and the papers, if ultimately found, will be
      given to the public.

      No means have been left untried to remedy the deficiency. The
      gentleman whose name is mentioned in the preface, and who, from
      the statement there made, might be supposed able to fill the
      vacuum, has declined the task—this, for satisfactory reasons
      connected with the general inaccuracy of the details afforded
      him, and his disbelief in the entire truth of the latter portions
      of the narration. Peters, from whom some information might be
      expected, is still alive, and a resident of Illinois, but cannot
      be met with at present. He may hereafter be found, and will, no
      doubt, afford material for a conclusion of Mr. Pym’s account.

      The loss of two or three final chapters (for there were but two
      or three) is the more deeply to be regretted, as it can not be
      doubted they contained matter relative to the Pole itself, or at
      least to regions in its very near proximity; and as, too, the
      statements of the author in relation to these regions may shortly
      be verified or contradicted by means of the governmental
      expedition now preparing for the Southern Ocean.

      On one point in the narrative some remarks may well be offered;
      and it would afford the writer of this appendix much pleasure if
      what he may here observe should have a tendency to throw credit,
      in any degree, upon the very singular pages now published. We
      allude to the chasms found in the island of Tsalal, and to the
      whole of the figures upon pages 245-47 {of the printed
      edition—ed.}.

      (Note: No figures were included with this text)

      Mr. Pym has given the figures of the chasms without comment, and
      speaks decidedly of the _indentures_found at the extremity of the
      most easterly of these chasms as having but a fanciful
      resemblance to alphabetical characters, and, in short, as being
      positively _not such. _This assertion is made in a manner so
      simple, and sustained by a species of demonstration so conclusive
      (viz., the fitting of the projections of the fragments found
      among the dust into the indentures upon the wall), that we are
      forced to believe the writer in earnest; and no reasonable reader
      should suppose otherwise. But as the facts in relation to all the
      figures are most singular (especially when taken in connection
      with statements made in the body of the narrative), it may be as
      well to say a word or two concerning them all—this, too, the more
      especially as the facts in question have, beyond doubt, escaped
      the attention of Mr. Poe.

      Figure 1, then, figure 2, figure 3, and figure 5, when conjoined
      with one another in the precise order which the chasms themselves
      presented, and when deprived of the small lateral branches or
      arches (which, it will be remembered, served only as a means of
      communication between the main chambers, and were of totally
      distinct character), constitute an Ethiopian verbal root—the root
      “To be shady,’—whence all the inflections of shadow or darkness.

      In regard to the “left or most northwardly” of the indentures in
      figure 4, it is more than probable that the opinion of Peters was
      correct, and that the hieroglyphical appearance was really the
      work of art, and intended as the representation of a human form.
      The delineation is before the reader, and he may, or may not,
      perceive the resemblance suggested; but the rest of the
      indentures afford strong confirmation of Peters’ idea. The upper
      range is evidently the Arabic verbal root “To be white,” whence
      all the inflections of brilliancy and whiteness. The lower range
      is not so immediately perspicuous. The characters are somewhat
      broken and disjointed; nevertheless, it can not be doubted that,
      in their perfect state, they formed the full Egyptian word, “The
      region of the south.” It should be observed that these
      interpretations confirm the opinion of Peters in regard to the
      “most northwardly” of the figures. The arm is outstretched toward
      the south.

      Conclusions such as these open a wide field for speculation and
      exciting conjecture. They should be regarded, perhaps, in
      connection with some of the most faintly detailed incidents of
      the narrative; although in no visible manner is this chain of
      connection complete. Tekeli-li! was the cry of the affrighted
      natives of Tsalal upon discovering the carcase of the
      _white_animal picked up at sea. This also was the shuddering
      exclamatives of Tsalal upon discovering the carcass of the
      _white_materials in possession of Mr. Pym. This also was the
      shriek of the swift-flying, _white, _and gigantic birds which
      issued from the vapory _white_curtain of the South. Nothing
      _white_was to be found at Tsalal, and nothing otherwise in the
      subsequent voyage to the region beyond. It is not impossible that
      “Tsalal,” the appellation of the island of the chasms, may be
      found, upon minute philological scrutiny, to betray either some
      alliance with the chasms themselves, or some reference to the
      Ethiopian characters so mysteriously written in their windings.

      _“I have graven it within the hills, and my vengeance upon the
      dust within the rock.”_




NOTES TO THE THIRD VOLUME


      {*1} Whaling vessels are usually fitted with iron oil-tanks—why
      the _Grampus_ was not I have never been able to ascertain.

      {*2} The case of the brig _Polly_, of Boston, is one so much in
      point, and her fate, in many respects, so remarkably similar to
      our own, that I cannot forbear alluding to it here. This vessel,
      of one hundred and thirty tons burden, sailed from Boston, with a
      cargo of lumber and provisions, for Santa Croix, on the twelfth
      of December, 1811, under the command of Captain Casneau. There
      were eight souls on board besides the captain—the mate, four
      seamen, and the cook, together with a Mr. Hunt, and a negro girl
      belonging to him. On the fifteenth, having cleared the shoal of
      Georges, she sprung a leak in a gale of wind from the southeast,
      and was finally capsized; but, the masts going by the board, she
      afterward righted. They remained in this situation, without fire,
      and with very little provision, for the period of one hundred and
      ninety-one days (from December the fifteenth to June the
      twentieth), when Captain Casneau and Samuel Badger, the only
      survivors, were taken off the wreck by the Fame, of Hull, Captain
      Featherstone, bound home from Rio Janeiro. When picked up, they
      were in latitude 28 degrees N., longitude 13 degrees W., having
      drifted above two thousand miles! On the ninth of July the Fame
      fell in with the brig Dromero, Captain Perkins, who landed the
      two sufferers in Kennebeck. The narrative from which we gather
      these details ends in the following words:

      “It is natural to inquire how they could float such a vast
      distance, upon the most frequented part of the Atlantic, and not
      be discovered all this time. They were passed by more than a
      dozen sail, one of which came so nigh them that they could
      distinctly see the people on deck and on the rigging looking at
      them; but, to the inexpressible disappointment of the starving
      and freezing men, they stifled the dictates of compassion,
      hoisted sail, and cruelly abandoned them to their fate.”

      {*3} Among the vessels which at various times have professed to
      meet with the Auroras may be mentioned the ship San Miguel, in
      1769; the ship Aurora, in 1774; the brig Pearl, in 1779; and the
      ship Dolores, in 1790. They all agree in giving the mean latitude
      fifty-three degrees south.

      {*4} The terms morning and evening, which I have made use of to
      avoid confusion in my narrative, as far as possible, must not, of
      course, be taken in their ordinary sense. For a long time past we
      had had no night at all, the daylight being continual. The dates
      throughout are according to nautical time, and the bearing must
      be understood as per compass. I would also remark, in this place,
      that I cannot, in the first portion of what is here written,
      pretend to strict accuracy in respect to dates, or latitudes and
      longitudes, having kept no regular journal until after the period
      of which this first portion treats. In many instances I have
      relied altogether upon memory.

      {*5} This day was rendered remarkable by our observing in the
      south several huge wreaths of the grayish vapour I have spoken
      of.

      {*6} The marl was also black; indeed, we noticed no light colored
      substances of any kind upon the island.

      {*7}For obvious reasons I cannot pretend to strict accuracy in
      these dates. They are given principally with a view to perspicity
      of narrative, and as set down in my pencil memorandum.




LIGEIA


      And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the
      mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is but a great
      will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth
      not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save
      only through the weakness of his feeble will.—_Joseph Glanvill_.

      I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely
      where, I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia. Long years
      have since elapsed, and my memory is feeble through much
      suffering. Or, perhaps, I cannot now bring these points to mind,
      because, in truth, the character of my beloved, her rare
      learning, her singular yet placid cast of beauty, and the
      thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low musical language,
      made their way into my heart by paces so steadily and stealthily
      progressive that they have been unnoticed and unknown. Yet I
      believe that I met her first and most frequently in some large,
      old, decaying city near the Rhine. Of her family—I have surely
      heard her speak. That it is of a remotely ancient date cannot be
      doubted. Ligeia! Ligeia! Buried in studies of a nature more than
      all else adapted to deaden impressions of the outward world, it
      is by that sweet word alone—by Ligeia—that I bring before mine
      eyes in fancy the image of her who is no more. And now, while I
      write, a recollection flashes upon me that I have never known the
      paternal name of her who was my friend and my betrothed, and who
      became the partner of my studies, and finally the wife of my
      bosom. Was it a playful charge on the part of my Ligeia? or was
      it a test of my strength of affection, that I should institute no
      inquiries upon this point? or was it rather a caprice of my own—a
      wildly romantic offering on the shrine of the most passionate
      devotion? I but indistinctly recall the fact itself—what wonder
      that I have utterly forgotten the circumstances which originated
      or attended it? And, indeed, if ever that spirit which is
      entitled _Romance_—if ever she, the wan and the misty-winged
      _Ashtophet_ of idolatrous Egypt, presided, as they tell, over
      marriages ill-omened, then most surely she presided over mine.

      There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory fails me
      not. It is the person of Ligeia. In stature she was tall,
      somewhat slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I
      would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of
      her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of
      her footfall. She came and departed as a shadow. I was never made
      aware of her entrance into my closed study save by the dear music
      of her low sweet voice, as she placed her marble hand upon my
      shoulder. In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled her. It was
      the radiance of an opium-dream—an airy and spirit-lifting vision
      more wildly divine than the phantasies which hovered about the
      slumbering souls of the daughters of Delos. Yet her features were
      not of that regular mould which we have been falsely taught to
      worship in the classical labors of the heathen. “There is no
      exquisite beauty,” says Bacon, Lord Verulam, speaking truly of
      all the forms and genera of beauty, “without some strangeness in
      the proportion.” Yet, although I saw that the features of Ligeia
      were not of a classic regularity—although I perceived that her
      loveliness was indeed “exquisite,” and felt that there was much
      of “strangeness” pervading it, yet I have tried in vain to detect
      the irregularity and to trace home my own perception of “the
      strange.” I examined the contour of the lofty and pale
      forehead—it was faultless—how cold indeed that word when applied
      to a majesty so divine!—the skin rivalling the purest ivory, the
      commanding extent and repose, the gentle prominence of the
      regions above the temples; and then the raven-black, the glossy,
      the luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses, setting forth the
      full force of the Homeric epithet, “hyacinthine!” I looked at the
      delicate outlines of the nose—and nowhere but in the graceful
      medallions of the Hebrews had I beheld a similar perfection.
      There were the same luxurious smoothness of surface, the same
      scarcely perceptible tendency to the aquiline, the same
      harmoniously curved nostrils speaking the free spirit. I regarded
      the sweet mouth. Here was indeed the triumph of all things
      heavenly—the magnificent turn of the short upper lip—the soft,
      voluptuous slumber of the under—the dimples which sported, and
      the color which spoke—the teeth glancing back, with a brilliancy
      almost startling, every ray of the holy light which fell upon
      them in her serene and placid, yet most exultingly radiant of all
      smiles. I scrutinized the formation of the chin—and here, too, I
      found the gentleness of breadth, the softness and the majesty,
      the fullness and the spirituality, of the Greek—the contour which
      the god Apollo revealed but in a dream, to Cleomenes, the son of
      the Athenian. And then I peered into the large eyes of Ligeia.

      For eyes we have no models in the remotely antique. It might have
      been, too, that in these eyes of my beloved lay the secret to
      which Lord Verulam alludes. They were, I must believe, far larger
      than the ordinary eyes of our own race. They were even fuller
      than the fullest of the gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley
      of Nourjahad. Yet it was only at intervals—in moments of intense
      excitement—that this peculiarity became more than slightly
      noticeable in Ligeia. And at such moments was her beauty—in my
      heated fancy thus it appeared perhaps—the beauty of beings either
      above or apart from the earth—the beauty of the fabulous Houri of
      the Turk. The hue of the orbs was the most brilliant of black,
      and, far over them, hung jetty lashes of great length. The brows,
      slightly irregular in outline, had the same tint. The
      “strangeness,” however, which I found in the eyes, was of a
      nature distinct from the formation, or the color, or the
      brilliancy of the features, and must, after all, be referred to
      the expression. Ah, word of no meaning! behind whose vast
      latitude of mere sound we intrench our ignorance of so much of
      the spiritual. The expression of the eyes of Ligeia! How for long
      hours have I pondered upon it! How have I, through the whole of a
      midsummer night, struggled to fathom it! What was it—that
      something more profound than the well of Democritus—which lay far
      within the pupils of my beloved? What was it? I was possessed
      with a passion to discover. Those eyes! those large, those
      shining, those divine orbs! they became to me twin stars of Leda,
      and I to them devoutest of astrologers.

      There is no point, among the many incomprehensible anomalies of
      the science of mind, more thrillingly exciting than the
      fact—never, I believe, noticed in the schools—that, in our
      endeavors to recall to memory something long forgotten, we often
      find ourselves upon the very verge of remembrance, without being
      able, in the end, to remember. And thus how frequently, in my
      intense scrutiny of Ligeia’s eyes, have I felt approaching the
      full knowledge of their expression—felt it approaching—yet not
      quite be mine—and so at length entirely depart! And (strange, oh
      strangest mystery of all!) I found, in the commonest objects of
      the universe, a circle of analogies to that expression. I mean to
      say that, subsequently to the period when Ligeia’s beauty passed
      into my spirit, there dwelling as in a shrine, I derived, from
      many existences in the material world, a sentiment such as I felt
      always aroused within me by her large and luminous orbs. Yet not
      the more could I define that sentiment, or analyze, or even
      steadily view it. I recognized it, let me repeat, sometimes in
      the survey of a rapidly-growing vine—in the contemplation of a
      moth, a butterfly, a chrysalis, a stream of running water. I have
      felt it in the ocean—in the falling of a meteor. I have felt it
      in the glances of unusually aged people. And there are one or two
      stars in heaven—(one especially, a star of the sixth magnitude,
      double and changeable, to be found near the large star in Lyra)
      in a telescopic scrutiny of which I have been made aware of the
      feeling. I have been filled with it by certain sounds from
      stringed instruments, and not unfrequently by passages from
      books. Among innumerable other instances, I well remember
      something in a volume of Joseph Glanvill, which (perhaps merely
      from its quaintness—who shall say?) never failed to inspire me
      with the sentiment: “And the will therein lieth, which dieth not.
      Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor? For God is
      but a great will pervading all things by nature of its
      intentness. Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death
      utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.”

      Length of years, and subsequent reflection, have enabled me to
      trace, indeed, some remote connection between this passage in the
      English moralist and a portion of the character of Ligeia. An
      intensity in thought, action, or speech, was possibly, in her, a
      result, or at least an index, of that gigantic volition which,
      during our long intercourse, failed to give other and more
      immediate evidence of its existence. Of all the women whom I have
      ever known, she, the outwardly calm, the ever-placid Ligeia, was
      the most violently a prey to the tumultuous vultures of stern
      passion. And of such passion I could form no estimate, save by
      the miraculous expansion of those eyes which at once so delighted
      and appalled me—by the almost magical melody, modulation,
      distinctness and placidity of her very low voice—and by the
      fierce energy (rendered doubly effective by contrast with her
      manner of utterance) of the wild words which she habitually
      uttered.

      I have spoken of the learning of Ligeia: it was immense—such as I
      have never known in woman. In the classical tongues was she
      deeply proficient, and as far as my own acquaintance extended in
      regard to the modern dialects of Europe, I have never known her
      at fault. Indeed upon any theme of the most admired, because
      simply the most abstruse of the boasted erudition of the academy,
      have I ever found Ligeia at fault? How singularly—how
      thrillingly, this one point in the nature of my wife has forced
      itself, at this late period only, upon my attention! I said her
      knowledge was such as I have never known in woman—but where
      breathes the man who has traversed, and successfully, all the
      wide areas of moral, physical, and mathematical science? I saw
      not then what I now clearly perceive, that the acquisitions of
      Ligeia were gigantic, were astounding; yet I was sufficiently
      aware of her infinite supremacy to resign myself, with a
      child-like confidence, to her guidance through the chaotic world
      of metaphysical investigation at which I was most busily occupied
      during the earlier years of our marriage. With how vast a
      triumph—with how vivid a delight—with how much of all that is
      ethereal in hope did I feel, as she bent over me in studies but
      little sought—but less known—that delicious vista by slow degrees
      expanding before me, down whose long, gorgeous, and all untrodden
      path, I might at length pass onward to the goal of a wisdom too
      divinely precious not to be forbidden!

      How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after
      some years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings to
      themselves and fly away! Without Ligeia I was but as a child
      groping benighted. Her presence, her readings alone, rendered
      vividly luminous the many mysteries of the transcendentalism in
      which we were immersed. Wanting the radiant lustre of her eyes,
      letters, lambent and golden, grew duller than Saturnian lead. And
      now those eyes shone less and less frequently upon the pages over
      which I pored. Ligeia grew ill. The wild eyes blazed with a
      too—too glorious effulgence; the pale fingers became of the
      transparent waxen hue of the grave; and the blue veins upon the
      lofty forehead swelled and sank impetuously with the tides of the
      gentle emotion. I saw that she must die—and I struggled
      desperately in spirit with the grim Azrael. And the struggles of
      the passionate wife were, to my astonishment, even more energetic
      than my own. There had been much in her stern nature to impress
      me with the belief that, to her, death would have come without
      its terrors; but not so. Words are impotent to convey any just
      idea of the fierceness of resistance with which she wrestled with
      the Shadow. I groaned in anguish at the pitiable spectacle. I
      would have soothed—I would have reasoned; but, in the intensity
      of her wild desire for life,—for life—but for life—solace and
      reason were the uttermost folly. Yet not until the last instance,
      amid the most convulsive writhings of her fierce spirit, was
      shaken the external placidity of her demeanor. Her voice grew
      more gentle—grew more low—yet I would not wish to dwell upon the
      wild meaning of the quietly uttered words. My brain reeled as I
      hearkened, entranced, to a melody more than mortal—to assumptions
      and aspirations which mortality had never before known.

      That she loved me I should not have doubted; and I might have
      been easily aware that, in a bosom such as hers, love would have
      reigned no ordinary passion. But in death only, was I fully
      impressed with the strength of her affection. For long hours,
      detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the overflowing
      of a heart whose more than passionate devotion amounted to
      idolatry. How had I deserved to be so blessed by such
      confessions?—how had I deserved to be so cursed with the removal
      of my beloved in the hour of her making them? But upon this
      subject I cannot bear to dilate. Let me say only, that in
      Ligeia’s more than womanly abandonment to a love, alas! all
      unmerited, all unworthily bestowed, I at length recognized the
      principle of her longing with so wildly earnest a desire for the
      life which was now fleeing so rapidly away. It is this wild
      longing—it is this eager vehemence of desire for life—but for
      life—that I have no power to portray—no utterance capable of
      expressing.

      At high noon of the night in which she departed, beckoning me,
      peremptorily, to her side, she bade me repeat certain verses
      composed by herself not many days before. I obeyed her. They were
      these:

Lo! ’tis a gala night
    Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
    In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
    A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
    The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
    Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly;
    Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
    That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
    Invisible Wo!

That motley drama!—oh, be sure
    It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased forever more,
    By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
    To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness and more of Sin
    And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,
    A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
    The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
    The mimes become its food,
And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs
    In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!
    And over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
    Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
    Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
    And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

      “O God!” half shrieked Ligeia, leaping to her feet and extending
      her arms aloft with a spasmodic movement, as I made an end of
      these lines—“O God! O Divine Father!—shall these things be
      undeviatingly so?—shall this Conqueror be not once conquered? Are
      we not part and parcel in Thee? Who—who knoweth the mysteries of
      the will with its vigor? Man doth not yield him to the angels,
      nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his
      feeble will.”

      And now, as if exhausted with emotion, she suffered her white
      arms to fall, and returned solemnly to her bed of death. And as
      she breathed her last sighs, there came mingled with them a low
      murmur from her lips. I bent to them my ear and distinguished,
      again, the concluding words of the passage in Glanvill—“Man doth
      not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only
      through the weakness of his feeble will.”

      She died: and I, crushed into the very dust with sorrow, could no
      longer endure the lonely desolation of my dwelling in the dim and
      decaying city by the Rhine. I had no lack of what the world calls
      wealth. Ligeia had brought me far more, very far more than
      ordinarily falls to the lot of mortals. After a few months,
      therefore, of weary and aimless wandering, I purchased, and put
      in some repair, an abbey, which I shall not name, in one of the
      wildest and least frequented portions of fair England. The gloomy
      and dreary grandeur of the building, the almost savage aspect of
      the domain, the many melancholy and time-honored memories
      connected with both, had much in unison with the feelings of
      utter abandonment which had driven me into that remote and
      unsocial region of the country. Yet although the external abbey,
      with its verdant decay hanging about it, suffered but little
      alteration, I gave way, with a child-like perversity, and
      perchance with a faint hope of alleviating my sorrows, to a
      display of more than regal magnificence within. For such follies,
      even in childhood, I had imbibed a taste and now they came back
      to me as if in the dotage of grief. Alas, I feel how much even of
      incipient madness might have been discovered in the gorgeous and
      fantastic draperies, in the solemn carvings of Egypt, in the wild
      cornices and furniture, in the Bedlam patterns of the carpets of
      tufted gold! I had become a bounden slave in the trammels of
      opium, and my labors and my orders had taken a coloring from my
      dreams. But these absurdities I must not pause to detail. Let me
      speak only of that one chamber, ever accursed, whither in a
      moment of mental alienation, I led from the altar as my bride—as
      the successor of the unforgotten Ligeia—the fair-haired and
      blue-eyed Lady Rowena Trevanion, of Tremaine.

      There is no individual portion of the architecture and decoration
      of that bridal chamber which is not now visibly before me. Where
      were the souls of the haughty family of the bride, when, through
      thirst of gold, they permitted to pass the threshold of an
      apartment so bedecked, a maiden and a daughter so beloved? I have
      said that I minutely remember the details of the chamber—yet I am
      sadly forgetful on topics of deep moment—and here there was no
      system, no keeping, in the fantastic display, to take hold upon
      the memory. The room lay in a high turret of the castellated
      abbey, was pentagonal in shape, and of capacious size. Occupying
      the whole southern face of the pentagon was the sole window—an
      immense sheet of unbroken glass from Venice—a single pane, and
      tinted of a leaden hue, so that the rays of either the sun or
      moon, passing through it, fell with a ghastly lustre on the
      objects within. Over the upper portion of this huge window,
      extended the trellice-work of an aged vine, which clambered up
      the massy walls of the turret. The ceiling, of gloomy-looking
      oak, was excessively lofty, vaulted, and elaborately fretted with
      the wildest and most grotesque specimens of a semi-Gothic,
      semi-Druidical device. From out the most central recess of this
      melancholy vaulting, depended, by a single chain of gold with
      long links, a huge censer of the same metal, Saracenic in
      pattern, and with many perforations so contrived that there
      writhed in and out of them, as if endued with a serpent vitality,
      a continual succession of parti-colored fires.

      Some few ottomans and golden candelabra, of Eastern figure, were
      in various stations about—and there was the couch, too—bridal
      couch—of an Indian model, and low, and sculptured of solid ebony,
      with a pall-like canopy above. In each of the angles of the
      chamber stood on end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite,
      from the tombs of the kings over against Luxor, with their aged
      lids full of immemorial sculpture. But in the draping of the
      apartment lay, alas! the chief phantasy of all. The lofty walls,
      gigantic in height—even unproportionably so—were hung from summit
      to foot, in vast folds, with a heavy and massive-looking
      tapestry—tapestry of a material which was found alike as a carpet
      on the floor, as a covering for the ottomans and the ebony bed,
      as a canopy for the bed, and as the gorgeous volutes of the
      curtains which partially shaded the window. The material was the
      richest cloth of gold. It was spotted all over, at irregular
      intervals, with arabesque figures, about a foot in diameter, and
      wrought upon the cloth in patterns of the most jetty black. But
      these figures partook of the true character of the arabesque only
      when regarded from a single point of view. By a contrivance now
      common, and indeed traceable to a very remote period of
      antiquity, they were made changeable in aspect. To one entering
      the room, they bore the appearance of simple monstrosities; but
      upon a farther advance, this appearance gradually departed; and
      step by step, as the visitor moved his station in the chamber, he
      saw himself surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly
      forms which belong to the superstition of the Norman, or arise in
      the guilty slumbers of the monk. The phantasmagoric effect was
      vastly heightened by the artificial introduction of a strong
      continual current of wind behind the draperies—giving a hideous
      and uneasy animation to the whole.

      In halls such as these—in a bridal chamber such as this—I passed,
      with the Lady of Tremaine, the unhallowed hours of the first
      month of our marriage—passed them with but little disquietude.
      That my wife dreaded the fierce moodiness of my temper—that she
      shunned me and loved me but little—I could not help perceiving;
      but it gave me rather pleasure than otherwise. I loathed her with
      a hatred belonging more to demon than to man. My memory flew
      back, (oh, with what intensity of regret!) to Ligeia, the
      beloved, the august, the beautiful, the entombed. I revelled in
      recollections of her purity, of her wisdom, of her lofty, her
      ethereal nature, of her passionate, her idolatrous love. Now,
      then, did my spirit fully and freely burn with more than all the
      fires of her own. In the excitement of my opium dreams (for I was
      habitually fettered in the shackles of the drug) I would call
      aloud upon her name, during the silence of the night, or among
      the sheltered recesses of the glens by day, as if, through the
      wild eagerness, the solemn passion, the consuming ardor of my
      longing for the departed, I could restore her to the pathway she
      had abandoned—ah, could it be forever?—upon the earth.

      About the commencement of the second month of the marriage, the
      Lady Rowena was attacked with sudden illness, from which her
      recovery was slow. The fever which consumed her rendered her
      nights uneasy; and in her perturbed state of half-slumber, she
      spoke of sounds, and of motions, in and about the chamber of the
      turret, which I concluded had no origin save in the distemper of
      her fancy, or perhaps in the phantasmagoric influences of the
      chamber itself. She became at length convalescent—finally well.
      Yet but a brief period elapsed, ere a second more violent
      disorder again threw her upon a bed of suffering; and from this
      attack her frame, at all times feeble, never altogether
      recovered. Her illnesses were, after this epoch, of alarming
      character, and of more alarming recurrence, defying alike the
      knowledge and the great exertions of her physicians. With the
      increase of the chronic disease which had thus, apparently, taken
      too sure hold upon her constitution to be eradicated by human
      means, I could not fail to observe a similar increase in the
      nervous irritation of her temperament, and in her excitability by
      trivial causes of fear. She spoke again, and now more frequently
      and pertinaciously, of the sounds—of the slight sounds—and of the
      unusual motions among the tapestries, to which she had formerly
      alluded.

      One night, near the closing in of September, she pressed this
      distressing subject with more than usual emphasis upon my
      attention. She had just awakened from an unquiet slumber, and I
      had been watching, with feelings half of anxiety, half of vague
      terror, the workings of her emaciated countenance. I sat by the
      side of her ebony bed, upon one of the ottomans of India. She
      partly arose, and spoke, in an earnest low whisper, of sounds
      which she then heard, but which I could not hear—of motions which
      she then saw, but which I could not perceive. The wind was
      rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries, and I wished to show her
      (what, let me confess it, I could not all believe) that those
      almost inarticulate breathings, and those very gentle variations
      of the figures upon the wall, were but the natural effects of
      that customary rushing of the wind. But a deadly pallor,
      overspreading her face, had proved to me that my exertions to
      reassure her would be fruitless. She appeared to be fainting, and
      no attendants were within call. I remembered where was deposited
      a decanter of light wine which had been ordered by her
      physicians, and hastened across the chamber to procure it. But,
      as I stepped beneath the light of the censer, two circumstances
      of a startling nature attracted my attention. I had felt that
      some palpable although invisible object had passed lightly by my
      person; and I saw that there lay upon the golden carpet, in the
      very middle of the rich lustre thrown from the censer, a shadow—a
      faint, indefinite shadow of angelic aspect—such as might be
      fancied for the shadow of a shade. But I was wild with the
      excitement of an immoderate dose of opium, and heeded these
      things but little, nor spoke of them to Rowena. Having found the
      wine, I recrossed the chamber, and poured out a gobletful, which
      I held to the lips of the fainting lady. She had now partially
      recovered, however, and took the vessel herself, while I sank
      upon an ottoman near me, with my eyes fastened upon her person.
      It was then that I became distinctly aware of a gentle footfall
      upon the carpet, and near the couch; and in a second thereafter,
      as Rowena was in the act of raising the wine to her lips, I saw,
      or may have dreamed that I saw, fall within the goblet, as if
      from some invisible spring in the atmosphere of the room, three
      or four large drops of a brilliant and ruby colored fluid. If
      this I saw—not so Rowena. She swallowed the wine unhesitatingly,
      and I forbore to speak to her of a circumstance which must, after
      all, I considered, have been but the suggestion of a vivid
      imagination, rendered morbidly active by the terror of the lady,
      by the opium, and by the hour.

      Yet I cannot conceal it from my own perception that, immediately
      subsequent to the fall of the ruby-drops, a rapid change for the
      worse took place in the disorder of my wife; so that, on the
      third subsequent night, the hands of her menials prepared her for
      the tomb, and on the fourth, I sat alone, with her shrouded body,
      in that fantastic chamber which had received her as my bride.
      Wild visions, opium-engendered, flitted, shadow-like, before me.
      I gazed with unquiet eye upon the sarcophagi in the angles of the
      room, upon the varying figures of the drapery, and upon the
      writhing of the parti-colored fires in the censer overhead. My
      eyes then fell, as I called to mind the circumstances of a former
      night, to the spot beneath the glare of the censer where I had
      seen the faint traces of the shadow. It was there, however, no
      longer; and breathing with greater freedom, I turned my glances
      to the pallid and rigid figure upon the bed. Then rushed upon me
      a thousand memories of Ligeia—and then came back upon my heart,
      with the turbulent violence of a flood, the whole of that
      unutterable woe with which I had regarded her thus enshrouded.
      The night waned; and still, with a bosom full of bitter thoughts
      of the one only and supremely beloved, I remained gazing upon the
      body of Rowena.

      It might have been midnight, or perhaps earlier, or later, for I
      had taken no note of time, when a sob, low, gentle, but very
      distinct, startled me from my revery. I _felt_ that it came from
      the bed of ebony—the bed of death. I listened in an agony of
      superstitious terror—but there was no repetition of the sound. I
      strained my vision to detect any motion in the corpse—but there
      was not the slightest perceptible. Yet I could not have been
      deceived. I had heard the noise, however faint, and my soul was
      awakened within me. I resolutely and perseveringly kept my
      attention riveted upon the body. Many minutes elapsed before any
      circumstance occurred tending to throw light upon the mystery. At
      length it became evident that a slight, a very feeble, and barely
      noticeable tinge of color had flushed up within the cheeks, and
      along the sunken small veins of the eyelids. Through a species of
      unutterable horror and awe, for which the language of mortality
      has no sufficiently energetic expression, I felt my heart cease
      to beat, my limbs grow rigid where I sat. Yet a sense of duty
      finally operated to restore my self-possession. I could no longer
      doubt that we had been precipitate in our preparations—that
      Rowena still lived. It was necessary that some immediate exertion
      be made; yet the turret was altogether apart from the portion of
      the abbey tenanted by the servants—there were none within call—I
      had no means of summoning them to my aid without leaving the room
      for many minutes—and this I could not venture to do. I therefore
      struggled alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit ill
      hovering. In a short period it was certain, however, that a
      relapse had taken place; the color disappeared from both eyelid
      and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the
      lips became doubly shrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly
      expression of death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness
      overspread rapidly the surface of the body; and all the usual
      rigorous illness immediately supervened. I fell back with a
      shudder upon the couch from which I had been so startlingly
      aroused, and again gave myself up to passionate waking visions of
      Ligeia.

      An hour thus elapsed when (could it be possible?) I was a second
      time aware of some vague sound issuing from the region of the
      bed. I listened—in extremity of horror. The sound came again—it
      was a sigh. Rushing to the corpse, I saw—distinctly saw—a tremor
      upon the lips. In a minute afterward they relaxed, disclosing a
      bright line of the pearly teeth. Amazement now struggled in my
      bosom with the profound awe which had hitherto reigned there
      alone. I felt that my vision grew dim, that my reason wandered;
      and it was only by a violent effort that I at length succeeded in
      nerving myself to the task which duty thus once more had pointed
      out. There was now a partial glow upon the forehead and upon the
      cheek and throat; a perceptible warmth pervaded the whole frame;
      there was even a slight pulsation at the heart. The lady lived;
      and with redoubled ardor I betook myself to the task of
      restoration. I chafed and bathed the temples and the hands, and
      used every exertion which experience, and no little medical
      reading, could suggest. But in vain. Suddenly, the color fled,
      the pulsation ceased, the lips resumed the expression of the
      dead, and, in an instant afterward, the whole body took upon
      itself the icy chilliness, the livid hue, the intense rigidity,
      the sunken outline, and all the loathsome peculiarities of that
      which has been, for many days, a tenant of the tomb.

      And again I sunk into visions of Ligeia—and again, (what marvel
      that I shudder while I write?), again there reached my ears a low
      sob from the region of the ebony bed. But why shall I minutely
      detail the unspeakable horrors of that night? Why shall I pause
      to relate how, time after time, until near the period of the gray
      dawn, this hideous drama of revivification was repeated; how each
      terrific relapse was only into a sterner and apparently more
      irredeemable death; how each agony wore the aspect of a struggle
      with some invisible foe; and how each struggle was succeeded by I
      know not what of wild change in the personal appearance of the
      corpse? Let me hurry to a conclusion.

      The greater part of the fearful night had worn away, and she who
      had been dead, once again stirred—and now more vigorously than
      hitherto, although arousing from a dissolution more appalling in
      its utter hopelessness than any. I had long ceased to struggle or
      to move, and remained sitting rigidly upon the ottoman, a
      helpless prey to a whirl of violent emotions, of which extreme
      awe was perhaps the least terrible, the least consuming. The
      corpse, I repeat, stirred, and now more vigorously than before.
      The hues of life flushed up with unwonted energy into the
      countenance—the limbs relaxed—and, save that the eyelids were yet
      pressed heavily together, and that the bandages and draperies of
      the grave still imparted their charnel character to the figure, I
      might have dreamed that Rowena had indeed shaken off, utterly,
      the fetters of Death. But if this idea was not, even then,
      altogether adopted, I could at least doubt no longer, when,
      arising from the bed, tottering, with feeble steps, with closed
      eyes, and with the manner of one bewildered in a dream, the thing
      that was enshrouded advanced boldly and palpably into the middle
      of the apartment.

      I trembled not—I stirred not—for a crowd of unutterable fancies
      connected with the air, the stature, the demeanor of the figure,
      rushing hurriedly through my brain, had paralyzed—had chilled me
      into stone. I stirred not—but gazed upon the apparition. There
      was a mad disorder in my thoughts—a tumult unappeasable. Could
      it, indeed, be the living Rowena who confronted me? Could it
      indeed be Rowena at all—the fair-haired, the blue-eyed Lady
      Rowena Trevanion of Tremaine? Why, why should I doubt it? The
      bandage lay heavily about the mouth—but then might it not be the
      mouth of the breathing Lady of Tremaine? And the cheeks—there
      were the roses as in her noon of life—yes, these might indeed be
      the fair cheeks of the living Lady of Tremaine. And the chin,
      with its dimples, as in health, might it not be hers?—but had she
      then grown taller since her malady? What inexpressible madness
      seized me with that thought? One bound, and I had reached her
      feet! Shrinking from my touch, she let fall from her head,
      unloosened, the ghastly cerements which had confined it, and
      there streamed forth, into the rushing atmosphere of the chamber,
      huge masses of long and dishevelled hair; _it was blacker than
      the raven wings of the midnight!_ And now slowly opened the eyes
      of the figure which stood before me. “Here then, at least,” I
      shrieked aloud, “can I never—can I never be mistaken—these are
      the full, and the black, and the wild eyes—of my lost love—of the
      Lady—of the LADY LIGEIA.”




MORELLA


     Itself, by itself, solely, one everlasting, and single.
                    —PLATO—_Sympos_.

      With a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I regarded my
      friend Morella. Thrown by accident into her society many years
      ago, my soul from our first meeting, burned with fires it had
      never before known; but the fires were not of Eros, and bitter
      and tormenting to my spirit was the gradual conviction that I
      could in no manner define their unusual meaning or regulate their
      vague intensity. Yet we met; and fate bound us together at the
      altar; and I never spoke of passion nor thought of love. She,
      however, shunned society, and, attaching herself to me alone
      rendered me happy. It is a happiness to wonder; it is a happiness
      to dream.

      Morella’s erudition was profound. As I hope to live, her talents
      were of no common order—her powers of mind were gigantic. I felt
      this, and, in many matters, became her pupil. I soon, however,
      found that, perhaps on account of her Presburg education, she
      placed before me a number of those mystical writings which are
      usually considered the mere dross of the early German literature.
      These, for what reason I could not imagine, were her favourite
      and constant study—and that in process of time they became my
      own, should be attributed to the simple but effectual influence
      of habit and example.

      In all this, if I err not, my reason had little to do. My
      convictions, or I forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by
      the ideal, nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read to
      be discovered, unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds
      or in my thoughts. Persuaded of this, I abandoned myself
      implicitly to the guidance of my wife, and entered with an
      unflinching heart into the intricacies of her studies. And
      then—then, when, poring over forbidden pages, I felt a forbidden
      spirit enkindling within me—would Morella place her cold hand
      upon my own, and rake up from the ashes of a dead philosophy some
      low, singular words, whose strange meaning burned themselves in
      upon my memory. And then, hour after hour, would I linger by her
      side, and dwell upon the music of her voice, until at length its
      melody was tainted with terror, and there fell a shadow upon my
      soul, and I grew pale, and shuddered inwardly at those too
      unearthly tones. And thus, joy suddenly faded into horror, and
      the most beautiful became the most hideous, as Hinnon became
      Ge-Henna.

      It is unnecessary to state the exact character of those
      disquisitions which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned,
      formed, for so long a time, almost the sole conversation of
      Morella and myself. By the learned in what might be termed
      theological morality they will be readily conceived, and by the
      unlearned they would, at all events, be little understood. The
      wild Pantheism of Fichte; the modified Paliggenedia of the
      Pythagoreans; and, above all, the doctrines of Identity as urged
      by Schelling, were generally the points of discussion presenting
      the most of beauty to the imaginative Morella. That identity
      which is termed personal, Mr. Locke, I think, truly defines to
      consist in the saneness of rational being. And since by person we
      understand an intelligent essence having reason, and since there
      is a consciousness which always accompanies thinking, it is this
      which makes us all to be that which we call _ourselves_—thereby
      distinguishing us from other beings that think, and giving us our
      personal identity. But the _principium indivduationis_, the
      notion of that identity _which at death is or is not lost
      forever_—was to me, at all times, a consideration of intense
      interest; not more from the perplexing and exciting nature of its
      consequences, than from the marked and agitated manner in which
      Morella mentioned them.

      But, indeed, the time had now arrived when the mystery of my
      wife’s manner oppressed me as a spell. I could no longer bear the
      touch of her wan fingers, nor the low tone of her musical
      language, nor the lustre of her melancholy eyes. And she knew all
      this, but did not upbraid; she seemed conscious of my weakness or
      my folly, and, smiling, called it Fate. She seemed, also,
      conscious of a cause, to me unknown, for the gradual alienation
      of my regard; but she gave me no hint or token of its nature. Yet
      was she woman, and pined away daily. In time the crimson spot
      settled steadily upon the cheek, and the blue veins upon the pale
      forehead became prominent; and one instant my nature melted into
      pity, but in, next I met the glance of her meaning eyes, and then
      my soul sickened and became giddy with the giddiness of one who
      gazes downward into some dreary and unfathomable abyss.

      Shall I then say that I longed with an earnest and consuming
      desire for the moment of Morella’s decease? I did; but the
      fragile spirit clung to its tenement of clay for many days—for
      many weeks and irksome months, until my tortured nerves obtained
      the mastery over my mind, and I grew furious through delay, and,
      with the heart of a fiend, cursed the days and the hours and the
      bitter moments, which seemed to lengthen and lengthen as her
      gentle life declined—like shadows in the dying of the day.

      But one autumnal evening, when the winds lay still in heaven,
      Morella called me to her bedside. There was a dim mist over all
      the earth, and a warm glow upon the waters, and amid the rich
      October leaves of the forest, a rainbow from the firmament had
      surely fallen.

      “It is a day of days,” she said, as I approached; “a day of all
      days either to live or die. It is a fair day for the sons of
      earth and life—ah, more fair for the daughters of heaven and
      death!”

      I kissed her forehead, and she continued:

      “I am dying, yet shall I live.”

      “Morella!”

      “The days have never been when thou couldst love me—but her whom
      in life thou didst abhor, in death thou shalt adore.”

      “Morella!”

      “I repeat that I am dying. But within me is a pledge of that
      affection—ah, how little!—which thou didst feel for me, Morella.
      And when my spirit departs shall the child live—thy child and
      mine, Morella’s. But thy days shall be days of sorrow—that sorrow
      which is the most lasting of impressions, as the cypress is the
      most enduring of trees. For the hours of thy happiness are over
      and joy is not gathered twice in a life, as the roses of Paestum
      twice in a year. Thou shalt no longer, then, play the Teian with
      time, but, being ignorant of the myrtle and the vine, thou shalt
      bear about with thee thy shroud on the earth, as do the Moslemin
      at Mecca.”

      “Morella!” I cried, “Morella! how knowest thou this?” but she
      turned away her face upon the pillow and a slight tremor coming
      over her limbs, she thus died, and I heard her voice no more.

      Yet, as she had foretold, her child, to which in dying she had
      given birth, which breathed not until the mother breathed no
      more, her child, a daughter, lived. And she grew strangely in
      stature and intellect, and was the perfect resemblance of her who
      had departed, and I loved her with a love more fervent than I had
      believed it possible to feel for any denizen of earth.

      But, ere long the heaven of this pure affection became darkened,
      and gloom, and horror, and grief swept over it in clouds. I said
      the child grew strangely in stature and intelligence. Strange,
      indeed, was her rapid increase in bodily size—but terrible, oh!
      terrible were the tumultuous thoughts which crowded upon me while
      watching the development of her mental being. Could it be
      otherwise, when I daily discovered in the conceptions of the
      child the adult powers and faculties of the woman?—when the
      lessons of experience fell from the lips of infancy? and when the
      wisdom or the passions of maturity I found hourly gleaming from
      its full and speculative eye? When, I say, all this became
      evident to my appalled senses—when I could no longer hide it from
      my soul, nor throw it off from those perceptions which trembled
      to receive it—is it to be wondered at that suspicions, of a
      nature fearful and exciting, crept in upon my spirit, or that my
      thoughts fell back aghast upon the wild tales and thrilling
      theories of the entombed Morella? I snatched from the scrutiny of
      the world a being whom destiny compelled me to adore, and in the
      rigorous seclusion of my home, watched with an agonizing anxiety
      over all which concerned the beloved.

      And as years rolled away, and I gazed day after day upon her
      holy, and mild, and eloquent face, and poured over her maturing
      form, day after day did I discover new points of resemblance in
      the child to her mother, the melancholy and the dead. And hourly
      grew darker these shadows of similitude, and more full, and more
      definite, and more perplexing, and more hideously terrible in
      their aspect. For that her smile was like her mother’s I could
      bear; but then I shuddered at its too perfect _identity_—that her
      eyes were like Morella’s I could endure; but then they, too,
      often looked down into the depths of my soul with Morella’s own
      intense and bewildering meaning. And in the contour of the high
      forehead, and in the ringlets of the silken hair, and in the wan
      fingers which buried themselves therein, and in the sad musical
      tones of her speech, and above all—oh! above all—in the phrases
      and expressions of the dead on the lips of the loved and the
      living, I found food for consuming thought and horror—for a worm
      that _would_ not die.

      Thus passed away two lustra of her life, and as yet my daughter
      remained nameless upon the earth. “My child,” and “my love,” were
      the designations usually prompted by a father’s affection, and
      the rigid seclusion of her days precluded all other intercourse.
      Morella’s name died with her at her death. Of the mother I had
      never spoken to the daughter;—it was impossible to speak. Indeed,
      during the brief period of her existence, the latter had received
      no impressions from the outward world, save such as might have
      been afforded by the narrow limits of her privacy. But at length
      the ceremony of baptism presented to my mind, in its unnerved and
      agitated condition, a present deliverance from the terrors of my
      destiny. And at the baptismal font I hesitated for a name. And
      many titles of the wise and beautiful, of old and modern times,
      of my own and foreign lands, came thronging to my lips, with
      many, many fair titles of the gentle, and the happy, and the
      good. What prompted me then to disturb the memory of the buried
      dead? What demon urged me to breathe that sound, which in its
      very recollection was wont to make ebb the purple blood in
      torrents from the temples to the heart? What fiend spoke from the
      recesses of my soul, when amid those dim aisles, and in the
      silence of the night, I whispered within the ears of the holy man
      the syllables—Morella? What more than fiend convulsed the
      features of my child, and overspread them with hues of death, as
      starting at that scarcely audible sound, she turned her glassy
      eyes from the earth to heaven, and falling prostrate on the black
      slabs of our ancestral vault, responded—“I am here!”

      Distinct, coldly, calmly distinct, fell those few simple sounds
      within my ear, and thence like molten lead rolled hissingly into
      my brain. Years—years may pass away, but the memory of that
      epoch—never! Nor was I indeed ignorant of the flowers and the
      vine—but the hemlock and the cypress overshadowed me night and
      day. And I kept no reckoning of time or place, and the stars of
      my fate faded from heaven, and therefore the earth grew dark, and
      its figures passed by me like flitting shadows, and among them
      all I beheld only—Morella. The winds of the firmament breathed
      but one sound within my ears, and the ripples upon the sea
      murmured evermore—Morella. But she died; and with my own hands I
      bore her to the tomb; and I laughed with a long and bitter laugh
      as I found no traces of the first in the charnel where I laid the
      second, Morella.




A TALE OF THE RAGGED MOUNTAINS


      During the fall of the year 1827, while residing near
      Charlottesville, Virginia, I casually made the acquaintance of
      Mr. Augustus Bedloe. This young gentleman was remarkable in every
      respect, and excited in me a profound interest and curiosity. I
      found it impossible to comprehend him either in his moral or his
      physical relations. Of his family I could obtain no satisfactory
      account. Whence he came, I never ascertained. Even about his
      age—although I call him a young gentleman—there was something
      which perplexed me in no little degree. He certainly seemed
      young—and he made a point of speaking about his youth—yet there
      were moments when I should have had little trouble in imagining
      him a hundred years of age. But in no regard was he more peculiar
      than in his personal appearance. He was singularly tall and thin.
      He stooped much. His limbs were exceedingly long and emaciated.
      His forehead was broad and low. His complexion was absolutely
      bloodless. His mouth was large and flexible, and his teeth were
      more wildly uneven, although sound, than I had ever before seen
      teeth in a human head. The expression of his smile, however, was
      by no means unpleasing, as might be supposed; but it had no
      variation whatever. It was one of profound melancholy—of a
      phaseless and unceasing gloom. His eyes were abnormally large,
      and round like those of a cat. The pupils, too, upon any
      accession or diminution of light, underwent contraction or
      dilation, just such as is observed in the feline tribe. In
      moments of excitement the orbs grew bright to a degree almost
      inconceivable; seeming to emit luminous rays, not of a reflected
      but of an intrinsic lustre, as does a candle or the sun; yet
      their ordinary condition was so totally vapid, filmy, and dull as
      to convey the idea of the eyes of a long-interred corpse.

      These peculiarities of person appeared to cause him much
      annoyance, and he was continually alluding to them in a sort of
      half explanatory, half apologetic strain, which, when I first
      heard it, impressed me very painfully. I soon, however, grew
      accustomed to it, and my uneasiness wore off. It seemed to be his
      design rather to insinuate than directly to assert that,
      physically, he had not always been what he was—that a long series
      of neuralgic attacks had reduced him from a condition of more
      than usual personal beauty, to that which I saw. For many years
      past he had been attended by a physician, named Templeton—an old
      gentleman, perhaps seventy years of age—whom he had first
      encountered at Saratoga, and from whose attention, while there,
      he either received, or fancied that he received, great benefit.
      The result was that Bedloe, who was wealthy, had made an
      arrangement with Dr. Templeton, by which the latter, in
      consideration of a liberal annual allowance, had consented to
      devote his time and medical experience exclusively to the care of
      the invalid.

      Doctor Templeton had been a traveller in his younger days, and at
      Paris had become a convert, in great measure, to the doctrines of
      Mesmer. It was altogether by means of magnetic remedies that he
      had succeeded in alleviating the acute pains of his patient; and
      this success had very naturally inspired the latter with a
      certain degree of confidence in the opinions from which the
      remedies had been educed. The Doctor, however, like all
      enthusiasts, had struggled hard to make a thorough convert of his
      pupil, and finally so far gained his point as to induce the
      sufferer to submit to numerous experiments. By a frequent
      repetition of these, a result had arisen, which of late days has
      become so common as to attract little or no attention, but which,
      at the period of which I write, had very rarely been known in
      America. I mean to say, that between Doctor Templeton and Bedloe
      there had grown up, little by little, a very distinct and
      strongly marked rapport, or magnetic relation. I am not prepared
      to assert, however, that this rapport extended beyond the limits
      of the simple sleep-producing power, but this power itself had
      attained great intensity. At the first attempt to induce the
      magnetic somnolency, the mesmerist entirely failed. In the fifth
      or sixth he succeeded very partially, and after long continued
      effort. Only at the twelfth was the triumph complete. After this
      the will of the patient succumbed rapidly to that of the
      physician, so that, when I first became acquainted with the two,
      sleep was brought about almost instantaneously by the mere
      volition of the operator, even when the invalid was unaware of
      his presence. It is only now, in the year 1845, when similar
      miracles are witnessed daily by thousands, that I dare venture to
      record this apparent impossibility as a matter of serious fact.

      The temperature of Bedloe was, in the highest degree sensitive,
      excitable, enthusiastic. His imagination was singularly vigorous
      and creative; and no doubt it derived additional force from the
      habitual use of morphine, which he swallowed in great quantity,
      and without which he would have found it impossible to exist. It
      was his practice to take a very large dose of it immediately
      after breakfast each morning—or, rather, immediately after a cup
      of strong coffee, for he ate nothing in the forenoon—and then set
      forth alone, or attended only by a dog, upon a long ramble among
      the chain of wild and dreary hills that lie westward and
      southward of Charlottesville, and are there dignified by the
      title of the Ragged Mountains.

      Upon a dim, warm, misty day, toward the close of November, and
      during the strange interregnum of the seasons which in America is
      termed the Indian Summer, Mr. Bedloe departed as usual for the
      hills. The day passed, and still he did not return.

      About eight o’clock at night, having become seriously alarmed at
      his protracted absence, we were about setting out in search of
      him, when he unexpectedly made his appearance, in health no worse
      than usual, and in rather more than ordinary spirits. The account
      which he gave of his expedition, and of the events which had
      detained him, was a singular one indeed.

      “You will remember,” said he, “that it was about nine in the
      morning when I left Charlottesville. I bent my steps immediately
      to the mountains, and, about ten, entered a gorge which was
      entirely new to me. I followed the windings of this pass with
      much interest. The scenery which presented itself on all sides,
      although scarcely entitled to be called grand, had about it an
      indescribable and to me a delicious aspect of dreary desolation.
      The solitude seemed absolutely virgin. I could not help believing
      that the green sods and the gray rocks upon which I trod had been
      trodden never before by the foot of a human being. So entirely
      secluded, and in fact inaccessible, except through a series of
      accidents, is the entrance of the ravine, that it is by no means
      impossible that I was indeed the first adventurer—the very first
      and sole adventurer who had ever penetrated its recesses.

      “The thick and peculiar mist, or smoke, which distinguishes the
      Indian Summer, and which now hung heavily over all objects,
      served, no doubt, to deepen the vague impressions which these
      objects created. So dense was this pleasant fog that I could at
      no time see more than a dozen yards of the path before me. This
      path was excessively sinuous, and as the sun could not be seen, I
      soon lost all idea of the direction in which I journeyed. In the
      meantime the morphine had its customary effect—that of enduing
      all the external world with an intensity of interest. In the
      quivering of a leaf—in the hue of a blade of grass—in the shape
      of a trefoil—in the humming of a bee—in the gleaming of a
      dew-drop—in the breathing of the wind—in the faint odors that
      came from the forest—there came a whole universe of suggestion—a
      gay and motley train of rhapsodical and immethodical thought.

      “Busied in this, I walked on for several hours, during which the
      mist deepened around me to so great an extent that at length I
      was reduced to an absolute groping of the way. And now an
      indescribable uneasiness possessed me—a species of nervous
      hesitation and tremor. I feared to tread, lest I should be
      precipitated into some abyss. I remembered, too, strange stories
      told about these Ragged Hills, and of the uncouth and fierce
      races of men who tenanted their groves and caverns. A thousand
      vague fancies oppressed and disconcerted me—fancies the more
      distressing because vague. Very suddenly my attention was
      arrested by the loud beating of a drum.

      “My amazement was, of course, extreme. A drum in these hills was
      a thing unknown. I could not have been more surprised at the
      sound of the trump of the Archangel. But a new and still more
      astounding source of interest and perplexity arose. There came a
      wild rattling or jingling sound, as if of a bunch of large keys,
      and upon the instant a dusky-visaged and half-naked man rushed
      past me with a shriek. He came so close to my person that I felt
      his hot breath upon my face. He bore in one hand an instrument
      composed of an assemblage of steel rings, and shook them
      vigorously as he ran. Scarcely had he disappeared in the mist
      before, panting after him, with open mouth and glaring eyes,
      there darted a huge beast. I could not be mistaken in its
      character. It was a hyena.

      “The sight of this monster rather relieved than heightened my
      terrors—for I now made sure that I dreamed, and endeavored to
      arouse myself to waking consciousness. I stepped boldly and
      briskly forward. I rubbed my eyes. I called aloud. I pinched my
      limbs. A small spring of water presented itself to my view, and
      here, stooping, I bathed my hands and my head and neck. This
      seemed to dissipate the equivocal sensations which had hitherto
      annoyed me. I arose, as I thought, a new man, and proceeded
      steadily and complacently on my unknown way.

      “At length, quite overcome by exertion, and by a certain
      oppressive closeness of the atmosphere, I seated myself beneath a
      tree. Presently there came a feeble gleam of sunshine, and the
      shadow of the leaves of the tree fell faintly but definitely upon
      the grass. At this shadow I gazed wonderingly for many minutes.
      Its character stupefied me with astonishment. I looked upward.
      The tree was a palm.

      “I now arose hurriedly, and in a state of fearful agitation—for
      the fancy that I dreamed would serve me no longer. I saw—I felt
      that I had perfect command of my senses—and these senses now
      brought to my soul a world of novel and singular sensation. The
      heat became all at once intolerable. A strange odor loaded the
      breeze. A low, continuous murmur, like that arising from a full,
      but gently flowing river, came to my ears, intermingled with the
      peculiar hum of multitudinous human voices.

      “While I listened in an extremity of astonishment which I need
      not attempt to describe, a strong and brief gust of wind bore off
      the incumbent fog as if by the wand of an enchanter.

      “I found myself at the foot of a high mountain, and looking down
      into a vast plain, through which wound a majestic river. On the
      margin of this river stood an Eastern-looking city, such as we
      read of in the Arabian Tales, but of a character even more
      singular than any there described. From my position, which was
      far above the level of the town, I could perceive its every nook
      and corner, as if delineated on a map. The streets seemed
      innumerable, and crossed each other irregularly in all
      directions, but were rather long winding alleys than streets, and
      absolutely swarmed with inhabitants. The houses were wildly
      picturesque. On every hand was a wilderness of balconies, of
      verandas, of minarets, of shrines, and fantastically carved
      oriels. Bazaars abounded; and in these were displayed rich wares
      in infinite variety and profusion—silks, muslins, the most
      dazzling cutlery, the most magnificent jewels and gems. Besides
      these things, were seen, on all sides, banners and palanquins,
      litters with stately dames close-veiled, elephants gorgeously
      caparisoned, idols grotesquely hewn, drums, banners, and gongs,
      spears, silver and gilded maces. And amid the crowd, and the
      clamor, and the general intricacy and confusion—amid the million
      of black and yellow men, turbaned and robed, and of flowing
      beard, there roamed a countless multitude of holy filleted bulls,
      while vast legions of the filthy but sacred ape clambered,
      chattering and shrieking, about the cornices of the mosques, or
      clung to the minarets and oriels. From the swarming streets to
      the banks of the river, there descended innumerable flights of
      steps leading to bathing places, while the river itself seemed to
      force a passage with difficulty through the vast fleets of
      deeply-burthened ships that far and wide encountered its surface.
      Beyond the limits of the city arose, in frequent majestic groups,
      the palm and the cocoa, with other gigantic and weird trees of
      vast age; and here and there might be seen a field of rice, the
      thatched hut of a peasant, a tank, a stray temple, a gypsy camp,
      or a solitary graceful maiden taking her way, with a pitcher upon
      her head, to the banks of the magnificent river.

      “You will say now, of course, that I dreamed; but not so. What I
      saw—what I heard—what I felt—what I thought—had about it nothing
      of the unmistakable idiosyncrasy of the dream. All was rigorously
      self-consistent. At first, doubting that I was really awake, I
      entered into a series of tests, which soon convinced me that I
      really was. Now, when one dreams, and, in the dream, suspects
      that he dreams, the suspicion never fails to confirm itself, and
      the sleeper is almost immediately aroused. Thus Novalis errs not
      in saying that ‘we are near waking when we dream that we dream.’
      Had the vision occurred to me as I describe it, without my
      suspecting it as a dream, then a dream it might absolutely have
      been, but, occurring as it did, and suspected and tested as it
      was, I am forced to class it among other phenomena.”

      “In this I am not sure that you are wrong,” observed Dr.
      Templeton, “but proceed. You arose and descended into the city.”

      “I arose,” continued Bedloe, regarding the Doctor with an air of
      profound astonishment “I arose, as you say, and descended into
      the city. On my way I fell in with an immense populace, crowding
      through every avenue, all in the same direction, and exhibiting
      in every action the wildest excitement. Very suddenly, and by
      some inconceivable impulse, I became intensely imbued with
      personal interest in what was going on. I seemed to feel that I
      had an important part to play, without exactly understanding what
      it was. Against the crowd which environed me, however, I
      experienced a deep sentiment of animosity. I shrank from amid
      them, and, swiftly, by a circuitous path, reached and entered the
      city. Here all was the wildest tumult and contention. A small
      party of men, clad in garments half Indian, half European, and
      officered by gentlemen in a uniform partly British, were engaged,
      at great odds, with the swarming rabble of the alleys. I joined
      the weaker party, arming myself with the weapons of a fallen
      officer, and fighting I knew not whom with the nervous ferocity
      of despair. We were soon overpowered by numbers, and driven to
      seek refuge in a species of kiosk. Here we barricaded ourselves,
      and, for the present were secure. From a loop-hole near the
      summit of the kiosk, I perceived a vast crowd, in furious
      agitation, surrounding and assaulting a gay palace that overhung
      the river. Presently, from an upper window of this place, there
      descended an effeminate-looking person, by means of a string made
      of the turbans of his attendants. A boat was at hand, in which he
      escaped to the opposite bank of the river.

      “And now a new object took possession of my soul. I spoke a few
      hurried but energetic words to my companions, and, having
      succeeded in gaining over a few of them to my purpose made a
      frantic sally from the kiosk. We rushed amid the crowd that
      surrounded it. They retreated, at first, before us. They rallied,
      fought madly, and retreated again. In the mean time we were borne
      far from the kiosk, and became bewildered and entangled among the
      narrow streets of tall, overhanging houses, into the recesses of
      which the sun had never been able to shine. The rabble pressed
      impetuously upon us, harrassing us with their spears, and
      overwhelming us with flights of arrows. These latter were very
      remarkable, and resembled in some respects the writhing creese of
      the Malay. They were made to imitate the body of a creeping
      serpent, and were long and black, with a poisoned barb. One of
      them struck me upon the right temple. I reeled and fell. An
      instantaneous and dreadful sickness seized me. I struggled—I
      gasped—I died.”

       “You will hardly persist _now_,” said I smiling, “that the whole
       of your adventure was not a dream. You are not prepared to
       maintain that you are dead?”

      When I said these words, I of course expected some lively sally
      from Bedloe in reply, but, to my astonishment, he hesitated,
      trembled, became fearfully pallid, and remained silent. I looked
      toward Templeton. He sat erect and rigid in his chair—his teeth
      chattered, and his eyes were starting from their sockets.
      “Proceed!” he at length said hoarsely to Bedloe.

      “For many minutes,” continued the latter, “my sole sentiment—my
      sole feeling—was that of darkness and nonentity, with the
      consciousness of death. At length there seemed to pass a violent
      and sudden shock through my soul, as if of electricity. With it
      came the sense of elasticity and of light. This latter I felt—not
      saw. In an instant I seemed to rise from the ground. But I had no
      bodily, no visible, audible, or palpable presence. The crowd had
      departed. The tumult had ceased. The city was in comparative
      repose. Beneath me lay my corpse, with the arrow in my temple,
      the whole head greatly swollen and disfigured. But all these
      things I felt—not saw. I took interest in nothing. Even the
      corpse seemed a matter in which I had no concern. Volition I had
      none, but appeared to be impelled into motion, and flitted
      buoyantly out of the city, retracing the circuitous path by which
      I had entered it. When I had attained that point of the ravine in
      the mountains at which I had encountered the hyena, I again
      experienced a shock as of a galvanic battery; the sense of
      weight, of volition, of substance, returned. I became my original
      self, and bent my steps eagerly homeward—but the past had not
      lost the vividness of the real—and not now, even for an instant,
      can I compel my understanding to regard it as a dream.”

      “Nor was it,” said Templeton, with an air of deep solemnity, “yet
      it would be difficult to say how otherwise it should be termed.
      Let us suppose only, that the soul of the man of to-day is upon
      the verge of some stupendous psychal discoveries. Let us content
      ourselves with this supposition. For the rest I have some
      explanation to make. Here is a watercolor drawing, which I should
      have shown you before, but which an unaccountable sentiment of
      horror has hitherto prevented me from showing.”

      We looked at the picture which he presented. I saw nothing in it
      of an extraordinary character, but its effect upon Bedloe was
      prodigious. He nearly fainted as he gazed. And yet it was but a
      miniature portrait—a miraculously accurate one, to be sure—of his
      own very remarkable features. At least this was my thought as I
      regarded it.

      “You will perceive,” said Templeton, “the date of this picture—it
      is here, scarcely visible, in this corner—1780. In this year was
      the portrait taken. It is the likeness of a dead friend—a Mr.
      Oldeb—to whom I became much attached at Calcutta, during the
      administration of Warren Hastings. I was then only twenty years
      old. When I first saw you, Mr. Bedloe, at Saratoga, it was the
      miraculous similarity which existed between yourself and the
      painting which induced me to accost you, to seek your friendship,
      and to bring about those arrangements which resulted in my
      becoming your constant companion. In accomplishing this point, I
      was urged partly, and perhaps principally, by a regretful memory
      of the deceased, but also, in part, by an uneasy, and not
      altogether horrorless curiosity respecting yourself.

      “In your detail of the vision which presented itself to you amid
      the hills, you have described, with the minutest accuracy, the
      Indian city of Benares, upon the Holy River. The riots, the
      combat, the massacre, were the actual events of the insurrection
      of Cheyte Sing, which took place in 1780, when Hastings was put
      in imminent peril of his life. The man escaping by the string of
      turbans was Cheyte Sing himself. The party in the kiosk were
      sepoys and British officers, headed by Hastings. Of this party I
      was one, and did all I could to prevent the rash and fatal sally
      of the officer who fell, in the crowded alleys, by the poisoned
      arrow of a Bengalee. That officer was my dearest friend. It was
      Oldeb. You will perceive by these manuscripts,” (here the speaker
      produced a note-book in which several pages appeared to have been
      freshly written,) “that at the very period in which you fancied
      these things amid the hills, I was engaged in detailing them upon
      paper here at home.”

      In about a week after this conversation, the following paragraphs
      appeared in a Charlottesville paper:

      “We have the painful duty of announcing the death of Mr. Augustus
      Bedlo, a gentleman whose amiable manners and many virtues have
      long endeared him to the citizens of Charlottesville.

      “Mr. B., for some years past, has been subject to neuralgia,
      which has often threatened to terminate fatally; but this can be
      regarded only as the mediate cause of his decease. The proximate
      cause was one of especial singularity. In an excursion to the
      Ragged Mountains, a few days since, a slight cold and fever were
      contracted, attended with great determination of blood to the
      head. To relieve this, Dr. Templeton resorted to topical
      bleeding. Leeches were applied to the temples. In a fearfully
      brief period the patient died, when it appeared that in the jar
      containing the leeches, had been introduced, by accident, one of
      the venomous vermicular sangsues which are now and then found in
      the neighboring ponds. This creature fastened itself upon a small
      artery in the right temple. Its close resemblance to the
      medicinal leech caused the mistake to be overlooked until too
      late.

      “N. B.—The poisonous sangsue of Charlottesville may always be
      distinguished from the medicinal leech by its blackness, and
      especially by its writhing or vermicular motions, which very
      nearly resemble those of a snake.”

      I was speaking with the editor of the paper in question, upon the
      topic of this remarkable accident, when it occurred to me to ask
      how it happened that the name of the deceased had been given as
      Bedlo.

      “I presume,” I said, “you have authority for this spelling, but I
      have always supposed the name to be written with an e at the
      end.”

      “Authority?—no,” he replied. “It is a mere typographical error.
      The name is Bedlo with an e, all the world over, and I never knew
      it to be spelt otherwise in my life.”

      “Then,” said I mutteringly, as I turned upon my heel, “then
      indeed has it come to pass that one truth is stranger than any
      fiction—for Bedloe, without the e, what is it but Oldeb
      conversed! And this man tells me that it is a typographical
      error.”




THE SPECTACLES


      Many years ago, it was the fashion to ridicule the idea of “love
      at first sight;” but those who think, not less than those who
      feel deeply, have always advocated its existence. Modern
      discoveries, indeed, in what may be termed ethical magnetism or
      magnetoesthetics, render it probable that the most natural, and,
      consequently, the truest and most intense of the human affections
      are those which arise in the heart as if by electric sympathy—in
      a word, that the brightest and most enduring of the psychal
      fetters are those which are riveted by a glance. The confession I
      am about to make will add another to the already almost
      innumerable instances of the truth of the position.

      My story requires that I should be somewhat minute. I am still a
      very young man—not yet twenty-two years of age. My name, at
      present, is a very usual and rather plebeian one—Simpson. I say
      “at present;” for it is only lately that I have been so
      called—having legislatively adopted this surname within the last
      year in order to receive a large inheritance left me by a distant
      male relative, Adolphus Simpson, Esq. The bequest was conditioned
      upon my taking the name of the testator,—the family, not the
      Christian name; my Christian name is Napoleon Bonaparte—or, more
      properly, these are my first and middle appellations.

      I assumed the name, Simpson, with some reluctance, as in my true
      patronym, Froissart, I felt a very pardonable pride—believing
      that I could trace a descent from the immortal author of the
      “Chronicles.” While on the subject of names, by the bye, I may
      mention a singular coincidence of sound attending the names of
      some of my immediate predecessors. My father was a Monsieur
      Froissart, of Paris. His wife—my mother, whom he married at
      fifteen—was a Mademoiselle Croissart, eldest daughter of
      Croissart the banker, whose wife, again, being only sixteen when
      married, was the eldest daughter of one Victor Voissart. Monsieur
      Voissart, very singularly, had married a lady of similar name—a
      Mademoiselle Moissart. She, too, was quite a child when married;
      and her mother, also, Madame Moissart, was only fourteen when led
      to the altar. These early marriages are usual in France. Here,
      however, are Moissart, Voissart, Croissart, and Froissart, all in
      the direct line of descent. My own name, though, as I say, became
      Simpson, by act of Legislature, and with so much repugnance on my
      part, that, at one period, I actually hesitated about accepting
      the legacy with the useless and annoying proviso attached.

      As to personal endowments, I am by no means deficient. On the
      contrary, I believe that I am well made, and possess what nine
      tenths of the world would call a handsome face. In height I am
      five feet eleven. My hair is black and curling. My nose is
      sufficiently good. My eyes are large and gray; and although, in
      fact they are weak to a very inconvenient degree, still no defect
      in this regard would be suspected from their appearance. The
      weakness itself, however, has always much annoyed me, and I have
      resorted to every remedy—short of wearing glasses. Being youthful
      and good-looking, I naturally dislike these, and have resolutely
      refused to employ them. I know nothing, indeed, which so
      disfigures the countenance of a young person, or so impresses
      every feature with an air of demureness, if not altogether of
      sanctimoniousness and of age. An eyeglass, on the other hand, has
      a savor of downright foppery and affectation. I have hitherto
      managed as well as I could without either. But something too much
      of these merely personal details, which, after all, are of little
      importance. I will content myself with saying, in addition, that
      my temperament is sanguine, rash, ardent, enthusiastic—and that
      all my life I have been a devoted admirer of the women.

      One night last winter I entered a box at the P—— Theatre, in
      company with a friend, Mr. Talbot. It was an opera night, and the
      bills presented a very rare attraction, so that the house was
      excessively crowded. We were in time, however, to obtain the
      front seats which had been reserved for us, and into which, with
      some little difficulty, we elbowed our way.

      For two hours my companion, who was a musical fanatico, gave his
      undivided attention to the stage; and, in the meantime, I amused
      myself by observing the audience, which consisted, in chief part,
      of the very elite of the city. Having satisfied myself upon this
      point, I was about turning my eyes to the prima donna, when they
      were arrested and riveted by a figure in one of the private boxes
      which had escaped my observation.

      If I live a thousand years, I can never forget the intense
      emotion with which I regarded this figure. It was that of a
      female, the most exquisite I had ever beheld. The face was so far
      turned toward the stage that, for some minutes, I could not
      obtain a view of it—but the form was divine; no other word can
      sufficiently express its magnificent proportion—and even the term
      “divine” seems ridiculously feeble as I write it.

      The magic of a lovely form in woman—the necromancy of female
      gracefulness—was always a power which I had found it impossible
      to resist, but here was grace personified, incarnate, the beau
      ideal of my wildest and most enthusiastic visions. The figure,
      almost all of which the construction of the box permitted to be
      seen, was somewhat above the medium height, and nearly
      approached, without positively reaching, the majestic. Its
      perfect fullness and tournure were delicious. The head, of which
      only the back was visible, rivalled in outline that of the Greek
      Psyche, and was rather displayed than concealed by an elegant cap
      of _gaze äérienne_, which put me in mind of the _ventum textilem_
      of Apuleius. The right arm hung over the balustrade of the box,
      and thrilled every nerve of my frame with its exquisite symmetry.
      Its upper portion was draperied by one of the loose open sleeves
      now in fashion. This extended but little below the elbow. Beneath
      it was worn an under one of some frail material, close-fitting,
      and terminated by a cuff of rich lace, which fell gracefully over
      the top of the hand, revealing only the delicate fingers, upon
      one of which sparkled a diamond ring, which I at once saw was of
      extraordinary value. The admirable roundness of the wrist was
      well set off by a bracelet which encircled it, and which also was
      ornamented and clasped by a magnificent aigrette of
      jewels—telling, in words that could not be mistaken, at once of
      the wealth and fastidious taste of the wearer.

      I gazed at this queenly apparition for at least half an hour, as
      if I had been suddenly converted to stone; and, during this
      period, I felt the full force and truth of all that has been said
      or sung concerning “love at first sight.” My feelings were
      totally different from any which I had hitherto experienced, in
      the presence of even the most celebrated specimens of female
      loveliness. An unaccountable, and what I am compelled to consider
      a magnetic, sympathy of soul for soul, seemed to rivet, not only
      my vision, but my whole powers of thought and feeling, upon the
      admirable object before me. I saw—I felt—I knew that I was
      deeply, madly, irrevocably in love—and this even before seeing
      the face of the person beloved. So intense, indeed, was the
      passion that consumed me, that I really believe it would have
      received little if any abatement had the features, yet unseen,
      proved of merely ordinary character; so anomalous is the nature
      of the only true love—of the love at first sight—and so little
      really dependent is it upon the external conditions which only
      seem to create and control it.

      While I was thus wrapped in admiration of this lovely vision, a
      sudden disturbance among the audience caused her to turn her head
      partially toward me, so that I beheld the entire profile of the
      face. Its beauty even exceeded my anticipations—and yet there was
      something about it which disappointed me without my being able to
      tell exactly what it was. I said “disappointed,” but this is not
      altogether the word. My sentiments were at once quieted and
      exalted. They partook less of transport and more of calm
      enthusiasm—of enthusiastic repose. This state of feeling arose,
      perhaps, from the Madonna-like and matronly air of the face; and
      yet I at once understood that it could not have arisen entirely
      from this. There was something else—some mystery which I could
      not develope—some expression about the countenance which slightly
      disturbed me while it greatly heightened my interest. In fact, I
      was just in that condition of mind which prepares a young and
      susceptible man for any act of extravagance. Had the lady been
      alone, I should undoubtedly have entered her box and accosted her
      at all hazards; but, fortunately, she was attended by two
      companions—a gentleman, and a strikingly beautiful woman, to all
      appearance a few years younger than herself.

      I revolved in my mind a thousand schemes by which I might obtain,
      hereafter, an introduction to the elder lady, or, for the
      present, at all events, a more distinct view of her beauty. I
      would have removed my position to one nearer her own, but the
      crowded state of the theatre rendered this impossible; and the
      stern decrees of Fashion had, of late, imperatively prohibited
      the use of the opera-glass in a case such as this, even had I
      been so fortunate as to have one with me—but I had not—and was
      thus in despair.

      At length I bethought me of applying to my companion.

      “Talbot,” I said, “you have an opera-glass. Let me have it.”

      “An opera-glass!—no!—what do you suppose I would be doing with an
      opera-glass?” Here he turned impatiently toward the stage.

      “But, Talbot,” I continued, pulling him by the shoulder, “listen
      to me will you? Do you see the stage-box?—there!—no, the next.—
      Did you ever behold as lovely a woman?”

      “She is very beautiful, no doubt,” he said.

      “I wonder who she can be?”

      “Why, in the name of all that is angelic, don’t you know who she
      is? ‘Not to know her argues yourself unknown.’ She is the
      celebrated Madame Lalande—the beauty of the day par excellence,
      and the talk of the whole town. Immensely wealthy too—a widow,
      and a great match—has just arrived from Paris.”

      “Do you know her?”

      “Yes; I have the honor.”

      “Will you introduce me?”

      “Assuredly, with the greatest pleasure; when shall it be?”

      “To-morrow, at one, I will call upon you at B—’s.”

      “Very good; and now do hold your tongue, if you can.”

      In this latter respect I was forced to take Talbot’s advice; for
      he remained obstinately deaf to every further question or
      suggestion, and occupied himself exclusively for the rest of the
      evening with what was transacting upon the stage.

      In the meantime I kept my eyes riveted on Madame Lalande, and at
      length had the good fortune to obtain a full front view of her
      face. It was exquisitely lovely—this, of course, my heart had
      told me before, even had not Talbot fully satisfied me upon the
      point—but still the unintelligible something disturbed me. I
      finally concluded that my senses were impressed by a certain air
      of gravity, sadness, or, still more properly, of weariness, which
      took something from the youth and freshness of the countenance,
      only to endow it with a seraphic tenderness and majesty, and
      thus, of course, to my enthusiastic and romantic temperment, with
      an interest tenfold.

      While I thus feasted my eyes, I perceived, at last, to my great
      trepidation, by an almost imperceptible start on the part of the
      lady, that she had become suddenly aware of the intensity of my
      gaze. Still, I was absolutely fascinated, and could not withdraw
      it, even for an instant. She turned aside her face, and again I
      saw only the chiselled contour of the back portion of the head.
      After some minutes, as if urged by curiosity to see if I was
      still looking, she gradually brought her face again around and
      again encountered my burning gaze. Her large dark eyes fell
      instantly, and a deep blush mantled her cheek. But what was my
      astonishment at perceiving that she not only did not a second
      time avert her head, but that she actually took from her girdle a
      double eyeglass—elevated it—adjusted it—and then regarded me
      through it, intently and deliberately, for the space of several
      minutes.

      Had a thunderbolt fallen at my feet I could not have been more
      thoroughly astounded—astounded only—not offended or disgusted in
      the slightest degree; although an action so bold in any other
      woman would have been likely to offend or disgust. But the whole
      thing was done with so much quietude—so much nonchalance—so much
      repose—with so evident an air of the highest breeding, in
      short—that nothing of mere effrontery was perceptible, and my
      sole sentiments were those of admiration and surprise.

      I observed that, upon her first elevation of the glass, she had
      seemed satisfied with a momentary inspection of my person, and
      was withdrawing the instrument, when, as if struck by a second
      thought, she resumed it, and so continued to regard me with fixed
      attention for the space of several minutes—for five minutes, at
      the very least, I am sure.

      This action, so remarkable in an American theatre, attracted very
      general observation, and gave rise to an indefinite movement, or
      buzz, among the audience, which for a moment filled me with
      confusion, but produced no visible effect upon the countenance of
      Madame Lalande.

      Having satisfied her curiosity—if such it was—she dropped the
      glass, and quietly gave her attention again to the stage; her
      profile now being turned toward myself, as before. I continued to
      watch her unremittingly, although I was fully conscious of my
      rudeness in so doing. Presently I saw the head slowly and
      slightly change its position; and soon I became convinced that
      the lady, while pretending to look at the stage was, in fact,
      attentively regarding myself. It is needless to say what effect
      this conduct, on the part of so fascinating a woman, had upon my
      excitable mind.

      Having thus scrutinized me for perhaps a quarter of an hour, the
      fair object of my passion addressed the gentleman who attended
      her, and while she spoke, I saw distinctly, by the glances of
      both, that the conversation had reference to myself.

      Upon its conclusion, Madame Lalande again turned toward the
      stage, and, for a few minutes, seemed absorbed in the
      performance. At the expiration of this period, however, I was
      thrown into an extremity of agitation by seeing her unfold, for
      the second time, the eye-glass which hung at her side, fully
      confront me as before, and, disregarding the renewed buzz of the
      audience, survey me, from head to foot, with the same miraculous
      composure which had previously so delighted and confounded my
      soul.

      This extraordinary behavior, by throwing me into a perfect fever
      of excitement—into an absolute delirium of love—served rather to
      embolden than to disconcert me. In the mad intensity of my
      devotion, I forgot everything but the presence and the majestic
      loveliness of the vision which confronted my gaze. Watching my
      opportunity, when I thought the audience were fully engaged with
      the opera, I at length caught the eyes of Madame Lalande, and,
      upon the instant, made a slight but unmistakable bow.

      She blushed very deeply—then averted her eyes—then slowly and
      cautiously looked around, apparently to see if my rash action had
      been noticed—then leaned over toward the gentleman who sat by her
      side.

      I now felt a burning sense of the impropriety I had committed,
      and expected nothing less than instant exposure; while a vision
      of pistols upon the morrow floated rapidly and uncomfortably
      through my brain. I was greatly and immediately relieved,
      however, when I saw the lady merely hand the gentleman a
      play-bill, without speaking; but the reader may form some feeble
      conception of my astonishment—of my profound amazement—my
      delirious bewilderment of heart and soul—when, instantly
      afterward, having again glanced furtively around, she allowed her
      bright eyes to set fully and steadily upon my own, and then, with
      a faint smile, disclosing a bright line of her pearly teeth, made
      two distinct, pointed, and unequivocal affirmative inclinations
      of the head.

      It is useless, of course, to dwell upon my joy—upon my
      transport—upon my illimitable ecstasy of heart. If ever man was
      mad with excess of happiness, it was myself at that moment. I
      loved. This was my first love—so I felt it to be. It was love
      supreme—indescribable. It was “love at first sight;” and at first
      sight, too, it had been appreciated and returned.

      Yes, returned. How and why should I doubt it for an instant. What
      other construction could I possibly put upon such conduct, on the
      part of a lady so beautiful—so wealthy—evidently so
      accomplished—of so high breeding—of so lofty a position in
      society—in every regard so entirely respectable as I felt assured
      was Madame Lalande? Yes, she loved me—she returned the enthusiasm
      of my love, with an enthusiasm as blind—as uncompromising—as
      uncalculating—as abandoned—and as utterly unbounded as my own!
      These delicious fancies and reflections, however, were now
      interrupted by the falling of the drop-curtain. The audience
      arose; and the usual tumult immediately supervened. Quitting
      Talbot abruptly, I made every effort to force my way into closer
      proximity with Madame Lalande. Having failed in this, on account
      of the crowd, I at length gave up the chase, and bent my steps
      homeward; consoling myself for my disappointment in not having
      been able to touch even the hem of her robe, by the reflection
      that I should be introduced by Talbot, in due form, upon the
      morrow.

      This morrow at last came, that is to say, a day finally dawned
      upon a long and weary night of impatience; and then the hours
      until “one” were snail-paced, dreary, and innumerable. But even
      Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end, and there came an end to
      this long delay. The clock struck. As the last echo ceased, I
      stepped into B——’s and inquired for Talbot.

      “Out,” said the footman—Talbot’s own.

      “Out!” I replied, staggering back half a dozen paces—“let me tell
      you, my fine fellow, that this thing is thoroughly impossible and
      impracticable; Mr. Talbot is not out. What do you mean?”

      “Nothing, sir; only Mr. Talbot is not in, that’s all. He rode
      over to S——, immediately after breakfast, and left word that he
      would not be in town again for a week.”

      I stood petrified with horror and rage. I endeavored to reply,
      but my tongue refused its office. At length I turned on my heel,
      livid with wrath, and inwardly consigning the whole tribe of the
      Talbots to the innermost regions of Erebus. It was evident that
      my considerate friend, il fanatico, had quite forgotten his
      appointment with myself—had forgotten it as soon as it was made.
      At no time was he a very scrupulous man of his word. There was no
      help for it; so smothering my vexation as well as I could, I
      strolled moodily up the street, propounding futile inquiries
      about Madame Lalande to every male acquaintance I met. By report
      she was known, I found, to all—to many by sight—but she had been
      in town only a few weeks, and there were very few, therefore, who
      claimed her personal acquaintance. These few, being still
      comparatively strangers, could not, or would not, take the
      liberty of introducing me through the formality of a morning
      call. While I stood thus in despair, conversing with a trio of
      friends upon the all-absorbing subject of my heart, it so
      happened that the subject itself passed by.

      “As I live, there she is!” cried one.

      “Surprisingly beautiful!” exclaimed a second.

      “An angel upon earth!” ejaculated a third.

      I looked; and in an open carriage which approached us, passing
      slowly down the street, sat the enchanting vision of the opera,
      accompanied by the younger lady who had occupied a portion of her
      box.

      “Her companion also wears remarkably well,” said the one of my
      trio who had spoken first.

      “Astonishingly,” said the second; “still quite a brilliant air,
      but art will do wonders. Upon my word, she looks better than she
      did at Paris five years ago. A beautiful woman still;—don’t you
      think so, Froissart?—Simpson, I mean.”

      “_Still!_” said I, “and why shouldn’t she be? But compared with
      her friend she is as a rush-light to the evening star—a glow-worm
      to Antares.”

      “Ha! ha! ha!—why, Simpson, you have an astonishing tact at making
      discoveries—original ones, I mean.” And here we separated, while
      one of the trio began humming a gay _vaudeville_, of which I
      caught only the lines—

      Ninon, Ninon, Ninon à bas—
      A bas Ninon De L’Enclos!

      During this little scene, however, one thing had served greatly
      to console me, although it fed the passion by which I was
      consumed. As the carriage of Madame Lalande rolled by our group,
      I had observed that she recognized me; and more than this, she
      had blessed me, by the most seraphic of all imaginable smiles,
      with no equivocal mark of the recognition.

      As for an introduction, I was obliged to abandon all hope of it
      until such time as Talbot should think proper to return from the
      country. In the meantime I perseveringly frequented every
      reputable place of public amusement; and, at length, at the
      theatre, where I first saw her, I had the supreme bliss of
      meeting her, and of exchanging glances with her once again. This
      did not occur, however, until the lapse of a fortnight. Every
      day, in the interim, I had inquired for Talbot at his hotel, and
      every day had been thrown into a spasm of wrath by the
      everlasting “Not come home yet” of his footman.

      Upon the evening in question, therefore, I was in a condition
      little short of madness. Madame Lalande, I had been told, was a
      Parisian—had lately arrived from Paris—might she not suddenly
      return?—return before Talbot came back—and might she not be thus
      lost to me forever? The thought was too terrible to bear. Since
      my future happiness was at issue, I resolved to act with a manly
      decision. In a word, upon the breaking up of the play, I traced
      the lady to her residence, noted the address, and the next
      morning sent her a full and elaborate letter, in which I poured
      out my whole heart.

      I spoke boldly, freely—in a word, I spoke with passion. I
      concealed nothing—nothing even of my weakness. I alluded to the
      romantic circumstances of our first meeting—even to the glances
      which had passed between us. I went so far as to say that I felt
      assured of her love; while I offered this assurance, and my own
      intensity of devotion, as two excuses for my otherwise
      unpardonable conduct. As a third, I spoke of my fear that she
      might quit the city before I could have the opportunity of a
      formal introduction. I concluded the most wildly enthusiastic
      epistle ever penned, with a frank declaration of my worldly
      circumstances—of my affluence—and with an offer of my heart and
      of my hand.

      In an agony of expectation I awaited the reply. After what seemed
      the lapse of a century it came.

      Yes, actually came. Romantic as all this may appear, I really
      received a letter from Madame Lalande—the beautiful, the wealthy,
      the idolized Madame Lalande. Her eyes—her magnificent eyes, had
      not belied her noble heart. Like a true Frenchwoman as she was
      she had obeyed the frank dictates of her reason—the generous
      impulses of her nature—despising the conventional pruderies of
      the world. She had not scorned my proposals. She had not
      sheltered herself in silence. She had not returned my letter
      unopened. She had even sent me, in reply, one penned by her own
      exquisite fingers. It ran thus:

      “Monsieur Simpson vill pardonne me for not compose de butefulle
      tong of his contrée so vell as might. It is only de late dat I am
      arrive, and not yet ave do opportunité for to—l’étudier.

      “Vid dis apologie for the manière, I vill now say dat,
      hélas!—Monsieur Simpson ave guess but de too true. Need I say de
      more? Hélas! am I not ready speak de too moshe?

      “EUGENIE LALAND.”

      This noble-spirited note I kissed a million times, and committed,
      no doubt, on its account, a thousand other extravagances that
      have now escaped my memory. Still Talbot _would_ not return.
      Alas! could he have formed even the vaguest idea of the suffering
      his absence had occasioned his friend, would not his sympathizing
      nature have flown immediately to my relief? Still, however, he
      came _not_. I wrote. He replied. He was detained by urgent
      business—but would shortly return. He begged me not to be
      impatient—to moderate my transports—to read soothing books—to
      drink nothing stronger than Hock—and to bring the consolations of
      philosophy to my aid. The fool! if he could not come himself,
      why, in the name of every thing rational, could he not have
      enclosed me a letter of presentation? I wrote him again,
      entreating him to forward one forthwith. My letter was returned
      by _that_ footman, with the following endorsement in pencil. The
      scoundrel had joined his master in the country:

      “Left S—— yesterday, for parts unknown—did not say where—or when
      be back—so thought best to return letter, knowing your
      handwriting, and as how you is always, more or less, in a hurry.

      “Yours sincerely,

      “STUBBS.”

      After this, it is needless to say, that I devoted to the infernal
      deities both master and valet:—but there was little use in anger,
      and no consolation at all in complaint.

      But I had yet a resource left, in my constitutional audacity.
      Hitherto it had served me well, and I now resolved to make it
      avail me to the end. Besides, after the correspondence which had
      passed between us, what act of mere informality could I commit,
      within bounds, that ought to be regarded as indecorous by Madame
      Lalande? Since the affair of the letter, I had been in the habit
      of watching her house, and thus discovered that, about twilight,
      it was her custom to promenade, attended only by a negro in
      livery, in a public square overlooked by her windows. Here, amid
      the luxuriant and shadowing groves, in the gray gloom of a sweet
      midsummer evening, I observed my opportunity and accosted her.

      The better to deceive the servant in attendance, I did this with
      the assured air of an old and familiar acquaintance. With a
      presence of mind truly Parisian, she took the cue at once, and,
      to greet me, held out the most bewitchingly little of hands. The
      valet at once fell into the rear, and now, with hearts full to
      overflowing, we discoursed long and unreservedly of our love.

      As Madame Lalande spoke English even less fluently than she wrote
      it, our conversation was necessarily in French. In this sweet
      tongue, so adapted to passion, I gave loose to the impetuous
      enthusiasm of my nature, and, with all the eloquence I could
      command, besought her to consent to an immediate marriage.

      At this impatience she smiled. She urged the old story of
      decorum—that bug-bear which deters so many from bliss until the
      opportunity for bliss has forever gone by. I had most imprudently
      made it known among my friends, she observed, that I desired her
      acquaintance—thus that I did not possess it—thus, again, there
      was no possibility of concealing the date of our first knowledge
      of each other. And then she adverted, with a blush, to the
      extreme recency of this date. To wed immediately would be
      improper—would be indecorous—would be outre. All this she said
      with a charming air of naivete which enraptured while it grieved
      and convinced me. She went even so far as to accuse me,
      laughingly, of rashness—of imprudence. She bade me remember that
      I really even knew not who she was—what were her prospects, her
      connections, her standing in society. She begged me, but with a
      sigh, to reconsider my proposal, and termed my love an
      infatuation—a will o’ the wisp—a fancy or fantasy of the moment—a
      baseless and unstable creation rather of the imagination than of
      the heart. These things she uttered as the shadows of the sweet
      twilight gathered darkly and more darkly around us—and then, with
      a gentle pressure of her fairy-like hand, overthrew, in a single
      sweet instant, all the argumentative fabric she had reared.

      I replied as best I could—as only a true lover can. I spoke at
      length, and perseveringly of my devotion, of my passion—of her
      exceeding beauty, and of my own enthusiastic admiration. In
      conclusion, I dwelt, with a convincing energy, upon the perils
      that encompass the course of love—that course of true love that
      never did run smooth—and thus deduced the manifest danger of
      rendering that course unnecessarily long.

      This latter argument seemed finally to soften the rigor of her
      determination. She relented; but there was yet an obstacle, she
      said, which she felt assured I had not properly considered. This
      was a delicate point—for a woman to urge, especially so; in
      mentioning it, she saw that she must make a sacrifice of her
      feelings; still, for me, every sacrifice should be made. She
      alluded to the topic of age. Was I aware—was I fully aware of the
      discrepancy between us? That the age of the husband, should
      surpass by a few years—even by fifteen or twenty—the age of the
      wife, was regarded by the world as admissible, and, indeed, as
      even proper; but she had always entertained the belief that the
      years of the wife should never exceed in number those of the
      husband. A discrepancy of this unnatural kind gave rise, too
      frequently, alas! to a life of unhappiness. Now she was aware
      that my own age did not exceed two and twenty; and I, on the
      contrary, perhaps, was not aware that the years of my Eugénie
      extended very considerably beyond that sum.

      About all this there was a nobility of soul—a dignity of
      candor—which delighted—which enchanted me—which eternally riveted
      my chains. I could scarcely restrain the excessive transport
      which possessed me.

      “My sweetest Eugénie,” I cried, “what is all this about which you
      are discoursing? Your years surpass in some measure my own. But
      what then? The customs of the world are so many conventional
      follies. To those who love as ourselves, in what respect differs
      a year from an hour? I am twenty-two, you say; granted: indeed,
      you may as well call me, at once, twenty-three. Now you yourself,
      my dearest Eugénie, can have numbered no more than—can have
      numbered no more than—no more than—than—than—than—”

      Here I paused for an instant, in the expectation that Madame
      Lalande would interrupt me by supplying her true age. But a
      Frenchwoman is seldom direct, and has always, by way of answer to
      an embarrassing query, some little practical reply of her own. In
      the present instance, Eugénie, who for a few moments past had
      seemed to be searching for something in her bosom, at length let
      fall upon the grass a miniature, which I immediately picked up
      and presented to her.

      “Keep it!” she said, with one of her most ravishing smiles. “Keep
      it for my sake—for the sake of her whom it too flatteringly
      represents. Besides, upon the back of the trinket you may
      discover, perhaps, the very information you seem to desire. It is
      now, to be sure, growing rather dark—but you can examine it at
      your leisure in the morning. In the meantime, you shall be my
      escort home to-night. My friends are about holding a little
      musical _levée_. I can promise you, too, some good singing. We
      French are not nearly so punctilious as you Americans, and I
      shall have no difficulty in smuggling you in, in the character of
      an old acquaintance.”

      With this, she took my arm, and I attended her home. The mansion
      was quite a fine one, and, I believe, furnished in good taste. Of
      this latter point, however, I am scarcely qualified to judge; for
      it was just dark as we arrived; and in American mansions of the
      better sort lights seldom, during the heat of summer, make their
      appearance at this, the most pleasant period of the day. In about
      an hour after my arrival, to be sure, a single shaded solar lamp
      was lit in the principal drawing-room; and this apartment, I
      could thus see, was arranged with unusual good taste and even
      splendor; but two other rooms of the suite, and in which the
      company chiefly assembled, remained, during the whole evening, in
      a very agreeable shadow. This is a well-conceived custom, giving
      the party at least a choice of light or shade, and one which our
      friends over the water could not do better than immediately
      adopt.

      The evening thus spent was unquestionably the most delicious of
      my life. Madame Lalande had not overrated the musical abilities
      of her friends; and the singing I here heard I had never heard
      excelled in any private circle out of Vienna. The instrumental
      performers were many and of superior talents. The vocalists were
      chiefly ladies, and no individual sang less than well. At length,
      upon a peremptory call for “Madame Lalande,” she arose at once,
      without affectation or demur, from the chaise longue upon which
      she had sat by my side, and, accompanied by one or two gentlemen
      and her female friend of the opera, repaired to the piano in the
      main drawing-room. I would have escorted her myself, but felt
      that, under the circumstances of my introduction to the house, I
      had better remain unobserved where I was. I was thus deprived of
      the pleasure of seeing, although not of hearing, her sing.

      The impression she produced upon the company seemed
      electrical—but the effect upon myself was something even more. I
      know not how adequately to describe it. It arose in part, no
      doubt, from the sentiment of love with which I was imbued; but
      chiefly from my conviction of the extreme sensibility of the
      singer. It is beyond the reach of art to endow either air or
      recitative with more impassioned expression than was hers. Her
      utterance of the romance in Otello—the tone with which she gave
      the words “Sul mio sasso,” in the Capuletti—is ringing in my
      memory yet. Her lower tones were absolutely miraculous. Her voice
      embraced three complete octaves, extending from the contralto D
      to the D upper soprano, and, though sufficiently powerful to have
      filled the San Carlos, executed, with the minutest precision,
      every difficulty of vocal composition—ascending and descending
      scales, cadences, or fiorituri. In the final of the Somnambula,
      she brought about a most remarkable effect at the words:

     Ah! non guinge uman pensiero
     Al contento ond ’io son piena.

      Here, in imitation of Malibran, she modified the original phrase
      of Bellini, so as to let her voice descend to the tenor G, when,
      by a rapid transition, she struck the G above the treble stave,
      springing over an interval of two octaves.

      Upon rising from the piano after these miracles of vocal
      execution, she resumed her seat by my side; when I expressed to
      her, in terms of the deepest enthusiasm, my delight at her
      performance. Of my surprise I said nothing, and yet was I most
      unfeignedly surprised; for a certain feebleness, or rather a
      certain tremulous indecision of voice in ordinary conversation,
      had prepared me to anticipate that, in singing, she would not
      acquit herself with any remarkable ability.

      Our conversation was now long, earnest, uninterrupted, and
      totally unreserved. She made me relate many of the earlier
      passages of my life, and listened with breathless attention to
      every word of the narrative. I concealed nothing—felt that I had
      a right to conceal nothing—from her confiding affection.
      Encouraged by her candor upon the delicate point of her age, I
      entered, with perfect frankness, not only into a detail of my
      many minor vices, but made full confession of those moral and
      even of those physical infirmities, the disclosure of which, in
      demanding so much higher a degree of courage, is so much surer an
      evidence of love. I touched upon my college indiscretions—upon my
      extravagances—upon my carousals—upon my debts—upon my
      flirtations. I even went so far as to speak of a slightly hectic
      cough with which, at one time, I had been troubled—of a chronic
      rheumatism—of a twinge of hereditary gout—and, in conclusion, of
      the disagreeable and inconvenient, but hitherto carefully
      concealed, weakness of my eyes.

      “Upon this latter point,” said Madame Lalande, laughingly, “you
      have been surely injudicious in coming to confession; for,
      without the confession, I take it for granted that no one would
      have accused you of the crime. By the by,” she continued, “have
      you any recollection—” and here I fancied that a blush, even
      through the gloom of the apartment, became distinctly visible
      upon her cheek—“have you any recollection, _mon cher ami_, of
      this little ocular assistant, which now depends from my neck?”

      As she spoke she twirled in her fingers the identical double
      eye-glass which had so overwhelmed me with confusion at the
      opera.

      “Full well—alas! do I remember it,” I exclaimed, pressing
      passionately the delicate hand which offered the glasses for my
      inspection. They formed a complex and magnificent toy, richly
      chased and filigreed, and gleaming with jewels, which, even in
      the deficient light, I could not help perceiving were of high
      value.

      “_Eh bien! mon ami_,” she resumed with a certain _empressment_ of
      manner that rather surprised me—“_Eh bien! mon ami_, you have
      earnestly besought of me a favor which you have been pleased to
      denominate priceless. You have demanded of me my hand upon the
      morrow. Should I yield to your entreaties—and, I may add, to the
      pleadings of my own bosom—would I not be entitled to demand of
      you a very—a very little boon in return?”

      “Name it!” I exclaimed with an energy that had nearly drawn upon
      us the observation of the company, and restrained by their
      presence alone from throwing myself impetuously at her feet.
      “Name it, my beloved, my Eugénie, my own!—name it!—but, alas! it
      is already yielded ere named.”

      “You shall conquer, then, _mon ami_,” said she, “for the sake of
      the Eugénie whom you love, this little weakness which you have at
      last confessed—this weakness more moral than physical—and which,
      let me assure you, is so unbecoming the nobility of your real
      nature—so inconsistent with the candor of your usual
      character—and which, if permitted further control, will assuredly
      involve you, sooner or later, in some very disagreeable scrape.
      You shall conquer, for my sake, this affectation which leads you,
      as you yourself acknowledge, to the tacit or implied denial of
      your infirmity of vision. For, this infirmity you virtually deny,
      in refusing to employ the customary means for its relief. You
      will understand me to say, then, that I wish you to wear
      spectacles;—ah, hush!—you have already consented to wear them,
      for my sake. You shall accept the little toy which I now hold in
      my hand, and which, though admirable as an aid to vision, is
      really of no very immense value as a gem. You perceive that, by a
      trifling modification thus—or thus—it can be adapted to the eyes
      in the form of spectacles, or worn in the waistcoat pocket as an
      eye-glass. It is in the former mode, however, and habitually,
      that you have already consented to wear it for my sake.”

      This request—must I confess it?—confused me in no little degree.
      But the condition with which it was coupled rendered hesitation,
      of course, a matter altogether out of the question.

      “It is done!” I cried, with all the enthusiasm that I could
      muster at the moment. “It is done—it is most cheerfully agreed. I
      sacrifice every feeling for your sake. To-night I wear this dear
      eye-glass, as an eye-glass, and upon my heart; but with the
      earliest dawn of that morning which gives me the pleasure of
      calling you wife, I will place it upon my—upon my nose,—and there
      wear it ever afterward, in the less romantic, and less
      fashionable, but certainly in the more serviceable, form which
      you desire.”

      Our conversation now turned upon the details of our arrangements
      for the morrow. Talbot, I learned from my betrothed, had just
      arrived in town. I was to see him at once, and procure a
      carriage. The _soirée_ would scarcely break up before two; and by
      this hour the vehicle was to be at the door; when, in the
      confusion occasioned by the departure of the company, Madame L.
      could easily enter it unobserved. We were then to call at the
      house of a clergyman who would be in waiting; there be married,
      drop Talbot, and proceed on a short tour to the East; leaving the
      fashionable world at home to make whatever comments upon the
      matter it thought best.

      Having planned all this, I immediately took leave, and went in
      search of Talbot, but, on the way, I could not refrain from
      stepping into a hotel, for the purpose of inspecting the
      miniature; and this I did by the powerful aid of the glasses. The
      countenance was a surpassingly beautiful one! Those large
      luminous eyes!—that proud Grecian nose!—those dark luxuriant
      curls!—“Ah!” said I, exultingly to myself, “this is indeed the
      speaking image of my beloved!” I turned the reverse, and
      discovered the words—“Eugénie Lalande—aged twenty-seven years and
      seven months.”

      I found Talbot at home, and proceeded at once to acquaint him
      with my good fortune. He professed excessive astonishment, of
      course, but congratulated me most cordially, and proffered every
      assistance in his power. In a word, we carried out our
      arrangement to the letter, and, at two in the morning, just ten
      minutes after the ceremony, I found myself in a close carriage
      with Madame Lalande—with Mrs. Simpson, I should say—and driving
      at a great rate out of town, in a direction northeast by north,
      half-north.

      It had been determined for us by Talbot, that, as we were to be
      up all night, we should make our first stop at C——, a village
      about twenty miles from the city, and there get an early
      breakfast and some repose, before proceeding upon our route. At
      four precisely, therefore, the carriage drew up at the door of
      the principal inn. I handed my adored wife out, and ordered
      breakfast forthwith. In the meantime we were shown into a small
      parlor, and sat down.

      It was now nearly if not altogether daylight; and, as I gazed,
      enraptured, at the angel by my side, the singular idea came, all
      at once, into my head, that this was really the very first moment
      since my acquaintance with the celebrated loveliness of Madame
      Lalande, that I had enjoyed a near inspection of that loveliness
      by daylight at all.

      “And now, _mon ami_,” said she, taking my hand, and so
      interrupting this train of reflection, “and now, _mon cher ami_,
      since we are indissolubly one—since I have yielded to your
      passionate entreaties, and performed my portion of our
      agreement—I presume you have not forgotten that you also have a
      little favor to bestow—a little promise which it is your
      intention to keep. Ah! let me see! Let me remember! Yes; full
      easily do I call to mind the precise words of the dear promise
      you made to Eugénie last night. Listen! You spoke thus: ‘It is
      done!—it is most cheerfully agreed! I sacrifice every feeling for
      your sake. To-night I wear this dear eye-glass as an eye-glass,
      and upon my heart; but with the earliest dawn of that morning
      which gives me the privilege of calling you wife, I will place it
      upon my—upon my nose,—and there wear it ever afterward, in the
      less romantic, and less fashionable, but certainly in the more
      serviceable, form which you desire.’ These were the exact words,
      my beloved husband, were they not?”

      “They were,” I said; “you have an excellent memory; and
      assuredly, my beautiful Eugénie, there is no disposition on my
      part to evade the performance of the trivial promise they imply.
      See! Behold! they are becoming—rather—are they not?” And here,
      having arranged the glasses in the ordinary form of spectacles, I
      applied them gingerly in their proper position; while Madame
      Simpson, adjusting her cap, and folding her arms, sat bolt
      upright in her chair, in a somewhat stiff and prim, and indeed,
      in a somewhat undignified position.

      “Goodness gracious me!” I exclaimed, almost at the very instant
      that the rim of the spectacles had settled upon my nose—“_My!_
      goodness gracious me!—why, what can be the matter with these
      glasses?” and taking them quickly off, I wiped them carefully
      with a silk handkerchief, and adjusted them again.

      But if, in the first instance, there had occurred something which
      occasioned me surprise, in the second, this surprise became
      elevated into astonishment; and this astonishment was
      profound—was extreme—indeed I may say it was horrific. What, in
      the name of everything hideous, did this mean? Could I believe my
      eyes?—could I?—that was the question. Was that—was that—was that
      rouge? And were those—and were those—were those wrinkles, upon
      the visage of Eugénie Lalande? And oh! Jupiter, and every one of
      the gods and goddesses, little and big!—what—what—what—_what_ had
      become of her teeth? I dashed the spectacles violently to the
      ground, and, leaping to my feet, stood erect in the middle of the
      floor, confronting Mrs. Simpson, with my arms set a-kimbo, and
      grinning and foaming, but, at the same time, utterly speechless
      with terror and with rage.

      Now I have already said that Madame Eugénie Lalande—that is to
      say, Simpson—spoke the English language but very little better
      than she wrote it, and for this reason she very properly never
      attempted to speak it upon ordinary occasions. But rage will
      carry a lady to any extreme; and in the present care it carried
      Mrs. Simpson to the very extraordinary extreme of attempting to
      hold a conversation in a tongue that she did not altogether
      understand.

      “Vell, Monsieur,” said she, after surveying me, in great apparent
      astonishment, for some moments—“Vell, Monsieur?—and vat den?—vat
      de matter now? Is it de dance of de Saint itusse dat you ave? If
      not like me, vat for vy buy de pig in the poke?”

      “You wretch!” said I, catching my breath—“you—you—you villainous
      old hag!”

      “Ag?—ole?—me not so ver ole, after all! Me not one single day
      more dan de eighty-doo.”

      “Eighty-two!” I ejaculated, staggering to the wall—“eighty-two
      hundred thousand baboons! The miniature said twenty-seven years
      and seven months!”

      “To be sure!—dat is so!—ver true! but den de portraite has been
      take for dese fifty-five year. Ven I go marry my segonde usbande,
      Monsieur Lalande, at dat time I had de portraite take for my
      daughter by my first usbande, Monsieur Moissart!”

      “Moissart!” said I.

      “Yes, Moissart,” said she, mimicking my pronunciation, which, to
      speak the truth, was none of the best,—“and vat den? Vat you know
      about de Moissart?”

      “Nothing, you old fright!—I know nothing about him at all; only I
      had an ancestor of that name, once upon a time.”

      “Dat name! and vat you ave for say to dat name? ’Tis ver _goot_
      name; and so is Voissart—dat is ver goot name too. My daughter,
      Mademoiselle Moissart, she marry von Monsieur Voissart,—and de
      name is bot _ver_ respectable name.”

      “Moissart?” I exclaimed, “and Voissart! Why, what is it you
      mean?”

      “Vat I mean?—I mean Moissart and Voissart; and for de matter of
      dat, I mean Croissart and Froissart, too, if I only tink proper
      to mean it. My daughter’s daughter, Mademoiselle Voissart, she
      marry von Monsieur Croissart, and den again, my daughter’s grande
      daughter, Mademoiselle Croissart, she marry von Monsieur
      Froissart; and I suppose you say dat _dat_ is not von _ver_
      respectaable name.”

      “Froissart!” said I, beginning to faint, “why, surely you don’t
      say Moissart, and Voissart, and Croissart, and Froissart?”

      “Yes,” she replied, leaning fully back in her chair, and
      stretching out her lower limbs at great length; “yes, Moissart,
      and Voissart, and Croissart, and Froissart. But Monsieur
      Froissart, he vas von _ver_ big vat you call fool—he vas von ver
      great big donce like yourself—for he lef _la belle France_ for
      come to dis stupide Amérique—and ven he get here he went and ave
      von _ver_ stupid, von _ver, ver_ stupide sonn, so I hear, dough I
      not yet av ad de plaisir to meet vid him—neither me nor my
      companion, de Madame Stéphanie Lalande. He is name de Napoleon
      Bonaparte Froissart, and I suppose you say dat _dat_, too, is not
      von ver respectable name.”

      Either the length or the nature of this speech, had the effect of
      working up Mrs. Simpson into a very extraordinary passion indeed;
      and as she made an end of it, with great labor, she jumped up
      from her chair like somebody bewitched, dropping upon the floor
      an entire universe of bustle as she jumped. Once upon her feet,
      she gnashed her gums, brandished her arms, rolled up her sleeves,
      shook her fist in my face, and concluded the performance by
      tearing the cap from her head, and with it an immense wig of the
      most valuable and beautiful black hair, the whole of which she
      dashed upon the ground with a yell, and there trammpled and
      danced a fandango upon it, in an absolute ecstasy and agony of
      rage.

      Meantime I sank aghast into the chair which she had vacated.
      “Moissart and Voissart!” I repeated, thoughtfully, as she cut one
      of her pigeon-wings, and “Croissart and Froissart!” as she
      completed another—“Moissart and Voissart and Croissart and
      Napoleon Bonaparte Froissart!—why, you ineffable old serpent,
      that’s me—that’s me—d’ye hear? that’s me”—here I screamed at the
      top of my voice—“that’s me-e-e! I am Napoleon Bonaparte
      Froissart! and if I havn’t married my great, great, grandmother,
      I wish I may be everlastingly confounded!”

      Madame Eugénie Lalande, _quasi_ Simpson—formerly Moissart—was, in
      sober fact, my great, great, grandmother. In her youth she had
      been beautiful, and even at eighty-two, retained the majestic
      height, the sculptural contour of head, the fine eyes and the
      Grecian nose of her girlhood. By the aid of these, of
      pearl-powder, of rouge, of false hair, false teeth, and false
      tournure, as well as of the most skilful modistes of Paris, she
      contrived to hold a respectable footing among the beauties _en
      peu passées_ of the French metropolis. In this respect, indeed,
      she might have been regarded as little less than the equal of the
      celebrated Ninon De L’Enclos.

      She was immensely wealthy, and being left, for the second time, a
      widow without children, she bethought herself of my existence in
      America, and for the purpose of making me her heir, paid a visit
      to the United States, in company with a distant and exceedingly
      lovely relative of her second husband’s—a Madame Stéphanie
      Lalande.

      At the opera, my great, great, grandmother’s attention was
      arrested by my notice; and, upon surveying me through her
      eye-glass, she was struck with a certain family resemblance to
      herself. Thus interested, and knowing that the heir she sought
      was actually in the city, she made inquiries of her party
      respecting me. The gentleman who attended her knew my person, and
      told her who I was. The information thus obtained induced her to
      renew her scrutiny; and this scrutiny it was which so emboldened
      me that I behaved in the absurd manner already detailed. She
      returned my bow, however, under the impression that, by some odd
      accident, I had discovered her identity. When, deceived by my
      weakness of vision, and the arts of the toilet, in respect to the
      age and charms of the strange lady, I demanded so
      enthusiastically of Talbot who she was, he concluded that I meant
      the younger beauty, as a matter of course, and so informed me,
      with perfect truth, that she was “the celebrated widow, Madame
      Lalande.”

      In the street, next morning, my great, great, grandmother
      encountered Talbot, an old Parisian acquaintance; and the
      conversation, very naturally turned upon myself. My deficiencies
      of vision were then explained; for these were notorious, although
      I was entirely ignorant of their notoriety, and my good old
      relative discovered, much to her chagrin, that she had been
      deceived in supposing me aware of her identity, and that I had
      been merely making a fool of myself in making open love, in a
      theatre, to an old woman unknown. By way of punishing me for this
      imprudence, she concocted with Talbot a plot. He purposely kept
      out of my way to avoid giving me the introduction. My street
      inquiries about “the lovely widow, Madame Lalande,” were supposed
      to refer to the younger lady, of course, and thus the
      conversation with the three gentlemen whom I encountered shortly
      after leaving Talbot’s hotel will be easily explained, as also
      their allusion to Ninon De L’Enclos. I had no opportunity of
      seeing Madame Lalande closely during daylight; and, at her
      musical _soirée_, my silly weakness in refusing the aid of
      glasses effectually prevented me from making a discovery of her
      age. When “Madame Lalande” was called upon to sing, the younger
      lady was intended; and it was she who arose to obey the call; my
      great, great, grandmother, to further the deception, arising at
      the same moment and accompanying her to the piano in the main
      drawing-room. Had I decided upon escorting her thither, it had
      been her design to suggest the propriety of my remaining where I
      was; but my own prudential views rendered this unnecessary. The
      songs which I so much admired, and which so confirmed my
      impression of the youth of my mistress, were executed by Madame
      Stéphanie Lalande. The eyeglass was presented by way of adding a
      reproof to the hoax—a sting to the epigram of the deception. Its
      presentation afforded an opportunity for the lecture upon
      affectation with which I was so especially edified. It is almost
      superfluous to add that the glasses of the instrument, as worn by
      the old lady, had been exchanged by her for a pair better adapted
      to my years. They suited me, in fact, to a T.

      The clergyman, who merely pretended to tie the fatal knot, was a
      boon companion of Talbot’s, and no priest. He was an excellent
      “whip,” however; and having doffed his cassock to put on a
      great-coat, he drove the hack which conveyed the “happy couple”
      out of town. Talbot took a seat at his side. The two scoundrels
      were thus “in at the death,” and through a half-open window of
      the back parlor of the inn, amused themselves in grinning at the
      _dénouement_ of the drama. I believe I shall be forced to call
      them both out.

      Nevertheless, I am _not_ the husband of my great, great,
      grandmother; and this is a reflection which affords me infinite
      relief;—but I _am_ the husband of Madame Lalande—of Madame
      Stéphanie Lalande—with whom my good old relative, besides making
      me her sole heir when she dies—if she ever does—has been at the
      trouble of concocting me a match. In conclusion: I am done
      forever with _billets doux_, and am never to be met without
      SPECTACLES.




KING PEST


      A Tale Containing an Allegory.

     The gods do bear and will allow in kings
     The things which they abhor in rascal routes.
                    —_Buckhurst’s Tragedy of Ferrex and Porrex._

      About twelve o’clock, one night in the month of October, and
      during the chivalrous reign of the third Edward, two seamen
      belonging to the crew of the _>Free and Easy_, a trading schooner
      plying between Sluys and the Thames, and then at anchor in that
      river, were much astonished to find themselves seated in the
      tap-room of an ale-house in the parish of St. Andrews,
      London—which ale-house bore for sign the portraiture of a “Jolly
      Tar.”

      The room, although ill-contrived, smoke-blackened, low-pitched,
      and in every other respect agreeing with the general character of
      such places at the period—was, nevertheless, in the opinion of
      the grotesque groups scattered here and there within it,
      sufficiently well adapted to its purpose.

      Of these groups our two seamen formed, I think, the most
      interesting, if not the most conspicuous.

      The one who appeared to be the elder, and whom his companion
      addressed by the characteristic appellation of “Legs,” was at the
      same time much the taller of the two. He might have measured six
      feet and a half, and an habitual stoop in the shoulders seemed to
      have been the necessary consequence of an altitude so enormous.
      Superfluities in height were, however, more than accounted for by
      deficiencies in other respects. He was exceedingly thin; and
      might, as his associates asserted, have answered, when drunk, for
      a pennant at the mast-head, or, when sober, have served for a
      jib-boom. But these jests, and others of a similar nature, had
      evidently produced, at no time, any effect upon the cachinnatory
      muscles of the tar. With high cheek-bones, a large hawk-nose,
      retreating chin, fallen under-jaw, and huge protruding white
      eyes, the expression of his countenance, although tinged with a
      species of dogged indifference to matters and things in general,
      was not the less utterly solemn and serious beyond all attempts
      at imitation or description.

      The younger seaman was, in all outward appearance, the converse
      of his companion. His stature could not have exceeded four feet.
      A pair of stumpy bow-legs supported his squat, unwieldy figure,
      while his unusually short and thick arms, with no ordinary fists
      at their extremities, swung off dangling from his sides like the
      fins of a sea-turtle. Small eyes, of no particular color,
      twinkled far back in his head. His nose remained buried in the
      mass of flesh which enveloped his round, full, and purple face;
      and his thick upper-lip rested upon the still thicker one beneath
      with an air of complacent self-satisfaction, much heightened by
      the owner’s habit of licking them at intervals. He evidently
      regarded his tall shipmate with a feeling half-wondrous,
      half-quizzical; and stared up occasionally in his face as the red
      setting sun stares up at the crags of Ben Nevis.

      Various and eventful, however, had been the peregrinations of the
      worthy couple in and about the different tap-houses of the
      neighbourhood during the earlier hours of the night. Funds even
      the most ample, are not always everlasting: and it was with empty
      pockets our friends had ventured upon the present hostelrie.

      At the precise period, then, when this history properly
      commences, Legs, and his fellow Hugh Tarpaulin, sat, each with
      both elbows resting upon the large oaken table in the middle of
      the floor, and with a hand upon either cheek. They were eyeing,
      from behind a huge flagon of unpaid-for “humming-stuff,” the
      portentous words, “No Chalk,” which to their indignation and
      astonishment were scored over the doorway by means of that very
      mineral whose presence they purported to deny. Not that the gift
      of decyphering written characters—a gift among the commonalty of
      that day considered little less cabalistical than the art of
      inditing—could, in strict justice, have been laid to the charge
      of either disciple of the sea; but there was, to say the truth, a
      certain twist in the formation of the letters—an indescribable
      lee-lurch about the whole—which foreboded, in the opinion of both
      seamen, a long run of dirty weather; and determined them at once,
      in the allegorical words of Legs himself, to “pump ship, clew up
      all sail, and scud before the wind.”

      Having accordingly disposed of what remained of the ale, and
      looped up the points of their short doublets, they finally made a
      bolt for the street. Although Tarpaulin rolled twice into the
      fire-place, mistaking it for the door, yet their escape was at
      length happily effected—and half after twelve o’clock found our
      heroes ripe for mischief, and running for life down a dark alley
      in the direction of St. Andrew’s Stair, hotly pursued by the
      landlady of the “Jolly Tar.”

      At the epoch of this eventful tale, and periodically, for many
      years before and after, all England, but more especially the
      metropolis, resounded with the fearful cry of “Plague!” The city
      was in a great measure depopulated—and in those horrible regions,
      in the vicinity of the Thames, where amid the dark, narrow, and
      filthy lanes and alleys, the Demon of Disease was supposed to
      have had his nativity, Awe, Terror, and Superstition were alone
      to be found stalking abroad.

      By authority of the king such districts were placed under ban,
      and all persons forbidden, under pain of death, to intrude upon
      their dismal solitude. Yet neither the mandate of the monarch,
      nor the huge barriers erected at the entrances of the streets,
      nor the prospect of that loathsome death which, with almost
      absolute certainty, overwhelmed the wretch whom no peril could
      deter from the adventure, prevented the unfurnished and
      untenanted dwellings from being stripped, by the hand of nightly
      rapine, of every article, such as iron, brass, or lead-work,
      which could in any manner be turned to a profitable account.

      Above all, it was usually found, upon the annual winter opening
      of the barriers, that locks, bolts, and secret cellars, had
      proved but slender protection to those rich stores of wines and
      liquors which, in consideration of the risk and trouble of
      removal, many of the numerous dealers having shops in the
      neighbourhood had consented to trust, during the period of exile,
      to so insufficient a security.

      But there were very few of the terror-stricken people who
      attributed these doings to the agency of human hands.
      Pest-spirits, plague-goblins, and fever-demons, were the popular
      imps of mischief; and tales so blood-chilling were hourly told,
      that the whole mass of forbidden buildings was, at length,
      enveloped in terror as in a shroud, and the plunderer himself was
      often scared away by the horrors his own depreciations had
      created; leaving the entire vast circuit of prohibited district
      to gloom, silence, pestilence, and death.

      It was by one of the terrific barriers already mentioned, and
      which indicated the region beyond to be under the Pest-ban, that,
      in scrambling down an alley, Legs and the worthy Hugh Tarpaulin
      found their progress suddenly impeded. To return was out of the
      question, and no time was to be lost, as their pursuers were
      close upon their heels. With thorough-bred seamen to clamber up
      the roughly fashioned plank-work was a trifle; and, maddened with
      the twofold excitement of exercise and liquor, they leaped
      unhesitatingly down within the enclosure, and holding on their
      drunken course with shouts and yellings, were soon bewildered in
      its noisome and intricate recesses.

      Had they not, indeed, been intoxicated beyond moral sense, their
      reeling footsteps must have been palsied by the horrors of their
      situation. The air was cold and misty. The paving-stones,
      loosened from their beds, lay in wild disorder amid the tall,
      rank grass, which sprang up around the feet and ankles. Fallen
      houses choked up the streets. The most fetid and poisonous smells
      everywhere prevailed;—and by the aid of that ghastly light which,
      even at midnight, never fails to emanate from a vapory and
      pestilential atmosphere, might be discerned lying in the by-paths
      and alleys, or rotting in the windowless habitations, the carcass
      of many a nocturnal plunderer arrested by the hand of the plague
      in the very perpetration of his robbery.

      But it lay not in the power of images, or sensations, or
      impediments such as these, to stay the course of men who,
      naturally brave, and at that time especially, brimful of courage
      and of “humming-stuff,” would have reeled, as straight as their
      condition might have permitted, undauntedly into the very jaws of
      Death. Onward—still onward stalked the grim Legs, making the
      desolate solemnity echo and re-echo with yells like the terrific
      war-whoop of the Indian; and onward, still onward rolled the
      dumpy Tarpaulin, hanging on to the doublet of his more active
      companion, and far surpassing the latter’s most strenuous
      exertions in the way of vocal music, by bull-roarings _in basso_,
      from the profundity of his stentorian lungs.

      They had now evidently reached the strong hold of the pestilence.
      Their way at every step or plunge grew more noisome and more
      horrible—the paths more narrow and more intricate. Huge stones
      and beams falling momently from the decaying roofs above them,
      gave evidence, by their sullen and heavy descent, of the vast
      height of the surrounding houses; and while actual exertion
      became necessary to force a passage through frequent heaps of
      rubbish, it was by no means seldom that the hand fell upon a
      skeleton or rested upon a more fleshly corpse.

      Suddenly, as the seamen stumbled against the entrance of a tall
      and ghastly-looking building, a yell more than usually shrill
      from the throat of the excited Legs, was replied to from within,
      in a rapid succession of wild, laughter-like, and fiendish
      shrieks. Nothing daunted at sounds which, of such a nature, at
      such a time, and in such a place, might have curdled the very
      blood in hearts less irrevocably on fire, the drunken couple
      rushed headlong against the door, burst it open, and staggered
      into the midst of things with a volley of curses.

      The room within which they found themselves proved to be the shop
      of an undertaker; but an open trap-door, in a corner of the floor
      near the entrance, looked down upon a long range of wine-cellars,
      whose depths the occasional sound of bursting bottles proclaimed
      to be well stored with their appropriate contents. In the middle
      of the room stood a table—in the centre of which again arose a
      huge tub of what appeared to be punch. Bottles of various wines
      and cordials, together with jugs, pitchers, and flagons of every
      shape and quality, were scattered profusely upon the board.
      Around it, upon coffin-tressels, was seated a company of six.
      This company I will endeavor to delineate one by one.

      Fronting the entrance, and elevated a little above his
      companions, sat a personage who appeared to be the president of
      the table. His stature was gaunt and tall, and Legs was
      confounded to behold in him a figure more emaciated than himself.
      His face was as yellow as saffron—but no feature excepting one
      alone, was sufficiently marked to merit a particular description.
      This one consisted in a forehead so unusually and hideously
      lofty, as to have the appearance of a bonnet or crown of flesh
      superadded upon the natural head. His mouth was puckered and
      dimpled into an expression of ghastly affability, and his eyes,
      as indeed the eyes of all at table, were glazed over with the
      fumes of intoxication. This gentleman was clothed from head to
      foot in a richly-embroidered black silk-velvet pall, wrapped
      negligently around his form after the fashion of a Spanish cloak.
      His head was stuck full of sable hearse-plumes, which he nodded
      to and fro with a jaunty and knowing air; and, in his right hand,
      he held a huge human thigh-bone, with which he appeared to have
      been just knocking down some member of the company for a song.

      Opposite him, and with her back to the door, was a lady of no
      whit the less extraordinary character. Although quite as tall as
      the person just described, she had no right to complain of his
      unnatural emaciation. She was evidently in the last stage of a
      dropsy; and her figure resembled nearly that of the huge puncheon
      of October beer which stood, with the head driven in, close by
      her side, in a corner of the chamber. Her face was exceedingly
      round, red, and full; and the same peculiarity, or rather want of
      peculiarity, attached itself to her countenance, which I before
      mentioned in the case of the president—that is to say, only one
      feature of her face was sufficiently distinguished to need a
      separate characterization: indeed the acute Tarpaulin immediately
      observed that the same remark might have applied to each
      individual person of the party; every one of whom seemed to
      possess a monopoly of some particular portion of physiognomy.
      With the lady in question this portion proved to be the mouth.
      Commencing at the right ear, it swept with a terrific chasm to
      the left—the short pendants which she wore in either auricle
      continually bobbing into the aperture. She made, however, every
      exertion to keep her mouth closed and look dignified, in a dress
      consisting of a newly starched and ironed shroud coming up close
      under her chin, with a crimpled ruffle of cambric muslin.

      At her right hand sat a diminutive young lady whom she appeared
      to patronise. This delicate little creature, in the trembling of
      her wasted fingers, in the livid hue of her lips, and in the
      slight hectic spot which tinged her otherwise leaden complexion,
      gave evident indications of a galloping consumption. An air of
      extreme _haut ton_, however, pervaded her whole appearance; she
      wore in a graceful and _dégagé_ manner, a large and beautiful
      winding-sheet of the finest India lawn; her hair hung in ringlets
      over her neck; a soft smile played about her mouth; but her nose,
      extremely long, thin, sinuous, flexible and pimpled, hung down
      far below her under lip, and in spite of the delicate manner in
      which she now and then moved it to one side or the other with her
      tongue, gave to her countenance a somewhat equivocal expression.

      Over against her, and upon the left of the dropsical lady, was
      seated a little puffy, wheezing, and gouty old man, whose cheeks
      reposed upon the shoulders of their owner, like two huge bladders
      of Oporto wine. With his arms folded, and with one bandaged leg
      deposited upon the table, he seemed to think himself entitled to
      some consideration. He evidently prided himself much upon every
      inch of his personal appearance, but took more especial delight
      in calling attention to his gaudy-colored surtout. This, to say
      the truth, must have cost him no little money, and was made to
      fit him exceedingly well—being fashioned from one of the
      curiously embroidered silken covers appertaining to those
      glorious escutcheons which, in England and elsewhere, are
      customarily hung up, in some conspicuous place, upon the
      dwellings of departed aristocracy.

      Next to him, and at the right hand of the president, was a
      gentleman in long white hose and cotton drawers. His frame shook,
      in a ridiculous manner, with a fit of what Tarpaulin called “the
      horrors.” His jaws, which had been newly shaved, were tightly
      tied up by a bandage of muslin; and his arms being fastened in a
      similar way at the wrists, prevented him from helping himself too
      freely to the liquors upon the table; a precaution rendered
      necessary, in the opinion of Legs, by the peculiarly sottish and
      wine-bibbing cast of his visage. A pair of prodigious ears,
      nevertheless, which it was no doubt found impossible to confine,
      towered away into the atmosphere of the apartment, and were
      occasionally pricked up in a spasm, at the sound of the drawing
      of a cork.

      Fronting him, sixthly and lastly, was situated a singularly
      stiff-looking personage, who, being afflicted with paralysis,
      must, to speak seriously, have felt very ill at ease in his
      unaccommodating habiliments. He was habited, somewhat uniquely,
      in a new and handsome mahogany coffin. Its top or head-piece
      pressed upon the skull of the wearer, and extended over it in the
      fashion of a hood, giving to the entire face an air of
      indescribable interest. Arm-holes had been cut in the sides, for
      the sake not more of elegance than of convenience; but the dress,
      nevertheless, prevented its proprietor from sitting as erect as
      his associates; and as he lay reclining against his tressel, at
      an angle of forty-five degrees, a pair of huge goggle eyes rolled
      up their awful whites towards the ceiling in absolute amazement
      at their own enormity.

      Before each of the party lay a portion of a skull, which was used
      as a drinking cup. Overhead was suspended a human skeleton, by
      means of a rope tied round one of the legs and fastened to a ring
      in the ceiling. The other limb, confined by no such fetter, stuck
      off from the body at right angles, causing the whole loose and
      rattling frame to dangle and twirl about at the caprice of every
      occasional puff of wind which found its way into the apartment.
      In the cranium of this hideous thing lay quantity of ignited
      charcoal, which threw a fitful but vivid light over the entire
      scene; while coffins, and other wares appertaining to the shop of
      an undertaker, were piled high up around the room, and against
      the windows, preventing any ray from escaping into the street.

      At sight of this extraordinary assembly, and of their still more
      extraordinary paraphernalia, our two seamen did not conduct
      themselves with that degree of decorum which might have been
      expected. Legs, leaning against the wall near which he happened
      to be standing, dropped his lower jaw still lower than usual, and
      spread open his eyes to their fullest extent: while Hugh
      Tarpaulin, stooping down so as to bring his nose upon a level
      with the table, and spreading out a palm upon either knee, burst
      into a long, loud, and obstreperous roar of very ill-timed and
      immoderate laughter.

      Without, however, taking offence at behaviour so excessively
      rude, the tall president smiled very graciously upon the
      intruders—nodded to them in a dignified manner with his head of
      sable plumes—and, arising, took each by an arm, and led him to a
      seat which some others of the company had placed in the meantime
      for his accommodation. Legs to all this offered not the slightest
      resistance, but sat down as he was directed; while the gallant
      Hugh, removing his coffin tressel from its station near the head
      of the table, to the vicinity of the little consumptive lady in
      the winding sheet, plumped down by her side in high glee, and
      pouring out a skull of red wine, quaffed it to their better
      acquaintance. But at this presumption the stiff gentleman in the
      coffin seemed exceedingly nettled; and serious consequences might
      have ensued, had not the president, rapping upon the table with
      his truncheon, diverted the attention of all present to the
      following speech:

      “It becomes our duty upon the present happy occasion—”

      “Avast there!” interrupted Legs, looking very serious, “avast
      there a bit, I say, and tell us who the devil ye all are, and
      what business ye have here, rigged off like the foul fiends, and
      swilling the snug blue ruin stowed away for the winter by my
      honest shipmate, Will Wimble, the undertaker!”

      At this unpardonable piece of ill-breeding, all the original
      company half started to their feet, and uttered the same rapid
      succession of wild fiendish shrieks which had before caught the
      attention of the seamen. The president, however, was the first to
      recover his composure, and at length, turning to Legs with great
      dignity, recommenced:

      “Most willingly will we gratify any reasonable curiosity on the
      part of guests so illustrious, unbidden though they be. Know then
      that in these dominions I am monarch, and here rule with
      undivided empire under the title of ‘King Pest the First.’

      “This apartment, which you no doubt profanely suppose to be the
      shop of Will Wimble the undertaker—a man whom we know not, and
      whose plebeian appellation has never before this night thwarted
      our royal ears—this apartment, I say, is the Dais-Chamber of our
      Palace, devoted to the councils of our kingdom, and to other
      sacred and lofty purposes.

      “The noble lady who sits opposite is Queen Pest, our Serene
      Consort. The other exalted personages whom you behold are all of
      our family, and wear the insignia of the blood royal under the
      respective titles of ‘His Grace the Arch Duke Pest-Iferous’—‘His
      Grace the Duke Pest-Ilential’—‘His Grace the Duke Tem-Pest’—and
      ‘Her Serene Highness the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.’

      “As regards,” continued he, “your demand of the business upon
      which we sit here in council, we might be pardoned for replying
      that it concerns, and concerns alone, our own private and regal
      interest, and is in no manner important to any other than
      ourself. But in consideration of those rights to which as guests
      and strangers you may feel yourselves entitled, we will
      furthermore explain that we are here this night, prepared by deep
      research and accurate investigation, to examine, analyze, and
      thoroughly determine the indefinable spirit—the incomprehensible
      qualities and nature—of those inestimable treasures of the
      palate, the wines, ales, and liqueurs of this goodly metropolis:
      by so doing to advance not more our own designs than the true
      welfare of that unearthly sovereign whose reign is over us all,
      whose dominions are unlimited, and whose name is ‘Death’.”

      “Whose name is Davy Jones!” ejaculated Tarpaulin, helping the
      lady by his side to a skull of liqueur, and pouring out a second
      for himself.

      “Profane varlet!” said the president, now turning his attention
      to the worthy Hugh, “profane and execrable wretch!—we have said,
      that in consideration of those rights which, even in thy filthy
      person, we feel no inclination to violate, we have condescended
      to make reply to thy rude and unseasonable inquiries. We
      nevertheless, for your unhallowed intrusion upon our councils,
      believe it our duty to mulct thee and thy companion in each a
      gallon of Black Strap—having imbibed which to the prosperity of
      our kingdom—at a single draught—and upon your bended knees—ye
      shall be forthwith free either to proceed upon your way, or
      remain and be admitted to the privileges of our table, according
      to your respective and individual pleasures.”

      “It would be a matter of utter impossibility,” replied Legs, whom
      the assumptions and dignity of King Pest the First had evidently
      inspired some feelings of respect, and who arose and steadied
      himself by the table as he spoke—“it would, please your majesty,
      be a matter of utter impossibility to stow away in my hold even
      one-fourth part of the same liquor which your majesty has just
      mentioned. To say nothing of the stuffs placed on board in the
      forenoon by way of ballast, and not to mention the various ales
      and liqueurs shipped this evening at different sea-ports, I have,
      at present, a full cargo of ‘humming-stuff’ taken in and duly
      paid for at the sign of the ‘Jolly Tar.’ You will, therefore,
      please your majesty, be so good as to take the will for the
      deed—for by no manner of means either can I or will I swallow
      another drop—least of all a drop of that villainous bilge-water
      that answers to the name of ‘Black Strap.’”

      “Belay that!” interrupted Tarpaulin, astonished not more at the
      length of his companion’s speech than at the nature of his
      refusal—“Belay that you lubber!—and I say, Legs, none of your
      palaver! _My_ hull is still light, although I confess you
      yourself seem to be a little top-heavy; and as for the matter of
      your share of the cargo, why rather than raise a squall I would
      find stowage-room for it myself, but—”

      “This proceeding,” interposed the president, “is by no means in
      accordance with the terms of the mulct or sentence, which is in
      its nature Median, and not to be altered or recalled. The
      conditions we have imposed must be fulfilled to the letter, and
      that without a moment’s hesitation—in failure of which fulfilment
      we decree that you do here be tied neck and heels together, and
      duly drowned as rebels in yon hogshead of October beer!”

      “A sentence!—a sentence!—a righteous and just sentence!—a
      glorious decree!—a most worthy and upright, and holy
      condemnation!” shouted the Pest family altogether. The king
      elevated his forehead into innumerable wrinkles; the gouty little
      old man puffed like a pair of bellows; the lady of the winding
      sheet waved her nose to and fro; the gentleman in the cotton
      drawers pricked up his ears; she of the shroud gasped like a
      dying fish; and he of the coffin looked stiff and rolled up his
      eyes.

      “Ugh! ugh! ugh!” chuckled Tarpaulin without heeding the general
      excitation, “ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—ugh! ugh! ugh!—I was
      saying,” said he, “I was saying when Mr. King Pest poked in his
      marlin-spike, that as for the matter of two or three gallons more
      or less of Black Strap, it was a trifle to a tight sea-boat like
      myself not overstowed—but when it comes to drinking the health of
      the Devil (whom God assoilzie) and going down upon my marrow
      bones to his ill-favored majesty there, whom I know, as well as I
      know myself to be a sinner, to be nobody in the whole world, but
      Tim Hurlygurly the stage-player!—why! it’s quite another guess
      sort of a thing, and utterly and altogether past my
      comprehension.”

      He was not allowed to finish this speech in tranquillity. At the
      name Tim Hurlygurly the whole assembly leaped from their name
      seats.

      “Treason!” shouted his Majesty King Pest the First.

      “Treason!” said the little man with the gout.

      “Treason!” screamed the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.

      “Treason!” muttered the gentleman with his jaws tied up.

      “Treason!” growled he of the coffin.

      “Treason! treason!” shrieked her majesty of the mouth; and,
      seizing by the hinder part of his breeches the unfortunate
      Tarpaulin, who had just commenced pouring out for himself a skull
      of liqueur, she lifted him high into the air, and let him fall
      without ceremony into the huge open puncheon of his beloved ale.
      Bobbing up and down, for a few seconds, like an apple in a bowl
      of toddy, he, at length, finally disappeared amid the whirlpool
      of foam which, in the already effervescent liquor, his struggles
      easily succeeded in creating.

      Not tamely, however, did the tall seaman behold the discomfiture
      of his companion. Jostling King Pest through the open trap, the
      valiant Legs slammed the door down upon him with an oath, and
      strode towards the centre of the room. Here tearing down the
      skeleton which swung over the table, he laid it about him with so
      much energy and good will, that, as the last glimpses of light
      died away within the apartment, he succeeded in knocking out the
      brains of the little gentleman with the gout. Rushing then with
      all his force against the fatal hogshead full of October ale and
      Hugh Tarpaulin, he rolled it over and over in an instant. Out
      burst a deluge of liquor so fierce—so impetuous—so
      overwhelming—that the room was flooded from wall to wall—the
      loaded table was overturned—the tressels were thrown upon their
      backs—the tub of punch into the fire-place—and the ladies into
      hysterics. Piles of death-furniture floundered about. Jugs,
      pitchers, and carboys mingled promiscuously in the _mêlée_, and
      wicker flagons encountered desperately with bottles of junk. The
      man with the horrors was drowned upon the spot—the little stiff
      gentleman floated off in his coffin—and the victorious Legs,
      seizing by the waist the fat lady in the shroud, rushed out with
      her into the street, and made a bee-line for the _Free and Easy_,
      followed under easy sail by the redoubtable Hugh Tarpaulin, who,
      having sneezed three or four times, panted and puffed after him
      with the Arch Duchess Ana-Pest.




THREE SUNDAYS IN A WEEK


      “You hard-headed, dunder-headed, obstinate, rusty, crusty, musty,
      fusty, old savage!” said I, in fancy, one afternoon, to my grand
      uncle Rumgudgeon—shaking my fist at him in imagination.

      Only in imagination. The fact is, some trivial discrepancy _did_
      exist, just then, between what I said and what I had not the
      courage to say—between what I did and what I had half a mind to
      do.

      The old porpoise, as I opened the drawing-room door, was sitting
      with his feet upon the mantel-piece, and a bumper of port in his
      paw, making strenuous efforts to accomplish the ditty.

      Remplis ton verre vide!
      Vide ton verre plein!

      “My _dear_ uncle,” said I, closing the door gently, and
      approaching him with the blandest of smiles, “you are always so
      very kind and considerate, and have evinced your benevolence in
      so many—so very many ways—that—that I feel I have only to suggest
      this little point to you once more to make sure of your full
      acquiescence.”

      “Hem!” said he, “good boy! go on!”

      “I am sure, my dearest uncle (you confounded old rascal!), that
      you have no design really, seriously, to oppose my union with
      Kate. This is merely a joke of yours, I know—ha! ha! ha!—how very
      pleasant you are at times.”

      “Ha! ha! ha!” said he, “curse you! yes!”

      “To be sure—of course! I knew you were jesting. Now, uncle, all
      that Kate and myself wish at present, is that you would oblige us
      with your advice as—as regards the time—you know, uncle—in short,
      when will it be most convenient for yourself, that the wedding
      shall—shall—come off, you know?”

      “Come off, you scoundrel!—what do you mean by that?—Better wait
      till it goes on.”

      “Ha! ha! ha!—he! he! he!—hi! hi! hi!—ho! ho! ho!—hu! hu! hu!—oh,
      that’s good!—oh, that’s capital—_such_ a wit! But all we want
      just _now_, you know, uncle, is that you would indicate the time
      precisely.”

      “Ah!—precisely?”

      “Yes, uncle—that is, if it would be quite agreeable to yourself.”

      “Wouldn’t it answer, Bobby, if I were to leave it at random—some
      time within a year or so, for example?—_must_ I say precisely?”

      “_If_ you please, uncle—precisely.”

      “Well, then, Bobby, my boy—you’re a fine fellow, aren’t
      you?—since you _will_ have the exact time I’ll—why I’ll oblige
      you for once.”

      “Dear uncle!”

      “Hush, sir!” (drowning my voice)—“I’ll oblige you for once. You
      shall have my consent—and the _plum_, we mus’n’t forget the
      plum—let me see! when shall it be? To-day’s Sunday—isn’t it?
      Well, then, you shall be married precisely—_precisely_, now
      mind!—_when three Sundays come together in a week!_ Do you hear
      me, sir! _What_ are you gaping at? I say, you shall have Kate and
      her plum when three Sundays come together in a week—but not
      _till_ then—you young scapegrace—not _till_ then, if I die for
      it. You know me—_I’m a man of my word_—now be off!” Here he
      swallowed his bumper of port, while I rushed from the room in
      despair.

      A very “fine old English gentleman,” was my grand-uncle
      Rumgudgeon, but unlike him of the song, he had his weak points.
      He was a little, pursy, pompous, passionate semicircular
      somebody, with a red nose, a thick skull, a long purse, and a
      strong sense of his own consequence. With the best heart in the
      world, he contrived, through a predominant whim of contradiction,
      to earn for himself, among those who only knew him superficially,
      the character of a curmudgeon. Like many excellent people, he
      seemed possessed with a spirit of tantalization, which might
      easily, at a casual glance, have been mistaken for malevolence.
      To every request, a positive “No!” was his immediate answer; but
      in the end—in the long, long end—there were exceedingly few
      requests which he refused. Against all attacks upon his purse he
      made the most sturdy defence; but the amount extorted from him,
      at last, was generally in direct ratio with the length of the
      siege and the stubbornness of the resistance. In charity no one
      gave more liberally or with a worse grace.

      For the fine arts, and especially for the belles-lettres, he
      entertained a profound contempt. With this he had been inspired
      by Casimir Perier, whose pert little query “A quoi un poete est
      il bon?” he was in the habit of quoting, with a very droll
      pronunciation, as the ne plus ultra of logical wit. Thus my own
      inkling for the Muses had excited his entire displeasure. He
      assured me one day, when I asked him for a new copy of Horace,
      that the translation of “Poeta nascitur non fit” was “a nasty
      poet for nothing fit”—a remark which I took in high dudgeon. His
      repugnance to “the humanities” had, also, much increased of late,
      by an accidental bias in favor of what he supposed to be natural
      science. Somebody had accosted him in the street, mistaking him
      for no less a personage than Doctor Dubble L. Dee, the lecturer
      upon quack physics. This set him off at a tangent; and just at
      the epoch of this story—for story it is getting to be after
      all—my grand-uncle Rumgudgeon was accessible and pacific only
      upon points which happened to chime in with the caprioles of the
      hobby he was riding. For the rest, he laughed with his arms and
      legs, and his politics were stubborn and easily understood. He
      thought, with Horsley, that “the people have nothing to do with
      the laws but to obey them.”

      I had lived with the old gentleman all my life. My parents, in
      dying, had bequeathed me to him as a rich legacy. I believe the
      old villain loved me as his own child—nearly if not quite as well
      as he loved Kate—but it was a dog’s existence that he led me,
      after all. From my first year until my fifth, he obliged me with
      very regular floggings. From five to fifteen, he threatened me,
      hourly, with the House of Correction. From fifteen to twenty, not
      a day passed in which he did not promise to cut me off with a
      shilling. I was a sad dog, it is true—but then it was a part of
      my nature—a point of my faith. In Kate, however, I had a firm
      friend, and I knew it. She was a good girl, and told me very
      sweetly that I might have her (plum and all) whenever I could
      badger my grand-uncle Rumgudgeon, into the necessary consent.
      Poor girl!—she was barely fifteen, and without this consent, her
      little amount in the funds was not come-at-able until five
      immeasurable summers had “dragged their slow length along.” What,
      then, to do? At fifteen, or even at twenty-one (for I had now
      passed my fifth olympiad) five years in prospect are very much
      the same as five hundred. In vain we besieged the old gentleman
      with importunities. Here was a piece de resistance (as Messieurs
      Ude and Careme would say) which suited his perverse fancy to a T.
      It would have stiffed the indignation of Job himself, to see how
      much like an old mouser he behaved to us two poor wretched little
      mice. In his heart he wished for nothing more ardently than our
      union. He had made up his mind to this all along. In fact, he
      would have given ten thousand pounds from his own pocket (Kate’s
      plum was her own) if he could have invented any thing like an
      excuse for complying with our very natural wishes. But then we
      had been so imprudent as to broach the subject ourselves. Not to
      oppose it under such circumstances, I sincerely believe, was not
      in his power.

      I have said already that he had his weak points; but in speaking
      of these, I must not be understood as referring to his obstinacy:
      which was one of his strong points—“assurement ce n’ etait pas sa
      foible.” When I mention his weakness I have allusion to a bizarre
      old-womanish superstition which beset him. He was great in
      dreams, portents, et id genus omne of rigmarole. He was
      excessively punctilious, too, upon small points of honor, and,
      after his own fashion, was a man of his word, beyond doubt. This
      was, in fact, one of his hobbies. The spirit of his vows he made
      no scruple of setting at naught, but the letter was a bond
      inviolable. Now it was this latter peculiarity in his
      disposition, of which Kate’s ingenuity enabled us one fine day,
      not long after our interview in the dining-room, to take a very
      unexpected advantage, and, having thus, in the fashion of all
      modern bards and orators, exhausted in prolegomena, all the time
      at my command, and nearly all the room at my disposal, I will sum
      up in a few words what constitutes the whole pith of the story.

      It happened then—so the Fates ordered it—that among the naval
      acquaintances of my betrothed, were two gentlemen who had just
      set foot upon the shores of England, after a year’s absence,
      each, in foreign travel. In company with these gentlemen, my
      cousin and I, preconcertedly paid uncle Rumgudgeon a visit on the
      afternoon of Sunday, October the tenth,—just three weeks after
      the memorable decision which had so cruelly defeated our hopes.
      For about half an hour the conversation ran upon ordinary topics,
      but at last, we contrived, quite naturally, to give it the
      following turn:

      CAPT. PRATT. “Well I have been absent just one year.—Just one
      year to-day, as I live—let me see! yes!—this is October the
      tenth. You remember, Mr. Rumgudgeon, I called, this day year to
      bid you good-bye. And by the way, it does seem something like a
      coincidence, does it not—that our friend, Captain Smitherton,
      here, has been absent exactly a year also—a year to-day!”

      SMITHERTON. “Yes! just one year to a fraction. You will remember,
      Mr. Rumgudgeon, that I called with Capt. Pratol on this very day,
      last year, to pay my parting respects.”

      UNCLE. “Yes, yes, yes—I remember it very well—very queer indeed!
      Both of you gone just one year. A very strange coincidence,
      indeed! Just what Doctor Dubble L. Dee would denominate an
      extraordinary concurrence of events. Doctor Dub—”

      KATE. (Interrupting.) “To be sure, papa, it is something strange;
      but then Captain Pratt and Captain Smitherton didn’t go
      altogether the same route, and that makes a difference, you
      know.”

      UNCLE. “I don’t know any such thing, you huzzy! How should I? I
      think it only makes the matter more remarkable, Doctor Dubble L.
      Dee—”

      KATE. “Why, papa, Captain Pratt went round Cape Horn, and Captain
      Smitherton doubled the Cape of Good Hope.”

      UNCLE. “Precisely!—the one went east and the other went west, you
      jade, and they both have gone quite round the world. By the by,
      Doctor Dubble L. Dee—”

      MYSELF. (Hurriedly.) “Captain Pratt, you must come and spend the
      evening with us to-morrow—you and Smitherton—you can tell us all
      about your voyage, and we’ll have a game of whist and—”

      PRATT. “Wist, my dear fellow—you forget. To-morrow will be
      Sunday. Some other evening—”

      KATE. “Oh, no, fie!—Robert’s not quite so bad as that. To-day’s
      Sunday.”

      PRATT. “I beg both your pardons—but I can’t be so much mistaken.
      I know to-morrow’s Sunday, because-”

      SMITHERTON. (Much surprised.) “What are you all thinking about?
      Wasn’t yesterday, Sunday, I should like to know?”

      ALL. “Yesterday indeed! you are out!”

      UNCLE. “To-day’s Sunday, I say—don’t I know?”

      PRATT. “Oh no!—to-morrow’s Sunday.”

      SMITHERTON. “You are all mad—every one of you. I am as positive
      that yesterday was Sunday as I am that I sit upon this chair.”

      KATE. (Jumping up eagerly.) “I see it—I see it all. Papa, this is
      a judgment upon you, about—about you know what. Let me alone, and
      I’ll explain it all in a minute. It’s a very simple thing,
      indeed. Captain Smitherton says that yesterday was Sunday: so it
      was; he is right. Cousin Bobby, and uncle and I say that to-day
      is Sunday: so it is; we are right. Captain Pratt maintains that
      to-morrow will be Sunday: so it will; he is right, too. The fact
      is, we are all right, and thus three Sundays have come together
      in a week.”

      SMITHERTON. (After a pause.) “By the by, Pratt, Kate has us
      completely. What fools we two are! Mr. Rumgudgeon, the matter
      stands thus: the earth, you know, is twenty-four thousand miles
      in circumference. Now this globe of the earth turns upon its own
      axis—revolves—spins round—these twenty-four thousand miles of
      extent, going from west to east, in precisely twenty-four hours.
      Do you understand, Mr. Rumgudgeon?—”

      UNCLE. “To be sure—to be sure—Doctor Dub—”

      SMITHERTON. (Drowning his voice.) “Well, sir; that is at the rate
      of one thousand miles per hour. Now, suppose that I sail from
      this position a thousand miles east. Of course I anticipate the
      rising of the sun here at London by just one hour. I see the sun
      rise one hour before you do. Proceeding, in the same direction,
      yet another thousand miles, I anticipate the rising by two
      hours—another thousand, and I anticipate it by three hours, and
      so on, until I go entirely round the globe, and back to this
      spot, when, having gone twenty-four thousand miles east, I
      anticipate the rising of the London sun by no less than
      twenty-four hours; that is to say, I am a day in advance of your
      time. Understand, eh?”

      UNCLE. “But Double L. Dee—”

      SMITHERTON. (Speaking very loud.) “Captain Pratt, on the
      contrary, when he had sailed a thousand miles west of this
      position, was an hour, and when he had sailed twenty-four
      thousand miles west, was twenty-four hours, or one day, behind
      the time at London. Thus, with me, yesterday was Sunday—thus,
      with you, to-day is Sunday—and thus, with Pratt, to-morrow will
      be Sunday. And what is more, Mr. Rumgudgeon, it is positively
      clear that we are all right; for there can be no philosophical
      reason assigned why the idea of one of us should have preference
      over that of the other.”

      UNCLE. “My eyes!—well, Kate—well, Bobby!—this is a judgment upon
      me, as you say. But I am a man of my word—mark that! you shall
      have her, boy, (plum and all), when you please. Done up, by Jove!
      Three Sundays all in a row! I’ll go, and take Dubble L. Dee’s
      opinion upon that.”




VOLUME 4.




THE DEVIL IN THE BELFRY


     What o’clock is it?—_Old Saying_.

      Everybody knows, in a general way, that the finest place in the
      world is—or, alas, _was_—the Dutch borough of
      Vondervotteimittiss. Yet as it lies some distance from any of the
      main roads, being in a somewhat out-of-the-way situation, there
      are perhaps very few of my readers who have ever paid it a visit.
      For the benefit of those who have not, therefore, it will be only
      proper that I should enter into some account of it. And this is
      indeed the more necessary, as with the hope of enlisting public
      sympathy in behalf of the inhabitants, I design here to give a
      history of the calamitous events which have so lately occurred
      within its limits. No one who knows me will doubt that the duty
      thus self-imposed will be executed to the best of my ability,
      with all that rigid impartiality, all that cautious examination
      into facts, and diligent collation of authorities, which should
      ever distinguish him who aspires to the title of historian.

      By the united aid of medals, manuscripts, and inscriptions, I am
      enabled to say, positively, that the borough of
      Vondervotteimittiss has existed, from its origin, in precisely
      the same condition which it at present preserves. Of the date of
      this origin, however, I grieve that I can only speak with that
      species of indefinite definiteness which mathematicians are, at
      times, forced to put up with in certain algebraic formulae. The
      date, I may thus say, in regard to the remoteness of its
      antiquity, cannot be less than any assignable quantity
      whatsoever.

      Touching the derivation of the name Vondervotteimittiss, I
      confess myself, with sorrow, equally at fault. Among a multitude
      of opinions upon this delicate point—some acute, some learned,
      some sufficiently the reverse—I am able to select nothing which
      ought to be considered satisfactory. Perhaps the idea of
      Grogswigg—nearly coincident with that of Kroutaplenttey—is to be
      cautiously preferred.—It runs:—“Vondervotteimittis—Vonder, lege
      Donder—Votteimittis, quasi und Bleitziz—Bleitziz obsol:—pro
      Blitzen.” This derivative, to say the truth, is still
      countenanced by some traces of the electric fluid evident on the
      summit of the steeple of the House of the Town-Council. I do not
      choose, however, to commit myself on a theme of such importance,
      and must refer the reader desirous of information to the
      “Oratiunculae de Rebus Praeter-Veteris,” of Dundergutz. See,
      also, Blunderbuzzard “De Derivationibus,” pp. 27 to 5010, Folio,
      Gothic edit., Red and Black character, Catch-word and No Cypher;
      wherein consult, also, marginal notes in the autograph of
      Stuffundpuff, with the Sub-Commentaries of Gruntundguzzell.

      Notwithstanding the obscurity which thus envelops the date of the
      foundation of Vondervotteimittis, and the derivation of its name,
      there can be no doubt, as I said before, that it has always
      existed as we find it at this epoch. The oldest man in the
      borough can remember not the slightest difference in the
      appearance of any portion of it; and, indeed, the very suggestion
      of such a possibility is considered an insult. The site of the
      village is in a perfectly circular valley, about a quarter of a
      mile in circumference, and entirely surrounded by gentle hills,
      over whose summit the people have never yet ventured to pass. For
      this they assign the very good reason that they do not believe
      there is anything at all on the other side.

      Round the skirts of the valley (which is quite level, and paved
      throughout with flat tiles), extends a continuous row of sixty
      little houses. These, having their backs on the hills, must look,
      of course, to the centre of the plain, which is just sixty yards
      from the front door of each dwelling. Every house has a small
      garden before it, with a circular path, a sun-dial, and
      twenty-four cabbages. The buildings themselves are so precisely
      alike, that one can in no manner be distinguished from the other.
      Owing to the vast antiquity, the style of architecture is
      somewhat odd, but it is not for that reason the less strikingly
      picturesque. They are fashioned of hard-burned little bricks,
      red, with black ends, so that the walls look like a chess-board
      upon a great scale. The gables are turned to the front, and there
      are cornices, as big as all the rest of the house, over the eaves
      and over the main doors. The windows are narrow and deep, with
      very tiny panes and a great deal of sash. On the roof is a vast
      quantity of tiles with long curly ears. The woodwork, throughout,
      is of a dark hue and there is much carving about it, with but a
      trifling variety of pattern for, time out of mind, the carvers of
      Vondervotteimittiss have never been able to carve more than two
      objects—a time-piece and a cabbage. But these they do exceedingly
      well, and intersperse them, with singular ingenuity, wherever
      they find room for the chisel.

      The dwellings are as much alike inside as out, and the furniture
      is all upon one plan. The floors are of square tiles, the chairs
      and tables of black-looking wood with thin crooked legs and puppy
      feet. The mantelpieces are wide and high, and have not only
      time-pieces and cabbages sculptured over the front, but a real
      time-piece, which makes a prodigious ticking, on the top in the
      middle, with a flower-pot containing a cabbage standing on each
      extremity by way of outrider. Between each cabbage and the
      time-piece, again, is a little China man having a large stomach
      with a great round hole in it, through which is seen the
      dial-plate of a watch.

      The fireplaces are large and deep, with fierce crooked-looking
      fire-dogs. There is constantly a rousing fire, and a huge pot
      over it, full of sauer-kraut and pork, to which the good woman of
      the house is always busy in attending. She is a little fat old
      lady, with blue eyes and a red face, and wears a huge cap like a
      sugar-loaf, ornamented with purple and yellow ribbons. Her dress
      is of orange-colored linsey-woolsey, made very full behind and
      very short in the waist—and indeed very short in other respects,
      not reaching below the middle of her leg. This is somewhat thick,
      and so are her ankles, but she has a fine pair of green stockings
      to cover them. Her shoes—of pink leather—are fastened each with a
      bunch of yellow ribbons puckered up in the shape of a cabbage. In
      her left hand she has a little heavy Dutch watch; in her right
      she wields a ladle for the sauerkraut and pork. By her side there
      stands a fat tabby cat, with a gilt toy-repeater tied to its
      tail, which “the boys” have there fastened by way of a quiz.

      The boys themselves are, all three of them, in the garden
      attending the pig. They are each two feet in height. They have
      three-cornered cocked hats, purple waistcoats reaching down to
      their thighs, buckskin knee-breeches, red stockings, heavy shoes
      with big silver buckles, long surtout coats with large buttons of
      mother-of-pearl. Each, too, has a pipe in his mouth, and a little
      dumpy watch in his right hand. He takes a puff and a look, and
      then a look and a puff. The pig—which is corpulent and lazy—is
      occupied now in picking up the stray leaves that fall from the
      cabbages, and now in giving a kick behind at the gilt repeater,
      which the urchins have also tied to his tail in order to make him
      look as handsome as the cat.

      Right at the front door, in a high-backed leather-bottomed armed
      chair, with crooked legs and puppy feet like the tables, is
      seated the old man of the house himself. He is an exceedingly
      puffy little old gentleman, with big circular eyes and a huge
      double chin. His dress resembles that of the boys—and I need say
      nothing farther about it. All the difference is, that his pipe is
      somewhat bigger than theirs and he can make a greater smoke. Like
      them, he has a watch, but he carries his watch in his pocket. To
      say the truth, he has something of more importance than a watch
      to attend to—and what that is, I shall presently explain. He sits
      with his right leg upon his left knee, wears a grave countenance,
      and always keeps one of his eyes, at least, resolutely bent upon
      a certain remarkable object in the centre of the plain.

      This object is situated in the steeple of the House of the Town
      Council. The Town Council are all very little, round, oily,
      intelligent men, with big saucer eyes and fat double chins, and
      have their coats much longer and their shoe-buckles much bigger
      than the ordinary inhabitants of Vondervotteimittiss. Since my
      sojourn in the borough, they have had several special meetings,
      and have adopted these three important resolutions:

      “That it is wrong to alter the good old course of things:”

      “That there is nothing tolerable out of Vondervotteimittiss:”
      and—

      “That we will stick by our clocks and our cabbages.”

      Above the session-room of the Council is the steeple, and in the
      steeple is the belfry, where exists, and has existed time out of
      mind, the pride and wonder of the village—the great clock of the
      borough of Vondervotteimittiss. And this is the object to which
      the eyes of the old gentlemen are turned who sit in the
      leather-bottomed arm-chairs.

      The great clock has seven faces—one in each of the seven sides of
      the steeple—so that it can be readily seen from all quarters. Its
      faces are large and white, and its hands heavy and black. There
      is a belfry-man whose sole duty is to attend to it; but this duty
      is the most perfect of sinecures—for the clock of
      Vondervotteimittis was never yet known to have anything the
      matter with it. Until lately, the bare supposition of such a
      thing was considered heretical. From the remotest period of
      antiquity to which the archives have reference, the hours have
      been regularly struck by the big bell. And, indeed the case was
      just the same with all the other clocks and watches in the
      borough. Never was such a place for keeping the true time. When
      the large clapper thought proper to say “Twelve o’clock!” all its
      obedient followers opened their throats simultaneously, and
      responded like a very echo. In short, the good burghers were fond
      of their sauer-kraut, but then they were proud of their clocks.

      All people who hold sinecure offices are held in more or less
      respect, and as the belfry—man of Vondervotteimittiss has the
      most perfect of sinecures, he is the most perfectly respected of
      any man in the world. He is the chief dignitary of the borough,
      and the very pigs look up to him with a sentiment of reverence.
      His coat-tail is very far longer—his pipe, his shoe-buckles, his
      eyes, and his stomach, very far bigger—than those of any other
      old gentleman in the village; and as to his chin, it is not only
      double, but triple.

      I have thus painted the happy estate of Vondervotteimittiss:
      alas, that so fair a picture should ever experience a reverse!

      There has been long a saying among the wisest inhabitants, that
      “no good can come from over the hills”; and it really seemed that
      the words had in them something of the spirit of prophecy. It
      wanted five minutes of noon, on the day before yesterday, when
      there appeared a very odd-looking object on the summit of the
      ridge of the eastward. Such an occurrence, of course, attracted
      universal attention, and every little old gentleman who sat in a
      leather-bottomed arm-chair turned one of his eyes with a stare of
      dismay upon the phenomenon, still keeping the other upon the
      clock in the steeple.

      By the time that it wanted only three minutes to noon, the droll
      object in question was perceived to be a very diminutive
      foreign-looking young man. He descended the hills at a great
      rate, so that every body had soon a good look at him. He was
      really the most finicky little personage that had ever been seen
      in Vondervotteimittiss. His countenance was of a dark
      snuff-color, and he had a long hooked nose, pea eyes, a wide
      mouth, and an excellent set of teeth, which latter he seemed
      anxious of displaying, as he was grinning from ear to ear. What
      with mustachios and whiskers, there was none of the rest of his
      face to be seen. His head was uncovered, and his hair neatly done
      up in papillotes. His dress was a tight-fitting swallow-tailed
      black coat (from one of whose pockets dangled a vast length of
      white handkerchief), black kerseymere knee-breeches, black
      stockings, and stumpy-looking pumps, with huge bunches of black
      satin ribbon for bows. Under one arm he carried a huge
      _chapeau-de-bras_, and under the other a fiddle nearly five times
      as big as himself. In his left hand was a gold snuff-box, from
      which, as he capered down the hill, cutting all manner of
      fantastic steps, he took snuff incessantly with an air of the
      greatest possible self-satisfaction. God bless me!—here was a
      sight for the honest burghers of Vondervotteimittiss!

      To speak plainly, the fellow had, in spite of his grinning, an
      audacious and sinister kind of face; and as he curvetted right
      into the village, the old stumpy appearance of his pumps excited
      no little suspicion; and many a burgher who beheld him that day
      would have given a trifle for a peep beneath the white cambric
      handkerchief which hung so obtrusively from the pocket of his
      swallow-tailed coat. But what mainly occasioned a righteous
      indignation was, that the scoundrelly popinjay, while he cut a
      fandango here, and a whirligig there, did not seem to have the
      remotest idea in the world of such a thing as keeping time in his
      steps.

      The good people of the borough had scarcely a chance, however, to
      get their eyes thoroughly open, when, just as it wanted half a
      minute of noon, the rascal bounced, as I say, right into the
      midst of them; gave a _chassez_ here, and a _balancez_ there; and
      then, after a _pirouette_ and a _pas-de-zephyr_, pigeon-winged
      himself right up into the belfry of the House of the Town
      Council, where the wonder-stricken belfry-man sat smoking in a
      state of dignity and dismay. But the little chap seized him at
      once by the nose; gave it a swing and a pull; clapped the big
      _chapeau-de-bras_ upon his head; knocked it down over his eyes
      and mouth; and then, lifting up the big fiddle, beat him with it
      so long and so soundly, that what with the belfry-man being so
      fat, and the fiddle being so hollow, you would have sworn that
      there was a regiment of double-bass drummers all beating the
      devil’s tattoo up in the belfry of the steeple of
      Vondervotteimittiss.

      There is no knowing to what desperate act of vengeance this
      unprincipled attack might have aroused the inhabitants, but for
      the important fact that it now wanted only half a second of noon.
      The bell was about to strike, and it was a matter of absolute and
      pre-eminent necessity that every body should look well at his
      watch. It was evident, however, that just at this moment the
      fellow in the steeple was doing something that he had no business
      to do with the clock. But as it now began to strike, nobody had
      any time to attend to his manœuvres, for they had all to count
      the strokes of the bell as it sounded.

      “One!” said the clock.

      “Von!” echoed every little old gentleman in every
      leather-bottomed arm-chair in Vondervotteimittiss. “Von!” said
      his watch also; “von!” said the watch of his vrow; and “von!”
      said the watches of the boys, and the little gilt repeaters on
      the tails of the cat and pig.

      “Two!” continued the big bell; and

      “Doo!” repeated all the repeaters.

      “Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight! Nine! Ten!” said the bell.

      “Dree! Vour! Fibe! Sax! Seben! Aight! Noin! Den!” answered the
      others.

      “Eleven!” said the big one.

      “Eleben!” assented the little ones.

      “Twelve!” said the bell.

      “Dvelf!” they replied perfectly satisfied, and dropping their
      voices.

      “Und dvelf it is!” said all the little old gentlemen, putting up
      their watches. But the big bell had not done with them yet.

      “Thirteen!” said he.

      “Der Teufel!” gasped the little old gentlemen, turning pale,
      dropping their pipes, and putting down all their right legs from
      over their left knees.

      “Der Teufel!” groaned they, “Dirteen! Dirteen!!—Mein Gott, it is
      Dirteen o’clock!!”

      Why attempt to describe the terrible scene which ensued? All
      Vondervotteimittiss flew at once into a lamentable state of
      uproar.

      “Vot is cum’d to mein pelly?” roared all the boys—“I’ve been
      ongry for dis hour!”

      “Vot is com’d to mein kraut?” screamed all the vrows, “It has
      been done to rags for this hour!”

      “Vot is cum’d to mein pipe?” swore all the little old gentlemen,
      “Donder and Blitzen; it has been smoked out for dis hour!”—and
      they filled them up again in a great rage, and sinking back in
      their arm-chairs, puffed away so fast and so fiercely that the
      whole valley was immediately filled with impenetrable smoke.

      Meantime the cabbages all turned very red in the face, and it
      seemed as if old Nick himself had taken possession of every thing
      in the shape of a timepiece. The clocks carved upon the furniture
      took to dancing as if bewitched, while those upon the
      mantel-pieces could scarcely contain themselves for fury, and
      kept such a continual striking of thirteen, and such a frisking
      and wriggling of their pendulums as was really horrible to see.
      But, worse than all, neither the cats nor the pigs could put up
      any longer with the behavior of the little repeaters tied to
      their tails, and resented it by scampering all over the place,
      scratching and poking, and squeaking and screeching, and
      caterwauling and squalling, and flying into the faces, and
      running under the petticoats of the people, and creating
      altogether the most abominable din and confusion which it is
      possible for a reasonable person to conceive. And to make matters
      still more distressing, the rascally little scape-grace in the
      steeple was evidently exerting himself to the utmost. Every now
      and then one might catch a glimpse of the scoundrel through the
      smoke. There he sat in the belfry upon the belfry-man, who was
      lying flat upon his back. In his teeth the villain held the
      bell-rope, which he kept jerking about with his head, raising
      such a clatter that my ears ring again even to think of it. On
      his lap lay the big fiddle, at which he was scraping, out of all
      time and tune, with both hands, making a great show, the
      nincompoop! of playing “Judy O’Flannagan and Paddy O’Rafferty.”

      Affairs being thus miserably situated, I left the place in
      disgust, and now appeal for aid to all lovers of correct time and
      fine kraut. Let us proceed in a body to the borough, and restore
      the ancient order of things in Vondervotteimittiss by ejecting
      that little fellow from the steeple.




LIONIZING


     —— all people went
     Upon their ten toes in wild wonderment.
                    —_Bishop Hall’s Satires_.

      I am—that is to say I was—a great man; but I am neither the
      author of Junius nor the man in the mask; for my name, I believe,
      is Robert Jones, and I was born somewhere in the city of
      Fum-Fudge.

      The first action of my life was the taking hold of my nose with
      both hands. My mother saw this and called me a genius—my father
      wept for joy and presented me with a treatise on Nosology. This I
      mastered before I was breeched.

      I now began to feel my way in the science, and soon came to
      understand that, provided a man had a nose sufficiently
      conspicuous, he might, by merely following it, arrive at a
      Lionship. But my attention was not confined to theories alone.
      Every morning I gave my proboscis a couple of pulls and swallowed
      a half dozen of drams.

      When I came of age my father asked me, one day, if I would step
      with him into his study.

      “My son,” said he, when we were seated, “what is the chief end of
      your existence?”

      “My father,” I answered, “it is the study of Nosology.”

      “And what, Robert,” he inquired, “is Nosology?”

      “Sir,” I said, “it is the science of Noses.”

      “And can you tell me,” he demanded, “what is the meaning of a
      nose?”

      “A nose, my father;” I replied, greatly softened, “has been
      variously defined by about a thousand different authors.” [Here I
      pulled out my watch.] “It is now noon or thereabouts—we shall
      have time enough to get through with them all before midnight. To
      commence then:—The nose, according to Bartholinus, is that
      protuberance—that bump—that excrescence—that—”

      “Will do, Robert,” interrupted the good old gentleman. “I am
      thunderstruck at the extent of your information—I am
      positively—upon my soul.” [Here he closed his eyes and placed his
      hand upon his heart.] “Come here!” [Here he took me by the arm.]
      “Your education may now be considered as finished—it is high time
      you should scuffle for yourself—and you cannot do a better thing
      than merely follow your nose—so—so—so—” [Here he kicked me
      downstairs and out of the door.]—“so get out of my house, and God
      bless you!”

      As I felt within me the divine afflatus, I considered this
      accident rather fortunate than otherwise. I resolved to be guided
      by the paternal advice. I determined to follow my nose. I gave it
      a pull or two upon the spot, and wrote a pamphlet on Nosology
      forthwith.

      All Fum-Fudge was in an uproar.

      “Wonderful genius!” said the Quarterly.

      “Superb physiologist!” said the Westminster.

      “Clever fellow!” said the Foreign.

      “Fine writer!” said the Edinburgh.

      “Profound thinker!” said the Dublin.

      “Great man!” said Bentley.

      “Divine soul!” said Fraser.

      “One of us!” said Blackwood.

      “Who can he be?” said Mrs. Bas-Bleu.

      “What can he be?” said big Miss Bas-Bleu.

      “Where can he be?” said little Miss Bas-Bleu.—But I paid these
      people no attention whatever—I just stepped into the shop of an
      artist.

      The Duchess of Bless-my-Soul was sitting for her portrait; the
      Marquis of So-and-So was holding the Duchess’ poodle; the Earl of
      This-and-That was flirting with her salts; and his Royal Highness
      of Touch-me-Not was leaning upon the back of her chair.

      I approached the artist and turned up my nose.

      “Oh, beautiful!” sighed her Grace.

      “Oh my!” lisped the Marquis.

      “Oh, shocking!” groaned the Earl.

      “Oh, abominable!” growled his Royal Highness.

      “What will you take for it?” asked the artist.

      “For his nose!” shouted her Grace.

      “A thousand pounds,” said I, sitting down.

      “A thousand pounds?” inquired the artist, musingly.

      “A thousand pounds,” said I.

      “Beautiful!” said he, entranced.

      “A thousand pounds,” said I.

      “Do you warrant it?” he asked, turning the nose to the light.

      “I do,” said I, blowing it well.

      “Is it quite original?” he inquired; touching it with reverence.

      “Humph!” said I, twisting it to one side.

      “Has no copy been taken?” he demanded, surveying it through a
      microscope.

      “None,” said I, turning it up.

      “Admirable!” he ejaculated, thrown quite off his guard by the
      beauty of the manœuvre.

      “A thousand pounds,” said I.

      “A thousand pounds?” said he.

      “Precisely,” said I.

      “A thousand pounds?” said he.

      “Just so,” said I.

      “You shall have them,” said he. “What a piece of virtu!” So he
      drew me a check upon the spot, and took a sketch of my nose. I
      engaged rooms in Jermyn street, and sent her Majesty the
      ninety-ninth edition of the “Nosology,” with a portrait of the
      proboscis.—That sad little rake, the Prince of Wales, invited me
      to dinner.

      We were all lions and _recherchés_.

      There was a modern Platonist. He quoted Porphyry, Iamblicus,
      Plotinus, Proclus, Hierocles, Maximus Tyrius, and Syrianus.

      There was a human-perfectibility man. He quoted Turgôt, Price,
      Priestly, Condorcêt, De Staël, and the “Ambitious Student in Ill
      Health.”

      There was Sir Positive Paradox. He observed that all fools were
      philosophers, and that all philosophers were fools.

      There was Æstheticus Ethix. He spoke of fire, unity, and atoms;
      bi-part and pre-existent soul; affinity and discord; primitive
      intelligence and homoömeria.

      There was Theologos Theology. He talked of Eusebius and Arianus;
      heresy and the Council of Nice; Puseyism and consubstantialism;
      Homousios and Homouioisios.

      There was Fricassée from the Rocher de Cancale. He mentioned
      Muriton of red tongue; cauliflowers with _velouté_ sauce; veal _à
      la St_. Menehoult; marinade _à la_ St. Florentin; and orange
      jellies _en mosaïques_.

      There was Bibulus O’Bumper. He touched upon Latour and
      Markbrünnen; upon Mousseux and Chambertin; upon Richbourg and St.
      George; upon Haubrion, Leonville, and Medoc; upon Barac and
      Preignac; upon Grâve, upon Sauterne, upon Lafitte, and upon St.
      Peray. He shook his head at Clos de Vougeot, and told, with his
      eyes shut, the difference between Sherry and Amontillado.

      There was Signor Tintontintino from Florence. He discoursed of
      Cimabué, Arpino, Carpaccio, and Argostino—of the gloom of
      Caravaggio, of the amenity of Albano, of the colors of Titian, of
      the frows of Rubens, and of the waggeries of Jan Steen.

      There was the President of the Fum-Fudge University. He was of
      opinion that the moon was called Bendis in Thrace, Bubastis in
      Egypt, Dian in Rome, and Artemis in Greece.

      There was a Grand Turk from Stamboul. He could not help thinking
      that the angels were horses, cocks, and bulls; that somebody in
      the sixth heaven had seventy thousand heads; and that the earth
      was supported by a sky-blue cow with an incalculable number of
      green horns.

      There was Delphinus Polyglott. He told us what had become of the
      eighty-three lost tragedies of Æschylus; of the fifty-four
      orations of Isæus; of the three hundred and ninety-one speeches
      of Lysias; of the hundred and eighty treatises of Theophrastus;
      of the eighth book of the conic sections of Apollonius; of
      Pindar’s hymns and dithyrambics; and of the five and forty
      tragedies of Homer Junior.

      There was Ferdinand Fitz-Fossillus Feltspar. He informed us all
      about internal fires and tertiary formations; about aëriforms,
      fluidiforms, and solidiforms; about quartz and marl; about schist
      and schorl; about gypsum and trap; about talc and calc; about
      blende and horn-blende; about mica-slate and pudding-stone; about
      cyanite and lepidolite; about hematite and tremolite; about
      antimony and calcedony; about manganese and whatever you please.

      There was myself. I spoke of myself;—of myself, of myself, of
      myself;—of Nosology, of my pamphlet, and of myself. I turned up
      my nose, and I spoke of myself.

      “Marvellous clever man!” said the Prince.

      “Superb!” said his guests;—and next morning her Grace of
      Bless-my-Soul paid me a visit.

      “Will you go to Almack’s, pretty creature?” she said, tapping me
      under the chin.

      “Upon honor,” said I.

      “Nose and all?” she asked.

      “As I live,” I replied.

      “Here then is a card, my life. Shall I say you will be there?”

      “Dear Duchess, with all my heart.”

      “Pshaw, no!—but with all your nose?”

      “Every bit of it, my love,” said I:—so I gave it a twist or two,
      and found myself at Almack’s. The rooms were crowded to
      suffocation.

      “He is coming!” said somebody on the staircase.

      “He is coming!” said somebody farther up.

      “He is coming!” said somebody farther still.

      “He is come!” exclaimed the Duchess. “He is come, the little
      love!”—and, seizing me firmly by both hands, she kissed me thrice
      upon the nose. A marked sensation immediately ensued.

      “_Diavolo!_” cried Count Capricornutti.

      “_Dios guarda!_” muttered Don Stiletto.

      “_Mille tonnerres!_” ejaculated the Prince de Grenouille.

      “_Tousand teufel!_” growled the Elector of Bluddennuff.

      It was not to be borne. I grew angry. I turned short upon
      Bluddennuff.

      “Sir!” said I to him, “you are a baboon.”

      “Sir,” he replied, after a pause, “_Donner und Blitzen!_”

      This was all that could be desired. We exchanged cards. At
      Chalk-Farm, the next morning, I shot off his nose—and then called
      upon my friends.

      “_Bête!_” said the first.

      “Fool!” said the second.

      “Dolt!” said the third.

      “Ass!” said the fourth.

      “Ninny!” said the fifth.

      “Noodle!” said the sixth.

      “Be off!” said the seventh.

      At all this I felt mortified, and so called upon my father.

      “Father,” I asked, “what is the chief end of my existence?”

      “My son,” he replied, “it is still the study of Nosology; but in
      hitting the Elector upon the nose you have overshot your mark.
      You have a fine nose, it is true; but then Bluddennuff has none.
      You are damned, and he has become the hero of the day. I grant
      you that in Fum-Fudge the greatness of a lion is in proportion to
      the size of his proboscis—but, good heavens! there is no
      competing with a lion who has no proboscis at all.”




X-ING A PARAGRAB


      As it is well known that the ‘wise men’ came ‘from the East,’ and
      as Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head came from the East, it follows
      that Mr. Bullet-head was a wise man; and if collateral proof of
      the matter be needed, here we have it—Mr. B. was an editor.
      Irascibility was his sole foible, for in fact the obstinacy of
      which men accused him was anything but his foible, since he
      justly considered it his forte. It was his strong point—his
      virtue; and it would have required all the logic of a Brownson to
      convince him that it was ‘anything else.’

      I have shown that Touch-and-go Bullet-head was a wise man; and
      the only occasion on which he did not prove infallible, was when,
      abandoning that legitimate home for all wise men, the East, he
      migrated to the city of Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, or some
      place of a similar title, out West.

      I must do him the justice to say, however, that when he made up
      his mind finally to settle in that town, it was under the
      impression that no newspaper, and consequently no editor, existed
      in that particular section of the country. In establishing ‘The
      Tea-Pot’ he expected to have the field all to himself. I feel
      confident he never would have dreamed of taking up his residence
      in Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis had he been aware that, in
      Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis, there lived a gentleman named John
      Smith (if I rightly remember), who for many years had there
      quietly grown fat in editing and publishing the
      ‘Alexander-the-Great-o-nopolis Gazette.’ It was solely,
      therefore, on account of having been misinformed, that Mr.
      Bullet-head found himself in Alex—— suppose we call it Nopolis,
      ‘for short’—but, as he did find himself there, he determined to
      keep up his character for obst—for firmness, and remain. So
      remain he did; and he did more; he unpacked his press, type,
      etc., etc., rented an office exactly opposite to that of the
      ‘Gazette,’ and, on the third morning after his arrival, issued
      the first number of ‘The Alexan’—that is to say, of ‘The Nopolis
      Tea-Pot’—as nearly as I can recollect, this was the name of the
      new paper.

      The leading article, I must admit, was brilliant—not to say
      severe. It was especially bitter about things in general—and as
      for the editor of ‘The Gazette,’ he was torn all to pieces in
      particular. Some of Bullet-head’s remarks were really so fiery
      that I have always, since that time, been forced to look upon
      John Smith, who is still alive, in the light of a salamander. I
      cannot pretend to give all the ‘Tea-Pot’s’ paragraphs verbatim,
      but one of them runs thus:

      ‘Oh, yes!—Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! The editor over the way
      is a genius—O, my! Oh, goodness, gracious!—what is this world
      coming to? Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!’

      A philippic at once so caustic and so classical, alighted like a
      bombshell among the hitherto peaceful citizens of Nopolis. Groups
      of excited individuals gathered at the corners of the streets.
      Every one awaited, with heartfelt anxiety, the reply of the
      dignified Smith. Next morning it appeared as follows:

      ‘We quote from “The Tea-Pot” of yesterday the subjoined
      paragraph: “Oh, yes! Oh, we perceive! Oh, no doubt! Oh, my! Oh,
      goodness! Oh, tempora! Oh, Moses!” Why, the fellow is all O! That
      accounts for his reasoning in a circle, and explains why there is
      neither beginning nor end to him, nor to anything he says. We
      really do not believe the vagabond can write a word that hasn’t
      an O in it. Wonder if this O-ing is a habit of his? By-the-by, he
      came away from Down-East in a great hurry. Wonder if he O’s as
      much there as he does here? “O! it is pitiful.”’

      The indignation of Mr. Bullet-head at these scandalous
      insinuations, I shall not attempt to describe. On the
      eel-skinning principle, however, he did not seem to be so much
      incensed at the attack upon his integrity as one might have
      imagined. It was the sneer at his style that drove him to
      desperation. What!—he Touch-and-go Bullet-head!—not able to write
      a word without an O in it! He would soon let the jackanapes see
      that he was mistaken. Yes! he would let him see how much he was
      mistaken, the puppy! He, Touch-and-go Bullet-head, of
      Frogpondium, would let Mr. John Smith perceive that he,
      Bullet-head, could indite, if it so pleased him, a whole
      paragraph—aye! a whole article—in which that contemptible vowel
      should not once—not even once—make its appearance. But no;—that
      would be yielding a point to the said John Smith. He,
      Bullet-head, would make no alteration in his style, to suit the
      caprices of any Mr. Smith in Christendom. Perish so vile a
      thought! The O forever; He would persist in the O. He would be as
      O-wy as O-wy could be.

      Burning with the chivalry of this determination, the great
      Touch-and-go, in the next ‘Tea-Pot,’ came out merely with this
      simple but resolute paragraph, in reference to this unhappy
      affair:

      ‘The editor of the “Tea-Pot” has the honor of advising the editor
      of the “Gazette” that he (the “Tea-Pot”) will take an opportunity
      in tomorrow morning’s paper, of convincing him (the “Gazette”)
      that he (the “Tea-Pot”) both can and will be _his own master_, as
      regards style;—he (the “Tea-Pot”) intending to show him (the
      “Gazette”) the supreme, and indeed the withering contempt with
      which the criticism of him (the “Gazette”) inspires the
      independent bosom of him (the “Tea-Pot”) by composing for the
      especial gratification (?) of him (the “Gazette”) a leading
      article, of some extent, in which the beautiful vowel—the emblem
      of Eternity—yet so offensive to the hyper-exquisite delicacy of
      him (the “Gazette”) shall most certainly not be avoided by his
      (the “Gazette’s”) most obedient, humble servant, the “Tea-Pot.”
      “So much for Buckingham!”’

      In fulfilment of the awful threat thus darkly intimated rather
      than decidedly enunciated, the great Bullet-head, turning a deaf
      ear to all entreaties for ‘copy,’ and simply requesting his
      foreman to ‘go to the d——l,’ when he (the foreman) assured him
      (the ‘Tea-Pot’!) that it was high time to ‘go to press’: turning
      a deaf ear to everything, I say, the great Bullet-head sat up
      until day-break, consuming the midnight oil, and absorbed in the
      composition of the really unparalleled paragraph, which follows:—

      ‘So ho, John! how now? Told you so, you know. Don’t crow, another
      time, before you’re out of the woods! Does your mother know
      you’re out? Oh, no, no!—so go home at once, now, John, to your
      odious old woods of Concord! Go home to your woods, old owl—go!
      You won’t! Oh, poh, poh, John don’t do so! You’ve _got_ to go,
      you know! So go at once, and don’t go slow, for nobody owns you
      here, you know! Oh! John, John, if you don’t go you’re no
      homo—no! You’re only a fowl, an owl; a cow, a sow; a doll, a
      poll; a poor, old, good-for-nothing-to-nobody, log, dog, hog, or
      frog, come out of a Concord bog. Cool, now—cool! Do be cool, you
      fool! None of your crowing, old cock! Don’t frown so—don’t! Don’t
      hollo, nor howl nor growl, nor bow-wow-wow! Good Lord, John, how
      you do look! Told you so, you know—but stop rolling your goose of
      an old poll about so, and go and drown your sorrows in a bowl!’

      Exhausted, very naturally, by so stupendous an effort, the great
      Touch-and-go could attend to nothing farther that night. Firmly,
      composedly, yet with an air of conscious power, he handed his MS.
      to the devil in waiting, and then, walking leisurely home,
      retired, with ineffable dignity to bed.

      Meantime the devil, to whom the copy was entrusted, ran up stairs
      to his ‘case,’ in an unutterable hurry, and forthwith made a
      commencement at ‘setting’ the MS. ‘up.’

      In the first place, of course,—as the opening word was ‘So,’—he
      made a plunge into the capital S hole and came out in triumph
      with a capital S. Elated by this success, he immediately threw
      himself upon the little-o box with a blindfold impetuosity—but
      who shall describe his horror when his fingers came up without
      the anticipated letter in their clutch? who shall paint his
      astonishment and rage at perceiving, as he rubbed his knuckles,
      that he had been only thumping them to no purpose, against the
      bottom of an empty box. Not a single little-o was in the little-o
      hole; and, glancing fearfully at the capital-O partition, he
      found _that_, to his extreme terror, in a precisely similar
      predicament. Awe-stricken, his first impulse was to rush to the
      foreman.

      ‘Sir!’ said he, gasping for breath, ‘I can’t never set up nothing
      without no o’s.’

      ‘What do you mean by that?’ growled the foreman, who was in a
      very ill humor at being kept so late.

      ‘Why, sir, there beant an o in the office, neither a big un nor a
      little un!’

      ‘What—what the d—l has become of all that were in the case?’

      ‘I don’t know, sir,’ said the boy, ‘but one of them ere “G’zette”
      devils is bin prowling ’bout here all night, and I spect he’s
      gone and cabbaged ‘em every one.’

      ‘Dod rot him! I haven’t a doubt of it,’ replied the foreman,
      getting purple with rage ‘but I tell you what you do, Bob, that’s
      a good boy—you go over the first chance you get and hook every
      one of their i’s and (d——n them!) their izzards.’

      ‘Jist so,’ replied Bob, with a wink and a frown—‘I’ll be into
      ‘em, I’ll let ‘em know a thing or two; but in de meantime, that
      ere paragrab? Mus go in to-night, you know—else there’ll be the
      d—l to pay, and—’

      ‘And not a bit of pitch hot,’ interrupted the foreman, with a
      deep sigh, and an emphasis on the ‘bit.’ ‘Is it a long paragraph,
      Bob?’

      ‘Shouldn’t call it a _wery_ long paragrab,’ said Bob.

      ‘Ah, well, then! do the best you can with it! We must get to
      press,’ said the foreman, who was over head and ears in work;
      ‘just stick in some other letter for o; nobody’s going to read
      the fellow’s trash anyhow.’

      ‘Wery well,’ replied Bob, ‘here goes it!’ and off he hurried to
      his case, muttering as he went: ‘Considdeble vell, them ere
      expressions, perticcler for a man as doesn’t swar. So I’s to
      gouge out all their eyes, eh? and d-n all their gizzards! Vell!
      this here’s the chap as is just able for to do it.’ The fact is
      that although Bob was but twelve years old and four feet high, he
      was equal to any amount of fight, in a small way.

      The exigency here described is by no means of rare occurrence in
      printing-offices; and I cannot tell how to account for it, but
      the fact is indisputable, that when the exigency does occur, it
      almost always happens that x is adopted as a substitute for the
      letter deficient. The true reason, perhaps, is that x is rather
      the most superabundant letter in the cases, or at least was so in
      the old times—long enough to render the substitution in question
      an habitual thing with printers. As for Bob, he would have
      considered it heretical to employ any other character, in a case
      of this kind, than the x to which he had been accustomed.

      ‘I shell have to x this ere paragrab,’ said he to himself, as he
      read it over in astonishment, ‘but it’s jest about the awfulest
      o-wy paragrab I ever did see’: so x it he did, unflinchingly, and
      to press it went x-ed.

      Next morning the population of Nopolis were taken all aback by
      reading in ‘The Tea-Pot,’ the following extraordinary leader:

      ‘Sx hx, Jxhn! hxw nxw? Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw. Dxn’t crxw, anxther
      time, befxre yxu’re xut xf the wxxds! Dxes yxur mxther knxw
      yxu’re xut? Xh, nx, nx!—sx gx hxme at xnce, nxw, Jxhn, tx yxur
      xdixus xld wxxds xf Cxncxrd! Gx hxme tx yxur wxxds, xld xwl,—gx!
      Yxu wxn’t? Xh, pxh, pxh, Jxhn, dxn’t dx sx! Yxu’ve gxt tx gx, yxu
      knxw, sx gx at xnce, and dxn’t gx slxw; fxr nxbxdy xwns yxu here,
      yxu knxw. Xh, Jxhn, Jxhn, Jxhn, if yxu dxn’t gx yxu’re nx
      hxmx—nx! Yxu’re xnly a fxwl, an xwl; a cxw, a sxw; a dxll, a
      pxll; a pxxr xld gxxd-fxr-nxthing-tx-nxbxdy, lxg, dxg, hxg, xr
      frxg, cxme xut xf a Cxncxrd bxg. Cxxl, nxw—cxxl! Dx be cxxl, yxu
      fxxl! Nxne xf yxur crxwing, xld cxck! Dxn’t frxwn sx—dxn’t! Dxn’t
      hxllx, nxr hxwl, nxr grxwl, nxr bxw-wxw-wxw! Gxxd Lxrd, Jxhn, hxw
      yxu dx lxxk! Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw,—but stxp rxlling yxur gxxse
      xf an xld pxll abxut sx, and gx and drxwn yxur sxrrxws in a
      bxwl!’

      The uproar occasioned by this mystical and cabalistical article,
      is not to be conceived. The first definite idea entertained by
      the populace was, that some diabolical treason lay concealed in
      the hieroglyphics; and there was a general rush to Bullet-head’s
      residence, for the purpose of riding him on a rail; but that
      gentleman was nowhere to be found. He had vanished, no one could
      tell how; and not even the ghost of him has ever been seen since.

      Unable to discover its legitimate object, the popular fury at
      length subsided; leaving behind it, by way of sediment, quite a
      medley of opinion about this unhappy affair.

      One gentleman thought the whole an X-ellent joke.

      Another said that, indeed, Bullet-head had shown much X-uberance
      of fancy.

      A third admitted him X-entric, but no more.

      A fourth could only suppose it the Yankee’s design to X-press, in
      a general way, his X-asperation.

      ‘Say, rather, to set an X-ample to posterity,’ suggested a fifth.

      That Bullet-head had been driven to an extremity, was clear to
      all; and in fact, since that editor could not be found, there was
      some talk about lynching the other one.

      The more common conclusion, however, was that the affair was,
      simply, X-traordinary and in-X-plicable. Even the town
      mathematician confessed that he could make nothing of so dark a
      problem. X, everybody knew, was an unknown quantity; but in this
      case (as he properly observed), there was an unknown quantity of
      X.

      The opinion of Bob, the devil (who kept dark about his having
      ‘X-ed the paragrab’), did not meet with so much attention as I
      think it deserved, although it was very openly and very
      fearlessly expressed. He said that, for his part, he had no doubt
      about the matter at all, that it was a clear case, that Mr.
      Bullet-head ‘never could be persuaded fur to drink like other
      folks, but vas continually a-svigging o’ that ere blessed XXX
      ale, and as a naiteral consekvence, it just puffed him up savage,
      and made him X (cross) in the X-treme.’




METZENGERSTEIN


     Pestis eram vivus—moriens tua mors ero.
                    —_Martin Luther_

      Horror and fatality have been stalking abroad in all ages. Why
      then give a date to this story I have to tell? Let it suffice to
      say, that at the period of which I speak, there existed, in the
      interior of Hungary, a settled although hidden belief in the
      doctrines of the Metempsychosis. Of the doctrines themselves—that
      is, of their falsity, or of their probability—I say nothing. I
      assert, however, that much of our incredulity—as La Bruyère says
      of all our unhappiness—“_vient de ne pouvoir être seuls_.” {*1}

      But there are some points in the Hungarian superstition which
      were fast verging to absurdity. They—the Hungarians—differed very
      essentially from their Eastern authorities. For example, “_The
      soul_,” said the former—I give the words of an acute and
      intelligent Parisian—“_ne demeure qu’un seul fois dans un corps
      sensible: au reste—un cheval, un chien, un homme même, n’est que
      la ressemblance peu tangible de ces animaux._”

      The families of Berlifitzing and Metzengerstein had been at
      variance for centuries. Never before were two houses so
      illustrious, mutually embittered by hostility so deadly. The
      origin of this enmity seems to be found in the words of an
      ancient prophecy—“A lofty name shall have a fearful fall when, as
      the rider over his horse, the mortality of Metzengerstein shall
      triumph over the immortality of Berlifitzing.”

      To be sure the words themselves had little or no meaning. But
      more trivial causes have given rise—and that no long while ago—to
      consequences equally eventful. Besides, the estates, which were
      contiguous, had long exercised a rival influence in the affairs
      of a busy government. Moreover, near neighbors are seldom
      friends; and the inhabitants of the Castle Berlifitzing might
      look, from their lofty buttresses, into the very windows of the
      palace Metzengerstein. Least of all had the more than feudal
      magnificence, thus discovered, a tendency to allay the irritable
      feelings of the less ancient and less wealthy Berlifitzings. What
      wonder then, that the words, however silly, of that prediction,
      should have succeeded in setting and keeping at variance two
      families already predisposed to quarrel by every instigation of
      hereditary jealousy? The prophecy seemed to imply—if it implied
      anything—a final triumph on the part of the already more powerful
      house; and was of course remembered with the more bitter
      animosity by the weaker and less influential.

      Wilhelm, Count Berlifitzing, although loftily descended, was, at
      the epoch of this narrative, an infirm and doting old man,
      remarkable for nothing but an inordinate and inveterate personal
      antipathy to the family of his rival, and so passionate a love of
      horses, and of hunting, that neither bodily infirmity, great age,
      nor mental incapacity, prevented his daily participation in the
      dangers of the chase.

      Frederick, Baron Metzengerstein, was, on the other hand, not yet
      of age. His father, the Minister G—, died young. His mother, the
      Lady Mary, followed him quickly after. Frederick was, at that
      time, in his fifteenth year. In a city, fifteen years are no long
      period—a child may be still a child in his third lustrum: but in
      a wilderness—in so magnificent a wilderness as that old
      principality, fifteen years have a far deeper meaning.

      From some peculiar circumstances attending the administration of
      his father, the young Baron, at the decease of the former,
      entered immediately upon his vast possessions. Such estates were
      seldom held before by a nobleman of Hungary. His castles were
      without number. The chief in point of splendor and extent was the
      “Château Metzengerstein.” The boundary line of his dominions was
      never clearly defined; but his principal park embraced a circuit
      of fifty miles.

      Upon the succession of a proprietor so young, with a character so
      well known, to a fortune so unparalleled, little speculation was
      afloat in regard to his probable course of conduct. And, indeed,
      for the space of three days, the behavior of the heir out-Heroded
      Herod, and fairly surpassed the expectations of his most
      enthusiastic admirers. Shameful debaucheries—flagrant
      treacheries—unheard-of atrocities—gave his trembling vassals
      quickly to understand that no servile submission on their part—no
      punctilios of conscience on his own—were thenceforward to prove
      any security against the remorseless fangs of a petty Caligula.
      On the night of the fourth day, the stables of the castle
      Berlifitzing were discovered to be on fire; and the unanimous
      opinion of the neighborhood added the crime of the incendiary to
      the already hideous list of the Baron’s misdemeanors and
      enormities.

      But during the tumult occasioned by this occurrence, the young
      nobleman himself sat apparently buried in meditation, in a vast
      and desolate upper apartment of the family palace of
      Metzengerstein. The rich although faded tapestry hangings which
      swung gloomily upon the walls, represented the shadowy and
      majestic forms of a thousand illustrious ancestors. _Here_,
      rich-ermined priests, and pontifical dignitaries, familiarly
      seated with the autocrat and the sovereign, put a veto on the
      wishes of a temporal king, or restrained with the fiat of papal
      supremacy the rebellious sceptre of the Arch-enemy. _There_, the
      dark, tall statures of the Princes Metzengerstein—their muscular
      war-coursers plunging over the carcasses of fallen foes—startled
      the steadiest nerves with their vigorous expression; and _here_,
      again, the voluptuous and swan-like figures of the dames of days
      gone by, floated away in the mazes of an unreal dance to the
      strains of imaginary melody.

      But as the Baron listened, or affected to listen, to the
      gradually increasing uproar in the stables of Berlifitzing—or
      perhaps pondered upon some more novel, some more decided act of
      audacity—his eyes became unwittingly rivetted to the figure of an
      enormous, and unnaturally colored horse, represented in the
      tapestry as belonging to a Saracen ancestor of the family of his
      rival. The horse itself, in the foreground of the design, stood
      motionless and statue-like—while farther back, its discomfited
      rider perished by the dagger of a Metzengerstein.

      On Frederick’s lip arose a fiendish expression, as he became
      aware of the direction which his glance had, without his
      consciousness, assumed. Yet he did not remove it. On the
      contrary, he could by no means account for the overwhelming
      anxiety which appeared falling like a pall upon his senses. It
      was with difficulty that he reconciled his dreamy and incoherent
      feelings with the certainty of being awake. The longer he gazed
      the more absorbing became the spell—the more impossible did it
      appear that he could ever withdraw his glance from the
      fascination of that tapestry. But the tumult without becoming
      suddenly more violent, with a compulsory exertion he diverted his
      attention to the glare of ruddy light thrown full by the flaming
      stables upon the windows of the apartment.

      The action, however, was but momentary, his gaze returned
      mechanically to the wall. To his extreme horror and astonishment,
      the head of the gigantic steed had, in the meantime, altered its
      position. The neck of the animal, before arched, as if in
      compassion, over the prostrate body of its lord, was now
      extended, at full length, in the direction of the Baron. The
      eyes, before invisible, now wore an energetic and human
      expression, while they gleamed with a fiery and unusual red; and
      the distended lips of the apparently enraged horse left in full
      view his gigantic and disgusting teeth.

      Stupefied with terror, the young nobleman tottered to the door.
      As he threw it open, a flash of red light, streaming far into the
      chamber, flung his shadow with a clear outline against the
      quivering tapestry, and he shuddered to perceive that shadow—as
      he staggered awhile upon the threshold—assuming the exact
      position, and precisely filling up the contour, of the relentless
      and triumphant murderer of the Saracen Berlifitzing.

      To lighten the depression of his spirits, the Baron hurried into
      the open air. At the principal gate of the palace he encountered
      three equerries. With much difficulty, and at the imminent peril
      of their lives, they were restraining the convulsive plunges of a
      gigantic and fiery-colored horse.

      “Whose horse? Where did you get him?” demanded the youth, in a
      querulous and husky tone of voice, as he became instantly aware
      that the mysterious steed in the tapestried chamber was the very
      counterpart of the furious animal before his eyes.

      “He is your own property, sire,” replied one of the equerries,
      “at least he is claimed by no other owner. We caught him flying,
      all smoking and foaming with rage, from the burning stables of
      the Castle Berlifitzing. Supposing him to have belonged to the
      old Count’s stud of foreign horses, we led him back as an estray.
      But the grooms there disclaim any title to the creature; which is
      strange, since he bears evident marks of having made a narrow
      escape from the flames.

      “The letters W. V. B. are also branded very distinctly on his
      forehead,” interrupted a second equerry, “I supposed them, of
      course, to be the initials of Wilhelm Von Berlifitzing—but all at
      the castle are positive in denying any knowledge of the horse.”

      “Extremely singular!” said the young Baron, with a musing air,
      and apparently unconscious of the meaning of his words. “He is,
      as you say, a remarkable horse—a prodigious horse! although, as
      you very justly observe, of a suspicious and untractable
      character; let him be mine, however,” he added, after a pause,
      “perhaps a rider like Frederick of Metzengerstein, may tame even
      the devil from the stables of Berlifitzing.”

      “You are mistaken, my lord; the horse, as I think we mentioned,
      is _not_ from the stables of the Count. If such had been the
      case, we know our duty better than to bring him into the presence
      of a noble of your family.”

      “True!” observed the Baron, dryly, and at that instant a page of
      the bedchamber came from the palace with a heightened color, and
      a precipitate step. He whispered into his master’s ear an account
      of the sudden disappearance of a small portion of the tapestry,
      in an apartment which he designated; entering, at the same time,
      into particulars of a minute and circumstantial character; but
      from the low tone of voice in which these latter were
      communicated, nothing escaped to gratify the excited curiosity of
      the equerries.

      The young Frederick, during the conference, seemed agitated by a
      variety of emotions. He soon, however, recovered his composure,
      and an expression of determined malignancy settled upon his
      countenance, as he gave peremptory orders that a certain chamber
      should be immediately locked up, and the key placed in his own
      possession.

      “Have you heard of the unhappy death of the old hunter
      Berlifitzing?” said one of his vassals to the Baron, as, after
      the departure of the page, the huge steed which that nobleman had
      adopted as his own, plunged and curvetted, with redoubled fury,
      down the long avenue which extended from the château to the
      stables of Metzengerstein.

      “No!” said the Baron, turning abruptly toward the speaker, “dead!
      say you?”

      “It is indeed true, my lord; and, to a noble of your name, will
      be, I imagine, no unwelcome intelligence.”

      A rapid smile shot over the countenance of the listener. “How
      died he?”

      “In his rash exertions to rescue a favorite portion of his
      hunting stud, he has himself perished miserably in the flames.”

      “I-n-d-e-e-d-!” ejaculated the Baron, as if slowly and
      deliberately impressed with the truth of some exciting idea.

      “Indeed;” repeated the vassal.

      “Shocking!” said the youth, calmly, and turned quietly into the
      château.

      From this date a marked alteration took place in the outward
      demeanor of the dissolute young Baron Frederick Von
      Metzengerstein. Indeed, his behavior disappointed every
      expectation, and proved little in accordance with the views of
      many a manoeuvering mamma; while his habits and manner, still
      less than formerly, offered any thing congenial with those of the
      neighboring aristocracy. He was never to be seen beyond the
      limits of his own domain, and, in this wide and social world, was
      utterly companionless—unless, indeed, that unnatural, impetuous,
      and fiery-colored horse, which he henceforward continually
      bestrode, had any mysterious right to the title of his friend.

      Numerous invitations on the part of the neighborhood for a long
      time, however, periodically came in. “Will the Baron honor our
      festivals with his presence?” “Will the Baron join us in a
      hunting of the boar?”—“Metzengerstein does not hunt;”
      “Metzengerstein will not attend,” were the haughty and laconic
      answers.

      These repeated insults were not to be endured by an imperious
      nobility. Such invitations became less cordial—less frequent—in
      time they ceased altogether. The widow of the unfortunate Count
      Berlifitzing was even heard to express a hope “that the Baron
      might be at home when he did not wish to be at home, since he
      disdained the company of his equals; and ride when he did not
      wish to ride, since he preferred the society of a horse.” This to
      be sure was a very silly explosion of hereditary pique; and
      merely proved how singularly unmeaning our sayings are apt to
      become, when we desire to be unusually energetic.

      The charitable, nevertheless, attributed the alteration in the
      conduct of the young nobleman to the natural sorrow of a son for
      the untimely loss of his parents—forgetting, however, his
      atrocious and reckless behavior during the short period
      immediately succeeding that bereavement. Some there were, indeed,
      who suggested a too haughty idea of self-consequence and dignity.
      Others again (among them may be mentioned the family physician)
      did not hesitate in speaking of morbid melancholy, and hereditary
      ill-health; while dark hints, of a more equivocal nature, were
      current among the multitude.

      Indeed, the Baron’s perverse attachment to his lately-acquired
      charger—an attachment which seemed to attain new strength from
      every fresh example of the animal’s ferocious and demon-like
      propensities—at length became, in the eyes of all reasonable men,
      a hideous and unnatural fervor. In the glare of noon—at the dead
      hour of night—in sickness or in health—in calm or in tempest—the
      young Metzengerstein seemed rivetted to the saddle of that
      colossal horse, whose intractable audacities so well accorded
      with his own spirit.

      There were circumstances, moreover, which coupled with late
      events, gave an unearthly and portentous character to the mania
      of the rider, and to the capabilities of the steed. The space
      passed over in a single leap had been accurately measured, and
      was found to exceed, by an astounding difference, the wildest
      expectations of the most imaginative. The Baron, besides, had no
      particular _name_ for the animal, although all the rest in his
      collection were distinguished by characteristic appellations. His
      stable, too, was appointed at a distance from the rest; and with
      regard to grooming and other necessary offices, none but the
      owner in person had ventured to officiate, or even to enter the
      enclosure of that particular stall. It was also to be observed,
      that although the three grooms, who had caught the steed as he
      fled from the conflagration at Berlifitzing, had succeeded in
      arresting his course, by means of a chain-bridle and noose—yet no
      one of the three could with any certainty affirm that he had,
      during that dangerous struggle, or at any period thereafter,
      actually placed his hand upon the body of the beast. Instances of
      peculiar intelligence in the demeanor of a noble and
      high-spirited horse are not to be supposed capable of exciting
      unreasonable attention—especially among men who, daily trained to
      the labors of the chase, might appear well acquainted with the
      sagacity of a horse—but there were certain circumstances which
      intruded themselves per force upon the most skeptical and
      phlegmatic; and it is said there were times when the animal
      caused the gaping crowd who stood around to recoil in horror from
      the deep and impressive meaning of his terrible stamp—times when
      the young Metzengerstein turned pale and shrunk away from the
      rapid and searching expression of his earnest and human-looking
      eye.

      Among all the retinue of the Baron, however, none were found to
      doubt the ardor of that extraordinary affection which existed on
      the part of the young nobleman for the fiery qualities of his
      horse; at least, none but an insignificant and misshapen little
      page, whose deformities were in everybody’s way, and whose
      opinions were of the least possible importance. He—if his ideas
      are worth mentioning at all—had the effrontery to assert that his
      master never vaulted into the saddle without an unaccountable and
      almost imperceptible shudder, and that, upon his return from
      every long-continued and habitual ride, an expression of
      triumphant malignity distorted every muscle in his countenance.

      One tempestuous night, Metzengerstein, awaking from a heavy
      slumber, descended like a maniac from his chamber, and, mounting
      in hot haste, bounded away into the mazes of the forest. An
      occurrence so common attracted no particular attention, but his
      return was looked for with intense anxiety on the part of his
      domestics, when, after some hours’ absence, the stupendous and
      magnificent battlements of the Chateau Metzengerstein, were
      discovered crackling and rocking to their very foundation, under
      the influence of a dense and livid mass of ungovernable fire.

      As the flames, when first seen, had already made so terrible a
      progress that all efforts to save any portion of the building
      were evidently futile, the astonished neighborhood stood idly
      around in silent and pathetic wonder. But a new and fearful
      object soon rivetted the attention of the multitude, and proved
      how much more intense is the excitement wrought in the feelings
      of a crowd by the contemplation of human agony, than that brought
      about by the most appalling spectacles of inanimate matter.

      Up the long avenue of aged oaks which led from the forest to the
      main entrance of the Château Metzengerstein, a steed, bearing an
      unbonneted and disordered rider, was seen leaping with an
      impetuosity which outstripped the very Demon of the Tempest.

      The career of the horseman was indisputably, on his own part,
      uncontrollable. The agony of his countenance, the convulsive
      struggle of his frame, gave evidence of superhuman exertion: but
      no sound, save a solitary shriek, escaped from his lacerated
      lips, which were bitten through and through in the intensity of
      terror. One instant, and the clattering of hoofs resounded
      sharply and shrilly above the roaring of the flames and the
      shrieking of the winds—another, and, clearing at a single plunge
      the gate-way and the moat, the steed bounded far up the tottering
      staircases of the palace, and, with its rider, disappeared amid
      the whirlwind of chaotic fire.

      The fury of the tempest immediately died away, and a dead calm
      sullenly succeeded. A white flame still enveloped the building
      like a shroud, and, streaming far away into the quiet atmosphere,
      shot forth a glare of preternatural light; while a cloud of smoke
      settled heavily over the battlements in the distinct colossal
      figure of—_a horse_.




THE SYSTEM OF DOCTOR TARR AND PROFESSOR FETHER


      During the autumn of 18—, while on a tour through the extreme
      southern provinces of France, my route led me within a few miles
      of a certain _Maison de Santé_ or private mad-house, about which
      I had heard much, in Paris, from my medical friends. As I had
      never visited a place of the kind, I thought the opportunity too
      good to be lost; and so proposed to my travelling companion (a
      gentleman with whom I had made casual acquaintance a few days
      before), that we should turn aside, for an hour or so, and look
      through the establishment. To this he objected—pleading haste in
      the first place, and, in the second, a very usual horror at the
      sight of a lunatic. He begged me, however, not to let any mere
      courtesy towards himself interfere with the gratification of my
      curiosity, and said that he would ride on leisurely, so that I
      might overtake him during the day, or, at all events, during the
      next. As he bade me good-bye, I bethought me that there might be
      some difficulty in obtaining access to the premises, and
      mentioned my fears on this point. He replied that, in fact,
      unless I had personal knowledge of the superintendent, Monsieur
      Maillard, or some credential in the way of a letter, a difficulty
      might be found to exist, as the regulations of these private
      mad-houses were more rigid than the public hospital laws. For
      himself, he added, he had, some years since, made the
      acquaintance of Maillard, and would so far assist me as to ride
      up to the door and introduce me; although his feelings on the
      subject of lunacy would not permit of his entering the house.

      I thanked him, and, turning from the main road, we entered a
      grass-grown by-path, which, in half an hour, nearly lost itself
      in a dense forest, clothing the base of a mountain. Through this
      dank and gloomy wood we rode some two miles, when the _Maison de
      Santé_ came in view. It was a fantastic château, much
      dilapidated, and indeed scarcely tenantable through age and
      neglect. Its aspect inspired me with absolute dread, and,
      checking my horse, I half resolved to turn back. I soon, however,
      grew ashamed of my weakness, and proceeded.

      As we rode up to the gate-way, I perceived it slightly open, and
      the visage of a man peering through. In an instant afterward,
      this man came forth, accosted my companion by name, shook him
      cordially by the hand, and begged him to alight. It was Monsieur
      Maillard himself. He was a portly, fine-looking gentleman of the
      old school, with a polished manner, and a certain air of gravity,
      dignity, and authority which was very impressive.

      My friend, having presented me, mentioned my desire to inspect
      the establishment, and received Monsieur Maillard’s assurance
      that he would show me all attention, now took leave, and I saw
      him no more.

      When he had gone, the superintendent ushered me into a small and
      exceedingly neat parlor, containing, among other indications of
      refined taste, many books, drawings, pots of flowers, and musical
      instruments. A cheerful fire blazed upon the hearth. At a piano,
      singing an aria from Bellini, sat a young and very beautiful
      woman, who, at my entrance, paused in her song, and received me
      with graceful courtesy. Her voice was low, and her whole manner
      subdued. I thought, too, that I perceived the traces of sorrow in
      her countenance, which was excessively, although to my taste, not
      unpleasingly, pale. She was attired in deep mourning, and excited
      in my bosom a feeling of mingled respect, interest, and
      admiration.

      I had heard, at Paris, that the institution of Monsieur Maillard
      was managed upon what is vulgarly termed the “system of
      soothing”—that all punishments were avoided—that even confinement
      was seldom resorted to—that the patients, while secretly watched,
      were left much apparent liberty, and that most of them were
      permitted to roam about the house and grounds in the ordinary
      apparel of persons in right mind.

      Keeping these impressions in view, I was cautious in what I said
      before the young lady; for I could not be sure that she was sane;
      and, in fact, there was a certain restless brilliancy about her
      eyes which half led me to imagine she was not. I confined my
      remarks, therefore, to general topics, and to such as I thought
      would not be displeasing or exciting even to a lunatic. She
      replied in a perfectly rational manner to all that I said; and
      even her original observations were marked with the soundest good
      sense, but a long acquaintance with the metaphysics of mania, had
      taught me to put no faith in such evidence of sanity, and I
      continued to practise, throughout the interview, the caution with
      which I commenced it.

      Presently a smart footman in livery brought in a tray with fruit,
      wine, and other refreshments, of which I partook, the lady soon
      afterward leaving the room. As she departed I turned my eyes in
      an inquiring manner toward my host.

      “No,” he said, “oh, no—a member of my family—my niece, and a most
      accomplished woman.”

      “I beg a thousand pardons for the suspicion,” I replied, “but of
      course you will know how to excuse me. The excellent
      administration of your affairs here is well understood in Paris,
      and I thought it just possible, you know—”

      “Yes, yes—say no more—or rather it is myself who should thank you
      for the commendable prudence you have displayed. We seldom find
      so much of forethought in young men; and, more than once, some
      unhappy contre-temps has occurred in consequence of
      thoughtlessness on the part of our visitors. While my former
      system was in operation, and my patients were permitted the
      privilege of roaming to and fro at will, they were often aroused
      to a dangerous frenzy by injudicious persons who called to
      inspect the house. Hence I was obliged to enforce a rigid system
      of exclusion; and none obtained access to the premises upon whose
      discretion I could not rely.”

      “While your former system was in operation!” I said, repeating
      his words—“do I understand you, then, to say that the ‘soothing
      system’ of which I have heard so much is no longer in force?”

      “It is now,” he replied, “several weeks since we have concluded
      to renounce it forever.”

      “Indeed! you astonish me!”

      “We found it, sir,” he said, with a sigh, “absolutely necessary
      to return to the old usages. The danger of the soothing system
      was, at all times, appalling; and its advantages have been much
      overrated. I believe, sir, that in this house it has been given a
      fair trial, if ever in any. We did every thing that rational
      humanity could suggest. I am sorry that you could not have paid
      us a visit at an earlier period, that you might have judged for
      yourself. But I presume you are conversant with the soothing
      practice—with its details.”

      “Not altogether. What I have heard has been at third or fourth
      hand.”

      “I may state the system, then, in general terms, as one in which
      the patients were _menagés_—humored. We contradicted no fancies
      which entered the brains of the mad. On the contrary, we not only
      indulged but encouraged them; and many of our most permanent
      cures have been thus effected. There is no argument which so
      touches the feeble reason of the madman as the argumentum ad
      absurdum. We have had men, for example, who fancied themselves
      chickens. The cure was, to insist upon the thing as a fact—to
      accuse the patient of stupidity in not sufficiently perceiving it
      to be a fact—and thus to refuse him any other diet for a week
      than that which properly appertains to a chicken. In this manner
      a little corn and gravel were made to perform wonders.”

      “But was this species of acquiescence all?”

      “By no means. We put much faith in amusements of a simple kind,
      such as music, dancing, gymnastic exercises generally, cards,
      certain classes of books, and so forth. We affected to treat each
      individual as if for some ordinary physical disorder; and the
      word ‘lunacy’ was never employed. A great point was to set each
      lunatic to guard the actions of all the others. To repose
      confidence in the understanding or discretion of a madman, is to
      gain him body and soul. In this way we were enabled to dispense
      with an expensive body of keepers.”

      “And you had no punishments of any kind?”

      “None.”

      “And you never confined your patients?”

      “Very rarely. Now and then, the malady of some individual growing
      to a crisis, or taking a sudden turn of fury, we conveyed him to
      a secret cell, lest his disorder should infect the rest, and
      there kept him until we could dismiss him to his friends—for with
      the raging maniac we have nothing to do. He is usually removed to
      the public hospitals.”

      “And you have now changed all this—and you think for the better?”

      “Decidedly. The system had its disadvantages, and even its
      dangers. It is now, happily, exploded throughout all the _Maisons
      de Santé_ of France.”

      “I am very much surprised,” I said, “at what you tell me; for I
      made sure that, at this moment, no other method of treatment for
      mania existed in any portion of the country.”

      “You are young yet, my friend,” replied my host, “but the time
      will arrive when you will learn to judge for yourself of what is
      going on in the world, without trusting to the gossip of others.
      Believe nothing you hear, and only one-half that you see. Now
      about our _Maisons de Santé_, it is clear that some ignoramus has
      misled you. After dinner, however, when you have sufficiently
      recovered from the fatigue of your ride, I will be happy to take
      you over the house, and introduce to you a system which, in my
      opinion, and in that of every one who has witnessed its
      operation, is incomparably the most effectual as yet devised.”

      “Your own?” I inquired—“one of your own invention?”

      “I am proud,” he replied, “to acknowledge that it is—at least in
      some measure.”

      In this manner I conversed with Monsieur Maillard for an hour or
      two, during which he showed me the gardens and conservatories of
      the place.

      “I cannot let you see my patients,” he said, “just at present. To
      a sensitive mind there is always more or less of the shocking in
      such exhibitions; and I do not wish to spoil your appetite for
      dinner. We will dine. I can give you some veal a la Menehoult,
      with cauliflowers in _velouté_ sauce—after that a glass of Clos
      de Vougeot—then your nerves will be sufficiently steadied.”

      At six, dinner was announced; and my host conducted me into a
      large _salle à manger_, where a very numerous company were
      assembled—twenty-five or thirty in all. They were, apparently,
      people of rank—certainly of high breeding—although their
      habiliments, I thought, were extravagantly rich, partaking
      somewhat too much of the ostentatious finery of the _vielle
      cour_. I noticed that at least two-thirds of these guests were
      ladies; and some of the latter were by no means accoutred in what
      a Parisian would consider good taste at the present day. Many
      females, for example, whose age could not have been less than
      seventy were bedecked with a profusion of jewelry, such as rings,
      bracelets, and earrings, and wore their bosoms and arms
      shamefully bare. I observed, too, that very few of the dresses
      were well made—or, at least, that very few of them fitted the
      wearers. In looking about, I discovered the interesting girl to
      whom Monsieur Maillard had presented me in the little parlor; but
      my surprise was great to see her wearing a hoop and farthingale,
      with high-heeled shoes, and a dirty cap of Brussels lace, so much
      too large for her that it gave her face a ridiculously diminutive
      expression. When I had first seen her, she was attired, most
      becomingly, in deep mourning. There was an air of oddity, in
      short, about the dress of the whole party, which, at first,
      caused me to recur to my original idea of the “soothing system,”
      and to fancy that Monsieur Maillard had been willing to deceive
      me until after dinner, that I might experience no uncomfortable
      feelings during the repast, at finding myself dining with
      lunatics; but I remembered having been informed, in Paris, that
      the southern provincialists were a peculiarly eccentric people,
      with a vast number of antiquated notions; and then, too, upon
      conversing with several members of the company, my apprehensions
      were immediately and fully dispelled.

      The dining-room itself, although perhaps sufficiently comfortable
      and of good dimensions, had nothing too much of elegance about
      it. For example, the floor was uncarpeted; in France, however, a
      carpet is frequently dispensed with. The windows, too, were
      without curtains; the shutters, being shut, were securely
      fastened with iron bars, applied diagonally, after the fashion of
      our ordinary shop-shutters. The apartment, I observed, formed, in
      itself, a wing of the château, and thus the windows were on three
      sides of the parallelogram, the door being at the other. There
      were no less than ten windows in all.

      The table was superbly set out. It was loaded with plate, and
      more than loaded with delicacies. The profusion was absolutely
      barbaric. There were meats enough to have feasted the Anakim.
      Never, in all my life, had I witnessed so lavish, so wasteful an
      expenditure of the good things of life. There seemed very little
      taste, however, in the arrangements; and my eyes, accustomed to
      quiet lights, were sadly offended by the prodigious glare of a
      multitude of wax candles, which, in silver candelabra, were
      deposited upon the table, and all about the room, wherever it was
      possible to find a place. There were several active servants in
      attendance; and, upon a large table, at the farther end of the
      apartment, were seated seven or eight people with fiddles, fifes,
      trombones, and a drum. These fellows annoyed me very much, at
      intervals, during the repast, by an infinite variety of noises,
      which were intended for music, and which appeared to afford much
      entertainment to all present, with the exception of myself.

      Upon the whole, I could not help thinking that there was much of
      the bizarre about every thing I saw—but then the world is made up
      of all kinds of persons, with all modes of thought, and all sorts
      of conventional customs. I had travelled, too, so much, as to be
      quite an adept at the nil admirari; so I took my seat very coolly
      at the right hand of my host, and, having an excellent appetite,
      did justice to the good cheer set before me.

      The conversation, in the meantime, was spirited and general. The
      ladies, as usual, talked a great deal. I soon found that nearly
      all the company were well educated; and my host was a world of
      good-humored anecdote in himself. He seemed quite willing to
      speak of his position as superintendent of a_Maison de Santé_;
      and, indeed, the topic of lunacy was, much to my surprise, a
      favorite one with all present. A great many amusing stories were
      told, having reference to the _whims_ of the patients.

      “We had a fellow here once,” said a fat little gentleman, who sat
      at my right,—“a fellow that fancied himself a tea-pot; and by the
      way, is it not especially singular how often this particular
      crotchet has entered the brain of the lunatic? There is scarcely
      an insane asylum in France which cannot supply a human tea-pot.
      Our gentleman was a Britannia-ware tea-pot, and was careful to
      polish himself every morning with buckskin and whiting.”

      “And then,” said a tall man just opposite, “we had here, not long
      ago, a person who had taken it into his head that he was a
      donkey—which allegorically speaking, you will say, was quite
      true. He was a troublesome patient; and we had much ado to keep
      him within bounds. For a long time he would eat nothing but
      thistles; but of this idea we soon cured him by insisting upon
      his eating nothing else. Then he was perpetually kicking out his
      heels—so—so—”

      “Mr. De Kock! I will thank you to behave yourself!” here
      interrupted an old lady, who sat next to the speaker. “Please
      keep your feet to yourself! You have spoiled my brocade! Is it
      necessary, pray, to illustrate a remark in so practical a style?
      Our friend here can surely comprehend you without all this. Upon
      my word, you are nearly as great a donkey as the poor unfortunate
      imagined himself. Your acting is very natural, as I live.”

      “Mille pardons! Ma’m’selle!” replied Monsieur De Kock, thus
      addressed—“a thousand pardons! I had no intention of offending.
      Ma’m’selle Laplace—Monsieur De Kock will do himself the honor of
      taking wine with you.”

      Here Monsieur De Kock bowed low, kissed his hand with much
      ceremony, and took wine with Ma’m’selle Laplace.

      “Allow me, mon ami,” now said Monsieur Maillard, addressing
      myself, “allow me to send you a morsel of this veal _à la St.
      Menehoult_—you will find it particularly fine.”

      At this instant three sturdy waiters had just succeeded in
      depositing safely upon the table an enormous dish, or trencher,
      containing what I supposed to be the “_monstrum, horrendum,
      informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum_.” A closer scrutiny assured
      me, however, that it was only a small calf roasted whole, and set
      upon its knees, with an apple in its mouth, as is the English
      fashion of dressing a hare.

      “Thank you, no,” I replied; “to say the truth, I am not
      particularly partial to veal _à la St_.—what is it?—for I do not
      find that it altogether agrees with me. I will change my plate,
      however, and try some of the rabbit.”

      There were several side-dishes on the table, containing what
      appeared to be the ordinary French rabbit—a very delicious
      morceau, which I can recommend.

      “Pierre,” cried the host, “change this gentleman’s plate, and
      give him a side-piece of this rabbit au-chat.”

      “This what?” said I.

      “This rabbit _au-chat_.”

      “Why, thank you—upon second thoughts, no. I will just help myself
      to some of the ham.”

      There is no knowing what one eats, thought I to myself, at the
      tables of these people of the province. I will have none of their
      rabbit _au-chat_—and, for the matter of that, none of their
      _cat-au-rabbit_ either.

      “And then,” said a cadaverous looking personage, near the foot of
      the table, taking up the thread of the conversation where it had
      been broken off,—“and then, among other oddities, we had a
      patient, once upon a time, who very pertinaciously maintained
      himself to be a Cordova cheese, and went about, with a knife in
      his hand, soliciting his friends to try a small slice from the
      middle of his leg.”

      “He was a great fool, beyond doubt,” interposed some one, “but
      not to be compared with a certain individual whom we all know,
      with the exception of this strange gentleman. I mean the man who
      took himself for a bottle of champagne, and always went off with
      a pop and a fizz, in this fashion.”

      Here the speaker, very rudely, as I thought, put his right thumb
      in his left cheek, withdrew it with a sound resembling the
      popping of a cork, and then, by a dexterous movement of the
      tongue upon the teeth, created a sharp hissing and fizzing, which
      lasted for several minutes, in imitation of the frothing of
      champagne. This behavior, I saw plainly, was not very pleasing to
      Monsieur Maillard; but that gentleman said nothing, and the
      conversation was resumed by a very lean little man in a big wig.

      “And then there was an ignoramus,” said he, “who mistook himself
      for a frog, which, by the way, he resembled in no little degree.
      I wish you could have seen him, sir,”—here the speaker addressed
      myself—“it would have done your heart good to see the natural
      airs that he put on. Sir, if that man was not a frog, I can only
      observe that it is a pity he was not. His croak
      thus—o-o-o-o-gh—o-o-o-o-gh! was the finest note in the world—B
      flat; and when he put his elbows upon the table thus—after taking
      a glass or two of wine—and distended his mouth, thus, and rolled
      up his eyes, thus, and winked them with excessive rapidity, thus,
      why then, sir, I take it upon myself to say, positively, that you
      would have been lost in admiration of the genius of the man.”

      “I have no doubt of it,” I said.

      “And then,” said somebody else, “then there was Petit Gaillard,
      who thought himself a pinch of snuff, and was truly distressed
      because he could not take himself between his own finger and
      thumb.”

      “And then there was Jules Desoulières, who was a very singular
      genius, indeed, and went mad with the idea that he was a pumpkin.
      He persecuted the cook to make him up into pies—a thing which the
      cook indignantly refused to do. For my part, I am by no means
      sure that a pumpkin pie _à la Desoulières_ would not have been
      very capital eating indeed!”

      “You astonish me!” said I; and I looked inquisitively at Monsieur
      Maillard.

      “Ha! ha! ha!” said that gentleman—“he! he! he!—hi! hi! hi!—ho!
      ho! ho!—hu! hu! hu!—very good indeed! You must not be astonished,
      _mon ami;_ our friend here is a wit—a _drôle_—you must not
      understand him to the letter.”

      “And then,” said some other one of the party,—“then there was
      Bouffon Le Grand—another extraordinary personage in his way. He
      grew deranged through love, and fancied himself possessed of two
      heads. One of these he maintained to be the head of Cicero; the
      other he imagined a composite one, being Demosthenes’ from the
      top of the forehead to the mouth, and Lord Brougham’s from the
      mouth to the chin. It is not impossible that he was wrong; but he
      would have convinced you of his being in the right; for he was a
      man of great eloquence. He had an absolute passion for oratory,
      and could not refrain from display. For example, he used to leap
      upon the dinner-table thus, and—and—”

      Here a friend, at the side of the speaker, put a hand upon his
      shoulder and whispered a few words in his ear; upon which he
      ceased talking with great suddenness, and sank back within his
      chair.

      “And then,” said the friend who had whispered, “there was
      Boullard, the tee-totum. I call him the tee-totum because, in
      fact, he was seized with the droll, but not altogether
      irrational, crotchet, that he had been converted into a
      tee-totum. You would have roared with laughter to see him spin.
      He would turn round upon one heel by the hour, in this
      manner—so—”

      Here the friend whom he had just interrupted by a whisper,
      performed an exactly similar office for himself.

      “But then,” cried the old lady, at the top of her voice, “your
      Monsieur Boullard was a madman, and a very silly madman at best;
      for who, allow me to ask you, ever heard of a human tee-totum?
      The thing is absurd. Madame Joyeuse was a more sensible person,
      as you know. She had a crotchet, but it was instinct with common
      sense, and gave pleasure to all who had the honor of her
      acquaintance. She found, upon mature deliberation, that, by some
      accident, she had been turned into a chicken-cock; but, as such,
      she behaved with propriety. She flapped her wings with prodigious
      effect—so—so—so—and, as for her crow, it was delicious!
      Cock-a-doodle-doo!—cock-a-doodle-doo!—cock-a-doodle-de-doo
      dooo-do-o-o-o-o-o-o!”

      “Madame Joyeuse, I will thank you to behave yourself!” here
      interrupted our host, very angrily. “You can either conduct
      yourself as a lady should do, or you can quit the table
      forthwith—take your choice.”

      The lady (whom I was much astonished to hear addressed as Madame
      Joyeuse, after the description of Madame Joyeuse she had just
      given) blushed up to the eyebrows, and seemed exceedingly abashed
      at the reproof. She hung down her head, and said not a syllable
      in reply. But another and younger lady resumed the theme. It was
      my beautiful girl of the little parlor.

      “Oh, Madame Joyeuse was a fool!” she exclaimed, “but there was
      really much sound sense, after all, in the opinion of Eugénie
      Salsafette. She was a very beautiful and painfully modest young
      lady, who thought the ordinary mode of habiliment indecent, and
      wished to dress herself, always, by getting outside instead of
      inside of her clothes. It is a thing very easily done, after all.
      You have only to do so—and then so—so—so—and then so—so—so—and
      then so—so—and then—”

      “Mon dieu! Ma’m’selle Salsafette!” here cried a dozen voices at
      once. “What are you about?—forbear!—that is sufficient!—we see,
      very plainly, how it is done!—hold! hold!” and several persons
      were already leaping from their seats to withhold Ma’m’selle
      Salsafette from putting herself upon a par with the Medicean
      Venus, when the point was very effectually and suddenly
      accomplished by a series of loud screams, or yells, from some
      portion of the main body of the _château_.

      My nerves were very much affected, indeed, by these yells; but
      the rest of the company I really pitied. I never saw any set of
      reasonable people so thoroughly frightened in my life. They all
      grew as pale as so many corpses, and, shrinking within their
      seats, sat quivering and gibbering with terror, and listening for
      a repetition of the sound. It came again—louder and seemingly
      nearer—and then a third time very loud, and then a fourth time
      with a vigor evidently diminished. At this apparent dying away of
      the noise, the spirits of the company were immediately regained,
      and all was life and anecdote as before. I now ventured to
      inquire the cause of the disturbance.

      “A mere _bagatelle_,” said Monsieur Maillard. “We are used to
      these things, and care really very little about them. The
      lunatics, every now and then, get up a howl in concert; one
      starting another, as is sometimes the case with a bevy of dogs at
      night. It occasionally happens, however, that the _concerto_
      yells are succeeded by a simultaneous effort at breaking loose;
      when, of course, some little danger is to be apprehended.”

      “And how many have you in charge?”

      “At present we have not more than ten, altogether.”

      “Principally females, I presume?”

      “Oh, no—every one of them men, and stout fellows, too, I can tell
      you.”

      “Indeed! I have always understood that the majority of lunatics
      were of the gentler sex.”

      “It is generally so, but not always. Some time ago, there were
      about twenty-seven patients here; and, of that number, no less
      than eighteen were women; but, lately, matters have changed very
      much, as you see.”

      “Yes—have changed very much, as you see,” here interrupted the
      gentleman who had broken the shins of Ma’m’selle Laplace.

      “Yes—have changed very much, as you see!” chimed in the whole
      company at once.

      “Hold your tongues, every one of you!” said my host, in a great
      rage. Whereupon the whole company maintained a dead silence for
      nearly a minute. As for one lady, she obeyed Monsieur Maillard to
      the letter, and thrusting out her tongue, which was an
      excessively long one, held it very resignedly, with both hands,
      until the end of the entertainment.

      “And this gentlewoman,” said I, to Monsieur Maillard, bending
      over and addressing him in a whisper—“this good lady who has just
      spoken, and who gives us the cock-a-doodle-de-doo—she, I presume,
      is harmless—quite harmless, eh?”

      “Harmless!” ejaculated he, in unfeigned surprise, “why—why, what
      can you mean?”

      “Only slightly touched?” said I, touching my head. “I take it for
      granted that she is not particularly not dangerously affected,
      eh?”

      “_Mon dieu!_ what is it you imagine? This lady, my particular old
      friend Madame Joyeuse, is as absolutely sane as myself. She has
      her little eccentricities, to be sure—but then, you know, all old
      women—all _very_ old women—are more or less eccentric!”

      “To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure—and then the rest of these
      ladies and gentlemen—”

      “Are my friends and keepers,” interupted Monsieur Maillard,
      drawing himself up with _hauteur_,—“my very good friends and
      assistants.”

      “What! all of them?” I asked,—“the women and all?”

      “Assuredly,” he said,—“we could not do at all without the women;
      they are the best lunatic nurses in the world; they have a way of
      their own, you know; their bright eyes have a marvellous
      effect—something like the fascination of the snake, you know.”

      “To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure! They behave a little odd,
      eh?—they are a little queer, eh?—don’t you think so?”

      “Odd!—queer!—why, do you really think so? We are not very
      prudish, to be sure, here in the South—do pretty much as we
      please—enjoy life, and all that sort of thing, you know—”

      “To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure.”

      “And then, perhaps, this Clos de Vougeot is a little heady, you
      know—a little strong—you understand, eh?”

      “To be sure,” said I,—“to be sure. By the bye, Monsieur, did I
      understand you to say that the system you have adopted, in place
      of the celebrated soothing system, was one of very rigorous
      severity?”

      “By no means. Our confinement is necessarily close; but the
      treatment—the medical treatment, I mean—is rather agreeable to
      the patients than otherwise.”

      “And the new system is one of your own invention?”

      “Not altogether. Some portions of it are referable to Professor
      Tarr, of whom you have, necessarily, heard; and, again, there are
      modifications in my plan which I am happy to acknowledge as
      belonging of right to the celebrated Fether, with whom, if I
      mistake not, you have the honor of an intimate acquaintance.”

      “I am quite ashamed to confess,” I replied, “that I have never
      even heard the names of either gentleman before.”

      “Good heavens!” ejaculated my host, drawing back his chair
      abruptly, and uplifting his hands. “I surely do not hear you
      aright! You did not intend to say, eh? that you had never heard
      either of the learned Doctor Tarr, or of the celebrated Professor
      Fether?”

      “I am forced to acknowledge my ignorance,” I replied; “but the
      truth should be held inviolate above all things. Nevertheless, I
      feel humbled to the dust, not to be acquainted with the works of
      these, no doubt, extraordinary men. I will seek out their
      writings forthwith, and peruse them with deliberate care.
      Monsieur Maillard, you have really—I must confess it—you have
      really—made me ashamed of myself!”

      And this was the fact.

      “Say no more, my good young friend,” he said kindly, pressing my
      hand,—“join me now in a glass of Sauterne.”

      We drank. The company followed our example without stint. They
      chatted—they jested—they laughed—they perpetrated a thousand
      absurdities—the fiddles shrieked—the drum row-de-dowed—the
      trombones bellowed like so many brazen bulls of Phalaris—and the
      whole scene, growing gradually worse and worse, as the wines
      gained the ascendancy, became at length a sort of pandemonium in
      petto. In the meantime, Monsieur Maillard and myself, with some
      bottles of Sauterne and Vougeot between us, continued our
      conversation at the top of the voice. A word spoken in an
      ordinary key stood no more chance of being heard than the voice
      of a fish from the bottom of Niagara Falls.

      “And, sir,” said I, screaming in his ear, “you mentioned
      something before dinner about the danger incurred in the old
      system of soothing. How is that?”

      “Yes,” he replied, “there was, occasionally, very great danger
      indeed. There is no accounting for the caprices of madmen; and,
      in my opinion as well as in that of Dr. Tarr and Professor
      Fether, it is never safe to permit them to run at large
      unattended. A lunatic may be ‘soothed,’ as it is called, for a
      time, but, in the end, he is very apt to become obstreperous. His
      cunning, too, is proverbial and great. If he has a project in
      view, he conceals his design with a marvellous wisdom; and the
      dexterity with which he counterfeits sanity, presents, to the
      metaphysician, one of the most singular problems in the study of
      mind. When a madman appears thoroughly sane, indeed, it is high
      time to put him in a straitjacket.”

      “But the danger, my dear sir, of which you were speaking, in your
      own experience—during your control of this house—have you had
      practical reason to think liberty hazardous in the case of a
      lunatic?”

      “Here?—in my own experience?—why, I may say, yes. For example:—no
      very long while ago, a singular circumstance occurred in this
      very house. The ‘soothing system,’ you know, was then in
      operation, and the patients were at large. They behaved
      remarkably well—especially so—any one of sense might have known
      that some devilish scheme was brewing from that particular fact,
      that the fellows behaved so remarkably well. And, sure enough,
      one fine morning the keepers found themselves pinioned hand and
      foot, and thrown into the cells, where they were attended, as if
      they were the lunatics, by the lunatics themselves, who had
      usurped the offices of the keepers.”

      “You don’t tell me so! I never heard of any thing so absurd in my
      life!”

      “Fact—it all came to pass by means of a stupid fellow—a
      lunatic—who, by some means, had taken it into his head that he
      had invented a better system of government than any ever heard of
      before—of lunatic government, I mean. He wished to give his
      invention a trial, I suppose, and so he persuaded the rest of the
      patients to join him in a conspiracy for the overthrow of the
      reigning powers.”

      “And he really succeeded?”

      “No doubt of it. The keepers and kept were soon made to exchange
      places. Not that exactly either—for the madmen had been free, but
      the keepers were shut up in cells forthwith, and treated, I am
      sorry to say, in a very cavalier manner.”

      “But I presume a counter-revolution was soon effected. This
      condition of things could not have long existed. The country
      people in the neighborhood—visitors coming to see the
      establishment—would have given the alarm.”

      “There you are out. The head rebel was too cunning for that. He
      admitted no visitors at all—with the exception, one day, of a
      very stupid-looking young gentleman of whom he had no reason to
      be afraid. He let him in to see the place—just by way of
      variety,—to have a little fun with him. As soon as he had
      gammoned him sufficiently, he let him out, and sent him about his
      business.”

      “And how long, then, did the madmen reign?”

      “Oh, a very long time, indeed—a month certainly—how much longer I
      can’t precisely say. In the meantime, the lunatics had a jolly
      season of it—that you may swear. They doffed their own shabby
      clothes, and made free with the family wardrobe and jewels. The
      cellars of the château were well stocked with wine; and these
      madmen are just the devils that know how to drink it. They lived
      well, I can tell you.”

      “And the treatment—what was the particular species of treatment
      which the leader of the rebels put into operation?”

      “Why, as for that, a madman is not necessarily a fool, as I have
      already observed; and it is my honest opinion that his treatment
      was a much better treatment than that which it superseded. It was
      a very capital system indeed—simple—neat—no trouble at all—in
      fact it was delicious—it was—”

      Here my host’s observations were cut short by another series of
      yells, of the same character as those which had previously
      disconcerted us. This time, however, they seemed to proceed from
      persons rapidly approaching.

      “Gracious heavens!” I ejaculated—“the lunatics have most
      undoubtedly broken loose.”

      “I very much fear it is so,” replied Monsieur Maillard, now
      becoming excessively pale. He had scarcely finished the sentence,
      before loud shouts and imprecations were heard beneath the
      windows; and, immediately afterward, it became evident that some
      persons outside were endeavoring to gain entrance into the room.
      The door was beaten with what appeared to be a sledge-hammer, and
      the shutters were wrenched and shaken with prodigious violence.

      A scene of the most terrible confusion ensued. Monsieur Maillard,
      to my excessive astonishment threw himself under the side-board.
      I had expected more resolution at his hands. The members of the
      orchestra, who, for the last fifteen minutes, had been seemingly
      too much intoxicated to do duty, now sprang all at once to their
      feet and to their instruments, and, scrambling upon their table,
      broke out, with one accord, into, “Yankee Doodle,” which they
      performed, if not exactly in tune, at least with an energy
      superhuman, during the whole of the uproar.

      Meantime, upon the main dining-table, among the bottles and
      glasses, leaped the gentleman who, with such difficulty, had been
      restrained from leaping there before. As soon as he fairly
      settled himself, he commenced an oration, which, no doubt, was a
      very capital one, if it could only have been heard. At the same
      moment, the man with the teetotum predilection, set himself to
      spinning around the apartment, with immense energy, and with arms
      outstretched at right angles with his body; so that he had all
      the air of a tee-totum in fact, and knocked everybody down that
      happened to get in his way. And now, too, hearing an incredible
      popping and fizzing of champagne, I discovered at length, that it
      proceeded from the person who performed the bottle of that
      delicate drink during dinner. And then, again, the frog-man
      croaked away as if the salvation of his soul depended upon every
      note that he uttered. And, in the midst of all this, the
      continuous braying of a donkey arose over all. As for my old
      friend, Madame Joyeuse, I really could have wept for the poor
      lady, she appeared so terribly perplexed. All she did, however,
      was to stand up in a corner, by the fireplace, and sing out
      incessantly at the top of her voice, “Cock-a-doodle-de-dooooooh!”

      And now came the climax—the catastrophe of the drama. As no
      resistance, beyond whooping and yelling and cock-a-doodling, was
      offered to the encroachments of the party without, the ten
      windows were very speedily, and almost simultaneously, broken in.
      But I shall never forget the emotions of wonder and horror with
      which I gazed, when, leaping through these windows, and down
      among us _pêle-mêle_, fighting, stamping, scratching, and
      howling, there rushed a perfect army of what I took to be
      chimpanzees, ourang-outangs, or big black baboons of the Cape of
      Good Hope.

      I received a terrible beating—after which I rolled under a sofa
      and lay still. After lying there some fifteen minutes, during
      which time I listened with all my ears to what was going on in
      the room, I came to same satisfactory _dénouement_ of this
      tragedy. Monsieur Maillard, it appeared, in giving me the account
      of the lunatic who had excited his fellows to rebellion, had been
      merely relating his own exploits. This gentleman had, indeed,
      some two or three years before, been the superintendent of the
      establishment, but grew crazy himself, and so became a patient.
      This fact was unknown to the travelling companion who introduced
      me. The keepers, ten in number, having been suddenly overpowered,
      were first well tarred, then carefully feathered, and then shut
      up in underground cells. They had been so imprisoned for more
      than a month, during which period Monsieur Maillard had
      generously allowed them not only the tar and feathers (which
      constituted his “system”), but some bread and abundance of water.
      The latter was pumped on them daily. At length, one escaping
      through a sewer, gave freedom to all the rest.

      The “soothing system,” with important modifications, has been
      resumed at the _château;_ yet I cannot help agreeing with
      Monsieur Maillard, that his own “treatment” was a very capital
      one of its kind. As he justly observed, it was “simple—neat—and
      gave no trouble at all—not the least.”

      I have only to add that, although I have searched every library
      in Europe for the works of Doctor _Tarr_ and Professor _Fether_,
      I have, up to the present day, utterly failed in my endeavors at
      procuring an edition.




THE LITERARY LIFE OF THINGUM BOB, ESQ.

LATE EDITOR OF THE “GOOSETHERUMFOODLE.”
By Himself


      I am now growing in years, and—since I understand that
      Shakespeare and Mr. Emmons are deceased—it is not impossible that
      I may even die. It has occurred to me, therefore, that I may as
      well retire from the field of Letters and repose upon my laurels.
      But I am ambitious of signalizing my abdication of the literary
      sceptre by some important bequest to posterity; and, perhaps, I
      cannot do a better thing than just pen for it an account of my
      earlier career. My name, indeed, has been so long and so
      constantly before the public eye, that I am not only willing to
      admit the naturalness of the interest which it has everywhere
      excited, but ready to satisfy the extreme curiosity which it has
      inspired. In fact, it is no more than the duty of him who
      achieves greatness to leave behind him, in his ascent, such
      landmarks as may guide others to be great. I propose, therefore,
      in the present paper, (which I had some idea of calling
      “Memoranda to serve for the Literary History of America,”) to
      give a detail of those important, yet feeble and tottering first
      steps, by which, at length, I attained the high road to the
      pinnacle of human renown.

      Of one’s very remote ancestors it is superfluous to say much. My
      father, Thomas Bob, Esq., stood for many years at the summit of
      his profession, which was that of a merchant-barber, in the city
      of Smug. His warehouse was the resort of all the principal people
      of the place, and especially of the editorial corps—a body which
      inspires all about it with profound veneration and awe. For my
      own part, I regarded them as gods, and drank in with avidity the
      rich wit and wisdom which continuously flowed from their august
      mouths during the process of what is styled “lather.” My first
      moment of positive inspiration must be dated from that
      ever-memorable epoch, when the brilliant conductor of the
      “Gad-Fly,” in the intervals of the important process just
      mentioned, recited aloud, before a conclave of our apprentices,
      an inimitable poem in honor of the “Only Genuine Oil-of-Bob,” (so
      called from its talented inventor, my father,) and for which
      effusion the editor of the “Fly” was remunerated with a regal
      liberality by the firm of Thomas Bob & company, merchant-barbers.

      The genius of the stanzas to the “Oil-of-Bob” first breathed into
      me, I say, the divine _afflatus_. I resolved at once to become a
      great man, and to commence by becoming a great poet. That very
      evening I fell upon my knees at the feet of my father.

      “Father,” I said, “pardon me!—but I have a soul above lather. It
      is my firm intention to cut the shop. I would be an editor—I
      would be a poet—I would pen stanzas to the ‘Oil-of-Bob.’ Pardon
      me and aid me to be great!”

      “My dear Thingum,” replied my father, (I had been christened
      Thingum after a wealthy relative so surnamed,) “My dear Thingum,”
      he said, raising me from my knees by the ears—“Thingum, my boy,
      you’re a trump, and take after your father in having a soul. You
      have an immense head, too, and it must hold a great many brains.
      This I have long seen, and therefore had thoughts of making you a
      lawyer. The business, however, has grown ungenteel, and that of a
      politician don’t pay. Upon the whole you judge wisely;—the trade
      of editor is best:—and if you can be a poet at the same time,—as
      most of the editors are, by the by,—why you will kill two birds
      with one stone. To encourage you in the beginning of things, I
      will allow you a garret; pen, ink, and paper; a rhyming
      dictionary; and a copy of the ‘Gad-Fly.’ I suppose you would
      scarcely demand any more.”

      “I would be an ungrateful villain if I did,” I replied with
      enthusiasm. “Your generosity is boundless. I will repay it by
      making you the father of a genius.”

      Thus ended my conference with the best of men, and immediately
      upon its termination, I betook myself with zeal to my poetical
      labors; as upon these, chiefly, I founded my hopes of ultimate
      elevation to the editorial chair.

      In my first attempts at composition I found the stanzas to “The
      Oil-of-Bob” rather a draw-back than otherwise. Their splendor
      more dazzled than enlightened me. The contemplation of their
      excellence tended, naturally, to discourage me by comparison with
      my own abortions; so that for a long time I labored in vain. At
      length there came into my head one of those exquisitely original
      ideas which now and then _will_ permeate the brain of a man of
      genius. It was this:—or, rather, thus was it carried into
      execution. From the rubbish of an old book-stall, in a very
      remote corner of the town, I got together several antique and
      altogether unknown or forgotten volumes. The bookseller sold them
      to me for a song. From one of these, which purported to be a
      translation of one Dante’s “Inferno,” I copied with remarkable
      neatness a long passage about a man named Ugolino, who had a
      parcel of brats. From another which contained a good many old
      plays by some person whose name I forget, I extracted in the same
      manner, and with the same care, a great number of lines about
      “angels” and “ministers saying grace,” and “goblins damned,” and
      more besides of that sort. From a third, which was the
      composition of some blind man or other, either a Greek or a
      Choctaw—I cannot be at the pains of remembering every trifle
      exactly—I took about fifty verses beginning with “Achilles’
      wrath,” and “grease,” and something else. From a fourth, which I
      recollect was also the work of a blind man, I selected a page or
      two all about “hail” and “holy light”; and although a blind man
      has no business to write about light, still the verses were
      sufficiently good in their way.

      Having made fair copies of these poems, I signed every one of
      them “Oppodeldoc,” (a fine sonorous name,) and, doing each up
      nicely in a separate envelope, I despatched one to each of the
      four principal Magazines, with a request for speedy insertion and
      prompt pay. The result of this well conceived plan, however, (the
      success of which would have saved me much trouble in after life,)
      served to convince me that some editors are not to be bamboozled,
      and gave the _coup-de-grace_ (as they say in France,) to my
      nascent hopes, (as they say in the city of the transcendentals.)

      The fact is, that each and every one of the Magazines in
      question, gave Mr. “Oppodeldoc” a complete using-up, in the
      “Monthly Notices to Correspondents.” The “Hum-Drum” gave him a
      dressing after this fashion:

      “‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,) has sent us a long _tirade_
      concerning a bedlamite whom he styles ‘Ugolino,’ who had a great
      many children that should have been all whipped and sent to bed
      without their suppers. The whole affair is exceedingly tame—not
      to say _flat_. ‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,) is entirely devoid
      of imagination—and imagination, in our humble opinion, is not
      only the soul of Poesy, but also its very heart. ‘Oppodeldoc,’
      (whoever he is,) has the audacity to demand of us, for his
      twattle, a ‘speedy insertion and prompt pay.’ We neither insert
      nor purchase any stuff of the sort. There can be no doubt,
      however, that he would meet with a ready sale for all the
      balderdash he can scribble, at the office of either the
      ‘Rowdy-Dow,’ the ‘Lollipop,’ or the ‘Goosetherumfoodle.’”

      All this, it must be acknowledged, was very severe upon
      “Oppodeldoc”—but the unkindest cut was putting the word Poesy in
      small caps. In those five pre-eminent letters what a world of
      bitterness is there not involved!

      But “Oppodeldoc” was punished with equal severity in the
      “Rowdy-Dow,” which spoke thus:

      “We have received a most singular and insolent communication from
      a person (whoever he is,) signing himself ‘Oppodeldoc’—thus
      desecrating the greatness of the illustrious Roman Emperor so
      named. Accompanying the letter of ‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,)
      we find sundry lines of most disgusting and unmeaning rant about
      ‘angels and ministers of grace’—rant such as no madman short of a
      Nat Lee, or an ‘Oppodeldoc,’ could possibly perpetrate. And for
      this trash of trash, we are modestly requested to ‘pay promptly.’
      No sir—no! We pay for nothing of _that_ sort. Apply to the
      ‘Hum-Drum,’ the ‘Lollipop,’ or the ‘Goosetherumfoodle.’ These
      _periodicals_ will undoubtedly accept any literary offal you may
      send them—and as undoubtedly _promise_ to pay for it.”

      This was bitter indeed upon poor “Oppodeldoc”; but, in this
      instance, the weight of the satire falls upon the “Hum-drum,” the
      “Lollipop,” and the “Goosetherumfoodle,” who are pungently styled
      “_periodicals_”—in Italics, too—a thing that must have cut them
      to the heart.

      Scarcely less savage was the “Lollipop,” which thus discoursed:

      “Some _individual_, who rejoices in the appellation ‘Oppodeldoc,’
      (to what low uses are the names of the illustrious dead too often
      applied!) has enclosed us some fifty or sixty _verses_ commencing
      after this fashion:

      Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
      Of woes unnumbered, &c., &c., &c., &c.

      “‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,) is respectfully informed that
      there is not a printer’s devil in our office who is not in the
      daily habit of composing better _lines_. Those of ‘Oppodeldoc’
      will not _scan_. ‘Oppodeldoc’ should learn to _count_. But why he
      should have conceived the idea that _we_, (of all others, _we!_)
      would disgrace our pages with his ineffable nonsense, is utterly
      beyond comprehension. Why, the absurd twattle is scarcely good
      enough for the ‘Hum-Drum,’ the ‘Rowdy-Dow,’ the
      ‘Goosetherumfoodle’—things that are in the practice of publishing
      ‘Mother Goose’s Melodies’ as original lyrics. And ‘Oppodeldoc’
      (whoever he is,) has even the assurance to demand _pay_ for this
      drivel. Does ‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,) know—is he aware that
      we could not be paid to insert it?”

      As I perused this I felt myself growing gradually smaller and
      smaller, and when I came to the point at which the editor sneered
      at the poem as “verses” there was little more than an ounce of me
      left. As for “Oppodeldoc,” I began to experience _compassion_ for
      the poor fellow. But the “Goosetherumfoodle” showed, if possible,
      less mercy than the “Lollipop.” It was the “Goosetherumfoodle”
      that said:

      “A wretched poetaster, who signs himself ‘Oppodeldoc,’ is silly
      enough to fancy that _we_ will print and _pay for_ a medley of
      incoherent and ungrammatical bombast which he has transmitted to
      us, and which commences with the following most _intelligible_
      line:

      ‘Hail, Holy Light! Offspring of Heaven, first born.’

      “We say, ‘most _intelligible_.’ ‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,)
      will be kind enough to tell us, perhaps, how ‘_hail_’ can be
      ‘_holy light_’ We always regarded it as _frozen rain_. Will he
      inform us, also, how frozen rain can be, at one and the same
      time, both ‘holy light,’ (whatever that is,) and an
      ‘offspring?’—which latter term, (if we understand any thing about
      English,) is only employed, with propriety, in reference to small
      babies of about six weeks old. But it is preposterous to descant
      upon such absurdity—although ‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,) has
      the unparalleled effrontery to suppose that we will not only
      ‘insert’ his ignorant ravings, but (absolutely) _pay for them!_

      “Now this is fine—it is rich!—and we have half a mind to punish
      this young scribbler for his egotism, by really publishing his
      effusion, _verbatim et literatim_, as he has written it. We could
      inflict no punishment so severe, and we _would_ inflict it, but
      for the boredom which we should cause our readers in so doing.

      “Let ‘Oppodeldoc,’ (whoever he is,) send any future _composition_
      of like character to the ‘Hum-Drum,’ the ‘Lollipop,’ or the
      ‘Rowdy-Dow,’ _They_ will ‘insert’ it. _They_ ‘insert’ every month
      just such stuff. Send it to them. WE are not to be insulted with
      impunity.”

      This made an end of me; and as for the “Hum-Drum,” the
      “Rowdy-Dow,” and the “Lollipop,” I never could comprehend how
      they survived it. The putting _them_ in the smallest possible
      _minion_, (that was the rub—thereby insinuating their
      lowness—their baseness,) while WE stood looking down upon them in
      gigantic capitals!—oh it was _too_ bitter!—it was wormwood—it was
      gall. Had I been either of these periodicals I would have spared
      no pains to have the “Goosetherumfoodle” prosecuted. It might
      have been done under the Act for the “Prevention of Cruelty to
      Animals.” As for “Oppodeldoc,” (whoever he was), I had by this
      time lost all patience with the fellow, and sympathized with him
      no longer. He was a fool, beyond doubt, (whoever he was,) and got
      not a kick more than he deserved.

      The result of my experiment with the old books, convinced me, in
      the first place, that “honesty is the best policy,” and, in the
      second, that if I could not write better than Mr. Dante, and the
      two blind men, and the rest of the old set, it would, at least,
      be a difficult matter to write worse. I took heart, therefore,
      and determined to prosecute the “entirely original,” (as they say
      on the covers of the magazines,) at whatever cost of study and
      pains. I again placed before my eyes, as a model, the brilliant
      stanzas on “The Oil-of-Bob” by the editor of the “Gad-Fly,” and
      resolved to construct an ode on the same sublime theme, in
      rivalry of what had already been done.

      With my first verse I had no material difficulty. It ran thus:

      “To pen an Ode upon the ‘Oil-of-Bob.’”

      Having carefully looked out, however, all the legitimate rhymes
      to “Bob,” I found it impossible to proceed. In this dilemma I had
      recourse to paternal aid; and, after some hours of mature
      thought, my father and myself thus constructed the poem:

      _“To pen an Ode upon the ‘Oil-of-Bob’
      Is all sorts of a job._
                          “(Signed) Snob.”

      To be sure, this composition was of no very great length—but I
      “have yet to learn” as they say in the Edinburgh Review, that the
      mere extent of a literary work has any thing to do with its
      merit. As for the Quarterly cant about “sustained effort,” it is
      impossible to see the sense of it. Upon the whole, therefore, I
      was satisfied with the success of my maiden attempt, and now the
      only question regarded the disposal I should make of it. My
      father suggested that I should send it to the “Gad-Fly”—but there
      were two reasons which operated to prevent me from so doing. I
      dreaded the jealousy of the editor—and I had ascertained that he
      did not pay for original contributions. I therefore, after due
      deliberation, consigned the article to the more dignified pages
      of the “Lollipop,” and awaited the event in anxiety, but with
      resignation.

      In the very next published number I had the proud satisfaction of
      seeing my poem printed at length, as the leading article, with
      the following significant words, prefixed in italics and between
      brackets:

      _We call the attention of our readers to the subjoined admirable
      stanza on “The Oil of Bob.” We need say nothing of their
      sublimity, or their pathos:—it is impossible to peruse them
      without tears. Those who have been nauseated with a sad dose on
      the same august topic from the goose quill of the editor of the
      “Gad Fly” will do well to compare the two compositions._

      P. S.—We are consumed with anxiety to probe the mystery which
      envelops the evident pseudonym “Snob.” May we hope for a personal
      interview?

      All this was scarcely more than justice, but it was, I confess,
      rather more than I had expected:—I acknowledged this, be it
      observed, to the everlasting disgrace of my country and of
      mankind. I lost no time, however, in calling upon the editor of
      the “Lollipop,” and had the good fortune to find this gentleman
      at home. He saluted me with an air of profound respect, slightly
      blended with a fatherly and patronizing admiration, wrought in
      him, no doubt, by my appearance of extreme youth and
      inexperience. Begging me to be seated, he entered at once upon
      the subject of my poem;—but modesty will ever forbid me to repeat
      the thousand compliments which he lavished upon me. The eulogies
      of Mr. Crab, (such was the editor’s name,) were, however, by no
      means fulsomely indiscriminate. He analyzed my composition with
      much freedom and great ability—not hesitating to point out a few
      trivial defects—a circumstance which elevated him highly in my
      esteem. The “Gad-Fly” was, of course, brought upon the _tapis_,
      and I hope never to be subjected to a criticism so searching, or
      to rebukes so withering, as were bestowed by Mr. Crab upon that
      unhappy effusion. I had been accustomed to regard the editor of
      the “Gad-Fly” as something superhuman; but Mr. Crab soon
      disabused me of that idea. He set the literary as well as the
      personal character of the Fly (so Mr. C. satirically designated
      the rival editor,) in its true light. He, the Fly, was very
      little better than he should be. He had written infamous things.
      He was a penny-a-liner, and a buffoon. He was a villain. He had
      composed a tragedy which set the whole country in a guffaw, and a
      farce which deluged the universe in tears. Besides all this, he
      had the impudence to pen what he meant for a lampoon upon
      himself, (Mr. Crab,) and the temerity to style him “an ass.”
      Should I at any time wish to express my opinion of Mr. Fry, the
      pages of the “Lollipop,” Mr. Crab assured me, were at my
      unlimited disposal. In the meantime, as it was very certain that
      I would be attacked in the Fly for my attempt at composing a
      rival poem on the “Oil-of-Bob,” he (Mr. Crab,) would take it upon
      himself to attend, pointedly, to my private and personal
      interests. If I were not made a man of at once, it should not be
      the fault of himself, (Mr. Crab.)

      Mr. Crab having now paused in his discourse, (the latter portion
      of which I found it impossible to comprehend,) I ventured to
      suggest something about the remuneration which I had been taught
      to expect for my poem, by an announcement on the cover of the
      “Lollipop,” declaring that it, (the “Lollipop,”) “insisted upon
      being permitted to pay exorbitant prices for all accepted
      contributions—frequently expending more money for a single brief
      poem than the whole annual cost of the ‘Hum-Drum,’ the
      ‘Rowdy-Dow,’ and the ‘Goosetherumfoodle’ combined.”

      As I mentioned the word “remuneration,” Mr. Crab first opened his
      eyes, and then his mouth, to quite a remarkable extent; causing
      his personal appearance to resemble that of a highly-agitated
      elderly duck in the act of quacking; and in this condition he
      remained, (ever and anon pressing his hands tightly to his
      forehead, as if in a state of desperate bewilderment) until I had
      nearly made an end of what I had to say.

      Upon my conclusion, he sank back into his seat, as if much
      overcome, letting his arms fall lifelessly by his side, but
      keeping his mouth still rigorously open, after the fashion of the
      duck. While I remained in speechless astonishment at behavior so
      alarming, he suddenly leaped to his feet and made a rush at the
      bell-rope; but just as he reached this, he appeared to have
      altered his intention, whatever it was, for he dived under a
      table and immediately re-appeared with a cudgel. This he was in
      the act of uplifting, (for what purpose I am at a loss to
      imagine,) when, all at once, there came a benign smile over his
      features, and he sank placidly back in his chair.

      “Mr. Bob,” he said, (for I had sent up my card before ascending
      myself,) “Mr. Bob, you are a young man, I presume—_very?_”

      I assented; adding that I had not yet concluded my third lustrum.

      “Ah!” he replied, “very good! I see how it is—say no more!
      Touching this matter of compensation, what you observe is very
      just: in fact it is excessively so. But ah—ah—the _first_
      contribution—the _first_, I say,—it is never the Magazine custom
      to pay for—you comprehend, eh? The truth is, we are usually the
      _recipients_ in such case.” [Mr. Crab smiled blandly as he
      emphasized the word “recipients.”] “For the most part, we are
      _paid_ for the insertion of a maiden attempt—especially in verse.
      In the second place, Mr. Bob, the Magazine rule is never to
      disburse what we term in France the _argent comptant_—I have no
      doubt you understand. In a quarter or two after publication of
      the article—or in a year or two—we make no objection to giving
      our note at nine months; provided always that we can so arrange
      our affairs as to be quite certain of a ‘burst up’ in six. I
      really _do_ hope, Mr. Bob, that you will look upon this
      explanation as satisfactory.” Here Mr. Crab concluded, and the
      tears stood in his eyes.

      Grieved to the soul at having been, however innocently, the cause
      of pain to so eminent and so sensitive a man, I hastened to
      apologize, and to reassure him, by expressing my perfect
      coincidence with his views, as well as my entire appreciation of
      the delicacy of his position. Having done all this in a neat
      speech, I took leave.

      One fine morning, very shortly afterwards, “I awoke and found
      myself famous.” The extent of my renown will be best estimated by
      reference to the editorial opinions of the day. These opinions,
      it will be seen, were embodied in critical notices of the number
      of the “Lollipop” containing my poem, and are perfectly
      satisfactory, conclusive and clear with the exception, perhaps,
      of the hieroglyphical marks, “_Sep_. 15—1 t.” appended to each of
      the critiques.

      The “Owl,” a journal of profound sagacity, and well known for the
      deliberate gravity of its literary decisions—the “Owl,” I say,
      spoke as follows:

      “‘The Lollipop!’ The October number of this delicious Magazine
      surpasses its predecessors, and sets competition at defiance. In
      the beauty of its typography and paper—in the number and
      excellence of its steel plates—as well as in the literary merit
      of its contributions—the ‘Lollipop’ compares with its slow-paced
      rivals as Hyperion with a Satyr. The ‘Hum-Drum,’ the ‘Rowdy-Dow,’
      and the ‘Goosetherumfoodle,’ excel, it is true, in braggadocio,
      but, in all other points, give us the ‘Lollipop!’ How this
      celebrated journal can sustain its evidently tremendous expenses,
      is more than we can understand. To be sure, it has a circulation
      of 100,000, and its subscription-list has increased one-fourth
      during the last month; but, on the other hand, the sums it
      disburses constantly for contributions are inconceivable. It is
      reported that Mr. Slyass received no less than thirty-seven and a
      half cents for his inimitable paper on ‘Pigs.’ With Mr. Crab, as
      editor, and with such names upon the list of contributors as Snob
      and Slyass, there can be no such word as ‘fail’ for the
      Lollipop.’ Go and subscribe. _Sep_. 15—1 _t.”_

      I must say that I was gratified with this high-toned notice from
      a paper so respectable as the “Owl.” The placing my name—that is
      to say, my _nom de guerre_—in priority of station to that of the
      great Slyass, was a compliment as happy as I felt it to be
      deserved.

      My attention was next arrested by these paragraphs in the
      “Toad”—a print highly distinguished for its uprightness, and
      independence—for its entire freedom from sycophancy and
      subservience to the givers of dinners:

      “The ‘Lollipop’ for October is out in advance of all its
      contemporaries, and infinitely surpasses them, of course, in the
      splendor of its embellishments, as well as in the richness of its
      literary contents. The ‘Hum-Drum,’ the ‘Rowdy-Dow,’ and the
      ‘Goosetherumfoodle’ excel, we admit, in braggadocio, but, in all
      other points, give us the ‘Lollipop. How this celebrated Magazine
      can sustain its evidently tremendous expenses, is more than we
      can understand. To be sure, it has a circulation of 200,000, and
      its subscription list has increased one-third during the last
      fortnight, but on the other hand, the sums it disburses, monthly,
      for contributions, are fearfully great. We learn that Mr.
      Mumblethumb received no less than fifty cents for his late
      ‘Monody in a Mud-Puddle.’

      “Among the original contributors to the present number we notice,
      (besides the eminent editor, Mr. Crab,) such men as Snob, Slyass,
      and Mumblethumb. Apart from the editorial matter, the most
      valuable paper, nevertheless, is, we think, a poetical gem by
      Snob, on the ‘Oil-of-Bob’—but our readers must not suppose from
      the title of this incomparable _bijou_, that it bears any
      similitude to some balderdash on the same subject by a certain
      contemptible individual whose name is unmentionable to ears
      polite. The present poem ‘On the Oil-of-Bob,’ has excited
      universal anxiety and curiosity in respect to the owner of the
      evident pseudonym, ‘Snob’—a curiosity which, happily, we have it
      in our power to satisfy. ‘Snob’ is the nom de plume of Mr.
      Thingum Bob, of this city,—a relative of the great Mr. Thingum,
      (after whom he is named,) and otherwise connected with the most
      illustrious families of the State. His father, Thomas Bob, Esq.,
      is an opulent merchant in Smug. _Sep_. 15—1 _t.”_

      This generous approbation touched me to the heart—the more
      especially as it emanated from a source so avowedly—so
      proverbially pure as the “Toad.” The word “balderdash,” as
      applied to the “Oil-of-Bob” of the Fly, I considered singularly
      pungent and appropriate. The words “gem” and “_bijou_,” however,
      used in reference to my composition, struck me as being, in some
      degree, feeble, and seemed to me to be deficient in force. They
      were not sufficiently _prononcés_, (as we have it in France).

      I had hardly finished reading the “Toad,” when a friend placed in
      my hands a copy of the “Mole,” a daily, enjoying high reputation
      for the keenness of its perception about matters in general, and
      for the open, honest, above-ground style of its editorials. The
      “Mole” spoke of the “Lollipop” as follows:

      “We have just received the ‘Lollipop’ for October, and must say
      that never before have we perused any single number of any
      periodical which afforded us a felicity so supreme. We speak
      advisedly. The ‘Hum-Drum,’ the ‘Rowdy-Dow’ and the
      ‘Goosetherumfoodle’ must look well to their laurels. These
      prints, no doubt, surpass every thing in loudness of pretension,
      but, in all other points, give us the ‘Lollipop!’ How this
      celebrated Magazine can sustain its evidently tremendous
      expenses, is more than we can comprehend. To be sure, it has a
      circulation of 300,000 and its subscription-list has increased
      one-half within the last week, but then the sum it disburses,
      monthly, for contributions, is astoundingly enormous. We have it
      upon good authority, that Mr. Fatquack received no less than
      sixty-two cents and a half for his late domestic nouvelette, the
      ‘Dish-Clout.’

      “The contributors to the number before us are Mr. Crab, (the
      eminent editor,) Snob, Mumblethumb, Fatquack, and others; but,
      after the inimitable compositions of the editor himself, we
      prefer a diamond-like effusion from the pen of a rising poet who
      writes over the signature ‘Snob’—a nom de guerre which we predict
      will one day extinguish the radiance of ‘Boz.’ ‘Snob,’ we learn,
      is a Mr. Thingum Bob, Esq., sole heir of a wealthy merchant of
      this city, Thomas Bob, Esq., and a near relative of the
      distinguished Mr. Thingum. The title of Mr. B.‘s admirable poem
      is the ‘Oil-of-Bob’—a somewhat unfortunate name, by-the-by, as
      some contemptible vagabond connected with the penny press has
      already disgusted the town with a great deal of drivel upon the
      same topic. There will be no danger, however, of confounding the
      compositions. Sep. 15—1 t.”

      The generous approbation of so clear-sighted a journal as the
      “Mole” penetrated my soul with delight. The only objection which
      occurred to me was, that the terms “contemptible vagabond” might
      have been better written “_odious and_ contemptible _wretch,
      villain and_ vagabond.” This would have sounded more gracefully,
      I think. “Diamond-like,” also, was scarcely, it will be admitted,
      of sufficient intensity to express what the “Mole” evidently
      _thought_ of the brilliancy of the “Oil-of-Bob.”

      On the same afternoon in which I saw these notices in the “Owl,”
      the “Toad,” and the “Mole” I happened to meet with a copy of the
      “Daddy-Long-Legs,” a periodical proverbial for the extreme extent
      of its understanding. And it was the “Daddy-Long-Legs” which
      spoke thus:

      “The ‘Lollipop!!’ This gorgeous magazine is already before the
      public for October. The question of preeminence is forever put to
      rest, and hereafter it will be excessively preposterous in the
      ‘Hum-Drum,’ the ‘Rowdy-Dow,’ or the ‘Goosetherumfoodle,’ to make
      any farther spasmodic attempts at competition. These journals may
      excel the ‘Lollipop’ in outcry, but, in all other points, give us
      the ‘Lollipop!’ How this celebrated Magazine can sustain its
      evidently tremendous expenses, is past comprehension. To be sure
      it has a circulation of precisely half a million, and its
      subscription-list has increased seventy-five per cent, within the
      last couple of days; but then the sums it disburses, monthly, for
      contributions, are scarcely credible; we are cognizant of the
      fact, that Mademoiselle Cribalittle received no less than
      eighty-seven cents and a half for her late valuable Revolutionary
      Tale, entitled ‘The York-Town Katy-Did, and the Bunker-Hill
      Katy-Didn’t.’

      “The most able papers in the present number, are, of course,
      those furnished by the editor, (the eminent Mr. Crab,) but there
      are numerous magnificent contributions from such names as Snob,
      Mademoiselle Cribalittle, Slyass, Mrs. Fibalittle, Mumblethumb,
      Mrs. Squibalittle, and last, though not least, Fatquack. The
      world may well be challenged to produce so rich a galaxy of
      genius.

      “The poem over the signature ‘Snob’ is, we find, attracting
      universal commendation, and, we are constrained to say, deserves,
      if possible, even more applause than it has received. The
      ‘Oil-of-Bob’ is the title of this masterpiece of eloquence and
      art. One or two of our readers _may_ have a _very_ faint,
      although sufficiently disgusting recollection of a poem (?)
      similarly entitled, the perpetration of a miserable
      penny-a-liner, mendicant, and cut-throat, connected in the
      capacity of scullion, we believe, with one of the indecent prints
      about the purlieus of the city; we beg them, for God’s sake, not
      to confound the compositions. The author of the ‘Oil-of-Bob’ is,
      we hear, Thingum Bob, Esq., a gentleman of high genius, and a
      scholar. ‘Snob’ is merely a _nom-de-guerre. Sept_. 15—1 _t.”_

      I could scarcely restrain my indignation while I perused the
      concluding portions of this diatribe. It was clear to me that the
      yea-nay manner—not to say the gentleness—the positive forbearance
      with which the “Daddy-Long-Legs” spoke of that pig, the editor of
      the “Gad-Fly”—it was evident to me, I say, that this gentleness
      of speech could proceed from nothing else than a partiality for
      the Fly—whom it was clearly the intention of the
      “Daddy-Long-Legs” to elevate into reputation at my expense. Any
      one, indeed, might perceive, with half an eye, that, had the real
      design of the “Daddy” been what it wished to appear, it, (the
      “Daddy”) might have expressed itself in terms more direct, more
      pungent, and altogether more to the purpose. The words
      “penny-a-liner,” “mendicant,” “scullion,” and “cut-throat,” were
      epithets so intentionally inexpressive and equivocal, as to be
      worse than nothing when applied to the author of the very worst
      stanzas ever penned by one of the human race. We all know what is
      meant by “damning with faint praise,” and, on the other hand, who
      could fail seeing through the covert purpose of the “Daddy”—that
      of glorifying with feeble abuse?

      What the “Daddy” chose to say of the Fly, however, was no
      business of mine. What it said of myself _was_. After the noble
      manner in which the “Owl,” the “Toad,” the “Mole,” had expressed
      themselves in respect to my ability, it was rather too much to be
      coolly spoken of by a thing like the “Daddy-Long-Legs,” as merely
      “a gentleman of high genius and a scholar.” Gentleman indeed! I
      made up my mind at once, either to get a written apology from the
      “Daddy-Long-Legs,” or to call it out.

      Full of this purpose, I looked about me to find a friend whom I
      could entrust with a message to his Daddyship, and as the editor
      of the “Lollipop” had given me marked tokens of regard, I at
      length concluded to seek assistance upon the present occasion.

      I have never yet been able to account, in a manner satisfactory
      to my own understanding, for the _very_ peculiar countenance and
      demeanor with which Mr. Crab listened to me, as I unfolded to him
      my design. He again went through the scene of the bell-rope and
      cudgel, and did not omit the duck. At one period I thought he
      really intended to quack. His fit, nevertheless, finally subsided
      as before, and he began to act and speak in a rational way. He
      declined bearing the cartel, however, and in fact, dissuaded me
      from sending it at all; but was candid enough to admit that the
      “Daddy-Long-Legs” had been disgracefully in the wrong—more
      especially in what related to the epithets “gentleman and
      scholar.”

      Towards the end of this interview with Mr. Crab, who really
      appeared to take a paternal interest in my welfare, he suggested
      to me that I might turn an honest penny, and, at the same time,
      advance my reputation, by occasionally playing Thomas Hawk for
      the “Lollipop.”

      I begged Mr. Crab to inform me who was Mr. Thomas Hawk, and how
      it was expected that I should play him.

      Here Mr. Crab again “made great eyes,” (as we say in Germany,)
      but at length, recovering himself from a profound attack of
      astonishment, he assured me that he employed the words “Thomas
      Hawk” to avoid the colloquialism, Tommy, which was low—but that
      the true idea was Tommy Hawk—or tomahawk—and that by “playing
      tomahawk” he referred to scalping, brow-beating and otherwise
      using-up the herd of poor-devil authors.

      I assured my patron that, if this was all, I was perfectly
      resigned to the task of playing Thomas Hawk. Hereupon Mr. Crab
      desired me to use-up the editor of the “Gad-Fly” forthwith, in
      the fiercest style within the scope of my ability, and as a
      specimen of my powers. This I did, upon the spot, in a review of
      the original “Oil-of-Bob,” occupying thirty-six pages of the
      “Lollipop.” I found playing Thomas Hawk, indeed, a far less
      onerous occupation than poetizing; for I went upon _system_
      altogether, and thus it was easy to do the thing thoroughly and
      well. My practice was this. I bought auction copies (cheap) of
      “Lord Brougham’s Speeches,” “Cobbett’s Complete Works,” the “New
      Slang-Syllabus,” the “Whole Art of Snubbing,” “Prentice’s
      Billingsgate” (folio edition,) and “Lewis G. Clarke on Tongue.”
      These works I cut up thoroughly with a currycomb, and then,
      throwing the shreds into a sieve, sifted out carefully all that
      might be thought decent, (a mere trifle); reserving the hard
      phrases, which I threw into a large tin pepper-castor with
      longitudinal holes, so that an entire sentence could get through
      without material injury. The mixture was then ready for use. When
      called upon to play Thomas Hawk, I anointed a sheet of fools-cap
      with the white of a gander’s egg; then, shredding the thing to be
      reviewed as I had previously shredded the books,—only with more
      care, so as to get every word separate—I threw the latter shreds
      in with the former, screwed on the lid of the castor, gave it a
      shake, and so dusted out the mixture upon the egged foolscap;
      where it stuck. The effect was beautiful to behold. It was
      captivating. Indeed, the reviews I brought to pass by this simple
      expedient have never been approached, and were the wonder of the
      world. At first, through bashfulness—the result of inexperience—I
      was a little put out by a certain inconsistency—a certain air of
      the _bizarre_, (as we say in France,) worn by the composition as
      a whole. All the phrases did not _fit_, (as we say in the
      Anglo-Saxon). Many were quite awry. Some, even, were
      up-side-down; and there were none of them which were not, in some
      measure, injured in regard to effect, by this latter species of
      accident, when it occurred—with the exception of Mr. Lewis
      Clarke’s paragraphs, which were so vigorous, and altogether
      stout, that they seemed not particularly disconcerted by any
      extreme of position, but looked equally happy and satisfactory,
      whether on their heads, or on their heels.

      What became of the editor of the “Gad-Fly,” after the publication
      of my criticism on his “Oil-of-Bob,” it is somewhat difficult to
      determine. The most reasonable conclusion is, that he wept
      himself to death. At all events he disappeared instantaneously
      from the face of the earth, and no man has seen even the ghost of
      him since.

      This matter having been properly accomplished, and the Furies
      appeased, I grew at once into high favor with Mr. Crab. He took
      me into his confidence, gave me a permanent situation as Thomas
      Hawk of the “Lollipop,” and, as for the present, he could afford
      me no salary, allowed me to profit, at discretion, by his advice.

      “My dear Thingum,” said he to me one day after dinner, “I respect
      your abilities and love you as a son. You shall be my heir. When
      I die I will bequeath you the ‘Lollipop.’ In the meantime I will
      make a man of you—I _will_—provided always that you follow my
      counsel. The first thing to do is to get rid of the old bore.”

      “Boar?” said I inquiringly—“pig, eh?—_aper?_ (as we say in
      Latin)—who?—where?”

      “Your father,” said he.

      “Precisely,” I replied,—“pig.”

      “You have your fortune to make, Thingum,” resumed Mr. Crab, “and
      that governor of yours is a millstone about your neck. We must
      cut him at once.” [Here I took out my knife.] “We must cut him,”
      continued Mr. Crab, “decidedly and forever. He won’t do—he
      _won’t_. Upon second thoughts, you had better kick him, or cane
      him, or something of that kind.”

      “What do you say,” I suggested modestly, “to my kicking him in
      the first instance, caning him afterwards, and winding up by
      tweaking his nose?”

      Mr. Crab looked at me musingly for some moments, and then
      answered:

      “I think, Mr. Bob, that what you propose would answer
      sufficiently well—indeed remarkably well—that is to say, as far
      as it went—but barbers are exceedingly hard to cut, and I think,
      upon the whole, that, having performed upon Thomas Bob the
      operations you suggest, it would be advisable to blacken, with
      your fists, both his eyes, very carefully and thoroughly, to
      prevent his ever seeing you again in fashionable promenades.
      After doing this, I really do not perceive that you can do any
      more. However—it might be just as well to roll him once or twice
      in the gutter, and then put him in charge of the police. Any time
      the next morning you can call at the watch-house and swear an
      assault.”

      I was much affected by the kindness of feeling towards me
      personally, which was evinced in this excellent advice of Mr.
      Crab, and I did not fail to profit by it forthwith. The result
      was, that I got rid of the old bore, and began to feel a little
      independent and gentleman-like. The want of money, however, was,
      for a few weeks, a source of some discomfort; but at length, by
      carefully putting to use my two eyes, and observing how matters
      went just in front of my nose, I perceived how the thing was to
      be brought about. I say “thing”—be it observed—for they tell me
      the Latin for it is _rem_. By the way, talking of Latin, can any
      one tell me the meaning of _quocunque_—or what is the meaning of
      _modo?_

      My plan was exceedingly simple. I bought, for a song, a sixteenth
      of the “Snapping-Turtle”:—that was all. The thing was _done_, and
      I put money in my purse. There were some trivial arrangements
      afterwards, to be sure; but these formed no portion of the plan.
      They were a consequence—a result. For example, I bought pen, ink,
      and paper, and put them into furious activity. Having thus
      completed a Magazine article, I gave it, for appellation,
      “Fol-Lol, _by the Author of_ ‘The Oil-of-Bob,’” and enveloped it
      to the “Goosetherumfoodle.” That journal, however, having
      pronounced it “twattle” in the “Monthly Notices to
      Correspondents,” I reheaded the paper “‘Hey-Diddle-Diddle,’ by
      Thingum Bob, Esq., Author of the Ode on ‘The Oil-of-Bob,’ _and_
      Editor of the ‘Snapping-Turtle.’” With this amendment, I
      re-enclosed it to the “Goosetherumfoodle,” and, while I awaited a
      reply, published daily, in the “Turtle,” six columns of what may
      be termed philosophical and analytical investigation of the
      literary merits of the “Goosetherumfoodle,” as well as of the
      personal character of the editor of the “Goosetherumfoodle.” At
      the end of a week the “Goosetherumfoodle” discovered that it had,
      by some odd mistake, “confounded a stupid article, headed
      ‘Hey-Diddle-Diddle’ and composed by some unknown ignoramus, with
      a gem of resplendent lustre similarly entitled, the work of
      Thingum Bob, Esq., the celebrated author of ‘The Oil-of-Bob.’”
      The “Goosetherumfoodle” deeply “regretted this very natural
      accident,” and promised, moreover, an insertion of the _genuine_
      “Hey-Diddle-Diddle” in the very next number of the Magazine.

      The fact is, I _thought_—I _really_ thought—I thought at the
      time—I thought _then_—and have no reason for thinking otherwise
      _now_—that the “Goosetherumfoodle” _did_ make a mistake. With the
      best intentions in the world, I never knew any thing that made as
      many singular mistakes as the “Goosetherumfoodle.” From that day
      I took a liking to the “Goosetherumfoodle,” and the result was I
      soon saw into the very depths of its literary merits, and did not
      fail to expatiate upon them, in the “Turtle,” whenever a fitting
      opportunity occurred. And it is to be regarded as a very peculiar
      coincidence—as one of those positively _remarkable_ coincidences
      which set a man to serious thinking—that just such a total
      revolution of opinion—just such entire _bouleversement_, (as we
      say in French,)—just such thorough _topsiturviness_, (if I may be
      permitted to employ a rather forcible term of the Choctaws,) as
      happened, _pro_ and _con_, between myself on the one part, and
      the “Goosetherumfoodle” on the other, did actually again happen,
      in a brief period afterwards, and with precisely similar
      circumstances, in the case of myself and the “Rowdy-Dow,” and in
      the case of myself and the “Hum-Drum.”

      Thus it was that, by a master-stroke of genius, I at length
      consummated my triumphs by “putting money in my purse,” and thus
      may be said really and fairly to have commenced that brilliant
      and eventful career which rendered me illustrious, and which now
      enables me to say, with Chateaubriand, “I have made
      history”—“_J’ai fait l’histoire_.”

      I have indeed “made history.” From the bright epoch which I now
      record, my actions—my works—are the property of mankind. They are
      familiar to the world. It is, then, needless for me to detail
      how, soaring rapidly, I fell heir to the “Lollipop”—how I merged
      this journal in the “Hum-Drum”—how again I made purchase of the
      “Rowdy-Dow,” thus combining the three periodicals—how, lastly, I
      effected a bargain for the sole remaining rival, and united all
      the literature of the country in one magnificent Magazine, known
      everywhere as the

      “Rowdy-Dow, Lollipop, Hum-Drum,
      and
      goosetherumfoodle.”

      Yes; I have made history. My fame is universal. It extends to the
      uttermost ends of the earth. You cannot take up a common
      newspaper in which you shall not see some allusion to the
      immortal Thingum Bob. It is Mr. Thingum Bob said so, and Mr.
      Thingum Bob wrote this, and Mr. Thingum Bob did that. But I am
      meek and expire with an humble heart. After all, what is it?—this
      indescribable something which men will persist in terming
      “genius?” I agree with Buffon—with Hogarth—it is but _diligence_
      after all.

      Look at _me!_—how I labored—how I toiled—how I wrote! Ye Gods,
      did I _not_ write? I knew not the word “ease.” By day I adhered
      to my desk, and at night, a pale student, I consumed the midnight
      oil. You should have seen me—you _should_. I leaned to the right.
      I leaned to the left. I sat forward. I sat backward. I sat upon
      end. I sat _tete baissée_, (as they have it in the Kickapoo,)
      bowing my head close to the alabaster page. And, through all,
      I—_wrote_. Through joy and through sorrow, I—_wrote_. Through
      hunger and through thirst, I—_wrote_. Through good report and
      through ill report, I—_wrote_. Through sunshine and through
      moonshine, I—_wrote. What_ I wrote it is unnecessary to say. The
      _style!_—that was the thing. I caught it from
      Fatquack—whizz!—fizz!—— and I am giving you a specimen of it now.




HOW TO WRITE A “BLACKWOOD” ARTICLE


      “In the name of the Prophet—figs!!”
                    —_Cry of the Turkish fig-peddler._

      I presume everybody has heard of me. My name is the Signora
      Psyche Zenobia. This I know to be a fact. Nobody but my enemies
      ever calls me Suky Snobbs. I have been assured that Suky is but a
      vulgar corruption of Psyche, which is good Greek, and means “the
      soul” (that’s me, I’m all soul) and sometimes “a butterfly,”
      which latter meaning undoubtedly alludes to my appearance in my
      new crimson satin dress, with the sky-blue Arabian mantelet, and
      the trimmings of green agraffas, and the seven flounces of
      orange-colored auriculas. As for Snobbs—any person who should
      look at me would be instantly aware that my name wasn’t Snobbs.
      Miss Tabitha Turnip propagated that report through sheer envy.
      Tabitha Turnip indeed! Oh the little wretch! But what can we
      expect from a turnip? Wonder if she remembers the old adage about
      “blood out of a turnip,” &c.? [Mem. put her in mind of it the
      first opportunity.] [Mem. again—pull her nose.] Where was I? Ah!
      I have been assured that Snobbs is a mere corruption of Zenobia,
      and that Zenobia was a queen—(So am I. Dr. Moneypenny always
      calls me the Queen of the Hearts)—and that Zenobia, as well as
      Psyche, is good Greek, and that my father was “a Greek,” and that
      consequently I have a right to our patronymic, which is Zenobia
      and not by any means Snobbs. Nobody but Tabitha Turnip calls me
      Suky Snobbs. I am the Signora Psyche Zenobia.

      As I said before, everybody has heard of me. I am that very
      Signora Psyche Zenobia, so justly celebrated as corresponding
      secretary to the “Philadelphia, Regular, Exchange, Tea, Total,
      Young, Belles, Lettres, Universal, Experimental, Bibliographical,
      Association, To, Civilize, Humanity.” Dr. Moneypenny made the
      title for us, and says he chose it because it sounded big like an
      empty rum-puncheon. (A vulgar man that sometimes—but he’s deep.)
      We all sign the initials of the society after our names, in the
      fashion of the R. S. A., Royal Society of Arts—the S. D. U. K.,
      Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, &c, &c. Dr.
      Moneypenny says that S. stands for stale, and that D. U. K.
      spells duck, (but it don’t,) that S. D. U. K. stands for Stale
      Duck and not for Lord Brougham’s society—but then Dr. Moneypenny
      is such a queer man that I am never sure when he is telling me
      the truth. At any rate we always add to our names the initials P.
      R. E. T. T. Y. B. L. U. E. B. A. T. C. H.—that is to say,
      Philadelphia, Regular, Exchange, Tea, Total, Young, Belles,
      Lettres, Universal, Experimental, Bibliographical, Association,
      To, Civilize, Humanity—one letter for each word, which is a
      decided improvement upon Lord Brougham. Dr. Moneypenny will have
      it that our initials give our true character—but for my life I
      can’t see what he means.

      Notwithstanding the good offices of the Doctor, and the strenuous
      exertions of the association to get itself into notice, it met
      with no very great success until I joined it. The truth is, the
      members indulged in too flippant a tone of discussion. The papers
      read every Saturday evening were characterized less by depth than
      buffoonery. They were all whipped syllabub. There was no
      investigation of first causes, first principles. There was no
      investigation of any thing at all. There was no attention paid to
      that great point, the “fitness of things.” In short there was no
      fine writing like this. It was all low—very! No profundity, no
      reading, no metaphysics—nothing which the learned call
      spirituality, and which the unlearned choose to stigmatize as
      cant. [Dr. M. says I ought to spell “cant” with a capital K—but I
      know better.]

      When I joined the society it was my endeavor to introduce a
      better style of thinking and writing, and all the world knows how
      well I have succeeded. We get up as good papers now in the P. R.
      E. T. T. Y. B. L. U. E. B. A. T. C. H. as any to be found even in
      Blackwood. I say, Blackwood, because I have been assured that the
      finest writing, upon every subject, is to be discovered in the
      pages of that justly celebrated Magazine. We now take it for our
      model upon all themes, and are getting into rapid notice
      accordingly. And, after all, it’s not so very difficult a matter
      to compose an article of the genuine Blackwood stamp, if one only
      goes properly about it. Of course I don’t speak of the political
      articles. Everybody knows how they are managed, since Dr.
      Moneypenny explained it. Mr. Blackwood has a pair of
      tailor’s-shears, and three apprentices who stand by him for
      orders. One hands him the “Times,” another the “Examiner” and a
      third a “Culley’s New Compendium of Slang-Whang.” Mr. B. merely
      cuts out and intersperses. It is soon done—nothing but
      “Examiner,” “Slang-Whang,” and “Times”—then “Times,”
      “Slang-Whang,” and “Examiner”—and then “Times,” “Examiner,” and
      “Slang-Whang.”

      But the chief merit of the Magazine lies in its miscellaneous
      articles; and the best of these come under the head of what Dr.
      Moneypenny calls the bizarreries (whatever that may mean) and
      what everybody else calls the intensities. This is a species of
      writing which I have long known how to appreciate, although it is
      only since my late visit to Mr. Blackwood (deputed by the
      society) that I have been made aware of the exact method of
      composition. This method is very simple, but not so much so as
      the politics. Upon my calling at Mr. B.‘s, and making known to
      him the wishes of the society, he received me with great
      civility, took me into his study, and gave me a clear explanation
      of the whole process.

      “My dear madam,” said he, evidently struck with my majestic
      appearance, for I had on the crimson satin, with the green
      agraffas, and orange-colored auriclas. “My dear madam,” said he,
      “sit down. The matter stands thus: In the first place your writer
      of intensities must have very black ink, and a very big pen, with
      a very blunt nib. And, mark me, Miss Psyche Zenobia!” he
      continued, after a pause, with the most expressive energy and
      solemnity of manner, “mark me!—that pen—must—never be mended!
      Herein, madam, lies the secret, the soul, of intensity. I assume
      upon myself to say, that no individual, of however great genius
      ever wrote with a good pen—understand me,—a good article. You may
      take, it for granted, that when manuscript can be read it is
      never worth reading. This is a leading principle in our faith, to
      which if you cannot readily assent, our conference is at an end.”

      He paused. But, of course, as I had no wish to put an end to the
      conference, I assented to a proposition so very obvious, and one,
      too, of whose truth I had all along been sufficiently aware. He
      seemed pleased, and went on with his instructions.

      “It may appear invidious in me, Miss Psyche Zenobia, to refer you
      to any article, or set of articles, in the way of model or study,
      yet perhaps I may as well call your attention to a few cases. Let
      me see. There was ‘The Dead Alive,’ a capital thing!—the record
      of a gentleman’s sensations when entombed before the breath was
      out of his body—full of tastes, terror, sentiment, metaphysics,
      and erudition. You would have sworn that the writer had been born
      and brought up in a coffin. Then we had the ‘Confessions of an
      Opium-eater’—fine, very fine!—glorious imagination—deep
      philosophy acute speculation—plenty of fire and fury, and a good
      spicing of the decidedly unintelligible. That was a nice bit of
      flummery, and went down the throats of the people delightfully.
      They would have it that Coleridge wrote the paper—but not so. It
      was composed by my pet baboon, Juniper, over a rummer of Hollands
      and water, ‘hot, without sugar.’” [This I could scarcely have
      believed had it been anybody but Mr. Blackwood, who assured me of
      it.] “Then there was ‘The Involuntary Experimentalist,’ all about
      a gentleman who got baked in an oven, and came out alive and
      well, although certainly done to a turn. And then there was ‘The
      Diary of a Late Physician,’ where the merit lay in good rant, and
      indifferent Greek—both of them taking things with the public. And
      then there was ‘The Man in the Bell,’ a paper by-the-by, Miss
      Zenobia, which I cannot sufficiently recommend to your attention.
      It is the history of a young person who goes to sleep under the
      clapper of a church bell, and is awakened by its tolling for a
      funeral. The sound drives him mad, and, accordingly, pulling out
      his tablets, he gives a record of his sensations. Sensations are
      the great things after all. Should you ever be drowned or hung,
      be sure and make a note of your sensations—they will be worth to
      you ten guineas a sheet. If you wish to write forcibly, Miss
      Zenobia, pay minute attention to the sensations.”

      “That I certainly will, Mr. Blackwood,” said I.

      “Good!” he replied. “I see you are a pupil after my own heart.
      But I must put you au fait to the details necessary in composing
      what may be denominated a genuine Blackwood article of the
      sensation stamp—the kind which you will understand me to say I
      consider the best for all purposes.

      “The first thing requisite is to get yourself into such a scrape
      as no one ever got into before. The oven, for instance,—that was
      a good hit. But if you have no oven or big bell, at hand, and if
      you cannot conveniently tumble out of a balloon, or be swallowed
      up in an earthquake, or get stuck fast in a chimney, you will
      have to be contented with simply imagining some similar
      misadventure. I should prefer, however, that you have the actual
      fact to bear you out. Nothing so well assists the fancy, as an
      experimental knowledge of the matter in hand. ‘Truth is strange,’
      you know, ‘stranger than fiction’—besides being more to the
      purpose.”

      Here I assured him I had an excellent pair of garters, and would
      go and hang myself forthwith.

      “Good!” he replied, “do so;—although hanging is somewhat
      hacknied. Perhaps you might do better. Take a dose of Brandreth’s
      pills, and then give us your sensations. However, my instructions
      will apply equally well to any variety of misadventure, and in
      your way home you may easily get knocked in the head, or run over
      by an omnibus, or bitten by a mad dog, or drowned in a gutter.
      But to proceed.

      “Having determined upon your subject, you must next consider the
      tone, or manner, of your narration. There is the tone didactic,
      the tone enthusiastic, the tone natural—all commonplace enough.
      But then there is the tone laconic, or curt, which has lately
      come much into use. It consists in short sentences. Somehow thus:
      Can’t be too brief. Can’t be too snappish. Always a full stop.
      And never a paragraph.

      “Then there is the tone elevated, diffusive, and interjectional.
      Some of our best novelists patronize this tone. The words must be
      all in a whirl, like a humming-top, and make a noise very
      similar, which answers remarkably well instead of meaning. This
      is the best of all possible styles where the writer is in too
      great a hurry to think.

      “The tone metaphysical is also a good one. If you know any big
      words this is your chance for them. Talk of the Ionic and Eleatic
      schools—of Archytas, Gorgias, and Alcmaeon. Say something about
      objectivity and subjectivity. Be sure and abuse a man named
      Locke. Turn up your nose at things in general, and when you let
      slip any thing a little too absurd, you need not be at the
      trouble of scratching it out, but just add a footnote and say
      that you are indebted for the above profound observation to the
      ‘Kritik der reinem Vernunft,’ or to the ‘Metaphysithe
      Anfongsgrunde der Noturwissenchaft.’ This would look erudite
      and—and—and frank.

      “There are various other tones of equal celebrity, but I shall
      mention only two more—the tone transcendental and the tone
      heterogeneous. In the former the merit consists in seeing into
      the nature of affairs a very great deal farther than anybody
      else. This second sight is very efficient when properly managed.
      A little reading of the ‘Dial’ will carry you a great way.
      Eschew, in this case, big words; get them as small as possible,
      and write them upside down. Look over Channing’s poems and quote
      what he says about a ‘fat little man with a delusive show of
      Can.’ Put in something about the Supernal Oneness. Don’t say a
      syllable about the Infernal Twoness. Above all, study innuendo.
      Hint everything—assert nothing. If you feel inclined to say
      ‘bread and butter,’ do not by any means say it outright. You may
      say any thing and every thing approaching to ‘bread and butter.’
      You may hint at buck-wheat cake, or you may even go so far as to
      insinuate oat-meal porridge, but if bread and butter be your real
      meaning, be cautious, my dear Miss Psyche, not on any account to
      say ‘bread and butter!’”

      I assured him that I should never say it again as long as I
      lived. He kissed me and continued:

      “As for the tone heterogeneous, it is merely a judicious mixture,
      in equal proportions, of all the other tones in the world, and is
      consequently made up of every thing deep, great, odd, piquant,
      pertinent, and pretty.

      “Let us suppose now you have determined upon your incidents and
      tone. The most important portion—in fact, the soul of the whole
      business, is yet to be attended to—I allude to the filling up. It
      is not to be supposed that a lady, or gentleman either, has been
      leading the life of a book worm. And yet above all things it is
      necessary that your article have an air of erudition, or at least
      afford evidence of extensive general reading. Now I’ll put you in
      the way of accomplishing this point. See here!” (pulling down
      some three or four ordinary-looking volumes, and opening them at
      random). “By casting your eye down almost any page of any book in
      the world, you will be able to perceive at once a host of little
      scraps of either learning or _bel-esprit-ism_, which are the very
      thing for the spicing of a Blackwood article. You might as well
      note down a few while I read them to you. I shall make two
      divisions: first, Piquant Facts for the Manufacture of Similes,
      and, second, Piquant Expressions to be introduced as occasion may
      require. Write now!”—and I wrote as he dictated.

      “PIQUANT FACTS FOR SIMILES. ‘There were originally but three
      Muses—Melete, Mneme, Aœde—meditation, memory, and singing.’ You
      may make a good deal of that little fact if properly worked. You
      see it is not generally known, and looks _recherché_. You must be
      careful and give the thing with a downright improviso air.

      “Again. ‘The river Alpheus passed beneath the sea, and emerged
      without injury to the purity of its waters.’ Rather stale that,
      to be sure, but, if properly dressed and dished up, will look
      quite as fresh as ever.

      “Here is something better. ‘The Persian Iris appears to some
      persons to possess a sweet and very powerful perfume, while to
      others it is perfectly scentless.’ Fine that, and very delicate!
      Turn it about a little, and it will do wonders. We’ll have some
      thing else in the botanical line. There’s nothing goes down so
      well, especially with the help of a little Latin. Write!

      “‘_The Epidendrum Flos Aeris_, of Java, bears a very beautiful
      flower, and will live when pulled up by the roots. The natives
      suspend it by a cord from the ceiling, and enjoy its fragrance
      for years.’ That’s capital! That will do for the similes. Now for
      the Piquant Expressions.

      “PIQUANT EXPRESSIONS. ‘_The Venerable Chinese novel Ju-Kiao-Li_.’
      Good! By introducing these few words with dexterity you will
      evince your intimate acquaintance with the language and
      literature of the Chinese. With the aid of this you may either
      get along without either Arabic, or Sanscrit, or Chickasaw. There
      is no passing muster, however, without Spanish, Italian, German,
      Latin, and Greek. I must look you out a little specimen of each.
      Any scrap will answer, because you must depend upon your own
      ingenuity to make it fit into your article. Now write!

      “‘_Aussi tendre que Zaire_’—as tender as Zaire-French. Alludes to
      the frequent repetition of the phrase, _la tendre Zaire_, in the
      French tragedy of that name. Properly introduced, will show not
      only your knowledge of the language, but your general reading and
      wit. You can say, for instance, that the chicken you were eating
      (write an article about being choked to death by a chicken-bone)
      was not altogether _aussi tendre que Zaire_. Write!

‘Van muerte tan escondida,
    Que no te sienta venir,
Porque el plazer del morir,
    No mestorne a dar la vida.’

      “That’s Spanish—from Miguel de Cervantes. ‘Come quickly, O death!
      but be sure and don’t let me see you coming, lest the pleasure I
      shall feel at your appearance should unfortunately bring me back
      again to life.’ This you may slip in quite a propos when you are
      struggling in the last agonies with the chicken-bone. Write!

      ‘Il pover ‘huomo che non se’n era accorto,
      Andava combattendo, e era morto.‘

      “That’s Italian, you perceive—from Ariosto. It means that a great
      hero, in the heat of combat, not perceiving that he had been
      fairly killed, continued to fight valiantly, dead as he was. The
      application of this to your own case is obvious—for I trust, Miss
      Psyche, that you will not neglect to kick for at least an hour
      and a half after you have been choked to death by that
      chicken-bone. Please to write!

      ‘Und sterb’ich doch, no sterb’ich denn
      Durch sie—durch sie!’’

      “That’s German—from Schiller. ‘And if I die, at least I die—for
      thee—for thee!’ Here it is clear that you are apostrophizing the
      cause of your disaster, the chicken. Indeed what gentleman (or
      lady either) of sense, wouldn’t die, I should like to know, for a
      well fattened capon of the right Molucca breed, stuffed with
      capers and mushrooms, and served up in a salad-bowl, with
      orange-jellies _en mosaïques_. Write! (You can get them that way
      at Tortoni’s)—Write, if you please!

      “Here is a nice little Latin phrase, and rare too, (one can’t be
      too _recherché_ or brief in one’s Latin, it’s getting so
      common—ignoratio elenchi. He has committed an ignoratio
      elenchi—that is to say, he has understood the words of your
      proposition, but not the idea. The man was a fool, you see. Some
      poor fellow whom you address while choking with that
      chicken-bone, and who therefore didn’t precisely understand what
      you were talking about. Throw the ignoratio elenchi in his teeth,
      and, at once, you have him annihilated. If he dares to reply, you
      can tell him from Lucan (here it is) that speeches are mere
      anemonae verborum, anemone words. The anemone, with great
      brilliancy, has no smell. Or, if he begins to bluster, you may be
      down upon him with insomnia Jovis, reveries of Jupiter—a phrase
      which Silius Italicus (see here!) applies to thoughts pompous and
      inflated. This will be sure and cut him to the heart. He can do
      nothing but roll over and die. Will you be kind enough to write?

      “In Greek we must have some thing pretty—from Demosthenes, for
      example. Ανερο φευων και παλιν μαχεσεται. [Aner o pheugoen kai
      palin makesetai.] There is a tolerably good translation of it in
      Hudibras—

        ‘For he that flies may fight again,
     Which he can never do that’s slain.’

      In a Blackwood article nothing makes so fine a show as your
      Greek. The very letters have an air of profundity about them.
      Only observe, madam, the astute look of that Epsilon! That Phi
      ought certainly to be a bishop! Was ever there a smarter fellow
      than that Omicron? Just twig that Tau! In short, there is nothing
      like Greek for a genuine sensation-paper. In the present case
      your application is the most obvious thing in the world. Rap out
      the sentence, with a huge oath, and by way of ultimatum at the
      good-for-nothing dunder-headed villain who couldn’t understand
      your plain English in relation to the chicken-bone. He’ll take
      the hint and be off, you may depend upon it.”

      These were all the instructions Mr. B. could afford me upon the
      topic in question, but I felt they would be entirely sufficient.
      I was, at length, able to write a genuine Blackwood article, and
      determined to do it forthwith. In taking leave of me, Mr. B. made
      a proposition for the purchase of the paper when written; but as
      he could offer me only fifty guineas a sheet, I thought it better
      to let our society have it, than sacrifice it for so paltry a
      sum. Notwithstanding this niggardly spirit, however, the
      gentleman showed his consideration for me in all other respects,
      and indeed treated me with the greatest civility. His parting
      words made a deep impression upon my heart, and I hope I shall
      always remember them with gratitude.

      “My dear Miss Zenobia,” he said, while the tears stood in his
      eyes, “is there anything else I can do to promote the success of
      your laudable undertaking? Let me reflect! It is just possible
      that you may not be able, so soon as convenient, to—to—get
      yourself drowned, or—choked with a chicken-bone, or—or
      hung,—or—bitten by a—but stay! Now I think me of it, there are a
      couple of very excellent bull-dogs in the yard—fine fellows, I
      assure you—savage, and all that—indeed just the thing for your
      money—they’ll have you eaten up, auricula and all, in less than
      five minutes (here’s my watch!)—and then only think of the
      sensations! Here! I say—Tom!—Peter!—Dick, you villain!—let out
      those”—but as I was really in a great hurry, and had not another
      moment to spare, I was reluctantly forced to expedite my
      departure, and accordingly took leave at once—somewhat more
      abruptly, I admit, than strict courtesy would have otherwise
      allowed.

      It was my primary object upon quitting Mr. Blackwood, to get into
      some immediate difficulty, pursuant to his advice, and with this
      view I spent the greater part of the day in wandering about
      Edinburgh, seeking for desperate adventures—adventures adequate
      to the intensity of my feelings, and adapted to the vast
      character of the article I intended to write. In this excursion I
      was attended by one negro servant, Pompey, and my little lap-dog
      Diana, whom I had brought with me from Philadelphia. It was not,
      however, until late in the afternoon that I fully succeeded in my
      arduous undertaking. An important event then happened of which
      the following Blackwood article, in the tone heterogeneous, is
      the substance and result.




A PREDICAMENT


What chance, good lady, hath bereft you thus?—COMUS.

      It was a quiet and still afternoon when I strolled forth in the
      goodly city of Edina. The confusion and bustle in the streets
      were terrible. Men were talking. Women were screaming. Children
      were choking. Pigs were whistling. Carts they rattled. Bulls they
      bellowed. Cows they lowed. Horses they neighed. Cats they
      caterwauled. Dogs they danced. _Danced!_ Could it then be
      possible? Danced! Alas, thought I, my dancing days are over! Thus
      it is ever. What a host of gloomy recollections will ever and
      anon be awakened in the mind of genius and imaginative
      contemplation, especially of a genius doomed to the everlasting,
      and eternal, and continual, and, as one might say,
      the—continued—yes, the continued and continuous, bitter,
      harassing, disturbing, and, if I may be allowed the expression,
      the very disturbing influence of the serene, and godlike, and
      heavenly, and exalted, and elevated, and purifying effect of what
      may be rightly termed the most enviable, the most truly
      enviable—nay! the most benignly beautiful, the most deliciously
      ethereal, and, as it were, the most pretty (if I may use so bold
      an expression) thing (pardon me, gentle reader!) in the world—but
      I am always led away by my feelings. In such a mind, I repeat,
      what a host of recollections are stirred up by a trifle! The dogs
      danced! I—I could not! They frisked—I wept. They capered—I sobbed
      aloud. Touching circumstances! which cannot fail to bring to the
      recollection of the classical reader that exquisite passage in
      relation to the fitness of things, which is to be found in the
      commencement of the third volume of that admirable and venerable
      Chinese novel the Jo-Go-Slow.

      In my solitary walk through, the city I had two humble but
      faithful companions. Diana, my poodle! sweetest of creatures! She
      had a quantity of hair over her one eye, and a blue ribbon tied
      fashionably around her neck. Diana was not more than five inches
      in height, but her head was somewhat bigger than her body, and
      her tail being cut off exceedingly close, gave an air of injured
      innocence to the interesting animal which rendered her a favorite
      with all.

      And Pompey, my negro!—sweet Pompey! how shall I ever forget thee?
      I had taken Pompey’s arm. He was three feet in height (I like to
      be particular) and about seventy, or perhaps eighty, years of
      age. He had bow-legs and was corpulent. His mouth should not be
      called small, nor his ears short. His teeth, however, were like
      pearl, and his large full eyes were deliciously white. Nature had
      endowed him with no neck, and had placed his ankles (as usual
      with that race) in the middle of the upper portion of the feet.
      He was clad with a striking simplicity. His sole garments were a
      stock of nine inches in height, and a nearly-new drab overcoat
      which had formerly been in the service of the tall, stately, and
      illustrious Dr. Moneypenny. It was a good overcoat. It was well
      cut. It was well made. The coat was nearly new. Pompey held it up
      out of the dirt with both hands.

      There were three persons in our party, and two of them have
      already been the subject of remark. There was a third—that person
      was myself. I am the Signora Psyche Zenobia. I am not Suky
      Snobbs. My appearance is commanding. On the memorable occasion of
      which I speak I was habited in a crimson satin dress, with a
      sky-blue Arabian mantelet. And the dress had trimmings of green
      agraffas, and seven graceful flounces of the orange-colored
      auricula. I thus formed the third of the party. There was the
      poodle. There was Pompey. There was myself. We were three. Thus
      it is said there were originally but three Furies—Melty, Nimmy,
      and Hetty—Meditation, Memory, and Fiddling.

      Leaning upon the arm of the gallant Pompey, and attended at a
      respectable distance by Diana, I proceeded down one of the
      populous and very pleasant streets of the now deserted Edina. On
      a sudden, there presented itself to view a church—a Gothic
      cathedral—vast, venerable, and with a tall steeple, which towered
      into the sky. What madness now possessed me? Why did I rush upon
      my fate? I was seized with an uncontrollable desire to ascend the
      giddy pinnacle, and then survey the immense extent of the city.
      The door of the cathedral stood invitingly open. My destiny
      prevailed. I entered the ominous archway. Where then was my
      guardian angel?—if indeed such angels there be. If! Distressing
      monosyllable! what world of mystery, and meaning, and doubt, and
      uncertainty is there involved in thy two letters! I entered the
      ominous archway! I entered; and, without injury to my
      orange-colored auriculas, I passed beneath the portal, and
      emerged within the vestibule. Thus it is said the immense river
      Alfred passed, unscathed, and unwetted, beneath the sea.

      I thought the staircase would never have an end. Round! Yes, they
      went round and up, and round and up and round and up, until I
      could not help surmising, with the sagacious Pompey, upon whose
      supporting arm I leaned in all the confidence of early
      affection—I could not help surmising that the upper end of the
      continuous spiral ladder had been accidentally, or perhaps
      designedly, removed. I paused for breath; and, in the meantime,
      an accident occurred of too momentous a nature in a moral, and
      also in a metaphysical point of view, to be passed over without
      notice. It appeared to me—indeed I was quite confident of the
      fact—I could not be mistaken—no! I had, for some moments,
      carefully and anxiously observed the motions of my Diana—I say
      that I could not be mistaken—Diana smelt a rat! At once I called
      Pompey’s attention to the subject, and he—he agreed with me.
      There was then no longer any reasonable room for doubt. The rat
      had been smelled—and by Diana. Heavens! shall I ever forget the
      intense excitement of the moment? Alas! what is the boasted
      intellect of man? The rat!—it was there—that is to say, it was
      somewhere. Diana smelled the rat. I—I could not! Thus it is said
      the Prussian Isis has, for some persons, a sweet and very
      powerful perfume, while to others it is perfectly scentless.

      The staircase had been surmounted, and there were now only three
      or four more upward steps intervening between us and the summit.
      We still ascended, and now only one step remained. One step! One
      little, little step! Upon one such little step in the great
      staircase of human life how vast a sum of human happiness or
      misery depends! I thought of myself, then of Pompey, and then of
      the mysterious and inexplicable destiny which surrounded us. I
      thought of Pompey!—alas, I thought of love! I thought of my many
      false steps which have been taken, and may be taken again. I
      resolved to be more cautious, more reserved. I abandoned the arm
      of Pompey, and, without his assistance, surmounted the one
      remaining step, and gained the chamber of the belfry. I was
      followed immediately afterward by my poodle. Pompey alone
      remained behind. I stood at the head of the staircase, and
      encouraged him to ascend. He stretched forth to me his hand, and
      unfortunately in so doing was forced to abandon his firm hold
      upon the overcoat. Will the gods never cease their persecution?
      The overcoat is dropped, and, with one of his feet, Pompey
      stepped upon the long and trailing skirt of the overcoat. He
      stumbled and fell—this consequence was inevitable. He fell
      forward, and, with his accursed head, striking me full in the—in
      the breast, precipitated me headlong, together with himself, upon
      the hard, filthy, and detestable floor of the belfry. But my
      revenge was sure, sudden, and complete. Seizing him furiously by
      the wool with both hands, I tore out a vast quantity of black,
      and crisp, and curling material, and tossed it from me with every
      manifestation of disdain. It fell among the ropes of the belfry
      and remained. Pompey arose, and said no word. But he regarded me
      piteously with his large eyes and—sighed. Ye Gods—that sigh! It
      sunk into my heart. And the hair—the wool! Could I have reached
      that wool I would have bathed it with my tears, in testimony of
      regret. But alas! it was now far beyond my grasp. As it dangled
      among the cordage of the bell, I fancied it alive. I fancied that
      it stood on end with indignation. Thus the happy-dandy Flos Aeris
      of Java bears, it is said, a beautiful flower, which will live
      when pulled up by the roots. The natives suspend it by a cord
      from the ceiling and enjoy its fragrance for years.

      Our quarrel was now made up, and we looked about the room for an
      aperture through which to survey the city of Edina. Windows there
      were none. The sole light admitted into the gloomy chamber
      proceeded from a square opening, about a foot in diameter, at a
      height of about seven feet from the floor. Yet what will the
      energy of true genius not effect? I resolved to clamber up to
      this hole. A vast quantity of wheels, pinions, and other
      cabalistic-looking machinery stood opposite the hole, close to
      it; and through the hole there passed an iron rod from the
      machinery. Between the wheels and the wall where the hole lay
      there was barely room for my body—yet I was desperate, and
      determined to persevere. I called Pompey to my side.

      “You perceive that aperture, Pompey. I wish to look through it.
      You will stand here just beneath the hole—so. Now, hold out one
      of your hands, Pompey, and let me step upon it—thus. Now, the
      other hand, Pompey, and with its aid I will get upon your
      shoulders.”

      He did every thing I wished, and I found, upon getting up, that I
      could easily pass my head and neck through the aperture. The
      prospect was sublime. Nothing could be more magnificent. I merely
      paused a moment to bid Diana behave herself, and assure Pompey
      that I would be considerate and bear as lightly as possible upon
      his shoulders. I told him I would be tender of his feelings—ossi
      tender que beefsteak. Having done this justice to my faithful
      friend, I gave myself up with great zest and enthusiasm to the
      enjoyment of the scene which so obligingly spread itself out
      before my eyes.

      Upon this subject, however, I shall forbear to dilate. I will not
      describe the city of Edinburgh. Every one has been to the city of
      Edinburgh. Every one has been to Edinburgh—the classic Edina. I
      will confine myself to the momentous details of my own lamentable
      adventure. Having, in some measure, satisfied my curiosity in
      regard to the extent, situation, and general appearance of the
      city, I had leisure to survey the church in which I was, and the
      delicate architecture of the steeple. I observed that the
      aperture through which I had thrust my head was an opening in the
      dial-plate of a gigantic clock, and must have appeared, from the
      street, as a large key-hole, such as we see in the face of the
      French watches. No doubt the true object was to admit the arm of
      an attendant, to adjust, when necessary, the hands of the clock
      from within. I observed also, with surprise, the immense size of
      these hands, the longest of which could not have been less than
      ten feet in length, and, where broadest, eight or nine inches in
      breadth. They were of solid steel apparently, and their edges
      appeared to be sharp. Having noticed these particulars, and some
      others, I again turned my eyes upon the glorious prospect below,
      and soon became absorbed in contemplation.

      From this, after some minutes, I was aroused by the voice of
      Pompey, who declared that he could stand it no longer, and
      requested that I would be so kind as to come down. This was
      unreasonable, and I told him so in a speech of some length. He
      replied, but with an evident misunderstanding of my ideas upon
      the subject. I accordingly grew angry, and told him in plain
      words, that he was a fool, that he had committed an ignoramus
      e-clench-eye, that his notions were mere insommary Bovis, and his
      words little better than an ennemywerrybor’em. With this he
      appeared satisfied, and I resumed my contemplations.

      It might have been half an hour after this altercation when, as I
      was deeply absorbed in the heavenly scenery beneath me, I was
      startled by something very cold which pressed with a gentle
      pressure on the back of my neck. It is needless to say that I
      felt inexpressibly alarmed. I knew that Pompey was beneath my
      feet, and that Diana was sitting, according to my explicit
      directions, upon her hind legs, in the farthest corner of the
      room. What could it be? Alas! I but too soon discovered. Turning
      my head gently to one side, I perceived, to my extreme horror,
      that the huge, glittering, scimetar-like minute-hand of the clock
      had, in the course of its hourly revolution, descended upon my
      neck. There was, I knew, not a second to be lost. I pulled back
      at once—but it was too late. There was no chance of forcing my
      head through the mouth of that terrible trap in which it was so
      fairly caught, and which grew narrower and narrower with a
      rapidity too horrible to be conceived. The agony of that moment
      is not to be imagined. I threw up my hands and endeavored, with
      all my strength, to force upward the ponderous iron bar. I might
      as well have tried to lift the cathedral itself. Down, down, down
      it came, closer and yet closer. I screamed to Pompey for aid; but
      he said that I had hurt his feelings by calling him “an ignorant
      old squint-eye.” I yelled to Diana; but she only said
      “bow-wow-wow,” and that I had told her “on no account to stir
      from the corner.” Thus I had no relief to expect from my
      associates.

      Meantime the ponderous and terrific Scythe of Time (for I now
      discovered the literal import of that classical phrase) had not
      stopped, nor was it likely to stop, in its career. Down and still
      down, it came. It had already buried its sharp edge a full inch
      in my flesh, and my sensations grew indistinct and confused. At
      one time I fancied myself in Philadelphia with the stately Dr.
      Moneypenny, at another in the back parlor of Mr. Blackwood
      receiving his invaluable instructions. And then again the sweet
      recollection of better and earlier times came over me, and I
      thought of that happy period when the world was not all a desert,
      and Pompey not altogether cruel.

      The ticking of the machinery amused me. Amused me, I say, for my
      sensations now bordered upon perfect happiness, and the most
      trifling circumstances afforded me pleasure. The eternal
      click-clak, click-clak, click-clak of the clock was the most
      melodious of music in my ears, and occasionally even put me in
      mind of the graceful sermonic harangues of Dr. Ollapod. Then
      there were the great figures upon the dial-plate—how intelligent
      how intellectual, they all looked! And presently they took to
      dancing the Mazurka, and I think it was the figure V. who
      performed the most to my satisfaction. She was evidently a lady
      of breeding. None of your swaggerers, and nothing at all
      indelicate in her motions. She did the pirouette to
      admiration—whirling round upon her apex. I made an endeavor to
      hand her a chair, for I saw that she appeared fatigued with her
      exertions—and it was not until then that I fully perceived my
      lamentable situation. Lamentable indeed! The bar had buried
      itself two inches in my neck. I was aroused to a sense of
      exquisite pain. I prayed for death, and, in the agony of the
      moment, could not help repeating those exquisite verses of the
      poet Miguel De Cervantes:

     Vanny Buren, tan escondida
     Query no te senty venny
     Pork and pleasure, delly morry
     Nommy, torny, darry, widdy!

      But now a new horror presented itself, and one indeed sufficient
      to startle the strongest nerves. My eyes, from the cruel pressure
      of the machine, were absolutely starting from their sockets.
      While I was thinking how I should possibly manage without them,
      one actually tumbled out of my head, and, rolling down the steep
      side of the steeple, lodged in the rain gutter which ran along
      the eaves of the main building. The loss of the eye was not so
      much as the insolent air of independence and contempt with which
      it regarded me after it was out. There it lay in the gutter just
      under my nose, and the airs it gave itself would have been
      ridiculous had they not been disgusting. Such a winking and
      blinking were never before seen. This behavior on the part of my
      eye in the gutter was not only irritating on account of its
      manifest insolence and shameful ingratitude, but was also
      exceedingly inconvenient on account of the sympathy which always
      exists between two eyes of the same head, however far apart. I
      was forced, in a manner, to wink and to blink, whether I would or
      not, in exact concert with the scoundrelly thing that lay just
      under my nose. I was presently relieved, however, by the dropping
      out of the other eye. In falling it took the same direction
      (possibly a concerted plot) as its fellow. Both rolled out of the
      gutter together, and in truth I was very glad to get rid of them.

      The bar was now four inches and a half deep in my neck, and there
      was only a little bit of skin to cut through. My sensations were
      those of entire happiness, for I felt that in a few minutes, at
      farthest, I should be relieved from my disagreeable situation.
      And in this expectation I was not at all deceived. At twenty-five
      minutes past five in the afternoon, precisely, the huge
      minute-hand had proceeded sufficiently far on its terrible
      revolution to sever the small remainder of my neck. I was not
      sorry to see the head which had occasioned me so much
      embarrassment at length make a final separation from my body. It
      first rolled down the side of the steeple, then lodge, for a few
      seconds, in the gutter, and then made its way, with a plunge,
      into the middle of the street.

      I will candidly confess that my feelings were now of the most
      singular—nay, of the most mysterious, the most perplexing and
      incomprehensible character. My senses were here and there at one
      and the same moment. With my head I imagined, at one time, that
      I, the head, was the real Signora Psyche Zenobia—at another I
      felt convinced that myself, the body, was the proper identity. To
      clear my ideas on this topic I felt in my pocket for my
      snuff-box, but, upon getting it, and endeavoring to apply a pinch
      of its grateful contents in the ordinary manner, I became
      immediately aware of my peculiar deficiency, and threw the box at
      once down to my head. It took a pinch with great satisfaction,
      and smiled me an acknowledgement in return. Shortly afterward it
      made me a speech, which I could hear but indistinctly without
      ears. I gathered enough, however, to know that it was astonished
      at my wishing to remain alive under such circumstances. In the
      concluding sentences it quoted the noble words of Ariosto—

     Il pover hommy che non sera corty
      And have a combat tenty erry morty;

      thus comparing me to the hero who, in the heat of the combat, not
      perceiving that he was dead, continued to contest the battle with
      inextinguishable valor. There was nothing now to prevent my
      getting down from my elevation, and I did so. What it was that
      Pompey saw so very peculiar in my appearance I have never yet
      been able to find out. The fellow opened his mouth from ear to
      ear, and shut his two eyes as if he were endeavoring to crack
      nuts between the lids. Finally, throwing off his overcoat, he
      made one spring for the staircase and disappeared. I hurled after
      the scoundrel these vehement words of Demosthenes—

      Andrew O’Phlegethon, you really make haste to fly,

      and then turned to the darling of my heart, to the one-eyed! the
      shaggy-haired Diana. Alas! what a horrible vision affronted my
      eyes? Was that a rat I saw skulking into his hole? Are these the
      picked bones of the little angel who has been cruelly devoured by
      the monster? Ye gods! and what do I behold—is that the departed
      spirit, the shade, the ghost, of my beloved puppy, which I
      perceive sitting with a grace so melancholy, in the corner?
      Hearken! for she speaks, and, heavens! it is in the German of
      Schiller—

      “Unt stubby duk, so stubby dun
       Duk she! duk she!”

      Alas! and are not her words too true?

      “And if I died, at least I died
       For thee—for thee.”

      Sweet creature! she too has sacrificed herself in my behalf.
      Dogless, niggerless, headless, what now remains for the unhappy
      Signora Psyche Zenobia? Alas—nothing! I have done.




MYSTIFICATION


     Slid, if these be your “passados” and “montantes,” I’ll have none
     o’ them.
                    —NED KNOWLES.

      The Baron Ritzner von Jung was a noble Hungarian family, every
      member of which (at least as far back into antiquity as any
      certain records extend) was more or less remarkable for talent of
      some description—the majority for that species of _grotesquerie_
      in conception of which Tieck, a scion of the house, has given a
      vivid, although by no means the most vivid exemplifications. My
      acquaintance with Ritzner commenced at the magnificent Chateau
      Jung, into which a train of droll adventures, not to be made
      public, threw me during the summer months of the year 18—. Here
      it was that I obtained a place in his regard, and here, with
      somewhat more difficulty, a partial insight into his mental
      conformation. In later days this insight grew more clear, as the
      intimacy which had at first permitted it became more close; and
      when, after three years separation, we met at G——n, I knew all
      that it was necessary to know of the character of the Baron
      Ritzner von Jung.

      I remember the buzz of curiosity which his advent excited within
      the college precincts on the night of the twenty-fifth of June. I
      remember still more distinctly, that while he was pronounced by
      all parties at first sight “the most remarkable man in the
      world,” no person made any attempt at accounting for his opinion.
      That he was unique appeared so undeniable, that it was deemed
      impertinent to inquire wherein the uniquity consisted. But,
      letting this matter pass for the present, I will merely observe
      that, from the first moment of his setting foot within the limits
      of the university, he began to exercise over the habits, manners,
      persons, purses, and propensities of the whole community which
      surrounded him, an influence the most extensive and despotic, yet
      at the same time the most indefinite and altogether
      unaccountable. Thus the brief period of his residence at the
      university forms an era in its annals, and is characterized by
      all classes of people appertaining to it or its dependencies as
      “that very extraordinary epoch forming the domination of the
      Baron Ritzner von Jung.”

      Upon his advent to G——n, he sought me out in my apartments. He
      was then of no particular age, by which I mean that it was
      impossible to form a guess respecting his age by any data
      personally afforded. He might have been fifteen or fifty, and was
      twenty-one years and seven months. He was by no means a handsome
      man—perhaps the reverse. The contour of his face was somewhat
      angular and harsh. His forehead was lofty and very fair; his nose
      a snub; his eyes large, heavy, glassy, and meaningless. About the
      mouth there was more to be observed. The lips were gently
      protruded, and rested the one upon the other, after such a
      fashion that it is impossible to conceive any, even the most
      complex, combination of human features, conveying so entirely,
      and so singly, the idea of unmitigated gravity, solemnity and
      repose.

      It will be perceived, no doubt, from what I have already said,
      that the Baron was one of those human anomalies now and then to
      be found, who make the science of mystification the study and the
      business of their lives. For this science a peculiar turn of mind
      gave him instinctively the cue, while his physical appearance
      afforded him unusual facilities for carrying his prospects into
      effect. I firmly believe that no student at G——n, during that
      renowned epoch so quaintly termed the domination of the Baron
      Ritzner von Jung, ever rightly entered into the mystery which
      overshadowed his character. I truly think that no person at the
      university, with the exception of myself, ever suspected him to
      be capable of a joke, verbal or practical:—the old bull-dog at
      the garden-gate would sooner have been accused,—the ghost of
      Heraclitus,—or the wig of the Emeritus Professor of Theology.
      This, too, when it was evident that the most egregious and
      unpardonable of all conceivable tricks, whimsicalities and
      buffooneries were brought about, if not directly by him, at least
      plainly through his intermediate agency or connivance. The
      beauty, if I may so call it, of his art mystifique, lay in that
      consummate ability (resulting from an almost intuitive knowledge
      of human nature, and a most wonderful self-possession,) by means
      of which he never failed to make it appear that the drolleries he
      was occupied in bringing to a point, arose partly in spite, and
      partly in consequence of the laudable efforts he was making for
      their prevention, and for the preservation of the good order and
      dignity of Alma Mater. The deep, the poignant, the overwhelming
      mortification, which upon each such failure of his praise worthy
      endeavors, would suffuse every lineament of his countenance, left
      not the slightest room for doubt of his sincerity in the bosoms
      of even his most skeptical companions. The adroitness, too, was
      no less worthy of observation by which he contrived to shift the
      sense of the grotesque from the creator to the created—from his
      own person to the absurdities to which he had given rise. In no
      instance before that of which I speak, have I known the habitual
      mystific escape the natural consequence of his manoevres—an
      attachment of the ludicrous to his own character and person.
      Continually enveloped in an atmosphere of whim, my friend
      appeared to live only for the severities of society; and not even
      his own household have for a moment associated other ideas than
      those of the rigid and august with the memory of the Baron
      Ritzner von Jung.

      During the epoch of his residence at G——n it really appeared that
      the demon of the _dolce far niente_ lay like an incubus upon the
      university. Nothing, at least, was done beyond eating and
      drinking and making merry. The apartments of the students were
      converted into so many pot-houses, and there was no pot-house of
      them all more famous or more frequented than that of the Baron.
      Our carousals here were many, and boisterous, and long, and never
      unfruitful of events.

      Upon one occasion we had protracted our sitting until nearly
      daybreak, and an unusual quantity of wine had been drunk. The
      company consisted of seven or eight individuals besides the Baron
      and myself. Most of these were young men of wealth, of high
      connection, of great family pride, and all alive with an
      exaggerated sense of honor. They abounded in the most ultra
      German opinions respecting the duello. To these Quixotic notions
      some recent Parisian publications, backed by three or four
      desperate and fatal rencounters at G——n, had given new vigor and
      impulse; and thus the conversation, during the greater part of
      the night, had run wild upon the all-engrossing topic of the
      times. The Baron, who had been unusually silent and abstracted in
      the earlier portion of the evening, at length seemed to be
      aroused from his apathy, took a leading part in the discourse,
      and dwelt upon the benefits, and more especially upon the
      beauties, of the received code of etiquette in passages of arms
      with an ardor, an eloquence, an impressiveness, and an
      affectionateness of manner, which elicited the warmest enthusiasm
      from his hearers in general, and absolutely staggered even
      myself, who well knew him to be at heart a ridiculer of those
      very points for which he contended, and especially to hold the
      entire fanfaronade of duelling etiquette in the sovereign
      contempt which it deserves.

      Looking around me during a pause in the Baron’s discourse (of
      which my readers may gather some faint idea when I say that it
      bore resemblance to the fervid, chanting, monotonous, yet musical
      sermonic manner of Coleridge), I perceived symptoms of even more
      than the general interest in the countenance of one of the party.
      This gentleman, whom I shall call Hermann, was an original in
      every respect—except, perhaps, in the single particular that he
      was a very great fool. He contrived to bear, however, among a
      particular set at the university, a reputation for deep
      metaphysical thinking, and, I believe, for some logical talent.
      As a duellist he had acquired great renown, even at G——n. I
      forget the precise number of victims who had fallen at his hands;
      but they were many. He was a man of courage undoubtedly. But it
      was upon his minute acquaintance with the etiquette of the
      duello, and the nicety of his sense of honor, that he most
      especially prided himself. These things were a hobby which he
      rode to the death. To Ritzner, ever upon the lookout for the
      grotesque, his peculiarities had for a long time past afforded
      food for mystification. Of this, however, I was not aware;
      although, in the present instance, I saw clearly that something
      of a whimsical nature was upon the tapis with my friend, and that
      Hermann was its especial object.

      As the former proceeded in his discourse, or rather monologue, I
      perceived the excitement of the latter momently increasing. At
      length he spoke; offering some objection to a point insisted upon
      by R., and giving his reasons in detail. To these the Baron
      replied at length (still maintaining his exaggerated tone of
      sentiment) and concluding, in what I thought very bad taste, with
      a sarcasm and a sneer. The hobby of Hermann now took the bit in
      his teeth. This I could discern by the studied hair-splitting
      farrago of his rejoinder. His last words I distinctly remember.
      “Your opinions, allow me to say, Baron von Jung, although in the
      main correct, are, in many nice points, discreditable to yourself
      and to the university of which you are a member. In a few
      respects they are even unworthy of serious refutation. I would
      say more than this, sir, were it not for the fear of giving you
      offence (here the speaker smiled blandly), I would say, sir, that
      your opinions are not the opinions to be expected from a
      gentleman.”

      As Hermann completed this equivocal sentence, all eyes were
      turned upon the Baron. He became pale, then excessively red;
      then, dropping his pocket-handkerchief, stooped to recover it,
      when I caught a glimpse of his countenance, while it could be
      seen by no one else at the table. It was radiant with the
      quizzical expression which was its natural character, but which I
      had never seen it assume except when we were alone together, and
      when he unbent himself freely. In an instant afterward he stood
      erect, confronting Hermann; and so total an alteration of
      countenance in so short a period I certainly never saw before.
      For a moment I even fancied that I had misconceived him, and that
      he was in sober earnest. He appeared to be stifling with passion,
      and his face was cadaverously white. For a short time he remained
      silent, apparently striving to master his emotion. Having at
      length seemingly succeeded, he reached a decanter which stood
      near him, saying as he held it firmly clenched—“The language you
      have thought proper to employ, Mynheer Hermann, in addressing
      yourself to me, is objectionable in so many particulars, that I
      have neither temper nor time for specification. That my opinions,
      however, are not the opinions to be expected from a gentleman, is
      an observation so directly offensive as to allow me but one line
      of conduct. Some courtesy, nevertheless, is due to the presence
      of this company, and to yourself, at this moment, as my guest.
      You will pardon me, therefore, if, upon this consideration, I
      deviate slightly from the general usage among gentlemen in
      similar cases of personal affront. You will forgive me for the
      moderate tax I shall make upon your imagination, and endeavor to
      consider, for an instant, the reflection of your person in yonder
      mirror as the living Mynheer Hermann himself. This being done,
      there will be no difficulty whatever. I shall discharge this
      decanter of wine at your image in yonder mirror, and thus fulfil
      all the spirit, if not the exact letter, of resentment for your
      insult, while the necessity of physical violence to your real
      person will be obviated.”

      With these words he hurled the decanter, full of wine, against
      the mirror which hung directly opposite Hermann; striking the
      reflection of his person with great precision, and of course
      shattering the glass into fragments. The whole company at once
      started to their feet, and, with the exception of myself and
      Ritzner, took their departure. As Hermann went out, the Baron
      whispered me that I should follow him and make an offer of my
      services. To this I agreed; not knowing precisely what to make of
      so ridiculous a piece of business.

      The duellist accepted my aid with his stiff and _ultra recherché_
      air, and, taking my arm, led me to his apartment. I could hardly
      forbear laughing in his face while he proceeded to discuss, with
      the profoundest gravity, what he termed “the refinedly peculiar
      character” of the insult he had received. After a tiresome
      harangue in his ordinary style, he took down from his book
      shelves a number of musty volumes on the subject of the duello,
      and entertained me for a long time with their contents; reading
      aloud, and commenting earnestly as he read. I can just remember
      the titles of some of the works. There were the “Ordonnance of
      Philip le Bel on Single Combat”; the “Theatre of Honor,” by
      Favyn, and a treatise “On the Permission of Duels,” by Andiguier.
      He displayed, also, with much pomposity, Brantome’s “Memoirs of
      Duels,” published at Cologne, 1666, in the types of Elzevir—a
      precious and unique vellum-paper volume, with a fine margin, and
      bound by Derome. But he requested my attention particularly, and
      with an air of mysterious sagacity, to a thick octavo, written in
      barbarous Latin by one Hedelin, a Frenchman, and having the
      quaint title, “Duelli Lex Scripta, et non; aliterque.” From this
      he read me one of the drollest chapters in the world concerning
      “Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se,”
      about half of which, he averred, was strictly applicable to his
      own “refinedly peculiar” case, although not one syllable of the
      whole matter could I understand for the life of me. Having
      finished the chapter, he closed the book, and demanded what I
      thought necessary to be done. I replied that I had entire
      confidence in his superior delicacy of feeling, and would abide
      by what he proposed. With this answer he seemed flattered, and
      sat down to write a note to the Baron. It ran thus:

      Sir,—My friend, M. P.-, will hand you this note. I find it
      incumbent upon me to request, at your earliest convenience, an
      explanation of this evening’s occurrences at your chambers. In
      the event of your declining this request, Mr. P. will be happy to
      arrange, with any friend whom you may appoint, the steps
      preliminary to a meeting.

      With sentiments of perfect respect,

      Your most humble servant,
      JOHANN HERMAN.

      “_To the Baron Ritzner von Jung,
      August 18th, 18_—.”

      Not knowing what better to do, I called upon Ritzner with this
      epistle. He bowed as I presented it; then, with a grave
      countenance, motioned me to a seat. Having perused the cartel, he
      wrote the following reply, which I carried to Hermann.

      “SIR,—Through our common friend, Mr. P., I have received your
      note of this evening. Upon due reflection I frankly admit the
      propriety of the explanation you suggest. This being admitted, I
      still find great difficulty, (owing to the refinedly peculiar
      nature of our disagreement, and of the personal affront offered
      on my part,) in so wording what I have to say by way of apology,
      as to meet all the minute exigencies, and all the variable
      shadows, of the case. I have great reliance, however, on that
      extreme delicacy of discrimination, in matters appertaining to
      the rules of etiquette, for which you have been so long and so
      pre-eminently distinguished. With perfect certainty, therefore,
      of being comprehended, I beg leave, in lieu of offering any
      sentiments of my own, to refer you to the opinions of Sieur
      Hedelin, as set forth in the ninth paragraph of the chapter of
      “_Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se_,” in
      his “_Duelli Lex scripta, et non; aliterque_.” The nicety of your
      discernment in all the matters here treated, will be sufficient,
      I am assured, to convince you _that the mere circumstance of me
      referring you_ to this admirable passage, ought to satisfy your
      request, as a man of honor, for explanation.

      “With sentiments of profound respect,

      “Your most obedient servant,
      “VON JUNG.”

      “The Herr Johann Hermann,
      August 18th, 18—”

      Hermann commenced the perusal of this epistle with a scowl,
      which, however, was converted into a smile of the most ludicrous
      self-complacency as he came to the rigmarole about Injuriae per
      applicationem, per constructionem, et per se. Having finished
      reading, he begged me, with the blandest of all possible smiles,
      to be seated, while he made reference to the treatise in
      question. Turning to the passage specified, he read it with great
      care to himself, then closed the book, and desired me, in my
      character of confidential acquaintance, to express to the Baron
      von Jung his exalted sense of his chivalrous behavior, and, in
      that of second, to assure him that the explanation offered was of
      the fullest, the most honorable, and the most unequivocally
      satisfactory nature.

      Somewhat amazed at all this, I made my retreat to the Baron. He
      seemed to receive Hermann’s amicable letter as a matter of
      course, and after a few words of general conversation, went to an
      inner room and brought out the everlasting treatise “_Duelli Lex
      scripta, et non; aliterque_.” He handed me the volume and asked
      me to look over some portion of it. I did so, but to little
      purpose, not being able to gather the least particle of meaning.
      He then took the book himself, and read me a chapter aloud. To my
      surprise, what he read proved to be a most horribly absurd
      account of a duel between two baboons. He now explained the
      mystery; showing that the volume, as it appeared _prima facie_,
      was written upon the plan of the nonsense verses of Du Bartas;
      that is to say, the language was ingeniously framed so as to
      present to the ear all the outward signs of intelligibility, and
      even of profundity, while in fact not a shadow of meaning
      existed. The key to the whole was found in leaving out every
      second and third word alternately, when there appeared a series
      of ludicrous quizzes upon a single combat as practised in modern
      times.

      The Baron afterwards informed me that he had purposely thrown the
      treatise in Hermann’s way two or three weeks before the
      adventure, and that he was satisfied, from the general tenor of
      his conversation, that he had studied it with the deepest
      attention, and firmly believed it to be a work of unusual merit.
      Upon this hint he proceeded. Hermann would have died a thousand
      deaths rather than acknowledge his inability to understand
      anything and everything in the universe that had ever been
      written about the _duello_.




DIDDLING

CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE EXACT SCIENCES.


      Hey, diddle diddle
      The cat and the fiddle

      Since the world began there have been two Jeremys. The one wrote
      a Jeremiad about usury, and was called Jeremy Bentham. He has
      been much admired by Mr. John Neal, and was a great man in a
      small way. The other gave name to the most important of the Exact
      Sciences, and was a great man in a great way—I may say, indeed,
      in the very greatest of ways.

      Diddling—or the abstract idea conveyed by the verb to diddle—is
      sufficiently well understood. Yet the fact, the deed, the thing
      _diddling_, is somewhat difficult to define. We may get, however,
      at a tolerably distinct conception of the matter in hand, by
      defining—not the thing, diddling, in itself—but man, as an animal
      that diddles. Had Plato but hit upon this, he would have been
      spared the affront of the picked chicken.

      Very pertinently it was demanded of Plato, why a picked chicken,
      which was clearly “a biped without feathers,” was not, according
      to his own definition, a man? But I am not to be bothered by any
      similar query. Man is an animal that diddles, and there is no
      animal that diddles but man. It will take an entire hen-coop of
      picked chickens to get over that.

      What constitutes the essence, the nare, the principle of diddling
      is, in fact, peculiar to the class of creatures that wear coats
      and pantaloons. A crow thieves; a fox cheats; a weasel outwits; a
      man diddles. To diddle is his destiny. “Man was made to mourn,”
      says the poet. But not so:—he was made to diddle. This is his
      aim—his object—his end. And for this reason when a man’s diddled
      we say he’s “_done_.”

      Diddling, rightly considered, is a compound, of which the
      ingredients are minuteness, interest, perseverance, ingenuity,
      audacity, _nonchalance_, originality, impertinence, and grin.

      _Minuteness:_—Your diddler is minute. His operations are upon a
      small scale. His business is retail, for cash, or approved paper
      at sight. Should he ever be tempted into magnificent speculation,
      he then, at once, loses his distinctive features, and becomes
      what we term “financier.” This latter word conveys the diddling
      idea in every respect except that of magnitude. A diddler may
      thus be regarded as a banker _in petto_—a “financial operation,”
      as a diddle at Brobdignag. The one is to the other, as Homer to
      “Flaccus”—as a Mastodon to a mouse—as the tail of a comet to that
      of a pig.

      _Interest:_—Your diddler is guided by self-interest. He scorns to
      diddle for the mere _sake_ of the diddle. He has an object in
      view—his pocket—and yours. He regards always the main chance. He
      looks to Number One. You are Number Two, and must look to
      yourself.

      _Perseverance:_—Your diddler perseveres. He is not readily
      discouraged. Should even the banks break, he cares nothing about
      it. He steadily pursues his end, and

      ‘Ut canis a corio nunquam absterrebitur uncto,’

      so he never lets go of his game.

      _Ingenuity:_—Your diddler is ingenious. He has constructiveness
      large. He understands plot. He invents and circumvents. Were he
      not Alexander he would be Diogenes. Were he not a diddler, he
      would be a maker of patent rat-traps or an angler for trout.

      _Audacity:_—Your diddler is audacious.—He is a bold man. He
      carries the war into Africa. He conquers all by assault. He would
      not fear the daggers of Frey Herren. With a little more prudence
      Dick Turpin would have made a good diddler; with a trifle less
      blarney, Daniel O’Connell; with a pound or two more brains,
      Charles the Twelfth.

      _Nonchalance:_—Your diddler is nonchalant. He is not at all
      nervous. He never had any nerves. He is never seduced into a
      flurry. He is never put out—unless put out of doors. He is
      cool—cool as a cucumber. He is calm—“calm as a smile from Lady
      Bury.” He is easy—easy as an old glove, or the damsels of ancient
      Baiæ.

      _Originality:_—Your diddler is original—conscientiously so. His
      thoughts are his own. He would scorn to employ those of another.
      A stale trick is his aversion. He would return a purse, I am
      sure, upon discovering that he had obtained it by an unoriginal
      diddle.

      _Impertinence:_—Your diddler is impertinent. He swaggers. He sets
      his arms a-kimbo. He thrusts his hands in his trowsers’ pockets.
      He sneers in your face. He treads on your corns. He eats your
      dinner, he drinks your wine, he borrows your money, he pulls your
      nose, he kicks your poodle, and he kisses your wife.

      _Grin:_—Your true diddler winds up all with a grin. But this
      nobody sees but himself. He grins when his daily work is
      done—when his allotted labors are accomplished—at night in his
      own closet, and altogether for his own private entertainment. He
      goes home. He locks his door. He divests himself of his clothes.
      He puts out his candle. He gets into bed. He places his head upon
      the pillow. All this done, and your diddler grins. This is no
      hypothesis. It is a matter of course. I reason _à priori_, and a
      diddle would be no diddle without a grin.

      The origin of the diddle is referrable to the infancy of the
      Human Race. Perhaps the first diddler was Adam. At all events, we
      can trace the science back to a very remote period of antiquity.
      The moderns, however, have brought it to a perfection never
      dreamed of by our thick-headed progenitors. Without pausing to
      speak of the “old saws,” therefore, I shall content myself with a
      compendious account of some of the more “modern instances.”

      A very good diddle is this. A housekeeper in want of a sofa, for
      instance, is seen to go in and out of several cabinet warehouses.
      At length she arrives at one offering an excellent variety. She
      is accosted, and invited to enter, by a polite and voluble
      individual at the door. She finds a sofa well adapted to her
      views, and upon inquiring the price, is surprised and delighted
      to hear a sum named at least twenty per cent. lower than her
      expectations. She hastens to make the purchase, gets a bill and
      receipt, leaves her address, with a request that the article be
      sent home as speedily as possible, and retires amid a profusion
      of bows from the shopkeeper. The night arrives and no sofa. A
      servant is sent to make inquiry about the delay. The whole
      transaction is denied. No sofa has been sold—no money
      received—except by the diddler, who played shop-keeper for the
      nonce.

      Our cabinet warehouses are left entirely unattended, and thus
      afford every facility for a trick of this kind. Visitors enter,
      look at furniture, and depart unheeded and unseen. Should any one
      wish to purchase, or to inquire the price of an article, a bell
      is at hand, and this is considered amply sufficient.

      Again, quite a respectable diddle is this. A well-dressed
      individual enters a shop, makes a purchase to the value of a
      dollar; finds, much to his vexation, that he has left his
      pocket-book in another coat pocket; and so says to the
      shopkeeper—

      “My dear sir, never mind; just oblige me, will you, by sending
      the bundle home? But stay! I really believe that I have nothing
      less than a five dollar bill, even there. However, you can send
      four dollars in change with the bundle, you know.”

      “Very good, sir,” replies the shop-keeper, who entertains, at
      once, a lofty opinion of the high-mindedness of his customer. “I
      know fellows,” he says to himself, “who would just have put the
      goods under their arm, and walked off with a promise to call and
      pay the dollar as they came by in the afternoon.”

      A boy is sent with the parcel and change. On the route, quite
      accidentally, he is met by the purchaser, who exclaims:

      “Ah! This is my bundle, I see—I thought you had been home with
      it, long ago. Well, go on! My wife, Mrs. Trotter, will give you
      the five dollars—I left instructions with her to that effect. The
      change you might as well give to me—I shall want some silver for
      the Post Office. Very good! One, two, is this a good
      quarter?—three, four—quite right! Say to Mrs. Trotter that you
      met me, and be sure now and do not loiter on the way.”

      The boy doesn’t loiter at all—but he is a very long time in
      getting back from his errand—for no lady of the precise name of
      Mrs. Trotter is to be discovered. He consoles himself, however,
      that he has not been such a fool as to leave the goods without
      the money, and re-entering his shop with a self-satisfied air,
      feels sensibly hurt and indignant when his master asks him what
      has become of the change.

      A very simple diddle, indeed, is this. The captain of a ship,
      which is about to sail, is presented by an official looking
      person with an unusually moderate bill of city charges. Glad to
      get off so easily, and confused by a hundred duties pressing upon
      him all at once, he discharges the claim forthwith. In about
      fifteen minutes, another and less reasonable bill is handed him
      by one who soon makes it evident that the first collector was a
      diddler, and the original collection a diddle.

      And here, too, is a somewhat similar thing. A steamboat is
      casting loose from the wharf. A traveller, portmanteau in hand,
      is discovered running toward the wharf, at full speed. Suddenly,
      he makes a dead halt, stoops, and picks up something from the
      ground in a very agitated manner. It is a pocket-book, and—“Has
      any gentleman lost a pocketbook?” he cries. No one can say that
      he has exactly lost a pocket-book; but a great excitement ensues,
      when the treasure trove is found to be of value. The boat,
      however, must not be detained.

      “Time and tide wait for no man,” says the captain.

      “For God’s sake, stay only a few minutes,” says the finder of the
      book—“the true claimant will presently appear.”

      “Can’t wait!” replies the man in authority; “cast off there, d’ye
      hear?”

      “What _am_ I to do?” asks the finder, in great tribulation. “I am
      about to leave the country for some years, and I cannot
      conscientiously retain this large amount in my possession. I beg
      your pardon, sir,” [here he addresses a gentleman on shore,] “but
      you have the air of an honest man. _Will_ you confer upon me the
      favor of taking charge of this pocket-book—I _know_ I can trust
      you—and of advertising it? The notes, you see, amount to a very
      considerable sum. The owner will, no doubt, insist upon rewarding
      you for your trouble—”

      “_Me!_—no, _you!_—it was you who found the book.”

      “Well, if you _must_ have it so—_I_ will take a small reward—just
      to satisfy your scruples. Let me see—why these notes are all
      hundreds—bless my soul! a hundred is too much to take—fifty would
      be quite enough, I am sure—”

      “Cast off there!” says the captain.

      “But then I have no change for a hundred, and upon the whole,
      _you_ had better—”

      “Cast off there!” says the captain.

      “Never mind!” cries the gentleman on shore, who has been
      examining his own pocket-book for the last minute or so—“never
      mind! _I_ can fix it—here is a fifty on the Bank of North
      America—throw the book.”

      And the over-conscientious finder takes the fifty with marked
      reluctance, and throws the gentleman the book, as desired, while
      the steamboat fumes and fizzes on her way. In about half an hour
      after her departure, the “large amount” is seen to be a
      “counterfeit presentment,” and the whole thing a capital diddle.

      A bold diddle is this. A camp-meeting, or something similar, is
      to be held at a certain spot which is accessible only by means of
      a free bridge. A diddler stations himself upon this bridge,
      respectfully informs all passers by of the new county law, which
      establishes a toll of one cent for foot passengers, two for
      horses and donkeys, and so forth, and so forth. Some grumble but
      all submit, and the diddler goes home a wealthier man by some
      fifty or sixty dollars well earned. This taking a toll from a
      great crowd of people is an excessively troublesome thing.

      A neat diddle is this. A friend holds one of the diddler’s
      promises to pay, filled up and signed in due form, upon the
      ordinary blanks printed in red ink. The diddler purchases one or
      two dozen of these blanks, and every day dips one of them in his
      soup, makes his dog jump for it, and finally gives it to him as a
      bonne bouche. The note arriving at maturity, the diddler, with
      the diddler’s dog, calls upon the friend, and the promise to pay
      is made the topic of discussion. The friend produces it from his
      escritoire, and is in the act of reaching it to the diddler, when
      up jumps the diddler’s dog and devours it forthwith. The diddler
      is not only surprised but vexed and incensed at the absurd
      behavior of his dog, and expresses his entire readiness to cancel
      the obligation at any moment when the evidence of the obligation
      shall be forthcoming.

      A very mean diddle is this. A lady is insulted in the street by a
      diddler’s accomplice. The diddler himself flies to her
      assistance, and, giving his friend a comfortable thrashing,
      insists upon attending the lady to her own door. He bows, with
      his hand upon his heart, and most respectfully bids her adieu.
      She entreats him, as her deliverer, to walk in and be introduced
      to her big brother and her papa. With a sigh, he declines to do
      so. “Is there no way, then, sir,” she murmurs, “in which I may be
      permitted to testify my gratitude?”

      “Why, yes, madam, there is. Will you be kind enough to lend me a
      couple of shillings?”

      In the first excitement of the moment the lady decides upon
      fainting outright. Upon second thought, however, she opens her
      purse-strings and delivers the specie. Now this, I say, is a
      diddle minute—for one entire moiety of the sum borrowed has to be
      paid to the gentleman who had the trouble of performing the
      insult, and who had then to stand still and be thrashed for
      performing it.

      Rather a small but still a scientific diddle is this. The diddler
      approaches the bar of a tavern, and demands a couple of twists of
      tobacco. These are handed to him, when, having slightly examined
      them, he says:

      “I don’t much like this tobacco. Here, take it back, and give me
      a glass of brandy and water in its place.” The brandy and water
      is furnished and imbibed, and the diddler makes his way to the
      door. But the voice of the tavern-keeper arrests him.

      “I believe, sir, you have forgotten to pay for your brandy and
      water.”

      “Pay for my brandy and water!—didn’t I give you the tobacco for
      the brandy and water? What more would you have?”

      “But, sir, if you please, I don’t remember that you paid me for
      the tobacco.”

      “What do you mean by that, you scoundrel?—Didn’t I give you back
      your tobacco? Isn’t that your tobacco lying there? Do you expect
      me to pay for what I did not take?”

      “But, sir,” says the publican, now rather at a loss what to say,
      “but sir—”

      “But me no buts, sir,” interrupts the diddler, apparently in very
      high dudgeon, and slamming the door after him, as he makes his
      escape.—“But me no buts, sir, and none of your tricks upon
      travellers.”

      Here again is a very clever diddle, of which the simplicity is
      not its least recommendation. A purse, or pocket-book, being
      really lost, the loser inserts in one of the daily papers of a
      large city a fully descriptive advertisement.

      Whereupon our diddler copies the facts of this advertisement,
      with a change of heading, of general phraseology and address. The
      original, for instance, is long, and verbose, is headed “A
      Pocket-Book Lost!” and requires the treasure, when found, to be
      left at No. 1 Tom Street. The copy is brief, and being headed
      with “Lost” only, indicates No. 2 Dick, or No. 3 Harry Street, as
      the locality at which the owner may be seen. Moreover, it is
      inserted in at least five or six of the daily papers of the day,
      while in point of time, it makes its appearance only a few hours
      after the original. Should it be read by the loser of the purse,
      he would hardly suspect it to have any reference to his own
      misfortune. But, of course, the chances are five or six to one,
      that the finder will repair to the address given by the diddler,
      rather than to that pointed out by the rightful proprietor. The
      former pays the reward, pockets the treasure and decamps.

      Quite an analogous diddle is this. A lady of ton has dropped,
      some where in the street, a diamond ring of very unusual value.
      For its recovery, she offers some forty or fifty dollars
      reward—giving, in her advertisement, a very minute description of
      the gem, and of its settings, and declaring that, on its
      restoration at No. so and so, in such and such Avenue, the reward
      would be paid instanter, without a single question being asked.
      During the lady’s absence from home, a day or two afterwards, a
      ring is heard at the door of No. so and so, in such and such
      Avenue; a servant appears; the lady of the house is asked for and
      is declared to be out, at which astounding information, the
      visitor expresses the most poignant regret. His business is of
      importance and concerns the lady herself. In fact, he had the
      good fortune to find her diamond ring. But perhaps it would be as
      well that he should call again. “By no means!” says the servant;
      and “By no means!” says the lady’s sister and the lady’s
      sister-in-law, who are summoned forthwith. The ring is
      clamorously identified, the reward is paid, and the finder nearly
      thrust out of doors. The lady returns and expresses some little
      dissatisfaction with her sister and sister-in-law, because they
      happen to have paid forty or fifty dollars for a fac-simile of
      her diamond ring—a fac-simile made out of real pinch-beck and
      unquestionable paste.

      But as there is really no end to diddling, so there would be none
      to this essay, were I even to hint at half the variations, or
      inflections, of which this science is susceptible. I must bring
      this paper, perforce, to a conclusion, and this I cannot do
      better than by a summary notice of a very decent, but rather
      elaborate diddle, of which our own city was made the theatre, not
      very long ago, and which was subsequently repeated with success,
      in other still more verdant localities of the Union. A
      middle-aged gentleman arrives in town from parts unknown. He is
      remarkably precise, cautious, staid, and deliberate in his
      demeanor. His dress is scrupulously neat, but plain,
      unostentatious. He wears a white cravat, an ample waistcoat, made
      with an eye to comfort alone; thick-soled cosy-looking shoes, and
      pantaloons without straps. He has the whole air, in fact, of your
      well-to-do, sober-sided, exact, and respectable “man of
      business,” _par excellence_—one of the stern and outwardly hard,
      internally soft, sort of people that we see in the crack high
      comedies—fellows whose words are so many bonds, and who are noted
      for giving away guineas, in charity, with the one hand, while, in
      the way of mere bargain, they exact the uttermost fraction of a
      farthing with the other.

      He makes much ado before he can get suited with a boarding house.
      He dislikes children. He has been accustomed to quiet. His habits
      are methodical—and then he would prefer getting into a private
      and respectable small family, piously inclined. Terms, however,
      are no object—only he must insist upon settling his bill on the
      first of every month, (it is now the second) and begs his
      landlady, when he finally obtains one to his mind, not on any
      account to forget his instructions upon this point—but to send in
      a bill, and receipt, precisely at ten o’clock, on the first day
      of every month, and under no circumstances to put it off to the
      second.

      These arrangements made, our man of business rents an office in a
      reputable rather than a fashionable quarter of the town. There is
      nothing he more despises than pretense. “Where there is much
      show,” he says, “there is seldom any thing very solid behind”—an
      observation which so profoundly impresses his landlady’s fancy,
      that she makes a pencil memorandum of it forthwith, in her great
      family Bible, on the broad margin of the Proverbs of Solomon.

      The next step is to advertise, after some such fashion as this,
      in the principal business six-pennies of the city—the pennies are
      eschewed as not “respectable”—and as demanding payment for all
      advertisements in advance. Our man of business holds it as a
      point of his faith that work should never be paid for until done.

      “WANTED.—The advertisers, being about to commence extensive
      business operations in this city, will require the services of
      three or four intelligent and competent clerks, to whom a liberal
      salary will be paid. The very best recommendations, not so much
      for capacity, as for integrity, will be expected. Indeed, as the
      duties to be performed involve high responsibilities, and large
      amounts of money must necessarily pass through the hands of those
      engaged, it is deemed advisable to demand a deposit of fifty
      dollars from each clerk employed. No person need apply,
      therefore, who is not prepared to leave this sum in the
      possession of the advertisers, and who cannot furnish the most
      satisfactory testimonials of morality. Young gentlemen piously
      inclined will be preferred. Application should be made between
      the hours of ten and eleven A. M., and four and five P. M., of
      Messrs.

      “Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs & Co.,
      “No. 110 Dog Street.”

      By the thirty-first day of the month, this advertisement has
      brought to the office of Messrs. Bogs, Hogs, Logs, Frogs, and
      Company, some fifteen or twenty young gentlemen piously inclined.
      But our man of business is in no hurry to conclude a contract
      with any—no man of business is ever precipitate—and it is not
      until the most rigid catechism in respect to the piety of each
      young gentleman’s inclination, that his services are engaged and
      his fifty dollars receipted for, just by way of proper
      precaution, on the part of the respectable firm of Bogs, Hogs,
      Logs, Frogs, and Company. On the morning of the first day of the
      next month, the landlady does not present her bill, according to
      promise—a piece of neglect for which the comfortable head of the
      house ending in ogs would no doubt have chided her severely,
      could he have been prevailed upon to remain in town a day or two
      for that purpose.

      As it is, the constables have had a sad time of it, running
      hither and thither, and all they can do is to declare the man of
      business most emphatically, a “hen knee high”—by which some
      persons imagine them to imply that, in fact, he is n. e. i.—by
      which again the very classical phrase _non est inventus_, is
      supposed to be understood. In the meantime the young gentlemen,
      one and all, are somewhat less piously inclined than before,
      while the landlady purchases a shilling’s worth of the Indian
      rubber, and very carefully obliterates the pencil memorandum that
      some fool has made in her great family Bible, on the broad margin
      of the Proverbs of Solomon.




THE ANGEL OF THE ODD

AN EXTRAVAGANZA.


      It was a chilly November afternoon. I had just consummated an
      unusually hearty dinner, of which the dyspeptic _truffe_ formed
      not the least important item, and was sitting alone in the
      dining-room, with my feet upon the fender, and at my elbow a
      small table which I had rolled up to the fire, and upon which
      were some apologies for dessert, with some miscellaneous bottles
      of wine, spirit and _liqueur_. In the morning I had been reading
      Glover’s “Leonidas,” Wilkie’s “Epigoniad,” Lamartine’s
      “Pilgrimage,” Barlow’s “Columbiad,” Tuckermann’s “Sicily,” and
      Griswold’s “Curiosities”; I am willing to confess, therefore,
      that I now felt a little stupid. I made effort to arouse myself
      by aid of frequent Lafitte, and, all failing, I betook myself to
      a stray newspaper in despair. Having carefully perused the column
      of “houses to let,” and the column of “dogs lost,” and then the
      two columns of “wives and apprentices runaway,” I attacked with
      great resolution the editorial matter, and, reading it from
      beginning to end without understanding a syllable, conceived the
      possibility of its being Chinese, and so re-read it from the end
      to the beginning, but with no more satisfactory result. I was
      about throwing away, in disgust,

     “This folio of four pages, happy work
     Which not even critics criticise,”

      when I felt my attention somewhat aroused by the paragraph which
      follows:

      “The avenues to death are numerous and strange. A London paper
      mentions the decease of a person from a singular cause. He was
      playing at ‘puff the dart,’ which is played with a long needle
      inserted in some worsted, and blown at a target through a tin
      tube. He placed the needle at the wrong end of the tube, and
      drawing his breath strongly to puff the dart forward with force,
      drew the needle into his throat. It entered the lungs, and in a
      few days killed him.”

      Upon seeing this I fell into a great rage, without exactly
      knowing why. “This thing,” I exclaimed, “is a contemptible
      falsehood—a poor hoax—the lees of the invention of some pitiable
      penny-a-liner—of some wretched concoctor of accidents in
      Cocaigne. These fellows, knowing the extravagant gullibility of
      the age, set their wits to work in the imagination of improbable
      possibilities—-of odd accidents, as they term them; but to a
      reflecting intellect (like mine,” I added, in parenthesis,
      putting my forefinger unconsciously to the side of my nose,) “to
      a contemplative understanding such as I myself possess, it seems
      evident at once that the marvelous increase of late in these ‘odd
      accidents’ is by far the oddest accident of all. For my own part,
      I intend to believe nothing henceforward that has anything of the
      ‘singular’ about it.”

      “Mein Gott, den, vat a vool you bees for dat!” replied one of the
      most remarkable voices I ever heard. At first I took it for a
      rumbling in my ears—such as a man sometimes experiences when
      getting very drunk—but, upon second thought, I considered the
      sound as more nearly resembling that which proceeds from an empty
      barrel beaten with a big stick; and, in fact, this I should have
      concluded it to be, but for the articulation of the syllables and
      words. I am by no means naturally nervous, and the very few
      glasses of Lafitte which I had sipped served to embolden me no
      little, so that I felt nothing of trepidation, but merely
      uplifted my eyes with a leisurely movement, and looked carefully
      around the room for the intruder. I could not, however, perceive
      any one at all.

      “Humph!” resumed the voice, as I continued my survey, “you mus pe
      so dronk as de pig, den, for not zee me as I zit here at your
      zide.”

      Hereupon I bethought me of looking immediately before my nose,
      and there, sure enough, confronting me at the table sat a
      personage nondescript, although not altogether indescribable. His
      body was a wine-pipe, or a rum-puncheon, or something of that
      character, and had a truly Falstaffian air. In its nether
      extremity were inserted two kegs, which seemed to answer all the
      purposes of legs. For arms there dangled from the upper portion
      of the carcass two tolerably long bottles, with the necks outward
      for hands. All the head that I saw the monster possessed of was
      one of those Hessian canteens which resemble a large snuff-box
      with a hole in the middle of the lid. This canteen (with a funnel
      on its top, like a cavalier cap slouched over the eyes) was set
      on edge upon the puncheon, with the hole toward myself; and
      through this hole, which seemed puckered up like the mouth of a
      very precise old maid, the creature was emitting certain rumbling
      and grumbling noises which he evidently intended for intelligible
      talk.

      “I zay,” said he, “you mos pe dronk as de pig, vor zit dare and
      not zee me zit ere; and I zay, doo, you mos pe pigger vool as de
      goose, vor to dispelief vat iz print in de print. ’Tiz de
      troof—dat it iz—eberry vord ob it.”

      “Who are you, pray?” said I, with much dignity, although somewhat
      puzzled; “how did you get here? and what is it you are talking
      about?”

      “Az vor ow I com’d ere,” replied the figure, “dat iz none of your
      pizzness; and as vor vat I be talking apout, I be talk apout vat
      I tink proper; and as vor who I be, vy dat is de very ting I
      com’d here for to let you zee for yourzelf.”

      “You are a drunken vagabond,” said I, “and I shall ring the bell
      and order my footman to kick you into the street.”

      “He! he! he!” said the fellow, “hu! hu! hu! dat you can’t do.”

      “Can’t do!” said I, “what do you mean?—I can’t do what?”

      “Ring de pell,” he replied, attempting a grin with his little
      villanous mouth.

      Upon this I made an effort to get up, in order to put my threat
      into execution; but the ruffian just reached across the table
      very deliberately, and hitting me a tap on the forehead with the
      neck of one of the long bottles, knocked me back into the
      arm-chair from which I had half arisen. I was utterly astounded;
      and, for a moment, was quite at a loss what to do. In the
      meantime, he continued his talk.

      “You zee,” said he, “it iz te bess vor zit still; and now you
      shall know who I pe. Look at me! zee! I am te _Angel ov te Odd_.”

      “And odd enough, too,” I ventured to reply; “but I was always
      under the impression that an angel had wings.”

      “Te wing!” he cried, highly incensed, “vat I pe do mit te wing?
      Mein Gott! do you take me vor a shicken?”

      “No—oh no!” I replied, much alarmed, “you are no
      chicken—certainly not.”

      “Well, den, zit still and pehabe yourself, or I’ll rap you again
      mid me vist. It iz te shicken ab te wing, und te owl ab te wing,
      und te imp ab te wing, und te head-teuffel ab te wing. Te angel
      ab _not_ te wing, and I am te _Angel ov te Odd_.”

      “And your business with me at present is—is—”

      “My pizzness!” ejaculated the thing, “vy vat a low bred buppy you
      mos pe vor to ask a gentleman und an angel apout his pizziness!”

      This language was rather more than I could bear, even from an
      angel; so, plucking up courage, I seized a salt-cellar which lay
      within reach, and hurled it at the head of the intruder. Either
      he dodged, however, or my aim was inaccurate; for all I
      accomplished was the demolition of the crystal which protected
      the dial of the clock upon the mantel-piece. As for the Angel, he
      evinced his sense of my assault by giving me two or three hard
      consecutive raps upon the forehead as before. These reduced me at
      once to submission, and I am almost ashamed to confess that
      either through pain or vexation, there came a few tears into my
      eyes.

      “Mein Gott!” said the Angel of the Odd, apparently much softened
      at my distress; “mein Gott, te man is eder ferry dronk or ferry
      zorry. You mos not trink it so strong—you mos put te water in te
      wine. Here, trink dis, like a goot veller, und don’t gry
      now—don’t!”

      Hereupon the Angel of the Odd replenished my goblet (which was
      about a third full of Port) with a colorless fluid that he poured
      from one of his hand bottles. I observed that these bottles had
      labels about their necks, and that these labels were inscribed
      “Kirschenwasser.”

      The considerate kindness of the Angel mollified me in no little
      measure; and, aided by the water with which he diluted my Port
      more than once, I at length regained sufficient temper to listen
      to his very extraordinary discourse. I cannot pretend to recount
      all that he told me, but I gleaned from what he said that he was
      the genius who presided over the _contretemps_ of mankind, and
      whose business it was to bring about the _odd accidents_ which
      are continually astonishing the skeptic. Once or twice, upon my
      venturing to express my total incredulity in respect to his
      pretensions, he grew very angry indeed, so that at length I
      considered it the wiser policy to say nothing at all, and let him
      have his own way. He talked on, therefore, at great length, while
      I merely leaned back in my chair with my eyes shut, and amused
      myself with munching raisins and filliping the stems about the
      room. But, by and by, the Angel suddenly construed this behavior
      of mine into contempt. He arose in a terrible passion, slouched
      his funnel down over his eyes, swore a vast oath, uttered a
      threat of some character which I did not precisely comprehend,
      and finally made me a low bow and departed, wishing me, in the
      language of the archbishop in Gil-Blas, “_beaucoup de bonheur et
      un peu plus de bon sens_.”

      His departure afforded me relief. The _very_ few glasses of
      Lafitte that I had sipped had the effect of rendering me drowsy,
      and I felt inclined to take a nap of some fifteen or twenty
      minutes, as is my custom after dinner. At six I had an
      appointment of consequence, which it was quite indispensable that
      I should keep. The policy of insurance for my dwelling house had
      expired the day before; and, some dispute having arisen, it was
      agreed that, at six, I should meet the board of directors of the
      company and settle the terms of a renewal. Glancing upward at the
      clock on the mantel-piece, (for I felt too drowsy to take out my
      watch), I had the pleasure to find that I had still twenty-five
      minutes to spare. It was half past five; I could easily walk to
      the insurance office in five minutes; and my usual siestas had
      never been known to exceed five and twenty. I felt sufficiently
      safe, therefore, and composed myself to my slumbers forthwith.

      Having completed them to my satisfaction, I again looked toward
      the time-piece and was half inclined to believe in the
      possibility of odd accidents when I found that, instead of my
      ordinary fifteen or twenty minutes, I had been dozing only three;
      for it still wanted seven and twenty of the appointed hour. I
      betook myself again to my nap, and at length a second time awoke,
      when, to my utter amazement, it _still_ wanted twenty-seven
      minutes of six. I jumped up to examine the clock, and found that
      it had ceased running. My watch informed me that it was half past
      seven; and, of course, having slept two hours, I was too late for
      my appointment. “It will make no difference,” I said: “I can call
      at the office in the morning and apologize; in the meantime what
      can be the matter with the clock?” Upon examining it I discovered
      that one of the raisin stems which I had been filliping about the
      room during the discourse of the Angel of the Odd, had flown
      through the fractured crystal, and lodging, singularly enough, in
      the key-hole, with an end projecting outward, had thus arrested
      the revolution of the minute hand.

      “Ah!” said I, “I see how it is. This thing speaks for itself. A
      natural accident, such as _will_ happen now and then!”

      I gave the matter no further consideration, and at my usual hour
      retired to bed. Here, having placed a candle upon a reading stand
      at the bed head, and having made an attempt to peruse some pages
      of the “Omnipresence of the Deity,” I unfortunately fell asleep
      in less than twenty seconds, leaving the light burning as it was.

      My dreams were terrifically disturbed by visions of the Angel of
      the Odd. Methought he stood at the foot of the couch, drew aside
      the curtains, and, in the hollow, detestable tones of a rum
      puncheon, menaced me with the bitterest vengeance for the
      contempt with which I had treated him. He concluded a long
      harangue by taking off his funnel-cap, inserting the tube into my
      gullet, and thus deluging me with an ocean of Kirschenwässer,
      which he poured, in a continuous flood, from one of the long
      necked bottles that stood him instead of an arm. My agony was at
      length insufferable, and I awoke just in time to perceive that a
      rat had ran off with the lighted candle from the stand, but _not_
      in season to prevent his making his escape with it through the
      hole. Very soon, a strong suffocating odor assailed my nostrils;
      the house, I clearly perceived, was on fire. In a few minutes the
      blaze broke forth with violence, and in an incredibly brief
      period the entire building was wrapped in flames. All egress from
      my chamber, except through a window, was cut off. The crowd,
      however, quickly procured and raised a long ladder. By means of
      this I was descending rapidly, and in apparent safety, when a
      huge hog, about whose rotund stomach, and indeed about whose
      whole air and physiognomy, there was something which reminded me
      of the Angel of the Odd,—when this hog, I say, which hitherto had
      been quietly slumbering in the mud, took it suddenly into his
      head that his left shoulder needed scratching, and could find no
      more convenient rubbing-post than that afforded by the foot of
      the ladder. In an instant I was precipitated and had the
      misfortune to fracture my arm.

      This accident, with the loss of my insurance, and with the more
      serious loss of my hair, the whole of which had been singed off
      by the fire, predisposed me to serious impressions, so that,
      finally, I made up my mind to take a wife. There was a rich widow
      disconsolate for the loss of her seventh husband, and to her
      wounded spirit I offered the balm of my vows. She yielded a
      reluctant consent to my prayers. I knelt at her feet in gratitude
      and adoration. She blushed and bowed her luxuriant tresses into
      close contact with those supplied me, temporarily, by Grandjean.
      I know not how the entanglement took place, but so it was. I
      arose with a shining pate, wigless; she in disdain and wrath,
      half buried in alien hair. Thus ended my hopes of the widow by an
      accident which could not have been anticipated, to be sure, but
      which the natural sequence of events had brought about.

      Without despairing, however, I undertook the siege of a less
      implacable heart. The fates were again propitious for a brief
      period; but again a trivial incident interfered. Meeting my
      betrothed in an avenue thronged with the _élite_ of the city, I
      was hastening to greet her with one of my best considered bows,
      when a small particle of some foreign matter, lodging in the
      corner of my eye, rendered me, for the moment, completely blind.
      Before I could recover my sight, the lady of my love had
      disappeared—irreparably affronted at what she chose to consider
      my premeditated rudeness in passing her by ungreeted. While I
      stood bewildered at the suddenness of this accident, (which might
      have happened, nevertheless, to any one under the sun), and while
      I still continued incapable of sight, I was accosted by the Angel
      of the Odd, who proffered me his aid with a civility which I had
      no reason to expect. He examined my disordered eye with much
      gentleness and skill, informed me that I had a drop in it, and
      (whatever a “drop” was) took it out, and afforded me relief.

      I now considered it high time to die, (since fortune had so
      determined to persecute me,) and accordingly made my way to the
      nearest river. Here, divesting myself of my clothes, (for there
      is no reason why we cannot die as we were born), I threw myself
      headlong into the current; the sole witness of my fate being a
      solitary crow that had been seduced into the eating of
      brandy-saturated corn, and so had staggered away from his
      fellows. No sooner had I entered the water than this bird took it
      into its head to fly away with the most indispensable portion of
      my apparel. Postponing, therefore, for the present, my suicidal
      design, I just slipped my nether extremities into the sleeves of
      my coat, and betook myself to a pursuit of the felon with all the
      nimbleness which the case required and its circumstances would
      admit. But my evil destiny attended me still. As I ran at full
      speed, with my nose up in the atmosphere, and intent only upon
      the purloiner of my property, I suddenly perceived that my feet
      rested no longer upon _terra-firma_; the fact is, I had thrown
      myself over a precipice, and should inevitably have been dashed
      to pieces but for my good fortune in grasping the end of a long
      guide-rope, which depended from a passing balloon.

      As soon as I sufficiently recovered my senses to comprehend the
      terrific predicament in which I stood or rather hung, I exerted
      all the power of my lungs to make that predicament known to the
      æronaut overhead. But for a long time I exerted myself in vain.
      Either the fool could not, or the villain would not perceive me.
      Meantime the machine rapidly soared, while my strength even more
      rapidly failed. I was soon upon the point of resigning myself to
      my fate, and dropping quietly into the sea, when my spirits were
      suddenly revived by hearing a hollow voice from above, which
      seemed to be lazily humming an opera air. Looking up, I perceived
      the Angel of the Odd. He was leaning with his arms folded, over
      the rim of the car; and with a pipe in his mouth, at which he
      puffed leisurely, seemed to be upon excellent terms with himself
      and the universe. I was too much exhausted to speak, so I merely
      regarded him with an imploring air.

      For several minutes, although he looked me full in the face, he
      said nothing. At length removing carefully his meerschaum from
      the right to the left corner of his mouth, he condescended to
      speak.

      “Who pe you,” he asked, “und what der teuffel you pe do dare?”

      To this piece of impudence, cruelty and affectation, I could
      reply only by ejaculating the monosyllable “Help!”

      “Elp!” echoed the ruffian—“not I. Dare iz te pottle—elp yourself,
      und pe tam’d!”

      With these words he let fall a heavy bottle of Kirschenwasser
      which, dropping precisely upon the crown of my head, caused me to
      imagine that my brains were entirely knocked out. Impressed with
      this idea, I was about to relinquish my hold and give up the
      ghost with a good grace, when I was arrested by the cry of the
      Angel, who bade me hold on.

      “Old on!” he said; “don’t pe in te urry—don’t. Will you pe take
      de odder pottle, or ave you pe got zober yet and come to your
      zenzes?”

      I made haste, hereupon, to nod my head twice—once in the
      negative, meaning thereby that I would prefer not taking the
      other bottle at present—and once in the affirmative, intending
      thus to imply that I _was_ sober and _had_ positively come to my
      senses. By these means I somewhat softened the Angel.

      “Und you pelief, ten,” he inquired, “at te last? You pelief, ten,
      in te possibilty of te odd?”

      I again nodded my head in assent.

      “Und you ave pelief in _me_, te Angel of te Odd?”

      I nodded again.

      “Und you acknowledge tat you pe te blind dronk and te vool?”

      I nodded once more.

      “Put your right hand into your left hand preeches pocket, ten, in
      token ov your vull zubmizzion unto te Angel ov te Odd.”

      This thing, for very obvious reasons, I found it quite impossible
      to do. In the first place, my left arm had been broken in my fall
      from the ladder, and, therefore, had I let go my hold with the
      right hand, I must have let go altogether. In the second place, I
      could have no breeches until I came across the crow. I was
      therefore obliged, much to my regret, to shake my head in the
      negative—intending thus to give the Angel to understand that I
      found it inconvenient, just at that moment, to comply with his
      very reasonable demand! No sooner, however, had I ceased shaking
      my head than—

      “Go to der teuffel, ten!” roared the Angel of the Odd.

      In pronouncing these words, he drew a sharp knife across the
      guide-rope by which I was suspended, and as we then happened to
      be precisely over my own house, (which, during my peregrinations,
      had been handsomely rebuilt,) it so occurred that I tumbled
      headlong down the ample chimney and alit upon the dining-room
      hearth.

      Upon coming to my senses, (for the fall had very thoroughly
      stunned me,) I found it about four o’clock in the morning. I lay
      outstretched where I had fallen from the balloon. My head
      grovelled in the ashes of an extinguished fire, while my feet
      reposed upon the wreck of a small table, overthrown, and amid the
      fragments of a miscellaneous dessert, intermingled with a
      newspaper, some broken glass and shattered bottles, and an empty
      jug of the Schiedam Kirschenwasser. Thus revenged himself the
      Angel of the Odd.

      [Mabbott states that Griswold “obviously had a revised form” for
      use in the 1856 volume of Poe’s works. Mabbott does not
      substantiate this claim, but it is surely not unreasonable. An
      editor, and even typographical errors, may have produced nearly
      all of the very minor changes made in this version. (Indeed, two
      very necessary words were clearly dropped by accident.) An editor
      might have corrected “Wickliffe’s ‘Epigoniad’” to “Wilkie’s
      ‘Epigoniad’,” but is unlikely to have added “Tuckerman’s
      ‘Sicily’” to the list of books read by the narrator. Griswold was
      not above forgery (in Poe’s letters) when it suited his purpose,
      but would have too little to gain by such an effort in this
      instance.]




MELLONTA TAUTA

TO THE EDITORS OF THE LADY’S BOOK:


      I have the honor of sending you, for your magazine, an article
      which I hope you will be able to comprehend rather more
      distinctly than I do myself. It is a translation, by my friend,
      Martin Van Buren Mavis, (sometimes called the “Poughkeepsie
      Seer”) of an odd-looking MS. which I found, about a year ago,
      tightly corked up in a jug floating in the Mare Tenebrarum—a sea
      well described by the Nubian geographer, but seldom visited
      now-a-days, except for the transcendentalists and divers for
      crotchets.

      Truly yours,

      EDGAR A. POE

{this paragraph not in the volume—ED}

ON BOARD BALLOON “SKYLARK”

      _April_, 1, 2848

      Now, my dear friend—now, for your sins, you are to suffer the
      infliction of a long gossiping letter. I tell you distinctly that
      I am going to punish you for all your impertinences by being as
      tedious, as discursive, as incoherent and as unsatisfactory as
      possible. Besides, here I am, cooped up in a dirty balloon, with
      some one or two hundred of the canaille, all bound on a pleasure
      excursion, (what a funny idea some people have of pleasure!) and
      I have no prospect of touching terra firma for a month at least.
      Nobody to talk to. Nothing to do. When one has nothing to do,
      then is the time to correspond with ones friends. You perceive,
      then, why it is that I write you this letter—it is on account of
      my ennui and your sins.

      Get ready your spectacles and make up your mind to be annoyed. I
      mean to write at you every day during this odious voyage.

      Heigho! when will any Invention visit the human pericranium? Are
      we forever to be doomed to the thousand inconveniences of the
      balloon? Will nobody contrive a more expeditious mode of
      progress? The jog-trot movement, to my thinking, is little less
      than positive torture. Upon my word we have not made more than a
      hundred miles the hour since leaving home! The very birds beat
      us—at least some of them. I assure you that I do not exaggerate
      at all. Our motion, no doubt, seems slower than it actually
      is—this on account of our having no objects about us by which to
      estimate our velocity, and on account of our going with the wind.
      To be sure, whenever we meet a balloon we have a chance of
      perceiving our rate, and then, I admit, things do not appear so
      very bad. Accustomed as I am to this mode of travelling, I cannot
      get over a kind of giddiness whenever a balloon passes us in a
      current directly overhead. It always seems to me like an immense
      bird of prey about to pounce upon us and carry us off in its
      claws. One went over us this morning about sunrise, and so nearly
      overhead that its drag-rope actually brushed the network
      suspending our car, and caused us very serious apprehension. Our
      captain said that if the material of the bag had been the
      trumpery varnished “silk” of five hundred or a thousand years
      ago, we should inevitably have been damaged. This silk, as he
      explained it to me, was a fabric composed of the entrails of a
      species of earth-worm. The worm was carefully fed on mulberries—a
      kind of fruit resembling a water-melon—and, when sufficiently
      fat, was crushed in a mill. The paste thus arising was called
      papyrus in its primary state, and went through a variety of
      processes until it finally became “silk.” Singular to relate, it
      was once much admired as an article of female dress! Balloons
      were also very generally constructed from it. A better kind of
      material, it appears, was subsequently found in the down
      surrounding the seed-vessels of a plant vulgarly called
      euphorbium, and at that time botanically termed milk-weed. This
      latter kind of silk was designated as silk-buckingham, on account
      of its superior durability, and was usually prepared for use by
      being varnished with a solution of gum caoutchouc—a substance
      which in some respects must have resembled the gutta percha now
      in common use. This caoutchouc was occasionally called Indian
      rubber or rubber of twist, and was no doubt one of the numerous
      fungi. Never tell me again that I am not at heart an antiquarian.

      Talking of drag-ropes—our own, it seems, has this moment knocked
      a man overboard from one of the small magnetic propellers that
      swarm in ocean below us—a boat of about six thousand tons, and,
      from all accounts, shamefully crowded. These diminutive barques
      should be prohibited from carrying more than a definite number of
      passengers. The man, of course, was not permitted to get on board
      again, and was soon out of sight, he and his life-preserver. I
      rejoice, my dear friend, that we live in an age so enlightened
      that no such a thing as an individual is supposed to exist. It is
      the mass for which the true Humanity cares. By-the-by, talking of
      Humanity, do you know that our immortal Wiggins is not so
      original in his views of the Social Condition and so forth, as
      his contemporaries are inclined to suppose? Pundit assures me
      that the same ideas were put nearly in the same way, about a
      thousand years ago, by an Irish philosopher called Furrier, on
      account of his keeping a retail shop for cat peltries and other
      furs. Pundit knows, you know; there can be no mistake about it.
      How very wonderfully do we see verified every day, the profound
      observation of the Hindoo Aries Tottle (as quoted by
      Pundit)—“Thus must we say that, not once or twice, or a few
      times, but with almost infinite repetitions, the same opinions
      come round in a circle among men.”

      April 2.—Spoke to-day the magnetic cutter in charge of the middle
      section of floating telegraph wires. I learn that when this
      species of telegraph was first put into operation by Horse, it
      was considered quite impossible to convey the wires over sea, but
      now we are at a loss to comprehend where the difficulty lay! So
      wags the world. Tempora mutantur—excuse me for quoting the
      Etruscan. What would we do without the Atalantic telegraph?
      (Pundit says Atlantic was the ancient adjective.) We lay to a few
      minutes to ask the cutter some questions, and learned, among
      other glorious news, that civil war is raging in Africa, while
      the plague is doing its good work beautifully both in Yurope and
      Ayesher. Is it not truly remarkable that, before the magnificent
      light shed upon philosophy by Humanity, the world was accustomed
      to regard War and Pestilence as calamities? Do you know that
      prayers were actually offered up in the ancient temples to the
      end that these evils (!) might not be visited upon mankind? Is it
      not really difficult to comprehend upon what principle of
      interest our forefathers acted? Were they so blind as not to
      perceive that the destruction of a myriad of individuals is only
      so much positive advantage to the mass!

      April 3.—It is really a very fine amusement to ascend the
      rope-ladder leading to the summit of the balloon-bag, and thence
      survey the surrounding world. From the car below you know the
      prospect is not so comprehensive—you can see little vertically.
      But seated here (where I write this) in the luxuriously-cushioned
      open piazza of the summit, one can see everything that is going
      on in all directions. Just now there is quite a crowd of balloons
      in sight, and they present a very animated appearance, while the
      air is resonant with the hum of so many millions of human voices.
      I have heard it asserted that when Yellow or (Pundit will have
      it) Violet, who is supposed to have been the first aeronaut,
      maintained the practicability of traversing the atmosphere in all
      directions, by merely ascending or descending until a favorable
      current was attained, he was scarcely hearkened to at all by his
      contemporaries, who looked upon him as merely an ingenious sort
      of madman, because the philosophers (?) of the day declared the
      thing impossible. Really now it does seem to me quite
      unaccountable how any thing so obviously feasible could have
      escaped the sagacity of the ancient savans. But in all ages the
      great obstacles to advancement in Art have been opposed by the
      so-called men of science. To be sure, our men of science are not
      quite so bigoted as those of old:—oh, I have something so queer
      to tell you on this topic. Do you know that it is not more than a
      thousand years ago since the metaphysicians consented to relieve
      the people of the singular fancy that there existed but two
      possible roads for the attainment of Truth! Believe it if you
      can! It appears that long, long ago, in the night of Time, there
      lived a Turkish philosopher (or Hindoo possibly) called Aries
      Tottle. This person introduced, or at all events propagated what
      was termed the deductive or a priori mode of investigation. He
      started with what he maintained to be axioms or “self-evident
      truths,” and thence proceeded “logically” to results. His
      greatest disciples were one Neuclid, and one Cant. Well, Aries
      Tottle flourished supreme until advent of one Hog, surnamed the
      “Ettrick Shepherd,” who preached an entirely different system,
      which he called the a posteriori or inductive. His plan referred
      altogether to Sensation. He proceeded by observing, analyzing,
      and classifying facts-instantiae naturae, as they were affectedly
      called—into general laws. Aries Tottle’s mode, in a word, was
      based on noumena; Hog’s on phenomena. Well, so great was the
      admiration excited by this latter system that, at its first
      introduction, Aries Tottle fell into disrepute; but finally he
      recovered ground and was permitted to divide the realm of Truth
      with his more modern rival. The savans now maintained the
      Aristotelian and Baconian roads were the sole possible avenues to
      knowledge. “Baconian,” you must know, was an adjective invented
      as equivalent to Hog-ian and more euphonious and dignified.

      Now, my dear friend, I do assure you, most positively, that I
      represent this matter fairly, on the soundest authority; and you
      can easily understand how a notion so absurd on its very face
      must have operated to retard the progress of all true
      knowledge—which makes its advances almost invariably by intuitive
      bounds. The ancient idea confined investigations to crawling; and
      for hundreds of years so great was the infatuation about Hog
      especially, that a virtual end was put to all thinking, properly
      so called. No man dared utter a truth to which he felt himself
      indebted to his Soul alone. It mattered not whether the truth was
      even demonstrably a truth, for the bullet-headed savans of the
      time regarded only the road by which he had attained it. They
      would not even look at the end. “Let us see the means,” they
      cried, “the means!” If, upon investigation of the means, it was
      found to come under neither the category Aries (that is to say
      Ram) nor under the category Hog, why then the savans went no
      farther, but pronounced the “theorist” a fool, and would have
      nothing to do with him or his truth.

      Now, it cannot be maintained, even, that by the crawling system
      the greatest amount of truth would be attained in any long series
      of ages, for the repression of imagination was an evil not to be
      compensated for by any superior certainty in the ancient modes of
      investigation. The error of these Jurmains, these Vrinch, these
      Inglitch, and these Amriccans (the latter, by the way, were our
      own immediate progenitors), was an error quite analogous with
      that of the wiseacre who fancies that he must necessarily see an
      object the better the more closely he holds it to his eyes. These
      people blinded themselves by details. When they proceeded
      Hoggishly, their “facts” were by no means always facts—a matter
      of little consequence had it not been for assuming that they were
      facts and must be facts because they appeared to be such. When
      they proceeded on the path of the Ram, their course was scarcely
      as straight as a ram’s horn, for they never had an axiom which
      was an axiom at all. They must have been very blind not to see
      this, even in their own day; for even in their own day many of
      the long “established” axioms had been rejected. For example—“Ex
      nihilo nihil fit”; “a body cannot act where it is not”; “there
      cannot exist antipodes”; “darkness cannot come out of light”—all
      these, and a dozen other similar propositions, formerly admitted
      without hesitation as axioms, were, even at the period of which I
      speak, seen to be untenable. How absurd in these people, then, to
      persist in putting faith in “axioms” as immutable bases of Truth!
      But even out of the mouths of their soundest reasoners it is easy
      to demonstrate the futility, the impalpability of their axioms in
      general. Who was the soundest of their logicians? Let me see! I
      will go and ask Pundit and be back in a minute.... Ah, here we
      have it! Here is a book written nearly a thousand years ago and
      lately translated from the Inglitch—which, by the way, appears to
      have been the rudiment of the Amriccan. Pundit says it is
      decidedly the cleverest ancient work on its topic, Logic. The
      author (who was much thought of in his day) was one Miller, or
      Mill; and we find it recorded of him, as a point of some
      importance, that he had a mill-horse called Bentham. But let us
      glance at the treatise!

      Ah!—“Ability or inability to conceive,” says Mr. Mill, very
      properly, “is in no case to be received as a criterion of
      axiomatic truth.” What modern in his senses would ever think of
      disputing this truism? The only wonder with us must be, how it
      happened that Mr. Mill conceived it necessary even to hint at any
      thing so obvious. So far good—but let us turn over another paper.
      What have we here?—“Contradictories cannot both be true—that is,
      cannot co-exist in nature.” Here Mr. Mill means, for example,
      that a tree must be either a tree or not a tree—that it cannot be
      at the same time a tree and not a tree. Very well; but I ask him
      why. His reply is this—and never pretends to be any thing else
      than this—“Because it is impossible to conceive that
      contradictories can both be true.” But this is no answer at all,
      by his own showing, for has he not just admitted as a truism that
      “ability or inability to conceive is in no case to be received as
      a criterion of axiomatic truth.”

      Now I do not complain of these ancients so much because their
      logic is, by their own showing, utterly baseless, worthless and
      fantastic altogether, as because of their pompous and imbecile
      proscription of all other roads of Truth, of all other means for
      its attainment than the two preposterous paths—the one of
      creeping and the one of crawling—to which they have dared to
      confine the Soul that loves nothing so well as to soar.

      By the by, my dear friend, do you not think it would have puzzled
      these ancient dogmaticians to have determined by which of their
      two roads it was that the most important and most sublime of all
      their truths was, in effect, attained? I mean the truth of
      Gravitation. Newton owed it to Kepler. Kepler admitted that his
      three laws were guessed at—these three laws of all laws which led
      the great Inglitch mathematician to his principle, the basis of
      all physical principle—to go behind which we must enter the
      Kingdom of Metaphysics: Kepler guessed—that is to say imagined.
      He was essentially a “theorist”—that word now of so much
      sanctity, formerly an epithet of contempt. Would it not have
      puzzled these old moles too, to have explained by which of the
      two “roads” a cryptographist unriddles a cryptograph of more than
      usual secrecy, or by which of the two roads Champollion directed
      mankind to those enduring and almost innumerable truths which
      resulted from his deciphering the Hieroglyphics.

      One word more on this topic and I will be done boring you. Is it
      not passing strange that, with their eternal prattling about
      roads to Truth, these bigoted people missed what we now so
      clearly perceive to be the great highway—that of Consistency?
      Does it not seem singular how they should have failed to deduce
      from the works of God the vital fact that a perfect consistency
      must be an absolute truth! How plain has been our progress since
      the late announcement of this proposition! Investigation has been
      taken out of the hands of the ground-moles and given, as a task,
      to the true and only true thinkers, the men of ardent
      imagination. These latter theorize. Can you not fancy the shout
      of scorn with which my words would be received by our progenitors
      were it possible for them to be now looking over my shoulder?
      These men, I say, theorize; and their theories are simply
      corrected, reduced, systematized—cleared, little by little, of
      their dross of inconsistency—until, finally, a perfect
      consistency stands apparent which even the most stolid admit,
      because it is a consistency, to be an absolute and an
      unquestionable truth.

      April 4.—The new gas is doing wonders, in conjunction with the
      new improvement with gutta percha. How very safe, commodious,
      manageable, and in every respect convenient are our modern
      balloons! Here is an immense one approaching us at the rate of at
      least a hundred and fifty miles an hour. It seems to be crowded
      with people—perhaps there are three or four hundred
      passengers—and yet it soars to an elevation of nearly a mile,
      looking down upon poor us with sovereign contempt. Still a
      hundred or even two hundred miles an hour is slow travelling
      after all. Do you remember our flight on the railroad across the
      Kanadaw continent?—fully three hundred miles the hour—that was
      travelling. Nothing to be seen though—nothing to be done but
      flirt, feast and dance in the magnificent saloons. Do you
      remember what an odd sensation was experienced when, by chance,
      we caught a glimpse of external objects while the cars were in
      full flight? Every thing seemed unique—in one mass. For my part,
      I cannot say but that I preferred the travelling by the slow
      train of a hundred miles the hour. Here we were permitted to have
      glass windows—even to have them open—and something like a
      distinct view of the country was attainable.... Pundit says that
      the route for the great Kanadaw railroad must have been in some
      measure marked out about nine hundred years ago! In fact, he goes
      so far as to assert that actual traces of a road are still
      discernible—traces referable to a period quite as remote as that
      mentioned. The track, it appears was double only; ours, you know,
      has twelve paths; and three or four new ones are in preparation.
      The ancient rails were very slight, and placed so close together
      as to be, according to modern notions, quite frivolous, if not
      dangerous in the extreme. The present width of track—fifty
      feet—is considered, indeed, scarcely secure enough. For my part,
      I make no doubt that a track of some sort must have existed in
      very remote times, as Pundit asserts; for nothing can be clearer,
      to my mind, than that, at some period—not less than seven
      centuries ago, certainly—the Northern and Southern Kanadaw
      continents were united; the Kanawdians, then, would have been
      driven, by necessity, to a great railroad across the continent.

      April 5.—I am almost devoured by _ennui_. Pundit is the only
      conversible person on board; and he, poor soul! can speak of
      nothing but antiquities. He has been occupied all the day in the
      attempt to convince me that the ancient Amriccans governed
      themselves!—did ever anybody hear of such an absurdity?—that they
      existed in a sort of every-man-for-himself confederacy, after the
      fashion of the “prairie dogs” that we read of in fable. He says
      that they started with the queerest idea conceivable, viz: that
      all men are born free and equal—this in the very teeth of the
      laws of _gradation_ so visibly impressed upon all things both in
      the moral and physical universe. Every man “voted,” as they
      called it—that is to say meddled with public affairs—until at
      length, it was discovered that what is everybody’s business is
      nobody’s, and that the “Republic” (so the absurd thing was
      called) was without a government at all. It is related, however,
      that the first circumstance which disturbed, very particularly,
      the self-complacency of the philosophers who constructed this
      “Republic,” was the startling discovery that universal suffrage
      gave opportunity for fraudulent schemes, by means of which any
      desired number of votes might at any time be polled, without the
      possibility of prevention or even detection, by any party which
      should be merely villainous enough not to be ashamed of the
      fraud. A little reflection upon this discovery sufficed to render
      evident the consequences, which were that rascality must
      predominate—in a word, that a republican government could never
      be any thing but a rascally one. While the philosophers, however,
      were busied in blushing at their stupidity in not having foreseen
      these inevitable evils, and intent upon the invention of new
      theories, the matter was put to an abrupt issue by a fellow of
      the name of Mob, who took every thing into his own hands and set
      up a despotism, in comparison with which those of the fabulous
      Zeros and Hellofagabaluses were respectable and delectable. This
      Mob (a foreigner, by-the-by), is said to have been the most
      odious of all men that ever encumbered the earth. He was a giant
      in stature—insolent, rapacious, filthy, had the gall of a bullock
      with the heart of a hyena and the brains of a peacock. He died,
      at length, by dint of his own energies, which exhausted him.
      Nevertheless, he had his uses, as every thing has, however vile,
      and taught mankind a lesson which to this day it is in no danger
      of forgetting—never to run directly contrary to the natural
      analogies. As for Republicanism, no analogy could be found for it
      upon the face of the earth—unless we except the case of the
      “prairie dogs,” an exception which seems to demonstrate, if
      anything, that democracy is a very admirable form of
      government—for dogs.

      April 6.—Last night had a fine view of Alpha Lyrae, whose disk,
      through our captain’s spy-glass, subtends an angle of half a
      degree, looking very much as our sun does to the naked eye on a
      misty day. Alpha Lyrae, although so very much larger than our
      sun, by the by, resembles him closely as regards its spots, its
      atmosphere, and in many other particulars. It is only within the
      last century, Pundit tells me, that the binary relation existing
      between these two orbs began even to be suspected. The evident
      motion of our system in the heavens was (strange to say!)
      referred to an orbit about a prodigious star in the centre of the
      galaxy. About this star, or at all events about a centre of
      gravity common to all the globes of the Milky Way and supposed to
      be near Alcyone in the Pleiades, every one of these globes was
      declared to be revolving, our own performing the circuit in a
      period of 117,000,000 of years! We, with our present lights, our
      vast telescopic improvements, and so forth, of course find it
      difficult to comprehend the ground of an idea such as this. Its
      first propagator was one Mudler. He was led, we must presume, to
      this wild hypothesis by mere analogy in the first instance; but,
      this being the case, he should have at least adhered to analogy
      in its development. A great central orb was, in fact, suggested;
      so far Mudler was consistent. This central orb, however,
      dynamically, should have been greater than all its surrounding
      orbs taken together. The question might then have been asked—“Why
      do we not see it?”—we, especially, who occupy the mid region of
      the cluster—the very locality near which, at least, must be
      situated this inconceivable central sun. The astronomer, perhaps,
      at this point, took refuge in the suggestion of non-luminosity;
      and here analogy was suddenly let fall. But even admitting the
      central orb non-luminous, how did he manage to explain its
      failure to be rendered visible by the incalculable host of
      glorious suns glaring in all directions about it? No doubt what
      he finally maintained was merely a centre of gravity common to
      all the revolving orbs—but here again analogy must have been let
      fall. Our system revolves, it is true, about a common centre of
      gravity, but it does this in connection with and in consequence
      of a material sun whose mass more than counterbalances the rest
      of the system. The mathematical circle is a curve composed of an
      infinity of straight lines; but this idea of the circle—this idea
      of it which, in regard to all earthly geometry, we consider as
      merely the mathematical, in contradistinction from the practical,
      idea—is, in sober fact, the practical conception which alone we
      have any right to entertain in respect to those Titanic circles
      with which we have to deal, at least in fancy, when we suppose
      our system, with its fellows, revolving about a point in the
      centre of the galaxy. Let the most vigorous of human imaginations
      but attempt to take a single step toward the comprehension of a
      circuit so unutterable! It would scarcely be paradoxical to say
      that a flash of lightning itself, travelling forever upon the
      circumference of this inconceivable circle, would still forever
      be travelling in a straight line. That the path of our sun along
      such a circumference—that the direction of our system in such an
      orbit—would, to any human perception, deviate in the slightest
      degree from a straight line even in a million of years, is a
      proposition not to be entertained; and yet these ancient
      astronomers were absolutely cajoled, it appears, into believing
      that a decisive curvature had become apparent during the brief
      period of their astronomical history—during the mere point—during
      the utter nothingness of two or three thousand years! How
      incomprehensible, that considerations such as this did not at
      once indicate to them the true state of affairs—that of the
      binary revolution of our sun and Alpha Lyrae around a common
      centre of gravity!

      April 7.—Continued last night our astronomical amusements. Had a
      fine view of the five Neptunian asteroids, and watched with much
      interest the putting up of a huge impost on a couple of lintels
      in the new temple at Daphnis in the moon. It was amusing to think
      that creatures so diminutive as the lunarians, and bearing so
      little resemblance to humanity, yet evinced a mechanical
      ingenuity so much superior to our own. One finds it difficult,
      too, to conceive the vast masses which these people handle so
      easily, to be as light as our own reason tells us they actually
      are.

      April 8.—Eureka! Pundit is in his glory. A balloon from Kanadaw
      spoke us to-day and threw on board several late papers; they
      contain some exceedingly curious information relative to
      Kanawdian or rather Amriccan antiquities. You know, I presume,
      that laborers have for some months been employed in preparing the
      ground for a new fountain at Paradise, the Emperor’s principal
      pleasure garden. Paradise, it appears, has been, literally
      speaking, an island time out of mind—that is to say, its northern
      boundary was always (as far back as any record extends) a
      rivulet, or rather a very narrow arm of the sea. This arm was
      gradually widened until it attained its present breadth—a mile.
      The whole length of the island is nine miles; the breadth varies
      materially. The entire area (so Pundit says) was, about eight
      hundred years ago, densely packed with houses, some of them
      twenty stories high; land (for some most unaccountable reason)
      being considered as especially precious just in this vicinity.
      The disastrous earthquake, however, of the year 2050, so totally
      uprooted and overwhelmed the town (for it was almost too large to
      be called a village) that the most indefatigable of our
      antiquarians have never yet been able to obtain from the site any
      sufficient data (in the shape of coins, medals or inscriptions)
      wherewith to build up even the ghost of a theory concerning the
      manners, customs, &c., &c., &c., of the aboriginal inhabitants.
      Nearly all that we have hitherto known of them is, that they were
      a portion of the Knickerbocker tribe of savages infesting the
      continent at its first discovery by Recorder Riker, a knight of
      the Golden Fleece. They were by no means uncivilized, however,
      but cultivated various arts and even sciences after a fashion of
      their own. It is related of them that they were acute in many
      respects, but were oddly afflicted with monomania for building
      what, in the ancient Amriccan, was denominated “churches”—a kind
      of pagoda instituted for the worship of two idols that went by
      the names of Wealth and Fashion. In the end, it is said, the
      island became, nine tenths of it, church. The women, too, it
      appears, were oddly deformed by a natural protuberance of the
      region just below the small of the back—although, most
      unaccountably, this deformity was looked upon altogether in the
      light of a beauty. One or two pictures of these singular women
      have in fact, been miraculously preserved. They look very odd,
      very—like something between a turkey-cock and a dromedary.

      Well, these few details are nearly all that have descended to us
      respecting the ancient Knickerbockers. It seems, however, that
      while digging in the centre of the emperors garden, (which, you
      know, covers the whole island), some of the workmen unearthed a
      cubical and evidently chiseled block of granite, weighing several
      hundred pounds. It was in good preservation, having received,
      apparently, little injury from the convulsion which entombed it.
      On one of its surfaces was a marble slab with (only think of it!)
      an inscription—a legible inscription. Pundit is in ecstacies.
      Upon detaching the slab, a cavity appeared, containing a leaden
      box filled with various coins, a long scroll of names, several
      documents which appear to resemble newspapers, with other matters
      of intense interest to the antiquarian! There can be no doubt
      that all these are genuine Amriccan relics belonging to the tribe
      called Knickerbocker. The papers thrown on board our balloon are
      filled with fac-similes of the coins, MSS., typography, &c., &c.
      I copy for your amusement the Knickerbocker inscription on the
      marble slab:—

          This Corner Stone of a Monument to
                  The Memory of
                GEORGE WASHINGTON
          Was Laid With Appropriate Ceremonies
                    on the
             19th Day of October, 1847
          The anniversary of the surrender of
                 Lord Cornwallis
          to General Washington at Yorktown
                 A. D. 1781
            Under the Auspices of the
          Washington Monument Association of
                the city of New York

      This, as I give it, is a verbatim translation done by Pundit
      himself, so there can be no mistake about it. From the few words
      thus preserved, we glean several important items of knowledge,
      not the least interesting of which is the fact that a thousand
      years ago actual monuments had fallen into disuse—as was all very
      proper—the people contenting themselves, as we do now, with a
      mere indication of the design to erect a monument at some future
      time; a corner-stone being cautiously laid by itself “solitary
      and alone” (excuse me for quoting the great American poet
      Benton!), as a guarantee of the magnanimous intention. We
      ascertain, too, very distinctly, from this admirable inscription,
      the how as well as the where and the what, of the great surrender
      in question. As to the where, it was Yorktown (wherever that
      was), and as to the what, it was General Cornwallis (no doubt
      some wealthy dealer in corn). He was surrendered. The inscription
      commemorates the surrender of—what?—why, “of Lord Cornwallis.”
      The only question is what could the savages wish him surrendered
      for. But when we remember that these savages were undoubtedly
      cannibals, we are led to the conclusion that they intended him
      for sausage. As to the how of the surrender, no language can be
      more explicit. Lord Cornwallis was surrendered (for sausage)
      “under the auspices of the Washington Monument Association”—no
      doubt a charitable institution for the depositing of
      corner-stones.—But, Heaven bless me! what is the matter? Ah, I
      see—the balloon has collapsed, and we shall have a tumble into
      the sea. I have, therefore, only time enough to add that, from a
      hasty inspection of the fac-similes of newspapers, &c., &c., I
      find that the great men in those days among the Amriccans, were
      one John, a smith, and one Zacchary, a tailor.

      Good-bye, until I see you again. Whether you ever get this letter
      or not is point of little importance, as I write altogether for
      my own amusement. I shall cork the MS. up in a bottle, however,
      and throw it into the sea.

      Yours everlastingly,
       PUNDITA.




THE DUC DE L’OMELETTE.


And stepped at once into a cooler clime.—_Cowper_.

      Keats fell by a criticism. Who was it died of “The Andromache”?
      {*1} Ignoble souls!—De L’Omelette perished of an ortolan.
      _L’histoire en est brève_. Assist me, Spirit of Apicius!

      A golden cage bore the little winged wanderer, enamored, melting,
      indolent, to the _Chaussée D’Antin_, from its home in far Peru.
      From its queenly possessor La Bellissima, to the Duc De
      L’Omelette, six peers of the empire conveyed the happy bird.

      That night the Duc was to sup alone. In the privacy of his bureau
      he reclined languidly on that ottoman for which he sacrificed his
      loyalty in outbidding his king—the notorious ottoman of Cadêt.

      He buries his face in the pillow. The clock strikes! Unable to
      restrain his feelings, his Grace swallows an olive. At this
      moment the door gently opens to the sound of soft music, and lo!
      the most delicate of birds is before the most enamored of men!
      But what inexpressible dismay now overshadows the countenance of
      the Duc?—“_Horreur!—chien! Baptiste!—l’oiseau! ah, bon Dieu! cet
      oiseau modeste que tu as déshabillé de ses plumes, et que tu as
      servi sans papier!_” It is superfluous to say more:—the Duc
      expired in a paroxysm of disgust.

      “Ha! ha! ha!” said his Grace on the third day after his decease.

      “He! he! he!” replied the Devil faintly, drawing himself up with
      an air of _hauteur_.

      “Why, surely you are not serious,” retorted De L’Omelette. “I
      have sinned—c’est vrai—but, my good sir, consider!—you have no
      actual intention of putting such—such barbarous threats into
      execution.”

      “No _what?_” said his majesty—“come, sir, strip!”

      “Strip, indeed! very pretty i’ faith! no, sir, I shall _not_
      strip. Who are you, pray, that I, Duc De L’Omelette, Prince de
      Foie-Gras, just come of age, author of the ‘Mazurkiad,’ and
      Member of the Academy, should divest myself at your bidding of
      the sweetest pantaloons ever made by Bourdon, the daintiest
      _robe-de-chambre_ ever put together by Rombêrt—to say nothing of
      the taking my hair out of paper—not to mention the trouble I
      should have in drawing off my gloves?”

      “Who am I?—ah, true! I am Baal-Zebub, Prince of the Fly. I took
      thee, just now, from a rose-wood coffin inlaid with ivory. Thou
      wast curiously scented, and labelled as per invoice. Belial sent
      thee,—my Inspector of Cemeteries. The pantaloons, which thou
      sayest were made by Bourdon, are an excellent pair of linen
      drawers, and thy _robe-de-chambre_ is a shroud of no scanty
      dimensions.”

      “Sir!” replied the Duc, “I am not to be insulted with
      impunity!—Sir! I shall take the earliest opportunity of avenging
      this insult!—Sir! you shall hear from me! in the meantime _au
      revoir!_”—and the Duc was bowing himself out of the Satanic
      presence, when he was interrupted and brought back by a gentleman
      in waiting. Hereupon his Grace rubbed his eyes, yawned, shrugged
      his shoulders, reflected. Having become satisfied of his
      identity, he took a bird’s eye view of his whereabouts.

      The apartment was superb. Even De L’Omelette pronounced it _bien
      comme il faut_. It was not its length nor its breadth,—but its
      height—ah, that was appalling!—There was no ceiling—certainly
      none—but a dense whirling mass of fiery-colored clouds. His
      Grace’s brain reeled as he glanced upward. From above, hung a
      chain of an unknown blood-red metal—its upper end lost, like the
      city of Boston, _parmi les nues_. From its nether extremity swung
      a large cresset. The Duc knew it to be a ruby; but from it there
      poured a light so intense, so still, so terrible, Persia never
      worshipped such—Gheber never imagined such—Mussulman never
      dreamed of such when, drugged with opium, he has tottered to a
      bed of poppies, his back to the flowers, and his face to the God
      Apollo. The Duc muttered a slight oath, decidedly approbatory.

      The corners of the room were rounded into niches. Three of these
      were filled with statues of gigantic proportions. Their beauty
      was Grecian, their deformity Egyptian, their _tout ensemble_
      French. In the fourth niche the statue was veiled; it was _not_
      colossal. But then there was a taper ankle, a sandalled foot. De
      L’Omelette pressed his hand upon his heart, closed his eyes,
      raised them, and caught his Satanic Majesty—in a blush.

      But the paintings!—Kupris! Astarte! Astoreth!—a thousand and the
      same! And Rafaelle has beheld them! Yes, Rafaelle has been here,
      for did he not paint the—? and was he not consequently damned?
      The paintings—the paintings! O luxury! O love!—who, gazing on
      those forbidden beauties, shall have eyes for the dainty devices
      of the golden frames that besprinkled, like stars, the hyacinth
      and the porphyry walls?

      But the Duc’s heart is fainting within him. He is not, however,
      as you suppose, dizzy with magnificence, nor drunk with the
      ecstatic breath of those innumerable censers. _C’est vrai que de
      toutes ces choses il a pensé beaucoup—mais!_ The Duc De
      L’Omelette is terror-stricken; for, through the lurid vista which
      a single uncurtained window is affording, lo! gleams the most
      ghastly of all fires!

      _Le pauvre Duc!_ He could not help imagining that the glorious,
      the voluptuous, the never-dying melodies which pervaded that
      hall, as they passed filtered and transmuted through the alchemy
      of the enchanted window-panes, were the wailings and the howlings
      of the hopeless and the damned! And there, too!—there!—upon the
      ottoman!—who could _he_ be?—he, the _petitmaître_—no, the
      Deity—who sat as if carved in marble, _et qui sourit_, with his
      pale countenance, _si amèrement?_

      _Mais il faut agir_—that is to say, a Frenchman never faints
      outright. Besides, his Grace hated a scene—De L’Omelette is
      himself again. There were some foils upon a table—some points
      also. The Duc had studied under B——; _il avait tué ses six
      hommes._ Now, then, _il peut s’échapper_. He measures two points,
      and, with a grace inimitable, offers his Majesty the choice.
      _Horreur!_ his Majesty does not fence!

      _Mais il joue!_—how happy a thought!—but his Grace had always an
      excellent memory. He had dipped in the “_Diable_” of Abbé
      Gualtier. Therein it is said “_que le Diable n’ose pas refuser un
      jeu d’écarté._”

      But the chances—the chances! True—desperate: but scarcely more
      desperate than the Duc. Besides, was he not in the secret?—had he
      not skimmed over Père Le Brun?—was he not a member of the Club
      Vingt-un? “_Si je perds_,” said he, “_je serai deux fois perdu_—I
      shall be doubly damned—_voilà tout!_ (Here his Grace shrugged his
      shoulders.) _Si je gagne, je reviendrai a mes ortolans—que les
      cartes soient préparées!_”

      His Grace was all care, all attention—his Majesty all confidence.
      A spectator would have thought of Francis and Charles. His Grace
      thought of his game. His Majesty did not think; he shuffled. The
      Duc cut.

      The cards were dealt. The trump is turned—it is—it is—the king!
      No—it was the queen. His Majesty cursed her masculine
      habiliments. De L’Omelette placed his hand upon his heart.

      They play. The Duc counts. The hand is out. His Majesty counts
      heavily, smiles, and is taking wine. The Duc slips a card.

      “_C’est à vous à faire_,” said his Majesty, cutting. His Grace
      bowed, dealt, and arose from the table _en presentant le Roi_.

      His Majesty looked chagrined.

      Had Alexander not been Alexander, he would have been Diogenes;
      and the Duc assured his antagonist in taking leave, “_que s’il
      n’eût été De L’Omelette il n’aurait point d’objection d’être le
      Diable._”




THE OBLONG BOX.


      Some years ago, I engaged passage from Charleston, S. C., to the
      city of New York, in the fine packet-ship “Independence,” Captain
      Hardy. We were to sail on the fifteenth of the month (June),
      weather permitting; and on the fourteenth, I went on board to
      arrange some matters in my state-room.

      I found that we were to have a great many passengers, including a
      more than usual number of ladies. On the list were several of my
      acquaintances, and among other names, I was rejoiced to see that
      of Mr. Cornelius Wyatt, a young artist, for whom I entertained
      feelings of warm friendship. He had been with me a fellow-student
      at C—— University, where we were very much together. He had the
      ordinary temperament of genius, and was a compound of
      misanthropy, sensibility, and enthusiasm. To these qualities he
      united the warmest and truest heart which ever beat in a human
      bosom.

      I observed that his name was carded upon three state-rooms; and,
      upon again referring to the list of passengers, I found that he
      had engaged passage for himself, wife, and two sisters—his own.
      The state-rooms were sufficiently roomy, and each had two berths,
      one above the other. These berths, to be sure, were so
      exceedingly narrow as to be insufficient for more than one
      person; still, I could not comprehend why there were three
      state-rooms for these four persons. I was, just at that epoch, in
      one of those moody frames of mind which make a man abnormally
      inquisitive about trifles: and I confess, with shame, that I
      busied myself in a variety of ill-bred and preposterous
      conjectures about this matter of the supernumerary state-room. It
      was no business of mine, to be sure, but with none the less
      pertinacity did I occupy myself in attempts to resolve the
      enigma. At last I reached a conclusion which wrought in me great
      wonder why I had not arrived at it before. “It is a servant of
      course,” I said; “what a fool I am, not sooner to have thought of
      so obvious a solution!” And then I again repaired to the list—but
      here I saw distinctly that no servant was to come with the party,
      although, in fact, it had been the original design to bring
      one—for the words “and servant” had been first written and then
      overscored. “Oh, extra baggage, to be sure,” I now said to
      myself—“something he wishes not to be put in the hold—something
      to be kept under his own eye—ah, I have it—a painting or so—and
      this is what he has been bargaining about with Nicolino, the
      Italian Jew.” This idea satisfied me, and I dismissed my
      curiosity for the nonce.

      Wyatt’s two sisters I knew very well, and most amiable and clever
      girls they were. His wife he had newly married, and I had never
      yet seen her. He had often talked about her in my presence,
      however, and in his usual style of enthusiasm. He described her
      as of surpassing beauty, wit, and accomplishment. I was,
      therefore, quite anxious to make her acquaintance.

      On the day in which I visited the ship (the fourteenth), Wyatt
      and party were also to visit it—so the captain informed me—and I
      waited on board an hour longer than I had designed, in hope of
      being presented to the bride, but then an apology came. “Mrs. W.
      was a little indisposed, and would decline coming on board until
      to-morrow, at the hour of sailing.”

      The morrow having arrived, I was going from my hotel to the
      wharf, when Captain Hardy met me and said that, “owing to
      circumstances” (a stupid but convenient phrase), “he rather
      thought the ‘Independence’ would not sail for a day or two, and
      that when all was ready, he would send up and let me know.” This
      I thought strange, for there was a stiff southerly breeze; but as
      “the circumstances” were not forthcoming, although I pumped for
      them with much perseverance, I had nothing to do but to return
      home and digest my impatience at leisure.

      I did not receive the expected message from the captain for
      nearly a week. It came at length, however, and I immediately went
      on board. The ship was crowded with passengers, and every thing
      was in the bustle attendant upon making sail. Wyatt’s party
      arrived in about ten minutes after myself. There were the two
      sisters, the bride, and the artist—the latter in one of his
      customary fits of moody misanthropy. I was too well used to
      these, however, to pay them any special attention. He did not
      even introduce me to his wife—this courtesy devolving, per force,
      upon his sister Marian—a very sweet and intelligent girl, who, in
      a few hurried words, made us acquainted.

      Mrs. Wyatt had been closely veiled; and when she raised her veil,
      in acknowledging my bow, I confess that I was very profoundly
      astonished. I should have been much more so, however, had not
      long experience advised me not to trust, with too implicit a
      reliance, the enthusiastic descriptions of my friend, the artist,
      when indulging in comments upon the loveliness of woman. When
      beauty was the theme, I well knew with what facility he soared
      into the regions of the purely ideal.

      The truth is, I could not help regarding Mrs. Wyatt as a
      decidedly plain-looking woman. If not positively ugly, she was
      not, I think, very far from it. She was dressed, however, in
      exquisite taste—and then I had no doubt that she had captivated
      my friend’s heart by the more enduring graces of the intellect
      and soul. She said very few words, and passed at once into her
      state-room with Mr. W.

      My old inquisitiveness now returned. There was no servant—that
      was a settled point. I looked, therefore, for the extra baggage.
      After some delay, a cart arrived at the wharf, with an oblong
      pine box, which was every thing that seemed to be expected.
      Immediately upon its arrival we made sail, and in a short time
      were safely over the bar and standing out to sea.

      The box in question was, as I say, oblong. It was about six feet
      in length by two and a half in breadth; I observed it
      attentively, and like to be precise. Now this shape was peculiar;
      and no sooner had I seen it, than I took credit to myself for the
      accuracy of my guessing. I had reached the conclusion, it will be
      remembered, that the extra baggage of my friend, the artist,
      would prove to be pictures, or at least a picture; for I knew he
      had been for several weeks in conference with Nicolino:—and now
      here was a box, which, from its shape, could possibly contain
      nothing in the world but a copy of Leonardo’s “Last Supper;” and
      a copy of this very “Last Supper,” done by Rubini the younger, at
      Florence, I had known, for some time, to be in the possession of
      Nicolino. This point, therefore, I considered as sufficiently
      settled. I chuckled excessively when I thought of my acumen. It
      was the first time I had ever known Wyatt to keep from me any of
      his artistical secrets; but here he evidently intended to steal a
      march upon me, and smuggle a fine picture to New York, under my
      very nose; expecting me to know nothing of the matter. I resolved
      to quiz him well, now and hereafter.

      One thing, however, annoyed me not a little. The box did not go
      into the extra state-room. It was deposited in Wyatt’s own; and
      there, too, it remained, occupying very nearly the whole of the
      floor—no doubt to the exceeding discomfort of the artist and his
      wife;—this the more especially as the tar or paint with which it
      was lettered in sprawling capitals, emitted a strong,
      disagreeable, and, to my fancy, a peculiarly disgusting odor. On
      the lid were painted the words—“Mrs. Adelaide Curtis, Albany, New
      York. Charge of Cornelius Wyatt, Esq. This side up. To be handled
      with care.”

      Now, I was aware that Mrs. Adelaide Curtis, of Albany, was the
      artist’s wife’s mother,—but then I looked upon the whole address
      as a mystification, intended especially for myself. I made up my
      mind, of course, that the box and contents would never get
      farther north than the studio of my misanthropic friend, in
      Chambers Street, New York.

      For the first three or four days we had fine weather, although
      the wind was dead ahead; having chopped round to the northward,
      immediately upon our losing sight of the coast. The passengers
      were, consequently, in high spirits and disposed to be social. I
      must except, however, Wyatt and his sisters, who behaved stiffly,
      and, I could not help thinking, uncourteously to the rest of the
      party. Wyatt’s conduct I did not so much regard. He was gloomy,
      even beyond his usual habit—in fact he was morose—but in him I
      was prepared for eccentricity. For the sisters, however, I could
      make no excuse. They secluded themselves in their staterooms
      during the greater part of the passage, and absolutely refused,
      although I repeatedly urged them, to hold communication with any
      person on board.

      Mrs. Wyatt herself was far more agreeable. That is to say, she
      was chatty; and to be chatty is no slight recommendation at sea.
      She became excessively intimate with most of the ladies; and, to
      my profound astonishment, evinced no equivocal disposition to
      coquet with the men. She amused us all very much. I say
      “amused”—and scarcely know how to explain myself. The truth is, I
      soon found that Mrs. W. was far oftener laughed at than with. The
      gentlemen said little about her; but the ladies, in a little
      while, pronounced her “a good-hearted thing, rather indifferent
      looking, totally uneducated, and decidedly vulgar.” The great
      wonder was, how Wyatt had been entrapped into such a match.
      Wealth was the general solution—but this I knew to be no solution
      at all; for Wyatt had told me that she neither brought him a
      dollar nor had any expectations from any source whatever. “He had
      married,” he said, “for love, and for love only; and his bride
      was far more than worthy of his love.” When I thought of these
      expressions, on the part of my friend, I confess that I felt
      indescribably puzzled. Could it be possible that he was taking
      leave of his senses? What else could I think? He, so refined, so
      intellectual, so fastidious, with so exquisite a perception of
      the faulty, and so keen an appreciation of the beautiful! To be
      sure, the lady seemed especially fond of him—particularly so in
      his absence—when she made herself ridiculous by frequent
      quotations of what had been said by her “beloved husband, Mr.
      Wyatt.” The word “husband” seemed forever—to use one of her own
      delicate expressions—forever “on the tip of her tongue.” In the
      meantime, it was observed by all on board, that he avoided her in
      the most pointed manner, and, for the most part, shut himself up
      alone in his state-room, where, in fact, he might have been said
      to live altogether, leaving his wife at full liberty to amuse
      herself as she thought best, in the public society of the main
      cabin.

      My conclusion, from what I saw and heard, was, that, the artist,
      by some unaccountable freak of fate, or perhaps in some fit of
      enthusiastic and fanciful passion, had been induced to unite
      himself with a person altogether beneath him, and that the
      natural result, entire and speedy disgust, had ensued. I pitied
      him from the bottom of my heart—but could not, for that reason,
      quite forgive his incommunicativeness in the matter of the “Last
      Supper.” For this I resolved to have my revenge.

      One day he came upon deck, and, taking his arm as had been my
      wont, I sauntered with him backward and forward. His gloom,
      however (which I considered quite natural under the
      circumstances), seemed entirely unabated. He said little, and
      that moodily, and with evident effort. I ventured a jest or two,
      and he made a sickening attempt at a smile. Poor fellow!—as I
      thought of his wife, I wondered that he could have heart to put
      on even the semblance of mirth. I determined to commence a series
      of covert insinuations, or innuendoes, about the oblong box—just
      to let him perceive, gradually, that I was not altogether the
      butt, or victim, of his little bit of pleasant mystification. My
      first observation was by way of opening a masked battery. I said
      something about the “peculiar shape of _that_ box”; and, as I
      spoke the words, I smiled knowingly, winked, and touched him
      gently with my forefinger in the ribs.

      The manner in which Wyatt received this harmless pleasantry
      convinced me, at once, that he was mad. At first he stared at me
      as if he found it impossible to comprehend the witticism of my
      remark; but as its point seemed slowly to make its way into his
      brain, his eyes, in the same proportion, seemed protruding from
      their sockets. Then he grew very red—then hideously pale—then, as
      if highly amused with what I had insinuated, he began a loud and
      boisterous laugh, which, to my astonishment, he kept up, with
      gradually increasing vigor, for ten minutes or more. In
      conclusion, he fell flat and heavily upon the deck. When I ran to
      uplift him, to all appearance he was dead.

      I called assistance, and, with much difficulty, we brought him to
      himself. Upon reviving he spoke incoherently for some time. At
      length we bled him and put him to bed. The next morning he was
      quite recovered, so far as regarded his mere bodily health. Of
      his mind I say nothing, of course. I avoided him during the rest
      of the passage, by advice of the captain, who seemed to coincide
      with me altogether in my views of his insanity, but cautioned me
      to say nothing on this head to any person on board.

      Several circumstances occurred immediately after this fit of
      Wyatt which contributed to heighten the curiosity with which I
      was already possessed. Among other things, this: I had been
      nervous—drank too much strong green tea, and slept ill at
      night—in fact, for two nights I could not be properly said to
      sleep at all. Now, my state-room opened into the main cabin, or
      dining-room, as did those of all the single men on board. Wyatt’s
      three rooms were in the after-cabin, which was separated from the
      main one by a slight sliding door, never locked even at night. As
      we were almost constantly on a wind, and the breeze was not a
      little stiff, the ship heeled to leeward very considerably; and
      whenever her starboard side was to leeward, the sliding door
      between the cabins slid open, and so remained, nobody taking the
      trouble to get up and shut it. But my berth was in such a
      position, that when my own state-room door was open, as well as
      the sliding door in question (and my own door was always open on
      account of the heat,) I could see into the after-cabin quite
      distinctly, and just at that portion of it, too, where were
      situated the state-rooms of Mr. Wyatt. Well, during two nights
      (not consecutive) while I lay awake, I clearly saw Mrs. W., about
      eleven o’clock upon each night, steal cautiously from the
      state-room of Mr. W., and enter the extra room, where she
      remained until daybreak, when she was called by her husband and
      went back. That they were virtually separated was clear. They had
      separate apartments—no doubt in contemplation of a more permanent
      divorce; and here, after all I thought was the mystery of the
      extra state-room.

      There was another circumstance, too, which interested me much.
      During the two wakeful nights in question, and immediately after
      the disappearance of Mrs. Wyatt into the extra state-room, I was
      attracted by certain singular cautious, subdued noises in that of
      her husband. After listening to them for some time, with
      thoughtful attention, I at length succeeded perfectly in
      translating their import. They were sounds occasioned by the
      artist in prying open the oblong box, by means of a chisel and
      mallet—the latter being apparently muffled, or deadened, by some
      soft woollen or cotton substance in which its head was enveloped.

      In this manner I fancied I could distinguish the precise moment
      when he fairly disengaged the lid—also, that I could determine
      when he removed it altogether, and when he deposited it upon the
      lower berth in his room; this latter point I knew, for example,
      by certain slight taps which the lid made in striking against the
      wooden edges of the berth, as he endeavored to lay it down very
      gently—there being no room for it on the floor. After this there
      was a dead stillness, and I heard nothing more, upon either
      occasion, until nearly daybreak; unless, perhaps, I may mention a
      low sobbing, or murmuring sound, so very much suppressed as to be
      nearly inaudible—if, indeed, the whole of this latter noise were
      not rather produced by my own imagination. I say it seemed to
      resemble sobbing or sighing—but, of course, it could not have
      been either. I rather think it was a ringing in my own ears. Mr.
      Wyatt, no doubt, according to custom, was merely giving the rein
      to one of his hobbies—indulging in one of his fits of artistic
      enthusiasm. He had opened his oblong box, in order to feast his
      eyes on the pictorial treasure within. There was nothing in this,
      however, to make him sob. I repeat, therefore, that it must have
      been simply a freak of my own fancy, distempered by good Captain
      Hardy’s green tea. Just before dawn, on each of the two nights of
      which I speak, I distinctly heard Mr. Wyatt replace the lid upon
      the oblong box, and force the nails into their old places by
      means of the muffled mallet. Having done this, he issued from his
      state-room, fully dressed, and proceeded to call Mrs. W. from
      hers.

      We had been at sea seven days, and were now off Cape Hatteras,
      when there came a tremendously heavy blow from the southwest. We
      were, in a measure, prepared for it, however, as the weather had
      been holding out threats for some time. Every thing was made
      snug, alow and aloft; and as the wind steadily freshened, we lay
      to, at length, under spanker and foretopsail, both double-reefed.

      In this trim we rode safely enough for forty-eight hours—the ship
      proving herself an excellent sea-boat in many respects, and
      shipping no water of any consequence. At the end of this period,
      however, the gale had freshened into a hurricane, and our
      after-sail split into ribbons, bringing us so much in the trough
      of the water that we shipped several prodigious seas, one
      immediately after the other. By this accident we lost three men
      overboard with the caboose, and nearly the whole of the larboard
      bulwarks. Scarcely had we recovered our senses, before the
      foretopsail went into shreds, when we got up a storm stay-sail
      and with this did pretty well for some hours, the ship heading
      the sea much more steadily than before.

      The gale still held on, however, and we saw no signs of its
      abating. The rigging was found to be ill-fitted, and greatly
      strained; and on the third day of the blow, about five in the
      afternoon, our mizzen-mast, in a heavy lurch to windward, went by
      the board. For an hour or more, we tried in vain to get rid of
      it, on account of the prodigious rolling of the ship; and, before
      we had succeeded, the carpenter came aft and announced four feet
      of water in the hold. To add to our dilemma, we found the pumps
      choked and nearly useless.

      All was now confusion and despair—but an effort was made to
      lighten the ship by throwing overboard as much of her cargo as
      could be reached, and by cutting away the two masts that
      remained. This we at last accomplished—but we were still unable
      to do any thing at the pumps; and, in the meantime, the leak
      gained on us very fast.

      At sundown, the gale had sensibly diminished in violence, and as
      the sea went down with it, we still entertained faint hopes of
      saving ourselves in the boats. At eight P. M., the clouds broke
      away to windward, and we had the advantage of a full moon—a piece
      of good fortune which served wonderfully to cheer our drooping
      spirits.

      After incredible labor we succeeded, at length, in getting the
      longboat over the side without material accident, and into this
      we crowded the whole of the crew and most of the passengers. This
      party made off immediately, and, after undergoing much suffering,
      finally arrived, in safety, at Ocracoke Inlet, on the third day
      after the wreck.

      Fourteen passengers, with the captain, remained on board,
      resolving to trust their fortunes to the jolly-boat at the stern.
      We lowered it without difficulty, although it was only by a
      miracle that we prevented it from swamping as it touched the
      water. It contained, when afloat, the captain and his wife, Mr.
      Wyatt and party, a Mexican officer, wife, four children, and
      myself, with a negro valet.

      We had no room, of course, for any thing except a few positively
      necessary instruments, some provisions, and the clothes upon our
      backs. No one had thought of even attempting to save any thing
      more. What must have been the astonishment of all, then, when
      having proceeded a few fathoms from the ship, Mr. Wyatt stood up
      in the stern-sheets, and coolly demanded of Captain Hardy that
      the boat should be put back for the purpose of taking in his
      oblong box!

      “Sit down, Mr. Wyatt,” replied the captain, somewhat sternly,
      “you will capsize us if you do not sit quite still. Our gunwhale
      is almost in the water now.”

      “The box!” vociferated Mr. Wyatt, still standing—“the box, I say!
      Captain Hardy, you cannot, you will not refuse me. Its weight
      will be but a trifle—it is nothing—mere nothing. By the mother
      who bore you—for the love of Heaven—by your hope of salvation, I
      implore you to put back for the box!”

      The captain, for a moment, seemed touched by the earnest appeal
      of the artist, but he regained his stern composure, and merely
      said:

      “Mr. Wyatt, you are mad. I cannot listen to you. Sit down, I say,
      or you will swamp the boat. Stay—hold him—seize him!—he is about
      to spring overboard! There—I knew it—he is over!”

      As the captain said this, Mr. Wyatt, in fact, sprang from the
      boat, and, as we were yet in the lee of the wreck, succeeded, by
      almost superhuman exertion, in getting hold of a rope which hung
      from the fore-chains. In another moment he was on board, and
      rushing frantically down into the cabin.

      In the meantime, we had been swept astern of the ship, and being
      quite out of her lee, were at the mercy of the tremendous sea
      which was still running. We made a determined effort to put back,
      but our little boat was like a feather in the breath of the
      tempest. We saw at a glance that the doom of the unfortunate
      artist was sealed.

      As our distance from the wreck rapidly increased, the madman (for
      as such only could we regard him) was seen to emerge from the
      companion—way, up which by dint of strength that appeared
      gigantic, he dragged, bodily, the oblong box. While we gazed in
      the extremity of astonishment, he passed, rapidly, several turns
      of a three-inch rope, first around the box and then around his
      body. In another instant both body and box were in the
      sea—disappearing suddenly, at once and forever.

      We lingered awhile sadly upon our oars, with our eyes riveted
      upon the spot. At length we pulled away. The silence remained
      unbroken for an hour. Finally, I hazarded a remark.

      “Did you observe, captain, how suddenly they sank? Was not that
      an exceedingly singular thing? I confess that I entertained some
      feeble hope of his final deliverance, when I saw him lash himself
      to the box, and commit himself to the sea.”

      “They sank as a matter of course,” replied the captain, “and that
      like a shot. They will soon rise again, however—but not till the
      salt melts.”

      “The salt!” I ejaculated.

      “Hush!” said the captain, pointing to the wife and sisters of the
      deceased. “We must talk of these things at some more appropriate
      time.”

      We suffered much, and made a narrow escape; but fortune
      befriended us, as well as our mates in the long-boat. We landed,
      in fine, more dead than alive, after four days of intense
      distress, upon the beach opposite Roanoke Island. We remained
      here a week, were not ill-treated by the wreckers, and at length
      obtained a passage to New York.

      About a month after the loss of the “Independence,” I happened to
      meet Captain Hardy in Broadway. Our conversation turned,
      naturally, upon the disaster, and especially upon the sad fate of
      poor Wyatt. I thus learned the following particulars.

      The artist had engaged passage for himself, wife, two sisters and
      a servant. His wife was, indeed, as she had been represented, a
      most lovely, and most accomplished woman. On the morning of the
      fourteenth of June (the day in which I first visited the ship),
      the lady suddenly sickened and died. The young husband was
      frantic with grief—but circumstances imperatively forbade the
      deferring his voyage to New York. It was necessary to take to her
      mother the corpse of his adored wife, and, on the other hand, the
      universal prejudice which would prevent his doing so openly was
      well known. Nine-tenths of the passengers would have abandoned
      the ship rather than take passage with a dead body.

      In this dilemma, Captain Hardy arranged that the corpse, being
      first partially embalmed, and packed, with a large quantity of
      salt, in a box of suitable dimensions, should be conveyed on
      board as merchandise. Nothing was to be said of the lady’s
      decease; and, as it was well understood that Mr. Wyatt had
      engaged passage for his wife, it became necessary that some
      person should personate her during the voyage. This the deceased
      lady’s-maid was easily prevailed on to do. The extra state-room,
      originally engaged for this girl during her mistress’ life, was
      now merely retained. In this state-room the pseudo-wife, slept,
      of course, every night. In the daytime she performed, to the best
      of her ability, the part of her mistress—whose person, it had
      been carefully ascertained, was unknown to any of the passengers
      on board.

      My own mistake arose, naturally enough, through too careless, too
      inquisitive, and too impulsive a temperament. But of late, it is
      a rare thing that I sleep soundly at night. There is a
      countenance which haunts me, turn as I will. There is an
      hysterical laugh which will forever ring within my ears.




LOSS OF BREATH


O breathe not, etc.
                    —Moore’s _Melodies_

      The most notorious ill-fortune must in the end yield to the
      untiring courage of philosophy—as the most stubborn city to the
      ceaseless vigilance of an enemy. Shalmanezer, as we have it in
      holy writings, lay three years before Samaria; yet it fell.
      Sardanapalus—see Diodorus—maintained himself seven in Nineveh;
      but to no purpose. Troy expired at the close of the second
      lustrum; and Azoth, as Aristaeus declares upon his honour as a
      gentleman, opened at last her gates to Psammetichus, after having
      barred them for the fifth part of a century....

      “Thou wretch!—thou vixen!—thou shrew!” said I to my wife on the
      morning after our wedding; “thou witch!—thou hag!—thou
      whippersnapper—thou sink of iniquity!—thou fiery-faced
      quintessence of all that is abominable!—thou—thou—” here standing
      upon tiptoe, seizing her by the throat, and placing my mouth
      close to her ear, I was preparing to launch forth a new and more
      decided epithet of opprobrium, which should not fail, if
      ejaculated, to convince her of her insignificance, when to my
      extreme horror and astonishment I discovered that I had lost my
      breath.

      The phrases “I am out of breath,” “I have lost my breath,” etc.,
      are often enough repeated in common conversation; but it had
      never occurred to me that the terrible accident of which I speak
      could _bona fide_ and actually happen! Imagine—that is if you
      have a fanciful turn—imagine, I say, my wonder—my
      consternation—my despair!

      There is a good genius, however, which has never entirely
      deserted me. In my most ungovernable moods I still retain a sense
      of propriety, _et le chemin des passions me conduit_—as Lord
      Edouard in the “Julie” says it did him—_à la philosophie
      véritable_.

      Although I could not at first precisely ascertain to what degree
      the occurrence had affected me, I determined at all events to
      conceal the matter from my wife, until further experience should
      discover to me the extent of this my unheard of calamity.
      Altering my countenance, therefore, in a moment, from its
      bepuffed and distorted appearance, to an expression of arch and
      coquettish benignity, I gave my lady a pat on the one cheek, and
      a kiss on the other, and without saying one syllable (Furies! I
      could not), left her astonished at my drollery, as I pirouetted
      out of the room in a _pas de zephyr_.

      Behold me then safely ensconced in my private boudoir, a fearful
      instance of the ill consequences attending upon
      irascibility—alive, with the qualifications of the dead—dead,
      with the propensities of the living—an anomaly on the face of the
      earth—being very calm, yet breathless.

      Yes! breathless. I am serious in asserting that my breath was
      entirely gone. I could not have stirred with it a feather if my
      life had been at issue, or sullied even the delicacy of a mirror.
      Hard fate!—yet there was some alleviation to the first
      overwhelming paroxysm of my sorrow. I found, upon trial, that the
      powers of utterance which, upon my inability to proceed in the
      conversation with my wife, I then concluded to be totally
      destroyed, were in fact only partially impeded, and I discovered
      that had I, at that interesting crisis, dropped my voice to a
      singularly deep guttural, I might still have continued to her the
      communication of my sentiments; this pitch of voice (the
      guttural) depending, I find, not upon the current of the breath,
      but upon a certain spasmodic action of the muscles of the throat.

      Throwing myself upon a chair, I remained for some time absorbed
      in meditation. My reflections, be sure, were of no consolatory
      kind. A thousand vague and lachrymatory fancies took possession
      of my soul—and even the idea of suicide flitted across my brain;
      but it is a trait in the perversity of human nature to reject the
      obvious and the ready, for the far-distant and equivocal. Thus I
      shuddered at self-murder as the most decided of atrocities while
      the tabby cat purred strenuously upon the rug, and the very
      water-dog wheezed assiduously under the table, each taking to
      itself much merit for the strength of its lungs, and all
      obviously done in derision of my own pulmonary incapacity.

      Oppressed with a tumult of vague hopes and fears, I at length
      heard the footsteps of my wife descending the staircase. Being
      now assured of her absence, I returned with a palpitating heart
      to the scene of my disaster.

      Carefully locking the door on the inside, I commenced a vigorous
      search. It was possible, I thought, that, concealed in some
      obscure corner, or lurking in some closet or drawer, might be
      found the lost object of my inquiry. It might have a vapory—it
      might even have a tangible form. Most philosophers, upon many
      points of philosophy, are still very unphilosophical. William
      Godwin, however, says in his “Mandeville,” that “invisible things
      are the only realities,” and this, all will allow, is a case in
      point. I would have the judicious reader pause before accusing
      such asseverations of an undue quantum of absurdity. Anaxagoras,
      it will be remembered, maintained that snow is black, and this I
      have since found to be the case.

      Long and earnestly did I continue the investigation: but the
      contemptible reward of my industry and perseverance proved to be
      only a set of false teeth, two pair of hips, an eye, and a bundle
      of billets-doux from Mr. Windenough to my wife. I might as well
      here observe that this confirmation of my lady’s partiality for
      Mr. W. occasioned me little uneasiness. That Mrs. Lackobreath
      should admire anything so dissimilar to myself was a natural and
      necessary evil. I am, it is well known, of a robust and corpulent
      appearance, and at the same time somewhat diminutive in stature.
      What wonder, then, that the lath-like tenuity of my acquaintance,
      and his altitude, which has grown into a proverb, should have met
      with all due estimation in the eyes of Mrs. Lackobreath. But to
      return.

      My exertions, as I have before said, proved fruitless. Closet
      after closet—drawer after drawer—corner after corner—were
      scrutinized to no purpose. At one time, however, I thought myself
      sure of my prize, having, in rummaging a dressing-case,
      accidentally demolished a bottle of Grandjean’s Oil of
      Archangels—which, as an agreeable perfume, I here take the
      liberty of recommending.

      With a heavy heart I returned to my boudoir—there to ponder upon
      some method of eluding my wife’s penetration, until I could make
      arrangements prior to my leaving the country, for to this I had
      already made up my mind. In a foreign climate, being unknown, I
      might, with some probability of success, endeavor to conceal my
      unhappy calamity—a calamity calculated, even more than beggary,
      to estrange the affections of the multitude, and to draw down
      upon the wretch the well-merited indignation of the virtuous and
      the happy. I was not long in hesitation. Being naturally quick, I
      committed to memory the entire tragedy of “Metamora.” I had the
      good fortune to recollect that in the accentuation of this drama,
      or at least of such portion of it as is allotted to the hero, the
      tones of voice in which I found myself deficient were altogether
      unnecessary, and the deep guttural was expected to reign
      monotonously throughout.

      I practised for some time by the borders of a well frequented
      marsh;—herein, however, having no reference to a similar
      proceeding of Demosthenes, but from a design peculiarly and
      conscientiously my own. Thus armed at all points, I determined to
      make my wife believe that I was suddenly smitten with a passion
      for the stage. In this, I succeeded to a miracle; and to every
      question or suggestion found myself at liberty to reply in my
      most frog-like and sepulchral tones with some passage from the
      tragedy—any portion of which, as I soon took great pleasure in
      observing, would apply equally well to any particular subject. It
      is not to be supposed, however, that in the delivery of such
      passages I was found at all deficient in the looking asquint—the
      showing my teeth—the working my knees—the shuffling my feet—or in
      any of those unmentionable graces which are now justly considered
      the characteristics of a popular performer. To be sure they spoke
      of confining me in a strait-jacket—but, good God! they never
      suspected me of having lost my breath.

      Having at length put my affairs in order, I took my seat very
      early one morning in the mail stage for ——, giving it to be
      understood, among my acquaintances, that business of the last
      importance required my immediate personal attendance in that
      city.

      The coach was crammed to repletion; but in the uncertain twilight
      the features of my companions could not be distinguished. Without
      making any effectual resistance, I suffered myself to be placed
      between two gentlemen of colossal dimensions; while a third, of a
      size larger, requesting pardon for the liberty he was about to
      take, threw himself upon my body at full length, and falling
      asleep in an instant, drowned all my guttural ejaculations for
      relief, in a snore which would have put to blush the roarings of
      the bull of Phalaris. Happily the state of my respiratory
      faculties rendered suffocation an accident entirely out of the
      question.

      As, however, the day broke more distinctly in our approach to the
      outskirts of the city, my tormentor, arising and adjusting his
      shirt-collar, thanked me in a very friendly manner for my
      civility. Seeing that I remained motionless (all my limbs were
      dislocated and my head twisted on one side), his apprehensions
      began to be excited; and arousing the rest of the passengers, he
      communicated, in a very decided manner, his opinion that a dead
      man had been palmed upon them during the night for a living and
      responsible fellow-traveller; here giving me a thump on the right
      eye, by way of demonstrating the truth of his suggestion.

      Hereupon all, one after another (there were nine in company),
      believed it their duty to pull me by the ear. A young practising
      physician, too, having applied a pocket-mirror to my mouth, and
      found me without breath, the assertion of my persecutor was
      pronounced a true bill; and the whole party expressed a
      determination to endure tamely no such impositions for the
      future, and to proceed no farther with any such carcasses for the
      present.

      I was here, accordingly, thrown out at the sign of the “Crow” (by
      which tavern the coach happened to be passing), without meeting
      with any farther accident than the breaking of both my arms,
      under the left hind wheel of the vehicle. I must besides do the
      driver the justice to state that he did not forget to throw after
      me the largest of my trunks, which, unfortunately falling on my
      head, fractured my skull in a manner at once interesting and
      extraordinary.

      The landlord of the “Crow,” who is a hospitable man, finding that
      my trunk contained sufficient to indemnify him for any little
      trouble he might take in my behalf, sent forthwith for a surgeon
      of his acquaintance, and delivered me to his care with a bill and
      receipt for ten dollars.

      The purchaser took me to his apartments and commenced operations
      immediately. Having cut off my ears, however, he discovered signs
      of animation. He now rang the bell, and sent for a neighboring
      apothecary with whom to consult in the emergency. In case of his
      suspicions with regard to my existence proving ultimately
      correct, he, in the meantime, made an incision in my stomach, and
      removed several of my viscera for private dissection.

      The apothecary had an idea that I was actually dead. This idea I
      endeavored to confute, kicking and plunging with all my might,
      and making the most furious contortions—for the operations of the
      surgeon had, in a measure, restored me to the possession of my
      faculties. All, however, was attributed to the effects of a new
      galvanic battery, wherewith the apothecary, who is really a man
      of information, performed several curious experiments, in which,
      from my personal share in their fulfillment, I could not help
      feeling deeply interested. It was a course of mortification to
      me, nevertheless, that although I made several attempts at
      conversation, my powers of speech were so entirely in abeyance,
      that I could not even open my mouth; much less, then, make reply
      to some ingenious but fanciful theories of which, under other
      circumstances, my minute acquaintance with the Hippocratian
      pathology would have afforded me a ready confutation.

      Not being able to arrive at a conclusion, the practitioners
      remanded me for farther examination. I was taken up into a
      garret; and the surgeon’s lady having accommodated me with
      drawers and stockings, the surgeon himself fastened my hands, and
      tied up my jaws with a pocket-handkerchief—then bolted the door
      on the outside as he hurried to his dinner, leaving me alone to
      silence and to meditation.

      I now discovered to my extreme delight that I could have spoken
      had not my mouth been tied up with the pocket-handkerchief.
      Consoling myself with this reflection, I was mentally repeating
      some passages of the “Omnipresence of the Deity,” as is my custom
      before resigning myself to sleep, when two cats, of a greedy and
      vituperative turn, entering at a hole in the wall, leaped up with
      a flourish a la Catalani, and alighting opposite one another on
      my visage, betook themselves to indecorous contention for the
      paltry consideration of my nose.

      But, as the loss of his ears proved the means of elevating to the
      throne of Cyrus, the Magian or Mige-Gush of Persia, and as the
      cutting off his nose gave Zopyrus possession of Babylon, so the
      loss of a few ounces of my countenance proved the salvation of my
      body. Aroused by the pain, and burning with indignation, I burst,
      at a single effort, the fastenings and the bandage. Stalking
      across the room I cast a glance of contempt at the belligerents,
      and throwing open the sash to their extreme horror and
      disappointment, precipitated myself, very dexterously, from the
      window.

      The mail-robber W——, to whom I bore a singular resemblance, was
      at this moment passing from the city jail to the scaffold erected
      for his execution in the suburbs. His extreme infirmity and long
      continued ill health had obtained him the privilege of remaining
      unmanacled; and habited in his gallows costume—one very similar
      to my own,—he lay at full length in the bottom of the hangman’s
      cart (which happened to be under the windows of the surgeon at
      the moment of my precipitation) without any other guard than the
      driver, who was asleep, and two recruits of the sixth infantry,
      who were drunk.

      As ill-luck would have it, I alit upon my feet within the
      vehicle. W——, who was an acute fellow, perceived his opportunity.
      Leaping up immediately, he bolted out behind, and turning down an
      alley, was out of sight in the twinkling of an eye. The recruits,
      aroused by the bustle, could not exactly comprehend the merits of
      the transaction. Seeing, however, a man, the precise counterpart
      of the felon, standing upright in the cart before their eyes,
      they were of the opinion that the rascal (meaning W——) was after
      making his escape, (so they expressed themselves), and, having
      communicated this opinion to one another, they took each a dram,
      and then knocked me down with the butt-ends of their muskets.

      It was not long ere we arrived at the place of destination. Of
      course nothing could be said in my defence. Hanging was my
      inevitable fate. I resigned myself thereto with a feeling half
      stupid, half acrimonious. Being little of a cynic, I had all the
      sentiments of a dog. The hangman, however, adjusted the noose
      about my neck. The drop fell.

      I forbear to depict my sensations upon the gallows; although
      here, undoubtedly, I could speak to the point, and it is a topic
      upon which nothing has been well said. In fact, to write upon
      such a theme it is necessary to have been hanged. Every author
      should confine himself to matters of experience. Thus Mark Antony
      composed a treatise upon getting drunk.

      I may just mention, however, that die I did not. My body was, but
      I had no breath to be, suspended; and but for the knot under my
      left ear (which had the feel of a military stock) I dare say that
      I should have experienced very little inconvenience. As for the
      jerk given to my neck upon the falling of the drop, it merely
      proved a corrective to the twist afforded me by the fat gentleman
      in the coach.

      For good reasons, however, I did my best to give the crowd the
      worth of their trouble. My convulsions were said to be
      extraordinary. My spasms it would have been difficult to beat.
      The populace encored. Several gentlemen swooned; and a multitude
      of ladies were carried home in hysterics. Pinxit availed himself
      of the opportunity to retouch, from a sketch taken upon the spot,
      his admirable painting of the “Marsyas flayed alive.”

      When I had afforded sufficient amusement, it was thought proper
      to remove my body from the gallows;—this the more especially as
      the real culprit had in the meantime been retaken and recognized,
      a fact which I was so unlucky as not to know.

      Much sympathy was, of course, exercised in my behalf, and as no
      one made claim to my corpse, it was ordered that I should be
      interred in a public vault.

      Here, after due interval, I was deposited. The sexton departed,
      and I was left alone. A line of Marston’s “Malcontent”—

      Death’s a good fellow and keeps open house—

      struck me at that moment as a palpable lie.

      I knocked off, however, the lid of my coffin, and stepped out.
      The place was dreadfully dreary and damp, and I became troubled
      with ennui. By way of amusement, I felt my way among the numerous
      coffins ranged in order around. I lifted them down, one by one,
      and breaking open their lids, busied myself in speculations about
      the mortality within.

      “This,” I soliloquized, tumbling over a carcass, puffy, bloated,
      and rotund—“this has been, no doubt, in every sense of the word,
      an unhappy—an unfortunate man. It has been his terrible lot not
      to walk but to waddle—to pass through life not like a human
      being, but like an elephant—not like a man, but like a
      rhinoceros.

      “His attempts at getting on have been mere abortions, and his
      circumgyratory proceedings a palpable failure. Taking a step
      forward, it has been his misfortune to take two toward the right,
      and three toward the left. His studies have been confined to the
      poetry of Crabbe. He can have no idea of the wonder of a
      pirouette. To him a pas de papillon has been an abstract
      conception. He has never ascended the summit of a hill. He has
      never viewed from any steeple the glories of a metropolis. Heat
      has been his mortal enemy. In the dog-days his days have been the
      days of a dog. Therein, he has dreamed of flames and
      suffocation—of mountains upon mountains—of Pelion upon Ossa. He
      was short of breath—to say all in a word, he was short of breath.
      He thought it extravagant to play upon wind instruments. He was
      the inventor of self-moving fans, wind-sails, and ventilators. He
      patronized Du Pont the bellows-maker, and he died miserably in
      attempting to smoke a cigar. His was a case in which I feel a
      deep interest—a lot in which I sincerely sympathize.

      “But here,”—said I—“here”—and I dragged spitefully from its
      receptacle a gaunt, tall and peculiar-looking form, whose
      remarkable appearance struck me with a sense of unwelcome
      familiarity—“here is a wretch entitled to no earthly
      commiseration.” Thus saying, in order to obtain a more distinct
      view of my subject, I applied my thumb and forefinger to its
      nose, and causing it to assume a sitting position upon the
      ground, held it thus, at the length of my arm, while I continued
      my soliloquy.

      “Entitled,” I repeated, “to no earthly commiseration. Who indeed
      would think of compassioning a shadow? Besides, has he not had
      his full share of the blessings of mortality? He was the
      originator of tall monuments—shot-towers—lightning-rods—Lombardy
      poplars. His treatise upon “Shades and Shadows” has immortalized
      him. He edited with distinguished ability the last edition of
      “South on the Bones.” He went early to college and studied
      pneumatics. He then came home, talked eternally, and played upon
      the French-horn. He patronized the bagpipes. Captain Barclay, who
      walked against Time, would not walk against him. Windham and
      Allbreath were his favorite writers,—his favorite artist, Phiz.
      He died gloriously while inhaling gas—levique flatu corrupitur,
      like the fama pudicitae in Hieronymus. {*1} He was indubitably
      a—”

“How can you?—how—can—you?”—interrupted the object of my
animadversions, gasping for breath, and tearing off, with a desperate
exertion, the bandage around its jaws—“how can you, Mr. Lackobreath, be
so infernally cruel as to pinch me in that manner by the nose? Did you
not see how they had fastened up my mouth—and you must know—if you know
any thing—how vast a superfluity of breath I have to dispose of! If you
do not know, however, sit down and you shall see. In my situation it is
really a great relief to be able to open ones mouth—to be able to
expatiate—to be able to communicate with a person like yourself, who do
not think yourself called upon at every period to interrupt the thread
of a gentleman’s discourse. Interruptions are annoying and should
undoubtedly be abolished—don’t you think so?—no reply, I beg you,—one
person is enough to be speaking at a time.—I shall be done by and by,
and then you may begin.—How the devil sir, did you get into this
place?—not a word I beseech you—been here some time myself—terrible
accident!—heard of it, I suppose?—awful calamity!—walking under your
windows—some short while ago—about the time you were
stage-struck—horrible occurrence!—heard of “catching one’s breath,”
eh?—hold your tongue I tell you!—I caught somebody else’s!—had always
too much of my own—met Blab at the corner of the street—wouldn’t give
me a chance for a word—couldn’t get in a syllable edgeways—attacked,
consequently, with epilepsis—Blab made his escape—damn all fools!—they
took me up for dead, and put me in this place—pretty doings all of
them!—heard all you said about me—every word a
lie—horrible!—wonderful!—outrageous!—hideous!—incomprehensible!—et
cetera—et cetera—et cetera—et cetera—”

      It is impossible to conceive my astonishment at so unexpected a
      discourse, or the joy with which I became gradually convinced
      that the breath so fortunately caught by the gentleman (whom I
      soon recognized as my neighbor Windenough) was, in fact, the
      identical expiration mislaid by myself in the conversation with
      my wife. Time, place, and circumstances rendered it a matter
      beyond question. I did not, however, immediately release my hold
      upon Mr. W.’s proboscis—not at least during the long period in
      which the inventor of Lombardy poplars continued to favor me with
      his explanations.

      In this respect I was actuated by that habitual prudence which
      has ever been my predominating trait. I reflected that many
      difficulties might still lie in the path of my preservation which
      only extreme exertion on my part would be able to surmount. Many
      persons, I considered, are prone to estimate commodities in their
      possession—however valueless to the then proprietor—however
      troublesome, or distressing—in direct ratio with the advantages
      to be derived by others from their attainment, or by themselves
      from their abandonment. Might not this be the case with Mr.
      Windenough? In displaying anxiety for the breath of which he was
      at present so willing to get rid, might I not lay myself open to
      the exactions of his avarice? There are scoundrels in this world,
      I remembered with a sigh, who will not scruple to take unfair
      opportunities with even a next door neighbor, and (this remark is
      from Epictetus) it is precisely at that time when men are most
      anxious to throw off the burden of their own calamities that they
      feel the least desirous of relieving them in others.

      Upon considerations similar to these, and still retaining my
      grasp upon the nose of Mr. W., I accordingly thought proper to
      model my reply.

      “Monster!” I began in a tone of the deepest indignation—“monster
      and double-winded idiot!—dost thou, whom for thine iniquities it
      has pleased heaven to accurse with a two-fold respimtion—dost
      thou, I say, presume to address me in the familiar language of an
      old acquaintance?—‘I lie,’ forsooth! and ‘hold my tongue,’ to be
      sure!—pretty conversation indeed, to a gentleman with a single
      breath!—all this, too, when I have it in my power to relieve the
      calamity under which thou dost so justly suffer—to curtail the
      superfluities of thine unhappy respiration.”

      Like Brutus, I paused for a reply—with which, like a tornado, Mr.
      Windenough immediately overwhelmed me. Protestation followed upon
      protestation, and apology upon apology. There were no terms with
      which he was unwilling to comply, and there were none of which I
      failed to take the fullest advantage.

      Preliminaries being at length arranged, my acquaintance delivered
      me the respiration; for which (having carefully examined it) I
      gave him afterward a receipt.

      I am aware that by many I shall be held to blame for speaking in
      a manner so cursory, of a transaction so impalpable. It will be
      thought that I should have entered more minutely, into the
      details of an occurrence by which—and this is very true—much new
      light might be thrown upon a highly interesting branch of
      physical philosophy.

      To all this I am sorry that I cannot reply. A hint is the only
      answer which I am permitted to make. There were circumstances—but
      I think it much safer upon consideration to say as little as
      possible about an affair so delicate—so delicate, I repeat, and
      at the time involving the interests of a third party whose
      sulphurous resentment I have not the least desire, at this
      moment, of incurring.

      We were not long after this necessary arrangement in effecting an
      escape from the dungeons of the sepulchre. The united strength of
      our resuscitated voices was soon sufficiently apparent. Scissors,
      the Whig editor, republished a treatise upon “the nature and
      origin of subterranean noises.” A reply—rejoinder—confutation—and
      justification—followed in the columns of a Democratic gazette. It
      was not until the opening of the vault to decide the controversy,
      that the appearance of Mr. Windenough and myself proved both
      parties to have been decidedly in the wrong.

      I cannot conclude these details of some very singular passages in
      a life at all times sufficiently eventful, without again
      recalling to the attention of the reader the merits of that
      indiscriminate philosophy which is a sure and ready shield
      against those shafts of calamity which can neither be seen, felt
      nor fully understood. It was in the spirit of this wisdom that,
      among the ancient Hebrews, it was believed the gates of Heaven
      would be inevitably opened to that sinner, or saint, who, with
      good lungs and implicit confidence, should vociferate the word
      “Amen!” It was in the spirit of this wisdom that, when a great
      plague raged at Athens, and every means had been in vain
      attempted for its removal, Epimenides, as Laërtius relates, in
      his second book, of that philosopher, advised the erection of a
      shrine and temple “to the proper God.”

      LYTTLETON BARRY.




THE MAN THAT WAS USED UP

A TALE OF THE LATE BUGABOO AND KICKAPOO CAMPAIGN.


     _Pleurez, pleurez, mes yeux, et fondez vous en eau!_
     _La moitié de ma vie a mis l’ autre au tombeau._
                    —CORNEILLE.

      I cannot just now remember when or where I first made the
      acquaintance of that truly fine-looking fellow, Brevet Brigadier
      General John A. B. C. Smith. Some one _did_ introduce me to the
      gentleman, I am sure—at some public meeting, I know very
      well—held about something of great importance, no doubt—at some
      place or other, I feel convinced,—whose name I have unaccountably
      forgotten. The truth is—that the introduction was attended, upon
      my part, with a degree of anxious embarrassment which operated to
      prevent any definite impressions of either time or place. I am
      constitutionally nervous—this, with me, is a family failing, and
      I can’t help it. In especial, the slightest appearance of
      mystery—of any point I cannot exactly comprehend—puts me at once
      into a pitiable state of agitation.

      There was something, as it were, remarkable—yes, _remarkable_,
      although this is but a feeble term to express my full
      meaning—about the entire individuality of the personage in
      question. He was, perhaps, six feet in height, and of a presence
      singularly commanding. There was an _air distingué_ pervading the
      whole man, which spoke of high breeding, and hinted at high
      birth. Upon this topic—the topic of Smith’s personal appearance—I
      have a kind of melancholy satisfaction in being minute. His head
      of hair would have done honor to a Brutus; nothing could be more
      richly flowing, or possess a brighter gloss. It was of a jetty
      black;—which was also the color, or more properly the no color of
      his unimaginable whiskers. You perceive I cannot speak of these
      latter without enthusiasm; it is not too much to say that they
      were the handsomest pair of whiskers under the sun. At all
      events, they encircled, and at times partially overshadowed, a
      mouth utterly unequalled. Here were the most entirely even, and
      the most brilliantly white of all conceivable teeth. From between
      them, upon every proper occasion, issued a voice of surpassing
      clearness, melody, and strength. In the matter of eyes, also, my
      acquaintance was pre-eminently endowed. Either one of such a pair
      was worth a couple of the ordinary ocular organs. They were of a
      deep hazel, exceedingly large and lustrous; and there was
      perceptible about them, ever and anon, just that amount of
      interesting obliquity which gives pregnancy to expression.

      The bust of the General was unquestionably the finest bust I ever
      saw. For your life you could not have found a fault with its
      wonderful proportion. This rare peculiarity set off to great
      advantage a pair of shoulders which would have called up a blush
      of conscious inferiority into the countenance of the marble
      Apollo. I have a passion for fine shoulders, and may say that I
      never beheld them in perfection before. The arms altogether were
      admirably modelled. Nor were the lower limbs less superb. These
      were, indeed, the _ne plus ultra_ of good legs. Every connoisseur
      in such matters admitted the legs to be good. There was neither
      too much flesh, nor too little,—neither rudeness nor fragility. I
      could not imagine a more graceful curve than that of the _os
      femoris_, and there was just that due gentle prominence in the
      rear of the _fibula_ which goes to the conformation of a properly
      proportioned calf. I wish to God my young and talented friend
      Chiponchipino, the sculptor, had but seen the legs of Brevet
      Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith.

      But although men so absolutely fine-looking are neither as plenty
      as reasons or blackberries, still I could not bring myself to
      believe that _the remarkable_ something to which I alluded just
      now,—that the odd air of _je ne sais quoi_ which hung about my
      new acquaintance,—lay altogether, or indeed at all, in the
      supreme excellence of his bodily endowments. Perhaps it might be
      traced to the _manner_;—yet here again I could not pretend to be
      positive. There _was_ a primness, not to say stiffness, in his
      carriage—a degree of measured, and, if I may so express it, of
      rectangular precision, attending his every movement, which,
      observed in a more diminutive figure, would have had the least
      little savor in the world, of affectation, pomposity or
      constraint, but which noticed in a gentleman of his undoubted
      dimensions, was readily placed to the account of reserve,
      _hauteur_—of a commendable sense, in short, of what is due to the
      dignity of colossal proportion.

      The kind friend who presented me to General Smith whispered in my
      ear some few words of comment upon the man. He was a _remarkable_
      man—a _very_ remarkable man—indeed one of the _most_ remarkable
      men of the age. He was an especial favorite, too, with the
      ladies—chiefly on account of his high reputation for courage.

      “In _that_ point he is unrivalled—indeed he is a perfect
      desperado—a down-right fire-eater, and no mistake,” said my
      friend, here dropping his voice excessively low, and thrilling me
      with the mystery of his tone.

      “A downright fire-eater, and _no_ mistake. Showed _that_, I
      should say, to some purpose, in the late tremendous swamp-fight
      away down South, with the Bugaboo and Kickapoo Indians.” [Here my
      friend opened his eyes to some extent.] “Bless my soul!—blood and
      thunder, and all that!—_prodigies_ of valor!—heard of him of
      course?—you know he’s the man—”

      “Man alive, how _do_ you do? why, how _are_ ye? _very_ glad to
      see ye, indeed!” here interrupted the General himself, seizing my
      companion by the hand as he drew near, and bowing stiffly, but
      profoundly, as I was presented. I then thought, (and I think so
      still,) that I never heard a clearer nor a stronger voice, nor
      beheld a finer set of teeth: but I _must_ say that I was sorry
      for the interruption just at that moment, as, owing to the
      whispers and insinuations aforesaid, my interest had been greatly
      excited in the hero of the Bugaboo and Kickapoo campaign.

      However, the delightfully luminous conversation of Brevet
      Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith soon completely dissipated
      this chagrin. My friend leaving us immediately, we had quite a
      long _tête-à-tête_, and I was not only pleased but
      _really_—instructed. I never heard a more fluent talker, or a man
      of greater general information. With becoming modesty, he
      forebore, nevertheless, to touch upon the theme I had just then
      most at heart—I mean the mysterious circumstances attending the
      Bugaboo war—and, on my own part, what I conceive to be a proper
      sense of delicacy forbade me to broach the subject; although, in
      truth, I was exceedingly tempted to do so. I perceived, too, that
      the gallant soldier preferred topics of philosophical interest,
      and that he delighted, especially, in commenting upon the rapid
      march of mechanical invention. Indeed, lead him where I would,
      this was a point to which he invariably came back.

      “There is nothing at all like it,” he would say; “we are a
      wonderful people, and live in a wonderful age. Parachutes and
      rail-roads—man-traps and spring-guns! Our steam-boats are upon
      every sea, and the Nassau balloon packet is about to run regular
      trips (fare either way only twenty pounds sterling) between
      London and Timbuctoo. And who shall calculate the immense
      influence upon social life—upon arts—upon commerce—upon
      literature—which will be the immediate result of the great
      principles of electro-magnetics! Nor, is this all, let me assure
      you! There is really no end to the march of invention. The most
      wonderful—the most ingenious—and let me add, Mr.—Mr.—Thompson, I
      believe, is your name—let me add, I say, the most _useful_—the
      most truly _useful_—mechanical contrivances, are daily springing
      up like mushrooms, if I may so express myself, or, more
      figuratively, like—ah—grasshoppers—like grasshoppers, Mr.
      Thompson—about us and ah—ah—ah—around us!”

      Thompson, to be sure, is not my name; but it is needless to say
      that I left General Smith with a heightened interest in the man,
      with an exalted opinion of his conversational powers, and a deep
      sense of the valuable privileges we enjoy in living in this age
      of mechanical invention. My curiosity, however, had not been
      altogether satisfied, and I resolved to prosecute immediate
      inquiry among my acquaintances touching the Brevet Brigadier
      General himself, and particularly respecting the tremendous
      events _quorum pars magna fuit_, during the Bugaboo and Kickapoo
      campaign.

      The first opportunity which presented itself, and which
      (_horresco referens_) I did not in the least scruple to seize,
      occurred at the Church of the Reverend Doctor Drummummupp, where
      I found myself established, one Sunday, just at sermon time, not
      only in the pew, but by the side, of that worthy and
      communicative little friend of mine, Miss Tabitha T. Thus seated,
      I congratulated myself, and with much reason, upon the very
      flattering state of affairs. If any person knew anything about
      Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith, that person, it was
      clear to me, was Miss Tabitha T. We telegraphed a few signals,
      and then commenced, _sotto voce_, a brisk _tête-à-tête_.

      “Smith!” said she, in reply to my very earnest inquiry;
      “Smith!—why, not General John A. B. C.? Bless me, I thought you
      _knew_ all about _him!_ This is a wonderfully inventive age!
      Horrid affair that!—a bloody set of wretches, those
      Kickapoos!—fought like a hero—prodigies of valor—immortal renown.
      Smith!—Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C.! why, you know he’s
      the man—”

      “Man,” here broke in Doctor Drummummupp, at the top of his voice,
      and with a thump that came near knocking the pulpit about our
      ears—“man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live;
      he cometh up and is cut down like a flower!” I started to the
      extremity of the pew, and perceived by the animated looks of the
      divine, that the wrath which had nearly proved fatal to the
      pulpit had been excited by the whispers of the lady and myself.
      There was no help for it; so I submitted with a good grace, and
      listened, in all the martyrdom of dignified silence, to the
      balance of that very capital discourse.

      Next evening found me a somewhat late visitor at the Rantipole
      Theatre, where I felt sure of satisfying my curiosity at once, by
      merely stepping into the box of those exquisite specimens of
      affability and omniscience, the Misses Arabella and Miranda
      Cognoscenti. That fine tragedian, Climax, was doing Iago to a
      very crowded house, and I experienced some little difficulty in
      making my wishes understood; especially, as our box was next the
      slips, and completely overlooked the stage.

      “Smith!” said Miss Arabella, as she at length comprehended the
      purport of my query; “Smith!—why, not General John A. B. C.?”

      “Smith!” inquired Miranda, musingly. “God bless me, did you ever
      behold a finer figure?”

      “Never, madam, but _do_ tell me—”

      “Or so inimitable grace?”

      “Never, upon my word!—But pray inform me—”

      “Or so just an appreciation of stage effect?”

      “Madam!”

      “Or a more delicate sense of the true beauties of Shakespeare? Be
      so good as to look at that leg!”

      “The devil!” and I turned again to her sister.

      “Smith!” said she, “why, not General John A. B. C.? Horrid affair
      that, wasn’t it?—great wretches, those Bugaboos—savage and so
      on—but we live in a wonderfully inventive age!—Smith!—O yes!
      great man!—perfect desperado!—immortal renown!—prodigies of
      valor! _Never heard!_” [This was given in a scream.] “Bless my
      soul! why, he’s the man—”

                         “——mandragora
     Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world
     Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
     Which thou owd’st yesterday!”

      here roared our Climax just in my ear, and shaking his fist in my
      face all the time, in a way that I _couldn’t_ stand, and I
      _wouldn’t_. I left the Misses Cognoscenti immediately, went
      behind the scenes forthwith, and gave the beggarly scoundrel such
      a thrashing as I trust he will remember to the day of his death.

      At the _soirée_ of the lovely widow, Mrs. Kathleen O’Trump, I was
      confident that I should meet with no similar disappointment.
      Accordingly, I was no sooner seated at the card-table, with my
      pretty hostess for a _vis-à-vis_, than I propounded those
      questions the solution of which had become a matter so essential
      to my peace.

      “Smith!” said my partner, “why, not General John A. B. C.? Horrid
      affair that, wasn’t it?—diamonds, did you say?—terrible wretches
      those Kickapoos!—we are playing _whist_, if you please, Mr.
      Tattle—however, this is the age of invention, most certainly
      _the_ age, one may say—_the_ age _par excellence_—speak
      French?—oh, quite a hero—perfect desperado!—_no hearts_, Mr.
      Tattle? I don’t believe it.—immortal renown and all
      that!—prodigies of valor! _Never heard!!_—why, bless me, he’s the
      man—”

      “Mann!—_Captain_ Mann?” here screamed some little feminine
      interloper from the farthest corner of the room. “Are you talking
      about Captain Mann and the duel?—oh, I _must_ hear—do tell—go on,
      Mrs. O’Trump!—do now go on!” And go on Mrs. O’Trump did—all about
      a certain Captain Mann, who was either shot or hung, or should
      have been both shot and hung. Yes! Mrs. O’Trump, she went on, and
      I—I went off. There was no chance of hearing anything farther
      that evening in regard to Brevet Brigadier General John A. B. C.
      Smith.

      Still I consoled myself with the reflection that the tide of ill
      luck would not run against me forever, and so determined to make
      a bold push for information at the rout of that bewitching little
      angel, the graceful Mrs. Pirouette.

      “Smith!” said Mrs. P., as we twirled about together in a _pas de
      zephyr_, “Smith!—why, not General John A. B. C.? Dreadful
      business that of the Bugaboos, wasn’t it?—dreadful creatures,
      those Indians!—_do_ turn out your toes! I really am ashamed of
      you—man of great courage, poor fellow!—but this is a wonderful
      age for invention—O dear me, I’m out of breath—quite a
      desperado—prodigies of valor—_never heard!_—can’t believe it—I
      shall have to sit down and enlighten you—Smith! why, he’s the
      man—”

      “Man-_Fred_, I tell you!” here bawled out Miss Bas-Bleu, as I led
      Mrs. Pirouette to a seat. “Did ever anybody hear the like? It’s
      Man-_Fred_, I say, and not at all by any means Man-_Friday_.”
      Here Miss Bas-Bleu beckoned to me in a very peremptory manner;
      and I was obliged, will I nill I, to leave Mrs. P. for the
      purpose of deciding a dispute touching the title of a certain
      poetical drama of Lord Byron’s. Although I pronounced, with great
      promptness, that the true title was Man-_Friday_, and not by any
      means Man-_Fred_, yet when I returned to seek Mrs. Pirouette she
      was not to be discovered, and I made my retreat from the house in
      a very bitter spirit of animosity against the whole race of the
      Bas-Bleus.

      Matters had now assumed a really serious aspect, and I resolved
      to call at once upon my particular friend, Mr. Theodore Sinivate;
      for I knew that here at least I should get something like
      definite information.

      “Smith!” said he, in his well-known peculiar way of drawling out
      his syllables; “Smith!—why, not General John A. B. C.? Savage
      affair that with the Kickapo-o-o-os, wasn’t it? Say! don’t you
      think so?—perfect despera-a-ado—great pity, ‘pon my
      honor!—wonderfully inventive age!—pro-o-odigies of valor! By the
      by, did you ever hear about Captain Ma-a-a-a-n?”

      “Captain Mann be d—d!” said I; “please to go on with your story.”

      “Hem!—oh well!—quite _la même cho-o-ose_, as we say in France.
      Smith, eh? Brigadier-General John A.—B.—C.? I say”—[here Mr. S.
      thought proper to put his finger to the side of his nose]—“I say,
      you don’t mean to insinuate now, really and truly, and
      conscientiously, that you don’t know all about that affair of
      Smith’s, as well as I do, eh? Smith? John A—B—C.? Why, bless me,
      he’s the ma-a-an—”

      “_Mr_. Sinivate,” said I, imploringly, “_is_ he the man in the
      mask?”

      “No-o-o!” said he, looking wise, “nor the man in the mo-o-on.”

      This reply I considered a pointed and positive insult, and so
      left the house at once in high dudgeon, with a firm resolve to
      call my friend, Mr. Sinivate, to a speedy account for his
      ungentlemanly conduct and ill-breeding.

      In the meantime, however, I had no notion of being thwarted
      touching the information I desired. There was one resource left
      me yet. I would go to the fountain-head. I would call forthwith
      upon the General himself, and demand, in explicit terms, a
      solution of this abominable piece of mystery. Here, at least,
      there should be no chance for equivocation. I would be plain,
      positive, peremptory—as short as pie-crust—as concise as Tacitus
      or Montesquieu.

      It was early when I called, and the General was dressing; but I
      pleaded urgent business, and was shown at once into his bed-room
      by an old negro valet, who remained in attendance during my
      visit. As I entered the chamber, I looked about, of course, for
      the occupant, but did not immediately perceive him. There was a
      large and exceedingly odd-looking bundle of something which lay
      close by my feet on the floor, and, as I was not in the best
      humor in the world, I gave it a kick out of the way.

      “Hem! ahem! rather civil that, I should say!” said the bundle, in
      one of the smallest, and altogether the funniest little voices,
      between a squeak and a whistle, that I ever heard in all the days
      of my existence.

      “Ahem! rather civil that, I should observe.”

      I fairly shouted with terror, and made off, at a tangent, into
      the farthest extremity of the room.

      “God bless me! my dear fellow,” here again whistled the bundle,
      “what—what—what—why, what _is_ the matter? I really believe you
      don’t know me at all.”

      What _could_ I say to all this—what _could_ I? I staggered into
      an arm-chair, and, with staring eyes and open mouth, awaited the
      solution of the wonder.

      “Strange you shouldn’t know me though, isn’t it?” presently
      re-squeaked the nondescript, which I now perceived was
      performing, upon the floor, some inexplicable evolution, very
      analogous to the drawing on of a stocking. There was only a
      single leg, however, apparent.

      “Strange you shouldn’t know me, though, isn’t it? Pompey, bring
      me that leg!” Here Pompey handed the bundle, a very capital cork
      leg, already dressed, which it screwed on in a trice; and then it
      stood up before my eyes.

      “And a bloody action it _was_,” continued the thing, as if in a
      soliloquy; “but then one mustn’t fight with the Bugaboos and
      Kickapoos, and think of coming off with a mere scratch. Pompey,
      I’ll thank you now for that arm. Thomas” [turning to me] “is
      decidedly the best hand at a cork leg; but if you should ever
      want an arm, my dear fellow, you must really let me recommend you
      to Bishop.” Here Pompey screwed on an arm.

      “We had rather hot work of it, that you may say. Now, you dog,
      slip on my shoulders and bosom! Pettitt makes the best shoulders,
      but for a bosom you will have to go to Ducrow.”

      “Bosom!” said I.

      “Pompey, will you _never_ be ready with that wig? Scalping is a
      rough process after all; but then you can procure such a capital
      scratch at De L’Orme’s.”

      “Scratch!”

      “Now, you nigger, my teeth! For a _good_ set of these you had
      better go to Parmly’s at once; high prices, but excellent work. I
      swallowed some very capital articles, though, when the big
      Bugaboo rammed me down with the butt end of his rifle.”

      “Butt end! ram down!! my eye!!”

      “O yes, by-the-by, my eye—here, Pompey, you scamp, screw it in !
      Those Kickapoos are not so very slow at a gouge; but he’s a
      belied man, that Dr. Williams, after all; you can’t imagine how
      well I see with the eyes of his make.”

      I now began very clearly to perceive that the object before me
      was nothing more nor less than my new acquaintance, Brevet
      Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith. The manipulations of
      Pompey had made, I must confess, a very striking difference in
      the appearance of the personal man. The voice, however, still
      puzzled me no little; but even this apparent mystery was speedily
      cleared up.

      “Pompey, you black rascal,” squeaked the General, “I really do
      believe you would let me go out without my palate.”

      Hereupon, the negro, grumbling out an apology, went up to his
      master, opened his mouth with the knowing air of a horse-jockey,
      and adjusted therein a somewhat singular-looking machine, in a
      very dexterous manner, that I could not altogether comprehend.
      The alteration, however, in the entire expression of the
      General’s countenance was instantaneous and surprising. When he
      again spoke, his voice had resumed all that rich melody and
      strength which I had noticed upon our original introduction.

      “D—n the vagabonds!” said he, in so clear a tone that I
      positively started at the change, “D—n the vagabonds! they not
      only knocked in the roof of my mouth, but took the trouble to cut
      off at least seven-eighths of my tongue. There isn’t Bonfanti’s
      equal, however, in America, for really good articles of this
      description. I can recommend you to him with confidence,” [here
      the General bowed,] “and assure you that I have the greatest
      pleasure in so doing.”

      I acknowledged his kindness in my best manner, and took leave of
      him at once, with a perfect understanding of the true state of
      affairs—with a full comprehension of the mystery which had
      troubled me so long. It was evident. It was a clear case. Brevet
      Brigadier General John A. B. C. Smith was the man—was _the man
      that was used up_.




THE BUSINESS MAN


Method is the soul of business.—OLD SAYING.

      I am a business man. I am a methodical man. Method is the thing,
      after all. But there are no people I more heartily despise than
      your eccentric fools who prate about method without understanding
      it; attending strictly to its letter, and violating its spirit.
      These fellows are always doing the most out-of-the-way things in
      what they call an orderly manner. Now here, I conceive, is a
      positive paradox. True method appertains to the ordinary and the
      obvious alone, and cannot be applied to the _outré_. What
      definite idea can a body attach to such expressions as
      “methodical Jack o’ Dandy,” or “a systematical Will o’ the Wisp”?

      My notions upon this head might not have been so clear as they
      are, but for a fortunate accident which happened to me when I was
      a very little boy. A good-hearted old Irish nurse (whom I shall
      not forget in my will) took me up one day by the heels, when I
      was making more noise than was necessary, and swinging me round
      two or three times, d—d my eyes for “a skreeking little
      spalpeen,” and then knocked my head into a cocked hat against the
      bedpost. This, I say, decided my fate, and made my fortune. A
      bump arose at once on my sinciput, and turned out to be as pretty
      an organ of order as one shall see on a summer’s day. Hence that
      positive appetite for system and regularity which has made me the
      distinguished man of business that I am.

      If there is any thing on earth I hate, it is a genius. Your
      geniuses are all arrant asses—the greater the genius the greater
      the ass—and to this rule there is no exception whatever.
      Especially, you cannot make a man of business out of a genius,
      any more than money out of a Jew, or the best nutmegs out of
      pine-knots. The creatures are always going off at a tangent into
      some fantastic employment, or ridiculous speculation, entirely at
      variance with the “fitness of things,” and having no business
      whatever to be considered as a business at all. Thus you may tell
      these characters immediately by the nature of their occupations.
      If you ever perceive a man setting up as a merchant or a
      manufacturer, or going into the cotton or tobacco trade, or any
      of those eccentric pursuits; or getting to be a drygoods dealer,
      or soap-boiler, or something of that kind; or pretending to be a
      lawyer, or a blacksmith, or a physician—any thing out of the
      usual way—you may set him down at once as a genius, and then,
      according to the rule-of-three, he’s an ass.

      Now I am not in any respect a genius, but a regular business man.
      My day-book and ledger will evince this in a minute. They are
      well kept, though I say it myself; and, in my general habits of
      accuracy and punctuality, I am not to be beat by a clock.
      Moreover, my occupations have been always made to chime in with
      the ordinary habitudes of my fellowmen. Not that I feel the least
      indebted, upon this score, to my exceedingly weak-minded parents,
      who, beyond doubt, would have made an arrant genius of me at
      last, if my guardian angel had not come, in good time, to the
      rescue. In biography the truth is every thing, and in
      autobiography it is especially so—yet I scarcely hope to be
      believed when I state, however solemnly, that my poor father put
      me, when I was about fifteen years of age, into the
      counting-house of what be termed “a respectable hardware and
      commission merchant doing a capital bit of business!” A capital
      bit of fiddlestick! However, the consequence of this folly was,
      that in two or three days, I had to be sent home to my
      button-headed family in a high state of fever, and with a most
      violent and dangerous pain in the sinciput, all around about my
      organ of order. It was nearly a gone case with me then—just
      touch-and-go for six weeks—the physicians giving me up and all
      that sort of thing. But, although I suffered much, I was a
      thankful boy in the main. I was saved from being a “respectable
      hardware and commission merchant, doing a capital bit of
      business,” and I felt grateful to the protuberance which had been
      the means of my salvation, as well as to the kindhearted female
      who had originally put these means within my reach.

      The most of boys run away from home at ten or twelve years of
      age, but I waited till I was sixteen. I don’t know that I should
      have gone even then, if I had not happened to hear my old mother
      talk about setting me up on my own hook in the grocery way. The
      grocery way!—only think of that! I resolved to be off forthwith,
      and try and establish myself in some decent occupation, without
      dancing attendance any longer upon the caprices of these
      eccentric old people, and running the risk of being made a genius
      of in the end. In this project I succeeded perfectly well at the
      first effort, and by the time I was fairly eighteen, found myself
      doing an extensive and profitable business in the Tailor’s
      Walking-Advertisement line.

      I was enabled to discharge the onerous duties of this profession,
      only by that rigid adherence to system which formed the leading
      feature of my mind. A scrupulous method characterized my actions
      as well as my accounts. In my case it was method—not money—which
      made the man: at least all of him that was not made by the tailor
      whom I served. At nine, every morning, I called upon that
      individual for the clothes of the day. Ten o’clock found me in
      some fashionable promenade or other place of public amusement.
      The precise regularity with which I turned my handsome person
      about, so as to bring successively into view every portion of the
      suit upon my back, was the admiration of all the knowing men in
      the trade. Noon never passed without my bringing home a customer
      to the house of my employers, Messrs. Cut & Comeagain. I say this
      proudly, but with tears in my eyes—for the firm proved themselves
      the basest of ingrates. The little account, about which we
      quarreled and finally parted, cannot, in any item, be thought
      overcharged, by gentlemen really conversant with the nature of
      the business. Upon this point, however, I feel a degree of proud
      satisfaction in permitting the reader to judge for himself. My
      bill ran thus:

_Messrs. Cut & Comeagain, Merchant Tailors.
To Peter Proffit, Walking Advertiser,_ Drs.

July 10.   to promenade, as usual and customer brought home   $00 25
July 11.   To do do do                                            25
July 12.   To one lie, second class; damaged black cloth sold
           for invisible green                                    25
July 13.   To one lie, first class, extra quality and size;
           recommended milled satinet as broadcloth,              75
July 20.   To purchasing bran new paper shirt collar or dickey,
           to set off gray Petersham                              02
Aug. 15.   To wearing double-padded bobtail frock, (thermometer
           106 in the shade)                                      25
Aug. 16.   Standing on one leg three hours, to show off
           new-style strapped pants at 12 1/2 cents per leg per
           hour                                                   37½
Aug. 17.   To promenade, as usual, and large customer brought
           (fat man)                                              50
Aug. 18.   To do do (medium size)                                 25
Aug. 19.   To do do (small man and bad pay)                        6
           TOTAL                                               $2 95½


      The item chiefly disputed in this bill was the very moderate
      charge of two pennies for the dickey. Upon my word of honor, this
      was not an unreasonable price for that dickey. It was one of the
      cleanest and prettiest little dickeys I ever saw; and I have good
      reason to believe that it effected the sale of three Petershams.
      The elder partner of the firm, however, would allow me only one
      penny of the charge, and took it upon himself to show in what
      manner four of the same sized conveniences could be got out of a
      sheet of foolscap. But it is needless to say that I stood upon
      the principle of the thing. Business is business, and should be
      done in a business way. There was no system whatever in swindling
      me out of a penny—a clear fraud of fifty per cent—no method in
      any respect. I left at once the employment of Messrs. Cut &
      Comeagain, and set up in the Eye-Sore line by myself—one of the
      most lucrative, respectable, and independent of the ordinary
      occupations.

      My strict integrity, economy, and rigorous business habits, here
      again came into play. I found myself driving a flourishing trade,
      and soon became a marked man upon “Change.” The truth is, I never
      dabbled in flashy matters, but jogged on in the good old sober
      routine of the calling—a calling in which I should, no doubt,
      have remained to the present hour, but for a little accident
      which happened to me in the prosecution of one of the usual
      business operations of the profession. Whenever a rich old hunks
      or prodigal heir or bankrupt corporation gets into the notion of
      putting up a palace, there is no such thing in the world as
      stopping either of them, and this every intelligent person knows.
      The fact in question is indeed the basis of the Eye-Sore trade.
      As soon, therefore, as a building-project is fairly afoot by one
      of these parties, we merchants secure a nice corner of the lot in
      contemplation, or a prime little situation just adjoining, or
      tight in front. This done, we wait until the palace is half-way
      up, and then we pay some tasty architect to run us up an
      ornamental mud hovel, right against it; or a Down-East or Dutch
      Pagoda, or a pig-sty, or an ingenious little bit of fancy work,
      either Esquimau, Kickapoo, or Hottentot. Of course we can’t
      afford to take these structures down under a bonus of five
      hundred per cent upon the prime cost of our lot and plaster. Can
      we? I ask the question. I ask it of business men. It would be
      irrational to suppose that we can. And yet there was a rascally
      corporation which asked me to do this very thing—this very thing!
      I did not reply to their absurd proposition, of course; but I
      felt it a duty to go that same night, and lamp-black the whole of
      their palace. For this the unreasonable villains clapped me into
      jail; and the gentlemen of the Eye-Sore trade could not well
      avoid cutting my connection when I came out.

      The Assault-and-Battery business, into which I was now forced to
      adventure for a livelihood, was somewhat ill-adapted to the
      delicate nature of my constitution; but I went to work in it with
      a good heart, and found my account here, as heretofore, in those
      stern habits of methodical accuracy which had been thumped into
      me by that delightful old nurse—I would indeed be the basest of
      men not to remember her well in my will. By observing, as I say,
      the strictest system in all my dealings, and keeping a
      well-regulated set of books, I was enabled to get over many
      serious difficulties, and, in the end, to establish myself very
      decently in the profession. The truth is, that few individuals,
      in any line, did a snugger little business than I. I will just
      copy a page or so out of my Day-Book; and this will save me the
      necessity of blowing my own trumpet—a contemptible practice of
      which no high-minded man will be guilty. Now, the Day-Book is a
      thing that don’t lie.

      “Jan. 1.—New Year’s Day. Met Snap in the street, groggy.
      Mem—he’ll do. Met Gruff shortly afterward, blind drunk. Mem—he’ll
      answer, too. Entered both gentlemen in my Ledger, and opened a
      running account with each.

      “Jan. 2.—Saw Snap at the Exchange, and went up and trod on his
      toe. Doubled his fist and knocked me down. Good!—got up again.
      Some trifling difficulty with Bag, my attorney. I want the
      damages at a thousand, but he says that for so simple a knock
      down we can’t lay them at more than five hundred. Mem—must get
      rid of Bag—no system at all.

      “Jan. 3.—Went to the theatre, to look for Gruff. Saw him sitting
      in a side box, in the second tier, between a fat lady and a lean
      one. Quizzed the whole party through an opera-glass, till I saw
      the fat lady blush and whisper to G. Went round, then, into the
      box, and put my nose within reach of his hand. Wouldn’t pull
      it—no go. Blew it, and tried again—no go. Sat down then, and
      winked at the lean lady, when I had the high satisfaction of
      finding him lift me up by the nape of the neck, and fling me over
      into the pit. Neck dislocated, and right leg capitally
      splintered. Went home in high glee, drank a bottle of champagne,
      and booked the young man for five thousand. Bag says it’ll do.

      “Feb. 15.—Compromised the case of Mr. Snap. Amount entered in
      Journal—fifty cents—which see.

      “Feb. 16.—Cast by that ruffian, Gruff, who made me a present of
      five dollars. Costs of suit, four dollars and twenty-five cents.
      Nett profit,—see Journal,—seventy-five cents.”

      Now, here is a clear gain, in a very brief period, of no less
      than one dollar and twenty-five cents—this is in the mere cases
      of Snap and Gruff; and I solemnly assure the reader that these
      extracts are taken at random from my Day-Book.

      It’s an old saying, and a true one, however, that money is
      nothing in comparison with health. I found the exactions of the
      profession somewhat too much for my delicate state of body; and,
      discovering, at last, that I was knocked all out of shape, so
      that I didn’t know very well what to make of the matter, and so
      that my friends, when they met me in the street, couldn’t tell
      that I was Peter Proffit at all, it occurred to me that the best
      expedient I could adopt was to alter my line of business. I
      turned my attention, therefore, to Mud-Dabbling, and continued it
      for some years.

      The worst of this occupation is, that too many people take a
      fancy to it, and the competition is in consequence excessive.
      Every ignoramus of a fellow who finds that he hasn’t brains in
      sufficient quantity to make his way as a walking advertiser, or
      an eye-sore prig, or a salt-and-batter man, thinks, of course,
      that he’ll answer very well as a dabbler of mud. But there never
      was entertained a more erroneous idea than that it requires no
      brains to mud-dabble. Especially, there is nothing to be made in
      this way without method. I did only a retail business myself, but
      my old habits of system carried me swimmingly along. I selected
      my street-crossing, in the first place, with great deliberation,
      and I never put down a broom in any part of the town but that. I
      took care, too, to have a nice little puddle at hand, which I
      could get at in a minute. By these means I got to be well known
      as a man to be trusted; and this is one-half the battle, let me
      tell you, in trade. Nobody ever failed to pitch me a copper, and
      got over my crossing with a clean pair of pantaloons. And, as my
      business habits, in this respect, were sufficiently understood, I
      never met with any attempt at imposition. I wouldn’t have put up
      with it, if I had. Never imposing upon any one myself, I suffered
      no one to play the possum with me. The frauds of the banks of
      course I couldn’t help. Their suspension put me to ruinous
      inconvenience. These, however, are not individuals, but
      corporations; and corporations, it is very well known, have
      neither bodies to be kicked nor souls to be damned.

      I was making money at this business when, in an evil moment, I
      was induced to merge it in the Cur-Spattering—a somewhat
      analogous, but, by no means, so respectable a profession. My
      location, to be sure, was an excellent one, being central, and I
      had capital blacking and brushes. My little dog, too, was quite
      fat and up to all varieties of snuff. He had been in the trade a
      long time, and, I may say, understood it. Our general routine was
      this:—Pompey, having rolled himself well in the mud, sat upon end
      at the shop door, until he observed a dandy approaching in bright
      boots. He then proceeded to meet him, and gave the Wellingtons a
      rub or two with his wool. Then the dandy swore very much, and
      looked about for a boot-black. There I was, full in his view,
      with blacking and brushes. It was only a minute’s work, and then
      came a sixpence. This did moderately well for a time;—in fact, I
      was not avaricious, but my dog was. I allowed him a third of the
      profit, but he was advised to insist upon half. This I couldn’t
      stand—so we quarrelled and parted.

      I next tried my hand at the Organ-Grinding for a while, and may
      say that I made out pretty well. It is a plain, straightforward
      business, and requires no particular abilities. You can get a
      music-mill for a mere song, and to put it in order, you have but
      to open the works, and give them three or four smart raps with a
      hammer. It improves the tone of the thing, for business purposes,
      more than you can imagine. This done, you have only to stroll
      along, with the mill on your back, until you see tanbark in the
      street, and a knocker wrapped up in buckskin. Then you stop and
      grind; looking as if you meant to stop and grind till doomsday.
      Presently a window opens, and somebody pitches you a sixpence,
      with a request to “Hush up and go on,” etc. I am aware that some
      grinders have actually afforded to “go on” for this sum; but for
      my part, I found the necessary outlay of capital too great to
      permit of my “going on” under a shilling.

      At this occupation I did a good deal; but, somehow, I was not
      quite satisfied, and so finally abandoned it. The truth is, I
      labored under the disadvantage of having no monkey—and American
      streets are so muddy, and a Democratic rabble is so obstrusive,
      and so full of demnition mischievous little boys.

      I was now out of employment for some months, but at length
      succeeded, by dint of great interest, in procuring a situation in
      the Sham-Post. The duties, here, are simple, and not altogether
      unprofitable. For example:—very early in the morning I had to
      make up my packet of sham letters. Upon the inside of each of
      these I had to scrawl a few lines on any subject which occurred
      to me as sufficiently mysterious—signing all the epistles Tom
      Dobson, or Bobby Tompkins, or anything in that way. Having folded
      and sealed all, and stamped them with sham postmarks—New Orleans,
      Bengal, Botany Bay, or any other place a great way off—I set out,
      forthwith, upon my daily route, as if in a very great hurry. I
      always called at the big houses to deliver the letters, and
      receive the postage. Nobody hesitates at paying for a
      letter—especially for a double one—people are such fools—and it
      was no trouble to get round a corner before there was time to
      open the epistles. The worst of this profession was, that I had
      to walk so much and so fast; and so frequently to vary my route.
      Besides, I had serious scruples of conscience. I can’t bear to
      hear innocent individuals abused—and the way the whole town took
      to cursing Tom Dobson and Bobby Tompkins was really awful to
      hear. I washed my hands of the matter in disgust.

      My eighth and last speculation has been in the Cat-Growing way. I
      have found that a most pleasant and lucrative business, and,
      really, no trouble at all. The country, it is well known, has
      become infested with cats—so much so of late, that a petition for
      relief, most numerously and respectably signed, was brought
      before the Legislature at its late memorable session. The
      Assembly, at this epoch, was unusually well-informed, and, having
      passed many other wise and wholesome enactments, it crowned all
      with the Cat-Act. In its original form, this law offered a
      premium for cat-heads (fourpence a-piece), but the Senate
      succeeded in amending the main clause, so as to substitute the
      word “tails” for “heads.” This amendment was so obviously proper,
      that the House concurred in it nem. con.

      As soon as the governor had signed the bill, I invested my whole
      estate in the purchase of Toms and Tabbies. At first I could only
      afford to feed them upon mice (which are cheap), but they
      fulfilled the scriptural injunction at so marvellous a rate, that
      I at length considered it my best policy to be liberal, and so
      indulged them in oysters and turtle. Their tails, at a
      legislative price, now bring me in a good income; for I have
      discovered a way, in which, by means of Macassar oil, I can force
      three crops in a year. It delights me to find, too, that the
      animals soon get accustomed to the thing, and would rather have
      the appendages cut off than otherwise. I consider myself,
      therefore, a made man, and am bargaining for a country-seat on
      the Hudson.




THE LANDSCAPE GARDEN


     The garden like a lady fair was cut
         That lay as if she slumbered in delight,
     And to the open skies her eyes did shut;
         The azure fields of heaven were ’sembled right
         In a large round set with flow’rs of light:
     The flowers de luce and the round sparks of dew
     That hung upon their azure leaves, did show
     Like twinkling stars that sparkle in the ev’ning blue.
                    —GILES FLETCHER

      No more remarkable man ever lived than my friend, the young
      Ellison. He was remarkable in the entire and continuous profusion
      of good gifts ever lavished upon him by fortune. From his cradle
      to his grave, a gale of the blandest prosperity bore him along.
      Nor do I use the word Prosperity in its mere wordly or external
      sense. I mean it as synonymous with happiness. The person of whom
      I speak, seemed born for the purpose of foreshadowing the wild
      doctrines of Turgot, Price, Priestley, and Condorcet—of
      exemplifying, by individual instance, what has been deemed the
      mere chimera of the perfectionists. In the brief existence of
      Ellison, I fancy, that I have seen refuted the dogma—that in
      man’s physical and spiritual nature, lies some hidden principle,
      the antagonist of Bliss. An intimate and anxious examination of
      his career, has taught me to understand that, in general, from
      the violation of a few simple laws of Humanity, arises the
      Wretchedness of mankind; that, as a species, we have in our
      possession the as yet unwrought elements of Content,—and that
      even now, in the present blindness and darkness of all idea on
      the great question of the Social Condition, it is not impossible
      that Man, the individual, under certain unusual and highly
      fortuitous conditions, may be happy.

      With opinions such as these was my young friend fully imbued; and
      thus is it especially worthy of observation that the
      uninterrupted enjoyment which distinguished his life was in great
      part the result of preconcert. It is, indeed evident, that with
      less of the instinctive philosophy which, now and then, stands so
      well in the stead of experience, Mr. Ellison would have found
      himself precipitated, by the very extraordinary successes of his
      life, into the common vortex of Unhappiness which yawns for those
      of preeminent endowments. But it is by no means my present object
      to pen an essay on Happiness. The ideas of my friend may be
      summed up in a few words. He admitted but four unvarying laws, or
      rather elementary principles, of Bliss. That which he considered
      chief, was (strange to say!) the simple and purely physical one
      of free exercise in the open air. “The health,” he said,
      “attainable by other means than this is scarcely worth the name.”
      He pointed to the tillers of the earth—the only people who, as a
      class, are proverbially more happy than others—and then he
      instanced the high ecstasies of the fox-hunter. His second
      principle was the love of woman. His third was the contempt of
      ambition. His fourth was an object of unceasing pursuit; and he
      held that, other things being equal, the extent of happiness was
      proportioned to the spirituality of this object.

      I have said that Ellison was remarkable in the continuous
      profusion of good gifts lavished upon him by Fortune. In personal
      grace and beauty he exceeded all men. His intellect was of that
      order to which the attainment of knowledge is less a labor than a
      necessity and an intuition. His family was one of the most
      illustrious of the empire. His bride was the loveliest and most
      devoted of women. His possessions had been always ample; but,
      upon the attainment of his one and twentieth year, it was
      discovered that one of those extraordinary freaks of Fate had
      been played in his behalf which startle the whole social world
      amid which they occur, and seldom fail radically to alter the
      entire moral constitution of those who are their objects. It
      appears that about one hundred years prior to Mr. Ellison’s
      attainment of his majority, there had died, in a remote province,
      one Mr. Seabright Ellison. This gentlemen had amassed a princely
      fortune, and, having no very immediate connexions, conceived the
      whim of suffering his wealth to accumulate for a century after
      his decease. Minutely and sagaciously directing the various modes
      of investment, he bequeathed the aggregate amount to the nearest
      of blood, bearing the name Ellison, who should be alive at the
      end of the hundred years. Many futile attempts had been made to
      set aside this singular bequest; their ex post facto character
      rendered them abortive; but the attention of a jealous government
      was aroused, and a decree finally obtained, forbidding all
      similar accumulations. This act did not prevent young Ellison,
      upon his twenty-first birth-day, from entering into possession,
      as the heir of his ancestor, Seabright, of a fortune of four
      hundred and fifty millions of dollars. {*1}

      When it had become definitely known that such was the enormous
      wealth inherited, there were, of course, many speculations as to
      the mode of its disposal. The gigantic magnitude and the
      immediately available nature of the sum, dazzled and bewildered
      all who thought upon the topic. The possessor of any appreciable
      amount of money might have been imagined to perform any one of a
      thousand things. With riches merely surpassing those of any
      citizen, it would have been easy to suppose him engaging to
      supreme excess in the fashionable extravagances of his time; or
      busying himself with political intrigues; or aiming at
      ministerial power; or purchasing increase of nobility, or
      devising gorgeous architectural piles; or collecting large
      specimens of Virtu; or playing the munificent patron of Letters
      and Art; or endowing and bestowing his name upon extensive
      institutions of charity. But, for the inconceivable wealth in the
      actual possession of the young heir, these objects and all
      ordinary objects were felt to be inadequate. Recourse was had to
      figures; and figures but sufficed to confound. It was seen, that
      even at three per cent, the annual income of the inheritance
      amounted to no less than thirteen millions and five hundred
      thousand dollars; which was one million and one hundred and
      twenty-five thousand per month; or thirty-six thousand, nine
      hundred and eighty-six per day, or one thousand five hundred and
      forty-one per hour, or six and twenty dollars for every minute
      that flew. Thus the usual track of supposition was thoroughly
      broken up. Men knew not what to imagine. There were some who even
      conceived that Mr. Ellison would divest himself forthwith of at
      least two-thirds of his fortune as of utterly superfluous
      opulence; enriching whole troops of his relatives by division of
      his superabundance.

      I was not surprised, however, to perceive that he had long made
      up his mind upon a topic which had occasioned so much of
      discussion to his friends. Nor was I greatly astonished at the
      nature of his decision. In the widest and noblest sense, he was a
      poet. He comprehended, moreover, the true character, the august
      aims, the supreme majesty and dignity of the poetic sentiment.
      The proper gratification of the sentiment he instinctively felt
      to lie in the creation of novel forms of Beauty. Some
      peculiarities, either in his early education, or in the nature of
      his intellect, had tinged with what is termed materialism the
      whole cast of his ethical speculations; and it was this bias,
      perhaps, which imperceptibly led him to perceive that the most
      advantageous, if not the sole legitimate field for the exercise
      of the poetic sentiment, was to be found in the creation of novel
      moods of purely physical loveliness. Thus it happened that he
      became neither musician nor poet; if we use this latter term in
      its every-day acceptation. Or it might have been that he became
      neither the one nor the other, in pursuance of an idea of his
      which I have already mentioned—the idea, that in the contempt of
      ambition lay one of the essential principles of happiness on
      earth. Is it not, indeed, possible that while a high order of
      genius is necessarily ambitious, the highest is invariably above
      that which is termed ambition? And may it not thus happen that
      many far greater than Milton, have contentedly remained “mute and
      inglorious?” I believe the world has never yet seen, and that,
      unless through some series of accidents goading the noblest order
      of mind into distasteful exertion, the world will never behold,
      that full extent of triumphant execution, in the richer
      productions of Art, of which the human nature is absolutely
      capable.

      Mr. Ellison became neither musician nor poet; although no man
      lived more profoundly enamored both of Music and the Muse. Under
      other circumstances than those which invested him, it is not
      impossible that he would have become a painter. The field of
      sculpture, although in its nature rigidly poetical, was too
      limited in its extent and in its consequences, to have occupied,
      at any time, much of his attention. And I have now mentioned all
      the provinces in which even the most liberal understanding of the
      poetic sentiment has declared this sentiment capable of
      expatiating. I mean the most liberal public or recognized
      conception of the idea involved in the phrase “poetic sentiment.”
      But Mr. Ellison imagined that the richest, and altogether the
      most natural and most suitable province, had been blindly
      neglected. No definition had spoken of the Landscape-Gardener, as
      of the poet; yet my friend could not fail to perceive that the
      creation of the Landscape-Garden offered to the true muse the
      most magnificent of opportunities. Here was, indeed, the fairest
      field for the display of invention, or imagination, in the
      endless combining of forms of novel Beauty; the elements which
      should enter into combination being, at all times, and by a vast
      superiority, the most glorious which the earth could afford. In
      the multiform of the tree, and in the multicolor of the flower,
      he recognized the most direct and the most energetic efforts of
      Nature at physical loveliness. And in the direction or
      concentration of this effort, or, still more properly, in its
      adaption to the eyes which were to behold it upon earth, he
      perceived that he should be employing the best means—laboring to
      the greatest advantage—in the fulfilment of his destiny as Poet.

      “Its adaptation to the eyes which were to behold it upon earth.”
      In his explanation of this phraseology, Mr. Ellison did much
      towards solving what has always seemed to me an enigma. I mean
      the fact (which none but the ignorant dispute) that no such
      combinations of scenery exist in Nature as the painter of genius
      has in his power to produce. No such Paradises are to be found in
      reality as have glowed upon the canvass of Claude. In the most
      enchanting of natural landscapes, there will always be found a
      defect or an excess—many excesses and defects. While the
      component parts may exceed, individually, the highest skill of
      the artist, the arrangement of the parts will always be
      susceptible of improvement. In short, no position can be
      attained, from which an artistical eye, looking steadily, will
      not find matter of offence, in what is technically termed the
      composition of a natural landscape. And yet how unintelligible is
      this! In all other matters we are justly instructed to regard
      Nature as supreme. With her details we shrink from competition.
      Who shall presume to imitate the colors of the tulip, or to
      improve the proportions of the lily of the valley? The criticism
      which says, of sculpture or of portraiture, that “Nature is to be
      exalted rather than imitated,” is in error. No pictorial or
      sculptural combinations of points of human loveliness, do more
      than approach the living and breathing human beauty as it
      gladdens our daily path. Byron, who often erred, erred not in
      saying, I’ve seen more living beauty, ripe and real, than all the
      nonsense of their stone ideal. In landscape alone is the
      principle of the critic true; and, having felt its truth here, it
      is but the headlong spirit of generalization which has induced
      him to pronounce it true throughout all the domains of Art.
      Having, I say, felt its truth here. For the feeling is no
      affectation or chimera. The mathematics afford no more absolute
      demonstrations, than the sentiment of his Art yields to the
      artist. He not only believes, but positively knows, that such and
      such apparently arbitrary arrangements of matter, or form,
      constitute, and alone constitute, the true Beauty. Yet his
      reasons have not yet been matured into expression. It remains for
      a more profound analysis than the world has yet seen, fully to
      investigate and express them. Nevertheless is he confirmed in his
      instinctive opinions, by the concurrence of all his compeers. Let
      a composition be defective; let an emendation be wrought in its
      mere arrangement of form; let this emendation be submitted to
      every artist in the world; by each will its necessity be
      admitted. And even far more than this, in remedy of the defective
      composition, each insulated member of the fraternity will suggest
      the identical emendation.

      I repeat that in landscape arrangements, or collocations alone,
      is the physical Nature susceptible of “exaltation” and that,
      therefore, her susceptibility of improvement at this one point,
      was a mystery which, hitherto I had been unable to solve. It was
      Mr. Ellison who first suggested the idea that what we regarded as
      improvement or exaltation of the natural beauty, was really such,
      as respected only the mortal or human point of view; that each
      alteration or disturbance of the primitive scenery might possibly
      effect a blemish in the picture, if we could suppose this picture
      viewed at large from some remote point in the heavens. “It is
      easily understood,” says Mr. Ellison, “that what might improve a
      closely scrutinized detail, might, at the same time, injure a
      general and more distantly observed effect.” He spoke upon this
      topic with warmth: regarding not so much its immediate or obvious
      importance (which is little), as the character of the conclusions
      to which it might lead, or of the collateral propositions which
      it might serve to corroborate or sustain. There might be a class
      of beings, human once, but now to humanity invisible, for whose
      scrutiny and for whose refined appreciation of the beautiful,
      more especially than for our own, had been set in order by God
      the great landscape-garden of the whole earth.

      In the course of our discussion, my young friend took occasion to
      quote some passages from a writer who has been supposed to have
      well treated this theme.

      “There are, properly,” he writes, “but two styles of
      landscape-gardening, the natural and the artificial. One seeks to
      recall the original beauty of the country, by adapting its means
      to the surrounding scenery; cultivating trees in harmony with the
      hills or plain of the neighboring land; detecting and bringing
      into practice those nice relations of size, proportion and color
      which, hid from the common observer, are revealed everywhere to
      the experienced student of nature. The result of the natural
      style of gardening, is seen rather in the absence of all defects
      and incongruities—in the prevalence of a beautiful harmony and
      order, than in the creation of any special wonders or miracles.
      The artificial style has as many varieties as there are different
      tastes to gratify. It has a certain general relation to the
      various styles of building. There are the stately avenues and
      retirements of Versailles; Italian terraces; and a various mixed
      old English style, which bears some relation to the domestic
      Gothic or English Elizabethan architecture. Whatever may be said
      against the abuses of the artificial landscape-gardening, a
      mixture of pure art in a garden scene, adds to it a great beauty.
      This is partly pleasing to the eye, by the show of order and
      design, and partly moral. A terrace, with an old moss-covered
      balustrade, calls up at once to the eye, the fair forms that have
      passed there in other days. The slightest exhibition of art is an
      evidence of care and human interest.”

      “From what I have already observed,” said Mr. Ellison, “you will
      understand that I reject the idea, here expressed, of ‘recalling
      the original beauty of the country.’ The original beauty is never
      so great as that which may be introduced. Of course, much depends
      upon the selection of a spot with capabilities. What is said in
      respect to the ‘detecting and bringing into practice those nice
      relations of size, proportion and color,’ is a mere vagueness of
      speech, which may mean much, or little, or nothing, and which
      guides in no degree. That the true ‘result of the natural style
      of gardening is seen rather in the absence of all defects and
      incongruities, than in the creation of any special wonders or
      miracles,’ is a proposition better suited to the grovelling
      apprehension of the herd, than to the fervid dreams of the man of
      genius. The merit suggested is, at best, negative, and appertains
      to that hobbling criticism which, in letters, would elevate
      Addison into apotheosis. In truth, while that merit which
      consists in the mere avoiding demerit, appeals directly to the
      understanding, and can thus be foreshadowed in Rule, the loftier
      merit, which breathes and flames in invention or creation, can be
      apprehended solely in its results. Rule applies but to the
      excellences of avoidance—to the virtues which deny or refrain.
      Beyond these the critical art can but suggest. We may be
      instructed to build an Odyssey, but it is in vain that we are
      told how to conceive a ‘Tempest,’ an ‘Inferno,’ a ‘Prometheus
      Bound,’ a ‘Nightingale,’ such as that of Keats, or the ‘Sensitive
      Plant’ of Shelley. But, the thing done, the wonder accomplished,
      and the capacity for apprehension becomes universal. The sophists
      of the negative school, who, through inability to create, have
      scoffed at creation, are now found the loudest in applause. What,
      in its chrysalis condition of principle, affronted their demure
      reason, never fails, in its maturity of accomplishment, to extort
      admiration from their instinct of the beautiful or of the
      sublime.

      “Our author’s observations on the artificial style of gardening,”
      continued Mr. Ellison, “are less objectionable. ‘A mixture of
      pure art in a garden scene, adds to it a great beauty.’ This is
      just, and the reference to the sense of human interest is equally
      so. I repeat that the principle here expressed, is
      incontrovertible; but there may be something even beyond it.
      There may be an object in full keeping with the principle
      suggested—an object unattainable by the means ordinarily in
      possession of mankind, yet which, if attained, would lend a charm
      to the landscape-garden immeasurably surpassing that which a
      merely human interest could bestow. The true poet possessed of
      very unusual pecuniary resources, might possibly, while retaining
      the necessary idea of art or interest or culture, so imbue his
      designs at once with extent and novelty of Beauty, as to convey
      the sentiment of spiritual interference. It will be seen that, in
      bringing about such result, he secures all the advantages of
      interest or design, while relieving his work of all the harshness
      and technicality of Art. In the most rugged of wildernesses—in
      the most savage of the scenes of pure Nature—there is apparent
      the art of a Creator; yet is this art apparent only to
      reflection; in no respect has it the obvious force of a feeling.
      Now, if we imagine this sense of the Almighty Design to be
      harmonized in a measurable degree, if we suppose a landscape
      whose combined strangeness, vastness, definitiveness, and
      magnificence, shall inspire the idea of culture, or care, or
      superintendence, on the part of intelligences superior yet akin
      to humanity—then the sentiment of interest is preserved, while
      the Art is made to assume the air of an intermediate or secondary
      Nature—a Nature which is not God, nor an emanation of God, but
      which still is Nature, in the sense that it is the handiwork of
      the angels that hover between man and God.”

      It was in devoting his gigantic wealth to the practical
      embodiment of a vision such as this—in the free exercise in the
      open air, which resulted from personal direction of his plans—in
      the continuous and unceasing object which these plans afforded—in
      the high spirituality of the object itself—in the contempt of
      ambition which it enabled him more to feel than to affect—and,
      lastly, it was in the companionship and sympathy of a devoted
      wife, that Ellison thought to find, and found, an exemption from
      the ordinary cares of Humanity, with a far greater amount of
      positive happiness than ever glowed in the rapt day-dreams of De
      Staël.




MAELZEL’S CHESS-PLAYER


      Perhaps no exhibition of the kind has ever elicited so general
      attention as the Chess-Player of Maelzel. Wherever seen it has
      been an object of intense curiosity, to all persons who think.
      Yet the question of its _modus operandi_ is still undetermined.
      Nothing has been written on this topic which can be considered as
      decisive—and accordingly we find every where men of mechanical
      genius, of great general acuteness, and discriminative
      understanding, who make no scruple in pronouncing the Automaton a
      _pure machine_, unconnected with human agency in its movements,
      and consequently, beyond all comparison, the most astonishing of
      the inventions of mankind. And such it would undoubtedly be, were
      they right in their supposition. Assuming this hypothesis, it
      would be grossly absurd to compare with the Chess-Player, any
      similar thing of either modern or ancient days. Yet there have
      been many and wonderful automata. In Brewster’s Letters on
      Natural Magic, we have an account of the most remarkable. Among
      these may be mentioned, as having beyond doubt existed, firstly,
      the coach invented by M. Camus for the amusement of Louis XIV
      when a child. A table, about four feet square, was introduced,
      into the room appropriated for the exhibition. Upon this table
      was placed a carriage, six inches in length, made of wood, and
      drawn by two horses of the same material. One window being down,
      a lady was seen on the back seat. A coachman held the reins on
      the box, and a footman and page were in their places behind. M.
      Camus now touched a spring; whereupon the coachman smacked his
      whip, and the horses proceeded in a natural manner, along the
      edge of the table, drawing after them the carriage. Having gone
      as far as possible in this direction, a sudden turn was made to
      the left, and the vehicle was driven at right angles to its
      former course, and still closely along the edge of the table. In
      this way the coach proceeded until it arrived opposite the chair
      of the young prince. It then stopped, the page descended and
      opened the door, the lady alighted, and presented a petition to
      her sovereign. She then re-entered. The page put up the steps,
      closed the door, and resumed his station. The coachman whipped
      his horses, and the carriage was driven back to its original
      position.

      The magician of M. Maillardet is also worthy of notice. We copy
      the following account of it from the _Letters_ before mentioned
      of Dr. B., who derived his information principally from the
      Edinburgh Encyclopaedia.

      “One of the most popular pieces of mechanism which we have seen,
      Is the Magician constructed by M. Maillardet, for the purpose of
      answering certain given questions. A figure, dressed like a
      magician, appears seated at the bottom of a wall, holding a wand
      in one hand, and a book in the other A number of questions, ready
      prepared, are inscribed on oval medallions, and the spectator
      takes any of these he chooses and to which he wishes an answer,
      and having placed it in a drawer ready to receive it, the drawer
      shuts with a spring till the answer is returned. The magician
      then arises from his seat, bows his head, describes circles with
      his wand, and consulting the book as If in deep thought, he lifts
      it towards his face. Having thus appeared to ponder over the
      proposed question he raises his wand, and striking with it the
      wall above his head, two folding doors fly open, and display an
      appropriate answer to the question. The doors again close, the
      magician resumes his original position, and the drawer opens to
      return the medallion. There are twenty of these medallions, all
      containing different questions, to which the magician returns the
      most suitable and striking answers. The medallions are thin
      plates of brass, of an elliptical form, exactly resembling each
      other. Some of the medallions have a question inscribed on each
      side, both of which the magician answered in succession. If the
      drawer is shut without a medallion being put into it, the
      magician rises, consults his book, shakes his head, and resumes
      his seat. The folding doors remain shut, and the drawer is
      returned empty. If two medallions are put into the drawer
      together, an answer is returned only to the lower one. When the
      machinery is wound up, the movements continue about an hour,
      during which time about fifty questions may be answered. The
      inventor stated that the means by which the different medallions
      acted upon the machinery, so as to produce the proper answers to
      the questions which they contained, were extremely simple.”

      The duck of Vaucanson was still more remarkable. It was _of _the
      size of life, and so perfect an imitation of the living animal
      that all the spectators were deceived. It executed, says
      Brewster, all the natural movements and gestures, it ate and
      drank with avidity, performed all the quick motions of the head
      and throat which are peculiar to the duck, and like it muddled
      the water which it drank with its bill. It produced also the
      sound of quacking in the most natural manner. In the anatomical
      structure the artist exhibited the highest skill. Every bone in
      the real duck had its representative In the automaton, and its
      wings were anatomically exact. Every cavity, apophysis, and
      curvature was imitated, and each bone executed its proper
      movements. When corn was thrown down before it, the duck
      stretched out its neck to pick it up, swallowed, and digested it.
      {*1}

      But if these machines were ingenious, what shall we think of the
      calculating machine of Mr. Babbage? What shall we think of an
      engine of wood and metal which can not only compute astronomical
      and navigation tables to any given extent, but render the
      exactitude of its operations mathematically certain through its
      power of correcting its possible errors? What shall we think of a
      machine which can not only accomplish all this, but actually
      print off its elaborate results, when obtained, without the
      slightest intervention of the intellect of man? It will, perhaps,
      be said, in reply, that a machine such as we have described is
      altogether above comparison with the Chess-Player of Maelzel. By
      no means—it is altogether beneath it—that is to say provided we
      assume (what should never for a moment be assumed) that the
      Chess-Player is a _pure machine, _and performs its operations
      without any immediate human agency. Arithmetical or algebraical
      calculations are, from their very nature, fixed and determinate.
      Certain _data _being given, certain results necessarily and
      inevitably follow. These results have dependence upon nothing,
      and are influenced by nothing but the _data _originally given.
      And the question to be solved proceeds, or should proceed, to its
      final determination, by a succession of unerring steps liable to
      no change, and subject to no modification. This being the case,
      we can without difficulty conceive the _possibility _of so
      arranging a piece of mechanism, that upon starting In accordance
      with the _data _of the question to be solved, it should continue
      its movements regularly, progressively, and undeviatingly towards
      the required solution, since these movements, however complex,
      are never imagined to be otherwise than finite and determinate.
      But the case is widely different with the Chess-Player. With him
      there is no determinate progression. No one move in chess
      necessarily follows upon any one other. From no particular
      disposition of the men at one period of a game can we predicate
      their disposition at a different period. Let us place the _first
      move _in a game of chess, in juxta-position with the _data _of an
      algebraical question, and their great difference will be
      immediately perceived. From the latter—from the _data—_the second
      step of the question, dependent thereupon, inevitably follows. It
      is modelled by the _data. _It must be _thus _and not otherwise.
      But from the first move in the game of chess no especial second
      move follows of necessity. In the algebraical question, as it
      proceeds towards solution, the _certainty _of its operations
      remains altogether unimpaired. The second step having been a
      consequence of the _data, _the third step is equally a
      consequence of the second, the fourth of the third, the fifth of
      the fourth, and so on, _and not possibly otherwise, _to the end.
      But in proportion to the progress made in a game of chess, is the
      _uncertainty _of each ensuing move. A few moves having been made,
      _no _step is certain. Different spectators of the game would
      advise different moves. All is then dependent upon the variable
      judgment of the players. Now even granting (what should not be
      granted) that the movements of the Automaton Chess-Player were in
      themselves determinate, they would be necessarily interrupted and
      disarranged by the indeterminate will of his antagonist. There is
      then no analogy whatever between the operations of the
      Chess-Player, and those of the calculating machine of Mr.
      Babbage, and if we choose to call the former a _pure machine _we
      must be prepared to admit that it is, beyond all comparison, the
      most wonderful of the inventions of mankind. Its original
      projector, however, Baron Kempelen, had no scruple in declaring
      it to be a “very ordinary piece of mechanism—a _bagatelle _whose
      effects appeared so marvellous only from the boldness of the
      conception, and the fortunate choice of the methods adopted for
      promoting the illusion.” But it is needless to dwell upon this
      point. It is quite certain that the operations of the Automaton
      are regulated by _mind, _and by nothing else. Indeed this matter
      is susceptible of a mathematical demonstration, _a priori. _The
      only question then is of the _manner _in which human agency is
      brought to bear. Before entering upon this subject it would be as
      well to give a brief history and description of the Chess-Player
      for the benefit of such of our readers as may never have had an
      opportunity of witnessing Mr. Maelzel’s exhibition.

      The Automaton Chess-Player was invented in 1769, by Baron
      Kempelen, a nobleman of Presburg, in Hungary, who afterwards
      disposed of it, together with the secret of its operations, to
      its present possessor. {2*} Soon after its completion it was
      exhibited in Presburg, Paris, Vienna, and other continental
      cities. In 1783 and 1784, it was taken to London by Mr. Maelzel.
      Of late years it has visited the principal towns in the United
      States. Wherever seen, the most intense curiosity was excited by
      its appearance, and numerous have been the attempts, by men of
      all classes, to fathom the mystery of its evolutions. The cut on
      this page gives a tolerable representation of the figure as seen
      by the citizens of Richmond a few weeks ago. The right arm,
      however, should lie more at length upon the box, a chess-board
      should appear upon it, and the cushion should not be seen while
      the pipe is held. Some immaterial alterations have been made in
      the costume of the player since it came into the possession of
      Maelzel—the plume, for example, was not originally worn. {image
      of automaton}

      At the hour appointed for exhibition, a curtain is withdrawn, or
      folding doors are thrown open, and the machine rolled to within
      about twelve feet of the nearest of the spectators, between whom
      and it (the machine) a rope is stretched. A figure is seen
      habited as a Turk, and seated, with its legs crossed, at a large
      box apparently of maple wood, which serves it as a table. The
      exhibiter will, if requested, roll the machine to any portion of
      the room, suffer it to remain altogether on any designated spot,
      or even shift its location repeatedly during the progress of a
      game. The bottom of the box is elevated considerably above the
      floor by means of the castors or brazen rollers on which it
      moves, a clear view of the surface immediately beneath the
      Automaton being thus afforded to the spectators. The chair on
      which the figure sits is affixed permanently to the box. On the
      top of this latter is a chess-board, also permanently affixed.
      The right arm of the Chess-Player is extended at full length
      before him, at right angles with his body, and lying, in an
      apparently careless position, by the side of the board. The back
      of the hand is upwards. The board itself is eighteen inches
      square. The left arm of the figure is bent at the elbow, and in
      the left hand is a pipe. A green drapery conceals the back of the
      Turk, and falls partially over the front of both shoulders. To
      judge from the external appearance of the box, it is divided into
      five compartments—three cupboards of equal dimensions, and two
      drawers occupying that portion of the chest lying beneath the
      cupboards. The foregoing observations apply to the appearance of
      the Automaton upon its first introduction into the presence of
      the spectators.

      Maelzel now informs the company that he will disclose to their
      view the mechanism of the machine. Taking from his pocket a bunch
      of keys he unlocks with one of them, door marked ~ in the cut
      above, and throws the cupboard fully open to the inspection of
      all present. Its whole interior is apparently filled with wheels,
      pinions, levers, and other machinery, crowded very closely
      together, so that the eye can penetrate but a little distance
      into the mass. Leaving this door open to its full extent, he goes
      now round to the back of the box, and raising the drapery of the
      figure, opens another door situated precisely in the rear of the
      one first opened. Holding a lighted candle at this door, and
      shifting the position of the whole machine repeatedly at the same
      time, a bright light is thrown entirely through the cupboard,
      which is now clearly seen to be full, completely full, of
      machinery. The spectators being satisfied of this fact, Maelzel
      closes the back door, locks it, takes the key from the lock, lets
      fall the drapery of the figure, and comes round to the front. The
      door marked I, it will be remembered, is still open. The
      exhibiter now proceeds to open the drawer which lies beneath the
      cupboards at the bottom of the box—for although there are
      apparently two drawers, there is really only one—the two handles
      and two key holes being intended merely for ornament. Having
      opened this drawer to its full extent, a small cushion, and a set
      of chessmen, fixed in a frame work made to support them
      perpendicularly, are discovered. Leaving this drawer, as well as
      cupboard No. 1 open, Maelzel now unlocks door No. 2, and door No.
      3, which are discovered to be folding doors, opening into one and
      the same compartment. To the right of this compartment, however,
      (that is to say the spectators’ right) a small division, six
      inches wide, and filled with machinery, is partitioned off. The
      main compartment itself (in speaking of that portion of the box
      visible upon opening doors 2 and 3, we shall always call it the
      main compartment) is lined with dark cloth and contains no
      machinery whatever beyond two pieces of steel, quadrant-shaped,
      and situated one in each of the rear top corners of the
      compartment. A small protuberance about eight inches square, and
      also covered with dark cloth, lies on the floor of the
      compartment near the rear corner on the spectators’ left hand.
      Leaving doors No. 2 and No. 3 open as well as the drawer, and
      door No. I, the exhibiter now goes round to the back of the main
      compartment, and, unlocking another door there, displays clearly
      all the interior of the main compartment, by introducing a candle
      behind it and within it. The whole box being thus apparently
      disclosed to the scrutiny of the company, Maelzel, still leaving
      the doors and drawer open, rolls the Automaton entirely round,
      and exposes the back of the Turk by lifting up the drapery. A
      door about ten inches square is thrown open in the loins of the
      figure, and a smaller one also in the left thigh. The interior of
      the figure, as seen through these apertures, appears to be
      crowded with machinery. In general, every spectator is now
      thoroughly satisfied of having beheld and completely scrutinized,
      at one and the same time, every individual portion of the
      Automaton, and the idea of any person being concealed in the
      interior, during so complete an exhibition of that interior, if
      ever entertained, is immediately dismissed as preposterous in the
      extreme.

      M. Maelzel, having rolled the machine back into its original
      position, now informs the company that the Automaton will play a
      game of chess with any one disposed to encounter him. This
      challenge being accepted, a small table is prepared for the
      antagonist, and placed close by the rope, but on the spectators’
      side of it, and so situated as not to prevent the company from
      obtaining a full view of the Automaton. From a drawer in this
      table is taken a set of chess-men, and Maelzel arranges them
      generally, but not always, with his own hands, on the chess
      board, which consists merely of the usual number of squares
      painted upon the table. The antagonist having taken his seat, the
      exhibiter approaches the drawer of the box, and takes therefrom
      the cushion, which, after removing the pipe from the hand of the
      Automaton, he places under its left arm as a support. Then taking
      also from the drawer the Automaton’s set of chess-men, he
      arranges them upon the chessboard before the figure. He now
      proceeds to close the doors and to lock them—leaving the bunch of
      keys in door No. 1. He also closes the drawer, and, finally,
      winds up the machine, by applying a key to an aperture in the
      left end (the spectators’ left) of the box. The game now
      commences—the Automaton taking the first move. The duration of
      the contest is usually limited to half an hour, but if it be not
      finished at the expiration of this period, and the antagonist
      still contend that he can beat the Automaton, M. Maelzel has
      seldom any objection to continue it. Not to weary the company, is
      the ostensible, and no doubt the real object of the limitation.
      It Wits of course be understood that when a move is made at his
      own table, by the antagonist, the corresponding move is made at
      the box of the Automaton, by Maelzel himself, who then acts as
      the representative of the antagonist. On the other hand, when the
      Turk moves, the corresponding move is made at the table of the
      antagonist, also by M. Maelzel, who then acts as the
      representative of the Automaton. In this manner it is necessary
      that the exhibiter should often pass from one table to the other.
      He also frequently goes in rear of the figure to remove the
      chess-men which it has taken, and which it deposits, when taken,
      on the box to the left (to its own left) of the board. When the
      Automaton hesitates in relation to its move, the exhibiter is
      occasionally seen to place himself very near its right side, and
      to lay his hand, now and then, in a careless manner upon the box.
      He has also a peculiar shuffle with his feet, calculated to
      induce suspicion of collusion with the machine in minds which are
      more cunning than sagacious. These peculiarities are, no doubt,
      mere mannerisms of M. Maelzel, or, if he is aware of them at all,
      he puts them in practice with a view of exciting in the
      spectators a false idea of the pure mechanism in the Automaton.

      The Turk plays with his left hand. All the movements of the arm
      are at right angles. In this manner, the hand (which is gloved
      and bent in a natural way,) being brought directly above the
      piece to be moved, descends finally upon it, the fingers
      receiving it, in most cases, without difficulty. Occasionally,
      however, when the piece is not precisely in its proper situation,
      the Automaton fails in his attempt at seizing it. When this
      occurs, no second effort is made, but the arm continues its
      movement in the direction originally intended, precisely as if
      the piece were in the fingers. Having thus designated the spot
      whither the move should have been made, the arm returns to its
      cushion, and Maelzel performs the evolution which the Automaton
      pointed out. At every movement of the figure machinery is heard
      in motion. During the progress of the game, the figure now and
      then rolls its eyes, as if surveying the board, moves its head,
      and pronounces the word _echec _(check) when necessary. {*3} If a
      false move be made by his antagonist, he raps briskly on the box
      with the fingers of his right hand, shakes his head roughly, and
      replacing the piece falsely moved, in its former situation,
      assumes the next move himself. Upon beating the game, he waves
      his head with an air of triumph, looks round complacently upon
      the spectators, and drawing his left arm farther back than usual,
      suffers his fingers alone to rest upon the cushion. In general,
      the Turk is victorious—once or twice he has been beaten. The game
      being ended, Maelzel will again if desired, exhibit the mechanism
      of the box, in the same manner as before. The machine is then
      rolled back, and a curtain hides it from the view of the company.

      There have been many attempts at solving the mystery of the
      Automaton. The most general opinion in relation to it, an opinion
      too not unfrequently adopted by men who should have known better,
      was, as we have before said, that no immediate human agency was
      employed—in other words, that the machine was purely a machine
      and nothing else. Many, however maintained that the exhibiter
      himself regulated the movements of the figure by mechanical means
      operating through the feet of the box. Others again, spoke
      confidently of a magnet. Of the first of these opinions we shall
      say nothing at present more than we have already said. In
      relation to the second it is only necessary to repeat what we
      have before stated, that the machine is rolled about on castors,
      and will, at the request of a spectator, be moved to and fro to
      any portion of the room, even during the progress of a game. The
      supposition of the magnet is also untenable—for if a magnet were
      the agent, any other magnet in the pocket of a spectator would
      disarrange the entire mechanism. The exhibiter, however, will
      suffer the most powerful loadstone to remain even upon the box
      during the whole of the exhibition.

      The first attempt at a written explanation of the secret, at
      least the first attempt of which we ourselves have any knowledge,
      was made in a large pamphlet printed at Paris in 1785. The
      author’s hypothesis amounted to this—that a dwarf actuated the
      machine. This dwarf he supposed to conceal himself during the
      opening of the box by thrusting his legs into two hollow
      cylinders, which were represented to be (but which are not) among
      the machinery in the cupboard No. I, while his body was out of
      the box entirely, and covered by the drapery of the Turk. When
      the doors were shut, the dwarf was enabled to bring his body
      within the box—the noise produced by some portion of the
      machinery allowing him to do so unheard, and also to close the
      door by which he entered. The interior of the automaton being
      then exhibited, and no person discovered, the spectators, says
      the author of this pamphlet, are satisfied that no one is within
      any portion of the machine. This whole hypothesis was too
      obviously absurd to require comment, or refutation, and
      accordingly we find that it attracted very little attention.

      In 1789 a book was published at Dresden by M. I. F. Freyhere in
      which another endeavor was made to unravel the mystery. Mr.
      Freyhere’s book was a pretty large one, and copiously illustrated
      by colored engravings. His supposition was that “a well-taught
      boy very thin and tall of his age (sufficiently so that he could
      be concealed in a drawer almost immediately under the
      chess-board”) played the game of chess and effected all the
      evolutions of the Automaton. This idea, although even more silly
      than that of the Parisian author, met with a better reception,
      and was in some measure believed to be the true solution of the
      wonder, until the inventor put an end to the discussion by
      suffering a close examination of the top of the box.

      These bizarre attempts at explanation were followed by others
      equally bizarre. Of late years however, an anonymous writer, by a
      course of reasoning exceedingly unphilosophical, has contrived to
      blunder upon a plausible solution—although we cannot consider it
      altogether the true one. His Essay was first published in a
      Baltimore weekly paper, was illustrated by cuts, and was entitled
      “An attempt to analyze the Automaton Chess-Player of M. Maelzel.”
      This Essay we suppose to have been the original of the _pamphlet
      to _which Sir David Brewster alludes in his letters on Natural
      Magic, and which he has no hesitation in declaring a thorough and
      satisfactory explanation. The _results _of the analysis are
      undoubtedly, in the main, just; but we can only account for
      Brewster’s pronouncing the Essay a thorough and satisfactory
      explanation, by supposing him to have bestowed upon it a very
      cursory and inattentive perusal. In the compendium of the Essay,
      made use of in the Letters on Natural Magic, it is quite
      impossible to arrive at any distinct conclusion in regard to the
      adequacy or inadequacy of the analysis, on account of the gross
      misarrangement and deficiency of the letters of reference
      employed. The same fault is to be found in the “Attempt &c.,” as
      we originally saw it. The solution consists in a series of minute
      explanations, (accompanied by wood-cuts, the whole occupying many
      pages) in which the object is to show the _possibility _of _so
      shifting the partitions _of the box, as to allow a human being,
      concealed in the interior, to move portions of his body from one
      part of the box to another, during the exhibition of the
      mechanism—thus eluding the scrutiny of the spectators. There can
      be no doubt, as we have before observed, and as we will presently
      endeavor to show, that the principle, or rather the result, of
      this solution is the true one. Some person is concealed in the
      box during the whole time of exhibiting the interior. We object,
      however, to the whole verbose description of the _manner _in
      which the partitions are shifted, to accommodate the movements of
      the person concealed. We object to it as a mere theory assumed in
      the first place, and to which circumstances are afterwards made
      to adapt themselves. It was not, and could not have been, arrived
      at by any inductive reasoning. In whatever way the shifting is
      managed, it is of course concealed at every step from
      observation. To show that certain movements might possibly be
      effected in a certain way, is very far from showing that they are
      actually so effected. There may be an infinity of other methods
      by which the same results may be obtained. The probability of the
      one assumed proving the correct one is then as unity to infinity.
      But, in reality, this particular point, the shifting of the
      partitions, is of no consequence whatever. It was altogether
      unnecessary to devote seven or eight pages for the purpose of
      proving what no one in his senses would deny—viz: that the
      wonderful mechanical genius of Baron Kempelen could invent the
      necessary means for shutting a door or slipping aside a pannel,
      with a human agent too at his service in actual contact with the
      pannel or the door, and the whole operations carried on, as the
      author of the Essay himself shows, and as we shall attempt to
      show more fully hereafter, entirely out of reach of the
      observation of the spectators.

      In attempting ourselves an explanation of the Automaton, we will,
      in the first place, endeavor to show how its operations are
      effected, and afterwards describe, as briefly as possible, the
      nature of the _observations _from which we have deduced our
      result.

      It will be necessary for a proper understanding of the subject,
      that we repeat here in a few words, the routine adopted by the
      exhibiter in disclosing the interior of the box—a routine from
      which he _never _deviates in any material particular. In the
      first place he opens the door No. I. Leaving this open, he goes
      round to the rear of the box, and opens a door precisely at the
      back of door No. I. To this back door he holds a lighted candle.
      He then _closes the back door, _locks it, and, coming round to
      the front, opens the drawer to its full extent. This done, he
      opens the doors No. 2 and No. 3, (the folding doors) and displays
      the interior of the main compartment. Leaving open the main
      compartment, the drawer, and the front door of cupboard No. I, he
      now goes to the rear again, and throws open the back door of the
      main compartment. In shutting up the box no particular order is
      observed, except that the folding doors are always closed before
      the drawer.

      Now, let us suppose that when the machine is first rolled into
      the presence of the spectators, a man is already within it. His
      body is situated behind the dense machinery in cupboard No. T.
      (the rear portion of which machinery is so contrived as to slip
      _en masse, _from the main compartment to the cupboard No. I, as
      occasion may require,) and his legs lie at full length in the
      main compartment. When Maelzel opens the door No. I, the man
      within is not in any danger of discovery, for the keenest eye
      cannot penetrate more than about two inches into the darkness
      within. But the case is otherwise when the back door of the
      cupboard No. I, is opened. A bright light then pervades the
      cupboard, and the body of the man would be discovered if it were
      there. But it is not. The putting the key in the lock of the back
      door was a signal on hearing which the person concealed brought
      his body forward to an angle as acute as possible—throwing it
      altogether, or nearly so, into the main compartment. This,
      however, is a painful position, and cannot be long maintained.
      Accordingly we find that Maelzel _closes the back door. _This
      being done, there is no reason why the body of the man may not
      resume its former situation—for the cupboard is again so dark as
      to defy scrutiny. The drawer is now opened, and the legs of the
      person within drop down behind it in the space it formerly
      occupied. {*4} There is, consequently, now no longer any part of
      the man in the main compartment—his body being behind the
      machinery in cupboard No. 1, and his legs in the space occupied
      by the drawer. The exhibiter, therefore, finds himself at liberty
      to display the main compartment. This he does—opening both its
      back and front doors—and no person Is discovered. The spectators
      are now satisfied that the whole of the box is exposed to
      view—and exposed too, all portions of it at one and the same
      time. But of course this is not the case. They neither see the
      space behind the drawer, nor the interior of cupboard No. 1—the
      front door of which latter the exhibiter virtually shuts in
      shutting its back door. Maelzel, having now rolled the machine
      around, lifted up the drapery of the Turk, opened the doors in
      his back and thigh, and shown his trunk to be full of machinery,
      brings the whole back into its original position, and closes the
      doors. The man within is now at liberty to move about. He gets up
      into the body of the Turk just so high as to bring his eyes above
      the level of the chess-board. It is very probable that he seats
      himself upon the little square block or protuberance which is
      seen in a corner of the main compartment when the doors are open.
      In this position he sees the chess-board through the bosom of the
      Turk which is of gauze. Bringing his right arm across his breast
      he actuates the little machinery necessary to guide the left arm
      and the fingers of the figure. This machinery is situated just
      beneath the left shoulder of the Turk, and is consequently easily
      reached by the right hand of the man concealed, if we suppose his
      right arm brought across the breast. The motions of the head and
      eyes, and of the right arm of the figure, as well as the sound
      _echec _are produced by other mechanism in the interior, and
      actuated at will by the man within. The whole of this
      mechanism—that is to say all the mechanism essential to the
      machine—is most probably contained within the little cupboard (of
      about six inches in breadth) partitioned off at the right (the
      spectators’ right) of the main compartment.

      In this analysis of the operations of the Automaton, we have
      purposely avoided any allusion to the manner in which the
      partitions are shifted, and it will now be readily comprehended
      that this point is a matter of no importance, since, by mechanism
      within the ability of any common carpenter, it might be effected
      in an infinity of different ways, and since we have shown that,
      however performed, it is performed out of the view of the
      spectators. Our result is founded upon the following
      _observations _taken during frequent visits to the exhibition of
      Maelzel. {*5}

      I. The moves of the Turk are not made at regular intervals of
      time, but accommodate themselves to the moves of the
      antagonist—although this point (of regularity) so important in
      all kinds of mechanical contrivance, might have been readily
      brought about by limiting the time allowed for the moves of the
      antagonist. For example, if this limit were three minutes, the
      moves of the Automaton might be made at any given intervals
      longer than three minutes. The fact then of irregularity, when
      regularity might have been so easily attained, goes to prove that
      regularity is unimportant to the action of the Automaton—in other
      words, that the Automaton is not a _pure machine._

      2. When the Automaton is about to move a piece, a distinct motion
      is observable just beneath the left shoulder, and which motion
      agitates in a slight degree, the drapery covering the front of
      the left shoulder. This motion invariably precedes, by about two
      seconds, the movement of the arm itself—and the arm never, in any
      instance, moves without this preparatory motion in the shoulder.
      Now let the antagonist move a piece, and let the corresponding
      move be made by Maelzel, as usual, upon the board of the
      Automaton. Then let the antagonist narrowly watch the Automaton,
      until he detect the preparatory motion in the shoulder.
      Immediately upon detecting this motion, and before the arm itself
      begins to move, let him withdraw his piece, as if perceiving an
      error in his manœuvre. It will then be seen that the movement of
      the arm, which, in all other cases, immediately succeeds the
      motion in the shoulder, is withheld—is not made—although Maelzel
      has not yet performed, on the board of the Automaton, any move
      corresponding to the withdrawal of the antagonist. In this case,
      that the Automaton was about to move is evident—and that he did
      not move, was an effect plainly produced by the withdrawal of the
      antagonist, and without any intervention of Maelzel.

      This fact fully proves, 1—that the intervention of Maelzel, in
      performing the moves of the antagonist on the board of the
      Automaton, is not essential to the movements of the Automaton,
      2—that its movements are regulated by _mind—_by some person who
      sees the board of the antagonist, 3—that its movements are not
      regulated by the mind of Maelzel, whose back was turned towards
      the antagonist at the withdrawal of his move.

      3. The Automaton does not invariably win the game. Were the
      machine a pure machine this would not be the case—it would always
      win. The _principle _being discovered by which a machine can be
      made to _play _a game of chess, an extension of the same
      principle would enable it to win a game—a farther extension would
      enable it to win _all _games—that is, to beat any possible game
      of an antagonist. A little consideration will convince any one
      that the difficulty of making a machine beat all games, Is not in
      the least degree greater, as regards the principle of the
      operations necessary, than that of making it beat a single game.
      If then we regard the Chess-Player as a machine, we must suppose,
      (what is highly improbable,) that its inventor preferred leaving
      it incomplete to perfecting it—a supposition rendered still more
      absurd, when we reflect that the leaving it incomplete would
      afford an argument against the possibility of its being a pure
      machine—the very argument we now adduce.

      4. When the situation of the game is difficult or complex, we
      never perceive the Turk either shake his head or roll his eyes.
      It is only when his next move is obvious, or when the game is so
      circumstanced that to a man in the Automaton’s place there would
      be no necessity for reflection. Now these peculiar movements of
      the head and eyes are movements customary with persons engaged in
      meditation, and the ingenious Baron Kempelen would have adapted
      these movements (were the machine a pure machine) to occasions
      proper for their display—that is, to occasions of complexity. But
      the reverse is seen to be the case, and this reverse applies
      precisely to our supposition of a man in the interior. When
      engaged in meditation about the game he has no time to think of
      setting in motion the mechanism of the Automaton by which are
      moved the head and the eyes. When the game, however, is obvious,
      he has time to look about him, and, accordingly, we see the head
      shake and the eyes roll.

      5. When the machine is rolled round to allow the spectators an
      examination of the back of the Turk, and when his drapery is
      lifted up and the doors in the trunk and thigh thrown open, the
      interior of the trunk is seen to be crowded with machinery. In
      scrutinizing this machinery while the Automaton was in motion,
      that is to say while the whole machine was moving on the castors,
      it appeared to us that certain portions of the mechanism changed
      their shape and position in a degree too great to be accounted
      for by the simple laws of perspective; and subsequent
      examinations convinced us that these undue alterations were
      attributable to mirrors in the interior of the trunk. The
      introduction of mirrors among the machinery could not have been
      intended to influence, in any degree, the machinery itself. Their
      operation, whatever that operation should prove to be, must
      necessarily have reference to the eye of the spectator. We at
      once concluded that these mirrors were so placed to multiply to
      the vision some few pieces of machinery within the trunk so as to
      give it the appearance of being crowded with mechanism. Now the
      direct inference from this is that the machine is not a pure
      machine. For if it were, the inventor, so far from wishing its
      mechanism to appear complex, and using deception for the purpose
      of giving it this appearance, would have been especially desirous
      of convincing those who witnessed his exhibition, of the
      _simplicity _of the means by which results so wonderful were
      brought about.

      6. The external appearance, and, especially, the deportment of
      the Turk, are, when we consider them as imitations of _life, _but
      very indifferent imitations. The countenance evinces no
      ingenuity, and is surpassed, in its resemblance to the human
      face, by the very commonest of wax-works. The eyes roll
      unnaturally in the head, without any corresponding motions of the
      lids or brows. The arm, particularly, performs its operations in
      an exceedingly stiff, awkward, jerking, and rectangular manner.
      Now, all this is the result either of inability in Maelzel to do
      better, or of intentional neglect—accidental neglect being out of
      the question, when we consider that the whole time of the
      ingenious proprietor is occupied in the improvement of his
      machines. Most assuredly we must not refer the unlife-like
      appearances to inability—for all the rest of Maelzel’s automata
      are evidence of his full ability to copy the motions and
      peculiarities of life with the most wonderful exactitude. The
      rope-dancers, for example, are inimitable. When the clown laughs,
      his lips, his eyes, his eye-brows, and eyelids—indeed, all the
      features of his countenance—are imbued with their appropriate
      expressions. In both him and his companion, every gesture is so
      entirely easy, and free from the semblance of artificiality,
      that, were it not for the diminutiveness of their size, and the
      fact of their being passed from one spectator to another previous
      to their exhibition on the rope, it would be difficult to
      convince any assemblage of persons that these wooden automata
      were not living creatures. We cannot, therefore, doubt Mr.
      Maelzel’s ability, and we must necessarily suppose that he
      intentionally suffered his Chess Player to remain the same
      artificial and unnatural figure which Baron Kempelen (no doubt
      also through design) originally made it. What this design was it
      is not difficult to conceive. Were the Automaton life-like in its
      motions, the spectator would be more apt to attribute its
      operations to their true cause, (that is, to human agency within)
      than he is now, when the awkward and rectangular manœuvres convey
      the idea of pure and unaided mechanism.

      7. When, a short time previous to the commencement of the game,
      the Automaton is wound up by the exhibiter as usual, an ear in
      any degree accustomed to the sounds produced in winding up a
      system of machinery, will not fail to discover, instantaneously,
      that the axis turned by the key in the box of the Chess-Player,
      cannot possibly be connected with either a weight, a spring, or
      any system of machinery whatever. The inference here is the same
      as in our last observation. The winding up is inessential to the
      operations of the Automaton, and is performed with the design of
      exciting in the spectators the false idea of mechanism.

      8. When the question is demanded explicitly of Maelzel—“Is the
      Automaton a pure machine or not?” his reply is invariably the
      same—“I will say nothing about it.” Now the notoriety of the
      Automaton, and the great curiosity it has every where excited,
      are owing more especially to the prevalent opinion that it is a
      pure machine, than to any other circumstance. Of course, then, it
      is the interest of the proprietor to represent it as a pure
      machine. And what more obvious, and more effectual method could
      there be of impressing the spectators with this desired idea,
      than a positive and explicit declaration to that effect? On the
      other hand, what more obvious and effectual method could there be
      of exciting a disbelief in the Automaton’s being a pure machine,
      than by withholding such explicit declaration? For, people will
      naturally reason thus,—It is Maelzel’s interest to represent this
      thing a pure machine—he refuses to do so, directly, in words,
      although he does not scruple, and is evidently anxious to do so,
      indirectly by actions—were it actually what he wishes to
      represent it by actions, he would gladly avail himself of the
      more direct testimony of words—the inference is, that a
      consciousness of its not being a pure machine, is the reason of
      his silence—his actions cannot implicate him in a falsehood—his
      words may.

      9. When, in exhibiting the interior of the box, Maelzel has
      thrown open the door No. I, and also the door immediately behind
      it, he holds a lighted candle at the back door (as mentioned
      above) and moves the entire machine to and fro with a view of
      convincing the company that the cupboard No. 1 is entirely filled
      with machinery. When the machine is thus moved about, it will be
      apparent to any careful observer, that whereas that portion of
      the machinery near the front door No. 1, is perfectly steady and
      unwavering, the portion farther within fluctuates, in a very
      slight degree, with the movements of the machine. This
      circumstance first aroused in us the suspicion that the more
      remote portion of the machinery was so arranged as to be easily
      slipped, _en masse, _from its position when occasion should
      require it. This occasion we have already stated to occur when
      the man concealed within brings his body into an erect position
      upon the closing of the back door.

      10. Sir David Brewster states the figure of the Turk to be of the
      size of life—but in fact it is far above the ordinary size.
      Nothing is more easy than to err in our notions of magnitude. The
      body of the Automaton is generally insulated, and, having no
      means of immediately comparing it with any human form, we suffer
      ourselves to consider it as of ordinary dimensions. This mistake
      may, however, be corrected by observing the Chess-Player when, as
      is sometimes the case, the exhibiter approaches it. Mr. Maelzel,
      to be sure, is not very tall, but upon drawing near the machine,
      his head will be found at least eighteen inches below the head of
      the Turk, although the latter, it will be remembered, is in a
      sitting position.

      11. The box behind which the Automaton is placed, is precisely
      three feet six inches long, two feet four inches deep, and two
      feet six inches high. These dimensions are fully sufficient for
      the accommodation of a man very much above the common size—and
      the main compartment alone is capable of holding any ordinary man
      in the position we have mentioned as assumed by the person
      concealed. As these are facts, which any one who doubts them may
      prove by actual calculation, we deem it unnecessary to dwell upon
      them. We will only suggest that, although the top of the box is
      apparently a board of about three inches in thickness, the
      spectator may satisfy himself by stooping and looking up at it
      when the main compartment is open, that it is in reality very
      thin. The height of the drawer also will be misconceived by those
      who examine it in a cursory manner. There is a space of about
      three inches between the top of the drawer as seen from the
      exterior, and the bottom of the cupboard—a space which must be
      included in the height of the drawer. These contrivances to make
      the room within the box appear less than it actually is, are
      referrible to a design on the part of the inventor, to impress
      the company again with a false idea, viz. that no human being can
      be accommodated within the box.

      12. The interior of the main compartment is lined throughout with
      _cloth. _This cloth we suppose to have a twofold object. A
      portion of _it _may form, when tightly stretched, the only
      partitions which there is any necessity for removing during the
      changes of the man’s position, viz: the partition between the
      rear of the main compartment and the rear of the cupboard No. 1,
      and the partition between the main compartment, and the space
      behind the drawer when open. If we imagine this to be the case,
      the difficulty of shifting the partitions vanishes at once, if
      indeed any such difficulty could be supposed under any
      circumstances to exist. The second object of the cloth is to
      deaden and render indistinct all sounds occasioned by the
      movements of the person within.

      13. The antagonist (as we have before observed) is not suffered
      to play at the board of the Automaton, but is seated at some
      distance from the machine. The reason which, most probably, would
      be assigned for this circumstance, if the question were demanded,
      is, that were the antagonist otherwise situated, his person would
      intervene between the machine and the spectators, and preclude
      the latter from a distinct view. But this difficulty might be
      easily obviated, either by elevating the seats of the company, or
      by turning the end of the box towards them during the game. The
      true cause of the restriction is, perhaps, very different. Were
      the antagonist seated in contact with the box, the secret would
      be liable to discovery, by his detecting, with the aid of a quick
      car, the breathings of the man concealed.

      14. Although M. Maelzel, in disclosing the interior of the
      machine, sometimes slightly deviates from the _routine _which we
      have pointed out, yet _reeler in _any instance does he _so
      _deviate from it as to interfere with our solution. For example,
      he has been known to open, first of all, the drawer—but he never
      opens the main compartment without first closing the back door of
      cupboard No. 1—he never opens the main compartment without first
      pulling out the drawer—he never shuts the drawer without first
      shutting the main compartment—he never opens the back door of
      cupboard No. 1 while the main compartment is open—and the game of
      chess is never commenced until the whole machine is closed. Now
      if it were observed that _never, in any single instance, _did M.
      Maelzel differ from the routine we have pointed out as necessary
      to our solution, it would be one of the strongest possible
      arguments in corroboration of it—but the argument becomes
      infinitely strengthened if we duly consider the circumstance that
      he _does occasionally _deviate from the routine but never does
      _so _deviate as to falsify the solution.

      15. There are six candles on the board of the Automaton during
      exhibition. The question naturally arises—“Why are so many
      employed, when a single candle, or, at farthest, two, would have
      been amply sufficient to afford the spectators a clear view of
      the board, in a room otherwise so well lit up as the exhibition
      room always is—when, moreover, if we suppose the machine a _pure
      machine, _there can be no necessity for so much light, or indeed
      any light at all, to enable _it _to perform its operations—and
      when, especially, only a single candle is placed upon the table
      of the antagonist?” The first and most obvious inference is, that
      so strong a light is requisite to enable the man within to see
      through the transparent material (probably fine gauze) of which
      the breast of the Turk is composed. But when we consider the
      arrangement of the candles, another reason immediately presents
      itself. There are six lights (as we have said before) in all.
      Three of these are on each side of the figure. Those most remote
      from the spectators are the longest—those in the middle are about
      two inches shorter—and those nearest the company about two inches
      shorter still—and the candles on one side differ in height from
      the candles respectively opposite on the other, by a ratio
      different from two inches—that is to say, the longest candle on
      one side is about three inches shorter than the longest candle on
      the other, and so on. Thus it will be seen that no two of the
      candles are of the same height, and thus also the difficulty of
      ascertaining the _material _of the breast of the figure (against
      which the light is especially directed) is greatly augmented by
      the dazzling effect of the complicated crossings of the
      rays—crossings which are brought about by placing the centres of
      radiation all upon different levels.

      16. While the Chess-Player was in possession of Baron Kempelen,
      it was more than once observed, first, that an Italian in the
      suite of the Baron was never visible during the playing of a game
      at chess by the Turk, and, secondly, that the Italian being taken
      seriously ill, the exhibition was suspended until his recovery.
      This Italian professed a _total _ignorance of the game of chess,
      although all others of the suite played well. Similar
      observations have been made since the Automaton has been
      purchased by Maelzel. There is a man, _Schlumberoer, _who attends
      him wherever he goes, but who has no ostensible occupation other
      than that of assisting in the packing and unpacking of the
      automata. This man is about the medium size, and has a remarkable
      stoop in the shoulders. Whether he professes to play chess or
      not, we are not informed. It is quite certain, however, that he
      is never to be seen during the exhibition of the Chess-Player,
      although frequently visible just before and just after the
      exhibition. Moreover, some years ago Maelzel visited Richmond
      with his automata, and exhibited them, we believe, in the house
      now occupied by M. Bossieux as a Dancing Academy. _Schlumberg_er
      was suddenly taken ill, and during his illness there was no
      exhibition of the Chess-Player. These facts are well known to
      many of our citizens. The reason assigned for the suspension of
      the Chess-Player’s performances, was _not _the illness of
      _Schlumberger. _The inferences from all this we leave, without
      farther comment, to the reader.

      17. The Turk plays with his _left_ arm. A circumstance so
      remarkable cannot be accidental. Brewster takes no notice of it
      whatever beyond a mere statement, we believe, that such is the
      fact. The early writers of treatises on the Automaton, seem not
      to have observed the matter at all, and have no reference to it.
      The author of the pamphlet alluded to by Brewster, mentions it,
      but acknowledges his inability to account for it. Yet it is
      obviously from such prominent discrepancies or incongruities as
      this that deductions are to be made (if made at all) which shall
      lead us to the truth.

      The circumstance of the Automaton’s playing with his left hand
      cannot have connexion with the operations of the machine,
      considered merely as such. Any mechanical arrangement which would
      cause the figure to move, in any given manner, the left
      arm—could, if reversed, cause it to move, in the same manner, the
      right. But these principles cannot be extended to the human
      organization, wherein there is a marked and radical difference in
      the construction, and, at all events, in the powers, of the right
      and left arms. Reflecting upon this latter fact, we naturally
      refer the incongruity noticeable in the Chess-Player to this
      peculiarity in the human organization. If so, we must imagine
      some _reversion—_for the Chess-Player plays precisely as a man
      _would not. _These ideas, once entertained, are sufficient of
      themselves, to suggest the notion of a man in the interior. A few
      more imperceptible steps lead us, finally, to the result. The
      Automaton plays with his left arm, because under no other
      circumstances could the man within play with his right—a
      _desideratum _of course. Let us, for example, imagine the
      Automaton to play with his right arm. To reach the machinery
      which moves the arm, and which we have before explained to lie
      just beneath the shoulder, it would be necessary for the man
      within either to use his right arm in an exceedingly painful and
      awkward position, (viz. brought up close to his body and tightly
      compressed between his body and the side of the Automaton,) or
      else to use his left arm brought across his breast. In neither
      case could he act with the requisite ease or precision. On the
      contrary, the Automaton playing, as it actually does, with the
      left arm, all difficulties vanish. The right arm of the man
      within is brought across his breast, and his right fingers act,
      without any constraint, upon the machinery in the shoulder of the
      figure.

      We do not believe that any reasonable objections can be urged
      against this solution of the Automaton Chess-Player.




THE POWER OF WORDS


      OINOS. Pardon, Agathos, the weakness of a spirit new-fledged with
      immortality!

      AGATHOS. You have spoken nothing, my Oinos, for which pardon is
      to be demanded. Not even here is knowledge a thing of intuition.
      For wisdom, ask of the angels freely, that it may be given!

      OINOS. But in this existence, I dreamed that I should be at once
      cognizant of all things, and thus at once be happy in being
      cognizant of all.

      AGATHOS. Ah, not in knowledge is happiness, but in the
      acquisition of knowledge! In for ever knowing, we are for ever
      blessed; but to know all were the curse of a fiend.

      OINOS. But does not The Most High know all?

      AGATHOS. That (since he is The Most Happy) must be still the one
      thing unknown even to Him.

      OINOS. But, since we grow hourly in knowledge, must not at last
      all things be known?

      AGATHOS. Look down into the abysmal distances!—attempt to force
      the gaze down the multitudinous vistas of the stars, as we sweep
      slowly through them thus—and thus—and thus! Even the spiritual
      vision, is it not at all points arrested by the continuous golden
      walls of the universe?—the walls of the myriads of the shining
      bodies that mere number has appeared to blend into unity?

      OINOS. I clearly perceive that the infinity of matter is no
      dream.

      AGATHOS. There are _no_ dreams in Aidenn—but it is here whispered
      that, of this infinity of matter, the _sole_ purpose is to afford
      infinite springs, at which the soul may allay the thirst _to
      know_, which is for ever unquenchable within it—since to quench
      it, would be to extinguish the soul’s self. Question me then, my
      Oinos, freely and without fear. Come! we will leave to the left
      the loud harmony of the Pleiades, and swoop outward from the
      throne into the starry meadows beyond Orion, where, for pansies
      and violets, and heart’s-ease, are the beds of the triplicate and
      triple-tinted suns.

      OINOS. And now, Agathos, as we proceed, instruct me!—speak to me
      in the earth’s familiar tones. I understand not what you hinted
      to me, just now, of the modes or of the method of what, during
      mortality, we were accustomed to call Creation. Do you mean to
      say that the Creator is not God?

      AGATHOS. I mean to say that the Deity does not create.

      OINOS. Explain.

      AGATHOS. In the beginning only, he created. The seeming creatures
      which are now, throughout the universe, so perpetually springing
      into being, can only be considered as the mediate or indirect,
      not as the direct or immediate results of the Divine creative
      power.

      OINOS. Among men, my Agathos, this idea would be considered
      heretical in the extreme.

      AGATHOS. Among angels, my Oinos, it is seen to be simply true.

      OINOS. I can comprehend you thus far—that certain operations of
      what we term Nature, or the natural laws, will, under certain
      conditions, give rise to that which has all the _appearance_ of
      creation. Shortly before the final overthrow of the earth, there
      were, I well remember, many very successful experiments in what
      some philosophers were weak enough to denominate the creation of
      animalculæ.

      AGATHOS. The cases of which you speak were, in fact, instances of
      the secondary creation—and of the only species of creation which
      has ever been, since the first word spoke into existence the
      first law.

      OINOS. Are not the starry worlds that, from the abyss of
      nonentity, burst hourly forth into the heavens—are not these
      stars, Agathos, the immediate handiwork of the King?

      AGATHOS. Let me endeavor, my Oinos, to lead you, step by step, to
      the conception I intend. You are well aware that, as no thought
      can perish, so no act is without infinite result. We moved our
      hands, for example, when we were dwellers on the earth, and, in
      so doing, gave vibration to the atmosphere which engirdled it.
      This vibration was indefinitely extended, till it gave impulse to
      every particle of the earth’s air, which thenceforward, and for
      ever, was actuated by the one movement of the hand. This fact the
      mathematicians of our globe well knew. They made the special
      effects, indeed, wrought in the fluid by special impulses, the
      subject of exact calculation—so that it became easy to determine
      in what precise period an impulse of given extent would engirdle
      the orb, and impress (for ever) every atom of the atmosphere
      circumambient. Retrograding, they found no difficulty, from a
      given effect, under given conditions, in determining the value of
      the original impulse. Now the mathematicians who saw that the
      results of any given impulse were absolutely endless—and who saw
      that a portion of these results were accurately traceable through
      the agency of algebraic analysis—who saw, too, the facility of
      the retrogradation—these men saw, at the same time, that this
      species of analysis itself, had within itself a capacity for
      indefinite progress—that there were no bounds conceivable to its
      advancement and applicability, except within the intellect of him
      who advanced or applied it. But at this point our mathematicians
      paused.

      OINOS. And why, Agathos, should they have proceeded?

      AGATHOS. Because there were some considerations of deep interest
      beyond. It was deducible from what they knew, that to a being of
      infinite understanding—one to whom the perfection of the
      algebraic analysis lay unfolded—there could be no difficulty in
      tracing every impulse given the air—and the ether through the
      air—to the remotest consequences at any even infinitely remote
      epoch of time. It is indeed demonstrable that every such impulse
      given the air, must, in the end, impress every individual thing
      that exists within the universe;—and the being of infinite
      understanding—the being whom we have imagined—might trace the
      remote undulations of the impulse—trace them upward and onward in
      their influences upon all particles of an matter—upward and
      onward for ever in their modifications of old forms—or, in other
      words, in their creation of new—until he found them
      reflected—unimpressive at last—back from the throne of the
      Godhead. And not only could such a thing do this, but at any
      epoch, should a given result be afforded him—should one of these
      numberless comets, for example, be presented to his inspection—he
      could have no difficulty in determining, by the analytic
      retrogradation, to what original impulse it was due. This power
      of retrogradation in its absolute fulness and perfection—this
      faculty of referring at all epochs, all effects to all causes—is
      of course the prerogative of the Deity alone—but in every variety
      of degree, short of the absolute perfection, is the power itself
      exercised by the whole host of the Angelic intelligences.

      OINOS. But you speak merely of impulses upon the air.

      AGATHOS. In speaking of the air, I referred only to the earth;
      but the general proposition has reference to impulses upon the
      ether—which, since it pervades, and alone pervades all space, is
      thus the great medium of creation.

      OINOS. Then all motion, of whatever nature, creates?

      AGATHOS. It must: but a true philosophy has long taught that the
      source of all motion is thought—and the source of all thought is—

      OINOS. God.

      AGATHOS. I have spoken to you, Oinos, as to a child of the fair
      Earth which lately perished—of impulses upon the atmosphere of
      the Earth.

      OINOS. You did.

      AGATHOS. And while I thus spoke, did there not cross your mind
      some thought of the physical power of words? Is not every word an
      impulse on the air?

      OINOS. But why, Agathos, do you weep—and why, oh why do your
      wings droop as we hover above this fair star—which is the
      greenest and yet most terrible of all we have encountered in our
      flight? Its brilliant flowers look like a fairy dream—but its
      fierce volcanoes like the passions of a turbulent heart.

      AGATHOS. They are!—they are! This wild star—it is now three
      centuries since, with clasped hands, and with streaming eyes, at
      the feet of my beloved—I spoke it—with a few passionate
      sentences—into birth. Its brilliant flowers are the dearest of
      all unfulfilled dreams, and its raging volcanoes are the passions
      of the most turbulent and unhallowed of hearts.




THE COLLOQUY OF MONOS AND UNA


Μελλοντα ταυτα.—SOPHOCLES—_Antig._
     “These things are in the near future.”

      _ Una._ “Born again?”

      _ Monos._ Yes, fairest and best beloved Una, “born again.” These
      were the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long
      pondered, rejecting the explanations of the priesthood, until
      Death himself resolved for me the secret.

      _Una._ Death!

      _Monos._ How strangely, sweet Una, you echo my words! I observe,
      too, a vacillation in your step—a joyous inquietude in your eyes.
      You are confused and oppressed by the majestic novelty of the
      Life Eternal. Yes, it was of Death I spoke. And here how
      singularly sounds that word which of old was wont to bring terror
      to all hearts—throwing a mildew upon all pleasures!

      _Una._ Ah, Death, the spectre which sate at all feasts! How
      often, Monos, did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its
      nature! How mysteriously did it act as a check to human
      bliss—saying unto it “thus far, and no farther!” That earnest
      mutual love, my own Monos, which burned within our bosoms—how
      vainly did we flatter ourselves, feeling happy in its first
      up-springing, that our happiness would strengthen with its
      strength! Alas! as it grew, so grew in our hearts the dread of
      that evil hour which was hurrying to separate us forever! Thus,
      in time, it became painful to love. Hate would have been mercy
      then.

      _Monos._ Speak not here of these griefs, dear Una—mine, mine,
      forever now!

      _ Una._ But the memory of past sorrow—is it not present joy? I
      have much to say yet of the things which have been. Above all, I
      burn to know the incidents of your own passage through the dark
      Valley and Shadow.

      _ Monos._ And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos
      in vain? I will be minute in relating all—but at what point shall
      the weird narrative begin?

      _Una._ At what point?

      _Monos._ You have said.

      _Una._ Monos, I comprehend you. In Death we have both learned the
      propensity of man to define the indefinable. I will not say,
      then, commence with the moment of life’s cessation—but commence
      with that sad, sad instant when, the fever having abandoned you,
      you sank into a breathless and motionless torpor, and I pressed
      down your pallid eyelids with the passionate fingers of love.

      _ Monos._ One word first, my Una, in regard to man’s general
      condition at this epoch. You will remember that one or two of the
      wise among our forefathers—wise in fact, although not in the
      world’s esteem—had ventured to doubt the propriety of the term
      “improvement,” as applied to the progress of our civilization.
      There were periods in each of the five or six centuries
      immediately preceding our dissolution, when arose some vigorous
      intellect, boldly contending for those principles whose truth
      appears now, to our disenfranchised reason, so utterly
      obvious—principles which should have taught our race to submit to
      the guidance of the natural laws, rather than attempt their
      control. At long intervals some masterminds appeared, looking
      upon each advance in practical science as a retro-gradation in
      the true utility. Occasionally the poetic intellect—that
      intellect which we now feel to have been the most exalted of
      all—since those truths which to us were of the most enduring
      importance could only be reached by that analogy which speaks in
      proof tones to the imagination alone and to the unaided reason
      bears no weight—occasionally did this poetic intellect proceed a
      step farther in the evolving of the vague idea of the
      philosophic, and find in the mystic parable that tells of the
      tree of knowledge, and of its forbidden fruit, death-producing, a
      distinct intimation that knowledge was not meet for man in the
      infant condition of his soul. And these men—the poets—living and
      perishing amid the scorn of the “utilitarians”—of rough pedants,
      who arrogated to themselves a title which could have been
      properly applied only to the scorned—these men, the poets,
      pondered piningly, yet not unwisely, upon the ancient days when
      our wants were not more simple than our enjoyments were keen—days
      when mirth was a word unknown, so solemnly deep-toned was
      happiness—holy, august and blissful days, when blue rivers ran
      undammed, between hills unhewn, into far forest solitudes,
      primæval, odorous, and unexplored.

      Yet these noble exceptions from the general misrule served but to
      strengthen it by opposition. Alas! we had fallen upon the most
      evil of all our evil days. The great “movement”—that was the cant
      term—went on: a diseased commotion, moral and physical. Art—the
      Arts—arose supreme, and, once enthroned, cast chains upon the
      intellect which had elevated them to power. Man, because he could
      not but acknowledge the majesty of Nature, fell into childish
      exultation at his acquired and still-increasing dominion over her
      elements. Even while he stalked a God in his own fancy, an
      infantine imbecility came over him. As might be supposed from the
      origin of his disorder, he grew infected with system, and with
      abstraction. He enwrapped himself in generalities. Among other
      odd ideas, that of universal equality gained ground; and in the
      face of analogy and of God—in despite of the loud warning voice
      of the laws of _gradation_ so visibly pervading all things in
      Earth and Heaven—wild attempts at an omni-prevalent Democracy
      were made. Yet this evil sprang necessarily from the leading
      evil—Knowledge. Man could not both know and succumb. Meantime
      huge smoking cities arose, innumerable. Green leaves shrank
      before the hot breath of furnaces. The fair face of Nature was
      deformed as with the ravages of some loathsome disease. And
      methinks, sweet Una, even our slumbering sense of the forced and
      of the far-fetched might have arrested us here. But now it
      appears that we had worked out our own destruction in the
      perversion of our taste, or rather in the blind neglect of its
      culture in the schools. For, in truth, it was at this crisis that
      taste alone—that faculty which, holding a middle position between
      the pure intellect and the moral sense, could never safely have
      been disregarded—it was now that taste alone could have led us
      gently back to Beauty, to Nature, and to Life. But alas for the
      pure contemplative spirit and majestic intuition of Plato! Alas
      for the μουσικη which he justly regarded as an all-sufficient
      education for the soul! Alas for him and for it!—since both were
      most desperately needed when both were most entirely forgotten or
      despised. {*1}

      Pascal, a philosopher whom we both love, has said, how
      truly!—“que tout notre raisonnement se rèduit à céder au
      sentiment;” and it is not impossible that the sentiment of the
      natural, had time permitted it, would have regained its old
      ascendancy over the harsh mathematical reason of the schools. But
      this thing was not to be. Prematurely induced by intemperance of
      knowledge the old age of the world drew on. This the mass of
      mankind saw not, or, living lustily although unhappily, affected
      not to see. But, for myself, the Earth’s records had taught me to
      look for widest ruin as the price of highest civilization. I had
      imbibed a prescience of our Fate from comparison of China the
      simple and enduring, with Assyria the architect, with Egypt the
      astrologer, with Nubia, more crafty than either, the turbulent
      mother of all Arts. In history {*2} of these regions I met with a
      ray from the Future. The individual artificialities of the three
      latter were local diseases of the Earth, and in their individual
      overthrows we had seen local remedies applied; but for the
      infected world at large I could anticipate no regeneration save
      in death. That man, as a race, should not become extinct, I saw
      that he must be “born again.”

      And now it was, fairest and dearest, that we wrapped our spirits,
      daily, in dreams. Now it was that, in twilight, we discoursed of
      the days to come, when the Art-scarred surface of the Earth,
      having undergone that purification {*3} which alone could efface
      its rectangular obscenities, should clothe itself anew in the
      verdure and the mountain-slopes and the smiling waters of
      Paradise, and be rendered at length a fit dwelling-place for
      man:—for man the Death purged—for man to whose now exalted
      intellect there should be poison in knowledge no more—for the
      redeemed, regenerated, blissful, and now immortal, but still for
      the material, man.

      _Una._ Well do I remember these conversations, dear Monos; but
      the epoch of the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we
      believed, and as the corruption you indicate did surely warrant
      us in believing. Men lived; and died individually. You yourself
      sickened, and passed into the grave; and thither your constant
      Una speedily followed you. And though the century which has since
      elapsed, and whose conclusion brings us thus together once more,
      tortured our slumbering senses with no impatience of duration,
      yet, my Monos, it was a century still.

      _Monos._ Say, rather, a point in the vague infinity.
      Unquestionably, it was in the Earth’s dotage that I died. Wearied
      at heart with anxieties which had their origin in the general
      turmoil and decay, I succumbed to the fierce fever. After some
      few days of pain, and many of dreamy delirium replete with
      ecstasy, the manifestations of which you mistook for pain, while
      I longed but was impotent to undeceive you—after some days there
      came upon me, as you have said, a breathless and motionless
      torpor; and this was termed Death by those who stood around me.

      Words are vague things. My condition did not deprive me of
      sentience. It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the
      extreme quiescence of him, who, having slumbered long and
      profoundly, lying motionless and fully prostrate in a midsummer
      noon, begins to steal slowly back into consciousness, through the
      mere sufficiency of his sleep, and without being awakened by
      external disturbances.

      I breathed no longer. The pulses were still. The heart had ceased
      to beat. Volition had not departed, but was powerless. The senses
      were unusually active, although eccentrically so—assuming often
      each other’s functions at random. The taste and the smell were
      inextricably confounded, and became one sentiment, abnormal and
      intense. The rose-water with which your tenderness had moistened
      my lips to the last, affected me with sweet fancies of
      flowers—fantastic flowers, far more lovely than any of the old
      Earth, but whose prototypes we have here blooming around us. The
      eyelids, transparent and bloodless, offered no complete
      impediment to vision. As volition was in abeyance, the balls
      could not roll in their sockets but all objects within the range
      of the visual hemisphere were seen with more or less
      distinctness; the rays which fell upon the external retina, or
      into the corner of the eye, producing a more vivid effect than
      those which struck the front or interior surface. Yet, in the
      former instance, this effect was so far anomalous that I
      appreciated it only as sound—sound sweet or discordant as the
      matters presenting themselves at my side were light or dark in
      shade—curved or angular in outline. The hearing, at the same
      time, although excited in degree, was not irregular in
      action—estimating real sounds with an extravagance of precision,
      not less than of sensibility. Touch had undergone a modification
      more peculiar. Its impressions were tardily received, but
      pertinaciously retained, and resulted always in the highest
      physical pleasure. Thus the pressure of your sweet fingers upon
      my eyelids, at first only recognised through vision, at length,
      long after their removal, filled my whole being with a sensual
      delight immeasurable. I say with a sensual delight. All my
      perceptions were purely sensual. The materials furnished the
      passive brain by the senses were not in the least degree wrought
      into shape by the deceased understanding. Of pain there was some
      little; of pleasure there was much; but of moral pain or pleasure
      none at all. Thus your wild sobs floated into my ear with all
      their mournful cadences, and were appreciated in their every
      variation of sad tone; but they were soft musical sounds and no
      more; they conveyed to the extinct reason no intimation of the
      sorrows which gave them birth; while the large and constant tears
      which fell upon my face, telling the bystanders of a heart which
      broke, thrilled every fibre of my frame with ecstasy alone. And
      this was in truth the Death of which these bystanders spoke
      reverently, in low whispers—you, sweet Una, gaspingly, with loud
      cries.

      They attired me for the coffin—three or four dark figures which
      flitted busily to and fro. As these crossed the direct line of my
      vision they affected me as forms; but upon passing to my side
      their images impressed me with the idea of shrieks, groans, and
      other dismal expressions of terror, of horror, or of wo. You
      alone, habited in a white robe, passed in all directions
      musically about me.

      The day waned; and, as its light faded away, I became possessed
      by a vague uneasiness—an anxiety such as the sleeper feels when
      sad real sounds fall continuously within his ear—low distant
      bell-tones, solemn, at long but equal intervals, and mingling
      with melancholy dreams. Night arrived; and with its shadows a
      heavy discomfort. It oppressed my limbs with the oppression of
      some dull weight, and was palpable. There was also a moaning
      sound, not unlike the distant reverberation of surf, but more
      continuous, which, beginning with the first twilight, had grown
      in strength with the darkness. Suddenly lights were brought into
      the room, and this reverberation became forthwith interrupted
      into frequent unequal bursts of the same sound, but less dreary
      and less distinct. The ponderous oppression was in a great
      measure relieved; and, issuing from the flame of each lamp, (for
      there were many,) there flowed unbrokenly into my ears a strain
      of melodious monotone. And when now, dear Una, approaching the
      bed upon which I lay outstretched, you sat gently by my side,
      breathing odor from your sweet lips, and pressing them upon my
      brow, there arose tremulously within my bosom, and mingling with
      the merely physical sensations which circumstances had called
      forth, a something akin to sentiment itself—a feeling that, half
      appreciating, half responded to your earnest love and sorrow; but
      this feeling took no root in the pulseless heart, and seemed
      indeed rather a shadow than a reality, and faded quickly away,
      first into extreme quiescence, and then into a purely sensual
      pleasure as before.

      And now, from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses, there
      appeared to have arisen within me a sixth, all perfect. In its
      exercise I found a wild delight—yet a delight still physical,
      inasmuch as the understanding had in it no part. Motion in the
      animal frame had fully ceased. No muscle quivered; no nerve
      thrilled; no artery throbbed. But there seemed to have sprung up
      in the brain, that of which no words could convey to the merely
      human intelligence even an indistinct conception. Let me term it
      a mental pendulous pulsation. It was the moral embodiment of
      man’s abstract idea of Time. By the absolute equalization of this
      movement—or of such as this—had the cycles of the firmamental
      orbs themselves, been adjusted. By its aid I measured the
      irregularities of the clock upon the mantel, and of the watches
      of the attendants. Their tickings came sonorously to my ears. The
      slightest deviations from the true proportion—and these
      deviations were omni-prevalent—affected me just as violations of
      abstract truth were wont, on earth, to affect the moral sense.
      Although no two of the time-pieces in the chamber struck the
      individual seconds accurately together, yet I had no difficulty
      in holding steadily in mind the tones, and the respective
      momentary errors of each. And this—this keen, perfect,
      self-existing sentiment of duration—this sentiment existing (as
      man could not possibly have conceived it to exist) independently
      of any succession of events—this idea—this sixth sense,
      upspringing from the ashes of the rest, was the first obvious and
      certain step of the intemporal soul upon the threshold of the
      temporal Eternity.

      It was midnight; and you still sat by my side. All others had
      departed from the chamber of Death. They had deposited me in the
      coffin. The lamps burned flickeringly; for this I knew by the
      tremulousness of the monotonous strains. But, suddenly these
      strains diminished in distinctness and in volume. Finally they
      ceased. The perfume in my nostrils died away. Forms affected my
      vision no longer. The oppression of the Darkness uplifted itself
      from my bosom. A dull shock like that of electricity pervaded my
      frame, and was followed by total loss of the idea of contact. All
      of what man has termed sense was merged in the sole consciousness
      of entity, and in the one abiding sentiment of duration. The
      mortal body had been at length stricken with the hand of the
      deadly Decay.

      Yet had not all of sentience departed; for the consciousness and
      the sentiment remaining supplied some of its functions by a
      lethargic intuition. I appreciated the direful change now in
      operation upon the flesh, and, as the dreamer is sometimes aware
      of the bodily presence of one who leans over him, so, sweet Una,
      I still dully felt that you sat by my side. So, too, when the
      noon of the second day came, I was not unconscious of those
      movements which displaced you from my side, which confined me
      within the coffin, which deposited me within the hearse, which
      bore me to the grave, which lowered me within it, which heaped
      heavily the mould upon me, and which thus left me, in blackness
      and corruption, to my sad and solemn slumbers with the worm.

      And here, in the prison-house which has few secrets to disclose,
      there rolled away days and weeks and months; and the soul watched
      narrowly each second as it flew, and, without effort, took record
      of its flight—without effort and without object.

      A year passed. The consciousness of being had grown hourly more
      indistinct, and that of mere locality had, in great measure,
      usurped its position. The idea of entity was becoming merged in
      that of place. The narrow space immediately surrounding what had
      been the body, was now growing to be the body itself. At length,
      as often happens to the sleeper (by sleep and its world alone is
      Death imaged)—at length, as sometimes happened on Earth to the
      deep slumberer, when some flitting light half startled him into
      awaking, yet left him half enveloped in dreams—so to me, in the
      strict embrace of the Shadow came that light which alone might
      have had power to startle—the light of enduring Love. Men toiled
      at the grave in which I lay darkling. They upthrew the damp
      earth. Upon my mouldering bones there descended the coffin of
      Una.

      And now again all was void. That nebulous light had been
      extinguished. That feeble thrill had vibrated itself into
      quiescence. Many lustra had supervened. Dust had returned to
      dust. The worm had food no more. The sense of being had at length
      utterly departed, and there reigned in its stead—instead of all
      things—dominant and perpetual—the autocrats Place and Time. For
      that which was not—for that which had no form—for that which had
      no thought—for that which had no sentience—for that which was
      soulless, yet of which matter formed no portion—for all this
      nothingness, yet for all this immortality, the grave was still a
      home, and the corrosive hours, co-mates.




THE CONVERSATION OF EIROS AND CHARMION


Πυρ σοι προσοισω.
     I will bring fire to thee.
                    —EURIPIDES—_Androm._

      EIROS.
      Why do you call me Eiros?

      CHARMION.
      So henceforward will you always be called. You must forget too,
      my earthly name, and speak to me as Charmion.

      EIROS.
      This is indeed no dream!

      CHARMION.
      Dreams are with us no more; but of these mysteries anon. I
      rejoice to see you looking life-like and rational. The film of
      the shadow has already passed from off your eyes. Be of heart and
      fear nothing. Your allotted days of stupor have expired and,
      to-morrow, I will myself induct you into the full joys and
      wonders of your novel existence.

      EIROS.
      True—I feel no stupor—none at all. The wild sickness and the
      terrible darkness have left me, and I hear no longer that mad,
      rushing, horrible sound, like the “voice of many waters.” Yet my
      senses are bewildered, Charmion, with the keenness of their
      perception of the new.

      CHARMION.
      A few days will remove all this;—but I fully understand you, and
      feel for you. It is now ten earthly years since I underwent what
      you undergo—yet the remembrance of it hangs by me still. You have
      now suffered all of pain, however, which you will suffer in
      Aidenn.

      EIROS.
      In Aidenn?

      CHARMION.
      In Aidenn.

      EIROS.
      Oh God!—pity me, Charmion!—I am overburthened with the majesty of
      all things—of the unknown now known—of the speculative Future
      merged in the august and certain Present.

      CHARMION.
      Grapple not now with such thoughts. To-morrow we will speak of
      this. Your mind wavers, and its agitation will find relief in the
      exercise of simple memories. Look not around, nor forward—but
      back. I am burning with anxiety to hear the details of that
      stupendous event which threw you among us. Tell me of it. Let us
      converse of familiar things, in the old familiar language of the
      world which has so fearfully perished.

      EIROS.
      Most fearfully, fearfully!—this is indeed no dream.

      CHARMION.
      Dreams are no more. Was I much mourned, my Eiros?

      EIROS.
      Mourned, Charmion?—oh deeply. To that last hour of all, there
      hung a cloud of intense gloom and devout sorrow over your
      household.

      CHARMION.
      And that last hour—speak of it. Remember that, beyond the naked
      fact of the catastrophe itself, I know nothing. When, coming out
      from among mankind, I passed into Night through the Grave—at that
      period, if I remember aright, the calamity which overwhelmed you
      was utterly unanticipated. But, indeed, I knew little of the
      speculative philosophy of the day.

      EIROS.
      The individual calamity was as you say entirely unanticipated;
      but analogous misfortunes had been long a subject of discussion
      with astronomers. I need scarce tell you, my friend, that, even
      when you left us, men had agreed to understand those passages in
      the most holy writings which speak of the final destruction of
      all things by fire, as having reference to the orb of the earth
      alone. But in regard to the immediate agency of the ruin,
      speculation had been at fault from that epoch in astronomical
      knowledge in which the comets were divested of the terrors of
      flame. The very moderate density of these bodies had been well
      established. They had been observed to pass among the satellites
      of Jupiter, without bringing about any sensible alteration either
      in the masses or in the orbits of these secondary planets. We had
      long regarded the wanderers as vapory creations of inconceivable
      tenuity, and as altogether incapable of doing injury to our
      substantial globe, even in the event of contact. But contact was
      not in any degree dreaded; for the elements of all the comets
      were accurately known. That among them we should look for the
      agency of the threatened fiery destruction had been for many
      years considered an inadmissible idea. But wonders and wild
      fancies had been, of late days, strangely rife among mankind;
      and, although it was only with a few of the ignorant that actual
      apprehension prevailed, upon the announcement by astronomers of a
      new comet, yet this announcement was generally received with I
      know not what of agitation and mistrust.

      The elements of the strange orb were immediately calculated, and
      it was at once conceded by all observers, that its path, at
      perihelion, would bring it into very close proximity with the
      earth. There were two or three astronomers, of secondary note,
      who resolutely maintained that a contact was inevitable. I cannot
      very well express to you the effect of this intelligence upon the
      people. For a few short days they would not believe an assertion
      which their intellect so long employed among worldly
      considerations could not in any manner grasp. But the truth of a
      vitally important fact soon makes its way into the understanding
      of even the most stolid. Finally, all men saw that astronomical
      knowledge lied not, and they awaited the comet. Its approach was
      not, at first, seemingly rapid; nor was its appearance of very
      unusual character. It was of a dull red, and had little
      perceptible train. For seven or eight days we saw no material
      increase in its apparent diameter, and but a partial alteration
      in its color. Meantime, the ordinary affairs of men were
      discarded and all interests absorbed in a growing discussion,
      instituted by the philosophic, in respect to the cometary nature.
      Even the grossly ignorant aroused their sluggish capacities to
      such considerations. The learned now gave their intellect—their
      soul—to no such points as the allaying of fear, or to the
      sustenance of loved theory. They sought—they panted for right
      views. They groaned for perfected knowledge. Truth arose in the
      purity of her strength and exceeding majesty, and the wise bowed
      down and adored.

      That material injury to our globe or to its inhabitants would
      result from the apprehended contact, was an opinion which hourly
      lost ground among the wise; and the wise were now freely
      permitted to rule the reason and the fancy of the crowd. It was
      demonstrated, that the density of the comet’s nucleus was far
      less than that of our rarest gas; and the harmless passage of a
      similar visitor among the satellites of Jupiter was a point
      strongly insisted upon, and which served greatly to allay terror.
      Theologists with an earnestness fear-enkindled, dwelt upon the
      biblical prophecies, and expounded them to the people with a
      directness and simplicity of which no previous instance had been
      known. That the final destruction of the earth must be brought
      about by the agency of fire, was urged with a spirit that
      enforced every where conviction; and that the comets were of no
      fiery nature (as all men now knew) was a truth which relieved
      all, in a great measure, from the apprehension of the great
      calamity foretold. It is noticeable that the popular prejudices
      and vulgar errors in regard to pestilences and wars—errors which
      were wont to prevail upon every appearance of a comet—were now
      altogether unknown. As if by some sudden convulsive exertion,
      reason had at once hurled superstition from her throne. The
      feeblest intellect had derived vigor from excessive interest.

      What minor evils might arise from the contact were points of
      elaborate question. The learned spoke of slight geological
      disturbances, of probable alterations in climate, and
      consequently in vegetation, of possible magnetic and electric
      influences. Many held that no visible or perceptible effect would
      in any manner be produced. While such discussions were going on,
      their subject gradually approached, growing larger in apparent
      diameter, and of a more brilliant lustre. Mankind grew paler as
      it came. All human operations were suspended.

      There was an epoch in the course of the general sentiment when
      the comet had attained, at length, a size surpassing that of any
      previously recorded visitation. The people now, dismissing any
      lingering hope that the astronomers were wrong, experienced all
      the certainty of evil. The chimerical aspect of their terror was
      gone. The hearts of the stoutest of our race beat violently
      within their bosoms. A very few days sufficed, however, to merge
      even such feelings in sentiments more unendurable We could no
      longer apply to the strange orb any accustomed thoughts. Its
      historical attributes had disappeared. It oppressed us with a
      hideous novelty of emotion. We saw it not as an astronomical
      phenomenon in the heavens, but as an incubus upon our hearts, and
      a shadow upon our brains. It had taken, with inconceivable
      rapidity, the character of a gigantic mantle of rare flame,
      extending from horizon to horizon.

      Yet a day, and men breathed with greater freedom. It was clear
      that we were already within the influence of the comet; yet we
      lived. We even felt an unusual elasticity of frame and vivacity
      of mind. The exceeding tenuity of the object of our dread was
      apparent; for all heavenly objects were plainly visible through
      it. Meantime, our vegetation had perceptibly altered; and we
      gained faith, from this predicted circumstance, in the foresight
      of the wise. A wild luxuriance of foliage, utterly unknown
      before, burst out upon every vegetable thing.

      Yet another day—and the evil was not altogether upon us. It was
      now evident that its nucleus would first reach us. A wild change
      had come over all men; and the first sense of pain was the wild
      signal for general lamentation and horror. This first sense of
      pain lay in a rigorous constriction of the breast and lungs, and
      an insufferable dryness of the skin. It could not be denied that
      our atmosphere was radically affected; the conformation of this
      atmosphere and the possible modifications to which it might be
      subjected, were now the topics of discussion. The result of
      investigation sent an electric thrill of the intensest terror
      through the universal heart of man.

      It had been long known that the air which encircled us was a
      compound of oxygen and nitrogen gases, in the proportion of
      twenty-one measures of oxygen, and seventy-nine of nitrogen in
      every one hundred of the atmosphere. Oxygen, which was the
      principle of combustion, and the vehicle of heat, was absolutely
      necessary to the support of animal life, and was the most
      powerful and energetic agent in nature. Nitrogen, on the
      contrary, was incapable of supporting either animal life or
      flame. An unnatural excess of oxygen would result, it had been
      ascertained in just such an elevation of the animal spirits as we
      had latterly experienced. It was the pursuit, the extension of
      the idea, which had engendered awe. What would be the result of a
      total extraction of the nitrogen? A combustion irresistible,
      all-devouring, omni-prevalent, immediate;—the entire fulfilment,
      in all their minute and terrible details, of the fiery and
      horror-inspiring denunciations of the prophecies of the Holy
      Book.

      Why need I paint, Charmion, the now disenchained frenzy of
      mankind? That tenuity in the comet which had previously inspired
      us with hope, was now the source of the bitterness of despair. In
      its impalpable gaseous character we clearly perceived the
      consummation of Fate. Meantime a day again passed—bearing away
      with it the last shadow of Hope. We gasped in the rapid
      modification of the air. The red blood bounded tumultuously
      through its strict channels. A furious delirium possessed all
      men; and, with arms rigidly outstretched towards the threatening
      heavens, they trembled and shrieked aloud. But the nucleus of the
      destroyer was now upon us; even here in Aidenn, I shudder while I
      speak. Let me be brief—brief as the ruin that overwhelmed. For a
      moment there was a wild lurid light alone, visiting and
      penetrating all things. Then—let us bow down, Charmion, before
      the excessive majesty of the great God!—then, there came a
      shouting and pervading sound, as if from the mouth itself of HIM;
      while the whole incumbent mass of ether in which we existed,
      burst at once into a species of intense flame, for whose
      surpassing brilliancy and all-fervid heat even the angels in the
      high Heaven of pure knowledge have no name. Thus ended all.




SHADOW—A PARABLE


Yea, though I walk through the valley of the _Shadow._
                    —_Psalm of David_.

      Ye who read are still among the living; but I who write shall
      have long since gone my way into the region of shadows. For
      indeed strange things shall happen, and secret things be known,
      and many centuries shall pass away, ere these memorials be seen
      of men. And, when seen, there will be some to disbelieve, and
      some to doubt, and yet a few who will find much to ponder upon in
      the characters here graven with a stylus of iron.

      The year had been a year of terror, and of feelings more intense
      than terror for which there is no name upon the earth. For many
      prodigies and signs had taken place, and far and wide, over sea
      and land, the black wings of the Pestilence were spread abroad.
      To those, nevertheless, cunning in the stars, it was not unknown
      that the heavens wore an aspect of ill; and to me, the Greek
      Oinos, among others, it was evident that now had arrived the
      alternation of that seven hundred and ninety-fourth year when, at
      the entrance of Aries, the planet Jupiter is conjoined with the
      red ring of the terrible Saturnus. The peculiar spirit of the
      skies, if I mistake not greatly, made itself manifest, not only
      in the physical orb of the earth, but in the souls, imaginations,
      and meditations of mankind.

      Over some flasks of the red Chian wine, within the walls of a
      noble hall, in a dim city called Ptolemais, we sat, at night, a
      company of seven. And to our chamber there was no entrance save
      by a lofty door of brass: and the door was fashioned by the
      artisan Corinnos, and, being of rare workmanship, was fastened
      from within. Black draperies, likewise, in the gloomy room, shut
      out from our view the moon, the lurid stars, and the peopleless
      streets—but the boding and the memory of Evil, they would not be
      so excluded. There were things around us and about of which I can
      render no distinct account—things material and
      spiritual—heaviness in the atmosphere—a sense of
      suffocation—anxiety—and, above all, that terrible state of
      existence which the nervous experience when the senses are keenly
      living and awake, and meanwhile the powers of thought lie
      dormant. A dead weight hung upon us. It hung upon our limbs—upon
      the household furniture—upon the goblets from which we drank; and
      all things were depressed, and borne down thereby—all things save
      only the flames of the seven lamps which illumined our revel.
      Uprearing themselves in tall slender lines of light, they thus
      remained burning all pallid and motionless; and in the mirror
      which their lustre formed upon the round table of ebony at which
      we sat, each of us there assembled beheld the pallor of his own
      countenance, and the unquiet glare in the downcast eyes of his
      companions. Yet we laughed and were merry in our proper way—which
      was hysterical; and sang the songs of Anacreon—which are madness;
      and drank deeply—although the purple wine reminded us of blood.
      For there was yet another tenant of our chamber in the person of
      young Zoilus. Dead, and at full length he lay, enshrouded; the
      genius and the demon of the scene. Alas! he bore no portion in
      our mirth, save that his countenance, distorted with the plague,
      and his eyes, in which Death had but half extinguished the fire
      of the pestilence, seemed to take such interest in our merriment
      as the dead may haply take in the merriment of those who are to
      die. But although I, Oinos, felt that the eyes of the departed
      were upon me, still I forced myself not to perceive the
      bitterness of their expression, and gazing down steadily into the
      depths of the ebony mirror, sang with a loud and sonorous voice
      the songs of the son of Teios. But gradually my songs they
      ceased, and their echoes, rolling afar off among the sable
      draperies of the chamber, became weak, and undistinguishable, and
      so faded away. And lo! from among those sable draperies where the
      sounds of the song departed, there came forth a dark and
      undefined shadow—a shadow such as the moon, when low in heaven,
      might fashion from the figure of a man: but it was the shadow
      neither of man nor of God, nor of any familiar thing. And
      quivering awhile among the draperies of the room, it at length
      rested in full view upon the surface of the door of brass. But
      the shadow was vague, and formless, and indefinite, and was the
      shadow neither of man nor of God—neither God of Greece, nor God
      of Chaldaea, nor any Egyptian God. And the shadow rested upon the
      brazen doorway, and under the arch of the entablature of the
      door, and moved not, nor spoke any word, but there became
      stationary and remained. And the door whereupon the shadow rested
      was, if I remember aright, over against the feet of the young
      Zoilus enshrouded. But we, the seven there assembled, having seen
      the shadow as it came out from among the draperies, dared not
      steadily behold it, but cast down our eyes, and gazed continually
      into the depths of the mirror of ebony. And at length I, Oinos,
      speaking some low words, demanded of the shadow its dwelling and
      its appellation. And the shadow answered, “I am SHADOW, and my
      dwelling is near to the Catacombs of Ptolemais, and hard by those
      dim plains of Helusion which border upon the foul Charonian
      canal.” And then did we, the seven, start from our seats in
      horror, and stand trembling, and shuddering, and aghast, for the
      tones in the voice of the shadow were not the tones of any one
      being, but of a multitude of beings, and, varying in their
      cadences from syllable to syllable fell duskly upon our ears in
      the well-remembered and familiar accents of many thousand
      departed friends.




VOLUME 5.




PHILOSOPHY OF FURNITURE.


      In the internal decoration, if not in the external architecture of their
      residences, the English are supreme. The Italians have but little
      sentiment beyond marbles and colours. In France, _meliora probant,
      deteriora _sequuntur—the people are too much a race of gadabouts
      to maintain those household proprieties of which, indeed, they have a
      delicate appreciation, or at least the elements of a proper sense. The
      Chinese and most of the eastern races have a warm but inappropriate fancy.
      The Scotch are _poor _decorists. The Dutch have, perhaps, an
      indeterminate idea that a curtain is not a cabbage. In Spain they are _all
      _curtains—a nation of hangmen. The Russians do not furnish. The
      Hottentots and Kickapoos are very well in their way. The Yankees alone are
      preposterous.
    
      How this happens, it is not difficult to see. We have no aristocracy of
      blood, and having therefore as a natural, and indeed as an inevitable
      thing, fashioned for ourselves an aristocracy of dollars, the _display
      of wealth _has here to take the place and perform the office of the
      heraldic display in monarchical countries. By a transition readily
      understood, and which might have been as readily foreseen, we have been
      brought to merge in simple _show_ our notions of taste itself.
    
      To speak less abstractly. In England, for example, no mere parade of
      costly appurtenances would be so likely as with us, to create an
      impression of the beautiful in respect to the appurtenances themselves—or
      of taste as regards the proprietor:—this for the reason, first, that
      wealth is not, in England, the loftiest object of ambition as constituting
      a nobility; and secondly, that there, the true nobility of blood,
      confining itself within the strict limits of legitimate taste, rather
      avoids than affects that mere costliness in which a _parvenu _rivalry
      may at any time be successfully attempted.
    
      The people _will _imitate the nobles, and the result is a thorough
      diffusion of the proper feeling. But in America, the coins current being
      the sole arms of the aristocracy, their display may be said, in general,
      to be the sole means of the aristocratic distinction; and the populace,
      looking always upward for models, are insensibly led to confound the two
      entirely separate ideas of magnificence and beauty. In short, the cost of
      an article of furniture has at length come to be, with us, nearly the sole
      test of its merit in a decorative point of view—and this test, once
      established, has led the way to many analogous errors, readily traceable
      to the one primitive folly.
    
      There could be nothing more directly offensive to the eye of an artist
      than the interior of what is termed in the United States—that is to
      say, in Appallachia—a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual
      defect is a want of keeping. We speak of the keeping of a room as we would
      of the keeping of a picture—for both the picture and the room are
      amenable to those undeviating principles which regulate all varieties of
      art; and very nearly the same laws by which we decide on the higher merits
      of a painting, suffice for decision on the adjustment of a chamber.
    
      A want of keeping is observable sometimes in the character of the several
      pieces of furniture, but generally in their colours or modes of adaptation
      to use _Very _often the eye is offended by their inartistic
      arrangement. Straight lines are too prevalent—too uninterruptedly
      continued—or clumsily interrupted at right angles. If curved lines
      occur, they are repeated into unpleasant uniformity. By undue precision,
      the appearance of many a fine apartment is utterly spoiled.
    
      Curtains are rarely well disposed, or well chosen in respect to other
      decorations. With formal furniture, curtains are out of place; and an
      extensive volume of drapery of any kind is, under any circumstance,
      irreconcilable with good taste—the proper quantum, as well as the
      proper adjustment, depending upon the character of the general effect.
    
      Carpets are better understood of late than of ancient days, but we still
      very frequently err in their patterns and colours. The soul of the
      apartment is the carpet. From it are deduced not only the hues but the
      forms of all objects incumbent. A judge at common law may be an ordinary
      man; a good judge of a carpet _must be _a genius. Yet we have heard
      discoursing of carpets, with the air “_d’un mouton qui reve,” _fellows
      who should not and who could not be entrusted with the management of their
      own _moustaches. _Every one knows that a large floor _may _have
      a covering of large figures, and that a small one must have a covering of
      small—yet this is not all the knowledge in the world. As regards
      texture, the Saxony is alone admissible. Brussels is the preterpluperfect
      tense of fashion, and Turkey is taste in its dying agonies. Touching
      pattern—a carpet should _not _be bedizzened out like a Riccaree
      Indian—all red chalk, yellow ochre, and cock’s feathers. In brief—distinct
      grounds, and vivid circular or cycloid figures, _of no meaning, _are
      here Median laws. The abomination of flowers, or representations of
      well-known objects of any kind, should not be endured within the limits of
      Christendom. Indeed, whether on carpets, or curtains, or tapestry, or
      ottoman coverings, all upholstery of this nature should be rigidly
      Arabesque. As for those antique floor-cloth & still occasionally seen
      in the dwellings of the rabble—cloths of huge, sprawling, and
      radiating devises, stripe-interspersed, and glorious with all hues, among
      which no ground is intelligible—these are but the wicked invention
      of a race of time-servers and money-lovers—children of Baal and
      worshippers of Mammon—Benthams, who, to spare thought and economize
      fancy, first cruelly invented the Kaleidoscope, and then established
      joint-stock companies to twirl it by steam.
    
      _Glare_ is a leading error in the philosophy of American household
      decoration—an error easily recognised as deduced from the perversion
      of taste just specified., We are violently enamoured of gas and of glass.
      The former is totally inadmissible within doors. Its harsh and unsteady
      light offends. No one having both brains and eyes will use it. A mild, or
      what artists term a cool light, with its consequent warm shadows, will do
      wonders for even an ill-furnished apartment. Never was a more lovely
      thought than that of the astral lamp. We mean, of course, the astral lamp
      proper—the lamp of Argand, with its original plain ground-glass
      shade, and its tempered and uniform moonlight rays. The cut-glass shade is
      a weak invention of the enemy. The eagerness with which we have adopted
      it, partly on account of its _flashiness,_ but principally on account
      of its _greater rest,_ is a good commentary on the proposition with
      which we began. It is not too much to say, that the deliberate employer of
      a cut-glass shade, is either radically deficient in taste, or blindly
      subservient to the caprices of fashion. The light proceeding from one of
      these gaudy abominations is unequal broken, and painful. It alone is
      sufficient to mar a world of good effect in the furniture subjected to its
      influence. Female loveliness, in especial, is more than one-half
      disenchanted beneath its evil eye.
    
      In the matter of glass, generally, we proceed upon false principles. Its
      leading feature is _glitter—_and in that one word how much of
      all that is detestable do we express! Flickering, unquiet lights, are _sometimes
      _pleasing—to children and idiots always so—but in the
      embellishment of a room they should be scrupulously avoided. In truth,
      even strong _steady _lights are inadmissible. The huge and unmeaning
      glass chandeliers, prism-cut, gas-lighted, and without shade, which dangle
      in our most fashionable drawing-rooms, may be cited as the quintessence of
      all that is false in taste or preposterous in folly.
    
      The rage for _glitter-_because its idea has become as we before
      observed, confounded with that of magnificence in the abstract—has
      led us, also, to the exaggerated employment of mirrors. We line our
      dwellings with great British plates, and then imagine we have done a fine
      thing. Now the slightest thought will be sufficient to convince any one
      who has an eye at all, of the ill effect of numerous looking-glasses, and
      especially of large ones. Regarded apart from its reflection, the mirror
      presents a continuous, flat, colourless, unrelieved surface,—a thing
      always and obviously unpleasant. Considered as a reflector, it is potent
      in producing a monstrous and odious uniformity: and the evil is here
      aggravated, not in merely direct proportion with the augmentation of its
      sources, but in a ratio constantly increasing. In fact, a room with four
      or five mirrors arranged at random, is, for all purposes of artistic show,
      a room of no shape at all. If we add to this evil, the attendant glitter
      upon glitter, we have a perfect farrago of discordant and displeasing
      effects. The veriest bumpkin, on entering an apartment so bedizzened,
      would be instantly aware of something wrong, although he might be
      altogether unable to assign a cause for his dissatisfaction. But let the
      same person be led into a room tastefully furnished, and he would be
      startled into an exclamation of pleasure and surprise.
    
      It is an evil growing out of our republican institutions, that here a man
      of large purse has usually a very little soul which he keeps in it. The
      corruption of taste is a portion or a pendant of the dollar-manufacture.
      As we grow rich, our ideas grow rusty. It is, therefore, not among _our
      _aristocracy that we must look (if at all, in Appallachia), for the
      spirituality of a British _boudoir. _But we have seen apartments in
      the tenure of Americans of moderns [possibly “modest” or “moderate”]
      means, which, in negative merit at least, might vie with any of the _or-molu’d
      _cabinets of our friends across the water. Even _now_, there is
      present to our mind’s eye a small and not, ostentatious chamber with whose
      decorations no fault can be found. The proprietor lies asleep on a sofa—the
      weather is cool—the time is near midnight: we will make a sketch of
      the room during his slumber.
    
      It is oblong—some thirty feet in length and twenty-five in breadth—a
      shape affording the best(ordinary) opportunities for the adjustment of
      furniture. It has but one door—by no means a wide one—which is
      at one end of the parallelogram, and but two windows, which are at the
      other. These latter are large, reaching down to the floor—have deep
      recesses—and open on an Italian _veranda. _Their panes are of a
      crimson-tinted glass, set in rose-wood framings, more massive than usual.
      They are curtained within the recess, by a thick silver tissue adapted to
      the shape of the window, and hanging loosely in small volumes. Without the
      recess are curtains of an exceedingly rich crimson silk, fringed with a
      deep network of gold, and lined with silver tissue, which is the material
      of the exterior blind. There are no cornices; but the folds of the whole
      fabric (which are sharp rather than massive, and have an airy appearance),
      issue from beneath a broad entablature of rich giltwork, which encircles
      the room at the junction of the ceiling and walls. The drapery is thrown
      open also, or closed, by means of a thick rope of gold loosely enveloping
      it, and resolving itself readily into a knot; no pins or other such
      devices are apparent. The colours of the curtains and their fringe—the
      tints of crimson and gold—appear everywhere in profusion, and
      determine the _character _of the room. The carpet—of Saxony
      material—is quite half an inch thick, and is of the same crimson
      ground, relieved simply by the appearance of a gold cord (like that
      festooning the curtains) slightly relieved above the surface of the _ground,
      _and thrown upon it in such a manner as to form a succession of short
      irregular curves—one occasionally overlaying the other. The walls
      are prepared with a glossy paper of a silver gray tint, spotted with small
      Arabesque devices of a fainter hue of the prevalent crimson. Many
      paintings relieve the expanse of paper. These are chiefly landscapes of an
      imaginative cast—such as the fairy grottoes of Stanfield, or the
      lake of the Dismal Swamp of Chapman. There are, nevertheless, three or
      four female heads, of an ethereal beauty-portraits in the manner of Sully.
      The tone of each picture is warm, but dark. There are no “brilliant
      effects.” _Repose _speaks in all. Not one is of small size.
      Diminutive paintings give that _spotty _look to a room, which is the
      blemish of so many a fine work of Art overtouched. The frames are broad
      but not deep, and richly carved, without being _dulled _or filagreed.
      They have the whole lustre of burnished gold. They lie flat on the walls,
      and do not hang off with cords. The designs themselves are often seen to
      better advantage in this latter position, but the general appearance of
      the chamber is injured. But one mirror—and this not a very large one—is
      visible. In shape it is nearly circular—and it is hung so that a
      reflection of the person can be obtained from it in none of the ordinary
      sitting-places of the room. Two large low sofas of rosewood and crimson
      silk, gold-flowered, form the only seats, with the exception of two light
      conversation chairs, also of rose-wood. There is a pianoforte (rose-wood,
      also), without cover, and thrown open. An octagonal table, formed
      altogether of the richest gold-threaded marble, is placed near one of the
      sofas. This is also without cover—the drapery of the curtains has
      been thought sufficient.. Four large and gorgeous Sevres vases, in which
      bloom a profusion of sweet and vivid flowers, occupy the slightly rounded
      angles of the room. A tall candelabrum, bearing a small antique lamp with
      highly perfumed oil, is standing near the head of my sleeping friend. Some
      light and graceful hanging shelves, with golden edges and crimson silk
      cords with gold tassels, sustain two or three hundred magnificently bound
      books. Beyond these things, there is no furniture, if we except an Argand
      lamp, with a plain crimson-tinted ground glass shade, which depends from
      He lofty vaulted ceiling by a single slender gold chain, and throws a
      tranquil but magical radiance over all.




 A TALE OF JERUSALEM


     Intensos rigidam in frontem ascendere canos
     Passus erat——
                    —Lucan—_De Catone_


    ——a bristly _bore_.
                    _Translation._

    
      “Let us hurry to the walls,” said Abel-Phittim to Buzi-Ben-Levi and Simeon
      the Pharisee, on the tenth day of the month Thammuz, in the year of the
      world three thousand nine hundred and forty-one—“let us hasten to the
      ramparts adjoining the gate of Benjamin, which is in the city of David,
      and overlooking the camp of the uncircumcised; for it is the last hour of
      the fourth watch, being sunrise; and the idolaters, in fulfilment of the
      promise of Pompey, should be awaiting us with the lambs for the
      sacrifices.”
     
    
      Simeon, Abel-Phittim, and Duzi-Ben-Levi were the Gizbarim, or
      sub-collectors of the offering, in the holy city of Jerusalem.
    
      “Verily,” replied the Pharisee; “let us hasten: for this generosity in the
      heathen is unwonted; and fickle-mindedness has ever been an attribute of
      the worshippers of Baal.”
     
    
      “That they are fickle-minded and treacherous is as true as the
      Pentateuch,” said Buzi-Ben-Levi, “but that is only toward the people of
      Adonai. When was it ever known that the Ammonites proved wanting to their
      own interests? Methinks it is no great stretch of generosity to allow us
      lambs for the altar of the Lord, receiving in lieu thereof thirty silver
      shekels per head!”
     
    
      “Thou forgettest, however, Ben-Levi,” replied Abel-Phittim, “that the
      Roman Pompey, who is now impiously besieging the city of the Most High,
      has no assurity that we apply not the lambs thus purchased for the altar,
      to the sustenance of the body, rather than of the spirit.”
     
    
      “Now, by the five corners of my beard!” shouted the Pharisee, who belonged
      to the sect called The Dashers (that little knot of saints whose manner of
      _dashing _and lacerating the feet against the pavement was long a
      thorn and a reproach to less zealous devotees—a stumbling-block to less
      gifted perambulators)—“by the five corners of that beard which, as a
      priest, I am forbidden to shave!—have we lived to see the day when a
      blaspheming and idolatrous upstart of Rome shall accuse us of
      appropriating to the appetites of the flesh the most holy and consecrated
      elements? Have we lived to see the day when—”
    
      “Let us not question the motives of the Philistine,” interrupted
      Abel-Phittim, “for to-day we profit for the first time by his avarice or
      by his generosity; but rather let us hurry to the ramparts, lest offerings
      should be wanting for that altar whose fire the rains of heaven can not
      extinguish, and whose pillars of smoke no tempest can turn aside.”
     
    
      That part of the city to which our worthy Gizbarim now hastened, and which
      bore the name of its architect, King David, was esteemed the most strongly
      fortified district of Jerusalem; being situated upon the steep and lofty
      hill of Zion. Here, a broad, deep, circumvallatory trench, hewn from the
      solid rock, was defended by a wall of great strength erected upon its
      inner edge. This wall was adorned, at regular interspaces, by square
      towers of white marble; the lowest sixty, and the highest one hundred and
      twenty cubits in height. But, in the vicinity of the gate of Benjamin, the
      wall arose by no means from the margin of the fosse. On the contrary,
      between the level of the ditch and the basement of the rampart sprang up a
      perpendicular cliff of two hundred and fifty cubits, forming part of the
      precipitous Mount Moriah. So that when Simeon and his associates arrived
      on the summit of the tower called Adoni-Bezek—the loftiest of all the
      turrets around about Jerusalem, and the usual place of conference with the
      besieging army—they looked down upon the camp of the enemy from an
      eminence excelling by many feet that of the Pyramid of Cheops, and, by
      several, that of the temple of Belus.
    
      “Verily,” sighed the Pharisee, as he peered dizzily over the precipice,
      “the uncircumcised are as the sands by the seashore—as the locusts in the
      wilderness! The valley of the King hath become the valley of Adommin.”
     
    
      “And yet,” added Ben-Levi, “thou canst not point me out a Philistine—no,
      not one—from Aleph to Tau—from the wilderness to the battlements—who
      seemeth any bigger than the letter Jod!”
     
    
      “Lower away the basket with the shekels of silver!” here shouted a Roman
      soldier in a hoarse, rough voice, which appeared to issue from the regions
      of Pluto—“lower away the basket with the accursed coin which it has
      broken the jaw of a noble Roman to pronounce! Is it thus you evince your
      gratitude to our master Pompeius, who, in his condescension, has thought
      fit to listen to your idolatrous importunities? The god Phœbus, who is a
      true god, has been charioted for an hour—and were you not to be on the
      ramparts by sunrise? Ædepol! do you think that we, the conquerors of the
      world, have nothing better to do than stand waiting by the walls of every
      kennel, to traffic with the dogs of the earth? Lower away! I say—and
      see that your trumpery be bright in color and just in weight!”
     
    
      “El Elohim!” ejaculated the Pharisee, as the discordant tones of the
      centurion rattled up the crags of the precipice, and fainted away against
      the temple—“El Elohim!—who is the god Phœbus?—whom doth
      the blasphemer invoke? Thou, Buzi-Ben-Levi! who art read in the laws of
      the Gentiles, and hast sojourned among them who dabble with the Teraphim!—is
      it Nergal of whom the idolater speaketh?—or Ashimah?—or
      Nibhaz,—or Tartak?—or Adramalech?—or Anamalech?—or
      Succoth-Benith?—or Dagon?—or Belial?—or Baal-Perith?—or
      Baal-Peor?—or Baal-Zebub?”
     
    
      “Verily it is neither—but beware how thou lettest the rope slip too
      rapidly through thy fingers; for should the wicker-work chance to hang on
      the projection of yonder crag, there will be a woful outpouring of the
      holy things of the sanctuary.”
     
    
      By the assistance of some rudely constructed machinery, the heavily laden
      basket was now carefully lowered down among the multitude; and, from the
      giddy pinnacle, the Romans were seen gathering confusedly round it; but
      owing to the vast height and the prevalence of a fog, no distinct view of
      their operations could be obtained.
    
      Half an hour had already elapsed.
    
      “We shall be too late!” sighed the Pharisee, as at the expiration of this
      period he looked over into the abyss—“we shall be too late! we shall be
      turned out of office by the Katholim.”
     
    
      “No more,” responded Abel-Phittim—“no more shall we feast upon the
      fat of the land—no longer shall our beards be odorous with frankincense—our
      loins girded up with fine linen from the Temple.”
     
    
      “Raca!” swore Ben-Levi, “Raca! do they mean to defraud us of the purchase
      money? or, Holy Moses! are they weighing the shekels of the tabernacle?”
     
    
      “They have given the signal at last!” cried the Pharisee—“they
      have given the signal at last! pull away, Abel-Phittim!—and thou,
      Buzi-Ben-Levi, pull away!—for verily the Philistines have either
      still hold upon the basket, or the Lord hath softened their hearts to
      place therein a beast of good weight!” And the Gizbarim pulled away, while
      their burden swung heavily upward through the still increasing mist.
    


    
      “Booshoh he!”—as, at the conclusion of an hour, some object at the
      extremity of the rope became indistinctly visible—“Booshoh he!” was
      the exclamation which burst from the lips of Ben-Levi.
    
      “Booshoh he!—for shame!—it is a ram from the thickets of
      Engedi, and as rugged as the valley of Jehosaphat!”
     
    
      “It is a firstling of the flock,” said Abel-Phittim, “I know him by the
      bleating of his lips, and the innocent folding of his limbs. His eyes are
      more beautiful than the jewels of the Pectoral, and his flesh is like the
      honey of Hebron.”
     
    
      “It is a fatted calf from the pastures of Bashan,” said the Pharisee, “the
      heathen have dealt wonderfully with us——let us raise up our
      voices in a psalm—let us give thanks on the shawm and on the
      psaltery—on the harp and on the huggab—on the cythern and on the sackbut!”
     
    
      It was not until the basket had arrived within a few feet of the Gizbarim
      that a low grunt betrayed to their perception a _hog_ of no common size.
    
      “Now El Emanu!” slowly and with upturned eyes ejaculated the trio, as,
      letting go their hold, the emancipated porker tumbled headlong among the
      Philistines, “El Emanu!—God be with us—it is _the unutterable
      flesh!”_




THE SPHINX


      During the dread reign of the cholera in New York, I had accepted the
      invitation of a relative to spend a fortnight with him in the retirement
      of his _cottage ornée_ on the banks of the Hudson. We had here around
      us all the ordinary means of summer amusement; and what with rambling in
      the woods, sketching, boating, fishing, bathing, music, and books, we
      should have passed the time pleasantly enough, but for the fearful
      intelligence which reached us every morning from the populous city. Not a
      day elapsed which did not bring us news of the decease of some
      acquaintance. Then as the fatality increased, we learned to expect daily
      the loss of some friend. At length we trembled at the approach of every
      messenger. The very air from the South seemed to us redolent with death.
      That palsying thought, indeed, took entire possession of my soul. I could
      neither speak, think, nor dream of any thing else. My host was of a less
      excitable temperament, and, although greatly depressed in spirits, exerted
      himself to sustain my own. His richly philosophical intellect was not at
      any time affected by unrealities. To the substances of terror he was
      sufficiently alive, but of its shadows he had no apprehension.
    
      His endeavors to arouse me from the condition of abnormal gloom into which
      I had fallen, were frustrated, in great measure, by certain volumes which
      I had found in his library. These were of a character to force into
      germination whatever seeds of hereditary superstition lay latent in my
      bosom. I had been reading these books without his knowledge, and thus he
      was often at a loss to account for the forcible impressions which had been
      made upon my fancy.
    
      A favorite topic with me was the popular belief in omens—a belief
      which, at this one epoch of my life, I was almost seriously disposed to
      defend. On this subject we had long and animated discussions—he
      maintaining the utter groundlessness of faith in such matters,—I
      contending that a popular sentiment arising with absolute
      spontaneity—that is to say, without apparent traces of
      suggestion—had in itself the unmistakable elements of truth, and
      was entitled to as much respect as that intuition which is the
      idiosyncrasy of the individual man of genius.
    
      The fact is, that soon after my arrival at the cottage there had occurred
      to myself an incident so entirely inexplicable, and which had in it so
      much of the portentous character, that I might well have been excused for
      regarding it as an omen. It appalled, and at the same time so confounded
      and bewildered me, that many days elapsed before I could make up my mind
      to communicate the circumstances to my friend.
    
      Near the close of exceedingly warm day, I was sitting, book in hand, at an
      open window, commanding, through a long vista of the river banks, a view
      of a distant hill, the face of which nearest my position had been denuded
      by what is termed a land-slide, of the principal portion of its trees. My
      thoughts had been long wandering from the volume before me to the gloom
      and desolation of the neighboring city. Uplifting my eyes from the page,
      they fell upon the naked face of the bill, and upon an object—upon
      some living monster of hideous conformation, which very rapidly made its
      way from the summit to the bottom, disappearing finally in the dense
      forest below. As this creature first came in sight, I doubted my own
      sanity—or at least the evidence of my own eyes; and many minutes
      passed before I succeeded in convincing myself that I was neither mad nor
      in a dream. Yet when I described the monster (which I distinctly saw, and
      calmly surveyed through the whole period of its progress), my readers, I
      fear, will feel more difficulty in being convinced of these points than
      even I did myself.
    
      Estimating the size of the creature by comparison with the diameter of the
      large trees near which it passed—the few giants of the forest which
      had escaped the fury of the land-slide—I concluded it to be far
      larger than any ship of the line in existence. I say ship of the line,
      because the shape of the monster suggested the idea—the hull of one
      of our seventy-four might convey a very tolerable conception of the
      general outline. The mouth of the animal was situated at the extremity of
      a proboscis some sixty or seventy feet in length, and about as thick as
      the body of an ordinary elephant. Near the root of this trunk was an
      immense quantity of black shaggy hair—more than could have been
      supplied by the coats of a score of buffaloes; and projecting from this
      hair downwardly and laterally, sprang two gleaming tusks not unlike those
      of the wild boar, but of infinitely greater dimensions. Extending forward,
      parallel with the proboscis, and on each side of it, was a gigantic staff,
      thirty or forty feet in length, formed seemingly of pure crystal and in
      shape a perfect prism,—it reflected in the most gorgeous manner the
      rays of the declining sun. The trunk was fashioned like a wedge with the
      apex to the earth. From it there were outspread two pairs of wings—each
      wing nearly one hundred yards in length—one pair being placed above
      the other, and all thickly covered with metal scales; each scale
      apparently some ten or twelve feet in diameter. I observed that the upper
      and lower tiers of wings were connected by a strong chain. But the chief
      peculiarity of this horrible thing was the representation of a Death’s
      Head, which covered nearly the whole surface of its breast, and which was
      as accurately traced in glaring white, upon the dark ground of the body,
      as if it had been there carefully designed by an artist. While I regarded
      the terrific animal, and more especially the appearance on its breast,
      with a feeling or horror and awe—with a sentiment of forthcoming
      evil, which I found it impossible to quell by any effort of the reason, I
      perceived the huge jaws at the extremity of the proboscis suddenly expand
      themselves, and from them there proceeded a sound so loud and so
      expressive of woe, that it struck upon my nerves like a knell and as the
      monster disappeared at the foot of the hill, I fell at once, fainting, to
      the floor.
    
      Upon recovering, my first impulse, of course, was to inform my friend of
      what I had seen and heard—and I can scarcely explain what feeling of
      repugnance it was which, in the end, operated to prevent me.
    
      At length, one evening, some three or four days after the occurrence, we
      were sitting together in the room in which I had seen the apparition—I
      occupying the same seat at the same window, and he lounging on a sofa near
      at hand. The association of the place and time impelled me to give him an
      account of the phenomenon. He heard me to the end—at first laughed
      heartily—and then lapsed into an excessively grave demeanor, as if
      my insanity was a thing beyond suspicion. At this instant I again had a
      distinct view of the monster—to which, with a shout of absolute
      terror, I now directed his attention. He looked eagerly—but
      maintained that he saw nothing—although I designated minutely the
      course of the creature, as it made its way down the naked face of the
      hill.
    
      I was now immeasurably alarmed, for I considered the vision either as an
      omen of my death, or, worse, as the fore-runner of an attack of mania. I
      threw myself passionately back in my chair, and for some moments buried my
      face in my hands. When I uncovered my eyes, the apparition was no longer
      apparent.
    
      My host, however, had in some degree resumed the calmness of his demeanor,
      and questioned me very rigorously in respect to the conformation of the
      visionary creature. When I had fully satisfied him on this head, he sighed
      deeply, as if relieved of some intolerable burden, and went on to talk,
      with what I thought a cruel calmness, of various points of speculative
      philosophy, which had heretofore formed subject of discussion between us.
      I remember his insisting very especially (among other things) upon the
      idea that the principle source of error in all human investigations lay in
      the liability of the understanding to under-rate or to over-value the
      importance of an object, through mere misadmeasurement of its
      propinquity. “To estimate properly, for example,” he said, “the influence
      to be exercised on mankind at large by the thorough diffusion of
      Democracy, the distance of the epoch at which such diffusion may possibly
      be accomplished should not fail to form an item in the estimate. Yet can
      you tell me one writer on the subject of government who has ever thought
      this particular branch of the subject worthy of discussion at all?”
     
    
      He here paused for a moment, stepped to a book-case, and brought forth one
      of the ordinary synopses of Natural History. Requesting me then to
      exchange seats with him, that he might the better distinguish the fine
      print of the volume, he took my armchair at the window, and, opening the
      book, resumed his discourse very much in the same tone as before.
    
      “But for your exceeding minuteness,” he said, “in describing the monster,
      I might never have had it in my power to demonstrate to you what it was.
      In the first place, let me read to you a schoolboy account of the genus
      Sphinx, of the family Crepuscularia of the order Lepidoptera, of the class
      of Insecta—or insects. The account runs thus:
    
      “‘Four membranous wings covered with little colored scales of metallic
      appearance; mouth forming a rolled proboscis, produced by an elongation of
      the jaws, upon the sides of which are found the rudiments of mandibles and
      downy palpi; the inferior wings retained to the superior by a stiff hair;
      antennæ in the form of an elongated club, prismatic; abdomen pointed. The
      Death’s-headed Sphinx has occasioned much terror among the vulgar,
      at times, by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters, and the insignia
      of death which it wears upon its corslet.’”
     
    
      He here closed the book and leaned forward in the chair, placing himself
      accurately in the position which I had occupied at the moment of beholding
      “the monster.”
     
    
      “Ah, here it is,” he presently exclaimed—“it is reascending the face
      of the hill, and a very remarkable looking creature I admit it to be.
      Still, it is by no means so large or so distant as you imagined it,—for
      the fact is that, as it wriggles its way up this thread, which some spider
      has wrought along the window-sash, I find it to be about the sixteenth of
      an inch in its extreme length, and also about the sixteenth of an inch
      distant from the pupil of my eye.”




HOP-FROG


      I never knew anyone so keenly alive to a joke as the king was. He seemed
      to live only for joking. To tell a good story of the joke kind, and to
      tell it well, was the surest road to his favor. Thus it happened that his
      seven ministers were all noted for their accomplishments as jokers. They
      all took after the king, too, in being large, corpulent, oily men, as well
      as inimitable jokers. Whether people grow fat by joking, or whether there
      is something in fat itself which predisposes to a joke, I have never been
      quite able to determine; but certain it is that a lean joker is a rara
      avis in terris.
    
      About the refinements, or, as he called them, the “ghost” of wit, the king
      troubled himself very little. He had an especial admiration for breadth in
      a jest, and would often put up with length, for the sake of it.
      Over-niceties wearied him. He would have preferred Rabelais’ “Gargantua”
      to the “Zadig” of Voltaire: and, upon the whole, practical jokes suited
      his taste far better than verbal ones.
    
      At the date of my narrative, professing jesters had not altogether gone
      out of fashion at court. Several of the great continental “powers” still
      retain their “fools,” who wore motley, with caps and bells, and who were
      expected to be always ready with sharp witticisms, at a moment’s notice,
      in consideration of the crumbs that fell from the royal table.
    
      _Our_ king, as a matter of course, retained his “fool.” The fact is, he
      _required_ something in the way of folly—if only to counterbalance the
      heavy wisdom of the seven wise men who were his ministers—not to
      mention himself.
    
      His fool, or professional jester, was not only a fool, however. His value
      was trebled in the eyes of the king, by the fact of his being also a dwarf
      and a cripple. Dwarfs were as common at court, in those days, as fools;
      and many monarchs would have found it difficult to get through their days
      (days are rather longer at court than elsewhere) without both a jester to
      laugh with, and a dwarf to laugh at. But, as I have already observed, your
      jesters, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, are fat, round, and
      unwieldy—so that it was no small source of self-gratulation with our
      king that, in Hop-Frog (this was the fool’s name), he possessed a
      triplicate treasure in one person.
    
      I believe the name “Hop-Frog” was _not_ that given to the dwarf by his
      sponsors at baptism, but it was conferred upon him, by general consent of
      the seven ministers, on account of his inability to walk as other men
      do. In fact, Hop-Frog could only get along by a sort of interjectional
      gait—something between a leap and a wriggle—a movement that
      afforded illimitable amusement, and of course consolation, to the king,
      for (notwithstanding the protuberance of his stomach and a constitutional
      swelling of the head) the king, by his whole court, was accounted a
      capital figure.
    
      But although Hop-Frog, through the distortion of his legs, could move only
      with great pain and difficulty along a road or floor, the prodigious
      muscular power which nature seemed to have bestowed upon his arms, by way
      of compensation for deficiency in the lower limbs, enabled him to perform
      many feats of wonderful dexterity, where trees or ropes were in question,
      or any thing else to climb. At such exercises he certainly much more
      resembled a squirrel, or a small monkey, than a frog.
    
      I am not able to say, with precision, from what country Hop-Frog
      originally came. It was from some barbarous region, however, that no
      person ever heard of—a vast distance from the court of our king.
      Hop-Frog, and a young girl very little less dwarfish than himself
      (although of exquisite proportions, and a marvellous dancer), had been
      forcibly carried off from their respective homes in adjoining provinces,
      and sent as presents to the king, by one of his ever-victorious generals.
    
      Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered at that a close
      intimacy arose between the two little captives. Indeed, they soon became
      sworn friends. Hop-Frog, who, although he made a great deal of sport, was
      by no means popular, had it not in his power to render Trippetta many
      services; but she, on account of her grace and exquisite beauty (although
      a dwarf), was universally admired and petted; so she possessed much
      influence; and never failed to use it, whenever she could, for the benefit
      of Hop-Frog.
    
      On some grand state occasion—I forgot what—the king determined
      to have a masquerade, and whenever a masquerade or any thing of that kind,
      occurred at our court, then the talents, both of Hop-Frog and Trippetta
      were sure to be called into play. Hop-Frog, in especial, was so inventive
      in the way of getting up pageants, suggesting novel characters, and
      arranging costumes, for masked balls, that nothing could be done, it
      seems, without his assistance.
    
      The night appointed for the fete had arrived. A gorgeous hall had been
      fitted up, under Trippetta’s eye, with every kind of device which could
      possibly give eclat to a masquerade. The whole court was in a fever of
      expectation. As for costumes and characters, it might well be supposed
      that everybody had come to a decision on such points. Many had made up
      their minds (as to what roles they should assume) a week, or even a month,
      in advance; and, in fact, there was not a particle of indecision anywhere—except
      in the case of the king and his seven minsters. Why they hesitated I never
      could tell, unless they did it by way of a joke. More probably, they found
      it difficult, on account of being so fat, to make up their minds. At all
      events, time flew; and, as a last resort they sent for Trippetta and
      Hop-Frog.
    
      When the two little friends obeyed the summons of the king they found him
      sitting at his wine with the seven members of his cabinet council; but the
      monarch appeared to be in a very ill humor. He knew that Hop-Frog was not
      fond of wine, for it excited the poor cripple almost to madness; and
      madness is no comfortable feeling. But the king loved his practical jokes,
      and took pleasure in forcing Hop-Frog to drink and (as the king called it)
      “to be merry.”
    
      “Come here, Hop-Frog,” said he, as the jester and his friend entered the
      room; “swallow this bumper to the health of your absent friends, [here
      Hop-Frog sighed,] and then let us have the benefit of your invention. We
      want characters—characters, man—something novel—out of
      the way. We are wearied with this everlasting sameness. Come, drink! the
      wine will brighten your wits.”
     
    
      Hop-Frog endeavored, as usual, to get up a jest in reply to these advances
      from the king; but the effort was too much. It happened to be the poor
      dwarf’s birthday, and the command to drink to his “absent friends” forced
      the tears to his eyes. Many large, bitter drops fell into the goblet as he
      took it, humbly, from the hand of the tyrant.
    
      “Ah! ha! ha! ha!” roared the latter, as the dwarf reluctantly
      drained the beaker. “See what a glass of good wine can do! Why,
      your eyes are shining already!”
     
    
      Poor fellow! his large eyes gleamed, rather than shone; for the effect of
      wine on his excitable brain was not more powerful than instantaneous. He
      placed the goblet nervously on the table, and looked round upon the
      company with a half-insane stare. They all seemed highly amused at
      the success of the king’s ‘joke.’
    
      “And now to business,” said the prime minister, a very fat man.
    
      “Yes,” said the King; “Come, Hop-Frog, lend us your
      assistance. Characters, my fine fellow; we stand in need of
      characters—all of us—ha! ha! ha!” and as this was
      seriously meant for a joke, his laugh was chorused by the seven.
    
      Hop-Frog also laughed, although feebly and somewhat vacantly.
    
      “Come, come,” said the king, impatiently, “have you nothing to suggest?”
     
    
      “I am endeavoring to think of something novel,” replied the dwarf,
      abstractedly, for he was quite bewildered by the wine.
    
      “Endeavoring!” cried the tyrant, fiercely; “what do you
      mean by _that?_ Ah, I perceive. You are sulky, and want more wine.
      Here, drink this!” and he poured out another goblet full and
      offered it to the cripple, who merely gazed at it, gasping for breath.
    
      “Drink, I say!” shouted the monster, “or by the
      fiends—”
     
    
      The dwarf hesitated. The king grew purple with rage. The courtiers
      smirked. Trippetta, pale as a corpse, advanced to the monarch’s seat, and,
      falling on her knees before him, implored him to spare her friend.
    
      The tyrant regarded her, for some moments, in evident wonder at her
      audacity. He seemed quite at a loss what to do or say—how most
      becomingly to express his indignation. At last, without uttering a
      syllable, he pushed her violently from him, and threw the contents of the
      brimming goblet in her face.
    
      The poor girl got up the best she could, and, not daring even to sigh,
      resumed her position at the foot of the table.
    
      There was a dead silence for about half a minute, during which the falling
      of a leaf, or of a feather, might have been heard. It was interrupted by a
      low, but harsh and protracted grating sound which seemed to come at once
      from every corner of the room.
    
      “What—what—what are you making that noise for?” demanded the
      king, turning furiously to the dwarf.
    
      The latter seemed to have recovered, in great measure, from his
      intoxication, and looking fixedly but quietly into the tyrant’s face,
      merely ejaculated:
    
      “I—I? How could it have been me?”
     
    
      “The sound appeared to come from without,” observed one of the courtiers.
      “I fancy it was the parrot at the window, whetting his bill upon his
      cage-wires.”
     
    
      “True,” replied the monarch, as if much relieved by the suggestion; “but,
      on the honor of a knight, I could have sworn that it was the gritting of
      this vagabond’s teeth.”
     
    
      Hereupon the dwarf laughed (the king was too confirmed a joker to object
      to any one’s laughing), and displayed a set of large, powerful, and very
      repulsive teeth. Moreover, he avowed his perfect willingness to swallow as
      much wine as desired. The monarch was pacified; and having drained another
      bumper with no very perceptible ill effect, Hop-Frog entered at once, and
      with spirit, into the plans for the masquerade.
    
      “I cannot tell what was the association of idea,” observed he, very
      tranquilly, and as if he had never tasted wine in his life, “but just
      after your majesty, had struck the girl and thrown the wine in her face—just
      after your majesty had done this, and while the parrot was making that odd
      noise outside the window, there came into my mind a capital diversion—one
      of my own country frolics—often enacted among us, at our
      masquerades: but here it will be new altogether. Unfortunately, however,
      it requires a company of eight persons and—”
     
    
      “Here we are!” cried the king, laughing at his acute discovery of the
      coincidence; “eight to a fraction—I and my seven ministers. Come!
      what is the diversion?”
     
    
      “We call it,” replied the cripple, “the Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs, and
      it really is excellent sport if well enacted.”
     
    
      “We will enact it,” remarked the king, drawing himself up, and lowering
      his eyelids.
    
      “The beauty of the game,” continued Hop-Frog, “lies in the fright it
      occasions among the women.”
     
    
      “Capital!” roared in chorus the monarch and his ministry.
    
      “I will equip you as ourang-outangs,” proceeded the dwarf; “leave all that
      to me. The resemblance shall be so striking, that the company of
      masqueraders will take you for real beasts—and of course, they will
      be as much terrified as astonished.”
     
    
      “Oh, this is exquisite!” exclaimed the king. “Hop-Frog! I will make a man
      of you.”
     
    
      “The chains are for the purpose of increasing the confusion by their
      jangling. You are supposed to have escaped, en masse, from your keepers.
      Your majesty cannot conceive the effect produced, at a masquerade, by
      eight chained ourang-outangs, imagined to be real ones by most of the
      company; and rushing in with savage cries, among the crowd of delicately
      and gorgeously habited men and women. The _contrast_ is inimitable.”
     
    
      “It must be,” said the king: and the council arose hurriedly (as it was
      growing late), to put in execution the scheme of Hop-Frog.
    
      His mode of equipping the party as ourang-outangs was very simple, but
      effective enough for his purposes. The animals in question had, at the
      epoch of my story, very rarely been seen in any part of the civilized
      world; and as the imitations made by the dwarf were sufficiently
      beast-like and more than sufficiently hideous, their truthfulness to
      nature was thus thought to be secured.
    
      The king and his ministers were first encased in tight-fitting stockinet
      shirts and drawers. They were then saturated with tar. At this stage of
      the process, some one of the party suggested feathers; but the suggestion
      was at once overruled by the dwarf, who soon convinced the eight, by
      ocular demonstration, that the hair of such a brute as the ourang-outang
      was much more efficiently represented by _flax_. A thick coating of
      the latter was accordingly plastered upon the coating of tar. A long
      chain was now procured. First, it was passed about the waist of the king,
      _and tied;_ then about another of the party, and also tied; then
      about all successively, in the same manner. When this chaining
      arrangement was complete, and the party stood as far apart from each
      other as possible, they formed a circle; and to make all things appear
      natural, Hop-Frog passed the residue of the chain in two diameters, at
      right angles, across the circle, after the fashion adopted, at the
      present day, by those who capture chimpanzees, or other large apes, in
      Borneo.
    
      The grand saloon in which the masquerade was to take place, was a circular
      room, very lofty, and receiving the light of the sun only through a single
      window at top. At night (the season for which the apartment was especially
      designed) it was illuminated principally by a large chandelier, depending
      by a chain from the centre of the sky-light, and lowered, or elevated, by
      means of a counter-balance as usual; but (in order not to look unsightly)
      this latter passed outside the cupola and over the roof.
    
      The arrangements of the room had been left to Trippetta’s superintendence;
      but, in some particulars, it seems, she had been guided by the calmer
      judgment of her friend the dwarf. At his suggestion it was that, on this
      occasion, the chandelier was removed. Its waxen drippings (which, in
      weather so warm, it was quite impossible to prevent) would have been
      seriously detrimental to the rich dresses of the guests, who, on account
      of the crowded state of the saloon, could not all be expected to keep from
      out its centre; that is to say, from under the chandelier. Additional
      sconces were set in various parts of the hall, out of the war, and a
      flambeau, emitting sweet odor, was placed in the right hand of each of the
      Caryaides [Caryatides] that stood against the wall—some fifty or
      sixty altogether.
    
      The eight ourang-outangs, taking Hop-Frog’s advice, waited patiently until
      midnight (when the room was thoroughly filled with masqueraders) before
      making their appearance. No sooner had the clock ceased striking, however,
      than they rushed, or rather rolled in, all together—for the
      impediments of their chains caused most of the party to fall, and all to
      stumble as they entered.
    
      The excitement among the masqueraders was prodigious, and filled the heart
      of the king with glee. As had been anticipated, there were not a few of
      the guests who supposed the ferocious-looking creatures to be beasts of
      some kind in reality, if not precisely ourang-outangs. Many of the women
      swooned with affright; and had not the king taken the precaution to
      exclude all weapons from the saloon, his party might soon have expiated
      their frolic in their blood. As it was, a general rush was made for the
      doors; but the king had ordered them to be locked immediately upon his
      entrance; and, at the dwarf’s suggestion, the keys had been deposited with
      him.
    
      While the tumult was at its height, and each masquerader attentive only to
      his own safety (for, in fact, there was much real danger from the pressure
      of the excited crowd), the chain by which the chandelier ordinarily hung,
      and which had been drawn up on its removal, might have been seen very
      gradually to descend, until its hooked extremity came within three feet of
      the floor.
    
      Soon after this, the king and his seven friends having reeled about the
      hall in all directions, found themselves, at length, in its centre, and,
      of course, in immediate contact with the chain. While they were thus
      situated, the dwarf, who had followed noiselessly at their heels, inciting
      them to keep up the commotion, took hold of their own chain at the
      intersection of the two portions which crossed the circle diametrically
      and at right angles. Here, with the rapidity of thought, he inserted the
      hook from which the chandelier had been wont to depend; and, in an
      instant, by some unseen agency, the chandelier-chain was drawn so far
      upward as to take the hook out of reach, and, as an inevitable
      consequence, to drag the ourang-outangs together in close connection, and
      face to face.
    
      The masqueraders, by this time, had recovered, in some measure, from their
      alarm; and, beginning to regard the whole matter as a well-contrived
      pleasantry, set up a loud shout of laughter at the predicament of the
      apes.
    
      “Leave them to me!” now screamed Hop-Frog, his shrill voice making itself
      easily heard through all the din. “Leave them to me. I fancy I know them.
      If I can only get a good look at them, I can soon tell who they are.”
     
    
      Here, scrambling over the heads of the crowd, he managed to get to the
      wall; when, seizing a flambeau from one of the Caryatides, he returned,
      as he went, to the centre of the room—leaped, with the agility of a
      monkey, upon the kings head, and thence clambered a few feet up the
      chain; holding down the torch to examine the group of ourang-outangs, and
      still screaming: “I shall soon find out who they are!”
     
    
      And now, while the whole assembly (the apes included) were convulsed with
      laughter, the jester suddenly uttered a shrill whistle; when the chain
      flew violently up for about thirty feet—dragging with it the
      dismayed and struggling ourang-outangs, and leaving them suspended in
      mid-air between the sky-light and the floor. Hop-Frog, clinging to the
      chain as it rose, still maintained his relative position in respect to the
      eight maskers, and still (as if nothing were the matter) continued to
      thrust his torch down toward them, as though endeavoring to discover who
      they were.
    
      So thoroughly astonished was the whole company at this ascent, that a dead
      silence, of about a minute’s duration, ensued. It was broken by just such
      a low, harsh, grating sound, as had before attracted the attention of the
      king and his councillors when the former threw the wine in the face of
      Trippetta. But, on the present occasion, there could be no question as to
      whence the sound issued. It came from the fang-like teeth of the
      dwarf, who ground them and gnashed them as he foamed at the mouth, and
      glared, with an expression of maniacal rage, into the upturned
      countenances of the king and his seven companions.
    
      “Ah, ha!” said at length the infuriated jester. “Ah, ha! I begin to see
      who these people are now!” Here, pretending to scrutinize the king more
      closely, he held the flambeau to the flaxen coat which enveloped him, and
      which instantly burst into a sheet of vivid flame. In less than half a
      minute the whole eight ourang-outangs were blazing fiercely, amid the
      shrieks of the multitude who gazed at them from below, horror-stricken,
      and without the power to render them the slightest assistance.
    
      At length the flames, suddenly increasing in virulence, forced the jester
      to climb higher up the chain, to be out of their reach; and, as he made
      this movement, the crowd again sank, for a brief instant, into silence.
      The dwarf seized his opportunity, and once more spoke:
    
      “I now see distinctly.” he said, “what manner of people these maskers are.
      They are a great king and his seven privy-councillors,—a king who
      does not scruple to strike a defenceless girl and his seven councillors
      who abet him in the outrage. As for myself, I am simply Hop-Frog, the
      jester—and this is my last jest.”
     
    
      Owing to the high combustibility of both the flax and the tar to which it
      adhered, the dwarf had scarcely made an end of his brief speech before the
      work of vengeance was complete. The eight corpses swung in their chains, a
      fetid, blackened, hideous, and indistinguishable mass. The cripple hurled
      his torch at them, clambered leisurely to the ceiling, and disappeared
      through the sky-light.
    
      It is supposed that Trippetta, stationed on the roof of the saloon, had
      been the accomplice of her friend in his fiery revenge, and that,
      together, they effected their escape to their own country; for neither was
      seen again.




THE MAN OF THE CROWD.


Ce grand malheur, de ne pouvoir être seul.—_La Bruyère_.

    
      It was well said of a certain German book that “_er lasst sich nicht
      lesen_”—it does not permit itself to be read. There are some
      secrets which do not permit themselves to be told. Men die nightly in
      their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors and looking them
      piteously in the eyes—die with despair of heart and convulsion of
      throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer
      themselves to be revealed. Now and then, alas, the conscience of man takes
      up a burthen so heavy in horror that it can be thrown down only into the
      grave. And thus the essence of all crime is undivulged.
    
      Not long ago, about the closing in of an evening in autumn, I sat at the
      large bow window of the D—— Coffee-House in London. For some
      months I had been ill in health, but was now convalescent, and, with
      returning strength, found myself in one of those happy moods which are so
      precisely the converse of _ennui_—moods of the keenest
      appetency, when the film from the mental vision departs—the
      αχλυξ η πριυ
      επῆευ—and the intellect, electrified,
      surpasses as greatly its every-day condition, as does the vivid yet
      candid reason of Leibnitz, the mad and flimsy rhetoric of Gorgias. Merely
      to breathe was enjoyment; and I derived positive pleasure even from many
      of the legitimate sources of pain. I felt a calm but inquisitive interest
      in every thing. With a cigar in my mouth and a newspaper in my lap, I had
      been amusing myself for the greater part of the afternoon, now in poring
      over advertisements, now in observing the promiscuous company in the
      room, and now in peering through the smoky panes into the street.
    
      This latter is one of the principal thoroughfares of the city, and had
      been very much crowded during the whole day. But, as the darkness came on,
      the throng momently increased; and, by the time the lamps were well
      lighted, two dense and continuous tides of population were rushing past
      the door. At this particular period of the evening I had never before been
      in a similar situation, and the tumultuous sea of human heads filled me,
      therefore, with a delicious novelty of emotion. I gave up, at length, all
      care of things within the hotel, and became absorbed in contemplation of
      the scene without.
    
      At first my observations took an abstract and generalizing turn. I looked
      at the passengers in masses, and thought of them in their aggregate
      relations. Soon, however, I descended to details, and regarded with minute
      interest the innumerable varieties of figure, dress, air, gait, visage,
      and expression of countenance.
    
      By far the greater number of those who went by had a satisfied
      business-like demeanor, and seemed to be thinking only of making their way
      through the press. Their brows were knit, and their eyes rolled quickly;
      when pushed against by fellow-wayfarers they evinced no symptom of
      impatience, but adjusted their clothes and hurried on. Others, still a
      numerous class, were restless in their movements, had flushed faces, and
      talked and gesticulated to themselves, as if feeling in solitude on
      account of the very denseness of the company around. When impeded in their
      progress, these people suddenly ceased muttering, but re-doubled their
      gesticulations, and awaited, with an absent and overdone smile upon the
      lips, the course of the persons impeding them. If jostled, they bowed
      profusely to the jostlers, and appeared overwhelmed with confusion.—There
      was nothing very distinctive about these two large classes beyond what I
      have noted. Their habiliments belonged to that order which is pointedly
      termed the decent. They were undoubtedly noblemen, merchants, attorneys,
      tradesmen, stock-jobbers—the Eupatrids and the common-places of
      society—men of leisure and men actively engaged in affairs of their
      own—conducting business upon their own responsibility. They did not
      greatly excite my attention.
    
      The tribe of clerks was an obvious one and here I discerned two remarkable
      divisions. There were the junior clerks of flash houses—young
      gentlemen with tight coats, bright boots, well-oiled hair, and
      supercilious lips. Setting aside a certain dapperness of carriage, which
      may be termed deskism for want of a better word, the manner of these
      persons seemed to me an exact fac-simile of what had been the perfection
      of bon ton about twelve or eighteen months before. They wore the cast-off
      graces of the gentry;—and this, I believe, involves the best
      definition of the class.
    
      The division of the upper clerks of staunch firms, or of the “steady old
      fellows,” it was not possible to mistake. These were known by their coats
      and pantaloons of black or brown, made to sit comfortably, with white
      cravats and waistcoats, broad solid-looking shoes, and thick hose or
      gaiters. They had all slightly bald heads, from which the right
      ears, long used to pen-holding, had an odd habit of standing off on end. I
      observed that they always removed or settled their hats with both hands,
      and wore watches, with short gold chains of a substantial and ancient
      pattern. Theirs was the affectation of respectability—if indeed
      there be an affectation so honorable.
    
      There were many individuals of dashing appearance, whom I easily
      understood as belonging to the race of swell pick-pockets with which all
      great cities are infested. I watched these gentry with much
      inquisitiveness, and found it difficult to imagine how they should ever be
      mistaken for gentlemen by gentlemen themselves. Their voluminousness of
      wristband, with an air of excessive frankness, should betray them at once.
    
      The gamblers, of whom I descried not a few, were still more easily
      recognisable. They wore every variety of dress, from that of the
      desperate thimble-rig bully, with velvet waistcoat, fancy neckerchief,
      gilt chains, and filagreed buttons, to that of the scrupulously inornate
      clergyman, than which nothing could be less liable to suspicion. Still
      all were distinguished by a certain sodden swarthiness of complexion, a
      filmy dimness of eye, and pallor and compression of lip. There were two
      other traits, moreover, by which I could always detect them: a guarded
      lowness of tone in conversation, and a more than ordinary extension of
      the thumb in a direction at right angles with the fingers. Very often, in
      company with these sharpers, I observed an order of men somewhat
      different in habits, but still birds of a kindred feather. They may be
      defined as the gentlemen who live by their wits. They seem to prey upon
      the public in two battalions—that of the dandies and that of the
      military men. Of the first grade the leading features are long locks and
      smiles; of the second, frogged coats and frowns.
    
      Descending in the scale of what is termed gentility, I found darker and
      deeper themes for speculation. I saw Jew pedlars, with hawk eyes flashing
      from countenances whose every other feature wore only an expression of
      abject humility; sturdy professional street beggars scowling upon
      mendicants of a better stamp, whom despair alone had driven forth into the
      night for charity; feeble and ghastly invalids, upon whom death had placed
      a sure hand, and who sidled and tottered through the mob, looking every
      one beseechingly in the face, as if in search of some chance consolation,
      some lost hope; modest young girls returning from long and late labor to a
      cheerless home, and shrinking more tearfully than indignantly from the
      glances of ruffians, whose direct contact, even, could not be avoided;
      women of the town of all kinds and of all ages—the unequivocal
      beauty in the prime of her womanhood, putting one in mind of the statue in
      Lucian, with the surface of Parian marble, and the interior filled with
      filth—the loathsome and utterly lost leper in rags—the
      wrinkled, bejewelled and paint-begrimed beldame, making a last effort at
      youth—the mere child of immature form, yet, from long association,
      an adept in the dreadful coquetries of her trade, and burning with a rabid
      ambition to be ranked the equal of her elders in vice; drunkards
      innumerable and indescribable—some in shreds and patches, reeling,
      inarticulate, with bruised visage and lack-lustre eyes—some in whole
      although filthy garments, with a slightly unsteady swagger, thick sensual
      lips, and hearty-looking rubicund faces—others clothed in materials
      which had once been good, and which even now were scrupulously well
      brushed—men who walked with a more than naturally firm and springy
      step, but whose countenances were fearfully pale, whose eyes hideously
      wild and red, and who clutched with quivering fingers, as they strode
      through the crowd, at every object which came within their reach; beside
      these, pie-men, porters, coal-heavers, sweeps; organ-grinders,
      monkey-exhibitors, and ballad mongers, those who vended with those who
      sang; ragged artizans and exhausted laborers of every description, and all
      full of a noisy and inordinate vivacity which jarred discordantly upon the
      ear, and gave an aching sensation to the eye.
    
      As the night deepened, so deepened to me the interest of the scene; for
      not only did the general character of the crowd materially alter (its
      gentler features retiring in the gradual withdrawal of the more orderly
      portion of the people, and its harsher ones coming out into bolder relief,
      as the late hour brought forth every species of infamy from its den,) but
      the rays of the gas-lamps, feeble at first in their struggle with the
      dying day, had now at length gained ascendancy, and threw over every thing
      a fitful and garish lustre. All was dark yet splendid—as that ebony
      to which has been likened the style of Tertullian.
    
      The wild effects of the light enchained me to an examination of individual
      faces; and although the rapidity with which the world of light flitted
      before the window, prevented me from casting more than a glance upon each
      visage, still it seemed that, in my then peculiar mental state, I could
      frequently read, even in that brief interval of a glance, the history of
      long years.
    
      With my brow to the glass, I was thus occupied in scrutinizing the mob,
      when suddenly there came into view a countenance (that of a decrepid old
      man, some sixty-five or seventy years of age,)—a countenance which
      at once arrested and absorbed my whole attention, on account of the
      absolute idiosyncrasy of its expression. Any thing even remotely
      resembling that expression I had never seen before. I well remember that
      my first thought, upon beholding it, was that Retzch, had he viewed it,
      would have greatly preferred it to his own pictural incarnations of the
      fiend. As I endeavored, during the brief minute of my original survey, to
      form some analysis of the meaning conveyed, there arose confusedly and
      paradoxically within my mind, the ideas of vast mental power, of caution,
      of penuriousness, of avarice, of coolness, of malice, of blood
      thirstiness, of triumph, of merriment, of excessive terror, of intense—of
      supreme despair. I felt singularly aroused, startled, fascinated. “How
      wild a history,” I said to myself, “is written within that bosom!” Then
      came a craving desire to keep the man in view—to know more of him.
      Hurriedly putting on an overcoat, and seizing my hat and cane, I made my
      way into the street, and pushed through the crowd in the direction which I
      had seen him take; for he had already disappeared. With some little
      difficulty I at length came within sight of him, approached, and followed
      him closely, yet cautiously, so as not to attract his attention.
    
      I had now a good opportunity of examining his person. He was short in
      stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble. His clothes, generally,
      were filthy and ragged; but as he came, now and then, within the strong
      glare of a lamp, I perceived that his linen, although dirty, was of
      beautiful texture; and my vision deceived me, or, through a rent in a
      closely-buttoned and evidently second-handed roquelaire which enveloped
      him, I caught a glimpse both of a diamond and of a dagger. These
      observations heightened my curiosity, and I resolved to follow the
      stranger whithersoever he should go.
    
      It was now fully night-fall, and a thick humid fog hung over the city,
      soon ending in a settled and heavy rain. This change of weather had an odd
      effect upon the crowd, the whole of which was at once put into new
      commotion, and overshadowed by a world of umbrellas. The waver, the
      jostle, and the hum increased in a tenfold degree. For my own part I did
      not much regard the rain—the lurking of an old fever in my system
      rendering the moisture somewhat too dangerously pleasant. Tying a
      handkerchief about my mouth, I kept on. For half an hour the old man held
      his way with difficulty along the great thoroughfare; and I here walked
      close at his elbow through fear of losing sight of him. Never once turning
      his head to look back, he did not observe me. By and by he passed into a
      cross street, which, although densely filled with people, was not quite so
      much thronged as the main one he had quitted. Here a change in his
      demeanor became evident. He walked more slowly and with less object than
      before—more hesitatingly. He crossed and re-crossed the way
      repeatedly without apparent aim; and the press was still so thick that, at
      every such movement, I was obliged to follow him closely. The street was a
      narrow and long one, and his course lay within it for nearly an hour,
      during which the passengers had gradually diminished to about that number
      which is ordinarily seen at noon in Broadway near the park—so vast a
      difference is there between a London populace and that of the most
      frequented American city. A second turn brought us into a square,
      brilliantly lighted, and overflowing with life. The old manner of the
      stranger re-appeared. His chin fell upon his breast, while his eyes rolled
      wildly from under his knit brows, in every direction, upon those who
      hemmed him in. He urged his way steadily and perseveringly. I was
      surprised, however, to find, upon his having made the circuit of the
      square, that he turned and retraced his steps. Still more was I astonished
      to see him repeat the same walk several times—once nearly detecting
      me as he came round with a sudden movement.
    
      In this exercise he spent another hour, at the end of which we met with
      far less interruption from passengers than at first. The rain fell fast;
      the air grew cool; and the people were retiring to their homes. With a
      gesture of impatience, the wanderer passed into a by-street comparatively
      deserted. Down this, some quarter of a mile long, he rushed with an
      activity I could not have dreamed of seeing in one so aged, and which put
      me to much trouble in pursuit. A few minutes brought us to a large and
      busy bazaar, with the localities of which the stranger appeared well
      acquainted, and where his original demeanor again became apparent, as he
      forced his way to and fro, without aim, among the host of buyers and
      sellers.
    
      During the hour and a half, or thereabouts, which we passed in this place,
      it required much caution on my part to keep him within reach without
      attracting his observation. Luckily I wore a pair of caoutchouc
      over-shoes, and could move about in perfect silence. At no moment did he
      see that I watched him. He entered shop after shop, priced nothing, spoke
      no word, and looked at all objects with a wild and vacant stare. I was now
      utterly amazed at his behavior, and firmly resolved that we should not
      part until I had satisfied myself in some measure respecting him.
    
      A loud-toned clock struck eleven, and the company were fast deserting the
      bazaar. A shop-keeper, in putting up a shutter, jostled the old man, and
      at the instant I saw a strong shudder come over his frame. He hurried into
      the street, looked anxiously around him for an instant, and then ran with
      incredible swiftness through many crooked and people-less lanes, until we
      emerged once more upon the great thoroughfare whence we had started—the
      street of the D—— Hotel. It no longer wore, however, the same
      aspect. It was still brilliant with gas; but the rain fell fiercely, and
      there were few persons to be seen. The stranger grew pale. He walked
      moodily some paces up the once populous avenue, then, with a heavy sigh,
      turned in the direction of the river, and, plunging through a great
      variety of devious ways, came out, at length, in view of one of the
      principal theatres. It was about being closed, and the audience were
      thronging from the doors. I saw the old man gasp as if for breath while he
      threw himself amid the crowd; but I thought that the intense agony of his
      countenance had, in some measure, abated. His head again fell upon his
      breast; he appeared as I had seen him at first. I observed that he now
      took the course in which had gone the greater number of the audience—but,
      upon the whole, I was at a loss to comprehend the waywardness of his
      actions.
    
      As he proceeded, the company grew more scattered, and his old uneasiness
      and vacillation were resumed. For some time he followed closely a party of
      some ten or twelve roisterers; but from this number one by one dropped
      off, until three only remained together, in a narrow and gloomy lane
      little frequented. The stranger paused, and, for a moment, seemed lost in
      thought; then, with every mark of agitation, pursued rapidly a route which
      brought us to the verge of the city, amid regions very different from
      those we had hitherto traversed. It was the most noisome quarter of
      London, where every thing wore the worst impress of the most deplorable
      poverty, and of the most desperate crime. By the dim light of an
      accidental lamp, tall, antique, worm-eaten, wooden tenements were seen
      tottering to their fall, in directions so many and capricious that scarce
      the semblance of a passage was discernible between them. The paving-stones
      lay at random, displaced from their beds by the rankly-growing grass.
      Horrible filth festered in the dammed-up gutters. The whole atmosphere
      teemed with desolation. Yet, as we proceeded, the sounds of human life
      revived by sure degrees, and at length large bands of the most abandoned
      of a London populace were seen reeling to and fro. The spirits of the old
      man again flickered up, as a lamp which is near its death hour. Once more
      he strode onward with elastic tread. Suddenly a corner was turned, a blaze
      of light burst upon our sight, and we stood before one of the huge
      suburban temples of Intemperance—one of the palaces of the fiend,
      Gin.
    
      It was now nearly day-break; but a number of wretched inebriates still
      pressed in and out of the flaunting entrance. With a half shriek of joy
      the old man forced a passage within, resumed at once his original
      bearing, and stalked backward and forward, without apparent object, among
      the throng. He had not been thus long occupied, however, before a rush to
      the doors gave token that the host was closing them for the night. It was
      something even more intense than despair that I then observed upon the
      countenance of the singular being whom I had watched so pertinaciously.
      Yet he did not hesitate in his career, but, with a mad energy, retraced
      his steps at once, to the heart of the mighty London. Long and swiftly he
      fled, while I followed him in the wildest amazement, resolute not to
      abandon a scrutiny in which I now felt an interest all-absorbing. The sun
      arose while we proceeded, and, when we had once again reached that most
      thronged mart of the populous town, the street of the D——
      Hotel, it presented an appearance of human bustle and activity scarcely
      inferior to what I had seen on the evening before. And here, long, amid
      the momently increasing confusion, did I persist in my pursuit of the
      stranger. But, as usual, he walked to and fro, and during the day did not
      pass from out the turmoil of that street. And, as the shades of the
      second evening came on, I grew wearied unto death, and, stopping fully in
      front of the wanderer, gazed at him steadfastly in the face. He noticed
      me not, but resumed his solemn walk, while I, ceasing to follow, remained
      absorbed in contemplation. “This old man,” I said at length,
      “is the type and the genius of deep crime. He refuses to be alone.
      _He is the man of the crowd._ It will be in vain to follow; for I
      shall learn no more of him, nor of his deeds. The worst heart of the
      world is a grosser book than the ‘Hortulus Animæ,’ {*1} and
      perhaps it is but one of the great mercies of God that ‘_er lasst
      sich nicht lesen._’”
     
    
      {*1} The “_Hortulus Animæ cum Oratiunculis Aliquibus Superadditis_”
       of Grünninger.




NEVER BET THE DEVIL YOUR HEAD


      A Tale With a Moral.
    
      “_Con tal que las costumbres de un autor_,” says Don Thomas de las
      Torres, in the preface to his “Amatory Poems” _“sean puras y castas,
      importo muy poco que no sean igualmente severas sus obras”_—meaning,
      in plain English, that, provided the morals of an author are pure
      personally, it signifies nothing what are the morals of his books. We
      presume that Don Thomas is now in Purgatory for the assertion. It would be
      a clever thing, too, in the way of poetical justice, to keep him there
      until his “Amatory Poems” get out of print, or are laid definitely upon
      the shelf through lack of readers. Every fiction should have a moral; and,
      what is more to the purpose, the critics have discovered that every
      fiction has. Philip Melanchthon, some time ago, wrote a commentary upon
      the “Batrachomyomachia,” and proved that the poet’s object was to excite a
      distaste for sedition. Pierre la Seine, going a step farther, shows that
      the intention was to recommend to young men temperance in eating and
      drinking. Just so, too, Jacobus Hugo has satisfied himself that, by
      Euenis, Homer meant to insinuate John Calvin; by Antinous, Martin Luther;
      by the Lotophagi, Protestants in general; and, by the Harpies, the Dutch.
      Our more modern Scholiasts are equally acute. These fellows demonstrate a
      hidden meaning in “The Antediluvians,” a parable in Powhatan, “new views
      in Cock Robin,” and transcendentalism in “Hop O’ My Thumb.” In short, it
      has been shown that no man can sit down to write without a very profound
      design. Thus to authors in general much trouble is spared. A novelist, for
      example, need have no care of his moral. It is there—that is to say,
      it is somewhere—and the moral and the critics can take care of
      themselves. When the proper time arrives, all that the gentleman intended,
      and all that he did not intend, will be brought to light, in the “Dial,”
       or the “Down-Easter,” together with all that he ought to have intended,
      and the rest that he clearly meant to intend:—so that it will all
      come very straight in the end.
    
      There is no just ground, therefore, for the charge brought against me by
      certain ignoramuses—that I have never written a moral tale, or, in
      more precise words, a tale with a moral. They are not the critics
      predestined to bring me out, and develop my morals:—that is the
      secret. By and by the “North American Quarterly Humdrum” will make them
      ashamed of their stupidity. In the meantime, by way of staying execution—by
      way of mitigating the accusations against me—I offer the sad history
      appended,—a history about whose obvious moral there can be no
      question whatever, since he who runs may read it in the large capitals
      which form the title of the tale. I should have credit for this
      arrangement—a far wiser one than that of La Fontaine and others, who
      reserve the impression to be conveyed until the last moment, and thus
      sneak it in at the fag end of their fables.
    
      _Defuncti injuriâ ne afficiantur_ was a law of the twelve tables, and _De
      mortuis nil nisi bonum_ is an excellent injunction—even if the dead
      in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design,
      therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit. He was a sad
      dog, it is true, and a dog’s death it was that he died; but he himself was
      not to blame for his vices. They grew out of a personal defect in his
      mother. She did her best in the way of flogging him while an infant—for
      duties to her well-regulated mind were always pleasures, and babies,
      like tough steaks, or the modern Greek olive trees, are invariably the
      better for beating—but, poor woman! she had the misfortune to be
      left-handed, and a child flogged left-handedly had better be left
      unflogged. The world revolves from right to left. It will not do to whip a
      baby from left to right. If each blow in the proper direction drives an
      evil propensity out, it follows that every thump in an opposite one knocks
      its quota of wickedness in. I was often present at Toby’s chastisements,
      and, even by the way in which he kicked, I could perceive that he was
      getting worse and worse every day. At last I saw, through the tears in my
      eyes, that there was no hope of the villain at all, and one day when he
      had been cuffed until he grew so black in the face that one might have
      mistaken him for a little African, and no effect had been produced beyond
      that of making him wriggle himself into a fit, I could stand it no longer,
      but went down upon my knees forthwith, and, uplifting my voice, made
      prophecy of his ruin.
    
      The fact is that his precocity in vice was awful. At five months of age he
      used to get into such passions that he was unable to articulate. At six
      months, I caught him gnawing a pack of cards. At seven months he was in
      the constant habit of catching and kissing the female babies. At eight
      months he peremptorily refused to put his signature to the Temperance
      pledge. Thus he went on increasing in iniquity, month after month, until,
      at the close of the first year, he not only insisted upon wearing
      moustaches, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and
      for backing his assertions by bets.
    
      Through this latter most ungentlemanly practice, the ruin which I had
      predicted to Toby Dammit overtook him at last. The fashion had “grown with
      his growth and strengthened with his strength,” so that, when he came to
      be a man, he could scarcely utter a sentence without interlarding it with
      a proposition to gamble. Not that he actually laid wagers—no. I will
      do my friend the justice to say that he would as soon have laid eggs. With
      him the thing was a mere formula—nothing more. His expressions on
      this head had no meaning attached to them whatever. They were simple if
      not altogether innocent expletives—imaginative phrases wherewith to
      round off a sentence. When he said “I’ll bet you so and so,” nobody ever
      thought of taking him up; but still I could not help thinking it my duty
      to put him down. The habit was an immoral one, and so I told him. It was a
      vulgar one—this I begged him to believe. It was discountenanced by
      society—here I said nothing but the truth. It was forbidden by act
      of Congress—here I had not the slightest intention of telling a lie.
      I remonstrated—but to no purpose. I demonstrated—in vain. I
      entreated—he smiled. I implored—he laughed. I preached—he
      sneered. I threatened—he swore. I kicked him—he called for the
      police. I pulled his nose—he blew it, and offered to bet the Devil
      his head that I would not venture to try that experiment again.
    
      Poverty was another vice which the peculiar physical deficiency of
      Dammit’s mother had entailed upon her son. He was detestably poor, and
      this was the reason, no doubt, that his expletive expressions about
      betting, seldom took a pecuniary turn. I will not be bound to say that I
      ever heard him make use of such a figure of speech as “I’ll bet you a
      dollar.” It was usually “I’ll bet you what you please,” or “I’ll bet you
      what you dare,” or “I’ll bet you a trifle,” or else, more significantly
      still, “I’ll bet the Devil my head.”
     
    
      This latter form seemed to please him best;—perhaps because it
      involved the least risk; for Dammit had become excessively parsimonious.
      Had any one taken him up, his head was small, and thus his loss would have
      been small too. But these are my own reflections and I am by no means sure
      that I am right in attributing them to him. At all events the phrase in
      question grew daily in favor, notwithstanding the gross impropriety of a
      man betting his brains like bank-notes—but this was a point which
      my friend’s perversity of disposition would not permit him to comprehend.
      In the end, he abandoned all other forms of wager, and gave himself up to
      “I’ll bet the Devil my head,” with a pertinacity and exclusiveness of
      devotion that displeased not less than it surprised me. I am always
      displeased by circumstances for which I cannot account. Mysteries force a
      man to think, and so injure his health. The truth is, there was something
      in the air with which Mr. Dammit was wont to give utterance to his
      offensive expression—something in his manner of enunciation—which
      at first interested, and afterwards made me very uneasy—something
      which, for want of a more definite term at present, I must be permitted to
      call queer; but which Mr. Coleridge would have called mystical, Mr. Kant
      pantheistical, Mr. Carlyle twistical, and Mr. Emerson hyperquizzitistical.
      I began not to like it at all. Mr. Dammits soul was in a perilous state. I
      resolved to bring all my eloquence into play to save it. I vowed to serve
      him as St. Patrick, in the Irish chronicle, is said to have served the
      toad,—that is to say, “awaken him to a sense of his situation.” I
      addressed myself to the task forthwith. Once more I betook myself to
      remonstrance. Again I collected my energies for a final attempt at
      expostulation.
    
      When I had made an end of my lecture, Mr. Dammit indulged himself in some
      very equivocal behavior. For some moments he remained silent, merely
      looking me inquisitively in the face. But presently he threw his head to
      one side, and elevated his eyebrows to a great extent. Then he spread out
      the palms of his hands and shrugged up his shoulders. Then he winked with
      the right eye. Then he repeated the operation with the left. Then he shut
      them both up very tight. Then he opened them both so very wide that I became
      seriously alarmed for the consequences. Then, applying his thumb to his
      nose, he thought proper to make an indescribable movement with the rest of
      his fingers. Finally, setting his arms a-kimbo, he condescended to reply.
    
      I can call to mind only the heads of his discourse. He would be obliged to
      me if I would hold my tongue. He wished none of my advice. He despised all
      my insinuations. He was old enough to take care of himself. Did I still
      think him baby Dammit? Did I mean to say any thing against his character?
      Did I intend to insult him? Was I a fool? Was my maternal parent aware, in
      a word, of my absence from the domiciliary residence? He would put this
      latter question to me as to a man of veracity, and he would bind himself
      to abide by my reply. Once more he would demand explicitly if my mother
      knew that I was out. My confusion, he said, betrayed me, and he would be
      willing to bet the Devil his head that she did not.
    
      Mr. Dammit did not pause for my rejoinder. Turning upon his heel, he left
      my presence with undignified precipitation. It was well for him that he
      did so. My feelings had been wounded. Even my anger had been aroused. For
      once I would have taken him up upon his insulting wager. I would have won
      for the Arch-Enemy Mr. Dammit’s little head—for the fact is, my
      mamma was very well aware of my merely temporary absence from home.
    
      But Khoda shefa midêhed—Heaven gives relief—as the Mussulmans
      say when you tread upon their toes. It was in pursuance of my duty that I
      had been insulted, and I bore the insult like a man. It now seemed to me,
      however, that I had done all that could be required of me, in the case of
      this miserable individual, and I resolved to trouble him no longer with my
      counsel, but to leave him to his conscience and himself. But although I
      forebore to intrude with my advice, I could not bring myself to give up
      his society altogether. I even went so far as to humor some of his less
      reprehensible propensities; and there were times when I found myself
      lauding his wicked jokes, as epicures do mustard, with tears in my eyes:—so
      profoundly did it grieve me to hear his evil talk.
    
      One fine day, having strolled out together, arm in arm, our route led us
      in the direction of a river. There was a bridge, and we resolved to cross
      it. It was roofed over, by way of protection from the weather, and the
      archway, having but few windows, was thus very uncomfortably dark. As we
      entered the passage, the contrast between the external glare and the
      interior gloom struck heavily upon my spirits. Not so upon those of the
      unhappy Dammit, who offered to bet the Devil his head that I was hipped.
      He seemed to be in an unusual good humor. He was excessively lively—so
      much so that I entertained I know not what of uneasy suspicion. It is not
      impossible that he was affected with the transcendentals. I am not well
      enough versed, however, in the diagnosis of this disease to speak with
      decision upon the point; and unhappily there were none of my friends of
      the “Dial” present. I suggest the idea, nevertheless, because of a certain
      species of austere Merry-Andrewism which seemed to beset my poor friend,
      and caused him to make quite a Tom-Fool of himself. Nothing would serve
      him but wriggling and skipping about under and over every thing that came
      in his way; now shouting out, and now lisping out, all manner of odd
      little and big words, yet preserving the gravest face in the world all the
      time. I really could not make up my mind whether to kick or to pity him.
      At length, having passed nearly across the bridge, we approached the
      termination of the footway, when our progress was impeded by a turnstile
      of some height. Through this I made my way quietly, pushing it around as
      usual. But this turn would not serve the turn of Mr. Dammit. He insisted
      upon leaping the stile, and said he could cut a pigeon-wing over it in the
      air. Now this, conscientiously speaking, I did not think he could do. The
      best pigeon-winger over all kinds of style was my friend Mr. Carlyle, and
      as I knew he could not do it, I would not believe that it could be done by
      Toby Dammit. I therefore told him, in so many words, that he was a
      braggadocio, and could not do what he said. For this I had reason to be
      sorry afterward;—for he straightway offered to bet the Devil his
      head that he could.
    
      I was about to reply, notwithstanding my previous resolutions, with some
      remonstrance against his impiety, when I heard, close at my elbow, a
      slight cough, which sounded very much like the ejaculation “ahem!” I
      started, and looked about me in surprise. My glance at length fell into a
      nook of the frame—work of the bridge, and upon the figure of a
      little lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be more
      reverend than his whole appearance; for he not only had on a full suit of
      black, but his shirt was perfectly clean and the collar turned very neatly
      down over a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a
      girl’s. His hands were clasped pensively together over his stomach, and
      his two eyes were carefully rolled up into the top of his head.
    
      Upon observing him more closely, I perceived that he wore a black silk
      apron over his small-clothes; and this was a thing which I thought very
      odd. Before I had time to make any remark, however, upon so singular a
      circumstance, he interrupted me with a second “ahem!”
     
    
      To this observation I was not immediately prepared to reply. The fact is,
      remarks of this laconic nature are nearly unanswerable. I have known a
      Quarterly Review non-plussed by the word “Fudge!” I am not ashamed to say,
      therefore, that I turned to Mr. Dammit for assistance.
    
      “Dammit,” said I, “what are you about? don’t you hear?—the gentleman
      says ‘ahem!’” I looked sternly at my friend while I thus addressed him;
      for, to say the truth, I felt particularly puzzled, and when a man is
      particularly puzzled he must knit his brows and look savage, or else he is
      pretty sure to look like a fool.
    
      “Dammit,” observed I—although this sounded very much like an oath,
      than which nothing was further from my thoughts—“Dammit,” I
      suggested—“the gentleman says ‘ahem!’”
     
    
      I do not attempt to defend my remark on the score of profundity; I did not
      think it profound myself; but I have noticed that the effect of our
      speeches is not always proportionate with their importance in our own
      eyes; and if I had shot Mr. D. through and through with a Paixhan bomb, or
      knocked him in the head with the “Poets and Poetry of America,” he could
      hardly have been more discomfited than when I addressed him with those
      simple words: “Dammit, what are you about?—don’t you hear?—the
      gentleman says ‘ahem!’”
     
    
      “You don’t say so?” gasped he at length, after turning more colors than a
      pirate runs up, one after the other, when chased by a man-of-war. “Are you
      quite sure he said that? Well, at all events I am in for it now, and may
      as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes, then—ahem!”
     
    
      At this the little old gentleman seemed pleased—God only knows why.
      He left his station at the nook of the bridge, limped forward with a
      gracious air, took Dammit by the hand and shook it cordially, looking all
      the while straight up in his face with an air of the most unadulterated
      benignity which it is possible for the mind of man to imagine.
    
      “I am quite sure you will win it, Dammit,” said he, with the frankest of
      all smiles, “but we are obliged to have a trial, you know, for the sake of
      mere form.”
     
    
      “Ahem!” replied my friend, taking off his coat, with a deep sigh, tying a
      pocket-handkerchief around his waist, and producing an unaccountable
      alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes and bringing down
      the corners of his mouth—“ahem!” And “ahem!” said he again, after a
      pause; and not another word more than “ahem!” did I ever know him to say
      after that. “Aha!” thought I, without expressing myself aloud—“this
      is quite a remarkable silence on the part of Toby Dammit, and is no doubt
      a consequence of his verbosity upon a previous occasion. One extreme
      induces another. I wonder if he has forgotten the many unanswerable
      questions which he propounded to me so fluently on the day when I gave him
      my last lecture? At all events, he is cured of the transcendentals.”
     
    
      “Ahem!” here replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my thoughts, and
      looking like a very old sheep in a revery.
    
      The old gentleman now took him by the arm, and led him more into the shade
      of the bridge—a few paces back from the turnstile. “My good fellow,”
       said he, “I make it a point of conscience to allow you this much run. Wait
      here, till I take my place by the stile, so that I may see whether you go
      over it handsomely, and transcendentally, and don’t omit any flourishes of
      the pigeon-wing. A mere form, you know. I will say ‘one, two, three, and
      away.’ Mind you, start at the word ‘away.’” Here he took his position by
      the stile, paused a moment as if in profound reflection, then looked up
      and, I thought, smiled very slightly, then tightened the strings of his
      apron, then took a long look at Dammit, and finally gave the word as
      agreed upon—
    

            _One—two—three—and—away!_

    
      Punctually at the word “away,” my poor friend set off in a strong gallop.
      The stile was not very high, like Mr. Lord’s—nor yet very low, like
      that of Mr. Lord’s reviewers, but upon the whole I made sure that he would
      clear it. And then what if he did not?—ah, that was the question—what
      if he did not? “What right,” said I, “had the old gentleman to make any
      other gentleman jump? The little old dot-and-carry-one! who is he? If he
      asks me to jump, I won’t do it, that’s flat, and I don’t care who the
      devil he is.” The bridge, as I say, was arched and covered in, in a very
      ridiculous manner, and there was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all
      times—an echo which I never before so particularly observed as when
      I uttered the four last words of my remark.
    
      But what I said, or what I thought, or what I heard, occupied only an
      instant. In less than five seconds from his starting, my poor Toby had
      taken the leap. I saw him run nimbly, and spring grandly from the floor of
      the bridge, cutting the most awful flourishes with his legs as he went up.
      I saw him high in the air, pigeon-winging it to admiration just over the
      top of the stile; and of course I thought it an unusually singular thing
      that he did not continue to go over. But the whole leap was the affair of
      a moment, and, before I had a chance to make any profound reflections,
      down came Mr. Dammit on the flat of his back, on the same side of the
      stile from which he had started. At the same instant I saw the old
      gentleman limping off at the top of his speed, having caught and wrapt up
      in his apron something that fell heavily into it from the darkness of the
      arch just over the turnstile. At all this I was much astonished; but I had
      no leisure to think, for Dammit lay particularly still, and I concluded
      that his feelings had been hurt, and that he stood in need of my
      assistance. I hurried up to him and found that he had received what might
      be termed a serious injury. The truth is, he had been deprived of his
      head, which after a close search I could not find anywhere; so I
      determined to take him home and send for the homœopathists. In the
      meantime a thought struck me, and I threw open an adjacent window of the
      bridge, when the sad truth flashed upon me at once. About five feet just
      above the top of the turnstile, and crossing the arch of the foot-path so
      as to constitute a brace, there extended a flat iron bar, lying with its
      breadth horizontally, and forming one of a series that served to
      strengthen the structure throughout its extent. With the edge of this
      brace it appeared evident that the neck of my unfortunate friend had come
      precisely in contact.
    
      He did not long survive his terrible loss. The homœopathists did not give
      him little enough physic, and what little they did give him he hesitated
      to take. So in the end he grew worse, and at length died, a lesson to all
      riotous livers. I bedewed his grave with my tears, worked a bar sinister
      on his family escutcheon, and, for the general expenses of his funeral,
      sent in my very moderate bill to the transcendentalists. The scoundrels
      refused to pay it, so I had Mr. Dammit dug up at once, and sold him for
      dog’s meat.




THOU ART THE MAN


      I will now play the Oedipus to the Rattleborough enigma. I will expound to
      you—as I alone can—the secret of the enginery that effected
      the Rattleborough miracle—the one, the true, the admitted, the
      undisputed, the indisputable miracle, which put a definite end to
      infidelity among the Rattleburghers and converted to the orthodoxy of the
      grandames all the carnal-minded who had ventured to be sceptical before.
    
      This event—which I should be sorry to discuss in a tone of
      unsuitable levity—occurred in the summer of 18—. Mr. Barnabas
      Shuttleworthy—one of the wealthiest and most respectable citizens of
      the borough—had been missing for several days under circumstances
      which gave rise to suspicion of foul play. Mr. Shuttleworthy had set out
      from Rattleborough very early one Saturday morning, on horseback, with the
      avowed intention of proceeding to the city of ——, about fifteen miles
      distant, and of returning the night of the same day. Two hours after his
      departure, however, his horse returned without him, and without the
      saddle-bags which had been strapped on his back at starting. The animal
      was wounded, too, and covered with mud. These circumstances naturally gave
      rise to much alarm among the friends of the missing man; and when it was
      found, on Sunday morning, that he had not yet made his appearance, the
      whole borough arose en masse to go and look for his body.
    
      The foremost and most energetic in instituting this search was the bosom
      friend of Mr. Shuttleworthy—a Mr. Charles Goodfellow, or, as he was
      universally called, “Charley Goodfellow,” or “Old Charley Goodfellow.”
       Now, whether it is a marvellous coincidence, or whether it is that the
      name itself has an imperceptible effect upon the character, I have never
      yet been able to ascertain; but the fact is unquestionable, that there
      never yet was any person named Charles who was not an open, manly, honest,
      good-natured, and frank-hearted fellow, with a rich, clear voice, that did
      you good to hear it, and an eye that looked you always straight in the
      face, as much as to say: “I have a clear conscience myself, am afraid of
      no man, and am altogether above doing a mean action.” And thus all the
      hearty, careless, “walking gentlemen” of the stage are very certain to be
      called Charles.
    
      Now, “Old Charley Goodfellow,” although he had been in Rattleborough not
      longer than six months or thereabouts, and although nobody knew any thing
      about him before he came to settle in the neighborhood, had experienced no
      difficulty in the world in making the acquaintance of all the respectable
      people in the borough. Not a man of them but would have taken his bare
      word for a thousand at any moment; and as for the women, there is no
      saying what they would not have done to oblige him. And all this came of
      his having been christened Charles, and of his possessing, in consequence,
      that ingenuous face which is proverbially the very “best letter of
      recommendation.”
     
    
      I have already said that Mr. Shuttleworthy was one of the most respectable
      and, undoubtedly, he was the most wealthy man in Rattleborough, while “Old
      Charley Goodfellow” was upon as intimate terms with him as if he had been
      his own brother. The two old gentlemen were next-door neighbours, and,
      although Mr. Shuttleworthy seldom, if ever, visited “Old Charley,” and
      never was known to take a meal in his house, still this did not prevent
      the two friends from being exceedingly intimate, as I have just observed;
      for “Old Charley” never let a day pass without stepping in three or four
      times to see how his neighbour came on, and very often he would stay to
      breakfast or tea, and almost always to dinner, and then the amount of wine
      that was made way with by the two cronies at a sitting, it would really be
      a difficult thing to ascertain. “Old Charleys” favorite beverage was
      Chateau-Margaux, and it appeared to do Mr. Shuttleworthy’s heart good to
      see the old fellow swallow it, as he did, quart after quart; so that, one
      day, when the wine was in and the wit as a natural consequence, somewhat
      out, he said to his crony, as he slapped him upon the back—“I tell
      you what it is, ‘Old Charley,’ you are, by all odds, the heartiest old
      fellow I ever came across in all my born days; and, since you love to
      guzzle the wine at that fashion, I’ll be darned if I don’t have to make
      thee a present of a big box of the Chateau-Margaux. Od rot me,”—(Mr.
      Shuttleworthy had a sad habit of swearing, although he seldom went beyond
      “Od rot me,” or “By gosh,” or “By the jolly golly,”)—“Od rot me,”
       says he, “if I don’t send an order to town this very afternoon for a
      double box of the best that can be got, and I’ll make ye a present of it,
      I will!—ye needn’t say a word now—I will, I tell ye, and
      there’s an end of it; so look out for it—it will come to hand some
      of these fine days, precisely when ye are looking for it the least!” I
      mention this little bit of liberality on the part of Mr. Shuttleworthy,
      just by way of showing you how very intimate an understanding existed
      between the two friends.
    
      Well, on the Sunday morning in question, when it came to be fairly
      understood that Mr. Shuttleworthy had met with foul play, I never saw any
      one so profoundly affected as “Old Charley Goodfellow.” When he first
      heard that the horse had come home without his master, and without his
      master’s saddle-bags, and all bloody from a pistol-shot, that had gone
      clean through and through the poor animal’s chest without quite killing
      him; when he heard all this, he turned as pale as if the missing man had
      been his own dear brother or father, and shivered and shook all over as if
      he had had a fit of the ague.
    
      At first he was too much overpowered with grief to be able to do any thing
      at all, or to concert upon any plan of action; so that for a long time he
      endeavored to dissuade Mr. Shuttleworthy’s other friends from making a
      stir about the matter, thinking it best to wait awhile—say for a
      week or two, or a month, or two—to see if something wouldn’t turn
      up, or if Mr. Shuttleworthy wouldn’t come in the natural way, and explain
      his reasons for sending his horse on before. I dare say you have often
      observed this disposition to temporize, or to procrastinate, in people who
      are labouring under any very poignant sorrow. Their powers of mind seem to
      be rendered torpid, so that they have a horror of any thing like action,
      and like nothing in the world so well as to lie quietly in bed and “nurse
      their grief,” as the old ladies express it—that is to say, ruminate
      over the trouble.
    
      The people of Rattleborough had, indeed, so high an opinion of the wisdom
      and discretion of “Old Charley,” that the greater part of them felt
      disposed to agree with him, and not make a stir in the business “until
      something should turn up,” as the honest old gentleman worded it; and I
      believe that, after all this would have been the general determination,
      but for the very suspicious interference of Mr. Shuttleworthy’s nephew, a
      young man of very dissipated habits, and otherwise of rather bad
      character. This nephew, whose name was Pennifeather, would listen to
      nothing like reason in the matter of “lying quiet,” but insisted upon
      making immediate search for the “corpse of the murdered man.” This
      was the expression he employed; and Mr. Goodfellow acutely remarked at the
      time, that it was “a singular expression, to say no more.” This remark of
      “Old Charley’s,” too, had great effect upon the crowd; and one of the
      party was heard to ask, very impressively, “how it happened that young Mr.
      Pennifeather was so intimately cognizant of all the circumstances
      connected with his wealthy uncle’s disappearance, as to feel authorized to
      assert, distinctly and unequivocally, that his uncle was ‘a murdered
      man.’” Hereupon some little squibbing and bickering occurred among various
      members of the crowd, and especially between “Old Charley” and Mr.
      Pennifeather—although this latter occurrence was, indeed, by no
      means a novelty, for little good-will had subsisted between the parties for
      the last three or four months; and matters had even gone so far that Mr.
      Pennifeather had actually knocked down his uncle’s friend for some alleged
      excess of liberty that the latter had taken in the uncle’s house, of which
      the nephew was an inmate. Upon this occasion “Old Charley” is said to have
      behaved with exemplary moderation and Christian charity. He arose from the
      blow, adjusted his clothes, and made no attempt at retaliation at all—merely
      muttering a few words about “taking summary vengeance at the first
      convenient opportunity,”—a natural and very justifiable ebullition
      of anger, which meant nothing, however, and, beyond doubt, was no sooner
      given vent to than forgotten.
    
      However these matters may be (which have no reference to the point now at
      issue), it is quite certain that the people of Rattleborough, principally
      through the persuasion of Mr. Pennifeather, came at length to the
      determination of dispersion over the adjacent country in search of the
      missing Mr. Shuttleworthy. I say they came to this determination in the
      first instance. After it had been fully resolved that a search should be
      made, it was considered almost a matter of course that the seekers should
      disperse—that is to say, distribute themselves in parties—for
      the more thorough examination of the region round about. I forget,
      however, by what ingenious train of reasoning it was that “Old Charley”
       finally convinced the assembly that this was the most injudicious plan
      that could be pursued. Convince them, however, he did—all except Mr.
      Pennifeather, and, in the end, it was arranged that a search should be
      instituted, carefully and very thoroughly, by the burghers en masse, “Old
      Charley” himself leading the way.
    
      As for the matter of that, there could have been no better pioneer than
      “Old Charley,” whom everybody knew to have the eye of a lynx; but,
      although he led them into all manner of out-of-the-way holes and corners,
      by routes that nobody had ever suspected of existing in the neighbourhood,
      and although the search was incessantly kept up day and night for nearly a
      week, still no trace of Mr. Shuttleworthy could be discovered. When I say
      no trace, however, I must not be understood to speak literally; for trace,
      to some extent, there certainly was. The poor gentleman had been tracked,
      by his horse’s shoes (which were peculiar), to a spot about three miles to
      the east of the borough, on the main road leading to the city. Here the
      track made off into a by-path through a piece of woodland—the path
      coming out again into the main road, and cutting off about half a mile of
      the regular distance. Following the shoe-marks down this lane, the party
      came at length to a pool of stagnant water, half hidden by the brambles,
      to the right of the lane, and opposite this pool all vestige of the track
      was lost sight of. It appeared, however, that a struggle of some nature
      had here taken place, and it seemed as if some large and heavy body, much
      larger and heavier than a man, had been drawn from the by-path to the
      pool. This latter was carefully dragged twice, but nothing was found; and
      the party was upon the point of going away, in despair of coming to any
      result, when Providence suggested to Mr. Goodfellow the expediency of
      draining the water off altogether. This project was received with cheers,
      and many high compliments to “Old Charley” upon his sagacity and
      consideration. As many of the burghers had brought spades with them,
      supposing that they might possibly be called upon to disinter a corpse,
      the drain was easily and speedily effected; and no sooner was the bottom
      visible, than right in the middle of the mud that remained was discovered
      a black silk velvet waistcoat, which nearly every one present immediately
      recognized as the property of Mr. Pennifeather. This waistcoat was much
      torn and stained with blood, and there were several persons among the
      party who had a distinct remembrance of its having been worn by its owner
      on the very morning of Mr. Shuttleworthy’s departure for the city; while
      there were others, again, ready to testify upon oath, if required, that
      Mr. P. did not wear the garment in question at any period during the
      remainder of that memorable day, nor could any one be found to say that he
      had seen it upon Mr. P.‘s person at any period at all subsequent to Mr.
      Shuttleworthy’s disappearance.
    
      Matters now wore a very serious aspect for Mr. Pennifeather, and it was
      observed, as an indubitable confirmation of the suspicions which were
      excited against him, that he grew exceedingly pale, and when asked what he
      had to say for himself, was utterly incapable of saying a word. Hereupon,
      the few friends his riotous mode of living had left him deserted him at
      once to a man, and were even more clamorous than his ancient and avowed
      enemies for his instantaneous arrest. But, on the other hand, the
      magnanimity of Mr. Goodfellow shone forth with only the more brilliant
      lustre through contrast. He made a warm and intensely eloquent defence of
      Mr. Pennifeather, in which he alluded more than once to his own sincere
      forgiveness of that wild young gentleman—“the heir of the worthy Mr.
      Shuttleworthy,”—for the insult which he (the young gentleman) had,
      no doubt in the heat of passion, thought proper to put upon him (Mr.
      Goodfellow). “He forgave him for it,” he said, “from the very bottom of
      his heart; and for himself (Mr. Goodfellow), so far from pushing the
      suspicious circumstances to extremity, which he was sorry to say, really
      had arisen against Mr. Pennifeather, he (Mr. Goodfellow) would make every
      exertion in his power, would employ all the little eloquence in his
      possession to—to—to—soften down, as much as he could
      conscientiously do so, the worst features of this really exceedingly
      perplexing piece of business.”
     
    
      Mr. Goodfellow went on for some half hour longer in this strain, very much
      to the credit both of his head and of his heart; but your warm-hearted
      people are seldom apposite in their observations—they run into all
      sorts of blunders, contre-temps and mal apropos-isms, in the
      hot-headedness of their zeal to serve a friend—thus, often with the
      kindest intentions in the world, doing infinitely more to prejudice his
      cause than to advance it.
    
      So, in the present instance, it turned out with all the eloquence of “Old
      Charley”; for, although he laboured earnestly in behalf of the suspected,
      yet it so happened, somehow or other, that every syllable he uttered of
      which the direct but unwitting tendency was not to exalt the speaker in
      the good opinion of his audience, had the effect to deepen the suspicion
      already attached to the individual whose cause he pleaded, and to arouse
      against him the fury of the mob.
    
      One of the most unaccountable errors committed by the orator was his
      allusion to the suspected as “the heir of the worthy old gentleman Mr.
      Shuttleworthy.” The people had really never thought of this before. They
      had only remembered certain threats of disinheritance uttered a year or
      two previously by the uncle (who had no living relative except the
      nephew), and they had, therefore, always looked upon this disinheritance
      as a matter that was settled—so single-minded a race of beings were
      the Rattleburghers; but the remark of “Old Charley” brought them at once
      to a consideration of this point, and thus gave them to see the
      possibility of the threats having been nothing more than a threat. And
      straightway hereupon, arose the natural question of cui bono?—a
      question that tended even more than the waistcoat to fasten the terrible
      crime upon the young man. And here, lest I may be misunderstood, permit me
      to digress for one moment merely to observe that the exceedingly brief and
      simple Latin phrase which I have employed, is invariably mistranslated and
      misconceived. “Cui bono?” in all the crack novels and elsewhere,—in
      those of Mrs. Gore, for example, (the author of “Cecil,”) a lady who
      quotes all tongues from the Chaldaean to Chickasaw, and is helped to her
      learning, “as needed,” upon a systematic plan, by Mr. Beckford,—in
      all the crack novels, I say, from those of Bulwer and Dickens to those of
      Bulwer and Dickens to those of Turnapenny and Ainsworth, the two little
      Latin words cui bono are rendered “to what purpose?” or, (as if quo bono,)
      “to what good.” Their true meaning, nevertheless, is “for whose
      advantage.” Cui, to whom; bono, is it for a benefit. It is a purely legal
      phrase, and applicable precisely in cases such as we have now under
      consideration, where the probability of the doer of a deed hinges upon the
      probability of the benefit accruing to this individual or to that from the
      deed’s accomplishment. Now in the present instance, the question cui bono?
      very pointedly implicated Mr. Pennifeather. His uncle had threatened him,
      after making a will in his favour, with disinheritance. But the threat had
      not been actually kept; the original will, it appeared, had not been
      altered. Had it been altered, the only supposable motive for murder on the
      part of the suspected would have been the ordinary one of revenge; and
      even this would have been counteracted by the hope of reinstation into the
      good graces of the uncle. But the will being unaltered, while the threat
      to alter remained suspended over the nephew’s head, there appears at once
      the very strongest possible inducement for the atrocity, and so concluded,
      very sagaciously, the worthy citizens of the borough of Rattle.
    
      Mr. Pennifeather was, accordingly, arrested upon the spot, and the crowd,
      after some further search, proceeded homeward, having him in custody. On
      the route, however, another circumstance occurred tending to confirm the
      suspicion entertained. Mr. Goodfellow, whose zeal led him to be always a
      little in advance of the party, was seen suddenly to run forward a few
      paces, stoop, and then apparently to pick up some small object from the
      grass. Having quickly examined it he was observed, too, to make a sort of
      half attempt at concealing it in his coat pocket; but this action was
      noticed, as I say, and consequently prevented, when the object picked up
      was found to be a Spanish knife which a dozen persons at once recognized
      as belonging to Mr. Pennifeather. Moreover, his initials were engraved
      upon the handle. The blade of this knife was open and bloody.
    
      No doubt now remained of the guilt of the nephew, and immediately upon
      reaching Rattleborough he was taken before a magistrate for examination.
    
      Here matters again took a most unfavourable turn. The prisoner, being
      questioned as to his whereabouts on the morning of Mr. Shuttleworthy’s
      disappearance, had absolutely the audacity to acknowledge that on that
      very morning he had been out with his rifle deer-stalking, in the
      immediate neighbourhood of the pool where the blood-stained waistcoat had
      been discovered through the sagacity of Mr. Goodfellow.
    
      This latter now came forward, and, with tears in his eyes, asked
      permission to be examined. He said that a stern sense of the duty he owed
      his Maker, not less than his fellow-men, would permit him no longer to
      remain silent. Hitherto, the sincerest affection for the young man
      (notwithstanding the latter’s ill-treatment of himself, Mr. Goodfellow)
      had induced him to make every hypothesis which imagination could suggest,
      by way of endeavoring to account for what appeared suspicious in the
      circumstances that told so seriously against Mr. Pennifeather, but these
      circumstances were now altogether too convincing—too damning; he
      would hesitate no longer—he would tell all he knew, although his
      heart (Mr. Goodfellow’s) should absolutely burst asunder in the effort. He
      then went on to state that, on the afternoon of the day previous to Mr.
      Shuttleworthy’s departure for the city, that worthy old gentleman had
      mentioned to his nephew, in his hearing (Mr. Goodfellow’s), that his
      object in going to town on the morrow was to make a deposit of an
      unusually large sum of money in the “Farmers’ and Mechanics’ Bank,” and
      that, then and there, the said Mr. Shuttleworthy had distinctly avowed to
      the said nephew his irrevocable determination of rescinding the will
      originally made, and of cutting him off with a shilling. He (the witness)
      now solemnly called upon the accused to state whether what he (the
      witness) had just stated was or was not the truth in every substantial
      particular. Much to the astonishment of every one present, Mr.
      Pennifeather frankly admitted that it was.
    
      The magistrate now considered it his duty to send a couple of constables
      to search the chamber of the accused in the house of his uncle. From this
      search they almost immediately returned with the well-known steel-bound,
      russet leather pocket-book which the old gentleman had been in the habit
      of carrying for years. Its valuable contents, however, had been
      abstracted, and the magistrate in vain endeavored to extort from the
      prisoner the use which had been made of them, or the place of their
      concealment. Indeed, he obstinately denied all knowledge of the matter.
      The constables, also, discovered, between the bed and sacking of the
      unhappy man, a shirt and neck-handkerchief both marked with the initials
      of his name, and both hideously besmeared with the blood of the victim.
    
      At this juncture, it was announced that the horse of the murdered man had
      just expired in the stable from the effects of the wound he had received,
      and it was proposed by Mr. Goodfellow that a post mortem examination of
      the beast should be immediately made, with the view, if possible, of
      discovering the ball. This was accordingly done; and, as if to demonstrate
      beyond a question the guilt of the accused, Mr. Goodfellow, after
      considerable searching in the cavity of the chest was enabled to detect
      and to pull forth a bullet of very extraordinary size, which, upon trial,
      was found to be exactly adapted to the bore of Mr. Pennifeather’s rifle,
      while it was far too large for that of any other person in the borough or
      its vicinity. To render the matter even surer yet, however, this bullet
      was discovered to have a flaw or seam at right angles to the usual suture,
      and upon examination, this seam corresponded precisely with an accidental
      ridge or elevation in a pair of moulds acknowledged by the accused himself
      to be his own property. Upon finding of this bullet, the examining
      magistrate refused to listen to any farther testimony, and immediately
      committed the prisoner for trial—declining resolutely to take any bail in
      the case, although against this severity Mr. Goodfellow very warmly
      remonstrated, and offered to become surety in whatever amount might be
      required. This generosity on the part of “Old Charley” was only in
      accordance with the whole tenor of his amiable and chivalrous conduct
      during the entire period of his sojourn in the borough of Rattle. In the
      present instance the worthy man was so entirely carried away by the
      excessive warmth of his sympathy, that he seemed to have quite forgotten,
      when he offered to go bail for his young friend, that he himself (Mr.
      Goodfellow) did not possess a single dollar’s worth of property upon the
      face of the earth.
    
      The result of the committal may be readily foreseen. Mr. Pennifeather,
      amid the loud execrations of all Rattleborough, was brought to trial at
      the next criminal sessions, when the chain of circumstantial evidence
      (strengthened as it was by some additional damning facts, which Mr.
      Goodfellow’s sensitive conscientiousness forbade him to withhold from the
      court) was considered so unbroken and so thoroughly conclusive, that the
      jury, without leaving their seats, returned an immediate verdict of
      “Guilty of murder in the first degree.” Soon afterward the unhappy wretch
      received sentence of death, and was remanded to the county jail to await
      the inexorable vengeance of the law.
    
      In the meantime, the noble behavior of “Old Charley Goodfellow,” had
      doubly endeared him to the honest citizens of the borough. He became ten
      times a greater favorite than ever, and, as a natural result of the
      hospitality with which he was treated, he relaxed, as it were, perforce,
      the extremely parsimonious habits which his poverty had hitherto impelled
      him to observe, and very frequently had little reunions at his own house,
      when wit and jollity reigned supreme—dampened a little, of course, by the
      occasional remembrance of the untoward and melancholy fate which impended
      over the nephew of the late lamented bosom friend of the generous host.
    
      One fine day, this magnanimous old gentleman was agreeably surprised at
      the receipt of the following letter:
    

Charles Goodfellow, Esq., Rattleborough
From H.F.B. & Co.
Chat. Mar. A—No. 1.—6 doz. bottles (1/2 Gross)

“Charles Goodfellow, Esquire.
    “Dear Sir—In conformity with an order transmitted to our firm
about two months since, by our esteemed correspondent, Mr. Barnabus
Shuttleworthy, we have the honor of forwarding this morning, to your address, a
double box of Chateau-Margaux of the antelope brand, violet seal. Box numbered
and marked as per margin.


“We remain, sir,        
“Your most ob’nt ser’ts,    
“HOGGS, FROGS, BOGS, & CO.


“City of—, June 21, 18—.
“P.S.—The box will reach you by wagon, on the day after your
receipt of this letter. Our respects to Mr. Shuttleworthy.


“H., F., B., & CO.”

    
      The fact is, that Mr. Goodfellow had, since the death of Mr.
      Shuttleworthy, given over all expectation of ever receiving the promised
      Chateau-Margaux; and he, therefore, looked upon it now as a sort of
      especial dispensation of Providence in his behalf. He was highly
      delighted, of course, and in the exuberance of his joy invited a large
      party of friends to a petit souper on the morrow, for the purpose of
      broaching the good old Mr. Shuttleworthy’s present. Not that he said any
      thing about “the good old Mr. Shuttleworthy” when he issued the
      invitations. The fact is, he thought much and concluded to say nothing at
      all. He did not mention to any one—if I remember aright—that
      he had received a present of Chateau-Margaux. He merely asked his friends
      to come and help him drink some, of a remarkable fine quality and rich
      flavour, that he had ordered up from the city a couple of months ago, and
      of which he would be in the receipt upon the morrow. I have often puzzled
      myself to imagine why it was that “Old Charley” came to the conclusion to
      say nothing about having received the wine from his old friend, but I
      could never precisely understand his reason for the silence, although he
      had some excellent and very magnanimous reason, no doubt.
    
      The morrow at length arrived, and with it a very large and highly
      respectable company at Mr. Goodfellow’s house. Indeed, half the borough
      was there,—I myself among the number,—but, much to the
      vexation of the host, the Chateau-Margaux did not arrive until a late
      hour, and when the sumptuous supper supplied by “Old Charley” had been
      done very ample justice by the guests. It came at length, however,—a
      monstrously big box of it there was, too—and as the whole party were
      in excessively good humor, it was decided, nem. con., that it should be
      lifted upon the table and its contents disembowelled forthwith.
    
      No sooner said than done. I lent a helping hand; and, in a trice we had
      the box upon the table, in the midst of all the bottles and glasses, not a
      few of which were demolished in the scuffle. “Old Charley,” who was pretty
      much intoxicated, and excessively red in the face, now took a seat, with
      an air of mock dignity, at the head of the board, and thumped furiously
      upon it with a decanter, calling upon the company to keep order “during
      the ceremony of disinterring the treasure.”
     
    
      After some vociferation, quiet was at length fully restored, and, as very
      often happens in similar cases, a profound and remarkable silence ensued.
      Being then requested to force open the lid, I complied, of course, “with
      an infinite deal of pleasure.” I inserted a chisel, and giving it a few
      slight taps with a hammer, the top of the box flew suddenly off, and at
      the same instant, there sprang up into a sitting position, directly facing
      the host, the bruised, bloody, and nearly putrid corpse of the murdered
      Mr. Shuttleworthy himself. It gazed for a few seconds, fixedly and
      sorrowfully, with its decaying and lack-lustre eyes, full into the
      countenance of Mr. Goodfellow; uttered slowly, but clearly and
      impressively, the words—“Thou art the man!” and then, falling over
      the side of the chest as if thoroughly satisfied, stretched out its limbs
      quiveringly upon the table.
    
      The scene that ensued is altogether beyond description. The rush for the
      doors and windows was terrific, and many of the most robust men in the
      room fainted outright through sheer horror. But after the first wild,
      shrieking burst of affright, all eyes were directed to Mr. Goodfellow. If
      I live a thousand years, I can never forget the more than mortal agony
      which was depicted in that ghastly face of his, so lately rubicund with
      triumph and wine. For several minutes he sat rigidly as a statue of
      marble; his eyes seeming, in the intense vacancy of their gaze, to be
      turned inward and absorbed in the contemplation of his own miserable,
      murderous soul. At length their expression appeared to flash suddenly out
      into the external world, when, with a quick leap, he sprang from his
      chair, and falling heavily with his head and shoulders upon the table, and
      in contact with the corpse, poured out rapidly and vehemently a detailed
      confession of the hideous crime for which Mr. Pennifeather was then
      imprisoned and doomed to die.
    
      What he recounted was in substance this:—He followed his victim to
      the vicinity of the pool; there shot his horse with a pistol; despatched
      its rider with the butt end; possessed himself of the pocket-book; and,
      supposing the horse dead, dragged it with great labour to the brambles by
      the pond. Upon his own beast he slung the corpse of Mr. Shuttleworthy, and
      thus bore it to a secure place of concealment a long distance off through
      the woods.
    
      The waistcoat, the knife, the pocket-book, and bullet, had been placed by
      himself where found, with the view of avenging himself upon Mr.
      Pennifeather. He had also contrived the discovery of the stained
      handkerchief and shirt.
    
      Toward the end of the blood-chilling recital the words of the guilty
      wretch faltered and grew hollow. When the record was finally exhausted, he
      arose, staggered backward from the table, and fell—_dead_.
    
    
      The means by which this happily-timed confession was extorted, although
      efficient, were simple indeed. Mr. Goodfellow’s excess of frankness had
      disgusted me, and excited my suspicions from the first. I was present when
      Mr. Pennifeather had struck him, and the fiendish expression which then
      arose upon his countenance, although momentary, assured me that his threat
      of vengeance would, if possible, be rigidly fulfilled. I was thus prepared
      to view the manoeuvering of “Old Charley” in a very different light from
      that in which it was regarded by the good citizens of Rattleborough. I saw
      at once that all the criminating discoveries arose, either directly or
      indirectly, from himself. But the fact which clearly opened my eyes to the
      true state of the case, was the affair of the bullet, found by Mr. G. in
      the carcass of the horse. I had not forgotten, although the Rattleburghers
      had, that there was a hole where the ball had entered the horse, and
      another where it went out. If it were found in the animal then, after
      having made its exit, I saw clearly that it must have been deposited by
      the person who found it. The bloody shirt and handkerchief confirmed the
      idea suggested by the bullet; for the blood on examination proved to be
      capital claret, and no more. When I came to think of these things, and
      also of the late increase of liberality and expenditure on the part of Mr.
      Goodfellow, I entertained a suspicion which was none the less strong
      because I kept it altogether to myself.
    
      In the meantime, I instituted a rigorous private search for the corpse of
      Mr. Shuttleworthy, and, for good reasons, searched in quarters as
      divergent as possible from those to which Mr. Goodfellow conducted his
      party. The result was that, after some days, I came across an old dry
      well, the mouth of which was nearly hidden by brambles; and here, at the
      bottom, I discovered what I sought.
    
      Now it so happened that I had overheard the colloquy between the two
      cronies, when Mr. Goodfellow had contrived to cajole his host into the
      promise of a box of Chateaux-Margaux. Upon this hint I acted. I procured a
      stiff piece of whalebone, thrust it down the throat of the corpse, and
      deposited the latter in an old wine box—taking care so to double the body
      up as to double the whalebone with it. In this manner I had to press
      forcibly upon the lid to keep it down while I secured it with nails; and I
      anticipated, of course, that as soon as these latter were removed, the top
      would fly off and the body up.
    
      Having thus arranged the box, I marked, numbered, and addressed it as
      already told; and then writing a letter in the name of the wine merchants
      with whom Mr. Shuttleworthy dealt, I gave instructions to my servant to
      wheel the box to Mr. Goodfellow’s door, in a barrow, at a given signal
      from myself. For the words which I intended the corpse to speak, I
      confidently depended upon my ventriloquial abilities; for their effect, I
      counted upon the conscience of the murderous wretch.
    
      I believe there is nothing more to be explained. Mr. Pennifeather was
      released upon the spot, inherited the fortune of his uncle, profited by
      the lessons of experience, turned over a new leaf, and led happily ever
      afterward a new life.




WHY THE LITTLE FRENCHMAN WEARS HIS HAND IN A SLING


      It’s on my visiting cards sure enough (and it’s them that’s all o’ pink
      satin paper) that inny gintleman that plases may behould the intheristhin’
      words, “Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, 39 Southampton Row, Russell
      Square, Parrish o’ Bloomsbury.” And shud ye be wantin’ to diskiver who is
      the pink of purliteness quite, and the laider of the hot tun in the houl
      city o’ Lonon—why it’s jist mesilf. And fait that same is no wonder
      at all at all (so be plased to stop curlin’ your nose), for every inch o’
      the six wakes that I’ve been a gintleman, and left aff wid the
      bog-throthing to take up wid the Barronissy, it’s Pathrick that’s been
      living like a houly imperor, and gitting the iddication and the graces.
      Och! and wouldn’t it be a blessed thing for your spirrits if ye cud lay
      your two peepers jist, upon Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, when he
      is all riddy drissed for the hopperer, or stipping into the Brisky for the
      drive into the Hyde Park. But it’s the illigant big figgur that I ’ave, for
      the rason o’ which all the ladies fall in love wid me. Isn’t it my own
      swate silf now that’ll missure the six fut, and the three inches more nor
      that, in me stockins, and that am excadingly will proportioned all over to
      match? And it is ralelly more than three fut and a bit that there is, inny
      how, of the little ould furrener Frinchman that lives jist over the way,
      and that’s a-oggling and a-goggling the houl day, (and bad luck to him,)
      at the purty widdy Misthress Tracle that’s my own nixt-door neighbor, (God
      bliss her!) and a most particuller frind and acquaintance? You percave the
      little spalpeen is summat down in the mouth, and wears his lift hand in a
      sling, and it’s for that same thing, by yur lave, that I’m going to give
      you the good rason.
    
      The truth of the houl matter is jist simple enough; for the very first day
      that I com’d from Connaught, and showd my swate little silf in the strait
      to the widdy, who was looking through the windy, it was a gone case
      althegither with the heart o’ the purty Misthress Tracle. I percaved it,
      ye see, all at once, and no mistake, and that’s God’s truth. First of all
      it was up wid the windy in a jiffy, and thin she threw open her two
      peepers to the itmost, and thin it was a little gould spy-glass that she
      clapped tight to one o’ them and divil may burn me if it didn’t spake to
      me as plain as a peeper cud spake, and says it, through the spy-glass:
      “Och! the tip o’ the mornin’ to ye, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt,
      mavourneen; and it’s a nate gintleman that ye are, sure enough, and it’s
      mesilf and me forten jist that’ll be at yur sarvice, dear, inny time o’
      day at all at all for the asking.” And it’s not mesilf ye wud have to be
      bate in the purliteness; so I made her a bow that wud ha’ broken yur heart
      altegither to behould, and thin I pulled aff me hat with a flourish, and
      thin I winked at her hard wid both eyes, as much as to say, “True for you,
      yer a swate little crature, Mrs. Tracle, me darlint, and I wish I may be
      drownthed dead in a bog, if it’s not mesilf, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison,
      Barronitt, that’ll make a houl bushel o’ love to yur leddyship, in the
      twinkling o’ the eye of a Londonderry purraty.”
     
    
      And it was the nixt mornin’, sure, jist as I was making up me mind whither
      it wouldn’t be the purlite thing to sind a bit o’ writin’ to the widdy by
      way of a love-litter, when up com’d the delivery servant wid an illigant
      card, and he tould me that the name on it (for I niver could rade the
      copperplate printin’ on account of being lift handed) was all about
      Mounseer, the Count, A Goose, Look-aisy, Maiter-di-dauns, and that
      the houl of the divilish lingo was the spalpeeny long name of the little
      ould furrener Frinchman as lived over the way.
    
      And jist wid that in cum’d the little willian himself, and then he made me
      a broth of a bow, and thin he said he had ounly taken the liberty of doing
      me the honor of the giving me a call, and thin he went on to palaver at a
      great rate, and divil the bit did I comprehind what he wud be afther the
      tilling me at all at all, excipting and saving that he said “pully wou,
      woolly wou,” and tould me, among a bushel o’ lies, bad luck to him, that
      he was mad for the love o’ my widdy Misthress Tracle, and that my widdy
      Mrs. Tracle had a puncheon for him.
    
      At the hearin’ of this, ye may swear, though, I was as mad as a
      grasshopper, but I remimbered that I was Sir Pathrick O’Grandison,
      Barronitt, and that it wasn’t althegither gentaal to lit the anger git the
      upper hand o’ the purliteness, so I made light o’ the matter and kipt
      dark, and got quite sociable wid the little chap, and afther a while what
      did he do but ask me to go wid him to the widdy’s, saying he wud give me
      the feshionable inthroduction to her leddyship.
    
      “Is it there ye are?” said I thin to mesilf, “and it’s thrue for you,
      Pathrick, that ye’re the fortunittest mortal in life. We’ll soon see now
      whither it’s your swate silf, or whither it’s little Mounseer
      Maiter-di-dauns, that Misthress Tracle is head and ears in the love wid.”
     
    
      Wid that we wint aff to the widdy’s, next door, and ye may well say it was
      an illigant place; so it was. There was a carpet all over the floor, and
      in one corner there was a forty-pinny and a Jew’s harp and the divil knows
      what ilse, and in another corner was a sofy, the beautifullest thing in
      all natur, and sitting on the sofy, sure enough, there was the swate
      little angel, Misthress Tracle.
    
      “The tip o’ the mornin’ to ye,” says I, “Mrs. Tracle,” and thin I made
      sich an illigant obaysance that it wud ha quite althegither bewildered the
      brain o’ ye.
    
      “Wully woo, pully woo, plump in the mud,” says the little furrenner
      Frinchman, “and sure Mrs. Tracle,” says he, that he did, “isn’t this
      gintleman here jist his reverence Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, and
      isn’t he althegither and entirely the most particular frind and
      acquaintance that I have in the houl world?”
     
    
      And wid that the widdy, she gits up from the sofy, and makes the swatest
      curthchy nor iver was seen; and thin down she sits like an angel; and
      thin, by the powers, it was that little spalpeen Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns
      that plumped his silf right down by the right side of her. Och hon! I
      ixpicted the two eyes o’ me wud ha cum’d out of my head on the spot, I was
      so dispirate mad! Howiver, “Bait who!” says I, after awhile. “Is it there
      ye are, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns?” and so down I plumped on the lift side
      of her leddyship, to be aven with the willain. Botheration! it wud ha done
      your heart good to percave the illigant double wink that I gived her jist
      thin right in the face with both eyes.
    
      But the little ould Frinchman he niver beginned to suspict me at all at
      all, and disperate hard it was he made the love to her leddyship. “Woully
      wou,” says he, “Pully wou,” says he, “Plump in the mud,” says he.
    
      “That’s all to no use, Mounseer Frog, mavourneen,” thinks I; and I talked
      as hard and as fast as I could all the while, and throth it was mesilf
      jist that divarted her leddyship complately and intirely, by rason of the
      illigant conversation that I kipt up wid her all about the dear bogs of
      Connaught. And by and by she gived me such a swate smile, from one ind of
      her mouth to the ither, that it made me as bould as a pig, and I jist took
      hould of the ind of her little finger in the most dilikittest manner in
      natur, looking at her all the while out o’ the whites of my eyes.
    
      And then ounly percave the cuteness of the swate angel, for no sooner did
      she obsarve that I was afther the squazing of her flipper, than she up wid
      it in a jiffy, and put it away behind her back, jist as much as to say,
      “Now thin, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, there’s a bitther chance for ye,
      mavourneen, for it’s not altogether the gentaal thing to be afther the
      squazing of my flipper right full in the sight of that little furrenner
      Frinchman, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns.”
     
    
      Wid that I giv’d her a big wink jist to say, “lit Sir Pathrick alone for
      the likes o’ them thricks,” and thin I wint aisy to work, and you’d have
      died wid the divarsion to behould how cliverly I slipped my right arm
      betwane the back o’ the sofy, and the back of her leddyship, and there,
      sure enough, I found a swate little flipper all a waiting to say, “the tip
      o’ the mornin’ to ye, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt.” And wasn’t it
      mesilf, sure, that jist giv’d it the laste little bit of a squaze in the
      world, all in the way of a commincement, and not to be too rough wid her
      leddyship? and och, botheration, wasn’t it the gentaalest and dilikittest
      of all the little squazes that I got in return? “Blood and thunder, Sir
      Pathrick, mavourneen,” thinks I to mesilf, “fait it’s jist the mother’s
      son of you, and nobody else at all at all, that’s the handsomest and the
      fortunittest young bog-throtter that ever cum’d out of Connaught!” And
      with that I givd the flipper a big squaze, and a big squaze it was, by the
      powers, that her leddyship giv’d to me back. But it would ha split the
      seven sides of you wid the laffin’ to behould, jist then all at once, the
      consated behavior of Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns. The likes o’ sich a
      jabbering, and a smirking, and a parley-wouing as he begin’d wid her
      leddyship, niver was known before upon arth; and divil may burn me if it
      wasn’t me own very two peepers that cotch’d him tipping her the wink out
      of one eye. Och, hon! if it wasn’t mesilf thin that was mad as a Kilkenny
      cat I shud like to be tould who it was!
    
      “Let me infarm you, Mounseer Maiter-di-dauns,” said I, as purlite as iver
      ye seed, “that it’s not the gintaal thing at all at all, and not for the
      likes o’ you inny how, to be afther the oggling and a-goggling at her
      leddyship in that fashion,” and jist wid that such another squaze as it
      was I giv’d her flipper, all as much as to say, “isn’t it Sir Pathrick
      now, my jewel, that’ll be able to the protectin’ o’ you, my darlint?” and
      then there cum’d another squaze back, all by way of the answer. “Thrue for
      you, Sir Pathrick,” it said as plain as iver a squaze said in the world,
      “Thrue for you, Sir Pathrick, mavourneen, and it’s a proper nate gintleman
      ye are—that’s God’s truth,” and with that she opened her two
      beautiful peepers till I belaved they wud ha’ cum’d out of her hid
      althegither and intirely, and she looked first as mad as a cat at Mounseer
      Frog, and thin as smiling as all out o’ doors at mesilf.
    
      “Thin,” says he, the willian, “Och hon! and a wolly-wou, pully-wou,” and
      then wid that he shoved up his two shoulders till the divil the bit of his
      hid was to be diskivered, and then he let down the two corners of his
      purraty-trap, and thin not a haporth more of the satisfaction could I git
      out o’ the spalpeen.
    
      Belave me, my jewel, it was Sir Pathrick that was unreasonable mad thin,
      and the more by token that the Frinchman kipt an wid his winking at the
      widdy; and the widdy she kept an wid the squazing of my flipper, as much
      as to say, “At him again, Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, mavourneen:” so I just
      ripped out wid a big oath, and says I:
    
      “Ye little spalpeeny frog of a bog-throtting son of a bloody noun!”—and
      jist thin what d’ye think it was that her leddyship did? Troth she jumped
      up from the sofy as if she was bit, and made off through the door, while I
      turned my head round afther her, in a complate bewilderment and
      botheration, and followed her wid me two peepers. You percave I had a
      reason of my own for knowing that she couldn’t git down the stares
      althegither and intirely; for I knew very well that I had hould of her
      hand, for the divil the bit had I iver lit it go. And says I:
    
      “Isn’t it the laste little bit of a mistake in the world that
      ye’ve been afther the making, yer leddyship? Come back now,
      that’s a darlint, and I’ll give ye yur flipper.” But
      aff she wint down the stairs like a shot, and thin I turned round to the
      little Frinch furrenner. Och hon! if it wasn’t his spalpeeny little
      paw that I had hould of in my own—why thin—thin it
      wasn’t—that’s all.
    
      And maybe it wasn’t mesilf that jist died then outright wid the laffin’,
      to behold the little chap when he found out that it wasn’t the widdy at
      all at all that he had had hould of all the time, but only Sir Pathrick
      O’Grandison. The ould divil himself niver behild sich a long face as he
      pet an! As for Sir Pathrick O’Grandison, Barronitt, it wasn’t for the
      likes of his riverence to be afther the minding of a thrifle of a mistake.
      Ye may jist say, though (for it’s God’s thruth), that afore I left hould
      of the flipper of the spalpeen (which was not till afther her leddyship’s
      futman had kicked us both down the stairs), I giv’d it such a nate little
      broth of a squaze as made it all up into raspberry jam.
    
      “Woully wou,” says he, “pully wou,” says he—“Cot tam!”
     
    
      And that’s jist the thruth of the rason why he wears his lift hand in a
      sling.




BON-BON.


          Quand un bon vin meuble mon estomac,
          Je suis plus savant que Balzac—
          Plus sage que Pibrac;
          Mon bras seul faisant l’attaque
          De la nation Cossaque,
          La mettroit au sac;
          De Charon je passerois le lac,
          En dormant dans son bac;
          J’irois au fier Eac,
          Sans que mon coeur fit tic ni tac,
          Présenter du tabac.
                    —_French Vaudeville_

    
      That Pierre Bon-Bon was a _restaurateur_ of uncommon qualifications,
      no man who, during the reign of——, frequented the little Câfé
      in the cul-de-sac Le Febre at Rouen, will, I imagine, feel himself at
      liberty to dispute. That Pierre Bon-Bon was, in an equal degree, skilled
      in the philosophy of that period is, I presume, still more especially
      undeniable. His _patés à la fois_ were beyond doubt immaculate; but
      what pen can do justice to his essays _sur la Nature_—his
      thoughts _sur l’Ame_—his observations _sur l’Esprit?_ If
      his _omelettes_—if his _fricandeaux_ were inestimable,
      what _littérateur_ of that day would not have given twice as much for
      an “_Idée de Bon-Bon_” as for all the trash of “_Idées_” of all
      the rest of the _savants?_ Bon-Bon had ransacked libraries which no
      other man had ransacked—had more than any other would have
      entertained a notion of reading—had understood more than any other
      would have conceived the possibility of understanding; and although, while
      he flourished, there were not wanting some authors at Rouen to assert
      “that his _dicta_ evinced neither the purity of the Academy, nor the
      depth of the Lyceum”—although, mark me, his doctrines were by no
      means very generally comprehended, still it did not follow that they were
      difficult of comprehension. It was, I think, on account of their
      self-evidency that many persons were led to consider them abstruse. It is
      to Bon-Bon—but let this go no farther—it is to Bon-Bon that
      Kant himself is mainly indebted for his metaphysics. The former was indeed
      not a Platonist, nor strictly speaking an Aristotelian—nor did he,
      like the modern Leibnitz, waste those precious hours which might be
      employed in the invention of a _fricasée_ or, _facili gradú_,
      the analysis of a sensation, in frivolous attempts at reconciling the
      obstinate oils and waters of ethical discussion. Not at all. Bon-Bon was
      Ionic—Bon-Bon was equally Italic. He reasoned _à priori_—He
      reasoned also _à posteriori_. His ideas were innate—or
      otherwise. He believed in George of Trebizonde—He believed in
      Bossarion [Bessarion]. Bon-Bon was emphatically a—Bon-Bonist.
    
      I have spoken of the philosopher in his capacity of _restaurateur_. I
      would not, however, have any friend of mine imagine that, in fulfilling
      his hereditary duties in that line, our hero wanted a proper estimation of
      their dignity and importance. Far from it. It was impossible to say in
      which branch of his profession he took the greater pride. In his opinion
      the powers of the intellect held intimate connection with the capabilities
      of the stomach. I am not sure, indeed, that he greatly disagreed with the
      Chinese, who held that the soul lies in the abdomen. The Greeks at all
      events were right, he thought, who employed the same words for the mind
      and the diaphragm. (*1) By this I do not mean to insinuate a charge of
      gluttony, or indeed any other serious charge to the prejudice of the
      metaphysician. If Pierre Bon-Bon had his failings—and what great man
      has not a thousand?—if Pierre Bon-Bon, I say, had his failings, they
      were failings of very little importance—faults indeed which, in
      other tempers, have often been looked upon rather in the light of virtues.
      As regards one of these foibles, I should not even have mentioned it in
      this history but for the remarkable prominency—the extreme _alto
      relievo_—in which it jutted out from the plane of his general
      disposition. He could never let slip an opportunity of making a bargain.
    
     {*1} MD
    
      Not that he was avaricious—no. It was by no means necessary to the
      satisfaction of the philosopher, that the bargain should be to his own
      proper advantage. Provided a trade could be effected—a trade of any
      kind, upon any terms, or under any circumstances—a triumphant smile
      was seen for many days thereafter to enlighten his countenance, and a
      knowing wink of the eye to give evidence of his sagacity.
    
      At any epoch it would not be very wonderful if a humor so peculiar as the
      one I have just mentioned, should elicit attention and remark. At the
      epoch of our narrative, had this peculiarity not attracted observation,
      there would have been room for wonder indeed. It was soon reported that,
      upon all occasions of the kind, the smile of Bon-Bon was wont to differ
      widely from the downright grin with which he would laugh at his own jokes,
      or welcome an acquaintance. Hints were thrown out of an exciting nature;
      stories were told of perilous bargains made in a hurry and repented of at
      leisure; and instances were adduced of unaccountable capacities, vague
      longings, and unnatural inclinations implanted by the author of all evil
      for wise purposes of his own.
    
      The philosopher had other weaknesses—but they are scarcely worthy
      our serious examination. For example, there are few men of extraordinary
      profundity who are found wanting in an inclination for the bottle. Whether
      this inclination be an exciting cause, or rather a valid proof of such
      profundity, it is a nice thing to say. Bon-Bon, as far as I can learn, did
      not think the subject adapted to minute investigation;—nor do I. Yet
      in the indulgence of a propensity so truly classical, it is not to be
      supposed that the restaurateur would lose sight of that intuitive
      discrimination which was wont to characterize, at one and the same time,
      his essais and his omelettes. In his seclusions the Vin de Bourgogne had
      its allotted hour, and there were appropriate moments for the Cotes du
      Rhone. With him Sauterne was to Medoc what Catullus was to Homer. He would
      sport with a syllogism in sipping St. Peray, but unravel an argument over
      Clos de Vougeot, and upset a theory in a torrent of Chambertin. Well had
      it been if the same quick sense of propriety had attended him in the
      peddling propensity to which I have formerly alluded—but this was by
      no means the case. Indeed to say the truth, that trait of mind in the
      philosophic Bon-Bon did begin at length to assume a character of strange
      intensity and mysticism, and appeared deeply tinctured with the diablerie
      of his favorite German studies.
    
      To enter the little _café_ in the _cul-de-sac_ Le Febre was, at the period of
      our tale, to enter the sanctum of a man of genius. Bon-Bon was a man of
      genius. There was not a sous-cusinier in Rouen, who could not have told
      you that Bon-Bon was a man of genius. His very cat knew it, and forebore
      to whisk her tail in the presence of the man of genius. His large
      water-dog was acquainted with the fact, and upon the approach of his
      master, betrayed his sense of inferiority by a sanctity of deportment, a
      debasement of the ears, and a dropping of the lower jaw not altogether
      unworthy of a dog. It is, however, true that much of this habitual respect
      might have been attributed to the personal appearance of the
      metaphysician. A distinguished exterior will, I am constrained to say,
      have its way even with a beast; and I am willing to allow much in the
      outward man of the restaurateur calculated to impress the imagination of
      the quadruped. There is a peculiar majesty about the atmosphere of the
      little great—if I may be permitted so equivocal an expression—which
      mere physical bulk alone will be found at all times inefficient in
      creating. If, however, Bon-Bon was barely three feet in height, and if his
      head was diminutively small, still it was impossible to behold the
      rotundity of his stomach without a sense of magnificence nearly bordering
      upon the sublime. In its size both dogs and men must have seen a type of
      his acquirements—in its immensity a fitting habitation for his
      immortal soul.
    
      I might here—if it so pleased me—dilate upon the matter of
      habiliment, and other mere circumstances of the external metaphysician. I
      might hint that the hair of our hero was worn short, combed smoothly over
      his forehead, and surmounted by a conical-shaped white flannel cap and
      tassels—that his pea-green jerkin was not after the fashion of those
      worn by the common class of restaurateurs at that day—that the
      sleeves were something fuller than the reigning costume permitted—that
      the cuffs were turned up, not as usual in that barbarous period, with
      cloth of the same quality and color as the garment, but faced in a more
      fanciful manner with the particolored velvet of Genoa—that his
      slippers were of a bright purple, curiously filigreed, and might have been
      manufactured in Japan, but for the exquisite pointing of the toes, and the
      brilliant tints of the binding and embroidery—that his breeches were
      of the yellow satin-like material called aimable—that his sky-blue
      cloak, resembling in form a dressing-wrapper, and richly bestudded all
      over with crimson devices, floated cavalierly upon his shoulders like a
      mist of the morning—and that his tout ensemble gave rise to the
      remarkable words of Benevenuta, the Improvisatrice of Florence, “that it
      was difficult to say whether Pierre Bon-Bon was indeed a bird of Paradise,
      or rather a very Paradise of perfection.” I might, I say, expatiate upon
      all these points if I pleased,—but I forbear, merely personal
      details may be left to historical novelists,—they are beneath the
      moral dignity of matter-of-fact.
    
      I have said that “to enter the _café_ in the _cul-de-sac_ Le Febre was to
      enter the sanctum of a man of genius”—but then it was only the man
      of genius who could duly estimate the merits of the _sanctum_. A sign,
      consisting of a vast folio, swung before the entrance. On one side of the
      volume was painted a bottle; on the reverse a _paté_. On the back were
      visible in large letters _Œuvres de Bon-Bon_. Thus was delicately shadowed
      forth the two-fold occupation of the proprietor.
    
      Upon stepping over the threshold, the whole interior of the building
      presented itself to view. A long, low-pitched room, of antique
      construction, was indeed all the accommodation afforded by the _café_. In a
      corner of the apartment stood the bed of the metaphysician. An army of
      curtains, together with a canopy _à la Grècque_, gave it an air at once
      classic and comfortable. In the corner diagonary opposite, appeared, in
      direct family communion, the properties of the kitchen and the
      _bibliotheque_. A dish of polemics stood peacefully upon the dresser. Here
      lay an ovenful of the latest ethics—there a kettle of dudecimo
      _mélanges_. Volumes of German morality were hand and glove with the gridiron—a
      toasting-fork might be discovered by the side of Eusebius—Plato
      reclined at his ease in the frying-pan—and contemporary manuscripts
      were filed away upon the spit.
    
      In other respects the _Café de Bon-Bon_ might be said to differ little from
      the usual restaurants of the period. A fireplace yawned opposite the door.
      On the right of the fireplace an open cupboard displayed a formidable
      array of labelled bottles.
    
      It was here, about twelve o’clock one night during the severe
      winter of ——, that Pierre Bon-Bon, after having listened to
      the comments of his neighbours upon his singular propensity—that
      Pierre Bon-Bon, I say, having turned them all out of his house, locked
      the door upon them with an oath, and betook himself in no very pacific
      mood to the comforts of a leather-bottomed arm-chair, and a fire of
      blazing fagots.
    
      It was one of those terrific nights which are only met with once or twice
      during a century. It snowed fiercely, and the house tottered to its centre
      with the floods of wind that, rushing through the crannies in the wall,
      and pouring impetuously down the chimney, shook awfully the curtains of
      the philosopher’s bed, and disorganized the economy of his pate-pans and
      papers. The huge folio sign that swung without, exposed to the fury of the
      tempest, creaked ominously, and gave out a moaning sound from its
      stanchions of solid oak.
    
      It was in no placid temper, I say, that the metaphysician drew up his
      chair to its customary station by the hearth. Many circumstances of a
      perplexing nature had occurred during the day, to disturb the serenity of
      his meditations. In attempting _des oeufs à la Princesse_, he had
      unfortunately perpetrated an _omelette à la Reine;_ the discovery of a
      principle in ethics had been frustrated by the overturning of a stew; and
      last, not least, he had been thwarted in one of those admirable bargains
      which he at all times took such especial delight in bringing to a
      successful termination. But in the chafing of his mind at these
      unaccountable vicissitudes, there did not fail to be mingled some degree
      of that nervous anxiety which the fury of a boisterous night is so well
      calculated to produce. Whistling to his more immediate vicinity the large
      black water-dog we have spoken of before, and settling himself uneasily in
      his chair, he could not help casting a wary and unquiet eye toward those
      distant recesses of the apartment whose inexorable shadows not even the
      red firelight itself could more than partially succeed in overcoming.
      Having completed a scrutiny whose exact purpose was perhaps unintelligible
      to himself, he drew close to his seat a small table covered with books and
      papers, and soon became absorbed in the task of retouching a voluminous
      manuscript, intended for publication on the morrow.
    
      He had been thus occupied for some minutes when “I am in no hurry,
      Monsieur Bon-Bon,” suddenly whispered a whining voice in the apartment.
    
      “The devil!” ejaculated our hero, starting to his feet, overturning the
      table at his side, and staring around him in astonishment.
    
      “Very true,” calmly replied the voice.
    
      “Very true!—what is very true?—how came you here?” vociferated
      the metaphysician, as his eye fell upon something which lay stretched at
      full length upon the bed.
    
      “I was saying,” said the intruder, without attending to the
      interrogatives,—“I was saying that I am not at all pushed for time—that
      the business upon which I took the liberty of calling, is of no pressing
      importance—in short, that I can very well wait until you have
      finished your Exposition.”
     
    
      “My Exposition!—there now!—how do you know?—how came you
      to understand that I was writing an Exposition?—good God!”
     
    
      “Hush!” replied the figure, in a shrill undertone; and, arising quickly
      from the bed, he made a single step toward our hero, while an iron lamp
      that depended over-head swung convulsively back from his approach.
    
      The philosopher’s amazement did not prevent a narrow scrutiny of the
      stranger’s dress and appearance. The outlines of his figure, exceedingly
      lean, but much above the common height, were rendered minutely distinct,
      by means of a faded suit of black cloth which fitted tight to the skin,
      but was otherwise cut very much in the style of a century ago. These
      garments had evidently been intended for a much shorter person than their
      present owner. His ankles and wrists were left naked for several inches.
      In his shoes, however, a pair of very brilliant buckles gave the lie to
      the extreme poverty implied by the other portions of his dress. His head
      was bare, and entirely bald, with the exception of a hinder part, from
      which depended a queue of considerable length. A pair of green spectacles,
      with side glasses, protected his eyes from the influence of the light, and
      at the same time prevented our hero from ascertaining either their color
      or their conformation. About the entire person there was no evidence of a
      shirt, but a white cravat, of filthy appearance, was tied with extreme
      precision around the throat and the ends hanging down formally side by
      side gave (although I dare say unintentionally) the idea of an
      ecclesiastic. Indeed, many other points both in his appearance and
      demeanor might have very well sustained a conception of that nature. Over
      his left ear, he carried, after the fashion of a modern clerk, an
      instrument resembling the stylus of the ancients. In a breast-pocket of
      his coat appeared conspicuously a small black volume fastened with clasps
      of steel. This book, whether accidentally or not, was so turned outwardly
      from the person as to discover the words “Rituel Catholique” in white
      letters upon the back. His entire physiognomy was interestingly saturnine—even
      cadaverously pale. The forehead was lofty, and deeply furrowed with the
      ridges of contemplation. The corners of the mouth were drawn down into an
      expression of the most submissive humility. There was also a clasping of
      the hands, as he stepped toward our hero—a deep sigh—and
      altogether a look of such utter sanctity as could not have failed to be
      unequivocally preposessing. Every shadow of anger faded from the
      countenance of the metaphysician, as, having completed a satisfactory
      survey of his visitor’s person, he shook him cordially by the hand, and
      conducted him to a seat.
    
      There would however be a radical error in attributing this instantaneous
      transition of feeling in the philosopher, to any one of those causes which
      might naturally be supposed to have had an influence. Indeed, Pierre
      Bon-Bon, from what I have been able to understand of his disposition, was
      of all men the least likely to be imposed upon by any speciousness of
      exterior deportment. It was impossible that so accurate an observer of men
      and things should have failed to discover, upon the moment, the real
      character of the personage who had thus intruded upon his hospitality. To
      say no more, the conformation of his visitor’s feet was sufficiently
      remarkable—he maintained lightly upon his head an inordinately tall
      hat—there was a tremulous swelling about the hinder part of his
      breeches—and the vibration of his coat tail was a palpable fact.
      Judge, then, with what feelings of satisfaction our hero found himself
      thrown thus at once into the society of a person for whom he had at all
      times entertained the most unqualified respect. He was, however, too much
      of the diplomatist to let escape him any intimation of his suspicions in
      regard to the true state of affairs. It was not his cue to appear at all
      conscious of the high honor he thus unexpectedly enjoyed; but, by leading
      his guest into the conversation, to elicit some important ethical ideas,
      which might, in obtaining a place in his contemplated publication,
      enlighten the human race, and at the same time immortalize himself—ideas
      which, I should have added, his visitor’s great age, and well-known
      proficiency in the science of morals, might very well have enabled him to
      afford.
    
      Actuated by these enlightened views, our hero bade the gentleman sit down,
      while he himself took occasion to throw some fagots upon the fire, and
      place upon the now re-established table some bottles of _Mousseux_. Having
      quickly completed these operations, he drew his chair _vis-à-vis_ to his
      companion’s, and waited until the latter should open the conversation. But
      plans even the most skilfully matured are often thwarted in the outset of
      their application—and the _restaurateur_ found himself _nonplussed_ by
      the very first words of his visitor’s speech.
    
      “I see you know me, Bon-Bon,” said he; “ha! ha! ha!—he! he! he!—hi!
      hi! hi!—ho! ho! ho!—hu! hu! hu!”—and the devil, dropping
      at once the sanctity of his demeanor, opened to its fullest extent a mouth
      from ear to ear, so as to display a set of jagged and fang-like teeth,
      and, throwing back his head, laughed long, loudly, wickedly, and
      uproariously, while the black dog, crouching down upon his haunches,
      joined lustily in the chorus, and the tabby cat, flying off at a tangent,
      stood up on end, and shrieked in the farthest corner of the apartment.
    
      Not so the philosopher; he was too much a man of the world either to laugh
      like the dog, or by shrieks to betray the indecorous trepidation of the
      cat. It must be confessed, he felt a little astonishment to see the white
      letters which formed the words “_Rituel Catholique_” on the book in his
      guest’s pocket, momently changing both their color and their import, and
      in a few seconds, in place of the original title the words _Régitre des
      Condamnes_ blazed forth in characters of red. This startling circumstance,
      when Bon-Bon replied to his visitor’s remark, imparted to his manner an
      air of embarrassment which probably might, not otherwise have been
      observed.
    
      “Why sir,” said the philosopher, “why sir, to speak
      sincerely—I believe you are—upon my word—the
      d——dest—that is to say, I think—I imagine—I
      _have_ some faint—some _very_ faint idea—of the
      remarkable honor—”
     
    
      “Oh!—ah!—yes!—very well!” interrupted his Majesty; “say
      no more—I see how it is.” And hereupon, taking off his green
      spectacles, he wiped the glasses carefully with the sleeve of his coat,
      and deposited them in his pocket.
    
      If Bon-Bon had been astonished at the incident of the book, his amazement
      was now much increased by the spectacle which here presented itself to
      view. In raising his eyes, with a strong feeling of curiosity to ascertain
      the color of his guest’s, he found them by no means black, as he had
      anticipated—nor gray, as might have been imagined—nor yet
      hazel nor blue—nor indeed yellow nor red—nor purple—nor
      white—nor green—nor any other color in the heavens above, or
      in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth. In short, Pierre
      Bon-Bon not only saw plainly that his Majesty had no eyes whatsoever, but
      could discover no indications of their having existed at any previous
      period—for the space where eyes should naturally have been was, I am
      constrained to say, simply a dead level of flesh.
    
      It was not in the nature of the metaphysician to forbear making some
      inquiry into the sources of so strange a phenomenon, and the reply of his
      Majesty was at once prompt, dignified, and satisfactory.
    
      “Eyes! my dear Bon-Bon—eyes! did you say?—oh!—ah!—I
      perceive! The ridiculous prints, eh, which are in, circulation, have given
      you a false idea of my personal appearance? Eyes!—true. Eyes, Pierre
      Bon-Bon, are very well in their proper place—that, you would say, is
      the head?—right—the head of a worm. To you, likewise, these
      optics are indispensable—yet I will convince you that my vision is
      more penetrating than your own. There is a cat I see in the corner—a
      pretty cat—look at her—observe her well. Now, Bon-Bon, do you
      behold the thoughts—the thoughts, I say,—the ideas—the
      reflections—which are being engendered in her pericranium? There it
      is, now—you do not! She is thinking we admire the length of her tail
      and the profundity of her mind. She has just concluded that I am the most
      distinguished of ecclesiastics, and that you are the most superficial of
      metaphysicians. Thus you see I am not altogether blind; but to one of my
      profession, the eyes you speak of would be merely an incumbrance, liable
      at any time to be put out by a toasting-iron, or a pitchfork. To you, I
      allow, these optical affairs are indispensable. Endeavor, Bon-Bon, to use
      them well;—my vision is the soul.”
     
    
      Hereupon the guest helped himself to the wine upon the table, and pouring
      out a bumper for Bon-Bon, requested him to drink it without scruple, and
      make himself perfectly at home.
    
      “A clever book that of yours, Pierre,” resumed his Majesty, tapping our
      friend knowingly upon the shoulder, as the latter put down his glass after
      a thorough compliance with his visitor’s injunction. “A clever book that
      of yours, upon my honor. It’s a work after my own heart. Your arrangement
      of the matter, I think, however, might be improved, and many of your
      notions remind me of Aristotle. That philosopher was one of my most
      intimate acquaintances. I liked him as much for his terrible ill temper,
      as for his happy knack at making a blunder. There is only one solid truth
      in all that he has written, and for that I gave him the hint out of pure
      compassion for his absurdity. I suppose, Pierre Bon-Bon, you very well
      know to what divine moral truth I am alluding?”
     
    
      “Cannot say that I—”
     
    
      “Indeed!—why it was I who told Aristotle that by sneezing, men
      expelled superfluous ideas through the proboscis.”
     
    
      “Which is—hiccup!—undoubtedly the case,” said the
      metaphysician, while he poured out for himself another bumper of Mousseux,
      and offered his snuff-box to the fingers of his visitor.
    
      “There was Plato, too,” continued his Majesty, modestly
      declining the snuff-box and the compliment it implied—“there
      was Plato, too, for whom I, at one time, felt all the affection of a
      friend. You knew Plato, Bon-Bon?—ah, no, I beg a thousand pardons.
      He met me at Athens, one day, in the Parthenon, and told me he was
      distressed for an idea. I bade him write, down that δ
      υοῦς εστιν
      αυλος. He said that he would do so, and went
      home, while I stepped over to the pyramids. But my conscience smote me
      for having uttered a truth, even to aid a friend, and hastening back to
      Athens, I arrived behind the philosopher’s chair as he was inditing
      the ‘αυλος.’
     
    
      “Giving the lambda a fillip with my finger, I turned it upside down. So
      the sentence now read ‘δ
      υοῦς εστιν
      αυγος’, and is, you perceive, the
      fundamental doctrines in his metaphysics.”
     
    
      “Were you ever at Rome?” asked the _restaurateur_, as he finished his second
      bottle of Mousseux, and drew from the closet a larger supply of
      Chambertin.
    
      “But once, Monsieur Bon-Bon, but once. There was a time,” said the devil,
      as if reciting some passage from a book—“there was a time when
      occurred an anarchy of five years, during which the republic, bereft of
      all its officers, had no magistracy besides the tribunes of the people,
      and these were not legally vested with any degree of executive power—at
      that time, Monsieur Bon-Bon—at that time only I was in Rome, and I
      have no earthly acquaintance, consequently, with any of its philosophy.”
       (*2)
    
     {*2} Ils ecrivaient sur la Philosophie (_Cicero, Lucretius,
     Seneca_) mais c’etait la Philosophie Grecque.—_Condorcet_.
    
      “What do you think of—what do you think of—hiccup!—Epicurus?”
     
    
      “What do I think of whom?” said the devil, in astonishment, “you cannot
      surely mean to find any fault with Epicurus! What do I think of Epicurus!
      Do you mean me, sir?—I am Epicurus! I am the same philosopher who
      wrote each of the three hundred treatises commemorated by Diogenes
      Laertes.”
     
    
      “That’s a lie!” said the metaphysician, for the wine had gotten a little
      into his head.
    
      “Very well!—very well, sir!—very well, indeed, sir!” said his
      Majesty, apparently much flattered.
    
      “That’s a lie!” repeated the restaurateur, dogmatically; “that’s a—hiccup!—a
      lie!”
     
    
      “Well, well, have it your own way!” said the devil, pacifically, and
      Bon-Bon, having beaten his Majesty at argument, thought it his duty to
      conclude a second bottle of Chambertin.
    
      “As I was saying,” resumed the visitor—“as I was observing a little
      while ago, there are some very _outré_ notions in that book of yours
      Monsieur Bon-Bon. What, for instance, do you mean by all that humbug about
      the soul? Pray, sir, what is the soul?”
     
    
      “The—hiccup!—soul,” replied the metaphysician, referring to
      his MS., “is undoubtedly—”
     
    
      “No, sir!”
     
    
      “Indubitably—”
     
    
      “No, sir!”
     
    
      “Indisputably—”
     
    
      “No, sir!”
     
    
      “Evidently—”
     
    
      “No, sir!”
     
    
      “Incontrovertibly—”
     
    
      “No, sir!”
     
    
      “Hiccup!—”
     
    
      “No, sir!”
     
    
      “And beyond all question, a—”
     
    
      “No sir, the soul is no such thing!” (Here the philosopher, looking
      daggers, took occasion to make an end, upon the spot, of his third bottle
      of Chambertin.)
    
      “Then—hic-cup!—pray, sir—what—what is it?”
     
    
      “That is neither here nor there, Monsieur Bon-Bon,” replied his Majesty,
      musingly. “I have tasted—that is to say, I have known some very bad
      souls, and some too—pretty good ones.” Here he smacked his lips,
      and, having unconsciously let fall his hand upon the volume in his pocket,
      was seized with a violent fit of sneezing.
    
      He continued.
    
      “There was the soul of Cratinus—passable: Aristophanes—racy:
      Plato—exquisite—not _your_ Plato, but Plato the comic poet; your
      Plato would have turned the stomach of Cerberus—faugh! Then let me
      see! there were Naevius, and Andronicus, and Plautus, and Terentius. Then
      there were Lucilius, and Catullus, and Naso, and Quintus Flaccus,—dear
      Quinty! as I called him when he sung a _seculare_ for my amusement, while I
      toasted him, in pure good humor, on a fork. But they want _flavor_, these
      Romans. One fat Greek is worth a dozen of them, and besides will _keep_,
      which cannot be said of a Quirite. Let us taste your Sauterne.”
     
    
      Bon-Bon had by this time made up his mind to the _nil admirari_ and endeavored
      to hand down the bottles in question. He was, however, conscious of a
      strange sound in the room like the wagging of a tail. Of this, although
      extremely indecent in his Majesty, the philosopher took no notice:—simply
      kicking the dog, and requesting him to be quiet. The visitor continued:
    
      “I found that Horace tasted very much like Aristotle;—you know I am
      fond of variety. Terentius I could not have told from Menander. Naso, to
      my astonishment, was Nicander in disguise. Virgilius had a strong twang of
      Theocritus. Martial put me much in mind of Archilochus—and Titus
      Livius was positively Polybius and none other.”
     
    
      “Hic-cup!” here replied Bon-Bon, and his majesty proceeded:
    
      “But if I have a penchant, Monsieur Bon-Bon—if I have a penchant, it
      is for a philosopher. Yet, let me tell you, sir, it is not every dev—I
      mean it is not every gentleman who knows how to choose a philosopher. Long
      ones are not good; and the best, if not carefully shelled, are apt to be a
      little rancid on account of the gall!”
     
    
      “Shelled!”
     
    
      “I mean taken out of the carcass.”
     
    
      “What do you think of a—hic-cup!—physician?”
     
    
      “Don’t mention them!—ugh! ugh! ugh!” (Here his Majesty retched
      violently.) “I never tasted but one—that rascal Hippocrates!—smelt
      of asafoetida—ugh! ugh! ugh!—caught a wretched cold washing
      him in the Styx—and after all he gave me the cholera morbus.”
     
    
      “The—hiccup!—wretch!” ejaculated Bon-Bon, “the—hic-cup!—abortion
      of a pill-box!”—and the philosopher dropped a tear.
    
      “After all,” continued the visitor, “after all, if a dev—if a
      gentleman wishes to live, he must have more talents than one or two; and
      with us a fat face is an evidence of diplomacy.”
     
    
      “How so?”
     
    
      “Why, we are sometimes exceedingly pushed for provisions. You must know
      that, in a climate so sultry as mine, it is frequently impossible to keep
      a spirit alive for more than two or three hours; and after death, unless
      pickled immediately (and a pickled spirit is not good), they will—smell—you
      understand, eh? Putrefaction is always to be apprehended when the souls
      are consigned to us in the usual way.”
     
    
      “Hiccup!—hiccup!—good God! how do you manage?”
     
    
      Here the iron lamp commenced swinging with redoubled violence, and the
      devil half started from his seat;—however, with a slight sigh, he
      recovered his composure, merely saying to our hero in a low tone: “I tell
      you what, Pierre Bon-Bon, we must have no more swearing.”
     
    
      The host swallowed another bumper, by way of denoting thorough
      comprehension and acquiescence, and the visitor continued.
    
      “Why, there are several ways of managing. The most of us starve: some put
      up with the pickle: for my part I purchase my spirits vivente corpore, in
      which case I find they keep very well.”
     
    
      “But the body!—hiccup!—the body!”
     
    
      “The body, the body—well, what of the body?—oh! ah! I
      perceive. Why, sir, the body is not at all affected by the transaction. I
      have made innumerable purchases of the kind in my day, and the parties
      never experienced any inconvenience. There were Cain and Nimrod, and
      Nero, and Caligula, and Dionysius, and Pisistratus, and—and a
      thousand others, who never knew what it was to have a soul during the
      latter part of their lives; yet, sir, these men adorned society. Why
      isn’t there A——, now, who you know as well as I? Is
      _he_ not in possession of his faculties, mental and corporeal? Who
      writes a keener epigram? Who reasons more wittily? Who—but stay! I
      have his agreement in my pocket-book.”
     
    
      Thus saying, he produced a red leather wallet, and took from it a number
      of papers. Upon some of these Bon-Bon caught a glimpse of the letters
      _Machi—Maza—Robesp_—with the words _Caligula, George,
      Elizabeth_. His Majesty selected a narrow slip of parchment, and from it
      read aloud the following words:
    
      “In consideration of certain mental endowments which it is unnecessary to
      specify, and in further consideration of one thousand louis d’or, I being
      aged one year and one month, do hereby make over to the bearer of this
      agreement all my right, title, and appurtenance in the shadow called my
      soul. (Signed) A....” {*4} (Here His Majesty repeated a name which I did
      not feel justified in indicating more unequivocally.)
    
      {*4} Quere-Arouet?
    
      “A clever fellow that,” resumed he; “but like you, Monsieur Bon-Bon, he
      was mistaken about the soul. The soul a shadow, truly! The soul a shadow;
      Ha! ha! ha!—he! he! he!—hu! hu! hu! Only think of a fricasseed
      shadow!”
     
    
      “_Only_ think—hiccup!—of a fricasséed shadow!” exclaimed our
      hero, whose faculties were becoming much illuminated by the profundity of
      his Majesty’s discourse.
    
      “Only think of a hiccup!—fricasséed shadow!! Now, damme!—hiccup!—humph!
      If _I_ would have been such a—hiccup!—nincompoop! _My_ soul, Mr.—humph!”
     
    
      “_Your_ soul, Monsieur Bon-Bon?”
     
    
      “Yes, sir—hiccup!—_my_ soul is—”
     
    
      “What, sir?”
     
    
      “_No_ shadow, damme!”
     
    
      “Did you mean to say—”
     
    
      “Yes, sir, my soul is—hiccup!—humph!—yes, sir.”
     
    
      “Did you not intend to assert—”
     
    
      “My soul is—hiccup!—peculiarly qualified for—hiccup!—a—”
     
    
      “What, sir?”
     
    
      “Stew.”
     
    
      “Ha!”
     
    
      “Soufflee.”
     
    
      “Eh!”
     
    
      “Fricassee.”
     
    
      “Indeed!”
     
    
      “Ragout and fricandeau—and see here, my good fellow! I’ll let you
      have it—hiccup!—a bargain.” Here the philosopher slapped his
      Majesty upon the back.
    
      “Couldn’t think of such a thing,” said the latter calmly, at the same time
      rising from his seat. The metaphysician stared.
    
      “Am supplied at present,” said his Majesty.
    
      “Hiccup!—e-h?” said the philosopher.
    
      “Have no funds on hand.”
     
    
      “What?”
     
    
      “Besides, very unhandsome in me—”
     
    
      “Sir!”
     
    
      “To take advantage of—”
     
    
      “Hiccup!”
     
    
      “Your present disgusting and ungentlemanly situation.”
     
    
      Here the visitor bowed and withdrew—in what manner could not
      precisely be ascertained—but in a well-concerted effort to discharge
      a bottle at “the villain,” the slender chain was severed that depended
      from the ceiling, and the metaphysician prostrated by the downfall of the
      lamp.




SOME WORDS WITH A MUMMY.


      The _symposium_ of the preceding evening had been a little too much
      for my nerves. I had a wretched headache, and was desperately drowsy.
      Instead of going out therefore to spend the evening as I had proposed, it
      occurred to me that I could not do a wiser thing than just eat a mouthful
      of supper and go immediately to bed.
    
      A light supper of course. I am exceedingly fond of Welsh rabbit. More than
      a pound at once, however, may not at all times be advisable. Still, there
      can be no material objection to two. And really between two and three,
      there is merely a single unit of difference. I ventured, perhaps, upon
      four. My wife will have it five;—but, clearly, she has confounded
      two very distinct affairs. The abstract number, five, I am willing to
      admit; but, concretely, it has reference to bottles of Brown Stout,
      without which, in the way of condiment, Welsh rabbit is to be eschewed.
    
      Having thus concluded a frugal meal, and donned my night-cap, with the
      serene hope of enjoying it till noon the next day, I placed my head upon
      the pillow, and, through the aid of a capital conscience, fell into a
      profound slumber forthwith.
    
      But when were the hopes of humanity fulfilled? I could not have completed
      my third snore when there came a furious ringing at the street-door bell,
      and then an impatient thumping at the knocker, which awakened me at once.
      In a minute afterward, and while I was still rubbing my eyes, my wife
      thrust in my face a note, from my old friend, Doctor Ponnonner. It ran
      thus:
    

“Come to me, by all means, my dear good friend, as soon as you receive
this. Come and help us to rejoice. At last, by long persevering diplomacy, I
have gained the assent of the Directors of the City Museum, to my examination
of the Mummy—you know the one I mean. I have permission to unswathe it
and open it, if desirable. A few friends only will be present—you, of
course. The Mummy is now at my house, and we shall begin to unroll it at eleven
to-night.

           “Yours, ever,
                   PONNONNER.

    
      By the time I had reached the “Ponnonner,” it struck me that I was as wide
      awake as a man need be. I leaped out of bed in an ecstacy, overthrowing
      all in my way; dressed myself with a rapidity truly marvellous; and set
      off, at the top of my speed, for the doctor’s.
    
      There I found a very eager company assembled. They had been awaiting me
      with much impatience; the Mummy was extended upon the dining-table; and
      the moment I entered its examination was commenced.
    
      It was one of a pair brought, several years previously, by Captain Arthur
      Sabretash, a cousin of Ponnonner’s from a tomb near Eleithias, in
      the Lybian mountains, a considerable distance above Thebes on the Nile.
      The grottoes at this point, although less magnificent than the Theban
      sepulchres, are of higher interest, on account of affording more numerous
      illustrations of the private life of the Egyptians. The chamber from
      which our specimen was taken, was said to be very rich in such
      illustrations—the walls being completely covered with fresco
      paintings and bas-reliefs, while statues, vases, and Mosaic work of rich
      patterns, indicated the vast wealth of the deceased.
    
      The treasure had been deposited in the Museum precisely in the same
      condition in which Captain Sabretash had found it—that is to say,
      the coffin had not been disturbed. For eight years it had thus stood,
      subject only externally to public inspection. We had now, therefore, the
      complete Mummy at our disposal; and to those who are aware how very rarely
      the unransacked antique reaches our shores, it will be evident, at once
      that we had great reason to congratulate ourselves upon our good fortune.
    
      Approaching the table, I saw on it a large box, or case, nearly seven feet
      long, and perhaps three feet wide, by two feet and a half deep. It was
      oblong—not coffin-shaped. The material was at first supposed to be
      the wood of the sycamore (_platanus_), but, upon cutting into it, we
      found it to be pasteboard, or, more properly, _papier mache_,
      composed of papyrus. It was thickly ornamented with paintings,
      representing funeral scenes, and other mournful subjects—interspersed
      among which, in every variety of position, were certain series of
      hieroglyphical characters, intended, no doubt, for the name of the
      departed. By good luck, Mr. Gliddon formed one of our party; and he had no
      difficulty in translating the letters, which were simply phonetic, and
      represented the word _Allamistakeo_.
    
      We had some difficulty in getting this case open without injury; but
      having at length accomplished the task, we came to a second,
      coffin-shaped, and very considerably less in size than the exterior one,
      but resembling it precisely in every other respect. The interval between
      the two was filled with resin, which had, in some degree, defaced the
      colors of the interior box.
    
      Upon opening this latter (which we did quite easily), we arrived at a
      third case, also coffin-shaped, and varying from the second one in no
      particular, except in that of its material, which was cedar, and still
      emitted the peculiar and highly aromatic odor of that wood. Between the
      second and the third case there was no interval—the one fitting
      accurately within the other.
    
      Removing the third case, we discovered and took out the body itself. We
      had expected to find it, as usual, enveloped in frequent rolls, or
      bandages, of linen; but, in place of these, we found a sort of sheath,
      made of papyrus, and coated with a layer of plaster, thickly gilt and
      painted. The paintings represented subjects connected with the various
      supposed duties of the soul, and its presentation to different divinities,
      with numerous identical human figures, intended, very probably, as
      portraits of the persons embalmed. Extending from head to foot was a
      columnar, or perpendicular, inscription, in phonetic hieroglyphics, giving
      again his name and titles, and the names and titles of his relations.
    
      Around the neck thus ensheathed, was a collar of cylindrical glass beads,
      diverse in color, and so arranged as to form images of deities, of the
      scarabaeus, etc., with the winged globe. Around the small of the waist
      was a similar collar or belt.
    
      Stripping off the papyrus, we found the flesh in excellent preservation,
      with no perceptible odor. The color was reddish. The skin was hard,
      smooth, and glossy. The teeth and hair were in good condition. The eyes
      (it seemed) had been removed, and glass ones substituted, which were very
      beautiful and wonderfully life-like, with the exception of somewhat too
      determined a stare. The fingers and the nails were brilliantly gilded.
    
      Mr. Gliddon was of opinion, from the redness of the epidermis, that the
      embalmment had been effected altogether by asphaltum; but, on scraping the
      surface with a steel instrument, and throwing into the fire some of the
      powder thus obtained, the flavor of camphor and other sweet-scented gums
      became apparent.
    
      We searched the corpse very carefully for the usual openings through which
      the entrails are extracted, but, to our surprise, we could discover none.
      No member of the party was at that period aware that entire or unopened
      mummies are not infrequently met. The brain it was customary to withdraw
      through the nose; the intestines through an incision in the side; the body
      was then shaved, washed, and salted; then laid aside for several weeks,
      when the operation of embalming, properly so called, began.
    
      As no trace of an opening could be found, Doctor Ponnonner was preparing
      his instruments for dissection, when I observed that it was then past two
      o’clock. Hereupon it was agreed to postpone the internal examination until
      the next evening; and we were about to separate for the present, when some
      one suggested an experiment or two with the Voltaic pile.
    
      The application of electricity to a mummy three or four thousand years old
      at the least, was an idea, if not very sage, still sufficiently original,
      and we all caught it at once. About one-tenth in earnest and nine-tenths
      in jest, we arranged a battery in the Doctor’s study, and conveyed thither
      the Egyptian.
    
      It was only after much trouble that we succeeded in laying bare some
      portions of the temporal muscle which appeared of less stony rigidity than
      other parts of the frame, but which, as we had anticipated, of course,
      gave no indication of galvanic susceptibility when brought in contact with
      the wire. This, the first trial, indeed, seemed decisive, and, with a
      hearty laugh at our own absurdity, we were bidding each other good night,
      when my eyes, happening to fall upon those of the Mummy, were there
      immediately riveted in amazement. My brief glance, in fact, had sufficed
      to assure me that the orbs which we had all supposed to be glass, and
      which were originally noticeable for a certain wild stare, were now so far
      covered by the lids, that only a small portion of the _tunica albuginea_
      remained visible.
    
      With a shout I called attention to the fact, and it became immediately
      obvious to all.
    
      I cannot say that I was alarmed at the phenomenon, because “alarmed” is,
      in my case, not exactly the word. It is possible, however, that, but for
      the Brown Stout, I might have been a little nervous. As for the rest of
      the company, they really made no attempt at concealing the downright
      fright which possessed them. Doctor Ponnonner was a man to be pitied. Mr.
      Gliddon, by some peculiar process, rendered himself invisible. Mr. Silk
      Buckingham, I fancy, will scarcely be so bold as to deny that he made his
      way, upon all fours, under the table.
    
      After the first shock of astonishment, however, we resolved, as a matter
      of course, upon further experiment forthwith. Our operations were now
      directed against the great toe of the right foot. We made an incision over
      the outside of the exterior _os sesamoideum pollicis pedis,_ and thus
      got at the root of the abductor muscle. Readjusting the battery, we now
      applied the fluid to the bisected nerves—when, with a movement of
      exceeding life-likeness, the Mummy first drew up its right knee so as to
      bring it nearly in contact with the abdomen, and then, straightening the
      limb with inconceivable force, bestowed a kick upon Doctor Ponnonner,
      which had the effect of discharging that gentleman, like an arrow from a
      catapult, through a window into the street below.
    
      We rushed out _en masse_ to bring in the mangled remains of the
      victim, but had the happiness to meet him upon the staircase, coming up in
      an unaccountable hurry, brimful of the most ardent philosophy, and more
      than ever impressed with the necessity of prosecuting our experiment with
      vigor and with zeal.
    
      It was by his advice, accordingly, that we made, upon the spot, a profound
      incision into the tip of the subject’s nose, while the Doctor himself,
      laying violent hands upon it, pulled it into vehement contact with the
      wire.
    
      Morally and physically—figuratively and literally—was the
      effect electric. In the first place, the corpse opened its eyes and winked
      very rapidly for several minutes, as does Mr. Barnes in the pantomime; in
      the second place, it sneezed; in the third, it sat upon end; in the
      fourth, it shook its fist in Doctor Ponnonner’s face; in the fifth,
      turning to Messieurs Gliddon and Buckingham, it addressed them, in very
      capital Egyptian, thus:
    
      “I must say, gentlemen, that I am as much surprised as I am mortified at
      your behavior. Of Doctor Ponnonner nothing better was to be expected. He
      is a poor little fat fool who knows no better. I pity and forgive him. But
      you, Mr. Gliddon—and you, Silk—who have travelled and resided
      in Egypt until one might imagine you to the manor born—you, I say
      who have been so much among us that you speak Egyptian fully as well, I
      think, as you write your mother tongue—you, whom I have always been
      led to regard as the firm friend of the mummies—I really did
      anticipate more gentlemanly conduct from you. What am I to think of your
      standing quietly by and seeing me thus unhandsomely used? What am I to
      suppose by your permitting Tom, Dick, and Harry to strip me of my coffins,
      and my clothes, in this wretchedly cold climate? In what light (to come to
      the point) am I to regard your aiding and abetting that miserable little
      villain, Doctor Ponnonner, in pulling me by the nose?”
     
    
      It will be taken for granted, no doubt, that upon hearing this speech
      under the circumstances, we all either made for the door, or fell into
      violent hysterics, or went off in a general swoon. One of these three
      things was, I say, to be expected. Indeed each and all of these lines of
      conduct might have been very plausibly pursued. And, upon my word, I am at
      a loss to know how or why it was that we pursued neither the one nor the
      other. But, perhaps, the true reason is to be sought in the spirit of the
      age, which proceeds by the rule of contraries altogether, and is now
      usually admitted as the solution of every thing in the way of paradox and
      impossibility. Or, perhaps, after all, it was only the Mummy’s exceedingly
      natural and matter-of-course air that divested his words of the terrible.
      However this may be, the facts are clear, and no member of our party
      betrayed any very particular trepidation, or seemed to consider that any
      thing had gone very especially wrong.
    
      For my part I was convinced it was all right, and merely stepped aside,
      out of the range of the Egyptian’s fist. Doctor Ponnonner thrust his hands
      into his breeches’ pockets, looked hard at the Mummy, and grew excessively
      red in the face. Mr. Glidden stroked his whiskers and drew up the collar
      of his shirt. Mr. Buckingham hung down his head, and put his right thumb
      into the left corner of his mouth.
    
      The Egyptian regarded him with a severe countenance for some minutes and
      at length, with a sneer, said:
    
      “Why don’t you speak, Mr. Buckingham? Did you hear what I asked you, or
      not? Do take your thumb out of your mouth!”
     
    
      Mr. Buckingham, hereupon, gave a slight start, took his right thumb out of
      the left corner of his mouth, and, by way of indemnification inserted his
      left thumb in the right corner of the aperture above-mentioned.
    
      Not being able to get an answer from Mr. B., the figure turned peevishly
      to Mr. Gliddon, and, in a peremptory tone, demanded in general terms what
      we all meant.
    
      Mr. Gliddon replied at great length, in phonetics; and but for the
      deficiency of American printing-offices in hieroglyphical type, it would
      afford me much pleasure to record here, in the original, the whole of his
      very excellent speech.
    
      I may as well take this occasion to remark, that all the subsequent
      conversation in which the Mummy took a part, was carried on in primitive
      Egyptian, through the medium (so far as concerned myself and other
      untravelled members of the company)—through the medium, I say, of
      Messieurs Gliddon and Buckingham, as interpreters. These gentlemen spoke
      the mother tongue of the Mummy with inimitable fluency and grace; but I
      could not help observing that (owing, no doubt, to the introduction of
      images entirely modern, and, of course, entirely novel to the stranger)
      the two travellers were reduced, occasionally, to the employment of
      sensible forms for the purpose of conveying a particular meaning. Mr.
      Gliddon, at one period, for example, could not make the Egyptian
      comprehend the term “politics,” until he sketched upon the wall, with a
      bit of charcoal a little carbuncle-nosed gentleman, out at elbows,
      standing upon a stump, with his left leg drawn back, right arm thrown
      forward, with his fist shut, the eyes rolled up toward Heaven, and the
      mouth open at an angle of ninety degrees. Just in the same way Mr.
      Buckingham failed to convey the absolutely modern idea “wig,” until (at
      Doctor Ponnonner’s suggestion) he grew very pale in the face, and
      consented to take off his own.
    
      It will be readily understood that Mr. Gliddon’s discourse turned chiefly
      upon the vast benefits accruing to science from the unrolling and
      disembowelling of mummies; apologizing, upon this score, for any
      disturbance that might have been occasioned him, in particular, the
      individual Mummy called Allamistakeo; and concluding with a mere hint (for
      it could scarcely be considered more) that, as these little matters were
      now explained, it might be as well to proceed with the investigation
      intended. Here Doctor Ponnonner made ready his instruments.
    
      In regard to the latter suggestions of the orator, it appears that
      Allamistakeo had certain scruples of conscience, the nature of which I did
      not distinctly learn; but he expressed himself satisfied with the
      apologies tendered, and, getting down from the table, shook hands with the
      company all round.
    
      When this ceremony was at an end, we immediately busied ourselves in
      repairing the damages which our subject had sustained from the scalpel. We
      sewed up the wound in his temple, bandaged his foot, and applied a square
      inch of black plaster to the tip of his nose.
    
      It was now observed that the Count (this was the title, it seems, of
      Allamistakeo) had a slight fit of shivering—no doubt from the cold.
      The Doctor immediately repaired to his wardrobe, and soon returned with a
      black dress coat, made in Jennings’ best manner, a pair of sky-blue plaid
      pantaloons with straps, a pink gingham chemise, a flapped vest of brocade,
      a white sack overcoat, a walking cane with a hook, a hat with no brim,
      patent-leather boots, straw-colored kid gloves, an eye-glass, a pair of
      whiskers, and a waterfall cravat. Owing to the disparity of size between
      the Count and the doctor (the proportion being as two to one), there was
      some little difficulty in adjusting these habiliments upon the person of
      the Egyptian; but when all was arranged, he might have been said to be
      dressed. Mr. Gliddon, therefore, gave him his arm, and led him to a
      comfortable chair by the fire, while the Doctor rang the bell upon the
      spot and ordered a supply of cigars and wine.
    
      The conversation soon grew animated. Much curiosity was, of course,
      expressed in regard to the somewhat remarkable fact of Allamistakeo’s
      still remaining alive.
    
      “I should have thought,” observed Mr. Buckingham, “that it is high time
      you were dead.”
     
    
      “Why,” replied the Count, very much astonished, “I am little more than
      seven hundred years old! My father lived a thousand, and was by no means
      in his dotage when he died.”
     
    
      Here ensued a brisk series of questions and computations, by means of
      which it became evident that the antiquity of the Mummy had been grossly
      misjudged. It had been five thousand and fifty years and some months since
      he had been consigned to the catacombs at Eleithias.
    
      “But my remark,” resumed Mr. Buckingham, “had no reference to your age at
      the period of interment (I am willing to grant, in fact, that you are
      still a young man), and my illusion was to the immensity of time during
      which, by your own showing, you must have been done up in asphaltum.”
     
    
      “In what?” said the Count.
    
      “In asphaltum,” persisted Mr. B.
    
      “Ah, yes; I have some faint notion of what you mean; it might be made to
      answer, no doubt—but in my time we employed scarcely any thing else
      than the Bichloride of Mercury.”
     
    
      “But what we are especially at a loss to understand,” said Doctor
      Ponnonner, “is how it happens that, having been dead and buried in Egypt
      five thousand years ago, you are here to-day all alive and looking so
      delightfully well.”
     
    
      “Had I been, as you say, dead,” replied the Count, “it is more than
      probable that dead, I should still be; for I perceive you are yet in the
      infancy of Galvanism, and cannot accomplish with it what was a common
      thing among us in the old days. But the fact is, I fell into catalepsy,
      and it was considered by my best friends that I was either dead or should
      be; they accordingly embalmed me at once—I presume you are aware of
      the chief principle of the embalming process?”
     
    
      “Why, not altogether.”
     
    
      “Ah, I perceive—a deplorable condition of ignorance! Well I cannot
      enter into details just now: but it is necessary to explain that to embalm
      (properly speaking), in Egypt, was to arrest indefinitely all the animal
      functions subjected to the process. I use the word ‘animal’ in its widest
      sense, as including the physical not more than the moral and vital being.
      I repeat that the leading principle of embalmment consisted, with us, in
      the immediately arresting, and holding in perpetual abeyance, all the
      animal functions subjected to the process. To be brief, in whatever
      condition the individual was, at the period of embalmment, in that
      condition he remained. Now, as it is my good fortune to be of the blood of
      the Scarabaeus, I was embalmed alive, as you see me at present.”
     
    
      “The blood of the Scarabaeus!” exclaimed Doctor Ponnonner.
    
      “Yes. The Scarabaeus was the insignium or the ‘arms,’ of a very
      distinguished and very rare patrician family. To be ‘of the blood of the
      Scarabaeus,’ is merely to be one of that family of which the Scarabaeus is
      the insignium. I speak figuratively.”
     
    
      “But what has this to do with you being alive?”
     
    
      “Why, it is the general custom in Egypt to deprive a corpse, before
      embalmment, of its bowels and brains; the race of the Scarabaei alone did
      not coincide with the custom. Had I not been a Scarabeus, therefore, I
      should have been without bowels and brains; and without either it is
      inconvenient to live.”
     
    
      “I perceive that,” said Mr. Buckingham, “and I presume that all the entire
      mummies that come to hand are of the race of Scarabaei.”
     
    
      “Beyond doubt.”
     
    
      “I thought,” said Mr. Gliddon, very meekly, “that the Scarabaeus was one
      of the Egyptian gods.”
     
    
      “One of the Egyptian _what?”_ exclaimed the Mummy, starting to its
      feet.
    
      “Gods!” repeated the traveller.
    
      “Mr. Gliddon, I really am astonished to hear you talk in this style,” said
      the Count, resuming his chair. “No nation upon the face of the earth has
      ever acknowledged more than one god. The Scarabaeus, the Ibis, etc., were
      with us (as similar creatures have been with others) the symbols, or
      media, through which we offered worship to the Creator too august to be
      more directly approached.”
     
    
      There was here a pause. At length the colloquy was renewed by Doctor
      Ponnonner.
    
      “It is not improbable, then, from what you have explained,” said he, “that
      among the catacombs near the Nile there may exist other mummies of the
      Scarabaeus tribe, in a condition of vitality?”
     
    
      “There can be no question of it,” replied the Count; “all the Scarabaei
      embalmed accidentally while alive, are alive now. Even some of those
      purposely so embalmed, may have been overlooked by their executors, and
      still remain in the tomb.”
     
    
      “Will you be kind enough to explain,” I said, “what you mean by ‘purposely
      so embalmed’?”
     
    
      “With great pleasure!” answered the Mummy, after surveying me leisurely
      through his eye-glass—for it was the first time I had ventured to
      address him a direct question.
    
      “With great pleasure,” he said. “The usual duration of man’s life, in my
      time, was about eight hundred years. Few men died, unless by most
      extraordinary accident, before the age of six hundred; few lived longer
      than a decade of centuries; but eight were considered the natural term.
      After the discovery of the embalming principle, as I have already
      described it to you, it occurred to our philosophers that a laudable
      curiosity might be gratified, and, at the same time, the interests of
      science much advanced, by living this natural term in installments. In the
      case of history, indeed, experience demonstrated that something of this
      kind was indispensable. An historian, for example, having attained the age
      of five hundred, would write a book with great labor and then get himself
      carefully embalmed; leaving instructions to his executors pro tem., that
      they should cause him to be revivified after the lapse of a certain period—say
      five or six hundred years. Resuming existence at the expiration of this
      time, he would invariably find his great work converted into a species of
      hap-hazard note-book—that is to say, into a kind of literary arena
      for the conflicting guesses, riddles, and personal squabbles of whole
      herds of exasperated commentators. These guesses, etc., which passed under
      the name of annotations, or emendations, were found so completely to have
      enveloped, distorted, and overwhelmed the text, that the author had to go
      about with a lantern to discover his own book. When discovered, it was
      never worth the trouble of the search. After re-writing it throughout, it
      was regarded as the bounden duty of the historian to set himself to work
      immediately in correcting, from his own private knowledge and experience,
      the traditions of the day concerning the epoch at which he had originally
      lived. Now this process of re-scription and personal rectification,
      pursued by various individual sages from time to time, had the effect of
      preventing our history from degenerating into absolute fable.”
     
    
      “I beg your pardon,” said Doctor Ponnonner at this point, laying his hand
      gently upon the arm of the Egyptian—“I beg your pardon, sir, but may
      I presume to interrupt you for one moment?”
     
    
      “By all means, sir,” replied the Count, drawing up.
    
      “I merely wished to ask you a question,” said the Doctor. “You mentioned
      the historian’s personal correction of traditions respecting his own
      epoch. Pray, sir, upon an average what proportion of these Kabbala were
      usually found to be right?”
     
    
      “The Kabbala, as you properly term them, sir, were generally discovered to
      be precisely on a par with the facts recorded in the un-re-written
      histories themselves;—that is to say, not one individual iota of
      either was ever known, under any circumstances, to be not totally and
      radically wrong.”
     
    
      “But since it is quite clear,” resumed the Doctor, “that at least five
      thousand years have elapsed since your entombment, I take it for granted
      that your histories at that period, if not your traditions were
      sufficiently explicit on that one topic of universal interest, the
      Creation, which took place, as I presume you are aware, only about ten
      centuries before.”
     
    
      “Sir!” said the Count Allamistakeo.
    
      The Doctor repeated his remarks, but it was only after much additional
      explanation that the foreigner could be made to comprehend them. The
      latter at length said, hesitatingly:
    
      “The ideas you have suggested are to me, I confess, utterly novel. During
      my time I never knew any one to entertain so singular a fancy as that the
      universe (or this world if you will have it so) ever had a beginning at
      all. I remember once, and once only, hearing something remotely hinted, by
      a man of many speculations, concerning the origin _of the human race;_
      and by this individual, the very word _Adam_ (or Red Earth), which
      you make use of, was employed. He employed it, however, in a generical
      sense, with reference to the spontaneous germination from rank soil (just
      as a thousand of the lower genera of creatures are germinated)—the
      spontaneous germination, I say, of five vast hordes of men, simultaneously
      upspringing in five distinct and nearly equal divisions of the globe.”
     
    
      Here, in general, the company shrugged their shoulders, and one or two of
      us touched our foreheads with a very significant air. Mr. Silk Buckingham,
      first glancing slightly at the occiput and then at the sinciput of
      Allamistakeo, spoke as follows:
    
      “The long duration of human life in your time, together with the
      occasional practice of passing it, as you have explained, in installments,
      must have had, indeed, a strong tendency to the general development and
      conglomeration of knowledge. I presume, therefore, that we are to
      attribute the marked inferiority of the old Egyptians in all particulars
      of science, when compared with the moderns, and more especially with the
      Yankees, altogether to the superior solidity of the Egyptian skull.”
     
    
      “I confess again,” replied the Count, with much suavity, “that I am
      somewhat at a loss to comprehend you; pray, to what particulars of science
      do you allude?”
     
    
      Here our whole party, joining voices, detailed, at great length, the
      assumptions of phrenology and the marvels of animal magnetism.
    
      Having heard us to an end, the Count proceeded to relate a few anecdotes,
      which rendered it evident that prototypes of Gall and Spurzheim had
      flourished and faded in Egypt so long ago as to have been nearly
      forgotten, and that the manoeuvres of Mesmer were really very contemptible
      tricks when put in collation with the positive miracles of the Theban
      savans, who created lice and a great many other similar things.
    
      I here asked the Count if his people were able to calculate eclipses. He
      smiled rather contemptuously, and said they were.
    
      This put me a little out, but I began to make other inquiries in regard to
      his astronomical knowledge, when a member of the company, who had never as
      yet opened his mouth, whispered in my ear, that for information on this
      head, I had better consult Ptolemy (whoever Ptolemy is), as well as one
      Plutarch de facie lunae.
    
      I then questioned the Mummy about burning-glasses and lenses, and, in
      general, about the manufacture of glass; but I had not made an end of my
      queries before the silent member again touched me quietly on the elbow,
      and begged me for God’s sake to take a peep at Diodorus Siculus. As for
      the Count, he merely asked me, in the way of reply, if we moderns
      possessed any such microscopes as would enable us to cut cameos in the
      style of the Egyptians. While I was thinking how I should answer this
      question, little Doctor Ponnonner committed himself in a very
      extraordinary way.
    
      “Look at our architecture!” he exclaimed, greatly to the indignation of
      both the travellers, who pinched him black and blue to no purpose.
    
      “Look,” he cried with enthusiasm, “at the Bowling-Green Fountain in New
      York! or if this be too vast a contemplation, regard for a moment the
      Capitol at Washington, D. C.!”—and the good little medical man went
      on to detail very minutely, the proportions of the fabric to which he
      referred. He explained that the portico alone was adorned with no less
      than four and twenty columns, five feet in diameter, and ten feet apart.
    
      The Count said that he regretted not being able to remember, just at that
      moment, the precise dimensions of any one of the principal buildings of
      the city of Aznac, whose foundations were laid in the night of Time, but
      the ruins of which were still standing, at the epoch of his entombment, in
      a vast plain of sand to the westward of Thebes. He recollected, however,
      (talking of the porticoes,) that one affixed to an inferior palace in a
      kind of suburb called Carnac, consisted of a hundred and forty-four
      columns, thirty-seven feet in circumference, and twenty-five feet apart.
      The approach to this portico, from the Nile, was through an avenue two
      miles long, composed of sphynxes, statues, and obelisks, twenty, sixty,
      and a hundred feet in height. The palace itself (as well as he could
      remember) was, in one direction, two miles long, and might have been
      altogether about seven in circuit. Its walls were richly painted all over,
      within and without, with hieroglyphics. He would not pretend to assert
      that even fifty or sixty of the Doctor’s Capitols might have been built
      within these walls, but he was by no means sure that two or three hundred
      of them might not have been squeezed in with some trouble. That palace at
      Carnac was an insignificant little building after all. He (the Count),
      however, could not conscientiously refuse to admit the ingenuity,
      magnificence, and superiority of the Fountain at the Bowling Green, as
      described by the Doctor. Nothing like it, he was forced to allow, had ever
      been seen in Egypt or elsewhere.
    
      I here asked the Count what he had to say to our railroads.
    
      “Nothing,” he replied, “in particular.” They were rather slight, rather
      ill-conceived, and clumsily put together. They could not be compared, of
      course, with the vast, level, direct, iron-grooved causeways upon which
      the Egyptians conveyed entire temples and solid obelisks of a hundred and
      fifty feet in altitude.
    
      I spoke of our gigantic mechanical forces.
    
      He agreed that we knew something in that way, but inquired how I should
      have gone to work in getting up the imposts on the lintels of even the
      little palace at Carnac.
    
      This question I concluded not to hear, and demanded if he had any idea of
      Artesian wells; but he simply raised his eyebrows; while Mr. Gliddon
      winked at me very hard and said, in a low tone, that one had been recently
      discovered by the engineers employed to bore for water in the Great Oasis.
    
      I then mentioned our steel; but the foreigner elevated his nose, and asked
      me if our steel could have executed the sharp carved work seen on the
      obelisks, and which was wrought altogether by edge-tools of copper.
    
      This disconcerted us so greatly that we thought it advisable to vary the
      attack to Metaphysics. We sent for a copy of a book called the “Dial,” and
      read out of it a chapter or two about something that is not very clear,
      but which the Bostonians call the Great Movement of Progress.
    
      The Count merely said that Great Movements were awfully common things in
      his day, and as for Progress, it was at one time quite a nuisance, but it
      never progressed.
    
      We then spoke of the great beauty and importance of Democracy, and were at
      much trouble in impressing the Count with a due sense of the advantages we
      enjoyed in living where there was suffrage ad libitum, and no king.
    
      He listened with marked interest, and in fact seemed not a little amused.
      When we had done, he said that, a great while ago, there had occurred
      something of a very similar sort. Thirteen Egyptian provinces determined
      all at once to be free, and to set a magnificent example to the rest of
      mankind. They assembled their wise men, and concocted the most ingenious
      constitution it is possible to conceive. For a while they managed
      remarkably well; only their habit of bragging was prodigious. The thing
      ended, however, in the consolidation of the thirteen states, with some
      fifteen or twenty others, in the most odious and insupportable despotism
      that was ever heard of upon the face of the Earth.
    
      I asked what was the name of the usurping tyrant.
    
      As well as the Count could recollect, it was Mob.
    
      Not knowing what to say to this, I raised my voice, and deplored the
      Egyptian ignorance of steam.
    
      The Count looked at me with much astonishment, but made no answer. The
      silent gentleman, however, gave me a violent nudge in the ribs with his
      elbows—told me I had sufficiently exposed myself for once—and
      demanded if I was really such a fool as not to know that the modern
      steam-engine is derived from the invention of Hero, through Solomon de
      Caus.
    
      We were now in imminent danger of being discomfited; but, as good luck
      would have it, Doctor Ponnonner, having rallied, returned to our rescue,
      and inquired if the people of Egypt would seriously pretend to rival the
      moderns in the all-important particular of dress.
    
      The Count, at this, glanced downward to the straps of his pantaloons, and
      then taking hold of the end of one of his coat-tails, held it up close to
      his eyes for some minutes. Letting it fall, at last, his mouth extended
      itself very gradually from ear to ear; but I do not remember that he said
      any thing in the way of reply.
    
      Hereupon we recovered our spirits, and the Doctor, approaching the Mummy
      with great dignity, desired it to say candidly, upon its honor as a
      gentleman, if the Egyptians had comprehended, at any period, the
      manufacture of either Ponnonner’s lozenges or Brandreth’s pills.
    
      We looked, with profound anxiety, for an answer—but in vain. It was
      not forthcoming. The Egyptian blushed and hung down his head. Never was
      triumph more consummate; never was defeat borne with so ill a grace.
      Indeed, I could not endure the spectacle of the poor Mummy’s
      mortification. I reached my hat, bowed to him stiffly, and took leave.
    
      Upon getting home I found it past four o’clock, and went immediately to
      bed. It is now ten A.M. I have been up since seven, penning these
      memoranda for the benefit of my family and of mankind. The former I shall
      behold no more. My wife is a shrew. The truth is, I am heartily sick of
      this life and of the nineteenth century in general. I am convinced that
      every thing is going wrong. Besides, I am anxious to know who will be
      President in 2045. As soon, therefore, as I shave and swallow a cup of
      coffee, I shall just step over to Ponnonner’s and get embalmed for a
      couple of hundred years.




THE POETIC PRINCIPLE


      In speaking of the Poetic Principle, I have no design to be either
      thorough or profound. While discussing, very much at random, the
      essentiality of what we call Poetry, my principal purpose will be to cite
      for consideration, some few of those minor English or American poems which
      best suit my own taste, or which, upon my own fancy, have left the most
      definite impression. By “minor poems” I mean, of course, poems of little
      length. And here, in the beginning, permit me to say a few words in regard
      to a somewhat peculiar principle, which, whether rightfully or wrongfully,
      has always had its influence in my own critical estimate of the poem. I
      hold that a long poem does not exist. I maintain that the phrase, “a long
      poem,” is simply a flat contradiction in terms.
    
      I need scarcely observe that a poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it
      excites, by elevating the soul. The value of the poem is in the ratio of
      this elevating excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal
      necessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would entitle a poem
      to be so called at all, cannot be sustained throughout a composition of
      any great length. After the lapse of half an hour, at the very utmost, it
      flags—fails—a revulsion ensues—and then the poem is, in
      effect, and in fact, no longer such.
    
      There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty in reconciling the
      critical dictum that the “Paradise Lost” is to be devoutly admired
      throughout, with the absolute impossibility of maintaining for it, during
      perusal, the amount of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand.
      This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical, only when, losing
      sight of that vital requisite in all works of Art, Unity, we view it
      merely as a series of minor poems. If, to preserve its Unity—its
      totality of effect or impression—we read it (as would be necessary)
      at a single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation of
      excitement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to be true
      poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of platitude which no
      critical prejudgment can force us to admire; but if, upon completing the
      work, we read it again, omitting the first book—that is to say,
      commencing with the second—we shall be surprised at now finding that
      admirable which we before condemned—that damnable which we had
      previously so much admired. It follows from all this that the ultimate,
      aggregate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun, is a
      nullity:—and this is precisely the fact.
    
      In regard to the Iliad, we have, if not positive proof, at least very good
      reason for believing it intended as a series of lyrics; but, granting the
      epic intention, I can say only that the work is based in an imperfect
      sense of art. The modern epic is, of the supposititious ancient model, but
      an inconsiderate and blindfold imitation. But the day of these artistic
      anomalies is over. If, at any time, any very long poem _were _popular
      in reality, which I doubt, it is at least clear that no very long poem
      will ever be popular again.
    
      That the extent of a poetical work is, _ceteris paribus, _the measure
      of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition
      sufficiently absurd—yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly
      Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere _size, _abstractly
      considered—there can be nothing in mere _bulk, so _far as a
      volume is concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from
      these saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment
      of physical magnitude which it conveys, _does _impress us with a
      sense of the sublime—but no man is impressed after _this _fashion
      by the material grandeur of even “The Columbiad.” Even the Quarterlies
      have not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As _yet, _they have
      not _insisted _on our estimating “Lamar” tine by the cubic foot, or
      Pollock by the pound—but what else are we to _infer _from their
      continual plating about “sustained effort”? If, by “sustained effort,” any
      little gentleman has accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for
      the effort—if this indeed be a thing conk mendable—but let us
      forbear praising the epic on the effort’s account. It is to be hoped that
      common sense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of Art
      rather by the impression it makes—by the effect it produces—than
      by the time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of “sustained
      effort” which had been found necessary in effecting the impression. The
      fact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius quite another—nor
      can all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this
      proposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received as
      self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as falsities,
      they will not be essentially damaged as truths.
    
      On the other hand, it is clear that a poem may be improperly brief. Undue
      brevity degenerates into mere epigrammatism. A very short poem, while now
      and then producing a brilliant or vivid, never produces a profound or
      enduring effect. There must be the steady pressing down of the stamp upon
      the wax. De Beranger has wrought innumerable things, pungent and
      spirit-stirring, but in general they have been too imponderous to stamp
      themselves deeply into the public attention, and thus, as so many feathers
      of fancy, have been blown aloft only to be whistled down the wind.
    
      A remarkable instance of the effect of undue brevity in depressing a poem,
      in keeping it out of the popular view, is afforded by the following
      exquisite little Serenade—
    

I arise from dreams of thee
    In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
    And the stars are shining bright.
I arise from dreams of thee,
    And a spirit in my feet
Has led me—who knows how?—
    To thy chamber-window, sweet!

The wandering airs they faint
    On the dark the silent stream—
The champak odors fail
    Like sweet thoughts in a dream;
The nightingale’s complaint,
    It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on shine,
    O, beloved as thou art!

O, lift me from the grass!
    I die, I faint, I fail!
Let thy love in kisses rain
    On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
    My heart beats loud and fast:
O, press it close to shine again,
    Where it will break at last.

    
      Very few perhaps are familiar with these lines—yet no less a poet
      than Shelley is their author. Their warm, yet delicate and ethereal
      imagination will be appreciated by all, but by none so thoroughly as by
      him who has himself arisen from sweet dreams of one beloved to bathe in
      the aromatic air of a southern midsummer night.
    
      One of the finest poems by Willis—the very best in my opinion which
      he has ever written—has no doubt, through this same defect of undue
      brevity, been kept back from its proper position, not less in the
    
     The shadows lay along Broadway,
         ’Twas near the twilight-tide—
     And slowly there a lady fair
         Was walking in her pride.
     Alone walk’d she; but, viewlessly,
         Walk’d spirits at her side.
     Peace charm’d the street beneath her feet,
         And Honor charm’d the air;
     And all astir looked kind on her,
         And called her good as fair—
     For all God ever gave to her
         She kept with chary care.
     She kept with care her beauties rare
         From lovers warm and true—
     For heart was cold to all but gold,
         And the rich came not to won,
     But honor’d well her charms to sell.
         If priests the selling do.
     Now walking there was one more fair—
         A slight girl, lily-pale;
     And she had unseen company
         To make the spirit quail—
     ’Twixt Want and Scorn she walk’d forlorn,
         And nothing could avail.
     No mercy now can clear her brow
         From this world’s peace to pray
     For as love’s wild prayer dissolved in air,
         Her woman’s heart gave way!—
     But the sin forgiven by Christ in Heaven
         By man is cursed alway!
    
      In this composition we find it difficult to recognize the Willis who has
      written so many mere “verses of society.” The lines are not only richly
      ideal, but full of energy, while they breathe an earnestness, an evident
      sincerity of sentiment, for which we look in vain throughout all the other
      works of this author.
    
      While the epic mania, while the idea that to merit in poetry prolixity is
      indispensable, has for some years past been gradually dying out of the
      public mind, by mere dint of its own absurdity, we find it succeeded by a
      heresy too palpably false to be long tolerated, but one which, in the
      brief period it has already endured, may be said to have accomplished more
      in the corruption of our Poetical Literature than all its other enemies
      combined. I allude to the heresy of _The Didactic. _It has been
      assumed, tacitly and avowedly, directly and indirectly, that the ultimate
      object of all Poetry is Truth. Every poem, it is said, should inculcate a
      morals and by this moral is the poetical merit of the work to be adjudged.
      We Americans especially have patronized this happy idea, and we Bostonians
      very especially have developed it in full. We have taken it into our heads
      that to write a poem simply for the poem’s sake, and to acknowledge such
      to have been our design, would be to confess ourselves radically wanting
      in the true poetic dignity and force:—but the simple fact is that
      would we but permit ourselves to look into our own souls we should
      immediately there discover that under the sun there neither exists nor _can
      _exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, than
      this very poem, this poem _per se, _this poem which is a poem and
      nothing more, this poem written solely for the poem’s sake.
    
      With as deep a reverence for the True as ever inspired the bosom of man, I
      would nevertheless limit, in some measure, its modes of inculcation. I
      would limit to enforce them. I would not enfeeble them by dissipation. The
      demands of Truth are severe. She has no sympathy with the myrtles. All _that
      _which is so indispensable in Song is precisely all _that _with
      which _she _has nothing whatever to do. It is but making her a
      flaunting paradox to wreathe her in gems and flowers. In enforcing a truth
      we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple,
      precise, terse. We must be cool, calm, unimpassioned. In a word, we must
      be in that mood which, as nearly as possible, is the exact converse of the
      poetical. _He _must be blind indeed who does not perceive the radical
      and chasmal difference between the truthful and the poetical modes of
      inculcation. He must be theory-mad beyond redemption who, in spite of
      these differences, shall still persist in attempting to reconcile the
      obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and Truth.
    
      Dividing the world of mind into its three most immediately obvious
      distinctions, we have the Pure Intellect, Taste, and the Moral Sense. I
      place Taste in the middle, because it is just this position which in the
      mind it occupies. It holds intimate relations with either extreme; but
      from the Moral Sense is separated by so faint a difference that Aristotle
      has not hesitated to place some of its operations among the virtues
      themselves. Nevertheless we find the _offices _of the trio marked
      with a sufficient distinction. Just as the Intellect concerns itself with
      Truth, so Taste informs us of the Beautiful, while the Moral Sense is
      regardful of Duty. Of this latter, while Conscience teaches the
      obligation, and Reason the expediency, Taste contents herself with
      displaying the charms:—waging war upon Vice solely on the ground of
      her deformity—her disproportion—her animosity to the fitting,
      to the appropriate, to the harmonious—in a word, to Beauty.
    
      An immortal instinct deep within the spirit of man is thus plainly a sense
      of the Beautiful. This it is which administers to his delight in the
      manifold forms, and sounds, and odors and sentiments amid which he exists.
      And just as the lily is repeated in the lake, or the eyes of Amaryllis in
      the mirror, so is the mere oral or written repetition of these forms, and
      sounds, and colors, and odors, and sentiments a duplicate source of the
      light. But this mere repetition is not poetry. He who shall simply sing,
      with however glowing enthusiasm, or with however vivid a truth of
      description, of the sights, and sounds, and odors, and colors, and
      sentiments which greet _him _in common with all mankind—he, I
      say, has yet failed to prove his divine title. There is still a something
      in the distance which he has been unable to attain. We have still a thirst
      unquenchable, to allay which he has not shown us the crystal springs. This
      thirst belongs to the immortality of Man. It is at once a consequence and
      an indication of his perennial existence. It is the desire of the moth for
      the star. It is no mere appreciation of the Beauty before us, but a wild
      effort to reach the Beauty above. Inspired by an ecstatic prescience of
      the glories beyond the grave, we struggle by multiform combinations among
      the things and thoughts of Time to attain a portion of that Loveliness
      whose very elements perhaps appertain to eternity alone. And thus when by
      Poetry, or when by Music, the most entrancing of the poetic moods, we find
      ourselves melted into tears, we weep then, not as the Abbate Gravina
      supposes, through excess of pleasure, but through a certain petulant,
      impatient sorrow at our inability to grasp now, wholly, here on earth, at
      once and for ever, those divine and rapturous joys of which _through’
      _the poem, or _through _the music, we attain to but brief and
      indeterminate glimpses.
    
      The struggle to apprehend the supernal Loveliness—this struggle, on
      the part of souls fittingly constituted—has given to the world all
      _that _which it (the world) has ever been enabled at once to
      understand and _to feel _as poetic.
    
      The Poetic Sentiment, of course, may develop itself in various modes—in
      Painting, in Sculpture, in Architecture, in the Dance—very
      especially in Music—and very peculiarly, and with a wide field, in
      the com position of the Landscape Garden. Our present theme, however, has
      regard only to its manifestation in words. And here let me speak briefly
      on the topic of rhythm. Contenting myself with the certainty that Music,
      in its various modes of metre, rhythm, and rhyme, is of so vast a moment
      in Poetry as never to be wisely rejected—is so vitally important an
      adjunct, that he is simply silly who declines its assistance, I will not
      now pause to maintain its absolute essentiality. It is in Music perhaps
      that the soul most nearly attains the great end for which, when inspired
      by the Poetic Sentiment, it struggles—the creation of supernal
      Beauty. It _may _be, indeed, that here this sublime end is, now and
      then, attained in _fact. _We are often made to feel, with a shivering
      delight, that from an earthly harp are stricken notes which _cannot _have
      been unfamiliar to the angels. And thus there can be little doubt that in
      the union of Poetry with Music in its popular sense, we shall find the
      widest field for the Poetic development. The old Bards and Minnesingers
      had advantages which we do not possess—and Thomas Moore, singing his
      own songs, was, in the most legitimate manner, perfecting them as poems.
    
      To recapitulate then:—I would define, in brief, the Poetry of words
      as _The Rhythmical Creation of Beauty. _Its sole arbiter is Taste.
      With the Intellect or with the Conscience it has only collateral
      relations. Unless incidentally, it has no concern whatever either with
      Duty or with Truth.
    
      A few words, however, in explanation. _That _pleasure which is at
      once the most pure, the most elevating, and the most intense, is derived,
      I maintain, from the contemplation of the Beautiful. In the contemplation
      of Beauty we alone find it possible to attain that pleasurable elevation,
      or excitement _of the soul, _which we recognize as the Poetic
      Sentiment, and which is so easily distinguished from Truth, which is the
      satisfaction of the Reason, or from Passion, which is the excitement of
      the heart. I make Beauty, therefore—using the word as inclusive of
      the sublime—I make Beauty the province of the poem, simply because
      it is an obvious rule of Art that effects should be made to spring as
      directly as possible from their causes:—no one as yet having been
      weak enough to deny that the peculiar elevation in question is at least _most
      readily _attainable in the poem. It by no means follows, however, that
      the incitements of Passion’ or the precepts of Duty, or even the lessons
      of Truth, may not be introduced into a poem, and with advantage; for they
      may subserve incidentally, in various ways, the general purposes of the
      work: but the true artist will always contrive to tone them down in proper
      subjection to that _Beauty _which is the atmosphere and the real
      essence of the poem.
    
      I cannot better introduce the few poems which I shall present for your
      consideration, than by the citation of the Proem to Longfellow’s “Waif”:—
    
     The day is done, and the darkness
         Falls from the wings of Night,
     As a feather is wafted downward
         From an Eagle in his flight.
     I see the lights of the village
         Gleam through the rain and the mist,
     And a feeling of sadness comes o’er me,
         That my soul cannot resist;
     A feeling of sadness and longing,
         That is not akin to pain,
     And resembles sorrow only
         As the mist resembles the rain.
     Come, read to me some poem,
         Some simple and heartfelt lay,
     That shall soothe this restless feeling,
         And banish the thoughts of day.
     Not from the grand old masters,
         Not from the bards sublime,
     Whose distant footsteps echo
         Through the corridors of Time.
     For, like strains of martial music,
         Their mighty thoughts suggest
     Life’s endless toil and endeavor;
         And to-night I long for rest.
     Read from some humbler poet,
         Whose songs gushed from his heart,
     As showers from the clouds of summer,
         Or tears from the eyelids start;
     Who through long days of labor,
         And nights devoid of ease,
     Still heard in his soul the music
         Of wonderful melodies.
     Such songs have power to quiet
         The restless pulse of care,
     And come like the benediction
         That follows after prayer.
     Then read from the treasured volume
         The poem of thy choice,
     And lend to the rhyme of the poet
         The beauty of thy voice.
     And the night shall be filled with music,
         And the cares that infest the day
     Shall fold their tents like the Arabs,
         And as silently steal away.
    
      With no great range of imagination, these lines have been justly admired
      for their delicacy of expression. Some of the images are very effective.
      Nothing can be better than—
    
    ———————the bards sublime,
         Whose distant footsteps echo
     Down the corridors of Time.
    
      The idea of the last quatrain is also very effective. The poem on the
      whole, however, is chiefly to be admired for the graceful _insouciance
      _of its metre, so well in accordance with the character of the
      sentiments, and especially for the _ease _of the general manner. This
      “ease” or naturalness, in a literary style, it has long been the fashion
      to regard as ease in appearance alone—as a point of really difficult
      attainment. But not so:—a natural manner is difficult only to him
      who should never meddle with it—to the unnatural. It is but the
      result of writing with the understanding, or with the instinct, that _the
      tone, _in composition, should always be that which the mass of mankind
      would adopt—and must perpetually vary, of course, with the occasion.
      The author who, after the fashion of “The North American Review,” should
      be upon _all _occasions merely “quiet,” must necessarily upon _many
      _occasions be simply silly, or stupid; and has no more right to be
      considered “easy” or “natural” than a Cockney exquisite, or than the
      sleeping Beauty in the waxworks.
    
      Among the minor poems of Bryant, none has so much impressed me as the one
      which he entitles “June.” I quote only a portion of it:—
    
     There, through the long, long summer hours,
         The golden light should lie,
     And thick young herbs and groups of flowers
         Stand in their beauty by.
     The oriole should build and tell
     His love-tale, close beside my cell;
         The idle butterfly
     Should rest him there, and there be heard
     The housewife-bee and humming bird.
     And what, if cheerful shouts at noon,
         Come, from the village sent,
     Or songs of maids, beneath the moon,
         With fairy laughter blent?
     And what if, in the evening light,
     Betrothed lovers walk in sight
         Of my low monument?
     I would the lovely scene around
     Might know no sadder sight nor sound.
     I know, I know I should not see
         The season’s glorious show,
     Nor would its brightness shine for me;
         Nor its wild music flow;
     But if, around my place of sleep,
     The friends I love should come to weep,
         They might not haste to go.
     Soft airs and song, and the light and bloom,
     Should keep them lingering by my tomb.
     These to their soften’d hearts should bear
         The thoughts of what has been,
     And speak of one who cannot share
         The gladness of the scene;
     Whose part in all the pomp that fills
     The circuit of the summer hills,
         Is—that his grave is green;
     And deeply would their hearts rejoice
     To hear again his living voice.
    
      The rhythmical flow here is even voluptuous—nothing could be more
      melodious. The poem has always affected me in a remarkable manner. The
      intense melancholy which seems to well up, perforce, to the surface of all
      the poet’s cheerful sayings about his grave, we find thrilling us to the
      soul—while there is the truest poetic elevation in the thrill. The
      impression left is one of a pleasurable sadness. And if, in the remaining
      compositions which I shall introduce to you, there be more or less of a
      similar tone always apparent, let me remind you that (how or why we know
      not) this certain taint of sadness is inseparably connected with all the
      higher manifestations of true Beauty. It is, nevertheless,
    
     A feeling of sadness and longing
         That is not akin to pain,
     And resembles sorrow only
         As the mist resembles the rain.
    
      The taint of which I speak is clearly perceptible even in a poem so full
      of brilliancy and spirit as “The Health” of Edward Coate Pinckney:—
    
     I fill this cup to one made up
         Of loveliness alone,
     A woman, of her gentle sex
         The seeming paragon;
     To whom the better elements
         And kindly stars have given
     A form so fair that, like the air,
         ’Tis less of earth than heaven.
     Her every tone is music’s own,
         Like those of morning birds,
     And something more than melody
         Dwells ever in her words;
     The coinage of her heart are they,
         And from her lips each flows
     As one may see the burden’d bee
         Forth issue from the rose.
     Affections are as thoughts to her,
         The measures of her hours;
     Her feelings have the flagrancy,
         The freshness of young flowers;
     And lovely passions, changing oft,
         So fill her, she appears
     The image of themselves by turns,—
         The idol of past years!
     Of her bright face one glance will trace
         A picture on the brain,
     And of her voice in echoing hearts
         A sound must long remain;
     But memory, such as mine of her,
         So very much endears,
     When death is nigh my latest sigh
         Will not be life’s, but hers.
     I fill’d this cup to one made up
         Of loveliness alone,
     A woman, of her gentle sex
         The seeming paragon—
     Her health! and would on earth there stood,
         Some more of such a frame,
     That life might be all poetry,
         And weariness a name.
    
      It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinckney to have been born too far south. Had
      he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been ranked as
      the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which has so long
      controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting the thing
      called “The North American Review.” The poem just cited is especially
      beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must refer chiefly
      to our sympathy in the poet’s enthusiasm. We pardon his hyperboles for the
      evident earnestness with which they are uttered.
    
      It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the _merits
      _of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for
      themselves. Boccalini, in his “Advertisements from Parnassus,” tells us
      that Zoilus once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very
      admirable book:—whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the
      work. He replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing
      this, Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out _all
      the chaff _for his reward.
    
      Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics—but I am by
      no means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that
      the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood.
      Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an
      axiom, which need only be properly _put, _to become self-evident. It
      is _not _excellence if it require to be demonstrated as such:—and
      thus to point out too particularly the merits of a work of Art, is to
      admit that they are _not _merits altogether.
    
      Among the “Melodies” of Thomas Moore is one whose distinguished character
      as a poem proper seems to have been singularly left out of view. I allude
      to his lines beginning—“Come, rest in this bosom.” The intense
      energy of their expression is not surpassed by anything in Byron. There
      are two of the lines in which a sentiment is conveyed that embodies the _all
      in all _of the divine passion of Love—a sentiment which, perhaps,
      has found its echo in more, and in more passionate, human hearts than any
      other single sentiment ever embodied in words:—
    
     Come, rest in this bosom, my own stricken deer
     Though the herd have fled from thee, thy home is still here;
     Here still is the smile, that no cloud can o’ercast,
     And a heart and a hand all thy own to the last.
     Oh! what was love made for, if ’tis not the same
     Through joy and through torment, through glory and shame?
     I know not, I ask not, if guilt’s in that heart,
     I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.
     Thou hast call’d me thy Angel in moments of bliss,
     And thy Angel I’ll be, ‘mid the horrors of this,—
     Through the furnace, unshrinking, thy steps to pursue,
     And shield thee, and save thee,—or perish there too!
    
      It has been the fashion of late days to deny Moore Imagination, while
      granting him Fancy—a distinction originating with Coleridge—than
      whom no man more fully comprehended the great powers of Moore. The fact
      is, that the fancy of this poet so far predominates over all his other
      faculties, and over the fancy of all other men, as to have induced, very
      naturally, the idea that he is fanciful _only. _But never was there a
      greater mistake. Never was a grosser wrong done the fame of a true poet.
      In the compass of the English language I can call to mind no poem more
      profoundly—more weirdly _imaginative, _in the best sense, than
      the lines commencing—“I would I were by that dim lake”—which
      are the com. position of Thomas Moore. I regret that I am unable to
      remember them.
    
      One of the noblest—and, speaking of Fancy—one of the most
      singularly fanciful of modern poets, was Thomas Hood. His “Fair Ines” had
      always for me an inexpressible charm:—
    
     O saw ye not fair Ines?
         She’s gone into the West,
     To dazzle when the sun is down,
         And rob the world of rest;
     She took our daylight with her,
         The smiles that we love best,
     With morning blushes on her cheek,
         And pearls upon her breast.
     O turn again, fair Ines,
         Before the fall of night,
     For fear the moon should shine alone,
         And stars unrivalltd bright;
     And blessed will the lover be
         That walks beneath their light,
     And breathes the love against thy cheek
         I dare not even write!
     Would I had been, fair Ines,
         That gallant cavalier,
     Who rode so gaily by thy side,
         And whisper’d thee so near!
     Were there no bonny dames at home
         Or no true lovers here,
     That he should cross the seas to win
         The dearest of the dear?
     I saw thee, lovely Ines,
         Descend along the shore,
     With bands of noble gentlemen,
         And banners waved before;
     And gentle youth and maidens gay,
         And snowy plumes they wore;
     It would have been a beauteous dream,
         If it had been no more!
     Alas, alas, fair Ines,
         She went away with song,
     With music waiting on her steps,
         And shootings of the throng;
     But some were sad and felt no mirth,
         But only Music’s wrong,
     In sounds that sang Farewell, Farewell,
         To her you’ve loved so long.
     Farewell, farewell, fair Ines,
         That vessel never bore
     So fair a lady on its deck,
         Nor danced so light before,—
     Alas for pleasure on the sea,
         And sorrow on the shorel
     The smile that blest one lover’s heart
         Has broken many more!
    
      “The Haunted House,” by the same author, is one of the truest poems ever
      written,—one of the truest, one of the most unexceptionable, one of
      the most thoroughly artistic, both in its theme and in its execution. It
      is, moreover, powerfully ideal—imaginative. I regret that its length
      renders it unsuitable for the purposes of this lecture. In place of it
      permit me to offer the universally appreciated “Bridge of Sighs”:—
    
     One more Unfortunate,
     Weary of breath,
     Rashly importunate
     Gone to her death!
     Take her up tenderly,
     Lift her with care;—
     Fashion’d so slenderly,
     Young and so fair!
     Look at her garments
     Clinging like cerements;
     Whilst the wave constantly
     Drips from her clothing;
     Take her up instantly,
     Loving not loathing.
     Touch her not scornfully;
     Think of her mournfully,
     Gently and humanly;
     Not of the stains of her,
     All that remains of her
     Now is pure womanly.
     Make no deep scrutiny
     Into her mutiny
     Rash and undutiful;
     Past all dishonor,
     Death has left on her
     Only the beautiful.
     Where the lamps quiver
     So far in the river,
     With many a light
     From window and casement
     From garret to basement,
     She stood, with amazement,
     Houseless by night.
     The bleak wind of March
     Made her tremble and shiver,
     But not the dark arch,
     Or the black flowing river:
     Mad from life’s history,
     Glad to death’s mystery,
     Swift to be hurl’d—
     Anywhere, anywhere
     Out of the world!
     In she plunged boldly,
     No matter how coldly
     The rough river ran,—
     Over the brink of it,
     Picture it,—think of it,
     Dissolute Man!
     Lave in it, drink of it
     Then, if you can!
     Still, for all slips of hers,
     One of Eve’s family—
     Wipe those poor lips of hers
     Oozing so clammily,
     Loop up her tresses
     Escaped from the comb,
     Her fair auburn tresses;
     Whilst wonderment guesses
     Where was her home?
     Who was her father?
     Who was her mother?
     Had she a sister?
     Had she a brother?
     Or was there a dearer one
     Still, and a nearer one
     Yet, than all other?
     Alas! for the rarity
     Of Christian charity
     Under the sun!
     Oh! it was pitiful!
     Near a whole city full,
     Home she had none.
     Sisterly, brotherly,
     Fatherly, motherly,
     Feelings had changed:
     Love, by harsh evidence,
     Thrown from its eminence;
     Even God’s providence
     Seeming estranged.
     Take her up tenderly;
     Lift her with care;
     Fashion’d so slenderly,
     Young, and so fair!
     Ere her limbs frigidly
     Stiffen too rigidly,
     Decently,—kindly,—
     Smooth and compose them;
     And her eyes, close them,
     Staring so blindly!
     Dreadfully staring
     Through muddy impurity,
     As when with the daring
     Last look of despairing
     Fixed on futurity.
     Perhishing gloomily,
     Spurred by contumely,
     Cold inhumanity,
     Burning insanity,
     Into her rest,—
     Cross her hands humbly,
     As if praying dumbly,
     Over her breast!
     Owning her weakness,
     Her evil behavior,
     And leaving, with meekness,
     Her sins to her Saviour!
    
      The vigor of this poem is no less remarkable than its pathos. The
      versification although carrying the fanciful to the very verge of the
      fantastic, is nevertheless admirably adapted to the wild insanity which is
      the thesis of the poem.
    
      Among the minor poems of Lord Byron is one which has never received from
      the critics the praise which it undoubtedly deserves:—
    
     Though the day of my destiny’s over,
         And the star of my fate bath declined
     Thy soft heart refused to discover
         The faults which so many could find;
     Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
         It shrunk not to share it with me,
     And the love which my spirit bath painted
         It never bath found but in _thee._
     Then when nature around me is smiling,
         The last smile which answers to mine,
     I do not believe it beguiling,
         Because it reminds me of shine;
     And when winds are at war with the ocean,
         As the breasts I believed in with me,
     If their billows excite an emotion,
         It is that they bear me from _thee._
     Though the rock of my last hope is shivered,
         And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
     Though I feel that my soul is delivered
         To pain—it shall not be its slave.
     There is many a pang to pursue me:
         They may crush, but they shall not contemn—
     They may torture, but shall not subdue me—
         ’Tis of _thee _that I think—not of them.
     Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
         Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
     Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
         Though slandered, thou never couldst shake,—
     Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
         Though parted, it was not to fly,
     Though watchful, ’twas not to defame me,
         Nor mute, that the world might belie.
     Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
         Nor the war of the many with one—
     If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
         ’Twas folly not sooner to shun:
     And if dearly that error bath cost me,
         And more than I once could foresee,
     I have found that whatever it lost me,
         It could not deprive me of _thee._
     From the wreck of the past, which bath perished,
         Thus much I at least may recall,
     It bath taught me that which I most cherished
         Deserved to be dearest of all:
     In the desert a fountain is springing,
         In the wide waste there still is a tree,
     And a bird in the solitude singing,
        Which speaks to my spirit of _thee._
    
      Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the versification
      could scarcely be improved. No nobler _theme _ever engaged the pen of
      poet. It is the soul-elevating idea that no man can consider himself
      entitled to complain of Fate while in his adversity he still retains the
      unwavering love of woman.
    
      From Alfred Tennyson, although in perfect sincerity I regard him as the
      noblest poet that ever lived, I have left myself time to cite only a very
      brief specimen. I call him, and _think _him the noblest of poets, _not
      _because the impressions he produces are at _all _times the most
      profound—_not _because the poetical excitement which he induces
      is at _all _times the most intense—but because it is at all
      times the most ethereal—in other words, the most elevating and most
      pure. No poet is so little of the earth, earthy. What I am about to read
      is from his last long poem, “The Princess”:—
    
         Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
     Tears from the depth of some divine despair
     Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
     In looking on the happy Autumn fields,
     And thinking of the days that are no more.
         Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
     That brings our friends up from the underworld,
     Sad as the last which reddens over one
     That sinks with all we love below the verge;
     So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
         Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
     The earliest pipe of half-awaken’d birds
     To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
     The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
     So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
         Dear as remember’d kisses after death,
     And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
     On lips that are for others; deep as love,
     Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
     O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
    
      Thus, although in a very cursory and imperfect manner, I have endeavored
      to convey to you my conception of the Poetic Principle. It has been my
      purpose to suggest that, while this principle itself is strictly and
      simply the Human Aspiration for Supernal Beauty, the manifestation of the
      Principle is always found in _an elevating excitement of the soul, _quite
      independent of that passion which is the intoxication of the Heart, or of
      that truth which is the satisfaction of the Reason. For in regard to
      passion, alas! its tendency is to degrade rather than to elevate the Soul.
      Love, on the contrary—Love—the true, the divine Eros—the
      Uranian as distinguished from the Diona an Venus—is unquestionably
      the purest and truest of all poetical themes. And in regard to Truth, if,
      to be sure, through the attainment of a truth we are led to perceive a
      harmony where none was apparent before, we experience at once the true
      poetical effect; but this effect is referable to the harmony alone, and
      not in the least degree to the truth which merely served to render the
      harmony manifest.
    
      We shall reach, however, more immediately a distinct conception of what
      the true Poetry is, by mere reference to a few of the simple elements
      which induce in the Poet himself the poetical effect He recognizes the
      ambrosia which nourishes his soul in the bright orbs that shine in Heaven—in
      the volutes of the flower—in the clustering of low shrubberies—in
      the waving of the grain-fields—in the slanting of tall eastern trees—in
      the blue distance of mountains—in the grouping of clouds—in
      the twinkling of half-hidden brooks—in the gleaming of silver rivers—in
      the repose of sequestered lakes—in the star-mirroring depths of
      lonely wells. He perceives it in the songs of birds—in the harp of
      Bolos—in the sighing of the night-wind—in the repining voice
      of the forest—in the surf that complains to the shore—in the
      fresh breath of the woods—in the scent of the violet—in the
      voluptuous perfume of the hyacinth—in the suggestive odour that
      comes to him at eventide from far distant undiscovered islands, over dim
      oceans, illimitable and unexplored. He owns it in all noble thoughts—in
      all unworldly motives—in all holy impulses—in all chivalrous,
      generous, and self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman—in
      the grace of her step—in the lustre of her eye—in the melody
      of her voice—in her soft laughter, in her sigh—in the harmony
      of the rustling of her robes. He deeply feels it in her winning
      endearments—in her burning enthusiasms—in her gentle charities—in
      her meek and devotional endurances—but above all—ah, far above
      all, he kneels to it—he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in
      the strength, in the altogether divine majesty—of her love.
    
      Let me conclude by—the recitation of yet another brief poem—one
      very different in character from any that I have before quoted. It is by
      Motherwell, and is called “The Song of the Cavalier.” With our modern and
      altogether rational ideas of the absurdity and impiety of warfare, we are
      not precisely in that frame of mind best adapted to sympathize with the
      sentiments, and thus to appreciate the real excellence of the poem. To do
      this fully we must identify ourselves in fancy with the soul of the old
      cavalier:—
    
     Then mounte! then mounte, brave gallants all,
         And don your helmes amaine:
     Deathe’s couriers. Fame and Honor call
         No shrewish teares shall fill your eye
     When the sword-hilt’s in our hand,—
         Heart-whole we’ll part, and no whit sighe
     For the fayrest of the land;
         Let piping swaine, and craven wight,
     Thus weepe and poling crye,
         Our business is like men to fight.




OLD ENGLISH POETRY (*)


      It should not be doubted that at least one-third of the affection with
      which we regard the elder poets of Great Britain should be-attributed to
      what is, in itself, a thing apart from poetry-we mean to the simple love
      of the antique-and that, again, a third of even the proper _poetic
      sentiment inspired_by their writings should be ascribed to a fact
      which, while it has strict connection with poetry in the abstract, and
      with the old British poems themselves, should not be looked upon as a
      merit appertaining to the authors of the poems. Almost every devout
      admirer of the old bards, if demanded his opinion of their productions,
      would mention vaguely, yet with perfect sincerity, a sense of dreamy,
      wild, indefinite, and he would perhaps say, indefinable delight; on being
      required to point out the source of this so shadowy pleasure, he would be
      apt to speak of the quaint in phraseology and in general handling. This
      quaintness is, in fact, a very powerful adjunct to ideality, but in the
      case in question it arises independently of the author’s will, and is
      altogether apart from his intention. Words and their rhythm have varied.
      Verses which affect us to-day with a vivid delight, and which delight, in
      many instances, may be traced to the one source, quaintness, must have
      worn in the days of their construction, a very commonplace air. This is,
      of course, no argument against the poems now-we mean it only as against
      the poets _thew. _There is a growing desire to overrate them. The old
      English muse was frank, guileless, sincere, and although very learned,
      still learned without art. No general error evinces a more thorough
      confusion of ideas than the error of supposing Donne and Cowley
      metaphysical in the sense wherein Wordsworth and Coleridge are so. With
      the two former ethics were the end-with the two latter the means. The poet
      of the “Creation” wished, by highly artificial verse, to inculcate what he
      supposed to be moral truth-the poet of the “Ancient Mariner” to infuse the
      Poetic Sentiment through channels suggested by analysis. The one finished
      by complete failure what he commenced in the grossest misconception; the
      other, by a path which could not possibly lead him astray, arrived at a
      triumph which is not the less glorious because hidden from the profane
      eyes of the multitude. But in this view even the “metaphysical verse” of
      Cowley is but evidence of the simplicity and single-heartedness of the
      man. And he was in this but a type of his school-for we may as well
      designate in this way the entire class of writers whose poems are bound up
      in the volume before us, and throughout all of whom there runs a very
      perceptible general character. They used little art in composition. Their
      writings sprang immediately from the soul-and partook intensely of that
      soul’s nature. Nor is it difficult to perceive the tendency of this _abandon-to
      elevate _immeasurably all the energies of mind-but, again, so to mingle
      the greatest possible fire, force, delicacy, and all good things, with the
      lowest possible bathos, baldness, and imbecility, as to render it not a
      matter of doubt that the average results of mind in such a school will be
      found inferior to those results in one _(ceteris _paribus) more
      artificial.
    
      We can not bring ourselves to believe that the selections of the “Book of
      Gems” are such as will impart to a poetical reader the clearest possible
      idea of the beauty of the school-but if the intention had been merely to
      show the school’s character, the attempt might have been considered
      successful in the highest degree. There are long passages now before us of
      the most despicable trash, with no merit whatever beyond that of their
      antiquity.. The criticisms of the editor do not particularly please us.
      His enthusiasm is too general and too vivid not to be false. His opinion,
      for example, of Sir Henry Wotton’s “Verses on the Queen of Bohemia"-that
      “there are few finer things in our language,” is untenable and absurd.
    
      In such lines we can perceive not one of those higher attributes of Poesy
      which belong to her in all circumstances and throughout all time. Here
      every thing is art, nakedly, or but awkwardly concealed. No prepossession
      for the mere antique (and in this case we can imagine no other
      prepossession) should induce us to dignify with the sacred name of poetry,
      a series, such as this, of elaborate and threadbare compliments, stitched,
      apparently, together, without fancy, without plausibility, and without
      even an attempt at adaptation.
    
      In common with all the world, we have been much delighted with “The
      Shepherd’s Hunting” by Withers—a poem partaking, in a remarkable
      degree, of the peculiarities of “Il Penseroso.” Speaking of Poesy the
      author says:
    
     “By the murmur of a spring,
     Or the least boughs rustleling,
     By a daisy whose leaves spread,
     Shut when Titan goes to bed,
     Or a shady bush or tree,
     She could more infuse in me
     Than all Nature’s beauties can
     In some other wiser man.
     By her help I also now
     Make this churlish place allow
     Something that may sweeten gladness
     In the very gall of sadness—
     The dull loneness, the black shade,
     That these hanging vaults have made
     The strange music of the waves
     Beating on these hollow caves,
     This black den which rocks emboss,
     Overgrown with eldest moss,
     The rude portals that give light
     More to terror than delight,
     This my chamber of neglect
     Walled about with disrespect;
     From all these and this dull air
     A fit object for despair,
     She hath taught me by her might
     To draw comfort and delight.”
 
    
      But these lines, however good, do not bear with them much of the general
      character of the English antique. Something more of this will be found in
      Corbet’s “Farewell to the Fairies!” We copy a portion of Marvell’s “Maiden
      lamenting for her Fawn,” which we prefer-not only as a specimen of the
      elder poets, but in itself as a beautiful poem, abounding in pathos,
      exquisitely delicate imagination and truthfulness-to anything of its
      species:
    
     “It is a wondrous thing how fleet
     ’Twas on those little silver feet,
     With what a pretty skipping grace
     It oft would challenge me the race,
     And when’t had left me far away
     ’Twould stay, and run again, and stay;
     For it was nimbler much than hinds,
     And trod as if on the four winds.
     I have a garden of my own,
     But so with roses overgrown,
     And lilies, that you would it guess
     To be a little wilderness;
     And all the spring-time of the year
     It only loved to be there.
     Among the beds of lilies I
     Have sought it oft where it should lie,
     Yet could not, till itself would rise,
     Find it, although before mine eyes.
     For in the flaxen lilies’ shade
     It like a bank of lilies laid;
     Upon the roses it would feed
     Until its lips even seemed to bleed,
     And then to me ’twould boldly trip,
     And print those roses on my lip,
     But all its chief delight was still
     With roses thus itself to fill,
     And its pure virgin limbs to fold
     In whitest sheets of lilies cold.
     Had it lived long, it would have been
     Lilies without, roses within.”
 
    
      How truthful an air of lamentations hangs here upon every syllable! It
      pervades all.. It comes over the sweet melody of the words-over the
      gentleness and grace which we fancy in the little maiden herself-even over
      the half-playful, half-petulant air with which she lingers on the beauties
      and good qualities of her favorite-like the cool shadow of a summer cloud
      over a bed of lilies and violets, “and all sweet flowers.” The whole is
      redolent with poetry of a very lofty order. Every line is an idea
      conveying either the beauty and playfulness of the fawn, or the
      artlessness of the maiden, or her love, or her admiration, or her grief,
      or the fragrance and warmth and _appropriateness _of the little
      nest-like bed of lilies and roses which the fawn devoured as it lay upon
      them, and could scarcely be distinguished from them by the once happy
      little damsel who went to seek her pet with an arch and rosy smile on her
      face. Consider the great variety of truthful and delicate thought in the
      few lines we have quoted the _wonder _of the little maiden at the
      fleetness of her favorite-the “little silver feet”—the fawn
      challenging his mistress to a race with “a pretty skipping grace,” running
      on before, and then, with head turned back, awaiting her approach only to
      fly from it again-can we not distinctly perceive all these things? How
      exceedingly vigorous, too, is the line,
    
      “And trod as if on the four winds!”
     
    
      A vigor apparent only when we keep in mind the artless character of the
      speaker and the four feet of the favorite, one for each wind. Then
      consider the garden of “my own,” so overgrown, entangled with roses and
      lilies, as to be “a little wilderness”—the fawn loving to be there,
      and there “only”—the maiden seeking it “where it _should _lie”—and
      not being able to distinguish it from the flowers until “itself would
      rise”—the lying among the lilies “like a bank of lilies”—the
      loving to “fill itself with roses,”
     
        “And its pure virgin limbs to fold
        In whitest sheets of lilies cold,”
 
    
      and these things being its “chief” delights-and then the pre-eminent
      beauty and naturalness of the concluding lines, whose very hyperbole only
      renders them more true to nature when we consider the innocence, the
      artlessness, the enthusiasm, the passionate girl, and more passionate
      admiration of the bereaved child—
    
      “Had it lived long, it would have been Lilies without, roses within.”
     
    
      * “Book of Gems,” Edited by S. C. Hall




POEMS

                        TO
            THE NOBLEST OF HER SEX
                  THE AUTHOR OF
            “THE DRAMA OF EXILE”—
                        TO
            MISS ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
                   OF ENGLAND
            _I DEDICATE THIS VOLUME_
      WITH THE MOST ENTHUSIASTIC ADMIRATION AND WITH
            THE MOST SINCERE ESTEEM
      1845                      E.A.P.




PREFACE


      These trifles are collected and republished chiefly with a view to their
      redemption from the many improvements to which they have been subjected
      while going at random the “rounds of the press.” I am naturally anxious
      that what I have written should circulate as I wrote it, if it circulate
      at all. In defence of my own taste, nevertheless, it is incumbent upon me
      to say that I think nothing in this volume of much value to the public, or
      very creditable to myself. Events not to be controlled have prevented me
      from making, at any time, any serious effort in what, under happier
      circumstances, would have been the field of my choice. With me poetry has
      been not a purpose, but a passion; and the passions should be held in
      reverence: they must not-they can not at will be excited, with an eye to
      the paltry compensations, or the more paltry commendations, of man-kind.
    
                           E. A. P.
   1845




POEMS OF LATER LIFE




THE RAVEN.


 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
 As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
 “’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
                          Only this, and nothing more.”
 Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
 And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
 Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
 From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore—
 For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
                          Nameless here for evermore.
 And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
 Thrilled me—filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;
 So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
 “’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door—
 Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door;—
                          This it is, and nothing more.”
 Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
 “Sir,” said I, “or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;
 But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
 And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
 That I scarce was sure I heard you “—here I opened wide the door;——
                          Darkness there and nothing more.
 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
 Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
 But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,
 And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore!”
  This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!”—
                          Merely this, and nothing more.
 Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
 Soon I heard again a tapping somewhat louder than before.
 “Surely,” said I, “surely that is something at my window lattice;
 Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore—
 Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore;—
                          ’Tis the wind and nothing more!”
 Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
 In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;
 Not the least obeisance made he; not an instant stopped or stayed he;
 But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
 Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
                          Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
 By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
 “Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
 Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
 Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
                          Quoth the raven “Nevermore.”
 Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,
 Though its answer little meaning—little relevancy bore;
 For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being
 Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door—
 Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,
                         With such name as “Nevermore.”
 But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
 That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
 Nothing farther then he uttered—not a feather then he fluttered—
 Till I scarcely more than muttered “Other friends have flown before—
 On the morrow _he_ will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.”
                          Then the bird said “Nevermore.”
 Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,
 “Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store
 Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
 Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
 Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore
                         Of “Never—nevermore.”
 But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,
 Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;
 Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking
 Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore—
 What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
                         Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”
 This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing
 To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom’s core;
 This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining
 On the cushion’s velvet lining that the lamplght gloated o’er,
 But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o’er,
                          _She_ shall press, ah, nevermore!
 Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
 Swung by Angels whose faint foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
 “Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent
 thee
 Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
 Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
                           Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
 “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!—
 Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,
 Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted—
 On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore—
 Is there—_is_ there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!”
                           Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
 “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil—prophet still, if bird or devil!
 By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore—
 Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,
 It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore—
 Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.”
                           Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
 “Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—
 “Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore!
 Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
 Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door!
 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!”
                          Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
 And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
 On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,
 And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
 And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
                          Shall be lifted—nevermore!
    
      Published 1845.




 THE BELLS.


                                       I.
                    Hear the sledges with the bells—
                          Silver bells!
     What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
                How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
                      In the icy air of night!
                While the stars that oversprinkle
                All the heavens, seem to twinkle
                      With a crystalline delight;
                   Keeping time, time, time,
                   In a sort of Runic rhyme,
     To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
           From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
                          Bells, bells, bells—
        From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
                                      II.
                    Hear the mellow wedding-bells
                          Golden bells!
     What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
                Through the balmy air of night
                How they ring out their delight!—
                      From the molten-golden notes,
                          And all in tune,
                      What a liquid ditty floats
           To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
                          On the moon!
                  Oh, from out the sounding cells,
     What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
                          How it swells!
                          How it dwells
                      On the Future!—how it tells
                      Of the rapture that impels
                  To the swinging and the ringing
                      Of the bells, bells, bells—
           Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
                          Bells, bells, bells—
        To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
                                      III.
                    Hear the loud alarum bells—
                          Brazen bells!
     What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
                In the startled ear of night
                How they scream out their affright!
                    Too much horrified to speak,
                    They can only shriek, shriek,
                       Out of tune,
     In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
     In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
                       Leaping higher, higher, higher,
                       With a desperate desire,
                    And a resolute endeavor
                    Now—now to sit, or never,
                By the side of the pale-faced moon.
                       Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
                       What a tale their terror tells
                          Of Despair!
             How they clang, and clash, and roar!
             What a horror they outpour
     On the bosom of the palpitating air!
                Yet the ear, it fully knows,
                      By the twanging
                      And the clanging,
                 How the danger ebbs and flows;
             Yet, the ear distinctly tells,
                   In the jangling
                   And the wrangling,
             How the danger sinks and swells,
     By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
                   Of the bells—
           Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
                          Bells, bells, bells—
        In the clamour and the clangour of the bells!
                                   IV.
                    Hear the tolling of the bells—
                          Iron bells!
     What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
             In the silence of the night,
             How we shiver with affright
         At the melancholy meaning of their tone!
                 For every sound that floats
                 From the rust within their throats
                         Is a groan.
                     And the people—ah, the people—
                     They that dwell up in the steeple,
                         All alone,
                 And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
                     In that muffled monotone,
                 Feel a glory in so rolling
                     On the human heart a stone—
             They are neither man nor woman—
             They are neither brute nor human—
                         They are Ghouls:—
                 And their king it is who tolls:—
                 And he rolls, rolls, rolls, rolls,
                          Rolls
                     A pæan from the bells!
                 And his merry bosom swells
                     With the pæan of the bells!
                 And he dances, and he yells;
             Keeping time, time, time,
             In a sort of Runic rhyme,
                     To the pæan of the bells—
                          Of the bells:—
             Keeping time, time, time,
             In a sort of Runic rhyme,
                     To the throbbing of the bells—
                 Of the bells, bells, bells—
                     To the sobbing of the bells:—
             Keeping time, time, time,
                 As he knells, knells, knells,
             In a happy Runic rhyme,
                     To the rolling of the bells—
                 Of the bells, bells, bells:—
                     To the tolling of the bells—
           Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
                          Bells, bells, bells—
        To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
    
      1849.




ULALUME


     The skies they were ashen and sober;
         The leaves they were crisped and sere—
         The leaves they were withering and sere;
     It was night in the lonesome October
         Of my most immemorial year:
     It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
         In the misty mid region of Weir:—
     It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
         In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
     Here once, through an alley Titanic,
         Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul—
         Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
     There were days when my heart was volcanic
         As the scoriac rivers that roll—
         As the lavas that restlessly roll
     Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek,
         In the ultimate climes of the Pole—
     That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
         In the realms of the Boreal Pole.
     Our talk had been serious and sober,
         But our thoughts they were palsied and sere—
         Our memories were treacherous and sere;
     For we knew not the month was October,
         And we marked not the night of the year—
         (Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
     We noted not the dim lake of Auber,
         (Though once we had journeyed down here)
     We remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
         Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
     And now, as the night was senescent,
         And star-dials pointed to morn—
         As the star-dials hinted of morn—
     At the end of our path a liquescent
         And nebulous lustre was born,
     Out of which a miraculous crescent
         Arose with a duplicate horn—
     Astarte’s bediamonded crescent,
         Distinct with its duplicate horn.
     And I said—“She is warmer than Dian:
         She rolls through an ether of sighs—
         She revels in a region of sighs.
     She has seen that the tears are not dry on
         These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
     And has come past the stars of the Lion,
         To point us the path to the skies—
         To the Lethean peace of the skies—
     Come up, in despite of the Lion,
         To shine on us with her bright eyes—
     Come up, through the lair of the Lion,
         With love in her luminous eyes.”
     But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
         Said—“Sadly this star I mistrust—
         Her pallor I strangely mistrust—
     Ah, hasten!—ah, let us not linger!
         Ah, fly!—let us fly!—for we must.”
      In terror she spoke; letting sink her
         Wings till they trailed in the dust—
     In agony sobbed, letting sink her
         Plumes till they trailed in the dust—
         Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.
     I replied—“This is nothing but dreaming.
         Let us on, by this tremulous light!
         Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
     Its Sybillic splendor is beaming
         With Hope and in Beauty to-night—
         See!—it flickers up the sky through the night!
     Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
         And be sure it will lead us aright—
     We safely may trust to a gleaming
         That cannot but guide us aright,
         Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night.”
     Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
         And tempted her out of her gloom—
         And conquered her scruples and gloom;
     And we passed to the end of the vista—
         But were stopped by the door of a tomb—
         By the door of a legended tomb:—
     And I said—“What is written, sweet sister,
         On the door of this legended tomb?”
          She replied—“Ulalume—Ulalume—
         ‘T is the vault of thy lost Ulalume!”
     Then my heart it grew ashen and sober
         As the leaves that were crisped and sere—
         As the leaves that were withering and sere—
     And I cried—“It was surely October
         On _this_ very night of last year,
         That I journeyed—I journeyed down here!—
         That I brought a dread burden down here—
         On this night, of all nights in the year,
         Ah, what demon has tempted me here?
     Well I know, now, this dim lake of Auber—
         This misty mid region of Weir:—
     Well I know, now, this dank tarn of Auber—
         This ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.”
 
    
      1847.




TO HELEN


     I saw thee once—once only—years ago:
     I must not say how many—but not many.
     It was a July midnight; and from out
     A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
     Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
     There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
     With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
     Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
     Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
     Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe—
     Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses
     That gave out, in return for the love-light,
     Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death—
     Fell on the upturn’d faces of these roses
     That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
     By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.
     Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
     I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
     Fell on the upturn’d faces of the roses,
     And on thine own, upturn’d—alas, in sorrow!
     Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight-
     Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
     That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
     To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
     No footstep stirred: the hated world an slept,
     Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!—oh, God!
     How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
     Save only thee and me. I paused—I looked-
     And in an instant all things disappeared.
     (Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)
     The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
     The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
     The happy flowers and the repining trees,
     Were seen no more: the very roses’ odors
     Died in the arms of the adoring airs.
     All—all expired save thee—save less than thou:
     Save only the divine light in thine eyes-
     Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
     I saw but them—they were the world to me!
     I saw but them—saw only them for hours,
     Saw only them until the moon went down.
     What wild heart-histories seemed to he enwritten
     Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
     How dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope!
     How silently serene a sea of pride!
     How daring an ambition; yet how deep-
     How fathomless a capacity for love!
     But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
     Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
     And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
     Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained;
     They would not go—they never yet have gone;
     Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
     They have not left me (as my hopes have) since;
     They follow me—they lead me through the years.
     They are my ministers—yet I their slave.
     Their office is to illumine and enkindle—
     My duty, to be saved by their bright light,
     And purified in their electric fire,
     And sanctified in their elysian fire.
     They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
     And are far up in Heaven—the stars I kneel to
     In the sad, silent watches of my night;
     While even in the meridian glare of day
     I see them still—two sweetly scintillant
     Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!




ANNABEL LEE.


     It was many and many a year ago,
         In a kingdom by the sea,
     That a maiden lived whom you may know
         By the name of ANNABEL LEE;—
     And this maiden she lived with no other thought
         Than to love and be loved by me.
     _I_ was a child and _She_ was a child,
         In this kingdom by the sea,
     But we loved with a love that was more than love—
         I and my ANNABEL LEE—
     With a love that the wingéd seraphs of Heaven
         Coveted her and me.
     And this was the reason that, long ago,
         In this kingdom by the sea,
     A wind blew out of a cloud by night
         Chilling my ANNABEL LEE;
     So that her high-born kinsmen came
         And bore her away from me,
     To shut her up, in a sepulchre
         In this kingdom by the sea.
     The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,
         Went envying her and me;
     Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
         In this kingdom by the sea)
     That the wind came out of the cloud, chilling
         And killing my ANNABEL LEE.
     But our love it was stronger by far than the love
         Of those who were older than we—
         Of many far wiser than we—
     And neither the angels in Heaven above
         Nor the demons down under the sea
     Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
         Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE:—
     For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
         Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
     And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
         Of the beautiful ANNABEL LEE;
     And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
     Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride
         In her sepulchre there by the sea—
         In her tomb by the side of the sea.
    
      1849.




A VALENTINE.


     For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
         Brightly expressive as the twins of Loeda,
     Shall find her own sweet name, that, nestling lies
         Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
     Search narrowly the lines!—they hold a treasure
         Divine—a talisman—an amulet
     That must be worn _at heart_. Search well the measure—
         The words—the syllables! Do not forget
     The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor!
         And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
     Which one might not undo without a sabre,
         If one could merely comprehend the plot.
     Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
         Eyes scintillating soul, there lie _perdus_
     Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
         Of poets, by poets—as the name is a poet’s, too.
     Its letters, although naturally lying
         Like the knight Pinto—Mendez Ferdinando—
     Still form a synonym for Truth—Cease trying!
         You will not read the riddle, though you do the best _you_ can do.
    
      1846.
    
      [To discover the names in this and the following poem read the first
      letter of the first line in connection with the second letter of the
      second line, the third letter of the third line, the fourth of the fourth
      and so on to the end.]




AN ENIGMA


     “Seldom we find,” says Solomon Don Dunce,
         “Half an idea in the profoundest sonnet.
     Through all the flimsy things we see at once
         As easily as through a Naples bonnet—
         Trash of all trash!—how _can_ a lady don it?
     Yet heavier far than your Petrarchan stuff-
     Owl-downy nonsense that the faintest puff
         Twirls into trunk-paper the while you con it.”
      And, veritably, Sol is right enough.
     The general tuckermanities are arrant
     Bubbles—ephemeral and _so_ transparent—
         But _this_ is, now,—you may depend upon it—
     Stable, opaque, immortal—all by dint
     Of the dear names that lie concealed within ‘t.
    
      1847. TO MY MOTHER
    
     Because I feel that, in the Heavens above,
         The angels, whispering to one another,
     Can find, among their burning terms of love,
         None so devotional as that of “Mother,”
      Therefore by that dear name I long have called you—
         You who are more than mother unto me,
     And fill my heart of hearts, where Death installed you
         In setting my Virginia’s spirit free.
     My mother—my own mother, who died early,
         Was but the mother of myself; but you
     Are mother to the one I loved so dearly,
         And thus are dearer than the mother I knew
     By that infinity with which my wife
         Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life.
    
      1849.
    
      [The above was addressed to the poet’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Clemm—Ed.]




FOR ANNIE


     Thank Heaven! the crisis—
         The danger is past,
     And the lingering illness
         Is over at last—
     And the fever called “Living”
          Is conquered at last.
     Sadly, I know
         I am shorn of my strength,
     And no muscle I move
         As I lie at full length—
     But no matter!—I feel
         I am better at length.
     And I rest so composedly,
         Now, in my bed,
     That any beholder
         Might fancy me dead—
     Might start at beholding me,
         Thinking me dead.
     The moaning and groaning,
         The sighing and sobbing,
     Are quieted now,
         With that horrible throbbing
     At heart:—ah, that horrible,
         Horrible throbbing!
     The sickness—the nausea—
         The pitiless pain—
     Have ceased, with the fever
         That maddened my brain—
     With the fever called “Living”
          That burned in my brain.
     And oh! of all tortures
         _That_ torture the worst
     Has abated—the terrible
         Torture of thirst
     For the naphthaline river
         Of Passion accurst:—
     I have drank of a water
         That quenches all thirst:—
     Of a water that flows,
         With a lullaby sound,
     From a spring but a very few
         Feet under ground—
     From a cavern not very far
         Down under ground.
     And ah! let it never
         Be foolishly said
     That my room it is gloomy
         And narrow my bed;
     For man never slept
         In a different bed—
     And, to _sleep_, you must slumber
         In just such a bed.
     My tantalized spirit
         Here blandly reposes,
     Forgetting, or never
         Regretting its roses—
     Its old agitations
         Of myrtles and roses:
     For now, while so quietly
         Lying, it fancies
     A holier odor
         About it, of pansies—
     A rosemary odor,
         Commingled with pansies—
     With rue and the beautiful
         Puritan pansies.
     And so it lies happily,
         Bathing in many
     A dream of the truth
         And the beauty of Annie—
     Drowned in a bath
         Of the tresses of Annie.
     She tenderly kissed me,
         She fondly caressed,
     And then I fell gently
         To sleep on her breast—
     Deeply to sleep
         From the heaven of her breast.
     When the light was extinguished,
         She covered me warm,
     And she prayed to the angels
         To keep me from harm—
     To the queen of the angels
         To shield me from harm.
     And I lie so composedly,
         Now in my bed,
     (Knowing her love)
         That you fancy me dead—
     And I rest so contentedly,
         Now in my bed,
     (With her love at my breast)
         That you fancy me dead—
     That you shudder to look at me,
         Thinking me dead:—
     But my heart it is brighter
         Than all of the many
     Stars in the sky,
         For it sparkles with Annie—
     It glows with the light
         Of the love of my Annie—
     With the thought of the light
         Of the eyes of my Annie.
    
      1849.




TO F——.


     Beloved! amid the earnest woes
         That crowd around my earthly path—
     (Drear path, alas! where grows
     Not even one lonely rose)—
         My soul at least a solace hath
     In dreams of thee, and therein knows
     An Eden of bland repose.
     And thus thy memory is to me
         Like some enchanted far-off isle
     In some tumultuos sea—
     Some ocean throbbing far and free
         With storms—but where meanwhile
     Serenest skies continually
         Just o’re that one bright island smile.
    
      1845.




TO FRANCES S. OSGOOD


     Thou wouldst be loved?—then let thy heart
         From its present pathway part not!
     Being everything which now thou art,
         Be nothing which thou art not.
     So with the world thy gentle ways,
         Thy grace, thy more than beauty,
     Shall be an endless theme of praise,
         And love—a simple duty.
    
      1845.




ELDORADO.


         Gaily bedight,
         A gallant knight,
     In sunshine and in shadow,
         Had journeyed long,
         Singing a song,
     In search of Eldorado.
         But he grew old—
         This knight so bold—
     And o’er his heart a shadow
         Fell, as he found
         No spot of ground
     That looked like Eldorado.
         And, as his strength
         Failed him at length,
     He met a pilgrim shadow—
         ‘Shadow,’ said he,
         ‘Where can it be—
     This land of Eldorado?’
         ‘Over the Mountains
         Of the Moon,
     Down the Valley of the Shadow,
         Ride, boldly ride,’
         The shade replied,—
     ‘If you seek for Eldorado!’
    
      1849.
    
                     EULALIE
                          I  DWELT alone
                         In a world of moan,
             And my soul was a stagnant tide,
     Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride—
     Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.
                         Ah, less—less bright
                         The stars of the night
                 Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
                         And never a flake
                         That the vapour can make
                 With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
     Can vie with the modest Eulalie’s most unregarded curl—
     Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie’s most humble and careless curl.
                    Now Doubt—now Pain
                    Come never again,
            For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
                    And all day long
                    Shines, bright and strong,
            Astarté within the sky,
     While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye—
     While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.
    
      1845.
    
      A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM
     Take this kiss upon the brow!
     And, in parting from you now,
     Thus much let me avow—
     You are not wrong, who deem
     That my days have been a dream;
     Yet if hope has flown away
     In a night, or in a day,
     In a vision, or in none,
     Is it therefore the less _gone_?
     _All_ that we see or seem
     Is but a dream within a dream.
     I stand amid the roar
     Of a surf-tormented shore,
     And I hold within my hand
     Grains of the golden sand—
     How few! yet how they creep
     Through my fingers to the deep,
     While I weep—while I weep!
     O God! can I not grasp
     Them with a tighter clasp?
     O God! can I not save
     _One_ from the pitiless wave?
     Is _all_ that we see or seem
     But a dream within a dream?.
    
      1849




TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)


     Of all who hail thy presence as the morning—
     Of all to whom thine absence is the night—
     The blotting utterly from out high heaven
     The sacred sun—of all who, weeping, bless thee
     Hourly for hope—for life—ah! above all,
     For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
     In Truth—in Virtue—in Humanity—
     Of all who, on Despair’s unhallowed bed
     Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
     At thy soft-murmured words, “Let there be light!”
      At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
     In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes—
     Of all who owe thee most—whose gratitude
     Nearest resembles worship—oh, remember
     The truest—the most fervently devoted,
     And think that these weak lines are written by him—
     By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
     His spirit is communing with an angel’s.
    
      1847.




TO MARIE LOUISE (SHEW)


     Not long ago, the writer of these lines,
     In the mad pride of intellectuality,
     Maintained “the power of words”—denied that ever
     A thought arose within the human brain
     Beyond the utterance of the human tongue:
     And now, as if in mockery of that boast,
     Two words-two foreign soft dissyllables—
     Italian tones, made only to be murmured
     By angels dreaming in the moonlit “dew
     That hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill,”—
     Have stirred from out the abysses of his heart,
     Unthought-like thoughts that are the souls of thought,
     Richer, far wider, far diviner visions
     Than even the seraph harper, Israfel,
     (Who has “the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures”)
     Could hope to utter. And I! my spells are broken.
     The pen falls powerless from my shivering hand.
     With thy dear name as text, though bidden by thee,
     I can not write-I can not speak or think—
     Alas, I can not feel; for ’tis not feeling,
     This standing motionless upon the golden
     Threshold of the wide-open gate of dreams,
     Gazing, entranced, adown the gorgeous vista,
     And thrilling as I see, upon the right,
     Upon the left, and all the way along,
     Amid empurpled vapors, far away
     To where the prospect terminates-_thee only!_
    
      1848.




THE CITY IN THE SEA.


     Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
     In a strange city lying alone
     Far down within the dim West,
     Wherethe good and the bad and the worst and the best
     Have gone to their eternal rest.
     There shrines and palaces and towers
     (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
     Resemble nothing that is ours.
     Around, by lifting winds forgot,
     Resignedly beneath the sky
     The melancholy waters lie.
     No rays from the holy heaven come down
     On the long night-time of that town;
     But light from out the lurid sea
     Streams up the turrets silently—
     Gleams up the pinnacles far and free—
     Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls—
     Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls—
     Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers
     Of scultured ivy and stone flowers—
     Up many and many a marvellous shrine
     Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
     The viol, the violet, and the vine.
     Resignedly beneath the sky
     The melancholy waters lie.
     So blend the turrets and shadows there
     That all seem pendulous in air,
     While from a proud tower in the town
     Death looks gigantically down.
     There open fanes and gaping graves
     Yawn level with the luminous waves;
     But not the riches there that lie
     In each idol’s diamond eye—
     Not the gaily-jewelled dead
     Tempt the waters from their bed;
     For no ripples curl, alas!
     Along that wilderness of glass—
     No swellings tell that winds may be
     Upon some far-off happier sea—
     No heavings hint that winds have been
     On seas less hideously serene.
     But lo, a stir is in the air!
     The wave—there is a movement there!
     As if the towers had thrown aside,
     In slightly sinking, the dull tide—
     As if their tops had feebly given
     A void within the filmy Heaven.
     The waves have now a redder glow—
     The hours are breathing faint and low—
     And when, amid no earthly moans,
     Down, down that town shall settle hence,
     Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
     Shall do it reverence.
    
      1845.




THE SLEEPER.


     At midnight in the month of June,
     I stand beneath the mystic moon.
     An opiate vapour, dewy, dim,
     Exhales from out her golden rim,
     And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
     Upon the quiet mountain top.
     Steals drowsily and musically
     Into the univeral valley.
     The rosemary nods upon the grave;
     The lily lolls upon the wave;
     Wrapping the fog about its breast,
     The ruin moulders into rest;
     Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
     A conscious slumber seems to take,
     And would not, for the world, awake.
     All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies
     (Her easement open to the skies)
     Irene, with her Destinies!
     Oh, lady bright! can it be right—
     This window open to the night?
     The wanton airs, from the tree-top,
     Laughingly through the lattice drop—
     The bodiless airs, a wizard rout,
     Flit through thy chamber in and out,
     And wave the curtain canopy
     So fitfully—so fearfully—
     Above the closed and fringed lid
     ‘Neath which thy slumb’ring sould lies hid,
     That o’er the floor and down the wall,
     Like ghosts the shadows rise and fall!
     Oh, lady dear, hast thous no fear?
     Why and what art thou dreaming here?
     Sure thou art come p’er far-off seas,
     A wonder to these garden trees!
     Strange is thy pallor! strange thy dress!
     Strange, above all, thy length of tress,
     And this all solemn silentness!
     The lady sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
     Which is enduring, so be deep!
     Heaven have her in its sacred keep!
     This chamber changed for one more holy,
     This bed for one more melancholy,
     I pray to God that she may lie
     Forever with unopened eye,
     While the dim sheeted ghosts go by!
     My love, she sleeps! Oh, may her sleep,
     As it is lasting, so be deep!
     Soft may the worms about her creep!
     Far in the forest, dim and old,
     For her may some tall vault unfold—
     Some vault that oft hath flung its black
     And winged pannels fluttering back,
     Triumphant, o’er the crested palls,
     Of her grand family funerals—
     Some sepulchre, remote, alone,
     Against whose portal she hath thrown,
     In childhood, many an idle stone—
     Some tomb fromout whose sounding door
     She ne’er shall force an echo more,
     Thrilling to think, poor child of sin!
     It was the dead who groaned within.
    
      1845.
    
 BRIDAL BALLAD.
     THE ring is on my hand,
         And the wreath is on my brow;
     Satins and jewels grand
     Are all at my command,
         And I am happy now.
     And my lord he loves me well;
         But, when first he breathed his vow,
     I felt my bosom swell—
     For the words rang as a knell,
     And the voice seemed _his_ who fell
     In the battle down the dell,
         And who is happy now.
     But he spoke to re-asure me,
         And he kissed my pallid brow,
     While a reverie came o’re me,
     And to the church-yard bore me,
     And I sighed to him before me,
     Thinking him dead D’Elormie,
         “Oh, I am happy now!”
     And thus the words were spoken,
         And this the plighted vow,
     And, though my faith be broken,
     And, though my heart be broken,
     Behold the golden token
         That _proves_ me happy now!
     Would God I could awaken!
         For I dream I know not how,
     And my soul is sorely shaken
     Lest an evil step be taken,—
     Lest the dead who is forsaken
         May not be happy now.
    
      1845.




NOTES


      1. “The Raven” was first published on the 29th January, 1845, in the New
      York “Evening Mirror"-a paper its author was then assistant editor of. It
      was prefaced by the following words, understood to have been written by N.
      P. Willis: “We are permitted to copy (in advance of publication) from the
      second number of the “American Review,” the following remarkable poem by
      Edgar Poe. In our opinion, it is the most effective single example of
      ‘fugitive poetry’ ever published in this country, and unsurpassed in
      English poetry for subtle conception, masterly ingenuity of versification,
      and consistent sustaining of imaginative lift and ‘pokerishness.’ It is
      one of those ‘dainties bred in a book’ which we feed on. It will stick to
      the memory of everybody who reads it.” In the February number of the
      “American Review” the poem was published as by “Quarles,” and it was
      introduced by the following note, evidently suggested if not written by
      Poe himself.
    
      [“The following lines from a correspondent-besides the deep, quaint strain
      of the sentiment, and the curious introduction of some ludicrous touches
      amidst the serious and impressive, as was doubtless intended by the
      author-appears to us one of the most felicitous specimens of unique
      rhyming which has for some time met our eye. The resources of English
      rhythm for varieties of melody, measure, and sound, producing
      corresponding diversities of effect, having been thoroughly studied, much
      more perceived, by very few poets in the language. While the classic
      tongues, especially the Greek, possess, by power of accent, several
      advantages for versification over our own, chiefly through greater
      abundance of spondaic: feet, we have other and very great advantages of
      sound by the modern usage of rhyme. Alliteration is nearly the only effect
      of that kind which the ancients had in common with us. It will be seen
      that much of the melody of ‘The Raven’ arises from alliteration, and the
      studious use of similar sounds in unusual places. In regard to its
      measure, it may be noted that if all the verses were like the second, they
      might properly be placed merely in short lines, producing a not uncommon
      form; but the presence in all the others of one line-mostly the second in
      the verse” (stanza?)—“which flows continuously, with only an
      aspirate pause in the middle, like that before the short line in the
      Sapphic Adonic, while the fifth has at the middle pause no similarity of
      sound with any part besides, gives the versification an entirely different
      effect. We could wish the capacities of our noble language in prosody were
      better understood.”—ED. “Am. Rev.”]
    
      2. The bibliographical history of “The Bells” is curious. The subject, and
      some lines of the original version, having been suggested by the poet’s
      friend, Mrs. Shew, Poe, when he wrote out the first draft of the poem,
      headed it, “The Bells, By Mrs. M. A. Shew.” This draft, now the editor’s
      property, consists of only seventeen lines, and read thus:
    
                       I.
     The bells!-ah, the bells!
     The little silver bells!
     How fairy-like a melody there floats
     From their throats—
     From their merry little throats—
     From the silver, tinkling throats
     Of the bells, bells, bells—
     Of the bells!
                       II.
     The bells!-ah, the bells!
     The heavy iron bells!
     How horrible a monody there floats
     From their throats—
     From their deep-toned throats—
     From their melancholy throats!
     How I shudder at the notes Of the bells, bells, bells—
     Of the bells!
    
      In the autumn of 1848 Poe added another line to this poem, and sent it to
      the editor of the “Union Magazine.” It was not published. So, in the
      following February, the poet forwarded to the same periodical a much
      enlarged and altered transcript. Three months having elapsed without
      publication, another revision of the poem, similar to the current version,
      was sent, and in the following October was published in the “Union
      Magazine.”
     
    
      3. This poem was first published in Colton’s “American Review” for
      December, 1847, as “To—Ulalume: a Ballad.” Being reprinted
      immediately in the “Home Journal,” it was copied into various publications
      with the name of the editor, N. P. Willis, appended, and was ascribed to
      him. When first published, it contained the following additional stanza
      which Poe subsequently, at the suggestion of Mrs. Whitman, wisely
      suppressed:
    
     Said we then—we two, then—“Ah, can it
     Have been that the woodlandish ghouls—
     The pitiful, the merciful ghouls—
     To bar up our path and to ban it
     From the secret that lies in these wolds—
     Had drawn up the spectre of a planet
     From the limbo of lunary souls—
     This sinfully scintillant planet
     From the Hell of the planetary souls?”
 
    
      4. “To Helen!” (Mrs. S. Helen Whitman) was not published until November,
      1848, although written several months earlier. It first appeared in the
      “Union Magazine,” and with the omission, contrary to the knowledge or
      desire of Poe, of the line, “Oh, God! oh, Heaven—how my heart beats
      in coupling those two words.”
     
    
      5. “Annabel Lee” was written early in 1849, and is evidently an expression
      of the poet’s undying love for his deceased bride, although at least one
      of his lady admirers deemed it a response to her admiration. Poe sent a
      copy of the ballad to the “Union Magazine,” in which publication it
      appeared in January, 1850, three months after the author’s death. While
      suffering from “hope deferred” as to its fate, Poe presented a copy of
      “Annabel Lee” to the editor of the “Southern Literary Messenger,” who
      published it in the November number of his periodical, a month after Poe’s
      death. In the meantime the poet’s own copy, left among his papers, passed
      into the hands of the person engaged to edit his works, and he quoted the
      poem in an obituary of Poe, in the New York “Tribune,” before any one else
      had an opportunity of publishing it.
    
      6. “A Valentine,” one of three poems addressed to Mrs. Osgood, appears to
      have been written early in 1846.
    
      7. “An Enigma,” addressed to Mrs. Sarah Anna Lewis (“Stella”), was sent to
      that lady in a letter, in November, 1847, and the following March appeared
      in Sartain’s “Union Magazine.”
     
    
      8. The sonnet, “To My Mother” (Maria Clemm), was sent for publication to
      the short-lived “Flag of our Union,” early in 1849,’ but does not appear
      to have been issued until after its author’s death, when it appeared in
      the “Leaflets of Memory” for 1850.
    
      9. “For Annie” was first published in the “Flag of our Union,” in the
      spring of 1849. Poe, annoyed at some misprints in this issue, shortly
      afterwards caused a corrected copy to be inserted in the “Home Journal.”
     
    
      10. “To F——” (Frances Sargeant Osgood) appeared in the
      “Broadway journal” for April, 1845. These lines are but slightly varied
      from those inscribed “To Mary,” in the “Southern Literary Messenger” for
      July, 1835, and subsequently republished, with the two stanzas transposed,
      in “Graham’s Magazine” for March, 1842, as “To One Departed.”
     
    
      11. “To F——s S. O—d,” a portion of the poet’s triune
      tribute to Mrs. Osgood, was published in the “Broadway Journal” for
      September, 1845. The earliest version of these lines appeared in the
      “Southern Literary Messenger” for September, 1835, as “Lines written in an
      Album,” and was addressed to Eliza White, the proprietor’s daughter.
      Slightly revised, the poem reappeared in Burton’s “Gentleman’s Magazine”
       for August, 1839, as “To—.”
     
    
      12. Although “Eldorado” was published during Poe’s lifetime, in 1849, in
      the “Flag of our Union,” it does not appear to have ever received the
      author’s finishing touches.




POEMS OF MANHOOD




LENORE


     Ah broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
     Let the bell toll!—a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
     And, Guy De Vere, hast _thou_ no tear?—weep now or never more!
     See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
     Come! let the burial rite be read—the funeral song be sung!—
     An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young—
     A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
     “Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
     “And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her—that she died!
     “How shall the ritual, then, be read?—the requiem how be sung
     “By you—by yours, the evil eye,—by yours, the slanderous tongue
     “That did to death the innocent that died, and died so young?”
      _Peccavimus_; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
     Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel so wrong!
     The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside
     Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride—
     For her, the fair and _debonair_, that now so lowly lies,
     The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes—
     The life still there, upon her hair—the death upon her eyes.
     “Avaunt! to-night my heart is light. No dirge will I upraise,
     “But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!
     “Let no bell toll!—lest her sweet soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
     “Should catch the note, as it doth float—up from the damned Earth.
     “To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven—
     “From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven—
     “From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven.”




TO ONE IN PARADISE.


     Thou wast all that to me, love,
         For which my soul did pine—
     A green isle in the sea, love,
         A fountain and a shrine,
     All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
         And all the flowers were mine.
     Ah, dream too bright to last!
         Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
     But to be overcast!
         A voice from out the Future cries,
     “On! on!”—but o’er the Past
         (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
     Mute, motionless, aghast!
     For, alas! alas! with me
         The light of Life is o’er!
         No more—no more—no more—
     (Such language holds the solemn sea
         To the sands upon the shore)
     Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
         Or the stricken eagle soar!
     And all my days are trances,
         And all my nightly dreams
     Are where thy dark eye glances,
         And where thy footstep gleams—
     In what ethereal dances,
         By what eternal streams.
    
      1835.




THE COLISEUM.


     Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
     Of lofty contemplation left to Time
     By buried centuries of pomp and power!
     At length—at length—after so many days
     Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
     (Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
     I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
     Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
     My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!
     Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
     Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!
     I feel ye now—I feel ye in your strength—
     O spells more sure than e’er Judæan king
     Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
     O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
     Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!
     Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
     Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
     A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!
     Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
     Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!
     Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,
     Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,
     Lit by the wanlight—wan light of the horned moon,
     The swift and silent lizard of the stones!
     But stay! these walls—these ivy-clad arcades—
     These mouldering plinths—these sad and blackened shafts—
     These vague entablatures—this crumbling frieze—
     These shattered cornices—this wreck—this ruin—
     These stones—alas! these gray stones—are they all—
     All of the famed, and the colossal left
     By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?
     “Not all”—the Echoes answer me—“not all!
     “Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever
     “From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
     “As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
     “We rule the hearts of mightiest men—we rule
     “With a despotic sway all giant minds.
     “We are not impotent—we pallid stones.
     “Not all our power is gone—not all our fame—
     “Not all the magic of our high renown—
     “Not all the wonder that encircles us—
     “Not all the mysteries that in us lie—
     “Not all the memories that hang upon
     “And cling around about us as a garment,
     “Clothing us in a robe of more than glory.”
 
    
      1833.




THE HAUNTED PALACE.


     In the greenest of our valleys
         By good angels tenanted,
     Once a fair and stately palace—
         Radiant palace—reared its head.
     In the monarch Thought’s dominion—
         It stood there!
     Never seraph spread a pinion
         Over fabric half so fair.
     Banners yellow, glorious, golden,
         On its roof did float and flow,
     (This—all this—was in the olden
         Time long ago,)
     And every gentle air that dallied,
         In that sweet day,
     Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,
         A winged odour went away.
     Wanderers in that happy valley,
         Through two luminous windows, saw
     Spirits moving musically,
         To a lute’s well-tuned law,
     Round about a throne where, sitting
         (Porphyrogene)
     In state his glory well befitting,
         The ruler of the realm was seen.
     And all with pearl and ruby glowing
         Was the fair palace door,
     Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing,
         And sparkling evermore,
     A troop of Echoes, whose sweet duty
         Was but to sing,
     In voices of surpassing beauty,
         The wit and wisdom of their king.
     But evil things, in robes of sorrow,
         Assailed the monarch’s high estate.
     (Ah, let us mourn!—for never sorrow
         Shall dawn upon him desolate!)
     And round about his home the glory
         That blushed and bloomed,
     Is but a dim-remembered story
         Of the old time entombed.
     And travellers, now, within that valley,
         Through the red-litten windows see
     Vast forms, that move fantastically
         To a discordant melody,
     While, lie a ghastly rapid river,
         Through the pale door
     A hideous throng rush out forever
         And laugh—but smile no more.
    
      1838.




THE CONQUEROR WORM.


     Lo! ’tis a gala night
         Within the lonesome latter years!
     An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
         In veils, and drowned in tears,
     Sit in a theatre, to see
         A play of hopes and fears,
     While the orchestra breathes fitfully
         The music of the spheres.
     Mimes, in the form of God on high,
         Mutter and mumble low,
     And hither and thither fly—
         Mere puppets they, who come and go
     At bidding of vast formless things
         That shift the scenery to and fro,
     Flapping from out their Condor wings
        Invisible Woe!
     That motley drama—oh, be sure
         It shall not be forgot!
     With its Phantom chased for evermore,
         By a crowd that seize it not,
     Through a circle that ever returneth in
         To the self-same spot,
     And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
         And Horror the soul of the plot.
     But see, amid the mimic rout
         A crawling shape intrude!
     A blood-red thing that writhes from out
         The scenic solitude!
     It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
         The mimes become its food,
     And the angels sob at vermin fangs
         In human gore imbued.
     Out—out are the lights—out all!
         And, over each quivering form,
     The curtain, a funeral pall,
         Comes down with the rush of a storm
     And the angels, all pallid and wan,
         Uprising, unveiling, affirm
     That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
          And its hero the Conqueror Worm.
    
      1838.




SILENCE


     There are some qualities—some incorporate things,
         That have a double life, which thus is made
     A type of that twin entity which springs
         From matter and light, evinced in solid and shade.
     There is a two-fold _Silence_—sea and shore—
         Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,
         Newly with grass o’ergrown; some solemn graces,
     Some human memories and tearful lore,
     Render him terrorless: his name’s “No More.”
      He is the corporate Silence: dread him not!
         No power hath he of evil in himself;
     But should some urgent fate (untimely lot!)
         Bring thee to meet his shadow (nameless elf,
     That haunteth the lone regions where hath trod
     No foot of man,) commend thyself to God!
    
      1840.




DREAM-LAND


        By a route obscure and lonely,
         Haunted by ill angels only,
         Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
         On a black throne reigns upright,
         I have reached these lands but newly
         From an ultimate dim Thule—
         From a wild weird clime that lieth, sublime,
               Out of SPACE—out of TIME.
         Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
         And chasms, and caves, and Titian woods,
         With forms that no man can discover
         For the dews that drip all over;
         Mountains toppling evermore
         Into seas without a shore;
         Seas that restlessly aspire,
         Surging, unto skies of fire;
         Lakes that endlessly outspread
         Their lone waters—lone and dead,—
         Their still waters—still and chilly
         With the snows of the lolling lily.
         By the lakes that thus outspread
         Their lone waters, lone and dead,—
         Their sad waters, sad and chilly
         With the snows of the lolling lily,—
         By the mountains—near the river
         Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,—
         By the grey woods,—by the swamp
         Where the toad and the newt encamp,—
         By the dismal tarns and pools
                 Where dwell the Ghouls,—
         By each spot the most unholy—
         In each nook most melancholy,—
         There the traveller meets aghast
         Sheeted Memories of the Past—
         Shrouded forms that start and sigh
         As they pass the wanderer by—
         White-robed forms of friends long given,
         In agony, to the Earth—and Heaven.
         For the heart whose woes are legion
         ’Tis a peaceful, soothing region—
         For the spirit that walks in shadow
         ’Tis—oh ’tis an Eldorado!
         But the traveller, travelling through it,
         May not—dare not openly view it;
         Never its mysteries are exposed
         To the weak human eye unclosed;
         So wills its King, who hath forbid
         The uplifting of the fringed lid;
         And thus the sad Soul that here passes
         Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
         By a route obscure and lonely,
         Haunted by ill angels only,
         Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
         On a black throne reigns upright,
         I have wandered home but newly
         From this ultimate dim Thule.
    
      1844.




HYMN


     At morn—at noon—at twilight dim—
     Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
     In joy and wo—in good and ill—
     Mother of God, be with me still!
     When the Hours flew brightly by
     And not a cloud obscured the sky,
     My soul, lest it should truant be,
     Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
     Now, when storms of Fate o’ercast
     Darkly my Present and my Past,
     Let my Future radiant shine
     With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
    
      1835.




TO ZANTE


     Fair isle, that from the fairest of all flowers,
         Thy gentlest of all gentle names dost take
     How many memories of what radiant hours
         At sight of thee and thine at once awake!
     How many scenes of what departed bliss!
         How many thoughts of what entombed hopes!
     How many visions of a maiden that is
         No more—no more upon thy verdant slopes!
     No _more!_ alas, that magical sad sound
         Transfomring all! Thy charms shall please _no more_—
     Thy memory _no more! _Accursed ground
         Henceforth I hold thy flower-enamelled shore,
     O hyacinthine isle! O purple Zante!
         “Isoa d’oro! Fior di Levante!”
 
    
      1837.




SCENES FROM “POLITIAN”

      AN UNPUBLISHED DRAMA.


                                 I.
              Rome.—A Hall in a Palace  Alessandra and Castiglione.
      Alessandra.  Thou art sad, Castiglione.
      Castiglione.  Sad!—not I.
  Oh, I’m the happiest, happiest man in Rome!
  A few days more, thou knowest, my Alessandra,
  Will make thee mine. Oh, I am very happy!
      Aless.  Methinks thou hast a singular way of showing
  Thy happiness!—what ails thee, cousin of mine?
  Why didst thou sigh so deeply?
      Cas.  Did I sign?
  I was not conscious of it. It is a fashion,
  A silly—a most silly fashion I have
  When I am very happy. Did I sigh?                         (sighing.)
      Aless. Thou didst. Thou art not well. Thou hast indulged
  Too much of late, and I am vexed to see it.
  Late hours and wine, Castiglione,—these
  Will ruin thee! thou art already altered—
  Thy looks are haggard—nothing so wears away
  The constitution as late hours and wine.
      Cas. (musing.)  Nothing, fair cousin, nothing—not even deep
  sorrow—
  Wears it away like evil hours and wine.
  I will amend.
      Aless. Do it! I would have thee drop
  Thy riotous company, too—fellows low born—
  Ill suit the like with old Di Broglio’s heir
  And Alessandra’s husband.
      Cas.  I will drop them.
      Aless.   Thou wilt—thou must. Attend thou also more
  To thy dress and equipage—they are over plain
  For thy lofty rank and fashion—much depends
  Upon appearances.
      Cas.  I’ll see to it.
      Aless. Then see to it!—pay more attention, sir,
  To a becoming carriage—much thou wantest
  In dignity.
      Cas.  Much, much, oh! much I want
    In proper dignity.
      Aless.(haughtily)  Thou mockest me, sir!
      Cas. (abstractedly.)  Sweet, gentle Lalage!
      Aless. Heard I aright?
  I speak to him—he speaks of Lalage!
  Sir Count! (places her hand on his shoulder) what art thou dreaming?
  he’s not well!
  What ails thee, sir?
      Cas. (startling.)  Cousin! fair cousin!—madam!
  I crave thy pardon—indeed I am not well—
  Your hand from off my shoulder, if you please.
  This air is most oppressive!—Madam—the Duke!
                                                     Enter Di Broglio.
      Di Broglio.  My son, I’ve news for thee!—hey?—what’s the
  matter? (observing Alessandra)
  I’ the pouts? Kiss her, Castiglione! kiss her,
  You dog! and make it up, I say, this minute!
  I’ve news for you both. Politian is expected
  Hourly in Rome—Politian, Earl of Leicester!
  We’ll have him at the wedding. ’Tis his first visit
  To the imperial city.
      Aless. What! Politian
  Of Britain, Earl of Leicester?
      Di Brog.  The same, my love.
  We’ll have him at the wedding. A man quite young
  In years, but grey in fame. I have not seen him,
  But Rumour speaks of him as of a prodigy
  Pre-eminent in arts and arms, and wealth,
  And high descent. We’ll have him at the wedding.
      Aless. I have heard much of this Politian.
  Gay, volatile and giddy—is he not?
  And little given to thinking.
      Di Brog.  Far from it, love.
  No branch, they say, of all philosophy
  So deep abstruse he has not mastered it.
  Learned as few are learned.
      Aless. ’Tis very strange!
  I have known men have seen Politian
  And sought his company. They speak of him
  As of one who entered madly into life,
  Drinking the cup of pleasure to the dregs.
      Cas.  Ridiculous! Now I have seen Politian
  And know him well—nor learned nor mirthful he.
  He is a dreamer and a man shut out
  From common passions.
      Di Brog.  Children, we disagree.
  Let us go forth and taste the fragrant air
  Of the garden. Did I dream, or did I hear
  Politian was a melancholy man?                             (exeunt.)
                            II
    ROME. A Lady’s apartment, with a window open and looking into a garden.
  Lalage, in deep mourning, reading at a table on which lie some books and a
  hand mirror. In the background Jacinta (a servant maid) leans carelessly
  upon a chair.
      Lal. [Lalage] Jacinta! is it thou?
      Jac. [Jacinta] (pertly.) Yes, Ma’am, I’m here.
      Lal.   I did not know, Jacinta, you were in waiting.
  Sit down!—Let not my presence trouble you—
  Sit down!—for I am humble, most humble.
      Jac. (aside.) ’Tis time.
  (Jacinta seats herself in a side-long manner upon the chair, resting her
  elbows upon the back, and regarding her mistress with a contemptuous look.
  Lalage continues to read. )
      Lal. “It in another climate, so he said,
  “Bore a bright golden flower, but not i’ this soil!”
   (pauses—turns over some leaves, and resumes)
  “No lingering winters there, nor snow, nor shower—
  “But Ocean ever to refresh mankind
  “Breathes the shrill spirit of the western wind.”
   O, beautiful!—most beautiful—how like
  To what my fevered soul doth dream of Heaven!
  O happy land (pauses) She died!—the maiden died!
  A still more happy maiden who couldst die!
  Jacinta!
  (Jacinta returns no answer, and Lalage presently resumes.)
  Again!—a similar tale
  Told of a beauteous dame beyond the sea!
  Thus speaketh one Ferdinand in the words of the play—
  “She died full young”—one Bossola answers him—
  “I think not so—her infelicity
  “Seemed to have years too many”—Ah luckless lady!
  Jacinta! (still no answer)
      Here ‘s a far sterner story,
  But like—oh, very like in its despair—
  Of that Egyptian queen, winning so easily
  A thousand hearts—losing at length her own.
  She died. Thus endeth the history—and her maids
  Lean over and weep—two gentle maids
  With gentle names—Eiros and Charmion!
  Rainbow and Dove!——Jacinta!
      Jac. (pettishly.) Madam, what is it?
      Lal.  Wilt thou, my good Jacinta, be so kind
  As go down in the library and bring me
  The Holy Evangelists.
      Jac. Pshaw!   (exit.)
      Lal. If there be balm
  For the wounded spirit in Gilead it is there!
  Dew in the night time of my bitter trouble
  Will there be found—“dew sweeter far than that
  Which hangs like chains of pearl on Hermon hill.”
   (re-enter Jacinta, and throws a volume on the table.)
  There, ma’am, ‘s the book. Indeed she is very troublesome.  (aside.)
      Lal. (astonished.)  What didst thou say, Jacinta? Have I done aught
  To grieve thee or to vex thee?—I am sorry.
  For thou hast served me long and ever been
  Trust-worthy and respectful.                   (resumes her reading.)
      Jac. I can’t believe
  She has any more jewels—no—no—she gave me all.    (aside.)
      Lal. What didst thou say, Jacinta? Now I bethink me
  Thou hast not spoken lately of thy wedding.
  How fares good Ugo?—and when is it to be?
  Can I do aught?—is there no farther aid
  Thou needest, Jacinta?
      Jac. Is there no farther aid!
  That’s meant for me. (aside) I’m sure, madam, you need not
  Be always throwing those jewels in my teeth.
      Lal. Jewels! Jacinta,—now indeed, Jacinta,
  I thought not of the jewels.
      Jac. Oh! perhaps not!
  But then I might have sworn it. After all,
  There ‘s Ugo says the ring is only paste,
  For he ‘s sure the Count Castiglione never
  Would have given a real diamond to such as you;
  And at the best I’m certain, Madam, you cannot
  Have use for jewels now. But I might have sworn it.          (exit.)
  (Lalage bursts into tears and leans her head upon the table—after a
  short pause raises it.)
      Lal.  Poor Lalage!—and is it come to this?
  Thy servant maid!—but courage!—’tis but a viper
  Whom thou hast cherished to sting thee to the soul!
  (taking up the mirror)
  Ha! here at least ‘s a friend—too much a friend
  In earlier days—a friend will not deceive thee.
  Fair mirror and true! now tell me (for thou canst)
  A tale—a pretty tale—and heed thou not
  Though it be rife with woe: It answers me.
  It speaks of sunken eyes, and wasted cheeks,
  And Beauty long deceased—remembers me
  Of Joy departed—Hope, the Seraph Hope,
  Inurned and entombed:—now, in a tone
  Low, sad, and solemn, but most audible,
  Whispers of early grave untimely yawning
  For ruined maid. Fair mirror and true—thou liest not!
  Thou hast no end to gain—no heart to break—
  Castiglione lied who said he loved—
  Thou true—he false!—false!—false!
  (While she speaks, a monk enters her apartment, and approaches
  unobserved.)
      Monk. Refuge thou hast,
  Sweet daughter, in Heaven. Think of eternal things!
  Give up thy soul to penitence, and pray!
      Lal. (arising hurriedly.)  I cannot pray!—My soul is at war
  with God!
  The frightful sounds of merriment below
  Disturb my senses—go! I cannot pray—
  The sweet airs from the garden worry me!
  Thy presence grieves me—go!—thy priestly raiment
  Fills me with dread—thy ebony crucifix
  With horror and awe!
      Monk. Think of thy precious soul!
      Lal.  Think of my early days!—think of my father
  And mother in Heaven think of our quiet home,
  And the rivulet that ran before the door!
  Think of my little sisters!—think of them!
  And think of me!—think of my trusting love
  And confidence—his vows—my ruin—think—think
  Of my unspeakable misery!—begone!
  Yet stay! yet stay!—what was it thou saidst of prayer
  And penitence? Didst thou not speak of faith
  And vows before the throne?
      Monk.  I did.
      Lal. Lal. ’Tis well.
  There is a vow were fitting should be made—
  A sacred vow, imperative, and urgent,
  A solemn vow!
      Monk. Daughter, this zeal is well!
      Lal.  Father, this zeal is anything but well!
  Hast thou a crucifix fit for this thing?
  A crucifix whereon to register
  This sacred vow?                             (he hands her his own)
  Not that—Oh! no!—no!—no!                            (shuddering)
  Not that! Not that!—I tell thee, holy man,
  Thy raiments and thy ebony cross affright me!
  Stand back! I have a crucifix myself,—
  I have a crucifix Methinks ’twere fitting
  The deed—the vow—the symbol of the deed—
  And the deed’s register should tally, father!
                  (draws a cross-handled dagger, and raises it on high)
  Behold the cross wherewith a vow like mine
  Is written in Heaven!
      Monk. Thy words are madness, daughter,
  And speak a purpose unholy—thy lips are livid—
  Thine eyes are wild—tempt not the wrath divine!
  Pause ere too late!—oh, be not—be not rash!
  Swear not the oath—oh, swear it not!
      Lal. ’Tis sworn!
                          III.
        An apartment in a Palace. Politian and Baldazzar.
       Baldazzar.———Arouse thee now, Politian!
  Thou must not—nay indeed, indeed, shalt not
  Give away unto these humors. Be thyself!
  Shake off the idle fancies that beset thee,
  And live, for now thou diest!
       Politian.  Not so, Baldazzar! Surely I live.
       Bal. Politian, it doth grieve me
  To see thee thus.
      Pol.  Baldazzar, it doth grieve me
  To give thee cause for grief, my honoured friend.
  Command me, sir! what wouldst thou have me do?
  At thy behest I will shake off that nature
  Which from my, forefathers I did inherit,
  Which with my mother’s milk I did imbibe,
  And be no more Politian, but some other.
  Command me, sir!
      Bal.  To the field, then—to the field—
  To the senate or the field.
      Pol. Alas! Alas!
  There is an imp would follow me even there!
  There is an imp hath followed me even there!
  There is—what voice was that?
      Bal.  I heard it not.
  I heard not any voice except thine own,
  And the echo of thine own.
      Pol.  Then I but dreamed.
      Bal.  Give not thy soul to dreams: the camp—the court,
  Befit thee—Fame awaits thee—Glory calls—
  And her the trumpet-tongued thou wilt not hear
  In hearkening to imaginary sounds
  And phantom voices.
      Pol.  It is a phantom voice!
  Didst thou not hear it then?
      Bal.  I heard it not.
      Pol.  Thou heardst it not!—Baldazaar, speak no more
  To me, Politian, of thy camps and courts.
  Oh! I am sick, sick, sick, even unto death,
  Of the hollow and high-sounding vanities
  Of the populous Earth! Bear with me yet awhile!
  We have been boys together—schoolfellows—
  And now are friends—yet shall not be so long—
  For in the eternal city thou shalt do me
  A kind and gentle office, and a Power—
  A Power august, benignant and supreme—
  Shall then absolve thee of all further duties
  Unto thy friend.
      Bal.  Thou speakest a fearful riddle
  I will not understand.
      Pol.  Yet now as Fate
  Approaches, and the Hours are breathing low,
  The sands of Time are changed to golden grains,
  And dazzle me, Baldazzar. Alas! alas!
  I cannot die, having within my heart
  So keen a relish for the beautiful
  As hath been kindled within it. Methinks the air
  Is balmier now than it was wont to be—
  Rich melodies are floating in the winds—
  A rarer loveliness bedecks the earth—
  And with a holier lustre the quiet moon
  Sitteth in Heaven.—Hist! hist! thou canst not say
  Thou hearest not now, Baldazzar?
      Bal.  Indeed I hear not.
      Pol.  Not hear it!—listen now!—listen!—the faintest sound
  And yet the sweetest that ear ever heard!
  A lady’s voice!—and sorrow in the tone!
  Baldazzar, it oppresses me like a spell!
  Again!—again!—how solemnly it falls
  Into my heart of hearts! that eloquent voice
  Surely I never heard—yet it were well
  Had I but heard it with its thrilling tones
  In earlier days!
      Bal.  I myself hear it now.
  Be still!—the voice, if I mistake not greatly,
  Proceeds from yonder lattice—which you may see
  Very plainly through the window—it belongs,
  Does it not? unto this palace of the Duke.
  The singer is undoubtedly beneath
  The roof of his Excellency—and perhaps
  Is even that Alessandra of whom he spoke
  As the betrothed of Castiglione,
  His son and heir.
      Pol.  Be still!—it comes again!
      Voice        “And is thy heart so strong
  (very faintly)   As for to leave me thus
              Who hath loved thee so long
              In wealth and woe among?
              And is thy heart so strong
              As for to leave me thus?
                  Say nay—say nay!”
      Bal.  The song is English, and I oft have heard it
  In merry England—never so plaintively—
  Hist! hist! it comes again!
      Voice            “Is it so strong
  (more loudly)    As for to leave me thus
              Who hath loved thee so long
              In wealth and woe among?
              And is thy heart so strong
              As for to leave me thus?
                  Say nay—say nay!”
      Bal.  ’Tis hushed and all is still!
      Pol.  All is not still!
      Bal.  Let us go down.
      Pol.  Go down, Baldazzar, go!
      Bal.  The hour is growing late—the Duke awaits use—
  Thy presence is expected in the hall
  Below. What ails thee, Earl Politian?
      Voice           “Who hath loved thee so long
  (distinctly)        In wealth and woe among,
                          And is thy heart so strong?
                               Say nay—say nay!”
      Bal.  Let us descend!—’tis time. Politian, give
  These fancies to the wind. Remember, pray,
  Your bearing lately savored much of rudeness
  Unto the Duke. Arouse thee! and remember
      Pol.  Remember? I do. Lead on! I do remember.
                                                  (going.)
  Let us descend. Believe me I would give,
  Freely would give the broad lands of my earldom
  To look upon the face hidden by yon lattice—
  “To gaze upon that veiled face, and hear
  Once more that silent tongue.”
      Bal.  Let me beg you, sir,
  Descend with me—the Duke may be offended.
  Let us go down, I pray you.
      (Voice loudly) Say nay!—say nay!
      Pol. (aside)  ’Tis strange!—’tis very strange—methought the
  voice
  Chimed in with my desires, and bade me stay!
                                     (approaching the window.)
  Sweet voice! I heed thee, and will surely stay.
  Now be this Fancy, by Heaven, or be it Fate,
  Still will I not descend. Baldazzar, make
  Apology unto the Duke for me;
  I go not down to-night.
      Bal.  Your lordship’s pleasure
  Shall be attended to. Good-night, Politian.
      Pol.  Good-night, my friend, good-night.
                           IV.
             The gardens of a Palace—Moonlight Lalage and Politian.
      Lalge.  And dost thou speak of love
  To me, Politian?—dost thou speak of love
  To Lalage?—ah, woe—ah, woe is me!
  This mockery is most cruel—most cruel indeed!
      Politian.  Weep not! oh, sob not thus!—thy bitter tears
  Will madden me. Oh, mourn not, Lalage—
  Be comforted! I know—I know it all,
  And still I speak of love. Look at me, brightest
  And beautiful Lalage!—turn here thine eyes!
  Thou askest me if I could speak of love,
  Knowing what I know, and seeing what I have seen.
  Thou askest me that—and thus I answer thee—
  Thus on my bended knee I answer thee.                    (kneeling.)
  Sweet Lalage, I love thee—love thee—love thee;
  Thro’ good and ill—thro’ weal and wo I love thee.
  Not mother, with her first-born on her knee,
  Thrills with intenser love than I for thee.
  Not on God’s altar, in any time or clime,
  Burned there a holier fire than burneth now
  Within my spirit for thee. And do I love?                 (arising.)
  Even for thy woes I love thee—even for thy woes-
  Thy beauty and thy woes.
      Lal.  Alas, proud Earl,
  Thou dost forget thyself, remembering me!
  How, in thy father’s halls, among the maidens
  Pure and reproachless of thy princely line,
  Could the dishonored Lalage abide?
  Thy wife, and with a tainted memory-
  MY seared and blighted name, how would it tally
  With the ancestral honors of thy house,
  And with thy glory?
      Pol.  Speak not to me of glory!
  I hate—I loathe the name; I do abhor
  The unsatisfactory and ideal thing.
  Art thou not Lalage and I Politian?
  Do I not love—art thou not beautiful-
  What need we more? Ha! glory!—now speak not of it.
  By all I hold most sacred and most solemn-
  By all my wishes now—my fears hereafter-
  By all I scorn on earth and hope in heaven-
  There is no deed I would more glory in,
  Than in thy cause to scoff at this same glory
  And trample it under foot. What matters it-
  What matters it, my fairest, and my best,
  That we go down unhonored and forgotten
  Into the dust—so we descend together.
  Descend together—and then—and then, perchance-
      Lal.  Why dost thou pause, Politian?
      Pol.  And then, perchance
  Arise together, Lalage, and roam
  The starry and quiet dwellings of the blest,
  And still-
      Lal.  Why dost thou pause, Politian?
      Pol.  And still together—together.
      Lal.  Now Earl of Leicester!
  Thou lovest me, and in my heart of hearts
  I feel thou lovest me truly.
      Pol.  Oh, Lalage!
                                       (throwing himself upon his knee.)
  And lovest thou me?
      Lal.  Hist! hush! within the gloom
  Of yonder trees methought a figure passed-
  A spectral figure, solemn, and slow, and noiseless-
  Like the grim shadow Conscience, solemn and noiseless.
                                             (walks across and returns.)
  I was mistaken—’twas but a giant bough
  Stirred by the autumn wind. Politian!
      Pol.  My Lalage—my love! why art thou moved?
  Why dost thou turn so pale? Not Conscience’ self,
  Far less a shadow which thou likenest to it,
  Should shake the firm spirit thus. But the night wind
  Is chilly—and these melancholy boughs
  Throw over all things a gloom.
      Lal.  Politian!
  Thou speakest to me of love. Knowest thou the land
  With which all tongues are busy—a land new found—
  Miraculously found by one of Genoa—
  A thousand leagues within the golden west?
  A fairy land of flowers, and fruit, and sunshine,
  And crystal lakes, and over-arching forests,
  And mountains, around whose towering summits the winds
  Of Heaven untrammelled flow—which air to breathe
  Is Happiness now, and will be Freedom hereafter
  In days that are to come?
      Pol.  O, wilt thou—wilt thou
  Fly to that Paradise—my Lalage, wilt thou
  Fly thither with me? There Care shall be forgotten,
  And Sorrow shall be no more, and Eros be all.
  And life shall then be mine, for I will live
  For thee, and in thine eyes—and thou shalt be
  No more a mourner—but the radiant Joys
  Shall wait upon thee, and the angel Hope
  Attend thee ever; and I will kneel to thee
  And worship thee, and call thee my beloved,
  My own, my beautiful, my love, my wife,
  My all;—oh, wilt thou—wilt thou, Lalage,
  Fly thither with me?
      Lal.  A deed is to be done—
  Castiglione lives!
      Pol.  And he shall die!                                (exit)
      Lal. (after a pause.)  And—he—shall—die!—alas!
  Castiglione die? Who spoke the words?
  Where am I?—what was it he said?—Politian!
  Thou art not gone—thou are not gone, Politian!
  I feel thou art not gone—yet dare not look,
  Lest I behold thee not; thou couldst not go
  With those words upon thy lips—O, speak to me!
  And let me hear thy voice—one word—one word,
  To say thou art not gone,—one little sentence,
  To say how thou dost scorn—how thou dost hate
  My womanly weakness. Ha! ha! thou art not gone-
  O speak to me! I knew thou wouldst not go!
  I knew thou wouldst not, couldst not, durst not go.
  Villain, thou art not gone—thou mockest me!
  And thus I clutch thee—thus!—He is gone, he is gone
  Gone—gone. Where am I?—’tis well—’tis very well!
  So that the blade be keen—the blow be sure,
  ’Tis well, ’tis very well—alas! alas!
                            V.
                 The suburbs. Politian alone.
      Politian.  This weakness grows upon me. I am faint,
  And much I fear me ill—it will not do
  To die ere I have lived!—Stay, stay thy hand,
  O Azrael, yet awhile!—Prince of the Powers
  Of Darkness and the Tomb, O pity me!
  O pity me! let me not perish now,
  In the budding of my Paradisal Hope!
  Give me to live yet—yet a little while:
  ’Tis I who pray for life—I who so late
  Demanded but to die!—what sayeth the Count?
                    Enter Baldazzar.
      Baldazzar.  That knowing no cause of quarrel or of feud
  Between the Earl Politian and himself.
  He doth decline your cartel.
      Pol.  What didst thou say?
  What answer was it you brought me, good Baldazzar?
  With what excessive fragrance the zephyr comes
  Laden from yonder bowers!—a fairer day,
  Or one more worthy Italy, methinks
  No mortal eyes have seen!—what said the Count?
      Bal.  That he, Castiglione’ not being aware
  Of any feud existing, or any cause
  Of quarrel between your lordship and himself,
  Cannot accept the challenge.
      Pol.  It is most true—
  All this is very true. When saw you, sir,
  When saw you now, Baldazzar, in the frigid
  Ungenial Britain which we left so lately,
  A heaven so calm as this—so utterly free
  From the evil taint of clouds?—and he did say?
      Bal.  No more, my lord, than I have told you, sir:
  The Count Castiglione will not fight,
  Having no cause for quarrel.
      Pol.  Now this is true-
  All very true. Thou art my friend, Baldazzar,
  And I have not forgotten it—thou’lt do me
  A piece of service; wilt thou go back and say
  Unto this man, that I, the Earl of Leicester,
  Hold him a villain?—thus much, I prythee, say
  Unto the Count—it is exceeding just
  He should have cause for quarrel.
      Bal.  My lord!—my friend!-
      Pol.  (aside.) ’Tis he!—he comes himself? (aloud) Thou reasonest
  well.
  I know what thou wouldst say—not send the message-
  Well!—I will think of it—I will not send it.
  Now prythee, leave me—hither doth come a person
  With whom affairs of a most private nature
  I would adjust.
      Bal.  I go—to-morrow we meet,
  Do we not?—at the Vatican.
      Pol.  At the Vatican.                                     (exit
  Bal.)
                    Enter Castigilone.
      Cas.  The Earl of Leicester here!
      Pol.  I am the Earl of Leicester, and thou seest,
  Dost thou not? that I am here.
      Cas.  My lord, some strange,
  Some singular mistake—misunderstanding—
  Hath without doubt arisen: thou hast been urged
  Thereby, in heat of anger, to address
  Some words most unaccountable, in writing,
  To me, Castiglione; the bearer being
  Baldazzar, Duke of Surrey. I am aware
  Of nothing which might warrant thee in this thing,
  Having given thee no offence. Ha!—am I right?
  ’Twas a mistake?—undoubtedly—we all
  Do err at times.
      Pol.  Draw, villain, and prate no more!
      Cas.  Ha!—draw?—and villain? have at thee then at once,
  Proud Earl!                                   (draws.)
      Pol.  (drawing.)  Thus to the expiatory tomb,
  Untimely sepulchre, I do devote thee
  In the name of Lalage!
      Cas.  (letting fall his sword and recoiling to the extremity of the
  stage)
                      Of Lalage!
  Hold off—thy sacred hand!—avaunt, I say!
  Avaunt—I will not fight thee—indeed I dare not.
      Pol.  Thou wilt not fight with me didst say, Sir Count?
  Shall I be baffled thus?—now this is well;
  Didst say thou darest not? Ha!
      Cas.  I dare not—dare not—
  Hold off thy hand—with that beloved name
  So fresh upon thy lips I will not fight thee—
  I cannot—dare not.
      Pol.  Now by my halidom
  I do believe thee!—coward, I do believe thee!
      Cas.  Ha!—coward!—this may not be!
       (clutches his sword and staggers towards POLITIAN, but his purpose
  is changed before reaching him, and he falls upon his knee at the feet of
  the Earl)
                             Alas! my lord,
  It is—it is—most true. In such a cause
  I am the veriest coward. O pity me!
      Pol.  (greatly softened.)  Alas!—I do—indeed I pity thee.
      Cas.  And Lalage-
      Pol.  Scoundrel!—arise and die!
      Cas.  It needeth not be—thus—thus—O let me die
  Thus on my bended knee. It were most fitting
  That in this deep humiliation I perish.
  For in the fight I will not raise a hand
  Against thee, Earl of Leicester. Strike thou home—
                                                     (baring his bosom.)
  Here is no let or hindrance to thy weapon-
  Strike home. I will not fight thee.
      Pol.  Now, s’ Death and Hell!
  Am I not—am I not sorely—grievously tempted
  To take thee at thy word? But mark me, sir,
  Think not to fly me thus. Do thou prepare
  For public insult in the streets—before
  The eyes of the citizens. I’ll follow thee
  Like an avenging spirit I’ll follow thee
  Even unto death. Before those whom thou lovest-
  Before all Rome I’ll taunt thee, villain,—I’ll taunt thee,
  Dost hear? with cowardice—thou wilt not fight me?
  Thou liest! thou shalt!                                      (exit.)
      Cas.  Now this indeed is just!
  Most righteous, and most just, avenging Heaven!
  {In the book there is a gap in numbering the notes between 12 and 29.
 —ED}
    
      NOTE
    
      29. Such portions of “Politian” as are known to the public first saw the
      light of publicity in the “Southern Literary Messenger” for December,
      1835, and January, 1836, being styled “Scenes from Politian: an
      unpublished drama.” These scenes were included, unaltered, in the 1845
      collection of Poems, by Poe. The larger portion of the original draft
      subsequently became the property of the present editor, but it is not
      considered just to the poet’s memory to publish it. The work is a hasty
      and unrevised production of its author’s earlier days of literary labor;
      and, beyond the scenes already known, scarcely calculated to enhance his
      reputation. As a specimen, however, of the parts unpublished, the
      following fragment from the first scene of Act II. may be offered. The
      Duke, it should be premised, is uncle to Alessandra, and father of
      Castiglione her betrothed.
    
      Duke. Why do you laugh?
      Castiglione. Indeed
  I hardly know myself. Stay! Was it not
  On yesterday we were speaking of the Earl?
  Of the Earl Politian? Yes! it was yesterday.
  Alessandra, you and 1, you must remember!
  We were walking in the garden.
      Duke, Perfectly.
  I do remember it-what of it-what then?
      Cas. 0 nothing-nothing at all.
      Duke. Nothing at all!
  It is most singular that you should laugh
  ‘At nothing at all!
      Cas. Most singular-singular!
      Duke. Look you, Castiglione, be so kind
  As tell me, sir, at once what ’tis you mean.
  What are you talking of?
      Cas. Was it not so?
  We differed in opinion touching him.
      Duke. Him!—Whom?
      Cas. Why, sir, the Earl Politian.
      Duke. The Earl of Leicester! Yes!—is it he you mean?
  We differed, indeed. If I now recollect
  The words you used were that the Earl you knew
  Was neither learned nor mirthful.
      Cas. Ha! ha!—now did I?
      Duke. That did you, sir, and well I knew at the time
  You were wrong, it being not the character
  Of the Earl-whom all the world allows to be
  A most hilarious man. Be not, my son,
  Too positive again.
      Cas. ’Tis singular!
  Most singular! I could not think it possible
  So little time could so much alter one!
  To say the truth about an hour ago,
  As I was walking with the Count San Ozzo,
  All arm in arm, we met this very man
  The Earl-he, with his friend Baldazzar,
  Having just arrived in Rome. Hal ha! he is altered!
  Such an account he gave me of his journey!
  ’Twould have made you die with laughter-such tales he told
  Of his caprices and his merry freaks
  Along the road-such oddity-such humor—
  Such wit-such whim-such flashes of wild merriment
  Set off too in such full relief by the grave
  Demeanor of his friend-who, to speak the truth,
  Was gravity itself—
      Duke. Did I not tell you?
      Cas. You did-and yet ’tis strange! but true as strange,
  How much I was mistaken! I always thought
  The Earl a gloomy man.
      Duke. So, so, you see! Be not too positive. Whom have we here?
  It can not be the Earl?
      Cas. The Earl! Oh, no! ’Tis not the Earl-but yet it is-and leaning
  Upon his friend Baldazzar. AM welcome, sir!
  (Enter Politian and Baldazzar.)
  My lord, a second welcome let me give you
  To Rome-his Grace the Duke of Broglio.
  Father! this is the Earl Politian, Earl
  Of Leicester in Great Britain. [Politian bows haughtily.]
      That, his friend
  Baldazzar, Duke of Surrey. The Earl has letters,
  So please you, for Your Grace.
      Duke. Hal ha! Most welcome
  To Rome and to our palace, Earl Politian!
  And you, most noble Duke! I am glad to see you!
  I knew your father well, my Lord Politian.
  Castiglione! call your cousin hither,
  And let me make the noble Earl acquainted
  With your betrothed. You come, sir, at a time
  Most seasonable. The wedding—
      Politian. Touching those letters, sir,
  Your son made mention of—your son, is he not?
  Touching those letters, sir, I wot not of them.
  If such there be, my friend Baldazzar here—
  Baldazzar! ah!—my friend Baldazzar here
  Will hand them to Your Grace. I would retire.
      Duke. Retire!—So soon?
  Came What ho! Benito! Rupert!
  His lordship’s chambers-show his lordship to them!
  His lordship is unwell.     (Enter Benito.)
      Ben. This way, my lord! (Exit, followed by Politian.)
      Duke. Retire! Unwell!
      Bal. So please you, sir. I fear me
  ’Tis as you say—his lordship is unwell.
  The damp air of the evening-the fatigue
  Of a long journey—the—indeed I had better
  Follow his lordship. He must be unwell.
  I will return anon.
      Duke. Return anon!
  Now this is very strange! Castiglione!
  This way, my son, I wish to speak with thee.
  You surely were mistaken in what you said
  Of the Earl, mirthful, indeed!—which of us said
  Politian was a melancholy man?    (Exeunt.)




POEMS OF YOUTH




INTRODUCTION TO POEMS—1831




_LETTER TO MR. B—._


                                  “WEST POINT, 1831.
    
      “Dear B......... Believing only a portion of my former volume to be worthy
      a second edition-that small portion I thought it as well to include in the
      present book as to republish by itself. I have therefore herein combined
      ‘Al Aaraaf’ and ‘Tamerlane’ with other poems hitherto unprinted. Nor have
      I hesitated to insert from the ‘Minor Poems,’ now omitted, whole lines,
      and even passages, to the end that being placed in a fairer light, and the
      trash shaken from them in which they were imbedded, they may have some
      chance of being seen by posterity.
    
      “It has been said that a good critique on a poem may be written by one who
      is no poet himself. This, according to your idea and _mine _of
      poetry, I feel to be false-the less poetical the critic, the less just the
      critique, and the converse. On this account, and because there are but few
      B-’s in the world, I would be as much ashamed of the world’s good opinion
      as proud of your own. Another than yourself might here observe,
      ‘Shakespeare is in possession of the world’s good opinion, and yet
      Shakespeare is the greatest of poets. It appears then that the world judge
      correctly, why should you be ashamed of their favorable judgment?’ The
      difficulty lies in the interpretation of the word ‘judgment’ or ‘opinion.’
      The opinion is the world’s, truly, but it may be called theirs as a man
      would call a book his, having bought it; he did not write the book, but it
      is his; they did not originate the opinion, but it is theirs. A fool, for
      example, thinks Shakespeare a great poet-yet the fool has never read
      Shakespeare. But the fool’s neighbor, who is a step higher on the Andes of
      the mind, whose head (that is to say, his more exalted thought) is too far
      above the fool to be seen or understood, but whose feet (by which I mean
      his everyday actions) are sufficiently near to be discerned, and by means
      of which that superiority is ascertained, which but for them would never
      have been discovered-this neighbor asserts that Shakespeare is a great
      poet—the fool believes him, and it is henceforward his _opinion.
      _This neighbor’s own opinion has, in like manner, been adopted from one
      above him, and so, ascendingly, to a few gifted individuals who kneel
      around the summit, beholding, face to face, the master spirit who stands
      upon the pinnacle.
    
      “You are aware of the great barrier in the path of an American writer. He
      is read, if at all, in preference to the combined and established wit of
      the world. I say established; for it is with literature as with law or
      empire-an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in
      possession. Besides, one might suppose that books, like their authors,
      improve by travel-their having crossed the sea is, with us, so great a
      distinction. Our antiquaries abandon time for distance; our very fops
      glance from the binding to the bottom of the title-page, where the mystic
      characters which spell London, Paris, or Genoa, are precisely so many
      letters of recommendation.
    
      “I mentioned just now a vulgar error as regards criticism. I think the
      notion that no poet can form a correct estimate of his own writings is
      another. I remarked before that in proportion to the poetical talent would
      be the justice of a critique upon poetry. Therefore a bad poet would, I
      grant, make a false critique, and his self-love would infallibly bias his
      little judgment in his favor; but a poet, who is indeed a poet, could not,
      I think, fail of making-a just critique; whatever should be deducted on
      the score of self-love might be replaced on account of his intimate
      acquaintance with the subject; in short, we have more instances of false
      criticism than of just where one’s own writings are the test, simply
      because we have more bad poets than good. There are, of course, many
      objections to what I say: Milton is a great example of the contrary; but
      his opinion with respect to the ‘Paradise Regained’ is by no means fairly
      ascertained. By what trivial circumstances men are often led to assert
      what they do not really believe! Perhaps an inadvertent word has descended
      to posterity. But, in fact, the ‘Paradise Regained’ is little, if at all,
      inferior to the ‘Paradise Lost,’ and is only supposed so to be because men
      do not like epics, whatever they may say to the contrary, and, reading
      those of Milton in their natural order, are too much wearied with the
      first to derive any pleasure from the second.
    
      “I dare say Milton preferred ‘Comus’ to either-. if so-justly.
    
      “As I am speaking of poetry, it will not be amiss to touch slightly upon
      the most singular heresy in its modern history-the heresy of what is
      called, very foolishly, the Lake School. Some years ago I might have been
      induced, by an occasion like the present, to attempt a formal refutation
      of their doctrine; at present it would be a work of supererogation. The
      wise must bow to the wisdom of such men as Coleridge and Southey, but,
      being wise, have laughed at poetical theories so prosaically exemplifled.
    
      “Aristotle, with singular assurance, has declared poetry the most
      philosophical of all writings*-but it required a Wordsworth to pronounce
      it the most metaphysical. He seems to think that the end of poetry is, or
      should be, instruction; yet it is a truism that the end of our existence
      is happiness; if so, the end of every separate part of our existence,
      everything connected with our existence, should be still happiness.
      Therefore the end of instruction should be happiness; and happiness is
      another name for pleasure;-therefore the end of instruction should be
      pleasure: yet we see the above-mentioned opinion implies precisely the
      reverse.
    
      “To proceed: _ceteris paribus,_ he who pleases is of more importance
      to his fellow-men than he who instructs, since utility is happiness, and
      pleasure is the end already obtained which instruction is merely the means
      of obtaining.
    
      “I see no reason, then, why our metaphysical poets should plume themselves
      so much on the utility of their works, unless indeed they refer to
      instruction with eternity in view; in which case, sincere respect for
      their piety would not allow me to express my contempt for their judgment;
      contempt which it would be difficult to conceal, since their writings are
      professedly to be understood by the few, and it is the many who stand in
      need of salvation. In such case I should no doubt be tempted to think of
      the devil in ‘Melmoth.’ who labors indefatigably, through three octavo
      volumes, to accomplish the destruction of one or two souls, while any
      common devil would have demolished one or two thousand.
    
“Against the subtleties which would make poetry a study-not a passion-it
becomes the metaphysician to reason-but the poet to protest.
Yet Wordsworth and Coleridge are men in years; the one imbued in
contemplation from his childhood; the other a giant in intellect and
learning. The diffidence, then, with which I venture to dispute their
authority would be overwhelming did I not feel, from the bottom of my
heart, that learning has little to do with the imagination-intellect
with the passions-or age with poetry.
     “‘Trifles, like straws, upon the surface flow;
     He who would search for pearls must dive below,’
    
      are lines which have done much mischief. As regards the greater truths,
      men oftener err by seeking them at the bottom than at the top; Truth lies
      in the huge abysses where wisdom is sought-not in the palpable palaces
      where she is found. The ancients were not always right in hiding—the
      goddess in a well; witness the light which Bacon has thrown upon
      philosophy; witness the principles of our divine faith—that moral
      mechanism by which the simplicity of a child may overbalance the wisdom of
      a man.
    
      “We see an instance of Coleridge’s liability to err, in his ‘Biographia
      Literaria’—professedly his literary life and opinions, but, in fact,
      a treatise _de omni scibili et quibusdam aliis. _He goes wrong by
      reason of his very profundity, and of his error we have a natural type in
      the contemplation of a star. He who regards it directly and intensely
      sees, it is true, the star, but it is the star without a ray-while he who
      surveys it less inquisitively is conscious of all for which the star is
      useful to us below-its brilliancy and its beauty.
    
      “As to Wordsworth, I have no faith in him. That he had in youth the
      feelings of a poet I believe-for there are glimpses of extreme delicacy in
      his writings-(and delicacy is the poet’s own kingdom-his _El Dorado)-but
      they _have the appearance of a better day recollected; and glimpses, at
      best, are little evidence of present poetic fire; we know that a few
      straggling flowers spring up daily in the crevices of the glacier.
    
      “He was to blame in wearing away his youth in contemplation with the end
      of poetizing in his manhood. With the increase of his judgment the light
      which should make it apparent has faded away. His judgment consequently is
      too correct. This may not be understood-but the old Goths of Germany would
      have understood it, who used to debate matters of importance to their
      State twice, once when drunk, and once when sober-sober that they might
      not be deficient in formality—drunk lest they should be destitute of
      vigor.
    
      “The long wordy discussions by which he tries to reason us into admiration
      of his poetry, speak very little in his favor: they are full of such
      assertions as this (I have opened one of his volumes at random)—‘Of
      genius the only proof is the act of doing well what is worthy to be done,
      and what was never done before;’-indeed? then it follows that in doing
      what is unworthy to be done, or what _has _been done before, no
      genius can be evinced; yet the picking of pockets is an unworthy act,
      pockets have been picked time immemorial, and Barrington, the pickpocket,
      in point of genius, would have thought hard of a comparison with William
      Wordsworth, the poet.
    
      “Again, in estimating the merit of certain poems, whether they be Ossian’s
      or Macpherson’s can surely be of little consequence, yet, in order to
      prove their worthlessness, Mr. W. has expended many pages in the
      controversy. _Tantaene animis? _Can great minds descend to such
      absurdity? But worse still: that he may bear down every argument in favor
      of these poems, he triumphantly drags forward a passage, in his
      abomination with which he expects the reader to sympathize. It is the
      beginning of the epic poem ‘Temora.’ ‘The blue waves of Ullin roll in
      light; the green hills are covered with day; trees shake their dusty heads
      in the breeze.’ And this this gorgeous, yet simple imagery, where all is
      alive and panting with immortality-this, William Wordsworth, the author of
      ‘Peter Bell,’ has _selected _for his contempt. We shall see what
      better he, in his own person, has to offer. Imprimis:
    
     “‘And now she’s at the pony’s tail,
     And now she’s at the pony’s head,
     On that side now, and now on this;
     And, almost stifled with her bliss,
     A few sad tears does Betty shed....
     She pats the pony, where or when
     She knows not.... happy Betty Foy!
     Oh, Johnny, never mind the doctor!’
    
      Secondly:
    
     “‘The dew was falling fast, the-stars began to blink;
     I heard a voice: it said-“Drink, pretty creature, drink!”
      And, looking o’er the hedge, be-fore me I espied
     A snow-white mountain lamb, with a-maiden at its side.
     No other sheep was near,—the lamb was all alone,
     And by a slender cord was-tether’d to a stone.’
    
      “Now, we have no doubt this is all true: we will believe it, indeed we
      will, Mr. W. Is it sympathy for the sheep you wish to excite? I love a
      sheep from the bottom of my heart.
    
      “But there are occasions, dear B-, there are occasions when even
      Wordsworth is reasonable. Even Stamboul, it is said, shall have an end,
      and the most unlucky blunders must come to a conclusion. Here is an
      extract from his preface:-
    
      “‘Those who have been accustomed to the phraseology of modem writers, if
      they persist in reading this book to a conclusion _(impossible!) will,
      _no doubt, have to struggle with feelings of awkwardness; (ha! ha! ha!)
      they will look round for poetry (ha! ha! ha! ha!), and will be induced to
      inquire by what species of courtesy these attempts have been permitted to
      assume that title.’ Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
    
      “Yet, let not Mr. W. despair; he has given immortality to a wagon, and the
      bee Sophocles has transmitted to eternity a sore toe, and dignified a
      tragedy with a chorus of turkeys.
    
      “Of Coleridge, I can not speak but with reverence. His towering intellect!
      his gigantic power! To use an author quoted by himself, _‘Tai trouvé
      souvent que la plupart des sectes ont raison dans une bonne partie de ce
      qu’elles avancent, mais non pas en ce qu’elles nient,’ and _to employ
      his own language, he has imprisoned his own conceptions by the barrier he
      has erected against those of others. It is lamentable to think that such a
      mind should be buried in metaphysics, and, like the Nyctanthes, waste its
      perfume upon the night alone. In reading that man’s poetry, I tremble like
      one who stands upon a volcano, conscious from the very darkness bursting
      from the crater, of the fire and the light that are weltering below.
    
      “What is poetry?—Poetry! that Proteus-like idea, with as many
      appellations as the nine-titled Corcyra! ‘Give me,’ I demanded of a
      scholar some time ago, ‘give me a definition of poetry.’ _‘Trèsvolontiers;’
      _and he proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr. Johnson, and
      overwhelmed me with a definition. Shade of the immortal Shakespeare! I
      imagine to myself the scowl of your spiritual eye upon the profanity of
      that scurrilous Ursa Major. Think of poetry, dear B-, think of poetry, and
      then think of Dr. Samuel Johnson! Think of all that is airy and
      fairy-like, and then of all that is hideous and unwieldy; think of his
      huge bulk, the Elephant! and then-and then think of the ‘Tempest’—the
      ‘Midsummer-Night’s Dream’—Prospero Oberon—and Titania!
    
      “A poem, in my opinion, is opposed to a work of science by having, for its
      _immediate _object, pleasure, not truth; to romance, by having, for
      its object, an _indefinite _instead of a _definite _pleasure,
      being a poem only so far as this object is attained; romance presenting
      perceptible images with definite, poetry with indefinite sensations, to
      which end music is an _essential, since _the comprehension of sweet
      sound is our most indefinite conception. Music, when combined with a
      pleasurable idea, is poetry; music, without the idea, is simply music; the
      idea, wi thout the music, is prose, from its very definitiveness.
    
      “What was meant by the invective against him who had no music in his soul?
    
      “To sum up this long rigmarole, I have, dear B—, what you, no doubt,
      perceive, for the metaphysical poets as poets, the most sovereign
      contempt. That they have followers proves nothing-
    
     “‘No Indian prince has to his palace
     More followers than a thief to the gallows.




SONNET—TO SCIENCE


     Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
         Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
     Why preyest thou thus upon the poet’s heart,
         Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
     How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
         Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
     To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies
         Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
     Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
         And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
     To seek a shelter in some happier star?
         Hast thous not torn the Naiad from her flood,
     The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
         The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?




AL AARAAF (*)


     PART I.
          O! nothing earthly save the ray
          (Thrown back from flowers) of Beauty’s eye,
          As in those gardens where the day
          Springs from the gems of Circassy—
          O! nothing earthly save the thrill
          Of melody in woodland rill—
          Or (music of the passion-hearted)
          Joy’s voice so peacefully departed
          That like the murmur in the shell,
          Its echo dwelleth and will dwell—
          Oh, nothing of the dross of ours—
          Yet all the beauty—all the flowers
          That list our Love, and deck our bowers—
          Adorn yon world afar, afar—
          The wandering star.
             ’Twas a sweet time for Nesace—for there
          Her world lay lolling on the golden air,
          Near four bright suns—a temporary rest—
          An oasis in desert of the blest.
     * A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared
     suddenly in the heavens—attained, in a few days, a
     brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter—then as suddenly
     disappeared, and has never been seen since.
          Away—away—‘mid seas of rays that roll
          Empyrean splendor o’er th’ unchained soul—
          The soul that scarce (the billows are so dense)
          Can struggle to its destin’d eminence—
          To distant spheres, from time to time, she rode,
          And late to ours, the favour’d one of God—
          But, now, the ruler of an anchor’d realm,
          She throws aside the sceptre—leaves the helm,
          And, amid incense and high spiritual hymns,
          Laves in quadruple light her angel limbs.
              Now happiest, loveliest in yon lovely Earth,
          Whence sprang the “Idea of Beauty” into birth,
          (Falling in wreaths thro’ many a startled star,
          Like woman’s hair ‘mid pearls, until, afar,
          It lit on hills Achaian, and there dwelt)
          She look’d into Infinity—and knelt.
          Rich clouds, for canopies, about her curled—
          Fit emblems of the model of her world—
          Seen but in beauty—not impeding sight
          Of other beauty glittering thro’ the light—
          A wreath that twined each starry form around,
          And all the opal’d air in color bound.
              All hurriedly she knelt upon a bed
          Of flowers:  of lilies such as rear’d the head
          *On the fair Capo Deucato, and sprang
          So eagerly around about to hang
          Upon the flying footsteps of—deep pride—
          **Of her who lov’d a mortal—and so died.
          The Sephalica, budding with young bees,
          Uprear’d its purple stem around her knees:
          * On Santa Maura—olim Deucadia.
          **And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnam’d—
          Inmate of highest stars, where erst it sham’d
          All other loveliness: its honied dew
          (The fabled nectar that the heathen knew)
          Deliriously sweet, was dropp’d from Heaven,
          And fell on gardens of the unforgiven
          In Trebizond—and on a sunny flower
          So like its own above that, to this hour,
          It still remaineth, torturing the bee
          With madness, and unwonted reverie:
          In Heaven, and all its environs, the leaf
          And blossom of the fairy plant, in grief
          Disconsolate linger—grief that hangs her head,
          Repenting follies that full long have fled,
          Heaving her white breast to the balmy air,
          Like guilty beauty, chasten’d, and more fair:
          Nyctanthes too, as sacred as the light
          She fears to perfume, perfuming the night:
          **And Clytia pondering between many a sun,
          While pettish tears adown her petals run:
          ***And that aspiring flower that sprang on Earth—
          And died, ere scarce exalted into birth,
          Bursting its odorous heart in spirit to wing
          Its way to Heaven, from garden of a king:
     * This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort.
     The bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated.
     ** Clytia—The Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a
     better-known term, the turnsol—which continually turns
     towards the sun, covers itself, like Peru, the country from
     which it comes, with dewy clouds which cool and refresh its
     flowers during the most violent heat of the day.—_B. de St.
     Pierre_.
     *** There is cultivated in the king’s garden at Paris, a
     species of serpentine aloes without prickles, whose large
     and beautiful flower exhales a strong odour of the vanilla,
     during the time of its expansion, which is very short. It
     does not blow till towards the month of July—you then
     perceive it gradually open its petals—expand them—fade
     and die.—_St. Pierre_.
     *And Valisnerian lotus thither flown
     From struggling with the waters of the Rhone:
     **And thy most lovely purple perfume, Zante!
     Isola d’oro!—Fior di Levante!
     ***And the Nelumbo bud that floats for ever
     With Indian Cupid down the holy river—
     Fair flowers, and fairy! to whose care is given
     ****To bear the Goddess’ song, in odors, up to Heaven:
        “Spirit! that dwellest where,
              In the deep sky,
          The terrible and fair,
              In beauty vie!
          Beyond the line of blue—
              The boundary of the star
          Which turneth at the view
              Of thy barrier and thy bar—
          Of the barrier overgone
             By the comets who were cast
          From their pride, and from their throne
             To be drudges till the last—
          To be carriers of fire
             (The red fire of their heart)
          With speed that may not tire
             And with pain that shall not part—
     * There is found, in the Rhone, a beautiful lily of the
     Valisnerian kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of
     three or four feet—thus preserving its head above water
     in the swellings of the river.
     ** The Hyacinth.
     *** It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first
     seen floating in one of these down the river Ganges—and
     that he still loves the cradle of his childhood.
    **** And golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of the saints.
   —Rev. St. John.
          Who livest—_that_ we know—
              In Eternity—we feel—
          But the shadow of whose brow
              What spirit shall reveal?
          Tho’ the beings whom thy Nesace,
              Thy messenger hath known
          Have dream’d for thy Infinity
              *A model of their own—
          Thy will is done, Oh, God!
              The star hath ridden high
          Thro’ many a tempest, but she rode
              Beneath thy burning eye;
          And here, in thought, to thee—
              In thought that can alone
          Ascend thy empire and so be
              A partner of thy throne—
     * The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as
     having a really human form.—_Vide Clarke’s Sermons_, vol.
     1, page 26, fol. edit.
     The drift of Milton’s argument, leads him to employ language
     which would appear, at first sight, to verge upon their
     doctrine;  but it will be seen immediately, that he guards
     himself against the charge of having adopted one of the most
     ignorant errors of the dark ages of the church.—_Dr.
     Sumner’s Notes on Milton’s Christian Doctrine_.
     This opinion, in spite of many testimonies to the contrary,
     could never have been very general. Andeus, a Syrian of
     Mesopotamia, was condemned for the opinion, as heretical. He
     lived in the beginning of the fourth century. His disciples
     were called Anthropmorphites.—_Vide Du Pin_.
     Among Milton’s poems are these lines:—
                Dicite sacrorum præsides nemorum Deæ, &c.
                Quis ille primus cujus ex imagine
                Natura solers finxit humanum genus?
                Eternus, incorruptus, æquævus polo,
                Unusque et universus exemplar Dei.—And afterwards,
                Non cui profundum Cæcitas lumen dedit
                Dircæus augur vidit hunc alto sinu, &c.
          *By winged Fantasy,
              My embassy is given,
          Till secrecy shall knowledge be
              In the environs of Heaven.”
          She ceas’d—and buried then her burning cheek
          Abash’d, amid the lilies there, to seek
          A shelter from the fervour of His eye;
          For the stars trembled at the Deity.
          She stirr’d not—breath’d not—for a voice was there
          How solemnly pervading the calm air!
          A sound of silence on the startled ear
          Which dreamy poets name “the music of the sphere.”
           Ours is a world of words:  Quiet we call
          “Silence”—which is the merest word of all.
          All Nature speaks, and ev’n ideal things
          Flap shadowy sounds from visionary wings—
          But ah! not so when, thus, in realms on high
          The eternal voice of God is passing by,
          And the red winds are withering in the sky!
          ** “What tho’ in worlds which sightless cycles run,
          Link’d to a little system, and one sun—
          Where all my love is folly and the crowd
          Still think my terrors but the thunder cloud,
          The storm, the earthquake, and the ocean-wrath—
          (Ah! will they cross me in my angrier path?)
          What tho’ in worlds which own a single sun
          The sands of Time grow dimmer as they run,
     * Seltsamen Tochter Jovis
       Seinem Schosskinde
       Der Phantasie.—_Göethe_.
    ** Sightless—too small to be seen—_Legge_.
          Yet thine is my resplendency, so given
          To bear my secrets thro’ the upper Heaven.
          Leave tenantless thy crystal home, and fly,
          With all thy train, athwart the moony sky—
          *Apart—like fire-flies in Sicilian night,
          And wing to other worlds another light!
          Divulge the secrets of thy embassy
          To the proud orbs that twinkle—and so be
          To ev’ry heart a barrier and a ban
          Lest the stars totter in the guilt of man!”
              Up rose the maiden in the yellow night,
          The single-mooned eve!—on Earth we plight
          Our faith to one love—and one moon adore—
          The birth-place of young Beauty had no more.
          As sprang that yellow star from downy hours
          Up rose the maiden from her shrine of flowers,
          And bent o’er sheeny mountain and dim plain
          **Her way—but left not yet her Therasæan reign.
     * I have often noticed a peculiar movement of the fire-flies;
    —they will collect in a body and fly off, from a common
     centre, into innumerable radii.
     ** Therasæa, or Therasea, the island mentioned by Seneca,
     which, in a moment, arose from the sea to the eyes of
     astonished mariners.
                         Part II.
          HIGH on a mountain of enamell’d head—
          Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed
          Of giant pasturage lying at his ease,
          Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees
          With many a mutter’d “hope to be forgiven”
           What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven—
          Of rosy head, that towering far away
          Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray
          Of sunken suns at eve—at noon of night,
          While the moon danc’d with the fair stranger light—
          Uprear’d upon such height arose a pile
          Of gorgeous columns on th’ unburthen’d air,
          Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile
          Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,
          And nursled the young mountain in its lair.
          *Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall
          Thro’ the ebon air, besilvering the pall
          Of their own dissolution, while they die—
          Adorning then the dwellings of the sky.
          A dome, by linked light from Heaven let down,
          Sat gently on these columns as a crown—
          A window of one circular diamond, there,
          Look’d out above into the purple air,
     * Some star which, from the ruin’d roof Of shak’d Olympus,
     by mischance, did fall.—_Milton._
          And rays from God shot down that meteor chain
          And hallow’d all the beauty twice again,
          Save when, between th’ Empyrean and that ring,
          Some eager spirit flapp’d his dusky wing.
          But on the pillars Seraph eyes have seen
          The dimness of this world:  that greyish green
          That Nature loves the best for Beauty’s grave
          Lurk’d in each cornice, round each architrave—
          And every sculptur’d cherub thereabout
          That from his marble dwelling peeréd out
          Seem’d earthly in the shadow of his niche—
          Achaian statues in a world so rich?
          *Friezes from Tadmor and Persepolis—
          From Balbec, and the stilly, clear abyss
          **Of beautiful Gomorrah!  O, the wave
          Is now upon thee—but too late to save!
          Sound loves to revel in a summer night:
          Witness the murmur of the grey twilight
     * Voltaire, in speaking of Persepolis, says, “Je connois
     bien l’admiration qu’inspirent ces ruines—mais un palais
     erigé au pied d’une chaine des rochers sterils—peut il
     être un chef d’oevure des arts!” [_Voila les arguments de M.
     Voltaire_.]
     ** “Oh! the wave”—Ula Degusi is the Turkish appellation;
     but, on its own shores, it is called Bahar Loth, or
     Almotanah. There were undoubtedly more than two cities
     engluphed in the “dead sea.” In the valley of Siddim were
     five—Adrah, Zeboin, Zoar, Sodom and Gomorrah. Stephen of
     Byzantium mentions eight, and Strabo thirteeen, (engulphed)
    —but the last is out of all reason.
    It is said, (Tacitus, Strabo, Josephus, Daniel of St. Saba, Nau,
Maundrell, Troilo, D’Arvieux) that after an excessive drought, the
vestiges of columns, walls, &c. are seen above the surface. At _any_
season, such remains may be discovered by looking down into the
transparent lake, and at such distances as would argue the existence of
many settlements in the space now usurped by the ‘Asphaltites.’
          *That stole upon the ear, in Eyraco,
          Of many a wild star-gazer long ago—
          That stealeth ever on the ear of him
          Who, musing, gazeth on the distance dim.
          And sees the darkness coming as a cloud—
          ***Is not its form—its voice—most palpable and loud?
              But what is this?—it cometh—and it brings
          A music with it—’tis the rush of wings—
          A pause—and then a sweeping, falling strain
          And Nesace is in her halls again.
          From the wild energy of wanton haste
              Her cheeks were flushing, and her lips apart;
          And zone that clung around her gentle waist
              Had burst beneath the heaving of her heart.
          Within the centre of that hall to breathe
          She paus’d and panted, Zanthe!  all beneath,
          The fairy light that kiss’d her golden hair
          And long’d to rest, yet could but sparkle there!
              ***Young flowers were whispering in melody
          To happy flowers that night—and tree to tree;
          Fountains were gushing music as they fell
          In many a star-lit grove, or moon-lit dell;
          Yet silence came upon material things—
          Fair flowers, bright waterfalls and angel wings—
          And sound alone that from the spirit sprang
          Bore burthen to the charm the maiden sang:
     * Eyraco—Chaldea.
     ** I have often thought I could distinctly hear the sound of
     the darkness as it stole over the horizon.
     *** Fairies use flowers for their charactery.—_Merry Wives
     of Windsor_.  [William Shakespeare]
           “’Neath blue-bell or streamer—
               Or tufted wild spray
           That keeps, from the dreamer,
               *The moonbeam away—
             Bright beings!  that ponder,
               With half closing eyes,
           On the stars which your wonder
               Hath drawn from the skies,
           Till they glance thro’ the shade, and
               Come down to your brow
           Like—eyes of the maiden
               Who calls on you now—
           Arise!  from your dreaming
               In violet bowers,
           To duty beseeming
               These star-litten hours—
           And shake from your tresses
               Encumber’d with dew
           The breath of those kisses
               That cumber them too—
           (O!  how, without you, Love!
               Could angels be blest?)
           Those kisses of true love
               That lull’d ye to rest!
           Up!—shake from your wing
               Each hindering thing:
           The dew of the night—
               It would weigh down your flight;
           And true love caresses—
               O! leave them apart!
     * In Scripture is this passage—“The sun shall not harm
     thee by day, nor the moon by night.” It is perhaps not
     generally known that the moon, in Egypt, has the effect of
     producing blindness to those who sleep with the face exposed
     to its rays, to which circumstance the passage evidently
     alludes.
          They are light on the tresses,
              But lead on the heart.
          Ligeia!  Ligeia!
              My beautiful one!
          Whose harshest idea
              Will to melody run,
          O!  is it thy will
              On the breezes to toss?
          Or, capriciously still,
              *Like the lone Albatross,
          Incumbent on night
              (As she on the air)
          To keep watch with delight
              On the harmony there?
          Ligeia!  whatever
              Thy image may be,
          No magic shall sever
              Thy music from thee.
          Thou hast bound many eyes
              In a dreamy sleep—
          But the strains still arise
              Which _thy_ vigilance keep—
          The sound of the rain
              Which leaps down to the flower,
          And dances again
              In the rhythm of the shower—
          **The murmur that springs
              From the growing of grass
     * The Albatross is said to sleep on the wing.
     ** I met with this idea in an old English tale, which I am
     now unable to obtain and quote from memory:—“The verie
     essence and, as it were, springe-heade, and origine of all
     musiche is the verie pleasaunte sounde which the trees of
     the forest do make when they growe.”
          Are the music of things—
              But are modell’d, alas!—
          Away, then my dearest,
              O!  hie thee away
          To springs that lie clearest
              Beneath the moon-ray—
           To lone lake that smiles,
              In its dream of deep rest,
          At the many star-isles
              That enjewel its breast—
          Where wild flowers, creeping,
              Have mingled their shade,
          On its margin is sleeping
              Full many a maid—
          Some have left the cool glade, and
              * Have slept with the bee—
          Arouse them my maiden,
              On moorland and lea—
          Go!  breathe on their slumber,
              All softly in ear,
          The musical number
              They slumber’d to hear—
          For what can awaken
              An angel so soon
     * The wild bee will not sleep in the shade if there be
     moonlight. The rhyme in this verse, as in one about sixty
     lines before, has an appearance of affectation. It is,
     however, imitated from Sir W. Scott, or rather from Claud
     Halcro—in whose mouth I admired its effect:
                O!  were there an island,
                    Tho’ ever so wild
                Where woman might smile, and
                    No man be beguil’d, &c.
          Whose sleep hath been taken
              Beneath the cold moon,
          As the spell which no slumber
              Of witchery may test,
          The rythmical number
              Which lull’d him to rest?”
          Spirits in wing, and angels to the view,
          A thousand seraphs burst th’ Empyrean thro’,
          Young dreams still hovering on their drowsy flight—
          Seraphs in all but “Knowledge,” the keen light
          That fell, refracted, thro’ thy bounds, afar
          O Death!  from eye of God upon that star:
          Sweet was that error—sweeter still that death—
          Sweet was that error—ev’n with _us_ the breath
          Of science dims the mirror of our joy—
          To them ’twere the Simoom, and would destroy—
          For what (to them) availeth it to know
          That Truth is Falsehood—or that Bliss is Woe?
          Sweet was their death—with them to die was rife
          With the last ecstacy of satiate life—
          Beyond that death no immortality—
          But sleep that pondereth and is not “to be”—
          And there—oh!  may my weary spirit dwell—
          *Apart from Heaven’s Eternity—and yet how far from Hell!
     * With the Arabians there is a medium between Heaven and
     Hell, where men suffer no punishment, but yet do not attain
     that tranquil and even happiness which they suppose to be
     characteristic of heavenly enjoyment.
            Un no rompido sueno—
            Un dia puro—allegre—libre
            Quiera—
            Libre de amor—de zelo—
            De odio—de esperanza—de rezelo.—_Luis Ponce de Leon_.
     Sorrow is not excluded from “Al Aaraaf,” but it is that
     sorrow which the living love to cherish for the dead, and
     which, in some minds, resembles the delirium of opium. The
     passionate excitement of Love and the buoyancy of spirit
     attendant upon intoxication are its less holy pleasures—
     the price of which, to those souls who make choice of “Al
     Aaraaf” as their residence after life, is final death and
     annihilation.
          What guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,
          Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn?
          But two:  they fell:  for Heaven no grace imparts
          To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
          A maiden-angel and her seraph-lover—
          O!  where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
          Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
     *Unguided Love hath fallen—‘mid “tears of perfect moan.”
          He was a goodly spirit—he who fell:
          A wanderer by moss-y-mantled well—
          A gazer on the lights that shine above—
          A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love:
          What wonder?  For each star is eye-like there,
          And looks so sweetly down on Beauty’s hair—
          And they, and ev’ry mossy spring were holy
          To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.
          The night had found (to him a night of wo)
          Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo—
          Beetling it bends athwart the solemn sky,
          And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath it lie.
          Here sate he with his love—his dark eye bent
          With eagle gaze along the firmament:
          Now turn’d it upon her—but ever then
          It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.
          “Iante, dearest, see!  how dim that ray!
          How lovely ’tis to look so far away!
     * There be tears of perfect moan
         Wept for thee in Helicon.—_Milton._
          She seem’d not thus upon that autumn eve
          I left her gorgeous halls—nor mourn’d to leave.
          That eve—that eve—I should remember well—
          The sun-ray dropp’d, in Lemnos, with a spell
          On th’Arabesque carving of a gilded hall
          Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall—
          And on my eye-lids—O the heavy light!
          How drowsily it weigh’d them into night!
          On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
          With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan:
          But O that light!—I slumber’d—Death, the while,
          Stole o’er my senses in that lovely isle
          So softly that no single silken hair
          Awoke that slept—or knew that it was there.
          The last spot of Earth’s orb I trod upon
          *Was a proud temple call’d the Parthenon—
          More beauty clung around her column’d wall
          **Than ev’n thy glowing bosom beats withal,
          And when old Time my wing did disenthral
          Thence sprang I—as the eagle from his tower,
          And years I left behind me in an hour.
          What time upon her airy bounds I hung
          One half the garden of her globe was flung
          Unrolling as a chart unto my view—
          Tenantless cities of the desert too!
          Ianthe, beauty crowded on me then,
          And half I wish’d to be again of men.”
          “My Angelo! and why of them to be?
          A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee—
    * It was entire in 1687—the most elevated spot in Athens.
    ** Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows
       Than have the white breasts of the Queen of Love.—_Marlowe._
           And greener fields than in yon world above,
           And women’s loveliness—and passionate love.”
           “But, list, Ianthe! when the air so soft
           *Fail’d, as my pennon’d spirit leapt aloft,
           Perhaps my brain grew dizzy—but the world
           I left so late was into chaos hurl’d—
           Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
           And roll’d, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
           Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to soar
           And fell—not swiftly as I rose before,
           But with a downward, tremulous motion thro’
           Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!
           Nor long the measure of my falling hours,
           For nearest of all stars was thine to ours—
           Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
           A red Dædalion on the timid Earth.
           “We came—and to thy Earth—but not to us
           Be given our lady’s bidding to discuss:
           We came, my love; around, above, below,
           Gay fire-fly of the night we come and go,
           Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod
           She grants to us, as granted by her God—
           But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurl’d
           Never his fairy wing o’er fairier world!
           Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes
           Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
           When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
           Headlong thitherward o’er the starry sea—
           But when its glory swell’d upon the sky,
           As glowing Beauty’s bust beneath man’s eye,
     * Pennon—for pinion.—_Milton_.
           We paus’d before the heritage of men,
           And thy star trembled—as doth Beauty then!”
           Thus, in discourse, the lovers whiled away
           The night that waned and waned and brought no day.
           They fell:  for Heaven to them no hope imparts
           Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.




TAMERLANE


     Kind solace in a dying hour!
         Such, father, is not (now) my theme—
     I will not madly deem that power
             Of Earth may shrive me of the sin
             Unearthly pride hath revell’d in—
         I have no time to dote or dream:
     You call it hope—that fire of fire!
     It is but agony of desire:
     If I _can_ hope—Oh God! I can—
         Its fount is holier—more divine—
     I would not call thee fool, old man,
         But such is not a gift of thine.
     Know thou the secret of a spirit
         Bow’d from its wild pride into shame.
     O! yearning heart! I did inherit
         Thy withering portion with the fame,
     The searing glory which hath shone
     Amid the jewels of my throne,
     Halo of Hell! and with a pain
     Not Hell shall make me fear again—
     O! craving heart, for the lost flowers
     And sunshine of my summer hours!
     Th’ undying voice of that dead time,
     With its interminable chime,
     Rings, in the spirit of a spell,
     Upon thy emptiness—a knell.
     I have not always been as now:
     The fever’d diadem on my brow
         I claim’d and won usurpingly—
     Hath not the same fierce heirdom given
         Rome to the Caesar—this to me?
             The heritage of a kingly mind,
     And a proud spirit which hath striven
             Triumphantly with human kind.
     On mountain soil I first drew life:
         The mists of the Taglay have shed
         Nightly their dews upon my head,
     And, I believe, the winged strife
     And tumult of the headlong air
     Have nestled in my very hair.
     So late from Heaven—that dew—it fell
         (Mid dreams of an unholy night)
     Upon me—with the touch of Hell,
         While the red flashing of the light
     From clouds that hung, like banners, o’er,
         Appeared to my half-closing eye
         The pageantry of monarchy,
     And the deep trumpet-thunder’s roar
         Came hurriedly upon me, telling
             Of human battle, where my voice,
         My own voice, silly child!—was swelling
             (O! how my spirit would rejoice,
     And leap within me at the cry)
     The battle-cry of Victory!
     The rain came down upon my head
         Unshelter’d—and the heavy wind
         Was giantlike—so thou, my mind!—
     It was but man, I thought, who shed
         Laurels upon me: and the rush—
     The torrent of the chilly air
     Gurgled within my ear the crush
         Of empires—with the captive’s prayer—
     The hum of suiters—and the tone
     Of flattery ‘round a sovereign’s throne.
     My passions, from that hapless hour,
         Usurp’d a tyranny which men
     Have deem’d, since I have reach’d to power;
             My innate nature—be it so:
         But, father, there liv’d one who, then,
     Then—in my boyhood—when their fire
             Burn’d with a still intenser glow,
     (For passion must, with youth, expire)
         E’en _then_ who knew this iron heart
         In woman’s weakness had a part.
     I have no words—alas!—to tell
     The loveliness of loving well!
     Nor would I now attempt to trace
     The more than beauty of a face
     Whose lineaments, upon my mind,
     Are—shadows on th’ unstable wind:
     Thus I remember having dwelt
     Some page of early lore upon,
     With loitering eye, till I have felt
     The letters—with their meaning—melt
     To fantasies—with none.
     O, she was worthy of all love!
     Love—as in infancy was mine—
     ’Twas such as angel minds above
     Might envy; her young heart the shrine
     On which my ev’ry hope and thought
         Were incense—then a goodly gift,
             For they were childish—and upright—
     Pure—as her young example taught:
         Why did I leave it, and, adrift,
             Trust to the fire within, for light?
     We grew in age—and love—together,
         Roaming the forest, and the wild;
     My breast her shield in wintry weather—
         And, when the friendly sunshine smil’d,
     And she would mark the opening skies,
     _I_ saw no Heaven—but in her eyes.
     Young Love’s first lesson is—the heart:
         For ‘mid that sunshine, and those smiles,
     When, from our little cares apart,
         And laughing at her girlish wiles,
     I’d throw me on her throbbing breast,
         And pour my spirit out in tears—
     There was no need to speak the rest—
         No need to quiet any fears
     Of her—who ask’d no reason why,
     But turn’d on me her quiet eye!
     Yet _more_ than worthy of the love
     My spirit struggled with, and strove,
     When, on the mountain peak, alone,
     Ambition lent it a new tone—
     I had no being—but in thee:
         The world, and all it did contain
     In the earth—the air—the sea—
         Its joy—its little lot of pain
     That was new pleasure—the ideal,
         Dim, vanities of dreams by night—
     And dimmer nothings which were real—
         (Shadows—and a more shadowy light!)
     Parted upon their misty wings,
             And, so, confusedly, became
             Thine image, and—a name—a name!
     Two separate—yet most intimate things.
     I was ambitious—have you known
             The passion, father? You have not:
     A cottager, I mark’d a throne
     Of half the world as all my own,
             And murmur’d at such lowly lot—
     But, just like any other dream,
             Upon the vapour of the dew
     My own had past, did not the beam
             Of beauty which did while it thro’
     The minute—the hour—the day—oppress
     My mind with double loveliness.
     We walk’d together on the crown
     Of a high mountain which look’d down
     Afar from its proud natural towers
         Of rock and forest, on the hills—
     The dwindled hills! begirt with bowers
         And shouting with a thousand rills.
     I spoke to her of power and pride,
         But mystically—in such guise
     That she might deem it nought beside
         The moment’s converse; in her eyes
     I read, perhaps too carelessly—
         A mingled feeling with my own—
     The flush on her bright cheek, to me
         Seem’d to become a queenly throne
     Too well that I should let it be
         Light in the wilderness alone.
     I wrapp’d myself in grandeur then,
         And donn’d a visionary crown—
             Yet it was not that Fantasy
             Had thrown her mantle over me—
     But that, among the rabble—men,
             Lion ambition is chain’d down—
     And crouches to a keeper’s hand—
     Not so in deserts where the grand
     The wild—the terrible conspire
     With their own breath to fan his fire.
     Look ‘round thee now on Samarcand!—
         Is not she queen of Earth? her pride
     Above all cities? in her hand
         Their destinies? in all beside
     Of glory which the world hath known
     Stands she not nobly and alone?
     Falling—her veriest stepping-stone
     Shall form the pedestal of a throne—
     And who her sovereign? Timour—he
         Whom the astonished people saw
     Striding o’er empires haughtily
         A diadem’d outlaw—
     O! human love! thou spirit given,
     On Earth, of all we hope in Heaven!
     Which fall’st into the soul like rain
     Upon the Siroc wither’d plain,
     And failing in thy power to bless
     But leav’st the heart a wilderness!
     Idea! which bindest life around
     With music of so strange a sound
     And beauty of so wild a birth—
     Farewell! for I have won the Earth!
     When Hope, the eagle that tower’d, could see
         No cliff beyond him in the sky,
     His pinions were bent droopingly—
         And homeward turn’d his soften’d eye.
     ’Twas sunset: when the sun will part
     There comes a sullenness of heart
     To him who still would look upon
     The glory of the summer sun.
     That soul will hate the ev’ning mist,
     So often lovely, and will list
     To the sound of the coming darkness (known
     To those whose spirits hearken) as one
     Who, in a dream of night, _would_ fly
     But _cannot_ from a danger nigh.
     What tho’ the moon—the white moon
     Shed all the splendour of her noon,
     Her smile is chilly—and her beam,
     In that time of dreariness, will seem
     (So like you gather in your breath)
     A portrait taken after death.
     And boyhood is a summer sun
     Whose waning is the dreariest one—
     For all we live to know is known,
     And all we seek to keep hath flown—
     Let life, then, as the day-flower, fall
     With the noon-day beauty—which is all.
     I reach’d my home—my home no more—
         For all had flown who made it so—
     I pass’d from out its mossy door,
         And, tho’ my tread was soft and low,
     A voice came from the threshold stone
     Of one whom I had earlier known—
         O! I defy thee, Hell, to show
         On beds of fire that burn below,
         A humbler heart—a deeper wo—
     Father, I firmly do believe—
         I _know_—for Death, who comes for me
             From regions of the blest afar,
     Where there is nothing to deceive,
             Hath left his iron gate ajar,
         And rays of truth you cannot see
         Are flashing thro’ Eternity—
     I do believe that Eblis hath
     A snare in ev’ry human path—
     Else how, when in the holy grove
     I wandered of the idol, Love,
     Who daily scents his snowy wings
     With incense of burnt offerings
     From the most unpolluted things,
     Whose pleasant bowers are yet so riven
     Above with trelliced rays from Heaven
     No mote may shun—no tiniest fly
     The light’ning of his eagle eye—
     How was it that Ambition crept,
         Unseen, amid the revels there,
     Till growing bold, he laughed and leapt
         In the tangles of Love’s very hair?
    
      1829.




TO HELEN


     Helen, thy beauty is to me
         Like those Nicean barks of yore,
     That gently, o’er a perfumed sea,
         The weary way-worn wanderer bore
         To his own native shore.
     On desperate seas long wont to roam,
         Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
     Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
         To the glory that was Greece,
     And the grandeur that was Rome.
     Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
         How statue-like I me thee stand,
     The agate lamp within thy hand!
         Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
         Are Holy-land!
    
      1831.




THE VALLEY OF UNREST


     _Once_ it smiled a silent dell
     Where the people did not dwell;
     They had gone unto the wars,
     Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
     Nightly, from their azure towers,
     To keep watch above the flowers,
     In the midst of which all day
     The red sun-light lazily lay.
     _Now_ each visitor shall confess
     The sad valley’s restlessness.
     Nothing there is motionless—
     Nothing save the airs that brood
     Over the magic solitude.
     Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
     That palpitate like the chill seas
     Around the misty Hebrides!
     Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
     That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
     Uneasily, from morn till even,
     Over the violets there that lie
     In myriad types of the human eye—
     Over the lilies there that wave
     And weep above a nameless grave!
     They wave:—from out their fragrant tops
     Eternal dews come down in drops.
     They weep:—from off their delicate stems
     Perennial tears descend in gems.
    
      1831.




ISRAFEL*


     In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
         “Whose heart-strings are a lute;”
      None sing so wildly well
     As the angel Israfel,
     And the giddy stars (so legends tell)
     Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
         Of his voice, all mute.
     Tottering above
         In her highest noon
         The enamoured moon
     Blushes with love,
         While, to listen, the red levin
         (With the rapid Pleiads, even,
         Which were seven,)
         Pauses in Heaven
     And they say (the starry choir
         And all the listening things)
     That Israfeli’s fire
     Is owing to that lyre
         By which he sits and sings—
     The trembling living wire
     Of those unusual strings.
  * And the angel Israfel, whose heart-strings are a lut, and
  who has the sweetest voice of all God’s creatures.—KORAN.
     But the skies that angel trod,
         Where deep thoughts are a duty—
     Where Love’s a grown up God—
         Where the Houri glances are
     Imbued with all the beauty
         Which we worship in a star.
     Therefore, thou art not wrong,
         Israfeli, who despisest
     An unimpassion’d song:
     To thee the laurels belong
         Best bard, because the wisest!
     Merrily live, and long!
     The extacies above
         With thy burning measures suit—
     Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
         With the fervor of thy lute—
         Well may the stars be mute!
     Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
         Is a world of sweets and sours;
         Our flowers are merely—flowers,
     And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
         Is the sunshine of ours.
     If I could dwell
     Where Israfel
         Hath dwelt, and he where I,
     He might not sing so wildly well
         A mortal melody,
     While a bolder note than this might swell
         From my lyre within the sky.
    
      1836.




TO ——


                     1
     The bowers whereat, in dreams, I see
         The wantonest singing birds
     Are lips—and all thy melody
         Of lip-begotten words—
                      2
     Thine eyes, in Heaven of heart enshrin’d
         Then desolately fall,
     O! God! on my funereal mind
         Like starlight on a pall—
                       3
     Thy heart—_thy_ heart!—I wake and sigh,
         And sleep to dream till day
     Of truth that gold can never buy—
         Of the trifles that it may.
    
      1829.




TO ——


     I heed not that my earthly lot
         Hath-little of Earth in it—
     That years of love have been forgot
     In the hatred of a minute:—
     I mourn not that the desolate
         Are happier, sweet, than I,
     But that you sorrow for my fate
     Who am a passer-by.
    
      1829.




TO THE RIVER——


     Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
         Of crystal, wandering water,
     Thou art an emblem of the glow
             Of beauty—the unhidden heart—
             The playful maziness of art
     In old Alberto’s daughter;
     But when within thy wave she looks—
             Which glistens then, and trembles—
     Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
             Her worshipper resembles;
     For in my heart, as in thy stream,
         Her image deeply lies—
     His heart which trembles at the beam
         Of her soul-searching eyes.
    
      1829.




SONG


     I saw thee on thy bridal day—
         When a burning blush came o’er thee,
     Though happiness around thee lay,
         The world all love before thee:
     And in thine eye a kindling light
         (Whatever it might be)
     Was all on Earth my aching sight
        Of Loveliness could see.
     That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame—
         As such it well may pass—
     Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame
         In the breast of him, alas!
     Who saw thee on that bridal day,
         When that deep blush _would_ come o’er thee,
     Though happiness around thee lay,
         The world all love before thee.
    
      1827.




SPIRITS OF THE DEAD


                                 1
     Thy soul shall find itself alone
     ‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone—
     Not one, of all the crowd, to pry
     Into thine hour of secrecy:
                                 2
     Be silent in that solitude
         Which is not loneliness—for then
     The spirits of the dead who stood
         In life before thee are again
     In death around thee—and their will
     Shall then overshadow thee: be still.
                                3
     For the night—tho’ clear—shall frown—
     And the stars shall look not down,
     From their high thrones in the Heaven,
     With light like Hope to mortals given—
     But their red orbs, without beam,
     To thy weariness shall seem
     As a burning and a fever
     Which would cling to thee for ever:
                               4
     Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish—
     Now are visions ne’er to vanish—
     From thy spirit shall they pass
     No more—like dew-drop from the grass:
                              5
     The breeze—the breath of God—is still—
     And the mist upon the hill
     Shadowy—shadowy—yet unbroken,
     Is a symbol and a token—
     How it hangs upon the trees,
     A mystery of mysteries!—
    
      1827.




A DREAM


     In visions of the dark night
         I have dreamed of joy departed—
     But a waking dreams of life and light
         Hath left me broken-hearted.
     Ah! what is not a dream by day
         To him whose eyes are cast
     On things around him with a ray
         Turned back upon the past?
     That holy dream—that holy dream,
         While all the world were chiding,
     Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
         A lonely spirit guiding.
     What though that light, thro’ storm and night,
         So trembled from afar-
     What could there be more purely bright
         In Truths day-star?
    
      1827.




ROMANCE


     Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
     With drowsy head and folded wing,
     Among the green leaves as they shake
     Far down within some shadowy lake,
     To me a painted paroquet
     Hath been—a most familiar bird—
     Taught me my alphabet to say—
     To lisp my very earliest word
     While in the wild wood I did lie,
     A child—with a most knowing eye.
     Of late, eternal Condor years
     So shake the very Heaven on high
     With tumult as they thunder by,
     I have no time for idle cares
     Through gazing on the unquiet sky.
     And when an hour with calmer wings
     Its down upon thy spirit flings—
     That little time with lyre and rhyme
     To while away—forbidden things!
     My heart would feel to be a crime
     Unless it trembled with the strings.
     1829.




FAIRY-LAND


     Dim vales—and shadowy floods—
     And cloudy-looking woods,
     Whose forms we can’t discover
     For the tears that drip all over
     Huge moons there wax and wane—
     Again—again—again—
     Every moment of the night—
     Forever changing places—
     And they put out the star-light
     With the breath from their pale faces.
     About twelve by the moon-dial
     One, more filmy than the rest
     (A kind which, upon trial,
     They have found to be the best)
     Comes down—still down—and down
     With its centre on the crown
     Of a mountain’s eminence,
     While its wide circumference
     In easy drapery falls
     Over hamlets, over halls,
     Wherever they may be—
     O’er the strange woods—o’er the sea—
     Over spirits on the wing—
     Over every drowsy thing—
     And buries them up quite
     In a labyrinth of light—
     And then, how deep!—O, deep!
     Is the passion of their sleep.
     In the morning they arise,
     And their moony covering
     Is soaring in the skies,
     With the tempests as they toss,
     Like—almost any thing—
     Or a yellow Albatross.
     They use that moon no more
     For the same end as before—
     Videlicet a tent—
     Which I think extravagant:
     Its atomies, however,
     Into a shower dissever,
     Of which those butterflies,
     Of Earth, who seek the skies,
     And so come down again
     (Never-contented things!)
     Have brought a specimen
     Upon their quivering wings.
     1831.




THE LAKE —— TO——


     In spring of youth it was my lot
     To haunt of the wide earth a spot
     The which I could not love the less—
     So lovely was the loneliness
     Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
     And the tall pines that tower’d around.
     But when the Night had thrown her pall
     Upon that spot, as upon all,
     And the mystic wind went by
     Murmuring in melody—
     Then—ah then I would awake
     To the terror of the lone lake.
     Yet that terror was not fright,
     But a tremulous delight—
     A feeling not the jewelled mine
     Could teach or bribe me to define—
     Nor Love—although the Love were thine.
     Death was in that poisonous wave,
     And in its gulf a fitting grave
     For him who thence could solace bring
     To his lone imagining—
     Whose solitary soul could make
     An Eden of that dim lake.
     1827.




EVENING STAR


     ’Twas noontide of summer,
        And midtime of night,
     And stars, in their orbits,
        Shone pale, through the light
     Of the brighter, cold moon.
        ‘Mid planets her slaves,
     Herself in the Heavens,
        Her beam on the waves.
        I gazed awhile
        On her cold smile;
     Too cold-too cold for me—
        There passed, as a shroud,
        A fleecy cloud,
     And I turned away to thee,
        Proud Evening Star,
        In thy glory afar
     And dearer thy beam shall be;
        For joy to my heart
        Is the proud part
     Thou bearest in Heaven at night.,
        And more I admire
        Thy distant fire,
     Than that colder, lowly light.
     1827.




“THE HAPPIEST DAY.”


     I
     The happiest day-the happiest hour
     My seared and blighted heart hath known,
     The highest hope of pride and power,
     I feel hath flown.
     Of power! said I? Yes! such I ween
     But they have vanished long, alas!
     The visions of my youth have been
     But let them pass.
     III
     And pride, what have I now with thee?
     Another brow may ev’n inherit
     The venom thou hast poured on me
     Be still my spirit!
     IV
     The happiest day-the happiest hour
     Mine eyes shall see-have ever seen
     The brightest glance of pride and power
     I feet have been:
     V
     But were that hope of pride and power
     Now offered with the pain
     Ev’n _then I _felt-that brightest hour
     I would not live again:
             VI
     For on its wing was dark alloy
     And as it fluttered-fell
     An essence-powerful to destroy
     A soul that knew it well.
     1827.




IMITATION


     A dark unfathom’d tide
     Of interminable pride—
     A mystery, and a dream,
     Should my early life seem;
     I say that dream was fraught
     With a wild, and waking thought
     Of beings that have been,
     Which my spirit hath not seen,
     Had I let them pass me by,
     With a dreaming eye!
     Let none of earth inherit
     That vision on my spirit;
     Those thoughts I would control
     As a spell upon his soul:
     For that bright hope at last
     And that light time have past,
     And my worldly rest hath gone
     With a sigh as it pass’d on
     I care not tho’ it perish
     With a thought I then did cherish.
     1827.




HYMN TO ARISTOGEITON AND HARMODIUS


      Translation from the Greek

                I
     Wreathed in myrtle, my sword I’ll conceal
     Like those champions devoted and brave,
     When they plunged in the tyrant their steel,
     And to Athens deliverance gave.
                II
     Beloved heroes! your deathless souls roam
     In the joy breathing isles of the blest;
     Where the mighty of old have their home
     Where Achilles and Diomed rest
                III
     In fresh myrtle my blade I’ll entwine,
     Like Harmodius, the gallant and good,
     When he made at the tutelar shrine
     A libation of Tyranny’s blood.
                IV
     Ye deliverers of Athens from shame!
     Ye avengers of Liberty’s wrongs!
     Endless ages shall cherish your fame,
     Embalmed in their echoing songs!
     1827.




DREAMS


     Oh! that my young life were a lasting dream!
     My spirit not awak’ning, till the beam
     Of an Eternity should bring the morrow:
     Yes! tho’ that long dream were of hopeless sorrow,
     ’Twere better than the dull reality
     Of waking life to him whose heart shall be,
     And hath been ever, on the chilly earth,
     A chaos of deep passion from his birth!
     But should it be—that dream eternally
     Continuing—as dreams have been to me
     In my young boyhood—should it thus be given,
     ’Twere folly still to hope for higher Heaven!
     For I have revell’d, when the sun was bright
     In the summer sky; in dreamy fields of light,
     And left unheedingly my very heart
     In climes of mine imagining—apart
     From mine own home, with beings that have been
     Of mine own thought—what more could I have seen?
     ’Twas once & _only_ once & the wild hour
     From my rememberance shall not pass—some power
     Or spell had bound me—’twas the chilly wind
     Came o’er me in the night & left behind
     Its image on my spirit, or the moon
     Shone on my slumbers in her lofty noon
     Too coldly—or the stars—howe’er it was
     That dream was as that night wind—let it pass.
     I have been happy—tho’ but in a dream
     I have been happy—& I love the theme—
     Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life—
     As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
     Of semblance with reality which brings
     To the delirious eye more lovely things
     Of Paradise & Love—& all our own!
     Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.
         {From an earlier MS. Than in the book—ED.}




“IN YOUTH I HAVE KNOWN ONE”


     _How often we forget all time, when lone
     Admiring Nature’s universal throne;
     Her woods—her wilds—her mountains-the intense
     Reply of Hers to Our intelligence!_
                             I
     IN youth I have known one with whom the Earth
         In secret communing held-as he with it,
     In daylight, and in beauty, from his birth:
         Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
     From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
         A passionate light such for his spirit was fit
     And yet that spirit knew-not in the hour
         Of its own fervor-what had o’er it power.
                            II
     Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
         To a fever* by the moonbeam that hangs o’er,
     But I will half believe that wild light fraught
         With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
     Hath ever told-or is it of a thought
         The unembodied essence, and no more
     That with a quickening spell doth o’er us pass
         As dew of the night-time, o’er the summer grass?
                                   III
     Doth o’er us pass, when, as th’ expanding eye
         To the loved object-so the tear to the lid
     Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
         And yet it need not be—(that object) hid
     From us in life-but common-which doth lie
         Each hour before us—but then only bid
     With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken
         T’ awake us—’Tis a symbol and a token
                               IV
     Of what in other worlds shall be—and given
         In beauty by our God, to those alone
     Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
         Drawn by their heart’s passion, and that tone,
     That high tone of the spirit which hath striven
         Though not with Faith-with godliness—whose throne
     With desperate energy ‘t hath beaten down;
         Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
          * Query “fervor”?—ED.
    
      A PÆAN.
    
                         I.
     How shall the burial rite be read?
         The solemn song be sung?
     The requiem for the loveliest dead,
         That ever died so young?
                         II.
     Her friends are gazing on her,
         And on her gaudy bier,
     And weep!—oh! to dishonor
         Dead beauty with a tear!
                        III.
     They loved her for her wealth—
         And they hated her for her pride—
     But she grew in feeble health,
         And they _love_ her—that she died.
                       IV.
     They tell me (while they speak
         Of her “costly broider’d pall”)
     That my voice is growing weak—
         That I should not sing at all—
                        V.
     Or that my tone should be
         Tun’d to such solemn song
     So mournfully—so mournfully,
         That the dead may feel no wrong.
                       VI.
     But she is gone above,
         With young Hope at her side,
     And I am drunk with love
         Of the dead, who is my bride.—
                      VII.
     Of the dead—dead who lies
         All perfum’d there,
     With the death upon her eyes,
         And the life upon her hair.
                     VIII.
     Thus on the coffin loud and long
         I strike—the murmur sent
     Through the grey chambers to my song,
         Shall be the accompaniment.
                      IX.
     Thou died’st in thy life’s June—
         But thou did’st not die too fair:
     Thou did’st not die too soon,
         Nor with too calm an air.
                       X.
     From more than fiends on earth,
         Thy life and love are riven,
     To join the untainted mirth
         Of more than thrones in heaven—
                      XII.
     Therefore, to thee this night
         I will no requiem raise,
     But waft thee on thy flight,
         With a Pæan of old days.




NOTES


      30. On the “Poems written in Youth” little comment is needed. This section
      includes the pieces printed for first volume of 1827 (which was
      subsequently suppressed), such poems from the first and second published
      volumes of 1829 and 1831 as have not already been given in their revised
      versions, and a few others collected from various sources. “Al Aaraaf”
       first appeared, with the sonnet “To Silence” prefixed to it, in 1829, and
      is, substantially, as originally issued. In the edition for 1831, however,
      this poem, its author’s longest, was introduced by the following
      twenty-nine lines, which have been omitted in—all subsequent
      collections:
    
     AL AARAAF
     Mysterious star!
     Thou wert my dream
     All a long summer night—
     Be now my theme!
     By this clear stream,
     Of thee will I write;
     Meantime from afar
     Bathe me in light I
     Thy world has not the dross of ours,
     Yet all the beauty-all the flowers
     That list our love or deck our bowers
     In dreamy gardens, where do lie
     Dreamy maidens all the day;
     While the silver winds of Circassy
     On violet couches faint away.
     Little—oh “little dwells in thee”
      Like unto what on earth we see:
     Beauty’s eye is here the bluest
     In the falsest and untruest—On the sweetest
     air doth float
     The most sad and solemn note—
     If with thee be broken hearts,
     Joy so peacefully departs,
     That its echo still doth dwell,
     Like the murmur in the shell.
     Thou! thy truest type of grief
     Is the gently falling leaf!
     Thy framing is so holy
     Sorrow is not melancholy.
    
      31. The earliest version of “Tamerlane” was included in the suppressed
      volume of 1827, but differs very considerably from the poem as now
      published. The present draft, besides innumerable verbal alterations and
      improvements upon the original, is more carefully punctuated, and, the
      lines being indented, presents a more pleasing appearance, to the eye at
      least.
    
      32. “To Helen” first appeared in the 1831 volume, as did also “The Valley
      of Unrest” (as “The Valley Nis”), “Israfel,” and one or two others of the
      youthful pieces. The poem styled “Romance,” constituted the Preface of the
      1829 volume, but with the addition of the following lines:
    
     Succeeding years, too wild for song,
     Then rolled like tropic storms along,
     Where, through the garish lights that fly
     Dying along the troubled sky,
     Lay bare, through vistas thunder-riven,
     The blackness of the general Heaven,
     That very blackness yet doth Ring
     Light on the lightning’s silver wing.
     For being an idle boy lang syne;
     Who read Anacreon and drank wine,
     I early found Anacreon rhymes
     Were almost passionate sometimes—
     And by strange alchemy of brain
     His pleasures always turned to pain—
     His naiveté to wild desire—
     His wit to love-his wine to fire—
     And so, being young and dipt in folly,
     I fell in love with melancholy,
     And used to throw my earthly rest
     And quiet all away in jest—
     I could not love except where Death
     Was mingling his with Beauty’s breath—
     Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny,
     Were stalking between her and me.
    
     But now my soul hath too much room—
     Gone are the glory and the gloom—
     The black hath mellow’d into gray,
     And all the fires are fading away.
     My draught of passion hath been deep—
     I revell’d, and I now would sleep
     And after drunkenness of soul
     Succeeds the glories of the bowl
     An idle longing night and day
     To dream my very life away.
     But dreams—of those who dream as I,
     Aspiringly, are damned, and die:
     Yet should I swear I mean alone,
     By notes so very shrilly blown,
     To break upon Time’s monotone,
     While yet my vapid joy and grief
     Are tintless of the yellow leaf—
     Why not an imp the graybeard hath,
     Will shake his shadow in my path—
     And e’en the graybeard will o’erlook
     Connivingly my dreaming-book.




DOUBTFUL POEMS




ALONE


     From childhood’s hour I have not been
     As others were—I have not seen
     As others saw—I could not bring
     My passions from a common spring—
     From the same source I have not taken
     My sorrow—I could not awaken
     My heart to joy at the same tone—
     And all I lov’d—_I_ lov’d alone—
     _Then_—in my childhood—in the dawn
     Of a most stormy life—was drawn
     From ev’ry depth of good and ill
     The mystery which binds me still—
     From the torrent, or the fountain—
     From the red cliff of the mountain—
     From the sun that ‘round me roll’d
     In its autumn tint of gold—
     From the lightning in the sky
     As it pass’d me flying by—
     From the thunder, and the storm—
     And the cloud that took the form
     (When the rest of Heaven was blue)
     Of a demon in my view—
    
      {This poem is no longer considered doubtful as it was in 1903. Liberty has
      been taken to replace the book version with an earlier, perhaps more
      original manuscript version—Ed}




TO ISADORE


             I
     Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
         Whose shadows fall before
         Thy lowly cottage door
     Under the lilac’s tremulous leaves—
     Within thy snowy claspeèd hand
         The purple flowers it bore..
     Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,
     Like queenly nymphs from Fairy-land—
     Enchantress of the flowery wand,
         Most beauteous Isadore!
              II
     And when I bade the dream
         Upon thy spirit flee,
         Thy violet eyes to me
     Upturned, did overflowing seem
     With the deep, untold delight
         Of Love’s serenity;
     Thy classic brow, like lilies white
     And pale as the Imperial Night
     Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
         Enthralled my soul to thee!
                 III
     Ah I ever I behold
         Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,
         Blue as the languid skies
     Hung with the sunset’s fringe of gold;
     Now strangely clear thine image grows,
         And olden memories
     Are startled from their long repose
     Like shadows on the silent snows
     When suddenly the night-wind blows
         Where quiet moonlight ties.
              IV
     Like music heard in dreams,
         Like strains of harps unknown,
         Of birds forever flown
     Audible as the voice of streams
     That murmur in some leafy dell,
         I hear thy gentlest tone,
     And Silence cometh with her spell
     Like that which on my tongue doth dwell,
     When tremulous in dreams I tell
         My love to thee alone!
              V
     In every valley heard,
         Floating from tree to tree,
         Less beautiful to, me,
     The music of the radiant bird,
     Than artless accents such as thine
         Whose echoes never flee!
     Ah! how for thy sweet voice I pine:—
     For uttered in thy tones benign
     (Enchantress!) this rude name of mine
         Doth seem a melody!




THE VILLAGE STREET


     In these rapid, restless shadows,
         Once I walked at eventide,
     When a gentle, silent maiden,
         Wal    ked in beauty at my side
     She alone there walked beside me
         All in beauty, like a bride.
     Pallidly the moon was shining
         On the dewy meadows nigh;
     On the silvery, silent rivers,
         On the mountains far and high
     On the ocean’s star-lit waters,
         Where the winds a-weary die.
     Slowly, silently we wandered
     From the open cottage door,
     Underneath the elm’s long branches
     To the pavement bending o’er;
     Underneath the mossy willow
     And the dying sycamore.
     With the myriad stars in beauty
     All bedight, the heavens were seen,
     Radiant hopes were bright around me,
     Like the light of stars serene;
     Like the mellow midnight splendor
     Of the Night’s irradiate queen.
     Audibly the elm-leaves whispered
         Peaceful, pleasant melodies,
     Like the distant murmured music
         Of unquiet, lovely seas:
     While the winds were hushed in slumber
         In the fragrant flowers and trees.
     Wondrous and unwonted beauty
         Still adorning all did seem,
     While I told my love in fables
         ‘Neath the willows by the stream;
     Would the heart have kept unspoken
         Love that was its rarest dream!
     Instantly away we wandered
         In the shadowy twilight tide,
     She, the silent, scornful maiden,
         Walking calmly at my side,
     With a step serene and stately,
         All in beauty, all in pride.
     Vacantly I walked beside her.
         On the earth mine eyes were cast;
     Swift and keen there came unto me
         Ritter memories of the past
     On me, like the rain in Autumn
         On the dead leaves, cold and fast.
     Underneath the elms we parted,
         By the lowly cottage door;
     One brief word alone was uttered
         Never on our lips before;
     And away I walked forlornly,
         Broken-hearted evermore.
     Slowly, silently I loitered,
         Homeward, in the night, alone;
     Sudden anguish bound my spirit,
         That my youth had never known;
     Wild unrest, like that which cometh
         When the Night’s first dream hath flown.
     Now, to me the elm-leaves whisper
         Mad, discordant melodies,
     And keen melodies like shadows
         Haunt the moaning willow trees,
     And the sycamores with laughter
         Mock me in the nightly breeze.
     Sad and pale the Autumn moonlight
         Through the sighing foliage streams;
     And each morning, midnight shadow,
         Shadow of my sorrow seems;
     Strive, 0 heart, forget thine idol!
         And, 0 soul, forget thy dreams!




THE FOREST REVERIE


     ’Tis said that when
     The hands of men
     Tamed this primeval wood,
     And hoary trees with groans of woe,
     Like warriors by an unknown foe,
     Were in their strength subdued,
     The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
     To springs that ne’er did flow
     That in the sun Did rivulets run,
     And all around rare flowers did blow
     The wild rose pale Perfumed the gale
     And the queenly lily adown the dale
     (Whom the sun and the dew
     And the winds did woo),
     With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.
     So when in tears
     The love of years
     Is wasted like the snow,
     And the fine fibrils of its life
     By the rude wrong of instant strife
     Are broken at a blow
     Within the heart
     Do springs upstart
     Of which it doth now know,
     And strange, sweet dreams,
     Like silent streams
     That from new fountains overflow,
     With the earlier tide
     Of rivers glide
     Deep in the heart whose hope has died—
     Quenching the fires its ashes hide,—
     Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
     Sweet flowers, ere long,
     The rare and radiant flowers of song!




NOTES


      Of the many verses from time to time ascribed to the pen of Edgar Poe, and
      not included among his known writings, the lines entitled “Alone” have the
      chief claim to our notice. _Fac-simile _copies of this piece had been
      in possession of the present editor some time previous to its publication
      in “Scribner’s Magazine” for September, 1875; but as proofs of the
      authorship claimed for it were not forthcoming, he refrained from
      publishing it as requested. The desired proofs have not yet been adduced,
      and there is, at present, nothing but internal evidence to guide us.
      “Alone” is stated to have been written by Poe in the album of a Baltimore
      lady (Mrs. Balderstone?), on March 17th, 1829, and the facsimile given in
      “Scribner’s” is alleged to be of his handwriting. If the caligraphy be
      Poe’s, it is different in all essential respects from all the many
      specimens known to us, and strongly resembles that of the writer of the
      heading and dating of the manuscript, both of which the contributor of the
      poem acknowledges to have been recently added. The lines, however, if not
      by Poe, are the most successful imitation of his early mannerisms yet made
      public, and, in the opinion of one well qualified to speak, “are not
      unworthy on the whole of the parentage claimed for them.”
     
    
      While Edgar Poe was editor of the “Broadway Journal,” some lines “To
      Isadore” appeared therein, and, like several of his known pieces, bore no
      signature. They were at once ascribed to Poe, and in order to satisfy
      questioners, an editorial paragraph subsequently appeared saying they were
      by “A. Ide, junior.” Two previous poems had appeared in the “Broadway
      journal” over the signature of “A. M. Ide,” and whoever wrote them was
      also the author of the lines “To Isadore.” In order, doubtless, to give a
      show of variety, Poe was then publishing some of his known works in his
      journal over _noms de plume, _and as no other writings whatever can
      be traced to any person bearing the name of “A. M. Ide,” it is not
      impossible that the poems now republished in this collection may be by the
      author of “The Raven.” Having been published without his usual elaborate
      revision, Poe may have wished to _hide _his hasty work under an
      assumed name. The three pieces are included in the present collection, so
      the reader can judge for himself what pretensions they possess to be by
      the author of “The Raven.”